How to Create Charisma - Stand Out and Shine in any Interaction
What charisma does is it amplifies your impact, it amplifies your message. So it’s a personal magnetism and when you have it you are more influential, persuasive, and people want to follow you, they will trust you.
So that’s why I want to talk about charisma here. If you use the communication strategies you learned in previous episodes and those you will learn in future episodes and you are charismatic when using them, then your impact will truly skyrocket. You will be able to influence and achieve anything.
So today you will learn what charisma is and how you can start using it and you will learn concrete strategies to increase your charisma. So let’s get into it.
I have excellent news for you! You are charismatic, you are charming. That is your essence. Your true essence and your authentic self are charismatic. Now oftentimes we behave in ways that are not charismatic, and our natural charisma our true authentic self is covered. So when you want to be charismatic consciously which is totally possible, you will decrease the behaviors that hinder your charisma and you will increase the behaviors that increase your charisma and let your true essence, your true self shine through.
Now because charisma is a set of behaviors it’s clear that charisma levels fluctuate because it depends on your behavior. One person can be charismatic in a moment and lose their charisma in a second if they change their behaviors.
This is great news. This means that you can consciously increase your charisma levels when you need it. It’s a certain mental state and set of behaviors. And you can learn to use them in certain moments for peak performance.
The way I like to put it is to think - pro athletes. Before their performance you will see them with headphones, listening to certain music, eyes closed, visualizing their performance. Basically, what they do is they enter a mental state that prepares for peak performance. They rehearse their performance in their minds, they rehearse every movement and then they go and crush it because they are in that winning mental state.
From this, it is clear that charisma is not about faking it. It needs to come from within you. You need to create your best internal state, internally, bring up your best self and then project it outside. That’s how it works.
So what are the behaviors that increase or decrease your charisma?
There are 3 sets of behaviors that impact your charisma levels. These are
1. Presence
2. Power
3. Warmth
So let’s start with presence. This is your charisma foundation. Without being present there’s simply no charisma. Sometimes when we talk about presence we talk about executive presence, board room presence, gravitas. That’s all based on staying present in the moment.
Power is the perception of your ability to affect the world around you. This can be many things, it can be social status, your confidence, the way others respond to you, it can be physical strength, money, profession, intelligence.
Warmth tells us whether someone would be inclined to use whatever power they have in our favor. Basically, we’re asking – are they friend or foe. It’s friendliness. When you project warmth you disengage the fight or flight instinct in your audience, so they can relax, they will open to you and trust you.
So these are the behaviors that create your charisma. It’s awesome to keep these in mind and consciously work on staying present, projecting power and warmth. Now I will give you concrete strategies that will increase these behaviors. And to do that we will be playing with your mental state, your body language, and your words. And int his order. Because remember everything starts with your internal state.
So let’s start with the mental strategies
How can you create a strong presence? Here and mindfulness techniques will help you. Meditation is amazing. If you have time to do a quick meditation before your event when you want to project charisma absolutely do it. It will help you stay present. If you meditate every day then it will be easier for you to stay present at any moment. Now let’s say you have just 1 minute for meditation. What can you do?
Set a timer for one minute. Close your eyes and focus on Your breath: Focus on the sensations it creates in your nostrils or stomach as it goes in and out.
Another technique you can use is to focus your attention on the sensations in your toes.
This si a wonderful strategy also in the middle of a conversation. Let’s say you're in a conversation with someone or at a meeting and you notice that you’re somewhere else with your thoughts. Focus on your toes for a moment and you will be in the present moment. Once you’re there, re-engage in the conversation.
So why is this so important? Because people notice. If you don’t listen to them and you’re somewhere else with your thoughts they will notice. And that’s the opposite of charisma. Because charisma is not only about how you feel but also how you make other people feel. And the way you want them to feel when they are talking to you is like they are the center of the universe. Remember from episode 4 when we spoke about labeling, people love when someone listens to them with attention. So be a great listener.
Now, what about power? How can you generate a powerful mental state?
Well, a powerful mental state comes from feeling confident, proud, and appreciating yourself.
And I have great news. You can absolutely create those feelings within yourself and you don’t need anyone else to do it for yourself. The biggest mistake I see people make is they wait for someone’s approval to create pride. They think that they need to do something to feel proud. It’s actually the opposite that I found to be true. It’s when you feel proud of yourself when you want to take more action and achieve more and generate even more pride.
And when I talk about creating confidence I actually prefer to talk about pride. The reason is that pride is a little easier to generate its more concrete. Pride is a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction as a result of your achievements – past present or future. We all have felt proud, we all have felt this pleasure that comes from achieving something. it's actually our natural state.
Pride is easier to generate and with pride actually comes confidence. Now the key here is not to be proud only of what you did in the past. Remember pride is a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction as a result of your achievements – past present or future.
Create this feeling of pleasure as often as possible. Feel pride for showing up, making contributions, and adding value. Now, I encourage you to feel proud of the actions you take, of the effort, regardless of the results.
You can generate all these feelings like pride, confidence, and appreciation at this moment right now. You can create it by your thoughts. So ask yourself what am I proud of. Here’s the thing – look into the past, the present, and most importantly the future. Feel proud of your plans because that’s what’s gonna create the confidence to take the action to create what you want in the future.
I want to offer another exercise here. Ask yourself: If I fast forward a year what would I feel the most proud of. Then ask how would I make myself proud with my thinking, feeling, and actions right now. And when you can answer this question my friend you will know exactly where you want to go in your life. And then go do it. Go do hard things, that’s how you make yourself proud and confident.
Find many reasons to be proud every day. Train your brain to generate these feelings of pride, confidence, and appreciation. Make yourself proud for adding value, contributing, and helping. That’s how you will increase the sense of purpose too.
Another definition of pride is having a high opinion of your actions.
Sometimes some people tell me that this feels boastful and contrived. And I tell them that the opposite is true. Pride, confidence, and self-appreciation are your natural state. Looking down on yourself is contrived. Looking at your accomplishments as insignificant is contrived and it’s not useful. It doesn’t feel good and it doesn’t create more goodness in the world. When you’re not proud it creates a feeling of not giving yourself the emotion of accomplishment.
So this is how you generate confidence. I encourage you to do it every day. Train yourself for confidence, feel proud, do hard things, and then feel even more proud of your accomplishments.
So it’s important to make this your daily practice to have a general feeling of pride and confidence all the time. And I also want to offer a visualization that you can do before an important event to create a feeling of pride and confidence within yourself.
Close your eyes and relax. Employ your senses as you focus on a moment in your life when you felt an absolute triumph. Get into that feeling.
Hear the sounds in the room: the murmurs of approval, the swell of applause.
See people’s smiles and expressions of warmth and admiration.
Feel your feet on the ground and the congratulatory handshakes.
Above all, experience your feelings, the warm glow of confidence, pride and appreciation rising within you.
I also want to offer another practice when you’re in the middle of the event and you need to increase your confidence at the moment.
Imagine getting a great hug from someone you trust for twenty seconds (of course, you may not have twenty seconds, but if you do, this is incredibly effective).
Then bring yourself back into a state of confidence remember a moment in your life when you felt absolute triumph.
Thanks to your brain’s inability to distinguish imagination from reality, your body will be filled with the same cocktail of chemicals. It’s like playing chemist with your brain. This will change your body language into exactly what you need to be impressive, persuasive, and inspiring again.
If a negative thought appears, don’t believe it and just say: "Thank you thought for trying to protect me but you’re not useful and I’ll not listen to you". And then change your focus on positive thoughts and feelings. Ask yourself what’s awesome and amazing about this situation?
That was confidence, and now let’s talk about warmth.
And for warmth, you will want to generate a feeling of love. You want to love your audience. Send them love and see them with warmth, kindness, and compassion.
Now before entering the situation, be clear on your intention. Your intention is to look for the good in them. See them as a good person. If it’s someone who is difficult to deal with then you want to generate even more compassion and love.
Those were the mental strategies. And remember again that everything starts with your mental state, and to be charismatic you need to be present and generate a feeling of confidence, love and compassion towards your audience.
The second set of strategies is body language.
So how can you project power with your body language? Be a big gorilla.
Use this when you want to both feel and broadcast confidence — for instance before a key meeting.
Make sure you can breathe. Loosen any clothing if need be.
Stand up and shake up your body.
Take a wide stance and plant your feet firmly on the ground.
Stretch your arms to the ceiling.
Stretch your arms to the walls on either side of you.
INFLATE. Try to take up as much space as possible.
Roll your shoulders down and then back.
Imagine yourself as a four-star general reviewing his troops. Puff up your chest, broaden your shoulders, and put your arms behind your back.
Now during your day just think big gorilla and make yourself bigger, inflate your chest, and take a winning stance - which is shoulders down and back, open torso, confident posture.
With this body language, you will look like a winner and you feel confident.
Now let’s talk about hand gestures. Use purposeful gestures. Because this will increase both your power and warmth. Power because you will communicate on two levels. Verbally and with your hand gestures and people will perceive you as confident. Also, when you show your hands it signals to your audience that you have nothing to hide, they will feel safe and so it will increase your warmth.
Now the gestures really need to be purposeful and deliberate. So the type of gestures I recommend you are
Listing - like 1one, two, three - Show the numbers with your fingers,
Sizing, so whether something is small or big, you can show this easily with your hands
If you’re talking about something personal, you can put your hands near the area of your torso.
So remember as a charismatic person you want to use clear and purposeful hand gestures.
What part of your face do you think is the most expressive – I’s your eyes and the reason is that the muscles around your eyes are the most mobile area of your face. You know the saying “eyes are the window to the soul” and its absolutely true.
Using eye contact will build trust and produce a connection. Now a good rule of thumb for eye contact is to hold it for around 60 % of the time.
Then super important facial expression is of course a genuine smile. A genuine smile is that type of smile when you don’t smile just with your mouth but also your eyes.
Now let’s talk about voice. With your voice, you can effectively project both your power and warmth.
If you want to broadcast power through your voice, speak slowly. Visualize the slow, emphatic tone of a judge delivering a verdict.
Make Pauses. People who broadcast confidence often pause while speaking. They will pause for a second or two between sentences or even in the middle of a sentence. This conveys the feeling that they’re so confident in their power, they trust that people won’t interrupt.
Drop intonation. Imagine a judge saying “This case is closed.” Feel how the intonation of the word closed drops. Lowering the intonation of your voice at the end of a sentence broadcasts power.
On the other hand, you also want to keep it fresh and entertaining so don’t be monotone, use variation in your pitch and tone. Just at the end of sentences make sure that you drop your tone.
Make sure you’re breathing deeply into your belly and inhale and exhale through your nose rather than your mouth.
Now to increase the warmth of your voice, try speaking as if you’re sharing a secret and play with your intonation.
Now we spoke about mental strategies, body language and now I want to offer some words that will increase your perceived power and warmth.
So remember to increase the power we want to sound confident.
So use words like:
I’m confident
talk about facts and data
use words like brainstorm, strategize, effective, efficient, lead
Avoid hedges like sort of, kind of, just, I think… these are unnecessary. Just state what you want to say confidently.
To increase your warmth, use words such as happy to be here, let’s connect, together, excited, collaborate, both, engaged.
All right charming communicator. Let me sum up for you what you learned today so that you can go, apply it and be the most charismatic person in the room.
So charismas is a set of behaviors and your level of charisma fluctuates based on how you engage these behaviors. The behaviors are presence, power, and warmth.
Mental strategies for charisma are
Make your partner feel like they are the center of the universe. Be present and be a great listener.
Generate feelings of confidence, pride, and admiration within yourself by visualizing moments of absolut triumph. Feel the feelings and project them outwards. Send love to yourself and your audience. Have the intention of looking for the good in yourself and your audience. Look for things you have in common so you can say "me too".
For body language – be the big gorilla. Take up space – take a winning stance, open your torso, bring your shoulders down and back, make yourself as big as possible.
Maintain eye contact about 60 % of the time and genuinely smile. Use purposeful hand gestures like listing and sizing.
Keep your voice playful, play with your tone. Lower the intonation of your voice at the end of a sentence. Speak slowly, make pauses, and breathe deeply into your belly.
Use words that project confidence like I’m confident and warmth, like together, collaborate, engage.
And this how you will be charming and charismatic.
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Now if you realized that you need one on one help from me then reach out. Head on over to my website communicationcharm.com