The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism (15 page)

Warming Up for Key Moments

Imagine that you’ve been training to run a marathon. You’ve completed several other races, you’re in top form, you’re ready. On the day of the marathon, what would you do as you arrived? Would you just stand around until the starting gun and then tear off at top speed? Of course not. You’d probably take care to warm up carefully.

You can do the exact same thing with charisma. Plan a warm-up period that allows you to gradually ramp up to the level you want. When you want to ensure peak charismatic performance, don’t
expect yourself to be on top of your game, going from zero to full charisma instantly and at will. You can’t rely on pure willpower to get you there. In fact, it’s important to understand just how limited our daily reserves of willpower really are.
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Behavioral science researchers have come to the conclusion that willpower is a bit like a muscle that fatigues depending on how much we use it. If we draw on our willpower to resist a temptation or to put up with a certain annoyance, it will be weaker when we need it for another activity soon after. In fact, exerting willpower physically fatigues us.
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It is a finite resource, so be strategic about where and when you expend it.

Remember Robert, the quick-thinking, impatient executive? He told me that he would often be annoyed at himself for his inability to be patient with people. He noticed that when he spent time during a meeting or a conversation fighting his internal rising impatience, he’d perform less well for hours afterward. When several such interactions happened in the morning, his ability to be charismatic later in the day clearly suffered.

I explained to Robert that every time he used his willpower, he depleted his willpower reserves. He could stop berating himself and instead realize that it was simply a matter of allocating his willpower resources appropriately. I asked him to carefully consider which of these daily interactions were worth spending his precious willpower capital on. For the interactions that were not worth it, I recommended that Robert either delegate them to a junior employee or ask a colleague to handle them in exchange for taking on a task that would be less willpower-depleting for him.

Here’s how this could all play out for you in practice. Let’s say you’re attending a dinner that could significantly affect your career, so you’d like to be particularly charismatic. To optimize your chances of being most charismatic, you know you need to get into a mental state of warmth and power. If, at dinner, you want to broadcast absolute self-confidence, make sure that the day of and especially the hours leading up to the dinner do not include meetings or interactions that could make you feel bad about yourself. Rather than just showing up at dinner, plan a warm-up that will boost your
self-esteem: have coffee with someone who makes you feel good about yourself, or plan an activity (play a sport or a musical instrument) that makes you feel competent or accomplished. If there is a cocktail reception before the dinner, interact with people who make you feel good about yourself, not those who criticize or tease you, even in jest. Yes, making fun of one another can be highly enjoyable—but save that for evenings when charisma is less critical.

Just like an athlete who is careful to stay centered on the morning of a big race, when you need to be at your most charismatic, be highly vigilant about what’s entering your mind. Even the music you listen to can affect your emotional and mental state. You know how listening to sad songs can make you feel sad? Be aware that
everything
that enters your mind affects your internal state.

I curate my playlists considering both tempo and lyrics, and when preparing for a key moment, I’m careful to choose songs that correspond with the mood I’m trying to achieve. I have playlists for self-confidence, warmth, empathy, and patience. I’ve found that it really makes a difference. These playlists are also organized as “pre-speech,” “morning wake-up,” and even “pre–family gatherings” (yes, I’m serious).

One of my clients wrote me excitedly after first using the warming-up technique. He said: “I just tried it, and it worked! I’m usually uncomfortable in large groups and think about how unpleasant the experience will be. Before this gathering, I scheduled dinner with a longtime friend and went on a walk. I felt great when I entered and saw a friend I hadn’t seen in a while so I pulled him aside for a quick catching up, which I knew would also make me feel great. From then on the occasion was a breeze. Several people even commented on how relaxed I looked, giving the impression that I was definitely enjoying myself. And I was!”

Another one of my clients who regularly hosts parties told me that he often plays his planned party-music playlist as he’s getting his apartment ready. “This helps get my energy level up and gets me in the mood so I’m ready to play host. I sometimes do it before interviews, too.”

The next time you have a key meeting, follow the exercise in the
box below to plan the ramp-up. When you need to be particularly charismatic, the following tool can be a great reinforcer.

This is also a great substitute for the previous chapter’s visualization exercises for anyone who doesn’t yet feel comfortable with them. It can be used in place of visualizations, or you can plan a warm-up in addition to visualization if you really want to maximize your charisma power.

Let’s say that you’re about to discuss a difficult issue with someone who intimidates you. To warm up for the meeting, practice first in your mind, visualizing the scene as you would like it to unfold. Then ask someone with whom you feel comfortable to role-play the situation with you. Make sure you adopt a strong, confident posture. Imagine yourself as a four-star army general reviewing his troops. Take a wide stance, puff up your chest, broaden your shoulders, stand straight, and confidently put your arms behind your back. Practice making your arguments with a strong voice and imposing hand gestures.

When you have a series of meetings, calls, or interviews, whether in one day or over the period of a week, it’s well worth scheduling
them from least to most important, so that you can practice, learn, and gradually increase in skill and confidence as you go along. Think of yourself as an athlete going for test matches or trial races.

You can also try this with letters or e-mails if you have several to write on the same topic. Write the least important e-mails first and finish with the most important ones. By the time you’ve written four or five e-mails, your mind will be more practiced, your writing more fluid.

Now that you’ve learned how to access the right mental state for charisma, how can you ensure that these positive changes are here to stay? This is where charisma maintenance comes in. If you reached a new standard of physical fitness and wanted to maintain it, you’d keep up your fitness regime and adopt a healthy diet. You wouldn’t expect to stay in shape without regularly going to the gym and eating right. Charisma operates on the same principle: stay charismatic by regularly using all the tools you’ve learned in the previous chapters.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Creating an optimal mental state is crucial to unleashing your full charisma potential.

Visualization can help you create the right mental state and thus the right charismatic body language. To make visualizations most effective, vividly engage all five senses in your imagination.

You can increase both warmth and confidence by practicing gratitude, goodwill, and compassion for others as well as for yourself.

Just as professional athletes and performers do, plan a gradual warm-up to reach your peak charismatic performance. Before important events, avoid experiences that would impair your mental state and plan warmth- and confidence-boosting activities instead.

Your body affects your mind. Flip the visualization technique on its head and practice adopting the right posture and facial expressions to access more of almost any desired internal state.

JUST AS THERE
are different leadership and personality styles, there are also different charisma styles. Both Madonna and His Holiness the Dalai Lama draw crowds and are seen as charismatic, but for different reasons.

Throughout this chapter we’ll look at four distinct kinds of charisma: focus, visionary, kindness, and authority. We’ll see how each of these is perceived, how to develop it, and when to use it.

There are, of course, other kinds of charisma we could consider, but these four are the most practical for daily life, the easiest to access, and thus the most useful to study.