The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism (12 page)

If, for instance, your message needs to communicate warmth, caring, and empathy, you’ll have a far easier time finding the right words if you can get yourself into a warm and empathetic state. Visualizing a scene that brings up these feelings—imagining a young child coming to tell you her troubles at school—will help prime your mind for the right language to flow.

Anytime you’re feeling anxious:
The surest way to feel better when you’re feeling anxious is to flood your system with oxytocin. Often called the
neuropeptide of trust,
oxytocin instantly reverses the arousal of the fight-or-flight response.

One of my favorite neuroscience resources, the
Wise Brain Bulletin,
suggested that a twenty-second hug is enough to send oxytocin coursing through your veins, and that you can achieve the same effect just by
imagining
the hug. So the next time you’re feeling anxious, you might want to imagine being wrapped up in a great big hug from someone you care about.

Time and time again, my clients are astounded by how effective these techniques are. “Visualization techniques have saved lives at MIT,” one recent graduate told me. This famously high-achieving institution is also known for high rates of suicide, especially during final exams (MIT’s suicide rate during the period was 38 percent higher than Harvard’s, for instance
³
). The MIT Health Center now distributes visualization CDs to students during final exams.

One client called visualization techniques “real-life Jedi mind
tricks.” Another told me that while he’d always used visualization techniques in sports and music, he had never thought to apply the same techniques to business and daily life and was astounded at the results (and kicking himself for not having thought of it sooner).

Nineteenth-century author Napoleon Hill would regularly visualize nine famous men as his personal counselors, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, and Abraham Lincoln. He wrote: “Every night… I held an imaginary council meeting with this group whom I called my ‘Invisible Counselors.’… I now go to my imaginary counselors with every difficult problem that confronts me and my clients. The results are often astonishing.”

Choose your own counselors according to which emotions they embody for you. Hill’s chosen self-confidence counselor was Napoleon Bonaparte. To boost your charisma, choose figures who represent complete self-confidence, or warmth and caring, or calm and serenity. Or you might even find some figures who embody all the elements at once. Visualize yourself going to these figures for a “pep talk” anytime you feel you need one. Thanks to the brain’s wonderful placebo response, this will produce effects even if it doesn’t feel real.

Visualization is indeed a powerful tool. Of all the charisma-boosting techniques, this is the one I recommend making a permanent part of your toolkit. If you gain nothing else from this book, this one technique will make a critical difference to your charisma.

Gratitude, Goodwill, and Compassion

Warmth is one of the key components of charismatic behavior. It can make people like you, trust you, and want to help you. Unfortunately, for many people, warmth isn’t an obvious, easy feeling to access; it just doesn’t come naturally. Many of my clients confide in their first session that they aren’t quite sure what warmth should feel like. In fact, I often hear new clients worry: “But what if deep down I’m actually heartless? What if I just
can’t
access warmth?” The good news is I can absolutely guarantee that you’re not heartless, and I know for sure that anyone can learn to better express warmth.

Warmth is difficult for a lot of us. This could stem from any number of reasons—upbringing, childhood, current environment, or just personality. Warmth certainly wasn’t natural for me when I entered this field. To experience warmth, I had to use every tool in the book—every single tool you’re about to discover. You’re going to get a three-step gradual transition into warmth, from the least personal to the most personal.

The first step is to get in touch with warmth directed toward life in general, and your life in particular. This falls under the general category of gratitude. Gratitude has a special advantage for those of us who sometimes find it uncomfortable to connect with others. It can give us charismatic warmth without having to connect with anyone.

Then you’ll experiment with warmth toward others—these are the realms of goodwill, altruism, compassion, and empathy.

Last, you’ll explore what seems to be, for most of us, the least comfortable kind of warmth: warmth for yourself. This is the emerging discipline of self-compassion.

Any
of these will bring you a measurable increase in charisma, so play around with all of them if you can, both those that feel natural and those that feel like a stretch.

Step One: Gratitude and Appreciation

What’s the opposite of gratitude? Resentment, neediness, and desperation—none of which is very charismatic. We all know that few things will ruin someone’s chances more than giving off an impression of desperation, whether they’re on a job interview or on a date. Gratitude is a great antidote to all of these negative feelings because it comes from thinking of things you
already have
—from material items or experiences to cherished relationships. Gratitude can be a great charisma conduit, bringing you back to the present and giving you immediate access to feelings of both confidence and warmth.

Everyone seems to be preaching gratitude these days. Oprah champions an “attitude of gratitude,” and studies have come out showing that gratitude helps you live longer, healthier, and even happier.
⁴
The science is compelling, as are the ways in which gratitude
can boost your charisma. If you can access gratitude, an instant change will sweep through your body language from head to toe: your face will soften, your whole body will relax. Your body language will emanate both warmth and a particular grounded confidence that people will find very appealing.

But few of us can simply decide to get into a state of gratitude. In fact, for most people, gratitude doesn’t come easy. Human beings are instinctively wired for
hedonic adaptation
: the tendency to take our blessings for granted.
⁵
Telling yourself that you should be grateful is often counterproductive, as it only brings up guilt. Clients complain that when someone tells them “You should be grateful,” it only makes them feel worse: either resentful or guilty for not being grateful.

One way to invoke a sense of gratitude is to focus on little things that are physically present. During a recent lunch meeting at a restaurant, for instance, I focused on little delights: the sun streaming through the window; blue skies; that the waiter got my order right; or the existence, availability, and wonders of ketchup.

Another good gratitude-enhancing tool is to view your life through a third-person lens, writing a narrative about yourself cast in a positive light.

For instance, Mary, whom we met earlier, wrote: “Mary has a pretty great life, really. She has a steady source of income. When so many others endure physical labor or can’t find work, she gets to go to an office where she is treated decently and many colleagues respect her. She’s well liked and appreciated by her friends and family. Many people truly care about her. She’s often been a good friend. In several instances, she chose to be there for someone who needed her. And she’s done decently well today: completed a full report, expressed appreciation for a colleague’s help, even went to the gym.” It doesn’t have to be profound. Positive things like the ones Mary mentioned, which are small but significant in our lives, are great choices to be grateful for.

This is one of the many cases where the act of writing makes a critical difference to the exercise’s effectiveness. It makes the positive perspective feel more real, more solid. If you simply imagine how someone else would see your life, it may not feel real at all, losing its
substance and weight. Whereas if you write it out, even if it feels odd at first, by the end of the paragraph it’ll feel oddly real.

Follow the exercises in the box below to try these approaches for yourself.