The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism (4 page)

Because what’s in your mind shows up in your body and because people will catch even the briefest microexpression, to be effective,
charismatic behaviors must originate in your mind.

If your internal state is anticharismatic, no amount of effort and willpower can make up for it. Sooner or later, some of your underlying thoughts and feelings will show through. On the other hand, if your internal state
is
charismatic, then the right body language will flow forth effortlessly. Thus, the first step in learning charisma—and what the first part of this book is all about—is developing the various mental states that produce charismatic body language and behaviors.

We will start by gaining some insight into charismatic mental states—what they are, how to best access them, and how to fully integrate them so they become effortless. Only afterward will we start practicing external charismatic behaviors. Learning these skills in the reverse order could lead to embarrassing results. Imagine that you’re giving an important presentation. You’re doing well, using all the great new tools you’ve learned, being incredibly charismatic. And
then suddenly, someone says something that rattles your mental focus and shakes your emotional confidence. You become flustered, and all your newly acquired skills fly out the window.

Striving to acquire external charisma skills without learning how to handle your internal world is like adding pretty balconies to a house with a weak foundation. It’s a nice touch, but at the first earthquake everything falls apart. If your internal state is in turmoil, it’s hard to remember, let alone use, the new skills you’ve just learned. Charismatic internal skills, which help you manage your internal state, form the necessary foundation upon which to build your charismatic external skills.

When companies hire me to help them improve performance—to help their executives become more persuasive, more influential, more inspiring—they often tell me that their people possess solid
technical
skills. Technical skills are raw brainpower, what we use to understand the instructions for assembling furniture. What these executives are lacking, I’m told, are social skills—and so people arrive expecting surface lessons in social graces and business etiquette.

But what these executives need first and foremost are personal,
internal
skills. Individuals with strong internal skills are aware of what exactly is happening inside them and know how to handle it. They can recognize when their self-confidence has taken a hit and have the tools to get back to a confident state so that their body language remains charismatic.

Here’s a self-rating diagram I often draw for the people I coach, from young associates to CEOs, asking them to evaluate themselves and their subordinates. Take a moment to rate your technical, external, and internal skills in the table below.

I often see brilliant engineers described by others, and by themselves, as possessing high technical, medium external, and low internal skills. CEOs tend to self-report medium technical and internal skills but high external skills. And highly charismatic people often rate themselves low in technical skills but high in external and internal skills.

While charismatic people may report fewer technical skills than their peers, their internal and external skills give them a far greater advantage overall. The internal skills necessary for charisma include both the awareness of your internal state and the tools to effectively manage it. Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu reportedly said: “To know others is knowledge. To know oneself is wisdom.”

What Your Mind Believes, Your Body Manifests

Knowing your internal world starts with one key insight upon which all charisma is built: your mind can’t tell fact from fiction. This is the one dimension of your internal world that can help you get into the right charismatic mental state at will, and almost instantly.

Have you ever felt your heart pounding during a horror movie? Consciously, you know it’s just a movie. You realize you are watching actors who are delighted to pretend they’re being murdered in exchange for a nice paycheck. Yet your brain sees blood and guts on the screen, so it sends you straight into fight-or-flight mode, releasing adrenaline into your system. Here’s how it works in practice:

Think of your favorite piece of music.

Now imagine dragging your fingernails across a chalkboard.

Now imagine plunging your hand into a bucket of sand and feeling the grains crunch between your fingers.

And now taste the difference between lemon and lime—which is more sour?

There was no sand; there was no lemon. And yet, in response to a set of completely imaginary events, your mind produced very real physical reactions. Because your brain cannot distinguish imagination from reality, imaginary situations cause your brain to send your body the same commands as it would for a real situation. Whatever your mind
believes, your body will manifest. Just by getting into a charismatic mental state, your body will manifest a charismatic body language.

In medicine, the mind’s powerfully positive effect on the body is known as the
placebo effect
. A placebo is a simulated medical procedure: patients given “pretend” pills are told they’re receiving real ones; or people are told they’ve received a medical intervention when in fact nothing has been done. In a surprising number of cases, patients given these inert treatments still experience a real improvement in their medical condition.

The placebo effect was discovered during World War I when medicine stores had run out and doctors found they could sometimes still ease their patients’ suffering by telling them that they had administered pain-relieving treatments. It became widely acknowledged during the 1950s as the medical community began running controlled clinical studies. Through much of human history, most of medicine was in fact pure placebo: doctors would prescribe potions or interventions that we now know to be fundamentally ineffective. Yet people’s conditions still often improved, thanks to the mind’s impressive ability to affect the body.

The placebo effect can sometimes be remarkably powerful. Ellen Langer, a Harvard University professor of psychology, gathered a group of elderly patients in a nursing-home-like environment and surrounded them with the decor, clothing, food, and music that was popular when they were in their twenties. In the following weeks, physical exams showed tighter skin, better eyesight, increased muscle strength, and even higher bone density than before.

The placebo effect is the basis for many of the best charisma-enhancing techniques, and we’ll refer to it often throughout the book. In fact, this is probably something you already do naturally, and many of the practices will make intuitive sense to you. In the following chapters, we’ll fine-tune this skill and make more powerful the internal processes you already use.

The mind-over-body effect also has a corresponding downside, called the
nocebo effect
.
⁷
In this case, the mind creates toxic consequences in the body in reaction to completely fictional causes. In one experiment, people who knew they were extremely allergic to poison
ivy were rubbed with a completely harmless leaf but told they’d been exposed to poison ivy. Every single one of them developed a rash where they had been rubbed.

Both the placebo effect and the nocebo effect play a critical role in our ability to unleash our full charisma potential. Due to the fact that whatever is in our mind affects our body, and because our mind has trouble distinguishing imagination from reality, whatever we imagine can have an impact on our body language and, thus, on our levels of charisma. Our imagination can dramatically enhance or inhibit our charisma, depending on its content.

You’ve just gained the foundation for many of the most powerful internal charisma tools, and we’ll refer to it often.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Charisma has three essential components: presence, power, and warmth.

Being present—paying attention to what’s going on rather than being caught up in your thoughts—can yield immense rewards. When you exhibit presence, those around you feel listened to, respected, and valued.

Because your body language telegraphs your internal state to those around you, in order to be charismatic—to exhibit presence, power, and warmth—you must display charismatic body language.

Because your mind can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality, by creating a charismatic internal state your body language will authentically display charisma.

In terms of achieving charisma, your internal state is critical. Get the internal state right, and the right charismatic behaviors and body language will pour forth automatically.