 You cannot be lacking in confidence and charismatic. It doesn't work that way. No. It reinforces and brings out the charisma. So we're going to delve right in. First, we all know charismatic people. In fact, when we think about or visualize charismatic people, a lot of times we think about politicians, celebrity, people with high status and traditionally wealth. So of course, when we encounter these people online, we see them in the movies. We're like, oh, that must mean in order to be charismatic, you need status, you need wealth, you need fame in order to be charismatic. And the science actually proves differently. In fact, there are people who have none of those three things who are still charismatic. And we're going to delve into their secrets today. But I know one of the things we had talked about previously on the show was the Kobe Bryant interview. And when we had Kobe in studio, it was one of those transformative experiences witnessing his charisma and the way that he interacted with everyone here just lit up the room. And we've all had those experiences where we've been in a room with someone who just has that it factor. But what is it? What is that it factor? And how can we cultivate that in ourselves? And that's what we're going to be talking about today. And I think we first want to start with just a definition of charisma. It's a word that gets thrown around a lot. And unfortunately, because of that, we all have our own sort of vague understanding of what it is. But science actually defines it pretty clearly. We like psychology today's use. They write, charisma is the ability to attract charm and influence the people around you. So your ability to draw people in, your ability to charm them, stand out for the right reasons and be memorable. And of course, have influence or persuade people on your perspective is what we are talking about today. How to be charismatic. And I know a lot of our bootcamp participants, well, that's one of the goals that they have joining us here in LA is how can I become a more charismatic person? And one of the first things they notice after the program is that people, when you have charisma, start reacting to you differently. They may not know exactly what it is about you that's different, but they notice a difference in our bootcamp participants after the program. Oh, do you get a haircut? Do you change your shirt? You look like you lost some weight. What is it about the way that you're carrying yourself that allows you to stand out? Well, that is charisma in and of itself. Well, I would definitely say that our first few days of the bootcamp are focused on just that, trying to bring out the charisma and then for our participants an opportunity to be able to put together a feedback loop so they're able to see that other people are seeing it. And the only way that you can do that is to go out. And so the guys are going out to interact with people and hopefully get some wins. And I think a big part of it is looking at both sides of your communication, your verbal communication and your nonverbal communication because when those are in alignment, when those are in sync, that's when we really are charismatic. That's when people remember us for the right reasons. But if our body language is signaling one thing and we're trying to say something else with our words, then of course that mismatch is going to lead people to feel that something is off about us. Something is not charismatic about us. And of course, we are drawn to charismatic people. Charismatic people end up being the politicians, being the leaders that we follow because they have these strong, credible signals of leadership. They evoke an emotional response in us. And of course, we want to serve them. We want to follow them. We look up to their lead and building that leadership role, building that charisma in ourselves is something that we can all do. We can all work towards. And I know one of the books that we recommend to all of our boot camp participants is the Charisma myth around this exact idea that you're not born with charisma. Certainly there is a part of charisma that can come from your genes, but for the most part, we are picking up charisma from the world around us in our environment. Yeah, and it's about finding out ways to express that. And I think that's where a lot of the trouble gets in because everyone has their own ways that they have learned to be able to do that, whether you're expressing that through creativity, whether you're expressing that through your presentation, whether you're expressing that through the words that you use to communicate, there's many different ways to go about it. And everyone has their own preferred ways that they've invested a lot of time in in order to get something out of it. And notice that all three of those things, whether it's creating your presentation or the words that you're using, these are expressions of who you are so that people can become attracted to you. When you find yourself in a herd or within a group, you're looking to put together an opportunity for yourself to fit in, which means that you have to certainly cooperate with everyone else's wearing, expressing themselves and creating. However, if you are looking just to be in the group and protected, you're not going to do anything outside of that that is going to warrant much attention to yourself. So there's a, I think there's a fine line that everyone's trying to find, which is what is enough of me being authentic and expressing myself without drawing the ire of the people around me? So I'm getting jealous of the value that I'm getting for myself by expressing myself. And of course, on the show, we talk a lot about giving value. That is attention, appreciation, and acceptance for others. And people who are charismatic are generous with giving that value. They are not just focusing on impressing other people themselves. In fact, they're focusing more on the world around them, being someone who's present and engaged in conversation and not forcing their way in or trying to impress someone for the wrong reasons. And this myth, this idea that we're born with charisma, well, it's an old concept essentially as old as charisma itself. And in fact, the word, the root of the Greek word charisma means a divine gift. So of course, we start out thinking, oh, well, some people have it, that politician I look up to, or that famous person that I follow, they were just born with it. They naturally had this charm and charisma. And here I am, I'm struggling and I don't think I'll ever develop it. So what's the point in working in this? And it's really one of the main reasons we started this company 14 years ago was to build this charisma and charm about ourselves. And I know, thinking back on my high school, college years, even grad school years, I wouldn't be pinpointed as the most charismatic guy in the room. It has been a process of growth for myself of not being in my head, not feeling a little bit anxious or judging myself negatively, but instead being present and being there as a great listener for others to spark that charisma. And of course, you can't tell yourself, well, I'm just going to be more charismatic. What does that mean? That's where everyone has it wrong because there's so many different ways of being able to develop a charisma. And as I was mentioning, I think it certainly comes down to being able to express yourself so that others have an emotional reaction that they can either bond with you or be repelled by it, but either way, they're taking notice. And I think that's why when we see a lot of marketing and we see a lot of people on, I would say internet celebrities, who are polarizing and the people who love them, you could almost say that they're within that person's spell. I mean, that's certainly part of it. I mean, right, isn't that one of the root ideas behind the idea of charm? So that those people who are able to feel connected they were able to see something that they were able to emotionally respond with in a positive way where everybody else is repelled by the same messages. And we were just talking about somebody's marketing this morning, how there are, then this is a very popular sales person who through their marketing have garnered a large following and are doing quite large events that people seem to be really excited by. But when I've looked at the marketing, I had been utterly repelled by the message that I was seeing. And this is why I think so many people are challenged by the idea of developing their charisma because there is the good and the bad that's going to come with expressing yourself and there's a lot of responsibility in that as well. And I know that a lot of people who come through when they start to realize that they're getting a response when that feedback loop starts to work and people are reacting favorably, they also start to see that other people are not reacting so favorably. And then they have to get comfortable with the idea that of who you want to be, who you want to represent, what emotions do you want to engage and elicit from other people. And you're going to have to be okay with that because now that you're going to put yourself out there, there just will be people who just don't vibe with that. And that's why one of the factors in charisma is confidence. It's being confident enough to put your voice out there to share your perspective, knowing that you're not going to please everyone. You're not going to have 100% success with being charismatic. There are certainly people who are going to have an unfavorable view, but the goal is to work towards communicating a first impression and interaction in a conversation that allows majority to feel good about that, to have left that conversation thinking positively of you. Well, absolutely. The whole component, we spend the whole second half of the program installing systems that allow you to build your confidence on a daily basis. And as we talked about it on the show, you have an opportunity every day that you wake up of how you want to spend that day and what you want to get from it. And when I understood that my time would be, I can look at it of what I'm going to use it for and what's the exchange that I'm getting back. Well, then every opportunity to grow was a winner for me. And depending what that growth and how that growth came. And for me, one of the interesting ideas behind it was strictly that. I want to spend my time doing things that are going to allow me to be stronger in the character that I am developing. So that when I do get any sort of that backlash, I am fine. Do you think the marketer that I was referring to is going to be upset if he figures out that on this show I'm talking about him? I highly doubt it. Yeah. I think he's going to be just fine. And but anytime that you're going to do something, we have to deal with it here on this show. And anything that we do on social media, we have to deal with it. And the only way to work through that is to continue growing confidently. And one of the things that's funny, people think of charisma as something they're going to flip a switch and turn on. And it's not. And then they also think that the confidence component in this identity that they're about to develop is just going to turn on as well. Both of these are a process. And you are either a going to help yourself in that process or you're going to fight yourself the whole way through it. And I've seen it both. And if you want fast results, get out of your own way. And if you want to lie in your own personal torment, then fight yourself on every step of the way. I don't know if you saw the latest message of our participants who finally got out of his own way and wrote us a very nice letter detailing how he finally has realized it and how wonderful his life had gotten once he had stopped. And I commented, I was like, I had to sit here and watch you fight yourself on every step of the way. And for me, I can only point it out. I can only show you where these things are. But at the end of the day, that fight is on you. Right. In order to develop out your charisma, it takes a healthy dose of self-awareness. And that's part of the reason that coaching helps support that. We were even starting out. I remember some of the earliest conversations we would have would be after going into a meeting with SiriusXM or going into a meeting with the TV exec and debriefing and looking at it from all angles and saying, how did you feel about that? What did you think the first impression was on there? What do you think my first impression was? And really trying to dig a level deeper and figure out what was working for us and what wasn't working for us. And I know you have a beautiful story of working in an environment that allowed you to test these things on a daily basis before we even started the company and going into your own little lab to get tips at the bar. Well, it was an easy feedback loop. So working in a bar and I basically had run of the place I was managing it, which is going to be interesting when we talk to John Taffer. But I would read certain self-development pieces that I would want to try and whether it would be something that I would be speaking, compliments in different ways or how I was carrying myself. And I was able to implement these things on a daily basis and then would be able to measure my results, so to speak, monetarily in the tips that I was making. And after about a week or two, depending on how I felt about it and how busy we were, there was a nice sample size of a data set to work with. And I know for me, when I first picked up Dale Carnegie's famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, the switch that flipped in my mind was this concept of just being more interested in other people. And in those moments when I found myself a little socially anxious or introverted or worried about, what am I going to say? What can I add to this interaction? How can I impress these people? I realized that I was starting from the wrong frame. I was shooting myself in the foot before I could even showcase any charisma because I was so focused on my own thoughts and actions. And the second I started paying closer attention and conversation and just taking interest, asking a question a layer deeper, being expressive and emotive in my communication with other people, I started to notice a difference in the way that people not only interacted with me, but the perception that people were saying afterwards and the information that was coming back to me. And that's what got really fascinating to me around, okay, how can I keep honing this skill and develop this further? And then I was fortunate enough to go to an event in DC and I did have an opportunity to run into some business leaders and one of them was Bill Clinton at the time. And it was amazing to see that level of charisma where everyone in the room felt it, right? I was starting to have my little impact in my own little social bubble, but to see it on a grander scale of literally everyone's eyes, everyone's attention being unfocused on someone. And when he's leaving, everyone cooing and eyeing and ooing about how amazing that interaction was. So there's obviously degrees of charisma that we're working towards here as well. And I think to your point, it's something that we develop as a skill, like any other skill on our tool belt. Some of us may have been at an advantage where we grew up in a house that had a charismatic parent who was extroverted and outgoing, that we could sort of model and mimic and pick up on some of these traits. And maybe in our DNA, we have a little bit more extroversion. We have a little more conscientiousness. So it allows us to be a little bit more present and a little bit more outgoing in those situations. But even if you don't have those things, even if you don't have the charismatic dad, even if you don't have the extroversion that you had hoped, you can still work on developing out this skill. Now, there is an important caveat that we want to make before we dive into the three areas of focus for us to develop out this charisma. And that's, you can't fake charisma. And the science is pretty clear on this. John Antonakis and his team wrote an interesting paper in 2016 titled Charisma, an ill-defined and ill-measured gift. And in this paper, their research showed that you can't actually fake charisma because you'll be discovered sooner or later. You can't fake the traits that we're about to talk about because ultimately, we subconsciously pick up on these signals from others. So this is not something that you can just go in there and fake it till you make it. This is something that you have to be purposely working towards in your life and building out these three components in order to create that charismatic personality. Well, we've seen it a million times. You can always put together a few zingers and have context on when you're going to use them. And we see it in a lot of people's personalities where they sort of have the same running jokes that they have going on. And those will, they might get your foot in the door, but time will always tell on those type of things. You can't keep it hidden. And this is why it is so important that this is something that is cultivated, that is developed over time, so that it just becomes an essence who you are and how you perform in any social situation. Now, these three broad components here make up our definition of charisma and that is presence, enthusiasm, and confidence. So we're going to unpack each of those, but thinking about that just from the top, presence, well, I can work to be more present. That's something that I can put some effort in and build out for myself. Enthusiasm, of course. There are days when I'm going to be enthusiastic. There might be days where I'm a little low energy, but I can control that. I can work towards becoming more enthusiastic. And to Johnny's point earlier, we should always be working on building out our confidence by trying new things, putting ourselves in situations that gets us those small victories that add up to confidence. Wow, when you start to think about charisma in those three areas, okay, how can I engage those three areas on a daily basis? How can I be more purposeful in those areas of my life to start building out the charisma that's not faked that actually wins people over? And this is a big one. I know we've talked about it on the show a lot, presence, we even had a meditation discussion around this exact thing and how difficult it is for us right now. Our devices, our Apple Watches, everything is pulling our attention elsewhere. And you have been at those events where all you're thinking about is the bad news going on back home or the frustrating email you got from your boss and you can't possibly be present to shake hands, meet people, follow along in conversation. And of course, those are not nights out, those are not events out where people are gonna think of you as very charismatic because you're not able to participate fully and engage with the people that you're around. Yeah, we're moving into a weird place where it's not just you who's spending too much time on your phone, it's everybody is spending too much time on your phone. And I know, I think we're gonna get to a place and I believe it's already happening where you're gonna be going out to these social events, clubs, wherever it might be. And they're gonna have you check your phone at the door. Why? Because they're not gonna want to spend all this time and money so that people can just sit around on their phones. I'm sure they'll have a few Instagrammable places that, you know, then in the place, maybe before you walk in that shows that you were there. But once you're entered, it's going to be, because they want the place to be exciting so that people are gonna come back. They'll probably have facial recognition software and they'll be tagging you automatically so you're gonna have to touch your phone. That's just utterly terrifying. Great thing. But the other thing about it is, I mean, presence, this goes a long way in allowing everyone to feel comfortable. The more present you are and the more everyone is present, like, let's think about it. Let's go to this idea of a social gathering place. Let's go to the watering hole. Let's go to the club. What makes the club fun? That everybody is, shuts out what has happened in the past. They have shut out anything that they need to be planning for the future and they're living in the moment. It's just why music is often accompanying these events that we're talking about because music allows you to get present. You're listening to sounds that draw your attention into that versus, oh, my checklist, my to-do list, my emails. Yeah, it's drawing you here and now. And then what are you going to do about here and now? Well, the music should be prompting you to wanting to move with it a bit. And then there's going to be the slettle, the head's gonna bob, and maybe you're gonna slowly slay with it. But at some point, in order to completely let go of the past and forget about what you have to do in the future, you're just going to have to let go of both of those things and start moving with the music. And this is one of the things that we are bringing to everyone's attention when we have filled nights, when the guys are going to go out to enjoy themselves to set up some feedback loops, which is what they're going to have to do to be present in the moment so they can focus on the things that we had went over in class to be able to get the best results. Yeah, one of the easiest exercises on a bootcamp field night where we're out is to just listen to the music. What do you pick up on? Is this a song you know? Is this a song you like? That draws you in to the present moment and allows you to get out of that self-judgment that's holding us back, that's creating the anxiety. And not to layer on another slightly confusing or broad term, right? Charisma, broad term, presence, broad term. Let's break it down into bite-sized pieces and let's talk about the science here, which we love on the show. Empathy is a key component of that presence. Empathy is you putting yourself in someone else's situation, envisioning things from their perspective. It doesn't mean that you agree with them, as we talked about with Michael Ventura, but it does create a space for open communication, for vulnerability, and this is called theory of mind. It's a trait that develops when we're around three to five years old, where we actually allow ourselves to feel what other people are experiencing. Isn't that... You got a big smile on your face, Johnny. Well, I just happened to be looking at a study today that was talking about the child's brain development between three and five years old, and the hindrance of putting a screen in that child's face at three and five years old, and what parts are not going to be developed as they used to be. And imagine that. Empathy. Empathy. This is one of them. Why would you have empathy? Why would you develop that when you're staring at a screen? Well, there's the lack of nonverbal cues, everything else that goes along with digitizing experience. What's interesting about this is children do use stories to be able to use their mind and imagine and put themselves in other people's shoes, the fairy princess or the kids walking from grandmother's house. And it's funny because how are these things going to play out as we move forward? I mean, that's where empathy first stems from. That's how it's developed. Absolutely. And of course, this concept of empathy involves giving someone else attention, appreciating them, accepting them. That's what empathy is all about. You can't feel empathy towards someone if you don't accept them, if you don't appreciate their experience. So that's one key component of presence. And we can work to develop that out as we talked about with Michael Ventura and went deep into empathy. But there's another key component to presence that I struggled a lot with. As someone who had a little social anxiety, nervous energy and introversion, I was constantly running through what to say, trying to come up with a quick, when witty one liner, trying to anticipate what the next person was saying. And oftentimes I was a terrible listener. I was not on the same page in conversation. I was two steps ahead. And of course, then that would lead to me tripping over my own words or saying an inappropriate joke that didn't really make sense in the moment. And that's the problem if we are not engaging in active listening. We can't possibly be charismatic. I'm not quite sure how many people actually get the different components to active listening. As I have worked to get better with active listening, there has been levels that have opened up that I had never been exposed to before. And that I find fascinating, especially more so than anything, is the things that are not being said. I find that more fascinating than anything to come out of anyone's mouth anymore. And that's why I love video work in the boot camp experience, because the simple act of filming an interaction, a conversation with two people who don't really know each other, taking some time to go through the video footage, first looking at nonverbal communication, because oftentimes when we're in that moment, when we're in that room doing video work, our mind is racing a little bit. We're thinking about a lot of things. We may not be picking up on these subtle nonverbal signals. So breaking down the film, looking at, okay, what was the facial expression when you asked that question? Or what was the emotional response in their face when they were answering your question? Did you pick up on that? And for a lot of our students, they aren't picking up on those signals, but those signals are present. Then the flip side is playing it back now with sound, looking at the conversation itself and not just listening for data. So for a lot of us when we are in conversation, the first thing we're listening to is ourselves, our own voice, our own monologue going on and on. I should say that. I shouldn't say this. Oh, why did you say that? No, actually, this is funnier. What's wrong with you, AJ? That is the first voice we are always going to hear. It does not turn off. Unfortunately, we can try and wrestle with it through some meditation and mindfulness but it is ever present in our communication. And I just want to add to that. And there's a reason that we're looking for the information because we want to find out if we're safe, we want the information of knowing where to be and we want the information so we can problem solve. Three things that without the correct context is going to repel people rather than attract. It's not drawing them in. It's not drawing them in. What draws them in is a shared emotional statement. And I love this because this is one of the things that people think on the service level is so easy. However, we're not wired for the emotional shared statement. We're wired for the information. We're wired to problem solve. We're wired to find out where we need to be or if we're safe. And this is why active listening that there's levels to it that when you get better with it, your conversations go better and exploring people becomes through conversation and ideas becomes so much more fun because now you're actually listening. You're sharing. There is an actual conversation going. Our conversation is just not me walking over to somebody at a bar and badgering them with 20 questions. And think about it. Think about all the things you're excited to share with your friends, with your family. What are they? They are things that evoke emotion in you. You're not excited because you learned some new piece of data or some number or some GPS coordinates. You're excited because the emotion that evoked the surprise. I didn't know that. This is fascinating. This is counterintuitive. I never would have guessed. All of those emotions are what lead to the share. So of course, in order to be a better listener, we have to go beyond our own voice. We have to go beyond the data that a lot of us are sifting through conversationally, trying to find commonalities. And we have to start thinking, well, what are the emotions that are being expressed or being felt by the person sharing with me? And when you can drop into that state, when you can start to think emotionally and relate on those emotions, as Johnny said, with the shared emotional statement, that is how we start standing out and becoming that charismatic, memorable person. Yeah. Well, it certainly makes the conversation fun for the people who are having it, who are at that place, who are in that level, if both people are in that zone. Certainly if you're in it, it's going to be a lot more fun than for the person who's not. But when both parties are at that place, it becomes very fun. In fact, that's the sort of conversations that we strive for when we bring in a guest and when we're trying here. And it's not always the easiest thing. But when you're there, it makes for a great time for us in the room, but it also makes for a great time for you as a listener to want to listen more. There's a lot going on. And so, but without understanding what that looks like and how to get there, it is very difficult even on Twitter today. I got into an argument. Imagine that I got into an argument on Twitter today. Mind blowing. Mind blowing. And I was putting out what I thought was a very thoughtful tweet about this very subject because we were coming in and talking about it today. And the tweet was talking about things that make you a better listener. This is simple, right? You would not think you would be able to get in an argument with this. They probably weren't listening to you. I put three very thoughtful sentences that I felt were value-packed that were just going to blow people's minds. On the edge of my seat. And it was these three sentences. That's not what matters at the moment. I can't really remember what they were, but it was just discussing the five levels of listening. And however, the first reply was, oh, I get it. Just ask, simply ask questions. And I was like, this is where I wanted to bang my head off. Well, that's fault number one, right? They are only listening for what they want to hear. Yes. And it drives me nuts because this was crafted in a way that I was hoping they would cut through. Now, once again, this is Twitter. And I bet for that one guy, there was 20 people who shared it and were like, oh my god, this is great. I never thought of it that way, which was my goal. But still, there are, and this fight of getting people to see listening or an active listening as a tool that can be developed and how to go about it so you aren't just badgering people with 20 questions can be difficult. And this idea of queuing in on emotions, the video work exercise often highlights for us that there are a lot of emotions being delivered in conversation and your ability to see them. It's like when I took an art class in high school and I always sort of like sketched a little bit here and there and doodled, you know, the usual. And when I learned shading and adding dimension to your drawing. It's a mind to game changer. It was a totally different experience. And a lot of us are not listening with that level of detail. We are not shading our drawings. We are going, Oh, AJ said Detroit. Johnny said Pittsburgh. Okay, what do I know about the Midwest jumping ahead and not listening to the emotion and shading in? Well, what are their thoughts and feelings on the Midwest? I want out of this conversation and specifically my tweet this morning was I want people to realize that you're not programmed for this type of listening. This is something to be developed. And we always laugh because one of the section you're talking about and the term that we're looking at is emotional bids that we talk a lot about on the show. And you can say it, you can define it, you can set out examples, but then we'll do video work and they won't catch any of them. And then when we play the video back, they're like, wow, I just caught there was 10, 15 emotional bids. And I missed all of them. Why? Can this be explained? Can this be pointed out? Can you have examples? And then you do the exercise and you miss them all because you're not programmed for it. It needs to be developed. It's a skill to work towards. And much like hosting the show and having these great interviews, we have listeners write us all the time who are starting out in podcasting. They want to get better listening to your own podcast, going back through reviewing the tape is such a valuable experience because you are going to miss those things. It is completely natural to do so. And that's why we review the game footage. Now, the last piece in this presence that I want to talk about, and this is something that comes up on video time and time again, is your nonverbals and your eye contact. And so many of us struggle with the eye contact. Too much, not enough, where to look. Do I stare through the person? How do they know that I'm listening? And unfortunately, when we get in those moments where we're feeling a little tense, we're feeling a little judged or a little anxious, we tend to close ourselves off with our body language. We tend to cross our arms. We tend to make ourselves a little smaller. So there's less of us for the other person to see or judge. And these are happening at a subconscious level. But guess what? Those are clear signals that you are not someone with charisma. Those are clear signals that you are someone who's trying to withdraw from conversation, withdraw from being present, who is not engaged in that conversation. So what we want to do is we want to focus on, yeah, softly gazing at the person while we're talking to them to let them know we are engaged in the conversation and we want to create a neutral space with our body language so that we're not directly facing them, our arms are not crossed. We're not creating any sort of conflict with our nonverbal communication needlessly. And I know it's one of those things where everyone on film's like, oh, AJ, I have great eye contact. I smile all the time. I don't cross my arms. We do this so often without even realizing it. And I catch myself as well in those moments where I'm like, I don't know anyone here. I'm a little tense. And the first thing I have to do is where are my hands? Oh, at my sides. Okay. Now I'm getting back to being present and being open in that conversation. Yeah, I always laugh about how tape gives you the reality, whether it's vocally, verbally, what you're hearing or what you're seeing. And I was just doing the Charm Labs weekly class. And one of our participants was re-watching the video to get some more notes. And he was shocked about his presence on video and all the filler words that he had used. And he, of course, after seeing that, hearing that, he wanted to fix it. And it's not such an easy thing. But it can be done. But you first, you have to admit that you do it. Yeah, you have to raise awareness to catch yourself even doing it. And it's something that we've certainly worked on here, being on the show of making sure that we're not using filler words or just needlessly throwing in words of agreement that don't have any real meaning. I think your walls, the reality that you've pictured for yourself will definitely be pierced through video. Yeah, much like our walls of reality have been pierced re-watching our YouTube videos and re-watching our podcast videos. But that presence is a key pillar of your charisma. And people who have quote unquote, charisma, those charismatic people, they know how to get present in those moments that matter. And it's something that you can practice and work towards. I know I was not often someone who was present in those conversations when I was struggling with some social anxiety and frustrating and feeling awkward. But it's something that I've worked with over time and having a lot more experience with it has allowed me to get present when I need to. Now, the second component of our charisma is enthusiasm. Actually delivering some positive emotion and energy and fun and excitement into the conversation. This is called an emotional contagion. And the reason that enthusiasm is so important is because it is literally contagious. If you remember back to being in grade school when your elementary school teacher would come into class all excited and over the top enthused and slowly but surely the classroom would start to light up with energy. Oh, are we playing the tennis ball game? Or are we going outside for recess? We pick up on this signal so clearly in other humans and we become drawn to it. It's magnetic. Well, this is where being high value and working to be a positive person comes into play. Positive people or happy people are attractive people. It's, it will always be that way. And I know the first, the minute I say that everyone's like, well, I know so and so and they're not so. And or, or I'm, I'm quite dour but people seem to like me. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I, there's always going to be exceptions to the rule. There's, there's no reason to split hairs. But I'm, but as a general rule enthusiasm showing somebody that you're excited to be talking to them. Showing somebody that you're, you're excited for the conversation that you're going to be having showing enthusiasm for where you are goes a long way. And let me go ahead and set this up. This is an easy one. Think about this. You're going to roll into any venue a social engagement. The first thing that everyone is doing is looking for social norms that are irregularities. So meaning that, that make you not safe for being there. That's first and foremost. So you're looking for people who are not smiling, who are angry, who are upset. Any, any sort of tension or pressure in the room is your first response. Second, after that, after you realize that you're safe and everything's okay and you're here in the music, now your brain goes to look for people who are smiling, who are laughing, who are enjoying themselves. And you're going to be drawn to those people. Why? Because there is enthusiasm. They're enjoying themselves. And you want to enjoy yourself. So there's a natural magnetism there. A smile is the best thing that you can do for yourself to show that you're enjoying yourself at that moment. And I always say, a smile is a window that goes directly to how you're feeling in the moment right there. And enthusiasm has optimism embedded in it. Yes. Right? People are drawn to happy, optimistic people. They're not drawn, as Johnny said, to pessimism. So being optimistic is a big part of being charismatic. It's not only a belief in yourself of like, hey, people do like me and people do gravitate towards me, but it's also just a belief that, hey, we can all have a great time and this is a great environment in looking for the positives in any environment you're in. We could all be there all night long judging the music, the temperature, the drinks, the people, every single factor that goes into going out or going to an event. But that is not going to help you become more charismatic. What's going to allow you to harness that inner charisma to unlock it in yourself is actually bringing some optimism, bringing some positivity to that environment. Now, I know it's difficult to go out and maybe the music is not to your liking. Maybe the atmosphere is not to your liking and I, as I've gotten older and more rigid and knowing what the things are that where I want to be and the things that I like, I still, at times, find myself where I have to go where I'm not so thrilled. But I can either A, get nothing out of this situation and complain about it and bitch about it and have a miserable time or I can try to get something for my time for the evening and there is a checklist of things that I'm going to have to do in order to switch over from somebody who's going to be pessimistic about the evening and look for everything wrong to somebody who's optimistic about the evening and looking for reasons so it's going to go right. The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to have to put a smile on. And we're talking about Amy Cutty's power pose of being able to have open body language to allow the atmosphere to fully hit me, put on a smile to show that I'm enjoying myself and it's those things that slowly will start to turn the way I'm seeing everything and try to make a positive out of what was or can be easily a negative. And what you're talking about is a choice. Yes. Optimism is a choice. And in order to be optimistic you have to start choosing to look for the right things for the positives in any of those situations which is why even when we talk about developing out your social skills we're constantly talking about finding those small victories finding those moments where you can be optimistic. You know what? The conversation lasted longer than the last few times I'd been out with a stranger next to me. You know what? I talked to more people than I had in nights previous. I stayed longer than I normally would because in the past I would have left when I felt a little awkward or anxious. Those are all simple ways for you to start making a choice becoming optimistic. And as Johnny said that nonverbal expression of optimism that smile beaming it towards people and we get this a lot you guys just smile all the time you talk about smile all the time. Why is that? I don't feel like smiling all the time. Yes. I would love everyone to smile more but it doesn't have to be all the time but giving people doses of that smile looking people in the eye and giving them a great smile is a huge tool in your nonverbal tool belt to evoke that charisma that we're talking about. Well, I can make this very easy for you. Please do. Make it very easy for everyone listening. If you realize that you're that much more attractive when you're smiling you know that you're going to be engaging in the motions that are going to make you more attractive more magnetic more charismatic then why wouldn't you be smiling if you have to go to any social engagement? Seems like the smart choice. And this makes it easy. And so people are like why you guys are so smiling? It's an easy choice to make. Why would I do anything else when I understand the what I have to gain in this situation? Now, I understand that every day presents new challenges and a lot of things happen and sometimes life gets heavy and doesn't go in the directions that you want it to. However, you can still fight it or find those times where well I have this thing I have this meeting this is where you turn it on and you have to do your best because Well, we were on Violet Show and we talked about this exact thing. Yes, there are moments where you are pushed to your limit emotionally you are spent you are pessimistic you are frustrated with life and the simplest thing you could do for yourself to put yourself in a better place is to move your body to exercise to get good chemicals flowing again in your brain. You have to. Physical activity sparks your body to create the chemicals necessary to fight that negative mood and a lot of our clients will work out before going out on any of our field night activities because hell yeah it puts you in that mental state of feeling good your body got the juices flowing as we say and all of a sudden you're going to find the conversation is a lot easier it is a lot easier for you to smile at people now one of the favorite things that we challenge all listeners to do and and we challenge all of our program participants to do is to start cheersing and high-fiving people to really point this out to make this clear that this clear signal of enthusiasm right to high five someone you have to be pretty darn enthusiastic to cheer someone you don't know you have to be pretty darn enthusiastic and of course have you never done it before you're like well oh this isn't going to go well I don't know this person why would I come over and and show them this enthusiasm I have no reason to be enthused and all those thoughts that creep in your head and what you will find going back to this idea that these emotions are contagious is after a couple high fives and a couple cheers your mood is lifted that's the power of enthusiasm it is a self-fulfilling prophecy you add some energy to the other persons evening smiling cheersing them oh I don't know why this guy cheers me but I felt good I felt good in the moment receiving a cheers oh I don't know why this person high five me but it felt good to receive a high five you've cheered them up and you've got that boost of enthusiasm and by the end of the night a lot of our clients go why the hell wasn't I doing this before this is such an easy way to convey that charismatic enthusiasm now I I'm sure there are people who heard what you had just said and their first thought was I can't go to bar and cheers everybody did you tell anyone that cheers everyone in the room no no cheers some people there's people around you that is it and you will be surprised with just those that simple action does and the message that it sends and AJ was talking about sending some optimism but you're also showing an act of acknowledgement which allows those around you to feel good about themselves why because it allows them to know that you are in this room they're in this room and it is a shared space and it will be shared commonly with optimism now this last and final component of charisma right we've talked about presence we've talked about enthusiasm this last piece much like those other two are something that you earn you can build in yourself it doesn't matter where you grew up it doesn't matter where you went to school it does not matter your background you can put in some work to gain that presence to gain that enthusiasm and to gain that confidence now this piece is what locks in that charisma when you are confident in the words you're about to share the action you're about to take the way you carry yourself in the room people take notice you cannot be lacking in confidence and charismatic it doesn't work that way it reinforces and brings out the charisma so how do we do that? number one we showcase confidence by acting authentically not acting like Johnny Axe or acting like AJ Axe but acting authentically to yourself allowing yourself to not be defined by the expectations around you but to set the definition on yourself you are okay with people not agreeing with you you are okay with people having a counterpoint you are okay with people not liking you that actually makes you charismatic and confident and it's another switch that you are looking to flip over but it's not so much a switch that once you do it you just turn it it is one we were talking about earlier it needs to be developed it needs to be cultivated and each day you have an opportunity to bring more and more authenticity which will bring you more confidence in your life as long as you're making choices to do things that would allow you to do that and how can we do that? how can we start becoming more confident while we start stacking some small wins in our favor we start using that optimism lens to find those wins when necessary but by challenging yourself and other facets of your life you're going to find this confidence that all of a sudden starts to build like a muscle I know for us throwing ourselves into training going at the Tough Mudder half marathons pushing ourselves physically how much more confident did you feel? well so much so that I continue running and because of I didn't want to lose everything that I had gained it was such a great experience and the confidence that was won from that or developed was so intoxicating I wanted to continue chasing that for more and that's that's the thing about it once you set these these systems up and you're able to measure your progress and you see your confidence then it only makes it that much easier to continue these processes this is why people get addicted to eating healthy addicted to going to the gym addicted to expressing themselves creativity the creativity because the rewards internally and externally are just too intoxicating they are they are lovely think about the the awards externally externally the rewards are people are giving you attention people are following you around people want you to continue to create why because of how you allowed them to feel so you want to do more of that you want to get better at it you want to you want to have that effect on more people you want a louder megaphone when we have all the tools and we're using them right now to speak to all of you but what about the internal rewards it's knowing that you can get better that you're you're having an effect on people's lives for the positive that your own life is straightening out that is that is getting better that you have opened up more and more opportunities for yourself to continue creating in ways that get you more external adulation so everything is feeding itself and the and the rewards are great and and for myself is even at 46 is like what is the next challenge how will I handle the day well that's it's easily set up why because I've incorporated these things into my values that we've been talking about for the last I've since we've been doing this podcast it always comes down to value-driven success why because incorporating these ideas into my daily life only makes me stronger and let's be honest the confidence comes in so many different factors I mean I remember learning to code the very first website for pickup podcast 14 years ago I go to the way back machine now and look at how I use blog spot to build this thing I remember learning HTML and going into work in the lab so excited and beaming that built that one data point of confidence and I learned video editing and we launched the academy so it doesn't even have to be physical but when you start picking up these little skills and tools in your life you start creating those success points that lead to the confidence that builds that charisma so you don't have to be a gym rat you don't have to be a clean eating fanatic like Johnnie and I sometimes lavish so much praise on here on the show I wanted to just to point to that really quickly and I hope this was this came across in my rant just then but the reason you see these people and it seems like they're gym freaks and health nuts is because of the confidence that it has given them so of course you want more of that and you go down the rabbit hole even farther I didn't start out running 16 miles at a clip because I that's what I wanted to do I got addicted to it because the rewards were so great and there was incremental adjustments and adages that allow me to get there now that authenticity fantastic for your confidence the last piece is being assertive it's actually speaking up it's choosing something over nothing it's actually offering up your opinion or your viewpoint instead of hanging back that is a sign of confidence so authenticity is important but we also need to show it we need to be assertive and we need to actually choose something instead of choosing nothing and that is how we create this charisma so to recap being someone who is present who's able to actually listen with empathy to people in conversation is that first signal of charisma and that's something that we can all work towards earning then gaining that skill every single day by being more present when we're in conversations with anyone Uber drivers Post-made delivery people you name it you are in conversations and opportunities to practice these skills every single day whether you realize it or not now what about enthusiasm what about bringing a little more energy than you had yesterday into that interaction beaming that smile on people even if you're not feeling the most positive mindset right at this moment but just allowing that smile to trickle through a little bit more and lastly taking some of those small wins that you've put together and allowing them to build that confidence to be more assertive you've created the three pillars of charisma and nothing we've talked about in this episode is something that I would say I was born with is something that I would say came easy unfortunately but when we start using science to our advantage when we start paying closer attention to these three areas of our lives we can start to develop about that charismatic person in ourselves a lot faster than hoping lightning strikes and hoping that someday we can just turn it on like a switch it's fun now because I go back and think about my journey and I think about all the failures and all the times where things didn't go my way the rejections of trying out some of this stuff and going to the networking event and not leaving with any contacts or going out and getting turned down by women that I was interested in or going out to meet people socially and coming home having met no one those little steps those little moments of me putting myself out there gain the skill set now that I laugh about where I don't feel panicked being thrown in those situations I know how I can control those three variables in myself to turn on that charisma well I think this is why when when you hear this saying I would love to be 23 again but I would need all the knowledge that I have now to be able to enjoy it fully I don't know how many people would want to be 23 again after gaining all this knowledge to go back and not have it because when you realize all the mistakes and how simple things could be if you just had some of this knowledge it changes the tables but to go back blindly and knowing what you know now it's terrifying and that's why the biggest skills that we focus on in our week-long bootcamp are exactly these things showcasing enthusiasm bringing some positive energy to the interaction being a better listener and having the ability to be empathetic to be more fully present and then all week long stacking small wins stacking small interactions to longer interactions to better conversations to better connections to phone numbers to dates to actually building out a network of people in your life those three things don't matter where you were born don't matter what your circumstance is now there are three areas that you could put some focus and attention into to start building out your charisma yeah and I want you to think about the time that you have and where you put it and what are you getting from it are you for myself to think about time in that manner makes every choice easy I get so excited about is the the week back for our clients when they're back home they're back in reality they show back up at their job that following week and the way people perceive them is markedly different we have letters on the fridge from clients talking about the weeks and months following the program and how people are responding to them it's because these three areas have been enhanced have been brought to the surface in every interaction not just interactions when they're trying to impress someone or they're trying to meet someone or they're trying to connect with someone but these three factors are now overflowing in all of their interactions and co-workers are perceiving them differently and that to me is really the power of focusing on these stringing together those wins and allowing yourself to see how charisma can be developed it's not something you're born with