Say it as Obama! Develop your Charisma
The Benefits of Charisma
Charisma is a magnetic energy — a quality that expresses confidence and strength, arousing loyalty and admiration from others.
Some people are born with a natural charisma and an outgoing personality that magnetically attracts others to them. However, charisma isn’t something that you necessarily have to be born with. It is rather something that can be acquired over time. Although it is something that can only be brought to life if you take the time to develop extraordinary poise and presence when in the company of others. In fact, you must develop a reputation for being knowledgeable, interesting and passionate. Only in this way will you derive the benefits that charisma has to offer.
Charisma is an incredibly endearing quality because it will help you to win people over to your way of thinking. Likewise it will help you win promotions and also develop deep friendships because of your uncanny ability to influence people with your words, deeds and actions. As such, having a charismatic personality will open the doors of opportunity as you build trust, support and win the respect of those around you.
How to Develop Charisma
Developing charisma isn’t an easy process. It is something that will take some time and effort. However, your efforts will be well spent the moment you begin putting your charisma to action.
Here are some guidelines for developing charisma in small ways through your social interactions with others:
Listen Actively
Probably the most important skill of a charismatic individual is their ability to listen actively to what others are saying. Listening actively means that you listen with an open mind and without any judgment. Use gentle nods, paraphrasing and interjections to acknowledge that you understand the other person. Also smile genuinely while freely expressing your enthusiasm and agreement with what the other person is saying.
Having the ability to listen actively means that you’re listening and actively participating in the conversation by asking questions and continuously encouraging the other person to provide you with more information about things that they are most interested and passionate about. This process will help you to get a better understanding of the other person, while allowing you to build a strong emotional bond between the two of you.
Be Genuine in Every Way
Everything you do must be genuine. A charismatic person is always genuine in their concern for the other person. They genuinely respect the other person, and they are genuinely interested in the other person’s life, experiences, insights and circumstances. They project this energy by asking insightful and interesting questions that gets the other person talking about themselves and their problems.
Throughout the conversation the charismatic person also uses empathy to connect with others at a much deeper emotional level. Empathy helps them to fully understand what other people are thinking, feeling and going through.
Inspire Others
Walking away from their interaction with a charismatic person, people often feel more confident, excited and inspired about themselves and their future. The charismatic individual has made them feel incredibly important, while also strengthening their confidence by being supportive and understanding of their needs, wants, desires and aspirations. And all it took was some genuine interest in the other person’s life — encouraging them to talk about themselves and their passions.
Communicate with Purpose
In order to communicate with purpose, a charismatic individual must first give their full undivided attention to the other person. They do this by using good and somewhat soft eye-contact that makes the other person feel comfortable and at ease. Once a connection has been established, they will use the other person’s name during key moments throughout the conversation. This helps them to create higher levels of rapport, and helps draw the person deeper into the conversation.
While conversing the charismatic individual speaks with conviction, while purposefully varying their pitch, volume, tone and the rhythm of their voice in order to add some color to their speech. This has a tendency to keep the other person interested and transfixed on them at all times. On top of this, they project a light-hearted energy using humor as a way to make the other person feel more comfortable and relaxed in their presence.
Mirror and Match People
Mirroring and matching another person doesn’t mean mimicking the other person or copying their every movement and facial expression. What it does mean is choosing particular moments throughout the conversation where you will mirror and match how the other person stands or sits, or how they nod their head in order to create a deeper level of chemistry between the two of you.
Tell Engaging Stories
Those with incredible charisma are also engaging story-tellers. They have all these incredibly interesting stories about their lives, about their experiences, and even about the lives and experiences of others that they love to share with the people they meet. However, the charismatic individual won’t just tell these stories, they will share these stories in an engaging way that gets the other person involved physically and emotionally.
Freely Compliment People
It’s important to understand that many people work really hard behind the scenes in a variety of ways. They work hard to acquire specific kinds of knowledge, to learn new skills, to improve their appearance, etc. On the surface we don’t see all the work that goes into all these things. However, if you pay attention to the details of your conversation with them, you can easily pick up on these key areas that people put a lot of effort into. This will immediately separate you from 99 percent of the population who rarely take notice of such matters.
A charismatic individual spots these areas throughout their interactions with other people and purposefully compliments the other person while acknowledging them for their efforts. This secretly impresses and maybe even surprises the other person, while helping build deeper levels of rapport.
Project Confidence
To be charismatic is to be confident. Confidence and charisma are in some ways joined at the hipbone. You will fail miserably to be charismatic if you lack the confidence, conviction, and belief in your own abilities.
When it comes to your social interactions with others, it is absolutely paramount that you first work on developing your confidence before anything else. Charisma and shyness are certainly not joined at the hipbone. It’s also however important that you develop the necessary conviction and belief in your opinions and ideas. You’ll rarely gain the respect of others if you lack conviction.
Help People at Every Opportunity
During a typical conversation, a charismatic individual will listen intently to what the other person is saying and ask themselves the following two questions:
What does this person want or need?
How can I help them get this?
When you’re charismatic you naturally project an energy that is very nurturing and adds value to other people’s lives. It is therefore important that you see every interaction with every person you meet as an opportunity to change their lives for the better, even if it is in a very small way.
Find out what the other person really wants, what their problems are, what kind of challenges they are facing, and then figure out how you might be able to potentially help them.
Your help doesn’t need to cost you a lot of your time or energy. It could be as-small-as sharing a quote with them that you feel could help change the way they think, or it could be a recommendation about a book you’ve read, or it could just be connecting them to a friend or colleague who has had similar experiences and might be able to provide them with some guidance.
No matter what it is, help people in some small way. What might seem small to you, might in fact be huge within the context of their life.
Vary Up Your Facial Expressions
People with bland facial expressions seem boring and disinterested. However, those who have a wide variety of facial expressions that they use to punctuate their speech seem incredibly interesting and charismatic. However, it’s important that you practice these facial expressions in front of a mirror before you do it in public. Because what might seem like an interesting and friendly facial expressions to you, might very well come across as strange and very distracting.
Use a Gentle Touch
A gentle touch here and there on the other person’s shoulder or arm can help to keep them engaged and interested. Charismatic people will often touch a person on purpose during key moments of their interactions while they are making specific points. This helps them to control the conversation and make the other person feel at ease within their presence. This of course must be done with caution. Some people will not want to be touched, or will not want to be touched in certain areas. You must therefore use your discretion and get a feel for what the other person feels most comfortable with, and adjust your approach accordingly.
It’s also important that you don’t overdo the touching. Excessive touching can lead to discomfort and you will lose all the rapport you worked so hard to create.
Use Well Timed Pauses
A person who talks a million miles an hour and doesn’t even pause to take a breath is absolutely exhausting to listen to. There’s no chance of building rapport if the other person is trying to keep up with your conversation.
One way to avoid falling into this trap is to slow down your speech. However, slowing things down can lead to other problems such as boredom and frustration. If you speak more slowly than the other person, then it’s likely they will be tempted to finish your sentences. You likewise lose their respect, as well as all the rapport you have been building. There is however a middle ground.
A charismatic individual will talk at a similar pace that the other person talks at. However, they will use clever pauses throughout their conversation in order to build anticipation or add emphasis to important points. This will have a tendency to keep the other person interested and engaged within the conversation.
Qualities to Aspire to…
A charismatic individual has certain qualities that separate them from most other people. These are the qualities that help them build incredible rapport with others. However, these qualities are not mysterious in any way. They are simply qualities of someone who is genuinely interested in making a difference in other people’s lives.
A charismatic person is caring, honest, genuine, approachable, respectful, social, authentic, fair, gracious and sympathetic. On top of all this they are also very assertive, yet always seem to be at ease. When you put all these qualities together you get one well-rounded individual who is liked and respected by everyone they meet.
Things to Avoid
There’s a lot that goes into a charismatic personality. However, charisma isn’t only about what you do, but rather also about what you avoid doing that could potentially ruin your reputation as a charismatic individual.
Here are some things you should avoid at all costs if you have a strong desire to develop your charisma:
- Don’t curse, gossip or complain. It doesn’t look good, and it certainly won’t do you any good either.
- Don’t talk excessively about yourself. Focus the conversation instead on the other person’s passions, problems and interests.
- Don’t attempt to please everyone. It’s impossible, and in the process you might actually end up pleasing no one.
- Don’t offend people. Yes, you might disagree with something they have said. However, instead of offending them, challenge them to prove themselves.
- Don’t interrupt people while they are talking. This is one of the fastest ways to lose rapport. Let them conclude their thoughts in full before you have your say.
- Don’t be arrogant or appear superior in any way. Charismatic individuals have a knack for making people feel comfortable and at ease no matter how much their circumstances differ.
- Don’t make excuses. Excuses show others that you do not take responsibility for your life. Nobody wants to associate with those who excuse their life away.
- Don’t lose control of your emotions. Learn to manage all those seemingly unhelpful emotions in productive ways no matter how difficult your circumstances may be in the moment. Not losing control of your emotions during troubled times will help you gain incredible respect and admiration from those around you.
- Don’t take everything so seriously. A charismatic individual has a playful and fun-loving nature. They will find the humor in every difficulty, which will help others feel at ease.
If some of these habits-of-mind go against your nature, then you certainly have your work cut out for you. Nobody said that developing a charismatic personality was going to be easy. You may very well need to acquire some new habits. And you may most certainly need to dump some old habits that will no longer serve you along this new path you are on. The choice is ultimately yours to make.
A Charismatic Mindset
In order to develop a charismatic personality, you might need to spend some time growing and shaping your mindset in ways that will help you to project the right kind of attitude that will allow you to be more charismatic. And in essence that is pretty much what charisma is. It’s an attitude you have about life that you continuously share with other people through your interactions.
Here are some ways you can develop a charismatic mindset:
- Cultivate humility. Humility will help you to keep your feet on the ground no matter how much loyalty and support you garner from others.
- Cultivate optimism. Optimism will help you to stay positive during difficult times. Others will also rely on you to help build their confidence when things don’t go their way.
- Cultivate passion. A charismatic individual is passionate, purpose-driven and enthusiastic about life. Their passions help to inspire others to pursue their own goals and aspirations.
- Cultivate a childlike curiosity. Curiosity will help you become more interested in other people’s lives. This will allow you to ask more insightful questions, and therefore get to know them at a deeper level.
- Be somewhat mysterious, unpredictable and surprising. Create a sense of intrigue about your persona to keep people guessing. Make sure that people don’t quite have you figured out. In this way you will more naturally draw their attention, admiration and interest.
- Be a fearless trailblazer. You have your own goals and vision, a sense of purpose, you’re creating your own path, and it doesn’t matter what obstacles stand in your way. You’re fearless and will therefore do whatever it takes to move forward with purpose. This will naturally inspire others to want to be more like you.
- Have a warm personality. A warm personality is friendly and outgoing and makes you very approachable.
- Have an abundance mentality. An abundance mentality means that there is no lack in your life. You are grateful for everything, and this gratitude brings you peace and fulfillment no matter what difficulties you might be facing.
The initial steps you take to develop charisma may very well go against your nature. It may actually be a very difficult process. However, if you commit and persist long-term you can most certainly make these changes stick. And when eventually everything does stick, a whole new world of opportunity will open up to you as you begin winning the respect and admiration of those around you