The Charisma Myth

Olivia Fox Cabane

📚 GENRE: Miscellaneous 

📃 PAGES: 272

✅ COMPLETED: April 20, 2020

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

Olivia Fox Cabane reveals the fundamentals of charisma and explains why anybody can access it with a set of core fundamentals. Drawing on techniques she originally developed for Harvard and MIT, Cabane delivers a manual on the power of charisma and how to tap into it.

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Charisma Starts Within — People pick up on your energy and attitude the most. Becoming charismatic starts by having the right set of thoughts and feelings internally. It’s about having the right energy on the inside; energy that revolves around gratitude and appreciation. When you have the right energy on the inside, it radiates out through your body language and tone. 

2️⃣ Listen Up — Most people are not very good listeners. Charismatic people tend to be great listeners who can empathize with other people really well. Focus on truly listening to  person. Put all of your attention and focus on what they are trying to say.

3️⃣ Have Self-Compassion — Be nice to yourself. Beating up on yourself about things does nothing productive to help the situation. Forgive yourself for mistakes and build yourself up. 

Favorite Quote

"Being charismatic does not depend on how much time you have but on how fully present you are in each interaction."

Book Notes 📑

Prologue

  • Charisma isn’t magic — it’s a set of learned behavior.
    • Charisma is not just something you’re born with.
  • Charisma = High Power + High Warmth
  • The author created a charisma course that is taught at UC Berkeley.

Chapter 1

  • You don’t have to be an extrovert or super attractive to be charismatic.
    • You don’t have to change your personality, either.
  • At first, using charismatic behavior might feel awkward, but, with practice, it will become normal.
  • Quote: “Being charismatic does not depend on how much time you have but on how fully present you are in each interaction.”

Chapter 2

  • People pick up on small changes in your body language. These small changes can be influenced.
  • Work on choosing mental states that make your body language, words, and behaviors flow together and express the three main elements of charisma:
    1. Power
    2. Warmth
    3. Presence
  • Presence — Being in the moment. It means listening very well.
    • People can tell when you are not paying attention.
    • Practice mindfulness to work on quieting the mind of being more present.
    • People like when you listen closely. They feel respected.
  • Power — Perception of power through body language, status, physical build, knowledge, etc. 
  • Warmth — Goodwill towards others. Being caring.
    • Body language and behavior is how warmth is perceived by others.
  • People make quick assumptions about your level of power and warmth because that’s how we’re wired.
    • Assessing power and warmth was essential to survival back in prehistoric times.
  • Nonverbal communication is more important than verbal.
    • People communicated for years and years with body language before verbal language was ever developed.
      • This is why we are able to pick up on body language so well.
  • Charisma begins in the mind. Our body language is a reflection of our mental attitude.
    • This is because the subconscious controls all of the little aspects of our body language. It’s impossible to control everything through our conscious mind.
    • Attitude is everything. Your attitude will dictate your body language, energy, etc. 
    • What your mind believes, your mind delivers.
  • Your subconscious can’t tell the difference between real and imaginary. The mind produces physical reactions based on what it believes or imagines.
    • Ex. Fruit — Taking a bite into a orange. If you imagine this in great detail, you will start to salivate. 
    • Placebo Effect — The Placebo Effect was discovered in World War I, when doctors were out of medication but felt they could ease patients’ suffering by telling them the drugs they were given were real.
  • Get your internal state right, charisma will follow.

Chapter 3

  • Anxiety, self-doubt, and self-criticism are all huge roadblocks to charisma.
    • They show up in our body language and prevent us from being powerful and warm.
    • They also prevent us from being present.
  • The fight or flight response is interesting. It’s the body and mind‘s response to anxiety.
    • The mind believes imaginary scenarios that are bad and shoots off adrenaline and cortisol, producing elevated “superpower” levels and functions in the body.
      • Heart rate rises, breathing quickens, eyesight improves, etc. 
      • The fight or flight response is meant to help you in life or death scenarios. The mind isn’t concerned with living for the next 10 years. It is trying to survive now.
      • Nonessential functions get shut down (muscle repair, cognitive reasoning, etc.)
  • Inner negativity is actually a powerful survival tool. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s designed to spur you to change and take action.
    • Still, you need to learn to overcome the negativity and negate the downsides to negativity.

Chapter 4

  • Dealing with internal negativity can be done in three steps:
    1. Destigmatize Discomfort 
      • Internal negativity is completely normal. It’s a survival mechanism.
    2. Neutralize Negativity
      • Your thoughts are usually not accurate if negative. It’s you assuming things and assuming that people are thinking a certain way about you.
      • Our mind is usually wrong when assuming negative things.
        • The problem is, we assume our mind is accurate and therefore believe the negative assumptions we are fed.
      • Our mind has a “negativity bias”, we will often seek out the negative in a situation. The key is to realize this and understand that it isn’t true. It’s just a thought.
    3. Rewrite Reality
      • Rewrite and reframe your beliefs about a situation.
        • Ex. The car that cut you off in traffic. Instead of getting angry, assume that the driver had an emergency happening and had to get to the hospital immediately. 
      • Try to interpret everything favorably towards yourself. This is a decision. Rewrite the script and the visual in your head.

Chapter 5

  • Visualization can help you perform or become what you want.
    • Jack Nicklaus said he never hit a real or practice shot without visualizing.
    • Famous actors use “method acting”, where they visualize themselves as the character and the mind delivers the right body language and emotions.
  • Using imagery and or key phrases is the way to visualize.
  • Gratitude, compassion, and goodwill are also key to boosting charisma.
  • Gratitude and Appreciation — The key to a good attitude. The key to mastering the mind.
    • Focus and think about all the things you’re thankful for.
    • Have an attitude of gratitude.
    • Gratitude is really important to a happy life. Drew Brees, Oprah, and Steve Harvey are some of the people that have spoken about gratitude at length. 
    • Look around at your environment and pick out things in the room you are grateful for.
    • View your life through the eyes of somebody else. See all the great things and people you have in your life. See all the great things you do. Be proud of those things. Complement yourself for doing good things, even the small, everyday things like going to the gym or saying “hello” to people.
  • Goodwill — Focusing on someone else’s well-being.
    • Wanting the best for others. Wishing the best for others.
    • Find three things you like and appreciate about another person.
    • Quote: “Love as much as you can, every day.”
  • Compassion — Empathy + Goodwill = Compassion. 
    • Empathy — Putting yourself in another person’s shoes. Understanding what the person is going through and feeling.
      • Understanding that what they are going through might be a reason they took a certain action.
  • Self-Compassion — The warmth you have towards yourself. Your ability to forgive yourself and not criticize yourself too harshly. Being kind to yourself. 
    • Try to treat yourself with the same kindness you would show to your brother or friend. If they messed up, you wouldn’t attack them over it, you would talk them up and encourage them. You would pick them up. The key with self-compassion is to do the same thing with yourself rather than beat yourself up about something endlessly. 
  • Emotions and body language are linked at the hip. Just as emotions and thoughts affect your body language, body language can affect your emotions.
    • Displaying confident body language makes you feel more confident.
    • Getting into an excited posture makes you feel excited.

Chapter 6

  • There are different types of charisma:
    • Focus charisma
    • Authority charisma
    • Visionary charisma
    • Kindness charisma
  • Based on the situation, you can choose among these different styles of charisma.

Chapter 7

  • People like people who are like them.
  • People remember how you made them feel, not what you said.
    • It’s all about energy and attitude. That’s what comes across more than anything else. 

Chapter 8

  • Listening skills are essential to charisma. They give you presents in conversation.
    • It starts with your mindset and willingness to focus and pay attention intently.
    • People can instinctively feel when you are listening to them. Making people feel heard and listened to is far more important than your response to their statement.
    • Treat it like defense in basketball. Take pride in your listening skills because most people don’t listen very well.
    • Don’t interrupt people.
    • Pause before you answer.
  • Speaking with charisma:
    • People will associate you with whatever feelings you produce in them.
      • Focus on making people feel positive feelings.
    • Try to speak in images. The brain translates words into concepts into images. When speaking, try to speak by painting a picture.
      • Ex. Steve Jobs emphasized the iPod Nano’s small size by comparing its weight to 8 quarters, rather than just listing its weight.
    • Make people feel good about themselves.
    • Don’t ramble. Be concise.
    • Use your body to help you communicate.
    • Use voice fluctuations to vary your pitch, volume, tone, tempo, and rhythm.
    • Speak slowly with frequent pauses.
    • Drop your intonation at the end of sentences.
    • Smile to project warmth.

Chapter 9

  • Words are interpreted by the logical side of the brain. Body language connects with people’s emotional side of the brain. Body language is more impactful.
  • It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.
  • Mirroring — Matching a person’s tone, pitch, excitement level. Builds rapport and chemistry with the other person.
  • Shallow breathing activates stress responses. Shallow breathing makes it difficult to have good body language.
    • Breath deep. The ideal breath is 5.5 seconds in and 5.5 seconds out, per James Nestor in his book Breath. 
  • Try to “take up as much space” as possible to feel and project confident body language.

Chapter 10

  • Show people that you appreciate them.
  • Display empathy and warmth when delivering bad news.

Chapter 11

  • When doing a presentation, select the single most important message you want to convey and dial it in/drive it home when preparing and delivering the speech.
    • Don’t try to convey 8 different things. Focus in on one clear message.
      • Your audience doesn’t have the attention span to try to internalize 8 different messages.
    • Make your single message concise and repeat it. Craft your speech around it.
      • Have 3-5 supporting points backing up and supporting your one clear message.
  • Use stories in presentations to convey your point and message.
    • Use analogies and metaphors to help the audience comprehend numbers.
      • Steve Jobs was great at this.
  • Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Then rehearse some more.
  • Make 2-3 second eye contact with members of the audience periodically.
  • Pause periodically after a key point.
  • Pause after your last words, then say “thank you.”

Chapter 12

  • Communicate a vision when leading in a crisis.

Chapter 13

  • Work on your skills.