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- [00:02]
A
How do some people walk into a room and instantly change the energy? They're not always the smartest person, they're not always the funniest, and they're often not the most attractive. But people pay attention to them and they remember them. So what do they do that the rest of us don't? And can that ability to draw people in actually be learned? Hi, everyone. I'm Lynne Thoman and this is three takeaways. On three takeaways, I talk with some of the world's best thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, newsmakers and scientists. Each episode ends with three key takeaways to help us understand the world and maybe even ourselves a little better. Today, I'm excited to be with Olivia Fox Caban. Olivia is the author of the fascinating book the charisma myth. It has become a go to book for leaders, entrepreneurs and professionals around the world. She argues that charisma isn't a mysterious gift people are born with. It's a skill. And once you understand how it works, you can learn it. Welcome, Olivia, and thanks so much for joining three takeaways today. Thank you so much.
- [01:27]
B
It's lovely to be here, Lynn.
- [01:28]
A
Thank you. It is my pleasure. Olivia, how did you become interested in charisma?
- [01:35]
B
The honest answer is desperation. I am by nature socially inept to the point of clinical ineptitude. And so by my late teens, I realized that I really only had two options. Either I exiled myself to a desert island, which is, believe me, still an attractive option on occasion, or I learned how to make this whole human thing work. And so I chose option two. And I was just really, really lucky that science had started to study charisma just around that time. There now was science. I could build tools on top of that. Often when I'm asked, how could an autistic person write the charisma myth? The honest answer is only an autistic person could have written the charisma myth because it takes someone who looks at humans from the outside like an alien species, like, ooh, interesting behavior. And that was looking at all these social behaviors that I couldn't understand from. For me, as an autistic person, if there's a problem, the answer is always science. You go to the library. Lucky me, the science had answers. That's how I got into charisma. And it has been a fascinating path.
- [02:44]
A
So you studied all the science and then you studied a wide range of charismatic people? Yes.
- [02:50]
B
Although I must give credit, I don't actually do any of the science. The reason that for the new edition, I Have Professor Oliver Niebuhr, who is the guy in digital and vocal charisma, as my scientific editor is precisely. Precisely because I wanted a true researcher, a true scientific expert, verifying all of the tools and checking all of the science. All I do is build tools on top of the research and science that
- [03:16]
A
other people have produced, the practical tools that people can use to make themselves more charismatic. That's it.
- [03:24]
B
I just assembled the toolkit. The science is out there.
- [03:27]
A
Let's start with your wonderful story about Marilyn Monroe in Grand Central Station. Nobody notices her, and then moments later, she becomes Marilyn Monroe, and suddenly everyone notices. Tell us that story and what exactly changed.
- [03:45]
B
This is one of the best illustrations of charisma as not a stable, inherent quality, but rather something that can be turned on and off at will. This was in 1955. It was in summer. Maryland wanted to prove that just by deciding to she could be either glamorous Ms. Monroe or just plain Norma Jean Baker. She took both a photographer and a reporter with her down into Grand Central Station, and she stood quietly on the platform and then boarded the train car. And no one noticed her, even though the photographer was with her and the camera was clicking the whole time. Apparently not a single person realized it was Marilyn. Then they get to the station, they emerge, and then she turns towards the photographer in the report and says, so you want to see Marilyn? And then they said it was almost like magic. There was no grand gestures. She just struck a pose, fluffed up her hair. But suddenly it seemed that she became magnetic. And it was as if an aura rippled out from her and the crowd instantly realized that Marilyn was around them. Apparently it took several minutes to extract her from the shoving crowd, which was becoming quite hysterical, realizing that it's Marilyn. So she was able to turn her charisma on and off. And that is just one of the most vivid illustrations of charisma as a transient quality that is behavior dependent.
- [05:19]
A
So what did she actually do to create that magnetic aura?
- [05:24]
B
So when researchers have people in controlled laboratory experiments, they are able to raise and lower people's level of charisma, as if they were turning a dial. By instructing them to display certain behaviors, the behaviors that they're asking them to display, the same that Maryland was displaying, they fall broadly into three categories. There are behaviors of power. Sometimes studies call them confidence or dominance, but broadly, it's power. They're the behaviors of warmth.
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A
Warmth.
- [05:56]
B
Sometimes studies will call them affability, friendliness, receptivity, broadly, warmth and behaviors of presence. Essentially, it's, are you Fully present in the moment. Do you feel confident and do you feel warm and caring? If you have all three, you will be charismatic.
- [06:17]
A
So what did Marilyn Monroe do when she got off that subway car? Because probably warmth was not one of those things that she did.
- [06:26]
B
We don't have a video of the event. We only have the verbal record. So unfortunately, I can't analyze her behavior at the time. We just have the impact. We know that the reporter said she transformed and became charismatic. I can only make guesses. My guess is that she was emanating low confidence when she was in the subway, that she was making herself very small and signaling to the public, don't look at me, I'm no one. And when she came out onto the street, she suddenly started signaling, massive, you should look at me. I'm someone important. Confidence. But that's only a guess since we don't have a video record.
- [07:04]
A
So it's really massive confidence that you're talking about.
- [07:09]
B
That's one of the main drivers of charisma. But what's really interesting is that you do need all three. Someone who is very warm and very confident, but totally distracted. Someone who just has no presence. That impairs their charisma. Someone who is very warm and very present, but has no confidence. Still no charisma. It turns out that it's kind of like a chemical formulation. You really need all three elements to get charisma. The only thing that changes is the kind of charisma you get depending on which of these elements is highest.
- [07:46]
A
So charisma isn't something you are, it's something you do.
- [07:52]
B
Charisma is absolutely a set of learned behaviors. The reason that we think it's innate is that usually those behaviors are learned really early in life. So that by the time we meet the charismatic people, it looks as if it were natural. But you can see with certain people, like Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple, you can actually see him learn charisma step by step. From his first presentations in the early 80s to his final presentations. You can first see him learn presence. Then he learns power, and finally he learns warmth. And when he put all those three together in his final presentations, he was incredibly charismatic.
- [08:31]
A
I've watched some of his early presentations. He's awkward, he's even a little uncomfortable looking. What specifically did he do in his later presentations?
- [08:44]
B
If you look at what he learned first, it was the ability to look at the camera, to stay attentive to whoever he was speaking to, whether it was a one on one or whether it was to a group. That was the element of presence. Presence really is the ability to stay present in the moment and not be away in your head. It can be called mindfulness, attentiveness, but it's the ability to stay present. That's what he learned first. What he learned second is power, the confidence. And you can see he starts even using the techniques of stage magicians to direct the audience's attention by pulling, for example, a small white ipod out of a black bag. And he's wearing all black. So there's really an element of controlling the audience's attention. And what's really interesting is the final element he learned the last was warmth. Now, Steve Jobs was not emanating warmth towards his customers or the audience. Everyone knows Steve Jobs is not a particularly nice person, but he loved his products. And you can feel the enthusiasm and the warmth for the product in the way he's describing it. And when he got all those three elements at once, he had the massive confidence. This is the best product ever. Carmine Gallo said it best. Steve Jobs wasn't selling computers. He was selling the promise of a better world. It was that level of confidence, plus the attentiveness, the presence and the warmth that made him the ultra charismatic CEO
- [10:11]
A
he ended up as so fascinating. What's the biggest misconception that people have about charisma?
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B
I think the first biggest misconception is that it's innate. It's a magical quality. You have it or you don't, or it's genetic. I have to be honest and say that there are genetic predispositions. I can't turn everyone into Bill Clinton. It is true that certain tendencies, certain personality traits will make certain forms of charisma easier than others. Extroversion make certain forms of charisma easier than others. But here's the thing. A lot of people fall for the second myth, which is that only extroverts can be charismatic. Not true. Introversion is a huge advantage for other forms of charisma, like focus charisma. Because here's the key thing people forget. Charisma is only partly how you make people feel about you. It's even more how you make them feel about themselves.
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A
When you look across charismatic people like Marilyn Monroe, Steve Jobs, Oprah, Barack Obama, is there one thing that they all do that most people simply don't?
- [11:29]
B
The answer that most people would assume is that they're all always super confident, but that's not actually true, since a lot of these figures were known to actually have really high imposter syndromes or inner Criticism. I would say that if there is one key element that brings all three together. Is that when they were being charismatic, they were fully present in the moment. Marilyn was known to light up when cameras were around. Because being under a camera apparently made her feel alive and okay again. And so she would really be fully present when there was a camera rolling. So my guess would be that the commonality, even more than power or warmth, is actually, if you look at the Dalai Lama, he's famous for being so completely present in the moment. I would say that that is probably the one characteristic interesting.
- [12:26]
A
Bill Clinton famously makes everyone feel like the only person in the room. And yet almost nobody else actually does this. Why is it so powerful?
- [12:39]
B
This is where we have to get slightly politically incorrect. Is there a correlation between charisma and narcissism? The answer is yes. Science has shown that there absolutely is. One of the reasons that I'm so keen to democratize charisma and make it widely available to everyone is so that it is not just the people who don't always behave the best who have the charisma. One of the things you'll hear say about Bill Clinton is that in that moment, he genuinely believes that you are the most important person in the room. And because he genuinely believes it, that is what he communicates. For me, one of the most important lessons in charisma that the science showed again and again. Is that you actually cannot fake charisma. The reason for that is because there is so much body language emanating for you every minute. That even if you control the main expression on your face, the macro expression, sooner or later, if what you feel inside is different, what's called a micro expression will flash. And if there's a difference between your micro and macro, you will get what's called an incongruence. And it will feel on a gut level that you're being inauthentic. So you need the ability to convince yourself in the moment that you are really feeling what you are trying to portray. Some people, Clinton is apparently a master at this. Are able to, in the moment, truly believe this is the most extraordinary and beautiful woman I have ever encountered. And therefore, that is what they project when they are with that person. One of the tricks to doing that is that the brain is not very good at distinguishing between imagination and reality. So if you can find even small things about the other person that you can approve of. Let me phrase it this way. Have you ever had the experience that a day when all the little things go wrong is actually harder to bear than a day when one big thing goes wrong. That's because the brain is terrible at scale. And so lots of little things can feel heavier to bear than one big thing. If you can find three or more small things about the other person that you really approve of, and I don't care whether it's nice shoes or I like their haircut, they were on time. That sends your brain down a certain path. And if you have enough of those small things, you will be genuinely emitting the right body language. But the key lesson is this. It has to be real.
- [15:15]
A
The really interesting thing to me about Bill Clinton is that when he's making everybody he talks to feel so special, he's not talking about himself, he's not being smart or talking about great things he's done. What he's really doing is just focusing on the other person.
- [15:37]
B
My favorite story to illustrate exactly that point is when William Gladstone was running against Benjamin Disraeli for the post of Prime Minister to the British Empire. And one young lady happened to go to dinner on consecutive evenings with both of the rivals. And so of course the press asked her afterwards what impressions they'd made on her and she said, after dining with Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after dining with Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England. And of course Disraeli won because he made her feel like the cleverest person in the room. Charisma is how you make people feel about themselves.
- [16:21]
A
And why is that so rare?
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B
I think it's because that we are in an environment where social media is and constant comparisons and advertising make it so easy for us to be so self critical that we are always worried about how we are appearing. And so we're always worried about am I being confident enough or looking good enough. And because there's this real pressure to reach a certain standard all the time, we have a lot of us a very strong inner critic. And so ironically, that makes us more self focused. Whereas if we were less worried about how we appear, we would be more able to focus on the other person.
- [17:08]
A
Most people picture charisma as extroverted and commanding people. But you've said that introverts can also be charismatic. Who are some examples?
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B
Keep in mind that he has changed. But when I met him, Elon Musk was a remarkable example of focus charisma. At that time, this would have been 15 years ago. He was absolutely an introvert, but he had the ability to give you the impression he was so fully focused, drinking in every word you said and listening to every nuance that it really was a kind of focus charisma that I have heard. People who spend time with Bill Gates will tell you the same, that Bill actually is very charismatic when you meet him, and not in an extra extroverted way, but in a making you feel like the center of attention kind of way.
- [18:05]
A
So interesting. I would not have guessed that the MIT Media Lab, without even listening to the words of a negotiation, could predict how the negotiation was going. What does that tell us about what we're actually responding to in other people?
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B
So it was a fascinating study when it was first done in 2008, and they were indeed able to model the outcome of negotiations and, and sales pitches and business plan pitches with over 80% accuracy without listening to a single word of content. And what they measured instead were things like the ratio of speaking to listening. The more you listened, the more successful you were. Hello, introverts who don't need the spotlight on themselves. The ratio of vocal fluctuation, more fluctuation, better. The excitement and confidence. It was essentially not the words you said. They didn't listen to a single word. But this proved how important your body language and your attention were in charisma. So when I'm talking to young startup founders, I have to tell them, listen, if you're spending all your time on the PowerPoint presentation, that's great, but that's less than 20% of your impact. The rest of the 80% is not what you say, it's how you say it.
- [19:27]
A
So body language is more important than words.
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B
It really is.
- [19:32]
A
And what are people looking for in body language?
- [19:36]
B
If you look at the three elements, if you look at the power, the presence, the warmth, it's going to be how much space they take up. For example, that's one of the ways that people communicate confidence. And one of the issues that women, for example, can have is that in many cultures, women are taught to be small, to make themselves, themselves, smaller. And so they will often tilt their head to make themselves. This is the little girl head tilt of, please, like me, I'm inoffensive, I'm harmless. Or they will stand on one leg, or they will cross their arms in front of them. And if you look at what Alpha humans do, it's actually the opposite. They'll sit on one chair, they'll put their arm on another chair, they'll put their legs on a third chair. And so learning how to take up space both with your body language and with the volume of your voice. It doesn't necessarily mean be so loud, you're deafening, but it does mean don't be afraid to have a strong presence. That's one of the key components.
- [20:38]
A
Is that why some people can be credible before they've even said anything important? It is.
- [20:45]
B
One of the fascinating areas of research in charisma is first impressions, technically called thin slicing. And that was looking at how people make first impressions in under two seconds before they've said a word. People will judge you. Your level of friendliness, social success, competence, trustworthiness. It's remarkable how many judgments are made before you say a single word.
- [21:14]
A
So essentially, we are all subconsciously reading one another all the time.
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B
All the time. Thousands of units of body language are pouring out from you every minute.
- [21:25]
A
So interesting. Olivia, give us the playbook. What things could people do starting tomorrow, that would immediately start to make them more charismatic?
- [21:36]
B
If you can take five minutes between meetings, just five minutes, that can make a real difference in your level of charisma. So one of the things that peak performance scientists have seen in both athletes and people at work is that we expect our brains to come into work, ramp up to peak performance, stay at peak performance the whole day, and then ramp down. That's not how the brain works. It turns out that our brains work more like by oscillation. And so giving yourself even five minutes between meetings to let your brain wander, let your concentration go. Maybe you don't look at your phone, that's not a valid break. But a total break of staring out the window and letting yourself daydream, that can have a real impact on your ability to then get back into a more charismatic mode. So short breaks between meetings can make a big difference. Learning how to handle the imposter syndrome, which is different from the inner critic. The imposter syndrome is that voice in your head that tells you that you don't really know what you're doing and it's only a matter of time before you're found out and explained. Exposes a fraud. And as it turns out, this is so common that at one point it was measured that it was estimated that almost 80% of the adult population experienced it at some point or another. So learning how to destigmatize. This is a completely normal feeling. Everyone has it de dramatize. The imposter syndrome is just a feeling. It is not actually necessarily a reflection of reality. And rewrite your current reality with the knowledge that you are actually competent at this or that task. Because look at your track record. The imposter syndrome looks at what you do, the inner critic looks at who you are. Learning how to handle both of these is honestly going to have the biggest impact on your ability to be charismatic in a day to day Olivia, what
- [23:29]
A
are the three takeaways you would like to leave the audience with today?
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B
The first and most important takeaway is that charisma is not innate, it can be learned and it's just a set of behaviors. The second takeaway is that charisma cannot be faked. Charismatic behaviors must originate in the mind because whatever your mind believes your body will manifest. The third takeaway is somewhat counterintuitive. The best way to increase your level of self confidence is actually to increase your capacity for self forgiveness. The route to increased self confidence is through self compassion.
- [24:18]
A
I love that. Thank you Olivia. I really enjoyed this conversation and I also really enjoyed your book the Charisma Myth.
- [24:27]
B
Thank you so much.
- [24:30]
A
If you're enjoying the podcast, and I really hope you are are, please review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps get the word out. If you're interested, you can also sign up for the Three Takeaways newsletter at 3takeaways.com, where you can also listen to previous episodes. You can also follow us on LinkedIn, X Instagram and Facebook. I'm Lynne Thoman and this is three Takes Takeaways. Thanks for listening.