The six rules of charisma.
As I’ve mentioned many times before, I think one of the most important skills that we need today is storytelling. One of the ways that we can get people to agree, be moved by you or listen to you is to have charisma. So today I’m going to unpack the idea of charisma and what it means to be charismatic. To be very clear, charisma isn’t charm. Charm is someone who is a smooth talker. Charisma is about presence and depth. It’s a kind of energy that makes people lean into you and magnetise towards you. So, how do you get people to be naturally magnetised towards you? There are six key areas to think about:
- Unshakeable confidence: What we often think about this is people who are out there, showing themselves, speaking well. But actually, unshakeable confidence is about a deep internal dialogue of feeling safe. To use myself as an example, when I started to unpack the idea of feeling safe, I realised that I wasn’t feeling safe at all. And if you really look deep into your psyche, we actually don’t feel safe. So, to achieve unshakeable confidence, we first need to feel safe. There is a very clear difference between arrogance and confidence, and it’s your level of kindness to the world. That’s what differentiates these two things. If we’re not kind to ourselves and the world around us, we’re arrogant. And the reason we’re not kind to the world around us is because we don’t feel safe. Arrogance is a lack of safety, and confidence is when you feel 100 per cent safe. Safe in your skin, in your place of work, in your relationship, etc.
- Character over reputation: This means that if you are virtual signally, people will eventually pick up on this. If you’re not actually practising what it is that you preach, it will eventually become clear. So, it’s really just about being solid and outlasting the illusion of what people think you’re about and what you stand for. After a time, your character becomes very clear, and you can’t hide it. In today’s world, people are so worried about their reputation that they let go of their character, and then, over a period of time, they won’t have any charisma because people won’t be leaning into them, they sense a lack of consistency.
- Radical integrity: when you are sticking to the own rule that you’ve created for yourself, you build respect for yourself. When you break your own rules, even if only you know about it, you start becoming resentful of yourself. What radical integrity asks is what you’re doing, not just for people on the outside, but what it makes you think of yourself. There are always times we have felt ourselves out of that radical integrity, and when we’re out of it, the resentment towards ourselves builds, which makes us not confident but arrogant.
- Zero need to convince: The most magnetic people in the world don’t chase anything. When you live in a place like Dubai, you see a lot of people who need some level of approval. Their power dynamics are broken. They are desperate for approvals of what they do, what they own etc. A lot of us lose power dynamics in such easy ways. One of those is when people apologise all the time when it’s unnecessary. What that means is that they’ve positioned themselves lower than you and are giving you the power. We need to take that power dynamic back and stop trying to sell ourselves. We don’t need approval, but it’s only when we follow all the rules of charisma that we stop looking for approval.
- What we love in people is people who have purpose and are doing things with intention. They are on a mission. When we find people that are on this mission, and we listen to them passionately sharing their mission, we gather momentum and energy. People become excited to be working with us and people love standing with somebody who stands for something. It gives them purpose. So if you have a purpose in your actions, what people do around you is to start creating their own purpose, but also want to be part of your purpose.
- Humanise everything. Complement freely. Be vulnerable. Have fun. Perfection is boring. To have flaws is so important because people will connect with you. This is something I have always done. Whenever I meet people, I quickly humanise the conversation by finding common ground and being open about my insecurities. When you do that, you humanise yourself, and you also allow other people to drop into that state of mind.
Charisma isn’t a trick. It’s a way of thinking, of applying yourself and determining how you show up. It’s not about how you dress. It’s about showing up in a chosen mood and a chosen state of mind. So, if you follow the six rules of charisma, what you’re doing is showing up with a level of safety that you feel comfortable with. You are not worried about what the world things of you; you’re much more worried about your character and your principles. You’re all about radical integrity, and that’s what internal principles actually tell you. And in that process, you have zero need to convince anybody because if you’re not looking for reputation acknowledgement, you’re really focused on your own character, and maybe, in the short term, you might irritate people. Still, in the long run, everyone knows what you stand for and who you are. When you can follow your purpose in action and be complementary and vulnerable towards people around you, naturally, you will become magnetic. People what to be around you and take in your energy. And that’s when things start to move around you.
