The Charisma Myth

Olivia Fox Cabane: Well I'm glad that you phrased the question that way actually because charisma means different things to different people. For me it is the ability to get people to like you, to trust you, to want to follow you. If you look at the studies of charisma, it's been seen as what makes people want to work with you and your company, it's what makes people want to do what you want them to do. It's quite powerful.

Rachel Salaman: And you say anyone can learn to be charismatic, but in your experience do you find that some people find that easier than other people?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Yes, in the same sense that some people have an easier time learning foreign languages or learning how to dance, but at the same time no one was born with the innate ability to drive and yet everyone who wants to learn how to drive, almost everyone can learn how to drive.

Rachel Salaman: Is it as easy as learning to drive?

Olivia Fox Cabane: It really is, yes, in the same way that driving has now become something easy to learn because of the technological progress, charisma has now become something relatively easy to learn thanks to the scientific and technological progresses.

Rachel Salaman: And how important is it to develop charisma in today's world, what can it do for us?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Well, people's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter which means that you have to make a bigger impact in a shorter amount of time in order to get their attention, capture their imagination and get them to follow you in whatever it is you want them to follow you on. So for something like that, charisma really is your best tool in terms of making a big impact fast.

Rachel Salaman: And in your book you say that charisma is a combination of presence, power and warmth, now if we can just talk about those three things for a few minutes, what do you mean by presence?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Presence really is the feeling you get that someone is paying complete attention to you, that you are the only person in the room or in the world for them at that moment. This is something that Bill Clinton was famous for. The converse of presence is the feeling you get that someone isn't really listening, they are just pretending to pay attention or worse yet, when they are looking at you their eyes are actually searching over your shoulder to see who more important they should be talking to. That's the opposite of presence and there's no bigger charisma killer.

Rachel Salaman: So is it just a simple case of telling yourself to be more present or is there more to it than that?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Well you can simply tell yourself to be more present, there are a few tricks. For instance one quirky but effective one that I love is to get people to focus on the sensation in their toes. The reason for that is this forces your brain to sweep through your entire body, it gets you very physically present and you obviously do this only for a split second but you can do this several times per conversation and it will get you very immediate.

Rachel Salaman: Do you have any other tips?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Yes, if you find your mind wandering because the conversation isn't particularly interesting to you, you can pretend that the person you're speaking to is the lead character, the hero in an independent movie, in a quirky movie and you know how even the most uninteresting character can become fascinating if they're the hero of the movie you're watching, pretend that they're that. Or you can also focus on the exact colors of their pupils. Everyone's pupils are a fascinating amalgamation of colors so you can try that.

Rachel Salaman: So the three elements were presence, power and warmth, so let's talk about power now. How can you develop your sense of power if you actually have very little power in your life or you feel like you have very little power?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Power is really not what you actually have, it's what you project. Just like with warmth or presence, people will accept whatever you project, this is all the more true with power. Power is essentially a question of body language. Yes, other things do come into play, the way people dress, the perception we have of their social class, of course their accent, the perceived level of education but frankly body language is number one and what we're really looking for is the body language of confidence because if someone appears confident, we assume that they have something to be confident about.

Rachel Salaman: So what is the body language of confidence? What does it look like?

Olivia Fox Cabane: I call it being the big gorilla in the sense of if you think of a big gorilla who is the alpha male on his territory and he is looking to intimidate other gorillas off his territory, what he would do is he would pound his chest with his fists. The reason he is doing that is two reasons: one, it makes him loud but two, he is inflating his chest and swinging his arms to the sides, he is making himself look big and scary. In human beings this is exactly the way we see how confident people are, is how much space they are willing to take up. Confident people for example, when Stanford studied confident body language, they're the ones who used furniture "wrong". They draped themselves over the chair, they used two chairs, they put one foot on the chair, they sat on the desk, they put their feet up on the desk. Even in more normal, more traditional poses, they simply tended to get more space. Non-confident people make themselves small, so imagine yourself as a big gorilla and you actually can try it right now. Get up, stretching your fingertips to the ceiling and then stretching them to the sides of the room, drawing in as deep a breath as you can to make yourself as big as you can, that's going to make you take up more space. Imagine doubling up in size as you inflate, that's being the big gorilla.

Rachel Salaman: And you've seen this actually work for people have you?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Oh yes, oh my yes, absolutely. You can see a transformation. Not only, it's an interesting cycle because not only can you see an instant boost in their body language, because physiology and psychology are so linked, this boost in body language produces a chemical boost, an actual internal chemical boost, they feel more confident which then of course reflects itself in increased confident body language which then gives yet another biochemical boost, etc, etc. Essentially it is a virtuous cycle which grows upon itself, all you have to do is get it going.

Rachel Salaman: And what about your tips for developing warmth?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Warmth is harder for a lot of us because warmth is uncomfortable and many of us did not develop warmth growing up. Warmth is what I call the messy one, the uncomfortable one, and yet it is absolutely critical because you can have high power and seem impressive but have low warmth and that will not make you charismatic. The way to develop warmth, this is where visualizations really come in, is learning how to tap into your feelings of warmth for another person, even a pet, even a stuffed animal, and bring that forth in whichever conversation you're in right now.

Rachel Salaman: So you mean you think about a pet that you feel very fond of and you visualize that warmth you feel towards that pet and you bring it in to that conversation you are having with whoever?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Exactly. The brain does not know the difference between imagination and reality, so as soon as you imagine a being, whoever that might be, for whom you have great affection, the brain will send the same cascade of warmth enhancing chemicals through your body which will then affect your body language as it would if that being were actually present. So you are essentially using the placebo effect to your advantage.

Rachel Salaman: So how hard are these things for people, what obstacles might someone run up against if they are trying to develop these three qualities?

Olivia Fox Cabane: There are a few. The biggest one I'll mention because it is so seldom talked about and it really ought to be, is called the Impostor Syndrome, which is the feeling that people get that they don't really know what they're doing and it is just a matter of time before they're found out and exposed as a fraud. So what's interesting is that this feeling actually hits 70-80 percent of the population and it gets worse the more intelligent and educated people are, possibly because the more you know, the more you're aware of how small your knowledge is against the sum total of knowledge in your field and therefore the more likely that the Impostor Syndrome will hit.

Rachel Salaman: So how does that relate to them trying to become more present and powerful and warm?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Well if you think about it, all of these three characteristics can be inhibited by something like the Impostor Syndrome because if you are trying to be present in a conversation but in your brain there is this constant nagging voice going "it's just a matter of time before you're found out and exposed as a fraud," half your attention is going to go to beating that back or worse, let's say that the nasty internal critical voices start saying mean things to you in your head. Let's imagine for instance that you say something and your brain goes "Oh God, that was stupid," as a natural reaction your face is going to wince the minute you hear that internally so that wince was self-directed, that tension in your face was against yourself but the person speaking to you doesn't know that, all they know is that while you were listening to them, looking at them and perhaps thinking about them, they accurately saw this tension in your face so naturally they are going to assume that all this was about them.

Rachel Salaman: So what can someone do to overcome the Impostor Syndrome?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Destimatisation, meaning lifting the stigma off the experience, is the first step and it is surprisingly effective. Just knowing that this feeling has a name, that it's normal, that it's just a legacy of our genetic heritage and I won't run you through the science but it's fairly commonly known today, it is a bit like the appendix. We don't need the appendix any more today but we still have it, sometimes it gets inflamed and you get an appendicitis. We don't really need the Impostor Syndrome any more today but we still have it and sometimes it acts up, same thing. So just knowing that this is normal and you can just put it to the side, understand that these feelings happen and just because these feelings are worries in your mind does not mean that the have any validity.

Rachel Salaman: So a lot of these things you are talking about are what you might call mind control elements and in your book you call them charismatic mental states, would that be right?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Yes, that's one way to call them, absolutely.

Rachel Salaman: Could you just talk a bit more about that and perhaps give a couple more examples and just explain how that helps people to develop charisma?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Well it is really the simple fact that whatever's in your head is going to play out in your body language and whatever's in your body language is going to determine the outcome of how people feel about you. So a couple of stats I like to quote in this vein, when the MIT Media Lab was studying the outcome of negotiations, sales calls and business pitches, they were able to predict the outcomes with 87 percent accuracy without listening to a single word of content, only by analyzing the voice fluctuation and the facial expressions of the person pitching. So this gives you an idea of just how critical your body language is to your interactions and as to what determines your body language, well there is far too much body language for you to control consciously. Essentially your body is a 24/7 continuous transmitter of everything that is in your head. Here is one of the classic examples that I give, Rachel were you aware of your eyelids fluttering in front of your eyes every moment until I just mentioned it?

Rachel Salaman: No.

Olivia Fox Cabane: All right, how about the weight of your tongue in your mouth?

Rachel Salaman: No.

Olivia Fox Cabane: Okay, now think about the position of your toes, were you thinking about that?

Rachel Salaman: No, I wasn't thinking about it, no.

Olivia Fox Cabane: Uh-huh, have you forgotten about your eyelids again?

Rachel Salaman: Yes!

Olivia Fox Cabane: That gives you a sense that every single moment there is so much body language pouring forth that we cannot control, there's far too much so the quick answer is that anything that is in your head will come out through your body language, anything that's in your body language will determine the outcome of how people feel about you. So this is why it is so critical to get the right mental state, charisma begins in the mind.

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Rachel Salaman: Throughout your book and also throughout this conversation, you've shown how imagination can make a difference. I love the example in your book where you talk about imagining angel wings on someone and it can make you behave differently.

Olivia Fox Cabane: Oh that's one that's surprisingly effective. I've had hard core, seasoned, veteran, gray-haired executives tell me, you know, the angel thing I never would have expected to work and yet it works.

Rachel Salaman: So can you talk a bit more about this role of imagination because it's a very unusual take on this yet it seems to be so effective.

Olivia Fox Cabane: Well it's very simple, it's just based on the fact that our brains literally do not know the difference between imagination and reality. This is the reason why you have ever been scared watching a scary movie, because consciously you know that they are just well-paid actors up there who are delighted to look like they're getting their head chopped off in exchange for a couple of million dollars but subconsciously your brain sees blood and guts on the screen that sends you straight into fight or flight mode, adrenaline rushing through your system. This is the lack of distinction between fact and fiction, what this means is that whatever you imagine, your brain and therefore your body will accept as real. So you can design any mental state you want to have just by plying your imagination in that direction.

Rachel Salaman: Now we all know some people who say they don't have any imagination or they don't have much imagination so how can they develop it and thereby access the benefits that it can bring?

Olivia Fox Cabane: You don't actually really need an imagination. If you are figuring out how to get from one place to another, well you are going to be able to use these tricks, it's just the ability to think of things that are not physically present and we all have this capacity. If you can right now for example picture the London Eye, can you picture that?

Rachel Salaman: Yes.

Olivia Fox Cabane: Well that's all you need, that's about the amount of imagination you need. Visualization is literally the ability to hold an image in your mind, period, end of story.

Rachel Salaman: Now you've mentioned visualization a couple of times, can you give us an example of how that can help with charisma?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Yes, visualization is one of the power tools of charisma because the human brain reacts to images far faster and far more strongly than it does to words which is why by choosing the right images you can immediately get into the right mental states and immediately get the right feeling following through your body that's the right body language so for example, one of the more uncomfortable but effective warmth enhancing visualizations if you would give me about five seconds and just close your eyes if you can.

Rachel Salaman: Yes.

Olivia Fox Cabane: Imagine one being, whether present or past, mythical or actual, I do not care if it is God, Buddha, Jesus, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, anyone who you believe could have great affection for you, whether it be again a human being or not, even a pet or a stuffed animal and just for half a second imagine this being in front of you. Now all you need to do is imagine in three steps, first imagine their warmth flowing towards you and just let that warmth envelop you and wrap itself around you and then feel them giving you complete utter wholehearted forgiveness for anything that your mind has been saying is not good enough. You are completely and unconditionally forgiven. And last, imagine for just a second, lifting off your shoulders the responsibility for anything that you'd been considering for today or anything that you've been worrying about, take the responsibility for that off your shoulders, push it off your shoulders and onto the shoulders of the universe, God, fate, whatever entity you can imagine for half a second and just feel the weight of responsibility lifted off your shoulders, they are in charge of optimizing the outcome of that right now. That's it, that's about a five to ten second visualization that gets oxytocin flowing through your body which immediately enhances the warmth that your body language projects.

Rachel Salaman: It's the power of imagination again isn't it?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Yes, indeed.

Rachel Salaman: Now in the book you talk about there being different types of charisma and you explore four of these in particular – focus, visionary, kindness and authority. Could you just briefly talk us through the difference between those in practical terms?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Absolutely and there are actually a few more, I just picked the four that were the most easy to access and the most useful in daily life and in business since that's who I was writing the book for. Focus charisma is a very useful tool, it is easy to access, all it requires is patience and, not surprisingly, focus and it is remarkably effective particularly in business. This is the kind of charisma that you get by having high amounts of presence, this is when you give your full attention to someone, really listening to what they're saying and bring yourself physically back to the conversation time and time again. This makes people feel heard and listened to and it is a very effective one when you are meeting people to confide in you. Kindness charisma is what for example the Dalai Lama would have, this is one that you get by broadcasting complete acceptance. Wholehearted acceptance is something that we human beings crave even more than love, it's even more rare than love is. Unconditional acceptance is something that we don't really get after the first few weeks of our existence so if you can broadcast complete acceptance to that person, it's why the angel wings visualization is very effective. Whatever you need to do to increase warmth towards a person you're facing, seeing them with angel wings, seeing them as this is one of your angels and they need your help or seeing them as a four year old nephew or niece who might be coming to you with a scraped knee or having just lost their favorite stuffed animal, whatever it is you need to do to increase warmth towards that person. Authority charisma is of course one of the most powerful. If you think of the dictators in the world, many of them had authority charisma. This one broadcasts a high amount of power, confidence, absolute certainty in their ability to impact the world around them. It is not a very "nice" form of charisma but it is very effective, particularly in a crisis and the last one, visionary, this is the one where the focus is less on you but on the mission, the vision and your absolute rock solid belief in the vision that you are proposing.

Rachel Salaman: You say that people should decide which charisma style is suitable for which audience or situation, how do you know which one you should be using?

Olivia Fox Cabane: It's always a best guess, there's no form of charisma that is ever always right or wrong per se, it's which one is more comfortable and natural to you, which one will be most effective for the situation, for example in a crisis situation authority charisma works great. You might not want to use authority charisma when someone is coming to you with a broken heart, in that case kindness charisma is far better. It's also a question of are you looking to stretch your abilities, to grow and to learn different and new kinds of charisma, in which case absolutely, go for new ones.

Rachel Salaman: Now being able to switch like that does imply a certain cunning or even a desire to manipulate the situation.

Olivia Fox Cabane: No, not really. The same way as am I being manipulated by speaking English to you right now, I'm speaking English because it is the language that will enhance our communication better. I could decide that I want to be "true to myself" and speak only Spanish or French. Charisma is nothing but a tool, it is like choosing which language you are going to speak, that's the exact same thing as choosing which form of charisma you are going to use.

Rachel Salaman: So just in case there is any confusion, how does authenticity fit into this?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Oh it's absolutely critical. Human beings are terrible liars and excellent lie detectors so for example, when you are trying to fake an emotion, even when you control the main expression on your face, sooner or later what is called a micro expression will flash past your face in 16 to 32 milliseconds and yet people will catch that because that is about how fast human beings read faces, so the honest to God answer is you can't fake stuff because the human brain is terrible at faking emotions plus lying or trying to deceive is a huge load on the brain which means it uses up a huge amount of your attention, you become stupider. I would not recommend that to anyone.

Rachel Salaman: Right, so people can apply all of these tips and remain 100 percent authentic?

Olivia Fox Cabane: Absolutely, I would heartily recommend that.

Rachel Salaman: Now in the book you talk about the role a person's voice can play in increasing charisma and it's interesting that among your tips you say that we should speak slowly and with pauses...

Olivia Fox Cabane: I'm sorry Rachel, I'll have to stop you there. Again, it depends. Nothing is ever always bad or good per se, it's always depending on the situation, how you're feeling, your audience, what you want to achieve. When you want to emanate more gravitas, more power then absolutely, yes. Think of speaking like a preacher, it's a pretty good combination because if you think particularly of the Martin Luther King type preacher we have here, they have an excellent combination of presence, they are fully focused in the moment, power and authority because they have the might of God behind them so they are going to have that confidence. They speak in slow, rich, resonant tones and they have the warmth because they passionately believe in what they're saying and hopefully they care about their flock and bringing them to wherever it is they say they're going to bring them.

Rachel Salaman: Okay, so my question was going to be that slow speech can come over as a little bit dull and frustrating to listen to but obviously not if you are in a situation where sounding like a preacher makes sense.

Olivia Fox Cabane: Right, it's always a question of what is the situation and slowing down and inserting pauses is something that's worth coupling with increasing the fluctuation in your voice. The real reason that voices sound boring is they're flat and monotone, if you increase the fluctuation – now my voice is off the charts fluctuating, you don't need to go to that extent, this is something I've ingrained just because I'm a public speaker but just increasing by a small amount the fluctuation in your voice, and I'm going to really exaggerate here so please do not do this in real life but think of speaking to a baby. You know how baby talk goes "I've a little something from grandma" and in exaggerated terms that is what you would want to do.

Rachel Salaman: And you devote a chapter to using charisma skills in difficult situations which is really interesting. Can you give an example of how that might work?

Olivia Fox Cabane: It could be for example if someone comes to you with a problem, something that is weighing on their minds and they need a sympathetic ear, this is where focus charisma would be critical. If someone has just received very bad news, kindness charisma would be fantastic but in certain difficult situations it is knowing how to deal with difficult people, big egos, this is a slightly different category and the first rule of thumb here is to never, ever, ever make people feel wrong because when people feel wrong they will tend to, in their minds, want to justify themselves, defend themselves and they will most often do that by putting the blame on you.

Rachel Salaman: So what's the alternative then?

Olivia Fox Cabane: In this case I would recommend trying to salvage their ego so that they have a way out that does not make them wrong, make it clear that what you are critiquing is the situation or the behavior but not them as a person and then decide which one of charisma is going to be most useful. One of the most effective things you can do also is give them credit for the solution that you are going to be proposing, show them how the solution that you are proposing is either inspired by them or similar to something that they've done in the past and since people tend to like what of course they have done, they will be more willing to take ownership and participate in whatever outcome you want to go after.

Rachel Salaman: It's interesting that you say that charisma does have side effects so could you tell us what they are and how they can be dealt with?

Olivia Fox Cabane: It really does and there are a few of them. Some of them are obvious, for example charisma is so powerful that it works even when it shouldn't, meaning that you become able to convince people even when you're dead wrong and some of my clients have had to learn how to turn their charisma off when they are brainstorming with their own teams because otherwise everyone would automatically follow their ideas, which might not necessarily be the best ones. Another side effect of charisma is simply that people start seeing you as superman and they expect that you will be able to fix anything or make anything happen so they can become over-confident and start taking risks that they shouldn't because they expect that you can fix anything or they slack off and they stop working as hard because they expect that you'll be able to make anything happen. A few of the others is that it gets lonely at the top and as people start seeing you as special or different or powerful, they see you as separate from them and a fair number of the senior executives that I work with come to me because of that, they are no longer getting the feedback that they need and they no longer have the completely unfiltered conversations that they will need to have in order to grow.

Rachel Salaman: So what are your tips for them in that kind of scenario?

Olivia Fox Cabane: In most of these, showing humanity, showing actual emotional vulnerability just in tiny touches here and there, to remind people on a very visceral level that you are human, that's one of the most effective ways of countering this.

Rachel Salaman: So if someone wanted to increase their charisma starting tomorrow, what would be your three top tops for them?

Olivia Fox Cabane:I would say number one, get comfortable with the Impostor Syndrome and all the other voices in your head and there are a couple of excellent books and resources out there that handle that but just knowing that these are entirely normal helps. Number two, learn how to increase power by standing more and breathing and walking and talking like a big gorilla and number three, of course, increase warmth. With those three you will have a measurable increase in charisma immediately.

Rachel Salaman: Olivia Fox Cabane, thanks very much for joining us.

Olivia Fox Cabane: You're very welcome, it was a pleasure.

Rachel Salaman: You can find out more about Olivia and her work at www.askolivia.com. The name of her book again is "The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism" and it really is a very useful and practical guide.

I'll be back in a few weeks with another Expert Interview. Until then, goodbye.