How to build charisma and captivate people

Presence.

Charismatic people make you feel they are entirely with you and intensely into your conversation. They make you feel like they care, and they make you feel good without trying to impress.

Presence requires a vast effort of mental focus and to know how to manage your emotions.

To improve your presence and convey benevolence you can:

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Prepare your interactions to learn more about your audience and what they care about
Identify your common points with them so you can use them to connect
Elicit a calm state before speaking in public for example
Listen, listen, listen!
Ask questions to your interlocutor(s) that show that you are genuinely interested in them

Authenticity.

Charismatic individuals do not need to imitate others because they feel comfortable with who they are - the good, the bad and the ugly. They are very expressive and congruent when they communicate: their body language, facial expressions and voice tone match their message.

We are often scared to be authentic, hiding behind the person we would like to be. Many times we restrict ourselves to feel the safest possible. Our voice becomes monotonous and we literally shrink - resulting in a total absence of charisma.

Here are our typical top 3 fears when it comes to disclosing who we are: fear of failure, fear of rejection and fear of embarrassment.

To feel free to be and communicate our true self and be authentic, we need to overcome those fears. We need to change the meaning we attribute to those fears and detach their object from our essence. And we need to know, love and fully accept who we are. Because the more we love ourselves, the more likely we are to love others and to impact them deeply with our communication.

Concretely, what can we do to win the battle against our fears and practice self-acceptance?

• Re-interpret the objects of our fears:

Failure: FROM being afraid of being judged as a failure (which touches on my essence) TO looking at failure as the information of not having succeeded, which comes with a lot of valuable learnings.

Rejection: FROM thinking that I may not be good enough (doubting my own value) TO understanding that rejection comes from different perceptions and representations of the world.

Embarrassment: FROM thinking that I am stupid, or that I am a joke (my essence) TO understanding that having done a silly thing (behavior) does not make me stupid.

• Fully embrace and appreciate who we are:

Reminding ourselves constantly of our successes, what people value in us and why they love us.

(Lovingly) reminding ourselves of our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities and our mistakes.

We tend to take ourselves too seriously! The thing is, no one likes people who are always perfect. Our imperfections make us more approachable and more human!

• Working on our non-verbal and paraverbal communication

Non-verbal communication refers to our body language, incl. facial expressions. Paraverbal communication encompasses our voice tone, pitch and pacing.

A great exercise is to watch eloquent speakers in a language that you don’t master, so you can appreciate their non-verbal communication without being distracted by the words and their meaning.

You can also practice connecting with your feelings when mentioning them. E.g. in “I’m very excited to be here!” the word excited needs to convey enthusiasm. Practice sadness, joy, fear. Assess your congruence, and ask a couple of friends for feedback.

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Authenticity

Storytelling allows us to impact people both rationally and emotionally. It is a powerful art in the field of charisma and persuasion!

Owen Fitzpatrick, a talented psychologist, public speaker and NLP Master Trainer, talks about “colorful storytelling” and provides very useful tips inherited from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).

How can you improve your storytelling?

• Be intentional about the rhythm of your speech

The pace of your speech and written communication greatly influences the feelings you generate among your audience.

If your intention is to excite and motivate, use shorter sentences that tend to speed up the rhythm of your speech.

If your intention is to generate calmness and introspection, use longer sentences and more adverbs. No wonder, hypnosis uses long sentences!

• Make them live your stories with you

Stories are a fantastic way to create an emotional impact in your audience and make your message very memorable.

When telling a story, don't tell people what happened and a series of cold facts. Instead, make them live the story with you by making it more engaging. Try to use more powerful, vivid and visual verbs and nouns to create images in people’s mind.

You should also seek to re-create dialogues and play the characters with their accents and qualities, so your audience can empathize with the characters.

To wrap it up:

Presence, Authenticity and Storytelling are 3 fundamental pillars of charisma.

Being present requires self-awareness and self-management. It requires you to listen actively and manage your emotions during interactions. It leaves a strong mark on others as it conveys care and benevolence.

Being authentic requires you to work on your fears, accept your imperfections and convey your emotions. The moment you embrace your emotions and embed them in your communication, your audience will sense it and you will be able to generate more impact.

Stories are a fantastic vehicle to carry your audience on a memorable journey with you where they can experiment and feel. Storytelling is a fantastic tool to create both a rational and emotional impact.

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