Having no charisma is ruining your life

Due to the internet age and people being on their phones all the time, people have lost the ability to communicate effectively with other people. And that's probably not a secret to you at all. You've probably felt the effects of this in your own life. The more you scroll on your phone, the more you become a passive consumer of content. Stuck inside by yourself, quite naturally, you're probably going to get worse at talking with people. You're probably going to get worse at coming across as somebody who is charming and likable.

And you might be wondering, like, okay, well, in the internet age, what's the point of coming across as charming and likable? Why do I need to care about people-pleasing? And fair enough, you know, I don't think that people should be overly concerned about what other people think of them. But I do think that they should be somewhat concerned. Because the way the world is structured right now is most people don't have charisma, but the people that do seem to run the world. The people with high charisma are your worldly—well, not all the world leaders. The people with high charisma are the people you see on podcasts, the people that you see on your Instagram reels. Charisma is in higher demand than it ever has been because it's dwindling.

So, I don't know what your life situation is, but I would argue that there is no life situation that you could be in where having worse charisma than you do now would benefit you. I don't know if you're going into university for your first semester. I don't know if you're at a new job or a job that you've been in for your whole life, whether you're starting to date or whether you're in a relationship. Maybe you want to make more friends. No matter what situation you're in, if you were to change one variable, that being your charisma, I guarantee you all of those things would become much easier for you.

You could be the most brilliant mind in the world, but if nobody likes you, nobody's going to listen to you. Nobody's going to give you a job. No one's going to want to be around you, except for your family. If you have low charisma, even your family will grit their teeth when they're around you. I don't know if that's entirely true, I'm just trying to create an intro here.

Okay, so you've decided you want to increase your charisma. Well, in order to do that, you need to be aware of the three keys to charisma. The first key is presence. Presence is about being fully attentive and in the moment. The most charismatic people in the world are fully present when you talk to them. They are actually listening to you. There's nobody else in the room. They are not a space cadet. They're not thinking about all of these other things they have to do—or at least they don't come across that way, right? Because charisma is all about perception. It's all about how people perceive you.

Nothing is less charismatic than when you're trying to talk to somebody and they're just on their phone, and they like sometimes make eye contact, but they're really not listening to you. Personally, you're just like, "All right, you dude, like I don't know what to do here." And at the same time, I feel like we've all talked to people who, they are making eye contact but there just seems to be like a certain glossiness to their eyes, a wall of separation. And you're like, you're looking at me, but you're kind of not responding properly. You're not responding in real time. I don't actually know if you're listening—where are you?

So, presence naturally is about being here in this world. You are down to earth. So, if you want to be perceived as more present, then you kind of have to actually be present. And this is one of these things that we're going to discover about charisma. You can do all these things and pretend to be present. You could be kind of a space cadet, worrying about all these things you have to do, and then just smile and nod and aggressively agree and ask some random question that has nothing to do with what the person was talking about. That's not being present, and people can see right through that.

If you want to be perceived as genuinely present and right there with somebody, then you have to be genuinely present and be right there with somebody. So how do we do that? Well, the most obvious thing is tips like practice mindfulness, and don't worry so much and de-stress and whatever, but you already know all that stuff. But I think the biggest pitfall to being present, and the biggest reason why almost nobody seems to be like right there with you nowadays is, well, well, you guessed it—it's because of screens. And I'm just going to get on social media this whole video because that's all I do.

But yeah, have you ever noticed that when you're on your phone all day? You know, you're scrolling, you kind of arrive at Instagram and go to Instagram reels and see what it's cooked up for you today. It almost feels like you're living life on your heels. You show up to a certain platform because you're kind of bored or you just do it compulsively. Maybe you're procrastinating something, and you sort of hope that whatever platform this is, the algorithm cooks up something good that will make you laugh or something that you can share with your friends. And if you get into the rabbit hole for long enough, you almost start to melt.

Your posture becomes even more and more passive as you just move your thumb and your brain starts to boil over. It's kind of a strange phenomenon, yet it's so normal, but it's the absolute opposite of being present. You are in the Matrix. You're not here. You're not—you don't actually know that you're sitting on a chair. You're not aware of the smells around you, the sensation of being alive. You're so used to existing in this passive state that when it comes time to have a conversation with somebody, you're used to being in a situation where you're not required to develop a response.

Yet, that is one of the fundamental keys to being perceived as charismatic. So obviously, the solution is to really pay attention to the way in which you're using technology. I'm not saying don't watch movies anymore, don't use social media, but are you a product of social media? Are you the person who's just consuming it, consuming all the ads, being entertained, bumping up other people's views and watch time—like my own—or are you using it as a tool? Are you using it as something that will give you value? Are you starting your own channel? Are you posting on social media for any useful reason? When you're watching movies, are you watching any form of art, or are you just putting on a movie to pass your time because you don't know what to do with it yourself?

You have to ask yourself, do I run away from problems? Do I have this escapist mindset? Is my head in the clouds, or am I here in this world making a difference in my own life, actively engaged in the problems, actively communicating with other people? In order to be charismatic, you have to come back down to earth and stay here.

The second key to charisma is power. Power is the perceived ability to affect the world around us. We are naturally drawn to people who we perceive as being powerful. It is one of the most important aspects of charisma. Somebody can be right there with you, but if they don't present themselves with any sort of dignity, then we naturally don't care as much about their opinion. Someone could be right there with you and have terrible body language. They dress very poorly. They clearly really don’t like themselves very much. You just generally aren't going to care as much about their opinion or care to be around them as much.

And again, that sounds super shallow, but this isn't an issue about what is morally right. I'm not saying that you shouldn't care about what that person thinks of you or you shouldn't care to be around that person or you shouldn't talk with somebody who doesn't like themselves very much. I'm talking about charisma and the components of charisma. Someone who does not have good posture, doesn't dress well, has low confidence, and appears to have low self-esteem and a low sense of self-worth—that person is not going to be perceived as very charismatic.

So, if you want to become somebody who is charismatic—which I mean, if you made it this far into the video, you do—you need to think about how you hold yourself, how you appear to others in the world. And as we've talked about in other videos, it's very hard to fake genuine confidence and genuine power. You might be able to, at a glance, you know, someone looks at you and says, "Okay, this person has good posture, he's walking like he's on a mission, and he dresses well." But as they start to have a conversation with you, it's very easy to tell whether somebody is cocky and just faking it or whether they are genuinely confident, evident, and really have this sense of internal dignity.

So, in order to generate power, in order to be somebody who feels powerful, who is perceived as powerful and useful and capable to others, you have to be useful and capable. You have to like your life. You have to be proud of yourself. You have to be somebody who feels like they're doing the right thing—somebody who has a good relationship with themselves. You almost have to generate this sort of king-like energy. A king, when he walks into a room, takes up space. He moves slowly. He prowls like a lion—shoulder blades rolling. There's a certain type of movement of power that almost can't be replicated unless you actually feel that energy thoroughly with every fiber of your being.

And everybody has felt like that at some point in their lives. When you feel powerful and when you project power, it's something that has happened as a result of the way that you've been living your life. It's a result of the active activities you've been engaging with and whether or not you've been living your life according to your own values. And then, obviously, there is the superficial element of it, which is very important as well. How do you dress? If you have been taking care of your body, you will most likely look like somebody who is taking care of their body. If you look physically weak and unhealthy, it's probably because you are physically weak and unhealthy, and people pick up on that.

I almost feel like charisma is sort of a subconscious filtering mechanism that we use to assess the health of others. It's almost this tribal mentality where we say, "Oh, this person is good for the tribe's survival. This person is good for procreation," or whatever, right? There's almost this like subconscious game going on where we create value assessments of others in a blink of an eye—we don't even notice. So ask yourself, do you exude power or are you kind of flailing around? You know, when you walk around the street, are you looking and seeing if people are noticing you? If you're chronically single, are you going to the grocery store hoping that there's some cute girl and you're like checking your corners to see if there is? That projects pretty low value.

If you are already content, you project this sense of contentment and satisfaction with your life. Then you're not darting around with this prey-like mentality. You don't look like a rabbit who's running across an open plane hoping that a hawk doesn't swoop down. You just exist. You walk around, you do what you got to do.

Yeah, you're not—right? I don’t know, guys. Before we talk about both the last key to charisma and what it looks like to put that all together, I do want to say that this entire video is based off of the book "The Charisma Myth" by Olivia Fox Cabane or Cobain. A lot of us have been listening to that on Audible, which is today's video sponsor. Because I've been talking about it for a while, I've been telling people to listen to it, develop an opinion about it, because on August 17th at 12 PM PST, I'm going to be hopping on a live stream with all of you guys and we're going to be talking about that audiobook in depth.

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Okay, the final key to charisma is warmth. You can be the most powerful person in the world. You can exude this sense of power. You can be very present with somebody, but if they get the vibe that you don't give a about them, and you are extremely self-absorbed, you're very selfish. You are very present but monologuing about yourself, never asking questions, never giving somebody the vibe that you actually care about them, you want the best for them and that you want the best for other people, you're not going to be charismatic. People are going to see you as a detriment to their survival. They're not going to want to be around you.

And there are tons of people like this. I feel like that's almost the stereotype of the Wall Street exec dressed in a nice suit. They are right there with you and they're talking with you. They are mentally sharp, but they don't give a about you. You are an absolute worm to them, and these types of people are not very charismatic. Maybe they're charismatic enough and maybe they kiss ass to the people who are important to their career advancement, but most people can see through that—they're entirely fake. No one really likes them, nobody loves them.

I think this is the one that I struggle with the most. It's not because I'm not empathetic. I feel like I'm an extremely empathetic person, but I'm not very good at portraying—or portraying. I really need to work on being like, "Oh yes, no, I care about you."

Anyways, yeah, so warmth is a weird one. I personally believe that warmth is something that you can absolutely work on, and it doesn't take much to appear as a warm person. Often, I feel like it just comes down to being proactive with having an investigatory approach to conversation. Like if you never ask somebody, "Oh, how are you doing? Oh, how are you doing?" Like that's all it takes is for you to ask "How are you doing?" right? I think anybody can do that, and it goes such a long way into being perceived as a warm person.

So many people just don't get asked how they're doing. It's tragic. And I feel like so many lives could be saved by people just asking, "You know, how are you doing?" and just listening. And somebody being like, "You know, I'm not doing well," and you can just listen to what they're saying—that's it, right? That's warmth. So get in the habit of asking people how they're doing. "How's your day going?" "Oh, why is that?" "Oh, that's so sad." It doesn't need to be this whole pity party. You can be encouraging, and being encouraging is also a part of warmth. But so is just listening, right?

So, I feel like presence and warmth go hand in hand. Being present is, I think, most of warmth anyways. Being present, being actively listening is a lot of what being warm is, and then just asking questions, saying, "I understand," saying, "How do you feel about that?" I feel like that's basically all it takes to be perceived as a warm person nowadays, just because it's so rare for people to ask those types of questions.

I feel like most people, unless you're a sociopath, are somewhat empathetic. But empathy is something that can be practiced just by bringing awareness to the fact that people have their own lives. People are just like you; they have their own struggles. A lot of warmth and empathy and all that kind of thing can become cultivated just by spending less time inside our own heads, less time in isolation, more time just being around a wide range of people and just listening to people.

And also, don't underestimate the effectiveness of a good compliment. You know, if you're somebody who gets in the habit of complimenting people, even a fake compliment is appreciated and welcomed. I've always found that even if you're struggling to come up with something to, uh, to compliment somebody on, "Oh, I like your shirt." You know, it's so nothing, but people usually appreciate that. They're like, "Oh, thank you! What the hell?" So how are you? And I like blah blah blah. Even if your compliment makes no sense, people tend to appreciate it.

Okay, so let's talk about bringing this whole thing together. What the hell did I just say? What the hell do all these things mean? And what does it look like when somebody implements presence, power, and warmth? Well, look no further than all the charismatic people in all the movies that we know and love. One of the best displays of presence, power, and warmth that I've ever seen in media is Aragorn son of Erathorn. He is the perfect example of somebody who exudes power—you know, absolute capability, physical prowess, king-like dignity.

Yet when you're talking to Aragorn, he cares about you. He cares about the little ones. He cares about his Hobbits. He cares about the world around him. He cares about fighting evil and being good. You don't see him scrolling on his phone when Frodo's trying to talk to him.

What character from a movie or show or real life do you think is extremely charismatic? Because I would love to know who you think the most charismatic people are. And, uh, yeah, I'm just curious. Or am I just expressing warmth? Am I trying to farm comments so that the video does better? Yes! If you are interested in wasting your life on social media, then follow me: instagram.com/betterideas. I don't know what to do about that because I need more followers to—no, I don't.