🗣️ Charisma is not given, it's taken
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What is charisma?
📖 “the ability to attract the attention and admiration of others, and to be seen as a leader” - Cambridge Dictionary.
👉🏼 How I prefer to talk about charisma involves authenticity. Being unapologetically yourself and owning your choices as well as mistakes. Owing who you are in your greatness but especially in your shortcomings.
Charisma may and does differ depending on the personality type or personal traits. That does not mean it’s not available to everyone.
Being unapologetically yourself 🦸🏼♂️
Yesterday, a friend sent me a thread about the new beauty filters on TikTok (see more examples in the Twitter thread).
Filters which make you look smooth and more like a model. You don't see any glitches and cannot notice that it's a filter if you don't know the person on a daily basis. It is opposite to what I have in mind.
Most people romanticise with the idea of looking or being ideal, but they are not appealed to ideal people in the long run. They are drawn to people they can relate to and who have flaws yet can embrace them. It's what builds trust, shows strength and self-respect.
Examples:
Being able to make a joke from a specific trait of yours.
Mentioning that you need to think things through when getting asked a question and not feeling the urge to respond right away.
Not loosing your head when you forget what you wanted to say.
Being unapologetically yourself has nothing to do with being rude, manipulating, narcissistic or loud. Self-confident people don’t need to be loud to make a statement, nor do truly charismatic ones.
How to build charisma? 📣
Thanks to TED Talks and TEDx from the whole world, we can observe various people on the stage and how they engage differently with the audience.
Here are my thoughts as to what helps in building charisma:
Get comfortable with who you are - how you look, your background, salary, weaknesses etc. It’s about self-acceptance. 👉🏼 “Radical Acceptance” by Tara Brach.
Work through your sh*t - whether through therapy, coaching or other means, it helps with not being triggered, managing your emotions appropriately, and responding instead of reacting. This behaviour fosters trust.
Build self-confidence - being confident of who you are, learning about your beliefs, values, non-negotiables and why they are essential to you. Step 2 above also can help immensely here.
Put yourself out there and stand for what you believe in - only in interaction with others can we share our ideas and exchange thoughts. I polished my writing and communication when I started writing regularly. Same with public speaking.
👉🏼 “Dare to Lead” by Brené Brown.
Polish your communication, body language and other traits to be more in touch and get through with your message.
Why focus on this? If we change the quality of our thoughts, our body language will follow and vice versa. It’s a two-way street.
Example: If we think positively about ourselves and feel our self-worth, we will stand more confidently with a more open body, smile more and interact with others. One won’t need to think about how to stand to look good; the body will follow suit.
That is why when we tackle our inner battles, understand who we are and start interacting with others, we will gain more charismatic personality traits.
Will it be enough? There is no clear answer to that but certainly, we will be more interesting and “real” to others. This will be a great, stable building block to learn further how to share your ideas with the world.
Few questions to ponder upon:
What do people value in your communication style?
Where do you think you are charismatic, and how does it show to others?
What though patters stop you from being more authentic and which help you in that?
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🎈Share this post if you think it can help others to be more charismatic and embrace their authenticity.