The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism Read Online Free PDF Page B

make intuitive sense to you. In the following chapters, we’ll fine-tune this skill and make more powerful the internal processes you already use.
    The mind-over-body effect also has a corresponding downside, called the
nocebo effect
. 7 In this case, the mind creates toxic consequences in the body in reaction to completely fictional causes. In one experiment, people who knew they were extremely allergic to poisonivy were rubbed with a completely harmless leaf but told they’d been exposed to poison ivy. Every single one of them developed a rash where they had been rubbed.
    Both the placebo effect and the nocebo effect play a critical role in our ability to unleash our full charisma potential. Due to the fact that whatever is in our mind affects our body, and because our mind has trouble distinguishing imagination from reality, whatever we imagine can have an impact on our body language and, thus, on our levels of charisma. Our imagination can dramatically enhance or inhibit our charisma, depending on its content.
    You’ve just gained the foundation for many of the most powerful internal charisma tools, and we’ll refer to it often.
    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    Charisma has three essential components: presence, power, and warmth.
    Being present—paying attention to what’s going on rather than being caught up in your thoughts—can yield immense rewards. When you exhibit presence, those around you feel listened to, respected, and valued.
    Because your body language telegraphs your internal state to those around you, in order to be charismatic—to exhibit presence, power, and warmth—you must display charismatic body language.
    Because your mind can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality, by creating a charismatic internal state your body language will authentically display charisma.
    In terms of achieving charisma, your internal state is critical. Get the internal state right, and the right charismatic behaviors and body language will pour forth automatically.

    * In fact, Stanford researchers conducted experiments showing that when people try to hide their real feelings, they provoke a threat-response arousal in others. 5

3

The Obstacles to Presence,
Power, and Warmth
    MICHELANGELO INSISTED THAT he never
created
 his glorious statues—he simply
revealed
 them. His only talent, he said, was in looking at the block of marble and discerning the statue within. All he then needed was the skill to chip away the excess, letting the statue emerge. That is what this chapter will help you do: identify the obstacles that are holding back your charismatic self.
    As you now know, your mental state is critical to your ability to project charismatic body language. However, there are a number of things that can—and often do—get in the way of having the right mental state to project presence, power, or warmth. Increasing your charisma requires first knowing which internal obstacles are currently inhibiting your personal charisma potential. In this chapter we’ll take a look at the different kinds of physical and mental discomfort that can stand in the way of your charismatic self.
    Physical Discomfort
    It was a $4 million deal, and it was nearly lost because of a black wool suit.
    On a hot, sunny day in Manhattan, traffic is humming and people are rushing along the busy streets. Sitting at the terrace of a restaurant, wearing his very best black wool suit, Tom is studying the menu. Across the table, studying his own menu, is Paul, CEO of a company Tom has been courting for months. As they make their choices, the waiter jots down their orders, whisks the menus off the table, and departs.
    For months, Tom and his team have obsessively run the numbers and tested all possible scenarios. They know for sure that their system would save Paul both time and money. But for Paul, this would be a big gamble. Implementing a new system company-wide could go catastrophically wrong. What if it stops working on Christmas morning, when