Principle 4: Having a focus wider than your own self is a key element for charisma
“I think I understood the previous principles. What is this one about?”
“This one is about the next level. Let me explain! You can raise your charisma significantly if you work on the principles discussed earlier. But, you will still hit a ceiling. This is the journey to go from successful to significant. You can be successful with all these, but to be really significant,
you need to focus outside yourself on something bigger than yourself. This is what I was referring to when I said you can start to teach others your learnings on the way, as early as you think you are ready for it. Remember, people do not follow other people, they follow causes. Leadership comes from envisioning something that doesn’t yet exist and then fearlessly heading towards it taking along others who wish to go there too.”
“You can be successful with all these, but to be really significant, you need to have the focus outside yourself on something bigger than yourself.” |
“Some kind of spiritual growth gets unlocked when you move beyond yourself to others. Try this for yourself. From where you are right now in life, start adding a few activities that impact more lives than your own and your immediate family and see the magic unfold! Your energy and resources will expand in the proportion of your span of consideration, that is, how many people you really care about. Here, people typically think that they will share once they have it, which is in contradiction to the law of intention that we talked about earlier. The more you keep ‘wanting’ before ‘giving’, the more you remain in the ‘wanting’ state. The moment you move into the ‘giving’ state, with whatever you can, you begin to attract a future for yourself where you continue to ‘give’ more. You are given more so you can give more. It might sound like I am talking about miracles here, but miracles happen only for people who believe that they happen. As Saint Augustine said, ‘Miracles do not happen in contradiction to nature, but only in contradiction to that which is known to us of nature’. As Albert Einstein said, ‘There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle’. Both refer to the power of belief that we discussed yesterday.”
“Ron, start to really believe that you are charismatic. Do the exercises and see how everything feeds into everything else to unleash an evolved version of yourself. Let’s get to some exercises around building Charisma
Exercise 1: Baseline your charisma: Do a current assessment of your charisma level
“The overall idea is to:
i. Assess your current self and establish the baseline
ii. Define your target aspiration
iii. Identify gaps
iv. Define steps to close them”
“Let’s begin with your current assessment. I want you to rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 along each of the defined aspects. And please, do it sincerely! A lot of people do not take these exercises seriously. Remember what Peter Drucker said, ‘What gets measured gets done!’”
Ron takes a while to think through and comes up with a scorecard for himself.
Table 4: Ron’s current charisma level
Aspect | Current score |
Dressing | 7 |
Communication | 7 |
Mannerisms | 7 |
Attitude | 5 |
Professionalism | 6 |
Exercise 2: Design the leap to next level: Define the target charisma level
Ron takes a while and decides to target a score of 9 in each of the areas.
Table 5: Ron’s target charisma level
Aspect | Current score | Target score |
Dressing | 7 | 9 |
Communication | 7 | 9 |
Mannerisms | 7 | 9 |
Attitude | 5 | 9 |
Professionalism | 6 | 9 |
“Okay, Ron. Now that you have the target scores, the next step is to design tasks on how you will raise your charisma level in each aspect. The tasks are fairly standard and the scores go higher based on how well you are able to do these tasks. It is not necessarily about adding many more new tasks.”
They take some time to work together and come up with the list.
Dressing style
Dress elegant
Shop for quality, not quantity
Communication
Become passionately interested in other people
Ask and remember names
Be respectful and considerate at all times
Develop listening skills
Refine your non-verbal communication
Mannerisms
Increase awareness
Develop a genuine smile
Be punctual
Attitude
Be authentic
Develop an optimistic attitude
Professionalism
Do more than you get paid for
Under-promise over-deliver
Exercise 3: Take the leap to next level
“I leave it to you to decide how you want to do this exercise. You don’t have to do it right away. Take your time to write down the steps it will take you to close the gap between your current and target scores. Start with the onetime activities you want to do and attach timelines to them. Once the plan is ready, put it at a place you can see it every day; bathroom mirror is always a good candidate! Some of the activities can be done quickly, while some others may take longer. Once you have a clear plan with timelines placed where it is visible, it is easy to monitor your progress.”
Exercise 4: Once this iteration becomes natural, start all over again
“As you do this exercise, you will start to hit positive momentum. You will start liking the feeling of making progress. As you go further, another observation you will make is that as you evolve to a more charismatic person at a score of 9, from that position, when you rate yourself, you will again give yourself a 6 or 7 on all or some of the items. Your horizon would have expanded and you would have seen more possibilities. That observation will verify the assertion that becoming extraordinary is a journey. Once you reach your target state, you will realize there is more distance to cover. Repeat the exercises once you reach your defined current target state and redefine a new target!”
1 videos|19 docs
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1. What is charisma and why is it important in how the world sees you? |
2. How can I develop charisma? |
3. Can charisma be learned or is it something you are born with? |
4. How can charisma impact my personal and professional life? |
5. Can charisma be perceived differently in different cultures? |
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