This is Matthew Hussey from ‘Get that Guy’.
Today I want to take five secrets for charisma that I have learned over the last decade of being on TV and apply them to your everyday life.
#1 Be “in the room”.
Before I go and do a TV segment I’ll often think about what I want to say. I think about some stories or some answers to questions so that when I get there I know what I have locked and loaded and ready to say. The problem with being too focused on that plan is that you miss sometimes what’s actually going on in the room. It’s the same way when you’re on a date or when you’re in a conversation. If you are so focused on what you want to say next that you’re not actually listening to what they’re saying—the tone, the inflection—you might actually miss the most important part. You might miss the moment, the throwaway line in the middle of a sentence where they alluded to something they were particularly passionate about and you only know that because their eyes lit up in that moment. That’s a signal for you to focus on that thing. But if you’re thinking about what you’re gonna say next you miss that moment.
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#2 Talk about what you care about.
The greatest way to make up for a lack of eloquence or fluidity in what you’re saying is simply to talk about something you’re actually passionate about. When I go on TV, I think of what is the heart of this that I really care about. Forget the logical point I’m trying to make—what’s the heart of it. Because if I understand what the emotional core of it is—if I understand why it’s important to me—now I’m gonna talk with a different energy. And I think that’s what’s lacking sometimes when we speak at a dinner party or when we’re at a social event or on a date. We spend so much time worrying about small talk that we don’t actually spend time thinking about what we want to talk about. What actually matters to us and if we do that—then a different level of passion and energy is going to come across.
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#3 Find a way to relate.
When I’m on TV, I am often speaking with people who are from different worlds who have vastly different jobs. And I may know nothing about their world or their experience. But I might know something about the feelings they experience because feelings are universal. This is true in life in general. Sometimes on a date with someone whose job we don’t understand or we don’t have any experience with or who someone who likes a sport that we’re not—here’s the trick. I may not be interested in the sport you play but if I understand what your relationship with that sport is—why you love it, what feeling it gives you or why you’re energized by it—I might actually find that there’s something that like: “Wow that’s the same as the way I relate to this thing in my life.”
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#4 Disagree with pointers.
I am often put in a situation on TV where the whole idea is for me to disagree with someone. These two relationship experts are about to go head-to-head, they’ll put me on a panel with someone they know is going to have a different point of view. I’ve always learned from some of the best debaters in the world that the ones who have the most power are the ones that can disagree with a level of charm, with a level of wit. They have this way of disagreeing with someone and making their point but also giving you the impression that they weren’t about to lose sleep over it. We all know these people at a dinner party who can’t affectionately or charmingly disagree on anything, instead they’ll ruin the whole dinner party over a conversation where they get heated and they lose their cool and now it’s awkward. If you want to have real charisma, have the ability to charmingly disagree with someone without investing all of your emotional self into the game.
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#5 There is no substitute for stage time.
Part of my comfort in the media world comes from the fact that I’ve done it many times before. If you want to be good on a date—going on dates and getting some practice dates in helps. If you want to tell better stories tell more stories or tell the same story more times. If you want to be great in conversation have more conversations. There is no substitute for getting out there and doing the thing that you want to practice when it comes to human dynamics now you may be watching this thinking you want to have more charisma you want to get out there and get your stage time.
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Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash
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Like this? Visit Matthew Hussey’s channel on YouTube. While you’re there, subscribe!
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