The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

by Olivia Fox Cabane

People Can Reveal Too Much When I first started coaching business executives, I delivered value just by improving their communication skills. These were practical, targeted tools and techniques that they could practice, fine-tune, and make their own. During the process, a strong intellectual connection would form between us. This was comfortable for all involved and made the coaching process rewarding as well as highly successful.

But gradually, as I started experimenting with the internal skills you learned in the previous chapters, I found that in addition to the intellectual connection, a strong emotional connection would form during coaching sessions. Sometimes, the emotional connection and the intellectual connection would combine into one superstrong connection. As one client described it, it was as if I were creating a force field around us, a cocoon, a container within which magic would often happen. And that’s when I started to notice a strange phenomenon. In the moment, the experience would feel magical, a real “high” for both my clients and myself. They’d do extraordinarily deep work, gaining profound insights and revelatory epiphanies. I’d often be surprised by how much they would reveal but thrilled that they progressed so much further than either of us had expected. And yet repeatedly, the very clients who’d spontaneously shared such personal revelations and expressed their awe and wonder in gaining such insights would then disappear from the face of the earth. I couldn’t understand why. Having reached such extraordinary depth and having made so much progress in just one session, I imagined they’d be eager to return. It wasn’t until I described this situation to a veteran executive coach that I understood where my error lay. My fellow coach, Eli, was a former Israeli Army officer with decades of experience. “Of course they disappear,” he told me. “They’re recoiling in shame. During the...

downsides that can accompany kindness or focus charisma. I remember one extraordinary session where I led my client from epiphany to epiphany. Oh, it was a high. He saw so much of his potential, so much of himself, he told me the scales had fallen from his eyes. He said he felt lifted, renewed, and reborn. I thought this was quite a triumph, gave him a few guidelines, and sent him on his way. I didn’t hear from him for a month. I was a bit concerned, but assumed he was focusing on his “homework.” When he finally called, he told me what had happened: “You can’t imagine the impact, the effect, that half hour with you had. I holed up in my apartment for a week. For a week it absorbed my whole world. Turned it upside down.” Yes, he had emerged, and, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, his steady ascent through the company since that week is something he thanks me for to this day. But we were lucky. I’d unknowingly walked him right into the deepest waters, and wasn’t holding his hand as I left him to figure out how to sink or swim. In the years since, under the guidance of wiser mentors, I’ve learned not to give in to the magical feeling that charisma can create and to put the brak...

this switching of roles, a chance to hear how revelatory their own sharing was. They can then decide whether they feel comfortable continuing on that path. Last, this will help them when they come off the high. If their ego recoils in shame over having shared too much, they can cling to the fact that the person they shared so much with revealed something similar. If it’s too late and they’ve already gone too far, show them that you are placing their revelations in the whole-scope context of all you know about them—that whatever they are revealing is just one piece of a much bigger picture that contains many elements they can be proud of. Say something like, “Wow, I never would have guessed you had such a strong impostor syndrome, too, considering all your accomplishments.” You can also aim to make them feel admired for having shared and ...

Let’s say you’re meeting a client for the first time. The meeting starts off great—the client clearly likes you, and you turn on your focus or kindness charisma full blast. You can feel the comfort growing, and the client increasingly reveals his plans for the company and explains where he’d most like your help. So far, so good—very good. But as the meeting progresses and the comfort level keeps growing, the client tells you how amazing it is that he feels so at ease with you. He starts revealing more about his own personal thoughts and views about how his company is doing, how he’s doing, what his hopes and dreams and fears are—even his insecurities. Your job is to listen attentively to each sentence and, using one of the techniques above, aim to break the flow when you think the potential backlash for these revelations would be too damaging. When you turn on your charisma full blast, you create a kind of reality distortion field around you. It’s a bit like hypnosis...