The Charisma Myth Quotes

“Our inability to tolerate uncertainty carries multiple costs. It can cause us to make premature decisions. It can handicap us in negotiations, leading us to reveal more than we should as we scramble to fill the silence, unable to bear the uncertainty of not knowing what the other person is thinking. And most important, it can lead us to feel anxious. Anxiety is a serious drawback to charisma.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How to Engage, Influence and Motivate People

“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.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How to Engage, Influence and Motivate People

“Both power and warmth are necessary conditions for charisma. Someone who is powerful but not warm can be impressive, but isn’t necessarily perceived as charismatic and can come across as arrogant, cold, or standoffish. Someone who possesses warmth without power can be likable, but isn’t necessarily perceived as charismatic and can come across as overeager, subservient, or desperate to please.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How to Engage, Influence and Motivate People

“In order to be charismatic, we need to choose mental states that make our body language, words, and behaviors flow together and express the three core elements of charisma. Since presence is the foundation for everything else, that’s where we’ll start.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How to Engage, Influence and Motivate People

“Through charisma training you will learn how to adopt a charismatic posture, how to warm up your eye contact, and how to modulate your voice in ways that make people pay attention. Three quick tips to gain an instant charisma boost in conversation: Lower the intonation of your voice at the end of your sentences. Reduce how quickly and how often you nod. Pause for two full seconds before you speak.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How to Engage, Influence and Motivate People

“Charisma has three essential components: presence, power, and warmth.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“three crucial aspects of charisma: presence, power, and warmth.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“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.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“Warmth, simply put, is goodwill toward others. Warmth tells us whether or not people will want to use whatever power they have in our favor. Being seen as warm means being perceived as any of the following: benevolent, altruistic, caring, or willing to impact our world in a positive way. Warmth is assessed almost entirely through body language and behavior; it’s evaluated more directly than power.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“Because so few of us are ever fully present, if you can manage even a few moments of full presence from time to time, you’ll make quite an impact.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“CHARISMATIC BEHAVIOR CAN be broken down into three core elements: presence, power, and warmth.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“A final dimension underlies both of these qualities: presence. When people describe their experience of seeing charisma in action, whether they met Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, or the Dalai Lama, they often mention the individual’s extraordinary “presence.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“The equation that produces charisma is actually fairly simple. All you have to do is give the impression that you possess both high power and high warmth, since charismatic behaviors project a combination of these two qualities. “Fight or flight?” is the power question. “Friend or foe?” is the warmth question.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“When you meet a charismatic person, you get the impression that they have a lot of power and they like you a lot.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“The other reason first impressions have such an impact is that often they actually are right. In one study conducted at the University of Texas at Austin, people were able to accurately judge nine out of ten personality traits by looking at a single photograph. The traits in question were extroversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, likability, self-esteem, loneliness, religiosity, and even political orientation.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“Visualization is indeed a powerful tool. Of all the charisma-boosting techniques, this is the one I recommend making a permanent part of your toolkit. If you gain nothing else from this book, this one technique will make a critical difference to your charisma.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“What’s the worst that can happen?” As Churchill said, failure is seldom fatal, and just realizing that even the worst-case scenario is survivable can bolster your confidence.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“When your brain spins negative scenarios, remind yourself that you may not be getting an accurate perception of reality. Your brain might be following its negativity bias, playing up some elements more than others, or omitting some positives entirely.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

“Shame hits us so powerfully because it conveys a message about our fundamental acceptability as human beings. And in basic survival terms, if the tribe rejects you, you die. It is a life-and-death situation. The brain equates social needs with survival; being hungry and being ostracized activate similar neural responses.”
― Olivia Fox Cabane, The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism