原文: How to Be Charismatic: 7 Powerful Tips from the Mentalist

Image by CielChen (license).

My favourite new TV-show is The Mentalist. One of my favourite little interests over the last year or so has been to try to figure out why some people stand out, why they are charismatic.

Now, if you have seen the Mentalist – a show about a former fake psychic who’s really good at reading people and helps the police out with solving a weekly murder case – then you have probably seen how charismatic Simon Baker is in the lead role.

And even if you haven’t, this article just draws some inspiration that show. Many of these qualities are those one may find in many other people that are often considered charismatic like George Clooney, Bill Clinton or just some friend you might have.

Also, I think being charismatic is about being a better you and bringing out more of yourself with less self-censoring. So these are just some general things many charismatic people seem to have been in common. There are many variations to being charismatic.

Find your own variation by exploring yourself. But also by experimenting and trying things you may not normally do. Big changes do not come from just staying in your comfort zone and telling yourself “Oh, that’s just not me”. Big changes pretty much always start with feeling awkward at first.

1. Smile.

Yes, this sounds really obvious. But you have to do it too. If you actually try smiling more you’ll discover how the world treats you changes a lot. People generally react to how you treat them. And emotions are contagious.

Charismatic people often seem to smile a whole lot. So does Simon Baker on the show, a 1000 watt smile like the one in photo above, probably a dozen times in each episode. Positivity and enthusiasm are also emotional and mental headspaces that are associated with smiling and they make other people feel good. This is probably the simplest of the tips here, and the one I would start implementing first.

And, even if you don’t always feel like smiling do it from time to time anyway (not all the time though of course, that’s just weird). Because it works backwards too. Try forcing yourself to smile for thirty seconds right now. By making yourself smile, no matter how you feel, your body will start to release all those wonderful chemicals that make you feel happy.

2. Be interested, open and curious.

Here’s a classic tip from Dale Carnegie:

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one.”

Or as a woman said after having had dinner with two English statesmen Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone:

“When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next to Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England.”

Now, you may think; “people aren’t always that interesting”. Sure, that may be the case. But this is also a belief and you tend to see what you want to see. If you make the effort to actually be genuinely interested in people you often find interesting things.

Openness is very important here. People want someone to communicate with and listen to them without judgement. So there will be a resistance towards someone who is judgemental and people may hold back or even avoid that person if it becomes too much.

On the show, Simon Baker often has an almost childlike curiosity that is warm and charming. When you are curious you become more open, positive and naturally interested in people and all kinds of stuff.

How do you become more curious? One way is to remember how life has become more fun in the past thanks to your curiosity and to remember all the cool things it helped you discover and experience. And then to work at it. Curiosity is a habit. The more curious you are the more curious you become. And over time it becomes more of a natural part of you.

3. Be fully present.

This is one of the qualities people often mention after having met charismatic people like Bill Clinton or Oprah. They are fully there. Centred and with the intense focus that being present creates. People aren’t used to that and feel special.

So listen fully to the person as an equal no matter who it is. Keep the eye-contact without staring (and don’t forget to break it sometimes). Also, presence tends to make you more open and curious in a natural way. When you are present things and people just tend to become more interesting.

Here are two quick ways to centre yourself and reconnect with the present moment again:

• Focus on your breathing. One way to quickly become present is to take breaths with your belly – this calms your body too – and just focus on your in- and out breaths for about two minutes.
• Focus on what’s right in front of you. Or around you. Or on you. Use your senses. Just look at what’s right in front of you right now. Listen to the sounds around you. Feel the fabric of your clothes and focus on how they feel.

4. Be assertive.

This is a very important point and something I think is perhaps often missed by people who want to improve their social lives. They may think “well, I have been so nice towards everyone for the last few months but it doesn’t seem to have changed their behaviour towards me much”.

This is the “nice guy/girl” problem. S/he is very nice but there is no assertiveness. There is no changed feeling within about how you feel you deserve to be treated. You may still be nice just to get approval from other people. You feel the craving need. And people who crave approval the most tend to get it the least.

We do to a large extent choose how we want to be treated. How you expect people to treat you can have a big effect on how you allow yourself to act and how people around you view and treat you.

Charismatic people are often seen as leaders of some sort. Simon Baker is assertive in a relaxed way on the show. Although he isn’t the boss officially he often gets to do things his way. And although that’s just a TV-show, I think it works a bit like that in real life too. You have to be a leader in some way, but it doesn’t have to be in an official way.

5. Be confident.

Like smiling, this one is pretty obvious too. You can’t really be that charismatic if you aren’t confident.

So what is the number one way to increase your self confidence?

I’d say, face your fears. I think that if you want to experience better self confidence on a deeper and more fundamental level you simply have to have experiences where you face your fears. There is no way around it.

Also, it’s only when you face your fears that you discover the thing that billions of people throughout history have discovered before you. Failure won’t kill you. Nor will being wrong. The sky will not fall down. That’s just what people that haven’t faced their fear yet think.

But facing your fear isn’t always easy though. Here are two tips to make it easier:

• Be present. If you are present and in the moment when you are taking action to face your fear you don’t get so nervous and stuck in negative thought loops about how everything will go wrong.
• Be curious. When you are stuck in fear you are closed up. You tend to create division in your world and mind. You create barriers between you and other things/people. When you shift to being curious the world just opens up. Curiosity is filled with anticipation and enthusiasm. It opens you up. And when you are open and enthusiastic then you have more fun things to think about than focusing on your fear.

6. Be amused.

This may sound like an odd tip but I have seen charismatic people do it quite a bit. Baker does it a lot on the show, he is constantly amused by what happens as the plot twists and turns. You can also see on DVD:s with Eckhart Tolle, a third of his seminars seems to be about him being amused by something and laughing. George Clooney does this a lot too in interviews and movies.

And I get why. Being in an amused headspace is one of the best ones you can be in. You so relaxed and having fun. You feel light. And the things you do feel lighter too.

How do you do it? By not taking everything so seriously. By keeping a light and positive attitude. By having an abundance mentality. Check out more about having a light attitude in this article.

7. Be socially free and authentic.

This may be the hardest part.

On the show Baker really don’t care too much about what people think of him. He just does what he wants. Of course, in reality you have to be a bit more careful.

But when you are overly concerned about what other people may think then you often act in reaction to what you think they might say or do. And so you can’t be your most genuine and best self.

Here are three tips that can help you increase your inner social freedom:

• Realize people don’t care too much about what you do. They have their hands full with worrying about their own lives and what people may think of them instead. Yes, this might make you feel less important in your own head. But it also sets you free a bit more if you’d like that.
• Increase your self confidence. The more confident you become, the more you have faced your own fears the less you care so much what other people may think. Over time you become stronger and more centred in yourself.
• Focus on what you can control. Here’s a great way to look at things from the ancient scripture Baghavad Gita: “To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction” To me it means that I cannot control the results of my action. I can’t control how someone reacts to what I say or what I do. And that I should do what I do just because it is something I want to do rather than because of some outcome I’d like. But at the same time I should not let these two ideas lead me to become passive and get stuck in sitting on my hands and not taking action at all. So I do what I think is right and that is my responsibility. And then the rest (the possible results), well, that is not up for me to decide about or try to control. I let it go.

Final thoughts

It seems to me that a lot about being charismatic is about making the other person/people feel good. And you inspire that and transfer that into them by being more free and genuine socially, by being fully there, by being positive and open and confident etc. yourself.

So being more charismatic is mostly about bringing out more of these or other positive qualities in yourself. They are already there to some extent. You just have to practise and have the courage to make them stronger and bring them out more consistently.

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译文: 如何让自己具有超凡的魅力：心理专家给出的7条非常具有说服力的建议

由CielChen（许可证）想象制作

  我最喜欢的电视节目是心理咨询。大概去年吧，我的兴趣之一就变成是想弄明白有些人为什么这么优秀，他们为什么这么有魅力。

  心理咨询这一节目，有一期是关于一位假冒的精神病专家，他很善于看透他人，还帮助警察解决谋杀案件。现在，如果你看过这个节目，你就会看到西蒙贝克作为一位领导者是多么有魅力。

  甚至，你如果还没有看过这个节目，这篇文章也会向你展示这个节目给人的灵感。其中表现出来的许多良好的品质你都可以从其他有魅力的人身上发现，如乔治·克鲁尼，比尔克林顿或者你的一些朋友。

  同时，我认为有魅力就是让自己更美好，让自己更真实地展现自己，而没有那么自我挑剔。所以，世界存在着一些普遍的东西，很多有魅力的人曾经也是普通的一员。有很多不定数的改变让人变得有魅力。

  通过观察你自己找到你独有的变化。同时也要自己给自己做实验，试着做你通常不做的事。如果你只是呆在你那舒适的空间里，“噢，那不是我”这种令人惊讶的明显的变化你是不会得到的。

1.   微笑

  是的，这很明显。但你还是要做到微笑。如果你尽量保持微笑，你将会发现因你的改变世界对你多么好。一般来说，你怎么对别人，别人也会怎么对你。情绪是可以感染的。

  有魅力的人似乎经常面带笑容。节目里的西蒙贝克也是一样。1000瓦特的微笑就像上面那张相片里的笑容一样，大概是一小段时间笑十几次。积极和热情也是精神的和情感的东西，它们与微笑有关，还可让他人感觉心情舒畅。这个建议可能是最简单的了，这也是我让自己变得有魅力首先要做的。

  如果你不喜欢总是面带微笑，就时不时笑笑就可以了（当然不用一直笑个不停，那会让人觉得怪怪的）。因为一直笑会适得其反。现在，试着让自己保持微笑30秒。微笑起来，无论你感觉如何，你会发现自己开始得到放松，这过程中身体产生的某些化学物质，会让你感到心情愉快。

2. 要充满兴趣，心胸开阔并且有好奇心。

  这是戴尔卡内基提出的一条非常有名的建议。

  你花两个月的时间，努力让自己对他人感兴趣；你花两年的时间，努力让别人对自己感兴趣，前者会让你交到更多的朋友。这就如一种说法所言：交朋友就是让自己和朋友在某些方面合二为一，极为相似。

  或者正如一位女士在和两位英国政治家本杰明·迪斯雷利和威廉·格莱斯顿共餐后所说：

  “和格莱斯顿先生共餐后，当我离开餐厅时，我觉得他是英格兰最聪明的人；但是和迪斯雷利先生共餐后，我觉得我是英格兰最聪明的女人。”

   现在，你可能会想：“人是不会总那么有趣的。”当然，这说法也许是对的。但这也是一种信念，你总倾向于看到你想看到的东西。如果你努力让自己真正地对他人感兴趣，你会发现很多有趣的东西。

  思想开放也是很重要的。人们希望有人能够与他们交流或倾听他们的诉说，不要有太多的疑虑。总有人是带着疑虑的眼光来拒绝与人交流，对于这种人如有多次这样的反应，人们可能会犹豫或者避免与之交流，

  在节目展播的时候，西蒙·贝克总是带着孩子般的好奇心，这让人感到温暖，感到平易近人，也让他自己更显魅力。当你对某些东西感到好奇时，你就思想就更开放，更活跃，也就自然而然地对他人对一切东西感兴趣。

 怎样让自己变得有好奇心呢？由于你的好奇心，你记住了你曾发现和体验过的令人放松的事。所以方法之一就是要记住过去的那些生活多么有趣。然后就去专研一下它。好奇是一种习惯。你越好奇，你就会变得更好奇。随着时间的推移，好奇就会成为你的一部分了。

3. 充分地活在当下

在与有魅力的人如比尔·克林顿或奥普拉见面后，很多人都会提及这一品质。他们充分的自我展现是吸引了观众的眼球。人们不习惯于那样所以都感到很特别。

所以以平等的身份听倾听他人，不管他是谁。要保持眼神的交流，但不要紧盯着别人（要时不时移动视线，不要老盯着他人）。同时，出场某些场合会让你更开放，自然而然地更具有好奇心。当你展示你要说的东西时，人们就易于对你感兴趣。

这里有两条快捷的方式让你成为焦点，让你与露面某些场合的时刻再连接起来：

• 全神贯注地呼吸。让你充分展现此时此刻的自我的快捷方法之一就是用小腹呼吸 – 这也会令你放松 – 并且你只需全神贯注地呼气吸气2分钟。
• 只关注在你眼前发生的事情什么是对的。发生在你身边的或者发生在你身上的。调动你的各种感觉。你只需看看在你面前的各种事什么是对的。听听你周围的声音。感受一下你衣服的布料，看看你有什么感觉。

   

  4 要有判断力。

这一点很重要，这很可能为许多想提高自己的社交生活的人所忽视的。他们可能会想：“嗯，过去那几个月，我已对每个人都很友好，但是似乎他们对待我的行为没有的多大改变。”

这就是“好男孩∕女孩”的问题了。他∕她很友善，但缺乏自信。你应该如何感受你理应得到的待遇，关于这一点你没有从内心深处感受到变化。你可能依然希望得到他人的肯定。你很渴望。然而，越是渴望肯定的人往往得到的肯定越少。

我们做大量的关于我们想得到别人怎样的对待的选择。你希望别人如何对你，这对以下几方面有很大影响：你允许作出自己怎样的行为，你周围的人怎样看你对你。

有魅力的人通常看起来有种领导的作风。西蒙贝克在节目中自信又轻松自在。尽管他不是正式的老板，但他常常按自己的方式做事。尽管这只是一个电视节目，我觉得现实中也有类似的事情。在某些程度上，你必须是一个老板，但你不必按部就班地按照老板的风格做事。

5.要自信。

如同微笑一样，这一点也很容易理解。如果你不自信，我就不可能真正地有魅力。

那么，增强自信的最好方法是什么呢？

我的回答是敢于直面你的恐惧心理。我认为，如果你想深刻地体验自信的感觉，你只要有一些面对心理的恐惧的经历。没有其他办法了。

同时，当你面对你的恐惧的时候，你会发现历史上许许多多的人已发现了的东西。失败不会致你于死地。意志不会有错的。天不会塌下来。那只是人们没有面对他们心中的恐惧。

但是面对恐惧不是一件容易的事。这里有两个方法可以让你比较轻松地面对恐惧：