Ask HN: How do you develop a charismatic personality? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you develop a charismatic personality?

23 pointseschewr14 comments

I have been doing software development for a long time now. I noticed that I am always in my head. I have zero charisma and may be suboptimal personality. Once I start talking, I am able to convince people. But, I don't have the charisma of a director/VP/CEO of a large scale company.

I am reading Charisma myth from Olivia Fox Cabane. I agree with the content. I have been exercising and improving my posture for last 6 months now.

My question is -

1. What can I do to get out of my head? Meditation is good but I feel it is just not helping me out. 2. What can I do to think on the fly? I like planning and being highly analytical. But, the world is less analytical than it should be.

View on HN

I think you're mixing 2 different things, charisma and success. If you think charisma will lead you to success, you're wrong :) people have created an entire business based on this false statement. It's a trap for people like you, you should focus on the success part not the other one because it's optional.

I have 2 questions for you - Do you want to become a director or some sort of CEO right now? How old are you?

If your answers are Yes and >30y old then you should probably work a little bit on that because it will help you in your day to day life. It might make things smoother but again, it's totally optional! If not, then you're fine, just live life. Real charisma and true confidence come with age. You become wiser, humble and less sensitive. If you're in your 20's people won't take you seriously anyway. Look how long it took for bill gates and Zuckerberg to become "charismatic". Money and success made them charismatic, today when they enter a room people shut up and listen. Look at them, they're freakin nerds! And they were inspiring people at the very early stage of their success. Charisma? Come on... it's like buying books on how to look like Brad Pitt. All you need is to inspire people when you talk or simply say relevant things. Being tall, standing straight, and all this BS help people selling books and crap. Or it's valid if you're on a date and want to look super confident, which is indeed attractive for a lot of people. But for different reasons...

In other words, be yourself and do your own thing.

As an introvert with mild autism I always struggled to develop a personality but I can tell you what worked for me:

Talk to people, even people you think you have absolutely nothing in common with (specially people from different cultural backgrounds than yours, if you have access to any) and ask them about themselves. Be curious and really try to be interested in what they have to say and try to get to know them as people without being judgemental (this was really hard for me at times because I tend to be too black/white). I started at work (because I don't socialize outside of work much) and I literally talked to anyone who would be open to in the office. I struggled at first because I wanted to be listened to too, I wanted to express my points of view, etc but I held back and asked people about themselves instead, after a while people will be curious to hear about you.

Talk to enough people and soon everybody will know who you are, you will be known as a great listener and everyone will want to talk to you, confide in you. Try and learn from what other people have to say, their stories, their personalities, what drives them. This helped me immensely in developing a charisma, knowing what makes other people tic gave me a framework that enabled me to adjust my behavior accordingly.

Anyway hope this helps.

>But, I don't have the charisma of a director/VP/CEO of a large scale company.

Confidence might come after you get good at doing something. To be confident without any supporting experience that you will succeed is to be delusional. Plenty of successful people are not confident in what they do. It's just a feeling.

If you wait to feel confident about doing something before you do it, you're waiting when you could be doing.

Also, you may be cargo-culting personality traits of people that are in the position you want to be in. The causal relationship may point the other way. Their charisma is a result of their position of power, and their practice navigating it's use.

My brother is a super charismatic salesman, and I am the engineer. My parents are rather different people as well, so I'm not ruling out genetics, but I can point to differences in development. Overall I believe charisma is developed, and genetics along with environment drive your interest areas for development.

From the beginning, my brother was interested in "people" whereas I was interested in facts. I loved reading non-fiction books whereas he practiced reading people. He liked and expected to be at the center of attention, and always knew what to say. On the darker side, he knew how to push people's buttons and he was a bully.

Still, the lesson is that charisma didn't happen overnight for charismatic people. By the time you noticed it, they already had decade(s) of practice. The way for you to get charisma is to start getting genuinely interested in people so you learn about them. That's when you start to be able to push people's buttons, for good or for bad.

Interest can come from many reasons and it's up to you to discover them.

As an endnote, I was probably as socially inept as you can be. Worse than inept even as I would do or say things that piss people off. Through awareness and correction, over a decade, I can say that when I am "on" I think I can be just as charming as my brother. Of course, I'm still an introvert at heart and am not worked up to be "on" very often :)

I was probably as socially inept as you can be

I wanted to say that I was also like this and what really, really helped me was moving halfway across the country to a city where I didn't know anyone. I used that to force myself out of my comfort zone and get out and meet women. You can't be social without being social. Thinking about it simply doesn't work; you have to actually do it.

I'm still no social butterfly, but I'm infinitely more capable of getting along with people than I used to be. It really takes constant practice.

- I think questions like these should be treated with the same respect and due diligence technical questions get here.

- Meditating your way out of your head is akin to drinking venom to kill the flu. It works on paper but it's probably not the best route.

- You can be a total geek/nerd without being geeky/nerdy. Let's "analyticalize": you simply expose different interfaces for different types of people. Now, when people say they are a certain type (like "analytical", "artistic", etc), they basically are saying they're as flexible as a toaster.

- Here's what you can do (this has been heavily tested through many, many, years. It has allowed yours truly to make many, many, acquaintances and enjoy people through different ways and numbers, sometimes simultaneously): have a default reaction to locking eyes with people. It's as simple as that. Many people think of coming up with something and are in their heads. Having a default reaction alleviates your mind from that. Slight smile, and say "Hi".

It won't give you "charisma" but you will listen to and learn about many people, enrich your comprehension and become perspicacious about human nature.

> Meditating your way out of your head is akin to drinking venom to kill the flu.

Completely disagree. Not being a panacea doesn't make it bad medicine. It's not going to solve your problems, it just helps you get a little distance from them.

You're right. I was exaggerating to make my point: "introverts" are already into their heads. Meditation is good in the long run and I was proposing the smallest action that can give great results now. Seeing initial success early on gives momentum.

It's similar to learning how to program. You can either start going into the foundation of the thing, good practices, patterns, and the philosophy of programming, and these are not useless or bad things.. but for a beginner to be able to interactively see the result of what he or she does is an incredible feeling that gives motivation to pursue the more complex things that will make a great programmer. If you can't even print "Hello, world!", it can give a serious blow to your willingness to pursue the thing.

I once read that you can pretend to be charismatic, confident; and it may become natural soon. And please do not think of yourself as "suboptimal", not having "the charisma of a director/VP/CEO of a large scale company". Challenge yourself - with sport, public speaking, starting a business - and your charisma will grow :)

"Fake it untill you make it" goes the quote. :)

Read "How to Win Friends and Influence People". It's far from the be-all-end-all of charisma, but it can at least point you in the right direction.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People-eboo...

Remember, rhetoric and charisma are like strength or speed. Inborn talent helps, but the lion's share of the skills of directors/VPs/CEOs is practice and training, just like the skills of an athlete are the product of training more than inborn talent.

Good luck!

First of all, just try to be spontaneous and natural in whatever you do. It should not come across as you're trying too hard to be charming(even when you're!). Its there on your conscious and too much thoughts are not helping you. Meditation can help you control your thoughts & stay calm but at the end you have to put it into action. Stop being too analytical about things just be present in the situation and act accordingly.

Don't just read the book. Watch her videos if you haven't. I think she gets a lot across by body language, tone, etc.

Like anything else, practice, practice, practice. The best way to get out of your head is to get into someone else's and genuinely care about their feelings. So strike up conversations, practice being charismatic, practice caring about what other people are telling you, etc.

Have you heard abour Virtual reality? I think yes. So I think now there are so many apps to help you in working with. It gives you opporunity to try to be who you want.

Here is one good block about Virtual and Augmented reality https://thinkmobiles.com/blog/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com