Underrated Soft Skills: Charisma
utopianengineeringsociety.substack.com
utopianengineeringsociety.substack.com
Physical attractiveness can play into it, but there are some very charismatic actors who aren't attractive. Acting skill plays into it, but often charismatic actors are only mediocre at "acting". It's commonly associated with confidence, but some charismatic actors have a habit of playing un-confident roles. (Which is not the same as a lack of personal confidence, but what is it they're doing that conveys both "confident" and "insecure" simultaneously?")
It's often said to be about commitment, a sense that they're really "present" and really focused on you. That's certainly something we want actors to do: the more they care about their scene-partners, the more the audience will be drawn to both. (That's true even when the focus is based on a negative emotion, like hatred, but it has to be a really targeted kind of hate and not just a general anger.)
I can teach a lot about the theory of acting, but I have only a vague idea of why it works. When it does, it can be really potent, though it can be be incredibly hard to get. People will often do the same wrong thing harder. A lot of the silly acting games they teach are about getting you to at least do a different thing than what you were doing, hoping that somehow you'll accidentally discover the right track.
I'm not sure any of this is really "charisma" in the sense that this writer means it. I certainly support his overall gist: soft skills are massively underrated.
Charisma is indeed a complex trait. That's why, in the article, I say:
"...it is not a single trait but a broad spectrum of traits that share things in common."
What I'm trying to convey here is that if you try to define charisma, no matter what definition you come up with, you will always leave many things outside its definition. Instead of trying to define it, I think it's better to explore the different traits that make a person charismatic. In the article, I decided to explore three of them: making meaningful connections, empathy, and warmth.
I agree there are many more traits that could describe a charismatic person. I also agree that "presence" might be one of the most important ones that were left out of the article.
Which brings us to an interesting question: What does it mean to be present?
Just as with Charisma, Presence is just another skill that is better not to define but to explore through the behaviors it displays.
"The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao..."
And while I'm not very far into it yet, I did feel like I began seeing others more for their full humanity, if that makes sense. One of the more profound feelings is when you see another person, and you realize, he's just like you. And that can kinda pull your heartstrings in a weird way.
There's something to it.
I see what you mean. I believe smiling often is mostly a personality treat, some of such personalities smile without deeper meaning.
A problem I seem to have is that i try to establish a deeper connection with many people and tend to get frustrated if it doesn't work out. Especially if it started with a wrongly interpreted meaningless smile.
If you could teach about those proactive steps, i'd be glad to be an apprentice.
Traditionally:
道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。"The Way can be spoken, [but that] is not the constant/permanent/unchanging Way. The name can be named, [but that] is not the [you know] name."
Mawangdui:
道可道也，非恆道也。名可名也，非恆名也。[Same thing, but with more overt grammar, making it clearer that the first and third clauses say "The X is something you can Y" and not "The X that can be Yed". This doesn't make "The Dao that can be spoken" wrong, but that nuance is coming from knowing the meaning of the whole thing, not directly out of the grammar of the text.]
You can use words to describe it, but you'll fail to capture the whole thing.
In the traditional text, but not the Mawangdui text, 非常 has become a very common intensifier [literally "unusually"] in modern Mandarin. Classically it's two unrelated words.
Apparently the Christians adopted 道 to translate their concept of the Holy Word, which is a fun use of both senses.
The top reference in the article is the book The Charisma Myth (really highly recommend it)
In that book, Olivia Fox-Cabane (the author), explains that we are subconsciously attuned to the cues of charisma. It's essentially an instinctive trait that we are wired with. Hence, it is very easy for people to detect charisma, and it is pretty much impossible to fake charisma
So then, a good way to develop charisma, is to change the way you feel internally. Essentially develop the ability to "feel charismatic", and then your body will reflect it outwardly, which will make people notice it, which will make them treat you like a charismatic person, which will make you feel charismatic, thus creating a virtuous cycle
The book has many exercises to bootstrap the process and develop the skills to be more charismatic. They really do work, but also require plenty of practice
I seem to have a fair amount of "stage presence". People have liked to watch me act, even when I was brand new at the craft.
With a little luck, the book will affirm some of the things I'm already doing, but make me aware of it. And hopefully teach me a few new ones.
This is an enormously important point. The secret is that charisma is mostly a "pull" (react) process. Does it feel like I'm happy to see you? Am I surfing your energy? Am I empathetic? How do I handle your feedback? Am I really listening, or just waiting until you stop talking to say my piece?
If you mistake it for primarily a "push" (act) process, people will just think you're a wanker. As the author puts it, "Charisma is all about how you make others feel". Charisma is a full-duplex process.
Charisma is not just about relationship, or how they interact with people.
Charisma means having hidden information that lets you operate in the world more efficiently. It lets you maintain your self where others cave to external pressure. It's excellence demonstrated through poise and resilience. It means being worth watching.
Humans universally desire connection to other humans; it's survival, it's desire, it's necessary for emotional processing. Empathy understanding others' emotions; it's a universal skill. We need to be expert readers of emotion. We can sense when it's false or partly covered up, and long for that deeper connection that unlocks our own emotions.
An actor has the challenge of finding genuine emotions to play a fictional person.
> Physical attractiveness can play into it [etc...]
You might be interested to know (at least, I was) that the original concept was developed out of the study of rhetoric, and referred to the phenomenon that two different people giving identical speeches (that is, identically worded speeches) might receive very different reactions from an audience. This is, as you note, a very broad phenomenon, with many different causes. But all of them would be called "charisma" because the concern was with the effect on the audience.
Because of this, I find "Underrated soft skills: Charisma" to be something of a weird title - in my understanding "charisma" refers to all soft skills.
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My favorite demonstration of the idea comes from a comedy sketch I found on youtube titled "MDE: Trex helps out Robby". Trex seems to be a pickup artist who has been called in to help someone who has trouble getting dates:
> [Trex:] (whispering to Robby) I just spent an enormous amount of time and money training you to be my protegé. I want you to go in there, I want you to talk to that fly-ass bitch on the right side, I want you to say some wild shit to her. Say "I'm dat gorilla dick nigga. I make dyke pussy wet."
> [Robby:] (whispering to Trex) I'm not saying the N-word. Sorry.
> [Trex:] "I'm the gorilla dick pussy god. I make dyke pussy wet."
> [Robby:] All right. Sorry. (Robby rolls his wheelchair over to the fly-ass bitch on the right side.)
> [Robby:] (out loud, kind of) I'm like gr -- ah -- gerilla -- GOrilla. I'm like gorilla dick baby. (pauses, thinks, readjusts his glasses) I'm that gorilla dick (pause) god. I make di- dyke pussy...ies wet. Okay. (exhales loudly, readjusts his glasses) I'm like gr - god damn it I can't - (scene cuts to Trex whispering in Robby's ear)
This has always struck me as a great example of being able to provide advice to someone else that would work for you, but won't work for them.
If you liked that here's another quite famous clip: https://youtu.be/fDq_8y_drE8?si=MI4Dxtj1EtCgt1C3
Everyone is charismatic in their hearts, but the clouds of selfish thoughts and emotions block its light.
The evil twin of charism is hypnotism - the power to make people do what you want.
Before I had played a lead, this would be very frustrating. Having played leads, I now know what it is the lead needs from me, and I can be very important in my place. It's a useful demonstration of what a good actor can do without the script giving them a lot.
(I know that was a joke, but I thought it was worth noting.)
Charismatic people aren't just able to get people to like them, they are able to persuade people to adopt their viewpoint. When someone charismatic wants X to happen, you find yourself also wanting X to happen.
This distinction matters, because the easy path to likability is agreeability: simply do what the people around you want you to do. They'll all like you, which is definitely valuable. But it won't necessarily get you closer to your goals.
Charisma, which is a quite rare trait, has a special balance of likeability and dis-agreeability, where people will get on board with your plan and feel good doing it. It's the ability to increase their agreeability.
Yeah, it's fascinating if you've never been in the presence of someone with a lot of charisma. It really does feel like they're hacking your primitive primate brain or something.
Check Olivia Fox Cabane’s book The Charisma Myth. I’ve read this and found about 30-40% of it to be implementable and a percent of that have positive outcomes.
The same goes for Robert Greene, author of "The 48 Laws of Power," "The Art of Seduction," and several other books. I've watched a few interviews with him, and he strikes me as completely unremarkable, uncharismatic, and rather unconvincing, which makes me doubt the validity of his books' promises.
Ironically often those who can, don’t know how to teach.
In so many facets of our lives already, our wants are being manipulated for the benefit of others. And who am I to decide what is important? For things that involve other people, I’d rather make that decision collectively. I want the thoughts, opinions, and feelings of people who don’t possess or exercise charisma to have space and weight.
Perhaps styles of leadership might be taught early, so there's greater awareness of possibilities/alternatives?
If you go up to someone and directly ask for something, or ask something of an audience in a group, and they feel "solicited" and put on-the-spot, it's one thing; if you can plant ideas and lead people to know what they should do, they'll simply take action when they realize that the time is right, rather than receiving that "Call To Action".
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jive-filters
Snoop Dogg schools Martha Stewart on essential vocabulary, and then they peel potatoes: https://youtu.be/PiAvfcfIzac?si=isNSE7KTQoiHuyT6
Or to recast this positively, if humility is a virtue and arrogance/vainglory is deadly, then knowing and accepting that we are powerless/unworthy is perhaps the most important step on the journey to "being a better person".
The best leaders are the ones who've learned how to be servants and followers.
i would actually argue that your definition of charismatic tends towards manipulative. i don't think that's what you really meant.
I think I'm pretty likable in large part because I have a lot of social anxiety which leads to high agreeability.
I don't think I'm particularly charismatic.
> i would actually argue that your definition of charismatic tends towards manipulative. i don't think that's what you really meant.
It is, in fact. Charisma operates at a level separate from morality. Charisma is a gun. It's what you do with it that determines the ethical stance.
Certainly, there are many charismatic people that use that tool simply to manipulate others for their own personal benefit. At the extreme you get populist demagogues.
But there are also charismatic people who use that gift to bring others together to accomplish goals that benefit everyone. Good charismatic people can make you into a better version of yourself.
All team endeavors require some kind of consensus-forming. In my experience, strong, charismatic leadership is significantly preferable to a bunch of nerds engaging in dialectics.
Charisma may make it easier to manipulate people or it may create an environment where you don’t need to manipulate people to form a consensus.
I find what's often unacknowledged is just how much interest in technical matters is driven by a trauma response. A lot of us were unpopular as children or were ostracized for being weird and attaining mastery over an "objective" arena allowed us to feel better about our place in the world.
Asking people like that to "just be charismatic" is asking them to depart from a safe space and enter into an arena they've previously associated with a lot of unpleasant emotions. People will act out in ways that feel are perfectly "rational" for them but are coming from places they're unable to explain because they're driven by more primal urges.
For the advice to stick, you have to address the root cause which is the emotional, not the informational need. Otherwise, you're going to see the same well meaning advice go around in circles with only a minority of the field being motivated to act on it.
I agree with you. This is the real ultimate truth:
> "For the advice to stick, you have to address the root cause which is the emotional, not the informational need. Otherwise, you're going to see the same well meaning advice go around in circles with only a minority of the field being motivated to act on it."
The emotional trauma is the real thing you need to address. Still, many people in the tech industry are not yet ready to go deeper on the emotional part, so you need to help them go there using skillful means, which means meeting people where they are.
A piece of informative advice is not completely helpful, but it can trigger the curiosity that people need to go deeper into the emotional realm.
Wow, I’ve never considered this but it makes sense, to a degree. Children who are “properly” socialized, or socially motivated, would have much less time available to pursue technical skill acquisition. I could imagine things snowball from there as they choose paths of least resistance in life, e.g. opting for engineering rather than sales as a career.
Interesting insight. I do think there's some truth to this - seeking an "objective" truth is emotionally comforting because it eliminates all the messy ambiguity of human culture.
But it's not that technical folks lack these social skills, it's that we've been conditioned not to use them for fear of appearing subjective and not rigorous enough.
In it's toxic form, this leads technical folks outright rejecting messages from anyone who tries to be charismatic. The effort is viewed negatively and with suspicion. Surely the correct answer would be dull and obvious and not require showmanship to convey. Charisma is an attempt to manipulate the room using levers other than objective facts. The horror! /s
Reality is you can't ignore the human factors. Your ability to sell the idea is just as important as your ability to code it.
We've all worked with people who believe their code should speak for itself. Thing is, it doesn't. It never has. It never will. All collaboration work is a social process, and no matter how beautiful someone's output is, if they're an asshole no one wants to be in the room with, their magnum opus will rot in a neglected PR.
Charisma is not sufficient by itself. You've still gotta have chops, or at least a willingness to work to get them. But charisma+chops will take you much farther than skill alone.
Similarly, Steve Wozniak isn't considered charismatic, yet no one denies his code.
And I've never heard anything but good about Woz. He seems like a genuinely nice, enthusiastic, approachable person.
I've never met either of them in person so I can't personally vouch for their charisma, but I don't think of them have reputations as _not_ having it.
There are a few uncharismatic people across the planet who are so unreasonably unrivaled in their combination of intelligence, drive, and luck that they are accepted despite their social shortcomings.
Though as I understand it, Woz is quite kind, and while Torvalds is blunt, he often is charismatic, as he easily convinces others that his path is correct (if he actually believes it is).
https://www.openbsd.org/goals.html [Now with "politics-free" as a design goal!]
People are always surprised when I say that I’m an engineer (they usually guess I’m a professor, sometimes an actor or comedian), and am often discretely asked, “why are you normal and easy to talk to, when every tech/computer guy at my business is an utter freak”
More nerds should apply an engineering approach to “having a nice personality”. It’s a totally solvable problem — or, if you prefer, an attainable skill.
But for a lot of people, developing social skills and "a nice personality" has been a life-long struggle
There is a big overlap in STEM with the autism spectrum, with ADHD, with anxiety and trauma, all of which make it very hard for people to "fit in" and develop social skills that come easily to neurotypical people
So while I share your sentiment that soft skills are valuable and are worth developing. Please don't judge others for not doing so, and keep in mind that they might not even have the capacity to do it, even if they want to. They might also have had a really hard time their whole lives being judged and rejected by "normal people". Please have some extra empathy with them
Goofus and Gallant are both on the autism spectrum, and tend to be blunt in ways that come off as rude. They are both very stubborn about what they consider high quality code, and guard their status as domain experts in particular technologies.
Goofus gets incredibly defensive when they don't understand something. Goofus talks over people in meetings. Goofus is generally rude and hard to work with.
Gallant wants people to understand what they understand. While blunt, Gallant is also patient in walking more junior engineers through their thinking. Gallant isn't quick to give praise, but gives it when earned. Gallant doesn't want to be the only person who understands how something works.
These are based on several real people I've worked with, and the Gallants are some of my favorite coworkers. Bluntness might put some people off, but it doesn't bother me as long as the purpose of that bluntness is to connect with people.
I'm sure it's more complicated than that, and everybody has a different brain, and maybe it's much harder for the Goofus for reasons I can't see. But I have encountered enough Gallants that I know it is possible for neurodiverse people to still be themselves AND kind and empathetic. I certainly hope it's true of myself, not that I always succeed.
Well, some people certainly have a judgment problem of their own (not referring to parent commenter here).
> It’s a totally solvable problem — or, if you prefer, an attainable skill.
The resistance to developing this trait is also telling and belies a lack of objectivity: if it's a weak point for you, then even a modest amount of effort and attention can help a significant amount. If you're not interested in doing the work, that's totally fine, just work/pay/ask to figure out what the relevant 20% is that gets you 80% there. I suspect it will be somewhat different for everyone.
I feel like my charisma (feels like too strong a term for myself, but whatever) took a big leap once I became more comfortable with myself and learning to be okay with people not liking me. Still working on the last one but small increments help a lot. Once people perceive you don't need something from them without being stand-offish, they're often more open to you.
In this day and age I’m not even convinced anymore that I’m not actually just some kind of an elaborate fine-tuning layer running in a cluster somewhere, but that’s a whole another discussion!
> Charisma sets enjoyable coworkers apart from difficult ones
This statement is not really true though. There are plenty of very charismatic people who are not enjoyable to work with, and there are plenty of uncharismatic people who are very enjoyable to work with
An example of the former, Steve Jobs was a famously charismatic person, who used his charisma very effectively to lead Apple and create amazing products. However he is also known for being a pretty difficult person to work with and being a bully and a-hole to many
As the article notes (as well as the top reference book, The Charisma Myth), there are many different styles of charisma. But charisma doesn't magically make someone be a great co-worker or empathetic leader
PS: I highly recommend getting a copy of The Charisma Myth and doing the exercises. They are amazing at calming social anxiety. Even if you don't really want to be charismatic, if you feel like you often get uncomfortable in social situations, the exercises in this book can help you immensely
Couldn't agree more. In fact, I would generally correlate being charismatic with being an asshole, particularly in any company or professional environment. There's surely overlap between charismatic and manipulative. IMO the best influential people are those who are genuinely likeable and respectful and have solid ideas, who don't need to "sell" their opinions based on some social hacking bullshit.
This is easier said than done of course when you have ADHD and your mind starts wandering the moment you start talking to another person, but at least there's a plan to improve :)
Now on a micro level, sure. It's still pretty obvious. Be likeable, don't rock the boat unless the boat is tumbling down a waterfall. Make people feel better in your presence. The skills to acquire are a bit ephemeral, but you'll always have an easier time navigating a workplace if people simply feel happier than not when communicating. Not fairly underrated unless you haven't been around a mass social outing like school.
Only sub par engineers need to constantly be politely told they suck and have to sugar coat everything for them. Good engineers come up with good ideas, at least good at a foundational level, where you can discuss the pros and cons. If an idea has some legitimate merit but a drawback you don't think is worth it, then the criticisms are real and honest, no ones feelings are getting hurt.
It's one thing to use a software career to explore the things that give you joy. Building software is fun. But it's another thing to use it to run away from things you're intimidated by, like interacting with other people or empathizing with them. "I got into software so I wouldn't have to deal with people" is a joke, but it's not really a realistic way of approaching the world beyond the very junior level.
You can either rant about how people should be or meet them as they actually are.
You can have pretty normal temperament and be a decent engineer, but if you aren't positive 110% of the time, always sucking up to management, always accepting more work, always subtly gaming those around you, then apparently you're a "bad engineer" for not understanding the "business". I might be crazy but that shit is not normal. Go play the game if you want to but it is not normal.
Yes, tech companies have become more about ladders, optics, proxy metrics, performance review than about building, experimenting, leading with technical skill.
This happens because tech got infected with corpo MBA-style practices. Obviously, not a thriving environment for innovators. Great environment for corporate leeches who themselves can't do anything but want to tell "others" what they should be doing.
The idea that you are either an MBA-type "politic player" with zero technical skills whatsoever, or someone doing the "real work" who is super technical but starts fopsweating at the idea of having to present their work or write something that isn't code doesn't really line up with my experience.
A sizable percentage of my managers have written code while being managers. A sizable percentage of my programming coworkers have had MBAs.
The two extremes do not last very long in any healthy organization.
This is why; and AI, which I see more as a side effect.
Inconveniently for some software types, the world doesn't and shouldn't revolve around software development.
You should be well rounded. Managers with MBAs who work for tech companies should be able to have technical conversations, and be able to share their opinions with technical people without sounding like imbeciles. Software engineers should be able to understand and discuss business considerations without sounding like it is beneath them, or similarly sounding like they think the money just appears in the bank account magically.
The healthiest organizations promote this multidisciplinary approach, they invest in their employees to help make it happen, and most importantly and perhaps most controversially, if you're not well rounded and knowledgable about all aspects of the business it is extremely career-limiting beyond the lowest levels of management or whatever the terminal IC role is in the org.
Sounds great. Except.. if you're advocating for "charisma" in the first place, then that's probably not really the goal and definitely not the effect that you'll see. Hence the various cranky/skeptical/cynical comments in this thread. There's plenty of charisma in tech already, and it's usually associated with fraudsters like SBF.
No one's blaming MBA. In fact, if the corpo MBA people actually focused on - generate revenue in order to pay your salary, pay the bills, and give a dividend to its shareholders - that'd be great. Use some skill to generate these.
But corpo MBAs spend an enormous amount of time in ladder-climbing, promos, hirings, firings, reorgs - all of which are orthogonal to the points you described earlier: generate revenue in order to pay your salary, pay the bills, and give a dividend to its shareholders.
TL;DR corpo MBA are not doing what is required of them. Instead, they are sucking on innovators with corpo policies - leading to the original post.
Making the machine run better and more efficiently is how they generate revenue in order to pay your salary, pay the bills, and give a dividend to the shareholders. It's the test automation of the business world.
This is exactly corpo MBA-style which is orthogonal to innovation. By stating this statement, you just contradicted your own point earlier about why corpo MBAs are needed.
I hate to break it to you - you ARE the typical corpo MBA who will shift goalposts to justify your own position - and it is very evident to anyone engaging in a discussion with you.
My takeaway is to ignore the title and per the text, be able to work with other engineers (play well with others). That means speaking their language and being able to relate to others, both with technical precision as warranted, and with human/emotive understanding. To remember that it's not about you, it's about the team/org. To keep in mind principles such as "assume good intent". etc.
Now, it does so happen that most orgs are dysfunctional so being successful at that more "human" / relatability part does mean being successfully dysfunctional. Sadly. Author does live in his utopian world and the blog is titled as such.
It’s harder for many engineers to be outcome focus (what non engineers care about “business value”) and work backwards without getting into the weeds. Engineers usually think in terms of process.
Engineers are also more pessimistic thinking about all of the things that can go wrong and non engineers are usually more optimistic seeing everything that is possible. I’m not passing judgment on either.
The “Geek Leader’s Handbook” (https://www.slideshare.net/CommunicationCoach/the-geeks-guid...) and my pass Amazon indoctrination of “Working Backwards” helped me a lot.
Charisma isn't lying or being sensitive, so you aren't opposed to it.
Influencing people is certainly a necessary skill to some extent, but if you're actively working on becoming very good at it, then you're not really worthy of trust almost by definition. Better get good enough so that other people can't recognize it. Check out my best-selling new book "How to lie effectively and ensure your political machinations are never fully recognized as such"
She proposes that charisma is something that can be learned to a very high degree, and she teaches those methods.
[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Charisma-Myth-Science-Personal-Magnet...
I've given away 100+ (paid) copies of this book to friends, family, co-workers and strangers
I first learned about the book when I randomly attended a talk by Olivia Fox-Cabane (the author) at Stanford. Out of curiosity I bought the book, read it, thought it was interesting, but didn't do the exercises - nothing really changed
A few months later, I picked it up again and started working through the exercises... wow! huge impact, I went from being extremely uncomfortable in pretty much any social situation, to being able to hold a conversation with almost anyone, including strangers on the street, to then people wanting to be with me and to lead them
The secret is to make the exercises into a habit, they really change they way you feel internally, which reflects outwards, deeply impacts how other people perceive you and how they treat you, which then reinforces they way you feel internally and creates a virtuous cycle
unfortunately, I've inherited an immoderate amount of charisma and that makes not being overbearing a full time job. maintaining any skills that even approach what strangers guess I can do is a consuming pursuit. setting expectations so people don't feel betrayed when it lands that I'm actually average or less in most meaningful ways is a constant battle. we demonize the 'halo-effect,' thinking people get unjust advantages, yet don't also reflect that projecting envy and putting people on pedastals and then knocking them off is pathological.
show me a charismatic person and I will show you someone who is used to being manipulated and embattled. if you have ever seen an intact male in a dog park, he's not the one starting the fights but somehow he's always in the middle of them. after a while the diplomacy reads as manipulative. I could be describing the experience of an attractive woman, as the dynamic is similar. there is a great deal of peril in being the object of envy.
reality is, I'm a mid technologist who writes and speaks persuasively and pursues difficult hobbies to justify it. is it bullshit? I work very hard for it not to be. if you happen to acquire charisma later in life, be warey of its pitfalls as well.
If you are already charismatic, don't hide your light under a bush. I often say, I'll be humble when I'm that great too.
>attractive woman, as the dynamic is similar.
I came to the complementary hmmm recently that, sorta contrary to what you mused above, charisma is correlated bi-modally with unusual physical attractiveness/unattractiveness in (young) men on one hand, and unimodally with unusual intelligence in women on the other.
Something to do with the accumulated volume vs usefulness of social feedback up till the point of observation, it seems. Maybe we are indeed confusing charisma with social skills+selfawareness. Cabane makes sense-- charisma is magic because we don't see the prep.
Had you (and I?) been artists, not technologists, the charisma could have come much earlier
Sure, you’re more effective in the context of the game if you play the game and play it competently, but that is advocating for the best way to do the dumb/wrong thing instead of advocating for the smart/right thing.
As an adult, I assess every person I meet through the charisma lens first, if not almost first, because I think it's the foundation of your reputation with others. Seems it's almost magic.