“Passion wakes you up to something in life that you desire so strongly that you no longer have to push yourself to do anything. You now have a different (Location 545)
Traditional advertising works by making you dissatisfied with what you have and who you are. It’s pretty simple: in order to get you to buy something, the seller must convince you that you’d be happier if you did so. But what if you are already happy? Bad news for the seller, that’s what. (Location 568)
We are born scientists, designed to explore, to play, to wonder, What if . . .? Remember? (Location 604)
Although Western culture shames citizens who aren’t busily working away the tick-tock of their day, the resulting symptoms of adult play-deprivation are anything but charismatic. (Location 614)
We are born full of wonder and reverence for Reality, in all its splendor and mystery, but culture condemns us for being “childish,” “naive,” and “ (Location 620)
The more you spend time engaged with the present, the more people will experience you as “larger than life,” “a charismatic personality, (Location 680)
Three to five weeks. That means be patient with yourself. Don’t give up. (Location 764)
If we persevere beyond the pain at the edge of our limits, we discover we are more powerful than we thought. (Location 829)
When you know that a certain pain will not destroy you, why not sit back and enjoy it? Surround yourself with the safety you need, then relax into the pain. (Location 844)
This is not the last time we will discuss this first charisma tool. It goes like this: Whenever you choose to look for value, you accentuate your charisma. (Location 935)
In essence, when you think about the really big questions in life—be they religious, scientific, or psychological—your brain is going to grow. (Location 1029)
Allow yourself to ask the big questions and watch any remaining self doubt melt away like an ice cube in hot tea. (Location 1032)
People spend eons searching to be pulled forward by their passion. Find it, and you have found your calling. Find your calling and you have found something worthy of the time it takes to become a master. As you develop mastery, you develop your confidence. (Location 1038)
What work makes you feel alive? Which places give you vitality? Who brings you to life? Arrange your days around this work, these places, and these people. (Location 1047)
Learn to court the extraordinary. Spend time in the dark. If it gets to be too much, seek the gratitude inside yourself, and grow it so you can one day hold the numinous. Follow your calling. Leave the closed rooms of the past, and seek the edge of the road as it opens. (Location 1056)
So everyone wants to be a rock star and no one wants to be a janitor. (Location 1065)
I have always focused on what people needed and then found a way to fulfill that need. I consider this a service-oriented way of listening for your (Location 1066)
unknown by giving us faith. Science is not the problem. Spirituality is not the problem. The problem, my friend, is our fear of change, surprise, and uncertainty—our fear of the unknown. But the unknown is the e-ticket ride, baby. (Location 1094)
We’re talking about the spark that draws you to conventionally unattractive actors like Steve Buscemi and Philip Seymour Hoffman, or that one unabashedly dorky girl in high school whom everyone loved. (Location 1147)
First, you must love yourself so madly that your natural authority fills the room. (Location 1198)
Rather, we say someone is magnetic because we can’t help but love them immediately, illogically, and irresistibly. You want that too? The first step to cultivating magnetism is creating (Location 1211)
Love is a like-attracts-like sort of a thing. (Location 1214)
We imagine that the people in question are withholding their gifts (eg., attention, praise, goods, and status) from (Location 1229)
When people seem arrogant, selfish, or self-involved, they aren’t in love with themselves. (Location 1237)
likely, they are trapped in a painful cycle of self-repression, too afraid to shine their soul’s jewelry or not knowing how. (Location 1238)
These people can’t experience love from anyone, because they don’t love themselves. It’s a self-defeating cycle, cloaked by the illusion of self-sufficiency. Newsflash: (Location 1240)
They are so full of grace and abundance, they can’t help but overflow to everyone around them. (Location 1244)
In other words, they considered themselves to be the primary authority of their own lives. They knew what felt right to them and they did it, regardless of what other people would have them think or do. (Location 1333)
Your task is to gently pick through your behavior, in the moment, and figure out if you are doing something authentic to you or something you’ve been told to do. (Location 1358)
Indicators that a cultural norm is healthy for you might include sensations of openness, spaciousness, oxygenation, pleasure, and free-flowing energy. (Location 1367)
What should you do when culture tells you to do something, but your body says stop doing it? (Location 1369)
stepfather, Howard Stein, has this to say: “Whatever your philosophy is, if it works for you and you don’t get aggravated by it, then it’s the right way. (Location 1376)
When they turned him down, he said to himself, “Something must seriously be wrong with that girl. (Location 1380)
Howard has that unconventional attractiveness that comes from believing he’s made of great stuff. You know—“ (Location 1382)
This question is not as far-fetched as you might think. (Location 1397)
We are “Ultimate Ecosystem Engineers” and you, my friend, have just as much power to create a meme as any one of your hominid brothers and sisters. (Location 1416)
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.9 (Location 1431)
They’re afraid it will be like stripping in front of a prim and proper audience. (Location 1484)
Pay attention to what your body is mimicking. Are you slouching (relating to exhaustion), or sitting on the counter (relating to chopping boards)? Do you sit like a king or a sex kitten? Are your arms crossed in self-protection or loose and ready to hug? (Location 1620)
Studies reveal that students who receive touch from their teacher are nearly twice as likely to volunteer in class as those who are not touched. And get this: Waiters who gave their customers a light touch on the shoulder while presenting the bill were shown to have (Location 1649)
General John Stark, the famous soldier of the American Revolutionary War, said it well: “Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils. (Location 1925)
You’ve got to know your value (step one) and be willing to show your value (step two), before you can actually give anything of real value. (Location 1975)
Before we begin this next step—the step that bakes the charisma formula into a tasty tangible—I want to make sure we’re with each other, that you’re in my boots and I’m in your loafers. (Location 2003)
The first ingredient of successful interaction is being able to listen. (Location 2057)
Only when you can see your conversational partner through innocent eyes, can you actually see your partner and can your partner be seen. (Location 2058)
Humans respond in much the same way. Nothing gets us to relax, tell the truth, and get intimate better than when we feel like the person we are with sees us as we are. (Location 2061)
When I am truly listening, I become porous. I am not pushing my rebuttals or judgments at the other person. I am not even thinking judgment and rebuttal. (Location 2079)
Psychologists say that one of the most terrifying environments for folks to be in is at an interview or an audition where the interviewer or judge gives no emotive feedback. You tell a funny story, and they stare at you blankly, like a cold wall. You feel withered and shrunken. However, if the audience is really interested, you feel that too. You can tell they are with you. (Location 2088)
Your job as a charismatic listener is to help bring out the person (or people) you’re with. Create the conditions in which they will feel wanted by not resisting them (not even in your thoughts!). (Location 2094)
Intuition is simply listening turned up a notch, a vital tool for any leader, whether you lead a company, a family, a revolution, or your own life. As a growing charismatic, your intuition is one of the greatest assets you will develop. You’ll be able to sense receptivity to connection, or the lack thereof. You will sense what others need. (Location 2116)
Empathy is a miracle-making, conflict-resolving, relationship-forming, ecstatic practice. The word “ecstasy” originated from the Greek ekstasis, which literally means “standing outside oneself. (Location 2208)
However, if we deny a person’s pain, we miss out on seeing them. (Location 2242)
“All great leaders,” John Kenneth Galbraith tells us, “have had one characteristic in common: the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This and not much else, is the essence of leadership. (Location 2268)
“Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream.”11 (Location 2290)
If someone does or says something that feels emotionally harmful, it cannot possibly be personal. (Location 2319)
You do this by establishing a line of communication. This takes practice and is a little like learning a language. (Location 2327)
The best way to lead is to interact. (Location 2366)
As any jazz musician knows, you find the groove by listening and responding to your jam mates. (Location 2371)
If you are trying to impress someone, I guarantee they will be more impressed by your interest than by some fancy story. (Location 2376)
Feel nervous? Don’t keep talking. Stop. Take a breath and ask a question to find out what’s going on with the person you feel (Location 2394)
Martin Luther King regularly spoke about the threat of monologue on society. (Location 2395)
If you want to know what’s really going on when you find yourself in conflict with a lover or in a war zone, engage in dialogue with everyone. (Location 2398)
1) Listen for the language your receiver speaks. This is fun! Seek to know what you don’t yet understand in whomever you are seeking to communicate with. In this practice, you get to enter another’s world. (Location 2433)
2) “Speak” the new language you’re learning. (Location 2438)
If you’re a good mimic, the person you’re mimicking will more than likely assume you’re like him or her, with all the culture and life experience that goes along with that. As mentioned earlier, the person will instinctively feel you are part of his or her tribe and will respond with instinctual trust. (Location 2439)
The Pygmalion effect is a phrase used to describe the phenomenon that occurs when higher expectations lead to an increase in performance. (Location 2527)
The students were never told in words that they were high achievers. But somehow, using a language beyond words, the teachers powerfully communicated their belief in the chosen students. (Location 2529)
I highly encourage you to incorporate it into the core of your leadership style. “Treat others as you would like to be treated” assumes that you know your self. (Location 2549)
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; what you do to others, you do to yourself. It’s the coffeepot concept. Recall how the porcelain coffeepot gets heated and stained when hot, black coffee is poured through its spout. We. Are. Connected. Best you lead and live like it. (Location 2555)
This will lead to a culture that nourishes critical thinking, as opposed to a content-dumping culture, which leads to complacency and dullness. (Location 2578)
Expect more buy-ins and more courageous followers. Direction alone will not get you to your destination. (Location 2585)
Too many of us speak like we’re talking to ourselves. (Location 2769)
Take the time to carefully wrap your communication, like a present. Present yourself. (Location 2770)
However, when we’re around someone who commands our attention, we have no problem pointing to the charisma we (Location 2774)
They embody what I have classified as “blue charisma.” Blue charismatics include Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra. (Location 2780)
Humans are novelty seekers. We are neophiliacs. It speaks of our species’ superpower to innovate, and we praise those who do it well. We give them lots of money and attention. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Lady Gaga, Einstein, and Helen Keller, to name a few. Creative charismatics like these carry “orange charisma. (Location 2784)
Try this: Pause. Charismatic people pause. Allow the pause to add emphasis to your words and actions. Pausing is part of your musical-emotional communication tool kit. (Location 2918)
makes it better than a pause. You don’t have to fill the space. Let the space fill you. If you let it, the space will inform you with the next, most genius thing to do. As a friend of mine likes to say, “Don’t just do something; sit there.” Play jazz with your environment. (Location 2920)
One of the most magnetic, captivating, and heartfelt performers I have ever met, magician Eugene Burger, says, “Pausing requires courage.” To pause, you must believe that what you have said is worthy of your audience’s anticipation. Know your value. (Location 2923)
When email first became part of mainstream communication, a dear friend and master communicator, Michael Wall, gave me some excellent counsel: “Email is the devil. (Location 2984)
In lasting charisma, you look to give people an experience of their greatness; an experience of their value. (Location 3050)
Oftentimes we interpret what others say in the worst way, because we secretly believe we deserve a whipping. In those instances, go back to step one and engage in the confidence-building (Location 3260)