Being charismatic is quite important in social life. A charismatic person can always persuade people to do various things to solve problems. When you have something you really can't handle, you should really ask for help. It is something extremely normal that we may face different hairy situation which we can't really handle it ourselves. We get help from other people. And asking for help would really require charisma. Mastering charisma can not only help with your daily life, but also boosts your performance in school, work and everything.
Like any other skills, knowing where you are would be the first step to start improving. Let's set it into 10 levels, with level 0 a completely odd-talking person, to level 10, historical legendary speakers, like Adolf Hitler and Chairman Mao. A normal politician would be rated as level 5 or 6, while an international superstar would be rated around level 7 to 9. As this rating is arbitrary, one should always evaluate himself frequently to seek improvements. Here's a recommended list of charisma levels:
Level 0: Retarded people
Level 1: People who can communicate efficiently in daily lives
Level 2: People who can perform in front of their friends or family
Level 3: People who can perform in front of an audience of around 10 strangers, or giving a presentation in a public exam
Level 4: People who can perform in front of a large group of strangers
Level 5: People who can perform in front of a large group of strangers without any discomfort
Level 6: Normal Businessmen and politicians
Level 7: Successful Businessmen, politicians and celebrities
Level 8: World class politicians and celebrities
Level 9: Faction leaders, Large global organization leaders and legendary celebrities
Level 10: Legends
Now lets look at these people. Take the president of the United States, Barack Obama, which I would rate him level 9, as an example. That, for most people who adores him, he is rarely considered to be handsome. However, it is his gesture, his sense of humour and his choice of words, that attracts people. And here we can quickly come up with three important things for charisma. They are: Gesture, Sense of Humour and Language Skill.
We will first watch a video of Obama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY9793NCGxI. In the video, there were mainly two people specking: John Corpus, who asked the question, and Obama. When John could somehow see this blog, I hope he won't mind me talking about him.
John gave his speech quite well but not as good as Obama. Starting at 0:25, he started holding his right hand with his left hand. This was an indication of him being nervous and inferior. And at 0:34, he started mumbling something completely useless. He was also staring at Obama without moving his sight away. Everything added together, we would not say his speech to be persuasive nor effective. Although in that particular circumstance, being persuasive would not be useful or appropriate, that if he possessed a better charisma, his speech could look a little charismatic and noticeable.
Let's look at Obama. He held his microphone tightly without shaking. He had a natural gesture. He was making jokes. But he didn't really look at the audience when he was speaking. His gesture told us that he was completely confident about himself. In most books that teach us presentation, they always say having eye contact was important. However, not in this case. Obama did a great job without actually looking at John. We have to take in account that, eye contact being important is not really about the eye contact itself. But it was to avoid the present from looking at his notes or at somewhere distracting or somewhere completely irrelevant. In this video, Obama looked at his note because he was writing. However, without eye contact, he still presented himself charismatically. It is all about how you put confident to yourself. And the ability of maintaining steady and controlling any nerves.
So gesture is nothing to learn, but to know that, it is about how you present yourself with your own character and confidence.
Sense of humour, would be an essential part of giving a successful speech. Because you don't want to bore your audience. The Obama video is definitely a good example of sense of humour. My advice is to watch comedies. If you really don't know how to make people laugh, I am sorry. You can never be quite charismatic.
The third point is the language skill. I don't think I really have to make any points about this. You have better language skills, you speak more accurately. Furthermore, if you have a very strong accent, you'd better get rid of it. Because accents do not bring in misunderstandings only, but also a kind of distance between you and the audience. Picture when an Indian walks into a Chinese market, which they speak with their own accents. Not only their ethnicity brings the distance, but also the language itself.
There is a Canadian Indian comedian called Russell Peters. He is pretty much having all these traits, while he can imitate different accents around the world, so he is really charismatic. And thanks for that, he is really successful in Canada. Well, if a comedian is not charismatic, he wouldn't be able to make people laugh. So, please check out his video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qtrAMK7_Qk.
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