Does it seem that charisma is just for flaming extroverts or maybe polished TED talkers?
Today, we're going to dive into how you can unleash your natural charisma by amplifying the impact of what you are already doing.
So listen up.
Welcome back to Speak Up, the podcast for high-performing introverts, including you, social introverts where we reveal the charisma and communication secrets of A-listers so that you get the recognition and the opportunities you have earned.
I am your host, Laura Camacho, your magical executive presence coach, godmother, and strategist.
By the end of today's episode, you will know a proven shortcut to massively expand your influence and visibility.
Discover why charisma is the deciding factor for executive roles and why your results alone sorry are not enough.
And learn the amplify already approach to enhance your executive presence, your confidence and your communication, all without faking it.
So today is about unlocking the charisma that you already have.
You know, if you think about it, little kids, they are all charismatic.
And guess what?
You too were once a little kid.
And so you have that charisma in you.
And I got the idea for this episode from a newsletter by this British entrepreneur named David Hyatt.
He's based in Wales. and you want that newsletter, there's a link to his newsletter.
It is a paid one.
So if you have trouble getting it, just email me at hello at speakupwithlaura.com.
So his point is something that I have thought for a long time, and that is, instead of taking on this brand new behavior a completely new habit The idea is to amplify what you're already doing, right?
And his example was if you're taking a daily walk, then you can do.
You know the exercise, people know this thing where you walk fast and then you walk slow and then you walk fast.
Another variation is to walk with a vest that has weights.
That's very popular these days.
So you're taking your same daily walk and you're amplifying the impact.
And that's what I teach you is how to take those conversations that you're already having and making them more impactful.
And today I'm narrowing down and focusing on charisma.
The three qualities that make charisma stand out are presence, confidence and, of course, engaging communication.
So first, I want to remind you that yes, charisma does matter.
The more you talk to high performing executives and I mean senior vice president and above, you will notice that there tend to be charismatic.
They tend to be very gracious.
It's almost like they're trained in diplomacy.
So Not all of them.
We all know, you know, some famous CEO who was toxic, unpleasant person.
But I have been surprised to get to know among the elites of the business world.
They are mostly very charismatic people.
And so if you're delivering incredible results but you don't have that charm, you could very well be overlooked for a senior executive role based on that and not despite your other extremely beautiful qualities, right.
Charisma is that spark that transforms your results into influence.
And the high performers who lack that often stay in the shadows.
And I don't want you to do that.
Charisma is what bridges the gap between your expertise and your influence.
So let's see how you can amplify what you're already doing.
So in this newsletter, David Hyatt put it perfectly.
He said, what do you do already? that could be done so much better.
So I'm not telling you to become somebody else.
It's the three qualities, presence, confidence, and engaging communication.
So number one, presence.
People say, oh, you just really need to be fully there.
Okay, what does that mean?
To me, it means what speaks to my brain better than being there is.
Pay attention, right.
What we tend to do is go into our own heads and start, you know, spinning all these stories.
Now pay attention to the other people like, not in the sense of oh my gosh, she looks like she's mad and maybe she hates me.
But what are they talking about?
What is their body language?
What's going on with the other person?
How are they responding to what you're saying?
Like, really focus on getting into their heads and their space and their words and their expressions, rather than making up these stories about what you think they might be thinking, overthinking it, in other words.
And the one easy way to do this, to amplify that presence, is to mirror the language, the body language and even the words used.
And the velocity of speech of the other person that helps you to synchronize with them.
So the next big meeting, try to be present.
Pay attention to what is going on in the room.
Really get into what the other people are saying.
Of course, you need to speak up.
But let's start by increasing your presence, right?
Charisma is not a switch that you turn on and off.
It's a muscle that you develop.
So that's the first thing is the presence.
Be more there when you're there.
Number two is confidence.
And I, of course, oh yeah, it's easy to say, you just need to be confident.
But the foundation for it are your strengths.
That whatever makes you capable of adding value, contributing to the company even beyond your everyday work.
And every single person listening to this is making a significant contribution to wherever they work.
Otherwise, you would not be listening to this.
So think about what is something that people praise you for?
Or what is something that consistently your managers have noted in your performance reviews?
Like that's something that you're good at.
Don't play it down.
Maybe it's leadership.
Maybe it's encouraging people.
Maybe it's operations.
Maybe it's your reports.
Maybe it's the slides you put together.
That's your charisma goldmine.
You don't have to be great at everything.
Thank God.
You just have to be good at some things.
So what you want to do is know what you're good at and lean on that.
And even let's say that you're really good with numbers and they're showing you I don't know a color schemes for a marketing concept.
And you could say, well, I'm really a numbers person.
I can just say that color scheme B out of A, B and C seems better to me.
That's owning, that you're not an expert in what's being asked, that you have this other expertise and people are fine with it.
That's attractive.
It's very attractive to to be around and work with people who know that they're really good among the best.
So I want you to write down at least one strength that you're good at.
Could be streamlining processes, could be sales.
Just think about how you can bring that strength into more meetings, more conversations, leaning into it more.
Okay, that may sound easy to say and hard to do. but that's part of your premium personal brand.
And you just remind people, hey, I'm really good at this.
And that's why I think we should do such and such.
For example.
That would be a way to lean into that strength with a great deal of confidence.
All right.
Number three is to turn up the energy with your communication.
And everybody has a level of energy and that energy is contagious.
And I want you to always think in these high stakes meetings Or any meeting where you want to really make an impact.
I want you to visualize that people have these batteries, right?
And that our batteries need a charge.
Because guess what?
You all know life is hard.
So everybody's got stuff going on for the higher stakes meetings.
And if you're an introvert, you can't do this for every single meeting because you'll get too tired.
This is what happens to me.
But for those meetings...
You turn up the energy a little bit more than normal for you.
Turn up your warps.
If you're normally making like little witchy, funny comments, do it a little bit more.
Just turn up the energy to try to charge their batteries.
That's what charisma is.
It's that feeling that we get from certain people, that they are paying attention to us, that they see us, that they see that hey, you really are a cool person, so that's what you need to do for other people.
I'm just going to bring a little example from a client.
I'm going to call him Joseph.
You know a high performing leader in a large tech company, always turning things in reliably great results, and felt like he was overlooked for promotions because he wasn't speaking up in meetings.
So he practiced paying more attention and you know what.
One way to do all of these things is to amplify what other people are saying in the meeting, but adding your spin to it, like if somebody else positions an idea or a comment and you say oh, what Laura said is really good or impactful or has so much potential and the way I see it, and then you add your own insight to it.
So if you just do that, Amplify what other people have said that's positive in a meeting, that's very charismatic.
Now, sometimes you have to do the reverse, but that's a topic for another podcast episode that we've already touched on that, but we'll tackle that again in an upcoming episode.
But amplify other voices.
If you don't feel like you have something to say, you can definitely add value that way.
You can amplify your natural strengths, whether it's operational analytical writing emails, whatever it is, be present, own your impact communicate.
With a little bit more energy and your charisma, your CQ will be going up.
So pick one of these qualities and see if you can amplify it just a notch, maybe 10, in your next interaction and see what happens.
I'm going to close it with this thought from David Hyatt, this question that we started with.
What do you do already that could be done so much better?
And actually, that's a really good question for you to take to your own team.
I think there's just so much potential there.
If you're thinking, Laura, charisma is not my thing.
I'm just a nerd.
I'm so analytical.
I'm not flashy.
I highly recommend that you take my executive presence scorecard, which has 15 questions covering the four domains of executive presence mastery system.
It gives you specific situations and you can rate yourself and you can see at a very granular level where you're strong and where you're not.
If you want that, email me at hello at speakupwithlaura.com.
I will personally send you access to that.
And I hope everyone has a fantastic day and I will catch you on the next episode.
