Transcripts
Right now, try to think about the people you’ve been drawn to in your life, perhaps even attracted to.
Speaker:Think about how you first perceived them and what made you single them out in a world filled with other people.
Speaker:Why did you decide you liked them especially and wanted to know them better, even when they were still relative strangers?
Speaker:Bestselling author and self-help guru Tim Ferriss claims that certain people in the public eye have what he calls a “reality distortion field."
Speaker:Sounds impressive, huh?
Speaker:In less flashy language, he’s referring to none other than that irresistible combination of charm, charisma, confidence, and ability to persuade.
Speaker:In other words, that quality that makes other people flock around you and want to be your friend.
Speaker:Luckily, says Ferriss, this quality is not one hundred percent innate but something you can develop and cultivate—in fact, when it’s all broken down, the skill of charming people is made of astonishingly simple parts - Make (Brief) Eye Contact.
Speaker:Most people tend to go about their daily business with only cursory glances at the world around them, other people included.
Speaker:But brief eye contact with strangers is simultaneously the easiest and most powerful way to quickly convey connection, confidence, and a little sprinkle of charm.
Speaker:It’s simple .- For less than a second, glance into the eyes of people you walk past, then look away again.
Speaker:That’s it!
Speaker:The key is to keep it as brief as possible.
Speaker:The fact is, people, even complete strangers, will not mind or see it as an intrusion, but with that flicker of eye contact, you actually create a strong sense of presence that most other people are probably not creating.
Speaker:While you make eye contact, keep your gaze soft and neutral.
Speaker:You don’t want to be staring at someone or making them think that you’re looking for something, trying to flirt, or making a point of any kind.
Speaker:If this trick seems too simple to actually work, then try it for yourself.
Speaker:The next time you’re out in public, challenge yourself to make fleeting eye contact with five or ten people in this way.
Speaker:Then notice not only how you feel, but how others respond to you.
Speaker:Prepare to be surprised!
Speaker:Be Very Aware Of Personal Space.
Speaker:Charismatic, confident people have a way of being very physically present, without it feeling imposing or threatening.
Speaker:It’s all about proximity again - “Closeness” is not just a physical feeling, but a function of many subtle psychological experiences.
Speaker:There’s a reason they call it eye “contact,” for example—looking at someone psychologically brings you closer to them, even if the space between you remains the same.
Speaker:There are other ways to create this perception of closeness without literally getting in someone’s face.
Speaker:For example, you could face them head on, use touch (sparingly), raise or project your voice, or talk to or even about them.
Speaker:You can imagine that if someone enters a room, makes eye contact, greets you at a fairly loud volume, and then comes over, gently touching your elbow as they shake your hand, you’d feel they were extremely present without impinging on your personal space.
Speaker:It’s this conscious use of physical proximity that allows charismatic people to command attention while staying friendly and respectful.
Speaker:Ferriss claims that Bill Clinton was such a man.
Speaker:A friend of Ferriss’s claimed to dislike Clinton, but by chance got to meet him at a party one day.
Speaker:Ferriss explains, “In that moment, face-to-face, all of my friend’s personal animosity toward Clinton disappeared, in one instant.
Speaker:As they were shaking hands, Clinton made eye contact with my friend in a way so powerful and intimate, my friend felt as though the two of them were the only people in the room."
Speaker:Two things are fascinating about this .- The first is that charisma is so powerful it can completely remove and reverse any active biases a person may have, and the second is that all of this can be done with small, simple tools—just eye contact and a handshake.
Speaker:Stay Present.
Speaker:It sounds kind of obvious, but if you want presence, you need to actually be present!
Speaker:That means that you cannot be distracted by your own anxieties about socializing, you cannot be thinking about what you’re going to say next, and you can’t be quietly judging the other person or worrying that they’re judging you.
Speaker:The moment you go off in your own head and abandon the real, unfolding moment right in front of you, you lose some of your raw power and potential magnetism.
Speaker:You’re elsewhere ...and other people can feel it.
Speaker:We all know what it’s like to talk to a person who is only half listening, looking past us, or distracted by a nearby screen.
Speaker:But it’s worth remembering that you can make others feel invisible or unheard even without being this obvious.
Speaker:It’s possible for somebody to be looking right at you and yet not really see you, and it’s possible for someone to say “uh huh” and repeat what you just said, even though you know deep down that they haven’t really heard you.
Speaker:Sadly, in today’s information-soaked world, we’re all in something of an attention deficit.
Speaker:The good news is that by pausing, by being present, and by actually paying total attention to the person in front of you, you will instantly stand out from the crowd and elevate that interaction to something special.
Speaker:It is one small way that we can build the intensity we spoke about in the previous chapter.
Speaker:The simple reason is that eye contact fulfills a very primal and real need in every human - the need to be acknowledged.
Speaker:Consider again what Ferriss’s friend said about Clinton - that he made it feel like they were the “only people in the room."
Speaker:What this tells us is that Clinton’s eye contact made people feel important.
Speaker:They were not there in a crowd, clamoring for attention.
Speaker:They were seen and heard.
Speaker:The person looking at them treated them as though they were genuinely interesting.
Speaker:What could be more magnetic than that?
Speaker:Here’s another example.
Speaker:In a now famous 1977 interview Barbara Walters did with Dolly Parton, we can see all three of the above play out beautifully.
Speaker:It’s worth watching a clip of this interview if you can, simply because it’s a perfect masterclass in what a “reality distortion field” actually is, and just how powerful it can be when done right.
Speaker:What’s fantastic about the interview is that it also dispels the myths many of us have about what charm looks like.
Speaker:Look at any win-friends-and-influence-people-style material, and you could be forgiven for thinking that “charisma” is something reserved for businessmen in power suits in the eighties; you could come to the conclusion that presence and gravitas were about domination, power, and “crushing your opponent."
Speaker:However, Dolly Parton proves that this has nothing to do with it.
Speaker:In the interview, Barbara Walters is pretty obviously going for the kill and posing questions deliberately designed to throw Dolly off, embarrass her, or get her flustered.
Speaker:But watch how Dolly reacts.
Speaker:She does a few key things -
Speaker:62 00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:03,960 •She is perfectly, almost serenely calm in herself.
Speaker:She doesn’t rush, she isn’t tense, and she doesn’t for a second behave as though she doesn’t have the right to speak freely.
Speaker:She is self-assured, calm, composed.
Speaker:66 00:09:16,560 --> 00:09:18,080
Speaker:•She maintains deep, sincere, and frequent eye contact with Walters, even as the questions are obviously hostile.
Speaker:Dolly knows exactly what is going on but doesn’t descend to that level.
Speaker:She smiles, she’s amiable, and she consistently pulls the conversation in the direction she wants it to go, never taking any bait or reacting.
Speaker:She responds to intrusive and insulting questions in a thoughtful, mature way that consistently elevates the conversation to where she wants it to be.
Speaker:She doesn’t get angry or defensive—she maintains her frame in the way she wants it, and sweetly, easily dismisses Walter’s attempts to create drama or tension.
Speaker:73 00:10:07,640 --> 00:10:09,480
Speaker:•She is fully, one hundred percent present in the interview, in herself, and in her body.
Speaker:She leans forward and listens closely to Walters.
Speaker:She takes up space.
Speaker:In fact, a big part of Dolly Parton’s legendary charisma comes from this ability to expand so visibly into her surroundings—her body is big, her smile is big, her hair is big!
Speaker:She makes no apologies and simply, comfortably takes up this space for herself.
Speaker:The message is communicated on a primal level .- I’m here.
Speaker:I’m in the present.
Speaker:I’m comfortable.
Speaker:Note, however, that this is a quiet but firm resolve, rather than arrogance, pushiness, or aggression.
Speaker:Dolly Parton won hearts and minds precisely because she could control situations in this way.
Speaker:She looked like a blonde bimbo (Walters even insultingly asks whether she’s a “hillbilly”), but that’s only to the untrained eye that cannot see the social genius of working with eye contact, presence, body language, and energy.
Speaker:Barbara Walters, a skilled and experienced broadcast journalist, is left looking petty and transparent—because she lacks the charisma that Dolly has in abundance.
Speaker:When Barbara takes a snipe at Dolly’s outrageous fashion sense, insinuating that she “doesn’t have to look like that” in a condescending tone, Dolly answers not with her words, but with her demeanor.
Speaker:She laughs and replies, with a charming, totally relaxed smile, that no, she doesn’t have to dress as she does ...but chooses to because she wants to.
Speaker:“I would never stoop so low to be fashionable; that’s the easiest thing in the world to do."
Speaker:In this way, she communicates beautifully that she doesn’t play the games Barbara does, and that she is way above being provoked using so trivial a tactic.
Speaker:Not only does she put Walters in her place, she actually manages to do it with kindness, civility, and a degree of grace that is far more than the rudeness of the interview deserved.
Speaker:Barbara went into the interview with the intention to show up Parton as a ditz and an airhead; Parton saw it all coming and disarmed it to perfection.
Speaker:When you watch the recording of the interview, you realize Parton achieves all this with nothing more than her physical presence, her eye contact, and the way she carries herself.
Speaker:That’s all.
Speaker:She doesn’t have any “wit” or clever “clap backs."
Speaker:She doesn’t attack or get angry.
Speaker:She certainly doesn’t make intelligent arguments.
Speaker:She conquers the interaction solely because she is in perfect, total control of herself.
Speaker:And her “reality distortion field” blows everything out of the water.
Speaker:Can you learn to do this for yourself?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:But take a page from Dolly’s book and realize that the biggest impact you make on people does not come from what you say—it’s from how you are.
Speaker:In the interview Dolly said, “Oh, I know they make fun of me, but all these years the people have thought the joke was on me, but it’s actually on them.
Speaker:I am sure of myself as a person.
Speaker:I am sure of my talent.
Speaker:I’m sure of my love for life and that sort of thing.
Speaker:I am very content.
Speaker:I like the kind of person that I am.
Speaker:So, I can afford to piddle around and do-diddle around with makeup and clothes and stuff because I am secure with myself."
Speaker:Put it into practice .- The next time you’re interacting with someone, try to hold the frame of yourself as secure, worthy, and perfectly calm in yourself.
Speaker:If you like, you can temporarily imagine that you are someone else that you admire, and then behave as you imagine they would behave.
Speaker:What would you say, do, and think if you knew deep down that you had intrinsic worth, and so did everyone else?
Speaker:How might that change the way you approach every interaction?
Speaker:Note how your mindset instantly alters the way you hold other people’s gazes, how you take up space, how you move.
Speaker:Notice what it does to the reality around you.
Speaker:Is there anything you’d like to keep on doing?
