How can I be more charismatic?
Suaviq · checked · 10 sources
The short answer
Treat charisma as a set of behaviors you can practice. Slow down as you walk into a room, hold eye contact a little longer than your nerves want, and give your full attention to the person speaking. Marilyn Monroe started as a shy factory worker with constant stage fright. She studied and rehearsed these behaviors for years, and witnesses watched her switch them on in the street. You can practice the same small actions.
Reading this will not change how you talk to people. Practicing will. Suaviq gives you a 1:10 video and 10 real-life exercises for this, easy ones first.
Are charismatic people born that way?
Marilyn Monroe was not. She started as Norma Jeane Dougherty, working on a production line at a munitions factory in Los Angeles. An Army photographer came to photograph women war workers and put her in front of his camera. A modeling agency changed her hair, Fox signed her in 1946, and a casting executive suggested the name Marilyn, to which she added her mother's family name, Monroe.
Then she kept studying after she already had a contract. She took classes at the Actors' Laboratory in 1947 and at Michael Chekhov's studio from 1951. On the set of Niagara she was reading a difficult book about physical habits, and more than four hundred of her books were sold at auction in 1999. She treated the way she entered a room as a subject to study.
What did Marilyn Monroe do that made people notice her?
Susan Strasberg described walking through Manhattan with her in 1955 while nobody recognized her. Then Marilyn asked, “Do you want to see me be her?” She changed nothing a camera could see, and within minutes a crowd surrounded her. Strasberg wrote this down about thirty years later, but Eli Wallach and Richard Avedon each described the same switch.
The photographers explain what the switch was. Eve Arnold, who worked with her for ten years, wrote that nobody came close to her skill in working with both the photographer and the camera. Monroe treated the person behind the lens as someone to give something to, and she never used them as a mirror to check herself in.
You can do the ordinary version of this. When someone speaks to you, turn your whole body toward them, put your phone face down, and keep looking at them until they finish. Researchers call the feeling this creates perceived responsiveness, the sense that someone pays attention to who you are. Reis, Clark and Holmes describe it as the main idea behind research on closeness.
How do you look confident when you feel nervous?
Start at the door. Before you walk in, stop for one breath, drop your shoulders and enter more slowly than your nerves want. Clark and Wells describe rushing through a moment you fear as a safety behavior. It lowers the fear now, keeps it alive for next time, and turns your attention onto yourself.
Hold eye contact a little longer. Binetti and colleagues tested nearly 500 people and found they were comfortable with about 3.3 seconds on average. The faces were on a screen, and preferences varied a lot. People also notice less than you fear: in a study by Gilovich and colleagues, students in an embarrassing T-shirt guessed that half the room noticed, and about a quarter did.
Then act while you still feel afraid. Monroe was sick with nerves before scenes for her whole career, and she filmed them anyway. Craske and colleagues explain that exposure works best when it proves your fear wrong, though they wrote about therapy with a clinician. Suaviq is practice, not therapy, so if fear stops you living your life, talk to a professional.
Can charismatic people also ask for a lot?
Monroe did. For Gentlemen Prefer Blondes she was paid about $500 a week, by her own account, while her co-star Jane Russell's fee was reported at between $175,000 and $200,000. Monroe refused the next script, accepted a suspension and moved to New York. In 1955 she started her own production company, and Fox signed her again at $100,000 a film, with the right to approve her directors.
Asking directly is easier than it feels. In lab and field studies, Flynn and Lake found that people underestimated how often others would say yes to a direct request, by as much as 50%. Those requests were favors between strangers, not fees, so take only the direction of the result.
What did charisma cost Marilyn Monroe?
The same witnesses who described her switch recorded its cost. She came out in rashes and struggled with her lines, and Billy Wilder counted forty-seven takes of one line on Some Like It Hot. In 1957 Avedon watched her perform “Marilyn Monroe” for a whole evening, then sit in a corner with nothing left. She died in 1962, aged thirty-six.
Her skill was real, and she never had a safe way to stop. So practice the off switch as well. One evening, go somewhere nobody knows you and be ordinary on purpose. No study shows that this protects you, but we believe a presence you cannot switch off stops being a skill.
Exercises to practice, easiest first
These come from the The Monroe Method topic. Do one a day, and move to the next when it stops feeling hard.
Step 1
Give the camera everything
When someone speaks to you today, give them what she gave the camera. Turn your whole body towards them, put your phone face down, and keep looking at them until they finish.
In front of a camera, her method was to turn her attention outward. She worked with the photographer, not for a mirror. A person who is speaking to you deserves at least what she gave a camera.
Research. Researchers call it perceived responsiveness: the feeling that someone pays attention to who you really are and values it. It is the main idea behind research on closeness in relationships, and it is linked to people's well-being. Reis, Clark & Holmes (2004)
Step 2
One hour of study
Spend one hour this week watching someone who is really good with people, in person or on film. Write down two things they do that are small enough to copy tomorrow.
At the height of her fame she read books about movement on set, and she left four hundred books behind. Her presence improved because she treated it as something to study, not as a mood.
Our opinion. No study says that an hour of watching improves charm. It is our own judgment that studying on purpose works better than hoping to pick it up. Her library suggests she thought so too.
Step 3
The threshold pause
Before you enter a room tonight, stop outside the door for one breath. Drop your shoulders, lift your eyes, and walk in more slowly than your nerves want.
The switch she used in the street happened inside her, before anything could be seen. When you hurry through a doorway, you are hiding during your own arrival.
Clinical practice. In the standard model of social anxiety, rushing through the moment you fear is a safety behavior. It lowers the fear now and keeps it alive for next time. It also turns your attention onto yourself at the moment it should be on the room. Clark & Wells (1995)
Step 4
Name your switch
Write down three physical things that are true of you when you are most comfortable: your posture, your pace, and where you look. Tomorrow, do all three once, on purpose, among strangers.
'Marilyn' was a set of behaviors she could repeat, not a mood she waited for. Your relaxed self already exists when you are with old friends. You have simply never written it down.
Our opinion. No study shows that naming your relaxed behaviors lets you use them elsewhere. What the record shows is that hers were deliberate and repeatable. Applying that to you is our own judgment, and we say so plainly.
Step 5
Three seconds of eyes
In three conversations today, hold eye contact until you have noticed the color of the other person's eyes. Then hold it for one second more.
When you are anxious, you look away too early, and it seems as if you are not really there. A comfortable length of eye contact is longer than your fear tells you, and shorter than you think.
Research. Nearly 500 people were tested. On average they were comfortable with about 3.3 seconds of eye contact. That is longer than an anxious glance and much shorter than a stare. Binetti, Harrison, Coutrot, Johnston & Mareschal (2016)
Step 6
Be seen on purpose
For a whole day, in an ordinary place, wear or carry something you love but normally keep for people you feel safe with: the color, the hat, the band shirt.
This topic exists to shrink the fear of being noticed. That fear is measurably wrong: the audience you imagine is about twice the size of the real one.
Research. Students who had to wear an embarrassing T-shirt guessed that about half the room would notice. About a quarter did. Other people notice only a small part of what the wearer feels everyone can see. Gilovich, Medvec & Savitsky (2000)
Step 7
Rehearse out loud
Before the next event that scares you, say your first two sentences out loud, alone, twice. This is not a script. It is a warm-up for your voice.
Her notebooks are full of instructions to herself. Rehearsing is not being fake. It is how your body learns in advance that you will survive the room.
Our opinion. This is our own view, and it partly conflicts with the research on worry, which shows that rehearsing outcomes feeds anxiety before an event. So rehearse your opening and never the result. Practice the two sentences, not the whole evening.
Step 8
Practice the off switch
One evening this week, go somewhere nobody knows you and be ordinary on purpose. Do not perform, and do not check who noticed you. Notice who you are with the switch off, and remember that you can switch it on again tomorrow.
This is the half she never had. The witnesses who described her switch also described her collapse when the evening ended. If you can only switch your presence on, it is not a skill. It is a debt.
Our opinion. The record shows what it costs to have a public self that you cannot safely switch off. No study shows that practicing being unnoticed protects you from that. We believe it does. We cannot prove it, and we teach it anyway, because it is the most important habit in this topic.
Step 9
Do it scared
Do one social thing today while you still feel afraid: say hello, ask the question, or make the invitation. Do not wait until you feel ready.
She was sick with nerves before scenes for her whole career, and she filmed them anyway. Waiting until you feel calm is not preparation. It lets the fear decide your timetable.
Clinical practice. Exposure works best when it proves your fear wrong. When you act while you are afraid and the disaster does not come, your nervous system learns. When you wait to feel calm first, you mostly learn to wait. Craske, Treanor, Conway, Zbozinek & Vervliet (2014)
Step 10
Ask for the real number
This week, ask directly for one thing you have been holding back: the fee, the day off, the different seat, or the plan you really want. Say it in one sentence, and then stop talking.
She was paid a small part of her co-star's fee. So she left one of the most powerful studios in Hollywood, started her own company, and came back with the right to approve her directors. Being warm and asking for a lot are not opposites, and she proves it.
Research. In lab and field studies, people underestimated how often others would say yes to a direct request, by as much as 50%. Flynn & Lake (2008)
Sign up free with your email. Watch the lesson, then try the first exercise with real people, and come back to say how it went.
Common questions
Did Marilyn Monroe say “If you can't handle me at my worst”?
Probably not. The line first appeared decades after her death. Almost everything that circulates online in her name is invented. Her real words survive in printed sources, such as her own notes published as Fragments, which show instructions to herself and fears she named in her own handwriting.
Did Marilyn Monroe cut her shoe heel to create her walk?
That story came from a newspaper columnist, and her surviving shoes have even heels. The record shows something more useful. She studied movement in acting classes and read books about physical habits. Eve Arnold, who photographed her for ten years, wrote that she learned to move in tiny amounts so that the lens never lost focus on her.
Is it fake to rehearse before a social event?
In our view, no, as long as you rehearse only your opening. Say your first two sentences out loud, alone, twice. Monroe's notebooks are full of instructions to herself. Research on worry suggests that rehearsing how an evening will turn out feeds anxiety, so practice the two sentences and leave the rest of the evening alone.
Sources
- Spoto (1993). Marilyn Monroe: The Biography.
- Strasberg (1992). Marilyn and Me: Sisters, Rivals, Friends.
- Arnold (1987). Marilyn Monroe: An Appreciation.
- Reis, Clark & Holmes (2004). Perceived Partner Responsiveness as an Organizing Construct in the Study of Intimacy and Closeness.
- Clark & Wells (1995). A Cognitive Model of Social Phobia.
- Binetti, Harrison, Coutrot, Johnston & Mareschal (2016). Pupil Dilation as an Index of Preferred Mutual Gaze Duration.
- Gilovich, Medvec & Savitsky (2000). The Spotlight Effect in Social Judgment.
- Craske, Treanor, Conway, Zbozinek & Vervliet (2014). Maximizing Exposure Therapy: An Inhibitory Learning Approach.
- Flynn & Lake (2008). If You Need Help, Just Ask: Underestimating Compliance With Direct Requests for Help.
- Monroe, Fragments (2010). Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters.