1167: Mastering the Three Elements of Charisma with Olivia Fox Cabane

Pete Mockaitis
Olivia, welcome!

Olivia Fox Cabane
Thank you so much. It’s great to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to be chatting with you about charisma. And, in fact, I mentioned earlier you’ve been on our list for a full decade. And now here we come. Your Charisma Myth book got its second edition now. And I’d love it if you could hit us with it straight up, what is the charisma myth or kind of the main thing people misunderstand about charisma?

Olivia Fox Cabane
The single biggest myth about charisma is that it’s this innate magical quality that you either have it or you don’t. And, in fact, as researchers have shown in controlled laboratory experiments, they were able to raise and lower people’s level of charisma as if they were turning a dial.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. Well, I think many of us would say, “Hmm, I would enjoy turning up my charisma dial from time to time.” Can you share with us what went down in these experiments and what were the results?

Olivia Fox Cabane
It turns out that charisma is nothing but behaviors. And the reason that we think that it’s innate is because, usually, the “naturals” at charisma learn these behaviors so early that by the time we meet them, usually in early adulthood at the earliest, it looks as if they’ve always had them.

But, in fact, there are people who consciously learn charisma step by step, and Steve Jobs is one of the most public examples. You can see, if you look at his videos from 1983 to 2011, he learned each of the three elements of charisma, presence, then power, then warmth, one at a time. And it’s fascinating to see his charisma grow over the years.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now that’s a fun fact. I was unaware Steve Jobs was originally not so charismatic. Can you unpack the story for us?

Olivia Fox Cabane
So if you look at Steve Jobs in the ‘80s, he really is coming across as nerdy, as having trouble with eye contact, for example. And if you look at it from a charisma science perspective, he is low on all three of the measures. He’s low on presence, he’s low on power, he’s low on warmth.

And the first thing he learns is presence. You can see him being able to be more still, more focused on the audience. He fidgets less. He then gradually learns power where you can see how much more space he takes on stage. You can hear in his voice the way his inflection drops in the right places.

And, eventually, the last piece that he learns is warmth. And what’s interesting with Jobs is that it’s not warmth towards the audience, it’s enthusiasm towards the product that he is presenting and the topic he’s speaking about. Steve Jobs, as Carmine Gallo once said, “Steve Jobs doesn’t sell computers. He sells the promise of a better world. He spoke like a prophet.”

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Okay, so you’ve observed this by viewing the evolution of his performances in keynote speeches and presentations over time?

Olivia Fox Cabane
I have, yeah, but one of the fascinating things with the new edition is that I was lucky enough to have Dr. Oliver Niebuhr, who’s the guy in vocal and digital charisma. And he and his team actually analyzed the vocal charisma of CEOs, and they just compared Steve Jobs to, for example, Mark Zuckerberg.

And in the later years, you can see Steve Jobs clocking in at 93% on their formula of the elements of charisma. Zuck, his max was 57% on the charisma metric.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so you’ve got these three components, and could you share with us perhaps a story of someone you’ve seen up close and personal go through a transformation in their own charisma levels?

Olivia Fox Cabane
So, one of the most interesting areas where I’ve seen this personally has been in Silicon Valley, where you see young founders who have to learn charisma because it really is the number one investment criteria. In fact, not in theory, people always think that investors fund the right idea, the right product.

Personally, what I’ve witnessed is that investors fund the right person. And one of the best studies on that was actually in 2008 when the MIT Media Lab was able to predict with over 80% accuracy the outcome of negotiations, sales calls, and business plan pitches without listening to a single word of content.

They were analyzing the ratio of speaking to listening, they were analyzing the voice fluctuation, and they were analyzing the emotions that were emitted. And so this is something that, when I was at StartX, I had to teach the young founders of, “Listen, if you are agonizing over every single word in your PowerPoint, it’s going to be a great PowerPoint, but realize how little impact it’s going to have compared to your body language.”

And one of the most vivid examples of that was actually the story of Marilyn Monroe, who took a photographer and a reporter one day to Grand Central Station because she wanted to prove that she could flip from Norma Jeane Baker to Marilyn Monroe at will.

And so it was fascinating to hear from the reporter that she was first Norma Jeane, and she went down into Grand Central Station, boarded the subway car, and even though there was a camera clicking the whole time, no one noticed her.

Then she emerges back onto the street, and the reporter said there wasn’t a grand gesture, “It was just she fluffed up her hair, struck her pose, but gradually, it was as if she transformed into Marilyn under our very eyes, and the crowd went nuts within a few minutes.” They had to shove people to help her escape the growing crowd.

Pete Mockaitis
This is after she was famous?

Olivia Fox Cabane
This was after she was famous. She was able to go down into Grand Central and not be noticed by anyone just by turning off her charisma, then re-emerged onto the streets and show herself as Marilyn just by a conscious effort, because Marilyn wanted to prove that the Marilyn persona was something that she could turn on and off.

And this is just an illustrative example of what the studies have shown that charisma is nothing but behaviors, and that in these lab experiments, the researchers, by instructing the participants to display certain behaviors, were able to get them to be more or less charismatic.

Pete Mockaitis
This is mind blowing in so many ways. And so, well, let’s really get into the nitty-gritty here then. So, all right, we’ll start with Marilyn Monroe. What are the key levers or switches or moves that transform one from Norma Jeane Baker into Marilyn Monroe?

Olivia Fox Cabane
So here we’re operating on guesswork because we, unfortunately, don’t have a video recording of that episode. But my best guess would be that what she was doing in the subway was making herself look small, and it was emanating the “I’m no one, don’t look at me.” So this is a question of how you keep your eyes down. It’s a question of how little space you take up, versus if you are going to make yourself the big gorilla in the room.

And one of the really interesting practices that I’ve seen really help with students, particularly for women, is when they start doing martial arts because that will genuinely change the way that they move through space.

And it was really interesting when Stanford’s boxing coach, at one point, gave his students the exercise of walking through crowded areas, learning how to display a body language such that other people would move out of their way, because he was explaining that the ability to portray dominance was one of the keys in pre-games.

And so if you look at studies, the power component is sometimes called power, sometimes confidence, sometimes dominance, sometimes assertiveness. It’s all a component of power. It isn’t actually the real power to command an army because, as humans, because we evaluate people in just so few instances, we’re always inferring.

And so we infer that someone who is displaying confidence must have something that they are confident about, must have a reason to be confident. And that is why, if you look at the cues from which we read dominance, assertiveness, social status, they, really, a lot of them come down to how much confidence your body language displays.

Here’s the irony. Have you ever had a conversation when you say something and your brain goes, “Ooh, that was stupid?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, sure.

Olivia Fox Cabane
What happens to your face?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, maybe a wince. It’s just kind of like a “Yikes!” kind of a face, yeah.

Olivia Fox Cabane
Yeah. So two things happen at that moment. First, one piece that might be obvious is that the human brain, being terrible at understanding the difference between imagination and reality, which is the reason why when you watch a scary movie, even though you know it’s just a movie, your brain sees blood and guts on the screen, sends you straight into fight or flight mode, adrenaline rushing through your system.

And the sympathetic nervous system sends the body’s resources to the important survive-the-next-10-seconds things, like muscles, vision acuity, etc., shuts down the unnecessary parts like digestion, immune system, and cognitive reasoning, the expensive part of the brain.

When you attack yourself in that way, what’s really interesting is that the brain isn’t great at understanding that that is a self-attack, that there’s not a real saber-toothed tiger. But here’s the other thing. Even though that was a self-directed criticism, self-directed coldness or judgment, the other person doesn’t know that.

All they know is that, while you were looking at them, listening to them, talking to them, and, therefore, presumably thinking about them, they accurately read coldness, criticism, and judgment on your face. So, naturally, they’re going to assume it’s about them.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, and I think that that is deep inside of us, just associations. And just yesterday, I was in a physical therapy appointment, and someone was, she seemed perfectly charming, friendly. We did some strength testing, and then she used this device called a shockwave on me. And it hurt, and I actually yelled. I was surprised.

And it was so funny, I had, generally, positive associations with this person, like, “Oh, what a friendly professional.” And then after this, it’s just like, “I don’t like this person.”

And I knew this is not rational. But because she caused me physical pain in an intense, surprising fashion, I was just like, “I don’t really feel like chit-chatting with you anymore.” It’s just there. We just associate and we can’t help ourselves.

Olivia Fox Cabane
One of the absolute truths of charisma is that it’s not just how you make people feel about you, it’s also how you make them feel about themselves. If you make them feel good about themselves, they will associate that feeling to you. If you make them feel bad about themselves, same thing.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so Olivia, please, lay it on us, in terms of what are these behaviors that are going to make us super duper charismatic, persuasive, and funded and sold and all the good things?

Olivia Fox Cabane
So presence, power, and warmth. With presence, the interesting thing is that this is where, in today’s day and age, you can gain the biggest bang for your buck, if you will, because presence really comes down to being able to stay fully focused on the other person in the moment.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Olivia Fox Cabane
And with an increasing amount of us distracted every minute by our phones, watches, rings, whatever it is, if you can be one of the few people who can stay fully focused on the other person, you would be amazed at the outsized impact that just a small increase in presence has.

And my favorite trick here is, if you ever notice that you’re in a conversation, but only half your brain present and the other half was busy doing something else, realize that that has a real cost, because there’s a good chance that your eyes glazed over, your facial reactions were a split second delayed, and people can catch that so fast. It’ll come across as an incongruence and you’ll come across as not quite authentic.

Instead, if you can focus on your toes for a split second, that’ll get your brain to scan your whole body from head to, of course, toes and get you very physically present back in the moment, get back in the conversation right after that. So presence, that’s step one.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, my toes. And I’m also curious about eye contact? Is there optimal amount, approach, style?

Olivia Fox Cabane
Yeah, so eye contact is an interesting one. If you’ll notice in conversations, often the speaker is the one who will look away while they’re constructing their sentences, or halfway through a sentence, whereas, the listener will tend to have more sustained eye contact.

Now, this is where, of course, neurodiversity comes in, and for people for whom eye contact is less comfortable, you can try looking between the eyes, sometimes at the forehead. But eye contact has one particularly interesting effect, which is deep sustained eye contact can send phenethylamine, the same chemical that is known for producing the phenomenon we know as love at first sight.

Pete Mockaitis
So sustained eye contact can produce love at first sight chemicals. Interesting. Can sustained eye contact also feel weird, uncomfortable, jarring, threatening, off putting?

Olivia Fox Cabane
It can, depending on what other signals are happening at the same time. Sustained eye contact with an aggressive body language can absolutely create a feeling of belligerence. Sustained eye contact with a warm, accepting Dalai Lama kind of body language can get people to melt into a puddle of tears. So it’s just one element.

But one of the most hilarious studies was one in which participants were asked to look at each other and count the number of blinks while they were…

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, right.

Olivia Fox Cabane
Right? And after the research, it turns out the researchers didn’t actually care about the number of blinks. They just wanted people staring at each other without feeling self-conscious. And a staggering number of participants reported increased affection, and some even passionate feelings for one another. It happened fast.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Okay, so with presence, not so much fidgeting, fully focusing on the person. If your mind is elsewhere, you’re probably sending that message somehow through your face or something. So a quick thought to the toes can get you back in the groove. Maintained eye contact in a warm, Dalai Lama-ish non-threatening format is handy. Anything else we should cover on presence before moving on?

Olivia Fox Cabane
The honest answer is that mindfulness is the single best training for presence. There just is no better way, and mindfulness is hard. If you’ve ever gone on a silent retreat, I’ve always found that the silence is the easy part. The solitude, honestly, you don’t get enough of it. The stillness in the mind, that’s the challenge. So being able to keep your mind centered is a very difficult but a very worthy challenge.

The good news is that even a small increase in your level of presence can really have a big difference. And one of the fastest ways to get that is when you’re saying goodbye to someone in person, pay attention to the way you’re ending the conversation. Are you already, in your mind and with your body language, focused on something else as you, for example, shake their hand and turn away?

Or can you, in the last couple of seconds, while you’re shaking their hand, sustain eye contact, hold their hand for a minute longer with full eye contact, and then turn away? It’s really just one second’s difference. That’s all it is. But it’s the difference between giving the feeling that you were fully focused on them the whole time and the feeling that you were already moving into your next phase of whatever you’re focusing on while still officially looking at them.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And I’m curious, with the listening, assuming you got the right body language, posture, curiosity, warmth, etc., going for you, can we overdo it? Do we know how much is too much?

Olivia Fox Cabane
You can overdo it. There’s a couple of downsides. So people usually don’t believe me when I tell them that there’s real downsides to being charismatic. They often think that I’m talking about, “Oh, you can become very powerful and do bad things.” Yeah, sure, that’s obvious.

The less obvious one is that people genuinely can become addicted to your presence. Charisma is a high that people can become addicted to. But the bigger one is that, with the intensity of attention, you kind of create a cocoon within which people can end up spilling their guts.

And then, afterwards, when they realize just how much they’ve shared, comes the ego backlash of, “Oh, God, what have I said?” And that’s when they can associate with you the shame, embarrassment of what they said, the resentment that you somehow got them to spill their guts.

So there are some real downsides to too much charisma and to too focused a state of listening. It can turn into therapy if you’re not cautious, which is where it can be useful to, occasionally, interject your own stories to give them a sense of, “Here’s what you’ve shared. Here’s what I’m sharing.” That can give them a sense of just how much they’ve been self-revealing, and also it can give them a chance to back off if they want to.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, super thank you. All right. So that’s presence. Let’s talk about power.

Olivia Fox Cabane
So, with power, as we were saying, the interesting thing about power is, because it’s read through confidence, the counterintuitive point is that the way to confidence is usually less about building yourself up, and it’s usually more about learning how to remove the obstacles, such as self-criticism and self-doubt.

Because self-criticism is so powerful, because the brain reads it as a real attack, ironically, strength, and power will often come from self-compassion and self-forgiveness. Because the ability to move on quickly when you’ve just decided that you messed up, that is one of the most important routes to sustained confidence and strength in your body language.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. The ability to move on quickly when you discover you’ve messed up, How do we get that skill of that quick rebound?

Olivia Fox Cabane
A couple of steps. The first thing is de-stigmatize. Whatever it is that is happening, let’s say you’re getting an attack of the imposter syndrome. So with the imposter syndrome, we know now that it’s a fairly common phenomenon, that the vast majority of people experience it at some point or another, that even though it feels like you’re an imposter, it’s just a matter of time before people expose you as a fraud. This is really just a normal experience. De-stigmatize that feeling.

Or if it is the feeling of having failed, it can help to remember that some of the best baseball players or soccer players have occasionally failed eight times out of ten, in some cases nine times out of ten. De-stigmatizing to detaching. The brain, as we’ve just said, does its best to present us with an accurate view of reality but it can’t because there’s just too much going on.

So our brain is almost always going to present us with a distorted view of reality. Sometimes it’s a little distorted, it’s pretty accurate, sometimes it’s widely distorted. So just because a thought is in your head doesn’t mean it’s true. So de-stigmatize normal experience. Detach, just because a thought is in your head doesn’t mean it’s true.

Your brain’s job is to make up thoughts. Just because you have an ugly thought doesn’t mean that you are a terrible person. So de-stigmatize, detach, and then rewrite.

So the most useful tool for me of all in this is cognitive re-framing. So imagine that you’re driving to a key pitch, a presentation, and you’re focused, you’re locked in, you know your stuff, you’re on the freeway. All of a sudden, a huge black SUV cuts you off, waves in front of you, almost runs you off the freeway, and then exits. How does that make you feel?

Pete Mockaitis
Mad, scared, disoriented.

Olivia Fox Cabane
Right. You completely have lost your focus, you might have your sympathetic nervous system activated, adrenaline. But you need to get back into a good state. Now, what if through a total fluke coincidence, you learned that the driver of that big black SUV wasn’t an asshole driver?

It was a distraught mother whose baby was choking in the back seat. And it was all she could do to even keep the car on the freeway while trying to save her baby’s life. Would that immediately change how you feel about the event?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, so anger disappears in terms of like, “Okay, I am not wronged by a jerk. But, rather, I unfortunately, was in the wrong place at the wrong time in the midst of this situation.” So the anger goes away. I could still be kind of shaken up and scared, but the anger’s gone.

Olivia Fox Cabane
Sure. But the anger is gone, and then it is much easier to get back into a state of focus if you don’t feel that you have been personally attacked by. And so in most situations in life, you’ll never find out whether it’s an idiot driver or a distraught mother. Choose the version of reality that gets you into the best mental state.

And the reason this is critical is because there is so much body language emanating every second that you cannot control it consciously. The best and really the only way to emanate charisma is to control your mind. Charisma originates in the mind.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. Choose your version of reality. What’s funny is, sometimes, it can be a little far-fetched. And as long as it’s remotely plausible, it does work. So, for example, I know this is not likely to be true, and yet, it does wonders for me.

There have been a couple of times I was disappointed that I wasn’t invited to a wedding. It’s like, “Oh, I thought we were kind of close. I thought we were pals. Well, what’s this about?”

And I say, “Well, Pete, the bride doesn’t want to be seeing you on her wedding day and be filled with regret that she doesn’t get to marry you. That’s going to put a damper on the day. So, of course, she’s not going to invite you to her wedding.”

So now that is so far-fetched, and I’m not that narcissistic to believe that, you know, every woman wishes they could marry me. And yet, I’ll tell you what, in the moment, I feel so much better about not being invited to the wedding. I chose that version of reality, rather far-fetched, but it got the job done for me emotionally.

Olivia Fox Cabane
If it can make you laugh, and if it can get your brain to entertain a different possibility, even for a few minutes, you’ll get the neurochemical change in your brain, and that will get you the body language change you need. So from my perspective, it’s really whatever is the most adaptive, whatever works for you.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. All right. Well, let’s talk about warmth.

Olivia Fox Cabane
So warmth is another one of those you can’t fake it, you have to genuinely feel it. And so sometimes it’s easy because these are people you like. But sometimes it’s harder because sometimes you’re dealing with difficult people.

So with people that you like or people who are just strangers, it’s the fairly easier route of the best way to make a great first impression is, before you walk into the room, knowing that first impressions happen so fast, they happen in just a few seconds, imagining that the person you’re about to meet is a long-lost best friend.

And, really, to make it real, learn from Olympic athletes. Visualization works best when you get the five senses involved. So taste the s’mores that you ate together around the campfire, hear the songs they sung so badly off key. Imagine it vividly.

And then you walk into the room with all that warm and friendly body language. And because, “Hey, thanks, mirror neurons,” one of whose jobs it is to replicate in them what they see in you, they will, in general, people will accept whatever you project.

If you’re projecting confidence, presence, and we’ve been friends for ages, subconsciously, some part of them is going to be feeling, “Oh, this is a warm and confident guy, and it feels like I’ve known him forever.” Why? Because that’s the body language you’re emitting, right?

What if it’s a total jerk or someone with whom you have a long history, or someone who’s really difficult? There’s a couple different ways here. If it’s in the moment, go nuclear. I don’t care what you have to imagine.

You think that your example with the bride was far-fetched. I want you to imagine that they got a terminal illness diagnosis, their dog got run over, their spouse asked for a divorce, whatever you have to imagine, just for a few seconds to get a biochemical shift to get you the right body language.

But if this is a long-term situation, again, let’s use the ability to hijack the brain, the best tool I’ve ever seen, and it works extraordinarily, you wanted to know what has worked the best with the students, this is the one.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Olivia Fox Cabane
So, first, you write a letter from you to this person, longhand, with all the things you ever wished that you’d ever said to that person. This is not surprising, you may have done this already. Second, you write their answer to you with everything you ever wished they had said to you, recognizing how wrong they were, anything you wish they had said.

That’s the letter that you read every night for a week. Night one, it’s going to feel weird and awkward. Night seven, you’ll be stunned at how a part of your brain says, “Oh, well, I know I got emotional satisfaction. I know they admitted they were wrong.” The brain is so hijack-able, use it to your advantage.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, that is striking! I believe it. It’s taken me a while to come around to these principles. I think I have no doubt now that they are effective. I guess I’m wondering, is it dangerous or wrong in some way to be flirting with falsehood in this fashion, Olivia?

Olivia Fox Cabane
Yes to both possibly. And that’s why I always want to be upfront with when people ask me, “But is it manipulation?” Yes, it is. But then from my perspective, anytime you are trying to convince someone of something, you’re literally trying to change the inside of someone else’s head. How is that not manipulation?

From my perspective, the two guardrails that I look at are intent and impact. Is your intent good? And is your impact good? If the answer to these two is yes, go for it.

Pete Mockaitis
In some ways, like the lies we tell to ourselves for our benefit, I guess there’s another moral distinction there, as opposed to lying to them in terms of like, “Oh, this product can absolutely do that thing that you want,” when you know that it can’t. It’s like, “No, bad move.”

Olivia Fox Cabane
Yes, though I do want to give a caution, as many others have said about visualization. It is important, when you are using them for a future outcome for yourself, that if you’re visualizing the outcome, this will only change things if you previously didn’t believe it was possible and if that belief was key.

So, for example, you can visualize yourself winning the lottery all you want. That is not going to change anything. It is the visualization of the behaviors. Visualizing yourself. You know, the studies that were fascinating, when people were actually strengthening muscles by just visualizing themselves, playing the piano, for example, or doing certain motions, and not just the brain changes, but actually the body change.

So visualizing the behavior is key if the behavior has to change. Visualizing the outcome is great, but only has an impact if the belief about the outcome is what was holding you back before.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. So that could shift belief, it’s like, “Oh, it’s impossible that I could ever start my own business.” But then you visualize it many times, it’s like, “Well, now it’s suddenly I don’t believe it’s impossible because I’ve had the practice of the visualization.”

And so I guess what you were saying is the transformation that is occurring here is an internal one as opposed to The Secret. We are secreting and manifesting to the universe to bring into our whatever.

Olivia Fox Cabane
Yes, sorry, no. You can visualize yourself marrying whoever it is, becoming king of whatever you want, and winning whichever lottery you want, all you want, that will not actually happen just through your believing enough.

And this is something that, honestly, pisses me off quite a bit because there’s so much of a, “Well, if it hasn’t happened, it’s because you didn’t believe hard enough.” No, it’s not. You also have to look at the actual real-world data.

Visualizing and using the brain’s shortcuts to your advantage is really useful, really key when those limitations are what were holding you back. If what was holding you back from being a prima ballerina was not being six foot three, you can visualize it all you want, you’re not going to grow taller through visualization.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. So these bits operate in the real world. And so tell us what we know digitally, because in some ways I’m thinking the game must be changed insofar as subconscious signaling things like pheromones, whatever, in our fear sweat or our tears, or, you know, there’s fasting studies on this that we pick up on that.

So when you’re, you know, hundreds of miles away, working on a Google Meet or a Zoom or whatnot, those aren’t in the mix. So tell us, what do we have to keep in mind in this context?

Olivia Fox Cabane
Yeah, so, indeed, when you’re online, because of the limitations of telecommunication, you’re going to lose so much of the smells of pheromones, but also the microexpressions, which, to the best of my knowledge, aside from Cisco Telepresence, no online video conferencing system can catch.

And so what people don’t realize is that your voice has a much bigger impact than it would offline. And the problem here is one of the key findings that Oliver Niebuhr’s team had was that, if there is too high a rate of compression, there is a risk of emotional confusion, with emotions like excitement being read as impatience or even anger.

And so their conclusion was, whenever there’s a risk of compression, turn off your camera, because your voice is so important that that is what must be first.

Pete Mockaitis
Very, very practical tip. And I’ve been there. So I love it. You’re increasing the bar, not just, “Are my words audible to you?” but, “Is there compression occurring?” And I guess then there’s also some basics, like, on your side, make sure you have, you know, good, strong, reliable internet connectivity bandwidth, working in your favor so it’s not tempted to do the compression.

In terms of specific media, tech tools, are some more prone to compression than others?

Olivia Fox Cabane
So I’m going to have to pull up the actual data here because we’re going to get very technical. All right. “Specifically, at high compression rates, MP3 and Speex codecs demonstrate a higher rate of emotional misclassification and a reduction in perceived charisma, particularly for female speakers.”

So women’s voices are more affected by the negative effects of compression, which is one of the two pieces of bad news that his team had found, along with the fact that women are more impacted by the rate of how formal or informal their clothing is and how impressive their titles are.

So to simplify things, a male founder can show up in a hoodie and be fine. And a female founder, to get the same level of respect, will have to dress a lot more formally.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, duly noted. I guess I’m also wondering, okay, so MP3 compression, I don’t know if there’s a difference between Google Meet versus Zoom versus Teams on default compression settings. Or is that a setting that we can readily change in the platforms? You and I are using Riverside right now, which is, podcasters love for this very reason. We have local recording, full fidelity, no compression.

Olivia Fox Cabane
So you’d have to ask Oliver. His recommendation is usually use the high fidelity or music mode if it’s available.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, music. Okay.

Olivia Fox Cabane
Choose the original tone function, if that’s available. And, of course, the quality of your mic is really, really important.

Pete Mockaitis
Sure thing. What I’m thinking about, and echo cancellation is sometimes a thing or reduce background noise, sometimes those, well, now we’re getting deep into, I also own a podcast production company, into my dork down here.

But with regard to equipment, I mean, you can go wild here. There are so many microphones that I’ve spent, literally, dozens of hours of my life listening to Bandrew over at Podcastage review different microphones, so no need to do that. But any quick tips from your perspective on microphones?

Olivia Fox Cabane
So a key feature of the microphone’s transmission quality is the frequency response. And what you are looking for, ideally, is a large diaphragm condenser microphone. And what you’re looking for is a mic with a curve that is as flat as possible, as unbiased as possible.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, totally. And I would say my favorite, this is, well, I’ll just go and name a specific one. This is the microphone we send to podcasts guests who don’t already have a microphone, is the Maono HD something, which we’ll link in the show notes. And that’s a nice one, you know?

It’s under a hundred bucks. It includes a stand and a pop filter, and you can get nice and close. It eliminates background noise. It’s not built to last for a decade like some of our nice little Sennheiser goodies that we’re playing with right now. But, yeah, it’ll get you done.

And then, on the camera side of things, I’ve got to believe that has an impact in terms of what we’re seeing less visually. And what I love is I’m working with, and again, not that to go, no one has to set up a whole podcast studio, but I’ve got an SLR, like a wedding photographer camera camera behind a teleprompter situation, the Elgato prompter, which I love because, Olivia, I don’t know if you’ve picked up on this, but the lens is right behind the prompter, which is also a screen.

So as I look at you, I am looking at the camera, which is also the display at the same time. So I think that’s really cool. And some people have mentioned, “Wow, I really feel like you’re talking to me.” So for that eye contact presence stuff, I imagine that’d be a little bit of a boost.

But lay it on us, in terms of any do’s and don’ts in your web conferencing situation? Good microphone, dress appropriately, don’t get compressed, watch your tone, mute the video if necessary. What are some other do’s and don’ts here?

Olivia Fox Cabane
So gestures, even if they’re not picked up by the camera, are worth doing because they impact the fluctuation of your voice. And to give a broad generalization, more fluctuation better. But in addition, you’re completely right about the eye contact.

And Oliver’s suggestion was tape either the photo of someone you like or even a stuffed animal above your camera and speak to that because that will automatically give you a warmer, more present, and better focused eye contact.

You do want to be as close to the camera as is comfortable, because, in general, the larger your face appears on screen, the more people will feel that you are present and attentive to them. And, finally, this was, for me, one of the most fascinating discoveries is, in the new edition, I had assumed, along with everyone else, that lower voices are more charismatic. And the signs prove me wrong.

And one of the best examples, I’m going to say a sentence, and I’m going to ask you to pay attention to your emotions while I say it, okay?

“The key for most people’s level of happiness is absolutely the color of their toilet paper. And if only they changed from pink to blue, their problems would be over.” So, eventually, your brain kicks in and says, “Hang on.” But it takes a while.

Meanwhile, your emotions are like, “Oh, sounds credible, authoritative. Yes, this is someone who knows what she’s talking about.” And if you pay close attention, the specific piece that has this impact, which in terms of presence and power especially, is a determining factor.

The one that communicates confidence, competence, authority, and trust is the rate and the speed of the drop, “It’s toilet paper. It’s blue.” Instead of, as unfortunately so many teenagers these days have, you know how their voice goes up even when it’s not a question, the up talk? That’s a killer.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. I see. So a quick drop is what brings it.

Olivia Fox Cabane
A quick drop. The speed and the depth of the drop turns out is what has the key in how much authority and confidence you convey.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, as I do that now, I feel kind of silly. Like, I’ve got a voice modulator. Is that like within reason or am I overdoing it or is it all good? Just lay it on.

Olivia Fox Cabane
The way I always recommend it is, listen, when you’re trying a new behavior, do it in situations when it doesn’t matter, like when you’re ordering coffee or when you’re chatting with an Uber driver. And stay close to home in the moments when it’s high stakes.

But by practicing new behaviors in low-stakes environment, you can see what feels natural and what doesn’t and, gradually, slightly expand your comfort zone.

Pete Mockaitis
And it’s funny, when you were doing those drops, what I felt was, “Whoa! Intensity.” And so I think that could be good or bad, insofar as, so it seems powerfully awesome in the sense that it’s, like, “Whoa! This person really, really means what she’s saying about this toilet paper.”

And I guess it’s about congruity again, in terms of it’s, like, “Why on earth would anyone have such intense feelings about toilet paper? This is odd,” then that’s off as opposed to, if you say, “When our clients implement this technology, they tend to see an 80-90% impact on sales.” It’s like, “Oh, shoot, he really was serious about that impact on sales.”

Olivia Fox Cabane
For example, but also think about politics. What if instead of toilet paper, for which I chose a deliberately ridiculous example, what if I’m saying, “And, really, the problem here is redheaded people. And just getting rid of these redheads would solve all our issues”? That’s when it gets into danger territory.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, and I think that what’s so funny then is, not funny to endanger the lives of redheads there. They’re very precious. I’ve got some in the family. We love them. What’s funny is when those shades of gray, the danger zone, in terms of, like, if you already like a politician or speaker or whatever, you’ll be inclined to give them all kinds of grace.

Like, “Well, obviously, he was just joking.” It was like, “But, no, seriously, if you look at the research on redheads, it’s kind of concerning,” you know, versus someone who already dislikes that speaker is, like, “Can you believe this? This is a call to violence. This is outrageous.”

And then folks who are in the middle, I think, may very well be curious and potentially persuaded, like, “Huh, what’s the deal with the redheads? Maybe I should look into this.” Is that a fair reading or am I making stuff up?

Olivia Fox Cabane
That’s an excellent reading, and that is exactly the danger of humans going along with things emotionally, and their reason kicking in belatedly, sometimes honestly, if at all.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And I also have to get your take on 80% predicted that folks would get sold or funded or whatever based on a few variables. And we’ve mentioned a few of them. I want to cover any that we didn’t, because one you mentioned briefly was the ratio of speaking to listening. What’s ideal there?

Olivia Fox Cabane
So this is really just confirming the idea that charisma is even more how you make people feel about themselves than it is how you make them feel about you. And, for me, the best illustrative story for that is when Benjamin Disraeli was running against William Gladstone for the post of Prime Minister to the British Empire.

And one young lady who happened to be the future mother of Winston Churchill just happened to go to dinner on consecutive evenings with both men. And so the British press asked her afterwards what impressions they’d made, and she said, “After dining with Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. After dining with Mr. Disraeli, I thought I were the cleverest woman in England.”

And, of course, Disraeli won because he had the ability to make her feel interesting and intelligent. And so what I desperately try to get into students’ heads is, “Stop trying to impress people. Let them impress you, and they will love you for it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, you know, it’s so funny, it’s so true. I’m thinking about, well, back to this physical therapy yesterday. When I asked a question, and when the doctor said to me, “That’s a really important question,” it was like I felt great.

And so it’s like I like him more because of it. And it wasn’t because he said something brilliant. It was because he just, you know, said something that… I like to think I asked good questions as a podcaster, so you know, he struck a nerve, like, “Yeah, good. That’s nice.”

Olivia Fox Cabane
It’s the tiny things, like saying, “You know…?” or if ever you need to get them a feeling of impact, it’s saying, “You know, I’d never thought of it that way.” Now, of course, as we said, because humans are so good at catching up on incongruence, if you don’t actually believe what you say, one, you’re going to pay a penalty because incongruence is expensive in the brain.

And two, there’s a good chance that your macro and micro expressions will clash and then you’ll come across as inauthentic. So this is one of the cases where, again, charisma begins in the mind. You have to believe what you’re saying. And this is where I want to be upfront and frank. There’s a reason why there’s a positive correlation between charisma and narcissism.

It’s not necessarily that charisma makes you narcissistic, but it is a reason that narcissists do sometimes have an easier time being charismatic because they’re genuinely convinced that they are the best, most interesting, most fascinating, and, therefore, that is what their body language absolutely genuinely and congruently communicates.

Pete Mockaitis
Fabulous point there. So with listening, the overall idea is to make them feel special and important and clever and wonderful. But is there a number? Is there a ratio of listening to speaking that the science says is pretty good?

Olivia Fox Cabane
The point at which they say, “Am I talking too much?” is when you know you’ve done it right.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, the other side. Okay. So plenty, I mean, it sounds like.

Olivia Fox Cabane
So plenty. So for the second edition, we had the book reviewed by a Gen Z panel, and one of them was a founder and he said, “You know, I’ve noticed every time when we were selling customers that if they had spent 80% of the time speaking and we had spoken for less than 20%, we were going to close.” That was his ratio, 80-20.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Olivia, this is so good. I could talk for another hour. But, tell me, anything critically powerful that we got to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Olivia Fox Cabane
In terms of the best practices to increase charisma, one of the most uncomfortable, but one of the most impactful is improv, improv theater, because it is a fabulous way in which to practice different modes of being, different ways of body language, different characters, in a way.

This is one of the best and fastest ways to increase your comfort zone socially. So even though it can feel really uncomfortable at first, improv theater is one of the best investments you can make in your own professional development.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. Okay. I’ve done an improv course. I thought it was so cool. Agreed. Well, now could you share with us a favorite study or experiment or bit of research we haven’t talked about already?

Olivia Fox Cabane
Well, the research that changed everything, the first study that in 1989 showed that charisma was nothing but behavior, I think I’d have to choose because it was the turning point when charisma started becoming a science.

But in 2011, when Antonakis and his team showed that not only was charisma behavior, but that behavior was teachable, that’s when charisma became an applied science. And that’s when people realized that charisma can be learned.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Olivia Fox Cabane
So you don’t actually need charisma to succeed. You don’t even need charisma to get people to do what you want them to do. If all you’re looking for is compliance, read Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. It is the Bible of mind manipulation.

The limitation is that those compliance methods really only work while they are in play. And what you don’t get is the ability to inspire people, the ability to lift whole teams. In an almost radically opposite direction, because one of the most transformative paths to charisma is actually self-acceptance.

As we’ve seen, the path to more self-confidence is often through self-forgiveness and self-compassion, is Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance. So on diametrical opposite pieces of the scale, you would have Cialdini on influence and Brach on acceptance and self-compassion.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And a favorite habit?

Olivia Fox Cabane
Yeah, it’s incredibly uncomfortable. But if you’re willing to, Metta meditation, M-E-T-T-A, especially self-metta, which is the self-compassion meditation. And I think there’s actually an audio recording on my YouTube channel of a short metta meditation.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Olivia Fox Cabane
AskOlivia.com.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome with their jobs?

Olivia Fox Cabane
For job interviews, use the visualization techniques to imagine that the interviewer is a long-lost friend. That will change the first few seconds of the interview. And because of the primacy effect, everything that happens afterwards will be filtered through that first impression. And you never get a second chance to make a good first impression so you might as well get it right the first time.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Olivia, thank you.

Olivia Fox Cabane
My pleasure. It was great being here.