The Charisma Myth Notes and Exercises

 I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and I've been waiting for a chance to go through the notes and stuff I made on the kindle about this book since it's pretty relevant to what people come to this blog to read about, I figured I would post my notes here.

Quotes

Deciding to change your belief about what happened (cognitive reappraisal) effectively decreases the brain's stress levels. This came to light through research performed at Stanford University using functional MRI machines. The researchers concluded that deciding to change beliefs was a far more effective and healthier solution than attempting to repress or ignore emotions.

The key questions are: Which mental state would be most useful in this situation? And which version of reality would help you get there? For charisma, you can use this technique whenever a situation threatens your level of warmth or confidence. For minor events, simply imagining an alternative explanation is often enough to reduce anger or impatience and generate compassion instead.

The Internal Charisma Checklist:

1. Take a deep breath and shake out your body to ensure that no physical discomfort is adding to your tense mental state.
2. Dedramatize. Remind yourself that nothing serious is happening. This only feels uncomfortable because of how you're brain is wired. Zoom out your focus to see yourself as a little person dealing with certain chemicals flooding your system. Nothing more.
3. Destigmatize. Remind yourself that this is normal and everyone goes through it from time to time. Imagine countless people all over the world feeling the same thing.
4. Neutralize. Remind  yourself that these thoughts are not necessarily real.
5. Consider a few alternative realities that are not as negative.
6. Visualize a transfer of responsibility. Imagine the weight of this problem being transferred to the universe god etc...

Self Compassion as a 3 step process:
1. Realize you're experiencing difficulty
2. Respond with kindness and understanding towards ourselves.
3. Realizing that whatever we are going through is commonly experienced by all human beings.

Concepts:

The core of charisma is involves behaviors that project: Presence, Power and Warmth.
Charisma begins with an internal state

Exercises:

Destigmatizing Discomfort:
1. Remind yourself this is normal and that we all experience it from time to time.
2. Think of all the other people who have gone through this especially people you admire.
3. Remember that right now in this very moment many others are going through the same thing.

Neutralizing Negativity:
1. Remember these thoughts may not be accurate.
2. See your thoughts as tiny little electrical impulses in your brain or as graffiti on the walls of your mind.
3. Depersonalize the experience.
4. Imagine the earth from a far and imagine zooming in on your tiny little problem.
5. Imagine your mental chatter as coming from a radio and turn the volume way down.

There's also a good visualization at www.Charismamyth.com/metta

Overall I'd give this book 3 out of 5 stars it was an interesting new take on some of the same old information in the persuasion world.

JS