In a moment of stress, a skilled meditator can call on that skill, and rather than have an anxiety attack, she will breathe through the stress.   Calmness then, in the face of pressure, is a skill, not a reaction. If one can practice that skill enough, it becomes a habit and deploys instantly and without conscious thought.

This is where I want us to get to in our ability to communicate well. Charisma: being well-liked, well-thought-of, relied upon, and trusted can become a habit in much the same way.

The set of skills one needs to practice to become habitually charismatic (and don’t we all wish we were?) begins with listening. The skills include a hyper-awareness of body posture, tone, pace, word choice, facial cues, and more.

I outline all of these in my latest book B2B is Really P2P, How to win with High Touch in a High Tech World

If you haven’t read it, click here to grab a copy. In the interim, if you’d like to be more charismatic, begin in uptime. Uptime is an NLP term that describes listening to the exclusion of all else. It is maintaining the posture of one who is riveted by the words of another. It is soft eye contact, eyebrow pops, nods, smiles, sad eyes, head tilting, light touches, and so much more. It is giving one’s self over, entirely, to the words of another.  

It is displaying subtly and overtly that they, and what they are relating, owns the entirety of your attention.

We almost NEVER do this. Give it a shot and let me know how it feels.

Own your sales gene…