Charisma Breakdown: How To Be Charismatic In Groups

What's up, everybody? This is Charlie from Charisma on Command. And today I want to do a video breakdown of a group interaction. Because the truth is, group interactions are very different than one on one. And people tend to struggle more with group interactions for whatever reason. When you add three, four, five people into the mix, sometimes you might hesitate, you might fall behind the train of conversation, the topic that people are on, and feel like you don't know how to get in there and start to connect with people. So that's why I wanted to break down a group interaction of one of the most charismatic people, the guys that I love to break down the most, Will Smith. So the first thing to look at right now is going to be introductions. And what I want you to look for is the energy that Will Smith walks in compared to the other people. Fine cordial walk to the couch. Nothing special.

He always be like, my bar.

It's Gary boy, big smile, gracious bow, sort of races his way to the couch. Now look at Will Smith. Look at the energy that he brings and the time that he takes making his way over as he says hi to. To Graham Norton, the host, the audience, and then finally the guys on the couch.

I'm sensing a level of excitement in the room.

So Will Smith's walk in. And finally, I do want to point out that he does say hi finally to everybody on the couch takes about twice as long as the other guys, if not more. Now, that can be off putting to people if done wrong. If you're just an attention hog and you're talking the whole time and trying to slow down the pace of conversation and just dragging everything back to you, and that can backfire. The reason that Will Smith is so likable is because he does it from a place of one, positive energy, two, humor, and three, he supports other people when they crack jokes or when they speak. And that's what I want to highlight for the rest of this video.

Okay.

Wow.

Here for a while. We're quiet.

Now am I ready to.

You all know each other? Yes.

Yes.

You guys. Was it the Millennium concert?

Yeah.

Yeah.

The last time we were together was at the. At the Millennium.

But we. We worked together classically on the Fresh Prince of bel Air.

And Mr. Barlo, you know as well, don't you? Yes. Well, we had a. I don't know.

We were drinking and things happened, and.

We said we never talked about it.

So importantly, he's the first person to crack a joke. But potentially, more importantly, he's also the first person to laugh. Huge which is what you'll see. This is what I mean by. By being supportive of other people.

Almost.

That story. I wasn't gonna mention that. I was gonna mention something else.

So people feel good around him because they crack small jokes and he's just such a positive person that without faking it, he's able to comfortably laugh heartily. That makes people feel really, really good. And again, I wanna highlight that support. Just going forward into the conversation, Tom Jones is now gonna talk about why he loves music. And you'll hear Will Smith in the background saying absolutely yes and nodding his head along.

What keeps you going?

Well, the love of it, you know, I just love singing and I'm getting paid for it, which that helps. There's nothing better than that when you do something you love.

If you hear Will Smith, he said absolutely there. You'll hear him again and see him when they cut to the wide shot of just nodding and encouraging Tom as he talks about this.

Yeah.

And then you, you can. It's like a hobby. You turn a hobby into. Into a profession and it's so. It's not like work at all, you know, I was asked the other day.

They said, so there you go. And Will Smith does this throughout the conversation. I just wanted to pull this out to show you that though he dominates by far, if you go through this, he probably speaks 50% or more of the time. He's constantly cracking jokes, even cutting people off. There's never any resentment because he is so supportive when other people are speaking. Now I want to show you what that enables him to do as he goes further into the conversation. See if we can get this here. So they start talking about Independence Day. People have really only been answering in two, three sentence blurbs up to this point. This is the first time somebody's gonna take a long or a longer story. And of course it's Will Smith. But you'll notice that people are completely focused on him because he hasn't been dominating the attention in sort of a tyrannical way. He's been doing it by spreading the love, making other people feel funny and heard before. He goes ahead and really does wind up dominating most of the con.

They took it all to a different level.

Yes, yes, yes.

That must have been amazing for you.

Your family, your parents.

Yes, that was the. That was the first movie. Independence Day came out and broke all of these box office records and it was huge.

So if you look, people are paying very close attention to him as he speaks, and it's because he's been supportive now he's about to tell a story and this is a huge, very important thing. When a lot of people go to tell stories in group conversations, they try to rush them in there. And because people aren't paying extremely close attention, they rush through to their climax and then look around and it didn't hit like they wanted to. Notably, Will Smith first captures the attention of his audience by being supportive, funny and positive. And now when he's telling a story, he can do it much more slowly to make it really impactful and all the more.

Jen.

I remember that Monday morning I was in Los Angeles and my family was in Philadelphia. So, you know, it was 6am in Philadelphia and 3am in Los Angeles. And my father calls me, hey, hello.

And he said, man, you see these numbers?

It was 3 o' clock in the morning. I didn't say anything.

He said, man, remember when I told you there's no such thing as luck? I was like, yeah, dad, remember when I told you there's no such thing as luck, it's only what you make, dad? Dad, yes. Remember when I told you, you put your mind to it, it ain't no luck, it's what you create. I said, yeah, Dad, I remember. Man, that's bullshit. You the luckiest mother.

So hopefully you caught there that he slows down on that beat three times as he's telling the story, right? He doesn't rush through it. If he did, it would not be as impactful. What I want you to pay attention to, I'm going to go through this one more time, is how he splits his attention between the people he's telling the story to. And notably, since Graham asked him the question, a lot of his eye contact and attention is focused on Graham. And he also speaks to the audience, but then at the end includes the guys on the couch with him. So nobody feels.

I'm in Los Angeles and my father calls me, hey, hello.

And he said, man, you see these numbers?

So this is Graham.

Clearly, it's 3 o' clock in the morning. I didn't say anything.

He said, man, remember when I told you there's no such thing as luck?

Now he's looking at the audience.

I was like, yeah, Daddy, remember when I told you there's no such thing as luck, it's only what you make. Dad, dad, yes, I remember. Remember when I told you, you put your mind to it, it ain't no luck, it's what you create. I see. He said, man, that's bullshit. You the luckiest mother.

So importantly here and again, you can see people are cracking up. He does split his attention between the different people, right? He's got the guys on the one side, he's got the host, Graham, and he's got the audience, but he doesn't do it rapid fire. I see so many people telling stories in group, bouncing super quickly between the people that are listening. And what happens is when you can't look at someone for long enough to basically communicate, I'm telling a story to you, right? Pay attention. They sort of, their mind wanders. You've got to spend at least a couple of seconds looking at the person for them to be included. And this is true whether you're speaking to an audience and you're looking at different individuals and giant auditorium or if it's just three people around you, you bounce between them but for long enough for that person to start to give you feedback, to laugh, to nod so that you have formed a personal connection with them. So I could go on and on for ages about how charismatic and what Will Smith is doing for the rest of this 40 minute interview. But the truth is this has already gone pretty long. So I'm going to wrap it up now. So if you want to see more like this, not just with group interactions but with one on one conversation, with confidence, first impressions, body language, all of that stuff, subscribe to this channel to get more of that. Secondly, a request for you. If you know of a person, or better yet, if you have a video in mind of somebody who is being charismatic that I could break down, please link to it in the comments. That is so hugely helpful. For me, the hardest part in doing these breakdowns is not the analysis, it's actually finding fresh new stuff. I prefer to keep it outside of the scripted realm. Right. Because you can write down anything in a movie script and that person can appear super charismatic. So if you've had an interview or just somebody that you know of who has got a great video on YouTube for me to break down, link to it. I would love to do a breakdown. That is it for today. Hopefully you found this helpful and I hope to see you on later videos through our channel.