How To Be The Most Charming Person In The Room

Have you ever wished there was a blueprint you could follow to make people instantly like you? Good news, there kind of is. All you have to do is follow the three be fascinating, funny, and make them feel good. I know that's easier said than done, but in today's video, you'll get a set of tools that make it easy to do each. We'll do this by breaking down some of today's most charismatic celebrities, most prominently Will Smith and Chris Hemsworth, so you have real life examples you can model. The first easy way to be both funny and fascinating is with storytelling. So how do you tell a good story? Any good storyteller starts with a hook. This is a small detail, but it has a huge impact on if people will listen to you. One easy way to hook someone into a story is to set stakes. For example, listen to how Will Smith starts this story about bungee jumping from a helicopter. You can literally hear someone in the audience react to his hook. At the end of the clip, he.

Said, this bungee cord weighs 200 pounds, and when we let it go, it's going to be the equivalent of four or five hundred pounds. And I'm going to count backwards from five, and on one, they're letting this bungee cord go. And the only way you can get hurt is if you don't get away from this chopper right now.

Obviously, Will lived. He's there telling the story. But by adding stakes, you add tension to the story, which hooks people in. A good hook sets you up for success, but now you need to deliver a good story. The easiest way to tell fascinating stories is to make it immersive. Bring your listener on the same journey you went on when it happened. There's three tricks for this. Tell the story in present tense, and where appropriate, use sound effects and embody yourself and your characters. Listen to Will tell the rest of that bungee jumping story.

So he's looking and it's right.

Quick pause here. You can see how you can get people cracking up with just a sound effect and a change in your body language to embody yourself at the time.

And then I said, I can't really. I'm barely hearing him. So I'm like. And then I see him go. And I'm like.

Right.

And he goes.

Nothing happened in that story. That entire story could have been told as I went bungee jumping out of a helicopter. It was fun, but by setting stakes and making it immersive, you will have people hooked and cracking up. This alone will make people love hearing your stories. But there's one more trick you can use to engage your listener even more. Make your story relatable. This is a fantastic way to make your stories interesting, even if the topic of the story isn't interesting to everyone. For example, watch how Will Smith universalizes the experience of skydiving.

When I walked up to the. To the edge of that plane, and you get attacked by your mind. Like, your mind is like, you stupid, you stupid. And it's screaming. And you know that voice. We all have that voice in our head. It's not always our friend. It calls us names and stuff. And everyone's like, you're a dumb man. You're a very dumb man.

You may have never been skydiving, but you can relate to the story because you definitely have at least one area of life where that critical inner voice appears. When you give people something they can relate to in your stories, you'll get them nodding along and more engaged because they can see part of themselves in your story. This is especially useful if you're talking about a niche hobby or to someone who has different interests than you. Now, one issue people have, whether storytelling or just speaking in groups in general, is they don't know how to captivate and hold attention so that you don't get talked over or zoned out on. The easiest way to captivate and hold attention, no matter what you're talking about, is with your hands. That said, people often hear that and don't know exactly how to move their hands when they speak. They try it without any guidelines, and then they feel weird or unnatural. One easy way to think about having naturally captivating hand gestures is the charades method. When you speak, use hand motions that sync with the meaning of your words. Watch how Will uses his hands when talking about the genie he played in the Aladdin remake.

And that's part of what I could relate to. It's like Will Smith became so popular in As a Movie Star, and there were only certain behaviors that were acceptable from Will Smith, right? So I sort of set myself free.

Now, admittedly, Will Smith is a loud guy, which naturally helps him captivate attention. But not everyone feels comfortable speaking that loudly, and you don't need to. In this next clip, Chris Hemsworth follows the charades rule when telling a story about finding a wild snake in his son's bedroom. He's more soft spoken than Will, but. But notice that he still captivates with his story.

I just launched into, like, action mode, grabbed it by the tail, picked it up, and everyone starts freaking out, and it starts to Kind of coil itself back up toward me, which is getting ready to strike. And I remember thinking, what the hell am I doing? So I just kind of threw the snake back into the bedroom and shut the door.

This charades method will help you keep people engaged no matter what you're speaking about.

It takes place across the universe, so we're all sort of in certain groups and so on. But a couple of times we had massive battle sequences and everywhere you looked was. It was like being at the Academy Awards Halloween party or something, you know, dressed up in ridiculous outfits. But I was at the airport a few weeks ago and this little kid was running around in the full Thor outfit. He was his hammer, and he's smashing things. And if you lost, you had to take your shirt off and you got a free shot at the ball in the back.

This works really well in tandem with the immersive storytelling tricks like sound effects and acting out your characters. For example, watch this story of Chris sneaking his daughter onto the Tower of Terror ride at Disney. Notice his hands and also how he gets a laugh with a sound effect.

You know, the seat is massive on her and I'm like, you know, we.

Beat the system, honey.

And then it drops and she's like.

Grab onto her. She's like screaming the whole way down.

Like, you know, I was like, maybe.

There'S a reason that there's a heart. Maybe. Sorry.

Now that you have a few tricks to be more fascinating, let's get into the second F with two easy ways you can be funnier. If you want an easy trick to make a story funny, use the fake out method. Will loves to use his tone of voice to make people expect something good and then reveal something bad that's unexpected. This is something we covered in our recent Ryan Reynolds video. So we'll do a quick version here just because it's a fun clip. If you want to learn more about it, we'll link to the Ryan Reynolds video in the description down below. Okay, here are two quick examples where Will is talking about how much fun he had taking his whole family skydiving.

And you just go into this really blissful place. So I'm telling Jada, you know, you're going to meet heaven when you go up there. And she didn't.

No.

And my sons, we went to Dubai and we went skydiving, right? So my father in law, he was last out of the plane and. And he comes down and everybody comes in and you cheer when everybody comes down. And then my father in law comes in and he's totally unconscious.

You can combine a fake out with what you learned about immersive storytelling, which you can see Will does later in the story to get another laugh.

And Jada looks at me like, and goes and walks over and we got like, we go to the emergency room. You know, Jaden is looking at me. He was like, dad, you can't push people out of their comfort zone. He's a grown ass man.

If this feels complicated or overwhelming, there's an even easier way you can make people laugh. Contagious laughter. This isn't about forcing yourself to laugh. It's about focusing on telling stories that you find genuinely funny. Here's a great example with Julia Roberts sharing how much she loves jump scaring her kids.

But the other week there was just such a golden opportunity. I was coming down the stairs and my oldest son was coming down the hallway. It's so wrong.

She hasn't even gotten to the story yet. But just her laughter makes you want to smile and laugh.

When he came around, I just jumped down and said boo.

He.

He sprung out his legs and his arms and went out. Honestly. Scared the bejesus out of him.

Wait, so his without her laughing, that story is literally just My kid came around a corner the other day and I yelled boo. But because of how she tells the story, she comes off as likable and fun to listen to. Here's another quick example with Robert Downey Jr. Where he's pitching an invite to join him at an Avengers premiere.

You might even ride your sugar high. After riding your sugar high all the way to a fitting, you walk. I'm sorry.

Now, obviously you don't have to do this. Deadpan humor can be great, and if that's your style, stick with it. But laughing while you tell a funny story is easy and you don't run the risk of being misunderstood like you do with deadpan sarcasm. So how do you cultivate positivity and get used to laughing out loud? If this isn't already your default habit, the easiest way is to prime yourself before you go into a social situation by watching something you know will make you laugh. Ideally with someone that has the same type of humor you're trying to master. This has two benefits. One, it puts you in a laughing state, so future laughs come easier. This laughing state is why big stand up comics always have other comedians warm up the audience before they come on. And two, monkey see monkey do by watching clips of the type of humor you're trying to master. You get your brain thinking in that mode before you go out. Okay, so we've covered fascinating and funny. Now let's move on to the third F, making them feel good. A lot of what we've covered is already going to do that. If you're smiling and laughing and making them smile and laugh, they're going to feel good around you. Similar to contagious laughter, this is contagious positivity. The easiest way to take this a step further is with high quality compliments. Here's a quick example with Will and his Aladdin costar Naomi.

It's starting to be more and more important to me that the ideas and the messaging of the piece be a contribution to the human family, you know, and I just cannot wait till all of your daughters get to see the Princess Jasmine that Naomi created.

A high quality compliment is genuine, specific, and touches on something that the other person takes pride in and ideally doesn't hear often. Here's another great example with Hugh Jackman and Emily Blunt. You can tell that initially this compliment doesn't mean much to Emily.

Listen, don't undersell what you did. Julie Andrews is unbelievable in every single way. You are unbelievable in every single way. No, I mean it.

Because now watch her reaction as he adds specificity to the compliment.

It's also, you go in as someone who knows musical theater and movie musicals, you go in like, that's a lot. You've taken on a lot. That's a big hard, like it's a. And from the opening scene you just go, ah.

Oh, you're the best.

There's a lot that goes into giving a compliment that's actually well received. Something that feels genuine and doesn't make you seem like a suck up. If you want to learn more about the nuances of compliments, we'll link to our video how to Be Nice Without Being a Pushover in the description down below. And if you're more interested specifically in compliments while flirting, check out our video how to Confidently Flirt with Anyone Breaking down Craig Ferguson. Lastly, if you want to learn more about the foundations of charisma, including more easy ways to make anyone like you, you should check out how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. And it is easily one of the best resources ever created for charisma. And you can get the audiobook for free today thanks to our sponsor for this video, Audible. If you want to check it out, go to audible.com charisma or text charisma to 500 500. Audible is my personal favorite audiobook platform. It's a great way to take downtime like driving or doing errands and transform it into productive time where you're learning and improving yourself. By joining Audible, you get a free credit every month to use on any title in their Premium section, regardless of price. You also get access to their plus catalog, which has thousands of audiobooks, podcasts and guided meditations that you can listen to for free with your membership. Also, this sponsorship is a bit different from our normal Audible sponsorships because they're offering a special holiday deal. So if you prefer, you can choose to skip that first free audiobook and Instead get a 46% discount on your first four months. So it's totally up to you. You can join for a free trial or join right away and for just $7.95 a month for your first four months. Be an Audible member again. If you want to check out either offer, just go to audible.com charisma or text charisma to 500500 if you opt for that free audiobook. I really recommend how to win friends and influence people either way. I hope you liked this video. I want to thank our video editing team of Andre, Therese and Ivan for working so hard to edit it. Thank you so much for watching it and hopefully we'll see you in the next one.