The Build Up Rule: How To Charm (Almost) Anyone

While watching clips from my last Game of Thrones video, I stumbled across some cast interview clips, and I couldn't help but notice how effortlessly charming Emilia Clarke was. I decided to watch a few more interviews, and sure enough, she displays a number of charismatic habits that, while seemingly simple, are extremely powerful. So in this video, we are going to break down four of Emelia's habits that make her so charming. Many of these may sound basic at first glance, but there are nuances that take them from ordinary basic advice to extremely charismatic. If you hit the nuance, the first one of these is a more subtle point, but it starts with something that you cannot help but notice. When watching her beaming and frequent smile, it lights up her whole face. Smiling is one of the fastest ways to communicate friendly intentions and put other people at ease. But since it's so easy to do, people have learned to fake it to their advantage. And we in turn, have learned unconscious ways of detecting which smiles are genuine and which are meant to manipulate us subconsciously. We don't look at the mouth, but the eyes. If a person's eyes don't have any flexion in the muscles below or around their eyes, we judge that smile to be fake and sometimes distrust the person for that perceived attempt at manipulating us. Amelia isn't even close to triggering this, though. Look at her eyes in this next clip, and that's not an exaggeration. If you were ever talking to Amelia, when she laughs, her eyebrows literally turn upside down. Of course, Amelia isn't focused on squeezing her eye muscles precisely to appear genuine, and neither should you be. Instead, her genuine smile comes from allowing herself to find the humor in everything. This is the nuance. And while it might seem like an obvious point, more often than we realize, we restrain ourselves from these genuine smiles or genuine laughter. Sometimes it's because we're uncomfortable laughing at ourselves. We think that it would hurt our social standing to do that. Emilia proves that a willingness to laugh at yourself is actually extremely charismatic.

Hi, I'm Emilia Clarke, and you're going to find out some first time stuff, not.

Other times. We hold back on smiling and laughter because we can think of charisma as something that requires us to always be the leader, to be the one in the spotlight. And when we are in this competitive mindset and someone else tells a joke rather than laugh, we might hold back and look for a way to make people laugh at our next joke. But Amelia doesn't fall into that ego trap. In the next clip, for instance, Seth Meyers is piling onto a story that she had just told. And she has no problem shifting the spotlight over to him, making him feel funny, making him the center of attention.

By the way, the only thing that would be worse than a guy coming to your house and seeing this is the reverse. You going to a guy's house and seeing this.

Exactly, exactly. That's a real, like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's counterintuitive. But highlighting the people around you, making them feel funny, well liked, like they have the spotlight on them, leads to your own charisma rising. Now, Amelia's willingness to smile and laugh freely actually leads to our second major point, and it's when our sarcastic comedic instincts might tell us to cut someone down. Amelia often takes those opportunities to build people up. Now, the reverse is especially common in young men who learn to say things like, cool story, bro, when someone makes a bad joke. But Amelia avoids these low blows. Jimmy Fallon in this next clip cracks a lame joke, and rather than tease him for it, she supports it, gets the audience behind him. Smashed it.

Smashed it.

In England, that means cool.

Killed it. Yeah. Slay.

Okay, I just made up something.

I like it. I like it. I'll take that. It's okay. Slay. Yeah, that works.

You generate massive goodwill when you laugh with someone rather than at them. And yes, even though the whole room might laugh when you pick on one individual, it's usually better to take the supportive role. And you can still be funny while doing it. Our videos on yes ending dive deeper into this topic, if you'd like more. Now, to be clear, I don't mean to say that you can never lovingly tease people. Amelia does it on occasion, but interestingly, she often find ways to sneak subtle compliments into those teases. Watch as she teases Kit Harington for complaining about his heavy outfit on Game of Thrones set. On the one hand, she is lightly mocking him for complaining, but she also says this. Always in the cold.

I know. He does just really like to tell everyone on that. Yeah, it's really heavy. It's really heavy. Oh, so.

So.

But you get to be like warm places wearing silk, right?

Yeah, well, no, no, see, this is the thing. Kit always complains because he's always in and it's a very heavy cloak. It's a very. It's a very heavy cloak.

It must smell terrible.

Yeah, he's got abs. He's not holding them up. And so he's fine to still be.

Cracking jokes, but make the punchline that your friends and loved ones are attractive, well liked and cool. Chris Evans is an expert at this. I'm going to link to a video with him. Here are just a few quick examples.

I get Pratt, I get. I never get Hemsworth, which is really upsetting. Please think I'm Hemsworth. Please think I'm Hemsworth.

I feel like the godfather of these superhero movies.

Whether he feels it or not, he is. Whether, you know, he's gonna say something really like humble, simple, and be like, oh, no. It would have happened anyway. This wouldn't have happened without Downey. And nobody doesn't know that.

Back to Emilia Clarke. I suspect that part of the reason that those genuine positive emotions come so easily to her is because unlike so many people, she isn't trying to have normal interactions. She doesn't want to blend in and match the energy of the room. Instead, she almost always raises the energy of the interactions that she's involved in. This is an extremely powerful habit, even though it isn't always immediately noticeable. In this next clip, you can see how her enthusiasm seems to be one level above the people that she's speaking to. First in her introduction and then in the questions that are asked of her.

Good to see you again.

Lovely to see you as well.

Is it frustrating at all that you can't talk about it?

You deeply. I can't wait for this to be out. I'm just gonna say it. I know it.

People can have like emotional connections to their scene partners.

I really do. It's. I genuinely.

Upping our energy level can be a scary thing to do because our default is to try to be normal, to blend in. But when you come in with one energy level higher than a group, one level sillier than the situation calls for, people almost always appreciate it. Even when we're in a serious business mode or cool professional mode, we love to be reminded of the lighter side of life. And Amelia does this frequently with her higher, more playful energy. And just in case you are thinking this doesn't apply to business settings, listen to the Game of Thrones producers talk about how Emilia won the role of Daenerys Targaryen in a high stakes audition. Even though she had never acted outside of a few bit roles, it was.

Quite possibly the least inviting audition environment we had ever witnessed. Still, the president of the company was playing it close to the chest. He nodded. Amelia asked if there was anything else she could do to lighten the mood. David asked, can you dance? And without missing a beat, Amelia did the robot and even the president had no choice but to smile. She got the job 10 seconds after she left the room. And the two of us ran to tell her.

So. When you find yourself in any social situation, don't try to be normal. Try to have fun, even if it means that you're the first one to be more enthusiastic, energetic, or positive. Now, the last very simple habit that makes Amelia so effortlessly charming is that she is an active listener. She makes the people communicating with her feel validated and heard. Now, you've already seen examples of this in her validating jokes from other people. But active listening can be even more subtle than that. For instance, she often listens while repeating phrases that that person has just said.

It's just weird.

It's weird, isn't it?

It's weird. There's like 50, 60 people watching you.

Yeah, I can relate to some of those things.

Other times, she simply says words that are encouraging and affirmative.

But everybody plays. But there's a lot of downtime. And y' all play headtime. Exactly. No, we do. We do. Yes. It's a fun game. It passes the time. Exactly. Happens.

It was all a dream.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

The cool thing about this habit is that it is very under the radar. People begin to feel good and to associate that feeling with you without really knowing why. And it contributes to them feeling. I don't really know how to explain it, but I just like them. There are a lot of ways to be charming, but I think Amelia highlights one of the most elegant. You make other people feel good by modeling how to feel good yourself when you are happy and are comfortable expressing it in a generous way with your smiles, your laughter, your affirmations of other people. It has a way of rubbing off and making them perceive you as more charismatic. Now, if you're looking for more resources on how to really lock in these confident positive habits, I highly recommend checking out our course, Charisma University. I love, love, love this channel. But part of the issue with it is that these can become ideas that stay in your head as pure theory. And pure theory, even if there's all of it in the world, is not going to change your life. Charisma University is all about taking action. Each day has a specific action guide with one thing that you can do, so simple that anyone can do it. It's a 30 day program and it's that day after day action taking that really is what creates change over the long haul. So instead of just learning about Charisma and thinking about it intellectually, you are making real changes that lead to you mastering your confidence, your first impressions, your body language, and your charisma. So if you want to take your charisma to the next level, go ahead, click the link below to check out the course. It's going to take you to a page where you can join and that comes with a 60 day, no questions asked money back guarantee. So you don't have to worry about about anything. Now I hope that you decide to join this course. Either way, I really hope that you have enjoyed this video and I will look forward to seeing you in the next one.