Why Charming Personalities Are Dangerous

Endgame is finally here. And one of the things that stands out most as I watch Infinity War clips in preparation is how much people love Thanos. Which is interesting given that not only do we see him kill indiscriminately throughout the film, his noble plan makes no sense at all. But that is besides the point, because this video isn't about plot holes. It's the real life parallels that interest me. Because many people with dangerous personalities also have some highly attractive personality traits. And while you don't have to adapt the murderous side of these dangerous personalities, you can learn quite a bit bit by taking pieces and adding them to your own charisma arsenal. So in this video, I want to explore three ways that dangerous personalities can actually be more attractive. Now, the first charismatic habit of Thanos and people like him is non reactivity. Avengers is an action movie, so we expectedly see this in the face of physical threats. Thanos non reactivity shows just how powerful he is. But in other scenes, Thanos demonstrates non reactivity in ways that are quite applicable to your own life. In this clip, Peter Quill shouts at Thanos. And listen to the tone in which he responds.

Let her go. Ah, the boyfriend. Like to think of myself more as a titan killing long term booty call. Let her go, Peter. I'm gonna blow that nut sack of a chin right off your face.

Thanos comes in an energy level lower than Peter. Now, fortunately, most of us will never have a space blaster pointed at us. But his reaction is exactly what can defuse a situation that begins to get hostile in real life. And you can come across as exceptionally confident if you remain calm and keep the energy down. In his book Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss recommends using what he calls the late night FM DJ voice. Now, he's a hostage negotiator, so he had to get the upper hand over people who were threatening violence and were clearly riled up. So he'd speak to them like he was a late night disc jockey. Deeper, smoother calm. That technique allowed him to diffuse tense situations. And if you use it when people are being verbally aggressive with you, is extreme conviction. Most people live their lives with a lot of self doubt, so we're drawn to those individuals who seem to be totally self assured. We feel it most strongly in people who speak in certainties. For instance, notice that Thanos doesn't say what he would do. He doesn't talk about if he's successful. He states it as if his plan is 100% going to happen.

And then what? I finally Rest and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe. The hardest choices require the strongest wills. When I'm done, half of humanity will still be alive. I hope they remember you in real life.

Healthy conviction doesn't even have to go that far. You don't have to believe that all of your plans will come true. Personally, I find firmly believing that I will be okay even if I fail no matter what, to be the most realistic and open way to remain highly self assured. Now, when conviction goes beyond this, towards certainty of what will happen, that a specific outcome will occur, you get someone like Conor McGregor, who is astonishing in victory, but also disappointing in his defeats. That radical certainty is probably one of the strongest mentalities that a fighter can have. Though if you go beyond that, you enter into truly dangerous conviction, where you assume that you know what is best not only for yourself, but for others as well, no matter what they say. And in this next scene, it's like Thanos can't even consider the possibility that he may have raised Gamora poorly. I'm not your daughter. Everything I hate about myself, he taught me.

And in doing so, made you the fiercest woman in the galaxy.

So conviction is critical, but you don't want it to the extent that Thanos has it. Other people need to weigh on your thoughts. And if you're trying to develop healthy conviction, my recommendation is to simply focus on the belief no matter what happens, I will be okay. When you can simultaneously embrace the possibility that you may fail in some specific endeavor, but still feel worthy of love, respect, and even a second chance, that is a fantastic way to live. And if other people are telling you how to live and it's disrupting your self assuredness, try this line out. When speaking to them, you can say it's a good thing that you get to decide what is best for you and I get to decide what is best for me. Because if it were reversed, we'd both be unhappy. Now that brings us to the last point. Random and surprising acts of kindness can draw us closer to personalities that are otherwise not the fuzziest. For instance, after tricking her into thinking that she had killed him, completely toying with her emotions, Thanos offers Gamora some food.

I thought you might be hungry.

We see the same fluctuation between violence and kindness earlier with Gamora. After sentencing half of her people, including her mother, to death, Thanos has a kind moment with her.

What's wrong, little one?

My mother.

Where is my mother? What's your name? Gamora. You're quite a fighter, Gamora. Come Let me help you.

You may have a friend who is in a relationship with someone like this. They're usually pretty terrible, except on rare occasions when they surprise everyone with a kind gesture and that friend doesn't get out and just date a nice guy or a nice girl. Believe it or not, it's because infrequent and random acts of kindness are actually more attractive to individuals with a particular style of attachment called anxious or preoccupied. Those people often partner with what is called an avoidant type because they see themselves as unworthy. So sporadic bursts of kindness make sense to them given their self image. You may be in this kind of relationship if this song speaks to you. If you fall into the camp of these hot and cold relationships, the problem is that you have learned to value the intensity of the emotional connection over its quality. So the wild fluctuations between awful behavior and those bursts of kindness keep you wondering what you can do to bring out more of those rare bursts of kindness, ultimately staying with people who might be bad for you. The truth is that you need to work on yourself. And I will probably go deeper into attachment theory in another video if it's interesting to you, so just let me know in the comments. Anyway, when it comes to your own behavior, you shouldn't emulate Thanos hot and cold evil style of behaving. But you can recognize that the surprise recognition is very powerful for winning someone over. Now, the key is to make sure that it's not expected. So flowers on Valentine's Day are nice, but they earn you very little extra with your partner. Flowers one month later, completely out of the blue are extremely powerful. On the other hand, it's the same item timed differently to upset expectations. Similarly, it's fine and dandy to deliver a compliment when someone has dressed up for a special occasion. That's nice. But if you can offer compliments when they are least expected, their impact is magnified. Now, one thing that is worth pointing out here is that controlling personalities may use these variable rewards to make people with low self esteem work even harder to win their affection. And I think Thanos illustrates this point. He creates a vicious cycle of reinforcing low self esteem.

You took me, you saved you me. You're generous me, but I never taught you to lie. That's why you're so bad at it.

And then all of a sudden is randomly kind in order to motivate his daughters to work for his approval. Needless to say, don't do that. Be kind for the sake of being kind. In fact, right now might be a good time to surprise someone that you care about with a text or an email, just letting them know that you are thinking about them and that you appreciate them. Now if you're wondering about more of the healthy personalities in the mcu, if you're you might want to check out our video on the six styles of charisma that women find irresistible. We also have a breakdown of Iron Man's most iconic moments coming next week, so if you're interested in that, go ahead and hit the subscribe button. And if you haven't yet done so, that notification bell that makes sure that the video actually gets to you since a lot of your subscriptions don't show up on the homepage anymore. And if you do that it actually helps our channel because it tells YouTube that we are something you'd like to watch. Go ahead, hit those buttons right now if that interests you. Either way, I hope that you enjoyed this video and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.