In this Heroic Plus One episode, Brian Johnson teaches that charisma is not an innate gift but a set of skills anyone can develop. Drawing on Olivia Fox Cabane’s book The Charisma Myth, he outlines the three essential qualities of charismatic people—presence, power, and warmth—illustrated with personal anecdotes about his son Emerson and a dinner with General Fenton. Presence means giving undivided attention; power refers to self‑mastery and confidence; warmth ensures benevolent intent. Johnson also introduces a deeper layer he calls “moral charisma,” which combines the three qualities with higher virtues such as wisdom, discipline, love, and courage. The episode blends theory, concrete examples, and a call to practice (e.g., put away the phone, be fully present) to help listeners begin cultivating charisma in everyday interactions.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Heroic Plus One. In our last Plus One, I told you about some of the things I admire about Emerson, and I challenged you to think about and share some of the things you admire about your loved ones. Did you do it? Pro tip, if we're going to move from theory to practice to mastery together today, we've got to do the work. So I shared the fact that a chess dad was kind enough to say that he thought Emerson had an aura about him. And it was actually funny how he framed it. You know what he said? I don't want to be weird about it, but— Now, the morning after I shared that with Emerson, we chatted about charisma. I asked him if he knew what it was. He took a moment and struggled to find the words and then said that it was like an energy someone has. And I said, that's exactly right. It's a difficult thing to describe, but you know it when you feel it. Then I told him that there's actually a book all about how to create more charisma. It's called The Charisma Myth. Check out the notes. Now, know this. The myth is the idea that some people have charisma and others don't. The fact is, we can all cultivate charisma. Then I told him that the author says that there are 3 qualities we need to cultivate if we want to cultivate our charisma. And that's what we're going to discuss today. So I asked Emerson what he thought the first quality of a charismatic person is. I'll ask you as well. What do you think? According to Olivia Fox Cabane, the number one thing that the most charismatic people on the planet slash in our lives have is presence. I asked him if someone who's looking at their phone rather than you would be charismatic. He immediately said no. Then I told him to think back to the prior week when our friend General Fenton visited us for a trail walk and dinner. Just visited us literally last week. Now, during dinner, General Fenton went through Eleanor's 3-inch-high stack of drawings and asked her about her art with an astonishing level of presence. That, I told Emerson, is the number one key to charisma. You must be fully present with someone, making them feel like they are the most important person in the world to you in that moment. Great leaders like the general have always had that incredible ability, whether it's with a fellow leader in a top-secret meeting or a 9-year-old girl at a dinner table. Now, that's the first quality of charismatic people: presence. How is yours? How's your presence? Put away the phone. Be there. The second thing charismatic people have is power. You can be present and weak, and well, sorry, but you won't be charismatic. You need to demonstrate a level of self-mastery. See, flip the switch. to elicit the charismatic connections you're looking for. Then I asked him what the third variable might be. He didn't know. It is warmth. If you're present and powerful and you're a jerk, you won't be charismatic. People have to know that you will use your presence and power benevolently. They must feel your kindness and your love. Presence, power, warmth. That's our big 3. How's yours? By the way, after we had that chat, I said that there's an even deeper level of charisma— moral charisma. That's what the greatest leaders of all time have had, and that's what we all have latent within us. We tap into that power when we do the Big Three and ground it all in wisdom, discipline, love, courage, and a fierce commitment to being our best in service to something bigger than ourselves. Know this: helping you tap into that power is why I do what I do. Let's activate it today.
