Vanessa Van Edwards says charisma comes down to two things: warmth and competence. Oprah and Ted Lasso lean warm. Elsa and Hermione lean competent. The trick is finding your own blend so it doesn't feel fake.
Think about the charisma zone is like the Oprahs. We love to be around those people. Ooh, or maybe it's a Ted Lasso kind of charisma. Now, Oprah and Ted Lasso are very different, but they're both charismatic. Both of them we consider warm and trustworthy. People spill their deepest, darkest secrets to Oprah. We all love Ted Lasso, but they're also very competent. We've listened to their advice. I give these two very different examples because there are two different flavors of charisma. While there's a formula for charisma, warmth and competence, the way we showcase that, the The cues we use, the recipe we're using should feel different. We don't want everyone to feel like a robot. We want them to feel like they have their own blend of charisma. Let's talk about some fun characters in each area of the zone. A classic high competence, who is the quintessential cold but competent? It's our friend Elsa. Another quintessential competent one is Hermione Granger. Very, very high in competence, lacks warmth. All of her plot lines in the book have to do with her lack of warmth around her smarts. Mm-hmm. Let's think of some warm folks. It's a GIF of Elf saying, "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you!" A highly warm person would be Elf, a character that we can think of is so much warmth that you don't take him seriously. Another good example is Ron from Harry Potter. He's very warm, but people don't always listen to him. They don't always take him seriously. And the danger zone is always the villain, Voldemort. Voldemort undersignals. We don't wanna be Voldemort.
