Charisma and Self-Harm

What a fun title for a piece this week! Explore the idea of building and projecting more charisma, along with reading about the HALT concept and addiction. As always I want to share with you a few quotes that got me thinking this week as well. ENJOY!

A Concept Worth Learning and a Book We Should ALL Read

It’s worth learning how to be more charismatic. Sure, some people are naturally,e and we are instantly drawn to them because of it. We like them. We like being around them. We trust them. You can probably name a few people in your life who have that quality. Believe it or not, there are techniques you can practice to become more charismatic.

Recently I was lucky enough to sit through a presentation by Vanessa Van Edwards who is a human behavioral investigator. (That’s a pretty sweet job title in my opinion.) During the presentation, Ms. Van Edwards described charisma as the ability to project the feeling of warmth and competence to other people. She also provided some concrete physical cues and tactics that could be utilized and/or corrected that would help an individual increase their levels of warmth and competence. Fascinating stuff.

If this is something you want to explore, I recommend two things. First, take this charisma questionnaire. Secondly, check out Ms. Van Edwards’s book called Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication. Between these two resources, you should be able to increase your perceived charisma.

A Concept I am Exploring

HALT. This is the concept that humans often display bad behavior or negative addictive pursuits when they are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and/or Tired.  A simple example of this is the late night snack or glass of beer (or more) at the end of a long day. 

Sometimes the result is additional weight gain or depression. But for some people this turns into a dangerously addictive habit resulting in alcoholism or other self-harm activities. Maybe this is not your problem, but I still think HALT is an important concept to understand so that you can start identifying the habits and activities that you do participate in when you are feeling hungry, angry, lonely, and/or tired.  Really the action here is to perform a self-audit and determine if you can change some life habits.

Quotes I am Pondering

My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose – somehow we win out…   

~ President Ronald Reagan

Most “impossible” goals can be met simply by breaking them down into bite-size chunks, writing them down, believing them, and then going full speed ahead as if they were routine. 

 ~ Don Lancaster, American author, inventor, and microcomputer pioneer

You have not lived a perfect day, even though you have earned your money, unless you have done something for someone who will never be able to repay you.  

~ Ruth Smeltzer