Most Replayed Moment: How To Be Charismatic and Gain the Edge in Any Room - Charlie Houpert

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Charlie Houpert: I go first in humanizing the interaction. Yes, which is to say, whenever you're with a group of people, there is an expected social norm right, and it is usually less than people wish that it was. It's the thing that you described earlier, I wish that my employees would get to what's really going on, and it's the ability to be the first one, like I told the story about my brother, to crack the joke about the dragon name tag, right? And that made everybody in the event funnier. Now they all want to crack jokes and they all want to be playful. It's the ability to give a compliment first. Sometimes people are afraid that it'll disrupt their status if they're too complimentary. And we did talk about how at the beginning of an interaction, it's useful to establish fun, trust, and respect, but then feel free to pour it on, right? Compliments and then vulnerability, right, going first, sharing the vulnerable thing. There's a fine line of course between trauma dumping and just outpouring without checking if the other person is with you and wanting to go there with you, but yeah, to dive into the thing that is unsettled in you or that hurts or that you're working on and you're not sure about. Man, we go there first. It's like the room transforms around that. It's like everyone's like, oh, me too. Yeah, I'm also struggling. Yeah, I also wish we could laugh more. Yeah, I also am really, I love that person's sense of style, but didn't want to be weird and say so. So when you go first in humanizing the interaction, it is the essence of leadership. Sharing your imperfections. I saw this in one of your videos. That's kind of what you're talking about there, right? It's being willing to show the chinks in your own armor.

Steven Bartlett: Yes, it is. I think a lot of people like me have an idea that charisma is looking like someone else that they admire. It is, and they don't know that person's internal dialogue, right? They don't know all the internal questioning that's going on inside of them. And when instead you can start with where you are, which so people will ask me how do I deal with anxiety, and one of the things that I've said, and I've done it a handful of times on this podcast, is to speak to it like I felt nervous when I was coming in here. Like, if the thing comes up inside of you and it feels like you can't say it, give it a risk. Say it. It often creates a depth of connection that you wouldn't be anticipating.

Charlie Houpert: What about humor? Being funny? So we haven't talked about this, but there's, I think, about charismatic types of people. The five types that I think of are high conviction, authentic, funny, empathetic, and energetic. And so basically, high conviction are people that they're that belief storm that when they encounter you, they just win. That's Conor McGregor. Like, he's 19 years old, pimple-faced guy saying he's going to be a champion of the world without a waiver in his eye. Steve Jobs, the story of Mike Scully, who was one of his chief officers who came and worked for him. I don't know if you're familiar with it. Do you know what he said to him? What did he say? So they're having a meeting and Scully's not going to join. And he says, "Do you want to sell flavored sugar for the rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world?" And Scully was at Pepsi at the time? Yeah, he was at Pepsi. And so he says, "Ugh." That's Victor Kennedy. Yeah, yeah. And there's this belief that I'm going to change the world and this solidness behind it. That's high conviction. Donald Trump is high conviction, right? When he loses an election, he doesn't lose elections, right? It's a level of certainty that he's going to win that is just next level. So that's one type of charisma. It's incredibly powerful. There's downsides to it. It can be difficult to integrate feedback, and I think you've seen that with, like, Conor McGregor. You know, it's when you develop high conviction, it's also really important to have some areas of your life where you're able to listen and integrate feedback.

Steven Bartlett: Anyway, there's the authentic type. This is – I think Trump has a degree of this as well. This is number two, right? It's a different kind of authenticity, I suppose, than Trump, which is I trust this person exactly to say what they think in front of me whether I like it or I don't, and I think Joe Rogan got big off the back of this. If Joe disagrees with that guy, he's not going to be rude to him, but you're going to get you're going to know about it. He is going to have his comedian friend on that he wants to have on because he wants to have him on, and when you do authenticity over a period of time, it creates just unshakable trust. Like I've seen this person do things that could be damaging to our relationship and just continue to move forward. So I know that they're not trying to please me with their behavior, and I can trust the things that they say and I can trust the things that they do, and I can rely on them. I feel safe to rely on them. That's the authentic type.

Charlie Houpert: Third type is funny. These are your comedians. These people are just fun to be around. Like you hang out with them, they're cracking jokes the whole time. They bring a levity. Everyone else is talking literally, and they're going to bring in something that is just non-literal. So any comedian is going to fit this. You're Kevin Hart, you're whoever. Take your pick. Empathetic, to me, Oprah is the paragon, but I think you have become the Oprah of the podcasting world in many ways. That's a massive compliment. But empathetic people, they do really, really well one, and they help other people to feel seen, right? They ask a question with a sincerity that makes the other person share the thing that they might not have shared in many other groups. And we all deeply want to feel safe to share ourselves, but we don't because we're in louder groups or all different sorts of things. So when we get in contact with an empathetic person, they might not talk very much, but man, do we leave liking that person. Like, oh, you had a great conversation. We need to do that again. And then the last one is your energetic type. This is probably the easiest one to add. I think of early Will Smith. I think of the way that people walk onto talk shows where they would come onto Jimmy Fallon dancing onto the stage or something like that. This is an individual who may not be very witty with their humor, but they make people smile because the energy that they bring to an interaction is just like two degrees higher than you would expect. Right, so it's he doesn't need to be like funny ha ha, can crack a joke, but the guy who's first on the dance floor at the wedding is like you know committed to the thing that's energetic, and I think Jack Black is someone who has a comment he is funny like he can crack a joke, but the energy that he brings to everything he does is what sells it. So this comes from commitment to the bit, right? You don't like start off dancing like this and then look around and realize nobody likes it and stop. It's if you're able to sustain a level of energy, enthusiasm, and positivity that is one or two degrees higher than the people in the room. At first, there's like, I don't know, and then they join in because everybody wants to relax and dance and feel better, or at least to witness people doing that. And when it's committed, that's when it really, really works.

Steven Bartlett: How do I use this idea of charisma and body language and interpersonal skills to improve my prospects in work, whether that's in an interview setting for a new job or if I'm looking for a promotion?

Charlie Houpert: So the first thing that I always thought about with interviews and trained people to think about was the interview does not start when you land in the room with that person who has got the piece of paper in front of them with your resume. It starts when you leave your house, if you're taking an Uber, you need to talk to the Uber driver, right? You need to get warm. You need to get comfortable. You need to get those vocal cords moving. You need to be dynamic. Like when you enter the building, if it's a large building and has a security guard, one more sentence. Remember, hey, how's it going? You see a lot of fresh faces in here? You know? Yeah. Hopefully, this is not the last time you see me. That type of a thing. It just makes you feel a little bit more comfortable. Instead of reviewing whatever technical stuff that you think you need to know, that needs to be dropped before the interview. That's either in there or it's not, like 15 to 30 minutes in advance. Then you go upstairs. There's a secretary. Same thing. There's other candidates. Same thing. By the time you sit down across from that person, you're warm. You're ready to go, and you're not starting from zero in order to be an engaging human because there are going to be those initial questions. Did you get in all right? Did you do this? Just a little bit, a little bit extra. And it'll be attuned to the situation, but it'll come through. And you've opened a couple of tabs on the way here, right? Exactly, exactly. Like, how'd you get in? And be like, yeah, I met Rick at the door. He's awesome, right? That's going to help.

Steven Bartlett: So that's the number one thing. And then in interviews, there's you don't know what questions you're going to get asked, but if you can take what you're going to get asked and put it into a story format and have a beginning, middle, and an end that has like an up-down-up sort of curve to it, and what I mean is that they're going to say, tell me about something that you really struggled with in your career, and if in advance you have thought through your career and you have the three big moments that happened to you, which is you took over this project, you quit this job and left, moved to this one, and you did this other thing. And then you backwards figure out the story of those. And so the story has this agitating, you know, it's got the, you establish that I was working at this company, and then there was a problem, and then you agitate the problem. It was really bad, and no one could solve it. No one could figure it out. And so I did X, Y, and Z. And as a result, it turned out really well. And then this other thing happened. You get three to five of those things that you know are your core stories. You have no idea what questions are coming, but I promise you, you're going to slot those five things into it. So you don't need, you will not be surprised in the moment if there's a question that you haven't prepared for or heard, because probably there's a story when it comes, this is the fit portion of the interview, that you can just, you have your story ready. And it demonstrates any of the values that you think this company wants, which is I'm tenacious, I work hard, I know the industry, and I can work well with people. That's built into your stories. And then one tip is that at the end of an interview, there's always that moment where they say, do you have any questions for us? And what I've seen sitting on the other side of the table is people either ask a question they don't really have because they feel like they're supposed to, or they say, no, I don't have any questions. And it's just a missed opportunity. And so this one, I have to give credit to my co-founder. He came up with, and this is one of the things I did not anticipate. I got the most positive responses. Like I got the job because of this question type of a thing. And the question is, okay, so let's say that this interview went really well, and a year from now I got the job, and you're looking back, what would I have had to have done in order for you to feel like it was a good decision? Like what things will I've had to have done in that role? And so typically the person goes, hmm, I like that, that's a really good question. And it does a handful of things. One, you've gotten them to imagine the interview going really well and them hiring you, right? And then second, they're gonna lay out for you exactly what you need to do in the role to excel. And that is something that every boss wants. It's like, I want you interested in knowing what I need from you in order to do a good job. And you can take that same principle and you could bring it into conversations if you want to get a raise sooner than you think you were going to, to go in and say, hey, you know, I'd like to get a raise. You can make it clear. I like to do it faster than usual, but I want to make sure that it totally worth it for you. So six months from now or eight months from now, in order for me to get this raise, what would I have had to have done for it to be a no-brainer to you that this was valuable? And then they will go and tell you the things that you could do. And if it's a company that says, no, you can't, maybe you don't want to work there, but they'll just give you the playbook, and then do those things, keep up with that person. And you're now off track for promotions, right? You're not just doing whatever they say. And the bummer is you might have done those things anyway, but if you don't have the conversation in advance, they're not going to give you a raise in most cases. It's so interesting because this could be applied to like anybody in any role that is selling anything. I'm thinking of a personal trainer who meets their client on the first day and says, six months from now, what would I have done to have made you happy? Or I'm thinking of, you know, marketing industries, agencies turning to their clients at the start and saying, if we're still working together in 12 months and you're really happy, what would I have done? And they'll lay out exactly how they want to be treated and their expectations. Yes, yes. So you can meet and exceed them. Yes, yeah. And it shows that you care in that initial moment.

Steven Bartlett: I went through some of your best-performing videos of all time on your channel, and it was interesting that I could see kind of themes in them, right? I could see several of the best-performing videos had similar themes. And one of the really prominent themes was five habits that make people instantly dislike you. So that's a video about Brie Larson. And around the time of the Avengers Captain Marvel thing, she had a string of interviews that were pretty alienating to people. Some of the things that she did, goodness, it was having to win every joke exchange. They're talking about, for instance, who's the most powerful Avenger, right? And they're sort of being playful with each other. Like, well, Thor is the most powerful. And she adopts this attitude of, well, actually, my character would kill yours. And there's a well actually quality. Like, well, actually, I would win. Actually, I would win. Actually, your character is just a mere mortal and I would win. And it is like cute once, but it becomes frustrating to have someone have to win every banter exchange between friends. And so I think people saw that and they saw some of the reactions of the cast. And so that's one is like to have to win every banter exchange and have a burn that you come out on top of, not a good one. Another one that she did is to interpret ambiguous communications negatively. So for instance, in this particular video that I did, she's on that Wired autocomplete interview. And there's one question that is, does Brie Larson work out? And in a way that doesn't to at least to Americans like clearly communicate sarcasm, maybe it's different to Brits, I don't know. You guys have a different cultural code. She says something to the effect of like, is that a personal attack? Really? Yeah. And then she doesn't laugh. And she also, so there's two options there. You can say, is that a personal attack? And then you could laugh, right? Or you could say, is that a personal attack? Everyone on the internet thinks that I'm so fat just trying to jump on me. I'm trying to lose weight. Like you can double and triple down until it's clear that you're being absurd. Yeah. But she said it once and it came through as hyper-defensive. And the thing that I talk about is you want to interpret ambiguous communications charitably. This is a big one. This is one of like, if you've watched the show, Ted Lasso, this is full of this. People will come up to him and I just did a video that had this clip where he's on the airplane. If you know Ted Lasso, he's an American guy going to England. And somebody says, you know, you're going to coach the football team, the soccer team for us in England. Man, they're so bad. This is going to go horribly. You're a legend. And then he responds, well, you know, I haven't lost yet. And he's just got this general positive demeanor. He takes that ambiguous communication and responds with grace and charm and doesn't make it a fight. That works so well. That purposeful misinterpretation of ambiguations early on that are maybe not the friendliest, this often will take people that are trying to take digs at you and make them flip. And in the case that somebody was just a bit socially miscalibrated, it gives them the opportunity to, you know, not be cast as the bad guy in the interaction. So that was something else that she did wrong. Interesting. Also, if others are watching the interaction, and if you have a bias towards interpreting the communication well, yeah. The person that was maybe taking a dig at you is going to look pretty ridiculous, and you're going to probably come off looking pretty good. Exactly, exactly. And when we see people defend themselves against words, with some exception when somebody's like saying that they're going to hurt you, it communicates an insecurity and a defensiveness, which is like why do you need to defend yourself against the opinions of another, right? Like the Trump thing where he said about only Rosie O'Donnell. Yes, yeah. It's like I don't need to defend myself against this. And it sub-communicates that this is not a big deal. More than saying that's not a big deal, you are sub-communicating that's not a big deal by not defending it. And that's what we do when we actually feel comfortable. Let's say if somebody were to tease something that you're not at all insecure about, I don't know what it would be, maybe your business success or something. They come in and like, yeah, well, you know, Steve and Real's struggling these days. You're going to laugh. You're going to add on to it. And sometimes a way through this is to tag the joke that's made at your expense, which is to add a yes and on top of it. So if somebody, ambiguous interpretation to say, yeah, you know, Stephen, these businesses just aren't working really well, you'd be like, oh, my God, dude, you have no idea. I've been pulling my hair out over the last few weeks just like things are falling apart around me. You can do that because you, I'm assuming, feel very comfortable with your level of business success. And when you can, again, there is a difference when you start to sense a pattern in somebody, that is a different route that you want to take. But if it's just one banter thing that is at your expense, to double down and make it a joke that you're in on is often very, very powerful.

Charlie Houpert: Fascinating. I'm going to ask you one last question on this. One of your best-performing videos is titled "Speak Like a Leader, Make People Respect You." In fact, there was two of your top-performing videos that were about speaking like a leader, speaking well, which is fascinating to me that people really want to learn how to speak well. What advice would you give to someone who doesn't feel like they're a good oral communicator on how to speak like a leader?

Steven Bartlett: Hmm. The ability to answer non-literally and bring in fun and jokes into the interaction, the ability to get to values in a conversation, which is a lot of the stuff that we talked about, to take people to the thing that they actually want to connect over versus the weather and all that sort of stuff is part of it. You don't, you seem to take a pause as well when you're thinking. Some people fill in the gaps a little bit. Yeah, generally. And I'm sure I've made this mistake. But if you can replace any filler word, any crutch word that you have with silence, silence is a vacuum. And the cool thing about vacuums is that they pull attention to you. And I think people dramatically, dramatically underestimate the amount of silence they're afforded. If I look back actually at my early videos, I dramatically underestimated the value of silence. I thought that I had to get it all out there and be super interesting really fast in order to keep that attention really, really high, and I've since seen and learned that when you have a story and you learn the beats where you've set up the mystery and so there's these these lines that you'll say in a story, it's like you know the craziest thing happened the other day, so I'm right like you, you are there's there's these hooks and you get an intuitive feel for where you've got the audience on the edge of their seat and especially then to just take a breath or have a pause. You don't need to think all of this out, but that becomes second nature. That's very valuable. And it comes from the way that I've seen people do is when you record yourself, tell a story, and just watch back how many ums and uhs you have in it. When I watch my own podcasts, I'm sure you've felt this. Yeah. It's horrifying. You begin to see your own little habits come through.

Charlie Houpert: Does body language matter when I'm speaking? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple of things that I tend to teach people, which is a lot of people form a tiny little box for themselves where maybe they'll move their hands like this and it's, they got this thing going on. For people that can't see, you're just kind of waving it like a penguin. I'm kind of waving my hands in a little circular thing and my elbows, most importantly, are pinned to my sides. If I lift my elbows off my sides and I start talking a little bit like this and if I was to say, you know, over here and my brother's in the green room over there and I gesticulate, there's two ways to gesticulate. I can take my finger and I can point six inches from my face, the direction that my brother is. Or I can lift my entire arm and point over there. The space that you fill is, one, captivating. This is something that we talk about in a lot of our videos, which is you don't need to invade other people's space. You need to fill your own completely. When you fill your space completely, it is much more captivating. So when you're on stage, to gesticulate with the full width of your wingspan, like, look, I know you guys on this side of the room are feeling this. But over here, right, versus I know you guys on this side of the room think that we have to do this. But over here, it just, there's a level of discomfort that is, comes through in it versus get those elbows off the sides. It makes a huge, huge difference. Also helps you speak louder, makes you more dynamic.

Steven Bartlett: What's the most important thing we haven't talked about that the audience are probably screaming to know at this exact moment in time? When it comes to confidence, one of the mindsets that I see really help people is that there are no superiors, that you go into your workplace and you think that you've got to treat your boss differently or you go into a bar and you think you have to treat the beautiful woman differently. And yes, there is status. And yes, we arrange ourselves in sorts of hierarchies. But when you realize, and as I did in my job, and this is why I got the raise-off cycle, it's why everything started working for me, you're not dealing with roles. You're not dealing with investors. You're not dealing with avatars of beauty. You are dealing with people. And the people that they love the most in their life, that they would do the most for, they connect with over the same things that you connect with your friends over. There's different interests, but the underlying themes of those things are the same. What they love to do for fun, what fills them up, what brings them joy, not looking prim and proper and perfect. And so like a willingness to make that mistake is, I see, is often the essence of confidence. And when I have dropped it and another friend has picked it up, I see it all the time. It goes back to what you said about convincing versus invites. Don't convince people, give them invites to connect. Yeah, yeah.

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