Is Charisma Good?

Most people think they want to be charismatic.

They want their energy to be compelling and their stories electric. They want to walk into a room and leave everyone impressed. But when I think about the friends I love and want to spend time with, they don’t have charisma.

They have Reverse Charisma.

These are real people you want to be around, not just a talking head on TV or social media.

I’ve tried to be better at this myself (I like to talk, I mean I am writing this write now, no surprise).

Enough about my problems.

Why do certain people make us feel dull while others do not? Why do we feel full of stories and inspiration around some, but around others, we have nothing to say?

We often judge people by how interesting they are, but we miss a more important issue: how interesting they make us feel.

How encouraging are they?
How engaged is this person?
How much of us can they tolerate?
How much do they make us want to dig deeper and talk more?
How comfortably can we sit in silence without needing to fill it?
How much of our reality can they handle without us editing ourselves?

Basically, how much of us do they “get”?

If it’s not much, we will be cautious.

A person feels interesting to the extent they are familiar with things that are extreme, sad, dark, agonizing, and shameful. If they are at home with their own strangeness, they can help us feel at home with ours.

Where they have gone, we can follow. What they have felt safe exploring in themselves, we can unpack around them.

Crafting your charisma is a big task, one that has caused many to struggle. But building your Reverse Charisma is something anyone can do—by being curious, patient, and encouraging.

Some people feel interesting; others make us feel interesting.

There’s definitely a place for both, but on average, our favorite people are the latter, not the former.