Tag Archives: charisma

The Best Christmas Ever: A Coach’s Story

The Worsening Situation

Sometimes circumstances can make the truly gifted feel incredibly small, even invisible. This is particularly true when a person is out of work, searching for a job that seems further and further away with each passing month. That, by itself, can be a crippling anxiety-generator, but the anxiety mounts when this talented individual is a single parent who looks at the uncertain future with fear and dread.

A coaching client, who I will call Karen, was a single mom who had been out of work for about eight or nine months when I finally met her in August, of this year. We conducted a rehearsal, and then in September we met again to do more work. I went over all of the techniques I wanted her to use to gain control of her emotional state and project a charisma that is magnetic and leads to job offers. She told me she was using several of them, but she was still failing in job interviews.

Our time together was over, but we kept in contact. One day she told me she was excited about an upcoming interview in late November, but I was not excited about her prospects. She sounded weak and uncertain, utterly lacking in confidence. She later told me that she was in a bad place at this stage of her job search. So I scheduled time to visit her on November 24th, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, to try and prepare her for at least two opportunities.

Charisma Must Be Balanced

Karen naturally radiated warmth-charisma, but not the charisma that says with a sonorous tone, “I am strong and confident and capable of overcoming every challenge.” So, my goal was to balance her warmth-charisma with authority-charisma. When these two are balanced they act  like a powerful pheromone that is irresistible to hiring authorities. We then went over a strategy to help make this so.

Her next interview came and it must have gone well because she made it to the next round.

Ah, the second round. She had reached it several times, but her competitors kept passing her by as they raced for the finish line. Making matters worse, this stage involved the CEO of the company. He was a tough interview, kind of like a poker player wearing sunglasses. He gave nothing away.

The End of Uncertainty

The interview ended and Karen had an uneasy feeling. She was uncertain about how she did. Her feeling of uncertainty ended today when she got her offer. The CEO told her new boss, the VP of Sales, that Karen impressed him. As the VP told Karen, “He almost never says anything like that.” But her offer was not a good offer; it was a great offer. It was twice what another company recently offered her, and it exceeded what she was making a year ago. And here is what makes it stronger: The hiring company knew she had now been out of work for a year, and they knew what she was making. They could easily have offered her a lot less.

Karen was stunned by the generosity of the offer, but as I told her over the phone, “Karen, you’ve developed charisma. You made them want you, yearn for you to be a part of their team, and we can see the appearance of charisma in the result you generated. The hiring company paid you more than they logically and rationally needed to. And that is because, as Blaise Pascal once wrote, “The heart has reasons that reason can’t understand.”

The Best Christmas Ever

Christmas is coming in 11 days, but I am celebrating it today. And it is the best Christmas ever. For I got a chance to help a kind and decent person, who was gifted but did not always feel that way, to climb from her deep, dark sinkhole and arrive at a place where she and her son will be able to chart a new course.

Merry Christmas Karen, and thank you for making my Christmas the best ever.

Charisma in One Week: A Free Seminar

THE MEANING OF CHARISMA

Look up the definition of charisma and you will find that it is a divine gift, something that separates the extraordinary person from the ordinary Joe and Jill.

Does that sound right? Not to me. Charisma has to do with mastering a subconscious form of speech called non-verbal behavior, and I’ve taught people how to do this in one week.

THE POWER OF NON-VERBAL BEHAVIORS

Tom Payne
Tom Payne

What are non-verbal behaviors? They are facial expressions, body language, tone of voice and other elements of speech like pacing and pausing, etc. But what purpose do they serve?

They are subconscious expressions of our emotional state. When I am happy I do not have to consciously think: “I need to look happy. Smile, Tom, smile!” No, I automatically look happy, and so do you when this is your emotional state.

This causes an important effect: Those around us feel this happiness. That is what makes non-verbal behaviors so powerful. They make people feel what we feel. This is because of the mirror-neuron system. We are wired to respond in this way. And when a charismatic person is radiating confidence and positivity, then we are drawn to such a person.

FIRST EXAMPLE OF CHARISMA IN ONE WEEK

I was working with a client who had a non-verbal intensity that came from repeated failures at job interviews. He was subconsciously expressing his desperation to get a job, but I was able to teach him how to master his non-verbal voice. Then, a week later, he was one of many interviewing for a few, coveted opportunities at a well-respected, internationally-known company. The interviewing process would end on Friday and my client interviewed on Wednesday. His newly-found charisma produced the following result that both delighted and puzzled him. He received an offer that Thursday night. This was before they had finished interviewing the rest of the candidates. 

He said to me, “This doesn’t make any sense. What if Friday’s candidates are better than me? Now they won’t be able to extend an offer to one of them. Why not make an offer to me Friday evening, or the following Monday? I’m out of work. I would have waited. Happily.” He was shocked by the influence he had now gained. He caused a powerful, emotional response in the hiring authority, not a rational one. His charismatic pull created a craving for him. For him! The same person who had failed repeatedly at job interviews in the weeks prior. No wonder he was surprised. He was beginning to experience the profound insight of Blaise Pascal, “The heart has reasons that reason does not understand.”

SECOND EXAMPLE OF CHARISMA IN ONE WEEK

Another client, Tess, had failed in fifty-nine straight interviews. That is not a typo. Fifty-nine! Can you imagine how emotionally devastated she was? Then imagine the non-verbal behaviors these feelings produced. Not good, I can tell you. I worked with her for a little over a week and on her 60th job interview she got an offer for $20,000 more at the salary line than her previous job, the one she held 19 months ago.

Her charisma created a craving. But it could not overcome the bi-polar behavior that afflicts many corporations–they’re up and hiring one week, down and firing the next. A few months later this hiring company reorganized and she was one of the many let go.

Did she spiral back into the darkness? No. Within a matter of weeks she interviewed again and received another great job offer.

This charismatic communication style can be taught to jobseekers, salespeople, clinical researchers, and executives, and I have seen the outcomes that support this claim. So, how can you learn to control this non-verbal form of speech?

REGISTRATION INFORMATION FOR A FREE SEMINAR, OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

CTC ChicagoI am currently giving free seminars, open to the public, on mastering non-verbal communication. The next seminars will take place, in 2015, on October 6th, November 3rd, and December 1st at the Career Transitions Center of Chicago, 703 W. Monroe St., Chicago, IL, from 10:30-noon. If you are in the Chicago area, and are interested in attending, then you will need to register. To do this please visit www.ctcchicago.org by clicking on this link that takes you to the Full Calendar of Events. http://www.ctcchicago.org/show1.asp 

Then, scroll down to the date (my seminars are usually posted 2-4 weeks in advance), and click on the “Details” link associated with the seminar entitled, The Interviewing Edge: Mastering Non-Verbal Communication. Click “Reserve Here” and then follow the registration information. It is free, and open to the public, but you must register.

I hope to see you there. But if you cannot attend, and are interested in learning the techniques that produce this charismatic presence, then read the blurb below that introduces a resource that contains this system.

A guide to developing this charismatic presence
A guide to developing this charismatic presence

Tom Payne is an international management consultant who developed a sales system based on the emotional causes of the buying decision, his coaching of others, and recent advances in psychology and neuroscience. His system for developing a charismatic presence is found in his new, award winning book, “The Path to Job Search Success: A Neuroscientific Approach to Interviewing, Negotiating and Networking.” To read the first chapter, click on the following link: http://www.tompayne.com/books.html