Radiate Confidence and Magnetism in Every Interaction | Michael Bungay Stanier EP 492

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11What do you think are the key habits of magnetic individuals who can communicate clearly and get incredible results from conversations and relationships? I think one of the key habits is knowing what you want to ask for. That immediately makes you quite different from other people because a lot of people are like they're in a conversation and they're communicating. But I'm like, but where are we? What's the point? And if you can get really clear on the request you have and the hope you have as an outcome, that is an extremely charismatic and powerful place to stand. And how would you set that up?

0:47Is that like the intention behind it or saying it right away? Is it like knowing what you want in your mind but not saying it? Or saying, this is what I want? The hard work is to know what you want. Then you negotiate and you navigate the moment in front of you and the person. You've got to play that person. not just the cards in your hand. What's helpful for me is to tease apart in any conversation not just what do I want, but what are the facts, what is the feelings, and what are the interpretation of the facts. People who are charismatic in how they communicate often have an ability of not getting all that sort of stuff squished together, which is what happens to most of us.

1:27I know that for me to be in conversation with you, and if I'm trying to move something forward or change something, it's really helpful for me to know the data and the facts of the situation. What's amazing is that there's almost always very little data. Most of what we're experiencing about a situation is this combination of our feelings and our judgments. And most of what knocks us off of being magnetic and being charismatic and kind of being compelling like that is the fuzziness of some of our judgments and our feelings in terms of actually how we then communicate. So I'm always going, okay, what are the facts?

2:03I need to know those. What feeling and judgment combination is most powerful for me to express that serves me and them and the situation? Because a lot of my judgments aren't that helpful. Often my judgments are like, I'm a loser. This is a disaster. Why am I here? I should never have signed up for this. This is going south. This is never going to get anywhere. I mean, all of that sort of negative self-talk going on. But if I'm like, you know, giving somebody feedback perhaps, I'm like, look, I'm frustrated because I'm not sure you understand how important this is. That's a feeling and judgment combination, really helpful.

2:39Particularly when I go, see, here's what I want. Like, I'm sad because it feels like we're stuck and I'm not quite sure how we're going to get out of this. So what I want is for us to go see a therapist together to get support to work through this sort of stuff. And this idea of going, how do you learn how to add the depth of feeling and emotion to owning your judgments, to asking for what you want, can be a really compelling way of actually communicating in a way that feels magnetic and grounded and human. This got taught to me by a friend of mine called Mark Bowden. He runs a company called Truth Plane.

3:18He's a fantastic TEDx talk on this as well. How you use your body and how you use your hands in particular is a very influential way on how the crowd will feel about you. Be the strongest signal in the room because the crowd will respond to the strongest signal in the room. They will feel what you feel. They will be who you want to be. So I'm like, great, so how do I want my audience to feel? For me, I want them to feel encouraged and to feel loved and feel awesome and feel light, like a playfulness. So I'm thinking about that in terms of what I am bringing. And then what Mark taught me was these three different positions you can use to communicate.

3:58And it's about where you put your hands, particularly in front of a stage. The critical one is the truth plane. And he calls that, it's like, keep your hands at your belly button level. Because actually, that is the most vulnerable expression you can have. Because you're basically saying, look at me, this is my weak spot. My belly's my weak spot. I'm showing it to you. This is because the body leads the brain. So the body goes, if you're showing him that you're most vulnerable spot, you must feel safe and you must feel confident and you must feel relaxed. And that makes you feel safe and confident and relaxed.

4:28And because you're the strongest signal in the room, the audience feels safe and confident and relaxed. And then if I want to shift the energy in the room, I'll just lift my hands up. So you can see that just by going like this, even though I haven't changed the content at all, actually the experience has actually shifted a little bit. If I really want to make a point, I'll lift my hands right up here and everyone's like, I don't know why I'm feeling so good right now, but for some reason I'm feeling good right here. I'm like, I'm just saying the same stuff, but I've just lifted my hands up. But now, come down here, suddenly we've become a little more intimate and a little more vulnerable and a little more human around that.

5:03So for me, this is stagecraft, which is like in these subtle ways, you prime an audience to respond to the strongest signal in the room, which means you have to get your signal clear. which means you have to have an intention about how you want the audience to feel, and you have to have the movement on stage to actually reflect that. So there's something really powerful about priming. So if I go, Lewis, look, I'm about to tell you something here, and you're going to really love this. What's happening is you're nodding your head. People at home are nodding their head as well. They're like, I don't even...

5:38Why am I doing this? Why am I... I already love this, and he hasn't even told me. And there's a way that you can use language to help your audience understand and appreciate what's about to happen. This is going to be fantastic. I think you're going to really like what I'm about to tell you now. That's it. That's me priming. The audience doesn't even hear it, but I'm just giving them a chance to get their brain to be ready and to hear it in an open-hearted, open-minded way. It's like, this might be the best thing I've got to tell you all day. Right. The second thing is going to be fantastic. What is it?

6:09The second thing is going to be fantastic. You know, it's this fine line between, like, I am manipulating an audience when I'm doing this. I'm working really hard to give them the very best chance to get the very most out of what I've got to share with them so that they feel present and served and I've done my best contribution to them. And I'm doing all of that to kind of be an act of service. If I'm presenting or running a workshop or speaking to a large crowd, I spend a lot of time getting the audience to speak to itself. I ask them some check-in questions. like first of all on a scale of one to seven how active do you plan to be with me over the next 90 minutes and they're like oh and I'm like I don't mind what number you choose you can choose you're an adult I'm not bullying you into a seven but like one is I'm right at the back I'm planning on having a nap I'm hoping to get my pulse rate down into the low 30s seven is I'm stoked to be here I'm so excited this is the talk I've been here like fantastic and then my second question is like a score of one to seven, how much risk do you will take with me over the next 90 minutes?

7:12I don't mind what it is, you choose, but one is no risk at all. I'm hoping to think nothing new, learn nothing new, meet anybody new. I'm hoping this whole thing doesn't affect me at all. Seven, on the other hand, is like, you know, I have poor personal boundaries. You know, I'm going to talk about my inner child's wounds and how that still makes me cry. If you can get an audience to laugh early on, they form as a group and they like you more, they feel safer, that's great. And then the third question I ask is, let's get a one to seven. How much do you care about the experience of the other people in the room with you here?

7:42One is, I hate these people. This is a nightmare. I'm at this greatness conference and I'm trapped. I don't even like any of these people. I thought this was an automobile conference. I don't know what I'm doing here. Seven on the other hand is like, I love these people. These are my people. I'll do what I can to contribute to the group. So I'm inviting people to show up. In some ways, it's a version of how to work with almost anyone, which is like, let's have a conversation about how we be together before we get into the work. That's cool. And I'm priming them to kind of go, look, I'm making a decision on how I'm showing up.

8:15I'm making a decision on how much risk I'm taking. I'm making a decision about how I contribute because they hadn't really thought of it before they sat down. They were just there because it said be in this room at nine o 'clock for the opening keynote. And they're kind of in passive recipient mode. Yeah. And then I'm like, now get up and go and find a partner. And I'll often ask one or two questions. It's like, talk about the high point of the week for you. Person with the longest hair goes first. And the buzz in the room lifts. And everyone's talking about a high point. It's an I-thou conversation right there.

8:47So far, I've taught no content. We're now 10 to 15 minutes into a 90-minute speech. So I've given up a lot of time. But I've built connection. I've given the audience autonomy. me. I've given them a sense of being seen and heard. They've often met somebody new that they haven't met before and they think I'm brilliant. And you haven't done anything. Well, I have. I've got out of the spotlight and I said, let me put the spotlight on you to remind you how great you are.

9:22Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation. And I I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description that will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on the School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you wanna get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

10:12Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.

10:25Thank you.