Anyone can learn Charisma!

My postAliénor Hunter is a famous Public Speaking Coach.

She has helped thousands of people:

• become confident public speakers

• overcome social anxiety

• build charisma

But she was not always like this.

I am fascinated by her story.

So I watched her MasterClass (Twice!).

Once when Aliénor was a young teenager, she returned to her school after the holidays.

Winters had begun and the weather was freezing.

She needed her duvet, which was kept with her warden. She needed to just ask her for it.

But she was petrified of asking, as she suffered from terrible social anxiety and shyness.

The Result:

She slept for a whole week without her duvet and caught the flu!

This was the turning point in her life.

She battled her problem and overcame it to become a professional public speaking coach.

She believes that anyone can build charisma and be a confident public speaker.

Here are the golden nuggets from her masterclass on Ali Abdaal's deep dive podcast:

#1 Acknowledge the problem

She says that the biggest hurdle is accepting if you have social anxiety and fear public speaking. Once you accept this, from there on life is very easy as your mind will automatically start looking for solutions.

# Charisma Can Be learned

She says that anyone can build charisma and be confident. You won't become confident one day; just choose to be confident in that moment. Sit upright, feel right, fake the smile if you have to. Just practice this daily, and it will become second nature.

# Seek Professional Help

If you have to, take a speaking class or coaching class. Aliénor sought professional help first. Then she joined an @ultraspeaking course. She totally smashed that course and went on to become an ultraspeaking coach herself.

# Start practicing with small steps

Take gradual exposure to uncomfortable situations:

• ask that stranger for the time

• borrow that pen if you have to

• say hello to that person in the building lift

• start with a smile

• make brief eye contact

Use these as stepping stones.

# Embracing Vulnerability

By being open about your issue and accepting your vulnerability, you can connect with others who might have a similar issue. This could create a solid support system; it might not seem that big a deal after all.

# Leverage Personal Interests

Make sure to participate and engage in discussions around your area of interests:

• sports

• politics

• economics

• cat life

It could be anything, and use this to speak effectively and build confidence.

# Turn your weakness into a superpower

Aliénor used her shyness as a superpower. Being shy meant she was mostly quiet at gatherings. This made her observe people like crazy. Excessive observation led her to develop intuition at what people wanted but were afraid to say.

# Self-Reflection & Challenging Beliefs

Part of building charisma involves introspection and challenging limiting beliefs about oneself. Aliénor's experience with therapy and questioning her beliefs played a significant role in her development.

# Adopt a Growth Mindset

Use every social interaction as an opportunity to change your belief from "I am not charismatic" to "I am charismatic." This technique is really powerful.

# Empathy and Good Listening

Be genuinely interested in others. Be empathetic to what they are saying. Listen genuinely and offer valuable advice from your life experiences that resonate at an emotional level.

# Use Ultraspeaking Techniques

Ultraspeaking offers unique, innovative exercises that focus on spontaneous and authentic communication. These exercises involve improvisation, storytelling, or other techniques that encourage natural, charismatic expression.

You can check out ultraspeaking. They have a lot of free games to build and learn speaking techniques.

https://app.ultraspeaking.com/games/home

Link to the podcast I saw:

https://youtu.be/XJaIrkLQA_0?si=cWSZcavisGviUihe

Connect with Aliénor:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliénor-hunter-08a962186/ content