Chris Pratt is one of the most charming people I've ever seen
and that's after doing dozens of celebrity breakdowns in a hundred Charisma on Command videos.
So in honor of Guardians of the Galaxy II,
I wanted to do a breakdown of what it is that makes him so engaging and likeable.
In his case, there's a powerful aura of positivity
because nearly everything that he says and does
is so upbeat and the effect is contagious.
This is the craziest thing —
every year, since I turned thirty, has been the best year of my life.
Now, it's far easier to say, "Be positive," than to actually put that into practice.
That's why we're going to take a look at some of the foundations of Chris Pratt's positivity
because when you can bring that into your own life,
being confident and charismatic come so much more easily.
Let's start with one of the most important habits first — self-amusement.
Check out this video.
Chris filmed a bunch of these for Instagram while losing weight for Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World.
And he called them What's My Snack and in every episode is just him being silly
about the snack that his trainer gave him to eat that day.
What's up?
It's your boy Chris Pratt coming back with an episode of What's My Snack.
Last chapter, you ain't seen nothing.
What's my snack? It's a carrot cake muffin.
Oh, it's so good.
Alright, I'll be honest with you — this is my snack for tomorrow.
This is the foundation of self-amusement — you start by doing it alone.
And this means that you might talk to yourself while you're in your house.
It means you might make goofy Instagram videos playing with your food
or it might mean that you dance around your place like Star-Lord.
[Music playing]
The point is that the best way to be amusing to others and to connect with them
is by first having fun alone by yourself
then you can bring that energy and that mentality to whoever happens to be around you
whether that's a cashier, an old friend, or even a baby who can't talk back.
How are y'all doing? Oh, yeah. All right, all right.
Yo, yo, yo throw your feet in the air — throw your feet in the air. Yeah.
Hey, can I get everybody... clap your feet.
[Beatbox] Yeah. [Beatbox]
So self-amusement doesn't begin when someone you like is present and you really want to impress them —
you do it for you because it makes your life more fun.
And if you start there, the energy that you bring into all of your interactions
with other people will be much more positive and goofy.
You're going to become more clever because you won't answer everything so seriously.
Instead, you'll be in the habit of treating
the random and boring parts of life in a sillier manner like this —
What's the deal with swearing? Can we swear?
Yup, you can swear and we'll bleep you out.
Uh, hello,
Showtime motherf*****.
Now maybe in your workplace, it's not always a good idea to swear
so it is helpful to know when it might be a good idea to not take things so seriously.
And one situation where it is almost always appropriate
is during that get-to-know-you question and answer phase of an interaction.
So if you look at Chris Pratt's interviews, he does this all the time —
consistently taking the questions that he receives that most people tend to answer literally
and playing around in his answers for his own amusement and of course for the people around him.
Your outlaw name in the film is Star-Lord.
Mm-hm.
Okay, so in real life if you had to pick a name
to represent you as an outlaw in outer space, what would you pick?
The Boner Doctor.
Hey now.
To contact Jennifer Lawrence's agent, well, I don't want to tell you that.
Here's what you do — you pick up your phone,
you dial 911
and you say, "Quickly, I need to talk to Jennifer Lawrence. It's an emergency,"
and then whisper, "There's someone in my house."
My agents will come in droves.
Yeah, the agents will show up — you'll get to meet Jenn and everything.
To be clear, this doesn't mean that you never answer those getting-to-know-you questions
or that you are unable to connect with people more deeply because you constantly deflect with humor.
It just means that you typically find ways to make yourself laugh during casual conversation
rather than allowing that conversation to devolve into a boring question-and-answer ping-pong
that leaves no impression whatsoever on the person that you're talking to.
So here's another example where Chris amuses himself
rather than answering the questions literally just to give you another idea.
He's four months old — he was born premature
so we went through some... some emotional times when we—
but he's healthy and he's happy
and he does his exercises every day and he's just—
What exercises do you do?
Well, you know, I just like... bench — I put him on the bench.
[Audience laughs]
He's putting on weight.
He is doing well. He's really thriving.
He's super strong.
Another thing that is going to help train your positivity
is reframing ambiguous or negative situations in a positive light.
Put simply, it's taking the glass-half-full approach to life
and in conversation, it comes through in your attitude.
For instance, when someone asks you about an old job that you had flipping burgers,
you can talk about the parts that sucked
or you can talk about the funny parts that you liked.
Here's what Chris Pratt tends to do.
I got a job at... I worked at a place called the Viking Drive-in.
I worked... I, like, flipped burgers at a little tiny drive-through burger joint.
Fun.
It was awesome.
Yeah!
It was great. It was... I could walk. I could rollerblade there.
I rollerblade at everywhere as a kid.
I mean I'm painting a pretty awesome picture.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. [Audience and Jimmy laugh]
The cool side effect here is that when you get in the habit of reframing things
to the positive side, being funny comes much more easily
because that creates comedic moments when the negativity of the situation
is juxtaposed with your relentless positive spin.
For an example, watch here as Chris Pratt
immediately assumes that whatever Stephen Colbert says is a good thing
even if it's clearly not intended that way.
In this case, Chris is telling Stephen how he used to do door-to-door sales
and Stephen is pretending to be one of the people that he'd sell to who is rejecting him.
No, you got to do it. I only got about 20 of these to give out so you just fill this card out,
we settle the $20 today — cash, check, credit card...
I'm going to call the police if you don't get off my porch.
Oh, do it! Call some police because they have cars and we'd be happy to service their cars too.
[Audience and Stephen laugh]
I'll do it. I'll do it.
To cultivate this habit in your own life,
practice it when seemingly negative things happen to you.
So if you lose your job, you just got a new opportunity
and more time to spend with your community.
If you step in mud, you just got a new pair of brown shoes
and, yes, I stole those lines from the song Everything Is Awesome
from the LEGO movie and listening to that song is also a great way to stay positive.
# Everything is awesome #
# Everything is cool when you're part of a team #
Now I can't play more because of copyright law which is awesome
because you can go listen to the whole thing yourself — I'll put the link in the description.
Anyway, this takes us to our last point
because one of the most open-ended things in the world is comedy.
You can make people laugh with cutting sarcastic humor
or you can do with absurdly complementary humor.
And I've made this point before but it bears repeating —
stick to the absurdly complementary humor
if you want to make better impressions on people and have them feel good around you.
So take a look again how it's done.
If you left Earth to go to another planet
what are three things you would take with you?
Uh, Hunger Games boxset,
my Jennifer Lawrence trading cards,
and my authentic Katniss bow,
and my Mystique toys— How many do I got? 30?
Chris Pratt is flat-out amazing at this.
He has a knack for reviving jokes that other people start to take down a negative path.
For instance, check out this next clip where his interviewer
jokingly implies that Chris is calling her a man which he was not doing.
Rather than apologizing and saying, "No, that's not what I meant,"
or taking the joke further by saying, "Yeah, she does look like a man,"
he's able to completely save the joke and put a positive complementary spin on it.
...sexiest man alive, 2015.
Don't you think?
Yes, oh my god.
Don't be modest.
Don't be... oh, don't be modest?
If anyone deserves it...
"It is I."
I mean you.
No. Yes, it is you.
I think we're gonna go—
Are you saying I look like a man?
No, I think now is time. It's finally time that they crown a woman the sexiest man.
Now I got to say, the first time that I watched that clip,
I was struck by how comedicly brilliant it is.
And it's not something that we can all just come up with
after watching one Youtube video but
the good news is that you can build up to that level of quickness
if you work on your comedy chops and if you train your brain
towards finding the positive reframe with the steps that we covered in this video
and those steps again are, first,
self amuse — be in that goofy positive state —
second, practice reframing negative situations in a positive light
even if it's just to yourself and then, of course, out loud to friends,
and third, crack jokes to build other people up rather than tear them down.
I'm also going to put together a comedy breakdown playlist
of videos that we've done in the past if you want to train
the other most important comedic habits.
So there you go.
If you like this video and you want to know how to use these skills
to make an amazing first impression every single time
I've also set up a video that covers four emotions that create a great first impression
in anyone — from your boss, to a first date, to whoever —
and the order of these emotions is very important
because while most people do eventually create these emotions, they do it in the wrong order
and that makes them much more forgettable in their interactions.
So if you want to know what those emotions are
and the best order to commit them in, click the link on the screen now.
It's going to take you to another page
where you can drop your email and get access to that video immediately.
If you like this video and you want to see more, make sure to subscribe.
We cover how to be your best, most confident, and charismatic self
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Let me know, of course, if you have any topics or individuals you would like me to cover in the comments.
I personally am very excited because in one week, I'm heading back to the United States.
I will miss Brazil but I'll be so much closer to having a permanent studio
so that I can do non-breakdown style videos which I haven't really been able to in a good way
for a long time and I have a lot that I want to share
and I've just kind of been waiting for the right space to do it
so hopefully, that comes together soon.
I'm also going to be doing more shorter clips on my personal Instagram when I'm back
in the USA so if you're into that kind of stuff,
my name is @CharlieHoupert.
I hope that you've enjoyed this video and I will see you in the next one.