What's up everybody? This is Charlie from Charisma on Command and today I want to do
a video breakdown of a group interaction coz the truth is group interactions are very different
than one-on-one and people tend to struggle more with group interactions. For whatever
reason, we add 3, 4, 5 people into the mix. Sometimes you might hesitate; you might fall
behind the train of conversation and the topic that people are on and feel like you don't
know how to get in there and start to connect with people. So that's why I wanted to breakdown
a group interaction of one of the most charismatic people, the guy that I like to breakdown the
most, Will Smith.
So the first thing to look at right now is going to be introductions. And what I want
you to look for is the energy that Will Smith walks in compared to the other people.
Fine. Cordial. Walks to the couch. Nothing special.
Big smile. Gracious bow. Sort of races his way to the couch. Now, look at Will Smith.
Look at the energy that he brings and the time that he takes making his way over as
he says "Hi" to Graham Norton, the host, the audience and then finally the guys on the couch
So Will Smith's walking and finally I do want to point out that he does say hi finally to
everybody on the couch. It takes about twice as long as the other guys, if not more. Now,
that could be off-putting to people if done wrong. If you're going to have an intention
to hug and you're talking the whole time, and trying to slow down the pace of conversation
and just dragging everything back to you, that can backfire. The reason that Will Smith
is so likable is because he does it from a place of one, positive energy; two, humor;
and three, he supports other people when they crack jokes or when they speak. And that's
what I want to highlight for the rest of this video.
So importantly, he's the first person to crack a joke. But potentially, more importantly,
he's also the first person to laugh huge, which is what you'll see. This is what I mean
by being supportive of other people.
So people feel good around him because they crack small jokes and he is just such a positive
person that without faking it, he was able to comfortably laugh heartily. That makes
people feel really, really good. And again, I want to highlight that support just going
forward into the conversation. Tom Jones is now going to talk about why he loves music
and you'll hear Will Smith in the background saying absolutely yes and nodding his head
along.
If you hear Will Smith, he said "Absolutely" there. You'll hear him again and see him when
they cut to the wide shot of just nodding and encouraging Tom as he talks about this.
So there you go. And Will Smith does this throughout the conversation. I just wanted
to pull this out to show you that though he dominates by far, if you go through this,
he probably speaks 50% or more of the time. He's constantly cracking jokes, even cutting
people off. There's never any resentment because he is so supportive when other people are
speaking. Now, I want to show you what that enables him to do as he goes further into
the conversation.
So they start talking about Independence Day. People have really been answering in two,
three sentence blurbs up to this point. This is the first time somebody's going to take
a long or a longer story, and of course, it's Will Smith. But you'll notice that people
are completely focused on him because he hasn't been dominating the attention, in sort of
a tyrannical way. He's been doing it by spreading the love, making other people feel funny and
heard before he goes ahead and really does wind up dominating most of the conversational time
If you look, people are paying very close attention to him as he speaks and it's because
he's been supportive. Now, he's about to tell a story and this is a huge, very important
thing. When a lot of people go to tell stories in group conversations, they try to rush him
in there and because people aren't paying extremely close attention, they rush through
to their climax and then look around and it didn't hit like they wanted to. Notably, Will
Smith first captures the attention of his audience by being supportive, funny and positive
and now when he's telling a story, he can do it much more slowly to make it really impactful
and all the more...
So hopefully you caught there that he slows down on that beat three times as he's telling
the story, right? He doesn't rush through it, if he did, it wouldn't be as impactful.
What I want you to pay attention to, I'm going to go through this one more time, is how he
splits his attention between the people he's telling the story to. And notably, since Graham
asked him the question, a lot of his eye contact and attention is focused on Graham. He also
speaks to the audience, but then at the end, includes the guys on the couch with him, so
nobody feels left out.
So this is Graham clearly
Now he's looking at the audience
So, importantly here and again you could see people are cracking up. He does split his
attention between the different people, right? And he's got the guys on the one side and
he's got the host Graham and he's got the audience. But he doesn't do it rapid fire.
I see so many people telling stories in group, bouncing quickly between the people who are
listening and what happens is, if you can't look at someone, for long enough, to basically
communicate on telling a story to you, right? Paying attention. They sort of, their mind
wanders. You got to spend at least a couple of seconds looking at the person, for them
to be included. And this is true, whether you're speaking to an audience and you're
looking at different individuals in a giant auditorium or if it's just three people around
you. You bounce between them, but for long enough for that person to start to give you
feedback -- to laugh, to nod, so that you have formed a personal connection with them.
So, I could go on and on for ages about how charismatic and what Will Smith is doing for
the rest of this 40-minute interview but the truth is, this has already gone pretty long.
So I'm going to wrap it up now.
So if you want to see more like this, not just with group interactions, but with one
on one conversation, with confidence, first impressions, body language, all of that stuff,
subscribe to this channel to get more of that. Secondly, a request for you. If you know of
a person, or better yet, if you have a video in mind of somebody who is being charismatic
that I could break down, please link to it in the comments. That is so hugely helpful
for me. The hardest part in doing these breakdowns is not the analysis; it's actually finding
fresh new stuff.
I prefer to keep it outside of the scripted realm, right? Because you can write down anything
in a movie script and that person can appear super charismatic. So if you've had an interview,
or just somebody that you know of who got a great video on YouTube for me to breakdown,
link to it, I would love to do a breakdown.
That is it for today. Hopefully you found this helpful. And hope to see you on later
videos through our channel.