How do you figure out exactly what it is in life that you are passionate about? And I
ask that question, one, because it's the topic of a lot of emails that I've gotten over the
last several weeks and months, but, two, because this has a huge impact on the charisma that
you exude when you are making a first impression, because I can give you all of the perfect
tips to make a great smile, how to hold eye contact, but if when you get asked that question,
what do you do? And you don't have a hobby that you're really engaged in, and you don't
love your work, and all that you can muster is "Ah, you know, I'm an accountant." It doesn't
matter, any of that body language stuff, that is going to get sub-communicated.
The fact that you are not engaged and excited about your life and what you spend your time
doing, comes through loud and clear. So, figuring out the things that you're passionate about
and incorporating them into your life, either professionally, or just as a hobby, is a critical
part of being charismatic. So, what I want to offer you today is an actionable thing
that you can do. Get a piece of paper. Write it down. I've got four questions for you that
will help you to identify the type of things that you need to be engaging with more in
your life, because these things are your passions, and these are going to attract people to you
when you talk about them.
So here's the first question. The first question is: What can you spend your time doing that
when you're doing it, you lose track of yourself, and you lose track of time? Maybe it just
turns out that it's 3:30 in the morning and you just opened your eyes, you're like "How
the heck did I spend the last 8 hours doing this thing?" Go ahead and write a list of
things down, and don't be judgmental here. If the answer, one of them is video games,
go ahead and write this down. We're not trying to find something that's commercially viable.
We're trying to find the things that take you into "flow," because if you're in flow,
that means that you are so hyper engaged with that thing that you care, you're passionate,
right? So, that's very important. Number one, what makes you lose track of time in yourself.
Number two: What sort of activities in your life do you spend money to participate in?
And I know that, for me, one of the things was, and this didn't seem very important at
the time, but I was going out all the time. I was going to bars, I was paying covers,
I was paying taxis. If you'd look at my bank statements, a huge percentage of my money
was in going to places where I could meet people, interact, and, maybe, meet a girl
that I like, right? So that was something that I was hyper engaged in. Think to your
own life. What sort of events do you spend your own hard-earned money to participate
in. That means that you care enough to invest.
The third question: What area of your life do you fear judgment in, right? Is there an
area where you have a backlog of work, whether it's songs or poems, or any piece of art or
business or whatever it is that you're afraid to share with other people, for fear of being
judged. This means that you care about it tremendously. It's core to your identity,
and, so, you will work hard to be excellent at it. When I look back at my own life, writing
was the clear winner. Ever since I was a kid, I've been writing. I've been taking creative
writing classes every chance I got, but I was very scared to publish in any sort of
school newspaper or blog or anything. And that was because it was core to who I am, right?
If somebody didn't like my writing, I thought that would tear me apart. Of course, that's
not the case, but look for that area. What are those things that you're afraid to share?
That means that it is really important to you and you work to be good at it.
And, of course, number four: What makes your heart race, right? What things in your life
do you have that when you engage in that activity, your heart rate literally elevates. And as
I look back on my own life, one of the very clear things for me was social interaction.
I was a very shy kid. Whenever I'd meet someone new, that would kind of make me anxious, but
particularly, for someone that I wanted to be my friend, or if it was a girl that I like,
man, my heart rate would just shoot through the roof. So, reflect on your own life. What
sort of things do you have? And, again, start _ . You can write scary movies, skydiving,
whatever it is. But start to go down that list and make a list of things that actually,
genuinely excite you, and you know it because your body is responding, right?
So when you have this list of these four things, hopefully, you'll have some commonalities
in there. And the whole point of this exercise is to tease out the things in your life that
you care about, but that you might be hiding from yourself, because a very, very common
phenomena in today's world is that we have these things that are core to our identity.
In my case, it was this writing; it was social interaction, but that we're afraid to share
with the rest of the world, because it is so important to us. We're afraid to make it
our profession, or even just a hobby, right? If you were to write about it on a blog, in
the internet, or engage with it in some other way. So go through this list, right? See if
there are commonalities, things that are so important to you, things that you legitimately
care about that you can get more involved in. And the reason is not just for yourself,
because, of course, that's going to improve your quality of life. But when you meet other
people, you need to bring in enthusiasm and an energy to that question, "What do you do?"
And, right now, if all you have going is a job that you're not super into, and friends
that, you know, you like, but you're not crazy about, and hobbies that, you know, football
on Sundays, that is not going to help you connect with the kind of people that you want
to have in your life. When you're passionate about something, you will attract other people
into your life that have similar passions, and, they, maybe, in some cases, have passions
that are completely divergent, but the intensity of those passions attract one another.
So, I hope that you found this exercise helpful. I hope that you follow through, and if you're
still interested in more on first impressions, we've actually set up another video that has
the four emotions that guarantee you can make a good first impression on anyone, anytime.
And these are things that if you imbue into this answer of what do you do, you take these
four emotions, and you can put them into your answers. What do you do? Where are you from?
You are going to absolutely smash your first impressions. It will be amazing. So, if you
want to see what those four emotions are, go ahead, click the link that will pop up
here. It's going to take you to another page where you can submit your email, and then,
you will get that video. Of course, if you found this helpful, please, below, comment,
what did you find in your answers. I'm very, very curious to see, and hold yourself accountable
to following through in some way. If you have any questions, feel free to write those in
the comments. I'm going to be alternating between Charisma breakdowns, and videos like this,
where I answer viewer questions, and, lastly, if this is the first time that you're on my
channel, and you've not yet done so, subscribe. We've got new videos like this every single
Monday, and Charisma breakdowns of celebrities, showing charismatic body language, eye contact,
all sorts of things to help you be more charismatic and confident in your everyday life. So, I'm
Charlie, I hope that you've enjoyed this video, and I will see you in the next one.