What is charisma?  How can you increase your own?  Most people think that charisma is something magical that people like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have and the rest of us don’t.  But it’s actually much simpler than that – and something you can control.  

Charisma is two things:  authenticity (and by that I mean something quite specific) and attitude — the passionate expression of emotion. 

Most of us don’t radiate a lot of charisma because we’re either not authentically present, right there, in the moment, or because we’re not expressing much in the way of emotion.  We either are split in focus – nervous, thinking about something else, distracted – or we’re bottled up – afraid to show what we really feel. 

We tend to put actors high on the charisma list because they’re so good at expressing emotion.  They work on making the emotions very true, even though the circumstances are usually made up. 

So how do you increase your own charisma?  First, increase your authenticity.  And that means being absolutely aligned in what you say and how you say it – content and body language.  You can’t be authentic if those two modes of expression are not aligned.

Second, increase your passion.  Focus in yourself on how you feel about the moment, the people you’re with, the situation you’re in, and then express that (see #1).

Working on these two steps will create a virtuous cycle that will increase your charisma quotient as you get more and more practiced at expressing emotion authentically.

I talk about this in more detail in my book Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma.  And I’m hoping to land a panel at SXSW 2010 to talk about it.  Please click on the link and buy the book, or if you’re planning to attend SXSW, vote for the panel.