Three expert tips for building charm and confidence.

When MR PORTER is invited to Pinnacle, the Mayfair clinic of A-list psychologist and former Priory therapist Mr Richard Reid, to learn how to be charismatic, I am sent to investigate. Should I read anything into this? I’m not sure. Mr Reid, according to the press release, teaches “entrepreneurs, CEOs and celebrities” how to “get that guy, or girl. To get that promotion. To get ahead. Get whatever it is that they want in life.” Can he do these things for slightly underwhelming editors?

I am allotted only 90 minutes – a taster for Mr Reid’s full training courses – so he certainly has his work cut out. At the end of the session, I am unsure whether I am more charismatic or not. No one mentions anything on the Tube or back at the office. But I do learn a few tips, which we can all benefit from. It turns out that being charismatic is less about being able to charm and manipulate people (which was what I had assumed) and more about crafting long and sustainable relationships with others (which I thought I was OK at, but clearly, no). To get there, I am told, I’ll have to make some small, incremental changes. The three below, for example.

Conversation is simple. You say things, using your mouth and vocal chords, then you stop talking so the other person can reply. Then you ask genial questions to indicate you are interested. Right? Actually, no. According to Mr Reid, I am doing it all wrong. Especially when I ask him why he enjoyed his holiday so much. This is bad. ““Why’ questions kick off the reptilian part of the brain,” he says. “People become more guarded and less creative.” Instead, he suggests that, when I next speak to someone – in the office or at a networking event – I should try to make the other person feel relaxed by connecting with the mammalian part of their brain, which is linked to feelings and memory formation. You can “access feelings”, says Mr Reid, by asking questions such as “How do you feel about that?” and “What do you think?”. He elaborates. “Most conversations are fact based,” he says. “You need to invite people to say more. It’s about creating a level of trust that can come in useful further down the line.”

Mr Reid asks me to talk about a topic of my choosing for a short length of time. Easy. But it is not long before I am interrupted. It transpires I cannot talk about a topic of my choosing for a short length of time. One of the traps I fall into is using “protecting words” such as “quite”. These do not instil confidence. And I waffle. “Focus on three soundbites to take home,” says Mr Reid. “People don’t hear 80 per cent of what you say.” According to Mr Reid, the importance of this is not just in what you say, but how you visualise what you say. “It’s important to imagine you are speaking in short, punchy sentences, with few commas,” he says. There are also actions. “You must signpost what you say using hand gestures,” he says. “Bullet-point things with an inoffensive thumb and forefinger, for example. And sweep your hand down at an angle if you’re saying something serious.” I give it a go, although I’m not entirely sure if the effect is more Mr Tony Blair or Basil Brush.

Charismatic people create time for themselves. They appear in control and put other people at ease. They instil confidence. Physicality is important in achieving this, says Mr Reid. “Only in the past few thousand years have we been able to use words,” he says. “To illustrate this, he instructs me to walk into a room and introduce myself, as if I were about to embark on a job interview. I am only OK at this. I make good eye contact and my handshake is firm, but I do not stand up straight enough, and the reptilian part of my brain compels me to do everything too quickly. I try again, moving a little more assuredly. After the third time of asking, I have officially learned how to walk into a room correctly and at a suitable pace, which is somewhere between a geriatric head of state and Sir Sean Connery.

richardreidmedia.com

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