Habits of Highly Charismatic People
Soul Gum
In this episode of Soul Gum, host Victoria Hutchins redefines charisma beyond the manipulative, dominance-based models popularized by the manosphere. She explores a more authentic,
Key takeaways
- Charisma is not about control or scarcity but about deep presence, curiosity, and social courage.
- The most effective questions are those you genuinely want to know the answer to, not ones used as manipulation tools.
Main topics
- Redefining charisma beyond dominance and manipulation
- The psychology of question asking in conversations
Notable quotes
What if charisma is not about dominance and control? What if it's about deep presence and social courage?
Conclusion
True charisma isn't about mastering social scripts or manipulating others—it's about showing up
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) I want to be more charismatic. You might want to be more charismatic. But the problem is, most of the people on the internet who claim to teach you how to be more charismatic actually just teach you how to psychologically dominate women at a bar. Hold eye contact longer. Take up space. Don't reveal too much. Don't affirm them too much. Make them come to you. And some of that stuff does work, but It raises a question that nobody in those conversations seems to be talking about, which is, what does it feel like to be on the other side of you? If what you're doing is leaving people guessing and letting their insecurities pull them towards you, is that charisma or is it control? What if you don't have to pick between being charismatic and being warm? What if you can be socially powerful? while empowering others. And what if charisma is not about dominance and control? What if it's about deep presence and social courage? It is time for a non-manospheric conversation about charisma. Let's talk about it. Speaker 1 (1:11) Welcome back to Soul Gum, the self-development podcast with philosophical, psychological, and literary flair. I'm your host, Victoria Hutchins. My goal is to give your soul something to chew on, and today we are talking about charisma. If you've listened to this podcast before, you might know that I am unfortunately not uninterested in power. I am, despite my best efforts, rabidly ambitious. I want to be interesting. I want to be good at the things that I do. I want to be respected, esteemed even. I am kind of a Chad, but at the same time, I am also a total thought daughter. I am a raging feminist and I am constantly interrogating my ambition. So I'm always kind of straddling those two worlds. I'm sort of like if Machiavelli was a girl and a leftist. and felt super guilty about being Machiavelli. But because of that, I am very interested in the topic of charisma. Charisma is one of those traits, not unlike discipline, that a lot of progressive people, pro-social people, women, have abandoned in the post-Girlboss era. So I will admit it, I dip my toes sometimes into the manosphere to hear what they're saying about topics that are interesting to me, like charisma. Not like the manosphere proper. Not the guy who rhymes with Schmandrew Schmate. Can you imagine if I was like secretly listening to that? That would be crazy. No, I think slash hope. He's in jail? Is he in jail? I don't know. I'm referring to like the manosphere suburbs. I'm talking about the self-development podcasts that are staunchly politically opaque. Like 85 % of their guests are men and they approach self-development in this super navel-gazy way that does not at all consider the broader world or your impact on it. You know the ones. I'll listen to those every now and then because they'll make an episode that's titled something like The Laws of Charisma. I wanna know the laws of charisma. Anyone mind if a liberal witchy woman dabble in the laws of charisma? The art of riz? So I'll start watching something like that, and the host will be like, our guest today is an expert on charisma. I'm like, awesome. He has taught a million people to be charismatic. I'm like, woo! Me next, me next. But then the expert will start talking and his first piece of advice will be something like, when you're at the bar and you're talking to a woman, I'm like trying so hard to stay locked in. I'm like, okay, I'm at the bar, I'm talking to the woman and you can't hear her. Don't lean forward to hear her. Tap your ear and make her come to you. Speaker 1 (3:59) And at that point, it gets to a point, I'm like, I gotta go. I can't do this. It seems like the manosphere sees charisma as a function of status signaling, scarcity of validation, dominance, and mostly control. But the type of charisma that I am interested in is a function of deep presence, genuine curiosity, awareness, autonomy, and social courage. But what the manosphere is really good at is making their advice extremely practical. If you can't hear her, do this. When it's time to pay the bill, do that. When it's time to make your move, do this. I promise I won't do that voice this whole episode. But I'm super excited because today I want to give you the best of both worlds. I am going to make the podcast episode that I wished existed. In today's episode, I am going to walk you through five habits of highly charismatic people. These are habits I've noticed in the highly charismatic people that I have come across. This is Solgum, so we will be looking to philosophy and social psychology to see what research and the greatest minds of our time have to say about charisma, a la the manosphere. We are going to make this episode super practical. My goal is for you to leave this episode with. actionable, specific tips that you can implement in the next conversation you have, whether it is at work, on a date, with your friends. Unlike the manosphere, these tips are going to be oriented around a notion of charisma that is not morally bankrupt and totally navel-gazy and that considers your experience in an interaction, but also the experience of the person that you're talking to. Also, if you're new here, hi! It's so nice to meet you. I'm Victoria. I am a writer. My debut poetry color collection make-believe is out now i'm a content creator at the daily victorian on tiktok and instagram i'm the host of this podcast obviously and i'm so happy you're here one thing about me is i love comments i want to hear from you so if it's your first time here tell me your name or where you're listening from or anything you want to share i want to know and if you're not new here hi hello what's up it's good to see you you know the drill Talk to me, please. Don't make me shout into the void. I always want to know how these episodes land with you. And clearly, if you clicked on this episode, you are someone who's interested in bettering yourself and being a little more magnetic, which I think is super cool. I'd love to know why. What are your dreams? What you want to use all that charisma for, girl? Person? Boy? Also, quick disclaimer. This episode is heavy on gender discourse, and I want to be really clear. I'm shitting on the manosphere. I'm not shitting on men. I love men. I'm married to a man who is my favorite human on the planet. But manosphoric ideology hurts everyone. No one benefits from a culture that teaches us to approach other people through dominance, manipulation, and control. And when you are taught to view human connection as a power struggle, you might win more, you might hold people's interest, but you are doing that at the cost of the vulnerability that puts the life in your life. You know? Okay, let's dive in. Five Habits of Highly Charismatic People, non-manosphere edition. Starting with number one, highly charismatic people ask the questions they genuinely want to know the answer to. There are two prevailing takes on how question asking relates to charisma and likability, and behavioral psychology research suggests that they are both wrong. Manospheric perspectives on charisma will tell you to avoid asking too many questions. That whole idea of charisma is rooted around make them come to you. So it would say that asking too many questions makes you seem unmysterious, over eager and desperate. On the other hand, women are taught from birth to prioritize making people feel seen, heard, and interesting above all else. So we tend to ask a lot of questions. And when we want someone to like us, we tend to fawn and ask even more. There's this often parroted idea that the people that people like best are the people who ask the most questions. So what's the truth? Research suggests the second group is closer to right, but they're not completely right. Behavioral psychology research shows that asking people more questions does, to an extent, make them feel more interesting. And also, to an extent, people tend to be more interested in people they think are interested in them. So there's something to the ask more questions advice. But it's more complicated than that because charisma is not just a function of making people feel interesting. It is a function of making people feel interesting and being seen as interesting yourself. One of my favorite books I read last year was Talk, The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves by Harvard business professor and researcher Allison Woods Brooks, who studies conversation. She has done a ton of research specifically on the relationship between question asking and likability. And she found that when it comes to charisma, not all questions are created equal. Brooks and her co-researchers sorted questions into categories, including number one, introductory questions. So these are the basic questions you ask someone you're just meeting. Where are you from? What do you do for work? What neighborhood do you live in? Number two, mirroring questions, questions that reciprocate the questions someone just asked you. Oh, I'm a writer. What about you? I have one sister. What about you? I live in this neighborhood. What about you? And number three, follow-up questions. These are questions that dig deeper into something your conversation partner just said. Oh, you said you hated New York? Why? You're an environmental scientist? What does your day-to-day look like? You have one sister. Are you the little sister or the big sister? And these categories of questions do not have the same effect on charisma. Brooke's research does show that people who ask more questions tend to be better liked. In one set of experiments, people were assigned to either ask a lot of questions or ask relatively few questions. And the people who ask more questions were liked more. They also looked at speed dating and found that people who asked more questions were more likely to get a second date. But the effect is driven particularly by follow-up questions. And that makes intuitive sense when you think about what each category of question communicates. If I ask you, where are you from? That could be because I really want to know, but we're also all aware it... is often because that is just like one of the five questions you ask other adults that you're meeting for the first time. Mirroring questions tell you even less. If I say, oh, I'm a writer. What about you? I could actually want to know.