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Jamie Roddy: I started thinking about charisma. Magnetism is about your energy. Seeing can be sacred, is about attention. So spiritual alignment comes through relationships in an interest to keep things interesting for myself and you guys, as well as to provide myself with ample challenges and therefore opportunities to stay aligned. I've been going on the dating maps and the subsequent dates that follow. Actually, I can't even with most of the dates. I do a preliminary, non-negotiable phone call because nobody wants to be stuck in the world's most boring dinner when there are so many good books I could be reading in my atrium. After the third date in a row or phone conversation where this particular instance keeps happening, I started thinking about charisma. What particular thing, Jamie? Well, there's a particular thing that many, many, many, many men do when they're keen on you, and it is this. When a fella is sweet on you, they talk about themselves almost incessantly. Perhaps women do this too, I don't know. I'm only on the side of it. But ladies, when a man likes you, when he really wants you to like him, there is apparently a strong instinct to tell you everything about himself. Everything, his career, his divorce, his workout, his trip to Portugal, his relationship with his brother, the boat he almost bought. His thoughts on AI, his golf handicap, a complicated story involving a former business partner named Craig. And then you're sitting there thinking, Craig has now had more airtime on this date than I have. And I understand what they're doing. They're trying to show me who they are. They're trying to be interesting. They want me to experience them as smart and accomplished and funny and passionate. The intention is actually very sweet. The exit. Execution, though, can be mind numbingly boring. And after one of these conversations, I started thinking about what this guy actually wanted from me. He wanted attraction. He wanted chemistry. He wanted me to feel some passion while I was sitting across from him. And I thought, well, buddy, if you want a woman to experience passion while she's with you, there is a much easier way to get halfway there. Get her talking about something she's passionate about. Find the thing that lights her up and take her there. Ask her about the things she could talk about for six hours. Ask her what she would do if money were completely handled. Ask her what she's obsessed with right now. Ask her where she would get on an airplane and go tomorrow. Ask about the weird hobby or dream or subject that makes her suddenly start talking with her hands because now she's feeling passion. She's animated. She's excited. She's alive. And she's experiencing all of that while she's with you. It's like a transverse passion property. She's now alive and feeling passionate. And that she equates that to being with you. But then there's kind of the opposite of that, too. Some man who is absolutely peppering you with questions like you're on a date with Barbara Walters. And that's not fun either. The goal of the date, and with All interactions, as we'll soon see, is to find what lights up another person and get excited about it with them. So that now you're both in a a state of shared passion. And if that isn't the actual end goal to all these dating apps, I don't know what is. Find the place where something I'm passionate about meets something you're passionate about. Find the light so we can both turn toward it so that we might both. Blossom together. Any windows aside, maybe maybe I love music and you love music, and so we share songs. Maybe you love food and I love travel and suddenly we're talking about eating our way through Sicily. Maybe you love architecture and I'm an interior designer and now we're both geeking out on Google about some bizarre hotel in Morocco. Whatever it is, neither one of us is now trying to impress the other one. We're both looking in the same direction at something that makes us come alive. And I realized this and I wrote an episode about it. Charisma is the art of getting another person to fall in love with themselves so that they love to be around you. Now, I've done an episode before about being magnetic, and I want to distinguish these because they're different. Magnetism is about your energy, it's how fully you are inhabiting yourself. It's authenticity. And confidence and alignment and not walking around begging the world to tell you that you're enough. You can be magnetic all by yourself. You can be magnetic walking through the grocery store, squeezing avocados. But charisma needs another person. Charisma happens in this space between us. Magnetism says, I am fully inhabiting myself. Charisma says, and I am fully interested in fully meeting you. There's a famous old story that illustrates this to a T. It's about Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone, two enormous political figures and rivals in Victoria, Britain. Okay. A woman who had spent time with both men reportedly asked what they were like. After spending time with Gladstone, she felt like she had been with the cleverest man in England. After spending time with Disraeli, she felt as though she We're the cleverest woman in England. Who do you think got a second date? We think charisma is about what we project, but it's actually about what we evoke. That's a completely different way of walking into a room. Instead of how interesting am I? How funny am I? Do these people like me? Do I look okay? What should I say? How am I being perceived? What if you walked into a room wondering who is interesting here? What can I discover? What is going to make that person's face change? What's their thing? What do they know that I don't know? What do they love? Where's the light? And now, now we are wandered straight into spirituality because the ego is absolutely obsessed with being seen. The ego walks into the room carrying their little clipboard, asking all those same questions. How am
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I doing? Did they laugh? Do they think I'm attractive? Should I casually mention that I've been to Uganda? How quickly can I work Uganda into the conversation? Meanwhile, presence asks a completely different question. Who is actually in front of me? There's a Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, who wrote about two fundamental ways human beings relate to the world. He called it I-It and I thou. I-it is the mode we use when we're observing, categorizing, analyzing, and dealing with things or people as objects. We do need this mode. You cannot spend your entire life gazing into the divine essence of your toaster. Sometimes you just need the toast. But we also do the I it with people, and these are the opportunities we have to change and be better. Boober believes something different happens in an I thou encounter. Instead of experiencing another person as an object in relation to ourselves, we meet them as a whole being. And the Third layer here is that God, universe, source, is all things and people. So if we treat each human as a whole being, the relationship or conversation gets a whole lot holier. Basically, what he's saying is like Namaste. The light in me sees the light in you, but without all that annoying undertones. And dating apps are possibly the greatest I it technology ever invented. Swiping on height, job. Education has kids want kids? Is that photo from twelve years ago? Why is every photo taken in the same angle? Do we think he's actually six two? We're categorizing and dismissing people like we're shopping for patio furniture. Then sometimes, if we're lucky, we sit across from one of those little collections of data and the categories fall away. there you are. That's the encounter. And charismatic people are unusually good at getting us there. There's also a beautiful concept in Hindu traditions called darshan. I'm gonna simplify it because this is a very rich religious concept, and we're not turning this episode into Hinduism for dummies today. It's me. I'm dummies. But darshan is associated with seeing or beholding the sacred, particularly seeing and being seen by a deity or holy person. The important part of what we're talking about is this extraordinary idea that seeing itself can carry spiritual significance. Think about it. Seeing can be sacred. We spend so much of our lives wanting to be seen. See my work, see my beauty, see my accomplishments, see how hard I'm trying, see how nice I am, see what happened to me, see my Instagram post. But What if one of the great spiritual practices available to us is becoming better at seeing the other person, beyond first dates, but just first encounters in general, really dedicating ourselves to seeing who is in front of us as if they are a tiny emanation of God and genuinely looking for that divinity? I promise you, you will find what you seek. And what you're not seeking can hide from you in very plain sight. Our homie Jesus was phenomenal at this. He famously saw past what others saw, past the exterior of the beggar, the lame, the leprosy, the tax collector. He saw their divine essence. And I have talked about this before, but it absolutely bears repeating now. Jesus, who we all image in our head as beatific and glowing with shredded abs, was actually not hot at all. Several accounts in the Bible specifically claim he was extremely normal to look at and in no way physically special. But the way he made people feel seen and loved, that was charisma in its holiest sense. He just cared about people. Imagine that, truly caring about who the person is in front of you. And weasling out their divine essence so that both of you can bask in it. That's charisma, baby. My buddy Mike Sullivan, he says, he says, the most precious thing you can give someone is your full attention. He generally says that to me when I'm texting and he's talking to me. Jamie, the most precious thing you can give someone is your full attention. And I've always loved that because really think about what you're giving someone when you give them your full attention. You're giving them your life, a tiny piece of it, yes. But this minute is never coming back. You have a finite number of minutes here. And for this one, I'm not checking my phone. I'm not composing my response. I'm not scanning the restaurant to see who walked in. I'm here. You have me. So along the same lines as this, I want to introduce you to Simone Vill, a French philosopher and spiritual writer whose very short life was packed with immense love for mankind. Mankind. Yeah. Woman and mankind. I don't know. We need a new word. But one of her most famous writings that fits in here nicely is about attention. She says that attention is at its very core, the very essence of prayer. So when one prays, we empty ourselves and fix all of our attention on God. And in doing so, we also become ready to receive God. So she posits that similarly, we can love our neighbors by emptying ourselves and And become ready to receive our neighbor in all their infinite glory, whether they're discussing trash day inconsistencies or their kids' upcoming birthday barbecue. Simone Vile encouraged people that connection to others is not to be ignored if we're on the spiritual and moral path. She paralleled my buddy Mike when she said, attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. I love this vile lady, because suddenly. Charisma isn't a bag of social tricks. It's generosity. Attention is something you give in order to stay aligned. And here's the thing I'm always saying that is absolutely true. Staying aligned to the essence and love of the universe, God, infinite potential, sun god, raw, whatever opens that door to your heart will absolutely bring you greater success, not just in dating and friendships, but professionally as well. Who rises up the chain faster? Remember those two dudes from the earlier story who went out with the British woman and one made her feel infinitely fascinating? That dude's name was Benjamin
Disraeli. He was a womanizer and a novelist who was so charismatic. People met him ready to hate him and walked away and they just couldn't. They couldn't. They loved the guy too, everybody that met him. He rose up to be the mother loving prime minister of England, y'all, as a novelist. Why? Because he genuinely loved people. It reminds me of the quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln. He said famously, I do not like that man. I must get to know him better. He got it. And I realize I do this with my design clients all the time, without, of course, without every thinking today I shall practice charisma. I work a lot with couples, and whenever I meet a couple who's been together forever and they're clearly still happy, I always want to know how they met. Always, I love these stories. Who saw who first? Who asked to amount? Did you know immediately? Were you friends first? Was somebody dating somebody else? Give me the dirt. I genuinely want to know. And invariably I get to know them better. Maybe they've told this story 400 times, but I haven't heard it and I'm delighted by it. And something changes between us because now I'm not just the interior designer figuring out if we're going to use marble or quartzite. I'm getting to know these two humans whose home I'm helping create. And yeah, that's good for business. Of course it is. Business is humans doing things with other humans. Sometimes spirituality gets presented as though worldly success is vaguely embarrassing. Like if you're truly aligned, you just stop caring about money and ambition and wander barefoot through a forest while your checking account ebbs out to sea. I just don't buy that. Spiritual alignment can make you much better at worldly success. Because so much worldly success and also spiritual alignment comes through relationships. People hire people, people recommend people, people open doors for people, people introduce people, people buy from people, people follow people. We got people on a people. Sorry. Purple hat by Sophie Tucker is like my favorite song right now. Go listen after this if you want to shake your ass. But genuinely listen, people want to work with people. Who make them feel understood and valued and interesting. Presence is good for business. Curiosity is good for business. Attention span generosity is good for business. Listening is good for business. But caution, because here is a spiritual paradox. The second you start doing all of that solely to get their business, you've lost the whole thing that makes it work. Because people can feel the difference between curiosity and manipulation technique. Or at least eventually they can. Which brings me to my face palm, embarrassing story of the day. Because here's the deal this shit works, but there can be a manipulative side to it as well. But if we understand the dynamics of charisma and passion and lighting up in someone's presence. We can be less inclined to make the other person the reason we feel so alive. I'll make it a short story. I decided to give this man I had decidedly friend zoned a chance romantically. I friend zoned him initially because on paper he was not exciting to me. Not to be a dick, but he was classically unattractive. He had a very mediocre work life and a full grown adult male roommate. At like 50 something. No shade on any of that. I told you I gave him a shot. I couldn't help myself. I felt so alive with him, so completely myself, silly and snarky and intelligent and worldly, and I just loved who I was around him. Turns out, y'all, he's just a really good listener. And he was apparently listening to multiple women concurrently. So I bring this up to show the power. And the shadow side of charisma. Because I'm not interested in teaching you a bunch of tricks for getting everybody to love you. You can Google that shit. There's probably 14 million videos called Seven Psychological Tricks That Make People Obsessed With You. And Godspeed to everyone involved. But what I'm interested in is what happens when we take this incredibly powerful human ability and align it with integrity. When your curiosity is real, when you listen, because you're actually interested in the answer. When you're sitting across from another human being with this underlying belief that there is something special worth discovering and you're willing to stick around long enough to find it. That's the spiritual version of charisma to me. Before we get into actually how to practice this, do the world a favor and like and subscribe so more people can be less boring on hinge dates and at corporate events. Thank you. So how do we actually practice this? Start with one assignment. Find the light. Start watching for that tiny moment when someone's energy changes. You're talking about their job and they're perfectly pleasant and answering your questions, and then somehow their garden comes up, and now they're leaning forward and showing you a picture of a tomato they grew and telling you about some heirloom seed they ordered from a lady in Oregon. There, that's it. You found it. Go there. Ask another question. People leave these little doors open in conversation constantly. I've always wanted to, there's a door. I'm completely obsessed with door. When I was a kid, I used to door and my personal favorite. I know this sounds crazy, but ⁓ my god, huge friggin' door. Open it. I want to know what's behind that. If someone asks me when I'm on a date, so what brought you to Los Angeles? I know they're trying, but it's all I can do to just like not leave the table right there. I'm not interested in surface stories. So boring. I'll usually answer something like, you know, needed a change. And then I'll immediately ask something like, What's your least popular opinion? What are you weirdly afraid of? What's the most exotic location you've ever had lunch? Because people aren't generally trained in getting to the juice. You gotta coax it out of them sometimes. But then you bring yourself in too, because charisma doesn't mean disappearing so somebody else can have the floor indefinitely. This is where some of the generic Be a good listener advice falls apart for me. Nobody wants to feel like they're being interviewed by a highly compassionate therapist while they're having dinner with you. They want to meet you. They want your weirdness and your stories and your enthusiasm in there, too. This is where that second piece of my original dating app realization comes in. You gotta find the overlap. Where does your aliveness meet theirs? Because That's when a conversation becomes something more than two people taking turns, exchang exchanging autobiographies. We're creating something now. Maybe it's a joke that didn't exist five minutes ago. Maybe it's an idea. Maybe we're fantasizing about a trip neither one of us will actually ever take. Maybe we're arguing about the best album ever made. Maybe we've discovered some obscure thing we're both completely obsessed with, and everybody else at the table wants us to please shut the fuck up about it. Great. That is shared aliveness. We're both more animated because the other person is there. That's shared alignment in the present moment. And that is absolutely holy. God is there. And hey, if you want more support and a community to practice more alignment in your life rather than just listening about how to use spiritual concepts in everyday life or maybe 30 minutes a week, come find us at stayingaligned.org. All kinds of rad meditations and challenges and guided journeys there, all of it free. So as we wrap up this week, I need you to realize that one of the simplest ways to practice alignment is to spend a little less time wondering whether everybody can see your light and start looking for theirs. Because that brings me right back to where we started. Charisma really isn't about making people feel fascinated by you. It's about helping people become fascinated by themselves, by you. And eventually by something you can both become fascinated by together. It's the ability to create a little more aliveness in the space between two people. And maybe the greatest compliment a charismatic person can ever receive isn't even, God, I really liked her. Maybe it's, God, I really liked who I was around her. What a beautiful way to leave people a little more interesting, a little more seen, a little more awake, a little more themselves than they were before they encountered you. And if we really want to make this spiritual, that's the assignment everywhere we go. Leave the person a little more alive than you found them by finding what sparks their insides and hand them a zipper to set it on fire with you. I usually close the guided meditation, but this week I'm going to close with a homework assignment to find someone's spark this week. And when you do, kindle the heck out of it. This is how we stay aligned. I'm Jamie Roddy and I'll see you next week.