How To Be Charismatic: The Movie Method of Social Skill Development

by Dave V

Published by Dave V at Smashwords.

Copyright © 2012 Dave V. All Rights Reserved.

For Khatzumoto,

An Inspiration

Chapter 1: Introduction

From early on in life I spent a lot of time following and hanging around with people that I felt were cooler or more interesting than myself, mostly because of my social anxiety. You really can become a cooler or more interesting person by doing this. It took until I was 20 years old, however, to grow beyond the simple desire to become a manifestation of this archetype of coolness.

Eventually, like many, I realized the objective value in having interesting conversations and interactions. Yet, through all of this, there remained a conspicuous absence of a reliable program of long-term improvement.

As an example, you can learn and achieve a lot from merely observing and hanging out with a more charismatic college friend, but this is only a form of local improvement. You'll probably faithfully imitate their best points in college, but what about years down the road?

Beyond vague notions of perseverance and “getting a lot of experience” (perhaps even in the form of the oft quoted “10,000 hours”) there is no real, pragmatic plan for long-term improvement.

So this text grew out of a personal desire for two things:

1. An authentic method of charisma development that went beyond the often cheesy, narrow, and rather prurient PUA and personal development literature.