Why Health Warnings may damage your Health

May 12th 2013 by Nikki Owen | Big Apple Experiment, Charisma and Stress, The Rotten Apple Syndrome, self limiting beliefs, wellbeing

There was an interesting article in The Mail this week -‘Why health warnings could be bad for your health’ – which started with line ‘It seems you really can worry yourself sick’. The Mail cites recent research at Kings College London who asked almost 150 participants to watch programmes about technology. Half viewed a BBC documentary highlighting, in no uncertain terms, the potential health risks of wifi signals and mobile phones, whilst the other half watched on the security of internet and mobile phone data. Both groups were then told that they were being exposed to wifi signals, which in reality they were not. Nevertheless some still developed symptoms of electromagnetic sensitivity, including agitation and anxiety, loss of concentration and tingling in their hands and feet. A number of them even felt so ill that they dropped out of the study entirely, rather than be exposed to more ‘radiation’.

Analysis revealed the symptoms were most severe among those who had been made anxious by the documentary that warned of the health risks of wireless signals. The Mail article goes on to talk about the well documented research into the beneficial health benefits of the placebo effect, and the opposite damaging impact of ‘nocebo effect’, whereby a harmless substance can create harmful effects. Documented examples include clinical trials for new drugs, in which up to a quarter of patients given dummy versions consistently report side effects associated with those warned about for patients taking the real thing. In tests on blood pressure lowering Beta Blockers, tiredness and loss of libido were just as commonly reported in participants who were given the dummy drugs as those who were given the real thing.

There is now a wealth of evidence supporting the belief that the brain does not know the difference between imagining something and actually doing it. Research shows positive visualisation, or Mental Imagery, is successful in improving performance, health and wellbeing. In his book ‘It’s the thought that counts’ pharmaceutical scientist Dr David Hamilton describes how our thoughts and feelings, ideas and beliefs, and hopes and dreams alter the condition of our bodies, and the circumstances of our lives. Dr Hamilton draws upon the latest scientific discoveries showing how molecules known as neuropeptides link our thoughts and emotions to every part of our bodies, and explains why placebos heal people in medical trials. If a person believes they are receiving real medicine – or even if they simply believe in the doctor who administers it, they will usually get better.

Several years ago I developed ‘The Big Apple Experiment’ as a simple and effective way for people to have a compelling personal experience of the impact that our emotions, thoughts and intentions can have on the rate of decay of an apple. All you need to do to carry out this simple experiment in your own home is to cut an apple in half, put one half in a sealed jar labelled ‘Love’, and the other half in a Jar labelled ‘Hate’. For the next week or two, regularly pick up the hate jar, and download all of your negative emotions into that apple. Focus all of your anger, frustration, worries and fears into that Hate Apple, and really feel it. At other times, and just as regularly, pick up the Love Apple Jar and say loving, supportive, positive, encouraging things to this apple. Involve the family, or if you’re doing this experiment at work, get the whole office involved!

The feedback we receive suggests that approximately 75 – 80% of people who carry out The Big Apple Experiment report a significant difference in the rate of decay in their Love and Hate Apples. Over the last few years individuals from hundreds of organisations that we have worked with have carried out these experiments and the vast majority will have ended up asking themselves the question;

If our negative words, thoughts and emotions can create this level of damage in an apple, what damage are we doing to ourselves, and to those people that we care about most?

“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen.
Keep in the sunlight.”
Benjamin Franklin

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Tags: Big Apple Experiment
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Lessons from a Yorkshire Terrier

April 29th 2013 by Nikki Owen | Barriers to Charismatic potential, Barriers to resistance and growth, Charisma and Stress, self limiting beliefs, self sabotaging behaviour

I had a most enjoyable couple of days last week delivering our first ever ‘Advanced Cultural Architect ‘Programme down at Fontwell Racecourse in West Sussex. I was working with a particularly talented and intuitive group, who are well on the way to becoming accredited to deliver our Charisma Model Programme in house with their organisation. I mention this because one of the areas I was covering with the group in great detail was the process of our somewhat unusual approach to one-to-one meetings, which we refer to as Releasing Resistance Sessions. These sessions use a variety of techniques that work in alignment with the individual’s unconscious mind to identify and target buried emotional issues that keep them ‘stuck’ in a particular behaviour pattern. As I explained to the group this approach is incredibly powerful, and in many cases, life changing. Sometimes however, even when we recognise an aspect of our behaviour as undesirable, unhelpful or even self-sabotaging or destructive, we can be stubbornly reluctant to ‘let it go’. Sometimes, and often hidden from our conscious awareness, deep within our unconscious mind, we will have created a ‘secondary gain’.

On Saturday morning I was shocked to discover that Mindy, my daughter’s seven year old Yorkshire Terrier, has developed a well formed ‘secondary gain’.

A secondary gain is an unconscious benefit that the individual has identified that keeps them ‘chained’ or stuck with their issue. Once identified, if the benefits from the secondary gain outweigh the negative consequences of the issue then the potential for sustainable change is hampered. For example, a businessman with anger issues towards his father may have achieved high levels of business success to prove to his father that he is good enough. In his mind he may have linked his anger as the driving force behind his business success.

Several weeks ago, Mindy stumbled up the steps to the front door and damaged her front right leg. We took her to the vets’ who confirmed that there was no lasting damage, perhaps just a bruise or a strain. Nevertheless we made a huge fuss of Mindy. We found ourselves routinely lifting her on and off of settees, and carrying her home when, with a pathetically upraised right paw, she signalled to us that the daily walk had all got a bit too much for her. I am pleased to report that Mindy’s leg is much now much better, and has even passed ‘The Squirrel Test’ on two separate occasions. However, from time to time, (and almost always when she is on her own in another room), Mindy has developed the habit of letting out a loud, distressed squeal, accompanied by the upraised paw. This squeal is traumatic enough to cause the entire household to rush to her aide, pick her up and fuss her, at which point she has now added a very convincing uncontrollable tremor to her symptoms! After a minute or two of our undivided attention she is, of course, perfectly fine again.

Now if Mindy was the businessman with anger issues, we would employ a blend of approaches including Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and Memory Reframing to re -programme the unconscious connection between anger and success, and in so doing release the need to hold onto the anger. Unfortunately however it’s not quite so easy to do memory reframing on a Yorkie…. but the great news is that we don’t need to. By introducing the tremor to her own healing process, Mindy has instinctively recognised what it is that she needs to do, to release the emotional trauma of her injury. She needs to shake it out.

Part of our evolution comes from experiencing challenges, accidents, frights and traumas that cause a surge of adrenaline within our bodies. The healthy way to deal with these situations is the fight or flight response. Once the danger has passed, nature’s way of freeing ourselves of the shock is to shake – literally shake it out. Unfortunately, in the civilized world we have learned to suppress this natural response. If somebody is in a car crash, we wrap them up warm and make them drink sweet tea. We do our best to stop them shaking, and by doing this we cause them to replicate nature’s freeze response, which is bad. When we freeze, we bury our response, along with all of the negative emotions, and self-limiting beliefs associated with that trauma, deep within our unconscious mind.

So, the next time that you find yourself ‘doing a Mindy’- metaphorically holding out a pathetically upraised paw – it might be an idea to ask yourself: If I was to have a secondary gain from this belief/ behaviour/ illness/ emotional response (delete as applicable), what would it be?

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Tags: Charisma, EFT, Emotional Freedom Techniques, fight or flight, Secondary gains, self limiting beliefs
Posted in Barriers to Charismatic potential, Barriers to resistance and growth, Charisma and Stress, self limiting beliefs, self sabotaging behaviour | Comments Off

Using Charisma to Drive Up Performance

April 23rd 2013 by Nikki Owen | impact of leadership

Last Friday I had the privilege of speaking at The Public Sector People Managers Association’s Annual Conference in Bristol. The theme of The PPMA Conference was ‘Talent, Opportunity, Prosperity’. I was invited primarily because it was felt that the conference delegates, made up from HR and Learning and Development professionals representing a wide range of public sector bodies, including Government Departments, County Councils, the NHS, might be interested to hear how the private sector are increasingly recognising the importance of personal charisma within their leadership functions.

Speaking to several of the people attending, it came as no real surprise to hear that many of the issues and concerns facing business today are mirrored – and often magnified – in the Public Sector. Engagement, empowerment, recruiting and retaining the right talent, encouraging innovation and creative thinking, along with the perennial ‘doing more with less’, are clearly universal issues. Traditionally perhaps, particularly when we think of The NHS, we think of a workforce with a high percentage of individuals that are following their vocation, or calling. However, people highly motivated by a desire to serve, to help others, and to make a difference, are no less vulnerable when a survival mindset sweeps through an organisation. In fact, there is an argument to suggests that the more deeply that an individual cares about the quality of their output, the less able they are to roll with the punches when cutbacks, bureaucracy, and poor management decisions impact upon their ability to carry out their role to their own exacting standards.

For me, the importance of charismatic leadership is simple. I am sure that we will all be able to think back to people in our lives that have inspired and motivated us. Role models, teachers, bosses and mentors who believed in us –sometimes even more than we believed in ourselves. I can think back to times in my life when complete strangers – with no idea of the impact that they had on me – with a kind word or a smile, delivered at precisely the moment that I needed it most, made a huge difference to me and my ability to persevere and succeed. And the chances are, when we look back and think of the people that had the biggest positive impact upon us, and our worlds, we will remember them as charismatic.

The people that we see as charismatic possess, to our point of view, highly developed abilities in several, or all, of five internal attributes:

• Self Esteem
• Sensory Awareness
• Driving Force
• Energy
• Vision

The chances are that the people that had the most significant positive impact in our lives did so because they happened to be there at a time when we were feeling a bit lost, exhausted, confused, or lacking in confidence or direction. It is entirely possible that if we were to go back and meet these people again now, we might not find them anywhere near as charismatic as they are in the pictures that we have painted in our memories. This is because, at the time that these inspirational, motivational, ‘agents of change’ came into our lives, their self-esteem was higher than ours was. Their sensory awareness and emotional intelligence was more tuned in than ours. Their energy, vision and driving force was far in excess of ours, not necessarily because it was especially high, but because, at that moment, ours was particularly low. To be remembered, by us, as charismatic, they only actually needed to be a bit more charismatic than we were!

The importance of charismatic leadership to organisations – whether they are Private or Public Sector – is this. If your organisation has a clear vision that you want your employees to follow, the quickest, simplest, most enjoyable, inspirational, rewarding and sustainable way to do it, (for both the organisation and the followers) is to employ charismatic leaders, or to develop the five internal attributes of the leaders that they’ve already got.

“Go to the people. Learn from them. Live with them.
Start with what they know. Build with what they have.The best of leaders when the job is done, when the task is accomplished, the people will say we have done it ourselves.”

Lao Tzu

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Tags: Authentic Leadership, Charisma, compelling vision, Driving force, Emotional Intelligence, Energy, engagement, PPMA Conference, Self-esteem, sensory awareness
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Energising your Charisma

April 14th 2013 by Nikki Owen | Energy, impact of leadership

I am very aware that my Emotional Guidance System is currently fluctuating between ‘excitement’ and ‘anxiety’. For some time now I have been in the habit of categorising all of the emotions that I feel into just two groups:

Feel good emotions - based on growth, love, and the anticipation of success
Feel bad emotions – based on survival, fear, and the anticipation of failure.

For me both excitement and anxiety are experienced as a fluttering in my stomach, with the ‘feel good emotion’ excitement fluttering just a little higher up towards my ribcage, and the fear based emotion of anxiety maybe an inch or so lower down. In this way, it’s easy for me to recognise that the difference between anxiety and excitement is no more that about an inch – and as soon as I let go of the fear, and set my intention on the anticipation of success, as if by magic, I’m feeling excited!

The reason that my Emotional Guidance System is experiencing a little turbulence right now is because, this week, I will be delivering my brand new Masterclass ‘Energising your Charisma’ to a highly respected group of senior CEOs in London. Now, whilst I have every confidence that this esteemed audience will have an appreciation of the connection between high energy and high performance, I am, to be honest, finding it a little difficult to explain my beliefs and understanding about the way that our ‘subtle energy’ systems work, without sounding at best unconventional…. and at worst completely alternative!

In 1997 Cranfield Business School authored a white paper – ‘Assessing Energy within Organisations’, that explained why the energy of employees is recognised as an important factor in their performance, and in maximising their overall contribution to the organisation. Cranfield concluded that energy is an important factor in driving business performance. Yet here we are, over 15 years later, and very few organisations have successfully found a way to harness the full power of the energy of their employees. Furthermore, despite the importance of the topic, even fewer Keynote Speakers appear to have found a way to adequately help business leaders to build their ability to use their own energy, and harness the energy of their workforce to create a sustainable increase in productivity.

It is my belief that all the time that organisations are looking at building workforce energy as a problem for our conscious minds to solve, our progress in this area will continue to be painfully slow. Until Business Leaders begin to recognise and accept the truth that we all unconsciously understand – that at our minutest level we are all just energy, and that everything and everybody is connected – we will never harness our true charismatic and energetic potential. Most of us will have seen a film that has made us cry. Many of us will have read a book, or listened to a piece of music that has stirred unexpected emotions within us. When this happens we are tuning in to an emotion, and like everything that is, or ever was, (including thoughts) every emotion has it’s own unique broadcasting frequency.

Charismatic leaders and speakers throughout history have instinctively understood how to tap into the perfect emotional broadcasting frequency from which to conceive, create, write and deliver their words. For centuries men and women have been inspired to follow charismatic leaders to action – often transcending their own fear and concern for their safety and survival in the process – because something deep in the orator’s message or cause has resonated, and stirred a powerful emotional response in them. This week I will be doing my best to explain to a group of very successful CEOs that building energy, both their own, and the energy of their workforce, is not something that can be learned consciously …. it is something that has to be felt unconsciously. So the quicker that I can get my Emotional Guidance System to settle on ‘energised and inspired’, the better I will be able to resonate on the perfect emotional broadcasting frequency to be ‘energising and inspiring’!

“Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.”

Oprah Winfrey

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Tags: Charisma, Emotional Intelligence, Energy, energy in the workplace, high performance
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Charisma and The Secret of The Clocks Going Forward

April 7th 2013 by Nikki Owen | Barriers to Charismatic potential, Big Apple Experiment

The clocks have gone forward and Spring is on it’s way. I’m not having to get up and come home in the dark, and this has had a definite positive effect on my mood. In fact, when I think about it, I am absolutely sure that the clocks going forward have had a positive impact on the mood of pretty well everybody that I have come into contact with this week! So for those of you that I haven’t caught up with yet, and have not yet been infected by my seasonal high spirits, I thought I’d share the secret of the clocks going forward, and my 4 tips on how to make very sure that you get as much joy ( and charisma) out of this event as I have!

1. Choose a ‘Growth Mindset’
At a cellular level we have just two operating mechanisms; we survive, or we grow. A cell can only be in one mechanism at a time. Therefore, if it is in survival mode it is not growing. In a growth mindset (one without fear) we stimulate all manner of life-enhancing hormones that naturally repair and energise our cells, promoting growth, health and happiness. When we feel fear, anxiety, or threatened however, our bodies stimulate Cortisol, a stress hormone that effectively causes us to close down. It takes a lot of energy to maintain a survival operating mechanism, and long term survival will ultimately kill the cell. The message is ‘fake it til you make it’. No matter how unsuccessful or uncharismatic you might be feeling right now, if you begin to act as if (you are successful /charismatic/ safe etc) your brain will begin to trick your body in to believing that everything is happening just the way that it’s supposed to – and pretty soon you will start to attract all sorts of evidence into your life to support that new belief!

2. Watch your ‘Filters’
According to Milhaly Csikszentmihalyi, (how hard did your conscious mind have to work to try to work out that name – or did it just give up?) Professor at the Druker School of Management in California, every moment our unconscious mind absorbs over two million ‘bits’ of information through our senses. Interestingly Professor George Miller, of Harvard Business School states that consciously we can typically only process around seven ‘chunks’ of this stream of information at any given moment in time. This means we naturally delete, distort and generalise huge volumes of information as it filters from our unconscious mind into our conscious awareness. In fact everything is going on out there in The Universe – all the great stuff and all of the bad stuff. Your view of the world is based purely on your internal representations that are entirely under your control! If you believe that the world is a horrible, unforgiving, difficult place to be, your filters, which are controlled by your ego (which just loves to prove you right), will select only evidence to support this view, and will delete, distort and generalise any glimpse of joy and abundance heading in your direction well away from your conscience awareness. The secret is to watch your filters. When you change your Internal Representations, you change your world. Start looking our for evidence that you are charismatic…. And pretty soon you’ll realise that you really are!

3. Listen to your Emotional Guidance System
By switching off our connection to our emotions we effectively cut-off valuable feedback that indicates whether we are living our life in alignment with our true authentic self. All emotions could be categorised into 1) those emotions that feel good (these have love at their core) and 2) those emotions that feel bad (these have fear at their core). Therefore our emotions are like an inner compass that direct and guide our decisions, actions and behaviours. From an energetic perspective, negative emotions drain our energy whilst positive emotions stimulate our energy. Tip number three? If it feels good, do it! Emotions are our most reliable indicator of how things are going on in our lives. Emotions help keep us on the right track, and negative emotions that are stored in the body can cause a depletion of energy levels leading to illness, disease and emotional withdrawal. We can all be charismatic when we are loving life and having fun…. So if it feels good – do it!

4. Determining Your Broadcasting Frequency
Our thoughts determine our emotional response and our emotional response is the criteria from which our brain categorises what’s important from what’s not important. For example, if you feel anger regularly then your brain will be attuned to capturing and storing information relating to and reinforcing anger. New discoveries in quantum physics are indicating that everything is connected by a vast quantum energy field and can be influenced by thought. These laws from quantum mechanics also points to strong evidence that the observer has an effect on reality. Every thought creates an energetic impulse and there is evidence that our thoughts have the capacity to change physical matter. The Law of Attraction is the name given to the belief that ‘like attracts like’ and that by focusing on either positive or negative thoughts, you can bring about positive or negative results. This theory is demonstrated by The Big Apple Experiment that shows your affect upon the rate of decay of an apple. So how does this relate to charisma? Like attracts like. If you start finding other people gloriously charismatic a very strange thing happens…. They will start to find you charismatic too.

I’m guessing that the more scientific and logical amongst you will have pretty well dismissed my brilliant advice well before Tip No.2 – and that in itself is really great evidence of how effective your filters are! For the doubters then, I have three final questions for you!

• What if everything that I’ve written above was completely true?
• What harm would be done by adopting these new beliefs?
• Is it okay with you that I get so much more joy out of the clocks going forward than you do?

“Who looks outside dreams, who looks inside awakes”
Carl Jung

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Tags: Big Apple Experiment, Charisma, Emotional Guidance System, Energy, Filters, Law of Attraction, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Quantum Physics
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A Lesson from Warren Buffett

April 3rd 2013 by Nikki Owen | Driving force, Energy, Famous charismatic icons, Impact of charisma on corporations, charismatic authority, impact of leadership

“Without passion you don’t have energy.
Without energy, you have nothing”
Warren Buffett

This week The Telegraph reported upon global analysis of 1049 listed companies, which revealed that just 1 in 10 of Britain’s chief executives has more than 20 years’ experience in their business. The report went on to state that in America, almost a third of bosses have more than 20 years’ tenure in the role. The findings suggest that America is much better at nurturing and retaining key figures at the top than Britain, whose top companies tend to rely more on poaching the best chief executives rather than growing their own.

Warren Buffett the billionaire US Investor, is the longest-serving chief executive globally, with 43 years in the role. The study also shows that almost 40pc of America’s chief executives are aged between 60 and 90, compared to just 14pc of Britain’s bosses in this age group.

This research reminded of a fascinating book that I read a couple of years back called Bounce: How Champions Are Made. The book, written by award-winning Times columnist and three-time Commonwealth table-tennis champion, Matthew Syed reveals what really lies behind world-beating achievement, not just in sport, but in other walks of life too. Surprisingly, the answers – which take on board the latest thinking in neuroscience, psychology and economics –revolutionise our ideas about what it takes to become the best. The book challenges what it calls ’The Talent Myth’, rejects the concept of genetic pre-disposition, and puts forward a compelling case to support the view that top achievement is the consequence of huge amounts – 10,000 hours to be precise – of ‘purposeful practice.
Studies by Professor of Psychology at Florida State University and renowned leading researcher on expertize, Anders Ericsson similarly concluded: “that the difference between expert performers and normal adults reflects a life-long persistence of deliberate effort to improve performance.” Ericsson also found that there were no exceptions to this pattern: nobody who had reached the elite group without copious practice, and nobody who had worked their socks off had failed to excel. Purposeful practice was the only factor distinguishing the best from the rest.”

Naturally I found myself asking how practice, persistence and experience relates to charisma, and in particular, charismatic leadership? On the face of it, both Syed and Ericsson have a fairly dour view of the secret of success – put in thousands of hours of purposeful practice and you will become an expert. Why then, if attaining a champion’s level of expertise truly is that simple, how come everybody doesn’t achieve it?

Two of the five pillars of charisma (the ones that generally go unnoticed because they are expressed internally rather than externally), are Compelling Vision, and Driving Force. The reason that 95% of us don’t ever make it to be champions is simply that we don’t dare to dream big enough. We don’t have the compelling vision. We will very possibly put in our 10,000 hours of purposeful practice, but we will do it at something that is never likely to earn us much in the way of recognition, reward or championship status.

For the 5% of the population then, that have a big enough Vision to achieve greatness, the second pillar of charisma needs to kick in. Champions possess a powerful driving force that fuels their journey in the direction of their vision and onward to greater success and achievement. The sad truth is that most of us are unable to sustain the unshakeable levels of Driving Force needed, long term, to become champions in our chosen field.
So I ask myself what it is that I feel, when I think about the people that have truly reached the pinnacle of their respective mountains? Men and women who deserve our respect and reverence because they have achieved – or possibly endured – so much, over many years. Political, business and spiritual leaders, entrepreneurs, inventors and scientists, coaches, teachers, sporting heroes, and people from all walks of life that have each, in their own way, followed their dreams, have excelled within their chosen field, and have given something back to us all.

Whether you call it wisdom, charisma or proven track- record, when you think of these elder statesmen, you feel safe. When people feel safe they become open to growth. When people are in survival mode they erect a protective layer around them that triggers hibernation, cost cutting to avoid fear of the unknown. And when you think of the mess our economy is in right now, you can’t help but wonder if, on this occasion, we could maybe learn a thing or two from the USA, and the value that they would appear to put on good, old fashioned, experience?

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Tags: Champions, Charisma, leadership, Matthew Syed, The Talent Myth, Warren Buffett
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Charisma and Happiness

March 23rd 2013 by Nikki Owen | Barriers to Charismatic potential, Barriers to resistance and growth, Charisma and Stress, impact of leadership

” When we contribute to the common good, we ourselves are enriched. Compassion promotes happiness and will help build the future we want.”
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon  for the International Day of Happiness, 20 March 2013

I’m not sure if it made it onto your radar, but this week, at the High Level Meeting on ‘Happiness and Well-Being: Defining a New Economic Paradigm”, the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed 20 March the International Day of Happiness. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated that the world “needs to recognize the parity between social, economic and environmental well-being are indivisible,” and went on to state that “Together they define gross global happiness.” The meeting was convened at the initiative of The Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan, a country which, most impressively, has recognised the supremacy of national happiness over national income since the early 1970s and famously adopted the goal of Gross National Happiness over Gross National Product!

As you would imagine there was some skepticism about whether the United Nations, which deals daily with the misery created by war and famine, and which, at the level of the Security Council, appears unable to resolve crises in Syria and elsewhere, really needed a Happiness Day. Le Monde grumpily noted that around 120 days a year were already set aside in the U.N. calendar to celebrate themes as diverse as jazz, migratory birds and rural women, and went on to write “This is either a way of trivializing happiness, or of suggesting that one day’s happiness a year is enough -sacré bleu!

There have been many academic studies of happiness carried out in recent years, with findings acknowledging a definite link between happiness and economic prosperity. A WIN-Gallup International poll of global hope and happiness revealed in December that gloom was subsiding worldwide amid optimism about economic recovery, with Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Brazil rating as the Top 3 Most Hopeful Countries. It should be noted that countries in Western Europe were well represented in the ‘Top 10 Most Gloomy Countries’, with the UK scoring marginally better than Germany, and substantially better than France!

In terms of organisations it seems clear that the same dynamics apply. According to a series of studies carried out by Joyce Bono, Organizational Psychologist at The University of Minnesota, and published under the title Charisma, positive emotions and mood contagion, charismatic leaders build happier, and more successful working relationships. The report goes on to suggest that charismatic leaders love life, and are celebrators, not complainers.

Now normally I would be the first to celebrate any reports, surveys or research that flies the flag for charisma, but on this occasion, I think perhaps we are missing the point: It’s not so much that charismatic people are happier – it’s far simpler than that. Happy people are more charismatic.

At a cellular level we have just two operating mechanisms; we survive, or we grow. A cell can only be in one mechanism at a time, and as the study of Epigenetics shows us, cells receive the signals to either operate in ‘survival’ or ‘growth’ mode entirely from their environment, and when we are talking about the cells in our body, that environment means us. In a growth mindset – one where we feel safe, valued, inspired, supported (happy) – we stimulate all manner of ‘feel good’ life-enhancing hormones like serotonin and oxytocin that naturally repair and energise our cells, promoting growth. When we feel fear, anxiety, threatened, (unhappy) however, our bodies stimulate Cortisol, a stress hormone that causes the gated membranes in our cell walls to ‘clam up’ and close down. If a cell is in survival mode it is not growing. Long-term exposure to stress hormones damages and kills cells.

According to numerous research studies including papers from Harvard Business Review and The Lausanne University, charismatic people are more successful, happier, healthier and enjoy better relationships. At a cellular level then, charismatic people are in growth mode, which is co-incidentally, exactly the same place that the cells of happy people operate from. This means that if you are looking to develop your own natural charisma, then a good place to start might be to put on a happy face.

When you smile your body is sending itself the message “life is good!”

Smiling is a natural happiness drug. Smiling releases pleasure hormones called endorphins, natural painkillers and antidepressant hormones such as serotonin. Smiling reduces stress and boosts your immune system. Smiling actually makes you look younger, attractive, confident and successful. When you smile you’ll find you feel more positive and optimistic. Your thoughts will naturally turn to the positives in your life. You’ll find it harder to think negative thoughts while you’re smiling. Research has linked smiling to happiness, optimism, successful marriages, good health and positive longevity…. a bit like charisma.

‘You notice the person who has it. You’re aware of a special quality and though you can’t define it, you know what it is. It’s charisma.’

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Tags: Charisma, engagement, happiness, leadership, stress, survival or growth
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Charisma and Energy

March 11th 2013 by Nikki Owen | Charisma and Stress

The Health and Safety Executive defines Stress as “the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demand placed on them”. Or, to put it another way, stress is not having enough energy to meet the demands of life.

When we are stressed, stress hormones flood through our body causing our cells to (literally) shut down and go into survival mode. This in turn can impact upon our mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. If the excessive pressure doesn’t go away, or our bodies are unable to move out of survival mode back into growth mode where ‘happy hormones’ such as oxytocin and serotonin, trigger our cells to once again reproduce and re-energise, the metabolic equivalent of “burnout” will occur.

Energy is our life force. It is the difference between being alive and dead. It is what makes us feel inspired, ambitious and positive rather than bored, unmotivated and negative. When we are full of energy we are healthy and happy and we can handle any challenge. When we lack energy we feel tired, sluggish and find it difficult to solve problems.
The fact that up to 90% of health care practitioner visits in the US are stress-related suggests that most of us could use a little help in ways to manage the excessive demands that modern life can heap upon us. It would seem that many of us have a need to find better ways to maintain and recover our personal energy levels, and protect ourselves from those people and situations which cause us stress, drain our energy, and push us into ‘survival mode’.

According to one of the fundamental laws of physics, The Law of Conservation, ‘Energy can neither be created nor destroyed -it can only ever be transformed’.
We will all have experienced interactions with people that have depleted our energy. Meetings and conversations that may well have been energising and invigorating for the other person, but have had the opposite effect upon us, leaving us drained and depressed. These people have developed a range of techniques that they use to ‘transform’ our energy into theirs. These ‘Energy Vampires’ usually unconsciously, and occasionally consciously, really do steal our energy!

Charismatic people, on the other hand, are able to sustain high energy levels because they naturally have good balance within the four internal attributes that build our Charisma – Self Esteem, Sensory Awareness, Personal Vision and Driving Force. For example, because charismatic people (certainly for all of the time that they are being ‘charismatic’) have high levels of Self Esteem, they are less vulnerable to the Energy Vampires that might wish to steal their energy by putting them down, or making them feel insecure. Equally, because Charismatic people already have high energy, and high self-esteem, they don’t need to steal anybody else’s energy by putting them down. In this way, when we interact with Charismatic people the interaction doesn’t drain us. Charismatic people have the effect of both exuding and simultaneously attracting energy. In this way their energy builds our energy, and in turn our energy builds theirs. The interaction actually perpetuates and builds energy within others, creating a ‘feel good’ factor.

Energy is a life force that most of us take for granted. Martin Luther King, Elvis Presley, Bill Clinton and Muhammad Ali could all light up a room with their presence because their energy was extremely high – high enough in fact, to start a chain reaction that would ramp up the energy and excitement of their followers and audience, and which in turn gave them even more power – like a dynamo.

Sometimes, when all around us are demanding our attention, needing our support and stealing our energy, it can feel that we don’t have enough left for ourselves. At these times it is important to seek out and find the people, pastimes and projects that excite and inspire you and that allow you to tap into your very own charismatic power. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed – it can only ever be transformed. We have all been designed to have more than enough energy to meet, and exceed, the demands of our lives. All we need to do is to find the source… plug ourselves in, and feel the surge.

Passion is energy.

Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.

Oprah Winfrey

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Tags: Charisma, Driving force, Energy, energy in the workplace, Self-esteem, sensory awareness, stress
Posted in Charisma and Stress | Comments Off

Removing Barriers To High Performance

March 4th 2013 by Nikki Owen | Barriers to resistance and growth, engagement, impact of leadership, wellbeing

Last week my attention was drawn to an Insight Report, which you may have seen, carried out by Hay Group in 2012. The report examines annual engagement and enablement levels within 1,610 organisations – representing an extraordinary 5,000,000 employees worldwide – and it concludes that over the past few years we have seen employee engagement across the world decline or stagnate at 2008 levels. This is happening at the very point when organizations around the world really need to deliver better performances than ever.

I guess I must be getting a little immune to reading about ‘worrying levels of engagement’, and I think it is the scale of this particular report that made me sit up and take notice. Apparently more than 44% of the global workforce intends to leave their employees within five years, and more that 21% are intending to leave within two years. These statistics are set against a difficult world economy and depressed job market that must be having a significant impact on reducing employee mobility and churn. Clearly there is now a build up of restlessness and frustration, which as the report suggests, is likely to result in a dramatic rise in staff mobility if there is so much as a small improvement in the labour market. Very often it is the best performing workers who are prepared to vote with their feet if their organization doesn’t give them what they need to deliver.

The report concluded that lack of engagement was not the only problem. It also revealed that more than a third of employees reported that they are unable to perform optimally, with an average of 33 per cent of workers claiming that barriers put in place by the organization are preventing them from excelling at work.

“There is a stubborn gap between the discretionary effort employees across the world are willing to put into their work and the level of support available to help them excel. For organizations looking to harness the full productivity of their workforce, leaving this pool of motivation untapped is a wasted opportunity. To truly drive productivity, business leaders must understand the role they have to play in enabling high levels of performance – removing the barriers that are holding their employees and their organizations back.”

Mark Royal, Senior Principal, Hay Group Insight

“Removing Barriers” has been The Primary Objective what we do with The Charisma Model Programme since 2008. For the last 5 years we have been helping individuals, within organisations, to recognize and then choose to remove the barriers to engagement, empowerment, high performance and growth that they have consciously and unconsciously created.

From a very young age we each of us learn how to put up walls to protect ourselves from harm, failure, embarrassment, hurt and a host of other perceived potential negative emotions and experiences. Very often these walls become so effective that we become so comfortable living within them, we begin to fear ‘stepping outside’.

We believe that if an organization is truly looking to “remove the barriers that are holding their employees back’, they must first recognize that, in the vast majority of cases, the stuff that stops us from reaching our full potential – both as individuals and as organisations – is not lack of skill or lack of knowledge. The barriers that blocks our success often have nothing to do with any problems with the quantity or quality of our output, or even the way that we organize our time and resources. The walls that we just can’t seem to climb over, or smash through are held deep within our values and belief systems – and very often they are so deeply held within our subconscious that we are not even consciously aware that they are there, getting in our way.

“The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean unsailed, a
new continent unexplored, a world of possibilities waiting to be
released and channeled toward some great good.”

Brian Tracy

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Tags: barriers to engagement, Charisma, engagement, high performance, leadership
Posted in Barriers to resistance and growth, engagement, impact of leadership, wellbeing | Comments Off

Contextual Charisma – A Lesson From The Brits

February 26th 2013 by Nikki Owen | Charisma on TV, Contextual charisma, Energy

During the week I sat down to watch The Brits with my personal Generation Y Mentor – my 18 -year-old daughter, Rose. I enjoy The Brits, for me it represents my once a year self-assessment survey into how in touch with – and appreciative of – what young people are listening to and (most importantly) wearing. Over the years The Brits have been an absolute treat for charisma watchers. It is an event where the reputations of competent, likeable musicians have been elevated to legendary ‘Rock God’ status, and established Rock Gods careers have crashed and burned on the basis of one embarrassingly over emotional and /or egotistical acceptance speech or performance.

Last week, for the first time, I became of aware of Ben Howard. I can’t say that I thought he was any better as a singer/songwriter than say Ed Sheeran last year, but I thought he came across as a really nice, unassuming guy. I honestly don’t think he had any idea that he was going to win ‘Best British Male’ ahead of Ollie Murs or Richard Hawley, and his humble, confused, chuffed to bits’ acceptance speech was heartfelt, authentic and charismatic. Well done Ben – a star is born!

The other big winner on the night was Emeli Sandé who, in my opinion, falls into the category of ‘Contextually Charismatic’. When Emeli is on stage performing her presence is simply electrifying in it’s honesty and vulnerability – I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. When she came up to receive her award however, we realised that she wasn’t really all that vulnerable at all! Emeli is clearly a confident, well educated, and ambitious woman, but she’s not particularly sweet (like Taylor Swift), quirky (like Paloma Faith) or funny (like Adele). Last night, it seemed to me that we found out that Emeli Sandé is not quite who we thought she was based on our preconception of her stage persona. It’s not her fault of course, but I wonder if that conflict of authenticity will go on to damage her popularity somehow?

In looking to try and explain the phenonema of ‘Contextual Charisma’ I am reminded of a famous story about Marilyn Monroe, out shopping on Sunset Boulevard with a friend. After nearly an hour shopping, so the story goes, Marilyn’s friend was so amazed that they had been able to walk from store to store without being either approached for an autograph or even noticed, she asked Marilyn what was going on? The Screen Icon simply explained that she just ‘hadn’t switched Marilyn on’ this morning, and with nothing more than a deep breath and a shake of the head, engaged ‘Movie Star mode’. Within seconds, the two of them were so engulfed by people wanting autographs and photos, they had to hail a cab and beat a hasty retreat.

It would seem then that Norma Jean could ‘switch on’ Marilyn at will. Whilst we will never perhaps fully understand what strategies she employed to ramp up her energy and in so doing, her charismatic presence, we can only speculate that the effort required to draw upon a persona that was not authentically aligned with who she really was at her core , would appear to have been ultimately unsustainable.

At any given moment our individual Charismatic Presence is determined by the extent that we are feeling positively in touch with 5 key internal attributes ; Self Esteem, Sensory Awareness, Personal Vision, Driving Force and the balance of our Energy levels all naturally fluctuate depending upon all manner of influences –both external and internal.

The reason that some people appear to be able to switch their charisma on and off, almost at will, is because they have developed strategies to ramp up, or power down all, or some, of these internal triggers. For example, it may be that Robbie Williams and Emeli Sandé experience much higher levels of Self Esteem, or are more in tune with their Driving Force when they are on stage performing, and this in turn powers up the level that they are vibrating at energetically. When off stage, without feeding off of the adulation from their audience, their energy, and very possibly their self-esteem levels will take a dip, making it difficult to maintain the huge presence that they possess when they are channelling the energy from their followers and fans.

For all of us then, it can be an interesting exercise to think about the times, or contexts, when we are at our most charismatic? The chances are that when we are being totally authentic, doing things that are aligned to our own vision of what is important to us, we will be accessing far more of our true charismatic selves. When we are with the people in our lives where we have a good level of sensory awareness of each other, people that make us feel good about ourselves and build our self-esteem, we all shine just that bit more brightly. And when we are doing the stuff that engrosses us, when we are accessing our driving force and we are up on our own personal stage, in the limelight, and performing at our very best, then the levels of energy that we can generate will elevate us to a different level of charismatic status.

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Tags: Authentic, Charisma, Driving force, Energy, Self-esteem, sensory awareness, vision
Posted in Charisma on TV, Contextual charisma, Energy | Comments Off

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