Who needs tricks? Charisma has magical powers. | Jon Ensor | TEDxArendal

so I'm a magician and magicians aren't always the first choice of speaker and intellectual educational events such as this but on the other hand I suppose that in this current world of disinformation and fake news someone who makes their living out of lies and confusion is what we call relevant I'm going to talk today actually about two magical mystical subjects charisma and telepathy now telepathy is of course the psychic ability where one mind communicates directly to another charisma is not something that we necessarily associate with magic but in in the past they certainly did and that's why words and phrases from the world of witchcraft have crept into the language that we use when we talk about charismatic communication words such as bewitching enchanting spellbinding charming the word charm refers of course to a magic spell or incantation but before we get into all that I'd like to show you a trick all right it's my way of making friends I suppose I'm going to show you a lovely very popular trick with this napkin you'll love this one sir to be honest considering the price of alcohol here in Norway I think this trick will be the most popular thing and ever done here at all as we see [Music] thank you the reason of course a problem with this trick and that is when people start placing orders you know do you do a champagne I'll be honest with you there's a limit to what you can fit down your trousers before I looks a little odd I can't do another bottle but I do have a kind of backup trick I'll quickly show you now if I place the napkin on my hand again I'll pull my sleeve up because some people think that I cheat I never cheat [Applause] [Music] thank you very much now for me magic was never about the tricks it was about connecting with people it was the idea of the magician that inspired me somebody who could engage and fascinate and entertain somebody with charisma Olivia Fox Cobain the author of the charisma myth writes about charisma as something which is a combination of power and presence and warmth but in some people gives them this magnetic quality that has us hanging on every word that they say and from a young age that was the way I saw the role of a magician so rather than just practicing tricks I would work on my persona and my presentation and to my surprise it was there in my communication that I found techniques that were more deceptive than any sleight of hand or smoke and mirrors because great magic is about much more than just creating an illusion for the eyes it's about a more rounded manipulation of the audience's perception when I was 11 years old but I about all of my brothers and sisters and there are many of them but that's another story and all of my brothers and sisters were what we call in English double-jointed so they could bend the thumb back until it touched the arm or roll the tongue or do the splits so I my brother could bend his finger back so it lay across the back of his hand I could clearly see of course I understood that if I was to have any sense of self-worth I needed a disgusting party trick of my own so I went to work to discover one and as luck would have it I came up with several and you have the dubious pleasure of witnessing them now I do apologize in advance they came out of the mind as I say of an 11 year old boy and they are disgusting but bear with me there is a point to this okay it starts with an arm now everybody can do this of course but when I grab my hand here and pull very hard and ignore the pain then I can bring it all the way round to here the next phase I'm afraid I need you to join in with this to a certain extent for this to work at all so please humor me and place your arm on his side like this please thank you so much do you appreciate it and then what you're going to do ladies the enemy's point your elbow forwards and not like that that's cheating right we want 90 degrees here that's it and that's the starting position we are now going to move the elbow round so it touches the shoulder and the finale ladies and gentlemen was where I move my arm this far but everyone does that that wasn't the finale but if I undo the elbow I hate this trick - oh please just take a moment to get a mental image of that because it's important my talk and we'll move on the great thinker author and professor of Neurology Oliver Sacks writes that every act of perception is to some degree an act of creation and every active memory is to some degree an act of imagination in other words our creative processes are involved when we're making sense of the world around us we our senses pick up certain things we combine that with our expectations and our experience and we create our reality now the reality you created just now was of course one where my arm twisted around 360 degrees I put my shoulder out of joint and moved my elbow around to touch my opposite shoulder something which you verified was impossible and then my arm hyper-extended and dangled in front of you did horribly unnatural angle in front of your very eyes and yet the amazing thing is that none of that actually happened you made it up I was hardly involved here there was hardly any trickery at all in fact I kid you not I I connected with you I had you hanging on my every word I guided your minds through the experience I had you feeling that this wasn't a trick this was something that was real and you stopped being skeptical and your minds then began to create the illusions for me thank you very much and you saw what I wanted you to see rather than what actually happened and looking around the room I see some of you beginning to think now actually tell you what I would like to see those broken arms again well you didn't think you're going to think that so let me just go through this again but this time we're going to cut out the story about my family being double-jointed in all the news and hours and arms and this is going to be horrible and I'll just show you my hand what I did this and that was fine and then you all freaked out when I did this which was odd and then you remember no doubt that my arm my hand moved all the way around to the top right well if you've been a little skeptical you would have no doubt noticed that as I pulled my arm quite hard but I I turned my body around more than my arm and then let go and just wait a little there to make you look good span around three or four times on the way back I thought that was a nice touch and then ladies and gentlemen the broken arm the broken arm that was quite assessing this arm here of course actually thinking about it two broken arms this process this technique of connecting with you in and influencing your perception as we go through a routine it's all about charisma I can enhance a magic trick I can create an illusion through this technique so charisma for me is not just about making a magic show smooth at its best charisma is a mind controlling superpower and it's not hard to imagine that this is a very attractive skill to learn in many walks of life so the question is how do I learn that and can I learn that or is it as the dictionary would have us believe is charisma a personality trait that we were born with I was 15 years old when I started to call myself a magician and I've been through a difficult time I was an outsider I was being bullied I've been hospitalized by bullies on more than one occasion I was nervous I was scared I was confused my tutors said that I was incapable of communicating with adults if you'd seen me then and then you saw me now whatever you think of my performance so far you would agree that it is possible to develop your charisma for me that was a very conscious process and I tried many things and I failed miserably spectacularly embarrassingly on numerous occasions but for the sake of your time and my dignity I'm going to hop over those experiences and tell you something that worked and this is where we come to telepathy bear with me because the fact is that our tone of voice our choice of words our body language all the way down to our micro expressions they signal automatically and truthfully what's going on inside us and the people around us they sense that they sensed what we're thinking telepathy if you will now of course they don't get the words but they get a feeling and that feeling can actually be a very powerful way of communicating why because if I tell you something then you question it but if you get a feeling about something that is your truth a good example of this is just now when I was doing the arm tricks it was imperative to creating that illusion that you experienced the arm tricks of something it wasn't a trick it was real even you knew I was a magician how do I go about convincing you of that well I don't try to be convincing I just believe it As I am sure going through the routine and I trust that you will pick up on that belief telepathically charisma works along the same lines it's a feeling that you have about me and when I was trying to be charismatic early on and failing people were sensing there was something that wasn't quite right but when I stopped worrying about that and changed the way that I was thinking that I was charismatic people could sense it and that if you like is the foundation that I can build my charisma on then we get the course the million dollar question if the way I'm thinking can make me charismatic what should I think in order to be charismatic and I'll give you a huge tip we stop thinking about ourselves about my insecurities and about or about how great I am neither is an attractive thought to be transmitting telepathically so what I do is I stop before I go onto a big stage or into an important meeting I stop for a moment and I think about my audience you and I think I like you I think you're gonna like me I've got something great to show you and I'm looking forward to connecting with you sharing with you laughing with you and this I've fully focused on this moment because you matter charisma is power presence and warmth also in terms of our mindset and in this moment on the stage again my warmth from the fact that I care I care about what I'm saying I care about you I get my presence from the fact that I'm fully invested in this moment because you matter and I get my power from the fact that I am confident that I have something of value I believe that I have something of value to share so I wish to spread this idea that rather than trying to influence one another through being loud and convincing and impressive we should believe in the magic of telepathic charisma connecting caring and sharing thank you for listening [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 86,124

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Entertainment, Body language, Communication, Humor, Ideas, Magic

Id: aGSOzytAVx0

Length: 14min 17sec (857 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 02 2019