The Boston Herald explores whether charisma can be learned. I've met many powerful and rich people. Only two were charismatics - Arnold Schwarzengger and Gerry Spence. Everyone I know who has met Bill Clinton have noted his charisma.

People who have charisma are few because they are alpha males who love you.

If Gerry Spence were an asshole, he'd be just another prick multi-millionaire. He is able to suck people in because he is so vulnerable. Bill Clinton, as President of the United States, would feel your pain. General George S. Patton, kill though he was, was known for his love of his soldiers. Let the other poor bastard die for his country.

Watch Arnold Schwarzenegger pose with others. He always directs the attention to whomever he is with. Why? Because that empowers the beta (and if you're in a picture with Arnold, you're the beta). Plus, it exuded confidences. I am so large that I don't need to direct your attention my way. Moreover, by directing attention to someone else, you establish yourself as the alpha - or else your directions would be ignored.

A Yale English professor has theorized:

What people are responding to in charismatics, Roach writes, "is the power of apparently effortless embodiment of contradictory qualities simultaneously: strength and vulnerability, innocence and experience, and singularity and typicality among them."





In other words, no one follows a beta - because a beta has nothing to offer other than a shoulder to cry on. Someone who is too alpha is someone to fear. Spence himself said that he lost trials because he would too aggressively go after witnesses. Once he perfected the soft-cross (which is based on the love even of one's adversaries), he never lost a case.

Thus, a charistmatic must possess great strength while offering love.