Modern WisdomWhat Socially Confident People Do That You Don’t - Charlie Houpert
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,261 words- 0:00 – 3:44
Intro
- CHCharlie Houpert
It's- it's like if you lived in a world where no one worked out. How quickly could you go to the gym before your body made you exceptional? Like, it wouldn't take very long, and that's the world that we live in with regards to charisma, is nobody's working on it. So all you have (laughs) to do is- is this very small amount before people are gonna start to notice that you're in an elite tier. (whooshing sound)
- CWChris Williamson
Charlie Hooper in the building. How are you doing, man?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Excellent. In my own building on the other side of the ocean, but happy to be here nonetheless.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, man. Me too. Me too. What does a morning- what does a Charlie Hooper morning routine look like?
- CHCharlie Houpert
So there's no routine. I wake up, uh, around 11:00. I let my dog outside. (laughs) Sometimes he's gone inside, so I try to do that for him. Uh, and then I have some calls related to Charisma on Command, exercise around 1:32 PM, sauna. I have like a ba- barrel sauna in the backyard which is fucking awesome. Best- best, uh, four-figure purchase I've ever made in my life. I love that thing. And then in the evening I'll play League of Legends and scream at the computer with my friends.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CHCharlie Houpert
It's the most toxic, it is the most toxic hobby, and that's the- the- definitely the one thing I don't recommend from my schedule for anyone else.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CHCharlie Houpert
Do not pick up League of Legends if you've- if you've avoided it thus far.
- CWChris Williamson
Why?
- CHCharlie Houpert
So I am medium competitive in normal life, but League of Legends brings out my most vicious, cruel, whiny, complain-y, it's your fault side. And then I, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
This is fucking bullshit side.
- CHCharlie Houpert
I truly believe that there is something in the game, and of course something inside of me, but there is something in the structure of the game where one person can just destroy and melt down f- 15 to 30 minutes of hard work and me feeling like I'm better than the person I'm playing against, and I just fucking lose my mind every time I play.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CHCharlie Houpert
But it's- it's the worst addiction that I have, uh, but I, like every addiction, I just derive some sense of satisfaction from it so I don't stop.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've just got back from doing a walk. This is my equivalent of getting mad at League of Legends things. Uh, I just got back from a walk and there is a running club that does a run on my- my walk route, and-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... sometimes the people that are running, they just get in my way. So that's like my equivalent, that I'm there on my walk, I'm moving slower-
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... than them, but sometimes... Dude, I saw a woman. Have you ever s- This is definitely an LA thing. People that have a special sort of belt that they attach a dog lead to so that the dog can run with the person?
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And I'm f- I'm watching this thing, and the dog's sniffing along the wall looking for somewhere to do a wee. I'm thinking, "If you- if you don't keep your eye on that dog, you're going to end up being yanked like this to one side-"
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"... this big fucking Alsatian thing." I'm like, "You're annihilated. That's you. Your- your dog's gonna be flat on its side, and you're gonna fall over on this icy road."
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, in LA the dogs are like eight to ten pounds max, but it's- it's the same sort of thing that we have out here which is, we often have these women who push their dogs in strollers. Uh, and to-
- CWChris Williamson
You are kidding me.
- CHCharlie Houpert
... to a dog it's- it's this white fluffy little thing, I swear to God, and they are the worst behaved dogs you've ever seen. They scream and bark at everybody. That's- that's what a lot of LA is, like very poorly trained animals that are just peeing and pooping in the wrong places and barking at everybody, and so on.
- CWChris Williamson
It's like you on League of Legends.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yes. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- 3:44 – 9:17
Understanding Charisma
- CWChris Williamson
How do you, after all of this time thinking about it, how do you break down charisma into its component parts? Like how do you see-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... it now after all of this time thinking about it?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Well, there's a lot of different frameworks that I've used over the years. Um, eh, one of them is- is that there's not simply one style of charisma. I guess I'll even step back. Generally, I think of charisma as the ability to influence other people, and I take out of that things that obviously influence other people like beauty and talent, because while, you know, that- there's other channels for that. If you want to learn how to be super hot and sexy, you can be very influential on this, on that.
- CWChris Williamson
Ali Abdaal.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah. (laughs) Exactly. Go to Ali Abdaal.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CHCharlie Houpert
Uh, he's got everything you need for your beauty tips. And if, you know, Elon Musk, he... I was just listening to him on Lex Fridman. He's stuttering, you know, stumbling over what he says very often, takes a long time, which isn't necessarily bad in itself, to communicate a point, but you don't want to emulate his speaking style. What you might want to emulate is perhaps his work ethic and his first principles thinking. So I- I take all of that stuff out of the realm of influence, and what you're left with is basically personality and character driven influence, and there's different types of it. One type you could think of like a Conor McGregor type person, super high conviction. A Steve Jobs who gets other people to want to be near them, around them, participate in their things because we love people that seem like they can know the future. Like we want to be around people that have deep, deep beliefs in what they're doing and why they're doing it 'cause so many of us lack that in ourselves, so you've got the high conviction types. You've got authentic types, your Joe Rogans who you implicitly trust because they say things that put themselves at social disadvantage sometimes. They'll say the unpopular opinion or say, "Hey, I don't agree with this mainstream take on things," and that slowly over time builds a deep sense of trust in those who have spent the most time around them. You've got your comedians, your Kevin Harts, all those type of people who are just funny and they make you smile and laugh anytime you're around them. Energetic types like Will Smith who they come onto the talk show and they're big and loud and whenever you're around them you just- you want to participate in the vibe that they're bringing. And then lastly you have your empathetic types like Oprah Winfrey who will sit down, look you in the eye, and ask you, (laughs) you know, you know, "What would your mother say about that?" And bring a tear to your eye and make you cry. So there's not necessarily one style to do it, but those are the- generally the five types that I see most commonly in the breakdowns that we do, and then it's just a matter of...... picking and choosing the things that feel closest to where you are while, you know, being willing to change, but not losing the thing about you that, that you might want to keep. Uh, and that, that's often a question we get. How do you be charismatic while retaining the essence of who you are?
- CWChris Williamson
Is there a tension there between those?
- CHCharlie Houpert
I think so, yeah, for sure. And, and when you're starting to learn, I think one of the biggest, uh, the biggest obstacles to people's changing anything in their life is that this feels like who they are, and what I often tell them is that the personality that you're showcasing today is not intrinsic to who you are, it is not how you were born, it is often the traumas and successes of 13-year-old you have shaped the way that you are. And sometimes you have that guy who was the stud at age 13 and for the rest of his life, he just acts like a little prince. And you can have this-
- CWChris Williamson
Fat slob-
- CHCharlie Houpert
... other person-
- CWChris Williamson
... at 45 years old but still crushing-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Exactly. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... it because he was the hottest kid in school at 13.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yes, exactly. And then you have, you know, you have the flip side of that, which was more me, was, uh, much more reverb- r- reserved, quiet, didn't feel that I had the right to take up any space, and that needs to be unlearned. And the thing that gets in the way is thinking, "Oh no, this is me. I am just introverted, shy, and, and any movement away from this would be a self-betrayal." So that's oftentimes the first obstacle that we have to overcome when anyone is learning is, there is a you in there, we just wanna be the best version of yourself, not necessarily who you were conditioned to be in middle school.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that self-betrayal's an interesting way to frame it, that there's something-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, like sacred about-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... the, the natural way that you have got yourself to this point. But I don't know, maybe it's my exposure to the personal development world that most of that feels like bullocks to me. Most of that just feels like you rationalizing random chance as opposed to intentional effort.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Look, you, you've had a ton of influences on your charisma and your extroversion and your introversion and your speech patterns and so on and so forth. The fact that you didn't get to choose them doesn't make them any more a part of you than the ones that you did get to choose.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. No, that's, we, we deal with this question oftentimes at the beginning. It's, and I'll say some version of what you just said, which is, "You didn't choose these influences on you, yet you treat them as if you could not possibly change them without cutting off one of your own arms." And that, I think the reason that this is such a sticky belief is because it's self-serving. In some ways it's easier to get crappy social results, crappy professional results than it is to take on the effort of, "Oh no, this is my responsibility. I can change it without being immoral or unethical, but it's might be challenging, and it might make me do things that scare me and require a lot of courage." Therefore, my brain is gonna do me the favor of just saying, "Oh no, that would be, that wouldn't be me. That's a self-betrayal. I don't even have to worry about that, and I can just complain instead (laughs) about some of the results that I'm getting." So that, that can be a trap early on for a lot of people, but I think once people get into our channel, hopefully the philosophy of how to evolve is implicit in a lot of what we teach, and it's not destroy everything about you, who you were. It is, it is improve things, try these different patterns and these different habits on. Like a style of clothing, doesn't have to become who you are, but these might get you better results in your social endeavors.
- CWChris Williamson
Who were
- 9:17 – 13:17
Charlie’s Biggest Influences
- CWChris Williamson
your main influences when you were learning this stuff? Charisma and communication and confidence and stuff?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, it was... So there were sometimes guys you'll never know are the friends that were in my friend group that would literally just repeat jokes that I said quietly and get a big laugh (laughs) -
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CHCharlie Houpert
... which drove me nuts. There's one guy, Austin, who was just like a hurricane of charisma, uh, and he was, he was a friend of a friend. Whenever I hung around him, I felt special whenever he was nice to me. Literally he would repeat things that I said and the group would follow him. I'd be like, "Hey guys, is it time to go out to get lunch?" No response. Five minutes later, "Yo, I'm feeling pretty hungry." "Yeah!" (laughs) So that, that type of thing, everybody, uh, all the people around me who were getting different results actually had a much larger influence on me than any celebrity or any talk show host or anything like that.
- CWChris Williamson
What about books?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Books, uh, yeah, when I was starting, a lot of it was books that told me that I could change. So Tony Robbins was a big influence early on. Um, I'm trying to think what the other ones were. Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden was huge. The idea that self-esteem, we, we have this idea, I think, increasingly, and he talks about it probably when he wrote it in the '70s or '80s, that self-esteem is one's birthright, that you ought to just feel really good about yourself because you exist. And he takes a very different approach, which is, self-esteem is your reputation with yourself, and if you're the type of person who lies all the time, doesn't keep your word, doesn't go to the gym when you set your New Year's resolution, your reputation with yourself is gonna be a lousy one, that of somebody who is unreliable, uh, lies, all these sorts of things. And by changing your behavior, you can change the way that you perceive yourself, and that has a profound effect on how you present yourself to other people and then how they perceive you. So that book was instrumental for giving me not just platitudes about self-esteem, like, "You deserve it, you (laughs) can, you can do it," affirmative-type things, but, "Here's what you need to do in your life." And in fact, he has these sentence completions exercises that'll s- be like, "If I was 5% more integrous today, I would..." And you fill these things out. And I would often write, "I wouldn't have fibbed about that thing that I lied about in conversation. I probably would've talked to that girl that I had a crush on and not pretended to, you know, not have noticed her at all." And so we write these out, and over time, they weigh on you and you start to do the things that would make you have more integrity. And then you feel better about yourself and it's got this whole positive feedback look. So I love, love, love, uh, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem.
- CWChris Williamson
That's the Naval thing, right? Confidence isn't given, it's earned. And it makes sense.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Why wouldn't it be, why wouldn't it be the sort of thing that you need to prove to yourself? It's a reputation that you have with yourself and you were always keeping score even if you don't think you are.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yes, yes. And I'm sure, I'm sure we'll talk about it. The...Where, where I came from, I think, where a lot of people come from is you are your patterns, right? That's, that's what we learn. You are who you were at 13 years old in middle school, and the big shift was here is you can become your habits, right? You can shift these habits. You can change the way that you feel about yourself. And I'd say recently, I've gone back a little bit and recovered the sense that there... I thought that I wasn't an introvert throughout my 20s 'cause I'd built these extroverted habits, and I've recently realized that, no, I definitely still have this introverted streak in me that doesn't seem to go away despite any sort of habituation. And so I do think that there is an essence to our personality, but we probably overestimate what that is when we're in our young 20s and haven't done any sort of self-development work. And it's only now that I'm in my 30s that I can be like, "This was me. This is what got laid on top of me. I wanna take out what got laid on top of me, choose other things, but also respect that there are these parts of me that do not... that seem so resistant to change that I'm just gonna, you know, embrace them and love them and accept them even if they're not ideal for social scenarios." Like, I'm an introvert, and, you know, I'm pissed at Legal Legends (laughs) which probably, probably isn't core to my behavior. I'm just joking about that one.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you
- 13:17 – 21:21
Definition of Introvert & Extrovert
- CWChris Williamson
define, uh, introvert and extrovert?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Uh, I, I think the way that I've heard most commonly defined is not... Well, here, here's the trick, is some people think if I like social situations, therefore I'm an extrovert, and if I don't like them, then I'm an introvert. And I think a trap there is that you can not like social situations because you don't know how to manage them, and therefore any sort of social situation that you're in is gonna suck. And you can compare it to, like, do you like basketball or don't you? Well, you would like it if you were a dominant center that was scoring all the time, and you'd probably hate it if you got blocked every single time. So it's tough to evaluate if you like social situations or not before you have the skill, talent, personality to succeed and enjoy them at the highest level. So what I saw is that at first, I was like, "No, I'm an introvert." Then I learned how to succeed in social situations, and I was elated, had a great time in bars, clubs, you know, networking events, all those sorts of things. But in reflecting on it, I still see that those situations drained me even at the end. And I really oftentimes enjoy staying home, reading a book, being left alone, and I get some of my best thinking. And uh, most... Some of my happiest moments are alone, and I think that... (laughs) I think there's something very introverted about that, when I could be out on a Friday night and I am just so happy to not be. Not 'cause I couldn't do the things that I might wanna do on that Friday night socially, but because I just love being alone. So that's, that's why I say that I'm an introvert.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, the best definition that I've... Or the most useful definition that I've heard for it is where do you get your energy from? Do you get your energy from being on your own or do you get your energy from being around other people?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
If you're around other-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... people a load, do you need to think, "Oh, fuck me. All right, I gotta spend a couple of evenings in the house on my own." Or if you do that, do you start climbing the walls and needing-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to go out? There's another, uh, relating to the, this tension between inner essence and sort of truth and then ability to make yourself and become and being and stuff like that. Um, I had Robert Plomin, the fourth most cited psychologist of the 20th century on the show. So he's a, uh, genes, behavioral geneticist guy, and he said, "Our nature does not predetermine, but it does predispose."
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
That was how he put it across. For instance, you could have the genes and the predisposition to be an alcoholic, but if you're born on an island that doesn't have any alcohol, it's not going to happen.
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs) Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so there is this... there's always this tension, right? There's always this tension between your conditioning and your, um, predisposition.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, and of course the environment, which is what you just described there, which is maybe you're predisposed to be an introvert, but you get this early positive feedback in social situations that's gonna be very different for, for how you wind up in life. So my goal was to know that I could... that I could succeed in social situations and then to make that free choice knowing I could go out and have it be really fun and not terrifying or I could stay in and have it be whatever that's gonna be. Now I wanna make the choice, and I find myself increasingly making the choice to stay in, not out of fear, which is what it was for the first, I don't know, 18, 20 years of my life, but out of a, a genuine free decision where I, I could find enjoyment in either scenario.
- CWChris Williamson
I think Derek from More Plates More Dates says the same thing. He has-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... the same approach, like he was terrified of approaching girls and was always... I think he's... It, it felt a little bit when he's talking about kind of like having a gun to his head in a relationship because he was always terrified the relationship would end because he had nothing in the locker to be able to get a new one if it did, which put him in a needy state. And anyone that's read Mark Manson's Models knows that's not a very powerful position to be in. Being needy is going to turn the other party off, especially as a guy. Uh, so I think that was his solution as well. Look, I wa- I want to give myself more sovereignty, and the more degrees of freedom that I have access to, even if I choose to not use the extroversion or the going out or any of that, the more that I can do, the more comfortable that I'm gonna feel in myself.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, 100%. You know, I'm curious if you had this 'cause I know you do the nightclub stuff and have been in promotion for a while. When I first moved to California, I'd been so... Throughout my 20s, I had trained myself, you know, on Friday and Saturday nights you go out, you have to have a good time. I had actually instilled in myself a sense of social FOMO, where if I wasn't participating in the event, I felt a tremendous amount of anxiety. And I didn't realize it until my first weekend in California when I didn't have any friends in the area, it was a Friday night, and by all accounts, I should have just moved my stuff in unpacked, but I was like, "I have to go. I have to find a bar. I gotta be on Yelp. I gotta go for whatever. I'm gonna be by myself. That's what I have to do." And I recognized that while it was a fantastic journey and I learned a lot in becoming more outgoing and charismatic and confident, that I had created some new neuroses and some new anxieties around needing (laughs) to do that instead of being able to do that. So that's sort of what I've been unwinding in the last couple of years, is truly trying to have the choice, 'cause I recognize in my 20s...I felt like I had a choice, but really, I just went to the flip side of the coin and demanded that of myself constantly.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Fuck. Well, so I never had that with partying.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And that's the difference between being the party and running the party. I-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... I went out and partied, but we had a, kind of like an unwritten rule that you just didn't get fucked at your own event. Like, you can go and cause-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... complete havoc at six nights a week, just on a Saturday-
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... when our money's on the line and you've got to cash the till at the end of the night, and if there's any problems with the police or the council or the management, you need to deal with it, just, you know, hang fire. And there'll be an after-party and you can sniff your head off until 2:00 PM t- on a Sunday or whatever-
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... and it's, it's, it's sweet. Um, but you're, i- i- it's so interesting the, how would you say? The malignant side effects that you create by doing a thing downstream, what that, like the after ripples that that causes. So you wanted to create, um, an ability to go out and be extroverted and be charismatic. That meant that you had to go out frequently. That meant that you c- had to fall in love, you had to actually generate a, uh, degree of love for going out, or else the willpower to do it would've been completely unbelievable. And then after a while you realize, "Oh, hang on, I, I, I'm like being dragged along by the creature that I created here." So the thing that happened with me was with regards to business. I ran a business, I wanted the business to be successful. I needed to start to generate that engine and to start to get that moving, and then I couldn't slow the momentum down when-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- 21:21 – 29:50
The Problem with Hustle Culture
- CHCharlie Houpert
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
You know, it's f-
- CWChris Williamson
There's two, uh, two things that come to mind. One, I watched a video today that was really well done about, um, the problem with the personal development world, just one of those YouTube videos. But the guy had a really good point. He had a problem with hustle culture, because he said that it gets people to focus on working harder as opposed to working more effectively.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So, um, speed over direction, and this is the equivalent there that what got you here, the amount of hard work and graft and grind and nose against the grindstone and late nights, you know, if you are, he uses the example of writing a fitness blog and just grinding it out three articles a day for five years when you don't realize that actually taking a step back and thinking, "Well, should I be doing YouTube? Should I spend a little bit of time on there?" Or, "Maybe if I actually didn't do a blog, but I kind of did some live streams or I did whatever strategies that would," that would be one of the things that would change. And, um, yeah, it's a, it's a real interesting one, man, like the challenges that people have around these things as they grow up, it's, um...
- CHCharlie Houpert
I'm s- Yeah, I wanted to ask. I- I- I'm curious if this is just my circle. I've noticed that the, the people around me at least that seem to struggle are some of the hustle culture people, and the people that have, now that I'm 34 and, you know, a lot of us started we were 23, it's been 10 years, the people that have made businesses that have worked, they have worked hard, but they've never been grind set, hustle. Most of them are not grind set, hustle culture type people. And I'm curious if that's just a, an accident of my friend circle or if you've seen the same sort of thing in the people that you know.
- CWChris Williamson
(smacks lips) Yeah, that's interesting. I think I've probably got good examples for both sides of the fence.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So one of the guys that I got close with in Austin was Aubrey Marcus from Onnit, and one of the things that I realized with him, I've never been around someone like him. He is so competitive about-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... fucking everything, man. Like he is the quintessential founder CEO startup alpha male aggressive type of guy. So-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Hm.
- CWChris Williamson
... but not in a, not in like a, um, a confrontational way, but he's, he's forthcoming. So fucking, we go into Onnit, the gym, and me and one of the female trainers that's there are going in, and Aubrey and his missus, Vilanna, are, are going in. He's like, "Oh, why, why don't we have teams?" I'm like, "Oh, yeah, team sounds, team sounds cool."
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs) Yeah. I see where this is going.
- CWChris Williamson
Team, team, team sounds, team sounds fun.
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, we haven't warmed up. We haven't touched a single piece of equipment, right? We've come in out of the warm Austin weather, but we're c- essentially cold. He's like, "Why don't we do, um, 1,000 meters on the SkiErg for time in teams of two and that can be the warmup?" I'm like, "Aubrey, that's, that's-"
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... "that's like a, a really disgusting workout, th- you, that's the warmup." But he wanted to s- he wanted to send it, and I'm like, "All right, fair enough." So we do it, and it's, i- i- like pedal to the metal immediately, uh, hard. And I just thought, "Well, that's why that shows..."... somebody who has that real, just in everything. He says-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
We- I played pickleball. I went to his house and we played pickleball, and he wants to f- I was on his team, and he wants to fucking win. Like, it was me and him-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Interesting.
- CWChris Williamson
... taking on a couple of other guys, and he wants to f- he wants to win, hard. And I'm like, "I am not surprised that your company got sold to Unilever for a shit ton of money because you are-"
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"... you are built to beat the other guy." Um, but then I have-
- CHCharlie Houpert
It's w-
- CWChris Williamson
... I have buddies that are not like that at all and have just as successful businesses.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Hm. I wonder, have you seen that that corresponds to satisfaction, fulfillment, or happiness in one direction or the other or, again, just a mixed bag?
- CWChris Williamson
I would say on average the people that have the hustle culture thing are less happy.
- 29:50 – 37:13
Principles for Charismatic Communication
- CWChris Williamson
basic principles that people should grasp if they want to come across well when they're communicating?
- CHCharlie Houpert
I don't know that we've actually boiled it down to the basic wh- the way that we structure our teaching is that we have, within our course we have 30 days, and we start with first impressions, talk about confidence, conversation, uh, and go down the line. Some of the first things that we talk about, which I presume are, I guess, the most basic, is that-When you're first interacting with someone, a great way to be a conversational leader is to set the vibe a level higher than you need to. So people often say, "How are you doing?" And people often respond, "Fine." And I'm guilty of this as well. But if you want to practice being charismatic, find a way t- to amp yourself up to be fantastic or great or amazing. That immediately sets the conversation off on a stronger foot. Uh, you also get these very, very common questions. They're almost these social niceties that we ask one another when we're getting to know one another. "What do you do for a living? Where are you from?" And people take these gimme questions and just submarine the conversation. You know, "I'm from Philadelphia. I'm a consultant." And so in just teaching people, look, you already have habits. These aren't who you are. Can we just make these start the conversation off on a much stronger foot? So we have worksheets within the course and we kinda talk about some of this stuff on the YouTube channel. Instead of saying that you're a consultant, realize that the question the person is asking you is, "Please tell me anything interesting about yourself with which I can connect." That's what they're saying. When they say, "Where are you from?" they're going, "Please say a city that I've been to so I can say, 'Oh my God, like the weather is so great.'" And do the favor of sticking out some Velcro for them to attach onto. So instead of saying, "Philadelphia," I might say, "You know, I grew up on the East Coast, but I was always a little bit of a crazy person. So in college, I moved to Brazil and did all this crazy entrepreneurial stuff with a bunch of friends, but now, I've realized that I much prefer w- uh, summer sports and surfing, and I live in California." Within that answer, there's surfing, there's sports, there's entrepreneurism, there's adventure, there's traveling internationally. There's all these different directions that the person that you're speaking to can listen to and decide to hook into. And what happens is when you give them five, six, seven options in a three-sentence answer, you're going to naturally go down conversations that both people are more in- interested in. So you might find yourself with one person talking about extreme sports, and you're super fascinated on that. On the other hand, you're talking about something else. When we started talking, you had in your bio (laughs) a club promoter or something like that. And the first question I asked you was like, "Yo, tell me about club promoting," 'cause that was something that I did when I was in New York. Uh, and so when you give people more about you to hook into early on in conversation, that helps tremendously. Another big thing in conversation is that we often take questions too literally. Again, the, what people are trying to do when they're meeting one another is just suss out a vibe. And so if you're answering every question very literally, the vibe that you're giving is this is an interview. I'm just c-... you know. (laughs) And sometimes that's great when you're diving down into the values that you have and that they have and you can really connect over that. But oftentimes, just answering one of the questions in a non-literal fashion sets the vibe of, "I'm here to have fun." And this is especially important if you're out at a nightclub or something like that. So when someone asks you where you're from in a nightclub, you don't have to give them the whole Philadelphia spiel. You can say, "You know, can't you tell that I'm from the Congo?" Or, (laughs) you know, something, something ridiculous that can't possibly be true given your skin tone, and that sets the tone of the conversation to go down a much more fun, interesting vibe. So that's... There's a lot that we talk about, but really starting an interaction in the direction you'd like it to head and being cognizant of that is a large part of the beginnings of what we teach, because then the conversation can kinda just take care of itself. People want to have much more fun than they're having, and so if you could be the person that breaks them out of the serious moment, e- whether it's via text or in conversation, they're going to appreciate you, want you around more. And it seems like a superpower, but all you're doing is not taking questions literally. If that's all you did, you would see that... And people are afraid to do it in the corporate world. That's the other thing. This is one of the things that got me ahead i- in work, was just not, not buying into the implicit social norms of the workplace, so that when you came in you were supposed to be very serious. Being able to have fun in that sort of an environment is what ingratiiated me to the bosses, made them much more amenable when I left. They wound up paying me a lot of money to work as an at-home consultant. It just, it worked out fantastically, and it was not because I was the best consultant. It was because we'd built a human relationship instead of a corporate relationship. So again, tho- those are the types of things that just work in almost any sort of environment, dating, professional, whatever.
- CWChris Williamson
It's crazy how much this sort of stuff feels like it would make someone stand out. You know, they're relatively easy principles to follow, and yet-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... you know that if somebody was to do this and deliver effectively on a regular basis that they would be in probably the top 5% of communicators, top 5% of funny people that you know.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah. Yeah. I... And, and again, within this, it's funny that you say this because there still is what I talk about the authentic type. And Joe Rogan happens to be a comedian as well, but there are people that don't have to do this thing. This is one tip amongst many. What you can do is when asked a serious question, give tough answers, you know, that are honest. And over time, you will establish a reputation as somebody that is very authentic, that people trust and like for different reasons. And if you're out there listening, you can think of somebody right now that probably f- fits the bill. Uh, so you don't have to do any one of these things. It's about finding the one that when you try it on feels good for you and that you can lean into more, and good things tend to happen.
- CWChris Williamson
How much do you think that people can change their charisma level? So if someone feels shy or introverted, how much have you found that people can change this? Are people infinitely malleable when it comes to their charisma level?
- CHCharlie Houpert
No, no. I don't think you're likely to get a Mark Zuckerberg to a Will Smith. (laughs) I don't, like I don't think that's going to happen with all the media training in the world. But Mark Zuckerberg has gotten better, and I actually think if he really cared to could get, become a much stronger communicator than he is. So, anybody can get considerably better. They can dr- I think dramatically in most cases improve their dating life, their friendship circles, the confidence and happiness that they feel in a social environment, but it's not infinitely malleable. Uh, there are some people that I look at, like Russell Brand is a conversational genius. I, I...... try to break down what people do, and with so many people I can put their responses into buckets. Like, Tom Holland is gonna respond with a funny story. You know, RDJ is gonna make a quip. Like, and you- and you can emulate those styles and get them. Russell's spontaneity and his almost the fact that he's got so many different jokes and references that he leans into, I- I gush over him all the time, but I- I wish I could do what he could do and I can't capture it in a simple model like I can with some other people. Uh, so there's definitely levels and I- I can't do what he does under any circumstances. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
He's like a lexical jujitsu blackbelt.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yes. Yes. And he's capable of going from hilarious commentary to very value-driven, you know, what is the purpose of life, within the span of two sentences, which is super attractive. Because that's, I think, where a lot of us live. We want to have fun, but we're also interested in- in the deeper meaning of things.
- 37:13 – 41:13
Charisma Lessons from Russell Brand
- CHCharlie Houpert
- CWChris Williamson
How would you characterize some of the trends given the fact that you've broken down Russell Brand a bunch of times? I've enjoyed some of the videos that you've done on him. What are some of the principles that we can learn from Russell Brand or what are some of the, uh, characteristics that he relies on?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Oh man, he's... So there's a lot. So there's- there's the flirtatious pre-Enlightenment Russell Brand, which is... If you look at what he does, he treats everyone, men and women, flirtatiously, which is a- a general principle for dating. If you want to be b- a better flirt, you have to flirt with everybody. You have to flirt with men and compliment them, you have to flirt with the older woman who you're definitely not a- attracted to, and then of course he flirts with the beautiful womens who he's sometimes interviewing and they're- they're giggling about it. So that's one of the things that he does, is flirts with the entire world. And what that means is he's cheeky, he's playful, he, uh, does this... We have a breakdown, a push/pull where he oftentimes will give you a heartfelt compliment but then relieve the tension at the end of it by just saying some sort of, uh, a joke that- that relieves the tension. And you can see what we're talking about in the video. I can't think of what he actually does right now. Uh, so that's one of the big things that he does. He also... And I guess... I don't... I- I have never been able to figure out how and why he makes these decisions. Depending on the question that you ask him, you could get a totally ridiculous joke answer or the most sincere, value-driven, heartfelt connection (laughs) that- that you would ever expect, and I can't figure out how and why he makes the- that decision, but he does, and it makes him very fascinating to listen to because you don't know what's gonna come up from him. Uh, so there's-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, that unpredictability suggests authenticity. It suggests that there isn't an agenda behind this-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... because you can't predict, "Oh, Russell's got asked a question about God. Here we go again with the story from when he was five years old or whatever."
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And- and, you know, there's people that I... I love Tony Robbins, but he is so predictable. (laughs) When... If you listen to a Tony Robbins interview, like I have, I've listened to all of them, he's got 30 or 40 stories and depending on what you ask, you're go- you're going to hear one of those stories told in the same way with the same punchline because, as an educator and teacher, he knows that it has an intended effect. But it definitely does leave me, as someone who has watched a lot of him, wondering if I've ever seen the real him, if I've ever seen behind that, uh, performative social curtain. Still love the guy, but yeah, you're right. It- it totally suggests authenticity when it seems as if he's genuinely doesn't know what he's gonna say before he says it. It's whatever is (laughs) surging inside him in that moment.
- CWChris Williamson
What about the new Russell Brand, post-DMT, post-Enlightenment?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah. So he's... I think still has a lot of it. He's not as flirtatious as he used to be. I think what he does a fantastic job of is being authentic in his positions. Like, you know where he stands politically, but he can sit down with a Candace Owens and be non-judgmental, not assume that she is an evil person trying to destroy the world, and maintain a playfulness and curiosity in the face of ideas that are bitterly opposed to his ideals. And I think that that is incredibly rare when you see Candace Owens talk to anyone else who disagrees (laughs) with her because it's going to fall apart quickly on both sides. They're both going to accuse each other of bad faith. He's genuinely able to, or generally able to, maintain a good faith vibe in any sort of political or spiritual disagreement, which I think is... comes from a place of actually not thinking that he has all the answers, which you can't fake. You- you-
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, that's exactly what I had in my head.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
The fact that he's got strong opinions held loosely, not loose opinions held strongly.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I could gush about him over and over. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. All right. So go-
- CHCharlie Houpert
I feel like a little fanboy. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Let's get back to shyness. Let's get away from Russell Brand and his turbo penis. Um, what about if someone
- 41:13 – 48:36
How to Overcome Shyness
- CWChris Williamson
is feeling shy, they don't have a lot of social confidence, how can someone overcome that? How can they develop more?
- CHCharlie Houpert
So I think that, uh, we talk often about how courage is a muscle. And, uh, it's not the answer that a lot of people want to get, but I think progressive exposure therapy is re- is- really is the way. And so, again, in the course, we start very easy. If you're shy, you're probably biting your tongue often, not saying that you think, and you're probably mistaking that for, "I don't have anything to say. Nothing comes to mind." The truth is, the filter in your head is so high that nothing breaks through that as being worthy of being said. And so when we're talking to shy people, what we often tell them to do is with... Say that you're in a situation with a taxi driver or, uh, someone else who's working for you, a waiter, a cashier, say one extra sentence, right? So the normal thing is, "That'll be $5.92." You give them your thing. But something is in your head. There- there's a magazine cover there, the weather is hot, uh, they have a nice earring or something. Say one extra thing. And what we're trying to teach them to do is to lower that filter of what would be acceptable to say...... to someone. Now, there are people that have the reverse problem, where they blabber on and on and on, and we need to teach them (laughs) to be a bit more selective. But when you're shy, I think that's oftentimes the biggest problem is that you think that the things that you have to say are such crap that you communicate that with every fiber of your being. And so once you're saying them, then we have to teach you, okay, say it with your chest. (laughs) Say it like you mean it. Don't, don't trail off at the end of sentences. If you're in a group conversation, do not let someone cut you off until you hit a period. So if you're mid-conversation with someone and you're finishing your thought and they jump in, you have to get to the end of it like now, and then they can take over. So it's not about being a conversational bully, it's about learning to take up conversational space in a way that is assertive. Uh, so that's, that's a very common thing that we see with, with shy people is that they're reluctant to do that. But just a handful of, of models like those goes a long way. And all of a sudden they're like, "They didn't cut me off a second time. They realized that I wasn't gonna just disappear." And you know, they feel very happy about it.
- CWChris Williamson
What about the tailing off at the end of sentences thing? That's definitely something that I notice people do if they're uncomfortable in a social situation or a little bit shy.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
How can people overcome that?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Well, th- the general rule is you have to finish it with the same decibel level that you started it with. (laughs) You've, you've gotta find a way. And the way that we teach people is like, "Look, these are new habits. When you're learning them, they might not feel like you. It's gonna feel uncomfortable. You're gonna go, 'This charisma thing isn't for me.'" So just focus on one thing per day. Our videos are, in part, entertainment. They've got five, six things. If you try to do that all, you are going to live in your head. We want you to be in the conversation, reacting, listening, but also I do want you thinking of one thing that you're gonna do differently that day. And so what we do in the course is we structure it differently so you have one thing for each day, but if you're a shy person and you're out there, the thing that you might think of for today is, "If I'm in a group setting this evening, make sure that I finish any sentence before I yield the floor," and that's it. And then you could do whatever you want. You could be awkward with your body language, you could make crappy eye contact, you could say dumb things, but you just focus on that, and over time, you are stacking these habits on top of each other such that when you get five, six, seven, eight of these together, you really do have a much more powerful personality.
- CWChris Williamson
Talk to me about the tension between needing to learn a skill in communication-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and needing to be sufficiently in the conversation to be able to flow through things because you have this-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... system one, system two dynamic going on here, right? We need to be very deliberate, system two, I'm thinking about it. Oh fuck, I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about it so much that I realize I haven't moved my body for the last three minutes-
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... 'cause I've been constantly thinking about finishing my sentences at the same fucking decibel level 'cause of that Charlie guy.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, yeah. So, and this, this is a tension, and I have... The ways that I hear people say to relieve it, "Just be yourself," I find are... do not actually lead to growth. They might lead to evolution over time as things go back, but if you wanna deliberately grow, I think you have to deal with this tension. The way that we've done it is just by having one thing that you're focusing on per day, and it would be one small thing, and sometimes it's literally just a thing that occurs at the beginning of an interaction. Like, I'm gonna say my answer to where are you from like the one that I practiced and built as opposed to the one that is reflexive. Uh, and so that's how we do it. So that there definitely is some time where I'm taking you out of the flow of conversation, and I recognize that, but I do... I have not found a better way to learn a skill. I think it requires deliberate... I don't know if it's system one or two. It requires that deliberate removing yourself from the flow of how things have always been a little bit for a period of time. Uh, but it-
- CWChris Williamson
There's an awesome, awesome story-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Go ahead.
- CWChris Williamson
... about Tiger Woods when he was early in his career and he realized that he had some, um, how would you say, perversions in his swing. He had some-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm. Perversions. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... inefficiencies and perversions. Yeah, yeah, sure. He had some-
- CHCharlie Houpert
It's just funny. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... perversions elsewhere as well. Um, he had some perversions in his swing that was causing him to be less accurate and less consistent than he needed to be. And the decision was, "Look, if you want to be the best in the world, we need to rebuild your swing from scratch." And this meant that he had to take a bunch of steps back. He'd stopped being system one. He could have gone on being the perfectly adequate t- version of Tiger Woods for the rest of his career without having-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... to do this, so he purposefully had to get worse before he could get better because-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... he was going to have to relearn all of the different things, and I kind of feel like there's an an- analogy to draw here between this and purposeful conversationalizing.
- CHCharlie Houpert
100%. And I don't know how Tiger went about that, and may- maybe there is a better way that I've yet to discover, but it's... The way that I did it, 'cause I was getting overwhelmed when I was trying to do everything. I remember just being like, "Okay, and you stand like this, and you do this," and all of a sudden, I could be in a social interaction and not have been there literally at all. I was just totally in the realm of thinking, planning, scheming in my head. And so that didn't work, which is why we went back to the let's take one element of the swing at a time. Let's start with just doing what we do with a different grip. Let's, now let's worry about the hips. Now... And, and that was how over time I was able to still be in interaction, still be in my head a little bit, but building towards what wound up becoming a very different way after months and years of doing this of, of being generally.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, and I'm guessing that reps, repetitions of this is-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Oh gosh, yeah, and you nailed it. Yeah, yeah, I'm forgetting the most basic stuff and I- (laughs) I appreciate you bringing it up. It truly is just reps. Uh, the nice thing is that you know how there's beginner gains in the gym? Because nobody focuses on this stuff, it comes so quickly. This is not like... It's easier than learning an instrument, it's easier (laughs) than, than putting on muscle mass, and it's because...It's- it's like if you lived in a world where no one worked out. How quickly could you go to the gym before your body made you exceptional? Like, it wouldn't take very long, and that's the world that we live in with regards to charisma, is nobody's working on it. So all you have (laughs) to do is- is this very small amount before people are gonna start to notice that you're in an elite tier, which is awesome, and that's- that's not, uh, anything to do with what we teach, but just the fact that there's n- almost no competition.
- CWChris Williamson
The bar is set incredibly low. (laughs)
- CHCharlie Houpert
The bar is low. (laughs) The bar is low, yeah. That's the truth.
- 48:36 – 59:32
How to Flirt with Women
- CWChris Williamson
All right, so you guys started out, one of the initial reasons that you wanted to get better at communicating was to be better with women, and there will be a lot of guys that want to improve-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... their ability to talk to girls. What are the principles of men communicating attractively to women?
- CHCharlie Houpert
So we have broken down, uh, the flirting process. Let's see if I can do this. It's been a long time since I've had to get out there and do this. (laughs) The first piece-
- CWChris Williamson
Lad.
- CHCharlie Houpert
... is-
- CWChris Williamson
Massive lad.
- CHCharlie Houpert
... is... (laughs) So the first piece of it is just interest, uh, that we think about, and let's pretend that you're in a bar or something. Uh, what we're trying to avoid in this stage is, "I have to go to the bathroom. Uh, I'm just bored of you." And so when we're talking about this, this is the playful stuff that we mentioned. It's a lot of the things with, "Where do you- what do you do? Where are you from?" Finding ways to be interesting. This isn't sexy necessarily. This isn't, "I wanna hook up with you." It's just, "I want this interaction to continue." The second piece that I think a lot of guys skip out on is having genuine standards. Uh, when you receive a letter from Harvard University that you've been accepted, it feels wonderful. When you receive a letter from the community college that takes 100% of the people, it doesn't feel good. And the truth about dating, like it or not, is that w- we often date people to affirm things about ourself. So when you have no standards for this other person and they feel like they could've been anyone, like truly it was their shape that attracted you to them, it doesn't generate any sort of interest in you. But if you're indicating through interaction, for instance, if you're out at a bar or a club and somebody is rude to a waiter or waitress or bartender, you go, "Oh my God, I can't stand people who do that. If I were," you know, "I don't care how beautiful or fun or sexy you are," like, "when I see that kind of behavior, it's a total turnoff." Just as an aside in a conversation, that's communicating to the person that they care about my personality (laughs) , right? And now the thing is, you want to have genuine standards. So this is easier for people who have dated and who have had, you know, perhaps dated someone they were very attracted to who had personality traits that they didn't really like. If you can go through your history and ask yourself, "What are the things that really do attract me to people that are not sexuality or, you know, shape-based things? What are the things that- that make me, uh, repulsed?" And list those out and find ways to incorporate those into conversation. For instance, I have most enjoyed my relationships with women who are incredibly affectionate. So when someone early in an interaction says, "I'm a hugger," I go, "Oh my God, I'm going to love you." Like I am- I'm the same way. I can't stand people that just wanna like touch you on the shoulder, say hello. We're like high five every time. And that communicates to them that there are things that I am selecting for, and you actually are within that category. Now, it is crucial here to... This is not a strategy to fake (laughs) , right? If you're just saying these things and really it's like, no, it's you just have the shape and the look, it's not gonna work nearly as well, um, and it's also, it's just not good for you. You're gonna wind up in a relationship that sucks. And then the last piece is sexual tension, and I think this is the part that is probably most uncomfortable for a lot of guys, is being able to sit in a sexually tense scenario, which might be lingering on eye contact with someone, interaction with a smirk on your face. It might be dancing close without having to crack a joke. Uh, being able to manage that sexual tension, while sometimes we're leaving it with that playful push-pull stuff, is- is... does not come natural (laughs) to most people. They try to escape it as soon as they feel it, and therefore they're never building any sort of intrigue.
- CWChris Williamson
Sitting with that discomfort's hard.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Oh yeah, and it's, it is tense. It's- it's this in-between stage of, "Do you like me? Do I like you? Are we gonna kiss or are we just looking into each other's eyes?" And being able to hold that and enjoy that is something that, uh, we talk about. It takes some time to develop, but there are some things that you can do. So for instance, most people if they go on a date, say you match someone on Tinder or Hinge, they'll go to a bar, they'll sit down on opposite sides of a booth, talk about work, you know, and then they'll, okay, at the end of the night, "Well, hope you had a good time," and there's been no sexual tension built. Versus if you go to the bar, you say, "Hey, let's sit over here." You sit at the bar. While you're communicating with them, you put your hand on their hand. When they make a joke, you say, "I love that." You give them a hug. You know, you'll, you know, hold their- their arm while you're telling a story to demonstrate what somebody did. You are building this sort of, uh, this physical tension between the two of you that gets more and more comfortable and allows for those sort of close, is-it-happening, isn't-it-happening interactions, and you're not putting all the weight from going from zero to 60 with the goodnight kiss at the doorstep, which feels awful and is just an amount of like discomfort that is- that is not fun for anybody to experience. So those are, those are the sort of, the buckets that we, that I think about at least when I'm talking about it. And what I try to ask guys specifically to do, 'cause it's a different scenario with girls, is to think about where they are not, uh, going to the next level. And it's like, "Oh, they're just walking away from me as I start conversation." It's like, "Okay, let's talk about being more interesting in conversation." Or, um, "I've never actually, uh..." You know, "I'm hitting on girls and I'm being fun and interesting, but they have a sense that I'm just a player and they don't wanna talk to me." It's like, "Well, you've got no standards." And then so going through those, uh, using that as a diagnostic tool is- is something that we do.
- CWChris Williamson
I think guys are probably quite fearful about running out of stuff to say as well. Have you got strategies for small talk?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, so uh, one, there's- there's a couple of different videos. In terms of women, uh, specifically in flirting scenarios, this is the hardest things. My- my brain is like this, and you've seen in- in this interaction. I'm a logistical person. I- when you ask me a question, I want to answer it literally.The best thing for small talk is to recognize that, especially on a date or in a bar or club, they just want to vibe. You don't have to have topics, it's not about the family-
- CWChris Williamson
It's not a fucking podcast.
- CHCharlie Houpert
... work. Yeah, it's, (laughs) it's a podcast. It's not supposed to be that. It's supposed to be fun, playful world-building. So, uh, you know, if she says, "Oh my God, like, you went to Jamaica? I studied abroad there." Be like, "Oh my God, fantastic. After this bar, we're going to the airport, we're gonna get on a plane, we're gonna go scuba dive, and we'll be there tomorrow morning. We're gonna have to fund this, so somehow, I don't know, I'm gonna have to take up a job selling loosey cigarettes (laughs) on the street." Whatever, you're just, like, just this playful world-building is a way that men tend not to instinctively communicate, but-
- CWChris Williamson
What do you mean by world-building?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Uh, what I just created was almost an improvisational comedy sce- scenario. Like, "We're going to go here, here's what's going to happen." Obviously none of this is real. This is, this is... I'm definitely not gonna sell loosey cigarettes to fund a plane ride for tomorrow. But when you can build these fake, fun, obviously not real fantasy scenarios that people participate in... And sometimes men do this with their, with their good friends when they're all in a group of people. You know, "That would be like if blah, blah, blah, blah." "Oh my God..." When you do that with women in fun ways, that tends to, uh, set the vibe to be this fun, flirty thing that she can contribute to and say, "Well, we're not gonna stay in the same room tonight." Be like, "Perfect. I'm gonna get a d- I'm, I'm gonna have the penthouse and you can sleep in, you know, the water closet or whatever." (laughs) And then, "No, I don't want to sleep in the water closet." So these, these are the types of things that are ridiculous, that most men would never think about doing in conversation, but that are genuinely fun once you try on this new style of, of conversing. Now, of course, there's still gonna be time for, "What do you do? Where are you from? What's your work?" But especially in a bar/nightclub scenario, which is I think what I'm tending towards more, if you lead with, "Here's my cool job. I work at Goldman Sachs," that's incredibly boring. I can't tell you the number of guys in New York I saw who started by handing out business cards instead of doing this fun stuff first, and then they'll be like, "Who are you? Tell me about yourself." And then at that point, you can go to-
- CWChris Williamson
The Goldman Sachs thing actually comes in as a pattern interrupt and you're like, "Oh, holy fuck. Like, he's actually funny-"
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
"... and interesting and he's prepared to sell loose cigarettes-"
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
"... and he's got a job at an investment bank."
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yes, exactly. And the best way then when you're talking about, you know, "Okay, I work in an investment bank," is to speak to your values. Again, people want to know your vibe and your values, not just the logistics of what you do. So if you say, "I work at Goldman Sachs," a much stronger way is to think, "Well, what drove me?" Hopefully it's not just this sense of greed, but like, you know, "I grew up poor and I always wanted to be able to take care of my mom and family. So like, you know, I don't want to be an investment banker for the rest of my life, but it's helping me to one day buy a house for my mom." Like, that, if, if true, so attractive. So, so much more engaging than, "I'm a banker at Goldman Sachs." So if you're setting a vibe or sharing your values, those are two very strong modes of conversation to be in compared to just answering questions logistically honestly.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. That's an interesting one, man. I, um, I'm interested to find out what you think most men go wrong when approaching women. And if there's girls that are watching, they can put some of their nightmare scenarios down in the comments below as well.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um...
- CHCharlie Houpert
Well, you know, women have a very different understanding of this because they're, when they think what goes wrong with men, they're selecting for the men that have approached them, right? And so they're going, "Oh, they were way too pushy, way too forward. They said this goofy thing. They did some 'are nice guys' stuff where they told me, like, they could be my boyfriend and I'd never have to go cold." The truth is most guys are, are not in that category. They're not walking up to you. They're thinking about it, (laughs) uh, but not doing it, right? So that's, that's by far...
- CWChris Williamson
That's 99.9% of men.
- CHCharlie Houpert
That's 99.9% is not engaging in conversation. Uh, so that's definitely the, the thing that most of them do wrong. Though when women think about what do most men do wrong, they're gonna go to the horror stories of the 0.1% that just come in like complete arrogant asses. Uh, so yeah, it's, it's not... It's disqualifying yourself before, before you've spoken to someone. Uh, and there's 100 different ways to speak to someone, mentalities that can help. But, uh, going in with a vibe of curiosity, and again, flirt with the world. I think one of the things that men do wrong is that they try to be these snipers, which is like these boring people who walk through life not talking to anyone, not engaging with the cashier, and then they're gonna see the most beautiful woman at the bar who is surrounded by people who want to speak to her and they're gonna go, "Now I'm gonna turn it on." That's-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, by the power of Grayskull, they decide to pick up a fucking sword.
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- 59:32 – 1:07:59
How to Add Humour into a Conversation
- CWChris Williamson
uh, how would you say? Misinterpreting, purposefully misinterpreting the question and giving a silly answer, are there some other easy ways that people can add humor into conversations?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah. Um, okay, so how do we add humor into conversations? What I see... I'm, I'm coming back to a lot of the, the same things, which is your initial conversational tracks are going to be totally similar. And they already are totally similar. People say the same things. If you're in college, they want to know what major you have. If they're, if you're in the workforce, they want to know what you do for a living. So having both an answer that is true and reveals your values and a playful answer to a lot of these different things, and you can answer what are the three questions that you get asked the most. Uh, I literally went out and split tested these different things and would just...... you just answer different stuff, uh, uh, at dif- at different times in the nightclub or something like that. So, that is one that you can do because those are just gonna be free gimmes. It's kind of like uncle jokes to think y- the uncle's just prepared for you to say something (laughs) and you have, you have a ready-made response. Uh, in terms of more spontaneous conversational stuff, there's a lot of different types of humor. One of the... Russell Brand is very fast, clever, callback witty. That's tougher to implement. An easy one is to say the opposite, and it sounds dumb, but if it's a super hot day and everyone's bitching about how hot it is, and you go out, you're like, "Shit, man, it's cold out here," I swear to God, you will get a chuckle from people because what, what humor is, in many cases, is just when the unexpected occurs, it causes a chuckle. So, it's not the funniest way to be funny. You know, you can be witty and clever and have interesting callbacks, but saying the opposite is a very easy way to just... to get laughs and chuckles and, and insert humor if you're not. The other thing that I recommend people do, because I do think that it's our brains... I guess, this is more system one, just automatic, is you can prime yourself. So, what... one of... rather than thinking of humor, if I think how I did it, it wasn't by purposely working in, uh, saying the opposite necessarily, it was by watching a lot of Chris Pratt. Before I would go out, I'd just, like, watch 10 minutes, and I'd watch some Step Brothers best-of clips and put myself in that mode of ridiculous non-sequitur statement, and I would just talk about Prestige Worldwide and scr- you know, investors, possibly you (laughs) and point at people and just lift these lines straight out of movies into context that it didn't make any sense, and that actually worked really well because it was... I was enjoying it, I was referencing movies that I had fun with, and I was not taking all of the words that Chris Pratt would say, but his general demeanor was, was coming through. So, yeah, trying to make, like, your fifth-best friend the comedian that you most enjoy and the vibe that you wanna have and just watching them for 10-15 minutes before going into a social interaction was, was actually the way that I did it.
- CWChris Williamson
That's a really cool way to use, like, recency bias to influence because it's ga- n- we can't all be Tim Dillon.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You know? That-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that ability to be (snaps fingers) who I think, actually, now, Tim is, as far as I can see, one of the quickest guys that's doing sort of conversations on this circuit. Like, Tim's the gay Russell Brand at the moment.
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
If you hear him on Rogan, his ability (laughs) , his ability to be unbelievably rapid... Did you see the, uh, most recent Rogan where he said, "Do you think that there's other Epstein islands?" And he's like, "Yeah. Better ones. Hilton's building them now."
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
"There's just slides where the kids go immediately down and they're straight into a furnace."
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And you're like, "Holy fuck, that was off the cuff. That's disgusting."
- CHCharlie Houpert
W- So, there is... I- if you're serious about humor... And again, you don't... With this charisma stuff, uh, storytelling, humor, you don't need to be excellent. You... Truly, the bar is so low. You could say the opposite and you'll be the funniest person in a group of most people, but if you really wanna go deep in humor, improv comedy classes are awesome. I used to take these, uh, these classes, uh, at The PIT in New York and there was one on the West Side in Los Angeles. They train you to... We talked about world building for flirting, like how to structure a thing, create a scene, all that kind of stuff, but the specificity that Tim Dillon is driving into is not... and the tags that he adds to that, right? It's not just, "Oh, yeah, there's better islands." He's got the slide into the furnace. Those are, those are... Uh, there's principles of comedy that guide that, and it takes a long time to be able to do it that quickly, but you can develop that skill through practice and they will teach you almost everything you need to know about that in an improv comedy class if it's, if it's any good. So, that's another thing. Like, if you really wanna be funnier, improv comedy is b- is where I would start.
- CWChris Williamson
Dope. So, other than Russell Brand-
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... who are some of your favorite communicators?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Tony Robbins is excellent, and it's f- it's... The criticism I have is also his strength, is that he has a story for every situation, and it's the type of story that has been split test over 40 years to elicit the most powerful reaction from you. Uh, so he's a fantastic communicator. If y- probably the best person that I can think of for inspiring someone to change in a 20-minute conversation. Like, he can get in there, move your, your motivators around and leave you, and you'll be on a different path. Oprah Winfrey is amazing. She... I... She's before my time but having watched some of her interviews, she just gets people to cry and open up and has... and can do it in front of a studio audience, which is incredible, which th- the fact that she can create this safe... this bubble of safety around her in the chair even when people are watching I think speaks to the power of, of her communication style. Uh, there was a t- I mean, Bill Clinton was incredible back in the day. The stories that you read about Bill Clinton and the way that he would make you feel like the only person in the room, even if you were just in a line of people with whom he was shaking hands. I don't know if you've ever read any of those, but there's several accounts-
- CWChris Williamson
No, what, what were the principles that people, um-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Oh, people-
- CWChris Williamson
... attested that to be?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Y- Yeah, so people don't know. They were just convinced that he wanted to be their friend (laughs) . They were just totally... Like what he said, when he shook their hand, they knew that they had a moment with him and that they were the most important person there. And so, I can't find-
- CWChris Williamson
And everybody thought that?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yes (laughs) . I can't find footage of this. Um, I see- I've seen some, but there's not a ton of footage that I've been able to dig up. I've been trying to go, "What is that?" But from what I can see, it's that he... He's from the South. He's slow, he's a little bit more deliberate, and he will spend more time with people, and also made it a point every day to study people's names, would remember the name of every single person, such that if he shook your hand at the beginning of a fundraiser and learned two things about you, he had trained his memory at the end to be like, "And by the way, I hope your son gets into UT," and you know, would, would say the two things that you spoke about back to you. Eh, that is, again, extremely powerful. Takes practice. Like, he literally would work on the names of people apparently in the Oval Office that he had met and refresh himself on that kind of stuff.
- CWChris Williamson
There's a story about Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager for a very long time. And he had a period when he first joined the club and he needed to get the players on side. I feel like he joined in turmoil or something that there was... It was a little bit of a, a high pressure situation and he, he really, really needed to get all of the players on side really, really quickly. And he went round and was talking to one particular player and said, "Look, you are the most important player on the pitch today. It is all about you." And then it only took until the end of the season for the lads to start talking to each other and find out that he'd said that to every single fucking one of them.
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs) Yeah. And I think that was the power of Bill Clinton is that he never had to say it, so they could never check it with anyone else.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
It was just this sense that... And, you know, that's the hack, is you just lie to people. Uh, but he really did take the time to make people feel special, which is, which is impressive. Uh, and then one more that comes to mind is Kevin Hart. He... I think Kevin Hart is five foot two and hangs out with basketball players that are seven foot two. And you can watch... There, there is an innate power differential when you're standing like this to speak to someone. That cannot be avoided. But he so quickly takes control of these groups of, like, boisterous basketball players such that he has them listening to what he's saying and they're reacting to hi- his topics of conversation and his jokes. He is incredible. And whenever people point to, like, "I'm too short for this," I always point 'em back to, to Kevin Hart. (laughs) Like, "Look, I don't know how many people in your life are two feet taller than you, but this guy is capable of, uh, hanging with Shaq and making Shaq and all of his friends love him, so he's got something special as well."
- CWChris Williamson
Did you see
- 1:07:59 – 1:12:52
Ben Shapiro & The Problem with Modern Debating
- CWChris Williamson
that video of Shapiro doing a debate and this guy comes up and asks a question and says, "Why is it that you say on your Wikipedia that you're 5'10" when you're 5'4"?" And Shapiro immediately goes, "How tall are you?" And he goes, "5'10"." He goes, "Okay, come up here." Comes up and stands up and Ben's taller than him. Dude, it's so fucking funny.
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs) I haven't seen it.
- CWChris Williamson
That shit is so fucking funny. You need to, you need to check it out. It's so good.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Oh, God. That's like, that's like, um... I mean, that's a bold move by Shapiro because he didn't know what that guy was gonna say in response, and that guy just flubbed it. Just tell the truth, man. (laughs) Just say how tall you are.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) So fucking... Or, I mean, on the topic, Shapiro's phenomenal. Like he's one of the quickest guys. He genuinely is like listening to something at one-and-a-half times speed, uh, but-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah. I can't, I can't listen to him faster than that-
- CWChris Williamson
... at normal, at normal time speed.
- CHCharlie Houpert
... on YouTube. It's (laughs) ... You have to-
- CWChris Williamson
No, it's impossible.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Most people can do it two.
- CWChris Williamson
(blowing raspberries)
- CHCharlie Houpert
And one-and-a-half, one-and-a-half.
- CWChris Williamson
(blowing raspberries)
- CHCharlie Houpert
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(blowing raspberries) But he is quick.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, yeah. Um, no, I haven't... So I've looked at his communication style and I do think he is obviously very smart. Uh, I watch him and I did a video on his debate tactics. I th- I think that because he is a public debater, he, he has been trained to go for the dunk. You know what I mean? Like, that's a, that's a dunk. He didn't address the question. He didn't, uh, handle it logically. He dunked and in discrediting the person who asked the question, won the social, uh, approval of the crowd. So when I watch him, I, I see a lot... Oftentimes more, not necessarily sound logic, which he may have as well at his disposal, but shortcut dunk tactics to, to discredit the other side, make them look foolish, et cetera.
Episode duration: 1:42:30
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