by Brett & Kate McKay

July 28, 2009

[This article was originally published on the website ArtOfManliness.com and draws heavily from my book Win The Crowd. I think everyone should read it.]

We’ve probably all seen those men who can enter any room and instantly command it. I’m not talking about the loud and boisterous dolt who makes a scene with obnoxious alpha-male jackassery. I’m talking about the man who exudes a silent magnetic charisma that electrifies the entire room just by his presence. People feel better when this type of man is around and they want to be near him.

The benefits of being able to walk into any social situation and completely own it are innumerable. The man who can command a room is more persuasive in his business presentations, easily meets and makes friends, and attracts more women. While many men are born with the ability to charismatically command a room, it can also be learned. Below we’ve provided a few tips to get you started on being El Capitan of any social or professional situation.

Walk in boldly. Many men walk into a room timidly because they don’t want to appear presumptions or self-important. While you shouldn’t barge into people’s home, once you’re invited in, walk in with a bit of pep in your step. You’re supposed to be there, so act like it.

Theodore Roosevelt was a master at walking into a room boldly. In 1881, Roosevelt was elected to the New York Assembly at the age of 23. Accounts from fellow assemblymen on Roosevelt’s first day in office all describe the impressive entrance of the young man. They recall him bursting through the doors and pausing just for a moment so people could soak him in. According to historian Edmund Morris, this became a lifelong habit of Roosevelt’s; he would literally bound from room to room in the White House. Take a lesson from TR: save the walking softly business for your rhetoric.

Hold your breath when you walk in. Win the Crowd author and Magician to the Millionaires Steve Cohen has a trick that he does before we walks onto a stage or into room to perform. Before he makes his appearance, he takes a deep breath, filling all of his lungs. He then holds his breath and walks into the room. As he talks, the air is naturally exhaled. This simple action increases blood to your face and makes you look “more radiant and lively,” and consequently more confident.  In addition, taking a deep breath and holding it also makes you taller, which brings us to our next point….

Stand up straight! Numerous studies have proven that people are attracted to taller men. Taller men get paid more and they get more women. Unfortunately, not all of us were born with Shaq-like height. Don’t sweat it. Just work with what you got. Work on improving your posture. When you enter a room, don’t walk in with shoulders slouched and your head facing down like a whipped puppy. Show your confidence by walking in with your back straight and your chin up. Try not to stick your chest out too much or else it will look like you’re posturing like a silverback gorilla. Just maintain your natural and correct posture. By doing this, you’ll add inches to your frame and increase your presence in the room.

Take control of your surroundings. We feel most self-assured and at ease when we’re familiar with our surroundings. Familiarity gives us a sense of control, which makes us feel confident. How can you be familiar with a room if it’s your first time entering it? Steve Cohen suggests doing small things to instantly take control of your surroundings. For example, when you sit down at a table in a restaurant, rearrange things on the table. Move a saltshaker or your water glass. It sounds silly, but by doing this you tell your subconscious that you have control (even if it’s nominal) of your surroundings, which in turns makes you more confident and magnetic. Look for small but polite ways in which you can take control of your surroundings in your everyday activities. You might be amazed by the results.

Make eye contact. Every book on self-confidence or assertiveness will tell you that a simple way to increase your presence in a room and your connection with other people is to look them in the eye. The reason it’s repeated ad nauseam is because it works. Eye contact is key to creating a connection with people. History’s most magnetic men all had the ability of making a person feel like they were the only person there. Bill Clinton is a perfect example of this. Adroit use of eye contact is an essential part of this ability.

Eye contact should be engaging, but not overbearing. Don’t stare a person down non-stop. You’ll just creep them out. Look into their eyes, while occasionally flitting yours to the sides of their head and then back. If you have trouble looking people in the eye, try this tip. Take notice of what color eyes the person you’re talking with has. Are they green? Blue? Brown? Or do they have a unique mix? Not only does this help maintain eye contact with people, it’s also a great way to remember people’s names.  After taking note of a person’s eye color, start associating that color with their name. You’ll gain bonus charisma points for being able to recall their name during the conversation.

Eliminate filler words. A nervous tick that plagues many men is filling the space between their words with needless “ummms,” “yeah’s” and “like’s.” Using filler words is not only distracting, it shows that you’re not confident in what you’re saying. If you’re going to say something, say it with ganas, hombre! Don’t muddle up the conversation with needless filler.

But what should you do in those moments when you’re still collecting your thoughts as you speak? Our natural tendency is to fill the air with an “uuumm” or a quick blast of several “likes.”  But fight the urge to do this. Instead embrace the silence. As you come to moments in the conversation where you have to collect your thoughts, just keep your mouth shut. This does two things. First, you eliminate the distraction of the annoying filler words. Second, and more importantly, you draw people in closer to you by creating anticipation in what you’re about to say. By remaining silent, you pique the curiosity of your listener and subtly take control of the situation. Of course, avoid too many long pauses; that will only make you seem awkward.

Focus on other people. If there’s anything you take away from this article, let it be this. If you really want to be the man in the room that people are drawn to, focus your interest on them. Many men have the false idea that if you want to command the room, you have to make everything about you. These misguided souls wear flashy jewelry or skin tight clothing that shows off their well-chiseled body. Their conversation focuses on them- their cars, their bench press, their sexual exploits, etc. While a few pinheads will be impressed with this sort of thing, the vast majority of the population will think it’s a bunch crap.

The reality is that the magnetic gentleman-the man who can walk into any room and own it- is others focused. People want to feel loved, appreciated, and important. Sadly, many people these days aren’t feeling much of that. Perhaps their boss never compliments them or their wife never voices any appreciation for all that they do. If you can fill that void in people’s lives by focusing on them and acknowledging their importance, you’ll instantly bring them under your magnetic influence.

Think back to a time when someone genuinely complimented you. How did you feel? Pretty damn good, probably. How did you feel about the person giving the compliment? Admit it. You most likely thought, “Wow, I really like this guy!” It’s only human nature. We’re drawn to people who show an interest in us. People are like mirrors. When we shine a light on a person, they reflect that light back on us. If we shine a light on every person in the room, we end up being the brightest man there.

So, next time you enter a room, forget being charming. Hell, forget about commanding the room. Just focus on how you can make others feel important. The charm and the room will follow naturally.

If its Vegas-style magic you prefer—in the Criss Angel-vein—Cohen’s understated approach might not be to your liking. There are no special pyrotechnical effects, no lasers, no loud rock music with bands that have umlauts in their title; all that stands between the audience and Cohen is a few feet and a silver dollar, a tea kettle, or a single pack of cards.

VF Daily talked with Cohen during a rare lull in his performance schedule—close to 350 a year—about the history of salon magic, the connection between certain tricks and the internet, and where this ancient art might just be headed.

VF Daily: One of the refreshing things about your show is how understated it is.

Steve Cohen: There was a magician in the 1870s, in Vienna, Austria, named Johann Hofzinser who did exactly the type of show that I’m doing now, which is a salon show. Hofzinser performed for the upper-crust of society in Vienna. The audiences would attend a magic show in the same way that they would go out to the opera or to a ballet.

It worked in the 19th century because there were no distractions—such as television. What I realized was, Wouldn’t it be wonderful to re-create that world? And I found that audiences haven’t changed that much over the years. Magicians may think that they need to put up pyrotechnics in order to bring magic into the 21st century, but, in fact, audiences have been very consistent with what they want. You can watch something as simple as a card trick and it’s still as effective as listening to a Mozart sonata. It still resonates—perhaps more so, because I’m performing these tricks right in front of the audiences’ eyes.

I’m assuming you could sell more tickets to these shows, but that you choose to keep the salon atmosphere.

It’s the law of diminishing returns. If you have more people, you can make more money. On the other hand, you would also disappoint people in the back row who would think, I can’t see what’s going on.

There is no barrier between me and the audience. Without the audiences, the show could never happen. Nearly every single person is involved with my show.

Do you follow the old axiom that all audiences are created equal?

Absolutely not. You get some audiences where, the moment they walk into the room, they are pre-sold and they want to see a great show and they want to be taken on a ride. And yet there are audiences that are just filled with skeptical people—and these people tend to be scientists and engineers. I once performed in front of Carl Sagan and other astrophysicists, some of the smartest minds on the planet, and they would not crack a smile. They were upset. They figured that there had to be a rationale for the magic, which they couldn’t figure out.

Do you have any idea why more men than women are into magic?

It’s that power thing. Maybe the magic wand is an extension of something, if you know what I mean. But, surprisingly, some of the very first magicians, going back to ancient times, were women. Ancient shamans were often women. This would be in Europe and in Greece and Asia, and also in Native American societies. Remember, too, that the act of birth is one of the greatest magic acts that exists.

When women were using their will and their wands to act as shamans, there were clearly many followers. Their whole tribe believed in them because they saw that women were certainly able to create something from nothing. That’s what magic is in many ways—creating something from nothing.

It later became a male art-form, with wizards like Merlin coming into literature. Today, there are maybe a handful of women who are professional magicians. In many ways it’s a shame, because it would be wonderful to see a woman not acting as an assistant being cut in half, but doing the cutting herself. I actually despise the magician-in-tuxedo and woman-assistant-in-bikini dichotomy.

It’s degrading.It is definitely degrading to women. Within the industry, these female assistants are called “box hoppers.” It’s an awful phrase and I never deem to use it, but that’s what they’re called.

I try to treat everyone equally. I treat not only the magic with respect, but the audiences, too.

I’ve always wondered what the link is between comedy and humor. Why do you think so many famous comedians—Steve Martin, Woody Allen, Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett—started off in magic?

There’s a whole tradition of people in the arts who have been also involved in the magic when they were young: Orson Welles and Danny Kaye, to name two of my personal heroes.

I think magic in itself is inherently funny; it will make you laugh simply because of the shock value. Let’s face it: magic is not that hysterical. But audiences laugh almost as a defense mechanism. If I make a brick appear out of nowhere, everyone laughs. That’s not necessarily a funny moment; it’s more of a shocking moment. But our first response is to deal with that tension by laughing.

So, I think that the reason comics and humorists and magicians have a kinship is simply because we are all able to achieve that shock moment—whether it’s a punch-line or a visual punch-line. Both, in the end, give the audience a disconnect for a moment.

How many hours are spent practicing the tricks that you perform in your show?

I’ll put it this way: the show itself is my life work. I will be thirty-eight this year, and I have been imagining it since I was six. So, in a sense, that’s thirty-two years of practice. But to be specific, I add one new item every two years. Some of these tricks take that long to develop, to make them look as good as they can get.

Where do you learn these tricks? From other magicians? From books?

I typically read books from about two hundred years ago. There are some wonderful old volumes written on magic. I’ll rework or retool these old tricks. The tricks aren’t spelled out, but that’s where the ingenuity comes in. Did you see the movie The Illusionist with Ed Norton? Remember that workshop where he invented tricks? That’s sort of what I do. I work out these tricks and then practice them a tremendous amount—usually in the very venue where I will later perform them.

I wanted to talk to you about one trick that I found particularly astonishing. Five audience members write down their favorite drinks. You then produce these drinks from out of a small kettle. The night I attended, the drinks were a martini, a Manhattan, a cosmopolitan, a cup of coffee, and orange/mango juice.

That trick is called “Think a Drink,” and it was invented by a man named Charles Hoffman in the thirties. He used to tell audiences, “Okay, name any drink you like,” and he was doing this in front of five hundred people. He would say, “Oh! I think I heard someone call out malt whiskey!” He would end the trick by exclaiming, “Oh! Here is the malt whiskey” and he would hand out this drink.

When I read about this, I thought, What a great trick, and yet what a poor method! I felt, Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have people name specific drinks and then have them taste and confirm right away that that was what they had requested? And that’s what I set out to do.

It’s really the moment of the show when I most feel like Harry Potter.

I’ve never understood why people would want to know how a trick is performed. The real genius is in creating these tricks, not in giving away the methods.

Correct. As soon as you know the secret to a magic trick, it’s a big let down. I am not going to say that all magic secrets are simple, because many of them are not; many of them take incredible amounts of ingenuity. But there is a beauty in that simplicity.

And yet I’m assuming that many interviewers ask how your tricks are performed.

I always get that question and my answer is that I never entertain that question.

Is it harder to perform some of these tricks now in the Internet age compared with twenty, fifty, one hundred years ago?

That’s a great question. I often have a feeling that the young people in the audience are expecting a Criss Angel-type of a show; something rapid-fire, non-stop, music blasting. But that type of performance is entirely 180 degrees opposite of mine. It sometimes takes me a while to capture the attention of the younger people because their attention spans are so short. It takes a little time for them to understand that this is going to be an old fashioned show, and that they are going to have to pay attention.

Where do you see magic headed? Is it going in the direction of Criss Angel or in the direction of the salon?

My own goal, on a personal level, is to help audiences see that magic doesn’t need to be something that appears fake. It can be as simple as a trick done right in front of your eyes, with a single pack of cards.

From out of that simplicity can emerge great complexity and wonder.