Saturday, March 31, 2012

Do you have to know what you're talking about to be persuasive?

Sometimes, when I'm doing my couple of miles around the trails, I forget to plug in my tunes and so I find myself wondering about this and that.

Like today for instance. As I regretted wearing my long pants instead of my shorts I recalled during the course of my life that some people are naturally charismatic.

Like you do, when contemplating trousers.

They attract attention just by walking in the room (charismatic people, not trousers) and even if they don't know what they're talking about, they seem to ooze an authoritativeness that is hard to resist.
You just find yourself wanting to believe what they say, while you drift to their corner.

Some people are sticklers for the facts.
If they aren't naturally persuasive, and they're up against a charismatic person in an argument in a room full of people, they pretty much won't stand a chance.
Facts by themselves rarely seem to cut it.
And nobody else ever remembers them anyway.

When someone believes wholeheartedly in what they say it adds conviction to their point of view, regardless of the facts.

So who's more persuasive?
A: The charismatic character with great conviction who is dead wrong based on the facts?
B: Or the whiney factually correct person who happens to be right?



The ideal I suppose is A+B minus whiney=unstoppable

Of course this charisma effect requires people actually talking together in person.
So then I wondered this...

Does the digital age level the charisma playing field, as more interactions are perceived purely in the narrative voice inside the head of the reader (not including tv or teleconferencing)?

And is it possible to 'learn' charisma? Can it be faked? Or is it just a quality that is inborn and impossible to develop from scratch later?


What makes some people just expect to be listened to, and they are, because it's always been that way for them?

Next time I'm taking my headphones.

Oh, and since this is technically an art blog, here's a couple of pics of 'The Dreamer'...
Steve Worthington 'The Dreamer' 5.5" tall - Bronze winged elephant in Rodin's 'Thinker' pose

Steve Worthington 'The Dreamer' 5.5" tall - Bronze winged elephant in Rodin's 'Thinker' pose




Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

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