The Charisma Coach

By: Teresa Chin

Narrated by: Nicky Barber

Steve Jobs had it. George Clooney has it. So does Don Draper. Charisma is intangible but powerful - the personality trait that's used to win friends and influence people.

Olivia Fox Cabane wasn't born with it. She was a high-school outcast in a country where she didn't fit in, a socially awkward teenager baffled by the nuance of social interactions. But she was also an analytical thinker. After high school, she found ways to reverse engineer her own shortcomings. And she was so successful that business executives now pay her to do the same to them.

Cabane combines the usual self-help spiel with a dose of science, but do her claims stand up to scrutiny? And what does her success tell us about charisma? In an in-depth analysis of the woman who teaches technology power brokers to be more human, writer Teresa Chin examines the science of charisma, and asks exactly why Silicon Valley needs a charisma coach in the first place.

©2013 Matter Publishing Inc (P)2013 Matter Publishing Inc