10 Charisma Lessons I Wish I Knew Coming To College

When I first came to college, I was an insecure, video game-addicted, uncharismatic 17-year-old.

I grew up in a small rural town and had the same group of video gamer friends since I was ten years old. So coming to college, I had no idea how to form long-term intimate friendships. As a result, much of my first semester of college was a story of loneliness and aimlessness.

However, now that I'm in my fifth semester of college, I'm happy to say I have formed a diverse group of deep friends, have a girlfriend of 8 months, am doing stand up regularly, been part of a SKITS Comedy group, and am part of the Speech And Debate Club at Cornell.

How did I make this transformation?

In addition to spending more time in college, I have read countless charisma books like How To Win Friends and Influence People, Storyworthy, The Art of Witty Banter, and more, as well as taken courses like Charisma University by Charlie Houpert.

Along my journey, I have learned 10 charisma lessons I wish I knew when first coming to college. I will share them with you in this article in the hopes that you don't make the same mistakes I did.

Here are the 10 tips:

Charisma Is A Skill
As You Change, Your Friends Might Change
First Impressions Matter... A Lot
Find Friends In Places That Will Likely Resonate With You
Actively Listen
Humor is A Skill You Can Build
Conversation Is About Relation
Learn To Tell Good Stories
To Come True To Others, You Must First Come True To Yourself
Confidence Is Something You Do, Not Something You Feel

Make sure to read until the end because I share my best lesson then!

1. Charisma Is A Skill

Before coming to college, I believed charisma was some God-given right.

You are born with it, or you aren't.

Now I realize that charisma, like tennis and soccer, is a skill. You can become incredibly charismatic by reading books, taking courses, analyzing charismatic people, and applying your learnings. This mindset shift translated charisma, a soft skill, into a hard skill.

I made charisma concrete.

Here are some of the best resources I consumed along my Charisma journey that turned it into a hard skill:

Dale Carnegie How To Win Friends and Influence People
The Art of Witty Banter
Charisma on Command The Book
Charisma On Command The Course
Charisma On Command The YouTube Channel (Can you tell I like Charisma On Command? lol)
Plays Well With Others
Influence The Psychology Of Persuasion
Storyworthy
Made To Stick

Every social situation is a chance to get your reps in to build your charisma abilities.

Like your reps in the gym build your strength, your reps in social situations build your charisma.

Before we go any further, don't make the same mistake I did building my charisma skills.

I remember during my second semester at Cornell, I was sitting with an old friend of mine, Mason, and his friend John in one of the dining halls. As I was talking to John, I used every trick in the book from How To Win Friends and Influence People. I remembered his name and used it throughout the conversation; I actively listened, I showed genuine interest by asking many questions, and I told him how much I appreciated his interest in X. At one point when I was about to ask another question, John stopped me midsentence and asked, "have you read How To Win Friends and Influence People?"

"Maybeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...." I responded.

"It shows."

So with everything you consume from this point onward, realize they are general principles, not rules to live by. If you apply charisma tips too rigidly they came make you come across as robotic.

2. As You Change, Your Friends Might Change

College is one of the periods in which you will change most.

You're interacting with new people, new courses, new clubs, new brands of peanut butter. You uncovering who you are. Because of this, you should be aware that as you change, your friends might change.

Just like there are seasons of your life there are seasons for friends.

Million-dollar business owner and YouTuber Alex Hormozi sees friends as a very transactional relationship. If his friends he's giving his friends more than they are giving him for too long, he drops them.

The most important thing he looks for in a friend is they support his vision for himself.

If they try to bring you down or mold you into a version of yourself that they want, they aren't your friend.

Importantly, dropping friends shouldn't be seen as an evil thing to do. It's a recognition that you have changed, and they might have not or changed in a different direction that doesn't vibe with yours.

That way, it's not burning a bridge but rather burning a tree.

During my first semester at Cornell, I had a 14-person friend group. I found them on the first day of orientation because we were all together at that night's party. We did everything during the first month together.

But as things got busier, we stopped seeing each other as much.

One day, about two months into the semester, we got everyone back together for a dinner at RPCC.

I was so excited; I was hoping it would be just like that first week when we met and did everything together. But when we sat down, and I tried to enter a conversation, one by one, each person went on their phones and scrolled through Tik Tok. No matter what I did, they just went back to scrolling.

This kept happening at subsequent hangouts.

I came to realize this group of friends, while not evil, wasn't for me.

My idea of hanging out didn't include passively scrolling through Tik Tok. Understanding that there are seasons to friendships helped me realize this and find new friends that resonated with me more.

If you would like to learn more about how to cultivate fantastic friendships, check out my article Beyond Likes And Follows How To Create Deep Friendships In College To Combat Loneliness.

3. First Impressions Matter... A Lot

Our first impressions can be prone to confirmation bias.

Our first impressions of people are quite accurate, but if we aren't careful, they can dominate how we see that person in subsequent interactions. This is because our first impressions cause us to look for information which confirms that impression. After making our first impressions, whether in person or through the rating of someone, we are more prone to emphasize information that confirms our first impression of that person.

That's why we must learn to make a good first impression:

According to Charlie Houpert in Charisma University, there are four things we must build to have an excellent first impression.

Uplifting positivity
Feeling of trust
Respect
Showing Genuine Interest

How do you build each of these?

How to build uplifting positivity:

Shake people's hands and look people in the eye when first meeting them.
Greet them with more energy than you normally do. They ask how you are, you respond, "PHENOMENAL!" Be excited.
Smile more.

How to build feelings of trust:

Look people in the eye.
Touch them. Hugging or playful tapping after a joke. (be more mindful if they are of the opposite sex)
Have open body language

How to build respect:

This comes with being genuinely interesting to talk to. You have a mix of interests, stories, and other things that makes you fun to talk to.
Respect is contextual. You might have respect inside of your friend group but not with a business executive.

Build genuine interest:

Just be genuinely interested in the other person lol.

4. Find Friends In Places They Will Likely Resonate With You

If you are infatuated with board and video games, it doesn't make sense to look for your best friends in a dining hall or party.

Yet this is exactly what a lot of people do when looking for their friends.

Find friends in places where they are likely to resonate with you.

I encourage you to write a list of things that you are passionate about right now. Here is my list:

Board Games
Video Games
Public Speaking
Psychology
Personal Knowledge Management
Content Creation
And way more...

Once I dropped my first 14-person friend group, I took the things I was passionate about and looked for friends who would likely have those passions.

I looked for friends in the board game club, the speech and debate club, on Twitter, and through online cohort courses like the Part-Time YouTuber Academy, The Linking Your Thinking Workshop, and my psychology classes.

5. Actively Listen

Epictetus once said you have two ears and one mouth so that you can listen twice as much as you speak.

It's great advice because most of us, including old me, are terrible active listeners. This sucks because it goes against one of the four variables of making a good first impression, showing genuine interest. Most people like talking about themselves.

I wish I had spent twice as much time listening than talking when first coming to college.

However, there is one caveat to this advice: it doesn't work for people that already get lots of attention.

Really hot girls, superiors, rich people, professors, etc. They receive so much genuine interest all the time that actively listening to yourself isn't going to go as far as with someone else. So to stick out to these people at college, you need to be interested in yourself. Break their patterns.

Give them a reason to listen to YOU rather than someone else that is showing genuine interest.

This could be through being funny, coming to your professor with an interesting question, or something else.

6. Humor Is A Skill You Can Build

I used to be dead unfunny; my jokes would kill people because they were so bad.

In high school, most of my jokes revolved around crappy League of Legends trash talk. Once I got to college and was put in a different context, I was metaphorically slapped in the face by how bad my jokes were. By my second year of college, I became known as a funny person.

How did I do it?

Like charisma, we tend to think of humor as some god-given talent.

But just like charisma, weightlifting, and speed-eating peanut butter, we can become funnier by getting in the reps. In my second year of college, I joined a SKITS comedy group, started doing stand-up, and joined several public speaking groups. I read books, analyzed comedians, and slowly but surely became known as a funny person.

The most important lesson I learned is that 80% of humor is just understanding, memorizing, and applying humor first principles. The last 20% comes with integrating them together and creating your own humor style. So by learning the most important humor principles and applying them, you can become vastly funnier without a massive amount of effort.

Here are some examples of humor's first principles:

Things are funny because they violate some norm but are benign enough not to be too serious and not to laugh at
Hyperboles
Contrast. Two things that don't fit next to each other
The rule of three
Weird accents
Describe normal things in a weird way
Bodily motions
Commit to your joke a little longer than you think
Call back to a previous joke
Have joke themes that you can come back again and again to

All of these things are examples of humor's first principles.

If I was in college again, I would try my hardest to learn and apply these by reading and watching comedy and then doing it in a medium like stand-up or a comedy group.

7. Conversation Is About Relation

To understand what a bad conversation is like, let me take you to my first party at Cornell.

I was a Freshman 17-year-old going to a party alone. As soon as I walked into the frat house, I was blasted with loud music, flashing lights, and tons of strangers. Frantically I searched the room for a friendly face and made my way to one guy in a white t-shirt standing at the back.

"Hey, I'm Aidan. What's your name and major?"

"Jack, Philosophy. What's your major?"

"Psychology. Where are you from?"

"Missouri, you?"

"Hamilton, New York..."

...

We stood awkwardly for what felt like an eternity... eventually, I broke the deathly silence by excusing myself to the bathroom.

That was the conversation; that was it.

So what was so bad about this conversation? The problem is that we answered each other's questions too objectively. When we asked about our majors and where we were from, we answered in one word each.

Great conversation is about relationships.

Let me tell you a secret: you don't have to answer another person's question flat out. You can have a little fun with it. Go in a different direction, add a little PIZAZZZZ!

For example, the two most common questions you will get in college are:

What's your major?
Where are you from?

When people ask this, they aren't really asking what your major is or where you are from; they are asking, tell me something interesting about why you chose your major or where you are from.

Big difference.

When I realized this, I pre-scripted some ideas for what to say when I get questions like those:

Where are you from?
I'm from the middle of nowhere if the middle of nowhere had a middle of nowhere. I'm from Hamilton, New York, a super rural cow country, but I love it because it taught me to appreciate small things.
I'm from the forest. I'm from Hamilton, New York, a super rural cow country, but I love it because it taught me to appreciate small things.
I was raised by wolves. I'm from Hamilton, New York, a super rural cow country, but I love it because it taught me to appreciate small things.
What's your major?
I'm in psychology because I'm fascinated by peering into the deepest darkest secrets of people's minds.
I used to be a Chemistry major but had a horrible Chem teacher and switched to Psychology.

Notice how these answers have so many more conversational threads, avenues through which conversation can go down.

The first answer could lead us to discussing rural life, cows, appreciating the small things, humor, and more. That's so much better than a one-word response. Please stop reading and write your answers to these two questions. I'm serious. Only 5% of you will actually do it, but the 5% that do will upgrade their charisma game in a super short amount of time.

Try them out over the next few days and watch your conversations become so much better.

The best part is this applies to all conversations.

All conversation is relation.

Give people more conversational threads they can go down in any conversation, and it will go better.

8. Learn To Tell Good Stories

Stories are universal across cultures and one of the best ways to connect with someone.

So it's imperative that you learn how to tell good stories. Before coming to college, I was much like most people. I told stories like this: summary of what happens in the story ruining all suspense + series of major points connected with ands and lots of interruptions from uninterested listeners + overly long ending that diminishes the climax.

You probably know the drill by now. To get better, I read books, took courses, and applied my insights to the stories I tell friends, family, and you inside of this blog post.

Telling better stories could be multiple articles, so I will point you to some of the best resources I used to upgrade my storytelling and my best tip to make yourself better than 95% of storytellers.

Here's the tip: start your stories with a location and an action.

I remember during my second semester at Cornell, I was sitting with an old friend of mine, Mason, and his friend John in one of the dining halls.
I was a Freshman 17-year-old going to a party alone. As soon as I walked into the frat house, I was blasted with loud music, flashing lights, and tons of strangers.
I'm walking to McDonalds in New York City when...

Starting your stories with this allows the listener to paint a movie of the story in their minds. Instantly they are drawn more into your story. It's one of the easiest things to implement, and yet almost nobody does it.

To learn more, check out my best resources on storytelling:

Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks
Made To Stick
The Moth Podcast
2 Simple Frameworks That Will Make You a Better Storyteller

9. To Come True To Others, You Must First Come True To Yourself

"This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." —William Shakespeare

To come across as true in your relationships, you must first come true to yourself.

Without understanding yourself, you can't come across as genuine in your relationships. This is because you will come to your relationships craving or wanting to hide your insecurities. You might use your relationships as a distraction, or you might try and force them to change as a way to validate your self.

This is exactly what I did with my first 14-person friend group at Cornell.

They didn't resonate with me as people.

But I continued to stay with them nonetheless. I was scared of what others would think of me if I didn't have a group of friends at Cornell. I believed they weren't right for me, but my actions were I kept seeing them nonetheless. I didn't have integrity because my beliefs and actions didn't align, and therefore, I didn't have confidence.

How can you come true to yourself?

There are so many ways: journaling, meditation, yoga, building a business...

My personal favorite method is doing daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly reviews. If you want to check out how I do this, read my blog post, How I Create My Best Life With Regular Reviews In Obsidian.

10. Confidence Is Something You Do, Not Something You Feel

This was one of the most lifechanging lessons I learned: Confidence isn't something you feel; it's something you do.

One of the biggest lessons I ever learned is you can build confidence simply by changing your body posture and mindset.

Studies show that if you put a smile on your face, you will naturally feel happier as a side effect. So don't hunch up and tighten if you feel fear. Open wide and stand tall. Tony Robbinson's best tip for building confidence is to psych yourself up before going into a tough social setting by remembering a time you were extremely confident and embodying that feeling by getting loose and saying out loud what you felt like during that moment. Yes, I have indeed stood on a public street in Singapore and shouted "I'M A GOD!" before entering a Muay Thai Gym.

All in all, there are 10 charisma lessons I wish I had known coming to college:

Charisma Is A Skill
As You Change Your Friends Might Change
First Impressions Matter... A Lot
Find Friends In Places That Will Likely Resonate With You
Actively Listen
Humor is A Skill You Can Build
Conversation Is About Relation
Learn To Tell Good Stories
To Come True To Others, You Must First Come True To Yourself
Confidence Is Something You Do, Not Something You Feel

I hope these lessons help you become more charismatic in your own college interactions.

If you implement even a couple of these in your first semester, you will be ahead of 99% of students.