Why is Charisma important?

Many years ago I had a go at being an actor. I had some small parts in telly like Tales of The Unexpected and many great parts in the theatre. But if the truth is told, no one’s ever heard of me. So don’t rack your brains. But after years of being a psychologist and operational research scientist, I wanted to see what it was like to communicate with people rather than with rats in a maze. I saw this open audition for Hair – the 70’s tribal rock musical and I thought “hey an actors life for me. Can’t be that hard”. I remember lining up with the hundreds of wanna bee’s and going over my Shakespeare. Finally I was there. Standing on this huge stage. I couldn’t see a thing because the lights were so powerful. Right in your face. Peeering into the gloom I said “hullo my name is Garth and I’d like to do a piece from…

“STOP… Can you please just stand silently for a few moments?”

So I jsut stood there holding my breath thinking they’ll soon have my papers in order and be with me. But the seconds ticked past. Minutes went by. And what seemed like hours, untill I’d had enough. I said “are you still there?”

“Yeah… we’re still here” came a bored voice from the darkness. Oh my God I thought. They don’t want to know about my Shakespeare piece they want to know about ME. Suddenly I feel a bead of sweat dribble down the side of my face. My throat’s going dry. I can feel my heart pounding. My right leg is shaking like I’d got Parkinson’s. In a dream I hear the three words all actors hate “Thank you. Next.”

I stumble out of the theatre. Can’t believe it. I’ve been lecturing to hundreds of graduates, running encounter groups, presenting to senior management… what the hell’s going on? There were no tigers on the stage, no pit full of snakes. Nobody asked me to do anything. They just asked me to stand there silently.

It took me days before I could put my psychologist hat on and try to analyse this experience. In those days there was nothing to help me. Nothing about confidence, nothing about positive psychology, nothing about emotional intelligence…The only thing that made any sense was talking to some actor friends. They said what I had was a bad bout of stage fright. From then on I decided to give up my job, go to drama school and understand and conquor stage fright.