Create Energy Everywhere By David Wygant

This blog is part of a live coaching from London with a client. Hopefully these exchanges with my client will give you an idea of my coaching style. Consider it a sneak peek into what I do when I am coaching clients and leading bootcamps!


Robert: How do you energize yourself?

David: You can do it. Take breaks. How do you have charisma? You have charisma because you don’t need it for long stretches of time. Think about this: the biggest excuse that people always tell me is, “but David, I don’t have your charisma!” Yes you do! I don’t have my charisma!

If you see me when I’m walking around, sometimes walking in the street, I’m just zoning out! I’m not thinking about meeting women on the street – that’s a low-probability meeting. What are you going to do, say hello? – which I do, that takes no energy. If they have a nice dog, I’ll pet the dog – it doesn’t take much energy to do that. I’m saving my energy for when I’m on stage.

So when I go into Whole Foods, or I go into a restaurant, or a retail store, I’ve been saving my energy for that moment. When I walk in, I turn on my charisma. I walk in and I realize, I’m going to be in this store for five minutes or less, and I have one chance to make a first impression.

So I’m going to walk into that store and I’m going to own it. I’m not going to do anything but own it. I’m going to find something on the wall – for instance in that clothing store today, they had an amazing piece of art on the wall – and what did I do? I went with the first thing that came to my mind, and I didn’t hesitate in the way that I talked. So I said, “oh my god, that artwork is so cool. What do you see in that picture?” and the conversation rolled from there.

The reason why not only women but men also respond to me is the way I do it. When we went into Paul Smith, there were no women in there, but somehow or another, that woman salesgirl found her way into that room. It was pretty funny – we walked in, we said hello to her when we walked in, and we owned that store. We were friendly and full of energy.

We migrated upstairs, and we talked to the other dude who was shopping (which most guys won’t do), we talked to the salesperson, we tried on a couple of hats, and had some fun with the guy. He had a really cool tattoo, and I asked him about it. I was interested; I was like a little kid. I was very curious about that tattoo, so I asked him about it.

And what happened then? People were laughing in that room, and all of a sudden the female salesgirl came rolling out of nowhere and asked, “oh, do you want me to help you?” The energy attracts.

And then when we left Paul Smith after like eight minutes – we tried on some hats. I tried on some hats that didn’t look good on me – you have to be goofy. You have to have that self-deprecating humor. You have to be able to be goofy and have some fun. So we tried on those hats, and then when we left, we got quiet. We got some water, and recharged our batteries, and talked a little bit. We walked around, and we really didn’t do much, just relaxed and chatted a bit like friends, and then we got here, and the minute we walked into Whole Foods, I got back in and put my game face back on.

So you’re only doing it in short bursts. You have to look at life as a giant stage. Everywhere you go, you have to romance everyone you meet. By romancing them, people just seem to flock over to you like magic, they all want it because nobody else does it! It’s something called the slight edge: being just slightly more engaging than everybody else.

You don’t need to be over the top, you just need to be slightly more engaging. Nobody is looking for the comedian – they’re looking for the next interesting person. That’s what being different is all about, and that’s what having that natural charisma is all about. That natural charisma is pretty amazing.

Robert: It is. It certainly is.

Todays video is all about how to create a great first date.