The Nobel Laureate and one of my heros, Richard Feynman is easily the best-loved scientist of the late 20th century. Part mentor, part circus ringmaster, he had an enthusiasm for the mysteries of the universe that infected anyone within earshot: "The energy made you want to study theoretical physics for the rest of your life," recalls psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison, who attended a Feynman lecture years ago. "It didn't matter if you had any idea what he was talking about or not!"
But you don't need to be a Nobel laureate to have this effect. According to Andrew Leigh, author of the "Charisma Effect", it's all down to ABC. Aim gives you clarity of purpose, Be Yourself authenticity and Chemistry - the difficult to bottle magic achived through grace and connection.
Psychology Today descibes it well. Every college campus, every elementary school, for that matter, has its Feynman: a larger-than-life personality whose essence, beyond mere brains, talent or beauty, makes him stand apart.
The French call it "je ne sais quoi," or "I know not what," but the fact is, we do have words for these attributes.
Charisma, chutzpah, joie de vivre and grace are four such "X-factors," enviable dispositions that defy easy definition, even as they are immediately recognizable in people we admire. Different though they are, charisma, chutzpah, exuberance and equanimity project a positive energy that radiates beyond the person who embodies it. The Eva Perons and Sidney Poitiers of the world draw attention to themselves and, by means brash or gentle, wrangle us into the present moment, outside of ourselves. Only recently have psychologists begun to articulate and study what X-factors are made of and the degree to which these complicated qualities are born or bred.
Grace is the quietest of the X-factors, perhaps the only one in which star power never threatens to overshadow substance. Graceful types are just as passionate and driven as their X-factored peers but rarely stir up the annoyance or suspicion we may feel toward bold or highly excitable people.
While grace is too elusive to pin down in a lab, we catch glimpses of it in studies of characteristics like wisdom and benevolence. Wisdom is associated with "meaning making," a trait ascribed to people who are introspective and cut to the heart of problems. Wisdom is also associated with benevolence, and it is in warm, compassionate individuals that we often see "grace." It is the X-factor presumed to spring from hard-won life experience: Mandela's 27 years in prison cultivated his legendary resolve.
