Who Do You Want To Be?

Yesterday morning I was in the car, listening to the Communards-twitter-star-vicar on the radio. One of his guests was Paul McKenna, who was talking about his new book, "Instant Influence and Charisma." There must be something about his techniques because the people in the studio were hanging off every word of this, not very likeable man.The Ex-DJ, hypnotist with a PhD from a fraudulent University in Louisianna and a DPhil in Neuro Linguistic Programming, started to talk about the techniques you could use to give yourself more confidence and charisma.

NLP is a fascinating branch of psychology that I always want to know more about. It is quite complicated but Paul McKenna has a knack for making it sound easy. "Do what I say and you will be thinner, stop smoking, lose 10 pounds (the price of the book?), be more confident, have a gastric band fitted, sleep, be happy, look more beautiful."

He claims a 70% success rate and I wonder if he could do even better if he tried the techniques in his, "I can make you more successful book," He said that he was happy with this acheivement and said that any practitioner who can cure all their patients doesn't have enough clients. That made me like him a bit more. 

So, there I was, in the car being told to think of someone I admire; someone charismatic who I would like to be like.  

"Close your eyes and picture them in front of you. Step into their body and inhabit their posture........."

I had stopped listening, stuck on the very first part. I couldn't think of anyone, which is probably a good job because it's never a good idea to close your eyes while driving. He gave some examples. Simon Cowell - ugh no. Sean Connery a real man's man - well that's not relevant. I wondered if Theresa May has stepped into Sean Connery's man's man body when she had that photo taken.

But I was getting distracted again, which is always my problem with any self help technique that relies on a focused 

mind. 

There didn't seem to be as many female role models for charisma. I wondered about Theresa May but while I could imagine stepping into her shoes literally (she always wears nice shoes), I just don't like her enough to want to be like her. I wasn't able to think of anyone without some flaws and I suddenly became terrified that if I stepped into another person's body I would get their bad bits too. 

I decided that it would probably be safer to continue bumbling along as me and switched over to radio 3 and a Brahms Concerto.

Later that day I went out for lunch with my family for my Mum's birthday. It was an eventful lunch, as they always are with my family, who seem to make friends with the whole restaurant without trying. We joined in singing Happy Birthday with every other table wishing everyone but my mum a wonderful day. It sounds cruel but my mum prefers less fuss, so it was probably good that there was a distraction.

The lady on the table next to me was having a tough time, her taciturn partner watched,expressionless, as she sobbed, pushing her food around her plate. I listened to what she said through her tears and filled in the story in several different ways. When her partner disappeared, I was so convinced that he had left her and my surprised look made the rest of the family want to know what had been going on. I quietly told them all of my theories and we were all worried about her. He came back and we were all relieved but still worried. My sister said, "When she goes to the loo I'll go with her."

Suddenly, I knew who I wanted to be. My sister is brilliant. She can talk to and help anyone. I could only watch and worry and add the scene to my novel when I got home. The confidence to do anything was beyond me. Following someone, asking them if you can help, listening to them, giving them a hug, some helpful advice and even considering giving them your phone number are all things I would like to be capable of. 

I thought I'd try to step into my sister's shoes when I got home. Then I realised that if I did that I'd have to be cross with myself for all the times I was mean to myself growing up and when we went out I would have to call the Long Suffering Husband, "F-ing boring," every time he spoke. It would all be too complicated.