Natural Authority – Page 3

Listen up you dreamer:

One day back in 1999, after Gordon Ramsay opened his first restaurant, he got a tableful of famous visitors.

There was Joan Collins of Dynasty fame. Then model Nicola Formby. And finally A.A. Gill, the food critic for The Sunday Times.

But Gill had earlier written a nasty review of Ramsay’s restaurant.

So Ramsay left his kitchen, walked over to the table, and kicked the whole group out.

Speaking later, an emotional A.A. Gill said:

“He seems to be a classic bully. Somebody who will overreact to people beneath him. And then feel terribly aggrieved when somebody he doesn’t have innate power over criticizes him.”

Sounds about right, yeah?

Ramsay is famous for his outbursts. (“Will he be able to control it?” asks the breathless TV teaser.)

He yells. He insults. He curses.

“Yes, Gordon,” his humbled staff reply, eyes on the floor.

And that’s my takeaway for you today.

A while ago, I made a brain dump of ideas on the topic of “natural authority.” What do people who have inborn charisma seem to share?

One of the things on my list was that they target the weak. You know. The poor, the friendless, the tax collectors and sinners.

Because as powerful as natural authority is, it won’t work reliably on a healthy, stable person without any gaping emotional wounds.

But the insight I learned recently, through Mike Mandel and Chris Thompson, is that people with natural authority can create emotional wounds. On demand.

One way is just what Gordon Ramsay does. Insults, humiliation, browbeating. Not all the time. But enough that there’s always a risk of it.

And here’s my addition to this theory:

I believe that a “temper,” as TV calls it, is not only a means to natural authority. It’s also a signal of it.

In other words, you don’t have to get personally insulted by a would-be leader in order for his authority to rise in your eyes. It’s enough to see it happen to somebody else. For example, to an emotional food critic, getting kicked out, while a restaurant full of people watches.

That’s why as a society, we love people like Ramsay. Sure, it’s both horrifying and entertaining to watch others getting cowed and humiliated. But it also feeds our need to look to a charismatic leader.

And by the way:

You can see the same in various corners of the online guru and influencer world.

Now that you know this, you can choose to use it yourself — or at least be aware of what’s happening in your own head, when you witness others using it.

One last thing:

What are you standing there and looking for? You dreamer. Click the link already and sign up.

I’ve got three quotes about celebrities for you, and then I will tell you about a hack. A hack to make you be seen as a natural-born leader — or at least a necessary ingredient for it.

But first, the quotes.

Quote 1:

“Patton believed that it was critical for a general to stand out and to be seen by his troops, a philosophy that conveniently coincided with his ego. He dressed impeccably in a colourful uniform and knee-high boots, sporting ivory-handled pistols.”

Quote 2:

“Long before ‘mumblecore’ became a film genre, critics complained about Brando’s speech patterns until it finally became clear they were an integral part of his performances.”

Quote 3:

“Prince’s handwriting was beautiful, with a fluidity that suggested it poured out of him almost involuntarily. It also verged on illegible. Even in longhand, he wrote in his signature style, an idiosyncratic precursor of textspeak that he’d perfected back in the eighties: ‘Eye’ for ‘I,” ‘U’ for ‘you,” ‘R’ for ‘are.'”

A few days ago, I started thinking about natural authority.

What makes it so that some people just seem imbued with the royal farr? So that they command obedience or respect or awe, even if they aren’t wearing a uniform… or standing on stage in front of an adoring crowd… or climbing alone, without ropes, up a 3,000-foot cliff of sheer rock?

Well, I wrote down a bunch of ideas. If you like, I’ll share them all with you in time.

Today I’ll just tell you about one. You can see it illustrated in the quotes above.

Got it? It’s just this:

Patton, Brando, and Prince all had a unique style. In some ways, a style completely beyond the pale of what was normal or acceptable.

In one case (Brando), it was probably inborn, or at least unconscious.

In another (Patton), it was clearly cultivated.

In the last (Prince), it was a bit of both.

So that’s your first step to natural authority, should you want that position in other people’s minds.

Maybe you already have your own inborn style. In that case, emphasize it.

Maybe you don’t. Then you can consciously build it.

And style can be anything. How you talk, how you write, how you dress, how you walk, how you spell. Some of them, or all. Whatever your audience can see. And maybe even stuff they can’t, because it’s somehow still likely to shine through.

It might not instantly make you a star or a king or queen. But like I said, I think it’s a necessary ingredient, at least in some form. So you might as well thinking about it now, while I write up the emails about the other bits you’ll need.

Emails? Yes, emails. I write a daily email newsletter. If you’d like to sign up for it, here’s where to go.

Stop daydreaming for once and read this

Your first step to achieving natural authority