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10 Books That Will Make You 10X More Charismatic
Matt Karamazov
November 04, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 36 minutes
Virtually anyone can develop larger-than-life charisma, but there’s a lot more that goes into it than most people think.
I can’t help but think back on this story I read in the 3rd book on this list, Never Split the Difference, by Chris Voss. He was the former lead hostage negotiator for the FBI.
As he relates in the book, sometimes he’d have 5 federal agents on one end of the phone, listening for 5 different things. One would be paying attention to the kidnapper’s vocal intonation, another would be paying attention to the words themselves, etc.
Even with five FBI hostage negotiators, working together, even still they’d miss something important of what was being said.
The idea being that communicating is exceptionally difficult, and none of us are perfect at it. But, these 10 books I’m going to recommend tonight can certainly help.
They’ll make you more charismatic, help you articulate and present your ideas in a compelling way, and they’ll help you gain the attention, respect, and support of the people you’re trying to influence.
All of that is below.
Besides those ten books, this book literally shows you how to build a $10,000,000 online business (and it helped me reach $5,000 per month talking about books, and fire my boss in the process).
Then there’s these three books that I’m looking forward to reading, that are either out now or coming very soon:
Now, before our coffees get cold, let’s hit the books!
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Tonight, Inside The Reading Life, We’ve Got:
“When you choose a behavior, you choose its future consequences.”
The C-E-N-T-S Framework:
Control: Owning a business entity or platform that you control.
Entry: How difficult it is for others to deliver the same product or service.
Need: Whether people actually need and want what you’re selling.
Time: Separate your income from the hours you spend earning it.
Scale: Positively affect the largest number of people in the biggest way you can.
Inside my private business mastermind, Creator Launch Academy, we’re tackling one nonfiction book per month and implementing its lessons inside our businesses.
This month’s book is The Millionaire Fastlane, by MJ DeMarco, a great business book about building a profitable business around the C-E-N-T-S Framework, and a book that helped me leave a dead-end job in my twenties and never look back.
Click here to claim your free trial, and join our business book club for educational content creators!
After achieving my (somewhat meaningless) goal of reading 1,000 books before I turned 30, I set a new (also meaningless but cool) goal of reading 10,000 books. As of today, I’ve read exactly 1,426 books, including 74 books so far this year, and if you’re interested, here’s my full Reading List.
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
This is another one of those books that you'd hate to get caught reading in public, but it's one that should definitely be read by nearly everyone.
Imagine reading a book called “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” sitting by yourself in Starbucks. I read this one on my phone for sure!
It's sold more than 15 million copies already though, and ever since reading it I’ve been recommending it all the time.
Dale Carnegie was an old-timey self-help guy with some excellent ideas on how to become more sociable, listen more attentively, rise higher in business, and just generally succeed at life, and his book has served me very well in life so far.
I’ve come to realize that being able to listen - without trying to think of what you’re going to say next, without glancing at your phone - is a literal social superpower in today’s world, and those who’ve read and internalized Carnegie’s message in this book will have a distinct advantage over those who remain oblivious to the bridges they’re burning by not possessing the kind of self-awareness taught in these pages.
My favorite story from the book actually is about when Carnegie once attended this socialite’s party in New York City.
Cornered by his hostess, Carnegie let her talk on and on about herself, speaking perhaps 10% of the time about himself. The next day, he became aware that the woman was going around telling everyone what a great conversationalist Carnegie was! Just by standing there listening! My own experiences as a nightclub bouncer definitely back this up.
Every single person you meet wants to feel important, and you can give them this gift. Easily! As soon as you step outside of your own world and enter theirs, you’re perfectly positioned to claim this superpower for yourself, and you can use it to go anywhere in life that you want to go.
Difficulty Rating: Very Easy
How It Can Make You More Charismatic: Dale Carnegie will help you get outside of yourself a little bit, become more aware of how you’re coming across to others, and give you the skills to rapidly advance in a world seemingly dominated by narcissists.
“The first secret to the successes I’ve had in life and business is simple: I invest more time, attention, money, effort, and energy into my relationships than I do anything else, and I do so on the longest timeline possible.”
They call him the most connected businessman on the planet, and this book is the distillation of Joe Polish's absolute best advice for creating and sustaining win-win relationships that last a lifetime.
If you've ever played "6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon," you could probably play "3 Degrees of Joe Polish," because it can seem like there's no one in the online entrepreneurship space who hasn't been helped by him in some way and eventually come to call him a friend.
His story is a pattern interrupt that diverges from the expected script. Joe succeeded in business by rejecting self-interest - or at least putting it to the side - so he could ask a very simple, yet very powerful question: "What's in it for them?"
It's a useful question that changes the conversation and can change your life in the same way that it's changed Joe's life and damn near everyone with whom he's shared it.
What’s In It For Them? covers some of his main ideas, such as the three keys to connecting with others, the five major assets you need to invest in your relationships, the importance of becoming a "pain detective" to figure out how you can best help the people you encounter in life and business, and how you can become a "first domino" in the lives of others, spurring them on to greater growth and self-actualization.
Think of Joe's book as Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People for the 21st century. While Carnegie's book is still absolutely worth reading, Joe's book represents the future of networking - while at the same time, the underlying themes and success strategies are as old as humanity itself.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How It Can Make You More Charismatic: By learning how to ask questions and learn about what you can do for others, you will become incredibly attractive. Everyone has problems, and when you build a reputation as someone who goes around solving them, you end up being in extremely high demand.
“In this world, you get what you ask for; you just have to ask correctly.”
I’ll make a deal with you: you read this book summary to the end, and I’ll teach you some of the most astonishing tactics I’ve learned from the former lead international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI, Chris Voss, for getting exactly what you want in the giant negotiation that is your life.
While we discuss this book, I want you to feel like you are being treated fairly at all times. So please stop me at any time if you feel I'm being unfair, and we'll address it (that’s one of the magical phrases you’ll learn, by the way, and Voss will teach you exactly why it works so tremendously well).
Alright, so that opening joke was funny for about two paragraphs, but seriously: you can get almost anything you want in life; you just have to learn how to ask correctly. That’s exactly what you’ll learn here, and how you’ll learn to think, once you internalize some of the lessons from this book.
Negotiation is simply the art of letting someone have your way, and the days of threatening people with grievous physical harm, or trying to otherwise dominate them are over.
Sophisticated negotiators don’t work like that anymore, relying as they do on empathy, active listening, and all that other stuff that doesn’t make for great TV, but that gets real hostages in the real world back to their real families with all their real parts intact.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How It Can Make You More Charismatic: Life is a negotiation, and everything is on the table. From negotiating a car loan, to a mortgage, a raise at work or a date (and much more besides), if you know how to ask correctly, you can get virtually anything you want in this world.
The Seven Principles of Persuasion:
1 - Reciprocity: People want to repay favors that they’ve received from others.
2 - Commitment and Consistency: People want to view themselves as consistent.
3 - Social Proof: People gravitate to what is popular or approved by others.
4 - Liking: People are more easily persuaded by people they like.
5 - Authority: People tend to more easily obey authority figures.
6 - Scarcity: People value objects and resources that are in short supply.
7 - Unity: People are more likely to take the side of their group members.
This is one of the must-read classics of persuasion and it’s pretty much been the gold standard for books on that subject ever since it came out in 1984.
I’m generally distrustful of new books from people who claim to have found a “new paradigm” or whatever when it comes to influence – save your time and your money and just buy this one book.
The seven universal principles of persuasion that he covers in depth are: reciprocity, commitment, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity, and unity, and once you have those covered, you have more than a decent idea of why people do pretty much anything, and how you can influence their behavior to align with what you want them to do.
Influence, like The 48 Laws of Power, is amoral – meaning, it’s not the material itself but what you do with it. You could use it to become an evil genius, or you could use it to inspire positive change in both yourself and your community. The principles can be used either way. The choice, as always, is yours.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How It Can Make You More Charismatic: There are people out there who always seem to make us feel good in their presence, and it’s usually because they’re employing - consciously or not - one of these seven “persuasion triggers.” Now they’ll be available to you.
“People who are skilled at dialogue do their best to make it safe for everyone to add their meaning to the shared pool - even ideas that at first glance appear controversial, wrong, or at odds with their own beliefs.
Now, obviously they don't agree with every idea; they simply do their best to ensure that all ideas find their way into the open.”
Back when I was a nightclub bouncer, I used what I’ve learned in this book almost literally every night when I was at work. And in other situations when I’m not at work. These conversation principles and ideas are effective – and, well, crucial – everywhere.
We can all become better listeners and conversationalists, but we can’t go into it thinking that we have nothing to learn or improve upon.
For one, listening is like a superpower. You become good at listening, and I guarantee you that a lot of things are going to start going very right in your life.
You can literally see the changes come over a person’s face once they realize that you’re actually listening to them, you’re willing to give them your undivided attention, and you respect them for saying whatever it is they have to say. Like I said, and especially since most people are so bad at listening, this is like a superpower.
This is a classic book on resolving group and interpersonal conflict and it’s got a stellar reputation for being an excellent resource to help with handling emotions, making sure people feel safe to speak their mind, and coming to agreement on the things that matter.
The ideal mix, I believe, is to forthrightly assert what you believe, and allow others the same chance. The worst is refusing to hold a conversation at all, or being under the delusion that one has taken place.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How It Can Make You More Charismatic: Almost everything you want in life is on the other side of a difficult conversation you’ve been avoiding. This book will show you how to have “productive disagreements,” and be assertive regarding your true desires. And you’ll also find that the ability to engage in those without losing your proverbial shit is very charismatic.
“Don’t sabotage your potential because you can’t communicate your ideas.”
Ideas are the currency of the 21st century, and in this book, Carmine Gallo dissects the public speaking secrets of the world’s top minds, and how they deliver those ideas, directly into the collective consciousness of society.
According to Gallo, TED Talks have become the gold standard for public speaking, and by studying how the best talks are structured, written, rehearsed, and delivered, we can learn how to sell our own ideas more persuasively, which is the only way they’re ever going to be heard amid the constant background noise of modern life.
Gallo is a public speaking coach who has broken down hundreds of TED Talks, and interviewed the most popular TED presenters and other communications experts, all in an effort to uncover their secrets for delivering a persuasive presentation every time, and for becoming more charismatic in front of big audiences.
What he discovered is that all or most of the successful TED presentations feature nine core elements, and by ensuring you nail every one of them when giving your next talk, you’ll be able to overcome any fear of public speaking, exhibit comfort and control from the stage, and seize valuable mental real estate in the minds of your audience, every single time.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How It Can Make You More Charismatic: Learning from the most engaging, charismatic public speakers on the planet will help you uncover their commonalities, which you can then use and adapt the next time you have to win people over with your ideas.
“People with well-developed emotional skills are also more likely to be content and effective in their lives, mastering the habits of mind that foster their own productivity; people who cannot marshal some control over their emotional life fight inner battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear thought.”
I have a strange memory of the time when I first read Emotional Intelligence. I wouldn’t say that I’m “proud” of this, but it definitely makes me smile every time I think about it.
Briefly, I remember driving downtown with the top down in my convertible, just absolutely blasting the audiobook version as loud as my speakers would go.
Don’t ask me why I did this. I guess it was to make fun of the people unironically driving around in circles with their music turned all the way up.
Anyway, neither they nor I were probably exhibiting much emotional intelligence in that scenario. Goleman’s book is a classic in the field of psychology, however, and while I’m not a serious person, I did take serious notes on this book.
He challenges the idea that IQ is the sole (or main) determinant of a person’s success in life, arguing instead that it comes down to a skillful mix of several different types of intelligence.
You probably know people with an IQ of 160 or higher who work for people with average IQs (at best). But until Daniel Goleman came along, this phenomenon was more or less a mystery.
Through his pioneering research, he uncovered how the rational and emotional parts of our brains work together to bring us success, happiness, and fulfillment - or not.
There are many different reasons why someone of above-average intelligence would flounder, while those of us who blast audiobooks from their convertibles seem to do quite well in life.
A few of the factors at play include self-discipline, self-awareness, and empathy, and they each point to different ways of being smart.
Not just in a raw-firepower, high-IQ kind of way, but a way in which social wheels are greased, human-sized obstacles are overcome, and the rewards of life come quickly and easily.
This book will give you a great understanding of how these factors play out in the real world of human ambition, and how you can strengthen your emotional intelligence, taking you places mere IQ never could.
Difficulty Rating: Moderate
How It Can Make You More Charismatic: Being able to regulate your emotions gives you a distinct advantage in a world where most people are led by them. While others remain at the mercy of their feelings and impulses, you’ll be playing a deeper, calmer, more effective game.
“When a presentation lands a direct hit on an audience’s interests, beliefs, doubts, fears, hopes, ambitions, pre-existing ideas, pre-existing self-talk, its acceptance and enthusiasm for you as the presenter skyrockets and expands, and it is nearly impossible to fail.
In fact, you are given more credit than your actual performance may deserve.”
All you need is one presentation if you want to get rich in business.
Delivering that presentation in a profitable, captivating, and compelling way is Dan Kennedy’s project here in this book, and he’s a man who knows a thing or two about a thing or two when it comes to selling from the stage.
Kennedy has delivered literally thousands of speeches over his decades-long career, becoming a millionaire many times over in the process, and he’s now one of the most highly-respected and sought-after business minds in the entire world.
In this book, he points out that people like Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Simon Sinek, Mel Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Brené Brown, and a whole host of others ALL have basically just one presentation or “owned idea,” that they keep delivering in various forms, across various formats, and in many different ways.
You only need one presentation to get rich. You just have to find it, develop it, rehearse it, refine it, and keep delivering it over and over and over again to get everything you’ve ever wanted in this life. Dan Kennedy shows you exactly how to do that, right here in this book.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How It Can Make You More Charismatic: Most of the rest of the books on this list focus on how to say what you want to say. But here, Dan Kennedy teaches you what to say, which can be just as, if not more important than how you deliver it.
“If people have difficulty getting your message or meaning, they won't blame themselves; they'll blame you.”
Perception is someone’s reality, and you can shape their reality by adjusting how you present yourself to others. How you show up matters, and it can be the difference between getting everything you want professionally, and constantly being ignored.
Harrison Monarth is one of the world’s top executive coaches - the Marshall Goldsmith of this generation of leaders - and in Executive Presence, he argues that your style and energy introduce you before you ever say a word.
Before anyone can get to know your substance, your style has to grab and hold their attention. This book will show you how to do that.
Much of it comes down to being in control of your emotions, especially under stress, along with looking the part of a person holding your desired position. Knowing how you’re coming across, and having an idea of what kind of impact you want to make on the people you interact with each day is how you get there.
If you were to be promoted or otherwise attain your desired position, how would you be expected to act? What kinds of things would you say, and how would you say them? These are the considerations to keep in mind, and what Monarth helps you arrive at in this book.
Monarth also helps you manufacture a compelling and persuasive personal brand, one that’s authentically true to you, and one that showcases your highest abilities instead of hiding them; and he explains exactly how you can become the leader that everyone else looks to for guidance and direction.
Reputation is everything - and can be damaged oh so quickly - and if you want to become the Obvious Choice in any leadership race, then you need to develop Executive Presence.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How It Can Make You More Charismatic: Whether you like it or not, you’re being judged based on your appearance and mannerisms. Those judgements don’t define you, of course, but they can help or hinder you when it comes to advancing in your career. This book will ensure you get judged favorably.
“We need to be able to communicate with ourselves before we can ever communicate with anyone else.”
Communication without connection is a wasted opportunity.
There’s perhaps no one who understood that more than Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk, peace activist, poet, and prolific author who, through his many books, taught me how to really listen; how to hear, instead of just receive sounds, and to respond, instead of answering thoughtlessly.
Most of the problems present in the world today stem from a lack of communication (or the illusion that it’s taken place, as they say), and Hanh’s book is a helpful corrective to that.
It’s about how a few simple changes can help you find agreement with others, communicate your needs and boundaries, transmit your thoughts and ideas, and yes, become more charismatic on top of that.
Very few people today feel as though there’s anyone really listening to them. If you can be that person for someone else, it puts you in a wonderful, generously powerful position, one that allows the other person to show up as themselves, which is the only time when anything resembling real communication can actually take place.
I’ve read numerous books by Thich Nhat Hanh by this point, and every single time, I come away with something life-changing (but simple) that I never expected.
Just one of those ideas from this book for me was the realization that staying angry with someone who upset you is like chasing after an arsonist while your house burns down behind you!
I’ve heard similar sentiments expressed by others, but it’s Hanh’s talent for, well, communicating that helped me understand it in a way that actually changed me for good.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How It Can Make You More Charismatic: There’s an entirely different quality that’s exuded from the person who is listening to hear and understand, rather than just waiting for you to stop talking so they can say something. That quality is inherently charismatic, and there’s virtually no one better to learn about it from than Thich Nhat Hanh.
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OK, that’s it for now…
I’ve got plenty more excellent book recommendations coming your way soon though!
There’s also my YouTube channel, where I publish book reviews, reading updates, and more each week.
And if you want to learn how I’ve built an audience of 170,000+ followers across social media, became a full-time creator, and how I’m rapidly growing my audience and scaling my profits in 2025, join us inside Creator Launch Academy and that’s exactly what I’ll teach you — we’d love to have you in the community!
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your day!
Until next time…happy reading!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are two more ways I can help you:
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