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With duct tape around my mouth, the bald man said:
“People don’t buy things. They just buy you.”
I heard this when working in a snake pit office full of used car salesmen. One of them offered to train me, and duct-taped my mouth so I’d stop talking after asking for the sale.
The bald man, Peter, had a point. People are just buying you. Over the last few years I’ve realized it goes deeper than that. At first I thought people just buy your energy. Then as I thought about it, something hit me:
People buy your aura.The meaning of aura has changed. While it encompasses your energy – whether it’s high or low, or positive or negative – it goes beyond that. Aura is how cool someone perceives you to be. It’s your level of perceived confidence. It’s your vibe.
The Aura Economy now runs the world.
Social media helps develop what someone thinks and feels about you. Even harder to comprehend, people buy from people based on their aura, not necessarily their competence or credentials. So if you’re great at dishing out “how to” advice, but your aura is off, you’ll be left struggling without much money. Brutal but true.
Zhuge Liang has the ultimate demonstration of aura.
In 228 AD, he was defending a city named Xicheng. He only had 100 soldiers to do it. Out of nowhere, a massive army of 150,000 soldiers approached the city with General Sima Yi in command.
Zhuge could have panicked and f*cked up his aura. He didn’t.
He ordered his 100 soldiers to dress as civilians, sweep the streets like nothing was wrong, and open all the gates of the city. Next, he climbed to the top of the city walls, where all 150,000 soldiers could see him.
He began playing a guitar-like instrument called a lute.
General Sima Yi smelt a rat. Something felt off.
Zhuge’s aura was way too high and the General knew he was a genius. There was no way taking the city could be this easy. Zhuge could only be chill as f*ck and giving off enormous aura if he had an ambush planned and ready to go.
The General panicked and assumed something must be wrong. He ordered his 150,000 soldiers to retreat. Zhuge won the battle without a single soldier dying or even lifting a finger.
He won using his aura.
Aura isn’t necessarily about what you can do or your experience. It’s about what people think and believe you might be capable of.
Extreme aura comes with main character energy.
Most people in society are sheep. They follow the herd off a cliff into the land of netflix, junk food, addiction, dead-end 9-5 jobs, and a mountain of debt.
Main character energy is the opposite. It’s where instead of being a background character in the movie that is your life, you decide to become the protagonist. You take the lead role. You decide to have inner confidence and back yourself when perhaps there’s no reason to do so.
When you pair main character energy with delusional optimism, you get a powerful cocktail that turns into a level of aura that is blinding for anyone you encounter.
“There’s something I like about that guy and I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
That’s how it sounds to strangers. Aura gives you this magnetic authority that attracts people to you who end up forming a tribe around you and your work.
They can’t ignore you, and they don’t know why.
Having extreme aura is a game you can rig in your favor.
I get complimented about my perceived aura a lot, and I don’t say that to brag. But at this stage of life it’s become impossible to ignore. People don’t always call it aura but it’s what they mean.
I’ve learned you can do things to amplify your aura and reap its benefits.
Here’s how:
1. Actually do sh*t
Not talking about doing things.
Not waiting until “one day.” Not “when I quit my job then I will…” Doing stuff right now. Taking action in an imperfect world where chaos is all around us.
You can spend your life watching other people do stuff on Youtube, Netflix, or TikTok or you can do stuff yourself.
Too many people live through other people’s lives and mistakenly think they have wisdom, knowledge and experiences.
For example, you can watch Alex Hormozi’s business videos all you want, which makes you think you know how business works, but nothing can substitute for actually building a business.
Everything sounds easy, fine, and doable when presented as “content.” The reality is much different when you do it. And that’s where the confidence and aura stem from.
If you want more aura, you need to do more things. You need to go from consuming to building. Too much consumption gives you a lazy, passive income mindset that leads to being a know-it-all. That’s the opposite of aura.
2. Develop humility
The world wants to fit all ideas into black and white buckets and attach rules to them.
The real world doesn’t work like that.
Reality is complex and full of nuance. So much advice and strategy boils down to “it depends.” This means to have aura you must have humility. You must lead people with nuance and context. And you must not think your sh*t doesn’t stick… or that you have all the answers.
Humility amplifies your aura. It brings out your humanity.
When people see humility with vulnerability they start to vibe with you. They’ll often say “what you do feels authentic.” That’s how you know your aura is working well.
The more you lean into your humanity in a world of AI, the more you will get ahead of all the negative aura bros peddling snake oil and pretending the entire world can be explained with blue versus red political thinking.