> Some people seem to have an almost super-human level of charisma/ability to influence others

I think most people are completely unaware of how true this is. As students and tech geeks, we've all probably met someone whose talents seemed otherworldly -- mastery of Quantum math, able to punch out code like Notch, that sort of natural intellectual athleticism that seems like something they must have just been born with.

Well, in boardrooms and marketing departments, in politics, in places of power and sometimes just in random situations, there exist people for whom the ability to (at least seemingly) 'connect' with other people at a deep psychological level is similarly off the charts, in the vanishing 6-sigma rightward tail of the hump.

Of those few people, some percentage, say 1%, were additionally born without anything like a normal conscience. They are incapable of feeling guilt or the normal sort of empathy that makes one feel the suffering of another soul.

I believe that those are, for the most part, the people in charge of things.

I complety fell for one of those Israeli cosmetics things in the mall in my early 20's. My dad was in sales so I am accustomed to all the techniques of persuasion. But for some reason that day I bought $20 or so worth of skin care products I had no intention of using. When I got to my car, I was like, "what on EARTH just happened?!" I have never allowed myself to be so manipulated before or since. Creepy to think of those same techniques being applied to nefarious ends.

I worked with some of the best salespeople in telecommunications (retail) here in Australia, working for the second largest telco. They had this ability, and you can learn it with enough practice. By the time I left, I was #3 in the country for that telco.

It's scary to realise how powerful it can be. Once, one in of the guys had a girl who took two contract phones come back in utterly disbelief at what had happened about a half hour later: this was no ordinary buyers remorse.

The only way to avoid it is to not communicate with those people.

It helps with nearly everything you do in life. I find it amazing and scary.