Judson Vaughn

Judson Vaughn teaches people exactly what they need to do with their bodies and faces to secure trust from strangers – in fractions of a second. He also teaches people what they need to do to be perceived as honest, professional, confident, empathetic, enthusiastic, and likable – all within six seconds of meeting a stranger. He teaches how to create and maintain mutually beneficial relationships and ideal corporate cultures. Surprisingly, he also teaches people how to become more charismatic; more on that below. And lastly, he teaches a formula called the Recipe for Great Presentations, which is a detailed, step-by-step process that enables anyone to create and deliver dynamic, compelling and memorable presentations in any situation.

Vaughn’s schooling and first professional experience was as a sociological researcher. After a brief, but successful time as a social scientist, he became a character actor and shared the screen with stars such as Gabriel Byrne, Jim Carrey, Harry Connick, Jr., Kevin Costner, Kevin Kline, Faye Dunaway, Juliette Lewis, Laura Linney, Steve Martin, Mary Tyler Moore, Carroll O'Connor, Brad Pitt, Blair Underwood, Sam Waterston and many others.

In the early 1980’s when Vaughn started developing his theories regarding trust and first impressions, there was no scientific evidence to support his discoveries. But today there is ample corroborating data in the studies of celebrated neuroscientists such as Harvard’s Nalini Ambady, Princeton’s Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov, and NYU ‘s Jon Freeman. So in his presentations, Vaughn details the neuroscientific research that confirms why the communication and relationship skills he teaches are so effective.

Certainly Vaughn’s discoveries regarding trust and first impressions are significant, but perhaps only slightly less significant are his discoveries about the essence of the most elusive of all human characteristics: Charisma. Amazon has quite a few books on charisma. Unfortunately, most of what you’ll read in those books are reiterations of the conventional wisdom about what makes us perceive people as charismatic; which is all wrong. And you’ll also read a whole bunch of stuff (about what charisma is) that the writers just made up. What you won’t find are logical reasonings that produced the writer’s suppositions, and any evidence of their numerous one-on-one interactions with famously charismatic people.

Vaughn was able to discover exactly what makes us perceive people as charismatic because he employed what one might call, the Jane Goodall Method of Discovery. He traveled – not to the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania to study chimpanzees, but to a different jungle (Hollywood), and studied the most charismatic primates on the planet. After over a decade and thousands of hours of working with movie and television stars, Vaughn finally solved the conundrum that is charisma. And since 1993, he’s been teaching people exactly what they need to do to become more charismatic.