Dec. 30, 2025
How to Have Aura in 2026 | Ep. 95
One of the most conceptual episodes I've created. What is aura? And how can you harness it to improve how you connect with the people around you? Some people just feel good to be around. In this episode, we unpack why. We talk about aura as alignment — between who you are, how you show up, and how you read the moment — and how that quietly changes your confidence, relationships, and opportunities. An easy way to send me a message? Click the link here. Support the show This podcast was p...
Spotify 
Apple Podcasts 
Amazon Music 
Pandora 
YouTube One of the most conceptual episodes I've created. What is aura? And how can you harness it to improve how you connect with the people around you?
Some people just feel good to be around. In this episode, we unpack why. We talk about aura as alignment — between who you are, how you show up, and how you read the moment — and how that quietly changes your confidence, relationships, and opportunities.
An easy way to send me a message? Click the link here.
This podcast was produced by www.OPENFLOORMEDIA.com
Have you enjoyed the podcast? If so, follow it, rate it, and share it with three people:
- Follow on Apple Podcasts
- Follow on Spotify
- Follow on Instagram
- Subscribe on YouTube
If you want to share feedback, have a great idea, or have a question then email me: talktopeoplepodcast@gmail.com
This is going to be a fun episode.
We're going to start with a game.
The first game is what do these things all have in common?
I shouldn't say things, I should say people.
What do these people all have in common?
The first one is Kate Middleton.
She's a Princess.
It's Princess what?
Catherine of Umbridge, I think is the proper title.
0:17
People flamed me in my YouTube comments once because I got it wrong, so hopefully I got it right this time.
SGA Shay, Gildrus Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder, defending national champion, reigning MVP, 44th President Barack Obama, legendary painter Bob Ross.
0:38
What do all of these people have in common?
It's something we're going to talk about in this episode.
And it's also something that I think you can have.
There should be a picture of you that you can have in 2026.
Welcome to the Talk to People podcast.
This is your host, Chris Miller.
0:54
This premise, this concept of aura is something that I saw in the zeitgeist, the digital world, pretty prevalently 2 years ago, a year ago, but since then I haven't seen it as much.
That's typically how it goes.
New things pop up, there's more memes, different types of posts, different trends.
1:15
But I think this trend has merit and I want to make a video about it because it's something I want you to to be thinking about when you move into 2026 because it's something that will improve how you can connect to the people around you.
I think thinking about your aura is going to help you connect to to those that matter most.
1:33
It's going to help you show up more fully, you more fully alive to the places and spaces where you connect with people.
And it's going to make you more memorable and you're going to have more fun.
I think when you invest time and energy to your aura, to thinking about your social footprint, your social thumbprint, that's a better way to put it, your unique social thumbprint that you press into your social fabric.
2:01
There's going to be more opportunities that come to you.
You're going to have a better romantic life for whether you're looking for your spouse or whether you have a spouse.
You're going to be better with your friends and with your family.
I know I am promising a lot, and typically the premise I should follow is under promise, over deliver.
2:23
But I'm starting this episode off by over promising because when we look at what is aura, it's something quite important.
Urban Dictionary, one of the most scholastic and scholarly sources one could look at, says aura is the life energy one possesses.
2:40
It can be used in many ways.
It can affect others, and there are different kinds of aura.
Let's see here.
Webster, what's this one?
Yeah.
Merriam Webster says aura is a slang term meaning stylishness, confident and suave excellence.
I've also found aura is a distinctive quality or atmosphere that someone gives off.
3:03
Says aura is not static, so it changes.
It can go up or down, which is another reason why it's important to be thinking about aura.
So before you click off, before you go to a different episode, let me kind of back myself up here.
3:21
I'm not someone who talks about chakra or I'm not someone who typically talks about you give off good energy.
But I do think there's something there.
I do think that we have all been in moments where someone comes into the room and things shift.
3:40
It can be a good or a bad shift.
There have been moments where you are sitting across from the table and you can feel that pit in your stomach because there's about to be bad news.
There have been moments where you are about to win a raffle and you know you're about to win that you don't really know how to explain that you just won, but you can feel it.
4:01
I feel like there's ways that we can affect people by with a smile, with genuine curiosity, by looking them straight in the eyes, by giving them just a moment of our time that can make them feel better.
4:18
In our last episode, we talked about the four premises of talk topics, asking questions, levity and kindness.
And one of the big parts of kindness was making the other person in the conversation feel like 1,000,000 bucks, making them feel like they were the only person in the room.
4:35
This is one of the best ways to do that.
It's by thinking about the energy you're putting off.
So aura is similar to confidence whenever people explain it.
The way I mean that it's similar to confidence is that if someone were to tell you, Chris, you need to go work on your confidence or whatever your name is, Emily, Bob, Brock, Kate, Shay, Gill, just Alexander, you need to go work on your confidence.
5:03
When they get that information, it can be pretty unhelpful because what do you do?
What exercise do you work on that helps you with confidence?
What food do you eat?
What song do you listen to?
What drill do you do that you can work on it for five hours, then wake up in the morning and feel more confident?
5:23
The answer is that it's highly contextual.
The second answer is that you don't work on your confidence.
Confidence is a byproduct of effort placed in other places.
For instance, there are three things that will make you more confident.
5:39
This may be helpful for you.
The first thing that'll make you more confident is having past experience that you can look back on.
That will clear the air of uncertainty in the future.
So say you run a marathon and then you have another marathon coming up.
5:56
You're going to feel more confident having finished a marathon then had you not finished a marathon.
And we can apply that to whatever context you want.
You have the past experience that shows you it sends a little bit of a signal, hey, I can do this.
The second thing is preparing, being able to train for your marathon.
6:15
When you train for your marathon, you're going to feel more confident than if you didn't train because you are putting effort, you are putting time into improving the odds.
And then the last thing, the third thing is OK, past experience training.
6:34
The third thing is feeling like the authentic self, like feeling good about what you're doing.
If you feel like you don't want to be running a marathon, if you feel like this is not going to be good, more than likely you're not going to be as confident.
6:50
If you show up to give a speech at work and you feel, hey, this is not the space I should be in.
This is not the team I should be on.
This is not the job I should have.
You are not going to feel as good as if you felt I am where I need to be.
7:07
So when you develop the past experience, whenever you prepare and whenever you have that fidelity, that feeling, yeah, I'm right where I need to be, you are going to be confident.
So when you take those three things, you have confidence.
Aura is somewhat similar.
7:24
I like to think about aura as the delta, the discrepancy, the the change, the movement between the person that you want to be the the person you present yourself as and the person that you are behind the curtains.
7:44
In the sociology realm, there's a sociologist named Irving Goffman.
There's this thing called like performative sociology or performative, What would be the phrase?
Well, Irving Goffman, he contends that everybody has a front face and a back face and that every social moment is a moment of performance.
8:07
And we are either putting ourselves, putting a mask on to present ourselves one way in one group and then a different way in another group.
But then whenever we go home and we're by ourselves, we are presenting our back face, that self that we we truly are.
8:27
When the masks fall off, who are you?
In moments of solitude, who are you?
And with really close intimacy and close friends, you can start to see the the blurred lines and you find people feeling really good and feeling really comfortable with the people that are around because they can be their true selves.
8:45
And the discrepancy between how they present themselves and who they actually are is low.
And I think the lower that gets is going to be an ingredient of having great aura.
If you actually feel this authenticity.
9:03
Authenticity is similar to the idea of confidence.
If I tell you you need to be more authentic, it's kind of hard to work on a certain drill or exercise or do a certain thing on a journal prompt to make you more authentic.
Authenticity is the alignment of what you think, what you say, and what you do.
9:23
The three horses pulling the carriage, when they're all going the same way, the carriage goes fast and far.
Whenever they are going different ways, the carriage goes fast, but it doesn't go far.
It just goes all over the place.
So whenever you align what you say, who you are and what you do or what you say, what you think and what you do, thoughts, actions, words, thoughts, words, actions, then you are going to feel this feeling of authenticity.
9:50
Doctor Seuss says there's no one you, there's no one you are than you.
And that is truer than true.
And I feel like being able to acknowledge how you're presenting yourself in social situations and how you actually feel those messages that you, everybody gets them to give you a little refresher.
10:12
What are those messages I'm referring to?
Whenever you go to bed at night, what is that thing you're thinking?
Oh, I wish I would have spent more time on today.
Whenever you go away on a vacation or you're away from your normal life and you kind of get shooken out of the routine, what's that thing you wish you were working on or that thing you want to start?
10:36
Whenever you are in a social situation and you feel weird and you feel awkward, you feel like you're not supposed to be there and doesn't really feel that well, what is it about that social situation that's making you feel that way?
These are all little messages that we receive.
10:54
All of us receive them that we need to listen to, take note of and make adjustments because that is the gap between how we present ourselves and who we actually are.
And I want people to be able to tap a little bit more into who they actually are.
11:12
I know this can be a bit vague and compared to a lot of my episodes, it may not seem as practical and technical, which is true.
It definitely is.
Whenever I looked into or I saw a really good video that performed very well and it said why some people have divine aura.
11:32
And I think that is that's an homage to, you know, it really isn't as technical or practical.
Like the concept of divine aura is not a mathematics thing.
It's not every time 2 + 2 is going to equal 4.
11:50
It's pretty vague, right?
It's pretty out there, but people are very vague and people are very out there, and social interaction is incredibly unpredictable, and humans are really bad at figuring out what's going on in the moment.
12:08
We misread things all of the time.
So if we can think about what we show up and what we bring to a conversation, the energy that we're giving off, then it's contagious.
It's going to affect the people around us.
12:24
So when you think about how you present yourself, you think about what you actually are like and you shrink the two.
How do you shrink the two?
You're more authentic with who you are.
How do you, how are you more authentic?
You're listening to what's going on in your life and you're adapting to it.
12:41
You're showing up to things you want, you want to show up to.
You're being very kind, but you're doing it in a way that's true to you.
If you are really short with people, then you can tell them, Hey, I'm, I'm typically pretty short.
Like maybe you're working on a work project and people are like, hey, you're just not that nice.
12:59
One way to get around that is by saying, hey, I don't mean anything by this, but whenever I get in work mode, sometimes I can feel shorter.
Nothing against you, it's just one of the ways that I work well.
And if that ends up being a problem, like definitely let me know.
If there's a way I can say things more effectively, definitely let me know.
13:17
I'm here to work and I'm here to get the best outcome.
So there's different things that we can hedge ways that we interact or behave to make those feel better that are working with us, but make it feel as if we're being more authentic to who we are.
Man, I'm starting podcasts and I am getting to a point to where I get lost in the sauce of being able to follow the logic of the podcast and making sure I don't put too much into it while also making sure I add value, Add a unique idea that my listeners can chew on, my viewers can chew on, yet don't add too much because I'm thinking about another thing that's really important with aura and I'm just going to add it in.
14:06
But I don't want to bog things down.
So if you feel like I'm bogging things down, then buckle up because I'm going for it anyways.
That's the ability to read the room.
I think reading yourself, the people around you and reading the room imperative to your aura.
14:26
How are you feeling before you show up to something?
What is your goal here?
What's your goal of showing up?
Is it to have fun?
Is it to get a business connection?
Is it to find a date?
Is it to work on a stand up bit?
And then how are you feeling?
14:42
Are you feeling excited?
Are you feeling nervous?
Why are you feeling nervous?
Being able to read yourself incredibly important because that's going to give you more data and it's going to help you navigate how you interact with those, how you show up to this certain social situation.
The second thing is being able to read other people.
14:59
Being able to know whenever the conversation's dying are.
Is the gap between the conversational turn taking?
Is the gap between when I say something and you say something, is that extending?
Is it getting longer?
That's typically a hint that the conversation's dying down.
Are people repeating things constantly?
15:16
That's a tip that things are dying down.
Are people doing a lot of fake laughs?
Is someone looking everywhere else except you whenever you're talking to them?
That's typically a hint that they don't want to be there.
Being able to read that while also being able to read interest.
Is there something that people go back to?
15:33
Is there something where people get genuine laughs?
Is there something where people's fluctuations change, their eyes light up?
Being able to read that important and then being able to read the room.
If you're showing up to this young adults church thing, if you're showing up to this one time in North Carolina, I got invited to this leadership event and there's a guy who had been a friend of mine.
16:00
He was like, yeah, man, dude, you're such a great leader.
And dude, let me introduce you to my mentor.
He's a billionaire or a millionaire.
If the one quality someone has to describe somebody as their a millionaire, typically stay away.
OK, But yeah, he's a millionaire.
16:18
And then I show up to this event and it's all about a multi level marketing thing.
And I reading the room, it's like, OK, I'm really glad I was able to read the room and know what was going on because there are other people who are showing up there actually trying to get this leadership wisdom.
16:36
And it did not end up very well for them.
They ended up killing all their personal relationships because they tried to sell them stuff that these people could buy anywhere else at a much lower price with a lot less pushy behavior.
So being able to read the room, if it's a really intimate thing, then it's probably not the best time for you to show up and hand out all of your business cards, have one minute interactions.
17:00
If you're at a bar, it's probably not the best time to go super deep if you can't even hear what the other person's saying, right?
So being able to be yourself, being able to shriek, shrink, that discrepancy between how you present yourself and who you actually are, and then combining that with being able to read the room, read the person you're talking to, and then being able to read yourself, that will be your aura.
17:26
That's going to determine the energy you put off.
You want to put off this really good energy.
You need to be thinking about it, think about it, think about it, think about it.
This is stuff I think about all the time.
Sometimes I have great aura, sometimes I don't.
It's very contextual.
17:44
OK, what else should we talk about?
I mean, hey, that was fun.
I like talking about stuff like this.
I think the podcast, if you've watched any of my YouTube videos, the YouTube videos I've been doing lately are very tight.
18:00
They're rehearsed, they're scripted.
I do a lot of analysis over certain moments and I go, I go super deep on those certain moments.
The podcasts are shotgun burst, super sloppy, maybe not sloppy, but not as rehearsed, not as tight, very loose, but it's a different feeling.
18:24
This is where I get to hang out with you.
When you go on a drive where you're walking, you may be at the gym, you may be cleaning up the house, you may be doing something different, and we're just hanging out.
And I want to talk to you about how to have better aura in 2026.
Meanwhile, the YouTube videos are much more targeted.
18:41
They're kind of like the news.
I do recent events.
So I hope you enjoyed being able to talk with me today.
I wish the best for you and your aura.
I think you're going to have great aura in 2026.
I think 2026 is going to be a year where opportunities show up for you, where people are connected to you, where you get to make people smile and laugh and feel like they are here for a reason.
19:06
And I have a feeling that you are going to make some really good friends because you are going to have the confidence to show up to new places.
You're going to tap into your interests that you have that are unique to you, like crocheting or like playing volleyball or like playing a certain video game.
19:24
And then you're going to find and seek out social opportunities that exist for those things.
And you're going to have the confidence to show up to them.
I believe that for you.
And whenever you do, you're going to show up to them with excitement.
You're going to have genuine curiosity, follow it, ask questions, have follow up questions, show up a few more times.
19:46
And then ultimately you're going to find your new friends.
You're going to find your new date.
You're going to find a new opportunity for you to get more social interaction and feel happier about where you are in life.
So that's my.
20:02
My blessing and my wish for you.
Thanks for listening to the Talk to People podcast.
If you haven't already, be sure to like and subscribe.
Rate this episode 5 stars, nothing else, wherever you're listening to it.
And remember, life is better when you talk to people.