This is powerful stuff — and it can be dangerous, too.

I would recommend the book The Charisma Myth to anyone considering following this advice.

The book echoes my own experience as someone who does these things quite naturally — and how it can go very wrong.

In short, the danger is that people enjoy the sensation of comfort and closeness, and open up — but can feel very vulnerable and exposed afterwards.

(In the book’s example, the author said their coaching clients suddenly backed away from them after sessions in which they said too much.)

While you’re in a high trust environment, the positive results described in this article will hold sway.

However, in a low trust environment, people can panic and lash out, which can be extremely painful.

Even worse is if someone who feels the feelings, like me, is in conversation with someone who does the things, like someone following this advice to be more popular.

In that case, the sense of betrayal and rejection (when you find out that there was never any underlying friendship after all) can be painful.

An executive coach told me that such incidents can cause acute trauma and lead to lasting trust issues — the person finds themselves only able to have very superficial relationships, especially in the workplace, which he regarded as tragic. (A hallmark of toxic cultures is a lack of deep friendships among employees.)

The only way to successfully navigate relationships is to be authentic.

Feel the things, don’t do the stuff.