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Episode: The Body Language Expert: Stop Using This, It’s Making People Dislike You, So Are These Subtle Mistakes! Your Resting Face Matters & How To Fix It!
Author: DOAC
Duration: 02:44:20
Episode Shownotes
What if you were told that there is a secret language that makes up 98% of your communication? Impacting your work, socialising, and romantic life Vanessa Van Edwards is the founder of ‘Science of People’, which gives people science-backed skills to improve communication and leadership. She is also the bestselling
author of ‘Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People’ and ‘Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication’. In this conversation, Vanessa and Steven discuss topics such as, why your resting face matters, the 3 science-backed tricks for confidence, the best gestures for building trust, and how to spot a liar fast. 00:00 Intro 01:45 The Crucial Role of Cues for Success 03:16 I'm a Recovered Awkward Person 05:07 What's an Ambivert? 07:00 One Word That Can Change the Way People Think 09:11 The Most Fundamental Skill to Invest In 12:13 The Resting B*tch Face Effect 15:33 Do Not Fake Smile! 18:00 The 97 Cues to Be Warm and Competent 21:15 The Formula to a Perfect Conversation 24:09 Science Reveals Why Some People Are Extremely Popular 28:06 Message People Telling Them This... 32:53 The Luck Experiment 34:36 Being Around Successful People Is Contagious 41:26 The Importance of Hand Gestures 43:10 Hand Tricks to Be Liked 53:46 The Scientific Formula to Be More Charismatic 56:19 The Danger Zone of Being Too Warm or Competent 58:16 The Power Cues 1:07:26 How to Spot a Liar 1:14:54 If You've Been Told You're Intimidating, Do This 1:18:09 Don't Let Anyone Use This With You 1:21:16 The 6 Questions to Connect With Someone 1:33:52 Leaning Too Much Towards Someone... 1:38:34 How to Greet Someone 1:49:13 How to Master Messaging 1:54:12 Personal Branding 1:58:32 Improve Your Dating Life With These Tips 2:03:58 Body Language and Brain Connection 2:06:05 Are You Awkward? Watch This 2:09:45 How to Get Someone to Approach You 2:14:39 How to Make Friends as an Adult 2:18:28 AirPods Are Killing Friendships 2:21:48 Ads 2:22:39 How to Spot a Liar (Repeat Topic) 2:28:36 Toxic Relationships 2:31:06 How to Start a Conversation With a Stranger 2:35:32 How to Get Started With All This Knowledge Follow Vanessa: Instagram - https://g2ul0.app.link/cm3A7r1O6Ob Twitter - https://g2ul0.app.link/IVgMiQ3O6Ob Science of People - https://g2ul0.app.link/5LJ8mO5O6Ob You can access the images mentioned, here: https://linktr.ee/diaryofaceostudies You can purchase Vanessa’s book, ‘Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication’, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/HjfkOgZO6Ob Watch the episodes on Youtube - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACEpisodes My new book! 'The 33 Laws Of Business & Life' is out now - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACBook You can purchase the The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards: Second Edition, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb Follow me: https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Shopify - https://shopify.com/bartlett ZOE - http://joinzoe.com with code BARTLETT10 for 10% off Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Summary
In this episode of 'The Diary Of A CEO', body language expert Vanessa Van Edwards discusses the critical impact of nonverbal communication on personal and professional interactions. She emphasizes that gestures often convey more meaning than words, with 82% of our impressions based on warmth and competence. Vanessa provides actionable insights on enhancing one’s ‘resting face’, using effective gestures, and recognizing the importance of social cues to build stronger relationships. The conversation delves into how to improve likability through positive engagement and understanding one's self-narrative, ultimately revealing that charisma can be learned and that mastering these elements can transform social dynamics.
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (The Body Language Expert: Stop Using This, It’s Making People Dislike You, So Are These Subtle Mistakes! Your Resting Face Matters & How To Fix It!) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
Full Transcript
00:00:00 Speaker_00
Your brain is 12.5 times more likely to believe my gesture over my words. And that's because it is very hard to lie with our gestures. For example, you want to do a little experiment with me? Sure.
00:00:08 Speaker_00
Okay, I want you to say five, but hold up the number three. Five. Hard, right? Yeah.
00:00:14 Speaker_06
I had to think about them separately.
00:00:15 Speaker_00
This is why liars use less gestures. But knowing tools like that is critical if you're trying to set yourself up for success.
00:00:21 Speaker_03
And we're going to go through all of them.
00:00:22 Speaker_00
Oh, yeah.
00:00:23 Speaker_03
Vanessa Van Edwards is a behavioral investigator whose science-backed research from body language and microexpressions to vocal tones and first impressions has revolutionized the way we build confidence and create more authentic relationships in every social and professional interaction.
00:00:35 Speaker_00
I'm a recovering awkward person, and I thought that charisma was genetic. And I didn't know how to have conversations. I didn't even know how to have friends. And then I discovered that highly successful people speak a hidden language.
00:00:45 Speaker_00
And that is the language of cues. It's directly from the research. They know that blueprints can talk to anyone. They know that if you sit within 25 feet of a high performer, your own performance improves by 15%.
00:00:56 Speaker_00
And that there's a direct correlation between confidence and anxiety and the distance between our shoulder and our earlobe.
00:01:01 Speaker_05
So interesting.
00:01:02 Speaker_00
They also know that 82% of our impressions of people are based on warmth and competence. So, if you worry that people don't take you seriously, you have trouble getting raises, you feel anxious and overwhelmed, I have five power cues for competence.
00:01:13 Speaker_00
But if you have ever been told you're intimidating, hard to talk to, I want you to use these five warmth cues first.
00:01:20 Speaker_06
What about how to get a partner in terms of cues and body language?
00:01:23 Speaker_00
Let's start with a study that blew my mind. It's impossible to be attracted to someone who... That's so crazy. Just such a small... That one little thing.
00:01:32 Speaker_06
Quick one before we get back to this episode. Just give me 30 seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week.
00:01:41 Speaker_06
It means the world to all of us and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started.
00:01:51 Speaker_06
And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm going to make to you.
00:02:00 Speaker_06
I'm going to do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to, and we're going to continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show.
00:02:13 Speaker_06
Thank you. Thank you so much. Back to the episode. Vanessa Van Edwards. For someone that's just clicked on this conversation now, and they're wondering why they should stay and listen to what we're going to talk about, what would you say to them?
00:02:31 Speaker_00
Very highly successful people speak a hidden language, and that is the language of cues.
00:02:36 Speaker_00
If you don't know how to read the cues people are sending to you, if you don't know how to control the cues you're sending to others, you are missing a crucial element of success.
00:02:46 Speaker_06
How do you quantify that in a way that I know that it's true. Are there studies or stats that reinforce what you've just said?
00:02:52 Speaker_00
82% of our impressions of people are based on warmth and competence. That means that if we can control our warmth cues and our competence cues, we know we are taking care of 82% of our impression.
00:03:07 Speaker_00
And that is critical to being more memorable, to being more confident, to having clearer communication.
00:03:12 Speaker_06
And taking that a bit further, what areas of my life will that impact? So if I'm warm and I'm competent, which you're telling me are things that I can control, what are the downstream consequences of that?
00:03:22 Speaker_00
So I think my mission is to tackle a big lie. And that is that smart people will translate their book smarts into people smarts.
00:03:32 Speaker_00
But actually, no matter how smart you are, if you do not know how to communicate with people, you can't connect with people, you can't have good relationships, you can't have supportive friendships, you get looped into difficult people or toxic people, you have trouble getting raises or promotions.
00:03:48 Speaker_00
When you are able to control your communication, it helps you not be overlooked, not be misunderstood, and that affects your friendships, your partner, your career, and also helps you feel more confident walking into a room.
00:04:00 Speaker_06
And what is your research based on? Are you a researcher? Have you done sort of first party research yourself? Where were you drawing from?
00:04:07 Speaker_00
So I'm a recovering awkward person. So I used to believe that you were either born with charisma or you weren't, that charisma was genetic. And in 2002, I discovered a study that changed my life, which said that charisma can be learned.
00:04:22 Speaker_00
This is when I started to tackle, to figure out, OK, if charisma can be learned, how do we learn it? How can we learn blueprints for conversation? How can we learn frameworks for how we connect and how we socialize?
00:04:33 Speaker_00
That's when I started doing my own research. So I'm a behavioral researcher and a best-selling author on communication. And I specialize in helping very brilliant, very smart, awkward folks not be overlooked.
00:04:45 Speaker_06
And give me some sort of depth as to the amount of research and the quantity of research that you've done, how many people you've studied, how many hours of footage, etc.
00:04:52 Speaker_00
Yep. So I developed my first framework about 12 years ago, and we've helped 400,000 students learn that framework, master it and conquer awkwardness or feel more confident.
00:05:02 Speaker_00
Some of those folks had very professional goals like getting raised or promotion. Other folks were so socially anxious and so awkward they couldn't make friends. Other people were looking for their soulmate or their partner.
00:05:11 Speaker_00
And so 400,000 students have told me that this framework works.
00:05:16 Speaker_06
Nobody teaches us this stuff, do they? Mm-mm.
00:05:19 Speaker_00
Or actually, extroverts tend to teach it. So I read the quintessential How to Win Friends and Influence People back in the day, and that's a wonderful book, but it's a book written by an extrovert.
00:05:29 Speaker_00
If you are not naturally extroverted, I am not naturally extroverted, I'm more ambiverted, it is very hard to learn how to communicate if you don't naturally gravitate towards people.
00:05:39 Speaker_00
I was like, there has to be a way to teach introverts and ambiverts to be able to feel confident without having to fake it till you make it. Without having to pretend to be extroverted or outgoing to be taken seriously or to be charismatic.
00:05:51 Speaker_00
What's an ambivert? So ambiverts get energy from the right people in the right places. So for example, in this interview, I love one-on-one conversations. I feel myself.
00:06:01 Speaker_00
But if we were to go to a loud bar or a nightclub, I would completely shut down and want to be alone. Ambiverts can dial up extroversion to hit their goals.
00:06:09 Speaker_00
So if they know they have to be friendly and meet people for an interview or a position, they can do it. But they need lots of recharge time. The reason why it's important to know if you're an ambivert is because you should know
00:06:20 Speaker_00
What are the people and places that drain you? There are certain people when you open your calendar and you look at it and you're like, oh, I have to be with that person. That is someone that drains you.
00:06:31 Speaker_00
They do not bring out your extroversion or your natural love of people. There are also certain people who you feel you could talk to for hours. They give you social energy. They charge your social battery.
00:06:42 Speaker_00
So the very first thing I have students do is sit and make a list. Who are the people who give you energy, who charge you up? Who are the people who take from you?
00:06:50 Speaker_00
Those are people that we want to put boundaries around, we want to say no to, we want to limit as much as possible, and then also the places. Where do you thrive? Is it conferences, one-on-one business, or is it friends, socializing parties?
00:07:01 Speaker_00
Knowing those places helps you optimize your social battery.
00:07:04 Speaker_06
And when you say cues, which you said at the start of this conversation, people think of just body language. Is that the sort of full extent of areas that you focus on?
00:07:12 Speaker_00
Yes. So cues come into four different channels. There is body language, that's facial expressions, gestures, posture. But there's also vocal. So vocal cues are the tone of our voice, our pace, our volume, our cadence.
00:07:24 Speaker_00
There's also the words we use, obviously, verbal cues. The types of words that I'm choosing to use are signaling my warmth and competence to you. And the last, the smallest channel is our ornaments.
00:07:34 Speaker_00
The colors we wear, the jewelry we wear, the way we wear our hair, the way we wear your facial hair, those are also signaling different things or cuing people to feel a certain way about you.
00:07:44 Speaker_06
And what about what we say? Because I know you're writing a book about, I don't know if I can leak this, but here we go. You're writing a book about conversation, so what we say.
00:07:54 Speaker_00
So I did not realize how powerful our words are. And here's a study that really changed the way I think about this. Very simple study. They brought people into the lab, and they split them up into two different groups.
00:08:04 Speaker_00
In one group, they said, today, you're going to play the community game. And they played kind of a prisoner's dilemma type of game. The second group, they came into the same room, the same researcher, and they said, good morning.
00:08:16 Speaker_00
Today, you're going to play the Wall Street game. The trick was, the games were exactly the same. There was no difference between the two games.
00:08:23 Speaker_00
What they found was everyone who was told they were playing the Wall Street game shared an average of one third of their profits. Everyone who was told they were playing the community game shared an average of two-thirds of their profits.
00:08:35 Speaker_00
This means that that one word, community game, community, made people think and feel more about community. It made them act more collaboratively.
00:08:44 Speaker_00
This means that the words we're using in our emails, our subjects, our texts, our LinkedIn profile headlines, are cuing people for how they should treat us. One really simple way to think about this is your calendar.
00:08:56 Speaker_00
I send out calendar invites multiple times a week to clients, to friends. When we have meeting, one-on-one, call, video, interview, I am being cued for nothing. Those words are so overused, they're sterile.
00:09:10 Speaker_00
If you add cues that prime people to feel or think a certain way, you're actually setting them up for success. So 2025 wins, collaborative session, strategy meeting, goal meeting, goal overview, teamwork collab session.
00:09:25 Speaker_00
Those words are actually cuing that person's brain every single time they open their calendar, that when we read a word like collaborate, we are literally more likely to be collaborative.
00:09:34 Speaker_00
So the words that we use, even one single word can actually change the way people think.
00:09:40 Speaker_06
It's funny because our entire lives are people.
00:09:43 Speaker_06
Like the difference between me being a president, prime minister, superb salesperson, exceptional entrepreneur is probably just my understanding of other people and how I show up in my words and my cues.
00:09:55 Speaker_06
And so when you think about it like that, this could be for many people, the most important subject for them to improve upon.
00:10:04 Speaker_00
I would even go further and say, if you don't have people skills, you cannot succeed. You cannot succeed in life, you cannot succeed in love, you cannot succeed in business. It doesn't matter how smart you are, you need people to have success.
00:10:17 Speaker_00
So this is, I think, the most fundamental skill that people can invest in.
00:10:21 Speaker_06
And how many people did you say you've taught people skills to?
00:10:24 Speaker_00
400,000 students.
00:10:25 Speaker_06
And is there a particular case study that stands out to you as being the most extreme in terms Are you studying the fact that someone can go from zero to a wonderful place?
00:10:36 Speaker_00
Yes, and it's my very brilliant but stoic students.
00:10:42 Speaker_00
So I've noticed, especially over the last 10 years, because I've been doing this for about 17 years, in the last 10 years especially, my most extreme students are the students who are very, very smart, very talented and good at what they do, but they don't know what cues to send, and so they completely shut down.
00:10:58 Speaker_00
They try to become stoic, unreadable. They try to have no facial expressions. They literally try to poker face all the time. And as they try to make connections, meet a partner, make friends, people don't like them. People don't trust them.
00:11:12 Speaker_00
They can't get by into their ideas. And those are the students where I see the biggest transformation. They don't realize that muting, muting your cues is a danger zone cue.
00:11:22 Speaker_00
If you try to be stoic and unreadable, people literally cannot get a read on you. And so my biggest transformations have happened when I can say, you don't need to hide your true feelings. It's about amplifying them with the right cues.
00:11:34 Speaker_00
There's a famous example of this, Jamie Siminoff, founder of Ring. So I don't know if you ever watch Shark Tank.
00:11:40 Speaker_08
Yeah.
00:11:41 Speaker_00
So in this episode, for those who haven't seen it, Jamie Siminoff entered the tank and he pitched a billion-dollar idea. Literally a billion-dollar idea because it went on to raise funding from Shaq and Richard Branson.
00:11:52 Speaker_00
But in the tank, he pitches the idea and he gets so much pushback and so much negotiation and he walks out of the tank without a deal. In fact, the sharks did not like him. What happened?
00:12:01 Speaker_00
He had the billion dollar idea, but he did not know how to share it. This is the biggest transformation I see, is people who have brilliant ideas. They're good people, they're hardworking people, and they cannot get buy-in.
00:12:12 Speaker_00
They cannot make friends, they cannot find partners.
00:12:15 Speaker_06
How do they feel? So if you had to say words that make them feel seen right now, how are they feeling as they're listening to this?
00:12:22 Speaker_00
overwhelmed, getting into interaction, just social overthinking, not knowing what to do, not knowing what to feel, underestimated, like people don't see you or the real potential that you have, a lack of confidence, and fear.
00:12:36 Speaker_00
Afraid that if you are your true self or you try any of the things we're talking about, people won't like you. And I want to teach you that you can be yourself and you can be liked and you can find your people.
00:12:48 Speaker_00
And that doesn't mean everyone's going to like you, but it means if you signal the right things, cues tell others how to treat you. If you signal the right cues, you will find your people.
00:12:57 Speaker_06
One of the things that I was sort of inferring from what you said is the importance of understanding your resting bitch face. That's like the term we use in the UK, resting bitch face, which is like when you're just listening or doing nothing.
00:13:08 Speaker_06
Like how does your face look?
00:13:09 Speaker_00
Yes.
00:13:10 Speaker_06
And you're telling me that's really, really important.
00:13:12 Speaker_00
It's real. So I call it resting bothered face. I probably shouldn't use that word. Resting bothered face. RBF, same thing. Okay, this is a real phenomenon, which is that all of us have different faces at rest.
00:13:23 Speaker_00
Now I want you to look at my face for a second. My face at rest, I'm going to rest it for a second. My mouth angles down and sort of an upside down U, so it looks like this. You see how these are going down?
00:13:34 Speaker_04
Yeah.
00:13:36 Speaker_00
Are you laughing at my you?
00:13:37 Speaker_04
A little bit.
00:13:38 Speaker_00
Okay. So at rest, I look a little sad.
00:13:41 Speaker_06
Yeah.
00:13:42 Speaker_00
That is just my mouth at rest. Yours goes pretty straight across.
00:13:45 Speaker_06
I just, I just.
00:13:46 Speaker_00
You have a lot of hood. That's what that's called. I have a lot of hoods. A lot of hood. Yes. This is hood. Yes. Yes. So that probably makes you, do people think you're angry or tired? Both. Both. Okay. People never call me angry, they call me sad.
00:13:56 Speaker_00
You need to look in the mirror and figure out what is the default of your face. If your mouth angles down into a frown, people are going to think you're sad. You're going to have to be counteracting that with your cues.
00:14:05 Speaker_00
If you have a lot of hood above your eyes, or you have these two vertical lines that appear between your eyebrows, you actually don't have them, but if some people at rest even have those two lines, people are going to think you're angry or frustrated.
00:14:16 Speaker_00
If you have down eyes, so I don't know if you noticed, but my, I have cat, I've added cat makeup to my eye. Ah, yes. Yes, that actually makes me look less sad. Because also my eyes slope a little bit down at the end, which makes me look sad.
00:14:27 Speaker_08
Okay.
00:14:28 Speaker_00
So people often are like, are you okay? Are you tired? I'm like, no, that's just my face. So, I have ways that I counteract it. One, I get to use makeup, which is a great thing. But second, I know that I need to make my face a little bit more up, right?
00:14:43 Speaker_00
So, when I am interacting with someone, when I'm on video, when I'm in an interview, I typically rest my face in an upward position. I've activated these muscles, so don't I look happier?
00:14:51 Speaker_06
You do, but have you got to consciously tell yourself to do that, or do you just always remember?
00:14:56 Speaker_00
No, I have to consciously tell myself to do that. Now, I only need to do that with people with a first impression or when I'm trying to make a good impression. My team knows that I'm not sad, right? Like, my team, they see me all the time.
00:15:05 Speaker_00
They see me without makeup. They know that I'm not sad. They know that's just my face. So here's what's critical. One, you should know what is your resting default. Are you looking sad, angry, or afraid? Oh, afraid I didn't do.
00:15:15 Speaker_00
So if you have, you actually have some, I'm so sorry. Oh, you're joking. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. You have these lines.
00:15:21 Speaker_02
I just heard someone laugh in the back. One of my team just laughed in the back.
00:15:24 Speaker_00
So you have them just right here, these light lines here. So when we're afraid, we go, and we raise our eyebrows up and our, you can't see it because I have Botox in my forehead, but if you, yeah, there you go, there you go, that's free.
00:15:35 Speaker_00
Now open your eyes and go, that's afraid. So the more you have those lines and the whites of your eyes appear, like have you ever seen someone kind of walk around like a deer in the headlights? They make you feel anxious.
00:15:46 Speaker_00
Like if I were to do my entire interview a little bit wide eyed, you would not only feel anxious, but you wouldn't believe what I was saying. So you all should see if you have this default lined or if the whites of your eyes show.
00:15:54 Speaker_00
Look at your profile pictures. In your profile pictures, here are the three biggest mistakes people make. One, they're showing fewer eyes.
00:16:01 Speaker_02
Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:04 Speaker_00
So people, you're signaling, accidentally, anxiety. So try to make sure you're not showing the upper whites. Second mistake people do is they make a contempt micro-expression. So that's a one-sided mouth raise. So just do a one-sided mouth raise for me.
00:16:18 Speaker_00
Does it make you kind of feel like, eh, better? Don't do it for too long. So if you do it at home, there's a facial feedback hypothesis. When you make these faces, it actually triggers the emotion.
00:16:26 Speaker_00
Just like when you have the emotion, it triggers the face. There's a loop that happens.
00:16:30 Speaker_00
So if people make the contempt expression, one-sided mouth raise, not only do they look scornful, kind of disdained, they actually begin to feel better then and scornful. So do not do an asymmetrical smile in your profile picture.
00:16:43 Speaker_00
You are accidentally signaling negativity. The third biggest mistake people make is they do an inauthentic smile in their picture. The only true indicator of happiness is when these cheek muscles are activated. Anyone can fake smile.
00:16:56 Speaker_00
This is what mine looks like. But you've seen people do it, right?
00:17:02 Speaker_06
Yeah, I do it.
00:17:03 Speaker_00
Yeah, and people know. I would rather you not.
00:17:06 Speaker_06
No, because I just don't have a good smile.
00:17:08 Speaker_00
What? Am I going to say, no, it's horrible?
00:17:13 Speaker_06
That's not your real smile. I literally have to do this when I tick face. That's my smile. I can't do the teeth thing. What am I going to do?
00:17:22 Speaker_00
Well, you can smile without your teeth as long as it hits your upper cheek muscles. So just try this for me. Put your pen or your finger in between your mouth like this and smile as high as you can go. Oh, that's better.
00:17:32 Speaker_00
That reaches all the way up into your eyes. Do you see?
00:17:34 Speaker_02
Oh, that's not.
00:17:36 Speaker_00
That looks so much better. If you can activate these muscles in your profile picture, you don't have to walk around like that, but if you can activate, not the fear, not the fear, just here, just here.
00:17:46 Speaker_00
If you can activate these muscles in your profile picture, it shows authentic happiness or don't smile at all. I hate the advice, just smile more. Fake smiles do not work. Dr. Barbara Wild studied this.
00:17:59 Speaker_00
She took pictures of people thinking of something they were authentically happy about, took a picture of them smiling, then she told them to fake smile and took a picture of them.
00:18:06 Speaker_00
On the surface, you really couldn't tell the difference between the two smiles. They looked very similar. But she had participants take mood tests.
00:18:13 Speaker_00
Then look at one picture or the other, group A, group B. People who saw the positive picture had an improved mood. They caught the happiness from the photo. People who looked at the fake smile had no mood change.
00:18:26 Speaker_00
This means I would rather you have no smile at all or be neutral than fake smile. But if you can smile in your picture, it is so great for authentic happiness.
00:18:36 Speaker_06
It sounds like it might be quite exhausting for some people, because I think some people, although they're happy, they feel good, they're nice people, they do have that resting bothered face, I think you called it.
00:18:48 Speaker_06
And there's other people that I know that just kind of walk through life with this like resting smile. Like we can all think of that person that's just like always happy.
00:18:56 Speaker_06
And then there's these other people who are like objectively happy too, but they just have that resting bothered face. So it feels like life is going to be more exhausting for those people.
00:19:02 Speaker_00
You know, I think it's about choosing your heart, right? It is hard, it is exhausting for me to show up to a meeting when I'm in a good mood and have someone be like, are you sad and tired? Are you okay? I'm like, I'm fine. I find that exhausting.
00:19:17 Speaker_00
Is it also a little exhausting to make sure that in my first impression, I'm being a little bit more up with my face, open eyes wide and open mouth? A little less exhausting than that.
00:19:26 Speaker_00
So I think you have to choose what are the cues you're going to purposefully add. There are 97 cues. I've narrowed it down to 97 that I think are the most important. You get to make your own recipe. You don't have to do all the cues.
00:19:36 Speaker_00
If smiling is not your thing, smiling is not essential for being charismatic. When we talk about being charismatic, it's about being warm and competent. And you have 97 cues to choose from to make that warmth and competence recipe.
00:19:49 Speaker_00
And so you don't have to be a bubbly extrovert to be charismatic. You can be a quiet, powerful introvert. You can be a compassionate, empathetic healer. Those look different.
00:19:58 Speaker_00
And so I think it's less exhausting to find your recipe and to use those cues a lot. There's certain cues in my book that I teach that I don't use. They just don't feel natural to me. But there are other cues where I'm like,
00:20:10 Speaker_06
Has anyone ever done any really compelling studies on this idea of resting bitch face or resting bothered face, as you call it?
00:20:15 Speaker_00
There is research on resting bothered face, and there are certain people who, when people see pictures of their face at rest, they assume a mood change. In other words, when there are certain people at rest, where you look at them, they look neutral.
00:20:28 Speaker_00
But there are a certain percent of the population, when you look at them, they look angry, sad, or afraid. So it's real. And they're real phenomena.
00:20:33 Speaker_06
And there's certain people you look at and they look happy and make you happy.
00:20:36 Speaker_00
Very few people have happy resting face, though.
00:20:38 Speaker_06
You either look neutral or bothered. So you said you were a recovering awkward person. Yes. Take me into what you were like.
00:20:44 Speaker_00
Oh goodness.
00:20:45 Speaker_06
And what do you mean when you say awkward person?
00:20:47 Speaker_00
I really wanted to go it alone. I was really overwhelmed by people and interactions. I didn't know what to do with my hands. I didn't know what to say. I felt like I missed a memo that everyone got on conversation.
00:21:00 Speaker_00
I always felt like I was saying the wrong things. I had all these awkward silences. And then what would happen is I would try to overcompensate by sharing a ridiculous story or talking too much or completely shutting down.
00:21:10 Speaker_00
And I kind of like wavered between completely shutting down and being overwhelmed and talking too much and saying too much and just verbal vomiting all over everyone. And so I shut down. And in college, especially, I just felt so left out.
00:21:24 Speaker_00
I just felt so lonely. And I don't know if anyone watching is feeling lonely, I thought it was all my fault. I was like, I missed the memo. I don't know how to have conversations. I don't even know how to have friends.
00:21:37 Speaker_00
That's what it felt like, that I desperately wanted to make connections, but I had no idea how to level up a new person to a friendship. I had no idea how that path happened.
00:21:50 Speaker_00
I had no idea how to have a conversation with someone, share something real, and then have a real interaction back. And so it was really lonely and overwhelming.
00:21:59 Speaker_06
And what was the catalyst for you to go on this journey?
00:22:02 Speaker_00
I was in college and there was a group paper assigned. And you had like five people and everyone had to do five pages. And I went to the professor and I said, I will write double the amount of pages if I can work by myself.
00:22:16 Speaker_00
And he was like, Vanessa, the point of the paper is not the paper. It's working with the people. And I was like, and I started to cry in his office. I was like that student. I was like, I, I don't know how.
00:22:29 Speaker_00
And he was like, Vanessa, you're very good at science. You're very good at breaking things down. What if you studied for people like you study for chemistry? That was like an aha moment for me. He said, why don't you study good conversation?
00:22:43 Speaker_00
Why don't you study the popular kids? Why don't you look at what are they doing in conversation that's working? Study it like it's a science. Hence, my brand was called Science of People.
00:22:53 Speaker_00
That's when I realized, OK, it didn't come naturally to me, but maybe there's research.
00:22:58 Speaker_00
on actual things I can do with my body, things I can do, I can say verbally, questions that work that will help me learn this the other way, turning soft skills into hard skills. That's when I started creating my first conversational blueprints.
00:23:10 Speaker_00
That's when I started creating my conversation formula, and it started to work. I started to try out these kind of tiny experiments, and I actually started to feel like myself, make more friends. It was tools.
00:23:22 Speaker_00
I had to use tools to be able to connect because it just did not come naturally to me.
00:23:26 Speaker_06
Was it fixed from day one?
00:23:29 Speaker_00
No.
00:23:30 Speaker_06
So it was a journey?
00:23:30 Speaker_00
It was a real journey, yeah.
00:23:32 Speaker_06
I think that's important because often people think, you know, read the book, get the tips and tricks and you're changed and you're fixed.
00:23:38 Speaker_06
You talk about, I think, later in your life where you went to a dinner party and your husband was there with you and you went home and told him that you thought everyone was angry at you.
00:23:47 Speaker_00
Yeah.
00:23:47 Speaker_06
When was that?
00:23:49 Speaker_00
That was probably maybe four or five years later. So I started mostly with conversation. That was sort of my first tool I needed. Questions I wanted to ask, first impressions, and how to close conversation very practically.
00:24:02 Speaker_00
I also realized about five years later, I married my college sweetheart. So I've been with my husband for a long time. And he said to me, you always think everyone's angry at you. I was like, isn't everyone angry at me?
00:24:14 Speaker_00
And I realized there are certain people who misinterpret neutral facial expressions as negative. I have this problem. So I will see a neutral expression on someone and assume they are angry or afraid or stressed or don't like me.
00:24:29 Speaker_00
And that was creating this really bad loop because when you think someone doesn't like you, you shut down and become more unlikable. There was a study discovered right around this time. This is done by Dr. Van Sloan.
00:24:41 Speaker_00
He wanted to know what makes popular kids popular. Very clever study. He studied thousands of high school students across a variety of high schools looking for patterns. Why is it that some kids across these grades and ages are really popular?
00:24:54 Speaker_00
He had all the kids ranked across all these schools. He had them looked at traits. And then he guessed what made the popular kids popular. Were they more athletic? Were they more attractive? Were they funnier? Were they smarter? What was it?
00:25:05 Speaker_06
Can you guess what it was? So I'm just basing this on the kids that were popular in my school. They were funnier, they were self-deprecating to some degree, they were remotely good at some sports maybe. They were funny, happy, I don't know.
00:25:29 Speaker_00
Okay, so he found that the most popular kids across the one single variable that was held true across all the different students was the most popular kids had the longest list of people they liked.
00:25:43 Speaker_00
So when he asked one of the questions of the survey was, who do you like? They had the longest lists. And when he looked at their day to day, they had micro moments of liking. They would go down the hallway and be like, hey, Chad. Hey, Chelsea.
00:25:57 Speaker_00
Hey, Sarah. They liked so many people, and that, in turn, made them more likable. This showed me that being likable is in our control. Being likable means you have to be first liker. If you set out to like more people, you become more likable.
00:26:16 Speaker_00
And that was a really big shift for me because for so long, I thought it was all about me. It's a very selfish way to be, right? I was like, I better be impressive. I better be funny.
00:26:25 Speaker_00
But actually, what makes us likable is just liking as many people as possible.
00:26:29 Speaker_06
I was laughing as you were speaking because I was just playing out all the different sort of personas of people listening right now. Yeah.
00:26:34 Speaker_06
And I just had this one persona of a person sat at home who just like slumped over because they realized they hate everybody. Like, when you said that, they were just like, fuck, I hate everybody.
00:26:42 Speaker_00
Look, I get it. I get it. I get it. And I also think that if you hate everyone, if that's you, let me try to convince you for a second. It could be because you're asking the wrong questions. I think I fell into that camp. I don't need people.
00:26:56 Speaker_00
I don't like people. I was very much in that camp for the first couple of years. Why? Because I had terrible interactions and terrible conversations. It was awkward. Of course I didn't like people.
00:27:05 Speaker_00
But I was also asking the wrong questions and I was telling the wrong stories. I was trying to be impressive. The best way to be impressive, to be likable, is to help people impress you. is to make them feel so liked that they begin to like you back.
00:27:19 Speaker_00
It's aggressively liking. So that means that when you're with someone, you should be constantly giving them verbal and nonverbal assurances of how much you want to like them. Watch them change. Watch your relationships transform.
00:27:32 Speaker_00
So I make it a policy of aggressively liking people. So I have three magic phrases for likability. Can I teach them to you? Please. Okay, so I want you to use these as many times as you can. Three magic phrases for likeability.
00:27:44 Speaker_00
One, I was just thinking of you. Okay, so here's how you use this authentically, right? You think of a lot of people in your life all the time. If you are thinking of someone and you can text them, text them, I was just thinking of you, how are you?
00:27:58 Speaker_00
I was just thinking of you, how'd that project go? I was just thinking of you, it has been a while since we talked.
00:28:02 Speaker_00
Or, and better, you see a movie, you see a documentary, you see a matcha latte, you see a mug, you see a ceramic candle, and you're like, oh, this made me think of you.
00:28:12 Speaker_00
So my text messages, my conversations are full of actual moments where I was triggered to think of that person, actually, that this thing made me think of you. Or I was just thinking of you, I wanted to ask you about.
00:28:24 Speaker_00
If you don't think of someone, they're not a person you need to have in your life.
00:28:27 Speaker_06
OK, so that's number one. That's number one. I want to pause on number one because I've got some sort of questions to ask here. Yes. It sounds exhausting. It sounds like it's going to cost me a lot of time that I don't necessarily have.
00:28:37 Speaker_06
And this is just my like my surface level reaction was, oh God, another job. You know what I mean? If I've got to set aside an hour to text everyone I know and go, I was just thinking of you, it's going to be exhausting.
00:28:49 Speaker_06
I've got like six friends and I've got my partner and I've got my family and my team. It's a lot. It's a lot.
00:28:55 Speaker_00
Then just them. And also, it doesn't take an hour when you're like, oh, stainless steel mug, this made me think of you. Like, you're only doing it when it's actually naturally occurring to you.
00:29:06 Speaker_00
I don't want you to sit at your desk and be like, I'm due for some I was just thinking of yous. No, this happens in the wild. You're watching a documentary. You're at a restaurant. You're on the bus. You're like, oh, that reminds me of this person.
00:29:17 Speaker_00
Quick text. That is less work than missing an old friend and not knowing what to say. It is less work to see something in real life or have a thought of like, I wonder how Sarah is, and reaching out to them then.
00:29:31 Speaker_00
I miss Sarah, but I'm not gonna reach out to her. It's also less work when you see someone, and you haven't seen them in a while, or they're a friend of a friend, or they're that casual coworker relationship, and you're like, what do I say?
00:29:43 Speaker_00
I think it's a lot of work to go up to that person and be like, how was your weekend? I think that's a lot of work. I think boring small talk's a lot of work. If you actually thought of them to say, you know, I know you love dolphins.
00:29:55 Speaker_00
I saw this dolphin documentary on Netflix. Have you seen it? I was just thinking of you. Made me think of you.
00:29:58 Speaker_06
I want another concern. So if I, if I start firing out these WhatsApp messages, telling people what I'm thinking, it's just going to be, it's going to be opening up loads of conversations that I then have to deal with. Do you know what I mean?
00:30:08 Speaker_06
Like, it's going to be like, Hey, I was just thinking of you. And then they reply, they go, Oh, how, how are you? And I go, I'm good. Thanks. And then they go, I go, how are you? They go, I'm good. Thanks. And then, do you know what I mean?
00:30:19 Speaker_00
I don't believe in asking, how are you? That's a whole nother thing. This is a good test. If you are worried that they're going to start a conversation that's going to bore you and feel like work, they're not a close friend.
00:30:31 Speaker_05
So don't text them. Okay.
00:30:32 Speaker_00
It's a very good test. If there's someone where you're like, oh, I don't really want to hear how they are.
00:30:37 Speaker_08
Yeah. Okay.
00:30:39 Speaker_00
This is for the people who you want to level up with. There are three levels of intimacy. People who you kind of know, you know their personal, you know their general traits, where they work, where they live, what they do, that's it.
00:30:50 Speaker_00
You don't want to go any deeper with them. Level two people are people where they know your personal concerns. You know their goals, their motivations, their personality traits, their worries. Those are people you want to invest in.
00:31:00 Speaker_00
And there's a last level, which is the most deep level, which is called self-narrative, which is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.
00:31:07 Speaker_00
If you categorize your relationships, another activity I love for my students to do is make those three levels on a piece of paper. Write down the 20 people you can think of, the top 20 people you spend the most time with, where they fall.
00:31:18 Speaker_06
So we have acquaintances.
00:31:19 Speaker_00
We have acquaintances who just kind of know where you're from, what do you do, the basics. And by the way, some of the people who you're close with, you might not be deep with.
00:31:28 Speaker_06
Yeah, true.
00:31:29 Speaker_00
Right? Level two, personal concerns. Could they tell you what is your, Stephen's biggest goal right now?
00:31:34 Speaker_06
Okay. And then the middle layer I didn't understand.
00:31:36 Speaker_00
That's the middle layer. That's the middle layer. So it's general traits, personal concerns, self-narrative.
00:31:41 Speaker_06
What's self-narrative?
00:31:43 Speaker_00
So this is what my next book is about. I'm doing research on it right now. Self-narrative is the story you tell yourself about yourself.
00:31:48 Speaker_06
So is this a group of people?
00:31:50 Speaker_00
It's the levels of intimacy you are with someone. So would your partner know the story you tell yourself about yourself? I'll give you an example. 100% she would. I think so.
00:32:01 Speaker_00
So I think that there are basically three main types of narratives and you should know what these are for the closest people in your life. Maybe only two or three and you should also know what it is for yourself. The best one is a hero narrative.
00:32:13 Speaker_00
This is I've worked really hard. I've had some challenges and mistakes, but I've overcome with hard work and smarts, and now I am where I am.
00:32:21 Speaker_00
Every version of their story, their career, their life, their relationships is that same narrative over and over again. Then there's what I think is called the healer narrative. Again, I'm doing research on this for my next book.
00:32:32 Speaker_00
The healer narrative, their story is all about helping others. They typically are in careers of service, of helping others, physical therapists, nurses, healthcare. Their story is, how can I be more helpful?
00:32:45 Speaker_00
They tend to have a problem, though, if you're in a relationship with a healer, is they always put other people's needs before them, themselves.
00:32:51 Speaker_06
Do they have some kind of historic trauma?
00:32:53 Speaker_00
They can. And a lot of the times they were put in a position of caretaking too early. Like they were told that you are of value if you can caretake. You're of value if you put your needs last. So they tend to be people pleasers.
00:33:06 Speaker_00
They tend to say yes to everything. You have to be careful if you work with a healer because they're great to work with. They help, help, help, but they say yes to too much. So a healer is the middle one. The last one is victim narrative.
00:33:18 Speaker_00
Victim narrative, no matter what, personal, professional, love life, taxes, they have the same narrative. I experienced challenges and mistakes and I didn't overcome. No matter how hard I work, no matter how smart I am, the world is against me.
00:33:31 Speaker_00
So a question I ask people to begin to uncover their self-narratives. Do you feel lucky? Do you feel lucky?
00:33:38 Speaker_08
I feel very lucky.
00:33:39 Speaker_00
I also feel very lucky. People who have a resounding yes to I feel lucky are more likely heroes or healers. People who say I don't feel lucky, I feel very unlucky, are typically victims. Dr. Richard Wiseman did a study.
00:33:53 Speaker_00
He asked people to perceive their own luck. How lucky do you feel? Then he gave them a challenge. He gave them a newspaper. And he said, I want you to count the amount of images in this newspaper.
00:34:03 Speaker_00
They sat with the newspaper and they counted all the images, but there was a trick. There's always a trick in these studies. On the second page of the newspaper, in big print, it said, stop counting. There are 42 images in this newspaper.
00:34:15 Speaker_00
Almost all of the people who perceived themselves as lucky saw the ad, closed the paper and gave it back, so there are 42 images. Almost none of the unlucky people did.
00:34:25 Speaker_00
The unlucky people missed the ad and kept counting, spent a lot of time and made more mistakes. This means that if you think of yourself as lucky, you literally see more opportunities. If you think of yourself as unlucky, you miss them.
00:34:40 Speaker_06
Is it possible to change how you see yourself?
00:34:43 Speaker_00
I do believe in a growth mindset. So I do believe that if this is resonating with you and you're like, uh-oh, I feel unlucky. I might have this victim self-narrative. I do believe it's possible to change your perception of yourself.
00:34:57 Speaker_00
And that's starting with small moments of heroism. I think that changing your people skills, saying, I don't like people, and saying, I'm going to find a way to like people.
00:35:07 Speaker_00
Saying, I'm bad at conversation, I'm going to find a way to be good at conversation. To say, I'm an awkward person, no, I'm a recovering awkward person.
00:35:13 Speaker_00
If we can begin to take those tiny experiments and change them one by one, we begin to have small moments of heroism, and that's how we change our self-narrative.
00:35:21 Speaker_06
As an employer I think about this a lot, these sort of verbal and non-verbal cues.
00:35:24 Speaker_06
I actually had an interview some time ago and I think I came out of the interview and I think objectively the person might have been qualified but there was something about their energy or cues or something that signalled something else to me that they were
00:35:39 Speaker_06
an unhappy person or they were tired or they didn't really want to be here or something like that. Are there any studies that confirm that our hidden communication is driving our success in the working environment?
00:35:53 Speaker_00
Yes. So this study blew my mind. It's 58,000 working hours over 11 different companies. So a huge amount of data. They wanted to know if low performers infect the people around them and if high performers infect people around them.
00:36:10 Speaker_00
What they found was if you sit within 25 feet of a high performer, your own performance improves by 15%. Here's the kicker. If you sit within 25 feet of a low performer, your own performance decreases by 30%.
00:36:28 Speaker_00
This means that our negative emotions are more contagious, that if you're around people who are low performers, whatever that means to you, who have negative cues, who are feeling anxious or tired or low confident, you could catch those cues and that affects your own performance.
00:36:44 Speaker_00
This is why it is incredibly critical to invest in the five people who you spend the most time with. You want to make sure those five people are the cues you want to catch. Do you like the cues they're sending?
00:36:54 Speaker_00
Do they give you the right motivation, feelings? Do they make you feel liked? Do they make you a better version of yourself? There's just one more chemical aspect of this which we have to do more research on.
00:37:07 Speaker_00
This is a very gross study, but it's one of my favorites. It's a little gross. You ready? Okay. So they brought people into their lab. They split them up into two different groups.
00:37:16 Speaker_00
And they made the first group wear a sweatsuit where they catch their sweat and run on the treadmill. So they sweat a lot on the treadmill. The second group, they wore sweatsuits and they took them skydiving for the first time. Both groups sweat a lot.
00:37:28 Speaker_00
Treadmill sweat and skydiving sweat. They took these sweat samples, and they had unsuspecting participants go into fMRI machines and scan their brains. And they gave them both sweat samples to smell.
00:37:40 Speaker_00
These poor people didn't know what they were smelling. They went, Everyone who smelled the skydiving sweat had an activation in their own amygdala, their own fear response triggered.
00:37:51 Speaker_00
In other words, when they smelled fear sweat, they didn't know why, they began to feel afraid. Everyone who smelled the treadmill sweat had no change at all.
00:37:59 Speaker_00
This means that, yes, we can talk about facial expressions and body language and vocal cues and words, but there's also something chemically happening with the people around us that we can literally smell fear and we catch it.
00:38:11 Speaker_00
And that is also why it's really important to follow our gut. Oh, dear.
00:38:15 Speaker_06
I was going to say, well, then we're all screwed, aren't we? We can't do anything because there's, if we're giving off these chemicals which are impacting those around us, it doesn't matter if I smile and do the whole like, er.
00:38:26 Speaker_00
No, because I think intention is the backdoor into confidence. It's very hard to fake confidence. I don't believe in fake it till you make it, I don't really.
00:38:34 Speaker_00
But if I say, I have a conversational tool for you that's gonna make your conversations better, you become less nervous, you become more excited, you ask a better question, they give you a really good answer, you feel super charismatic, they feel really liked, you feel really likable, ooh, we have a good little cycle.
00:38:50 Speaker_00
So I think that intention, going in with really purposeful cues, helps you feel more confident and triggers these beautiful cycles.
00:38:58 Speaker_06
The cycle, is this the cycle you're talking about?
00:39:00 Speaker_00
Yes. The cue cycle. The cue cycle, yes.
00:39:02 Speaker_06
I'll put it on the screen and in the description for anyone that wants to see it. But when I saw this, the reason I printed this off is because it really hit close to home.
00:39:09 Speaker_06
Because I'm someone that meets a lot of people and when I meet people, on the very rare occasion, something about someone will just kind of throw my energy
00:39:18 Speaker_06
And it throws my energy to the point that I realize I'm then acting a little bit in terms of my interaction with them. And it's almost like I can't control it.
00:39:25 Speaker_06
Like something about the person has unnerved me or just made it, and it's nothing that I could consciously tell you, like, say it was the way they shook my hand. Just something about them throws me into this different state.
00:39:36 Speaker_06
And when I saw this, I almost figured out why, because the first step in this cue, you explain, I mean, it's your cue cycle.
00:39:43 Speaker_00
Yes, okay, so we often mistakenly think that we send a signal to someone else, they send a signal back to us, and that's it.
00:39:52 Speaker_00
What we don't realize is there's a cycle happening within us, which is that if you send me a negative cue, I internalize it, and that changes the cues I'm sending back to you. Here's a very simple experiment that showed this.
00:40:04 Speaker_00
They put a participant in a room, and they had an actor in the room flash them a social rejection cue that could be, an eye roll, a scoff, a distancing and blocking behavior.
00:40:18 Speaker_00
So the participants in the room and this person across from them, they don't know it was an actor, sends them a social rejection cue.
00:40:24 Speaker_00
What they found was the moment that participant saw the social rejection cue, their own pupils dilated and their field of vision increased. This means that somebody saw, uh-oh, that person doesn't like me, and their body reacted to fight or flight.
00:40:41 Speaker_00
Does anyone else feel this way about me? Are there any escape routes for me? And that then changed what cues they sent back to that person. They were more anxious. They were more nervous.
00:40:50 Speaker_00
If you walk into a room with someone and you're feeling bad, you probably caught a cue. Here's the good news. You can stop the cue cycle from being negative. There's also positive cues, right? We can catch positive cues. That can be good for us.
00:41:02 Speaker_00
But we can stop the negative cycle if we label the cue we see. Dr. Matthew Lieberman at UCLA studied this very clearly.
00:41:08 Speaker_00
He put people in fMRI machines, and he flashed them a fear microexpression, the one that you showed us earlier, with your eyes really wide. When people saw the fear microexpression, they caught the fear.
00:41:18 Speaker_00
They began to feel afraid, and their amygdala lit up. But when he taught them, say, fear. or think, fear, he taught them the microexpression, it stopped activating their amygdala.
00:41:29 Speaker_00
Meaning, if you know how to read the 97 Qs, and you see contempt, or social rejection, or a mouth shrug, or a lip purse, all not great Qs, you can in your head say, lip purse, I'm good, or clocked, noted. That intel is actually empowering.
00:41:45 Speaker_00
So that backdoor into confidence is also, you can label it, name it, tame it, and you're in control of it. That is a much better way to interact and also can help you like people, for all my people who don't like people.
00:41:56 Speaker_06
Okay, so in those moments I should, in my head, just say what I'm… Clocked.
00:42:00 Speaker_00
Label it.
00:42:00 Speaker_06
Clocked.
00:42:01 Speaker_00
Yeah, that's what I say to myself. Or like, red flag. Or noted.
00:42:05 Speaker_06
You're particularly famous for a TED Talk that you did. Yeah. Which did very, very well. It was called You Are Contagious. And it really opened my eyes to the importance of hand gestures.
00:42:18 Speaker_06
Which I didn't really think were that important before, but it's funny because going through this election cycle, and obviously Trump has now been elected as the next president of the United States, he is someone in particular that uses a lot of hand gestures.
00:42:29 Speaker_06
And in your TED Talk, you make the case that hand gestures matter.
00:42:32 Speaker_00
Oh, so much. I think the hands are the windows into the soul. I think what we underestimate is the power of our gestures. Love it. Just love it. Just those jazz hands, just those jazz hands. So here's, I want to do a little experiment with you.
00:42:45 Speaker_00
So I'm going to put my hands in my lap. I've been very careful to leave my hands on the table for the entire interview. That's on purpose. Now, something funny happens in your brain when you can't see my hands.
00:42:55 Speaker_00
And the longer my hands are underneath the table, the more your amygdala will begin to fire. And the more distracted you become with, where are her hands? Why are her hands under the table? And then when I bring my hands back out again, your brain goes,
00:43:08 Speaker_00
And that is because hands show intention. And this makes sense from an evolutionary perspective.
00:43:12 Speaker_00
So if we go back to caveman days, if we were approached by a stranger caveman and they went, friend, friend, friend, friend, friend, friend, friend, we saw they weren't carrying a rock or a spear, and they were probably a friend.
00:43:21 Speaker_00
In fact, when we go, so nice to meet you, we can see someone's hand, we know that they're literally not gonna harm us.
00:43:26 Speaker_00
So our brain still keeps this mechanism that if we're on video and we can't see someone's hands, or they walk into an office with their hands in their pockets or behind their back, we feel a little bit uneasy. So there's two things for this.
00:43:38 Speaker_00
First, is the moment someone first sees you, you want to be friend, friend, friend. Good to see you. Oh, so nice to meet you. What put your hand up for people that can't see you? The moment I walk into a room, hey, nice to see you.
00:43:48 Speaker_00
Even before I handshake, even an old friend, I'll be like, oh my gosh, so good to see you on Zoom. Morning.
00:43:54 Speaker_06
For people that can't see, she's basically putting her hand in the air.
00:43:57 Speaker_00
Like a little wave. A little wave. We love a palm. As humans, we love seeing someone's palm. There's something about it that makes us feel like, ah, they're literally open-palmed. So that's the first.
00:44:06 Speaker_00
In the first few seconds of someone seeing you, in person, on video, try to flash your palm. Very, very simply. Second, we understand competence in two ways. Very highly competent people know their content so well, they can speak to you on two tracks.
00:44:23 Speaker_00
They can speak to you verbally, but they also can speak to you with their hands. This is why we loved picture books as kids. And so when someone is speaking, we're listening to their words.
00:44:31 Speaker_00
But second, we're looking, are their hands outlining their words? So for example, all the best TED Talks start the same way. And this is what got me my TED Talk, is we studied all the TED Talks from 2010, looking for patterns.
00:44:46 Speaker_00
And my team and I coded every TED Talk we can find, looking for differences between the most viral TED Talks and the least viral TED Talks.
00:44:54 Speaker_00
We found the most viral TED speakers used an average of 465 hand gestures in 18 minutes, whereas the least popular TED talkers used an average of 271 gestures, so not quite half.
00:45:10 Speaker_00
Meaning, if someone walks on stage—here's a really good TED talk, they all start this way, you ready? Today, I want to talk to you about a big idea. We're going to share three different things that are going to change your life.
00:45:24 Speaker_00
So for people listening, I was outlining with my hands along with my words. If I were to get on stage and say, today I have a really big idea. It's huge. And hold up my hands in a really small way.
00:45:35 Speaker_00
Your brain is 12.5 times more likely to believe my gesture over my words.
00:45:40 Speaker_00
And so what we can do as speakers, as very highly charismatic speakers, is think about how can I outline, very basically, not modern dance, what I'm saying or how can I emphasize things with my gestures. If something is big, show me.
00:45:52 Speaker_00
Is a beach ball big? Is it What is this big? Donkey big? Is this a donkey? I don't even know. A goat? A goat? This is a goat big. If you have something that's really small and no big deal, doing this actually helps you think that it's not a big deal.
00:46:07 Speaker_00
I'm making a little kind of dismissive gesture with my hand. This also works with emphasizing points you want people to remember. If you have three ideas, tell someone you have three ideas. It is very hard to lie with our gestures.
00:46:18 Speaker_00
For example, you want to do a little experiment with me? Sure. Okay, I want you to say five, but hold up the number three. Five. Hard, right? Yeah.
00:46:28 Speaker_06
So it's really hard. I have to think about them separately.
00:46:30 Speaker_00
Yeah, it's really hard. Our brain is not meant to lie with gesture, which is why humans pay so close attention to gestures. Because we're looking to see, are they congruent? It is so hard to be incongruent with gestures.
00:46:41 Speaker_00
Liars typically use less gestures. So we're also drawn to people who are using gestures, who are congruent with their gestures, because it makes us feel like, oh, they know their stuff and they're being honest.
00:46:52 Speaker_06
So it made me reflect, how do we establish causation here in terms of these hand gestures? Could it be the case that the more confident TED speakers are doing more gestures because they're less nervous. So is it about nerves?
00:47:07 Speaker_06
And the less confident, more nervous TED speakers are doing less gestures just because they're self-soothing a lot and they're kind of closing off their body. Is confidence the thing here? Is it nerves?
00:47:19 Speaker_00
I don't think so. I think it's about engagement. So I think most TED speakers, I watch these TED Talks, they're all good. All of them are good, and some of them are experts in their fields. The difference is, do I want to watch their good?
00:47:32 Speaker_00
It is hard for me as a viewer to pay attention for 18 minutes with someone who didn't use enough gestures. It was like physically hard for my brain to pay attention.
00:47:41 Speaker_00
I think those speakers, whether good or not, had over-rehearsed and rehearsed out their hand gestures, or were holding a podium, or were holding a clicker too hard.
00:47:49 Speaker_00
So I actually think that it's less to do with the speaker's nerves or confidence, and it's more to do with are they gonna let themselves use their hands to explain their points, and that becomes more engaging.
00:48:00 Speaker_06
One of the things I've noticed on this podcast is people who are using their hands are more expressive. And if they're more expressive, there's likely to be more sort of intonations in their voice. And if there's more intonations, it's more engaging.
00:48:09 Speaker_06
And if it's more engaging, then it's more attentive for the algorithm. And if it's more attentive for the algorithm, it's adjusted more. If it's adjusted more, there's more views.
00:48:16 Speaker_06
So I would like to tell my guests, particularly future guests, that if you have more expression in what you're saying and more intonations in your voice, then our show will grow.
00:48:29 Speaker_00
Okay, let's talk about two things here. One is we did a test on my YouTube channel and found that if we used a thumbnail of me doing any hand gesture, it didn't even matter what it was. It could be this, it could be this.
00:48:40 Speaker_00
Any hand gesture, that got more clicks. People even in a thumbnail like to see the hand gesture even more than my crazy facial expressions. We tried both.
00:48:48 Speaker_00
So yes, because if you see a thumbnail of me holding up two, you're like, well, what two things is she talking about? What is it? So we like it. It shows competence.
00:48:58 Speaker_00
And the second thing is that vocal variety is an incredibly important aspect of charisma. We're talking about gestures, but there is a feedback loop here.
00:49:10 Speaker_00
If I were going to sit on my hands for this interview, you would notice my facial expression would get less charismatic. My vocal tone would be less charismatic. It's really hard to be charismatic without movement.
00:49:19 Speaker_00
Vocal variety is a critical aspect of both warmth and competence. That is because when we hear someone who's able to, for example, give us the TED Talk voice. So I'm going to give you the TED Talk voice. You ready?
00:49:31 Speaker_00
This point is going to change the way that we think about the world. And if we don't analyze this point, we will be in huge trouble. Like that is a voice that is telling you, ooh, this is important.
00:49:44 Speaker_00
You also hear that really good speakers will use like a numbers voice. So a numbers voice sounds like this. Did you know that 43% of humans all believe in the same thing? And if you're telling a story, it changes again.
00:49:58 Speaker_00
So a story tone would go like this. You're never gonna believe what happened to me. So last week, I'm walking down the street and I saw this guy. It's a totally different vocal variety.
00:50:08 Speaker_00
That is a gift to your listener that makes you more engaging because they're able to clock, oh, we're doing a number now. We have a story now. Oh, this is an important point. I better write it down.
00:50:19 Speaker_00
Really good TED speakers are outlining their talk for you in many different ways, and that's the best speakers I see on stage.
00:50:26 Speaker_06
It's so interesting because in this podcast, we had quite a long conversation a couple of months ago about arms on the chair, the chair that you're in now. And it was just this observation we had when we first flew out here to New York.
00:50:36 Speaker_06
The chairs that we ordered were pretty similar to this, but they just happened to have arms on them. And what I noticed was that guests would lean and it would take out their arms.
00:50:47 Speaker_06
So it took out their arms and they became less expressive and the conversations were less interesting. So we've removed the arms again.
00:50:53 Speaker_00
Okay, so let's talk about this just very briefly. I actually do recommend chairs with arms, not in this setup, because look at the difference. So actually, right before this interview, you asked me to scoot my chair in, right?
00:51:05 Speaker_00
Your amazing team asked me to scoot my chair in. Thank you for that, because it makes it so that I want to put my hands up. If I were to be sitting farther back, I'm just going to lean back for a second, I would be tempted to put my hands in my lap.
00:51:15 Speaker_04
Yes.
00:51:15 Speaker_00
So the critical piece of this is you're having me scoot up to the table. It would be really hard if I had arms, because then I would want to go like this, and it would make me look like a duck.
00:51:24 Speaker_04
Yes.
00:51:25 Speaker_00
Right. So you want to use a chair with arms to be broader. It actually does broaden your arms out unless you're really close to the table and you can put your hands on the table.
00:51:32 Speaker_00
But it's amazing how the physical environment can change how we are perceived and how we move.
00:51:38 Speaker_06
But even we're very intentional about the sort of mirroring of our body language and just making sure that we're head on because this conversation is entirely different if we're side on.
00:51:46 Speaker_00
Very much.
00:51:47 Speaker_06
It's not going to be the same.
00:51:48 Speaker_00
Very much.
00:51:48 Speaker_06
And there's not going to be the same level of intimacy. Yes. We also thought a lot about how big the table was. This is quite a big table.
00:51:54 Speaker_00
What's the distance?
00:51:55 Speaker_06
I'm going to say it's about just shy of two meters.
00:51:58 Speaker_00
Wait, can you hold your arm up? OK, so this is perfect distance. The perfect distance between two people having a good conversation is that we could shake hands if we wanted to. And that is because there are four different proxemic zones.
00:52:09 Speaker_00
So the fancy word for space is proxemics. I don't know if you have that beautiful graphic. I printed out this. Oh, yes, that's it. Yes.
00:52:17 Speaker_00
So there are four different space zones, and these are really good to know if you're trying to set yourself up for success. The public zone is about five to eight feet away. I don't know, not feet, but five to eight feet away.
00:52:27 Speaker_00
Then you have the social zone, which is where we like to socialize with people. That is, depending on who you ask, three to five feet away. Then there's the personal zone. That's our favorite zone. That is about arm's distance apart, right?
00:52:37 Speaker_00
So we could shake hands if we wanted to. That's where our best conversations happen. And then there's the intimate zone.
00:52:43 Speaker_00
big mistake people make is they place their video camera too close to their face, which means they are accidentally signaling intimacy cues with their colleagues and their co-workers.
00:52:53 Speaker_00
Have you ever been on a Zoom with someone where their face is the entire camera? Yeah, I was on one earlier on. And you're like, please back up. And that is because your brain is going too close, even though they're across the camera.
00:53:02 Speaker_00
So what I would really recommend, measure the distance between your nose and your camera. It should be one arm length. So it should be the tip of your nose to the tip of your fingers or a foot and a half to three feet away.
00:53:13 Speaker_00
That is the ideal zone for having good conversation over Zoom.
00:53:17 Speaker_06
That's really interesting as well because I was thinking about the conversation I had actually on the way here in the car with a colleague of mine and they had called me on FaceTime. Now the thing with FaceTime is it's going to be close.
00:53:27 Speaker_06
It's going to be close. And it did feel a little bit intimate. It does. Because they called me on FaceTime. Yes. Obviously, if I was on my laptop, they would call me on Zoom or something else, and there'd be a meteor.
00:53:36 Speaker_00
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, so I think that that's why we can sometimes, at least introverts, feel like, don't FaceTime me, it's way too personal.
00:53:43 Speaker_00
It's because there's a setup there that it's actually accidentally tricking you into being in the intimate zone with someone. This is also why loud bars and nightclubs work so well for facilitating romantic relationships.
00:53:53 Speaker_00
What happens in a loud bar or a loud nightclub is you can't hear someone. So you go, what? And then you get a little bit closer, and all of a sudden, you're accidentally
00:54:02 Speaker_00
standing in someone's intimate zone, which then that cue cycle begins to kick in where you're like, well, if I'm standing within a foot and a half from this person, maybe I should feel intimate with them, which then makes you lean more, makes you want to touch more.
00:54:13 Speaker_00
That is why people go to bars and nightclubs to facilitate these romantic relationships. It's accidentally going into the intimate zone.
00:54:20 Speaker_06
When I was younger, I've said this a few times on the podcast before, but it feels very relevant. My brother, my older brother Jason, he ordered this book called The Game by Neil Strauss.
00:54:29 Speaker_06
And he ordered it to university, but he accidentally put the wrong address in, so it came to home. This sounds like an elaborate story for me, like buying a pick-up artist book.
00:54:36 Speaker_06
But it came to home, and I read the book, and it was my first time understanding that body language was, A, important, but even something you could learn. And when I say body language, I mean everything.
00:54:47 Speaker_06
And it's interesting because now after reading your work, I actually think maybe what I should have been aiming at was how to be more charismatic. And you talk about these five science-based habits for being more charismatic.
00:55:01 Speaker_06
I guess the first question is what is charisma?
00:55:04 Speaker_00
Yes.
00:55:04 Speaker_06
And then what are these five science-based habits that can make me more charismatic as a person? Like, how do I know if I'm charismatic?
00:55:11 Speaker_00
You are charismatic, but you lean higher on competence. So let's break it down, okay? So this is not my work. This is the work of Dr. Susan Fisk. This is an instrumental study.
00:55:21 Speaker_00
It's been repeated many times back in 2002 that found that to be charismatic, you have to be both highly warm and highly competent. or more importantly, you have to signal high warmth and high competence.
00:55:32 Speaker_00
And this makes up 82% of impressions of people. Warmth, trust, likability, friendliness, competence, power, reliability, capability.
00:55:41 Speaker_00
So very highly charismatic people, you meet them, you see them, and they are signaling, you can trust me, you like me, and boy, am I reliable and competent at the very same time.
00:55:52 Speaker_00
So when I say you are charismatic, but you lean very high in competence, which means that people can see you as cold or stoic if you're not showing enough warmth cues. Have you been told that? Intimidating?
00:56:04 Speaker_06
Indirectly. People are too scared to say it to me and I'm joking. But no, I do get that. I do. I do. I think I have like some degree of self-awareness as to how I come across. And I think how you described it is exactly how I come across.
00:56:15 Speaker_00
And that's not a bad thing, right? Like you get to pick your own recipe. Like I lean a little higher on the warm side. I'm also female. There are differences between men and women. So typically, not always, men default to higher incompetence.
00:56:28 Speaker_00
Women are defaulted to higher in warmth, typically not always.
00:56:31 Speaker_00
This isn't a bad thing, but you should know that if you are trying to come across as warmer on your team, you're trying to inspire more collaboration, you're trying to make more friends, you want to dial up your warmth cues.
00:56:42 Speaker_00
If you're someone who's interrupted a lot, not taken seriously, people forget meeting you, you need to dial up competence. This is like a thermostat. You can dial up warmth cues and dial up competence cues, and this changes the way people treat you.
00:56:56 Speaker_00
So I have five power cues for competence, and I have five warm cues for warmth.
00:57:01 Speaker_06
We're going to go through all of those.
00:57:02 Speaker_00
Yes.
00:57:02 Speaker_06
I saw this wonderful graph, which kind of explains it, which I'll put on the screen for anyone that's watching. Yes. Really, really interesting. There's a danger zone. The danger zone, I'm guessing, is when you're low warmth and low competence.
00:57:13 Speaker_06
That's it.
00:57:15 Speaker_00
Those are those folks that are stoic. If you don't send enough warmth cues, if you don't send enough competence cues, people cannot trust you. They have trouble working with you. They have trouble talking to you. This is the curse of very smart people.
00:57:29 Speaker_00
Very smart people think, my ideas will stand alone. My book smarts are great. I don't need to communicate these cues. My ideas are enough. That's what happened to Jamie Siminoff in the tank. He did not show enough warmth or competence cues.
00:57:42 Speaker_00
He relied solely on his ideas and his numbers, and he could not get a deal. So people who want to be taken seriously, you have to show warmth and competence.
00:57:50 Speaker_00
The other problem with highly competent folks, and you lean higher in competence, this is for you too, which is, it's directly from the research. Too much competence without enough warmth leaves people feeling suspicious.
00:58:03 Speaker_00
So no matter how competent you are, no matter how good your ideas are, if you are not showcasing that with warmth, people are skeptical of you. And this is what happens with a lot of my students is they're like, people don't trust me.
00:58:15 Speaker_00
They don't believe my ideas. They're skeptical. I get pushback or they're, I do sales trainings. They can't close. You'll push back on their numbers.
00:58:23 Speaker_00
And that is because some part of them is saying, I hear your competence, but you're not giving me enough warmth.
00:58:28 Speaker_06
And you'd be too warm.
00:58:29 Speaker_00
You can be absolutely too warm. You can be too warm and too competent. Too warm, you know what that looks like? That's too warm.
00:58:38 Speaker_05
Okay.
00:58:38 Speaker_00
Okay? Too warm is... So we'll talk about the five warmth cues. Too much of any cue is dangerous. Right? So too much nodding, too much laughing, too much vocalizations.
00:58:50 Speaker_00
Those are all too warm and they make us think this person is a bimbo or a ditz or not competent. That's what happens. We have too much warmth that takes away from our competence.
00:59:00 Speaker_06
Where should we start?
00:59:01 Speaker_00
Let's start with the power cues.
00:59:03 Speaker_06
Okay, the power cues. So this is competence?
00:59:04 Speaker_00
Yes, power cues. Let me get some more power cues. Okay, so we talked about the importance of hand gestures. There is a very good, competent hand gesture, which everyone should know if you want to be perceived as higher in competence.
00:59:15 Speaker_00
It's called the steeple.
00:59:17 Speaker_05
Oh, this.
00:59:17 Speaker_00
Oh, yes. It's on the cover of my book if you want to see it. Yes, this is when your hands look like a little steeple. They're kind of relaxed open. It's a triangle for anyone that can't. It's kind of like a triangle. Yeah, a triangle.
00:59:26 Speaker_00
It's a power pose for the hands. Why? If you are doing this pose, you're showing I'm not hiding anything from you. You can still see my palms, but I am very relaxed and poised enough so that I'm keeping my hands together. Now be careful, don't drum.
00:59:39 Speaker_00
This is evil fingers. This is Mr. Burns, for those of you who know, right? So it's a nice still steeple.
00:59:46 Speaker_00
They have found, they rated hand gestures in a study and they found that this was the single most, the highest rated hand gesture that leaders made was when they made this gesture.
00:59:54 Speaker_00
Now, personally, I don't use this a lot in my interpersonal interactions because it doesn't feel supernatural to me. It's funny because we took one picture for my cover photos And every single picture of me for my cover photos, I was smiling.
01:00:09 Speaker_00
And my wonderful photographer, Maggie Kirkland, said, Vanessa, can we just do one of you serious? I was like, but I'm not serious. She's like, just one, just do your most powerful power cue. And this is the only picture.
01:00:21 Speaker_00
And that was the one that we chose for it. So it's just funny because it's a very high competence cue. So you can try the steeple, just be careful not to do evil fingers with it. That's a high competence cue.
01:00:31 Speaker_06
That picture of you on the front, what is that signaling?
01:00:34 Speaker_00
So it's a perfect balance, right? So one, I have the steeple cue, competence gesture. Two, I'm angled towards you. My body is angled towards you, which is a warmth cue that's fronting. My toes are angled towards you, which is warmth.
01:00:44 Speaker_00
I also have a smoldering eye contact look, which is high competence, which we can talk about. And I have an up face, right? I'm not in my resting, bothered face. So that's a slight warmth cue.
01:00:53 Speaker_06
That is actually how it makes me feel. There's an element of power, but it's not an intimidating level of power.
01:00:58 Speaker_00
Because I balanced it with that warmth.
01:00:59 Speaker_06
Yeah, it's like a welcoming element of power.
01:01:02 Speaker_00
Well, yay. Woo, we did it. Now I've got to do it with the next one. Okay, steeple. Okay, steeple, yeah. Second, this is a weird one. The most important measurement on your entire body is the distance between your earlobe and your shoulder.
01:01:16 Speaker_00
This distance right here. Watch. If I were to do this in the interview the entire time, if I were to have a very small distance between my earlobe and my shoulder, I would look anxious. I would also have a really hard time giving you vocal power.
01:01:29 Speaker_00
You would have a hard—do you trust me?
01:01:31 Speaker_06
Now you look nervous.
01:01:32 Speaker_00
Right. I look nervous. There's a direct correlation between confidence and anxiety and the distance between our shoulder and our earlobe. And very quickly, we're trying to just assess someone in the first few seconds of seeing them.
01:01:42 Speaker_00
We're trying to assess how confident are you? Can I catch it? We don't like people who are anxious.
01:01:48 Speaker_00
We don't want to talk to someone like this because we don't want to catch that anxiety, but we do want to talk to someone who has the max distance between their earlobes and their shoulder.
01:01:54 Speaker_00
So when you're in a first impression, also in your profile pictures, I want a relaxed distance, shoulders down, earlobes out, which is another reason why I like that this is how your table is set up, because it pushes my shoulders down, so I have a max distance.
01:02:08 Speaker_00
That makes me look more confident, but it also makes me feel more confident. There's a look here, so when you do the steeple, and then you roll your shoulders down and back, you will begin to feel more confident.
01:02:19 Speaker_06
Don't you feel that? What if you raise your head though? Because if I'm trying to get my ears away from my shoulders, I might go like this.
01:02:26 Speaker_00
Actually, they're the same distance. So you want to actually keep your chin level. And if you can help it, you don't want to actually look down your nose at someone. It's quite a scornful judgmental. Exactly. So you just noticed it even when I did it.
01:02:39 Speaker_00
So it's not this, it's just this. So maximizing this difference. Third one, I love eye contact. We all know good eye contact is important, but here's what you might not know about good eye contact.
01:02:50 Speaker_00
Eye contact is a power move when you look at someone at the end of your sentence.
01:02:55 Speaker_00
So we're very used to if someone's thinking about something and they're processing something in their head, and I'm telling you that there are 465 gestures in a TED Talk, that is the most important way that I want to showcase something to you.
01:03:07 Speaker_00
We like it when someone is actually accessing different memories or areas of their brain, but then when I end my sentence looking right at you, you're like,
01:03:15 Speaker_00
So highly competent people make eye contact specifically at the end of their sentences, to drill a point, and ideally when the other person is saying something important.
01:03:27 Speaker_06
Okay, interesting. I just did it then. I do that when I'm doing interviews because I kind of like look off into the distance to think a little bit and then I come back to ask.
01:03:34 Speaker_00
The worst advice I hear people give, body language experts give, make more eye contact. Make 100% eye contact. It's awkward. Actually, in Western cultures, they've studied this, the ideal amount of eye contact is between 60 and 70% of the conversation.
01:03:49 Speaker_00
If you make over 70% eye contact, it's actually considered a territorial gesture. So if I were to be making 100% eye contact with you, it'd feel very invasive, very awkward. We like it when someone is processing or gathering information from around.
01:04:01 Speaker_00
Like if I'm processing something or I'm thinking about something or I'm accessing, all that matters is at the end of my point, I'm looking right at you. And that feels so much more powerful.
01:04:11 Speaker_06
Okay, so that's number three.
01:04:12 Speaker_00
Yeah, that's number three. Yeah. Fourth one, one of my favorites. It's called a lower lid flex. Lower lid flex is one of the least utilized, but one of my favorite cues. So biologically speaking,
01:04:25 Speaker_00
When we are trying to see something far away, we harden our lower lids. I'm trying to read the titles on your bookshelf. I harden my lower lids. That is because when our eye is trying to see far, it squints to block out the light.
01:04:39 Speaker_00
So you'll see more details in my face when you harden your lower lid at me. So harden your lower lid. If you look at People's Sexiest Men Alive, almost every man in that magazine is It's Zoolander, right? Blue Steel is actually just a lower lid flex.
01:04:54 Speaker_00
That is because when someone is trying to really focus on something and really understand something, their lower lid is flexed as you're doing right now. And boy, oh boy, do we like it when someone is lower lid flexing at us.
01:05:05 Speaker_00
Because it means you are really trying to understand and see me. So a lower lid flex is a great power cue to use in moderation, right? Nothing too much.
01:05:14 Speaker_00
That when someone is saying something on a date or in a meeting or a colleague is saying something really important and you want to show them, I am really listening. that lower lid flex shows them, I am super focused and intense on you.
01:05:26 Speaker_00
That is why women find men who do the lower lid flex very sexy, because they feel like, ooh, he's really focusing on me. Now, there's a little side note to the lower lid flex. Lower lid flex is not, it's inherently in itself a positive cue.
01:05:41 Speaker_00
It's a cue of focus, right? If you are in a presentation or a meeting and you say something and someone suddenly lid flexes at you, you might've just said something there like, really? Yeah.
01:05:56 Speaker_00
So for me, this was a game changing moment as I was giving a presentation to a bunch of executives. And I said something about oxytocin, which is the hormone of love and cuddle and connection. And he goes, I saw him lower lid flex at me.
01:06:10 Speaker_06
But he's also turned his head there.
01:06:11 Speaker_00
I don't know if he, I don't remember if he turned his head, but all I noticed is that distinctly he went from, mm-hmm, mm-hmm to.
01:06:17 Speaker_05
Ah, yes.
01:06:18 Speaker_00
And I went, does that make sense? Any questions? So if you see a lower lid flex, your best choice is to try to gather more information. That makes sense? All good? Any questions for me? How we feel about this? So I said, any questions for me?
01:06:31 Speaker_00
And he goes, and I looked right at him. I said, any questions for me? He said, you know, I think they gave my wife oxytocin in labor. Is that the same thing? And it's true that they give a form of oxytocin to induce women in labor.
01:06:44 Speaker_00
That's how strong oxytocin is. In high doses, it will put women into labor. It's a form, it's called pitocin. I said, you're absolutely right. In medical settings, they can give synthetic forms of oxytocin to push women into labor.
01:06:56 Speaker_00
That was a moment for me because one is I realized I was able to stop the skepticism and the confusion right there. before we moved on to anything else.
01:07:04 Speaker_00
And now when I teach oxytocin, I say, in social settings, oxytocin means this, because in medical settings, it means something different.
01:07:13 Speaker_00
So noticing that lower lid flex is incredibly important for you to understand where you might have a hint of skepticism or a hint of confusion.
01:07:21 Speaker_00
If you're in a sales meeting or a presentation, you want to make sure you have addressed whatever that person is flexing about before you move on.
01:07:30 Speaker_06
Super interesting, in that example you give there as well, had you not investigated that lower lid flex, you might have also thought something you said was wrong and lost your confidence and that can spiral into, you know, closing off and becoming a worse presenter.
01:07:44 Speaker_00
This is why I thought people hated me and I hated people. So for my folks that are listening who are like, I hate people, and I get it.
01:07:52 Speaker_00
I was misreading cues as skeptical or negative of me when it could have been neutral or curiosity or trying to understand something better.
01:08:01 Speaker_00
If you can give these a try, it will help you more deeply understand people, which might help you like them more. Ready for the fifth one?
01:08:10 Speaker_05
I'm ready for the fifth.
01:08:11 Speaker_00
Okay, the fifth one. This is a vocal cue. So we talked a lot about body language cues, but vocal cues are incredibly important. Vocal cues. Tell someone how you are feeling about them and how you feel about yourself.
01:08:25 Speaker_00
One of the biggest ones is an accidental question inflection. A question inflection is when we go up at the end of our sentence. So it sounds like we're asking a question, even if we're actually using a statement.
01:08:37 Speaker_00
The brain—research has actually looked at what the brain does when it hears an accidental question inflection. If we are listening to someone and we hear them accidentally use the question inflection, our brain goes from listening to scrutinizing.
01:08:50 Speaker_00
Why? Our brain wonders, why did you ask me that? Liars typically accidentally use the question inflection. If I say to my daughter, did you take the cookie from the cookie jar? And she goes, no. Liars are asking, do you believe this?
01:09:08 Speaker_00
So we have noticed, we did a massive experiment in our lab where we had people play two truths and a lie with us. So share two truths about themselves and a lie.
01:09:16 Speaker_00
And we found overwhelmingly one of the biggest patterns, there was a couple of different patterns, but one of the biggest ones was that liars asked their lie statement. So it would sound like this.
01:09:25 Speaker_00
Here, you can play with me and I'll add the question inflection to one. I love dogs. I live in Austin, Texas, and I love cilantro.
01:09:33 Speaker_06
Oh yeah. You don't like cilantro?
01:09:35 Speaker_00
No. It's like a crime against humanity. Why do people put cilantro on anything? So we notice people ask the lie because they were asking, do you believe this? So our brain is very adept at this.
01:09:46 Speaker_00
If we hear the accidental question inflection used, we go, wait a minute, is someone lying to me? The biggest mistake that salespeople make is they get through their entire pitch and they ask their number. So it sounds like this.
01:09:59 Speaker_00
Hi, we'd love to do business with you. We'd love to have your project and the cost of this service is $5,000. If you ask your number, you are begging people to negotiate with you.
01:10:12 Speaker_00
If you are asking for a raise or you are asking for a certain salary and you ask it, you are signaling to the other person, I don't really believe this number and you shouldn't either.
01:10:20 Speaker_00
So the power cue, number five power cue, is using the downward inflection. Highly competent people, they do not mistakenly use the question inflection. They actually go down at the end of their sentences.
01:10:32 Speaker_00
President Obama was very good at, is very good at slinging down his words, which makes you want to listen. So it sounds like this. I'm going to say nothing so you can hear it.
01:10:41 Speaker_00
The problem in this country is that we don't take seriously enough the issues of our people. And if we don't take those issues seriously, we will be in grave trouble. So he tends to go down at the end of his sentences.
01:10:54 Speaker_00
He also has a lot of space in the bottom of his mouth. That makes us—gives us him more resonance, but it also makes us think, oh, he really believes his word, because it's the opposite of the question inflection.
01:11:03 Speaker_00
If you have a boundary, if you're setting a limit, if you're telling someone something really important about you, say it. Don't ask it. That is the biggest thing you can do to get people to take you seriously.
01:11:14 Speaker_06
Interesting.
01:11:15 Speaker_00
And don't ask your name. Most often I hear people ask their own name and it destroys their vocal charisma. So that would be, my name is Vanessa Van Edwards. Not my name is Vanessa Van Edwards.
01:11:29 Speaker_00
Your perceptions of my confidence in those two introductions are radically different. There's a study that looked at this, and they looked at the vocal statements of surgeons.
01:11:39 Speaker_00
They had surgeons come into their lab and record 10-second voice tone clips, the clips that are most important when they're meeting patients, their name, their specialty, and where they worked, something like this. Hi, my name is Dr. Edwards.
01:11:52 Speaker_00
I specialize in oncology, and I work at Children's Presbyterian Hospital. They took these clips and they warbled the words. So you could hear the volume, the pace, the cadence, but not the actual words being said. So it sounded like this.
01:12:08 Speaker_00
I worked very hard on practicing that, by the way. That's amazing. Because it has to sound like me, but nothing. They took these clips and they had people rate these surgeons on warmth and competence.
01:12:18 Speaker_00
The two things that we know are most important for charisma. The doctors who had the lowest ratings of warmth and competence had the highest rate of malpractice lawsuits. In other words, we don't sue doctors based on their skills.
01:12:32 Speaker_00
We sue doctors based on our perception of their skills, and that happens within the first few seconds of hearing them. So if you give the question inflection on your name, on your specialty, on what you do, people begin to doubt you.
01:12:46 Speaker_00
So the bad doctors sound like this. Hi, my name is Dr. Edwards. I specialize in oncology, and I work at Children's Presbyterian Hospital. those doctors got rated as low in both warmth and competence because their brains were going, why are they asking?
01:13:02 Speaker_00
Are they not sure? I'm not sure either.
01:13:04 Speaker_06
So it's really signaling conviction in who you are, what you're about and what you do. Interesting.
01:13:12 Speaker_00
So practice your name, your price.
01:13:14 Speaker_06
My name is Stephen. No, that was up.
01:13:16 Speaker_00
That was a little off.
01:13:17 Speaker_06
Hi, my name's Stephen.
01:13:18 Speaker_00
That's it.
01:13:19 Speaker_06
Okay. Yeah. Okay. I literally asked that like a question, didn't I, the first one? I was like, hello, my name is Stephen. I was actually asking, I was trying to ask you if it was a good pronunciation. That's so funny.
01:13:29 Speaker_00
That was the upward inflection. And didn't it feel different?
01:13:31 Speaker_06
Totally different. The second one was me. So the first one was like seeking validation.
01:13:35 Speaker_00
And you use a lot of downward inflection, except when you're asking questions, which we like.
01:13:39 Speaker_06
Okay.
01:13:39 Speaker_00
Right. That's why you lean higher in competence is you use already a lot of downward inflection.
01:13:44 Speaker_06
It's so interesting, because as you were speaking, something came to mind, which I was reading about in your work, which is you're really good at what you do. You're very good as a guest on a podcast and just as a professional generally.
01:13:56 Speaker_06
And as I was thinking this, I was saying to myself, I'm sure she knows, and I'm sure she can tell from my face that I think she's good. But it's funny because in your work, you say that we're actually, we over assume people can read us.
01:14:07 Speaker_06
So like when I was thinking, oh, she's so good. And in your work, it says like, it says that I was doing it, I was assuming you knew how I felt about you. But in your work, you also make the case that I've actually I should say it.
01:14:18 Speaker_00
Yes, yes. There's an effect where we think that people know how we feel. Specifically, it's called signal amplification bias.
01:14:27 Speaker_00
It's a name for this study, which is that we think our signals are obvious, that if we like someone or if we're having a good time, we think, oh, they for sure know it. They don't. Oh, the three magic phrases, we never finish them.
01:14:38 Speaker_00
That's why you say, I was just thinking of you. That's a way of assuring someone, I do think of you, only if it's true. The second one is, you're always so
01:14:48 Speaker_00
So if you're with someone, and you're impressed by them, or they're interesting, or they're funny, saying, oh, you always make me laugh. You're always so interesting. You're always so great to interview. You're always so great at interviews.
01:15:00 Speaker_00
Giving them a label that is a positive label is the best gift you can give someone because it's fighting that signal amplification bias. And the last one is, last time we talked, you mentioned
01:15:12 Speaker_00
We are so honored when we get brain space that you remembered and you're going to bring it up and you specifically bring up something that they lit up with. Something they were like, oh, it was great. It was exciting. It was wonderful.
01:15:23 Speaker_00
Those are my three magic phrases. And it's because they are fighting that signal application bias. I have no idea if you like this interview. I have no idea if you like my work. I have no idea.
01:15:32 Speaker_00
And the more that you can broadcast those symbols, those signals, the more people actually like you.
01:15:37 Speaker_06
So what advice would you give me then as an interview I guess I'm an interview host of the show.
01:15:44 Speaker_06
What is, because people come here, sometimes they're nervous, you know, we have people come in there, they, some people come in there nervous a little bit. And I always try, I always want to make them feel comfortable.
01:15:55 Speaker_06
But I, you know, as you said, I probably don't rank that high on warmth. So it doesn't come that natural to me. I'm not the kind of person that comes out and is like, Hiya! Welcome! And like,
01:16:03 Speaker_00
And that would be off-brand for you.
01:16:05 Speaker_06
Yeah, and it wouldn't be authentic.
01:16:06 Speaker_00
No, no, it would be off-brand for you. Right, it's too much. Okay, so five warmth cues.
01:16:10 Speaker_00
So for those of you who are listening, the five power cues I just shared, those are if you think you are really high in warmth, but you worry that people don't take you seriously, you're worried that people ignore you, you get interrupted in meetings.
01:16:23 Speaker_00
I want you to use those five power cues if that's you. Now I'm going to teach you five warmth cues. If you have ever been told you're intimidating, Hard to talk to. Cold.
01:16:33 Speaker_00
If you often feel like people are holding back or not opening up to you, I want you to use these five warmth cues. This is dialing up your thermostat. Okay, these are for you too. First, we love a triple nod.
01:16:45 Speaker_00
Research has found that if we do a slow triple nod, the other person speaks 67% longer. So as an interview, this is a great cue. Watch, so here's my triple nod is, mm, mm, mm. We love it. It's like a nonverbal dot, dot, dot.
01:17:01 Speaker_00
It's like, tell me more, tell me more. Now, be careful, don't bobblehead, so you don't want to do it too much. Right, that's too high and warm. And second, you don't want to do it too fast. Too fast of a triple nod is impatience.
01:17:14 Speaker_05
It means shut up.
01:17:15 Speaker_00
Yeah. So if you want someone to wrap a question, yeah, that, that. Right, so here's for everyone watching. Here's good. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Here's please hurry up. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's shut the fuck up. Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah, and it works.
01:17:32 Speaker_00
It's a really nice way of saying please wrap, please end. So I love a warm triple nod, but you have to be careful with it. Okay, so that's cue number one. A head tilt.
01:17:43 Speaker_00
So universally, if we're trying to hear something, we tilt our head up and we expose our ear, right? As if we're saying, what was that? Like dogs do this when they're like, you know, and they expose their ear.
01:17:53 Speaker_00
Humans also do this across cultures because it's kind of a way that we're like, oh, I'm listening to this. Research has found that if you deliver bad news with a head tilt, you are more likable.
01:18:04 Speaker_00
So people take the news better if you deliver bad news with a slight head tilt, because it literally makes you look more warm. It literally makes you look like you're listening.
01:18:10 Speaker_00
Now, I only want you to do this when you're actually listening, but a head tilt is also a way that you can slightly add warmth to your conversation or to your interview or to your date. Okay, so we're going to go back to that.
01:18:20 Speaker_00
So we don't want to go too far. That looks weird. It's a little weird, but not too much. And I also like to teach a head tilt to my highly warm folks who are bobbleheaders. So if anyone, if you're like, oh, I do this a lot. I'm a bobbleheader.
01:18:34 Speaker_00
I'm a recovering bobbleheader because I like to, people like me, right? So I'll nod too much. If you are a bobbleheader, you can train yourself to replace it with the head tilt because it's physically impossible to head tilt while you nod.
01:18:48 Speaker_00
So if you're a bobbleheader, just head tilt.
01:18:52 Speaker_06
There's something about the head tilt which signals they care and they're empathetic. I don't know what it is about someone's head tilt. Because if someone was firing me and they were doing it like this, I feel like they don't care.
01:19:09 Speaker_06
There's something ruthless. But if they do it like this, it's like... He really cared about me. That's so crazy.
01:19:13 Speaker_00
Just such a small... That one little thing. You know that you mentioned the book, The Game?
01:19:16 Speaker_06
Yes.
01:19:17 Speaker_00
I know a lot about that world. And there's a funny trick they teach, which I'll teach you. It's not part of my warmth cues, but I'm gonna teach it to you because I think it's interesting. Don't let anyone use this on you, okay?
01:19:30 Speaker_06
And nobody at home use this on anyone else?
01:19:32 Speaker_00
Don't use this on anyone else.
01:19:33 Speaker_00
But so there's this thing that NLP people will do or pickup artists will do where they move their hand like this and it begins, the other person will begin to nod because typically when we do this with our hand, the other person starts to nod, which makes you think, I agree, I agree, I agree.
01:19:47 Speaker_06
What are you doing for anyone that is watching?
01:19:49 Speaker_00
I'm moving my hand up and down in a nodding yes motion. And so what I've noticed very manipulative people will do is they'll be doing this, they speak like, don't you understand what I'm saying? Do you get this? And then the person will start to nod.
01:20:00 Speaker_00
And I've seen audiences, entire audiences will start nodding. And then you think to yourself, well, I'm nodding, so I must agree with this person. It's a secret way to get someone to secretly agree with you.
01:20:08 Speaker_00
So just be careful and make sure no one uses that on you.
01:20:12 Speaker_06
And you're doing it in a bit of a circular motion. Right.
01:20:14 Speaker_00
Circular motion.
01:20:15 Speaker_06
It's not straight up and down. You're just kind of like, for anyone that can't see, she's... Like we're rolling something forward.
01:20:19 Speaker_00
And then you're like, I want to... It's really hard to not nod your head when someone's doing this, which then makes you feel like you agree with them.
01:20:25 Speaker_06
That's so crazy. It's like you've got like a string on my head.
01:20:28 Speaker_00
A string in your head. It's very weird. So don't let anyone do that to you. And don't use it.
01:20:31 Speaker_06
Don't use it on anyone.
01:20:32 Speaker_00
I don't teach it in my books because it's like I'm worried that people... It's too powerful. It's too powerful. Okay, triple nod, head tilt. One and two. Okay. Third, we already talked about this one. An authentic smile. Right?
01:20:41 Speaker_00
A smile that reaches all the way up into your eyes. Highly warm people typically do do that authentic smile more. Now, I don't like a fake smile, so I only want you to do it when you're authentic. What's wrong about that?
01:20:51 Speaker_06
That was my authentic smile. You laughed. This is why I don't smile. This is why people think I'm intimidating, because people laugh at my smile. Look.
01:20:59 Speaker_00
That's good. That was better. That was better.
01:21:01 Speaker_06
I can tell you're lying, Mrs. Body Language. I can tell you're lying.
01:21:04 Speaker_00
That was better. That was better than the first one.
01:21:06 Speaker_06
Better than the first one. That doesn't mean it's good. I'm looking for good.
01:21:09 Speaker_00
Anyway, number four is... That's authentic smiles number three. Authentic smiles number three. Number four. We love a lean. Ooh, we love a lean.
01:21:21 Speaker_00
When in the proxemic zones, right, we're in those four zones, if someone's leaning into you, it shows they're literally trying to cross from that zone very, very subtly.
01:21:29 Speaker_00
And so you'll notice very highly charismatic people who you want to be friends with, they'll be like, tell me more. Tell me everything. And they lean in really close to you, and that makes you also feel closer.
01:21:38 Speaker_00
So if you want to be seen as higher in warmth, you can do this as a speaker. So you can lean in as you bold an important point. Like when I make an important point for you, I lean into it. I'm like, listen to this. This is good.
01:21:51 Speaker_00
But if I'm listening to you and you say something good, I'll be like, what? Really? So you can do it as a speaker and as a listener and it immediately adds more warmth.
01:21:59 Speaker_06
It's funny, okay, this might be a little bit of a tangent, but it just came to mind as you were speaking.
01:22:04 Speaker_06
There are like the odd person in my life who I've known for many, many years, but whenever I'm around them, it kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier, my body is just off. And like, I just don't know what it is.
01:22:16 Speaker_06
Like, I'm thinking of one particular person, my show name, where I could be in a room full of people and I'm relaxed, I'm calm, whatever. And this person who I've known for many, many years, the minute they arrived in the room,
01:22:29 Speaker_06
I wouldn't be able to be the same person and I don't know what it is. I'd suddenly start overthinking my body language and I'd start thinking it's how's my legs and it's my body and I'd start covering, blocking a little bit.
01:22:39 Speaker_06
What is that trying to tell me? Do I need to cut this person out of my life? Is there like words unspoken? What is it?
01:22:46 Speaker_00
I would say it means do more research. I think that gut feelings are incredibly important because, you know, the best cue reading machine we have is our subconscious.
01:22:54 Speaker_00
Our subconscious or unconscious is picking up on lots of cues that we can't consciously know. We can't consciously know that we're smelling adrenaline, but we are smelling it. So I think that's a very important thing to pay attention to.
01:23:05 Speaker_00
It doesn't mean you should cut them out, but I think it's time to do more research. Are they truly happy for you? Are they truly rooting for you? Are they secretly angry or jealous?
01:23:14 Speaker_06
Maybe I'm doing it to them.
01:23:16 Speaker_00
It's possible that you're in a loop with them, right? Like you're expecting that bad thing and that expectation becomes reality. Like they've studied this, that the Pygmalion effect is real.
01:23:23 Speaker_00
If you expect not to like someone, you send off more unlikable cues. They feel unliked and so they don't like you either. And so it could be that you're in a loop with this person that maybe you make them feel the same way.
01:23:34 Speaker_06
What do I have to do then next time I see them? Because I want to dial up, I don't know, some warmth with this person or something or break that cycle.
01:23:42 Speaker_00
Okay, if I were you, they're important to you?
01:23:45 Speaker_06
Yeah, they're important to me.
01:23:46 Speaker_00
Okay, so I would recommend asking questions that will level you up with them to level two. So my guess is you might be stuck in level one with them because you're obviously uncomfortable with them.
01:23:57 Speaker_00
Research shows that the more commonalities we have someone, the more that we understand them, the more compassion we have with them, the more that we like someone.
01:24:03 Speaker_00
So I wonder if we could level up your relationship with them so you get to know them better, which means you'll like them more. And if you make it through these six or seven questions and you still don't like them, then maybe they're not your person.
01:24:15 Speaker_04
Okay.
01:24:16 Speaker_00
Okay, can I give you some questions for them?
01:24:17 Speaker_04
Please. Okay. Please.
01:24:19 Speaker_00
So here are my favorite, I call these level one, level two, level three questions. In the framework that I'm researching right now, it's not done yet, I have four questions for each level and I'm working through these questions.
01:24:28 Speaker_00
But here are the questions that I think are the shortcut to connection.
01:24:32 Speaker_07
Okay.
01:24:32 Speaker_00
That if you ask these questions with your partner, your friend, colleagues, you're going to level up with them. Okay, first. Are you working on anything exciting recently? So stop asking, what do you do? Stop asking, how are you?
01:24:44 Speaker_00
Stop asking, how's it going? That's why you hate people. If you're asking those questions, of course you're gonna hate people. Those are the most boring questions anyone's ever asked. Can I give you a challenge? Yeah. A challenge.
01:24:55 Speaker_00
Here's one challenge from this podcast. Stop asking, what do you do? For 30 days, I want you to go on a what do you do diet. Asking what do you do is telling the person's brain, stay on autopilot. Damn, I lost that last night. No, no more. We're on a diet.
01:25:09 Speaker_02
Okay.
01:25:10 Speaker_00
Also asking someone what do you do is asking what are you worth? And if someone's not defined by what they do, it's actually a rude question.
01:25:17 Speaker_06
Do you know what? You're so right. It's so funny you say this because yesterday I went to this thing in New York, right?
01:25:23 Speaker_06
And I was introducing myself to some people and there was one particular person who I went over to and we're having a conversation and halfway through the conversation I went, so what do you do? And do you know what they replied? They went, this.
01:25:36 Speaker_06
And I just, I went home thinking about it. Like, I was like, of course, we're fucking at one. What I've done there is I've just belittled what we're doing right now, as if it couldn't possibly have been what they do.
01:25:49 Speaker_06
And I just, honestly, I got in bed last night thinking about it. I thought, God, I don't… Do you know what it was? I think I was so impressed by them that I was a bit awkward. And then that just came out mid-sentence.
01:26:00 Speaker_00
What did you do? Okay, so we're going on a diet. Everyone for the next 30 days, we're going on a diet. No more, what do you do? You're going to replace it with working on anything exciting these days or working on anything exciting recently.
01:26:10 Speaker_00
This is permission connection. You ask someone that question, you are giving them permission. If they want to tell you about what they do, oh, they will. If they are not defined about what they do, they'll tell you something better.
01:26:21 Speaker_00
And that also gives you really good nuggets for the next time you see them when you can say, hey, how was that? you were working on that was really exciting going.
01:26:29 Speaker_00
So start with working on anything exciting these days, working on anything exciting right now. Second, what's your biggest goal right now?
01:26:35 Speaker_00
So if you can, especially as we go into the new year, in the new year, right, being part of the year, I love, I ask this question in December, January, and February. I ask everyone, what's your biggest goal right now? What's your big goal for 2025?
01:26:48 Speaker_00
When you ask this question, you're going to get one of two responses. One, someone shuts you down. I don't believe in goals. Not my person. Not my person. I'm a growth-minded person. If someone says that, I'm like, cool. Peace.
01:27:01 Speaker_00
We're not going to get along very well because I have a lot of goals. Or they're going to be like, oh, and they're gonna tell you all about goals.
01:27:07 Speaker_00
That's also a great thing you can follow up on because then when you see them a month later or a week later or a year later, you can be like, hey, how did that go?
01:27:13 Speaker_06
It's a great interview question. I was just thinking that. I should ask people that in the interview. Because you're right. Someone that can't articulate some kind of goal is probably not my kind of person.
01:27:27 Speaker_06
Those kind of people that go, actually those kind of people don't listen to this podcast anyway. They just leave hate comments and fuck up.
01:27:31 Speaker_00
Yeah, exactly. So like it's a very, I call those allergy questions.
01:27:36 Speaker_06
Interesting.
01:27:36 Speaker_00
It's a way to see, are we going to have an allergic reaction to each other? It creates an allergy. Like I know there's a type of person, it susses them out really quickly and that's not my kind of person.
01:27:46 Speaker_00
Okay, so working on anything exciting, what's your goal right now? And then this is harder. This is a self-narrative question. Do we want to go deeper for self-narrative questions?
01:27:56 Speaker_06
Of course we want to go deeper.
01:27:59 Speaker_00
So if we're getting into self-narrative and you're trying to figure out yourself or someone else's narrative, you want to ask the question. It sounds innocuous, but it's not. What book, movie, or TV character is most like you and why?
01:28:15 Speaker_00
It's kind of a silly, like, dinner party question that sort of sounds casual, but the answer to this question is so incredibly important. And here's an example.
01:28:23 Speaker_00
How someone relates to characters, their values or personality, is how they see themselves. And people's answers will shock you. I'll give you one example. I was friends with someone for six years. One of my closest friends saw them all the time.
01:28:36 Speaker_00
Weekends. We went on outings together. We went on weekend trips together. I thought I knew her so well. I was like, I know her.
01:28:41 Speaker_00
I asked her this question, and I hypothesized, this is all my research for my next book, I was like, I hypothesized she's a mom of three, super funny, super savvy. I was like, she's gonna pick a great TV mom character that's super savvy and funny.
01:28:55 Speaker_00
Asked her. She thinks about it for maybe one second and goes, Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games. I was like, the one who's fighting for her life? She's like, yeah, that's how I feel every day.
01:29:09 Speaker_00
And we, for the first time in six years, had a conversation about how she feels about her day that was totally different than anything I had ever known, that she feels scared and lonely, and that she is fighting for survival.
01:29:23 Speaker_00
And it was the first time that I truly connected with her.
01:29:27 Speaker_00
I cannot tell you how many times the answer to this question has changed for people in my life, and I'm like careful which examples to use because I'm worried that they're gonna be watching, but has changed my relationship with people in my life based on how they see themselves.
01:29:39 Speaker_00
Not how I see them, but how they see themselves.
01:29:43 Speaker_06
It's really interesting because there's so many people listening right now that are now doing that. And they're discovering, maybe for the first time, even how they see themselves.
01:29:53 Speaker_06
Because it's funny, because when you said that, obviously I did it in my head. And I was like, fuck.
01:29:59 Speaker_08
Well, now I want to know what it is.
01:30:01 Speaker_06
Have you told me after? No, I'll tell you now. I was thinking, it's funny because the first person I thought of was Will Smith because people say I look like him sometimes, right? Yes. And you have to correct someone.
01:30:10 Speaker_00
If someone says who they look like, you say, oh, no, no, no, no, you look like values, personality.
01:30:14 Speaker_06
But then when I thought about TV characters, I actually thought about Will Smith in the pursuit of happiness. And if you think about his journey, he was broke. And he was fighting really hard to get out of that situation.
01:30:24 Speaker_06
And he got out of that situation. So it goes back to the personality type you described at the beginning, where like, hero of your own journey, like, well, you've overcome something.
01:30:34 Speaker_00
And do you feel you've found it? Found it. Happiness? Are you at the end of the movie?
01:30:42 Speaker_06
I'm at the end of the movie. I don't know if you can ever get to the end of the movie. That's why I'm struggling with that question. Because there's
01:30:51 Speaker_00
Like, I think I've found it.
01:30:52 Speaker_06
But I've always... I don't know.
01:30:56 Speaker_00
Like, not the end of your movie. It's not the end of your life movie. But like, in that example, we could have a long discussion about like, what is... Have you made it?
01:31:06 Speaker_06
So the reason why I think I'm hesitating is because I think to myself, if I say I've made it or if I'm at the end of the movie, then I'm like, it kind of robs me of the future in a weird way.
01:31:14 Speaker_06
In my head it's like robbing me of like doing anything else with my future. Do you know what I mean?
01:31:19 Speaker_00
Yeah, yes, yes.
01:31:20 Speaker_06
If you feel like... Like the end of the movie, I'm like...
01:31:23 Speaker_00
Yes, no, that's true. You're never at the end of the movie. But like, if you feel that you've made it, it means you have freedom to pursue things and do work for meaning as opposed to hitting it.
01:31:35 Speaker_06
Yeah, of course. Yeah, like I used to work in call centers at night time selling hotel rooms and car insurance and artificial grass. And now I get to sit here and have conversations with people like you and like people tune in and stuff.
01:31:47 Speaker_06
It's like, if I don't realize at this moment how much privilege I have, I think I'd be pretty fucked up. So yeah, I do feel like disproportionately, like unbelievably fortunate in a way that I actually don't think I can understand.
01:32:00 Speaker_06
I think maybe I dreamed of this, but to be here feels suspicious. Suspicious? Yeah, that's a strange word that came to mind. Yes. It feels suspicious because it, I don't know, you just think, you just think sometimes you think. Are you worried?
01:32:22 Speaker_06
It's, maybe it is worried, but it's also just like, Surely not.
01:32:26 Speaker_06
Like, it's so interesting because I had the dream of like being successful in business, but I didn't have a dream of or ever imagine that my life would be like this, where like people know who you are. I never had that dream.
01:32:39 Speaker_06
Never imagined it being possible. That was other people. For sure.
01:32:42 Speaker_00
And so, also, that's a very accurate Like, that's how I think of Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happiness, a little bit. It's like, you never really see him truly happy in that movie.
01:32:52 Speaker_05
No, he's always just, yeah, running.
01:32:54 Speaker_00
Like, that's something that I, that's why I ask, like, did you get it? You know, you pursued it, you're here.
01:32:59 Speaker_06
Of course, I'm still chasing after something, aren't I? That's what I think. I don't know what I'm chasing after.
01:33:03 Speaker_00
I wonder what you're chasing after. I don't know.
01:33:04 Speaker_06
I actually don't know.
01:33:06 Speaker_00
But I think that you're interviewing for something. Like, when I watch your interviews, which are amazing, I'm like, he's trying to find the answer to something. What is it?
01:33:12 Speaker_06
always like with every person is a different thing. And actually, most of the answers I'm looking for my own answers.
01:33:17 Speaker_06
And my general belief is that if I check, like authentically go in search of my own answers, which requires some level of like, being open and willing to be open, even though there's a lot of people watching,
01:33:28 Speaker_06
then there'll be lots of other people out there that are struggling with the same things or searching for the same answers as well. Yes. This is interesting. I do ask myself a lot, what am I, like, what's the point? Like, what am I, like, what am I?
01:33:37 Speaker_06
But is it not, this is a bit of a tangent obviously, is it not the case that we should all be searching forever? Like we should all be in pursuit of something forever.
01:33:47 Speaker_00
I do love a quest, and I love pursuing, and I think humans are built to pursue things. But I also think, I hope, and I'm not here yet, I'm getting there, that there's a point in our life where we can stop the grind.
01:33:59 Speaker_00
I think I'm grinding a little bit in my career. I don't know if you feel like that. Like I've made it. I feel like I've made it. I'm luckier than I ever, I can't believe I get paid to do what I do, but I'm still pursuing, pursuing.
01:34:10 Speaker_00
I hope there's a point in my life where I can just be sharing wisdom. where I'm not pursuing anything, it's not a number or a list or a, it's just like, all I'm doing is sharing wisdom and giving out public education.
01:34:22 Speaker_00
Like, I think that I'm hopeful that there's a stage of our life where it's just that.
01:34:27 Speaker_06
It's number five on the one.
01:34:29 Speaker_00
Oh my gosh.
01:34:30 Speaker_06
We did lean, which was number four. Number five is... Actually, I have to pause and lean because I wanted to ask you about something I read in a book about peacocking.
01:34:38 Speaker_00
Yes.
01:34:38 Speaker_06
So I read in this pick-up artist book that I read when I was 18 and some of the videos that I watched thereafter and some of the other books that I read thereafter and some of the other videos I watched thereafter.
01:34:47 Speaker_06
about this concept of peacocking where you can, if you're like on a date or you're interested in a girl or a guy in a bar, if you lean in too much, you're signaling low value and like over interest.
01:34:57 Speaker_06
And ever since I learned that, I've seen it everywhere. And I've seen it in my friends. Me and my friends went to like Marbella or somewhere, I can't remember. It was many, many years ago. And there was this beautiful girl there.
01:35:07 Speaker_06
And we were all pursuing her. Yes, like that, like a Labrador.
01:35:12 Speaker_06
And I was saying to my boys, there's actually a photo of it on my phone, as me, Dom, and my friend Ash sat there, and we're looking over at some of our other friends, and we're saying, they're peacocking, they got no chance.
01:35:23 Speaker_06
And that's how the story transpired. And then when this beautiful girl came over to my other friend, he was aware of this peacocking thing, he kept his neck back, he kept his chest back, all these kinds of things.
01:35:33 Speaker_06
He didn't lean in, even though it was loud. Closed. Closed.
01:35:37 Speaker_00
Okay. Here's why. Too much of a lean is a bad thing. It's called a bow. Right? If you lean too far over, you get very quickly into bowing or submissive behavior. We don't like people who are submissive to us. We want equals. And so you're absolutely right.
01:35:54 Speaker_00
What triggers in the brain if you're leaning too much is literally, I am subservient to you. And that makes someone who does not want to be or in an unequal relationship feel very uneasy.
01:36:05 Speaker_00
So that is why too much of a lean, always with these nonverbal accusers, too much of a good thing. You lean too much, it's considered a bow. You also don't want to lean the entire time because then you look like a hunchback, right?
01:36:16 Speaker_06
I'm lowering my value by leaning in too much.
01:36:18 Speaker_00
And it's distracting. Like, I want to lean in as a bold or a highlight. If I were to be reading a book and highlight the entire page, the highlight means nothing. If you lean in when someone's like, Really? And then I lean back, then it's powerful.
01:36:33 Speaker_00
Every single one of these cues we are using as a bold or an emphasis or a highlight. Just enough of a good thing.
01:36:40 Speaker_06
Okay, not too much leaning. Just use it as a party trick. No, no, I mean just use it like as a highlighter.
01:36:49 Speaker_00
You're highlighting. Yes, yes, yes.
01:36:51 Speaker_06
Number five.
01:36:52 Speaker_00
Okay, five. Nonverbal bridge. So this is a concept that I learned on the road. So I saw this in action in a lot of our experiments.
01:36:59 Speaker_00
We did a big speed networking experiment in our lab where we had 500 speed networkers try out different conversation starters. We recorded them, we coded their conversations, and we looked for patterns of good and bad conversations.
01:37:11 Speaker_00
And we found there were certain questions that worked better than others, and there were certain questions that did terribly.
01:37:16 Speaker_00
And one thing we found is that when people rated a conversation on a five scale, like five amazing best conversations I had, we're going to connect on LinkedIn, I think I like them, the best ones, they used a lot of nonverbal bridges.
01:37:27 Speaker_00
Nonverbal bridges are when someone is trying to bridge the distance between you. So that could be a lean. Lean is one of them. But it also could be a reach out.
01:37:36 Speaker_00
We noticed that in the good conversations, people were trying to physically close the distance between them with hand gestures, with leans, with nods, with foot movement, with drinks.
01:37:46 Speaker_00
And when they were close enough, they would often do very light touches on the arms, on the shoulder. So have you seen this like on a really good date? Have you ever been in a restaurant?
01:37:54 Speaker_00
Like my husband, I like to play this game where we look and we try to guess a couple. Yes. Very like new couple, old couple, how they're doing. In a very good date, they are looking for as many opportunities to touch as they possibly can.
01:38:06 Speaker_00
That's nonverbal bridge. Even if I were to be like, oh, let me tell you something, like that slight reach out, tap of the knuckles, tap of the arm.
01:38:12 Speaker_00
That's a quick saying, I'm going to reach into your intimate zone, but I'm not going into your intimate zone. And really good relationships, really warm people, they are bridging all the time.
01:38:21 Speaker_00
They walk by you, they touch your shoulder, they say, how's it going? Hey, I was thinking about you. They're constantly doing these very small bridges and that might not be actual physical touch, it could even be the look of a touch.
01:38:33 Speaker_00
Like one thing that I teach my students who are uncomfortable with touch is you can even touch without touching. That sounds really weird, but like put your arm closer to me so I can demo it for you. So let's pretend that we're at dinner.
01:38:42 Speaker_00
I could be like, oh my gosh, really?
01:38:45 Speaker_06
Okay, so you didn't touch me.
01:38:46 Speaker_00
I didn't touch, but it did the same thing.
01:38:48 Speaker_06
Yeah.
01:38:49 Speaker_00
Not quite oxytocin. No, but it kind of did. Yeah, but you're like, oh, I get it.
01:38:52 Speaker_08
Yeah.
01:38:53 Speaker_00
She's trying to close the intimacy of the distance. So nonverbal bridges, trying to reach out, reach into someone's face very briefly and come back, trying to lean into someone's face very briefly.
01:39:02 Speaker_00
This is why giving people things or serving people is such a warm thing. You hand someone a drink, like you come to my office, I offer you hot chocolate. I offer you tacos. I want to break the social scripts. I want to give you something different.
01:39:13 Speaker_00
And I'm looking for reasons to serve you.
01:39:15 Speaker_06
You give people tacos at your office.
01:39:16 Speaker_00
Yeah. I'm in Austin, Texas. You would like it. You would like it. If you were hungry, you'd be like, give me that taco. Give me that taco.
01:39:27 Speaker_06
I don't know if that's office food, but each to their own. So hugging and stuff like that, you know, there's this thing that people talk a lot about, which is awkward hugging.
01:39:36 Speaker_06
And sometimes you hug someone and you just feel like, oh God, they didn't like that. I didn't like that. That was bad for both of us.
01:39:41 Speaker_00
Yeah. Horrible. Can we address the hug issue? Please. You need to signal what kind of greeting you want from the moment someone first sees you. You can stop awkward greetings from happening with simple nonverbal cues. Here's what they are.
01:39:54 Speaker_00
You want a handshake? So good to see you. I want you to be doing this from 10 feet away. So good to see you. Oh, come in with it. Yeah, you're literally signaling to someone, so good to see you, right?
01:40:05 Speaker_00
This immediately signals their brain, don't try to give me an awkward hug. Don't side hug me. Don't hug me. We're handshaking. It is a very clear way to be like, it's called blading. So we angle our body a little bit forward and we put one hand out.
01:40:14 Speaker_00
You know I'm coming in for a handshake. If you want a hug and you're a hugger, it's so good to see you. It's so good to see you.
01:40:21 Speaker_06
Okay. Arms out.
01:40:22 Speaker_00
Arms out. And that's also going to prevent the awkward side hug. The worst thing you can do is like this.
01:40:29 Speaker_06
Which is a kind of, what?
01:40:30 Speaker_00
One arm up, people are like, do I shake it? Do I side hug? Are we going to hug? Are we going to high five? Are we going to fist bump? If you want a fist bump, you're coming in with a fist bump.
01:40:38 Speaker_06
Should I be a hugger? Because I don't, it always, it's context dependent.
01:40:43 Speaker_00
I do not like hugging people when I first meet them. I was pitching a TV show about recovering awkward people.
01:40:50 Speaker_00
I had a very big network and I walk into the pitch room and at that point I was a hugger or I was, I thought I should hug because that was one of the things in LA. LA people are huggers and cheek kissers a lot.
01:41:01 Speaker_00
And so I was like, I walk in and I say, oh, it's so nice to meet you. I'm a hugger. And the exec goes, I'm not. Just cringe. Just, I died inside. I died inside. And you know what? That pitch went terribly.
01:41:18 Speaker_00
Do I have a TV show called Recovering Awkward Person? No, I don't. That's because I think I hugged him. And I went forward with it.
01:41:25 Speaker_06
Too much warmth. Too much warmth. Not enough competence.
01:41:30 Speaker_00
And so I will never do that again. So now I never, ever say I'm a hugger, and I always offer my hand. Now, if someone says to me, oh, but I'm a hugger, and they wave my hand away, no problem.
01:41:40 Speaker_06
No problem. That's interesting. If we take that back to the charisma framework of warmth and competence, it is signaling a little bit too much. A lot of warmth.
01:41:48 Speaker_00
It's a lot of warmth. And I know a lot about a person when they tell me, I'm a hugger.
01:41:52 Speaker_05
What do you know?
01:41:54 Speaker_00
High warmth, probably a people pleaser, over eager, really want to connect, probably feel lonely, a little bit afraid, and I want to make them feel as liked as possible.
01:42:05 Speaker_06
That's a lot just from that one sentence.
01:42:08 Speaker_00
I've hugged a lot of people. Also, you know, I have amazing students. You know, we have millions of views on our YouTube channel and they feel like they know me. And so if they want to hug me, I'm totally okay with it.
01:42:19 Speaker_00
Because I've been in their bed, I've been in their living room, I've been in their kitchen TV, I've been on their phone. I've shared my stories with them and I understand why they want to hug me because we feel like friends.
01:42:29 Speaker_00
And that actually is a compliment.
01:42:31 Speaker_06
And you like it?
01:42:31 Speaker_00
I do like it. Like when a student says, oh my gosh, I love you, I love Captivate. I'm like, come here.
01:42:37 Speaker_06
It feels like a friend. So on the hugging point then as well, is there a great way to hug someone? I mean, yeah. How is that?
01:42:46 Speaker_00
Have you been told you're a good hugger?
01:42:47 Speaker_06
Because then you might not be. I've tried to work on it. So I think I am now. I actually have been told I am. Okay, good. But it's part of the reason why is because I've learned a lot from doing this podcast and someone told me don't tap on the back.
01:42:58 Speaker_06
Don't tap on the back.
01:42:59 Speaker_00
And they told me to like... We don't like being tapped on the head. We don't like being tapped on the back. It's a submissive cue, right? It's like you'll notice power players in politics will sometimes demean someone by going, hey, bud.
01:43:11 Speaker_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely don't hug. So you're going to want to approach equally. You don't want any kind of asymmetry in your hug, right? So that's why you want to approach someone like this, like no asymmetry, none of this, straight on.
01:43:23 Speaker_00
So this is hard. If you are taller than the person, you typically want to go up, but you want to avoid like the, who's going up, right? So the taller person should always try to go up and you want to like literally angle up.
01:43:33 Speaker_00
The lower person is going to angle down and you're going to try to go torso to torso.
01:43:38 Speaker_05
Okay.
01:43:39 Speaker_00
And I like a two-second hug. By the way, there is research on the length of handshakes. I haven't seen research on the length of hugs. But a handshake should be between one and three pumps, or one and three seconds.
01:43:51 Speaker_00
So, for example, we're shaking at one, two, three. That's good. And typically, they found that if we do a three-second shake, it's with a new person. So our first shake was about three seconds, because we didn't know each other.
01:44:02 Speaker_00
But if I were to see you again, like, oh, it's so good to see you. Okay, you do okay, so typically if you already know someone you're just like doing a quick reading It's a one second and if you don't know someone it's a three second.
01:44:13 Speaker_04
What if I You also want to make sure when you're doing a handshake you're offering thumb up and
01:44:31 Speaker_00
thumb up is really important. You'll notice a certain political power players will hear if, yeah, so they'll flip you.
01:44:40 Speaker_05
Oh, Donald Trump.
01:44:41 Speaker_00
Yes. And he really pulls. And he'll pull you, he'll pull you off. I've never shaken hands with him, so I don't know. But I've watched many, many video and he'll shake your hand, turn you up. This is a very vulnerable place to be.
01:44:53 Speaker_00
We don't like it as humans to have these arteries up. So he'll flip, so he'll flip and he'll pull you off there.
01:45:00 Speaker_06
It doesn't feel good, does it? But what does that signal? Does that signal competence and strength?
01:45:06 Speaker_00
No, I don't think it's either. I actually think it's a danger zone. Because it's purposely, I don't, none of the cues I teach are manipulative in that way. Like that is purposely trying to get someone off balance, like to give them disequilibrium.
01:45:19 Speaker_00
I like relationships to be equal. That's why I want you to offer thumb up. I also don't want you to open, you know, offer your hand like, you know, up where you're saying, I'm going to be submissive to you. We don't like that. Right. So thumb up.
01:45:29 Speaker_06
I think, I can't remember where I learned it, but I learned that if you cup, then it's signaling warmth. So I was going to cup earlier on, but I was holding some stuff. I remember thinking I'll walk out there and I'll cup. Why did I get my cup?
01:45:40 Speaker_06
Because I was holding all your books.
01:45:42 Speaker_00
It is warm.
01:45:43 Speaker_06
I was holding your books. I was like, I can't imagine if I tried to cup with your books. It would be so strange.
01:45:48 Speaker_00
No, so cupping is really warm. It's double the warmth. It's double the oxytocin. It's like a hand hug. So it's super high and warm. It's also called the politician's handshake. So you only want to do it if you are truly and genuinely trying to show warmth.
01:46:00 Speaker_00
Otherwise, it can come across as forced. I also, speaking of like weird signals, I've heard this about men, that men to men have two different kinds of nods. Tell me if you think this is true.
01:46:12 Speaker_00
So if you walk down the hallway and you see a man you know, you go, hey, nod up. If you see a man you don't know, you go, morning. and you're not down.
01:46:24 Speaker_05
Oh, that's interesting.
01:46:24 Speaker_00
And supposedly it's because a person you know you're willing to expose this part of your neck, but if you don't know someone, you want to keep your chin down, but you're still acknowledging them. Is that true?
01:46:33 Speaker_06
Well, do you know what's funny is the way that I think about it is if I see a black guy. Okay. Out and about. Okay. pretty much anywhere, and they know me, whatever, they'll typically do that.
01:46:47 Speaker_06
There's something about, I don't know if I'm just making this up, but there's something about, like being part of, I can see them from across the room, have no idea who they are, and it's like a, me and you.
01:47:00 Speaker_00
And I trust you. It's a way of being like, I'm willing to expose this. I trust you.
01:47:04 Speaker_06
Oh, okay. So interesting. Interesting.
01:47:07 Speaker_00
So I've noticed that women don't do that.
01:47:10 Speaker_06
Okay, so that's it.
01:47:13 Speaker_00
Oh yes, not down is stranger. I see you. Morning.
01:47:16 Speaker_06
So interesting. So interesting. So, so interesting. I'm a CEO. I do speaking on stage. You speak on stage as well. You're very, very good at it.
01:47:28 Speaker_06
Is there anything that I should know if I'm a leader in a business or I'm a public speaker that I should be thinking most about when I'm up on stage to signal, I don't know, whatever I want to signal to get whatever I want?
01:47:38 Speaker_00
Yes. Purposeful movement. A big mistake I see CEOs make on stage is they either don't have purposeful movements, they pace the stage back and forth, or they're stuck in one point and they don't move from that point and it makes them look very stiff.
01:47:53 Speaker_00
I believe you should block your speeches, just very subtly. So for example, I always, when I deliver, I start in the middle of the stage, always, always.
01:48:02 Speaker_00
So when I'm being introduced, right, your first few seconds on stage is the most important for your entire talk. So as you're being introduced, you walk on stage, pick a point and walk purposely to it. Don't meander onto stage.
01:48:14 Speaker_00
You're walking right to the middle of the stage or the left of the stage, however you pick. And you're delivering your first opening lines, opening story in that middle point. That's where I like it.
01:48:22 Speaker_00
And that intention walking on stage is going to make you look so much more confident and not disorganized or ambiguous. Then if you can, this is for the advanced speaker and this is you, I think.
01:48:35 Speaker_00
You want to help your audience with your stage movement. So in my presentations, when I'm sharing science or fact or research, I'm on the left-hand side of the stage.
01:48:45 Speaker_00
When I'm moving to personal story, gifs, anecdotes, or a funny video, I'm on the right side of the stage. That is a way I'm helping my audience organize and categorize my talks.
01:48:54 Speaker_00
I've also noticed in the audience there are highly warm people and there are highly competent people. I've noticed if I train them that way, I'm doing a 60-minute keynote, they begin to subconsciously recognize it.
01:49:05 Speaker_00
My highly competent folks perk right up. When I get to the left side of the stage, oh, this is for me. And my highly warm folks are like, ha, my turn. And it really helps them know when to pay the most attention.
01:49:16 Speaker_00
So you should think about for your talks, you also can do this chronologically. Some of my students are like TED speakers and they're telling more of a chronological story as opposed to like making points.
01:49:26 Speaker_00
I will often teach them to start, like we like to, you know, in Western cultures, we read from left to right. I like them to actually start on the left-hand side of the stage or the audience's left. Because the beginning of their story starts here.
01:49:38 Speaker_00
And they share their childhood, there's a picture of their childhood on the slide. And they slowly begin to move over to the middle, when the middle part of their journey happens. And they finally get to their arc, their knowledge, their a-ha moment.
01:49:48 Speaker_00
They're finally, they've made it over to the far side of the stage, the far right side of the stage.
01:49:52 Speaker_06
And in terms of what I'm saying, we talked a little bit about the actual content of what I'm saying, because this applies not just to when I'm on stage, but also to emails and WhatsApps.
01:50:00 Speaker_06
And I think most of our communication these days is on a screen. So if I'm trying to be a master of structuring a sentence on a screen to set people up for success, what have I got to be thinking about?
01:50:16 Speaker_00
What emotion do you want your person to feel when they see your name in their inbox, on stage, in LinkedIn? That is the emotion that you want to label yourself.
01:50:30 Speaker_00
So for example, in your talks, like for example, in my talks, I am trying to acknowledge the pain of awkwardness. I don't want people to feel like they are unseen.
01:50:40 Speaker_00
So when I say you're overlooked, you're misunderstood, you're underestimated, you feel awkward and out of control and anxious and overwhelmed, I hear you. You're not alone. I've been there.
01:50:50 Speaker_00
And then the solution to that feeling, the where it gets better, is confidence and presence and memorability. And the mechanism is blueprints and formula and hard skills. That helps me gift to the audience a solution emotion.
01:51:07 Speaker_00
So for you, I would say, what are the pain points you want your audience to resonate with so they feel heard by you, seen by you, understood by you?
01:51:14 Speaker_00
What's the goal emotion that you want to give them from your talk, from your podcast, from the email that they're subscribing to? And then what's your mechanism? What's your way that you do that?
01:51:24 Speaker_06
Imperfection. So imperfection. I was watching a video of yours, I think from 10 years ago, where you sat with two lovely people talking about charisma. And one of the things you said earlier in the video is that
01:51:36 Speaker_06
I think it was like TV shopping or something like that, where like a lady made a mistake. She spilled a milkshake or something. And she did more sales because she spilled a milkshake?
01:51:45 Speaker_00
Yes, that's it.
01:51:46 Speaker_06
Explain this to me.
01:51:47 Speaker_00
Yes, another study by Dr. Richard Wiseman, who wanted to know, do you have to be perfect? which for many years, I wanted to be perfect. And then I realized, oh, there is no such thing as perfect, and I don't want to be that way. Very simple.
01:52:00 Speaker_00
He had a model selling a blender in a mall. And in one version, she had the perfect pitch. And I'll take your strawberries and your bananas and just hit the button and here you have perfect smoothies.
01:52:10 Speaker_00
And the second one, he had same smoothie, same pitch, same verbal, but she spills the smoothie on the table as she's pouring it. People bought more of the blender when she spilled the smoothie.
01:52:23 Speaker_00
Now, does this mean I want you to purposely spill your smoothies? No. I did have a piece of kale in my teeth earlier, and I really considered coming in with it just to see what would happen. I didn't. I did. I did think about it, but I didn't do it.
01:52:34 Speaker_00
But I do think there's like, stop trying to be perfect. Own your authentic vulnerabilities. Don't purposely smell a smoothie. Don't purposely smell your coffee. By the way, that experiment was repeated with coffee and job interviews.
01:52:45 Speaker_00
If I remember correctly, they had an audio clip and hirers were rating job candidates on performance. And in one of the audio clips, they had him spill his coffee. Oh, whoops. Oops. Oops. Sorry about that. I spilled my coffee. Let's cut that.
01:52:58 Speaker_00
And then go back to the interview. And they rated that candidate as a better candidate, even though he spilled his coffee. Why? It's called the other shoe effect. We know that no one's perfect. We know this. It's impossible.
01:53:11 Speaker_00
And so when we're interacting with someone, even on a commercial, even interview, we're like, what's wrong with you? What is your imperfection? And it kind of distracts us.
01:53:22 Speaker_00
This research, The Other Shoe Effect, found the longer the interview goes on without something dropped, like without the other shoe to drop, the more the interviewer is like, Hmm, what's going on here?
01:53:33 Speaker_00
And the more they'll try to ask questions to try to find it. You are better off in an interview or on a date dropping your shoe.
01:53:40 Speaker_00
So sharing whatever that vulnerability or imperfection is closer to the start of the interview or the date, because it helps other person A, get to know you better, but also not be so worried that they're not seeing your true imperfection.
01:53:52 Speaker_00
Captivate, when I first wrote it, my intro was really, really boring. And my publisher, I love her, Nikki, my editor, wrote back and she's like, Vanessa, your intro doesn't sound like you. It sounds like you're trying to be something you're not.
01:54:07 Speaker_00
And she was right. I was trying to sound like an academic researcher. I'm not an academic researcher. I'm a behavior researcher. I'm a pop scientist. I'm a recovering awkward person. She's like, start with that.
01:54:17 Speaker_00
So the opening line of Captivate is, hi, I'm Vanessa. I'm a recovering awkward person. That is why that book hit the bestseller list. I dropped the shoe. Yes, I teach charisma. Yes, I teach body language. I am still in recovery.
01:54:30 Speaker_00
I am still constantly worried that people hate me. I have a small and wonderful group of friends. But otherwise, people make me still nervous. I know how to deal with it. I know how to make conversation.
01:54:39 Speaker_00
But I want you to know there's still awkwardness here. No matter how many of these you learn, you're probably still going to face awkwardness and overwhelm, but at least it will be a little bit easier.
01:54:48 Speaker_00
So I think it's really important that we plan to share our inner perfections and not try to hide it.
01:54:55 Speaker_06
Personal branding is a big thing now because we have social media, we have LinkedIn, it's a big part of what gets you a job and gets you opportunities and gets you speaking appointments and book deals etc.
01:55:04 Speaker_06
So everybody is, well most people are playing the game of personal branding to some degree. So as you were saying about being perfect and showing imperfections, again it feels like there's a there's like a Is gradient the right word?
01:55:20 Speaker_06
It's like a spectrum. That's a nice word. For sure. You can go too far with imperfection. Oh, yeah. Me and my friends call this deficiency promotion.
01:55:27 Speaker_08
What?
01:55:27 Speaker_06
And then on the other end of the spectrum, you've got ideas promotion, which is like when you're all about like, look how smart I am and these are my ideas. And deficiency promotion is look how traumatized, broken, sick, ill I am.
01:55:40 Speaker_06
And you build a whole brand around that. And you can like, you know, so You're probably still going to get speaking appointments either side, because, you know, they're going to want people to speak about this stuff, but also this stuff.
01:55:52 Speaker_06
But I think you have to be quite intentional about how you show up on this spectrum.
01:55:55 Speaker_00
Well, first of all, what's true? The very first question is like, don't purposely spill the smoothie.
01:56:00 Speaker_06
But you know what's interesting is when you build a brand, it becomes self-reinforcing. So I see people on both sides of the spectrum. Maybe they started in the middle, and then they got likes and followers. And they had to get toxic.
01:56:13 Speaker_06
Like, what else is wrong with you? That's why we love you.
01:56:16 Speaker_00
You're so broken. Totally. I think that there are people who are locked into being broken and being messy and people don't want to see them triumph.
01:56:24 Speaker_00
However, I think it is important to show people if you are very broken and in a bad point and a bad stage in your life, like, show it and then show them how you're a hero out of it. That can inspire other heroes.
01:56:35 Speaker_06
I agree. But is there such a thing as spending too long in either camp? Do you know what I mean? Because we like a little bit of, oh, you had a bad day, great, but you have a bad life.
01:56:45 Speaker_00
Different strokes for different folks. I think there are people who would stay over there forever.
01:56:49 Speaker_06
Yeah, but if you're there for 10 years where you're just every day you're showing up like another shit day for me for 10 years.
01:56:54 Speaker_00
I think they would still get likes. I think they would. They would. Of course they would. I mean, it would be miserable for you as a person, but if that's your brand, that's your brand.
01:57:03 Speaker_06
I guess you said the most important thing, which is like, who are you?
01:57:06 Speaker_00
Yeah, like if that's the truth, if you're having a decade of
01:57:10 Speaker_06
then be honest.
01:57:11 Speaker_00
You've got a decade of it.
01:57:12 Speaker_06
It's interesting with social media that I think social media started in a place where it was, you know, the margarita on the beach and that was in such high supply that something else became in greater supply, which was being a bit more honest and open.
01:57:26 Speaker_00
Stretch marks on the beach.
01:57:27 Speaker_06
Yeah, exactly. Stretch marks on the beach.
01:57:28 Speaker_00
That's exactly what happened. And those are people who've gone viral from those kind of posts. I do want to say something about personal branding. I think about it a little bit differently. So in the very last section of cues, I talk about visual cues.
01:57:39 Speaker_00
We have to remember that the cues in our brand, the colors we wear, what's behind you in your background, the props you're holding in your picture, what's behind you in your videos, they're triggering neural networks.
01:57:52 Speaker_00
So for example, they've researched this. If I say free associate to fire truck, you might say red. engine, dog, and you might start to associate different words. There are really common neural networks.
01:58:06 Speaker_00
So what you want to think about is what neural networks are you triggering in your personal brand? For example, I like you to create strong neural networks.
01:58:16 Speaker_00
All of my single students, my students who are dating, I say your profile picture should be triggering all kinds of neural networks that you like.
01:58:24 Speaker_00
So if you love skiing, you should be on a slope holding skis because for some people that will trigger a fierce fear neural network, right? Like I'm not a skier. I see skis. I'm like cold, scared, alone or like knees hurting.
01:58:39 Speaker_00
Like that's what I think when I see skis. I would not be a good partner for them. But someone else is going to be like adventure, family, fun, vacations. That's your person. Every picture on your profile should be creating allergies and attractors.
01:58:53 Speaker_00
should be activating neural networks for your person. You want them to have similar neural networks to you.
01:58:58 Speaker_00
My husband and I, I think, if you were to show us both pictures of the same things, we would have very similar neural networks for different vacations, different props, different foods, different activities.
01:59:08 Speaker_00
And that's because we have similar ways of thinking. We are very different, but we activate the same similar neural networks for pain and pleasure.
01:59:15 Speaker_06
Okay, I had a conversation with a really good friend of mine about this.
01:59:18 Speaker_06
They are looking for a partner and they are approaching their 40s and they were asking me about their Instagram and the first thing I noticed about their Instagram is I would say 80% of pictures they're holding a cocktail or a drink of alcohol.
01:59:34 Speaker_06
Now, as I looked at the Instagram, I go, oh, party girl. I don't think like settle down and let's have a family.
01:59:41 Speaker_00
Absolutely. Does she want to have a family? Yes. Okay. Wrong pictures. Okay. She is activating the wrong neural networks for men. She's dating men.
01:59:48 Speaker_08
Yeah.
01:59:49 Speaker_00
She's dating the wrong, men are going to look at that and be like, party girl, fun, out, not the mother of my children. So those are creating allergies for the ideal man. So what does she need to change?
02:00:00 Speaker_00
She needs, okay, so what kind of husband and father does she want? Does she want an outdoor lover?
02:00:05 Speaker_06
A good one that can, she said to me, I want a good one that can help me with some of these overheads. Overheads? Bills. She doesn't want him to pay all the bills, she just wants some help with the fucking bills.
02:00:16 Speaker_00
Okay, so a hard worker. She earns a lot of money. Okay, so that's pictures of her, you know, working hard at a conference. What kind of way does she spend her weekend?
02:00:23 Speaker_00
She's hiking, or she's biking, or she's running across the Brooklyn Bridge, or she's running a marathon, or she loves dogs, or she loves cats, or she's eating big waffles and pancakes.
02:00:32 Speaker_00
Like, she should be taking pictures of what she wants to do with her partner so that they look at that and they're like, I want to join her for that. And you also want to create allergies.
02:00:42 Speaker_00
You don't want to appeal to everyone because you're going to go on bad dates.
02:00:45 Speaker_06
The other thing I know about this person is something you said about earlier. It's just that their body language, as I think about it, is just so, it's like trying to take up less space, is the only way I can describe it.
02:00:54 Speaker_00
Contracted. Exactly like that. Right, so when we talk about distance between, like, so earlobe and shoulder, distance number one. Second distance that's important, between your arm and your torso.
02:01:04 Speaker_00
In a good conversation, we have distance that's fluctuating a lot. Like, right, I'm talking, my arms are going out, you're seeing distance between my torso and my arm. People who are very anxious,
02:01:13 Speaker_06
Yeah, like in like just like a pencil.
02:01:15 Speaker_00
Or like Penguin. I call it Penguin where they like don't ever release their arms from their torso and they're very contracted. They have very minimal hand gestures and they'll often clutch something to their chest.
02:01:25 Speaker_00
Now if I were to give the entire interview like this, you would think, oh man, she is nervous or she's, you know, afraid or she's anxious because I don't have that space. The moment I release that space, it makes me look more confident. So
02:01:38 Speaker_00
That's the other distance you can play with. Hand gestures really help with that. Hand gestures help with space, with vocal variety, with comprehension. That's why I like them so much.
02:01:47 Speaker_06
So if I'm trying to get her a husband, I'd like to. We've been friends for a long time, almost a decade, and I have sat in the passenger seat of her life and tried to be a supportive friend in any way.
02:01:57 Speaker_06
But if I tried to give her advice in terms of cues and body language and sentences on how to get a partner, where do we start?
02:02:04 Speaker_00
OK, so one, let's get her some pictures that are going to attract the right person and create allergies for the wrong person.
02:02:09 Speaker_08
OK.
02:02:10 Speaker_00
Two, her main profile pictures should be showing warm and competent body language. Authentic smile. Maybe a head tilt. Maybe you have a hand gesture. Maybe that's too much warmth. I want to see a lot of space between your earlobe and your shoulder.
02:02:24 Speaker_00
Make sure it's a symmetrical smile. Make sure we're not contempt. Make sure we're not accidentally fear smiling. So the profile picture is number one most important. Yes.
02:02:36 Speaker_04
It's a lot, but OK.
02:02:38 Speaker_00
Oh, yeah. It's going to be hard. We've got to find her her husband.
02:02:40 Speaker_04
We haven't got much time either.
02:02:43 Speaker_00
OK, we've got to find her husband. The interpersonal body language is really hard as a friend to correct on someone. May I ask you, does she use vocal fry? What's that?
02:02:53 Speaker_01
Does she ever talk like this, where it's kind of like a frying pan, where she's not using her full voice? Typically, people who use contracted small body language often have that kind of a vocal power.
02:03:04 Speaker_01
And so they go into a pattern like this and then like, oh, like, I mean, I just like watered the plants this weekend and like, oof.
02:03:12 Speaker_06
Also, the end of the sentence goes up. Right.
02:03:17 Speaker_00
So, that's the first thing I would actually try to help her with, is making sure that she does not accidentally use VocalFry. It's usually an accident. Here's the fastest way to get rid of VocalFry.
02:03:26 Speaker_00
If you are using it, you hear yourself using it, or someone else is using it, just speak louder. Vocal fry happens from a lack of breath. What actually is happening is you're speaking and your vocal cords are rattling.
02:03:39 Speaker_00
It's a terrible noise, but that's my vocal cords rattling together. And the moment that I speak louder, it goes away. So oftentimes when we're lacking confidence or we have tight body, we have less breath and we create vocal fry.
02:03:50 Speaker_00
So just ask her to speak up a little bit. It's hard to get someone to stand more broadly because if they're uncomfortable with it, they don't like it. So what I would recommend is she should do activity dates.
02:04:04 Speaker_00
When you're at dinner with someone or at brunch or a coffee at a bar, you're like this, so what do you do? And you're like, it's shriveled and you're like clutching your drink and you're in your patterns, you're in those patterns.
02:04:16 Speaker_00
Go on hikes, go play pickleball, go learn pickleball, go play ping pong. Like do something physical because then it's much easier to be broad.
02:04:26 Speaker_06
Interesting. OK, that makes a lot of sense, actually. Yeah, because you're going to if it's in a context you're super familiar with, the old patterns are going to be triggered.
02:04:33 Speaker_00
Yes. And I've tried to get people to stand more broadly just by telling them. And it helps. The awareness helps. But it's much easier when you're actually in a context that helps you be that way.
02:04:43 Speaker_06
I read a study from your work that said, in a study to see how men and women look at body language differently, they put people in an MRI machine and had them try and read body language from just pictures alone. What happened? What did they find out?
02:04:58 Speaker_00
So I believe women activated 14 to 16 areas of their brain activated while trying to read those body language pictures. And men, I believe it was half of that.
02:05:06 Speaker_00
In other words, when women were looking at pictures of body language, lots of connections were happening. They were making predictions. They were thinking about personality. They were thinking about emotions. They were looking at their clothes.
02:05:18 Speaker_00
They were looking at their facial structure. Women were taking in a much broader picture of the body language, whereas men were, I think, much more cue-focused. Ah, broad shoulders, feet apart, hands visible. Neither of these are right or wrong.
02:05:32 Speaker_00
Actually, in fact, men can sometimes be easier to teach. Like my students are 50-50 men and women, but sometimes men can, they can focus in on the cue that I'm trying to teach them. They can understand it. They can comprehend it. Got it. It's decoded.
02:05:44 Speaker_00
Women tend to create a whole narrative. So I play games sometimes with my students where I say, okay, tell me about someone. He has a Mohawk. And men will often say, I don't want them to hear the women first. Men will often be like, he has a Mohawk.
02:06:00 Speaker_00
He's a man. He's not bald. Women will be like, okay, he's a bad boy, and he probably has earrings, and I bet you he drives a motorcycle, and I bet he'd be really fun on a date, but probably a drinker, and he will just go.
02:06:14 Speaker_05
Interesting.
02:06:15 Speaker_00
So this is, it's good and bad, right? Like, that also can hinder women, and by the way, I'm making big generalizations on this. This is not the generalization part we have to make sure we're careful on. Women tend to globalize.
02:06:29 Speaker_00
Like, they'll see a cue and be like, oh, that means he's bad or that means he's dangerous. I'm never – he's toxic. We're going to talk to him again. Yeah.
02:06:37 Speaker_00
Whereas men will sometimes, you know, oh, it's probably just a bad day or I'll give her or him a second chance. So we just have to be a little bit aware of our own lenses, we'll say.
02:06:49 Speaker_06
Is there anything else that I should say to my friend in order to help them? Because sometimes I wonder, you know, those tips, tricks, tactics, they can lean, they can do this, whatever. But is there something deeper that is easier?
02:06:59 Speaker_06
Do you know why I say this? That book, The Game, I went off to university, I lasted for one lecture. But while I was there, I met this guy called Joe, my friend, I won't say his second name, because people will identify him. But I met my friend Joe.
02:07:09 Speaker_06
And I said to Joe, listen, my friend, I said this book, The Game, really useful, taught me a lot about like, you know, interpersonal dynamics, you should read it. Gave the book to him, he read it, we went out to the club that day, he fucked it up.
02:07:21 Speaker_06
Like he went out there, he started negging people inside, and I just thought, God, you know, you just can't teach it. That's what I thought. I thought there's so many.
02:07:30 Speaker_06
And actually, when I reflect on the people in my life, this guy called Dan, I'll say his name, Dan Capon. Dan Capon in school,
02:07:36 Speaker_06
was always just so good with the opposite sex he was just always he's one of those people he's charismatic he was funny yeah he's like that cocky funny yeah yeah just a natural no one taught him that yeah
02:07:49 Speaker_06
And so I look at my friend Joe, I look at my friend Dan, I go, it doesn't matter if you read the book. I'm not saying your book, your book's amazing, everyone needs to go read your book. No, they really do, it's a great book.
02:07:58 Speaker_06
But I'm saying, is there something deeper within us? Like for my friend that has the shriveled posture. Is it just like tactics and tips?
02:08:08 Speaker_00
I think anyone can learn it. I really truly believe that. I have seen the most awkward, uncomfortable people totally shut down. Slowly transform or completely transform. And remember, they don't... Who is your uncharismatic friend?
02:08:25 Speaker_00
What was the fake first name he used?
02:08:27 Speaker_06
He's not uncharismatic. He just... I just gave him the book and he just like... Who is it? Joe? Joe. Okay.
02:08:33 Speaker_00
Joe doesn't need to have a complete transformation to find his soulmate. Joe does not need to have a complete transformation to have friends. You're his friend. So even if he has a couple of tactics, like stop asking, what do you do? It's boring.
02:08:47 Speaker_00
Like start making eye contact, especially the end of sentences for 60, 70% of the time. Oh, people suddenly feel listened to. Hey, ask better questions to your friends. You'll get to know them better.
02:08:57 Speaker_00
Those tactics will get him friendships, hopefully a girlfriend, hopefully a job. So I think that everyone can make small or big changes. I don't think there's anyone who's unteachable.
02:09:10 Speaker_06
Do you think there's a relationship between these tactics and tips and your actual confidence, i.e. does it become like a self-reinforcing?
02:09:19 Speaker_00
Yes, so much so. Like, that is the only way I found confidence. The only way that I was able to conquer my awkwardness and actually begin to go out and try to make friends and be less lonely. I mean, I was so lonely.
02:09:33 Speaker_00
was that I was like, okay, I have a goal. I'm going to ask someone, what have you been doing that's been exciting recently? I'm going to ask that question. That gave me just enough confidence to get out the door and to get to that party.
02:09:45 Speaker_00
And then when I got a good answer, someone's like, oh, yeah, you know, I am working on something exciting. And then they felt excited, I felt excited. And so like that one tool gave me enough confidence to go out.
02:09:55 Speaker_00
So these tools give you confidence to try something new and to break your pattern. If you feel stuck, and this is for anyone, if you feel stuck, then you have to try something different.
02:10:06 Speaker_00
If you keep doing the same thing, you're gonna keep getting the same thing. So that means you have to ask different kinds of questions. You have to use different kind of body language cues.
02:10:13 Speaker_00
And if you're willing to try just something different, something will change for you.
02:10:19 Speaker_06
Are these cues, this body language, more important for one gender typically than the other?
02:10:23 Speaker_00
Not that I've seen. The research has not found that. Good for both.
02:10:29 Speaker_06
And what's, in terms of attraction, is what is, do you think, the most important thing? Is it competent? Is it strong?
02:10:37 Speaker_00
Is it... Okay, so this is not, this is research. So I believe it was Monica Moore who did this research.
02:10:42 Speaker_00
She found that the people who got approached the most at clubs, the people who got approached the most, were just, had the biggest signal of availability. So they weren't the most attractive men and women. She did this for both men and women.
02:10:54 Speaker_00
They were not the most attractive men and women. In fact, the most attractive women in the room, if they had closed body language, closed off body language, they were not approached, they did not get dates, they did not get out their number.
02:11:03 Speaker_00
It was the men and women who signaled, I'm available.
02:11:07 Speaker_06
How do you signal when I'm available?
02:11:08 Speaker_00
Okay, so this is really important for dating in the sense of wanting to be approached. Dating one-to-one is a little bit different, right? You don't need to signal this if you're one-to-one.
02:11:15 Speaker_00
But if you're in a big room or you're speed networking, one is open body, no blocking. I never want anything in front of your torso. I don't want this. So I don't want arms crossed. I don't want cup in front of you.
02:11:28 Speaker_00
I don't want you clutching your computer or your iPad or your phone. I want you to make sure that your torso is open and angled out towards the room. I like croissant feet. You know, parallel feet are like what we're doing right now.
02:11:39 Speaker_00
In a dating situation, I want you to have croissant feet, which is your feet are angled toward the biggest part of the room, saying, I'm open. Come and approach me.
02:11:48 Speaker_00
That signals to both men and women, oh, maybe that person is literally physically open to someone coming in and breaking this conversation. It also means small, darting glances to everyone around the room.
02:11:59 Speaker_06
Everyone. Everyone you want to approach you. Oh, everyone you want to approach you? Yeah. How many times does someone got to do a glance to get someone to come over?
02:12:05 Speaker_00
So Monica Moore actually studied this. I believe it took eight glances to get someone to approach. Don't quote me on that. It was way higher than I thought. Like I was like two, maybe three. I think it was something insane like eight.
02:12:17 Speaker_00
Could you imagine being in a bar and looking at someone? Eight times, that's how many times it took to get that person to come over. And these are quick glances, not like, you know, it's a side glance, it's a side glance and a smile.
02:12:29 Speaker_00
It's a flip of the hair and a look over, right? Those are the kind of glances that we're talking about. And it takes eight sometimes. So croissant feet, open body, quick, short glances.
02:12:40 Speaker_00
I would also try one of my secret tricks for daters is generally gesturing in their direction. So like, let's see, like, like, there's a hot guy right over there that I can see. I've been married for 18 years, just to be clear. Yeah.
02:12:54 Speaker_00
If you want, okay, he dropped something. He called him hot.
02:12:58 Speaker_04
He's freaking out.
02:13:01 Speaker_00
Okay, so there's a hot guy right over there that I want to see. And I'm talking to you. I might make some quick glances over, but I also might, like, when I'm gesturing, I'm sort of gesturing towards them. So I'm on their line of gesturing.
02:13:14 Speaker_00
So, like, if I'm gesturing out, I'm making a gesture for them to literally come over. Like, I'm, like, gesturing, and then I'm, like, I want them to, like, literally come over. I'm sort of gesturing, but I'm talking, but I'm open gesturing. It works.
02:13:25 Speaker_00
It works. If they are attracted to you at all, they will come over. If they don't come over, they're probably not attracted to you. Try someone else.
02:13:32 Speaker_06
What about men? How do men signal in this?
02:13:35 Speaker_00
Same, same. So like a man can do the same thing. Now, women are less likely to approach men in a crowded environment. Culturally, that's not as accepted. So it's going to be harder for a man to get a woman to come over.
02:13:46 Speaker_00
But it does work very well for men to warm a woman up that she is about to be approached with those things. quick glances, open gestures, croissant feet towards her. That way when you do approach, she knows that your attention has been on her.
02:14:01 Speaker_00
And look at her responses to your gestures and your glances. If she meets your glance, great. If she turns away from you, turns her feet away from you, she's not probably very receptive to your approach.
02:14:14 Speaker_00
So it's a good way to kind of test the waters before you actually approach.
02:14:16 Speaker_06
It's difficult in this day and age, isn't it, to know if you can roll up on someone because there's a lot of like, you know. Too cool for school. That's what I see. And also there's like a big culture now of inappropriate advances.
02:14:29 Speaker_00
Yes, but I'm going to be optimistic and say, look, I'm not single, so I know that's different. But I think people are lonely. And I think people so want to meet their person.
02:14:41 Speaker_00
So if you are actually in person and you're interested in someone, it is such a gift to go up to someone and be like, hey, I like you. I saw you across the room.
02:14:52 Speaker_06
Do you know, I think I said this on one or two podcasts before, but I didn't really get an answer from anybody. I had this kid at this event that I spoke at.
02:14:59 Speaker_02
Okay.
02:15:00 Speaker_06
And he was in the front row. And it just, it really moved me because it made me realize that there's so many people out there, especially in the world we live in now in 2024, 2025 or whatever. who want friends. You just said loneliness right?
02:15:12 Speaker_06
They want to make a friend and it's so weird this kid stood up bless him in this talk I was doing and he put his hands up in the air and there's a thousand people um around him it was this talk I did in Canary Wharf in London which is like it's like New York of London it's like really really busy they're all wearing suits these kids because they work in the city and he stood up and he went my question is how do I make friends?
02:15:33 Speaker_06
And you can imagine the guts it takes to say that in front of a room of a thousand people your age.
02:15:36 Speaker_00
Amazing.
02:15:37 Speaker_06
He went, how do I make friends?
02:15:38 Speaker_00
What'd you say? Do you have any friends?
02:15:42 Speaker_06
Do I have any friends? I have a couple. But it's funny because what I actually said, it took me off took me off guard. But what I ended up saying was, what you just did is how you make friends. You know what I'm saying?
02:15:53 Speaker_06
So like that that willingness to be vulnerable in that way, because I said, I know what's going to happen after I finish on stage here and walk off. People are going to come up to you.
02:16:00 Speaker_00
Yeah. Yeah, okay, so I have a framework for how to make friends as adults. I think it's really important.
02:16:05 Speaker_00
I think it's somehow unacceptable in our society to approach friendship like dating, but that's how we should think about it, is meeting two or three amazing people is so important for your health, for your happiness, for your success.
02:16:19 Speaker_00
It is so important to date your friends. Like that is incredibly important. One of my best friends is Cody Sanchez because she is incredibly inspiring, incredibly smart, incredibly funny.
02:16:28 Speaker_00
But I dated a lot of people in Austin, a lot of girls in Austin to find her. I know she did too. It was my bachelorette for friends era where I was looking for girlfriends and we just like hit it off and we've been able to grow our businesses together.
02:16:42 Speaker_00
So one is you should change your mindset. Finding friends is like dating. You are looking for your friend's soulmate. And then you should approach those friends just like you would a potential partner. You want someone with similar values.
02:16:53 Speaker_00
You want someone who activates the same neural networks as you. They like the same activities. And you want someone who you test it out. You would never move in with a friend or never move in with someone who just started dating.
02:17:03 Speaker_00
Same thing with a friend. You don't want to get too close too fast. So I highly recommend go on friendship dates and you want them to be different every time. Take them to places that you love and try to make them a little bit allergic.
02:17:18 Speaker_00
So for example, there's a place, this is gonna sound crazy, but it works. So there's a place in Austin called Casa De Luz, if anyone's been there in Austin, and it's a vegan hippie spot. It's been there forever.
02:17:28 Speaker_00
And you go in and it's one meal, you can't customize it, and they plop it down on your tray and you eat it like a cafeteria food. And I love it. And I love taking really high-maintenance women there, just to see what they're gonna do.
02:17:39 Speaker_00
Because the women who are like, can I please get a man, a man, not a, I'm like, we're not going to be friends. We cannot be friends.
02:17:48 Speaker_06
You don't like those people?
02:17:49 Speaker_00
Nope.
02:17:49 Speaker_06
That modify them.
02:17:50 Speaker_00
That's why I left LA. I mean, you can modify a little bit, but like, there's a way that you kind of do it. And here you can't, you literally cannot modify. And so it's interesting to see how people deal with that circumstance.
02:18:01 Speaker_00
And I found my best closest friends are like, cool, let's go with it. Like that's a way that I see very into their personality. That's like a very weird story. People are going to be like, she's so weird. No wonder she doesn't have any friends. True.
02:18:12 Speaker_00
I don't have a lot of friends, but the friends I have, I love. We go to Casa de Luz all the time.
02:18:15 Speaker_00
So you should think about activities or places with your friends where you're going to be able to test out a value or something that you really appreciate in friends.
02:18:23 Speaker_06
What if you don't have friends? I'm thinking about this kid, like, and especially if you're a man, because men just struggle more. It actually feels awkward sometimes when,
02:18:35 Speaker_00
No, I make dates for my husband. I have to make dates, friend dates for my husband as well. I totally get it. I see it. Activities. So like, where's the place you like to hang out? What's the thing that you do? Is it, you know, axe throwing?
02:18:47 Speaker_00
Is it going to soccer games? Is it crazy mileage runs? Is it hiking group? Is it pickleball? Like, find the activity you love and then just slowly, just like we're talking about dating, slowly hit them up. Working on anything exciting these days?
02:19:02 Speaker_00
What's your big goal for 2025? Like, those are the questions. The reason I have these questions is they're dating questions, but they're also friendship questions. If you live in that activity for long enough, you'll find your people.
02:19:12 Speaker_06
What are you seeing in terms of interpersonal relationship shifts in the sort of 15 years has it been since you've been working? 18 years. You must have seen societal level shifts in our interpersonal skills, our friendships, et cetera.
02:19:24 Speaker_06
What are you seeing?
02:19:26 Speaker_00
AirPods are killing friendship. AirPods are going to ruin our interpersonal interactions. And here's the difference I've seen, the biggest difference in the last 18 years.
02:19:38 Speaker_00
18 years ago, you could maybe wear a Walkman around campus, or around the city, or on a subway, but really your ears were open.
02:19:46 Speaker_00
And so what would happen is you'd get on the subway, or you'd walk across campus, or you'd walk down the hallway, and someone would be like, hey Steven, how's it going? You know, pretty good, crazy week. Oh, really? What's she working on?
02:19:57 Speaker_00
Like, it was so much easier to have those tiny micro moments of connection. That Van Sloan study was done before AirPods, and I wonder if he were to redo it now, it would happen.
02:20:06 Speaker_06
Which one was that?
02:20:06 Speaker_00
The one where he found the most likable kids had the longest list of people they liked.
02:20:11 Speaker_00
And in the study, the most likable kids, when he observed them, they were walking down the hallway, saying hello, chatting next to someone for five seconds in a locker, saying after class and sort of talking, sitting with a lunch table, leaning over someone, asking about that.
02:20:23 Speaker_00
So much micro connection, very small conversations. Our friendships don't often happen in these big, deep conversations. They happen in these micro moments. AirPods destroy it.
02:20:33 Speaker_00
And I see this especially with younger folks because they always have their AirPods in when they're commuting, when they're walking, when they're jogging, when they're at the gym.
02:20:42 Speaker_00
I don't know about when I was single for five seconds when I was like, you know, 17, the gym was like the place. At the gym, no one really was listening to anything at the gym.
02:20:52 Speaker_00
At least I can remember, like, the rare person would have their Walkman in, but everyone was AirPod free. And so there was a lot of micro moments of connection happening. It was so much easier to talk to people.
02:21:02 Speaker_00
Now, if someone's working out with their out-there AirPods, they're insane. I'm like, what are they doing? They should go home. It's weird. It's weird. Or they're with a friend working out together, and that's intimidating.
02:21:17 Speaker_00
So I'm worried about this because we need weak ties. Weak ties are, in the research, these very casual connections of someone you see at the gym once a week, and you kind of know them. Oh, yeah, you know, Stephen, nice to see you.
02:21:32 Speaker_00
You recognize their face. If you were to see them at a restaurant later in the week, you'd be like, hey, don't you go to that gym? Oh, yeah, yeah, we do. So what are you doing this weekend?
02:21:41 Speaker_00
Like those weak ties are incredibly important for our happiness. That's how we build big friends. That's how we can find a soulmate. That's how we can make good business contacts.
02:21:50 Speaker_00
And I'm seeing less and less of that because of AirPods and because of hybrid work. So we're just not in the office that much. So we're having less of those little micro moments in a hallway or that five minutes before a meeting starts.
02:22:02 Speaker_00
The five minutes before a meeting start is really critical to your career success.
02:22:06 Speaker_00
How you talk to your boss, the small talk you make, are you asking boring questions, it's telling your colleagues and your boss a lot about who you are, and it's proven likable people make more money. Likable people get more promotions.
02:22:20 Speaker_00
Likable people have more friends and more friends at work. And so when we have less moments to show how likable we are, it's really hard to get those things.
02:22:30 Speaker_06
At my company, Flight Studio, which is part of my bigger company, Flight Group, we're constantly looking for ways to build deeper connections with our audiences.
02:22:37 Speaker_06
Whether that's a new show, a product, or a project, it's why I launched the conversation cards. I've relied on Shopify before, who's a sponsor of today's podcast, and I'll be using them again for the next big launch, which we'll hear about soon.
02:22:49 Speaker_06
And I use them because of how easy it is to set up an online store that reaches all of you, no matter where you are in the world. With Shopify, the usual pain points of launching products online disappear completely.
02:22:59 Speaker_06
No matter the size of your business, Shopify has everything you need to make your business go to the next level and better connect with your customers all over the world.
02:23:07 Speaker_06
To say thank you to all of you for listening to my show, we're giving you a trial which is just $1 a month. You can sign up by going to shopify.com slash Bartlett. That's shopify.com slash Bartlett or find the link in the description below.
02:23:24 Speaker_06
If you're an entrepreneur, you're probably going to want to listen to this. It's a message from one of our sponsors on this podcast, which is LinkedIn.
02:23:30 Speaker_06
If you've listened to me on this podcast for a while now, you'll know that I've been on a bit of an evolution as a business owner and entrepreneur.
02:23:35 Speaker_06
And one of those evolutions that has become clearer and clearer as I've matured is that the single most important thing in building a business, in building a company, is hiring.
02:23:46 Speaker_06
The definition of the word company is actually group of people and that is the first responsibility and job that any entrepreneur has and should focus on, but surprisingly most don't. About 80% of my team have been hired from LinkedIn.
02:23:59 Speaker_06
And I think there's very few platforms, if any, in the world that could give you that diversity of candidate with that much information and data on their profiles.
02:24:08 Speaker_06
It usually costs money, but for the entrepreneurs that are listening to me, I've got you a free job ad post for your company on LinkedIn. Just go to linkedin.com slash DOAC to post your free job ad today. That's linkedin.com slash DOAC.
02:24:21 Speaker_06
Terms and conditions apply. What about lying? This is one of the most, um, things people are most interested in is how to, everyone wants to spot a liar.
02:24:33 Speaker_06
It's funny because like the rest of our conversation, one could infer that as how to like be a liar. I'm joking, I'm just saying.
02:24:39 Speaker_06
But it is, it's like how to show up in a certain way to get success in a certain context, whether it's dating or work or whatever. But then we want to figure out if someone's playing us. Is there any, is it possible to spot a liar?
02:24:51 Speaker_00
Most people can only spot a lie with 54% accuracy. They've actually studied the average person is very bad. But you better off tossing a coin. 54% accuracy. We are very bad at spotting liars.
02:25:04 Speaker_00
And this is important to know about yourself is we should not overestimate our ability to spot lies. We are usually not good at it. So it is very important to give someone the benefit of the doubt because you don't know. It's very hard to spot.
02:25:18 Speaker_00
It is possible there are certain statistical cues to deceit. There are cues that over and over again research find liars typically do, but not always. Like there's no Pinocchio's nose. There's no one cue that means someone is lying.
02:25:30 Speaker_00
But there are a couple cues that come up over and over again. One we already talked about, the question inflection. It's very suspicious if someone is speaking and all of a sudden they ask a question. If they're not actually asking a question, right?
02:25:41 Speaker_00
Like if all of a sudden you hear a question inflection used on a statement or a number or a boundary or a timeline, that's when I'm like, let's double click on that for a second and talk about that budget. So you mentioned the number was 500,000.
02:25:54 Speaker_00
Where does that number come from? Let's talk about more. I want to hear if I'm going to hear it again.
02:25:59 Speaker_05
Interesting.
02:26:00 Speaker_00
So that's a double click for me. That's like, let's make sure that I heard that right. Let's make sure that you feel confident about it. Where does that come from? So that's just a little red flag that says dive deeper. Nothing is a sign of lying.
02:26:11 Speaker_00
It's just a sign that you should dig deeper. So question inflection. A volume drop is another vocal cue of deception. So when we're anxious or nervous, we will lose volume and we lose breath.
02:26:22 Speaker_00
So if you hear someone who's speaking, I hear this a lot in sales calls, so someone will I always know what part of a sales presentation makes my entrepreneurs the most nervous because they lose volume during that part of their presentation.
02:26:34 Speaker_00
So it sounds like this. So let's move on to our team. So our founding partners are me, myself, Joe, Jimmy, and we all met at...
02:26:47 Speaker_00
And we're going to now talk about like, I'm making it obvious for you, but if you're listening for it, you'll hear where someone is like, they literally lost fuel. They literally lost breath.
02:26:58 Speaker_00
So a sudden drop in volume is a very interesting cue to like double click. What just happened there? How do you feel about your co-founder? How long have you known each other? Anything we should know about that? How's the relationship? How do you fight?
02:27:10 Speaker_00
How do you communicate? Right? Like that's when I would, that's where I would aim most of my investor questions if I was hearing that volume drop on that specific area. The other, that's focal. Nonverbal.
02:27:23 Speaker_00
So nonverbal, what you're looking for is incongruencies where the verbal does not match the body. The biggest and most obvious one is when someone says yes but shakes their head no or says no but shakes their head yes.
02:27:37 Speaker_00
So I might say to my daughter, did you clean your room? Yeah, I did. She's shaking her head no. In Western culture, so there's a cultural exception to this one. India, Bulgaria, and Pakistan. They nod a little bit differently.
02:27:53 Speaker_00
The research actually shows that. But in countries outside of India, Bulgaria, and Pakistan, when we agree with someone, say yes, or telling the truth, we typically agree with ourselves and shake our heads yes.
02:28:03 Speaker_00
When we don't agree or don't like something, we'll often shake our heads no. We can sometimes also do this in disbelief, like, wow, I cannot believe that just happened. So I'm always looking for incongruent nods.
02:28:13 Speaker_00
This happens a lot if you ask someone, do you like the new girl? Yeah, you know, she's great. Right? You see that.
02:28:23 Speaker_05
100%, yeah.
02:28:24 Speaker_00
All the time. And people, they don't realize they're doing it, but they're shaking their head, no, they do not like that person. You'll also see this with mismatched facial expressions. And the biggest one for liars, the research finds, is disgust.
02:28:38 Speaker_00
So disgust is an expression that people make without even realizing it, and this is across cultures. When we don't like something or when we smell something bad, we crinkle our nose up and we flash the upper whites of our teeth and we go, ugh, that.
02:28:50 Speaker_00
So you'll notice that liars typically feel dirty when they lie. So oftentimes they'll show disgust with themselves for lying. So you'll ask someone, so what do you think of the proposal? Yeah, it's really good. And they might even sniff.
02:29:10 Speaker_05
Really?
02:29:11 Speaker_00
Yeah.
02:29:11 Speaker_05
What's a sniff? What does it signal?
02:29:15 Speaker_00
Oh, it's a disgust activator. Like when we are disgusted, our nasal cavities want to close because we want to take in less of it. And so even though it's not about food, it's about a preference.
02:29:24 Speaker_00
Liars will often show a little bit of disgust when they are lying because they are look a little bit disgusted with themselves. And so you'll see this activation here. By the way, no one does that naturally.
02:29:34 Speaker_00
This is a very unnatural way to hold my face, but we do it and we feel disgusted.
02:29:38 Speaker_00
The nasal cavities, when we nasal dilate, or nasal wings dilate, that's what it's called, like these nasal wings dilate and we begin to scrunch them up, it's like we don't like what we're seeing, smelling, hearing.
02:29:49 Speaker_00
So what I will do is I will share a proposal to someone, I will talk about something, and I watch for any disgust. So I'll say, you know, here's the plan for 2025. Here's what we're going to do.
02:30:00 Speaker_00
And if I see a, I know that that team member or that person is like, not that into it. And that's why I double click. Any questions? How do you feel? Stephen, do you like this idea?
02:30:13 Speaker_04
Yeah, I love it.
02:30:14 Speaker_00
Yeah, no. Horrible. You look like you're about to throw up, by the way.
02:30:20 Speaker_06
I heard you say that the most toxic relationships are the ambivalent relationships. The word ambivalent means, what does it mean?
02:30:27 Speaker_00
Okay, so ambivalent is actually not toxic. So toxic is like, we know it's bad, we don't want it, we're creating boundaries around it. Ambivalent means we're not sure.
02:30:37 Speaker_00
Ambivalent relationships are the relationships in your life that are the most damaging. They're the relationships where you wonder, does she like me? Do I like her? Ugh, I wish she would cancel this dinner we have. Am I tired after that? I'm dreading it.
02:30:54 Speaker_00
Do I have to go? Gosh, I wish I was home. Those are ambivalent relationships where you're not sure. And they are so energetically draining. Because a toxic person, you know they're toxic. You're like, I don't like that person. They're not serving me.
02:31:09 Speaker_00
I'm not going out to dinner. I'm going home. No thanks. Not going to text you. Not going to tell you I'm thinking about you. Or an ambivalent person, you're like, I should check in with that person. I really should go to this dinner.
02:31:19 Speaker_00
Oh, it's been five months since I've gone to dinner. Oh man, do I even know what they're up to these days? Do I even care? And then most importantly, do they like me? Do they support me? That's why I asked about that friend that you were unsure about.
02:31:31 Speaker_00
I was like, are they jealous? Do they have a problem with you? Because you might be picking up on they are ambivalent towards you, and you're picking up on that.
02:31:40 Speaker_00
There's a research study that was done with police officers, and they wanted to know what makes for a thriving workplace.
02:31:46 Speaker_00
So they asked police officers to rank the people in their precinct, and they found that the police officers who had the most ambivalent ties
02:31:55 Speaker_00
were more unhappy in their job, had less work-life balance, had more workplace stress, more than the people who had toxic relationships.
02:32:03 Speaker_00
In other words, the police officers who said, all 10 of those people are toxic were happier at work than the police officers who said, I don't know if I like that person and that person. I don't know if that person likes me.
02:32:15 Speaker_00
I don't know if I want to go out to lunch with that person again. I kind of would rather be alone because it is so mentally draining to have ambivalent relationships.
02:32:23 Speaker_00
So it's really important if you're making that list of people, going back to the very beginning, you know, the people you're really close, not very close with, kind of close with, really close with. If you're not sure, put them at the bottom.
02:32:34 Speaker_00
And in the next 30 days, try to ask them the questions that we shared. Working on anything exciting? What's your biggest goal right now? And see if you like their answers. It's important to either move them up or move them out.
02:32:48 Speaker_00
Don't let them be ambivalent.
02:32:50 Speaker_06
One of the things that is highly searched on Google, I was looking at Google to figure out what the most searched questions are. There's some tools that I use to figure out what people want to know.
02:33:00 Speaker_06
And one of them was just, funnily, how do I start a conversation?
02:33:03 Speaker_00
That's what my next book is about, so I'm happy to hear that. Okay, one is don't overthink your opener. Starting a conversation is like, hey, I'm Vanessa. Like literally your opener can just be that.
02:33:16 Speaker_00
My sister, my youngest sister, she was like the best advice I ever gave her ever. And I was like, what is it? She was like, you just told me to say hello to people. And that is it. Your opener is just, hey, I'm Vanessa. Hey, nice to meet you.
02:33:27 Speaker_00
So don't overthink the opener because that opener, your body is actually doing a lot of things. Your brain and body are like competence, warmth, facial expressions, voice tone. If you're like, what's your biggest goal in life? It's way too much.
02:33:41 Speaker_00
And so one is your opener should actually be basic. So the other person's brain is like, gives them a chance to like safe. Okay, friend, we're friend. Hey, how are you doing? Right? I did my friend Q, I held up my hand. So don't overthink your opener.
02:33:54 Speaker_00
Hey, nice to meet you. Hey, I'm Vanessa. Your first question is where things get more interesting, okay? So if you don't know their name, you want to say like, oh, what's your name? Great, I'm Vanessa. Then you have a choice.
02:34:06 Speaker_00
And I like to take the better route. You can say, so what do you do? But I really don't like that path. It's autopilot. So what I like to do instead is ask a version of the excitement question. Do anything fun and exciting this past weekend?
02:34:20 Speaker_00
If it's a Monday. So Mondays, I always ask, you do anything fun this past weekend? Fridays, I always ask, have any exciting plans coming up this weekend? And then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I don't talk to anyone.
02:34:33 Speaker_06
What is the most important thing we haven't talked about that we should have talked about? For the person sat at home, the typical question, the most prolific question. that you get.
02:34:42 Speaker_00
There's one story that I love that I try to keep front of mind, which is about Harry S. Truman, former U.S. president. Most people don't know about him is that he was actually severely introverted. And when most people think about U.S.
02:34:53 Speaker_00
presidents, they do not think about introverts. In fact, most presidents have to be kind of a booming extrovert personality, and he was very introverted.
02:35:01 Speaker_00
And he did something very interesting at the Democratic National Convention back in, I believe, 1944. He knew he was not a good public speaker, which also is very rare for a U.S. president to become president without being a public speaker.
02:35:12 Speaker_00
He knew he could not cut it on stage with the very charismatic people, and he was not—he was behind. In the polls, he was not the preferred candidate. So he was like, I'm not going to compete on stage. I'm not going to try to outspeak them.
02:35:23 Speaker_00
I'm not going to try to go work the floor and shake hands. It's not my way. What I am going to do is try to find a way to do what I'm best at, which is one-on-one conversations where I can win people over with an argument.
02:35:36 Speaker_00
So in the Democratic National Convention, it was really hot. It was in Chicago in the middle of summer. He rented the one air-conditioned room in the bottom, in the basement of the convention center.
02:35:45 Speaker_00
And one by one, his team would invite person by person down into that air-conditioned room, and he would tell them his story. He would tell them his points, and vote by vote.
02:35:55 Speaker_00
And as the votes were being tallied, he would win over every single person that went to that room. One, it was air-conditioned, so they wanted to stay there as long as possible. Two, he would hear, what are your concerns?
02:36:04 Speaker_00
Why do you not want to vote for me? And he would explain to them why they should vote for him. And vote by vote, he ended up winning the National Convention without having to speak on stage barely at all.
02:36:15 Speaker_00
I share this because stop competing on stages where you can't be your best. Start creating rooms where you can. Think about what are your social strengths. You have one. What is it? Is it storytelling? Is it being funny? Is it listening?
02:36:29 Speaker_00
Is it being empathetic? Is it being a decoder? Is it being persuasive? What is your social strength?
02:36:36 Speaker_00
Create spaces and rooms where you can exercise that strength because no one wants you to pretend to be an extrovert or pretend to be something you're good at that you're not.
02:36:44 Speaker_00
It's much better to do what you're actually good at and attract the right people.
02:36:47 Speaker_06
And your social strength might not be in person.
02:36:50 Speaker_00
Might not be. And that's okay. Like, there are some people who are great at texting. There are some people who are great at sending voice notes. There are some people who make their friends by broadcasting and then picking out a couple people.
02:37:00 Speaker_00
That's how you met your girlfriend, is you broadcasted. She resonated with something that you said, and you gave her the way to find you. She did, and then you met. So maybe it's broadcasting. I think we have to think outside the box.
02:37:11 Speaker_00
It's not only in person. There are so many ways you can have social strengths.
02:37:15 Speaker_06
I've heard it all now. I get it. I believe it. I'm into it. What is step one? I'm going to buy your books.
02:37:20 Speaker_00
There's two of them here.
02:37:21 Speaker_06
So I'm going to buy both of these books. Both of them will be linked below. What else can I do to start on my journey of becoming, you were a recovering awkward person, you were awkward before, now you're not. What's step one?
02:37:31 Speaker_00
Okay, step number one is begin to break autopilot. So make a commitment for the next 30 days, you are not going to trigger autopilot in your conversation. No more, what do you do? No more, how are you? No more, where are you from? No more, right?
02:37:44 Speaker_00
Ask better questions. What's your biggest goal? Working on anything exciting. You're disgusting me.
02:37:50 Speaker_06
No, I'm thinking, I'm just, I was going to tell you you look good.
02:37:54 Speaker_00
Okay, so that's challenge number one. Challenge number two, find out where you fall in the warmth and competence scale. Are you highly warm? Do you need to dial up competence to be taken more seriously? Are you highly competent?
02:38:03 Speaker_00
Do you need to dial up warmth to be seen as more likable and friendly and trustworthy? Do that email audit. So take the quiz, then do the email audit. And then if you can, here's the bonus challenge.
02:38:12 Speaker_00
Send the charisma quiz to someone who knows you well, someone at work, maybe a partner. Ask them to take it as you. and screenshot their results. Sometimes how we perceive our warmth incompetence is not how others perceive our warmth incompetence.
02:38:26 Speaker_00
So if you take it and you say, I'm perfect, I'm a five of five, but they take it and they see you as really high on the warmth scale, that is going to be critical feedback for you.
02:38:37 Speaker_06
We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for. And the question that's been left for you.
02:38:46 Speaker_00
I always love these.
02:38:49 Speaker_06
When in your life did you try to outrun your pain and what was the consequence? When in your life did you turn and face your pain and what was the consequence?
02:39:05 Speaker_00
There was a really weird moment in my career where everything was taking off. I had a lot of years of a lot of hard struggle. And being a writer, I had a published book, traditionally published book that completely failed. 2011, we won't name it.
02:39:18 Speaker_00
Put it out there. I thought my world would change and it did terribly. I got terrible reviews. It didn't sell. And I was literally told you'll never write a book again. And I was just devastated. Devastated.
02:39:32 Speaker_00
And my husband was like, you've got to keep writing. You're a writer. You've got to keep writing. And so I went back to it. I started Signs of People. That was officially when I started like the actual website, Signs of People. Kept writing.
02:39:44 Speaker_00
And then it started taking off. I had videos that went viral. We started having millions of visitors on the website. And I wanted to prove myself very badly. And I wanted to erase that painful memory.
02:39:56 Speaker_00
And so when I got approached to write Captivate, I was like, no, I can't write books. I'm a YouTuber and a blogger, but I can't write books. And she was like, this will be a different kind of book.
02:40:09 Speaker_00
This will be a book about really what you want to say to people, not the book you think you should write. And I was like, no. I was like, I cannot do it. It's too painful. I will not survive if that fails. I will not survive if that fails.
02:40:23 Speaker_00
And it took Nikki months of telling me, this will be different. This will be a different kind of book. You can write the real book that you really want to write. And so I said yes, I started writing it.
02:40:35 Speaker_00
And that was when I think I, I don't know how to end the question was, but decided it would be worth the pain. If that failed, it would be worth the pain of at least saying that I tried. That was a very hard choice. Thank goodness it did not fail.
02:40:48 Speaker_00
He did really well. And I'm eternally grateful for that. When anyone buys a copy, I'm like one click further from that failure. Horrible failure.
02:41:02 Speaker_06
Vanessa, thank you. Thank you so much. What you write about and what you educate people on is a subject that's probably more important now than ever.
02:41:12 Speaker_06
And I say that because of the sort of macro climate of society where we're more lonely than ever, we're struggling with connection. It's not coming naturally to us as it once probably did, or at least more natural than it does now.
02:41:24 Speaker_06
and so many the it's crazy i've only been a podcaster really i think for about four years like i think i started in 2017 but really it's been four years since i've been uploading and it's crazy just in that time alone how many more of the questions i'm getting are about all the things you write about they're about like how to make a friend and how to show up in a certain way and all these kinds of things so what the work you're doing is so unbelievably important there's so much more that needs to be done as well
02:41:47 Speaker_06
but the contribution you've had to the 400,000 people that you've taught and the millions of people that have bought these books and consumed your videos and everything is a really, really important one. So thank you.
02:41:57 Speaker_06
It's so funny because even me, like people see me on camera and stuff, but I learned so much, so much from your work, so much, so much, so many things as well that I think a lot about and, you know, things you can take or leave.
02:42:12 Speaker_06
You've got to say like, who do I want to be? And like, who am I?
02:42:15 Speaker_06
you know truly to then apply these things because there's no point like I just have no interest in building a facade or anything but there's things about me which I go fucking oh I didn't even know I was doing that you know.
02:42:24 Speaker_00
Yeah and like what kind of friend do I want to be? What kind of partner do I want to be? What kind of way do I want to be in conversation? Like you get to choose.
02:42:32 Speaker_06
Thank you Vanessa.
02:42:33 Speaker_00
Thanks for having me.
02:42:36 Speaker_06
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02:42:47 Speaker_06
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02:42:59 Speaker_06
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02:43:12 Speaker_06
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02:43:22 Speaker_06
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