Vanessa Van Edwards (00:00:00):

This is the biggest mistake I think facing really, really smart people. I think really, really smart people, and this is most of my students they're off the chart smart, creative, brilliant. They make the mistake of thinking...

Lewis Howes (00:00:10):

I think you got to have a dream.

Kobe Bryant (00:00:10):

Yeah.

Lewis Howes (00:00:11):

The School of Greatness. Please welcome Lewis Howes.

Lewis Howes (00:00:15):

Is it better to smile without teeth or with teeth in order to enroll people and you as a human being to get anything you want in your life?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:00:25):

What research found is that a real smile whether it shows teeth or not the biggest difference is it has to reach up here.

Lewis Howes (00:00:33):

The eyes.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:00:33):

The upper cheek muscles actually so those eye crinkles.

Lewis Howes (00:00:37):

I do that a lot though. I feel like I squint a lot.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:00:40):

Yeah. You got a little smizing, right? That's actually the only cue we're looking for. It actually does not matter. If you have a profile picture, a dating profile picture, a LinkedIn profile picture, I either want you neutral or with eye crinkles. The worst is sort of that in between. Now, I don't mind a soft-up mouth. You and I both have this on our book covers, a soft-up mouth but it has to engage those upper cheek muscles. What Dr. Barbara Wild found is that when they showed pictures of people with the fake smile and a real smile the real smile was contagious. When people looked at the real smile, they themselves felt happier. When they looked at the fake smile, they felt no mood change.

Lewis Howes (00:01:20):

Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:01:20):

The reason why that's important is I think that we think about like, oh, I want to show up. I want to be really in my most confident self but what we don't realize is that our cues are contagious. That if you show authentic happiness, you are more likely to infect happiness. Actually, there's one more face cue I want to talk about. This is the cue that sort of started me on this crazy journey and it got me... I'm a recovering awkward person as you know.

Lewis Howes (00:01:42):

Introvert.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:01:43):

This gave me a lot of really... Introvert, awkward person, social anxiety, all the good things. This story gave me so much relief. What they found was if you are in a room and someone gives you a cue of social rejection-

Lewis Howes (00:01:56):

What does that look like?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:01:56):

Okay. Social rejection, eye roll, a sigh. Ugh.

Lewis Howes (00:02:01):

Looking away.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:02:01):

Right. Looking away, distancing behavior when we pull our head back and when I angle my head back you know I've just disengaged from you.

Lewis Howes (00:02:07):

Crossing arms.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:02:08):

Crossing arms, see, sudden nonverbal rejection.

Lewis Howes (00:02:12):

Is this turning feet also?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:02:15):

Yes. Oh, we can talk about feet. Okay. We can talk about feet.

Lewis Howes (00:02:17):

Hands and feet. It's interesting I look at the hands and feet all the time. I can't remember if I got this from you years ago?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:02:24):

From me I think. That's me.

Lewis Howes (00:02:26):

It's like looking at the hands and seeing, are they in the pocket are they out of the pocket? But go ahead, we'll get back to that.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:02:31):

Social rejection cues and you know this. If you're in a business meeting and you suddenly feel like, am I disliked? Ugh, he doesn't like this. She doesn't like this. When we see a cue of social rejection, our field of vision increases.

Lewis Howes (00:02:43):

We see wider.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:02:44):

We literally see wider. Our pupils dilate so we see more. The reason why that study was like a light bulb for me was our cues are affecting others' physiology. Our physiology can change in a room in an instant. If we walk into a meeting and we feel not liked, if we feel rejected, if we feel like we're being judged, our own physiology responds. If we're in a room and we're not feeling confident in our control and someone sends us a cue of rejection one, you want to know what those are because it makes your field of vision bigger so you can see who else is sending me a cue? What's my escape route? That's literally what your body's trying to do. Ups your adrenaline, ups your cortisol and no one can think well. Adrenaline and cortisol. That's why in a meeting, it can go downhill so quickly. You're in a presentation you prepared all week.

Lewis Howes (00:03:30):

And you're like, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:03:31):

And then you're like oh, he just rolled his eyes. Oh, she just turned away. Oh, I just saw a weird foot movement. Uh-huh (affirmative) and then you lose your spot, you blank out and the rest of the entire presentation goes badly. The good news is what Matthew Lieberman found. This is from UCLA. Once you label a cue, so if you say that was an eye roll, that was a scoff of exasperation, that was a contempt smirk the moment you label it, your amygdala calms down. They've proven that when people are in fMRI machines and they show them a fearful face. A fearful face is when we widen the whites of our eyes and we raise our eyebrows up. If you're laying in a fMRI machine and you see fear, you will begin to feel afraid. Your amygdala begins to activate and your body goes well, if he's afraid, I better be afraid. But the moment you say in the fMRI, phew that's just fear your amygdala stops responding.

Lewis Howes (00:04:23):

Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:04:25):

I think I've had a really hard time finding confidence. It's been a long lifetime journey. The way that I've sort of backdoored into confidence is control. If I can control the cues that are being sent to me, if I can control the cues I'm sending to others, it's a secret backdoor into confidence.

Lewis Howes (00:04:41):

How do you control someone else's cues?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:04:43):

You label them and respond appropriately, so.

Lewis Howes (00:04:47):

You can't control how they act towards you but you can control how you react to it, how you interpret it, how you transition afterwards?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:04:55):

Yes. First, by labeling it you just controlled your own physiology. If someone sends you a contempt, an eye roll you just took control, you took control back of, nope. I see it. I spot it. I'm disengaging it.

Lewis Howes (00:05:06):

In the vulnerability world, when you label the shame when you speak about the shame when you bring it to the light, it becomes less scary. It doesn't stay stuck inside of you. Even just acknowledging it is a helpful tool to process shame or I guess fear of social rejection.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:05:22):

And social rejection. It's the same actually. For vulnerability, yes you're afraid, you acknowledge it, it makes it less scary. It's the same thing in social settings: dates, professional situations, negotiations, interviews. The moment you say, okay, I just heard an exasperated tone of voice or I just saw a lid flex that's the one I want to talk about next.

Lewis Howes (00:05:39):

A what flex?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:05:39):

I know, I know.

Lewis Howes (00:05:41):

A lid flex?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:05:42):

A lid flex.

Lewis Howes (00:05:42):

Is that an eyelid?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:05:43):

Yes, it is.

Lewis Howes (00:05:45):

Like a twitch or what?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:05:47):

Okay. You asked how do we control? Oh yeah, that's it. You just did it. Okay. You know Zoolander?

Lewis Howes (00:05:52):

Yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:05:53):

You know the Blue Steel?

Lewis Howes (00:05:53):

Of course.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:05:54):

Okay. That is actually a lid flex. Right. That's a mm-hmm (affirmative). If you're listening I'm going to harden your lower lids then like, your lids that's what blue steel is. The funny thing about this cue it's ridiculous. I know you're like, where are you going to this?

Lewis Howes (00:06:06):

No, it makes sense to me because it's like, prove me like someone's doubting you.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:06:09):

Oh, you just got it. Okay.

Lewis Howes (00:06:10):

Of course.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:06:11):

What's funny is in fear, our eyes widen. If you widen your eyes as wide as possible so that you can see the lights, you're just, I can take in way more of my environment. When we're afraid, we want to see as much as possible. When we are trying to see details, universally across cultures we have to lessen the light coming into our eyes so we squint.

Lewis Howes (00:06:30):

To focus.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:06:31):

To be focused. If you were to try to see that dot over there on the wall, you harden your lower lids. And that is because scientifically proven when we harden our lower lids it reduces the amount of light and we can see more details. I can see the details on that camera better when I lower lid flex.

Lewis Howes (00:06:47):

You squint. Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:06:48):

This is why if you open People Magazines sexiest man alive on almost every page, along with flexed bicep are flexed lids. And that is because women find a flex lid oh, so attractive, so attractive.

Lewis Howes (00:07:04):

An open lid is not sexy?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:07:06):

No. Is this sexy? No.

Lewis Howes (00:07:08):

But a flex lid is.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:07:10):

Yes, because why? Women and men both want partners who are deeply scrutinizing, who are deeply looking at them. If I'm sitting and talking to you and I go, oh really I just showed you wow, that was super interesting. In fact, when we flex our lids we're going from just listening to thinking deeply.

Lewis Howes (00:07:29):

Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:07:30):

We're literally trying to see something better. If you're in a negotiation, or on a date, or with a friend and they go, really? And they harden their lower lids you are like ooh, ding, ding I just said something good. And so the other way that we control cues is okay, let's say that you're and this actually happened to me so this is a story I share in the book. I was in a meeting with a high powered exec team. And if the presentation went well, they were going to invite me back for more presentations.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:07:53):

The stakes were very high and it was a small group and I was in a particular part of my presentation talking about chemicals. And I noticed an executive across the room flex his lower lids at me. Kind of flex his lower lids, he's looking at the slide. And I was like, "Okay, what's happening? He just went from listening to scrutinizing." And so I paused the small group and I said, "All good? Any questions?" And I literally looked right at him and I opened up my palms and I said, "Any questions?" This is the universal signal for openness. It literally means I want to receive.

Lewis Howes (00:08:22):

I'll share anything you want, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:08:23):

Yes. It's literally like let me receive, let me be open to you. And he went, "Yeah. I do have a question." And at the time I was teaching about oxytocin. Oxytocin, I know you talk about it a lot on the show the chemical of connection and bonding. He goes, "I don't understand something. Isn't oxytocin what they give women to induce labor?" And I'm like, "You are right, sir. They do give oxytocin and that's because it's so powerful that it can induce labor-"

Lewis Howes (00:08:50):

Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:08:50):

"-but in our position it's for social bonding." It was such a good teaching moment because he immediately felt heard. And I know that if I hadn't addressed that concern right then and there I would have lost him. He would've been like what? He would've been stuck on that one slide and afterwards, he said to me, "I really feel like you were teaching to us."

Lewis Howes (00:09:08):

Teaching to me.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:09:09):

I was literally teaching to him. And so I think the other way that we can control the cues is we spot it and then we say, how can I honor it? That's the gift that we can give people is I can be sitting with someone and say, I want to listen to you so deeply. I want to listen to your words. I want to watch your facial expressions. I want to listen to your honorable. I want to even listen to your voice tone. I mean we haven't even talked about vocal power which here is incredibly important. And not only do I want to spot that, I want to respond in the way that you feel the most heard by me. It's spotting and honoring.

Lewis Howes (00:09:41):

And by doing that if you're in a presentation whether you actually acknowledge the person or not, are you just saying that it'll bring you back to a more centered place so you can continue on the presentation?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:09:51):

Exactly. It makes you feel in control of the narrative.

Lewis Howes (00:09:54):

Got you.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:09:54):

It makes you feel in control of... And even for introverts, right? Introverts, it's much harder for us to share a lot of verbal content. For us, I want to give you more control over the non-verbal so that when you do speak, it's more powerful. Right. If you're an introvert and you want to make sure you are reading the room really quickly so you know exactly when to say your point so it's most heard and most valued that gives you confidence because you're not guessing. I don't like the guesswork.

Lewis Howes (00:10:17):

No, I don't either.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:10:18):

I know.

Lewis Howes (00:10:19):

You see a lot of these videos online talking about how charismatic someone is based on the way they smile, their eyes, the tilt of the chin or all these different things. Is it important to be charismatic? Let's talk about that first. Is it valuable and more important to be charismatic versus less charismatic? Less-

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:10:40):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). To the point?

Lewis Howes (00:10:40):

Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:10:40):

Yeah. Credible content.

Lewis Howes (00:10:42):

To the point or neutral energy I mean, what's more valuable in society in accomplishing goals and getting what you want? Very charismatic or neutral?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:10:53):

Neutral. Okay. This is the biggest mistake I think facing really, really smart people. I think really, really smart people and this is most of my students they're off the chart, smart, creative, brilliant. They make the mistake of thinking if I have enough book smarts, if I have enough technology smarts, I don't need the people smarts. Now, here's what research from Princeton University found.

Lewis Howes (00:11:17):

I'm so excited by this because I already know what you're going to say in a sense. Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:11:17):

Okay. This study completely changed my work and changed my life. It was done by Dr. Susan Fisk in 2002 and since then they've been able to replicate it and build on it and build on it. This is very solid research which she found very highly charismatic people have to have the perfect blend of two traits. And this is why highly charismatic people are so unique and that's why we love them so much. To be highly charismatic, to be compelling, to be captivating, you must have a perfect blend of warmth and competence. And we talked about this the very, very first time we met but since then so much more has come out about it.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:11:54):

Very, very smart people make the mistake of showing up as all competent. They try to blow you away with their numbers and their facts and their stats and their data but they are seen as cold. They're seen as intimidating. On the other side, you have people who are highly warm. They have competence but there's not a balance. They show up as highly likable, highly friendly but they're interrupted. They're told that they're not being taken seriously.

Lewis Howes (00:12:18):

They're not credible.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:12:19):

Right. People forget having met them before. And so I think that most people problems I'm even going to say all people problems because all people problems stem from an imbalance between your warmth and competence. And so not only do I think that charisma is essential for being successful, I actually think it's the only way that people will be open to your competence.

Lewis Howes (00:12:40):

You could be all the book smarts in the world, you could have the highest IQ and remember everything on any test, or you could be an encyclopedia of wisdom and information. But what I'm hearing you say, if you don't have charisma at least some of, it then people won't take you seriously or they won't care as much, or they won't be as engaged?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:12:59):

It's not just engaged there's two questions that humans ask themselves about the person they're with and this happens immediately in every interaction. By the way, video two we forget that this is not just in-person. This is happening the moment you pop on video. It's happening the moment someone opens your LinkedIn profile. I did a whole bunch of research on LinkedIn profiles specifically because that's where a lot of our first impressions happen. Okay. When people see your LinkedIn profile, when people see you on video, on Zoom, the first question they ask themselves and it is chronological. The first question they ask is, can I trust you? Basic instincts, are you going to be my ally or my enemy? Can I trust you?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:13:36):

The very second question they ask is can I rely on you? When you're in a meeting, on a date, in a call, in a pitch, in a negotiation, on LinkedIn, the two signals that you want to cue people with as quickly as possible is yes, you can trust me and yes, you can rely on me. The problem is that most professionals right now are going mute. I don't know if you've noticed this but it feels like in the last 5 or 10 years, we've gone towards ambivalence. We've gone towards I'm not going to show anything. I'm going to be as professional and sterile as possible and so we've taken out cues from all these assets and then people have a really hard time trusting us. They have a really hard time listening to us. We wonder why people are slow to reply to our emails. It's because we're not cuing enough. We have to have hundreds of cues to answer those two questions.

Lewis Howes (00:14:24):

Interesting. How do we create more trust and reliability instantly?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:14:29):

Yes. Okay. Let's talk about trust first because it is chronological. We have to trust someone to rely on them. That's why starting with your competence doesn't always work. Trust, so the very first thing it's a weird one. It's a really weird one that I'm going to talk about first.

Lewis Howes (00:14:42):

You don't have to be competent to be trusted?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:14:44):

To be charismatic you have to be competent and trustworthy.

Lewis Howes (00:14:47):

Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:14:48):

Right? We want that perfect balance. You're trying to-

Lewis Howes (00:14:52):

You're smart enough and you're warm and likable.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:14:54):

Yes. Okay. Let's look at this cover. Really, really successful book covers just like really successful LinkedIn profile pictures very quickly signal both trust and competence. Right. They signal both these at the same time. Okay. Let's talk about the first one which is space. Space, zones. Okay. Sorry, I'll give it back to you. I took it away.

Lewis Howes (00:15:12):

Space, zones I mean-

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:15:14):

Space zone.

Lewis Howes (00:15:14):

-what is a space zone?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:15:15):

We're going to talk about space. We're going to talk about the distance between people. The distance between my nose and the camera lens, you can't see it but in this photo shoot, I made sure that the distance between my space and the camera lens was a certain space.

Lewis Howes (00:15:27):

How far?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:15:29):

I wanted to be in what's called the social zone. Okay. And this is not made up by me. This is actually researchers based. There's four zones for people, the intimate zone, the personal zone, the social zone, the public zone. Remember that Seinfeld episode that you ever saw of close talking?

Lewis Howes (00:15:45):

Yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:15:46):

You ever had this where someone walks up right into your face and talks into your mouth?

Lewis Howes (00:15:50):

Yes. Uh-huh (affirmative).

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:15:51):

Okay. That's called close talking and that is the first big rule.

Lewis Howes (00:15:54):

Intimate zone?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:15:55):

Intimate zone.

Lewis Howes (00:15:56):

You don't want to be there.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:15:57):

You don't want to be there unless you're about to get intimate.

Lewis Howes (00:15:59):

Or unless you like your friends or you know each other and you're like, that's what you do.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:16:02):

Lewis, do you talk six inches away from your friends?

Lewis Howes (00:16:04):

Oh, that's too close. No, that's like your girlfriend. Yeah, it's only your partner. Got you. Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:16:09):

Okay. Here's what happens-

Lewis Howes (00:16:10):

This is intimate zone, six inches?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:16:10):

Zero to eight inches apart is intimate zone. Okay. Here's what happens this is the biggest mistake I'm seeing right now is we are all on video call all the time.

Lewis Howes (00:16:17):

And taking photos like this, selfie like-

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:16:18):

Yes.

Lewis Howes (00:16:20):

What does that do when you're projecting a video or a photo that close?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:16:24):

It is literally saying I want to get close really, really fast. And so if you have someone who's super high warmth they're like yes, vulnerability, intimacy and you're going to attract those kind of people. But if you have someone who's like, whoa, whoa, whoa take a minute, they are turned off. What's happening is on video calls you hop on FaceTime, you hop on video or on Zoom and people are right up in their camera. Their nose and their camera are 10 inches apart and so someone's like, whoa.

Lewis Howes (00:16:52):

It's too close, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:16:53):

It's too close. That's the first one is you want to respect the space zones. The sweet spot is a foot and a half to three or four feet away. That's social zone. That's where we're making eye contact. If I wanted to reach out and high-five you, I could. We're still respecting each other's space. One is when you're on video, in your photos if you want to have that balance, you want to be 18 inches to about 3 or 4 feet away. That's-

Lewis Howes (00:17:18):

Okay. Social zone is 18 to 3 feet?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:17:20):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. And the personal zone by the way is still good but that's a little bit farther away, right. That's you're just starting to get to know each other. When you see someone across the room or a boardroom, or a networking event they're usually about four to seven feet away. Which is the next zone, which is the personal zone. And then you have the public zone which is obviously from far away. What we like in human behavior is we like someone to come towards us slowly. That's one of the reasons I think we're so burnt out on video. We have these back to back to back video calls and we wonder why are we so tired? I'm not even in-person. The reason is because it's cuing us in ways that are not natural. In-person, I walk into a room right like I walked into the office today and you were waiting I was like, "Hi." I mean and then we hugged. That's the way humans like. Right. It's like this from public-

Lewis Howes (00:18:06):

It's not like you opened the door and I'm right there standing there in your face.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:18:09):

That would've been a lot.

Lewis Howes (00:18:09):

I was a few feet back.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:18:10):

You were a few feet back. It was perfect. That's natural but on video, it's like whoop, we're here. And that's why we can get so fatigued is because the cues are unnatural. Which actually leads me to the second kind of trust cue that's important. Is when we can't see someone's hands our brain has a really hard time trusting someone.

Lewis Howes (00:18:29):

It's so funny I think ever since that interview I'm always keeping my hands out. I don't think I was keeping my hands in before but I think I'm just more aware of it when I'm walking by someone who might be a stranger. I just have my hands out and relax and loose by my... I'm not tight or tense and I'm not hiding them or anything. It's just walking normal and say hey, how's it going? I'll even do a little wave just to show-

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:18:50):

That's super charismatic.

Lewis Howes (00:18:51):

Say hey, good to see you.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:18:52):

That's it. That's it. I love Shark Tank. Do you know that show?

Lewis Howes (00:18:56):

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Friday nights. Shark Tank.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:18:58):

Shark Tank. I wanted to know watching Shark Tank was there patterns between the least successful pitches and the most successful pitches?

Lewis Howes (00:19:05):

Interesting. This is cool.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:19:06):

Okay. I love my team. Thank you to my team.

Lewis Howes (00:19:09):

Not on just based on what people said but how they said things.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:19:13):

Everything.

Lewis Howes (00:19:13):

That's cool.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:19:13):

We analyzed 495 Shark Tank pitches.

Lewis Howes (00:19:16):

Come on. What were the main things you saw from most successful and those not?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:19:20):

Okay. Thank you to Jose Piña for this research. 495 Shark Tank pitches literally hundreds of hours of Shark Tank coding every variable we could think of; entrance, first impression, verbal, eye contact, smiling, interactivity, mouth... I mean, we were looking at everything.

Lewis Howes (00:19:35):

Holy cow.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:19:35):

Okay. One of the biggest differences between the least successful pitches and the most successful pitches was what you just did.

Lewis Howes (00:19:43):

Hands.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:19:43):

Right. When you walk down that Shark Tank hallway that is beautiful right, that's exactly what we were talking about, space. Public to personal to so social to intimate so it's a nice warm-up. The best pitchers when they were all the way in the public zone signaled, hey Sharks.

Lewis Howes (00:19:58):

No way.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:19:59):

And they'd walk into the room, they'd take their place in the carpet and they'd go, "Good morning Sharks." Or, "Hey, Kevin." "Mark, we'd love to have a deal with you." They would greet with some kind of hand gesture. The least successful pitchers walked in with... I think they thought they were being humble but actually reduced trust. They hid their hands either in fists, behind their backs, in their pockets, or holding a prop. Sometimes accidentally they hid their hands and they didn't hand greet. That makes it really hard for someone to say, I can trust you. And that is a primitive part of our brain that when we can't see someone's hands like if I were to do this entire interview with my hands behind my back.

Lewis Howes (00:20:36):

What's she doing back there?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:20:37):

What's she doing? What are her hands doing? And what's interesting is Susan Goldin-Meadow researches gesture. She spent her entire academic career researching gesture and she found that gestures carry more weight than words. If a pitcher, a Shark Tank pitcher were to go on and say, today, I have a really big idea. It's really big. And I hold my hands up like it's really big. It's really small you're like no way it looks small, Vanessa. It looks so small. It's not big at all. But if I were to say I have three big ideas and hold up five, you're actually more likely to believe my fingers. The reason why this is important is because gestures help lower cognitive load.

Lewis Howes (00:21:17):

Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:21:18):

When I use gesture, I'm more fluent. I'm able to be more competent. I'm able to underline my words. I'm able to say, this is a really important point. Can I give it to you?

Lewis Howes (00:21:26):

Hand gestures, body gestures, facial gestures, hair gestures.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:21:31):

Hand gestures, specifically.

Lewis Howes (00:21:34):

Are key?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:21:34):

They are like our body language highlighter. That's how I want to think about them.

Lewis Howes (00:21:41):

Well, just ugh, I'm just kind of socially awkward I like keeping my hands down the whole time when I'm communicating. What happens if we don't use our hand gestures at all in a conversation or in a pitch, whatever?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:21:51):

Two things. One is it's harder for you to process. They've literally found-

Lewis Howes (00:21:55):

The person speaking it's harder to process.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:21:57):

Correct. It's going to be harder for you to get your confidence because gestures are a way that we underline or highlight our words. And so if you are inhibiting your own gestures, you will have a hard time explaining things.

Lewis Howes (00:22:08):

Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:22:09):

They actually did a study where they had people explain two versions of a story. Notice two. Two versions of a story. One they could use their hands and one they couldn't. The one where they could use their hands they had less pauses, they spoke more quickly, they used bigger words. And the one where they just couldn't because their hands were just underneath their legs.

Lewis Howes (00:22:24):

You know what's interesting? I was just reading some intros for the podcast right before you came in. I had another interview this morning and I did podcast intros and ads. And I used my hands in order to do it because I feel like it's coming across as like, I'm really engaging. And I remember when I was reading my first audiobook, The School of Greatness I tried to read it just kind of with my hands down for a while and I was like, "I can't read. I've forgotten how to read my own words." Being dyslexic growing up anyways I'm a little slower when I read in general. But when I started to be like, "Okay, I just need to get in this with my body, my hands." I felt more confident. I felt like I could flow. I wasn't messing up as much. I wasn't having to stop and restart as much. It was powerful.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:23:08):

Yes. Okay, that's an incredible story about gesture because if you watch the best cartoon voiceover folks, they are using their-

Lewis Howes (00:23:16):

Animated, right?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:23:17):

Yes. They are using their whole bodies.

Lewis Howes (00:23:18):

They're in a room by themselves recording on a mic, right but they're like la la la.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:23:22):

Yeah. We just did the same thing. Yes, that's what they're doing. That's not how I [crosstalk 00:23:27].

Lewis Howes (00:23:26):

You probably are doing it.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:23:27):

Yeah. But like Susan Goldin-Meadows' research is called Hearing Gesture. And that is because I'm using my hands right now not only for people watching but also for my folks who are listening. Because I know that the more I use my gestures the more charisma I have vocally and I would love to talk about vocal charisma.

Lewis Howes (00:23:44):

Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:23:44):

That helps me but it also helps you. Anyone who's watching, you're getting so much information they say 12.5 times more information from our gestures.

Lewis Howes (00:23:54):

Come on.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:23:55):

Yes.

Lewis Howes (00:23:56):

Even when you can't see it?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:23:58):

No. You have to be able to see it. We can hear charisma but if someone can see our gestures it adds more weight to what I'm saying. When I say weight, I'm like it's heavy. Look how heavy that is, right. But if I were to be like, heavy. It's so heavy and I kind of shoo it away. You're like, no, it's not heavy. You can feel it.

Lewis Howes (00:24:15):

You feel the emphasis of the words.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:24:17):

Yes. It's like a highlighter. Now, I have to have a caveat here because I've created a problem in the past. I love a gesture but I don't like jazz hands. Right. Gestures are great-

Lewis Howes (00:24:29):

Hey, good to see you.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:24:30):

Hey, Lewis. How are you?

Lewis Howes (00:24:32):

[crosstalk 00:24:32] This is not credible or trustworthy. You're like, this is a weirdo over here.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:24:34):

I created a problem where I had people who were entering their Zoom meetings and they were like, "Hello, Vanessa." And I was like, "Oh no."

Lewis Howes (00:24:40):

You don't do that?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:24:40):

Oh, no. It's like a highlighter. You wouldn't want to highlight the whole page you just want to highlight the concepts that matter.

Lewis Howes (00:24:49):

Let's go back to hands for a second because you said there were 400 videos, I think you guys researched on Shark Tank.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:24:55):

495 pitches.

Lewis Howes (00:24:56):

And one of the main factors was waving as you were walking in or as you were getting into?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:25:01):

Planting.

Lewis Howes (00:25:02):

Planting?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:25:03):

Yes.

Lewis Howes (00:25:03):

Not all the way back like waving?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:25:04):

Could be, some of them did.

Lewis Howes (00:25:06):

But also once you sat there and said, hey Sharks?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:25:09):

Hey morning. Yes. Hey, Sharks. Good morning. Happy to be here. Even this happy to be here like an open palm gesture.

Lewis Howes (00:25:14):

Interesting. Okay. What are a few other things that you noticed?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:25:16):

Yes. Okay. We love gestures and by the way, this is super easy on a video call, in-person. Hey, nice to see you. Good morning. The biggest mistake we make someone walks in and we go, hey, we give them a nod. Right. Give them a hand. You like them enough to give them a hand, right? That's really easy. It's like every YouTube video I'm like, "Hey, friends." That's literally how I start every video. Okay. That's the first thing. The second thing is where things get more interesting. Remember that these Sharks were in pitch after pitch, after pitch.

Lewis Howes (00:25:43):

Yeah. They're tired. They're like...

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:25:44):

They're so tired.

Lewis Howes (00:25:47):

I've been on set there. I've seen the whole day it's just like, it's a lot.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:25:51):

It's a grind.

Lewis Howes (00:25:53):

It's a grind.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:25:53):

Okay. The most successful pitches the next thing we found out this was very, very clear is that the more that the pitchers could spark dopamine, the more likely they were to get a deal. Now, dopamine is a very...

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:26:04]

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:26:03):

... the more likely they were to get a deal. Now, dopamine is a very complicated chemical. So just for our purposes-

Lewis Howes (00:26:07):

Food, eating something. No, giving them like, "Oh, try my..."

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:26:11):

Yes. Yes, yes. I was like, "Food. Yes."

Lewis Howes (00:26:12):

And they're eating, taste testing, opening something.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:26:16):

Exactly. Try it, taste it, smell it, lick it-

Lewis Howes (00:26:17):

Feel it, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:26:17):

... touch it, feel it, wear it, play it. Any of those senses, we love. So when we are doing something that's different, that's tactile, so touch, smell, taste, wear, play, do, try. That was going to wake the Sharks up. Dopamine is a very complicated chemical, but I want to talk about it a little differently. It does feel good, right? So if they were to say to the Sharks, "Sharks, today I have a gift for you." The brain goes, "Ooh, a gift. A gift, a gift, a gift."

Lewis Howes (00:26:45):

Oh, give me something.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:26:45):

Gift, gift, gift, gift. Right? Dopamine is that feeling of, "I want it. I want it. I want it." It's excitement, but it's also motivation. So what they've found is that when people have a lot of dopamine, they are more motivated to do things. They are more motivated to figure out a deal. They are more motivated to ask questions. So when a pitcher went in and not only had some kind of interactivity, some kind of a surprise for them, and sometimes it was a surprise. And they would literally say, "And guess what, Sharks?"

Lewis Howes (00:27:17):

Like, "What?"

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:27:18):

Right. What is it? We want to know what that is because we're like, "Dopamine, dopamine, dopamine." So it doesn't have to be, you don't have to walk in every meeting and throw out Snickers bars, right? Love a Snickers bar and that will work really well. That will work. It will work every time. But it's also verbal surprise. So it's also saying, "Today I have something really special to share." Right?

Lewis Howes (00:27:38):

Anticipation.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:27:38):

Anticipation. It doesn't even have to be something major. It can be throwing in those little elements of surprise that people can look forward to. And here's the biggest one. So this is research that blew my mind. It changed the way that I write emails. So if you write a lot of emails, this study is for you. I'm going to break it down, it's kind of a complicated study. So here's what they did.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:27:59):

Researchers had participants come into their lab and do a little quiz, like a little math test. One group of participants read a set of directions that was very simple. "Please take the following quiz. Take your time. Use a pencil. Tell us when you're done." Very simple set of directions.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:28:15):

The other participants got the same set of directions, but they sprinkled in a couple of achievement-oriented words. So achievement-oriented words are words like win, succeed, master, greatness. Those are achievement-oriented words. There's a reason why this is so powerful.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:28:35):

In the directions they would say something like, "Please master all these questions. Take as much time as you can to win the right answer." So they just sprinkled in a couple of these words, two or three of these words. They found that participants who had the achievement-oriented words performed better. They actually got more answers correct.

Lewis Howes (00:28:54):

Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:28:54):

Now this is incredible. If you're a manager or a boss or you're working with people and you want them to perform at their best, just a couple of word swaps can help set them up for success. The second thing they found is that it also doubled, doubled, participants' desire to keep working. Now this-

Lewis Howes (00:29:11):

If they could win, succeed, achieve [crosstalk 00:29:14].

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:29:14):

They worked on it longer, they worked on it harder, and they enjoyed it more. And the last one is that reading achievement-oriented words can change our own dopamine and testosterone.

Lewis Howes (00:29:25):

That's fascinating. It's interesting because for years in high school and college, there was this store called Successions, I think it was called. I don't know if you remember this. It was like a motivational, inspirational store that had, I don't know, a poster of an eagle soaring with a quote, right, or-

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:29:41):

Sounds like my office.

Lewis Howes (00:29:43):

It was like Ted Lasso store. It was just like, believe in yourself with this moment.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:29:48):

Where is this store? I want it. Okay.

Lewis Howes (00:29:50):

I think it's called Successions. I can't remember the name of it. I don't even know if it's around anymore, but my dad bought me a lot of stuff and I had all this sports type of inspirational quotes and Rocky posters and all these things of just people achieving. And I would stare in this, like these walls and I'd be like, I want to be that. Let me go take the actions every morning to work a little bit harder to reach the goals. And I was just consumed in a success word-

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:30:18):

Yeah, you were literally priming yourself with those cues. Another study, I promise I won't do too many more, they put a picture of an athlete winning a race on top of telemarketers scripts. The people who had the picture of the athlete winning earned more money.

Lewis Howes (00:30:34):

Come on.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:30:35):

Yes.

Lewis Howes (00:30:36):

Like just in front of them?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:30:38):

Literally a printed picture on their script.

Lewis Howes (00:30:40):

Oh, wow.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:30:41):

So why I share this is because we do not realize that we are cuing people incorrectly, or we are missing opportunities in every single email that we send. If you send an email out to your team on Monday morning, "Hey, everyone, today is going to be a busy day. We have a lot of challenges. Let's make sure we're not late." Research has found that when people read words like busy, challenge, or late, it literally primes them to be busier, and later, and more challenged. You are literally making it harder for them to help you.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:31:17):

So if instead you think about, and this is a challenge I would love to, if you're brave enough to take it, open up your email sent folder and pull up five emails that you've sent to important people: boss, partner, colleague, whatever, client. I want you to print those emails. And I want you to count the number of priming words you use.

Lewis Howes (00:31:37):

Good or bad?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:31:38):

Mm-hmm (affirmative) and even more. Are they warm or are they competent? So this is where the next level happens.

Lewis Howes (00:31:44):

Ooh, give it to me.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:31:45):

Highly charismatic people prime others with warmth and competence.

Lewis Howes (00:31:50):

This is what I was going to say is, one of the sparked dopamine, a simple compliment or acknowledgement sparks dopamine from my experience. Just by seeing someone and acknowledging something you appreciate about them, or you like about them, or great shoes, or whatever it is I'm going to assure. You've got a great smile today. You've got good energy today. That sparks dopamine, right?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:32:09):

Oh, 100%. Actually, this leads me to my next third point, my Shark Tank point. We also noticed that when pitchers specifically acknowledge things from the Sharks, and specific Sharks, they were more likely to get a deal from that Shark.

Lewis Howes (00:32:22):

I really liked this thing about you. You did this [crosstalk 00:32:24]

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:32:24):

"Lori, I've been so looking forward to working with you." "Robert, I love all your deals with all those athletes." "Mark, I've been a huge fan of years for years," or, this was the winning phrase. In a pitch, if we heard this phrase, it was a high likelihood that someone was going to get a deal, which is, "You remind me of myself." That could have been one of the Sharks, that could have one of the entrepreneurs. But the biggest compliment we can give someone is, you remind me of me. You're my role model. So this is what we're talking about is kind of the next level here is, I think that, yes I want you to be your most charismatic self. I want everyone, hopefully, who's listening to be inspired to be their warmest, most competent self. But what a bigger gift, what a better way to be great, to gift other people, to be their warmest and most competent self.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:33:13):

So that when you're sending an email and you say, "Hey, I'm introing Sarah," or, "We have Sarah on the call," or, "Here's that quick email intro I have promised to Sarah," no priming words. What if instead, you thought, "What's the warmest and most competent thing about both Sarah and the person I'm introducing to?" And you say, "Hey, I'd love you to meet Sarah. She's been leading our marketing team for 10 years. We are so lucky to have her. She's a gem." Lucky. Gem. Leader. That is the perfect balance of warmth and competence. And you are gifting that to both Sarah, the person you're introing, to and yourself.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:33:51):

I think our words are gifts, and this doesn't have to be every email, but in your most important emails, that audit that you send, count, how many warm words are you using? So warm words are words that trigger connection, trust, words that make you feel the warm and fuzzies. They're very oxytocin words. Count the number of competent words: efficient, productive, brainstorm, leverage, lead, streamline. Those are all great competence words. Note, a funny note here is emojis.

Lewis Howes (00:34:20):

Are they good or bad?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:34:21):

Highly warm, not good or bad.

Lewis Howes (00:34:23):

More likability. You can have likability.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:34:24):

High likability.

Lewis Howes (00:34:24):

Connection, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:34:26):

High, high warmth, right, so emojis and exclamation points count as one warm word.

Lewis Howes (00:34:31):

Wow.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:34:31):

So if you have someone, and this happens a lot, where people send a highly warm email to an important person, "Hi friend!" Friend, warm word, exclamation point, two warm words. "I loved talking to you yesterday." Three warm words. "It was so exciting to catch up." Exciting, catch up, five warm words. Heart emoji, heart smiley face.

Lewis Howes (00:34:53):

Right.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:34:53):

Now we're at seven warm words, and we're one sentence in, right?

Lewis Howes (00:34:56):

Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:34:57):

They wonder why they're not taken seriously. They wonder why they didn't get a follow-up interview. They wonder why that person takes four days to reply. It's because it's too much warmth. You have to balance it out with the competence.

Lewis Howes (00:35:08):

Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:35:09):

So I want you to count and see, what kind of signals are you sending to the people who matter to you?

Lewis Howes (00:35:14):

That's interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:35:15):

Do you want to?

Lewis Howes (00:35:16):

You're bringing up something I used to do years ago when no one knew who I was, I was just getting started in 2007, 2008. I used LinkedIn as a tool to create connection with people that were successful business leaders and people that had done things that I wanted to do in the future, right? And for a while, none of them would reply to me because I started off saying like, "Hey, I'm just getting started. I'm brand new. And I'm looking for some advice. Can you help me?" Those types of-

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:35:43):

Yeah, warm, warm, warm, warm, warm.

Lewis Howes (00:35:45):

Languages, right? Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:35:46):

Yeah. All those words you just said are all warm.

Lewis Howes (00:35:48):

Yeah. And I started switching it and getting a reply almost every time from anyone. Anyone I'd reach out to, I was like, they're going to reply to this, and I started doing a few things. In the first sentence, I would just try to spark dopamine, essentially is what I was doing. I was looking for a mutual connection we had, and I'd speak about the mutual connection.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:08):

Mutual connection is highly competent. It's saying, you know this person, I know them too. I'm in the know.

Lewis Howes (00:36:11):

It's trust.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:12):

Trust and warmth. Warmth and competence.

Lewis Howes (00:36:14):

This person likes me, if you like them. Yeah. Trust.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:16):

Perfect balance, yeah.

Lewis Howes (00:36:17):

I didn't even know that, and I was just doing it, right? And it was working. I was like, okay, let me keep doing this. Let me find someone that we know in common. And I would always try to have a conversation to get some intel on them.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:26):

For sure.

Lewis Howes (00:36:26):

You tell me something about so and so, and I would speak about that information, and I would speak into them. I would also look for a couple other areas of interest that we have in common. And I would try to have three different things in common in the first sentence or two.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:41):

Wow.

Lewis Howes (00:36:42):

Something that they did that I'd experienced before, or place they're from, or whatever. Some mutual interest.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:48):

Warmth and competence.

Lewis Howes (00:36:50):

Maybe that's competence maybe, or it's both.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:52):

Both, it's beautifully both. Yeah.

Lewis Howes (00:36:53):

So I would do that. And then I would say something like, "I'm really inspired by what you created. I'd love to learn your story of success."

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:00):

Ooh.

Lewis Howes (00:37:01):

As opposed to-

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:01):

Wait, say it again, say it again, say it again.

Lewis Howes (00:37:02):

I'm really inspired by what you've created. I'd love to learn to learn your story of success.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:07):

Oh man. That just gave me the chills.

Lewis Howes (00:37:09):

That's essentially what I did almost every email.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:11):

That sentence. Can we just talk about, so that sentence is the perfect blend of warmth and competence.

Lewis Howes (00:37:18):

There you go.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:18):

You have love, you have learn, you have success. And so that didn't take a lot of words. It's not like you were writing them a six paragraph email, but it's so much better than, "Let me know if you have any questions."

Lewis Howes (00:37:27):

Right.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:30):

Or, "Can I pick your brain for coffee?"

Lewis Howes (00:37:32):

Yeah, exactly.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:33):

So I think what we have to do is, there are hidden opportunities waiting for you in your texts, in your emails, in your profiles, if you choose to take them.

Lewis Howes (00:37:42):

Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:42):

And all it takes a couple of word swaps, like I'm not talking about-

Lewis Howes (00:37:46):

Yeah, that's it.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:46):

15, in that direction sheet, they sprinkled in like two or three words. Win. Even reading the word win makes the other person think more like a winner.

Lewis Howes (00:37:55):

Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:55):

What a gift to give.

Lewis Howes (00:37:57):

Yeah. That's cool. The quote that I heard in high school from Roosevelt is, "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care," saved my life, literally.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:38:08):

That's warmth and competence right there.

Lewis Howes (00:38:08):

Because I didn't feel competent my entire school life. In school, I was at the bottom of my class. I just graded poorly, which confirmed I'm not smart enough. Or like I'll never be able to be as intelligent as my classmates, or anyone in the world, so why would anyone like me or trust me because I didn't feel competent.

Lewis Howes (00:38:28):

Then when I heard that quote, I go, I have a chance. I can build competence in another area of life, I can be emotionally intelligent, and I can show people how much I care. And by doing that, that's been pretty much my whole life.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:38:41):

Everyone who's listening, I hope what this shows you is that caring about someone, there's multiple ways to do that. Yes, it's emotionally intelligent, but it's also honoring someone's cues or gifting them the right cues.

Lewis Howes (00:38:55):

Yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:38:55):

When you make someone feel more like a winner, what a gift you just gave them.

Lewis Howes (00:39:00):

Huge gift. You're putting confidence into them. You're speaking joy, confidence into that person.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:39:05):

Yes, you're literally gifting them the chemical dopamine so that they themselves have more motivation.

Lewis Howes (00:39:11):

Yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:39:11):

And don't we all need more motivation?

Lewis Howes (00:39:12):

Absolutely, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:39:14):

Since you shared a vulnerability, can I share a vulnerability and a compliment?

Lewis Howes (00:39:16):

Sure.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:39:17):

Okay. So I've been so excited to tell you this. Your book, School of Greatness. I love the cover. I just thought it was so inspiring. And when I was taking my cover shoot for Captivate, so this is six years ago now, it was not going well. I was super awkward. My photographer, amazing Maggie Kirkland, was like, "Listen, this isn't working. You're really awkward. I need you to relax." I can't relax. The worst thing you can do for someone who's anxious is to tell them to relax. So weren't getting the shot, we weren't getting the pictures. And she's like, "Okay, just think about your role models. Who's your role model?" And I was like, "Lewis Howse." She pulls up your book and she goes, "Okay. She said, look at Lewis. Channel him." And so in the shoot, I channeled you, and I did your pose of my hands over my stomach with your face and crazily enough, that is the Captivate cover shot. I'm going to send you the full version.

Lewis Howes (00:40:11):

How many books did you sell, how many copies?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:40:14):

A lot, a lot, a lot. I better send you some royalties.

Lewis Howes (00:40:15):

I'm teasing you.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:40:17):

Anyway, I channeled you because even that cue, there was something about it. So I thank you for even the cues that you send out, because that gifted me confidence and you didn't even know about it.

Lewis Howes (00:40:27):

There you go. I appreciate it. I'm glad. I'm glad it worked. What's another thing that in the Shark Tank, talking about sparking dopamine, what else?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:40:35):

Okay. So we talked about reading, we talked about dopamine, we talked about interactivity. We talked about complimenting in a way that allows someone to see themselves in you, or pulling out a similarity.

Lewis Howes (00:40:46):

That's good.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:40:46):

So like, "Like you, Lori, we really value..." "Mr. Wonderful. We love Mr. Wonderful products," that really helped. I mean, sounds like sucking up, but actually it really works. It really worked. The other thing that we noticed about the interactivity is what they would do is they would cross space zones. So they would have something to give the Sharks, and they would go from the carpet to the chairs.

Lewis Howes (00:41:09):

That worked, usually?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:41:11):

That worked because they were going into intimate zone very quickly. So this is called a nonverbal bridge. It's kind of an advanced technique. Do you want to talk about it?

Lewis Howes (00:41:18):

Yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:41:19):

Okay. So a nonverbal bridge is a way that we cross into someone's intimate space, but safely. So what happens is, when we're with someone, we want to connect with them. We want more oxytocin, we want a bond with them.

Lewis Howes (00:41:31):

Yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:41:32):

But sometimes it can be hard to break that boundary. A non-verbal bridge is a way that we can create oxytocin with permission. So that could be handing someone something, that could be giving a high five, that could be touching their elbow. And that is exactly what successful pitchers did.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:41:46):

They would have a reason or an excuse to, "Hey Morgan, let me guide you up here." "Hey, Kevin, let me zip on this suit for you." "Hey, you want to try this amazing cinnamon roll?" And when they did that, they created these small little bridges. So what I would think about is, how can you create bridges to people where you're engaging them even physically, and that's harder on video, but in person, that was a thing that we found in that shoot in the Tank.

Lewis Howes (00:42:09):

How do you do it in a way that the person feels comfortable, if you touch them on the elbow? Because someone may not feel comfortable, so you have to be really intuitive to, is this person going to be receptive to me? Are they already interested enough where I can get closer?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:42:22):

Yes, yes. Are they leaning in, are they giving eye contact? Are they nodding? Oh, I forgot another one that was really important. So, vocal power. We haven't really talked about vocal power and this was a big one in the Tank.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:42:33):

We hear confidence. We hear competence. And the biggest way that we do this is with inflection. The biggest mistake that we make is the question inflection. So the question inflection is when we go up at the end of our sentences.

Lewis Howes (00:42:48):

Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:42:48):

It's also called uptalk. So if I were to-

Lewis Howes (00:42:50):

Don't do uptalk.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:42:51):

Don't do uptalk. We're going to talk about why. When we use the question inflection, it cues the other person's brain to know, ah, we're being asked a question. The problem is that when we accidentally use the question inflection, it makes people question you.

Lewis Howes (00:43:05):

Are they really trustworthy?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:43:07):

Right. So what happened is, in this study where they looked at doctors, they found that the doctors who had, so I'll break down the studies. What they did is, they asked doctors to record 10 second voice tone clips. And they said their name, their specialty, where they worked. So it sounded like, "Hi, my name is Dr. Edwards. I work in oncology. I specialize in children's medicine, something like that." They took the clips and they warbled the words so you couldn't understand the actual words being said. So it sounded like, " [inaudible 00:43:34]." Then they asked people to rate these clips on warmth and competence. Again, this research has been repeated over and over again. Imagine this for a second. You're asked to listen to a clip of gobbledygook.

Lewis Howes (00:43:48):

Yes. To see if they're competent and trustworthy.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:43:49):

Are they smart? You like them? Yeah. And people do it. What they found is the doctors who had the lowest warmth and competence ratings had the highest rate of malpractice lawsuits. That implies that we don't just sue doctors based on their skills. We sue doctors based on our perception of their skills, and that happens in the first few seconds of hearing them.

Lewis Howes (00:44:14):

So your communication is everything.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:44:19):

Everything. It's not just the words you're using. Are they warm, are they competent? It's even how you're saying the words.

Lewis Howes (00:44:24):

Wow.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:44:24):

So the very first story I break down in the book, and this is in the intro, so if you want to just look at the sample chapter, you could. I analyze Jamie Siminoff's pitch. Jamie Siminoff is the founder of Ring.

Lewis Howes (00:44:35):

That didn't get any money, and it sold for a billion dollars?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:44:37):

Yes. Here is a brilliant guy. Jamie Siminoff is brilliant. He had a successful product. Ring is a very successful product. Amazon acquired it for over a billion, with a "B," dollars. Yet he goes into the pitch in the Shark Tank and he pitches and he doesn't get a deal. Why? That pitch plagued me, because I was like, here is a smart guy with a great idea, but his cues were the problem.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:45:04):

I think that he lost his pitch and this is a really big statement, and if you listen to it, you'll hear it. I think he lost the deal in the first 10 seconds of them hearing him. And the reason is, he made the choice to close the doors to the Tank. So in his pitch, he doesn't walk down the hallway. You don't see that long, first impression. You don't get public, to social, to personal. He closed the doors. And what he did is he went, he knocked on the door of the Shark Tank.

Lewis Howes (00:45:30):

Hello? Who's there?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:45:31):

They're like, "Hello?" And he goes, "It's Jamie?" So he asked his own name, and when you're a Shark and you're trying to make a very quick first impression of someone without seeing them, and you hear the question inflection, it's supposed to be used on a statement, you immediately begin to question, "I don't know." And that is also because we know that liars are more likely to use the question inflection.

Lewis Howes (00:45:56):

Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:45:56):

If you've ever played two truths and a lie. Have you ever played that game?

Lewis Howes (00:46:00):

Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:46:00):

Okay. So two truths and a lie. Here's a little tip for everyone. If you ever play that game, people almost always ask the lie. So they'll be like, "Oh yeah, two truths and a lie. I have a goldfish. I'm a vegetarian, and I love dogs?" They almost always go up on their lie. And that's because, when we're lying, we don't know if you believe us, so subconsciously, we give it away.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:46:22):

So Jamie starts his pitch, and he doesn't have a first impression. He doesn't do any greeting in the hallway. He misses that whole walk up. The very first words out of his mouth, doesn't even matter what he says is that uptalk. And then Mark Cuban says, "Are you here to pitch?" And he says, "Here to pitch?" Again, using the question inflection. I think that what happened was, is it gave away his competence.

Lewis Howes (00:46:47):

Huh.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:46:47):

And then the doors open, and he explains this idea of Ring. It's a doorbell. The problem is, his first impression was very low in competence. And so he had a lot of trouble having the Sharks take him seriously.

Lewis Howes (00:47:00):

He was a very competent individual building his business. He was very smart, very intelligent, knew the technology, how to build product teams, all these things get sales, whatever it was. But the warmth wasn't there as well, it seems like, right? Like the trustworthy charisma, warmth, confidence.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:47:15):

Yes. He under signaled every step of the way. He under signaled warmth, he under signaled competence, and then was trying to dial up competence. And you hear in the rest of the pitch, he's-

Lewis Howes (00:47:24):

He's trying to build it back up. He's like, "But we've done this, look, we've got this technology."

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:47:28):

And this money and then this. And so he cannot get it back. He could not get it back. And so I think I watched that pitch and I break it down in the book of what happened to this brilliant guy who had one bad day. And I think that, you know he scripted those answers, he prepared for that pitch, and he had really good verbal answers. There was even a couple times where I think this thing happens for people who over-rehearse.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:47:53):

If you have an interview or a presentation, what do you do? You rehearse it. You practice the perfect answer. That can get in your way, though. Because if you practice the perfect answer, this is exactly what happened to Siminoff, and very highly intelligent people do this. He would hear a question from a Shark, usually a challenging question, because they were like really pushing him on the deal. And they didn't believe him. No one believed him. They all thought, oh no, it's too crowded of a market. It will never work. They literally said that to him. Okay. I have Ring on my front door.

Lewis Howes (00:48:22):

Right.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:48:22):

And they literally said, "never." He could not get them to believe him because what would happen was they, would ask him a question, he would start to answer it organically, and then he would switch into his rehearsed answer.

Lewis Howes (00:48:33):

Oh no.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:48:34):

So you would hear, oh yeah, we do have market track. Our market traction has been wonderful. In fact, in the last five years we've done X numbers. And you would be like, "Who is this robot?"

Lewis Howes (00:48:42):

Yeah. Just say what's on your heart. Yeah. Yeah. Just say it organically.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:48:45):

Right. And so I think you can be the smartest person in the world. You could have the best ideas, but if you don't share them right, you're not helping people help you. And so that's my, it drives me crazy when smart people can't get their ideas heard, and that pitch crushed me. I felt so bad for him. And he made it, he's okay now.

Lewis Howes (00:49:02):

He's fine.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:49:03):

He's doing really well.

Lewis Howes (00:49:03):

And then he was like a guest Shark or whatever.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:49:06):

Okay. And what's amazing is when you watch him walk into the Tank as a Shark, you can see the difference. You can feel the difference.

Lewis Howes (00:49:13):

The confidence.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:49:14):

Oh my, he walks down the hallway. He walks down the hallway. He's smiling. He gestures. "Hey everyone, good to see you." He shakes hands. He does all the things he didn't do in that original pitch. And you can see the difference. And he's the same person, same ideas, similar suits, yet he looks like a different person.

Lewis Howes (00:49:36):

Fascinating. It's not about what you say, it's how you say it. How you present yourself and your words. And your words?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:49:45):

No!

Lewis Howes (00:49:45):

Just kidding. I'm curious about this. There's a big topic out there right now. I just did a recent interview with Dr. Ramani, who is a therapist, psychologist, talking about narcissism a lot today.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:49:58):

Yeah.

Lewis Howes (00:49:58):

Can you talk to me the difference between charisma and narcissism, and how can you spot when someone is actually warm and caring and charismatic?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:50:08):

Yeah.

Lewis Howes (00:50:09):

Versus someone who uses the skills or the tools of charisma in their narcissistic approach towards manipulating, controlling and getting what they want in life?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:50:20):

So this is my biggest fear with this book. This is my single biggest fear. And it was an issue for me when I first started writing it is, I'm going to be honest, you can use this book for manipulation.

Lewis Howes (00:50:30):

Yeah, of course.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:50:32):

And that scares me.

Lewis Howes (00:50:33):

And when a smart person who's narcissistic is going to study everything and they start using it-

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:50:38):

It scares me.

Lewis Howes (00:50:39):

So how can you tell the difference? The subtle cues, these are very subtle now.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:50:44):

Very subtle. Yeah. So we're talking about big to subtle, right? There's a range of them. So first is, it is my biggest fear with this book that people do not have the right intentions. And my hope is that we can actually use these powers for good and not evil. That is the number one thing is you can, if you want to. Here's the good news.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:50:59):

There are certain cues that we cannot control. And if you have bad intentions, they will leak. So I call these danger zone cues. In the book I talk about, there's four different types of cues. There's highly warm, nonverbal, verbal, and vocal. So these are things that make you highly warm, highly trustworthy, highly likable. There's highly competent cues, verbal, nonverbal, and vocal. And then there's charismatic, the ones that are just, knock it out of the park, they're just great. And the last one is danger zone cues. Danger zone cues are the cues that get us into trouble. They're the cues that liars use.

Lewis Howes (00:51:29):

Ooh.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:51:30):

They're the way that we leak guilt and shame. Actually shame is not a bad thing. It's only when you have guilt that you've done something wrong. So in the danger zone, it is very hard to inhibit those cues. So I teach them because I want people to be able to spot them.

Lewis Howes (00:51:43):

Okay. What are those cues?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:51:44):

Okay. So there's a bunch, let's talk about as many as we can.

Lewis Howes (00:51:48):

And this might be someone who's very successful, someone who's accomplished a lot, potentially someone that seems very credible?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:51:55):

Yeah.

Lewis Howes (00:51:55):

Someone that could be in a power position?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:51:58):

Yes.

Lewis Howes (00:51:58):

Owning a business, or having influence online or something like that, right?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:52:02):

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes (00:52:02):

Extremely success, they could be...

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:52:04]

Lewis Howes (00:52:03):

... or having influence online, or something like that, right?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:52:03):

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes (00:52:03):

They could be successful, they could seem credible, trustworthy.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:52:06):

Yes.

Lewis Howes (00:52:07):

But might be super narcissistic underneath.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:52:10):

Yes, so there's a couple danger zone cues that we can control which a manipulative person could inhibit. So for example, one that I found that I talk about in the book is Lance Armstrong. So Lance Armstrong, for those who don't know, spoiler alert, Lance Armstrong was doping. Someone was like, "There was spoilers in the book," and I was like, "You haven't heard that news yet?" I also talk about Britney Spears in the book, because there's some really interesting cues on her, which I think why we're worried about her, why her fans worry, she shows a lot of danger zone cues.

Lewis Howes (00:52:38):

Yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:52:38):

So Lance Armstrong, in one of his early interviews on Larry King Live, he's asked about doping, and he does what's called a lip purse. So a lip purse is when we push our lips into a flat line, we mash our lips together, that is a universal withholding gesture. So when we're literally trying to hold something in, or hold something back, or we don't like what's being said or heard we go. And so you'll notice that when someone has been asked something they don't like, when someone had to lie a lot of the time. So we did a massive experiment in our lab where we asked people to send in videos of themselves lying. Actually you play it in the book, it's called lie to me. So I have you lie to me, play this lie to me game, to diagnose your own tells. It's very important to know your own tells because you should know what your danger zone cues are when you're leaking them.

Lewis Howes (00:53:25):

Wow.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:53:25):

You should know those, it's good to know those in the back of your pocket.

Lewis Howes (00:53:28):

Wow.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:53:28):

Do that with your partner, you want them to know what those are too. So one thing that we noticed is on lies, that was one of the biggest indicators. So in lie to me game we ask you to do two things, we ask you to tell us an embarrassing story, your most embarrassing story, and then a fake embarrassing story, and we want to see if we can tell the difference. If we cut the clips, can we know which one is the fake one?

Lewis Howes (00:53:50):

Man, that'd be interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:53:51):

Yes, and it's amazing. You see the same danger zone cues over and over again, right before someone's about to lie and tell their fake embarrassing story they go, "Okay," and they lip purse right before they're going to do it, and that's because we don't like lying. Our body knows it's going to get us into trouble, so we're like, stop it, stop it, stop it, and we hold ourselves back. You ask a woman, how much do you weigh? And she'll go, literally close those lips, because no woman wants to talk about how much she weighs. So it's a withholding gesture.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:54:16):

And so that's the first thing is you want to look for some of the bigger cues, withholding gestures, lip purse is one ,a sudden distancing behavior. So we also noticed that liars in our lab, they wanted to get away from the lie, as if it smelled. So when they were telling their most embarrassing story they'd be leaning in, using gestures, "Oh, it was so embarrassing." Remember, embarrassing stories are negative.

Lewis Howes (00:54:37):

Right.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:54:38):

It's not like it's a positive memory, people are like, and they do a shame touch, the universal shame touch is when people touch their fingers to the side of their forehead.

Lewis Howes (00:54:46):

Yes, this happened [inaudible 00:54:48].

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:54:48):

Oh gosh, I'm so embarrassed.

Lewis Howes (00:54:49):

So they're usually telling the truth and they do like this.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:54:51):

Yes, because they're actually embarrassed. So these are all good, congruent. We're seeing embarrassment and shame gesture. We're seeing negative nonverbal and people shaking their head, I can't believe that happened, they're so upset that happened. We're seeing cringes, we're seeing fear, we're seeing sadness. Congruent, that's all congruent emotion. On the bad stories we often see people will lip purse, and then they try to get away from it. So they'll say a statement, and they're literally as far away, I hope I'm not messing up my audio there, as far away from the lie as they can possibly get. They're leaning back, they'll sometimes literally lean their head back in the chair, and that's because physically we want to distance ourselves from things we don't like.

Lewis Howes (00:55:34):

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:55:34):

So we're looking for lip purses, sudden distancing. And there's a lot of cues that we can't can control. So blink rate is another one, eye blocking behavior, is liars have higher blink rates.

Lewis Howes (00:55:45):

They blink more?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:55:45):

Yeah. Actually Britney Spears, she had a really interesting interview, I actually break this down on my YouTube channel, so you don't even have to read the book if you want to see it, where I break down the cues in this early interview, this is right before the conservatorship started. So very, very full of cues, because it's right before it happened, and she gets asked a very difficult question, and all of a sudden her blink rate goes from a normal rate to a high rate. So she starts to really quickly blink her eyes like this, and that is because when we're really nervous we literally want to close out stimuli to not see what's happening so we can process what's happening. So blink rate is something that a lot of manipulative people cannot control. In fact, when I share this people go, oh, I know a very narcissistic manipulative person who has a very high blink rate.

Lewis Howes (00:56:29):

Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:56:30):

Because they're literally trying to block out the lie or the manipulation, and so they're sound really good, but they're really processing a lot, and you're like, why are they blinking so much? And it's because they're trying to process.

Lewis Howes (00:56:42):

Oh my goodness.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:56:42):

So just knowing those cues are not all bad on their own, but it's important to know what those cues look like so you can spot them. And I do think, I really think, manipulative people will get caught eventually. It is very hard to fake competence. It is very hard to fake warmth. It's hard to keep that up.

Lewis Howes (00:57:00):

Yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:57:01):

And so for the long game, yes, you can learn a couple of these cues and try to master your way around them, but for the long game it's really hard. I mean, look at Theranos. So Elizabeth Holmes, so spoiler alert, Theranos did not go well. I feel like I always have to say that. So one of her interesting cues is, I don't know if you've ever seen her talk, she uses a really deep voice, like fakely deep, down here.

Lewis Howes (00:57:26):

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:57:27):

And people used to say like, "Is that real?" It's because she read in some cue book, it wasn't mine, because my book wasn't out then, thank goodness, she read in some book that having a lower tone of voice makes you more competent, and that is true. Research has found that people who use the lower end of their natural voice tone are seen as competent, that's for both men and women. So you have a very deep voice and it serves you really well. When I'm talking right now I'm trying to use the lowest end of my natural register. When I'm talking to my toddler-

Lewis Howes (00:57:54):

Not this.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:57:54):

Right, right, when I'm talking to my toddler I'm much more up here, "Hey baby, how are you?" But if I were to do my entire interview like this it would drive you crazy.

Lewis Howes (00:58:02):

Right, right, you wouldn't feel as competent.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:58:04):

No, and people would go, I can't take her seriously. So she read that study, obviously.

Lewis Howes (00:58:10):

And went an octave lower.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:58:11):

There you go, and went an octave lower. So it wasn't her natural voice tone, it was one up lower than her voice tone, so she was always talking like this. And in interviews she would talk like this, and you would hear that this just doesn't sound natural, and part of your spidey sense would be like, why is she talking so low? It sounds really unnatural. And it came out that when she was drunk her employees noticed that she went back into her natural register.

Lewis Howes (00:58:35):

Wow.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:58:36):

So there are cues that they will eventually break.

Lewis Howes (00:58:39):

So don't drink alcohol.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:58:41):

And that is the point of this story, don't drink alcohol.

Lewis Howes (00:58:44):

You'll get caught.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:58:44):

So you can't keep it up for that long.

Lewis Howes (00:58:47):

Right.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:58:48):

She was faking that cue, we think.

Lewis Howes (00:58:51):

I think you're also just, your body is out of integrity. The more you're keeping back something, you're telling a slight lie, or whatever. I felt this from the past, because I've been out of integrity in my life at different times, from different stages of childhood to adulthood, from little white lies, to bigger stuff, hiding from my parents, or whatever it is.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:59:09):

Oh, they feel bad.

Lewis Howes (00:59:09):

So you're like, something inside of you feels off, right?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:59:11):

Yes.

Lewis Howes (00:59:12):

And then you got to keep the lie up, and eventually you're going to explode, or you're going to have a heart attack, or something.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:59:17):

It's going to leak, it's going to leak.

Lewis Howes (00:59:19):

It's going to leak, leaking cues.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:59:21):

You leak those cues, and those are the cues that we're looking for. I want you to be on the lookout for them because when something feels bad, even something feels bad, even just then when you were saying it felt bad, your voice tone changed, just then.

Lewis Howes (00:59:32):

Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:59:32):

Because when you think about seeing a toxic person, and I know that people probably have toxic people in their lives, and this is why toxic people are so challenging, because toxic people put us out of integrity. Toxic people force us to use warm cues where we don't feel like it. Now we can do it-

Lewis Howes (00:59:51):

What do you mean? We got to be nice to them or something?

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:59:53):

Yeah. So if you have a toxic person, and this is the thorn in our work is I want everyone either best selves, I want them to show up as their warmest, most competent self, but what if you have a toxic person, how do you do that authentically? And this is what's so hard about toxic people. You have a colleague, or a coworker, or a family member that you don't like, and you have to break out the fake warmth cues, oh hi, how are you?

Lewis Howes (01:00:18):

Right.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:00:19):

And so what do we do? We fake smile, oh, it's so good to see you.

Lewis Howes (01:00:23):

That doesn't look authentic.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:00:25):

It doesn't look like it. Or we say, oh that sounds good, congratulations.

Lewis Howes (01:00:32):

Now your LA roots are coming back to you.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:00:35):

Right. That's why talks to people challenge us, is because they come into our lives, we know we're supposed to be warm, and so we try to force that warm sound, and it comes out forced, and then it makes us feel bad, and then we're trying to over compensate for it. And so the antidote here is not learning more fake warmth cues, it's time to get rid of toxic people. I think that's the side effect of the book is-

Lewis Howes (01:00:59):

Don't keep them around.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:01:00):

Don't keep those people around, because it will leak, and so set boundaries around them.

Lewis Howes (01:01:04):

So what do you mean it will leak, like your integrity will leak because you're constantly trying to be nice, but you're actually out of integrity because you don't want to be right, is that right?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:01:11):

Right, that's exactly right.

Lewis Howes (01:01:12):

So your body is like, I'm doing something that's not authentic to me, because I feel like I have to with this person.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:01:17):

That's right.

Lewis Howes (01:01:18):

And the more frequently you do that, you feel out of integrity with yourself?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:01:21):

Yep, exactly.

Lewis Howes (01:01:24):

With yourself.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:01:24):

With yourself, that was a question, you were asking me.

Lewis Howes (01:01:24):

That's a question, yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:01:28):

And I'm like, yes it was, yes, yes. That was perfect, because you were asking a question I knew. Yes, if you allow toxic people to come into your life, especially without boundaries, we have to have some of those people we deal with, but if you don't have boundaries around them they come into your life and you have to fake niceness, and that feels really bad.

Lewis Howes (01:01:41):

What happens if, let's just say there's a person you don't like, let's just say, maybe they're not toxic, there's someone you don't like, and you don't like being nice to because you feel like, why am I spending, I just don't, there's nothing wrong with them, they're just not my person, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:01:52):

Totally.

Lewis Howes (01:01:53):

Let's say they're in a work environment, and you're at a company, got 50, 100 employees that you're working with, you're on a team with, and you're just okay, I'm here.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:02:00):

Yeah.

Lewis Howes (01:02:01):

Is it better to be inauthentic and lie and act nice around this person? Friendly, fake, how are you? Interested, even though you've like been around them for six months or a year and you realize you really don't like them. Or is it better to go right up to the person after six months and say, "You know what? I just want to be completely honest and not fake with you, because I feel like I've been fake, that I don't connect with you, I don't like you. I think you're out of integrity, I think you're inauthentic, and maybe I'm being judgmental, but I'd rather be honest with you and fake nice to you."

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:02:33):

Okay, that's A and B, can I give a C?

Lewis Howes (01:02:35):

Sure.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:02:35):

Okay, I don't believe in fake until you make it. So I try not to give fake it, I don't roll that way, I just think it's exhausting, I think it's going to leak. The C option here is to not fake warmth, but is to double down on competence. So if you were working with someone that you don't like, the one thing that you do have to do is get stuff done with them. You have to master your tasks, you have to be on it, you have to be responsive to emails. So that is something you can be authentic about because to do your job you have to be able to get along with them in a very professional setting. So I would skip all the fake warmth stuff.

Lewis Howes (01:03:10):

Just go right into competence?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:03:10):

Yeah. Stick with where you're authentic, which is I don't need to hear about your weekend, I don't need to go to happy with you.

Lewis Howes (01:03:18):

Right, right.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:03:18):

I don't need a fake sitting with you for coffee, but you know what? We can get stuff done, we align on goals.

Lewis Howes (01:03:24):

So create boundaries around the, hey, let's go have coffee. Actually no, I'm busy.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:03:28):

I'm so busy, I'm so busy today, but you know what? Let's do a brainstorm session tomorrow at the end of the day so we can really kick off.

Lewis Howes (01:03:32):

On the work? Yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:03:33):

Yeah.

Lewis Howes (01:03:34):

So get back to the mission, the task on hand, the competence, and maybe you've just got to be like, okay, this is someone where 20 seconds a day I've got to be around someone that's trying to be fake la di da di with everyone, and I'll just wait until-

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:03:46):

I'm going to get stuff done.

Lewis Howes (01:03:47):

And then I'll move on to the next one.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:03:49):

That's it, exactly. Because then at least you're focusing on where you can be authentic, and also, even if that were to come up, you could honestly say that, conversation could be, listen, I'm not really into connecting at work, I'm more about getting it done, I want to get home to my kids and my family, I hope that's okay with you. When we're together, if it's all right, I might skip lunch and just have us work it out and be really efficient.

Lewis Howes (01:04:12):

Yeah, it's good.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:04:12):

I really appreciate how efficient you are, because it allows me to get home to my kids faster. That's authentic. So what can you appreciate about them that's competent, what can you highlight about them that's competent, and that's a weird way to work.

Lewis Howes (01:04:24):

What if you don't feel like they're warm or competent? Like this person on a team is just, they can't get anything done, they're not smart, and they have fake attitude around me all day.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:04:34):

I mean, this depends on how you feel, but I would say deal with it. Go to your boss-

Lewis Howes (01:04:39):

Right, and say, "Hey, can you put me on a different team?" Or something.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:04:41):

Yeah, you say, "I don't know how I can work with this person. I don't want to be unauthentic, but I'm telling you that we're not getting stuff done, and they're causing issues on the team." I don't like to ignore that stuff. You could hope it gets better, but ask for help. If you have someone on your team or someone in your life who is not warm nor competent, and doesn't treat you with warmth or competence, either get them out of your life, set a boundary or get help.

Lewis Howes (01:05:02):

Give them an improvement plan or something.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:03):

Don't live with it, yeah, don't live with it.

Lewis Howes (01:05:05):

Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:06):

Life is too short to feel fakely competent, or fake warmth.

Lewis Howes (01:05:10):

Right. What's been the, I think I asked you this last time, what's been the charisma strategy, if you want to call it strategy.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:18):

You weren't sure about that, you weren't sure about that.

Lewis Howes (01:05:20):

I don't know what the word is, but what is the charisma or social cue that you've learned in the last six months that has brought some new attention to your life where you said, ah, I wasn't aware of that fully, but now the research is showing that when someone does this, it improves this.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:35):

There's a new cue that I snuck into the book in the very last draft because I just learned it, and this is actually brought to me by, It's called my male readers, and I'm so curious. Okay, do you agree with this Lewis, okay, here's what they said. So in the book I had a whole section on nodding, so nodding, affirmative nods, upside down, are yes.

Lewis Howes (01:05:55):

I nod all the time.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:56):

Yes, you're a nodder, it's a really high warmth, we love it, we love nodding.

Lewis Howes (01:05:59):

Oh, is it good?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:59):

Yes, nodding is great, because vertical nods, and by the way, this is different in certain cultures where they nod sideways, that's different. Okay, so just vertical nodding in Western cultures is agreement, it's yes. In fact research has found that when you nod at me slowly I speak three to four times longer.

Lewis Howes (01:06:15):

That's cool.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:06:16):

That's why you're a good interviewer is because you'll nod to be like, keep going, keep going, keep going.

Lewis Howes (01:06:20):

Yeah, I'm just a bobblehead, I'm just like, yeah, a very slow, I'll pause and be like, okay good.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:06:26):

Actually you're right, slow nodding is tell me more, fast nodding is finish up.

Lewis Howes (01:06:32):

Yeah, okay, okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:06:32):

Got it, I got it. Right, right, okay. So that's the difference there, if you want someone to wrap up in a meeting, give them a 1, 2, 3 triple nod, like, I got it. If you want them to keep going, an introvert, uh-huh (affirmative).

Lewis Howes (01:06:42):

Oh yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:06:43):

Okay, so that's a difference, that's number one. So I've shared about this, I taught it, and then a couple of my male readers said to me, "You know, Vanessa, we think that there is a secret non-verbal cue between guys." Now, I don't know what this cue is, here's what they said.

Lewis Howes (01:06:56):

Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:06:57):

If you know a guy and you're trying to acknowledge him guy to guy, you nod up.

Lewis Howes (01:07:01):

Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:02):

Good to see you. It's literally an open gesture, you're open.

Lewis Howes (01:07:04):

What's up bro, hey man.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:06):

If you don't know a guy but you're trying to acknowledge his presence you, hey, good to see you.

Lewis Howes (01:07:09):

Wow, that's so true.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:09):

Is it true?

Lewis Howes (01:07:09):

That's so true, yeah, you say, oh, good to see you, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:14):

Acknowledged.

Lewis Howes (01:07:15):

Good to see you.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:15):

Yes, yes.

Lewis Howes (01:07:17):

Hey, what's up buddy? Yeah, it's so true.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:19):

Okay, so I snuck it into the book last minute.

Lewis Howes (01:07:22):

Oh wow, that's fascinating. I wonder, is that biology? Is that social?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:26):

Okay, here's my theory on this. As soon as I heard this, and I started looking, I started watching men, I asked my husband, I asked my guy friends, and this is why I think it happens. When we know someone we expose our jugular. So this is a very vulnerable part of our body, and we're saying, I know you, I trust you, look, I'm acknowledging you, and I feel trustworthy.

Lewis Howes (01:07:44):

Yes, yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:44):

When you don't know someone but you want to show respect, you nod down to protect your jugular. I don't know you, but I see you, I got you.

Lewis Howes (01:07:50):

I got you, I'm here for you kind of.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:50):

You can't see my jugular, but I'm here for you.

Lewis Howes (01:07:55):

I'm going to protect myself-

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:56):

But I see you.

Lewis Howes (01:07:56):

But I'm here for you bro, what's up?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:59):

Exactly, exactly.

Lewis Howes (01:08:00):

Yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:08:00):

I think that's where it comes from.

Lewis Howes (01:08:02):

That makes sense.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:08:03):

It's a, do I know you or do I not know you?

Lewis Howes (01:08:04):

I think that makes sense.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:08:04):

So in that sense, this is a high warmth cue, hey buddy, what's up? It's high warmth, you're showing your jugular. This is a high confidence cue, hello, good to see you. I look ridiculous because I don't do that, I'm like, hi. So that was so surprising to me because there's so much more, I think, to be done. I list 96 cues in the book, that's just the start, we're discovering more and more, I think that's where the excitement comes in. So that was the new one.

Lewis Howes (01:08:31):

That's so cool. And are the three most powerful cues, body language cues, of leaders?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:08:39):

Okay, so this is the competence area of the spectrum, so when we talk about charisma we talk about warmth, competence, charisma, and danger. Okay, so three body languages of leaders, the example that I give that I really like to teach from is the Nixon-Kennedy presidential debate.

Lewis Howes (01:08:52):

Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:08:53):

Have you ever heard of this historical debate? We were not around this debate, so I'd be shocked if you'd seen it.

Lewis Howes (01:08:57):

So we want to be in the high charisma.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:08:58):

Oh, there you go, there you go, yes, sweet spot.

Lewis Howes (01:09:02):

We want to be doing those cues all the time.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:09:03):

That's right, we want to be in the star. So right now you're talking about competence, you just asked me about leaders, so leaders typically are high competence and they can go into warmth when they want to.

Lewis Howes (01:09:11):

A high competence and charisma.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:09:13):

Right.

Lewis Howes (01:09:13):

Or they're high competence and high warmth.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:09:14):

Yes, exactly, right. So highly competent cues, if you know that you're warm and you need to dial up competence to hit the sweet spot, these are some cues that will help you.

Lewis Howes (01:09:22):

Give it to me.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:09:23):

And my favorite is from the Nixon-Kennedy president's debate. Have you heard about this debate before?

Lewis Howes (01:09:29):

Remind me.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:09:30):

You're like actually, yes, I watched on the History Channel last night.

Lewis Howes (01:09:33):

Was it? I mean, maybe you mentioned this before, but isn't, one of them was angrier or something? I can't remember what happened.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:09:38):

So this is why I like this story is because it created a puzzle, and I like puzzles. So here's what happened, during this part in US history, Nixon and Kennedy were running for president, and about half the population watched the presidential debate on television, and about half the population listened to the debate on the radio. Everyone who watched the debate was sure that Kennedy won, and everyone who listened to the debate was sure that Nixon won.

Lewis Howes (01:10:03):

Wow.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:10:05):

And it was the first time where there was a discrepancy between the winners, the perceived winners/

Lewis Howes (01:10:08):

Because one sounded competent, the other one looked warm.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:10:11):

One sounded like a leader, and one looked like a leader.

Lewis Howes (01:10:14):

Ooh, you match them together that's a sweet spot.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:10:16):

That's the star.

Lewis Howes (01:10:17):

Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:10:18):

That's the star, exactly.

Lewis Howes (01:10:19):

So one sounded like a leader.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:10:21):

So Nixon sounded like a leader, he had really good vocal power, but he looked like a loser. And I hate to use that word, but he himself said in his memoirs he believes he lost that entire presidential election based on the first few seconds of that debate. First few seconds, he himself said that.

Lewis Howes (01:10:39):

What happened?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:10:40):

Okay.

Lewis Howes (01:10:40):

So it was like the shark tank guy, trying to buy back competence and warmth at the same time.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:10:45):

He gave away his competence in the first few seconds of the debate. So anyone who saw it went, oh no, no, no, no, this guy is not a winner, and this was before they even spoke. So in the first 30 seconds of the debate neither of them speak, you see them on camera, and if you were watching you saw, wow, Nixon looks so weak, and here's why. What most people don't know is that Nixon had just injured his knee on the campaign trail, and he had been in the hospital for the week. So he came in with a bandaged knee and a fever. Kennedy had been tanning.

Lewis Howes (01:11:21):

Yeah, a nice suit and everything.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:11:21):

He was ready to go. And also a funny thing is the debate was in black and white, and Nixon's suit was too brown, it blended into the background. I talk about color psychology at the very end of the book, colors, so that wasn't an issue, he didn't pop as much on the black and white. Okay, so he shows up, and he's sitting in what's called the runner's stance. The runner's stance is when someone, so runners before they run a race they go into the crunch position, one leg back, we know this as a readiness position. Universally across cultures, if someone's about to run away from us they will get into this position, they're literally about to run away. It's why sprinters start a race like that.

Lewis Howes (01:11:54):

Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:11:55):

Well, Nixon spent the first 30 seconds of the debate in that position.

Lewis Howes (01:11:59):

Because of his knee?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:12:00):

Because of his knee.

Lewis Howes (01:12:00):

He was in pain, he was trying to just-

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:12:02):

He was nursing it.

Lewis Howes (01:12:02):

Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:12:04):

But it made it look like he was about to run out on us. From just a quick nonverbal perspective the first impression was, where's he going? Even though people didn't consciously realize it, he looked not planted, and we don't like leaders who aren't going to stay with us. Whereas Kennedy, on the other hand, he had a really nice relaxed cross, and he used what's called humility hands, research calls it humility hands. Humility hands are when your hands are on your leg and they're resting, humility, humble.

Lewis Howes (01:12:31):

Humble.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:12:31):

So he relaxed, calm, here to stay, not tense at all.

Lewis Howes (01:12:36):

I'm not in a rush, I'm here.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:12:36):

I'm here, I'm your leader. So he looked "presidential." So first the runner's stance, second is, and this is in the first 10 seconds of the debate.

Lewis Howes (01:12:45):

They were sitting, they were sitting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:12:46):

They were sitting, they were sitting next to each other, yes.

Lewis Howes (01:12:47):

They weren't at a podium.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:12:47):

No. So here's your first snapshot of the debate, and you see Kennedy, humility hands.

Lewis Howes (01:12:53):

Relaxed.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:12:53):

Relaxed, sitting tall, and then you see Nixon who's gripping the chair arm, ready to leave. And we see these cues, and people already made their decision. But people who were listening didn't see any of that.

Lewis Howes (01:13:04):

Right, they heard the voice.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:13:05):

They heard the voice.

Lewis Howes (01:13:05):

Yeah, interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:13:06):

And so Nixon lost the debate to Kennedy, he lost the election to Kennedy, and he said in his memoirs that's why, is because of the cues I sent. And so for leaders, here's what we want to think about, one is relaxed, here to stay. So the more you can settle into your place, the distance, this is such a weird measurement, I want to see the biggest distance between your ear lobe and your shoulder. The reason-

Lewis Howes (01:13:29):

So not like this.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:13:29):

Yes, yes. Because why? When we are confident, when we are winners, we take up as much space as possible. We broaden our shoulders, we tilt our head towards the sky. Winners feel pride, so we look at the distance between someone's ear and shoulder and we're like, oh, she looks confident. When one hops on a video call, this is the mistake I see, hi everyone, shoulders pinched up towards ears, and we wonder why people aren't taking us seriously, we wonder why people are interrupting us, is because this distance, if I'm like this, hey everyone, happy Monday.

Lewis Howes (01:14:05):

Well, your tonality as well, but yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:14:05):

Right? If I start a video call like this, so today we're going to talk about some updates, and I'm going to go over some different slides with you, and we're going to wait a few minutes while people log on. Horrible.

Lewis Howes (01:14:19):

So if I'm on your team is everyone just like-

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:14:20):

Yes.

Lewis Howes (01:14:20):

Are you just calling each other out on your social cues?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:14:26):

Everyone's a winner on my team, they're amazing. We play music, yeah, right. Of course you can lean in sometimes, but in that first impression especially it's like, hey, good morning everyone, good to see you. So I want you to think about profile pictures, videos. I love chairs with armrests. Why? It helps our shoulders stay grounded. So that's the biggest one, is taking up space. The second thing that happens, that also gives you more vocal power. So if I were to do this entire interview with my shoulders up, it would look bizarre, I would look scared.

Lewis Howes (01:15:01):

You would be more closed off.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:15:01):

Yeah, and so if I tense my vocal chords right now I'll begin to go into vocal fry. So vocal fry, have you heard this before? It's when your voice sounds like sizzling bacon. I just don't know, I'm not sure, but I was just thinking about it, and if it's... Oh my goodness, it's horrible. And the reason why we'll accidentally go into fry is because we're literally clenching our vocal cords and they cannot get enough breath. Vocal fry, not to be gross, but vocal fry happens when our vocal chords rattle together, and that's what we're hearing, is the rattling, that's why we don't like it. And so when you have space, you prevent vocal fry.

Lewis Howes (01:15:37):

Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:15:37):

If you hear yourself in vocal fry, here's the quickest fix you have, speak louder.

Lewis Howes (01:15:43):

Right.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:15:43):

So the best way to get rid of vocal fry is to just up your volume, it will push more air through your vocal cords and it makes them hum. If other people on your team are using vocal fry, just ask them to speak up.

Lewis Howes (01:15:56):

Speak a little louder.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:15:56):

Yeah, that will usually get them out of vocal fry.

Lewis Howes (01:15:58):

Wow, okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:15:59):

Little secret. Don't don't blame it on me, but that's a really easy way to, if you're interviewing someone and they're in vocal fry and you know it's going to drive your listeners crazy, just be like, the audio, they just can't hear, could you speak a little bit louder? It will work.

Lewis Howes (01:16:11):

Now what's the difference between the humble hands on a knee, or on a table right here, does this work on a table as well?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:16:18):

Yes, yes.

Lewis Howes (01:16:19):

Versus hand over top of the other hand, which is relaxed, but also is closed body.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:16:25):

Yes.

Lewis Howes (01:16:26):

Versus two hands side by side, relaxed, not intense, but relaxed side by side, what's the difference between these two?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:16:34):

Perfect questions. So your book cover, your book cover is hand over hand, and they're relaxed.

Lewis Howes (01:16:39):

Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:16:40):

And it's a closed posture, but it works. And so it's okay to me, as long as your hands are relaxed, I don't care if they're closed or open. Now I do care about this. So when we protect our trunk, arms crossed, yes, I do care about this, and why is because when we are crossing like this, I know it's comfortable for some people, what research finds is two things, one is we look more closed off, so we never want to look closed off, but second, they found that when people are trying to be creative or strategic, they literally cannot generate as much ideas when they're like this.

Lewis Howes (01:17:12):

What's the alternative?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:17:13):

Humility hands, open posture, holding a drink, typing at a computer, taking notes.

Lewis Howes (01:17:20):

Anything else but that.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:17:21):

Anything else but that, anything else? So I love props. So the way that I don't cross my arms, because I actually like to cross.

Lewis Howes (01:17:26):

Yeah, it's kind of relaxing.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:17:28):

I know. But actually if you're thinking or processing, cross away. If you need to take a minute, take a step back, it's a great way to break. So I hold a clicker for presentations, and a pen for slides, because every time I think about crossing my arms I remember, oh, I have the clicker. When we think about getting rid of, I call them bad nonverbal habits, so ticks, so ums, crossing arms, those are all bad Nonverbal habits.

Lewis Howes (01:17:52):

Slouching.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:17:53):

Slouching, yeah, it's really hard to just say don't do that. So what I'd rather you do is replace it. Displacement tactics. Okay, so you know you cross your arms, can you hold a coffee mug? Can you hold a pen? Can you hold-

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:18:04]

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:18:03):

So you know you cross your arms. Can you hold a coffee mug? Can you hold a pen? Can you hold a clicker? Can you always have a Moleskine notebook? I have a student of mine who always has a Moleskine. He doesn't need it.

Lewis Howes (01:18:10):

He just holds it.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:18:11):

He has it, he opens it up. And he'll write the date and the meeting name and what he had for breakfast. But that's it. He literally uses it because if he doesn't, he puts his hands in his pocket or crosses his arms. And so he has it in front of him because it helps him feel very grounded and centered.

Lewis Howes (01:18:25):

It's a replacement tool.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:18:27):

It's a replacement tool. So I would think about what are some tools you can use that will help you do that.

Lewis Howes (01:18:30):

What about the finger crossing, interlaced?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:18:34):

Look at the different things, like this, when I'm white knuckling, you can see that I am tense. I'm trying to keep it together, Vanessa.

Lewis Howes (01:18:41):

But this is.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:18:42):

But this is called a steeple.

Lewis Howes (01:18:44):

The fingertip touch.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:18:44):

Oh, I love a steeple. Yeah. So a steeple is when the tips of your fingers touch in like a church steeple.

Lewis Howes (01:18:49):

It's Mr. Wonderful just does this the whole time.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:18:52):

Exactly. You will notice that when Mr. Wonderful is contemplating a deal, he'll go like this. Why? Doesn't it make you feel you're just in control. It's like, Hmm. And so this is a really good power gesture. It's one of our competence cues. That's why I have it on the cover of the book, is to show high competence because it's about getting in control. The steeple, we love it because it shows our palms, which shows we're not concealing anything.

Lewis Howes (01:19:15):

Do you want the steeple pointed at someone?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:19:17):

Either one. Any of those. Any and all. Whatever feels natural.

Lewis Howes (01:19:20):

[crosstalk 01:19:20] up here like the diamond.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:19:21):

I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't be like, hello everyone. Good morning.

Lewis Howes (01:19:25):

So here or pointed out, then it's fine?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:19:26):

Totally fine. You'll notice that Mr. Wonderful does it perfectly. He'll go like this. He'll tap it. The only thing I would be careful of is drumming fingers. That looks Mr. Burn's evil. I don't love that one. So, don't look like you're scheming. That can look a little bit crazy. But if you're like, oh yes. I'm thinking about it. Now I want to give a caveat. Please only use cues that you've tried on a few times and feel natural. There are some cues in the book where there's 96 cues in the book that I still don't like. I've tried them every which way. And I do not like them.

Lewis Howes (01:19:57):

What's the most powerful cue that you don't like, but you know is extremely effective in charisma or connection or trust or leadership?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:20:06):

Probably volume. So research shows that people who speak in louder volumes literally are taken more seriously. But that makes me a little bit uncomfortable. And so, even on stage when I'm really excited, I still don't want to be like, "Let me tell you about something very..." Oh God, that's horrible. I don't like it. But volume dynamism is a cue I teach in the book that I have trouble with.

Lewis Howes (01:20:28):

But the research shows that people are more trustworthy or more competent.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:20:32):

It is a competent cue.

Lewis Howes (01:20:33):

Because if you're soft, it's like you don't believe in your words.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:20:35):

It's actually volume dynamism. So it's being able to use your volume to match your intention. So for example, let's-

Lewis Howes (01:20:43):

So tonality and fluctuation at the right moments.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:20:45):

Yes, yes, yes. So for example, I feel a little ridiculous when I do this. This is the worst cue that I struggle with, which is like, let me tell you about something super important.

Lewis Howes (01:20:55):

Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:20:56):

I just feel ridiculous. But some people do it so well.

Lewis Howes (01:20:58):

But it works.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:20:58):

Oh, it works so well.

Lewis Howes (01:21:00):

And some of these people are so charismatic when you can get the tonality, the fluctuation, is that it is, of the tonality? They taught this to us in Toastmasters as one of the 10 initial lessons of being a competent communicator. One of the exercises is to give a five minute speech using tonality. You have to find the cues of when you pause and slow, and then you bring it up. It's like, how do you make it authentic?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:21:26):

So some people do it naturally. They're so good at it.

Lewis Howes (01:21:29):

So gifted.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:21:29):

That is not me. That's why I don't have a podcast. That's why I have a YouTube channel. On YouTube, I can use my gestures and my facial expressions. It's why I don't have a podcast. I feel I am not dynamic enough in my vocal power. And so, that's one cue that I work on. But I have a hard time being in control of my volume.

Lewis Howes (01:21:51):

Yeah. Okay. So we have these hand gestures. This is fine on the table also?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:21:53):

Yep. All good. Relaxed and good.

Lewis Howes (01:21:54):

What about hands open on the table?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:21:56):

Okay. So let's talk about palm up versus palm down. So when I was researching for the book, I was looking for, my favorite are cues hiding in plain sight. Those are my favorite. Oh, I just used it.

Lewis Howes (01:22:06):

Those are my favorite. Yeah, you did. That was very organic. It's very natural.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:22:11):

I'm really happy right now.

Lewis Howes (01:22:12):

It's like you're speaking to a girlfriend, just naturally flowing through.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:22:15):

Let me tell you this.

Lewis Howes (01:22:16):

Let me tell you a secret.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:22:17):

Okay. So that was great. That was very exciting. I feel very excited. So I love cues hiding in plain sight. And so, I had a lot of political examples, a lot of celebrity examples and Britney and Lance Armstrong. But I wanted historical examples. And so I was looking at famous paintings and I noticed The Last Supper, painted by Leonard DaVinci, has hidden cues in it. You'll notice that the way that it's positioned, Christ is positioned in the middle. So DaVinci positioned in the middle. Most people do not realize that in that picture, Christ is doing this. He has one palm up and one palm down. It's hard to see it in that.

Lewis Howes (01:22:51):

Oh yeah. His left palm is up and the right palm is down on the table, right?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:22:55):

Now. This is very interesting because most people don't look at this right away. But why? Why is he doing that?

Lewis Howes (01:23:01):

Why would he put his hand like that?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:23:02):

Why would he put his hand like that? And what do those mean? So let's look at the research. Palms open are universal gestures of openness. When we want something, what do we do? We hold open our hand.

Lewis Howes (01:23:11):

Give it to me.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:23:12):

Yeah. When we're offering something, what do we do? We hold open our hand. When we are open to suggestion, we show our palm and we have it visible. A palm down gesture is a high competence cue. It shows dominance. It shows directiveness. You might think of, I won't mention them by name, some famous dictators of the past who did palm down gestures. Why? That is a very dominant gesture. When people are giving directives, they often say, "Be quiet. Sit down. I don't want to hear from you right now." It's a very direct.

Lewis Howes (01:23:44):

Dismissive too, in a sense, right? It's kind of like.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:23:45):

Especially if you shake it at someone. So, why would we have these two cues? They perfectly balance each other out. Christ is depicted as the highest, most charismatic person in the painting. And so what does he do? He literally balances warmth and competence. He's showing the universal gesture of openness and giving, while at the same time, a universal gesture of direct authority.

Lewis Howes (01:24:07):

When was this painting made?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:24:09):

1498. So DaVinci, I think hid cues that signaled to the viewer, wow, he's charismatic. But the takeaway from this, by the way, is if you're giving a directive and you don't want it to be questioned, you're better off giving palms down. You're better off saying, "Listen, team. We've got to get this done. We've got to be efficient. We've got to be streamlined. I need you to do it for me."

Lewis Howes (01:24:31):

Just go.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:24:31):

Just go. Just do it. If you want feedback, like when I take Q&A. I'm like, "Well, what can I do? What questions can I answer? I'm giving open. That's a very, very subtle, but very powerful cue. So that's how Christ is depicted balancing. The other thing that he does is if you measure the amount of space that Christ takes up in the painting, you'll notice he takes up the most space. He literally has the most distance between his shoulder and his earlobe.

Lewis Howes (01:24:55):

Yeah, he's like this.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:24:56):

Yes, because he's tilting. So tilting is a warmth gesture. And so he's the only pictured person who is head tilt with also expansive posture. So there's all these hidden cues that I think paint this picture behind what's happening. Now, if you look at Judas. Now, if you didn't know anything about this history, Judas would be the character painted with the most intrigue. If you notice he's also holding a clenched fist. He's the only character in the picture who has a clenched fist and is distancing. He's literally turning his body away from us. And we know, we already talked about that, distancing is a danger zone cue. So here is the person who is, later, about to betray Christ. And how does DaVinci signal that? He hides cues. He shows a clenched fist which shows withholding and anger. And then he shows that he's about to lie, that he literally turns his body away.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:25:47):

The reason I show this is because I think that we don't realize there are these cues being sent to us all the time. I do a lot of breakdowns on my YouTube channel of politicians. And we don't realize, even when we look at political campaigns, in one picture, there are thousands of cues being sent to us. And we should know what's being sent to us.

Lewis Howes (01:26:05):

The thumb pinch.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:26:06):

Oh, the thumb pinch.

Lewis Howes (01:26:06):

This is Obama. Right? He did this all the time. Didn't he?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:26:08):

So here's what's funny. Obama used to be a pointer? We don't like being pointed at. So there's something about it as humans it's like, let me tell you what to do. It's kind of a better than. So I think he was coached because all of a sudden, he never pointed again. And he only used the thumb pinch. The thumb pinch is a very clever gesture because in Western cultures, this means good job, thumbs up, good job, or like me. Literally, social media, like. We see like, like, like, like. Give me a like. And so the thumb pinch is a very subtle thumbs up gesture. So every time he does it, it makes you think. First of all, he never clenches.

Lewis Howes (01:26:45):

It's relaxed.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:26:45):

It's relaxed.

Lewis Howes (01:26:47):

It's kind of like an open thumb.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:26:48):

It's an open thumb because he's saying A-okay. A-okay, like, like, like. And he is also saying, this is a point I want you to remember. It literally looks like a bullet point. I'm going to give you a point that you should remember. And Obama, I'm going to do an Obama impression. It's going to embarrass us both. Okay?

Lewis Howes (01:27:02):

It's okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:27:04):

I'm not very good at impressions, but Obama does this thing that I find so interesting. So Obama uses a downward inflection. So we talked about the question inflection, when we go up at the end of our sentences. Obama goes down at the end of his sentences. He literally slings down his words. And downward inflection, we hear, is very authoritative. So I'm going to do an Obama impression. So this is him slinging down his words. He goes, "Sasha, Malia, it's very important that what we do today is going to be remembered forever. And if we don't do those things, we are going to be in deep trouble." That's a terrible Obama impression, but you can hear what I'm saying, right?

Lewis Howes (01:27:42):

Of course.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:27:42):

He slings his words down. And that is very authoritative. So even that vocal cue makes us think, well, he knows what he's talking about.

Lewis Howes (01:27:52):

It's more authoritative, more confidence.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:27:53):

It's more authoritative. Versus if he were to say, "Sasha, Malia, I have something really important to tell you. It's really important we do this for our future." Could you imagine if he gave speeches like that? And so even that vocal inflection worked for him. And he also creates a lot of space in his mouth. He has a lot of space in the middle of part of his mouth. So he talks very deeply in his mouth. And that helps keep his resonance really low because he has his space in the back of his mouth. And that creates a lot of resonance.

Lewis Howes (01:28:23):

That's a good impression. I liked it. That was good.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:28:27):

You're not embarrassed for me. Good.

Lewis Howes (01:28:28):

No, it was great.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:28:29):

It's because he creates this low resonance point and we like it. So that downward inflection is really important.

Lewis Howes (01:28:36):

So many great cues in here. The power of the pause, or the pause for power.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:28:39):

So a mistake that I used to make is I would pause the end of my sentence before continuing onto my next sentence. And I would get interrupted. So a mistake that people will make is they'll give a thought, pause, and then keep speaking. Now pauses are quite powerful. Powerful people typically use pauses in their speech. But if you pause in between your sentences, people will interrupt you. Because they think you're done. You're actually better off using what I call a power pause. A power pause is when you pause right before you give something away.

Lewis Howes (01:29:11):

So not at the end of a sentence. In the middle of a sentence before you're going to share something.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:29:17):

Really important.

Lewis Howes (01:29:19):

So let me tell you something really important.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:29:21):

Exactly. So here's the mistake that people make is they'll say, "Something really important happened in my childhood that I want to tell you about." Pause. "It was when I was..." And people are like, should I talk to you? Should I ask another question? What should I say? It actually creates conversational confusion, which is the last thing you want. Versus, "I want to share a really important story from my childhood." That creates a lot more intrigue because a story, oh, from your childhood. And I have no desire to interrupt. So that's a very advanced tip. That's towards the end of the book. It's a very advanced tip because if you have trouble with people interrupting you, I would practice switching your pauses and think about that. What's the drama you can give?

Lewis Howes (01:30:00):

Drama. Create the drama.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:30:02):

Volume, pauses. And by the way, Obama did that very well. He would deliver a point. He would go into his resonance and he would say, "What this country needs is better systems. I'm saying nothing, but you're like, "What's better? What is it? What is the thing that we need?"

Lewis Howes (01:30:20):

Yes. It's not what you say. It's how you say it.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:30:24):

That's it. Although how you say it is important too.

Lewis Howes (01:30:25):

Oh, you need the confidence too.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:30:26):

That's the last chapter. So the last chapter I have to end on is verbal because yes, we spend a lot of the book talking about non verbal and vocal. But your words matter as we talked about with achievement oriented words. But man, if you can deliver achievement oriented words with power pausing, with a steeple, lookout. Lookout world, you're coming.

Lewis Howes (01:30:46):

That's big. I am a big believer that the most important thing we can do is learn how to heal. The different traumas are triggers from our past that get us in a reactive state when the world is happening and we become uptight, reactive. We say things we don't want to say. We regret the things we do. We act out. Whatever it might be. Healing the past memories, pain, frustrations, whatever you want to call it, I think is one of the most powerful things. The second most powerful thing we can do is learn how to master the art of communication and learn how to be comfortable in our own skin and our own voice.

Lewis Howes (01:31:20):

How to Win Friends and Influence People was a book that was extremely powerful for so many people to learn how to socially connect. And again, in life, we are either enrolling other people in us and our vision or we're un-enrolling them in us and our vision based on how we communicate, how we connect with people, whether we're trustworthy or untrustworthy. This book, and your research and studies and content has been extremely powerful for so many people, including myself. I learned a lot. And I feel like this is something I'm always studying. Because I feel like you can never learn enough of understanding the science of people.

Lewis Howes (01:31:57):

And so I, one, want people to learn how to continue to heal. It is a journey. But two, I want them to learn how to understand people. Again, if we go back to the quote that changed my early adult life, which was, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." If you can learn how to communicate that to people, it'll take you much farther. You can get by with less skills and less smarts if you understand how to be deeply empathetic and have connection skills with other people. It'll take you a long way. Eventually you got to have some competence in there and be skilled at something.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:32:30):

And of course, everyone who's watching does. We know that.

Lewis Howes (01:32:33):

You got to have skills. And I think it's always important to invest in developing new skills as well to make you more competent. But this book, your work, is extremely valuable and important. Cues, Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication, Small Signals, Incredible Impact. Vanessa van Edwards. I want everyone to get this book. I want you to buy a few copies for your friends, for the introvert friends in your life, for the socially awkward friends, for the anxious friends. Charisma is a super power.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:33:04):

It's a super power.

Lewis Howes (01:33:05):

It is a super power when used correctly. And here's the thing, if you use it incorrectly, you'll be humbled at some point in your life.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:33:11):

That's right.

Lewis Howes (01:33:12):

Eventually bad things will happen. And they'll keep happening over and over.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:33:15):

And it will drain you.

Lewis Howes (01:33:16):

Drain you. So you're going to be humbled by the world if you don't use humility with your charisma. But I'm very excited about the book. I can't wait to dive in more and go back to this interview even more. I want people to get the book. They can follow you on the website, scienceofpeople.com, which has got an amazing newsletter that I subscribe to and get a lot of wisdom from.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:33:35):

Thank you.

Lewis Howes (01:33:36):

You're always sharing new research and all this stuff in there. Scienceofpeople.com, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, @vvanedwards.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:33:44):

That's me.

Lewis Howes (01:33:45):

Everywhere on social media. Your YouTube as well, it's extremely fun to watch. You just break down all these things visually.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:33:51):

Yeah. So there was a couple things I didn't get to put in the book cause they were too visual. It was just too hard to explain it. And so if you want to just get a little taste test, I break down The Rock.

Lewis Howes (01:34:00):

Yeah, he's great.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:34:00):

Because who doesn't want to see dozens of cues from The Rock. So I break down The Rock. I do a deep dive of Britney Spears, because that was a whole book. I didn't have time to do it. I do Morgan Freeman. How does he get that vocal power? I talk about how he does it.

Lewis Howes (01:34:14):

That's cool.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:34:14):

Princess Diana, why were we so intrigued by her? And Justin Bieber.

Lewis Howes (01:34:18):

Nice.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:34:18):

So I break down some cues in there.

Lewis Howes (01:34:20):

I love it.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:34:20):

You just want a little taste test.

Lewis Howes (01:34:21):

And that's all Science of People?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:34:23):

That's on YouTube and on Science People. And we have our interview on there too. So if people want to go watch that, they can.

Lewis Howes (01:34:28):

Yes. Final two questions. Before I ask them, I want to acknowledge you, Vanessa, for constantly show up. I think introverts who felt like they grew up socially awkward, takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there to constantly be in front of a camera, to be speaking on stages, to be learning this work and then sharing your work. I think it's really challenging to do for introverts. So for the journey you've been on to try to-

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:34:51):

Healing.

Lewis Howes (01:34:51):

Healing is big too, but the journey you've had and you constantly keep showing up, and putting this work out there is really inspiring. So I acknowledge you for that.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:34:59):

Thank you.

Lewis Howes (01:35:00):

I asked you this question before, but this is called the three truth question. Imagine it's your last day on earth many years away. And for whatever reason, all of your work has to go with you to another place. So no one has access to your content. But if you could leave three lessons to the world behind, what would you say would be those three lessons for you?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:35:18):

Life is too short to fake it. Find the real warmth or the real competence or get rid of it. There are unique flavors of charisma. You don't have to be the bubbly extrovert. You can be the wise competent sage or the quiet, powerful leader, or the empathetic, compassionate healer. Those are all charismatic. There are different flavors. And lastly, your words have power. Your cues have power. Don't waste them. We can change someone's physiology with a single word. So with every word you put out there, think about how can you infect people for good?

Lewis Howes (01:35:57):

Mm. That is powerful. What's the most powerful word we can infect someone with in a positive way?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:36:04):

I think gratitude. I think every time you say thank you, I'm appreciative, I'm grateful, you're gifting them honor. And you're feeling grateful yourself. It's the only word I can think of that has a double effect both ways. So can I end on gratitude?

Lewis Howes (01:36:19):

Sure.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:36:20):

I want to thank you so much because you created a tipping point in my career, where you believed in me, listened to me wholeheartedly and you put my work out there. And people listened. And it was a total tipping point in my career. And so you made me do podcasts. You made me realize I can do them in their safe spaces, which I was a little afraid of. You made me realize that I can find my people. And I just have to speak to them. And you always say, "Yes, how can I help? Which I'm so grateful for."

Lewis Howes (01:36:49):

Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you in return. You know, it's interesting. Appreciation, the word gratitude and appreciation, right when you said that it made me reflect on my girlfriend and how I feel like every day I tell her how much I appreciate her.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:37:01):

It's beautiful.

Lewis Howes (01:37:03):

I'm so grateful for how you did this. Or just this thing you did for me, I appreciate it so much. And every time I do it, now that I reflect on it, she's always just like, it just warms her up even more.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:37:12):

Yes, because we don't often feel gratitude in our relationships. Especially, I've been married for 10 years, with my husband for 16 years. And you get very caught up in the logistics. And so, for anyone who's watching, I think we take the people we love for granted. We think about giving gifts of words to our colleagues or to our clients or to our customers. But don't forget the person you live with. Don't forget the person you care about. Don't get stuck in the logistics, where you're like, "Hey honey, take the kids." And so I think that gratitude is especially important at home. And I think the more comfortable we are, the less we are gracious, the less gratitude we have. And so I hope that 10, 20, 30 years.

Lewis Howes (01:37:50):

Yeah, that's the key. I mean, everyone in their first, I guess, year or two, you're like, "Oh, I love you so much. You're amazing."

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:37:55):

Not everyone. No, not everyone.

Lewis Howes (01:37:56):

Oh, interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:37:57):

No, not everyone. And so I would say-

Lewis Howes (01:38:00):

Even the first couple years?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:38:01):

No. I think saying that to her is a gift. And so if just your goal is that 10 years from now you can say that to her again. What a beautiful goal.

Lewis Howes (01:38:09):

Often she'd be like, "You're the most amazing man ever." And I'm like, "I don't feel like I'm doing anything. I'm just saying, 'I appreciate you.' I'm just like, man, I'm so grateful you just did this. Thank you. I really appreciate the way you said this." I don't think I'm doing something extraordinary. You know what I mean?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:38:22):

No, it's big.

Lewis Howes (01:38:23):

She's like, "You have no idea. You're the most amazing man." I'm like, "I'm not doing some grand gesture." I'm really just saying, I'm focusing on something that I really appreciate that she did every day. And I'm like, "I really appreciate the way you showed up here, here, here."

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:38:38):

And that's why I think gratitude is the most powerful word there is. Because just being appreciative of her makes her think of it as a grand gesture. Imagine that. One word of gratitude is a grand gesture. It doesn't take a boat ride down the water. It doesn't take 12 dozen roses. It's just telling someone you appreciate them. And if that's one thing you take away from this interview that you will right now text someone that you love them and you appreciate them, and thank them for being them.

Lewis Howes (01:39:03):

It's big. People remember that stuff.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:39:03):

That's a gift.

Lewis Howes (01:39:05):

People don't care much you know until they know how much you care.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:39:09):

Whoop, whoop.

Lewis Howes (01:39:09):

Final question. What's your definition of greatness?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:39:11):

I love this because this is my third time here. And I think my definition has changed over time.

Lewis Howes (01:39:17):

It's probably changed.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:39:17):

It's being in integrity. So it's going back to that important thing. Greatness is showing up as you are, how you feel and feeling free to be that way. So that you like the people in your life. You respect the people in your life. You're showing up congruent. You're showing up with lots of integrity where your cues match your words, which match your emotions. And I think that I am my greatest self when I can show up somewhere as myself and not worry about having to hide, fake or change.

Lewis Howes (01:39:44):

Vanessa, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:39:46):

Thank you. Thank for listening.

Lewis Howes (01:39:48):

What would be three questions, if you could only ask three questions to a human being to figure out if they're telling a lie or telling the truth? How would you start those three questions? What would they be?

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:39:59):

TED. T-E-D. Tell me, explain, describe. And then I would fill in the rest.

PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [01:40:06]

 

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