Confidence Classic: The Confidence Signals You’re Sending with Vanessa Van Edwards

16:45Heather Monahan:Oh, that's so interesting. And thank goodness that guy didn't sit next to me on a flight because I purposely put earbuds in my ear because I can't stand talking to people on airplanes. That would have been a wasted little airplane ride for him.

16:56Vanessa Van Edwards:I think he would have seen you as a challenge. I think he would have let it go.

17:00Heather Monahan:Meet a different guest each week.

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21:01Heather Monahan:You know what's so interesting when you were talking about, you know, the warmth and the competence and being self-aware as to which way am I leaning more and how could I potentially level that off or be more equal on the scale? This is so crazy. This is what popped into my mind immediately. Fact. I was fired four years ago for my job. I was a chief revenue officer. Everyone listening already knows this, but I'm sharing with you in case you don't know. and the woman that fired me was previously the CFO. She became the CEO. And when she became CEO, fired me immediately. That's just backstory. But she was incredibly leaning towards the confidence side, like very articulate, many awards, very much a numbers person, always rattling off numbers that blew people away in any moment in time.

21:48Heather Monahan:She had zero big egg on the warmth scale. However, and I worked with her for 14 years and woman was complete antithesis of me. And what was interesting is I remember the last two years and you'll like this, you'll tell me how the ride coached her. The last two years I worked with her, she started showing up differently. So weird, cause I knew her. Well, you know, when you know someone, you know who they really are. So I knew this is not real. This is just my opinion, but nobody else knew that was not in the C-suite with her. They didn't spend a lot of time with her. Other people would say, gosh, she seems just fantastic lately.

22:23Heather Monahan:You know, they'd be saying really positive things about her. She's really changed a lot as she's gotten older or she's become a mother or whatever reasons they would create storyline they create about her. Yeah. And I started thinking it from a standpoint that I see something very different about this person. I'm very confused. I don't know what's going on. However, I see it's landing. It's landing with the team. It's landing with people. It's working. So, you know, to your point that this can be taught and it's not ingrained from day one, you're 100 % right. I've seen it. However, it's very weird to see it happen to someone when they're not disclosing it openly to you.

22:57Heather Monahan:Like, hey, I'm working on my warmth. I'm trying to come, you know, like that would have been better for me, the kind of person I am. I would have preferred to have heard that.

23:04Vanessa Van Edwards:So that's exactly right. I think that as you begin to change your cues, I mean, you're kind of doing a body language makeover in a sense. By the way, body language is only a half, but we also can talk about imagery and verbal and colors. I think it's so important to broadcast this, right? to say, you know, sometimes I can come across a little cold. You know, I got in my last feedback review or my team told me I was a little bit intimidating. That's not okay with me. It's really important to me that you feel safe, that you feel connected. So starting at the beginning of the year, beginning of the month, I'm going to be working on my warmth, my openness.

23:37Vanessa Van Edwards:I want your feedback. I would love to hear from you, but I'm going to really try dial up because I want you to feel good. That is so powerful because two things happen. One is it has you state your goal, gives you permission to reset, right? Like sometimes we need a presence reset. Like sometimes we just know that we're like a funk with someone or like we've had some difficult relationships and we need a reset. So that sort of is a soft reset, a soft restart on the button. The second thing is verbal. So some fascinating science that we don't realize is the words that we use change people's perceptions of us as well as their actions and behavior.

24:11Vanessa Van Edwards:So for example, in one study, I love this study. I think this is like mind blowing. Are you ready? I literally read it three times and I was like, how? Okay, a researcher named Brian Wansing told participants to come into his lab and eat a bowl of yogurt. The catch was, is it was all in the dark. So they come into the lab, it's completely dark. He hands him a bowl of yogurt. He has them eat the yogurt and he says, would you please rate the yogurt on its strawberry flavor? So imagine for a second, you're in the dark, you're eating a bowl of yogurt and you're trying to decide how strawberry is this flavor.

24:41Vanessa Van Edwards:59 % of participants rated the yogurt as having a nice strawberry flavor. But there was a second trick. there always is, the yogurt was actually chocolate. Strawberry and chocolate taste totally different. It wasn't like strawberry and raspberry. What happened was, and this is one of many experiments that shows the power of our verbal priming. When Brian Wansink asked Percephance to look for the flavor of strawberry and search the flavor of strawberry, the brain heard strawberry, the mouth tasted strawberry, and then therefore they felt that it was very strawberry. We are constantly telling people what yogurt they're eating.

25:15In other words, we say, hey team, this is

25:19Vanessa Van Edwards:how every team call starts. Hey everyone, we have some company updates to go over and I'll review everything. Let's wait for people to get on and we'll just get started in a few. You're basically telling people, go to sleep. This meeting is going to be like every other meeting you've been to, the tone of voice I use. And also I used words that didn't mean anything, right? I said, let's hop on a call, let's review, we'll get started in a few. What research has found is that when people hear words like collaborate, their brain actually begins to prepare to collaborate in their prefrontal cortex, and they are more likely to be collaborative.

25:56Vanessa Van Edwards:So if you tell people, you know what, it's so important to me that you feel connected, that you feel that you can trust me, that you feel that we could be open. So I am working on a little presence reset. I'm going to work on my collaboration. I'm going to work on my trust and openness. I want you to feel safe to tell me anything. Just telling people those words changes how their brain is working. You are actually setting them up to be more open, trusting, warm, and connected with you, which is incredible. I think we throw away these verbal opportunities.

26:24Heather Monahan:Yeah, that's mind-blowing. It makes perfect sense, and I'm a big fan of we're teaching people how to treat us, you know, our word choices, you know, we are showing people how to respect us or not respect us either way, which is, you know, perfect sense, but wow, that's incredibly powerful. And what a great hack you just gave everyone to

26:45Vanessa Van Edwards:use. To make it even more practical. So I think this makes sense to us, right? Like intuitively, a lot of these cues were like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Here's a really practical way to think about it. I want you to do an email audit. I want you to open up your sent email folder, and I want you to open five important emails that you've sent out in the last few days. So important emails to whoever, your colleagues, teams, customers. And I want you to look at the first 10 words that you used, what we don't realize is that we are throwing away our words with words that don't mean anything, or we're jumping right into agenda, which is okay when we're rushed, but you're actually taking away cues that people need to be successful.

27:21Vanessa Van Edwards:And here's the kicker. In your email audits and those important emails, I want you to count how many warm words you're using and how many competent words you're using. We found in our lab, We can predict exactly where people fall on the charisma scale based on the email audit I just asked you to do. So we can see, based on their emails, exactly how their colleagues would rate them. And that is because we are constantly looking for these warmth and confidence cues. So if you open up an email, highly competent words trigger productivity and efficiency. Highly warm words trigger trust and collaboration.

27:55Vanessa Van Edwards:And by the way, exclamation points are highly warm. Emojis are highly warm. Of course they are. Right. So we have people who will say to us, you know, Vanessa, I don't know why people are not taking me seriously. I don't know why I can't raise my rates. I don't know why that I can't charge people more. I don't know why people feel like they are always showing up late. They're not responding to emails. We open up their email and I'll count 15 warm words and one competent word. Hey girl! Exclamation point. It was so fun hanging out last night. Fun. Hang out. I would love to collaborate on this new project coming up.

28:29Vanessa Van Edwards:If you can get back to me, it would be so wonderful. So wonderful. exclamation point, smiley face. So we're already at like eight words and it's a very, very warm email, but it does not trigger the competent part of our brain that goes, I should get back to her. I want to pay her rate. I want to make sure that I take her seriously. So the next push is, okay, you do that email audit. I want you to see, is it warm or competent or nothing at all, right? So it'll either be totally sterile. So no warmer competent words or one or the other. And then how can you purposefully add verbal cues that set you up for success so that the important emails, not every email, no one has time for that, but in the important emails, you have a perfect balance of warmth and competence.

29:08Vanessa Van Edwards:In my slide decks, my presentations on our website, even on my Instagram, for every warm photo, I have a competent photo. For every competent photo, I have a warm photo because we saw our engagement shot up when we were hitting that balance.

29:22Heather Monahan:That's unbelievable, but yet makes perfect sense. And of course I'm thinking of myself and I, I just recently won a big recognition about speaking. And so I purposely and intentionally reached out to all my past clients, people who are pending in the queue, you know, just to like try to push people over. And I'm thinking of the email and I, because I didn't want to come across to I'm the greatest thing in the entire world. I definitely went way more warm, warm, warm exclamation point, And I'll tell you, Vanessa, I did not get anywhere near the kind of responses I thought I would get back. And now I'm thinking I don't think I was competent enough in the email.

29:58Vanessa Van Edwards:Yep, exactly. And I think that you just made the classic mistake that smart people make is we don't know how to be purposeful. When we talk about confidence, right? Like confidence is so important. I think confidence comes from purpose. I think that if you know you have an important email to send out with a really great announcement, you are confident. The cues that you're using in that email are going to get you the kind of response you want. I think that that's where confidence comes from. I joke that I'm a recovering awkward person. I get very socially anxious. I always doubt myself. I used to doubt the kind of emails I wrote.

30:32Vanessa Van Edwards:I used to doubt the way that I stood, what I did with my hands. Learning cues gave me a confidence in, I know exactly what I have to do. Warmth and competence, balance it out, warmth and competence. And that's been my backdoor into confidence. So the reason I share this is when you're sitting down to write an important email where your heart is like, you know, those emails where you're just like, oh, like you're pitter pattering. You're asking for that raise or you're checking on your boss or you're sending that email with boundaries. I want to take that anxiety way by saying all you have to do is get warm and confidence.

31:01Vanessa Van Edwards:That's it. If you can balance it out, it's going to be more effective email. And so I'm hoping that we can take down some anxiety and get confidence in a different way.

31:09Heather Monahan:So tell me a little bit about your new book, Q's, and how people are going to feel after they read the book to apply some of the stuff back to their life.

31:17Vanessa Van Edwards:Yes. So I'm hoping this is going to give everyone a sort of social blueprint, right? I think that we have all these goals in our life, and a lot of the times they're, you know, career goals or family goals. And then when it comes to like the actual action steps behind those, especially the social action steps, let's say that one of your goals, what's a common goal for some of your listeners that I can like play with? Two or three common ones.

31:38Heather Monahan:a common goal. A lot of people want to leave their day job. They're not happy with their day job and they want to make a leap.

31:44Vanessa Van Edwards:Okay. So let's say that you want to leave your day job and that requires doing informational interviews with influencers. And that requires setting up some side hustle things by maybe getting a partner. You could break that into tactical things, right? You could say, okay, I have to, you know, figure out how much inventory is. I have to do a marketing plan. I have to do a revenue sheet, but there's also a lot of soft skills involved in that. For example, how can you leave your job on a high so that you can leave on good, on good terms with your boss? That requires a lot of really good, powerful connecting and conversations in three or four months leading up to your quitting.

32:19Vanessa Van Edwards:If you want to reach out to a new partner, how do you make sure that they want to work with you? So yes, it's about setting up the coffee meeting, but it's also, okay, if I want this new partner to take me seriously, I want them to respect me. I have to make sure that I have a warm and competent opener. It's like, how do you even open the email to them? Once you actually get them at the coffee date, what kind of questions should you be asking that hit that balance of warmth and competence? So for example, a lot of people will start a coffee date to bond with, so how's it been going? Man, those numbers, right?

32:48Vanessa Van Edwards:Those COVID numbers, they are rough. And you end up on this like awkward downward spiral. And all of a sudden, you're like, well, the reason I wanted to talk to you today is, and you haven't built up any of this rapport yet. So one of the things that I want you to think about is how can you use these skills to build rapport with people that actually work with you. So for example, in conversation, warm, competent conversation starters are things like, instead of how are you, in fact, try never to ask how are you, instead of ask, working on anything exciting these days, that's like my secret conversation starter because it's both warm and competent.

33:22Vanessa Van Edwards:Working, so productive people, exciting, warm, trustworthy, fun. So working on anything exciting these days, you'll actually see people be like, oh, huh, you know, I am working on something exciting. So you're actually beginning to, from the very start of the conversation, those first 10 words of your opener are beginning to open their minds to trying something a little bit different. Not just how are you, you know, how's it been, have you been busy, but trying something a little bit different.

33:49Heather Monahan:Meet a different guest each week.

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38:24Vanessa Van Edwards:I think they're hidden opportunities, right? Like when my team and I were thinking about how to reach out. So I'm so happy that that reach out worked a lot, this hidden language. The other aspect of that is that there's all these opportunities that are just waiting for us. What an amazing missed opportunity to just instead of saying, how are you or how's it been going or how's the fam, but just slightly change it to working on anything exciting. It was the highlight of your week. So what have your goals been this year? Those are the questions that begin to deepen and make you more memorable and make you talk about things that are more women confident.

38:57Vanessa Van Edwards:Those are the opportunities that are like easy to grab once we know how to grab them.

39:00Heather Monahan:Gosh, I love that. And I'm totally going to rip and run with, I've been taking notes the whole time that we're sitting here talking. So to me, you're bringing me a lot of value. That's what I want you to know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, I know you talked about there's more two cues than just a word choice. For example, where you sit in a meeting, there's actually better decisions to be made there?

39:22Vanessa Van Edwards:Yes. So we don't realize that there's cues in so many aspects. So obviously we talked about body language, the lip purse. We talked a lot about verbal kind of our openers. There's also, you know, spatial cues, relational cues. There's vocal cues you could talk about. I love the seating ones. So I was looking at the rules of space. So across cultures and genders and races, we have rules of space. So when we're closer with someone, we like someone, we want to get closer. And what researchers found that there's actually four different space zones. Those are the personal zone, the intimate zone, the social zone, and the public zone.

39:54What happens in our interactions is we're not aware that we're doing these, we're subconsciously

39:58Vanessa Van Edwards:going through them, but we know, have you ever talked to a close talker where someone gets really close to your face. I don't like that. Right. We don't like it because that person has gone into our intimate zone too quickly. So what I realized was that when we're sitting around a boardroom table or a conference table, your spatial choice, there's actually research that's done on this, makes a huge difference for your effectiveness. And that depends on your goals in the meeting. So if you have a goal in a presentation or a meeting where you want to be on the bosses or the VIP or the decision maker is front of mind, you actually want to be in their direct eye line, their direct sight eye line.

40:34Vanessa Van Edwards:Being the closest to them will help you whisper or talk to them. But if you want to be front of mind or top of mind, you're actually better off picking seats that are in their direct line of sight. They also found that the seat that faces the door actually typically is the power player seat. And that's because they can get everyone's first impression as they walk into a room. So if you want to be the power player, you might consider taking the seat that faces the door or that sees the door. So there's all kinds of really interesting rules that we can think about, you know, when choosing our seat again, it's just an opportunity that we get, right?

41:05Vanessa Van Edwards:It's like one that we haven't noticed our whole life, but actually it's just waiting for us to pick up and try.

41:10Heather Monahan:I always thought, you know, if I was with my old boss and I wanted to be, you know, I wanted my agenda to win in the end, I would sit right next to him. I never thought sit across from the table. So he has to look at you the entire time. And that never crossed my mind. Yeah.

41:23Vanessa Van Edwards:And that's a goal alignment, right? Like a lot of these cues, it's like, okay, what are your goals? Is your goals to be coming across as competent and efficient and capable? You have to get stuff done today. Okay. Competent. Dial up the competence. Is your goal all about collaboration, trust, connections, less about getting things done? Okay. Dial up the warm. Is your goal in a meeting to really get in with the decision maker? Sit across from them. Is your goal to not be seen and to let someone else take the stage? So on the side, is your goal to be whispering in their ear occasionally, but not be in front of mind?

41:52Vanessa Van Edwards:Sit right next to them. right? Like there's no right or wrong cue. It's all based on your goals. Wow. Yeah.

41:58Heather Monahan:That's really, really powerful. So I have to selfishly ask a question. So I've been told that, which I can't believe because I don't see myself like this. And I'm sure you must hear this from a lot of people that you deal with and research you do. I've been told I can be very intimidating in a meeting or in a presentation. And I don't see my, I think I'm the biggest knucklehead out there and I'm hilarious and that I should be dialing up on the competent insight. You know, that's just my opinion. However, I get feedback sometimes from people who I know are trying to help me give me this feedback.

42:26Heather Monahan:What suggestions do you make to someone like that who doesn't really see themselves as having that problem?

42:32Vanessa Van Edwards:Oh man, I would say that you're in the boat with most people. What's crazy about that research that I brought up from 2002 that's been repeated by a number of different academic institutions is that while warmth and competence makes up 82 % of our judgments of people. So a huge majority of our judgments of people. Most of us are terrible at assessing our own warmth and competence. I bet. We are terrible at assessing it. So here's the first thing is I have a free little quiz you can take to assess your warmth and competence. It's sciencepeople.com slash charisma. It's free. It's up to take as many times as you want because of this exact problem.

43:08Vanessa Van Edwards:It's hard to step back and say, well, I think I come across as friendly, likable, but I don't know. So first of all, when you take the quiz, here's the harder one. I want you to send that quiz to a colleague, a partner, and someone important to you and ask them to take it as you. Wow. I bet that is very telling. It's horrifying and very telling and extremely helpful because A, first you start with yours. Okay, great. I took this. It's 10 questions. It's very simple. You take it. You're like, great. I see that. How I see myself is highly warm. You send it to a colleague, a friend, and a VIP, and you get to see how they see you, which is incredibly helpful to know how accurate am I and how I'm coming across.

43:52Vanessa Van Edwards:I think I'm coming across one way, but I actually want to come across a different way. And it also might be different based on family versus colleagues. And that's good, right? Like, we want to be warmer with our family. I want to be with my toddler. I'm very warm with her, right? I don't need to be competent until I'm telling her the rules. And I, as a parent, use these specifically with my daughter and my family. When I need her to be safe, when I need her to listen to the rules, I am highly competent. And she knows. She knows when mom was competent, right? She knows when I mean what I mean.

44:21Vanessa Van Edwards:But every other time, I'm warm.

44:23Heather Monahan:And so if you wanted her to see you, you're trying to get her direction, you're thinking about the inflection of your voice, the way you're standing, and your word choice.

44:31Vanessa Van Edwards:And my eye contact and my gestures. For example, for competence, volume is a word we talk about in the whole vocal section of the book. Volume is a really important part of our power. Most people think that, oh, I just have to be louder to be heard. Actually, that's not true. So when I want to be competent with my daughter, I speak really low. And I say, Sienna, it's not okay for you to do that. That is not okay. What we need to do instead, if we need to pack up our bags, I'll need to go home. Okay? But like that is much more serious than I would say lower volume. So even using our volume, using our vocal inflection, another example is so a warm inflection is when we go up at the end of our sentences.

45:13Vanessa Van Edwards:So if I were to say, my name is Vanessa. My name is Vanessa. I go up at the end of my sentence. That is a highly warm introduction. And I can usually predict by just listening to how someone says hello in their voicemail if they're more competent. So a highly warm voicemail sounds like this. Hi, this is Vanessa. I can't get back to you. Leave a message after the tone. right it drives me crazy but so many people do that okay so that those people and go listen to your voicemail are usually highly warm and i can predict usually they're highly warm highly competent folks use a different inflection they use the downward inflection actually if you want to hear a really good downward inflection former president barack obama would sling his words down that's a downward inflection it's very high incompetence so downward inflection would sound like this hi i'm vanessa i'm not here right now they have a message after the beep so i go down in my sentences that is very highly competent so even the way they use your inflection to your children on your voicemail at the start of a meeting.

46:04Vanessa Van Edwards:If you're at the start of a meeting and you say, hey, everyone, I just want to get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. If people are not going to listen, it's going to be because it's not confident. If you say, everyone, let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. You're like, whoa, it's serious, right? So even I'm the same person and both sound like me, but very different kinds of meaning. Very different kinds of meaning.

46:29Heather Monahan:And you can utilize either one strategically based upon the environment that you're in.

46:34Vanessa Van Edwards:100%. I want you in control. I think confidence comes from control and purpose. So I want you to know exactly what cues you're sending. I don't want you to have any more accidental inflection. And I don't want you to give away any more opportunities.

46:47Heather Monahan:This book is brilliant. Your work is brilliant. Tell us, where can everyone find cues and how can everyone find you?

46:53Vanessa Van Edwards:Oh, first of all, thank you. That's so kind. Cues is available wherever books are sold. It's also already picked up internationally. So Amazon, your local bookstore. And I also read the Audible book. If you want to hear me do the inflections and the whole vocal chapter that took a while on Audible, I do the whole Audible book as well. Oh my gosh. And tell us about your website that everybody can go to for the quiz. Oh yes, of course. So scienceofpeople.com. So if you want to take the free charisma quiz as many times as you want, it's scienceofpeople.com slash charisma. If you also want to check out some of these phrases, the words I used, you can go to the words I used.

47:26Vanessa Van Edwards:You can go to scienceofpeople.com slash podcast and download. We have 20 trust warmth phrases and 20 competent phrases. If you're like, I just don't know how to do this, that will help you with your email audit.

47:38Heather Monahan:This is unbelievable. So unique. Love the work you're doing, Vanessa. Thank you so much for being here today.

47:43Vanessa Van Edwards:Oh, thank you so much for having me. Thanks everyone for listening and go be warm and competent. Be your best self.

47:50Heather Monahan:Absolutely guys. Until next week, keep creating confidence. And if I was you, I would grab cues on the hurry. Till next week. See you then.