Body Language Expert: The #1 Habit That Makes You Unforgettable | Vanessa Van Edwards

19:29Dr. Michael Gervais:You know what? You know what's happening in my head? Yes. Let's do that. But what's happening in my head is like, I want to get to the meat of your asset. Like you have so much to offer about how to help people feel at home with themselves by these. So I want to make sure that we stay connected to that because I feel like I could have this part of the conversation be super stimulating for us. But then there's also all these gifts that you have. I actually don't want to leave it. I don't want to leave it. Actually. So when we talk about the big five, we talk about extroversion. I think that if I'm going to help someone feel like the best version of themselves and feel at home with themselves, knowing where you are in the extroversion scale is actually very important.

20:04I clarify that I'm a medium extrovert, which means wherever you are, it's okay. I don't think you have to change who you are, but you have to know who and what triggers your draining of your social battery. Very easy, right? That's that trait. Neuroticism is one that I think we don't think about enough, and it's very tied to luck. It's very tied to luck.

20:22Dr. Michael Gervais:I did not know this. Yes. So high neurotics typically have less optimism, and I think they're less lucky, typically. And the reason for this, there's a chemical explanation for this. And I read this research and it was like, it gave me the chills when I read it because I was like, this is me. So if you're a high neurotic, hello, friend, welcome to the show. If you're a high neurotic, you, like me, experience negative things more strongly, which has a very important biological effect in your body. This means that, for example, high neurotics, we see neutral faces as negative, like we misinterpret facial expressions, which is actually what got me into this work originally, is I would leave a party and say to my husband, is everyone mad at me?

21:02And he would be like, no, I don't think so. Because I would misinterpret neutral expressions as negative. Why? High neurotics carry a special version of the serotonin transporter gene, which means that we produce less serotonin more slowly. Right? So if I experience something bad, let's say even not bad, let's say that we almost get into a car accident. Almost. We don't actually get into the accident. And I have that feeling of like, oh, phew. A non-neurotic produces serotonin and begins to feel like, Well, that was a close one. And then you forget about it. Not a high neurotic. A high neurotic, we are like a little jittery the whole rest of the day.

21:41Because our body didn't tell us you're okay. Right? And so the whole day we're like jumping when someone opens the door. We respond negatively to an email. I snap at my daughter for asking for another snack. You know what I mean? Because my body has not recovered chemically. So the reason we worry, the reason we feel unlucky is because when a bad thing happens to us, it feels worse. It literally feels worse for us. So of course we're going to worry.

22:11Dr. Michael Gervais:You're describing this idea that the way you experience experience is likely heavily induced by previous experience and the interpretations of the past experiences. And not even these. That's right. I want to be very clear. When you say these, you mean? Sorry, not even your mind, your brain. I think that we sometimes get very meta and we get hard on ourselves. Like I will sometimes worry and then worry that I'm worrying and then worry that I'm a worrier. This is a very bad experience mindset-wise. So what I'm saying is give yourself a break, neurotics, which is, yes, you might have a worry or a bad feeling, but your body is also in the heart in charge of that.

22:52It's not producing enough of the right chemicals for you. And so your brain is left just like, oh.

22:57Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah. This is why earlier you described it's more of an interactionist loop, right? That there's both the brain and the mind are looping, you know, around each other and all things. So that's great. So you just embodied the neuroticism. Very much. You understand it. And there is a bias for people that have been through something heavy. Yeah. Let's call it, we could say big T trauma or little T trauma. They've been through something really heavy. that's one way to enter into neuroticism because you're, it's the wrong diagnosis term. Post traumatic stress disorder is, it's really a re avoidance.

23:33Dr. Michael Gervais:You're trying to avoid re traumatization. Like that's really what's happening. And so. Okay. So this is it. This is why I'm a recovering awkward person and why other. So when I came out as an awkward person, right? For many years, I tried to hide it and that did not work. It felt inauthentic. It was exhausting. And I think Like it just wasn't relatable because I was pretending to try to be extroverted when I'm not extroverted. When I was like, hey, guys, I'm actually super awkward and this video is hard and I'm, you know, wish I could just be at home all day. Right. Like when I started sharing that, hundreds of thousands of people told me I'm also a recovering awkward person.

24:08So if you're a recovering awkward person, it might be that you have set up your life and your social life and your work life in prevention of the bad thing that happened to you at the eighth grade dance. and literally when I talk to you about our life chapters, I will find the spot, the interaction in their life where they decided, I will never have this happen to me again. So therefore, I'm not going to try to make new friends. I'm going to isolate. I'm going to be whippet smart. A lot of my recovering awkward people, they had one bad experience or bad moment in their life socially, which told them, I don't get along with people.

24:45I can't get along with people. So I better double down on my test scores, my book smarts. I better be really technical. I better be really good at my job. So I don't need anyone.

24:55Dr. Michael Gervais:It's actually one of the, let's call it five emblems of people that go through heavy experiences in childhood. So if mom or dad are alcoholics, or there's some stuff, it would make sense that a young mind would say, I'm going to be a high performer. See me that way. I'm going to be an angel. That's it. I'm going to be the jokester. I'm going to be the rebel. And so what you're pointing to is one of the more favorable, you know, like see me as competent and smart. See me as being a high performer in whatever. But don't really look at the mess. Just see the cleanliness and the metallic nature of my performance.

25:31Dr. Michael Gervais:And until you do the deep work to free yourself from that, it's likely that you're adopting something that was to avoid re-traumatization as opposed to the freedom that can come from just being. A natural orientation. Yeah. Did you say natural orientation? Yes. Yeah. That's really nice. I think that, or, or we take the outside approach in. So you just gave an inside approach, an inside to outside approach. Okay. Here we go. Okay. So like, like, yes, you can, you can do the deep work and I've done the deep work and it's great. And I love when people do it and they realize, ah, this was a trigger from that really bad chapter.

26:04And I'm going to, you know, rework this or, or we can do social exposure therapy. Social exposure. Yeah. Or we can say, all right, you had one bad experience in college or even at work, right? And that taught you that you're not good with people. And it's the worst thing in the world. If I get down with them, it's the worst thing in the world to be awkward. It's the worst thing in the world to be not accepted, not liked. So then I'm like, let's do some rejection therapy. Let's go out and you're going to get rejected. So there's an experiment that I encourage everyone to do, which is the say hey experiment.

26:41And all you do all day long, and I want you to literally go out to malls, go out in your office, and in your office especially, and be like, hey, hey. Because you are going to, in a hundred times in a row, be the first liker, the first initiator, which is one of the hardest things. But once you do it, you just break that seal. Second, you're going to get people who go to you. And they're going to make a bad face. And they're going to act like you're weird. And you're going to feel it. You're going to be like, oh, that was awkward. But you know what? You survived it. It's all right. And then you're going to get one person out of five that goes, hey.

27:17And now we're winning. And now we're winning. Yeah, that's so fun. And so that's just one social exposure experiment. But I say, look, I'm not a therapist or a psychologist. I have no training. But I am an experimenter. And I think everyone should be an experimenter. So if you can do little experiments in your life, this is outside in a little bit, but we're also doing some inside stuff too, which is let's just see how bad it feels. But let's also see how good it feels.

27:43Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah. So that framing is material. There's really good research on that exposure approach is purposely put yourself in an awkward situation and then survive it. And then you put yourself in another awkward situation and you go, oh, I don't have to just survive it. I can actually kind of be okay with it. And maybe, just maybe, for my awkward folks, we could like dig into the awkwardness. We can like go even deeper into the awkwardness and feel that like sometimes it can be good to be a little awkward. And the story I tell my students, which I'll share with yours, is I was invited to a very cool party.

28:14And like I'm not very cool and I do not like cool things. Like I don't like a rooftop bar. I don't go to nightclubs. Like when the conference ends and everyone goes to happy hour, I go to the bathtub. You know, like that's like more my vibe. so like i like learning experience environments like i don't like cool things i don't like cool people make me a little nervous right like you can see my trauma was like cool people like the cool girl was this high school totally yeah okay yeah and college and college oh college

28:39Dr. Michael Gervais:was hard college was so hard what did you do to cope did you become a high performer you triple majored yeah in what were they in mandarin the hardest the hardest one i could pick Like, I literally picked the hardest major I could so that I could not go out. Yeah. So aren't we clever? So clever. And my parents were so happy. And my parents were so happy. It's a conspiracy. The whole system was working. I was like, wow, I should just study more. Yeah. Your whole system was working. And so this is what I was talking about. The insight story. Yeah, there we go. Right. Thank you. Is you can show up as a little awkward, right?

29:16Like, I actually think that's a good thing to be. Like I can be myself here because if I make a mistake or I'm awkward, I think that you would forgive me. Like I hope you'd forgive me. So here's an example of that is I was invited to a very, very cool party in Austin. As I mentioned, I do not like cool things. I don't like cool people. I hide from cool people. And I show up to like a literal mansion. It's like a literal mansion. And I'm like, it's like I walk in, right? And I'm just like regretting. I'm like, I shouldn't be watching Netflix right now. Like I'm having an intimate dinner with my friends.

29:46And I walk in and I already can recognize people. Like I already recognize people from like the cover of Time magazine and like very important people. And like within three minutes, like before I've even gotten my drink, they say, I want everyone to stand in a circle and we're going to go around and we're going to introduce ourselves. And I want you to say who you are, what you do, and your most successful achievement. And I'm just regretting my life at this point, you know, wondering if I can take off my heels. You know what I mean? just wondering if I can just like moonwalk into the bathroom, you know, for 30 minutes.

30:21So we like get in the circle and -

30:23Dr. Michael Gervais:Before you go, how is your, how do you express that? Does your heart pound? Does your body shake? Do you sweat? Nausea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm like prone to nausea. Like I threw up all my pregnancies, you know what I mean? Like I'm just like prone to, so it's just like nausea. Got it. Which I also think is where you produce serotonin. So I've often wondered if like I have something wrong in my stomach. Oh, that's interesting. I wonder because I'm just really prone to nausea. Anyway, for another day. No one wants to hear about my gosh. Okay. So we get in the circle and I'm like maybe fourth or fifth, sixth in the line.

30:54And the first person says something like, I'm a billionaire. And my most successful achievement is I invented the internet. I'm like, the next person goes and they're like, I cure cancer. And my most successful achievement is I save hundreds of thousands of lives. It's just like, it's getting worse. I'm just like, it's just like getting to me. And in that moment, I had a choice. I do know the cues of power. I do know the cues of confidence. And I could have, in that 30-second introduction, shown up as really confident, robotic, used all those cues. But I was like, it's not real. It's not real.

31:33And if it works, it will only work for this introduction. It's not going to last. And also, I don't want to. I'd rather just be me. So I said, it's really important. And then I'm like, I'm Vanessa and I'm an awkward person. And the whole circle laughed. And I said, my biggest, I wrote some books about confidence and awkwardness, but my biggest achievement is being able to do this introduction after those introductions. That's what I said. And everyone laughed. And that's all I said. That is all I said, that I wrote a couple books on confidence. Every single person, mostly after me, were like, I'm also an awkward person.

32:11So it immediately gave permission for everyone else to say they were like a little awkward. Someone said, I think that they were like a slow talker. And it's like, so people like it kind of gave permission. And then afterwards, most people came to talk to me, not the billionaire, not like the cancer curer, because they were, I think, feeling safe. You became the epitome of honesty. It's just safe. Yeah, that's right. Like not the most confident person in the room. Definitely not the most powerful person in the room. Not the richest person in the room. Not the most impressive person in the room.

32:39They didn't have to impress you.

32:41Dr. Michael Gervais:And you didn't have to impress them so they could have a real honest conversation. So I share this because I think there's like this wanting to be the most confident, the most powerful presence, you know. But that actually is not what most social situations call for if you're not that. If you are that, you own it. You know, you be that alpha. I love it. I'll teach you those cues. And if you can rock those alpha cues, I love it. But most of us are not that. And most situations don't call for that. So you're better off like digging into whatever you are. And that could be awkward. It could be, you know, shy.

33:19It could be quiet. Like it's okay to be those things.

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35:39Dr. Michael Gervais:It's a great natural time to step into growth, to refocus, to recommit to who you want to become. And this discount will not be around for long. So go to findingmastery.com slash course code renew100 for$100 off today because your future is not shaped by what you intend. It's shaped by what you train. I want to hit two things. One is surfacy and one's much more material. My son is in high school right now. He's 17. And I wanted, when I was reading your book, I wanted him to read it. Yes. Yeah. And it's just, there's so many good gems in it. The thing that I want to say about high school and maybe college is that your job is to be awkward.

36:23Dr. Michael Gervais:But if you put, this is what I tell them all the time. Yeah. No, I tell them this all the time. I'll tell you why. is because if you go to a social setting, you're going to feel awkward. It's okay. But if you start drinking or doing drugs or being some other version, if you're doing something to numb that anxiousness, cortical arousal, that you don't get the reps or the required reps to be awkward. And then you can go on in your life and like once you are in an awkward setting, if you've trained during high school and college, like you know how to do it. And I'm not trying to be a Puritan. I'm just saying get reps at being awkward when you're kind of naked to the experience.

37:01Dr. Michael Gervais:Then you figure out how to take care of yourself. But alcohol won't do it. Agreed. I also think for my young folk, and by the way, that's a very common thing. I'll have a parent or an auntie or uncle read my books and then give it to younger people. It sort of tricks you into, you know what I mean? It seems casual, but then like we're actually really talking about same stuff. I also have noticed that I'm a little, the self-care movement, I like it, but I'm a little nervous because I have noticed, you know, I have boomers, Xers, millennials, Gen Z and alpha students, and they're very different, very different.

37:36And I've noticed that with my Gen Z and alpha students, and I'm gonna generalize, this is not for everyone, but there's this empowerment around being gentle with yourself. And I love that idea, but it can be an excuse to not do the reps. And so I'll have students where I'll say, okay, here's the conversation starter I want you to use today, which is a very tricky way for me to get you to go out and talk to people. I'm like, I wanted to go try this question. Hey. Oh, no, this is not hey. No, this is different. This is what's next. Okay. So the hey experience, hey, say hey is first. Step one. Step one.

38:08And then step two is what's your first question? And it needs to break social autopilot. You need to be in the habit of breaking social autopilot. Do not ask, how are you? What's up? How's it going? Nope, social autopilot. Do not ask, where are you from? What do you do? Nope, social autopilot. So we practice breaking social autopilot. Okay. is they say, oh, you know, I don't want to put myself in a situation where I would be uncomfortable. You know, I'm trying to be kind to myself. And this is a tricky one because I do want you to be kind to yourself. Of course, I want you to be kind and gentle to yourself.

38:36But then how do we find a line between pushing yourself to feel that cortisol adrenaline response when someone isn't right? So just as a side tangent, I think that that's something that we're fighting with. Yeah, that's good.

38:49Dr. Michael Gervais:The way I oversimplify the framing between we need all the right support mechanisms and we need all the right challenge mechanisms. So you can support yourself and challenge yourself. Others can you can support others and challenge them. And the ordering of that is material support first, then challenge. So like just throwing someone in the deep end. Without a tool. Yeah, right. I want to go out with a question. criticality. Yeah. The other thing is that you're the embodiment of an exuberance for life, for curiosity. Like you feel like you're really at home with yourself here. And it's really refreshing because I think you've not only just applied it, but you are masterful with your inner life.

39:33Dr. Michael Gervais:And I think that that's the, if you will, the hero's journey is that you can be super awkward or whatever, when you do the internal work. And unless you're performing for me here, which I don't get any sense of. This is an area, a zone of confidence for me, but not everywhere is. Like if you met me in a different setting, I might not feel that way because I'm not in my zone of confidence. What do you say to yourself to be in a zone? I have to use tools. I have to use tools. Like the backdoor for confidence for me and what I say to my introverts or my awkward folks is, okay, you don't have to manufacture confidence, But what we can do is I can give you a very specific blueprint for the interaction that you're going to have.

40:11So go in lack of confidence, go in awkward, go in scared. But here's what I want you to say, do, do with your body, do with your gestures. And here's the kind of conversation that we're going to pre-plan to talk about.

40:21Dr. Michael Gervais:Great. Because that will kind of backdoor to confidence. It's backdoing it. Yeah. So you're doing a bottom up approach? A little bit. Yeah. So from a body kind of sense of competence to be able to settle down so that your mind can be more clear. Right. Or I'm like, stop focusing on yourself. It's a very selfish place to be. Yeah, right. When you're going to interaction, if someone's like in that loop, especially my unlucky folks, I'm like, okay, stop focusing on yourself. All I want you to do in this conversation is here's your blueprint. Here's what you're going to do with your gestures and your hands and your face and your body.

40:55Here are the kinds of questions we pre-planned to talk about. then all I want you to do is focus on how to put the other person at ease. That's it. How could you put the other person at ease?

41:04Dr. Michael Gervais:It's interesting because that's what an alpha horse would do. That's what an alpha dog would do. So when the alpha, the one that's kind of the strongest of the pack, when they come around, the others go, oh, I can settle in. I don't have to be something special. So if you fit, in other words, no one needs to be the alpha. What I'm suggesting is when you're really at home with yourself, you are in return able to settle other people down because we are constantly trying to see is she dangerous right yeah and i would say you don't have to even be at home with yourself to put others at ease yeah right like we could i'm not sure i totally agree that's interesting yeah keep going on that like if if you're super self-conscious and that's where awkwardness comes from awkwardness can just for a moment awkwardness can dress up as other things awkwardness is we tend to stereotypically think that awkwardness is like, you know, this shrinking, very high bumblings.

41:59That's not, that's not awkward. That's not how I was awkward. Awkwardness can also dress up as judgment, as meanness, as dream killing, as drama, as name dropping, as showing off, as intimidating, as bullying. That's all awkwardness. It's just dressing up in different ways. So we have to recognize that like, if someone is doing any of those things, name dropping, they probably feel awkward which comes from a sort of self-consciousness. Okay, so if I want you to go into a situation to be at home with yourself but you can't get there. You cannot get there. What happens? You stop going out. And that's where most of my students will find me is they've stopped.

42:35So I'm like, okay, let's stop trying to get you to be at home with yourself. That's gonna take too long. Let's work the other way, okay? Here's what I want you to do. I want you to go say, hey. Then I want you to ask this question. Then I want you to craft a conversation around these topics and I typically like people to pick topics that light them up. Right. Or I want you to find the topic that lights someone else up. There you go. Right. Like I'll often say to my students, stop trying to be impressive. Stop trying to be funny. Stop trying to tell great stories. Just let other people impress you.

43:04What questions could you ask to let them impress you? Could you be an easy laugher? It's so hard to be funny. Like I've tried to learn how to be funny. It's really hard. But you know, it's easy looking for laugh moments. And a lot of people like an easy laugher. We like someone's laugh at us. And what happens to awkward folks is they're so in their head, and I've watched them on videotape during interactions, they're so in their head, they forget to laugh at the joke. And that is one of the hardest things. If someone else is like, oh my gosh, I made such a good joke, and the other person was like, uh-huh.

43:34And they're like thinking about their next question. I'm like, don't even think about the story. Don't try to be impressive. Just be an easy laugher and let them entertain you. Let them impress you. That takes the pressure. You don't have to be at home with yourself to be entertained. You don't have to be at home with yourself to be awed by someone or impressed by someone. And that is a very, it's a backdoor into feeling like yourself because at least you can, you put it all outward.

43:56Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah. I understand what you're doing. I really like that. Yeah. It's different. It's different. Yeah. It's actually one of the seven best practices for some more of the garden variety, mental health stuff, like anxiety, depression and stuff is like to go be in service, volunteer, be of help to somebody else. Yes. Like it's a forcing function to get out of your own. And what most people don't talk about is you can do that socially. Yeah, that's cool. Like this is a new idea for me. You can be socially generous. You can be the first liker on a post. Like if people are like, I can't go out yet. I'm like, okay, start on social media.

44:29Okay, you're on social media. Be the first liker. Follow your closest friends. And the moment they put up a post, give them a like and give them a comment.

44:36Dr. Michael Gervais:Vanessa, you're doing great work. This is really cool. It's small, but you know, when I put up a post and I'm like, does anyone like it? And then someone likes it. I'm like, oh, Eric liked it. You know, like it's a gift to me. And so be the first liker, be the first commenter, be the inviter, be a generous laugher. Ask someone really good non-autopilot questions. That is being socially generous. And that is an act of service. So if you can do random acts of social kindness, random acts of social kindness are even as small as, you know, someone interrupted you. You have to finish your great story.

45:10asking someone to finish their story is an act of social service it's great right or or um you know last time we talked you mentioned this thing i was thinking about it recently how did it go that's saying you're memorable i remembered and i'm going to invite you to talk about it so you don't have to talk about yourself that is an act of social service what i'm also appreciating is

45:33Dr. Michael Gervais:your framings are good. They're super practical. My hope is that even high performers in a social environment can use the tactics and the strategies. But I'm also like part of my training is to listen to the words. Yeah, it's good. That's a story. Okay, good. But trying to understand one or two levels below that what's happening. And it's not an inspection. It's just kind of like, where's this coming from? And is there alignment in it? And if somebody's going to talk, here's a good simple example. Somebody's going to talk about something really heavy in their life and they're smiling. It's like, whoa, hold on, wait a minute.

46:11Dr. Michael Gervais:Like it's not lined up. So there's, okay. You are lining your stuff up. Your words and your micro expressions and your body expressions are aligned, which makes you believable. There's a trustworthiness about it. And it's also evidence that you've done a lot of work unless you have read your own book and you're just practicing the more surfacy, like, let me use hand gestures. Let me like smile and have it be glowy for a while. Let me not - It doesn't work though. No, it's actually repulsive. Yeah, it's super inauthentic. Yeah, and it's repulsive. So you're not doing that. No, and also, first of all, it's exhausting.

46:51Like doing it without anything behind it is exhausting. And so in my book, there's 97 cues you can use. And I say, you gotta pick these cues carefully. It's like a recipe for a cake, right? If you just throw them all in the bowl, it's going to be like very robotic and not fit together. You've got to kind of find your flavor.

47:06Dr. Michael Gervais:So what are some of the cues that you would like to share that would be important for people? You know, and I just remind us like our community, they're really talented. They're decision makers. Yeah. They've, for the most part, worked really hard to be able to shape something special. And so these are already people that are in the top 5 % for the most case. And then those that may be early in their career, early on their path, but they know that they have something that they want to be able to express and they're kind of on that path, whether they're early or already well-established. So these are folks that really will hang on what you have to offer here because they know they have something to offer and they want to be better at it.

47:53I love talking to high performers because I think that high performers miss something about their performance, which is that. Their high performance is going to help them. It's going to help you. Like if you're destined for greatness or you're already doing great things, great. But your performance is contagious. If you're a high performer and you want to have a positive impact, you can actually make your high performance contagious to everyone in your life, your kids, your team, your colleagues, your clients, your customers. So one study looked at 11 ,000 working hours. And what they, no, no, I think it was 58 ,000 working hours across multiple different companies.

48:29And they found that when people sit within 25 feet of a high performer, their own performance improves by 15%. And the second part, which is really important, is if you sit within 25 feet of a low performer, your performance decreases by 30%.

48:46Dr. Michael Gervais:So the first is what percentage increase? 15 % if you're near a high performer. So it's a stronger pull. If you're a high performer. Well, it makes sense. The brain has a, for the most part, we have a negativity bias. Right. Yeah. So I share this first for you to know that the more you work on your high performance and you're socializing that performance, like your ability to work with others, the more your performance is contagious, the more you're helping others. But also, if you're a manager or a boss or a team leader, you need to identify your high and low performers on your team and be able to increase that performance of your low performers and make your high performers more contagious.

49:24Dr. Michael Gervais:So would you, how would you go about that? So cues, right? So how are we contagious? That's the next question I had. It's like, I read that research. I was like, great, cool. How is this happening? How is this happening? I think it's a couple of things. One is there is the socializing aspect of, you know, high performers are talking and inspiring and asking the right questions. But actually I think it's more cues based. We send thousands of social signals every day, especially if we're in person, even on phone, even on the video, even over email. We're still sending these even over email. And our cues, we're very aware of these social signals.

49:57There are four different main channels that I talk about for cues. Words, the words we use. So the types of words you use are changing behavior in your emails, in your calendar, invites, in your profiles. Your nonverbal, your facial expressions, your gestures, your posture. Your vocal, so how you say your words, your volume, your pace, your cadence. that is affecting people. We actually tend to mirror that, the vocal frequency of the most powerful person in the room. So that's affecting things. And then lastly, our ornaments, like the colors we wear, what's in our background, the kinds of cups we drink out of, right, kind of jewelry we might wear.

50:29So all those things are mattering. I think there are a couple of cues that I want to teach you that high performers do exceptionally well that are very contagious. They don't realize they're using.

50:38Dr. Michael Gervais:I love this. Okay. Yeah. The very first one is, it's a weird measurement. Are you ready? Yes. It's just the distance between your ear and your shoulder. The distance between your ear and your shoulder is a window into your confident soul. That's what I'm going to say. And here's why. Whenever someone is anxious or nervous, they begin to creep their shoulders up. They turtle their neck down and in. And if you're really scared or low confidence, you have almost no distance between your ears and your shoulder. You see this with teenagers when they walk down the hallways in school. You also see this at the very beginning of a Zoom call when someone's like, morning.

51:14Dr. Michael Gervais:Oh, interesting. Yeah. So what you just, for the listener, you pulled your shoulders up and you waved and you kind of nervously smiled. And I watch people walk into restaurants for their very first date, which could be with their partner for life. And they're like, hey, good to see you. Both men and women. Both men and women do this. So what I want to say is, one, in your profile pictures, please make sure that you have a maximum distance between your ears and your shoulders. Otherwise, you are signaling low confidence in your profile picture. Very simple. Second is I want you to get in the habit of maximizing this difference.

51:47Distance. That means pushing your head back and up and lowering your shoulders. Now, secretly, what that's doing, that very simple, right? I can do that very non-obviously during a work call. I can do it during a picture negotiation is I'm forcing your shoulders down, which opens up your chest, which makes you take in more air, which increases your vocal power. Done. It also forces your head up. It relaxes your jaw. and it makes you have more of a relaxed face. So there's like a bunch of ripple effect things with that very quick adjustment, and it is very contagious. Researchers from the University of British Columbia studied winning and losing athletes in the Olympics, and they found that winning athletes take up more space with their body.

52:25They typically have space between their arms and their torso. They have space between their ears and their shoulders, and they typically tilt their head up towards the sky. Losing athletes, and I literally want you to think of this as loser body language. Losing athletes, they roll their shoulders in, they tilt their chin down to protect their jugular. They press their arms either right in front of them or tightly around themselves. They take up as little space as possible. You know, when we do this, every time we check our phone.

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54:07Dr. Michael Gervais:This is not great for the now generation of teenagers because they have that kind of forward leaning posture. And the other thing that I'll add to it is that when your chin comes forward and down, and if you bring your hands up, I'm describing it for people listening, and you're checking your phone, and then you took your hand, your palms up, and then you made a fist and turn them sideways so your knuckles are facing another person now you're literally in a protection fight mode yeah and so what that does is it i mean that is an organic fight you know hundreds of thousands a year old posture and it our brain is not that sophisticated in sorting things out so when your shoulders are up your chin is forward and your hands are up it sends a signal like protect protect right so now you've got this cortisol thing going on which is going to affect your micro expressions and the person across from me.

54:56Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah. And your voice and your person across from you would be like, well, what's up with them? Maybe I should be scared too. Like what's going on over there? And then you become as contagious as a low performer. There you go. Wow. Look at that. Right. So now we're back to it. Is that one cue. And by the way, feel free to check your phone, you know, when you're by yourself, when you're working, this is for those moments that have some weight, like those first impression moments, a really important meeting as people are walking into the boardroom as you hop on a Zoom call, that's when we are typically checking our phone.

55:27And then we pop up and we're like, hi, no, your first impression has been made. It's done. If someone, if your boss or you are the boss and you walk into a room and you quickly take stock of everyone around the table, you know where your eye is going to go? To the person who has the maximum distance between their shoulders and their ears. What about for folks that have

55:44Dr. Michael Gervais:like, they just have shorter necks, you know, like some people and some people have really big traps. You know, there's an, I'm wondering about, and I have a very long neck. Yeah. You have like a dancer's neck, right? Pilates dancing. My head is hurt. I'm like, Oh, this works for you really well. Is this the reason why I'm teaching this cue? It could be. So, but like, how do you think about like folks that if you had somebody with your, your posture next to somebody who anatomically had a different structure, do you think it still holds up like they're, they're maximizing theirs? Yes. and also remember that everyone's working with different limitations or advantages everyone so okay if you have a shorter neck you have less distance and i actually i would argue i don't this is not science this is not verified this is an anecdote anecdotally i have noticed that sometimes when men especially have very big traps like they're like yeah like they they almost their shoulders are higher um they they look like they're ready to bar that's right yeah they actually do look like they're a little bit more anxious even though i don't think they are so it's just something to just know about yourself.

56:47Same thing with your height. So if you're very short, you are often looking up at people. Well, this is actually a very good place to be looking up. Whereas if you're very tall, you're often looking down at people, which immediately puts you into that down position. Neither of those are right or wrong, but you should just know what you're working with, right? Like I know I have a very long neck. I'm also a woman. I have long hair. I have to work with those things. Like I have to make sure I put my hair in a way that I'm not touching it a lot. It takes away from my perceived confidence. Nothing to do with my actual confidence.

57:15Like if I'm fixing my hair, it's usually because it's a little tangled. It's not actually about my confidence, but perception is a different part of cues, right? Is we And we can feel confident. We can feel warm and competent. My two favorite things, warmth and competence. But how you signal it is what matters.

57:34Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah, because I think hair grooming and like there's something to do with being a little internally itchy, scratchy. I just itch my forehead, which is funny. When we talk about itchiness, by the way, like, I'm gonna try something right now. After we shake hands, can we just shake hands for a second? Of course. So we shake hands. We are both going to really want to smell our hand. No, you're going to want to. That's great. You're going to want to. Watch. You're going to want, your nose gets so itchy. Well, now you, now you've introduced it. Like, like now even I want to touch my face. Pheromones.

58:03Because I really want to smell it. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. And so like, it's like, there's like, anyway.

58:07Dr. Michael Gervais:Which is funny for a contagion issue, but it's also like. It's horrible for a contagion issue. Yeah. There's, there's, so there's the, when I'm unsettled, there's a grooming that would happen, but it's also a sign of flirting. Right. Like taking care of yourself in that way. And like. And habit. Yeah. And habit. Because you can be a combination of both. And so you're saying, for the most part, don't self-groom. It's a signal that you are. I'm saying be purposeful. That's cool. Purposeful. So for example, like if we, let's talk about, yeah, let's talk about grooming. Self-touch. Let's talk about self-touch as a whole.

58:40So self-touch, any kind of self-touch that's touching my hair, touching my face, rubbing my arms, rubbing the back of my head, eye blockings, like pinching my nose or rubbing at my eyes. Okay, those are all types of self-touching. They could be flirtatious. they could be signs of self-soothing or pacification gestures. So showing my inner nerves, they could be habitual. So I'm very just used to touching my face. So I don't even think about it. I don't even realize I'm doing it. And they also could be practical. I need to fix my hair because I am on camera and it could be knotted.

59:08Dr. Michael Gervais:That's right. Yeah. Right. We have all those things. They don't matter. To the other person. Yeah. Because it's sending a signal. Yeah. They don't matter. And so when my students are like, but I like crossing my arms. It's so comfortable or I get cold. I'm like, I don't care. Your person doesn't care. All they see is that you're distractingly fidgeting or that you're blocking and being closed off. So if you want to do that, just be purposeful with it. If you want to block, like there are some negotiations where you maybe want to be close-minded. Fine with me, just make it a choice. That's right, very cool.

59:39There are some things where maybe you want to self-touch because you don't care. Fine with me, just be purposeful with it.

59:45Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah, you're ringing the bell to be aware. That's it. And then have a skill and a choice that you get to flex on, right? Which is great. I mean, that's - And confident. That is what high performers do. Confident? It's confident. It's confident to choose. A high performer might say, you know what, Vanessa? I don't like your tip about the shoulders and I want giant traps and I'm going to wear shoulder pads on top of them and I don't care. Cool. That is confident and that's also going to come across. Yeah, I think 100 % right. I do think that having available reference points and tools is really important.

1:00:21Dr. Michael Gervais:And if you're kind of sucked into your own narrative and your own survival mechanism and, or you're not really aware because you haven't put in the awareness training work, it feels like you're constantly in the rapids of the river, as opposed to like, I don't know, watching from shore, like, or being like in command of the boat in the rapids. So I, I, I love what you're doing here. And then I would go to the person who has like, let's say a smaller neck, there's something to do about the shoulders, like having your hands in a way that your shoulders are back down, relaxed, as opposed to like - And using armrests.

1:00:59Dr. Michael Gervais:Oh, keep going. Right? So we can compensate for spatial issues. So I actually do recommend having a chair with armrests wherever you can, in your office, in your boardroom, restaurants with chairs. And that is because when you create a lot of space here, it also increases confidence. Like even if I were to have my shoulders up a little bit, I'm putting my shoulders up a little bit. I'm still taking up space. So it's okay. So like you can use more broad gestures. You can be more expansive across your body. Like that can compensate for it. You also can use other power cues. Like this distance is, I would categorize it as a confidence or competence cue.

1:01:36Competence is signaling reliability, efficacy, capability, power.

1:01:41Dr. Michael Gervais:And you're pointing back to your neck. Yeah. So the space is a competence cue. I would categorize it as that. There are many competence cues you can choose from. So if you have a shorter neck, you could just choose another competence cue. Such as? Such as making eye contact at the end of a sentence, right? So typically powerful people make very specific eye contact patterns and they signal to you their power and confidence with those eye contact patterns. And so if you're processing and talking, you don't have to make eye contact. but then if I want to deliver at the very end, I can deliver right to you.

1:02:15And that feels so much more competent. I like it. Right. I said nothing. I just said nothing, but like, boy, did it feel good to you and to them. Yeah.

1:02:23Dr. Michael Gervais:It's, it's something that I do on a regular basis when I am speaking is that I'm kind of generally speaking. And then at the end of almost every sentence, I'm connecting with a person. And I learned that that was something by watching like, oh, why am I doing that? I'm actually wanting to connect and there's a nice feedback loop, but it's also there's a command in the sentence. It forces me to actually have a command of what I'm saying. And so. And a command of your presence, which we like. Yeah. And eye contact, I don't know. I don't think this was your work. I think it was somebody else's, but when you're listening, give all of your contact to the other person's eyes.

1:03:04Dr. Michael Gervais:When you're listening, when you're speaking, you can kind of gather yourself and look around and point to some things and come back. When you're speaking and it's all eye contact, it can be a little overwhelming. So there is a natural blend between the two. 100 % eye contact is bad. People who say, make more eye contact, I'm like, ooh, caveat asterisk there. In Western cultures, it's expected to have like 60%, 70 % of the conversation eye contact. It's very hard to measure that exactly. But yes, we need to process outwardly. We like to think through things. We also will sometimes look at body language or look around the room.

1:03:39We'll look at our cup. And so eye contact is a hard one because people really struggle with it. And if you're on the spectrum, you really struggle with it. What's the struggle? The struggle is that it's distracting. It's distracting.

1:03:52Dr. Michael Gervais:Making eye contact is distracting because? Yes. So for certain brains, making eye contact, it's very hard to process. So actually, making eye contact while listening, you're having trouble listening. Yeah. So for certain brains, it actually is helpful. When you're speaking, I'm listening. I want to make eye contact with you for two reasons. One is I'm really trying to see what's happening and feel what's happening for you. The other is I also want to make sure you know that I'm paying attention. Like I'm here with you. I'm not on my phone. I'm not kind of looking. I'm not signaling. And that is a neurotypical advantage.

1:04:29Dr. Michael Gervais:To do what? Both those things. So for folks who are not neurotypical, actually making eye contact with you while you speak, I'm having trouble listening. Yeah. And so there's, I just want to make sure that people understand that I would rather you listen well. So if you have to choose between making eye contact to look like you're listening and not making eye contact to actually listen, I'd rather you choose the second. Actual listen. Yeah, maybe you need to write, maybe do some stuff. Right, right. And so for brains that it's hard for you to actually process while you're making eye contact, I would rather you be taking notes.

1:05:07Like, that's a good way. It's a little challenging for if I'm talking to you and you're not making, if I'm talking to you and you're looking away, I might not know. Now in my work, I am assuming, ah, you're processing. All good. But someone who doesn't know that might think, what?

1:05:21Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah, right. What's happening? Yeah. Right? So what you can say is, you know, I'm listening. I'm just processing. So you tell them. No, or I tell them to bring a tool. Yeah. So for any of my - That's a signal. Yeah. And so I tell them, if you have trouble with that, bring a notebook wherever you go so that you can have somewhere to look. Even if you're not taking notes, it shows that the person, wow, they're listening so well, they're actually taking notes. And you can say, I like to take notes in my conversations. It helps me process. So I just share that because I think that eye contact is really important, but it's different.

1:05:53It's different for most people. As the speaker,

1:05:55Dr. Michael Gervais:when somebody's speaking, so I'm speaking to you right now and if I'm staying on your eye contact yeah there's another thing that takes place is that it can spring up another narrative which is wait is she evaluating me is she agreeing with me like what's so there's this other conversation that can pop up but if I am in my own little world a little bit and I'm really trying to find the right words and I'm connecting kind of you know totally fine it is like there's a freedom in that yes that's why I think it makes more sense when you're speaking, like, just like you're saying, when you're listening, you, you, you do need to make sure you're connected, but like have the honest alignment between your thoughts and your words.

1:06:36Dr. Michael Gervais:And if you, however you do that would be a benefit, but let's say you're saying neurotypical, if you are neurotypical, make sure that you are connecting with the other person to your best abilities. Yes. And timing matters. Right. So like, I liked, I like finding small cues or phrases that have a big impact, right? Like asking someone to finish their story has a major social impact for you, even though it's one thing. Eye contact, your eye contact in the first three seconds actually matters more to me than a five-minute conversation. So if you're going to make that eye contact or if you struggle with eye contact, just give me those first few seconds.

1:07:07Like with the handshake, while you're approaching across the room, if you can hit those first few seconds, you're going to give them a burst of oxytocin, which is going to last longer. So what I always say for my students who struggle with eye contact is, okay, cool. Don't worry about it while you're listening if it's distracting for you. I'd rather you listen really well. That's better. If you can't make eye contact while you're speaking, okay, I'd rather you be a good speaker. I'd rather you do that. But the time that it mentally matters the most is upon approach with the handshake. And if you can, while you say your name, because you know that.

1:07:39Dr. Michael Gervais:That's great. You don't have to think about it. And do you add the fourth, which is at the end of a sentence? Yeah, that's great. At the end of a sentence. If you can do it, if you can do it at the end of a sentence, even at the very end of a sentence, like the very last word or at the end of an interaction. Yeah, that's cool. So good talking to you. So good, you know, having this interact. Like at the very end, it leaves them with oxytocin. Oxytocin is a lot of things in our body, but it's very, we can really trigger it with a lot of different social cues. And just for the, I don't know, the one person that doesn't know what oxytocin is.

1:08:06Oxytocin is the cuddle hormone or cuddle chemical where it makes us feel the warm and fuzzies. The way that I. It's bonding. Explain. Yeah. Explain it is like when they give people nasal sprays of oxytocin in the lab, they give away all their money in Prisoner's Dilemma games. Okay. Just to give you an idea of like, we just try to love everyone. We just trust everyone. So it's the giving chemical. And so when you trigger interaction, you're helping someone be more giving.

1:08:32Dr. Michael Gervais:And so there's small little clever ways that we can do that. We can hold hands, we can give hugs, we can give high fives. And part of your research, you pulled forward the value of air high fives even. Yes. Right. Yeah. Even saying the word a virtual, virtual high five, You know, a digital hug, even saying it triggers a little bit of that. We didn't take blood samples. I just want to be careful. We didn't actually measure oxytocin, but we measured like responsiveness, like skin conductivity. And so even just saying those things, it triggers something good. Yeah, that's really good. Yeah. So I think we could.

1:09:09Dr. Michael Gervais:Okay. So did you do three of the four that we're talking about for the list you're going from? I said smiling, but I don't think you did it. Yeah. So is that a nonverbal? Yes. So smiling is a nonverbal cue. And I'm always delicate with smiling because I feel like people have been told, just smile more. But nothing is worse than someone saying, good morning. How are you? With like a very fake smile. I have a very fake smile on my face. We pick up on inauthenticity. Dr. Barbara Wild studied inauthentic smiles. And she found that when people see an authentic smile, they catch the happiness. They have an increased mood change.

1:09:47when they see an inauthentic smile, even if they don't know it's inauthentic, they have no mood change. So if you want to be more contagious, I would rather you never smile if you don't feel it, but look for moments for smiling. And this is the key with smiling is I think we need to be more smile ready. Just like being a first liker, just like being socially generous. If you can gift a real smile because they told a good joke or they told you some good news. Like I think I see oftentimes in work situations, I'll be sitting with a team and someone will be like, oh, you know, my kid won his soccer game this weekend.

1:10:21And people go, oh, that's nice. No smile. Yeah, right. And I'm like, if any part of you likes soccer, likes this person, likes that kid, and you can just bring out that authentic smile for them, it is a gift. So being more smile ready, being laugh ready, but also looking for smile opportunities. I give, you know, very serious presentations to corporations all the time. and in the very beginning of my career, I would give these presentations, and I had low retention rates. I got very high ratings on my presentation, but I also wanted to see, did they keep the material in their head? Because that's actually what matters to me more, is does this cause action?

1:10:57Does it cause behavior change? And I realized that laughter is the lubrication of learning, for sure. But I think that I have a theory that when someone's mouth is open, ha, and they're smiling, they actually are just learning more. There's something about it.

1:11:10Dr. Michael Gervais:That's a good image. And so I counted the number of laugh moments in my keynote. And I feel that a successful keynote has like multiple, multiple laugh moments. Almost every three to four minutes, I want you laughing. So can you push yourself to be a little bit creative with stories, case studies, GIFs, memes, videos that add to your work? I work with a lot of data scientists and a lot of people who are very technical. And there are really clever ways you can add laugh moments even into your data, right? Like hard data, soft skills. Like we can do both. And so can you also, as a presenter or a team leader, be bringing more authentic laugh moments into your workplace?

1:11:46That is true. True expert communicators are able to do that.

1:11:49Dr. Michael Gervais:That's really nice. Yeah. So the glow of the smile is the tell. Yes. You know, after your lips come down, how long do they last? Yeah. You know, kind of in that favorable posture, if you will. And when they just drop, you're like, ooh, something's off there. Right. That's weird. I think of it as like a saver smile. Like, are you like, oh, this is so good. And it's like sort of lingers on your face. That's the kind of smile we like the best. What about for those of us who like don't like our teeth or the smile? Great question. Where do you go with that? Okay, so remember. Because it shouldn't be an excuse.

1:12:23Well, well.

1:12:24Dr. Michael Gervais:Oh, you've really? I mean, if you don't like your smile, I don't want to force you to smile. Because then I'm just forcing you into discomfort and agony. What if that's coming from like you're hypercritical and your smile is, Like it's just yours. And it's like, you're beating yourself up more than anyone else ever would. I love your approach of like, let's work on liking your smile. I would say, okay, you don't like it. Let's find another warmth cue that you like. Yeah. There's your, you're really flexible. I'm like, cool. Like I don't, if you don't like your smile, I'm not going to sit and convince you that I like it.

1:12:56Cause it doesn't matter what I think.

1:12:57Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah. It matters what you think. And like, we could do, you know, five weeks of, of talking about it. Yeah. And I could show you, I could, I could get you testimonials of other people about your smile, but no, that's cool. don't like your smile, let's pick another warmth cue. Smiling is a warmth cue, right? So warmth, one of the aspects of charisma or how we judge people, competence is one, warmth is the other, one of the aspects. Well, this is worth pausing on before we go back to the smile is that warmth and competence are the two variables for charisma. Yes. So Dr. Susan Fisk did research, the fancy academic word is called the stereotype content model.

1:13:29It's actually not called charisma research. That's just what I call it. And And she found that 82 % of our judgments of people are based on warmth and competence. It's a lot.

1:13:39Dr. Michael Gervais:And there's lots of signals that you can, this is the essence of your work. There's so many signals that you can do to demonstrate warmth, which also pulls on some trust and likability. And then if you've got some competence cues, like to make sure that what you're saying actually is aligning with the way that you really know it, which is a sense of an expression of your competence. The very simple way to think about this, the way I teach it, is every time someone interacts with you, they are trying to answer two basic questions. Can I trust you? And can I rely on you? The faster you can answer those two questions, the more people will like you.

1:14:14Dr. Michael Gervais:So you're separating trust and reliability. I am. I'm separating them. And they're actually a little bit chronological, too. Warmth actually comes first in an interaction. We like to see that we can trust someone before we can rely on them. So warmth signals typically go first in a first impression if you can do them. and then you go into competence, which if you think about this, this is every meeting we ever have, right? When I do corporate trainings, I teach my sales teams or my leaders. I'm like, okay, the moment you walk into a room or hop on stage chart or presentation, you're focused on your keynote, your content.

1:14:42But actually what matters first is the first 10 seconds of warmth. And this comes directly from the research. Competence without warmth is likely to leave us feeling suspicious.

1:14:51Dr. Michael Gervais:That's right. Yeah, a little dangerous. A little dangerous. So if you show up with the best ideas, the best data, They're the best slides. It does not matter. People will be suspicious of them if you do not couch them with warmth. You're speaking to what my mask was for a long time is that I didn't feel comfortable in my skin so that I led with competence and the high performer kind of approach. And when I would ask questions, it was, there was an inspection. Like I really wanted to learn. So that was always organic, but I wouldn't hold my micro expressions or body in the way that would create space for people to, to keep unraveling and keep unraveling.

1:15:32Dr. Michael Gervais:So non-consciously what I wanted the person to, to know is that I'm on it. Right. Wait, what did you say? You know, as opposed to like, Oh my God, that's great. Okay. Go back. And they wouldn't go deep with you. Yeah. And so, and then, then it was like, Oh yeah, he knows his stuff, but I don't know. I don't know. There's something there. And I'm like, wait, what's going on? And so I had to do that work to really understand how to keep the aperture open. Yeah. So highly competent leaders have the same set of problems, high competence, low warmth. And by the way, this isn't what you actually are.

1:16:05It's what you're signaling.

1:16:06Dr. Michael Gervais:This is very important. This is correct. Like I didn't want that. Of course, you're so warm. Your intention was warm. That doesn't matter. Like you can be a leader and you're very kind and very friendly, but if you're not signaling, it doesn't matter. So for my leaders who signal lots of competence without enough warmth, they run into the same problems. People think they're intimidating. hard to talk to, cold. They cannot get as much buy-in. They're seen as a bad collaborator, but a good leader. And people don't bring them the truth. Okay? There you go. Same set of problems. Very fixable. A couple cues and you can fix it.

1:16:38My highly warm leaders, again, this isn't your actual warmth and competence, who are signaling lots of warmth, like me, like me, like me, but not enough competence, struggle with credibility. They get interrupted more. Their data isn't believed as much. They are told that they are not serious and their authority is pushed. They also in sales, by the way, have a really hard time closing. They have a really hard time negotiating and they have a really hard time being taken seriously. Now, it's actually hard to make it as a leader in this one. There's less of them. It's hard to make it if you're only warm.

1:17:10Dr. Michael Gervais:If there was a bias, would you want a starting place? Would you want to start with warmth and develop the competence or would you want to start with competence and back into warmth? For sure, start with competence and back into warmth because competence comes from somewhere. It comes from knowing your stuff. So a problem that I will sometimes have with folks is I want to dial up their competence, but never inauthentically. So they want to dial up these competence cues, but they don't actually know their stuff. Well, we can't do that. It's not going to last. So I would much rather start with high competence, which is why this is my favorite kind of student and why I think, you know, if you're a student and you come into my course and you're not willing to do the work and you're not willing to know your stuff, it's not going to be a good fit for you.

1:17:50I'm not going to teach you how to fake it.

1:17:52Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah, right. And I say, bye-bye. So I think that if you're actually competent, you can learn warmth on top of it, especially if you have good intention. Body Mastery is brought to you by Fatty 15. Did you know that Navy Dolphins helped unlock a secret to healthy aging? It's a wild story. And it's the foundation for a product that I've come to really love, Fatty 15. Fatty 15 is built around C15, the first essential fatty acid discovered in over 90 years. And it was discovered by Dr. Stephanie Van Watson. She's the co-founder of Fatty15. While she was working with the U.S. Navy, and based on over 100 studies, we now know that C15 strengthens our cells and is foundational for healthy aging at the cellular level.

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1:20:25Dr. Michael Gervais:Let's move to vocal. Yeah. So we've, we've hit a bunch of the non-verbals, which are awesome. Are there, before we close it, are there any non-verbals that are important to you that I know you have many, many. I would say contempt is the other one that I think people should just keep in the back of their head, which is actually more of a decoding thing than an encoding thing. So encoding are the social signals you send. We've been talking a lot about encoding. And that's great because we don't talk about those enough, which are what signals are you sending to others so they see you as trustworthy, likable, credible.

1:20:54Decoding is the other way. It's spotting cues in the room and being able to respond to them and see what emotion is hiding under them. Contempt is one, one, I don't want you to show it. Contempt is a one-sided mouth raise or a smirk. So it looks like this. One-sided mouth raise. Yeah, right. People usually think it means like boredom or apathy, but actually it's a micro expression of superiority of like condescension, like being better than somebody, pessimism. And so it goes along with sarcasm often I notice in the workplace.

1:21:28Dr. Michael Gervais:Do you know the root word for sarcasm? No, what is it? Sakaar, which means to rip flesh off a bone. Oh my God. I mean. Whoa, we went there. I know. It's like such a protective mechanism to keep somebody at distance and you in a position of power because you're ripping the flesh off of their bone, usually in front of other people. And that's contempt is distance. I am better than you. Yeah. How dare you? I know better than that. Don't even get it in this, like, come on. Right. And so one, I don't want you to encode it. So check your profile pictures, make sure you have an even smile or no smile and authentic, right?

1:22:01All the way up into these upper cheek muscles. But decoding is, I think, more important, especially for leaders, in that contempt is one of the only emotions that doesn't go away. Anger comes in a burst, you calm down. Happiness comes all at once, and then you go back to baseline. Even sadness, we want to recover. Contempt festers. The internal experience of contempt, I pay attention when I feel it because I'm like, it is sticky, this emotion. When you feel kind of better than someone, like you know better, that won't work for me. You're watching this, that won't work for me. That's a little bit of contempt, right?

1:22:39I know better, I do better. And it sticks with you and it kind of festers. And in a relationship, it's destructive. Yeah.

1:22:45Dr. Michael Gervais:It's one of the four horsemen, if you will, it's the one. It's the one. As soon as you have this, and I'll do deep contempt. I hate you just that type of contempt is like we're in real trouble now and in a relationship if you don't address it, it will just fester it's a good word, fester it just is like a slow simmer so what I recommend is in meetings especially during presentations or negotiations you want to be a dynamic communicator which is, I'm going in with an agenda as a presenter but if I see contempt on someone's face, I'm going to try to pause right then or very close and say, this all makes sense to you.

1:23:27Any questions, anything I can clarify here for you? Right? Like you are very comfortably acknowledging something happened. Now, it could be something internal to them. It could be their own contempt. A lot of it is self-contempt, actually, I've noticed. When I actually get to the root of it, it's like they were contentious. They didn't understand something, right? It could be something like that. It doesn't have to do with you. But I will pause and dynamically say, are we good? Or one-to-one, if you're in performance reviews or you're with your partner and you see contempt, you want to be like, we good here?

1:23:55You know, what else can we, like, let's deep dive on this issue a little bit more, right? Like we can use all those questions that are very comfortable. I'm going to send you, it was the only podcast I've ever had where a very prominent coach had like full contempt for me on the Finding Mastery. Like he came at me and he was like, well, he didn't know how I've lived the last 25 years professionally.

1:24:21Dr. Michael Gervais:He's like, well, obviously you've never worked with a high performer. And I was like, oh, and I thought. Did you correct him? No, I did not. I was like, well, let's see where this goes. Yeah. Right. And so, and so we just publish it. I did. Good for you. Yeah. Well, I was honest. Like, and so, but here's the, here's the kind of the judo of the whole thing is like his face turned purple and he was raging because. we were fundamentally in a different kind of approach to life. Okay. And so I said, Hey, I actually really disagree with that, but I want to understand where it's coming from. And then he's like, well, you haven't worked with that.

1:24:57Dr. Michael Gervais:Okay. And so then I said, I don't know, let's say it's three minutes later. That's a long time for someone to kind of rant and rage. And I said, so what was the tripwire we just stepped in? What did he say? And he's like, well, and he explained it. And I was like, oh, So it's like a fundamental disagreement on like how we think about helping other people. But we're both trying to help other people. Yeah. So there was like this thing. And then by the end of it, he's like, oh, this was the most amazing conversation. It was a full. Yeah, it was really quite wild. That's a masterclass in how you deal with contempt, which is you address it.

1:25:34You try to spot it. You give them permission to share what's bothering them. And they may or may not. Then. No, we're good. We're good. Nothing. Nothing. We're good. Okay. What do you do in that case? Right. So you have a choice with contempt to either try to fix it, like try to guess what it is and try to fix it, which is an option, or be the ally against it. Right? Ally against it. You can join in forces against the thing that you both don't like. So for example, let's say it's, oh, this client, this client, they're just so difficult and I'm showing this contempt. Now, as a boss, I have two choices with a difficult client, right?

1:26:10Not that we ever, we never have difficult clients at Science People. We have a choice. I can say, oh, you know, they just need some time and they're going to get better and I have some tools to work with them. I can try to fix it. I can try to give my team tools to work with that client. That's option one. It's a good option. But option two is, I know. You know what? They're challenging. They are challenging. I had a call with them last week and it went long and they were mad and they're underpaying and it is rough. I feel you. then the contempt is not going to be confused to you. Contempt is sort of like, it's like, you know, it's a broad emotion.

1:26:49So you don't want to be painted in it. And so you're better off saying like, yeah, that is challenging. Like that client is challenging. I'm also with you. And maybe some tools or maybe just like sucks. Just sucks.

1:27:01Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah, right. Because then like that is very human. And it's, I think, good leadership. And I think that's what high performers do. High performers cannot fix everything. They also cannot please everyone. I joke with my high performers. I'm like, you're not pizza. You cannot please everyone. Oh, that's right. Like you're just not. There's your jokes. That's it. I work on those jokes. I know it's the lubrication of learning. So I think like high performers who try to please everyone, they burn out. Or they're seen as inauthentic, which I think is worse. So fix the problems you can fix and don't fix the problems you can't.

1:27:36If the contempt is about something that is kind of sucky, say it's kind of sucky.

1:27:39Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah, I do appreciate like, you don't have to fix it, but you can bring it to the surface because if that thing is there, likely everyone else is noticing and now they need to make up a narrative about do I trust Vanessa or not. There's another variable at play is like sometimes when folks like you and I are entering into a room and it's a well-established team, they could be in the middle or the beginnings of storming. And there's another thing that takes place, which is like in that storming phase to get to the norming and then performing is that sometimes they need to just storm. You might be the greatest opportunity.

1:28:13Dr. Michael Gervais:It has nothing to do with what you said, but there's just an agitation on the surface. They got to get it out. Yeah. And so and so you one of the great gifts is you can be like, hey, you know, what's going on? And then the agitation comes out. It looks like the vitriol is towards you, but it's actually just the under the surface tension. yeah and so it's a nice moment to uncrack it if you can be vulnerable in all of the ways that you talk but not give yourself to yeah their contempt and you don't have to fix it yeah that's right you don't fix it um so contempt is the last one i would do before vocal okay i think that's a really important beautiful okay vocal yes okay so um our voice dictates a lot of who we are but it's very hard to control so when i was thinking about my book cues and i had all this voice research, I really debated not including it.

1:29:01That section almost did not make it in the book because it is very hard to control your voice. It is very hard. However, I think there are a couple things you can control. And here are the things I think you can control that are very important. The first is that I am working very hard to use the lowest end of my natural range right now. When I'm talking to my kids or my husband, I typically go a little bit higher like this. So I'm talking to my daughters and I'm saying, hey, baby, how's it going? And I'm a little higher. Now, if I were to give the entire podcast in this tone of voice, it probably would drive you crazy.

1:29:33You probably would not take me as seriously up here. Now, both of those feel very natural to me. They're both the end of my range. But one signals too high of warmth and low signals high competence. And that's because when we're in our lowest range, our vocal cords are relaxed. I'm taking a lot of breath. I'm making sure that I'm pausing when I need to. My jaw is not tense. My tongue is not tense. And that comes across in sort of a maximum resonance point, this point of my voice that feels calm, but still loud, right? So that we can learn, that we can learn.

1:30:06Dr. Michael Gervais:You can train into that. Just singers, like - Anyone. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. I'm saying that singers train how to use their vocal system. They can go higher, lower, and kind of put it on kind of the right pitch. But we can all access that type of work if we think that there's something to address though. Yes. And I think everyone should. I think it's not just limited to presenters or, you know, stage speakers. I think, you know, how one of the hard. Yeah, it's cool. It's a cool thing. This is a cool thought. Like I'll be in conversation with someone one-to-one and I wish they would train their voice because they'll go into vocal fry.

1:30:42So they'll vocal fry is when you add that element where it sounds like a sizzling fry. That's fry. Yeah. Horrible. Yeah.

1:30:50Dr. Michael Gervais:And what is that? Yeah. So that's when my vocal cords, I can do it on command. It's my vocal cords rattling. But what is it projecting? It's projecting a lack of confidence because vocal fry happens when you don't have enough breath. Yeah. That is the only reason. You know, I instantly go to like the, I don't know, the uncertainty. Or feigned casualness. What is that? I noticed that people use vocal fry when they don't know, which also we don't like, right? When someone doesn't know something. or when they are just like, this is like, I don't know if this is like an idea that's like helpful to anyone, but I was just thinking that, right, it's a feigned sort of, I don't know if this is going to be good or not.

1:31:31It often is paired with people with high imposter syndrome. I've noticed if people have high imposter syndrome, they are likely to use more vocal fry because vocal fry comes from a lack of volume, a lack of breath. If you are nervous about what you're about to say, your body doesn't want to take a deep breath. We kind of freeze. And then we are holding it tightly. We're holding our breath and we're just sort of trying to get it out there without as quickly as possible, but not also like, don't hear me.

1:31:57Dr. Michael Gervais:Good job. Yeah, you're doing it well. Yeah. You make me nervous. It's very contagious. It's very contagious. And so the very first thing is that I want you to go listen to a recording of yourself. It's painful, usually. Well, the voice that you hear in your head is different than the voice that other people hear because the resonance. So that's weird. But what are you asking us to listen to? I want you to listen to your first 10 seconds of speaking. Most people make the mistake of speaking on the held breath. So they'll be like, hello, all the way up here. Or they've been holding their breath because they're waiting for their turn to speak in the meeting.

1:32:38And hey, everyone, my name is Vanessa. Got it.

1:32:42Dr. Michael Gervais:So on, which is at the bottom of the bottom of the breath, or they are so nervous that they're not pausing and they have vocal fry at the end of their sentence. That also happens. So the first few seconds of you speaking, are you using your lowest natural tone or are you up here? Hi everyone. It's so good to see you. Welcome to the meeting. There's a permission you're looking for. Yes. And that's the last one, which is a question inflection. So listen, are you using the lowest end of your natural voice? Second, are you accidentally using vocal fry? Do you hear that, that rattling in the back. And then third, are you using an accidental question inflection on a statement?

1:33:14Dr. Michael Gervais:The sky is blue. The sky is blue. My name is Vanessa. I work at Science of People. I'm happy to be here. And what does that do? So liars use the question inflection. Do you want to be a liar? No. So liars are subconsciously asking, do you believe me? And they don't believe themselves. So they often, not always, really good liars don't do this, But liars will use a question of inflection because they're trying to assess if you believe them. So we did a little experiment in our lab where we had people do two truths and a lie. And we, not every time, but almost always people asked the lying statement.

1:33:50So it sounds like this. My name is Vanessa. I just moved to California. I love dogs. My favorite food is cilantro. Right? Cilantro is a horrible, horrible food. It tastes like soap. For some. It's a horrible fire. You're in that camp for cilantro. Yeah, I'm in the camp. Yeah. Okay, good. So that's how it sounded. So you do not want to accidentally sound like a liar. And it most often is used on your name, on your introduction. So you're giving away all your vocal competence in the first 10 seconds. Or, and this is the last one, try to pick a recorded call where there was like something you were a little bit nervous about talking about.

1:34:31Because people either drop their volume when they're nervous and they get vocal fry, or they ask it. And I do a lot of sales trainings, and I love listening to sales calls because I can always predict who's going to have the lowest close rate and the hardest pushbacks. It's the people who ask their numbers. So they say, you know, we'd love to work with you, and the price of this service is$5 ,000. If you ask your numbers, you are begging people to negotiate with you. You're telling people, I don't really believe this number, neither should you. So if you are asking for a salary, a budget, a timeline, something, a boundary, you should not be asking you should be stating it so we'd love to work with you the price of the service is five thousand dollars totally different awesome and you can't you can't to say it like that you

1:35:17Dr. Michael Gervais:had to come from a different place totally yeah that was fun for me just to listen and watch yeah that was like the volume and the power it takes like again a backdoor into confidence yeah that's right like maybe you're nervous about your number all right fine be nervous about your number but at least state it with a little bit of confidence like look it shouldn't be an incompetent number It shouldn't be a number that is a lie or is fake or is bad. But if you're like, you know what? This number is high, but it is deserving. It is worth it. I have the data to back it up. Well, then state it like that.

1:35:44Dr. Michael Gervais:This is really great. Thank you for the research, for the clarity that you've put into describing. And you're a systems thinker that has great interpersonal skill. Well, don't meet me in a bar. before we wrap can you speak to the parents amongst us on or the guardians about how how to what is a couple things that you would hope our kids could take from this that we could teach them yes yeah so the very first thing is actually at mindset which might surprise you because i don't always start with mindset which is uh you can do hard things you can do hard things we need to teach our kids that if they feel awkward they should keep going We need to teach our kids that even though you don't really want to shake their hand and say hello and say your name, we do.

1:36:34We do if it's someone that we trust. We need to teach them that socially there's going to be hard things. It's going to be hard. And we can get through it. And we can be the better person. We can make compromise. We can set our boundaries up. It's not easy. I think that we have made a mistake, and I did this for a while with my own kids, of trying to make it easy for them. I really wanted to save them from the pain. And I think that socially there is pain. It is kind of painful to set up your boundaries. It is painful to say, you know, can I sit there? That is hard. It's not easy. And we say to them, it's just so easy.

1:37:11Just ask if you can play with them. Not easy.

1:37:14Dr. Michael Gervais:It's not easy. It's not easy. And so you say, can we do the brave thing? Can we do the hard thing? Can we do the courageous thing where we ask to play with them? Yeah. And then before, and that's a stepwise approach. which I'll just add on to it is like when you see them do something brave, like be like, that was so a three to one or seven to one ratio. Yes. You know, it's a really nice. I love a number. It's hard. This is a hard ratio to get to. Yeah. Three times catching the bravery or the courage and, or even better seven times, but we're more like, like negative 12 to the one, like it's really.

1:37:48And also like calling it out yourself, right? Like, you know, we're in, I'm in a new school with my, with my daughters and I'm being very vocal about that with my daughter where I'm like you know I'm going to the mom's I'm going to the second grade mom's coffee I'm a little nervous yeah that's good she's like why I'm like well I don't know anyone and they all know each other I was like isn't that how you felt the first day she's like yeah right like it's so sweet just like like if you it we can do hard things we we you and me and our kids we can do hard things because that's the very first thing is like it's sometimes hard to do some of these things like absolutely true second then is very, very specific micro social skills.

1:38:26Micro. I think sometimes parents are like, I'm going to teach my kid to be confident. I'm like, okay, good luck. That's a very, very big social skill. I'm going to teach them how to have good conversation. I'm like, great, that is too big of a skill. I'm literally writing a book right now called Conversation. It's 300 pages, right? So let's do a micro skill, okay? A micro skill is how to say hello in your low tone of voice. Just that. So not, hi, not that. Just, hello, nice to meet you. So good. Micro skill, right? Then, of course, how to handshake, right? Like micro skill. That one's an obvious one.

1:39:08Or just like, can you make eye contact when you say your name and they say their name? Just that. Because that brings their head up, right? And it gives them just a little moment of time where, hi, my name is Vanessa. What's your name? Right? Like that, just that. Then what's, when someone asks you, what kind of questions do people ask you at seven? I asked my daughter, what kind of questions people ask you in conversation? Oh, they always ask me like, what's my favorite subject in school? Okay. A micro skill is being ready for the questions that come at you in conversation, right? I have an entire chapter called how to answer questions you hate, right?

1:39:48Because there are questions like that that you don't like. And you have to be able to answer them without going, ugh, right? That's a skill. So I say, okay. So someone asks you, what do you like about school? First, we're not gonna go, ugh, right? We're not gonna do that because that's gonna make them feel bad. It's gonna make them feel silly for asking. We don't wanna make anyone feel silly, right? You don't like to feel silly, right? When you ask me a question and she's like, I don't know. And the very next day when she asked me what I thought was a pretty dumb question, I went, uh,

1:40:17Dr. Michael Gervais:she laughed. I said, see, doesn't it feel terrible? And she laughed, you know, and I was like, okay, we're on the same page. No, that's a micro skill for a kid. That's a micro skill. Then it's okay. How can we answer that question that pivots you to a topic you like? And I literally teach this to my daughter. I'm like, what are things you like to talk about? K-pop demon hunters. You know if you know. You know if you know. Any kind of alternative Disney princess. You know, we're in that range. I say, okay, is there anything you could talk about at school that could pivot you into that topic? Well, you know, at recess, they do play K-pop demon hunters.

1:40:52Great. So what's your answer? My favorite thing is recess because we get to dance to K-pop demon hunters. And then an adult's going to go, what's K-pop demon hunters? And then you get to explain to them. And then she's like, come on, let's go watch a clip. so you got to teach that the micro skills are great

1:41:07Dr. Michael Gervais:would you suggest reading cues I mean of course there wasn't like a parenting segment in there but like just decode I would say of the 97 cues, 77 of them are good for kids and so you can a micro skill is teaching your kid the triple nod when they're listening a micro skill is not bobbleheading because you might have a bobbleheader Yeah, right. So even in those cues, you can begin to impart those lessons. You can listen to the audio book in the car. I have a lot of parents who listen to the audio book in the car. I read it, so that's always fun because it's me talking. And they listen to a chapter and they talk about it.

1:41:47If that's too much, you could also just use my YouTube channel. I try to keep my YouTube channel into micro skills for young folks because I know that they might not commit to a six-hour audio book, but they might watch a two-minute short.

1:41:59Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah, right. Right about it. You're doing great. Yeah, trying. So YouTube or Q's is great. And just for all of us, give the handles. Vanessa. Yes, yes. So I'm Vanessa Van Edwards. My company is Science of People. But on YouTube, I'm Vanessa Van Edwards. Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, X. I'm also Vanessa Van Edwards, I think, at V Van Edwards. And my newsletter is where I share a new tip every week. So that's like a strategy that I've been thinking about. Today, we got to talk about some new things. If you're like, I want her new stuff. I want the new stuff. That's in my newsletter. I share like one thing I'm considering.

1:42:34Dr. Michael Gervais:Warm, competent, make you charismatic. That's it. Let's go back to ocean for a moment. High on openness to ideas. High on openness, yeah. High on conscientiousness. High on conscientiousness. Moderate on the extra version. Moderate, I'm sure you got me. Agreeableness. I think like, I think on the upper tier of it, but your discernment for getting to the truth, this is a little bit tricky. I think socially you understand the value of agreeableness, but then when you get into a place, you're like, wait, I don't, I don't hold on. So you're, you're cult proof. I'm a people pleaser, but I, I don't want to be wrong.

1:43:12Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah. So this is the one that, um, so do you know where you would score on that one? Medium. Medium. Yep. And then high neuroticism. High neuroticism. Yeah. These are my people. So thank you. Thank you so much for creating a fun, delightfully concrete, um, elevated conversation about how to help people be better. Oh, I'm so excited. If you made it to this part of the interview, then I think you have a lot of potential to do more. And remember, just put people at ease and be yourself and find the people that make you feel that way. Beautiful, thank you. Thank you for having me. Next time on Finding Mastery, we're joined by Neil Arthur, CEO of Wyden & Kennedy, the creative powerhouse behind Nike, Coca-Cola, and some of culture's most iconic campaigns.

1:44:00In this conversation, Neil and Dr. Gervais unpack the real psychology of creativity, why the best ideas thrive on clarity and constraint, how great leaders protect the creative spirit, and why the most powerful work doesn't just sell, it moves people. Join us on Wednesday, October 29th at 9 a.m. Pacific, only on Finding Mastery. All right.

1:44:23Dr. Michael Gervais:Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. punch over to finding mastery.com slash newsletter to sign up.

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1:45:35Dr. Michael Gervais:Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional. So seek assistance from your health care providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.