Become More Confident With These Simple Tricks | Vanessa Van Edwards EP 767

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes, and welcome to The Daily Motivation Show.

0:13Highly competent cues. If you know that you're warm and you need to dial up competence to hit the sweet spot, these are some cues that will help you. During this part in U.S. history, Nixon and Kennedy were running for president and about half the population watched the presidential debate on television and about half the population listened to the debate on the radio. Everyone who watched the debate was sure that Kennedy won and everyone who listened to the debate was sure that Nixon won. And it was the first time where there was discrepancy between the winners, the perceived winners. One sounded like a leader and one looked like a leader.

0:45Ooh, you match them together. That's the sweet spot. That's the star. Okay. That's the star, exactly. So Nixon sounded like a leader. He had really good vocal power, but he looked like a loser. And I hate to use that word, but he himself said in his memoirs, he believes he lost that entire presidential election based on the first few seconds of that debate. First few seconds. He himself said that. And this was before they even spoke. So in the first 30 seconds of the debate, neither of them speak. You see them on camera. And if you were watching, you saw, wow, Nixon looks so weak. And here's why.

1:21What most people don't know is that Nixon had just injured his knee on the campaign trail. And he'd been in the hospital for the week. So he came in with a bandaged knee and a fever. Kennedy had been tanning. Yeah, he was like a nice suit and everything. He was ready to go. And also a kind of funny thing is the debate was in black and white and Nixon's suit was too brown. It blended into the background. So he shows up and he's sitting in what's called the runner's stance. The runner's stance is when someone, so you know runners before they went a race, they like go into the crunch position one leg back.

1:53We know this as a readiness position universally across cultures. If someone's about to run away from us, they will get into this position, right? Like they're literally about to run away. It's why sprinters start a race like that. Well, Nixon spent the first 30 seconds of the debate in that position. Because of his knee. Because of his knee. He was in pain. He was trying to like just. He was nursing it. Yeah. But it made it look like he was about to run out on us. That's from just a quick nonverbal perspective. The first impression was, where is he going? Even though people didn't consciously realize that he looked not planted.

2:26And we don't like leaders who aren't going to stay with us. whereas Kennedy on the other hand he had a really nice relaxed cross and he used what's called humility hands research calls it humility hands humility hands are when your hands are on your leg and they're resting humility humble humble so he looked relaxed calm here to stay you know not tense I'm not in a rush I'm here I'm your leader right so he looked quote unquote presidential so first the runner's stance second is and this is in the first 10 seconds they were sitting they They were sitting next to each other. They were on a podium.

2:57No. So here's your first snapshot of the debate. And you see Kennedy, humility hands, relaxed, sitting tall. And then you see Nixon, who's like gripping the chair arm, ready to leave. And we see these cues, and people already made their decision. But people who were listening didn't see any of that. Right. They heard the voice. They heard the voice. Interesting. And so Nixon lost the debate to Kennedy. He lost the election to Kennedy. And he said in his memoirs, that's why. It's because of the cues I sent. And so for leaders, here's what we want to think about. One is relaxed, here to stay. So the more you can settle into your place, the distance, this is such a weird measurement.

3:34I want to see the biggest distance between your earlobe and your shoulder. So not like this. Yes, yes. Because why? When we are confident, when we are winners, we take up as much space as possible, right? We broaden our shoulders. We tilt our head towards the sky. Winners feel pride. So we look at the distance between someone's ear and shoulder. We're like, oh, he looks she looks confident So I want you to think about profile pictures videos I love chairs with armrests. Why it helps our our shoulders stay grounded So that's the biggest one is taking up space the second thing that happens that also gives you more vocal power so if I were to do my this entire interview with my shoulders up it would look bizarre I would look scared You would be more closed out.

4:18Yeah, it would be. And so if I tense my vocal cords right now, I'll begin to go into vocal fry. Oh my goodness, it's horrible. And the reason why we'll accidentally go into fry is because we're literally clenching our vocal cords and they cannot get enough breath. And so when you have space, you prevent vocal fry. If you hear yourself in vocal fry, here's the quickest fix you have. Speak louder. Right. So the best way to get rid of vocal fry is to just up your volume. it will push more air through your vocal cords. It makes them hum. If other people on your team are using vocal fry, just ask them to speak up.

4:54Speak a little louder. Yeah, that will usually get them out of vocal fry. Little secret. When we think about getting rid of, I call them like bad nonverbal habits, right? So tics, so ums, crossing arms, those are all bad nonverbal habits. Slouching. Slouching, yeah. It's really hard to just say, don't do that. So what I'd rather you do is replace it. Displacement tactics. Okay, so you know you crossed your arms. Can you hold a coffee mug? Can you hold a pen? Can you hold a clicker? Can you always have a Moleskine notebook? I have a student of mine who always has a Moleskine. He doesn't need it.

5:25He just holds it. He has it. He opens it up and he'll write the date and the meeting name and what he had for breakfast. But that's it. He literally used it because if he doesn't, he puts his hands in his pocket or crosses his arms. So he has it in front of him because it helps him feel very grounded. It's a replacement tool. It's a replacement tool. So I would think about what are some tools you can use that will help you do that.

6:11Make sure to come back tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.