Break Bad Body Language Habits | Vanessa Van Edwards EP 479

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

0:11What are the three most powerful body language cues of leaders? My favorite is from the Nixon-Kennedy presidential debate. Here's what happened. 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 perceived winners. One sounded like a leader and one looked like a leader.

0:44So 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. Anyone who saw it went, oh, no, no, no, no. This guy is not a winner. And this was before they even spoke. So in the first 30 seconds of the debate, neither of them speak. You see them on camera. And if you were watching, you saw, wow, Nixon looks so weak. And here's why. What most people don't know is that Nixon had just injured his knee on the campaign trail.

1:25And 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. We know this as a readiness position. Universally across cultures, if someone's about to run away from us, they will get into this position, right?

1:59Like, 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 it was knee. Because it was knee. It was a 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's he going? Even though people didn't consciously realize it, he looked not planted. And we don't like leaders who aren't going to stay with us. Kennedy, on the other hand, he had a really nice, relaxed cross, and he used what's called humility hands.

2:31Research 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. So he looked, quote, unquote, presidential. 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, gritting 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.

3:03He lost the election to Kennedy. And he said in his memoirs, that's why. It's because of the cues I sent. For leaders, here's what we want to think about. One, relaxed, here to stay. The more you can settle into your place, I want to see the biggest distance between your earlobe and your shoulder. 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. When someone hops on a video call, this is the mistake I see.

3:36Shoulders pinched up towards ears. And we wonder why people aren't taking us seriously. We wonder why people are interrupting us. 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, right? I would look scared. You would be more closed. Yeah, it would be. And so if I tense my vocal cords right now, I'll begin to go into vocal fry. 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.

4:06And 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. 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. What's the difference between the humble hands on a knees or on a table I guess right here is this work on a table as well yes yes versus hand over top of the other hand which is relaxed but also is closed body yes versus two hands two hands side by side relaxed not like intense but relaxed side by side what's doing between these two as long as your hands are relaxed I don't care if they're closed or open now I do care about this so when we protect our arms crossed yes I do care about this And why is because when we are crossing like this, I know it's comfortable for some people.

4:55What research finds is two things. One is we look more closed off. So we never want to look closed off. Second, they found that when people are trying to be creative or strategic, they literally cannot generate as much ideas when they are like this. What's the alternative? Humility hands, open posture, holding a drink, typing at a computer, taking notes. Anything else. Anything else. Anything else. So I love props. So I, the way that I don't cross my arms, because I actually like to cross my arms. So I hold a clicker for presentations. Because every time I think about crossing my arms, I remember, oh, I have the clicker.

5:31When we think about getting rid of, I call them like bad nonverbal habits, right? So ticks, 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? So I would think about what are some tools you can use that will help you do that.

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6:57Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.