Use These PSYCHOLOGY HACKS To Become More CONFIDENT | Vanessa Van Edwards EP 444

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

0:10I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver's seat of your life and unlock your potential. And that's why I'm thrilled to share that my new book is out right now. It's called The Greatness Mindset. In it, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago. It's everything I've learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind. Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023mindset to pick up your copy of my book, The Greatness Mindset, today.

0:50What happens if we don't use our hand gestures at all in a conversation, in a pitch? Two things. One is it's harder for you to process. The person speaking, it's harder to process. It's going to be harder for you to get your confidence because gestures are a way that we underline or highlight our words. And so if you are inhibiting your own gestures, you will have a hard time explaining things. They actually did a study where they had people explain two versions of a story. One, they could use their hands and one they couldn't. The one where they could use their hands, they had less pauses. They spoke more quickly.

1:23They used better words. The one where they just couldn't, just their hands were just underneath their legs. You know what's interesting? I was just reading some intros for the podcast right before you came in. And I used my hands in order to do it because I feel like it's coming across as like I'm really engaging. Yes, yes. And I remember when I was reading my first audio book, School of Greatness, I tried to read it like just kind of like with my hands down for a while. And I was like, I can't read. You cannot read. I've forgotten how to read my own words. But when I started to be like, okay, I just need to get in this with my body, my hands, I felt more confident.

1:55I felt like I could flow. I wasn't messing up as much. I wasn't having to stop and restart as much. It was powerful. Yes. Okay, that's an incredible story about gesture because if you watch the best cartoon voiceover folks, they are using their - Animated, right? Yes, they are using their whole bodies. I'm using my hands right now, not only for people watching, but also for my folks who are listening because I know that the more I use my gestures, the more charisma I have vocally. And so that helps me, but it also helps you. So anyone who's watching, you're getting so much information. They say 12.5 times more information from our gestures.

2:28Come on. Yes. Okay. What are a few other things that you noticed? Okay. Yes. Okay. So we love gestures. And by the way, this is super easy on a video call in person. Hey, nice to see you. Good morning. The biggest mistake we make, someone walks in and we go, hey, we give them a nod, right? Give them a hand that you like them enough to give them a hand, right? So that's really easy. It's like every YouTube video, I'm like, hey friends. That's literally how I start every video. Okay. That's the first thing. So the second thing is where things get more interesting. So remember that these sharks were in pitch after pitch after pitch.

2:57They're tired. They are so tired. I've been on set there. It's a lot. It's a grind. It's a grind. So the most successful pitches, the next thing we found this was very, very clear, is that the more that the pitchers could spark dopamine, the more likely they were to get a deal. Now, dopamine is a very complicated chemical. So just for our purposes. Food, eating something. No, giving them like, oh, try my. Oh, yes, yes, yes. I was like, food, yes, yes. Eat it, like taste testing, like try opening something. Try it, taste it, smell it, lick it, touch it, feel it, wear it, play it. So when we are doing something that's different, that's tactile, that was going to wake the sharks up.

3:33Dopamine, it's a very complicated chemical, but it does feel good, right? So if they were to say to the sharks, sharks, today I have a gift for you. The brain goes, ooh, a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift. So what they found is that when people have a lot of dopamine, they are more motivated to do things. They are more motivated to figure out a deal. they are more motivated to ask questions. So when a pitcher went in and not only had some kind of interactivity, some kind of a surprise for them, and sometimes it was a surprise, and they would literally say, and guess what, sharks? Why? What? Right?

4:06What is it? We want to know what that is because we're like, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. You don't have to walk in every meeting and throw out Snickers bars. Love a Snickers bar, and that will work really well. That will work. It will work every time. But it's also verbal surprise. So it's also saying today has something really special to share, right? Anticipation. Anticipation. It doesn't even have to be something major. It can be throwing in those little elements of surprise that people can look forward to. And here's the biggest one. You write a lot of emails. This study is for you. Researchers had participants come into their lab and do like a little quiz, a little math test.

4:41One group of participants read a set of directions that was very simple. Please take the following quiz. Take your time. Use a pencil. Tell us when you're done. Very simple set of directions. The other participants got the same set of directions, but they sprinkled in a couple of achievement-oriented words. So achievement-oriented words are words like win, succeed, master, greatness. Okay? Those are achievement-oriented words. There's a reason why this is so powerful. They found that participants who had the achievement-oriented words performed better. they actually got more answers correct. Now, this is incredible.

5:18If you're a manager or a boss or you're working with people and you want them to perform at their best, just a couple of word swaps can help set them up for success. The second thing they found is that it also doubled participants' desire to keep working. If they could win, succeed, achieve. They worked on it longer, they worked on it harder, and they enjoyed it more. And the last one is that reading achievement-oriented words can change our own dopamine and testosterone. They put a picture of an athlete winning a race on top of telemarketers' scripts. The people who had the picture of the athlete winning earned more money.

5:56Come on. Yes. Like just in front of them? Literally a printed picture on their script. Why I share this is because we do not realize that we are cuing people incorrectly or we are missing opportunities in every single email that we send. So if you send an email out to your team on Monday morning, Hey everyone, today is going to be a busy day. We have a lot of challenges. Let's make sure we're not late. Research has found that when people read words like busy, challenge, or late, it literally primes them to be busier and later and more challenged. You are literally making it harder for them to help you.

6:33Instead, you think about, and this is a challenge I would love to, if you're brave enough to take it, open up your email sent folder and pull up five emails you've sent to important people, boss, partner, colleague, whatever, client. I want you to print those emails, and I want you to count the number of priming words you use. Good or bad. And even more, are they warm or are they competent? So this is where the next level happens. Ooh, give it to me. Highly charismatic people prime others with warmth and competence. This is what I was going to say is one of the spark dopamine. A simple compliment or acknowledgement sparks dopamine.

7:08from my experience. Just by seeing someone and acknowledging something you appreciate about them or you like about them or great shoes or whatever it is, I'm not sure, that sparks dopamine, right? Oh, 100%. Actually, this leads me to my next third point, my Shark Tank point. We also noticed that when pitchers specifically acknowledge things from the sharks and specific sharks, they were more likely to get a deal from that shark. I really like this thing about you. You did something amazing. Lori, I've been so looking forward to working with you. Robert, I love all your deals with all those athletes.

7:36Mark, I've been a huge fan of years for years. This was the winning phrase. In a pitch, if we heard this phrase, it was a high likelihood that someone was going to get a deal, which is, you remind me of myself. That could have been one of the sharks, that could have been one of the entrepreneurs, but the biggest compliment we can give someone is, you remind me of me, you're my role model. I put you in. So this is what we're talking about as kind of the next level here is I think that, yes, I want you to be your most charismatic self. I want everyone hopefully listening to be inspired to be their warmest, most competent self.

8:09But what a bigger gift, what a better way to be great, to gift other people to be their warmest and most competent self. So that when you're sending an email and you say, hey, I'm introing Sarah, or we have Sarah on the call, no priming words. What if instead you thought, what's the warmest and most competent thing about both Sarah and the person I'm introducing to? and you say, hey, I'd love you to meet Sarah. She's been leading our marketing team for 10 years. We are so lucky to have her. She's a gem, lucky gem leader. That is the perfect balance of warmth and competence. And you are gifting that to both Sarah, the person you're interviewing to and yourself.

9:00Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

9:50Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.