Stop Faking Confidence: Master These Cues Instead

24:24So anyone who's watching, you're getting so much information. They say 12.5 times more information from our gestures. Come on. Yes. Even when you can't see it? No, you have to be able to see it. We can hear charisma, but if someone can see our gestures, it adds more weight to what I'm saying. So when I say weight, I'm like, it's heavy. Look how heavy that is, right? But if I were to be like heavy, it's so heavy. And I kind of shoo it away. You're like, no, it's not heavy. You can feel the emphasis of the words. Yes. So it's like a highlighter. Now, I have to have a caveat here because I've created a problem in the past.

25:01Yes. I love a gesture, but I don't like jazz hands. Right? So gestures are great. Hey, good to see you. Hey, Louis. How are you? Are you like, this is not credible or trustworthy? You're like, this is some weirdo over here. I created a problem where I had people who were like entering their Zoom meetings and they were like hello Vanessa and I was like oh no don't do that oh no no so it's like a highlighter right you wouldn't want to highlight the whole page you just want to highlight the concepts that matter so let's go back to hands for a second because you said there were 400 videos I think you guys researched on Shark Tank 495 pitches and one of the main factors was waving as you were walking in or as you were getting planting yes not all the way back like waving some of them did But also once you sat there and said, hey, sharks.

25:47Yes. Hey, sharks. Good morning. Happy to be here. Even this, happy to be here, like an open palm gesture. 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. 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.

26:14So the second thing is where things get more interesting. So remember that these sharks were in pitch after pitch after pitch. They're tired. They're so tired. They are so tired. I've been on set there. I've seen like the whole day. It's just like, it's a lot. It's a grind. It's a grind. Okay, 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.

26:48Oh, yes, yes, yes. I was like, food, yes, yes. And here if they're eating, like taste testing, like opening something. Try it, taste it, smell it, lick it, touch it, feel it, wear it, play it. Any of those senses. We love. So when we are doing something that's different, that's tactile. So, yeah, touch, smell, taste, wear, play, do, try. That was going to wake the sharks up. Dopamine is a little bit, it's a very complicated chemical, but I want to talk about it a little differently. It does feel good, right? So if they were to say that sharks, sharks, today I have a gift for you, the brain goes, ooh, a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift.

27:25Right? Dopamine is like that feeling of I want it, I want it, I want it. It's excitement. But it's also motivation. 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? What is it? We want to know what that is because we're like dopamine, dopamine, dopamine.

28:00So it doesn't have to be like you don't have to walk in every meeting and hand out and like throw out Snickers bars. Right. 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 I have something really special to share. 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. So this is research that blew my mind. It changed the way that I write emails. So if you write a lot of emails, this study is for you.

28:33So I'm going to break it down. It's kind of a complicated study. So here's what they did. So researchers had participants come into their lab and do like a little quiz, like a little math test. One 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.

29:09There's a reason why this is so powerful. In the directions they would say something like, please master all these questions, take as much time as you can to win, the right answer. Right? So they just sprinkled in a couple of these words, two or three of these words. They found that participants who had the achievement-oriented words performed better. They actually got more answers correct. Now, this is incredible. If 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, doubled participants' desire to keep working.

29:49If 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. That's fascinating. You know, it's interesting because for years in high school and college, I had all, there was this store called Successions, I think it was called. I don't know if you remember this. It was like a motivational, inspirational store that had like, I don't know, a poster of like an ego soaring with a quote, right? Sounds like my office. Like something which is like, it was like Ted Lasso, you know, store.

30:23It was just like, believe in yourself with this money. Where is this store? I want it. I think it's called Successions. I can't remember the name of it. I don't even know if it's around anymore. But my dad bought me a lot of stuff. And I had all this sports type of inspirational quotes and Rocky posters and all these things of just people achieving. And I would stare in these walls and I should be like, I want to be that. Let me go take the actions every morning to work a little bit harder to reach the goals. And I was just consumed in a success, you know, word. You were literally priming yourself with those cues.

30:59Another study, I promise I won't do too many more. 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. Come on. Yes. Like just in front of them? You're like... Literally a printed picture on their script. Oh, wow. So 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.

31:39Let'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. So if instead 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?

32:20So 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 from 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 going to share. You've got a great smile today. You've got good energy today. 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.

33:00I 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. Mark, I've been a huge fan of yours for years. Or 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.

33:37I want everyone, hopefully, who's listening to be inspired to be their warmest, most competent self. But 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 or here's that quick email intro I promised to Sarah. 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.

34:13We 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 introducing to, and yourself. And so I think our words are gifts. And this doesn't have to be every email. But in your most important emails, that audit that you send, count how many warm words are you using. So warm words are words that trigger connection, trust, words that make you feel the warm and fuzzies. They're very oxytocin words. Count the number of competent words. Efficient, productive, brainstorm, leverage, lead, streamline.

34:51Those are all great competence words. A funny note here is emojis. Are they good or bad? Highly warm. Right. Not good or bad. Well, you can have likability, connection. Right. High warmth, right? So emojis and exclamation points count as one warm word. Wow. So if you have someone, and this happens a lot, where people send a highly warm email to an important person. Hi, friend. Friend. Warm word. Exclamation point. Two warm words. I loved talking to you yesterday. Three warm words. It was so exciting to catch up. Exciting. Catch up. Five warm words. Heart emoji. Heart, smiley face. Now we're at seven warm words and we're one sentence in.

35:33Right? They wonder why they're not taken seriously. They wonder why they didn't get a follow-up interview. They wonder why that person takes four days to reply. It's because it's too much warmth. You have to balance it out with the competence. So I want you to count and see what kind of signals are you sending to the people who matter to you. That's interesting. Do you want to? You know, you're bringing up something I used to do years ago. When no one knew who I was, I was just getting started 2007, 2008, I used LinkedIn as a tool to create connection with people that were successful business leaders and people that had done things that I wanted to do in the future.

36:11And for a while, none of them would reply to me because I started off saying, like, hey, I'm just getting started. I'm brand new. And I'm looking for some advice. Can you help me? Those types of - Yeah. Warm, warm, warm, warm, warm. Languages, right? Yeah. All those words you just said are all warm. Yeah. And I started switching it and getting a reply almost every time from anyone. Like anyone I'd reach out to, I was like, they're going to reply to this. And I started doing a few things. In the first sentence, I would just try to find, you know, spark dopamine essentially is what I was doing. I was looking for a mutual connection we have.

36:44And I'd speak about the mutual connection. Mutual connection is highly competent. It's saying, you know this person. I know them too. I'm in the know. Trust and warmth. And there's trust. Warmth and confidence. This person likes me. If you like them, yeah, trust. Perfect balance, yeah. I didn't even know that. And I was just doing it, right? And it was working. I was like, okay, let me keep doing this. Let me find someone that we know in common. And I would always try to have a conversation to get some intel on them. Can you tell me something about so-and-so? And I would speak about that information.

37:08And I would speak into them. I would also look for a couple other areas of interest that we have in common. And I would try to have three different things in common in the first sentence or two. Wow. You know, something that they did that I'd experienced before or a place they're from or whatever. Some mutual interest. Warmth and competence. Maybe that's competence, maybe. Or it's both. Both. It's beautifully both. Yeah. So I would do that and then I would say something like, I'm really inspired by what you created. I'd love to learn your story of success. Oh, wait, wait. Say it again. Say it again.

37:40I'm really inspired by what you've created. I'd love to learn your story of success. Oh, man. That just gave me the chills. That's essentially what I did almost every email. That sentence. Can we just talk about it? Sure. So that sentence is the perfect blend of warmth and competence. There you go. Right? You have love. You have learn. You have success. And so that didn't take a lot of words. It's not like you were writing them a six-paragraph email. But it's so much better than, let me know if you have any questions. Right. Oh. Yeah. Or can I pick your brain for coffee? Yeah, exactly. You know?

38:10Yeah. So I think what we have to do is there are hidden opportunities waiting for you in your texts, in your emails, in your profiles, if you choose to take them. And all it takes is a couple of word swaps. I'm not talking about 15. In that direction sheet, they sprinkled in like two or three words. Win. Even reading the word win makes the other person think more like a winner. What a gift to give. That's cool. The quote that I heard in high school from Roosevelt is, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Saves my life, literally. That's one thing competence right there.

38:46Because I didn't feel competent my entire school life, right? In school, I was at the bottom of my class. I just graded poorly, which confirmed, like, I'm not smart enough. Like, I'll never be able to be as intelligent as my classmates or anyone in the world. So why would anyone like me or trust me? Because I didn't feel competent. Then when I heard that quote, I go, I have a chance. Like, I can build competence in another area of life. I can be emotionally intelligent. And I can show people how much I care. And by doing that, that's been pretty much my whole life. Everyone who's listening, I hope what this shows you is that caring about someone, there's multiple ways to do that.

39:28Yes, it's emotionally intelligent, but it's also honoring someone's cues or gifting them the right cues. Yes. When you make someone feel more like a winner, what a gift you just gave them. Huge gift. You're putting confidence into them. You're speaking joy, confidence into that person. Yes, you're literally gifting them the chemical dopamine so that they themselves have more motivation. Yes. And don't we all need more motivation? Absolutely, yeah. Can I, since you shared a vulnerability, can I share a vulnerability and a compliment? Sure. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I've been so excited to tell you this.

39:59So your book, School of Greatness, I love the cover. I just thought it was so inspiring. And when I was taking my cover shoot for Captivate, this is six years ago now, it was not going well. I was super awkward. My photographer, amazing Maggie Kirkland, was like, listen, like, this isn't working. You're really awkward. I need you to relax. I can't relax. The worst thing you can do to someone who's anxious is tell them to relax. So we weren't getting the shot. We weren't getting the pictures. And she's like, okay, just think about your role models. Who's your role model? I was like, Lewis Howes.

40:30So she pulls up your book. And she goes, okay. She said, look at Lewis. Channel him. And so in the shoot, I channeled you and I did your pose of my hands over my stomach with your face. And crazily enough, that is the Captivate cover. That was a shot. I'm going to send you the full version. How many books do you sell? How many copies do you get? A lot, a lot, a lot. I better send you some royalties. So anyway, I channeled you because even that cue, there was something about it. So I thank you for even the cues that you send out because that gifted me confidence. we didn't even know about it. There you go.

41:06I appreciate it. I'm glad it worked. What's another thing in the shark tank? We're talking about sparking dopamine. What else? Okay, so we talked about greeting. We talked about dopamine. We talked about interactivity. We talked about complimenting in a way that allows someone to see themselves in you or pulling out a similarity, right? So like you, Lori, we really value Mr. Wonderful. We love Mr. Wonderful products, right? Like that really helped. I mean, it sounds like sucking up, but actually it really worked. The other thing that we noticed about the interactivity is what they would do is they would cross space zones.

41:42So they would have something to give the sharks and they would go from the carpet to the chairs. That worked usually. That worked because they were going into intimate zone very quickly. So this is called a nonverbal bridge. It's kind of an advanced technique. Do you want to talk about it? Yes. Okay. So a nonverbal bridge is a way that we cross into someone's intimate space but safely. So what happens is when we're with someone, we want to connect with them. We want more oxytocin. We want to bond with them. But sometimes it can be hard to break that boundary. A nonverbal bridge is a way that we can create oxytocin with permission.

42:17So that could be handing someone something. That could be giving a high five. That could be touching their elbow. And that is exactly what successful pitchers did. They would have a reason or an excuse to, hey, Lauren, let me guide you up here. Hey, Kevin, let me zip on this suit for you. hey, you want to try this amazing cinnamon roll? And when they did that, they created these small little bridges. So what I would think about is like, how can you create bridges to people where you're engaging them even physically, right? And that's harder on video, but in person, that was a thing that we found in that ship in the tank.

42:48How do you do it in a way that the person feels comfortable if you touch them on the elbow? Because someone may not feel comfortable. So you have to be really intuitive to, you know, is this person going to be receptive to me? Are they already interested enough where I can get closer? Yes, are they leaning in? Are they giving eye contact? Are they nodding? Oh, I forgot another one that was really important. So vocal power. So we haven't really talked about vocal power. And this was a big one in the tank. So we hear confidence. We hear competence. And the biggest way that we do this is with inflection.

43:18So inflection is the biggest mistake that we make is the question inflection. So the question inflection is when we go up at the end of our sentences. It's also called up talk. So if I were to... Don't do up talk. Don't do up talk. We're going to talk about why. So when we use the question inflection, it cues the other person's brain to know, ah, we're being asked a question. The problem is that when we accidentally use the question inflection, it makes people question you, right? Are they really trustworthy? Right. So what happened is in this study where they looked at doctors, they found that the doctors who had...

43:51So I'll break down the study. So what they did is they asked doctors to record 10-second voice tone clips. And they said, like, their name, their specialty, where they worked. So it sounded like, hi, my name is Dr. Edwards. I work in oncology. I specialize in children's medicine. Something like that. They took the clips and they warbled the words so you couldn't understand the actual words being said. So it sounded like, right? Then they asked people to rate these clips on warmth and competence. Again, this research has been repeated over and over again. Imagine for a second, you're asked to listen to a clip of gobbledygook.

44:27Yes, to see if they're competent. Are they smart? Do you like them? Yeah, and people do it. What they found is the doctors who had the lowest warmth and competence ratings had the highest rate of malpractice lawsuits. That implies that we don't just sue doctors based on their skills. We sue doctors based on our perception of their skills, and that happens in the first few seconds of hearing them. So your communication is everything. Everything. It's not just the words you're using. Are they warm? Are they competent? It's even how you're saying the words. So the very first story I break down in the book, and this is in the intro, so if you want to just look at the sample chapter, you could.

45:09I analyzed Jamie Siminoff's pitch. Jamie Siminoff is the founder of Ring. That didn't get any money and then it sold for a billion dollars. Yes. Here is a brilliant guy, right? Jamie Siminoff is brilliant. He had a successful product, right? Ring is a very successful product. Amazon acquired it for over a billion with a B dollars. Yet he goes into the pitch in the Shark Tank and he pitches and he doesn't get a deal. Why? That pitch plagued me because I was like, here is a smart guy with a great idea. But his cues were the problem. I think that he lost his pitch. This is a really big statement.

45:46And if you listen to it, you'll hear it. I think he lost the deal in the first 10 seconds of them hearing him. and the reason is he made the choice to close the doors to the tank so in his pitch he doesn't walk down the hallway you don't see that long first impression you don't get public to social to personal he closed the doors and what he did is he went he knocked on the door of the shark they're like hello and he goes it's jamie so he asked his own name and when you're a shark and you're trying to make a very quick first impression of someone without seeing them and you hear the question inflection that's supposed to be used on a statement, you immediately begin to question, I don't know.

46:31And that is also because we know that liars are more likely to use the question inflection. If you've ever played Two Truths and a Lie, have you ever played that game? Yeah. Okay. So Two Truths and a Lie, here's a little tip for everyone. If you ever play that game, people almost always ask the lie. So they'll be like, oh yeah, Two Truths and a Lie. I have a goldfish i am a vegetarian and i love dogs they almost always go up on their lie and that's because we when we're lying we don't know if you believe us so subconsciously we give it away so jamie starts his pitch and he doesn't have a first impression he doesn't do any greeting in the hallway he misses that whole walk up the very first words out of his mouth doesn't matter what he says is, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, right, up, up, up, up.

47:14And then Mark Cuban says, are you here to pitch? And he says, here to pitch? Again, using the question inflection. I think that what happened was is it gave away his competence. And then the doors open, right, and he explains this idea of ring, it's a doorbell. The problem is, is his first impression was very low in competence. And so he had a lot of trouble having the Sharks take him seriously. He was a very competent individual building his business, right? He was very smart, intelligent, knew the technology, how to build product, teams, all these things, get sales, whatever it was. But the warmth wasn't there as well, it seems like, right?

47:50Like the trustworthy, charisma, warmth, confidence. He undersignaled every step of the way. So he undersignaled warmth. He undersignaled competence. And then was trying to dial up competence. And you hear in the rest of the pitch, he's trying to build it back up. He's like, but we've done this. And look where we've got this technology. And this money. And then this. And so he cannot get it back. He could not get it back. And so I think I watched that pitch and I break it down in the book of what happened to this brilliant guy who had one bad day. And I think that if he – you know he scripted those answers.

48:23He prepared for that pitch. And he had really good verbal answers. There was even a couple times where I think this thing happens for people who over-rehearse. So if you have an interview or a presentation, what do you do? You rehearse it, right? You practice the perfect answer. That can get in your way, though, because if you practice the perfect answer, this is exactly what happened to Siminoff, and very highly intelligent people do this. He would hear a question from a shark, usually a challenging question, because they were, like, really pushing him on the deal, and they didn't believe him.

48:53No one believed him. They all thought, oh, no, it's too crowded of a market. It will never work. They literally said that to him. Okay, I have a ring on my front door. And they literally said, no. He could not get them to believe him because what would happen was is they would ask him a question. He would start to answer it organically. and then he would switch into his rehearsed answer. Oh, no. So you would hear, oh, yeah, yeah, we do have market track. Our market traction has been wonderful. In fact, in the last five years, we've done X numbers and you would be like, who is this robot? Yeah, just say what's on your heart.

49:23Yeah, yeah, just say it organically. Right, and so I think you can be the smartest person in the world. You could have the best ideas, but if you don't share them right, you're not helping people help you. And so that's my, it drives me crazy when smart people can't get their ideas heard. And that pitch crushed me. I felt so bad for him. And he made it. He's okay now. He's doing really well. And then he was like a guest shark or whatever, yeah. Okay, and what's amazing is when you watch him walk into the tank as a shark, you can see the difference. You can feel the difference. The confidence, yeah.

49:53Oh, my. You know, he walks into the tank. He walks down the hallway, right? He walks down the hallway. He's smiling. He gestures. Hey, everyone. Good to see you. He shakes hands. He does all the things he didn't do in that original pitch. And you can see the difference. And he's the same person. Same person, same ideas, similar suits, yet he looks like a different person. Fascinating. It's not about what you say. It's how you say it, how you present yourself and your words. And your words? And your norm. I'm just kidding. I'm curious about this. There's a big topic out there right now. I just did a recent interview with Dr.

50:31Romney, who is a therapist, psychologist, talking about narcissism a lot today. Can you talk to me the difference between charisma and narcissism? And how can you spot when someone is actually warm and caring and charismatic versus someone who uses the skills or the tools of charisma in their narcissistic approach towards manipulating, controlling and getting what they want in life. So this is my biggest fear with this book. This is my single biggest fear and it was an issue for me when I first started writing it. Is I'm gonna be honest, you can use this book for manipulation. Yeah, of course.

51:11And that scares me. And when a smart person who's narcissistic is gonna study everything and then start using it. It scares me. So how can you tell the difference, the subtle cues? These are very subtle now. Very subtle, yeah. So we're talking about big to subtle, right? There's like a range of them. So first is, it is my biggest fear with this book that people do not have the right intentions. And my hope is that we can actually use these powers for good and not evil. That is the number one thing is you can if you want to. Here's the good news. There are certain cues that we cannot control. And if you have bad intentions, they will leak.

51:43So I call these danger zone cues. So in the book I talk about, there's four different types of cues. There's highly warm, nonverbal, verbal, and vocal. So these are things that make you highly warm, highly trustworthy, highly likable. There's highly competent cues, verbal, nonverbal, and vocal. And then there's charismatic, the ones that are just knocking out of the park. Like they're just great. And the last one is danger zone cues. Danger zone cues are the cues that get us into trouble. They're the cues that liars use. They're the way that we leak guilt and shame. Actually, shame is not a bad thing.

52:12It's only when you have guilt that you've done something wrong. So in the danger zone, it is very hard to inhibit those cues. So I teach them because I want people to be able to spot them. Okay, what are those cues? Okay, so there's a bunch and I'll let's talk about as many as we can. So this might be someone who's very successful, someone who's accomplished a lot potentially, someone that seems very credible, someone that could be in a power position, owning a business or having influence online or something like that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Extremely successful, they could be successful, they could seem credible, trustworthy, but might be super narcissistic underneath.

52:48Yes, so there's a couple danger zone cues that we can control, which a manipulative person could inhibit, right? So, for example, one that I found that I talk about in the book is Lance Armstrong. So Lance Armstrong, for those who don't know, spoiler alert, Lance Armstrong was doping. So someone was like, there was spoilers in the book. And I was like, you haven't heard of that news yet? I also talk about Britney Spears in the book because there's some really interesting cues on her, which I think why we're worried about her, why her fans worry. She shows a lot of danger zone cues. So Lance Armstrong, in one of his early interviews on Larry King Live, he's asked about doping.

53:23And he does what's called a lip purse. So a lip purse is, okay, when we push our lips into a flat line, we mash our lips together. That is a universal withholding gesture. So when we're literally trying to hold something in or hold something back or we don't like what's being said or heard, we go. And so you'll notice that when someone has been asked something they don't like, when someone had to lie, a lot of the time... So we did a massive experiment in our lab where we asked people to send in videos of themselves lying. Actually, you play it in the book. It's called Lie to Me. So I have you lie to me.

53:55Play this Lie to Me game. Diagnose your own tells. It's very important to know your own tells because you should know what your danger zone cues are when you're leaking them. And you should know those. It's good to know those in the back of your pocket. Do that with your partner, right? You want them to know what those are too. So one thing that we noticed is on lies, that was one of the biggest indicators. So in Lie to Me game, we ask you to do two things. We ask you to tell us an embarrassing story, your most embarrassing story, and then a fake embarrassing story. And we want to see if we can tell the difference.

54:26If we cut the clips, can we know which one is the fake one? Man, that'd be interesting. Yes. And it's amazing. You see the same danger zone cues over and over again right before someone's about to lie and tell their fake embarrassing story. They go, okay, and they lip purse right before they're going to do it. And that's because we don't like lying. Our body knows it's going to get us into trouble. So we're like, stop it, stop it, stop it. And we hold ourselves back. You ask a woman, how much do you weigh? She'll go, mm, like literally close those lips because no woman wants to talk about how much she weighs.

54:54So it's a withholding gesture. And so that's the first thing is you want to look for some of the bigger cues, withholding gestures. Lip purse is one, a sudden distancing behavior. So we also noticed that liars in our lab, they wanted to like get away from the lie, like as if it smelled. So like when they were telling their most embarrassing story, they'd be like leaning in, using gestures. Oh, it was so embarrassing. Remember, embarrassing stories are negative. It's not like it's a positive memory. It's like people are like, and they do a shame touch. The universal shame touch is when people touch their fingers to the side of their forehead.

55:25Yes, this happened to them. Oh, gosh, I'm so embarrassed. So they usually tell the truth and they do like this. Yes, because they're actually embarrassed, right? So these are all good, like congruent. We're seeing embarrassment and shame gesture. We're seeing negative nonverbal and people shake in their head. I can't believe that happened. Oh, they're so upset that happened. We're seeing cringes. We're seeing fear. We're seeing sadness. Congruent. That's all congruent emotion. On the bad stories, we often see people will lip purse and they try to get away from it. So they'll say a statement and then, you know, and then, and they're literally like as far away.

56:01I hope I'm not messing up my audio. They're as far away from the lie as they can possibly get. They're leaning back. They'll sometimes literally lean their head back in the chair. And that's because physically we want to distance ourselves from things we don't like. So we're looking for lip purses, sudden distancing. And there's a lot of cues that we can't control, right? So blink rate is another one. Eye blocking behavior is liars have higher blink rates. They blink more. Yeah. Actually, in Britney Spears, she had a really interesting interview that I actually break this down on my YouTube channel.

56:30So you don't even have to read the book if you want to see it. where I break down the cues in this early interview. This is right before the conservatorship started. So very, very full of cues because it's right before it happened. And she gets asked a very difficult question. And she, all of a sudden, her blink rate goes from a normal rate to a high rate. So she starts to really quickly blink her eyes like this. And that is because when we're really nervous, we literally want to close out stimuli to not see what's happening so we can process what's happening. So blink rate is something that a lot of manipulative people cannot control.

57:02In fact, when I share this, people go, oh, I know a very narcissistic manipulative person who has a very high blink rate. Interesting. Because they're literally like trying to block out the lie or the manipulation. And so they'll sound really good, but they're like really like processing a lot. And you're like, why are they blinking so much? And it's because they're trying to process. Oh, my goodness. So just knowing those cues are not all bad on their own, but it's important to know what those cues look like so you can spot them. And I do think, I really think, manipulative people will get caught eventually.

57:33It is very hard to fake competence. It is very hard to fake warmth. It's hard to keep that up. And so for the long game, yes, you can learn a couple of these cues and try to master your way around them. But for the long game, it's really hard. I mean, look at, you know, Theranos, right? So Elizabeth Holmes. So spoiler alert, Theranos did not go well. I feel like I was up to say that. So one of her interesting cues is, I don't know if you've ever seen her talk, she uses a really deep voice, like fakely deep, like down here. And people used to say, like, is that real? It's because she read in some cue book, it wasn't mine because my book wasn't out then, thank goodness.

58:14She read in some book that having a lower tone of voice makes you more competent. And that is true. Research has found that people who use the lower end of their natural voice tone are seen as competent. That's for both men and women. So you have a very deep voice and it serves you really well. When I'm talking right now, I'm trying to use the lowest end of my natural register. When I'm talking to my toddler, I'm much more up here. You know, hey baby, how are you? But if I were to do my entire interview, like this thing would drive you crazy. You wouldn't feel confident. No, and people would go, I can't.

58:46I'm not taking her seriously. So she read that study, obviously. And went an octave lower. There you go. And went an octave lower. So it wasn't her natural voice tone. It was like one step lower than her voice tone. So she was always talking like this. And when she did an interview, she would talk like this. And you would hear that this just doesn't sound natural. And part of your spidey sense would be like, why is she talking so low? It sounds really unnatural. And it came out that when she was drunk, her employees noticed that she went back into her natural register. Wow. So there are cues that they will eventually bring.

59:18Don't drink alcohol. That is the point of this story. Don't drink alcohol. Or you're going to get caught. So you can't keep it up for that long. It is that she was faking that cue, we think. I think you're also just, your body is out of integrity. The more you're keeping back something, you're telling a slight lie or whatever. I mean, I felt this from the past because I've been out of integrity in my life at different times, from different stages of childhood to adulthood, right? From little white lies to bigger stuff, hiding from my parents or whatever it is. They feel bad. So you're like, something inside of you feels off, right?

59:51And then you got to keep the lie up But you're like, eventually you're going to explode or you're going to have a heart attack or something. It's going to leak. It's going to leak. Leaking cues. You leak those cues. And those are the cues that we're looking for. I want you to be on the lookout for them. Because when something feels bad, even like something feels bad, even just then when you were saying it felt bad, your voice tone changed. Right. Just then. Yeah. Because when you think about seeing a toxic person, and I know that people probably have toxic people in their lives. And this is why toxic people are so challenging because toxic people put us out of integrity.

1:00:25Toxic people force us to use warm cues where we don't feel like it. Now we can do it. What do you mean? We got to be nice to them or something? Yeah. So like if you have a toxic person, and this is the thorn in, and I think our work is I want everyone to be their best selves. I want them to show up as their warmest, most confident self. But what if you have a toxic person? How do you do that authentically? And this is what's so hard about toxic people. You have a colleague or co-worker or a family member that you don't like, right? And you have to break out the fake warmth cues. Oh, hi. How are you?

1:00:59And so what do we do? We fake smile, right? So, oh, it's so good to see you. Right? It doesn't look authentic. It doesn't look like it, right? Or we say, oh, yeah, so how, oh, that sounds good. Congratulations. Right? Now your L.A. roots are coming back to you. Right. Right. That's why toxic people challenge us is because they come into our lives. We know we're supposed to be warm. And so we try to force that warm sound and it comes out sort of forced and then it makes us feel bad. And then we're trying to overcommentate for it. And so you know what? The antidote here is not learning more fake warmth cues.

1:01:32It's time to get rid of toxic people. I think that's like the side effect of the book is like. Don't keep them around. Don't keep those people around because it will leak. And so set boundaries around them. So what do you mean it will leak? like your integrity will leak because you're constantly trying to be nice, but that you're actually out of integrity because you don't want to be. Right. Is that right? Right. That's exactly right. So your body is like, I'm doing something that's not authentic to me because I feel like I have to with this person. That's right. And the more frequently you do that, you feel out of integrity with yourself.

1:02:01Yep, exactly. With yourself. With yourself. That was a question you were asking me. And I'm like, yes, it was. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. That was perfect because you were asking a question. I knew, yes, is if you allow toxic people to come into your life, especially without boundaries, We have to have some of those people we deal with. But if you don't have boundaries around them, they come into your life and you have to fake niceness. And that feels really bad. What happens if, let's just say there's a person you don't like. Yeah. Maybe they're not toxic. There's someone you don't like and you don't like being nice to because you feel like, why am I, I just don't, nothing wrong with them.

1:02:31There's not my person. Yeah. Totally. Let's say you're in a work environment. Yeah. And you're at a company, you got 50, 100 employees that you're working with, you're on a team with, and you're just, okay, I'm here. Yeah. Is it better to be inauthentic and lie and act nice around this person? Friendly, fake, how are you? Interested? Even though you've been around them for six months or a year and you realize you really don't like them. Or is it better to go right up to the person after six months and say, you know what? I just want to be completely honest and not fake with you because I feel like I've been fake.

1:03:03That I don't connect with you. I don't like you. I think you're out of integrity. I think you're inauthentic. and maybe I'm being judgmental, but I'd rather be honest with you and fake nice to you. Okay, that's A and B. Can I give a C? Sure. Okay, so I don't believe in fake it till you make it. So I try not to give like fake it. I don't roll that way. Like I just think it's exhausting. I think it's gonna leak. The C option here is to not fake warmth, but is to double down on competence. So if you are working with someone that you don't like, the one thing that you do have to do is get stuff done with them, right?

1:03:36You have to master your tasks. You have to be on it. You have to be responsive to emails. So that is something that you can be authentic about because to do your job, you have to be able to get along with them in a very professional setting. So I would skip all the fake warmth stuff. Go right into competence. Yeah. Right? Like stick with where you're authentic, which is like I don't need to hear about your weekend. I don't need to go to happy hour with you. I don't need a fake sitting with you for coffee. But you know what? We can get stuff done. You know what? We align on goals. And create boundaries around the, hey, let's go have coffee.

1:04:07Actually, no, I'm busy. I'm so busy today. But you know what? Let's do a brainstorm session tomorrow at the end of the day so we can really kick off. Yeah, yeah. So get back to the mission, the task on hand, the competence. And maybe you've just got to be like, okay, this is someone where 20 seconds a day, I've got to be around someone that's trying to be fake, la-di-da-di with everyone. And I'm just waiting. I'm going to get stuff done. And then I'll move on to the next thing. That's it. Exactly. Because then at least you're focusing on where you can be authentic. and also that's, even if that were to come up, you could honestly say that kind of conversation could be, listen, like, you know, I'm not really into like, you know, connecting at work.

1:04:42I'm more about getting it done. I want to get home to my kids and my family. I hope that's okay with you. You know, when we're together, if it's all right, I might skip lunch and just have us like, you know, work it out and be really efficient. Yeah, that's good. I really appreciate how efficient you are because it allows me to get home to my kids faster. Right, like that's authentic. So what can you appreciate about them that's competent? Yes. What can you highlight about them that's competent? And that's a weird way to work. What if you don't feel like they're warm or competent? You're like, this person on a team is just, they can't get anything done, they're not smart, and they have fake attitude around me all day.

1:05:13I mean, this depends on how you feel, but I would say deal with it. Like, go to your boss. Right, and say, hey, can you put me on a different team? Yeah, you say, like, I don't know how I can work with this person. I don't want to be unauthentic, but I'm telling you that we're not getting stuff done, and they're causing issues on the team. Like, I don't like to ignore that stuff. Like, you can hope it gets better, but ask for help. If you have someone on your team or someone in your life who is not warm nor competent and doesn't treat you with warmth or competence, either get them out of your life, set a boundary, or get help.

1:05:42Give them like an improvement plan or something, yeah. Yeah, don't live with it. Life is too short to feel fakely competent or fake warmth. Right. What's been the, I think I asked you this last time, what's been the charisma strategy? Yeah. If you want to call it a strategy. You weren't sure about that. You weren't sure about that. I don't know what the word is right, But what is the charisma or social cue that you've learned in the last six months that has brought some new attention to your life where you said, ah, I wasn't aware of that fully, but now the research is showing that when someone does this, it improves this.

1:06:15There's a new cue that I snuck into the book in the very last draft because I just learned it. And this is actually brought to me by one of my male readers. And I'm so curious. Okay, do you agree with this, Louis? Okay, here's what they said. So in the book, I had a whole section on nodding. So nodding, affirmative nods, upside down, right? Are yes. I nod all the time. Yeah, yes, you're a nodder. It's really high warmth. We love it. We love nodding. Oh, is it good? Yes, nodding is great. Because vertical nods, and by the way, this is different in certain cultures where they'll nod. They nod sideways.

1:06:46That's different. Okay, so just vertical nodding in Western cultures is agreement. It's yes. In fact, research has found that when you nod at me slowly, I speak three to four times longer. Uh-huh, that's cool. That's why you're a good interviewer is because you'll nod and be like, keep going. Keep going. Keep going. I'm just like a bobblehead. I'm just kind of like, yeah. I'm very slow. I'll pause. I'm like, okay, cool. Okay, well, actually, you're right. Slow nodding is tell me more. Fast nodding is finish up. Yeah, okay. Okay, I got it. I got it. Right, right, right. Okay, so that's the difference there.

1:07:15If you want someone to wrap up in a meeting, give them a one, two, three, triple nod. Like, I got it. If you want them to keep going, an introvert, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay, so that's the difference. That's number one. So I've shared about this. I taught it. And then a couple of my male readers said to me, you know, Vanessa, we think that there is a secret nonverbal cue between guys. Now, I don't know what this cue is. Here's what they said. Okay. If you know a guy and you're trying to acknowledge him guy to guy, you nod up. Yeah. Good to see you. It's literally like an open gesture. You're open.

1:07:45If you don't know a guy, but you're trying to acknowledge his presence, you, hey, good to see you. Oh, wow. That's so true. Is it true? That's so true. Yeah. It's like, oh, good to see you. Acknowledged. Good to see you. Yes. Hey, what's up, buddy? Okay. Yeah, it's so true. Okay. So I snuck it into the book last minute. Oh, wow, that's fascinating. I wonder, is that like biology? Is that social? Yes, here's what I think. Okay, here's my theory on this. As soon as I heard this, I was like, and I started looking. I started watching men. I asked my husband. I asked my guy friends. And this is why I think it happens.

1:08:15When we know someone, we expose our jugular. So this is a very vulnerable part of our body. And we're saying, I know you. I trust you. Look, I'm opening. I'm acknowledging you. And I feel trustworthy. When you don't know someone but you want to show respect, you nod down to protect your jugular. I don't know you, but I see you. I got you. I got you. I'm here for you, kind of. You can't see my jugular, but I'm here for you. I'm going to protect myself, but I'm here for you, bro. Exactly. I think that's where it comes from. That makes sense. Do I know you or do I not know you? So in that sense, this is a high warmth cue.

1:08:47Hey, buddy, what's up? It's high warmth. You're showing your jugular. This is a high confidence cue. Hello. Good to see you. I look ridiculous because I don't do that. Or I'm like, hi, you know. So I think that that was so surprising to me. That's interesting. Because there's so much more, I think, to be done. Like, I list 96 cues in the book, right? That's just the start. I think we're discovering more and more. And that's where, like, the excitement comes in. So that was the new one. That's so cool. And what are the three most powerful cues, body language cues of leaders? Okay. So this is the competence area of the spectrum, right?

1:09:21So when we talk about charisma, we talk about warmth, competence, charisma, and danger. Okay. So three body languages of leaders. The example that I give that I really like to teach from is the Nixon-Kennedy presidential debate. Okay. Have you ever heard of this historical debate? We were not around in this debate, so I'd be shocked if you'd seen it. So we want to be in the high charisma. There you go. Yes. We want to be doing those cues all the time. That's right. We want to be in the star. So right now, you're talking about competence. You just asked me about leaders. So leaders typically are high competence, and they can go into warmth when they want to.

1:09:50High competence and charisma. Right. Or they're high competence and high warmth. Yes, exactly. So highly 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. And my favorite is from the Nixon-Kennedy president's debate. So have you heard about this debate before? Remind me. Okay. You're like, actually, yes. I watched it on the History Channel last night. I mean, maybe you mentioned this before, but isn't one of them was angry or something? I can't remember what happened. So this is why I like this story is because it created a puzzle.

1:10:22And I like puzzles. So 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. Wow. And it was the first time where there was discrepancy between the winners, the perceived winners. Because one sounded competent, the other one looked warm. One sounded like a leader and one looked like a leader.

1:10:54Ooh, you match them together, that's the sweet spot. That's the star. Okay. That's the star, exactly. So one sounded like a leader. 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. What happened? So he was kind of like the Shark Tank guy trying to buy back confidence and warmth at the same time. He gave away his competence in the first few seconds of the debate.

1:11:28So 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. 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.

1:12:05And Nixon's suit was too brown. It blended into the background. So I talk about color psychology at the very end of the book, colors. So that was an issue one that he didn't pop as much on the black and white. Okay. 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 win 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? Like they're literally about to run away.

1:12:33It'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 it, he looked not planted. And 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.

1:13:05Research calls it humility hands. Humility hands are when your hands are on your leg and they're resting. Humility, humble. So he looked relaxed, calm, here to stay. You know, not 10 seconds. I'm not in a rush. I'm here. 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 of the debate. They were sitting. They were sitting next to each other. They weren't on a podium. No. 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 with the chair arm, ready to leave.

1:13:39And 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, is 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, I want to see the biggest distance between your earlobe and your shoulder. So not like this. Yes.

1:14:10Yes. 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. Hi, everyone. Shoulders pinched up towards ears. Wow. And we wonder why people aren't taking us seriously. We wonder why people are interrupting us. It's because this distance, if I'm like this, hey, everyone, happy Monday. Well, your tonality as well, but yeah.

1:14:44Right? Like if I start a video call like this. So today we're going to talk about some updates and I'm going to go over some different slides with you. And we're going to wait a few minutes while people log on. Oh, my. Right? Like horrible. If I'm on your team, is everyone just like, hey. Yes. Are you just calling each other out on your social cues? Everyone's a winner on my team. They're amazing. Right? Like we like play music. Like, yeah, right? Of course, you can lean in sometimes. But in that first impression especially, it's like, hey, good morning, everyone. Good to see you. So I want you to think about profile pictures, videos.

1:15:22I love chairs with armrests. Why? It helps 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 this entire interview with my shoulders up, it would look bizarre. 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. So vocal fry, have you heard this before? It's when your voice sounds like sizzling bacon. I just don't know. I'm not sure. But like I was just thinking about it. And if it's, oh my goodness, it's horrible.

1:15:58And the reason why we'll accidentally go into fry is because we're literally clenching our vocal cords and they cannot get enough breath. Vocal fry, not to be gross, but vocal fry happens when our vocal cords rattle together. and that's what we're hearing is the rattling that's why we don't like it 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 uh hum yeah if other people on your team are using vocal fry just ask them to speak up and speak a little louder yeah that will usually get them Not a vocal fry.

1:16:38Little secret. Don't blame it on me, but that's a really easy way to... If you're interviewing someone and they're in vocal fry and you know it's going to drive your listeners crazy, just be like, you know, the audio, they just can't hear you. Could you speak a little bit louder? It will work. Now, 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 side by side, relaxed, not like intense, but relaxed side by side.

1:17:12What's the difference between these two? Perfect question. So your book cover. Your book cover is hand over hand. Yeah. And they're relaxed. Yeah. And it's a closed posture, but it works. Right? And so it's okay to me. 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 trunk. 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. What research finds is two things. One is we look more closed off. So we never want to look closed off. But 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.

1:17:52What's the alternative? Humility hands, open posture, holding a drink, typing at a computer, taking notes. Anything else. Anything else. But that, anything else. So I love props. So the way that I don't cross my arms, because I actually like to cross my arms. It's kind of relaxing, you know, it's kind of like. I know. But actually, if you're thinking or processing, cross away, right? If you need to like take a minute, take a step back, it's a great way to break. So I hold a clicker for presentations and a pen, you know, like for slides. Because every time I think about crossing my arms, I remember, oh, I have the clicker.

1:18:23When 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 cross 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. He 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.

1:18:56But that's it. He literally used it because if he doesn't, he puts his hands in his pocket or crosses his arms. And so he has it in front of him because it helps him feel very grounded in the center. 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. What about the finger crossing? So look at the difference. Like this, when I'm white knuckling, you can see that I am tense. I'm trying to keep it together, Vanessa. But this is called a steeple. The fingertip touch. Oh, I love a steeple. Yeah, so a steeple is when the tips of your fingers touch and like a church steeple.

1:19:29It's like Mr. Wonderful just does this the whole time. Exactly. You will notice that when Mr. Wonderful is contemplating a deal, he'll go like this, why? Doesn't it make you feel like you're just in control? It's like, hmm. And so this is a really good power gesture. It's one of our competence cues. It's why I have it on the cover of the book is to show high competence because it's about getting in control. The steeple, we love it because it shows our palms, which shows we're not concealing anything. Do you want the steeple pointed at someone? Either one. Any of those. Any and all. whatever feels natural.

1:20:00If you have it up here like the diamond. I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't be like, hello everyone, good morning. So here or point it out, that was fine. Right, totally fine. You'll notice that like Mr. Wonderful does it perfectly. He'll like go like this, he'll tap it. The only thing I would be careful of is drumming fingers. That looks like Mr. Burns' evil, right? Schmeagle, yeah. I don't love that one. Okay, so like don't look like you're scheming. That can look a little bit crazy. But if you're like, oh yes, I'm thinking about it. Now, I want to give a caveat. Please only use cues that you've tried on a few times and feel natural.

1:20:31There are some cues in the book where there's 96 cues in the book that I still don't like. I've tried them every which way and I do not like them. What's the most powerful cue that you don't like but you know is extremely effective in charisma or connection or trust or leadership? Volume. So research shows that people who speak in louder volumes literally are taken more seriously, but that makes me a little bit uncomfortable. And so even on stage when I'm like really excited, I still don't want to be like, let me tell you about something very, oh God, that's horrible. I don't like it. But volume dynamism is a cue I teach in the book that I have trouble with.

1:21:08But the research shows that people are more trustworthy or more competent. Competent. It is a competent cue. Because if you're soft, it's like you don't believe in your words. It's actually volume dynamism. So it's being able to use your volume to match your intention so for example let's so tonality and fluctuation at the right moment yes yes yes so like for example i feel a little ridiculous when i do this this is why this is the most cue that i struggle with which is like let me tell you about something super important yeah i just feel ridiculous but some people do it so well oh it works so well someone is your people are so charismatic yes when you can get the tonality the inflectuation is that it is of the tonality They taught this to us in Toastmasters as one of the 10 initial lessons of being a competent communicator.

1:21:53One of the exercises is to give a five-minute speech using tonality. It's very, you have to like find the cues of when you like pause and slow it. And then you breathe out. It's like, how do you make it authentic? So some people do it naturally. They're so good at it. That is not me. That's why I don't have a podcast. That's why I have a YouTube gym. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On YouTube, I can use my gestures and my facial expressions. It's why I don't have a podcast. I feel I am not dynamic enough in my vocal power. And so that's one cue that I work on, but I have a hard time being in control of my volume.

1:22:29Okay, so we have these hand gestures. This is fine on the table also? Yep, all good. Relax and good. What about hands open on the table? Okay, so let's talk about palm up versus palm down. Okay, so when I was using for the book, I was looking for my favorite are cues hiding in plain sight. Those are my favorite. Oh, I just used it. Those are my favorite. Those are my favorite. Yeah, you did. That was very organic. I did. Very natural. I'm really happy right now. It's like you're speaking to a girlfriend, just naturally flowing through. Let me tell you. I'm telling you a secret here. Yeah. Okay.

1:22:57So that was great. That was very exciting. I feel very excited. Okay. So I love Cues Hiding in Plain Sight. And so I had a lot of political examples, a lot of celebrity examples, and Brittany and Lance Armstrong. But I wanted historical examples. And so I was looking at famous paintings, and I noticed The Last Supper, painted by Leonardo da Vinci, has hidden cues in it. You'll notice that the way that it's positioned, Christ is positioned in the middle. So da Vinci positioned in the middle. Okay. Most people do not realize that in that picture, Christ is doing this. He has one palm up and one palm down.

1:23:30It's hard to see it in that shot. Oh, yeah. His left palm is up. Yes. And the right palm is down on the table, right? Now, this is very interesting because, like, most people don't look at this right away. But why? Why is he doing that? Why would he put his hand like that? Why would he put his hand like that? And what do those mean? So let's look at the research. Palms open are universal gestures of openness. When we want something, what do we do? We hold open our hand. Give it to me. Yeah. When we're offering something, what do we do? We hold open our hand. When we are open to suggestion, we show our palm and we have it visible.

1:23:58A palm down gesture is a high competence cue. It shows dominance. It shows directiveness. You might think of, I won't mention them by name, some famous dictators of the past who did palm down gestures. Why? That is a very dominant gesture. When you are giving, people are giving directives, they often say, be quiet, sit down. Right? I don't want to hear from you right now. It's a very direct. Dismissive too, in a sense, right? Especially if you shake it at someone. So why would we have these two cues? They perfectly balance each other out. Christ is depicted as the highest, most charismatic person in the painting.

1:24:36So what does he do? he literally balances warmth and competence. He's showing the universal gesture of openness and giving, while at the same time, a universal gesture of direct authority. When was this painting? Made? 1498. Wow. Yeah. So Da Vinci, I think, hid cues that signaled the viewer, wow, he's charismatic. The takeaway from this, by the way, is if you're giving a directive and you don't want it to be questioned, you're better off giving palms down. You're better off saying, listen, team, we've got to get this done. We've got to be efficient. We've got to be streamlined. I need you to do it for me.

1:25:09Just go. Just go. Just do it. If you want feedback, like when I take Q &A, I'm like, what can I do? What questions can I answer? I'm giving open. That's a very, very subtle but very powerful cue. Okay, so that's how Christ is depicted balancing. The other thing that he does is if you measure the amount of space that Christ takes up in the painting, you'll notice he takes up the most space. He literally has the most distance between his shoulder and his earlobe. I like this. Yes, because he's tilting. So tilting is a warmth gesture. And so he's the only pictured person who is head tilt with also expansive posture.

1:25:45So there's all these hidden cues that I think paint this picture behind what's happening. Now, if you look at Judas, now if you didn't know anything about this history, Judas would be the character painted with the most intrigue. If you notice, he's also holding a clenched fist, right? He's the only character in the picture who has a clenched fist and is distancing. He's literally turning his body away from us. And we know, we already talked about, that distancing is a danger zone cue. So here is the person who is later about to betray Christ. And how does da Vinci signal that? He hides cues. He shows a clenched fist, which shows withholding and anger.

1:26:22And then he shows that he's about to lie, that he literally turns his body away. The reason I show this is because I think that we don't realize there's these cues being sent to us all the time. You know, I do a lot of breakdowns on my YouTube channel of politicians. And we don't realize, even when we look at political campaigns, in one picture, there's thousands of cues being sent to us. And we should know what's being sent to us. The thumb pinch. Oh, the thumb pinch. This is Obama, right? Okay. He did this all the time, didn't he? So here's what's funny is Obama used to be a pointer. We don't like being pointed at.

1:26:53So there's something about it as humans. It's like, let me tell you what to do. It's kind of a better than. So I think he was coached because all of a sudden he never pointed again and he only used the thumb pinch. The thumb pinch is a very clever gesture because in Western cultures, this means good job, thumbs up. Thumbs up. Good job. Or like me. Like literally, social media, like. Right? This is what we see. Like, like, like, like. Give me a like. And so the thumb pinch is a very subtle thumbs up gesture. So every time he does it, it makes you think, oh, first of all, he never clenches. It's relaxed.

1:27:26It's kind of like an open thumb. It's an open thumb because he's saying, A-OK, A-OK, like, like, like. And he's also saying, this is a point I want you to remember. It literally looks like a bullet point. I'm going to give you a point that you should remember. And Obama, I'm going to do an Obama impression. It's going to embarrass us both. It's okay. I'm not very good at impressions. It's okay. But Obama does this thing that I just, I find so interesting. So Obama uses a downward inflection. So we talked about the question inflection, right? So when we go up at the end of our sentences, Obama goes down at the end of his sentences.

1:27:59He literally slings down his words. And downward inflection we hear is very authoritative. So I'm going to do an Obama impression. Okay. So this is him slinging down his words. He goes, Sasha, Malia, it's very important that what we do today is going to be remembered forever. And if we don't do those things, we are going to be in deep trouble. That's a terrible Obama impression. You can hear what I'm saying, right? Of course. He slings his words down, and that is very authoritative. So even that vocal cue makes us think, well, he knows what he's talking about. Right. It's more authoritative, more confident.

1:28:34It's more authoritative. Versus if he were to say, Sasha, Malia, I have something really important to tell you. It's really important we do this for our future. Could you imagine if he gave speeches like that? And so even that vocal inflection worked for him because he also creates a lot of space in his mouth. He has a lot of space in the middle part of his mouth. So he talks very deeply in his mouth. And that helps keep his resonance really low because he has a space in the back of his mouth. And that creates a lot of resonance. It's a good impression. I like it. It's good. You're not embarrassed for me?

1:29:08Good. No, it's good. It's because he creates this low resonance point and we like it. So that downward inflection is really important. So many great cues in here, the power of the pause, the pause for power. So a mistake that I used to make is I would pause the end of my sentence before continuing on to my next sentence and I would get interrupted, right? So a mistake that people will make is they'll give a thought, pause, and then keep speaking. Now pauses are quite powerful. Powerful people typically use pauses in their speech. But if you pause in between your sentences, people will interrupt you because they think you're done.

1:29:41You're actually better off using what I call a power pause. A power pause is when you pause right before you give something away. Did I do it? So not the end of a sentence. Right. In the middle of a sentence before you're going to share something. Really important. So let me tell you something really important. That's it. Exactly. So here's the mistake that people make is they'll say, something really important happened in my childhood that I want to tell you about. Pause. It was when I was. People are like, should I talk to you? Should I ask you another question? What should I say? It actually creates conversational confusion, which is the last thing you want.

1:30:18Versus I want to share a really important story from my childhood. That creates a lot more intrigue because like a story, oh, from your childhood. And I have no desire to interrupt. So that's a very advanced tip. That's towards the end of the book. It's a very advanced tip because if you have trouble with people interrupting you, I would practice switching your pauses and think about that. What's the drama you can give? Drama. Yeah. Create the drama. Volume, pauses. Yeah. And by the way, Obama did that very well. He would deliver a point, right? He would go into his residence and he would say, what this country needs is better systems.

1:30:55Right? I'm saying nothing, but you're like, what's better? What is it? You know, what is the thing that we need? It's not what you say, it's how you say it. That's it. Although how you say it is important, too. Oh, you need the competence, too. That's the last chapter. So the last chapter I have to end on is verbal. Uh-huh. Because yes, we spend a lot of the book talking about nonverbal and vocal, but your words matter as we talked about with achievement-oriented words. But man, if you can deliver achievement-oriented words with power pausing, with a steeple, look out. Look out, world. You're coming.

1:31:26That's big. I am a big believer that the most important thing we can do is learn how to heal the different traumas or triggers from our past that get us in a reactive state when the world is happening. and we become uptight, we're active, we say things we don't want to say, we regret the things we do, we act out, whatever it might be. Healing the past, memories, pain, frustrations, whatever you want to call it, I think is one of the most powerful things. The second most powerful thing we can do is learn how to master the art of communication and learn how to be comfortable in our own skin and our own voice.

1:32:00You know, How to Win Friends and Influence People was a book that was extremely powerful for so many people to learn how to socially connect. And again, in life, we are either enrolling other people in us, in our vision, or we're unenrolling them in us, in our vision, based on how we communicate, how we connect with people, whether we're trustworthy or untrustworthy. This book and your research and studies and content has been extremely powerful for so many people, including myself. I learned a lot. And I feel like this is something I'm always studying because I feel like you can never learn enough of understanding the science of people.

1:32:36Yes. And so I, one, want people to learn how to continue to heal. It's a journey. But two, I want them to learn how to understand people. Again, if we go back to the quote that changed my early adult life, which was, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. If you can learn how to communicate that to people, it'll take you much farther. You know, you can get by with less skills and less smarts if you understand how to be deeply empathetic and have connection skills with other people. It'll take you a long way. Eventually, you've got to have some competence in there and be skilled at something.

1:33:10And, of course, everyone who's watching does, right? We know that. You've got to have skills, and I think it's always important to invest in developing new skills as well to make you more competent. But this book, your work, is extremely valuable and important. Cues. Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication, Small Signals, Incredible Impact. Vanessa Van Edwards. I want everyone to get this book. I want you to buy a few copies for your friends, for the introvert friends in your life, for the socially awkward friends, for the anxious friends. Charisma is a superpower. It's a superpower.

1:33:45It is a superpower when used correctly. And here's the thing. If you use it incorrectly, you'll be humbled at some point in your life. That's right. Eventually, bad things will happen. And they'll keep happening over and over. And it will drain you. Drain you. Yes. So you're going to be humbled by the world if you don't use humility with your charisma. But I'm very excited about the book. I can't wait to dive in more and go back to this interview even more. I want people to get the book. They can follow you on the website, scienceofpeople.com, which has got an amazing newsletter that I subscribe to and get a lot of wisdom from.

1:34:15Thank you. You're always sharing new research and all this stuff in there. Scienceofpeople.com. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, V. Van Edwards. That's me. Everywhere on social media. Your YouTube as well is extremely fun to watch. You just break down all these things visually. Yes. So there was a couple things I didn't get to put in the book because they were too visual. Like it was just too hard to explain it. And so if you want to just get a little taste test, I break down The Rock. Yeah, it's great. Because who doesn't want to see many, like dozens of cues from The Rock? So I break down The Rock.

1:34:45I do a deep dive of Britney Spears because I didn't even, that was a whole book, right? Like I didn't have time to do it. I do Morgan Freeman. How does he get that vocal power? I talk about how he does it. That's cool. Princess Diana. Why were we so intrigued by her? And Justin Bieber. Nice. So I break down some cues in there. I love it. You just want a little taste test. And that's all Science of People or is that? That's on YouTube and on Science People. And we have our interview on there too. So if people want to go watch that, they can. Yes. Final two questions before I ask them. I want to acknowledge you, Vanessa, for constantly showing up.

1:35:12I think introverts who felt like they grew up socially awkward takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there, to constantly be in front of a camera, to be speaking on stages, to be learning this work and then sharing your work. I think it's really challenging to do for introverts. So for the journey that you've been on to try to - Healing, healing. Yeah, healing is big too. But the journey you've had and you constantly keep showing up and putting this work out there is really inspiring. So I acknowledge you for that. Thank you. I asked you this question before, but this is called the three truths question.

1:35:43Imagine it's your last day on earth many years away. And for whatever reason, all of your work has to go with you to another place. So no one has access to your content. And if you could leave three lessons to the world behind, What would you say would be those three lessons for you? Life is too short to fake it. Find the real warmth or the real competence or get rid of it. There are unique flavors of charisma. You don't have to be the bubbly extrovert. You can be the wise competent sage or the quiet powerful leader or the empathetic compassionate healer. Those are all charismatic. There are different flavors.

1:36:22And lastly, your words have power. Your cues have power. Don't waste them. We can change someone's physiology with a single word. So with every word you put out there, think about how can you infect people for good. That is powerful. What's the most powerful word we can infect someone with in a positive way? I think gratitude. I think every time you say thank you, I'm appreciative, I'm grateful, you're gifting them honor and you're feeling grateful yourself it's the only word i can think of that has a double effect both ways wow so can i end on gratitude i want to thank you so much because you created a tipping point in my career where you believed in me you listened to me wholeheartedly and you put my work out there and people listen and they were it was a total tipping point in my career and so um you made me do podcasts you made me realize i can do them in their safe spaces, which I was a little afraid of.

1:37:20It made me realize that I can find my people and I just have to speak to them. And you always say, yes, how can I help? Which I'm so grateful for. Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you in return. You know, it's interesting, appreciation, the word gratitude and appreciation. Right when you said that, it made me reflect on my girlfriend and how I feel like every day I tell her how much I appreciate her. You know, I'm like, gosh, I'm so grateful for how you did this or just this thing you did for me. I appreciate it so much. and every time I do it, now that I reflect on it, she's always just like, I don't know, it just warms her up even more.

1:37:52Yes, yes, because we don't often feel gratitude in our relationships, right? Like, especially I've been married for 10 years with my husband for 16 years and you get very caught up in the logistics. And so for anyone who's watching, I think we take the people we love for granted. We think about giving gifts of word to our colleagues or to our clients or to our customers, but like, don't forget the person you live with. Don't forget the person you care about. Don't get stuck in the logistics, right? where you're like, you know, hey, honey, take the kids. And so I think that gratitude is especially important at home.

1:38:22And I think the more comfortable we are, the less we are gracious, the less gratitude we have. And so I hope that 10, 20, 30 years. Yeah, that's the key. I mean, everyone in their first, I guess, year or two, you're like, oh, I love you so much. You're amazing. Not everyone. No, not everyone. No, not everyone. And so I would say like. Even the first couple of years? No, I think saying that to her is a gift. And so if just your goal is 10 years from now, you can say that to her again. what a beautiful goal often she'll be like you're the most amazing man ever and i'm like i don't feel like i'm doing anything i'm just saying i appreciate you i'm just like man i really i'm so grateful you just did this thank you i really appreciate the way you said this like i don't think i'm like doing something extraordinary you know what i mean she's like you have no idea yeah it's like you're the most amazing man i'm like i'm not like doing some grand gesture i'm really just saying like i'm focusing on something that i really appreciate that she did every day and i'm like, I really appreciate the way you showed up here, here, here.

1:39:17And that's why I think gratitude is the most powerful word there is. Because just being appreciative of her makes her think of it as a grand gesture. Imagine that. Like, one word of gratitude is a grand gesture. It doesn't take a boat ride down the water. It doesn't take, you know, 12 dozen roses. It's like just telling someone you appreciate them. And if that's one thing you take away from this interview, that you will right now text someone that you love them and you appreciate them and thank them for being them. It's big. People remember that stuff. That's a gift. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

1:39:48Final question, what's your definition of greatness? I love this because this is my third time here. And I think my definition has changed over time. It's being an integrity. So it's going back to that important thing. Greatness is showing up as you are, how you feel, and feeling free to be that way. So that means you like the people in your life. You respect the people in your life. You're showing up congruent. You're showing up with lots of integrity where your cues match your words, which match your emotions. And I think that I am my greatest self when I can show up somewhere as myself and not worry about having to hide, fake, or change.

1:40:24Vanessa, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review.

1:40:59I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.