Transcript of Episode 516: The Best of Habits & Hustle - Vanessa Van Edwards (The Behavioral Investigator)

Hi, guys. It's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

Guys, I'm so excited about this podcast. Today, we had Vanessa Van Edwards, who I'm a huge fan of. Vanessa, I've been watching Vanessa's videos on YouTube forever. She is a behavioral investigator, and she started a company called The Science of People. She's also a major best-selling author. Her first book is called Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People. She's also a body language trainer, and she specializes in science-based people skills. Her latest book is called Cues, which was amazing. It is for anybody and everyone who wants to either read other people or really activate their strengths and make sure they're bringing them forward. She talks about what makes somebody charismatic, what makes somebody likable, how do you win over anybody or influence somebody just by how you move, what you say, how you say it. I can go on and on, but I don't want to... I'm basically butchering this. But trust me, listen to the podcast. You're going to get so much out of it. Enjoy. On today's episode, we have Vanessa Van Edwards, who I am just smiling from I'm grinning from ear to ear because you guys, I have been waiting for this interview for months.

Her information is so amazing. She wrote a book called Cues. Her other book was called Captivate. I like the C-words. Yeah, you really do.

Confidence, charisma, cues, captivating. Why is that? I don't know. Just such good words.

They are good words. We could talk all about that. You're like, she is an expert on body language, on communication. And this new book is called Master her the secret language of charismatic communication. She talks all about signals and how to have the most impact in meetings and first impressions. It doesn't matter if you're just someone who's dating or if you are someone who is a professional, you can I literally glean anything and everything from your work. Thank you.

I'm excited to have you. Oh, my goodness. I'm so happy to be here. I've been waiting for months, too, so I can't wait.

Oh, come on. You're just saying that.

I cleared my day. It was like, it's Jennifer Day.

I love it. Look how good you are. Look how good you are. This is my day. You know how to make a great first impression. I better. I wrote a book about it. More than one book. And you crushed these books. Crush. Thank you. No. Like I said, practical information.

I think that what's really helpful is a lot of the communication books. I'm an awkward person. I'm somewhere in between introvert and extrovert. I'm an ambivert. And so many of the books that I read growing up or guides I saw were written by extroverts. And I just felt so like I had to pretend to be outgoing to make a good first impression. And so for so long, I felt like I was faking it till I make it, make it, make it. Made it. Made it. Made it. I didn't make it. So faked it till you made it. I almost made it. I was pretending to be something I wasn't, and it was exhausting. And so I so appreciate you saying that about the books because the books are the guides that I wish I had had. Very practical, a little funny. Sometimes I try a few jokes on there. And also, what's What does the science say? Not someone's opinion, but what does the science actually say?

I should say. So what Vanessa's title is, she's called a Behavioral Investigator. There you go. And she just studies people's behavior and also helps people with how to queue better to get what they want, right? Yes. And I heard on a couple of interviews, you were nervous about even putting the book out because it could be used as manipulation.

Yes. So there's this hidden language that's happening. We don't realize it's happening, but we are constantly sending signals back and forth. And so as I realized, I have a very weird problem where I misinterpret neutral cues as negative. And there's actually research behind this that some say that if you're neurotic, I'm high in neuroticism, which is one of the personality traits. So I worry as a hobby. It's like one of my sports. Yeah, me too. I just love to worry. And so because of that, I have this lens, this negative lens, that I was missing all these cues. And so when I first started writing about them, it was just, let me catalog the cues that are being sent to me. So I stopped misinterpreting them. So I stopped. Every time I would leave a party, I would turn to my husband and be like, she's mad at me. He'd be like, what? I'm like, she's so mad at me. He's like, no, She's not mad at you. I'm like, Did you see the way that she looked at me? He's like, No. And so I realized I had to create some a glossary for myself to stop seeing people in that way.

The problem is, other people will use that information negatively. And so I was so scared that when I put the book out, the people would say, Oh, I'm going to manipulate people with these cues. And unfortunately, they are very powerful. They can be used them. And that made me very nervous. But I thought, You know what? I'd rather have the information out there to be used for good. And hopefully, then we can have a common language where we can say, That's the cue that you're sending, and I either like it or I don't.

Well, think about Robert Green's 48 Laws of Power, right? It can be considered the same thing, right? How to get power over people. There could be a negative connotation to it. But I actually think, and I'm close friends with Robert, and I love that book. It's a monster book, right? And it could be used for good and for bad.

Okay, fun fact. This is a really creepy, weird fact. But the classic book, How to Win Friends to Influence People, Dale Carnegie. So that book has helped millions of people, right? People still read it. I read it when I was a teenager. Yeah, me too. Well, fun fact is that Charles Manson read that book in prison, and And he used it to build his cult later.

No way.

In one of his early prison stents before he did the really bad stuff, because he did little bad stuff, he read that book and he took a class that was being offered in prisons on the D. L. Carnegie method for how to win friends and social people. And that is exactly what he used to build his cult leader. So these things really, if you know how people work, and that's really what it is, is there's these hidden dynamics of people. And there are laws, right? There's 48 laws of power. There are 96 behavior cues. If you learn what they are, you can use them in any way that you wish.

Absolutely. And that's why I'm fascinated by all this information. I love it so much. I'm fascinated by human behavior in general, why people do what they do, and And also why I'm doing what I'm doing and how it could be misinterpreted. And a lot of times I'm misinterpreted. So that's why for me, I found this book, to your point, very resonated, because People can think I'm being bitchy, I'm being hard, I'm being cold, I'm being this, but it's just what I'm doing. So it's interesting.

So I have the problem where I think I misinterpret cues being sent to me. Do you worry that people misinterpret the cues you are sending to them?

I don't worry about I just think I don't really care that much. I don't care what people think. I don't care what people think. I don't really care. I'm just being honest. I'm worrying for you. That's the truth. That's a whole other problem. Maybe I'm a sociopath. No, that's not really what it is. I feel like I'm sometimes very direct and very to the point. I don't like to mince a lot of words a lot of times, and that can be sometimes seen as- Too direct. The way that we break it down, which is like, I think this is the most important thing, which you know I love, is we think of people as two basic traits, warm and competent.

If you're direct, if you speak right to the point, if you have really direct nonverbal cues, so lots of eye contact, lots of head movement, very clear gestures. People see you as highly competent. That's great. The problem is, is competence without warmth leaves people feeling suspicious or leaves people feeling intimidated. That is directly from the research. The people who are off the charts in competence, people go, There's not enough warmth. I don't know if they like me. I don't know if they're friendly. Without warmth, people don't always believe you're competent, or they can't digest your competence. And so you're right in that sense of, Am I being too direct? Is that going to turn someone off? It's simply because you're just lacking the warmth. It's like a lubricant. That warmth lubricant is a lubricant for competence.

Well, that's interesting because... It's not about me. This isn't good at all.

Oh, I'm going to let's make it about you.

No, it's not about me. Because I mean, the other thing a lot of times, and I think, I want to first talk about... I'll bring this up in a second. I'm going to hold my thought. I want you to first let's talk about charisma because charisma is a combination, right? Of you said warmth and confidence and having that perfect blend.

Perfect blend. And so 82 %, that is a massive number, 82 % of our judgments of people are based on those two traits, which is shocking to me because when you ask, and I've asked audiences, how do you want to come across? Name your perfect first impression. Hundreds of words: outgoing, funny, smart, witty, impressive, memorable. All the words you could think of. But actually, when it comes down to it, the only two words that make up 82 % of our judgments are warmth, friendliness, likeability, openness, and competence. Capable, powerful, efficient. In that way, when we meet someone, we are very quickly trying to answer two questions. And in your interactions, if you can quickly answer these two questions, your whole interaction will be better. It doesn't matter if it's a date or negotiation or interview, which is Can I trust you? And can I rely on you? And we are looking to people to see, can I trust you and can I rely on you? And that's when we have a good date. That's when we have a good interview. That's when we want to work with someone or be friends with them or talk to someone.

That's what we're looking for, is just the answer to those two questions.

So what happens if you have too much warmth and not enough confidence?

Yes, love it. So let's talk about the two imbalances, right? So the reason why charismatic people are so magnetic, that we're drawn to them, is because they have the perfect balance. The moment we get out of balance, out of whack, let's say you said too high in warmth. Okay. People who are sending lots of warmth cues, they're seen as friendly, trustworthy, likable, compassionate, but not that smart, not that capable, not that powerful. They're often interrupted. So highly warm people have this problem where people always come to them for advice and their life story. Like, highly warm people are constantly sitting in the corner of the room and someone's verbal vomiting all over them. That is a highly warm person because they are sending off of open to me, open up to me, tell me everything. So people constantly seek them out and verbal vomit all over them, but don't take them seriously. Forget having met them before, forget their names. So highly warm people are super liked in the office, but when they want to get a raise or a promotion, They're looked over. Wow. Highly warm people are, Yeah, she's nice, but they wouldn't have you on their team.

They wouldn't buy from you. They wouldn't come to you for really important advice. Highly warm people also struggle with being people-pleasers. And that's because highly warm people, the reason they're sending those cues from a psychological perspective, is there's two desires that we have as humans: to be liked and to be respected. People who are highly warm have been taught, whether that's socially or from their parents, that being liked is more important than being respected. And so what can happen is they say yes too much. They overcommit. And so people, highly warm people, I always joke that if you have a highly warm friend, you have a highly warm friend, if they always say yes, then cancel at the last minute.

That's actually me.

And that is because highly warm people, in the moment, they want to please you. They really want you to like them. They want to seem open and likable. So of course, and in the moment, they mean it. But then real life hits They're at home and they're like, I can't do it. I got to stay home and watch Netflix. I cannot put on a pair of pants. There's no way that's going to happen. Exactly. So it's highly warm, right? Superpowers. They have superpowers. Collaboration, being supporters, being open, being liked. Their weaknesses, they're not And seriously, they're overlooked, they're underestimated, they're dismissed, right? That's their problem. Highly competent folks, on the other hand. Highly competent folks are always seen as impressive, they're seen as smart, they're seen as powerful. But what can happen is because they're constantly sending out competence cues, people think, She's intimidating. I can't open up to her. She's cold. And so this is what the research shows, is that competence without warmth leaves us feeling suspicious.

Now, I guess my question is, can you beat one in certain environments and another in another environment?

So this is the advanced, right? Actually, very highly charismatic people use their warmth and competence like a thermostat or like a dial. So when they're around really warm people, they dial up their warmth cues, right? They send a couple more warmth cues. When they're at happy hours, when they're socializing, when they're schmoosies, when they're with a VIP that like, Oh, this VIP, I'm going to be a little warmer with them. I want to get in their good side. They dial up warmth. They also, oftentimes, we default to higher in warmth around our families, around our friends. Maybe we dial up a little bit in competence in business situations. So yes, that's where the magic is, is that not only can we be different in different situations, we can actually control it. And that's my other favorite C-word. I love control. Oh, man. What do I love control? So as a social warrior, I socially overthink. I lay in bed at the end of the night and we play every conversation. The antidote to that for me has been control. So what happened is in my My anxiety, my awkwardness, what should I do with my hands?

What cues should I send? How will they take me serious? And then I would replay. Now I have 96 cues to choose from. So I know exactly what cues I want to send. I know exactly what cues are being sent to me. And so the way that we can take control is we say, Okay, in this situation, I want warmth. I'm dialing up the warmth. In this situation, I'm going to hit them with competence, or I know why they see me as cold, and I'm okay with it. Right.

That's what I like about this book and your content, is because you don't have to be a naturally emotionally, highly intelligent person to get these things. I was going to say to you, I think that there are people who are naturally more gifted than others in picking up these social cues. Yes. And to be like, okay, I got to dial in that warmth. I got to take it back a bit. But the majority of people do need help in these because they walk away like, well, why did that interview go badly? Or why did that date go badly?

Why did I get a no?

Or why did I get a no? And so if you have the tools and the information to understand more, it is so powerful.

Oh, my gosh. It's so empowering.

Exactly. It's so empowering.

And I also like, what we don't realize, and this is what gets me excited about this one, is our cues are contagious. So it's not just you being in control of your cues lets you show up how you want to show up. That's one part of the equation. The second more exciting part of the equation for me is if you show up more warm and more competent, you trigger other people's warmth and competence. So if I'm with my team, if I'm with my family, if I'm with my friends, and I'm showcasing very purposefully in control, warmth and competence, they are catching that warmth and competence, that if we show up as our most charismatic self, that is the single best way to make everyone around us be their most charismatic self.

And also, to add on to that. So in order to be successful, to be successful, it's not about being the the most competent or being the most war. It's about really having that real perfect blend. So you don't have to be the smartest. You just have to have enough charisma or have the blend of charisma to get your goal done.

Exactly. And also there's one last area that we haven't talked about, which is you mentioned smart people being the smartest person. This is the problem I think that smart people make. Smart people are smart. They rely on their really good ideas, and they think, I have a great idea. I'm really smart. That's enough. And so they show up to pitches, they show up to meetings, and they're like, Why aren't people getting my ideas? And again, the research proves you can have the smartest idea in the world, but if you're not lubricating it with warmth, people cannot believe it. So what will happen is smart people, they double down on competence, and that doesn't work. And they wonder, What is happening? So then they go sterile. And that's the last area that we are trying to fight against, is a lot of really powerful smart people don't know what to do with their cues, so they under cue. They under signal. So you'll notice it now, especially in the last five years, it feels like people have decided stoic is good. Being unreadable is good. Well, I don't know what cues to send. I don't know how to be warm and confident, so I'm going to send no cues at all.

And so what's happening is we're getting on video calls, we're watching presentations with people who are like robots. They're trying to conceal their facial expressions. They're trying to conceal their body. They try to be as unreadable as possible. The problem is muting, going mute, is in itself a cue.

Right.

So if you go mute, you actually look a lot like a liar. Liars often go mute because they're trying to not give away the truth. And so what's happening is this muting, this under signaling, is actually backfiring to all these smart people.

So then that's a great segue into how to cue properly, right? So now I feel everybody's on Zoom more than ever, right? These video calls. Or emailing. They're not really... So can you give some good tips and good cues, how to rock the video conference?

And Matt, your cues on video call matter more than ever because actually, other things are taken away. And I felt very fortunate with the timing. So I signed the book deal for cues in June of 2020, and I was writing cues all through 2020, 2021. So I was hyper aware of video. If it had only been a few months earlier, I think I would have less aware of video. So a lot of the research we did for cues was on video because we couldn't do it in person. So for example, I'll give you one example. So I partnered with Dr. Paul Zack. Dr. Paul Zack is an incredible researcher. He's the oxytocin guy. If you've ever heard of oxytocin, the chemical of connection, the chemical of love, he's the guy who's been researching it for the last 20, 30 years. Oh, wow. Yeah. He's the one who discovered that you can bottle oxytocin and you can give people nose sprays full of oxytocin.

Did you wear a necklace or something that was an oxytocin necklace? Yes, I did.

I have an oxytocin necklace.

Where do you buy them? At sea. At sea. Is it a real thing?

Yes, I got a gold oxytocin necklace and I wear it instead of a heart. Because if we're talking about a real connection, it's oxytocin, not a heart. Yes, I wear it.

I wish I was wearing it. How does it work?

So the way that oxytocin works, it does a lot of things in our body. So remember that- But if you wear it, how does that- Well, I wish it actually triggered oxytocin. But when you look at it, it makes me feel good. Oh, okay. Actually, the only way that we produce oxytocin is eye contact, touch, and me too moments. Moments where we're like, Oh, me too. That makes us feel that warm and fuzzy belonging.

And connection.

And like, Oh, I trust this person. I'm on the same page with this person. That's why we're always like, Oh, where'd you go to school? Who do you know? Because the moment you have a tie, you're like, Oxy tocin.

Or dopamine. Isn't that a dopamine hit? So dopamine.

So oxytocin is a chemical of connection. It makes us feel trusting. It makes us feel the warm and fuzzy. Dopamine is the chemical of excitement and motivation. Dopamine makes us want to do things. So dopamine is like, I have a present for you. That's dopamine. Oxytocin is, me too. Like, slightly different. So dopamine is like a motivating chemical. It makes you want to do. It makes you want to achieve. It makes you want to succeed. Dopamine helps beat burnout. Oxyetosen helps build rapport. Got it. They're slightly different, right? Okay. So I partnered with Dr. Paul Zack, who I've been friends with for years. And I said to him, I'm worried. I'm literally reading the book on cues, and there's a whole cue on touch. And I'm like, Dr. Zack, what are we going to do in a world without touch, where we're on a video call, there's no handshake, there's no cheek kiss, there's no OxyPtoxin creators. Rapport built. Yes. And oxytocin is created by touch, primarily.

So he said, let's test it. But I didn't touch you, and I feel oxytocin with you.

Well, we were making eye contact. We had lots of meet you moments.

That's right. Okay.

So it's not the only way.

It's his primary way.

It's the fastest way. That is why we're so inclined upon first meeting to handshake or high five or cheek kiss is because we want to seal the deal chemically. So I asked him, What do we do? We're in this environment. I said to him, I have a theory that if you use oxytocin words, it could replace the level of engagement. So if I were to get on video and say, Sending a high five, sending a virtual cheek kiss, would it do anything? So We did a little experiment. He has this amazing technology on smartwatches where he measures your skin conductance and your physiology to see if you're actually being turned on, not sexually, but just physiologically. It's on a smartwatch on your wrist. I have to clarify that. And so what he did is we had a bunch of input on this software on their smartwatch and watched two different videos. One video, we used oxytocin words. I can see you. That's not an oxytocin word. Sending a virtual high five, sending a virtual hug. Wish I could handshake you. And the other one was just positive neutral. Hey, I'm so happy to be here.

So glad we could do this. Great to get together. We found that when we use the oxytocin words, it had double the engagement. Double. Meaning, even saying, sending a virtual high five actually triggered a physiology like having an actual high five. Wow. So very first thing is, on your first 10 words of a video call, you should be using oxytocin words. It's so good to see you. Oh, I wish I could give you a hug sending a hug from here. Hey, virtual high five. If that feels natural to you, that's a really easy way to produce oxytocin. If that doesn't feel natural to you, you want to do the next few warmth cues. So one is making sure that you're not too close to the camera. That's the biggest mistake that we make in virtual calls. So in interpersonal interactions, there's four space zones. And these are incredibly important for gaging intimacy. So we're very aware of these. Even our distance of our chairs right now, I would say, what we're about three feet Probably, yeah, around three feet. That's the ideal for an interview because it means we're close enough where we can make eye contact.

I can see all your facial expressions. If we wanted to reach out right now and just see if you can touch my fingers, we can. That's the ideal. We want to be able to just close enough where if we wanted a touch, we could. And we judge that for intimacy. The problem is on video calls, all the space goes away because there's no actual people. So what happens is people get really close to their camera and we accidentally go into the intimate zone, which is zero to 18 inches away. Away.

Tell us what the four... You said in the book, too. Yes.

So the four zones are the public zone, which is about over seven feet away. That's like, I don't know you. I can wave to you, but I couldn't talk to you. Then is the social zone, five to seven feet away. That's like, I can see you. I know you. I feel safe around you. We're not going to have an in-depth conversation, but I could be like, How are you? Good to see you. Then there's my favorite zone, which is the personal zone, which is right here, which is about three to five feet away, 18 inches to 5 feet away, depending on what culture you're in. And That's a great zone because we can touch if we want to. I can see your facial expressions, and it's still comfortable. Zero to 18 inches away is the intimate zone. We only like people in our intimate zone if we want to be intimate with them. So we briefly enter it for a hug and then immediately back up. If we're about to kiss someone, we're usually in the intimate zone. If we're really feeling close to someone, we're in the intimate zone. So we reserve that for people that we feel very, very close to.

While on video call, if you are less than 18 inches away, if you measure the distance between your nose and your camera, and you're less than 18 inches away, you are accidentally going into people's intimate zones, which is triggering too much.

Even though if it's a computer in the middle of you.

There's an instinct. And this is why if people are really close to their camera, you're like, whoa, back up. It's a digital close talker. It's still the same alarm. Still the same alarm.

Yes. What I don't understand, and that makes sense, that's really great. Those are great tips for people because we're doing Zoom now.

And by the way, measure. Just take a measuring tape and measure that it's been your nose and your camera.

And your camera. Yeah, that's it. What I was going to say is, how about in terms of the lighting, all that, that doesn't matter, right? People are not like, is that in-depth?

No, I do think it matters. I would even say your lighting and your background really matters. So there's four different ways we send cues. There's nonverbal. So our body language, our facial expressions, our voice tone. That's about 60 to 90 % of our communication. It's the biggest. So our hand gestures, our smiling, our eye contact, those all matter. Next Next is verbal. So the words we use.

So saying, it's good to see you, or handshake. I wish I can give you a high five.

Exactly. Third is vocal, how you say your words. And we can talk about that in a second because it's a huge important part of video calls. The last one is imagery. What's in your background? The colors you wear, the props you hold. So for example, there's a research study that looked at the background, and they said by far, having a real background is better than having a virtual background. And that is because we see a virtual background, our eye is like, What's back there? I don't understand. Where did your hand just go? Those cues really matter. So yes, I mean, the basics are lighting from the top, right? Coming down at you is always better. Having cues in your background that help you, that serve you. For example, when I was presenting on cues, I kept getting the question over and over again, are cues universal? Are cues cultural? And I was so like, This question is crazy. I'm getting it all the time. So I took down everything in my background and I added a world map behind me. The question went away. Really? Just speaking with a world map behind me, it went away because that cued people to go, Oh, she speaks around the world.

Like that small prop. And so what I would think about is, in your Zoom backgrounds, in your dating profiles, you want to create cues that either answer questions or attract the right people or detract the wrong people. So I believe for dating, specifically in creating allergies. So allergies are props that are going to either turn someone on or turn someone off. So allergies? I call it an allergy cue. An allergy cue is like a cue that people feel strongly about, that it's going to turn off the wrong people. So for example, I'll give you a really specific example. One of my friends was dating forever. She went on so many bad first dates, bad first two or three dates, could not find the right person. I looked all over her pictures. They were all very flattering, very beautiful. But the problem is, they were too bland. And one of the problems is she's a vegan, and that would come up on the first, second date. If you're a vegan, you're either really into that or you're not into that. Very few people feel the middle.

That's so true.

Right. I said to her, I want you... I bought her a sweatshirt that said, If you're not nice to animals, I'll kill you. That's what the sweatshirt said. That's how she feels. She's like, This is so extreme. I was like, I want you to wear it. I want you to look gorgeous, and I want you to wear it in your very first profile picture. Because it's either going to turn someone on real hardcore or they're going to be like, Allergy.

Yeah, that's so true. That's why you meet my allergy.

She found her man. I want you to create props that are allergic to your wrong people.

That's a great idea.

Our brand is called Science of People. I purposely chose science as an allergy. There are certain people who are like, I don't like science. You're not my person. You're not going to like my book. Science is in almost every cover marketing in my book, because if you don't like science, it's an allergy for you. If you like science, you're like, yes, data.

Who wouldn't want to have data and science backing these things? Not my people. Do they want a bobblehead just wandering around to say, my opinion is...

They want funny stories. And we have some of those, but you got to like data. So why don't they get an Archie comment? I agree. I agree. You should tell them, Go get your Archie magazine.

No, it's true. I mean, especially with this type of information, you want to have some legitimate science backing of it, right?

I agree, but not everyone does. And so I would think about for your personal brand, for your professional brand, for your LinkedIn profile. For example, if you want to get a job in a startup, do not be in a suit.

A hundred %. That's a great point.

You should be in the clothes that you want to wear at your ideal job.

So tell us about that. Before I even jump into that, I'm going to forget, why do people, when they see each other and they don't know somebody, they get into that intimate zone by doing that face-to-face kissing or the hugging. When they don't even know them, it's uncomfortable. If you're someone who doesn't like to be touched or anything else, isn't that too just It's just like you're just assuming. Can't that give you the opposite effect?

So here's the thing. Okay. Humans are super curious creatures. Again, two C-words I just love. Here's what happens. Is we meet someone, even if we don't know them, we really want to know. We want to suss you out. And so when we get close, we're producing oxytocin to see, Do I like this person? But we're also looking for pheromones. We're also judging, is this my person smell-wise? I'm going to tell you a really disgusting, two disgusting studies. But these change the way that I think about touch. They did a study where that exact question, they're like, why have humans evolved to handshake? It seems crazy.

More than that. People are now constantly coming up to me, kissing both cheeks. And like, hugging me.

I'm like, I don't even know you. And you're like, why would humans... It's very dangerous. We don't really know someone that well to allow them into your- A stranger. Why would you do it?

And then you feel like... And then for the other person, it puts them in a situation where they feel like they're being rude if they step away, so then you have to go about that. And then everything becomes... You're putting yourself in an awkward situation.

But it's primal. Here's the problem. It is so primal. That's why it's hard not to do this, because what they did, that was exactly the question they were wondering. So what pain did is they found that what happens when you handshake someone is you can decide about four of the five personality traits from a handshake alone. So blind handshake, you can tell about someone's extroversion, you can tell about their agreeableness, you can tell how organized they are. So first, you can tell a lot about a person by their handshake. Can you tell us? About mine?

Let me shake your hand.

Okay. Okay. I would say that you are ambitious, organized, extroverted.

By my handshake? By your handshake, yeah. Because what was my handshake to you? Firm. Okay.

Quick, and you only pumped me once. I'm going to give you the opposite handshake. You're going to see me as different. Are you ready? I just gave you my real handshake. I'm going to give you a a handshake that is not my personality, you're going to be like, whoa, this feels really different.

You ready? Because I've heard that this... I wanted to say one thing. We all know that that... You know when you give someone a handshake and they give you that dead fish head? I'm like, that person is such a dead fish.

Okay, let's do a dead fish. I'm going to give you the dead fish. You're not going to like it. Okay. That's awful. Horrible. Now, I'm going to give you the other one. We're going to go the other way. You're going to be like, whoa, that's so different. Ready? Okay.

Oh, my God. People do that. I'm always like, Wow. It's like, there's so...

So don't you think of me differently?

A hundred %. A hundred %. Okay, what does that say? So tell us about this. That's the stuff. Okay.

So first, we learn a lot about someone for my handshake.

So mind the one pump.

You know what? I don't even want to do. I don't even want to tell people because I don't want you to change who you are.

No, I think it's brilliant.

You have to just know who you are and own it.

That means I- Although, don't be deadfish. Okay. What is- A hundred %. Let's go over this again. So mine is, would you say, ambitious?

Ambitious, extroverted, and organized. Organized? Yes. Deadfish is when it's very, very loose and limp, and we see someone as a pushover, can't get stuff done, probably timid, and probably not organized.

I also think that they're probably just lame. I mean, who does that? And lame. Who does that?

Lame.

Also completely unaware, socially and self-unaware. How do you not know that's a shitty handshake, right?

You'd be shocked. Okay. Someone listening is like, Oh, I have a dead fish handshake. They're going to be shocked. Change it. Okay, so here's what's crazy about this study. Is first, they found out, you could find out a lot about someone from their handshake.

What's the other one? You didn't tell us the third one, the sturdy one.

Oh, really sturdy one. When I really may hand you, I really need it strong. And I fast-pumped you. Yeah, you shook fast. So I took over the handshake. So that's dominant, right? It's very imposing. It's very powerful. It's not even organized. It's hyper-focused. You probably thought, Whoa, she gets it done. Yeah. Right? Yes. I quick-pumped you, and I held harder, and I also pulled you a little bit closer to me. Yes. The other thing we can do is... Here, give me your hand.

When girls do that to me, I'm always very put back a little bit. I like it. But when guys do, I'm like, Wow, that guy is like...

Oh, I love when people dominate and handshake. Yeah, I like that.

That's like, Oh, he's a guy.

But I like girls and guys, too. I like both. I'm like, Yeah, be strong.

When a girl does a strong...

Oh my God, I'm into it.

That strong is so intense.

I'm so into it.

You were squeezing so hard.

So the other thing that can happen is this. If I turn you up, this is It's a very submissive position. It's very weak for me. And so I'm saying you're in charge. Versus if I were to do this to you, that should not feel good. That's saying I'm in charge. There's certain politicians who do this. If you've seen their politicians, you go like this, and they pull you close, and they go like that.

That means you're in charge. So if your palm is up, you're in charge.

If you are showing your very weak part of your hand, that means you're submissive. You're saying, I'm weak to you. Also, there's more pheromones that come out here. So a lot of times, women will be like, Oh, it's so good to meet. Yes. To be like, I'm showing my intimate space. Got it. Versus like, Hey, nice to meet you, which is much more I'm in charge. So that's some handshake science. But what this study found, which I think is insane, is in the 10 to 20 seconds after someone handshaked, at some point in the interaction, they would touch their own nose. And they hypothesize that we like to smell what the other person's hand smelled like. And I cannot tell you, now that I know this, you'll never be able to learn that. Now, when I handshake I have to say, Don't touch my nose, don't touch my nose, don't touch my nose. Don't touch my nose, don't touch my nose. It just happened now where I was like, Don't touch my nose. Because it's actually a human instinct, I swear, to shake hands and then touch your own nose because we want to smell it.

I love this. Yeah. So you want to see how the other person smells. Yes.

You want to- Wow. And then hormones, and you can learn a lot about a person by smell. It's totally subconscious. Here's another The other example I share about this in my TED Talk, which I think was one of the reasons the TED Talk did so well because it's so disgusting, is they had two groups of people come into the lap. The first group ran on the treadmill wearing sweat pads. They caught their sweat. The second group skydived for the first time wearing sweat pads. They took the sweat pads, both looked identical, but two different kinds of sweat, and they had participants smell them. Disgusting, right? I hope they paid them really well. In fMRI machines. They found that when people smelled the fear sweat, the skydiving sweat, they began to feel afraid, even though they had no idea what they were smelling. When they smelled the runner's sweat, they felt nothing at all. So what this means is that when we are afraid, it creates a certain smell, and it's actually catching. It's contagious. So I think one of the reasons why we insist on cheek-kissing is we're like, Are you afraid?

Really? A little bit. This is like silence with a lens. This is so creepy.

It's so creepy. Another favorite. See what? I'm just joking.

No, no, no.

But we're sussing out because we don't We don't want to catch it. Very highly charismatic people are so confident. They are sending signals of confidence, and we want that confidence. We want to catch it. When someone is low confident, when they're sterile, when they're afraid, we don't want to catch it.

True, true, true. That's such a good point. What happens if it's not about confidence? It's about the opposite. It's like, I don't want this randos to be touching me and kissing me. It's not that I'm not confident. It's just like, I just don't want their body on me. Because you don't want to take a chance.

A hundred %. So people who are less comfortable with touch, it's probably because they're like, I don't want to take a risk on your heebie jeebies. I don't know what you're going to smell like.

Or like, I don't know you. Yeah.

I like it. I like to know what other people are about. That's my whole job, right? I love thinking about, I'm going to smell you. I want to get close to you. I want to feel your hand.

I'm into that. What if it's someone gross and not very clean?

I'm into it. I'm like, no judgment. I'm like, what are you like? What gets you going? Really? Yeah, totally.

That's my job. So you think if I could...

I had an experiment one time where all I did in the experiment was look in people's junk drawers, their trunks of their car and their medicine cabinet. It was the greatest three months of my life. It was the best.

See, that would be interesting to me.

Okay.

I like that. But if you're kissing someone, cheek to cheek- The theme is smelling people. I guess, is it subconsciously is telling you something?

Exactly. And now that I'm aware of it, this is a gross challenge for our listeners. But next time you cheek kiss someone, just smell a little bit. What do you smell? I'm telling you, you're going to learn something.

It's 100% true. Do we even know ourselves what we think of that smell? It can be very nondescript sometimes.

I also think it's super subconscious. I've known about this research for almost a decade. I've known about it, and even still, I'm trying to suss people out. So I just try to take someone in, I take in their handshake, and I try to think, what just pops into my head? Because I don't know exactly what it is, but I know there are certain things will pop into my head that I'm like, interesting.

That is so interesting. I'm fascinated by it. It's so weird, though.

The book is less weird than that, I promise. No, no, no.

It's actually... I love all this stuff. There's also something else that I heard that gestures are way bigger than words, right? Like It's way more impactful than words.

Yes. So there's a beautiful researcher, Susan Golda Meadow, who wrote a book called Hearing Gesture. And basically, her argument in all of her research is that gesture isn't just extra. We think of it as fluff. We don't really think about it. But actually, that that gesture is critically important to our comprehension, both as a speaker and as a listener, and that some gestures carry 400 % more information than words. For example, if I were to say I have a really big idea, and I'm holding a little a quarter, you're like, That doesn't look very big at all. You're actually more likely to believe my hand. Same thing with if I were to say, I have three different things I want to tell you, but I hold up the number five, you're like, No, it's five. You're actually more likely to believe my So our brain actually gives a lot of weight to gestures, yet we don't think about our gestures. One of the experiments we did in our lab, I've always been interested in gesture, is we watched and coded thousands of hours of TED Talks looking for pattern. And we found that the most popular Ted Talkers by view count use an average of 465 gestures in 18 minutes.

It's a huge amount of gesture, whereas the least popular Ted Talkers use an average of 272 gestures, almost half. And the reason for this is when we are listening to a speaker and they know their content really well, they're outlining their content along with their words. And so when we're thinking about presenting an idea, telling a story on a date, showcasing our smarts, actually, the best way that we can underline that is being like, I know my content so well. I'm going to tell you this point number one and this point number two. I'm going to tell you it's this big or it's this big. It's like, wow, they're so congruent. Their gestures are literally punctuating their words.

I'm glad that you mentioned the TED Talk. I know you did a bunch of studies on that and also Shark Tank, which I'll get to in a second. So give me some other cues or points of what you noticed when you did all your research with the TED Talks.

Yes. Actually, this brings us right back to which I forgot about, which is vocal power.

I wrote that down. Oh, voice. Because the gestures and the voice are so much more powerful than the actual word you use.

And we don't use them. Than the actual word you use. Yes. I always think of these as opportunities. Totally. Imagine you work so hard on your ideas and your presence, your makeup, your hair, your clothes. Imagine if you just added these, it's supercharging your charisma. So gestures is one, vocal power was the other, very clearly, in that there is a Ted Talk sound. So I'm going to do it for you so you can hear it, there is vocal cues that we use. So vocal cues are voice, volume, pace, cadence that make us judge someone's charisma levels, their warmth, their competence. So for example, all the best head talks start like this. Today, I have a big idea. I'm going to break it down into three areas that are going to change your life. And when they get to a statistic, they say, And now, that took a giant %. A giant %. You go, wow, that's a big %. They even cue you of when you should be wowed.

That is so interesting. So wait, because my TED Talk did very, very well. Yes. And I started with- I wish I had just watched it. I was going to say, I wish you watched it.

I know. I wish it. I know. I know. I know. Did you use that voice?

I started it by saying...

Yeah, do the beginning for me. Okay.

So I know the secret to getting anything you want in life. You did it.

So we were just talking back and forth. You'd be like, I know the secret to getting anything you want in life. But you said it in a Ted Talk voice. So I know the secret to getting anything you want in life.

That's a Ted Talk voice.

You did it.

So you think... Because when I did my Ted Talk, I left there thinking, Oh, my God, I bombed, right? So many things went wrong. I had notes on my hands, and I was so nervous that I had cotton mouth. I was like, They had to restart it for me. I'm like, Can we stop? Because I need some water. I could not even... There were so many foibles that happened. That's good, though. What I'm thinking, I'm curious, but is it because there were so many foibles that I came across very real? Yes. That people maybe were like, That what happened to me, that big loser. You know what I mean?

Yes. So here's the misconception. If you go watch the TED Talks that didn't do well. And by the way, didn't do well is like 20,000 views. Still like a lot, right? Go watch those talks. The misconception is that those people messed up. No. The worst TED Talks sound like this. Today, I want to talk to you about a big idea. This is a life-changing idea. The last 20 years I've spent researching has been on the marine biology life in the series of the Ocean. It's so robotic and so memorized. Actually, what happens is the worst head talkers, they under cue. We're right back to where we started. They are so focused on the scripts. They take away all the vocal charisma. They take away all their gestures. They stand there with their hands limp by their sides, in the microphone, reciting a script.

You're right, because it's all memorized. And there's no gestures.

Actually, the foibles, the vulnerability, we like speakers who use a conversational tone, a conversational stage tone, because we're like, We could be having coffee with them. That feels really real. So all the best sometimes are like, Brené Brown, Simon Sinek. They're not that rehearsed. Now, they might have been actually rehearsed. But when they're talking on stage, Ken Robinson, it sounds like they're joking around at your dinner table. It does not sound like, Today is the speech of my life. They're not talking like that. So our vocal power, one, is not scripted, not underqueuing, adding lots of emotion, including foibles, including vulnerability. And second, and this is what they all have, is they use the lowest end of their natural tone. So the other mistake that the worst Ted Talkers make is they would start on a really high tone like this. Say to walk on stage, Hey, everyone. Good morning. Today, I really want to talk to you about a big idea. And you're like, No, I cannot. Listen, click. That's so true. Click away. So the tone that you give is one of the most important parts of our vocal confidence.

Is that the tone? Do you know that girl, Liz Elizabeth Holmes? Oh, do I?

Let's talk about Elizabeth Holmes. Okay. So this research is pretty well established that lower tones for both men and women are seen as higher in confidence.

It goes flying. Sorry. Say that one more time. I want that to be said properly with me listening.

So it's pretty well-established research that people with lower tones are seen as higher in confidence. In fact, research has found that it takes about 500 milliseconds of hearing someone speak to decide how confident they are. It's incredibly fast. Literally your first word, that's when someone decides how confident you are. And it's usually based on the tone. I think, that study came out in the early 2000s. I think Lizabeth Holmes read that study. Do you think so? I do. I think she read it. And she went, wow, great. This is the clearest link to confidence we have. Women need to be taken more seriously. I'm going to take this study, and I'm going to go so low that no one can question my confidence and my competence. So what she did is she went too low. She went to really low down here. So she was talking like this. The problem is we all can hear the in authenticity in this. It's actually distracting. So when she was talking, it was like, what is happening with her voice? So I think she read that study and took it one step too far.

Well, what's interesting, though, is she did raise almost a billion dollars with that voice. She did. And she was like a kid from Stanford, right? It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. So what is interesting is- Again, that's cue gone wrong. But these are cues that actually... It may be a cue gone wrong, but these cues are so subliminal that even if you know it's happening, it still happens.

And investors and employees would say, her voice sounded weird, but why did she sound like she knew she was talking about?

Well, 100 %. First of all, does anyone have any video or Yeah. Has anyone ever heard her speak before the Theranos?

Yes, I've listened to many of them. I did a little breakdown of Theranos. Yes, you can find clips of her on a podcast where her voice is much higher. It was much higher. Oh my gosh.

Obviously higher?

Yes, Absolutely, obviously higher. And also, employees have said that when she was drunk, she would speak higher.

I saw that on the special, on the document.

By the way, if you want to hear the perfect example of her low voice, go listen to the first one minute of her TED Talk. It's bizarre. It's so low and it's halty.

How do you stay that low for so long.

Oh, my gosh. It must have been exhausting for her. Maybe that's why she wore turtlenecks. It's like it's helped her cover up her vocal cords.

Totally.

In your first few lines of your video call, of your phone call, of your date, you do not want to go, Hi. That is a mistake that we all make, is we take in a deep breath and we say hello on the upper part of our breath. So we say, It's so good to see you. I hate that. So we listen to recordings. In our lab, we've listened to recordings of phone calls, of sales pitches, of negotiations. And always, the highest note someone has is their very first word, which is so sad because that means all of their confidence is given away in their very first words. People go, Hey, it's so good to hear from you.

It's true. But the problem is, it's like a It's a very weird blend because you're trying to be warm with a warm cue. You want to come across open and nice, so you go high.

Of course.

Remember that a high voice tone is not warm.

A high voice tone just means excited. For example, we talk to babies, we talk to puppies. Hello, little one.

How are you?

Excitement, not warmth. So warmth comes from vocal warmth. So listen to the difference. Vocal warmth is we hear happiness, we hear compassion, we hear smiling. And actually smiling changes the sound of our voice. We did this in our lab where we had actors come in and record different hellos. So we had them do their normal hello. Hello. Then we had them think of something that made them happy, make a smile and say, hello. So just listen to the difference of that. So this is my neutral hello. Hello. Here's my happy hello. Hello? You can literally hear it in my voice. By your smiling.

Yes. Even if it feels like It's a fake smile.

It doesn't matter. You can still hear it.

Wow. Okay.

Because the shape of my mouth, again, we're very subconsciously aware of these cues. We don't have to think twice about it. But if I were to answer the phone and be like, Hello, I don't sound very excited to hear from you. No, you don't.

You sound miserable, actually.

It would be like,. I actually would come across as less likable. We literally study this in our lab. People rated the smiling hellos as more likable. We asked people to listen to these hellos. They had no idea what they were listening to, and they didn't know the person was smiling, and they rated the person as more friendly, more likable, if they want to hang out with them. So when I hear, hello, you much more want to hang out with me, just by even that fake smile.

So are there, and I think you talk with it in this book or the other book, about smiling in general, though. What smiles are the most impactful or the most powerful to get what you want?

Smiling, it's funny because it's gotten a bad rap in the last few years. It's horrible to be told smile. No one likes that. I try really hard to not give that advice. So what I would say is either smile for real or don't smile at all. Here's why. Dr. Barbara Wild and her researchers found that when they showed people pictures of fake smiles and real smiles, and the different is. In a real smile, our upper cheek muscles are activated. So it goes all the way up into our eyes, having these upper cheeks, right? Yeah. When those upper cheek muscles are activated, and by the way, only one in 10 people can consciously activate them. So it's very hard to fake that. That means it's a smile. We look for those upper cheek activation muscles. When it's a fake smile, it stays in the bottom half of our face, right? They're not activated up here.

Like crow's feet, you mean?

Crow's feet, yes. Okay, a ton of those. Crow's feet are fantastic. The problem is, Botox is a very complicated issue. I'm not anti-botox, but it's important to know if you're going to do it, that it inhibits your emotional feedback loop. So when they botox people's smile wrinkles, they actually felt less happy. When they Botox people's anger, they felt less angry. So they're actually thinking using botox as anger management treatment. So it's, again, not that or good. Seriously? Yeah. They've actually found that it inhibits the anger cycle. But if you cannot make that anger expression when your eyebrows are pulled down together in those vertical lines, it actually makes your body almost goes, Oh, my face is in anger. I guess I'm not that angry. It literally makes you feel less angry. So they're thinking about using it for anger management techniques because it actually helps inhibit that loop. But for smiling, it can also inhibit your happiness. So what Barbara Wild found is that when we see someone with a fake smile, we do not have any mood change. When we see someone with a real smile, we catch the happiness. So if you want to smile, make sure it's real.

That makes you literally more physically memorable. It makes you more contagious. I'd rather you real smile or no smile. A fake smile doesn't do much.

Okay, give me some other cues like that.

My goodness, there's so many.

I know. There's like a billion. I'm trying to think of like, Oh, I want to ask you about power posing. Yes. Because, wasn't Amy Cuddy who did this whole thing? Wasn't that... I heard that people- She had some faulty science. There was some faulty science behind it. And the power posing is not actually something that you can use as- She's come out defending her work.

So I highly recommend if you're interested in really learning about it, she's come out with a defense of her work and explanation of what happened. So it hasn't been totally debunked. There was some fuzzy science in there, but she's come out- So it has not been debunked? She insisted her science was whole. I'll leave it up to you to decide, and you can go read her rebuttal. Okay. What is good to know, though, I don't know how accurate it is that powerposing completely changes your testosterone. That was a big leap. That's a huge leap, yeah. That was the biggest leap in our research. I also think, I love powerposing, but you can't walk into a meeting with your hands above your head. I like the idea of it, but I actually like to take it down a notch, which is just a very simple... My version of a power pose is actually just expansive posture, which very simply, the only The distance that I care about, I don't care if your arms are up, I don't care if you're claiming space. That doesn't matter to me. Okay. All that I care about is the distance between your earlobe and your shoulder.

The distance? Wait.

It's my favorite distance on the human body. Okay, really? This is the distance between your ear and your shoulder. Okay, why? Why? When we are anxious or defeated, we tend to roll our shoulders up. We tend to sink our head down. We often tilt our head down. People who are really ashamed will often have no space between their ears and their shoulders. It makes us feel very protected. And so you'll notice people who are really anxious will sit like this. Teenagers will be like, you know? Any space right here. Whereas confident people, they want to claim their space. They roll their shoulders down and back. They usually use armrests. They usually have their torso When they're open, they have their head up and out and their chin up. So the only distance that I care about, that's the most important on video calls, on profile pictures, is I want this distance to be as big as possible. That you're not like this in your profile pictures. It's like the worst because it literally shows low confidence. But you're not going to start your video call, Hi, good to see you. And that's what people do in their first impression, is they accidentally creep their shoulders up.

Hey, everyone. Good to see you.

That's a great point. So if you keep your shoulders down- Down and head up, it's the best. And that's for everything. Not just, again, this is for LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn profile video calls.

Video calls in person, how you wave hello, how you walk into a room, how you carry your stuff. I mean, often Sometimes I'll see people with their laptop, right? And they have it like, tightly in front of their chest with their shoulders hunched up. And I'm like, what are you doing?

Wow. Yeah.

You look small. So that distance is the only power pose, quote unquote power pose distance that I care about. That's actually the most impactful for your perceived confidence.

But you said... Okay, so when you said when you were imitating that one, how about a head tilt? I thought you talked- I love head tilt. Yeah. You like head tilt. Yeah. But isn't that still the ear to shoulder?

So let's look for the difference. So if I'm I'm going to do a head tilt that I like. A head tilt isn't a universal sign of warmth. It's a universal sign of engagement. It shows I'm listening. So if I head tilt, I still have lots of distance. Mostly, I'm just exposing my ear. And you see that as, She's listening. She's open. Versus- Right.

You don't shrug those shoulders up.

And that also makes it really hard to have vocal power. So if I were to try to give an entire podcast interview like this, you would actually hear it in my voice. It actually sounds smaller. It sounds younger.

Yeah, and it sounds weird.

Exactly. Because you can hear it. We I don't like people who take up little space. But the moment that I add more space, you go, Oh, that's better.

That is 100% true. Yeah. Okay, how about this? I've got so many, but because I haven't even asked. I love it. I feel so... Okay, but how about... I have a note here, but I don't remember the walk. There's a note about a walk here. You could tell a lot by someone's walk. I don't remember why I had it down here.

I don't know, but you can tell somebody about it. It's funny. Biomotion Lab has some interesting things about walking, but I didn't even include that in the book because it's hard to learn it. It's hard to change your walk.

Maybe I heard that.

I think maybe I mentioned in the book that having movement in your walk, not having your arms really stiff, the more you have, the more space you take up.

Maybe more movement in the walk. Yeah. That was probably what... Okay, so Let's get back to the other stuff that you're saying for the video calls. How about in terms of emailing and texting people?

Yeah. So the second to last chapter in the book is on verbal, right? Because so much of our communication is email. What we're fighting in verbal is sterile. Meaning a lot of our communication has gotten so sterile that our words mean nothing. So we send emails like, Hey, our meeting is planned for next week. I'll prepare the proposal for you, and I'll get all the information over to you. Talk to you next Tuesday. We get those emails all the time. It's hard to reply to them. We're burnt out.

And texting also?

And texting also, right? Hey, are we still on for next Tuesday? Right? We get those all the time. The problem is, in terms of our brain, our brain needs more cues. If we have taken out all the cues from our body language in an email, we have no body language in an email, we have no facial expressions in an email, we have no voice turn in an email, we better make our verbal cues pretty powerful. Right. And so that's why we're so burnt out on email. That's why people might respond slowly to your emails, is there's not enough cues. It's like under signaling. Right. So what I like to think about is adding warmth and competence to your emails, to your texts.

To a text also?

Yes, absolutely. So when we are getting a an extra email from someone or reading a LinkedIn profile, we're also trying to see warmth and competence. It doesn't go away in communication. So I can look at a LinkedIn profile. Actually, a study that we did in our lab, we had people come into our lab. I felt bad for these participants. They had no idea what was coming for them. And we had them take our Charisma diagnostic to see where they were on warmth and competence. By the way, that's up for free. You can take it whenever you want. It's fancyble. Com/charisma. So take it as many times as you want. So we had them take that. It's like a 10-question questionnaire to see where they were on warmth and competence. Then we asked them open up their email sent folder, and we looked at their last five emails they sent, and we counted the number of warm words, the number of competent words. So warm words are words that are like the warm and fuzzies. Happy, best, together, collaborate, open. Emojis are warm, exclamation points are warm. Words like, wow, yay, fab, wup. Those are all warm words.

They make us feel like, oh, I like this person.

But emoji, doesn't it also... Yeah, it takes away the people. You don't feel a person's competent. It's It's friendly. You feel like it's too cute.

It's all friendly. We count the number of warm words, and we count the number of competent words. Competent words are words that make you want to get it done. Productive, efficient, brainstorm, power through, goal, win, achieve, success, master, those kinds of words. Statistics, numbers, prices, charts, graphs. Those are all competence. We count them all up, and we could almost exactly predict where someone was in the charisma scale based on the words they use. So if someone was highly charismatic, they had a perfect balance. Of warmth and competence. If someone was highly warm, they used a ton of emojis and a ton of exclamation points. If someone was super competent, they had either nothing at all or lots of statistics and big worse. Wow. So in your text, in your emails, you want to balance a number of warmth and competence words.

Now, is that for personal and professional?

I think so. I want to be seen as charismatic in all my relationships. Now, on emails that don't matter, emails where it's purely logistics, sure, you don't need to do it. These are the emails that matter to you. Like the emails to your boss or a client or an important email to your best friend. So it's not that you have to use them in every email. You wouldn't be like, have the perfect hand gestures when you're trying to talk to your husband about the weekend plan.

Okay, but if you want to text back from a guy that you like or a woman that you like- And I definitely want to use it. Right. So give us an example of what you should do and what you shouldn't do. Okay.

So what I wouldn't do is, are we still on for tonight? Which is often the text that you get. It's sterile.

And we'll have it like, I'm just making this up Before, it's like, Hi. I don't know. Hi is good. Like, Hey. You say, don't even say things that are like social scripting. Like, how was your day?

Agreed. Oh, agreed. So for example, I live in Texas, right? I might be like, Howdy? Yeah. Okay. Just to be a little different.

You know?

Howdy? So instead of, Are we on for tonight? Howdy. So excited for tonight. Still looking good? So that's very different because I'm giving an interesting Howdy is an interesting opener. I'm saying, So excited for tonight. So it's a little dopamine word. Excited is a great dopamine word. It's almost like a charisma word. It's perfectly warm and confident. And then I'm like, Still looking good for tonight? Still looking good for tonight is such a good psychological sentence. That's great. Because you're basically saying, I'm looking good. Are you looking good? Yeah.

I love it. Okay, if you don't live in Texas, what do you write?

Aloha, ciao.

What if you thought of no plans? Give me another one that's not flat. And by the way, you don't have to use all the answers.

You can, but you don't have to use howdy or aloja or ciao or whatever.

They're great.

Yeah. If you can, they're fantastic.

If you want someone to respond to you, if you don't have plans, but you want them to engage.

It's using words that are going to wake people up. So it's not like, How's your day going? So boring. It's, What's good today? Even just that very small switch. Asking someone, How are you? You're going to get, Good, busy.

Exactly. Or Or nothing.

Or nothing. Asking someone, What's good? What's good? You're going to get like, Oh, what's good? What's good? What's good? Well, I just had a beautiful cup of coffee. Me too. We should get one together next week. It's using more...

Being a little spiced here. Listen, you could be a great matchmaking coach, too.

You know what? Back in the day, matchmaking was my dream career.

I would love it. Oh, I would love it, too.

I would do personality assessments on people. I would do body language analysis.

By the way, I'm I'm getting to that. Don't even think you're getting away to Scott free. I didn't even get to the hard stuff yet. I'm getting through all the stuff I have. Is there hard stuff? No, not. Listen, I'm getting through the stuff that's very tactile for people who are maybe for work, for business. Give me a hard one. Okay, well, first of all, I have a bunch. I want to talk about even how... And I want to talk about the shark tank pitches. You analyze 500 of them, right?

495.

And you notice which ones, why the ones that did well versus not? Yes. Okay, talk about that. And then I'm going to I want to get into the science of personality, knowing even opposites. If you're a neurotic person, I found that stuff so interesting.

That would be batch-making stuff for sure.

Also, just in terms of relationships in I'm 100 %. If you're in one and it's not working and why it's not working, I think that was fascinating when I heard you talk about that stuff.

The personality stuff is the basis of all of our relationships, right? Okay, so we'll talk about Shark Tank and then personality. Is that good?

Perfect. I have all these other things. I wanted to talk about the interrupter, which I've interrupted you a million times.

No, we're talking. It's great. Okay.

And the science of popularity. Oh my gosh.

Well, you got to pick. Which one are we going to do?

Do the shark tank, but do it quickly so we can move on. Don't stay on it forever.

Okay, okay, okay. So we analyzed 495 pitches on Shark Tank, looking for patterns. Very, very simply, the biggest pattern was dopamine. In other words, the pitchers that created some interaction were the ones who did best. So they thought of some to pass out a sample, to touch, to go into the shark's intimate space. Because in the shark tank, remember, they're all seven feet away. It's really hard to bond with someone when you're in the public zone. So we found that what would happen is they would cleverly think of ways to go very briefly into the shark's intimate zone or personal zone, and they immediately had more oxytocin.

And you noticed that the ones that did that- Were much more likely to get a deal. And also when they walked in, they did something.

Their first impressions were really strong. So they had a grand entrance. Maybe that's what you meant by walk. Maybe. They were walking in. So from the very first moment you saw them, they were walking in. They were taking up space. They had lots of space between their ears and their shoulders. Oftentimes, they would use some a greeting hand gesture. They would wave to a shark or say, Good morning, sharks. That I see all the time. There's something about it. Exactly. There's something about we like to be acknowledged. Sharks like it, too. So when someone was like, today, I'm going to pitch you an idea with no hand gestures, no open palm. We love an open palm. So that was the biggest takeaway. Open palm, some greeting, some interaction, any opportunity you can have go into someone's personal space or social space, not intimate, but social space, you're going to produce more opportunities for connection.

So walking in, doing some hand gesture was a big one.

Open palm. Yes. Having some interaction, if you can, and having a greeting. Good to see you, Sharks. So happy to be here. Today, I have a great deal for you.

How about one that... Was there anything about... I noticed a lot of them... I love that show, by the way.

So good.

When they hone in on one particular shark.

Is that purposeful? Yeah. We also I found that if Shark would say something like, You remind me of myself, almost always they were going to get a deal eventually. So there was something to picking your target and giving them extra eye contact, extra nods, answering their questions first. So it's good to have a pick, a target. Same thing in dating, I think, too. It's always good to have a target that you're going after, as opposed to, I will date anyone. No, you want to date the right person.

Exactly. Okay, I know what I wanted to ask you before we moved on to these other things, which Which I think is really important is the priming, how you prime people.

So that's exactly what we're talking about with the words. So when you mention words like collaborate, people are more likely to be collaborative.

So that's the definition of priming?

Priming is when you set up people's behavior by priming them with the right cues, like a wall primer. You prime a wall so the paint is stickier. Words can prime interactions. So if I have an email or a text where I'm like, I'm so excited for tonight. Are we still looking good? I am priming for excitement and good looking.

Yeah, good looking. I love that. And then what was the other? Oh, yeah.

Oh, it was a personality.

Yeah, that was... Okay.

Well, personality is a very big topic.

I know, but I found it- You want to pick your favorite I just find it to be so fascinating, why certain relationships do well versus not. Again, when you have this information, and also this can be professional relationships.

Oh, actually, the book, I give example of more professional relationships, even though it's really important for personal relationships.

Right. Because you could still... It's the same traits apply, right?

A hundred %.

Can you talk about that? Yes.

So there's a lot of personality tests out there. Enneagram is very popular right now. Disk is very popular right now. Myers-brick. Those are all fine, but they're just not super backed up in research. It doesn't mean they're not true. They just haven't been replicated over large populations. The one that has is the Big Five. The Big Five has been replicated over and over again. It's like the standard in the academic community for personality. And they basically have said that there are five personality traits that everyone has, and you're either high, medium, or low on each of them. They're like a spectrum. So openness is how you approach ideas, creativity, Conscientiousness is your organization, your approach to details. Extraversion, so it's OCEAN, O-C-E-A-N. I'm extroversion, how you approach people. Agreeableness, how you approach cooperation and teamwork. My favorite, neuroticism, how you approach worry.

For example, I think you were saying something about even... This is a piece of information I saw. You're saying if you're one person who's very open, you want to try a taco stand down the street or how to get to... If you want to become fast friends with someone at a conference, you can easily see it. And you ask someone else, and they're like, I don't really want to go. Yes. Those two. Open person needs another open person.

Yes. Openness is one of the most helpful. That's why I start with it in the book, which is if you want to know how open someone is asked where they want to go for lunch. A high open person will be like, Let's try somewhere new.

Let's go to that new place I saw.

That tells you a lot about them. That means that they're driven by new. They get bored easily. If someone's like, Oh, I have my favorite place with my favorite dish, my favorite waitress, and I know exactly where to park, that's probably a low up person. They like tradition, habit, routine. The The way that you would approach them for pitching a new idea, let's take it professionally, is very different. So a high-open person, if I have a high-open client, I'm pitching on new. I have a great new idea for you. You're going to love it. It's going to completely change the way you interact. A high-open person is turned on by that. They're like, Yes, a new way to interact. A low-open person is like, No, I don't want a new way to interact. I'm interacting just fine. Thank you very much. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. A low-open person, I would say, Listen, you're doing a great job with what you're doing. I have one little tweak that's going to make things easier for you. It's proven by research. It's proven by other people. And if you make this one small change, it will help everything else be so much easier for you.

How do you know if someone is or not all the time?

You ask them if they want to go for lunch.

That's exactly a great one. What if you're not having lunch, though?

Or even in a- So we have a research on our website which has, I call them behavioral questions. They're questions you can ask to suss out someone's personality. So things like, Where do you want to go for lunch? Things like, What What are you do this weekend? A high open person is like, Oh, there's this festival that we heard about. So I'm high open. Literally this weekend, I just got confirmation of my tickets. I'm so excited to a fairy festival. I'm taking my daughter. I've never been before. It's the Botanical Gardens, and it's literally a... They put fairy figurines and trees. It sounds amazing. I don't know if it's going to be amazing, but I can't wait. Wow. So never got to that before. But my high openness, that would tell you that I'm into high openness. High open person is like, they're trying something new, they're doing something I knew. A low open person is like, Oh, well, every Friday, I have dinner with my family. Saturdays, we always do pancake breakfast. Usually, we have movie night. Routine regimen. Routine regimen. So that's going to suss out some of those answers.

What's the other ones that you said that are not great? They're not compatible, though. You said highly neurotic or- High neurotics and low neurotics are great together.

High neurotics, low neurotics, they can balance to their out really well. They found research shows that two low conscientious people in a marriage have financial problems.

Totally. That makes sense. No one wants to pay the bills. Does it make sense? Is it true that opposites attract or not always?

Not always. That's the cliché that isn't always true. Sometimes high and low open people drive each other crazy. Actually, that's a really hard one in a marriage because high open people are like, Let's try some more new.

For sure.

That one's really hard. So that one's hard opposites, but low and high neurotics do well together, typically. Not always, but typically. High and low contentious people drive each other crazy. The high contentious person is like, Pick up your socks. Just freaking pick up your And the little conscientious person is like, My pile is our organization.

What if you have a high conscientious but low open... What if you have like- Oh, yeah, that all exists.

And that's the dynamics of marriages. You can solve so much dynamics of a marriage if you know people's personality traits and personality ratings? So for example, if I know, I do the personality matrix for everyone in my life. I know everyone in my life's ocean, and they know mine, too, by the way. Because if I'm like, okay, I have an employee, let's say, where I give them their personality test before I start, and they are high in openness. Okay, great. They're going to want the new projects. I should give them new stuff, not as much old routine. They're going to get really bored. And they're high conscientious. I cannot casually assign them a project. I have to make sure that if I want to sign them a project, I am ready to go with details. So for example, I have a high-conscientious employee, and if I were to say, Hey, next week, I really want to talk about you coding our YouTube videos. She'd be like, Okay, how do I do that? Is there a tutorial that I can watch? When do you want me to do that? Tuesday mornings or Monday mornings? And if I don't have those answers for her right then and there, it creates anxiety.

So that way, knowing your people and how they're rating, you can predict what their needs are. Right.

That's why I think this is so important, this stuff. To me, I think there's just- And in matchmaking, if I was ever going to be a matchmaker, I would try to match people who I think are going to help each other.

Some opposites are helpful. Low neurotic and high neurotic, they're helpful. Low conscientious, high conscientious, they can drive each other crazy, but they can also help the other. A low conscientious person can help a high conscientious person be more spontaneous. And that high conscious person can help a low conscious person be more organized. That can work if you're willing to learn.

I feel like a lot of this stuff, though, there's always, of course, it's never an exact thing, but I find this to be so helpful in just in terms of personal relationship, understanding this stuff.

That is what took anxiety away from me. My anxiety, my awkwardness comes from not understanding, not knowing, not knowing how to help my husband, not knowing how to predict my friend's needs, disappointing them. So when I felt like I had so much relief when I learned the personality matrix, because I was like, Oh, I know what she's going to want because here's where she is.

You don't even seem awkward. You keep on saying that.

I am. Ask my high school friend. They'll tell you. Really? Because you don't seem- I didn't have any. There's no one to ask. But yeah.

Come on. Well, that goes into the science of popularity. Yes. What makes somebody popular?

It's funny. Yes. This is a great This is a great sum up of everything we've talked about, which is under signaling is bad. If there's one thing you're going to take away from this interview is under queuing, under signaling, holding back is bad. It never serves you. It gets you to the danger zone. Same thing with popularity.

So They wanted to know- Talk about the danger zone.

The danger zone is when we're sterile. That's when we're not warm or competent. We're not sending enough cues. That's what I call the danger zone. It's like, that's when people dismiss you. That's when people feel like they can't quite get a read on you. You're not warm or competent. Right. Same thing in popularity. They wanted to know what makes kids popular. Now, what's funny about this, if you were to think about what makes kids popular, what would you guess? I know you know the answer to this. What would you have guessed?

I would have guessed people who are, of course, open. Actually, a lot of it would be openness, friendly. Has an ease.

Yeah. Like casual, easygoing. Casual, yeah. I also would have probably guessed pretty or handsome.

Oh, you're talking about for girls, I would say pretty. For boys, I would say athletic.

Right. So that is what most people think. But actually, when they looked at it, and they did this across multiple schools, they had all the kids basically rate and rank each other and tell who their connections were so they could see literally who were the most popular kids. What they found there was one difference. It didn't have to be with GPA, it didn't have to be with athleticism, it didn't have to be with prettiness. They also had them all ranked for attractiveness as well. Wow. It had to do with the most popular kids had the longest list of people they liked. The most popular kids had the longest list of people they liked. In other words, to be popular, you have to work on liking more people. Not being pretty, not getting people to like you. They had the longest list of people that they liked.

Why is that? And how is that?

They found that those are the kids that would walk down the hallway and smile first, not God first, wave first. They were the kids who would say, Hey, come sit with us.

Like a Farris Buhler. Exactly. Friends with everybody.

And so that's, I think, what my work, my mission in this world is trying to fight against, holding back. If you like someone, just say you like them. If you're with someone, assume that you're going to like them. I would always rather assume liking than try to be protective or ambivalent. Really?

No, I'm saying really with the popularity stuff. It's like the more people, so the people who are... Because you know that whole thing about mean girls, right? Who are much more discretionary and discerning.

Mean girls are not the true popular girls.

They're not really the popular girls. So the people who are friends- They're known as mean girls. They're known as mean girls. But those are the groups that people want to become friends with. Now, when you did your research on science of popularity with young people, how did it change as you were getting older? No, for older people. Because you could be a not popular kid, but you're a super popular adult. Could you not? I don't know.

I don't think this study actually looked into adults. It was purely teenagers. It was purely teenagers. But I do think this is the same. I think at work, the people who we think are popular, the ones who say hi to us first, invite us out to lunch, they're the likers.

The ones that people like, yes.

Those are the people I want to be with. And so when I read that study, I decided in that moment, I'm going to be a liker. I would rather say I like you and have you reject me than miss the opportunity of us liking each other.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's good information for kids to hear, too, right?

It's like, yes, 100 %. So that's the empowering. And I tried to write the books to be safe for kids and teachers. There's nothing in there that would be inappropriate for them. Specifically because I wish that we had more of this communication work. I wish that we'd had an empowering way.

I think it's so empowering. I wanted to talk about a couple of different things, too. How to spot a lie or So there's things like that that I think is super valuable. You talk about a lot like Lance Armstrong in the book, A Rod in the book, even like Britney Spears. Can you just give a couple different points of certain things? Like the how to spot a Spot, a Liar would be one of them. And then Well, let's just do that one first.

That's a very big topic. I mean, honestly, I could have wrote a book just on that topic. On Liars, yeah. Yeah, but I was like, it's so negative. I decided to only keep it to one chapter because I was talking to my publisher. I was like, this could be its own science, its own And I was like, oh, the idea of doing a bunch of touring about how to stop that deceiver in your life. I just was like, No, let's keep it to one chapter. So we did a bunch of research in our lab on lie detection. Very simply, we had people submit two truths and a lie to us. Yeah, I love this. So fun. It was like such a fun research to code. Two truths and a lie is a very simple game. You say two true statements about yourself and one lie, but you try to hide which one is the lie. And we coded them to see if we could find differences. And that was a lot of our lie detection research. We found differences in the lies. I'll give you my favorite one, which is a vocal cue, which is that liars, typically on the lying statement, they asked it.

So instead of saying the statement, they went up at the end of their sentence. If they were asking a question because they weren't sure if that was true. And liars, the research proves this, academic research, that liars don't believe what they're saying. So they're basically asking, Do you believe me? I'll give you mine. Here's three statements about me. See if you can figure out which is the lie. I'm from Los Angeles. I love dogs. I'm a vegetarian.

You're a vegetarian?

Not a vegetarian. Right.

That's the question. That's the what?

That's exactly how they sound.

It went up just a little bit.

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what happened. So the lie made them a little nervous. So they went a little higher in their vocal power? Yeah. And they often went up their sentence like they were asking you? So that's the biggest thing. That's a big one.

Yeah.

Listen for that if you accidentally hear the question in reflection. And second, make sure that if I Why don't want to teach you how to lie better? That was the other part of this, that I don't want to teach you how to lie better. But if you believe in something, say it. Like a price or a timeline. Don't say, The price of my service is $5,000.

Right.

So, The price of my service is $5,000.

Because then you seem uncertain.

Exactly. So it's more important on delivery. Negotiations, asking for your raise, asking for promotion. Don't ask, it, say it.

That's a great thing because when you have that voice, that octave going up, it sounds like you're asking permission.

Exactly. And you're begging people to negotiate with you. People subconsciously are like, She doesn't believe what she's saying.

Should I believe what she's saying? Right. Let's give me another one. The piercing of the lips I know is one. Yes.

Lip piercing is another one. So lip piercing is a universal withholding cue. So we're holding back. So if I press my lips together into a hard line. So we found that, and Lance Armstrong did this in his Larry King interview, that liars will often lip purse right before or right after a lie, as if to be like, Don't give it away. Right. They'll be like, like mine would be, I'm from Los Angeles. I love dogs. And I'm a vegetarian. You know what you did also?

Elizabeth Holmes did that all the time.

Yes, all the time. Yes. She had so many lying red flags that she would give off.

When you just did it, you looked like her. I'm like, Oh, my God. Well, you pursed those lips together. That's a big one. Yeah.

And that's because I think she was constantly trying to hold it in.

Okay, so is there any that we haven't heard before that's like, Oh, very interesting. I've heard the piercing of the lips before.

There's so many. There's, I would say, 14 different red flag cues to be on the look out for, one you haven't heard of them?

When someone's deceiving you.

Can I actually give a myth, which is much more empowering? Yeah. There's a horrible myth about lie detection, that when someone looks up to the left, they're lying. When they look up to the right, they're lying. That has never been repeated in research. Really? Never been repeated. In fact, do not use that because it will make you get false positives. Lefties often switch. There are people who process down. There are people who process up. That's true. And so you have to be very careful of the myths. There's no Pinocchio's nose. If someone lip purses it, it does not mean they're lying. That could be their baseline. I talk about this in the book, like how you can cut yourself. So just keep in mind with lie detection, there's no one single cue that means someone's lying. There's red flags. There's a cluster of red flags you can look for, but not one single queue.

Okay, so I feel like, is there anything else we can go through that you wanted to speak about?

Let's do the last one is how to stop interrupting, get someone to stop interrupting. Should we do that as the last one?

Absolutely. Go ahead. That's my favorite one. I know. I saw that one. I love that one. It's so fun.

This is so practical. If you're interrupted, you have to notice. So this is if you are interrupted and you want to get someone to stop talking. This is also how you can politely interrupt. And this is also what you can do with an overtalker. So it's all the same skill. So there's three different things you can do, and they go up in level of aggression. So level one is when someone is speaking and you want to get a word in, you can... I call it the fish. I call it the fish. You just open your mouth slightly. We know this universal cue of like...

Don't people do that naturally, though?

No, especially because what happens is instinctively, if we're like, I want to talk, I want to talk, we go... We often will hold our mouth and just say, Keep together. It's not your turn. It's not your turn. But that's the opposite of what you wanted to do. The opposite.

You're going to open your mouth.

It works on video, too. That's a great one. It sees it on video. Yeah, especially even if you're on mute, you can...

What do you do on the phone?

I think even like... Like breathing. You can hear it. I'm about to say something. I'm taking a deep breath about to talk. That's okay. Fish. Then the bookmark. The bookmark is when you just hold up your hand just slightly. You just Excuse me. It also looks like a pupil. You're holding your hand up. So what you can do is... I bet you're just holding your hand up slightly. You can also pair them together.

That's a good one, too.

Yeah. And by the way, the longer someone talks, the more aggressive you can be with this. Like, literally, the higher your hand can go, the more egregious it is. And lastly is a touch. If someone's so in their own worlds talking, you can usually anchor them with a very, very quick touch. And it works? Yeah, it works. And by the way, if you've gotten to that point, they're still not talking, this is not the person you want to be in a conversation with. Yeah.

I mean, a lot of people are so completely unaware.

Unaware. That's why a touch is the final thing. If they don't get the touch and they don't wrap up in the next 10 seconds, this is a rude person. It's probably in Narcist.

Absolutely. So is there a lot of difference between... I mean, there are traits that are narcissistic and charismatic. Aren't there a lot that- I think that there are.

I don't know too much about narcissism. I haven't done that much research on it, but I think that confidence- Can be something, yeah. So confidence is closer to narcissism than charisma. But narcissists can be charismatic.

They usually very much are.

Can be. I don't know. I would be curious to see the research if there's a bigger overlap.

I'm looking here again because there's so many I didn't ask you all these other questions. Could you come back again? Yeah, of course.

I come to LA all the time. I'm happy to.

I have all these things- We can do part two. We can definitely do part two because you have so much amazing information. I'm trying to just give just It's like a flavor.

Hopefully, we gave a lot. This is one I always like to end interviews on this idea, which is, yes, charisma's warmth and competence, but it doesn't mean that you have to be a robot. There are 96 cues you can choose from. So As you pick them, you get to pick your recipe. I think that's the fun part. We don't all want to look and sound the same. That would be horrible. So I think the fun part of it is picking the cues that make you feel good. That's your unique flavor. And so if everyone could just pick their unique flavor of charisma, I would be so happy.

I mean, listen, you've been incredible as usual. That's true. You gave a lot of- I love this stuff. But it shows, and you're super passionate about it, which makes it why it's so Good. I'm not joking. You have to come back.

I'm back in LA all the time. Okay.

This is like, I love all this stuff. Who will you be able to like it? Who will you be able to like it? Oh, of course. I mean, tell people, okay, her book is called Cues. And like I said, the first was called Captivate. So amazing, informative, helpful for any form of communication, really. Where do people find you if they want to know more about you?

Yes. So I read the audible books if you like my vocal power. So you can check Audible. It's on Amazon, wherever books are sold. I think it's still in airports. And then I'm at scienceofpeople. Com. So if you want to see some of my cute breakdowns, I do Brittany Spears, The Rock, Justin Bieber. You can go check out my YouTube channel. Oh, it's great. I have a lot of fun on there.

Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Bye, everyone. Bye.