Stop Faking Confidence: Master These Cues Instead

Vanessa Van Edwards shares research showing that brilliant people lose opportunities not because they lack intelligence, but because they under-signal their warmth and competence. She reveals how your body language, vocal tone, and word choice are either enrolling people in your vision or pushing them away without you realizing it. The science proves that charisma isn't about being the loudest person in the room—it's about balancing trust signals with capability signals in every interaction. You'll learn why faking confidence always leaks through danger zone cues and how authentic presence creates the chemical reactions that make people want to work with you. These aren't tricks to manipulate—they're tools to help you show up as your most genuine, powerful self so your best ideas finally get the attention they deserve. Vanessa’s books:CaptivateCuesIn this episode you will:Break through the social awkwardness holding you back by labeling rejection cues before they hijack your nervous systemDiscover why hand gestures carry more weight than your actual words and how hiding your hands destroys trust instantlyMaster the perfect balance between warmth and competence that separates forgettable professionals from magnetic leadersUnderstand how your voice tone changes people's physiology within seconds and makes them question or believe everything you sayTransform your emails and presentations using achievement-oriented words that double motivation and performance in othersFor more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1869For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Evy PoumpourasChris VossJefferson Fisher Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Well, welcome back everyone to the School of Greatest. We've got Vanessa Van Edwards in the house.

• 0:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Woo!

• 0:05Lewis Howes?

  We are talking all things Master of the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication. I think the facial cues we give people really put off a lot of if we can trust someone, if we can't trust someone, you know, if someone's interested, if they're enrolled, if they're unenrolled, all these different things. For 20 years, I had four missing teeth. When I was, I guess I was 16 and a half, I got eight teeth removed, four wisdom and then four more on the sides. For many years, 20 years of my life, I had these gaps, right? And so I'd always smirk kind of aside to kind of hide, to hide it.

• 0:37Vanessa Van Edwards?

  What?

• 0:38Lewis Howes?

  And I don't know if that helped me or hurt me. You're like, no, it didn't. So I would smile big, but then I would kind of like half smirk sometimes.

• 0:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I've seen your smirk.

• 0:46Lewis Howes?

  And after, my book cover too is kind of like just smiling, but it's a, it's a big smile, but it's not a showing the teeth smile.

• 0:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's true.

• 0:53Lewis Howes?

  Is it better to smile without teeth or with teeth in order to enroll people in you as a human being to get anything you want in your life?

• 1:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  What research found is that a real smile, whether it shows teeth or not, the own, the biggest difference is it has to reach up here.

• 1:10Lewis Howes?

  The eyes.

• 1:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  The, the upper cheek muscles, actually. So those eye crinkles.

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  I do that a lot, though. I feel like I squint a lot.

• 1:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, yeah, you got, you got a little smizing, right? So that's actually the only cue we're looking for. So it actually does not matter. So if you have a profile picture, a dating profile picture, a LinkedIn profile picture, I either want you neutral or with eye crinkles. The worst is sort of that in-between. Now, I don't mind like a soft up mouth, right? You and I both had this on our book covers, a soft up mouth, but it has to engage those upper cheek muscles. What Dr. Barbara Wilde found is that when they showed pictures of people with the fake smile and a real smile, the real smile was contagious. So when people looked at the real smile, they themselves felt happier. When they looked at the fake smile, they felt no mood change.

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So the reason why that's important is I think that we think about like, oh, I want to show up, I want to be really my most confident self, but what we don't realize is that our cues are contagious.

• 2:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 2:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That if you show authentic happiness, you are more likely to infect happiness. Actually, there's one more face cue I want to talk about. So this is the cue that sort of started me on this crazy journey and it got me, I'm a recovering awkward person, as you know. So this gave me a lot of relief. Introvert, awkward person, social anxiety, all the good things. So, so this story gave me so much relief. What they found was... If you are in a room and someone gives you a cue of social rejection.

• 2:32Lewis Howes?

  What does that look like?

• 2:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so social rejection, eye roll, a sigh.

• 2:37Lewis Howes?

  Looking away.

• 2:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Looking away, distancing behavior, when we pull our head back and like, when I angle my head back, you know I've just disengaged from you.

• 2:44Lewis Howes?

  Crossing arms and...

• 2:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Crossing arms, sudden, sudden, nonverbal rejection.

• 2:50Lewis Howes?

  Is this turning feet also?

• 2:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Turning, yes. Oh, we can talk about feet. Okay, we can talk about feet.

• 2:54Lewis Howes?

  Hands and feet, so, you know what's interesting? I look at the hands and feet all the time. I can't remember if I got this from you years ago.

• 3:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  This is me.

• 3:02Lewis Howes?

  It's like looking at the hands and seeing are they in the pocket, are they out of the pocket?

• 3:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 3:06Lewis Howes?

  But go ahead, we'll get back to that.

• 3:08Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so social rejection cues, and you know this, if you're in a business meeting and you suddenly feel like, am I disliked? Ah, he's not, he doesn't like this, she doesn't like this. When we see a cue of social rejection, our field of vision increases.

• 3:21Lewis Howes?

  We see wider.

• 3:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

  We literally see wider. Our pupils dilate, so we see more. The reason why that study was like a light bulb for me was our cues are affecting others' physiology. Our physiology can change in a room in an instant. If we walk into a meeting and we feel not liked, if we feel rejected, if we feel like we're being judged, our own physiology responds. So if we're in a room and we're not feeling confident or in control, and someone sends us a cue of rejection, one, you want to know what those are, because it makes your field of vision bigger, so you can see who else is sending me a cue, what's my escape route? That's literally what your body's trying to do. Ups your adrenaline, ups your cortisol, and no one can think well, adrenaline, cortisol. That's why in a meeting, it can go downhill so quickly.

• 4:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 4:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You're in a presentation, you've prepared it all week. And then you're like, oh, he just rolled his eyes. Oh, she just turned away. Oh, I just saw a weird foot movement. And then you lose your spot, you blank out, and the rest of the presentation goes badly. The good news is, is what Matthew Lieberman found, this is from UCLA. Once you label a cue, so if you say, that was an eye roll, that was a scoff of exasperation, that was a contempt smirk, the moment you label it, your amygdala calms down. They've proven that if they, when people are in FMRI machines, and they show them a fearful face, so fearful face is when we widen the whites of our eyes and we raise our eyebrows up. If you're laying in an FMRI machine and you see fear, you will begin to feel afraid.

• 4:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Your amygdala begins to activate, and your body goes, well, if he's afraid, I better be afraid. But the moment you say, in the FMRI... That's just fear? Your amygdala stops responding.

• 4:59Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 5:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So I think I've had a really hard time finding confidence. It's been a long lifetime journey. The way that I've sort of backdoored into confidence is control. If I can control the cues that are being sent to me, if I can control the cues I'm sending to others, it's a secret backdoor into confidence.

• 5:18Lewis Howes?

  How do you control someone else's cues?

• 5:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You label them and respond appropriately.

• 5:23Lewis Howes?

  So you can't control how they act towards you, but you can control how you react to it, how you interpret it, how you transition afterwards?

• 5:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, like you can, first by labeling it, you just controlled your own physiology. So if someone sends you a contempt, an eye roll, you just took control, you took control back of, nope, I see it, I spot it, I'm disengaging it.

• 5:43Lewis Howes?

  You know, in the vulnerability world, when you, you know, label the shame, when you speak about the shame and you bring it to the light, it becomes less scary. It doesn't stay stuck inside of you. So even just acknowledging it is a helpful tool to process shame or I guess

• 5:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And social rejection.

• 5:59Lewis Howes?

  Social rejection.

• 6:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Ah, it's the same, actually. So for vulnerability, yes, you're afraid, you acknowledge it, it makes it less scary. It's the same thing in social settings. Dates, professional situations, negotiates, interviews. The moment you say, okay, I just heard an exasperated tone of voice, or I just saw a lid flex. That's the one I want to talk about next.

• 6:16Lewis Howes?

  A what flex?

• 6:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I know, I know.

• 6:18Lewis Howes?

  A lid flex?

• 6:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  A lid flex.

• 6:19Lewis Howes?

  Is that an eyelid?

• 6:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, it is.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  Like a, like a, like a twitch or what?

• 6:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so here you ask, how do we control? Oh yeah, that's it. You just did it, okay. So you know Zoolander?

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 6:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You know the blue steel?

• 6:30Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 6:31Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, that is actually a lid flex, right? So that's a, right, it's like, it's if you, if you're listening around a hard in your lower lids, then like, your lips, that's what blue steel is. The funny thing about this cue, it's ridiculous. I know you're like, where are you going with this?

• 6:43Lewis Howes?

  No, it makes sense to me because it's like, prove me, like someone's doubting you.

• 6:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, you just got it. Okay, so what's funny is in fear, our eyes widen. So if you widen your eyes as wide as possible so you can see the whites, you just, I can take in way more of my environment. When we're afraid, we want to see as much as possible. When we are trying to see details universally across cultures, we have to lessen the light coming into our eyes. So we squint.

• 7:07Lewis Howes?

  To focus.

• 7:08Vanessa Van Edwards?

  We focus. So if you like, if you were to try to see that dot over there on the wall, you harden your lower lids. And that is because scientifically proven, when we harden our lower lids, it reduces the amount of light and we can see more details.

• 7:20Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 7:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I can see the details on that camera better when I lower lid flex.

• 7:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  This is why if you open People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive, on almost every page, along with a flexed bicep, are flexed lids. And that is because women find a flexed lid, oh, so attractive. So attractive.

• 7:41Lewis Howes?

  So an open lid is not sexy?

• 7:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Is it sexy?

• 7:45Lewis Howes?

  A flexed lid is.

• 7:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. Because why? Women and men both want partners who are deeply scrutinizing, who are deeply looking at them. So if I'm sitting when talking to you and I go, oh, really? I just showed you, wow, that was super interesting. In fact, when we flex our lids, we're going from just listening to thinking deeply.

• 8:06Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 8:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  We're literally trying to see something better. So if you're in a negotiation, on a date, or with a friend, and they go, really? And they harden their lower lids? You are like, ooh, ding ding, I just hit something good. And so the other way that we control cues is, okay, let's say that you're, and this actually happened to me, so this is a story I share in the book. I was in a meeting with a very high-powered exec team. And if the presentation went well, they were going to invite me back for more presentations. So the stakes were very high. And it was a small group. And I was in a particular part of my presentation talking about chemicals. And I noticed an executive across the room flexed his lower lids at me. Kind of flexed his lower lids, he's looking at the slide, and I was like, okay, what's happening? He just went from listening to scrutinizing. And so I paused with a small group and I said, all good? Any questions?

• 8:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And I literally looked right at him and I opened up my palms and I said, any questions? So this is the universal signal for openness. It literally means I want to receive.

• 8:59Lewis Howes?

  I'll share anything you want.

• 9:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. It's literally like, let me receive, let me be open to you. And he went, yeah, you know, I do have a question. And at the time, I was teaching about oxytocin. Oxytocin, I know you talk about it a lot on the show, the chemical of connection and bonding. He goes, I don't understand something. Isn't oxytocin what they give women to induce labor? And I'm like, you are right, sir. They do give oxytocin. And that's because it's so powerful that it can induce labor.

• 9:27Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 9:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But in our position, it's for social bonding. It was such a good teaching moment because he immediately felt heard. And I know that if I hadn't addressed that concern right then and there, I would have lost him. He would have been like, what? He would have been stuck on that one slide. And afterwards, he said to me, you know, I really feel like you were teaching to us.

• 9:45Lewis Howes?

  Teaching to me.

• 9:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Literally teaching to him. And so I think the other way that we can control the cues is we spot it and then we say, how can I honor it? Like, that's the gift that we can give people is I can be sitting with someone and say, I want to listen to you so deeply. I want to listen to your words. I want to watch your facial expressions. I want to listen to your verbal. I want to even listen to your voice tone. And we haven't even talked about vocal power, which here is incredibly important. And not only do I want to spot that, I want to respond in the way that you may, you feel the most heard by me. So it's spotting and honoring.

• 10:18Lewis Howes?

  And by doing that, if you're in a presentation, whether you actually acknowledge the person or not, are you just saying that'll bring you back to a more centered place? So you can continue on the presentation?

• 10:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly. It makes you feel in control of the narrative. It makes you feel in control of, and like even for introverts, right? Like introverts, it's much harder for us to share a lot of verbal content. So for us, I want to give you more control over the nonverbal so that when you do speak, it's more powerful, right? So if you're an introvert and you want to make sure you are reading the room really quickly, so you know exactly when to say your point, so it's most heard and most valued, that gives you confidence because you're not guessing.

• 10:53Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 10:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I don't like the guesswork.

• 10:55Lewis Howes?

  No, I don't either.

• 10:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I know.

• 10:56Lewis Howes?

  You see a lot of these videos online talking about how charismatic someone is based on the way they smile, their eyes, the tilt of the chin, or all these different things. Is it important to be charismatic? Let's talk about that first.

• 11:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 11:11Lewis Howes?

  Is it valuable and more important to be charismatic versus less charismatic? Less...

• 11:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  To the point.

• 11:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, credible or confident.

• 11:20Lewis Howes?

  To the point or neutral energy. I mean, what's more valuable in society in accomplishing goals and getting what you want? Very charismatic or neutral?

• 11:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Neutral. Okay, so this is the biggest mistake, I think, facing really, really smart people. I think really, really smart people, and this is most of my students, they're like off-the-charts smart, creative, brilliant. They make the mistake of thinking, if I have enough book smarts, if I have enough technology smarts, I don't need the people smarts. Now, here's what research from Princeton University found.

• 11:51Lewis Howes?

  I'm so excited for this.

• 11:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, okay.

• 11:52Lewis Howes?

  Because I already know what you're going to say at this point, yeah.

• 11:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so this study completely changed my work and changed my life. It was done by Dr. Susan Fisk in 2002. And since then, they've been able to replicate it and build on it and build on it. So this is very solid research. What she found, very highly charismatic people have to have the perfect blend of two traits. And this is where it's really, this is why highly charismatic people are so unique. This is why we love them so much. To be highly charismatic, to be compelling, to be captivating, you must have a perfect blend of warmth and competence. We talked about this the very, very first time we met, but since then, so much more has come out about it. Very, very smart people make the mistake of showing up as all competent.

• 12:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They try to blow you away with their numbers and their facts and their stats and their data, but they're seen as cold.

• 12:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They're seen as intimidating. On the other side, you have people who are highly warm. They have competence, but there's not a balance. They show up as highly likable, highly friendly, but they're interrupted. They're told that they're not being taken seriously.

• 12:55Lewis Howes?

  They're not credible.

• 12:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, people forget having met them before. And so I think that most people problems, I mean, we're going to say all people problems. All people problems stem from an imbalance between your warmth and competence. And so not only do I think that charisma is essential for being successful, I actually think it's the only way that people will be open to your competence.

• 13:17Lewis Howes?

  So you could be all the book smarts in the world. You could have the highest IQ and remember everything on any test, or you could be an encyclopedia of wisdom and information. But what I'm hearing you say, if you don't have charisma, at least some of it, then people won't take you seriously, or they won't care as much, or they won't be as engaged?

• 13:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's not just engaged. There's two questions that humans ask themselves about the person they're with. And this happens immediately in every interaction. By the way, video too. We forget that this is not just in person. This is happening the moment you pop on video. It's happening the moment someone opens your LinkedIn profile. I did a whole bunch of research on LinkedIn profiles specifically because that's where a lot of our first impressions happen. Okay, when people see your LinkedIn profile, when people see you on video, on Zoom, the first question they ask themselves, and it is chronological, the first question they ask is, can I trust you? Basic instinct, are you gonna be my ally or my enemy? Can I trust you? The very second question they ask is, can I rely on you? So when you're in a meeting, on a date, in a call, in a pitch, a negotiation, on LinkedIn,

• 14:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

  the two signals that you wanna cue people with as quickly as possible is, yes, you can trust me, and yes, you can rely on me. The problem is, is that most professionals right now are going mute. So I don't know if you've noticed this, but it feels like in the last five or 10 years, we've gone towards ambivalence. You know, we've gone towards, I'm not gonna show anything. I'm gonna be as professional and sterile as possible. And so we've taken out cues from all these assets, and then people have a really hard time trusting us. They have a really hard time listening to us. We wonder why people are slow to reply to our emails. It's because we're not cuing enough. We have to have hundreds of cues to answer those two questions.

• 15:01Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So how do we create more trust and reliability instantly?

• 15:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, okay. So here, let's talk about trust first, because it is chronological. We have to trust someone to rely on them. That's why, starting with your competence, doesn't always work. So trust. So the very first thing, it's a weird one. It's a really weird one that I'm gonna talk about first.

• 15:19Lewis Howes?

  So you don't have to be competent to be trusted?

• 15:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

  To be charismatic, you have to be competent and trustworthy.

• 15:24Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 15:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right? So we want that perfect balance, right?

• 15:29Lewis Howes?

  You're smart enough, and you're warm, and likable.

• 15:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so like, let's look at this cover. So really, really successful book covers, just like really successful LinkedIn profile pictures, very quickly signal both trust and competence, right? They signal both these at the same time, okay? So let's talk about the first one, which is space, space zones, okay? So, sorry, I'll give it back to you. I took it away.

• 15:50Lewis Howes?

  Space zones?

• 15:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Space zone.

• 15:52Lewis Howes?

  What is a space zone?

• 15:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  We're gonna talk about the distance between people. So the distance between my nose and the camera lens. You can't see it, but in this photo shoot, I made sure that the distance between my space and the camera lens was a certain space.

• 16:04Lewis Howes?

  How far?

• 16:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So I wanted to be in what's called the social zone. Okay, so this is not made up by me. This is actually, research is based, there's four zones for people. The intimate zone, the personal zone, the social zone, the public zone. Remember that Seinfeld episode you ever saw of close talking? You ever had this where someone walks up like right into your face and like

• 16:26Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 16:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  talks into your mouth? Okay, so that's called close talking. And that is the first big rule.

• 16:32Lewis Howes?

  Intimate zone.

• 16:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Intimate zone.

• 16:34Lewis Howes?

  You don't wanna be there.

• 16:34Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You don't wanna be there unless you're about to get intimate.

• 16:36Lewis Howes?

  Unless you like, you're friends or you know each other and you're like, that's what you do.

• 16:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Louis, do you talk six inches away from your friend?

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's too close. No, no, no, that's like your girlfriend. Yeah, so you're your partner. Got you, okay.

• 16:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so here's what happens.

• 16:46Lewis Howes?

  This is intimate zone, six inches.

• 16:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Zero to 18 inches apart is intimate zone. Okay, so here's what happens. This is the biggest mistake I'm seeing right now, is we're all on video call all the time.

• 16:55Lewis Howes?

  Taking photos like this, selfie like.

• 16:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 16:58Lewis Howes?

  What does that do when you're projecting a video or a photo that close?

• 17:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It is literally saying, I wanna get close really, really vast. And so if you have someone who's super high warmth, they're like, yes! Vulnerability, intimacy, and you're gonna attract those kinda people. But if you have someone who's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, take a minute, they are, they are turned off. So what's happening is on video calls, you hop on FaceTime, you hop on video or on Zoom, and people are like right up in their camera.

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Their, their nose and their camera are, are 10 inches apart. And so someone's like, whoa.

• 17:29Lewis Howes?

  It's too close, yeah.

• 17:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's too close.

• 17:31Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 17:31Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So that's the first one, is you wanna respect the space zones. The, the sweet spot is a foot and a half to three or four feet away. That's, that's that social zone. That's where we're making eye contact. If I wanted to reach out and high five you, I could. We're still respecting each other's space. So for those, one is when you're on video, in your photos, that, if you want to have that balance, you wanna be. 18 inches to about three or four feet away.

• 17:55Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Social zone is 18 to three feet?

• 17:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Uh huh, yeah. And the personal zone, by the way, is still good, but that's a little bit farther away. Right, so that's, you're just starting to get to know each other. When you see someone across the room, or boardroom, or networking event, they're usually about four to seven feet away, which is the next zone, which is the personal zone. And then you have the public zone, which is obviously from far away. What we like in human behavior is we like someone to come towards us slowly. That's one of the reasons I think we're so burnt out on video. You know, we have these back to back to back video calls, and we wonder, why are we so tired? I'm not even in person. The reason is because it's queuing us in ways that are not natural. In person, I walk into a room, right? Like, I walked into the office today, and you were waiting, and I was like, hi, and we hugged. That was the, that's the way humans like, right?

• 18:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's like this from public.

• 18:44Lewis Howes?

  It's not like you open the door, and I'm right there standing in your face.

• 18:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That would have been a lot.

• 18:47Lewis Howes?

  I was a few feet back.

• 18:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You were a few feet back, it was perfect, right? So like, that's natural, but on video, it's like, whoop, we're here. And that's why we can get so fatigued, is because the queues are unnatural. Which actually leads me to the second kind of trust queue that's important.

• 19:00Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 19:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Is when we can't see someone's hands, our brain has a really hard time trusting someone.

• 19:06Lewis Howes?

  So funny, I think ever since that interview, I'm always keeping my hands out. I don't think I was keeping my hands in before, but I think I'm just more aware of it when I'm walking by someone who might be a stranger, I just have my hands out and relaxed and loose. But my, you know, I'm not like, tight or tense, and I'm not like hiding them or anything. It's just, yeah, just walking normal, and say, hey, how's it going? You know, even do like a little wave, yeah, just to show.

• 19:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's super charismatic.

• 19:29Lewis Howes?

  Hey, good to see you.

• 19:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's it, that's it. So when we, so I love Shark Tank, do you know that show? Okay, I know you had.

• 19:34Lewis Howes?

  I love it, Friday nights, Shark Tank.

• 19:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Shark Tank. So I wanted to know, watching Shark Tank, was there patterns between the least successful pitches?

• 19:41Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 19:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And the most successful pitches?

• 19:43Lewis Howes?

  This is cool.

• 19:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so my team, I love my team, thank you to my team.

• 19:47Lewis Howes?

  Not, not on just based on like what people said, but how they said things?

• 19:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Everything, everything. So we analyzed 495 Shark Tank pitches.

• 19:54Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 19:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 19:55Lewis Howes?

  What were the main things you solved? Those successful and those not?

• 19:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so thank you to Jose Pena for this research. 495 Shark Tank pitches, literally hundreds of hours of Shark Tank. Coding every variable we could think of. Entrance, first impression, verbal, eye contact, smiling, interactivity, math, I mean, we were looking at everything.

• 20:13Lewis Howes?

  Holy cow.

• 20:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay. One of the biggest differences between the least successful pitchers and the most successful pitchers was what you just did.

• 20:20Lewis Howes?

  Hands.

• 20:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right. So when you walked down that Shark Tank hallway, that is beautiful, right? That's exactly what we're talking about. Space, right? Public to personal to social to intimate. So it's a nice warm-up. The best pitchers, when they were all the way in the public zone signaled, "Hey Sharks."

• 20:36Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 20:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And they'd walk into the room, they'd take their place in the carpet, and they'd go, "Good morning Sharks," or "Hey Kevin, Mark, we'd love to have a deal with you." They would greet with some kind of hand gesture. The least successful pitchers walked in with, I think, they thought they were being humble, but it actually reduced trust. They hid their hands, either in fists behind their backs, in their pockets, or holding a prop. Sometimes accidentally they hid their hands, and they didn't hand greet. That makes it really hard for someone to say, "I can trust you." And that is a primitive part of our brain, that when we can't see someone's hands, like if I were to, you know, do this entire interview with my hands behind my back.

• 21:13Lewis Howes?

  What's she doing back there?

• 21:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  What's she doing? What are her hands doing? And what's interesting is Susan Gold-Rumetto researches gesture. She spent her entire academic career researching gesture. And she found that gestures carry more weight than words. So if a pitcher, a Shark Tank pitcher, were to go on and say, "Today I have a really big idea." It's really big, and I hold my hands up like it's really big. It's really small. You're like, "No way. It looks small, Vanessa. It looks so small. It's not big at all." But if I were to say I have three, three big ideas and hold up five, you're actually more likely to believe my fingers. So the reason why this is important is because gestures help lower cognitive load.

• 21:54Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 21:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  When I use gesture, I'm more fluent. I'm able to be more competent. I'm able to underline my words. I'm able to say, "This is a really important point. Can I give it to you?"

• 22:04Lewis Howes?

  Hand gestures, body gestures, facial gestures, hair gestures.

• 22:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Hand gestures. Hand gestures specifically.

• 22:11Lewis Howes?

  Are key.

• 22:12Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They are like our body language highlighter.

• 22:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's how I want to think about them.

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  What happens if we don't, what's ah, I'm just kinda socially awkward. I like keeping my hands down the whole time when I'm communicating. What happens if we don't use our hand gestures at all in a conversation, in a pitch, whatever.

• 22:29Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Two things. One is it's harder for you to process. They've literally found that-

• 22:33Lewis Howes?

  If the person's speaking, it's harder to process.

• 22:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Correct. It's going to be harder for you to get your confidence. Because gestures are a way that we underline or highlight our words. And so if you are inhibiting your own gestures, you will have a hard time explaining things. They actually did a study where they had people explain two versions of a story. Notice two, two versions of the story. One, they could use their hands and one they couldn't. The one where they could use their hands, they had less pauses, they spoke more quickly, they used bigger words.

• 22:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  The one where they just couldn't, just their hands were just underneath their legs.

• 23:02Lewis Howes?

  You know what's interesting? I was just reading some intros for the podcast right before you came in. I had another interview this morning and I did podcast intros and ads. And I use my hands in order to do it, cause I feel like it's coming across as like I'm really engaging.

• 23:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, yes.

• 23:18Lewis Howes?

  And I remember when I was reading my first audiobook, The School of Greatness. I tried to read it like, just kind of like with my hands down for a while and I was like, I can't read.

• 23:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You can't read.

• 23:27Lewis Howes?

  Forgotten how to read my own words. Being like dyslexic growing up anyways, I'm a little slower when I read in general. But when I started to be like, okay, I just need to get in this with my body, my hands. I felt more confident. I felt like I could flow. I wasn't messing up as much. I wasn't having to stop and restart as much. It was powerful.

• 23:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, okay, that's an incredible story about gesture. Because if you watch the best like cartoon voiceover folks, they are using-

• 23:53Lewis Howes?

  Animated, right?

• 23:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, they are using their whole bodies.

• 23:56Lewis Howes?

  They're in a room by themselves, like recording on a, on a mic, right? But they're like, laaah!

• 24:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just did the same thing. Yes, that's what they're doing. That's not how I read my audio, but yeah. But like Susan Goldwyn Meadows' research is called Hearing Gesture. And that is because I am using my hands right now, not only for people watching, but also for my folks who are listening. Because I know that the more I use my gestures, the more charisma I have vocally. And I would love to talk about vocal charisma.

• 24:21Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 24:22Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So that helps me, but it also helps you. So anyone who's watching, you're getting so much information. They say 12.5 times more information from our gestures.

• 24:32Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 24:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 24:33Lewis Howes?

  Even when you can't see it?

• 24:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Uh, no, you have to be able to see it. So you could, we can hear charisma. But if someone can see our gestures, it adds more weight to what I'm saying. So when I say weight, I'm like, it's heavy. Look how heavy that is, right? But if I were to be like, heavy, it's so heavy. And I, I kind of show it, shoo it away. You're like, no, it's not heavy.

• 24:52Lewis Howes?

  Feel.

• 24:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You can feel it.

• 24:53Lewis Howes?

  The emphasis of the words.

• 24:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. So it's like a highlighter. Now, I have to have a caveat here because I've created a problem in the past.

• 25:00Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 25:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I love a gesture, but I don't like jazz hands.

• 25:04Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 25:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right? So gestures are great.

• 25:06Lewis Howes?

  Hey, good to see you.

• 25:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Hey, hey, Louis.

• 25:08Lewis Howes?

  You're like, uh, this is not credible or trustworthy. You're like, this is a weirdo over here.

• 25:12Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I, I created a problem where I had people who were like entering their Zoom meetings and they were like, hello Vanessa. And I was like, oh no.

• 25:18Lewis Howes?

  Don't do that.

• 25:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh no, no. So it's like a highlighter, right? You wouldn't want to highlight the whole page. You just want to highlight the concepts that matter.

• 25:26Lewis Howes?

  So let's go back to hands for a second because you said there were 400 videos. I think you guys researched on Shark Tank.

• 25:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  495 pitches.

• 25:34Lewis Howes?

  And one of the main factors was waving as you were walking in or as you were getting.

• 25:39Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Planting.

• 25:40Lewis Howes?

  Planting.

• 25:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 25:41Lewis Howes?

  Not all the way back, like waving.

• 25:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Some of them did.

• 25:43Lewis Howes?

  But also once you sat there and said, hey.

• 25:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Hey, morning.

• 25:46Lewis Howes?

  Sharks.

• 25:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. Hey sharks, good morning. Happy to be here. Even this, happy to be here, like an open palm gesture.

• 25:52Lewis Howes?

  Okay. What are a few other things that you noticed?

• 25:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, yes. Okay. So we love gestures. And by the way, this is super easy on a video call in person. Hey, nice to see you. Good morning. The biggest mistake we make, someone walks in and we go, hey, we give them a nod.

• 26:03Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 26:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right? Give them a hand. You like them enough to give them a hand, right? So that's really easy. It's like every YouTube video, I'm like, hey friends. That's literally how I start every video. Okay, that's the first thing. So the second thing is where things get more interesting. So remember that these sharks were in pitch after pitch after pitch.

• 26:21Lewis Howes?

  They're tired. They're like.

• 26:22Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They're so tired.

• 26:24Lewis Howes?

  I've been on set there. I've seen like.

• 26:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Cool.

• 26:27Lewis Howes?

  The whole day, it's just like, it's a lot.

• 26:29Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's a grind.

• 26:29Lewis Howes?

  It's a grind.

• 26:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay. So the most successful pitches, the next thing we found, this was very, very clear, is that the more that the pitchers could spark dopamine, the more likely they were to get a deal. Now, dopamine is a very complicated chemical, so just for our purposes.

• 26:44Lewis Howes?

  Food. Eating something, giving them like, I'll try my.

• 26:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, yes, I was like food.

• 26:50Lewis Howes?

  Inferior ability, like taste testing, like try, like opening something.

• 26:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Try it, taste it, smell it, lick it, touch it, feel it, wear it, play it. Any of those, any of those senses, we love. So when we are doing something that's different, that's tactile, so yeah, touch, smell, taste, wear, play, do, try. That was gonna wake the sharks up. Dopamine is a little bit, it's a very complicated chemical, but I want to talk about it a little differently. It does feel good, right? So if they were to say to the sharks, sharks, today I have a gift for you. The brain goes, ooh, a gift, gift, a gift, a gift.

• 27:23Lewis Howes?

  Oh, give me something.

• 27:24Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Gift, gift, gift, gift. Right, dopamine is like that feeling of I want it, I want it, I want it. It's a, it's a excitement, but it's also motivation. So what they've found is that when people have a lot of dopamine, they are more motivated to do things. They are more motivated to figure out a deal. They are more motivated to ask questions. So when a pitcher went in and not only had some kind of an interactivity, some kind of a surprise for them. And some of it, sometimes it was a surprise. And they would literally say, and guess what, sharks?

• 27:54Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 27:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  What? Right? What is it? We want to know what that is because we're like dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. So it doesn't have to be like, you don't have to walk in every meeting and hand out and like throw, throw out Snickers bars.

• 28:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Love a Snickers bar and that will work really well. That'll work, it will work every time, but it's also verbal surprise. So it's also saying, today I have something really special to share, right?

• 28:16Lewis Howes?

  Anticipation.

• 28:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Anticipation. It doesn't even have to be something major. It can be throwing in those little elements of surprise that people can look forward to. And here's the biggest one. So this is research that blew my mind. It changed the way that I write emails. So if you write a lot of emails, this study is for you. So I'm gonna break it down, it's kind of a complicated study. So here's what they did. So researchers had participants come into their lab and do like a little quiz, like a little math test. One group of participants read a set of directions that was very simple. Please take the following quiz, take your time, use a pencil, tell us when you're done. Very simple set of directions. The other participants got the same set of directions, but they sprinkled in a couple of achievement oriented words.

• 29:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So achievement oriented words are words like win, succeed, master, greatness. Okay, those are achievement oriented words. There's a reason why this is so, so powerful. In the directions, they would say something like, please master all these questions. Take as much as much time as you can to win the right answer. Right. So they just sprinkled in a couple of these words, two or three of these words. They found that participants who had the achievement oriented words performed better. They actually got more answers correct.

• 29:32Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 29:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Now, this is incredible. If you're a manager or a boss, or you're working with people and you want them to perform at their best, just a couple of word swaps can help set them up for success. The second thing they found is that it also doubled, doubled participants' desire to keep working.

• 29:49Lewis Howes?

  If they could win, succeed, achieve.

• 29:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They were like, they worked on it longer, they worked on it harder, and they enjoyed it more. And the last one is, is that reading achievement oriented words can change our own dopamine and testosterone.

• 30:03Lewis Howes?

  That's fascinating. You know, it's interesting because for years in high school and college, I had all, there was this store called Succession, something it was called. I don't know if you remember this. It was like a motivational inspirational store that had like, I don't know, a poster of like an ego soaring with a quote, right?

• 30:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Sounds like my office.

• 30:19Lewis Howes?

  Like something was just like, it was like Ted Lasso, you know, store. It was just like, believe in yourself with like this.

• 30:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Where is this store? I want it. Okay.

• 30:27Lewis Howes?

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

• 30:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You were literally, yeah, you were literally priming yourself with those cues. Another study, I promise I won't do too many more. They put a picture of an athlete winning a race on top of telemarketers' scripts. The people who had the picture of the athlete winning

• 31:10Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 31:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  earned more money.

• 31:12Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 31:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 31:14Lewis Howes?

  Like just in front of them, you're like.

• 31:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Literally a printed picture on their script.

• 31:18Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 31:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So why I share this is because we do not realize that we are cueing people incorrectly or we are missing opportunities in every single email that we send. So if you send an email out to your team on Monday morning, "Hey, everyone, today is going to be a busy day. We have a lot of challenges. Let's make sure we're not late." Research has found that when people read words like busy, challenge, or late, it literally primes them to be busier and later and more challenged. You are literally making it harder for them to help you. So if instead you think about, and this is a challenge, I would love to, if you're brave enough to take it,

• 31:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  open up your email sent folder and pull up five emails that you've sent to important people. Boss, partner, colleague, whatever, client. I want you to print those emails and I want you to count the number of priming words you use.

• 32:14Lewis Howes?

  Good or bad?

• 32:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And even more, are they warm or are they competent? So this is where the next level happens.

• 32:22Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, give it to me.

• 32:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Highly charismatic people prime others with warmth and competence.

• 32:28Lewis Howes?

  This is what I was gonna say is one of the spark dopamine. A simple compliment or acknowledgement sparks dopamine from my experience. Just by seeing someone and acknowledging something you appreciate about them, or you like about them, or great shoes, or whatever it is, I'm gonna sure, you've got a great smile today, you've got good energy today. That sparks dopamine, right?

• 32:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, 100%. Actually, this leads me to my next, my next third point, my Shark Tank point. We also noticed that when pitchers specifically acknowledge things from the sharks, and specific sharks, they were more likely to get a deal from that shark.

• 33:00Lewis Howes?

  I really like this thing about you, you did something amazing.

• 33:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Lori, I've been so looking forward to working with you. Robert, I love all your deals with all those athletes. Mark, I've been a huge fan of yours for years. Or this was, this was the winning phrase. In a pitch, if we heard this phrase, it was a high likelihood that someone was gonna get a deal, which is, "You remind me of myself." That could have been one of the sharks, that could have been one of the entrepreneurs. But the biggest compliment we can give someone is, you remind me of me, you're my role model. I put you in, so this is what we're talking about is kind of the next level here is I think that, yes, I want you to be your most charismatic self. I want everyone, hopefully who's listening, to be inspired to be their warmest, most competent self.

• 33:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 34:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And so I think, I think our words are gifts, and this doesn't have to be every email, but in your most important emails that you, that audit that you send, count how many warm words are you using? So warm words are words that trigger connection, trust, words that make you feel the warm and fuzzies, they're very oxytocin words. Count the number of competent words, efficient, productive, brainstorm, leverage, lead, streamline. Those are all great competence words. A funny note here is emojis.

• 34:57Lewis Howes?

  Are they good or bad?

• 34:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Highly warm.

• 34:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Not good or bad.

• 35:01Lewis Howes?

  You can have likability, connection.

• 35:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  High warmth, right? So emojis and exclamation points count as one warm word. So if you have someone, and this happens a lot, where people send a highly warm email to an important person. Hi friend. Friend, warm word, exclamation point, two warm words. I loved talking to you yesterday, three warm words. It was so exciting to catch up. Exciting, catch up, five warm words. Heart emoji, heart, smiley face. Now we're at seven warm words or one sentence in, right? They wonder why they're not taken seriously. They're one, they wonder why they didn't get a follow-up interview. They wonder why that person takes four days to reply. It's because it's too much warmth. You have to balance that with the competence.

• 35:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So I want you to count and see what kind of signals are you sending to the people who matter to you?

• 35:52Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 35:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Do you want to?

• 35:54Lewis Howes?

  You know, you're bringing up something I used to do years ago when no one knew who I was. I was just getting started, 2007, 2008. I used LinkedIn as a tool to create connection with people that were, you know, successful business leaders and people that had done things that I wanted to do in the future, right? And for a while, none of them would reply to me because I started off saying like, "Hey, I'm just getting started, I'm brand new and I'm looking for some advice, can you help me?" Those types of-

• 36:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, warm, warm, warm, warm.

• 36:22Lewis Howes?

  Languages, right?

• 36:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, all those words you just said are all warm.

• 36:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and I started switching it and getting a reply almost every time from anyone. Like anyone I'd reach out to, I was like, "They're gonna reply to this." And I started doing a few things. In the first sentence, I would just try to find, you know, spark dopamine essentially is what I was doing. I was looking for a mutual connection we have and I'd speak about the mutual connection.

• 36:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Mutual connection is highly competent. It's saying, "You know this person, I know them too, I'm in the know." Trust and warmth, warmth and competence.

• 36:52Lewis Howes?

  This person likes me, if you like them, yeah, trust.

• 36:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Perfect balance, yeah.

• 36:55Lewis Howes?

  I didn't even know that and I was just doing it, right? And it was working, I was like, "Okay, let me keep doing this. Let me find someone that we know in common." And I would always try to have a conversation to get some intel on them. Can you tell me something about so-and-so? And I would speak about that information and I would speak into them. I would also look for a couple other- Areas of interest that we have in common. And I would try to have three different things in common in the first sentence or two.

• 37:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Wow.

• 37:19Lewis Howes?

  You know, something that they did that I'd experienced before, or a place they're from, or whatever, some mutual interest.

• 37:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Warmth and competence.

• 37:28Lewis Howes?

  Maybe that's competence, maybe, or it's both.

• 37:29Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Both, it's beautifully both, yeah.

• 37:31Lewis Howes?

  So I would do that, and then I would just add, and I would say something like, "I'm really inspired by what you created. I'd love to learn your story of success."

• 37:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Ooh, wait, wait, say it again, say it again.

• 37:40Lewis Howes?

  "I'm really inspired by what you've created. I'd love to learn your story of success."

• 37:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, man, that just gave me the chills.

• 37:47Lewis Howes?

  That's essentially what I did almost every email.

• 37:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That sentence, can we just like talk about it? So that sentence is the perfect blend of warmth and competence, right? You have love, you have learn, you have success. And so that didn't take a lot of words. It's not like you were writing them a six paragraph email. But it's so much better than, "Let me know if you have any questions."

• 38:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Or, "Can I pick your brain for coffee?"

• 38:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 38:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You know, so I think what we have to do is, there are hidden opportunities waiting for you in your texts, in your emails, in your profiles, if you choose to take them.

• 38:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And all it takes is a couple of word swaps. Like, I'm not talking about fifteen, in that direction sheet, they sprinkled in like two or three words, "win." Even reading the word "win" makes the other person think more like a winner.

• 38:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  What a gift to give.

• 38:34Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. The quote that I heard in high school from Roosevelt is, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Saved my life, literally.

• 38:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's warmth and competence right there.

• 38:46Lewis Howes?

  Because I didn't feel competent my entire school life, right? In school, I was at the bottom of my class. I just graded poorly, which confirmed like, "I'm not smart enough, or like, I'll never be able to be as intelligent as my classmates, or anyone in the world."

• 39:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 39:01Lewis Howes?

  So why would anyone like me or trust me because I didn't feel competent? Then, when I heard that quote, I go, "I have a chance." Like, I can build competence in another area of life, I can be emotionally intelligent, and I can show people how much I care. And by doing that, that's been pretty much my whole life.

• 39:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Everyone who's listening, I hope what this shows you is that caring about someone, there's multiple ways to do that. Yes, it's emotionally intelligent, but it's also honoring someone's cues or gifting them the right cues.

• 39:34Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 39:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  When you make someone feel more like a winner, what a gift you just gave them.

• 39:38Lewis Howes?

  Huge gift. You're putting confidence into them. You're speaking joy, confidence into that person.

• 39:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, you're literally gifting them the chemical dopamine so that they themselves have more motivation.

• 39:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 39:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And don't we all need more motivation?

• 39:52Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 39:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Um, can I, since you shared a vulnerability, can I share a vulnerability and a compliment?

• 39:55Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 39:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, okay, okay. So I've been so excited to tell you this. So your book, School of Greatness, I loved the cover. I just thought it was so inspiring. And when I was taking my cover shoot for Captivate, this is six years ago now, it was not going well. I was super awkward. My photographer, amazing, Maggie Kirkland, was like, listen, like, this isn't working. You're really awkward and you need to relax. I'm like, I can't relax. Right? The worst thing you can do to someone who's anxious is tell them to relax. So we weren't getting the shot, we weren't getting the pictures, and she's like, okay, just think about your role models. Who's your role model? And I was like, Lewis Howes. So she pulls up your book and she goes, okay, she said, look at Lewis. Channel him.

• 40:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And so in the shoot, I channeled you and I did your pose of my hands over my stomach with your face. And crazily enough, that is the Captivate cover.

• 40:48Lewis Howes?

  That was a shot.

• 40:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I'm gonna send you the full version.

• 40:50Lewis Howes?

  How many books you sell? How many copies you get?

• 40:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  La, la, la, la. I better, I better send you some royalties.

• 40:54Lewis Howes?

  I'll tease you.

• 40:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So anyway, I channeled you because that, even that cue, there was something about it. So I thank you for even the cues that you send out because that gifted me confidence we didn't even know about it.

• 41:06Lewis Howes?

  There you go. I appreciate it. I'm glad, I'm glad it worked. What's another thing in the shark tank?

• 41:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 41:12Lewis Howes?

  I talked about sparking dopamine. What else?

• 41:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so we talked about reading, we talked about dopamine, we talked about interactivity. We talked about complementing in a way that allows someone to see themselves in you, or pulling out a similarity, right? So like, you know, like you Lori, we really value Mr. Wonderful. We love Mr. Wonderful products, right? Like, that really helped. I mean, it sounds like sucking up, but actually, it really works. It really worked. The other thing that we noticed about the interactivity is what they would do is they would cross space zones. So they would have something to give the sharks, and they would go from the carpet to the chairs.

• 41:48Lewis Howes?

  That worked, usually.

• 41:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Worked, because they were going into intimate zone very quickly. So this is called a nonverbal bridge. It's kind of an advanced technique. Do you want to talk about it?

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 41:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay. So a nonverbal bridge is a way that we cross into someone's intimate space, but safely. So what happens is, when we're with someone, we want to connect with them. We want more oxytocin, we want to bond with them. But sometimes it can be hard to break that boundary. A nonverbal bridge is a way that we can create oxytocin with permission. So that could be handing someone something. That could be giving a high five. That could be touching their elbow. And that is exactly what successful pitchers did. They would have a reason or an excuse to, "Hey Lori, let me guide you up here." "Hey Kevin, let me zip on this suit for you." "Hey, you want to try this amazing cinnamon roll?" And when they did that, they created these small little bridges. So what I would think about is like, how can you create bridges to people where you're

• 42:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  engaging them even physically, right? And it's harder on video, but in person, that was a thing that we found in the tank.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  How do you do it in a way that the person feels comfortable if you touch them on the elbow? Because someone may not feel comfortable. So you have to be really intuitive to, you know, is this person going to be receptive to me? Are they already interested enough where I can get closer?

• 43:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, yes. Are they leaning in? Are they giving eye contact? Are they nodding? Oh, I forgot another one that was really important. So vocal power. So we haven't really talked about vocal power, and this was a big one in the tank. So we hear confidence, we hear competence. And the biggest way that we do this is with inflection. So inflection is, the biggest mistake that we make is the question inflection. So the question inflection is when we go up at the end of our sentences. It's also called uptalk. So if I were to-

• 43:29Lewis Howes?

  Don't do uptalk.

• 43:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Don't do uptalk. We're gonna talk about why. So when we use the question reflection, it cues the other person's brain to know, ah, we're being asked a question. The problem is, is that when we accidentally use the question reflection, it makes people question you, right?

• 43:45Lewis Howes?

  Do they really trust what they-

• 43:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right. So what happened is, in this study where they looked at doctors, they found that the doctors who had, uh, so I'll break down the study. So what they did is, they asked doctors to record 10-second voice tone clips. And they said like their name, their specialty, where they worked. So it sounded like, "Hi, my name is Dr. Edwards. I work in oncology. I specialize in children's medicine." Something like that. They took the clips and they warbled the words. So you couldn't understand the actual words being said. So it sounded like-

• 44:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right? Then they asked people to rate these clips on warmth and competence. Right? Again, this research has been repeated over and over again. Imagine for a second, you're asked to listen to a clip of Gobbledygook.

• 44:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes, to see if they're competent and they're trustworthy.

• 44:29Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Are they smart? Do you like them? Yeah. And people do it. What they found is, the doctors who had the lowest warmth and competence ratings had the highest rate of malpractice lawsuits. That implies that we don't just sue doctors based on their skills. We sue doctors based on our perception of their skills. And that happens in the first few seconds of hearing them.

• 44:54Lewis Howes?

  So your communication is everything?

• 44:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Everything. It's not just the words you're using. Are they warm? Are they competent? It's even how you're saying the words. So the very first story I break down in the book, and this is in the intro, so if you want to just look at the sample chapter, you could. I analyzed Jamie Simonoff's pitch. Jamie Simonoff is the founder of Ring-

• 45:14Lewis Howes?

  That didn't get any money, then it sold for a billion dollars.

• 45:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Thank you, yes. Here is a brilliant guy, right? Jamie Simonoff is brilliant. He had a successful product, right? Ring is a very successful product. Amazon acquired it for over a billion with a B dollars. Yet, he goes into the pitch, in a shark tank, and he pitches, and he doesn't get a deal. Why? That pitch plagued me. Because I was like, here is a smart guy with a great idea, but his cues were the problem. The, I think that he lost his pitch. This is a really big, a really big statement, and if you listen to it, you'll hear it. I think he lost the deal in the first 10 seconds of them hearing him. And the reason is, is he made the choice to close the doors to the tank. So in his pitch, he doesn't walk down the hallway.

• 45:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You don't see that long first impression. You don't get public to social to personal. He closed the doors. And what he did is he went, he knocked on the door of the shark tank.

• 46:09Lewis Howes?

  Hello, who's there?

• 46:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They're like, hello? And he goes, it's Jamie?

• 46:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So he asked his own name. And when you're a shark and you're trying to make a very quick first impression of someone without seeing them, and you hear the question inflection, it's supposed to be used on a statement. You immediately begin to question, I don't know. And that is also because we know that liars are more likely to use the question inflection. If you've ever played Two Truths and a Lie, have you ever played that game?

• 46:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:39Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so Two Truths and a Lie, here's a little tip for everyone. If you ever played that game, people almost always ask the lie. So they'll be like, oh yeah, Two Truths and a Lie. Um, I have a goldfish. I am a vegetarian and I love dogs.

• 46:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They almost always go up on their lie. And that's because when we're lying, we don't know if you believe us. So subconsciously, we give it away. So Jamie starts his pitch. And he doesn't have a first impression. He doesn't do any greeting in the hallway. He misses that whole walk up. The very first words out of his mouth, doesn't even matter what he says, is,

• 47:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  and then Mark Cuban says, are you here to pitch? And he says, here to pitch? Again, using the question inflection. I think that what happened was, is it gave away his competence. And then the doors open, right? And he explains this idea of ring, it's a doorbell. The problem is, is his first impression was very low incompetence. And so he had a lot of trouble having the sharks take him seriously.

• 47:39Lewis Howes?

  He was a very competent individual building his business, right? He was very smart, intelligent, knew the technology, how to build product, teams, all these things, get sales, whatever it was. But the warmth wasn't there as well, it seems like, right? Like the trustworthy charisma, warmth, confidence.

• 47:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  He undersignaled every step of the way. So he undersignaled warmth, he undersignaled competence, and then was trying to dial up competence. And you hear in the rest of the pitch, he's,

• 48:03Lewis Howes?

  He's trying to build it back up. He's like, but we've done this, and look, we've got this technology.

• 48:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And this money, and then this. And so he cannot get it back. He could not get it back. And so I think I watched that pitch and I break it down in the book of what happened to this brilliant guy who had one bad day. And I think that if he, you know, he scripted those answers, he prepared for that pitch, and he had really good verbal answers. There was even a couple of times where I think this thing happens for people who over-rehearse. So if you have an interview or a presentation, what do you do? You rehearse it, right? You practice the perfect answer. That can get in your way, though, because if you practice the perfect answer, this is exactly what happened to Semenov, and very highly intelligent people do this. He would hear a question from a shark, usually a challenging question, because they were like really pushing him on the deal,

• 48:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  and they didn't believe him. No one believed him. They all thought, "Oh, no, it's too crowded of a market. It will never work." They literally said that to him. "I have ring on my front door." And they literally said, "Never." He could not get them to believe him, because what would happen was, is they would ask him a question, he would start to answer it organically, and then he would switch into his rehearsed answer.

• 49:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 49:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So you would hear, "Oh, yeah, yeah, we do have market track. Our market traction has been wonderful. In fact, in the last five years, we've done X numbers," and you would be like, "Who is this robot?"

• 49:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, just say what's on your heart. Yeah, yeah, just say it organically.

• 49:24Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right. And so I think you can be the smartest person in the world. You could have the best ideas, but if you don't share them right, you're not helping people help you. And so that, that's my, it drives me crazy when smart people can't get their ideas heard. And that pitch crushed me. I felt so bad for him, and he made it. He's okay now, right? He's doing really well.

• 49:42Lewis Howes?

  And then he was like a guest shark, or whatever, yeah.

• 49:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, and what's amazing is when you watch him walk into the tank as a shark, you can see the difference. You can feel the difference.

• 49:52Lewis Howes?

  The confidence, yeah.

• 49:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, my. You know, he walks into the tank, he walks down the hallway, right? He walks down the hallway, he's smiling, he gestures, "Hey, everyone, good to see you." He shakes hands. He does all the things he didn't do in that original pitch. And you can see the difference. And it hasn't, he's the same person. Same person, same ideas, similar suits. Yet he looks like a different person.

• 50:15Lewis Howes?

  Fascinating. It's not about what you say, it's how you say it, how you present yourself and your words. And your words?

• 50:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And, and, who knows?

• 50:26Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious about this. There's a big topic out there right now. I just did a recent interview with Dr. Romney, who is a therapist, psychologist, talking about narcissism a lot today. Can you talk to me the difference between charisma and narcissism? And how can you spot when someone is actually warm and caring and charismatic? Versus someone who uses the skills or the tools of charisma in their narcissistic approach towards manipulating, controlling, and getting what they want in life?

• 50:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So, this is my biggest fear with this book. This is my, this is my single biggest fear, and it was an issue for me when I first started writing it. Is I'll be honest, you can use this book for manipulation.

• 51:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 51:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And that scares me.

• 51:12Lewis Howes?

  And when a smart person who's narcissistic is gonna study everything and then start using it.

• 51:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It scares me.

• 51:18Lewis Howes?

  So how can you tell the difference, the subtle cues? These are very subtle now.

• 51:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Very subtle, yeah. So we're talking about big to subtle, right? There's like a range of them. So first is, it is my biggest fear with this book, that people do not have the right intentions. And my hope is that we can actually use these powers for good and not evil. That is the number one thing is you, you can, if you want to. Here's the good news. There are certain cues that we cannot control. And if you have bad intentions, they will leak. So I call these danger zone cues. So in the book, I talk about there's four different types of cues. There's highly warm, nonverbal, verbal, and vocal. So these are things that make you highly warm, highly trustworthy, highly likable. There's highly competent cues, verbal, nonverbal, and vocal. And then there's charismatic, the ones that are just knocking out of the park, like they're just great. And the last one is danger zone cues. Danger zone cues are the cues that get us into trouble. They're the cues that liars use.

• 52:08Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They're the way that we leak guilt and shame. Actually, shame is not a bad thing. It's only when you have guilt that you've done something wrong. So in the danger zone, it is very hard to inhibit those cues. So I teach them because I want people to be able to spot them.

• 52:22Lewis Howes?

  Okay, what are those cues?

• 52:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so there's a bunch, and I'll, I'll let's talk about as many as we can. So.

• 52:27Lewis Howes?

  And this might be someone who's very successful, someone who's accomplished a lot potentially, someone that seems very credible. Someone that could be. In a power position, owning a business or having influence online or something like that, right?

• 52:41Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 52:41Lewis Howes?

  Extremely successful, they could be successful, they could seem credible, trustworthy.

• 52:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 52:46Lewis Howes?

  But might be super narcissistic underneath.

• 52:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 53:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 53:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So Lance Armstrong, in one of his early interviews on Larry King Live, he's asked about doping, and he does what's called a lip purse. So a lip purse is, okay, when we push our lips into a flat line, we mash our lips together. That is a universal withholding gesture. So when we're literally trying to hold something in, or hold something back, or we don't like what's being said or heard, we go...

• 53:41Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And so you'll notice that when someone has been asked something they don't like, when someone had to lie, a lot of the time... So we did a massive experiment in our lab where we asked people to send in videos of themselves lying. Actually, you play it in the book, it's called "Lie to Me." So I have you lie to me, play this "Lie to Me" game, diagnose your own tells. It's very important to know your own tells, because you should know what your danger zone cues are when you're leaking them. And you should know those. It's good to know those in the back of your pocket. Do that with your partner, right? You want them to know what those are too. So one thing that we noticed is on lies. That was one of the biggest indicators. So in "Lie to Me" game, we ask you to do two things. We ask you to tell us an embarrassing story, your most embarrassing story, and then a fake embarrassing story. And we want to see if we can tell the difference.

• 54:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  If we cut the clips, can we know which one is the fake one?

• 54:29Lewis Howes?

  Man, that'd be interesting.

• 54:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, and it's amazing. You see the same danger zone cues over and over again, right before someone's about to lie and tell their fake embarrassing story. They go, "Okay," and they lip purse right before they're gonna do it. And that's because we don't like lying. Our body knows it's gonna get us into trouble. So we're like, "Stop it, stop it, stop it," and we hold ourselves back. You ask a woman, "How much do you weigh?" And she'll go, "Mmm." Like literally close those lips because no woman wants to talk about how much she weighs. So it's a withholding gesture and so that's the first thing is you want to look for some of the bigger cues. Withholding gestures, lip purse is one, a sudden distancing behavior. So we also noticed that liars in our lab, they wanted to like get away from the lie like as if it smelled. So like when they were telling their most embarrassing story, they'd be like leaning in, using gestures. Oh, it's so embarrassing. Remember embarrassing stories are negative.

• 55:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's not like it's a positive memory. It's like people are like, and they do a shame touch. The universal shame touch is when people touch their fingers to the side of their forehead.

• 55:25Lewis Howes?

  This happened in my life.

• 55:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, like, oh gosh, I'm so embarrassed.

• 55:28Lewis Howes?

  So they're usually telling the truth and they do like this.

• 55:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, because they're actually embarrassed, right? So these are all good, like congruent, right? We're seeing embarrassment and shame gesture. We're seeing negative, unverbal, and people shaking their head, I can't believe that happened, right? Like they, oh, they're so upset that happened. We're seeing cringes, we're seeing fear, we're seeing sadness. Congruent, right? Like that's all congruent emotion. On the bad stories, we often see people will lip purse and they try to get away from it. So they'll say a statement and then, uh, you know, and then, um, and they're literally like as far away, I hope I'm not messing up my audio there. As far away from the lie as they can possibly get. They're leaning back, they'll sometimes literally lean their head back in the chair. And that's because physically we want to distance ourselves from things we don't like.

• 56:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So we're looking for lip purses, sudden distancing. And there's a lot of cues that we can't control, right? So blink rate is another one, eye blocking behavior is liars have higher blink rates.

• 56:23Lewis Howes?

  They blink more.

• 56:24Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, actually in Britney Spears, she had a really interesting interview that I, I actually break this on my YouTube channel, so you don't even have to read the book if you want to see it. Where I break down the cues in this early interview. This is right before the conservatorship started, so very, very full of cues because it's right before it happened. And she gets asked a very difficult question and she, all of a sudden, her blink rate goes from a normal rate to a high rate. So she starts to, to really quickly blink her eyes like this. And that is because when we're really nervous, we literally want to close out stimuli to not see what's happening. So we can process what's happening.

• 56:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So blink rate is something that a lot of manipulative people cannot control. In fact, when I share this, people go, "Oh, I know a very narcissistic manipulative person who has a very high blink rate."

• 57:09Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 57:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Because they're literally like trying to block out the lie or the manipulation. And so they'll sound really good, but they're like really like processing a lot. And you're like, "Why are they blinking so much?" And it's because they're trying to process.

• 57:21Lewis Howes?

  Oh my goodness.

• 57:22Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So just knowing those cues, they're not all bad on their own, but it's important to know what those cues look like so you can spot them. And I do think, I really think, manipulative people will get caught eventually. It is very hard to fake competence. It is very hard to fake warmth. It's hard to keep that up. And so for the long game, yes, you can learn a couple of these cues and try to master your way around them. But for the long game, it's really hard. I mean, look at Theranos, right? So Elizabeth Holmes, so spoiler alert, Theranos did not go well. So I have to say that. So one of her interesting cues is, I don't know if you've ever seen her talk, she has a really, she uses a really deep voice, like fakely deep, like down here.

• 58:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And people used to say like, "Is that real?" It's because she read in some cue book, it wasn't mine because my book wasn't out then, thank goodness, she read in some book that having a lower tone of voice makes you more competent. And that is true. Research has found that people who use the lower end of their natural voice tone are seen as competent. That's for both men and women. So you have a very deep voice and it serves you really well. When I'm talking right now, I'm trying to use the lowest end of my natural register. When I'm talking to my toddler.

• 58:34Lewis Howes?

  Not this.

• 58:34Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, right. When I'm talking to my toddler, I'm much more up here. You know, "Hey baby, how are you?" But if I were to do my entire interview like this, it would drive you crazy.

• 58:42Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. You wouldn't feel competent.

• 58:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  No, and it wouldn't, and people would go, "I can't, I'm not taking her seriously." So she read that study, obviously.

• 58:50Lewis Howes?

  And went an octave lower.

• 58:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  There you go. And went an octave lower. So it wasn't her natural voice tone, it was like one step lower than her voice tones. She was always talking like this. And when she did an interview, she would talk like this. And you would hear that this just doesn't sound natural. And part of your spidey sense would be like, "Why is she talking so low? It sounds really unnatural." And it came out that when she was drunk... Her employees noticed that she went back into her natural register.

• 59:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 59:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So there are cues, they will eventually.

• 59:18Lewis Howes?

  Don't drink alcohol.

• 59:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And that is the point of this story. Don't drink alcohol.

• 59:23Lewis Howes?

  Or you're gonna get caught.

• 59:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So like you can't keep it up for that long.

• 59:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 59:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Is that she was faking that cue, we think.

• 59:30Lewis Howes?

  I think you're also just, your body is out of integrity. Like the more you're, you're keeping back something, you're telling a slight lie or whatever. I mean, I've felt this from the past because I've been out of integrity in my life at different times, from different stages of childhood to adulthood, right? From little white lies to bigger stuff.

• 59:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They feel bad.

• 59:46Lewis Howes?

  Hiding from my parents or whatever it is.

• 59:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They feel bad.

• 59:48Lewis Howes?

  So you're like, huh, like something inside of you feels off, right? And then you gotta like, keep the lie up and you're like, huh. Eventually you're gonna explode or you're gonna have a heart attack or something.

• 59:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's gonna leak.

• 59:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's gonna leak.

• 59:59Lewis Howes?

  It's gonna leak. Leaking cues.

• 1:00:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Leak, you leak those cues and like, those are the cues that we're looking for. Like, I want you to be on the lookout for them because when something feels bad, like even like something feels bad, even just then when you were saying it felt bad, your voice tone changed.

• 1:00:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:00:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Just then.

• 1:00:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:12Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Because when you think about, oh, I like, think about seeing a toxic person and I know that people probably have toxic people in their lives and this is why toxic people are so challenging because toxic people put us out of integrity. Toxic people force us to use warm cues where we don't feel like it.

• 1:00:29Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Now, we can do it.

• 1:00:31Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean? We gotta be nice to them or something?

• 1:00:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah. So like, if you have a toxic person and this is the thorn and, and I think our work is I want everyone to be their best selves. I want them to show up as their warmest, most confident self. But what if you have a toxic person? How do you do that authentically? And this is what's so hard about toxic people.

• 1:00:47Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You have a colleague or coworker or a family member.

• 1:00:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That you don't like, right? And you have to break out the fake warmth cues. Oh, hi, how are you?

• 1:00:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:00:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And so what do we do? We fake smile, right? So, oh, it's so good to see you.

• 1:01:03Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:01:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right?

• 1:01:04Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't look authentic.

• 1:01:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  No, it doesn't look like it, right? Or we say, oh, yeah, so how, oh, that sounds good. Congratulations.

• 1:01:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right.

• 1:01:12Lewis Howes?

  Now your LA roots are coming back to you.

• 1:01:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And right, that's why toxic people challenge us is because they come into our lives, we know we're supposed to be warm. And so we try to force that warm sound and it comes out sort of forced and then it makes us feel bad and then we're trying to over commitate for it. And so you know what the antidote here is not learning more fake warmth cues. It's it's time to get rid of toxic people. I think that's like the side effect.

• 1:01:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:01:37Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Of the book is like.

• 1:01:39Lewis Howes?

  Don't keep them around.

• 1:01:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Don't keep those people around because it will leak and so set boundaries.

• 1:01:44Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean it will leak like your integrity will leak because you're constantly trying to be nice, but they're actually out of integrity because you don't want to be.

• 1:01:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right.

• 1:01:50Lewis Howes?

  Is that right?

• 1:01:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, that's exactly.

• 1:01:52Lewis Howes?

  So your body is like, I'm doing something that's not authentic to me because I feel like I have to with this person.

• 1:01:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's right.

• 1:01:58Lewis Howes?

  And the more frequently you do that, you feel out of integrity with yourself.

• 1:02:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yep, exactly.

• 1:02:02Lewis Howes?

  With yourself.

• 1:02:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  With yourself. So that was the question you were asking me.

• 1:02:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And I'm like, yes, it was.

• 1:02:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, yes. It was perfect because you were asking a question I knew, yes, is if you allow toxic people to come into your life, especially without boundaries, we have to have some of those people we deal with.

• 1:02:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:02:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But if you don't have boundaries around them, they come into your life and you have to fake niceness and that feels really bad.

• 1:02:21Lewis Howes?

  What happens if, let's just say there's a person you don't like.

• 1:02:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:24Lewis Howes?

  Let's just say, maybe they're not toxic, there's somebody you don't like and you don't like being nice too because you feel like.

• 1:02:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:28Lewis Howes?

  Why am I, I just don't, nothing wrong with them, they're just not my person, yeah.

• 1:02:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Totally.

• 1:02:33Lewis Howes?

  Let's say you're in a work environment.

• 1:02:34Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:35Lewis Howes?

  And you're at a company, you got 50, 100 employees that you're working with, you're on a team with and you're just, okay, I'm here.

• 1:02:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:41Lewis Howes?

  Is it better to be inauthentic and lie and act nice around this person? Friendly, fake, how are you interested, even though you've like been around them for six months or a year and you realize you really don't like them? Or is it better to go right up to the person after six months and say, you know what? I just want to be completely honest and not fake with you because I feel like I've been fake, that I don't connect with you, I don't like you, I think, I think you're out of integrity, I think you're inauthentic and maybe I'm being judgmental, but I'd rather be honest with you and fake nice to you.

• 1:03:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, that's A and B, can I give a C?

• 1:03:15Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:03:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so I don't believe in fake it till you make it. So I, I, I try not to give like fake it, I don't, I don't roll that way, like I just think it's exhausting, I think it's going to leak. The C option here is to not fake warmth, but is to double down on competence. So if you are working with someone that you don't like, the one thing that you do have to do is get stuff done with them. Right? You have to master your tasks, you have to be on it, you have to be responsive to emails. So that is something that you can be authentic about because to do your job, you have to be able to get along with them in a very professional setting. So I would skip all the fake warmth stuff.

• 1:03:50Lewis Howes?

  Just go right into competence.

• 1:03:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah. Right, like stick with where you're authentic, which is like, I don't need to hear about your weekend. I don't need to go to happy hour with you. I don't need a fake sitting with you for coffee, but you know what? We can get stuff done. You know what? We align on goals.

• 1:04:03Lewis Howes?

  So create boundaries around the, hey, let's go have coffee.

• 1:04:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, you know, I'm so busy, I'm so busy today, but you know what? Let's do a brainstorm session tomorrow at the end of the day so we can really kick off.

• 1:04:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. So get back to like the mission, the task on hand, the competence. And maybe you've just gotta be like, okay, this is someone where, you know, 20 seconds a day, I've gotta be around someone that's trying to be fake, la di da di with everyone, and I'll just wait.

• 1:04:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I'm gonna get stuff done.

• 1:04:27Lewis Howes?

  And then I'll move on to the next.

• 1:04:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's it. Exactly, because then at least you're focusing on where you can be authentic. And also that's, even if that were to come up, you could honestly say that kind of conversation could be, listen, like, you know, I'm I'm not really into like, you know, connecting at work, I'm more about getting it done. I wanna get home to my kids and my family, I hope that's okay with you. You know, when we're together, if it's all right, I might skip lunch and just have us like, you know, work it out and be really efficient. I really appreciate how efficient you are because it allows me to get home to my kids faster. Right, like, that's authentic. So what can you appreciate about them that's competent?

• 1:05:01Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:05:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  What can you highlight about them that's competent?

• 1:05:03Lewis Howes?

  What if you don't feel like they're warm or competent? You're like, this person on a team is just, they can't get anything done, they're not smart, and they have fake attitude around me all day.

• 1:05:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I mean, this depends on how you feel, but I would say, deal with it. Like, you got, like, go to your boss.

• 1:05:18Lewis Howes?

  Right, and say, hey, I just, can we put them on a different team?

• 1:05:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah. You say, like, I don't know how, I can work with this person, I don't wanna be unauthentic, but I'm telling you that we're not getting stuff done, and they are causing issues on the team, like, I don't like to ignore that stuff. Like, you could hope it gets better, but ask for help. If you have someone on your team or someone in your life who is not warm nor competent, and doesn't treat you with warmth or competence, either get them out of your life, set a boundary, or get help.

• 1:05:42Lewis Howes?

  Give them like an approval plan or something, yeah.

• 1:05:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, don't live with it. Life is too short to feel Fakely competent or fake warmth.

• 1:05:50Lewis Howes?

  Right. What's been the, uh, I think I asked you this last time. What's been the charisma strategy?

• 1:05:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:57Lewis Howes?

  If you want to call it strategy.

• 1:05:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You weren't sure about that. You weren't sure.

• 1:05:59Lewis Howes?

  I don't know what the word is, right? But what is the charisma or social cue that you've learned in the last six months? That has brought some new attention to your life where you said, ah, I wasn't aware of that fully. But now the research is showing that when someone does this, it improves this.

• 1:06:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  There's a new cue that I snuck into the book in the very last draft because I just learned it. And this is actually brought to me by one of, it's called my male readers. And I'm so curious. Okay. Do you agree with this, Louis? Okay, here's what they said. So in the book, I had a whole section on nodding. So nodding, affirmative nods, upside down, right?

• 1:06:34Lewis Howes?

  I nod all the time.

• 1:06:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, yes, you're a nodder. It's really high warmth. We love it. We love nodding. Yes, nodding is great because vertical nods, and by the way, this is different in certain cultures where they'll nod. They nod sideways, sideways. That's different. Okay. So just vertical nodding in Western cultures is agreement. It's yes. In fact, research has found that when you nod at me slowly, I speak three to four times longer.

• 1:06:55Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh, that's cool.

• 1:06:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's why you're a good interviewer is because you'll nod and be like, keep going, keep going, keep going.

• 1:07:00Lewis Howes?

  I'm just kind of, I'm just like a bobblehead. I'm just kind of like, yeah. Very slow, like I'll pause and like, okay, cool.

• 1:07:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, well, actually, you're right. Slow nodding is tell me more. Fast nodding is finish up.

• 1:07:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay, okay.

• 1:07:12Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, I got it. I got it. Right, right, right. Okay. So that's the difference there. If you want someone to wrap up in a meeting, give them a one, two, three triple nod, like I got it. If you want them to keep going, an introvert, uh huh, uh huh. Okay, so that's the difference. That's number one. So I, I've shared about this. I taught it. And then a couple of my male readers said to me, no, Vanessa, we think that there is a secret nonverbal cue between guys. No, I don't know what this cue is. Here's what they said.

• 1:07:36Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:07:37Vanessa Van Edwards?

  If you know a guy and you're trying to acknowledge him, guy to guy, you nod up.

• 1:07:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Good to see you. It's literally like an open gesture. You're open. If you don't know a guy, but you're trying to acknowledge his presence, you pay. Good to see ya.

• 1:07:50Lewis Howes?

  Oh wow, that's so true.

• 1:07:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Is it true?

• 1:07:52Lewis Howes?

  That's so true. Yeah, it's like, oh, good to see you.

• 1:07:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, acknowledged.

• 1:07:55Lewis Howes?

  Good to see you. Hey, what's up, buddy?

• 1:07:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay.

• 1:07:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's so true.

• 1:07:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so this was, so I snuck it into the book last minute.

• 1:08:01Lewis Howes?

  Oh wow, that's fascinating. I wonder, is that like biology? Is that social?

• 1:08:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, here's my, here's my theory on this. As soon as I heard this, I was like, and I started looking. I started watching, man, I asked my husband, I asked my guy friends, and this is why I think it happens. When we know someone, we expose our jugular. So this is a very vulnerable part of our body, and we're saying, I know you, I trust you. Look, I'm opening, I'm acknowledging you, and I feel trustworthy. When you don't know someone, but you want to show respect, you nod down to protect your jugular. I don't know you, but I see you. I got you.

• 1:08:30Lewis Howes?

  I got you. I'm here for you, kind of.

• 1:08:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You can't see my jugular, but I'm here for you.

• 1:08:35Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna protect myself.

• 1:08:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But I see you.

• 1:08:36Lewis Howes?

  But I'm here for you, bro.

• 1:08:39Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly. I think that's where it comes from. If it's like a, do I know you or do I not know you? So in that sense, this is a high warmth cue. Hey buddy, what's up? Right, it's high warmth, you're showing your jugular. This is a high competence cue. Hello. Good to see you. I look ridiculous, I don't do that. Right, I'm like, hi, you know? So I think that that was, that was so surprising to me, because there's so much more, I think, to be done. Like, I list 96 cues in the book, right? There are, that's just the start. I think I'm, we're discovering more and more. And that's where like the excitement comes in. So that was the new one.

• 1:09:11Lewis Howes?

  That's so cool. And what about, what are the three most powerful cues, body language cues of leaders?

• 1:09:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Hmm, okay. So this is the competence area of the spectrum, right? So when we talk about charisma, we talk about warmth, competence, charisma, and danger. Okay, so three body languages of leaders. The example that I give, that I really like to teach from, is the Nixon Kennedy presidential debate.

• 1:09:32Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:09:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Have you ever heard of this historical, we were not around for this debate, so I'd be shocked if you'd seen it.

• 1:09:37Lewis Howes?

  So we want to be in the high, the high charisma.

• 1:09:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  There you go, yes.

• 1:09:41Lewis Howes?

  We want to be doing those cues all the time.

• 1:09:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's right, we want to be in the star. So right now, you're talking about competence. You just asked me about leaders. So leaders typically are high competence, and they can go into warmth when they want to.

• 1:09:50Lewis Howes?

  High competence and charisma.

• 1:09:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right.

• 1:09:53Lewis Howes?

  Or they're high competence and high warmth.

• 1:09:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, exactly, right? So, highly competent cues, if you know that you're warm, and you need to dial up competence to hit the sweet spot, these are some cues that will help you.

• 1:10:02Lewis Howes?

  Give it to me.

• 1:10:03Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And my favorite is from the Nixon president, Nixon Kennedy presidential debate. So this, have you heard about this debate before? It's kind of...

• 1:10:08Lewis Howes?

  Remind me.

• 1:10:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay. You're like, "Actually, yes, I watched it on the History Channel last night."

• 1:10:13Lewis Howes?

  I mean, maybe you mentioned this before, but isn't one of them was angry or something? I can't remember what happened, but...

• 1:10:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So this is, this is why I like this story, is because it created a puzzle. And I like puzzles. So here's what happened. During this part in US history, Nixon and Kennedy were running for president, and about half the population watched the presidential debate on television, and about half the population listened to the debate on the radio. Everyone who watched the debate was sure that Kennedy won, and everyone who listened to the debate was sure that Nixon won.

• 1:10:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:10:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And it was the first time where there was discrepancy between the winners, the perceived winners.

• 1:10:48Lewis Howes?

  Because one sounded competent, the other one looked warm.

• 1:10:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  One sounded like a leader, and one looked like a leader.

• 1:10:53Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, you match them together, that's the sweet spot.

• 1:10:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's the star.

• 1:10:57Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:10:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's the star, exactly.

• 1:10:59Lewis Howes?

  So one sounded like a leader...

• 1:11:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So Nixon sounded like a leader. He had really good vocal power, but he looked like a loser. And I hate to use that word, but he himself said in his memoirs, he believes he lost that entire presidential election based on the first few seconds of that debate. First few seconds. He himself said that.

• 1:11:19Lewis Howes?

  What did he say, what happened? So he was all, it was kind of like the Shark Tank, trying to buy back competence and warmth at the same time.

• 1:11:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  He gave away his competence in the first few seconds of the debate. So anyone who saw it went, "Oh, no, no, no, no. This guy is not a winner." And this was before they even spoke. So in the first 30 seconds of the debate, neither of them speak. You see them on camera. And if you were watching, you saw, "Wow, Nixon looks so weak." And here's why. What most people don't know is that Nixon had just injured his knee on the campaign trail. And he'd been in the hospital for the week. So he came in with a bandaged knee and a fever. Kennedy had been tanning.

• 1:11:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, he was like a nice suit and everything.

• 1:12:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  He was ready to go. And also, a kind of funny thing is the debate was in black and white. And Nixon's suit was too brown. It blended into the background. So I talk about color psychology at the very end of the book, Colors, and so that wasn't issue one that he didn't pop as much on the black and white. Okay, so he shows up and he's sitting in what's called the runner's stance. The runner's stance is when someone, so you know runners, before they win a race, they like go into the crunch position, one leg back. We know this as a readiness position. Universally across cultures, if someone's about to run away from us, they will get into this position, right? Like, they're literally about to run away. It's why sprinters start a race like that. Well, Nixon spent the first 30 seconds of the debate in that position.

• 1:12:39Lewis Howes?

  Because of his knee. He was like, it was a pain. He was trying to like just...

• 1:12:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  He was nursing it. But it made it look like he was about to run out on us. That's from just a quick, non-verbal perspective. The first impression was, where's he going? Even though people didn't consciously realize it, he looked not planted. And we don't like leaders who aren't going to stay with us. Whereas Kennedy, on the other hand, he had a really nice, relaxed cross, and he used what's called humility hands. Research calls it humility hands. Humility hands are when your hands are on your leg and they're resting. Humility, humble. So he looked relaxed, calm, here to stay, you know, not tense.

• 1:13:15Lewis Howes?

  I'm not in a rush. I'm here.

• 1:13:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I'm here. I'm your leader, right? So he looked, quote unquote, presidential. So first, the runner's stance. Second is, and this is in the first 10 seconds of the debate.

• 1:13:25Lewis Howes?

  They were sitting.

• 1:13:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They were sitting. They were sitting next to each other.

• 1:13:26Lewis Howes?

  They weren't on a podium.

• 1:13:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  No. So here's your first snapshot of the debate. And you see Kennedy, very humility hands, relaxed, sitting tall. And then you see Nixon, who's like gripping the chair arm, ready to leave. And we see these cues, and people already made their decision. But people who were listening didn't see any of that.

• 1:13:43Lewis Howes?

  Right. They heard the voice.

• 1:13:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They heard the voice. And so Nixon lost the debate to Kennedy. He lost the election to Kennedy. And he said in his memoirs, that's why, is because of the cues I sent. And so... For leaders, here's what we want to think about. One is relaxed, here to stay. So the more you can settle into your place, the distance, this is such a weird measurement. I want to see the biggest distance between your ear lobe and your shoulder.

• 1:14:08Lewis Howes?

  So not like this?

• 1:14:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, yes. Because, why? When we are confident, when we are winners, we take up as much space as possible, right? We broaden our shoulders, we tilt our head towards the sky. Winners feel pride. So we look at the distance between someone's ear and shoulder. We're like, oh, he looks, she looks confident. When someone hops on a video call, this is the mistake I see. Hi, everyone. Shoulders pinched up towards ears. And we wonder why people aren't taking us seriously. We wonder why people are interrupting us. It's because this distance, if I'm like this, hey, everyone, happy Monday.

• 1:14:43Lewis Howes?

  Well, your tonality as well, but yeah.

• 1:14:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right? Like if I start a video call like this. So today, we're going to talk about some updates and I'm going to go over some different slides with you. And we're going to wait a few minutes while people log on.

• 1:14:57Lewis Howes?

  So if I'm on your team, are they, is everyone just like?

• 1:15:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:15:03Lewis Howes?

  No one gives you, are you just calling each other out on your shoulders?

• 1:15:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Everyone's a winner on my team. They're amazing, right? Like we like, we like play music, like, yeah, right? Of course, you can lean in sometimes, you can, but in that first impression especially, right? It's like, hey, good morning, everyone, good to see you. So I want you to think about profile pictures, videos. I love chairs with armrests. Why? It helps our, our shoulders stay grounded. So that's the biggest one is taking up space. The second thing that happens, that also gives you more vocal power. So if I were to do my, this entire interview with my shoulders up, it would look bizarre, right? I would look scared.

• 1:15:40Lewis Howes?

  You would be more closed out.

• 1:15:41Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, it would be. And so if I tense my vocal cords right now, I'll begin to go into vocal fry. So vocal fry, have you heard this before? It's when your voice sounds like sizzling bacon. I just don't know, I'm not sure. But like I was just thinking about it and if it's, oh my goodness, it's horrible. And the reason why we'll accidentally go into fry is because we're literally clenching our vocal cords and they cannot get enough breath. Vocal fry, not to be gross, but vocal fry happens when our vocal cords rattle together. And that's what we're hearing is the rattling. That's why we don't like it. And so when you have space, you prevent vocal fry. If you hear yourself in vocal fry, here's the quickest fix you have. Speak louder.

• 1:16:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:16:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So the best way to get rid of vocal fry is to just up your volume. It will push more air through your vocal cords and it makes them hum.

• 1:16:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  If other people on your team are using vocal fry, just ask them to speak up.

• 1:16:35Lewis Howes?

  Speak a little louder.

• 1:16:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, that will usually get them out of vocal fry.

• 1:16:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:16:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Little secret, don't blame it on me, but that's a really easy way to. If you're interviewing someone and they're in vocal fry and you know it's gonna drive your listeners crazy, just like, you know, the audio, they just can't hear you.

• 1:16:48Lewis Howes?

  They can speak.

• 1:16:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Could you speak a little bit louder? It will work.

• 1:16:51Lewis Howes?

  Now, what's the difference between the humble hands on a knees?

• 1:16:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:55Lewis Howes?

  Or on a table, I guess, right here, does this work on a table as well?

• 1:16:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:16:59Lewis Howes?

  Versus hand over top of the other hand?

• 1:17:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:17:02Lewis Howes?

  Which is relaxed, but also is closed body.

• 1:17:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:17:05Lewis Howes?

  Versus two hands, two hands side by side, relaxed, not like intense, but relaxed, side by side. What's the difference between these two?

• 1:17:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Perfect question. So your book cover, your book cover is hand over hand.

• 1:17:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And they're relaxed.

• 1:17:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And it's a closed posture, but it works.

• 1:17:22Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:22Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right? And so it's okay to me, as long as your hands are relaxed, I don't care if they're closed or open. Now, I do care about this. So when we protect our trunk.

• 1:17:32Lewis Howes?

  Arms crossed.

• 1:17:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Arms crossed, yes, I do care about this. And why is because when we are crossing like this, I know it's comfortable for some people. What research finds is two things. One is we look more closed off, so we never wanna look closed off. But second, they found that when people are trying to be creative or strategic, they literally cannot generate as much ideas when they are like this.

• 1:17:52Lewis Howes?

  What's the alternative?

• 1:17:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Humility hands, open posture, holding a drink, typing at a computer, taking notes.

• 1:17:58Lewis Howes?

  Anything else but.

• 1:17:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Anything else but that, anything else. So I love props. So I, the way that I don't cross my arms, because I actually like to cross my arms.

• 1:18:07Lewis Howes?

  It's kinda relaxing, you know, it's kinda like.

• 1:18:08Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I know. But actually, if you're thinking or processing, cross away, right? If you're, if you need to like take a minute, take a step back, it's a great way to break. So I hold a clicker for presentations and a pen, you know, like for slides. Because every time I think about crossing my arms, I remember, oh, I have the clicker. When we think about getting rid of, I call them like bad nonverbal habits, right? So tics, so ums, crossing arms, those are all bad nonverbal habits.

• 1:18:32Lewis Howes?

  Slouching.

• 1:18:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Slouching, yeah. It's really hard to just say, don't do that. So what I'd rather you do is replace it. Displacement tactics. Okay, so you know you cross your arms. Can you hold a coffee mug? Can you hold a pen? Can you hold a clicker? Can you always have a Moleskine notebook? I have a student of mine who always has a Moleskine. He doesn't need it.

• 1:18:50Lewis Howes?

  He just holds it.

• 1:18:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  He has it, he opens it up and he'll write the date and the meeting name and what he had for breakfast, but that's it. He literally uses it because if he doesn't, he puts his hands in his pocket or crosses his arms. And so he has it in front of him because it helps him feel very grounded and centered.

• 1:19:05Lewis Howes?

  It's a replacement tool.

• 1:19:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's a replacement tool. So I would think about what are some tools you can use that will help you do that?

• 1:19:10Lewis Howes?

  What about like, what about the finger crossing?

• 1:19:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So like, look at the difference. Like this, when I'm white knuckling, you can see that I am tense. I'm trying to keep it together, Vanessa, right?

• 1:19:20Lewis Howes?

  But this is.

• 1:19:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But this, so this is called a steeple.

• 1:19:23Lewis Howes?

  The fingertip touch.

• 1:19:24Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, I love a steeple. Yeah, so a steeple is when the tips of your fingers touch and like a church steeple.

• 1:19:29Lewis Howes?

  It's like Mr. Wonderful just does this the whole time.

• 1:19:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly. You will notice that when Mr. Yes, when Mr. Wonderful is contemplating a deal, he'll go like this. Why? Doesn't it make you feel like you're just in control? Hmm. And so this is a really good power gesture. It's one of our competence cues. It's why I have it on the cover of the book is to show high competence. Because it's about getting in control. The steeple, we love it because it shows our palms, which shows we're not concealing anything.

• 1:19:55Lewis Howes?

  Do you want the steeple pointed at someone?

• 1:19:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Either one, any of those, any and all, whatever feels natural.

• 1:20:00Lewis Howes?

  Up here like the diamond.

• 1:20:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't be like, hello, everyone. Good morning.

• 1:20:04Lewis Howes?

  So here or pointed at them is fine?

• 1:20:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Totally fine. You'll notice that like Mr. Wonderful does it perfectly. He'll like go like this, he'll tap it. The only thing I would be careful of is drumming fingers. That looks like Mr. Burns evil, right? No, no, no.

• 1:20:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I don't love that one. So like, don't look like you're scheming. Like, that can look a little bit crazy. But if you're like, oh, yes, I'm thinking about it. Now, I want to give a caveat. Please only use cues that you've tried on a few times and feel natural. There are some cues in the book, where there's 96 cues in the book, that I still don't like. I've tried them every which way, and I do not like them.

• 1:20:37Lewis Howes?

  What's the most powerful cue that you don't like, but you know is extremely effective in charisma, or connection, or trust, or leadership?

• 1:20:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Probably volume. So, research shows that people who speak in louder volumes, literally, are taken more seriously. But that makes me a little bit uncomfortable. And so, even on stage, when I'm like, really excited, I still don't want to be like, "Let me tell you about something very..." Oh, God, that's horrible.

• 1:21:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:03Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I don't like it. But volume dynamism is a cue I teach in the book that I have trouble with.

• 1:21:08Lewis Howes?

  But the research shows that people are more trustworthy, or more competent.

• 1:21:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Competent. It is a competent cue.

• 1:21:13Lewis Howes?

  Because if you're soft, it's like you don't believe in your words.

• 1:21:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's actually volume dynamism. So, it's being able to use your volume to match your intention. So, for example, let's-

• 1:21:22Lewis Howes?

  So, tonality and fluctuation, at the right moment.

• 1:21:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, yes, yes. So, like, for example, I feel a little ridiculous when I do this. This is why, this is the most cue that I struggle with, which is like, "Let me tell you about something super important."

• 1:21:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I just feel ridiculous, but some people do it so well.

• 1:21:38Lewis Howes?

  But it works.

• 1:21:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, it works so well.

• 1:21:40Lewis Howes?

  And some of these, there are people who are so charismatic-

• 1:21:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:21:43Lewis Howes?

  -when you can get the tonality, the inflection, is that what it is? Of the tonality? They taught this to us in Toastmasters, as one of the 10-

• 1:21:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh!

• 1:21:50Lewis Howes?

  -initial lessons of being a competent communicator. One of the exercises is to give a five-minute speech using tonality. It's very, you have to like, find the cues of when you're like, pause and slow it, and then you bring it out, and it's like, how do you make it authentic?

• 1:22:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh! So, some people do it naturally. They're so good at it.

• 1:22:09Lewis Howes?

  So gifted.

• 1:22:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That is not me. That's why I don't have a podcast. That's why I have a YouTube channel.

• 1:22:13Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right? Like, on YouTube, I can use my gestures and my facial expressions. It's why I don't have a podcast. I feel I am not dynamic enough in my vocal power. And so, that's one cue that I'm, I work on, but I have a hard time being in control of my volume.

• 1:22:29Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so we have that, these hand gestures. This is fine on the table also?

• 1:22:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yep, all good, relaxed and good.

• 1:22:34Lewis Howes?

  What about hands open on the table?

• 1:22:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so, let's talk about palm up versus palm down.

• 1:22:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so, when I was using for the book, I was looking for my favorite or cues hiding in plain sight. Oh, I just used it.

• 1:22:46Lewis Howes?

  That was my favorite.

• 1:22:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That was my favorite.

• 1:22:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you did. That was very organic.

• 1:22:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I did.

• 1:22:50Lewis Howes?

  Very natural.

• 1:22:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I'm really happy right now.

• 1:22:52Lewis Howes?

  It's like you're speaking to a girlfriend, just naturally flowing through.

• 1:22:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Let me tell you.

• 1:22:55Lewis Howes?

  I'm telling you, it's in right here.

• 1:22:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

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

• 1:23:31Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah. His left palm is up.

• 1:23:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:23:32Lewis Howes?

  And the right palm is down on the table, right?

• 1:23:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Now, this is very interesting, because like, most people don't look at this right away. But why? Why is he doing that?

• 1:23:40Lewis Howes?

  Why would he put his hand like that?

• 1:23:41Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Why would he put his hand like that? And what do those mean? So let's look at the research. Palms open are universal gestures of openness. When we want something, what do we do? We hold open our hand.

• 1:23:51Lewis Howes?

  Give it to me.

• 1:23:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah. When we're offering something, what do we do? We hold open our hand. When we are open to suggestion, we show our palm and we have it visible. A palm down gesture is a high competence cue. It shows dominance. It shows directiveness. You might think of, I won't mention them by name, some famous dictators of the past who did palm down gestures. Why? That is a very dominant gesture. When you are giving, people are giving directives, they often say, be quiet. Sit down. Right? I don't want to hear from you right now. It's a very direct.

• 1:24:24Lewis Howes?

  Dismissive, too, in a sense, right?

• 1:24:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Especially if you shake it at someone. So, why would we have these two cues? They perfectly balance each other out. Christ is depicted as the highest, most charismatic person in the painting. And so what does he do? He literally balances warmth and competence. He's showing the universal gesture of openness and giving, while at the same time, a universal gesture of direct authority.

• 1:24:47Lewis Howes?

  When was this painting made?

• 1:24:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  1498.

• 1:24:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:24:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah. So da Vinci, I think, hid cues that signaled the viewer, wow, he's charismatic. The takeaway from this, by the way, is if you're giving a directive and you don't want it to be questioned, you're better off giving palms down. You're better off saying, listen, team, we've got to get this done. We've got to be efficient. We've got to be streamlined. I need you to do it for me.

• 1:25:09Lewis Howes?

  Just go, yeah.

• 1:25:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Just go, just do it. If you want feedback, like when I take Q and A, I'm like, what can I do? What questions can I answer? Right, I'm giving open. That's a very, very subtle but very powerful cue. Okay, so that's how Christ is depicted balancing. The other thing that he does is if you measure the amount of space that Christ takes up in the painting, you'll notice he takes up the most space. He is literally, has the most distance between his shoulder and his earlobes.

• 1:25:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, because he's tilting. So tilting is a warmth gesture. And so he is the only pictured person who is head tilt with also expansive posture. So there's all these hidden cues that I think paint this picture behind what's happening. Now, if you look at Judas, if you didn't know anything about this history, Judas would be the character painted with the most intrigue. If you notice, he's also holding a clenched fist, right? He's the only character in the picture who has a clenched fist and is distancing. He's literally turning his body away from us. And we know, we already talked about, that distancing is a danger zone cue. So here is the person who is later about to betray Christ. And how does Da Vinci signal that? He hides cues.

• 1:26:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  He shows a clenched fist, which shows withholding and anger. And then he shows that he's about to lie, that he literally turns his body away. The reason I show this is because I think that we don't realize there's these cues being sent to us all the time. You know, I do a lot of breakdowns on my YouTube channel of politicians. And we don't realize, even when we look at political campaigns, in one picture, there's thousands of cues being sent to us, and we should know what's being sent to us.

• 1:26:43Lewis Howes?

  The thumb pinch.

• 1:26:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, the thumb pinch.

• 1:26:45Lewis Howes?

  This is Obama, right?

• 1:26:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay.

• 1:26:47Lewis Howes?

  He did this all the time, didn't he?

• 1:26:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So here's what's funny is Obama used to be a pointer. We don't like being pointed at. So there's something about it as humans, and it's like, let me tell you what to do. It's kind of a better than. So I think he was coached, because all of a sudden, he never pointed again, and he only used the thumb pinch. The thumb pinch is a very clever gesture, because in Western cultures, this means good job, thumbs up.

• 1:27:11Lewis Howes?

  Thumbs up.

• 1:27:12Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Good job, or like me. Like literally, social media, like, right? This is what we see. Like, like, like, like, give me a like. And so the thumb pinch is a very subtle thumbs up gesture. So every time he does it, it makes you think, oh, first of all, it's not, he never clenches.

• 1:27:25Lewis Howes?

  It's relaxed.

• 1:27:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's relaxed.

• 1:27:27Lewis Howes?

  It's kind of like an open thumb.

• 1:27:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's an open thumb because he's saying, A okay, A okay, like, like, like. And he's also saying, this is a point I want you to remember. It literally looks like a bullet point.

• 1:27:36Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:27:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I'm gonna give you a point that you should remember.

• 1:27:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:27:39Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And Obama, I'm gonna do an Obama impression, it's gonna embarrass us both. Okay?

• 1:27:42Lewis Howes?

  It's okay.

• 1:27:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I'm not very good at impressions, but Obama does this thing that I just, I find so interesting. So Obama uses a downward inflection. So we talked about the question inflection, right? So when we go up at the end of our sentences, Obama goes down at the end of his sentences. He literally slings down his words. And downward inflection, we hear, is very authoritative. So I'm gonna do an Obama impression. Okay, so this is him slinging down his words. He goes, Sasha, Malia, it's very important that what we do today is going to be remembered forever. And if we don't do those things, we are going to be in deep trouble. That's a terrible Obama impression, but you can hear what I'm saying, right?

• 1:28:22Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:28:22Vanessa Van Edwards?

  He slings his words down, and that is very authoritative. So even that vocal cue makes us think, he knows what he's talking about.

• 1:28:30Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's more authoritative, more confident.

• 1:28:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's more authoritative versus if he were to say, Sasha, Malia, I have something really important to tell you. It's really important we do this for our future. Could you imagine? If he gave speeches like that. And so even that vocal inflection worked for him because he also creates a lot of space in his mouth. He has a lot of space in the middle part of his mouth, so he talks very deeply in his mouth. And that helps keep his resonance really low because he has a space in the back of his mouth. And that creates a lot of resonance.

• 1:29:03Lewis Howes?

  It's a good.

• 1:29:03Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Thank you.

• 1:29:04Lewis Howes?

  It's a good impression. I like it.

• 1:29:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You're not embarrassed for me?

• 1:29:08Lewis Howes?

  No, it's great.

• 1:29:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's because he creates this low resonance point, and we like it. So that's, that downward inflection is really important.

• 1:29:16Lewis Howes?

  So many great cues in here, the power of the pause, a pause for power.

• 1:29:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So a mistake that I used to make is I would pause the end of my sentence before continuing on to my next sentence. And I would get interrupted. Right, so a mistake that people will make is they'll give a thought, pause, and then keep speaking. Now pauses are quite powerful. Powerful people typically use pauses in their speech. But if you pause in between your sentences, people will interrupt you because they think you're done. You're actually better off using what I call a power pause. A power pause is when you pause right before you give something away.

• 1:29:49Lewis Howes?

  So not the end of a sentence.

• 1:29:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right.

• 1:29:53Lewis Howes?

  In the middle of a sentence, before you're gonna share something.

• 1:29:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Really important.

• 1:29:57Lewis Howes?

  So let me tell you something really important.

• 1:29:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's it, exactly. So like, so here's the mistake that people make is they'll say, "Something really important happened in my childhood that I want to tell you about." Pause. "It was when I was..." Okay. People are like, "Should I talk to you? Should I ask you another question? What should I say?" It actually creates conversational confusion, which is the last thing you want. Versus, "I want to share a really important story from my childhood." That creates a lot more intrigue because like, "A story, oh, from your childhood." And I have no desire to interrupt. So that's a very advanced tip. That's towards the end of the book. It's a very advanced tip because if you have trouble with people interrupting you, I would practice switching your pauses and think about that. What's the drama you can give?

• 1:30:40Lewis Howes?

  Drama. Create the drama.

• 1:30:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Volume pauses, yeah. And by the way, Obama did that very well. He would deliver a point, right? He would go into his residence and he would say, "What this country needs is better systems." Right? I'm saying nothing, but you're like, "What's better? What is it? What is the thing that we need?"

• 1:31:00Lewis Howes?

  It's not what you say, it's how you say it.

• 1:31:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's it. Although how you say it is important too.

• 1:31:05Lewis Howes?

  You need the confidence.

• 1:31:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's the last chapter. It's the last chapter I have to end on is verbal. Because, yes, we spend a lot of the book talking about nonverbal and vocal, but your words matter as we talked about with achievement-oriented words.

• 1:31:15Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:31:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But man, if you can deliver achievement-oriented words with power pausing, with a steeple.

• 1:31:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Look out, look out world. You're coming.

• 1:31:26Lewis Howes?

  That's big. I am a big believer that the most important thing we can do is learn how to heal the different traumas or triggers from our past that get us in a reactive state when the world is happening. And we become uptight, reactive, we say things we don't want to say, we regret the things we do, we act out, whatever it might be. Healing the past, memories, pain, frustrations, whatever you want to call it, I think is one of the most powerful things. The second most powerful thing we can do is learn how to master the art of communication and learn how to be comfortable in our own skin and our own voice. You know, How to Win Friends and Influence People was a book that was extremely powerful for so many people to learn how to socially connect.

• 1:32:07Lewis Howes?

  And again, in life, we are either enrolling other people in us and our vision, or we're unenrolling them in us and our vision, based on how we communicate, how we connect with people, whether we're trustworthy or untrustworthy. This book and your research and studies and content has been extremely powerful for so many people, including myself. I learned a lot, and I feel like this is something I'm always studying.

• 1:32:31Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:32Lewis Howes?

  Because I feel like you can never learn enough of understanding the science of people.

• 1:32:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:32:37Lewis Howes?

  And so, I, one, want people to learn how to continue to heal. It's a journey.

• 1:32:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:32:42Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:33:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And of course, everyone who's watching does, right? Like, we know that.

• 1:33:12Lewis Howes?

  You gotta have skills, and I think it's always important to invest in developing new skills as well to make you more competent. But this, uh, this book, your work, is extremely valuable and important. Cues. Master the secret language of charismatic communication, small signals, incredible impact. Vanessa Van Edwards. I want everyone to get this book. I want you to buy a few copies for your friends, for the introvert friends in your life, for the socially awkward friends, for the anxious friends. Charisma is a, is a superpower.

• 1:33:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's a superpower.

• 1:33:45Lewis Howes?

  It is a superpower when used correctly. And, and here's the thing, if you use it incorrectly, you'll be humbled at some point in your life.

• 1:33:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's right.

• 1:33:52Lewis Howes?

  Eventually, bad things will happen and they'll keep happening.

• 1:33:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And it will drain you.

• 1:33:55Lewis Howes?

  Drain you.

• 1:33:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:33:57Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna be humbled by the world if you if you don't use humility with your charisma. But I'm very excited about the book. I can't wait to dive in more and go back to this interview even more. I want people to get the book. They can follow you on the website, scienceofpeople.com, which has got an amazing newsletter that I subscribe to and get a lot of wisdom from.

• 1:34:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Thank you.

• 1:34:15Lewis Howes?

  You're always sharing new research and all that stuff in there. Scienceofpeople.com, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, V. Van Edwards.

• 1:34:24Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's me.

• 1:34:25Lewis Howes?

  Everywhere on social media. Your YouTube as well is extremely fun to watch. You just break down all these things visually.

• 1:34:31Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, so I there was a couple of things I didn't I didn't get to put in the book because they were too visual. Like, it was just too hard to explain it. And so if you want to just get a little taste test, I break down The Rock.

• 1:34:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's great.

• 1:34:41Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Who doesn't want to see many, like dozens of cues from The Rock? So I break down The Rock. I do a deep dive of Britney Spears because I didn't even that was a whole book, right? Like, I didn't have time to do it. I do Morgan Freeman, how does he get that vocal power? I talk about how he does it. Princess Diana, why were we so intrigued by her? And Justin Bieber. So I break down some cues in there. You just want a little taste test.

• 1:35:01Lewis Howes?

  And that's all Science of People, or is that?

• 1:35:03Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's on YouTube and on Science of People. And we have our interview on on there, too. So if people want to go watch that, they can.

• 1:35:07Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Final two questions before I ask them. I want to acknowledge you, Vanessa, for constantly showing up. I think it's I think introverts who felt like they grew up socially awkward takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there, to constantly be in front of a camera, to be speaking on stages, to be learning this work and then sharing your work. I think it's really challenging to do for introverts. So for the journey that you've been on to try to.

• 1:35:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Healing.

• 1:35:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly. Healing is big, too. But the journey you've had and you constantly keep showing up and putting this work out there is really inspiring. So I acknowledge you for that.

• 1:35:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Thank you.

• 1:35:39Lewis Howes?

  Um, I asked you this question before, but this is called the three truths question. Imagine it's your last day on earth, many years away. And for whatever reason, all of your work has to go with you to another place. So no one has access to your content. And if you could leave three lessons to the world behind, what would you say would be those three lessons for you?

• 1:35:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Life is too short to fake it. Find the real warmth or the real competence or get rid of it.

• 1:36:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  There are unique flavors of charisma. You don't have to be the bubbly extrovert. You can be the wise, competent sage, or the quiet, powerful leader, or the empathetic, compassionate healer. Those are all charismatic. They're different flavors. And lastly, your words have power. Your cues have power. Don't waste them. We can change someone's physiology with a single word. So with every word you put out there, think about how can you infect people for good?

• 1:36:37Lewis Howes?

  That is powerful. What's the most powerful word we can infect someone with in a positive way?

• 1:36:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I think gratitude. I think every time you say, "Thank you." I'm appreciative. I'm grateful. You're gifting them honor, and you're feeling grateful yourself. It's the only word I can think of that has a double effect both ways. So can I end on gratitude? I want to thank you so much because you created a tipping point in my career, where you believed in me, you listened to me wholeheartedly, and you put my work out there. And people listen, and it was a total tipping point in my career. And so you made me do podcasts. You made me realize I can do them in their safe spaces, which I was a little afraid of. You made me realize that I can find my people, and I just have to speak to them. And you always say, "Yes, how can I help?" Which I'm so grateful for.

• 1:37:29Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you in return. You know, it's interesting, appreciation, the word gratitude and appreciation. Right when you said that, it made me reflect on my girlfriend, and how I feel like every day I tell her how much I appreciate her. I'm like, "Gosh, I'm so grateful for how you did this. This thing you did for me, I appreciate it so much." And every time I do it, now that I reflect on it, she's always just like, I don't know. It just warms her up even more.

• 1:37:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, yes. Because we don't often feel gratitude in our relationships, right? Especially, I've been married for 10 years, with my husband for 16 years. And you get very caught up in the logistics. So for anyone who's watching, I think we take the people we love for granted. We think about giving gifts of word to our colleagues or to our... Clients are to our customers, but like, don't forget the person you live with. Don't forget the person you care about. Don't get stuck in the logistics, right? Where you're like, you know, hey, honey, take the kids. And so I think that gratitude is especially important at home. And I think the more comfortable we are, the less we are gracious, the less gratitude we have. And so I hope that 10, 20, 30 years.

• 1:38:31Lewis Howes?

  Everyone in their first, I guess, year or two, you're like, oh, I love you so much. You're amazing.

• 1:38:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Not everyone. No, not everyone. No, not everyone. And so I would say like.

• 1:38:39Lewis Howes?

  Even the first couple of years?

• 1:38:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  No, I think saying that to her is a gift. And so if just your goal is 10 years from now, you can say that to her again. What a beautiful goal.

• 1:38:49Lewis Howes?

  Often she'll be like, you're the most amazing man ever. And I'm like, I don't feel like I'm doing anything. I'm just saying I appreciate you. I'm just like, man, I really, I'm so grateful you just did this. Thank you. I really appreciate the way you said this. Like, I don't think I'm like doing something extraordinary, you know what I mean? She's like, you have no idea. Yeah, it's like, you're the most amazing man. I'm like, I'm not like doing some grand gesture. I'm literally just saying like, I'm focusing on something that I really appreciate that she did every day. And I'm like, I really appreciate the way you showed up here, here, here.

• 1:39:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And that's why I think gratitude is the most powerful word there is. Because just being appreciative of her makes her think of it as a grand gesture. Imagine that, like, one word of gratitude is a grand gesture. It doesn't take a boat ride down the water. It doesn't take, you know, 12 dozen roses. It's like just telling someone you appreciate them. And if that's one thing you take away from this interview, that you will right now text someone that you love them and you appreciate them and thank them for being them.

• 1:39:42Lewis Howes?

  It's big. People remember that stuff.

• 1:39:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's a gift.

• 1:39:44Lewis Howes?

  People don't care how much you know, so they know how much you care.

• 1:39:49Lewis Howes?

  Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:39:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I love this because this is my third time here and I've had, I think my definition has changed.

• 1:39:55Lewis Howes?

  It's probably changed, yeah.

• 1:39:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Over time. It's being in integrity. So it's going back to that important thing. Greatness is showing up as you are, how you feel, and feeling free to be that way. So that means you like the people in your life, you respect the people in your life, you're showing up congruent. You're showing up with lots of integrity where you, your cues match your words, which match your emotions. And I think that I'm, I'm my greatest self when I can show up somewhere as myself and not worry about having to hide, fake, or change.

• 1:40:24Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:41:06Lewis Howes?

  if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.