Vanessa Van Edwards: Stop Overthinking Every Social Interaction! (Use THESE Cues to Be Liked, Respected, and Build Confidence in Every Conversation)

What usually holds you back from starting a conversation? Can you remember a time you avoided someone out of fear of saying the wrong thing? Jay sits down with behavioral researcher and bestselling author Vanessa Van Edwards for a powerful conversation that blends science, honesty, and so many surprising moments. Vanessa, who refers to herself as a “recovering awkward person,” shares how her biggest social struggles became the driving force behind her mission to crack the code on human connection. Together, Jay and Vanessa dive into the fascinating world of charisma, exploring the 97 cues, from eye contact to tone of voice, that quietly shape how we’re seen and understood. Vanessa breaks down why so many of us feel overlooked or underestimated—and introduces “signal amplification bias,” a concept that explains why the signals you think you’re sending might not be landing the way you expect. Vanessa shows us how confidence isn’t always something you’re born with but something you can build, with intention and awareness. The conversation goes even deeper as they unpack the tricky balance between warmth and competence, especially for women in the workplace, and how vulnerability isn’t a weakness, but often your greatest strength. They explore how to create those magic “me too” moments that form instant connections, spot the hidden red flags in communication, and let go of the need to be liked by everyone in order to be truly seen by the right people. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Make a Great First Impression Without Saying a Word How to Break the Ice with a Simple “Hey” How to Balance Warmth and Competence in Any Conversation How to Create Connection Using “Me Too” Moments How to Exit a Conversation Gracefully (Without Offending Anyone) How to Spot a Liar Using Body Language and Micro-Expressions How to Ask Better Questions That Spark Real Conversations How to Recognize the Difference Between Charisma and Manipulation Whether you struggle with social anxiety, want to level up your leadership presence, or are just tired of surface-level small talk, this episode is packed with practical tools and uplifting wisdom to help you connect with more authenticity and power. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. Join Jay for his first ever, On Purpose Live Tour! Tickets are on sale now. Hope to see you there! What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 00:51 From Awkward to Empowered: Overcoming Social Anxiety 02:43 How Do You Really Want People to See You? 06:44 Why Aren’t Your First Impressions Landing? 10:01 Why They’re Not Getting Your Signals (And What to Do About It) 13:33 Want to Be More Attractive? Try Being More Available 15:40 One Simple “Hey” That Can Spark a New Connection 19:16 Your Vibe Teaches People How to Treat You 22:06 Speak with Power: Unlock Your Full Vocal Power 23:47 3 Conversation Starters That Actually Work 29:49 Making Friends Doesn’t Have to Be Hard 31:17 Why Compliments Alone Don’t Build Connection 33:30 Break the Ice Without Sounding Like Everyone Else 38:36 Stop Trying to Be Interesting, Do This Instead 40:48 The Art of a Smooth and Respectful Exit 44:32 Use These Nonverbal Cues to Steer the Conversation 47:41 Spot Inauthentic Behavior Before It Costs You 54:28 Why People-Pleasing Feels Safer But Actually Holds You Back 57:48 How to Tell If Someone’s Lying (Without Saying a Word) 01:00:04 When Narcissists Feel Like the Most Charismatic People 01:03:46 Want to Really Get to Know Someone? Take a Road Trip 01:04:45 How Dopamine Makes You More Memorable 01:08:23 Every Answer Can Be a Gateway to Connection 01:10:51 How Asking Better Questions Inspires Growth 01:13:10 Discover Your Social Battery: Introvert, Extrovert, or Ambivert? 01:15:10 You Might Be an Ambivert and That’s a Superpower 01:19:07 The Two Ways Friendships Evolve Over Time 01:22:30 Choose Friends Who Inspire Awe 01:25:20 The Double Standard Faced by Highly Competent Women 01:33:09 Before You Make That Connection, Ask Yourself This 01:34:34 Life’s Too Short for Shallow Connections, Find Your People 01:36:29 Vanessa on Final Five Episode Resources: Vanessa Van Edwards | Website Vanessa Van Edwards | Instagram Vanessa Van Edwards | X Vanessa Van Edwards | YouTube Vanessa Van Edwards | TikTok Vanessa Van Edwards | Facebook Vanessa Van Edwards | LinkedIn See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:44Jay Shetty?

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• 1:30Jay Shetty?

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• 2:16Jay Shetty?

  And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and is clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1

• 2:59Jay Shetty?

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• 3:11Jay Shetty?

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• 3:54Jay Shetty?

  How do you let someone know that they should make a move without giving them?

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Vanessa Van Edworth.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Bestselling author and researcher Vanessa Van Edworth.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  We decide how confident someone is within the first 200 milliseconds of hearing them speak. The best way to show availability is one word. It sounds like this.

• 4:16Jay Shetty?

  Tell me why compliments don't work.

• 4:20Jay Shetty?

  How do we tell the difference between charisma and narcissism?

• 4:24Speaker 01

  The way you see the world changes the world.

• 4:26Jay Shetty?

  What are the negative cues we miss because we're infatuated or attracted to someone?

• 4:32Speaker 01

  If you want to be treated with more respect, you have to make sure it's...

• 4:37Speaker 03

  The number one health and wellness podcast.

• 4:40Speaker 04

  Jay Shetty.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Jay Shetty.

• 4:41Speaker 04

  The one, the only Jay Shetty.

• 4:46Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed. You know that one of my biggest focuses and services is introducing you to experts who are obsessed and addicted to their field. People who are powerhouses, who deeply and intimately understand human behavior, so they can help you improve yours and spot signs of the people around you. Today's guest is going to do just that. I want to welcome to On Purpose, for the first time ever, but not the last time, Vanessa Van Edwards, a multi-time bestselling author, renowned behavioral researcher on professional communication and leadership. More than 50 million people have seen Vanessa's talks

• 5:31Jay Shetty?

  on YouTube and her viral TED Talk as well. Vanessa's work has been featured in national and international media, including Entrepreneur Magazine, CNN, CBS, and many more. Vanessa's latest book, Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication, was an instant bestseller, and I highly recommend it. Please welcome to On Purpose Vanessa Van Edwards.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you for having me.

• 5:57Jay Shetty?

  Oh, it's so great to have you here. I've been looking forward to this.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:01Jay Shetty?

  Waiting for this moment.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 6:03Jay Shetty?

  And from the moment you walked in, I was like, this person is so charismatic.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, no.

• 6:09Jay Shetty?

  So magnetic, such great energy. And I want to start off, Vanessa, just to dive straight in.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 6:14Jay Shetty?

  If someone was not only to listen, but to apply the insights you're about to share today, what would they overcome?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  I'm a recovering awkward person, and I have found that through this work, and that is my mission today with you, that you can overcome awkwardness, doubt, and most importantly, the feeling of being underestimated. I think that that's really what I'm trying to get at with my work is... If you feel that you have a lot of potential or you have this desire to connect, but you don't know how, and people are underestimating your charisma, your ideas, your smarts, who you are, my goal is to make it so you no longer feel underestimated.

• 6:53Jay Shetty?

  Oh, I love that. That's so strong.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Those are my people.

• 6:56Jay Shetty?

  That's so strong. And I resonate with it so strongly because I'm sure, just like you, I meet so many people who feel they have the next big idea, who feel that they have something to share, something to give, something to teach, something to pass on, but they don't feel confident. They're lacking that feeling of courage. They're lacking that feeling of, I don't know how to present my idea. I don't know how to share it. And this is what we're gonna do today.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  And the problem is like, I also had these ideas, but I not only didn't have confidence, I felt out of control. I think this is an aspect of communication we don't talk about enough. I think the side door into confidence, because we all say, I wish I felt more confident. But the side door is thinking, okay, I have an idea. What's the blueprint that I need from conversations, from charisma, to be able to get where I want? How can I take control of my connections, my relationship, my communication? So I know if I wanna show up as friendly or as likable or as competent, I know exactly what to do with my body, my voice, my words, to show up in that way. So for me, the only way I was able to overcome awkwardness was taking control of the signals I'm sending and being able to take control of the kinds of relationships and conversations I had.

• 8:06Jay Shetty?

  What I really appreciate about what you're saying, you just named three things there. You said, if I wanna come across as friendly, likable, and competent. What's really fascinating is I think most of us don't even know we wanna come across that way.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  This is true. The step one of control is, how do you want people to see you? And here's what's really important. The cues that you send to others make people think about you a certain way. But the cues you send to others also change how others treat you. So if you wanna be treated with more respect, you have to make sure it starts with you, that you're sending the cues needed to show others how they should treat you with respect. If you wanna be treated with friendliness or warmth or vulnerability, how do you signal to others, I want you to be open and raw and real with me? We can take control of those signals to tell others, here's how I wanna be treated. And so step one is, how do you want people to see you? Let's play a little game, okay? So in your mind, when people first meet you, what word do you think they think?

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Like, what's a word they use to describe you?

• 9:05Jay Shetty?

  Oh, that's so good.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  What do you think it is?

• 9:07Jay Shetty?

  I would hope it is warm.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Warm, okay. So I've asked this to thousands of people, and the words are, you know, all over the place. By the way, a lot of folks have negative words, and that's okay. Like, for example, my word used to be awkward, right?

• 9:22Jay Shetty?

  People would say that.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  I knew, you know, when you show up, and I'm a social over thinker. So like, I would get in my head about things. I would overthink things. And I knew, I could see in their face that I was coming across as awkward, and I was creating more awkwardness. So my original word for first impression was awkward, and that's what got me into this work. So a lot of the words have two kind of groups of people. I have folks like you who are like warm, competent, charismatic, confident. I love it, I love it. But a lot of folks, and if this is you, I'm with you. I'm gonna help. It could be quiet, it could be awkward, it could be scared, nervous. There's a lot of words like that. Okay, so start there. Then the question is, what do you want people to think when they first meet you? What's the word that you wish? Maybe even two or three words.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  How do you want to come across? So would yours ideal be warm? And do you have another one that you wish?

• 10:12Jay Shetty?

  I'd probably add loving.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Loving, oh my, love it. Okay, so think of three words that you wish to convey. Now we have to work backwards. So step two is, okay, how do we convey warmth and competence and loving or confidence? That's where the real magic happens. And there are 97 cues. I've identified 97 cues.

• 10:30Jay Shetty?

  97.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  97 cues. With the very beginning of my career, I realized that humans were sending these social signals back and forth. Your nodding, your hand gesture, your feet, your voice power, and I just missed them all. I have an affliction. I tend to misinterpret neutral faces as negative.

• 10:49Jay Shetty?

  I think we all do.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  A lot of people do.

• 10:51Jay Shetty?

  A lot of people do.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  It's the basis of resting bothered face. This is the basis. There's actually science behind RBF. And it's that most people misidentify neutral expressions as negative. And by the way, interesting thing they found in the research with this was if you are an angrier person, if you tend to get angry more, you see more neutral faces as angry.

• 11:13Jay Shetty?

  Ooh, I didn't even think about that.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  So in a way, the way you see the world changes the world, right? Like if you were an angry person and you're misinterpreting neutral faces as angry, and then you reply back with anger or offensiveness or defensiveness, you make them angry.

• 11:28Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  And so this is like this weird cue cycle. Okay, so if there's 97 different cues, I started categorizing them because I was like, I don't, I'm misinterpreting. And I would say to my husband, I think she's mad at me. And he'd be like, why? I'd go to a party, I'd be like, everyone's mad at me. And he'd be like, I didn't see that at all. And that's when I started to realize, okay, what are the actual negative faces? So I discovered, you know, the research on micro expressions, the seven micro expressions, which we can talk about. And then I started to categorize these patterns just for me. And then I realized there was all these other awkward people who also wanted to be able to read these social signals. And so I think that when you pick your word, starting to make your recipe of charisma.

• 12:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and what I love about this is this is all happening before you get to the date, before you get to the event, before you get to the interview. This is where it has to start. And I think so many of us turn up and naturally, by the way, me included, I think the challenge I have is people may assume that I'm always confident and have it all together. If I don't prepare for an event, I can turn up and feel exactly the same way. Because I walk in and I'm rushed there and I'm thinking, gosh, what am I going to say? Like, why am I here again? And why is that person looking at me that way? And were they, right?

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Okay, so this is good. Let's add a stat to our exercise.

• 12:42Jay Shetty?

  Please.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Which is, I'm just thinking about this now. What's your bad day first impression word?

• 12:48Jay Shetty?

  My bad day first impression word would be...

• 12:52Jay Shetty?

  Absent.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 12:54Jay Shetty?

  Like I'm just.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Oh, like muting.

• 12:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, like I'm just not quite there. I'm probably looking through someone. I'm probably not listening as well as I usually do. Because I'm kind of just, I'm lost. I'm a bit lost and absent, yeah.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Okay, so everyone should think about their bad first impression word, their current first impression word and their ideal. Why? What are the triggers that trigger you to be in that bad space? And what are the triggers that make you feel in that good space? So one of the very first steps is, okay, whether you're an introvert, an extrovert, or an ambivert, and there is that sort of in-between, who triggers you to be your best self? You know how like around certain people, you're like, ah, I'm my funniest, I'm my most charismatic. Great, those are the people who bring out the good first impression. You want to be around those people as much as possible. Who are the people who bring out the bad first impression? Right, like who are the people who make you feel, the way I would describe is like tight inside? Like that's how I would describe it. Rigid, like that's what I do.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  I get very rigid when I'm afraid or nervous. Who makes you feel angry? Who makes you feel rigid? Who makes you feel afraid? Who makes you shut down? You know, awkwardness dresses up in a lot of different ways. Some people, their awkwardness is shutting down, right? They mute, they go quiet, they collapse in on themselves. They take up less space from a body language perspective. But other people get bigger. They become dramatic, they name drop, they talk too loud, they overtalk. Like that's also a way that our awkwardness dress up. So what are your triggers that make you do that? The people, but also the places.

• 14:21Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Right, like I love a one-on-one conversation. So I'm, I was more excited for this conversation than I would be like, if you were to say, Vanessa, come over to my house for a happy hour.

• 14:31Jay Shetty?

  Which never happens in my house.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Okay, great. Okay, great, because I'm not coming. I can't come. Or if I come, I would be like agonizing the whole time.

• 14:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Like a rooftop bar, you know, loud nightclub, just like not my space.

• 14:43Jay Shetty?

  Same.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Like it just triggers all the bad stuff in me. So I think that like knowing who and what is going to also set you up for success into getting to the better, taking control, right? If you can control the people and the places where you want to show up your best self, that's like step number one, that's the groundwork.

• 14:57Jay Shetty?

  Mm-hmm. And I think that that's hard. Shifting that, moving that forward, when you have to start going to places where you don't know anyone, right? And there were two areas I really wanted to focus on with you today. One was looking at the dating landscape, and we'll start there. And the second I want to focus on is work.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:15Jay Shetty?

  Because I feel like those are the two areas where your skills and your habits and your tools thrive in a way that, that, you know, people are gonna change their lives. We were talking about this idea that, let's say you're at a workout class. Let's say you're at a social space. Maybe it is a rooftop bar, maybe it is a club.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:32Jay Shetty?

  You want to signal to someone to make a move. You want to let them know that you find them attractive, that you'd like them to do something, but you want to be subtle. You don't want to give it away. How do you let someone know that they should make a move without giving it away?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Okay. I'm gonna give you news that you're probably not gonna like, but it's so important. It's a phenomenon called signal amplification bias. What this is, it's very well studied, that we tend to think we are over-obvious with our cues. So if you're in a bar, they literally studied singles in a like bar nightclub setting. Women and men who think they are being obvious with their flirtation cues, the other person has no idea.

• 16:17Jay Shetty?

  That's so good.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  They even counted the number of flirtation signals. This was incredible research. They observed singles mingling, and they counted each person's flirtatious signals towards other people in the room. They found in 10 minutes, how many signals do you think it took for a woman to show a man she was interested? How many, in 10 minutes, how many signals did she have to send?

• 16:38Jay Shetty?

  When it actually worked?

• 16:39Speaker 01

  When it, when it actually worked.

• 16:41Jay Shetty?

  Now that you've given me some sort of, I'm gonna go 30.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  29!

• 16:45Jay Shetty?

  Oh, okay, cool.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  That's it. But do you know how many signals that is in 10 minutes?

• 16:49Jay Shetty?

  That's a lot of signals.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  That is, that is pretty constant.

• 16:52Jay Shetty?

  And if you didn't tell me, I probably would have guessed three.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:55Jay Shetty?

  It was only because you gave me a sense that there was more. I probably would have said three, seven.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  That is what women think is it was needed. I sent three flirty glances and he just didn't come over. He's not interested. No, he didn't see him, or he doubted himself, or he was like, was that a trick of my eye? It took 29 signals in 10 minutes to get approached. So the other person went, oh, she's interested, just interested. That was before even the conversation started. So what are the flirty glances of availability? And this is what's most important is in the same group of studies, they found that attractive women, the most attractive women who are rated on their attractiveness, got approached less than unattractive women who didn't signal enough.

• 17:37Jay Shetty?

  Fascinating.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  So if you're an attractive woman and you don't signal enough, you won't be approached.

• 17:41Jay Shetty?

  Do you have to approach more based on how objectively attractive you are?

• 17:44Speaker 01

  You have to be available more. So what they found, and this is so, it's ridiculous that we're rating on attractiveness, but it helps us understand that sometimes I think we use attractiveness as an excuse. I'm not pretty enough, or I'm not this enough. No, actually, some unattractive women who signaled availability got approached more.

• 18:01Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  And so availability actually makes you more attractive. When you think about your hair, your outfit, how you look, how you smell, all those things are great, but they will not work if you do not know the body language signals of availability. And you have to be super clear with them. So the very first one are flirty glances.

• 18:23Jay Shetty?

  Are you gonna, are you gonna demonstrate?

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm gonna demo it for you. Okay, so flirty glances are typically, they are little gaze patterns, is we sweep the room with our eyes, then we see someone we like, we...

• 18:35Jay Shetty?

  Oh yeah, nice little side glance.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, like very brief.

• 18:38Jay Shetty?

  It's a look back up.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  It's a look back up.

• 18:39Jay Shetty?

  It's like you're looking around, but then...

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Look back, yeah. And it's a side look or a down and up look. The down and up look works really well because you're looking up through your lashes. That's a very, um, think Marilyn Monroe. So if you want to look at the classic example of this, every good photo of Marilyn Monroe, she has her chin tilted down and she's looking up through her eyes.

• 18:57Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  That is a look that we just like. We just like it, that's why we like it. So it's glancing around the room and then eye contact away, eye contact away. Then it's little smiles, so look and little smile. And by the way, Remember, it took 29 of these. So we gotta get really comfortable with trying. And the nice thing is, there's no pressure. If he doesn't return the glance, he doesn't return the glance. Right? So eye contact, smiles. Self-touch is also considered a flirty glance. So like if I play with my hair, or I play with my dress, that's a way of signaling our hair health from an evolutionary perspective. It's like, look how healthy I am, my healthy, long hair. I think it's one of the reasons why we tend to like long hair. Women will also, when they're flirting, they'll touch their neck, their lips, or their chin. This actually releases pheromones.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  So the reason why sometimes women will touch their neck or touch their lips is because they're actually trying to release their scent. And scent is very, very important. It's important in dating, but it's also important in friendships. For example, it's a little bit off the side of dating, but I just want to explain why smell is so important. I just read this study and I was like, what? They had women wear white t-shirts with no deodorant, no nothing, so just their natural smell for 24 hours. They took these t-shirts and they had other women smell these t-shirts and rate the women on if they liked the smell. Okay, imagine you're opening a black bag and you're smelling a shirt.

• 20:17Jay Shetty?

  This is a painful study.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  I would have loved it. Okay, I would have loved it. Sign me up, the researchers, I'm there. So they had them smell the t-shirts and they had them rate them on how much they liked the smell. Then they had all the women interact in person. They didn't know who was who. The smell they liked the best predicted who they liked the best in person.

• 20:36Jay Shetty?

  No way.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  So they actually found their people. There is something to it. So when you're self-touching like that, it's because we're trying to release this natural smell of like, I'm probably clicked with you.

• 20:47Jay Shetty?

  Right, if you smell good.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  If you smell good. And good is

• 20:51Jay Shetty?

  Is subjective.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Like that's why I think why sometimes you're like, we're just clicking, we like each other's smell. So, so being available, also like releasing pheromones, self-touch, and then, this one is not from the research, but I'm gonna really encourage you to try it. I think the best way to show availability is one word. And it sounds like this. Hey.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Just that, okay? You walk to the bathroom, you walk to the bar, you walk by them, hey. Just like that, because look, by the way, this is for both men and women.

• 21:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Okay, because life is too short to not hey.

• 21:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Right, and there's no pressure. If you walk by someone in the gym, right, and you're like, hey. Even if they have their AirPods in, if they like you, they're gonna be like, hey. Right?

• 21:38Jay Shetty?

  Does it matter the tone of voice?

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it matters.

• 21:41Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it does matter. So if you go like, hey, it's not like.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  That was pretty good.

• 21:45Jay Shetty?

  Okay, all right.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Okay, so I'll do good.

• 21:47Jay Shetty?

  That was me trying to downplay it.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  That was good, that was good. See, men, men do good with a downward inflection.

• 21:51Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  So like that downward inflection is good. So if it goes good, the guy's gonna be like, hey. If he's not into it, he's gonna be like, hey.

• 21:57Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, right.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  No problem, right? Like, cool, hey.

• 22:01Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  So it's like the most low pressure way, when you're in the grocery store, when, even by the way, if someone has AirPods on, they're still gonna see you go. And they're gonna take out their AirPods and they're gonna be like, hey. So here's the difference, right? So I am using the lowest end of my natural tone. This is especially important for women, but everyone. Research finds that we decide how confident someone is within the first 200 milliseconds of hearing them speak. 200 milliseconds. That means the most important word you can say really is, hey. That's it. You just signaled your confidence, your confidence, not competence, it's specifically confidence. Okay, so what does that mean? We are listening for relaxation and breath in the vocal cords.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  So right now, I'm working really hard to use the lowest end of my natural voice, because I know that people are listening and I want to keep them relaxed. When I get nervous, I tend to go a little higher in my vocal tone. I might get a little bit more vocal fry and I might sound a little bit more like this. Now, if I were to do the entire interview in this tone of voice, it would drive you crazy.

• 23:02Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely, 100%.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Horrible.

• 23:03Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  It's infectious. We catch it. We don't like to be around people where we could catch their anxiety. We don't want to catch their anxiety. They've even found that we match. The voice resonance of the most important person in the room. So when they tested people, they found that they, unsubconsciously, their resonance matched whoever's most important person in the room, their own resonance.

• 23:24Jay Shetty?

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• 24:04Jay Shetty?

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• 24:44Jay Shetty?

  That's drinkjuni.com and make sure you use the code ONPURPOSE. So here's the thing, a lot of us, when you're attracted to someone, your heart rate goes up, you start breathing shallower and you're about to say it in a, like you go, hey, hey. Like, really, that's the reaction because you're so nervous.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  And this is why we don't have enough couples.

• 25:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, this is the reason.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  This is the reason.

• 25:08Jay Shetty?

  Because of the way we're saying, hey, yeah.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:09Jay Shetty?

  So what do we do when you're like, when you're feeling that like attraction? Maybe you've even built up to it. You've been going to class every day for 30 days. And this guy's turning up three times. You're trying to send the cue.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Yes. Okay, so luckily, one is now that you know it, it's gonna be very easy for you to hear yourself do it. So at home, if you wouldn't mind trying this with me, I want you to hear the highest end of your range versus the lowest end of your range. Everyone has a natural range. So first, let's start with the highest. So take a deep breath and say hello at the top of your breath. Hello.

• 25:38Jay Shetty?

  Hello.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  That is our natural highest end of our range. I never want you to sound like that.

• 25:43Jay Shetty?

  I never sound like that.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  You don't. Right, maybe your dog.

• 25:45Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  I see people go hello to their dog.

• 25:47Jay Shetty?

  Maybe to a baby. Actually, you're right, to my niece and nephew. And they look at me like, stop talking to me like that.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Babies and dogs, totally fine, babies and dogs. That's it. Because you're signaling tightness, high anxiety, and we don't want that. And by the way, this happens to everyone. We hold our breath as we're answering the phone. Hello. You've just given away all your confidence. Okay, so that's the highest. Let's try the lowest. So take a couple of deep breaths. Relax your vocal cords, relax your shoulders, relax your jaw, relax your mouth. And then I want you to say hello on the out breath. It's gonna sound like this. Hello.

• 26:19Jay Shetty?

  Hello.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  That's the lowest end of your range. What happens here is when we take in breath and we speak on the out breath, it forces our vocal cords to relax and it puts us in our lower range. So here's the difference. Here's how I want you to say hello. Let's try the phone first. So instead of hello, I want you to go hello. Totally different.

• 26:39Jay Shetty?

  Only the second one?

• 26:40Speaker 01

  The second one.

• 26:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Right, so, so here's the bad one. Hello, that's too high. Versus on the out breath, hello. You hear, it's still me, but I sound totally different.

• 26:50Jay Shetty?

  Totally different.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  You would, you would treat me differently based on those two hellos. I started off by saying, your cues change how people treat you. If you speak with confidence, people are gonna treat you with more respect. And so it is critical, we speak in that lower tone. So when I was like, hey, I didn't go, hey.

• 27:12Jay Shetty?

  It was so good.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  So a nice low hey for both men and women, this works. And can we just hey everyone?

• 27:23Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, I like that.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Let's just do like, life is too short to not hey a person. You're like, I like, I like their vibe.

• 27:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Right? Like, let's just hey everyone. And if you see me out in an airport, you just hey me and I'll laugh.

• 27:36Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love, oh, that's good. I like that. I, I, I really like that because I think a lot of people listening right now, they might be thinking, but I want to be accepted for who I am.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:46Jay Shetty?

  What's the difference between who we are?

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:50Jay Shetty?

  And how we choose to present ourselves? Because I think people get confused. They go, oh, but I, I am that kind of person who's nervous and anxious and everything. But that's not who they are.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  I don't believe in fake it till you make it. It's not a concept I've ever.

• 28:02Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, me neither.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Resonated with. And so notice how I didn't say, I want you to be like Elizabeth Holmes and go, hey. I can't even do it. How did she do it?

• 28:12Jay Shetty?

  I don't know.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  She was so like, she faked that low tone. No, I wanted you to find the lowest end of your natural tone. First is I don't believe in fake it till you make it. Second is I want you to sound like your most confident self. So if for you, that is a hey, cool, girl, cool. I'm for it, right? Like, I will, if that is you and that's how you go, I will take it. So I want you to feel like you, but I also want you to find your resonance point. It's called a maximum resonance point. That's speaking with, and this is for both dating and work, that's speaking with this part of your voice that is open and full of power and volume and space. And don't we all want to operate that way?

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Like, I think everyone is more themselves when they have space in their bodies, when they're taking up their space, when they have breath. And that translates to everything.

• 29:04Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  It translates to my face. It makes my face more open. It makes my jaw more relaxed. It makes my shoulders more relaxed. So what I'm kind of hoping is we're finding that part of you that's like, ooh, resonance.

• 29:15Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Like, that's where presence comes from.

• 29:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's a great answer. And, and what's really good about it is also that if that. That person says, hey, back. You're now not at this crazy level of nervousness and anxiety where you can't. Now you're in shock and now you don't even know how to respond.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:31Jay Shetty?

  And then that ruins it. We were talking about one of my friends is a comedian called Jared Freed. He has a podcast called You Up. And there was an episode where he was talking about sometimes it's hard to spark up a conversation with someone at a class. And, and he was saying it's good to just go up to someone and say something like, tough class, right? Like, you know, whatever it may be, like something to find some mutual ground before you hit it off. And I think even that, saying that in this tone could help.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Okay, so I love this tip. So you say, hey, and, and, and it's like, hey, hey, cool.

• 30:02Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Then you want to use, again, I like a blueprint. I need specific groundwork. I don't like to guess. So here's your next step is a context cue. So a context cue is when you use a conversation starter that's something that you both share. If you don't know someone, you don't know what you share. So the one thing you can share is the context you're in, right? So that could be, how do you know the host? If you're at a party, right? It could be, how do you like the food? How do you like your wine? Oh, that coffee looks great. Wow, this is a tough class, right? So it's something in context because actually that's a secret me too moment. So this is the next effect. So we're fighting in dating, signal amplification bias. More signals are better. You are not being obvious, right? You think you're being obvious, you're not. It takes 29 signals. You can count them in your head if you want. Okay.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  So that's the first thing we're fighting. Once we've managed that and we're really clear. The second thing we're trying to meet is a psychological effect called the similarity attraction effect. What this is, is that we like people who have similar values and motivations as us. What's important about this is every time we have a me too moment, like, oh, we have, what? We have that. It builds like a little string between us. Like I literally envision when I'm in conversation, like we're handing each other threads. I call it thread theory. Like we're handing each other threads and the more threads that are back and forth, the more connected we are.

• 31:18Jay Shetty?

  Oh, I like that.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  Like that, that's the visual I use. So what is the very first question I said to you when I met you outside was, you know, I think we have some, some friends in common.

• 31:26Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Because I knew that that was a thread that we could be like, yes, we both love those people. And that made it just really easy. I didn't say like, How's the weather? Yeah. I didn't do that, right? So whatever you can do to create as many me too moments as possible, that could be raving about a mutual friend. That could be raving about how great this class is. That could be, oh, the wine is so delicious. Or the wine is terrible, right? Yeah. Either one. So all your entire goal in this part of the conversation is me too moments. And your questions should be geared towards that because here's where awkwardness happens. You're in a conversation and you have no goal. You're like, kind of like, what do you do? Where are you from?

• 32:10Speaker 01

  You know, and it's like these socially scripted dead end conversation starters. So instead I want your goal to be, I want them to say, me too. Or I want to say. That's a great goal. That's it. And it's very low pressure because all you're doing, and then your questions have intention. Right? Like if everything is on purpose, if everything is intention, then our questions are searching for similarities. And this is the last step. And this is for dating, for friendship, even a little bit for work relationships as well. The last step is can you find authentic reasons to like them? And I mean aggressively like them. I think that awkwardness, the reason I was so awkward for so long is I was asking the wrong questions and I didn't know what to listen for. So the last, this study completely changed my life, changed the way I interact.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  I was never a cool kid. I was never popular and I. Don't believe it. Well, that's true. It's true. I was like, I was like a triple major in college because I was just like, what can I do to distract myself? Like I ran for student council because it was the only position that was unopposed. Anyway.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was really cool. So I found this study that looked at the cool kids in high school. And they examined thousands of kids across a variety of high schools, across a variety of grades, looking for patterns. Why are some kids more popular than others? And the hypothesis was maybe they're more athletic, maybe they're smarter, maybe they're more attractive, maybe they're more extroverted, maybe they're funnier. Right? Those are all the things. Yeah. I would think of, right? There were popular kids who were those things. But the only commonality across all the grades and all the schools was that the most liked kids had the longest list of people that they liked.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  The most liked kids had the longest list of people that they liked. Meaning, they weren't going around all day trying to be funny, trying to be cool. They were going around trying to like as many people as possible.

• 34:00Jay Shetty?

  No way.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  One of the variables was to, everyone had to make a list of kids they liked. And the most popular kids had the longest lists. Meaning, they were constantly thinking, I like that about you, I like that about you. This was like, relief for me. Cause it meant, I don't have to show up as impressive, or funny, or extroverted, or be good at sports, cause I'm not. All I have to do is aggressively like people. So if you wanna be attractive, if you wanna create bonds, friend wise, romantic wise, what I want you to be doing is you're asking these questions, looking for me to's. And then you're thinking, how can I like this person more? Like, what could I ask, what could I find out that I can authentically be like, I like you? And then saying it.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Like, I cannot tell you, my best friendships have started when I don't play it cool. I do not believe in playing it cool. It doesn't work. I literally, I'm like, I like you, will you be my friend?

• 34:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  And like, I have a six and a half year old and a two and a half year old daughter. And I watch them on the playground, and it's funny, they're, they're like this. They literally will sit in the sandbox. My daughter was like, do you like trucks? And the boy was like, I like trucks. And she was like, I like trucks too. I was like, me too moment, good job Claire. And then she was like, you wanna be my friend? And he was like, yeah. That's it, they're friends. And I was like, this is it? We actually knew how to do this as kids.

• 35:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  It's what we used to do and we've, kind of, you know, we're too cool for it.

• 35:25Jay Shetty?

  I like that you did that and said that, because I do the same thing.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Oh, do you?

• 35:29Jay Shetty?

  So no, literally, it's exactly the same thing.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Can we be friends, Jay?

• 35:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I know, but.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  I like you.

• 35:32Jay Shetty?

  And that never hap- and I love that, because to me, it's, I, I have so many friends in LA, that when I met them first time, I said, I think we'd be great friends. And I'd love, I'd love to see if that's true. And like now, seven years later, whenever we're out and everyone be like, well, how did you two meet? And then my friends will always try and be polite, be like, oh yeah, we just met through. And I'm like, no, no, no, let me tell the story. I said that I liked you and I wanted to be your friend. And, and I love living that way because I think it makes life so clear. It makes life so easy. Everyone knows where everyone's intentions are. And if someone is too cool for me or doesn't like that, at least I know.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Also, like I'm, I'm allergic to it.

• 36:11Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Like, I don't do well with too cool people. Like, if you can't even show me your liking or you're kind of wanting to put a wall up, we're not going to be good friends because I love level three conversations. I like vulnerability. I like oversharing. So that's like a test also is like, I think we would be good friends. I like you. And if they're like, eh, I'm like, cool. Like, that's cool. Like, I would rather take the shot than miss it.

• 36:35Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  And so I think like, if you're listening, I think it's like, let's, if you like someone, like, show it, search for those me too moments. And then if you like them, well, first of all, search for reasons to like them. And then if you like them, say it. That right there is like the best way to try to find your people. That's going to find them.

• 36:53Jay Shetty?

  The me too goal is a real switch because I think a lot of us, when you approach someone, if you don't ask about the weather, you usually try and compliment someone. And that doesn't work. Vanessa, tell me why compliments don't work.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  We all want to be complimented, but it makes us feel very uncomfortable. Right? Like, there's this weird compliment economics where it's like, please compliment me, but don't. It's weird, right? And it also, it, it creates an odd hierarchy a little bit.

• 37:19Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Where if you're complimenting someone, it separates you. And also you're putting them in a position of receiving something they might not be ready for. Especially, I believe, and if you're gonna compliment someone, compliment them on something that you share.

• 37:33Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Right? So be like, oh my gosh, I have those shoes. I love them too. Right? Are we twinsies? I mean, I guess men don't usually say twinsies, but like, like.

• 37:40Jay Shetty?

  I'm gonna try it now that you said it.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Try it, please try it. Twinsies. Just like, see how your male friends respond? They're gonna be like, yes.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  So I think that if you're gonna compliment, compliment on a shared similarity, then you can kind of celebrate together. If you're complimenting someone one way, you're actually putting them farther away from you, not closer to you.

• 38:00Jay Shetty?

  That distance and hierarchy makes so much sense, especially when someone's new. It's different if you know someone. But if you randomly go up to someone and go, oh, I really like the color of that dress.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:09Jay Shetty?

  What are they gonna say?

• 38:10Speaker 01

  I'm like, thanks.

• 38:11Jay Shetty?

  Exactly. And now it's like, oh.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  No, actually, worse, worse. If you were to say, oh, Vanessa, I like the color of your dress.

• 38:17Jay Shetty?

  And I do, by the way.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. I'd be like, I like your color too.

• 38:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's black.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  That's what happens is like you compliment someone on something and they're uncomfortable. So what I do is I'm like, I'm gonna comment you back. And I feel so inauthentic. Right? Because then I'm like, I don't know what to say. And by the way, if you're gonna compliment someone, don't compliment the tall guy on being tall. Like, don't compliment someone on the trait that they didn't even work on.

• 38:42Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Like, compliment them on something they worked hard on.

• 38:44Jay Shetty?

  Yes. I get about my eyes all the time. That's, that's the compliment. And I always say I didn't earn them. So thanks. Like, that's my response because I'm like, I didn't do anything. Like, thanks to my parents, like, whatever.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  Also, like, what do you do? Then you're like, I like your eyes too.

• 39:00Jay Shetty?

  And the person's like, they're black.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Exactly. Thanks. And then, and then you're stuck.

• 39:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, you're stuck. And that's what I like about your goal. I really, really like that advice and I hope everyone uses it. We're trying to get a me too. And you have to have a goal to every conversation. The goal cannot be, let me get to the next question.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 39:18Jay Shetty?

  Which is usually where we get stuck, which is like, I'm just gonna live in this like jumping relationship between like.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Check boxes.

• 39:25Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, and it's like, yeah, where did you grow up? What do you do for work? Do you have any siblings? Like, all these questions that just, you know.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Okay, so let's, let's, let's play this out. Let's go even deeper.

• 39:35Jay Shetty?

  Let's do it.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  So let's say that someone's doing that to you. Okay, so there's two sides of a conversation. All of my students are high achievers, very smart, a little awkward sometimes. Hmm, those are my people. So what happens is they work on their people skills. They're like, yeah, Vanessa, like, I got it. I got, I got the context. Excuse me, I got my conversation started. I'm available, whether that's in work or at play. And then they're with someone who's doing that to them. Right? You're with someone who's like, so where are you from? You have a lot of siblings? Okay, so here's how you break that social script. One is I want you to think of what are the three questions that you're asked most? So I have the same questions I'm asked over and over again in social, social settings. And it's usually, what do you do? Where are you from? How'd you get into that line of work? That's a big one, I guess.

• 40:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Okay, so the biggest mistake you can make is you are bored by those answers and you show it. Oh, I'm from LA.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  It's like, right? It's like, yes, yes, I'm from LA, but it ends the conversation. So I want you to think of what's a way that you could answer that question that gives a hook or a story, or it's a funny moment, and it is a bridge to you asking them something else back.

• 40:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  How can you answer those questions? It's going to slightly shift or transform the conversation and makes you more charismatic. So I even think like if someone were to ask you, how are you? You can answer it, oh, seven out of 10 today. Right? Or like better on the inside than the outside. Right? Like whatever it is, like just like break the script. So if you break the script with something purposeful and you're like, okay, when someone asks me where I'm from and I say LA, I know I don't want to talk about LA. I moved for a reason. I live in Austin, Texas now, and I want to talk about something else. So what I will often say is, you know, I'm from LA and about six years ago, I moved to Austin, Texas, and now I'm a cowgirl. Right? And I wear cowboy boots. That's like my thing. And then we get into a whole, much more interesting conversation

• 41:29Speaker 01

  about cowgirls or Austin, whatever they are interested in. Then I'm looking for me twos.

• 41:33Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Right? Oh, I've been to Austin. I love, oh, yeah, talking about Austin. Do you like tacos? I like tacos too. Right? So like it weaves. And so what are the three questions you get asked the most often? And what are three answers that you can use to get you to more me too moments that authentically like them? The other thing you can do, my last, when I'm like out, I've been trying and trying to steer, is I will play verbal games. And I've actually never talked about this on a podcast before, but so we're gonna see how this sounds. But I really do this, which is I love guessing games. Like I love them. So if someone's like, how many siblings do you have? I'll be like, guess.

• 42:08Jay Shetty?

  That's good.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  And I'm so curious what they say. Right? Because then, first of all, people are like, what? Like they're like surprised that I have to say guess. I'm like, guess. What do you think I am?

• 42:17Jay Shetty?

  I'm gonna say, oh, let's guess.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Let's guess, Jay.

• 42:21Jay Shetty?

  Because I don't know.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, tell, yeah, guess.

• 42:22Jay Shetty?

  I'm gonna guess that you have one sibling.

• 42:27Jay Shetty?

  I was gonna, three? No way.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  More, yeah.

• 42:32Jay Shetty?

  Five?

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Four.

• 42:34Jay Shetty?

  Four, okay.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  And so I have an older brother.

• 42:37Jay Shetty?

  I was going one, three, five.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Like odd numbers. I have an older brother and three younger sisters.

• 42:42Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  And so you can guess. And so that already makes it way more playful, right? It's always fun, like if someone guesses I'm an only, I'm like, how dare you? How dare you? No, but then we talk about onlys. And then I, instead of asking them back, I say, can I guess yours?

• 42:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  And like, sometimes I get it right. And by the way, that feels really good.

• 42:59Jay Shetty?

  Guess mine.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh, I don't know. Oldest? No, I tell you, wait, don't, don't, don't answer. I just yelled, sorry. I got real serious.

• 43:08Jay Shetty?

  Okay, I'm leaving. I'm leaving the conversation.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  The youngest, youngest.

• 43:12Jay Shetty?

  You mean?

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Are you the youngest?

• 43:13Jay Shetty?

  No, I'm the oldest. You're gonna run the first time. I have one younger sister.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  One younger sister. Okay, so I, so it's just like fun to play the game and then you can kind of like guess. And then I can be like, oh, I didn't, I didn't peg you. I was thinking oldest or youngest. So you could kind of have the back and forth that totally changes the dynamics of the conversation. And so that's my last resort is you can play a game with them.

• 43:34Jay Shetty?

  I love that.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  I also love like if, I got this actually from Twitter and it totally works. If someone says they're from something, so where are you from?

• 43:43Jay Shetty?

  I'm from London.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  The windy city. But I always say the windy city.

• 43:46Jay Shetty?

  It's not the windy city.

• 43:49Jay Shetty?

  Isn't that like Seattle or something?

• 43:50Speaker 01

  I don't even know, I don't know.

• 43:51Jay Shetty?

  It's San Francisco, no, Chicago. Chicago or something like that.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  But you just like, you can make like funny responses back and then people, and you have a banner. You just broke the script, right? Like being a little playful in conversation also can create me too moments because you'll find your person.

• 44:04Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Right, like I try to be funny occasionally. And if you laugh at my jokes, we're gonna be friends. If you don't laugh at my jokes, it's not gonna go well, right?

• 44:12Jay Shetty?

  What I love about that is we often put so much pressure on people to be interesting and pressure on ourselves to be interesting.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:19Jay Shetty?

  And we think it's about having this unique conversation starter or this amazing point of view or this debate that, you know, it's, I feel like we put so much pressure, like we gotta start giving a TED Talk to the person sitting next to us. And actually that disengages them. I love the guessing game.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:36Jay Shetty?

  I think it applies to any of those three questions you just shared.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, all of them.

• 44:39Jay Shetty?

  Of like, where do you come from? Where do you live now? All of that. And it makes it so much more fun and you get a sense of what someone's personality is. And I like the interactivity. It's almost like, I'm sure you feel this way, when you're on stage a lot. And you're talking to an audience. My least favorite thing is someone saying, give a 60 minute keynote and don't engage the audience in the conversation. Because all of a sudden, it's one way, and I think that's what we think interesting conversations sound like, where we can just talk about our lives and come across interesting.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I also think it's so much pressure to be interesting because what is interesting is different for different people. And so if you're trying to be interesting, it's worse than fake it till you make it. It's what do I have to do to perform for you? And I don't think interactions should be a performance. They should be intentional and you're building towards something, which is, do I belong? Do I feel accepted by you? And this is like a question that I want everyone to ask themselves, especially when you think about those first impression words. Sometimes people who trigger you badly, it's because you don't feel safe. I don't mean necessarily physically safe, I mean emotionally safe. Where there's topics that you're a little scared to bring up, or there's things you

• 45:52Speaker 01

  walk on eggshells, because you just don't know how that's gonna go. And so the other test you have is you're doing this back and forth, you're getting to know them, is do I feel safe to share my real answer? Do I feel safe to answer something that's not on script? That's like not what everyone else would answer. Do I feel safe to not be interesting? Right? Like, if we have this pressure, we're ensuring it's a performance. If you're like, I'm just gonna answer and like this may or may not like click with you, then that's the ultimate belonging, I think.

• 46:23Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah. What if, what if you're in one of these conversations and you want it to end?

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:29Jay Shetty?

  Where like you're just like, I want this to end, I've been looking around, I'm trying to just edge towards the door, like sidestep.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Oh, I got you.

• 46:38Jay Shetty?

  I'm trying to figure it out, but like this guy's hitting on me, this girl's talking to me, this person's just wasting my time, I'm in this bar, I'm in this gym. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. I know how important every hire is for a business. If you need to make the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed sponsored jobs helps find quality candidates when you need the most. You can reach who you need based on whatever criteria you're looking for, like skills, certifications, or location. In fact, people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes.

• 47:23Jay Shetty?

  Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer.

• 48:08Jay Shetty?

  Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

• 48:14Jay Shetty?

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• 48:58Jay Shetty?

  Wayfair can handle delivery, installation, and assembly. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Way fit, every style, every home. What would I do?

• 49:19Speaker 01

  This is called the art of a graceful exit. And it is a skill. You have to learn it because there is going to be times where you're just not with your person. And that's okay. Okay, so here's what you do. It's three steps. Okay, step number one is you begin to non verbally signal that you want out. Okay, so we're, we kind of subconsciously pick up on these cues. So first is you want to point your toes towards the door. When we're aligned with someone, we typically angle our toes towards the person. When we're not into someone, we typically angle our body and our toes outwards. Funny anecdote here is we also tend to angle our toes towards the person we have a crush on. Or the most interesting person in the room. So whenever I'm like at office parties, I can almost always decide the office crushes.

• 49:59Jay Shetty?

  Fascinating.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Because people will subconsciously, even if they're in conversation, they'll be pointing towards the person they like the most. So when you move your toes towards the door, it's just, it subtly indicates that your body is angled outwards. Then I also want you to make less eye contact, right? So that could be an overhead gaze. I would never normally do this in a good conversation, but you want to subtly signal to someone, I need to break. Right? I need to break off. So then you're overhead gazing, you're going to glance at the door or the bathroom. That was also another very small signal. Oh, I'm disengaged. Okay, so that's step one is non verbally signal. Second is you're going to use verbal cues. The thing that I want you to do is ask for future plans. When someone is in a conversation, they're very present. When I would like to go, I'll be like, what's your plan tomorrow?

• 50:39Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Got any big plans for the weekend? Because wait, this is step number three. They're going to then answer, you know, what is their plan tomorrow? What does it have for the weekend? And they'll be like, well, have so much fun tomorrow or this weekend. It was so great talking to you and I'll see you later. Three steps. The final step is just wish them well on those future plans. Thank them for the conversation, give them a handshake or a high five, and then say, I'll see you later.

• 51:03Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's great because you can't always just be like, oh, I'm just gonna go get dessert because you might not be, you can't be like, oh, I'm leaving.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  I'll come with you.

• 51:12Jay Shetty?

  The nightmare reaction.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:14Jay Shetty?

  Like, why did I say that? Oh, you're not leaving the party yet. You just wanna talk to someone else.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  And look, I am radically honest. There are times at parties where I will say to someone, you know, it's been so great speaking to you. I kinda wanna make the rounds. There's some really cool people here. Can we chat later?

• 51:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Like, that's okay, too, right? If you've accomplished that. But the three steps works. It's like very seamless.

• 51:32Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  And then there's one other nonverbal cue, which I'm gonna teach you, that use sparingly. But nodding makes a difference with the amount that people speaks. So, research shows that a slow triple nod, one, two, three, makes the other person speak 67% longer. Yeah, so if you're in a conversation and you're going, mhm, mhm, mhm, you're literally telling them nonverbally, tell me more.

• 51:58Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Just keep on talking. So if you don't, so if you're in a good conversation and you like what they're saying, please use a triple nod. It's great. Like, you do it a lot as an interviewer. I love it, cuz then it makes me keep going. But if you're like, I don't want this person to keep talking, stop nodding. Stop nodding because you're subtly encouraging them. And then you could also try a fast triple nod. So, a slow triple nod shows engagement. A fast triple nod shows I'm done. It's like this. So, here's a good one. Mhm, mhm, mhm. Versus, mhm.

• 52:30Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Mhm, mhm, mhm. Right? Just like a subtle way of being like, got it. Got it. Wrap it up. I got it. I got it. So, just like subtle.

• 52:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  You don't wanna offend anyone.

• 52:39Jay Shetty?

  67%.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Longer, yeah.

• 52:42Jay Shetty?

  That makes so much sense. I do it in the podcast all the time.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:45Jay Shetty?

  And I've actually been in podcasts where the interviewer, some interviews are trained not to nod at all. And I find it really hard to talk to someone like that.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Agreed.

• 52:55Jay Shetty?

  Where I have to talk. And yeah, if I speak to someone who's not nodding at all, I find it really challenging.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  It's so, this is a really important thing. Is when we're talking about cues, there's a cycle. It goes decode, encode, internalize. So you're sending me cues. That is called encoding. So encoding is sending signals to someone else. You're sending me signals of warmth. Nodding is a warmth cue. Head tilting is a warmth cue, right? So that's warmth. So you encode me that signal. I decode it. Ah, he likes this answer. I internalize it, keep talking. As this cycle goes on and on, if someone is stoic or mute or they under signal, it kind of breaks that cycle and it isolates the other person. I work with a lot of leaders and they're, they wonder why their team doesn't like open up to them or why they're seen as intimidating or cold. And it's because they're under signaling.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  They're not sending enough warmth signals to make the other person feel like there's this connection. The other way that decoding, encoding, internalizing works is negative cues. So muting is one, it stops the cycle. Positive is the next, where we're like, ah, this is going well. Negative is the other one. So there was a research study. They wanted to know if, how negative cues affect someone's physiology. So they devised a little experiment where they had a participant walk into a room of a bunch of other people. And they had someone in the room, a confederate, signal a sign of social rejection. So a social rejection cue is an eye roll. It's a scoff. Right? It's like a lip purse. They had them signal this towards this unsuspecting participant.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  And what they found was, once the participant, the moment they spotted the social rejection cue, their own field of vision increased. Their pupils dilated. What happens when that, when our pupils dilate is we can take in more of our environment, like literally their field of vision increased. Why? If we see a cue of social rejection, our brain is like, uh-oh. Is anyone else signaling social rejection? What did I do wrong? And where's my escape route? Meaning that if we spot a negative cue, it changes our body.

• 54:56Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  So if you're in an interview or on a date and you're like, I don't, I don't, I don't feel great about this. Listen to that. Cause that is your body language reading part of your mind that picked up on a negative cue that your brain doesn't like. It could have been a subtle cue of social rejection. It could have been a vocal cue change that you didn't notice. It could be a negative facial expression or gesture. So for example, in that study, they were doing social rejection cues. But they even found if someone flashes a fear micro expression at you. So they widen the whites of their eyes and. Like that, we catch the fear. Like our own amygdala begins to fire. And so if you feel uneasy with someone, listen to it.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Because it means that your body has picked up on something that it did not like that was a threat. And you should dig deeper into that.

• 55:46Jay Shetty?

  So let's say you were at the gym. You said, hey. They said, hey, back. You ended up going on a couple of dates, right? You've graduated from the gym to a restaurant or a coffee shop or whatever. And now you're on a date with that person and you're trying to figure out whether they're lying or telling the truth. You're trying to figure out whether you feel good around them or not.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:09Jay Shetty?

  And you don't really figure that out until third or fourth day anyway.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 56:13Jay Shetty?

  You don't really know enough. You're not getting enough cues.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:16Jay Shetty?

  Going back to your point, especially if you're spending time with people in a very limited environment.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 56:22Jay Shetty?

  So if you're seeing someone in a coffee shop or a restaurant or going to the movies or whatever it may be, you're seeing them for one and a half hours, two hours, and it's controlled. You start to spend more time with them.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:33Jay Shetty?

  What are the negative cues we miss because we're infatuated or attracted to someone?

• 56:37Speaker 01

  The research shows that it takes 200 hours to become close friends with someone. So a soulmate or a partner, it's even more. That's a lot of hours. And we tend to make very big decisions about a relationship in the first six hours. Not enough. And so what you said was really important is first is I want you to get off script. Coffee shops, restaurants, those are very controlled environments. They've probably done those dates a lot. I want you to get off script. I want you to do what I call the car challenge, which is I want you to drive somewhere an hour away with them.

• 57:12Jay Shetty?

  Oh, wow. That's a lot of trust.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a, well, so you've had three or four dates, right? And you're like, okay, what should I do?

• 57:17Jay Shetty?

  You gotta be safe. Yeah, you gotta feel safe.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel safe, right? So but but you're like, is this clicking? Are we clicking? You might just be on script. It might be like just it's too vanilla, it's too the same. Or maybe you are picking up on something. So the road trip challenge is when you pick somewhere an hour away. That's a different activity. It could be hiking, it could be pickleball, it could be art class, it could be a wine tasting. Anything that's not restaurant or coffee shop, normal. Things you have an hour there about an hour activity to our activity and hour back. You're going to find out in that setting how they drive or how they listen to you. How they stop stopping get gas, stop and pick up some snacks like we're trying to see them in a lot of different environments. How do they treat people? How do they treat your space? You want to see them off script. That's the very first thing.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Then you're going to be looking for what I call cues of inauthenticity. Cues of inauthenticity is when your verbal does not match your nonverbal. And this is what liars do. So we do a lot of lie detection at Science of People. Because I'm fascinated by what are the cues that humans do when they're not telling the truth? And all of the lie detection cues are when there's incongruence. It means someone is saying something, but they're not showing it. So nodding is a good example of this. So we've found we we have a little game we play with people in our lab where we ask them two truths and a lie. Share two truths about yourself and one lie. Sometimes people will say yes, but shake their head no. Or say no, but shake their head. Yes, that's an incongruence and liars will often do this. So you'll ask, you know, so what do you think of the new girl?

• 58:43Speaker 01

  You know, she's um, she's great. And they're shaking their head no, but they're saying yes.

• 58:50Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I've not.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  There's a hesitation there, but we don't even notice it. But once you start to look out for it, you'll start to see these incongruences.

• 58:58Jay Shetty?

  I've just had a full light bulb moment. Like I'm like, oh, my gosh. I'm like, I do that. See, now the people do it like, you know, you just.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, wow.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  And also could be doubt, right? Like someone, someone could not know if they like the girl or not. So they're kind of, um, yeah, kind of, sort of, right? By the way, India, Bulgaria and Pakistan, nodding is a little bit different.

• 59:17Jay Shetty?

  Oh, yeah, very different.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Very different.

• 59:18Jay Shetty?

  I know India for sure.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Right. So I just like to make that note. So looking for incongruence, they're saying I'm happy, but they're not showing happy. Like a fake smile, for example, is a real smile is when we reach all the way up into these upper cheek muscles. So when I'm smiling all the way, I get these crow's feet, right? If someone says to you, oh, I'm so happy for you.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Their face is just dead on top, right? Or too much botox, either one. That's getting harder. It's making my job harder. It's making my job harder. That you know, uh oh, there's not real happiness here. And this happens a lot in dating when you'll, you'll say your truth. You'll say your passion or your value or your love. And they'll go, oh, that's nice. And they're giving you a fake smile. They're saying it's verbally okay. And your brain goes, uh oh. That's oftentimes your body has picked up on, ooh, they said it was good, but I didn't feel it was good. So you're looking for incongruent cues or clues that someone is not stating what they actually feel. And when you're off script, you see way more of them.

• 1:00:16Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  You see way, way more of them. I also think there's some cues that we can't read. For example, we catch fear through smell. So I mentioned smell before. This is a study that completely blew my mind. They brought people into their lab. They sold them up into two different groups. They had them wear sweat suits, like suits that caught their sweat. The first group had to run on the treadmill. The second group skydived for the first time. They had two collections of sweat, right? They had treadmill sweat and fear sweat. Then they had unsuspecting participants in an FMRI machine smell these two sweat samples. I had no idea what they were smelling. Gross, right? I hope they paid them well. So gross. People who smelled the fear sweat caught the fear. They smelled this random thing and their own amygdala began to light up.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  They began to feel afraid. So sometimes when you're with someone and you're like, I just feel so uneasy.

• 1:01:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  There's also this unreadable aspect, but I want you to listen to it because our brains are so smart. They are working to protect us. And so if you, you're like, I feel off. That's your alarm bells. It's probably your amygdala signaling something does not feel right here.

• 1:01:21Jay Shetty?

  Gosh, I cannot believe you can tell that much from scent, like from smell.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  Oh, it's coming. That's the studies are coming. I cannot wait for these old factory labs.

• 1:01:30Jay Shetty?

  Now, now that's all anyone's gonna do.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:01:32Jay Shetty?

  Just go around sniffing people in a bar.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  I'm into it. Like if someone runs by me, I'm like. Like, I wanna smell, I wanna smell them. I think it's important.

• 1:01:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, but how much, obviously, how much does, how much do perfumes help people lie?

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  So, all these studies are based on natural body scent. So, in these studies, they make them wear a plain white t-shirt. They don't let them wear deodorant or anything like that. So, it's natural smell. I actually think that sometimes too much cologne or perfume is like masking. Like, I don't know if you've ever been with someone where you're like, whoa, it's too much. I don't like it. I think in dating, actually, you should under-scent.

• 1:02:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  And like, let your natural scent fly.

• 1:02:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's really funny, because, yeah, yeah, my, my wife's definitely into like, natural essential oils. She won't, she won't really use any of, and, and I'm happy with that. But then, I have one cologne that I love that she hates, but everyone else in the world loves. But she likes my natural scent, but she doesn't want me to.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  Yes, I totally agree with that.

• 1:02:23Jay Shetty?

  It's an interesting one, but, but everywhere else, everyone loves it. So, I'm like, I'm gonna keep spraying this.

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. You're like, wife for other people.

• 1:02:30Jay Shetty?

  True story, yeah. My wife loves me already.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:02:36Jay Shetty?

  But, but you know what's really interesting about that is I think sometimes, we all know that, I know that there's a big difference between what you're sharing and teaching and people pleasing. There's a big difference. But, to the untrained eye, it's a fine line, where people are now trying to get a reaction.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Jay Shetty?

  And therefore, they're starting to say things that they may not mean, which is not what you're suggesting at all.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  I also think, like, I look at people pleasing as our deep desire to be liked.

• 1:03:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  It is so safe for us to be liked. And so, when I look at the research, so, research from Prince University, found that, as humans, we are trying to answer two basic questions about other human beings. Can I trust you? And can I rely on you? We are constantly trying to assess people's warmth and competence. Warmth and competence makes up 82% of our judgments of people. 82%. And so, warmth is actually what we're talking about here. In that, most people have an imbalance of warmth and competence. We're very high in warmth, maybe not as high in competence. Or we're signaling a lot of warmth, but not signaling enough competence. Highly warm folks, people who are off the charts in warmth, their primary desire is to be liked.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  Highly competent folks, this is a lot of my students, they want to be right. So a highly competent person, they're very at work. They want to be on agenda. They want to get it right. You know, you're in a relationship with a highly competent person if they constantly Google fact check you. Right? They're less concerned about you liking them, but they just want to make sure they get the facts right. A highly warm person wants you to like them, which means they often sacrifice their credibility to be liked.

• 1:04:19Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  That is actually what people pleasing is, in my opinion.

• 1:04:21Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  I think people pleasing is someone who goes, I so want to be liked that I'm willing to throw my competence out the window, just so that you like me. They're sacrificing the need to be liked for their need to be respected. I say to people pleasers, what true communication is, is showcasing both. You can be both liked and respected. You can be both friendly and credible. You can be assertive and also be nice. One of my most popular videos is A Nice Person's Guide to Being Assertive, because you don't have to sacrifice one for the other. And so for my people pleasers, what I would say is, your goal sure is to be liked, but it's also to make sure that people respect who you are and your values.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  So if you're having conversations with me too moments, what you're actually doing is, do you value that?

• 1:05:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  Do I value that? Great, we both value it. When it becomes inauthentic, when I think we get into even like manipulation, is I don't like that, and I'm going to pretend I do.

• 1:05:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  Right? When someone has a fake me too moment, like I was just watching an episode of The Kardashians, and they were interviewing someone in a job interview. This is the biggest problem in job interviews. And they asked him, do you use QuickBooks? And he was like, yeah. And they said, what do you use QuickBooks for? And he was like, Quickbooking? Like, he did not know.

• 1:05:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, well, QuickBooks.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  And that was inauthentic, because he wanted to be liked. He wanted to say he had it. He should have just said, no, I haven't met him, a fast learner.

• 1:05:46Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  When I think people pleasers get into trouble is they Pretend they like something that they don't. And that is manipulative, but also it doesn't serve you or them.

• 1:05:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and we do it and people do it to us. Right? Like if we're all honest, like everyone kind of does it. Someone may overtly do on a date, especially, especially in the beginning.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:06Jay Shetty?

  And then you realize afterwards that they didn't really know what that was or love that type of food.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Or you accidentally have lied.

• 1:06:13Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  And they pick up on your lie.

• 1:06:15Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  Right? So you're like, I, I love cats. I love them. Now I'm allergic to cats, but if I'm like, I just love a cat.

• 1:06:22Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  The other person's like, ugh. And they got this signal in their body that was like, I don't, I don't know about this person, but actually it was because you were just trying to be likable. And I would much rather you say, you know what? I love the idea of cats too.

• 1:06:37Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  But I'm allergic, right? And then everyone laughs and it's okay, right? And if that's a deal breaker for them, wouldn't you rather know?

• 1:06:43Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  Like in dating especially, I would rather you create allergies for the person. So my approach to dating, I have a couple of single friends is I'm like, don't be liked by everyone. Don't have a profile or go on a first date and try to be the most liked person. In fact, if you have things that really matter to you, share them upfront. I had a friend who was trying to date and was having a lot of trouble and I'm like, what are you putting in your profile about you? And it was the most vague, generic, like, I love beaches. It's like, everybody likes a beach. Like, everybody likes that. You know, she had all the very, and I said, get really specific. You know, like you love beaches, but what do you hate?

• 1:07:22Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  She's like, I hate camping. Like, say it.

• 1:07:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  Like, why even go on a date with a guy who loves camping? That's not gonna be you. And so I think that if you don't like something, if you're looking for me too moments and a not me too moment comes up, what an opportunity.

• 1:07:36Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  You have an opportunity to be super authentic and be maybe a little bit funny and still accept them for who they are, but realize, okay, we're not gonna, we're not gonna jive on that. And if that's a deal breaker for you, wouldn't you rather know it?

• 1:07:45Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and it, and it starts a great conversation too. I think that's the point that you think you're gonna suddenly take away the energy.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:52Jay Shetty?

  From a conversation, but if you have an interesting point of view, you have a different direction to take it, it can be great.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Some of my closest friends, we tease each other about our biggest differences. Right? Like that becomes a beautiful friendship too. So I think that's where people pleasers get in trouble and they feel bad about themselves because that, then what happens in the end, they feel unliked. And like, nothing's worse than feeling unlovable or unlikable.

• 1:08:11Jay Shetty?

  Totally. I want to go into the part you mentioned there of manipulation. Because I think people who are charismatic. And narcissists often have quite similar traits. Or at least today, we talk about them in that way.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Jay Shetty?

  And it's hard because some people just have that power and control and feel like they're almost moving everyone else around like they're pawns. And often it can be quite magnetic. We can be quite drawn to it at first because it feels, yeah, it feels like there's awe and reverence and there's this feeling of, wow, you blow me away and

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:48Jay Shetty?

  you have so much magnetic energy only to realize it was manipulation and narcissism. How do we tell the difference between charisma and narcissism?

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  This is why I like the CAR test is typically narcissists have a pattern. Narcissists blow you away with their charisma at first. You are just in awe. They know how to signal warmth and competence. They're finding me two moments. You're like, wow, I'm clicking and their confidence is contagious. We love to be around highly confident people, which often narcissists are very confident. So in that first hour, two, three hours, we're blown away. Then typically they go one of two ways. The first way is narcissists, if they don't get what they want, even a little bit, they go into victim mode. So there's a misunderstanding about narcissists, which is that they're always confident. When a narcissist doesn't get what they want or doesn't get what they feel they deserve, and listen for that word with narcissists.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  I don't deserve this kind of treatment. I deserve something better. I'm worth more. Be very aware of those words. If they don't feel like they get what they deserve or they're not getting what they're worth, they become victims. Listen for that victim language because narcissists will sometimes be very charismatic, but they're playing the victim card. And the victim card is really dangerous because then it's everyone else's fault. And then all of a sudden you're enabling it. You're like, wow, I have to protect you. You're so charismatic. And that's how they are manipulative with people is they play the victim card and you want to protect them. So be very careful of that dynamic because I think that we often are like, well, she's not a narcissist, she's suffering.

• 1:10:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  She needs my help. Hmm. That is often actually a narcissist is they're playing the victim because they want your help and that makes them feel good. That's one pattern. The second pattern is narcissists can be high conflict people.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  A high conflict person is they're very charismatic and they blow you away with their charisma. But they create all these little disagreements, fights. They create conflict around them and they step and they back up and they go, I don't know. I don't know how that happened. But they're constantly stirring or stoking conflict. Watch out for that.

• 1:10:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  That's the other reason why those car trips, getting out of restaurants and coffee shops is it's very easy to not have conflict in those very controlled settings. But if someone cuts you off on the road or someone short changes you or someone's late, you get to see, oh, wow. They play victim or they're creating conflict where there doesn't really need to be conflict. Then when they're brainstorming in the car, because there's something that happens when you're next to someone.

• 1:11:16Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  I think they verbalize differently. Like typically, women like to dyad, have conversation like this, face to face. Men sometimes like to have conversations side by side. It's why they like talking at a bar. It's because they're side by side. They like talking on a walk or a hike. They like talking in a car. So sometimes if you're next to someone and they're just driving or you're driving and they're listening, they'll say things they wouldn't normally say in a, in a face to face dyad. And you might hear, oh, that's interesting, those patterns. I, I didn't know that you felt that way about that thing. And so you want to make sure that you're looking for those secret patterns of manipulators, not just the opposite.

• 1:11:53Jay Shetty?

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• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  This one's...

• 1:13:26Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that, I mean, that, what you just said there about the way we sit and speak to people, it's a lot more easy to be open with someone if you're not staring eye to eye, especially for men, I assume.

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:13:37Jay Shetty?

  And there's a sense of, yeah, there's a sense of we're kind of moving in the same direction rather than against each other that kicks in. I think there was a, there was a story about how Steve Jobs always used to do walking meetings like that. He always wanted to walk side by side with people.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, like, with friends, I, or even if business friends come into town, I always ask for a walk and talk, always. And I never say, "Let's get coffee." I'm always like, "Let's get tacos."

• 1:14:03Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Like, just to, like, break it up, break the script a little bit. And I do find there's something about walking and movement that also, you have more breath, you're looking around. I, I have a secret feeling that when I walk and talk with someone, they're more creative.

• 1:14:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  They're like more open minded, like they they go places that we could never have gotten. I swear, we could have never gotten over a coffee.

• 1:14:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, I agree. I I think the big thing I'm taking away is this off script idea.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:30Jay Shetty?

  It's this breaking the script, it's interrupting the pattern.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:33Jay Shetty?

  Because we're all so caught up in our patterns. And by the way, that makes you boring as well.

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:14:37Jay Shetty?

  It makes you less interesting. Just as you said earlier, if you're being asked the same three questions, it's hard to answer them in an interesting way. It's hard to make how many siblings you have, an interesting conversation on the thirty seventh time over coffee.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  But when they're guessing, it's always interesting.

• 1:14:54Jay Shetty?

  Exactly. And that's and that's what I love, how you've interrupted the pattern, whether that's through the questions you ask, whether that's through gamification, whether it's through changing the path, the way you're connecting.

• 1:15:05Speaker 01

  And also, let's get to the chemistry of this. When you give an exciting answer or a different answer, you are creating dopamine. Now, dopamine does a lot of things in our bodies, but in conversation, dopamine is the chemical of motivation and excitement. So if I asked you a question or answered a question in a different way, I highlighted a new neural pathway, my brain went, woo, something new. And that dopamine does a couple of things. One, it gets you excited, it makes you feel more positive. Two, Dr. John Medina found that dopamine makes you more memorable. So if you're in conversation and someone's gone on fifty first dates, or like you're in a business meeting, especially in business, I say to people, create dopamine in the boardroom.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  You've got to make your presentation stand out. You've got to create dopamine in an interview. If you're pitching or working with a lot of entrepreneurs, you've got to create dopamine in those investors. Because dopamine is what makes the brain go, oh, this person gave me pleasure. I want to remember them. When you trigger dopamine, people are more likely to remember your name, what you talked about, and what you care about. So if you want to be more memorable, the best thing you can do is Try to create excitement moments for the both of you. Me too moments are typically excitement. That's the secret motivation why I want you to have me too moments. And then also sharing stories. I kind of have like a story toolbox. I like keep all my favorite stories in a little note on my phone. Cause I just like telling them, you know? And so like start collecting or cataloging stories. Cause that, those are gifts for people. You tell a good story, someone's like, huh.

• 1:16:33Speaker 01

  Like they like love it. And then lastly is juice excitement. So when we talk about conversation starters, I have a couple of favorites. So if you're gonna stop asking, what do you do? Where are you from? I love context cues. The other thing you can do with people you already know, especially at work, is ask, working on anything exciting these days? So like I had this problem where I would see people who I kind of knew, like friends of friends or like family members I don't see all the time. And I'd be like, how's life? Like, what do you do? So now I always ask, working on anything exciting these days? That is a dopamine gift for their brain. Cause in their brain, then they have to go, oh, you broke their script. Exciting, exciting, exciting. They're literally searching their brain for something exciting.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  When they find it, they go, oh yeah, you know, actually. And they tell you. So you're actually like juicing dopamine. You're borrowing it from other area of their life. And by the way, if they say no, what a great opportunity for vulnerability. Like I've asked it maybe one out of every 10 times. I'll say, working on anything exciting or have anything exciting coming up? And they'll be like, huh, no.

• 1:17:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  And I'll be like, wow, what, what's going on? Tell me what's actually happening in your life.

• 1:17:43Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  And we have skipped, how are you? Busy, good. If you ask someone, how are you, they're gonna be like, busy, good, good, busy. How about you?

• 1:17:51Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, a hundred percent.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  And so I'd rather like get past that. And so asking that question is an unlock. So keep that one in your back pocket. It's my favorite.

• 1:17:58Jay Shetty?

  You literally read my mind. I was about to shift to work.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah, let's do it.

• 1:18:01Jay Shetty?

  You already went ahead of it, which is great. So I'm really glad that you gave the alternative because I've had a lot of people that I've asked that question to lately. And they actually feel so much pressure. Because I think we're living at this time now where everyone's doing something so big, which is what it looks like.

• 1:18:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:18Jay Shetty?

  And so then when you ask someone that, they're scared that they don't have something big to say.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:18:23Jay Shetty?

  And so they either shrink. And they actually get scared of that conversation. They go, I don't really want to talk about that. I get a lot of that sometimes. Or someone like, oh, that's a lot of pressure exciting.

• 1:18:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:33Jay Shetty?

  I'm just trying to get by.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:35Jay Shetty?

  Like, that happens.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:37Jay Shetty?

  And it's interesting that even though it's such a better question than what do you do? How's life? How's it going? It can create some friction. And so I really like talking about it when it doesn't go your way.

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  So I just want to acknowledge, it takes courage to break scripts.

• 1:18:51Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  I know scripts are comfortable. Like, I know that the reason why we're like, how are you? Good, is because it's safe.

• 1:19:00Jay Shetty?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  And so I want you to just acknowledge yourself if you're thinking about asking these questions. Like, it does take some social courage, but it's worth it.

• 1:19:08Jay Shetty?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, we got to harness, like, okay, it might be uncomfortable. You might, someone might not have a good answer to that, or a good answer. I didn't even say good answer. They might not have an exciting answer, or they might be more vulnerable. But any answer is an opportunity for connection.

• 1:19:21Jay Shetty?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  Whatever they say, at least it's not a social script.

• 1:19:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  And your other option, so you can accept it with vulnerability. Oh, my gosh, tell me, tell me, is it been hard? What's going on? Or you could have your own answer. So I've asked someone that question. They're like, huh. And they kind of are thinking about it. And I go, well, while you're thinking about it, here's what's exciting with me. And then, and then I, I take the ball back.

• 1:19:43Jay Shetty?

  That's good, that's good.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  Right? So a conversation is like soccer, right? We're passing this ball back and forth, or basketball. I don't really play sports. What's a sport you like pass the ball? Rugby? I don't know. So like, like you pass the ball back and forth, but in basketball, you're supposed to dribble. Right? So like, I shouldn't do sports metaphors. I really shouldn't. I don't know anything about sports.

• 1:20:00Jay Shetty?

  Basketball's the closest.

• 1:20:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:02Jay Shetty?

  It's gonna be hard.

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  Okay, so pass the basketball back and forth. When I ask, do anything exciting recently? I pass the ball to you. And then you're like, holding the ball. And you're like, if you can't think of it, take the ball back.

• 1:20:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Right? Like, just take it back from them. So they're like, okay. And they can listen, they can think, and that also works really well.

• 1:20:18Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and any question, I always say to people, any question you are gonna ask someone else, make sure you know the answer to your own.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:20:24Jay Shetty?

  Right? Because I think so often we'll ask a question, and they'll be like, well, what about you?

• 1:20:28Speaker 01

  You're like, uh.

• 1:20:28Jay Shetty?

  And you're like, uh, you know? And so be ready to answer it.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  I also like, I just want to make a, like, a push here, if, if, if someone's willing to be brave, which is, we are more interesting and exciting when we do exciting, interesting things. This means getting off social media. This means not watching the show everyone else is watching. This means getting up and trying different things. And so I also like, a little side, like, just, ah, like, I just want to, like, share with the world is like, May we all be always working on something a little exciting or a little interesting for ourselves. And if the side benefit is we have great conversations, great. When you become known for asking these questions, you also inspire others to do something a little bit courageous. And so, for example, I have a friend that always, always, whenever we get together, he always asks, what are you learning?

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  And the first time he asked me that question, I was like, huh? I was like, I'm learning to survive with my kids. But now, I know he's gonna ask me that question. You know what? I'll be darned, I learn something every time before I see him.

• 1:21:29Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  Like, I will go find something to learn. And you know what? That makes me better.

• 1:21:33Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:21:34Speaker 01

  Like, he had the courage to ask me that question for the first time and me not have a good answer. And he rescued me. He talked about what he was learning. But now, I am better for that question because I wanna learn something every time I see him. And speaking of work, I noticed, so my team is all over the world. Yay, Science People team. We're all over the world. And I noticed that we have a team call virtually on Tuesdays. I noticed that like, the first five minutes of our call was like, this like, kind of small talk, like a little bit negative, kinda awkward. And so I thought, you know what? We're gonna have a new routine that the moment we get on the call, we all share, tell me something good. And so, our team meeting always starts to tell me something good. We go around and everyone shares something good, something small, something big.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  And not only does it make our team call so much more interesting because I learn the most interesting things about my team, but also, one of my team members told me that Monday is her do something good day because she wants to have something good to share in the meeting. So like, be the person known for it. Like, do an icebreaker in your team meetings. I set out an icebreaker every Monday in my newsletter. Every Monday, I have a work-appropriate, somewhat exciting, kinda interesting icebreaker that's a gift to you. So like, be the person known for bringing those icebreakers. And people might grumble, they might roll their eyes, but you know what? Secretly, they like it.

• 1:22:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, of course they do.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  Secretly, they like it. And if they don't, they're not your person.

• 1:22:50Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. What was this? Do you know? Give me some of the cues that.

• 1:22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So like, I always try to think of something that's like, breaking a script but a little interesting. So like, I think that this week was, are you an introvert, ambivert, or extrovert?

• 1:23:00Jay Shetty?

  Got it.

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Very helpful, by the way. Like, you should know in your friend group and your work team who is an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert. Because introverts get energy from being alone. And especially at work, they are more creative alone. So, the worst thing you can do to an introvert is have a brainstorm meeting. Where you don't tell them what you're brainstorming. So you bring them into the room and you're like, okay, guys, let's brainstorm all the big ideas for next year. And they're like, they're trying to think in their head. If you would just give them a little warning beforehand, they would come very prepared. So you should know who needs that warning time. Extroverts get energy from being with people. Now, at work, how this shows up is if an extrovert has a good day, they want to celebrate with people. They want to hop on a call, they want to pop by your office, they want to chit chat your

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  ear off. Good to know. If they have a bad day, they also want to call you, chit chat, or stop by your office. And so you need to know who's their person. It shouldn't be an introvert. And so this is like, pair the extroverts together, right? Like, I have a be wonderful sales team and they are my extroverts. And I'm not an extrovert, I'm an ambivert. And so they have a Slack channel that I don't even know how to log into Slack.

• 1:24:07Jay Shetty?

  Me too.

• 1:24:08Speaker 01

  I cannot. I cannot Slack. I don't know if it's a verb or it's a noun, but I can't do it. But they love it and they're all extroverts together. And so I'm like, go be extroverts, my salespeople, yes. So you should be very purposeful. So that question, and what my readers have told me is it's sparking these conversations of like, how can I serve you?

• 1:24:27Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  Like, you're an introvert, so if you're having a bad day, do you want space? Like, introverts, if you give them bad news and then you're like, any questions? Want to talk it through? They're like, no. So the best thing is like, give them the bad news and be like, like, why don't you take a day or two? We'll regroup on Thursday. So like, just the way that we communicate, if we just talk about it, we're honoring everyone, we're serving everyone.

• 1:24:48Jay Shetty?

  I've always struggled with that because everyone in my life thinks I'm an extrovert.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  I know, yeah, but I know.

• 1:24:53Jay Shetty?

  But I get energy when I'm alone. I work on my own. I don't like working in groups and brainstorming, it's not my vibe. I have to dive deep on my own.

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:04Jay Shetty?

  I like dealing with problems on my own.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:06Jay Shetty?

  So I'm not, but I'm not an introvert, I'm an ambivert.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:08Jay Shetty?

  Why? What's the difference?

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  Okay, so 80% of people are ambiverts. So it's actually most people, very few people are true introverts and true extroverts. We don't talk about ambiversion enough. Ambiversion is a superpower. Ambiversion means that around the right people, you get energy, and around the wrong people, you lose energy.

• 1:25:26Jay Shetty?

  I'm in.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And around the right situations, you get energy. Okay, so if you're an ambivert, it also means ambiverts are able to dial up. This is why oftentimes amaverts are mistaken as like outgoing introverts or like social introverts, which is you can dial, right? Like you can dial for two hours, but like if I go to a happy hour and people are always like, what are you talking about awkward? They don't know that I spent two hours flat on my back in the hotel room. Do you know what I mean? Like they don't see the recharge process because amaverts have this power. We can dial up and we can mirror and match. Amaverts are usually highly empathetic. We are chameleons. We are social chameleons. So amaverts have this amazing skill where they can dial up to match an extrovert energy. They can be the life of the party if they want to, but they also can have these beautiful,

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  quiet introvert conversations, but they need a lot of recharge time in between. And so I say it's a superpower and you just know how to, what charges your social battery more or less? I will say for amaverts, our biggest struggle is ambivalence. Extroverts can like everyone. They can find something good about everyone, even with a person who is meh. They can still get energy because they are fun.

• 1:26:35Jay Shetty?

  Oh yeah, I've got friends like that.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Right. I have a friend who is dating right now and she always says, you know, I never know on a date if, if we're having fun or I'm just fun.

• 1:26:46Jay Shetty?

  I have a friend that I say, I'm like, you could have dated or married anyone.

• 1:26:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:52Jay Shetty?

  Because he will just fall madly in love. He'll be, he'll make it good.

• 1:26:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:55Jay Shetty?

  He'll make any.

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  And extroverts struggle with this. She really struggles. She does like, I don't know which one it is.

• 1:27:00Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  So that's extrovert. Amaverts and introverts know who their toxic people are. They are like, if I'm not a heck, yes, I'm not going. But amaverts, we tend to be more people pleasing where we'll be like, do I like that person? Do they like me? We often have people on our calendar where we look at it and we're like.

• 1:27:24Speaker 01

  We tend to have friends out of habit.

• 1:27:26Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  Like, they've just been friends for like a long time. And we like default to the friendship, but actually the friendship, we're not like getting a lot of energy, we're not giving or getting a lot of energy. So it's really important for ambiverts, if this is you listening, don't be ambivalent about your relationships. Ambivalent relationships actually take way more out of you than toxic relationships. When you look at your calendar and you see precious social time being given to someone who's like, meh, you come back a little drained, you come back a little more tired. It makes you not believe in relationship.

• 1:27:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:56Speaker 01

  And so I would rather you feel heck yes about someone than ambivalent. And that's the curse of ambiverts, the only curse of our kryptonite to our superpower, is we can sometimes let a relationship go that really shouldn't be.

• 1:28:08Jay Shetty?

  Oh, and you allow for it to continue?

• 1:28:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you don't know how to stop it and you don't want to hurt their feelings.

• 1:28:14Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  And you wouldn't know how to have a friendship breakup anyway. And you also, I think that sometimes ambiverts aren't sure what's fun. It's like the weird, I don't know if this is me, like I'm, I don't know if this is just a woman thing or not. I don't know if you have this. Sometimes I do things and I'm like, am I having fun?

• 1:28:29Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  I don't know if it's my age or, but I will do things that I've done before. And I wonder like, is this fun? Was Netflix at home better? I, I don't know. I think it's an ambivert thing, that's something that I've been sort of wrestling with of like, sometimes I don't even know what fun is.

• 1:28:46Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, no, no, I want to react, there's two thoughts that came to mind to the first part you talked about. I always like to remind people that there's two ways of growing in a friendship. There's growing together and there's growing apart.

• 1:28:59Speaker 01

  Only those two?

• 1:29:01Jay Shetty?

  Notice how they both say growing.

• 1:29:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:03Jay Shetty?

  Right, but when we're growing apart, we think we lost something or we think it ended or we think we failed and it's like, no, that was growth too. And there was growing together, but we think if you're growing together, then it's going right. And if you're growing apart, it's growing, going wrong. And it's like, no, there's growth. And so I always like to remind myself that, but to your other point, I think it's because time has become more valuable.

• 1:29:27Jay Shetty?

  And our self-awareness has risen at the same time as we value time. So I'm the same. I now find it much more frustrating to watch a bad show in the evening and feel like I wasted three hours of my evening than I ever did before.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:45Jay Shetty?

  So I don't know if it's an ambivert thing or a personal or an age thing. Or I just know that I'm like, like me and my wife went back and forth on that a couple of years ago. I was just like, I'm not getting anything out of this.

• 1:29:55Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:29:56Jay Shetty?

  Like, if we want to do something together, I want to do something that helps us connect and go deep.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:00Jay Shetty?

  Or I'd rather go read and work, to be honest, because I'd get so much more out of that.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:05Jay Shetty?

  Than I would have sitting here and watching nothing.

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, and I, I.

• 1:30:10Jay Shetty?

  Unless it's a great show, obviously.

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  Of course, and that's magic.

• 1:30:13Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:30:13Speaker 01

  And so I think that like, I'm having a personal struggle with this right now, where I have some beautiful friendships. But sometimes I'm having conversation and I'm wondering if we're getting anywhere.

• 1:30:23Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  Which is, I feel bad. I'm like, I don't want to be productive in a friendship, but like, I want to like, like, figure each other out. Or like, let's be laughing or I, and so sometimes I'm like, where are we going?

• 1:30:36Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  And I don't know what that is, but it's been a little bit of a challenge. And I'm also a working mom. And so I think sometimes I, there's less me too moments.

• 1:30:47Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  Sometimes unless you're also a working mom, and then I feel lonely. So like, I think this is a work in progress.

• 1:30:54Jay Shetty?

  No, that's really interesting because I think it's for people who've optimized all areas of their life.

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  Me.

• 1:31:00Jay Shetty?

  Yes, there's, there's also a sign of I'm looking for optimization. But the way you just explained it, which I loved, is what we're ultimately doing is looking for new states of belonging.

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:12Jay Shetty?

  So what I was saying to one of my friends the other day, I said, my oldest friends in London will always be my best friends. There is never going to be someone who knows me that deeply intimately or as long.

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:23Jay Shetty?

  But I need a new set of friends that have similar lives to me today. Because I have different me twos, now using your language, I have different me twos with them that I can't have with my old friends.

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:37Jay Shetty?

  And so it's not a replacement or a substitute, but it is finding people that I feel. We both have podcasts and we can talk about all the challenges that come with the podcast. Right. We both travel the world too much and you know, whatever. And I need to have someone that I can vent about those things and talk about those things.

• 1:31:52Speaker 05

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• 1:32:21Speaker 06

  Mr. President, my company informed me of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:32:25Speaker 07

  On October 2nd.

• 1:32:26Speaker 06

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:32:30Speaker 07

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 1:32:38Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze in the atmosphere.

• 1:32:42Speaker 07

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:32:45Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:32:46Speaker 07

  Digger, see the trailer online, only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R, under 17, not admitted without parent.

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  Yes, so I think that's like the challenge of modern friendship.

• 1:32:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  I also think it's the challenge of dating right now. Do you date someone who is exactly your same? Or do you date someone where you have shared values, but you're very different?

• 1:33:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  And I think that's a real challenge in friendship too, and I don't know the answer.

• 1:33:10Jay Shetty?

  I've found the great relationships to not having the same exact value. I actually think it's very rare to truly have the same exact values.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:19Jay Shetty?

  Because push comes to shove, you're gonna choose something over the other.

• 1:33:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:23Jay Shetty?

  But I've found that the best relationships I have are with people who respect my values and I respect theirs.

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:33:30Jay Shetty?

  So we don't even have to agree.

• 1:33:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:32Jay Shetty?

  But I really value that your value makes you you. And so I respect it.

• 1:33:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:33:39Jay Shetty?

  And you value that my value makes me me and you respect it. And that allows us to operate in our own universe and world. But have a mutual sense of appreciation.

• 1:33:49Speaker 01

  And that also brings up a point of like, I think that we should be, one of my favorite motions that we don't talk about enough is awe.

• 1:33:55Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  If you respect someone else's value, like hopefully you could even be awed by it. Like I have friends who have an incredible work ethic. Do I don't work that hard, right? Like I work, but like I do a lot with my family. Like I spend a lot of time moming. Most of my time in the week, I only spend about 15 hours a week working. The rest of my work is moming. But I so respect my friends who just, they just kill it. They're always working and there's a little bit of awe there. I'm like, wow, like you're just killing it. So I think that like it's who can create awe for you.

• 1:34:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:28Speaker 01

  Where they're so kind that you're awed by them. They're so driven that you're awed by them. They're so warm that you're awed by them. And so I think that like, that's a good way to think of it is it's not the same. It's that you respect them enough and you have some me too moments, of course. But like you can have a little bit of awe in all your relationships. Even like in my marriage, I do conversations with my husband all the time. And one of the ones we did recently is in my newsletter, which is, who is your role model? Which is different than who is your hero? Like hero is like more of like, like idolizing them. Whereas like a role model is someone that you maybe aspire to be like. And he said, me. And I was like, what? Why? And he was like, you know, you just, you're, you're, you're you. And I love that about you. And I was like, wow, like this, it's so important that we're awed by our partners.

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

  And so when you're dating, I think a good little litmus test for yourself is, am I inspired by this person? Like, am I in awe of who they are or what they do or what they believe? Because if the answer is yes, that's a keeper. Like that's a keeper. It's more important than a checklist. All my ladies listening, I look, I know we love a checklist, but those checklists don't always serve us.

• 1:35:35Jay Shetty?

  Oh, definitely not. Those, those are parameters are blocking people. Like he has to be six foot four. And it's like, you could have a six foot three guy who is perfect.

• 1:35:43Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:35:43Jay Shetty?

  But the filter has kept him out.

• 1:35:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I think like, maybe like lovingly burn the checklist.

• 1:35:49Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  With like a scented candle. It's like, burn it, because I don't think it's serving you.

• 1:35:54Jay Shetty?

  And you have a nice scent and that will help.

• 1:35:56Speaker 01

  And you have a beautiful scent. And then just go out and just, you know, find your person.

• 1:35:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. Oh, gosh. I wanted to talk a bit about women in the workplace.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:03Jay Shetty?

  Because I think, and, and as you just talked about, you know, being a working mom, and I think about women in the workplace. And I think about how cues and body language are very different in how we perceive men and women. And whenever I speak to women, they'll say, I get seen as being difficult instead of being direct.

• 1:36:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:36:23Jay Shetty?

  I'm seen as being argumentative as opposed to being assertive. I'm seen as being moody as opposed to just having a failed, rejected day or whatever would have happened.

• 1:36:36Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:36:36Jay Shetty?

  And I feel like the standards are different. What does a woman do when she feels that her directness is being seen as difficulty?

• 1:36:45Speaker 01

  So women are actually facing two challenges in the workplace today. One is exactly what you said, that we can be seen as bossy or dominant when we're actually just stating our point of view. Assertiveness is bossiness. But on the other hand, we're also struggling with being too likable, being interrupted, being underestimated, being too soft. And so we actually have two sides that we're trying to avoid. We have this very narrow valley we're allowed to operate in, right? Can't be too friendly, can't be too smiley, can't be too likable because it won't be taken seriously. Oh, but can't be too assertive, can't be too dominant or else we'll be seen as bossy. So we have this super narrow lane with which we can operate in. So what I think is really, really important is focusing on the two traits that matter. These are the only two traits that matter, which are warmth and competence.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  When we are with someone who signals, you can trust me, you can like me, I am open to you, and you can rely on me, I'm productive, I'm capable. Those are in that valley and they are the most important signals that you can have in anything. Video calls, Slack, your LinkedIn profile. And so I wanted, this is a really weird challenge I want you to start with. We have the power of AI now. This is a new thing that has just come up. I want you to open up your favorite AI tool and I want you to do two things. I want you to copy and paste your LinkedIn profile. I want you to put it in AI and ask AI, how warm and competent am I?

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  What's incredible is the warmth and competence research that came out of Princeton, which was done by Dr. Susan Fisk. It was done in 2002 and it's been replicated. It's a very solid piece of research. AI models are trained in it. They know about warmth and competence. So put it in AI, ask, "How am I coming across warm or competent?" AI will tell you, based on the words you use. Then ask it, "Make it more warm and competent," and just see what they change. Then what I want you to do is take five important emails that you've recently sent. What we don't realize is our cues are changing the way people treat us. So the types of words you use in your emails are changing people's perception of your bossiness, or I would say, over friendliness.

• 1:38:50Speaker 01

  Take five emails you spent some time crafting, put them into AI, and ask AI, "How warm am I? How competent am I? How could I have done better?" We can use AI as a charisma coach, and it is incredibly helpful to see, are you leaking? Are you showing cues of warmth and competence just verbally? Like, forget in person, like, forget the nonverbal. We have to start with email first. That will be a really important test, right off the bat. See what it says. And it will tell you, "Oh, you're leaning far warm." So for example, in our research, we have students who are off the charts in warmth. They love emojis. Haha. Okay. My highly warm folks, oh my goodness, they love emojis and exclamation points.

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  And they love words like yay, fab, whoop, and wow. Haha. Okay. These are my, I know, I, when I, I can read emails from a person and be like, "This person's highly warm," and they're interrupted in meetings. "This person is highly warm and they're not taken seriously." "This person is highly warm and they're getting pushed back on their salary range." "This person is highly warm and they are not being seen as credible in their interviews." I can look at your emails and I can tell you what professional challenges you're facing, and so can you. Highly competent folks, on the other hand, they underexclaim, they don't use a lot of emojis, and they love data percents, numbers and figures. They love those. In fact, for a highly competent person, it's physically painful to use an exclamation point.

• 1:40:15Speaker 01

  It's like, oh, but it's not credible. But you know what? That means you're undersignaling warmth. It means if you are, if you are too formal, too sterile in your communications, that could be the reason that people are like, oh, I do, like, she doesn't give me a good feeling. I can't connect to her. She's too dominant. And this comes directly from the research. And this is a quote. I remember, I don't remember quotes often, but this quote struck me so deeply. Competence without warmth leaves us feeling suspicious.

• 1:40:45Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:40:45Speaker 01

  This is the curse of highly smart women. Highly smart women are in the workplace and they're, they have great ideas. They have super high competence and they rely on their smarts. They're like, my ideas are so strong, my, my prep, my presentations, I know my stuff. I don't need the warmth. My ideas are so good, they'll, they'll live on their own. But the research shows it doesn't matter how smart you are. It doesn't matter how good your ideas are. It doesn't matter how well prepared you are. I'm sorry, if you do not showcase it with warmth, people are suspicious of you.

• 1:41:18Jay Shetty?

  Oh, that's so good.

• 1:41:20Speaker 01

  And so we have to be able to balance out our competence with our warmth, those ideas, with the, the lubricant of warmth.

• 1:41:26Jay Shetty?

  That is so good. That is so good. And, and, and you're so right that we all think we can compensate for our lack of warmth with competence.

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:41:34Jay Shetty?

  Or we can compensate for our lack of competence with warmth.

• 1:41:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:41:37Jay Shetty?

  And the point is, people won't respect or like you based on, they'll like you if you're warm, but they won't respect you if you're not competent.

• 1:41:44Speaker 01

  And many have the same problem. I think that women's valley is just smaller.

• 1:41:47Jay Shetty?

  I agree. I really like that. Yeah.

• 1:41:48Speaker 01

  That we just have a very narrow way to be. And like even sometimes like I do a lot of interviews and I'm, I'm on, you know, social media a lot. Even in my grid on Instagram, I am trying to balance this very narrow lane of warmth and competence. It's why I think so many like women, we feel like we have to share like our breakfast. We're like, we feel like we have to share because we're like, oh, I don't want to be too competent. I don't want to be too smart on that side. And so we, we also, we, we compensate or try to balance in the wrong ways. And so I would much rather you take control of your interactions, right? We talk about control. That's the way we do it is we know, okay, there's 97 cues. Here's warm ones. Here's competent ones. I'm going to choose my recipe, right?

• 1:42:30Speaker 01

  Like I look different than other women because I don't want to use all the same cues. But I need to find what's the recipe that I feel the most comfortable with? What's the flavor of charisma that I like the most? It makes me feel like myself.

• 1:42:42Jay Shetty?

  That, I mean, that is the recipe for respect.

• 1:42:44Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:42:45Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's as simple as that. And everything we've talked about today, what I deeply appreciate is that it's earned, it's built, it's engineered, it's prepared for. It's not something that someone just has and turns up with, which is this myth that I think makes people go, oh, God, they're just special.

• 1:43:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, like, sometimes in my comments, I try not to read comments. But sometimes in my comments, people say, you know, just show up as yourself. You know, this is, this is manipulative. This is engineering. And I'm like, yeah. Because if you are lucky enough that you can show up and just be charismatic with friends, amazing, I am so happy for you. But most of us don't have that privilege. Like, I do not. And so I think that, yeah, it is a little bit engineered in the sense of if you feel competent and you feel warm, you should know how to showcase that. I often felt warm and felt competent, but had no idea how to show it. And so I think that there is a rare bird of magic people, and they are amazing, and we can learn from them. But for most of us, it's just dialing up our natural warmth and competence

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  and just knowing how to show it.

• 1:43:50Jay Shetty?

  I want to remind people, I think this stuff can be used disingenuously.

• 1:43:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 1:43:54Jay Shetty?

  And it's only disingenuous if it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, where it shifts into manipulation. It shifts to like trying to get something out of something and extraction and lying and, you know.

• 1:44:06Speaker 01

  This is my greatest fear, by the way.

• 1:44:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:08Speaker 01

  Like, before I came out with Cues especially, I had like a, like a life crisis because I started writing the book and I was like, oh, no. Like, this could be used for evil. And like, I had a whole thing with my publisher where I was like, I don't know if I should publish this. Like, I don't, these are tools that people could use for bad. And I, and she was like, yeah, but they could also be used for good. And so I sat with my team and I talked to them about it and we decided to, to move forward with it, obviously. Um, and it, you know, it's changed so many people. But that is my biggest fear, is that people will use this for bad, not good. And so it's really important, I think, for everyone listening, that if you have the intention to build friendships and to find your people and to be warm,

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  that's why we started off with that word. Whatever word it is, great. Like, that is your intention and that is only searching for good. And that should always be our intention.

• 1:45:02Jay Shetty?

  I love that. Vanessa, you are incredible. I think you masterfully go between

• 1:45:08Speaker 01

  No compliments.

• 1:45:08Jay Shetty?

  Warmth and confidence. I can now. We spent two hours together. No, I mean, it's, I think the work you're doing is amazing and I think it's so needed in a time when

• 1:45:20Jay Shetty?

  a lot of us are dealing with low self-esteem, low confidence. We think everyone else is impressive and we're not.

• 1:45:27Speaker 01

  And we're lonely.

• 1:45:28Jay Shetty?

  And we're lonely.

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  And we're underestimated. Yes.

• 1:45:31Jay Shetty?

  And we look around and we think we're the only one struggling. When the reality is, someone just had the chance to develop a few of these skills, maybe in a workplace, maybe in college, maybe their parents had some of these naturally. And you don't have to feel that what you have now is all you have.

• 1:45:50Speaker 01

  That's it. And not everyone is going to be your flavor.

• 1:45:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  You don't have to let everyone like you. In fact, that doesn't, it's impossible. So I would rather you go into conversation, finding your people, the people who like your weirdness, the people who like your awkwardness, the people who truly value what you value, and everyone else, wish them well.

• 1:46:09Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:10Speaker 01

  But like, life is too short to spend time with people that we're ambivalent about. Life is too short to not say, hey, like, it's too short.

• 1:46:16Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. And it's, there's this old meme that I love that people post and it says, confidence isn't, everyone will like me. Confidence is, I'll be okay if everyone doesn't.

• 1:46:29Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:46:30Jay Shetty?

  And that, I've always loved that because I think, we think confidence means, oh, everyone likes them. And A, that's not true for anyone at all. And B, it's, no, I'll be okay if they don't because I know why I did that. I know why I showed up that way. I know why I said, hey, because life's too short.

• 1:46:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:46:48Jay Shetty?

  I know why I made eye contact because I wanted to form a real connection. I know why we went on a road trip because I wanted to make sure that someone was not just being a script.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  And congruent with me. Yeah.

• 1:47:01Jay Shetty?

  It's like, I did all of that and I know why I did it, even if it didn't go the way I wanted it to go.

• 1:47:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:06Jay Shetty?

  Vanessa, thank you so much for showing up in your full self. We end every episode of On Purpose with the final five. These have to be answered in one word to one sentence, maximum.

• 1:47:16Speaker 01

  I'm not going to overthink this.

• 1:47:18Jay Shetty?

  Vanessa, your first question is, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received?

• 1:47:23Speaker 01

  Don't say yes to everything.

• 1:47:25Jay Shetty?

  Good advice. Uh, question number two, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?

• 1:47:30Speaker 01

  Just be yourself.

• 1:47:33Speaker 01

  Doesn't help me.

• 1:47:33Jay Shetty?

  It doesn't help, yeah, because you don't even know what you're capable of.

• 1:47:37Speaker 01

  When people would say that to me, what if you don't like yourself? I had a long time where I didn't like myself. So when someone said be yourself, that was like the worst way to be. And so I had to figure out something else. And so I think that that was a hard, that was the worst advice because it actually didn't help me.

• 1:47:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love the answer. Question number three, and you can expand on this a bit because I think it's really important. I feel like right now we're losing a lot of these cues because most of us are on a dating app and we're messaging. So you don't even get to see what someone's looking at. You don't get the, hey, hey, you don't get that.

• 1:48:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:14Jay Shetty?

  You don't get the smell.

• 1:48:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:16Jay Shetty?

  You don't get the ability to give twenty nine, you know, you don't get it. And so what are we losing and how do we navigate it?

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  What we're losing is freedom because they're so narrow, those apps. It's like, how do you look? Okay, now what are these five questions that are on your profile? How did you answer them? Oh, now we're going to text in this very weird, limited way back and forth. And so we lack the freedom to be like, so like, what brings you here to this gym? Oh, you come here a lot? Oh, I saw you with your friend. Like, we need more freedom to find our people. I don't dislike dating apps because I think they've created a number of beautiful friendships. And but what I think is really important is you don't use them as your only vehicle for dating. Make them be one vehicle. But then if you're dating and you're really serious about finding your person, make it your part-time job. And go to the places where your person would be.

• 1:49:12Speaker 01

  So one of my friends is also dating and she has a dog. And I was like, sure, do the apps one, you know, thirty minutes a day at the most. Otherwise, I want you to go to every dog park within a mile of you every day after work. And just look around, talk to everyone, talk to men, talk to women, and just start talking to the people at those dog parks. You know why? They live within a mile of you. They are dog owners. And you can see them with their dog.

• 1:49:41Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:42Speaker 01

  And she was like, oh, and I was like, that's your part time job. So just make sure that dating apps aren't your only way. That you're going to the places where they might be. And you're spending more time there than on the app.

• 1:49:51Jay Shetty?

  I love that. It's great advice. Did you find someone yet?

• 1:49:53Speaker 01

  Not yet.

• 1:49:54Jay Shetty?

  Not yet? Okay, but that's cool.

• 1:49:55Speaker 01

  I should text her, maybe.

• 1:49:56Jay Shetty?

  I do like that, though. I really, I really like that.

• 1:50:00Jay Shetty?

  Where do I want to go? Question four.

• 1:50:13Jay Shetty?

  Question four, how do we get comfortable with awkward pauses?

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  Oh, no. So actually, here's how we do it. Powerful people pause more. Pausing is a signal to someone that you're not rushed. So one, if someone else has paused, you have made them comfortable enough where they don't feel like they have to rush with you. Gift. If you are pausing, you are giving space to say, I'm okay for just this second to pause. And so pausing shows you're doing something right.

• 1:50:46Jay Shetty?

  I love that. I do it all, I did it just then even to come up with that question. Because I was trying to figure out where we wanted to go.

• 1:50:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:53Jay Shetty?

  And I didn't want to just do this, what I'm doing now, which is like, oh, I'm, thinking Vanessa what to ask you next, and I'm not sure where to go with it, but I'm thinking about it like, let me just think about it for a second. Is that okay? And it's just.

• 1:51:03Speaker 01

  Filler.

• 1:51:03Jay Shetty?

  It's just filler and we're lost. And it's like, well, no, I actually didn't know. And I thought about it for a second and it was there.

• 1:51:08Speaker 01

  And it gave me a moment to take a breath and we both feel comfortable. And I was like, oh, it feels comfortable. So do I.

• 1:51:12Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And, and it's okay to do that. Fifth and final question, we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone had to follow, what would it be?

• 1:51:24Speaker 01

  Okay, if I had to create one law that everyone had to follow, it would be no more fake smiles. No more fake smiles. If you like it, like it. Heck, yes, like it. If you don't like it, don't pretend.

• 1:51:37Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  We would be so much better off with with no fake smiles because we would actually know what people like and don't like.

• 1:51:43Jay Shetty?

  Hmm, I like that advice. That's good. That's good. Vanessa Van Edwards, everyone. Thank you so much.

• 1:51:50Speaker 01

  My pleasure, my pleasure. Oh, my goodness.

• 1:51:52Jay Shetty?

  Dating, work, communication cues. I really hope you come back on the show.

• 1:51:56Speaker 01

  I would love it.

• 1:51:57Jay Shetty?

  And I hope we get to spend more time together.

• 1:51:59Speaker 01

  I would love it.

• 1:51:59Jay Shetty?

  And everyone who's been listening or watching, I want you to tell me. I want you to tag me and Vanessa on Instagram, on TikTok. I want you to share with us what you're testing, what you're trying, what you're experimenting with. If you said hey to someone, right? Whichever one of these that you did, I want you to tell us that you're doing it. I want you to share with us what you're trialing because that's where we learn together. You're going to inspire so many people who follow you and connect with you, your friends and family, to learn about how they can master the secret language of charismatic communication. You have the ability. Everyone else you know does as well. It's just about finding it and building it. Vanessa has the blueprint. Go and follow her across social media, grab her books and tag us both when you're listening to this episode.

• 1:52:42Speaker 01

  If you nod at someone and you end up that they're your soulmate and you come to Austin, Texas, I will marry you. Okay, like, let's create some soulmates. Let's make some on purpose babies.

• 1:52:54Jay Shetty?

  I love that.

• 1:52:55Speaker 01

  I will marry you. If you if you hey someone and they hey you back, hmm, I'll marry you.

• 1:52:59Jay Shetty?

  That's brilliant. I love that. That's so cool. Hey, everyone. If you loved that conversation, go and check out my episode with the world's leading therapist, Laurie Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest questions that people ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak and dating. If you're trying to figure out that space right now, you won't want to miss this conversation.

• 1:53:23Speaker 01

  If it's a romantic relationship, hold hands. It's really hard to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold hands as you're having the conversation. It's so lovely.

• 1:53:55Speaker 07

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:53:58Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:53:59Speaker 07

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.