475 The Science of People with Vanessa Van Edwards

"Own your weirdness." - Vanessa Van Edwards If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video and more at http://lewishowes.com/475 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 475 with the human lie detector Vanessa Van Edwards.

• 0:09Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:34Lewis Howes?

  We've got a special guest on today. Her name is Vanessa Van Edwards and she is an author and behavioral investigator. That's right. She is a professional people watcher, speaker, researcher, and cracking the code of interesting human behavior for audiences all around the world. Her groundbreaking workshops and courses teaches individuals how to succeed in business and life by understanding the hidden dynamics of people. I love this stuff. She has been featured on NPR, Wall Street Journal, Today Show, USA Today, et cetera, et cetera. And she's spoken to groups all around the world, from stages at the Consumer Electronics Show to presenting research of hers at MIT.

• 1:15Lewis Howes?

  And this is the stuff that fascinates me the most, guys. Understanding people. What makes people tick? What are people thinking about? What are people taking action on? Why are they doing the things they are doing? And we can better build relationships with all types of people. We can understand people in a moment, in an instant, and create connection and create opportunities with those individuals. Now, here's what we're covering in today's interview. What makes the most popular people popular? How do they become popular and what makes them popular? What you need to do in order to make a great impression at a big conference or at any type of networking event? And how to be the standout person in the room, even if you're an introvert and nervous and scared.

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  Also, the best questions to ask when you meet someone and why? And the reason why this is so important is because so many people ask the same questions. So what do you do? Where do you work? And it never leaves an impact or creates an intimate relationship. So we're going to talk about some of those main questions you should be asking if you want to be remembered forever. Also, the personality trait that you need to figure out when you're in a relationship with an intimate partner. Also, how to tell if anyone is lying at any time? That's right. Become a human lie detector. I am super pumped for this one. And I want to give a shout out to our review of the week over on iTunes. And this is from R. Cornish Mac, who says, Louis is the master at finding the most unique and exceptional people to get on his show.

• 2:45Lewis Howes?

  The guests are always incredible with hard-won, hard-hitting knowledge. Louis has an absolute knack for finding people with great stories and incredible insights to share with you, the listener. I consider myself a seasoned entrepreneur, but I always gain insights from the School of Greatness. And I started listening to his show about six months ago and have been truly surprised by every interview. There's been some interviews where I didn't recognize who the guest was, which is rare for me, and I thought it wouldn't be that great, but it turned out to be fantastic. If you're looking to learn from the best and you want to gain more knowledge while getting massively inspired, subscribe and listen to the School of Greatness. So, R. Cornish Mac, thank you for being the review of the week.

• 3:30Lewis Howes?

  And yes, it's always my mission and goal to find the most fascinating, inspiring, inspirational people on the planet to give you some value every single week. Even if you don't know who they are, I hope you trust that I'm curating the best of the best in the world. And Vanessa Van Edwards is one of those individuals. I'm super excited for this episode. So without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only Vanessa Van Edwards.

• 4:03Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Excited about our guest today, Vanessa Van Edwards. Good to see you. Thanks for being here.

• 4:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, hand hugs. Can we do a hand hug?

• 4:10Lewis Howes?

  What's a hand hug like this?

• 4:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's this. Oh, wasn't that good?

• 4:14Lewis Howes?

  What's a finger hug?

• 4:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, the oxytocin. That was so much oxytocin.

• 4:20Lewis Howes?

  The connection. I'm excited about this. We had you on, what, like three years ago, man?

• 4:24Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Lewis Howes?

  Right? It was a while ago. And it was a massive hit. And we're having you back on now because we've got a new book out called Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People. And this is the type of stuff that I love talking about the most.

• 4:37Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You gotta do your captivating face. Yeah, that's good.

• 4:40Lewis Howes?

  I know, it's like the...

• 4:41Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's like blue steel. It's like, it's either like a...

• 4:43Lewis Howes?

  Smizing?

• 4:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Smizing, or it's like a blue steel.

• 4:45Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. This is the stuff that fascinates me the most.

• 4:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 4:49Lewis Howes?

  And so I always love connecting with you about this because I feel like you're someone who understands me very well. I think you understand me because you can probably reverse engineer how I've achieved certain things in my career, in my life.

• 5:03Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 5:03Lewis Howes?

  By everything you're talking about in this book and beyond that I don't even know about.

• 5:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And you are...

• 5:08Lewis Howes?

  I'm in the book, chapter five.

• 5:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You're in the book. You're chapter five. You're my anchor story.

• 5:11Lewis Howes?

  Go get the book. She says the anchor story to everyone.

• 5:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  No.

• 5:15Lewis Howes?

  I'm just kidding. You're the anchor. You're the most important chapter.

• 5:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's, that's in chapter six.

• 5:21Lewis Howes?

  That's how you connect with someone in the first five minutes.

• 5:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Tell them they're the anchor story.

• 5:25Lewis Howes?

  You acknowledge them, you talk to them.

• 5:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Write a book about them.

• 5:28Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, yes.

• 5:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Works really well for connecting with people.

• 5:29Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. So you wrote this book, Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People. I love the first couple of pages where it shows a photo of you with like, I don't know if you have braces on or not.

• 5:39Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:40Lewis Howes?

  But you're like, you have like a helmet hair, you have braces.

• 5:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Do you like my vest?

• 5:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That is, that is the sound I was making when I took that picture. Just like that. Okay, wait, can I tell you about that picture, though?

• 5:50Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 5:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So I'm, I'm in LA. My family's here. And I give my mom the galley.

• 5:56Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 5:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And she was like so excited. She's like, oh my God, yay. And she opens, she was like, why did you choose this picture? I was like, Mom, like, that's real.

• 6:06Lewis Howes?

  It's real life.

• 6:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Like, that's, that was me. And she said something that was interesting. She was like, that was the most painful part of your life.

• 6:13Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 6:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Why would you share that? Which I think is really.

• 6:19Lewis Howes?

  You have to.

• 6:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You, you have.

• 6:20Lewis Howes?

  To connect with people and show them that you're not alone and that you're just like everyone else. Yes.

• 6:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Also, like, I had, I have this problem. People like will put me in the expert position. Like, I'm always kind of uncomfortable in that position a little bit because I'm not a naturally charismatic person. I'm not naturally extroverted. I'm a recovering awkward person. And so I was like, I could either position myself in the intro like everyone does as.

• 6:44Lewis Howes?

  This expert.

• 6:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah. All of these awards. I'm the extrovert. I'm, I'm, I'm naturally charismatic. And I was like, but like, that is not me. So I was like, I would rather switch it and say, it is so hard for naturally charismatic people to teach people how they do what they do.

• 6:57Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's much easier in a certain sense to not be that person and then have to learn it the hard way.

• 7:04Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So I say that I learned it the hard way to teach it to you the easy way.

• 7:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So that was a big, that was a big decision.

• 7:10Lewis Howes?

  I love it. I mean, if I showed you a photo of myself, I sent a photo actually.

• 7:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I don't believe you though.

• 7:15Lewis Howes?

  No, hold on.

• 7:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  No way.

• 7:16Lewis Howes?

  Let me, I'll send you a photo.

• 7:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You were like an athlete. I was like an athlete. Come on.

• 7:20Lewis Howes?

  I was, I was an athlete the way you are an extrovert. I was not, uh, you know, an athlete because I was good because I was bad. And I said, I'm going to master this, just like you were.

• 7:31Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay.

• 7:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So that's kind of how I became.

• 7:34Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Are you going to show me a best picture because I want to see helmet hair?

• 7:37Lewis Howes?

  Not a best picture. Let me see. I'll show you a photo of me.

• 7:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Recovering awkward Louis.

• 7:41Lewis Howes?

  I mean, this is.

• 7:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's what I want to see.

• 7:43Lewis Howes?

  This is pretty goofy, you know?

• 7:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh. Yeah.

• 7:47Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty like lame, goofy.

• 7:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 7:51Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 7:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, this would fit really well next to mine.

• 7:54Lewis Howes?

  This could have been perfect next year.

• 7:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 7:56Lewis Howes?

  So anyways, I mean, I was like tall and gangly and, you know, all those things. But I was like, okay, how can I learn how to be a great athlete? And so I reverse engineered. I wasn't like gifted as a kid. And I was very awkward. I was in the special needs classes. I couldn't read and write.

• 8:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 8:11Lewis Howes?

  Uh, I was awkward in, in, uh, connecting with people. I was the youngest kid always in the sports teams because in high school I started to become good at sports because I put my energy in that. So I was like the freshman with all the seniors. So I was like always nervous and awkward and they were like cool and I was like, oh.

• 8:28Lewis Howes?

  So I had to learn how to connect with people. And I think I told you this before, when I was a senior in high school, I was like terrified because all the, the jocks that I hung out with were gone now. So it was just me.

• 8:39Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 8:40Lewis Howes?

  I was like, I was like, oh, you know what I'm gonna do? I want to become friends with everyone. So I hung out in the choir. I hang out with like the band people. I hung out with like the science nerds.

• 8:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh my gosh.

• 8:50Lewis Howes?

  And I hung out with everyone. I was like, I'm gonna learn how to connect with each human being and just listen to them and hear their needs and

• 8:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 8:55Lewis Howes?

  try to be friends with everyone. And that was the greatest thing that happened to me is like having no jock friends anymore.

• 9:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And being like, I'm gonna connect with everyone.

• 9:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and just understand people.

• 9:03Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Can we talk about the science? Can we reverse engineer that? So like, you told me that story, I think a couple of weeks ago. And I was like, yes. So there was research. I have always been fascinated by the popular kids, right? Like these, these magnetic sort of like what makes a kid cool or popular, whatever that is. And Van Sloane did a really interesting research experiment with teenagers. And he found, well, can you guess what makes the most popular kids popular? Like what is it? It could be anything from attractiveness to clothing to the way they talk. If you had to guess. Listeners, guess too.

• 9:36Lewis Howes?

  What makes a popular person popular?

• 9:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 9:40Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 9:43Lewis Howes?

  Their confidence? I don't know. Their outgoing?

• 9:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, that, I would have guessed outgoing. That's exactly what I would have guessed. Like extroverted, talkative, which was like, I was like, oh, please don't let it be that. So first of all, it wasn't attractiveness, which I think is very important for people to keep in mind. It wasn't the most beautiful girls or the hottest guys. What it was is the most popular kids also liked the most people.

• 10:06Lewis Howes?

  That makes sense.

• 10:08Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And like now that I heard that, which is exactly what you just said.

• 10:11Lewis Howes?

  I suppose just five people, they're like, you know.

• 10:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right.

• 10:13Lewis Howes?

  Everyone.

• 10:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, exactly. It's like, what he found was is that the most popular kids, when they were asked, "Who do you like?", they had the longest list.

• 10:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:22Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And that also meant that they were liked by the most people. And this was measured by typically, they smiled more in the hallways. So they would do the, you tell me if this is right. So men, when they know, see someone they know, they give the upward, "Hey, nice, nice to see you", like it's like acknowledgement, versus if you don't know someone, but you want to acknowledge them, you give them the downward nod.

• 10:41Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 10:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Is that right?

• 10:43Lewis Howes?

  Probably, yes. If you're conditioned that way. I try to just smile at everyone.

• 10:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so that's, that's what the cool kids said.

• 10:49Lewis Howes?

  Cause you like, you train yourself to this. I just started smiling at everyone in the hallways, too. Just like, "Hey, how are you?", like, "Good to see you", or just like, a compliment or something.

• 10:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Without realizing it, and that's what I kind of wrote about in your chapter, was like, without realizing it, you were actually activating a scientific principle that we like people who like us.

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  Makes sense.

• 11:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  The biggest.

• 11:07Lewis Howes?

  You're not gonna like people that hate you.

• 11:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  No.

• 11:09Lewis Howes?

  Or ignore you.

• 11:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Or, and this is the real killer of relationships, people do not think of. We talk a lot about toxic people, right? Difficult people, toxic people. But actually, the killer is ambivalence.

• 11:22Lewis Howes?

  You're not sure.

• 11:22Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, you're not sure, "Do they like me? Do I like them?

• 11:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Were, were we friendly? That actually takes up more mental energy than the toxic people. And they did a study with police officers where they found that police officers who have more ambivalent relationships versus police officers who had a lot of toxic relationships, the ambivalent ones actually had less efficiency, they had less happiness and career satisfaction, and they skipped more days of work. That's because if you, if someone's toxic, you know. You don't want to sit with them at lunch.

• 11:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You don't want to stop by their desk. It's clear. Ambivalent, you're like, "Should I, should I invite them to lunch?"

• 11:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Or, or no.

• 12:01Lewis Howes?

  It's not safe, you're like, "I'm sure."

• 12:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, and I think that that's the key word, is safety. And so ambivalence, when you like someone, you clearly are like, smiling, nodding, "Hey, what's up? Good to see you", the person's like... I'm liked. And like that is the greatest feeling of safety in the world. And so if you go to a conference, you have a big conference coming up, you're really nervous. I don't want you to think about being extroverted, especially if you're an introvert or ambivert. No, like, don't pretend.

• 12:26Lewis Howes?

  Ambivert?

• 12:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Ambivert.

• 12:28Lewis Howes?

  Ambivert.

• 12:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, it's, it's, I'm an ambivert. An ambivert is if introvert or extrovert never felt right to you, it's when you can flip into extroversion if you need to, or in the right situation. So like, for me, right now, I'm not that nervous, right? I'm a little bit nervous, you make me a little bit nervous, but like, not terribly. Like, learning one-on-one situations, conferences, I'm okay. Nightclubs, bars, those kinds of things, no. So if you are in those situations, going to a conference, don't think about, how can I be more extroverted? How can I be more outgoing? It's actually, how can I just like more people? Like, when I'm at a conference, and I do this, you were at WDS, so I go every year, and all of my trainers, my science people trainers come with me, and I say, like, our one thing is, we are inviting

• 13:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  everyone to sit with us. We are inviting everyone to come to lunch with us. If you see someone standing alone, we say hello, we invite them to come over. Like, that is our number one goal. And so that, that's an easier way, I think, to tackle, like, big groups or conferences. It's just, how can you like more people?

• 13:29Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Yeah. Smiling is a good practice anyways. Whenever I see someone on the streets, I just try to smile. Sometimes people are a little awkward about it. They don't react to me.

• 13:37Vanessa Van Edwards?

  See, I can't do that as a woman, I don't think.

• 13:39Lewis Howes?

  That's true, because you're like, leading people on, or something, you're flirting, or whatever, yeah.

• 13:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Gender differences.

• 13:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's challenging. I try to smile as much as I can, guys and girls.

• 13:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, I think you should. Also, I think, a smile is never going to hurt you. It might get you into a conversation that you didn't expect.

• 13:54Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But I think it's always a good, a good basic thing to try.

• 13:57Lewis Howes?

  Yes. We're gonna go into, later, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hook you guys right now. We're gonna go in later, talk about how to understand when someone's lying. Want to do about it. And Vanessa said that this is like a scary thing to talk about. It's like, uh, she doesn't know if she wants to talk about it that much, but we're going to go into a little bit. But first, you have different sections in your book. The first five seconds, the first five hours and the first five days.

• 14:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

  First five minutes, first five hours, first five days.

• 14:24Lewis Howes?

  Minutes, hours, days. Yes, not seconds. But the first five seconds are important too.

• 14:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Actually, I debated calling it the first five seconds.

• 14:31Lewis Howes?

  It's true.

• 14:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Like that would work. But the reason why I didn't is because a couple of chapters are on like conversation starters and it's hard to get out of full conversation.

• 14:38Lewis Howes?

  Few seconds.

• 14:39Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, right, right.

• 14:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. But there are cues within the first five seconds.

• 14:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 14:42Lewis Howes?

  Right? Maybe sooner than that.

• 14:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I, I think that it happens the moment you first see someone.

• 14:47Lewis Howes?

  Within him, within a second.

• 14:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Within a second. And that, that has proven as well online. Like a lot of our first impressions are actually happening digitally. Right? Someone emails you for the first time. They Google you. They see you on LinkedIn.

• 14:58Lewis Howes?

  See a photo, whatever.

• 14:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's it. That's your digital first impression.

• 15:00Lewis Howes?

  Everything matters in what you're putting out. Every angle, every smile or not a smile, it can be like misread.

• 15:08Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I think if you think of it like an algorithm, right? So like, if you think of, okay, my LinkedIn profile is a piece of my information that I'm putting out there as well as like my email signature. As well as my dating profile name.

• 15:20Lewis Howes?

  I should just have you like break down everything that I do and just say, no, this is wrong.

• 15:24Vanessa Van Edwards?

  What, can I give you a really quick tip on dating profiles? Are you on dating profiles right now?

• 15:28Lewis Howes?

  I've got a girlfriend.

• 15:29Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, so if anyone who's on, anyone who's on dating profiles, not Louis.

• 15:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes. I'm not on anywhere. I've never been on. I was on Tinder for like three days because this is years ago.

• 15:44Lewis Howes?

  It was my friend, uh, I'll, I'll, I'll take his, I want to say his name. He's pretty well known. I'll tell you afterwards. He was like, get on here. It's amazing. And I just, it's as an experiment. Just get on there, right? And so for three days I do it and I'm like, it's crazy, right? It's like madness. It's addictive. You're swiping all the time and I'm like. And then it was just like, okay, I had a bunch of matches or whatever. And I was like, this is just exhausting.

• 16:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 16:07Lewis Howes?

  So exhausting. And I just deleted it after three days. I was like,

• 16:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You didn't even see anyone?

• 16:12Lewis Howes?

  No, I had a couple of text conversations with people and I never saw anyone. But here's the thing, I mean, I'm so like forward with like saying hi to someone if I like them.

• 16:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, that you don't.

• 16:21Lewis Howes?

  Single that I'm not like, I need to find someone to like,

• 16:24Vanessa Van Edwards?

  For sure.

• 16:24Lewis Howes?

  Match with me. It's not uncomfortable for me to like, see anyone and stop them.

• 16:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right. So you know that you don't have to optimize in that area.

• 16:30Lewis Howes?

  I don't have to.

• 16:31Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Because you don't need the intro.

• 16:33Lewis Howes?

  I don't need to, but I, you know, I had to learn how to do that because I could never do that. And I think I told you this when I was a 16, 17. I didn't have like, you know, the good looks. I didn't have anything and I was terrified of girls when I was in high school. And so for a summer, I made it a mission. I said, every single day, I think I was 15 going into junior year. Every single day I was like, uh, whenever I see a girl that gives me butterflies, I have to go towards her and, and talk to her. And then it was like, I have to go ask her.

• 17:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Every day?

• 17:02Lewis Howes?

  Every day I saw a girl for the whole summer. It was an experiment that I gave myself. I was kind of like a mini you.

• 17:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 17:08Lewis Howes?

  I was like, I need to overcome this fear. This is BS. Like, I want to be able to talk to girls and not be afraid. And like, I always stumbled over my words. I just couldn't get anything out.

• 17:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:17Lewis Howes?

  Terrified.

• 17:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Lewis Howes?

  So I said, every day, whenever I see a girl that I'm like, have butterflies, I'm going to go run to her. Not like literally, but yeah, not like,

• 17:27Lewis Howes?

  but I was like, I'm going to go up to her and just say hello. And then it was like, ask her for her number. And then it was just like, ask her out. It was like,

• 17:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 17:33Lewis Howes?

  Another challenge. And by the end of the summer, I was like fluent in the art of like asking girls.

• 17:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  The approach, the ask, the opener.

• 17:40Lewis Howes?

  And even if it didn't like work out, or they were like, no, I was just like, at least we had like a fun interaction. And it was like, okay, you know? And I learned how to gain confidence through taking action and giving myself a challenge.

• 17:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh my gosh. So if anyone is listening and feels brave, if they,

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  Greatest thing.

• 17:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That is like, so I, one of the biggest challenges, I think we have to think about our life like a big experiment.

• 17:59Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 18:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And the problem is as adults, we did this when we were kids, right? Like you would play with something or you would, you would try something out. Uh, you would take a class just because you were curious. Now as adults were like, I can't, I can't try anything because what if it becomes forever? Or what if it's permanent? What if there's a risk? I think that every interaction is an experiment. When you think about it that way, you become so much braver, right? You think, okay, I'm nervous about approaching that VIP, or that girl, or that guy, or whoever. That butterflies, those butterflies are a chemical signal for me that there is something here, right? Like, there is an experiment that I can have.

• 18:35Lewis Howes?

  You should do it, yeah.

• 18:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And I should do it. So there's a couple of things when you're approaching, if you're, if this is something that you want to work on, whether it's a VIP, or a stranger, or a significant other. So there's

• 18:44Lewis Howes?

  A girl.

• 18:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  A girl, right? There's the approach and the open. So the approach is actually very important, because that's usually when someone's first impression is made. So when you're approaching someone, you want to signal a couple of things. You want to first signal friend, not foe. So, friend, right? Like

• 19:01Lewis Howes?

  And I heard this last time.

• 19:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, hands, eyes. Perfect.

• 19:04Lewis Howes?

  First thing people look at is the hands.

• 19:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. Go, go, go listen to that episode if you, if you didn't hear that.

• 19:09Lewis Howes?

  No, it's great. Yeah, the first thing. Keep your hands out of your pockets.

• 19:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Hands out of your pockets, and hand first if you want to do a handshake, or a hug. Eye contact, great. Then there's the approach, the verbal, which we didn't get to talk about last time. So what people don't realize is actually the verbal approach matters very little. And that is because in the first few seconds of interaction, there's a lot of chemical reading going on. There's a lot of decoding. The verbal becomes sort of secondary.

• 19:32Lewis Howes?

  Doesn't matter.

• 19:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's why the, "Hey, how are you?" is one of the best openers you can do, because it, it doesn't actually necessarily mean anything.

• 19:40Lewis Howes?

  Doesn't take brain power either.

• 19:41Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It doesn't take a lot of brain power. The first question, however, is important.

• 19:45Lewis Howes?

  So after you- Well, "Hey, how are you?" is a question, but after that-

• 19:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But is it really, though? Like, we never really-

• 19:49Lewis Howes?

  It's more of like a

• 19:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, kinda.

• 19:51Lewis Howes?

  Good to meet you.

• 19:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right. So I, my, my approach is usually just, "Hey, my name's Vanessa."

• 19:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Like, or, "Hey, nice to meet you." So it's not even a question.

• 19:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That first question, though, is when you want to have some kind of a spark. This is a way that you signal to someone else, this interaction is going to be different.

• 20:06Lewis Howes?

  Meaningful, interesting, unique.

• 20:08Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Fill in the blank, what your intention is for the social interaction. So you set up someone's response based on the kind of trigger that you ask. So for example, if you say, "So what do you do?"

• 20:19Lewis Howes?

  I'd be bored.

• 20:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You've signaled. Yeah, you've signaled autopilot.

• 20:22Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 20:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I don't really want to think deeply about this.

• 20:25Lewis Howes?

  No, I don't care.

• 20:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And I'm judging you on what you do, which might or might not be true.

• 20:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:29Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I would much prefer, and I call these conversations sparkers. These are these very dopamine producing. Dopamine is like a pleasure chemical that gets people excited. And you can actually do this with the words you use. Have you ever talked about priming on the show? I don't know if I've ever heard you.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  We can talk about it.

• 20:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, like so priming was one of those things that I had never thought about this way. But the words you use signal things for other people. So for example, if you say exciting, the other person immediately looks for hits, not misses. So if you say to someone.

• 20:58Lewis Howes?

  What are you most excited about lately?

• 20:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, they're immediately in their brain going to search for anything in their like life that hits that. If you say, hey, have you been busy recently? They immediately then search for hits for busy. So that's actually a very powerful thing to know because your words dictate everything, including in emails, right? If you're sending an email to someone saying, hey, we're meeting on Friday. We're really crunched on time. I'm a little worried about getting everything done, so hopefully we can make it all happen.

• 21:24Lewis Howes?

  Seems stressful.

• 21:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's a very, you're actually cueing the person.

• 21:28Lewis Howes?

  Feel stress.

• 21:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  To feel stress, worry and crunched for time.

• 21:31Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, that sucks.

• 21:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right.

• 21:32Lewis Howes?

  It's like anxiety, like, ah, I gotta do this now.

• 21:34Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And you are, you are in control of it, like you're creating it. Whereas if you look at your emails, you're like, what am I priming with this email? Like, what am I asking them to search for in their brain? I'm so excited to meet with you on Friday. I can't wait to talk about all the topics we're going to go through. I know that we're going to be super efficient.

• 21:50Lewis Howes?

  At ease, excited.

• 21:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, and like boom, boom, like you're going to try to get through each thing on your list.

• 21:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So that same thing happens with that initial kind of big sparker. So, hey, I'm Vanessa, good to meet you. Hopefully not, how are you? Because it's not a real question. And then working on anything exciting recently, going on any big vacations? Hey, do you love this wine? This wine is pretty good, huh? Those are all ways that you're signaling, cueing what kind of interaction you want to have. And that sets yourself up for success.

• 22:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, interesting. So those are the few questions you would ask.

• 22:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Those are my-

• 22:20Lewis Howes?

  Exciting.

• 22:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exciting vacations.

• 22:22Lewis Howes?

  Vacation.

• 22:22Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And then what I call context cues. So um-

• 22:25Lewis Howes?

  Whatever you're doing in the moment, like, isn't this cool?

• 22:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  God, isn't this restaurant great? Wasn't that speaker awesome? Hey, how's the wine? Did you get any drinks? Right, so you'll never run out of things to talk about if you're looking for context cues.

• 22:36Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 22:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, like, I could even, I could even be like, wow, three cameras, Louis, impressive.

• 22:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:41Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, now we're talking about cameras.

• 22:42Lewis Howes?

  It's actually four, but you missed it.

• 22:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Where?

• 22:44Lewis Howes?

  It's two on you over there, yeah.

• 22:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  My gosh.

• 22:47Lewis Howes?

  It's all good.

• 22:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I am impressed.

• 22:50Lewis Howes?

  You just activated my mind to feel like you like me and that you're impressed with me.

• 22:56Lewis Howes?

  Now I feel good and at ease. Okay, cool.

• 22:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, so that, that's how it kind of works.

• 23:00Lewis Howes?

  One of the questions I like as well is what are you most grateful for? And maybe it's not the first one, but it's, I like to keep it one of the first few. And maybe that's wrong, I don't know.

• 23:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  No, I love it. I mean, you're-

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  A, triggering gratitude.

• 23:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You're triggering gratitude and you're setting an intention of like, I don't want to talk about surface things.

• 23:15Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 23:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right. And by the way, it goes the other way too. Like, if you're with someone who like, you're not comfortable with, or you're ambivalent about, or you don't want to build a deep relationship, you want to avoid those kind of personal topics because you're not safe yet. And that's also a really important internal trigger. There's um, did I tell you about the skydiver study when we talked last time?

• 23:33Lewis Howes?

  Probably.

• 23:34Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh my gosh, this is like one of my favorite new studies. So what they did is, this thing happened to me in New York City. I was in New York City and I was walking by myself after a dinner party into the subway. New York City is like not like, I love New York, but like, at night by yourself, it's like eh. So I was like kind of already nervous and I walk into the subway, walk on the car, and like immediately I feel fear. Like, you know that feeling you get like in the pit of your stomach where you're like, and like, I could feel the hairs in the back of my neck stand up and I was like, what is it, what is it, what is it? And I'm like looking around the car and everything looks fine.

• 24:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And right before the doors close, a guy standing right next to me grabs the purse of the woman sitting, elderly woman sitting, and runs out the doors.

• 24:16Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 24:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Now, thank God, people stopped him like within five minutes of, like within five seconds of him getting off of the car, got the purse back. But I was like, how did I know?

• 24:26Lewis Howes?

  How did you know?

• 24:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So, I was like, I don't think I'm psychic. So there's, what else is going on here? So, there was a study that was done where they had first time skydivers, before they went up in the air, run on the treadmill. They ran on the treadmill enough to get them real sweaty, and they had them wear sweat pads to absorb their sweat. They took those sweat pads out, they put them in a new sweatsuit, and then they had them jump out of a plane. Took those sweat pads, obviously get a little sweaty when you're jumping out of a plane.

• 24:51Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 24:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Then they had participants smell these sweat pads. I know, it's kind of gross.

• 24:56Lewis Howes?

  See which one was fear, or which one's excitement, or what?

• 24:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  They didn't even tell them what they were smelling. They put them in a, a brain scanner, and they had them smell each one. And these people had no idea what was being tested. They didn't even know they were smelling sweat.

• 25:08Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 25:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  When the people smelled the sweat pad that was used when they jumped, the person's fear part of their brain activated. In other words, when we feel fear or anxiety, we actually produce a fear chemical. This study kind of blew my mind, because it means two things. One is that, three things actually. One, we produce, there's a physical response to the emotion that we feel, in, in, in a chemical or a pheromone. Second, other people pick that up. And third, not only do we pick it up, we actually mirror it. Like, we catch it, like a contagion. Which means that, if you, if on that train, I clearly smelled his adrenaline or his fear, and it made me very scared. Even though it only happened

• 25:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  two seconds later, I could, I could feel that something was about to happen. So when you show up to an event, feeling either really anxious or really nervous...

• 26:02Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna create that in other people.

• 26:03Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. People are going to catch it from you. Which is why I do not believe in the phrase fake it till you make it. I don't think that that works. I think that what's much better is figuring out where you naturally rise to the occasion where you already feel strong and confident, because I would much rather infect excitement than infect anxiety. So we are, we have a lot of power in our social interactions. The cues that people catch from us can literally physically not only change our conversation, but change the shape of their entire day.

• 26:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 26:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And so I think that that's where we're talking about here is not just like, oh, make fun conversation and smile more. It's like, no, you can actually change someone's entire being. You can change their physiology.

• 26:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. But you've got to have the energy to show up in a certain way.

• 26:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, and it also shows up in the body differently. Like, there was a really interesting set of studies that looked at how we feel emotion. And they found that anger, for example, you have a lot of activity in the chest and the face and in the hands, like they're like bright, they get bright red. Because usually we feel that heat in our chest, we're usually yelling if we're angry, and then we might get into a fistfight. Whereas depression or sadness, we lose activity over our entire body. It's why people who are very sad or depressed want to be in bed, want to be horizontal. They have literally less activity in their limbs. So there's a lot going on that I think we still, it's very exciting. We have a lot left to learn about people.

• 27:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But I think that even what we know so far, there's a lot we can do with it.

• 27:30Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, amazing. Tell me about PQ.

• 27:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  What is PQ?

• 27:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Interpersonal intelligence.

• 27:37Lewis Howes?

  And I love this because once, you're going to tell us what that is in a second, but you have a test in the first chapter, which tells you how your personality, what is it, your?

• 27:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Your interpersonal, your level, your interpersonal intelligence.

• 27:49Lewis Howes?

  Level.

• 27:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 27:50Lewis Howes?

  Got you. How socially like adaptive you are.

• 27:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, yes. So I'm, I love quizzes, I can't help it. I love quizzes.

• 27:58Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 27:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's my, I love checklists and all those to do boxes and things. So I was very focused on IQ, right? Like, growing up, like book smarts, technical skills. I never heard about PQ. I never heard about social or emotional intelligence. So there's all these IQ tests and things like that, but I found that what a really good way to start is like, where are, where is your smarts? Right? Like socially, what are your social strengths? Like, we even have like StrengthsFinder 2.0. I'm working on something right now where I want to do like Social Strengths 2.0. Like, what are our social strengths, which are just as important as some of our capabilities? And so the quiz is sort of like, okay, where are you at right now? Right? Like, how good are you decoding? So we're talking about social intelligence, there's really two things we're talking about.

• 28:41Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Decoding, so spotting cues, spotting hidden emotions, decoding lies. And encoding. Encoding are the signals that you send out to others.

• 28:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So we're kind of testing both sides of that.

• 28:51Lewis Howes?

  Got it, got it. Um, and I read that people with a higher EQ or PQ also make more than people.

• 28:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Twenty-nine thousand dollars more per year, according to this research.

• 29:02Lewis Howes?

  Than someone with a high IQ or a lower?

• 29:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Lower, lower EQ.

• 29:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, lower EQ. So higher EQ, you're gonna make more.

• 29:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's right.

• 29:10Lewis Howes?

  Ninety percent of the time.

• 29:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's right. And that's because we are interacting with people in ways that we don't even quantify or realize, right? Like every time you send an email, like that email has to be received, processed. There's a difference between having someone respond to it right away and having it sit in their inbox for five days.

• 29:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right? Um, negotiating, interviewing, around the water cooler. People still have water coolers in their office.

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 29:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right? Like, I, I, and my team is all virtual and I still am using that PQ every day, all day. I, one exercise that sometimes I think about, you can do this if you're listening, is in the course of a day, make a note of every single interpersonal reaction that you have. It will shock you how many of those there are and how big of an impact they have, right? Like, even if it's just like a casual coffee, all the possibilities that could come out of that interaction. And then, so you make one column where you mark out all the interactions you have. The second column is, if that interaction went as good as it could possibly go, what magic could happen for you?

• 30:08Lewis Howes?

  So much.

• 30:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So much. But instead, a lot of our interactions are like, meh.

• 30:13Lewis Howes?

  Average. So you get average results.

• 30:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly.

• 30:16Lewis Howes?

  And when you, you know, I'm thinking about it, I'm probably like, I have hundreds of these interactions a day potentially.

• 30:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You do.

• 30:21Lewis Howes?

  Especially with social media and emails and in person. And if you're at events, like, yesterday, yesterday I was at Oprah's event, Supersoul Sessions. And there was like, you know, thousands of people, but I met a lot of people.

• 30:31Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 30:32Lewis Howes?

  Even for like 10 seconds, I met people.

• 30:34Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 30:35Lewis Howes?

  And I remember there were a number of people, even I just met and gave them a hug. Like, they always left a comment like, "Man, you give really good hugs."

• 30:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 30:42Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to just like, "Oh, nice to meet you," off. Like, they always said something.

• 30:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 30:47Lewis Howes?

  That was like a positive reinforcement. And for me, it's like, Maybe the next time and maybe months when I see them, but they'll remember I gave them a good hug.

• 30:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Absolutely. So that was, you took something in the interaction, even in 10 seconds and you made it above average.

• 30:58Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 30:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So my-

• 31:00Lewis Howes?

  I have awkward, long hugs. I try not to make them awkward, but I try to make them like, not like super awkward, like get off me, but like just a little extra, like an extra second. Like right when they start to pull away, I squeeze. I squeeze a little bit more. They're like, oh, okay.

• 31:16Lewis Howes?

  Sometimes it goes bad, but most of the time it's works.

• 31:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I mean, I have a theory that you should greet everyone like they're an old friend.

• 31:22Lewis Howes?

  That's good. Yes. That's what I do.

• 31:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Hand hug. Yes.

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  That's what I do.

• 31:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Cause if you have that mentality, same with an email, you give so much more, like excitement, whatever. It's like, oh my gosh, you haven't seen this friend in three years. How would you greet them? That is the way that I think I greet most people.

• 31:37Lewis Howes?

  Maybe not screaming up to them.

• 31:39Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right? Like that's the girl scream, right? Cause two girls get together and like immediately, I told you Blake, the volume would go up on me. Once I got excited. Yeah. Cause like we, we scream, we go up. Um, what I was going to say also about that, which is really very smart is it doesn't need to be a five minute interaction. It can be 10 seconds. A lot of the time we focus on productivity. You know, we focus on efficiency. We focus on maximizing our business revenue. All those things are great, but like, if we focus on some of the social aspects of that, it makes it so much easier. Like let's not just optimize our IQ, our business acumen. Let's also optimize our social acumen. Because you make that list of every interaction you have and all the good things that could happen if it went really well. It's magic in every other area.

• 32:21Lewis Howes?

  Magic.

• 32:22Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 32:22Lewis Howes?

  And, oh gosh, that's why I love this stuff. Cause I feel like this has really been kind of the, the key to my results.

• 32:29Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I would agree.

• 32:30Lewis Howes?

  My business in life, because I would probably have, if I took an IQ test, I probably wouldn't even, you know, I don't know. I don't even know what this rankings are. I don't even know what the lowest is. I'd probably be at the bottom. And so for me, it's like, I just feel like I stack and stack and stack so much good. Uh, PQ, is that right?

• 32:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 32:46Lewis Howes?

  EQ, PQ.

• 32:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly right.

• 32:47Lewis Howes?

  SQ, whatever you're calling it, social. Yeah. And I feel like people care more about how you make them feel. You know, as opposed to how smart you are or whatever.

• 32:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And that quote, that famous quote, I think it's by Maya Angelou.

• 32:59Lewis Howes?

  People don't care how much you know until they know what you care is one quote.

• 33:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, and then people remember.

• 33:04Lewis Howes?

  They remember what you say, but they remember the way you made them feel.

• 33:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, God, quote, quote.

• 33:08Lewis Howes?

  Those are my two favorite quotes.

• 33:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, so I saw that quote, that second quote, what I just explained with the skydivers, that is the scientific reason behind that quote. So in the book, I talk about these quotes we share all the time, like the Dale Carnegie, how to, you know, be interested to be interesting. Like, what is the science behind that?

• 33:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, not just like, oh, that's a cool philosophy.

• 33:29Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Because now that Maya Angelou quote, you actually could think to yourself, what emotion do I want to infect today? Right? Like, is it gratitude? Is it excitement? Is it fulfillment? And like, by the way, this doesn't mean that you cannot be vulnerable. This doesn't mean you can't have a bad day. This doesn't mean that you can't go into a meeting and be like, I'm so sorry, like, I am feeling really down. In fact, I have those days, we all do. I regularly do not cancel meetings on those days. I feel that I would rather go in and say, listen, like, I am just overwhelmed.

• 34:03Lewis Howes?

  I'm off today.

• 34:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, like, I'm off, I'm overwhelmed, I'm sorry for that. Because I also want to catch theirs, right? It's not just a one-way street. We don't just infect. I also like to be infected by others. And so I feel like, and not every time this has worked, but a lot of the time it works, when I come to someone and I'm like, I am so stressed about this book launch, right? Like, I am terrified. Like, recently, fully honest, I am in so much fear.

• 34:29Lewis Howes?

  Really? Why?

• 34:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, my God, I am so.

• 34:32Lewis Howes?

  The book?

• 34:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 34:33Lewis Howes?

  Why? What are you afraid of?

• 34:34Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Everything. I'm afraid that people aren't gonna like it. I'm afraid that people are gonna be like, you're not a real expert, you're an awkward person, how could you write a book? I'm like afraid that it's gonna get out there and be misused or misrepresented. I'm afraid that I put all this energy into launching, you know, launching is such a big thing, and it's gonna fail.

• 34:55Lewis Howes?

  What's failing?

• 34:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  For me, it would be no one reading it.

• 35:03Lewis Howes?

  Okay, well, that's not gonna happen. I've already read it, so.

• 35:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I mean.

• 35:07Lewis Howes?

  You've succeeded.

• 35:08Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You have to read it. I forced myself onto your podcast. You have to read it.

• 35:11Lewis Howes?

  My production manager read it.

• 35:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's two people.

• 35:16Lewis Howes?

  People are gonna read it because it's powerful and it's what people need if they want to get results in their life. If you want to make more money, if you want to have better relationships, if you want to not be in pain and suffering, then.

• 35:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And I wrote it for them. I wrote it for me. I wrote it for them. So I think that going in with these fears is not necessarily a bad thing because then I can say, please infect me with calm, right? Like you are so calm and so confident that that made me feel better, right? You're like, what do you like? What do you mean? It's gonna be great. Like that's, I know what this book is. I'm like, right? Like if Lewis knows it, okay, like Lewis knows it, right?

• 35:47Lewis Howes?

  But you also have proof. Your blog does well, your courses do well, and this is like an enhancement of those.

• 35:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I mean, you know, we can, we could talk about business models if you want. This is, was an interesting platform change for me because my platform is B to B and B to C. I've never had a book piece in the platform.

• 36:01Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 36:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So it was an interesting addition to add in a book piece, which you know, not just online courses. Yeah, it's a new platform play and I'm excited about it, but it's, it's different. I've never done it before.

• 36:12Lewis Howes?

  It's gonna bring you a lot more opportunities.

• 36:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I hope so.

• 36:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it will.

• 36:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I hope so. People always ask, should I write a book? And I've self-published and I'm traditionally published and it's, that's like a totally different, they're totally different bags. Those two buckets.

• 36:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What was this publisher again?

• 36:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Penguin Random House, Portfolio.

• 36:26Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 36:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And they are fantastic.

• 36:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you're gonna be fine.

• 36:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Like you're calm.

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  Don't worry about it.

• 36:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Wait, I, I, can I tell you something though?

• 36:34Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 36:34Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay. So neuroticism. I'm a high neurotic and I, I, people are always like, neurotic, it's such a bad word. But neurotic is a way, it's a way of talking about emotional stability. You are, I think, low neurotic, yes? You're not very neurotic. You're very emotionally stable.

• 36:52Lewis Howes?

  I can have triggered moments that make me frustrated and yeah, but I think I'm pretty emotionally stable.

• 36:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay.

• 36:59Lewis Howes?

  But I like things the way I like them.

• 37:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh.

• 37:02Lewis Howes?

  And so when it's not the way I like it, I, you know.

• 37:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay.

• 37:05Lewis Howes?

  I get frustrated, but.

• 37:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So that's about the ritual, like the habit of setting things up. So as a lone neurotic, you told me it will be fine.

• 37:13Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 37:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Now, for my high neurotics listening, you might know who you are. When people tell you it will be fine, it actually makes you more nervous.

• 37:21Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 37:22Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  You know what? It's not gonna be fine. You need to work harder. You're screwed.

• 37:28Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna fail.

• 37:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay.

• 37:29Lewis Howes?

  So is that what I should say?

• 37:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So like when, I know this sounds crazy, but so neuroticism is one of the five personality traits and it is actually, it's genetic. And what I mean by that is, um, so how we look at neuroticism is by the serotonin transport gene. I promise this won't get too scientific, but this made me feel a lot of relief when I read this. So serotonin is a very, very lovely little chemical that makes us feel calm. It calms us down. Yes. Like if we like almost get hurt and we're like, oh, then like serotonin is what floods our body to say, you're okay, everything will be fine. Serotonin, its mantra is everything will be fine.

• 38:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  High neurotics carry a special form of the serotonin transport gene, which means they do not produce as much serotonin and it goes more slowly.

• 38:16Lewis Howes?

  More neurotic.

• 38:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly. Because when I have something bad that happens to me, it takes me longer to calm down than you.

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  So depends on the thing.

• 38:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Totally depends on the thing.

• 38:27Lewis Howes?

  On the trigger.

• 38:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly.

• 38:28Lewis Howes?

  If I feel like I've been attacked or something, or been like, something has been questioned about me or something, or someone did something to me wrong, I feel like wronged, then sometimes it could be weeks that I hold on to it.

• 38:39Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, interesting.

• 38:40Lewis Howes?

  It depends on the thing, but other things I'm like, ah, whatever. Like if someone's like flipping me off in the streets or something, or in the driving, I'm like, all right, on to the next.

• 38:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So that, that my friend is a resource language thing. So that means that you have a resource language of status, which means that if someone has challenged you, that there's a respect issue, there was a wronging, there was a disloyalty there.

• 39:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:03Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Your value was taken from you in terms of resources. So there are six, there are six resources. Uh, status, information, money, goods, services, and love.

• 39:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  We all have, need all these resources, but we typically want the resource we did not get in our childhood.

• 39:18Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 39:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Absolutely.

• 39:19Lewis Howes?

  I mean, I was sexually abused. So for me, when I feel like anyone's taking advantage of me.

• 39:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It triggers.

• 39:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 39:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Absolutely right.

• 39:26Lewis Howes?

  So I understand it, you know?

• 39:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, and it threatens you. So when, when you talk about neuroticism, someone who cannot self calm as much, they are more anxious because they know it will affect them for longer.

• 39:36Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, it's becoming more anxious, yeah.

• 39:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, so that is.

• 39:39Lewis Howes?

  It's affecting me, ah.

• 39:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So I hire people who will worry for me. Hmm, yeah. Literally, I don't have like official warriors on my team, but my lovely team, like I will say, Danielle, can you just worry about this for me?

• 39:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's smart.

• 39:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Can you just, because I know that if she's worrying about it, I don't have to.

• 39:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So you'll notice in relationships, partnerships with colleagues, you have to be able to ask for your resource theory. You have to be able to ask for things that will keep you calm.

• 40:03Lewis Howes?

  Can you take care of this for me? Can you handle this for me?

• 40:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly, and what your trigger points are. So for a high neurotic, um, it might be, um, emotional stability, right? Like worry or anxiety. And having someone else share that worry with you makes you feel better. So in a typical male female relationship, typical, and this is not everyone.

• 40:19Lewis Howes?

  Generalized, yeah.

• 40:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Generalized, the woman is the warrior, the man is not the warrior, not always, but sometimes. So for example, in my relationship, my husband is the rock, right? So I'm really worried about something and he'll be like, it'll all be fine, babe.

• 40:29Lewis Howes?

  And that makes you even more worried.

• 40:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. Because I want to know that I'm not the only one worrying.

• 40:34Lewis Howes?

  So what if he says, you know what? Don't worry about it. I'll handle it.

• 40:37Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay, now we're getting better.

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 40:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 40:39Lewis Howes?

  Then you can say, alright, he's gonna take care of it.

• 40:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Ooh, I like that, especially if he's actually.

• 40:42Lewis Howes?

  Then you can let go of it?

• 40:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, I get on the way to help, quicker, right? Here, here would be the ultimate.

• 40:48Lewis Howes?

  Like, I got this. Here, I'll show you. Go do something else.

• 40:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh, see, that's, that would like be magic, right? If he was like.

• 40:54Lewis Howes?

  Does he not do that?

• 40:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  He does, now he does do that, right? Cause he knows.

• 40:57Lewis Howes?

  What you need, yeah.

• 40:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, so he'll say, like, I'll be worried about, I don't know, I don't know, like planning something for an in-law trip or something like that, right? And he'll be like, babe, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna book the flights, I'm gonna let my mom know about our timing, we're gonna make sure that we have early reservations, and we're gonna make sure that all these things are taken care of.

• 41:15Lewis Howes?

  We pack a week in advance?

• 41:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, yeah, I'm the packer actually. I pack as he does the travel.

• 41:20Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 41:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So like, that, like, I think that when we talk about how we're wired, it helps us not wanna change the person we're with. So the biggest mistake, especially when we're talking about personality or resource language, is we hope that we can make someone better. The problem is, is that we are wired a certain way, thirty-five to fifty-five percent of our personality is genetic. The rest is shaped in early childhood. So yes, while we do have some ability to change our personality, that's called free trait theory. You can optimize parts of your personality to achieve your goals.

• 41:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you can be aware of it, and so you can move out of a shifter.

• 41:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Hundred percent. It is much better to figure out, how can I work with my partner, colleague, friends, resource language need or personality in a better way? So for example, one of the personality traits is openness. So openness is like adventurous, adventurous, adventur-ness, creativity, new ideas. People who are high open always wanna try new restaurants, they wanna go to new places. They're always trying new ways of doing things in their business. They're the boss that's like, let's try this, let's try that, let's do this. Low open people love habit and tradition and routine. They love having things set up the same way every time. They like to honor that that routine, it makes them feel whole and one. So if you have people in a relationship where someone's high open-

• 42:35Lewis Howes?

  They're opposites, you're like, constantly stressed.

• 42:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You don't have to be, but you're constantly stressed. It would be better to be like, for the high open person to be like, hey, I, it's really important to me to be adventurous with food. Trying new restaurants is a thing. Is that okay with you? I'm totally okay with having the morning routine be the same, having our grocery shopping be the same.

• 42:55Lewis Howes?

  Smart.

• 42:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But on this area, that makes me feel alive.

• 42:58Lewis Howes?

  Two nights a week, we're going somewhere different, yeah, yeah.

• 42:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly, or do I need to have a friend who's my adventurous eater?

• 43:02Lewis Howes?

  Right, yeah.

• 43:03Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That, that's like, I think, something that we don't always negotiate in that way. And as soon as you have the language, it makes it a non-hot-button issue. So instead of- I want to try a new place. You always want to try a new place. That's a hot button issue, right? Versus, hey, like Thursdays are, are, are night out night. Um, are you open to trying somewhere new? Or should I call my friend George?

• 43:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right. Like, that's a very different kind of conversation. And my goal is not to get rid of your fights. It's to make them discussions.

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, not fights.

• 43:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right.

• 43:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:36Lewis Howes?

  So you said you wanted to talk about something in the beginning about personalities.

• 43:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I did.

• 43:40Lewis Howes?

  Now, what is this specifically?

• 43:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. So you're like, I don't know about this topic.

• 43:47Lewis Howes?

  Let's hear it.

• 43:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So when we talk about signs of personality, there's a lot of things out there. DISC and Enneagram and Myers-Briggs and all these things. The only one that is scientifically based is the big five. And it's five personality traits.

• 43:59Lewis Howes?

  Five love languages?

• 44:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's, it's, we talk about the five love languages, actually. That's a good one, too. So there's like special five, five love languages and the five big five.

• 44:07Lewis Howes?

  Yes. I know that's not scientific, the love languages.

• 44:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Actually, I mean,

• 44:10Lewis Howes?

  It seems

• 44:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  There is some science.

• 44:11Lewis Howes?

  Very practical.

• 44:12Vanessa Van Edwards?

  There is some science behind it.

• 44:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, there is. Um, and the big five has, has a lot. Um, and so everyone has these big five personality traits and their other high or low in them.

• 44:22Lewis Howes?

  It's one or the other. It's high, low. There's no middle.

• 44:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  There is middle. It is a spectrum. This is the biggest difference between like Myers-Briggs. It like labels you like an extrovert or introvert. Like, a lot of people like really struggle with that label.

• 44:34Lewis Howes?

  Well, I'm kind of both or I'm in the middle.

• 44:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly. So it's all, every trait is a spectrum. And like, we have like a, like a nice spectrum and you kind of place yourself on it. A lot of these personality traits are not our choice. So that is why I brought up the serotonin thing for neuroticism. The greatest understanding that we can have about ourselves is to know that our reactions, our emotional reactions, are part of how we are wired. So a lot of the times, like you feel guilty or jealous or, um, all these dirty emotions, right? The negative emotions that we don't like to feel. And then we judge ourselves for them.

• 45:06Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 45:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Like, oh, I'm so not gracious right now. I'm so not feeling my gratitude.

• 45:12Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But actually, your optimism or your negativity is wired within you. So you're better off trying to figure out what are my triggers? How am I natural at and how can I optimize that? So we talked about openness, right? Figuring out how you can balance routine versus something new. Talked a little bit about neurotism. The other one that I wanted to bring up was conscientiousness. So conscientiousness in a relationship, studies have found that this is the biggest one. That if you have a difference in your partner's conscientiousness, you have the most relationship problems.

• 45:42Lewis Howes?

  Say it again.

• 45:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So if you are different than your partner's conscientiousness, scientifically speaking, you're more likely to have more relationship problems.

• 45:50Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 45:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So conscientiousness, yeah. Conscientiousness is how you approach detail. So high conscientious people, this would be me. We love to do this.

• 46:00Lewis Howes?

  Details, everything.

• 46:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Details, alphabetizing, steps, routine. Like, we love lots of things.

• 46:05Lewis Howes?

  If your partner is like, I could care less about it. And it's like, oh, loosey goosey, like, hey, you know, we'll get it to it someday.

• 46:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Low conscientiousness is exactly what you just said.

• 46:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Big ideas.

• 46:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Strategy, doesn't want to get bogged down in the details. This is you, right?

• 46:21Lewis Howes?

  It's not me. I like the detail, but I just see where you're coming from. It's funny, yeah.

• 46:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right. And so what happens is, is you have people who are like, hey, let's plan a vacation. I have a color-coded spreadsheet with all the different possible locations and approximate weather in those locations. And then you have the low open, low conscientious person who's like, let's just fly to a place and figure it out when we get there.

• 46:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I like that, too.

• 46:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So I think you're in the middle.

• 46:44Lewis Howes?

  I think I'm in the middle. Here's the thing, because I love big ideas and I love strategizing about them. But I know as an athlete, you've got to execute on a daily basis if you want to make them happen.

• 46:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Ooh, that's a different thing what you just said there. Okay.

• 46:58Lewis Howes?

  So, so here's what I do now. Tell me what you're gonna say.

• 47:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay.

• 47:01Lewis Howes?

  So I come up with the ideas and then... I hire the people who are very detailed and say, run with it so I can come up with more big ideas and then bring them back to you and say, now we're gonna do this, now run with that. So I, you know, hire people with those strengths to work with me on that.

• 47:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  The way that, I don't know if you guys heard what Lewis just said, which is, that is so free trade theory. So what, what you said is, I basically, I optimize. I know that details are important as an athlete. I know that details are important in my business. So either I work those details out in a workout routine, or I hire those people. So that is a great example of how you can take what you naturally are and then free trade there, optimize it, so that you leverage it up. So I would say that you're probably medium-low.

• 47:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But you know how to turn it up in the areas that it's needed, which is probably one of the reasons why you're so successful.

• 47:51Lewis Howes?

  It depends too. As an athlete, I didn't, I couldn't hire anyone to do the work for me. It was like I had to train all day, I had to do the research, I had, you know, I was constantly studying game film, I was practicing, I was doing everything myself.

• 48:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, can't export it.

• 48:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you can't, you gotta, you gotta do it yourself as an athlete. So, um, so I understood it, but now that I have more resources and, you know, different part of my life, I can optimize the thing that I like doing the most.

• 48:12Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And I, I think that that is the key to happiness, right? Like we, I did a whole, um, two-year study on happiness. And we can get into if you'd like to.

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  Did you write a book about it?

• 48:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I didn't yet.

• 48:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 48:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I have an online course on it, but I didn't write a book on it yet. Um, and I wrote it from the place of like, I'm also not a naturally like a happy person. Like I'm a worrier.

• 48:34Lewis Howes?

  Worried, yeah.

• 48:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And it's like, I really have to work at it.

• 48:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And, um, what I learned was, is that it's actually not the big things that make you happy, it's the little things, including...

• 48:45Lewis Howes?

  The cup of coffee you're gonna get later as a treat.

• 48:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, like the smell of the coffee, like the amazing juice at Creation, whatever, right? Like, oh, the smoothness of it. By the way, everyone, I went to, I went to Creation with Lewis.

• 48:57Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 48:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And you downed your juice faster than I could drink.

• 49:01Lewis Howes?

  Have a sip.

• 49:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It was impressive. I was like, where did it go? It was magic.

• 49:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Um, so yeah, so saving those things, and also, those moments where you have optimized your natural personality instead of changing it.

• 49:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That is where happiness comes from. When you can say, I'm a big idea person. I love creativity. I love strategizing. I love big ideas and big pictures. Getting bogged down the details is necessary, but I don't like it. So therefore, I'm going to find a way to either outsource it or minimize it. So I can focus on those things. That feeling of capability, that feeling of control is incredibly happiness making. Control is a, is a very happy making emotion. It's, you know, we think about happiness as like pleasure and joy and ecstasy. But actually, you know, the words for happiness are control, capability.

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  Like feeling like you're in control, right? Not like controlling people or something, but feeling like you're in control of your results or your life.

• 49:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. And, and one example of this that I like thinking about is, um, there's this, this thing called the Tetris effect. I don't know if you've ever heard of this. So these researchers had students.

• 50:11Lewis Howes?

  They said the touchers. I was like, Tetris effect?

• 50:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But I like that one, too. That's very happy making. That's good, too. Yes, we can hand hug later if you want. Hand hug. Yeah. Yeah. So this, this is not as fun as the Tetris effect. Yes. So what researchers did, this was not a study on happiness. They brought research, they brought students in, they had them play Tetris for like four hours.

• 50:33Lewis Howes?

  Sounds fun. I haven't played Tetris in probably 20 years, but I used to love playing games all the time.

• 50:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It is addictive. Yeah. So they, they were testing something about the brain and an unexpected result of this study is that students left the lab and were literally seeing their entire life like a Tetris board. They wanted to rearrange their furniture like Tetris. They wanted to like stand in line like Tetris. They wanted to reorganize their shelving like Tetris. And they realized it in a weird way, they had primed the brain to think in a Tetris like pattern. So what happens is, is typically humans have a negativity bias. We are trained to see the negative things in the world, the bad things. This is a survival mechanism, right? As cavemen, we had to go, hmm, it might rain. I better get ahead. I should really forage for the winter. I should, you know, like we are trained

• 51:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  to see all the problems and potential things that could go wrong. So we could prepare ourselves. So our bias, our training is negative, negative, negative. We open our email and go, what's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? Right? We walk into a room and we're like, who don't I know? Why don't I belong? I'm not saying everyone has this, but there's certain extremes. I think that we can retrain our brain, just like the Tetris effect, to see in happiness patterns. So instead of walking into a room and being like, "Oh, I don't belong, I don't know anyone," thinking about, "Why do I belong? Who can I know?" That's a very different kind of framework to see the world. And so I think that that's about control, right? That that's bringing control into a negative mindset and flipping it.

• 52:03Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 52:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So that it's not necessarily positive, you just know where your frame is coming from.

• 52:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay. Control. What was the other thing?

• 52:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Control, capability, and optimization.

• 52:13Lewis Howes?

  That's the key to happiness.

• 52:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Those three things are, I think, are the key to happiness, yes.

• 52:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Okay, cool.

• 52:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And I think that they're under, underappreciated.

• 52:22Lewis Howes?

  I got it.

• 52:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Especially with capability.

• 52:24Lewis Howes?

  Okay. So where else? Did I get us off track?

• 52:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I think I got us off track. I got like down the happiness.

• 52:29Lewis Howes?

  You were gonna say, so we were talking about personality, something, right?

• 52:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, so the last thing I was gonna say was with conscientiousness is thinking about, if your partner is a big idea person.

• 52:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 52:39Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Or a detail person, same with your colleagues.

• 52:40Lewis Howes?

  You said the most conflict of.

• 52:42Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's the most conflicts, where you have, "Why didn't you clean up?" "I did clean up." This isn't clean.

• 52:48Lewis Howes?

  Not the way I want it.

• 52:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly.

• 52:49Lewis Howes?

  So you and your partner, your husband, are you guys complete opposites in that space then?

• 52:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  He is much lower conscientious than I am.

• 52:56Lewis Howes?

  So how does that work?

• 52:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So we figured it out. So for example, we figured out what needs to be changed and what doesn't. So like, for example, I like an organized sock drawer. My husband doesn't care if he's wearing whatever on his feet, right? So we have, after many months of being like, "Did you get your socks? Did you fold your socks? Your socks are everywhere." I was like, "You know what? That is his drawer. We do not share a drawer any longer." He has his side of the closet.

• 53:18Lewis Howes?

  Because of what he wants.

• 53:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I have my side of the closet. So instead of trying to change him and teach him how to have a better sock drawer, I was like, "No, that's a waste of both of our..." It's not, it's not real to who we are. I'd rather have us optimize and say, "That's his, this is mine." That's a really small example, a very like concrete example, but there's bigger ones as well. For example, if you are talking about a friendship or how you wanna raise children, someone who is high conscientious is gonna wanna break down all the details and plan for every eventuality. Where someone who's a big picture person is gonna be like, "Let's, let's meet the kid and let's see what we think." Right? And those can be major value differences. So instead of getting angry at them or trying to convince them to be more like you, big idea or detailed, the better conversation is...

• 54:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Why don't you want to pre-plan? Or why do you think that going by the seat of your pants is better? Like where is the value there? How can we pick this based on actual strengths and not how we're wired?

• 54:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So I think that's a very different kind of conversation to have. So those, the three things, the ones I would focus on is how organized someone is, how big of an open adventurous someone is, and how much of a warrior someone is.

• 54:27Lewis Howes?

  And it's okay if they're opposite on both of those, all those things with you, but you just have to figure out how to.

• 54:31Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Optimize them. And by the way, if you're single, I think that one of the things to think about is like, what is your ideal personality match? And this is a crazy, this is a crazy way to think about dating. Like, most people are like, they don't think about this, but like, I think that if you're.

• 54:46Lewis Howes?

  That's where a lot of stress comes from.

• 54:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  A lot.

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  A lot of pain and suffering in a relationship.

• 54:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, and I think that like, a really fun, maybe this is me, this is my idea of fun. I think a really fun conversation you can have in the beginning of a relationship, the first few dates is like, so like, I read this book or I listened to this podcast on personality. You know, are you, are you a big idea person or detail person? Are you a morning person or are you a night person? Right, like those kind of conversations early are so much better than when they normally come out, which is on the first fight.

• 55:12Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to just having like this chemical attraction and being like, oh, we love each other and it's like, you know.

• 55:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  We'll figure it all out.

• 55:17Lewis Howes?

  Hook up constantly, yeah.

• 55:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, yeah, and remember that people will free trade that they'll optimize during the lust phase, so that you don't actually know how much they are. This happened to me recently, I hired a developer and in his interview process, he came across as very high conscientious, sent phases, sent the proposal. I was like, great, this is wonderful, because I work well with other high conscientious people. But he optimized for me during the interview process, because I did not, of course.

• 55:42Lewis Howes?

  Put his best foot forward.

• 55:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Of course, so I didn't ask the right questions, which should have been. So, over the course of this eight-month project, how do you like to work? Are you a weekly check-in kind of a person?

• 55:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I kind of like to check in once in a while.

• 55:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And then I would have, I would have immediately found out.

• 55:57Lewis Howes?

  Like, oh, it's not a good fit, yeah.

• 55:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And then I would have been like, shoot, he's a kind of do it as you do it kind of guy. But I didn't know to ask those questions. So I think in the beginning of all relationships, the best thing we can do is don't let the lust overcome us, right?

• 56:11Lewis Howes?

  So tough in personal relationships and business relationships, all that, yeah.

• 56:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And I've seen in dating profiles, people will put their MBTI in dating profiles sometimes.

• 56:18Lewis Howes?

  MBTI?

• 56:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

  The Myers-Briggs, like ENFJ or INFJ.

• 56:21Lewis Howes?

  In dating profiles?

• 56:22Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I've seen it, I have seen it in dating profiles.

• 56:24Lewis Howes?

  People are obsessed with that stuff.

• 56:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  People are obsessed with it.

• 56:25Lewis Howes?

  I always, someone always tells me what I am, but I forget it. I can't remember.

• 56:29Vanessa Van Edwards?

  ENFJ?

• 56:30Lewis Howes?

  I think so, maybe. Yeah.

• 56:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, maybe. But that Myers-Briggs, remember, is not scientifically based. Because it, because also, we do change over time slightly, and it's hard if you have one label, like if, like if you're just E, it gives you very little wiggle room.

• 56:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I don't like that.

• 56:45Lewis Howes?

  There's another, uh, personality test with four quadrants. Have you seen this?

• 56:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  DISC.

• 56:50Lewis Howes?

  Is that what it is? Where it's promoter, supporter, analyzer, controller.

• 56:55Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 56:55Lewis Howes?

  Have you seen that?

• 56:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I think, I think that that's DISC, but I've seen that one, yes.

• 56:58Lewis Howes?

  Promoter, supporter, analyzer, controller. And you kind of like, you rank, you go through a quiz of figuring out which quadrant you're the highest at.

• 57:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 57:07Lewis Howes?

  So you'd be, you know, I'm a promoter, controller.

• 57:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 57:09Lewis Howes?

  First off, promoter, I'm like a big idea, I'm passionate, I'm like excited, let's go, let's do this.

• 57:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 57:14Lewis Howes?

  I like to be in control, I like to, you know, have all those things. Uh, and then it's support, analyze. It's kind of like the top four, but really, I'm like, very close to almost all of them. Like, all of them are pretty high, so I'm almost like very spread out. And like, the true leaders, I hear, is what they say, is like, you want to be able to tap into each quadrant.

• 57:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right.

• 57:33Lewis Howes?

  To connect to an analyzer. If they're an analyzer, you want to be able to be analytical with them.

• 57:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:38Lewis Howes?

  If they're a promoter, you want to be promoting with them. If they're a supporter, you want to be in support with them.

• 57:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 57:43Lewis Howes?

  So you're always meeting someone where they're at, not trying to have them meet you where you're at.

• 57:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So it's like a flexible leadership style.

• 57:48Lewis Howes?

  Flexible leadership.

• 57:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That is the same thing with emotional intelligence.

• 57:51Lewis Howes?

  That is, this is emotional intelligence. That's what it is.

• 57:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And, and it's the exact same thing with that, and also like expressiveness.

• 57:56Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 57:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  For example, like, um, from a non-verbal perspective, if someone, um, shows up and they're like, super bubbly and super excited, and the other person's like, kind of calm.

• 58:05Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 58:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It's a mismatch.

• 58:06Lewis Howes?

  You gotta meet them where they're at.

• 58:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, you gotta meet them where they're at.

• 58:08Lewis Howes?

  A little bit ahead, and you know, try to get them to that space, but.

• 58:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, I, I think that matching and mirroring is an interesting way to think about interactions, especially like phone calls. Uh, we're doing a bunch of research right now on vocal power, and which you think about vocal power probably all the time, because a lot of people are listening.

• 58:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 58:26Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Um, so what we found was, well, there's, there's an interesting anchor study here, where, um, they looked at doctors, and they found that doctors who record 10-second voice tone clips, so, hello, my name is Dr. Edwards, I work at Children's Presbyterian Hospital, and I specialize in oncology, something like that. They took those clips and they warbled the words, so you couldn't understand the words that were being said, so it was,

• 58:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  they asked people to rate those clips on intelligence, warmth, competence. Now imagine this for a second, like, you hear a clip of, like, gobbledygook, like.

• 58:59Lewis Howes?

  How could you rate it?

• 59:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exa- how could you but people do? They found that the doctors who got rated the lowest in intelligence and warmth also had the highest rate of malpractice lawsuits.

• 59:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 59:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 59:12Lewis Howes?

  Just based on confidence and voice?

• 59:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Somehow, we don't sue people, we don't sue doctors based on their actual skills. We sue doctors based on our perception of their skills. So in your voice, how they show up, how they sound, it does not have to do with the verbal. Remember how at the very beginning I was like, whatever you say in those first few seconds is actually not as important as what you're showing up as. We even catch that on the phone. So your vocal power, you know, how you say hello? And like, what's interesting is the biggest mistake people make.

• 59:42Lewis Howes?

  Hello.

• 59:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh my gosh. Hello. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So tone, cadence and pitch. Also, another one is like people will hold their breath while they answer. So they go, hello? That's the highest end of my vocal range. I'm working very hard right now to keep my vocal range in the lowest possible range.

• 1:00:00Lewis Howes?

  What's more calm and relaxing?

• 1:00:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Much more calm.

• 1:00:02Lewis Howes?

  It's like stressed out.

• 1:00:03Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Better resonance, right, a better resonance point. So if you hear yourself and you hear yourself going a little bit higher in your range.

• 1:00:10Lewis Howes?

  It's not good.

• 1:00:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  The best thing you can do is actually speak on the out breath. So if you hear the difference, so I'm gonna make myself go tense. So if I get really excited and I tense my vocal cord, I sound a little bit nervous, a little bit more like a child. Now, if I speak on the out breath, it forces the words out, it relaxes my vocal cords and it makes me sound more resonant. So the best thing you can do is actually answer on the out breath. So not hello versus hello. A very, very different. All these careers I could do.

• 1:00:43Lewis Howes?

  It's funny, I heard, uh, my brother told me that he read some science project or something where research on, when he's on the phone, he smiles when he's like saying goodbye. He's like smiling in the last like thirty seconds and he says people can feel that on the other side.

• 1:00:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. Okay, so that is absolutely right. Um, there are sixteen different kinds of smiles that can be detected from voice tone alone.

• 1:01:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:01:08Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, sixteen different kinds of smiles. What's interesting is we're on our vocal study that we're doing right now. We haven't published this research yet, but it's super interesting. We found preliminary results. We had the same people record hello with different body language expressions.

• 1:01:24Lewis Howes?

  Hello.

• 1:01:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly.

• 1:01:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, like splunked over, like.

• 1:01:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Well, you can do it right now, actually. Let's, let's try it.

• 1:01:29Lewis Howes?

  Hello.

• 1:01:29Vanessa Van Edwards?

  See if you can guess what we're doing. So like, let's do like this one, like really, yeah. Hello.

• 1:01:34Lewis Howes?

  Hello.

• 1:01:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, versus. Hello.

• 1:01:38Lewis Howes?

  Hello.

• 1:01:39Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, so like, that's low power versus high power, right? It's like, it's supposed to change our voice. Now, we make them do it for a little bit longer because it's very quick. And we also had them do micro expressions. So happiness micro expression, anger micro expression was when you pull your eyebrows together, harden your lips, um, versus sadness micro expressions. That's when you pinch your inner corners together.

• 1:01:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yep. Uh, and we had them record hellos.

• 1:02:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:02:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And then we have people in our lab, or participants, and you can go play if you want, listen to these clips and rate them on warmth, competence, and charisma. The same person will get totally different ratings based on how they are holding their face and their body.

• 1:02:16Lewis Howes?

  So what, how you hold yourself on the phone matters.

• 1:02:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  This is the same thing we were talking about earlier, which is like, what do you want to infect? Right? If you answer the phone sad and anxious and distracted, not only do people perceive you as sad, anxious, distracted, they catch those emotions too.

• 1:02:32Lewis Howes?

  So what's the best thing people should do before they answer the phone?

• 1:02:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Out breath. So not holding your breath in. So like, if you can take one or two deep breaths before you answer, it will relax your vocal cord, right? So, oh, you're like picking it up. Who is it? Yeah, a couple of deep breaths and then hello? So that's the first thing you can do. It relaxes your vocal cords.

• 1:02:49Lewis Howes?

  Should you say hello? Or if it's a friend, you're like, hey, what's up?

• 1:02:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Either one.

• 1:02:54Lewis Howes?

  Good looking.

• 1:02:54Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Either one. I like that. Like, that'd be better. That, that's a compliment. I like a compliment. Anyway, yeah. So, so like, hey, this is Louis. Hello. Hey buddy, what's up? Right? So one or two.

• 1:03:03Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't matter what you say.

• 1:03:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly.

• 1:03:05Lewis Howes?

  It's the energy and how you're saying it.

• 1:03:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:07Lewis Howes?

  Just like when you're meeting a person.

• 1:03:08Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly. So breath, yes. Breath. Oh, I didn't get an explosion. Yes, breath. I'm not cool like that.

• 1:03:15Lewis Howes?

  You are cool.

• 1:03:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I cannot do a fist bump like that. Can we just like wave at each other? That's like way more comfortable for me.

• 1:03:21Lewis Howes?

  Hey, guys.

• 1:03:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Hey, guys. Yeah, so out breath is actually the most important one. Um, if you can do it, the second one would be to try to actually just be as expressive as they are. So if you hear that, so you're you say hello, right? And they're like, hey, what's up?

• 1:03:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, hey, what's up?

• 1:03:36Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, hey, what's up? Right? Like that match is like an instant. I'm with you. I'm on the same page.

• 1:03:43Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:03:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Especially for business.

• 1:03:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Especially for business.

• 1:03:46Lewis Howes?

  Okay, I want to get to the final part of talking about, uh, lying.

• 1:03:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:03:51Lewis Howes?

  And how you can tell someone's lying.

• 1:03:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. Oh, God. So I.

• 1:03:55Lewis Howes?

  You don't have much of this in the book.

• 1:03:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I don't. I don't have very much of this in the book.

• 1:03:59Lewis Howes?

  Why don't you have this in the book?

• 1:04:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  The reason is because I think this is one of those evil superpowers. Yeah, it's like, it's like muhaha. It's like that. Because it is very powerful. The science behind lie detection is is very concrete. It's not a guessing game. We do know a lot about what people, what happens to people when they lie. The problem is, is amateur lie detectors do worse than people who don't know anything about lying.

• 1:04:22Lewis Howes?

  Ah, got it.

• 1:04:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That so my my always my worry is like, oh, my gosh, if I give someone a little bit of information, I actually make them worse. So for example, in the biggest study on lie detection that was done, we can spot lies with 54% accuracy.

• 1:04:37Lewis Howes?

  So flip a coin?

• 1:04:37Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly. It's terrible. Like, we're terrible. By the way, like, police officers don't, oh, so can you guess there's one group that did better on this? It's not police officers, it's not doctors, it's not teachers.

• 1:04:49Lewis Howes?

  Kids.

• 1:04:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  No, I wish it was kid. They actually didn't test kids because that's a whole different IRB process.

• 1:04:54Lewis Howes?

  Who could test, who who was more efficient and see if there's a lie?

• 1:04:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It was.

• 1:04:58Lewis Howes?

  Is that what you're saying? The group?

• 1:05:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Prison inmates.

• 1:05:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that makes sense.

• 1:05:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right. As soon as I read that, I was like, oh, yeah. And they they joked like the setup section is like, it takes one to know one.

• 1:05:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah, of course.

• 1:05:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right? And so that was like very interesting to me. Exactly. So.

• 1:05:17Lewis Howes?

  Can't steal from a thief.

• 1:05:18Vanessa Van Edwards?

  All those things. Yes, exactly. The same thing happens with lying. So the problem is, is that the moment you give an amateur, like liar, like someone amateur tips, they're. Ability goes below 55%, it gets even worse.

• 1:05:30Lewis Howes?

  That I know, yeah.

• 1:05:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Because it's like you need the whole system. But I think there's a couple of things that if you are interested in this thing, or in this idea, this topic, there's a couple of things that you want to start with. And there are things that can immediately help you spot lies in your life. Are you ready?

• 1:05:44Lewis Howes?

  Let's do it.

• 1:05:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay. The first thing that you want to look for are incongruencies. So in interactions, it's very easy to control our words. Right, anyone can say anything. What you're looking for is incongruencies with the body or voice tone. So for example, if I were to show up and be like, "I'm so happy to be here today." Right, like you can hear it. Um, our body language has 12.5 times more weight than our words. So with liars, what you're looking for is leaks. Leaks are incongruencies. A very common one is in Western cultures, an up and down nod, a vertical nod means yes, and a horizontal one means no. So an incongruency would be...

• 1:06:23Lewis Howes?

  Like yes.

• 1:06:24Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right, exactly. Or like, um, and for people who are listening, I'm shaking my head opposite. So it would be, um, "So, did you take the cookies from the cookie jar?" Um, "No."

• 1:06:34Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:06:34Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Shaking their head yes, right? So that, that's like a leak. That's something that we often see, where we're seeing some kind of incongruency. The other big kind of incongruency is, um, micro-expressions. And this is something that I do talk about in the book. It's sort of the first step to lie detection, is learning how to read faces. And the most important facial expression to recognize, this is the most powerful one, is the expression of contempt. So contempt is a one-sided mouth raise. Smirk. Dr. John Gottman, he analyzed thousands of couples in his love lab looking for patterns in marriages. He found that couples who showed contempt towards the other, with 93% accuracy, would get divorced within 30 years. I mean, you don't, you don't hear stats like that very often.

• 1:07:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:07:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So contempt is a really interesting one. You see it a lot on liars, because if someone is truly happy about something, or very excited to see you, or happy to be there, there's no reason they're going to show contempt or the smirk. It often will come out either because they're actually not happy with what they're saying, or they hate having to lie. Liars hate lying. So oftentimes, and we have, oh, we did a big lie detection experiment. We had people play two truths and a lie with us. And we analyzed their videos. Oh, yes, it was. Wanna play, Louis?

• 1:07:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, so like they, we actually analyzed their cues. Liars hate to lie. We don't like the feeling in our body when we lie. It feels really unauthentic. So sometimes you'll see a liar who will make contempt because they're like, oh, I really don't want to have to do this. And they hold their mouth in that side contempt expression because they really don't like it. So the two things that I want you to look out for, and if you're starting to see it, that means you actually have an eye for it, is contempt when there shouldn't be contempt. And any kind of incongruencies, like that negative head nod, or when someone says something but doesn't actually mean it. Though, you start with those two steps and you're already going to increase your abilities.

• 1:08:28Lewis Howes?

  Your lie detection capabilities.

• 1:08:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:08:31Lewis Howes?

  I like it. I like it.

• 1:08:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  But you use your gut. You use your intuition for lie detection.

• 1:08:35Lewis Howes?

  You feel it, you know? Like you're reading everything, just kind of like you're reading the guy like sweating and smelling it and you're like,

• 1:08:41Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:08:42Lewis Howes?

  Everything combined.

• 1:08:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly. So actually, that is more important. That's the most important.

• 1:08:46Lewis Howes?

  And eye contact as well, you know, if someone's like not looking at you and they're, you know.

• 1:08:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So liars, if you're lying face to face, not on video. So liars typically look you in the eye more because they want to see if you believe them.

• 1:08:57Lewis Howes?

  Ah, wanna see if you believe them? No way.

• 1:09:00Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:09:01Lewis Howes?

  Wouldn't you wanna like try to do that so you could try to like just act like you're telling the truth?

• 1:09:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So either one. So really good liars actually make more eye contact.

• 1:09:11Lewis Howes?

  Like, I don't believe, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:12Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right. So like, for example, like a really good liar is like, I'm gonna deliver this to you and hope you do. And they're trying to see, does this, do they believe me? Are they making any weird facial expressions? Can I convince them? So actually, looking away, shifty eyes, is just a sign of nervousness.

• 1:09:24Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:25Vanessa Van Edwards?

  A truth teller can be nervous too. So there's all these weird myths. Also, um, do you want to guess the, um, mode of communication that has the highest amount of lies? So your choices are face to face, emails, IM, or chat, like text? Which do you think has the most amount of lies?

• 1:09:42Lewis Howes?

  Uh, text? Is that the least amount?

• 1:09:45Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Nope, it is. Phone has the most amount of lies. And the reason for this is because...

• 1:09:51Lewis Howes?

  Oh, I think I know why.

• 1:09:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Tell me, yeah.

• 1:09:53Lewis Howes?

  Maybe.

• 1:09:53Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, I bet you, I bet you have it right.

• 1:09:55Lewis Howes?

  Well, because want, well, I don't know. I was gonna say anything that's not recorded.

• 1:09:58Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Ah, yes, that's it.

• 1:09:59Lewis Howes?

  But text is like, you got the proof or something, you can go back to it.

• 1:10:02Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's exactly right, though. That's why. So phone has the most because there's no paper trail.

• 1:10:06Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:10:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And you don't have to lie to someone's face. Right? Like, it's really easy to like, turn your back and be like, I'm gonna... Yeah. So, whereas email, text, and face-to-face. Email, text has a paper trail and face-to-face doesn't. So, there's all these really interesting things about lying that we have misconceptions or we don't think about them. So, by the way, if you're doing a lot of business on the phone, if you're doing a lot of coaching on the phone. You really have to be careful. Um, I have a lot of students who are life coaches, they work with a lot of students, and they do a lot of phone consulting. What the problem with that is, if it has the most amount of lies, or we're talking about hidden emotions, if you're working as a coach, like, you really have to spot those hidden emotions. You have to think about what are ways that we can either bring the video to this, like, do video chat or do in-person. Or at least say, "Hey, I'm taking notes on this call.

• 1:10:52Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I'm gonna send you a summary after we hang up." That actually brings the amount of lies down to email level because you're telling them, "I'm gonna commit this to black and white. I'm gonna commit this to paper."

• 1:11:03Lewis Howes?

  Yes, they feel like it's trustworthy.

• 1:11:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly. So, whenever I do negotiations, I do a lot of phone negotiations when I'm doing corporate events. I always say, "My assistant's on the line," so third person, right, to hear.

• 1:11:13Lewis Howes?

  Who's taking notes.

• 1:11:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Exactly. "My assistant's on the line, she's gonna be taking some notes for us, and don't worry, she'll send a full summary out afterwards. Please confirm that we got all the details right when you get it."

• 1:11:21Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 1:11:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I have caught so many little lies.

• 1:11:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  People don't mean, I don't think...

• 1:11:29Lewis Howes?

  Take the notes.

• 1:11:29Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, because my assistant will take notes, very good notes, and then we always send it back and we say, "Please review these notes and please send us receipt that they all look good to you, that we got everything right."

• 1:11:39Lewis Howes?

  And what do people say?

• 1:11:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Well, the lies that we've caught is they've overestimated amount of people, overestimated a budget, they're not the actual decision maker. And so when we reply back with that email, they have to say, you know, I'm so sorry, I mentioned 5,000, but I actually think it's going to be a little bit closer to 3,000.

• 1:11:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:11:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Right? Because they know that we'll have it in writing if anything is changed.

• 1:12:01Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:12:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So protect yourself in the business world by adding that in there. Uh, I think that's a really important strategy for just getting more honest interactions.

• 1:12:08Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. What about negotiations?

• 1:12:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Hmm. Yes. Um, so for negotiations, um, the biggest thing here is actually vocal power. So going back to vocal, yes, because, because we sue doctors based on our perception of their skills. The same thing happens in negotiations. We value people on our perceptions of their skills. So I know-

• 1:12:29Lewis Howes?

  Perception of their skills.

• 1:12:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Our perception of their skills.

• 1:12:31Lewis Howes?

  And that comes through vocality.

• 1:12:33Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. Cause when you go to a negotiation, you're not thinking about vocal. You're thinking about what are my assets, what are my value points, what are the things I'm going to do? And those are all important, but the very first impression, especially how you ask your number, is the most important thing. So for example, if you are quoting a price, this is the hardest part of negotiation. Someone says, how much do you charge? What, what do you cost? And you say, um, question inflection, I charge $10,000?

• 1:12:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's not good.

• 1:12:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You are begging them to negotiate with you.

• 1:13:00Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:01Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You're basically telling them, I'm not sure of this number and you shouldn't be either. So first is making sure that you are saying, not asking. So make sure that you're going the downward inflection. So the question inflection is when you go up at the end of your sentences. That's very, very-

• 1:13:15Lewis Howes?

  Saying, not asking.

• 1:13:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes. Versus going down at the end of your sentences. So when you have a number, you have a skill that you're going to share. Think about the verbal ahead of time, but with vocal, you want to deliver that in authoritative voice tone. So for example, like President Obama was very good at this.

• 1:13:28Lewis Howes?

  How would you say $10,000?

• 1:13:30Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Ah, so, so here's the bad way first. I always like to do negative practice first. So bad way is, um, it'll be, um, I'd, I'd love to work with you. I think we'd be a great partnership and it will be $5,000. That's the bad way. The good way is, I'd love to work with you. I think we'd be a great partner and the cost will be $5,000. Right, so it's just adding it at the end. It's a finality, right? It's like saying like, this is my cost and I know how much I'm worth now. If you don't know how much you're worth, we can have a different discussion about that. Like, I want you to own your worth. Your time is valuable. Your skills are valuable. You've spent years learning to do what you do, so you have to be able to price that well.

• 1:14:06Lewis Howes?

  Your worth is only worth what someone's willing to pay as well.

• 1:14:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:14:10Lewis Howes?

  So if you can't convince or enroll someone or, you know, and then back it up with results, then, you know, you may get it, but you may not keep it. So you've got to like do a lumber fist.

• 1:14:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And they don't have a perception of your value that way. So the first thing is the downward inflection. The second thing is volume. So when we're really nervous, we will lose volume. Remember how we're excited? I go up. Yeah. So salespeople, I do a lot of sales trainings. They'll do this thing where on the point that they're most nervous about, like their weak point or something they're lying about or a bad number. Ah, yeah, we'd love to work with you. I think it'll be really great and um, cost will be $5,000.

• 1:14:44Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Yeah.

• 1:14:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Again, that's a social signal of, ah, this person doesn't really want to charge that. I'm gonna ask for less.

• 1:14:51Lewis Howes?

  I think it's when you're like calm and comfortable when you speak about it. That's gonna come across well, right?

• 1:14:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And practicing saying your hardest points. So go through that practice sheet, you know, the notes you take before a meeting and practice saying to another human being, not your mirror.

• 1:15:09Lewis Howes?

  Here's my rate, yeah.

• 1:15:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Here is my rate. Or um, there's other things you can be nervous about too in a negotiation, right? Like a timeline or a skill level or maybe uh, other competitors you think might be able to beat you. Make sure that you are practicing those comments with authoritative voice tone and solid audio.

• 1:15:25Lewis Howes?

  So people feel comfortable and confident in your work.

• 1:15:27Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And they catch it. And you infect that feeling.

• 1:15:31Lewis Howes?

  I love like, for me, it's so easy. I get a lot of email, inbound email requests for speaking. And I never want to jump on the phone with anyone because I'm just like, it's exhausting. You know, like having these conversations. So people will say, we'd love to book you. And I literally have replied with like one sentence, something like, I'm $35,000. Just let me know the dates and I'll see if I'm free.

• 1:15:50Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:50Lewis Howes?

  That's about all I say.

• 1:15:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:15:52Lewis Howes?

  Sometimes I'll ask like, tell me more about like what it is, but you know, Sues was just like, here it is. If I'm free, let me, I'll let you know, but tell me the dates.

• 1:15:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And typically, someone who is emailing you should already know that you're gonna have a high value.

• 1:16:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:16:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And if you're, that's also part of your brand, right? Like, you're very direct.

• 1:16:08Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 1:16:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  If people want to know about what you, you have a podcast they can listen to.

• 1:16:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:16:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You have a book that they can read. And so, it's also about how do you position your numbers?

• 1:16:15Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:16Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So, yes, you can give a lot of information, right? And there's different kinds of proof. There's three different kinds of proof. There's social proof. So that would be, um, you know, we've had 15 events in the last six months, or whatever. There's qualitative testimonial proof. So this is like, a CR person or a salesperson says, Louis was the best speaker I ever had.

• 1:16:35Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:16:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And there's credibility proof. So media mentions, published book, bestselling author. So you have to think about, now Louis, you have those. You have all three of them because you have a book, that's on your website, you have social proof, you have podcasts. So you don't need to necessarily go and prove that.

• 1:16:48Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:16:49Vanessa Van Edwards?

  However, if you don't have a website, or if you don't have those obvious buckets filled, you need to make sure that you are hitting all three of those proof buckets in your response.

• 1:16:58Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So if you don't have a book or a podcast or anything like that, your email back should be, so great to hear from you, first mention of social proof. I've done events for groups like yours in the past. They've done really well. I think we did three different groups last year.

• 1:17:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Social proof, number one. Second, attach this email, I have a deck with an overview of topics, as well as some testimonials from some of our previous groups that have really enjoyed us. And then, um, here are my rates, please let me know dates. And then at the bottom, any professional credibility mentions. So, are you certified? Are you a doctor?

• 1:17:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:32Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Have you been on any media? Those can go be at the very bottom.

• 1:17:34Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That way, you're very subtly hitting those three, um, proof buckets.

• 1:17:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:39Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And they're very important in negotiation.

• 1:17:41Lewis Howes?

  I love it. I love it. Um, is there anything that you want to share that we haven't shared?

• 1:17:46Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:17:49Lewis Howes?

  Before we wrap it up.

• 1:17:51Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I would say that the last thing, and this is something that I tried to make a big point in the book. I don't want to hit people over the head with it, but I don't think I got it as well as I wanted, which is, I don't think you should ever pretend to be something you're not. Again, I don't believe in fake it till you make it. I think that you're better off spending your time, instead of trying to be the bubbly extrovert, is trying to find out what is your unique brand of charisma? Like, what is your flavor? I think that the more time you can spend on that, before trying to emulate someone else, or trying to dial up something that isn't natural to you, is a much better place to be. And that's where happiness comes from, and that's what people mean when they say authentic. And so, anything I've said today in this interview, or anything that you've read,

• 1:18:34Vanessa Van Edwards?

  try to figure out what's your unique take on that? Like, go prove, go make me prove my worth, right? Like, if I said something that sounded interesting to you, go make an experiment, right? Like, go up to 50 different people in the next 50 days.

• 1:18:46Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:18:47Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And see if you can try out a conversation starter, if that works for you. If you can find your unique flavor, if you can treat it like an experiment, you can never fail. Because experiments never fail.

• 1:18:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's good. I did an experiment when I moved to New York City as well. Because I was like, I want to meet some new people, I don't know anyone here.

• 1:19:04Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:04Lewis Howes?

  And I called it the Red Rose Project.

• 1:19:06Vanessa Van Edwards?

  What?

• 1:19:06Lewis Howes?

  Can you guess what it was?

• 1:19:07Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Did you give red roses to people?

• 1:19:09Lewis Howes?

  I did.

• 1:19:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes!

• 1:19:10Lewis Howes?

  Every day I bought roses and I would give them out.

• 1:19:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes!

• 1:19:13Lewis Howes?

  This is when I was single, I gave them out to girls.

• 1:19:15Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes! Were you only trying to meet girls?

• 1:19:18Lewis Howes?

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:19:19Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes, you were about to say no.

• 1:19:21Lewis Howes?

  I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie.

• 1:19:23Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Don't lie, you can't lie.

• 1:19:24Lewis Howes?

  No, I was trying to meet guys too, but this specific project was for, like, dating girls. Take girls on a date. And I, uh, it only lasted like four days, because I like met a few different people and...

• 1:19:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  It worked.

• 1:19:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it worked, but a couple times it didn't work.

• 1:19:38Vanessa Van Edwards?

  What happened?

• 1:19:39Lewis Howes?

  I thought I was like so smooth.

• 1:19:40Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Did the girl like throw to like hit you with the rose?

• 1:19:41Lewis Howes?

  You know, I'm a nice guy, like... I'm disarming. Yeah, I wasn't like this weird like douchey dude or whatever. I thought I was

• 1:19:48Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Well, meeting with the rose is pretty good. Yeah.

• 1:19:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but I remember I went up to like one girl and she like ran from me and I was like, oh my god. I was like, okay, this did not work, but she was also kind of like a little booty and like, I don't know, anyways. But most people over there were like, oh, thank you. They were kind of taken back. They thought I was gonna ask. And I didn't ask for anything either.

• 1:20:08Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You just gave it to them?

• 1:20:08Lewis Howes?

  Just gave it to them, yes.

• 1:20:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And let it go?

• 1:20:10Lewis Howes?

  And I would see what would happen.

• 1:20:11Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And what happened?

• 1:20:11Lewis Howes?

  I would just like smile, just say, I wanted to give you a rose today. And I would like walk away.

• 1:20:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And did you, and did you meet people? Or did you meet girls?

• 1:20:16Lewis Howes?

  I did. I did. I met a few people. Yeah, but it only lasted for like a few days and then I was like, oh.

• 1:20:21Vanessa Van Edwards?

  So here's a challenge to everyone listening. I like love that. Is there a project you can do for five days? Okay, so for, for my introverts listening, for my lovely introverts, maybe for you it's something small. Maybe it's as small as texting a good friend a conversation starter that you heard today, right? Like just with your good friends, right? Deepening a relationship you already have. Maybe if you're a little more ambiverted, it's asking a new colleague to lunch. Or asking a friend to lunch you haven't been to lunch with. And for my extroverts, maybe it's the Lewis challenge, which is go buy roses or go buy lavender. I actually did this in the streets of New York with my

• 1:20:57Lewis Howes?

  Lavender?

• 1:20:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, we did, we did little bouquets of lavender for everyone. And just told them to have a great day. Maybe it's something like that, like buying lavender, buying a rose.

• 1:21:05Lewis Howes?

  See what happens.

• 1:21:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And just see what happens. See what it's like when you get butterflies in your stomach and you have to approach someone. Take a five day challenge from today because I think that we can hear all this stuff as knowledge. We can keep it in the back of our head. It makes us feel good. But turning it into action is how we actually have behavior change.

• 1:21:20Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Make sure you guys go get the book, Captivate the Science of Succeeding with People. I'm telling you, it's a game changer. Highly recommend it.

• 1:21:28Vanessa Van Edwards?

  You'll like Lewis's chapter, chapter five, reverse engineer to Lewis's success.

• 1:21:32Lewis Howes?

  It's good. It's good. Um, final couple of questions.

• 1:21:35Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yes.

• 1:21:38Lewis Howes?

  If this microphone was connected to eight billion people right now and they had headphones on and you had 30 seconds to share a message that they would hear from you, every human in the world would hear this message in their language.

• 1:21:53Lewis Howes?

  And this was your message to the world, what would you say?

• 1:21:56Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Okay. Hold on. Doesn't start yet. It didn't start yet.

• 1:21:59Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't start yet.

• 1:22:03Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I would say, there is one person in your life who you've been meaning to reach out to. There's probably one person in your life who you've been holding something back, or worried about, or you've been trying to fix something with them, and it's scary to fix things. Reach out to that person, and actually work on fixing it. Ask them the question you've been waiting to ask them. Bring up the thing that you've been too afraid to bring up, and try to mend that relationship. Because those broken things really weigh us down, and there's a lot of potential in fixing whatever is broken in that relationship. So go talk to that person.

• 1:22:42Lewis Howes?

  That's great. I like it. A lot of healing there.

• 1:22:44Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah, healing, yeah.

• 1:22:45Lewis Howes?

  This is called the three truths. So if you could only share three truths, and your book would be gone, and all your videos you've ever created, no one would have access to anything else, except for these three truths.

• 1:22:57Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:58Lewis Howes?

  That's all they would have of you, for all of time. What would be your three truths, or three lessons that you would share with the world?

• 1:23:05Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Vulnerability is sexy.

• 1:23:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  That's just three, right?

• 1:23:09Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:23:10Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Vulnerability is sexy.

• 1:23:13Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Own your weirdness.

• 1:23:17Vanessa Van Edwards?

  And your confidence is contagious.

• 1:23:20Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Hopefully, we've touched on some of those today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, good, okay, good. Those are my thesis statements.

• 1:23:24Lewis Howes?

  It's been good. I want to acknowledge you for a moment, for continually using your awkwardness to help other people, to help yourself, to, you know,

• 1:23:37Lewis Howes?

  not feel so awkward and feel so alone. Because I know you felt that way for many years.

• 1:23:41Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Very alone, yes.

• 1:23:42Lewis Howes?

  And I'm sure sometimes you still feel that way. So I want to acknowledge you for constantly pushing your discomfort, to stretch yourself, to help yourself, and to help so many people that listen to your work, that read the book, that watch the videos. So I want to acknowledge you for all of that.

• 1:23:59Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Thank you. For my awkward people listening, you are not alone.

• 1:24:02Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. I don't know if I asked you this last time. So, final question is, what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:24:09Vanessa Van Edwards?

  I think we did, but I actually like revisiting this question because I think that that definition can change.

• 1:24:13Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:24:14Vanessa Van Edwards?

  On the brink of a book launch, I would say greatness is not the success of that book launch, or hitting a list, all of those things would be great. Actually, I think the real greatness was being able to put my truths into something and have it be so kindly accepted by others. That feels like the best feeling in the world. I think that's what greatness is.

• 1:24:38Lewis Howes?

  Love it. ScienceOfPeople.com. Get the book Captivate. Vanessa, thank you so much.

• 1:24:43Vanessa Van Edwards?

  Thank you.

• 1:24:44Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it.

• 1:24:47Lewis Howes?

  There you have it. I hope you enjoyed this one, all about understanding how to maximize and learn about human behavior so that you can optimize your business, your relationships, and your life. If you enjoyed this, please share it out. LewisHowes.com/475. I think this is gonna be a big episode because this is what is needed in building your business and building relationships and getting a career job that you want. These are the skills and the tools that we all need, those soft people skills. They're gonna help you relate better and make a lasting impact. So make sure to share it out. LewisHowes.com/475.

• 1:25:27Lewis Howes?

  And also leave a review on iTunes.com/Greatness for your chance to be the review of the week. I love you guys very much. This has been an incredible journey with you, an incredible episode. I hope you continue to come back because each week we bring you the most inspiring guests on the planet to help you unlock your inner greatness. Thank you so much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.