Insight with Chris Van Vliet - How To Become More Charismatic And Learn To Read Body Language With Vanessa Van Edwards

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

Vanessa Van Edwards (@vvanedwards) is the Lead Investigator at Science of People and is the bestselling author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People. Her new book called Cues: Master The Secret Language of Charismatic Communication is available on March 1, 2022. She joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about how charisma is something that can be cultivated, how to read body language, tips to improve your communication, how to have better Zoom meetings and much more! Find out more about Vanessa Van Edwards here: http://scienceofpeople.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. For more information about CVV and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are gathered. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Blitz. Oh, yeah. Welcome back, my friends, to another audio adventure here on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Vleet, so glad you could join us on this one, because you are going to learn a ton in this conversation with Vanessa Van Edwards. She's an expert when it comes to decoding human behavior and using science to help people become more charismatic, more likable, and less awkward. And also, you've got to love someone who was a van in their last name. She's the best-selling author of the book Captivate,

and her new book called Cues, Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication, is such a good read. It's available for pre-order right now. It'll officially be released next week on Tuesday, March 1st. Check her out on social media. She's at V. Van Edwards. You can find me at Chris Van Fleet.

and our fan of the week is Jay Gwynn. He says CBV is the best of our generation. Well, I don't know about that, but yes, folks, you read that title correctly. Chris is my favorite interviewer I've ever listened to. Personality is top-notch. The interview style is unmatched.

And the man has a million-dollar smile. Listen, comment, review, and rate the man with five stars. Well, thank you so much for the kind words. I don't know if all of them are true, but I certainly appreciate it. I read one review on every single episode. So if you haven't left a review yet, or if you have left a review, go in, change a word or two. It'll repopulate as a new review.

So then we'll see it at the top and give you a shout out, of course, for free. And Spotify has a rating system now. So go in there, leave five stars. It is all I ask of you. I also ask that you could subscribe to my YouTube channels, channels, plural. The Chris Van Vlea channel, where the full interviews are, the CVV clips channel. where the clips from these interviews are. All right, let's dive into this.

Fascinating conversation with a fascinating human being. Please welcome Vanessa Van Edwards. Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited about this. Vanessa, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. I can't wait to dive in. And congratulations on the new book. Oh, my goodness.

Thank you. It's a labor of love. This was 17 years in the making. Wow. That ages me. That ages me. But 17 years in the making. If anyone has a dream and you're on your five or your eight or you're 12 or you're 17,

it's just you just keep going. Yes. And I always say to people, just start. Like it seems like a daunting task in front of you, but you got to take the first step. 100%. Well, this little endeavor started with a little folder. I created on my desktop called Curious Q's. So I create a little folder because I was, I remember this time period.

It was a really weird time. in the media where there was like all these athletes who were coming out. They were being accused of doping. It was right around like the Amanda Knox scandal. It was like a very interesting time for the media. And I was watching all these interviews. And I noticed that there were these patterns, these very curious cues. Little did I know that would end up being the title of book at the time.

I was like, wow, that's such a weird thing. Lance Armstrong is on Larry King Live. And he's insisting that he doesn't dope. He's saying, I don't dope. Now, spoiler alert. Swillard, Lance Armstrong did dope. He comes out later and says it. And I remember watching that interview and just thinking something was off.

Like my spidey sense, something was off. And I noticed right after he said, I don't dope, I've never doped. He did a lip purse. Now, a lip purse as a really interesting little cue. By the way, if you just mash your lips together, that's a lip purse. We do this when we are withholding. We do it when we're trying to keep it in, keep it together. So if you ask someone a difficult question, people will often lit purse.

Liars often lit purse to hold it in. And so I saw that cue and I wondered, I just wondered, what was that? Now, many years later, he admitted to doping and he had this massive undercover doping scheme. And that's when I started to go back into this folder and look for patterns. And I noticed there were patterns of the bad guys. There were things that liars did over and over and over again. I noticed in these interviews.

There was also cues from the good guys, like people who are highly charismatic who would go on shows or videos and you just liked them. You wanted to know them. There were also cues that they were doing over and over again. And so little did I know that that would end up being the book cues of the bad patterns and the good patterns that we can learn them. What I think is so fascinating about this book is the idea that charisma can be cultivated. And I think that people think you're either born with it, or you're not and that's it. Yes.

So this is the biggest myth that I want to bust. Let's bust it together. You and me. I'm in a name of you. Yes. People tend to think that you're either born with it or you're not. You're either charismatic or not. Same thing with leadership.

You're either a natural born leader or you're not. The research has actually looked at it. And there is genetic traits of natural born leaders. There are things that help us be more charismatic. But most people, 70% can be learned. 70% can be cultivated. So no one knows. more than me. I'm a recovering awkward person. I have all kinds of, I'm just not good at reading

social information. I am very awkward in social settings. And I had to learn how to have conversation. I had to learn about eye contact. It did not come naturally to me. So if this is you listening, if you felt like you missed the memo on charisma, here's the good news. It can be learned. We can learn it together. So what are some steps that someone right now can take to start to be more charismatic? Okay, so the very first thing that provided me a lot of relief. So when I read this study, I immediately felt relief as an awkward person. And the reason for this is because what they did is they looked at how we view charismatic people, those compelling, captivating, unique, interesting individuals.

And what they found is that this is researched by Dr. Susan Fisk at a Princeton University. And this is a landmark study. And this was a very, very big study. It's been repeated in a number of different studies since then, came out in 2002. So this is not new research. This is actually very, was very big in the academic community. What they found was that 82% of our judgments of people

are based on two traits. First, this is shocking. When we think about coming across as charismatic or fresh, we think, oh, funny, smart, trustworthy, warm. Actually, it's just two traits that matter. So forget about all the other ones. The only important ones we have to know for our charisma are warmth and competence,

that highly charismatic people have the perfect blend of warmth, highly likable, highly trustworthy, highly relatable, at the same time, high competence, power, capability, productivity. The key is the reason why charismatic people are so unique and why we love being around them is because it's very hard to get a perfect blend of those two traits. Most people, and this was me for many, many years, most of us have an imbalance, where we rank really high in warmth, but lower. incompetence or really high incompetence, but low and warm. By the way, this is just perceived

traits. So we could be the smartest, warmest person in the world. But if we're not showing those cues, people don't know it. And so most of us have an imbalance. People listening, maybe just think about for a second, where do you think you're higher? Where do you think your imbalances? Do you think you're higher in warmth? So you know that you're high in warmth, by the way. This is a classic signal of warmth. So highly warm people, everyone wants to tell you their life story. If you are highly warm and people sit next to you on the airplane, they literally won't stop talking. You're highly warm if everyone comes to you with their problems. Everyone wants to ask for your advice.

So highly warm. If you are highly warm, you are relatable. You are collaborative. People like hanging out with you. You can make friends quickly. But you might struggle with setting boundaries. You might struggle with people taking you seriously. I've found that highly warm people often get interrupted more.

that people love being around them, but they don't respect their ideas. So that's highly warm. If you think you're highly warm, you might lean a little higher on that side. Highly confident. By the way, Chris, at the end of this,

I'm going to ask about you. I'm going to ask where you fall. So get ready for your answer. Okay. Everybody listening to this already is like, all right, where am I on the spectrum? Yeah,

I want you to start thinking of yourself. And bonus points, by the way, if you can think of like the three to five people you interact with most. So not just yourself, but think about, you know, your partner,

your friend, your client, customer, your ideal customer, right? If you're an entrepreneur or a content creator, I know that my people also, I know exactly where they fall on the charisma scale. So high competence, your high competence, if you love data, numbers, charts, science, research. This is, you are highly competent if you Google fact check people, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone says something. They're like, I don't know about that. Let me look at it. I'll let me look that up. That's because

you search for truth. You search for facts. or competence. Highly competent people, they are taken very seriously. People respect you, but people might have told you you're intimidating or cold or hard to talk to. People respect you. They want your ideas, but they might not invite you. So again, neither these are right or wrong, but it's really important to know where you fall. That was the reason I was unable to connect, that I was over balancing. And this is the problem with really smart people. And I'm, I'm guessing that most people who really say this are high incompetence, very smart, is that highly smart people try to hit you with lots of smarts.

And so they show up in the room and they mention really impressive things and they really want to get you on their side, but they don't realize that without the warmth, people will not take your ideas seriously. So I'm digging deep here because it's difficult to be, I think, introspective and self-aware and realize this. Yes. I love digging for data and knowledge. It's one of the things I love about doing the podcast.

It's amazing, like tidbits of information talking about it. I also, I'm just genuinely curious. I love talking to people. I love listening. But if someone sits next to me on a plane, I want to put my AirPods in and like just enjoy my flight. So it sounds like you might be a balance. And I think that's true.

I think that very successful people like yourself are a balanced. So I would have guessed that you're a balance, leaning high incompetence. So people who are highly balanced, they're successful like you, right? You have a podcast. People like listening to you. They trust you. That's high warmth. And they want to hear what you have to say.

That's high competence. So my guess for you is that you are a balance of both, leaning towards that high competence, that search for knowledge, which I think is what makes you so successful. I think if you look at people who have really successful podcasts or YouTube channels or books, they will hit by accident or on purpose, right? They hit that sweet spot. And that explains their success and their people's success. I will take this as a giant.

compliments. So thank you, Vanessa. It is a compliment. It is a compliment. I think that people also sometimes think that you have to be extroverted in order to be charismatic. Great. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much for bringing this up. That. So when I was not to go too into my embarrassing history, but as a recovering awkward person, I had all kinds of social anxiety and I had this problem when I was a kid where I would get the hiccups around cool people. It was horrible. That's a real thing. Yeah, I know. I was a really sad, sad 12-year-old. So when you get pickups around cool people, you tend to be more of an observer. And I started very young. I picked up the book. Maybe you've

heard of it, how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. Of course, classic. Yeah. Classic book. So at like 12, I picked up this book. And I'm reading it. I didn't read on the playground because I knew that probably wouldn't go over a while, but I would read it after school. And the problem with a lot of books I got, that book was very helpful, but I felt a disconnect, which was I feel like a lot of the time, people's skills teachers are extroverts.

And they then teach people to pretend to be extroverts. So if you are a natural extrovert, your heart sings when you read Dale Carnegie. If you're an ambivert, an ambivert is someone who's in between an extrovert and introvert. Amberverts are actually most of the population. We have a little ambivert quiz on our website, which you can take if you want to. It's free, which asks you if you flex.

Amberts are very good at flexing into extroversion when they need to, but it drains them. So they have to have a lot of solo time and recharge time. Most of us are ambiverts. I think that's what people describe as like the introverted extrovert. Exactly. The introverted extrovert or like, I think the other one is like outgoing shy. Okay. Sure.

That is ambivert. That is actually an ambivert. Amphabverts have lots of strengths, actually, they have to be utilized, but they're not quite extroverts. So they also read Dale Carnegie and they push and they try and they really try to be extroverted, but they wonder why they leave video calls where they literally are exhausted. They have to lay on the bed or they have a networking event or a party and they have to leave by 9 p.m. That is because you can flex when you need to, but it's still exhausting. And the last group, of course, is our introverts.

Our goal-oriented introverts don't want to have to fake it until you make it. When they fake being an extrovert, they feel inauthentic and that comes across as inauthentic. So the reason why this research gave me so much relief is because for years, I had been trying to pretend to be an extrovert. I am an ambivert leaning towards introvert. And so what I tried to do is teach people skills for adventurous introverts, my goal-oriented ambiverts, and my natural extroverts so that you're not trying to be inauthentic. You're trying to be your warmest and most competent self.

And then this way, I think that every brand of, charisma has different flavors. And this is what I love talking about in the book is that, yes, there is the bubbly life of the party extrovert, and they are very charismatic. But there's also the quiet, powerful introvert who's very charismatic. There's also the empathetic, compassionate healer. They are very charismatic. And so I think that the key is not fake to you make it. Don't just be more extroverted, but actually to find your sweet spot of warmth and competence. That's my mission. Thank you for asking. That's my mission. So my first Hello Fresh box just arrived, and I am loving this. With Hello Fresh, you get

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Hello Fresh, America's number one meal kit. I have this core belief that any skill can be learned. And I feel like that's kind of what you're hitting on here, that you are born with the cards that you're dealt, but you're able to like do what you can to like learn more. Yes. So let's let's break that down even more. Really highly charismatic people also flex.

So you might find that at work, your higher incompetence. So a lot of our students are technically brilliant. They're either like engineers or graphic designers or entrepreneurs who have really big business ideas. And they can dial up competence when they need it. But they also know how to dial up warmth when they need it with their friends, with their kids,

when they're schmoozing. And so actually, I think the superpower comes with understanding how these two traits work, understanding the cues of each trait. What does it mean to look warm? What does it mean to look competent? or sound competence, you know, sound has been part of it too. And how can you dial those like a thermostat?

How can you be in control of them? And that, for me, you know, I struggle with confidence. I used to struggle with confidence. Now I feel like I've found my groove because I think confidence comes from control. When I try to just be more confident, it did not work. Right? Like, I think some well-meaning person, you know, would give me advice, like, to try to combat my hiccups.

Like, just be yourself. I'm like, how do you be yourself if you don't like yourself? And that was a problem that I had for a long time. So I think understanding the cues we send and being control of them, that's how we get more authentic confidence. So Vanessa, I've always wondered since I read your first book, which is called Captivate, and it's amazing. Thank you. Thank you. I've been so fortunate to interview and meet some of the biggest stars in the world. And I noticed something with two of the biggest.

Okay. So it was Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey. did the same thing, which I've never noticed in anybody else. I know that touch is a really big part of connecting with someone. They would not only touch you during the conversation, they would grab your arm and hold it there during the conversation. What's going on in this moment? Okay. So you noticed a curious cue. So let's talk about touch. Let's break it down. So what happens chemically, so I'm very into the why behind things. So I don't, by the way, I don't think that Clinton and Winfrey know this. I don't think they know the reason for it when they first started doing it,

but I do think that they felt the power of it and then continue to do it more and more and more and more. So what's happening there for those geeky people like me who like the science is right. Okay. All right. Let's see. We should have like a sound effect like break it down. Okay. That was my sound effect. My very affordable sound effect. So what happens the moment we have skin to skin touch. And by the way, this can also happen virtually, which don't let me forget to explain how this happens over video, because we can also do this over video. The moment we have skin to skin touch, that's a handshake, that's an arm grab, that's a backpack, that's a fist bump, that's a high five, cheek kiss, any kind of physical touch, we produce a

very powerful chemical called oxytocin. Oxytocin is a lot of things in our body, but for our purposes, it's literally the chemical of trust. They found when they give people nasal springs of oxytocin, like you can literally sniff oxytocin, you trust more and collaborate more in prisoners to limits in games. That literally this is the chemical we need to give the collaborative, be open-minded. So our bodies are really smart. If we're in the same space as someone and we're close enough to touch,

that means our brain knows, oh, they must be friend, not foe. Okay. If they're close enough to touch and we trust them enough to go palm to palm, we're not concealing any weapons, we're not hiding anything. We go palm to palm fist bump or. We have some kind of touch. It means, oh, we should connect. And so our body begins to produce the exact chemical we need to connect.

So when Clinton or Winfrey touched you, two amazing things happen right away. One, you got a big burst of oxytocin, which literally makes you feel more trustworthy and more open-minded. They also get a burst of oxytocin, which makes them more open to you. And that creates this beautiful loop. Now, the question is, so A, easy. When you're with someone, always start, handshake, cheek kiss, hug, high five, you know, having a comfortable arm touch when you're with someone that's going to produce oxytocin. But what if you're on video, right?

Yeah. So this is a question that plagued me at the very beginning of the pandemic. I worried. I was like, how are we going to make it connecting with people if we're always through a screen? can you even produce oxytocin through a screen? So number one, yes. Research has found that we can even produce oxytocin through a webcam. And that is because after touch, the second way we produce oxytocin is eye contact.

That is why, I don't know if you've ever heard this quote from Clinton, but there's a famous anecdote people tell about Bill Clinton where they say, it feels like he was staring directly into my soul. It felt like I was the only person in the room. Have you ever heard that? I've heard that. And the other person I experienced that with was Tom Cruz. Yes, he is known for that as well.

You even see it in his interviews. Unbelievable. What they're doing. Yeah. What they're doing, what's happening there is when we deep gaze with someone, our body, again, knows, wow, we're close enough. We're making eye contact. We should produce the chemical community to connect.

So what really cares what we'll do is they start off with some kind of touch and they immediately hit the eye contact. That's like a double whammy for oxytocin. On webcam, it still works. So I'm working really. hard to look right at the camera, which is right here. Your face is actually down here. But if I were to do the entire interview looking down at you, it wouldn't be as powerful because we wouldn't be getting as much oxytocin. So I'm balancing between the two. So that's the first good news is we can

still produce it. Just you have to let me show you look at the dot. The second piece of good news. Sorry, this is a very long answer. No, I feel like I'm looking just under the webcam at your face. So I feel like I should be looking right at the web. Actually, we do it. Do it again. Look down a little bit. So this is where you are. it still looks the same almost. Oh, okay. So you have it right. So my setup right now, I need to raise my computer up even more.

So if I were to raise my computer up even more, it would be even better. So you have the perfect setup. The perfect setup is to actually shrink your screen so you can see the camera and them in the same way, just like you did. You did perfect. Yeah. Okay. So the second way that we do this is so eye contact is great. Thank goodness we can produce it over webcam.

I had another hypothesis. I contacted my friend, Dr. Paul, Dr. Paul Sack is like the chief oxytocin researcher. He is the one who has done all these amazing studies in oxytocin. And I said, Paul, I have an idea. I have a theory that if you say a touch word, it could produce oxytocin as if we touched. That our body could hear the word and imagine it. We actually get some of the oxytocin benefits.

And he's always game for an experiment. So what we did is we had people wear smart watches. with a special software that Dr. Zach uses in his lab. Dr. Zach runs immersion labs, immersion neuroscience, where the software actually measures your skin conductance. So the level of engagement you have based on just wearing a smartwatch. And so we had to wear this smart watch with the software.

And we had them watch two different versions of videos. One version of the video had positive neutral openers. So, hey, good morning. Nice to see you. How we start all these video meetings normally. The second group got to watch touch replacement word greetings. So I wish we could handshake right now. Sending a digital hug your way.

Virtual fist bump, virtual cheat kicks. Okay. In the second version, so whenever we mentioned touch words, skin conductance increased. This is incredible. By the way, it increased more than double, more than double. So even just saying at the start of video call or start of a video sending you a high five, I wish we could cheat kiss and sending one from here. Even just saying those words can produce the chemical reaction of touch.

So yay, all those cues can still happen virtually. How do you get like this deep into it? Like so much so like that you're interested enough to create your own like lab to study this? So it's, I was scratching my own itch. And this is a funny sort of business story. If anyone's curious about like the business side of what I do, which I love to talk about as well. So I'm a content creator, you know, I have a YouTube channel and books and a blog. And it actually started way back.

And I started my first YouTube video in November 2007. If you can believe that's how long. Wow. That was like the infancy of YouTube. People thought my parents were like, you're doing what? You're posting videos on a on a on a on a me tube. on a YouTube? Like it was,

no one understood what I was doing because I was like, oh, here's like a medium I can use to express more. So I started posting videos. I've been posting a video week since November 2007,

so longevity. And what I noticed was in videos where I shared a piece of science, the video did better. And the blog did better. And back then, back in the day, there was like forums and blog comments

and wikis back in the day, the wikis did better when I mentioned. a research experiment. And then I noticed if I tweaked the research experiment with my own test of some kind, any kind, it really increased engagement. And so that was in 2009, 2010, when I started to have that realization. So I would take a study that I just really liked and I would add like a little something.

Like I would try it out like one really early one. This is such a, such a gross one. But I read a study that this is so weird. Are you ready for this study? I'm like, I've never, I haven't shared this study in like 10 years. All right. We're just going to go there. So, so this study, who did this study?

But they, they were looking at what smells men like. Okay. Are you with me on this? Okay. And they wanted to know what smells. I like this. They had a like very silly experiment where they had the same woman wear different scent. They had her do lavender.

They had her do eucalyptus. And then they had her do. vanilla, like vanilla, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, the baking vanilla syrup. And that was the one that got off the charts rating that men found her more attractive. They liked her more. Um, and I thought the study was really fun and really interesting. It was kind of an interesting interpersonal cue. But then I was like, I wonder if we could take that a step further. Like, if men like the smell of food that the researchers hypothesized that men like

the smell of food, that vanilla arrived at them of baking. I thought, well, what if I, like, took a step further and like I got popcorn and I popped it in the microwave and like what's the best on the world? Buttery popcorn. And so I took the buttery popcorn back and I rubbed it on the inside of my wrists and like the inside of my on my on my neck point and I went out smelling like buttered popcorn and it worked. Like people were like, wow, you smell great. And so I wrote about this experience.

And of course that video and that article went really viral because it was kind of funny. That was the start starting to do my own experiments, realizing. We don't want just the academic stuff. We want the real life stuff. We want to know a little bit more. And so little did I know that that would end up being sort of the spark for the whole company. Wow. That's fascinating.

Are you still wearing buttered popcorn to this day? When I pop popcorn out of party, I put it on my wrist. What I not? It smells delightful. It does. Speaking of parties, if somebody is listening to this is going to a party in the next week or month or whatever, what are some tips that they can use? to start to be seen as more charismatic or friendlier.

Chris, that was an excellent pivot. Excellent, excellent. I like the way that we just went right into party. That was perfect. You are too kind. You set me up for that, I feel like. Thank you. It's a team effort.

Okay, so party tips. There are so many good ones. So the very first one that I want you to think about is space rules. So we are very aware of space as humans without realizing it. And optimizing or leveraging space rules is a really great. way to leverage connection. So humans across cultures, races, and genders have four zones of space. They are the public zone, the social zone, the personal zone, and the intimate zone. Now, the exact dimensions of these four zones vary a little bit across cultures, a little bit,

but the general zones are the same. So in Western cultures, zero to 18 inches is the intimate zone. What's important about this is our intimate zone is really precious to us. If someone is 18 inches away from us. Just put your hand up in front of you about 18 inches away. It's really close. Yeah, that's in your personal space. It is way in your intimate space because why? What do we do from this place?

We get intimate or we get physical, right? So we are very aware of people getting into our intimate space too quickly. This is why one, we don't like close talkers. You ever experienced a close talker for close talker. Close talker. They're like talking into your mouth. That's one of the reasons. It literally says off alarm bells.

However, I think this is also the reason that nightclubs, loud bars, loud parties work. It's because here's what happens. You're in a room and it's really loud. And someone says something over the music and you go, what was that? And then you get into intimate zone and you're talking into each other to intimate zones simply to be heard. And all of a sudden you feel super close to them and super connected. And isn't it easy to dance? So that's one of the reason I think that sometimes loud parties work.

But what I want to bring this up also is to think about for video. I think one of the reasons why people are so burnt out on these video calls is because everyone is 18 inches away from their camera. So most people on Zoom accidentally get into the other person's intimate zone because they are 18 inches away from their camera. That is why we start a video call and we're like, whoa, whoa. And we get burnt out because we're trying to have business conversations, deep conversations, catch-ups 18 inches away from each other. It's too close, too fast. So one, right now, or when you're next at your computer or your camera, I want you to measure the distance between the tip of your nose and your camera. And please make sure it is more than eight inches apart.

That's the very first thing. At parties, make sure you're not the close talker. Make sure you wait for acceptance into someone's intimate zone. The best zone is called the personal zone. The personal zone is a foot and a half, each inches, to about three feet apart. This zone is great because it's where we can hear each other, we can see each other, and we can reach out and touch each other all the way back to that original cue. Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey walk up to people right into their personal zone, not too close, but in the personal zone,

you can reach out and touch someone's arm easily. You can reach out and give a high five. You can reach out in gesture. That is why that sweet spot is so great because it's a really easy way oxytocin builds faster there. So that's the sweet spot. And what you are you. And what you can think about is if you want to see at a party how someone feels about you, you can plant yourself and see how close they come to you. So one of my favorite things to do at a party is to find like a high bar table or like a high counter. I lean against it.

I stand against it. And I wait and see how close people come. Are they in my intimate zone right away? Wow, they feel really close. Do they stay in my personal zone? Great. We're going to have a great conversation. Are they a little more hesitant based on this?

social zones. The social zone is about four to seven feet away. That's where we don't feel quite as close to someone. We usually try to keep right distance. That's good for me to know, right? Like, I have introverted friends who go to that zone and I try to respect them. So I would pay attention to where people plant at a party. I think we've seen this too. Like you go to a party or you go to a concert or something and people will be talking. And if there's a bunch of them, they'll talk in a circle. Yes. And if that circle is tight, you're like, oh, these people must know. each other. If the circle is much wider, you're like, oh, they don't know each other as well. Okay. That's the perfect example. I'll let me give you another one too. So the circle, the tight circle,

you are seeing the space zones in action, right? The tight of the circle, usually really good close-knit people are literally standing in a circle of the personal zone. Like that is literally how they're standing. A funny thing here is you can look at feet also to show if the circle is open to having you or if someone is open to having you. So I joke around, you can look for the croissant. what I mean by this is when people are really into one another, they angle their toes towards the other person. It's called fronting. We angle our toes, our torso and our top right towards the other person as if they're on parallel railroad tracks. And that is because when we're really into someone, we literally want to align with them. You do not want to break into a pair of ladies,

a couple that are on parallel lines. If they're on parallel lines, they are into what they're talking about. They want to be engaged. They don't want interlopers. if you have someone who does croissant feet, right? So like, you know, let's imagine like a croissant, you know, like a croissant, you know, like a V. Yeah, like a V. And so if someone's pivoted out where they're talking like this, but their shoulders pivoted out, their toe is pivoted out.

That means someone is open to being connected with that that that's a group that you want to approach. So look for the V like in a circle, like look for the croissant, the V or in a pair or a small group people, look for groups that have pivoted out. they're going to get more receptive to your approach. This is so fascinating. I feel like anybody that is talking to you now is so hyper aware of everything they're doing with their body.

I think that unfortunately there's a blessing and a curse with what I do. Yes, I think that some of my friends worry. But the good news is that I think congruence and authenticity leaks. So if you are your warmest and most competent, most confident self, you don't really need to worry about your cues, right? like you're showing up and that's going to come through, especially if you're more purposeful with it. And so I always find it funny when my friends, if they're nervous, I'm like, do you have to tell me something? Is there something you have to share with me?

Because they're always where that's going to come out and leak. But yes, I highly recommend if you pick up cues, I'd be very grateful. But read it with someone that you interact with a lot because you're going to be reading their cues. And it's only fair that you let them read yours as well. You would have this incredible side business like making people's dating profiles, I feel like. We'd be like to choose that. What is going on here? We, 100 requests a week.

I cannot tell you how many times I've been, like, at a conference or I've been on a panel with VIPs and we get back to the green room and like very big VIPs who I cannot mention are like, could you just like take a peek at my dating profile? Can you just repeat at my like good profile? So yes, that is a side hobby. So if these are some things that someone should be observing at a party, what should they be bringing? Is there anything that they should be bringing?

in terms of how they start a conversation or something like that? So much. I'm trying to think of my favorite one because there's so many things we can bring to a party. Remember that our cues are contagious. So when you are showing confident, competent, warm cues, you are actually triggering that response in others. There's a reason why people show up kind of like as a Debbie Downer, you know, or like a m-mart person at a party. Yeah, the old RBF.

Oh, yes. So wait, did I say that right? Yes. Yeah, you did. I have a section in the book called RBF resting bothered face. So this is actually, let's do this one. I like this is a great one. So resting bothered face is when your face at rest looks bothered or irritated or angry.

And if you suffer from this, it might be because of the shape of your features. So for example, when my mouth is at rest, it's actually the rest in a downward position. That's not that rest. So when I'm at rest, I actually look a little sad. That's because the downward expression of our frown. So if I pull my mouth down into a you, if you pull yourself down to you, that's a sadness micro expression. So if your features at rest look like a micro expression, there are seven universal facial

expressions, other people automatically think, oh, she must feel that emotion. So the first thing is self-diagnose. At rest, does your mouth turn down? I also notice that when I'm at rest, I have a lot of lid. It's such a weird thing, but I have a lot of eyelid. And that can make me look a little droopy, which also can control. attributes the sadness. So I know that about myself. So when I'm at a party, I make sure that especially when I'm listening, when I want to show that I'm engaged, when I want to give or gift,

um, energy, I have my face look, what I call up. So I instead of letting my mouth listen like this in a downward position, I don't fake smile, but I just slightly turn out my mouth so it's resting up. Oh, yeah, huge difference. Huge. Right. So like, A millimeter and a half. It's, I should measure it. Actually, it's a really good idea. Yeah, it's like less than a millimeter makes all the different. When I listen to people, like, I'm neutral.

People think I'm upset. Like literally sad. Yeah. But I'm totally fine. So I know that about my own face. So self-diagnosed, what do you look like at rest? Are you close to any of the seven universal mic for expressions? By the way, you're welcome to go check them out.

They're all my website for free. Sign into people.com slash face. If you want to kind of look at them, you'll notice. or in concentration, do you look like one of them? Like, for example, the most common one is that when people are concentrating, they accidentally look like anger. That's a furrowed brow. So when we pull our eyebrows down and these two vertical lines appear between our eyebrows,

that's a partial anger micro-crushion. But a lot of people do that in concentration. So if you know that about yourself, you want to make sure that you are sending the right signals. So I always flip my mouth just a tiny bit up when I'm trying to gift engagement. I also make sure that when I'm listening or I'm concentrating, I try to keep my eyebrows relaxed so I don't accidentally show that throw that pinch together.

I even do, I don't know if you can see, I do my liner, my eyeliner a little bit up. And that actually helps me look more awake. And that's like crazy. But my eyeliner does not fall in my eye. I pull it up because it makes me look more awake for you, which I think is a respectful way to interact.

So that's, your face can give you a lot of different cues. which are really easy to control. So much value here. I love this. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. Vanessa, what's the best way that people can connect with you? My goodness.

Well, I would be honored if anyone wants to check out the book, Cues. I read the audible book, the audio book. It's available wherever books are sold. You can also check me out on YouTube. I do tons of cues breakdowns like Britney Spears and the Rock,

and I have fun analyzing people's cues. And my website is scienceofpeople.com. I love it. And I end every conversation with the same question. So I will ask this of you because I'm all about gratitude. What are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? I love that you end on this question because we need to be thinking about this all the time. I am very grateful for my health. I feel like the only way I can share this message is if I feel good, because if I don't feel good, people catch it. So I'm very

grateful for that. I'm very grateful that I got through my writer's block on this book. I had a lot of writer's block on this book and it was really hard to break through it. But I thought about how I wanted to help people and that helped. So I'm grateful for that. And I'm very grateful for everyone who's listening. I'm grateful for you for asking these questions. I feel very privileged to do this work. I feel like I have one of the best jobs in the world. And so I'm grateful that you would give me a chance as a recovering awkward person to share this with your people. Thank you so much. What an insightful, pun-intended conversation. So Vanessa, I just appreciate you so much.

Thank you so much. Such a fascinating conversation, right? Ah, so good. Vanessa's new book called Q's is available for pre-order on Amazon or on her website, Scienceofpeople.com. I highly recommend it. Then when you're done reading the new book, Cues, go back and read Captivate or read them in the other order, whatever you want. They're both so good.

Give her a follow on social media. She's at V Van Edwards. You can find me at Chris Van Vleet. And if it's your first time here, it'd be so great if you could take a second to click follow or subscribe on whatever podcast app that you're listening on right now.

I'll leave you with this quote from Gandhi. It's so good. Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Be great. Be grateful. We'll see you on the next one. Have a great weekend. more insight.

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