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

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

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

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Vanessa Van Edwards. Bestselling author and researcher Vanessa Van Edwards. We decide how confident someone is within the first 200 milliseconds of hearing them speak. The best way to show availability is one word, and it sounds like this. Tell me why compliments don't work. How do we tell the difference between charisma and narcissism? The way you see the world changes the world. What are the negative cues we miss because we're infatuated or attracted to something? If you want to be treated with more respect, you have to make sure it's...

The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. You know that one of my biggest focuses and services is introducing you to experts who are obsessed and addicted to their field.

People who are powerhouses, who deeply and intimately understand human behavior so they can help you improve yours and spot signs of the people around you. Today's guest is going to do just that. I want to welcome to On Purpose, for the first time ever, but not the last time, Vanessa Van Edwards, a multi-time best-selling author, renowned behavioral researcher on professional communication and leadership. More than 50 million people have seen Vanessa's talks

on YouTube and her viral TED Talk as well. Vanessa's work has been featured in national and international media, including Entrepreneur Magazine, CNN, CBS, and many more. Vanessa's latest book, Cues, Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication was an instant bestseller and I highly recommend it. Please welcome to On Purpose Vanessa Van Edwards. Oh thank you for having me. It's so great to have you here. I've been looking forward to this.

Waiting for this moment. Me too. From the moment you walked in I was like this person is so charismatic. I was like, so magnetic, such great energy. And I want to start off, Vanessa, just to dive straight in. Let's do it. If someone was not only to listen, but to apply the insights you're about to share today, what would they overcome? I'm a recovering, awkward person. And I have found that through this work, and that is my mission today with you,

that you can overcome awkwardness, doubt, and most importantly, the feeling of being underestimated. I think that that's really what I'm trying to get at with my work is if you feel that you have a lot of potential or you have this desire to connect, but you don't know how, and people are underestimating your charisma, your ideas, your smarts, who you are.

My goal is to make it so you no longer feel underestimated. Oh, I love that. That's so strong. Those are my people. That's so strong. And I resonate with it so strongly because I'm sure just like you, I meet so many people who feel they have the next big idea, who feel that they have something to share,

something to give, something to teach, something to pass on, but they don't feel confident. They're lacking that feeling of courage. They're lacking that feeling of, I don't know how to present my idea. I don't know how to share it. And this is what we're going to do today. And the problem is like, I also had these ideas, but I not only didn't have confidence, I felt out of control. I think this isn't an aspect of communication we don't talk about enough.

I think the side door into confidence, because we all say, I wish I felt more confident. But the side door is thinking, okay, I have an idea. What's the blueprint that I need from conversations, from charisma, to be able to get where I want? How can I take control of my connections, my relationship, my communication, so I know if I want to show up as friendly or as likeable or as competent, I know exactly what to do with my body, my voice, my words, to show up in that way. So for me, the only way I was able to overcome awkwardness was taking control

of the signals I'm sending and being able to take control of the kinds of relationships and conversations I had. What I really appreciate about what you're saying, you just named three things there. You said, if I want to come across as friendly, likeable and competent. What's really fascinating is, I think most of us don't even know we want to come across that way.

This is true. The step one of control is, how do you want people to see you? And here's what's really important. The cues that you send to others make people think about you a certain way, but the cues you send to others also change how others treat you. So if you want to be treated with more respect, you have to make sure it starts with you,

that you're sending the cues needed to show others how they should treat you with respect. If you want to be treated with friendliness or warmth or vulnerability, how do you signal to others, I want you to be open and raw and real with me. We can take control of those signals to tell others, here's how I want to be treated. And so step one is, how do you want people to see you? Let's play a little game, okay? So in your mind, when people first meet you, what word do you think they think? Like what's a word they use to describe you? Oh, that's so good.

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

People would say that. I knew. You know when you show up and I'm a social over thinker, so like I would get in my head about things, I would overthink things and I knew I could know when you show up and I'm a social over thinker, so like I would get in my head about things, I would over think things, and I knew I could see in their face that I was coming across as awkward and I was creating more awkwardness. So my original word for first impression was awkward and that's what got me into this work. So a lot of the words, I have two kind of groups of people.

I have folks like you who are like warm, competent, charismatic, confident. I love it, I love it. But a lot of folks, and if this is you, I'm with you, I, charismatic, confident. I love it, I love it. But a lot of folks, and if this is you, I'm with you, I'm going to help. It could be quiet. It could be awkward. It could be scared, nervous. There's a lot of words like that. Okay, so start there.

Then the question is, what do you want people to think when they first meet you? What's the word that you wish? Maybe even two or three words. How do you want to come across? So would your ideal be warm and do What's the word that you wish, maybe even two or three words, how do you want to come across? So would your ideal be warm and do you have another one that you wish? I'd probably add loving. Loving, oh my, love it.

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

At the very beginning of my career, I realized that humans were sending me social signals. Back and forth. Your nodding, your hand gesture, your feet, your voice power. And I just missed them all. I have an affliction. I tend to misinterpret neutral faces as negative. I think we all do.

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

Ooh. I didn't even think about that. So in a way, the way you see the world changes the world, right? Like if you are an angry person and you're misinterpreting neutral faces as angry and then you reply back with anger or offensiveness or defensiveness, you make them angry. Absolutely. And so this is like this weird cue cycle. Okay, so if there's 97 different cues, I started categorizing them because I was like, I don't

I'm misinterpreting and I would say to my husband, I think she's mad at me. And he'd be like, why? I go to a party, I'd be like, everyone's mad at me. And he'd be like, I didn't see that at all. And that's when I started to realize, okay, what are the actual negative faces? So I discovered, you know, the research on micro expressions, the seven micro expressions, which we can talk about. And then I started to categorize these patterns just for me.

And then I realized there was all these other awkward people who also wanted to be able to read these social signals. And so I think that when you pick your word, starting to make your recipe of charisma. Yeah. And what I love about this is this is all happening before you get to the date, before you get to the event, before you get to the interview. This is where it has to start. And I think so many of us turn up.

And naturally, by the way, me included, I think the challenge I have is people may assume that I'm always confident and have it all together. If I don't prepare for an event, I can turn up and feel exactly the same way. Because I walk in and I'm rushed there and I'm thinking, gosh, what am I going to say? Like, why am I here again? And why is that person looking at me with that way? And were they right?

Okay. So this is good. Let's add a step to our exercise, which is, I'm just thinking about this now. What's your bad day first impression word? My bad day first impression word would be... Absent. Like I'm just... Ooh, like muting. Yeah, like I'm just not quite there.

I'm probably looking through someone. I'm probably not listening as well as I usually do because I'm kind of just... I'm lost. I'm a bit lost and absent. Yeah. Okay. So everyone should think about their bad first impression word,

their current first impression word, and their ideal. Why? What are the triggers that trigger you to be in that bad space? And what are the triggers that make you feel in that good space? So one of the very first steps is, okay, whether you're an introvert, an extrovert,

or an ambivert, and there is that sort of in between, who triggers you to be your best self? You know how like around certain people you're like, ah, I'm my funniest, I'm my most charismatic? Great, those are the people who bring out the good first impression. You want to be around those people as much as possible. Who are the people who bring out the bad first impression?

Right, like who are the people who make you feel, the way I would describe it is like tight inside. Like that's how I would describe it. Rigid, like that's what I do. I get very rigid when I'm afraid or nervous. Who makes you feel angry? Who makes you feel rigid? Who makes you feel afraid?

Who makes you shut down? You know, awkwardness dresses up in a lot of different ways. Some people, their awkwardness is shutting down, right? They mute, they go quiet, they collapse in on themselves, they take up less space from a body language perspective, but other people get bigger. They become dramatic. They name drop. They talk too loud.

They over talk. Like that's also a way that our awkwardness dress up. So what are your triggers that make you do that? The people, but also the places. Yes. Right? Like I love a one-on-one conversation. So I'm, I was more excited for this conversation

than I would be like if you were to say, Vanessa, come over to my house for a happy hour. Which never happens in my house. Okay, great. Cause I'm not coming. I can't come. Or if I come, I would be like agonizing the whole time. Like a rooftop bar, you know, a loud nightclub, just like not my space.

Like I just triggered all the bad stuff in me. So I think that like knowing who and what is going to also set you up for success into getting to the better, taking control, right? You can control the people in the places where you want to show up your best self. That's like step number one. That's the groundwork. And I think that that's hard shifting that moving that forward when you have to start going to places where you don't know anyone.

Right. And there were two areas I really wanted to focus on with you today. One was looking at the dating landscape and we'll start there. And the second I want to focus on is work. Because I feel like those are the two areas where your skills and your habits and your tools thrive in a way that, that, you know, people are going to change their lives. We were talking about this idea that let's say you're at a workout class. Let's say you're at a social space.

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

Okay. I'm going to give you news that you're probably not going to like. But it's so important. It's a phenomenon called signal amplification bias. What this is, it's very well studied, that we tend to think we are over obvious with our cues. So if you're in a bar, they literally studied singles

in a bar nightclub setting. Women in a bar, nightclub setting. Women and men who think they are being obvious with their flirtation cues, the other person has no idea. Okay? They even counted the number of flirtation signals. This was incredible research. They observed singles mingling and they counted each person's flirtatious signals towards other people in the room.

They found in 10 minutes, how many signals do you think it took for a woman to show a man she was interested in? How many, in 10 minutes, how many signals did she have to send? When it actually worked? When it actually worked. Now that you've given me some sort of, I'm going to go 30. 29! Oh, okay, cool. That's it. But do you know how many signals that is in 10 minutes?

That's a lot of signals. That is pretty constant. And if you didn't tell me, I probably would have guessed three. Right. It was only because you gave me a sense that there was more. I probably would have said three, seven. That is what women think is it was needed. I sent three flirty glances and he just didn't come over.

He's not interested. No, he didn't see him or he doubted himself or he was like, was that a trick of my eye? It took 29 signals in 10 minutes to get approached. So the other person went, oh, she's interested, just interested, that was before the even the conversation started. So what are the flirty glances of availability?

And this is what's most important, is in the same group of studies, they found that attractive women, the most attractive women who are rated on their attractiveness got approached less than unattractive women who didn't signal enough. Fascinating. So if you're an attractive woman and you don't signal enough, you won't be approached. Do you have to approach more based on how objectively attractive you are?

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

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

Are you gonna demonstrate? Yeah, I'm gonna demo it for you. Okay, so flirty glances are typically, they are little gaze patterns, is we sweep the room with our eyes, then we see someone we like, we... Oh yeah, nice little side glance. Yeah, like very brief.

It's a look back up. It's a look back up. It's like you're looking around, but then... Look back, yeah. And it's a side look or a down and up look. The down and up look works really well because you're looking up through your lashes. That's a very, think Marilyn Monroe.

So if you want to look at the classic example of this every good photo of Marilyn Monroe, she has her chin tilted down and she's looking up through her eyes. That is a look that we just like. We just like it, that's why we like it. So it's glancing around the room and then eye contact away, eye contact away.

Then it's little smiles. So look and little smile. And by the way, remember it took 29 of these. So we gotta get really comfortable with trying. And the nice thing is there's no pressure. If he doesn't return the glance, he doesn't return the glance, right? So eye contact, smiles.

Self touch is also considered a flirty glance. So like if I play with my hair or I play with my dress, that's a way of signaling our hair health from an evolutionary perspective. It's like, look how healthy I am, my healthy long hair. I think it's one of the reasons why we tend to like long hair. Women will also, when they're flirting, they'll touch their neck, their lips or their chin.

This actually releases pheromones. So the reason why sometimes women will touch their neck or touch their lips is because they're actually trying to release their scent. And scent is very, very important. It's important in dating, but it's also important in friendships. For example, it's a little bit off the side of dating, but I just want to explain why smell is so important.

I just read this study and I was like, what? They had women wear white t-shirts with no deodorant, no nothing. So just their natural smell for 24 hours. They took these t-shirts and they had other women smell these t-shirts and rate the women on if they liked the smell. Okay, imagine your opening is in black bag and you're smelling the shirt. That's a painful study. I would have loved it. Okay, I would have loved it.

Sign me up, the researchers, I'm there. So they had them smell the t-shirts and they had them rate them on how much they liked the smell. Then they had all the women interact in person. They didn't know who was who. The smell they liked the best predicted who they liked the best in person. So they actually found their people. There is something to it. So when you're self touching like that, it's because we're trying to release this

natural smell of like, I'm going to probably click with you. Right. If you smell good. If you smell good. If you smell good. And good is subjective. Like that's why I think why sometimes you're like, we're just clicking. We like like each other's smell. So, so being available also like releasing pheromone self-touch. And then this one is not from the research, but I'm gonna really encourage you to try it. I think the best way to show availability is one word. And it sounds like this, hey.

Just that, okay? You walk to the bathroom, you walk to the bar, you walk by them, hey. Just like that. Because look, by the way, this is for both men and women. Okay, because life is too short to not hey. And there's no pressure. If you walk by someone in the gym, right, and you're like,

hey, even if they have their AirPods in, if they like you, they're going to be like, hey. Does it matter the tone of voice? Because you say... No, it matters. It does matter. So if you go like, hey, it's not like... Well, that was pretty good.

Okay, all right. Okay, so I'll do a good and bad one. That was me trying to downplay it. That was good. That was good. See, men do good with. That was me trying to downplay it. That was good. See, men do good with a downward inflection. So like that downward inflection is good. So if it goes good, the guy's going to be like, hey. If he's not into it, he's going to be like, hey.

Yeah. Right. No problem. Right? Like cool. Hey. So it's like the most low pressure way. When you're in the grocery store.

Even by the way, if someone has AirPods on, they're still going to see you go, and they're going to take out their earphones. And they're going to be like, hey, so here's the difference, right? So I am using the lowest end of my natural tone. This is especially important for women, but everyone. Research finds that we decide how confident someone is within the first 200 milliseconds of hearing them speak. 200 milliseconds. That means the most important word you can say really is, hey, that's it. You've just signaled your confidence,

your confidence, not confidence, it's specifically confidence. Okay, so what does that mean? We are listening for relaxation and breath in the vocal cords. So right now I'm working really hard to use the lowest end of my natural voice because I know that people are listening and I wanna the vocal cords. So right now I'm working really hard to use the lowest end of my natural voice, because I know that people are listening and I want to keep them relaxed.

When I get nervous, I tend to go a little higher in my vocal tone. I might get a little bit more vocal fry, and I might sound a little bit more like this. Now, if I were to do the entire interview in this tone of voice, it would drive you crazy. Absolutely, 100%. Horrible. It's infectious. We catch it.

We don't like to be around people where we could catch their anxiety. We don't want to catch their anxiety. They've even found that we match the voice resonance of the most important person in the room. So when they tested people, they found that they, subconsciously, their resonance matched whoever's most important person in their own resonance. I couldn't be more excited to share something truly special

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So here's the thing. A lot of us, when you're attracted to someone, your heart rate goes up, you start breathing shallower and you're about to say it in a real like, you go, Hey, hey, like really, that's the reaction because you're so nervous. And this is why we don't have enough couples. Yeah, this is the reason. Cause the way we're saying hey. Yeah.

So what do we do when you're like, when you're feeling that like attraction, maybe you've even built up to it. You've been going to class every day for 30 days and this guy's turning up three times. You're trying to send the cue. Yes. Okay. So luckily, one is now that you know it, it's going to be very easy for you to hear yourself do it.

So at home, if you wouldn't mind trying this with me, I want you to hear the highest end of your range versus the lowest end of your range. Everyone has a natural range. So first, let's start with the highest. So take a deep breath and say hello at the top of your breath. Hello. Hello. That is our natural highest end of our range. I never want you to sound like that.

I never sound like that. Yeah. Right, maybe your dog. Yeah. I see people go hello to their dog. Maybe to a baby. Actually, you're right. To my niece and nephew. Babies. And they look at me like, stop talking to me like that. Babies and dogs. Yeah. like that. Right, maybe your dog. I see people go, hello! To their dog. Maybe to a baby. Actually, you're right. To my niece and nephew.

And they look at me like, stop talking to me like that. Babies and dogs. Totally fine. Babies and dogs. That's it. Because you're signaling tightness, high anxiety, and we don't want that. And by the way, this happens to everyone.

We hold our breath as we're answering the phone. Hello! Oh! You've just given away all your confidence. Okay, so that's the highest. Let's try the lowest. So take a couple deep breaths. Relax your vocal cords. Relax your shoulders away all your confidence. Okay, so that's the highest. Let's try the lowest. So take a couple deep breaths. Relax your vocal cords.

Relax your shoulders. Relax your jaw. Relax your mouth. And then I want you to say hello on the out-breath. It's going to sound like this. Hello. Hello. Hello.

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

So instead of hello, I want you to go hello. Totally different. Only the second one? The second one. Right? So here's the bad one. Hello, that's too high. Versus on the out-breath, hello.

It's still me but I sound totally different. Totally different. You would treat me differently based on those two hellos. I started off by saying, your cues change how people treat you. If you speak with confidence, people are going to treat you with more respect. And so it is critical that we speak that lower tone.

So when I was like, hey, I didn't go, hey. It's horrible. It was so awkward. Oh my God. So a nice low hey for both men and women. This works. And can we just hey everyone? Yeah, yeah.

I like that. Let's just do like life is too short to not hey a person. You're like, I like, I like their vibe. Yeah. Right. Like let's just do, like life is too short to not hey a person. And you're like, I like, kind of like their vibe. Like, let's just hey everyone. And if you see me out in an airport, you just A-B and I'll laugh. I love, oh, that's good. I like that. I really like that because I think a lot of people listening right now, they

might be thinking, but I want to be accepted for who I am. What's the difference between who we are and how we choose to present ourselves? Because I think people get confused. They go, oh, but I am that kind of person who's nervous and anxious and everything, but that's not who they are. I don't believe in fake it till you make it.

It's not a concept I've ever resonated with. And so notice how I didn't say, I want you to be like Elizabeth Holmes and go, hey. I can't even do it. How did she do it? I didn't say, I want you to be like Elizabeth Holmes and go, hey. I can't even do it. How did she do it? She was so like, she faked that low tone. No, I wanted you to find the lowest end of your natural tone.

First is I don't believe in fake it till you make it. Second is I want you to sound like your most confident self. So if for you, that is hey, cool girl, cool. I'm for it, right? Like I will, if that is you and that's how you go, I will take it. So I want you to feel like you, but I also want you to find your resonance point.

It's called a maximum resonance point. That's speaking with, and this is for both dating and work, that's speaking with this part of your voice that is open and full of power and volume and space. And don't we all wanna operate that way? I think everyone is more themselves when they have space in their bodies,

when they're taking up their space, when they have breath. And that translates to everything. It translates to my face, it makes my face more open, it makes my jaw more relaxed, it makes my shoulders more relaxed. So what I'm kind of hoping is we're finding that part of you that's like, ooh, resonance. Like that's where presence comes from.

Yeah, that's a great answer. And what's really good about it is also that if that person says, hey back, you're now not at this crazy level of nervousness and anxiety where you can't, now you're in shock and now you don't even know how to respond. Right. And then that ruins it. We were talking about one of my friends, he's a comedian called Jared Freedie,

has a podcast called You Up. And there was an episode where he was talking about sometimes it's hard to spark up a conversation with someone at a class. And he was saying it's good to just go out to someone and say something like, tough class, right? Like, you know, whatever it may be, like something to find some mutual ground before you hit it off. And I think even that, saying that in this tone could help. Okay, so I love this tip. So you say, hey, and it's like, hey, hey, cool.

Then you want to use, again, I like a blueprint. I need specific ground work. I don't like to guess. So here's your next step, is a context cue. So a context cue is when you use a conversation or that's something that you both share. If you don't know someone, you don't know what you share. So the one thing you can share is the context you're in. Right? So that could be, how do you know the host?

If you're at a party, right? It could be, how do you like the food? How do you like your wine? Oh, that coffee looks great. Wow, this is a tough class. Right? So it's something in context because actually that's a secret me too moment. So this is the next effect. So we're fighting and dating. Signal amplification bias.

More signals are better. You are not being obvious. Right? You think you're being obvious. You're not. It takes 29 signals. You can count them in your head if you want. Okay? So that's the first thing we're fighting. Once we've managed that and we're really clear,

the second thing we're trying to meet is a psychological effect called the similarity attraction effect. What this is is that we like people who have similar values and motivations as us. What's important about this is every time we have a me-too moment, like, oh, we have what? We have that. It builds like a little string between us. Like I literally envision when I'm in conversation, like we're handing each other threads.

I call it thread theory. Like we're handing each other threads and the more threads that are back and forth, the more connected we are. Like that's the visual I use. So what is the very first question I said to you when I met you outside was, you know, I think we have some friends in common.

Because I knew that that was a thread that we could be like, yes, we both love those people. And that made it just really easy. I didn't say like, how's the weather? I didn't do that, right? So whatever you can do to create as many me too moments as possible, that could be raving about a mutual friend.

That could be raving about how great this class is. That could be, oh, the wine is so delicious. Or the wine is terrible. Right? Like, either one. So all your entire goal in this part of the conversation is me, two moments. And your question should be geared towards that because here's where awkwardness happens. You're in a conversation and you have no goal. You're like, kind of like, what do you do? Where are you from? You know and it's like these socially scripted dead-end conversation starters. So

instead I want your goal to be I want to them to say me too or I want to say that's a great goal. That's it and it's very low pressure because all you're doing and then your questions have intention right like if everything is on purpose if everything is intention then our questions have intention, right? Like if everything is on purpose, if everything is intention, then our questions are searching for similarities. And this is the last step. And this is for dating, for friendship, even a little bit for work relationships as well. The last step is, can you find authentic reasons

to like them? And I mean, aggressively like them. I think that awkwardness, the reason I was so awkward for so long is I was asking the wrong questions and I didn't know what to listen for. The last, this study completely changed my life, changed the way I interact. I was never a cool kid. I was never popular.

Don't believe it. No, no, that's true. It's true. I was like a triple major in college because I was just like, what can I do to distract myself? Like I ran for student council because it was the only position that was unopposed. Anyway. Yeah, it was really cool. So I found this study that looked at the cool kids in high school and they examined thousands of kids

across a variety of high schools, across a variety of grades, looking for patterns. Why are some kids more popular than others? And the hypothesis was maybe they're more athletic, maybe they're smarter, maybe they're more attractive, maybe they're more extroverted, maybe they're funnier. Right? Those are all the things I would think of. Right? There were popular kids who were those things, but the only commonality across all the grades and all the schools was that the most liked kids had the longest list of people that they liked. had the longest list of people that they liked.

The most liked kids had the longest list of people that they liked. Meaning, they weren't going around all day trying to be funny, trying to be cool. They were going around trying to like as many people as possible. No way. One of the variables was to everyone had to make a list of kids they liked.

And the most popular kids had the longest lists. Meaning, they were constantly thinking, I like that about you, I like that about you. This was like relief for me because it meant I don't have to show up as impressive or funny or extroverted or be good at sports because I'm not. All I have to do is aggressively like people. So if you want to be attractive, if you want to create bonds, friend-wise, romantic-wise, what I want you to be doing is you're asking these questions, looking you want to create bonds, friend-wise, romantic-wise, what I want you to be doing is you're asking these questions, looking for me-tos,

and then you're thinking, how can I like this person more? Like, what could I ask? What could I find out that I can authentically be like, I like you, and then saying it. Like, I cannot tell you my best friendships have started when I don't play it cool. I do not believe in playing it cool. It doesn't work.

I literally am like, I like you. Will you be my friend? Yeah. And like I have a six and a half year old and a two and a half year old daughter and I watched them on the playground. And it's funny, they're like this. They literally will sit in the sandbox.

My daughter was like, do you like trucks? And the boy was like, I like trucks. And she was like, I like trucks too And she was like, I like trucks too. I was like, me too moment, good job Claire. And then she was like, you want to be my friend? And he was like, yeah. That's it, they're friends. And I was like, this is it?

We actually knew how to do this as kids. It's what we used to do and we've kind of, you know, we're too cool for it. I like that you did that and said that because I do the same thing. Oh, do you? So no, literally, it's exactly the same thing. Can we be friends, Jay? Yeah, I know, but like...

I like you. And that never happened. And I love that because to me, it's... I have so many friends in LA that when I met them first time, I said, I think we'd be great friends. And I'd love to see if that's true. And like now, seven years later, whenever we're out, and everyone will be like, how did you two meet? And then my friends will always try and be polite. I'll be like, oh yeah, we just met through it. And I'm like, no if that's true. And now, seven years later, whenever we're out, and everyone will be like, how did you two meet?

And then my friends will always try and be polite. I'll be like, oh yeah, we just met through. And I'm like, no, no, no, let me tell the story. I said that I liked you and I wanted to be your friend. And I love living that way because I think it makes life so clear, it makes life so easy, everyone knows where everyone's intentions are.

And if someone is too cool for me or doesn't like that, at least I know. Also, like, I'm allergic to it. Yeah. Like, I don't do well with too cool people. Like, if you can't even show me your liking or you're kind of wanting to put a wall up, we're not going to be good friends. Because I love level three conversations.

I like vulnerability. I like oversharing. So that's like a test also is like, I think we would be good friends. I like you. And if they're like, oh, I'm like, cool.. So that's like a test also is like, I think we would be good friends, I like you. And if they're like, ugh, I'm like, cool. Like, that's cool. Like, I would rather take the shot than miss it.

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

That's going to find them. The Me Too goal is a real switch because I think a lot of us, when you approach someone, if you don't ask about the weather, you usually try and compliment someone. And that doesn't work. Vanessa, tell me why compliments don't work. We all want to be complimented, but it makes us feel very uncomfortable. Right? Like there's this weird compliment economics where it's like, please compliment me, but don't.

It's weird. Right? And it also, it creates an odd hierarchy a little bit. Right. Where if you're complimenting someone, it separates you. And also you're putting them in the position of receiving something they might not be ready for. Especially, I believe, and if you're going to compliment someone, compliment them on something that you share.

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

Just like, see how your male friends respond. They're going to be like, yes. So I think that if you're going to compliment, compliment on a shared similarity, then you can kind of celebrate together. If you're complimenting someone one way, you're actually putting them farther away from you, not closer to you.

That distance and hierarchy makes so much sense. Especially when someone's new. It's different if you know someone. But if you randomly go up to someone and go, oh, I really like the color of that dress. What are they going to say? I'm like, thanks. Exactly.

And now it's like, oh. No, actually worse. Worse. If you were to say, oh, Vanessa, I like the color of your dress. And I do, by the way. Oh, thank you. I'd be like, I like your color too. Yeah, it's black.

It's black. That's what happens is like, you compliment someone on something and they're uncomfortable. So what I do is I'm like, I'm going to compliment you back. And I feel so unauthentic. Right? Because then I'm like, I don't know what to say. And by the way, if you're going to compliment someone,

don't compliment the tall guy on being tall. Like don't compliment someone on the trait that they didn't even work on. Yes. Like compliment them on something they worked hard on. Yes. I get it about my eyes all the time. That's the compliment. And I always say I didn't earn them. So thanks. Like that's the compliment. And I always say I didn't earn them.

So thanks. Like that's my response because I'm like, I didn't do anything. Like thanks to my parents, like whatever. Also like, what do you do? Then you're like, I like your eyes too. And the person's like, they're black. Exactly. Thanks.

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

That's it. Which is usually where we get stuck, which is like, I'm just going to live in this like jumping relationship between like... Check boxes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, yeah, where did you grow up? What do you do for work? Do you have any siblings?

Like all these questions that just, you know. Okay, so let's play this out. Let's go even deeper. So let's say that someone's doing that to you. Okay, so there's two sides of a conversation. All of my students are high achievers, very smart, a little awkward sometimes. Those are my people.

So what happens is they work on their people skills. They're like, yeah, Vanessa, like I got it. I got the context. I got my conversation. I'm available, whether that's in work or at play. And then they're with someone who's doing that to them. Right? You're with someone who's like, so where are you from?

You have a lot of siblings? Okay. So here's how you break that social script. One is I want you to think of what are the three questions that you're asked most? So I have the same questions I'm asked over and over again in social, social settings. And it's usually, what do you do? Where are you from? How did you get into that line of work? That's a big one I get. Okay. So the biggest mistake you can make is you are bored by those answers and you

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

to you asking them something else back. How can you answer those questions that's going to slightly shift or transform the conversation and makes you more charismatic? So I even think like if someone were to ask you, how are you, you can answer it, oh, seven out of 10 today. Right? Or like better on the inside than the outside. Right? Like whatever it is, like just like break the script. So if you break the script with something purposeful and you're like, okay, when someone asks me

where I'm from and I say LA, I know I don't want to talk about LA. I moved for a reason. I live in Austin, Texas now. And I want to talk about something else. So what I will often say is, you know, I'm from LA and about six years ago, I moved to Austin, Texas and now I'm a cowgirl.

And I wear cowboy boots and that's like my thing. And then we get into a whole, much more interesting conversation about cowgirls or awesome, whatever they are interested in. Then I'm looking cowgirl. And I wear cowboy boots, that's like my thing. And then we get into a whole, much more interesting conversation about cowgirls or Austin, whatever they are interested in, then I'm looking for Me Too's. Oh, I've been to Austin, I love Austin. Oh yeah, talking about Austin, do you like tacos? I like tacos too.

So like it weaves. And so what are the three questions you get asked the most often? And what are three answers that you can use to get you to more Me Too moments that authentically like them? The other thing you can do, my last... When I'm like out, I've been trying and trying to steer, is I will play verbal games.

And I've actually never talked about this on a podcast before, so we're going to see how this sounds. But I really do this, which is I love guessing games. Like, I love them. So if someone's like, how many siblings do you have? I'll be like, guess. That's good. And I'm so curious what they say. So if someone's like, how many siblings do you have? I'll be like, guess. That's good. And I'm so curious what they say.

Right, because then first of all, people are like, what? Like they're like surprised that I have a say, I'm like, guess. What do you think I am? I'm going to say, oh, let's guess, let's do it. Let's guess, Jay. Because I don't know. So I'm going to guess that you have one sibling.

I was going to say three? No way. More, yeah. Five? Four. Four, okay. You missed a little one. And so I have an older brother.

I was going one, three, five. That's... Like odd numbers. I have an older brother and three younger sisters. Wow. And so you can guess. And so that already makes it way more playful, right? It's always fun.

Like if someone guesses I'm an only, I'm like, how dare you? How dare you? No, but then we talk about onlys and then I, instead of asking them back, I say, can I guess yours? Yeah. And like sometimes I get it right. And by the way, that feels really good. Guess mine.

Oh gosh. I don't know. Oldest. No, I tell you what, don't answer. I just yelled. Sorry. I got real serious. Okay, I'm leaving. I'm leaving the conversation. Youngest. Youngest. You mean? Are you the youngest? No, I tell you what, don't answer. I just yelled, sorry. I got real serious. Okay, I'm leaving.

I'm leaving the conversation. Youngest, youngest. You mean? Are you the youngest? No, I'm the oldest. You're going to write the first time. I was writing the first time. I have one younger sister.

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

And so that's my last resort is you can play a game. I love that. I also love like if I got this actually from Twitter and it totally works. If someone says they're from something, so where are you from? I'm from London. The Windy City, but I always say the Windy City.

It's not the Windy City. It's not the Windy City. Isn't that like Seattle or something? I don't even know, I don't know. It Windy City. But I always say the Windy City. Yeah, it's not the Windy City. Isn't that like Seattle or something? I don't even know. I don't know. It's San Francisco. No, it's Chicago. Chicago or something like that.

But you just like, you can make like funny responses back and then people, and you have a banner. It just broke the script, right? Like being a little playful in conversation also can create me two moments because you'll find your person. Yes. Right? Like I try to be funny occasionally.

And if you laugh at my jokes, we're going to be friends. If you don't laugh at my jokes, it's not going to go well. Right. Like I try to be funny occasionally. And if you laugh at my jokes, we're going to be friends. If you don't laugh at my jokes, it's not going to go well. Right. What I love about that is we often put so much pressure on people to be interesting and pressure on ourselves to be interesting. And we think it's about having this unique conversation starter or this amazing point of view or this debate that, you know, it's, I feel like we put so much pressure, like we put so much pressure,

like we've got to start giving a TED talk to the person sitting next to us. And actually that disengages them. I love the guessing game. I think it applies to any of those three questions you just shared. Yeah, all of them. Where do you come from? Where do you live now? All of that. And it makes it so much more fun.

And you get a sense of what someone's personality is. And I like the interactivity. It's almost like, I'm sure you feel this way, when you're on stage a lot and you're talking to an audience, my least favorite thing is someone saying, give a 60-minute keynote and don't engage the audience in the conversation. Because all of a sudden, it's one way. And I think that's what we think interesting conversations sound like,

where we can just talk about our lives and come across interesting. Yeah. I also think it's so much pressure to be interesting sound like where we can just talk about our lives and come across interesting. Yeah, I also think it's so much pressure to be interesting because what is interesting is different for different people. And so if you're trying to be interesting, it's worse than fake it till you make it. It's what do I have to do to perform for you?

And I don't think interactions should be a performance. They should be intentional and you're building towards something, which is, do I belong? Do I feel accepted by you? And this is like a question that I want everyone to ask themselves, especially when you think about those first impression words. Sometimes people who trigger you badly,

it's because you don't feel safe. I don't mean necessarily physically safe, I mean emotionally safe. Where there's topics that you're a little scared to bring up or there's things you walk on eggshells because you just don't know how that's going to go. And so the other test you have is you're doing this back and forth, you're getting to know them, is do I feel safe to share my real answer?

Do I feel safe to answer something that's not on script? That's like not what everyone else would answer. Do I feel safe to not be interesting? Right? Like if we have this pressure of entering, it's a performance. If you're like, I'm just going to answer and like this may or may not like click with you, then that's the ultimate belonging, I think. Yeah.

Yeah. What if, what if you're in one of these conversations and you want it to end? Oh yeah. Where like you're just like, I want this to end, I've been looking around, I'm trying to just edge towards the door like side step. Oh I got you. I'm trying to figure it out,

but like this guy's hitting on me, this girl's talking to me, this person's just wasting my time. I'm in this bar, I'm in this gym, what would I do? This is called the art of a graceful exit. And it is a skill. You have to learn it. Because there is going to be times when you're just not with your person. And that's okay.

Okay, so here's what you do. It's three steps. Okay, step number one is you begin to non-verbally signal that you want out. Okay? So we kind of subconsciously pick up on these cues. So first is you want to point your toes towards the door. When we're aligned with someone, we typically angle our toes towards the person. When we're not into someone, we typically angle our body and our toes outwards. Funny anecdote here is we also tend to angle our toes towards the person we have a crush on

or the most interesting person in the room. So whenever I'm like at office parties, I can almost always decide the office crushes. Fascinating. Because people will subconsciously, even if they're in conversation, they'll be pointing towards the person they like the most. So when you move your toes towards the door, it's just, it subtly indicates that your body is angled outwards. And then I also want you to make less eye contact, right?

So that could be an overhead gaze. I would never normally do this in a good conversation, but you want to subtly signal to someone, I need a break, right? I need a break off. So then you're overhead gazing. You're going to glance at the door or the bathroom. That was also another very small signal, oh, I'm disengaged. Okay, so that's one, is non-verbally signal.

Second is you're going to use verbal cues. The thing that I want you to do is ask for future plans. When someone is in a conversation, they're very present. When I would like to go, I'll be like, what's your plan tomorrow? Got any big plans for the weekend? Because wait, this is step number three. They're gonna then answer, you know,

what is their plan tomorrow, what is their plan for the weekend? They'll be like, well, have so much fun tomorrow or this weekend. It was so great talking to you and I'll see you later. Three steps. The final step is just wish them well on those future plans. Thank them for the conversation. Give them a handshake or a high five and then say, I'll see you later.

Yeah, that's great because you can't always just be like, oh, I'm just going to go get dessert because you might not be... You can't be like, oh, I'm leaving. I'll come with you. I'll come with you. The nightmare reaction. Yeah. Like, why did I say that?

Oh, you're not leaving the party yet. You just want to talk to someone else. And look, I am radically honest. There are times that parties... Well, I will say to someone, you know, it's been so great speaking to you. I kind of want to make the rounds. There's some really cool people here. Can we chat later? Yeah. Like that's okay too, right? If you feel comfortable with that. But the three steps works.

It's like very seamless. And then there's one other non-verbal cue, which I'm going to teach you that you sparingly. But nodding makes a difference with the amount that people speak. So research shows that a slow triple nod, one, two, three, makes the other person speak 67% longer. Yeah. So if you're in a conversation and you're going, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, you're literally telling them non-verbally, tell me more. Yeah.

Just keep on talking. So if you don't, so if you're in a good conversation and you like what they're saying, please use a triple nod. It's great. Like you do it a lot as an interviewer. I love it. Cause then it makes me keep going.

But if you're like, I don't want this person to keep talking, stop nodding. Stop nodding because you're subtly encouraging them. And then you could also try a fast triple nod. So a slow triple nod. So a slow triple nod shows engagement. A fast triple nod shows I'm done. It's like this.

So here's a good one. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm versus mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Right? It's just like a subtle way of being like, got it. Wrap it up. I got it. I got it. So just like subtle, right?

You don't want to offend anyone. 67%. Longer, yeah. That makes so much sense. I do it. So just like subtle. You don't want to offend anyone. 67%. Longer. Yeah. That makes so much sense. I do it in the podcast all the time. And I've actually been in podcasts where the interviewer, some interviews are trained not to nod at all. And I find it really hard to talk to someone like that where I have to talk.

And yeah, if I speak to someone who's not nodding at all, I find it really challenging. It's so this is a really important thing is when we're talking about cues, there's a cycle. It goes decode, encode, internalize. So you are sending me cues that is called encoding. So encoding is sending signals to someone else. You're sending me signals of warmth. Nodding is a warmth cue.

Head tilting is a warmth cue, right? So that's warmth. So you encode me that signal. I decode it. Ah! He likes this answer. I internalize it. Keep talking.

As the cycle goes on and on, if someone is stoic or mute or they under signal, it kind of breaks that cycle and it isolates the other person. I work with a lot of leaders and they're, they wonder why their team doesn't like open up to them or why they're seen as intimidating or cold. And it's because they are under signaling. They're not sending enough warmth signals to make the other person feel like there's this connection. The other way that decoding and coding internalizing works is negative cues. So muting is one, it stops the cycle. Positive is the next where we're like, ah, this is going well. Negative is the other one. So there was a research study. They wanted to know

how negative cues affect someone's physiology. So they devised a little experiment where they had a participant walk into a room of a bunch of other people, and they had someone in the room, a confederate, signal a sign of social rejection. So a social rejection cue is an eye roll, it's a scoff, right, it's like a lit purse. They had them signal this towards this unsuspecting participant. And what they found was once the participant, the moment they spotted the social rejection cue,

their own field of vision increased, their pupils dilated. What happens when our pupils dilate is we can take in more of our environment, like are literally their field of vision increased. Why? If we see a cue of social rejection, our brain is like, Oh, is anyone else signaling social reduction? What did I do wrong?

And where's my escape route? Meaning that if we spot a negative cue, it changes our body. Yes. So if you're in an interview or on a date and you're like, I don't feel great about this, listen to that. Because that is your body language reading part of your mind that picked up on a negative cue that your brain doesn't like. It could have been a subtle cue of social rejection.

It could have been a vocal cue change that you didn't notice. It could be a negative facial expression or gesture. So for example, in that study, they were doing social rejection cues, but they even found if someone flashes a fear micro-expression at you, so they widen the whites of their eyes and like that, we catch the fear.

Like our own amygdala begins to fire. And so if you feel uneasy with someone, listen to it. Because it means that your body has picked up on something that it did not like, that was a threat. And you should dig deeper into that. So let's say you were at the gym. You said, hey, they said, hey back. You ended up going on a couple of dates, right?

You've graduated from the gym to a restaurant or a coffee shop or whatever. And now you're on a date with that person and you're trying to figure out whether they're lying or telling the truth. You're trying to figure out whether you feel good around them or not. And you don't really figure that out until third or fourth day anyway. For sure. You don't really know enough. You're not getting enough cues going back to your point.

Especially if you're spending time with people in a very limited environment. Totally. So if you're seeing someone in a coffee shop or a restaurant or going to the movies or whatever it may be, you're seeing them for one and a half hours, two hours, and it's controlled. Mm-hmm. You start to spend more time with them. Yeah.

What are the negative cues we miss because we're infatuated or attracted to someone? The research shows that it takes 200 hours to become close friends with someone. So a soulmate or a partner, it's even more. That's a lot of hours. And we tend to make very big decisions about a relationship in the first six hours. Not enough.

And so what you said was really important is first is I want you to get off script. Coffee shops, restaurants, those are very controlled environments. They've probably done those dates a lot. I want you to get off script. I want you to do what I call the car challenge. Which is I want you to drive somewhere an hour away with them.

Oh wow. It's a lot of trust. Yeah. So you've had three or four dates, right? You got to be safe. You got to feel safe. I feel safe, right? But you're like, is this clicking? Are we clicking? You might just be on script. It might be like just, it's too vanilla, it's too the same. Or maybe you are picking up on something. So the road trip challenge is when you pick somewhere

an hour away, that's a different activity. It could be hiking, it could be pickleball, it could be art class, it could be a wine tasting. Anything that's not restaurant or coffee shop, normal things. You have an hour there, about an hour activity to our activity, and an hour back. You're going to find out in that setting how they drive or how they listen to you, how they stop and get gas, stop and pick up some snacks.

We're trying to see them in a lot of different environments. How do they treat people? How do they treat your space? You want to see them off script. That's the very first thing. Then you're going to be looking for what I call cues of inauthenticity. Cues of inauthenticity is when your verbal does not match your nonverbal. And this is what liars do.

So we do a lot of lie detection at Science and People, because I'm fascinated by what are the cues that humans do when they're not telling the truth. And all of the lie detection cues are when there's incongruence. It means someone is saying something, but they're not showing it. So nodding is a good example of this.

So we've found we have a little game we play with people in our lab where we ask them two truths and a lie. Share two truths about yourself and one lie. Sometimes people will say yes, but shake their head no, or say no, but shake their head yes. That's an incongruence and liars will often do this. So you'll ask, you know, so what do you think of the new girl?

You know, she's great. And they're shaking their head no, but they're saying yes. There's a hesitation there, but we don't even notice it. But once you start to look out for it, you'll start to see these incongruences a lot. I've just had a full light bulb moment.

Like, I'm like, oh my gosh. I'm like, I do that. See, now that people do it, like, you know, you out for it, you'll start to see these incongruence a lot. I've just had a full light bulb moment. Like, I'm like, oh my gosh. I'm like, I do that. I've seen other people do it. Like, you know, you just, yeah, wow. And also could be doubt, right? Like someone could not know if they like the girl or not. So they're kind of, yeah, kind of, sort of, right? By the way, India, Bulgaria, and Pakistan,

nodding is a little bit different. Oh yeah, very different in India. Very different. I know India for sure. Right, so I just like to make that note. So looking for incongruence. They're saying I'm happy, but they're not showing happy. Like a fake smile, for example, is a real smile

is when we reach all the way up into these upper cheek muscles. So when I'm smiling all the way, I get these crow's feet, right? If someone says to you, oh, I'm so happy for you. Their face is just dead on top, right? Or too much Botox, either one, that's getting harder. It's making my job harder. It's making my job harder. That you know, uh-oh, there's not real happiness here.

And this happens a lot in dating when you'll say your truth, you'll say your passion or your value or your love, and they'll go, oh, that's nice. And they're giving you a fake smile. They're saying it's verbally okay. And your brain goes, uh-uh. That's oftentimes your body has picked up on,

ooh, they said it was good, but I didn't feel it was good. So you're looking for incongruent cues or clues that someone is not stating what they actually feel. And when you're off script, you see way more of them. You see way, way more of them. I also think there's some cues that we can't read. For example, we catch fear through smell. So I mentioned smell before.

This is a study that completely blew my mind. They brought people into their lab. They sold them off into two different groups. They had them wear sweat suits, like suits that caught their sweat. The first group had to run on the treadmill. The second group skydived for the first time. They had two collections of sweat, right? They had treadmill sweat and fear sweat. Then they had unsuspecting participants in an fMRI machine smell these two sweat samples. They had no idea what they

were smelling. Gross, right? I hope they paid them well. So gross. People who smelled the fear sweat caught the fear. They smelled this random thing and their own amygdala began to light up. They began to feel afraid. So sometimes when you're with someone and you're like, I just feel so uneasy. There's also this unreadable aspect, but I want you to listen to it because our brains are so smart, they're working to protect us. And so if you're like, I feel off, that's your alarm bells. It's probably your amygdala signaling.

Something does not feel right here. Gosh. I cannot believe you can tell that much from scent. So much. Like from smell. Oh, it's coming. The studies are coming. I cannot wait for these olfactory laughs.

Now that's what anyone's going to do. I know. Just go around sniffing people in the bar. I'm into it. Like if someone runs by me, I'm like, I want to smell them. I think it's important. Yeah. But how much, obviously, how much does, how much do perfumes help people live in?

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

yeah. My wife's definitely into like natural essential oils. She won't really use any of, and I'm happy with that. But then I have one cologne that I love that she hates, but everyone else in the world loves. But she likes my natural scent, but she doesn't want me to... Yeah, same. I totally agree. It's an interesting one. But everywhere else I go, everyone loves it. So I'm like, I'm going to keep spraying this. Oh my gosh! You're like a wife for other people. True story. Yeah. My wife loves me already.

Of course. But you know what's really interesting about that is I think sometimes, we all know that... I know that there's a big difference between what you're sharing and teaching and people pleasing. There's a big difference. But to the untrained eye, it's a fine line where people are now trying to get a reaction. Yeah. And therefore they're starting to say things that they may not mean,

which is not what you're suggesting at all. I also think like I look at people pleasing as our deep desire to be liked. It is so safe for us to be liked. And so when I look at the research, so research from Princeton University found that as humans, we are trying to answer two basic questions about other human beings. Can I trust you and can I rely on you? We are constantly trying to assess people's warmth and competence. Warmth and competence makes up 82% of our judgments of people. 82%. And so warmth is actually what we're talking about here. In that, most people have an imbalance of warmth and competence. We're very high in warmth,

maybe not as high in competence, or we're signaling a lot of warmth and competence. We're very high in warmth, maybe not as high in competence. Or we're signaling a lot of warmth, but not signaling enough competence. Highly warm folks, people who are off the charts in warmth, their primary desire is to be liked. Highly competent folks, this is a lot of my students, they want to be right. So a highly competent person, they're very at work. They wanna be on agenda. They wanna get it right.

You know you're in a relationship with a highly competent person if they constantly Google fact check you, right? They're less concerned about you liking them, but they just wanna make sure they get the facts right. A highly warm person wants you to like them, which means they often sacrifice their credibility to be liked.

That is actually what people pleasing is, in my opinion. I think people pleasing is someone who goes, I so wanna be liked that I'm willing to throw my competence out the window just so that you like me. They're sacrificing the need to be liked for their need to be respected. I say to people pleasers, what true communication is, is showcasing both.

You can be both liked and respected. You can be both friendly and credible. You can be assertive and also be nice. One of my most popular videos is a nice person's guide to being assertive. Because you don't have to sacrifice one for the other. And so for my people pleasers, what I would say is, your goal sure is to be liked, but it's also to make sure that people respect who you are and your values.

So if you're having conversations with me too moments, what you're actually doing is, do you value that? Do I value that? Great, we both value it. When it becomes inauthentic, when I think we get into even like manipulation is I don't like that and I'm going to pretend I do. Yeah.

Right. When someone has a fake me too moment, like I was just watching an episode of the Kardashians and they were interviewing someone in a job interview. This is the biggest problem in job interviews. And they asked him, do you use QuickBooks? And he was like, yeah. And they said, what do you use QuickBooks for? And he was like, QuickBooking?

Like he did not know. Yeah. Well, QuickBooks. And that was inauthentic because he wanted to be liked. He wanted to say he had it. He should have just said, no, I haven't met him, I'm a fast learner. When I think people pleasers get into trouble is they pretend they like something that they don't. And that is manipulative, but also it doesn't serve you or them.

Yeah. And we do it and people do it to us. Right? Like if we're all honest, like everyone kind of does it. Someone may overtly do on a date especially, especially in the beginning. Yes. And then you realize afterwards that they didn't really know what that was

or love that type of food. Or you accidentally have lied. Yes. And they pick up on your lie. Yeah. Right? So you're like, I love cats. I love them.

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

Yeah. But I'm allergic. Right? And then everyone laughs. And it's okay, right? And if that's a deal breaker for them, wouldn't you rather know? Totally. Like in dating especially,

I would rather you create allergies for the person. So my approach to dating, I have a couple of single friends, is I'm like, don't be liked by everyone. Don't have a profile or go on a first date and try to be the most liked person. In fact, if you have things that really matter to you, share them up front.

I had a friend who was trying to date and was having a lot of trouble, and I'm like, what are you putting in your profile about you? And it was the most vague, generic, like, I love beaches. It's like everybody likes a beach. Like everybody likes that. You know, she had all of that, and I said, get really specific. You know, like, you love beaches, but what do you hate?

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

You have an opportunity to be super authentic and be maybe a little bit funny and still accept them for who they are but realize, okay, we're not going to drive on that. If that's a deal breaker for you, wouldn't you rather know it? Yeah. And it starts a great conversation too. I think that's the point that you think you're going to suddenly take away the energy from

a conversation. But if you have an interesting point of view, you have a different direction to take it, it can be great. Some of my closest friends, we tease each other about our biggest differences. That becomes a beautiful friendship too. So I think that's where people pleasers get in trouble and they feel bad about themselves because then what happens in the end, they feel unliked. And like nothing's worse than feeling unlovable or unlikable.

Totally. I want to go into the part you mentioned there of manipulation. Because I think people who are charismatic and narcissists often have quite similar traits. Or at least today we talk about them in that way. And it's hard because some people just have that power and control and feel like they're almost moving everyone else around like they're pawns. And often it can be quite magnetic.

We can be quite drawn to it at first, because it feels... Yeah, it feels like there's awe and reverence, and there's this feeling of, wow, you blow me away, and you have so much magnetic energy, only to realize it was manipulation and narcissism. How do we tell the difference between charisma and narcissism?

This is why I like the car test. Is typically, narcissists have a pattern. Narcissists blow you away with their charisma at first. You are just in awe. They know how to signal warmth and competence. They're finding me two moments. You're like, wow, I'm clicking. And their confidence is contagious. We love to be around highly confident people, which often narcissists are very confident.

So in that first hour, two, three hours, we're blown away. Then typically they go one of two ways. The first way is narcissists, if they don't get what they want, even a little bit, they go into victim mode. So there's a misunderstanding about narcissists, which is that they're always confident. When a narcissist doesn't get what they want

or doesn't get what they feel they deserve, and listen for that word with narcissists, I don't deserve this kind of treatment. I deserve something better. I'm worth more. Be very aware of those words. If they don't feel like they get what they deserve or they're not getting what they're worth, they become victims. Listen for that victim language because narcissists will sometimes be very charismatic, but they're playing the victim card and the victim card is really dangerous

because then it's everyone else's fault. And then all of a sudden you're enabling it. You're like, well, I have to protect you. You're so charismatic. And that's how they are manipulative with people is they play the victim card and you want to protect them. So be very careful of that dynamic because I think that we often are like, well, she's not a narcissist.

She's suffering. Yeah. She needs my help like, well, she's not a narcissist. She's suffering. Yeah. She needs my help. Hmm. That is often actually a narcissist is they're playing the victim because they want your help and that makes them feel good. That's one pattern. The second pattern is that narcissists can be high conflict people. A high conflict person is they're very charismatic and they blow you

away with their charisma, but they create all these little disagreements, fights. They create conflict around them and they step and they back up and they go, I don't know. I don't know how that happened. But they're constantly stirring or stoking conflict. Watch out for that. That's the other reason why those car trips getting out of restaurants and coffee shops is it's very easy to not have conflict in those very controlled settings.

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

when you're next to someone. Yeah. I think they verbalize differently. Like typically women like to dyad, have conversation like this, face to face. Men sometimes like to have conversations side by side. It's why they like talking at a bar. It's because they're side by side. They like talking on a walk or a hike.

They like talking in a car. So sometimes if you're next to someone and they're just driving or you're driving and they're listening, they'll say things they wouldn't normally say in a, in a face to face dyad. And you might hear, Oh, that's interesting. Those patterns. I, I didn't know that you felt that way about that thing. And so you want to make sure that you're looking for those secret patterns of manipulators, not just the obvious ones.

Yeah. I mean that, what you just said there about the way we sit and speak to people. It's a lot more easy to be open with someone if you're not staring eye to eye, especially for men, I assume. Yes. And there's a sense of, yeah, there's a sense of we're kind of moving in the same direction rather than against each other. That kicks in.

I think there was a story about how Steve Jobs always used to do walking meetings like that. He always wanted to walk side by side with people. Yes. So I, like with friends, I, or even if business friends come into town, I always ask for a walk and talk, always. And I never say, let's get coffee. I'm always like, let's get tacos.

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

Like they, they go places that we could never have gotten. I swear we could have never gotten over a coffee. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think the big thing I'm taking away is this off script idea. Yeah. It's this breaking the script.

It's interrupting the pattern. Yeah. Because we're all so caught up in our patterns. And by the way, that makes you boring as well. It makes you less interesting. Just as you said earlier, if you're being asked the same three questions, it's hard to answer them in an interesting way. It's hard to make how many siblings you have an interesting conversation

on the 37th time over coffee. But when they're guessing, it's always interesting. Exactly. And that's what I love, how you've interrupted the pattern. Whether that's through the questions you ask, whether that's through gamification, whether it's through changing the path, the way you're connecting. And also, let's get to the chemistry of this. When you give an exciting answer or a different answer,

you are creating dopamine. Now, dopamine does a lot of things in our bodies, but in conversation, dopamine is the chemical of motivation and excitement. So if I asked you a question or answered a question in a different way, I highlighted a new neural pathway. My brain went, ooh, something new! And that dopamine does a couple things. One, it gets you excited, it makes you feel more positive. Two, Dr. John Medina found that dopamine makes you more memorable.

So if you're in conversation and someone's gone on 50 first dates or like you're in a business meeting, especially in business, I say to people, create dopamine in the boardroom. You've got to make your presentation stand out. You've got to create dopamine in an interview. If you're pitching or working with a lot of entrepreneurs, you've got to create dopamine in those investors. If you're pitching or with a lot of entrepreneurs, you've got to create dopamine in those investors

because dopamine is what makes the brain go, oh, this person gave me pleasure. I want to remember them. When you trigger dopamine, people are more likely to remember your name, what you talked about and what you care about. So if you want to be more memorable, the best thing you can do is try to create excitement

moments for the both of you. Me too moments are typically excitement. That's the secret motivation why I want you to have me too moments. And then also sharing stories. I kind of have like a story toolbox. I like keep all my favorite stories in a little note on my phone because I just like telling them, you know? And so like start collecting or cataloging stories because those are gifts for people.

You tell a good story, someone's like, ha. They like love it. And then lastly is juice excitement. So when we talk about conversation starters, I have a couple of favorites. So if you're going to stop asking, what do you do, where are you from? I love context cues.

The other thing you can do with people you already know, especially at work, is ask, working on anything exciting these days? So like I had this problem where I would see people who I kind of knew, like friends of friends or like family members I don't see all the time. I'd be like, how's life? Like what do you do?

So now I always ask, working on anything exciting these days, that is a dopamine gift for their brain. Cause in their brain then they have to go, oh, you broke their script. Exciting, exciting, exciting. They're literally searching their brain for their brain. Cause in their brain, then they have to go, oh, you broke their script. Exciting, exciting, exciting. They're literally searching their brain for something exciting. When they find it, they go, oh yeah, you know, actually.

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

And they'll be like, no. I'll be like, wow, what's going on? Tell me what's actually happening in your life. And we have skipped, how are you? Busy, good. If you ask someone, how are you? They're gonna be like busy, good, good, busy. How about you?

Yeah, a hundred percent. And so I'd rather like get past that. And so asking that question is an unlock. So keep that one in your back pocket. It's my favorite. You literally read my mind. I was about to shift to work. So you already went ahead, which is great.

So I'm really glad that you gave the alternative because I've had a lot of people that I've asked that question to lately and they actually feel so much pressure. Because I think we're living at this time now where everyone's doing something so big, which is what it looks like. And so then when you ask someone that they're scared that they don't have something big to say, and so they either shrink and they actually get scared of that conversation and go, I don't really want to talk about that.

I get a lot of that sometimes. Or someone like, oh, that's a lot of pressure exciting. I'm just trying to get by. of that sometimes. Or someone like, oh, that's a lot of pressure exciting. I'm just trying to get by. Right? Like that happens. And it's interesting that even though it's such a better question than what do you do, how's life? How's it going? It can create some friction. And so I really like talking about it when it doesn't go your way.

So I just want to acknowledge, it takes courage to break scripts. I know scripts are comfortable. Like I know that the reason why we're like, how are you good is because it's safe. And so I want you to just acknowledge yourself if you're thinking about asking these questions, like it does take some social courage, but it's worth it. And so yeah, we got to harness like, okay, it might be uncomfortable. You might, someone might not have a good answer to that or a good answer. I even might be uncomfortable. Someone might not have a good answer to that or a good answer, I wouldn't say good answer.

They might not have an exciting answer or they might be more vulnerable, but any answer is an opportunity for connection. Whatever they say, at least it's not a social script. And your other option, so you can accept it with vulnerability, oh my gosh, tell me, tell me, has it been hard, what's going on?

Or you can have your own answer. So I've asked someone that question, and they're like, and they kind of are thinking about it. And I go, well, while you're thinking about it, here's what's exciting with me. And then I take the ball back. That's good.

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

I really shouldn't. I don't know anything about sports. Okay. Basketball is the closest. Okay. It's going to be hard to find another one. Pass the basketball back and forth. When I ask, do you think exciting recently?

I pass the ball to you. And then you're like holding the ball, and you're like, if you can't think of it, take the ball back. Yeah. Right? Like just take it back from them. So they're like, okay. And they can listen, they can think, and that also works really well.

Yeah, and any question, I always say to people, any question you are going to ask someone else, make sure you know the answer to your own. Totally. Right? Because I think so often we'll ask a question, and they'll be like, well, what about you? You're like, uh.

And you're like, uh, you know, and so be ready to answer it. I also like, I just want to make a like a push here. If someone's willing to be brave, which is we are more interesting and exciting when we do exciting, interesting things. This means getting off social media. This means not watching the show everyone else is watching. This means getting up and trying different things. And so I also like a little side, like just like, I just want to like share

what the world is like, may we all be always working on something a little exciting or a little interesting for ourselves. And if the side benefit is we have great conversations, great. When you become known for asking these questions, you also inspire others to do something a little bit courageous.

And so for example, I have a friend that always, always, whenever we get together, he always asks, what are you learning? And the first time he asked me that question, I was like, huh? I was like, I'm learning to survive with my kids. But now I know he's gonna ask me that question. You know what?

I'll be darned. I learn something every time before I see him. Like I will go find something to learn. And you know what? That makes me better. Yes. Like he had the courage to ask me that question for the first time and me not have a good answer. And he rescued me.

He talked about what he was learning. But now I am better for that question because I want to learn something every time I see him. And speaking of work, I noticed, so my team is all over the world. Yay, Science People team. We're all over the world. And I noticed that we have a team call

virtually on Tuesdays. I noticed that like the first five minutes of our call was like this like kind of small talk, like a little bit negative, kind of awkward. And so I thought, you know what? We're gonna have a new routine that the moment we get on the call, we all share, tell me something good.

And so our team meeting always starts with tell me something good. We go around and everyone shares something good, something small, something big. And not only does it make our team call so much more interesting, because I learn the most interesting things about my team, but also one of my team members told me

that Monday is her do something good day, because she wants to have something good to share in the meeting. So like be the person known for it. Like do an icebreaker in your team meetings. I set on an icebreaker every Monday in my newsletter. Every Monday I have a work appropriate, somewhat exciting, kind of interesting icebreaker that's a gift to you. So like be the person known for bringing those icebreakers and people might grumble, might roll their eyes, but you know what? Secretly they like it. Yeah, of course they do.

Secretly they like it. And if they don't, they're not your person. Yeah. What was this? Do you know? Give me some of the cues there. Yeah, yeah. So like, I always try to think of something that's like breaking a script, but a little interesting. So like, I think that this week was, are you an introvert, ambivert or extrovert? Got it.

Very helpful, by the way. Like you should know in your friend group and your work team, who is an introvert, extrovert or ambivert. Because introverts get energy from being alone. And especially at work, they are more creative alone. So the worst thing you can do to an introvert is have a brainstorm meeting

where you don't tell them what you're brainstorming. So you bring them into the room and you're like, okay guys, let's brainstorm all the big ideas for next year. And they're like, they're trying to think in their head. If you would just give them a little warning beforehand, they would come very prepared. So you should know who needs that warning time. Extroverts get energy from being with people.

Now at work, how this shows up is if an extrovert has a good day, they want to celebrate with people. They want to hop on a call. They want to pop by your office. They want to chit chat your ear off. Good to know. If they have a bad day, they also want to call you to chat or stop by your office. And so you need to know who's their person.

It shouldn't be an introvert. And so this is like pair the extroverts together, right? Like I have a, a B wonderful sales team and they are my extroverts and I'm not an extrovert, I'm an ambivert. And so they have a Slack channel that I don't even know how to log into Slack. I cannot, I cannot Slack. I don't know if it's a verb or it's a noun, but I can't do it, but they love it. And they're all extroverts together. And so I'm like, go be extroverts.

My salespeople. Yes. So you should be very purposeful. So that question and what my readers have told me is it's sparking these conversations of like, how can I serve you? Yes. Like you're an introvert. So if you're having a bad day, do you want space?

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

We're serving everyone. I've always struggled with that because everyone in my life thinks I'm an extrovert. I know, yeah, but I know. But I get energy when I'm alone. I work on my own. I don't like working in groups and brainstorms. It's not my vibe.

I have to dive deep on my own. I like dealing with problems on my own. So I'm not... But I'm not an introvert. I'm an ambivert. Why? What's the difference? Okay, so 80% of people are ambiverts. So it's actually most people. Very few people are true introverts and true extroverts. We% of people are ambiverts. So it's actually most people.

Very few people are true introverts and true extroverts. We don't talk about ambiversion enough. Ambiversion is a superpower. Ambiversion means that around the right people, you get energy, and around the wrong people, you lose energy. I'm in. Yeah.

And around the right situations, you get energy. Okay, so if you're an ambivert, it also means ambiverts are able to dial up. This is why oftentimes ambiverts are mistaken as like outgoing introverts or like social introverts, which is you can dial, right? Like you can dial for two hours, but like if I go to a happy hour and people are always like, what are you talking about? Awkward. They don't know that I spent two hours flat on my back in the hotel room. Do you know what I mean? Like they don't see the recharge process

because ambiverts have this power, we can dial up and we can mirror and match. Ambiverts are usually highly empathetic. We are chameleons. We are social chameleons. So ambiverts have this amazing skill where they can dial up to match an extrovert energy. They can be the life of the party if they want to, but they also can have these beautiful, quiet,

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

they can still get energy because they are fun. Oh yeah, I've got friends like everyone. They can find something good about everyone. Even with a person who is meh, they can still get energy because they are fun. Oh yeah, I've got friends like that. Right, like I have a friend who is dating right now and she always says, you know, I never know on a date if we're having fun or I'm just fun. I have a friend that I say, I'm like, you could have dated or married anyone. Yes.

Because he will just fall madly in love, you'll make it good. Yes. You'll make any... And extroverts struggle with this. She really struggles, she does like, I don't know which one it is. Yeah.

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

Like they've just been friends for like a long time. And we like default to the friendship, but actually the friendship, we're not like getting a lot of energy, we're not giving or getting a lot of energy. So it's really important for Amber if this is you listening, don't be ambivalent about your relationships. Ambivalent relationships actually take way more out of you than toxic relationships.

When you look at your calendar and you see precious social time being given to someone who's like, you come back a little drained, you come back a little more tired, it makes you not believe in relationship. Yeah. And so I would rather you feel heck yes about someone than ambivalent. And that's the curse of Amberverse.

The only curse of our kryptonite to our superpower is we can sometimes let a relationship go that really shouldn't be. Oh, and you allow for it to continue. Yeah. Because you don't know how to stop it and you don't want to hurt their feelings. Yeah. And you wouldn't know how to have a friendship breakup anyway. And you also, I think that sometimes ambiverts aren't sure what's fun.

This is like the weird... I don't know if this is me. Like I'm... I don't know if this is just a woman thing or not. I don't know if you have this. Sometimes I do things and I'm like, am I having fun? I don't know if it's my age or... But I will do things that I've done before. And I wonder like, is this fun? Was Netflix at home better?

I don't know. I think it's an ambivert thing. That's something that I've been sort of wrestling with of like, sometimes I don't even know what fun is. Yeah. No, no. I want to react to those two thoughts that came to mind to the first part you talked about.

I always like to remind people that there's two ways of growing in a friendship. There's growing together and there's growing apart. Only those two? Notice how they both say growing. Right? But when we're growing apart, we think we lost something or we think it ended or we think we failed. And it's like, no, that was growth too. And there was growing together.

But we think if you're growing together, then it's going right. And if you're growing apart, it's like, no, that was growth too. And there was growing together, but we think if you're growing together, then it's going right. And if you're growing apart, it's growing, going wrong. And it's like, no, there's growth. And so I always like to remind myself that, but to your other point, I think it's because time has become more valuable and our self-awareness has risen at the same time as we value time. So I'm the same.

has risen at the same time as we value time. So I'm the same. I now find it much more frustrating to watch a bad show in the evening and feel like I wasted three hours of my evening than I ever did before. So I don't know if it's an undervert thing or a personal or an age thing. I just know that I'm like, like me and my wife went back and forth on that a couple of years ago. I was just like, I'm not getting anything out of this. That's it.

Like if we want to do something together, I want to do something that helps us connect and go deep. Yeah. Or I'd rather go read and work to be honest, because I'd get so much more out of that. Yeah. Than I would have sitting here and watching nothing. Yes. Yeah. And I feel... Unless it's a great show, obviously. Of course. And that's magic.

Yes. Yeah, totally. And so I think that like Unless it's a great show, obviously. Of course. And that's magic. Yes. Yeah, totally. And so I think that like, I'm having a personal struggle with this right now, where I have some beautiful friendships, but sometimes I'm having conversation and I'm wondering if we're getting anywhere. Yeah. Which is, I feel bad. I'm like, I don't want to be productive in a friendship, but like, I want to like, like figure each other out or like, let's be laughing. And so sometimes I'm like, where are we going?

Yes. And I don't know what that is, but it's been a little bit of a challenge and I'm also a working mom. And so I think sometimes I, there's less me too moments. Yes. Sometimes, unless you're also a working mom and then I feel lonely. So like, I think this is a work in progress. No, that's really interesting because I think it's for people who've

optimized all areas of their life. Me. Yes. There's also a sign of I'm looking for optimization, but the way you just explained it, which I loved is what we're ultimately doing is looking for new states of belonging. Yeah. So what I was saying to one of my friends the other day, I said,

my oldest friends in London will always be my best friends. There is never going to be someone who knows me that deeply, intimately or as long. Yeah. But I need a new set of friends that have similar lives to me today because I have different me too's now using your language. I have different me too's with them that I can't have with my old friends. And so it's not a replacement or a substitute, but it is finding people that I feel,

we both have podcasts and we can talk about all the challenges that come with the podcast. We both travel the world too much and you know, whatever. And I need to have someone that I can vent about those things and talk about those things. Yes. So I think that's like the challenge of modern friendship. I also think it's the challenge of dating right now. Do you date someone who is exactly your same or do you date someone where you have shared values, but you're very different? And I think that's a real challenge in friendship too.

And I don't know the answer. I found great relationships to not having the same exact value. I actually think it's very rare to truly have the same exact values. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because push comes to shove, you're gonna choose something over the other. Yeah.

But I found that the best relationships I have are with people who respect my values, and I respect theirs. That's it. So we don't even have to agree. Yeah. But I really value that your value makes you you. And so I respect it. Yes.

And you value that my value makes me me and you respect it. And that allows us to operate in our own universe and world, but have a mutual sense of appreciation. I think that also brings up a point of like, I think that we should be, one of my favorite emotions that we don't talk about enough is awe. Yes.

If you respect someone else's value, like hopefully you could even be awed by it. Like I have friends who have an incredible work ethic. I don't work that hard, right? Like I work, but like I do a lot with my family. Like I spend a lot of time on me. Most of my time in the week, I only spend about 15 hours a week working. The rest of my work is moming. But I so respect my friends who just,

they just kill it. They're always working. And there's a little bit of awe there. I'm like, wow, like you're just killing it. So I think that like it's who can create awe for you. Where they're so kind that you're awed by them. They're so driven that you're awed by them. They're so driven that you're awed by them. They're so warm that you're awed by them.

And so I think that like that's a good way to think of it is it's not the same. It's that you respect them enough and you have some me too moments of course, but like you can have a little bit of awe in all your relationships. Even like in my marriage, I do conversations with my husband all the time.

And one of the ones we did recently is in my newsletter, which is who is your role model? Which is different than who is your hero. Like hero is like more of like idolizing them, whereas like a role model is someone that you maybe aspire to be like. And he said, me. I was like, what?

Why? And he was like, you know, you just, you're you and I love that about you. And I was like, wow, like this, it's so important that we're awed by our partners. And so when you're dating, I think a good little litmus test for yourself is, am I inspired by this person?

Like, am I in awe of who they are or what they do or what they believe? Because if the answer is yes, that's a keeper. Like that's a keeper. It's more important than a checklist. Oh, my lady's listening. I look, I know we love a checklist, but those checklists don't always serve us.

Definitely not. Those parameters are blocking people. Like he has to be six foot four and it's like, you could have a six foot three guy who is perfect. But the filter has kept him out. Yeah. I think like maybe like lovingly burn the checklist. Yeah. With like a scented candle. Like burn it it because I don't think it's serving you. And then just go out and just, you know, find your person. Yeah.

Oh God. I wanted to talk a bit about women in the workplace because I think, and, and as you just talked about, you know, being a working mom and I think about women in the workplace and I think about how cues and body language are very different in how we perceive men and women. And whenever I speak to women, they'll say, I get seen as being difficult instead of being direct. I'm seen as being argumentative as opposed to being assertive.

I'm seen as being moody as opposed to just having a failed rejected day or whatever would have happened. Sure. And I feel like the standards are different. What does a woman do when she feels that her directness is being seen as difficulty? So women are actually facing two challenges in the workplace today. One is exactly what you said, that we can be seen as bossy or dominant when we're actually just stating our point of view. Assertiveness is bossiness. But on the other hand, we're

also struggling with being too likeable, being interrupted, being underestimated, being too soft. And so we actually have two sides that we're trying to avoid. We have this very narrow valley we're allowed to operate in, right? Can't be too friendly, can't be too smiley, can't be too likeable because we won't be taken seriously. Oh, but can't be too assertive, can't be too domineer, or else we'll be seen as bossy. So we have this super narrow lane with which we can operate in.

So what I think is really, really important is focusing on the two traits that matter. These are the only two traits that matter, which are warmth and competence. When we are with someone who signals, you can trust me, you can like me, I am open to you, and you can rely on me, I'm productive, I'm capable, those are in that valley. And they are the most important signals that you can have in anything.

Video calls, Slack, your LinkedIn profile. And so I wanted, this is a really weird challenge I want you to start with. We have the power of AI now. This is a new thing that has just come up. I want you to open up your favorite AI tool and I want you to do two things. I want you to copy and paste your LinkedIn profile. I want you to put it in AI and ask AI, how warm and competent am I? What's incredible is the warmth and competence research that came out of Princeton, which

was done by Dr. Susan Fisk. It was done in 2002, and it's been replicated. It's a very solid piece of research. AI models are trained in it. They know about warmth and competence. So put it in AI, ask, how am I coming across warmer competence? AI will tell you based on the words you use. Then ask it, make it more warm and competent, and just see what they change.

Then what I want you to do is take five important emails that you've recently sent. What we don't realize is our cues are changing the way people treat us. So the types of words you use in your emails are changing people's perception of your bossiness or I would say over-friendliness. Take five emails you spent some time crafting, put them into AI and ask AI, how warm am I? How competent am I? How could I have done better?

We can use AI as a charisma coach. And it is incredibly helpful to see, are you leaking? Are you showing cues of warmth and competence just verbally? Like forget in-person, like forget the non-verbal. We have to start with email first. That will be a really important test right off the bat. See what it says.

And it will tell you, oh, you're leaning far warm. So for example, in our research, we have students who are off the charts in warmth. They love emojis. Okay, my highly warm folks, oh my goodness. They love emojis and exclamation points. And they love words like yay, fab, whoop, and wow. These are my, I know I, when I, I can read emails from a person and be like,

this person is highly warm and they're interrupted in meetings. This person is highly warm and they're not taken seriously. This person is highly warm and they're getting pushed back on their salary range. This person is highly warm and they are not being seen as credible in their interviews. I can look at your emails and I can tell you what professional challenges you're facing and so can you. Highly competent folks, on the other hand, they under exclaim, they don't use a lot of emojis, and they love data, percents, numbers, and figures. They love those. In fact, for a highly competent person, it's physically painful to use an exclamation point. It's like, oh, but it's not credible.

But you know what? That means you're under signaling warmth. It means if you are too formal, too sterile in your communications, that could be the reason that people are like, oh, I don't, like she doesn't give me a good feeling. I can't connect to her. She's too dominant. And this comes directly from the research. And this is a quote.

I remember, I don't remember quotes often, but this quote struck me so deeply. Competence without warmth leaves us feeling suspicious. Yes. This is the curse of highly smart women. Highly smart women are in the workplace and they have great ideas, they have super high competence, and they rely on their smarts. They're like, my ideas are so strong, my prep, my presentations,

I know my stuff, I don't need the warmth. My ideas are so good, they'll live on their own. But the research shows it doesn't matter how smart you are, it doesn't matter how good your ideas are, it doesn't matter how well prepared you are. I'm sorry. If you do not showcase it with warmth, It doesn't matter how smart you are. It doesn't matter how good your ideas are. It doesn't matter how well prepared you are. I'm sorry. If you do not showcase it with warmth,

people are suspicious of you. Oh, that's so good. And so we have to be able to balance out our competence with our warmth. Those ideas with the lubricant of warmth. That is so good. That is so good. And you're so right that we all think we can compensate for our lack of warmth with competence. That's it. Or we can compensate for our lack of warmth with competence.

That's it. Or we can compensate for our lack of competence with warmth. Right. And the point is people won't respect or like you based on. They'll like you if you're warm, but they won't respect you if you're not competent. Men have the same problem. I think that women's value is just smaller. I agree. I really like that. Yeah.

We just have a very narrow way to be. And like even sometimes like I do a lot of interviews and I'm on social media a lot. Even in my grid on Instagram, I am trying to balance this very narrow lane of warmth and competence. It's why I think so many like women, we feel like we have to share like our breakfast. We feel like we have to share because we're like,

I don't want to be too competent. I don't want to be too competent. I don't want to be too smart on that side. And so we also, we compensate or try to balance in the wrong ways. And so I would much rather you take control of your interactions, right? We talk about control. That's the way we do it is we know, okay, there's 97 cues. Here's warm ones. Here's competent ones. I'm going to choose my recipe, right? Like I look different than other women because I don't want to use all the same cues, but I need to find what's the recipe that I feel the most comfortable with. What's the flavor of charisma that I like the most that makes me feel like myself. That, I mean, that is the recipe for respect.

That's it. Yeah. It's as simple as that. And everything we've talked about today, what I deeply appreciate is that it's earned, it's built, it's engineered, it's prepared for. It's not something that someone just has and turns up with, which is this myth that I think makes people go, Oh, they're just special. Yeah. And I look sometimes in my comments, I try not to read comments, but sometimes my comments, people say, you know,

just show up as yourself. You know, this is manipulative, this is engineering. And I'm like, yeah. Because if you are lucky enough that you can show up and just be charismatic when friends, amazing. I am so happy for you. But most of us don't have that privilege. Like I do not. And so I think that, yeah, it is a little bit engineered

in the sense of if you feel competent and you feel warm, you should know how to showcase that. I often felt warm and felt competent, but had no idea how to show it. And so I think that there is a rare bird of magic people and they are amazing and we can learn from them. But for most of us, it's just dialing up our natural warmth and competence and just knowing how to show it. I want to remind people, I think this stuff can be used disingenuously.

Oh, yes. And it's only disingenuous if it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, where it shifts into manipulation, it shifts to like trying to get something out of something and extraction and lying and you know... This is my greatest fear, by the way. Yeah. Like before I came out with Q's especially, I had like a life crisis because I started writing the book and I was like, oh no, like this could be used for evil.

And like I had a whole thing with my publisher where I was like, I don't know if I should publish this. Like I don't, these are tools that people could use for bad. And she was like, yeah, but they could also be used for good. And so I sat with my team and I talked to them about it and we decided to move forward with it. that people could use for bad. And she was like, yeah, but they could also be used for good. And so I sat with my team and I talked to them about it and we decided to move forward with it, obviously. And it's changed so many people, but that is my biggest fear,

is that people will use this for bad, not good. And so it's really important, I think, for everyone listening, that if you have the intention to build friendships and to find your people and to be warm, that's why we started off with that word. Whatever word it is, great. Like that is your intention and that is only searching for good.

And that should always be our intention. I love that. Vanessa, you are incredible. I think you masterfully go between No compliments, Jay. warmth and confidence. I can now, we spent two hours together. No, I mean, I think the work you're doing is amazing.

And I think it's so needed in a time when a lot of us are dealing with low self-esteem, low confidence. We think everyone else is impressive and we're not. And we're lonely. And we're underestimated. Yes. And we look around and we think we're the only one struggling. When the reality is someone just had the chance to develop a few of these skills, maybe in a workplace, maybe in college,

maybe their parents had some of these naturally, and you don't have to feel that what you have now is all you have. That's it. And not everyone is gonna be your flavor. Yeah. You don't have to is all you have. That's it. And not everyone is going to be your flavor. Yeah. You don't have to let everyone like you. In fact, that doesn't, it's impossible.

So I would rather you go into conversation finding your people, the people who like your weirdness, the people who like your awkwardness, the people who truly value what you value and everyone else wish them well. Yeah. But like life is too short to spend time with people that we're ambivalent about.

Life is too short to not say, hey, like it's too short. Yeah, absolutely. And, and it's, there's this old meme that I love that people post and it says, confidence isn't everyone will like me. Confidence is I'll be okay if everyone doesn't. And that I've always loved that because I think we think confidence means, oh, everyone likes them. And A, that's not true for anyone at all.

And B, it's no, I'll be okay if they don't because I know why I did that. I know why I showed up that way. I know why I said, Hey, because life's too short. I know why I made eye contact because I wanted to form a real connection. I know why we went on a road trip because I wanted to make sure that someone was not just being a script. And congruent with me. Yeah. It's like I did all of that and I know why I did it, even if it didn't go the way I wanted it to go. Vanessa, thank you so much for showing up in your full self.

We end every episode of On Purpose with the final five. These have to be answered in one word to one sentence, maximum. I'm not going to overthink this. Vanessa, your first question is, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received? Don't say yes to everything. Good advice.

Question number two, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received? Just be yourself. Doesn't help me. It doesn't help, yeah. Because you don't even know received? Just be yourself. Doesn't help me. It doesn't help. Yeah, because you don't even know what you're capable of. When people would say that to me, what if you don't like yourself?

I had a long time where I didn't like myself. So when someone said be yourself, that was like the worst way to be. And so I had to figure out something else. And so I think that that was a hard, that was the worst advice because it actually didn't help me. I love the answer. Question number three, and you can expand on this a bit because

I think it's really important. I feel like right now we're losing a lot of these cues because most of us are on a dating app and we're messaging. So you don't even get to see what someone's looking at. You don't get the, Hey, Hey, you don't get that. You don't get the smell. You don't get the ability to give 29. You know, you don't get it. And so what are we losing and how do we navigate it?

What we're losing is freedom because they're so narrow. Those apps, it's like, how do you look? Okay, now what are these five questions that are on your profile? How did you answer them? Oh, now we're going to text in this very weird, limited way back and forth. And so we lack the freedom to be like,

so like, what brings you here to this gym? Oh, you come here a lot? Oh, I saw you with your friend. Like we need more freedom to find our people. I don't dislike dating apps because I think they've created a number of beautiful friendships. But what I think is really important is you don't use them as your only vehicle for dating. Make them be one vehicle. But then if you're dating and you're really serious about finding your person,

make it your part-time job. And go to the places where your person would be. So one of my friends is also dating and she's a dog. And I was like, sure, do the apps one, you know, 30 minutes a day at the most. Otherwise I want you to go to every dog park within a mile of you every day after work and just look around, talk to everyone, talk to men, talk to women, and just start talking to the people at those dog parks. You know why? They live within a mile of you.

They are dog owners. And you can see them with their dog. And she was like, oh, and I was like, that's your part-time job. So just make sure that dating apps aren't your only way. That you're going to the places where they might be, and you're spending more time there than on the app. I love that. It's great advice.

Did you find someone yet? Not yet. Not yet? Okay. But that's cool. I should text her. I do like that though. I really, I really like that.

Where do I want to go? Question four. Question four. How do we get comfortable with awkward pauses? Oh no. So actually, here's how we do it. Powerful people pause more. Pausing is a signal to someone that you're not rushed. So one, if someone else has paused, you have made them comfortable enough where they don't

feel like they have to rush with you. Gift. If you are pausing, you are giving space to say, I'm okay for just this second to pause. And so pausing shows you're doing something right. I love that. I do it all. I did it just then even to come up with that question because I was trying to figure out where we wanted to go. Yeah. And I didn't want to just do this, what I'm doing now,

which is like, oh, I'm thinking Vanessa, what to ask you next. And I'm not sure where to go with it, but I'm thinking about it. Like, let me just think about it for a second. Is that okay? And it's just... Filler. It's just filler and we're lost. And it's like, well, no, I actually didn't know.

And I thought about it for a second and it was there. And it gave me a moment to take a breath and we both feel comfortable. And I was like, oh, it feels comfortable. So do I. Yeah. And it's okay to do that. Fifth and final question. We ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show.

If you could create one law that everyone had to follow, what would it be? Mm-hmm. Okay. If I had to create one law that everyone had to follow, it would be no more fake smiles. Ah, I like that. No more fake smiles. If you like it, like it. Heck yes, like it. If you don smiles. If you like it, like it.

Heck yes, like it. If you don't like it, don't pretend. We would be so much better off with, with no fake smiles because we would actually know what people like and don't like. I like that advice. That's good. That's good. Vanessa van Edwards, everyone. Thank you so much.

That was a master class in dating, work, communication cues. I really hope you come back on the show. I would love it. And I hope we get to spend more time together. And everyone who's been listening or watching, I want you to tell me. I want you to tag me and Vanessa on Instagram, on TikTok. I want you to share with us what you're testing, what you're trying, what you're experimenting with.

If you said hey to someone, right? Whichever one of these that you did, I want you to tell us that you're doing it. I want you to share with us what you're trialing because that's where we learn together, you're going to inspire so many people who follow you and connect with you, your friends and family to learn about how they can master the secret language of charismatic communication. You have the ability, everyone else you know does as well. It's just about finding it and building it. You have the ability. Everyone else you know does as well. It's just about finding it and building it.

Vanessa has the blueprint. Go and follow her across social media. Grab her books and tag us both when you're listening to this episode. If you nod at someone and you end up, that they're your soulmate, and you come to Austin, Texas, I will marry you. Okay, like let's create some soulmates.

Let's make some on purpose babies. I love that. I will marry you. Okay, like let's create some soul mates. Let's make some on purpose babies. I love that. I will marry you. If you hate someone and they hate you back, I'll marry you. That's brilliant. I love that. That's so cool.

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

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