The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Blanca Cobb, M.S. Psy, Body Language Expert & Media, Tips for Your Image, Zoom Calls & Podcasting

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

Blanca Cobb, M.S. Psy, Body Language Expert & Media, Tips for Your Image, Zoom Calls & Podcasting Blancacobb.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The Chris Voss Show.com.

Hey, we're coming to you with another great podcast. We certainly, certainly appreciate you guys tuning in to another podcast. Be sure to go listen to all 700 of our podcasts from last year. You definitely want to check those out, listen to them, catch up, find the books that you want to read, and all that taking good stuff. You can see the video version of this interview at youtube.com forward slash Chris Voss. You can also go to goodreads.com forward slash Chris Voss and see all the books we're reading and reviewing there as well.

On top of that, you can go to, there's more, but wait, there's more. Facebook.com, The Chris Voss Show, and LinkedIn.com, Chris Voss, Chris Voss Show, and Instagram, Chris Voss and Chris Voss Show. On Facebook and LinkedIn, there's a giant 135,000 C group in there. Go check that out. And as well as Facebook, there's multiple groups over there. We've been talking a little bit lately about Clubhouse, the app you've probably been hearing about it. It is the super hot new trinket, if you will, but I think it has a very

expanded future, especially if they develop it right. And it could be one of the new powerhouses of social media, at least I think so. It says some extraordinary things. And we are broadcasting it live on Clubhouse as well. So thanks to you and our Clubhouse audience that are listening right now for joining. Stay tuned. We'll have your questions we'll be answering live at the end of the show. And be sure to listen in for great tips and advice from our guests. Today, this is a guest that we met on Clubhouse, which is the reason I brought that up initially. And she was so brilliant, we said,

damn it, we have to have her on the show. And she conveniently obliged to us to bring her professional experience on. Her name is Blanca Cobb, and she is an internationally recognized body language expert. She's been featured on national television shows such as the Steve Harvey Show, the Today Show, Megyn Kelly Today, Dr. Oz, Dr. Drew, CNN, Face the Truth,

The Doctors, and that just names a few, as well as publications around the world, such as Cosmopolitan, Us Weekly, Elite Daily, Business Insider, Elle Magazine, Daily Mail, Blanca, and she shares her expertise weekly on CBS affiliate WFMY News 2 in North Carolina. Welcome to the show, Blanca. How are you? I am great. Thank you so much for having me. What an honor to be on your show today. It's an honor to have someone like you and your expertise on the show and to help us out and teach us what we're doing. Give us your plugs on the websites where people can find you, look you up, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. All right. You can look me up

BlancaCobb.com. That's my website. So again, BlancaCobb.com, pretty much any social media at Blanca Cobb, whether it's Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, which is my favorite and my YouTube channel, Blanca Cobb, body language expert and Facebook. It's Blanca Cobb, body language expert, but just give me Google my name and you'll see probably everything I've ever done professionally. There you go. And I love your YouTube channel as well. People should really check that out because you get a lot of great tips and you've got a continuing series there going on. So let's talk about who you are and what you do. Do you want to give us an overview of what an internationally recognized

body language expert is and what they do? Well, the international part is an accolade because what that means is that my name has just reached beyond the United States border and it's gone globally. And as you mentioned earlier, I've been published or quoted, I should say, in a lot of different publications around the world. So it all started with the John Edwards trial in North Carolina. I think that was back in 2012. I had been flying in and out of Washington, D.C. for a bit. And when I finally got here during the closing arguments of the John Edwards trial, and so I'm going to make a long story short, there happened to be two women beside me. I said, hey,

what's your fascination with the case? They said they were reporters. Eventually, the question came to me, who are you? What do you do? Blanca Cobb, body language expert. Next thing I know is my first media interview is with a Fox affiliate here in Greensboro, North Carolina. And then the second day that reporter came, comes up to me because, and she said, Hey, a lot of people know that you're a body language expert. I'm like, she's like, I think other people want to get in on an interview. Is that okay? I'm like, sure. Little did I know when we were walking down the courthouse steps, it was a paparazzi moment, camera and microphones asking for my take on John Edwards' body language.

And the question was, was he confident? I believe that was the question. Really? Many years ago. Yeah. He seems like he was pretty confident considering he was carrying on an affair while he was running for office. That takes a lot of confidence right there.

But that's really interesting. And so you zoomed the fame. You've since been working with a lot of shows. In fact, you come to think of it, you're the second guest we've had on from the Dr. Oz show. We've had coach Mike on with his new book just recently. Really nice guy. Really nice guy. In fact, he wanted me to come on his show to have a coaching thing.

And I'm like, I don't know, but I'll go on your show, Mike, as long as I don't go on Dr. Oz, because I really don't need to be psychoanalyzed. I probably need help, but I don't. Dr. Oz will not psychoanalyze you. He's very nice and personable. Yeah. I just don't need that on national television, people knowing what's going on in this stupid old town. I'll stick to the private psychological stuff which is great but no wonderful people and and coach mike was wonderful to have on if you get a chance to go see that show on the chris voss show

so one of the things that we wanted you let's talk a little bit about your working with celebrities and get some of that experience in the can uh do you want to talk about some of the examples of people who work with like steve harvey or different ways that you've helped people get through maybe some whatever challenges, celebrities, whatever challenges maybe they have that you maybe want to reference? Well, on these shows, I'm on their shows to share my expertise. Like with Steve Harvey, it was dating body language. So I wasn't helping Steve Harvey per se. I was helping a guest of his. Okay. And we had a couple of segments and this young lady, fantastic young woman, but she came across a little, I guess, mean is what her friend would say. She wasn't very engaging or inviting in her body

language. And so what the Steve Harvey show did is that they simulated a real life date on stage. And so I was walking her through on her body language, like watch him interact and tell him to stop. And then I'd explain the message that that nonverbal she was showing was telling and then how to correct it. So that was fun. And I've done that on other shows also, like on the Today Show, talking about body language tips. And do you find that a lot of people don't pay a lot of attention to their body language, how they come across and how they communicate? Oh, yes. Oh, my gosh.

Yes. Do you find that happens a lot? Really? Yeah, exactly. With the crossed arms. With the crossed arms. But what happens is people, they focus on somebody else. They focus on the person that they're talking to, like what they're saying, what they're not saying, what they're looking at them or not looking at them.

But what they forget to realize is that they're talking to, like what they're saying, what they're not saying, what they're looking at them or not looking at them. But what they forget to realize is that they're part of the equation. You're part of the equation in a conversation. So whatever vibes you're throwing out, someone else is picking them up and they're throwing them right back at you. So if you're coming across using your example, Chris, where you're crossed arms and you're not very friendly, then that's going to come right back at you. So instead, it's very important to really focus on your own body language. Do you have open body language? Are you smiling? How are you using your hands? Listen to your voice. Are you even like facing the person or are you turning away from them? So something just subtle can let somebody know that you're

not interested or perhaps you're in a hurry and you want to wrap up the conversation. Yeah. And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show was to teach people more about this, but we live in a very visual element right now, especially with people, you know, using video and social media, but in the Zoom world we live in and probably will be in for maybe the end of the year, we're doing more communication where we're not really meeting in person anymore. There's not that, that's the subtlety that you can kind of get from being around someone in the office. And so sometimes the visual images that we portray each other through Zoom, these Zoom meetings, whether they're conferences. One of the reasons I wanted to have you on was, was I started thinking about how I wonder how I present myself or look at my guests on the show. And maybe how that affects sometimes the quality of my interaction with them, how they feel.

I know it affects me. Like yesterday, I had a guest on and somewhere near the end, he started checking his phone. Really great guest, really great book and author. But I remember how I felt when he looked off camera. And then one of the challenges I have is I'm producing the show. So sometimes I'm looking off camera to read a bio to another computer. Sometimes I'm checking, in this case, we're checking Clubhouse just to kind of see what's going on in the room. And then there's sometimes where I have a list of questions that I'm doing. And there's only

so much I can have directly in front of me. Unfortunately, we don't have a multimillion dollar teleprompter. So that was one of the reasons I wanted to have you on. Your thoughts? Yes. Actually, I am going to pick on you just a little bit, but it's really good news. So like, even when you started your show, I mean, that energy, it's like, as soon as you were going on mic, that energy just came up and it came out and how it came out is because you're projecting directly into that microphone. And it's great because as you're talking, you'll even giggle. I mean, so what does that do for people who are just listening to you and not seeing you

is that they can hear the emotion and they respond to that emotion. And that's what you want because it's engaging. So I think that's awesome. You know, you just gave me an epiphany. You can see me and we can look at each other. And even when we do audio only stuff like the WAPO editors, they wanted audio only. We still did the video so that we could at least see each other and cue each other and know what's going on. that essence is not in the podcast because my podcast is largely audio. Unless you go to youtube.com for just Chris Voss, watch it. See what I did there. So, but through the cues that you mentioned, like my giggling, the laughter, the energy, they're going to get those,

those non visual cues in the audio. Oh, absolutely. I mean, people can even hear you smile when they can't see your face. Really amazing. Oh yes. I'm smiling right now. That was a fake smile. That was a forced one. That was kind of a weird smile. That was creepy. Yeah. That doesn't come across very authentic, but the next time I challenge everybody, the next time you're on the phone or you're listening to somebody, I can almost assure you, you'll be able to tell a smile when you hear it. Because what happens is that the voice actually changes.

So if you're talking flat and monotone, but you smile, so you're feeling a little happy, you're feeling a little upbeat, that's going to come across in your voice. If you feel it authentically. Now, the one thing that you did say earlier, because you have so much going on, there's only one of you,

but you have to look in 5 million areas. The one suggestion I would have is periodically look to the camera and look at your guests as you're talking. Yeah, you just did it. You just did it. Because what happens is it gives the impression of eye contact. So looking into that little black hole in your camera can be a little weird, right? Because your eyes are naturally drawn to the screen where you actually see somebody. But it's the person on the other side of that camera that you want to focus on.

So it's a little weird, awkward, but it really, really works. That's how you can convey some warmth and some connection through a camera. And I think we're doing job interviews too over Zoom. I think that's going on too. And so your tips are going to be really important to people for getting a job or sometimes continuing to impress the boss since you're not in the office anymore and you want to connect with them. Maybe you're connecting with a loved one. There's some of us that have to, that can't meet with our senior seniors. My mom actually spends two to three hours a day communicating with my sister in the care center over Zoom. And so these verbal cues are really important

where, and I want podcasters, especially my, our friends at Clubhouse to think about this and people that are using the Zoom medium. An example of this is I've always produced the show and like, I'll have the bio on my left. I have questions on the left and so I have to look off camera and then I we used to try and keep the camera in front of the monitor so it would always give the impression I was looking directly at you but the problem was I was missing verbal cues from from guests and it was blocking them and we haven't found a way to figure that out other than just to install the camera right in the smack middle of the stupid thing and I don't glue it to the monitor and like I said we don't have a way to figure that out other than just to install the camera right in the smack middle of the stupid thing and, I don't know, glue it to the monitor. And like I said, we don't have a teleprompter.

But even then, the show's pretty random, so there wouldn't be a teleprompter moment. But I've always kind of assumed, because I've seen so many people produce a show from behind, that the guests would kind of know, oh, Chris is producing the show. Like if I'm over here typing, I'm usually trying to pull a reference point up that I can't remember. And I had Jim Schuto on with his book. I believe it was Mad Men, Trump, the Trump Mad Men or something like that. You'll have to Google. He was on the show. And I was looking off camera because I had a ton of questions for Jim. And of course, my camera's off to the left and I tend to look at you or my guests through the screen, which is this scene right here. But if you look at my head, I'm sure you are, I'm not looking at the camera, which is over here. So if I want to look you in the eye, I look here. But if I want to see you, I have to look here, which is, I don't know how to fix it. That's a lot happening.

Yeah, so there's a lot going on. And so I would just always assume people knew what was going on with that show. And of course, the podcast is audio. They can't see which way I'm looking, but on YouTube, they can watch the video. And so my mom watched the Jim Schudo interview and she goes, dude, Jim is like looking at you the whole time. When you watch CNN, everyone's looking into the camera. You're not looking in the camera. You look like you don't even care what he's saying. You're just off in some other section of the thing. And I go, I'm reading the questions. Like I'm trying to produce the show. And she's like, it doesn't matter. It looks awful. And so I moved the cameras around a little bit to, so I didn't have to look too far off like I used to, but I don't know if you want to talk about some of the, what I just shared and maybe

why it's important or some tips. It's so important because what your mom says, what she's really hitting on. And what I tell people all the time is that someone's perception of you becomes their reality of you, whether it's true or not. So let me repeat that. Someone's perception of you becomes their reality of you, whether it's true or not. So in your head, what you're doing, right? You have to look at one direction to see the person, another direction to know what the cues are. The camera's over on this side. All right. But to the person who's talking to you, who's trying to communicate with you, even though they might conceptually understand it, it's very different than if someone actually gives you their undivided attention, even for a few

minutes. Let me give you a case in point. Think about going to the doctor's office and they're busy. Like half the time they're looking at their, I don't know if it's an iPad or laptop, whatever they use. And they're asking you questions, but they're typing in their laptop. And so many patients will say, okay, are you really listening? Or they think this, I should say, are you really listening or are you not? But when a physician would stop what they're doing and just give direct eye contact to their patient for just a few minutes, just that rapport and that trust increases because there's a connection there. There you go. And for our Clubhouse audience, I see a lot of people in the room. Just to reset the room for you guys, we are interviewing

Blanca Cobb. You can follow her on Clubhouse. Just search for her name. She might be in the room afterwards. We'll be taking your questions at the end of the show, so please save them. Thanks for listening. Blanca, what are some good tips that you recommend to people? Is there a list of good pieces of advice or things to think about when we're in this sort of situation, whether we're face-to-face as human beings or through a Zoom medium, et cetera, et cetera? Oh, yes. There are plenty. So what you try to do when you're on virtual world, like we are right now,

if you want to simulate real life as much as you can. So let me give you an example. Some people don't know how far to be from the camera. I'm going to get really close right now. Some people, they get so close. They look like this bobblehead, but in real life, if someone came back close to you, what would happen? You would pull back. You'd be like, whoa, you're invading my personal space. So you don't want to get that close to the camera. And no, I'm not talking about if you're

talking to your family or your friends. Okay. So someone will always, but you know how people are, but, but okay. I just got the butt out of the way. So I'm just talking about in an interview setting or a professional setting that you're doing on zoom, you're networking on Zoom. You want to make sure you have some good distance. You want to have enough distance where people can see your hands. You just don't want from the shoulders up. Yeah. And that's another thing that you've been doing a great job with, Chris, is that you can see your hands. You're talking as you're talking. So a lot of people use their hands. I do all the time. I use my hands all the time to either accentuate what I'm saying or to highlight verbally.

It's like a verbal highlighter of points that I want people to remember. So people use their hands, but you want people to see them. So those are some good things. Yeah, go ahead. You bring up a really good point. I try not to use my hands on the show too much. I don't know why. I think if I really get going, I kind of do.

But if people listen to me in other mediums, I'm very handsy, I guess. But for some reason, the show, I try and just keep my hands like off camera. I don't know why. But you just maybe realize that maybe I should use my hands more. Oh, I think you should. Yeah. I mean, it can really serve as like punctuation, if you think about it. I'll be punctuation. I'm going to hit that point. So how, how, how would you assess where I'm at right now with this camera? Should I move it further away or should I, I probably shouldn't move it closer. I don't think you should move it closer.

So where were you initially? I think it's right about there. It kind of moves every day a little bit, but. All right. Now if you move yourself back a little bit, let me see think you're gonna get away with either one yeah the problem is i have a really fat face so i should actually move it about two feet away so that i look like brad pitt on camera which probably still won't help actually it probably needs to be like five feet away maybe maybe space would probably be a good idea. And then you also brought up a good tip too about where you are in the position

of the camera, being too close, being too far away. I love the hands thing. And the one thing you have, whether you're applying for a job, whether you're interviewing somebody like yourself on my show, or whether you're just trying to make sure you keep in good with the boss, you look good with the boss and all that good stuff. I think all this stuff is really important because you constantly have to check in with the boss and he's like, well, they look like they're not sleeping all day and drinking all day and they're actually doing some work and they seem like they're with it. So we'll keep them around for next week's round of layoffs.

I don't know. Yeah, hold that in their pocket, right? For another week. There you go. Any other tips or advice that you want to touch on? The chin. What happens a lot of time, and it's something that I struggle with too, when I'm looking into the camera, you have to be careful that your chin doesn't come up. Because when your chin comes up, you kind of look like pretentious and that's not what you want to do, right? You don't want to look arrogant. So you want to make sure your chin is down just a little bit. And so that's something I have to work on myself. So don't look down your chin. Right. You don't, you don't want to do that now. And sometimes

it's very subtle, so it's not very exaggerated, but still the more the neck, see the neck, I'm touching the top part of my neck. So the more that you're seeing that as a no-no. Ah, so that's a nice visual right there for people. And you bring up something that I think is really important. The camera angle can do this. So, like, if people have, like, a camera angled down low where the camera is residing on their desk below them, it would give the impression of you're, like, going like this. Yeah. And, of course, if it's coming down high, you give the impression, you're like,

I'm not really paying attention to what you're saying. So you don't want to physically look down at people you're talking to. And you don't want to physically look up at people you're talking to. It's really like eye level. You've given me this great idea. Didn't Letterman or somebody do a thing where they, where they brought a booster chair in and they would look down on people. In fact, I think Letterman was kind of famous for that because he was so tall and and and i think one of

the comedians or one of the actors who was short they brought a booster seat one time because like i'm tired of every time i come on here you're looking down on me and some people i think some people i think it was letterman some people would say that that kind of bugged him because he was so tall and and he would like set his seat on fire so and you've actually given me a narcissistic idea for my for my for my megalomania narcissistic behavior i think i might just raise my seat next time i do a guest and i'll just look down on them and i'll just be really i'll just be like yeah whatever man sure no i'm just kidding I'm just doing a bit. That's really interesting because people don't think about their, their, their camera angles.

I mean, some like mine's off to the left. I try and have it like this, but even then I need a camera angle that hides my double chin a little bit more. And that might be good. So some of it is about, is about flattery, the, that camera angle. So you really want to be able to look directly into the camera, just eye level. Again, you're simulating real life. So even if there's a height differential between you and somebody else in real life, it's still come across more natural because the positioning between the two of you is going to be further apart. So it's just a good thing to do. You've given me something to consider.

I was thinking about maybe I should have a gold throne put in here and then I should look down and wear a robe on the show and I should like have like a staff and shit. And I should be like, tell me more about your book and your professional expertise. And I will judge it. I'm just kidding. That's hysterical.

You have a great personality and you have a high sense of humor, which is awesome. And that, again, is very engaging and people are going to like that and they're going to be drawn to it. So is that another good factor to have? It's another great factor, yes.

And what people don't realize, some people, some of my clients will say, but that seems so phony for me. That seems so fake. And I'm like, okay, but you do have to bring some extra energy to a camera than you do in real life. It's just the medium in which you're communicating. So requirements are different things. So energy is one of them.

And so many people are used to sitting down. I hardly ever sit down when I'm on camera. Unless I'm on a show, actually, that wants me to sit down. Obviously, I will. It's in our actually that wants me to sit down. Obviously I will. It's in our rider. We make you sit down, Blanca. A lot of times I'm standing up and I do like it because I can move a little bit. I got more energy. It's just nice because when people sit down and sometimes they start slouching and they get a little too comfortable, a little too laid back. And, and again, it's about impression. It's about perception. So I don't want to stand up.

And I'm sorry to interrupt you. I want to give a shout out to those who are listening to this on audio. This is probably a show you really want to take and watch on YouTube because I, what I'm seeing from Blanca is she's exemplifying what she's talking about. So you're seeing her really active and animated. She's making me realize I need to do more of that because I do kind of plunk here a bit. And like I said, I don't know why I keep my hands off camera.

And I just try and part of it is I'm just focusing really hard on either coming up with jokes or what's going on in the back stream of my head or those other voices that I have that are saying kill, kill, kill and all that those personalities have to deal with. There's that. So I'm trying to saying kill, kill, kill and all that. There's that. So I'm trying to repress those voices at least for the hour. But those of you who are watching this on audio, I think you really should go see what Blanca has given you an example.

Because she's giving off a lot of that. But I do like the idea of what you're talking about moving. Because I think you've probably already noticed I slouch when I do the show. And a lot of times I'll try and adjust the mic so that it forces me to sit upright. But I think if I was to go back and watch a lot of my shows, there's a lot of slouching going on. But remember what I said earlier on the show to help you project that voice when you're sitting up. And it just sounds like you have more energy, more more enthusiasm and that's what you want and it probably looks okay if i'm slouching it probably looks like i'm just phoning it in like i'm just over here just doing a podcast like job of the hub blob going on but you know what you bring up a really good point because i was listening to some voice coaches on

uh clubhouse as well and talking about the Clubhouse experience. And what was interesting was the one guy was talking about, he's like, you're connected to your body. What the fuck that means, but that's for another show. And I was like, well, thanks. Last time I checked, the head was connected to the body, and the fact that I'm here is probably a good sign. And then we're not in revolutionary France.

But I can actually tell from your instruction that if I do sit up straight, my voice booms a lot better. I communicate better. I might be in a better frame of mind where I'm a little less fuzzy and my body's saying, hey, you need to sharpen up there, buddy. Sit up and engage the brain nodes a little bit better. It also helps with breathing. Ah, breathing.

Breathing's important, too. Which is really important. Yeah. I've heard about that. That's important. Any other tips you want to take and share with us? Background. So many people, yeah, don't pay attention to their background.

And you really need to because again about perception because imagine if you have like socks behind you on the floor no one's going to be listening to what whatever you're saying because they're going to be looking around going you got to be kidding me there's a pair of socks on the floor there's like 500 socks behind the green screen piled up higher than my head yeah it's like a guinness world record we're working on it's a guinness world record we're working on well let me know when you reach it yeah i hope you celebrate it but when it comes to background you just want it neat and tidy doesn't need to be fancy but it needs to be clean neat and tidy it really gives a much better

impression of you and a lot of people are more comfortable when there isn't a lot of junk behind them, right? They're not self-conscious about their house or their kitchen or wherever in the world they are. And I'll talk just a second about green screens. Green screens are great. However, the ones that as soon as you move, like part of your body's gone, your hands disappear, part of your head disappears. That is so distracting. It is. Just find a better green screen if that's what you're going to use. Some people will use that because they don't want people to see their home for whatever reason,

and that's fine. Or get a room divider and put it behind you. You just have to be crafty. Just think about what you can do. You just want clean, neat, and tidy for background. And most people probably don't know on Zoom, you can click on You just want clean, neat, and tidy for background. And most people probably don't know on Zoom, you can click on the color of your green screen. If you're not getting exact, or if I click on my shirt or my hat and I'm not, it will take this and turn it into the green screen. And so you've really got to make sure you're in the core of

your green screen. In fact, I'm seeing a little bit there, but yeah, you're right. That's so important. Fortunately, I've always been a YouTuber for like a billion years. So I learned a long time ago that people pay attention to what's in your room and what's behind you. And that's really important. I think there was the one girl years ago who actually was written by some Hollywood writers and she would give verbal cues to the story they were trying to tell in the background. And it was like, I forget her name, lonely girl 15 or something like that. And there was like, people start noticing the pictures. And in my YouTube videos, they do the same thing. Like, you're just like, holy crap. I mean, I've been, as I've been watching you, I've been looking at the kind of painting behind you, the Monet-ish painting and looking at it. And sometimes people

come fixated on something. If you have something really weird behind you, they're like, why did they make that choice? And Room Raider, of course, has taught us, the Twitter account has taught us a whole lot about, they do evaluations on how good your background is. Oh. Have you seen the Room Raider Twitter account? No, I haven't. So when the Zoom thing started where news people, celebrities and stuff had to start using Zoom or broadcasting from their home in the coronavirus thing, someone started a Twitter account called Room Raider, I believe it's called. And what they do is they'll monitor media and then they'll judge you like a one to ten scale like olympian olympics rating and they'll judge you on how good your background is and they'll give like a little sort of a movie review

of your quality of your background so it made a lot of people start thinking about what's in their background what people are seeing and stuff but you bring up a brilliant point on on why people should do the room and then of course god knows if anyone ever saw what's behind this green screen my office is a mess so see that's how people have it yeah there's great but now that you mentioned i think i have heard of that room raider yeah there's a i mean i don't want people to see the dead bodies or everything authorities Authorities come over. They want to investigate. They're like, why is there a hole in the floor and somebody down there?

And you're like, it gets those again if it doesn't put the lotion on. So, I mean, it's better just to put up a green screen, I think. You can as long as you don't blend in with it or it makes you disappear. That's true. They're not the same color, but sometimes you get fuzzy or blurry. It's weird. There you go. There you go. Don't be weird on camera.

As we round out, any other tips that you might have, and then we'll take questions from our audience. About being virtual. Virtual. I think I've given a pretty good number of tips. Okay. I just want to make sure we cleaned them all out and took all your expertise and just ran with it.

So you have nothing more to give us. Oh, smile, smile, smile. I know I talked about it on the top of the show. I'm going to talk about it now. Smile.

People do not smile enough. I mean, think about it. If you see two people and one is looking very mean and fierce and the other one has a nice, big, genuine smile on their face, who are you going to walk to? Duh. You're going to walk to the person that has a big smile and seems friendly. So it's no different than when you're on camera. So however, that doesn't mean you have a fake smile on your face the whole time because that's not realistic either. So when you feel it,

you show it. So when you feel happy, show it. When you like what somebody says, show it, smile. It's very engaging. It's very friendly. It's very warm. And people connect with that. And one of the challenges I have, you may have seen it when you joined the show, is sometimes if I'm doing too much to produce the show, or if I'm kind of a little overwhelmed, or if I'm trying to do multiple things like we're doing with this new production of Clubhouse,

sometimes when people join the show, I try and engage them when they join and try and, hey, welcome to the show. It's wonderful to have you and all the good stuff in our production in the green room. But like today, I probably wasn't smiling and it was kind of like I'm trying to juggle and stuff. But I really need to think about that because that's the first impression usually a guest is coming on the show with. Right. Say their name with a smile. Yeah. that there you go oh i do have another tip okay people are not themselves on camera they change their personality they change their persona they pretend to be somebody that they're not don't do that it comes across as fake and people can see it and they're not going to connect with you if i don't if i don't change who i am on

on camera though i'm just going to be a person sleeping and napping all the time that's really what you wouldn't be on camera if you're napping and sleeping there you go but when you're on camera and you're doing it purposefully and you have an intent and a reason to be on it then be who you you are. There you go. There you go. Seriously, people like that. Be who you are. There's a lot of people that are afraid of who they are, though. Like, they're really image conscious.

Even Clubhouse, we see that where they're like, I don't know if my voice is good enough or what I'm going to say is good enough. Yeah, well, we all have a little bit of vanity to us. I mean, we do, right? We do. There we go. But in those moments, just do it. I mean, think about it when you're off camera and you're hanging out with your friends or you're talking to people. Who is that person?

Think about who you are with people who you're comfortable with. And that's what you want to bring to the screen here, to the virtual room, to the camera. There you go. And let's take some questions for our clubhouse audience. I heard some people chiming in. Go ahead and shoot me your question, please. What Rachel's asking is how important is lighting? Oh, lighting is very important. You want people to see, you don't want to have shadows. A lot of times people don't know what to do with lighting and they'll have a window behind them that the blinds are open you don't want to do that because then you come across as a dark silhouette that's not what

you want so you want to make sure that you have a natural light in front of you if you can use as much natural light as you can and then you're gonna have to be strategic with like ring lights and put them in different places because you want to make sure there's some brightness and some contrasting or you look normal so you have to really look at yourself on the screen first. And probably lighting is important because you want to see the contours of your face and what you're expressing in your nonverbal cues in your body language. Absolutely. Excellent. I just realized that there's actually some shade for my hat.

So I probably, I don't know, maybe I should set up a light that's somewhere right in here that's giving me a pop or something. In fact, I think we have a few things, but it does, I did notice just now that it darkens my face. Of course, that just makes me more red, but there's probably some ways to correct that. But lighting your face up so that it conveys those nonverbal cues are probably really important as well. Absolutely. Those of you in the room we're interviewing, I see some new people have come in. We're interviewing Blanca Cobb on the show. You could follow her on Clubhouse. If you have questions for her, please just go right to the question. Raise your hand if you have questions. And anyone else in the show have a question for Blanca? All right. I'm going to

queue up and just take her. Blanca, it's wonderful to have a show. Anything more that you read facial expressions if you're looking at the eyebrows, the eyes and the forehead? So that is what I talk about different emotions, what you can tell like in the forehead, what signals it might give you. And then I also have a little bit about body language in there. So it's more like a guide, a guidebook, and then have a cheat sheet at the very end. So that way you have something to look at quickly. When you're noticing different muscle movements in the face. Oh, okay. I see that. All right.

That person looks like they're angry, but they're trying to hide it. That's good. So how soon will that be up and where's a good place for them to check back with that? Do you have a mailing list or maybe something people could join or you're just following on social media? Yep. They can go to emotionsbehindthemask.com. So emotionsbehindthemask.com. So emotionsbehindthemask.com. Yes.

There you go. And that's really important, especially in our mask world and everything and what people are seeing. And you're right, you can't really see behind the mask and stuff. Oh, absolutely. And a lot of great tips that I just realized too that are important for stuff like you is people want to communicate whether they're dating, whether they're relationships with their spouses or significant others. I know that I've been on dates and when people don't look at me or they're looking at their phone all the time, it's bothersome and you lose that connectivity. So like you've consulted on some of the shows that you've been

on dating and interacting with another human being that you care about maybe it's not a significant other maybe it's just a relative or somebody you want to connect with i think now more than ever we're kind of we kind of need that because we're so isolated absolutely and that makes it really important so give us your plugs one more time as we go out blanca so that we can check you out on the internet. All right. So anywhere at Blanca Cobb, you can find me. And then my ebook, emotionsbehindthemask.com, emotionsbehindthemask.com. And I'm a creator of a program, How Not to Suck on TV and How Not to Suck on Video. I've been doing TV for, I guess, close to nine years

now, about nine years and working with a lot of different people and producers and interviewers and working at a news station. I, I get the behind the scenes. I know what they're looking for. I know what works and doesn't how to handle situations that you don't automatically mean you have to erase or redo your video. And if people want to know about that, they can go to my website, BlancaCobb.com. There you go. Check it out, guys. This is really important. And I never really thought about a lot of these things until I bumped into her on Clubhouse. So it's one of those beautiful serendipitous things. And some of my old YouTube videos I look at, I remember looking at one the other day, and I'm really far away from the camera.

And I was trying to do an expanded shot. And I remember looking at thinking, wow, I'm way too far away, and I'm not really connecting. And like we tell a lot of people in the writer that goes out for the Chris Voss show, our videos stay up on our interviews for like 10 years. And so I try and warn people. It's kind of a warning. Like I'm like, Hey, bring your best show and your best game to the Chris Voss show when you appear, because this video is going to be up for 10 years. And I've had a couple of people that have slacked far worse than I have or been far away. I had one guy who came on the show and he was sitting in his chair, like way

back off camera. And the whole time he's turned to the side, like I'm just finding this in. And I'm like, for 10 years, people are going to be seeing that video, maybe 15 or 20. So you might want to give that some thought. And I probably should think about that as a podcaster at what I'm doing here on the podcast show. So interesting tips. Thanks to my audience on Clubhouse for tuning in. Be sure to follow Blanca Cobb on Clubhouse. You can do that there. I'm not sure if she'll have time to visit after the show. She might be popping in the room. We'll see. I'm going to leave that up to her. But thank you very much, Blanca, for being on the show and spending some time and sharing your expertise with us. You are so welcome. It was such a pleasure, so much fun. And if you ever want me back again, I'll be happy to join. We'd love to have you back

again. And the more we can learn from you, the better. Be sure to go check out HerWares on social media and on the interwebs. Go see the video versions. I highly recommend this. You can see the video versions and you can see her displaying a lot of the different expertise she's shared with us in education. So you can learn much more from her, I think, than you would from audio. Go to Clubhouse.

You can follow me at Chris Voss over there. YouTube.com, 4chesschrisvoss. Goodreads.com, 4chesschrisvoss, facebook.com, 4chess, the Chris Voss Show, LinkedIn as well, and Instagram. Thanks so much for tuning in. Stay safe, wear your mask, and we'll see you next time.