The Jordan Harbinger Show - 82: Vanessa Van Edwards | Pumping up the Volume of Nonverbal Communication

Episode Date: August 16, 2018

Vanessa Van Edwards (@vvanedwards) rejoins us to further discuss components of nonverbal communication. She is the lead investigator at human behavior research lab Science of People and author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People. What We Discuss with Vanessa Van Edwards: What Albert Mehrabian's commonly misinterpreted 7-38-55 Rule of Personal Communication is -- and isn't -- telling us about nonverbal communication. The components of nonverbal communication including body language, facial expressions, and vocal tone, along with ornaments, proxemics, and haptics. The dangers of focusing so fully on expressing yourself with one component of communication that you neglect the others. The two metrics of essential nonverbal communication: confidence and engagement. Power posing and movement, and how to use our hands and eyes to engage. And much more... Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Full show notes and resources can be found here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiratuality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics.

Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFilippo. Today, we're back with Vanessa Van Edwards, a body language and nonverbal communications expert and great friend of mine and of the show.

Today, we'll discuss the components of nonverbal communication, including body language, facial expressions, voice tone, which of course you've heard of, but we also have some new concepts here that we haven't discussed before, such as ornaments, proxemics, and haptics. We'll also explore the two metrics of essential nonverbal communication, namely confidence and engagement and how we can begin to master each of these two concepts.

We'll also dive into power posing and movement, as well as how to use our hands and eyes to engage. Remember, there are worksheets for today's episode so you can make sure you've got everything we talked about here today with Vanessa Van Edwards. That link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com slash podcast. All right, here's Vanessa Van Edwards. Vanessa, thanks for coming back. I know you're about to, am I allowed to say anything that you're about to pop?

Yeah. Oh, I mean, like, it's going to come out. I'm about to pop. I am almost nine months pregnant. Great, yeah. So good. Good thing we came in right under the line here, making sure that we got you on the show one last time. Because people, my producer goes, why is she going back so early?

She was just on the show. And I was like, because she's going to be out of commission for a while, probably. And, I mean, I don't know. Like, I feel like I could be either way more brilliant today because of all the hormones are way, way less brilliant. So we're just going to see how that goes. Yeah, we're just going to play by ear. And today we'll discuss some components of nonverbal communication,

which is what you are best known for, body language, facial expressions, vocal tonality. So we've all heard this, what is this? It's the Moravian study where it's like, oh, it's 7% what you say and all that stuff. But we know that that's not really true because if I watch a movie in Italian and I don't understand what they're saying, but I'm looking at their body language. I'm not suddenly like, oh, I know exactly what's going on right now. Yeah, so actually, let's just bust that study. So he's actually come out and said, I'm really sorry for this study.

It totally misled people. What he did in a study, it was actually a very clever design, and it's not totally irrelevant. What he did is he had people record their first impression, which is, hello, right? So one word. And then he had people judge first impressions based on that one word. So of course, the verbal. is going to be 7% because it was just, hello. It's not like they were doing conversations or like that.

So what's interesting about it is that study does not hold for all of communication. However, I think it does imply or it does talk about something interesting, which is that especially during first impressions, and on a phone call, your first impression really is, hello, right? Those first few words are not as important as a nonverbal. And so while the percentages are off, I like that study, because at least it does show that the emphasis, especially in those first few words, are important.

Okay, good. So now that we've sort of busted that, let's talk about each of these components, because I think people don't necessarily know kind of where body language ends, facial expressions begin. Is vocal tonality that important? I would say yes,

doing a radio and online show where if someone's speaking in a monotone way, I just immediately tune out. But I don't know what ornaments, proxemics, and haptics really are. I mean, I know what they are on my phone, but that's pretty much it. Yes.

Okay. So, well, first of all, I can't tell you a kind of funny story. I think you'll appreciate it. Okay. So I was on a podcast, and it's because you said your voice tone is so important. And so when I'm on podcast, I try to bring it with my vocal tonality. Just like being, you know, being there, you know, I have like tea and water and like, you know, I spritz my mouth beforehand. Because I know that on a podcast, it's mostly audio.

Okay. So I get on this podcast and he says to me, the interviewer, he says, so I would love to have the video up while we're chatting just so we can see nonverbal. Okay. Sure. I'm all about that. Like, I'm an on verbal expert, whatever that means. I'm like, okay, great. So we turn on the video and it's not being recorded on video. It's just the audio. So I am focused 100% on this microphone. Like I am like, I'm delivering this microphone like with all my charisma, which means, one, I'm making less eye contact with the camera, like not him, the camera. I'm kind of watching his cues, but I'm really trying to focus on my message and like delivering with vocal power.

And about 15 minutes into this interview, he says, am I boring you? Oh, not a good sign. And you're like, yes, but I was trying to hide it, right? Well, I was like, well, he was not boring me, but he was asking me the same boring questions that everyone asks me. And so I wasn't giving him a tonal facial expressiveness. My voice tone was there, but I wasn't giving him eye contact. I wasn't doing a lot of gesturing. I was focusing all on my vocal power. And so what I said to him is, first of all, people can't see me.

And I have resting bitch face. So I also look angry even though I'm not angry. And I realize in that moment that the channels are totally overlapping. You can be putting all of your emphasis into that tonality into your vocal power, into your resonance, trying to get that up. but it is so tied with facial expressions and body language that he could not hear the vocal and keep it by itself. He was watching me and he wasn't getting the nonverbal feedback that he wanted and therefore he felt snubbed. And it was a horrible experience because I was like, well,

first of all, I'm never doing video, like I'm never ignoring video again, even if only he's going to see it. And second, it was a really good lesson for me and that even though I was focused 100% on my message and my vocal, that wasn't enough. Like, I had. had to actually do more. I had to do more facial expressions, more expressiveness, more body language. So the channels are so tied, it's hard to separate them out. That's so interesting. That's an interesting story, but I'm also having trouble imagining what it would be like

to have really charismatic vocal tonality and have your face be. How do you even relax your face so much but still have a dynamic way of speaking? I don't even know how you can manage that. So I can show you, unfortunately, I know how this goes from my own face, unfortunately. So it's totally when I am concentrating and when most people are concentrating, they tend to use facial punctuators. So facial punctuator is not a universal microexpression. A facial punctuator is how we emphasize our words with our face. So everyone has a different one. For me, I tend to do a surprise face. So I angle my eyebrows, I put my eyebrows up. and usually those vertical lines appear.

So when I'm talking to you, I'm constantly in the up mode of my eyebrows. I am not surprised all the time. I am just punctuating my words. Some people punctuate with an anger, a quasi-angor expression. So they pinch their eyebrows together in this kind of furrowed brow kind of a look. And they're explaining in this very deep concentrated way. So they're pinching their eyebrows together. You'll notice on news shows, a lot of politicians, they punctuate in that way.

or they're delivering like, let me tell you, this is really serious. Let me tell you how. They're not angry. They're just in that. That's their punctuator of concentration. So if you use a facial punctureator that's negative, people are going to assume that you're more negative. If I use a facial puncturetor of surprise, it actually makes me look far more naive than I am or far more gullible than I am. Great. And you know what? It's actually that's not served me so well. No. Yeah. And like people, people all the time, all the time, apologize to me for cursing.

And I always think it's so funny. Like, I'm like, I know what curse words are. Why are you apologizing? And I think it's because I look maybe innocent. Like a prude. Yeah. But not really. Yes.

You are pregnant. So you got that out of the way. It was immaculate, Jordan. What are you talking about? Yeah. It's immaculate conception. Scott's like, I was there. I think.

He was there. So I think that, yes, approved is exactly it, that like this constant surprise kind of do-eye look that I can have makes people assume the wrong things about me. Sure. So what's important here, I think, is one, for listeners, if you feel so brave, record yourself on your next phone conversation and just pay attention to what you're doing by default, especially to emphasize your own words. Most likely it's quasi surprise, so eyebrows up, quasi anger, so eyebrows down and pinched with two vertical lines. Contempt, so pulling one side of your mouth up and talking out of one side of your mouth. Yes, my default. And that, by the way, that one's really dangerous because it can make you come across as...

They're cocky or arrogant, right? Yeah, I was going to say superior. Yeah, no, no, no, cocky and arrogant. It's not really my default. It's something that I broke a long time ago. Yeah, because you don't do that very often. No, I don't. I don't really.

But a long time ago, I did it. But a lot of it was, it was more like I'm really tentative because I was really shy. And that came across as me being like almost not smug, but I guess really it is sort of at the same as content. Like, well, you know, maybe it's like this. And it wasn't just like, oh, maybe you're wrong. It was more like, maybe I'm not right. And then no one will like me and I'll be friendless and die alone.

Right. That was what was really going through my head. But people don't, as you know, people don't go, oh, well, maybe he's shy. They go, oh, he doesn't talk. Well, he's not an ugly person, so he must be arrogant. Right. And that is exactly. I mean, people always jump to the easiest conclusion, unfortunately, which is usually you're bad, they're right.

Right. You're wrong. You're bad. We're good. We're great. And so I think that these punctuators, it's really important to know what subtle message you're sending across, even if it's not real, and I'm using either nonverbal or verbal to correct it.

So, like, if I know that I come across as prudish or unknowing and surprise, which, by the way, is terrible for my brand, because my brand is the science of people, I run a lab, I'm an author, I should not be surprised all the time, right? That's not good for my nonverbal branding. No. So I have to really work to overcompensate with the competence. piece, the knowledge piece, because I know that I have a really hard time controlling my eyebrows, short of getting Botox, which I really don't want to get, right?

That's, I have to fight that verbally. So thinking about how you could fight that verbally yourself and then also watching out for it and other people and knowing that if someone's punctuating their words with expression, it doesn't necessarily mean they feel anger, they feel surprised, they feel contemptuous, whatever. It means that that's their default and it would be good to try to get past it. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest of Vanessa Van Edwards. We'll get right back to the show after this brief word from our sponsors.

Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash advertisers. And as a special gift, Vanessa Van Edwards has given us $100 off the list price for her Science of People course. Just go to scienceofpeople.com slash Jordan. Check out, use the promo code Jordan to get $100 off. How awesome is that?

Now back to Vanessa Van Edwards and Jordan. Is it different for men and women? Because I think for guys, me looking serious all the time, people are like, oh, he's really competent. But if you look really serious all the time, they might be like, oh, well, you know, she's, she's no fun. She's frigid. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So it's funny.

I didn't think you meant that when you asked the question on gender. I thought you meant, like, do women express different than men? No, I meant interpreted differently. Yes. Yes. So express differently, I don't think so. I don't think so. Not that I've seen.

I haven't seen it in the research. I don't think that's qualitative. I even just paying attention. But definitely in terms of interpretation, what is acceptable for a man. Like, for example, think of Tom Brokaw as a reporter, right? I mean, he is like locked in his eyebrows the whole time. It makes him look intense and serious. I'm like a hard go-getting reporter.

if a woman were to get on as a reporter and be like, tell me, sir, tell me about your experience in the, whatever, political, obviously, not a reporter, right? And like, do that. She would be, she'd be seen as like, whoa, that's aggressive. Yeah. People would be like, oh, her husband must be in hell. Oh, imagine being married to that woman. Oh, it's so terrible. Totally. Totally. By the way, a funny thing is, I don't know if you have this, but how many, how often, I'll ask you the question first, before I lead you into the answer. How often do people ask you what you do when you meet them? Like 90% of the time?

Yeah, all the time, yeah. 100%. Okay. How many people ask you what Jen does, your wife? That's a good question. Probably they do it, but it's certainly less often. Yeah. So, like, I constantly get asked, what do you do?

And, like, immediately after what does your husband do? Like, it defines me what my husband does. It's a very interesting kind of a thing. And so it's funny that you would say, like, a reporter with aggressive eyebrows, you think about her husband. Yeah. Whereas a reporter, a male reporter with aggressive eyebrows, you don't think about his wife. No, I'm always like, oh, I wonder, is Charlie Rose, does he have kids? Oh, I never knew.

I'm not going to. That's like a literal shower thought from this morning. I was thinking, like, I wonder if he has kids. Oh, I don't know. Never going to Google that because I'm in the shower. Do you want to say a funny story about Charlie Rose? Yes, please do. Okay.

So I went on Charlie Rose when my book came out last year, and it was awesome. Like it went really well. It was very, very grateful because we sold a ton of books from that. Sure. Here's what happened, though. And this is the reason I think we sold a lot of books. So we're chatting in the interview. You know when you're on media interviews, like you basically block out from nerves, or at least I do.

I do, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like it's over already? Yeah, you were, that was 38 minutes. Oh, okay. Yeah, you're like, what just happened? What did I say?

Oh my gosh, is everything okay. So like I, you know, you go into like the zone. You have all your talking points like in your head. You know that like everyone you know and their mother is watching. And like in New York like been in the green room. And so I get up there and they're asking me questions and like it's going pretty well. And then like they say something and Charlie Rose says something. And I don't quite catch it.

But him and the reporters are giggling. Like laughing and giggling. And I'm like, now, the part of me that was like the really uncool girl with braces in the corner in school is like beginning to like sweat. You know, like I'm like, are they, why are they laughing? What are they giggling at? And it gets so bad. And you can actually find this interview on the YouTube's. We'll link to it in the show notes.

Great. On the internets. They are laughing so hard that Charlie Rose and his anchor are like sitting cuddling and holding each other while they're shaking with uncontrollable laughter. Now, I have no idea what they're laughing about. I didn't get the joke. It totally went over my head. He had made a joke about faking it till you make it, which I was talking about in a social setting. He was talking about in a different setting.

I bet. He got in trouble for something like that, if I recall correctly. So I, this is like, I did not get it. I totally like, this was naive. Like it totally went over my head. I was like, fake it till you make it. Like, what? Like, didn't get it at all.

They're, like, hysterically laughing. If you see my face in this interview, I'm like... Yeah, you have the natural surprise, do-eyed look. Like, totally frozen. I have no idea what's happening. And I'm like, ha, ha, ha, ha. Like, just, like, fake laughing until I can get to the interview. Luckily, it sold a lot of books.

Like, people at home got it. Yeah. They're like, go out and order that book with the one who fake, or is it? Orgasm Girl. Go get the fake orgasm book. Exactly. And like I leave the set and I'm and I like ask my my publisher came with me. And I was like, was that okay?

Like what happened? What happened? Why were they laughing? She was like, it's fine. It's fine. Let me tell you. When you get off of an interview and you're like, I don't know what happened. And someone's like, it's fine.

It's fine. That does not make you feel like it. Yeah. You're like for sure it's not fine then. I was like, oh my God. I didn't think it was even it's fine realm. Like, I didn't even think we were at that level. Yeah.

And so I'm, like, trying to, like, process what happened. And she goes, but look, you're at number eight on Amazon. I was like, oh, then it was fine. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, it's fine. Okay. I'm just going to go buy myself a new car and make myself feel better. Yeah.

I was like, it's totally fine. And now it actually is totally fine. Yeah. Wow. This is my Charlie Rose story, which, speaking of nonverbal, I think that was one of those moments where they were having a moment and I had missed something, but you don't know that I'm, like, totally, like, like out of it. You just think I'm kind of laughing along and waiting for the interview to keep going.

So sometimes I think you can fake it to you make it. Yeah. Well, that's so then yeah, it all came full circle, I guess, in that one. It's funny. Yeah, about Charlie Rose. I loved his interviews. I always have. I think he's a great journalist. And then when he went through that recent scandal, I was in an article months or even just weeks prior. I think it was in Inc. or Forbes. And it was like Jordan Harbinger's the Charlie Rose of podcasting. And around two o'clock in the morning one of my writers who lives in in europe was like hey dude we're going to have to change your bio and i was like what why and he's like you know because the charlie rose a podcasting thing and i was like what are you talking about and then he just dumps like 17 links

of all this harassment stuff from charlie rose he got in trouble for probably making a lot of jokes about fake it till you make it to the rest of his staff and then i was like oh shoot so then another friend of mine is a journalist was like hey i love this byline i want to use it for an article and I was like, can we just not make it the Charlie Rosa podcast? And she's like, oh, how's Larry King? I'm like, so far better. Yeah. So far.

So far. That, when the scandal came out, my P.S. in my email was, you know, Vanessa Van AdWords, P.S. Check out this awkward moment I had with Charlie Rose. Yeah. That was what was linked in my emails. This awkward moment. And like, I was like, oh, my God.

I was like, delete. Yeah. Get rid of it. Yeah. Yeah. before you hear from his legal team about it. We got a lot of clicks, I think, before I was able to delete it. I bet.

Yeah, well, we're going to link up that video in the show notes if we can find it, the awkward moment with show you guys. You'll just see me really uncomfortable. That's the best part of the interview is like me just like totally dear in the headlights. You want to see what I look like when I'm really uncomfortable and trying to hide it? Yep, yep. That's a good example of nonverbals. What about ornaments, proxemics, and haptics then?

Because, of course, body language, facial expression, vocal tonality. Yeah, we kind of covered that a little bit in other shows with you, but ornaments, I don't even know what that is. I really have no idea. Yeah, so ornaments is a kind of overlooked aspect of nonverbal, but I think it really matters. So ornaments are the way that we decorate our bodies. So makeup, hair, jewelry, color psychology actually falls in ornaments as well. And interestingly, there is more and more research coming out on our ornaments. It's not super robust yet, but we can start making inferences.

I'll give you an example. So we talk a lot about eye contact and eye patterns in our courses. And not just that eye contact is important, we know that, but that actually the different patterns that we make on someone's face are important. So, for example, alphas, people in power tend to keep their gaze very high on someone's face. They bounce between the eyes and the forehead. And alphas and bosses and VIPs very rarely drop their gaze to the bottom half of the face. It's a way that they socially signal signs of power.

So this is important because, one, if you want to be perceived as more powerful, you can think about subtly adopting it if it feels natural to you. I'm always very careful to not tell people to try something that's like totally counterintuitive to them because then it comes across is really fake. But if that seems, it feels natural to you, it's a great way to sort of socially encode confidence. And when you see people make this pattern on your face, you can also sense their feelings of confidence. So that's a great little tidbit to know about eye contact. what can change that are ornaments. For example, if you are wearing glasses on the top of your head and they are reflecting, that can just even that ornament can change someone's perceptions or eye gaze patterns.

Opposite would be if a woman is wearing a statement necklace, you know, statement necklace is when you have like a big chunky kind of colorful necklace. That can also force someone who was power gazing with you into a different gaze pattern and drop their gaze down. So all of these ornaments are also not only signaling different things on their own, like sunglasses on the head is very casual, right? Like surfer dude, okay? And intimate, you know, chunky necklaces signals fashion. It also changes someone's natural, non-vril way of interacting with you. Same with nails. Same with loud bracelets. Same with certain kinds of watches. So the ornaments send a lot of different signals as well as change the signals

that people are sending to you. For men, it seems like we have a little bit of a limited option here, because sure, sunglasses on the head, fine, but I don't have a lot of statement necklaces, chunky bracelets, nail ornaments, or even more than just my wedding ring. So where are my options here? I would agree. Actually, then that's a good thing. I think that the more ornaments, the more choices the harder it is. So I actually think it's really good. Um, so it's more like, uh, peacocking items. So, you know, in the pickup artist community, that's like a big thing to like wear crazy hats or like wear boas or, you know, have interesting tattoos or weird earrings. Um, every time you add one of those, you have to realize that yes, it can get attention. Um,

but also it could change your not, people's non-roval perception of you. So, um, there's the extras, but I think that, um, luckily men have less. So, It's, yeah, sunglasses on head. It's ties, obviously colors, like the kind of colors you wear, watches, rings, cuffs or bracelets. Some men wear necklaces, so necklace, especially if they have, like, religious iconography on them. And those are really the big ones that you're going to hit. So men are going to have way less choices. And by the way, there's no right or wrong with those, right?

Like, none of those are bad or good. But you have to understand that they are assets of your nonverbal brand. So every single one of us has a nonverbal brand. And when you add ornaments to it, you are adding different assets or variables for someone to pick up on or read you or decode you with that nonverbal brand. It's like a formula. You know, if I have just simple earrings on right now, I have simple earrings and my wedding ring. That's it, right? I have less variables in my formula for you to decode.

I'm wearing a green shirt. That's it. Yeah. Everything that I add on top of it would be another variable in my algorithms. Like, I'm wearing red lipstick. That changes perception of things. versus no lipstick versus pink lipstick versus black lipstick. Definitely, yeah.

Yeah. So, like, those were choices that I made getting ready to day as part of my nonverbal brand. So every single variable you add is just adding dimensions to the messages you're sending across. Got it. Okay. So what about things, and this is sort of a weird question, but what about something that you can't change that's part of your nonverbal brand? Well, I guess you could wear different clothing, but what about something like cleavage, right? Like, does that have the same effect as a statement necklace?

because that's definitely going to bring people's gaze down, man or woman, generally speaking. Such a good point. So actually, the parts of the ornaments or the parts of your non-ro-brand you can't change are important to counterbalance with other things you can add. So, for example, if you're a woman with ample cleavage, right, that is going to change your non-bural brand all the time, right? It's going to be adding more sexiness, more sultriness. It adds more femininity.

It just does as a baseline. for you. So you know that that denominator is not changing. And I apologize, my math terms here are going to get real, real messy. I'm not very good at my math terms. Right. Like that's something that's not going to change as part of your formula. So if you're in a negotiation or a pitch or a business meeting and you want to amp up in other areas, so not femininity, not sultriness, you are better off using more competence ornaments. Like, I would actually recommend if you're trying to counteract cleavage, not putting on contact lenses and wearing. your glasses.

And that's because glasses, it has been proven, are a competence cue for both men and women. Right. If I were you, I would also not wear red lipstick. Right? I would never pair cleavage with red lipstick if you're trying to be taken seriously in a business environment because you're trying to counteract that variable. So it's the same thing, for example. So men have less choices, but like if, um, let's like, how do I put this in a good way?

So if you, okay, so like if you, everyone's facial expressions are, facial settings are different. So one of the things I talk about in my book is like how our brows are laid out, how our jaws laid out. If you have a goofy face, do you know what I mean by this, Jordan, like a goofy face? Like somebody that would be a comedian and not just a really goofy looking person? Yeah, like Rodney Dangerfield. You can think of him.

He has a kind of goofy face. Like, if you just look at him, you almost assume he's a comedian, even without him talking. versus people who have like an aggressive face. So like an aggressive face would be like, hmm, who's like a really like alpha athlete? I don't know. How about somebody like Hugh Jackman when he's not smiling? Does he look aggressive?

I don't even know. Yeah. Actually, that's a really good one. Like he's like Wolverine, right? But he has also like very like deep set masculine features. Perfect. So Dangerfield and Wolverine look totally. They're both men, right?

They're both men. But, like, their facial settings are so different. So if Rodney wanted to be taken more seriously, he would be better off wearing a suit to counteract his goofy looks, right? And if Jackman wanted to be seen as less intimidating, more approachable, he'd be better off wearing t-shirts and shorts and flip-flops. So that's a way that you can kind of play with your non-roll messages, just knowing how you come across and making sure that you're counteracting with other things. Okay, I like that. And I think that's in some way a little bit common sense when we see other people do it. But when we think about our own nonverbal brand, I often think that we don't think about this at all. Yeah, especially not in a systematic way, right? Like, that makes sense as I'm saying this to you right now.

But if you're going to approach us from a systematic way, I want you to look at your claw, first of all, look at your face, look at the ornaments you normally wear, you know, and like tally up, what do, what messages are you sending? And then looking at your closet, look at your ornament options and saying, here's what I could do. here's my wiggle room and here's what I don't have. That way, at least you're going in a little more purposefully. So proxemics is the fancy word for how we use space. So one of the ways we don't think about body language. So we think about body language is like just our body. Right. It ends at my skin. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Exactly. We're actually nonverbal includes how our body interacts with our space, with the objects in our space, and with the people in our space. So proxemics is the study. of, for example, how people sit around a boardroom table and how that affects their actions,

their behavior, and their feelings. It looks at where people stand, how close someone stands next to you or across from you at a networking event or a bus stop or a party and how that affects your actions, your behaviors, and your feelings, and as well as your objects around you. So, for example, we tend to see people who claim objects in their space as being higher in confidence. Right. If I walk up to a high cocktail table and I kind of lean against it, you know, put my arm on it, I'm claiming that table.

That actually expands my body. So my body becomes a part of the table. That's all my space. Right. It can be so awkward when done wrong, though. I'm reminded of this Saturday Night Live skit where someone's playing Hillary Clinton. She's like, I will now awkwardly lean against a table. And they like have her kind of moving backwards and smiling in this awkward way.

because it doesn't come across as natural. And we've seen things like this. You mentioned earlier, the pickup artist community. There's a lot of these guys and some dipstick guru wannabe guys like take up more space. So they've got like one foot up on the whole banquet. No one can sit down. Their other arm is all the way on two tables. And then someone's like, excuse me.

And he's like, what's up? And it's like, can you move? You're taking up four seats and you look like a dumbass. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So like that's what's really important is context is really important. important. So if you're taking up four seats in a crowded club, you're just an asshole. Right. Right. Like, that's not confident. That's not cool. It's just like shitty. Yeah. So like there's never any, I think anytime

someone gives you really prescriptive, non-verable advice, you got to watch out. You got to be really careful. And I will say it's really hard because like in articles or short videos, you want to get prescription advice because you don't have that much time, right? Like we have like a really long interview so I can go into depth. But it's, you have to be really careful when taking prescriptive advice without context, without goals, that nonverable messages. Like, if you're the rock and you're told to take up more space to show confidence, you don't need that. Like, he doesn't need to take up space because he is huge on his own.

So, like, it also is your own, again, non-brival brand. We'll be right back with more from Vanessa Van Edwards after these messages from our sponsors. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps us on the air. And to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash advertisers. And if you'd be so kind, please drop us a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice. It really helps us out and helps build the show family. If you want some tips on how to do that, head on over to Jordanharbinger.com slash subscribe.

And Vanessa was so kind to give all of our listeners a $100 off her Science of People course. Just go to Scienceofpeople.com slash Jordan. code Jordan and you will get $100 off and you will learn more about what is it the science of people that's right now for the conclusion of our interview with Vanessa van edwards good call on not taking prescriptive nonverbal communication advice without looking at context because you see that a lot people say something like oh talk with your hands and you end up with this like very inappropriate way that people start using their hands and it doesn't fit the the topic of conversation or they're doing so in a place where maybe you should not be doing so much of that.

Or maybe you're not the person who's supposed to get the attention right now, that kind of thing. Yeah. So I have an entire section in my course on hand gestures. And a reporter went in, took the course, reviewed it, great. And she, like, pulled out a couple of, like, helpful tips and put, like, you know, Vanessa, Van Edwards recommends hand gestures are one of the most charismatic things you can do. And what happens is it creates what I call hand gesture monsters, especially because I teach something called purposeful gesturing, which is like underlining your concepts with your hands.

So like, for example, I'm talking about a big idea. I show you how big it is. I'm talking about three things. I hold up my three fingers. It just helps to anchor information. But what you shouldn't do is interpretive dance. What I don't want you to do is like, hello, Jordan. I'm so happy to be here.

And this happiness makes me feel good on the inside. Like, I don't, that is what I don't recommend. And so that's the problem. It's if you take prescriptive advice like that, and it's hard because often people want to, like, you know, boil something down. It should never be taking a loan. And you have to think very carefully about how it fits with everything else. And going back to proxemics, also, no one likes a close talker, right? That's sort of an example of what you're giving here.

So someone who's too far away from you, that rarely ever happens. But we all know somebody who got just a little bit inside our psychological space. and we were like, how does this person not have the social awareness to know that they're too close to me right now? This is so weird. I don't like them anymore. Yeah. The only person who likes a close talker is a close talker. Yeah.

I've been like this close to close talkers before and they like absolutely love it. Like they just like fly. Like they're just so excited because I will meet them where they're at even though I don't like it. The problem with close talkers is universally I feel like they all have halitosis as well. It's like you can't pair it. No one's like this really good smelling person. who's got gum and a mint and is like also a close talker. You're like, oh, I'm mildly uncomfortable.

It's always like, yeah, I haven't brushed my teeth in a week and I eat garlic. Right, I just had coffee and a garlic sandwich with salmon. That is true. I don't think I've ever met a close talker who also smelled delicious. Nope, nope, super rare slash never happens. All right, haptics, which I assume is touch. Touch, yeah. Touch, yeah, this is an easy one, right?

So it's like any kind of touch from handshakes to hugs to cheek kiss to shoulder top to forearm, touch, and it's the study of like bodies meeting. So we're talking about nonverbal. It's all of those things. And people tend to focus on just one, but actually all of those things have to interplay with each other. And you have to have a deep understanding of how they interplay. A lot of what we've been talking about, of course, is the way we express our nonverbal communication, right? So we're good at maybe encoding, as you call it. We're good at expressing it and formulating it and putting it out. But what a lot of us, I would assume, come to you to learn is the decoding, right? What is it that I can use to read other people?

And you have to be good at both of these. Because if you're not good at decoding, you don't get feedback for your encoding. If you're not good at encoding, you don't look charismatic or generate rapport or whatever it is you want to do. But if you can't decode it all, you're cut off from feedback and you don't know what other people are trying to communicate. Right. That's the biggest, I think, fallacy that people have is they come to us and they say,

I want to be a human decoder, right? And it's all about reading others, reading others, reading others. They don't really, they're like, I'm good. I'm fine. Like I know how I come across. Or it's, oh, my presence. I lack confidence. I know I have like bad interpersonal skills.

Help me. Help me, right? Like, you know, I need to work on my own presence. But what we have to understand is there's an interplay here. So, you know, research has indicated this is a very broad number, but we can take it for with a grain of salt, which is that. We send over 800 signals in 30 minutes. Oh, wow.

And what's happening there is it's not just my signals and just your signals. Those are important. It's also the bounce back, right? So I show anger. You try to calm me down or you match my anger. I show happiness. You mirror the happiness. That makes me more happy, more relaxed.

So that interplay, it's almost like a third signal. It's like, you know, you have you, you have them, And then you also have the bounce back of what's being mirrored back and forth. And I'm very careful to not talk about mirroring in the traditional sense. I think that we have to be so careful of like, you know, subtly mirror, they're nonverbal. That's actually not, that's not the best way to do. It's just to be aware that there's a third entity in their relationship, which is the signals you're encoding, the signals that you are decoding, and then how those are being interpreted. For example, have you ever seen a still face experiment?

I don't think so. It's a fantastic experiment that was done that looked at mothers and babies. And they had mothers come into the room with their babies and they put the baby down in a high chair. And the mom is interacting with the baby. So the baby is going, ha, and the mom goes, and the baby points and the mom looks. And the baby, you know, giggles. The mom giggles. And the baby leans in.

The mom leads in. There are three distinct things happening. The baby is doing something. The mom is doing something. And then they're deciding what cues they pick up on. And then in the second part of the experiment, they have the mom turn around. So she turns around like this, turn around. And then she comes back, completely still faced.

So she's there. She's making eye contact with the baby. But her face is not moving. Her body is not moving. She's not responding to any messages. No movement at all. And she sits there. And the baby like instantly sees something's up.

The baby starts doing all these things to a little. attract the mother back. The baby points. The baby lasts. The baby reaches out. And very quickly, the baby is like, what is happening? Like, mom is here and she's here. She's making eye kind of me. I'm sending signals, but there's no interplay, right? There's nothing that's, she's not receiving my signals and then bouncing them back to me. And after a few minutes, the baby starts to hysterically cry. And the mom that's so sad. Yes. When I show this to moms, it's so funny, they cry when they watch it because it's like, but the mom didn't go anywhere. Right. She was sitting right there. So the reason why this is important is because for decoding and encoding, you have

there's the interplay as well. You could be the best decoder in the world and reading someone perfectly. But if you're giving them a still face or you're not giving them interplay back with their reactions, they feel deeply, deeply unheard and I'm misunderstood, even if you're understanding them. That's so interesting. So we have to be both good at encoding and decoding and decoctions. We have to be both good at encoding and decoding and we have to do it in real time. No easy task if you're not naturally practiced at this. That's right. And it's worth investing in both. Even though you think you're good at one the other and you might be better at one of the other, it is so worth messing with those because they are a loop. You get better with both of them at the same time. So then what exactly are we

decoding and encoding, right? We all know like stand up straight and have a firm handshake or whatever. Like that's this sort of cliche Dale Carnegie stuff that we've all learned. Some of us do it. Some of us don't. And we even parody this in the news, right? You see like they zoom in on Trump's hand and there's like a thumbprint from Macron on it. Yes, exactly. So this took me a long time to figure out my lab. So, you know, as you know, we do tons of original research in our lab. And I was trying to think about, okay, there's all these nonverbal signals, right? Like there's fronting and heptics and proxemics. And like, what if we had to boil these down into like what are the basic buckets. I think it comes down to two things. And that's confidence and

engagement. So first, we first meet someone or even second time when we do first impressions. We're trying to assess their temporary and permanent confidence levels. So we're trying to figure out, is this person a competent person? Are they an alpha? Or are they very low confidence? And then also temporarily speaking from a mood perspective, is this person in a good mood or bad mood? Or like, what is their confidence in this relationship and this interaction and this place? And so that's the very first thing we're trying to decode typically. That changes our encoding. So when we first meet someone, we're like, okay, decoding.

How are they standing? Are they really confident? Are they owning their space? And do they like me? Do they feel confident in me? They feel confident in the situation. That's the first thing we're trying to figure out. And the second thing is engagement.

So this is much more personal to us is how attentive will this person be to my needs, my feelings, and my wants? It's the second thing we want. So this is with a lower high confident person, right? So whether you're an alpha or not, we want to know, are you going to engage me? Are you going to be thinking about me? And so the very next thing we're trying to decode is, are you on my side? Are you on my team?

can I count on you? That all goes into loyalty, trustworthiness, rapport. I think those are the two things that we have to constantly be thinking about in our interactions is what are we decoding? Sorry, what are we encoding to others? And then what are people sending to us?

Those two kind of buckets. Okay, so what do we do about this if we know that there's a problem? Like, yes, of course, go sign up for people school, come to advance human dynamics. That's great. But what can we do right now?

Like, oh my gosh, I know that I'm not communicating properly or I know that maybe I'm communicating in a certain way, but other people aren't really feeling it, like they're not feeling heard or whatever. How do I engage better? Totally. So the absolute easiest and first thing you want to do is know that confidence comes first.

What I mean by this, I think the biggest mistake that people make is they go after the engagement. And that's because we're selfish creatures, right? Like we want to feel attractive. We want someone to pay attention to us. And so we go, into engagement first, which actually isn't the first thing you should do. So we tell funny stories,

we try to be impressive, we try to convince people, we try to make the sale. Those are all engagement things. You cannot get to engagement stuff before you've addressed confidence stuff. So there's two aspects of confidence, which is their confidence in themselves, as well as their confidence in you in the situation. So what you're much better off doing first is if there's a problem, if someone has low confidence, either with themselves or in the situation, is doing whatever you can to build up their confidence before you even begin to try to engage them. Right. So this is great because this ties into some of the classic Dale Carnegie stuff, which is how can I ask questions that make them feel like superheroes, basically?

Sure. Not sucking up. But I call this one of the concepts I teach to try to build confidence is finding out someone's pet or pest. So I think that everyone has like a pet project that they like love to talk about. And it could be. like a hobby, but it also could just be like something that someone gets obsessed with. Like I love talking about research and science. Like I geek out on that. That's one of my pet projects. And then also people have a pest.

And like a pest is like, have you heard of the missing tile syndrome? No. What is that? It's like if you walk into a room with a tiled ceiling and there's one tile missing, your eye goes to the missing tile. Sure. Sure. And you also wonder why the heck you're like at that dentist's office if they can't even afford a ceiling for the tiles. Exactly, because it makes it look really shoddy and really bad.

So the missing tile syndrome is also this pest that a lot of people feel like they have like one tile missing and they are terrified you're going to notice and judge them for it. So from a confidence perspective, you want to focus on either one of those things. What is their pet? What do they love to talk about? What are they passionate? What do they geek out on? What's their hot button? Or what's their pest and how can I make them feel not judged for it better about it? I'm like, I don't care about that. Interesting. So how do you elicit the pest?

I'm so curious. Like, hey, I know you're probably sensitive about that really gross, missing, crooked-ish front-tooth thing you got there. But I like it. What do you do with this? Totally. So there's a lot of different ways. One is you can share yours. So, like, for example, whenever I go to, like, nightclubs or bars that I hate, I make the best friends by sidling up to, like,

a woman that's there, I'm married, so I'm not hitting on anyone, but I side up to a woman and I say, oh my God, my heels are killing me. All I want to do is be in my pajamas, watch Netflix. Right. Like, I feel so uncomfortable. My pest is that I just hate those kinds of places. So I will then vulnerability share with her. And the wrong woman, the woman who would not be my friend, is like, oh, weird. I'm like, cool, bye, see you later. Right. Like, easy way for me to know. and the right woman who's a great friend for me and I've made great friends this way is like right I know like right like I cannot wait to take off my spanks and I'm like me too so like you know like that kind of back and forth is so sharing a vulnerability um also pretty quickly people will hit their pests like if you start listening people will like drop little things like if someone's you say you know how are you and they're like oh one of those days right that's actually a lead in like they could talk to you about their pest it's absolutely the right question. Got to be careful.

I feel like you could get some real dark stuff going there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, absolutely. I mean, you might have someone dump on you for an hour, for sure. But the question is, is that worth it to you? Yes, it's worth it.

Exactly. Depends on what your CIA handlers are paying you to sidle up to this person. What about the positive stuff? Could we focus on positive things? Like, you'd mention their pet. So if I'm looking to create a connection with an influencer or a speaker, an event that I'm going to, I usually research them beforehand. But what if I'm in the middle of something I just met this person?

It might be a little weird to be like, so what are you interested in these days? And they're like, I'm just riding the subway, man, get away from me. Totally. Well, first of all, I'm a believer, and this is just my personal opinion, that if you throw out a hook that's like that, that's like, so, what are you interested in these days? And someone's like, mer, and they're like, totally, like, lit on it. I don't know. You're not my person.

Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Like, if someone approaches me and, like, they're going to give me a hook, I'm going to try. Like, I'm going to try to give them an answer. Like, I don't do Debbie Downers. Like, that's just not my people. And so, like, one, they might be giving you a really great clue, which is to walk away. Right.

They are not a great person. They will not be a fun date. They will not be a good colleague. You don't want to get coffee with them. So, one, you could just take it as is. The other one is you ask very casual versions or more positive versions of your typical questions. So instead of, you know, what do you do? You ask working on anything exciting these days.

Instead of got anything coming up, you say, do you have any big projects coming up? Like adding just slightly different words, like big or exciting and seeing what pops into their head for them. And that's just you're fishing. You're fishing for something good. And by the way, if someone, if you ask three or four of those questions and they literally can't think of anything, that should tell you something. Yeah, super boring person. And of course, context matters. Like, you're not really doing this on the subway.

You're doing this at some friends gathering a barbecue, whatever, some mixer, some speaking event, some sort of work thing. It's not like a random person on the street generally or especially on mass transit where people don't talk anyway. I mean, hey, like, if you are brave enough to do it on a subway. I do that stuff, but it's, I admit that I'm the weirdo. But like, but like you could do it. I mean, like, for example, on the subway, I'm not going to be like working on anything exciting recently. No, I'm not going to do that. But if they're reading a book, I could be like, hey, is it good?

Yeah, of course. Contextual, something easy. Yeah. I was looking at reading that. Right. Or like, you know, like whole foods, get any good snacks? We have a whole food bag. Whatever.

Like, there are ways to do this where you're literally just hunting or fishing for good stuff. And you can even do that on a subway. Awesome. Vanessa, a lot of practicals in there. Always a pleasure having you on board. I'd love to talk to you for longer. But I know at some point, you know, some part of you is going to get sore because that baby is just ready to knock. She's like, she's just like, wow, like pushing on me.

Stretching out. Yeah, she wants to go for a walk. So thank you very much for your time. And I guess next time I talk to you, you will have multiplied into two people. I cannot wait. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Always a great show here with Vanessa Van Edwards. A lot of new concepts here that we hadn't discussed before with nonverbal communication, always fascinating. And by the way, she did have the baby. And everything is great. Healthy young little baby. there. Congratulations, Vanessa. Great big thank you to Vanessa, of course. Her book is called Captivate and her course is called People's School and we'll be talking more about that when it's open later on in the fall. If you enjoyed this one, don't forget to thank Vanessa on Twitter or

Instagram and tell me your number one takeaway here from Vanessa Van Edwards. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram and I'm doing a lot more on Instagram these days. Little videos of little productivity hacks or I hate life hacks. I hate that term, Jason, but I don't really have a better I don't really have anything better to use to describe what I do there. You know, productivity tips, shortcuts. Sometimes I post funny stuff. I post sneak previews of shows, and I post little takeaways that you may have forgotten on shows you've already heard.

And don't forget, if you want to learn how to apply everything you heard from Vanessa Van Edwards, make sure you go grab the worksheets, also in the show notes, at jordanharbinger.com slash podcast. This episode was produced and edited by Jason DeFilippo. Show notes are by Robert Fogarty. Today's worksheet was by Danny Jessup. Booking, Back Office, and Last Minute Miracles by Jen Harbinger. And I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful, which should be in every episode.

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