The Liz Moody Podcast - Science Hacks To Make ANYONE More Charismatic At Work, At Parties, On Dates, and In Relationships with Vanessa Van Edwards

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

My guest today is Vanessa Van Edwards, the best-selling author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding With People, translated into 16 languages, and the author of the brand new book, Cues: Master The Secret Language of Charismatic Communication. Her YouTube tutorials and Tedx Talk have been viewed by over 50 million people, and she teaches her science-backed people skills to audiences around the world including SxSW and MIT and at companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and more. The benefits of being more charismatic The difference between confidence and charisma How much of charisma you’re born with and how much you can cultivate If introverts can be as charismatic as extroverts How much being physically attractive matters in being charismatic If there’s a difference in what we perceive as charismatic in men and women 2 science-backed tricks to nail your next job interview How to dial up your charisma to network better A cold email secret that will make you WAY more likely to receive a response How to be the person everyone loves at a party The best conversation starters, according to science The cues you can look for that show if people like you The most off-putting thing people commonly do in their day to day lives How to make your long term partners or co-workers like you even more We’d both love to hear anything that resonates, or anything that you try, so screenshot and tag us on Instagram – I’m @lizmoody and she’s @vvanedwards. This episode is sponsored by Wild Blueberries. To find wild blueberries in your local grocer, just look for the packaging in the freezer section that says “wild” on it. If you want recipe inspo or more info, go to wildblueberries.com. This episode is sponsored by my very first self-funded product, the Healthier Together deck. To find out more about how to have the best conversations of your life, visit htdeck.com. This episode is sponsored by AG1 by Athletic Greens. Visit athleticgreens.com/healthiertogether and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today. Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the healthier together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a cookbook author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're optimizing our microbiome or hacking our productivity to have more time to do what we actually want with our lives, or learning the easiest and best ways to approach investing money. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if you're interested in any of them, scroll on back in the archives. Today, we're getting into charisma.

You know those charismatic people who everyone is just drawn to, whether they're at a job interview or on dates or at a dinner party? This episode will literally teach you how to hack the science to be one of those people. And anyone can do it, no matter what you look like or what your life has looked like up until this moment. You just need these tricks. My guest today is Vanessa Van Edwards, the best-selling author of Captivate the Science of Succeeding with people, which was translated into 16 languages. And the author of the brand new book,

Cues, Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication. Her YouTube tutorials and TEDx Talk have been viewed by over 50 million people. And she teaches her science-backed people skills to audiences around the world, including South by Southwest and MIT, and at companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and more. On this episode, we get into the difference between confidence and charisma. How to dial up your charisma to network better, including a cold email secret that will make you way more likely to receive a response. Two science-back tricks to nail your next job interview. How to be the person that everyone loves at a party. The cues that you can look for that show of people like you, how to make your long-term partners or coworkers like you even more.

The most off-putting thing that people commonly do in their day-to-day lives, we don't want to be doing that, and so much more. This episode is jam-packed with easy-to-apply little tweaks that I've already started using in my day-to-day life. And it's honestly such a game changer to know that this stuff is in our power versus like, well, you're either born sparkly or you're not. And it's like, no, we are all sparkly. So let's use behavioral science to our advantage to bring our own unique sparkled a light to make sure that people see it and recognize it. Vanessa and I would love to hear what you're thinking as you listen to this episode or if there are any tips or tricks that you try in your life. I'm so excited to hear all of your success stories. So definitely screenshot and tag me.

I am at Liz Moody and at V Van Edwards on Instagram. And please share this episode. If you have a friend with a job interview or a sister going on a date or a cousin who's nervous about socializing through wedding season. There's just so much amazing stuff in here, and I want everyone to be able to benefit. Okay, without further ado, here's Vanessa Van Edwards on the Science of Charisma. I just want to get right into this. First of all, why do we want to be more charismatic? What are some situations that we could benefit from being more charismatic?

Are there studies about how charismatic people fare differently in different situations? Yes, so I have a kind of funny answer. I think of charisma like a social lubricant. Go with me here. Go with me here. In that we often need a lubricant for our interactions, for our crunchy conversations, for our awkwardness. And so charisma is the fastest way that we make things more smooth. So charisma helps us talk about ourselves. It helps us listen to people. It helps us connect. It helps us on dates and on meetings and in parties and in barbecues. I think that charisma is sort of the antidote to awkwardness. I think a lot of the times we think about the answer to awkwardness is confidence. And don't know you wrong. I love confidence. But confidence is actually harder than charisma in a weird way. There is not a formula for confidence, but there is a formula for charisma. So the reason why I think we all need it is for those moments where you feel like you can't be your best self, you're not sure what to say. It's a little bit awkward or uncomfortable. You want to pitch your idea. I think charisma is that lubricant that makes it.

easier. Can you say in like a sentence what you see as the difference between confidence and charisma? I've never heard that distinction before. This is how I make the distinction and hopefully this resonates with some listeners in that I think a lot of the times we're striving for confidence, but confidence comes and goes, right? We can have a confident day or a confident morning. Our hair day can affect our confidence. One bad text from someone can affect our confidence. So we think of confidence as this desired state. but I don't really believe it's ever a permanent state. So confidence can be great to have in the moment, but I don't know a single person, even the most confident among us, who is always confident. So confidence is a feeling that we like to have sometimes, whereas charisma, I think, is a state.

Charisma is when we have a presence. We know who we are. We know how we show up. We're able to walk into a room and authentically share our ideas and talk about ourselves. So I think that charisma is a way that we can achieve it. We can feel like, finally, I found my charisma. I found my unique flavor. And that can give us confidence, but that's not that permanent state. So that's how I define the difference to me that too. Does that resonate with you? It does. That makes perfect sense. So can anyone be more charismatic or is it something that you're just born with? This is the myth that plagued me for two decades. I was sure, absolutely sure, that you had to be born with charisma. It was a Nate trait, right? Because I was, I'm a recovering awkward person. I was not a cool kid growing up,

not even close. And as a not cool kid, I spent a lot of time watching the cool kids. If you're not cool kid, you know what I mean by this is we sat on the benches along the side of recess all the way along the fence. That was my jam. We were really good at finding the tables that were as far away from the door of the cafeteria as possible because we're observers. And so I would look at these amazing cool creatures. I mean, these cool creatures, these cool girls, they have like multicolored scrunchies and like slap bracelets. I mean, they were just these walking beacons of cool and confidence. And I was absolutely sure that that was innate. They were born with great hand gestures. The cool girls were just born with that confidence. I came to learn far too late

because I had sort of given up my hands. I was like, well, you're either born with it or you're not. I'm never going to have it. So I better just learn to live, not having charisma. And then research began to look at what makes highly charismatic people charismatic. What is actually the formula for charisma? And can we learn it? And what they found was, yes, there is a certain portion of the population that are born with great hand gestures.

They are charismatic right out the womb. But actually, most charismatic people have cultivated and adapted their unique flavor of charisma over time. And that's why oftentimes you'll see very charismatic people are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, because it's taken them a couple decades where they went, hmm. And this is a definition of very smart people, is very smart people will say, wow, I noticed that that eye contact really helped me connect. Maybe I want to try that again.

Or they sort of accidentally discovered all these curves with cues. And if you talk to highly charismatic people, especially in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 80s, And you ask them, what do you do to be charismatic? Oftentimes they can tell you very specific things that they do to be charismatic. But the problem is, is a lot of that has been accidental, right? You accidentally figure out, oh, that eye contact worked well or that gesture worked really well. Or I was really charismatic around that person. I wonder what happened.

So what my goal is, okay, what if we could study charismatic people? Like we study for a foreign language. This is kind of a weird way to think about it, but it's the only way that my black and white brain could understand charisma in that charismatic people use strikingly similar cues. It doesn't matter if they're politicians or athletes or celebrities or influencers or authors. If you watch them speak, you watch them interact, you can actually begin to see patterns of how they cue people. And so I started this research by accident 17 years ago where I actually noticed the opposite. I noticed a night. person lying and I saw a cue specifically Lance Armstrong was on Larry King Live and he was insisting that he had never doped. He was not doping. He had never dope this in 2005. And of course, spoiler alert, Lance Armstrong did dope. And I remember watching that interview and noticing that right after he lied, right after he said, I've never doped, he made this very specific cue called a lip purse. He pressed his lips together into a hard line. And I went, oh, I'm

was that? What was that thing he just did? And I began to look in the research and I found that this is actually a very common nonverbal cue for withholding or keep it together or keep it in. And they've found that a lot of the times liars do this right before or after a lie as if to say keep it together, don't criminate yourself, don't say too much. And I went, wow, if we know we've identified I had some of these universal patterns, why don't we create like a glossary for them? So very slowly I started to collect these negative cues by liars and people in shame or duping politicians. And this other bucket, the very beginning was just positive and negative of charismatic cues,

the cues that charismatic people use. And quickly I realize that there's a system that we can use to learn. If you are not naturally charismatic, you can learn what charismatic people do and then begin to adopt and cultivate those cues for yourself. Can you be just as charismatic if you're an introvert as you can if you're an extrovert? Okay. I'm so glad you asked this question. There is this pervasive myth that I think extroverts have put out there by accident that you have to be extroverted to be charismatic. A lot of the very well-meaning people skills books that I picked up early on in my life, so I knew I didn't have social skills. So I picked up classic books like Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.

The problem with a lot of these books and courses is they're written or done taught by well-meaning extroverts. And extroverts, they have a natural affinity for people. So they teach people skills, basically teaching non-extroverts how to be extroverted. And that is the worst, most painful, most exhausting way for an introvert or an ambivert to learn social skills. Because basically, you're telling someone, don't be yourself to be charismatic. So 100% I know for a fact, you can be charismatic and you do not have to be an extrovert.

In fact, I know many extroverts who are not charismatic at all, right? Luckily, they are actually two different things. And this is the perfect time to talk about what does it actually mean to be charismatic. It does not mean being extroverted. You do not have to fake it until you make it. You do not have to pretend to be something you're not to be charismatic. So to be charismatic, research out of Princeton University looked at how we judge and interact with each. And what they found was when we are interacting with people, we are always trying to answer two basic questions. Can I trust you and can I rely on you? And these two basic questions are what keep us safe and also keep us in the know. So the two traits that very highly charismatic people have, the reason why we love charismatic people is they are off the charts in two specific traits, warmth, trust, and competence. And

And that highly charismatic people, when they interact in the world, they are signaling constantly to others. They are queuing others. High trust, high warmth, which is likability, friendliness, approachability, collaboration. And at the very same time, high competence, power, capability, memorability, efficiency. And the key here is a balance of both. The reason why charisma is so hard to get is because if you have an imbalance too much warmth without enough competence or too much competence without enough warm, you are not seen as charismatic. And so that sweet spot of being both likable and powerful, that's the definition of high charisma. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skin care, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across

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They have studied this. It is definitely helpful to be attractive. But attractiveness is actually a facet of both warmth and competence. And here's what I mean by that. So if you're attractive, people will often see you as more approachable. If you are attractive, it means you take care of your appearance, which can be a facet of competence. So attractiveness can help. both your warmth and competence, but it is certainly not the only factor. And you can definitely

have both warmth and competence and not be attractive at all. And then is there a difference between what we perceive as charismatic in a woman versus a man? I'm thinking about there's certain qualities. I feel like sometimes we celebrate in men societally that we react negatively to in women having those same qualities. What's really interesting is when I was breaking down the cues, so cues are the social signals humans send to each other. Highly charismatic people send very clear cues. And both men and women, cue other humans, both men and women have warmth and competence. Both men and women need high warmth and high confidence to be charismatic. However, there are differences in the types of cues men tend to use and the types of cues that women tend to use. So this is why, and this is why

we have different flavors of course. I keep mentioning as flavors. What I mean by that is most people think of highly charismatic as the life of the party extrovert or the presidential charismatic extroverts. So that's the one brand that we tend to think of as being charismatic. But there's also the quiet, contemplative introvert. There's the compassionate, nurturing healer. There's the wise, loving teacher. Those are all different flavored. When I mention each of those kind of archetypes, you can think of totally different types of people.

They look different, they dress different genders. In fact, you might have even assigned a compassionate nurturing healer to a woman. Maybe. I didn't say she or he. But what I've noticed is when I mentioned different types of warmth and competence, that balance, people will ascribe different personality types each those different explanations. Because, for example, women tend to head tilt more than men. So head tilt is one of the 96 views, there's 96 cues in the book.

A head tilt is a universal sign of warm. So in the book, I break it down. There's 96 cues. There's warm cues, competent cues, charismatic cues, the cues that we love, no matter what, and then danger's own cues, cues, cues that we should never use. Warm cues are signals of collaboration, trust, engagement, openness. And a head tilt universally is what humans do across cultures and genders and races when they're trying to listen better by saying, do you hear that? We tilt our head and we expose our ear. That's because that's literally our physically best listening position. And so women tend to use the head tilt more than men. Do men use it? Yes. But if you look at a lot of LinkedIn profile pictures, if you look at 50 men and 50 women, I bet you're going to see more

head tilts in the female group and the male group. I don't know why women tend to use this more, but they tend to use that cue more often. There was a study I talked about in the book where they analyzed thousands of paintings of women through history. And they found that women tend to head till more in paintings and portraits. So does that mean men can't use it? No, but it does mean that there's a certain kind of recipe or flavors that women tend to gravitate towards different than men. Does that mean that if a woman is in a situation that women are typically, I'm picturing like a boardroom where she's around a bunch of men, would there be a situation? where she'd want to like tamp down on the head tilting to be perceived better by the men.

I mean, an ideal world in the future, women will be celebrated for all of the qualities that they uniquely have. But in the world that we have now, would tamping down on those qualities in these male-dominated situations to be a good idea? So yes, this is what highly charismatic people do. Highly charismatic people dial up their warmth when they need it and dial up their confidence when they need it. They literally know what cues they can. can use to bond to their environment. And so really highly charismatic people, first they find kind of their default. That's the first sort of phase of the book is what's your flavors? Like, where do you lean? Are you a little higher and warm for a little higher in competence? What cues do you use? The next level is

if you're in a board room with a bunch of men and you want to dial up your competence because you know the people around the room are highly competent. They value competence. It's a numbers meeting. It's about capability and getting things done. They don't want to chip. chat, they don't want to have the rapport, they don't want to hear about families. All they want to do is get to those numbers. It would behoove you to actually dial up those competence cues to mirror and match them. And that's where really highly charismatic people excel so much in their careers and their relationships is they are so, and I don't call this empathy. I think this is actually a really beautiful aspect of empathy. They are so aware of the people around them that they know

how to mirror and match with their cues. They use that as a nonverbal or verbal sign of respect. So the way that I would think about is less about tamping down your head tilt and more about if you walk into a room with highly competent folks, men are women, and you say, you know what? I want to mirror and match these people out of respect for them. I want to go to their level. I know exactly what cues I'm going to use to dial up to mirror and match them so that I can make everyone feel like we belong. I think that's a different way of thinking about empathy and it's also a lot more empowering. It's less about I'm not going to be me. And it's more about I know exactly who I am and I know exactly who you are. And out of respect for you, I'm going to come to where you are. I'm going to

come to your page. I love that. That makes total sense. I would love with that in mind to walk through kind of a few different scenarios and maybe you could share a few different tips that we could use to dial up our charisma in each scenario if that's okay. Sure. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, so along with the work theme, let's pretend we are at a job interview. Can you share three things that we can maybe do to make the person interviewing us like us? So it's interesting you use the word like. So likeability has been proven to work in the workplace. In other words, we do tend to hire people we like. We tend to.

to buy from people we like. We like working with people we like. So likeability is actually one aspect of what's going to help you get along an interview. But the issue here is this is what I think gets highly warm people into trouble. So if you only will hire in warmth, likeability is your first priority. Highly warm people are collaborators. They are oftentimes supporters. They are cheerleaders. They want everyone to get along. They want everyone to be liked and they want I feel liked. But highly warm people, they run into this problem where their desire to be liked gets in the way of their need to be respected. And so they will walk into an interview or a pitch or negotiation or a meeting and they want to be liked. And they are liked, but they're not always

respected. Without the competence cues, the interviewer might be like, oh, I would love to have lunch with her. I just loved her, but I don't think she's qualified enough for this role. Too bad. right or worse you know i really like her i think that she's going to be a great fit on the team but i don't think she's as qualified so i can't offer her the same compensation so i'm going to cut her compensation package but i really like her so i just think she's going to be great on the team but maybe you know we have to split this into two different roles that's where highly warm people who are often people pleasers get into problems and notice i'm not saying women there are also very highly warm men who run into its problem as well. It does feel, though, that most often women will

focus on being liked, and that is, then it risks there need to be respected. So if you're going to interview, I actually want to think about warmth and competence. I want you to think, how can I be both liked and respected? How can I be both friendly and credible? Friendly and credible is like a super power potent magic unicorn flavored glitter combination for an interview. we love working with people who are friendly and credible. So with that in mind, there's specific things we can do to dial up our credibility, our competency?

Yes. So there's 96 different cues, and you want to pick a blend of the ones that work for you. So a couple of examples is, let's say that it depends on where you fall, right? So if you're already high in warmth, I would advise you to do competence cues. If you're already high in competence,

I advise you to do warmth cues. But like here's an example of like one of my favorites, warmth cues. So for warmth, the very first thing that someone wants to know again is if someone can trust us. And so you want to give some sort of nonverbal greeting the moment your interview starts. And what's happening a lot more and more now is our interviews are on Zoom, especially our first interviews. And so a problem that's happening on interviews or meetings is that we lose our non-borm. We're no longer hugging. We're no longer handshaking. We're no longer having that moment of greeting because the video pops on and it's like, hi. Oh, so nice to meet you. Yep. Well, thanks for having me.

Okay, great. Let's get started. Right. It's like this awkward because we've missed that critical aspect of nonverbal warm. So the moment your video hops on, I want you to do one of the non-overal warm views. So that could be a wave of a visible palm. It could be a nod, hello. It could be a smile. If that feels natural to you, I hate advising people to smile when they don't feel like it. So make sure in the first 10 seconds of interaction, you're adding some sort of nonverbal cue for a warm. That's a really physiological way to keep someone calm, to show them, you can trust me, especially in open palm.

Another competence cue, you can do it. Again, there's a ton. So I want you to pick the ones that are natural for you. But one of my favorites is for competence is maximizing, this is really weird. This is a really weird cue. maximizing the space between your earlobe and your shoulder. I know that's a very weird measurement that you've probably never taken,

but what happens is researchers from University of British Columbia found that across genders and cultures and races, when people win a race, when they are feeling pride, they take up a lot of space. And specifically, they tend to keep their head angled up and their shoulders are down and relaxed, and they will open up their bodywide. They have no barriers between themselves and others.

In defeat, losing athletes do the opposite. They typically tuck their chin to their chest. They roll their shoulders in and down. Sometimes they crunch their ears down. So they're almost like in like an inner turtle position to protect their jugular. Right. When we're in defeat, we want to protect our jugular, our vital organs. We cross our arms over our body and pin our arms tightly.

to our torso. When someone first meets you and during an interview, we like to see people who look more like the winner and less like the loser. Now, I don't want you to walk in like you want to race. However, you want to make sure that the space between your ear and your shoulder is maximized. That is the single fastest way to show someone, I'm open, I'm not protective, I'm confident, I'm relaxed. And that is what interviewers are looking for. They're looking for subtle signals of anxiety because they want to make sure that they're not missing anything. And so when your video pops on or you walk into a room, don't have your purse hunched up with your shoulder hiked up towards your shoulder. Make sure it's nice and down and back. Make sure when the video pops on,

you're not hunched over your computer with your shoulders up. I've also seen a lot of people start their videos. They go, hi. And they have their shoulders up towards their ear and they give like a little tiny wave with their arm pinned to their side, like trying to get as small as possible. You know what I'm saying? Like we almost like duck and tuck. Yeah. So that and then all those, so they have this little duck and tuck like,

hi with this little wave and this upper little girl's voice. Hi. And they have their like shoulders up here. And then they start the interview and they relax their shoulders. And they turn around like a normal conversation. The problem is that first impression showed you're anxious, you're nervous. And what research has found is our cues are contagious.

When we show up with negative body language, it inspires negative body language. And so we don't like to be around people who are in defeat or shame because we don't want to catch it. And so interviewers, a lot of the times they're doing back to back to back interviews and they don't know why they just don't feel right about a candidate. I've worked a lot of hiring managers and they'll say, you know, sometimes I just leave a meeting and they had all the right answers, but I just didn't think they'd be a good fit. I just didn't get a good feeling from them. What they are talking about is they caught negative cues of anxiety or shame or guilt or anger. And they were like, I didn't like it. And they don't want

that in their organization. So that one cue maximizes and not only in your first impression, but keeping your shoulders down and your head up for the entire interview, you'll be shocked. If you go watch old recordings of yourself, you might be surprised to see how often your shoulders creep up and your chin and head sink down. Every time you do that, you're signaling anxiety. That's so interesting. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older, what do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out or good nutrition, and yes, of course that matters.

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That is timeline.com slash Liz. When it comes to wellness, you're going to get the best results by focusing on the big needle movers. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to optimize that last 1%, which creates a ton of stress and it actually doesn't help our help that much. At the top of the needle mover list, sleep. And one of the best ways to optimize your sleep is to optimize your mattress, which is why I love avocado green mattress so much. First of all, this mattress is so comfortable. I have the one with the pillow top, which is medium firm, and it's just a dream. I miss it when I travel. It's better than even

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You can get up to 20% off organic mattresses and more by shopping Avocados Presidents' Day Sale right now at avocadogreenmatress.com. That is avocadogreenmatress.com, no code needed. Okay, what about something like networking? And you can speak to networking in person. You can speak to networking via like LinkedIn or email. What are we kind of looking to dial up if we're trying to make a good impression with somebody that we want to build a connection with? Yeah. So what's a good thing to keep in mind, I haven't shared about this yet, but it's kind of a good basis to understand is so cues are the social signals we send to each other. And they're actually four modes of

communication. So you just mentioned a couple of modes. You said it could be over LinkedIn or it could be in person, could be over email. So we're talking about cues. There's four. The first is nonverbal. So our body language, our gestures, our posture, our facial expressions. The second is vocal. So how we say our words, our pitch, our volume, our tone, our cadence. Those all say things about what we feel. The third is verbal, the actual words we use. And the last one is imagery. imagery is like a colors we wear, the props in our background, the props in our LinkedIn profile picture, the background of our LinkedIn profile picture, the fonts we use, those all carry different cues. And what's important is to know how many modes you can use. So for example, my least

favorite kind of networking is purely verbal. There's literally only one channel you have, right? If it's, if you're only networking on LinkedIn, you have imagery with a little bit of your profile picture, and then you have verbal with your profile and your, and you're messaging back and forth. Same with email. Email is one channel and verbal. By the way, there are great tactics for being charismatic over email. So it is possible.

It is very possible. But if possible, you're going to do your best networking when you add channels. So you're going to make more deep connections when you're able to activate more of those cues. Why, we feel like we can trust people if we see all of four of their channels, right? Like, if I meet someone over email, it doesn't matter how charismatic they are. I still don't feel like I really know. them. Then maybe if we hop on the phone, I get a little more. If I get a voice memo from them, I feel like, oh, yeah, I kind of get a little bit more of a sense of who she is. And then finally,

when we're in person, it's like, ah, I finally get a sense of who this person is. So one thing is, if you can maximize the number of channels in your preferred mode of networking choice, I would do it. So this could be going to the right conferences, going to the right networking events, going to the right parties, great, but it also could be adding channels to your existing ones. So for example, LinkedIn is adding video option to your profile. So you can actually add a video to your LinkedIn profile. You can also send voice memos to people. You can also embed videos for people. So the best networking I've done, even at very high levels, so now we're doing lots of pitches to big corporations to do their trainings, to deliver our courses to them. My best cold pitches are not

just emails. My best cold pitches are actually emails, which are very thought out, with embedded videos introducing myself. Hey, Sarah, it's so good to meet you. You know, I've heard so much about your work. I read your memoir last year and I absolutely loved it. I was thinking in chapter seven of your memoir. You mentioned this beautiful story by organization. I wanted to introduce you to my work, see if I could send you a copy of my book. And I would love to connect my call schedulers below if you want to hop on the phone or you're welcome to send a video back, whatever is most comfortable for you. So like a video like that, it's the same thing is what my email said, right?

But you can hear my voice. If it's a video, you can see my face. She would feel like she gets to know me. And I have found that those videos work. I would say a hundred times better than just an email. Like literally a hundred times. And the speed at which I've been able to build rapport by just sending voice emails back and forth or just sending videos back and forth, it doesn't even compare to just

just DMing or emailing or messaging back and forth. So I would think about playing with those modes as ways to differentiate yourself, but also just in a way to send more cues. That's honestly genius. And it's interesting because I've even been doing that intuitively a little bit, like when I'm DMing somebody that I've just met on Instagram, I'll start sending voice notes. And then I feel like that helps to actually like build the friendship. But it's interesting to be able to be like, oh, scientifically, that's why that works. Yes. Okay. So this is a great example. So in Instagram, I DM with other people, other influencers or authors or, you know, when I ask for interviews or I ask for, you know, if people are interested in covering the book, I send voice memos and videos. And it is it's almost like, almost like having a video call a little bit even though. We're doing it asynchronously. And there's something very powerful about it. I will say, though, one little note is for very important people, they're busy. And so and also sometimes they are not checking their DMs. so people will sometimes send DMs to me, but my team checks my DMs as well as me.

So I would always, if you're emailing a very important, if you're messaging a very important person, always include a verbal message as well so that it can be screenshoted and sent to that person or if they watch the video and it goes away, it doesn't go away. So if I'm sending like a even a cold DM to someone, if sliding their DMs, I think that's what the young kids say. I will always start. with text. So, you know, if it was you, hey Liz, I'm so excited for our recording coming up. I can't wait to get to know your audience a little better and help them out. I recorded a little

message for you so that we can, I'm just make sure we're on the same page. Message. Because then even if it's missed, they can write, the team can write back to you and say, hey, you know, we saw you reached out, you know, video disappeared before I was they'll do it. That's helped me a lot. So you send just videos and they would get ignored. That makes perfect sense. And I've definitely been on the receiving end of stuff that I've wanted to attend to, but just like have it had time in the moment and then it gets lost because you get so many DMs. And so I think that's a really nice way to approach the situation.

Okay, let's get back to being charismatic in any situation. Let's leave work and go to a party. What can we do? Can you share maybe a few specific things that we could do if we're at a party? you were kind of like standing in the corner. I usually stand by the food table for a really long time. It's my comfy, happy place. Is there something that we can do to be like that charismatic person at the party that people want to be around? Yes. So I'll first of all give just a tactical tip, which helps put you in the right place, which is we did a study back in the day at times of people

where we observed people at parties, like their foot patterns, networking events and parties to see where people congregated and spent the most time. And we found there was a sweet spot and this is always where I stands now. So if you're like looking for a very easy place to people, I love sitting by the buffet or the food. That's always a great one. The only problem with that one is you can get people who are so hungry and mid-bite that they are short with you. You know what I mean? Because they're like, I'm not right. And just let me eat my car. You know what I mean? So you can sometimes get like and then it's harder to shake hands because they just got a plate of food. So that's like my second or third choice. My first choice is actually right as people exit the bar.

or right as people exit where they get drinks. And the reason for this is because here's what happens psychologically when someone enters into a networking event or party. I'm going to actually combine the two, which is they come in, they got to scope the room, right? If you watch you a woman, and the furry person they do,

they do big head movements. We actually coded this. Big head movements. There's scan, scan, scan, scan, scan, scan, scan, scan, scan, who do I know? Who do I know? Where's the host? Where's the food?

Where's the bathroom? Where's the drinks? Where's the bathroom? Where's the drinks? Where do I put down my coat. Okay, that's all that's happening for someone in the first five to 20 seconds. that is the worst place to stand. So rookie mistake is that people will stand right when people enter the room to as if to greet newcomers.

That's the worst place to stand because people need to get their bearing. They have to go pee. They have to get their drink. They want to put their coat down. They want to get their name tied. They have a present to drop off for the birthday person. So that's the worst. So don't stand within like 10 feet of the door or like right as eye line when people come in.

Let people come in. Let them do their little thing. then usually the next thing that someone does besides logistics, besides like dropping off their code or present, is they want to drink. Water, coffee, beer. That's usually the next thing people will do, especially if they don't already know someone.

And that's actually good because you want people who already know people to go find their people, get it out of their system. Go greet the host. Go find your person. You want the people who come in and don't see someone they know who are like, hmm, where should I go? Get a drink and they go to the bar. or they fill up on water or they get a coffee, right as they turn around with their full drink,

you can be their social savior. You are right there, right as they're like, who do I talk to, who do I talk to, who do I talk to, who do I talk to? Which is what happens when you have a full drink and you're about to face a new room. You can say, hey, that wine looks great. How is it? Or just, so what brings you here? Do you know the host?

Or just, hey, I'm Vanessa. Nice to see you. That little zone is like permission free. Like you, it's a great little area where everyone's looking to connect. So that's where I would put yourself right there as people are exiting the bar. And also it gives you an opportunity to refill your drink quite frequently if you desire, which is always a nice bonus. And then your biggest thing here is trying to ask non-autopilot questions. So this is really hard. I know it's really hard. But one of the challenges I'm trying to encourage to the world is let's stop asking,

how are you and what do you do? Yes, hallelujah, seriously. Yep. Let's go on on what do you do diet because the world doesn't need more what do you do. And the reason I say this is because I think, one, most people don't feel that what they do defines them. And if people are in transition, I think that sometimes it can be hard because they're then put into a box immediately.

it's also a little bit asking what's your word a little bit, even though that, even if that might not be the intention. And I think it's also default. Like it's total autopilot, right? We, we meet someone and we're like autopilot, autopilot, how are you? Where are you from? What do you do? Oh, that's nice. Okay, bye. Like it's it's like the same conversation. So try if you can to ask slightly more awake questions. And these questions, I think, snap us out of autopilot because they're not the same question we answered a million times of four. So some of my favorites, and we actually tested these. We did a huge speed networking test where we had people do different assigned

conversation starters and then rate their conversation in terms of quality. And we found that what do you do and how are you got the worst ratings? Like very stunted, you know, it would be like, what do you do? Oh, you know, I'm just in marketing. What do you do? Oh, I'm just noticed that you suggest. Oh, I'm just a, I'm just a teacher. cool so uh what got you started in that line of work oh my gosh like please like kill send me home i'd

rather watching Netflix so those are like almost scripted and they were very uh choppy not fun conversation the conversation characters got the best ratings were working on anything exciting recently or do are you doing anything exciting recently or have any fun or exciting plans coming up for the weekend the reason why that's a good one is like it's not too personal like i'm not saying so What's your biggest goal in life right now? Like, that's not how you can't eat on. That's how I start conversations, like for better or for worse. Liz, you and I would get along great.

You and I would get along great. I'd be like, Liz, yes, let's talk about goals, girl. Let's do it. Like, yes, you and me would love it. Like, if anyone meets me at a party, please ask me what my biggest goal is right now because I would love it, would love it. But you got to get a little safe, especially for our introverts. I try really hard to give tips that respect our introverts.

or introvert respectful conversation is doing anything exciting recently, working on exciting recently. You can also say, do you do anything fun this past weekend, have any fun plans for the weekend coming up. Another one that I really like is just what's good, what's been good these days. I ask that a lot to like my colleagues and stuff like that, who I already know, but I'm just like seeing them again. I do that a lot also with like, you know, you go to the same holiday party every year and you see the same person that you only see at this holiday party and you're like, what's their name? What do they do again? Oh yeah, it's really boring. What do we talk about? So then what you want to say? So what's been good this year? Highlight of the year. You're my holiday party friend, right? Instead of so how's work,

which is like kiss of death for a conversation. So getting a little bit juicy with your willingness to ask slightly off autopilot conversations, that's what's going to get people really into talking to you. It makes you more memorable. It makes them more memorable. And it's sort of like a personal challenge that if you're willing to take it up, I will go on the diet with you. I've been on the diet. It's been great. I'm losing tons of conversational weight and I love it. And so just if you're willing to join it, we can all ask each other more, better questions. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing with hormone issues, you are especially going to want to listen to this ad. Every single thing that I just

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No, I'm just joking. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. I'm just joking, though, because, you know, there are certain people where you're going to be talking to them and they're not picking up the question, right? Like, they're, I call that carrying the conversational load, right? If you ask a question, you're trying to give the conversational ball to someone else so they can carry the load for a while and you pass back and forth in a really good conversation both people are

carrying the conversational load it really really sucks when you're like have any fun plans coming up and they're like nope and you're like great well anything good happening for you this week nope you have a choice in that moment where you can be like this is not my person this is not my person and i give you not that you need my permission but i give you full permission to be like Well, cool. You know, I'm going to go refill my drink. Or so it's okay if not everyone is your person. Like, that is okay. There are some people where you're just not going to click with them. And that's okay. And it took me a long time, a very long time to be okay with people who I just don't have a vibe with. So it's okay if that doesn't work. That might not be your person. You have a second choice,

which is an interesting and also just as courageous choice. I think both these are courageous, which is I'm going to answer first. I'm going to put my conversational vulnerability out first. So if someone says, nope, you can say, oh, well, no worries. You know, I've had a really slow week last week too. This week I'm super excited because I'm finally filmed away. Right. So you honor where they are.

You have a little Me Too moment if you also want that. And then you just go for it. You know, tell them. a story. Tell them something about yourself. Even though they didn't ask and you know what, I know those people who never ask a freaking question back. You know what I'm talking about? You know those people who are just like never, you ask them a thousand questions that they just refuse it as ask question back. Yep, those people you have a choice. They're either not your people or you're just going to go for it and you're just going to answer for yourself. And sometimes

that really works. Like sometimes they just needed a little bit of time to process. It's happened to me before where someone is so taken aback. And you. by just not being asked, what do you do? They were so shocked that they, it like took them two or three of my answers to like realize they had something fun in their own life and then we're willing to share it. I also would little note here is there was one conversation

in our experiment that was, it mixed up, messed up our data, which was, what's your story? So if you've ever been asked that question, you know, what's your story? That question, interestingly, people either loved it. They gave it a five out of five on the conversational scale or they hated it. And they gave it a one or a zero on a conversational scale. And I was like,

oh, wow, this is really interesting. Extroverts and people who are proud of their story love that question. People who don't feel their story is complete. People who are not defined by their story for people who are introverted or want to reveal that slowly are really rattled by that question. So I would say, be very careful when you ask that question because it can be good or bad. And also be prepared if it is asked of you. So if someone asks you, what's your story? The advice I always give to my introverts and my recovering awkward people is think of your story right now. So like pause this. Think about how you would like to answer that question so that when it comes up for you, you're not put into scarcity of like, uh, uh, uh, like what's my story? So you can think of an answer that

you're comfortable with that so you're ready for that question as well. Because there are some people, by the way, that is their question. That is all they ask. They trotted out at every part in the network events. You want to be ready for those folks. Are there any things that we can look for to tell if other people like us, like cues we can kind of be scared? I know we've, I've been to million parties and you always have that like post back to a conversation of like, oh, do you think they liked me and whatever? Like, is there things we can look for to scientifically know if it's true? Yes. So, so actually, let me ask a question about your question, which is, do you mean people who you're trying to identify, oh, this is my person or to identify if the conversation went well?

I think just whenever you meet a new person and you're kind of curious, like, oh, could we be friends or could we date or even in a job interview situation, like, are there universal cues that kind of show that what you're putting out there is landing well? Yes. Okay. So interest cues or cues that show someone is like into it. It doesn't have to be romantic. It could also be professional, right? Like someone is like, yeah, they're viving with you. There's a couple. So one is leaning. So leaning is a really interesting little cue because it activates a different part of our brain. In other words, wherever you are right now, if you're standing or you're sitting or you're chopping or you're walking, just try leaning forward like an inch or two, very slight.

What happens is they've found that when we lean in slightly, it activates a certain part of our prefrontal cortex that's motivation, that's preaction. And the reason for that is because all five senses are pre-activated by leaning. If you want to smell something better, you lean in. If you want to see something better, you lean in. If you want to hear something better, you lean in. You want to touch something, you lean in. So our body knows that this is a universal engagement cue.

And so we do this naturally in really good conversation because when we're really into conversation, we lean in because we're like, yes, tell me more. I love it. And you'll notice that in a meeting, when people are super into your point, they will literally lean in further. They'll lean their head forward. So when you're in an interview, when you're on a date, when you're in a party, watch for just subtle leans.

You've just hit on something, whatever you were talking about, whatever you were saying, that that person is like into it, and that's good. So the more liens you see, the better, that's like a sign of engagement. The other one that I would,

it's pretty simple that we can just keep in the back of our heads is when people mirror and match you. So mirroring is quite a complicated cue because it takes two people or even three or four or five people. Mirroring is when we subtly mimic the people around us. And it's actually not just body, language is also vocal. So research has found that we tend to mirror the vocal frequency of the highest, most powerful person in the room. So we are very aware of our vocal cues. We do this

totally subconsciously in that if we really like someone or we think someone is impressive or we should take note of them, even our voice will subtly match the frequency of their voice. And so you want to look for these just very subtle mirroring. It could be sitting the same way. It could be sounding the same way. It could be holding our hands the same way. I have noticed that, you know, in really good interactions, my husband and I, we love to play guess the date, which is when we go to a restaurant and we guess if someone's a couple

or not a couple, we guess that they're going to get dessert or not get dessert based mostly on mirroring. And you can see in a really good date, someone's leaning, they're leaning in, both couples using the same amount of hand gestures. They're smiling the same amount. They make the same kind of eye contact. So you should always be going to look out to see if someone's into you by are they mirroring and matching you. Are they leaning into you? Those are just sort of simplified, but that's a really easy way to kind of give a quick like litmus test. Okay. So this might be a little nuance, but can you kind of hack the system then? Can you lean in so that they see you leaning in

and then they maybe mirror you and lean in and then they think that they like you because they mirrored your leaning in? So that is the entire kind of premise of cues, which is these are all cycles, right? So it's a cycle. We spot a cue, you copy the cue, we feel the cue. Well, it doesn't matter where you start in the cycle. Like you could create a cue, like you could lean in, which triggers feelings of motivation and activation, which hopefully they catch and they mirror and then you catch it back. And so, yeah, I think that the whole, my whole goal is this is a different way of thinking about interacting, is that not only are you spotting the cues being sent to you, so you're seeing, ah, that gentleman across the room just leaned in to this part of the presentation.

Great. I'm going to make a note that he really liked this bullet point. Great, you just decoded a cue. The other aspect is encoding, the sending cues. So you could also, if you want to emphasize a point in your own presentation, you can lean in to the audience on your favorite bullet point to encourage other liens. So we coded thousands of hours of TED talks looking for patterns. And this is actually what got me my own TED talk with doing this research. And we found that is exactly what incredible TED speakers do, is they cue you for how

they want to be treated. They cue you for how they want you to interact their content. And so our cues also tell the world how they should treat us. And so if you feel super, super passionate about a point. If you want agreement, you should lean in on your own points. If you want to trigger engagement or activation, you can lean in on their points or a point that's been said, emphasize or underline it. And that creates this very beautiful, purposeful way of interacting with the world where we know exactly what cues we're sending and what cues are being sent to us. And then everyone feels more in control. I love that. Okay, I have a few quick fires for you. One, can you share one thing that people do regularly in their day-to-day

lives, maybe without being aware of it that's actually off-putting that's like the opposite of charisma? Oh, yeah, the contempt smirk. So the contempt smirk is just, oh, man, like this one, I see it all the time. So contempt smirk is a one-sided mouth raise. It's like a half smile or an asymmetrical smile. If you try it, try lifting one side of your mouth. You'll feel like a little better than a little bit. like scornful. We actually studied this. We found we had 28,000 people take our facial expression test. This was the expression most people got wrong. Most people think it's half happiness or boredom, but actually a smirk is a very, very powerful cue of disdain of scorn and pessimism. So I see people do this in their LinkedIn profile pictures or their dating pictures or as a puncturetor. They

will smirk in a meeting to show like, yeah, that's cool. But actually, it's a really negative sign. So please look at your profile pictures and make sure you do not have an asymmetrical smile. Okay, I love that. And then can you share one thing that we could do to be more charismatic in a long-term relationship? Like a relationship we already have established, maybe it's a coworker we've had for years or a romantic partner we've had for years. Yes. Okay. So know their punctuator. So I love talking about cues. I think for way too long, I was afraid to talk about this hidden language. But this is a language that we are speaking with our long-term people, with our partners, with our colleagues, with our teammates, with our friends. We are constantly speaking this language. We should be talking about it more. And so the more that you can learn these cues and identify these cues together, the more empowered you're going to be. So you should know what are your long-term folks punctuators? What cues do you do they regularly use and what do they mean for that person? So for example, you might have someone who frequently uses the contempt micro expression. You should call them on it or ask them, what do you mean? They might be using it as an emphasis. You can actually help them by telling

them that it's actually setting off the wrong cue. And so the more we can talk about our cues, the more we have open, transparent relationships. I love that. Maybe we can book club your book with people in our lives. Yes. Yes, please. And you can share copy. You can listen to the same copy. I also read the audible book. It's really fun to the exercises and also cross-check. So, like, one of the early exercises in the book, I'll ask you to identify your warmth and competence.

And we're only okay at identifying your warmth and competence. It's actually way easier for others to identify our own to competence. So if you have someone you trust in your life, take the quiz as each other. Like, take it for each other so you can see how you would rate each other. I love that. I'm definitely, I saw that in the book. and I'm definitely going to do that with my husband. He loves when I come away from podcast interviews with homework assignments for him.

It's his favorite thing. Can you just leave us with one homework assignment, like one small thing that we can all start doing today to be more charismatic? One really powerful exercise, if you're willing to do it, is go find a recording of yourself. So it could be an old Zoom recording or a presentation of yourself or if you need to make one, record your next Zoom call, encode your cues. We are so unaware. of the cues we send. We're unaware of the facial expressions we make, the gestures we make,

the vocal power we make. See how often you roll your shoulders up. See how often you're doing that contempt micro expression. Just put it on, you know, watch just your end of your, of a recent call or recording and just code yourself. If you, the only way that we can begin to take control of our cues is to note to what we have to change. And so paying attention to what cues you're already sending, that's a great baseline to be aware of the kind of, cues you're sending to others. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Vanessa. There's just so much food for thought in this conversation and so much more in both of your beautiful books. So I so appreciate all of the research you do and the way that you make it so palatable and even fun to learn.

I hope you loved this episode with Vanessa. I am so curious to hear what you're going to try. So definitely share with me on Instagram. I am at Liz Moody and Vanessa is at V Van Edwards. And if you love this episode, please send the link to someone that you think would benefit. It makes you look smart and helpful and cool. And it's the best way to help support the podcast. So I will appreciate you massively. So it's like a win, win, win. And if you wanted to write a quick rating or review on your favorite podcast app,

we are less than 200 reviews away on Apple Podcasts for my goal of 2,000 reviews. So that would be super, super, super appreciated as well. If you are new here, make sure that you're subscribed so that you're, you don't miss out on any upcoming episodes. We've got one about the future of gut health, and we have a style guide for summer, and you don't want to miss either of those, right? I didn't think so.

Okay, I love you, you fabulously charismatic human you, and I will see you on the next episode of the Healthier Together podcast.