The School of Greatness - 105 The Art and Science of Body Language, Charisma, and Influence with Vanessa Van Edwards

Episode Date: November 12, 2014

"Charisma is the perfect blend of warmth and confidence." - Vanessa Van Edwards If you enjoyed this episode and would like more info on what we discussed, visit www.lewishowes.com/105.

This is episode number 105 with Vanessa Van Edwards. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Hey, what is up everyone?

Thank you so much for joining me today. And I'm back in LA this week. Just got back from an amazing trip in Mexico, watching a couple of my friends get married. One of the most beautiful weddings I've ever been and it made me really appreciate the friends I have, the connections they have, and the connections I get to create with them.

So very, very grateful right now in this moment. And I'm very excited to introduce you to a new guest, a new friend of mine that I just recently connected with. I saw her work online. I saw what she was up to and I said, I gotta get Vanessa on here. So what she was up to and I said, I got to get Vanessa on here. So I reached out to her myself and said, hey, let's get you on the show. She is an expert when it comes to understanding the secrets of body language and nonverbal communication,

the psychology of success when it comes to relationships and influence. She really teaches how to be the most memorable person in the room. So body language, social skills. She has done years and years of research and actual science, discovering all the different tools, strategies on ways to be more engaging, the ways to be more charismatic, how to leverage being an introvert and become more charismatic, what to do when you're an extrovert to captivate in people and not push them away. I get to dive in with her in this episode and I'm very excited to learn more about social behavior, how to connect with people, how to really land the deal, how to have the right

cues with your facial expressions, with your body language, what to do when you meet someone, how to ask them the right questions, which questions to ask. We actually go over that. So we go over a lot of great stuff in this interview. I wish we could have more time actually for some more questions, but I'll have to bring her back on for another time. Let's go ahead and dive into this episode with Vanessa Van Edwards. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. We've got

Vanessa Van Edwards on today. What's going on, Vanessa? Hey, how are you? Doing well. And I'm very excited to learn and discover more about what you talk about, which is the science of understanding people and people skills. to read or write, almost flunking out of school, having to cheat on all of my homework, all of my tests constantly just to pass so that I could continue to be in school and play sports, which was my goal. As a child growing up who had extreme difficulties learning about books in school, I had to survive by understanding how people work. I had to survive by understanding how people work. And I had to survive by learning how to connect with people to enroll them in whatever I was up to, in staying in class and being friends with me. And you know, the girlfriends I wanted, I had to have developed these people skills so

that people would accept me as a human being. And I realized early on that that was the most valuable skill I could have learned. And I'm constantly learning and developing. But why aren't we taught this early on? And you're an expert in understanding the science of people. You have scienceofpeople.com. Why aren't we taught this early on? Why is there so much focus on other ways of learning than actually understanding people? Yeah, I completely agree with you. I also develop people skills out of sort of a necessity.

I think that schools focus on technical skills, you know, the math, the science, and sometimes even creative technical skills like graphic design or painting or dancing, because those seem, especially before the research was really robust, I think nowadays it's much more robust. But even 10, 15 years ago, people skills was so in a gray area where it didn't feel like you could write a textbook about people skills. People, I think, really believed you can't really teach people skills. You're sort of born with it or you're not. Right. it or you're not. And what we've come to learn is that is actually not the case, that just like math or science, you can study people even in a black and white manner. It's sort of an art and

science of people skills, but it is both. It is teachable. You can have textbooks on people skills. Now, it's not my goal to write a textbook by any means, but I think that that's why it's too intimidating. They thought that technical skills were easier. People would just pick up people skills as they grew up. Interesting. Now, you said you started developing this out of necessity, you said yourself? Yeah. Yeah.

So I joke with my students that I'm a recovering awkward person. And I'm a situational introvert. So basically what that is, and I don't know'm a situational introvert. So, um, basically what that is, and I, I don't know if people listening will resonate, this will resonate with you, but I never really fit into the extrovert or introvert category. Um, whenever people would ask me that, or I would take like personality tests. And so basically, um, what the research has found is there's this middle category called an ambivert, which is that in certain situations you regress into either extroversion or introversion. And so what I quickly learned is in learning environments,

I'm an extrovert. I love learning. I love asking questions and being curious. However, in bars, nightclubs, parties, Ooh, I, I just shut down into this, the most awkward person. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I used to live in Los Angeles and it's a big, much bigger party scene. I now live in Portland. And the reason for that is because traditionally cool places make me feel really uncool. So I learned people skills because it's kind of an essential part of business, especially if you're an entrepreneur, even also socially. Like my friends would be like also socially, my friends would be like, I want to go to a bar for my birthday. I'd be like, what?

No, no. That's crazy. Of course I wanted to celebrate friends. I developed it because I realized that I would avoid things that actually could possibly be fun. But because of my own lack of people skills, I was holding myself back. That's why I decided I had to sort of figure out. And I have more of a black and white brain. I like to know formulas.

I like to know percents and rules. So I- Very analytical. Yeah. And so I went to the science-based people skills approach. I was like, there has to be a way to do this. There has to be a formula for people skills. And it's not quite a formula, but it's close. Okay. So you've developed a formula. Yes. I developed a formula that I myself

developed originally for myself. I mean, before, um, I I've always been an entrepreneur. I started my first business in high school and then continued all the way through college. And then when I left college, I did, I did my business full time, but originally it wasn't, um, people skills. It was, I was writing advice with teens and parents, connecting teens to parents as like kind of a, like a teen helpline for parents basically. And I, so I developed it because I had to have people skills to push that business out. And once I developed this formula for myself, people around me started to notice the difference.

And they asked me, what are you doing? How are you able to do this? And I'm like, I just hack charisma. It's a formula. And so people more and more were asking for it. And as most good businesses start from, people just demanded it. And so I began to shift, slowly hone it, test it with other people. Now it's my full-time gig. So you learned how to bottle and sell charisma to people or teach charisma to people. Yes, exactly. Charisma. Yeah. How to have charisma. How long does it take to develop and curate and cultivate charisma inside of yourself? Um, there's different levels. So, um, when you look at people's skills, you have to think of a spectrum. So just like introversion, extroversion, that really should not be a black and white label. It should be a spectrum that you fall somewhere on it. And charisma is the same way. So for example, after an hour of especially nonverbal

training, which is the easiest, I think to start with, because it's, it's very simple, nonverbal hacks. You can increase wherever you are on the spectrum by a good amount, depending on where you fall. If you're at the very low end of charisma, a couple nonverbal hacks can tremendously increase from being extremely awkward to actually feeling like you could show up to an event and pass out business cards. So it's really moving up on the spectrum. Without saying a thing, you could go from a one or two to like a seven or eight is what you're saying. I would say one or two to like a five or six. Okay. All right. And what are some of the nonverbal hacks that people could take on to

increase their charisma? Yeah. So one of the things that research has found is that charisma was sort of this kind of gray area, as I mentioned earlier, that people didn't think, A, they thought you had to be born with it. And B, they thought, oh, you just have to be an extrovert, right? Most people who enter my classes, I bust this myth at the beginning of my classes where I say, I am not just going to teach you to be an extrovert. That is not what charisma is about. It's about designing your own unique brand of charisma. So what they found was is that all that charisma is, is it's the perfect blend of warmth and competence. That when you look at charisma broken down, it's in a split second.

Typically, it happens in under seven seconds, but it can happen in as fast as one-tenth of a second. Someone judges your warmth and competence levels. That's the first things that they try to gauge. And when you have a blend of both, that's when you hit charisma. And if you think about it, being warm by itself is great. You're seen as compassionate, relatable, approachable. But if you're just warm, you're not seen as credible or competent or powerful.

And on the flip side, if you're just competent, you're seen as powerful and credible, maybe imposing, but you're not considered approachable or compassionate or empathetic. So to have that blend, that sweet spot, it's the perfect blend of both. So that's what is happening in those first few seconds. Interesting. So how does someone, if I'm going to approach, if you're going to approach me and we're just meeting and I've got seven seconds for me to judge you and tear you apart and break you down and analyze everything about your entire life in seven seconds before I make

my decision on if I like you or not, how would you approach that? So very first, the first place that we look at, well, actually, I'll ask you a question. So when you first meet someone, what's the first part of their body you think they notice? About me? About you or you to them? Hmm. I guess it depends if it's a man or a woman. It's actually the same for both.

Good question. Okay. And it's the same for children or adults? Yes. And it's not dirty. That's a hint I'll give you. Right. Hmm. Is it a hint I'll give you. Right. Hmm.

Is it a trick question or is it pretty obvious? It's not a trick question, but I don't think it's obvious. Well, I was going to say the smile of the eyes is the first thing I look at. Yeah.

Okay, so smile and eyes is typically everyone's first guess. And those are the second place that we look. We typically look at the face second. The first place is actually the hands. And the reason for this, and they did this by watching eye tracking studies. So what they did is they had people come into a lab or a room and they tracked hundreds of people's eye patterns when they first meet someone or they first look at a photo. And they found that even though everyone says the first place I look is the eyes with a smile, actually the first place they look, even though it's for a minuscule

part of a second, is actually the hands. And when they looked into this, they found that the reason for this is because it is a survival mechanism that our brain has created to keep us safe. Because, you know, back in the day, if we were approached by a stranger caveman, you know, a caveman we didn't know, the first place we looked was their hands to see if they were carrying a rock or a stone or a weapon. And that's how we gauge if someone is friend or foe very, very quickly. And the next place we look is their smile and their eyes to gauge their mood. So why this is important is because we don't realize the power that our hands have in that first impression and also during conversations. So first of all, women are taught to put their hands in their laps when they're seated. They're taught that's polite.

So you don't put your elbows or your hands on the table. But what happens is, is that when women have their hands in their laps below the table at a coffee shop, at a board meeting, behind their desk, the other person's brain very, very subtly shifts into fear mode. So their amygdala becomes very, very slightly activated. So the other person, even though consciously they're with you, subconsciously they are not paying full attention to you. Their brain is going, can I trust this person? Do I really know this person? And so they're not able to fully focus on what you're saying. Even if it's the most beautiful girl who's super sweet and kind and smiling, we're still going to have some type of fear or uncertainty is what you're saying. Exactly. So you could judge her attraction and say, wow, she is super attractive.

But in terms of trust, in terms of warmth, in terms of charisma, that the jury waits. Your brain literally is like, we're not sure about this person. So part of your brain is going, great, she's super attractive. The other part of your brain is like, wow, I just don't know about her. Interesting. Well, I'm assuming it's even more unsettling if a guy has his hands under the table. It is a deal breaker. If it's a big guy too, you're probably like, what's he got down there? Yeah, exactly. And like intuitively, this makes sense.

But the problem is, unless we're really aware of it, the second I tell you about it, you're like, oh, done. Got it. And once you know about it, it's extremely easy to implement. You keep your hands above the table. You make sure that when you walk into a room, they're out of your pockets. Women should not tuck their hands into their purse straps. So those are all like ways that we hide our hands or behind our phone or whatever, behind our computer. As soon as we're aware of it, it's extremely easy to implement,

especially if you're in the business environment or you're pitching. But it's a really, really easy way to disengage someone to increase your warmth levels. Wow, that's interesting. I mean, I'm glad that I've always had bad manners and put my elbows on the tables now. I know. I know we're taught that, but I would rather have you be rude, quote unquote, and have your elbows on the table and your hands showing. You know, I do put my elbows on the tables and I rest my like arms on the table in front of me just because I'm like such a big guy that like holding my arms down is like hurts me.

It's like exhausting. So I like to rest them on something and I'm glad I do that. And so hopefully people trust me since I've been having bad manners now. It's better. I would not be surprised at all. Your charisma levels are very high and that's probably part of the reason. Wow. Interesting.

Okay, cool. So what if you're meeting someone not to, you know, whenever I walk down the street, specifically in like New York or LA, if someone's got a hoodie with like pockets and they have their hands in them, even if they look like nice, it's just like, you never know. I always kind of like look behind me real quick and make sure that their hands are still in their pockets and not taking something out. Yeah, your brain is going into fear mode. It's exactly what your subconscious is doing.

You're just consciously picking up on it. Wow, interesting. So kind of have your body in an open body position is what you're saying where people can see your hands open, not clenched or hidden. It's the best way to approach someone first. Yes, absolutely. And then what about the rest of the body language? It's hard to do it on a podcast of course, but, um, basically the next area that we look is, um, the face. Um, and this typically it bounces between the eyes and the

mouth. It's not a, there's not a number one second place. And that's because where you look at someone on their face, it is directed by your emotional feelings towards that person. So for example, they found that people's eye patterns change based on a level of intimacy you feel with someone. So in a power, in a business situation, alphas or leaders typically keep their eye gaze very high on people around them and their subordinates. And that means that they look at your eyes and your forehead. They very, very rarely look at your mouth or nose. Very rarely. They keep their gaze incredibly high, especially for people who are taller. This is especially the case. That is a subtle cue. It is an alpha cue. It is a leader cue. And that increases your competence levels.

Now, dropping to the mouth or the lower part of the neck, that is what you do when you feel more intimate or social with someone. And the reason for that is because you're trying to gauge their hormone levels if they are potentially a potential mate. And so when you are with someone, to show more warmth, you can drop your gaze to the mouth or nose, but to show more competence, especially in a business relationship, you want to keep your gaze incredibly high. And that not only signals to them what you feel, but also will help them mirror it back. We unconsciously mirror people that we're with. And that also helps you read

micro expressions. So if you really want to dig deep into body language, I highly recommend there are seven universal facial expressions that everyone across sexes and races make when they feel an intense emotion. And I teach human lie detection. That's the huge part of my business. And the basis of human lie detection is the micro expression, because if you're able to read someone's emotions on their face, you're able to match their words to their emotions. So it's an incredibly powerful way to connect with people. You're able to meet needs very quickly. So you're all – I mean this is fascinating.

You can basically – if you understand if they're lying or not based on their facial expressions, then you can speak into what they're talking about or what they're not saying because of their facial expressions. Is that what I'm picking up? Exactly. Yep. So you're listening to the listening of what they're actually saying, even though they may be saying something else verbally. Yeah. So like basically with micro expressions, what I'm, what I teach for micro, there's a couple of different really interesting aspects to the face. First is when you are reading microexpressions, it very much helps you with eye contact because you have a reason to look at their face. The ideal eye contact is 60 to 70%. So it's actually not a hundred. People usually

think, oh, I have to make a really good eye contact. And that means a hundred percent of the time, actually anything above 70% is considered kind of creepy. Yeah. It's scary, right? Yeah. So, um, the ideal way is actually to read micro expressions because when they're speaking, you're usually looking at their face to read them. Um, so that's a great way to stay in that 70% range. So that's the first thing. It helps a lot with micro with eye contact, appropriate eye contact. Second, you're looking for congruency. You're looking for do their words match their face? For example, one of the universal micro expressions is contempt. Contempt, hatred, disdain. It's a very, very powerful micro expression. And it's the simplest of the micro expressions, which is one of the reasons why I use it as an example. It's just a

one-sided mouth raise. So it kind of looks like a smirk if you just raise one side of your mouth. That's contempt. And so if someone were to say, if you were to ask someone, so what do you think of the new girl? And they show that contempt and they're like, oh yeah, she's pretty great. You would know by that facial expression that there was an incongruency there, right? Something is not right. With the words used and the facial expression showed, I need to dig deeper. There's something more here. If you choose to. If you choose to. So it's looking for incongruencies.

And the last section is just responding authentically to the emotions you see. Sometimes we're so wrapped up in our own head and our own business that actually wanting to read someone's face and then responding appropriately is I think the best way to interact with people. Wow. Interesting. Is there a research, a resource on your site about this, these cues, these seven cues or seven? Yeah, I have all of it for free. I have video examples. Um, if you go to science of people.com slash face, I have all the research and a videos. They're really, you know, fun videos of the face expressions.

Um, and use that as much as you want. I leave it free because I think it's, I think everyone should be taught it to be honest. Very cool. Yeah. We'll have that linked up on the show notes. That's cool, man. This is fascinating stuff. So can you tell pretty much, uh, right away if someone's lying or honest, you know, based

on all this research that you've done, all or honest, you know, based on all this research that you've done, all this practice, you know, everything you've done, can you pretty much tell, oh, they're lying and call them out on it? Doesn't work quite so magically. You wish. Yeah, I wish. There are seven steps to lie detection. So it's a, once you get good at it, you can do it very, very quickly. Um, so I can do it pretty quickly, usually within the first 15 to 30 seconds of meeting someone, depending on what the context is, of course. But it's also important to know that there's no like Pinocchio's nose for lying. Like there's not one thing that people do. Everyone has a unique tell. Um, and so basically when I meet people, I try to figure out what their tells are both for positive and negative emotions. And then, um, I just look for

incongruencies. I call them red flags in our research for that. So it's, it's, it's pretty good. You can get very, very good at it. I think that the average person can tell the truth from a lie with about 54% accuracy. So we are terrible at lie detection. We all think that we're above average. I think 92% of people think that they're above average. But actually, yeah, we're 54%. So you're better off like tossing a coin, basically. And also the more that you know the person, the worse you are, typically.

So with lie detection techniques, with the science, you can improve it up to about 90 so 89 to 90 if you follow the formula if you're just like i don't know but the formula says this about this question or whatever so i'm just going to say this yeah gotcha can you say what the seven cues are oh they're not cues they're actually like steps to how you do it. So like you take like a baseline. There's actually 32 different cues. And that's that's step five. So. Okay. So you got to go look at the resources on the site then. Okay. than 54%. So as soon as you teach someone like the bare bones of it, they actually drop because if we don't really know how to do it, it makes us worse. So I always try to be really careful because I don't want to make someone worse by accident. Interesting. Now, I've done a lot of

events. I've hosted events. I've been to conferences, all these different things. I've spoken a bunch with dozens of other speakers at the same events with thousands of people at the conferences. If someone goes to events or one event or whatever it may be, how do they become the most memorable person in that event or room or any setting? How does someone show up in such a powerful or memorable way that more people remember that person than they remember anyone else? I think that that's the question of a lifetime, right? I don't think there's one answer.

I think it's sort of designing, as I say, your unique brand of charisma, whatever that is to you. Like for some people, some of my students, it's a kind of quiet power that they, that they harness for other people. It's sort of the life of the party. Um, that's the area that they're most comfortable with honing that. So there's no one answer, but there's definitely things that, that can help. Um, I think that the, one of them is, um, something that I teach in one of my influence courses on the power of dopamine. So in our brain, there's a chemical that's released when we feel pleasure or win a reward. And that's called dopamine. And so what happens is basically when we're feeling really happy, like let's say that we win a race or someone tells us we win the lottery, even just thinking about winning the lottery, our brain is like, yes, I like it. It's like this

little, you know, pleasure bath. And that's because dopamine is being pumped into your brain. So what's important to understand about being memorable, I take a very science-based approach to people is understanding how to give people that feeling by triggering dopamine when you're with them. And there's a lot of different ways to trigger dopamine in addition to rewards. But some of the easy ones are letting people leave their social scripts. So typically when you are with someone, even in a coffee shop, a networking event, a conference, whatever, you have these like same conversations you have over and over and over again. So, you know, it's like, what do you do? Where are you from?

How was your day? Right. You have like the same, how'd you get into what you do? That kind of thing. You hear those questions over and over again. And we just have the exact same answers. So what happens is the brain, when you observe the brain in these situations, it's very, very low activity. Very little is being simulated in the brain. these situations, it's very, very low activity.

Very little is being simulated in the brain. You're not critically thinking. You're not doing much. You're literally on autopilot. So the brain gets quite bored. So the way that you become memorable is by activating their brain in new ways, especially in pleasurable ways. You don't want to activate the brain by getting someone into anger. You'd be memorable, but not in aurable ways. Like, you know, you don't want to activate the brain by getting someone into anger. That would not be, you'd be memorable, but not in a good way.

You want to, you want to spark their imagination is what I'm hearing. Yeah. Imagination is almost a synonym for dopamine. Um, but one, one thing that I encourage people to do is to try, um, I call them killer conversation starters. I have a whole list of them on my website that are just very dopamine worthy. And the reason they're dopamine worthy is because A, they're typically, people are not asked these questions before. So it just changes up the brain pattern. B, they usually, they're encouraging, they're eliciting a positive experience of some kind and people love to think about their positive

experiences. And three, anytime someone talks about themselves, it's like they're being rewarded. One of our favorite things to do is to talk about ourselves. So anytime you ask a question that's more than where are you from? What do you do? Like a two line answer, you're triggering dopamine. So those are like, there's sort of three aspects to it. So like one of the, can I ask you a question that I think could be a potential one that people could use? Yes. And you can let me know. And I want you to answer it first. And then I want you to let me know what came up for you. I see. I'm already excited. You just tripped my dopamine. Awesome. I love it. So I don't even have to ask the question now. No. Even just telling me

that you're about to ask me something very interesting and different, I already am excited about it. Okay. My question, I guess I would have two different questions, but I'll start with this one. What have you been thinking about most recently? What's been on your mind most recently? The top of your mind most recently? Probably this idea of leveling up or going pro. So something that I have been thinking about in my business and my personal life is where am I at right now? I personally think in sports terms, I kind of think that my business is on the JV team. So I'm playing like I passed.

I'm on the JV team, which is great, but I kind of want to make varsity. So I am trying to think about how can I level up or go pro? Is it hiring a trainer? Is it doing more drills? Like what is it that's going to help me make varsity next year? Um, 2015. So that's really where my brain is at. Interesting. Now, what do you, what do you think it's going to take from you to become on the varsity? That's the question. Um, I think it's going to be from, I think I'm going to have to try some new formats. So typically, um, I, I teach with online videos and PDFs in a very specific way. And I think that I need to get out of that format and really use analytics.

So split testing on my courses, trying different price points, different sales pages. So it's going to be getting out of my comfort zone, which is not so fun. Do you like staying in your whatever introverted spectrum box that you're in? I like doing things that I know will work, but that's not how you grow, right?

Like I know this works on a JV level. Great. But I don't want to, yes, I could stay on a JV level, but I don't want to stay there. Okay. Yeah. The next step is making the bench of the varsity. Right. Exactly.

Would you rather play at this level or make the bench? Yeah. Yeah.'s it's that um and that's like a great that's a great great killer conversation starter and by the way when you do that for someone i call it giving them a mindgasm um where basically like you're like like you're blowing their mind with like letting them explore something different they're literally creating new neural maps. That's what happens when you're asked a question that you're not normally asked. Interesting. So that one is a fantastic one.

I love it. Let me go one step farther because I'm in coaching mode now and this is what I like to do. Who are two or three of the people that you're inspired by in your space that are on the varsity at a level that you want to be at? Oh, that's easy. I think that Marie Forleo is a business owner who just kills it. I very much respect that she's extremely focused. She doesn't really get distracted by lots of things she could do. She does what she should do, which I think is a big one. Um, and she gets it done. She gets it done like huge, huge standards for herself. And the other one is probably Derek Halpern, who's like a partner of hers who also has a really awesome blog called social triggers.

And he, um, is very good at using analytics to make his choices from what I read. Um, and that's something that I need to do more of. You're talking about two of my best friends. No way. I talk to Derek almost every week. And I've been working with Marie for the last four years. So you are picking the right people because they are definitely A players on the highest varsity team there is. and super authentic good good models to uh to be inspired by now let me ask this question what is it that they're doing that

you have yet to step into um definitely the analytics marketing that derek has done he's implemented some like obviously he's he's split testing a lot on his landing pages on his funnels uh i i kind of guess you know i put it all up there but i kind of guess that's not good He's split testing a lot on his landing pages, on his funnels. I kind of guess, you know, I put it all up there, but I kind of guess that's not good. So he has that like systematized, I think, from reading his blog and watching his videos. And Marie has a very high quality, high price product. So I have products that range between $49. I have a couple of free products and I have $49 to $199. And so I know that 2015 is going to be about making my high end product.

Interesting. Interesting. Okay. Can I ask one of you? Sure. Go ahead. Okay. This is my favorite one. What is your personal passion project right now? My life is my personal passion project. My dream as a child was always to be in Olympics. And I'm currently on the USA national team for a sport called team handball. So if the Olympics were in the United States next year,

I would most likely be automatically qualified. I would be on the team that would be automatically qualified to go to the Olympics. So I'd be an Olympian. But since it's not, it's in Rio in 2016, we've got to win the Pan American Games in order for me to qualify. And I've got to stay healthy and I've got to make the team and do my job. So my personal passion project is fulfilling a childhood dream of being an Olympian. Wow.

See, that's something that I did not know about you, which I think is awesome. And I love it. I didn't know that about you, which is a, that's a big one. That's a big personal passion project. You dream really big, which is awesome. It's all about the dreams and imagination. And for me, I feel like my life is passionate projects. Everything I do is a passion project because that's how I want to live my life. I don't want it to be something that I'm never, I don't want to do something ever that I'm not passionate about. So everything I do, all the people I connect with has a purpose, has a meaning towards the imagination of achieving what I want. Yeah. Is that your personal mission?

My mission is to serve 100 million people, to help them how to make a full-time living around doing what they love. So I want people to be able to develop the lifestyle first, create this lifestyle of passion, whatever their passion projects are, constantly living in their passion, and then be able to monetize a full-time income around that. And they don't have to be multimillionaires, but teach them the tools on how to make a full-time living doing what they love. I love it. I think, man, that's a good reason for being. That's a great reason to get up in the morning. Oh, man, I love it. Yeah. So everything I do is to learn and discover and create and then share what I learned. That's why this podcast is here. It's to bring on the most

inspiring people who know the most, know way more than me, share with a broad audience so that they can get amazing results in their life. Well, I hope that this idea of interacting around dopamine, which is a very different way of approaching interactions, especially conferences and networking events, I hope that it explains the reason why you'll sometimes be with someone and you're like, God, it felt so good to be with them. Yes. I just love talking to them. MIT Media Lab is the one who, who pioneer a lot of this research.

Basically what they found is that people don't remember what you said. They don't. You could have the most perfect elevator pitch in the world, the best, most impressive answers. They do not remember that. They don't remember that. They don't remember what you looked like or what you, the best, most impressive answers. They do not remember that. They don't remember that. They don't remember what you looked like or what you set, what you wore. What they remember is what it felt like to be with you. They remember, you know, weeks later, was it overall good, medium, bad experience? And so triggering the brain is a way to make sure that it's a good experience. Yeah. And something I talk about,

I definitely didn't make this up. I heard it from someone, but people don't care about what you know until they know about how much you care, something like that. And for me, that's been something that I pretty much like have in the back of my head constantly because I know I wasn't that book smart.

So I was like, as long as people know that I care, I'm good to go. That's true. Because I don't need to be smart. I can just show how much of a heart I have and how much I want to love on people. And that's more valuable than being a scientist in my mind. So yeah, I think also, you know, I think EQ and PQ, people skills, people intelligence and emotional intelligence, even social intelligence, SQ, is way more important when you're talking about being an adult.

Now, okay, not true in elementary school, high school, college. It's much more like 50%, unfortunately. But when you get into the real world, that is not the case at all. It's much more about those other three kinds of intelligence that we were missing growing up. Exactly. Exactly. This is fascinating. So basically what I'm hearing you say is if you can give people the feeling of winning a lottery ticket, when you meet them,

you're going to be the most memorable person in the room, whatever that feeling is. That's right. Exactly. Interesting. So be a walking lottery ticket for other people. Be a walking lottery ticket. And you can do that with killer conversation starters. You can also do it by the other area that we, that triggers dopamine, um, are the basics. And this is really easy because we already do this naturally is one, um, any kind of physical touch releases oxytocin, which oxytocin is nicknamed the cuddle hormone, because whenever we are cuddling with someone or we have physical touch, our brain releases oxytocin. Oxytocin is what makes us feel bonded to someone. It is actually the chemical behind bonded. So when

you're like, man, this, I just, I get this person. Like they get me. I want to know this person. I want their business card. I want to work with them. I don't care how I just want them in my life. That feeling all boils down to a chemical called oxytocin. And oxytocin comes a couple of different ways. The easiest ones are eye contact, going right back to where we were before on reading microexpressions. So another secret reason I teach eye contact in the appropriate kind of gazing and eye contact is because it also releases oxytocin. So it encourages people to feel bonded to you. And the other way is through physical touch. And the easiest way to do this is with a handshake. Never, ever, ever turn down a handshake. Always give them that full palm to

palm. That is the easiest way to start an oxytocin rush. Not the limp fish? Not the limp fish, surprisingly. Not the limp fish. And they say that um a handshake is worth three hours of face-to-face time wow so a lot of women my ladies who are listening we don't always do a handshake especially because so lame when they do that i know i've seen women do this get over yourselves don't just wave at me come and give me a freaking handshake. I know. Or better yet, a hug. My gosh. I mean, if you know someone, give them a hug.

I'm a huge hugger if you feel comfortable with that. So I really encourage you that if you are, even if it means getting up and kind of walking across the room to shake someone's hand, it is worth it. It is never awkward. It is always, always worth it. Interesting. Now, it's funny you say that because I was going to ask you this because I am a huge hugger. And I almost hug almost a little too long when I meet people sometimes. I like to squeeze and like really – but I do it in a lighthearted way.

It's not like a creepy like get over here. Like let me suffocate you. It's like so great to meet you. Let me give you a big hug and like pick you up. And that's just, I'm a big guy. I'm 6'4", 225 pounds. So I just like to come in with a big hug, smile and a big hug. And if I feel like they're going to be open to it, then I'll do it.

If not, then I'll just shake their hand. Now, is it not proper to give someone a hug if you're just meeting them? Or is that kind of really up to feeling and reading the energy? Or what do you say? I think that trusting your gut, which is kind of what you said you do, is absolutely right. Because our intuition is going to know way better than any rules I give you. There are rules to things like that. But our intuition knows that when we are approaching someone and we have our arms kind of opening,

what I would do if I were you is to get a longer gauge period for your intuition to kick in is I would actually approach people as if you're about to hug them. So you keep your palms open. That's called the universal open stance. Palms open slightly beyond your body so that you could be going in for the hug or you could just reach out for a handshake. That would be appropriate from that position as well. But what you can do is you can gauge immediately from that position their body language back. So do they mimic you? If they mimic you, you're good to go. If you see the slight whites of their eyes, which is part of the fear micro-expression, they widen their lids a little bit, you know they are afraid of that hug. They do not want it. So paying attention to, do they mirror you or do they show the whites of their eyes that, Oh, and sorry, the last one is if they blade. So blading is when we turn our body so that like, uh, they teach you this in fencing. Um, you make your torso

less open. So you turn a shoulder back. So it's just like the side of your body. Um, if someone slightly pulls a shoulder back or a leg back, they're blading, which means they feel like someone's about to come into their space. That would be a hot, they just want a handshake. So those three things and let your intuition guide you on that, but kind of give them that warning that you're coming in. Their body will tell you if they want you to come in for a hug or they want a handshake. Interesting. Tell me a little bit more about body language.

I know Amy Cuddy, I think it's Amy Cuddy is the one who did a TED Talk. And I don't know if you follow her stuff or if you guys are friends or similar topics, but how can we increase confidence in ourselves through a couple of body language things's hand and or just be talking to someone face to face so that we're not closing down our body language is kind of shutting down. How can we stay confident and poised in the moment and under any situation? Yeah, I love Dr. Cuddy's research. Dr. Cuddy is a researcher at Harvard Business School, and she has really pioneered. Not only we knew, we knew that a lot of our communication was nonverbal. In fact, they find a minimum of 60% of our communication is nonverbal, a minimum. It's up to 93%. So we already knew that. What Dr. Cuddy has done is taken that a step further and figured out not only how important it is for our first

impression, so how much it changes other people's perception of us, but also how it changes our own perception of ourself. So how our body language changes our actions and our hormone levels, which is huge. We didn't used to think that body language could change our physiology. So what she found was that if you stand in confident body language or power posing is what she calls it, your testosterone levels increase and your cortisol levels drop. You also tend to gamble more often. You feel luckier, which actually in business usually proves correct for us, especially because we usually miss opportunities when we don't do that. And this is for both men and women,

that the more testosterone we have coursing through our bloodstream, the better performer we are, the better athlete, the faster we think we have less dry mouth. We answer questions better. We perform better. We have increased endurance. It's good for everything. Um, this is for both men and women, whereas low power, when we go into low power posing, we lose testosterone. So we lose the exact hormone we need to perform well. And we increase our cortisol levels. Cortisol, simplified, is the stress hormone. It causes us to gain weight. It makes us have dry mouth. It makes us think slowly. It lowers our metabolism. It's exactly what we do not want coursing through our body when we're about to go into something important. So before you even walk into the room, before you even think about showing your hands and eye

gazing and reading facial expressions and triggering dopamine, before you even do any of that, you can set yourself off on literally the right foot physiologically by getting your hormones in check, the hormones that you want coursing through your body. And the way that you do this is the more space your body takes up, the more testosterone you produce. So if you think of your body inflating, like as if someone were to inflate your body like a balloon, you want to roll your shoulders down and back. So your neck is as long as possible. You want to keep your arms loose by your side. So not pinned to your sides, especially if you can have them gesturing or on the table. Um, you want to have your feet firmly planted hip width or further apart. And this is for both sitting or standing. And you want to have your chest, your chin, and your forehead slightly aimed up. So as opposed to straightforward

or rolled in, you have this sort of, if you must, a Superman pose or a Wonder Woman pose. Those, that is an extremely testosterone producing position. And the problem is, is most people say to me, yeah, great. I know this good posture. I have no problem with posture. And then I tell them, do you ever, ever check your cell phone? And they're like, yes, you hold your cell phone in front of you. You literally go into, you roll into low power body language, which is rolled shoulders in arms across your chest or pin tightly to your sides. Chest, chin, and forehead aimed down. That is low power body language. And the more you check your phone, the more you're practicing low power body language.

Yeah. Wow. So we don't even realize before we walk into a meeting or a pitch or a conference and we're checking our phone, we're actually producing the stress hormone and losing testosterone. producing the stress hormone and losing testosterone. So now is it easy, is it easy to, you know, say I'm checking it and then I, can I go into a power pose, then go back to checking a power pose, checking a power pose. Will that work or be effective? Or if I'm in, you know, checking my phone constantly, it's going to be hard to get back up. So the good news is, is it's really easy to fix this. Once you know what to. All I want you to do is a first of all, if you have a big meeting or big pitch,

I would recommend bringing a magazine or newspaper to read. That's a really easy way to power pose before walking into something. If it's really big, really big one, but in everyday normal use, all I tell people is to pivot your phone out. So instead of having it right in front of your chest, just pivot it out. So all of a sudden your shoulders roll back, your arms are then out by your sides or taking up more space. You hold your chest, chin and forehead up. So as long as you're checking your phone out, which is actually very easy to do, right? It's simply pivoting your arm. Just that slight change is going to rapidly and radically change your

hormone levels. That's a super easy thing to do as long as we're aware of it. Wow, interesting. This is fascinating. I've got lots of more stuff I want to ask you about, but we're running out of time. So I want to let people know that I'll tell you where to get all this information at scienceofpeople.com. It'll be linked up at the show notes.

I'll have some videos on there. I'll have the specific links that we've talked about in this episode. And hopefully we can have you come back on at some point. But I want to ask you two final questions before we let you go. Yeah. And the first one is, what are you most grateful for recently? Oh, goodness. You know, I'm very, very grateful that I feel like I finally found my tribe.

And what I mean by that is for a long time, I was like writing articles or producing courses and I would like hope that people read them and they would resonate with people. And then I was like, you know what? Like, screw this. I'm just going to write in my voice. And if that alienates people, that's okay. Hopefully it'll find the right people. And the last, especially three or four

months, um, our, our numbers have gone up significantly with the people who actually want to share where I learned from them. They learned from me and it's not for everyone. You know, our, our brand is not for everyone and that's okay. Like being, I'm so grateful that I'm okay that, um, I would rather speak in my voice and reach my people than blandify myself and try to reach everyone. Right. Interesting. Okay, cool. I like that. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Vanessa. I want to acknowledge you for the dedication and the commitment you've had in learning about why people tick and what supports others in reaching to their own next level in their success by understanding how to connect

with people. I feel like that's one of the most powerful things that we can learn as a skill, emotional intelligence and social intelligence. And I acknowledge you for the commitment. It just looks like you're so committed to this research, to doing whatever it takes, to putting in the energy, the time, the hard work to discover and unlock the tools for other people on how they can feel better, get more results, build their business because of what you're sharing. So I wanted to take a second to acknowledge you for being a huge shift in the world of

this information and I hope you continue doing it. Thank you. It's my life's work and my mission. So I appreciate that very much. Very cool. Final question before I let you go, which is what I ask all the guests at the end is what is your definition of greatness? My definition of greatness is always making the choices that are right, not what you think you should do.

So taking action, getting up every day, and even if it's a harder choice, even if it's not traditional, it's always rechecking to see, is this truly what I believe in? Is this really what I am? If you are doing that every day, I feel like that you are truly great. I love it. Vanessa Van Edwards, thank you so much for coming on and hope to talk to you soon. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you guys so much for checking out this interview. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, please leave a comment over on the blog. That's lewishouse.com slash 105. I'd love to hear about what some of these cues have worked for you, some things that you've learned about today and you realize, oh, they worked for you or maybe they worked with you. When other people do it to you, you really connect with that individual and you really

relate to them. So go ahead and post a comment in the comment section over at lewishouse.com slash 105. And also, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review over at lewishouse.com slash 105. And also, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review over at itunes.com slash school of greatness. I love waking up in the morning and checking the reviews and seeing all the positive things you guys have to say about the show. So if you have a minute, it would really help get the word out because the more reviews a show has, the more authentic real reviews, the more it gets promoted throughout iTunes and all that good stuff. So you'd be doing me a huge favor if you could leave a quick review at itunes.com slash school

of greatness. And also keep posting where you are listening to the show. Go ahead and tag me on Instagram at Lewis Howes and let me know where you're watching, listening to the school of greatness. And I seeded watching because I'm going to be coming out with some videos soon, some video interviews. and let me know where you're watching, listening to The School of Greatness. And I seeded watching because I'm going to be coming out with some videos soon, some video interviews.

So there may be an opportunity to watch these episodes with some of these guests that I'm bringing on. So I'm excited about that. Lots of great things coming ahead. Thank you guys so much again for checking out today's episode.

You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Yes know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Yes, I'm a maniac. Yes, I'm a maniac. Maniacs Outro Music