The School of Greatness - 475 The Science of People with Vanessa Van Edwards

Episode Date: April 24, 2017

"Own your weirdness." - Vanessa Van Edwards If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video and more at http://lewishowes.com/475

This is episode number 475 with the human lie detector, Vanessa Van Edwards. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a 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. Ah, we've got a special guest on today.

Her name is Vanessa Van Edwards, and she is an author and behavioral investigator. That's right. She is a professional people watcher, speaker, researcher, and cracking the code of interesting human behavior for audiences all around the world. Her groundbreaking workshops and courses teaches individuals how to succeed in business and life by understanding the hidden dynamics of people. I love this stuff.

She has been featured on NPR, Wall Street Journal, Today Show, USA Today, etc., etc. And she's spoken to groups all around the world from stages at the Consumer Electronics Show to presenting research of hers at MIT. And this is the stuff that fascinates me the most, guys. Understanding people. What makes people tick? What are people thinking about? What are people taking action on? Why are they doing the things they are doing? And we can better build relationships with all types of people. We can understand people in a moment, in an instant, and create connection and create opportunities with those individuals. Now, here's what we're recovering in today's interview. What makes the

most popular people popular? How do they become popular and what makes them popular? What you need to do in order to make a great impression at a big conference or at any type of networking event and how to be the standout person in the room even if you're an introvert and nervous and scared. Also the best questions to ask when you meet someone and why and the reason why this is so important is because so many people ask the same questions. So what do you do? Or where do you work? And it never leaves an impact or creates an intimate relationship.

So we're going to talk about some of those main questions you should be asking if you want to be remembered forever. Also, the personality trait that you need to figure out when you're in a relationship with an intimate partner. Also, how to tell if anyone is lying at any time. That's right. Become a human lie detector. I'm super pumped for this one. And I want to give a shout out to our review of the week over on iTunes.

And this is from rcornishmack who says, Lewis is the master at finding the most unique and exceptional people to get on his show. The guests are always incredible with hard-won, hard-hitting knowledge. Lewis has an absolute knack for finding people with great stories and incredible insights to share with you, the listener. I consider myself a seasoned entrepreneur, but I always gain insights from the School of Greatness. And I started listening to his show about six months ago and I've been truly surprised by every interview. There's been some interviews where I didn't recognize

who the guest was, which is rare for me, and I thought it wouldn't be that great, but it turned out to be fantastic. If you're looking to learn from the best and you want to gain more knowledge while getting massively inspired, subscribe and listen to the School of Greatness. So R. Cornish Mack, thank you for being the review of the week.

And yes, it's always my mission and goal to find the most fascinating, inspiring, inspirational people on the planet to give you some value every single week. Even if you don't know who they are, I hope you trust that I'm curating the best of the best in the world. And Vanessa Van Edwards is one of those individuals. I'm super excited for this episode. So without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only Vanessa Van Edwards. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast.

Excited about our guest today, Vanessa Van Edwards. Good to see you. Yes. Thanks for being here. Hand hugs. Can we do a hand hug? What's a hand hug like this? It's this. Oh.

Wasn't that good? What's a finger hug? Oh. The oxytocin. That was so much oxytocin. The connection. I'm excited about this. We had you on like three years ago, right?

It was a while ago. And it was a massive hit. And we're having you back on now because we've got a new book out called Captivate, The Science of Succeeding with People. And this is the type of stuff that I love talking about the most. You've got to do your captivating face. Yeah. That's good.

I know. It's like the- It's like blue steel. Right? It's either like a- Smizing? Smizing or it's like a blue steel. Exactly.

This is the stuff that fascinates me the most. Yeah. And so I always love connecting with you about this because I feel like you're someone who understands me very well. I feel like you understand me because you can probably reverse engineer how I've achieved certain things in my career and my life by everything you're talking about in this book and beyond that I don't even know about. And you are.

I'm in the book. Chapter five. You're chapter five. You're my anchor story. Go get the book. She says the anchor story to everyone. No. I'm just kidding.

That's not true. You're the anchor. You're the most important chapter. That's in chapter six. That's how you connect with someone in the first five minutes. Tell them they're in the anchor story. You acknowledge them. You talk to them about them. Write a them you talk about them exactly works really well for connecting with people exactly um so you wrote this book captivate the science of succeeding with people i love the first couple pages where it shows a photo of you

with like i don't know if you have braces on or not oh yeah you have like a helmet hair your braces do you like my vest that is the sound I was making when I took that picture just like that okay wait can I tell you about that picture though

sure so I'm in LA my family's here and I give my mom the galley and she was like so excited she's like oh my god

yay and she opens it she was like why did you choose this picture I was like mom like that's real it's real life like that's that was me and she said it she was like why did you choose this picture I was like mom like that's real like

it's real life like that's that was me and she said something that was interesting she was like that was the most painful part of your life

why would you share that which I think is really you have to you have to to connect with people and show them that you're not alone

and that you're just like everyone else. Yes. Also, like I have, I have this problem. People like will put me in the expert position. Like I'm always kind of uncomfortable in that position a little bit because I'm not a naturally charismatic person. I'm not naturally extroverted.

I'm a recovering awkward person. And so I was like, I could either position myself in the intro like everyone does as I am. Yeah. All these awards. I'm the extrovert. I'm, I'm, I could either position myself in the intro like everyone does as I am the expert. Yeah. All these awards. I'm the extrovert. I'm naturally charismatic.

And I was like, but like, that is not me. So I was like, I would rather switch it and say, it is so hard for naturally charismatic people to teach people how they do what they do. It's much easier in a certain sense to not be that person and then have to learn it the hard way. So I say that I learned it the hard way to teach it to you the easy way. So that was a big decision that I received.

I love it. I mean, if I showed you a photo of myself, I sent a photo actually yesterday. I don't believe you though. No, hold on. No way. I'll send you a photo of me. No, you were like an athlete.

I was like a mathlete. Come on. I was an athlete the way you are an extrovert. I was not an athlete because I was good, because I was an athlete the way you are an extrovert. I was not an athlete because I was good, because I was bad. And I said, I'm going to master this, just like you were. So that's kind of how I became one.

Are you going to show me a vest picture because I want to see helmet hair? No, not a vest picture. Let me see. I'll show you a photo of me. Recovering Awkward Lewis. That's what I want to see. This is pretty goofy.

Oh, yeah. recovering awkward Lewis I mean this is that's what I want to see this is pretty goofy you know oh yeah it's pretty like yeah lame goofy yes yes

this would fit really well next to mine this could have been perfect next year yeah so anyways I mean I was like tall and gangly

and you know all those things but I was like okay how can I learn how to be a great athlete and so I reverse engineered I wasn't like gifted as a kid and I was very awkward I was like, okay, how can I learn how to be a great athlete? And so I reverse engineered. I wasn't like gifted as a kid. And I was very awkward.

I was in the special needs classes. I couldn't read and write. I was awkward in connecting with people. I was the youngest kid always in the sports teams because in high school I started to become

good at sports because I put my energy in that. So I was like the freshman with all the seniors. So I was like always nervous and awkward and they were like cool and I was like, you that. So I was like the freshman with all the seniors. So I was like always nervous and awkward and they were like cool. And I was like, you know.

So I had to learn how to connect with people. And I think I told you this before when I was a senior in high school, I was like terrified because all the jocks that I hung out with were gone now. So it was just me. I was like, oh, you know what I'm gonna do? I wanna become friends with everyone.

So I hung out in the choir. I hung out with the band people. I hung out with the science nerds. Oh, my gosh. And I hung out with everyone. I was like, I'm going to learn how to connect with each human being and just listen to them and hear their needs and try to be friends with everyone. And that was the greatest thing that happened to me is having no jock friends anymore.

And being like, I'm going to connect with everyone. Yeah, and just understand people. Can we talk about the science? Can we reverse engineer that? So you told me that story, I think, a couple weeks ago. And I was like, I'm going to connect with everyone. Can we talk about the science? Can we reverse engineer that? So like you told me that story, I think a couple of weeks ago and I was like, yes. So there was research. I've always been fascinated by the popular kids, right? Like these, these magnetic sort of like what makes a kid cool or popular, whatever that is. And Van Sloan did a really interesting research experiment with teenagers and he found, well, can you guess what makes the most popular kids popular?

Like, what is it? It could be anything from attractiveness to clothing to the way they talk. If you had to guess. Listeners guess too. What makes a popular person popular? Yes. Hmm.

Their confidence? I don't know. Their outgoing? I would have guessed outgoing. That's exactly what I don't know. They're outgoing. I would have guessed outgoing. That's exactly what I would have guessed. Like extroverted, talkative, which was like,

I was like, Oh, please don't let it be that. So first of all, it wasn't attractiveness, which I think is very important for people to keep in mind. It wasn't the most beautiful girls or the hottest guys. What it was is the most popular kids also liked the most people.

That makes sense. And like now that I heard that, which is exactly what you just said. As opposed to just five people, they're like, you know, everyone. Yes, exactly. It's like what he found was that the most popular kids, when they were asked, who do you like? They had the longest list. And that also meant that they were liked by the most people.

And this was measured by, typically, they smiled more in the hallways. So they would do the, you tell me if this is right. So men, when they see someone they know, they give the upward, hey, nice to see you, it's like an acknowledgement. Versus if you don't know someone, but you want to acknowledge them, you give them the downward nod. Is that right? Probably, yes. If you're conditioned that way. I try to just smile at everyone. Okay, so that's what the cool kid said. No, because you train yourself.

I just started smiling at everyone in the hallways, too. Just like, hey, how are you? Good to see you. Just a compliment or something. Without realizing it, and that's what I kind of wrote about in your chapter, was without realizing it, you were actually activating a scientific principle that we like people who like us. Makes sense. The biggest-

You're not gonna like people that hate you. No, or- Or ignore you. Or, and this is the real killer of relationships people do not think of. We talk a lot about toxic people, right? Difficult people, toxic people. But actually the killer is ambivalence.

You're not sure. Yeah, you're not sure. Do they like me? Do I like them? Yeah. Were we friendly? That actually takes up more mental energy than the toxic people. And they did a study with police officers where they found that police officers who have more ambivalent relationships versus police officers who had a lot of toxic relationships, the ambivalent ones actually had less efficiency. They had less happiness and career satisfaction.

And they skipped more days of work. That's because if someone's toxic, you know you don't want to sit with them at lunch. You don't want to stop by their desk. It's clear. Ambivalent, you're like, should I invite them to lunch? Right. Or no. It's not safe. You're like, I'm sure.

Right. And I think that that's the key word is safety. And so ambivalence, when you like someone, you clearly are like smiling, nodding. Hey, what's up? Good to see you. The person's like, I'm liked. And like that is the greatest feeling of safety in the world. And so if you go to a conference, you have a big conference coming up, you're really

nervous. I don't want you to think about being extroverted, especially if you're an introvert or ambivert. No, like don't pretend. Ambivert? Ambivert. Ambivert. Yeah. What's that?

I'm an ambivert. An ambivert is if introvert or extrovert never felt right to you, it's when you can flip into extroversion if you need to or in the right situation. So like for me right now, I'm not that nervous, right? I'm a little bit nervous. You make me a little bit nervous, but like not terribly. Like learning one-on-one situations, conferences, I'm okay. Nightclubs, bars, those kinds of things, no. So if you are in those situations going to a conference, don't think about how can I be more extroverted? How can I be more outgoing? It's actually, how can I just like more people? Like when I'm at a conference and I do this, you were at WDS. So I go every year and all of my trainers, my science people trainers come with me

and I say like, our one thing is we are inviting everyone to sit with us. We are inviting everyone to come to lunch with us. If you see someone standing alone, we say hello, we invite them to come over. Like that is our number one goal and so that that's an easier way i think to tackle like big groups or conferences it's just how can you like more people that's cool yeah i think smiling is a good practice anyways whenever i see someone on the streets i just try to smile sometimes people are a little awkward about it like they don't react to me see i can't do that as a woman i don't think that's true because you're like leading people yes you're flirting or whatever yeah gender differences. Yeah, it's challenging.

I try to smile as much as I can, guys and girls. Yeah, I think you should. Also, I think a smile is never going to hurt you. It might get you in a conversation that you didn't expect. Right. But I think it's always a good basic thing to try. Yes. We're going to go into later.

I'm going to hook you guys right now. We're going to go in later and talk about how to understand when someone's lying what to do about it and Vanessa said that this is like a scary thing to talk about she doesn't know if she wants to talk about it that much but we're going to go into it a little bit but first you have different sections in your book the first five seconds the first five hours

and the first five days first five minutes, first five hours, first five days minutes, hours, days not seconds but, first five hours, first five days. Minutes, hours, days. Yes, not seconds. But the first five seconds are important too, right? Actually, I debated calling it the first five seconds. It's true. Like that would work. But the reason why I didn't is because a couple

of chapters are on like conversation starters and it's hard to get out of full conversation. In a few seconds. Right, right, right. But there are cues within the first five seconds. Yes. Probably, right? Very much. Maybe sooner than that. I think that it happens the moment you first see someone. Within a second. Within a second. And that has proven as well online.

Like a lot of our first impressions are actually happening digitally. Right? Someone emails you for the first time. They Google you. They see you on LinkedIn. See a photo, whatever. That's it. That's your digital first impression.

Everything matters in what you're putting out. Every angle, every smile or not smile, it can be like misread. I think if you think of it like an algorithm, right? So like, if you think of, okay, my LinkedIn profile is a piece of my information that I'm putting out there as well as like my email signature, as well as my dating profile name. I should just have you like break down everything that I do and just say, no, this is wrong. Yes. Can I give you a really quick tip on dating profiles? Are you on dating profiles right now? I've got a girlfriend.

Okay. So anyone who's on dating profiles, not Louis. Yes. I'm not on anywhere. I've never been on. I was on Tinder for like three days because this was years ago. It was my friend. I'll take his. I i want to say his name he's pretty well known i'll tell you afterwards he was like get on here it's amazing and i just it's an experiment just get on there

right okay so for three days i do it and i'm like it's crazy right it's like madness it's addictive you're swiping all the time and i'm like and then it was just like okay i had a bunch of matches or whatever. And I was like, this is just exhausting. It's so exhausting. And I just deleted it after three days. I was like. You didn't even see anyone?

No, I had a couple of text conversations with people and I never saw anyone. But here's the thing. I mean, I'm so like forward with like saying hi to someone if I like them. Yeah. If I'm single that I'm not like, I need to find someone to like match with me. It's not uncomfortable for me to like see anyone and stop them. Yeah. If I'm single, that I'm not like, I need to find someone to like match with me. It's not uncomfortable for me to like see anyone and stop them.

Right. And say, hey, you know how we- You know that you don't have to optimize in that area. I don't have to. Because you don't need the intro.

I don't need to. But I, you know, I had to learn how to do that because I could never do that. And I think I told you this when I was 16, 17. I didn't have like,

you know, the good looks. I didn't have anything. And I was terrified of girls when I was in high school. And so for a summer, I didn't have the good looks. I didn't have anything. And I was terrified of girls when I was in high school. And so for a summer, I made it a mission. I said every single day, I think I was 15 going into junior year, every single day I was like, whenever I see a girl that gives me butterflies, I have to go towards her and talk to her.

And then it was like I have to go ask her. Every day? Every day I saw a girl for the whole summer. It was an experiment that I gave myself. I was kind of like a mini you yes i was like i need to overcome this fear this is bs like i want to be able to talk to girls and not be afraid and like i always stumbled over my words i just couldn't get anything out yeah yeah terrified yeah so i said every day whenever i see a girl that i'm like have butterflies I'm gonna go run to her not like literally but I was like I'm going to go up to her and just say hello and then it was like ask her for her number then it was just like ask her out it was another challenge and by the end of the summer I

was like fluent in the art of like asking girls the approach the yeah I was just like opener and even if it didn't like work out or they were like no I was just like at least we had like a fun interaction and it was like okay you know and I learned how to gain confidence through taking action and giving myself a challenge. Oh my gosh. So if anyone is listening and it feels great, if they greatest thing that is like, so I, one of the biggest challenges, I think we have to think about our life like a big experiment. Yes.

And the problem is as adults, we did this when we were kids, right? Like you would play with something or you would try something out. You would take a class just because you were curious. Now as adults, we're like, I can't try anything because what if it becomes forever? Or what if it's permanent? What if there's a risk? I think that every interaction is an experiment. And when you think about it that way, you become so much braver, right?

You think, okay, I'm nervous about approaching that VIP or that girl or that guy or whoever that butterflies, those butterflies are a chemical signal for me that there is something here, right? Like there is an experiment that I can have and I should do it. So there's a couple of things when you're approaching, if you're, if this is something that you want to work on, whether it's a VIP or a stranger or a, let's see if another, so there's, um, a girl, right? There's, um, the approach and the open. So the approach is actually very important because that's usually when someone's first impression is made. So when you're approaching someone, you want to signal a couple of things. You want to first signal friend, not foe.

So friend, right? Like, and I heard this last time. hands, eyes. Perfect. First thing people look at is the hands. Yes, go listen to that episode if you didn't hear that. No, it's great. Yeah, the first thing, keep your hands out of your pockets. Hands out of your pockets. And hand first if you want to do a handshake or a hug. Eye contact, great. Then there's the approach, the verbal, which we didn't get to talk about last time.

So what people don't realize is actually the verbal approach matters very little. And that is because in the first few seconds of interaction, there's a lot of chemical reading going on. There's a lot of decoding. The verbal becomes sort of secondary. It doesn't matter. That's why the, hey, how are you, is one of the best openers you can do because it doesn't actually necessarily mean anything.

It doesn't take brain power either. It doesn't take a lot of brain power. The first question, however, is important. So after you- Well, hey, how are you is a question, but after that- But is it really though? Like we never really- It's more of like a, good to meet you.

Right. So my approach is usually just, hey, my name is Vanessa. Yeah. Or hey, nice to meet you. So it's not even a question. Yeah. That first question though is when you want to have some kind of a spark. This is a way that you signal to someone else, this interaction is going to be different. Meaningful, interesting, unique.

Fill in the blank, what your intention is for the social interaction. So you set up someone's response based on the kind of trigger that you ask. So for example, if you say, so what do you do? I'd be bored. I'd be like peace. Yeah. You've signaled autopilot. I don't really want to think deeply about this. And I'm judging you on what you do, which might or might not be true. I would much prefer, and I call these conversation sparkers. These are these very dopamine producing. Dopamine is like a pleasure chemical that gets people excited. And you can actually do this with the words you use.

Have you ever talked about priming on the show? I don't know if I've ever heard you talk about it. Yeah. So priming was one of those things that I had never thought about this way, but the words you use signal things for other people. So for example, if you say exciting, the other person immediately looks for hits, not misses. So if you say to someone, um, what are you most excited about lately? Right. They're immediately in their brain going to search for anything in their life that hits that. If you say, hey, have you been busy recently? They immediately then search for hits for busy.

So that's actually a very powerful thing to know because your words dictate everything, including in emails, right? If you're sending an email to someone saying, hey, we're meeting on Friday, we're really crunched on time. I'm a little worried about getting everything done. So hopefully we can make it all happen. Seems stressful. It's a very, you're actually cuing the person. To feel stress. To feel stress, worry, and crunched for time.

Oh man, that sucks. Right. It's like anxiety, like, oh, I got to do this now. And you are, you are in control of it. Like you're creating it. Whereas if you look at your emails, you're like, what am I priming with this email? Like, what am I asking them to search for in their brain? I'm so excited to meet with you on Friday. I can't wait to talk about all the topics we're going to go through. And I know that we're going to be super efficient. At ease.

Excited. Yeah. And like, boom, boom. Like you're going to try to get through each thing on your list. So that same thing happens with that initial kind of big sparker. So, hey, I'm Vanessa. Good to meet you. Hopefully not.

How are you? Because it's not a real question. And then working on anything exciting recently, going on any big vacations. Hey, do you love this wine? This wine is pretty good, huh? Those are all ways that you're signaling queuing, what kind of interaction you want to have. And that sets yourself up for success. Yeah. Interesting. So those are the few questions you would ask. Those are exciting, exciting vacations. And then what I call context cues. So whatever you're doing in the moment, like, isn't this cool? Or you're like, God, isn't this restaurant?

Great. Wasn't that speaker? Awesome. Hey, how's the wine? Did you get any drinks? Right. So you'll never run out of things to talk about if you're looking for context. Sure.

Sure. Right. Like I could even, I could even be like, wow, three cameras, Lewis. Impressive. Yeah. Okay. Now we're talking about cameras. It's actually four, but you missed it.

Where? Oh, over there. Yeah. It, now we're talking about cameras. It's actually four, but you missed it. Where? Oh, my gosh. It's all good. I am impressed. You just activated my mind to feel like you like me and that you're impressed with me. Yes. Now I feel good and at ease.

Okay, cool. Yeah, so that's how it kind of works. One of the questions I like as well is, what are you most grateful for? And maybe it's not the first one, but I like to keep it one of the first few. And maybe that's wrong. I don't know.

No, I love it. I mean, you're- I'm triggering gratitude. You're triggering gratitude and you're setting an intention of like, I don't want to talk about surface things. Exactly. Right. And by the way, it goes the other way too.

Like if you're with someone who like you're not comfortable with or you're ambivalent about or you don't want to build a deep relationship, you want to avoid those kinds of personal topics because you're not safe yet. And that's also a really important internal trigger. There's, um, did I tell you about the skydiver study when we talked last time? Oh my gosh. This is like one of my favorite new studies. So what they did is the thing happened to be in New York city. I was in New York city and I was walking by myself after a dinner party into the subway. New York city is like, not like I love New York City and I was walking by myself after a dinner party into the subway. New York City is like not like, I love New York, but like at night by yourself, it's like, eh.

So I was like kind of already nervous. And I walk into the subway, walk on the car and like immediately I feel fear. Like, you know, that feeling you get like in the pit of your stomach where you're like, and like I could feel the hairs in the back of my neck stand up. And I was like, what is it? What is it? What is it? And I'm like looking around the car and everything looks fine. And right before the doors close, a guy saying right next to me, grabs the purse of the woman sitting, elderly woman sitting and runs out the doors. No way. Now, thank God people stopped him like within five minutes of like within five seconds

of him getting off of the car, got the purse back. But I was like, how did I know? So I was like, I don't think I'm psychic. So there's what else is going on here. So there was a study that was done where they had first time skydivers before they went up in the air, run on the treadmill. They ran on the treadmill enough to get them real sweaty. And they had the more sweat pads to absorb their sweat. They took those sweat pads out. They put them in a new sweatsuit, and then they had them jump out of a plane. Took those sweat pads. Obviously, you get a little sweaty when you're jumping out of a plane. Then they had participants smell these sweat pads.

I know. It's kind of gross. See which one was fear or which one's excitement or what? They didn't even tell them what they were smelling. They put them in a brain scanner, and they had them smell each one. And these people had no idea what was being tested. They didn't even know they were smelling sweat. Okay. When the people smelled the sweat pad that was used when they jumped, the person's fear part of their brain activated. In other words, when we feel fear or anxiety, we actually produce a fear chemical. This study kind of blew my mind because it means

two things. One is that, three things actually, when we produce, there's a physical response to the emotion that we feel in a chemical or a pheromone. Second, other people pick that up. And third, not only do we pick it up, we actually mirror it. Like we catch it like a contagion. Which means that if you, if on that train, I clearly smelled his adrenaline or his fear and it made me very scared. Even though it only happened two seconds later, I could, I could feel that something was about to happen. So when you show up to an event feeling either really anxious or really nervous.

You're going to create that in other people. Yes. People are going to catch it from you, which is why I do not believe in the phrase fake it till you make it. I don't think that that works. I think that what's much better is figuring out where you naturally rise to the occasion where you already feel strong and confident because I would much rather infect excitement than infect anxiety.

So we have a lot of power in our social interactions. The cues that people catch from us can literally physically not only change our conversation, but change the shape of their entire day. Wow. And so I think that that's where we're talking about here is not just like, oh, make fun conversation and smile more. It's like, no, you can actually change someone's entire being. You can change their physiology. Yeah. But you've got to have the energy to show up in a certain way. Yeah. And it also shows up in the body differently. There was a really interesting set of studies that looked at how we feel emotion. And they found that anger, for example,

you have a lot of activity in the chest and the face and in the hands. They get bright red because usually we feel that heat in our chest. We're usually yelling if we're angry and then we might get into a fist fight. Whereas depression or sadness, we lose activity over our entire body. It's why people who are very sad or depressed want to be in bed, want to be horizontal. They have literally less activity in their limbs. So there's a lot going on that I think we still, it's very exciting. We have a lot left to learn about people. But I think that even what we know so far,

there's a lot we can do with it. Amazing. Tell me about PQ. Yeah. What is PQ? Interpersonal Intelligence. And I love this because once, you're going to tell us what that is in a second,

but you have a test in the first chapter which tells you how your personality, what is it? Your interpersonal, your level, your interpersonal intelligence. Level. Yes.

Got you. How socially like adaptive you are. Yes. Essentially. Yes. So I'm, I love quizzes. I can't help it.

I love quizzes. It's my, my, I love checklists and all those to do boxes and things. So I was very focused on IQ, right? Like growing up, like book smarts, technical skills. I never heard about PQ.

I never heard about social or emotional intelligence. So there's all these IQ tests and things like that. But I found that what a really good way to start is like, where is your smarts, right? Like socially, what are your social strengths? We even have like StrengthsFinder 2.0. I'm working on something right now where I want to do like Social Strengths 2.0. Like what are our social strengths, which are just as important as some of our capabilities? And so the quiz is sort of like, okay, where are you at right now? Right? Like how good are you decoding? So we're talking about social intelligence. There's really two things we're talking about. Decoding, so spotting cues, spotting hidden emotions, decoding lies,

and encoding. Encoding are the signals that you send out to others. So we're kind of testing both sides of that. Got it, got it. And I read that people with a higher EQ or PQ also make more than people. $29,000 more per year, according to this research. Than someone with a high IQ or lower?

Lower EQ. Yeah, lower EQ. So higher EQ, you're going to make more. That's right. 90% of the time. That's right. And that's because we are interacting with people in ways that we don't even quantify or realize. Every time you send an email, that email has to be received, processed.

There's a difference between having someone respond to it right away and having it sit in their inbox for five days. Yeah. Negotiating, interviewing. perceived processed there's a difference between having someone respond to it right away and having it sit in their inbox for five days yeah right um negotiating interviewing around the water cooler people still have water coolers in their office right like i i and my team is all virtual and i still am using that pq every day all day i one exercise that sometimes i think about you can do this if you're listening is in the course of a day, make a note of every single interpersonal reaction that you have. It will shock you how many of those there are and how big of an impact they have, right? Like even if it's just like a casual coffee, all the possibilities that could come out of that interaction. And then so you make one column where you mark out all the

interactions you have. The second column is if that interaction went as good as it could possibly go, what magic could happen for you? So much. So much. So much. But instead, a lot of our interactions are like, meh. Average. So you get average results.

Exactly. And when you, you know, I'm thinking about it. I'm probably like, I have hundreds of these interactions today potentially. Yes, you do. Especially with social media and emails and in person. And if you're at events, like yesterday I was at Oprah's's event super soul sessions and there was

like you know thousands of people but i met a lot of people yeah even for like 10 seconds i met people yeah and i remember there are a number of people even i just met and gave him a hug like they always left a comment like man you give really good hugs yes as opposed to just like oh nice to meet you off like they always said something yeah that was like a positive reinforcement and for me it's like maybe the next time and maybe months when i see them but they'll remember i gave them a good hug absolutely so that was you took something in the interaction even in 10 seconds and you made it above average yes so my i have awkward long hugs i try not to make them awkward but i try to make them like, not like super awkward,

like get off me, but like just a little extra, like an extra second. A little extra second. Like right when they start to pull away, I squeeze. I squeeze a little bit more and they're like,

oh, okay. Yes. I always do that. Yes. Sometimes it goes bad, but most of the time it works. I mean, I have a theory

that you should greet everyone like they're an old friend. That's good. Yes. That's what I do. Hand Yes. That's what I do. Hand hug. That's what I do. Because if you have that mentality, same with an email, you give so much more, like excitement,

whatever. It's like, oh my gosh, you haven't seen this friend in three years. How would you greet them? That is the way that I think is true for most people. Maybe not screaming up to that. Right? Like that's the girl scream, right? Two girls get together and like immediately, I told you like the volume would go up once I got excited.

Yeah. Cause like we, we scream, we go up. What I was going to say also about that, which is really very smart is it doesn't need to be a five minute interaction. It can be 10 seconds. A lot of the time we focus on productivity, you know, we focus on efficiency. We focus on maximizing our business revenue. All those things are great.

But like, if we focus on some of the social aspects of that, it makes it so much easier. Like let's not just optimize our IQ, our business acumen. Let's also optimize our social acumen because you make that list of every interaction you have and all the good things that could happen if it went really well. It's magic in every other area. Yeah. And that's why I love this stuff because I feel like this has really been kind of the, the key to my results in my business and life, because I would probably have,

if I took an IQ test, I probably wouldn't even, you know, I don't know. I don't even know what this rankings are. I don't even know what the lowest is. I'd probably be at the bottom. And so for me,

it's like, I just feel like I stack and stack and stack so much good. Uh, PQ, is that right? Yeah stack and stack and stack so much good PQ. Is that right? Yeah. EQ, PQ. Exactly right. SQ, whatever you're calling it, social.

Yeah. And I feel like people care more about how you make them feel as opposed to how smart you are or whatever. And that quote, that famous quote, I think it's by Maya Angelou. People don't care how much you know until they know what you care is one quote. Yes. And then people remember. They remember what you say, but they remember the way you made them feel. Oh God, quote, quote.

Those are my two favorite quotes. Yes. So I saw that quote, that second quote, what I just explained with the skydivers, that is the scientific reason behind that quote. So in the book, I talk about these quotes we share all the time, like the Dale Carnegie, how to be interested to be interesting. What is the science behind that? Yeah. Not just like, oh, that's a cool philosophy. Because now that Maya Angelou quote, you actually could think to yourself,

what emotion do I want to infect today? Is it gratitude? Is it excitement? Is it fulfillment? And by the way, this doesn't mean that you cannot be vulnerable. This doesn't mean you can, you can't have a bad day. This doesn't mean that you can't go into a meeting and be like, I'm so sorry. Like I am feeling really down. In fact, I have those days. We all do. I regularly do not cancel meetings on those days. I feel that I would rather go in and say, listen, like I am just overwhelmed. Yeah. Like I'm off. I'm overwhelmed. I'm sorry for that because I also want to catch theirs, right? It's not just a one-way street. We don't just infect. I also like to be infected by others. And so I feel like, and not every time this has worked, but a lot of the time it works when I come to someone and I'm like, I am so

stressed about this book launch, right? Like I am, I am terrified. Like recently, fully honest, I am in so much fear. I am so, yes. Why? What are you afraid of? Everything. I'm so, I'm afraid that people aren't going to like it. I'm afraid that people are going to be like, you're not a real expert. You're an awkward person. How could you write a book? I'm, I'm like afraid that it's going to get out there and be misused or misrepresented. I'm afraid that I put all this energy into launching. Launching is such a big thing and it's going to fail. What's failing? For me, it would be no one reading it.

Okay. Well, that's not gonna happen I've already read it so I mean you've you've had to read it you've succeeded I forced myself onto your podcast

you had to read it my production manager read it so there's two people two people listen people are gonna read it because it's powerful and it's what people need if they want to get results

in their life if you want to make more money if you want to have better relationships if you want to not be in pain and suffering then and I wrote it for then you need to read the book. I wrote it for me. I wrote it for them. So I think that going in with these fears is not necessarily a bad thing because then I can say, please infect me with calm. You are so calm and

so confident that that made me feel better. You're like, what do you mean? It's going to be great. I know what this book is. I'm like, right. If Lewis knows it, okay. Lewis knows it. But you also have proof. Your blog does well. Your courses do well. And this is like an enhancement of those. I mean, we could talk about business models if you want.

This was an interesting platform change for me because my platform is B2B and B2C. I've never had a book piece in a platform. Yep. So it was an interesting addition to add in a book piece, which you know, not just online courses. Yeah, it's a new platform play and I'm excited about it, but it's different. I've never done it before.

It's going to bring a lot more opportunities. I hope so. Yeah, it will. I hope so. People always ask, should I write a book? And I've self-published and I've traditionally published and that's like a totally different, they're totally different bags, those two buckets.

Yeah. What was this publisher again? Penguin Random House portfolio. That's great. And they're fantastic. Yeah. You're going to be fine. Like you're called.

Don't worry about it. Wait, can I, can I tell you something though? Sure. Okay. So neuroticism. I'm a high neurotic and I, I, people are always like neurotic. It's such a bad word. But neurotic is a way, it's a way of talking about emotional stability. You are, I think, low neurotic. It's such a bad word. But neurotic is a way of talking about emotional stability.

You are, I think, low neurotic, yes? You're not very neurotic. You're very emotionally stable. I can have triggered moments that make me frustrated. Yes. Yeah, but I think I'm pretty emotionally stable. Okay. But I like things the way I like them.

And so when it's not the way I like it, I get frustrated. So that's about the ritual, the habit, the setting things up. So as a low neurotic, you told me it will be fine. Now for my high neurotics listening, you might know who you are. When people tell you it will be fine, it actually makes you more nervous. Really? Yes. You know what? It's not going to be fine. You need to work harder. You're screwed. You're going to fail. Is that what I should say? I know this sounds crazy, but so neuroticism is one of the five personality traits

and it's genetic. And what I mean by that is, so how we look at neuroticism is by the serotonin transport gene. I promise this won't get too scientific, but this made me feel a lot of relief when I read this. So serotonin is a very, very lovely little chemical that makes us feel calm. It calms us down. Yes. If we almost get hurt and we're like, oh, then serotonin is what floods our body to say you're okay. Everything will be fine. Serotonin, its mantra is everything will be fine.

High neurotics carry a special form of the serotonin transport gene, which means they do not produce as much serotonin and it goes more slowly. That's why they're more neurotic. Exactly. Because when I have something bad that happens to me, it takes me longer to calm down than you. Depends on the thing. Totally depends on the thing totally depends on the thing on the trigger exactly i feel like i've been attacked or something or like something has been questioned about me or something or someone did something to me wrong i

feel like wronged then sometimes it could be weeks that i hold on to it oh interesting it depends on the thing but other things i'm like whatever like if someone's like flipping me off in the streets or something or in the driving, I'm like, all right, on to the next. So that, that my friend is a resource language thing. So that means that you have a resource language of status, which means that if someone has challenged you, that there's a respect issue, there was a wronging, there was a disloyalty there, your value was taken from you in terms of resources. So there's six, there was a wronging, there was a disloyalty there, your value was taken

from you in terms of resources. So there's six resources, status, information, money, goods, services, and love. We all need all of these resources, but we typically want the resource we did not get in our childhood. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. I mean, I was sexually abused. So for me, when I feel like anyone's taking advantage of me-

It triggers. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Absolutely right. So I understand it. Yes. And it threatens you. So when, when you talk about neuroticism, someone who cannot self calm as much, they are more anxious because they know it will affect them for longer. Right. Become more anxious. Yeah. Right. So that is, so I hire people who will worry for me, like literally I don't have like official warriors on my team, but my lovely team. Like I will say, Danielle, can you just worry about this for me? That's smart.

Can you just, because I know that if she's worrying about it, I don't have to. So you'll notice that in relationships, partnerships with colleagues, you have to be able to ask for your resource theory. You have to be able to ask for things that will keep you calm. Can you take care of this for me? Can you handle this for me? Exactly. And what your trigger points are.

So for a high neurotic, it might be emotional stability, right? Like worry or anxiety. And having someone else share that worry with you makes you feel better. So in a typical male-female relationship, typical, and this is not everyone. Generalized, yeah. Generalized. The woman is the worrier. The man is not the worrier.

Not always, but sometimes. So for example, in my relationship, my husband is the is the rock right so i'm really worried about something and he'll be like it'll all be fine that makes you even more worried yes because i want to know that i'm not the only one worrying so what if he says you know what don't worry about it i'll handle it okay now we're getting better okay yeah then you can say all right he's gonna take care of it i like that especially if he's actually you can let go of it. And you can let go of it? Yeah. Get on the way to happen. Quicker. Right.

Here would be the ultimate. I got this. Here, I'll show you. Go do something else. Oh, see, that would be magic. Right? If he was like, yeah. Does he not do that?

Now he does do that. Because he knows. Because you've communicated what you need. Right. So he'll say, like, I'll be worried about, I don't know, like planning something for an in-law trip or something like that. Right? And he'll be like, babe, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to book the flights. I'm going to

let my mom know about our timing. We're going to make sure that we have early reservations and we're going to make sure that all these things are taken care of. You're going to pack a week in advance. Yes. I'm the packer actually. I pack as he does the travel. Sure, sure. Right. So like that, like I think that when we talk about how we're wired, it helps us not want to talk about how we're wired, it helps us not want to change the person we're with.

So the biggest mistake, especially when we're talking about personality or resource language, is we hope that we can make someone better. The problem is that we are wired a certain way. 35 to 55% of our personality is genetic. The rest is shaped in early childhood. So yes, while we do have some ability to change our personality, that's called free trait theory. You can optimize parts of your

personality to achieve your goals. Yeah. And you can be aware of it and so you can move out of it. 100%. It is much better to figure out how can I work with my partner, colleague, friends, resource language need or personality in a better way. So for example, one of the personality traits is openness. So openness is like adventure, adventure, adventureness, creativity, new ideas. People who are high open always wanna try new restaurants. They wanna go to new places.

They're always trying new ways of doing things in their business. They're the boss that's like, let's try this. Let's try that. Let's do this. Low open people love habit and tradition and routine. They love having things set up the same way every time they like to honor that that routine it makes them feel whole and one so if you have people in a relationship where someone's high open opposites you're like constantly stressed

you don't have to be you're constantly stressed it would be better to be like for the high open person to be like hey i it's really important to me to be adventurous with food. Trying new restaurants is a thing. Is that okay with you? I'm totally okay with having the morning routine be the same, having our grocery shopping be the same. But on this area, that makes me feel alive. Two nights a week, we're going somewhere different. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Or do I need to have a friend who's my adventurous eater? Right. Yeah. That's like, I think, something that we don't always negotiate in that way.

And as soon as you have the language, it makes it a non-hot button issue. Right. So instead of, I want to try a new place, you always want to try a new place. That's a hot button issue. Right? Versus, hey, like Thursdays are night out night. Are you open to trying somewhere new or should I call my friend George? Right, like that's a very different kind of conversation.

And my goal is not to get rid of your fights. It's to make them discussions. Yeah, not fights. Right. Yeah, yeah. So you said you wanted to talk about something in the beginning about personalities. I did.

Now what is this specifically? Yes, so you're like, I don't know about this topic. Let's hear it. So when we talk about signs of personality, there's a lot of things out there. DISC and Enneagram and Myers-Briggs and all these things. The only one that is scientifically based is the big five. And it's five personality traits. Is it the five love languages?

We talk about the five love languages, actually. That's a good one, too. So there's like special five. Five love languages and the five big five. I know that's not scientific the five love languages actually. That's a good one too. So there's like special five. Five love languages and the five big five. I know that's not

scientific the love languages. Although it seems very practical. There is some science behind it. Yeah there is. And the big five

has a lot. And so everyone has these big five personality traits and they're either high or low in them. There's one or

the other. High low. There's no middle. There is middle. It is a spectrum. This is the biggest difference between like Myers-Briggs that like labels you like an extrovert or introvert. Like a lot of people like really struggle with that label.

Well, I'm kind of both or I'm in the middle. Exactly. So it's all, every trait is a spectrum. And like we have like a nice spectrum and you kind of place yourself on it. A lot of these personality traits are not our choice. So that is why I brought up the serotonin thing for neuroticism. The greatest understanding that we can have about ourselves is to know that our reactions, our emotional reactions are part of how we are wired.

So a lot of the times like you feel guilty or jealous or all these dirty emotions, right? The negative emotions that we don't like to feel. And then we judge ourselves for them. Yes. Like, oh, I'm so not gracious right now. I'm so not feeling my gratitude, right? But actually your optimism or your negativity is wired within you. So you're better off trying to figure out

what are my triggers? How am I naturally wired? And how can I optimize that? So we talked about openness, right? Figuring out how you can balance routine versus something new. Talked a little bit about neuroticism. The other one that I wanted to bring up was conscientiousness. So conscientiousness in a relationship, studies have found that this is the biggest one that if you have a difference in your partner's conscientiousness, you have the most relationship problems.

Say it again. So if you are different than your partner's conscientiousness, scientifically speaking, you're more likely to have more relationship problems. Okay.

So what are those differences? Yeah. Conscientiousness is how you approach detail. So hi, conscientious people. This would be me.

We love to do this. Details, everything. Details, alphabetizing, steps, routine. We love lots of things. And if your partner could care less about it and is like, oh, routine. Like we love like lots of things. And if your partner is like,

could care less about it, and is like, oh, loosey-goosey, like, hey, you know, we'll get to it someday. Low conscientiousness is exactly what you just said. Big ideas. Yeah. Strategy. Doesn't want to get bogged down in the details.

This is you, right? It's not me. I like the detail, but I just see where you're coming from. It's funny, yeah. Right. And so what happens is, is you have right? It's not me. I like the detail, but I just see where you're coming from. It's funny, yeah. Right. And so what happens is, is you have people who are like,

hey, let's plan a vacation. I have a color-coded spreadsheet with all the different possible locations and approximate weather in those locations. And then you have the low-conjunctious person who's like, let's just fly to a place and figure it out when we get there.

Yeah. I like that too. So I think you're in the middle. I think I'm in the middle. Here's the thing. Cause I love big ideas and I love strategizing about them, but I know as an athlete, you've got to execute on a daily basis if you want to make them happen. Ooh, that's a different thing. What you just said there. Okay. So listen, so here's what I do now. Then tell me what you're going to say. So I come up with the ideas and then I hire the people who are very detailed and say,

run with it so I can come up with more big ideas and then bring them back to you and say, now we're going to do this. Now run with that. So I hire people with those strengths to work with me on that. The way that, I don't know if you guys heard what Louis just said, which is that is so free trait theory. So what you said is I basically, I optimize, I know that details are important as an athlete. I know the details are important in my business.

So either I work those details out in a workout routine or I hire those people. So that is a great example of how you can take what you naturally are and then free trade there, optimize it so that you leverage it up. So I would say that you're probably medium low, but you know how to turn it up in the areas that it's needed, which is probably one of the reasons why you're so successful. It depends too. As an athlete, I couldn't hire anyone to do the work for me. It was like I had to train all day.

I had to do the research. I was constantly studying game film. I was practicing. I was doing everything myself. You can't export it. Yeah, you got to do it yourself as an athlete. so I understood it, but now that I have more resources and you know, different part of my life, I can optimize the thing that I like doing the most. And I, I think that that is the key to happiness, right? Like we, I did a whole, um, two year study

on happiness and we can get into, if you'd like to write a book about it. I didn't yet. I have an online course on it, but I didn't write a book on it yet. Um, and I wrote it from the place of like, I'm also not a naturally like a happy person. Like I am a worrier. And so like,

I really have to work at it. Yeah. And, um, what I learned was, is that it's actually not the big things that make you happy. It's the little things, including the cup of coffee you're going to get later as a treat. Yeah. Like the smell of the coffee, was is that it's actually not the big things that make you happy. It's the little things, including

the cup of coffee you're going to get later as a treat. Yeah. Like the smell of the coffee, like the amazing juice at creation, whatever, right? Like, oh, the smoothness. By the way, everyone, I went to, I went to creation with Lewis and you downed your juice faster than I could drink. It was impressive. I was like, where did it go? It was magic. So yeah, so savoring those things. And also those moments where you have optimized your natural personality instead of changing it. That is where happiness comes from. When you can say, I'm a big idea person. I love creativity. I love strategizing. I love big ideas and big pictures. Getting to bog down the details is necessary, but I don't like it.

So therefore, I'm going to find a way to either outsource it or minimize it so I can focus on those things. That feeling of capability, that feeling of control is incredibly happiness making. Control is a very happy making emotion. It's, you know, we think about happiness as like pleasure and joy and, um, ecstasy, but actually, you know, the words for happiness are control capability. Like feeling like you're in control, right? Not like controlling people or something, but feeling like you're in control of your results or your life.

And one example of this that I like thinking about is there's this thing called the Tetris effect. I don't know if you've ever heard of this. So these researchers had students. Tetris effect. They said the Tetris. It sounds like Tetris effect. No, Tetris.

Tetris effect. Tetris effect. But I like that one too. That's very happy making. The Tetris effect is good too. That's good too. Yes. We can hand hug later.

Hand hug. Yeah. Yeah. So this is not as fun as the Tetris effect. Yes. So what researchers did, this was not a study on happiness, but they brought research, they brought students in, they had them play Tetris for like four hours. Sounds fun. I haven't played Tetris in probably 20 years, but I used to love playing games all the time. It is addictive. Yeah. So they were testing something about the brain

and an unexpected result of this study is that students left the lab and were literally seeing their entire life like a Tetris board. They wanted to rearrange their furniture like Tetris. They wanted to like stand in line like Tetris. They wanted to reorganize their shelving like Tetris. And they realized that in a weird way, they had primed the brain to think in a Tetris-like pattern. So what happens is, is typically humans have a negativity bias. We are trained to see the negative things in the world, the bad things. This is a survival mechanism, right? As cavemen, we had to go, hmm, it might rain. I better get ahead. I should really forage for the winter. We are trained to see all the problems and potential things that could go wrong so we could prepare ourselves.

So our bias, our training is negative, negative, negative. We open our email and go, what's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? Right? We walk into a room and we're like, who don't I know? Why don't I belong? I'm not saying everyone has this, but there's certain extremes.

I think that we can retrain our brain, just like the Tetris effect, to see in happiness patterns. So instead of walking into a room and being like, oh, I don't belong, I don't know anyone, thinking about why do I belong, who can I know? That's a very different kind of framework to see the world. And so I think that that's about control. That's bringing control into a negative mindset and flipping it so that it's not necessarily positive.

You just know where your frame is coming from. Yeah. Okay. Control. What was the other thing? Control, capability, and optimization. That's the key to happiness. Those three things, I think, are the key to happiness.

Yes. Wow. Okay. Cool. And I think that they're underappreciated. I got it. Especially with capability. Okay.

So where else? Did I get us off track? I think I got us off trackreciated. I got it. Especially with capability. Okay. So where else? Did I get us off track? I think I got us off track. I got down the happiness. You were going to say, so we're talking about personality something, right? Yes. So the last thing I was going to say

with conscientiousness is thinking about if your partner is a big idea person or a detail person. Same with your colleagues. Oh yeah, you said the most conflict of... This is the most conflicts where you have, why didn't you clean up? I did clean up.

This isn't clean. Not the way I want it. Exactly. So do you guys, you and your partner, your husband, are you guys complete opposites in that space then? He is much lower conscientious than I am. So how does that work? So we figured it out.

So for example, we figured out what needs to be changed and what doesn't. So like, for example, I like an organized sock drawer. My husband doesn't care if he's wearing whatever on his feet, right? So we have, after many months of being like, did you get your socks? Did you fold your socks?

Your socks are everywhere. I was like, you know what? Like that is his drawer. We do not share a drawer any longer. He has his side of the closet. He does what he wants. I have my side of the closet. So instead of trying to change him

and teach him how to have a better sock drawer, I was like, no, that's a waste of both of our, it's not, it's not real to who we are. I'd rather have us optimize and say, that's his, this is mine. That's a really small example, a very like concrete example, but there's bigger ones as well. For example, if you are talking about a friendship or how you want to raise children, someone who is high conscientious is going to want to break down all the details and plan for every eventuality. Or someone who's a big picture person is going

to be like, let's meet the kid and let's see what we think. And those can be major value differences. So instead of getting angry at them or trying to convince them to be more like you, big idea or detailed, the better conversation is why don't you want to pre-plan or why do you think that going by the seat of your pants is better? Like where, where's the value there? How can we pick this based on actual strengths and not how we're wired? So I think that's a very different kind of conversation to have. So those three things, the ones I would focus on is how organized someone is, how big of an open adventurous adventurous someone is, and how much of a warrior someone is. And it's okay if they're opposite on both those.

Totally okay. All those things with you, but you just have to figure out how to- Optimize them. And by the way, if you're single, I think that one of the things to think about is like, what is your ideal personality match? I know this is a crazy way to think about dating. Most people are like, they don't think about this. But I think that if you're dating. That's where a lot of stress comes from.

A lot. A lot of pain and suffering in a relationship comes from this. Yes. And I think that a really fun, maybe this is me, this is my idea of fun. I think a really fun conversation you can have in the beginning of a relationship, the first few dates is like, so I read this book or I listened to this podcast on personality. Are you a big idea person or a detail person? Are you a morning person or you're a night person, right? Like those kind of conversations early are so much better than when they normally come out, which is on

the first fight. As opposed to just having like this chemical attraction and being like, Oh, we love each other. And it's like, you know, we'll figure it out constantly. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And remember that people will free trade that they'll optimize during the lust phase. So you don't actually know how much they are. This happened to me recently. I hired a developer and in his interview process, he came across as very high conscientious. He sent phases, sent the proposal.

I was like, great, this is wonderful because I work well with other high conscientious people. But he optimized for me during the interview process because I did not, of course. Put his best foot forward. Of course. So I didn't ask the right questions, which should have been. So over the course of this eight month project, how do you like to work?

Are you a weekly check-in kind of a person? Are you a- Yeah, I kind of like to check in once in a while. And then I would have immediately found out. Like, oh, it's not a good fit. Yeah. And then I would have been like, shoot, he's a kind of do it as you do it kind of guy. Yeah, yeah.

But I didn't know to ask those questions. So I think in the beginning of all relationships, the best thing we can do is don't let the lust overcome us, right? It's tough. It's so tough. And personal relationships and business relationships, all that, yeah.

And I've seen in dating profiles, people will put their MBTI in dating profiles sometimes. MBTI? The Myers-Briggs, like ENFJ or INFJ. In dating profiles? I've seen it. I have seen it in dating profiles. People are obsessed with that stuff. I forget what I always, someone always tells me what I am? I've seen it. I have seen it in dating profiles. People are obsessed with that stuff.

I forget what I always, someone always tells me what I am, but I forget it. I can't remember. ENFJ? I think so, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, maybe.

But that, Myers-Briggs, remember, is not scientifically based. Because also, we do change over time slightly, and it's hard if you have one label. Like if you're just E, it gives you very little wiggle room. Yeah, yeah. I don't like that. There's another personality test with four label, like if you're just E, it gives you very little wiggle room. Yeah, yeah. I don't like that.

There's another personality test with four quadrants. Have you seen this? Is that what it is? Where it's promoter, supporter, analyzer, controller. Yes. Have you seen that? I think that that's disc, but I've seen that one, yes. Promoter, supporter, analyzer, controller.

And you kind of like, you rank, you go through a quiz of figuring out which quadrant you're the highest at. Yeah. So you'd be, you rank you go through a quiz figuring out which quadrant you're the highest at yeah so you'd be you know i'm a promoter controller yeah first of promoter i'm like a big idea i'm passionate i'm like excited let's go let's do this i like to be in control i like to you know have all those things uh and then it's support analyze it's kind of like the top four but really i'm like very close to almost all of them. Like all of them are pretty high. So I'm almost like very spread out. And like the true leaders I hear is what they say is like you want to be able to tap into each quadrant to connect to an analyzer. If they're an analyzer, you want to be able to be analytical with them.

If they're a promoter, you want to be promoting with them. If they're a supporter, you want to be in support with them. So you're always meeting someone where they're at. Yes. Not trying to have them meet you where you're at. So it's like a flexible leadership style.

Flexible leadership. That is the same thing with emotional intelligence. This is emotional intelligence. Yeah. That's what it is. And it's the exact same thing with that.

And also like expressiveness. For example, like from a nonverbal perspective, if someone shows up and they're like super bubbly and super excited and the other person's

like kind of calm, it's a mismatch. You got to meet them where they're at. Yeah. You got to meet them where they're at. Youly and super excited and the other person's like kind of calm, it's a mismatch. You got to meet them where they're at. Yeah. You got to meet them where they're at. You got to get a little bit ahead and, you know, try to get them to that space. But I think that matching and mirroring is an interesting way to think about interactions, especially like phone calls. We're doing a bunch of research right now on vocal power and which you think about vocal power probably all the time because a lot of people are listening. So what we found was, well, there's an interesting anchor study here where they looked at doctors and they found that doctors who record 10 second voice tone clips. So, hello, my name is Dr. Edwards. I work at Children's Presbyterian Hospital and I specialize in

oncology, something like that. They took those clips and they warbled the words. So you couldn't understand the words that were being said. So it was, they asked people to rate those clips on intelligence, warmth, competence. And imagine this for a second, like you hear a clip of like gobbledygook, like, how could you rate it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. How could you, but people do. They found that the doctors who got rated the lowest in intelligence and warmth also had the highest rate of malpractice lawsuits. Wow. Yeah. Just based on confidence and voice.

Somehow. We don't sue people. We don't sue doctors based on their actual skills. We sue doctors based on our perception of their skills. So in your voice. How they show up, how they sound, it does not have to do with the verbal. Remember how at the very beginning I was like, whatever you say in those first few seconds is actually not as important as what you're showing up as.

We even catch that on the phone. So your vocal power, you know, how you say hello. And like, what's interesting is the biggest mistake people make. Hello. Hello. Oh my God. And like what's interesting is the biggest mistake people make. Oh my God. Hello. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So tone, cadence and pitch.

Also another one is like people will hold their breath while they answer. So they go, hello. That's the highest end of my vocal range. I'm working very hard right now to keep my vocal range in the lowest possible range. But it's more calm and relaxing. It's much more calm. It has a better resonance. Yeah.

Right. A better resonance point. So if you hear yourself and you hear yourself going a little bit higher in your range, it's not good. The best thing you can do is actually speak on the out breath. So if you hear the difference, so I'm going to make myself go tense. So if I get really excited and I tense my vocal cord, I sound a little bit nervous, a little bit more like a child. Now, if I speak on the out

breath, it forces the words out, it relaxes my vocal cords, and it makes me sound more resonant. So the best thing you can do is actually answer on the out breath. So not hello versus hello. A very, very different. All these careers I could do. It's funny. I heard my brother told me that he read some science project or something where research on when he's on the phone he smiles when he's like saying goodbye yes like smiling in the last like 30 seconds and he says people can feel that on the other side yes okay so that is absolutely right um there are 16 different kinds of smiles that can be detected from voice tone alone wow yeah 16 16 different kinds of smiles what's interesting is we're on

our vocal study that we're doing right now we haven't published this research yet but it's super interesting we found in preliminary results we had the same people record hello with different body language expressions. Like, hello. Exactly. Like, slunched over. Well, you can do it right now, actually. Let's try it. See if you can guess what we're doing.

So, like, let's do, like, this one. Like, really. Hello. Hello. Right. Versus. Hello. Hello.

Right. So, like, that's low power versus high power. Right. It's, like, it's supposed to change our voice. Now, we make them do it for a little bit longer because it's very quick. And we also have them do microexpressions. So happiness microexpression, anger microexpression, which is when you pull your eyebrows together, harden your lips, versus sadness microexpressions.

That's when you pinch your inner corners together. Yep. And we had them record hellos. And then we had people in our lab or participants, and you can go play if you want, listen to these clips and rate them on warmth, competence, and charisma. The same person will get totally different ratings based on how they are holding their face and their body. So how you hold yourself on the phone matters.

This is the same thing we were talking about earlier, which is like, what do you want to infect? Right? If you answer the phone sad and anxious and distracted, not only do people perceive you as sad, anxious, distracted, they catch those emotions too. So what's the best thing people should do before they answer the phone? Out breath. So not holding your breath in. So like if you can take one or two deep breaths before you answer, it will relax your vocal cord, right? So you're like picking it up. Who is it?

Yeah, a couple deep breaths and then hello. So that's the first thing you can do. It relaxes your vocal cords. Should you say hello? Or if it's a friend, you're like, hey, what's up? Either one. Good looking. Either one.

I like that even better. That's a compliment. I like a compliment. Yeah, so like, hey, this is Louis. Hello. Hey, buddy, what's up? Right, so one or two deep breaths. So it doesn't matter what you say.

Exactly. It's the energy and what you say exactly it's the energy and how you're saying it yeah just like when you're meeting in person exactly so breath yes breath oh i didn't get an explosion yes breath i'm not cool like that you are cool i cannot do a fist bump like that can we just like wave at each other that's like way more comfortable for me okay hey guys hey guys um yeah so out breath is actually the most important one. If you can do it. The second one would be to try to actually just be as expressive as they are. So if you hear this,

so you're, you say hello, right? And they're like, Hey, what's up? Oh, Hey,

what's up? Yeah. Hey, what's up? Right? Like that match is like an instant. I'm with you. I'm on the same page.

Sure. Especially for business. Yeah. Especially for business. Okay. yeah. Especially for business. Okay. I want to get to the final part of talking about lying. Yes. And how you can tell if someone's lying.

Yes. Oh, good. So I... You don't have much of this in the book, right? I don't. I don't have very much of this in the book. Why don't you have this in the book? The reason is because I think this is one of those evil superpowers.

Yeah. It's like ma-ha- Yeah. It's like, it's like, it's like that because it is very powerful. The science behind lie detection is, is very concrete. It's not a guessing game. We do know a lot about what people, what happens to people when they lie. The problem is, is amateur lie detectors do worse than people who don't know anything about lying. Ah, got it. So my, my So always my worry is like, oh my gosh, if I give someone a little bit of information, I actually make them worse. So for example, in the biggest study on lie detection that was done, we can spot lies with 54% accuracy. So flip a coin?

Exactly. It's terrible. Like we're terrible. And by the way, like police officers don't, oh, so can you guess there's one group that did better on this? It's not police officers. It's not doctors. It's not teachers. Kids.

No. I wish it was kids. They actually didn't test kids because that's a whole different IRB process. Who was more efficient in seeing if there's a lie? It was. Is that what you're saying? The group? Prison inmates.

Wow. That makes sense. Right. As soon as I read that, I was like, oh yeah. And they, they joke like the

title that section is like it takes one to know one. Oh yeah, of course. Right. And so that was like very interesting to me. A BSer.

Exactly. So. Can't steal from a thief. All those things. Yes, exactly. The same thing happens with lying. So the problem is,

is that the moment you give an amateur, like a liar, like someone amateur tips, their ability goes below 55%. It gets even worse. They don't know. Yeah. Because it's like you need the whole system.

But I think there's a couple of things that if you are interested in this thing or in this idea or this topic, there's a couple of things that you want to start with. And there are things that can immediately help you spot lies in your life. Are you ready? Let's do it. Okay. The first thing that you want to look for are incongruencies. So in interactions, it's very easy to control our words, right? Anyone can say anything. What you're looking for is incongruencies with the body or voice tone. So for example, if I were to show up and be like, I'm so happy to be here today, right? Like you can hear it.

Our body language has 12.5 times more weight than our words. So with liars, what you're looking for is leaks. Leaks are incongruencies. A very common one is in Western cultures, an up and down nod, a vertical nod means yes, and a horizontal one means no. So an incongruency would be- Like yes. Right, exactly. Or like, um, and for people who are listening, I'm shaking my head opposite. So it would be, um, so did you, uh, take the cookies from the cookie jar? Um, no. Right. Right. So that, that's like a leak. That's something that we often see where we're seeing some kind of incongruency. The other big kind of incongruency is, um, micro expressions. And this is something that I do talk about in the book. It's sort of the first step to lie detection,

is learning how to read faces. And the most important facial expression to recognize, this is the most powerful one, is the expression of contempt. So contempt is a one-sided mouth raise. Smirk. Dr. John Gottman, he analyzed thousands of couples in his love lab looking for patterns in marriages. He found that couples who showed contempt towards the other with 93% accuracy would get divorced within 30 years. I mean, you don't hear stats like that very often. So contempt is a really interesting one. You see it a lot on liars because if someone is truly happy about something or very excited to see you or happy to be there, there's no reason they're going to show contempt or the

smirk. It often will come out either because they're actually not happy with what they're saying or they hate having to lie. Liars hate lying. So oftentimes, and we did a big lie detection experiment. We had people play two truths and a lie with us. And we analyzed their videos. Oh, yes.

It was, want to play, Lewis? No, I'm just kidding. So we actually analyzed their cues. Liars hate to lie. We don't like the feeling in our body when we lie. It feels really inauthentic. So sometimes you'll see a liar who will make contempt because they're like, oh, I really don't want to have to do this.

And they hold their mouth in that side contempt expression because they really don't like it. So the two things that I want you to look out for, and if you're starting to see it, that means you actually have an eye for it, is contempt when there shouldn't be contempt and any kind of incongruencies like that negative head nod or when someone says something that doesn't actually mean it. You start with those two steps and you're already going to increase your abilities. Your lie detection capabilities. Yes.

I like it. I like it. But you use your gut. You use your intuition for lie detection. Intuition. You feel it, you know. You're reading everything, just kind of like you're reading the guy,

like sweating and you're smelling it and you're like, everything combined. Exactly. So actually, that is more important. That's the most important thing. Eye contact as well. You know, if someone's like not looking at you and they're, you know. So liars, if you're lying face to face, not on video.

So liars typically look you in the eye more because they want to see if you believe them. Oh, see if you believe them? No way. Yes. Why don't you want to like try to do that so you could try to just act like you're telling the truth? Either one. Really good liars actually make more eye contact.

For example, a really good liar is like, I'm going to deliver this to you. And they're trying to see, do they believe me? Are they making any weird facial expressions? Can I convince them? So actually, looking away, shifty eyes is just a sign of nervousness. A truth teller can be nervous too. So there's all these weird myths.

Also, you want to guess the mode of communication that has the highest amount of lies. So your choices are face-to-face, emails, IM, or chat, like text. Which do you think has the most amount of lies? Text. Is that the least amount? Nope. It is phone has the most amount of lies. And the reason for this is because- Oh, I think I know why. Tell me. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. I bet you have it, right? Well, because one, well, I don't know. I was

going to say anything that's not recorded. Yes, that's it. That's the answer. But text is like you've got proof or something. You can go back to it. That's exactly right though. That's why. So phone has the most because there's no paper trail. Yes. And you don't have to lie to someone's face. Right? It's true. It's real easy to turn your back and be like, I'm going to.

Yeah. So whereas email, text, and face-to-face, email, text has a paper trail and face-to-face doesn't. So there's all these really interesting things about lying that we have misconceptions or we don't think about them. So by the way, if you're doing a lot of business on the phone, if you're doing a lot of coaching on the phone, you really have to be careful. I have a lot of students who are life coaches.

They work with a lot of students and they do a lot of phone consulting. The problem with that is if it has the most amount of lies or we're talking about hidden emotions, if you're working as a coach, like you really have to spot those hidden emotions. You have to think about what are ways that we can either bring the video to this, like do video chat or do in person, or at least say, hey, I'm taking notes on this call. I'm going to send you a summary after we hang up. That actually brings the amount of lies down to email level because you're telling them, I'm going to commit this to black and white. I'm going to commit this to paper. Yes. They feel like it's trustworthy.

Exactly. So whenever I do negotiations, I do a lot of phone negotiations when I'm going to commit this to black and white. I'm going to commit this to paper. Yes. They feel like it's trustworthy. Exactly. So whenever I do negotiations, I do a lot of phone negotiations when I'm doing corporate events, I always say, my assistant's on the line. So third person, right, to hear. Who's taking notes. Exactly. My assistant's on the line. She's going to be taking some notes for us.

And don't worry. She'll send a full summary out afterwards. Please confirm that we got all the details right when you get it. Amazing. I have caught so many little lies. People don't mean, I don't think. Just take the notes. Yeah, because my assistant will take notes,

very good notes, and then we always send it back and we say, please review these notes and please send us a receipt that they all look good to you that we got everything right. And what do people say? Well, the lies that we've caught

is they've overestimated amount of people, overestimated a budget. They're not the actual decision maker. And so when we reply back with that email, they have to say, you know, I'm so sorry. I mentioned 5,000, but I actually think it's going to be a little bit closer to 3,000. Right. Because they know that we'll have it in writing if anything is changed. So protect yourself in the business world by adding that in there. I think

that's a really important strategy for just getting more honest interactions. What about negotiations? Yes. So for negotiations, the biggest thing here is actually vocal power. So going back to vocal, yes, because we sue doctors based on our perception of their skills, the same thing happens in negotiations. We value people on our perception of their skills. The same thing happens in negotiations. We value people on our perceptions of their skills. So I know- Perception of their skills. Our perception of their skills. And that comes through vocality.

Yes, because when you go to a negotiation, you're not thinking about vocal. You're thinking about what are my assets? What are my value points? What are the things I'm gonna do? Those are all important. But the very first impression, especially how you ask your number,

is the most important thing. So for example, if you are quoting a price, and this is the hardest part of negotiation, someone says, how much do you charge? What do you cost? And you say, question inflection, I charge $10,000. Yeah, it's not good. You are begging them to negotiate with you. You're basically telling them, I'm not sure of this number, and you shouldn't be either.

So first is making sure that you are saying, not asking. So make sure that you're going the downward inflection. So the question inflection is when you go up at the end of your sentences, that's very, very- Saying, not asking. Yes. Versus going down at the end of your sentences. So when you have a number, you have a skill that you're going to share, think about the verbal ahead of time. But with vocal, you want to deliver that in authoritative voice tone. So for example, like President Obama was very good at this. So how would you say $10,000? Ah, so here's the bad way first. I always like to do negative practice first. So bad way is,

it'll be, I'd love to work with you. I think we'd be a great partnership and it will be $5,000. That's the bad way. The good way is, I'd love to work with you. I think we'd be a great partner and the cost will be $5,000. Right? So it's just adding it at the end. It's, it's, it's a finality, right? It's like saying like, this is my cost and I know how much I'm worth. Now, if you don't know how much you're worth, we can have a different discussion about that. Right? Like I want you to own your worth. You are, your, your time is valuable. Your skills are valuable. You spent years learning to do what you do. So you have to be able to price that well. Your worth is only worth what someone's willing to pay as well.

A hundred percent. So if you can't convince or enroll someone or, you know, and then back it up with results, then, you know, you may get it, but you may not keep it. So you've got to like do a lumber. And they don't have a perception of your value that way. So the first thing is the downward inflection. The second thing is volume. So when we're really nervous, we will lose volume. Remember how we're excited. I go up. Yeah. So sales people, I do a lot of sales trainings. They'll do this thing

where on the point that they're most nervous about, like their weak point or something they're lying about or a bad number. Ah, yeah. We'd love to work with you. I think it'll be really great. And, um, cost will be $5,000. Right, right. Yeah. Again, that's a social signal of, ah, this person doesn't really want to charge that. I'm going to ask for less.

I think it's when you're like calm and comfortable when you speak about it. That's going to come across well, right? And practicing saying your hardest points. So go through that practice sheet, you know, the notes

you take before a meeting and practice saying to another human being, not your mirror. Here's my rate. Yeah. Here is my rate. Or, um, there's other things you can be nervous about tuna negotiation, right? Like a timeline or a skill level, or maybe, uh, other competitors you think might be able to beat you. Make sure that you are practicing those comments with authoritative voice tone and solid volume. So people feel comfortable and confident in your work. And they catch it.

And you infect that feeling. I love like, for me, it's so easy. I get a lot of inbound email requests for speaking. And I never want to jump on the phone with anyone because I'm just like, it's exhausting. I have the same problem. You know, like having these conversations. So people will say, we'd love to book you. And I literally reply with like one sentence. I i'm thirty five thousand dollars just let me know the

dates yeah and i'll see if i'm free yeah that's about all i say yes sometimes i'll ask like tell me more about like what it is but you know it's usually just like here it is if i'm free let me i'll let you know but tell me the dates and typically someone who is emailing you should already know that you're gonna to have a high value. And that's also part of your brand, right? Like you're very direct. If people want to know about you, you have a podcast they can listen to. Yeah, exactly.

You have a book that they can read. And so it's also about how do you position your numbers? So yes, you can give a lot of information, right? And there's different kinds of proof. There's three different kinds of proof. There's social proof. So that would be, you know, we've had 15 events in the last six months or whatever. There's qualitative testimonial proof. So this is like a CR person or a salesperson says,

Lewis was the best speaker I ever had. And there's credibility proof. So media mentions, published book, bestselling author. So you have to think about, now, Lewis, you have those. You have all three of them because you have a book that's on your website. You have social proof. You have podcasts. So you don't need to necessarily go and prove that.

However, if you don't have a website or if you don't have those obvious buckets filled, you need to make sure that you are hitting all three of those proof buckets in your response. So if you don't have a book or a podcast or anything like that, your email back should be, so great to hear from you. First, mention of social proof. I've done events for groups like yours in the past. They've done really well. I think we did three different groups last year. Social proof number one. Second, attach this email. I have a deck with an overview of topics as well as some testimonials from some of our previous groups that have really enjoyed us. And then here are my rates. Please

let me know dates. And then at the bottom, any professional credibility mentions. So are you certified? Are you a doctor? Have you been on any media? Those can be at the very bottom. That way you're very subtly hitting those three proof buckets and they're very important in negotiation. I love it. I love it. Is there anything that you want to share that we haven't shared? Oh my gosh. Before we wrap it up. I would say that the last thing, and this is something that I tried to make a big point in the book.

I don't want to hit people over the head with it, but I don't think I got it as well as I wanted, which is I don't think you should ever pretend to be something you're not. Again, I don't believe in fake it till you make it. I think that you're better off spending your time instead of trying to be the bubbly extrovert is trying to find out what is your unique brand of charisma? Like what is your flavor? I think that the more time you can spend on that before trying to emulate someone else or trying to dial up something that isn't natural to you is a much better place to be.

And that's where happiness comes from. And that's what people mean when they say authentic. And so anything I've said today in this interview or anything that you've read, try to figure out what's your unique take on that. Like go prove – go make me prove my worth, right? Like if I said something that sounded interesting to you, go make an experiment, right? If I said something that sounded interesting to you, go make an experiment. Go up to 50 different people in the next 50 days and see if you can try out a conversation program if that works for you. If you can find your unique flavor, if you can treat it like an experiment, you can never

fail because experiments never fail. Yeah, that's good. I did an experiment when I moved to New York City as well because I was like, I want to meet some new people. I don't know anyone here. And I call it the Red Rose Project. What? Can you guess what it was?

Did you give red roses to people? I did. Yes. Every day I bought roses that I would give them out. Yes. This is when I was single. I gave them out to girls.

Yes. Were you only trying to meet girls? Yes. You were about to say no. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I feel like you were about to say no. I'm not going to lie.

Don't lie. You can't lie. No, I was trying to meet guys too, but this specific project was for dating girls. Take girls on a date. And it only lasted like four days because I met a few different people. It worked. Yeah, it worked.

But a couple times it didn't work. What happened? I thought I was so smooth. They were all like throw to hit you with the rose. I thought I was like, you know, I'm a nice guy. I'm disarming. I wasn't like this weird douchey dude or whatever. you know i'm a nice guy like i'm disarming you know i wasn't like this weird like douchey dude or whatever i thought i was like a nice guy it's pretty good yeah yeah but i remember i went up to like one girl and she like ran from me and i was like oh

my god i was like okay this did not work but she was also kind of like a little moody and like i don't know anyways but most people over there, thank you. They were kind of taken back. They thought I was going to ask. And I didn't ask for anything either. You just gave it to them? I just gave it to them, yes. And let it go. And I would see what would happen.

And what happened? I would just like smile and just say, I wanted to give you a rose today. And I would like walk away. And did you meet people? Did you meet girls? I did. I met a few people. Yeah.

But it only lasted for like a few days. And then I was like, oh. So here's a challenge to everyone listening. I like love that. Is there a project you can do for five days? Okay. So for, for my introverts listening, for my lovely introverts, maybe for you, it's something small. Maybe it's as small as, um, texting a good friend, a conversation starter that you heard today, right? Like just with your good friends, right?

Deepening a relationship you already have. Maybe if you're a little more ambiverted, it's asking a new colleague to lunch or asking a friend to lunch you haven't been to lunch with. And for my extroverts, maybe it's the Lewis challenge, which is go buy roses or go buy lavender. I actually did this in the streets of New York with my- Lavender? Yeah, we did little bouquets of lavender for everyone and just told them to have a great day. Maybe it's something like that like buying lavender buying a rose see what happens just see what happens see what it's like

when you get butterflies in your stomach and you have to approach someone take a five day challenge from today because I think that we can hear all this stuff as knowledge

we can keep it in the back of our head and it makes us feel good but turning it into action is how we actually have behavior change yes make sure you guys

go get the book Captivate the Science of Succeeding with People. I'm telling you it's a game changer. Highly recommend it. You'll like Lewis's chapter, chapter five,

reverse engineered Lewis's success. It's good. It's good. Final couple questions. Yes. If this microphone was connected

to eight billion people right now and they had headphones on and you had 30 seconds to share a message that they would hear from you every human in the world would hear this message in their language and this was your message to the world what would you say okay hold on doesn't start yet it didn't start yet i would say there is one person in your life you've been meaning to reach out to

there's probably one person in your life who you've been holding something back or worried about or you've been trying to fix something with them and it's scary to fix things reach out to that person and actually work on fixing it. Ask them the question you've been waiting to ask them. Bring up the thing that you've been too afraid to bring up and try to mend that relationship because those broken things really weigh us down and there's a lot of potential in fixing whatever is broken in that relationship. So go talk to that person. That's great. I like it. A lot of healing there. Yeah, healing. Yeah. Healing.

Yeah. This is called the three truths. So if you could only share three truths and your book would be gone and all your videos you've ever created, no one would have access to anything else except for these three truths. That's all they would have of you for all the time. What would be your three truths or three lessons that you would share with the world? Vulnerability is sexy. That's just three, right? Yes. Vulnerability is sexy. Own your weirdness and your confidence is contagious. Hopefully we've touched on some of those today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. yeah. Okay, good. Those are my thesis statements. Good. I want to acknowledge you for a moment for continually using your awkwardness to help other people, to help yourself to not feel so awkward and feel so alone. Because I know you felt that way for many years. Very alone, yes.

And I'm sure sometimes you still feel that way. So I want to acknowledge you for constantly pushing your discomfort to stretch yourself, to help yourself and to help so many people that listen to your work, that read the book, that watch the videos. So I want to acknowledge you for all of that. Thank you. For my awkward people listening, you are not alone. Exactly. I don't know if I asked you this the last time. So final question is what is your definition of greatness? I think we did, but I actually like revisiting this question because I think that that definition can change. Absolutely. On the brink of a book launch, I would say greatness is not the success of that book launch or

hitting a list. All of those things would be great. Actually, I think the real greatness was being able to put my truths into something and have it be so kindly accepted by others. That feels like the best feeling in the world. I think that's what greatness is. Love it. Scienceofpeople.com. Get the book, Captivate. Vanessa, thank you so much.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, everyone. Bye. There you have it. dot com get the book captivate Vanessa thank you so much thank you there you have it I hope you enjoyed this one all about understanding how to maximize and learn about human behavior so that you can optimize your business

your relationships and your life if you enjoyed this please share it out lewishouse.com slash 475 I think this is going to be a big episode because this is what is needed in building your business and building relationships and getting a career job that you want. These are the skills and the tools that we all need. Those soft people skills. They're going to help you relate better and make a lasting impact. So make sure to share it out, lewishouse.com slash 475. And also leave a review on itunes.com slash greatness for your chance to be the review

of the week. I love you guys very much. This has been an incredible journey with you, an incredible episode. I hope you continue to come back because each week we bring you the most inspiring guests on the planet to help you unlock your inner greatness. Thank so much and you know what time it is it's time to go out there and do something great Outro Music