The Science Behind Making People Like You with Vanessa Van Edwards

The most influential people, the most charismatic people, have a perfect blend of two traits: warmth and competence. So when someone hits a stage or walks in front of a meeting or hops on a video call or calls you on the phone or walks into a room, what we are gauging as humans, 82% of our judgment of someone else, is made up of these two traits. What's crazy about this is a lot of the time is people think they have to be funny and witty and tell great stories, Actually, 82% of our judgments are just based on warmth and competence. So warmth is friendliness, likability, conversational, like that calm conversational approach, um, trust. Competence is power, efficiency, capability. And we love people who have that balance of both. If you're uneven, too powerful, so you come off as too strong, people say, oh no, too much. So we actually do not like someone who hits the stage overpowering, throwing those big words in our face, we actually think, "Oh no, this is suspicious." And too much warmth on the other hand, so a lot of women struggle with this, is that we are taught to be likable from a very young age. But too high warmth without showcasing enough of that power and capability means people interrupt us, they ignore our ideas. And so that sweet spot is really critical.

Hey everybody, Dr. Josh Axe here. Welcome to the Growth Lab Podcast where each and every week we talk about the science science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, your, your spirituality, your career, and really everything in your life. And so today we've got a great guest, uh, Vanessa, uh, Vian Edwards, and we're going to be talking about how to influence yourself and others in the world for good. And I met Vanessa through a couple mutual friends, Craig Groeschel. He's a pastor that runs a leadership podcast, Rory Vaden, another incredible, incredible friend. And so they were like, you've got to talk to Vanessa. And so Vanessa, that's, uh, that's why you're on here today, is everybody was raving about you.

Oh my goodness, well, that sets the bar very high. We're gonna have— what's gonna be good, I'm gonna meet it, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hit it.

All right, we'll go for it. You know, and after Craig had mentioned it, I thought, well, I'm gonna go and watch some of your YouTube videos. And I was actually really impressed about— you did a TED Talk that was incredibly impressive. And I saw several other interviews where you really talked about, influencing others. And you talked about certain character qualities like charisma and body language. In fact, I think it's so interesting, we're going to dive into this a little bit. I'm going to ask you questions about our body language, and I'm a big fan and have studied a lot of psychology over the years as well. And so, uh, really the psychology of body language will be fun to, to get into. But one of the things I want to start off with, and this is something that I know Rory had said that he really loved about you, is, is that Whenever I interview anyone on the show, I, I try and interview people that I consider to be very virtuous people, people that are doing something not just with excellence or not something that's entertaining, but something that is moving the world towards a better place. It's helping us grow in, again, growing character, growing virtue, grow in our talents. And so that's one of the things, one of the reasons I was most excited to talk to you is how do we influence people? Not just influence, but influence them for good. And there's so much stuff out there today where, hey, you can learn about how to influence somebody or be charismatic, but oftentimes it can be used for evil. So talk to me about influence, but also influencing for the good.

Yes. So the first thing is most people do not realize how much influence they already have. You have so much power. You don't realize that you are influencing your children, your partners, every single person that comes into your life you are having influence on. The reason for this is because as humans, we are positively or negatively contagious. And the way that the science looks at this is that everything from the words we use to the body language cues we use, to even— there's some science that say the feelings or the pheromones that we're giving off are affecting the people around us. And I'll give you one very simple study that changed the way that I look at how much potential we have, how much potential to influence we have. Very simple study. They brought people into their lab and they split them up into two different groups. The first group came into the lab, they sat down, they were told, "Today you are going to play a game called the Wall Street Game." And they proceeded to play this game. The game was kind of a prisoner's dilemma sort of game. The next group came into the same lab, same researcher, same table, same chairs. This group was told, "Today you're gonna play the community game." And they went on to play the game. The trick was, and there's always a trick, the games were exactly the same. The only difference between these two groups was one was called the Wall Street game and one was called the community game. Everyone who played the Wall Street game or was told they were playing the Wall Street game shared on average 1/3 of their profits. Everyone who was told they were playing the community game shared 2/3 of their profits. This means that one single word influenced people to either collaborate, share, give, be good with the word community, or they didn't share as much, they were influenced to be competitive with the word Wall Street, a little stingy with the word Wall Street, and they shared less. This means that we have the power to change someone's behavior how they interact, how they think, how they collaborate with one single word. Yet I think we often throw these away. So my mission, and I'm so honored to be here, is talk about how do we take all these micro opportunities for influence and actually impact people in a really positive way.

I love it. And, and this is so important for anyone in almost every area of your life. As you mentioned, it's like I was this morning, uh, well, we've been trying, we just started our, our 3-year-old in preschool, right? And so we're trying to, we're in kindergarten.

Garden yet last week. So I, I feel you. I feel you.

Yes. And then my 3-year-old, I mean, first day of preschool just a couple weeks ago. And my, my daughter, in a good way, is so attached to my wife. But also, you know, we need to, um, you know, also have her, you know, we need to have her go to school right now. So anyways, you know, I'm trying to learn the art of influence and grow in my ability to influence my 3-year-old. You know, we want to influence our spouses in a positive way. I want to have a great influence as a leader on the people within my business and on the patients and clients I reach out to. So I think this is such an important thing because I think a lot of times, Vanessa, people would say to themselves, well, I'm not a leader, I'm not an influencer. And the reality is we all, as you just said, are in that position. I know that you've studied so many of these techniques around influence. What are some of your favorite— one of the things I love that I hear you talk about in your TED Talk that was so good, these nonverbal cues and skills that lead to somebody being, uh, being able to influence someone else?

Yes. So, okay, so when we talk about how we influence, we have different channels to influence. So the first one is our words, which we just talked about, right? The power of our words. And by the way, this is as small as like a calendar invite, you know, for a business leader. Most of our calendar invites are meeting, call. No, they should be called goal session, Strategy Mastermind, Creative Hour, right? Like those small words in your calendar invites, in your subject lines, in your emails, in your LinkedIn profiles, they matter. So that's one way, words. The second way is, as you mentioned, body language. By the way, there are 4 ways. So words, nonverbal, so our posture, gestures, face, facial expressions, movement. The third channel is our voice, our vocal power, our volume, our pace, our cadence. And the last one, the smallest one, is ornaments. So the colors we wear, what's in our background, the props on our desk. The badges we wear. So body language is one of the biggest ones. In fact, research shows that at a minimum, 60% of our communication is nonverbal. Now that's if we can see the other person. So on video, in person, obviously on the phone, you're limited to two channels, words and voice. So when we're in person or when we're on video, we are communicating 60% of our influence and our message through our gestures, our posture, our face. And so what you wanna think about, the most influential people. So we studied leaders, we studied very influential people. One of our biggest studies is we watched thousands of hours of TED Talks. So my research team and I— I'm so grateful for them— we watched thousands of hours of TED Talks and coded each TED Talk for patterns. We wanted to know if the most popular TED Talkers did anything different nonverbally than the least popular TED Talkers, purely based on view count, right? Like, some TED Talks have millions of views, some have only a couple thousand. And we found there were distinct patterns. You could almost predict which TED Talks were going to do well based on the first few seconds of the video. And one of the biggest patterns we found, and this what got me my TED Talk, so I was thrilled to discover this, was that all of the best TED Talks start the same way. The speaker comes out on stage, they go in that little red circle, that little carpet, and they say something like this. And if you can see me or if you're just listening, what I'm gonna do right now is demo what I'm saying along with my hands. So they say, they sound like this. Today, I wanna talk to you about a big idea. I'm gonna tell you 3 different things that are going to change your life. Now what's interesting about that is what a really good influential leader is doing is they know their content so well that they're speaking to you on 2 tracks, not just their words. They're saying, no, I, I know this so well and I wanna be so influential, I'm gonna speak to you with my words and my nonverbal. And so leaders, very influential people often highlight or bold their words with congruent gestures and posture.

Wow, it's so cool. You know, one of the things too I noticed about, uh, the— this is just for my own observations about the TED Talks, uh, that are the most popular— is oftentimes, you know, when people give speeches, they try and sort of overpower the audience. It's like this thing, they try and make up for it with being loud or just kind of coming at them really strong. And when I watch the best TED Talks, there's this level of this sort of very calmness and this sort of like calm strength about the communicator.

So true. So I would highly recommend if you wanna see this, so we have a post where we kind of explain this, but if you wanna watch Ken Robinson's TED Talk, Brené Brown's TED Talk, and my TED Talk, you'll see that they're actually quite conversational. Like they come on stage and as you just mentioned, there's sort of this calm as if they're having just a one-to-one coffee with the audience. And that feels in alignment. So when someone is overly scripted or overly rehearsed, our brain actually goes from listening to scrutinizing because we sense, wait a minute, why does this person sound so stiff? Why are they so memorized? And so sometimes people actually ruin their charisma or their influence by practicing too much. And this is a really important one for business leaders is they often prepare and prepare and prepare and prepare for a presentation. Or let's say that you wanna talk to your partner and you've been, you're really nervous about a conversation, so you practice it and practice it and practice it. And then it kind of falls flat, it's because you have rehearsed out your natural charisma. You have literally rehearsed out the emotion that indicates someone else, "Oh, they care about this," and it feels authentic. So when we talk about being influential, there's actually a formula. This formula comes outta Princeton University, and this is what my last book was based on. This formula is so powerful. It has been repeated in the research across genders and cultures and races. That the most influential people, the most charismatic people, have a perfect blend of two traits: warmth and competence. So when someone hits a stage or walks in front of a meeting or hops on a video call or calls you on the phone or walks into a room, what we are gauging as humans, 82% of our judgment of someone else is made up of these two traits. What's crazy about this is a lot of the time is people think they have to be funny, and witty and tell great stories. Actually, 82% of our judgments are just based on warmth and competence. So warmth is friendliness, likability, conversational— like that calm conversational approach, um, trust. Competence is power, efficiency, capability. And we love people who have that balance of both. If you're uneven, too powerful, so you come off as too strong, people say, oh no, too much. In fact, the research says that if someone has competence without warmth, it leaves you feeling suspicious. So we actually do not like someone who hits the stage overpowering, throwing those big words in our face. We actually think, oh no, this is suspicious. And too much warmth, on the other hand— so a lot of women struggle with this— is that we are taught to be likable from a very young age. But too high warmth without showcasing enough of that power and capability means people interrupt us. They don't take us seriously. They ignore our ideas. And so that sweet spot is really critical.

Wow. I mean, that's powerful. You know, I was, I was, I follow a lot of the same people you do. We probably follow a lot of the same leadership experts and people in these spaces. And I know when I first started following Simon Sinek, I was, you know, I looked up his bio and, you know, he doesn't have a PhD. He doesn't have like this, you know, he, he never built a multimillion-dollar or billion-dollar company. But watching him communicate, he has such a great blend of what you're mentioning, of just the right amount of warmth, and he's still— he's incredibly competent, uh, you know, that, that mixture. And so I can really see what you're saying. As you mentioned, someone like a Brene Brown, another great example of that, of they have that beautiful combination.

And practically speaking, and so same Simon Sinek, and, and we— I also don't have a PhD, I also haven't founded a multimillion-dollar company, I think what's critical is breaking down this idea into action steps. So I mentioned, you know, updating your calendar invites, adding, you know, warm and competent words to your LinkedIn profile. The other very practical way you can think about this is anytime you wanna be influential, you wanna hit warmth plus competence. So that's story plus fact or data. That's study or science plus personal anecdote. And you'll notice that the best TED Talks, they're constantly repeating that pattern over and over again. Like even in this interview, I know that there are very warm listeners listening. I know there are very competent listeners listening. So I wanna appeal to both. I wanna make sure that I'm, um, sharing in a way that is, is like, yes, that speaks to me. So in each answer, what I'm trying very hard to do, I hope I'm doing okay, is a story or an anecdote with a really cool science study. An example with a fact or a piece of research so that you can do the same thing whether that you're talking to your partner or a colleague.

Yeah, I love it. This is great advice, by the way. The advice on the account— I'm gonna go back and change my entire calendar because right now it just says call, meeting, more meeting, meeting, record. I mean, so this is, this is real, and it really does— I mean, it changes the whole mindset. If I go in with my team and say, hey, we have got a We've got a goal strategy sessions, or we got a strategy on how to, you know, how to reach 100 million people, right? I mean, it's, it's very, very different.

Uh, and also I, I forgot to answer the most important part of your question about nonverbal. So we have the, the other piece of research that my team and I have been working on for the last decade, woo, ages myself, is over the last decade we've been cataloging every nonverbal cue. So there's everything, there are micro cues from, um, you know, an eyebrow raise to, um, a fist pump to, um, shifting feet. So we've been cataloging them. We have split them into 96 cues. Um, and what we found is there are warm cues, body language cues that immediately signal warmth, and there are competent cues, cues that immediately signal competence. The most charismatic speakers, they have a perfect blend whether they realize it or not. So I'll give you an example. So this is what you can do as well, is you can add like a, like a, a recipe, warmth cues and competence cues as you're communicating. So for example, a very easy warmth cue is a head tilt. So in our research, we found that any LinkedIn profile that had a head tilt, that person was rated as immediately more friendly, more trustworthy, more warm. Why? This is a universal cue across cultures. If we wanna hear something, so if I were to say, um, Josh, do you hear that? We would tilt our head to the side and expose our ear. It's a biological way of just trying to get our ear to hear it. And so we recognize this as if someone's head tilting, even if it's in a profile picture, they immediately look softer, look warmer. Now this is great.

Can I tell you something really interesting? Like, I, I never see men do this on there. Like, I'm thinking about YouTubers. I never see them do it. Yeah, but I actually see there's some really competent women and weren't like good communicators that I know that actually do this frequently on their, uh, on their thumbnails on YouTube.

Yes. So this is, this is this is the advanced science, right? It's you're making a recipe for influence. So for example, if you're a female and you're already perceived as highly warm, you might not want to do the head tilt in your YouTube videos, in your meetings, in your profile, because that's going to tip you into an imbalance. If you're a male who's perceived as highly competent, so if you're highly warm, so I highly recommend, I have a free quiz if you wanna take it. It's at scienceofpeople.com/charisma. You can actually assess if you're warm or competent You can take it as many times as you want. If you are high in warmth, you know you're high in warmth because people interrupt you, they don't listen to your ideas, you're often underestimated, and you might even struggle with people pleasing. That's symptoms of high warmth, too high warmth. You know you are too high in competence, this can be for both men or women, if people tell you you're intimidating, if people tell you you're cold, if people tell you that you're hard to talk to. If people always think you're in charge, if you walk into a room or you walk into a store and people approach you for directions or ask for the time, those are symptoms of high competence. So a highly competent person, male or female, might say, you know what, I'm gonna add the head tilt because it immediately warms me up and balances out my high competence. So head tilt, a nod, so a vertical nod, 1, 2, 3, is also high in warmth. Research finds that if someone does a 1, 2, 3, 3, vertical nod, the other person speaks 67% longer. It is literally an invitation for someone to speak. Wow. So you'll notice women sometimes struggle with what I call bobbleheading. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, nod, nod, nod, nod, nod. And that is too high warm. It's too much, tell me more, tell me more. So if you wanna add warmth, you can use the nod or the head tilt. But if you wanna take away warmth, I would highly recommend not doing it.

This is so good. You know, a male who does a lot of head nods who we're probably both friends with is Lewis Howes. If you watch Lewis's—

but I love his head nods.

Oh, oh, they're fantastic. No, I'm saying he does such a good job of like continuing to allow the person to open up and share and, um, yeah.

And that's why he's such a good interviewer is he'll do that. I've done 3 interviews with Lewis, right? And they're amazing. And when he goes, when he does a slow triple nod, I'm like, better keep going. I keep talking. And that's why our interview— our interviews are 2.5 hours. So I think that we can play with these cues to be more impactful and also to put people at ease. You know, the whole point of influence, at least influencing for good, as you mentioned, which is my whole mission, is teaching people to influence in a positive way, is you are contagious. If you show up as highly warm and highly competent, not only are you more charismatic, you actually infect others with your warmth and competence. So if you are nodding, you're encouraging someone to open up. If you are head tilting, they might catch the head tilt and also be warmer themselves. Body language and emotions are a cycle. They don't exist just outside of our body. So much research proves that the way we hold our body changes our inner state. And so if you are in warm, competent nonverbal, you are more likely to feel warm and competent.

Wow, it's so good. I'm learning a lot. I love this. These are all things I know I'm going to start start using more. So, you know, and I'm just even thinking about myself, you know, when I, when I, when I, when I want a speaker to, I, I start nodding my head when I want somebody to keep going, or I'm just, what, what I will tend to do on, I just noticed I started doing this yesterday, is if I want to kind of add in a point, sometimes I'll kind of do something with my hand, like kind of anyway.

So it's, no, so, okay, so like, like we can break this down. So gestures are a very important part of our charisma, and, um, competent, highly competent folks are very purposeful with their gestures. So we instinctively know if someone reaches out a hand, like they wanna just add one thing, like that is a cue that you sent me of, can I just add one little thing? That is high competence, right? That is awkwardness prevention. I'm a recovering awkward person. Social skills do not come naturally to me. The reason I've cataloged all 96 cues is because I have to manually learn them. I am not naturally able to see and sense them. And so when we add those cues, it helps people communicate without awkwardness.

So, so talk, talk to me about this. So when we, uh, actually, well, I'll get into that question in a minute. So before I do though, I'm thinking about team meetings because we have a lot of people who are in career and work and they get into a team meeting, uh, or it could be a family meeting. How would you start off? What are some of the things you would do if you're just doing— so again, you're not on stage, you're not on a TED Talk, but you just, you have a team of 5 members or 10 and you're in there How would you open that? What would be some of those cues?

That is my favorite group. So most of my students are professionals, high-achieving professionals, very high talented skills, usually over smart, overly average, overly averagely smart. That's definitely not correct. Over average or high achievers in their intelligence. And so they have small teams, delightfully tiny teams. Okay, so the very first thing is the biggest mistake that leaders make of delightfully tiny teams, this is under 10 people, is they think first impressions, the first minute doesn't matter. So what often happens, so in a big company, a CEO or a CMO walks into the meeting and it starts, right? Okay everyone, let's get started. Here's what we're gonna do today. In a small team, there's this kind of awkward few minutes where you're like, do we chit-chat? Like, oh, we better wait for everyone to come. And so on a video call, you have this, uh, hey Laura, hi, I'm just gonna get my coffee. Um, what, we're gonna wait for, is Sarah here?

Right?

It like, that is a killer of influence. One is it puts everyone on autopilot. Two, it exacerbates, uh, your awkward and introversion, introverted people because that, that like, what do we do? What do we say? Is very hard for an awkward person. And speaking from personal experience, and most importantly, third is is we make a first impression when we first meet someone, of course, but we also have a first impression every time we interact for the interaction, right? So if we hop into a meeting and it's like, oh hey, can you see me? Can you hear me? Just gonna, just gonna close the door, hold on one second. That first impression of that interaction is slog, right? Same thing in person. If people are trickling into a boardroom, not everyone is there, what do we talk about? Okay, So one is when you have a video call, I would highly recommend starting off with a purposeful conversation starter because not everyone's gonna be on at the same time. So in my team meetings, you always start off with, tell me something good. So whoever's on first, they're on, they're ready. They're not checking their email, they're not grabbing their coffee. And whoever's on first says, oh, hey. So Carolyn's on my team. So, hey Carolyn, tell me something good. What's been, what's been good in your life? And she is ready to share good things. One, this does so many things, is it takes away that awkward start. Two, all of my team members have shared with me, and I've taught this now to thousands of teams, it changes your brain chemistry before you log in. What are we doing before a meeting, before a call, is we're checking our email, we're thinking about our tasks. We're not purposeful, right? We're on autopilot. But if you know that you're about to walk into a boardroom and your boss is gonna ask about something good, your brain is going, what's good, what's good, what's good, what's good? Which is so positive, right? Like, that is so powerful. So I'm like walking up to my meeting, you know, and I'm like, okay, what's good? What's good? Oh yeah, my daughter just started kindergarten. Oh, baby Claire, she just crawled. My little baby just crawled last week for the first time. I am now so much happier walking into that meeting and we're celebrating and we celebrate each other's successes. And so it is a game changer. So your first 2 or 3 minutes, It's always tell me something good, and then it's a purposeful start right into the agenda.

I love it. So good. One of the things you mentioned, uh, you, you'd mentioned introverts, uh, here, and I'm curious about like, so for, for my wife is a 10 out of 10 introvert. I'm probably an 8. I'm probably an 8 out of 10 introvert. Uh, now, and, you know, and at first I used to think, well, I'm extroverted because I speak and whatever, but I only like small, you know, I tend to like small groups and I think you're an ambivert.

You're an ambivert. Yes. So 80% of people about— and they're still in research on this— 80, 82% of people are ambiverts. So I'm actually an ambivert. I'm not a true introvert. So true introverts, it's a spectrum, right? And this is actually very helpful. If you're willing to do some homework with me, um, please, I want you to think about the 5 people you interact with most. You should know where they fall on the spectrum. So introversion is a spectrum. On the far introvert, you're a true introvert if you only recharge from being alone. That means if you have a bad day, you do not wanna be with people, you don't wanna commiserate with people, you wanna be processing by yourself. If you have a good day, you don't wanna celebrate with people, you wanna just savor that success and reward yourself by yourself. You only get energy from being alone. True extroverts only get energy from being with others. They hate being alone. Actually, being alone drains them. So on the far end, those are the true ends. In between are ambiverts. Ambiverts. I'm an ambivert. I think— are you— do you think you're an ambivert? Ambiverts.

Here, here's what I would say. I, I, I, I would say that I, I, I probably am an ambivert, but I, I definitely only get recharged alone for the most part. I mean, if I'm with a small group, like one, one other friend, You know, like, like where we're having a deep conversation with one other person that, that probably is pretty fulfilling to me as to, as, as well.

So you're, you're definitely on the low end and this is super helpful. So what I want you to think about is for yourself and then for the 5 people who you interact with most is what are your recharge moments? Who are your recharge people? So everyone, especially Amber Heard, should know who fills you, right? Like you mentioned exactly what you just said is like there's a couple people one-to-one where I get energy. I know who those people are in my life. I also know who drains me. Doesn't mean I'm gonna kick them out of my life. I mean, I'm not gonna spend time with them, but there are certain people where I leave and I'm like, oh, I'm so tired. Um, you should know who those people are, right? So we can create boundaries around them. So who drains you? Who charges you? Next, where drains you and where charges you? So for example, I go to a lot of conferences. I speak at a lot of conferences and like retreats, corporate retreats. And I've had to figure out, okay, I love stage, I love learning, I love book signings. I don't do so well at the welcome party. I don't do so well.

Yes.

Like the big happy hours. Um, they're too loud for me. So it's really good to break down, like even in the office, where are those safe spaces for you? Um, and that's essential because it's social energy management. And the only way we can be influential is if we manage our social energy well.

Yeah, so interesting. I mean, I'm thinking about all the people in my life right now, right? Like, again, I know my wife is very alone. I'm thinking about one of my closest friends. Like, he has to be— I mean, what charges him up is going and being around 100 people. And for me, that would just drain me so much.

So I know, I know those folks too. Yeah, I know those people can be contagious, right? Like, sometimes when I'm around those folks, like, I was backstage at Lewis Howes's recent event, and he gets charged up, right? And I was a little nervous. I, I was like, Give it to me. I was like, let me catch that energy. Like, let me get some of that juice because it is contagious.

Yeah, I love it. I mean, this is so important, you know. I mean, it's tied into this idea as well of we, you know, in a way, uh, well, it's, it's actually very different at the same time too. This idea of Dunbar's Law or the law of social influence that you become who you surround yourself with. But also, uh, everybody's wired, wired very, very, very differently. And so I think it's an important thing. One of the things I, Vanessa sometimes have people do is write down the 5 people you spend the most time with. And what I would ask them is, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much are they iron sharpens iron for you? And so this idea of they help you grow, they help you get better, they help, you know, and so this, that idea. But I think it's a very similar thing if, you know, who are those people that help recharge your battery the most? I mean, it's a very, it's a very similar idea, and I think that's so important for people to to grab ahold of?

I mean, look, your 5 people are everything. I, I agree with you completely on this. So I mean, I believe we should really do a full workup on them, right? Okay. So you write down those 5 people, you think about how they make you grow and how they contribute to your success. What's their introversion and extroversion? Where are they on warmth and competence, right? Like all of those things, we can begin to take notes and that's also influencing those deep relationships much better because you know them so well.

Yeah, I love that. And I think this is part of building deep relationships. You know, we're in this world today where social media has become, you know, and I think even the younger you get, the more people tend to spend time on social media. And so there's these really shallow relationships. But I think too, part of, you know, when I even think about, you know, in terms of even the Bible, it's, you know, um, love your neighbor as yourself. Well, I think it's hard to really love your neighbor if you don't know them, right? And so I think the more you can know everything from their personality, whether it be Enneagram or the Big Five or the DiSC profile or whatever it is, Myers-Briggs. I mean, this is— and I think people really enjoy taking these, whether it's the Five Love Languages or any of these things, because we want to know others. That's fulfilling to us, and we want to be known, right? And so I definitely think this is something that's missing, and I think you would probably say, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this, it's easier to, like, part of what you teach is influence and charisma, but, but it's, it's for a deeper purpose, and that's to connect. It's con— to connect with someone else. And so by knowing somebody, you can do that better, right?

I think that, um, I really struggled with connection. So just from a personal standpoint, if, if, if this is you, is I really wanted to make an impact. I really wanted to do good work, but I was having trouble developing deep relationships that wasn't just friendships. That was also like I would be with a colleague and I didn't know how to get through what felt like a barrier to me. It felt like I had people I knew, but very low quality relationships. I didn't know how, literally how in conversation to break down walls, to break down barriers, to feel like myself. To feel heard, and also I didn't even know how to make them feel accepted and heard. And so that's kind of where my awkwardness came in. So my whole career I've been looking for tools to break down the wall very practically. So for example, there's research by Dr. Dan McAdams who researched how we create intimacy, not just with our partners, but actually with our colleagues, with our peers, with our children's teacher, right? These are micro moments that are so important. My oldest daughter just started kindergarten and I'm creating all these really important relationships and they happen in 5 minutes, right? Like the drop-off, I have 5 minutes to see this teacher, have her feel appreciated, and also for her to see me and to know that I'm a resource for her. I'm also seeing all of her friends. My daughter is in a wonderful school here in Austin and we hope to have her stay there until she's 18. Which means that we're looking at 12 years of this school, 12 years with these people. And I said to my husband, I was like, what if her prom date is here? And he was like, honey, please. And I was like, no, like her first romantic partner could be in this room, in the kindergarten room. Her first best friend could be in this room. And he was like, calm down. And I was like, I can't because that matters. So, okay, so how do you create like these micro moments when you're meeting these parents or these colleagues, you know, when you're at work and you're trying to build connections. So what Dr. Diane McAdams has found is there are 3 levels of connection. Level 1, level 2, level 3. You have to move through them sequentially. I was stuck in level 1 in all of my relationships before I learned this science. Level 1 is called general traits. General traits is what do you do, where are you from, how many kids you got? It's like the basics about you, occupation, hometown, family status. I was stuck in this this horrible small talk where it was like, oh, so you live around here? So how'd you get into your line of work? Right? Like the same conversation over and over again, and there was no connection happening. That's level 1. Level 2 is called personal concerns. This is your motivations, your worries, your values, your personality traits. This is what— if you know someone's level 2, you know if you're on someone's level 2 if you know what keeps them up at night. Like what's worrying them, and if you know what gets them up in the morning, what excites them. I knew none of that for people in my life. And so when I began to think, okay, I gotta ask the right questions and share the right answers to get to level 2, that's when we begin to have true intimacy and true connection. That's how we really create influence. The last level, which most people never get to, is called self-narrative. And this is where I'm doing my big research. So my next book is gonna be on this topic. Which I'm still kind of figuring it out, so I'll share as much as I, I know so far. So our self-narrative, as Dr. Dan McAdams describes, is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. It's how we make sense of our journey and purpose in life. So if you were to ask someone what forces shaped your personality, what forces or things in your life made you who you are today, the answer to that question is your self-narrative. And so we— it's hard to know this about people. Like, I think I know this about myself finally, after much introspection. A lot of people don't. I know this about my partner, but I'm still learning it with my best friends. We're still talking about it. And so I think that if we think about those 3 levels, that is the meaning of life, is creating connection where we can truly see and be seen.

It's so good. You know, a couple things come to mind here. You know, Aristotle said friendships or connection are typically about 3 things: pleasure, utility, or getting to purpose. And purpose is really that deepest connection. So what you're sharing there, it's really related to purpose. And the other thing is identity, right? I mean, it's, you know, in that self-narrative about this is who I am, is— and it's needed today. I'm excited about this book because I think it's needed today more than ever. There's a lot of confusion around identity in all of these areas today. And I think sometimes people turn identity into— which it actually is or could be seen as incredibly complex, At the same time, the way that I tend to communicate it is, is that it's your roles and responsibilities and it's the meaning you attach to those things, right? And so, like, for myself, like, hey, I'm, I'm— one of my biggest roles of my identity is, and part of my narrative is, so like, we're going to school, like, I'm a dad. And so for some dads, it's like, well, it could be the lowest level, which is I was part of the conception and then I left Or it could be, hey, I'm here to provide for my family. Or it could be, no, I'm here to grow the most virtuous and skilled human being of all time. And I believe that my child is a divine being who's going to live for eternity, and I'm called to sow my heart and soul and give my life for that, you know, this, this little person. So anyways, and I love, I love the topic. I think it's so important. And, um, I'm excited to read that one too.

And you've got a couple other books that are great too, but Oh, thank you. Yeah, I think my whole goal is to think about relationships and connection, communication as tools, right? Like connection can be broken down into a science and that can actually help us achieve it. When I, you know, a lot of the social skills books are written by extroverts and extroverts don't know how they do what they do. They have a magic to them, right? And I love extroverts. I learn from them, I watch them, I observe them, but they don't know how they do what they do. They try to break it down, but they don't speak to introverts or anxious folks or awkward people who are struggling with how does this work? So one study that I thought was really helpful, do we have time to share one more study? I don't know if we do.

Do we have time? We have as much time as you want. I am nodding.

Okay, good. I love it. Okay, so I really love this study 'cause it's so empowering in a positive way. So I was not a popular kid in school. I was very unpopular. I was afraid of everyone. When I went to college, I was, terrified of other people. I was on student council in the only position that didn't have an election because no one wanted that position. Like, that's— that was my social experience. Because of that, I was always obsessed with watching the popular kids. Like, how? They were like these magnificent animals. I don't know how they did what they did. So this researcher did the study I always wished I could have done, which is he analyzed thousands of students looking for patterns of the popular kids. This is across a variety of high schools, thousands of different students. And what he wanted to know is, are the most popular kids more extroverted, smarter, more athletic, funnier? And he had a whole bunch of variables he was looking at. And my hypothesis, I don't know if— do you want to guess what, um, were they more athletic, taller, funnier? Do you want to take a guess for, for, for the most popular? Yeah. What do you think the mo— what was the difference for the most popular kids? Were they more, yeah, smart, athletic, funny, attractive? What do you think? Anything you want.

Hmm.

And everyone who's listening, guess. Wow. Like, think about the most popular kids you went to school with. Think about the most popular people you know now. What do you think makes them popular?

I mean, I, I, I think it's generally they do something that makes them stand out. And so, you know, that, that, that's the thing that I think about. And so maybe it is a form of athleticism, maybe it is they're you know, in the top, you know, 5% of attractiveness, but there's something that they're sticking out from the crowd.

Okay. I love that answer. I never even heard that answer before, cuz I've asked a lot of people to guess. The most popular guesses are attractive, athletic, smart, funny. Those are like the most popular guesses.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So there were popular kids who were funny and smart, athletic, but the only—

can I give you one other answer though? Can I give you one other answer? So, so this was a stud. This is more of a psychology study, and this was on, uh, you know, and this is— this was seen in animals. And basically, the, the, the animal that tends to lead the pack becomes the most popular is the one that looks out for the well-being of the most, most people in the group. So that's another just—

yes, that's, that's kind of right. Yeah, that, that I'm gonna give you— I'm gonna give you points for that one. So you got it. Which is, the only pattern was that the most popular kids What differentiated them, how he could pick them out, differentiate them from the control group, was they had the longest list of people that they liked. So one of the things he asked all these students was, "How many people do you like? List them." And these students would list all the pop—

Wow.

The most popular kids just had the longest list, which means they weren't going around school trying to be funny, trying to be impressive, trying to be athletic or cool. All they were doing all day long was going around looking for reasons to like people. All they were doing was going around initiating liking. And I was like, wow, thank you. Because it means that we are in control of our likability. We don't have to be pretty or smart or funny. Those things are great. But what we have to do, what we can do, is find authentic reasons to hunt for good. That if you're with people and you're like, how can I like you? How can I like you? What can I ask to like you more? What good do I see? That changes everything. It changes, one, you don't have to worry about being impressive or perfect or amazing. It takes all the pressure off of you. Second, it makes you intentional that you're connecting with a, a searching for good, and it also makes them feel better. And so that's how I try to approach every connection, every aspect of influence that no matter who I'm with, I'm like, where are, what are the reasons I can like you more? What can I ask you to dislike you more?

And this is fantastic advice. I mean, I think for anybody out there, as you're hearing this, it's, hey, if you want to have more influence, more popularity in that way, it's— yeah, you got to see the best in others. You know, John Maxwell, I, I, one of the— he's one of the first people when I was younger, I read a book and, and heard him talk about it's kind of a similar principle of, but, you know, put a 10 on everyone's head, essentially. Like, you know, see the best in them, call the best out in them. And I love that. It's so good. We're all called, you know, we're, we're all called to do that. In some way. And part of that is loving people is not sitting there and just pointing out their flaws, but saying, hey, here's where you're gifted, here's where you're special. And I don't think a lot of people hear that today. I think people are really hungry for that.

Yeah. And I also, I have to share that, um, as the ground, as the foundation of my work, because a lot of my work is spotting nonverbal cues. One of the things I teach is lie detection. It's how to spot a bad guy, how to look for incongruence and cues. And so if I'm, one of the challenges I have in my work is, okay, if I teach people the cues of dishonesty, the cues of guilt and anger and fear, I don't want them always on the hunt for dishonesty, anger, and fear. And so I have to have the balance of, no, we have to look for the good. We have to be hunting for the good. And yes, you might find bad, right? Not everyone is gonna be your flavor. There are toxic people out there and you have to create boundaries around them. Right there. That's incredibly important for your own maintenance. So that, that balance of we're always searching for good, but if we find someone who drains us, if we see a cue that makes us think, nope, I'm not getting honesty here, that you know how to protect yourself. So I think it's a— for me, it's a very hard balance.

Well, I'd love to talk about that. How would you identify somebody who is toxic or a narcissist or somebody who's trying to take advantage of you?

Okay, so, um, so there's a lot of answers in the sense of narcissists are different than liars, liars are different than psychopaths and sociopaths. So we don't have to get into the whole science, but the one thing that is true for all is that you are looking for incongruence. In other words, honest people, authentic people, good and virtuous people are congruent. What they say is what they mean is what they think is what their body does, what their voice does. So if someone says, I'm so happy to see you, their voice sounds like it, their body sounds like it, their face looks like it, and they feel it. Congruent. Wonderful. We like to be around those people. If someone says, oh, I'm so happy to see you, right? You know, right?

Yeah.

The words are saying one thing, but there's a, there's, there's something is incongruent. The feeling, the voice, it's not matching up. That's when we have a red flag. Flag. So when we teach lie detection, and all of our lie detection research is we're looking for red flags— doesn't mean that someone is a liar or bad, but if something is incongruent— a face mismatches the words, a gesture mismatches the words, a tone mismatches the gesture— that's when we go, uh-oh, what's happening? Why is there incongruence? Why is there something that's incongruent?

Hmm, that's good. What would you say to somebody who said, well, that's just not my natural demeanor. You know, I'm not being my authentic self if I am warm and ha— if I'm being warm and happy towards others.

Love that question. And then I always answer, think of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was not a warm and fuzzy guy, right? He was not known for being likable or friendly, but he was respected, right? He was able to use warmth in terms of goals. So he didn't show up being like, hey, it's so good to see you.

Welcome everyone. Right?

He didn't do a lot of smiling, nodding, head tilting.

No. Yeah.

But he would show up, and if you listen to his keynotes or read his memoir or his biography, he would come into a room and say, we have a shared goal. Our shared goal is to ship this feature in 2 weeks. A goal, a shared community effort is also warm, right? Yeah. You don't have to show up as a peppy, positive Pollyanna if that's not your flavor. And so when I think about charisma, there is a scale, right?

You gotta find your recipe of cues that work. I love it. I want to ask you about a few people and their body language. I'm curious at your thoughts on and how they could improve it. Okay. I'm going to go through a few presidents and a few other popular people. Okay. Let's talk about Donald Trump. How could he improve his body language?

Donald Trump uses very good hand gestures. He actually has the most hand gestures of any president in his inaugural speeches. We analyzed the last, I believe, 15 inaugural addresses that were on video, and he uses the most hand gestures. So he has very good hand gestures. If I had to say, I would, um, say less pointing. We don't actually like to be pointed at. It's a very aggressive gesture. And so, um, if he can change, take away the points, you know, open palm gestures are really good. Points are, are— we just don't like it. If I were to point at you the entire time, like, it makes you feel like you're accused of something.

Hmm. Yeah, to me he comes across as a 10 out of 10 competence, probably maybe a It's interesting, you know, on his warmth, I, you know, I would say that when he's talking to somebody, a group he likes, he actually can come across fairly warm. I mean, actually, I think probably more warm than most people would probably think.

Passion and warmth are two sides of the same coin, right? So passion is warmth, stories are warmth.

Yeah. Wow, interesting. How about Joe Biden?

So Joe Biden is, um, he's more higher on the competent side of the scale, a little bit more stoic. And so he actually could use a little bit more emotion, right? Like, I think that if he had more passion, more emotion, if he spoke with more fervor— and that's with gestures but also with even his voice— I think that people would be more swept up in his narrative. But he tends to deliver— I don't know if that's over-rehearsing or scripting— but he tends to deliver with a lot less emotion. And emotions are condiments for speech. And so humans like to have condiments, otherwise It's too dry.

Yeah, I can see that. How about Bill Gates?

Bill Gates does a very excellent job. Now I've only watched interviews with him. I haven't actually seen any speeches for Bill Gates, right? And that's different, right? An interview is different, but he does a pretty good job in his interviews of being both warm and competent, but I've never seen his speeches.

Yeah, I watch it. Do you know who Alex Lyon is? He's a professor. I think you'd enjoy his channel. He's actually a communication expert. He's a professor at a university. So he, he, what he'll do is he'll break down somebody's entire inter— like he does interviews. Oh. And one of the best ones, uh, so he does one with Bill Gates and his, and he also analyzes body language. It's really interesting. But one of the things he does, he, he also analyzes Joe Rogan and he, and he's like, Joe Rogan, what he'll do is he'll, it's, it's like he's a fighter. I mean, you know, he was a fighter before and so he'll kind of all of a sudden get somebody in a corner and they just, and, and then just, it's just, I mean, it is so fascinating. Body language. I got to watch it. You know, studying body language.

I'll watch it.

Yeah, I, I, I would love to see what you think. So what, you know, a few, a few other questions for you here. Um, when you think about, um, you know, I was reading this study on virtual leadership and how actually this is— I thought this is really interesting— is, is that when people are more charismatic, it makes a much bigger difference in person than if you're not in person. And so they actually said that that's where being actually more, like, competent in certain ways and actually doing what you preach— so sometimes when you get around someone that's incredibly charismatic in person, they don't necessarily always have to walk the walk as much, versus if they don't have that in-person effect on you, um, they can lose some of that power. I'm just kind of interested to hear your thoughts on that.

I mean, I always— that's why I prefer in person. I think also, like, video, it burns out our brain faster. We have to work harder to read someone. So that's why it's so hard when we have back to back to back to back virtual meetings. Um, that's why I only try to do one interview a day is because I know that it's— that charisma muscle is going to burn out faster, be less usable on video.

Yeah, that's so good. You know, I, I know you've had the opportunity to talk to just some incredible people, uh, and do interviews and podcasts. And, and maybe— and we didn't talk about this— I mean, I'm also interested— you've mentioned a few other people who have impacted your life or taught you some things. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Hmm. Ever received? Oh my goodness. I think actually it has to be like more people, uh, assume good. That's good. That really changed. 'Cause I, I'm a neurotic, you know, I, I worry. And so I always am worried that people are mad at me. I'm always worried that I'm doing something wrong. And so that piece of advice, that scientific piece of advice was incredibly important for changing my perspective and my mindset.

What's your number one piece of advice for anybody that wants to gain more influence with others?

I would say emotion. You know, emotion, uh, is incredibly important for belief. Like, we have to be passionate about something. And so when you're sharing your ideas, when you wanna be influential, try not to stick to the facts. Try to share your story or try to share someone's story. Be, um, use emotion as your way of, um, reaching someone else. We— our emotions are contagious. So you can share the best idea in the world, but if you don't share it with passion or fear or anger, right? Like, all those emotions are valid.

Yeah.

People are much less likely to absorb it. So if you're angry about something, if you're frustrated with something, don't hide it. Share it. Use that emotion because that's what people are going to remember.

Well, it's so good. It's so good. What are you excited about, you know, 5 years from now in the future?

Like, what are some things that you, you know, that, that pump you So I'm doing this research on self-narratives, and one thing that we're trying to do is understand which questions can help someone access their own self-narrative. Like, I'm sure, you know, people listening are like, well, what's, what's mine? Um, there's like 3 or 4, 3 to 5 ones that we're finding over and over again. There's a hero self-narrative, someone who has had a lot of challenges but they always overcome. There's a healer self-narrative, people who dedicate their lives to helping and being of service. They're often in professions that are of service, so stay-at-home mom, nurse, doctor, uh, teacher. There's also a victim self-narrative. These are folks who've had a lot of challenges but can never overcome. They see themselves as very unlucky. And these, these narratives create these patterns. And so one is, I'm excited about finding what those are, like the 5 to 6 patterns. And then also, what questions can someone use to discover their own self-narrative? We have 15 questions right now that we've been developing to help someone discover their self-narrative. Like, one of them is, uh, first one is, are you lucky? Do you think you're a lucky person? Um, the answer to that question can help you see a lot about your self-narrative. If you think you're lucky, you're probably closer to a hero self-narrative. If you think you're fundamentally unlucky, you might be one of the victim self-narratives. And that's incredibly helpful to know about yourself. So I'm excited to try to find some tools in this idea.

I'm so excited about this book, and I hope my body language is showing it, because I think if somebody goes through they're— if they think about their entire life through, through a lens of I'm a victim, and they would tell that story, or their entire life that everything somehow worked out for their good, that I'm a hero, I mean, you end up in a very, very different place with a very different mindset.

Exactly. It is the defining aspect of our trajectory, I believe.

That's so good. I agree. I mean, I think it's, I think it's huge. I think it's huge. Wow. Um, well, hey, I want to encourage everybody to check out Vanessa's books. She's got a book called CUES. It's Master the Secret of Language of Charismatic Communication. And you can find her bookstores in bookstore nationwide, but you can also go to amazon.com. Yes. Yeah, Audible. Okay. Yeah, check out her Audible books. You know what I, I do, I do a lot of Audible too. Every morning when I wake up while I'm working out as well, and then every night before bed, I probably do 2 hours a day. Um, and so I want to encourage everybody, check out Vanessa's books. Vanessa Van Edwards, you can find her, uh, again, Amazon, or check out audible.com as well, a great place to find her stuff. And Vanessa, this has been awesome. I, I, I learned a lot. Um, and yes, I learned so much, and I'm so glad that again I got connected to you through Rory Vaden. We talked about Craig Groeschel too, telling me to go and check out your stuff. And again, just so, so impressed. And Uh, so any, any last— where can everybody find you?

Um, well, first I just want to say thank you for listening and giving me your very precious time. Thank you for also letting me come on and share my message. So thank you for that. I'm very grateful, um, to kind of get this out into the world. I'm at scienceofpeople.com. So I have a weekly newsletter where I share a science fact and a tool every week. So that's free. And if you want to take your charisma quiz scienceofpeople.com/charisma. It's free. Take it as many times as you want. And I am on all the socials, Vanessa Van Edwards.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Vanessa. And hey, thanks everybody for listening. Don't forget to subscribe here if you want some more great interviews and more information on how to grow yourself and take your life to the next level. And hey, leave in the comments, I'd love to hear from you, uh, if you're watching on YouTube. Hey, what was your biggest takeaway from today? Are you an introvert? You're an extrovert? What are some things you can do to have more influence. We'd love to hear some of your biggest takeaways from today as well. And similar thing, if you're listening on iTunes or Spotify, feel free to come over to YouTube, leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you, uh, as well. Maybe we could have talked for a lot longer, so maybe we'll have Vanessa on again here in the future too. So if you want to hear her talk about something else in the future, leave that in the comments and I'll make sure to ask her that next time as well. So hey, thanks everybody for listening. Thanks again, Vanessa, and God bless.