Communication Expert: Master the Secret Art of Charisma & Influence | Vanessa Van Edwards

Van Edwards says Ring's founder lost his Shark Tank deal partly by asking his own name with a question inflection. She recommends a downward inflection when stating your name, numbers and answers, citing a doctor voice-clip study linking low warmth and competence ratings to malpractice lawsuits.

She says 82% of impressions come from these two traits and competence without warmth leaves people suspicious. Warmth cues include smiles, slow triple nods, head tilts, memes and personal stories, while competence cues include data, charts and credibility markers.

In the Wall Street versus community game study, participants shared about a third of profits versus two-thirds. She applies this by naming calendar events for the behavior you want and starting meetings with purposeful openers like "share something good" instead of accidental negative ones.

Van Edwards says smart people often assume having the best idea is enough, but if cues give away competence people won't believe them. She points to the blender spill study and Mel Robbins' face-touching as examples of vulnerability building trust.

There is no single cue for lying, but she points to head shakes that contradict words, disgust microexpressions, fake smiles and one-sided smirks. She cites Gottman's divorce prediction research and advises pausing to ask open-ended questions to find out what's really going on.