Vanessa Van Edwards: The cues that decide if you're liked

Vanessa Van Edwards 0:00 Your brain is 12.5 times more likely to believe my gesture over my words, and that's because it is very hard to lie with our gestures. For example, you wanna do an experiment with me?

Steven Bartlett 0:08 Sure.

Vanessa Van Edwards 0:08 Okay, I want you to say five, but hold up the number three.

Steven Bartlett 0:12 Five.

Vanessa Van Edwards 0:13 Hard, right?

Steven Bartlett 0:13 Yeah. I had to think about them separately.

Vanessa Van Edwards 0:15 This is why liars use less gestures. But knowing tools like that is critical if you're trying to set yourself up for success.

Steven Bartlett 0:21 And we're gonna go through all of them?

Vanessa Van Edwards 0:22 Oh, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 0:23 Vanessa Van Edwards is a behavioral investigator whose science-backed research from body language and microexpressions to vocal tones and first impressions has revolutionized the way we build confidence and create more authentic relationships in every social and professional interaction.

Vanessa Van Edwards 0:35 I'm a recovering awkward person. And I thought that charisma was genetic and I didn't know how to have conversations. I didn't even know how to have friends. But then I discovered that highly successful people speak a hidden language, and that is the language of cues. This is directly from the research. They know the blueprints to talk to anyone. They know that if you sit within 25 feet of a high performer, your own performance improves by 15%, and that there's a direct correlation between confidence and anxiety and the distance between our shoulder and our earlobe.

Steven Bartlett 1:01 So interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:02 They also know that 82% of our impressions of people are based on warmth and competence. So if you worry that people don't take you seriously, you have trouble getting raises, you feel anxious and overwhelmed, I have five power cues for competence. But if you have ever been told you're intimidating, hard to talk to, I want you to use these five warmth cues first.

Steven Bartlett 1:20 What about how to get a partner in terms of cues and body language?

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:23 Let's start with a study that blew my mind. It's impossible to be attracted to someone who ******.

Steven Bartlett 1:28 That's so crazy. Just such a small-

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:29 That one little thing.

Steven Bartlett 1:32 This has always blown my mind a little bit. 53% of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show. So could I ask you for a favor before we start? If you like the show and you like what we do here and you wanna support us, the free, simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is, if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much. Vanessa Van Edwards.

Vanessa Van Edwards 2:05 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 2:06 For someone that's just clicked on this conversation now, and they're wondering why they should stay and listen to what we're gonna talk about, what would

Steven Bartlett 2:13 you say to them?

Vanessa Van Edwards 2:15 Very highly successful people speak a hidden language, and that is the language of cues. If you don't know how to read the cues people are sending to you, if you don't know how to control the cues you're sending to others, you are missing a crucial element of success.

Steven Bartlett 2:30 How do you quantify that in a way that I know that it's true? Are there studies or stats that reinforce what you've just said?

Vanessa Van Edwards 2:37 82% of our impressions of people are based on warmth and competence. That means that if we can control our warmth cues and our competence cues, we know we are taking care of 82% of our impression. And that is critical to being more memorable, to being more confident, to having clearer communication.

Steven Bartlett 2:56 And t- taking that a bit further, what areas of my life will that as- impact? So if I'm warm and I'm competent, which you're telling me are things that I can control, what are the downstream consequences of that?

Vanessa Van Edwards 3:06 So I think my mission is to tackle a big lie, and that is that smart people will translate their book smarts into people smarts. But actually, you're, no matter how smart you are, if you do not know how to communicate with people, you can't connect with people, you can't have good relationships, you can't have supportive friendships, you get looped into difficult people or toxic people, you have trouble getting raises or promotions. When you are able to control your communication, it helps you not be overlooked, not be misunderstood, and that affects your friendships, your partner, your career, and it also helps you feel more confident walking into a room.

Steven Bartlett 3:45 And what is your research based on? Are you a researcher? Have you done sort of first-party research yourself? W- w- where were you drawing from?

Vanessa Van Edwards 3:52 So I'm a recovering awkward person, so I used to believe that you were either born with charisma or you weren't, that charisma was genetic. And in 2002, I discovered a study that changed my life, which said that charisma can be learned. This is when I started to tackle, to figure out, "Okay, if charisma can be learned, how do we learn it? How can we learn blueprints for conversation? How can we learn frameworks for how we connect and how we socialize?" That's when I started doing my own research. So I'm a behavioral researcher and a bestselling author on communication, and I specialize in helping very brilliant, very smart awkward folks not be overlooked.

Steven Bartlett 4:29 And give me some sort of depth as to the amount of research and the quantity of research that you've done, how many people you've studied, how many hours of footage, et cetera.

Vanessa Van Edwards 4:36 Yep. So I, uh, developed my first framework about 12 years ago, and we've helped 400,000 students learn that framework, master it, and conquer awkwardness or feel more confident. Some of those folks had very professional goals, like getting a raise or promotion. Other folks were, uh, so socially an- anxious and so awkward they couldn't make friends. Other people were looking for their soulmate or their partner. And so 400,000 students have told me that this framework works.

Steven Bartlett 5:00 Nobody teaches this, this stuff, do they?

Vanessa Van Edwards 5:02 Mm-mm. Or actually, extroverts tend to teach it. So I read the quintessential How to Win Friends and Influence People back in the day, and that's a wonderful book, but it's a book written by an extrovert. If you are not naturally extroverted, I am not naturally extroverted, I'm more ambiverted, it is very hard to learn how to communicate if you don't naturally gravitate towards people. I was like, "There has to be a way to teach introverts and ambiverts to be able to feel confident without having to fake it till you make it, without having to pretend to be extroverted or outgoing to be taken seriously or to be charismatic."

Steven Bartlett 5:35 What's an ambivert?

Vanessa Van Edwards 5:36 Uh. (laughs) So ambiverts get energy from the right people in the right places. So for example, in this interview, I love one-on-one conversations. I feel myself. But if we were to go to a loud bar or a nightclub, I would completely shut down and wanna be alone. Ambiverts can dial up extraversion to hit their goals, so if they know they have to be friendly and meet people for an interview or a position, they can do it, but they need lots of recharge time. The reason why it's important to know if you're an ambivert is because you should know...What are the people and places that drain you? There are certain people, when you open your calendar and you look at it and you're like, "Ugh, I have to be with that person." That is someone that drains you. They do not bring out your extroversion or your natural love of people. There are also certain people who you feel you could talk to for hours. They give you social energy. They charge your social battery. So the very first thing I have students do is sit and make a list. Who are the people who give you energy, who charge you up? Who are the people who take from you? Those are people that we wanna put boundaries around, we wanna say no to, we wanna limit as much as possible. And then also the places. Where do you thrive? Is it conferences, one-on-one business? Or is it friends, socializing, parties? Knowing those places helps you optimize your social battery.

Steven Bartlett 6:48 And when you say cues, which you said at the start of this conversation, people think of just body language.

Vanessa Van Edwards 6:53 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 6:53 Is that the sort of full extent of areas that you focus on?

Vanessa Van Edwards 6:56 Yes, so they're, so they're... Cues come into four different channels. There is body language. That's facial expressions, gestures, posture. But there's also vocal. So vocal cues are the tone of our voice, our pace, our volume, our cadence. There's also the words we use, obviously verbal cues, the types of words that I'm choosing to use are signaling my warmth and competence to you. And the last, the smallest channel is our ornaments, the colors we wear, the jewelry we wear, the way we wear our hair, the way we wear your facial hair. Those are also signaling different things or cuing people to feel a certain way about you.

Steven Bartlett 7:28 And what about what we say?

Vanessa Van Edwards 7:29 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 7:30 Because I know you're writing a book about... I don't know if I can leak this, but-

Vanessa Van Edwards 7:32 You can.

Steven Bartlett 7:33 ... here we go.

Vanessa Van Edwards 7:33 Yeah, you can. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 7:35 Um, you're writing a book about conversation.

Vanessa Van Edwards 7:36 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 7:36 So what we say.

Vanessa Van Edwards 7:38 Mm-hmm. So, I did not realize how powerful our words are. And here's a study that really changed the way I think about this. Very simple study. They brought people into the lab and they split them up into two different groups. In one group, they said, "Today, you're gonna play the community game." And they played kind of a prisoner's dilemma type of game. The second group, they came into the same room, the same researcher, and they said, "Good morning. Today you're gonna play the Wall Street game." The trick was the games were exactly the same. There was no difference between the two games. What they found was everyone who was told they were playing the Wall Street game shared an average of one-third of their profits. Everyone who was told they were playing the community game shared an average of two-thirds of their profits. This means that that one word, community game, community, made people think and feel more about community. It made them act more collaboratively.

Steven Bartlett 8:28 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 8:29 This means that the words we're using in our emails, our subjects, our texts, our LinkedIn profile headlines, are cuing people for how they should treat us. One really simple way to think about this is your calendar. I send out calendar invites multiple times a week to clients, to friends. When we have meeting, one-on-one, call, video, interview, I'm being cued for nothing. Those words are so overused, they're sterile. If you add cues that prime people to feel or think a certain way, you're actually setting them up for success. So 2025 wins, collaborative session, strategy meeting, goal meeting, goal overview, teamwork collab session. Those words are actually cuing that person's brain every single time they open their calendar, that when we read the, a word like collaborate, we are literally more likely to be collaborative. So the words that we use, even one single word can actually change the way people think.

Steven Bartlett 9:24 It's funny because our entire lives are people.

Vanessa Van Edwards 9:27 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 9:27 Like the difference between me being a president, prime minister, superb salesperson, exceptional entrepreneur is probably just my understanding of other people and how I show up in my words and my cues.

Vanessa Van Edwards 9:39 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 9:39 And so when you think about it like that, this could be, for many people, the most important subject for them to improve upon.

Vanessa Van Edwards 9:48 I would even go further and say, if you don't have people skills, you cannot succeed. You cannot succeed in life. You cannot succeed in love. You cannot succeed in business. It doesn't matter how smart you are. You need people to have success. So this is, I think, the most fundamental skill that people can invest in.

Steven Bartlett 10:05 And how many people did you say you've taught people skills to?

Vanessa Van Edwards 10:07 400,000 students.

Steven Bartlett 10:09 And is there a particular case study that stands out to you as being the most extreme in terms of case studying the fact that someone can go from zero to-

Vanessa Van Edwards 10:18 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 10:19 ... a wonderful place?

Vanessa Van Edwards 10:20 Yes, and it's my very brilliant but stoic students. So I've noticed, especially over the last 10 years, 'cause I've been doing this for about 17 years. In the last 10 years especially, my most extreme students are the students who are very, very smart, very talented and good at what they do, but they don't know what cues to send, and so they completely shut down. They try to become stoic, unreadable. They try to have no facial expressions. They literally try to poker face all the time. And as they try to make connections, meet a partner, make friends, people don't like them, people don't trust them, they can't get buy-in to their ideas. And those are the students where I see the biggest transformation. They don't realize that muting, muting your cues is a danger zone cue. If you try to be stoic and unreadable, people literally cannot get a read on you. And so my biggest transformations have happened when I can say, "You don't need to hide your true feelings. It's about amplifying them with the right cues." There's a famous example of this, uh, Jamie Siminoff, founder of Ring. So I don't know if you ever watch Shark Tank.

Steven Bartlett 11:24 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 11:25 So in this episode, for those who haven't seen it, Jamie Siminoff entered the tank and he pitched a billion-dollar idea, literally a billion-dollar idea, because it went on to raise funding from Shaq and Richard Branson. But in the tank, he pitches the idea and he gets so much pushback and so much negotiation, and he walks out of the tank without a deal. In fact, the sharks did not like him. What happened? He had the billion, the billion-dollar idea, but he did not know how to share it. This is the biggest transformation I see, is people who have brilliant ideas, they're good people, they're hardworking people, and they cannot get buy-in. They cannot make friends. They cannot find partners.

Steven Bartlett 11:59 How do they feel? So if you had to say words that make them feel seen right now, how are they feeling as they're listening to this?

Vanessa Van Edwards 12:06 Mm...... overwhelmed, getting into interaction just social overthinking, not knowing what to do, not knowing what to feel, underestimated, like people don't see you or the real potential that you have, a lack of confidence, and fear. Afraid that if you are your true self or you try any of the things we're talking about, people won't like you. And I want to teach you that you can be yourself and you can be liked and you can find your people. And that doesn't mean everyone's gonna like you, but it means if you signal the right things... Cues tell others how to treat you. If you signal the right cues, you will find your people.

Steven Bartlett 12:41 One of the things that I was sort of inferring from what you said is the importance of understanding your rest- resting bitch face.

Vanessa Van Edwards 12:46 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 12:47 That's, like, the term we use in the UK, resting bitch face, which is, like, when you're just listening or doing nothing, like, how does your face look?

Vanessa Van Edwards 12:54 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 12:54 And you're telling me that's really, really important.

Vanessa Van Edwards 12:56 It's real. So I call it resting bothered face 'cause, like, I have to be a little

Steven Bartlett 13:00 Okay. I probably shouldn't use that word.

Vanessa Van Edwards 13:00 P-H-D. Resting bothered face, RBF, same thing.

Steven Bartlett 13:03 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 13:03 Okay, this is a real phenomenon, which is that all of us have different faces at rest.

Steven Bartlett 13:08 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 13:08 Now, I want you to look at my face for a second. My face at rest, I'm, I'm gonna rest it for a second, my mouth angles down in sort of an upside-down U, so it looks like this. You see how these are going down?

Steven Bartlett 13:18 Yeah. (laughs)

Vanessa Van Edwards 13:20 Are you laughing at my U?

Steven Bartlett 13:22 A little bit. (laughs)

Vanessa Van Edwards 13:23 Okay. So at rest, I look a little sad.

Steven Bartlett 13:26 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 13:26 That is just my mouth at rest. Yours goes pretty straight across.

Steven Bartlett 13:29 I just, I just...

Vanessa Van Edwards 13:31 You have a lot of hood, that's what that's called.

Steven Bartlett 13:32 I have a lot of hood?

Vanessa Van Edwards 13:32 A lot of hood.

Steven Bartlett 13:33 Yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards 13:33 This is hood, yes.

Steven Bartlett 13:34 Yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards 13:35 Yes, so that probably makes you... Do people think you're angry or tired?

Steven Bartlett 13:37 Both.

Vanessa Van Edwards 13:38 Both, okay. People never call me angry, they call me sad. You need to look in the mirror and figure out what is the default of your face. If your mouth angles down into a frown, people are gonna think you're sad. You're gonna have to be counteracting that with your cues. If you have a lot of hood above your eyes-

Steven Bartlett 13:51 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 13:52 ... or you have these two vertical lines that appear between your eyebrows, you actually don't have them, but if peop- some people at rest even have those two lines, people are gonna think you're angry or frustrated. If you have down eyes, so I don't know if you noticed, but my, I have cat, I've added cat makeup to my eye.

Steven Bartlett 14:04 Ah, yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards 14:05 Yes, that actually makes me look less an- less sad 'cause also my eyes slope a little bit down at the end, which makes me look sad.

Steven Bartlett 14:12 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 14:13 So people often are like, "Are you okay? Are you tired?"

Steven Bartlett 14:15 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 14:16 I'm like, "No, that's just my face."

Steven Bartlett 14:17 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 14:18 So I have ways that I counteract it. One, I get to use makeup, which is a, a great thing, but second, I know that I need to make my face a little bit more up, right? So when I am inter- interacting with someone, when I'm on video, when I'm interview, I typically rest my face in an upward position. I've activated these muscles. So don't I look happier?

Steven Bartlett 14:35 You do, but you ha- have you gotta consciously tell yourself to do that?

Vanessa Van Edwards 14:38 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 14:38 Or do you just always remember?

Vanessa Van Edwards 14:40 No, I have to consciously tell myself to do that. Now, I only need to do that with people with their first impression.

Steven Bartlett 14:45 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 14:45 Or when I'm trying to make a good impression. My team knows that I'm not sad. Right? Like my team, they see me all the time. They see me without makeup, they know that I'm not sad. They go, "That's just my face." So here's what's critical. One, you should know what is your resting default. Are you looking sad, angry, or afraid? Oh, the afraid I didn't do. So if you have, um... You actually have some. I'm so sorry.

Steven Bartlett 15:02 Oh, you're joking.

Vanessa Van Edwards 15:03 I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. You have these lines-

Steven Bartlett 15:05 Just had someone laugh in the back.

Vanessa Van Edwards 15:07 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 15:07 One of my team just laughed in the back.

Vanessa Van Edwards 15:08 So you have them just right here.

Steven Bartlett 15:10 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 15:10 These light lines here. So, um, when we're afraid, we go... And we raise our eyebrows up and our... I, I... You can't see it 'cause I had Botox on my forehead, but, um, you, if you... Yeah, there you go. There you go. That's free now. Now, now open your eyes and go... (gasps)

Steven Bartlett 15:21 (gasps)

Vanessa Van Edwards 15:22 That's afraid.

Steven Bartlett 15:23 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 15:23 So the more you have those lines and the whites of your eyes appear, like have you ever seen someone kind of walk around like a deer in the headlights?

Steven Bartlett 15:28 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 15:29 They make you feel anxious. Like, if I were to do my entire interview a little bit wide-eyed, you would not only feel anxious, but you wouldn't believe what I was saying. So you all should see if you have this default lines or if the whites of your eyes show. Look at your profile pictures. In your profile pictures, here are the three biggest mistakes people make. One, they're showing fear eyes.

Steven Bartlett 15:45 Yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 15:48 So people, you're signaling, accidentally, anxiety. So try to make sure you're not showing the upper whites. Second mistake people do is they make a contempt micro-expression. So, that's a one-sided mouth raise. So just do a one-sided mouth raise for

Vanessa Van Edwards 16:01 me. Does it make you kind of feel like, "Mm, better than."

Steven Bartlett 16:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 16:04 Don't do it for too long.

Steven Bartlett 16:04 Yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 16:05 So if you do it at home, you'll... There's a facial feedback hypothesis. When you make these faces, it actually triggers the emotion. Just like when you have the emotion, it triggers the face. There's a loop that happens.

Steven Bartlett 16:13 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 16:14 So if people make the contempt expression, one-sided mouth raise-

Steven Bartlett 16:18 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 16:19 ... not only do they look scornful, kind of disdained, they actually begin to feel better-than and scornful. So do not do an asymmetrical smile in your profile picture. You are accidentally signaling negativity. The third biggest mistake people make is they, uh, u- do an inauthentic smile in their picture. The only true indicator of happiness is when these cheek muscles are activated. Anyone can fake smile. This is what mine looks like.

Steven Bartlett 16:42 (laughs)

Vanessa Van Edwards 16:43 (laughs) But you've seen people do it, right?

Steven Bartlett 16:47 Yeah, I do it.

Vanessa Van Edwards 16:48 Yeah, and people know.

Steven Bartlett 16:49 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 16:49 I would rather you not.

Steven Bartlett 16:50 No, 'cause I, I just don't have a good smile.

Vanessa Van Edwards 16:53 What?

Steven Bartlett 16:53 Look. Like, what am I gonna-

Vanessa Van Edwards 16:55 What am I gonna say? No, it's wh- it's horrible? Is it... (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 16:58 Do you know, I don't have a good smile.

Vanessa Van Edwards 16:58 That's not your real smile.

Steven Bartlett 16:59 So I, I literally have to do this when I tick face.

Vanessa Van Edwards 17:03 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 17:03 'Cause that's my smile. I can't do the teeth thing.

Vanessa Van Edwards 17:05 But that's not a real smile.

Steven Bartlett 17:06 I try to... What am I gonna do?

Vanessa Van Edwards 17:07 Well, you can smile without your teeth as long as it hits your upper cheek muscle. So tr- just try this for me. Put your, uh, pen or your finger in between your mouth like this and smile as high as you can go. Oh, that's better. That reaches all the way up into your eyes. Do you see?

Steven Bartlett 17:19 Oh, much better.

Vanessa Van Edwards 17:20 That looks so much better.

Steven Bartlett 17:21 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 17:22 If you can activate these muscles in your profile picture, you don't have to walk around like that, but if you can activ- not the fear, not the fear. (laughs) Just here.

Steven Bartlett 17:29 Just here. (laughs)

Vanessa Van Edwards 17:30 Just here.

Steven Bartlett 17:30 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 17:31 If you can activate these muscles in your profile picture, it shows authentic happiness. Or don't smile at all. I hate the advice, "Just smile more." Fake smiles do not work. Dr. Barbara Wild studied this. She took pictures of people thinking of something they were authentically happy about, took a picture of them smiling, then she told them to fake smile and took a picture of them. On the surface, you really couldn't tell the difference between the two smiles. They looked very similar. But she had participants take mood tests, then look at the pic- look at one picture or the other, group A, group B. People who saw the positive picture had an improved mood. They caught the happiness from the photo.People who looked at the fake smile had no mood change.

Steven Bartlett 18:11 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 18:11 This means I would rather you have no smile at all or be neutral than fake smile. But if you can smile in your picture, it is so great for authentic happiness.

Steven Bartlett 18:20 It sounds like it might be quite exhausting for some people, because I think some people, although they- they're happy, they feel good, they're nice people,

Steven Bartlett 18:29 they do have that resting bothered face-

Vanessa Van Edwards 18:31 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 18:32 ... I think you called it. And there's other people that I know that just kinda walk through life with this, like, resting smile.

Vanessa Van Edwards 18:37 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 18:37 Like, we can all think of that person that's just, like, always happy.

Vanessa Van Edwards 18:39 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 18:40 And then there's these other people who are, like, objectively happy too, but they just have that resting bothered face, so it feels like life is gonna be more exhausting for those people.

Vanessa Van Edwards 18:47 You know, I think it's about choosing your hard, right? It is hard, it is exhausting for me to show up to a meeting when I'm in a good mood and have someone be like, "Are you sad and tired? Are you okay?" And I'm like, "I'm fine." I find that exhausting. Is it also a little exhausting to make sure that in my first impression, I'm being a little bit more up with my face, open eyes wide and open mouth? Little less exhausting than that.

Steven Bartlett 19:10 Hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 19:10 So I think you have to choose, what are the cues you're going to purposefully add? There are 97 cues. I've narrowed it down to 97 that I think are the most important. You get to make your own recipe. You don't have to do all the cues. If smiling is not your thing, smiling is not essential for being charismatic.

Steven Bartlett 19:25 Hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 19:25 When we talk about being charismatic, it's about being warm and competent.

Steven Bartlett 19:29 Hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 19:29 And you have 97 cues to choose from to make that warmth and competence recipe. And so you don't have to be a bubbly extrovert to be charismatic. You can be a quiet, powerful introvert. You can be a compassionate, empathetic healer. Those look different. And so I think it's less exhausting to find your recipe and to use those cues a lot. Like, there are certain cues in my book that I teach that I don't use. They just don't feel natural to me. But there are other cues where I'm like, "Ooh, I really like this."

Steven Bartlett 19:55 Has anyone ever done any really compelling studies on this idea of resting bitch face or resting bothered face, as you call it?

Vanessa Van Edwards 20:00 The- there is research on resting bothered face, and there are certain people who h- when people see pictures of their face at rest, they assume a mood change. In other words, when there's certain people at rest, where you look at them and they look neutral, but there are certain, a certain percent of the population, when you look at them, they look angry, sad, or afraid. So it's real.

Steven Bartlett 20:17 And there's certain people you look at-

Vanessa Van Edwards 20:18 And they say real thing all around.

Steven Bartlett 20:18 ... and they look happy, and make you happy.

Vanessa Van Edwards 20:20 Very few people have happy resting face, though. You either look neutral or bothered.

Steven Bartlett 20:25 So you said you were a recovering awkward person.

Vanessa Van Edwards 20:27 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 20:28 Take me into what you were like.

Vanessa Van Edwards 20:29 Oh, goodness.

Steven Bartlett 20:29 And what, what do you mean when you say awkward person?

Vanessa Van Edwards 20:32 I really wanted to go it alone. I was really overwhelmed by people and interactions. I didn't know what to do with my hands, I didn't know what to say. I felt like I missed a memo that everyone got on conversation. I always felt like I was saying the wrong things. I had all these awkward silences. And then what would happen is I would try to overcompensate by sharing a ridiculous story or talking too much or completely shutting down, and I kind of, like, wavered between completely shutting down and being overwhelmed and talking too much and saying too much, and just verbal vomiting all over everyone.

Steven Bartlett 21:04 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 21:04 And so I shut down. And in college especially, I just felt so left out. Like, I just felt so lonely. And I don't know if anyone watching is feeling lonely. I thought it was all my fault. It was like, "I missed the memo. I don't know how to have conversations. I don't even know how to have friends." That's what it felt like, that I desperately wanted to make connections, but I had no idea how to level up a new person to a friendship. I had no idea how that path happened. I had no idea how to have a conversation with someone, share something real, and then have a real interaction back. And so it was really lonely and overwhelming.

Steven Bartlett 21:43 And

Steven Bartlett 21:44 what was the catalyst for you to go on this journey?

Vanessa Van Edwards 21:47 I was in college, and there was a group paper assigned, and you had, like, five people, and everyone had to do five pages. And I went to the professor, and I said, "I will write double the amount of pages if I can work by myself." And he was like, "Vanessa, the point of the paper is not the paper. It's working with the people." And I was like... And I started to cry in his office. I was, like, that student. I was like, "I- I don't know how." And he was like, "Vanessa, you're very good at science. You're very good at breaking things down. What if you studied for people like you study for chemistry?" That was, like, an a-ha moment for me. He said, "Why don't you study good conversation? Why don't you study the popular kids? Why don't you look at, what are they doing in conversation that's working? Study it like it's a science." Hence my brand. It's- it's called Science of People. That's when I realized, okay, it didn't come naturally to me, but maybe there's research on actual things I can do with my body, things I can do, I can say verbally, questions that work that will help me learn this the other way, turning soft skills into hard skills. That's when I started creating my first conversational blueprints. That's when I started creating my conversation formula. It- and it started to work. I started to try out these kinda tiny experiments, and I actually started to feel like myself, make more friends. It was tools. I had to use tools to be able to connect 'cause it just did not come naturally to me.

Steven Bartlett 23:11 Was it fixed from day one? Hmm?

Vanessa Van Edwards 23:13 No. Mm-mm.

Steven Bartlett 23:14 So it was a journey.

Vanessa Van Edwards 23:15 It was a real journey. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 23:16 'Cause I think that's important, 'cause often people think, you know, read the book, get the tips and tricks, and you're- you're changed and you're fixed. You talk about, I think later in your life, where you went to a dinner party and your husband, uh, was there with you, and you went home and told him that you thought everyone was angry at you.

Vanessa Van Edwards 23:31 Yeah. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 23:32 When was that?

Vanessa Van Edwards 23:33 That was-

Steven Bartlett 23:33 In this journey.

Vanessa Van Edwards 23:33 ... probably maybe four or five years later.

Steven Bartlett 23:35 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 23:36 So I started mostly with conversation. That was sort of my, my first tool I needed was questions I wanted to ask, first impressions, and how to close the conversation very practically. I also realized about five years later at my... I married my college sweetheart, so I've been with my husband for a long time. And he said to me, "You always think everyone's angry at you." I was like, "Isn't everyone angry at me?" And I realized there are certain people who misinterpret neutral facial expressions as negative. I have this problem. So I will see a neutral expression on someone and assume they are angry or afraid or stressed or don't like me.And that was creating this really bad loop because when you think someone doesn't like you, you shut down and become more unlikable. And there was a study I discovered right around this time. Um, this is done by, uh, Dr. Van Sloan. He wanted to know what makes popular kids popular. Very clever study. He studied thousands of high school students across a variety of high schools, looking for patterns. Why is it that some kids across these grades

Vanessa Van Edwards 24:37 and ages are really popular? He had all the kids ranked across all these schools, he had them look at traits, and then he guessed what made the popular kids popular. Were they more athletic? Were they more attractive? Were they funnier? Were they smarter? What was it? Can you guess what it was?

Steven Bartlett 24:51 Hmm. Uh, I'm, so I'm just basing this on the kids that were popular in my school.

Vanessa Van Edwards 25:00 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:00 Um, they were funnier, they were self-deprecating to some degree.

Vanessa Van Edwards 25:05 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 25:05 They were good at, they were remotely good at some sports, maybe? Um, they were funny, happy? I don't know. What is it?

Vanessa Van Edwards 25:14 Okay, so he found that the most popular kids ac- the one single variable that was hold- held true across all the different students was the most popular kids had the longest list of people they liked. So, when he asked, one of the questions on the survey was, "Who do you like?" They had the longest lists. And when he looked at their day to day, they had micro-moments of liking. They would go down the hallway and be like, "Hey, Chad. Hey, Chelsea. Hey, Sarah." They liked so many people, and that in turn made them more likable. This showed me that being likable is in our control. Being likable means you have to be first-liker. If you set out to like more people, you become more likable. And that was a really big shift for me, because for so long, I thought it was all about me. It's a very selfish way to be, right? I was like, "I better be impressive, I better be funny." But actually, what makes us likable is just liking as many people as possible.

Steven Bartlett 26:13 I was laughing as you were speaking, 'cause I was just playing out all the different sort of personas of people listening right now.

Vanessa Van Edwards 26:18 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 26:19 And I just had this one persona of a person sat at home who just, like, slumped over 'cause they realized they hate everybody.

Vanessa Van Edwards 26:23 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 26:24 When you said that there, I was like, "Fuck, I hate everybody." (laughs)

Vanessa Van Edwards 26:27 Look, I get it. I get it. I get it, and I also think that if you hate everyone, if that's you, let me try to convince you for a second.

Steven Bartlett 26:34 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 26:34 It could be because you're asking the wrong questions.

Steven Bartlett 26:37 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 26:37 I think I fell into that camp. "I don't need people. I don't like people." I was very much in that camp for the first couple of years. Why? Because I had terrible interactions and terrible conversations, and it was awkward. Of course I didn't like people, but I was also asking the wrong questions and I was telling the wrong stories. I was trying to be impressive. The best way to be impressive, to be likable, is to help people impress you, is to make them feel so liked that they begin to like you back. It's aggressively liking. So, that means that when you're with someone, you should be constantly giving them verbal and non-verbal assurances of how much you want to like them. Watch them change. Watch your relationships transform. So, I make it a policy of aggressively liking people. So, I have, um, three phrase, magic phrases for likability. Can I teach them to you?

Steven Bartlett 27:24 Please.

Vanessa Van Edwards 27:25 Okay, so I want you to use these as many times as you can. Three magic phrases for likability. One, "I was just thinking of you." Okay, so here's how you use this authentically, right?

Steven Bartlett 27:34 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 27:34 You think of a lot of people in your life a- all the time.

Steven Bartlett 27:36 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 27:37 If you are thinking of someone and you can text them, text them, "I was just thinking of you. How are you? I was just thinking of you. How'd that project go? I was just thinking of you. It has been a while since we talked." Or, and better, you see a movie, you see a documentary, you see a matcha latte, you see a mug, you see a ceramic candle, and you're like, "Oh, this made me think of you." So, my text messages, my conversations are full of actual moments where I was triggered to think of that person actually-

Steven Bartlett 28:03 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 28:03 ... that this thing made me think of you. Or, "I was just thinking of you, I wanted to ask you about..." If you don't think of someone, they're not a person you need to have in your life.

Steven Bartlett 28:12 Okay, so that's number one.

Vanessa Van Edwards 28:13 That's number one.

Steven Bartlett 28:13 I wanna pause on number one 'cause I've got a, some sort of questions to ask here.

Vanessa Van Edwards 28:16 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 28:17 It sounds exhausting. It sounds like it's gonna cost me a lot of time that I don't necessarily have. And this is just my, like, my surface-level reaction was, "Oh, God. Another job." Like... (laughs)

Vanessa Van Edwards 28:27 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 28:27 Do you know what I mean? I just, I, like, if I've gotta set aside an hour to, like, text everyone I know and go, "I was just thinking of you."

Vanessa Van Edwards 28:33 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 28:33 It's gonna be exhausting.

Steven Bartlett 28:34 I've got, like, six friends and I've got my- my partner. I've got my family and my team. It's a lot, it's a lot.

Vanessa Van Edwards 28:40 Then just them. And also, it doesn't take an hour when you're like, "Oh, stainless steel mug. This made me think of you." Right? Like, you're only doing it when it's actually naturally occurring to you. I don't want you to sit at your desk and be like, "I'm due for some I was just thinking of yous." No, this happens in the wild.

Steven Bartlett 28:56 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 28:56 You're watching a documentary, you're at a restaurant, you're on the bus. You're like, "Oh, that reminds me of this person. Quick text." That is less work than missing an old friend and not knowing what to say. It is less work to see something in real life or have a thought of like, "I wonder how Sarah is?" And reaching out to them than, "I miss Sarah, but I'm not gonna reach out to her." It's also less work when you see someone and you haven't seen them in a while or they're a friend of a friend or they're that casual coworker relationship and you're like, "What do I say?" I think it's a lot of work to go up to that person and be like, "How was your weekend?" I think that's a lot of work. I think boring small talk's a lot of work. If you actually thought of them to say, "You know, I know you love dolphins. I saw this dolphin documentary on Netflix. Have you seen it? I was just thinking of you. Made me think of you."

Steven Bartlett 29:43 I got another concern.

Vanessa Van Edwards 29:44 Oh. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 29:44 So, if I, if I start firing out these WhatsApp messages telling people when I'm thinking of them-

Vanessa Van Edwards 29:49 Love it, love it.

Steven Bartlett 29:49 ... it's just gonna be, it's gonna be opening up loads of conversations that I then have to deal with. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's gonna be like, "Hey, I was just thinking of you." And then they reply, they go, "Oh, how- how are you?" And I go, "I'm good, thanks." And then they go, I go, "How are you?" They go, "I'm good, thanks." And then, ugh, do you know what I mean? And then they might ask me-

Vanessa Van Edwards 30:03 Well, I, I don't believe in asking, "How are you?"

Steven Bartlett 30:05 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 30:06 That's, that's a whole nother thing. This is a good test. If you are worried that they're gonna start a conversation that's gonna bore you and feel like work, they're not a close friend.

Steven Bartlett 30:15 So, don't text them.

Vanessa Van Edwards 30:16 Mm-mm.

Steven Bartlett 30:16 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 30:17 It's a very good test. If they're someone where you're like, "Oh, I don't really wanna hear how they are."

Steven Bartlett 30:21 Yeah.Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 30:23 This is for the people who you wanna level up with. There are three levels of intimacy. People who you kinda know, you know their personal, you know their general traits, where they work, where they live, what they do, that's it. You don't wanna go any deeper with them. Level two people are people where they know your personal concerns. You know their goals, their motivations, their personality traits, their worries. Those are people who you wanna invest in. And there's a last level, which is the most deep level, which is called self-narrative, which is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. If you categorize your relationships, another activity I love for my students to do is make those three levels on a piece of paper. Write down the 20 people you can think of, the top 20 people you spend the most time with. Where do they fall?

Steven Bartlett 31:02 So we have acquaintances. We have-

Vanessa Van Edwards 31:04 Acquaintances who just kinda know where are you from.

Steven Bartlett 31:06 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 31:06 What do you do? The basics.

Steven Bartlett 31:07 Peripheral people.

Vanessa Van Edwards 31:08 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 31:08 Yeah, right.

Vanessa Van Edwards 31:09 And by the way, some of the people who you're close with, might, you might not be deep with.

Steven Bartlett 31:13 Yeah, true.

Vanessa Van Edwards 31:13 Right? Level two, personal concerns. Could they tell you what is your, Stephen's biggest goal right now?

Steven Bartlett 31:19 Okay, and then the middle layer, I didn't understand.

Vanessa Van Edwards 31:21 Tha- that's the middle layer. Tha- that's the middle layer. So le- so it's general traits, personal concerns, self-narrative.

Steven Bartlett 31:26 What's self-narrative?

Vanessa Van Edwards 31:27 So this is what my next book is about. I'm doing research on it right now. Self-narrative is the story you tell yourself about yourself.

Steven Bartlett 31:33 So is this a group of people?

Vanessa Van Edwards 31:35 It's the levels of intimacy you are with someone. So would your partner-

Steven Bartlett 31:38 Oh, okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 31:39 ... know the story you tell yourself about yourself? I'll give you an example.

Steven Bartlett 31:43 100% she would.

Vanessa Van Edwards 31:44 I think so. So I think that there are basically three main types of narratives, and you should know what these are for the closest people in your life. Maybe only two or three, and you should also know what it is for yourself. The best one is a hero narrative. This is, "I've worked really hard. I've had some challenges and mistakes, but I've overcome with hard work and smarts, and now I am where I am." Every version of their story, their career, their life, their relationships is that same narrative over and over again. Then there's what I think is called the healer narrative. And again, I'm doing research on this for my next book. The healer narrative, their story is all about helping others. They typically are in careers of service, of helping others, physical therapists, nurses, healthcare. Their story is, "How can I be more helpful?" They tend to have a problem, though, if you're in a relationship with a, with a healer, is they always put other people's needs before them, themselves, their-

Steven Bartlett 32:36 Do, do they have some kind of historic trauma?

Vanessa Van Edwards 32:38 They can, and a lot of the times, they were put in a position of care-taking too early. Like, they were told that you're of value if you can caretake. You're of value if you put your needs last. So they tend to be people pleasers. They tend to say yes to everything. You have to be careful if you work with a healer because they are great to work with, they help, help, help, but they say yes to too much. So a healer is the middle one. The last one is victim narrative. Victim narrative, no matter what, personal, professional, love life, taxes, they have the same narrative. "I experienced challenges and mistakes, and I didn't overcome. No matter how hard I work, no matter how smart I am, the world is against me." So a question I ask people to begin to uncover their self-narratives, "Do you feel lucky? Do you feel lucky?"

Steven Bartlett 33:22 I feel very lucky.

Vanessa Van Edwards 33:23 I also feel very lucky.

Steven Bartlett 33:25 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 33:25 People who have a resounding yes to, "I feel lucky," are more likely heroes or, or healers. People who say, "I don't feel lucky. I feel very unlucky," are typically victims. Dr. Richard Wiseman did a study. He asked people to perceive their own luck. "How lucky do you feel?" Then he gave them a challenge. He gave them a newspaper, and he said, "I want you to count the amount of images in this newspaper." They sat with the newspaper and they counted all the images, but there was a trick. There's always a trick in these studies. On the second page of the newspaper, in big print, it said, "Stop counting. There are 42 images in this newspaper." Almost all of the people who perceived themselves as lucky saw the ad, closed the paper, and gave it back, said, "There are 42 images." Almost none of the unlucky people did. The unlucky people missed the ad and kept counting, spent a lot of time, and made more mistakes. This means that if you think of yourself as lucky, you literally see more opportunities. If you think of yourself as unlucky, you miss them.

Steven Bartlett 34:25 Is it possible to change how you see yourself?

Vanessa Van Edwards 34:27 I do believe in a growth mindset. So I do believe that if you, if this is resonating with you and, like, you're like, "Uh-oh.

Steven Bartlett 34:34 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 34:34 "I feel unlucky. I might have this victim self-narrative," I do believe it's possible to change your perception of yourself, and that's starting with small moments of heroism. I think that changing your people skills, saying, "I don't like people," and saying, "I'm gonna find a way to like people," saying, "I'm bad at conversation. I'm gonna find a way to be good at conversation," to say, "I'm an awkward person. No, I'm a recovering awkward person." If we can begin to take those tiny experiments and change them one by one, we begin to have small moments of heroism, and that's how we change our self-narrative.

Steven Bartlett 35:05 As an employer, I think about this a lot, these sort of verbal and non-verbal cues, and I actually had an interview some time ago, and I think I came out of the interview, and I think, objectively, the person might have been qualified, but there was something about their energy or cues or something that signaled something else to me, that they were an unhappy person or they were tired or they didn't really wanna be here or something like that. Are there any studies that confirm that our hidden communication is driving our success in the working environment?

Vanessa Van Edwards 35:37 Hmm. Yes. So this study blew my mind. It's 58,000 working hours over 11 different companies, so a huge amain- amount of data. They wanted to know if low performers infect the people around them and if high performers infect the people around them. What they found was if you sit within 25 feet of a high performer, your own performance improves by 15%.

Steven Bartlett 36:03 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 36:04 Here's the kicker. If you sit within 25 feet of a low performer, your own performance decreases by 30%. This means that our negative emotions are more contagious, that if you're around people who are low performers, whatever that means to you, who have negative cues, who are feeling anxious or tired or low confident, you could catch those cues and that affects your own performance.This is why it is incredibly critical to invest in the five people who you spend the most time with. You wanna make sure those five people are the cues you wanna catch.

Steven Bartlett 36:37 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 36:37 Do you like the cues they're sending? Do they give you the right motivation, feelings? Do they make you feel liked? Do they make you a better version of yourself? There's, mm, there's just one more chemical aspect of this which we have to do more research on. This is a very gross study, but that's one of my favorites. It's a little gross. You ready?

Steven Bartlett 36:56 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 36:56 Okay. So they brought people into their lab, they split them up into two different groups, and they made the first group wear a sweatsuit where they catch your sweat and run on the treadmill. So they sweat a lot on the treadmill. The second group, they wore sweatsuits and they took them skydiving for the first time. Both groups sweat a lot, treadmill sweat and skydiving sweat. They took these sweat samples and they had unsuspecting participants go into fMRI machines and scan their brains. Then they gave them both sweat samples to smell. Poor, these poor people did not, didn't know what they were smelling. They went like... Everyone who smelled the skydiving sweat had an activation in their own amygdala, their own fear response triggered. In other words, when they smelled fear sweat, they didn't know why, they began to feel afraid. Everyone who smelled the treadmill sweat had no change at all. This means that, yes, we can talk about facial expressions and body language and vocal cues and words, but there's also something chemically happening with the people around us, that we can literally smell fear and we catch it. And that is also why it's really important to follow our gut. Oh, dear.

Steven Bartlett 38:00 Well, I was gonna say, well, then we're all screwed, aren't we? We can't, we can't do anything 'cause there's, if we're giving off these chemicals which are impacting those around us, it doesn't matter if I smile and do the whole like...

Vanessa Van Edwards 38:10 Mm, no, because I think intention is the backdoor into confidence. It's very hard to fake confidence. I don't believe in "fake it till you make it." I don't really. But if I say, "I have a conversational tool for you that's gonna make your conversations better," you become less nervous, you become more excited, you ask a better question, they give you a really good answer. You feel super charismatic. They feel really liked. You feel really likable. Ooh, we have a good little cycle.

Steven Bartlett 38:34 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 38:35 So I think that intention, going in with really purposeful cues, helps you feel more confident and triggers these beautiful cycles.

Steven Bartlett 38:42 The cycle, is this the cycle you're talking about?

Vanessa Van Edwards 38:44 It's the cycle, yes. It's the cycle.

Steven Bartlett 38:45 The cue cycle.

Vanessa Van Edwards 38:45 The cue cycle, yes.

Steven Bartlett 38:46 I'll put it on the screen and in the description for anyone that wants to see it. But when I saw this, the reason I printed this off was because it really hit close to home, because I'm someone that meets a lot of people, and, um, when I meet people, there's, on the very rare occasion, something about someone will just kind of throw my energy, and it throws my energy to the point that I realize I'm then acting a little bit in terms of my interaction with them. And it's almost like I can't control it. Like, something about the person has unnerved me or just made, it, and it's nothing that I could consciously tell, like-

Vanessa Van Edwards 39:14 Right.

Steven Bartlett 39:15 ... say, oh, it was-

Vanessa Van Edwards 39:16 Right.

Steven Bartlett 39:16 ... the way they shook my hand. Just something about them-

Vanessa Van Edwards 39:18 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 39:18 ... throws me into this different state.

Vanessa Van Edwards 39:20 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 39:21 Um, and when I saw this, I, I, I almost figured out why, because the first step in this cue c- You, you explain. I mean, it's your cue cycle.

Vanessa Van Edwards 39:27 Yes, okay. So, we often mistakenly think that we send a signal to someone else, they send a signal back to us, and that's it. What we don't realize is there's a cycle happening within us, which is that if you send me a negative cue, I internalize it, and that changes the cues I'm sending back to you. Here's a very simple experiment that showed this. They put a participant in a room and they had an actor in the room flash them a fe- a social rejection cue. That could be ugh, an eye roll, a scoff, a distancing and blocking behavior. So the participants in the room and this person across from them, they don't know is an actor, sends them a social rejection cue. What they found was the moment that participant saw the social rejection cue, their own pupils dilated and their field of vision increased. This means that somebody saw, "Uh-oh, that person doesn't like me," and their body reacted to fight or flight. "Do, does anyone else feel this way about me? Are there any escape routes for me?" And that then changed what cues they sent back to that person. They were more anxious. They were more nervous. If you walk into a room with someone and you're feeling bad, you probably caught a cue. Here's the good news: you can stop the cue cycle from being negative. There's also positive cues, right? We can catch-

Steven Bartlett 40:45 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 40:45 ... positive cues that can be good for us. But we can stop the negative cycle if we label the cue we see. Dr. Matthew Lieberman at UCLA studied this very clearly. He put people in fMRI machines and he flashed them a fear micro-expression, the one that you showed us earlier, with your eyes really wide. When people saw the fear micro-expression, they caught the fear. They began to feel afraid and their amygdala lit up. But when he taught them, "Say fear," or, "Think fear," he taught them the micro-expression, it stopped activating their amygdala. Meaning if you know how to read the 97 cues and you see contempt or social rejection or a mouth shrug or a lip purse, all not great cues, you can in your head say, "Lip purse, I'm good," or, "Clocked, noted." That intel is actually empowering. So that backdoor into confidence is also you can label it, name it, tame it, and you're in control of it. That is a much better way to interact, and it also can help you like people, for all my people who don't like people.

Steven Bartlett 41:40 Okay, so in those moments I should, in my head, just say what, what, what I'm-

Vanessa Van Edwards 41:44 Clocked. Label it.

Steven Bartlett 41:44 Clocked.

Vanessa Van Edwards 41:45 Yeah. Like, that's what I say to myself, or like, "Red flag," or, "Noted."

Steven Bartlett 41:49 You're un- You're particularly famous for a TED Talk that you did-

Vanessa Van Edwards 41:53 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 41:53 ... which did very, very well, um,

Steven Bartlett 41:55 it was called You Are Contagious, and it really opened my eyes to the importance of hand gestures...

Vanessa Van Edwards 42:02 (laughs) Yes.

Steven Bartlett 42:02 ... which I didn't really think were that important before. But, uh, it's funny 'cause going through this election cycle, and obviously Trump has now been elected as the next President of the United States, he is someone in particular that uses a lot of hand gestures.

Vanessa Van Edwards 42:13 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 42:14 And in your TED Talk you make the case that hand gestures matter.

Vanessa Van Edwards 42:17 Oh, so much. I think the hands are the windows into the soul. I think what we underestimate is the power of our gestures. Mm, love it, just love it, just those jazz hands.

Steven Bartlett 42:27 Mm, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 42:27 Just those jazz hands. So here's... I'm gonna do a little experiment with you.

Steven Bartlett 42:29 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 42:30 So, I'm gonna put my hands in my lap. I've been very careful to leave my hands on the table for the entire interview. That's on purpose. Now-Something funny happens in your brain when you can't see my hands, and the longer my hands are underneath the table, the more your amygdala will begin to fire and the more distracted you become with, "Where are her hands? Why are her hands under the table?" And then when I bring my hands back out again, your brain goes ... (sighs) And that is because hands show intention, and this makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. So if we go back to caveman days, if we were approached by a stranger caveman and they went, "Friend, friend, friend. Friend, friend, friend," we saw they weren't carrying a rock or a spear and they were probably a friend. In fact, we go, "So nice to meet you," we can see someone's hand, we know that they're literally not gonna harm us. So our brain still keeps this mechanism, that if we're on video and we can't see someone's hands or they walk into an office with their hands in their pockets or behind their back, we feel a little bit uneasy. So there's two things for this. First is the moment someone first sees you, you want to be friend, friend, friend. Good to see you. Oh, so nice to meet you.

Steven Bartlett 43:28 We'll put your hand up for people that can't see.

Vanessa Van Edwards 43:30 The moment I walk into a room, "Hey, nice to see you." Even before I handshake, even an old friend, I'll be like, "Oh my gosh, so good to see you." On Zoom, "Morning.

Vanessa Van Edwards 43:38 Hey, team."

Steven Bartlett 43:38 For people that- for people that can't see, she's basically putting her hand in the air.

Vanessa Van Edwards 43:41 Which is like a little wave.

Steven Bartlett 43:42 A little wave.

Vanessa Van Edwards 43:42 A little wave. We love a palm. As humans, we love seeing someone's palm. There's something about it that makes us feel like, "Ah, they're literally open palmed." So that's the first. In the first few seconds of someone seeing you, in person, on video, try to flash your palm. Very, very simply. Second, we understand competence in two ways. Very highly competent people know their content so well, they can speak to you on two tracks. They can speak to you verbally, but they also can speak to you with their hands. This is why we loved picture books as kids. And so when someone is speaking, we're listening to their words, but second, we're looking, are their hands outlining their words? So for example, all the best TED Talks start the same way, and this is what got me my TED Talk, is we studied all the TED Talks from 2010, looking for patterns, and my team and I coded every TED Talk we can find, looking for differences between the most viral TED Talks and the least viral- vir- viral TED Talks. We found the most viral TED speakers used an average, an average of 465 hand gestures in 18 minutes, whereas the least popular TED talkers used an average of 271 gestures. So n- not quite half, meaning if someone walks on stage ... Here's a really good TED Talk. They all start this way. Are you ready? "Today, I want to talk to you about a big idea. We're gonna share three different things that are gonna change your life." So for people listening, I was outlining with my wor- hands along with my words. If I were to get on stage and say, "Today I have a really big idea. It's huge," and hold up my hands in a really small way, your brain is 12.5 times more likely to believe my gesture over my words. And so what we can do as speakers, as very highly charismatic speakers, is think about, "How can I outline, very basically, not modern dance, what I'm saying, or how can I emphasize things with my gestures?" If something is big, show me. Is a beach ball big? Is it ... What is this big? Donkey big? This a donkey? I don't even know.

Steven Bartlett 45:43 Um, yeah, most donkeys.

Vanessa Van Edwards 45:44 Uh, big. A goat?

Steven Bartlett 45:45 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 45:45 A goat? This is a goat big. If you have something that's really small and no big deal, doing this actually helps you think that it's not a big deal. I'm making a little kind of dismissive gesture with my hand. This also works with emphasizing points you want people to remember. If you have three ideas, tell someone you have three ideas. It is very hard to lie with our gestures. For example, you want to do a little experiment with me?

Steven Bartlett 46:04 Sure.

Vanessa Van Edwards 46:05 Okay, I want you to say five but hold up the number three.

Steven Bartlett 46:09 Five.

Vanessa Van Edwards 46:11 Hard, right?

Steven Bartlett 46:11 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 46:12 So it's really hard for our-

Steven Bartlett 46:13 I had to think about them separately.

Vanessa Van Edwards 46:14 Yeah. It's really hard. Our brain is not meant to lie with gesture, which is why humans pay so close attention to gestures, because we're looking to see, are they congruent? It is so hard to be incongruent with our gestures. Liars typically use less gestures.

Steven Bartlett 46:28 Ah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 46:29 So we're also drawn to people who are using gestures, who are congruent with their gestures, 'cause it makes us feel like, "Ooh, they know their stuff and they're being honest."

Steven Bartlett 46:36 So it made me reflect, i- w- how do we establish causation here in terms of these hand gestures? Could it be the case that the more confident TED speakers are doing more gestures because they're less nervous?

Vanessa Van Edwards 46:48 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 46:49 So is it about nerves? Um, and the less, um, confident, more nervous TED speakers are doing less gestures just because they're self-soothing a lot, and they're- they're kind of closing off their body. Is confidence the thing here? Is it nerves?

Vanessa Van Edwards 47:03 I don't think so. I think it's about engagement. So I think most TED speakers, and I watched these TED Talks. They're all good. All of them are good, and some of them are experts in their field. The difference is, do I want to watch their good? It is hard for me, as a viewer, to pay attention for 18 minutes with someone who didn't use enough gestures. It was, like, physically hard for my brain to pay attention. I think those speakers, whether good or not, had over-rehearsed and rehearsed out their hand gestures, or were holding a podium, or were holding a clicker too hard. So I actually think that it's less to do with the speaker's nerves or confidence, and it's more to do with, are they gonna let themselves use their hands to explain their points? And that becomes more engaging.

Steven Bartlett 47:44 One of the things I've noticed on this podcast is people who are using their hands are more expressive, and if they're more expressive, there's likely to be more sort of intonations in their voice. And if there's more intonations, it's more engaging, and if it's more engaging, then it's more retentive for the algorithm. And if it's more retentive for the algorithm, it suggests it more.

Vanessa Van Edwards 47:58 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 47:58 If it's suggested more, there's more views.

Vanessa Van Edwards 48:00 Yes, yes, yes.

Steven Bartlett 48:01 So, so I would like to tell my guests, all of the past and particularly, uh, future guests, that if you're- if you have more expression in what you're saying and more intonations in your voice, then our show will grow. (laughs)

Vanessa Van Edwards 48:14 Okay. Okay. Let's talk about two things here. One is, we did a test on my YouTube channel and found that if we used a thumbnail of me ho- hold- doing any hand gesture, it didn't even matter what it was, it could be this, it could be this, it could be ... Any hand gesture, that got more clicks.

Steven Bartlett 48:26 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 48:27 People, even in the thumbnail, liked to see the hand gesture even more than my crazy facial expressions. We tried both. So yes, we are a t- Because if you see a thumbnail of me, you know, holding up two, you're like, "Well, what two things is she talking about?"

Steven Bartlett 48:39 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 48:40 What is it?So it's, we, we like it. It shows competence. And the second thing is that vocal variety is an incredibly important aspect of charisma. We're talking about gestures, but there is a feedback loop here, that the more, like if you, if I were try, if I were gonna sit on my hands for this interview, you would notice my facial expression would get less charismatic, my vocal tone would be less charismatic. It's really hard to be charismatic without movement. Vocal variety is a critical aspect of both warmth and competence.

Steven Bartlett 49:07 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 49:08 That is because when we hear someone who's able to, for example, give us the TED Talk voice, so I'm gonna give you the TED Talk voice. You ready?

Steven Bartlett 49:14 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 49:15 "This point is going to change the way that we think about the world, and if we don't analyze this point, we will be in huge trouble." Like, that is a voice that is telling you, "Ooh, this is important."

Steven Bartlett 49:29 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 49:29 You also hear that really good speakers will use, like a numbers voice, so a numbers voice sounds like this. "Did you know that 43% of humans all believe in the same thing? 43%." Like there's, and then if you're telling a story, it changes again. So a story tone would go like this. "You're never gonna believe what happened to me. So last week, I'm walking down the street, and I saw this guy."

Steven Bartlett 49:50 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 49:51 It's a totally different vocal variety. That is a gift to your listener that makes you more engaging because they're able to clock, "Oh, we're doing a number now."

Steven Bartlett 50:00 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 50:00 "Oh, we have a story now. Oh, this is an important point, I better write it down." Really good TED speakers are outlining their talk for you in ma- in many different ways, and that's the best speakers I see on stage.

Steven Bartlett 50:10 It's so interesting because i- in this podcast, we, um, had quite a long conversation a couple of months ago about arms on the chair, the chair that you're in now. And it was just this observation we had when we first flew out here to New York. The chairs that we ordered were pretty similar to this, but they just happened to have arms on them.

Vanessa Van Edwards 50:25 Uh-huh.

Steven Bartlett 50:25 And what I noticed was that guests would lean.

Vanessa Van Edwards 50:28 Oh.

Steven Bartlett 50:29 And, and it would take out their arms.

Vanessa Van Edwards 50:31 Oh, yes.

Steven Bartlett 50:31 So it took out their arms, and they became-

Vanessa Van Edwards 50:33 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 50:33 ... less expressive, and the conversations were less interesting. (laughs)

Vanessa Van Edwards 50:35 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 50:36 So we removed the arms again.

Vanessa Van Edwards 50:38 Okay, so let's talk about this just very briefly.

Steven Bartlett 50:39 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 50:41 I actually do recommend chairs with arms.

Steven Bartlett 50:42 Oh.

Vanessa Van Edwards 50:43 Not in this setup because look at the difference. So actually, right before this interview, you asked me to scoot my chair in, right?

Steven Bartlett 50:49 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 50:49 Or your amazing team asked me to scoot my chair in. Thank you for that because it makes it so that I want to put my hands up. If I were to be sitting farther back, I'm just gonna lean back for a second, I would be tempted to put my hands in my lap.

Steven Bartlett 50:59 Yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards 51:00 So the critical piece of this is you're having me scoot up to the table. It would be really hard if I had arms 'cause then I would wanna go like this, and it would make me look like a duck.

Steven Bartlett 51:08 Yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards 51:09 Right. So you wanna use a chair with arms to be broader. It actually does broaden your arms out, unless you're really close to the table, then you can put your hands on the table.

Steven Bartlett 51:17 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 51:17 But I, I, it's amazing how the physical environment can change how we are perceived and how we move.

Steven Bartlett 51:22 But even, uh, we're very intentional about the sort of mirroring of our body language and just making sure that we're head-on-

Vanessa Van Edwards 51:28 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 51:28 ... because this conversation is entirely different if we're side-on.

Vanessa Van Edwards 51:31 Very much.

Steven Bartlett 51:31 It's not gonna be the same.

Vanessa Van Edwards 51:32 Very much.

Steven Bartlett 51:33 And there's not gonna be the same level of intimacy.

Vanessa Van Edwards 51:35 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 51:35 We also thought a lot about the, how big the table was. This is quite a big table.

Vanessa Van Edwards 51:39 What's the distance?

Steven Bartlett 51:40 Uh, I'm gonna say it's about just shy of two meters.

Vanessa Van Edwards 51:42 Wait, can you hold your arm out? Okay, so this is perfect distance. The perfect distance between two people having a good conversation is that we could shake hands if we wanted to.

Steven Bartlett 51:51 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 51:51 And that is because there are four different proxemic zones, so the fancy word for space is proxemics. I don't know if you have that-

Steven Bartlett 51:57 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 51:58 ... beautiful graphic. Yes.

Steven Bartlett 51:59 I printed out this, this, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 52:00 Oh, yes, that's it. Yes. So there are four different space zones, and these are really good to know if you're trying to set yourself up for success. The public zone is about five to eight feet away. I don't know, uh, not feet, but five to eight feet away. Then you have the social zone, which is where we like to socialize with people. That is, depending on who you ask, three to five feet away. Then there's the personal zone. That's our favorite zone. That is about, uh, arm's distance apart, right? So we could shake hands if we wanted to. That's where our best conversations happen. And then there's the intimate zone. A big mistake people make is they place their video camera too close to their face, which means they're accidentally signaling intimacy cues with their colleagues and their coworkers. Have you ever been on a Zoom with someone where their face is the entire camera?

Steven Bartlett 52:41 Yeah, I was on, on one earlier on.

Vanessa Van Edwards 52:42 And you're like, "Please, back up." And that is because your brain is going, "Too close," even though they're across a camera. So what I would really recommend, measure the distance between your nose and your camera. It should be one arm length, so it should be the tip of your nose to the tip of your fingers, or a foot and a half to three feet away. That is the ideal zone for having good conversation over Zoom.

Steven Bartlett 53:01 That's really interesting as well because I was thinking about the conversation I had actually on the way here in the car with a colleague of mine.

Vanessa Van Edwards 53:06 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 53:06 And they had called me on FaceTime.

Vanessa Van Edwards 53:08 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 53:09 Now, the thing with FaceTime is it's gonna be close.

Vanessa Van Edwards 53:11 It's gonna be close. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 53:12 And it, it did feel a little bit intimate-

Vanessa Van Edwards 53:13 It does. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 53:14 ... um, because they called me on FaceTime.

Vanessa Van Edwards 53:15 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 53:16 Uh, obviously if I was on my laptop, they would call me on Zoom or something else and you, there would be a meter, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 53:20 Farther, yes.

Steven Bartlett 53:21 Interesting.

Vanessa Van Edwards 53:21 So I think that that's f- why we can sometimes, at least introverts, feel like, "Don't FaceTime me, it's way too personal."

Steven Bartlett 53:27 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 53:27 It's 'cause there's a setup there that it's actually accidentally tricking you into being in the intimate zone with someone. This is also why, uh, loud bars and nightclubs work so well for facilitating romantic relationships. What happens in a loud bar or a loud nightclub is you can't hear someone, so you go, "What?" And then you get a little bit closer, and all of a sudden, you're accidentally standing in someone's intimate zone, which then that cue cycle begins to kick in where you're like, "Well if I'm standing within a foot and a half from this person, maybe I should feel intimate with them," which then makes you lean in more, it makes you wanna touch more. That is why people go to bars and nightclubs to facilitate these romantic relationships. It's accidentally going into the intimate zone.

Steven Bartlett 54:04 When I was younger, I've said this a few times on the podcast before, but it's, feels very relevant. My brother, my older brother, Jason, he ordered this book called The Game-

Vanessa Van Edwards 54:12 Uh-huh.

Steven Bartlett 54:12 ... by Neil Strauss.

Vanessa Van Edwards 54:13 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 54:14 And it, um, he ordered

Steven Bartlett 54:15 it to university, but he accidentally put the wrong address, and so it came to home. This sounds like an elaborate story for me, like buying a pick-up artist book-

Vanessa Van Edwards 54:20 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 54:20 ... but it came to home, and I read the book, and it was my first time understanding that body language was A, important, but even something you could learn.

Vanessa Van Edwards 54:27 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 54:27 And, and, you know, when I say body language, I mean everything. Um, and it's, it's interesting 'cause now after reading your work, I actually think maybe what I should've been aiming at was how to be more charismatic.

Vanessa Van Edwards 54:38 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 54:39 And you talk about these five science-based habits for being more charismatic.

Vanessa Van Edwards 54:45 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 54:45 I guess the first question is, what is char- charisma?

Vanessa Van Edwards 54:48 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 54:49 And then what are these five science-based habits that can make me more charismatic as a person? Like, how do I know if I'm charismatic?

Vanessa Van Edwards 54:56 You are charismatic, but you lean higher on competence. So, so, let's break it down, okay?

Steven Bartlett 55:01 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 55:01 So this is not my work. This is the wa- work of Dr. Susan Fiske. This is a instrumental study, it's been repeated many times, back in 2002, that found that to be charismatic, you have to be both highly warm and highly competent, or more importantly, you have to signal high warmth and high competence, and that this makes up 82% of impressions of people. Warmth: trust, likability, friendliness. Competence: power, reliability, capability. So very highly charismatic people, you meet them, you see them, and they are signaling, "You can trust me, you like me, and boy am I reliable and competent at the very same time." So when I say you are charismatic but you lean very high in competence, which means that people can see you as cold or stoic if you're not showing enough warmth cues.

Steven Bartlett 55:46 Hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 55:46 Have you been told that? Intimidating?

Steven Bartlett 55:49 In- indirectly. (laughs)

Vanessa Van Edwards 55:50 Indirectly, yeah. Right.

Steven Bartlett 55:51 People are too scared to say it to me and I'm joking. But no, I do get that. I do, I do. I think I have, like, some degree of self-awareness as- as to how I come across, and I think how you described it is exactly how I come across.

Vanessa Van Edwards 56:00 You do. And that's not a bad thing.

Steven Bartlett 56:01 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 56:01 Right? Like, you get to pick your own recipe. Like, I lean a little higher on the warm side. I'm also female, and there are differences between men and women. So typically, not always, men default to higher in competence. Women are defaulted to higher in warmth, typically, not always. This isn't a bad thing, but you should know that if you are trying to come across as warmer, on your team you're trying to inspire more collaboration, you're trying to make more friends, you wanna dial up your warmth cues. If you're someone who's interrupted a lot, not taken seriously, people forget meeting you, you need to dial up competence. This is like a thermostat. You can dial up warmth cues and dial up competence cues, and this changes the way people treat you. So I have five power cues for competence, and I have five warm cues for warmth.

Steven Bartlett 56:45 We're gonna go through all of those.

Vanessa Van Edwards 56:46 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 56:47 I saw this wonderful graph-

Vanessa Van Edwards 56:48 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 56:48 ... which kind of explains it, which I'll put on the screen for anyone that's watching.

Vanessa Van Edwards 56:50 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 56:50 Um, and this was really, really interesting. There's a danger zone.

Vanessa Van Edwards 56:55 Uh-huh.

Steven Bartlett 56:55 The danger zone I'm guessing is when you're low warmth and low competence.

Vanessa Van Edwards 56:58 That's it. That, those are those folks that are stoic. If you don't send enough warmth cues, if you don't send enough competence cues, people cannot trust you. They have trouble working with you, they have trouble talking to you. This is the curse of very smart people. Very smart people think, "My ideas will stand alone. My book smarts are great. I don't need to communicate these cues. My ideas are enough." That's what happened to Jamie Siminoff in the tank. He did not show enough warmth or competence cues. He relied solely on his ideas and his numbers, and he could not get a deal. So people who wanna be taken seriously, you have to show warmth and competence. The other problem with highly competent folks, and you lean higher in competence so this is for you too, which is, it's directly from the research, too much competence without enough warmth leaves people feeling suspicious.

Steven Bartlett 57:46 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 57:47 So no matter how competent you are, no matter how good your ideas are, if you are not showcasing that with warmth, people are skeptical of you. And this is what happens with a lot of my students is they're like, "People don't trust me. They don't believe my ideas. They're skeptical, I get pushback." Or they're, I do sales trainings, they can't close. People pushback on their numbers, and that is because some part of them is saying, "I hear your competence, but you're not giving me enough warmth."

Steven Bartlett 58:12 Can you be too warm?

Vanessa Van Edwards 58:14 You can be absolutely too warm. You can be too warm and too competent. Too warm, you know what that looks like? (laughs) Oh, yes. That's too warm.

Steven Bartlett 58:22 Ah, okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 58:23 Okay? Too warm is, so we'll talk about the five warmth cues. Too much of any cue is dangerous, right? So too much nodding, too much laughing, too much, uh, vocalizations. Those are all too warm, and they make us think this person is a bimbo or a ditz or not competent. That's what happens. We have too much warmth, it takes away from our competence.

Steven Bartlett 58:44 Where should

Steven Bartlett 58:45 we start?

Vanessa Van Edwards 58:46 Let's start with the power cues.

Steven Bartlett 58:47 Okay, the power cues. So this is competence?

Vanessa Van Edwards 58:49 Yes, power cues. Let me get to my power cues.

Steven Bartlett 58:51 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 58:51 Mm-hmm. Okay, so we talked about the importance of hand gestures. There is a very good, competent hand gesture which everyone should know if you want to be perceived as high in competence. It's called the steeple.

Steven Bartlett 59:01 Oh, this. This little-

Vanessa Van Edwards 59:02 Oh, yes. It's on the cover-

Steven Bartlett 59:03 ... little, little one.

Vanessa Van Edwards 59:03 ... of my book if you want to see it. Yes. This look, when your hands look like a little steeple, they're kind of relaxed open.

Steven Bartlett 59:07 It's a triangle, for anyone that comes... It's kind of like a triangle.

Vanessa Van Edwards 59:09 Yep, a triangle. It's a power pose for the hands. Why? If you are doing this pose, you're showing, "I'm not hiding anything from you. You can still see my palms, but I am very relaxed and poised enough so that I'm keeping my hands together." Now, be careful. Don't drum. This is evil fingers.

Steven Bartlett 59:25 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 59:25 This is Mr. Burns-

Steven Bartlett 59:27 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 59:27 ... for those of you who know, right?

Steven Bartlett 59:27 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 59:28 So it's a nice, still steeple. Uh, they have found, they rated hand gestures in a study, and they found that this was the single most, the highest rated hand gesture that leaders made was when they made this gesture. Now, personally, I don't use it a lot in my interpersonal re- interactions because it doesn't feel super natural to me. It's funny because we took one picture for my cover type, cover photos, and my, uh, all, every single picture of me for my cover photos, I was smiling. And my wonderful photographer, Maggie Kirkland, said, "Vanessa, can we just do one of you serious?" And I was like, "But I'm not serious." She's like, "Just, just one. Just do your most powerful power cue." And this is the only picture, and that was the one that we chose for it. So it's just funny because it's a very high competence cue. So you can try the steeple, just be careful not to do evil finger, evil fingers with it. That's a high competence cue.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:16 That picture of you on the front.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:00:17 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:17 What is that signaling?

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:00:18 So it's a, it's a perfect balance, right? So one, I have the steeple cue, competence gesture. Two, I'm angled towards you, my body is angled towards you, which is a warmth cue, that's fronting. My toes are angled towards you, which is warmth. I also have a smoldering eye contact look, which is high competence, which we can talk about. And I have an up face, right? I'm not in my resting bothered face. So that's a slight warmth cue.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:37 Ah. That is actually how it makes me feel.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:00:39 Oh, good.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:39 There's a, there's an element of power, but it's not an intimidating level of power.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:00:42 Because I balanced it with that warmth.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:44 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:00:44 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:44 It's like a welcoming kind of power, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:00:46 Well, yay. Whoo, we did it. Now I gotta do it for the next one.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:49 So steeple.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:00:50 Okay, so... Okay, see- steeple, yep. Second, this is a weird one.The most important measurement on your entire body is the distance between your earlobe and your shoulder, this distance right here. Watch. If I were to do this in the interview the entire time-

Steven Bartlett 1:01:06 Which, which-

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:01:06 ... if I were to have a very small distance between my earlobe and my shoulder, I would look anxious. I would also have a really hard time giving you vocal power. You would have a hard... Do you trust me?

Steven Bartlett 1:01:15 No, you look nervous.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:01:16 Right, I look nervous. There's a direct correlation between confidence and anxiety and the distance between our shoulder and our earlobe. And very quickly when we're trying to just assess someone, the first few seconds of seeing them, we're trying to assess, how confident are you? Can I catch it? We don't like people who are anxious. We don't wanna talk to someone like this because we don't wanna catch that anxiety. But we do wanna talk to someone who has the max distance between their earlobes and their shoulder. So when you're in a first impression, also in your profile pictures, (laughs) I want a relaxed distance, shoulders down, earlobes out, which is another reason why I like that this is how your table is set up 'cause it pushes my shoulders down so I have a max distance. That makes me look more confident, but it also makes me feel more confident. There's a look here. So when you do the steeple and then you roll your shoulders down and back, you will begin to feel more confident. Don't you feel great?

Steven Bartlett 1:02:04 (laughs)

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:02:06 Don't you feel great? (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 1:02:06 What if you, like, raise your head though? Like, 'cause, 'cause if I'm trying to get my ears away from my shoulders, I might go like this.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:02:10 Actually, they're the same distance, so you wanna actually-

Steven Bartlett 1:02:12 Oh, it is.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:02:12 ... keep your... Yeah. You wanna keep your chin level. And I, you, uh, if you can help it, you don't wanna actually look down at someone, down your nose at someone.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:18 Hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:02:19 It's quite a, um-

Steven Bartlett 1:02:19 Judgmental.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:02:19 ... scornful, judgmental.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:20 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:02:21 Exactly. So you just noticed it-

Steven Bartlett 1:02:22 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:02:22 ... even when I did it. So it's not this. It's just this distance, so maximizing this difference.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:28 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:02:28 Third one, I love eye contact. We all know good eye contact is important, but here's what you might not know about good eye contact. Eye contact is a power move when you look at someone at the end of your sentence. So we're very used to if someone's thinking about something and they're processing something in their head and I'm telling you that there are 465 gestures in a TED Talk, that is the most important way that I wanna showcase something to you, that we like it when someone is actually accessing different memories or areas of their brain, but then when I end my sentence looking right at you, you're like, "Whoa." So highly competent people make eye contact specifically at the end of their sentences to drill a point and ideally when the other person is saying something important.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:11 Okay. Interesting. And I just did it then.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:03:13 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:13 But I do that when I'm, when I'm doing interviews because I kind of, like, look off into the distance to think a little bit-

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:03:17 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:17 ... and then I come back to ask.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:03:18 The worst advice I hear people give, body language experts give, "Make more eye contact. Make 100% eye contact."

Steven Bartlett 1:03:25 It's awkward. (coughs)

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:03:27 Actually, in Western cultures, they've studied this. The ideal amount of eye contact is between 60 and 70% of the conversation. If you make over 70% eye contact, it's actually considered a territorial gesture. So if I were to be making 100% eye contact with you, it would feel very invasive, very awkward. We like it when someone is processing or gathering information from around. Like, if I'm processing something or I'm thinking about something or I'm accessing, all that matters is, at the end of my point, I'm looking right at you. And that feels so much more powerful.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:55 Okay. So that's number three.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:03:56 That's number three, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:57 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:03:58 Fourth one, one of my favorites, it's called a lower lid flex. Lower lid flex is one of the least utilized, but one of my favorite cues. So biologically speaking, when we are trying to see something far away, we harden our lower lids. Like, I'm trying to read the titles on your bookshelf. I harden my lower lids. That is because when our eye is trying to see far, it squints to block out the light.

Steven Bartlett 1:04:23 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:04:23 So you'll see more details in my face when you harden your lower lid at me.

Steven Bartlett 1:04:26 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:04:26 So harden your lower lid. When... If you look at People's Sexiest Men Alive, almost every man in that magazine is... It's Zoolander, right? Blue steel?

Steven Bartlett 1:04:36 Oh.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:04:36 Blue steel is actually just a lower lid flex. That is because when someone is trying to really focus on something and really understand something, their lower lid is flexed as, as you're doing right now.

Steven Bartlett 1:04:46 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:04:46 And boy, oh, boy, do we like it when someone is lower lid flexing at us 'cause it means you are really trying to understand and see me. So a lower lid flex is a great power cue to use, in moderation, right? Nothing too much, that when someone is saying something on a date or in a meeting or a colleague is saying something really important and you wanna show them, "I am really listening," that lower lid flex shows them, "I am super focused and intent on you." That is why women find men who do the lower lid flex very sexy, because they feel like, "Ooh, he's really focusing on me." Now, there's a little side note to the lower lid flex. Lower lid flex is not... It's inherently in self a positive cue. It's a cue of focus, right? If you are in a presentation or a meeting and you say something and someone suddenly lid flexes at you, you might have just said something and they're like, "Really?"

Steven Bartlett 1:05:39 Yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:05:40 So for me, this was a game-changing moment as I was giving a presentation to a bunch of executives and I said something about oxytocin, which is the, the hormone of, um, love and cuddle and connection. And he goes... And I saw him lower lid flex at me.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:54 But he's also turned his head there.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:05:56 I don't know if he... I don't remember if he-

Steven Bartlett 1:05:57 Okay.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:05:57 ... turned his head, but all I noticed is that distinctly he went from, "Mm-hmm, mm-hmm," to-

Steven Bartlett 1:06:01 Ah, yes.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:06:03 And I went, "Does that make sense? Any questions?" So if you see a lower lid flex, your best choice is to try to gather more information. "That make sense? All good? Any questions for me? How do we feel about this?" So I said, "Any questions for me?" And he goes... And I looked right at him. I said, "Any questions for me?" He said, "You know, I think they gave my wife oxytocin in labor. Is that the same thing?" And it's true that they give a form of oxytocin to induce women in labor. That's how strong oxytocin is, is that in high doses it will put women into labor. It's a form that's called pitocin. I said, "You're absolutely right." In medical settings, they can give synthetic forms of oxytocin to push women into labor. That was a moment for me because, one, as I realized I was able to stop the skepticism and the confusion right there before we moved on to anyone elle- anything else. And now when I teach oxytocin, I say, "In social settings, oxytocin means this," because in medical settings it means something different. So noticing that lower lid flex is incredibly important for you to understand where you might have a hint of skepticism or a hint of confusion. If you're in a sales meeting or a presentation, you wanna make sure you have addressed whatever that person is flexing about...... before you move on.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:14 Super interesting. And that example you give there as well, had you not investigated that lower lid flex, you might have also thought something you said was wrong and lost your confidence, and that can spiral into, you know, closing off and becoming a, a worse presenter.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:07:29 This is why I thought people hated me and I hated people. So for my folks that are listening who are like, "I hate people," and I get it, I was misreading cues as skeptical or negative of me when it could have been neutral or curiosity or trying to understand something better. If you can give these a try, it will help you more deeply understand people, which might help you like them more.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:52 Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:07:53 Ready for the fifth one?

Steven Bartlett 1:07:54 I'm ready for the

Steven Bartlett 1:07:55 fifth.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:07:55 Okay, the fifth one. This is a vocal cue. So we talked a lot about body language cues, but vocal cues are incredibly important. Vocal cues tell someone how you are feeling about them and how you feel about yourself. One of the biggest ones is an accidental question inflection. A question inflection is when we go up at the end of our sentence, so it sounds like we're asking a question even if we're actually using a statement. The brain, uh, research has actually looked at what the brain does when it hears an accidental question inflection. If we are listening to someone and we hear them accidentally use the question inflection, our brain goes from listening to scrutinizing. Why? Our brain wonders, "Why did you ask me that?" Liars typically accidentally use the question inflection. If I say to my daughter, "Did you take the cookie from the cookie jar?" And she goes, "No."

Steven Bartlett 1:08:48 Oh, yeah.

Vanessa Van Edwards 1:08:49 Liars are asking, "Do you believe this?" So we have noticed, we did a massive experiment in our lab where we had people play two truths and a lie with us, so share two truths about themselves and a lie. And