Vanessa Van Edwards || How to Captivate People

Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding of yourself, others and the world we live in. Hopefully, we will also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast! And now I'm really excited to be speaking with my guest, Vanessa Van Edwards. Vanessa is a self-described, recovering, boring and awkward person who performs research on human behavior to figure out what makes people tick. Her latest book, Captivate, the science of succeeding with people provides simple ways to improve your social intelligence and level up your relationships. This should be a very practical and informative episode. Vanessa, it's so great to have you on the show. Thanks for having me. Yeah, there's so many things to discuss with you. But I want to talk about, I bet there's this huge transformation in you because you write about how you were an awkward kid and that's just really hard to see, like talking to you. So can you maybe take me back to, like, if you don't mind, call it back to your childhood of course. Yeah, yeah, of course. You know, it's funny, I, for a long time tried to bury that part of my life and then I realized that through writing and through thinking about it actually, the more I talked about it, the easier it got. So I'd be happy to dive into those awkward years. So I was actually, I joke that I'm a recovering awkward person as a kid. I think it came because my safe spaces weren't where the other kids were. So like recess, you know, the playground just terrified me. But I love the classroom, whereas like birthday parties, Chuck E. Cheese, oh my goodness, nightmares in the ball pit, nightmares in the ball pit. But you know, adding the teachers or having like one on one play dates was great. And I think that even back then I didn't realize it at the time that I was not an introvert or an extrovert. I was sort of that in between that ambivert. And I think that we're now discovering that most people are in this in between phrase of an ambivert. Yeah, most people are right. Statistically, that's absolutely right. Yeah. And you know, it's funny is we, so that was something that I kind of stumbled upon later. And when I started reading about the research on ambivertion, we put a little quiz up on our website just because I was curious, you know, I said, Hey, if you heard the word introvert or extrovert and it's never sounded like you, take this quiz and see what you think. And I was like, Oh, maybe we'll get a couple hundred people to take it. We have had something like 26,000 people take that little quiz. Of course, most of them end up being ambiverts. Of course, it's a little bit self-selecting because people who are taking it think that they are. But I was shocked at how many people feel this is a pain point where socially, it's not that they are completely afraid of social interactions, but they have to be able to refuel in the right areas. Yeah, that's just, that's part of being human, isn't it? Like having to recharge every now and then. Do you know any pure extrovert that like 24/7 has to yakety yak? Not one that I believe. You know, I know people who say that they're extroverts, but I think that also, you know, they might consider recharge time like even driving over to an event or getting ready. That's even recharge time in itself. And I think that you're right when you said, isn't that what life is about? I think I'm not to get too deep, too quickly. But you know, people send me all kinds of secrets. And I am honored by them. Like people send me all kinds of emails about social interactions and their history and their relationships. And I'm always shocked by the same thread, which is that people are really just trying to figure themselves out. And then they're also trying to figure out how they relate to others. And that seems to be what plagues us and what fascinates us and what dazzles us. It seems to be for everyone. That's kind of what drives me with my work as well. And I think with your work also. Yeah, I know. It absolutely drives me very much. When we were very much a social species. But as this kid, as this awkward kid at Chuckie Cheese, you felt as though like you were an observer. Did you feel like you and like the roots of who you are now could be seen as a kid? Like did you want to like, were you an immense people watcher? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know, in my family situation, my parents were divorced very young and I had to switch houses every Monday night. And I think that when I entered into a new house, I never knew what I was entering into. I didn't know what the moods were. You know, I hadn't seen my siblings in a week. And I had to very, very quickly. At the time, I wouldn't have called it this. But now I call it this. I had to read people and I had to speed read them. I had to very quickly diagnose what did I miss, what were the dynamics, what is everyone's mood, and where do I fit in this week? And that was a skill that I think now I try to break it down into a science of what is speed reading and why does it work? So yeah, I think that that observer piece saved me a little bit as a kid. Speed reading. Are you really good at speed dating because you can really do a good job speed reading? I haven't dated in so many years, my friend. I would not know. I might be terrible at it now that it's been so long. The funny thing is I like the idea of speed dating and I've run a couple of workshops where we've run experiments around speed networking, which is kind of similar. I mean, a little bit business dating. And the patterns that we found in the experiments we did around speed networking of how quickly we read people and how we engage people quickly are fascinating. So maybe if I use that science, I could dive back into speed dating if I had to. Maybe. Or you could, I could totally see. After reading your book and your kind of personality, I could see you have your own reality TV show. Have you thought about that? Oh, I'm sure you've thought about that. I've been approached by a couple of TV companies. Sure, yeah. Oh goodness. But I really, really have a strong value system around the kind of entertainment I produce. And there's a fine line, I think, between reality television and entertaining educational television. And so I've never found the right fit. I've thought about it, but I don't know. I don't know. That seems like a scary can of worms to open fair enough for you to do enough with what you do. And I want to dive in a little bit to some of the science that you talk about. You've really read a lot of articles and then you have your own lab. Was that right? Were you do studies? How do you know how to do studies? Do you have a degree in psychology? I did my undergraduate at Emory and I studied sociology there. So I did a lot of quantitative and qualitative research for my thesis. We do very, very simple experimental designs and typically we partner with a researcher or a data analyst to help us make sure that we are doing it correctly. And they're usually very basic. Usually it's one basic hypothesis with one variable at a time. They're not super advanced. Our big thing that I try to go for since we're not with an academic institution and since I don't have a psychology degree is big data, big numbers. So I partner with a researcher in a, oh my gosh, Vanessa. If you could get 10,000 people to answer this study, we could really see some big patterns. Here's the puzzle we're looking at. I'm like great. Like let's partner up. Let's set up this experimental design and so it's a little bit of a different take on the traditional academic model of, you know, N equals 36 college seniors. And we then we look for patterns and that's just a little bit more citizen science and the big data. Wow. Can we be friends? 10,000 people? Wow. Yes. I mean, that's. That's amazing. Oh my gosh, if you ever, anyone listening, Scott, if you have any ideas for puzzles, we get all of our ideas for research experiments, usually either from readers or from a big like database that we have. So for example, one of our research experiments is on TED Talks. Why? Because we have this amazing database of free TED videos with view counts exposed. So anytime you have an idea for an experiment, you let me know. I've got lots of ideas. Here's one idea, not an idea, but I have a question for you that you don't, you don't talk about the book. But why does it seem like women like bad boys? Oh, got. Yes. Okay. I really want to study this in great depth. This would be a fascinating topic and I do have some hypotheses on this. So you're right. I didn't talk about this in the book, but I think that when we're talking about relationships and something I touched on in the book was something called resource theory, which is basically that all of us, as we interact, are exchanging resources. A lot of people kind of are like, you know, that's such a horrible way to look at humanity, but it's a fact that when we are in a relationship, we are looking for something and we are giving something. And so what the resource theory says is that there are six resources and we kind of have one that we want the most and one that we give away the most. And I think that with bad boys is that it's typically the combination of women who are seeking the resource of love. So they really want that feeling of belonging. They really want that feeling of acceptance. And they're paired with someone who doesn't give it back. So there's this draw to this person doesn't have a lot of love, but I can find a way to get it. I'm going to either fix them or I'm going to tap into that untapped resource. I think that something about this hidden resource they can't get to. No, I mean, I definitely think that the sort of economic supply demand model applies there. But you think logically, you know, like why waste your time with that when you can get it easily from more securely attached mail. Yeah. And what's crazy about it is that unfortunately, and I'm sure you read the letter of chan this when we look at like attachment theory, for example, I'm not sure. I think that fall into patterns, not because they're good for us, but because they're comfortable. And by the way, this is something that I try to challenge myself with a lot, which is, am I doing this because it's comfortable for me or am I doing this because it's good for me? And it's very hard to know the difference between the two. I mean, asking yourself in the first place is hard, but I think knowing the difference between the two is one of our biggest challenges as humans. Well, I mean, I just imagine that there are a lot of situations where it's neither comfortable nor good for you, but you still feel comfortable. and pedal to do it, you know, like it can't be all that comfortable when someone is like blocking you out emotionally, right? That can't be comfortable. Yeah, that's true. Maybe there's a third one in there and I'm not sure I'm just brainstorming out loud. Maybe the third one is like, am I learning from this? So maybe it's like, this isn't good for me and it's not comfortable, but this person, you know, critiquing me or this abusive relationship, I'm learning my boundaries, I'm learning my needs, I'm learning my value system. So maybe there's that third in there that's like somewhere in between and you decide if you stay in it, it's bad for you because you're enabling this bad behavior. And if you leave it, it's good for you because you're like, yes, like I set up a boundary. Yeah. That is really interesting. I want to test that. There's got to be, I want to look at like 10,000 people, individual, different predictors of women that are explicitly attracted to bad boys. Ooh, you know, I have an idea of a way we could test this. So a preliminary, preliminary kind of research into this could be one thing that we test a lot in our labs. We have a, you know, the big five, the kind of standard personality test that if 44 standard questions, people use to test personality, we have a huge database of people who've taken that 44 question questionnaire just to test themselves. And we watch the research and I'm always curious what kinds of numbers are popping up in the general population and how it relates to gender or location because we also track like basic demographic info. It'll be very interesting to ask women and this would only be women who are willing to self claim this, but it'll be interesting to ask women in a personality questionnaire. Are you attracted to the typical bad boy? And if they answer yes or maybe it's on the scale of one to five, does that correlate to a personality trait as maybe it's a facet of personality? Like for example, a hypothesis could be that if a woman was high in agreeableness and agreeableness is, you know, how you interact with people, how much you cooperate if you default to yes or no, if a woman was high in agreeableness, maybe she would be more attracted to bad boys because she has trouble with boundaries because that's a part, that's a facet of her personality. Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right now. It's definitely thinking of the big five as part of the individual differences package, but also psychopathology would be interesting to look at early childhood instability, a whole, I could put together the whole battery, but this really is a diversion, isn't it from your book? Yes, I love science divers. Those are my favorite. Well, thanks for letting me go there. What your book is really about is answering the question, how can I succeed with people? No. What does it mean if I've succeeded with a person? Like how do I know that I've succeeded with a person? Ah, okay, that's a really good question. What does it mean when it comes to people? I don't like treating people as a means to an end. I usually like treating people as an end in themselves, you know? So I'm wondering what that means. Yes, so how I define success, at least in this book, is when you have the desire to level up a relationship. So one thing I talk about a lot, and I think about is the different levels of relationship, and maybe this is just how I think I tend to be a very black and white. I love frameworks and levels, but if you think about relationships like levels and you think like, okay, first there's strangers and there's acquaintances, then there's even a step before friends, maybe it's warm acquaintances, then friends, then best friends, baby partners, let's go that. I think that when you are successful with people, there's two things that happen. A, if you want to level up a relationship with someone, you have the ability to do so. Do you know how to connect with them, bond with them, ask the right questions, make time with them to be able to turn a stranger into a colleague or a colleague into a partner, friend into a partner, you're able to level up. Second is that when you're leveling up, you feel like there's an equality there. So I think that that's in a way that we can succeed in succeeding with people, that's a very measurable way to talk about success. That's interesting. So that sounds like a game leveling up. You know, I'll actually, you're right. I think that it does sound a little bit like a game. I agree with you that does sound like a game. I don't think that a game is too far off. And here's what I mean. I hope that this doesn't sound like a game. Defend anyone. Yeah. What I mean is that I used to think of relationships very seriously where I was very serious about what people thought about me. I wanted to impress everyone. I took every interaction very concretely. I took notes about it after every interaction. And then I realized that life is about experimenting. And when we talk about games, we're talking about being playful. We're talking about going in with hypotheses that you're not sure if they're going to work or not, that you might lose, but losing is also part of the game. So what I mean is that when I go into interactions, when I encourage my students to go into interactions, is to take themselves a little bit less seriously, think of it like an experiment. Okay, you walk into a networking event and your goal, just like in a game, is to level up cold contacts to warm contacts. And maybe your measure of that success is hanging out business cards and getting follow-up coffees. If you go in with a little bit of a game mindset, you think to yourself, "Okay, I'm going to show up as my best self. I'm going to pack some of my favorite business cards. I'm going to try to ask a couple questions. And we're going to see who I meet. This comes to worse. I lose. I don't meet anyone. Best comes to best. I meet a couple of interesting people. I get their cards. We go to coffee. That's a very different mindset than I'm going to go when I'm going to get 10 contacts and I don't get 10 contacts. I'm an absolute failure, which is kind of how I used to think about people's skills. Instead, I try to adopt this. Yeah, a little bit. Like a playful mentality. Well, it sounds like you've come a long way. I mean, I think that I realized that me trying so hard and taking things seriously was not good for my happiness or anyone I was meeting. It also wasn't very authentic. People talk about authenticity all the time. I think it's hard to measure authenticity, but I think what people mean is that you show up as you are and you don't try to be something you're not. I think that when you take a kind of playful mentality to interactions, it helps you say, "Yeah, this is me. I want to win as me. I want to try to get relationships as me. I want to try to level up as me and if I can't, that's okay. We're not a good fit." I like that. It's a game. It's a playfulness that isn't about manipulation. It's a different kind of playfulness. You're just being playful. No strings attached. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's so interesting to approach relationships and actually tell people you're in that kind of playful, experimental mindset. For example, if I have a hypothesis and I do this all the time before I go to events, I'll say, "Okay. I have a hypothesis that if I don't ask someone what they do, I'll actually learn more about them because I wonder if I don't ask them what they do. If they like what they do, they'll tell me on their own. If they don't like what they do, they will studiously avoid it and talk about other things." That's a hypothesis. However, that means that I can't rely on a very standard conversation starter. I will go into relationships and say to people, "Hey, I know this is crazy, but I'm trying out this new conversation starter. Would you mind if I used it on you?" I've never had anyone say no to that question. Then it's like, "If it doesn't work, it's definitely happened where it's not worked. I've asked a quiet conversation starter. We both just end up laughing because it's a ridiculous conversation starter." Then it's like, "Okay. That didn't work, but at least we both tried it." Yeah. That sounds like fun. That sounds like something that someone would do if they have social anxiety, like a pre-something to bring in their pocket if they feel stuck or frozen. I think that you hit the nail on the head. A lot of these tools are. I'm not diagnosed with social anxiety, but I think that I definitely have had moments of social anxiety growing up, especially because I used to get hives went into social interactions when I was young. Yeah. From my toes to my neck, it was horrible. That was a form of social anxiety, but it went away. I think goodness, it only happens very rarely now as an adult. I think that for the most part, anyone who's read the book so far with social anxiety has said, "Everything is like a tool, and I put it in my back pocket and just knowing that it's there makes me feel a little bit confident, even if I don't necessarily use the conversation harder than I put in my back pocket, knowing that I have that tool that I could use really helps." Yeah. It's like training wheels. Is it the ultimate goal to take the training wheels off and be able to be really spontaneous in the moment and kind of contextually react to whatever the person's doing or looking like? Yes, absolutely. I will say that happens faster for some people versus others. Yeah. It also changes on what your goals are. For example, it's much harder to not know anyone, go into a speed dating situation and your goal is to find your wife or your husband. Right. You're a really big goal, a wonderful goal, a very, very big one. You might be, oh my gosh, yes. But you might get better at the small talk or the dates or the early parts faster if you're going to that phase. So, it depends on your goals and also the kind of experience that you're willing to do. So, like if you're just trying out conversation starters, that's not as hard as possibly doing resource theory experiments. I say, yeah. That's a much deeper one that might take you a little bit longer to be spontaneous, whereas now I can go into networking event. I don't have to memorize conversations, headers anymore. It is spontaneous for me, whereas some of the deeper stuff is a little harder. Yeah, I imagine that not just people social anxiety, but I wonder if people who are on the autistic spectrum really could benefit from your book as well. You know, it's in peace. Yeah. So, I had never ever come to a conclusion. considered it. And then, and one of my online courses, so I teach an online course that's similar to the book, you know, it's obviously very visual. And it was posted in a adults with Asperger's and adults with autism community. And we had hundreds of students take it and they said it was the only course they had ever taken on people skills or soft skills that actually it was very helpful. And so I guess though, I think that the way that I think is similar to the way that they think. So that was extremely such a wonderful surprise. And now I'm trying to figure out what talking to some of the members of the community, you know, what more can I do? Yeah, because Simon Barron Cohen has shown, you know, the reading in the mind and the eyes test is one of the deficits from people in the autism spectrum. And your book, you systematically go through each of the major emotions and show examples, which is really good. You shoot pictures, you show examples of what different emotions look like with different faces and then you delineate what, you know, like upturned brow, you know, means this and that. And you know, for instance, I learned what I failed the contemptuous item on your test. What scored did I get? I took your beginning test. How'd it go? And I scored a 140, which was a good, good, but room for improvement range. I'm not hopeless. I'm not hopeless. Yeah, no, no, for sure, not, you know, it's funny. The contemptuous micro expression. So I think I mentioned this. So by the way, for everyone listening, contempt or negativity or scorn is one of the simplest of all the micro expressions. It's just a one-sided mouth raise. So if you kind of give a little smirk, lift up one of your sides of your mouth, that's a contempt smirk. That single question, we have a body language quiz on our website. That is the question that most people get wrong and most people guess boredom, which is interesting because that's a huge difference from scorn to boredom, which is a passive emotion. That shows that we are sometimes assuming that someone is neutral when actually there's a tinge of negativity there. So you are not alone, my friend, in guessing that that's, guess not one wrong because that is the one that people most often get wrong. So okay, so you talk about that, but what are some other ways that you can make a good first impression, other than decoding what someone's feeling? Yeah, so when you're talking about first impressions, you're talking about two different things. You're talking about the nonverbal and the verbal. So a lot of studies have found that our first impression happens in the first second or first few seconds in beating someone. So it's very rare that you can have a verbal exchange in those first few seconds. Usually it happens nonverbally. However, there's an exception to this and it is on the phone. So I thought I would maybe, this has been on my mind recently today, as I was thinking about first impressions, even on this podcast where I said, "Hey, I'm so excited to be here." You welcomed everyone and greeted everyone. That was actually my entire first impression for this entire podcast. And the reason I was thinking about it is because I don't know if you can hear, I'm losing my voice a little bit. And so I was really worried today about my vocal power. And I know that for first impressions, how we answer the phone, hello, versus in person when we reach out our hand and we shake someone's hand and we say, "Hey, good to meet you." That vocal power is, is actually sets the stage for how someone feels about you for that entire interaction. So when it comes to the vocal first impression, the best thing you can do is actually have your vocal cords as relaxed as possible. And that sounds kind of silly. But actually what we have found, we're doing a vocal power experiment on our website right now, is that if you are standing in confident nonverbal, so taking up space, feet spread wide, hands on hip and right now, as I record this, I'm actually standing, that confidence comes through your voice into your hello. So people who rated, there was the same person said hello with five different body language expressions. Their power posing expression got the highest overall ratings by random strangers. Yeah. So there's something about this internal confidence piece, showing up knowing tools, showing up as relaxed as possible, taking up space. I always use the armrest when I'm in a chair. I always tried to stand with my feet both planted and have space to my arms and my torso. That actually translates into your vocal cords, relaxes your voice, and then comes out in a great first impression. So it sounds to me like in the parlance of psychological literature, you are a high self monitor. Yes. Oh, yes. Now I tend to be a low self monitor, which gets me in trouble a lot because I tend to just have no filter and I tend to not, I'm not thinking, you know, like, oh, how can I make a good first impression? I'm just thinking like I'm just going to be myself and whatever. And I'm not saying that's good. But I'm saying, aren't there individual differences here though? And actually, so what you said was really important. You said, I'm just going to show up to be myself. That is a facet of confidence, right? So for me, I wish, I wish that I could show up and just be like, yeah, I'm going to be myself. The problem is, is I am an anxious person. I'm a high neurotic. And so being myself actually means I'm quite anxious. What works better for me, and this is what you're talking about, individual differences, is consciously knowing, okay, I'm going to show up to this event. I'm going to go on this podcast. I'm so excited to talk about this work. I actually have to get myself in the mindset of how excited I get about my experiment or the book or showing up at this event or whatever my goal is because that helps me dial up that confident, excited part of myself that maybe gets overshadowed by the anxious part of myself that's like, oh my gosh, no one's going to like me, which is always like the thing that the baseline fear that we all have. That makes a lot of sense. But wait, do narcissists have that fear though? Are they like thinking like, oh my gosh, what if someone doesn't like me? Are they thinking that? No, no, not usually now. I'm no expert on narcissism. Actually, I've specifically avoided, and this is crazy. I'm happy to talk about it. From a business perspective, I've specifically avoided doing too much research on narcissists and publishing or writing about narcissists a lot because you're right. They do not fall into any of the normal averages that we're talking about. They have different social filters. They have different social fears, if any, by the way, like sometimes it's not even any, but they're very complicated. Sometimes they have great self-confidence and also great amounts of low self-esteem. So they are their own bucket of tricks. And I might be very equipped to talk about them intelligently. Well, they probably would want hearing that. It makes them sound special. Oh no. Oh no. You're just stroking the ego. But, um, no, that's cool. So I want to talk about charisma a little bit. You talked about confidence. Is charisma more than just confidence? Like, what is the total package of charisma? Have you decoded that? Yeah. So, charisma is definitely more than confidence. And this is why I think charisma is such a really interesting topic because charisma, and there was researchers at Harvard Business School that looked at the research on how we judge people in those first few seconds. They found it's a combination of warmth and competence. The people who are very friendly, good team player, very likeable, combined with people who are also very competent, knowledgeable, dependable, powerful. That combination, that sweet spot hits the closest to charisma more than confidence. So, for example, a narcissist could have a lot of confidence, but not be very charismatic. Right? They could be highly full of their own abilities. But if they're not very likeable, which is a problem for a lot of narcissists, then they are not going to hit that charismatic sweet spot. That's why you have so many people who have a unique blend or brand of charisma. You could, for example, be the typical stereotype of charisma, the bubbly extrovert. That's fine. But you could also be highly charismatic and be a thoughtful introvert. You could also be highly charismatic as a very nurturing, compassionate, soothing. Those are all, we consider all those types, charismatic, because they happen to hit the sweet spot, a very high incompetence and very high in warmth. I like that. I like both those things. So that's cool. Yes. I will tell you that it's something that I watch out for it. So if you're like meeting people or you're listening to podcasts, I'm always trying to think about, wow, this person, do I feel like I could sit with them over a cup of coffee? Are they likeable? Are they friendly? And do I also feel like I would love to hear them give it a TED talk? If I say yes to both, I'm like, yes, this person is very highly charismatic. If I ever get a TED main stage TED talk, I think I'm going to just sit there on the stage and drink coffee. Love it. And pretend I'm giving the giving the talk to them, you know, is other drinking coffee with me to signal both warmth and confidence. Oh, yes. You could bring up a little armchair and have a steaming mug of coffee and the funny section on the side table. I love that visual. I love it. Join me. Come join me. Yes. Happily. I also think that what's interesting about warmth is warmth is a little bit harder if you are strangers. And this makes sense, of course, right? Like we've just met each other. So what's funny about warmth is we obviously have this protection part of our brain, the limbic part of our brain. It's like, we don't know. You know, we don't want to get too friendly with someone who we haven't had multiple experiences with. And so the more activities we have with someone, the more locations we see them, that's why if you're in the dating world, I always say it's really good if you can see someone in multiple different locations because that helps with your warmth, that helps with your approachability because someone's like, oh, I think I saw that guy. last week at my gym. And didn't I see her at the grocery store? Wait a minute. Are we in the same cycling class? Yeah. You know, like then it's like, yeah, we are in the same cycling class. Let's go grab drink. It's so true. It's so much easier. Even like, for example, if Scott and I we did the same cycling class, both of our warmth would be dialed up because just because we had seen each other in a different location, even if we hadn't talked to each other. Yeah, life so works like that. You're right. You were actually on your website. You say you're a master lie detector. And you say that you could teach so on how to be a master lie detector in a hundred minutes. Well, there's also a really good, beautiful range in lie detection. So in lie detection, lying is a beautiful science. I mean, I find deception fascinating for lots of reasons. There's flat out deception. There's also self deception. There's also, I'm not sure yet, right? Okay. Can you tell the listeners a little about what the triple threat is? Yeah. So the triple threat is the non-verbal side of first impression. And it's a kind of cutesy name because I was trying to find a way to tie together this fascinating science on first impressions. And there's three things that we can do in the first few seconds of meeting someone that really make us that triple threat of warmth and competence and I help us level up. So the first one is real easy. It's hands. So we love hand gestures. We cannot help it as humans. We love to see someone's hands of helps with comprehension and helps with trust. And so you always heard your mother say, you know, don't put your hands in your pockets. Don't put your hands behind your back. I will level that up that mother's advice and say, not only should you have your hands visible, she also have your hands be expressive. So if you're going to shake someone's hands, indicate that you're going to shake someone's hands by leading hand first that helps them know, ah, this person's coming in for a handshake or better yet, you have an elevator pitch. Think about how you can describe your words along with your hands. So talking about a big idea, you hold your hands like a big beach ball. If I were to hold my hands like I was holding a little penny and I said, I have a big idea, you would be like, what? It's not that big. It's the sides of a penny. And that's because our brain loves hand gestures. So thinking about how you can be explanatory. Like for example, right now I'm using lots of hand gestures as I talk. And that also I believe, and I'm going to do research on this. I think that also comes through my vocal charisma. So if I were to be sitting on my hands right now, I think that I would sound less expressive. That's something that we're going to hopefully test soon. So that's the first part of the triple threat. The second part of the triple threat is something I mentioned earlier, which is confident body language. There's a different set of research that's quite compelling on athletes. And that athletes across cultures, when they win a race, they take up a lot of space. And when they lose a race, they take a very little space. And this has been seen across cultures, across genders, across races. So if you want to come across as a winner, we associate pride body language, maybe not power body language, pride body language with taking up space. So keeping your shoulders down and back, having your arms nice and loose, I'm using the armrests as I mentioned earlier, those are indications of pride, which is exactly what we want to show because it's a facet of competence. Nice. And there's something called authentic pride, right? I've never heard authentic pride. Oh, really? Oh, there's this, the whole reason this whole research literature just distinguishing hebristic pride versus authentic pride. Like he, yeah, that's a whole other literature. I could say to you, it's from an evolutionary point of view, we evolve multiple roots to social status. Like hebristic pride tends to be the kind of, that's with conceit and arrogance. Whereas authentic pride is a very stable form of self-esteem and competence. So it just sounds to me what you're talking about is what researchers call authentic pride, which is good. Oh, I love it. Yes, please send me that research. Yeah. Did I teach you something? You taught your teaching me. Yes. So I'm glad I learned. I love it. I love it. Yes. Yes. Please. And the last one I know that we talk about the triple threat is eye contact, which we've again been taught by mom and dad make eye contact. The reason why eye contact is so important is because it produces oxytocin, which makes us feel that warm, yeah, that warm, luscious connection with someone else. And so the eye contact is a way to keep building on that warmth. It's really important for the warmth factor. Someone can be very highly competent and overhead gazing, but you will not get that warmth factor if you're not making that mutual gazing as someone's connecting with you because they want that oxytocin that comes from the eye contact. Okay. So we've just mastered the first five minutes of an interaction. Now what about the first five hours? How can you predict someone's behavior and prevent miscommunications? I think that's where we really get into the most trouble. In fact, I think a lot of the literature out there, a lot of the articles that are out there are on either the first five minutes or leadership. So my book is broken up to the first five minutes, the first five hours and the first five days. We have a lot on either end, first five days, the first five minutes, very little in the middle. That time in your relationship where you've been dating for maybe you've gone on two or three dates, you're not sure if someone could do more, you're not sure if you could be serious with someone. That time in a friendship where you've seen each other a couple of times, but you're like, should I get this person's number and text with them? It's a colleague who you see at work, but you're not sure. We've gone out to lunch together, but could we all hang out on the weekends? It's that phase of the relationship. So I have, you know, five different hacks on this. But the biggest one is the one that we touched on earlier was which is reading micro expressions. So decoding hidden emotions, I think, is like a secret superpower that we don't leverage. Everyone, at least research from Dr. Pelleckman has found that we make seven of the same universal micro expressions across cultures and genders. And this is extremely powerful because it means that it's not cultural, it's not learned. If you learn these seven micro expressions, and I can say this from at least my personal experience and working with students, it's like someone flipped on the world in HD. It's like all of a sudden, you see things you never saw before. So you learned already one on the podcast contempt. I actually think that you should start with that. A lot of times people will try to learn all seven at once, and it's a lot. So what I would actually say is over the next few weeks, see if you can spot the smirk, see if you feel yourself making the smirk, and see if it gives you any extra insight into the person you're speaking with, the conversation you're having, or even your own feelings on a topic. I like it better when we can go one micro expression at a time, and that's the perfect first one to start with. Have you done the equipment training? I have. Yeah, I've done both of his trainings. I think the main micro expression training, and also the subtle micro expression training. And he also did a couple of lectures with my team in my lab on some of the current research he's working on. He's also in the book also. If I can, I would love to issue a couple of like dares or experiments that listeners could try at this podcast. Okay. So, you know, I mentioned that the playful experimental mindset, and I really think that that frees us. It frees us from anxiety, it frees us from expectations. If we go into interactions like, okay, like I'm going to try this, we cannot lose. So the first experiment I would love for you to try is what I just mentioned. See if you can spot contempt in the next seven days. And if you see it, think about what else you could learn from that person. So either asking them is everything okay? Did I miss everything? Let me know what's going on for you. Or if you feel it on your own face or seat on your own face on a video call, think about exploring that emotion deeper. That's challenge number one. Challenge number two is see if you can do the triple threat. So at your next event, at your next meeting, try to walk out in that athlete pride posing, authentic confidence with hands first, go into that handshake, and then try to maintain eye contact at least for the first few minutes of a conversation. And the last one is see if you can challenge yourself to level up one relationship in your life. So maybe that's a colleague who you've been trying to ask out to lunch or dinner. Maybe it's a friend who you want to deepen the relationship with. Maybe it's someone you want to date seriously and see if you can try to level up because I think that's what life is about. It's about trying to level up and deepen our relationships. I love that. So there's two great challenges and I'll report back to you how I did. Now you kind of talk about how you can get along with anyone that you kind of have those skills. Is that true? Like do you really feel like you've obtained a state that you're like the Buddha of social relationships? Like you can get along with anyone? Oh, you know, so there's a distinction here. So what I try to say in the book is I want to teach you I can get along with anyone, but not necessarily everyone. Oh, what I mean. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. So what I mean is you should try to honor when you have that gut instinct that you don't get along with someone or you're not on the same page with someone. So there is many, many times where I'll have an interaction with someone and you know, I'm asking interesting conversations, artists and you know, trying to tap into their hidden emotions and it's just not jiving. Like it's just not going as well as I would have liked. We're not having a lot of me two moments. I think that one of the most important skills is to say cool, like this isn't someone that I want to level up with. Have a great night. I wouldn't say that to them. I'm like, I'm not going to level up with you. No, but you think it. Yeah. But I do. I think you know what? Like this isn't my person. Yeah. And I think that's okay. Like that is such a good skill to have. What if they're your boss though? And I'm not speaking from personal experience, but what if what if they're so and you have to work with and you're like, I don't want to level up with this person. What do you do? Then these tools work. And I've been in that awful situation and I hate that situation. It's extremely, difficult when you have to get along with someone you don't like, but it happens, right? Bosses, colleagues, in-laws, partners, I mean, it happens, right? And these tools do work. I do not encourage people to use those tools in a long-term difficult relationship. I think when we say no to people, when we set up boundaries, we have so much more space and energy to say yes to the right people and the right things. Yeah. I really like that. So finally, we get to the most advanced step, the first five days. Now, why is five days the most advanced step? Why is that now like five years? Yeah, that's true. Okay. So here's my thinking behind it. So I was thinking about, okay, when you spend five days with someone on a vacation or on a work retreat or as a friend in college, if you can spend five good days with someone, you know that you are set up to have a long relationship. Anytime that I've been on a trip with someone or, you know, I think about study abroad. Like for example, I met my husband studying abroad and I think I knew within the first five days that he would be a lifelong friend. Now, I did not know at the time that we would be dating or married, but I certainly knew with those first five days that like this was someone that was special to me. I think that after the first five days, it sort of indicates that if you want to, this is someone that you could have a relationship for the next five, 10, 20 years, if those first five days go, well, if you're happy with them, if you feel like you're driving. Yes. And some of these strategies that you talk about, about how you say vulnerability is attractive, couldn't some of those strategies apply like in the first five minutes as well? Like I find like vulnerability is attractive, even at first impression for me, just to a certain degree, it depends what you're being vulnerable about. But. So I agree with you. I think that vulnerability, obviously the first page of my book is a whole bunch of vulnerability, you know, expose and that's okay for me. However, and I know that a lot of introverts are reading my book, have a lot of introverted students vulnerability. If it's really true and it's really authentic, can be quite scary. And so I didn't want to make it something you felt like you had to do within the first five minutes. If you're with someone, you're like, wow, like I really feel safe. I really feel like I could share something vulnerable. I 100% say go for it. But if it's real vulnerability, it can be scary and sometimes not always safe. Like there, I can remember specific moments in my life where I shared a vulnerability to early and it was painful. It was painful. We've all been there. And so oh my gosh. And you're just like, why, why did I do that? So it is always an option to exercise early, say with actually all the things in the final five hacks or final four hacks. For example, one of the other hacks is how to deal with difficult people. Hopefully you're not dealing with difficult people in the first few minutes of meeting them, but you might, right? You kept someone on a day. Your classes is kind of in a bad mood. And so you have the option to use any tips in the book in the first five minutes. But I think that in most situations, the deep triggers can happen after a couple dates. And also remember that people are always putting on their best face in the first few minutes or first few hours, typically, especially like in dating. Here everyone's trying really hard. And so it's hard to get through that first layer in the first few dates. Absolutely. You have the sentence I really liked. You said, "Turn people on by making them feel wanted, liked and known." Is that in a lot of ways getting the heart of what you call social attunement? Yes, that's exactly what social attunement is. And the important piece of that, I think, is you have to be in the place where you can give in an interaction like that. Like I didn't say, find people who make you feel wanted, heard and known. And I said, "You have to try to make people feel that way." And that's why that's literally the last section of the book because that's been the whole first part of the book saying, "If you're not leveling up with people, if they're not saying me too, if you're reading contempt and anger and disgust, they are not safe, they're not worthy of that very, very high goal of relationships." I like that. Well, Vanessa, thank you so much for telling me today. And I just want to say to everyone listening to this show, I think you should check this book out. It's a fun, I race through this book. It's a lot of helpful information, but it's also just really fun to read. Like your personality shines through. And you actually have the same personality. It's talking to me. Like you write just like you talk. Yes. Not everyone is like that. I know. Well, thank you so much for reading it. And thank you so much for recommending it. And for everyone listening, if you have any questions or feedback, that's the stuff that good science has made on. So feel free to send me your tips or your puzzles or your questions. Sounds good. And then, if you have any questions, please let me know. And if you have any questions, please let me know.