The “It” Factor: How to Hack Charisma to Boost Your Influence, Income, and Impact

(00:00:41):

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to an amazing buckle up your seatbelt episode of the Mel Robbins podcast. Guess what we're talking about today, you and me, baby. We're talking about the IT factor. That's right, the IT factor. I don't even know how to say it, but we're talking about it. Some people just have it, don't they? Just think about who you admire that has the IT factor. I'll give you my list. Oprah, the Rock, the Dalai Lama, Taylor Swift, oh, and the late Robin Williams and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Those folks, they have the IT factor. Why? Well, because they have this ability to make me lean in and care about what they're saying. We not only admire folks like this, but we like them and we trust them. That is the heart of having the IT factor. And based on the research, when people have the IT factor, you know what it means.

 

(00:01:38):

It means they have charisma. Charisma is a really cool thing because charisma will make you more influential. It'll help you make a bigger impact. And charisma absolutely is going to help you make some more money. Because according to the research, 82% of people's impression of you is based on whether or not you display charisma. Did you hear that? 82% of someone's impression of you based on whether or not you got charisma? I know I said it twice. That's how important it's, and here's the coolest thing about charisma. It's really easy to hack when you know the simple things you need to do. So today, here's what we're doing on the show. You're going to meet one of the world's leading researchers and experts on charisma and body language. Vanessa Van Edwards, she's a behavioral investigator, the founder of the research group, science of People, the author of the bestselling books on these topics, captivate and Cues.

 

(00:02:34):

And she's here to prove to you that you have the IT factor. Yes, I'm talking to you. And the skill of charisma, that is how you are going to bring your IT factor to life. So you can make an impact, you can influence people, and you can make more income. Let's go, man. Class is in session. I am so excited for this. So let's dial up the skill of charisma. Let's bring the IT factor to life. Let's increase our influence, impact and income people. And let's welcome Vanessa to the Mel Robbins podcast. I'm so excited for this, Vanessa. I'm so glad you're here. Well, welcome. I'm so psyched you're here.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:03:15):

I'm so happy to be here. I can't even tell you.

 

Mel Robbins (00:03:17):

Well, let's just jump right into it because you have written the book on both charisma and body language. And so I want to start with 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:03:30):

What people don't realize is that charisma more than any other attribute is the single most important aspect of you being successful. It helps you in your relationships, it helps you professionally, helps people take you seriously. It helps you also feel more confident and purposeful in your interactions. So charisma is that missing ingredient that we need to trigger or activate our success.

 

Mel Robbins (00:03:51):

Wow. I mean, you hear so much about confidence, you hear about extroverts versus introverts, but how is it that charisma impacts all those things more than your personality or confidence?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:04:04):

When research looks at highly charismatic people, they find that we are looking for people who are signaling high charisma because it shows all those other things. Highly charismatic people are confident, they are competent, they are warm, they are likable. And so the most amazing aspect of charisma is it can be learned. It is not an innate trait. You don't have to be born with it or not that anyone can learn how to be more charismatic through a very specific set of cues.

 

Mel Robbins (00:04:31):

That's crazy. And you say that you were very awkward before you leveraged all the cues you're about to teach us. Will you tell us a little bit about what you struggled with?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:04:43):

So what's funny about charisma? I've always been fascinated by this trait. I'm a recovering awkward person, so charisma does not come naturally to me. I've always been fascinated by the cool kids. I watch them and I'm like, oh, how do they know what to do? And so I was for many years trapped by this mistake and belief that to be charismatic, you have to be extroverted, you have to be bubbly, you have to be life of the party. And I am not an extrovert. And so I always thought, well, I guess I can't have it. It's an innate trait. You have to be extroverted. But research actually finds is that charisma has nothing to do with your extroversion, your attractiveness, your athleticism, even your intelligence. The actual definition of highly charismatic people, what makes them different is they send a very specific set of social signals, specifically they are constantly signaling high warmth. So trust, likability, friendliness along with, and this is the key, a balance of high competence, capability, power, effectiveness. And what's magical about this is if you're with someone and you are drawn into them, you immediately are able to answer two questions. I can trust you and I can rely on you. And so highly charismatic people, that's what they're signaling, warmth and competence at all times.

 

Mel Robbins (00:06:00):

Wow. Okay. Let me see if I just can bottom line this.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:06:05):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (00:06:07):

Charisma. If you have charisma or you display charisma, I guess is what I should say.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:06:13):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (00:06:14):

If you display charisma, other people are left with the impression that they can trust you and that they can count on you. Is that right?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:06:24):

That is exactly right. And the hard part about this is you can be the warmest, most competent person in the world, but if you don't show those signals, the world does not believe you. And this comes from amazing research out of Princeton University, which found that under signaling, so not signaling enough. And this is what happens, I think with very smart people. So most of my students are off the charts, intelligence high achievers, and they think, oh, my smarts will speak for me. I'm really smart. I can make it through anything. I'm super prepared. I have great answers. And the problem is they under signal the warmth and competence cues. And when Dr. Fisk found the creator of this research, she found that without enough warmth, people do not believe your competence. So the problem of smart people is they think their smarts work for them, but if they're not using the right signals, the world literally cannot believe them.

 

Mel Robbins (00:07:16):

Wow. So is this why charisma matters?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:07:22):

So I think of charisma like a lubricant, right? So when we're in social, that's sexy.

 

Mel Robbins (00:07:28):

A social lubricant that is not exactly the word that I thought or the metaphor I thought you were going to use. Okay, so charisma, smooth a social lubricant, everybody. Yeah, okay.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:07:39):

It makes it smooth. It makes it smooth because listen, my interactions, my social interactions, before I learned the science were like the opposite, smooth. They were crunchy, not in a good way, right?

 

Mel Robbins (00:07:51):

Okay, so you said you were awkward. Give us an example. Come on Vanessa.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:07:55):

I'm a recovering awkward person. So awkwardness, let's talk about awkwardness is one of my favorite topics. Awkwardness dresses up in different ways. So my awkwardness and everyone has a different thing, some curious smell, if you have any awkwardness how it dresses up. Some people they feel awkward because of fear, their fear of being rejected, fear of being criticized, fear of saying something silly or sounding stupid. And so their awkwardness will dress up as shutting down. So for me, my awkwardness, I'm an overthinker. I'm the person who I get in bed at the end of the night and I literally rethink every conversation I've had the whole day, or I overanalyze my answers before I even say anything, which makes me a terrible conversationalist listener. So my awkwardness would make me shut in, shut down. And so my introverts listening, this is often what happens when you feel awkward, you're afraid of a silence or being judged, you shut in, you close down, you stop talking.

 

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Other people, my extroverts, their awkwardness dresses up as something else. Their awkwardness dresses up as showing off over the top, being a drama queen, talking too much. Some of my extroverted, awkward friends, they'll say Sometimes I just can't stop talking. Literally, my mouth just keeps going. And so awkwardness is this really interesting way that we try to cover our fear. And so when I say I'm a recovering awkward person, I've had to conquer a lot of internal fear to be able to have interactions that I desperately, desperately want to have. That could be in a professional setting, sharing my ideas, but it also could be just trying to make good friends, trying to be open with my partner. And so I think that charisma is this lubricant because awkwardness makes our relationships, our conversations, our communication, crunchy, awkward, faulty. We talk too much, we talk too little. There's an awkward silence. We don't know what to do with our hands, right? We're like, what do I do with my body language? We make weird faces. We awkwardly nervous laugh. So my goal with charisma, what I've found is that it's a smoother, it's a lubricant, which we have to stick with that metaphor.

 

Mel Robbins (00:09:54):

Well, it's hilarious. And it also makes it, when you use the word crunchy about those moments when you feel awkward, that makes a lot of sense to me because whether you're an over talker, overshare, nervous, laugh, interrupting people because you're extroverted, but you feel afraid of how people are going to view you or whether you withdraw because you're afraid that crunchiness is that sort of disruption you feel internally. And so I love this idea that charisma, which you say is a skill that anybody can develop. That charisma helps you be yourself and it helps you be more influential and it helps you enjoy social settings, whether you are introverted or extroverted. That's what I'm kind of getting from this.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:10:52):

Oh, that's it. And so I think that what we're looking for here is a lot of people talk about confidence and I love confidence, but I'm not naturally confident. And so what would happen is I would say just be more confident. I would, I'd be trying to mantra myself into it. And if you tell someone who's awkward to just stop being awkward, it doesn't work.

 

Mel Robbins (00:11:11):

It just makes you more awkward, I think. Because then you're now focused on the fact that you're awkward.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:11:15):

It's like a meta meta. I worry that I'm a worrier and that makes you worry. So it's like a horrible meta. So what I say is, okay, I like confidence, but let's put it to the side for a second. Let's talk about being purposeful. Purposeful is much more impactful and active. It's an active emotion. Okay? If I say I want to show up in this interaction as highly charismatic, I want to be my warmest self and my most confident self, and I want to clearly signal with purpose to the other person. I am trustworthy and likable, but I can also get it done. I'm powerful and capable. The key here is the balance. Most of us have an imbalance. So there's four segments of the population is what the research finds. There's the sweet spot of highly charismatic people, high warmth, high competence. That's the rare birds among us

 

Mel Robbins (00:12:04):

Who are able to out. Now, can you give us an example of somebody who is highly charismatic?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:12:09):

Let's do the classic Oprah. Okay. Oprah is highly charismatic and here's why. She can be in an interview and she can make the other person feel so comfortable. They share their darkest secrets. That's warmth,

 

(00:12:23):

That's trust. She can cry with the other person. She can mimic their facial expressions. Her warmth literally draws out other people's warmth. However, you also take her very seriously. She is smart. She knows your answers. You can't sneak something by her, and that's her signaling. I'm competent. I'm going to make sure that I get to the truth here. You can rely on me to ask the hard questions. That's the perfect example. What Oprah does and what most care people do, which I want to teach everyone who's listening how to do, is you can use charisma like a dial. It's just like a thermostat. So in some situations when you want to dial up a little bit extra warmth, you can use more warmth cues. And Oprah does this exceptionally well in her hard hitting interviews, she'll dial up competence, she'll hit them with the hard questions, go watch her interview with Lance Armstrong. I talk about Lance Armstrong a lot in the book. I pick on him a lot. Her interview with Lance Armstrong, she is high competence. She has just enough warmth to make him feel comfortable, but she asks hard questions versus some of her other interviews, she's dialing up warmth. She wants to make the other person feel comfortable. So that's an example of someone who's very nice balance and kind of uses her warmth and competence as a dial. Let's look at, for example, Steve Jobs. So Steve Jobs is often

 

Mel Robbins (00:13:42):

Zero warmth,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:13:44):

Am I?

 

Mel Robbins (00:13:45):

No, zero warmth, zero jobs. Zero warmth. The guy's a

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:13:49):

Jerk. Zero warmth. So he is the perfect example of high, high competence. He's constantly signaling, take me seriously, I'm powerful. And most importantly, what highly smart people don't realize is if they over signal competence, people see them as cold, intimidating, not a collaborator, not a team player. Hard to talk to. Yes, he was brilliant, but his lack of warmth made people feel like he wasn't a collaborator, he wasn't a good team player. His legacy is changing the world but also being not kind. So that's an example of high competence. My highly smart people, my engineers, my really technically brilliant folks, they often get trapped in high competence because they don't know how to signal warmth. By the way, they might have all the intention to be a collaborator, but we are not taught how to signal warmth. And so they go, well guess I dunno how to do that. So

 

Mel Robbins (00:14:46):

That's

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:14:47):

Competence. That's one bucket. And by the way, so as you're listening, want you to think about what sounds like you, what feels like you? So do you feel like you have the balance? Do you feel like no, you're off the charts incompetence. You're high incompetence. If people always think you're in charge, you're high incompetence. If people ever I've ever told you that you're intimidating or hard to talk to that you're in a relationship or have a partner who's high in competence, if they constantly Google fact check you so highly competent folks, their mission is to get it right. They're very dominated by the idea of get it right, get the facts. And so they'll be in a competition with you and be like, let me Google fact check that. Let me just see if that's right.

 

Mel Robbins (00:15:32):

Do they share their emotions? If they're high competent,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:15:36):

Usually less, they're much less comfortable sharing their emotions because vulnerability, sharing emotions is an aspect of warmth. So that is one way that competent people can hack warmth is sharing more of their emotions, but usually they don't like that as much because emotions aren't correct, right? It's hard to be right with emotions. So they'll often, the reason why a highly competent partner I have one of those is I'm going to use the word afraid of emotions or uncomfortable with emotions is because it can't be fact checked. If someone says, as a partner, I feel upset with you. How do you verify that? How do you fix it? Where's the solution? A highly competent partner, they love solving things. You come to them and you're like, I'm just having a bad day. And they're like, let me fix that for you. And you're like, I don't want you to fix it. I just want you to listen. They're like, no, I don't know how to do that. They're fixers.

 

Mel Robbins (00:16:30):

Got it.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:16:30):

So highly competent people, you have that super strength of getting it right, being fixers, warm folks, my warm folks. So my highly warm folks, you are filled with empathy. You're cheerleaders, your supporters, your mission. So if competent people want to get it right, highly warm people want to be liked. They want everyone to feel good. They want everyone to feel comfortable. Typically, highly warm folks, their super strength is empathy, nurturing, making people feel loved and warm, but they often give too much of themselves in sacrifice of being liked.

 

Mel Robbins (00:17:05):

Got it. So people pleasing, doormats is what you're talking about.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:17:08):

That's the far end. People pleasing is what they struggle with. And so I think that highly warm folks in the workplace, this is the other really important thing to understand is if you are highly warm, you are fighting a battle in yourself, which is your desire to be liked, gets in the way of your need to be respected.

 

Mel Robbins (00:17:28):

Okay, stop. I need everybody to hear that. If you default and you are too warm, especially at work, your need to be liked is getting in the way of your need to be respected. And when you are too focused on getting it right and too focused on being smart and too focused on dominating the conversation or the knowledge bank need to be right is how did you say your need to be right? Need to be

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:18:07):

Right is getting in the way of your need to be liked.

 

Mel Robbins (00:18:10):

Yes, yes. Your need to be right is getting in the way of your need to be liked. That even rhymes. That's amazing.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:18:17):

I didn't even do that on

 

Mel Robbins (00:18:17):

Purpose. I want to go back to something in the very beginning that we were talking about.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:18:22):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (00:18:22):

So when I asked you what is charisma? And you said it has nothing to do with personality, it has nothing to do with introversion or extroversion. It is not about being confident that charisma is something that you display to other people, correct?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:18:42):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (00:18:43):

And charisma matters because if you have charisma, people trust you, they like you, they count on you, which I would think means it makes you more influential, it makes you more successful, it makes you have greater influence. Is that what the benefits of charisma are?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:19:08):

Influence, impact, and income. So the reason why, whoa, hold

 

Mel Robbins (00:19:13):

On, hold on. So charisma impacts the three eyes.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:19:18):

The three is all three of them. Why? If you are warm and competent, you are less likely to be underestimated, you're less likely to be dismissed and doubted. Why? We are attracted to highly charismatic people because charisma is contagious and they have actually proven this in the lab. The more charismatic you are, the more you clearly and purposefully, I keep using the word purposeful on purpose. The more clearly you signal warmth and competence, the more contagious you are. We like to be around warm, competent people because they make us more warm and competent. And so nonverbal signals, vocal signals, verbal signals, we are constantly aware of because we want to catch them. So the reason why we're drawn to people who are that influence piece, that influence or impact piece is because we are influenced by people who we want to be contagious with.

 

(00:20:10):

We also want to be more warm and competent. So if we're around someone who's warm and competent, it makes us feel like our best selves. If you think about the most charismatic person, so just think about them for a second. They make you feel better. They make you feel like your best self. That's the difference I think between, for example, a highly charismatic person and a narcissist. This is not just about confidence, it's about someone who actually is positively infectious. And they've proven this with both negative and positive cues. So for example, Dr. Matthew Lieberman at UCLA, he flashed people a fear micro expression. So fear micro expression is when we raise our eyebrows up our forehead and we widen our eyes to our white show and we take in a deep breath. So we go,

 

Mel Robbins (00:20:57):

Yes.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:20:58):

So that expression, if he flashes that expression to someone in A-F-M-R-I, their amygdala where they process fear begins to activate, we catch the fear. Literally just seeing someone with a fear face makes us feel afraid. The most important part of this experiment though is the moment that someone labeled the fear, so in their head or out loud said, fear, it deactivated their amygdala.

 

(00:21:24):

In other words, being aware of the cues that are being sent to us both negative and positive makes us aware of who is infecting us. So that influence, that impact is that highly charismatic people are so clear with their signals. It's like they're gifting another Oprah reference. They're gifting warmth for you, competence for you, charisma for you, and not charismatic people. People who are anxious, afraid, awkward. They are signaling negative cues. That's why we don't want to be around them. We don't want to catch that fear. We don't want that fear. And so we're like, whoa, I don't like those signals. And so we avoid them as much as we possibly can.

 

Mel Robbins (00:22:05):

You know what I love about your research? What I love is that first of all, you're about to teach us all how to become more charismatic. You're also about to give us hacks related to body language and getting intentional about what we're displaying and signaling.

 

(00:22:23):

But what I also love about your research is that I need everybody listening to understand something right now, you are unintentionally sending signals and cues to people.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:22:40):

That's it.

 

Mel Robbins (00:22:41):

You are walking around and whether it's a negative mood or it's anxiety or it's insecurity or it's awkwardness, or you're so focused on being right that you don't realize that you're sending signals and cues that make people not like you and not trust you, or you're so focused on being liked and that you're sending these signals of being a warm pushover, which is why you're never respected and why you're passed over at work. And so what I love about this research is that you helping us focus on two factors that you can display that will increase influence, impact and income. And it doesn't matter whether you're shy or whether you're bossy. These strategies are going to work for all of us. One thing I would love for you to talk about before we talk about the cues is this. So in that study that you cited from Princeton,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:23:45):

Yes,

 

Mel Robbins (00:23:45):

They also found that charisma accounts for 82% of how people evaluate you. So can you unpack that because I think it's really important for us to understand this is not only a good idea because you're going to make more money, be more influential, and make a bigger impact based on the science. This is how people view you. And so can you percent unpack this for us.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:24:18):

So I was also shocked by that number, by the way, it's very rare to see a number that big in science, right? Especially because if I were to ask someone, how do you want to be perceived? You're going to get a list of a hundred adjectives, funny, extroverted, bubbly, attractive, whatever. Actually when someone is interacting with us, and by the way, this is not just in person, this is on your LinkedIn profile in Zoom, on the phone, in chats, in slack, in dms, in your email inbox, people are using warmth and competence signals to make up 82% of their judgment of you.

 

Mel Robbins (00:24:52):

Okay, stop everybody. Did you just hear that people are using warmth and competence, which are the two things that make up your charisma. 82% of how people judge you, evaluate you, size you up, decide to hire or date you has to do with whether or not you're warm or competent. That's bananas.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:25:15):

It's bananas. And it's not just your first impression, it's actually every single impression. So yes, your first impression is important, but even if you don't feel you've had a good first impression, that's okay. We are reevaluating this on every zoom call. If someone sees your name pop up in their inbox, they're also wondering is this a warm and competent email? In other words, can I trust this email? Can I rely on this email? The more warm and competent your email is, the faster response rates you're going to get. We as humans have a really hard time responding to connecting with building rapport, with being impacted by people who under signal or people who signal in an imbalanced way. So what we're talking about here, that 82% is making it easier for people to interact with you. I believe that your warmth and competence tells the world how they should treat you.

 

Mel Robbins (00:26:04):

Wow. Here's what I believe, Vanessa, you want to hear what I believe, Vanessa? Yes, I believe we all have a huge blind spot when it comes to what we're signaling other people that you may think you know how you come across and what you're displaying. But I have a feeling that we are about to learn from Vanessa that we have a massive blind spot when it comes to warmth and confidence and how you're displaying charisma or not. 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:26:37):

Okay, alright, so the first kind of diagnostic that I talked about was just which one sounds like that's where we start. So where do you think you fall? You higher in warmth, higher in competence. You have a balance. Or are you under signaling? Do you shut down and not signal enough? The next thing you can do is you can actually do our diagnostic. It's totally free. And I love this because there's two ways that I want you to do this. You can take this as many times as you want. The whole point, the reason I put it up from the research is because I want people to be able to take a diagnostic, see how they come across. So they're going to be very simple questions.

 

Mel Robbins (00:27:07):

Does that mean a test?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:27:08):

Yes, it's a test.

 

Mel Robbins (00:27:09):

Okay,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:27:10):

Really simple. Test science people.com/charisma.

 

Mel Robbins (00:27:12):

Wait, hold on. What is the url?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:27:16):

Science of people.com/charisma

 

Mel Robbins (00:27:19):

Science of people.com/charisma? Wait, is that the New York Times Science of

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:27:25):

People? No, just my Science of People.

 

Mel Robbins (00:27:27):

Oh, that's your side. Okay. Science of people.com/charisma. We'll put that in the show notes. So you can take this test

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:27:33):

As many times as you want. And so first I'm going to take it as you, and we're going to take it as you and I want you to take it not on your ideal self, your real self, okay? So on a normal day I want you to screenshot your results. Then what I want you to do is I want you to do a 360 review. I want you to send the quiz to a partner, a friend, a colleague, and ask them to take it as you. This is the key because it's going to show you how other people see you and have them screenshot the results and then go to dinner and get a lot of wine because it'll be a great conversation.

 

Mel Robbins (00:28:13):

So do you find that most people have no idea how they're showing up with other people?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:28:20):

You were right. Most of us have a blind spot we think. We hope. We think of ourselves as our ideal selves. And there are days, of course where we are a little closer to that sweet spot of warmth and competence. But what's really key, what we find is that not only are people giving them different results, but they even might even have different results for home and work. So they're showing up as two selves. And that's a very important thing to know about yourself. If you're going to work and you're dreading it, you're burnt out, you're drained. It could be that you are not honoring who you truly are because you're either under signaling competence or under signaling warmth or trying to fake it till we make it. I have a little problem with that phrase. I don't love that phrase because I think that the problem is if you're going to fake warmth, it's exhausting. This is also a way to get a very quick snapshot in how are people perceiving you and is it what you think you're showing?

 

Mel Robbins (00:29:15):

You also have a suggestion that we record our zoom calls in order to read how charismatic we are. That sounds horrible.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:29:25):

It's horrible. I'm not going to lie. It is horrible. And not only do I want you to record a zoom call, I want you to record a zoom call that you worked hard on presentation, an important client meeting a call, and then I want you to code it. So when we talk about

 

Mel Robbins (00:29:39):

What does code it mean?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:29:40):

Okay, so when we talk about cues, so cues are the social signals humans send to each other. There are four different modes of cues. Verbal, the one we talk about the most. So our words, this is what we most of us think about all the time. We want to prepare the perfect answer, share the perfect presentation. We practice our stories. So verbal is only one mode of cues. Second is nonverbal. Our body language, our gestures, our facial expressions. The third, the most important one that's overlooked is voice tone, our vocal power, our volume, our pace, our cadence, our tone. And the last smallest one is ornaments. The jewelry we wear, what's behind us in our background, the color of our nails, how we wear our hair, our glasses, those are the ornaments. What I want you to do is I want you to code yourself for every cue that you're showing, everything from how many gestures you're using to what your facial expressions are doing to your movement, to your fidgeting, to your vocal power, to the kinds of words you're using. That's also going to give you a snapshot because what we've found in our research is that there are certain very clear signals of warmth, cues of warmth and cues of competence. And the last one are danger zone cues, cues that are negative. My goal, this is a way that you can see is how are you signaling warmth and competence? What are you doing with your body and your voice and your face that's making people treat you the way that they're treating you?

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:02):

Okay? So I feel like everybody needs to grab a pen and a piece of paper, and this is definitely one of those podcast episodes that I know every single parent is going to be forwarding to their kids who have interviews. We are about to get the cheat sheet, everybody for how to nail charisma, whether you're in a virtual meeting, whether you're in an interview, whether you're sending an email. And so let's go through the cues, alright? 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:31:46):

Yeah, so let's do it by time. So what I want to do is actually I want to do the first 10 seconds of your video, the first minute of your video. That actually helps us break it down because actually the first 10 seconds are really important. The first 10 seconds of you being on camera.

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:59):

Really?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:32:00):

Yeah, because it sets you up for the rest of the time. So if you can nail your first 10 seconds, it makes the next hour easier. Wow. That's

 

Mel Robbins (00:32:10):

A relief. So what do we have to do?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:32:12):

What

 

Mel Robbins (00:32:12):

Are we doing? So you're about to tell us in the first 10 seconds of a zoom meeting, you must do this in order to be influential. What do you do?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:32:23):

Okay, first 10 seconds, and I want you to code this. If you did this on your last video, here's what you should do. And here's what we should code number one in the first second, you should try to show your hands. I know this sounds really weird, but they use eye tracking studies and they found that one of the first places the brain looks when they're trying to gauge someone's warmth is hands. Why? This is actually a survival mechanism. Back in our caveman days, if we were approached by a stranger caveman, we wanted to see if they were carrying a rock or a spear. So this still remains something interesting happens. I'll do a little experiment for you. So if you're watching the video, I'm going to hide my hands. If you're listening, I'm hiding my hands right now.

 

(00:33:02):

The moment you can't see someone's hands. So if I were to give this entire interview with my hands behind my back, something interesting would happen in your brain and Mel's brain, which is that your amygdala would begin to activate. And that's because when you can't see someone's hands, you wonder what is she holding? What's her intention? And so the longer I keep my hands behind my back, the more distracted you should become with the fact that my hands are behind my back. You want them to come back out, right?

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:25):

Yes.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:33:27):

Okay, they're back, right?

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:28):

Okay, there they are.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:33:29):

Hello. So much better. So this is a survival mechanism. The moment you hop on video, walk on stage, walk into a boardroom,

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:37):

Walk on video, put your hands up like, Hey everybody. Hey, good morning. Nice to see you. Okay. Okay, so the first 10 seconds we turn on the camera's coming on, we put the hands up. Hi everybody

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:33:48):

Or just one, right? Like a little wave. Nice to see you. You walk into a crowded restaurant to see your date. Hey, good to see you. That hand gesture immediately deactivates their fear processing easy. Okay? So I want them visible. Second little bonus tip here is the space, the distance. And I literally want you to measure this, the distance between your nose and the camera. The reason for this is because in person, we are very aware of what's called proximic zones. Proximic zones are the space between people. So we know, and this is a little bit different culture to culture. So hand gestures universally, we like to see hands, but culture to culture. We also like to know what's the distance between people. So I highly recommend make sure your camera is at least a foot and a half away from your face.

 

Mel Robbins (00:34:35):

Okay?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:34:36):

The reason for this is because imagine if I were to give, now I'm going to get really close to the camera. Imagine if I were to give my entire interview really close, you'd be like, Vanessa, back up, back up.

 

Mel Robbins (00:34:45):

Oh my God, I totally lean into the camera. I have no space above my head. I like my whole face right in there. So maybe I got to back off a little bit on the camera.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:34:58):

Let's talk about this for a second.

 

Mel Robbins (00:34:59):

Okay?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:35:00):

There are no bad cues in the sense of they're all purposeful when you were really close. And I love your videos. I've seen your closeup videos. You should know on purpose. If you are very close to the camera, right up in your face, you are signaling intimacy. You are signaling I'm right up in it. And that's because as humans, there are four different proximic zones. The public zone, the social zone, the personal zone of the intimate zone, we reserve the intimate zone, which is zero to 18 inches away, zero to a foot and a half away from people we feel really close with. So our partners, our parents, so does our best friends. And so actually when I watch your videos where you're really close, I feel like we're besties. Mel, tell me everything. So I would say reserve those videos for your intimate moments,

 

Mel Robbins (00:35:49):

Okay?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:35:50):

You're literally singling them in a normal zoom call, I want you at least a foot and a half away. It also helps you show your hands. It helps have those gestures.

 

Mel Robbins (00:35:57):

So smart. Okay, so the first 10 seconds, everybody, we got the hands up and we got to be about a foot and a half away because this is, oh, and there's more.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:07):

Oh, there's more.

 

Mel Robbins (00:36:08):

There's

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:08):

So much more. Okay, second vocal. So that was a nonverbal cue. I want you to make sure you are not accidentally using the question inflection on your name or an important information. The question inflections when we go up at the end of our sentence. So it sounds like we're asking a question. And so often we found in our lab that people would use the question inflection in the first 10 seconds, which made people doubt them. So I want to share this study because this study gave me the chills when I first heard it, and I think it's so incredibly important for people who are listening who want to be taken seriously. So what they did in this study, I promise I won't get too into the science very simply, they brought doctors into their lab and they wanted to know if people would change their perceptions of charisma based on their voice tone. So they asked the doctors to record ten second voice tone clips. So these clips, they had to say their name, where they worked and their specialty. So it sounded like this. I use my lipstick as an example. Hi, my name is Dr. Edwards. I specialize in oncology and I work at Children's Presbyterian Hospital. They took these clips and they warbled the words. So you could hear the volume, the pace, the cadence, but not the actual words being said. So that sounded like this.

 

(00:37:25):

They asked participants to then rate these doctors on warmth and competence

 

Mel Robbins (00:37:30):

Based on the warbled thing that you just did.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:33):

Yes. So imagine that I just did that. And then I asked you, do you like this person? Is this person smart? So participants rated these gobbledygook clips on, do they like this person? And this person smart. They found the doctors who had the lowest warmth and competence ratings had the highest rate of malpractice lawsuits. What? The doctors with the lowest warmth and competence ratings, simply based on their voice tone, had the highest rate of malpractice lawsuits. This implies that we don't just dislike people based on their skills. We dislike people based on our perception of their skills. And that happens within the first few seconds of hearing them. The biggest pattern, it is such a shock wave through the community because these are doctors who are very well trained. What they found was patterns. There were certain doctors who across the board were rated as highly charismatic from gobbledygook. And there were certain doctors that over and over again, they were rated as not very smart, not very likable. Here was the biggest pattern uptalk, the doctors who had an introduction like this. Hi, my name is Dr. Edwards. I specialize in oncology and they work at Children's Trans period Hospital, right? What it did is it changes the way that we listen. They found that when we hear the question inflection accidentally used on a statement, our prefrontal cortex shifts from listening to scrutinizing.

 

(00:39:12):

We think why did they just question themselves? I guess I should question them. We hear this all the time in sales calls where someone is killing it in a pitch. This is the income the last I, or in a salary negotiation. I'd love to work for your company. I think this I'd be a great fit for you. I love your mission and I'm really looking for a salary range of over a hundred thousand dollars.

 

Mel Robbins (00:39:38):

Oh, everybody, did you hear that question? I'm really looking for a salary range of a hundred thousand dollars.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:39:46):

When you ask your price, you are begging people to negotiate with you. You're telling people, I don't really believe this number and you shouldn't believe it either. So what happens in the first 10 seconds is we're nervous, right? We're really nervous. We've been holding our breath, we're waiting for zoom call. And so we accidentally give away all of our vocal power. In the first 10 seconds we say, Hey everyone, my name is Vanessa. We'll get started in a few.

 

Mel Robbins (00:40:12):

Whoa, okay? This is why it's important to tape a zoom call. You're on everybody because now you have three research back. Incredibly subtle, but profound behavior changes that you need to make immediately,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:40:35):

Immediately

 

Mel Robbins (00:40:36):

Hands up. You got to have the right distance, which is a foot to a foot and a half, nose to camera. No uptalk everybody. And I would imagine that most people don't realize that they do it.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:40:54):

No idea. That's why coding is so important. That's why seeing yourself, that's why we don't realize when we walk into a salary negotiation or we walk into a pitch meeting with a client or we go on a date and we think it went well, how often have people been sideswiped and they think, yeah, I think that went great, but I didn't get a call back or I didn't get a second date. It's because you are accidentally telling the world how to treat you. And if you under signal warmth, people don't like you. If you under signal competence, people don't take you seriously.

 

Mel Robbins (00:41:22):

And the uptalk everyone is when you're under signaling, competence,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:41:29):

Competence,

 

Mel Robbins (00:41:29):

You might be the most competent and qualified person. But if you walk into that interview and you don't, not sure, my last job was great, I think I'd do great here, a hundred thousand, that'd be great. You just shot yourself in the foot and you don't even realize it because you don't hear it. I bet people do this with dating all the time.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:41:56):

All the time. And the problem is it's a permission seeking behavior. So if we really get down to the root cause of it, which is one thing that fascinates me is this is appeasement body language, right? So do you like me? Do you agree with me? So oftentimes highly warm people who really, really desperately want to be liked use more uptalk because they're asking, do you agree? Do you like me? The crazy thing is that actually so annoying, opposite effect. So that I also want you to get really to the root cause of if you hear yourself do uptalk, and by the way, please go listen to your voicemail. So go listen to your voicemail or any voice recordings. If you've sent any voice recordings or voice memos in the past few days, go re-listen to them and see if you accidentally use uptalk and go rerecord

 

Mel Robbins (00:42:44):

Re-record. So how do you coach somebody who has a style of speaking where they naturally end sentences with this uptalk? So it's almost like you've got a statement and as you speak it, it sounds like a question at the end.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:43:01):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (00:43:01):

And do women do this more than men?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:43:04):

Yes. So women do this more than men. Also, the research finds that women typically but not always, are seen as higher in warmth. And that's because from a very young age, women are often taught to be liked, and so they tend to dial up their warmth earlier, typically, but not always. Men are seen as higher incompetence, and that's often men are told to be right.

 

(00:43:24):

So we also have to be aware of those gender differences. So yes, women typically more often use uptalk or high warmth. So luckily this is actually a very easy thing to fix. So we're going to do it. We're going to do it with breath and pausing. So one of the things that can happen with uptalk is we're nervous and we're speaking very quickly. And so what I want you to think about is what do you want to say with purpose and how can you deliver it with purpose? So there's three kinds of inflection. There's uptalk. So going up at the end of our sentence, there's neutral, staying neutral at the end of our sentence. And then there's the downward inflection, which is very commanding, which is going down at the end of our sentence. So all three of those things signal something very, very different. What I want you to pay attention to is the tension in your vocal cords. So when we are tense, when we're nervous, we tend to take in a breath and talk at the top of our breath. It's really, really hard to sound confident when we're up here. So what I want you to do is when you say hello or your first few words, I want you to speak on the outbreath,

 

Mel Robbins (00:44:27):

Okay?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:44:28):

What most people do is they hold their breath before they get on a zoom call or a phone call. So they go, hello, all the way up here. Oh my gosh, you're right. You're like, hi, hi, hi. Oh, so good to see you. So we did this experiment where we had people submit recordings of important phone calls, and we found the highest part of the entire call. Uptalk and vocal tone was the first 10 seconds. Literally people would go, Hey, it's so good to see you. So how's it going?

 

Mel Robbins (00:45:00):

That's a thousand percent, right?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:45:03):

So this is really easy to fix. What do you do? Instead of holding your breath, I want you to speak on the out breath. So let's do a little experiment. I want you to hear the highest end of your range. So the highest end of your range is when you speak at the top of your breath. So on the count of three, I want us to say, and wherever you are, you can do this in your car, tell your kids to do it with you. So I want you to take in a deep breath and say hello at the top of your breath. So it's going to sound like this. 1, 2, 3. Hello. So you want to try it with me, Mel?

 

Mel Robbins (00:45:28):

Yeah, I do.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:45:29):

1, 2, 3.

 

Mel Robbins (00:45:31):

Hello, hello. Hello. Yeah, hi. It's very high.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:45:36):

That's the highest end of your breath. If you hear your rain going up there, you are speaking too high. You hear yourself go there. What I want you to do is try to relax your vocal cords by speaking on the outbreath.

 

Mel Robbins (00:45:47):

Hello.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:45:48):

So this time, there you go. That was it. So you just heard the difference. So here's my difference. Ready? Hello? Hello. Those are both me, but they sound totally different. So this time what we're going to do is we're going to take a deep breath in. On the count of three, I want you to say hello on the outbreath. I want you to say it in a downward inflection. Okay? Ready? 1, 2, 3. Hello.

 

Mel Robbins (00:46:12):

Nice. That

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:46:12):

Sounded good.

 

Mel Robbins (00:46:14):

Yes. Okay, so signaling competence. We now have a bunch of things that you can do including, and probably one of the most important is learning how to take a breath and then talk on the out breath.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:46:30):

Can I add one more competence cue that I think is really easy? Please. Yes, really easy. Okay, so hand gestures, there's two sides of hand gestures. One is visible, right? So we mentioned having a little wave hello, greeting at the top of a video call or in person. The next thing we look for in hand gestures is purpose. What highly competent people did. So we did a research study where we analyzed thousands of hours of TED talks.

 

(00:46:52):

I was curious, why do some TED talks go viral and some don't? So in our lab, we analyzed thousands of hours counting cues coding. We literally coded TED talks and looked at the view count. We found that the most viral TED talks use an average of 465 gestures in 18 minutes, whereas the least popular TED talks use an average of 272 gestures. So almost half what happens here is the best TED talkers they get on stage and they typically go good morning. So they have a visible hand out of their pockets right in front. And then what they do, I'm going to demo this for you. And by the way, if you're just listening, I'm going to show some hand gestures along with my words. Mel, see if this looks familiar to you. This is every popular TED talk today I want to talk to you about a big idea. It's going to change your life in three different ways. That is queuing the brain to say, wow, this person knows their content so well. They can speak to me on two tracks. They can speak to me with their verbal, but they can also demo their concepts along with their words. So if I were to say, today I have a really big idea and hold up my hands, I'm holding a penny. You're like, Vanessa, it looks so small. Your brain is more likely to believe my gesture than my word.

 

Mel Robbins (00:48:14):

Wow. Wow. Okay. So let me just say, if you want to watch this, go to youtube.com/mel Robbins, this entire episode, the honor bridge version, we put 'em up there, you can check it out. And it was very interesting because when you said big idea what she did, everybody is she held up her fingers making that gesture when imagine if I were like, it's really puny, and now I'm making that tiny little, my fingers are a quarter inch apart. When she said it's a big idea, and she showed me the hand signal for puny, Vanessa's dead, right? My brain went right to the hand gesture, and I was like, wait a minute, that doesn't match. Why the heck is she saying puny? Why is she not saying puny? Because clearly it's a puny idea if she's making it. That's really interesting.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:49:06):

So this is where I think inauthenticity comes from. So people who are inauthentic are saying one thing with their words, but they're nonverbal, their vocal doesn't match, and our brain does not like this. Our brain is like, wait a minute, that was incongruent, right? That's an work. And by the way, this is very hard to do. So everyone who's listening, I want to do a little experiment with you. What I want you to do in a second is I want you to say five, but I want you to hold up the number three. Okay? Ready?

 

Mel Robbins (00:49:32):

Yeah. Five, five. Oh, that's weird.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:49:36):

Horrible.

 

Mel Robbins (00:49:36):

My brain literally went, that's the wrong hand gesture, Mel.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:49:41):

Your brain was like, stop. Stop. That is because our brains also like to be congruent. So our brains use our gestures as truth telling. And so what happens is there's this really interesting cycle of if you want to be, show up as competent. The other thing you can think about in the first 10 seconds and then throughout is how can you demo a concept with your hands? Now, this is not interpretive dance. I don't want you to, good morning, I'm so happy to be here. I love you. You're hilarious. We don't have to do that. But there is a difference of, I'm so happy to be here. I want to talk about two different things in the meeting today. When someone holds up two and they say two, not only does it make you look competent, they think, wow, it really is. Two, you're also hooking the other person's brain to think, I better remember both. You become more memorable with more purposeful gestures. People believe your competence when your gestures and your words are congruent. A very easy one.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:50:50):

Okay, so one of the biggest mistakes that we have identified, there's a lot of them, is with our facial expressions. So I think with our facial expressions, we forget how rich our face is in demonstrating emotions or queuing emotions. So a big mistake that I see is people will fake smile. I love smiling, but there is nothing worse than fake smiling. I do not believe in toxic positivity. So people have been told Smile, smile more, which I think is the worst advice. I'm like, smile purposefully, don't smile more. So a really simple mistake is someone will say, yeah, I'm so happy to be here.

 

(00:51:32):

Incongruent. Incongruent. So what will happen is introvert really wants to show up as their best self. They're come with the best intention, or someone will hop on a video call and they're trying to be positive. And so they'll have a lot of incongruent messages by trying to show warmth, the fake smile. The problem is Dr. Barbara Wilde and her associates, they actually looked at fake smiling, and what they did is they showed people pictures of smiling people, fake smiling people, and neutral people. By the way, just the science of this, a fake smile or a real smile reaches all the way up into these upper cheek muscles. So if you were to smile all the way up into your upper cheek muscles, they activate your crow's feet, right? Got it. That's a real smile. Only one in 10 people can consciously activate those muscles. So they really do happen with authentic happiness.

 

Mel Robbins (00:52:16):

Okay?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:52:17):

Fake smiles are only on the bottom half of the face. So if I was in a face mask, you could not see my fake smile,

 

Mel Robbins (00:52:23):

Right? But you could see the smile lines in somebody's eyes

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:52:26):

If it's real.

 

Mel Robbins (00:52:27):

So a real smile you actually make with your eyes.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:52:30):

Exactly.

 

Mel Robbins (00:52:31):

Exactly.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:52:32):

Upper cheek muscles slash eyes. Exactly. So what happens is, what happens, this research experiment is she showed people pictures of real smiling people, and people caught the happiness. It actually affected their positive mood. They felt happier. When people saw the fake smiles, they caught nothing. In other words, queuing for real happiness actually makes you more contagious. Fake happiness makes you less than memorable. Nothing happens. So the biggest mistake that will happen with introverts is they want to come across as warm, and their only tool in their toolkit is smiling. The problem is, the good thing is there are many other warmth cues.

 

Mel Robbins (00:53:10):

So what are the other warmth cues that you can

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:53:12):

Use? Okay, so if you're going to smile, smile for real. And

 

(00:53:16):

Please, please go look at your LinkedIn profile picture. Please, please go look at your dating profile pictures. I either want you neutral, sexy, or smiling all the way. No fake smiles. Okay? So make sure that smile is all the way up into your eyes. If you have a fake smile in your LinkedIn profile picture, you are literally signaling fake happiness in authenticity. So if you don't want to actually smile, that is totally okay. That's not your only warmth cue. Here are your other warmth options. One a head nod. So a slow triple nod. 1, 2, 3 is an immediate warmth

 

Mel Robbins (00:53:50):

Signal. Wow. 1, 2, 3. Okay, we can do that. People,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:53:55):

Yes. And by the way, the funny thing about this, the research found, this just tickles me, that when someone does a slow triple, not the other person speaks 67% longer. It's like a nonverbal.dot. You're literally saying to someone, tell me more. I want to listen. I want to hear you. So a slow triple nod. Oh, I think

 

Mel Robbins (00:54:18):

They teach that to therapists. They think they teach the therapies. Triple nod technique. Yes. Right?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:54:25):

So a slow triple nod. Very easy. You don't have to smile. It's a warmth cue. The other thing that we found, we did this in LinkedIn profile pictures. If you add a simple head tilt, you are seen as warmer. So if I tilt my head to the side, this is a universal response if I want to hear something better. So if I say, Mel, do you hear that? We automatically tilt our head and expose our ear. That's a way that we want to hear better. When you are on a video call, on a date in your LinkedIn profile picture, if you want to be seen as warm, you can tilt your head to the side is if to say, I am deeply listening, I am really trying to hear you. And it's much more natural than smiling maniacally.

 

Mel Robbins (00:55:04):

This is fascinating, easy. So we've got the triple knot, everybody, we've got smile with your eyes, we've got tilt your head slightly. What are other warm cues?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:55:13):

Okay, so other warm cues, vocal. So let's talk about vocal. So those were three nonverbal cues. Vocal, remember is the one that we often forget. You have a lot of power in your voice. So another warmth, vocal cue is what I call vocalizations. Ooh, do we love a vocalization? So a vocalization is surround sound listening. It's showing that you're listening. So this is going to immediately make me sound warmer.

 

Mel Robbins (00:55:35):

Oh, I just did that.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:55:36):

Ooh,

 

Mel Robbins (00:55:37):

I'm very warm.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:55:38):

Yes. So actually you have a very good balanced smell of warmth and competence. I was going to say you when you asked for an example, but I was like, that's way too brown nosy. So I didn't. But you have a very good warmth and competence because you will vocalize for me. So as a speaker, when you nod at me, I can see you nodding right now.

 

Mel Robbins (00:55:55):

Yeah. I'm just doing it naturally.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:55:57):

Yeah. And that encourages me as a speaker. I'm doing good. That makes my crunchiness smoother.

 

Mel Robbins (00:56:06):

Oh, that's so awesome.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:56:09):

So your warmth cues are gifts to awkward people. When you show someone who's crunchy, awkward, afraid, I'm listening to you. That was interesting. Oh, aha. You are gifting them lubricant. You are saying, you've got this girl, I'm listening, I'm hearing you. This is super smooth, which then makes me more smooth. And so there's two sides of why I wrote this book. Yes, I want you to be more charismatic, but I also want you to be more inspiring. I want you to be contagious in a way that's gifting, warmth and competence. And so adding vocalizations is a very easy way, especially for my introverts. Remember my introverts? I want to teach you how to be heard about being loud. So nonverbal cues, vocalizations, that's a way for you to participate in conversation without saying a word, right? So

 

Mel Robbins (00:57:05):

That's fantastic. Easy. Alright, do that again. What are the other ones other than

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:57:11):

Ooh, wow, what? Those are all warm vocalization. In fact, doing them right now should kind of give you the warm and fuzzies a little bit. She'd be like, that feels so good. So whatever I say, organizations are kind of like a warming blanket. It makes the other person feel like, wow, I'm doing so good. So vocalization, you're

 

Mel Robbins (00:57:34):

Doing better than good. You're doing fantastic. Vanessa, how do you display competence? What are some cues for competence?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:57:43):

Alright, so competence, low tone, which we talked about already. So not using the accidental question, inflection is really important. Explanatory gestures. So being purposeful with our gestures, eye contact. Eye contact is a hard one because I know that eye contact can be different for culture, different cultures. But what I want us to understand about eye contact is that eye contact produces a chemical. So when we mutually gaze, and they even found this happens through a screen. So if I make eye contact with the camera, we also produce this chemical oxytocin.

 

(00:58:15):

Oxytocin is a very complicated chemical. There's a lot of things in our body, but for social purposes, oxytocin is the chemical of connection. When we are making eye contact, when we first meet someone or we hop on video, our bodies go, oh, we're both mutually gazing. We must be friend, not foe. Therefore, let me produce the chemical that allows me to trust. The more oxytocin that's in our bodies and we're communicating, the more open we are, the more we say yes, the more we feel like I'm on the same page with this person. So eye contact is one of the fastest ways to get or gift oxytocin. Now the amount of oxytocin is different. I do not believe, and I really want to repeat this, I do not believe in a hundred percent eye contact.

 

Mel Robbins (00:59:00):

Oh, thank God. Okay. No. For somebody with, I have a D, HD, and I've noticed every time I read anything about body language, you're lying. If you look away and I'm like, I have a hard time holding eye contact for a long period of time, and I know it has to do with the A DHD.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:59:22):

That is correct. So let's talk about this. First of all, I want to talk about looking up to the left is lying because that's a very a myth I want to bust. Second, the worst advice that bad body language books give is make more eye contact. No eye contact is great and it can produce oxytocin, but actually we should not be making a hundred percent eye contact or even 80 or 90% eye contact. That is a territorial gesture. Our bodies know that when we're trying to process something mentally, we look away. So for example, if I were to ask you to do some math with me, Mel, if I were to say, Mel, what's 10 times 10 plus five minus? Wait, I'm not going to make you do it, but you immediately break eye contact. It's

 

Mel Robbins (01:00:01):

1 0 5. I looked up to do the math.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:00:05):

Yeah, you looked up.

 

Mel Robbins (01:00:06):

I never noticed that. But you're right. I looked up to go. I looked up at an imaginary chalkboard and imagine 10 times, 10 plus 5, 1 0 5.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:00:16):

And this is a really important thing for humans to do. Why? If I ask you a complicated question, a technical question, even a memory based question. Oh, tell me about your last job. Tell me about your last girlfriend. You need to look up to access the memory or to access the knowledge

 

Mel Robbins (01:00:32):

You do. Is that a neurological thing? Yes.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:00:35):

Yes. Because think about this from a chemical perspective. When we are talking and we are bonding, I want to make eye contact. But if you ask me a hard question about my past or a math problem, I need to break the eye contact, stop producing the oxytocin so I can access that memory. So it's our brain's way of saying, don't give me too much input. I need to access this input and this information over here. That's why it can be so confusing for people who are trying to make more eye contact. No, I want you to make eye contact when you want to bond with someone. Absolutely. Especially in the first few seconds. But when you're processing or accessing information, I actually want you to look away because you're going to give a better answer. And humans understand this, right? So if you were to ask me a very hard question that I didn't know the answer to, and I went, huh, that's a great question. You are more likely to believe my answer because I looked away to process it.

 

Mel Robbins (01:01:31):

That's fascinating.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:01:32):

So that's the first thing I want to bust about eye contact is do not feel pressured to make more eye contact Competent people make purposeful eye contact competent people. They know that when they're trying to bond and connect, they're right at you. But when they're trying to access a competent answer, they're accessing it over here or over here or over here. So that's actually a mark of competence. It's also a way to pause to introduce, I am deeply thinking about what you just said, so I can give you a really good answer. Second thing is we have done a ton of lie detection research in our lab. In fact, almost, almost we have one chapter on lie detection In the book, I almost put it into its own book because it's so much research. I want to bust a myth. Looking up to the left or looking up to the right does not mean someone is lying. That means someone is accessing different information. What I do think that people should do is know they're lying tells. I think a fundamental piece of information every single person should know about themselves is what they do when they lie. So here's what

 

Mel Robbins (01:02:35):

I want you to do. Wait, hold on. Lemme just make sure. So you're not saying here's a tell when someone else is lying. You are saying, what is a tell when you're lying?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:02:45):

That's it.

 

Mel Robbins (01:02:46):

Oh, why do I need to know that?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:02:48):

You need to know that because you need to know when you are accidentally signaling in authenticity. Because what can often happen is you should know your own lying tell. Because hopefully you're not lying a lot. But oftentimes people will do their lying tell when they're not even lying, when they're nervous or

 

Mel Robbins (01:03:02):

Afraid

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:03:04):

And it's signaling to the world. I'm nervous and afraid.

 

Mel Robbins (01:03:07):

What's your lying tell?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:03:09):

So my lying tell is I hide my hands so my hands get really cold and I usually hide them or I clench them. So if you see me ever have a clenched fist, I'm like, keep it together. Keep it together. Keep it together. Keep it together. So a clenched fist or a white knuckling it or I hide my hands. I also use a little bit of a disgust, micro expression. So we talked about fear as a micro expression. Disgust is when we crinkle our nose up and we flash the whites of our teeth. If I were to say, oh, I smell something bad. Disgust is a really common lying red flag because liars, including myself, we hate lying. It makes us feel dirty. Literally lying makes us feel dirty. Liars will often use more Purell afterwards. It makes them feel physically dirty. So you'll see people if you ask someone. So what do you think of the new girl? Oh yeah, she's nice.

 

Mel Robbins (01:04:00):

Yeah, yove got a disgust face as you say that. And now as I'm watching you, I'm like, you're lying because you're saying she's nice, but your face says disgusted.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:04:11):

Yeah.

 

Mel Robbins (01:04:12):

So how do you though know your own tell? Because I'm sitting here trying to think.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:04:16):

No,

 

Mel Robbins (01:04:18):

I'm going to give you the fun.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:04:19):

I know what, this is a fun Friday night if you're willing to do this with a couple friends, it's really fun to do this. I highly recommend doing this to your partner. My partner and I know are each other's tells, which has made our marriage super honest, which I love. Radical honesty. I'm all about it. So here's what I want you to do. Okay?

 

Mel Robbins (01:04:35):

Get ready, Chris.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:04:37):

Okay, date night, get ready one. If you can film this also, it's helpful to rewatch it together. First I want you to open up your camera or your phone one. I want you to tell me what you had for breakfast yesterday. Okay? The reason fort, this is a recall test. You need to know what you look like when you're recalling truth. You will notice, you'll probably look up to left or look up to the right.

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:01):

Yeah, I look to the

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:02):

Left. Touch or touch your face.

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:05):

I looked to the left and then I loof hoofed my head around.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:07):

Okay, and you also were tapping your foot. You're shaking.

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:10):

Was I? Oh, I was Okay. Yes,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:12):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:12):

Okay, cool.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:13):

Okay, so that's your recall test. That's what you look like when you are truthful information.

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:19):

You're right. You know why I clicked my foot? It's like I'm cranking the brain back up.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:23):

Come on.

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:23):

I still can't remember what the hell I had for breakfast yesterday, even though I'm cranking the foot and I'm looking to the left. But

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:28):

It could be like, what was it? What was it? What was it today? What is

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:31):

Today? Yesterday was Sunday. I can't remember what I had for breakfast.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:36):

If I made you sit and think about it, by the way, it's okay if it takes you a couple seconds to think about it. We'll see exactly what you look like or what Mel looks like when she's recalling truth.

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:44):

Oh, I'm scrunching my face up right now.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:47):

Yeah,

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:47):

I'm not sure. I had breakfast yesterday

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:50):

And that could be the answer.

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:51):

Yeah, I don't think I ate breakfast yesterday.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:53):

So we just saw what Mel looks like when she's recalling truth.

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:58):

Okay.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:59):

That's very important to know about someone because if you ask your teenage daughter, did you hear about the drug incident at school? And they use truthful recall cues, you're good.

 

Mel Robbins (01:06:11):

Okay, cool. I like this game.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:06:13):

Mor game.

 

Mel Robbins (01:06:14):

So how do I know when I'm

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:06:14):

Lying? It's coming. Okay,

 

Mel Robbins (01:06:16):

So

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:06:17):

The second question I want you to answer to camera. And by the way, what was it?

 

Mel Robbins (01:06:22):

What did I have for breakfast? I don't think I ate anything.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:06:24):

Okay, good. Okay, got it. So you can do this all in one take. It's even better. I like the pausing. We want to see what you do in those moments of like, what was it? What was it? Okay, second question. I want you to tell me your most embarrassing story. The more embarrassing, the better. I want to deliver it right to camera. This is how you look when you're recalling something that makes you nervous. The biggest mistake that we make in lie detection is we confuse nervousness for guilt. They are different. So when you recall your most embarrassing story, and I want you to feel it, really feel it. I want you to see what you do When you're nervous, that's your nervous tell. And those are also things you don't want to show when you're trying to come across as confident because they're your nervous leaks. So common nervous tells are mashing the lips.

 

Mel Robbins (01:07:12):

Oh, I think I just did that.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:14):

Yeah, we try to hold it in common. Nervous tells are touching the stomach, the face. That's often we like little nervous.

 

Mel Robbins (01:07:25):

Do people do this on zoom calls too? You see them doing this

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:29):

All the time. All the time, all the time. It's a great way to, I mean, I don't want you to do this to your colleagues without them knowing it. It's always good to do it, honestly, but it's very helpful to know. On my team, we do team calls every week. It's helpful. Oh my God, I would hate to be on a team with you. I me, someone

 

Mel Robbins (01:07:44):

Nervous. What'd you say?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:47):

It's helpful to know when I'm making a teammate nervous. I have a wonderful big team and if I share, oh, we're having a big New Year's launch and how does everyone feel? And I know my team member's nervous tell and I see it on a zoom call, I can say, Hey Rob, are we good on that? Any hesitations? Any hangups? That then gives him permission to say, I don't know if the graphics are going to be ready in time. So a deeper way to interact, I believe radical honesty, where on my team, we know each other's nervous tells so I can address them. Right.

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:08:29):

Yes. So touching the hands, touching the face, touching the stomach. That actually comes out of Cornell University. They actually found that when we're nervous, we touch our stomach or we clench our stomach or we touch our face. Third is purposeless gestures. So wringing the hands, cracking the knuckles, touching the back of the neck. Gestures that have no purpose. What's another one? I'm trying to take the research.

 

Mel Robbins (01:08:55):

Playing with a necklace,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:08:56):

Playing with your necklace, fidgeting. Those are also purposeless gestures, adding unnecessary pauses or awkward pauses. So some of the middle of a talk and they're really trying to explain it, but they're pausing as mid word or mid sentence like that.

 

Mel Robbins (01:09:17):

If you call out somebody on a zoom meeting for their nervous tell, do they get more nervous?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:09:25):

It depends on how you do it, right? Intention is everything here. So I don't like being like that. Gotcha. That's not a good way to interact with cues. However, if I notice I'm on a team call and I say, Hey everyone, we're having a big New Year's launch, and I notice one of my team members shows a cluster of three nervous tells. One cue by itself does not usually mean anything. For example, we're going to talk about lying in the last question. One of the top lying red flags is touching the nose. So liars, we have a very specific kind of tissue in our nose, and research has found that when we lie and we're in guilt, it swells and it causes our nose to itch. So Bill Clinton, during his Monica Lewinsky testimony, when he lied, he touched his nose 26 times in his truthful testimony, he touched his nose twice. So this is a response that we have. Are

 

Mel Robbins (01:10:16):

You lying right now because you just touched your nose?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:10:18):

No, I'm showing you. I'm showing you because, oh,

 

(01:10:20):

Sorry. But also, what if you have allergies? What if you have a cold? So one cue by itself is never good. Three cues. So if I see someone nose touch, and that's another interesting lying tell is a shame touch. When we touch the side of our forehead, we often do this when we're very embarrassed. It's an eye blocking behavior and I see a lip purse. So we press our lips into a hard line that's three very, very big red flags in a row. That's when I either will pause the zoom call and I'll be like, Hey everyone, I just want to check in. Rob, does this sound doable to you? This launch timeline? Are we good on this? Anything that I should know or that we're not thinking about? That's not me saying, Rob, I saw you touch your nose, which is terrible, but it's me checking in with him. Or I might afterwards hang up the zoom call, text him or call him or email and say, Hey, are you good with the launch? I just want to make sure. So I believe in that.

 

Mel Robbins (01:11:19):

Got it. Okay. That's super cool. So how do I tell what my lying tell is?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:11:24):

Okay, so the last question. So we did what you had for breakfast, your most embarrassing story. The last one is the most important. I want you to make up an embarrassing story that did not happen to you and tell it to the camera and try to convince me it happened to you. This is an example of what you do when you're trying to make up a completely false story and you'll see exactly what you do when you lie.

 

Mel Robbins (01:11:46):

Wow, that's so cool.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:11:49):

It's fun. It's

 

Mel Robbins (01:11:50):

Really fun. I want to do some rapid fire questions.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:11:53):

Okay,