[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER 1: So I've
been fascinated by charisma and
people skills ever since I used to play
Dungeons and Dragons while I was growing up. Characters with a high charisma
could just roll the dice and get people to
do whatever they wanted, while my
wizard could never get anybody to do anything. Go figure. I always thought charisma
would be a great power to have in the real world. Vanessa Van Edwards is a
behavioral investigator, published author, public
speaker, and body language trainer, specializing in
science-based people skills. She runs the Science of People,
which is a human behavior research lab in
Portland, Oregon, where she studies charisma, influence,
and power body language. Apple chose it as one of
the most anticipated books of the year. So let's give a warm welcome
to Vanessa Van Edwards. VANESSA VAN EDWARDS: Yay! [APPLAUSE] Thank you. Hello. So thanks for joining
me on your lunch break. I am so excited to be here,
because I really get to dive into the science of people. And I am a data geek,
a research geek. So hopefully today,
we can go over some of my favorite studies. So as mentioned, I run a
human behavior research lab, which is basically
an excuse for me to ask invasively personal
questions for my own amusement. And we do all kinds
of studies in our lab. One of the first that
I want to talk about is very relevant to us. So one thing that
I do is I critique the body language of candidates
for different news outlets. It was a busy year
for me last year. It's kept very, very busy. And I was curious. You know, we were focused
this year so much on politics. It's dominating the news. And I was wondering, is
there any kind of research that I can find in our history? So we embarked on a
decent-sized study. I wasn't sure what we
were going to find. What we did is we analyzed the
last 20 inaugural addresses. The reason why we
picked the last 20 is because the oldest one
we could find that was video was 1944 with Truman. And so we wanted to analyze
many different things. We analyzed everything from tie
color to body language patterns to vocal patterns. We partnered with
a company called Quantified Communications
to analyze the words used in each inauguration speech. And we found some kind
of interesting patterns. So I was wondering if we could
guess some of those patterns together. So I have a couple of quizzes
for us to see if we can get it. So we use body language
patterns, word usage patterns, timing, weather, tie
color, and podium use, just to see what
we would find, see if we found any kind
of interesting things. So we'll test your
political knowledge with some presidential bingo. You guys want to play
some presidential bingo? All right. Good. We'll get us warmed
up a little bit? So here is the very
first question. Who used the most hand gestures? Your choices are John F.
Kennedy, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan. Now the question is, is this
a trick question, right? That's what you're wondering. So go with your gut. How many people think
it's John F. Kennedy? How many people think
it's Donald Trump? How many people think
it's Bill Clinton? How many people think
it's Ronald Reagan? So pretty evenly split. You are right if you
said Donald Trump. Donald Trump used 641 hand
gestures in 17 minutes. That's impressive, my
friends, that's impressive. By the way, Ronald Reagan,
the great communicator, zero hand gestures. I was shocked by that. He actually gripped
the podium in fear. So Ronald Reagan, Jimmy
Carter, Richard Nixon, that beast right
there, that podium destroyed their hand charisma. So that's why I'm
going to be avoiding it as much as possible, trying
to get away from the podium. And by the way,
Donald Trump, 641. Close second was Barack
Obama, second term. By the way, the difference
between Barack Obama's first inaugural address and
his second inaugural address on paper looked like two
totally different presidents. Totally different hand gestures,
totally different amount of smiling, different
word usage patterns. Two totally different goals. Now I mentioned hand gestures,
the power of hand gestures, and why I'm avoiding that
little podium over there. The reason for this
is I always knew, the research was quite
robust on the importance of hand gestures. But I didn't know how
important it was for charisma. So every day at lunch,
I watch a TED Talk. I love TED Talks. I'm a TED junkie. And I was searching in ted.com
leadership in their search bar. Up popped two talks,
one by Simon Sinek-- probably most of
you have seen it-- called something like the
great leaders of tomorrow. It has over 45 million views. Another talk also popped
up by Fields Wicker-Miurin. This had under 40,000. And I looked at these
two talks, and I thought, both of these talks
are 18 minutes long. Both of them have
almost the same title. Both of them were given by
relatively unknown experts in the beginning. Simon Sinek got famous
from his TED Talk. And both of them are on
the same kind of topic, and they came out the same month
of the same year, September of 2009. Why did one talk go
viral and one didn't? Why is it certain people can
walk into a room and you go, yeah. I want to know that person. Whereas other people walk into
a room and you're like, meh. I don't even know if
I've met them before. So we decided to
analyze thousands of hours of TED Talks. Over many months, we analyzed
every single TED Talk from 2010 and compared any patterns
we could find to view count. The biggest difference we found
is that the most popular TED Talkers used an average
of 465 hand gestures in just 18 minutes. My coders, I love you. They painstakingly counted
every single hand gesture. So they use an average
of 465 hand gestures. The least popular TED Talks
use an average of 272 hand gestures, almost half. What's going on here? So the academic research is
pretty clear on hand gestures. What happens is when we
see someone's hands-- and if you watch TED Talks,
they all look the same. I'm going to show you
what they look like. Are you ready? Usually they have the
TED Talker offstage, and there's a red dot in the
middle, and they go like this. Come to the red dot. Today, I want to talk
to you about a big idea. [LAUGHTER] I'm going to break it down
into three different areas that are going to change
your life, right? [LAUGHTER] They all do that. They actually don't all do that,
but the most popular talks, the one that we've
seen, they do that. In other words, they're kind
of signaling or triggering your brain to say, this
is going to be good! Like, that's basically
what they're saying. Because we give a lot of
weight to hand gestures. So if I say, I have a
really big idea, it's huge-- [LAUGHTER] --your brain laughs, because
you're like, it's not very big. Look how small it is. Where if I'm like, I have a
big idea, you're like, whoa. That is a big one. It's almost beach
ball-sized big. And that is because our brains
give 12.5 times more weight to our hand gestures. So the best TED
Talkers are actually doing something
very interesting. They're speaking to you
on two different tracks. They're using their
words, but they're also explaining their words
along with their hands. They're actually giving you
cliff notes with their hands. They're saying, I have
a really specific thing I want to tell you. Look how specific it is. I can actually hold it in
my hand just like that. Or they're saying, I have
three different things that I want to show you, and
they tell you one, two, three. They cue you. Or they say they
have a big idea. Or they say they're bringing
two different groups together. Or they say there's
three different levels. Or they say it really
means a lot to them. All of those things are
like bolding or highlighting their words along
with their hands. Hands along with their words. So we found that was a
huge indicator of charisma. As I mentioned, our
nonverbal signals are 12 to 13 times more
powerful than our words. So for example, if I were
to come up here today and say, hi Google, I'm,
uh, so happy to be here, you would know, because
of my voice tone, my facial expressions,
and my body language that that wasn't
true, because you give more weight to my nonverbal. Let's go into the next one,
talking about emotionality and how we read emotion. So looking at word
usage, passion language, persuasive language,
which president used the most
emotional language? The choices are John F. Kennedy,
Donald Trump, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush. How many people think
John F. Kennedy? A lot. How many people
think Donald Trump? OK. How many people
think Jimmy Carter? Got two-- one taker. All right. How many people
think George W. Bush? Three takers. This one was shocking, right? By the way, for people at
home, only three people voted for George W. Bush. People at home always like
to come with us, participate. So when we look at the
breakdown of this for pause, for emotional language-- so
I was shocked, by the way, that George W. Bush used
the most emotional language. Most people are that surprising. Second was Jimmy Carter,
but not by a lot. And our lowest emotional
use was Lyndon B. Johnson, the least emotional language. Now here's a question. Which party uses more
emotional language? So how many people
think the Republicans use more emotional language? How many people
think the Democrats? People are now afraid to vote. I can see, people
are afraid to vote. So this time, the
Republicans actually used more emotional language. They used much more
emotional language. Whereas Democrats, by the
way, used more numbers. And that chart is
not in here, but I'm happy to send out
the white paper. So the Democrats used
more data, more numbers, what we call logic
in their speeches, whereas Republicans are
much more emotional. Which party uses
more I language? So more uses of I, me or
my, versus we, our, us. Democrats, Republicans,
or it's about the same? How many people think Democrats? How many people
think Republicans? And how many think
it's about the same? So this one, absolutely
Republicans used more we, our, us language. Next one. What is the most
popular tie color? Go into a little more fun thing
here, a little less important. So we looked at the tie colors. We were just curious to see if
there was any pattern there. Choices, blue, red, gray,
or there was a tie-- did you get it? [LAUGHTER] A tie between red and blue. That made me laugh so hard
when I wrote my own slide. [LAUGHTER] Like, I can't tell you. OK. So how many people think blue? Only three or four. How many think red? Most of you. How many think gray? A couple. How many think there was a
tie between red and blue? That was just funny, guys. It wasn't actually true, sadly. So this one is-- my remote is broken. Maybe not. It's really dramatic, right? Or really exciting. Did it work? Yes, it worked. Just delayed. Blue. So very few of you guessed blue. Most of you guessed red. I don't know what's
happening here. So there was actually 10
presidents that wore blue ties. Only four presidents
wore red ties. I think less than three
wore gray or black. The problem is that
someone told me they think the reason for
this is actually not emotional or not a choice. It's because actually, blue
looks better on camera. So this might be
different if we looked at speeches that
were older in time, but more presidents wore blue. How about this one? Who had the shortest speech? Your choices are Lyndon B.
Johnson, Gerald Ford, George W. Bush, John F. Kennedy. How many people think
Lyndon B. Johnson? A couple of you. How many think Gerald Ford? How many think George W. Bush? How many people think
John F. Kennedy? So this one is Gerald Ford. Eight minutes. What was funny about this fact,
the only reason I included it, is because he had
the shortest by far. The longest, by the
way, was 22 minutes. He also had the best weather
day of any candidate. So I thought it was funny that
he had the shortest speech, but he didn't take advantage
of that beautiful weather. So Gerald Ford. Lyndon B. Johnson, for those of
you who guessed him was second. And Dwight D. Eisenhower
was after that. Here's a good question. Which party speaks more? So the amount of minutes
used, was it more Democrats or more Republicans? How many people think
the Democrats spoke more? How many people think
Republicans spoke more? You would be right, those of
you who guessed Republicans. Republicans used
more minutes, 61% versus 39% of the
minutes spoken. Which president smiled the most? So what we did here for this
is we actually had a stopwatch, and we actually stopped the
watch every time they smiled to get the total
number of seconds smiled during an
inauguration speech. So your choices are Bill
Clinton, Jimmy Carter, George Bush Sr., and Barack Obama. How many people think Bill
Clinton smiled the most? A lot of you. How many people
think Jimmy Carter? How many people think George
Bush Sr. We got one guess. How many people
think Barack Obama? So this one is Barack
Obama smiled the most in his second term
inaugural address. Remember how I said the
first and second term were totally different? His second term, he
was much happier. Just so you can see the number
of seconds clocked, 14.5 seconds by Barack Obama. So only one person
I think over here guessed George Bush
Sr. Actually, second, which really surprised
me with 13.5 seconds. Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan,
and Jimmy Carter after that. By the way, usually I have
really beautiful pictures in these slides, but we
don't have the rights to all those president pictures. So you'll have to stick
with just my text. So the next study we
did off that smiling research with the
presidents is I thought, OK. We know some things
about political leaders, some patterns. How about business leaders? How about entrepreneurs? How about investors? So I love the show "Shark Tank." Does anyone else watch
the show "Shark Tank?" So I love that show. In the show, if you
haven't seen it, it's a panel of
investors named sharks, are pitched by entrepreneurs
who come into the tank. So I was fascinated
to see, was there a pattern between
the most successful, least successful entrepreneurs? Because I don't know about you. I watch that show or
I watch people pitch, and a lot of the
time, I think it's more about their charisma
than their actual idea. So I wanted to see, was
there any truth to that? Was there any difference
happening behind the scenes? So what we did, me an my
coder, Jose [? Pena-- ?] you're amazing-- researched all 495
pitches on "Shark Tank." It took us six months. And he coded every
variable we could think of. So everything from
the introduction to their grand entrance
to the amount of times the sharks laughed to
try to find patterns. So let's see how we
do on some of these. So here are the things
we tracked specifically. Body language patterns. We spent a lot of time
on the first impression, those first few
seconds, trying to see if the research about first
impressions is actually true. We looked for pitch patterns. So what was the
structure of a pitch? Some sharks-- some
entrepreneurs pitched with the hero's journey. Like, they'd talk about
their personal journey. Whereas other
entrepreneurs talked about the pioneering
aspect of their idea. So we wanted to see, was
there pitch patterns there? And we also looked, again,
at word usage patterns. The biggest thing we found,
right off the bat, was there was a deal breaker. So if you did not
know your math, that broke you no matter what. No matter how
charismatic you were, if you couldn't get
past the math problems, you couldn't do it. So 64% of no deals had
some kind of math problem. That was the biggest thing. But once you got past
the math problem, then we had a lot more room. When we talked about
smiling, we found that 45% of successful
entrepreneurs smiled while walking in. So that first
impression, smile, seemed to be very important,
while only 21% of unsuccessful
entrepreneurs did. Interesting note here. But I think this
speaks to a larger implication about smiling and
about our facial expressions. We take a lot of
cues about someone from their facial
expressions, and I'm obsessed with the micro expression. So we used to believe
that babies were born and learned facial expressions
from their mom or dad. So a baby would look at
its mom or dad's face and then mirror it or
mimic it, and that's how babies learned
facial expressions. But actually, what they
found is congenitally blind babies, babies who've
been blind since birth, make the same facial
expressions at the same time as seeing babies. This was a huge surprise in
the body language community, because we were thinking,
well, if you don't learn facial expressions, but we all
seem to emote in the same way, where are they coming from? Somehow, how we
express is coded. And that means maybe
we can study it. So Dr. Paul Ekman is the
champion of this research. He's an incredible
researcher, and he discovered something called
the micro expression. The micro expression
is a very quick involuntary facial
expression that all of us make when we feel
an intense emotion. So this is across gender,
it's across races. He went to remote tribes
in Papua New Guinea, showed them pictures of
Americans making faces, and asked them in
their own language to describe the emotion. They were able to
pick the same emotions as Americans did when they saw
the Papau New Guinean's face. So these are tribes
that had never even been exposed
to Western culture, had ever seen television before. So how does this benefit us? They had discovered
there are seven universal facial expressions. And today, I want
to teach you to-- I think I'm going to teach
you four of my favorites. So the very first one, smiling,
as we talked about earlier. Smiling is the easiest
one to talk about. However, most people
think that smiling is just a smile-- happiness
is just a smile, right? But anyone knows that you
can do a fake smile, right? That, yeah, I'm
so happy for you. [LAUGH] Right? That smile on the
bottom half of the face. So when you look
at the difference between a real and a fake
smile, you see the difference. So real smiles, the only
true indicator of happiness is when the smile reaches into
these upper cheek muscles. So this is the engagement
of a real smile. You have to be able to
physically see it in the eyes. Why this is important is
because when we see fake smiles, that comes across
as inauthentic. When you hear people
talk about, ugh, she just seemed a
little fake to me, she seemed a little inauthentic,
what you're actually picking up on is an incongruency. That someone said they
were happy for you, or said they were happy,
but weren't actually showing that genuine happiness. Next one's getting
a little harder. So happiness was the easy one. We got that out of the way. Now I'm going to
test your skills. What is this face? This is one of the seven
universal facial expressions. Surprise, amused,
curious, or fear. How many people think
this is surprise? A lot of you. How many people
think this is amused? How many people think
this is curious? And how many people
think this is fear? So this one is the universal
micro expression for fear. Surprise is a different
micro expression. That's one of the seven,
but this is not it. This surprises most people. Most people guess surprise. So when we talk about fear,
I like this micro expression. I like starting with it,
because this face keeps us the safest in terms of danger. Let me explain how this works. So when you look at the fear
micro expression in action-- let's say that I'm hiking,
and all of the sudden, I see a snake. My eyelids and my eyebrows
jump out of the way so I can take in as much of
the environment as possible. Is there another snake,
and what's my escape route? Then my mouth opens. [GASP] I take in oxygen in case
I have to fight, flee, or yell for help. This face-- you can try
it with me if you want, if you raise your
eyebrows up and you widen your eyes-- very
good-- you'll actually begin to feel a little anxious. [LAUGHTER] And the reason for that is
because of something called the facial feedback hypothesis. So what they found is that our
emotions are feedback loops. We don't only feel the
emotion which causes the face. If we make the face, it also
helps us feel the emotion. This is the basis of empathy. When you get on a subway
car and you see someone make this face,
[GASP], you immediately make that face as well. What's going on? What's happening? Right? You immediately
begin to feel fear, before you even
know what happens. That is your body's
way of protecting you. Why I think this is so helpful
in business environments, not just for walking on a
subway car or seeing snakes, is because you see fear all the
time in business environments. You mention something
that confuses someone, you mention something
that they didn't know, you give them a
piece of information that makes them
uncomfortable, you put them in an uncomfortable situation,
they will flash fear at you. We know what we're looking
for, and we're just looking for the whites
of someone's eyes. You will see that
flicker all the time. That gives you so
much information. The moment you spot someone's
fear, you have a choice. You can either keep
it-- tuck it away-- insider piece of information,
which is always helpful. Or you can choose to address
it and soothe them, calm them, reassure them. Here are your choices
when it comes to fear. One, you can give
them reassurance that if something you said
made them uncomfortable-- you're in a pitch, you're
trying to sell an idea and someone flickered
fear at you, maybe you said something
that was confusing, maybe you said something
that they mistook as something threatening. So you can go into reassurance. You can also just go
into more explanation. Since we tend to be afraid
when we are confused, sometimes more
verbal explanation will calm the fear, just
having more understanding. And lastly, you being
calm and confident also can soothe their fear. Let's go on to the next one. What does this face mean? Choices are disgust,
suspicion, anger, and sadness. How many people think
this is disgust? How many people think
this is suspicion? How many people
think this is anger? How many people think
this is sadness? So this is anger. And by the way, if you raised
your head at suspicion, I'm going to give
that to you also. And the reason for that, I'm
going to explain in a second. So this is anger. Anger is real easy. I want you to actually
try it with me. So I want you to pull your
eyebrows down so these two vertical lines appear. Very good. Now hold it for a second. Squint your lower eyes at
me and harden your lips. You will begin to
feel real irritated. Don't do it for too long, OK? Wipe it away, wipe it away,
wipe it away, wipe it away. [LAUGHTER] And that is because that
feeling of, like, grr, that is the face we make
when we have that emotion. What you're looking
for in the workplace is those two vertical lines. The moment you see those
two vertical lines, you know that that person is
starting to bubble into anger. I also want you to look
for the lower lids. This is a very weird tip,
but it's really protected me against some bad deals. The sister emotion to
anger is suspicion. Suspicion is a really
important one to spot. And suspicion happens when
someone lowers their lids, tightens their
lower lids at you. I'm going to show you
what that looks like. So watch my face. I'm going to tighten
my lower lids. Right? When I do that, you
are seeing that, even though it's a
very micro gesture-- can you guys see that
in the back there if I-- OK, a little bit. It's when I tighten
my lower lids. You can try that
with each other. So even all the way back
there, they can see it. That is because
as humans, we like to know if someone does
not believe us, right? So even all the way in the
back corners of the room, you can see when I'm
like, I don't think so. In fact, I can see when
you're doing that to me. [LAUGHTER] So when I go into
further explanation, it's because I'm seeing more
than one suspicious face in the audience. You can do this even
if you're in front of a huge crowd or a one-on-one. So I want you to watch out for
those lower lids hardening, because you're not
done selling yet. You're not done explaining yet. That's one of the most
interesting power tips I can give you on
micro expression. So what do you do when you
see anger or suspicion? One, it is our instinct as
humans-- we cannot help it-- that when someone
flashes anger at us, we either flip
into the offensive or we go into the defensive. It's either not my fault
or it's all your fault. So it's really
important if you want to stop their anger
from happening is to stay as neutral as possible. Don't follow that
instinct right away to go into offensive
or defensive. Try to figure out, what is
the source of this anger? It might not actually be you. It could be something else,
something beyond your control. What is the source
of that anger? And then lastly, trying
to figure out how you can highlight cooperation. If you can figure out what
the source of anger is, and that you can actually help
them solve it or get through it or talk through it, then you
are not the source of the anger. You're more of an
ally against it. So that can help you prevent
a no or a miscommunication from happening later. I want to briefly go into
the power of personality ties in really well. People often ask me at this
point in the presentation, you know, when else would I
see these with my colleagues? When am I going to
see anger or fear? They seem like such intense
emotions in the workplace. And this brings me to some
of the differences are wired differences in personality. So I'm fascinated
by personality. We have a whole chapter
on it in the book, because I think that it is one
of the most fundamental aspects of our communication. The biggest thing that I
want you to think about is that a lot of our
personality is not a choice. Specifically, 35% to 50% of
our personality is genetic, and a lot of the rest of it
is formed in our childhoods. So the time we get
here in the workplace, our personality is
pretty inflexible. This is a really interesting
computer rendering of an introvert face versus an
extrovert face, which actually shows you that there's some
tie between our hormones, our pheromones, our facial
development, and our wiring, our personality traits. By the way, which one do you
think you look more like? Do you think that
fits your personality? Don't worry. I won't ask you to
raise your hand. But I always think
it's interesting to see if it compares to your face. So when we talk about
personality science, I'm not going to go into
all the details today. The only personality
science that's used in academia,
Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, DISC, those are great paradigms. They are not backed
up in real science. The only personality
science that's actually used in academia is
called the Big Five, and that is these five
personality traits. Extroversion, conscientiousness,
neuroticism, openness, and agreeableness. I want to talk about
two of them today, because I think that these
two are the reasons why you see a lot of anger and fear
and contempt in the workplace. Specifically, let's talk
about conscientiousness first. So all of us rank either high or
low in our personality traits. So people who are high
in conscientiousness, it's how we focus on details. A lot of engineers are typically
high in conscientiousness. I just did a training at Intel. Very, very high
conscientious group. They are called focused. They love details,
steps, lists, schedules. They like to go in order. They like to have agendas. Low-conscientious people
are called flexible. They much prefer big ideas. They like to be easy-going. Schedules make
them feel boxed in. They don't like lists. Lists make them feel like
they can't be creative enough. We are wired to
either be high or low. How many people feel like they
are high in conscientiousness? They love details
and lists, specifics? How many people they are
low in conscientiousness? And lastly, how many
people feel like you can flip into both if you need to? OK. So as adults, we also
develop this skill. This is less we do this as kids. As adults, we develop
this really great skill where in the right situation,
we can dial up or dial down our personality, depending
on where we need to go. I actually think leveraging
that is incredibly important. So what I want to think
about for conscientiousness is a couple of things. One, with the people you
work with, are they the same as your conscientiousness
level, or are they different? The biggest problem that
I see in workplaces, when you see anger
most, it's when a really
high-conscientious person has a whole detailed
project plan, lots of phases, tons of lists. They bring the project
to someone and they say, here's this huge project. And the low-conscientious
person is like, just what's the big idea here? Just to give you just a
couple bullet points on this. And the low-conscientious
person feels overwhelmed by all
the details, where the high-conscientious person
feels like their work is not being taken advantage of,
or not being appreciated. So I want you to think about
the people you work with and where they fall
on the spectrum. How would they most
like to be pitched? Second, when you
talk about pitching, what is the best way
to approach them? So a high-conscientious person,
they love agendas on calls. They like scheduled meetings. They like when people
show up on time. Whereas
low-conscientious people, that feels like
that's boxing them in. So if you want to approach them
on something really important, how can you do it according
to their personality traits? I've always liked
the golden rule. Treat-- we know the golden
rule is treat others the way we want to be treated. So I have a funny
story, just briefly. So I asked that to an
audience a few weeks ago in Silicon Valley, and it
was a lot of millennials. And I'm a millennial,
so that's great. But it was a lot of millennials. I said, so the golden rule is--
and someone said, I am awesome. [LAUGHTER] And I was like, that's not
the golden rule, but good job. Nice try. So I prefer what's
called the platinum rule. The platinum rule is
treat others the way they would want to be treated. So this is how I go about
my work interactions. Yes, I know my own
personality traits, but I would much rather have
a lens of their personality traits so that I'm speaking
to them where they come from. I'm meeting them
where they are at. So we see a lot of anger when
there's a mismatch, right? We see a lot of anger
when you are pitching a low-conscientious or a
high-conscientious person that's opposite from you. And lastly, which
I'm going to ask for every single one of
these, is what could you do to respect their level
of conscientiousness if you had to? If you had to dial up
or dial down, could you? The next one I
want to talk about, and we see a lot of emotional
changes, is neuroticism. So neuroticism gets
a really bad rap. Whenever I ask people,
are you high neurotic-- [LAUGHTER] Hey! You were in the front. You didn't see no one
raised their hand, but I am neurotic with you. So neuroticism always
gets a really bad rap, but I want to explain
something about neuroticism. I am a high neurotic, and
there is a chemical explanation for this. So researchers looked
at high neurotics, and they found that
many of them carry a long form of a certain gene. This gene is a serotonin
transport gene. Now serotonin is a really
important chemical for us. Simply, basically, it
kind of keeps us calm. So let's say that you
are driving to work, and you almost get
into a car accident. Someone almost hits you. They don't, but they almost do. And you're like, whew! You have adrenaline,
you have cortisol, you're really anxious. Serotonin is what comes
into your body and says, you're fine. You're OK. And then calms you down. A low-neurotic person transports
and produces serotonin faster. Meaning something bad happens
to them, they freak out and they go [SIGH],
it'll all be OK. A high-neurotic person,
something bad happens to us, and we are freaked
out for a long time, because our serotonin just
takes a little bit longer to go. So my lovely husband, who's
a low neurotic will say, it's fine. And to a low neurotic, it's
fine sounds like, you're not worrying enough, so
I better worry enough for the both of us. [LAUGHTER] That's how s high
neurotic feels about it. So high neurotics not only
produce less serotonin, but they also had a greater
physiological response to negative events. So if you go into a
high neurotic's office with a small piece of bad news-- not a huge piece, a
small piece of bad news-- you go in, you present
it, and then you go, you might have left that high
neurotic in a state of panic, and they might stay that
way for many, many hours. And then you reach
out to them later, call them later,
Slack them later-- I don't know. Do you guys use Slack at Google? No? Maybe? Mm, mm. Ch-- Chat. Chat. [LAUGHTER] You chat with them later, and
they're still kind of salty. It's because they're still
recovering serotonin-wise from that bad news you
dumped on their desk earlier. So I want you to
think about, when it comes to
neuroticism, how can you work with your high neurotics? My high neurotics in the
room, you are called reactive. So high neurotics have much
more emotional fluidity. We have high moods
and low moods. That's because we often will
catch the moods of the people that we're with. And if something even
slightly bad happens to us, it lasts a lot longer. We're also, because we're
such worriers, because we have a greater response
to negative events, we try very hard to prevent
those negative events from happening in
the first place. I think this is a good thing. In fact, you have to have a high
and low neurotic on your team. Your low neurotics
are resilient. So low neurotics, very
little mood change. You're almost always
in the same mood. You don't catch other
people's emotions very easily. You can always kind
of see the bright side of things, or at least the
realistic side of things, depending on if you're
optimistic or pessimistic. Someone got my joke, whoo! [LAUGHTER] So I'm just curious. How many people think that
they're a high neurotic? Love you guys. OK. How many people think
you're a low neurotic? I love you guys too,
because you're my rocks. How many people think
that you're in the middle? You kind of flip depending on
where you are, home or at work? It is extremely important
to know where you fall on the neuroticism spectrum. Why? You want to have
both on your team. Your low neurotics get
you through crisis. They're the ones who
have a nice calm head. They can think real logically. They're really good to have
if something's going wrong. But your high neurotics
prevent the crisis from happening in
the first place. They're the ones who sit at
their desk playing, what if? What if? What if? My high neurotics, you know
what I'm talking about. We make those pros
and cons lists, right? We think, like,
months and months of bad events into the future,
just in case that could happen. So it's really important
that you leverage both of those strengths. And you know who to call,
depending on where you are. Want to have a
brainstorming session? Want to prevent or protect
anything bad from happening? Call a high neurotic
into the room. If you're having
a crisis, you want to stay calm and get through
it, call your low neurotic. Those are your rocks. So here are a couple
of specific things I want you to ask about
yourself as well as the people on your team. One, how do they self-calm? So everyone self-soothes
in different ways. Some high neurotics
calm by verbalizing. They want to come into your
office or come by your desk, and just verbalize loud
forever until they're calm. Others completely shut down and
want to process by themselves. They don't want to talk to you. They don't want
to talk to anyone. They just want to self-process. The best-- the
greatest gift I think we can give to our
fellow human beings is by helping them self-calm
in their natural way. So if you know that
someone's a verbalizer and they've had
a really bad day, or you just had bad
news, the greatest gift you can give them
is to go and be like, hey, let's go for a walk. Let's go talk this thing out. Whereas if you have
a high neurotic who self-calms by just totally
shutting down, you say, hey, you know what? I'm going give you some space. I'm going to check in later. Why don't you go take
some time and let me know when you're ready to talk? Those are two very
different responses that respect how they are wired. Next, what do they worry
about, and how do they worry? So all neurotics have certain
things that get them triggered. Triggers, you know,
we have those things that really get us going. It's also very helpful for
both low and high neurotics to know, what do we worry about? What triggers us? And how do we worry? Do we worry out loud? Do we worry by ourselves? Do we seek friends? So do you seek
camaraderie and community when you're in your
worrying stage? Or do you want
solitude and quiet? And lastly, what else
can you do to respect their level of neuroticism? How about this one, back
to micro expressions. What does this face mean? Confusion, contempt,
sarcasm, or boredom? How many people
think it's confusion? How many people
think it's contempt? How many people
think it's sarcasm? How many people
think it's boredom? This one, most people get wrong. This is the universal
expression for contempt. Most people guess boredom. We actually have had,
I think, 22,000 people take this quiz on our website,
and most people guess boredom. This is very dangerous. Contempt is an extremely
negative micro expression. It's also the simplest. It's a one-sided mouth raise. You kind of see when you-- just
lift one side of your mouth up, either side. It's a very pessimistic,
scornful kind of micro expression. The reason why it's important
actually has to do with-- I think the best way to discuss
this is with the research that was done by Dr. John Gottman. So Dr. John Gottman is
actually here in Seattle. And he did a massive experiment
with married couples. Analyzed thousands
of married couples, followed them for many years. And he found that one of the
biggest indicators of divorce was when one of the
couples showed contempt towards the other. In fact, he can
predict with 93.6% accuracy if a couple will
get divorced within 30 years by watching a silent
video of a couple. What he is looking
for is contempt. Contempt is powerful, because
it's the only emotion that doesn't go away. Of all the micro expressions,
fear comes in a burst. You self-soothe. Anger comes all at once. You calm down. Happiness comes, then
you go back to neutral. But not contempt. Contempt, if it's not addressed,
it sits and it festers. And it grows and it
grows in a disrespect. And that's why at the end
of a very bad marriage, you get people who can't even
look each other in the eye. So when you see
contempt, especially on a colleague's face, you
have to address it immediately. So here are the things that
I like to do when I see it. One, figure out exactly
where it's coming from. So it might not be
something you said. It could be some self-contempt. It could be something that
they are working through. Second, how can you make sure
that you are an ally against it as opposed to an enemy of it? So whenever I see contempt
on someone's face, whether I'm in a
negotiation or a pitch meeting or an interview, I will
always say, are we all good? Does it all make sense? Anything you want me
to review or retake? You know what? Let's pause and let's
rewind for a second. I'm going go back over this
to see if I see it again. I give them the opportunity
to verbally tell me if something's bothering
them, and/or I will go back, retrace my steps, and see,
did it pop up yet again? This kind of protects us
against nasty miscommunications that can happen down the line. By watching out for
this expression, it's a subtle way of checking
in with someone emotionally. It's like taking their
emotional temperature. So I think that watching
out for this contempt is incredibly important. One last one I want to
teach you before I show you another video. So the choices are
amused, disgust, upset, and embarrassed. How many people
think this is amused? How many people think
that this is disgust? How many people
think this is upset? How many people think
this is embarrassed? So this is the universal
expression for disgust. Now it is kind of a funny one. So people are always
like, Vanessa, why do I have to know disgust? I don't care if they
don't like the food or something smells bad. But I want you to actually
make this face for me. So pull your nose up. Very good. Flash the upper whites of your
teeth at me, and then, ugh. That is the face
that you make when something smells really bad. The other time that we
make the disgust face is when we're trying
to think of a nice way to say something
that we don't like. [LAUGHTER] Ask someone any
preference-based question. They're trying to think
of a polite way to say no. They look like this. So what do you think
of the new girl? (HIGH-PITCHED VOICE) Yeah, yeah. She's great. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] So that disgust can sometimes
indicate that something is going on beneath the surface. So last one, disgust. If you see it, identify
the problem immediately and give them permission to
tell you the truth, right? Give them permission to
come out and say whatever it is that's bothering them. So why facial expressions? Obviously, I think it helps us
decode hidden emotions, which is a lot of information
for your bag of tricks. Second, it also helps us
respond in the right way. A lot of you raised your
hands at the wrong emotions. That's because we're
not as intuitively good at spotting micro
expressions as we would like. So if you know
what you're seeing, it helps you respond
in the right way. We often confuse anger for
fear, but there could not be more of a different emotional
internal state for that person. Or we confuse
contempt for boredom, and those are two extremely
different emotions. So making sure that you're
responding in the right way. I also think that reading
people's micro expressions helps you listen to someone
on a totally new level. We are never listened to with
that kind of attention, right? To actually put down
our phones and not only be listening with our ears,
but actually listening with our eyes and reading
them, because we're trying to figure out really
what's going on for them, I think is one of the most
amazing ways to respond. I want to end on a
quick story, and I think I might have time
for a few questions before I do the book signing. Famous story of Benjamin
Disraeli and William Gladstone. And this is how I like
to think of interactions. Both of these
gentlemen were running for prime minister of the
UK many, many years ago, and it was a contentious race. They were extremely
close in the polls. And the week before
the election, a journalist took
both men out to lunch. And everyone was
following these lunches. Everyone wanted to see, who
would the journalist pick? Who is she more charmed by
at the end these lunches? And at the end of
both of these lunches, she wrote a big
article about them. And here's what she said. "After sitting next
to Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the
cleverest person in England. But after sitting
next to Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the
cleverest person in England." [LAUGHTER] With all of these
skills, I hope that you will use them to gift
people amazing interactions. I think when we read
someone's micro expressions and we respond to them, when we
look at their personality trait and we look at them
through their lens, not ours, I think that
is one of the best ways to make them feel
truly honored, and that is the best way to interact. So a couple of next steps. Packed a lot into today. Try to tackle one
skill at a time. So if there's one thing that
really resonated with you, start with that, and
then move down the list. With the micro
expressions, it's very hard to try to spot all four
of the ones we learned at once. Pick one. Say, this week, I'm going
to look for just contempt. Or this week, I'm going
to look just for anger. It starts to retrain your
brain, because our brain is a muscle, on how to spot
those facial expressions. Second, the learning does
not have to stop here. This work changed my life. I'm a recovering awkward person. I could not-- truly. I could not read facial
expressions for the life of me. That just did not
come naturally to me. It was not until I
discovered this science where I was finally able
to interact with people, because I was able to study
them in a systematic way, a science-based way. So we have so much free practice
on the website, all seven of the micro expressions. All seven of the micro
expressions are in the book. Any way I can help,
I am here to help. And lastly, please use your
powers for good and not evil. I'm happy to take a couple
questions before-- yes sir? AUDIENCE: I love to play poker. [INAUDIBLE]? [LAUGHTER] VANESSA VAN EDWARDS: Yes. OK. So-- oh, great. So-- oh. The question was, I
love to play poker. Are there any tips
for poker players? So yes. I'll send you an article. I have an article
on poker playing. Specifically what poker players
can look out for is definitely the micro expressions. So if someone hates
their hand, they are more likely to show
contempt or disgust. Usually not anger,
usually not sadness, but contempt or disgust if
you don't like your hand. But really what
you're looking for are what are called
micro messages. So micro messages
are more the bodies. We didn't talk a lot
about body language today. We talked more about the face. There are two buckets. There are micro negatives
and micro positives. So when you look
at a micro message, these are the little
signals we send off. Micro negatives are
any kind of self-touch. So the more someone is
self-touching, usually the lower their confidence is,
the lower their competence is. Anytime we self-touch
on our arms, it produces oxytocin,
which helps us stay calm. So if someone has-- they're trying to keep
themselves nice and calm, they're try to keep
themselves nice and calm, they're literally trying
to produce oxytocin to keep them relaxed. I wear oxytocin around my neck. It's my favorite chemical. That's a scientist, right? I have a favorite chemical. [LAUGHTER] My husband's like, I want
to get you a necklace. I was like, no hearts. Oxytocin. So you're looking for
those micro negatives or micro positives. So self-soothing is
a micro negative. Micro positives are leans,
nods, half smiles, and more open body language. The moment someone
opens up their body, roll their shoulders back, have
more space between themselves and the table,
that's when you're going to see much
more of those-- it's a subtle indication
of positive feelings. AUDIENCE: What are good
techniques not to give it away myself? VANESSA VAN EDWARDS: Ah. What are good techniques
to not give away myself? The best thing that you
would want to practice is hearing extremely
bad news and not having any physical
movement at all. [LAUGHTER] So you need to know-- like, each
of us-- it's true-- each of us have tells, right? So we do a lot of lie detection. Everyone has a basic nonverbal
tell, usually two to three, that they do every time
they lie or every time they feel an intense set of nerves. We have found there are
33 common red flags. These are the most
common red flags that people show
when they're lying. So you would want to tape
yourself hearing very, very bad news or getting a really bad
hand or losing a lot of money. But it to be real stakes, right? Like, real stakes. Can't be play. And see what you do. Like, right now, you're crossing
your arms in front of you, so I'd guess it's a
blocking technique. You also crossed your
leg over your knee, so I would guess that that's
probably a negative nonverbal. I'll take you off the spot. But that's probably
what I would guess. [LAUGHTER] That's what I would guess as
maybe some of the nonverbal tells that you'd
want to fight with. AUDIENCE: I don't
do it when I play. VANESSA VAN EDWARDS: OK, good. Good. Good job. [LAUGHTER] I won't call-- everyone's like,
I'm not asking a question now. [LAUGHTER] There's no way. Well, I will be here
afterwards, signing books. Thank you so much for
giving me your hour, and thanks for
having me at Google. This was great. [APPLAUSE]
