You’ve Been Approaching Every Single Social Interaction Wrong | Vanessa Van Edwards

I'm Lisa B Leah and I went from housewife to co-found and a billion dollar company quest nutrition and now president of impact Theory our mission with this show is empower you and all women to recognize you really can become the hero of your own life welcome to women of impact in a ten-minute conversation you are likely to be lied to two to three times and 91% of people live regularly at home and at work now why do we do that what drives people's behavior and more importantly can you predict and change that behavior well these are the questions today's women of impact began to ask herself when she found herself unable to even carry out a conversation in public a self-proclaimed boring person she didn't think she had anything to offer so why would anyone else be interested and so began her fascination into all aspects of human behavior from relationships to communication to body language believing you can't succeed in love life or business without first first and foremost mastering people skills this then gave birth to the science of people a human behavior research lab whose mission it is to crack the code of human behavior and teach others how to do the same with over 300 thousand students in over 40 countries and 189 cities around the world her studies and teachings are simply earth-shaking like a seven point nine on the Richter scale earth-shaking fortune 500 companies such as Google dove Facebook and American Express all seek consultation with her and CNN NPR The Wall Street Journal The Today Show and Forbes magazine can't get enough of her so please join me in welcoming the author of the National best-selling book captivate a book that has been translated into over 16 languages a book that was chosen by Apple as one of the most anticipated books of the year and a book that has had profound impact on my own marriage and in building our company impact Theory the professional people watcher herself Vanessa van Edwards yeah intro was like the nicest thing ever that's my mom welcome to the show thank you when I first started this show I had a wish list and you were like right at the top girl I had an experience recently that I wanted to talk to you about okay I was going to this event I was had to fly all the way to Vegas I was only there for three hours I literally went for the event only yeah and so on the way down I'm like I don't normally go up to people and just chitchat with them that's not my personality I'm the awkward person stand in the corner waiting for someone to build them there yeah but going now is like I've taken a whole day off work I've traveled all the way there I'm paying my expenses I better make it worth it yeah so I walk in and I'm just awkward and so I just walk up to people and I'm just like hi and I'm just lying and I figured it out but you have such great tips on how to deal with awkwardness because I'm sure everyone at home listening right now has been in the situation it doesn't have to be business it could be a family meeting the in-laws for the first time or anything yeah so I think that the biggest thing at least from you the algorithm by the way I have so been in that room in that situation I when you break down awkwardness I think a lot of it comes from not having a goal in place what I mean by that is if you're walking to an event you're thinking I've got to make it worth it and that's actually most events right if you're going to a networking event or a barbecue or a party or a meeting you're like I'm not at home watching Netflix I better make this worthwhile right I got to make it worth putting on the makeup or like strapping myself in these banks I got to make this worth it that's one goal but the other goal is what is my purpose so the biggest mistake is when you walk into a room and you're kind of like that wide-eyed effect of where do I stand who do I talk to what do I do adding purpose to your movement it's actually one of the easiest ways you can get rid of that first initial awkwardness so the very first thing you want to do and when you get into an event is you want to go to where I call a treasure line or a gold spot and this is where all that treasure is waiting for you the rookie mistake is when you walk into a room and you stand right when people enter the room so this is a rookie mistake people get into the room right and they're like hmm get my nametag put away my coat and stand right at the front trying to get someone else who's new the problem is when you walk into an event your emotions are at their highest your Adrenaline's at their highest and typically when people walk in they have to go to the bathroom then I get something to drink they don't get something to eat so whatever you do do not stand in that Start zone so as soon as you go in your number one goal is to get past the Start zone right get into the event the very best place to stand when you're at an event is right as people exit the drink line okay and that could be even at a party wherever someone leaves the bar and that's because think about it psychologically when you're getting your drink that's like you it's kind of like a security thing right whether it's coffee tea wine whatever it is once you turn to face the room and you have your drink in hand that's when you're like oh my goodness I better have someone to talk to if you're standing right when people turn to face the room you're actually providing them with social relief because what happens is you're solving the problem of who do I talk to because the moment they face the room you're opening line is hey how's the wine how's that cocktail how's that tea hey what brings you here hey nice to meet you so it's actually not just how you approach it's putting yourself in a position where you become a social Savior and that is one of the best places of stamps that would be the very first thing I would say okay and the second one if you can do it is something that I call the offer mentality the offer the offer mentality so back in the day when I was first building my business I went to all these conferences right and there was one conference that I had to go to that wasn't in my industry it wasn't in my niche so I wasn't going to build business I wasn't going to pass out business cards I was just going to help a friend and so I went thinking to myself how can I make it so that other people are having a really good time to help my friend out I ended up having the best time I had ever had at a conference and I realized it was because I had a subtle shift in previous networking events or conferences I would go in asking I needed things right I wanted business I wanted to connect on LinkedIn I wanted a business card I was going with an ask mentality where is this conference I wasn't looking for anything I was literally going thing to myself how can I make sure this person has a nice time a nice conversation can I connect them with someone I know that offer mentality in a weird way actually got me more business even though they weren't in my business people were so happy to talk to me happy to chat so that's sort of the second thing is what makes us awkward it's when we feel like we're begging you know we're yeah we're in this scarcity mindset there's not enough mm-hmm you know do I have enough time do I have enough do I look cool enough do I fit in here do I belong here that's all scarcity mindset if you go and with more of an offer mentality of I have enough I have enough to give I have enough conversation to give I have enough interest to give how can I just give I think that fundamentally changes it so it's not about you anymore that's the awkwardness kind of goes away what if you don't feel like you have enough to give hmm do you fake it so I fundamentally I do not believe in faking a teenager which by the way mind high career I tell myself at least you need to fake it till you make it and then when I heard you say I'm like please tell me more yeah I'd love to know something that I've been doing them this whole time I know and so fake it till you make it kind of entered like the cultural zeitgeist yeah I'm and then everyone was saying right like everyone's a and one would be like fake it till you make it and I'm like why are you telling yourself to be fake right so what the words we use are very powerful and I can give you a scientific study that I love a hundred and I love your smile okay so this study is like they had participants enter a dark room and imagine if you're into a dark room you're blindfolded okay and the researcher gives you a bowl of yogurt and he says here's a bowl of strawberry yogurt I'd like you to eat this yogurt and then I'm gonna ask you about its strawberry flavor okay I said you're grimed now yep so you're eating your yogurt right and you're eating it and most of the participants rated this yogurt at having a nice strawberry flavor of course there was a catch I'm sorry good guess the yogurt was actually chocolate okay and what happened was is they told the brain you're about to have strawberry yogurt so the brain actually tasted strawberry yogurt the words that we use are incredibly powerful if you're trying to psych yourself up for event by saying fake it till you make it fake it till you make it you're telling yourself to be fake and you and I both know that when you come across someone who's like hi it's so good to meet you oh my god I love your earring but you can just smell it sense it taste it and you don't want to be around that person so if you're setting yourself up to be fake it actually it's almost impossible for you to get into authentic real deep connecting discussions and relationships because you've primed yourself for it and priming is incredibly important because I think that most of us throw away our words for example I used to write emails people and invite them to a meeting next week or a call next week that's actually a missed prime opportunity because every time I open my calendar and I see meeting with Lisa I'm like a a meeting what if you changed your calendar invites to say creative goal session with Lisa that means that every time I open my calendar up to see that I am primed to think oh I have a creative goal session with Lisa one that makes you much more excited to meet with you two it actually changes the way the perspective that I'm bringing to this meeting and lastly you're actually setting yourself up for more success because you've asked for what you want so I would say before you walk into event if you're not feeling it right we're number one can you say no saying no is always an option okay it is not worth going to a networking event or a party if you are having a bad day I don't believe in faking till you make it right so that's number one is can you say no yeah number two what is your priming recharge what is your pre performance ritual athletes have pre performance rituals musicians have pre performed rituals why don't we write and this could be anything from watching inspiring YouTube videos on YouTube this could be calling a really funny or inspiring friend this could be doing a meditation this can be doing a social meditation so you have to have those things that you Prime yourself just like an athlete because every time you interact with someone that could be an opportunity could be opportunity to meet the love of your life could be an opportunity to make it and credible business I'll create the Chris opportunity it could be a chance to meet a new best friend and if you go into that thinking that you're gonna fake it you're not only wasting opportunity but you're lying to yourself about the realness that you could bring that situation so I totally hear the word fake and how that can set you up for failure yeah so what are you doing a situation because when I use the word it's basically there are many times I feel vulnerable or venue many times I actually feel insecure yeah and I tell myself it's okay so I don't judge myself for it yes okay like that but you need to lead with confidence because no one is going to gravitate to someone yeah that isn't confident especially in a business environment or even if you're dating pressure so I would say fake the confidence but I understand the word so what would you suggest someone or I like it's education so here's what I would say so another study what they did was they wanted to look at anxiety and we're talking about awkwardness I think that some very similar kind of feeling from their anxious awkward side what this study did is they wanted to know that exact question is what do you do if you are anxious but you gotta fake it right you got you gotta find confidence they didn't use the word faking so what they realized was that anxiety and anxiousness is a sister emotion to excitement okay so when you think about when you're anxious what happens in your body you get a little butterflies in your stomach you start to kind of sweat you get a little bit of dry mouth you feel a little bit hot and sweaty that's anxious you're halts like heart palpitations now explain excitement to me yeah exactly the same yeah in your body yeah anxiety and excitement feel very similar the cousin or sister emotion is there a way to reframe how you're viewing your own anxiety as potential excitement and here's what they did they took people and they had them come into the lab and they gave them a task and the task was cruel in my opinion what was it they had them sing don't stop believin into a karaoke machine so they were rated for their accuracy of words accuracy of notes accuracy of lyric like Nicole high-pressure I know okay so let's say I think about I figure the numbers right so they had them sing this karaoke song but they had three different groups okay the first group walked in sung the song done control group second group walked in and they had to say I'm anxious out loud and then sing and the last group had to say I'm excited and then sing something that's it no no prep no mental nothing just saying those words of course the I'm excited group out performed out sung and actually enjoyed the experience more than the group that just said I'm anxious this is I think such good news it means that we are in control of how we view our own anxiety our own awkwardness the opening line of this book which by the way when I first submitted this book to my publisher my whole introduction was about you know science and data and you know all these impressive things and she's like Vanessa this isn't you that's amazing she's like can you start with something more vulnerable she's like what's the thing that you're most afraid of that readers are gonna see about this book and I'm like I'm afraid that they're gonna read this book and think why would I learn about cari charisma from an awkward person she's like that's exactly why they want to learn from you so the opening line of the book is my name is Vanessa and I'm a recovering awkward person it's the most vulnerable thing I could think of and instead of four years in my business I hit it hmm I hid it under the guise of being an expert a scientist a journalist and the moment that I began to put my awkwardness forward as a flipside where I view my awkwardness as a very powerful vulnerability I do not view my awkwardness as a liability anymore and I would say the same thing if you're anxious or you're nervous or you're lacking confidence what is the flip side to that is it that your anxiousness could be excitement use that adrenaline is it that your awkwardness could be a real vulnerability to find other fellow recovering awkward people right that was right this book did well I think it was that opening line that was why in my videos I decided to put my awkwardness for it's the same thing I don't want you to fake it till you make it I want you to show up anxious and awkward and learn how to use it and that is what gravitated me toward you in the book in the first place because you almost don't you don't want to look up to someone's and they've got it all there perfect I want to look at the awkward person who's like how does she get out of it because clearly she's it's worked once right right and every time I do it it works again and again so the funny thing is for a long time I was trying to grow in business trying to grow my brand and trying to be the expert the expert have it all together be perfect be Wonder Woman and it wasn't until I started to learn that actually it was the opposite of that and I learned it really silly I was posting an Instagram and I posted a picture of me surfing not well but me surfing me up standing up and the funny thing is the photographer for the little surf school had two pictures one of me surfing and the very next one was with me face planting into the water okay so I was like this isn't real I'm gonna post the face plant so five minutes later I posted the face plant the face plant of course got so many more like so many more reach outs and I realized then and there actually that photo I was like what am i doing on Instagram like what am I doing with my brand like why am I trying to hide the falls and I think of it have you heard of like the Swan theory you're heard this idea so I heard this idea is so resonate with me which when you look at a swan on a lake it looks so peaceful right the song is beautiful and elegant and gliding and everything is great and perfect right but underneath the water the swamp Lake no like it's murky under there the water is kind of dirty there paddling for their life and I was like that at least feels like me or I don't know other most other female business owners I know where we're trying to be this perfect Swan right but underneath it all we're wearing Spanx we're trying to hold it in we're paddling for our lives and I was like why aren't we talking about the murk why aren't we talking about the chaos why aren't we talking about the paddling for our lives so when I go to network there no I walk in and I feel a little awkward yeah you know I walk in and I'm like oh there's the cool kids and I'm going the other way yeah do you still do that now and I think that it's so unfair to say to people oh no I never feel awkward I'm done feeling awkward and that's unfortunately what we do I think a lot of times as women as we set ourselves up to think oh yeah you know I have it all figured out I never feel nervous I never feel anxious I'm confident all the time so the flipside of trying to show up confident is also how do we say yeah I can be confident but I also had to really work to get it right like I before I walk into an event I had to think of Congress orders before I walked in when I walked in that event I kind of scanned the room of like don't belong there don't belong there maybe I could belong there interesting okay so why do we do that like trying to find where we belong and slip in unnoticed I think it's because part of our personalities as humans is notice me notice me notice me and part of our personality is I just want to feel like I belong and what's interesting is there was a research study done by van Sloan and he looked at the question of what makes popular kids popular now as a not popular kid I'm very fascinated by okay okay so can you guess he studied thousands of popular kids across the number of different high schools okay and popular kids don't have their kids looking for the differences what do you think was the biggest difference between unpopular and popular kids sighs and ain't good guess actually they was similar to my guess my guess was attractiveness oh yeah right actually should have been my first but sighs it is similar right like I thought it was something physical I thought you know the more attractive the guy was the more attractive the girl was what happened she was know wasn't that the kids were the most liked if they liked the most other people meaning you are in control of how more evil like you because you like the most other people Wow so why in this resonate with me I had to really think about it cuz if you think about a popular kid they are actually initiating the likability they smiled the most at other kids in hallways not the other way around not that people smell it then the most they smiled the most other people because they liked more other people they counted more people amongst their friends and they liked those people and what this shows is if you're walking into a party and your entire goal in that offer mentality is how can I like more people at this event that's a very unique gold because it's different than the goal that most people have which is how can I be the most impressive how can I get people to like me by the flip side of that is I want to like everyone here how can I find a reason to like you that's all that very different way to approach it so I think that what happens is in parties if we go in thinking people gonna like me are they gonna like me it actually sets you up to be less likeable as the opposite whereas the cool kid the most confident person in the room is going I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you all right that's a very different mentality ship and that's why that happens you should stop bollocks young being more impressive you should stop thinking about how to tell the funniest story or being more likeable and you should focus on how can you get other people to impress you huh how do you do that so I was asked to do a panel at a conference and I didn't have much time to prepare for the panel and I went into the green room and I had to basically very quickly figure out enough about each person in the room to introduce them because if you're doing a panel you're in charge of introducing each person so I go into the green room it my entire goal is just impress me whereas if I had gone into that green room and they were all big VIPs right if I got an agreement thinking I better be impressive I better tell a funny story I better really get good answers the conversation would have been awful don't think about the impressive story you can tell it's more what questions could you ask if you had to introduce this person to another VIP in ten minutes what questions would you ask to get them to impress you yeah it's a really simple kind of mentality switch but I also can't get too out of your own head that's a problem it's problem for me yeah yeah it kind of gets you out of your head because your looks like impressed me yeah tell me everything amazing about you also people I think love to be heard yeah and so when someone's listening yeah I knew this it's almost telling me the story they're really interested in my story and it so it makes me warm towards them more for sure and if you're listening with such intensity that you want to go introduce them later like that mental hack is important it wasn't just getting to tell you an impressive story it was pretend you're gonna introduce them to someone important so the only caveat here would be is if you're meeting with a VIP don't ask them the questions that they get asked on panels don't ask them the questions that they've been asked to interviews because then you're gonna immediately flip them into autopilot right they're gonna immediately go into their podcast mode their autopilot mode yeah that's so interesting because you want to connect with them and so you think that by asking them the questions that you're connecting and so I actually bumped one of my biggest people that I've always wanted to interview me in my like Jodie Foster ah so I went to film school I studied her my dissertation was on her what she's done in film is incredible and so I admire her so much and I bumped into her once why in in like Starbucks and there was no one around and I was like this is my chance my instinct was to just like oh my god I yeah gosh I got yeah gosh and then I like took a deep breath and I was like okay what do I really feel like instead of trying to just like impress her yeah what do we actually feel about her and just say that yeah yeah and so I was like I'm so sorry to bother you but I just had to tell you I wrote a dissertation on you and what you've done in film is incredible and her first movie that should have erected little man Tay I was like was incredible yeah and when I say she flipped on a dime as soon as I was like we've done film and for female I'm mentioning her secret yeah it was her passion project so immediately I I saw a total shift in her and I got like she was like really sweet and warming in just that one little way of approach and it made all the difference lived her so when you're talking about I always I like nicknames for things you know like yeah yeah so anything like that I call it a hot button so a passion project a hot button is something that you can hopefully tap into or push on I literally think it's like an on/off switch when you're with an influencer or a VIP or anyone is is there a topic a word a question you can ask where they just can't stop talking about it sometimes it's themselves sometimes that work which okay you know somebody who has like an ego great that's gonna be your gonna has anything about themselves but it's a it's a more interesting unique topic into that if you're approaching a VIP doing the right kind of research like for example I love doing not just Google research but like looking to see if they have a public Amazon wish list or looking to see if they have a public Goodreads profile I'll see what they're reading so there's other things that you can look at that are not just Google related you can try to find those hot buns because once you do that you flip them out of autopilot right does that work with let's say dating or friendships so first dates are the own not and they're not exception to roll bit yes finding hot buttons for dates for friendships is great what you can do is do a little bit of pre research ahead of time and I like to be transparent about it but you also can do this on the date so it might not be like for example it might not be on a first date being like so I searched you on Goodreads on Amazon and right look I wouldn't because I'm into them but what you could say is you know look I love looking people's Goodreads do you have an account what are you reading so you can just ask them that question without having to go do it yeah and you can all that's how you can look for hot buttons it's like so like are you just with Netflix show right shows right now you know like like what's your what are you reading right now on Goodreads are audible do you like Auto do you like audiobooks right like you can start to say like that just asking them about it it's better on a first date yeah I'm at first I think it's a little bit little bit safe yeah okay so talk to me about radical transparency oh goodness yes talking about dating or just in general me and my husband lived by that wall radical transparency but I love your taking on like how you approach it and so I think that the problem is that in most of our relationships we feel like we have two people please make nice-nice or protect who we really are do you find that's more typical in women yeah I do really so I think that from a very young age women are often taught appeasement and this is a very big concept in body language so I studied body language a lot and you'll notice that women do more appeasement body language we nod more the eyebrow raised more we smile more mmm we smile and yeah that's exactly where we're taught that body language from a very young age and I have a young baby and I see this now all the time where women will encourage what men and women will encourage female babies to do more smiling touching and playing together whereas men and women I don't know if they realize it encourage more male babies to explore to play to touch to hold to lift to build it's very interesting and I've just watch us and play maths in classes with friends I thought to myself talk about priming if you're a baby a female baby and you're told from a young age over and over again play nicely be gentle play nice smile say hi smile wave give her a kiss blow her a kiss hug okay my female baby is told those things all the time by everyone who meets her whereas my very good friend has a male baby just two months older and he's told all day long also play nice and be gentle but also will show us your Stroh strong build look how fast you are you're already standing crawling so good the words he is hearing directed at him on an hourly basis are very different than the words that my daughter is hearing but when you talk about priming from that inning of age when you have adults fully grown adults and you're telling them set of a boundary for yourself say no they're hearing the gentle play nice be cooperative nice smile nod so it's it's we're actually going I think against some of our programming and that is very very challenging especially when you don't know if you're gonna get back from that no and so saying no is a skill it's a skill that as women as men we have to hone that skill we have to get good at it saying no is unapologetically saying no not giving a reason and this is a really hard one or women I do all the time I do this all the time why I do this all the time to like I was telling you about an event that I wanted to go to tonight and this is a big big open event for women influencers I did not owe anyone an explanation but when I wrote back I was like I'm so sorry I can't come I have family dinner I should not have done that you even told me I know because I felt like I had yeah and I'm trying to break that so the way that we the best wife you're gonna break it the reason is because if you give a reason it invites someone to question your reason hmm so think about the difference okay if you have a pushy friend they actually will argue with you it's a Friday night you're exhausted you had a really long week your friend of a friend is having a birthday party in the nightclub they really want to come and you're like I am NOT about this I don't want to go to a nightclub I don't want to spend a lot of money I don't want to wear my heels I'd rather be enough looks at home and cuddle with my dog yeah so you want to say no if you just say I hope you have a great night I'm so sorry I can't attend that's the correct way to say no you offer a kindness and you just say no you don't offer any reasons as opposed to I'm so sorry I can't go I've just had a really hard work week if you have a pushy friend who's not with boundaries they're gonna ripe and be it right back and say but this is a way to blow off steam from the week first drinks on me and then you're like oh and your boundary is pushed and then you have to do it again so you're better off getting breaking your habit of not giving a reason which is so hard I still struggle with it because that way it invites people to respect your boundaries more and also sets you up to not have to do it over and over again and we don't have to give a reason to give a boundary yeah like I give you full permission to not give a reason if you want to set up a boundary you're allowed to say no just for the sake of saying no and the third option by the way when I'm with a stet I have a formula for saying no so it's I'm offering something nice say no do not offer a reason and your option is to offer an alternative so you could say have a great night I hope you have a wonderful birthday I'm so sorry I can't attend if you want to go to brunch the next morning I would love to do that with her if you want yeah that's it mm-hmm really simple and if you have trouble saying no if you're watching and you're like I really have trouble never ever agree to anything in person and the reason for this is because it's incredibly hard to say no to someone's face it's much easier when you go back you look at your calendar and you write a text and you can really think about your wording yeah so what I always say to my hi people pleasers my recovering people pleasers out there is just get in the habit even if you know you're gonna say yes I'm not saying yes a person always always default to let me check my calendar get back to you hey let me check my phone and get back to you hey let me email you when I get to work because then whether it isn't yes whether it is a no you're giving your your default answer as always I'm gonna have to take a minute and that sets you up for an easier no later and by the way like if you have a lot of things going on I've never experiences more than now when you have a little one when you have a thousand business things going on you have to default to that because you really do have to go check your calendar right I guess your partner's calendar calendar is going on at all time like you have really bounce it out yeah well let's talk about that so you've recently had a baby yes and for about nine it feels like more than nine months but you completely stopped posting on social media and I saw you know a few photos Oh couple here and there yeah and I realized when it happened that it was very conscious on your palm yeah how did you feel about that because that's one thing I talk about and battle with myself and I don't battle anymore but that was one thing that I struggled with when Tom and I would contemplate do we have children or not yeah and it really was what would my life look like if I had a child could I switch off would I want to switch off will I feel withdrawal symptoms from switch off and then also part of me was worried that I didn't want to resent the child for sure for me switching off yeah and did you go through any of them all of it all of it for sure so I think that the biggest question when we're talking about when I was thinking about becoming a mother was all those questions plus where would my motivation be right like before having a baby I was so motivated to help people succeed in my business achieve business goals I had a business bucket list write all these things and I worried that I would have a baby and my motivation would be either be split in half or taken completely and I was like what will my business look like if I'm not motivated to do it anymore right okay that was a huge question mark and so what I had to be okay with was would my business survive without me being motivated could I do it as a job because my my my business is my passion it's my career I love it and I realized yes if I had to I could do my business as a job I could write a post every week I could do a video every week I could do that that would be okay but I would have to take some space to reevaluate what were my motivations I realized that I thought that being a mom was the most adult thing you could do in the world right there is no bigger I'm adults than having a baby and becoming a parent so I kind of thought that that was the ultimate in adult Ness what I didn't realize is the moment you have a baby it's actually extremely regressive and this makes me think about mother in a very different way so if you think about it when you're pregnant or you're even thinking about having children you're at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs so Maslow's hierarchy of needs if you've seen it you know it's like shelter food water companionship and then it gets higher it's like goals and motivations self-esteem and confidence the very top is the most esoteric kind of thinking one's when you're thinking about having children you're at the top of the pyramid you have the means emotionally financially timewise to be able to think about having children when you're pregnant all you're doing is thinking in that very top part of the triangle what do I want to teach my child what's the meaning of life what do I want this baby to feel and be right you're at the very top the moment you have that baby you go to the very of the triangle what I mean by that is all of a sudden all that matters is can I get enough to eat can I get enough sleep am i drinking enough water repeat repeat repeat and so in the first few weeks of motherhood how do you survive going from such heady beautiful thoughts to survival right to very aggressive you are taking care of a baby but all of a sudden you just went to your baby needs what does baby need food shelter sleep and to be changed that's it what do you do as a new time mom it's just those four things so all of a sudden you're a baby they're a baby and you're both doing everything for the first time Wow that never dawned on me and for an a-type control a holic it's terrifying because I don't like being new at things I don't like not knowing how to do things I don't like going back to basics and so that was really really hard all of a sudden feeling I was a baby myself and all my needs went right back to the bottom of the triangle Wow did you recognize that in the moma did Wow I recognized in the moment where I was like all I can do in a day is sleep eat poop that's it that's all I got and the same thing my daughter can do is sleep eat poop whoa like you're like that was like really hard that was the first that was going on and the second thing that I didn't realize was you're mourning the death of an old life as you celebrate the birth of a new life and so in those first few weeks you're having amazing moments of celebration of life of wow this new creature but you're also mourning the death of your old life that you wanna be yeah but it's gone for a long time you might get back at your empty nester and so it's very weird that in also the same moment you're doing mourning and celebrating and so I think that my biggest concern was being able to find myself again and it's been incredible because I feel like I'm climbing back up the hierarchy and that's really amazing right like I was at the top of the hierarchy right I had gone up to muna dull I had figured my business out like but now I'm getting myself back up the triangle she's seven months old so like you know I'm starting to sleep again still nursing was starting to sleep again and I was like okay I hit the next level I'm certain think about motivations for her goals for her there's no better climb than that in a weird way so you're enjoying the climb yes I'm enjoying the climb now that I've passed that first but the basic yeah once you're getting sleep again it's like oh I can find this new life again I'm climbing back up the value ladder which is incredibly fulfilling in a totally different way that I didn't expect so there's two aspects of being a parent I never I never thought about before but I think it's something that I wish someone had prepared me for yeah do you worry or did you worry whether you could climb back up that like very much yeah well how did you overcome that because I think that that's such a big part right of letting go or something fearing that it's yeah gone forever I guess or for my own self you know I've been suffering for a lot of digestive issues in so many years and all the advice I keep getting is it stress you need to slow down and part of me absolutely fears that like but I'm just getting started and I've got so much like excitement and gung-ho so I don't want to slow down yeah but I do recognize that I need to so that's kind of the battle there's a weird cycle so what's interesting about that is my biggest fear was that I would loot all lose all my motivation for my work which I love which I love and sustains my family right like I sustains my family might my husband works in my company too yeah so I was very nervous about that and I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to get back the things of life that I really like and I wouldn't be myself anymore what I realized is that my old life I guess is an old my pre-baby was very contained in the sense that I had a very set schedule I knew exactly what my I could pay capabilities were I feel like I had climbed the hierarchy and on a day-to-day basis I had nice days and I had some bad days but no really big highs and lows and so you live in this very narrow band as a parent all of a sudden I have super highs moments where I'm like this is the meaning of life having a child yeah okay like watching her do something that is exactly my husband's facial expression and being like oh my like this is me who I like sitting outside having dinner with my baby in the grass as she sees a butterfly for the first time in the grass you know like that's the meaning of life yeah before I never ever had the feeling this is the meaning of life maybe at my wedding day you're really do I have that feeling of anyone has on a weekly or monthly basis kudos to you bottle up what you got okay that's a very rare feeling I have that on a weekly basis raising her right on a weekly basis there's something that happens where I'm like this is why I'm on this earth this is incredible I also have the other side right which is the low of the low of the low where you're like how am I going to do this I have no sleep I have vomit all over me my baby is crying and I don't know why what am i doing right that's the lowest alone is there's no return there's no receipt that's it and so the good news is at least for me and I know this is the case for every one way the highs outweigh the lows there are more highs on a weekly basis than the Lotus line in the beginning it's harder because it's obviously the baby is newer but I realized wow maybe like this is life that I was actually living in black and white hmm it almost feels like my life pre-baby was dull colors and so in a weird way I feel like I'm finally living in Technicolor like that yeah that's like the best metaphor I could think for it and so in a way yes my motivation for my business has gone down but I am still motivated and I'm motivated in a very different way the way that I write I think is different the way that I look at people and things is different because I'm refined my values on that hierarchy I had to start from scratch all all over again and now I'm refiguring out like what does life look like like what do I like out of life I don't know if any other mother has ever experienced something like that but I had never heard that before that's or anything like it before motherhood and I kind of wish I had a little bit would you would that have changed anything for you I think it would really well I think it would have made me less judgmental of myself in the first few weeks interesting okay because in the first few weeks I think you're just as soon there's like this motherly instinct it will just like turn right on and you do have some of that there was definitely some like wow I can't believe I worked you know woke up the motoric ten seconds before she did you definitely have some of that but I was also like so hard on myself that I couldn't get higher up the triangle faster you know what I mean like I was like wow like my biggest goal in the morning is like making sure I get socks on and so I was really hard on myself in the beginning because I thought well everyone like all these moms on Instagram are in moments of bliss you know they're all in moments of bliss so like I should always be in a moment of bliss and there are moments of bliss for sure but there are also moments of not bliss you know I sort of I think that I love the Wonder Woman idea but I think it actually cripples us you know if you're Wonder Woman you don't have a bad day you don't ask for help you don't get pimples you know you don't know how to not do something and so I think that that crippled me a little bit because I wanted to be I wanted to have it all right I wanted to be like the perfect mom and get back to work at two months and be back in shape and like something's got to give and part of that is asking for help and so I had these moments where I was like I literally can't do this by myself I have to ask for more help from my partner I have to ask my mom to come over I have to ask friends from her help saying yes to those offers of help was one of the harder things about parenting for me and I think that that's weird to say it was hard for me to accept an offer of help but it was it is done do you think that it was was because you had an identity of who you were yeah yeah and I wanted to may I have it all and I don't know I don't know if you ever look at attachment theory but attachment theory is like this idea that everyone has a certain kind of attachment with there are people in their life so it's based on this really interesting research where it's called the strange situation experiment they had children in a playroom with their mother and then they had the mother get up walk out of the room and a stranger would walk into the room and the mother would come back in the room while the strange is in there okay and they wanted to see what the child would do in a strange situation like this okay and they identified that there were three different reactions of a child one was anxious the child got really upset wanted to be soothed clingy with mom soothe me soothe me soothe me that's called anxious attachment the other one was avoidant where the baby didn't see their mother as someone who could help them and so they actually avoided their mother's gaze and kind of isolated or secluded played with a toy turned away from their mother didn't want any any kind of soothing and the last one was secure where they noticed it was a little bit weird and they wanted they looked to mom to see mom is everything okay we're good okay we're good and they were able to keep playing and the last one was a very small portion population which is both anxious and avoidant wanted to be self soothe I hate you wanting to be self sooth put me down five percent of the population is anxious avoidant mmm-hmm 22 percent of the population is anxious 20 population is avoidant and 50 percent is secure they've found that these attachments dictate your relationship patterns for your entire life yeah and this is really powerful work I've seen it over and over again in my personal relationships as well as my work relationships that if you are an anxious attachment all of your relationships follow that pattern you you have the kind of relationships where you want the person to constantly check in with you you're a little bit more cleaning you can sometimes push people away for how much you want to be sort of in the know and you want that constant feeding of do you love me do you love me do you really love me do you love me enough and avoidant avoidant people are they push evil away now I'm an avoidant attachment so as avoidant it means you don't want to ask for help you don't like you're getting close to people you push people away until you're really sure that they're safe and so as someone who's recovering avoidant being a parent and asking for help is really really hard so it's interesting and I am very aware of this with my own daughter you know I really am trying to set up a really secure attachment with her luckily my husband is securely attached he's a secure attachment so it's really great for me to see how he interacts with her because I'm able to learn a model from that so how important is it for people to self assess before they have children things like that so they know what they're projecting them to them I think it's really important identify your relationship patterns relationship with everyone okay everyone so this is friendships this is work relationships this is romantic relationships this is really should with your children it's very important to look at your patterns because you might be thinking that you're having a different relationship every time but you might actually on the exact same relationship over and over again in different pants right so I know I mentioned it in my intro but your book really did have such a profound impact on my relationship and our business yeah so you were on our show impact Theory yeah and so Tom we get a lot of guests on so but Tom was like baby you have to read this book and it doesn't often say that to me yeah so when he told me how to read the book a lot all right I guess I gotta read it yeah and we think we know each other very well and we did the quiz and we discovered like oh my god I love language is one where we thought yeah yeah so we discovered that he's someone whose words of affirmation yeah and I'm the person that wants acts of service and we didn't have those phrasing we didn't know about about it until we read your book and that is what I love so much about it it made us review ourselves yeah review our relationship and we also did this within the company we did the whole workshop we sat down and we did all these quizzes with the team and we went around the table to find out what other peoples are they words of affirmation are they acts of service like what is their love language in order to show them when I want to show how much I appreciate them finding out what their words are and because of your workshop I discovered that one of the girls that I work with I'm always the person is like oh my god thank you so much but I never got like almost satisfaction for myself that she's hearing right you're like I don't know this is this gratitude is falling on deaf ear yeah yeah because I never saw like a spark of like thank you so much for saying that yeah until we did the quiz then I realize hers was acts of service yeah and so what I ended up doing is like okay what would an act of service to her be like and because she also suffers from major health issues and like I do I thought okay well what would I want and so I gave her a draw in my personal fridge and said here take the drawer because I know you've got some health issues you want to keep your food safe and that's when you turned around to me so I love this story because you gave a drawer in your fridge which for someone who is having any kind of food issues health issues they want to make sure their food is there if you have any kind of health issues you're anxious about your food all day every day okay you're worrying about your food choices you're wearing that how you're gonna feel after your food you're thinking about breakfast lunch and dinner yeah if she knows her food is safe one you're taking out her anxiety every single day which also helps her beam calmer at work so weird way it comes back to you and the second thing is you only had to clean out that drawer once but actually the gift keeps on giving every time she opens it every day when she puts her lunch in that drawer she's going oh thank you Lisa and she actually said that yeah I said every day when I for my lunch and I say thank you Lisa but you only had to clean out that drawer once and you know that that's actually helping her think about you every day these are my favorite kind of gift snacks of service can you think of a gift that will be used or appreciate it on a daily basis but you don't have to keep giving yeah your book really was transformational yeah I'm actually them one other thing I'd love to talk to you about which I never know if I'm if I overthink things or not but sometimes I think most a lot of us women are in our it I was totally my own head so I knew you were having a baby and I knew that you were like pulling back from a lot of social games and so I definitely wanted to respect that and at the same time I want to let you know girl you're gonna come back and you're gonna come on the show you're gonna be amazing and then part of me though was like but what if she doesn't want to and what if now my text is actually not being this how I mean it was I want her to know that I adore her and I respect and I desperately want her to like come on the show spell out the words of wisdom but part of me was like is this gonna do the complete opposite because maybe she's at home right now maybe she's thinking I don't want to go back to work yeah and now am I kind of putting pressure on you yeah so how would you actually advise somebody like me out to look what would advice would you give me to text you yeah so I actually love fill in the blank wishes and what I mean by this is like and I use a marketing to actually it's a great thing for both well wishing and marketing and advertising if you're thinking about it which is if you give someone a wish or an encouragement they will often film the blank so for example if I'm writing copy for a sales page and I say whenever you walk into the room to meet your boss you're probably anxious I'm gonna help you deal with this anxiety through my confidence building course that's a very specific example right I'm telling them what room they're walking into who's in it and how they're gonna feel mm-hmm that's not a great sales copy page what's better is actually letting them fill in the blank for whatever situation provides them the most anxiety so what instead will be better would be have you ever walked into a room and felt really anxious oh I would love to help you feel confident so no matter who you're talking to and where you are you're gonna feel good about yourself that is much more powerful sales copy because in your head you just filled in the blank with your boss your partner your colleague that really mean girl down the hallway whoever that person is I let you tell me so when I write my sales copy I think very very carefully about fill in the blank wishes what is in there how can I let them fill in the blank for the example the person the scenario tell me that it's the same thing with well wishes so for example if you're thinking about me I'm about to go on maternity leave what is the one wish you know I'll have whether or not I come back or I have a full-time mom right which one is it it could be that you just want me to feel confident empowered and like I am fully supported yeah I wanted you to feel loved exactly that wish no matter where I filled in the blank whether that was me feeling loved when I came back into your arms to come on this beautiful show or whether it was me to say I have the permission to say I'm out mmm I want to I want to just dive into motherhood and that's it that wish would have allowed me to fill in the blank so when you're wishing people good things and this is not just you know in big moments it's also just like hey I'm thinking about you I want to check in with you ahead and seeing you in a long time what emotion do you want them to feel in whatever situation they are okay could be love could be empowered and actually I did feel love from your support I did feel that and the nice thing is I didn't feel any pressure but I could have right right if I was in the press right of making decision of not coming back that would have felt like oh I'm disappointing her right and the last thing I want to do is put myself in a situation where I'm becoming the source of your eyelashes yeah and right I'm sure people are Homer can associate with a partner or a friend where this same situation occurs and so that's why giving them film the blank wishes of whatever emotion you want them to feel and the freedom for them to use it in any situation they want okay and this could be as clear as saying no matter what you decide to do next year I am so excited for you okay I'm sending you so much love right this could also be the same if like someone has a you know date they're fired from a job where they left their job or someone else thing bad in their life suppose you're like I don't know if they're happy about this I don't know if they're devastated I don't know if I should offer them help or that are gonna be offended if I offer them help the worst thing you can do is stay silent the worst thing you stay silent I cannot tell you how many people in grief or in bad times feel like they are abandoned and a lot of the time it's not because their friends don't want to support them it's cuz they don't know what to say yeah and so your best thing is to think okay what's so positive emotion I want them to feel and just giving in that permission to send it that I think is the greatest thing we can do for people who are in any kind of precipice yeah go you're freaking awesome and where can people find you online and your amazing book yeah so everything's at science at people.com and captivate is wherever books are sold and we have our next class of people school coming up which is all the social skills you never learned in school for professionals so join me I love my next class I mean every single student so yes applications are coming up and my last question what is the superpower that you have I'm gonna say it is translating and I think that a lot of time we feel these giant emotions awkwardness anxiety and we don't know how to talk about them we don't know what they mean we don't know how to put them into something that we can leverage and so I think that one of the things I really try to do is if I have any kind of negative or positive emotion but the negative ones is how can we translate this into something useful how can I talk about it in a way that makes people feel less alone less alone with their awkwardness less alone with their anxiety and then how can I make them see that they can use it they don't have to hide their awkwardness they don't have to hide their anxiety this is something that we can absolutely use and so I think that maybe just translating I love ya guys guys okay so I think I've said enough of how much I absolutely love this but but if you happen to have missed it I love this book and when I truly say it changed my relationship and the way that we function in this company it really did so if you want to improve you want to get to know people understand people so you can have a better relationship with them go get this book and if you're not subscribed here guys click that subscribe button and if you're not following me following me at Lisa bill you and until next time go be the hero of your own life peace out what up guys Lisa here thanks so much for watching this episode and if you haven't already subscribed keep that little bone right in front of you click click click away we release episodes every Wednesday so be sure to get notified until next time go be the hero of your own life

Channel: Women of Impact

Views: 647,695

Rating: 4.8830519 out of 5

Keywords: women of impact, woman of impact, lisa bilyeu, tom bilyeu, impact theory, quest nutrition, motivation, inspiration, vanessa van edwards, captivate, science of people, how to be more likable and impressive, how to be likable, science of likability, female empowerment, feminism, feminist, awkward, how to be less awkward, anxiety, psychology, charisma, how to be charismatic

Id: Ft_5qeI_Z4w

Length: 57min 19sec (3439 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 17 2019