You're Not Boring with Vanessa Van Edwards

emotions matter brought to you by Iman calm that's EMA w calm your solution for emotional intelligence thank you for joining us on the emotions matter podcast our guest today is Vanessa van Edwards vanessa is a published author and behavioral investigator she is a professional people watcher speaking researching and cracking the code of interesting human behavior for audiences around the world Vanessa's groundbreaking workshops and courses teach individuals how to succeed in business and life by understanding the hidden dynamics of people vanessa is a Huffington Post columnist in penguin author she's been featured on NPR The Wall Street Journal The Today Show and USA Today she's written for CNN Fast Company and Forbes vanessa has spoken to groups across the globe from the stage at the Consumer Electronics Show to presenting research at MIT she has used her research to consult for numerous fortune 500 companies including American Express clean and clear and Symantec she graduated magna laude from Emory University in 2007 and is se TT certified with dr. Paul Ekman sub X certified with dr. David Matsumoto is a member of the Association of Certified Fraud examiner's and certified in statement analysis well welcome Vanessa thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to be a part of the emotions matter podcast oh thanks for having me I'll tell you what reading about you on your website made it really even harder for me to come up with questions there are so many things I'd like to ask so let's start with what you're best at what will you do to make sure I as well as all of our listeners remember this conversation yeah I think when we're talking about memorability it's one of the most crucial but overlooked factors when we're thinking of interactions the reason for that is because that is really the foundation for charisma for influence for sales if people don't remember you but also remember what sort of your takeaway is they're much less likely to want to be friends to want to go out on dates to want to do business with you and so I think that for this conversation for all of my conversations what I'm trying to do is I'm going after a very specific chemical and that sounds crazy and forgiveness the science Deacon me but all I am doing when I'm trying to act with you is I'm trying to trigger a dopamine so dopamine is this fantastic little chemical that we produce when we feel pleasure it's also what we the chemical if I were to say to you I have a present for you your brain would begin to pump dopamine which is what we feel when we get rewarded when we have presence it's the chemical of pleasure and what's really cool is you don't I don't have to be a magician carrying around gifts in my purse to give you the schedule for me we get dopamine when we have stimulating conversations so the worst thing I could do is a ask you questions that you've been asked a million times before the answer in ways that I've answered in that way before or even give you cliche view product so for example if you would ask me about people skills and I would I were to say you know just be yourself be authentic find your passion be interested to be interesting if I were to say all of those cliches that we've heard a million times before it would be fine it would be a good reminder it's always good to be reminded to be good to be interesting but your brain would be still on autopilot I wouldn't be triggering any dopamine at all so my goal is to tell you stories try to tell you jokes although I'm not very good at that I'm tired of you laugh try to bring up a ha moment or tips that you've never heard before because I know that's like a reward for your brain especially when most of us I don't know about you are kind of doing the same old brine thing on our computers all day long I want this podcast to be like dessert I can't I love it be memorable so I'll tell you the first thing I read about you is that you're a quote recovering boring person tell me a little bit about that transformation yes sir so I am unfortunately I was one of those people who was not born with any kind of natural charisma or people skills and so I think that when I was growing up I gravitated towards my book towards my homework I'm a little bit more introverted I'm actually a hamburger at a mouthful introvert you know I always would try to stay in at recess I dreaded PE class what happened was is that because I was afraid of being judged because I was I think afraid of criticism I was afraid of saying or doing anything and so I retreated into myself which meant that I was much more of an observer it's not bad to be an observer but the problem is is that I because I was afraid of people not liking what I would say I would say nothing which meant that I grew to be incredibly boring I had a lot going on behind the scenes you know you think a little I think that there's like a famous metaphor of a duck and sort of furiously paddling underwater that is exactly how it felt with me where I was furiously going in my head thinking of things try and think of good things to say but what would come out was yeah great uh-huh and so that I the moment that I realized that I needed well there was a couple of moments I think a really big one was I had met someone who had met me many times before and just never remembered me didn't over my name drew meeting me and I was kind of talking to my friend about it and he was like you know I don't think that's his fault I think that's your fault you have to give people real reason to remember you and I realized that not only was my retreating not giving myself a full shot at being member but also it was also putting the burden on the other person you know when you're really quiet interactions or you don't give people hooks or things to talk about or you're trying to not be boring what you're doing is basically saying I'm going to give you complete ownership and responsibility for this interaction I want you to entertain me or I want you to to drive it enough that's not actually the nicest way to interact if I actually thought to myself you know what I want I want to take some of that responsibility too I think it's just as much my responsibility to carry the conversation to be engaging and to try to also help them not be boring and observers as well and not just have it be on them so that transformation how long did it take you to get to the point where you went from totally boring to somewhat memorable yes I had that aha moment when I was a senior in college college was rough for me um I I just you know I I did not I didn't rush it couldn't make it the Greek life I was a total book nerd I think I was I tried to be a triple major but they didn't even allow it at my college just because I wanted a reason to stay in a library more and senior year was like oh my gosh I'm going to enter the real world I have to catch my people skills up to my book or my people smarts up to my book smarts so I would say it took a concerted effort of about two three years to really feel like I could show up in networking events I could pitch myself up so my business started to take off what's interesting isn't the reason it took so long I don't think it has to take that long which is one of the reasons why I started my business many and later was that it seemed like everything was quite scattered there was no textbook on people skills there was great books on it like you know how to win friends and influence people a classic that I loved but I needed more help than that I also wanted a little bit more science you know I'm more of a I liked frameworks I liked formulas you know when someone says to me like a soft skill of you know be yourself or just be nice you know make friends show up is your best self those are all but I have no idea what they mean I need I need it more tomorrow yeah yeah I made it more black and white I just I need more civics so I was like looking in anthropology textbooks I was looking at psychology textbooks I was reading Dale Carnegie and and Malcolm Gladwell and everything was there was like little nugget in each one and so I I would keep these journals where I would write down the specific for the tidbits in sort of one place and it ended up being this big stack of journals and I realized I could not be the only person in the world struggling with it but there's no way that I could be the only one who felt like they needed a computer programming guide for humans and so that's when I started to codify and make a framework out of the idea of interpersonal intelligence being hard skill was there someone specific that you studied that was a bigger influence than others or was a combination of everybody yeah you that's an interesting question actually I would say that the real tipping point there was one person the real tipping point for me was when I discovered dr. Paul Ekman's research so I don't I don't know if you know him but he an amazing researcher now a mentor he's kind of a king of nonverbal behavior especially facial expressions he discovered what's called the micro expression which is a very very quick involuntary facial gesture that we make when we feel an emotion he discovered there are seven universal micro expressions and I I stumbled upon his book his one of his books on masking the face and it was just the first time I had ever it was a really serious look at how to decode faces which is something that you know again I had been sort of told before like well he does he look happy you know just try to read his body language and what does that mean you know like what oh how are you begin to that so dr. Oakman had a science I mean a real research heavy research behind micro expressions and then a very simple framework for it and it it was a switch I mean I remember reading that book putting it down and it was like someone had turned on my world in high-definition like I had been watching a standard definition my entire life maybe even black and white all of a sudden all of a sudden someone had given me color I can't even begin to explain the difference in my entire life from that book and I went I thought to myself first of all everyone needs this why is why is this not taught in school second and that's why I teach it so much and then second how can I do this with all kinds of people's kills so there are seven facial expressions which is you know only one chapter in my book but how are there what are the other hacks or the other science frameworks that I people would know and so that was really influential for me terrific so let me ask you something when someone is boring or uninteresting or just not memorable what's behind it is it like fear of rejection so I think you know fear is an interesting life yes I think that your writing there's there's a fear there I don't think it's necessarily rejection I saw a lot about fear we've done a couple of research studies on fear in our lab and what I found is that fear is this really interesting emotion and I and I call it a crossdresser and the reason why is because fear is one of the only emotions that dresses up as other emotions some reason as humans we don't like to say show speak I'm afraid it's much easier to get angry or critical or narcissistic or mean or vain or boring or passive and so I was finding that when you talk about difficult people or people who are boring or uninteresting there's sort of four different ways that we dress up as our fear dresses up there's the passive there's the angry kind of Tanks there's the overly dramatic there's the selfish narcissistic version and so I think it's really helpful when you're talking to someone to figure out what is the underlying emotion underneath this action I don't believe anyone is boring I think that I think that fear can cause someone to be boorish and cause someone to shut down as it did with me but I think it really looking at what is underneath it and also to think about how does your fear dress up when you are on your worst day what is your fear dressing up as what do you default to if you're having a bad day what do you switch into like for me I either become really passive so I shut down or I get I want to keep everything really surface I don't want to dig deep I don't want to be intimate I don't want to build connections I sort of want to hold back and create distance between the other people which is the worst thing you can do if you're having a bad day right you want a great connection and so that I think is the that was usually helpful for me personally but also in interacting with people who are being difficult they are not difficult they're just their fears is interacting in a way they're gremlins are interacting in a way that's causing them to be difficult well we've seen a little bit of that in the in the public venue lately haven't we yes I think it more and more you know I tweet about and write about writing for Huffington Post about the body language in the presidential election so it was a very busy few months for me still three actually it hasn't ended what's interesting is you know we used to as a society in the u.s. specifically kind of demand a kind of presidential persona right there was a accepted way that a president should be and at that personality was sort of one brand of charisma and you were meant to leave your difficult days behind you were meant to cover up drama or emotion in this election more than any other and recently it's become much more acceptable for politicians to show emotion anger contempt disgust fear surprise sadness they're all coming out and they used to be covered and it's a bit intoxicating for the public because it's new right we like new things that triggers dopamine and so even though we don't like to see someone who's contemptuous it's very exciting because it's new so that is coming out I think an interesting ways very interesting ways let's jump into something that's maybe a little bit more on the positive side so you're by a lot is that your favorite word is hilarious so how do laughter humor and amusement play a role in turning yourself into the most memorable person in the room oh yeah you know so humor is one of these things I think gosh it's like a magic trait right everyone wants to be funny everyone wants a spouse that's funny everyone wants to be more witty but it's a really hard thing to learn and I actually think that humor is the one of the largest greatest marks of intelligence I am not naturally funny but I do actively work at it so as I read three books reread it three books every year and one of the books I reread every single year is called off the mic it's actually on my desk right now off the mic the world's best stand-up comedians get serious about comedy by Deborah Francis white and Marcia shandur so this book is a study of comedy I mean it is like the closest thing to a textbook you can get to humor but it's also funny as you read it and I realized that if I wanted people to remember what I was saying I had to make them laugh there is something about laughter but it's almost like a valve so if you can get someone to laugh and then quickly teach them something it's almost like it opens up their brain for a couple of seconds that the teaching sticks in so when I'm presenting I do tons of corporate presentations and that's the bread and butter is court presentations or in my online courses I always try to make sure that I'm making some kind of chuckle or laugh if I can every three minutes well a lot three minutes every three minutes yeah I mean most of our online courses are yeah I know I know are like you know three to four hours our people skills course I think is I think is eight hours so it's a lot and that can be with images that can be with jokes but humor is an opening right it's like open people up to new ideas creativity it triggers dopamine it makes you far more memorable and I think it's easier than we think to get humor but it does have to be cultivated so your books courses and articles delve into always thought-provoking occasionally offensive topics do you ever cross the line yeah I think I do and actually I want to the reason for that is because as a recovering boring person for the first part of my career for the first part of my life but also the first part of my career when I first started writing I was I started writing about science journalism you know publishing articles about the latest research studies and I would start in a very science journalist perspective so you know very pure coverage of the topic not a lot of opinion very little of my own voice very academic and that was okay but then I realized that when I was writing about articles that were my own opinion or you know doing a big review a literature review the more boring it was the more I was trying to please everyone right I would read something an article or a topic and I was like I want to please as many people as possible to get as many likes to get as many comments right I was I didn't want to offend anyone the problem with that is that by trying to please everyone I was actually appealing to no one because what I was writing was so bland and non personal that I could I could have been a bot writing about the studies and so I realized that two things were at play one is I would much rather have 50 avid fans who feel like they get me and they think like me and they're like yes this is my person versus 500 and vivillon fans like that doesn't do anything because they don't share your stuff it or raise yourself it I'll subscribe and then you lose them you're trying to get 500 ambivalent people every single time versus 50 avid people you get them one and so I started to create what I call markers in my work this is titles subtitle heading pictures that are extremes I they're polarizing you need to look at it and you go yes that's for me or nope not for me and so I found that people who say it's not for them totally fine they they go on their merry way but the people who I get are avid fans and there was actually one gentleman who I record I have seven different online courses body language courses charisma courses people fill courses and I do not wear a business suit in them now a lot of corporations buy my courses for their companies but I decided not to wear a business suit and so I think I wear a a button-down our address and most of my videos nothing like too casual and a gentleman emailed me and said I love your course it was really great I learned so much but I have one suggestion it would be the issue or business to to look more professional I think if you were in a jacket people would take you more seriously I'd like it better and I that email really upset me at first and then I was like you know what if someone is so distracted by me not wearing a business suit if that's the reason that they're not going to take me seriously they're not my person like my person is looking for not a Business School course like I'm not trying to give MBAs they're not looking for a corporate training like on HR and you know harassment they want something is educating entertaining edutainment and they want something that's fresh and that means that I'm you're going to we're not a business suit and so I run into those moments more and more but I am ok with that because I know that I'm being more polarizing so nothing provocative in some of the content material that you put out there I think that people will say not for me you know and not read it but never in the sense of like how dare you you know i'm i hate because of use this word never that oh is just like not for me i hey that actually saves me a lot of time energy yeah yeah for sure so you work with a lot of individuals you work with companies etc so let me ask you what the biggest success you've ever had either with a person or a company or or a group and you know maybe could give us some examples of your big successes or what you feel like are your biggest successes yeah yeah I think that there's a couple of hand of mine but one specifically was a success because it was such a surprise I think that when I'm you know I pitched a lot a cold pitch companies all the time we took media all the time and that's great it's really fun and those successes we get a lot of great coverage or a lot of great placement those don't feel quite as big because I'm working at them when we get them what feels better is Lance with supplies so it makes me feel like the work is happening naturally I would add even without even putting a lot of effort into it so I was at a conference a couple years ago and I was sitting at the conference we were listening to a speaker and the speaker was pretty boring just things I had heard before very rambley and at one point very jargony like using a ton of jargon like no one knew what this personal I didn't even know what this person was talking about and I believed that radical honesty is incredibly important I try to be vulnerable I try to say when I'm afraid and that's something that I live by I also think from a scientific perspective from a memorability perspective that's also a really important thing so I turn to the woman next to me and I said I'm so I'm so sorry I don't know what that word means do you because I didn't I was like missing what was happening and she laughed and she said I have no idea what it means either it was really interesting moments of vulnerability where usually you don't have something you don't admit that you don't know a word right like that's not something you do and so we started chatting in the break happened and and I was and I was talking to her as if she was an old friend which is how I try to talk to most new people that I know it's how I'm trying to talk to you John - even though we just met I want to be open with you and so I was just chatting with her and you know what do you do and I also didn't bring up what I would I do and that's something I've also learned that getting into the what do you do where are you from questions are like the most boring and high dopamine questions so what what do you do and hopefully I run a human behavior research lab we do research on people and she was like wow that's fascinating and she pulled out her card and she's had producer for CNN you know I was like wow like ever you know I hadn't no not like I maybe would have not asked what a word meant in the beginning but actually it bonded us very quickly and we chatted rest a time and she ended up giving me two columns on CNN she put me on a bunch of different shows I got to go on Ali Velshi when he was on and dr. Drew and it was just a start of a really nice friendship and relationship I never would have gone on Cianna buy my own because I'm not a PhD and so that was a huge success because it was so organic and I was using principles that I had to learn the guy though there isn't a natural I would say work they did not those people did not come naturally me but because I had really internalized them they they came out organically and I made a great friend and colleague so that was a huge and that in those CNN segments have brought me an incredible amount of work and other media that is an amazing story it really is so I tell you it's it's you know it's pretty obvious that everyone really wants to achieve what you're trying to give them but my question is why why do they want it why do people want to be interesting is it a yearning for attention or is it like the desire to be the Alpha in the pack or maybe it's because they want to achieve more and make influence make an influence on the world around them what do you think yeah you know I so I I don't think it's about power so you mentioned the Alpha in the pack I do not think it's about power I think actually you know the quintessential the queen of interviewing and self-help is Oprah and she has there's a really good quote by her and she said you after thousands of interviews with every different kind of person there's one thing I've learned about people and it's that everyone wants to feel like they belong and they are valued and I think that we are we are in your tunes right we are built to want to have a belonging and a community we are built to build Kineton build connections that's because in our caveman days it was very hard to survive alone right it was very hard to hunt and raise children and without a community and so we are wired to want to have connection with people and so when you're talking about being interesting I think that is just a facet for our yearning for attention that's a facet of I feel safer when I feel like I belong and so therefore I want people to recognize me I want people to hear me and know me and see me and so I actually think that if you can skip all that attention self use the most like for example drama queens I am fascinated by drama queen fascinated by them I look like I've seen them in a room I'm like woo like I like I like go towards them because basically they are so desperately seeking belonging they lack an internal sense of acceptance they need any kind of acceptance or attention from anyone else even when it's bad attention and so I think that when we're thinking about ourselves we see others in that desperation for attention the best thing we can do to have them acting less dramatic or not is not a bad behavior it to just help them feel like they belong might invite them to sit with you tell them you're thrilled to meet them tells me you want to learn more about them when you give them that validation it's curious interesting to see what they do next it's not always the same but I think that's really what we're talking about it this intense desire to belong we do have a question from one of our listeners and I'm sure you can give a perfect answer to this so the question comes from Philip he's 26 years old assist he's a software engineering from Germany and the question is I'm successful in all aspects of my life except for my social life being an introvert I can't strike an interesting conversation with a person which makes it difficult to find new friends or a partner how can an introvert overcome this problem amazing this is sort of your story isn't it yeah I'm so Phillips you are my people if you are self my person I totally get you and I have so many answers for you I would say the first thing and I there's a lot more I could give you here with a little bit less I the one that I would give you just easiest is the best thing to strike up conversation especially when you're introvert is to use hook so hooks are when the conversation is easily attainable because it's right in front of you and so for example networking events are probably awful for you because it's like you don't know exactly what to talk about right you're like what do you do where you're from how are you even first date can be really hard because I any conversation topic is open to you it's actually better is if you put yourself in situations with new friends or finding partners where the hook is already there for you so this would be it could be learning environment so signing up for classes going to specific conferences where the the commerce discharge are right there so what you think of a speaker right or what what brings you to the conference or I think you said your I don't know if yes software engineer right software engineering conferences actually are a great way to meet people by talking about what is happening right that you're an expert in it you're extremely stressful what you do you know it really well use those of hooks the other thing you can do for hobbies is signing up for cooking class going rock climbing going to a group hikes I find that if you use hook instead of putting yourself in situations where anything could be the conversation it is much much easier as toxic if you already know you have something in common and that's a very quick one but there are lots of other ones I have for you so anyway I can help I'm happy to I thank you for that question so I'll tell you why I know we're running out of time but I wanted to give you the opportunity to let our listeners know if they want to see more from you or hear from you or read something that you've done I think you've got a new book out tell us about some of those things that they can get in touch with with some of your teachings and and your writings etc that'd be great to let people know where they can find more about you yeah well thank you so really everything is its science and people calm that's my lab website you can play in our lab you can check out our 33 favorite conversation starters and then the big the big labor of love my latest book is just out it's called path debate and it's my personal playbook so all those journals I was talking about earlier that I took notes in this has all the science I learned we put it into 14 behavior hack the micro-expressions polish men's chapter is one chapter but I would be honored if anything I said resonated with you if you're that person who maybe people skills didn't come as naturally or you're a lucky person where people still did come natural and you would smile level up I would I would be grateful if you wanted to check it out so the book is called captivate and the website is called science of people calm excellent excellent that's terrific well Vanessa it's been terrific to have you on the show today I really appreciate you taking the time to be with us today oh thank you so much for having me John we hope you've enjoyed this episode with our guests Vanessa van Edwards you can find out more about Vanessa at our website science of people calm where you have the opportunity to take a free course seven scientifically proven steps to increase your influence and don't forget to check out a new book captivate which is available at Amazon Barnes & Noble and other online sites this is John and I look forward to being with you again on another episode of the emotions matter podcast [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: Emaww AI

Views: 79,519

Keywords: Confidence, Relationships, Boring, Attraction, Captivate, Interesting

Id: 2X_cMTAP5Yw

Length: 32min 40sec (1960 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 16 2017