How To Be More Powerful And Confident with Vanessa Van Edwards

Coming to you from the center for Social Confidence in Portland, Oregon. Welcome to Shrink for the shy guy helping men everywhere go from social anxiety to social domination with your host, Dr. Aziz.

Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be diving into how to have more power, power and confidence in yourself. And I'm particularly excited because I had a tremendous opportunity to interview someone who knows this stuff inside and out. I learned a ton as I was re listening to the interview. Later on I was taking notes. I mean, this was, this is really mind blowing stuff. And I felt really privileged to get a chance to talk with her. And we're going to dive into that interview because it's. It was kind of short and condensed and we're fit it all into just this one episode. So I'm very excited to share that with you. And if you want to go deeper into the show, go to shrinkforthshyguy.com as well as facebook.com SocialConfidence those are great ways to stay connected, to be involved in this process. But today's really gonna be about all these different ways that you can start building your power and confidence. Now we're gonna start talking about body language that you can use. I asked her some great questions. About what? Well, how do we be more charismatic, more naturally magnetic, more charming? And she has some really interesting ideas on that. She's read a ton of research and shares that in a really compact, simple way. There's also some really powerful stuff in there about what if I'm more introverted, how do I deal with that? And just dozens of great tips on how to be more confident, where to go, environments. I mean, I was truly impressed as I had the opportunity of having this conversation. So I'm very excited to share this with you. And as always, grab a sheet of paper, open up a file on your phone and take some notes because prepare to learn some stuff that can really, truly increase your sense of personal power and confidence. And then with that confidence, what you can do to change your life, who you can talk to, how you can show up, how you can be different at work in your business, how you can be more attractive and connect with people for dating and relationships, and of course, just how to like yourself more, how to enjoy your life more. So there's a ton in here. Without further ado, let's dive into that right now.

Expert interview.

My guest expert today is Vanessa Van Edwards. She's a behavioral investigator and a published author, and she figures out the science of what makes people tick at her human behavior research, labor, which is called the science of people. You can liken her to a geeky modern day Dale Carnegie where her innovative work has actually been featured all over the news and media on npr, Business Week, cnn. She speaks all over the world and has a huge following of people who want to study herself because it's very practical, it's very solution focused and it teaches us how to be more effective in our lives. Body language, speaking, communication, influence. I mean, just a whole bunch of really useful skills that can apply to all areas of our life. So thank you so much for joining us today, Vanessa.

Thanks so much for having me.

Okay, so I want to get started with. You had a video on your site. I was checking it out and reading it and you said six personality or six factors that define our personality. You said charisma, attraction, influence, success, happiness and power. And I didn't know what that meant to define my personality, but as you listed each one of those, I was like, yes, I want that one. Ooh, I want that one too. Sure, I'll take influence and. Oh, power. Yeah, I'll take some of that. So what do you mean by the six factors? What are these six words? And can you tell us a little more about them?

Yes. So what we found is in our lab, we're constantly asking people inappropriately personal questions. And we even did a study where we were asking to read people's journals entries. And in that we were able to code different wants and values and desires of people. And we found that this is kind of an interesting maximum about the human race is that we are all extremely different in the same ways. So power, for example, is something that in a way we all strive for, but in our own way. So your idea of power might be a quiet power strategy of close connections and learning where someone else's idea of power could be a charismatic, bubbly, center stage kind of a power. But the bottom line is that power feeds something into our self identity. And so what I like to do is look at each of these different areas and the science behind them and figure out how we can get those in our own unique brand.

Yeah, I love it. Well, let's. I don't have to necessarily cover every single one, but let's get some of the main ones on here. So power, let's go with that one. How can someone access more power in themselves, generate a sense of power in themselves in their lives and their communications?

Sure. So some of the interesting research about power has to do with capability. So what they found is That a lot of the time we strive for things that we think will make us successful. In other words, things that we think will make us money. So we're in high school and college and we think, what's a good career path? And so someone might say, you know what, being a lawyer offers great job security. You know, my dad knows some great lawyers, I can go to law school. That sounds like a great path. But it's much harder to ask yourself, am I good at the skills that a lawyer uses every single day? Am I detail oriented? Am I good at what if scenarios? Can I interact with people? Can I stay calm in the heat of an argument? Can I read people or speed read people quickly? Those are the skills that lawyers are using every day. And so very rarely are we thinking about the skills that each job uses. Well, the thing about power is that the less you feel capable, the less you use your natural given skills, the less powerful you feel. So even lawyers who are pretty successful, like they're making good money, a lot of them who aren't using their skills on the job, their natural skills, like, let's say that they're more creative, more big idea, big picture things, the details bog them down because they don't feel capable while they do it. So when we're talking about power, I challenge listeners to think about what are the skills that you are most good at? What do you feel extremely capable doing that? When you're doing it, you're like, yes, I've got this. This is me. Basically your best self. The more that you can integrate that into your job, into your day to day life, into your hobbies, the more powerful you will feel and the more powerful other people will perceive you.

That's great. I mean, it reminds me of a Les Brown quote. There's no substitute for confidence like competence.

And there you go. Exactly.

And I love the idea of looking for how to integrate that more into our life. Because some people might be like, yeah, sure, I feel powerful when I'm skiing down a mountain. But the idea of being able to bring aspects of that because you could drill down into, well, what are they doing when they do that activity? What are the skills? And then how to bring more of that into their daily life, that's really good.

It's the same thing for I. We do a lot of happiness science in our lab because it's just, it's a personal topic that's always fascinated me. And what never ceases to surprise me is that people don't always know what they're good at. And that's crazy. Like, we're in school, we're taught to be kind of good at everything, right? Like, get A's in all your classes. And we don't really distinguish between even the skills within the class. You know, like, even in English class, there's many skills that you're using as a student. Reading comprehension, memorizing, vocabulary, verbal communication, presenting. There's so many different skills, and very rarely does a school or a teacher say, okay, you gotta be in the class. But you know what? Your reading comprehension skills are off the charts for you. Reading and understanding and dissecting and taking big ideas out of books. That is a feature that you need to figure out how you integrate into your hobbies as well as into your future job, because you are extremely good at that.

Hmm.

We don't get that kind of feedback.

No. And in fact, that raises another question, which is we're gonna pause here for just one moment, and then we're gonna dive back into the interview with Vanessa right after this. Hey, it's Dr. Aziz here, and I wanted to take just a quick moment to thank you for listening to this show, for really taking the time to invest in yourself. And I understand your time is valuable. And I also want to let you know that I am deeply passionate about helping you really break free of whatever shyness, whatever anxiety, whatever self doubt is stopping you from getting the relationships you want, meeting the women that you want, starting the business that you want, or thriving in the way that you want in your life. And the reason I'm so passionate is because I lived it for so many years, and that's my mission. I want every single person who wants to break free to be able to break free. And I want to invite you to a special opportunity, which is to join me in a very small, intimate, confidence mastermind group. And these groups are six months long, and in the confidence mastermind, it's going to be limited to just eight people, and we're going to meet regularly over the phone and have a very small, private, intimate, live event for just the eight of us and me, where we're gonna dive into your life and help you apply all this stuff. So if you've been listening to this show or watching YouTube videos and noticing something but you're still living the same patterns, I get it. And I found that the fastest and sometimes what it takes to really break free is to step up and do something, do something big, take bold action. So I really encourage you to do that, and I would love to talk with you more about that to really learn about this and dive in, go to socialconfidencecenter.com mastermind. That's socialconfidencecenter.com mastermind. And there you'll learn more about it and you can also apply for that there or ask me any questions you have. So I can't wait to speak with you more about this and enjoy the rest of this episode. How come or how do you help people own their strengths? Because there's something about finding what you're really good at, which I think people sometimes have blocks to even acknowledging that they're really good at certain things and let alone owning it and saying, great, okay, I'm gonna step up and do more of that. There's like this squeamishness or humility or something where they're like, oh, I don't want to say I'm great at anything or I'm good at anything. How do you help people break free of that?

Oh, yeah, it's a lot of it is about like our self narratives. Our self narrative is basically the story that we tell ourselves about ourselves. And so I see this all the time with my students where someone will say, just like you just mentioned, you know, I feel really capable, I feel really good when I'm, you know, in my backyard building my, my deck or you know, building a gazebo or whatever. Like they feel really capable doing that and they're like, but you know, I'm a sales guy. Like I am the top in my insurance group. Like I can't build decks for a living, right? And with this note of self hatred that they don't even like that skill that they have. And so building into your self narrative that your skills don't have to define you. In fact, your job, your skills shouldn't define you. Okay, so you're a top salesman in your industry, but that doesn't mean that's who you are. And so it's separating out your skills and your job with aspects of your narrative that you are a kick butt sales agent who's extremely personable. You are amazing builder with your hands and can create wonderful things for your family in your backyard, in your home life. And you're an avid churchgoer and you have a deep and strong faith, right? Like those are all part of your self narrative. They aren't just who you are. And so I think that's, I think the difference.

So much good stuff there about in a way like diversifying and not having all of your eggs in that one basket, which makes you extremely vulnerable to the ebb and flow of success in one given area.

Exactly.

You are. I am this salesperson. And then for whatever reason, you have a bad month or several months, then there's a depression and I'm a terrible person. That can emerge. So I love how you can really buffer against that by seeing all the areas.

Yeah, you know, that's a good way of putting it. One thing that we. It's a very similar idea is that we talk about the science of happiness as crisis prevention that basically, like, you know, we ask you, how happy are you right now? Are you living the life that you want to live? And we give them a happiness audit. Anyone is welcome to take it. It's on our website, where they basically audit their own happiness. It's. It's like a nice little benchmark. And if you rank really high on the happiness audit, fantastic. That is wonderful. If you want to learn more about why you're so happy, what is contributing to that, that is crisis prevention. So down the line, if you have a bad month or someone gets sick or, heaven forbid, something doesn't happen as bad to your family, you have a baseline, a groundwork where you know who you are and what you value and how to get back to that equilibrium. Instead of, I've been cruising and cruising and all of a sudden something happens and then you're just lost. Right. Especially if all of your happiness eggs are in one basket. And that absolutely can happen.

That's good. Yes. We'll get to web links at the end because I think that happiness audit sounds really valuable for a lot of reasons. Let's switch gears to charisma, because that's a sexy one. That's the one that people. One. Right. Charisma for speaking, charisma for dating and relationships, charisma for their social life. Charisma in general is just a desirable trait or factor. So how would you define charisma? What is it, first of all?

Well, I might actually go to the scientific findings on charisma, because charisma is a really hard word to define. Like, if you ask most people, what is charisma? Or who's the most charismatic person you know? Why are they charismatic? It's very hard to put your finger on that exact quality. So what science has found is that charisma is a perfect blend of two specific attributes, warmth and competence, that people who at the exact same time can showcase and signal high warmth. So high engagement and trust and friendliness at the same time as high competence, loyalty, dependability, competence, power, if they can have those the mix of those two things, that is charisma. And so it's actually most people fall on a scale where if you think about it as like a kind of like a spectrum. On one end, on the left hand side you have competence, in the middle you have charisma, on the other end you have warmth. Where do you fall on that scale? Are you right in the middle? Do you kind of lean towards the warm side where people think of you as nice and sweet, but maybe a little bit of a pushover? Or do you fall on the competent side of the scale where you're extremely dependable, extremely competent, extremely powerful, but maybe a little cold, intimidating, standoffish? Where do you fall on that scale? Because you need to figure out how can you get a little bit closer to the middle. I never want anyone to pretend to be something they're not because that's the opposite of charisma, that's inauthentic. But how can you demonstrate a little bit more of the other side of the spectrum so you're closer to that center circle?

That is really awesome. I have not heard that model before, but it makes total sense because people who are trying to be really warm and friendly, but doing so in a people pleasing, approval seeking kind of way are not charismatic. And that's because that makes sense with that model. They're lacking that competence, that power, that sense of authority in themselves. But one thing you said there, which is really interesting, which is you can't fake this stuff that's inauthentic to try to be someone that you're not. How do you help someone who doesn't see themselves as warm and able to talk to people? And they're like, I'm kinda, I see myself as awkward and quiet. And so to do something else, to just try to be more outgoing or whatever, that feels inauthentic to me.

So I get it because I am a recovering awkward person.

You too?

Yeah, so much so, so much where I, you know, I had my own scale back in the day. It's like I was on the cold and incompetent scale, right? I didn't come across as either warm or competent. And so what I think is really important is a lot of teachers or coaches or classes will say, here's a prescriptive formula for you to use. And formulas are good. Like, I understand that they're easier to remember. But if someone, if you're an introvert and an extrovert is telling you be more extroverted, that will make you more likable. There is no way that will actually work. A, you might not even have enough, enough confidence to be able to fake it, which good job, right? Don't, don't try to fake it. Or B, let's say that you do decide to take this person's advice and pretend to be an extrovert, even though you feel much more introverted that comes across other people. Our Nonverbal signals are 12 to 13 times more powerful than our verbal signals. So even if you've memorized the lines of an extrovert, right, you've memorized certain things that you're supposed to say. Scripts that are outgoing, if your body language, if your hand gestures, if your face is showing pain, discomfort and awkwardness, People will always, always believe the nonverbal as opposed to the verbal. And so you're better off showing up even if you're uncomfortable, as honestly uncomfortable than dishonestly uncomfortable. And so I think that it's much more about figuring out what you are naturally good at, what you naturally like to talk about, and what I call your thrive location and people. So when it comes to interacting with others, I think there are thrive and survive events and people. So I talk about this in my people skills course where I'm an ambivert. So I'm kind of. I'm introverted. I need a lot of alone time during the days, but I can sort of save up my energy for groups, small groups, and I'm okay. And I like learning environments, but not like nightclubs and parties. So for me, nightclubs, really loud bars, those are survive locations for me where I just feel like I am barely making it. Part of that is because I feel like I can't hear people, I can't talk to people, and so I get really overwhelmed. Whereas my thrive locations where I just feel like much more relaxed, much more myself, a lot less pressure, are learning environments. So I love conferences. I love talking to people at conferences because I feel like there's so much to talk about on stage, whether you agree or don't agree. Other thrive locations for me are like small, intimate, like themed parties or dinner parties. So I have a group of friends where we have like pinot and pasta parties where we all bring pinos and different kinds of pasta, or we just did a PJ party where you had to bring food that started with a P or a J and you had to wear your PJs. My friends are nerd lovers like me. So those are thrive for me. And so it's about, okay, I honor my thrive and survive things. How Can I minimize my survive events and maximize my thrive events? Because that way, you're honoring who you are, and you allow your natural self, whether that's introverted or extroverted or bubbly or reserved or an observer or a chatter, whatever that is, it comes out naturally, and you don't have that underlying hum of anxiety.

That's really good. I absolutely agree with that. Finding your place where you're naturally more animated, more interested, more alive, it's easier to talk to people. You naturally have more things to say and really encourage that. It doesn't have to be the same for everyone. And I resonate with the not liking the bar scene and having a hard time thinking I needed to, like, I better figure this out. And then when I just let myself pursue other places, it became a lot more easy. But one question I'm curious about, Vanessa, is let's say someone is listening right now, and they want to be more outgoing. They don't want to be, you know, deep down, they know they're not as shy and quiet as they've been living. There's a part of them that's like, no, I just. I want to be able to walk up and talk to people, but I don't know. I know I feel nervous and I feel afraid as I do it, so I avoid it because it's uncomfortable. But at the same time, I want to do it more, and I want to be like, that person who can talk to anyone and seem very confident in themselves. So how does someone build that ability, and how do they demonstrate that body language if not through faking it?

Yeah. So first of all, good for you. Right? Like, if you're in that place where you're like, I want to get out of my comfort zone a little bit and chat with people. I just don't quite know how. Awesome. Right. Like, that's already a step in the right direction because you have that intent behind it of really wanting to meet people in a good way. So what I would say is two things. One, have a lot to talk about, and two, have the right locations to talk about those things. For example, I think it's really, really hard in any situation to go up to someone and start just the standard conversation starters. What do you do? Where are you from? How do you know the host? They're okay, and they start decent conversations. The problem is that we're so scripted with those conversation starters is I could have that conversation with myself right now. Go something like this. So what do you do? Oh, I'm a teacher. Interesting. What Grades third and sometimes fourth. Wow. How about you? What do you do? I'm in marketing. Great. That was the conversation, right? Like, that's the conversation that happens every single time where it's like very back and forth and your answers are so memorized that you're not really thinking at all. And so that you end up getting this lull at the end, unless they do something really interesting that you can riff off of, it's very hard. So what I like to do is I have a list of my favorite killer conversation starters from my website. One of those is my favorite is what's a personal passion project you're working on right now? Which is just a very different. It's not too personal, right? Like, it's something a little bit different. And people, they haven't answered it a lot before, and so it really gets them thinking whether they have a personal passion project or they don't. I have learned the most amazing things about people and had the best conversations that I never would have had if I had stuck with. With the script of, what are you doing? Where are you from? So have a lot to talk about. And that also includes the more hobbies and interests you can have, the more that can come up naturally. For example, I'm a huge fan of the bucket list of mastering your bucket list, of keeping it really active and current, and always working on at least three items of your bucket list. I have sort of a system that I teach everyone on my blog to use, because when you're working on a bucket list, not only is your happiness more increases, but also you have so much to talk about if you know that this weekend you are breaking a world record. I'm actually going to be breaking a world record this weekend, which I'm very excited about. Then your conversations the entire week are so much more interesting when they're like, what are you up to these days? Or what are you doing this weekend? You have a really cool thing to talk about. So that's the first sort of side of it, is making sure you have a lot of substance to talk about. And the second one is to make sure that you are in the right locations to receive that. It's really hard to make conversations with people in loud bars and nightclubs, in my opinion. Now, if you don't actually like talking a lot and you like dancing and like, you know, kind of being around people not having to talk, then nightclubs and bars are perfect for you. Right? Like, that is the perfect location. So thinking about what would work for the kind of connections you want to have.

Yeah. I feel like every time you share something, there's like seven or eight interesting things that I want to mention and comment and ask about. And I'm like, okay, okay, filter it down. Just pick one. Because as you were saying that, I realized that I found my place. I was actually really drawn to electronic music. So I would go to these raves and festivals and events where there's a lot of loud music and you can just be around a lot of people and listen to really cool music. And I could push the edge of my comfort zone of dancing and getting more comfortable doing that. But then if you wanted, you could go elsewhere and talk to people.

Love it.

So it was like a very. There was an introverted activity that you could do or you could go do this. So that's. It was really teaching me something about myself when you were sharing there. And the question I gotta ask, though, I mean, because you threw a big hook out there, what world record are you breaking? This weekend?

I am going to be attending the largest breakfast in bed.

Wow.

It will be 600 people in bed. They got. I think they have, like 500 different IKEA beds they've put together. And we're all going to get in bed and we're all going to eat waffles, because why not, right? Like, that's on my bucket list. I've been wanting to break a world record forever, and I saw that was coming up and I was like, done. I love breakfast and I love bed. Perfect.

Nice. And you get the glory of Guinness, maybe.

Exactly, Exactly. Gosh, we hope so. We're hoping that we're gonna find.

Fingers crossed.

Fingers crossed, yeah.

Well, that is awesome. It's been great to speak with you and learn some of your insights. And in a moment, I'm ask just for you to share some of the best ways for people to find you. But one last thing I want to ask you, Vanessa, is a lot of the people that I work with and are listening to this right now have spent much or most of their life feeling restricted or in some way that they were somehow less than those really confident, charismatic people. And that there's almost like something wrong with me or that, you know, and those people are just different and better. And since you have really studied this and looked at the. I mean, huge amount of science, I can hear just the way you share. You've read a ton of articles and research. Do you have any message of inspiration or hope for people who think maybe that they just don't have what it takes or they're broken or they're somehow different than really confident, charismatic, successful, powerful people.

Yeah. And it's that different is fascinating and broken is dynamic and awkward. Gives you fear fuel to meet your people. And so all of those things are right about you. Like they're not wrong about you. And it took me many, many years to drop the word normal from my vocabulary and to just embrace my weirdness. Once I finally was like, you know what, I'm weird and it's okay. Once I did that, so many other things that I kept thinking were wrong about me became okay and right. And I think it takes a big, a lot of courage to be able to reframe your self narrative and the words you use about yourself. But if you can start with reframing the bad to okay, that's the first step because you are okay and your different is good.

That is awesome. That's great. I really appreciate that. And it's absolutely true. And once, I mean the reframe and the openness is just the first step. And when you really want to take in some of the tools and the strategies, I think you are a tremendous resource and what you've put out into the world. So how can people find out about. You mentioned a number of courses. You mentioned some self assessments or lists. You mentioned those. Awesome question conversation starters. How do we find all these goodies?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the more I can help, the better. Like it's all up on my website for free. So scienceofpeople.com is our homepage and from there you'll see all of our articles. We have our, our labs area where you can play and take our audit that I mentioned. We also have like our little kind of start here button, which is like all of our favorite articles. And we also send out our killer conversation starters and our emails. So we also have a free influence course when you sign up and we send you like a lot of the science on charisma and influence and those seven, those six characteristics factors that you mentioned the beginning. So all of it's up for free. I just love sharing the things that changed my life, hoping that it can also change yours. So I really appreciate you having me on.

No, you're most welcome. And I do not doubt that you have. I mean, the resources, just these free resources are enough to change people's lives. And I know that you're doing that every day. So thank you so much for being on the show and for the work that you're doing in the world. Vanessa.

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much. For having me.

That brings us to the end of the interview and almost to the end of our episode. But we can't leave without doing one thing, which is your action step.

Time for action.

So your action step for today is. I mean, there was a ton of valuable stuff in that interview, wasn't there? I mean, I learned many things that I could apply special specifically in my own life. And what I want you to do is pick one of those things for you that you learned from Vanessa or from me or some combination of that, some insight you had during our interview. And I don't know what it is for you. It's different for everyone. There's like one moment, there's one sentence, there's one idea, one concept, one breakthrough one Aha. Where you're like, oh, wow, maybe I can use that. Maybe I can do that. And I want you to find what that is for you from this interview and write that down and then go do something with it. Apply it in your life. Don't just hold it as some mental concept that's kind of interesting for the day. We want to turn this. We want to convert that raw fuel into action, which is what's going to increase your power and your confidence over time. We all know that. So let's find one thing you learned from the interview and apply it. That is your action step for today. And as always, thank you so much for joining me. You are awesome. A very small, select group of people are actively looking for these solutions and listening to these episodes. I mean, there's tens of millions of people who are struggling with confidence, maybe even hundreds of millions, and you're one of the select few who is actually doing something about it. So I really want to commend you and I want to encourage you by saying, you know, the people that really do this, that really invest in themselves and study and learn and practice, they're the ones that break free. So I'm excited that you're on this journey with me, and I can't wait to speak with you more in the future until we speak again. May you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from work what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.

Sam.