Decoding Social Cues: Harnessing the Power of Communication for Success w/ Vanessa Van Edwards EP 1448

Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection, I've got an invitation for you. Join me at this year's Summit of Greatness, this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, to unleash your true greatness. This is the one time a year that I gather the Greatness Community together in person for a powerful, transformative weekend. People come from all over the world, and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Josie Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Sinchero, and many more. You'll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials. So if you're ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com/summit2023. Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I'll see you there.

I don't think you should ever pretend to be something you're not. I think that you're better off spending your time instead of trying to be the bubbly extrovert is trying to find out what is your unique brand of charisma. Like, what is your flavor? I think that the more time you can spend on that before trying to emulate someone else or trying to dial up something that isn't natural to you is.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to today's special episode. Over the last 1300 plus episodes, there have been so many impactful interviews that I've been lucky enough to have, and I always like to reflect on some of the most powerful. And this episode was one that resonated with most of you guys in the past, and I'm excited for the value it's going to bring you today as well. So I hope you enjoy today's episode. So you wrote this book, Captivate: the Science of Succeeding with People. I love the first couple pages where it shows a photo of you with, like, I don't know if you have braces on or not.

Oh, yeah. So I'm in LA. My family's here. And I give my mom the galley. And she was, like, so excited. She's like, oh, my God, yay. And she opens it, she was like, Why did you choose this picture? I was like, Mom, that's real.

Real life.

That was me. And she said something that was interesting. She was like, that was the most painful part of your life. Why would you share that? Which I think is really... You have to.

You have to connect with people and show them that you're not alone and that you're just like everyone else.

Also, I have this problem, people will Put me in the expert position. Like I'm always kind of uncomfortable in that position a little bit because I'm not a naturally charismatic person. I'm not naturally extroverted. I'm a recovering awkward person. And so I was like, I could either position myself in the intro like everyone does as the extrovert. I am the extrovert. Yeah. All these awards, I'm the extrovert. I'm naturally charismatic. And I was like, but like that is not me. So I was like, I would rather switch it and say, It is so hard for naturally charismatic people to teach people how they do what they do. It's much easier in a certain sense to not be that person and then have to learn it the hard way. So I say that I learned it the hard way to teach it to you the easy way. So that was a big decision that person made.

I love it. I mean, if I showed you a photo of myself, I sent a photo actually.

I don't believe you though.

No, hold on.

No way. No, you were like an athlete. I was like a mathlete.

Come on. I was an athlete the way you are an extrovert. I was not, you know, an athlete because I was good because I was bad. And I said, I'm going to master this just like you were.

Okay, yeah.

So that's kind of how I became.

Are you gonna show me a vest picture because I wanna see helmet hair?

No, not a vest picture. Let me see. I'll show you a photo of me.

Recovering awkward Lewis. I mean, this is-- that's what I wanna see.

This is pretty goofy, you know? Oh.

Yeah.

It's pretty lame, goofy.

Yes, yes, this would have felt really well next time.

This could have been perfect next year.

Yeah.

So anyways, I mean, I was like tall and gangly and, you know, all those things. But I was like, okay, how can I learn how to be a great athlete? And so I reverse engineered. I wasn't gifted as a kid. And I was very awkward. I was in the special needs classes. I couldn't read and write. I was awkward in connecting with people. I was the youngest kid always in the sports teams because in high school I started to become Good at sports because I put my energy in that so I was like the freshman with all the seniors so I had to learn how to connect with people and I think I told you this before when I was a senior in high school I was like terrified because all the jocks that I hung out with were gone now. So it's just me. Yeah, I was like oh, you know what I'm gonna do? I wanna become friends with everyone so I hung out in the choir I hang out with like the band people I hung out with like the science nerds and I hung up with everyone I was like I'm gonna learn how to connect with the each human being and just listen to them and hear their needs and try to be friends with everyone. And that was the greatest thing that happened to me is like having no jock friends anymore.

And being like, I'm gonna connect with everyone. Yeah, and just understand people. Can we reverse engineer that? So like, you told me that story, I think a couple weeks ago, and I was like, yes. So there was research. I've always been fascinated by the popular kids, right? Like these magnetic sort of like what makes a kid cool or popular, whatever that is. And Van Sloan did a really interesting research experiment with teenagers. He found, well, can you guess what makes the most popular kids popular? Like, what is it? It could be anything from attractiveness to clothing to the way they talk. If you had to guess. Listeners, guess too.

What makes a popular person popular? Yes. Hmm. Their confidence? I don't know. They're outgoing?

I would have guessed outgoing. That's exactly what I would have guessed. Like extroverted, talkative, which was like, I was like, oh, please don't let it be that. So first of all, it wasn't attractiveness, which I think is very important for people to keep in mind. It wasn't the most beautiful girls or the hottest guys. What it was is the most popular kids also liked the most people.

That makes sense.

And now that I heard that, which is exactly what you just said.

As opposed to just five people, they like, you know.

Right, so everyone. Yes, exactly. It's like what he found was is that the most popular kids, when they were asked, who do you like? They had the longest list. And that also meant that they were liked by the most people. And this was measured by typically they smiled more in the hallways. So they would do the, you tell me if this is right. So men, when they see someone they know, they give the upward, hey, nice to see, it's like an acknowledgement. Versus if you don't know someone but you want to acknowledge them, you give them the downward nod.

Is that right? Probably, yes. If you're conditioned that way. I try to just smile at everyone. Okay, so that's the cool kid thing. Because you train yourself to this. I just started smiling everyone in the hallways too. Just like, hey, how are you?

Good to see you.

Just a cop or something.

Without realizing it, and that's what I kind of wrote about in your chapter, was like without realizing it, you were actually activating a scientific principle that we like people who like us.

Makes sense. You're not gonna like people that hate you. Or ignore you.

Or, and this is the real killer of relationships people do not think of. We talk a lot about toxic people, right? Difficult people, toxic people. But actually the killer is ambivalence.

You're not sure?

Yeah. You're not sure. Do they like me? Do I like them?

Yeah. Uncertain.

Were we friendly? That actually takes up more mental energy than the toxic people. And they did a study with police officers where they found that police officers who have more ambivalent relationships versus police officers who had a lot of toxic relationships, the ambivalent ones actually had less efficiency, they had less happiness and career satisfaction, and they skipped more days of work. That's because if someone's toxic, you know, you don't wanna sit with them at lunch. You don't wanna sit by their desk.

It's clear.

Ambivalent, you're like, should I invite them to lunch? Right.

Or not.

Not safe, you're like, I'm sure. Right, and I think that that's the keyword, is safety. And so ambivalence, when you like someone, you clearly are like smiling, nodding, hey, what's up? Good to see you. The person's like, I'm liked. And like that is-- I'm accepted. The greatest feeling of safety. in the world. And so if you go to a conference, you have a big conference coming up, you're really nervous. I don't want you to think about being extroverted, especially if you're an introvert or ambivert. No, like don't pretend-- Ambivert? Ambivert. Ambivert. Yeah. What's that? I'm an ambivert. An ambivert is, if introvert or extrovert never felt right to you, it's when you can flip into extroversion if you need to or in the right situation. So like for me right now, I'm not that nervous, right? I'm a little bit nervous. You make me a little bit nervous, but like not terribly. Like learning one-on-one situations, conferences, I'm okay. Nightclubs, bars, those kinds of things, no. So if you are in those situations going to a conference, don't think about how can I be more extroverted, how can I be more outgoing? It's actually how can I just like more people? Like when I'm at a conference and I do this, you were at WDS. So I go every year and all of my trainers, my science people trainers come with me and I say like our one thing is we are inviting everyone to sit with us.

Us.

We are inviting everyone to come to lunch with us. If you see someone standing alone, we say hello, we invite them to come over. That is our number one goal. That's an easier way, I think, to tackle big groups or conferences. It's just how can you like more people?

That's cool. Yeah. I think smiling is a good practice anyways. Whenever I see someone on the streets, I just try to smile.

Sometimes people are a little awkward about it.

They don't know how to react to me. See, I can't do that as a woman. I don't think. That's true because you're leading people on or something and you're flirting or whatever.

Gender differences.

Challenging. I try to smile as much as I can, guys and girls.

Yeah, I think you should. Also, I think smile is never going to hurt you. It might get you into conversation that you didn't expect. But I think it's always a good basic thing to try.

Yes. We're gonna go into it later. I'm gonna hook you guys right now. We're gonna go in later and talk about how to understand when someone's lying, what to do about it. And Vanessa said that this is like a scary thing to talk about. It's like, she doesn't know if she wants to talk about it that much, but we're gonna go into it a little bit. But first, you have different sections the conversations in your book, is the first five seconds, the first five hours, and the first five days.

First five minutes, first five hours, first five is days.

Minutes, hours, days, yes, not seconds, but the first five seconds are important too, right?

Actually, I debated calling it the first five seconds. It's true, that would work. But the reason why I didn't is because a couple of chapters are on conversation starters and it's hard to get out of full conversation.

A few seconds. Right, right, right. But there are cues within the first five seconds, probably, right?

Maybe sooner than that. I think that it happens the moment you first see someone.

Within him and within a second.

Within a second and that has proven as well online. Like a lot of our first impressions are actually happening digitally, right? Someone emails you for the first time, they Google you, they see you on LinkedIn, see a photo, whatever.

That's it. That's your digital first impression. Everything matters in what you're putting out. Every angle, every smile or not smile.

It can be like misread. I think you think of it like an algorithm, right? So like if you think of, okay, my LinkedIn profile is a piece of my information that I'm putting out there.

As well as like my email signature, as well as my dating profile, profile name. I should just have you, like, break down everything that I do and just say, no, this is wrong.

Yes. Can I give you a really quick tip on dating profiles? Are you on dating profiles right now?

I've got a girlfriend.

Okay, so if anyone who's on, anyone who's on dating profiles, not Lewis.

Yes. I'm not on anywhere. I've never been. I was on Tinder for, like, three days because it happened. This is years ago.

It.

Was my friend. I'll take his, I won't say his name.

He's pretty well known.

I'll tell you afterwards. He was like, get on here, it's amazing. It's as an experiment, just get on there, right? So for three days I do it, and I'm like, it's crazy, right? It's like madness, it's addictive, you're swiping all the time. And I'm like, and then it was just like, okay, I had a bunch.

Of matches or whatever, and I was.

Like, this is just exhausting. It's so exhausting, and I just deleted it after three days. I was like, you, didn't even see anyone? no, I had a couple text conversations with people, but I never saw anyone. But here's the thing. I mean, I'm so, like, forward with, like, saying hi to someone if I like them. Yeah. If I'm single, that I'm not like, I need to find someone to, like, match with me. It's not uncomfortable for me to, like, see anyone and stop them.

Right. Say, hey, you know that you don't.

Have to optimize in that area. I don't have to because you don't need the intro. I don't need to. But I, you know, I had to learn how to do that because I could never do that. And I think I told you this when I was a 16, 17. I didn't have, like, you know, the good looks. I didn't have anything. And I was terrified of girls when I was in high school. And so for a summer, I made it a mission. I said, every single day, I think I was 15 going into junior year, every single day, I was like, whenever I see a girl that gives me butterflies, I have to go towards her and, and talk to her. And then it was like, I have to go ask her out. Every day? Every day I saw a girl for the whole summer. It was an experiment that I gave myself. I was kind of like a mini you. Yes. I was like, I need to overcome this fear. This is BS. Like, I want to be able to talk to her. girls and not be afraid. And like, I always stumbled over my words.

I just couldn't get anything out. Yeah.

Yeah. Terrified. Yeah. So I said, every day, whenever I see a girl that I'm like, have butterflies, I'm gonna go run to her. Not like literally, but yeah, not like. But I was like, I'm going to go up to her and just say hello. And then it was like, ask her for her number. And then it was just like, ask her out. It was like another challenge. And by the end of the summer, I was like fluent in the art.

Of like asking girls. The approach, the ask.

Yeah, I was just like. The opener. And even if it didn't work out or if they were like, no, I was just like, at least we had a fun interaction and it was like, okay, you know, and I learned how to gain confidence through taking action and.

Giving myself a challenge. Oh my gosh, so if anyone is listening and feels great, if they-- It's the greatest thing. That is like, so-- the greatest. One of the biggest challenges, I think we have to think about our life like a big experiment. Yes. And the problem is, as adults, we did this when we were kids, right? Like you would play with something or you would try something out, you would take a class just because you were curious. Now as adults, we're like, I can't try anything because what if it becomes forever? Or what if it's permanent? Or what if there's a risk? I think that every interaction is an experiment. When you think about it that way, you become so much braver, right? You think, okay, I'm nervous about approaching that VIP or that girl or that guy or whoever. That butterflies, those butterflies are a chemical signal for me that there is something here. Right? Like there is an experiment that I can actually do.

You should do it.

Yeah. And I should do it. So there's a couple things when you're approaching. If this is something that you want to work on, whether it's a VIP or a stranger or a see if another. So there's... A girl. A girl, right. There's the approach and the open. So the approach is actually very important because that's usually when someone's first impression is made. So when you're approaching someone, you want to signal a couple things. You want to first signal friend, not foe. So friend, right? And I heard this last time.

Yes. Hands.

Hands. Perfect.

First thing people look at is the hands.

Yes. Go listen to that episode if you didn't hear that.

No, that's great.

Yeah, the first thing, keep your hands out of your pockets. Hands out of your pockets. And hand first if you want to do a handshake or a hug. Eye contact, great. Then there's the approach, the verbal, which we didn't get to talk about last time. So what people don't realize is actually the verbal approach matters very little. And that is because in the first few seconds of interaction, There's a lot of chemical reading going on. There's a lot of decoding. The verbal becomes sort of secondary. It doesn't matter. That's why the Hey, how are you? is one of the best openers you can do because it doesn't actually necessarily mean anything.

It doesn't take brain power.

It doesn't take a lot of brain power. The first question, however, is important.

Well, hey, how are you?

Is a question, but after that... But is it really though?

We never really...

It's more of like a... Good to meet you. Right. My approach is usually just, Hey, my name's Vanessa. Or, Hey, nice to meet you. So it's not even a question. That first question though is when you want to have some kind of a spark. This is a way that you signal to someone else. This interaction is going to be different.

Meaningful, interesting, unique.

Fill in the blank, what your intention is for the social interaction. So you set up someone's response based on the kind of trigger that you ask. So for example, if you say, so what do you do?

I'd be bored.

You've signaled autopilot. I don't really want to think deeply about this and I'm judging you on what you do, which might or might not be true. I would much prefer, and I call these conversation sparkers, these are these very dopamine producing dopamine is like a pleasure chemical that gets people excited and you can actually do this with the words you use. Have you ever talked about priming on the show? I don't know if I've ever heard you.

Can you talk about it?

Yeah, so priming was one of those things that I had never thought about this way, but the words you use signal things for other people. So for example, if you say exciting, the other person immediately looks for hits not misses. So if you say to someone, what are you most excited about lately?

Right.

They're immediately in their brain going to search for anything in their life that hits that. If you say, Hey, have you been busy recently? They immediately then search for hits for busy. So that's actually a very powerful thing to know because your words dictate everything including in emails, right? If you're sending an email to someone and saying, Hey, we're meeting on Friday, we're really crunched on time. I'm a little worried about getting everything get everything done so hopefully we can make it all happen.

It seems stressful.

It's a very, you're actually cueing the person.

To feel stress.

To feel stress, worry, and crunched for time.

Oh man, that sucks.

It's like anxiety, like, oh, I gotta do this now. And you are in control of it, like you're creating it. Whereas if you look at your emails, you're like, what am I priming with this email? What am I asking them to search for in their brain? I'm so excited to meet with you on Friday. I can't wait to talk about all the topics we're gonna go through. I know that we're gonna be super efficient.

At ease, excited. Yeah.

And like boom, boom, like you're gonna try to get through each thing on your list. So that same thing happens with that initial kind of big sparker. So hey, I'm Vanessa, good to meet you. Hopefully not, how are you? Cause it's not a real question. And then working on anything exciting recently, going on any big vacations? Hey, do you love this wine? This wine is pretty good, huh? Those are all ways that you're signaling, cueing, what kind of interaction you wanna have.

And that sets yourself up for success.

Interesting.

So those are the few questions you would ask.

Those are the exciting vacation. Vacation. And then what I call context cues.

So whatever you're doing in the moment, like, isn't this cool?

Or you're like, God, isn't this restaurant great? Wasn't that speaker awesome? Hey, how's the wine?

Did you get any drinks?

Right, so yeah. You'll never run out of things to talk about if you're looking for context cues.

Sure, sure. Right, like, I could even be like, wow, three cameras, Louis, impressive.

Yeah. Okay, now we're talking about cameras.

It's actually four, but yeah, you missed it.

Where?

Oh, it's two on me over there.

Oh my gosh. It's so good. I am impressed. You just activated my mind to feel.

Like you like me and that you're impressed with me. Now I feel good and at ease. Okay, cool.

Yeah, so that's how it kind of works. One of the questions I like as.

Well is what are you most grateful for? And maybe it's not the first one, but I like to keep it one of the first few.

And maybe that's wrong, I don't know. No, I love it. I mean, you're-- you-'re triggering gratitude. You're triggering gratitude and you're setting an intention of like, I don't want to talk about surface. Exactly. Right. And by the way, it goes the other way too. Like if you're with someone who like you're not comfortable with or you're ambivalent about or you don't want to build a deep relationship, you want to avoid those kind of personal topics because you're not safe yet. And that's also a really important internal trigger. There's, did I tell you about the skydiver study when we talked last time? Probably. Oh my gosh, this is like one of my favorite new studies. So yeah. what they did is this thing happened to be New York City. I was in New York City and I was walking by myself after a dinner party into the subway. New York City is like not like I love New York, but like at night by yourself it's like. So I was like kind of already nervous and I walk into the subway, walk on the car and like immediately I feel fear. Like, you know that feeling you get like in the pit of your stomach where you're like and like I could feel the hairs in the back of my neck stand up and I was like, What is it? What is it? What is it? And I'm looking around the car and everything looks fine. And right before the door is closed, a guy standing right next to me grabs the purse of the woman sitting, the elderly woman sitting, and runs out the doors. No way. Now thank God people stopped him within five minutes of him, within five seconds of him getting off of the car, got the purse back. But I was like, How did I know?

How did you know?

So I was like, I don't think I'm psychic. So there's what else is going on here? So there was a study that was done where they had first time skydivers before they went up in the air, run on the treadmill. They run on the treadmill enough to get them real sweaty and they had them more sweat pads to absorb their sweat. They took those sweat pads out, they put them in a new sweat suit and then they had them jump out of a plane, took those sweat pads. Obviously get a little sweaty when you're jumping out of a plane.

Sure.

Then they had participants smell these sweat pads. I know, it's kind of gross. See, which one was fear or which one's excitement or what? They didn't even tell them what they were smelling. They put them in a brain scanner and they had them smell each one. And these people had no idea what was being tested. They didn't even know they were smelling sweat.

Okay?

Right, right. When the people smelled the sweat pad that was used when they jumped, the person's fear part of their brain activated. In other words, when we feel fear or anxiety, we actually produce a fear chemical. This study kind of blew my mind because it means two things. One is that Three things actually. One, we produce there's a physical response to the emotion that we feel in a chemical or a pheromone second. Other people pick that up. And third, not only do we pick it up, we actually mirror it. Like we catch it like a contagion. Which means that on that train, I clearly smelled his adrenaline or his fear. And it made me very scared. Even though it only happened two seconds later, I could feel that something was about to happen. So when you show up to an event, feeling either really anxious or really nervous.

You're gonna create that in other people. Yes.

People are going to catch it from you, which is why I do not believe in the phrase fake it till you make it. I don't think that that works. I think that what's much better is figuring out where you naturally rise to the occasion where you already feel strong and confident, because I would much rather infect excitement than infect anxiety. So we We have a lot of power in our social interactions. The cues that people catch from us can literally physically not only change our conversation, but change the shape of their entire day. And so I think that that's where we're talking about here is not just like, oh, make fun conversation and smile more. It's like, no, you can actually change someone's entire being. You can change their physiology.

Yeah, but you gotta have the energy to show up in a certain way.

Yeah. It also shows up in the body differently. There was a really interesting set of studies that looked at how we feel emotion and they found that anger, for example, you have a lot of activity in the chest, in the face, and in the hands. They're bright red because usually we feel that heat in our chest. We're usually yelling if we're angry and then we might get into a fist fight. Whereas depression or sadness, we lose activity over our entire body. It's why people who are very sad or depressed want to be in bed, want to be horizontal. They have literally less activity in their limbs. So there's a lot going on that I think we still, it's very exciting. We have a lot left to learn about people. But I think that even what we know so far, there's a lot we can do with it.

Amazing. Tell me about PQ. Yeah. What is PQ?

Interpersonal intelligence.

And I love this because once, you're going to tell us what that is in a second, but you have a test in the first chapter which tells you how your personality, what is it?

Your level, your interpersonal intelligence.

Level.

Yes.

Got you. How socially like adaptive you are essentially.

Yes. So I love quizzes. I can't help it. I love quizzes. It's my, I love checklists and all those to-do boxes and things. So I was very focused on IQ, right? Like growing up, like book smarts, technical skills. I never heard about PQ. I never heard about social or emotional intelligence. So there's all these IQ tests and things like that. But I found that what a really good way to start is like, where are, where is your smarts?

Right?

Like socially, what are your social strengths? Like we even have like strengths finder 2.0. I'm working on something right now where I want to do like social strengths 2.0. Like, what are our social strengths, which are just as important as some of our capabilities? And so the quiz is sort of like, okay, where are you at right now? Right? Like how good are you decoding? So we talk about social intelligence. There's really two things we're talking about. Decoding, so spotting cues, spotting hidden emotions, decoding lies, and encoding. Encoding are the signals that you send out to others. So we're kind of testing both sides of that.

Got it, got it. And I read that people with a higher EQ or PQ also make more than people.

$29,000 more per year according to this research.

Than someone with a high IQ or a lower. What's lower?

Lower EQ.

Lower EQ. So higher EQ, you're going to make more.

That's right.

90% of the time.

That's right. We are interacting with people in ways that we don't even quantify or realize, right? Like every time you send an email, like that email has to be received, processed. There's a difference between having someone respond to it right away and having it sit in their inbox for five days. Yeah. Right? Negotiating, interviewing, around the water cooler, people still have water coolers in their office. Sure, sure. Right? Like I, and my team is all virtual and I still am using that PQ every day, all day. One exercise that sometimes I think about, you can do this if you're listening, is in the course of a day, make a note of every single interpersonal reaction that you have. It will shock you how many of those there are and how big of an impact they have, right? Like, even if it's just like a casual coffee, all the possibilities that could come out of that interaction. And then. So you make one column where you mark it all the interactions you have. The second column is, if that interaction went as good as it could possibly go, what magic could for you. So much.

So much.

But instead, a lot of our interactions are like, average.

So you get average results. Exactly. And when you, you know, I'm thinking about it, I'm probably like, I have hundreds of these interactions a day, potentially.

You do.

Especially with social media and emails and in person. And if you're at events, like yesterday I was at Oprah's event, Super Soul Sessions, and there was like, you know, thousands of people. But I met a lot of people. Yeah. Even for like 10 seconds, I've met people. Yeah, and I remember there are a number of people even I just met and gave them a hug like they always left a comment like man youn give really good hugs. Yes, as opposed to just like oh nice to meet you off like they always said something yeah that was like a positive reinforcement and for me it's like maybe the next time and maybe months when I see them but they remember I gave them a good hug.

Absolutely so that was you took something in the interaction even in 10 seconds yeah, and you made it above average.

Yes, so my I have awkward long hugs I try not to make them awkward, but I try to make them like, not like super awkward, like get off me, but like just a little extra, like an extra second. Like right when they start to pull away, I squeeze. I squeeze a little bit more, and they're like, oh, okay. Sometimes it goes bad, but most of.

The time it's worse. I mean, I have a theory that you should greet everyone like they're an old friend.

That's good, yes.

That's what I do. Hand hug. That's what I do. Because if you have that mentality, same with an email, you give so much more, like excitement, whatever. It's like, oh my gosh, you haven't seen this friend in three years, how would you greet them?

That is the way that I think.

We greet most people. Maybe not screaming after that. Right, that's the girl scream, right? Because two girls get together and like, immediately, I told you the volume would go up once I got excited. No, you're kidding. Yeah, because we scream, we go up. What I was going to say also about that, which is really very smart, is it doesn't need to be a five minute interaction. It can be 10 seconds. A lot of the time we focus on productivity. We focus on efficiency. We focus on maximizing our business revenue. All those things are great, but if we focus on some of the social aspects of that, it makes it so much easier. Let's not just optimize our IQ, our business acumen. Let's also optimize our social acumen, because you make that list of every interaction you have and all the good things that could happen if it went really well. It's magic in every other area.

Magic. Yeah. And gosh, that's why I love this stuff, because I feel like this has really been kind of the key to my results in my business in life because I would probably have, if I took an IQ test, I probably wouldn't even, you know, I don't know. I don't even know what this rankings are. I don't even know what the lowest is. I'd probably be at the bottom. And so for me, it's like, I just feel like I stack and stack and stack so much good PQ. Is that right?

Yeah. EQ, PQ.

Exactly right. SQ, whatever you're calling it, social.

Yeah.

And I feel like people care more about how you make them feel, you know, as opposed to how smart you are or whatever.

And that quote, that famous quote, I.

Think it's by Maya Angelou, you know. People don't care how much you know.

Until they know what you care is one quote.

Yes, and then people remember.

They don't remember what you say, but.

They remember the way you made them feel.

Oh, God, quote, quote. Those are my two favorite quotes. Yes, so I saw that quote, that second quote, what I just explained with the skydivers, that is the scientific reason behind that quote. So in the book, I talk about these quotes we share all the time, like the Dale Carnegie, how to, you know, Be interested to be interested. What is the science behind that?

Yeah, not just like, oh, that's a cool philosophy.

Because now that Maya Angelou quote, you actually could think to yourself, what emotion do I want to infect today? Is it gratitude? Is it excitement? Is it fulfillment? And by the way, this doesn't mean that you cannot be vulnerable. This doesn't mean you can't have a bad day. This doesn't mean that you can't go into a meeting and be like, I'm so sorry. I am feeling really down. I have those days we all do. I regularly do not cancel meetings on those days. I feel that I would rather go in and say, listen, I am just overwhelmed. I'm off. Yeah, I'm off. I'm overwhelmed. I'm sorry for that. Because I also want to catch theirs. It's not just a one-way street. We don't just infect. I also like to be infected by others. And so I feel like, and not every time this has worked, but a lot of the time it works, When I come to someone and I'm like, I am so stressed about this book launch. I am terrified. Recently, fully honest, I am in so much fear. Really? Why? Oh my God. I am so...

The book?

Yes. Why?

What are you afraid of? Everything.

I'm afraid that people aren't gonna like it. I'm afraid that people are gonna be like, you,'re not a real expert. You're an awkward person. How could you write a book? I'm afraid that, It's gonna get out there and be misused or misrepresented. I'm afraid that I put all this energy into launching, you know, launching is such a big thing, and it's gonna fail.

What's failing?

For me, it would be no one reading it.

Okay, well, that's not gonna happen. I've already read it, so.

I mean, you've had to read it. I forced myself onto your podcast. You had to read it.

My production manager read it. It's two people. It's two people. People are going to read it because it's powerful and it's what people need if they want to get results in their life. If you want to make more money, if you want to have better relationships, if you want to not be in pain and suffering, then you need to read the book.

I wrote it for me, I wrote it for them. So I think that going in with these fears is not necessarily a bad thing because then I can say, Please infect me with calm. You are so calm and so confident that that made me feel better. You're like, what do you mean? It's going to be great. I know what this book is. I'm like, Right, if Lewis knows it, Okay, like Lewis knows it, right?

--You should also have proof. Your blog does well, your courses do.

Well, and this is like an enhancement of those. --I mean, you know, we can talk about business models if you want. This was an interesting platform change for me because my platform is B2B and B2C. I've never had a book piece in a platform. So it was an interesting addition to add in a book piece, which you know, not just online courses. --It's challenging. --Yeah, it's a new platform play, and.

I'm excited about it.

It's different. I've never done it before.

It's gonna bring in a lot more opportunities. I hope so. Yeah, it will.

I hope so. People always ask, Should I write a book? And I've self-published and I traditionally published, and that's like a totally different, they're totally different bags.

Those two buckets.

Yeah. What was this publisher again? Penguin Random House portfolio. That's great. And they are fantastic. Yeah, you're gonna be fine. Don't worry about it. Wait, can I tell you something though? Sure. Okay. So, neuroticism. I'm a high neurotic and people are always like, Neurotic, it's such a bad word. But neurotic is a way, it's a way of talking about emotional stability. You are, I think, low neurotic, yes? You're not very neurotic, you're very emotionally stable.

I can have triggered moments that make me frustrated. Yes. But I think I'm pretty emotionally stable.

Okay.

But I like things the way I like them.

Ooh.

And so when it's not the way I like it, I get frustrated.

So that's about the ritual, the habit of setting things up. So as a low neurotic, you told me it will be fine.

Yes.

Now, for my high neurotics listening, you might know who you are. When people tell you it will be fine, it actually makes you more nervous.

Really?

Yes. You know what?

It's not gonna be fine. You need to work harder. You're screwed. You're gonna fail.

Okay, so let me- Is that what I should say? So like, when- I know this sounds crazy, but so neuroticism is one of the five personality traits. and it is actually, it's genetic. And what I mean by that is, so how we look at neuroticism is by the serotonin transport gene. I promise this won't get too scientific, but this made me feel a lot of relief when I read this. So serotonin is a very, very lovely little chemical that makes us feel calm. It calms us down. Yes. Like if we like almost get hurt and we're like, oh, then like serotonin is what floods our body to say you're okay, everything will be fine. Its mantra is everything will be fine. High neurotics carry a special form of the serotonin transport gene, which means they do not produce as much serotonin and it goes away.

That's why they're more neurotic.

Exactly. Because when I have something bad that happens to me, it takes me longer to calm down than you.

Depends on the thing.

Totally depends on the thing.

On the trigger.

Exactly.

If I feel like I've been attacked or something, or I've been like, Something has been questioned about me or something or someone did something to me wrong I feel like wronged then sometimes it could be weeks that I hold on to it.

Oh Interesting it depends on the thing.

But otherwise somebody like whatever like if someone's like flipping me off in the streets or something or in the driving I'm like alright on to the next.

So that my friend is a resource language thing so that means that you have a resource language of Status which means that if someone has challenged you that there's a respect issue there was a wronging there was a disloyalty there there. Right. Your value was taken from you in terms of resources. So there's six. There's six resources. Status, information, money, Goods, services and love. We all have. Need all these resources, but we typically want the resource we did not get in our childhood. Exactly.

Absolutely. I mean, I was sexually abused. So for me, when I feel like anyone's taking advantage of me, it triggers. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Right. So I understand it, you know? Yes. And it threatens you. So when. When you talk about neuroticism, someone who cannot self-calm as much, they are more anxious because they. know it will affect them for longer. Right.

It's becoming more anxious, yeah.

Right, so that is. Just affect me, huh? So I hire people who will worry for me. Like not literally, I don't have like official warriors on my team, but my lovely team, like I will say, Danielle, can you just worry about this for me? Yeah, that's smart. Because I know that if she's worrying about it, I don't have to. So you'll notice that in relationships, partnerships with colleagues, you have to be able to ask for your resource theory.

You have to be able to ask.

For things that will keep you calm. Can you take care of this for me? Can you handle this for me? Exactly, and what your trigger points are. So for a high neurotic, it might be emotional stability, right? Like worry or anxiety, and having someone else share that worry with you makes you feel better. So in a typical male-female relationship, typical, and this is not everyone-- Generalized, yeah. Generalized, the woman is the warrior, the man is not the warrior, not always, but sometimes. So for example, in my relationship, my husband is the rock, right?

So I'm really worried about something and.

He'Ll be like, It'll all be fine, babe.

And that makes you even more worried. Yes.

Because I want to know that I'm.

Not the only one worrying. So what if he says, you, know what?

Don't worry about it. I'll handle it. Okay, now we're getting better.

Better. Okay.

Yeah.

Then you can say, all right, he's.

Gonna take care of it. I like that. Especially if he's actually. And you can let go of it. I get on the way quicker. Right. Here would be the ultimate.

I got this. Here, I'll show you.

Go do something else. Oh, see, that's. That would, like, be magic, right? If he was like, does he not do that?

He does. Now he does do that.

Yeah. Communicating what you need.

Right.

So he'll say, like, I'll be worried about, I don't. I don't know, like, planning something for an in-law trip or something like that. Right. And he'll be. Babe, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna book the flights. I'm gonna let my mom know about our timing. We're gonna make sure that we have early reservations, and we're gonna make sure.

That all these things are taken care of.

You pack a week in advance? Yes. Yes, yes. I'm the packer, actually. I pack as he does the travel. Sure, sure. So like that, like I think that when we talk about how we're wired, it helps us not wanna change the person we're with. So the biggest mistake especially when we're talking about personality or resource language, is we hope that we can make someone better. The problem is, is that we are wired a certain way. 35 to 55% of our personality is genetic. The rest is shaped in early childhood. So yes, while we do have some ability to change our personality, that's called free trait theory, you can optimize parts of your personality to achieve your goals.

Yeah, and you can be aware of it and so you can move out of a shifter.

It is much better to figure out how can I work with my partner, colleague, friend, resource language need or personality in a better way. So for example, one of the personality traits is openness. So openness is like adventure, adventure, adventuriness, creativity, new ideas. People who are high open always want to try new restaurants, they want to go to new places, they're always trying new ways of doing things in their business. They're the boss that's like, let's try this, let's try that, let's do this. Low open people love habit and tradition and routine. They love having things set up the same way every time. They like to honor that routine. It makes them feel whole and one. So if you have people in a relationship where someone's high open- that are opposites. You're like constantly stressed.

You-'Re constantly stressed.

You don't have to be, but you're constantly stressed. It would be better to be like, for the high open person to be like, Hey, it's really important to me to be adventurous with food. Trying new restaurants is a thing. Is that okay with you? I'm totally okay with having the morning routine be the same. Yes. Having our grocery shopping be the same.

Smart.

But on this area, that makes me feel like, Two nights a week, we're going somewhere different. Exactly. Or do I need to have a friend who's my adventurous eater? Right. Yeah. That's like a, I think, something that we don't always negotiate in that way. And as soon as you have the language, it makes it a non-hot button issue. Right. So instead of, I wanna try a new place, you always wanna try a new place. That's a hot button issue, right? Versus, Hey, like Thursdays are our night out night. Are you open to trying somewhere new or should I, Call my friend George. Right. Right, like that's a very different kind of conversation. And my goal is not to get rid of your fights, it's to make them discussions.

Yeah, not fights.

Right. Yeah, yeah.

So you said you wanted to talk about something in the beginning, about personalities.

I did.

Now what is this specifically?

Yes, so you're like, I don't know about this stuff.

Let's hear it.

So when we talk about signs of personality, there's a lot of things out there, DISC and Enneagram and Myers-Briggs and all these these things. The only one that is scientifically based is the big five. And it's five personality traits. We talk about the five love languages, actually. That's a good one, too. So there's like special five. Five love languages. And the five big five.

Yes. I know that's not scientific. The love languages.

Actually, I mean, it seems there is some science. Very practical. There is some science behind it. Yeah. Yeah, there is. And the big five halves has a lot. Okay. And so everyone has these big five.

Personality traits, and they're either high or in them. There's one or the other.

It's high low.

There's no middle.

There is middle. It is a spectrum. This is the biggest difference between Myers-Briggs that labels you like an extrovert or introvert. A lot of people really struggle with that label. Well, I'm kind of both or I'm in the middle. Exactly. So it's all every trade is a spectrum and we have a nice spectrum and you kind of place yourself on it. A lot of these personality traits are not our choice. So that is why I brought up the serotonin thing for neurosis. the greatest understanding that we can have about ourselves is to know that our reactions, our emotional reactions, are part of how we are wired. So a lot of the times, like, you feel guilty or jealous or all these dirty emotions, right? The negative emotions that we don't like to feel. And then we judge ourselves for them. Yes. Like, oh, I'm so not gracious right now. I'm so not feeling my gratitude, right? But actually, your optimism or your negativity is wired within you, so you're better off trying to figure out what are my triggers, how my natural add and how can I optimize that? So we talked about openness, right? Figuring out how you can balance routine versus something new. Talked a little bit about neuroticism. The other one that I wanted to bring up was conscientiousness. So conscientiousness in a relationship, studies have found that this is the biggest one, that if you have a difference in your partner's conscientiousness, you have the most relationship problems.

Say it again.

So if you are different than your partner's conscientiousness, Scientifically speaking, you're more likely to have more relationship problems. Okay, so conscientiousness. Yeah, conscientiousness is how you approach detail. So high conscientious people, this would be me, we love to do this. Details, alphabetizing, steps, routine. We love lots of things.

If your partner is like, I could care less about it, it's like, oh, loosey-goosey. Hey, we'll get it to it someday.

Low conscientiousness is exactly what big ideas, strategy, doesn't want to get bogged down in the details. This is you, right? It's not me, I like the detail.

But I just see where you're coming from. It's funny, yeah.

Right, and so what happens is, is you have people who are like, Hey, let's plan a vacation. I have a color-coded spreadsheet with all the different possible locations and approximate weather in those locations. And then you have the low open, low conscientious person who's like, let's just fly to a place and figure it out when we get there. Yeah, I like that too. So I think you're in the middle.

I think I'm in the middle. Here's the thing, 'cause I love big ideas and I love strategizing about them. But I know as an athlete you've got to execute on a daily basis.

If you want to make them happen. Ooh, that's a different thing what you just said there.

Okay, so here's what I do now. Tell me what you're gonna say. So I come up with the ideas and then I hire the people who are very detailed and say, Run with it, so I can come up with more big ideas. and then bring them back to you and say, now we're gonna do this, now run with that. So I hire people with those strengths to work with me on that.

The way that, I don't know if you guys heard what Louis just said, which is that is so free trait theory. So what you said is, basically I optimize. I know that details are important as an athlete. I know that details are important in my business. So either I work those details out in a workout routine or I hire those people. So that is a great example of how you can take what you naturally are and then free trade there, optimize it so that you leverage it up. So I would say that you're probably medium-low, but you know how to turn it up in the areas that it's needed, which is probably one of the reasons why you're so successful.

And it depends too, as an athlete, I couldn't hire anyone to do the work for me. It was like I had to train all day, I had to do the research, I was constantly studying game film, I was practicing, I was doing everything myself. So I had to export it. It. Yeah, you can't, you gotta do it yourself as an athlete. So I understood it, but now that I have more resources and, you know, different part of my life, I can.

Optimize the thing that I like doing the most. And I think that that is the key to happiness, right? Like, I did a whole two-year study on happiness, and we can get into if you'd like to. Did you write a book about it? I didn't yet. I have an online course on it, but I didn't write a book on it yet. And I wrote it from the place of, like, I'm also not a naturally, like, happy person. Like I'm a worrier.

Yeah.

And so I really have to work at it. Yeah. And what I learned was is that it's actually not the big things that make you happy, it's the little things.

Including... Like the cup of coffee you're gonna get later as a treat.

Yeah, like the smell of a coffee, like the amazing juice at creation, whatever, right? Like all the smoothness of it. By the way, everyone, I went to creation with Lewis.

Yes.

And you downed your juice faster than I could drink. It was impressive. I was like, where did it go? It was magic. So yeah, so saving those things and also those moments where you have optimized your natural personality instead of changing it. That is where happiness comes from. When you can say, I'm a big idea person. I love creativity. I love strategizing. I love big ideas and big pictures. Getting bogged down in the details is necessary, but I don't like it. So therefore, I'm going to find a way to either outsource it or minimize it so I can focus on those those things. That feeling of capability, that feeling of control, is incredibly happiness making. Control is a very happy making emotion. We think about happiness as pleasure and joy and ecstasy, but actually the words for happiness are control, capability, feeling like.

You'Re in control, right? Not like controlling people or something, but feeling like you're in control of your results or your life.

Yes. And one example of this that I like thinking about is there's this thing called the Tetris effect. I don't know if you've ever heard of this. So these researchers had students.

They said the Tetris effect. I was like, Tetris effect? Tetris effect.

But I like that one too. That's very high.

Touching effect is good too.

That's good too. Yes, we can hand hug later if you want. Hand hug? Yeah.

Yeah.

So this This is not as fun as the Tetris effect, yes. So what researchers did, this was not a study on happiness, but they brought students in, they had them play Tetris.

For like four hours. Mm, sounds fun. I haven't played Tetris in probably 20.

Years, but I used to love playing games all the time. It is addictive, yeah. So they were testing something about the brain, and an unexpected result of this study is that students left the lab and were literally seeing their entire life like a Tetris board. They wanted to rearrange their furniture like Tetris. They wanted to stand in line like Tetris. They wanted to reorganize their shelving like Tetris. And they realize it in a weird way, they had primed the brain to think in a Tetris-like pattern. So what happens is, typically humans have a negativity bias. We are trained to see the negative things in the world, the bad things. This is a survival mechanism. As cavemen, we had to go, Hmm, it might rain. I better get ahead. I should really forage for the winter. we are trained to see all the problems and potential things that could go wrong so we could prepare ourselves. So our bias, our training is negative, negative, negative. We open our email and go, what's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? Right? We walk into a room and we're like, who don't I know? Why don't I belong? I'm not saying everyone has this, but there are certain extremes. I think that we can retrain our brain, just like the Tetris effect, to see in happiness patterns. So instead of walking into a room and being like, like, I don't belong. I don't know anyone. Thinking about why do I belong? Who can I know? That's a very different kind of framework to see the world. And so I think that that's about control. That's bringing control into a negative mindset and flipping it so that it's not necessarily positive. You just know where your frame is coming from.

Yeah. Okay. Control. What was the other thing?

Control, capability, and optimization.

That's the key to happiness.

Those three things, I think, are the key to happiness, yes.

Wow. Okay, cool.

And I think that they're underappreciated.

I got it.

Especially with capability.

Okay. So where else did I get us off track?

I think I got us off track. I got down the happiness.

You were going to say, we were talking about personality, something, right?

Yes. So the last thing I was going to say was with conscientiousness is thinking about if your partner is a big idea person or a detail person. Same with your partner.

Yeah, you said in most conflict of.

This is the most conflicts where you have, why didn't you clean up? I did clean up. This isn't cleanliness.

Exactly. So do you guys, you and your partner, your husband, are you guys complete opposites in that space then?

He is much lower conscientious than I am. So how does that work? So we figured it out. So for example, we figured out what needs to be changed and what doesn't. So like for example, I like an organized sock drawer. My husband doesn't care if he's wearing whatever on his feet, right? So we have, after many months of being like, did you get your socks? Did you fold your socks? Your socks are everywhere. I was like, you know what? That is his drawer. We do not share a drawer any longer. He has his side of the closet. That's what he wants. That's what he wants. So instead of trying to change him and teach him how to have a better sock drawer, I was like, no, that's a waste of both of our, it's not real to who we are. I'd rather have us optimize and say, that's his, this is mine. That's a really small example, a very concrete example, but there's bigger ones as well. For example, if you are talking about, a friendship or how you want to raise children. Someone who is high conscientious is going to want to break down all the details and plan for every eventuality. Where someone who's a big picture person is going to be like, let's meet the kid and let's see what we think. Right. And those can be major value differences. So instead of getting angry at them or trying to convince them to be more like you, big idea or detailed, the better conversation is, why don't you want to pre-plan or why do you think that going by the seat of your pants is better? Like where is the value there? How can we pick this based on actual strengths and not how we're wired? So I think that's a very different.

Kind of conversation to have.

So the three things, the ones I would focus on is how organized someone is, how big of a open adventurous someone is, and how much of a warrior someone is. And it's okay if they're opposite on.

Both those- Totally okay. all those things with you, but you.

Just have to figure it out Optimize them. And by the way, if you're single, I think that one of the things to think about is like, what is your ideal personality match? I know this is a crazy way to think about dating. Like most people are like, they don't think about this, but like, I think that if you're- that's where a lot.

Of stress comes from. A lot. A lot of pain and suffering in a relationship comes from this.

Yes, and I think that like a really fun, maybe this is me, this is my idea of fun, I think a really fun conversation you can have in the beginning of a relationship the first few dates is like, so like I read this book or I listened to this podcast on personality. Are you a big idea person or a detail person? Are you a morning person or a night person? Those kinds of conversations early are so much better than when they normally come out, which is on the first fight.

As opposed to just having this chemical attraction and being like, oh, we love each other. And it's like, we'll figure it out.

We'll figure it out. And then it's like, constantly.

Yeah.

Right. And remember that people will free trade through they'll optimize during the lust phase so that you don't actually know how much they are. This happened to me recently. I hired a developer and in his interview process he came across as very high conscientious. He sent phases, sent the proposal. I was like, Great, this is wonderful, because I work well with other high conscientious people. But he optimized for me during the interview process. Of course.

Of course.

Put his best foot forward. Of course. So I didn't ask the right questions, which should have been. So over the course of this eight-month project, how do you like to work? Are you a weekly check-in kind of a person?

Are you like-- yeah, I kind of.

Like to check in once in a while. And then I would have immediately found out. Like, oh, it's not a good fit. And then I would have been like, Shoot, He's a kind of do it as you do it kind of guy. Yeah, yeah. But I didn't know to ask those questions. So I think in the beginning of all relationships, the best thing we can do is don't let the lust overcome us, right?

So tough.

And personal relationships and business relationships, all that. Yeah. And I've seen in dating profiles, people will put their MBTI in dating profiles sometimes. MBTI? The Myers-Briggs, like ENFJ or INFJ. In dating profiles?

I've seen it. I have seen it in dating profiles.

People are obsessed with that stuff.

I forget what I Someone always tells me what I am when I forget it. I can't remember.

The NFJ?

I think so, maybe. Yeah.

Yeah, maybe. Myers-Briggs, remember, is not scientifically based. Because also we do change over time slightly, and it's hard if you have one label, like if you're just E, it gives you very little wiggle room. Yeah, yeah. I don't like that.

There's another personality test with four quadrants. Have you seen this? DISC. Is that what it is? Where it's promoter, Promoter, supporter, analyzer, controller. Yes.

Have you seen that? I think that that's disc, but I've.

Seen that one, yes. Promoter, supporter, analyzer, controller. And you kind of like, you rank, you go through a quiz of figuring out which quadrant you're the highest at. So you'd be, you know, I'm a promoter controller. First off, a promoter, I'm like a big idea. I'm passionate. I'm like excited. Let's go, let's do this. I like to be in control. I like to, you know, have all those things. And then it's support, analyze. It's kind of like the top four, but really I'm like very close to.

Almost all of them.

Like all of them are pretty high. So I'm almost like very spread out. Yeah. And like the true leaders I hear is what they say is like you want to be able to tap into each quadrant to connect to an analyze. If they're an analyzer, you want to be able to be analytical with them. If they're a promoter, you want to be promoting with them. If they're a supporter, you want to.

Be in support with them.

Yeah. So you're always meeting someone where they're at. Yes.

Not trying to have them meet you where you're at. So it's like a flexible leadership style.

Flexible leadership.

That is the same thing with emotional Intelligence.

It is, this is emotional intelligence.

Yeah. That's what it is. And it's exact same thing with that and also like expressiveness. Yes. For example, like from a non-verbal perspective, if someone shows up and they're like super bubbly and super excited and the other person's like kind of calm, it's a mismatch.

You gotta meet them where they're at.

Yeah, you gotta meet them where they're at. You gotta be a little bit ahead and you know try to get them to that space. But yeah, I think that matching and mirroring is an interesting way to think about interactions, especially like phone calls. We're doing a bunch of research right now on vocal power, which you think about vocal power probably all the time because a lot of people are listening. So what we found was, well, there's an interesting anchor study here where they looked at doctors and they found that doctors who record 10-second voice tone clips. So, hello, my name is Dr. Edwards. I work at Children's Presbyterian Hospital and I specialize in oncology, something like that. They took those clips and they warbled the words. so you couldn't understand the words that were being said. So it was, they asked people to rate those clips on intelligence, warmth, competence. Now imagine this for a second. Like, you hear a clip of, like, gobbledy gook, like, how could you rate it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. How could you book people do? They found that the doctors who got rated the lowest in intelligence and warmth also had the highest rate of malpractice lawsuits.

Wow. Yeah. Just based on confidence and voice.

Somehow we don't sue people. We don't sue doctors based on their actual skills. We sue doctors based on our perception of their skills. So in your house, how they show up, how they sound, it does not have to do with the verbal. Remember how at the very beginning I was like, whatever you say in those first few seconds is actually not as important as what you're showing up as. We even catch that on the phone. So your vocal power, you know how you say hello. And, like, what's interesting is the biggest mistake people make. Hello.

Hello.

Oh, my God. Hello. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So tone, Cadence and Pitch. Also, another one is, like, people will hold their breath while they answer. So they go, hello. That's the highest end of my vocal range. I'm working very hard right now to keep my vocal range in the lowest possible range because it's more calm and relaxed. Much more calm. It has a better Resonance. Right, but a resonance point. So if you hear yourself and you hear yourself going a little bit higher in your range, the best thing you can do is actually speak on the out breath. So if you hear the difference. So I'm going to make myself go tense. So if I get really excited and I tense my vocal cord, I sound a little bit nervous, a little bit more like a child. Now, if I speak on the out breath, it forces the words out. It relaxes my vocal cords and it makes me sound more resonant. So the best thing you can do is actually answer on the outbreath, so not Hello versus Hello A very, very different. All these careers It's funny, I heard.

Uh, my brother told me that he read some science project or something where research on when he's on the phone, he smiles when he's like saying goodbye. He's like smiling in the last, like thirty seconds and he says people can feel that on the other side.

Yes. Okay, so that is absolutely right. There are 16 different kinds of smiles that can be detected from voice tone alone.

Wow. 16.

16 different kinds of smiles. What's interesting is we're on our vocal study that we're doing right now. We haven't published this research yet, but it's super interesting. We found preliminary results. We had the same people record hello with different body language expressions.

It's like, hello.

Exactly.

Yeah, like slouched over.

We can do it right now, actually. Let's try it. See if you can guess what we're doing. So like, let's do like this one. Like really, yeah.

Hello.

Hello.

Right, versus hello.

Hello. Right, so like that's low power versus high power. Right? It's like it's supposed to change our voice. Now we make them do it for a little bit longer because it's very quick. And we also had them do microexpressions. So happiness microexpression, anger micro expressions when you pull your eyebrows together, harden your lips, versus sadness micro expressions, that's when you pinch your inner corners together. Yep. And we had them record hellos. And then we had people in our lab or participants, and you can go play if you want, listen to these clips and rate them on warmth, competence, and charisma. The same person will get totally different ratings based on how they are holding their face and their body.

So how you hold yourself on the phone matters. This is the same thing we were.

Talking about earlier, which is like, what do you want to infect? Right? If you answer the phone sad and anxious and distracted, not only do people perceive you as sad, anxious, distracted, they catch those emotions too. So what's the best thing people should.

Do before they answer the phone? Out breath.

So not holding your breath in. So like, if you can take one or two deep breaths before you answer, it will relax your vocal cord, right? So you're picking it up, who is it? Yeah, a couple deep breaths and then hello. So that's the first thing you can do.

It relaxes your vocal cords. Should you say hello?

Or if it's a friend, you're like, Hey, what's up? Either one. Good looking. Either one. I like that. I like that even better. That's a compliment. I like a compliment. Really? Yeah.

So like, Hey, this is Lewis. Hello. Hey, buddy, what's up?

Right? So one or two. It doesn't matter what you say. Exactly. It's the energy and how you're saying it. Just like when you're meeting in person.

Exactly.

Breath, yes. Breath, oh I didn't get an explosion. Yes, breath. I'm not cool. You are cool. I cannot do a fist bump. Can we just wave at each other? That's way more comfortable for me. Hey guys. Hey guys. So out breath is actually the most important one. If you can do it. The second one would be to try to actually just be as expressive as they are. So if you hear this, so you say hello, right? And they're like, hey, what's up? Oh, hey, what's up? Yeah, hey, what's up? Right, like that match is like an instant, I'm with you. I'm on the same page. Sure.

Especially for business.

Yeah, yeah.

Especially for business. Okay, I wanna get to the final part of talking about lying.

Yes.

And how you can tell someone's lying. Yes.

Oh, God. So I, when listening to-- you- don't.

Have much of this in the book.

I don't, I don't have very much.

Of this in the book.

Why don't you have this in the book? The reason is because I think this is one of those evil superpowers. Yeah, it's like it's like maha ha. It's like that because it is very powerful the science behind lie detection is is very concrete It's not a guessing game. We do know a lot about what people what happens to people when they lie the problem is is amateur lie detectors do worse than people who don't know anything about lying.

Got it.

That's my always my worry is like oh my gosh if I give someone a little bit of information I actually make them worse so for example in the biggest study on lie detection that was done We can spot lies with 54% accuracy. So flip a coin?

Exactly. It's terrible.

Like we're terrible. By the way, like police officers don't... Oh, so can you guess there's one group that did better on this? It's not police officers, it's not doctors, it's not teachers. Kids.

No, I wish it was kids.

They actually didn't test kids because that's a whole different IRB process.

Who could test who is more efficient and see if there's a lie. It's a lie. Is that what you're saying? The group?

Prison inmates.

Wow, that makes sense.

Right, as soon as I read that I was like, oh yeah, and they joked like the set a lot section is like it takes one to know one.

Oh yeah, of course.

Right, and so that was like very interesting.

Yeah, a BSer.

Exactly.

So, can't steal from a thief.

All those things, yes, exactly. The same thing happens with lying. So the problem is, is that the moment you give an amateur like a liar like someone amateur tips, their ability goes below 55%. It gets even worse.

They don't know.

Yeah. Because it's like you need the whole system. But I think there's a couple things that if you are interested in this thing or in this idea or this topic, there's a couple things that you want to start with and there are things that can immediately help you spot lies in your life. Are you ready?

Let's do it.

Okay. The first thing that you want to look for are incongruencies. So in interaction, it's very easy to control our words. Anyone can say anything. What you're looking for is incongruencies with the body or voice tone. So for example, if I were to show up and be like, I'm so happy to be here today, right? Like you can hear it. Our body language has 12.5 times more weight than our words. So with liars, what you're looking for is leaks. Leaks are incongruencies. A very common one is in Western cultures, an up and down nod, a vertical nod means yes, Yes, and a horizontal one means no. So an incongruency would be... Like yes. Right, exactly. And for people who are listening, I'm shaking my head opposite. So it would be... So did you take the cookies from the cookie jar? No. Right, right. I'm shaking my head yes. So that's like a leak. That's something that we often see where we are seeing some kind of incongruency. The other big kind of incongruency is micro-expressions. This is something that I do talk about in the book. It's sort of the first step to lie detection. is learning how to read faces.

Yeah.

I think the most important facial expression to recognize, this is the most powerful one, is the expression of contempt. So contempt is a one-sided mouth raise. Smirk. Dr. John Gottman, he analyzed thousands of couples in his love lab looking for patterns in marriages. He found that couples who showed contempt towards the other with 93% accuracy would get divorced within 30 years. I mean, you don't hear stats like that very often. So, contempt is a really interesting one. You see it a lot on liars because if someone is truly happy about something or very excited to see or happy to be there, there's no reason they're going to show contempt with a smirk. It often will come out either because they're actually not happy with what they're saying or they hate having to lie. Liars hate lying. So oftentimes, and we did a big lie detection experiment. We had people play two truths and a lie with us, and we analyzed their videos. Oh yes, it was a good one. Want to play, Louis? No, I'm just kidding. So we actually analyzed their cues. Liars hate to lie. We don't like the feeling in our body when we lie. It feels really inauthentic. So sometimes you'll see a liar who will make contempt because they're like, oh, I really don't want to have to do this. And they hold their mouth in that side. Contempt expression because I really don't like it. So the two things that I want you to look out for, and if you're starting to see it, that means you actually have an eye for it, is contempt when there shouldn't be contempt and any kind of incongruencies like that negative head nod or when someone says something but doesn't actually mean it. You start with those two steps and you're already going to increase your abilities.

Your lie detection capabilities.

Yes.

I like it. I like it. like it.

But you use your gut. You use your intuition.

You feel it, you know? Like, you're reading everything. Just kind of like you reading the guy, like, sweating and smelling it and.

You'Re like, yes, everything combined. Exactly. So actually, that is more important.

That's the most important. An eye contact as well, you know, if someone's, like, not looking at you.

And they're, you know, so Liars tip if you're lying face to face, not on video. So Liars typically look you in the.

Eye more because they want to see if you believe them. Oh, I want to see if you believe them. No way. Yes. Why don't you want to like try to do that so you could try to like just act like you're telling the truth? So either one, so really good liars.

Actually make more eye contact. Yeah, I don't believe. Yeah, yeah. Right.

So like for example, like a really.

Good liar is like, I'm gonna deliver this to you and hope you do. And they're trying to see, do they believe me? Are they making any weird facial expressions? Can I convince them? So actually looking away, shifty eyes is just a sign of nervousness. A truth teller can be nervous too. So there's all these weird myths. Also, you want to guess the mode of communication that has the highest amount of lies. So your choices are face-to-face, emails, IM, or chat, which do you think has the most amount of lies?

Text? Is that the least amount?

Nope. It is phone has the most amount of lies. And the reason for this is because.

Oh, I think I know why.

Tell me, yeah. Maybe, yes.

I bet you have it, right? Well, because one, well, I don't know.

I was gonna say anything that's not recorded.

Ah, yes, that's it.

But text is like, you've got proof or something, you can go back to it. That's exactly right though, that's why, so phone has the most because there's no paper trail. Yes. And you don't have to lie to someone's face. Right, it's really easy to turn your back and be like, I'm not lying. Yeah, so whereas email, text, and face to face, email text has a paper trail and face to face doesn't. So there's all these really interesting things about lying that we have misconceptions or we don't think about them. So by the way, if you're doing a lot of business on the phone, if you're doing a lot of coaching on the phone, you really have to be careful. I have a lot of students who are life coaches, they work with a lot of students, and they do a lot of phone consulting. What the problem with that is if it has the most amount of lies or we're talking about hidden emotions. If you're working as a coach, you really have to spot those hidden emotions. You have to think about what are ways that we can either bring the video to this, like do video chat or do in person, or at least say say, hey, I'm taking notes on this call. I'm going to send you a summary after we hang up. That actually brings the amount of lies down to email level because you're telling them that I'm going to commit this to black and white. I'm going to commit this to paper.

Yeah.

So they feel like it's trustworthy. Exactly. So whenever I do negotiations, I do a lot of phone negotiations when I'm doing corporate events, I always say, my assistant's on the line. So third person. Right. To hear. Who's taking notes? Exactly. My assistant's on the line. She's gonna be taking some notes for us. And don't worry, she'll send a full summary out. Please confirm that we got all the details right when you get it.

Amazing.

I have caught so many little lies. People don't mean it. I don't think.

Take the notes.

Yeah, because my assistant will take notes, very good notes, and then we always send it back and we say, Please review these notes and please send us a receipt that they all look good to you that we got everything right.

And what do people say?

Well, the lies that we've caught is they've overestimated amount of people, overestimated a budget, they're not the actual decision maker, and so when we reply back with that email, they have to say, you know, I'm so sorry I mentioned 5,000, but I actually think it's going to be a little bit closer to 3,000.

Right.

Right, because they know that we'll have it in writing if anything has changed. Of course. So protect yourself in the business world by adding that in there. I think that's a really important strategy for just getting more honest interactions.

What about negotiations?

Yes. So for negotiations, the biggest thing here is actually vocal power.

Power.

So going back to vocal. Yes. Because. Because we sue doctors based on our perception of their skills. The same thing happens in negotiations. We value people on our perceptions of their skills. So I know perception of their skills.

Our perception of their skills.

So when that comes through vocal.

Yes.

Because when you go to a negotiation, you're not thinking about vocal, you're thinking about what are my assets, what are my value points, what are the things I'm gonna do. Those are all important. But the very first impression, especially how you ask your is the most important thing. So for example, if you are quoting a price, and this is the hardest part of negotiation, someone says, How much do you charge? What do you cost? And you say, Question inflection, I charge $10,000.

Yeah, it's not good.

You are begging them to negotiate with you. You're basically telling them, I'm not sure of this number and you shouldn't be either. So first is making sure that you are saying, not asking. So make sure that you're going the downward inflection. So the question inflection is when you go up at the end of your sentence.

.

That's very, very not Yes, versus going down at the end of your sentences. So when you have a number you have a skill that you're going to share. Think about the verbal ahead of time, but with vocal you want to deliver that in authoritative voice tone. So, for example, like President Obama will.

Be how would you say ten thousand dollars?

Ah, so here's the bad way first. I always like to do negative practice first. So bad way is, um, it'll be, um, I'd love to work with you. I think it would be a great partnership and it will be five thousand dollars. that's the bad way. The good way is, I'd love to work with you. I think it would be a great partner and the cost would be $5,000. Right, so it's just adding it at the end. It's a finality, right? It's like saying, this is my cost and I know how much I'm worth now. If you don't know how much you're worth, we can have a different discussion about that. Sure, sure. Like I want you to own your worth. Your time is valuable, your skills are valuable. You've spent years learning to do what you do. so you have to be able to price that.

Your worth is only worth what someone's willing to pay as well.

100%.

If you can't convince or enroll someone or, you know, and then back it up with results, then, you know, you may get it, but you may not keep it.

So you've got to, like, do a lumber. And they don't have a perception of your value that way. So the first thing is the, is the downward inflection. The second thing is volume. So when we're really nervous, we will lose volume. Remember how we are excited? I go up. Yeah. So sales people, I do a lot of sales trainings. They'll do this thing. where on the point that they're most nervous about, like their weak point or something they're lying about or a bad number, yeah, we'd love to work with you. I think it'll be really great and cost will be $5,000.

Right, right.

Again, that's a social signal of, ah, this person doesn't really want to charge that. I'm gonna ask for less.

I think it's when you're like calm and comfortable when you speak about it, that's gonna come across well. Right.

And practicing saying your hardest points. So go through that practice sheet, you know, the notes you take before a meeting, and practice saying to another human being, not your mirror.

Here's my rate, yes.

Here is my rate. Or, there's other things you can be nervous about too in a negotiation, right? Like a timeline or a skill level or maybe other competitors who you think might be able to beat you. Make sure that you are practicing those comments with authoritative voice tone and solidity.

So people feel comfortable and confident.

And they catch it. And you infect that feeling. I love, like, for me, it's so easy.

I get a lot of email, inbound email requests for speaking.

Yeah.

And I never want to jump on the phone with anyone because I'm just like, it's exhausting, you know, like having these conversations. So people say we love to book you. And I literally reply with, like, one sentence. Something like, I'm 35, 000. Just let me know the dates. Yeah. And I'll see if I'm free. Yeah. That's about all I say. Yes. Sometimes they'll ask, tell me more about what it is, but usually just like, here it is. If I'm free, I'll let you know, but tell me the days.

And typically, someone who is emailing you should already know that you're gonna have a high value. And that's also part of your brand, right? You're very direct. If people wanna know about you, you have a podcast they can listen to, you have a book that they can read. And so it's also about how do you position your numbers? So yes, you can give a lot of information. right? There's different kinds of proof. There's three different kinds of proof. There's social proof. So that would be, you know, we've had 15 events in the last six months or whatever. There's qualitative testimonial proof. So this is like a CR person or a salesperson says, Lewis was the best speaker I ever had. Yep. And there's credibility proof. So media mentions, published book, bestselling author. So you have to think about, now, Lewis, you have those. You have all three of them because you have a book that's on your website, you have social proof, you have podcasts. So you don't need to necessarily go and prove that. However, if you don't have a website or if you don't have those obvious buckets filled, you need to make sure that you are hitting all three of those proof buckets in your response. So if you don't have a book or a podcast or anything like that, your email back should be so great to hear from you. First mention of social proof. I've done events for groups like yours in the past. They've done really well. I think we did three different groups last year. Social proof number one. Second, attached to this email, I have a deck with an overview of topics, as well as some testimonials from some of our previous groups that have really enjoyed us. And then here are my rates. Please let me know dates. And then at the bottom, any professional credibility mentions. So are you certified? Are you a doctor? Have you been on any media? Those can be at the very bottom. That way you're very subtly hitting those three. proof buckets, and they're very important in negotiation.

I love it. I love it. Is there anything that you want to share that we haven't shared?

Oh my gosh. I would say that the last thing, and this is something that I tried to make a big point in the book, and I don't want to hit people over the head with it, but I don't think I got it as well as I wanted, which is, I don't think you should ever pretend to be something you're not. Again, I don't believe in fake it till you make it. I think that you're better off spending your time instead of trying to be the bubbly extrovert is trying to find out what is your unique brand of charisma. Like what is your flavor? I think that the more time you can spend on that before trying to emulate someone else or trying to dial up something that isn't natural to you is a much better place to be. That's where happiness comes from. I think that's what people mean when they say authentic. And so anything I've said today in this interview or anything that you've read, said, try to figure out what's your unique take on that. Go make me prove my worth. If I said something that sounded interesting to you, go make an experiment. Go up to 50 different people in the next 50 days and see if you can try out a conversation starter if that works for you. If you can find your unique flavor, if you can treat it like an experiment, you can never fail because experiments never fail.

Yeah, that's good. I did an experiment when I moved to New York City as well, because I was like, I want to meet some new people. I don't know anyone here. Yeah. And I call it the red rose project. Can you guess what it was?

Did you give red roses to people?

I did.

Yes.

Every day I bought roses that I would give them out. Yes. This is what I was single. I gave them out to girls.

Yes. Were you only trying to meet girls?

Yes.

You were about to say, I'm not gonna lie.

I'm not gonna lie. Don't lie.

You can't.

I was trying to meet guys, too.

But this specific project was for It.

Was like dating girls. Take girls on a date. And it only lasted like four days because I met a few different people.

It worked.

Yeah, it worked, but a couple times it didn't work. What happened? I thought it was like, you know, I'm a nice guy. I'm disarming. I wasn't this weird dude or whatever. I thought I was a pretty nice guy.

I thought it was pretty good, yeah.

Yeah, but I remember I went up to one girl and she ran from me. I was like, oh my God. I was like, okay, this did not work. But most people were like, oh, thank you. They were kind of taken back. They thought I was gonna ask, and I didn't ask for anything either.

I just gave it to them.

I just gave it to them.

Yes.

And I would see what would happen. And what happened?

I was just like, smile, just say.

I wanted to give you a rose today. And I would like walk away. And did you meet people? Did you meet girls?

I did. I met a few people. Yeah. But it only lasted for like a few days, and then I was like, oh. So here's a challenge to everyone listening. I like love that. Is there a project you can do for five days? Okay, so for my introverts listening, for my lovely introverts, maybe for you it's something small. Maybe it's as small as texting a good friend, a conversation starter that you heard today, right? Like just with your good friends, deepening a relationship you already have. Maybe if you're a little more ambiverted, it's asking a new colleague to lunch or asking a friend to lunch you haven't been to lunch with. And for my extroverts, maybe it's the Louis challenge, which is go buy roses or go buy lavender. I actually did this in the streets of New York with my- Lavender? Yeah, we did little bouquets of lavender for everyone. That's cute. And just told them to have a great day. Maybe it's something like that, like buying lavender, buying a rose. See what happens. Just see what happens. See what it's like when you get butterflies in your stomach and you have to approach someone. Take a five-day challenge from today because I think that we can hear all this stuff as knowledge. We can keep it in the back.

Of our head and it makes us feel good. But turning it into action is how we actually have behavior change. Yes. Make sure you guys go get the.

Book, Captivate the Science of Succeeding with People.

I'm telling you it's a game changer. highly recommend it.

You like Lewis's chapter, chapter five, reverse engineered Lewis's success.

It's good, it's good. Final couple questions.

Yes.

If this microphone was connected to eight billion people right now and they had headphones on and you had 30 seconds to share a message that they would hear from you, every human in the world would hear this message in their language. and this was your message to the world, what would you say?

Okay, hold on. Doesn't start yet. It didn't start yet.

Doesn't start yet.

I would say there is one person in your life who you've been meaning to reach out to. There's probably one person in your life who you've been holding something back or worried about, or you've been trying to fix something. them, and it's scary to fix things. Reach out to that person and actually work on fixing it. Ask them the question you've been waiting to ask them. Bring up the thing that you've been too afraid to bring up, and try to mend that relationship, because those broken things really weigh us down, and there's a lot of potential in fixing whatever is broken in that relationship. So go talk to that person.

That's great. I like it. A lot of healing there.

Yeah, healing.

This is called the Three Truths. So if you could only share three truths and your book would be gone and all your videos you've ever created, no one would have access to anything else except for these three truths. That's all they would have of you for all of time. What would be your three truths or three lessons that you would share with the world?

Vulnerability is sexy. That's just three, right?

Yes.

Vulnerability is sexy. Lexi, own your weirdness and your confidence is contagious. Hopefully we've touched on some of those today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, good. Okay, good. Those are my thesis statements.

It's been good. I want to acknowledge you for a moment for continually using your awkwardness to help other people, to help yourself, to, you know, not feel so awkward and feel also alone, because I know you felt that way for many years.

Very alone, yes.

And I'm sure sometimes you still feel that way. So I want to acknowledge you for constantly pushing your discomfort to stretch yourself, to help yourself and to help so many people that listen to your work, that read the book, that watch the videos. So I want to acknowledge you for all that. Thank you.

For my awkward people listening, you are not alone.

Exactly. I don't know if I asked you this last time, so final question is what is your definition of greatness?

I think we did, but I actually like revisiting this question because I think that that definition can change. Absolutely. On the brink of a book launch, I would say greatness is not the success of that book launch or hitting a list, although all those things would be great. Actually, I think the real greatness was being able to put my truth truths into something and have it be so kindly accepted by others. That feels like the best feeling in the world. I think that's what greatness is. Love it. Scienceofpeople.com Get the book Captivate.

Vanessa, thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, everyone.

Bye. I hope today's episode inspired you on.

Your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps to help us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I wanna remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.