The Science of Communication: How to Connect with Anyone | Vanessa Van Edwards
In this interview, behavioral investigator Vanessa Van Edwards explains why conventional small‑talk questions like “been busy?” and “what do you do?” sabotage connection, as they trigger negative or scripted brain responses. She frames modern conversation as a competition with smartphones and AI, which dominate our attention with dopamine‑driven feeds. To win back engagement, she proposes three hierarchical levels of connection: (1) General traits – basic facts and easy stories that put people at ease; (2) Personal concerns – goals, motivations, values, and dreams, where "dream‑building" versus "dream‑killing" determines whether conversations deepen or shut down; (3) Self‑narrative – the internal story people tell themselves, influencing their perception of luck, purpose, and behavior. Van Edwards shares her research‑backed "power questions" that break autopilot, elicit stories, and create information gaps (e.g., “what’s the weirdest thing that ever happened to you?”). She highlights the neurochemical benefits of synchronous conversation (oxytocin for belonging and social cognition, dopamine for pleasure and energy) and warns that asynchronous media (voice notes, AI chats) lack these effects, contributing to a loneliness epidemic. Practical tactics include limiting turn‑taking to 15‑30 seconds, using the phrase “tell me something good,” employing playful guessing games, and avoiding defensive or fact‑only questions (e.g., “why are you single?”, “how much do you weigh?”). Van Edwards also reveals her personal struggle with charging for her work, reflecting a self‑narrative of undervaluing her expertise. The conversation blends research, anecdotes, and actionable advice for personal and professional settings, positioning strong conversational skills as career insurance against AI‑driven automation.
Chapters
The single worst question in any conversation is, been busy? You are literally asking the other person's brain to search for negativity. You're literally reminding them of all the reasons why they shouldn't be in conversation with you. You ask the brain, been busy? The brain goes busy, busy, busy, busy until it gets an example of being busy. Yes, I am busy.
I'm exhausted. I'm doing this and this and this.
Or if they're not busy, well, then they sound like a loser. No, no, I'm not busy.
I got nothing going on in my life.
There's no win. So been busy is the single worst question.
Vanessa Van Edwards is a behavioral investigator and founder of Science of People, bestselling author of Captivate and Hues, and her new book, Conversation with Vanessa Van Edwards.
Right now we are directly competing. Our conversations are directly competing with our phones, and we always choose the feed because it's more dopamine. So now our conversations have to compete with the feed. Our questions have to be so good. Our stories have to be so good that we actually pull you off of your phone.
How are you gonna be more funny, dramatic, interesting than 100 videos in 10 minutes.
I'll tell you how. In all conversation, what we are deeply searching for is 3 things.
With AI right now is something that so many people are using, myself including, with sharpening communication, with making sure you're saying the right thing, with all these different things, whether it be in personal or business context. And I only assume AI is going to be more used in the future by more people, what is the biggest thing human beings are lacking that will create more abundance for them in their relationships as they continue to use AI more?
So I've spent the last 2 decades studying master conversationalists. You are one of them, sir. These are people who are able to have a conversation and elevate it to connection. They're able to avoid small talk traps. They're able to create chemistry in a way that people feel heard and understood. So when we're talking about the age of AI, we are having, for the first time in history, more conversation with technology than ever before.
Wow.
Not just through technology. We've been having conversation through technology for many decades, but for the first time in history, we are now talking to it, and that is shaping our conversational Muscles. Think about this, right? I was sitting next to my husband and he was talking to AI and I was— we were both working. He was talking to AI and he goes, do better.
To AI?
To AI. Do better. No, no, that's wrong. Do a better job. Do your research. No, verify yourself. And he's talking to AI and then he turns to me and I was like, you better not tell me to do better. Right? And he was like, oh, no, no. And he had to shift gears. I could see it in his face that when we're talking to AI, we are using a kind of conversational muscle, very directive, very assertive, not polite, not about connection, not about reciprocity. And then we have to switch to talk to our colleagues, our partners, our friends. Friends, it's the same muscle.
When you say that, I can relate to that from sports into life because when I was playing football, It was like 3 hours in the afternoon was like, go and kill someone. It was literally like, put as much pain into the person across from you as possible so they feel it and they don't get up.
Yeah.
That's kind of what you're taught. You know, hit them so hard they can't breathe.
Right.
And then you're supposed to shift out of it, take the helmet off and shower and then be like, I love everyone.
Whoa.
You know, it's like, it's a switch that you have to learn to navigate and I guess compartmentalize, or what is the process?
So here's how I would love to to invite people to think about is we think about going to the gym, we think about exercising our body, we lift weights to help our biceps or our quads. It is the same thing with conversation. The muscles that we use in our brain, I know we don't have muscles in our brain, but the way that we use our brain to talk is listening, right? So you're nodding at me, I'm making eye contact, I'm also thinking about a story or research. That is also like going to a social gym.
Yes.
And what we don't realize is we are flexing our social muscles now more than ever to technology, not to each other. And this has all kinds of interesting ripple effects. So for example, most of my best friends are across the country. I just recently moved, as you know, and we're sending each other 9-minute voice notes. Now that is not conversation, but it feels like conversation, right? I'm actually talking to my phone, right?
Yes.
I'm talking and talking, which you know I love to talk. So I'm in a 9-minute voice note. I have no feedback. I have no eye contact. I have no even, they're called vocalizations. Oh, hmm, uh-huh, wow. None of those. And I have no person back to me who loves me and cares about me to say, I don't know if that's the right line of thinking.
Mm-hmm.
Or, can I double-click on that for just a second? Or pushback or feedback or hard news. And then I get one back. And then it's over. That's the conversation.
Interesting.
We're changing the way that we're doing our reps to speak longer, to have less input. And you know what? And this is why I'm here today, and I'm so grateful. Thank you for having me. We are in a loneliness epidemic. 1 in 6 people worldwide are affected by loneliness, and that number is getting worse, not better. Why? We think we're having conversation, But we're not getting the connection that we need. So we're having conversation to AI, we're having conversation via voice note, we're on social media looking at all of our friends. We feel like we see them, we feel like we know them. I am now finding out my friends are pregnant, getting married, and get a promotion over LinkedIn and Instagram. Really, I can't remember the last time someone sat with me and said, I have good news.
A lot.
No, they go, did you see my good news?
Yeah, it's true.
And then we have lost, and this is the— The chemistry, the reason I wrote this book is there's a blueprint under our conversation that is happening that is so critical that when we're having, I'll even say even a video conversation, right? So, or over the phone, that still counts. When we're talking not asynchronously, so synchronously to another human being, not voice note, not AI, our body's first producing oxytocin. Oxytocin, the chemical of love and connection.
Real-time communication, you mean? So phone call and FaceTime is okay?
Yes, and we actually do still produce oxytocin over video and over the phone. So we still have it. What does oxytocin do? for us. Yes, it makes us feel connected, but it actually gives us a feeling of belonging. So when I'm with you and I say, man, I'm feeling so lonely, like, I'm so busy and I'm so tired and I'm lonely, I'm a new mom and I'm lonely, my friend can go, whoa, tell me everything. And I get this feeling of being understood and loved. So that oxytocin is happening. You know what oxytocin also does? And I found this in the research of this book, the untalked about benefit of good conversation is oxytocin improves our social cognition, meaning if we are having synchronous conversation, we both become better at reading people. We become better at reading faces. We become better at hearing the nuance in the voice. Ooh, your voice just cracked there. Are you okay? We get better at, was that a lie? Was that true? So also, We're better with people, which makes us feel better, which makes us more confident. The second thing that it's doing is chemically, it's creating dopamine. Now dopamine does a lot of things in our body, but it's the chemical of pleasure. It's the chemical of—
Feel good.
Yes, it feels so good. It feels good, but it also gives us energy. Like that feeling of, tell me more, I wanna know more, I wanna do that with you, I wanna help you, let's go see that movie. That is actually dopamine. And right now we are directly competing. Our conversations are directly competing with our phones. You have a choice when you walk into a waiting room. You can scan your feed or you can talk to the person next to you. I'll have a lot of students, when you go into a classroom, you have a choice. Have your AirPods in and be on your phone.
Or have a small conversation and connect.
And we always choose the feed, or almost always choose the feed because it's more dopamine. So now—
Interesting.
I think our conversations have to compete with the feed. Our questions have to be so good. Our stories have to be so good that we actually pull you off of your phone. And that is a tremendous—
And that's hard to do though. Pressure.
I wrote a whole book about it. It's a tremendous amount of pressure.
How are you going to be more funny, dramatic, interesting than 100 videos in 10 minutes?
I'll tell you how. I'll tell you how. So yes, your feed is the funniest thing on the internet that day. Your feed is the best thing in the world for you at that moment. It's very hard to compete with that. But the one thing that AI cannot do is it cannot give you the feeling of being understood because technology doesn't understand in that way. And it can also not help you feel chosen.
Hmm.
I think in all conversation, what we are deeply searching for is 3 things. Do you understand me? Do you choose me? And do you love me? And technology cannot do any of those 3 things.
It can make me feel like, oh, there's a person talking about my challenge that is relatable. So I can relate to this person's idea or their message or their video or tweet or whatever it is.
Right.
But you're not speaking to them.
No. And you're not understood in that feeling of, I am being seen for who I am. I offer these, what I call power questions, and I over the last 2 decades. So my research started with just studying patterns of conversation, like looking at very good conversationalists and analyzing what makes for a good conversation. Like, are there patterns? I'm a social overthinker, which means it's a fancy, nice way of saying that I just rethink everything that I said and always worry that I said the wrong thing.
Hmm.
And that was really hard because I was like, what did I miss? Like, what did I miss? So I just started just studying what are the patterns? What are the people who say the right things? Like, are there right things? Are they doing something differently? Are they asking different questions? And what very quickly emerged, and this led to the second part of my research, is they're asking very highly specific questions. They're asking first questions that break autopilot. So they're not asking, how are you? What do you do? Where are you from? They're not asking those types of questions because they, I think, intuitively know it's going to snap on autopilot. It's going to be a boring conversation, no dopamine. The other thing that they're doing is they're asking questions The only pattern I could see with all these questions, because I was cataloging them, is they're looking for stories, not facts. People who look for facts, I mean, technology can do that, right? We Google fact-check someone, we Google someone, we're like, okay, married, lives in LA, right? Podcaster, right? Author.
Yeah.
Facts are dead ends conversationally, right? Where are you from? LA. Where do you live in LA?
Uh-huh.
How many kids you got? There's nowhere to go with that. And Creates a lot of conversational burden. So for us overthinkers, we're like, ah.
Then you have to think of the next thing to ask 'cause there's an ending. Okay, now I have to think of something next.
And then what happens when you're like, what do I say next? It's very selfish. I'm listening less because I know that in one word it's gonna be a dead end. It's gonna be my turn again. So it creates a lot of conversational obsession.
I've learned that there's 3 words that you can say to make yourself one of the most interesting people in any room. The 3 words are, tell me more. Tell me more. That's it. Tell me more.
Tell me more.
And when you create a question that doesn't have like a conclusion, but it's a story, you can say, wow, that's fascinating.
Tell me more.
Tell me more.
Right? Yes. Okay. So tell me more is one of my favorite likable phrases. I, I love it. And you're a good conversationalist, so you use it because, but if you were to ask a bad question at first, right? Like, how many kids do you have? Tell me more. It'd be weird.
Trickier.
Right? So you have to, in a way, set yourself up for success by asking for stories.
Yeah.
You're asking for stories. You're also asking for emotions.
So if you can— Yeah.
What are you most excited about is a great Right, exactly.
What are you most grateful for today? What are you most excited about? What's the biggest challenge in your life right now?
Yes. Another, if I could add one more, those are like chef's kiss.
Tell me. You got it. Those are beautiful.
No, no, those are beautiful. And those are also, you did something important there is those are safe level 1 questions.
Ooh.
Now—
Get to level 5, S tier.
I want the S tier.
I want the S tier.
I love an S tier. I love an S tier. So a mistake that extroverts make. You're an extrovert, ambivert?
I think so.
I'm an extrovert. I think so. I don't want to presume. You don't want to assume someone's status. So I think you're an extrovert. Now, my extroverts, I love you extroverts. I love you. I love you.
But you're all flawed. But you suck at this.
But you suck at— no, but you so want to connect and you're so comfortable connecting that you will sometimes skip level 1 and go too deep too fast.
Yeah, yeah. That's probably me. Right. Lots of times.
Yeah.
I've learned to read the room more now, but it's, you know, I used to do that a lot. It's like go deep right away where you kind of need some— you don't need small talk, but you need some—
Level 1.
Yeah. Level 1 talk. Okay. Yeah.
Right. So extroverts, we— you need to have learned to have really great level 1 conversation. Not how are you, what do you do, but like swapping out what you did was expert because you were swapping how are you for what's been good. Yeah.
What are you grateful for?
What's exciting? What are you grateful for? Those are swaps. If you say, what is your greatest dream right now?
Yeah. And you just meet someone.
Right? Like, no. So the second part of my research was I stumbled upon this study by Dr. Dan McAdams, and he found that there are 3 levels of connection that we have to pass through these 3 levels to connect with someone.
What are those?
Okay, so level 1 is called general traits. We have to start here as humans. General traits are the basic facts about someone: hometown, family status, job. Here's what's really hard, which I found shocking. is the social brain has to process social information in a hierarchy, meaning I cannot know your why and how before I know your what. I actually can't really connect with your dream and your goals and your learning unless I know the basics about you. I have to kind of know those basics. So extroverts, well, very, very well-meaning extroverts, they really wanna connect so bad they skip it. Like, oh, I don't need to know that. I'm gonna skip right to level 3. But the brain literally cannot process that way. So level 1 is about finding out the facts through story. So asking, have any fun plans coming up? Do anything fun this past weekend? So it's the holidays. What big plans? Got any trips? Spending time with the kids? So if you have a wife and kids, you're gonna find a way to tell me, but I didn't ask you, do you have a wife and kids?
Right, right.
Right? What do you do is another, like, I have a problem with that question.
What is the worst question anyone should ask someone just meeting for the first time?
The single worst question in any conversation is, been busy?
Really?
Been busy? You are literally asking the other person's brain to search for negativity. You're literally reminding them of all the reasons why they shouldn't be in conversation with you.
Because they're too busy.
If you ask the brain, been busy? The brain goes busy, busy, busy, busy until it gets an example of being busy. Yes, I am busy.
I'm exhausted.
I'm doing this and this and this. Or if they're not busy, well, then they sound like a loser. No, no, I'm just chilling all day.
I got nothing going on in my life.
There's no win. So been busy is the single worst question. The second worst question is, what do you do? And here's why. What do you do is socially scripted, right? We've been asked and answered it so many times that the brain is going to kick into social script. It is impossible to create really genuine connection when someone is social script. This is why that boring small talk happens. What do you do?
What do you do? What school do your kids go to?
How'd you guys learn it? And it has that tone because the brain is not awake. It's staying in that autopilot.
What's the best response for someone to break the pattern if someone asks you, what do you do?
Okay. Yes, I have a formula. So please, please, let's not ask these anymore. Okay? So we can all agree. Let's all make a pact. Small talk diet. No more, what do you do? How are you? Okay? But what we can do is people are going to ask you boring questions, and that is an opportunity. Every single time somebody asks you, what do you do? You have an opportunity to break their autopilot, to wake them up so their brain goes, whoa. What you want to do here is you want to create small hooks that give somebody a very easy follow-up. Remember—
What do you do? Whatever it takes.
What do you do?
Whatever it takes.
I'm just surviving, drinking coffee just today. Okay, so you have 2 choices. Actually, you did the first one. First one is you could be funny, right? So like—
Whatever it takes.
Right, I love it.
For what?
I like funny for how are you? Like when someone asks, how are you? You don't have to say good, busy, thanks, or good, fine, thanks.
Funny.
How are you? On a scale of 7 to 10, 7 outta 10, right? How are you? I am here today, right? Like you can break those with just funny. That's option number one if you're socially courageous. It takes a little bit of courage to be funny. Option 2 is you give them the story. So what do you do should be a basic formula that I have is give them a label first. We do need a label. I do blank. I am a teacher. I am an author. I am in marketing. For who? We also like to know who you do it for, especially if that's me. Why?
Mm-hmm.
So I do, for who? By what's your why? And in that answer, and again, everyone's answer's a little different here, is you're trying to be easy to talk to.
Yeah.
I think that the mistake that I made for many years in conversation, I joke I'm a recovering awkward person, as you know, my awkwardness came because I was, it's embarrassing, I was trying to be impressive. I was going into conversation trying to razzle dazzle and be impressive. No, actually the best way to be in conversation is to be easy to talk to, is to put the other person at ease. The best way we can do that is if we have an answer that's extremely clear, my label, it gives my who and my what. Great, you know exactly what I do. And then I give you a very easy response or ask back that puts the other person at ease and the entire conversation is better. It's also, I think, less selfish. Conversational selfishness comes from being so into your answers that you have to show something that you are or be performative. I think the best thing is to try to toss it back. Tell me more. Or also like, here's a story for you. Do you like it?
What if you're just both like, now you tell me more. Now you tell me more. Now you tell me this. Now you tell me this.
Okay, okay. This is really good.
But this is still part of general traits.
We're still level 1. We're still level 1. Okay. So by the way, you can't make it to level 2 unless you make it through level 1. So these are really good questions because I just like skipping levels though. No, no, no, no, no skip levels. No skip levels. No, no. We have to do level 1. So it's a great question. Sometimes introverts, I have an entire chapter on introverts because introverts often want to listen first. And I believe this is a big— you can argue with me on this if you don't agree. I think there are 2 types of people in the world. There are entertainers and there are appreciators. Entertainers love to tell story. They want you to laugh at their jokes. They want to share their opinion. They're happy to drive the conversation both with question and with They like sharing. It makes them feel alive and heard. Appreciators love to listen. They love to ask the good questions, and they want to be entertained. They want to hear your good story. They want to laugh at your jokes. They actually get a lot of joy from laughing at other people's stories and conversations and jokes. The problem is, if you have 2 appreciators in a conversation, it's going to be hard.
Mm-hmm. You can't be both?
We default to one. Of course we can dial up into— I'm actually an appreciator, but I interview. I'm in interviews. I don't have a podcast, so I have to—
Turn it on.
I have to turn it on. But I'm on. I'm turning it on because I know that I have to step into that role. In a conversation, if you can be conversationally flexible, it's a gift.
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So if your boss— this is a mistake people make with bosses. Bosses are often, not always, appreciators. So a mistake that people will make is they'll go to their boss and they'll ask questions. Tell me about your weekend, or, you know, what'd you think of the game? Or— and the boss is like, you know, you entertain me. I talk all day.
Yeah, yeah.
So In this way, and this takes a little bit of preparation, but I think it's worth it. In level 1, can you prepare for boring questions? Can you prepare for the things you're asked the most often? And so I would make a list of the questions you are asked the most often. What are gifts you can give? Either stories that are longer if you have an appreciator, or stories that are longer if you have an entertainer, or stories that are shorter if you have an appreciator.
Mm-hmm.
You have to prepare for both.
That's general traits.
General traits.
Step 1. Step 2?
Okay, so you've mastered someone's general traits, and level 1 is all about putting someone at ease. And then you feel like, you know, I think we can level up. So level 2 is called personal concerns. Personal concerns are goals, motivations, values, personality traits. When you're on level 2 with someone, you know 2 things about them. This is kind of the self-check. You know what gets them up in the morning. You know what pulls them through the day. You know what they're driving towards, what motivates them. But you also know what keeps them up at night. You know what worries them. You know what—
What keeps you up at night?
This book launch.
I feel like—
I mean, just so honestly.
It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work.
And also, I so strongly believe—
You're always like, why am I doing this again? Why am I doing this?
And so I Yeah, this book launch.
That's what's going on. Yeah.
That's what's keeping me up at night. And, you know, book launches are hard because reading is a commitment.
It is.
I know. Asking someone to buy a book, it's a big expense. I know. And then you're asking, can I have 8 hours of your life?
Yeah, exactly.
Can I have 8 hours of your life?
Yeah.
What a huge ask. So that's what's keeping me up at night. And I think asking that is also a gift to me because I can ask for your help and you already are helping by having me here.
I got your back.
Right?
Yeah, of course.
So level 2, here's the key for level 2, is there's a couple questions. One is asking about goals and being more comfortable in your relationships asking about goals. Yes, I'm talking about social interactions, but I'm also talking about work interactions. Do you know what all of your colleagues are working on? What's their professional goal? What's their health goal? What's their social goal? Being more comfortable if you're on level 2 with them, talking about what are you working on? If it's KPIs, sure. If it's quantifiable, that's great. But also just how can I support you? Right. And so goals, I call it dream building. Are you dream building with the people in your life or are you accidentally dream killing? Dream killers destroy connection in level 2.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm assuming we've all probably been there as well as also experienced it from others, whether it be, I don't know what you're gonna say here, but it's probably like if you're just speaking negatively or gossiping or doing things that are like pulling down versus speaking about possibilities.
Yes.
So if you're entering into conversations, like, I don't know, that are just negative, then it's, okay, maybe there is some common connection about something we don't like or we didn't approve of, or Sally said this, whatever. But is it empowering us to move forward?
Okay. Negative is the first aspect of dream killing, but it's not the only aspect. And I also don't think that you have to be positive to dream build. Like, there is such a thing as toxic positivity, right? Like, we also don't want that. What dream killing, the way that I think about it, and when I observed dream builders and dream killers as leaders, This is a lot of my corporate talks, are seeing how these 2 folks manage and lead. Dream builders are additive. They're constantly adding. So they are asking, tell me more. They're adding questions, they're adding curiosity, they're adding to whatever fire that is being stoked.
Mm-hmm.
Dream killers are subtractive. They're taking away, they're poking holes in balloons. They also do this thing, and I think this is most of your viewers, I think, Very smart people have the tendency to accidentally dream kill with trying to be helpful.
How so?
Dream killers often, not always, have a very good intention. They want to help you with their goal. But did you know? But did you know? Well, you know, the market is really— that's already been done before.
Oh, yeah.
I don't think that's going to work.
Yeah, it's going to be too hard.
Right. Like, have you thought about this? I don't know if you've thought about that. And so a lot of the times the smartest people in the room are dream killing because they're actually trying to be helpful.
It's a good thing I'm always the dumbest person in every room. I'm always lifting others up. Hey.
It's the bonus of being additive. Oh, so I think I just shared this because one, if you've been accidentally dream killed, oh, I, I wouldn't, maybe it was, maybe there was good intention there. Maybe not always. And if you're an accidental dream killer, I just like a lot of my students, I'll, I share this lesson, you know, I teach it and then they're like, I did this, or I've done this, or I've done this, or I do this now. Right. Or accuracy dream killing. I was with a couple recently and my friend was, I don't want to name them. My friend was like, oh, last weekend the craziest thing happened. We went on this road trip. We were on the 101. Her husband goes, no, no, it wasn't the 101. It was the 405. We were on the 405 and it was so hot. Well, it actually wasn't that hot. It was hot on the highway, but it wasn't hot outside. So it wasn't that hot. We were on the— and he wouldn't let her get to the story. Now, the point of the story was something totally different, but he was trying to be accurate, which came from a good intention. But it dream killed the momentum of what she was trying to say. So I think that this is level 2.
Fact check later, you know, not interrupting constantly.
Gut check, not fact check.
Yeah, yeah.
Right? Like one of my big bold quotes is like, we have to gut check before we fact check.
Yeah, maybe it was not 100% accurate, but let's hear the rest of the story.
Or like, is this the time for that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, is this the time to fact check? I always wanna fact check, but timing is the issue. And this is where level 2 is more nuanced, right? Level 2 is nuanced. You're in work relationships with people you, it's very important you get along with them at work. It's your partner sharing their big side hustle idea. There is nuance here of the timing of when we are additive and how we are additive.
Yeah. And that's level number 2.
Level 2 is dreams.
Personal concerns.
Personal concerns.
So dream killing or dream building?
Got to dream build, not dream kill. And then the last little aspect—
S tier.
Well, we're not at— well, yeah.
I mean— They're level.
Dreams are S tier. Dreams are really high. Okay. So a couple notes before we get to level 3 here is level 2 also does some very nuanced things psychologically, if I could talk a little bit of psychology.
Sure.
I studied master conversationalists, and one of those was Howard Stern.
He's incredible at what he does.
I mean, he has these incredible conversations with people where he asks questions that have never been asked before. He can get people to open up. And now, however you feel about Howard Stern, we can still learn from how he has conversations. So I studied thousands of hours of his transcripts looking for patterns. How does he do it?
Sarah, what are the biggest things that Howard Stern does?
So the biggest thing that he does, the name, the only name I could think of, I was like, there's a pattern here. I call it conversational confetti. Howard Stern has the unique ability to make conversation very exciting, especially in level 2, by sprinkling in phrases like, what's the weirdest thing that ever happened to you?
Mm-hmm.
You're never gonna believe yesterday, the most embarrassing thing. I couldn't believe it. The worst thing I've ever seen was the worst piece of advice. The best piece of advice, the most embarrassing thing, the weirdest thing. And what he's doing, I was like, oh my goodness, he is creating what are called information gaps.
Mm-hmm.
So the brain wants to know everything. It does not like having any gaps in any information. So when the brain hears the worst piece of advice I've ever been given, the brain's like, well, what is it? It creates an information gap and the brain will do anything to hear it. So we lean in, we listen better, we get excited. And then he always answers with something really on Like, he would never say, you know, the craziest thing happened to me yesterday, I got a coffee. He would never say that. So it's always authentic, right?
I was running around naked in New York City, or, you know, whatever it is.
Exactly, exactly.
Some crazy thing. It was actually crazy. Tell me more.
So like, it is— one is we never use these inauthentically. In fact, what I actually want you to think of is you actually have some very exciting, interesting worst, best things. We just have to preface it.
One of the things that we do Uh, here when we have a new team member.
Uh-huh.
And they're kind of like in their first team call. Uh, we try not to be like Howard Stern fully on, but we ask people, you know, what's your most embarrassing story?
Oh, I love—
You know, and it's kind of like breaking the ice in that way of like, love, reveal a little bit more about you.
I mean, that's level 2, dude.
You can make it PG, you know, it doesn't have to be like some crazy thing here.
Do you share yours?
Oh yeah, yeah.
Okay, great. Okay, good. But that's level 2.
No, we— and I always make my COO share his, which he crapped his pants one time, so as an adult, you know. So I was like, okay, you know, as long as he leads with that, then anything else is free game.
And then you set a vulnerability bar.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Right? Like, you set the stage of like, we all make mistakes, we all have embarrassing things. So one is just to take a step back from your stories and your conversation and just think about like, what cool stuff do I have to share? Like, what is a weird thing that happened? What's a surprising thing that I learned? What is the best advice? What's the worst piece of advice? It's weird to think about yourself in that way, but it actually is more fun. It's more engaging for you. So I think, A, he's having more fun in conversation because he's thinking that way.
Yeah.
But we can too. We can do it authentically. I would never do it inauthentically. But as I began to think about it, I was like, you know, actually there are some really funny embarrassing moments or stories. And so now when I'm living, like just living my life, if something weird and crazy happens, I'm like bringing this up in the story tomorrow. So in a weird way, it also like adds more depth to even my day-to-day. So sprinkling in these kinds of conversations in creates information gaps, which we want. And the other thing I will suggest, this is a really brave one. This is really brave, but I think people are brave who are watching. Okay, are you ready? You could also play guessing games in conversation.
Give me an example.
Okay, this works really well with introverts too. So, um, Lewis, how many kids do you have? Oh wait, let me guess.
Yeah, yeah, don't let me answer.
Don't let you answer. Because I just, this happens, I actually, this— I created this tip accidentally because I kept accidentally asking factual questions.
Answering and then answering. No. So, um, where do you live? Oh, let me guess.
Oh, let me guess. No, no. Yes, yes. So like, if I'm at like a conference and it comes up, or I accidentally ask it, you know, where are you from? Wait, let me guess. You look like a Cape Cod kind of person, right?
Like, right, right.
And then you just like, you can play, right?
Of course.
Or like, my favorite is like, um, so what are your kids' names? Let me guess. Or I'll guess birth order.
Oh, interesting.
I'll guess where they're from.
That's fun.
Just like it— I know this takes a little bit of courage.
That's cool.
But it's playful. And I think like, what are we doing if we're not having a little fun in conversation?
100%.
Yes, some of it is very serious and we're about to get to level 3 and that's where it gets more serious. But can we play in level 2?
A lot of it should be play.
A lot of it should be play. I love coming on here because we are playful in conversation. We could play guessing games. We could do whatever we want. I think that Having the courage to bring that element of play into your conversations at work, at home.
Are there certain questions you should never ask women if you're a man? And are there certain questions you should never ask men if you're a woman?
Why are you single?
People do that a lot though, right? Don't they do that sometimes? I know.
Let's not.
You seem amazing, but why are you single?
No, no. Any question for both men or women that puts someone on the defensive or sets them up to fail. I think that been busy is like a setup to fail question, right? Because you either have to be busy and talk about how busy you are, which by the way, the research shows talking about how busy you are makes you look less competent. So you're actually setting someone up to look and sound more incompetent.
You look stressed. You don't look like you're in control of your life or responsible or overwhelmed.
Yeah. So like, why would you have them do that? Or they're gonna have to disagree with you. Why are you single? One, are they really going to feel comfortable sharing that? No. I also don't love the questions like, what is your greatest weakness? I work with a lot of companies and we talk about hiring practices and interviews should be conversations in my opinion. In my opinion, interviews are a way for you to connect with the interviewee to the manager and the manager to the interviewee. And so, Approaching every single work conversation as a conversation, even a performance review, even an interview, in that we're trying to set someone up for success. And so any questions that put someone on the defensive, I don't love. So why are you single? What's your greatest weakness? And there's one other question that I'm a little bit careful of for both men and women, which is—
How much do you weigh?
No, I don't even care about that one.
How old are you? Who cares?
I mean, who cares?
Maybe not.
It's also fact-based. It's like straight to level 1, right?
It's not curious.
Yes, one-word answer. You can't be like, tell me more. How much do you weigh? Tell me more. The last question I do not like, that I have problems with, is, what's your story?
God, it's so hard. Where do you want me to start?
Thank you.
It's like Esther Perel, where should we begin?
Right.
It's like—
It's too much.
It's a lot.
It's too much.
You want to start at 5? You want to start last year? You want to start like—
And the extrovert's going to be like, well, should it start in the childhood or college years? It's too much pressure.
Yeah.
And just mechanically speaking, I was looking at the mechanics of conversation for this, and the CANDOR Corpus is the biggest database on conversation. And they found that turn-taking, just so we are clear, is 15 to 30 seconds. So you speak 15 to 30 seconds, I speak 15 to 30 seconds. That's helpful, right? And by the way, if you think you overtalk, Or you undertalk, I would recommend listening to a previously recorded call or time yourself. If you're speaking for 30 seconds and it feels too long, you might be undertalking. If you're speaking for 30 seconds and you're like, wow, that went so fast, you might be overtalking. Once we get to 45 seconds, it actually begins to feel like conversational narcissism. It's like, whoa, this person's taking up a lot of air. If you ask someone, what's your story? You're setting them up to be a conversational narcissist.
Interesting.
It's too much. It's too much for them to say. And it's level 3. Level 3 is self-narrative. That's the story you tell yourself about yourself. Actually, your book, when you were talking about the masks we wear—
Mask of Masculinity.
Yep. When I read that book, I was like, wow, this is such a great take on narrative, on self-narrative. And I was actually doing my research on self-narrative then, but it wasn't ready yet. It's kind of like the mask we wear, but it's the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. It's how we make sense of our journey and purpose in life. It's how we answer the question, how did you get to where you are today? So when somebody asks you in an Uber, what's your story? It's like trying to jump to level 3 and you're making me be a conversational narcissist. Any version of that question, right?
So what's a better question to ask someone instead of what's your story?
Okay, so now we have a choice. Right? I'm like, okay, let's get ready. If you are at level 3 with them, I can teach you some questions. But are you? Before I teach us level 3, and I will, I will, but usually level 3 is reserved for your most intimate, closest people.
Interesting.
And I think maybe 2 or 3 people in your life might really truly be here.
So we shouldn't go there with—
I think a mistake that we make in work conversation, right? Work conversation is a really important aspect of culture and engagement. If companies are not thinking about work conversation, they're missing the opportunity. Work conversations are career insurance against AI. If you can have great conversations at work, you have career insurance against this technology. But if you go too deep too fast—
Then what?
People are like, whoa. If you are trying to talk self-narrative in the 5 minutes before your collaboration team call, You're setting yourselves up for failure.
But I guess the level 2 personal kind of goals, dreams is still—
Still level 2. It's okay.
Still great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right, because you can—
So you're not surface level, you're still going deeper.
But safely deeper, right?
Yeah, that's what you're saying.
Or for example, I notice a lot of my team is virtual, and so we have a team call every Tuesday. Actually, I had the team call on the way here today.
Nice.
And we start, I noticed the beginning of our meetings were sort of, I would say, wasted small talk. Like the weather.
Oh, it's the weather. What'd you do this weekend?
I'm busy. So the launch is coming up. You know, it was like, it was like, it was accidentally negative. Uh-huh. And it was just no connection was happening at all. So I changed this a couple years ago where I said, right when we log in, we're doing tell me something good.
Mm-hmm.
We're going around really quickly. You share one really quick good thing.
I like that. Every, you know, I like having you on because you just reaffirm that I'm hopefully doing some things well. You know what I mean? Because I'm like, Everything you said here, I'm like, I like that because most of it, I feel like we are doing a lot of it in some way. And there's a lot of the things we can improve on.
There's a reason why this is so successful.
But I talked to Matt, my, you know, person who runs the business. Yeah. And often I'm like, what's the good news today? Like, tell me some good news. Yes. Instead of like, what's the problem we need to fix? Because business is all about fixing problems automatically. Yeah. It's like there's always gonna be some type of challenge that you're overcoming. It's never, I've sold millions of copies today. Everyone, you know, it's always something you've gotta overcome.
Yes. Right? Yeah.
So that's just business in general.
Yeah.
But if we can frame it with what's the good news today?
Yeah.
Tell me something good today.
Tell me something good.
Or even especially when you feel overwhelmed or overworked or it's a lifeline, like challenge after challenge just keeps hitting you.
Yes.
Tell me something good. It helps you go back into the, the dream building rather than the dream killer.
And it's, it's a casual way to do it.
Mm-hmm.
And it's a gift for your introvert.
Yeah.
And introverts often, they're like, when do I share? So I'm an ambivert, I'm somewhere in between, but what I noticed pattern-wise is introverts will not share because they don't want to interrupt, they don't know if it's the right time. So if you have a norm setting in your work culture of tell me something good, it allows introverts, one, they can prep for it, they know it's coming.
Yeah.
Two, it gives them a very boxed time. They can take 20 seconds. Oh, I had a great cup of coffee today. It can be super casual or it could be like, my daughter went to college. It could be small or big. It's norm building so that I kind of have a pulse check of my team. I don't always have time for one-on-ones every week. My team is too big. But if it's something good and I can be like, oh, someone says, oh, my parents are in town this week, I can know, cool. Okay, maybe I'll try not to email after hours, try not to text after hours because her parents are in town.
Yeah.
So it allows me as a manager to just really quickly see what's going on for you. And this is the best part. So, 2 years ago, my team member came to me and she said, Monday is my do-good day, so I have something good to share in the meeting on Tuesday. And I thought, if you're known for asking good questions, you set people up for goodness.
Yes.
Right? If people know you and be known for asking what's good, be known for asking, have anything fun and exciting coming up? Because then people save that stuff for you.
Yes. They're excited to tell you when they see you.
They're so excited. I need to mention here, what if it's not good?
Oh.
Right? What if they don't have anything fun, exciting? It's a really hard and challenging time. Great. That is an opportunity. I would much rather have the kind of level 2 relationships where I say, have anything fun and exciting? And you say, I've been really going through it. And I go, oh my gosh, tell me more. Tell me everything. So it's also an opportunity for if something is going badly, instead of how are you, there is no permission there, right? If I ask my team member, how are ya? I don't wanna hear, right? Like, that's like—
Now you're in California, you can speak like that, right?
Yeah, exactly, exactly. My California accent's coming back. I know. So like, if I ask how are you, it's not really asking how are you. It's not really. And so if I ask like anything fun or exciting, it gives you permission. We've broken the script to say it's either good or it's not good. So if it's not good or something's not fun and exciting, That is also good in that it is level 2. So I think that dream-building piece works. Now, level 3, let's talk about self-narrative for a second. So the research shows the story you tell yourself about yourself is self-creating, meaning if you tell yourself that you attract good things and you are very lucky, you are more likely to see the world through a luck frame.
Yes.
And what I really have been thinking about a lot with this research was this is not about the facts of your life, it's about the frames of your life. How do you see the facts of your life?
Yes.
When you begin to think about how am I interpreting the facts of my life? How is my partner? How is my kid? How is my parent? How is my colleague? You begin to see patterns. And this is the whole reason I wrote it. is if we can truly see people for the patterns that they're repeating over and over again, we are truly understanding them. We are truly seeing them for who they are. And if they wanna change it, the only way to change your self-narrative, really the only way, is through conversation.
Really?
First of all, I've done this. So, okay, these 3 levels exist, right? I read the research, I was like, great. I take it out in the world and I'm like, so what's your self-narrative? And people are like, what? So it's a very weird level because you often cannot self-diagnose. And so how weird is that, that I can give you all the facts about self-narratives, I can tell you about frames, I can tell you about redemption versus contamination narratives, there's different types of narratives, and we can do some soul searching, we can do some journaling, but you can only get so far. It is really hard to see it without asking your best friend and your partner.
I'm curious then, Vanessa, what's the thing that that you feel you struggle with the most internally or externally?
Oh my gosh, yes.
That all of your friends or colleagues say you're crazy because you're so good at this or you do this so well. What's the thing that you self-reflect on and feel like you're not where you want to be?
Charging for anything.
Really?
Yeah.
You struggle with wanting to charge?
I really struggle with wanting to charge.
Why is that?
People are like, you're crazy. Like, what do you mean? Like, it's like they're like, it's worth it or the course is worth it or like you're speaking. You've seen me speak, right? Like the speaking is worth it. But fundamentally, this is part of my narrative, is I feel like whatever I'm going to say is not worthwhile or it's not worthy of payment. I just want to give it to you for free.
Really?
And so I really, it's the hardest part of my business is that I have to sell anything. If I could, I would turn my whole business into a nonprofit. I would give away all my curriculum to schools and organizations. I think this curriculum should be in every school, but I literally have to pay my bills. And I have a great team. I have a very high-functioning, high-performance team.
You gotta pay them.
And I wanna pay them well. So I have to charge because to run this business, we do need a team. It's really hard to run this business. I know it doesn't look complicated, but boy, oh boy.
It's very hard.
It really is hard.
Now let me role play this then.
Okay.
For a second.
Okay. No, don't fix me.
What's happening? I'm not fixing you.
Okay.
I'm not fixing you.
Okay. Are you gonna fix my self-narrative? What's going on?
Well, if we're talking about self-narrative.
Okay.
Right?
Yeah. Yeah.
And this is part of your self-reflection.
Mm-hmm.
Um, that it's hard for you to charge.
Yeah.
Based on our relationship.
Yeah.
Would it be taboo for me to say, what age did that belief start? Is that too self-narrative-y of a conversation? No, that's perfect. Question.
No, that's perfect.
Or should I bring it back to level 2?
No, no, that's level 3.
And say, you know what? How's that hurting your dreams?
You know? Right, right. No, that, that's perfect. 'Cause like you're doing a harvesting question.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
We're, we're trying to understand. I'm curious, like, what age did that belief or story begin in you?
I love it.
Not to say like, let's go into therapy for the next 60 minutes, but as a self-reflection question for you to then say, I don't know what you're gonna say, but yeah, for you to respond, think about it and say, how does this empower me and build my dream?
Yeah. And was there a moment?
Does this, does this belief or idea serve me or, yeah, suppress me?
I think that that's, that is exactly the right kind of conversation. I think it had to have been in my early 20s, which is my most awkward stage, which is the start of my career, right? Feeling like I don't know enough, so how could I charge anything? I was really good at being a free intern.
I was really good at that. I'll work 20 hours a day for free.
That's it. I was so good at that. I also think for someone at home too, it's interesting that you would ask that question because you actually tapped into something you do naturally. One harvesting question you can ask in level 3 with people, 'cause they won't know. If you ask, what's your self-narrative? They won't know.
Yeah, yeah.
But if you say, what would the title of your memoir be? And then, what are your life chapters? So kind of that was like, oh, I wonder if that's my 20-something life chapter. Like there was a moment in there where I had to start negotiating for like my salary, what it would be. And I'm in my 40s now, so it's still there. But like I could fit it in somewhere.
I didn't ask her her age, by the way.
That I share. That I share. So I, yeah. So asking what, or thinking, what's the title of your memoir? What are your life chapters? Could you plot where the frames came in? Right? Like that, I think that's tremendously helpful. And like we could, if we were at lunch and not in an interview, we would talk about that for a long time.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right?
But for me, I mean, and maybe this is a downfall of mine because I like to, you know, and usually with people that I know somewhat well, I guess, maybe not like best friends, but people that I've known for a while, I like to ask those types of questions.
Yeah.
And I also like people asking me those questions as well. Yeah, but not everyone does. Not everyone feels ready for that. Not everyone feels like comfortable in someone asking them a question like, what age were you when this belief began that is holding you back now from actually being free of this money conversation and feeling like you can't charge for your worth?
Right.
So—
But that's good. That is good. Not everyone is your people.
Yeah.
So I think you ask that question to someone and they're like, Oh, wow. They think about it. You're like, great, they're my people. We can go there.
And I wouldn't ask that if I'm just meeting you, probably. Well, maybe I would, but after an hour, maybe I would ask that.
Yeah. If you had hit the levels, you can do it in one conversation. You can go up in one conversation. But the person who jokes with you and brushes it off and doesn't want that question, that's not your person.
Yeah. Let's stay back in level 1 then.
Right. So when you ask, for example, and I've asked this question to many people, what's the title of your memoir? Some people are jokey. And then I go, ah, they're not ready.
They're not ready. Yeah, yeah.
But good to know. Either they're not ready or they're not my person, because I like level 3. I like to go to level 2 and level 3 with people as quickly as possible. So I know I'm going to get along with a new friend. Right now, I'm literally, I moved to a new city. I'm making brand new friends right where I am. And I want to get to level 2 and level 3 as quickly as possible.
Yeah. And maybe, I don't know why the book title, What's the title of the book? I think it's called I'm Glad My Mom Died.
Yes. Janet McCurdy. Yeah.
And maybe if like your title, if you were originally starting with like, I'm glad my mom died, hahaha. But then there's a subtitle of like, and how I learned to heal my inner child in the process of, you know, the relationship with my mom. Then you're like, okay, they can bring a little humor, but there's also some depth there. Tell me more.
Right. Tell me more about that. And you just learned so much about her. In one sentence.
Yeah.
And so I think like—
That's interesting.
There's 2 things here that I would just invite people to think about, encourage people to think about, which is listening for narrative hints. People are actually leaking their narrative to you all the time in conversation if you know what to listen for. So one, you can ask those beautiful questions, right? Like that is a beautiful question of like, when did that belief start? But even if you're not asking level 3 questions yet, You can hear when someone says superlatives, always and never. Oh, that always happens to me. I just never find that. Oh, good things always come my way. Isn't there always something? Those are actual leaks.
There's never enough time, whatever it is.
Yeah, there's never enough time. And so that brings me to work narratives. So sometimes your entire life self-narrative is a lot, right? It's very deep. You might get it with your best friends, your partner. But work narratives are safe. A work narrative is a story that someone tells themselves about their success or a task. So, for example, a work narrative, you just brought one up, is I had a team member, every single time I had a check-in with him, so busy, there's never enough time. There's just never enough time. And this was true at the beginning, and then we were onboarded, and then we had a launch, and then we were done with our launch.
Yeah.
I've noticed that, I have it in my notes, every single time we've met, you've always said there's never enough time. Is there ever enough time? And he was like, well, isn't there? There's never— it's always the case. And I was like, but why is that always the case? And we were able to have a conversation about that idea that he was actually setting himself up to always be overwhelmed and busy because he truly didn't believe there was another way.
Yes.
I said, actually, I think there is another way. I don't want you to always be in go, go, go, go, go, go, go. You're going to burn out. I don't want you to feel like you're always in hustle mode. Let's create time pockets for you where you actually don't feel like that is the case. And then we are going to build them into our schedule because when you feel like there's not enough time, I also feel like there's not enough time.
Yeah.
That is a very scarcity mindset.
Yeah.
That conversation was a game changer for us. We were able to get more on the same page. It unearthed all these other things that, well, time management and task management That's a work narrative. So also beginning to talk about how we think about our success is extremely helpful with people we work with.
I mean, you're, you're a scientist, right? You study—
Behavioral research.
Human beings.
I study behavior, yeah.
You study like social behavior, conversations, body language, all these things around human dynamics.
Yes.
And if our goal is to have, I mean, maybe it's not our goal, but I feel like our goal is to have beautiful relationships with human beings in our lives, right? It's part of the reason why we're here. is you said in the beginning, 1 out of 6 people in the world feel lonely or are lonely.
Are affected by loneliness.
Or identify or are affected by loneliness. And therefore, there is some level of suffering that they're experiencing because of that. Maybe it's tied to something else, but if they're not feeling connected, they're going to have a worse experience in life than a better one, in my opinion. And what you said in the beginning as well is like, One of the main things that we all want as human beings is to be heard, seen, understood, which essentially means we want to feel we are loved and chosen by other people. And so if everything we do in conversation should be finding ways to make people feel less lonely or make people feel more connected and really find ways to make sure people feel heard, seen, and understood so they are experiencing love and the feeling of being chosen.
Yes.
Then shouldn't we always be asking these types of questions that lead into that feeling of life experience with the people we're closest with? Maybe not work team in a certain level. Maybe there's a level there, obviously, of like how deep you want to go. But shouldn't we be asking the questions around psychological blocks that hold us back from being our best selves? Just like the one I did with you, which is like, when did that belief begin?
Yeah.
If that's something you're struggling with.
Yeah.
Shouldn't we be focusing on not maybe like how to overcome that more than anything else, but wouldn't that set our relationship to whole new levels if we asked those types of questions and allowed ourselves to figure them out together? Again, not fix each other.
Right.
But find ways to build our dream life together.
I think that that is the thing that we are searching for every moment of every day. But we don't realize it. So we don't realize we are deeply searching and seeking for someone to understand my story, to someone to see me who I am. So we approach conversation, we don't know, we don't really realize that's what we're going for. So we get trapped in awkward small talk because we're like, how do I get there? What do you do? Where are you from? And so, yes, but—
And people may not be ready to answer those questions or like help you navigate what to do because they're not an expert. I get it.
But I do want to say, but yes, if we could enter every conversation with the intention of truly seeing, truly seeking to understand, and being honest and authentic enough to be understood, we all win. But there is something called vulnerability regret.
Yeah.
And it can happen where you share something vulnerable, but it's not actually safe.
Ooh, like a vulnerability hangover.
Exactly.
It's like, oh, what did I just do?
What did I just do?
What did I say? What did I reveal?
Right.
I don't feel safe.
Why did I— oh my gosh, I was met with toxic positivity. I was dismissed. Someone tried to convince me I'm not who I am. And so I share that because we also need to be protective. There's a very fine line between being courageous.
Yes.
Right. Like going and asking the questions and breaking stereotypes, but also making sure that we are protecting our core self and our core values. And so I would say like, There's no rush.
Yeah, I see what you're saying. Right?
Yes, I want to approach every conversation that way, but we also need to—
Time and a place.
Time and a place. And there are some days, especially at work, the biggest myth that I am always talking to leaders about is that conversation takes away from productivity. Conversation takes away from work.
No, but it creates connection.
It creates connection. And connected, collaborative, connected people work better. They work faster.
Let's go.
But there are days where you have to get it done. There ain't no time for tell me something good. There ain't no time for the discussion of how and why. So we also have to know as dynamic, nuanced human beings, listen, I want to hear all about how that went last weekend. We got to get it done today. We are in go zone. And we understand that too. We understand both.
Something you talk about as well in the book Conversation, how to be instantly likable in any interaction. I want everyone to get the book. Kind. This is the type of—
Lewis is like endlessly, endlessly supportive.
You know, well, this is the type of conversations I love having cuz I'm just fascinated by human behavior and human beings in general.
Mm-hmm.
Cuz this is what I like to do. One of the scarcest things is gonna be how you can communicate with another person in real time or in person or synchronously. FaceTime, I guess.
Yeah.
Because we're gonna be like you talk about, we're gonna be just using AI or social media for a majority of our conversations rather than learning how to do this.
Mm-hmm.
This is one of the scariest things in the world in my mind. It is sitting across from another human being.
Yes.
And speaking to them.
And being willing to be awkward.
It's one of the scariest things.
It is so scary.
It was my whole childhood, probably yours too, right? It's probably why we got into our line of work is to heal our own traumas from being awkward in front of people or being not liked or seen, right?
Yeah.
It's why I went to public speaking class. It's why I put myself in social experiments over and over again to fail and embarrass myself so that I could overcome the feeling of humiliation. And it's why you do what you do to study it, right?
And it's being willing to learn through friction.
Yes.
Awkward conversation, bad conversation is like, it's sticky. There's a lot of friction there. I ask you a question, you answer with one word. You ask me a question, I don't know the answer. We have to learn that way. But the problem is I think this is the last generation of humans that will learn to talk to each other by talking to each other.
Wow.
I think that more and more we have to apologize. What do we do? We go to AI and ask, how do I apologize? We have to write a goodbye letter. We have AI write it for us. We want to ask someone out. We practice with AI.
Gosh.
And so I—
So true.
Yeah.
AI is like the new calculator.
Yeah.
You know, I—
Yeah. We're no longer able to do addition in our brain.
It's true.
It's true. Yes.
You know, I stopped, you know, I struggled in math. I struggled in every subject, but math was one where I was like—
Me too.
Once I got to, what was it, like fractions? It was like something in my brain like just broke and I didn't understand it.
And you wanna homeschool?
No. Yeah. Yeah. Right. No, I'm not gonna be the one teaching them. I'm gonna teach them life skills, not like, uh, no, I was just teaching book skills.
But they bring home homework. Oh yeah.
I know, right?
Yeah.
But fractions, like something broke my brain where I was like, I don't get this. I'm working really hard to try to understand this.
Yeah.
I'm not, and I'm not going to get it. That was the, the age and the belief that I built this around, right? No matter how much I studied, it was like, I can't break through. And so I just never learned math after like 3rd grade. Yeah.
You're like, math is too hard. Done.
I'm just gonna use a calculator.
Right? Yep. Yep.
And it's kind of like AI is like a calculator for—
Hard math, hard conversation.
For conversations, for communication, for human dynamics.
Yep. Yeah. The moment it gets hard, we go to AI.
That's crazy, right?
The moment it gets— like, I, one of my friends is single, she's dating, and she said to me— Ask AI.
Ask AI. Right.
She said to me, all of a sudden the text, as they started getting deeper in their texting, His texts started to become very clearly AI.
Oh my gosh.
She's like, we could do the banter, like the back and forth at the beginning, but now she's like, I know he's using AI to reply to me.
Gosh, isn't that crazy? You could have a whole AI, like, analysis of just saying, let me— you can almost connect it to your phone and just say, reply for me.
That's what he was doing.
Instead of copy and paste, it's more like, just do it for me.
Just do it.
And here's the result that I want. Here's the outcome.
I want her to think that I'm funny and smart. Oh my gosh. And, and so We're not even learning it. There's no friction to practice it. Like, we learn conversation through a little bit of friction, right? Like, some of these things you're going to try and it's going to go great. And some of them you're going to try and you're going to be like, that didn't go so great. But that's how we learn.
Gosh.
Right? Like, confidence is not the absence of awkwardness. Confidence is feeling a little awkward and doing it anyway.
Amen.
Right? So in really good conversation, if we're sending all of our hard math, all of our hard conversations via the AI filter—
My algebra.
Right. Then we get in person and someone says something to our face and we're like, how do I sound assertive?
Hi, I'm a robot. How do I sound smart?
No, we're like, oh.
There's no confidence. It's like, let me check.
So I think this is a real—
That's crazy.
We're up against new forces, I would say. We can do it, but we're up against a very new conversational challenge, and it's going to happen in every area of our life. For example, it's going to happen in dating where you're not sure, am I talking to the person or am I not? Where you're practicing via AI and then you get in person, you realize you haven't had enough friction, and then you're not yourself. The friction comes from finding out who you are. Being like, ooh, I'm uncomfortable with that. I don't like that question, or, I'm going to be assertive. That's where you find out your boundaries, your lines. So that's going to start to be harder. You also have work conversations where you say to someone, hey, send me a strategy report. And it's really easy to ask AI to do the strategy report. Well, it is. And then you wonder—
Did they actually strategize? Yeah. Gosh.
And then you need to write a reply back about, is it a strategy report? But you have AI write it. Do you know what I—
so we're— Yeah.
It's all doable. We can do it, but it's going to take like going to the gym. We're going to have to do some social reps. We're going to have to think of our conversation, our connection, like a longevity hack.
Yes.
Right? We often think about our self-care routine and getting to the gym and going in the sauna and our skincare routine. We need to do the same thing for our social reps. How many social reps are you putting in? How many conversational reps are you putting in? Have you flexed to level 3 today?
Mm-hmm.
Are you getting to level 2 with your people? Make a list of the 10 people you interact with most and place them on the 3 levels. Are they all level 1? You got some flexing to do.
Right.
Right? So we have to— I think about going to the gym and it makes us healthier. It makes us happier.
Yes.
It is a longevity hack. The best thing we can do for our social wellness and our mental wellness is to have deep, connective friendships and relationships. To actually like the people we work with as much as we can, to actually meet with a friend. And this happened to me. I speak to myself too here, where I'd go to dinners and we weren't talking about anything. You know, you'd go to dinner and be like, and you spend an hour and a half and you're like, I just want to go watch Netflix. Like, I just want to go home. And you wonder, I had this where I was like, I am talking a lot and I don't feel connected. And so this is a thing that we're going to have to work at. I think it's so worth it, but I think it's going to be work.
Wow. Now I'm curious about, you know, your whole premise of your book is how to be instantly likable in any interaction. And a lot of people think about likability as having like charisma or magnetic energy. Do you have to be charismatic or magnetic in order to be likable? And also, are you born with charisma or is charisma a skill that you can develop?
Okay, well, the good news is charisma is absolutely a skill we can develop. Yes, there are people who are born charismatic, but it's a skill we can develop. And the funny thing is, the reason why your question is— don't get mad at me.
It's a bad question.
No, no, don't get mad at me. We changed the subtitle.
You changed it? Oh man, this is the galley. Okay.
This is— but like, it's a good— it's really worthwhile talking about.
What's the new subtitle? I want to hear the answer to this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's why I'm like, let's dig in because this is a whole thing. You know how subtitles are a thing. So the new subtitle is How to Connect with Anyone and How to Make Every Interaction Count. Why? Because I was worried about this subtitle because it assumes that you have to be likable in an interaction. And sometimes that's not the goal.
Right, right, right.
It's true. And I think like, To your question, that likability is important. And I have a whole chapter about 5 likable phrases and we talk about telling more. Yes, but it's not the only goal. The goal is to actually make every interaction count.
That's the actual goal.
The actual goal is to connect.
But if you're unlikable, does it count?
But if you're connecting, is it good?
But then you have to be likable if you're connecting.
Do you? I don't know. I don't know if that's the one.
Well, I guess there's levels of connection.
Right.
If you're at an F level, you're kind of connected, but not really. There's a depth to connection, right?
But at least you are talking deeply and maybe feeling understood or having them feel understood. For example, you could get to level 3, learn someone's self-narrative and not like it.
True.
You could be with, let's just say, a coworker that you don't particularly like. You could be with a coworker and not like them. Not that that ever happens. You don't like them, but you do need to understand them, and you do want to make interactions with them count, and you do want to better predict the behavior.
Yeah, that's true.
So if you can still get to level 3 with them, even though you're not like, yay, we really like each other. And so I took it away.
That makes sense. So the subtitle is different. Yeah, maybe it's not like love someone, but it's more of like, do you maybe appreciate but respect their ability to communicate?
Yes.
Even if you don't like their preferences.
Or you're willing to put in the work.
Yeah, yeah.
Right? Like you're willing to put in the work to be like, where are we? Right? Like, and this happens a lot with There's 2 types of narratives. There's actually 5 archetypes. There's 2 narratives, a contamination narrative and a redemptive narrative. A redemption narrative is someone who feels that no matter what they do through their hard work and their grit and their resilience, they'll overcome.
Yes.
Contamination narrative, you know, right? It's someone who no matter what they do, life is always throwing them bad circumstances. They're unlucky. They can't do anything they can out of it. Those folks can be very unlikable. They also don't like themselves.
Mm-hmm.
Right? So likability actually is less important than them feeling understood. And for you to ask, when did that start?
Yeah.
Right? When did that start that you thought that the world was against you?
Yeah. And how is that supporting you?
And how is that—
How is that supporting your dreams?
And do you want it to keep supporting you?
Yeah.
I don't have to necessarily like that about you or like you for that.
Makes sense.
But I think that I love likability. And look, I do talk about it in Level 1, especially because Level 1, it's great. If you like someone, wow, it's great. It's like lubricant. Right. If you like something, someone, everything's smoother. You laugh easier. You have a situation. So I love likability, but it's not the subtitle because it's not the only goal.
Gotcha. Okay, let's talk about charisma for a second then.
Yeah.
Does a person have to develop the skill of charisma in order to be more likable and create better connection as long as it's authentic? Because charisma can also come off as like, ah, it's like they're fake or they're putting on a performance or they're showy or they're all about themselves.
Yes. If you define charisma in a research-backed way, I define charisma as a perfect blend of warmth and competence.
That's cool.
That if someone shows up and they're open, trustworthy, good-intentioned, warm, but also competent, productive, effective, can get it done, that is essential for someone to get along with you, work with you, That way you're answering the 2 basic questions about human beings. Can I trust you and can I rely on you? If you can answer those 2 questions, then that person is going to be charismatic. So if you define charisma in that way, if you are authentically warm and authentically competent, you cannot fake competence for very long. You can do it for a little bit. Anyone can fake sounding smart, but not for very long. You can fake warmth for a little bit, but not for very long. So if you have authentic warmth and competence, it's actually a signaling issue. The research gave me the chills when I read this research because you can be the warmest, most competent person in the room, but if you are not signaling that warmth and competence, people do not believe it. Wow.
So you have to signal warmth and competence.
And competence at the same time.
Otherwise people won't believe it.
That's it.
How do you signal it?
Okay, so charisma, really charismatic people, they're just signaling more.
They're good at signaling.
Yes.
So it's more of like learning the game of signaling.
That's really important.
Rather than just being yourself, which just kind of feels a little inauthentic.
But like, don't you know that person who is super, super smart and super trustworthy, but no one believes them because they don't show it?
Yeah, because they don't have like the courage to like put yourself out there like, hey, you're amazing.
Like, it's really about courage.
Interesting.
It's less— yes, authenticity, but it's actually about courage. It's like most of my students, most of my students are super smart, super warm, But they undersignal.
Interesting.
They're the danger zone. I call it the danger zone. The danger zone is all my really smart, high-achieving students who just, they just aren't signaling their smarts and their warmth. And so they hold back and they're underestimated and they're overlooked.
It's the starving artist in my mind who's in their basement or whatever, just masters at their craft.
So good.
So talented. But they're like, but I'm waiting for someone to discover me. I'm not going to put myself out there.
Because they don't have the courage.
Yeah.
So it's starving artists.
And the other big one?
The other big one right now, so starving artists and brilliant entrepreneurs. I have so many students who are the tinkerers, the entrepreneurs. They have this great side hustle, this great idea, and they have the best business.
They're afraid to put it out there?
But they're afraid to talk about it. Why?
Because they're afraid to fail, afraid to be criticized, afraid to be judged?
It feels uncomfortable to clearly signal warmth and competence if you don't have a lot of belief in yourself. So entrepreneurs, they'll have a belief in their idea, but not themselves.
Oh man.
And that kills me because I'm like, I watch Shark Tank, right? I love Shark Tank because you see some entrepreneurs, they believe in their ideas and they believe in themselves. Their pitches go great.
And they get investors.
Yes. Because we like people who believe in themselves. We like people who believe in their own warmth and competence. So these starving artists or brilliant entrepreneurs, they know their numbers, they have their pitch deck, they have this great business idea. But they don't believe in themselves. And so they get in the room, they get to investors, they go to networking events, and they can't get buy-in because they're just undersignaling. And I hate this, but I hate this, but you can have the best idea in the world. If you don't know how to show it or share it, it will not get heard.
So what is the best way to signal that you have competence and confidence, I guess?
Well, it's enough confidence to show your warmth and competence.
Yes.
If we're gonna play with the words.
Competence and confidence.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Confidence and warmth.
So what are the signals when you're in person or in Or on a stage or in a board meeting or around colleagues or any of these things without bragging about yourself? Like, oh, I can do this and I can do that.
That's the worst, right? That's the worst. Okay, so the first thing is to understand that there are different channels that we use to communicate. There are 4 different channels. It's actually in my last book, Cues. So verbal, the words you use. Nonverbal, your body language, your gestures, your facial expressions. Vocal, how I say my words, my pace, my volume, my cadence. and my ornaments, the colors I wear, the ornaments, what I'm holding in my profile picture, what's on your set, those are all actually showing warmth and competence. Think about if you pop on a video with someone and they have credentials behind them, competent.
Yeah.
They have family pictures, warm. Both of those might be true.
Or bald.
Right, right, right. Both of those might be true, but it's just signaling. You chose what you're going to have behind you, either your credentials or family photos, but both are true. That's why it's like this is less about authenticity in the traditional sense and more about what do you want to signal. You have choice. With all 4 of those channels, you have choice. And there are things that—
It's kind of like your personal brand.
It's your charisma flavor. Exactly. We use this—
How you present yourself.
That's it. So I believe you can kind of create a recipe for your brand. You can create a recipe for your charisma flavor. For example, look at Oprah and Steve Jobs. Both of those people are charismatic. But they signal totally differently. They have their own blend of cues. And this is really important because sometimes I'm clipped on social media of always do blah or never do blah, because I know that they go crazy. But really, I want you to create your recipe. Some cues will work for some people and some won't work for others. For example, this is a steeple. This is a high competence cue. So when we touch the tips of our fingers together, for anyone who's just listening, you touch the tips of your fingers together to make a little steeple.
Mm-hmm.
This is rated research-wise as the most competent gesture a leader can make.
Come on.
Rated, yes, as the most competent gesture a leader can make. It's kind of like a power pose for the hands. It makes you look sort of wise and thought out. Now, don't drum. That's very evil. That's very— that little difference.
Scissors.
I'm going to take over the nuclear power plant. So just even that is different. So this poise versus drumming. So you can choose to do a steeple to look competent if you feel competent, if you want to. But some people are like, ugh.
That feels weird.
Feels weird. Great.
Feels like a power move or something.
Great. So that's why Kevin O'Leary on Shark Tank—
He's always doing this.
He's always doing it. And that is natural to him.
And he kind of taps like this.
Yeah, he taps. He's thinking. And you know when he's tapping, he's really processing the math. That is on brand for him. He is thinking about something highly competent and he is signaling it. We love it, right? It is that clarity of signal and that alignment with his brand fits. I would never want you to do the steeple if you're like, I feel silly. I feel silly. Then I'm going to give you other competent ideas, other competent cues. There are 97 cues to choose from, so you can choose, pick and choose. So another competent one, if you don't like the steeple—
What are 3 that you do a lot?
Okay, so my favorite, my favorite 3 in my recipe, right? This is not going to work for everyone, but in my recipe is I'm working pretty hard to stay in the lowest end of my natural tone.
Not up high.
So like when I'm talking to my girls or my kids, I'm usually talking up here. And if I'm talking up here for the whole interview, you'd be like, what is she doing? She sounds like really crazy, you know? But that's still— those are both natural to me. But I like using the lower end of my voice, like the basement of my voice. It helps me feel more grounded. I know when I am going a little higher, I need to take a deep breath. I'm going to lower my shoulders. So it's my own internal signal, but I also know it's clearly signaling to you that I feel good. So a lower tone is one of my favorite cues. It also could be called a power tone. I also would recommend at the end of your sentence, hitting it at the end. So not going up, but going down. So instead of, my name's Vanessa, instead, my name's Vanessa. That is going to give a totally different vocal first impression.
Okay.
So going down at the end of your sentences, thinking about using the lowest tone of your voice, that's one of my favorite cues. I do use a steeple on the COVID of cues, so I do like that cue occasionally, but I know it can rub people the wrong way. And then another, it's so hard to pick favorite cues. The other one that I really like would be a lower lid flex. So a lower lid flex is when I harden my lower lids. Universally, human beings do this when they're trying to see better or hear better or scrutinize or listen. It is a cue of intensity. I'm a pretty intense person. I don't know if you— like, when you're talking to me, right? Like, I'm like with you. So I kind of— it fits my brand. And so if I'm going to do a little lower lid flex, it shows you like, I am so deeply listening to you that I want to like see everything. Yeah, that's what— that works for me. Not everyone.
That's beautiful. So what is the new What's the new subtitle of the book?
Okay, the new subtitle, How to Connect with Anyone and Make Every Interaction Count.
It's beautiful.
I'm really happy that you brought up the likability thing because I haven't been able to talk about why and that nuance. And I think that really what we need to be doing right now is connecting. That's more important than being likable.
And it's, you know, my thing is having the courage to put yourself out there and knowing it's not going to be perfect in every interaction. You know, and the more you do those social experiments with yourself, just the more human you're gonna be.
Yeah.
And the more likable you're gonna be and you're gonna make these conversations count.
Okay, wait, I have 2 challenges if you wanna be brave.
Okay.
Challenge number 1, this is the safer one, but so good. Sit down with someone and invite them for a cornerstone conversation. A cornerstone conversation are these foundational conversations with people who matter to you. Could be a partner, could be a colleague, could be a best friend, could be a parent, could be a sibling.
Do you tell them this is a cornerstone conversation?
You tell them, you send them this interview. And say, Lewis and Vanessa told me that we should have a Cornerstone conversation and I love you so much, or I care about you so much, I picked you. Then I want you to do all the questions we talked about in this interview or the 9 power questions in here. I have 3 questions per level.
Oh, wow.
You start with level 1 and you work your way up to level 3. The 9th one is the hardest, right? So you work your way up. That experience of going through those questions together is transformative. It will level up the relationship or not, depending on who it is you're talking to.
Right. Okay?
So you want to pick carefully. That's challenge number 1. That's interpersonal. My intrapersonal challenge, just for your own growth, if you're willing, is to do a Yap Challenge. So a Yap Challenge is practicing the feeling of sharing your idea with authority, even if you're uncomfortable. I want you to very briefly prepare for something that you believe in, a piece of advice or a I want you to turn on your camera, press record, and film yourself for 60 seconds talking about that idea, and then stop. Don't edit it. Post it.
Yeah. One time.
One time.
Don't take 20 takes.
No re-records.
No. Just go.
Because you'll feel what it feels like. It doesn't work in front of the mirror. It just doesn't work as well. To feel what it's like in your body to feel uncomfortable and to do it and to push.
You need stakes. Because if you just say, I'm going to record this 20 times till I feel like it's ready, And that's tricky because when you've never done it before, you're like, ah, I don't sound good.
Whoa. Oh my gosh, my voice wavers. Oh my gosh, I don't use any hand gestures.
I'm gonna post this. I'm gonna look like an idiot.
Oh my gosh. But like, tell them it's for me. Like, send it to me. That's fine. Like, if you have one piece of advice for me, your favorite conversational tip, send it to me just as practice. I think that we're flexing. We're flexing.
This is powerful, Vanessa. I want to— I want people to get the book. Make sure you guys grab it. Conversation. How to make every conversation count.
There you go.
And be likable, hopefully along the way.
Also too, yeah.
Because likability is one of the— I think it's 7 Levels of Influence by Robert Cialdini. I think likability is one of them. Liking is what it's called. So there is something to being likable as well. They can follow you anywhere online, @thevannedwards on social media, your YouTube, your Instagram, all these places, your website. It is also scienceofpeople.com. Scienceofpeople.com.
I do a social strategy every Monday and an icebreaker. So if you use them in your team meetings or your conversations.
And you have an amazing newsletter if you wanna understand all these things better too. They can get the book right now. And couple final questions for you. What is the question you, 'cause you're, we're not gonna say your true age, but early 40s, right?
You said it.
41.
Okay, 41.
What's the question your 50-year-old self would love to ask you right now that will support you in having the best decade of your 40s? If your 50-year-old was in front of you right now and said, Vanessa, here's one question I want you to think about.
Mm-hmm.
That's going to change everything from your relationships to business, to kids growing up, to you becoming this You know, empowered version of yourself. What's the question your 50 or 51-year-old self would be asking you?
Maybe just because you've been doing it one way, does it mean you can't do it another? Like, I think I've been in this business for so long. You know, I posted my first YouTube video in 2007.
Wow.
Right. I've been, I've been posting a tip a week for 20 years.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
And I've been doing it the same way. And I think it's time to maybe think of a different way. I think it's maybe time. And so the question is like, could you do it a different way? So I'm thinking about some different ways to do it.
It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I've asked you this question before, but I'm going to ask you from a new chapter. You know, I guess the last time you were on was 4 years ago.
Yeah, 4 years ago.
So imagine you get to live as long as you want, but it's the last day on Earth and you get to create and reimagine or reinvent your life in any way you want to from this moment till then. You get to live as long as you want, but for whatever reason, you got to take all of your work with you. So this new book is gone, this conversation's gone, all your content gone from the internet forever.
Yeah.
But you get to leave behind 3 final lessons to the world, 3 truths for you. What would those 3 truths be?
Funny, because I've done this with you before, so it's cool to see, you know, how my own work has changed. Um, ask for stories, not facts. Like, if you just— that will get you so far. Connection is better than going to the gym or just as good as going to the gym. And if you're lonely, you're not alone. You know, I think like I've had moments of being lonely in very crowded places. You know, I was lonely in Austin even though I was surrounded by friends. And that was like, hmm, what's going on?
Something's off. Yeah. Interesting.
And if anyone's like that, I would just say like you're not alone and it it's not a prescription. Like it's it's a state. It can be fixed.
Yeah, that's beautiful. Final question: What's your definition of greatness?
Oh, do I stick with my original answer? Always questioning yourself, others. Always questioning, always learning.
Vanessa, thanks for being here. Appreciate it.
Thanks for having me again.
How you are on a first date.
is very different than how you are on a 10th date, right?
And it's still all you, but you, you have to change for the situation.
We have no choice. It's how society functions.
If we all just want to be our quote-unquote true selves all the time, society would break.
Chaos.
It would be chaos.
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