Captivate by Vanessa Van Edwards #5LessonsLearned

Hello and welcome to episode number 11 of the brand new video series 5 Lessons Learned, brought to you by BookThinkers, where each and every week the team and I will discuss the top 5 lessons learned from a book that we've read and loved. This week we've chosen Captivate by Vanessa Van Edwards. This book is about the science of succeeding with people. It's about optimizing your behavior, your daily interactions with other people, And it also educates you about where you can find those little hacks in life that can put you ahead. So without further ado, let's jump into lesson number 1. Lesson number 1 is to play to your social role. Athletes aren't meant to play every position, and neither are you. Introverts versus extroverts. Quarterbacks could play kicker, but they wouldn't be great at it. Just the same way that introverts could attend networking events, but they're not great at them. Instead, find your social role, find areas where you can thrive instead of having to survive, and double down on them. So that's lesson number 1, play to your social role. You don't need to play to everybody else's role. Lesson number 2 would be share your mission. Sharing your mission with your listeners allows them to share in the purpose When you're asking for something, always use the word because while sharing your purpose. So a typical ask could be something like, excuse me, Derek, do you mind helping me with my resume? Done. The chances of Derek saying yes to that depend on a lot of things outside of your question, such as are they friends with you, etc. But you can get rid of all those factors by using the word because and letting that person share in your purpose. A hacker ask, meaning somebody who understands human behavior, would sound something like this. Hey Derek, excuse me, can you please help me with my resume? Because I'm trying to move out of my house and there's a lot of pressure on me right now to do so. I think getting a new job could really help me out, and I know you're very smart, you're very intelligent, and you could probably help me out with this a lot more efficiently than I can, or anybody else for that matter. That person shares with the listener what their purpose is and also compliments them, which benefits the listener. So it's a win all around. Lesson number 2, always share your mission. Lesson number 3 is what's called the triple threat. The triple threat can be very useful when used properly. It includes your hands, your eyes, and your posture. She starts off by letting us know that successful TED Talkers on average use hundreds of more hand gestures than their counterparts, meaning the unsuccessful TED Talkers. You can talk about the same exact thing and use hundreds of less hand motions and have hundreds of thousands of less or millions less views. It's pretty interesting. Also, another benefit of using your hands is skin-to-skin contact in, let's say, a sales meeting, in an in-person sales meeting. Hand-to-hand contact releases oxytocin Which is a neurotransmitter and can really help build trust. You can't get that over the web, you can't get that on a Skype call, you can't get that on FaceTime. Hand-to-hand, skin-to-skin contact releases oxytocin, very beneficial in firming up relationships. Number 2, eyes. A lot of people make either too much eye contact or not enough eye contact, but the proper amount of eye contact can actually release oxytocin as well. It can help you form better relationships. They say that 60 to 70% is the perfect window. Any less and you're avoiding eye contact, which means you could be hiding something. Any more and you're getting too much eye contact, which means you're being too aggressive and you could be hiding something. You can be perceived as not trustworthy with either one of those. And then number 3 is posture. We've talked about this in other lessons, but If you have a losing posture and you're talking to somebody and your voice isn't great because you're all hunched over, people don't want to listen to you as much as if you're in a powerful posture, if you're trying to win, if you're trying to succeed. Humans can absolutely pick their physiology. You can focus on whatever you want and you can decide how your body is going to be postured. So know that, take advantage of it, and use it whenever you can. So that's the triple threat: hands, eyes, and posture. Lesson number 4 is what's called the thread theory. The thread theory states that the more threads you can find, meaning the more common areas you can find between you and the person you're speaking with, the better chances of having a good relationship and having them feel comfortable with you. When somebody's comfortable with you, they tend to share more information. Because humans do get a neurological buzz from self-disclosure. So once you do find a thread, keep pulling on it, keep finding more commonalities, because one will often lead to very much more. And the more you get, the better chances of having a successful conversation, or better yet, relationship with that person. So let's use the 5 Whys, which is whenever you find something interesting, always ask 5 follow-up questions. So for instance, hey, why are you attending this event? Well, I'm attending this event because I want to be a better sales professional. Oh, why do you want to be a better sales professional? I want to be a better sales professional because I really enjoy helping people. Me too. Common point. So what do you do for work then? Well, I do this for work. Why do you do that? Well, I do that because it's convenient for me, it's a good way to help other people, etc. And then just keep following up. Keep asking more whys, keep finding more areas of common thread, and all of a sudden you have a great relationship with that person. They feel so comfortable talking with you, and then all of a sudden you've hacked their behavior, you've hacked your behavior, and now it's resulted in something very positive. So with that being said, let's jump into the next lesson. Lesson number 5 is a super fun but highly underutilized storytelling technique called The boomerang. Simple enough and pretty funny. The boomerang means that when you tell a story, always bring the conversation back to the other person and let them share a similar experience. So a trigger topic or a story topic could be anything under the sun. A funny story, a story about meeting a celebrity, an experience at work, a funny thing about your kids. Whatever it is, turn the experience back to them and let them express themselves. It's underutilized. Typically, when you finish off a story about how you met a celebrity, you wait for their reaction, for them to say, oh, that's really cool, or I'm super excited for you. Maybe you're bragging a little bit, but if you turn that around and say, so tell me about a time you've met a celebrity, or who would you like to meet, or what would you have done in that situation? They feel all enlightened. They feel the ability to respond and express themselves, and that releases a lot of positive energy. positive vibes and can lead to better interactions with other people. So that's lesson number 5, utilize the boomerang. If you've made it this far, thank you so much, and we hope you've enjoyed the top 5 lessons today from Captivate by Vanessa Van Edwards. This book is fascinating, and there's a lot of additional content, so if you'd like to pick up a copy, Please check out the link in the comment section below. Message us if there's a book that you'd like us to review. We'd be more than happy to read it, whatever that book is, whether it's a new title or an absolute classic. We will read anything, and if we like it, we'll turn it into one of these videos. And then the last thing that I'd like to say is if you'd like to connect with us more, check out bookthinkers.com. It's currently a web-based application that allows users to create a virtual bookshelf log books, take down their notes, and set systematic reminders so they can retain more information from the books they love. You can accept friends, you can find friends, you can see what people are reading, you can interact with them, set goals, partake in challenges, earn badges, and a lot more. We're also updating the site, adding a lot of new features, and there's a mobile application coming out in a couple months. So stay tuned, go out there, read, retain, share, grow, and we hope to see you soon. Bye.