Vanessa Van EdwardsScience of People, Science Of People · Behavioral Researcher, Founder, Author, Harvard Instructor

The Silent Struggle of Smart People I @russellbrunson

6 Apr 2026 · 1 min

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In this segment Vanessa Van Edwards explains that for high‑achieving, intelligent individuals, success depends not only on actual ability but on how warmth and competence are perceived by others. Many smart people focus on content and results while neglecting the delivery, leading them to under‑signal both warmth and competence. This undersignaling causes observers to doubt their credibility and trustworthiness. She further notes that virtual communication platforms like Zoom exacerbate the problem because they strip away many non‑verbal cues—handshakes, body positioning, facial micro‑expressions—making it even harder for high‑achievers to convey warmth and competence. Consequently, they must work deliberately harder to project trust and credibility in remote settings.

Chapters

This is the problem and the curse of very smart people. This is not your actual warmth and competence, it's your perceived warmth and competence. All of my students are high-achieving, very smart people, but they don't always show it. In fact, they have exceptionally good ideas. They're like, my product speaks for itself, my numbers speak for themselves. And so they prepare for the content, but they don't practice the delivery. And so they under-signal competence and under-signal warmth. If you under-signal, you are telling people to doubt and dismiss you because your cues tell others how to treat you. So if you are sending signals of warmth and competence, you will be treated with more trust and credibility. You also inspire it. Charisma— people are very contagious. If you undersignal, you are stoic, you don't show enough of the warmth and competence, people cannot believe you. They're not getting enough of the social signals from you to be able to say, ah, I can trust this person, I can rely on them. And video has made this even harder because on Zoom you can't see my body positioning. We weren't able to handshake or hug. Like, all those things are happening in person. And so when we only have video or even only audio, we're really limiting the number of signals we're sending. So we have to work even harder to show people you can trust me and you can believe me.