How to have better conversations (in person or online) | Vanessa Van Edwards

Here's the big how do you want people to feel before, during, and after interacting with you? When they open up your email or see your calendar invite, what emotion do you want them to feel? The more we can use those words and those intentions, the more people will pick up on those words and intentions. Here's the problem most of us fall into accidentally negative. I don't know about you, but sometimes I hop on a phone call or a video call and I'm like, ugh, the traffic was terrible. Oh, this weather is so hot. Can you believe this food? Man, it's cold in here. I accidentally start negative without even realizing it. That's another kind of social script is that we accidentally begin negative sparks. When you say words like terrible weather, hard getting here, it's been so stressful, I'm so busy, you actually trigger stress. Busy, terrible, bad. When you say those words, it actually makes people feel more stressed. Busy, terrible, bad. I don't even want to say those words anymore. It's triggering you to think, stress, busy, terrible, bad. Instead, I want you to think about how in the first 10 words of your conversation, of your phone call, of your text, of your email, of your interaction, you can spark some kind of positivity. And this is easy. What a lovely group of people. How beautiful this room is. I'm so happy to be here. I've been looking forward to this. Those tiny words of looking forward, happy, welcome actually create feelings of happy, welcome, and collaborative. The problem is, is that most of the time we think that to be professional, we have to be st, right? So we try to sound really professional in our emails or our calls. And so we remove all emotions from our emails or our texts. And so I used to send emails like this all the time. Here's a real missed opportunity for positive priming. John, I'm all set for the meeting next week. I'll prepare an overview and sample proposal for you, then we'll review them all in the meeting. Let me know if you have any questions. Keep me posted. Vanessa, this email does the job, but it's incredibly sterile. There are no emotion words at all in this email. It actually tells the other person's brain. This will be like every other meeting you have next week. What if I took this email and I thought about how I wanted that person to feel when they opened it, how I wanted them to act and behave in the meeting, and I swapped out a couple of those words for more interactive words that would sound more like this. Good morning, Mark. I'm looking forward to collaborating next week. I'll prepare a goal worksheet and overview of desired outcomes for both of us. We can work through everything together. Happy to answer any questions. All the best, Vanessa. This has the exact same word count. Same word count, but it has a totally different feeling. When this person reads words like good morning, best together, look forward, goal, desire, they're more likely to feel those emotions as well. Here are some easy word swaps to give you an idea. Instead of tell me, say share with me. Instead of what can I do for you? Ask how can I help you? Instead of let's review, let's deep dive together. Instead of thanks for coming in, ask. It's been wonderful to get to know you. Those small word choices those small word swaps are a way to add just a little bit of interactivity to your verbal choices. Second learning tool. Be sure to avoid being accidentally negative. Think about a positive opener that you can use on your videos, your calls, and your emails. Third, quick tip for Be a name Master. Want to know the easiest way to trigger dopamine? Just say someone's name. Ugh. We love hearing our own name. It's music to our own ears. And there's some interesting science to prove this. Compared to others names, upon hearing our own name, we have greater brain activation in the frontal, middle and superior temporal cortex. Remembering someone's name has been shown to make people more likely to help you and more likely to buy from you. We saw this all the time on Shark Tank. In fact, when pitchers came on and specifically mentioned a shark by name, that shark was more likely to invest in them. So they would say, mark, this would go great in your portfolio. Or Robert, we think you'll like this. Or Kevin, let's do a royalty deal. Or Lori, we're looking at you. We love hearing our own names. And so that was a really easy way for them to trigger just a little bit of dopamine in their pitch. Okay, so you might be worrying, Vanessa, how am I going to remember people's names? I'm terrible with names. Here's my tricks. Okay, this is two steps that I use to always remember people's names. Step number one, meet and repeat. The moment I hear someone's name, I say their name out loud. Some research has shown that hearing something and then saying it doubles up the learning. So if I hear that I just met Nicole, I'll say, ah, Nicole, it's so nice to meet you. Second associate and anchor. So this is my super ninja trick for names. I used to forget names even when I would say it out loud. And then what I would do is I had imagine that person knowing all the other people I knew with that name. I literally imagined them sitting around the campfire or sitting around a card table. So when I meet Nicole, I think of the other Nicoles that I know, and I imagine them all hugging and sitting together. They have found that associating someone's name with someone else with that name helps you literally group them together. Now, I rarely forget names.