I'm Vanessa Van Edwards. I'm a behavioral researcher and best-selling author. My books, Captivate and Cues teach people the 97 signals to be charismatic. I also teach communication at Harvard University and have online courses for smart people who want to learn social skills. Today on Big Think, I'm going to be talking about how to make a great first impression, how to create a memorable presence, and how to communicate with influence.

Chapter one, how to make a great first impression. A first impression is so important for every interaction. It's the foundation for a good interaction. If you can nail your first impression in those first few seconds, everything in the interaction becomes easier. On the other hand, if you make an awkward or a bad or a disengaged first impression, everything about your connection becomes harder. Those first few seconds, you're trying to establish two things: presence and trust. The clearer you can signal your presence as memorable and effective, the easier your interaction will be. A big myth about first impressions is that your first impression happens the moment you start talking. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your first impression happens the moment someone first sees you. That means you only have a few seconds, sometimes less than a second to form that foundation of trust that you need for an entire interaction. The big question is what is presence? There's foundational research from Dr. Susan Fisk that looks at how we connect with others. There are two essential elements for presence. First, warmth. This is your trust, your likability, your openness. But second, just as important, is your competence. That's your effectiveness, your capability, your productivity.

When we first meet someone, we're trying to very quickly decide how warm are you and how competent are you? Specifically, as humans, we're trying to answer two basic questions. Can I trust you? Warmth. And can I rely on you? Competence. People with an incredible presence, a memorable presence, are very quickly trying to answer those two questions. And for you, the faster you can answer those two questions, you can trust me, you can rely on me, the more memorable and effective your presence is. When I first read this research and saw this amazing, basically a formula for presence on warmth and competence, there was one part of the research that made me take pause and we have to mention it here. This is not your actual warmth and competence. It's your perceived warmth and competence. Meaning, you can be the smartest, most trustworthy person in the room, but if you're not clearly signaling that warmth and competence, people will not believe it. I think this is the most important aspect of presence. If you are showing up to your interactions authentically trustworthy, which I hope you are, and knowing your stuff, we have to clearly signal that with warmth and competence for people to believe in our presence. The goal is not to fake confidence. It's to align your inner intention with your outer expression.

The question is, how do we read someone's warmth and competence? It all comes down to our cues. Q's are the subtle but powerful social signals humans send to each other. There are actually four channels of cues. First, our words. This is the channel we use the most. Yes, our words communicate our ideas, but actually the words we use also signal our warmth and competence. The second channel is our non-verbal. So our body language, our facial expressions, our gestures. These also signal trust, warmth and competence, reliability or knowledge. The third channel is voice or vocal tonality. This is our volume, our pace, our cadence. How we say our words matters just as much as what we say. And the last the smallest channel is our ornaments. So the colors we wear, the jewelry, what's behind us in our background, what's on our desk, the props we're holding in our profile photos. that also can signal warmth and competence. I like to split cues up into two buckets, positive and negative. Positive cues stimulate connection and engagement. They are crucial to a great first impression. The second bucket, negative cues. These signal disinterest, discomfort, anxiety. They begin to create difficult or frictionfilled interactions.

And what most people don't realize about cues is there's a cycle. In this way, we often decode cues in social settings. So we'll walk into a a meeting or walk into a room and we decode the room. We read the room. We want to see what cues are being sent to us. Do people like us? Are they positive cues or do people not like us? Are they negative cues? And this is the second part of the cycle. Now after we decode a cue, we internalize it. If someone just has sent us a cue of social rejection, our body goes, "Uh-oh, I'm not safe." And it begins to do the last part of the cycle, which is encoding. That's sending social signals back. To explain how cues work, I like to think of a study that changed the way that I think about social signals. In this study, they brought people into their lab and they had them walk into a room of actors. The actors were instructed to send the participant a cue of social rejection. A cue of social rejection is very negative. It could be an eye roll. It could be a scoff. It's something that's designed to make us feel like we don't belong. What they found was when the participant saw the cue of social rejection, their own field of vision increased. Their pupils dilated so they could see more of the environment. Why? This is the Q cycle in action. They decoded a negative Q. They internalized it. Uh-oh, I'm not safe. And then they began to encode back nervousness and anxiety.

What's critical to a first impression is showing up, encoding the right cues, sending social signals of warmth and competence which hopefully others will internalize as I can rely and trust this person and may send warmth and competence signals back to us. This is the basis of all great social connections especially at work. We are very attuned to people who are sending us positive cues, warmth and competence. So we can feel ah I'm in good hands. I can rely on this person. We also want to make sure that we are spotting the correct negative cues so we can disengage them or disarm them. Can we also debunk a myth here which is the Albert Mehrabian study that 93% of our communication is non-verbal. That study was overgeneralized and unable to be repeated. Which means that yes, a lot of our communication is non-verbal, but it's very hard to pinpoint exactly how much. Even Mehrabian himself cautioned against using this study too much and in every context. We do know that we often as humans look to non-verbal signals to see authenticity. So for example, if I were to say to you, hey, I'm so happy to see you. You are more likely to believe my non-verbal over my words. In this way, we know that non-verbal makes up a critical amount of our communication and it should not be ignored.

The goal in every interaction is to make our cues purposeful so that we are sending signals that put people at ease, that make them feel that they're in the right hand and they can actually open up to connect with you. Also, if we're purposeful and intentional with our cues, it puts us in the driver's seat. It makes us feel intentional and in control, which is the back door into confidence.

The next question that we have to answer is, what do we do if someone sends us a negative cue? How do we stop it from hijacking our emotions? How do we make sure that we're internalizing it and not letting us throw us off our game? Luckily, there is amazing research from Dr. Matthew Lieberman at UCLA. He devised a very interesting experiment. He brought people into his lab and he put them in fMRIs, scanned their brain, and he showed them pictures of fearful and angry faces. What he found is that when people were in the scanner and they saw the picture of a fearful or angry face, they in fact caught the emotion, that part of their amygdala that is very fear-based also lit up. In this way, emotions are contagious. If we see someone show us an angry face or a scared face, we catch that anger or fear. But here's the best part. When he taught them to say or label anger fear, it disengaged the amygdala. It made it so that those participants no longer felt angry and afraid. In this way, learning how to label cues is super empowering. It's the only way that we can stop that hijacking process.

The first cue I want to teach you is called a punctuator. So, a punctuator is a habitual cue that someone uses. For example, you might have someone who punctuates with a surprise micro-expression. That's when someone widens their eyes and opens their mouth. For them, they might be when they're curious, when they're happy. That would not mean they are constantly surprised. Everyone in your life probably has a punctuator they use out of habit. You probably have one as well. Before I teach you what all the cues mean, it's important to understand first what your punctuator is. A really easy way to do this is to watch a video of yourself, maybe a previous meeting recording, and watch yourself on silent. What non-verbal cue are you doing with your face or your hands or your body that you do out of habit? Same thing with the people you work with or the people in your life. What are they punctuating with? For them, that is their non-verbal habit.

First, let's talk about my favorite warmth cues in a first impression. What happens when you first see someone? You typically reach out for a handshake, a cheek kiss, a fist bump, a high five, a hug, a side hug, but not those. This is your human to human instinct to reach out and touch. Now, touch has a lot of different meanings around the world, but what we do know is when one human touches another, we produce a little chemical called oxytocin. Oxytocin does a lot of things in our body, but for our social purposes, it's the chemical of connection. The moment you skin-to-skin touch with someone, you produce this chemical that is the feeling of connection. It makes you feel rapport. It makes you feel trust. The reason when we first meet someone, we want to touch is we're trying to generate the exact chemical we need for warmth. So, you have a few options when you first meet someone, and I highly recommend picking the one that you are most comfortable with that works in your culture. If you can reach out for a handshake, we typically like one to three pumps with a new person. You also might reach out for a cheek kiss or a high five. Those are also great as long as they're reciprocated. And know that the amount of touch increases the amount of oxytocin. A hug produces more oxytocin than a handshake. A handshake produces more oxytocin than a high five. You pick.

We talked about the body language. We also have to talk about the tonality. Here is the biggest mistake people make in a first impression. They hold their breath and their hello sounds like this. Hello. all the way up here. Little bit of vocal fry. When we hold our breath, especially on that first word, it makes us sound anxious. Low competence. I want you to practice what I call a happy hello. This is saying hello on the out-breath. And if you genuinely feel happy to see someone with a smile. So, here's the difference. Nervous hello. This is the one I don't want you to do. Hello. Here's the happy hello. Hello. Notice how both sound like me, but one is more in my natural voice tone. I highly recommend before you answer the phone, before you hop on a video call, before you walk into the office, before you walk into a room, before you walk on a date, you say hello on the out-breath. That immediately relaxes your vocal cords and make sure you're not accidentally hitting that highest end of your range.

How do we signal competence in just a few seconds? This is actually more about disarming someone. When we can see someone's palm, we know they're not hiding anything from us. It literally shows the intention of I'm open to you. I could reach out and shake your hands. I could acknowledge you. So when you walk on stage, hop on video, walk into a room. I want you to do a palm flash. Morning. Good to see everyone. Hi everyone. Or come on over. Hey, good to see you. Sit with me. We love a palm because I think from back from our caveman days, it made us feel like someone wasn't hiding something from us. See what happens when I put my hands behind my back. Imagine if I were to teach this entire video not showing my hands. Your brain would begin to get distracted with the fact that you couldn't see my hands. And that's because when we can't see someone's hands, we worry about their intention. You're like, "What are her hands doing back there?" And the moment I bring them back out, you're like, "Ah, I can trust her again." You want to have your hands visible the moment someone can first see you. So, avoid those pockets. I know they're comfy. Avoid hiding them in a purse or behind a computer or a clipboard. Make sure your hands are visible, especially in those first few seconds.

One of my absolute favorite sweet spot cues, it's both warm and competent, is gaze. Now, the amount of gaze you make varies from culture to culture. But what we do know is that when humans make eye contact, we also produce oxytocin. So, let's say that you can't shake hands with someone or you are in a culture that doesn't touch. Making eye contact is also a great way to produce that chemical of connection. Now, in Western cultures, we like to have eye contact about 60 to 70% of the time. And that means you shouldn't be making 100% eye contact. It's very natural to think and look away or look around the room or glance away if you're processing something. The key here is that you are making eye contact when you are making an important point and you're making eye contact when they are making an important point. Try to hit that 60 to 70% sweet spot if you can.

So, let's break down where we are in the interaction so far. You've entered into a room or hopped on video. They see you. You do a palm flash. Great. They can trust you. You're making gaze. Maybe you reach out and touch, high five, handshake, hug. The next thing you want to be aware of is fronting. Fronting is angling your torso, your toes, your head towards the person you're speaking with. We really like to feel like we're on parallel lines with someone. So, when you're interacting, even if you're in a group, if you can angle your body towards the person that's speaking, it's like a nonverbal sign of respect. It's literally showing, I am physically on the same page as you, and therefore, we can connect more deeply.

Now, let me teach you the cue that kills any momentum, any charisma, any warmth, any competence. It's blocking. Oh, I know. I know. Crossing our arms is so comfortable, but the moment I crossed my arms, I probably came across as more close-minded to you. Research even shows that the longer I close my arms, the more closed-minded my own thinking becomes. Anti-blocking or opening up your torso, making sure you're not blocking any part of your torso, is a way of signaling, I literally want to open up to you. It also helps your own thinking. So, try as much as you can, unless it's cold, to make sure that you have your torso open, your arms uncrossed. Don't hold a book or a coffee mug or a computer or a clipboard in front of your body. You want to have your torso open because it signals openness to them.

Let's talk for a minute about nervousness. Look, I'm a recovering awkward person and I tend to be a social overthinker. So, my nerves can definitely get the best of me. And here's what I want you to keep in mind. One, you showing up as warm and competent with clear signals of trust and effectiveness is contagious. It actually helps other people feel warm and competent too. So first, why don't you focus on putting others at ease? That can help your own nervousness. But second, this is not about having a perfect first impression. There is no such thing. This is not about being perfectly charismatic. Again, there is no such thing. What we actually want to show is that we are real. We are human. An aspect of warmth is vulnerability. If you're feeling nervous or anxious or afraid, you can say that. It's one of the reasons why I say in my first impression, it's literally the opening line of my book, I'm a recovering awkward person. So, if you're feeling vulnerable or not your best, it's okay to say that. That's an aspect of warmth.

Look, I don't want you to overthink these cues. In fact, you can start with one at a time. And the best way to do this is actually on the phone first. I know this sounds crazy, but on the phone, all you have is your voice and your words. So, start with just your happy hello, right? Practice answering the phone, not hello, just hello. Then move your way to video. Video touch isn't an option. So, we add gaze. Gaze with a camera. And yes, research shows that we can even produce oxytocin even through a webcam. You can also start with a palm flash. So, now you have three cues. Your happy hello, your palm flash, and your gaze. Then go to inerson and start low pressure. Your best friends, your family. Practice that hug with them. See how it feels. Get feedback on your handshake. Practice fronting with them as they're speaking. That way, we're starting off in low pressure settings from phone, video, in person, friends first.

At first, some of these cues might feel a little uncomfortable. It's kind of like retraining your muscle memory. But here's the good news is after you've tried a queue a few times and you get the positive feedback of someone opening up to you when you show openness, it will begin to feel like habit. Soon after a couple of times of trying, it will not feel like you even have to think about anti-blocking or think about handshake or think about gaze. Go through those first few times of discomfort of retrying on a queue and trying to activate that muscle memory because it will become natural. Now, there are so many cues to choose from, but these are starter cues. They're the ones that have the biggest bang for their buck and hopefully will feel natural after you've tried them a couple of times. But note, if you try a Q five, 10 times and it still doesn't feel natural to you, don't do it. I never want you to feel inauthentic. In fact, I want you to use cues that feel empowering, where you're like, "Yes, I finally feel like my most confident self. If it doesn't feel good to use it after a few tries, it's not for you."

Chapter 2, how to understand and read people. I want to teach you one of the most powerful social skills, observation. This is an intentional learn skill and it's not passive. Observation is about actively reading the room and decoding emotional signals that are being sent to you. I think learning how to observe and observe well is like a secret social superpower. It helps you see hidden emotions which then you can spot and untangle, but it also helps you see hidden intention, maybe what something means behind the words. That is such an advantage in social situations, business situations, romantic situations. It's a tool that you want to have in your tool belt.

If we're going to talk about observation, we have to talk about my three C's. Context, culture, and clusters. First, context. Cues can mean different things in different settings. And the reason why this is important is you always want to give someone the benefit of the context doubt. For example, let's say that someone seems very tired, very disengaged, very disconnected, and you're worried. Is it me? Is it something that I said? And then you learn that they just got off a redeye flight. That is context you need to know. That discomfort, that disengagement, they're just tired. It has nothing to do with you. And what they need is warmth. So, the first thing you have to do when you're thinking about observation is take in your context. Where are you both? Where have they been? What's their emotional setting? What's happened before your interaction? What's happening during your interaction? If you see a negative cue, is there any reason why that negative cue could not be about you? And how can you help?

Second Culture. Many of the cues that we are learning are universal. For example, when humans make eye contact, they produce oxytocin. However, the amount of appropriate eye contact varies culture to culture. Or touch. When we mutually touch, we produce oxytocin. But the kind of touch varies culture to culture. This means the second thing you should do in observation is take in what your culture is doing. This could be your corporate culture. What's the typical accepted greeting in your room, but also your broader culture. I like to mirror and match the culture I'm in. So, I look around the room, whether that's a company or a place, and I try to say, "What is everyone else doing? Do I feel comfortable meeting them where they're at? Mirroring and matching their culture.

The third most important part of observation is clusters. This is insurance. You never want to interpret one cue alone. For example, let's say that you see someone do a nose touch. Now, some research shows that a nose touch can signal lying. Yes, they've actually researched this that liars tend to touch their nose more often. So, you're in a meeting and you see someone nose touch. You would not want to take that cue alone because what if they're just having a bad allergy day. Now, if you see that nose touch along with other lie detection cues, some shame, some blocking, then you might have a red flag. But you would never want to take that cue alone. In this way, I like to look for clusters of cues, three to five cues to make sure that what you think you're seeing is what you're actually seeing. Never take one Q alone. Always look for the cues around it.

The goal here is not to create gotcha moments where you're like, "Gotcha, I saw a nose touch. Gotcha. I saw that you pulled your left ear on that poker play." The goal here is to look at the cluster of behavior and try to find the emotion or the intention behind it. We are looking for behavior patterns. Is someone showing overall positive cues, cues of warmth and openness? Great. You can likely trust them. Is someone sending overall negative cues with negative clusters, a lack of warmth, a lack of competence? Maybe you want to be careful, maybe want to step back, maybe want to do more research. The goal in observation is to figure out what your next step is, not a gotcha moment.

A fun exercise you can try is watching a video on mute. Bonus points if you can find a meeting that was a little bit tense. See what cues you see in their face, in their gestures. Are you seeing the negative clusters? Then watch it again with the sound, tonality, word choice. Does the meaning of those cues change? As really excellent observers, we need to take in all of the context, all the clusters, and remember, keep in mind the culture that they're in.

When we really like someone, we subtly, without even realize it, mirror their different channels of communication. They've even found that when we really like someone, we mirror their vocal tone. So, see if they are copying or mimicking your non-verbal cues. That is a great sign that you're on to a great connection. Mirroring is actually not inauthentic or forced. It's a very natural human instinct. Research founds that best friends can even sync up their breathing rate, their heart rate. It's a natural human response to really wanting to get on the physiological same page as someone else. And you can also think about this in terms of energy. So, for example, you might have someone where you meet them and they speak a little slower, a little lower. They have less expressiveness. They're more quiet and warm. Or you might have someone who's very high energy and they use lots of expressionists and lots of hand gestures and high volume. Them mirroring or matching you shows them that they want to get on the same page as you non-verbbally.

One of my other favorite cues to look for when you're observing is an eyebrow raise. Now, an eyebrow raise across cultures is a show of interest. Think about it this way. When you're really interested in something or someone, your eyebrows raise up to literally get out of the way so you can see more and more clearly. They found that even infants pay attention to faces when they eyebrow raise. I think this is really important for both business and social settings. In business settings, if you're giving a presentation or you're pitching your boss and he or she raises their eyebrows at a certain point, you know you've just intrigued them. Double down on that. In social or romantic settings, if you say something and someone suddenly raises their eyebrows, that is something that just sparked their curiosity, sparked their interest. Watch for eyebrow raises, it means you're on the right track.

How do you know if you're having a negative first impression or you're making someone uncomfortable or anxious? These are the cues you want to observe. First, shame. The shame cue is a very interesting cue and it looks like this. When someone touches the side of their forehead, either side, it's actually a blocking behavior. When we don't like something, we want to block it out. We can do this with our body by crossing our arms. We can also do this by covering our eyes or our face. That's called eye blocking. So, when someone touches the side of their forehead, they're literally trying to say, "I don't want to see this. This is making me uncomfortable." On prank shows, you always see people go, "Oh, no." and cover their face. and that's because they're so embarrassed or ashamed. Watch out for this cue in conversation. If you just made someone uncomfortable, they might suddenly eyeblock. Pause right there and try to build rapport. Ask, "Everything okay? Are we good?" Any questions about that? Let me circle back. Noticing shame is part one, but responding to it is second. The best gift you can give someone if they're feeling shame is giving them permission to share what is making them feel uncomfortable so you can understand them better.

Another negative cue you want to watch out for is sudden distancing. So when we like something, we want to get closer to it. We lean in to smell something better, to hear something better, to get closer to it. The opposite happens when we don't like something. We distance oursel from it. This might happen with a sudden lean back. It also might happen with a sudden look back. It might happen with uh it might also be with a head tilt back. If someone's standing, you will literally see them take a physical step back. This is the body's innate reaction to I don't like this. I want to get away from it. I don't want to be associated with it. I want to protect myself from it. If you say something and someone suddenly scoots back, steps back, take note. Something you've said has just turned them off and you want to find out exactly what it is.

There's one more negative cue I want you to listen for and it's called the question inflection. The question inflection is when you go up at the end of your sentence. So instead of a sentence, it sounds like a question. Now there are some people who habitually question inflection. That's the way they speak. For them, that's their habit and we should try to get them out of it. But for someone who is speaking and then suddenly asks like they're not sure, pay attention. The question in reflection is often a giveaway of not knowing. and sometimes deception. And intuitively, we actually know this. Researchers found that when humans hear the question inflection accidentally used on a statement, our brain goes from listening to scrutinizing. It's as if the brain knows, "Wait, you're unsure of that. Should I be unsure of that, too?" In sales trainings, I hear this all the time, where someone asks a number they're unsure of. So, it sounds like this. We'd love to have your business. we'd love to work with you and the cost of the service is $5,000. If you ask your number, you are begging people to negotiate with you. And if you hear someone ask a number or ask a boundary or ask a statement, question it. Decide, why is someone asking me this? Are they sure about it? This is a great way to protect yourself.

A lot of us instinctively know some of these cues. We have an instinct that if someone leans back or steps away from us that they are suddenly disengaged. The power of this and why I'm so happy you're here is knowing it gives you permission to take quick action and to be prepared to take that action. If you know that sudden distancing or an oddly placed question and reflection could signal that something is off, you know to trust your gut. So often we doubt our instincts. We doubt the red flags that we hear. We doubt the alarm bells that are ringing in our head. I want you to know, wait, I just saw a cluster, a question, inflection, a lean back, and shame. I'm stopping and I'm taking control to find out what is actually going on. My goal with these cues is to listen to your instincts so you know exactly what to do when they happen.

I know observation takes some practice, and I know this better than anyone. I used to think that everyone all the time was mad at me. I was often misinterpreting neutral expressions as negative. So if this is you or you find that you're often misinterpreting, know that you can hone these skills. They found that there's a specific part of our brain, it's called the fusopform face area that is used to identify facial expressions. And the more you practice and activate it, the better that part of your brain becomes. So think of observation like a muscle. The more you practice this with the reps, the easier it will be where you don't even have to think about it and your response feels more in control where if you spot a negative cue, it doesn't rattle you. You know, I got this. I know what to say. I know what that meant. And it puts you more in control. And the best part of observation is it gives you social confidence.

Chapter 3. How to be conversationally present. Learning how to become an active listener isn't a nice to have. It's a need to have. Listening is an active physical emotional behavior, not just hearing words. The goal is listening to understand, not just listening to reply. I have kind of a weird way to think about listening, which is I want you to listen loudly. A lot of the time, merely just being present isn't enough for someone to truly feel heard to feel like they can keep opening up. You have to make sure that they hear you're listening. This means sending clear signals of listening to show them I am here with you and I want to deeply understand you. The other benefit of active listening is it also gives you more intention. If we are going in with the intention to listen well, not fake listen. It gives you purpose which engages you more in the conversation. I listen for cues which makes me very engaged but also increases my own presence. Uh a trick that I play in my own head is sometimes I pretend that I'm about to introduce this person on stage because it makes me listen to remember. It makes me listen, one for facts that I want to keep in the back of my head about the person, but second, it makes me listen and ask questions that are seeking good nuggets, little tidbits that I will want to share to brag and cheer for them.

Let's talk about how to create a listening presence. This is listening loudly, listening in a way that makes the other person feel heard and understood. My first favorite listening cue is leaning. When we like something, we want to get closer to it. Leaning is kind of like a non-verbal bold or a non-verbal highlighter. When you lean in to someone else as they speak, you're like highlighting their words for them. You're saying, "I like this so much. I want to get closer to it." You can also lean as you speak to nonverbally bold or highlight your important point. So, you can watch for the lean to decode interest or engagement. You can also encode or show the lean to show someone that you are so interested you want to lean into them.

Next, head behavior is really important for listening. And that is because as we're deep listening, we're probably having a deep discussion and we're very attuned to someone's face and head movement. I want to teach you the slow triple nod. The slow triple nod looks like this. Mhm. Mhm. Research has found that when you do a slow triple nod, the other person speaks 67% longer. It's kind of like a non-verbal dot dot dot. It's saying, "I agree. Tell me more. open up. Now, there's a cultural note here. In India, Bulgaria, and Pakistan, nodding means something slightly different, but outside of those cultures, we like a vertical nod to show affirmation. Now, be careful. Please don't nod too much. Over nodding is called bobbleheading. And if you are in your meetings over and over again nodding, nodding or on your dates nodding too much, it is actually too high in warmth. It takes away from your competence. You want to use a nod like a highlighter. You wouldn't highlight the entire page of text, or else nothing stands out. Only use a slow triple nod when you actually want to emphasize agreement or curiosity. One other note on the nod is the speed of your nod. Ah, non-verbal cues are so nuanced. A slow triple nod shows engagement. Watch. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. A fast triple nod shows impatience. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. So, be careful not to do a fast nod unless you want someone to speed up.

What if you nod too much or you want another option for showing listening? I love the head tilt. So, universally across cultures, when we want to hear something better, we tilt our head to expose our ear as if saying, "Tell me more." We also love when our pets do this. It makes us feel like they're listening to us. So, if you are on mute on a video call or you're listening to someone and you want to show you are actively listening, you can literally tilt your head to the side to show I'm actively engaged. Research has actually found that if you have bad news to deliver, if you deliver it with a head tilt, it softens the blow. It literally shows, I know this is bad news, but I'm here to listen to your feedback. Use the head tilt as often as you can. Beware of the chin jut. A chin jut is actually a sign of aggression, uh, invasiveness, sort of anger. So, be careful. If you say something and someone goes, "M, I don't think so." You might have just triggered a little bit of anger. Back up. Build some rapport. Ask questions. Also, be careful if you wear glasses. Don't accidentally do what I lovingly call the judge duty. That's peering over your glasses at someone. It can accidentally come across as judgmental. You're better off taking off your glasses to see someone or looking straight through with that gaze.

There are two big barriers we face with listening. First, our body. This all comes down to self soothing gestures or what the fancy scientists like to call pacification gestures. A comfort gesture or self soothing gesture is when we rub or move or have anxious movement to try to calm ourselves down or pacify ourselves or soo ourselves. It's actually a leftover from when we were babies. When we were babies, we were upset. Our parents often gave us a pacifier. So, we sucked on a pacifier or sucked on our thumb or they would rub our back or rub our head to calm us down. Still, as adults, if we are feeling anxious or nervous, we might rub our own arms or rub the back of our neck or crack our knuckles as if trying to calm ourselves down or pacify our nerves. Here's the problem. The research is very clear on this. Oftentimes those comfort gestures don't actually calm you down and they are a barrier to listening. It makes you look nervous which distracts the other person and also makes them catch the nervousness. Yes, self soothing gestures can be contagious.

So in this way I want you to think about self soothing gestures in two ways. One, if you see someone else self soothing or anxiously rubbing or ringing their hands, take a note that they might be nervous and try to soo them. Tell them they're good. They can trust you. They can open up to you. Go into more rapport building behavior to help them feel more comfortable. Second, if you notice yourself doing those comfort gestures, you might try a displacement tactic. I always hated when someone told me to stop fidgeting cuz it's almost impossible to just stop fidgeting. Instead, I want you to displace the anxiety. Displacement tactics are when you replace the comfort gesture with an anchoring behavior. So, this could be um pinching your thumb and your forefinger together. That kind of activation puts all of your anxious energy into that and that's not very visible, only you can feel it. Or it could be um having a coffee mug or a clicker or a pen that you hold and you grip it to try to displace that anxiety into the pen or the mug or whatever you're holding. Now, context is very important here. Self soothing gestures often mean nervousness, but in romantic settings, some self soothing gestures can be flirtation. For example, if someone is giving a big presentation and fiddling with their hair or touching their earring, that could be a cluster with other anxiety cues. But if you're on a date with someone and someone is tucking their hair behind their ear or playing with their jewelry, it could be a pining gesture. And pining self-touch is a sign of flirtation. Always look for context and clusters.

The second barrier to listening is in our face. Our face shows so much of our emotion. And one thing I want you to be aware of is what I call resting bothered face or RBF. Resting bothered face is what your face looks while you are listening. Some of us have facial expressions or a face at rest that looks tired or sad or angry. even when you don't feel tired or sad or angry. For example, people always ask me, "Are you okay?" even when I'm just listening. And that's because my mouth tends to have a downward inflection. So, if I have my mouth at rest, it actually is an upside down U. This is part of a microp expression of sadness. All this comes down to the universal facial expressions. Now, research is very interesting on universal facial expressions. The jury is still out on how much of our expressions are universal. But what we do know is that there are certain reactions we have different emotions. When we're surprised, we tend to widen and open our face. When we're angry, we tend to harden our lower lids and press our lips together into a hard line. When we're afraid, we tend to widen our eyes and take in a deep breath. If your face at rest looks like a negative emotion, people will assume that you are listening with that negative emotion. You want to be aware of what your face looks like at rest. So, what I highly recommend is next time you're on a video call, take a look at your face, relax it, and see, do you activate any part of your face? Are your corners of your mouth pointed down? Are you accidentally activating those two vertical lines between your eyebrow? Are you widening your eyes and listening with a little bit of fear eyes? This is what's accidentally coming across in your listening. It's very hard to fix our resting face, but we can be aware of it. For example, I know that people tend to think that I'm sad even when I'm not. So, I use extra warmth cues, especially in that first impression. I say, "Oh, I'm so happy to be here. I've been so looking forward to this. What a pleasure to finally meet you." Those verbal warmth cues counteract my resting face so they know that I'm not actually sad.

I know these comfort gestures can be very hard habits to break. We've literally been doing them our whole lives and we don't realize they're taking away from our charisma. So, a couple other tips for you. If you're a suer or a pacer, you can try to lean in to ground yourself or lean back. I also will sometimes pace the stage. So, sometimes I'll ask for a high bar table or a podium to lean my elbow on to anchor me. So, look for anchors in your environment. Can you lean in or lean forward to lean on a desk? Can you lean to the side on a podium or a table that can anchor your comfort gestures? And don't forget, you can set yourself up for success. Wear clothing or jewelry. Have hairstyles that don't require comfort gestures. For example, I have a haircut that stays pretty still because I have the tendency to touch my hair. I am also very careful with the jewelry and the earrings that I wear to make sure that they're not making noise and I'm not tempted to adjust them. I also try not to wear outfits with pockets because I had the tendency to use a comfort gesture of putting my hands in my pockets. Set yourself up for success with knowing what you're wearing and how you're accessorizing yourself to try to make sure you're not too tempted to comfort gesture with what you're wearing.

I think there are two mental hacks when it comes to active listening. The first, as we've been talking about, is our non-verbal cues. Watching theirs, responding with ours. But the second is your mindset. is your mindset to build a connection with this person. If you're listening for verbal cues, answers that you can bring up again, you're listening to remember. I find if I'm bored or if I'm disengaged, it means I'm not listening to try to remember for my future conversations. While you're listening to someone, think, what could I bring up that's going to light them up next time I talk to them? What could I check in with them about over text or over email? What could I ask them about next time we see each other? anything that's lighting them up where they have a lot of positive clusters, that's what you want to bring up next time. And that listening to remember will make you an active listener.

You know, I love the old adage, you have one mouth and two ears, you should listen twice as much as you talk. But there are good opportunities to talk. And I think those are called capitalization. Capitalization is when you take what someone else is saying and you capitalize it or make it bigger. So, if someone is sharing a story about hope and you have something to add to that to make it bigger or better and contribute to their story, say it. If they're talking about something that makes them sad or upset and you have something that could help them with that sadness or that upset, say it. Your goal is to capitalize on the emotion that they are trying to give you. That's showing them not only am I listening to you, I actually want to be additive. I want to make it bigger. I want to make it better. And that's the perfect way to gauge how much you should say back. The biggest warning sign that listening is going off track is if they are not asking you questions back. If you're saying something and they're trying to jump in with what they say or they aren't asking follow-up questions, it might mean that you're misaligned. I would take more time to listen and try to attune to what they are trying to say until they start asking you questions back. My favorite question is, "What do you think about that?" If they start asking for your opinion, you know it's your good turn to speak. Now, let's say you're talking and they never ask you a question back even though you are actively listening. This is called a conversational narcissist. It's someone who loves to hear themselves talk and doesn't care what you have to say. That's a sign that this might not be your person.

Chapter 4, the psychology of power and engagement. One of the most important aspects of connection is how to show up with power as well as engagement. If we have power and confidence in our message, but also we know how to engage someone with it, we have the ultimate social skill. All of my students are smart and talented, but for some reason they are overlooked or underestimated or interrupted. And my big goal for them is that they have power. They have confidence in their ideas. They're just not sure how to show it. And so my goal is to teach you how do you showcase and speak about your authentic smarts, your authentic talent with power so people listen, and how do you make sure you engage someone so they're hearing the words you say without you having to be loud.

I am assuming that you have authentic competence that you feel confident in what you're saying. If you learn these cues and you feel inauthentic as you deliver them, if you don't actually feel confident in your material, please go get confident first. Read up, practice, do your preparation, and then use these cues to deliver it. You cannot fake confidence for very long. People will find you out. So, step one, make sure you're prepared. Make sure you actually have genuine, authentic confidence. And two, use these cues to deliver your message. Anytime you're sharing your idea or a boundary or a perspective, I want to make sure you are delivering it with confidence and power. For example, maybe you have to deliver constructive criticism. Maybe you have to set a boundary. Maybe you have to negotiate for your salary. Maybe you're in an interview. Maybe you have to deliver bad news to a client. Maybe you have to tell your kids a new rule in the house. All of these should be delivered with power and competence. Otherwise, they will not be heard. We like to be around people who are clear and confident in their message. Remember, confidence is contagious. The reason we like to be around people who know their stuff is we want to catch their confidence. So, you delivering your message with power and authenticity makes people feel like, "Yes, I can trust and rely on this person."

I want to teach you my favorite power cues. So power cues are the non-verbal, vocal, and tonal signals that powerful people use to signal you should listen to me. You should listen to this. The first power cue you might not think about, but it's our volume. Powerful people are very in control of how they are delivering their message. And volume signals control. When you're into something or excited about something, you can use a higher volume. We love people who deliver in an excited, powerful volume. But if you're sharing something more private, more personal, if you want people to lean in, you can actually use a lower volume. We like a dynamic volume. We like people who vary between the two. Especially because sometimes we are excited about something, but sometimes we want to share something a little more private and personal. Get control of your volume and be purposeful with it. If you have a powerful idea or a boundary or you want to share a story, think about where am I excited and passionate? High volume. And where do I want to bring people in? Where do I want to keep something more covert, more private, lower your volume? You being in control of how you deliver.

What do powerful, confident people look like? They look like winners. Researchers from the University of British Columbia studied athletes across cultures and they found that around the world winning athletes make the same posture. They take up space. They typically tilt their head towards the sky. They have lots of space between their arms and their torso. They typically roll their shoulders down and back. This is a signal of wanting to take up space. When we feel pride, we want to claim our space. We want to be noticed. We are open to the world. We see this as winning posture, as expansive posture. And there are a couple of weird measurements I want you to think about here. First is the distance between your ear and your shoulder. I know it's a weird one, but watch this. If I were to deliver this entire video with very little space between my ears and my shoulder, you would see me as lacking confidence. It would even be hard for me to deliver my message with volume. And the moment I roll my shoulders down, the more confident I look. And that's because I'm not trying to protect my neck. I want you to try to maximize distance between your ear and your shoulder, especially on video calls, especially when someone can only see the top half of your body. Also, check your profile pictures. Make sure you're not accidentally doing this or this. It signals low confidence. The other distance I want you to think about is is the distance between your torso and your arm. People who are confident, they use a lot of gesture. They use a lot of space. they're okay claiming their space. If we tuck our arms to our sides and tightly pin them to our sides, it shows we're trying to protect our trunk and that signals low confidence.

Susan Goldin-Meadow also found that our gestures increase comprehension and fluency. Meaning, if I use gestures as I'm speaking, so let's say I'm talking about a very big idea and I show big, that helps you, the listener, see how big it is, but it also helps me, the speaker, feel how big it is. Gestures create a power loop. If you really know what you're saying, you can speak on two tracks. You can speak with your words. You can also speak with your hands. So powerful, competent people are showing, I know my stuff so well that I can explain it verbally, but I can also explain it non-verbally. Now, I have a note here. I love explanatory gestures, but I don't like interpretive dance. Use gestures like an emphasis or a bold. If you have a really small idea, it's no big deal. Say that it's small. If you have three different things you want to say, point to all three. Don't think of it like interpretive dance where every word has to have a gesture. Instead, think of your gestures as emphasizing an idea that you want someone to remember.

The last one is the hardest, and I'm guilty. I don't do it very well, which is pausing. When we're nervous, we tend to speed up our rate of speech. confident power people, they're okay pausing. If they're running out of breath, they'll pause mid-sentence and take a breath. Try adding breaths or pauses into your speech. Try not to speed up when you're nervous, especially when you're explaining an important point. Your important point might be hard for someone to digest. The slower you explain your point, the easier it is for someone to digest. If you find yourself using filler words like um so, you know, it's probably your brain's need to try to take a moment to catch up with its own thoughts. This is your opportunity to take a pause. Replace filler words with a breathing pause. I say a breathing pause because pausing and holding your breath is only going to make you look nervous versus pausing and taking a short breath actually gives you energy back and helps you speak with more vocal power. Replace those filler words with breathing pauses.

Being assertive is not enough. We also have to be engaging and the way we do this is fighting the desire to be robotic, monotone and automatic. And this is a mistake that smart people make. Smart people often know their stuff so well, they've said it so many times, they deliver it in a really monotone way as if they're bored with their own content because they've said it so many times that it just seems obvious. It is critical for you, even if you know your own stuff, even if you've said it a million times before, to add vocal dynamism. I want you to add vocal charisma. This is when you say some things really fast and excited, but some things a little slower, a little more mystery. You could even share data in different ways. I could say the single biggest number that you should know is, or I could say, the single biggest number that you need to know is. Each way, you're adding a little bit more interesting vocal variety to listening, and that is super engaging for anyone who's listening to you.

Engagement is all about creating meaningful two-way interactions. And I like to think of engagement as you are taking the burden as the speaker of making your information, your content, your idea easy to listen to. Being engaging is a gift to your listener. You're saying, "I'm going to make this so interesting. I'm going to deliver it so well that is easy for you to listen to it, adopt it, and remember it." As humans, we are always listening for confidence. We don't want to listen to people who don't feel confident in their own ideas. A lack of confidence can sound like vocal shakiness or vocal fry. When we are not confident in our ideas when we're anxious, we lose breath. We lose volume. And then what happens is our voice might get a little bit shaky or a little bit creaky or we have what's called vocal fry where it sounds like bacon sizzling in a pan. All vocal fry is is a lack of air moving through your airways. So when you are speaking, you want to make sure you have enough breath. Breath gives you volume. It helps push air through your vocal cords so you deliver it in a steady, constant way. Anytime you hear yourself go a little bit higher in that wavery voice, take a deep breath and speak on the outbreath. Anytime you hear yourself go into vocal fry, take a deep breath and speak just a little bit louder.

I've worked with a lot of TED speakers, and TED speakers are brilliant. They have great ideas. They've been offered the chance of a lifetime sharing their big idea on stage. And the number one mistake they make is they rehearse out all emotion. They've scripted the perfect talk. They have their big idea. They have their great slides. and they've practiced it over and over again in the mirror and they forget how they actually felt when they discovered that big idea. They forget how they feel when they're going to help someone or deliver their big idea. Don't rehearse emotion out of your ideas. If you're excited and happy about something, sound and look excited and happy. If you're sad or devastated about something, show how sad and devastated you are about that thing. Don't forget to add back your original emotion. Emotions are the condiment of speeches. They add flavor. They add spice. Share stories that authentically bring out your emotion because that's going to help your listener remember you and remember your idea.

What if you're nervous? What if you're like, "Vanessa, I really want to sound vocally confident. I really want to share emotion, but I'm afraid." I have an answer for you. Channel your most charismatic role model. They actually asked students to do this in a research experiment. They asked them to channel a charismatic speaker and get on stage and deliver a talk. They found that the students who were asked to channel someone else were able to tap into their own power, their own confidence. So think about the most charismatic person you know, your role model. How would they share this idea? How would they cheer you on? It's okay to channel their emotion as yours.

The last finishing touch on your charisma, on your presence, on your power, on your engagement are the ornaments you wear, the ornaments on your desk, the ornaments you hold in your profile pictures or in your backgrounds. I want you to be purposeful with your ornaments and think about what does someone think about when they see that ornament. You could almost think of them as props. So, for example, if you want to signal high power or high competence, you could show your degrees behind you or you could hold your diploma or you could have a profile picture showing your certification. If you want to come across as more warm, more approachable, you could have pictures on your desk of your family, of your friends, of your pets. You could have relics from your travels behind you. You could have heartwarming quotes behind you in your background. I want you to be purposeful with the kind of signals you're sending. Every prop you have is sending a signal. Make sure it's the one that you want.

Keep in mind, I don't want you to activate all these cues at once. You can end up like a body language Frankenstein. Gestures, fronting, broad, nodding, vocal channeling, charisma. I would rather you pick one Q at a time and work on it until it feels natural. Pick the queue that sounds the most exciting to you or that you already do naturally, but you just want to dial up. Then do one Q at a time. Set a reminder in your phone that the beginning of every week, you're going to try one new power cue or one no engagement cue. Remember, these cues are a gift for you. They make you more impactful, but they're also a gift for your listener. They make you a pleasure to interact with, a pleasure to listen to, easy to be with. The easier your message is to digest, the more memorable you become.

Investing in learning the art of communication pays off in every area of your life. If you're an incredible communicator, people listen to you. they take you seriously, your potential is seen. That starts with making a great first impression, showing up as warm and competent. Then it's about being an incredible listener and observing other people's cues, reading the room correctly, and showing your listening by listening loudly, by making people feel heard. And lastly, we can show that we know our stuff, that we're powerful and competent and capable by also being engaging by showing someone that we're willing to invest in our message, that we become easy to listen to. If we do all of these things, we become a pleasure to be with. We make better connections. We're able to build community and connection with people who matter to us, whether they're new in our life, whether we work with them, whether we're friends with them, whether we're in love with them. And that gives back so much to us. I think that knowing how to truly connect and communicate is what makes life worth living. Want to support the channel? Join the Big Think members community where you get access to videos early and free.