709: Vanessa Van Edwards - How to Connect with Anyone, Master Small Talk, and Ask the 9 Power Questions That Deepen Every Relationship

0:00We have just opened applications for our once per year learning leader circle. I just got a testimonial from, I think, one of the most impressive members in my current circle. Alex Feldmeier, she is a sensory sciences manager, wickedly smart, but this is what she said about being a part of our learning leader circle. She said, our leadership circle meetings are experiences that go unmatched with anything else in my life. The biggest part is learning that we have so much within ourselves to catalyze massive potential, but we often don't know how to access it. This group is about learning how to unlock it, live it, and most importantly sustain it. With the carefully crafted discussion points and the intentional people around us, it's like being invited to a machine that gives us the tools to harvest our own superpowers.

1:01So cool. If you want to apply to be part of our next learning leader circle, go to learningleaderscircle.com to apply. That is learningleaderscircle.com and apply today. To the learning leaders show presented by insight global, I am your host, Ryan Hawke. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleaders.com for show notes of this and all podcasts episodes go to learningleaders.com. Now, onto tonight's featured leader. One of my favorites, Vanessa Van Edwards, has spent two decades studying how people connect. Her books captivate and choose. I've been translated into 18 languages in her work, reached more than 300 million people just last year. Her new book is called Conversation, How to Connect with Anyone, and Make Every Interaction Count. During our conversation, we discuss how to make small talk actually enjoyable.

2:02And then instead of asking, what do you do? Vanessa has a far better question to ask. Then she shares one question you should never ask. We talk about the nine hour questions and Vanessa goes deep on us being genuinely intellectually curious. All about authenticity. It's so good. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Vanessa Van Edwards. Vanessa, it is so good to see you. Welcome back to the learning leader show. It's so nice to be back with an old friend. I can't wait. I can't wait. So for Sienna and Claire, use this book to find your best friends, have great conversations with interesting people. And to one day connect with an incredible partner. I like this part. And may you never be faced with awkward silences or boring small talk. What a great dedication. I was like, my one wish for this book is that we can all stop having the awkward small talk that slowly kills our souls.

3:02I don't know about you, but as I get older, my tolerance for shallow niceties has gone down every year. And so if I can spare them, I literally, when I would get stuck in my writing process or I'd wonder, should I keep this or not keep this? My litmus test was, will this help my girls have better conversation? If the answer is yes, great. If the answer is kind of, it went. It got cut. I can tell. It's so tight. I told you this before, we started recording. It's like no waste of motion, no fluff. It's right to the point and nothing beyond what is needed. I think that is great. But I used to say, I hate small talk. I never want to do it. And then I realized, you know, we all kind of have to do it sometimes. And so if we kind of have to do it, it's probably worth getting good at it. So how do you, how do we get better at having small talk and making it actually enjoyable? You're right. Small talk is actually required for big talk. We can't skip it, but we can do it better. And I also think it's important for my learners, everyone listening to this as a learner.

4:02Conversation is a social skill. And there are micro skills underneath conversation. So conversation is a big social skill. It's almost like if I had to give it a metaphor, it's like history, right? Like really big skill that you learn in school. And then you have all these classes you'd have, you know, maybe APRO or APUS or American history. And then you would dial down to like civics. And then you would dial down even further to like 1800s. Then you dial down even further to like civil rights movement. It's exactly the same thing in conversation where conversations are really big topic. With small talk, I would say as a chapter. Meaning the way that we get better at it is we understand it is a skill to be flexed. And here are the traps you're trying to avoid. So in small talk, you're traps. The ones that make small talk painful are one autopilot. So you're asking questions, but not actually connecting. Where are you from? What do you do? How are you? How's it going? Where your brain clicks into that autopilot and there's just no actual connection happening. And I think this is the most draining of all. We're talking all the time, but not actually connecting.

5:03So trap number one is trying to break script. trap number two is going for facts, not stories. And this is really hard because we have to actually fight our instinct here. As humans, there's something that I call a hierarchy of facts. To be able to connect, we kind of have to know the basic facts about someone. We have to know their general traits. This is level one conversation in there. Their occupation, their hometown, their family status. So of course, we default to those questions over and over again. But because they're so autopilot, because they're not exciting, we end up kind of Google fact checking each other. Like really bad small talk is kind of like reading someone's Wikipedia page. And so we have to break that by not going for the facts by going for the stories. And we can double click on any area, but those are the two traps we're trying to avoid. How do you go for stories? Let's say I'm the person who is going to tell a story, just like when I comment on your background and you immediately told me the story behind the background, which is beautiful. Right? So there wasn't a fact it was a story of how you came to be and then some cool little

6:03elements of it. So how do we get a story from somebody else? So we know how I think to potentially tell one, how do we get one from somebody? Okay, so actually let's use what exactly just happens for this call, okay? So we hopped on it. You could have said that you didn't and neither did I. Thank goodness, good job us. How are you? How's it been going? We did not do that because the answer always is good, fine, busy, right? Like I always say, instead you immediately gave me a moment of awe. And I actually think awaw is the best small talk ingredients. If you can do it authentically, I never want to fake it. The video popped on and I have a kind of awe worthy background. You go, wow, your background is so cool. So I think that's also better than a compliment. Like it is a compliment, but actually it's better that you were kind of wowed. So you gave me awe and awe typically is a story soliciting emotion, right? Positive awe is wow. Negative awe is compassion and both are good.

7:06So wow, that's amazing or that's cool or that's interesting or what is that? Great, those are like, tell me about that. And then negative awe is everything okay? Can I help? It seems like something is going wrong. That's compassion awe. Both are story solicitors. And then I had a choice because you're going to be faced with boring questions sometimes to answer. I could have said, oh, thank you so much. Yeah, I'm in a new studio. Fact, dead end. I just put the conversation on burden on you to try to pick it back up. But instead there is a kind of fun, cool story, which is happy to share is my asked AI, what should my background be? I'm Vanessa Edwards and it sucked up to me and I love a suck up. Love when AI tells me I'm wonderful. It said, you should be an angel. You should be a Renaissance angel. And it picked out this ring light and it picked out all lights for me. So we were able to then riff on that and stories. So one is you're being story ready. Even if you get how are you, don't say good, busy, fine. You answer with, oh my gosh, today the craziest thing happened.

8:08Today the weirdest thing happened. Today was such a great day. You know, today was such a horrible day. Can I just tell you? Right. So I am ready to break the script with my answer. That's the easiest way because oftentimes people are going to come at you with so many social scripts. The second way is you flip your answers to be, and this is the nuance and this is hard. We can't go too deep too fast. I would love to break a social scripts by saying, what are your greatest dreams in life? What are your deepest fears? You know, I, those are okay, but it's too much, right? It's level two. We can talk about level two rotation. So you have to be socially acceptable, socially safe, but flipped. So my flip questions are story hunters. So simply like everything been good or tell me something good or what's been good. It's a very slight change for optimism on how are you checking in on something from before. You know, I noticed that you dedicated your book to your daughters. How old are they now? What are they up to? Right? So like a slight update change. Love that.

9:09And I love the phrasing in the book too. You said, turn small talk into a treasure hunt. You said Katie Kirk had a good spin on a question, which is a lot of things that he's, hey, what do you do? Right? We get this all the time, all the time. And instead of saying, what do you do? She would ask, what do you like to do? Tell me why that's a much better question. I was really grateful. I was reading all these memoirs. To research the book, I try to read as many memoirs as I can because people often talk about their conversational hacks without realizing it. So I got a lot of commercial hacks to memoirs. Then it's of course reading the research. What does the research have to say about conversation? But even things sort of related to conversation, psychology, behavioral economics, and in Katie Kirk's memoir, she said that she's done thousands and thousands of interviews with very powerful people. And she doesn't let herself ask, what do you do? She says, what do you like to do? And that was an aha moment for me because it realized that we can make single word swaps that have major potential. And really, a micro skill and conversation is what can I swap here that is still safe,

10:16but is going to light someone up or turn someone on? And in that way, it's a treasure hunt. Right? You're searching for those moments, those little light bulb moments, those tiny little swaps for your incomparation with someone. You're like, okay, I'm looking for their gold. Everyone has gold. Everyone has gold. And we don't know what that is, but it's something. There's a story that someone has or a perspective or advice. It's going to be freaking so interesting. You just have to ask the right questions or share the right stories or self people to find it. And so that mindset, one, it gives you intention to your questions. You're searching for liking, you're searching for excitement, you're searching for compassion, you're searching for awe, both good and bad. Treasure hunting isn't always a hard-to-rainbows. It can be hard too, which is good. But second, it also takes away the awkwardness. You know I joke that I'm a recovering awkward person. But I think the reason I was so awkward for so many years in conversation is my goal was to be impressive. Like horrible. It doesn't seem like it's that so. But as you know, I was like, I have to, you know, be funny and show impressed people

11:20and oh god, no good conversation comes from that. And so shifting to treasure hunting is also less pressure. And it's also going to take you out of your own head for my other awkward folks. What you're talking about, I think, too, is being very curious. And I love being around curious person. I think I've developed this skill from doing this a lot over the past 11 and a half years. How do you view curiosity? Is that a skill to be developed or is this more of like a natural thing you're born with? What do you think? Well, I think curiosity does have to be innate. This is really hard. And I think almost everything is teachable. I really do. Almost everything is teachable. But if you're not innately curious about someone, these are going to feel manipulative. Just bottom line is there is an assumption that I make in the book, which is that you picked up the book because you are curious about having good conversation. And so if I teach you five likable phrases and I teach you these conversation swaps

12:24and these questions, I'm okay with you using them because the intention there is to learn. The intention there is to treasure hunt or discover or make a connection or find a soulmate or ask for your raise. There's all the different kinds of romantic social business. But if you're not curious, it will only last for so long. Some of the techniques might work, but when you're found out, it will not be good. Yeah. And nobody wants to be around like the one who's manipulative or isn't authentic. That leads me to another one in sales training. I was in sales for 12 years when I came out of college and one of the teachers would say, you know, use the sweetest word to that other person and that is their name. And now I have such a, if somebody does it too much and it doesn't feel natural, it's not a good feeling. There is a viral clip on Twitter recently. Oh, I saw. Okay, you saw it. So, I would love to hear your summary of it, Ryan.

13:25You just use my name. It did make me feel good, but it felt natural. Okay. I like it when it feels natural and authentic and real, but I've also felt it when it is obviously used as a tool to make me like them. So Vanessa, tell me, how do you feel about using somebody's first name? Well, first of all, that viral clip was really interesting for me to watch that full thing in Jefferson's A Dear Friend of Mine. So I was almost like, thank goodness in this book, I didn't tell people to use their name. I didn't even know who said it. So you know the person. Oh, okay. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and he's so lovely and he's so charismatic and so good intention. So I was just like, wow, this clip was taken, I have a whole issue with clip culture. Yeah. But that's a different issue. So the tip is, and it comes, I think most originally from Dale Carnegie who said, you know, the sweetest sound is someone's own name. And then there's some research back this up that we like this on our own name. So then there's this advice that has been given that you should use someone's name as

14:25much as possible because they like it. Now, hot take, if you're good intentioned, like if the only reason you're using their name is to make them feel good, is that manipulative? I don't know. If you're trying to sell someone something, okay, that can be a little bit manipulative. But if you're like, I just want this person to feel good with me. I just want them to feel at ease. And a research says that, you know, our brain lights up with dopamine or whatever when we hear a name, is that so bad? I think everything comes down to intention. So to answer your question, if you are already thinking about someone's name, use it. That's authentic. If you are not thinking about their name, don't use it, right? So I never am like Ryan, Ryan got to say it three times in the first 30 seconds. I still like it though. I got to admit, I still like it. You're like, I liked it. You're like, I lit up. That was pretty good. Also, there's such a thing as too much of a good thing.

15:27Yeah. So I think and the same thing goes with every single self-help tip ever, especially mine, right? Like I teach body language and conversation. For example, in the book I talk about nodding, outside of Bulgaria, India, Pakistan, up and down nod means yes, I'm interested. Tell me more. That's great if it's on purpose and you're actually interested. But it's terrible if you're doing it the entire time that it's a bobblehead. So I think the nuance here is important, which is why I had to write a whole book about it, right? There is nuance. This is a skill. We have to learn it. Yeah. So I asked the same question to James Clear about habits and that is, do you feel this pressure to be like a perfect conversationalist now? I always felt that pressure. Always. Yeah. So I always felt like if I was in conversation with someone and this is as young as I can remember, I mean, even like 15, 16, I wanted it to be great.

16:29If I was having a conversation with someone, whether it was my teacher or a friend or a professor, I always was like this, it's to be worth it. Now I don't know if that's kind of a time maximizer. I'm very much into like every moment should count. I mean, little of the subtletoe of the book is make every interaction count and that could be good or bad. So I always had that pressure. In fact, having the book, it's been less pressure because now at least I can talk about the pressure. Me. I don't know. Do you don't feel that way, Ryan, that every conversation should be good? Yeah. Yeah. But is it exhausting? Do you just go home and say, oh, can I just not have to be on right now? Like how is that? No, I was far more exhausted before. I found it exhausting to be in a conversation and not have an aim to be like, we're here. What do we talk about? I don't know what to say. What do you say? Am I coming across okay? I'm social everything. Oh my gosh. That period of my life of that was right as this research was ramping up. So my kind of career, aha moment was around 2021 and those first few years of my 20s were

17:32just painful and that was exhausting. I don't know if you guys, you go to an networking event and your intention is to meet people and you're talking for three hours with bad appetizers. And you leave and feel totally drained because not one conversation was good. That to me is far more exhausting. Now I have a plan, right? Like now I can be relaxed in conversation because I know my intention is to discover. Like that's a very easy, it's not about being oppressive. Oh gosh, it's so exhausting to try to be impressive. All it is is to discover and then how fun, how joyous it is to climb the ladder, right? Like if I'm with someone and we are hitting it off, I was having a conversation last week and I had low expectations. I did not know her. And we started chatting and I was like, oh my gosh, we are like vibing. This is fun. And we were like, and we flew through level one, like, and then we were in level two and I was like, I think we could get to level three together right now. I mean, it was a rush. It was like a rush. So no, I think it's quite joyous.

18:33Good. Okay. You tease the levels. Can we get a high level of each level? Yeah, of course. So this is research by Dr. Dan McAdams who studied intimacy in conversation. So how do we feel connected to people? And I'd heard, you know, build rapport. I heard that phrase for so long and I was like, what does that mean? What does building rapport actually mean? So he said, like, what does it mean to have trust connection rapport with someone? And he found that there are three levels that humans have to pass through. And we have to do these chronologically. We have to start with level one, move through level two and level three is not for everyone. You don't have to go to level two and level three with people if you don't want to. So level one is general traits. So occupation, hometown, family, status, the basic facts about someone. But again, we can do those facts better. Level two is personal concerns, goals, motivations, values, personality traits, what drives someone, what worries someone. That's where most, most conversations interactions live. I encourage people in the book to have all of their work relationships in level two. They should really try to push past level one.

19:34You have much more engaged collaborative, productive conversations if you know level two about someone. And it still works safe, which is the misconception about level two. And level three is your self narrative. The story you tell yourself about yourself. This is not about facts. It's about frames, meaning someone could have the basic facts of their life, but it's how they interpret those facts. It's basically how they answer the question, what forces have shaped who you are today? And if you know someone's self narrative, especially in relationship, but also at work, you can predict behavior. Because typically, what research has found is self narratives are self creating. So if someone sees themselves as lucky, they actually approach the world as a lucky person. And they see more opportunities. They are more creative. They're more lateral thinking. They're actually creating more surface area for opportunity. Whereas unlucky people that is also self creating, they see the world differently. They hunt differently. They have different perspective.

20:35And so they end up creating their own bad luck. And so knowing the self narratives can help you be an incredible supporter of people in your life. One of my favorite phrases when I said that my wife Miranda told me leading up to our wedding, it was supposed to rain on her wedding day. She said, you know what? Our luck, it's going to be a bright, beautiful, sunny day for all of our guests. And we now repeat that phrase with our luck, followed by something that is very positive and nice and pleasant. It's just part of our family ethos that we say it all the time. It is so enjoyable to be around a person who thinks that way, who lives that way, who thinks they're lucky. I wonder, do you help people think and see the world as a luckier person? Or is that also something that's innate in people? Okay. So, I think the deepest goal of conversation is helping someone to rewrite their self narrative.

21:36Okay. So narratives are not like personality traits. They're not like anyogram or Myers-Briggs. They're not like that. They're editable. And we are regularly changing our story. Not always, but oftentimes, for example, someone could, I've seen people change their narrative the moment they become parents. Or I've seen someone change their own narrative after a string of bad luck. So our narratives are changeable, not on a daily basis, probably on an annual basis. And I think the only way, the best way to rewrite our narrative, to change our narrative is through conversation. It is very hard to do it on your own through journaling. But it is possible through people that you trust. Or even like I've seen people change their narratives after the Hoffman process or like very deep group coaching work, that's called self authorship. And that's actually an intra-personal skill. My book mostly focuses on inter-personal people skills. But the very end, I dip, I dip my toe into the intra-personal bucket.

22:39I don't usually do that because I'm not, I don't feel trained. But there is really good research on self authorship, which is that you feel you're the narrator of your own life. That you feel you're the main character in your movie. And not everyone does. This shocked me because I do feel like I'm the author of my own life. And I'm also an author that helps. But I was really saddened to learn that a lot of people don't. And that was like, wow, okay, well then that's a goal, right? Now, it's very tricky to help someone rewrite their narrative because they're usually very ingrained. And remember, it's not really about the facts, it's about the frames. So I give in the book five restoring questions. Those are not mine. I'm actually happy to share them with your audience so you don't have to wait for it. So these are based in the research. These are not my questions. But these are questions that they've found. Like you can ask someone these questions in a trusting setting with a lot of back and forth, right? You can't just rapid fire them. You can help someone try to think about being out there in life.

23:41So one, who am I now? Two, who do I want to be? Three, how do I get from here to there? Four, how do I make change stick? Five, who can help me? That is a restoring framework that you can use. But proceed with caution. Do you suggest doing that with friends, small group of trusted advisors by yourself first? What's the best way to actually do that? Any way as long as there is permission, meaning it could be a long date night, as long as someone knows that they're opting into it. It could be a leadership retreat with your team. I've seen work teams do this together to re-story after like a lot of difficult change in a company or if someone was let go, you can re-story on a team. As long as there's permission there that people know that that's what you're trying to do, right? You want to make sure that you're transparent about it and they're opting into it. I think any way works. Okay, there's a million things I want to get through.

24:43It's so good. How to create a magnetic presence. This was a cool part. Okay, we're talking about a doctor Monica Moore study, but also through different parts of this. One of your friends asked you to go out to dinner with a candidate, you called him Tim. I don't think that's his real name. When you went out to dinner because he was like, tell me what you think and you go, he's fine, he's whatever, he's whatever. No, no. But afterwards something different happened based on what Tim said. Tell me that story. Oh, this was so embarrassing because I was embarrassed with myself, which is yeah, I was sort of men about Tim. A lot of my friends will ask me to go out to dinner and kind of analyze the person that they're with, which I decided not to do anymore because it gets me in trouble. Really gets me in trouble. And so, you know, Tim was me. I was like, yeah, he said, okay, no green flags and red flags. And then before I can answer what I thought of Tim, she's like, you know what Tim loved you. Tim had so much fun with you. He thought you were fun and he bought all your books and I was like, what? And in my mind, I literally was like, you know, Tim was pretty great, wasn't he?

25:47I was like, what is going on? Like how? And the more she told me that Tim liked me, the more I was like that Tim guy, pretty great, pretty great taste. And the more supportive he was of me, the more I was like, my underestimated him. He is wonderful. And it was like this moment for myself where I was like, wow, it just shows you the power of liking. I didn't know if Tim liked me or didn't like me. But when he was a loud likeer, he clearly told me I like you, all the sudden, I felt at ease and it rewrote the story for him. And it made me realize that there are very few hard and fast rules with people. Like our impressions of people can change quite a lot based on what we know based on conversation, based on behavior. And so this is this idea that the similarity attraction effect that when we are similar to someone we're attracted to them, but also when they are loud likeers, it makes us feel

26:48at ease, which makes us feel more likeable and it makes you like them more. Can you overdo it though? Because you've probably felt this now that you're more famous. Do people ever overdo it and you get a little, like calm down, dude, like do you get some of that ever? You have to. Only if it's inauthentic. If someone is gushing and over the top and it's authentic, wonderful. If they're loud liking and I don't feel authentic, terrible. So I actually, again, a hot take, I don't think you can like too loudly. If it's authentic. If it's authentic. I don't think you can ask too many questions. If they're authentic, you can ask them too fast. You can ask them in an interrupting way. Like you don't want to be such a loud likeer that you're actually preventing conversation from happening. But if you're gushing and it's authentic, I don't think that that's a bad thing. Yeah. The cool thing about what you've said now multiple times to some of these questions are, it's really all about being a genuine person, showing up with genuine curiosity, showing

27:48up with genuine feelings of positivity about somebody else, like showing up genuinely liking somebody is a lot better than just trying to like, like if it's inauthentic, that's the part where we just can't go for it. And that's the exhausting part. This is a mindset shift. If you don't like people, like that's a thing. You have a little chapter about this. If you're not easily around people, if you don't like people, this is going to be like going to the social gym. And I think we actually have to think of it that way. The first time you haven't been to gym in a long time, when you go back, those first few pushups, they are painful. You can only do three. It is really hard. And you know what? It's kind of the same thing. We are flexing a very different way of interacting. This positive, but really curious and also purposeful. Again, when you go to the gym and you have no plan, and you're like, I guess I'll like go on this machine for a minute, I'll do one arm, and maybe I'll do some calves.

28:49You're kind of aimless. You don't get much done. It's exhausting. But when you're like, here is the plan, my social reps. I'm going to practice being really good at asking for and sharing stories in level one. That's all I'm going to practice right now. I'm just going to try to be really intentional about that. There's this person in my life who I don't like that much. That old subtitle of the book was how to be instantly likable. And I changed it because I realized that sometimes you have to have conversations with people you don't like. Sometimes you have to have conversations and you don't like people. Yet, they can still count. If you don't like that person, your intention is, how could I get to know this person enough where there is something, anything that I often do we like about them? That's a muscle. I mean, that's going to take some reps, but it is so worth it. So worth it. Speaking of like the first impression or even the initial few seconds of when you connect or reconnect with somebody, whether it's in person or on Zoom, this happened a few weeks ago. A friend of mine named BJ Sacknowski is a CEO of a company called couchbase. He's doing big things. We worked together a long, long time ago and he hired me to speak to his old company

29:51like five years ago. Now he wants me to come back. So he goes, he texts me. He goes, hey, let's connect on a Zoom and let's talk through it. And this is the part I want to focus on is like the connecting partners. I think this could help for any leader. We connect on Zoom and I haven't seen him in a year and he moves closer to the camera and he goes, hey, this makes me so happy. And it was the most genuine feeling of like, yes, this is, and we just went straight into it like we were, you know, like right into the rhythm because he's a guy not afraid to give a compliment. He's a big powerful person, loud like her. This makes me so happy, man. So good to see like, you know, like one of these, and it was so just genuine. I don't know, like I'm thinking, well, he's this big time CEO to new company. Maybe we're going to be formal. Is it going to be weird? I don't know. And it was like so informal, so fast. And I think that's something that powerful, likable, charismatic people do is they get informal fast. And I'm just, there has to be some science there.

30:52What do you think about that? Yes. Okay. So I'm, thank you for sharing that story because there's a myth, a very pervasive myth that to be powerful, you can't be warm. Yeah. To be powerful, you can't be a loud like her. But actually, it's the opposite. The most powerful people have so much confidence in their own status that they can be loud likeers and they are gifting like ability around them. Right? Like, oh, probably liking for you, liking for you, looking for you. And the informality is also key here. Is this another myth is to be taken seriously after be sterile. After be formal, informal is going to make me look less competent. Oh, no, no. Very competent people are comfortable and comfortable means informal. So what he did there, and this is also based on the research is that warmth, then competence is the magic combination. Competence without warmth leaves people feeling suspicious.

31:54And that is quoted directly from the research by Dr. Susan Fisk. Competence without warmth leaves us feeling suspicious. Why? The curse of very smart people is they focus a lot on their competence. Their ideas, their book smarts, their numbers, their data. He wanted to get into it with you on that Zoom call. But if he had just popped on and been like, well, last quarter, we had really low numbers. And I want to bring you in. Right? You're like, what? It actually feels like you're hiding something when you just have competence or jump to equivalent to competence. Warmth is a lubricant. It is a social lubricant. Warmth helps us feel safe enough to accept your competence. And so really, really charismatic leaders. And this is what I've spent the last 20 years studying, master conversationalists and very charismatic people of all levels. Sometimes they're not leaders. Sometimes they're not leadership positions, but they're very charismatic and they're known for it. And so, what I'm saying is they assume friendship. It doesn't matter what role they're in.

32:55They assume friendship by being informal, by being allowed like a also nonverbaly. You said he got really close. That's called proxomics. So proxomics is the space between people. And it also works on camera, which is crazy. In Western societies, we like, there's actually all studies, there's four space zones. There's the public zone, which is about five to seven feet from someone. There's the social zone, which is four to six feet. And then there's the personal zone, which is a foot and a half to three feet. And then there's the intimate zone under a foot and a half, 18 inches around there. We like to interact with people in the personal zone. And so if someone leans in like that, he just very got to the very edge of your intimate zone, which is a signal of, wow, this person really wants to get close. But we take physical space to the side of emotional space. And so also that was like an informality and a power gesture in a way of like, I feel so comfortable. I want to get close. I want to get up and close. I want to see you.

33:56And so our brain is like, oh, wow, they're confident. They're claiming space and I want to get close to me. And they're giving me eye contact and full-fronting. So it had this like very potent combination that works. Now I bet you he did not do that in any kind of manipulative way. No, no, right. It felt as just natural. Right. You are an accommodation with someone you like. You can let your body do what it wants. What does the body want to do when it feels confident and warm? It wants to lean in, make eye contact see closer. It already does all those things naturally. But sometimes I think we hold ourselves back. Yeah. Or just react how you honestly feel when you see this halo behind you. It's like, that's how I naturally, you're like, oh, that's cool. You know, or get informal fast. I think that's also great. One other thing, this is not at all that I was planning to talk about. One of the ways I want my youngest daughter's friends to feel comfortable when they come over is I've give them nicknames. And it may be cheesy, but they seem to like it. So like, Millie is Milldog, Georgia.

34:56I say, what up G? You know, like all these random, so and they always say, what up? You know, and so it creates like a shared language where nobody else calls them those nicknames. You know, and they may like make fun of me behind my back. They probably do. But it feels like it creates comfort by like creating nicknames for everybody. What do you think about that? I love, I love shared language. Yeah. I love shared language. So I have a little doctor called how to be cool and it's about inside jokes. And so you are being cool. You're cool, dad, right? Like a nickname that is agreed upon or that they don't mind, even if they tease you, that is inside joke. And shared language is the key to our hearts, right? Like if we're like, oh, we have this like inside lingo, this inside shared joke, it immediately makes us feel belonging, right? Because we feel like we're in this in group and we love to be in an in group. So it's like, I'm safe here. I'm good. And then also it shows that that person remembers you because every time they show up, you

35:56remember that specific nickname for them and they remember it too. So it's like this very easy shortcut. I love a shortcut. So maybe I'll start maybe what what nickname should I call my my daughter's friends? This is a really good. I'm an asker. I want to make some nicknames for your friends and tell me whatever naturally comes. I think having a background sports as you get closer, everybody goes by nicknames and sometimes in locker rooms, that could be inappropriate. But like for kids, you could just whatever comes to mind, I think. Ryan, what's your nickname? What was your nickname in high school or college? Well, my last name is hawk. So normally you would just add like an or hawk or hawk e random stuff like that. Yeah, there are some ones that are not not as appropriate. But yeah, that would be that would be the basic basic ones. You have a cool ass name though. Like that works. Like hawk is like a really cool ass name. There's so many variations of that. Oh, I like it. I like it. Okay. How about Dr. Monica Moore study? So who do you think is approached more at a bar attractive or unattractive women? Tell me this study. So I'm asked this a lot, especially when I was talking more about body language, my last

36:59book is about body language. I was asked a lot to be approached. You just have to be really attractive and attractiveness is important. But actually what is attractive is surprising. body is attractive is availability. We like people who are available. We also like people who are allowed likeers. Right. So people who are very clear with their liking. There's a little bit of an exception here with the cool girl. That's its own exception. But in a- I mean like we're a dude feels like it's a chase. Yeah. Yeah. And so like that's a little bit of an exception. But in this study what Monica Moore did is she put a bunch of singles into like a bar like setting and she looked at who approached to and she found that the most attractive women and this is with heterosexual students. The most attractive women were actually not approached the most. It was the women who sent the most signals of availability. Seagulls of availability were brief glances, angling their body, long glances, smiles. And it took a lot by the way. It took a lot to get a man to approach her. It took about I think it was 35 signals per hour, which is a lot.

37:59Were they drinking? I don't. Probably not. I would guess not. No way the IRB approved them drinking. There's just no way. I'm going to go on a limb and say no. Okay. I was going to say if they were then they probably it wouldn't take 35. I'm guessing. Probably not. That's probably true. Lubricates you a little bit faster. Yeah. Yeah. Why I share this study is because one, it also takes the pressure off of being perfectly attractive, right? Like being available is very attractive, especially if you're looking for love. I also think this works with friendship too in a certain sense. Like if you're at a party trying to like make friends with people like I'm meeting a lot of other parents, I'm trying to make friends with other parents with kids by same age, right? It's just so much easier. And like you're also kind of scoping out who's available? Who's going to be able to hang out? So it's the same thing. I think this is not just romance of like who is going to make time for me? Who is going to give me attention? And I hate saying that, but we do want that. Who's off their phone? Who's making eye contact? And then we like that because when we get eye contact, we get a burst of oxytocin.

38:59An oxytocin does a lot of things in our body, but for social purposes, it makes us feel connected. It makes us feel accepted. And so if someone is glancing at us 35 times an hour, we're getting that oxytocin. So we're like, I feel good. I feel connected. I feel belonging. I like me. I like this person. And so it's also there's a chemical play also happening. There is a question though that you should never, ever ask. And that is then busy lately. Why has been busy lately? Such a horrible question to ask. I think there's one thing that happens from this book and it's that people stop asking that question. I will feel like it's a success. So one, been busy lately is literally inviting the other person's brain into pessimism. Negative priming. Yeah, you're asking their brain to search for all the examples of being busy. Because if you ask someone been busy, their brain is going to go busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. And mostly we're going to say, yeah, I guess I have been busy, even if they weren't thinking about it before, which reminds them that they shouldn't be talking to you. They should be going to do all the things that they are busy with.

40:01So one, it's like immediate negative primates. Hets you up for conversational traps. They're in stark complaining. And like it's very, very hard to have. You can have actually good conversation around like shared pests, like venting about something that that actually can be very productive conversation. But let's need someone complain is the most boring, horrible, exhausting way to have conversation. So you're actually setting yourself up for an exhausting set of small talk. But then second and more importantly, I think, is the research shows that bragging about how busy you are makes you seem less competent. And this is a kind of counterintuitive. People often think if I talk about how many things I'm doing and how busy I am, it's going to make me seem really important. But actually it's perceived as this person doesn't have a handle on things. If they're bragging about how important they are, how busy they are, they're probably not that important. So it also sets you up and them up for a bad impression. Well, you often, maybe this is because I've asked a poor question. But if you ask something about how somebody's doing, how's business or whatever, they'll

41:03say, man, so busy. So busy. So busy. Yeah. I think that's a terrible answer. I've never said it and I never will because I agree. I think busy is not aspirational. It's the opposite of what I'm trying to do. I want to have high impact, really cool, interesting conversations with people like Vanessa Van Edwards, like that's what I'm trying to do. That's not busy. That's preparing, doing it, learning from it, you know, shipping it. So when somebody asked about that, what's a better way to answer them? Oh, I've been busy. I have to have to have. Okay. So one, you're not going to ask it. But if someone answers been busy, you can ask, oh, good busy, exciting busy. This works so well. I do it all the time because people often answer with some kind of busy. Oh, good busy, exciting busy. And almost always, almost always 90% of the time they're like, yeah, actually, you know, this is really cool project that I just got put on or I had this interview coming up that I really like or you know, we're at the end of our quarter and like all these goals are coming in 90% it's like, you've just reshaped it and you're probably going to get a story.

42:0410% of people are like, no, bad busy. Well, that's an opportunity. Oh my gosh, tell me, tell me is there anything I can do? Tell me what's going on? Can we brainstorm? Can I help? Can you just level two? Right? You've literally taken that bad thing, ask them for more of a story as opposed to just a high level, I'm overwhelmed, I'm busy, I'm stressed to what's going on. I deeply care. I deeply want to listen. What's happening? Can I help you? So that hack, the response is like, it's beautiful. You mentioned level one and level two again. And so we want to get to level two, especially with our work relationships. There are some other tools, tactics, ways that we can naturally again authentically go from level one conversations to level two conversations. My favorite, my favorite. And this is actually the reason I wrote the book is I had kind of figured out how to do well in level one. And my first book captivate, I talk a lot about level one conversation, I don't name

43:05it that, but I'd figured that out. And then I got kind of stuck. I could not figure out how to flip up into level two. And so this is the fundamental question. And there's two kind of secret doors into level two, especially at work, goals and learning. So goals are actually not really level one. They're more level two because a goal is going to tap into motivation. It's going to tap into core values. It could even tap into like future self, sometimes even productivity. So goals and making goals a conversational norm on your team in your workplace is going to level up your team. It's going to flip up your team. I do a ton of sales trainings, you know, I do sales trainings and corporate trainings. And this is the way that we do it at work, which is you should know in a little test for yourself. Everyone on your team are the five people you work with most. Do you know their current goal right now? Do you know their work goal and their personal goal? It's actually very helpful if you can know both. So on my team, I know who on my team is training for a marathon.

44:07And I also know what their KPIs are. Right? I know on my team who's going through a hard time with their kids and also what their quarterly performance goals are. And that language is now we bring that into our weekly team calls. So that's already a norm on our team calls. On our team calls, I have a global team. So we're all over the world. On our team calls, we start every team call with tell me something good. So very quick level ones, right? Like just like warming us up. We used to have like very boring small talk at the beginning of our calls and drove me crazy. And so I was like, we're starting with tell me something good. The whole team goes around and shares really one quick good thing. If they've achieved a goal, they share it. So it's in our norm culture that sharing a win, either personally or professionally. There's a space for it that is not bragging that is actually celebratory. In the book, I give nine power questions, nine questions that you should ask to the most important people in your life. What is your biggest goal or what is your goal right now is question number four? It's so there's three pre level, right? Three for level one, three level two. So number four, it's the first question of level two.

45:07So making that a norm and then the fifth question is, what are you learning right now? Now it's hard to ask that specific question. It's a little bit odd of a question, but it can come up when you're talking about goals. Or how do I achieve this goal? Or what am I working on? Or how am I going to get there? Or I'm not sure how to get there. Talking about learning also activates growth mindset. And it's a really great thing to talk about in the team. What is everyone working on? What is the thing that they're learning at work and also at home? I like to that number four, what's your biggest goal right now is actually a secret to a strong marriage, too. Partners discussing their shared dreams. There's some science behind this, right? That leads to stronger marriages, correct? Yes. So I thank you for pulling up that study and I should have mentioned it earlier. So thank you for bringing it up. Yeah. When we are with our partner and we are vision casting together, that is what goals are. Is your vision casting a shared future? It is a foundation of strong marriage because one, it reminds you of where you want to go.

46:08So you're on the same path, right? Like getting to that goal. You have a shared vision cast of something that you're both dreaming about. And then also it affects your current day to day. I'm like, are we working on that goal right now? And so that shared future is such a great thing to remind your partner of on a daily basis or even on dates or even on the car or with a vision board. Reminding each other of that shared goal is going to help strengthen that foundation. My husband and I are both strategists. So I almost took that for granted. When I read that study, I was like, duh. But then I was sort of teaching it and people were like, oh, interesting. You know, I haven't asked my husband about his goals. And I'm like, that's all we talk about. So it depends on your marriage. It depends on your marriage. Like some, there are some marriages that are very like strategy, focus, where all you're talking about is vision casting. And there are some marriages where we can get very tracts and logistics. Right? You're talking about the kids, you're going to school. So this is a really great way to do it. So I love the nine power questions. I encourage. Well, they're in the book and you can look at the show notes. Ryan, are you going to do it with your wife? Of course, but I'm going to ask all of these.

47:08I want to hit on one of them that you said you wish it wasn't one of them. That's number seven. What book movie or I'm going to add this to my questions because I do cards at dinners at a host. We always do cards with questions. And I'm going to add this one. What book movie or TV character are you most like and why? I don't know the answer. I was thinking of it as I was preparing for this one. We have to do it. You have to come up with one. So can I explain it while you think? Well, you also can ask AI if you want to. So this is I don't recommend a lot of AI in the book, but this is one of your I'm going to do that while you're answering. The only time I'm not going to be paying 100% attention. Okay. I'm going to teach everyone while Ryan looks us up. So AI is actually quite helpful. It's level three is about self narrative. Believe me, I have tried to ask people, what's your self narrative? Whoo, very hard. It's very hard to identify your own narrative. So I've had to come up with questions that kind of are back door. It sounds so silly. Like I was like, I really like this is the one, but it unlocked the most narrative answers, the most rich narrative answers, because it makes you take a step outside of yourself. Now, it's not the book movie or TV character that's most that looks like you.

48:08It's an internal. So what book movie or TV character make similar life choices? Has similar core values? Has similar personality traits to you? And one thing you can do, I give a prompt in the book. It's something like the, Ryan, I don't know if you have it, but it's like, I am a, you can describe your descriptors. I value my personality is I like, I dislike what book movie or TV character sounds most like this. And I will pull a whole list for you and it's really helpful. Okay, what did you get? Do you guys have any yet? All right. This is Claude. I'd say Dr. Watson from the Sherlock Holmes story. His job is to be useful. Show up curious, ask the question. The reader is thinking, take good notes and turn someone else's messy brilliance into something others can follow. Pretty good. Well, that's so good. Watson. Should I call you Watson? Is that going to be my new nickname? Are you resonating with Dr. I mean, I kind of dig it. Oh, my God. Watson Hawk. Here we go.

49:08That's it. I know you got to run. I'm going to get one more question. This is another one that you may already ask, but I think your friends with Jason Gayne are too. This comes from him. Yes. You're from now. You're surrounded by all of the people you love, your pop and bottles, celebrating like crazy Vanessa. What are you celebrating? A conversation coach in every company and school. Ooh. Yeah. A conversation coach in every company or school. I think CCO, chief conversation officer is coming or chief community officer. We're losing our small conversations at work. Right. There's no more water cooler or we're all about the task. We're all we're conversing all on slack, which is very transactional. And so I think if we want to have connected, engage teams and companies, if we want to have less burnout, we're actually going to have to create safe spaces for conversation, but also prompts for conversation for people. And that's going to need to be either a coach within the company or a role in the company. So I created a, as I was writing the book, I have a certification. We have 70 coaches already.

50:09Really? A lot of them are in companies. So like they're internal or companies or they're private. And I, if I could get this into every school and to every company, it would be like a dream come true. Love it. The books call a conversation, how to connect with anyone and make every interaction count. Vanessa, you're the best. We're going to continue our dialogue with both of us. This is so great. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learning leader.com. Let me know what you'd learn from this great conversation with Vanessa Van Edwards. A few takeaways from my notes. Be a loud liker. If you enjoy someone, let them know. Tell them you like the conversation or follow up with a note about something they said. People tend to like those who clearly like them. And most of us, we hold back far more than we realize. And then get used to asking the nine power questions. We hit a few of them, but I'll share all nine right now.

51:11Number one, working on anything exciting these days. Number two, have any fun plans coming up. Number three, what's your personal passion project? Number four, what's your biggest goal right now, which is also the secrets of strong marriages, partners discussing their shared dreams. Really good idea. And then number five, what have you always wanted to learn? Number six, what do you love to talk about? Number seven, what book, movie, or TV character are you most like and why? That was fun to talk about. Number eight, how do you feel most misunderstood? Number nine, what would you do if you weren't afraid? Get used to asking those nine power questions. And then I mean, this whole conversation was focused on being a genuinely curious person. None of this stuff works if you are using it as a tool to manipulate people. However, if you are genuinely curious about people and want to have deep conversations with them, then this stuff will really, really help. It's all about authenticity.

52:13Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader Show with the Nessut Band Edwards. I think she'll help people become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And you also go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, subscribe to the show, rate it, hopefully five stars, write a thoughtful review by doing all of that. You are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis and for that. I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.