How to Read Body Language to Get What You Want: 6 Simple Psychological Tricks to Be More Confident

(00:21:45):

And so I love the idea of likable people are not prettier. They're not more impressive, liking more people, but also approaching them with your vulnerability. So being at a wedding, trying to make friend and saying to someone, I'm starving. Even a little vulnerability when I'm trying to make friends, when I'm uncomfortable at a loud nightclub or a loud bar, I'm like, my feet are killing me. Are yours. Right? I think that sharing some of our fears, some of our weaknesses, that is actually a way to make everyone feel like themselves. And so being vulnerable, admitting mistakes, saying You're scared or uncomfortable. For a decade of my life, I tried to hide that. I'm a recovering awkward person. And the moment that I started sharing, I'm awkward. I feel awkward all the time. That's why I do this work. I felt like I could be myself. And then all these people started tell me they feel like awkward people too. And that's when I started having real connection.

 

Mel Robbins (00:22:40):

Vanessa, I am so glad that you hopped on a plane and came back and I know that we are just getting started. And so I want to take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our sponsors who bring this to you at zero cost. And while you're listening to sponsors, I'm going to be sending this to my three kids. Sawyer, Kendall and Oakley need to hear this. I know you have people in your life that need these tools and tactics, so be sure to send it to them too. And Vanessa, and I'll be waiting for you when we come back. Stay with us. Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm so glad you're listening to this episode today because we have got the remarkable Vanessa Van Edwards. We are digging into the research around success and how you can use the habits of high achievers and influential people to level up in your own life. So Vanessa, you can walk into a room and see who's influential, but can you teach us how to walk into a room and see somebody who's highly influential, like just distinguish?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:23:38):

Yes. So the very first thing, and this is I've noticed this in a lot of rooms, from both professional rooms to social rooms, to even speed dating is typically when a person is or tuned into someone or aware of someone, we angle our body towards them. Now, as adults, we get pretty good at hiding this, but our toes often give us away. So typically when I walk into a room, I like to play a little game with myself. This is how iuse myself, I try to guess who the boss is in the room based on where people's toes are pointing. Typically we point our toes towards the most important person in the room. That is because subconsciously our body is attuned to them wanting to either talk to them, go towards them, or wants to read them. So whenever I'm in a room with an influencer or a celebrity, even if it's just a mingling, I can almost always tell that everyone is like their eye is on that influencer, that celebrity or the boss because their toes are pointed towards them.

(00:25:13):

So researchers in the University of British Columbia studied athletes and they said athletes across genders and races, and they found that winning athletes, athletes who win a race, they take up a pride pose. This was popularized by Amy Cuddy's Ted Talk, which had its own set of history, but they've actually proven that just the body language itself is repeatable. So winning athletes, they take up space, they lower their shoulders, they usually tilt their head towards the sky. And then there's two measurements that I think no one talks about that I want to talk about that everyone misses. Yes, we get it. If someone walks in a room like Rocky with their hands above their head, we get it. They feel good, but that's very socially aggressive. I'm not going to advise people to walk into room. I'm here. Right? It's too much. The two measurements that actually matter the most for being impactful or spotting an impactful person are the distance between our ear lobes and our shoulder. Wait, what? I know the

 

Mel Robbins (00:26:11):

Distance between

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:26:12):

Our ear lobe and our shoulder.

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:26:18):

Like that. And so for you that's maxed. Try to put your

 

Mel Robbins (00:26:21):

Shoulders down as much as possible, like down.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:26:23):

Okay?

 

Mel Robbins (00:26:23):

That's the most I just want to explain, because you can see this on YouTube, but basically just imagine as you're listening that we are taking our ears. Try to touch your ears with your shoulders and shrink down into your body. And that's what Vanessa's doing.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:26:37):

Turtle. Turtle, turtle your head, put your shoulders up. Try to touch your ears to your shoulders.

 

Mel Robbins (00:26:42):

Yeah. Pretend you're a teenager who's staring at

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:26:45):

Your phone. Yes, this is what happens. So as we do this, a couple of things happen. One is, we feel terrible. Do you feel terrible? I was like, it feels terrible. So it feels terrible. Also, our vocal power drops. So it's very, very hard to actually give a lot of vocal power. I go into vocal for eye when I do this because it's very hard. So it affects your vocal power, it affects your perceived confidence, how you

 

Mel Robbins (00:27:02):

Feel,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:27:03):

And also it affects how you look. You look less confident if I were to give the entire interview like this, and you can her right now, and she literally, I hunched

 

Mel Robbins (00:27:12):

My shoulders. She's like, hi. And she squeezed her shoulders up. You literally all of a sudden went from Vanessa renowned researcher too. It's Vanessa

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:27:19):

Middle School. This is the only difference. This one little cue completely changes your perception of me. So for

 

Mel Robbins (00:27:26):

Somebody who is introverted,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:27:28):

Yes,

 

Mel Robbins (00:27:29):

And you are, the idea of the spotlight being on you is your worst nightmare, but you do want to become more assertive or you at least want people to look at you and go, she's confident. He's confident. They're an influential person. What's the body language that you can start to practice?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:27:48):

Okay, well, first of all, I write books for you because I believe your cues can speak for you. Okay? Introverts, your cues are even more important because you can use small micro cues non-verbally to speak for you, right? Okay. So for an introvert or anyone listening, you want to maximize the distance between your ear and your shoulder pretty much at all time, especially on video. Here is a classic mistake that I see all the time. Hey everyone. Hi. You're on Zoom, and your shoulders are, and your shoulders are up your ears, or you're waving hello with your shoulders up ears. Or they walk into a date, or they walk into a meeting morning. Your first impression is now little, small, defeated.

 

Mel Robbins (00:28:27):

Here's the cue I want to give you as you're listening, if you are, but I'm shy, but I am introverted. I do feel awkward in those situations. I want you to think about middle school. You being terrified of seeing a group of cool kids and the badass powerhouse that we know that you are inside. And I want you to imagine that your friend Mel Robbins, is on one side of you and your friend, Vanessa Van Edwards is on the other side of you. And I want you to pull that body language together. That's what we're talking about. Because everybody can pull their shoulders back and drop 'em down and stand up taller or sit up taller.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:29:04):

That's it.

 

Mel Robbins (00:29:05):

Okay?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:29:05):

And that one cue creates a loop. And here's what I want you to think about. If that's you thinking, oh my gosh, I'm scared, I am awkward. You can change the loop of your awkwardness with this one cue. Why is if you have your shoulders down and back, it signals to your brain, I'm taking up space. I'm claiming my space, which then tells your brain, okay, we're safe. We're okay. The reason why we hunt our shoulders is to protect our neck. That is why we're doing it. When I turtle. That's why we do that. Yes, it's an evolutionary cue. So if I turtle my neck down and I tilt my chin down and I hunch my shoulders up, my throat is more protected, that is a more protected gesture. So there's an evolutionary reason why we do it. So if your shoulders are down and back, your head is held high, my jugular is showing, my brain says, ah, we're safe. If you do the opposite, you're telling your brain we are not safe, which then makes you have more cortisol, which shuts down your thinking, which makes you have dry mouth, which makes you blush, which makes you run out of oxygen. But it creates all those awkwardness cues. So we can stop our awkward loops by simply changing our cues. So this is the first distance is ear to shoulder. I want

 

Mel Robbins (00:30:08):

To make sure you got that. So if you're watching on YouTube, you're going to follow along as you're listening to us. As long as you're not driving a car, I want you to actually experience what Vanessa's talking about. So I want you to take, will you walk us through? You take your chin and you point it down, and you put your shoulders up,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:30:24):

Point your chin down as if you're checking your phone.

 

Mel Robbins (00:30:25):

Yep.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:30:26):

Now, punch your shoulders up and then turtle your ears down so you're as small as possible. So your jugular, your neck is protected. If you sit like this,

 

Mel Robbins (00:30:32):

Yes,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:30:33):

You are going to begin to feel more awkward, uncomfortable. You're going to lose oxygen, breathe almost. Yes, you're going to lose oxygen. You're going to have vocal fry. And here is the biggest aha. All that is what everyone does when they check their phone. So accidentally, multiple times a day, you are putting yourself into defeat and shame body language accidentally. What are you doing before a date? Probably checking your phone. What are you doing before a presentation? Probably reviewing your phone. What are you doing before? So what I want you to do is check your phone differently. How? Okay, so when you're holding your phone, what I want you to do is up and out,

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:07):

Up and out,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:31:08):

Up and out,

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:09):

Up and out.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:31:09):

So when I check my phone, especially before something important, I am not hunched over with my chin tucked in and my arms tucked tightly to my chest, which we're going to talk about in a second. I'm up and out, so I'm claiming my space, my phone is up so that my chin is up. My jugular is still showing. If you check your phone like this, you feel so much more confident.

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:28):

It's true. I don't have my phone with me, but if I can look at my babies, I think there's a

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:31:31):

Good picture of that.

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:33):

So if I've got it up like this,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:31:34):

And you can even put your elbow down on the table. That's

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:36):

Okay. That's true. Now I'm like, bicep flex. You're like, well, look out. You look so powerful. Mouth looks. So I'm like, I got to pull my phone out here and check it. That's it. Wow. And also, you can still text while you're doing that, or you

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:31:51):

Can rest your arms on the table. That's okay too. You're still looking out. Right?

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:54):

Up and out,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:31:55):

Up and out.

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:55):

I love that you said something about our arms. Okay, that's, what else do we doing with the

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:31:59):

Arms? Okay, so first cue ears to shoulders. Second, cue distance between your torso and your arms. Watch this. So if you're listening, I want you to pin your arms tightly to your side, and I want you to try to roll your chest in. And then I want you to cross your arms over your chest.

 

Mel Robbins (00:32:14):

You're giving yourself a little hug. Little hug in front

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:32:16):

Hug. You will begin to feel like I'm a little nervous. I'm a little anxious and a little uncomfortable. You will actually speak in shorter sentences. When you sit like this, you're more likely to say no. In research, they find that when you're enclosed body languages, you are more likely to say no based on this body

 

Mel Robbins (00:32:31):

Language. This pose, if you're not watching on YouTube, is the kind of pose you would imagine somebody sitting in a gymnasium at dance where they haven't been asked to dance. And so as you cross your arms in front of your body and you roll your shoulders forward, you do feel kind of like you're a loser.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:32:51):

Yes. And

 

Mel Robbins (00:32:52):

I'm literally like, wow, I could

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:32:54):

Get attacked at any

 

Mel Robbins (00:32:55):

Time right? Now

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:32:56):

That it, that's it. Because it's a protective gesture. These all come for a reason. These body language cues are not made up. The reason why they're universal, not all body language is universal, but the cues we're going to talk about today are universal. It's because there's a reason from an evolutionary perspective why this happens. So if I am worried about someone attacking me, I want to protect my vital organs. I want to not have my flanks exposed, and I want to take up as little space as possible so no one notices me. So we forget that when we're sitting in a meeting or we're going on a date, or we're trying to psych ourselves up and we're sitting in the car and we're like, oh, I'm so nervous. We're actually creating a negative feedback loop for ourselves. So what do we do with our

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:32):

Arms?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:33:33):

So always please make sure you are using a desk chair with armrests. So this chair is actually a little hard, right? We're getting new chairs can do it. Higher arms chair. These are okay. We have small armrests.

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:46):

You and I are both very tall.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:33:47):

We're very tall. This might, I know. So this is okay if you're a little bit shorter, it's okay. We have some, first of all, armrests immediately bring space. Now look at the difference between this. That's true and this. And for you listening, all we're doing is moving our elbows out to the side. That's it. So I'm actually okay. I know my mom would not be happy with me. I'm actually okay with elbows on the table. If they're nice and broad, you can see space. I'm not trying to be protective. It actually broadens my chest, which gives me more oxygen, which allows me to have more vocal power. So I want you to always choose the chair with the armrest. When I go into pitches or I'm talking to a client, I always pick the chair with the armrest. I never pick the low slouchy couch, the low never. You know

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:34:32):

Relaxed. You're a cowgirl. That's basically what that is, right? Yes. And so that is a confidence for your claiming space. You have freedom of movement. The other reason why I love a swivel is because we should be fronting with whoever we're talking to.

 

Mel Robbins (00:34:42):

Oh, so by that, if you're listening, again, you're seeing all this on the YouTube version of this episode, but if you are in a meeting and you're in a swivel chair, we want you to turn your chair and face the person

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:34:55):

Who's actually talking. Exactly. It is a nonverbal sign of respect. When you swivel your chair towards them, you're literally saying, I'm going to angle my entire body to get on the same page as you. Tell me more. I'm aligned with you. And physically from a research perspective, when we are aligned on the same parallel lines as someone else, we can see each other's body language better. We literally feel like we're on the same page. The swivel chair adds to that. And then if you can add arm rests, that immediately broadens us and immediately gives us more perceived and feel felt confidence.

 

Mel Robbins (00:35:25):

What's super great also for someone, especially if you're listening and you're shy, you're introverted, you don't like the attention on you, these are nonverbal things. You can do that based on the research. Demonstrate that you're confident, that you're influential, that you are respectful, that you are powerful despite the fact that you're not saying anything.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:35:48):

That's it.

 

Mel Robbins (00:35:49):

What am I doing with my hands?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:35:51):

So they actually studied this. They took videotapes of leaders speaking, and they had participants rate the leaders on their charisma, specifically their gestures, and they had all kinds of gestures. In these videos. They found there was one single gesture that people rated as the most charismatic, and it is, I call it the power pose for the hands. It is a steeple.

 

Mel Robbins (00:36:11):

Okay?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:11):

So a steeple is when you touch the tops of your fingertips slightly together, and you keep a space between your palms. It is the most calm, broad gesture for your hand. You can do it with an armrest. You can do it on the table right now. Just be careful. Don't drum. That's evil drumming. That's very Mr. Burns,

 

Mel Robbins (00:36:26):

Okay? So you're not tapping

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:27):

Your fingers. We're not drumming. We're not drumming our fingers. That's

 

Mel Robbins (00:36:30):

Very evil. If you're listening everybody, and I want you to touch your pinky to your pinky, literally make a triangle with your hands.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:36):

Just try this with me

 

Mel Robbins (00:36:36):

For a second.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:37):

It will actually make you feel more grounded when you do it.

 

Mel Robbins (00:36:40):

It's almost like you've got superpower running from one hand. To the other hand, you're like Z,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:36:46):

Just as you put it. I love the power as youe. There you go. Yes. So it's a very relaxed gesture. Now, whenever I teach a cue, there are 97 cues, right? Not every cue is going to work for you. That's okay. I recommend, please try it three times in three different situations. Try it in a meeting. Try it on a zoom call. Try it on a date. Try it with a friend. If you've tried it three different times with three different people and you've still feel ridiculous, you might not want to use it, right? I don't want you to feel silly. What's the second

 

Mel Robbins (00:37:14):

Recommendation for your

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:14):

Hands? Second recommendation. So, okay, I love a steeple. The other one is a very small little subtle gesture, but it's a cue of excitement. So leaders, highly effective people are queuing people around them to know how to feel cues, tell others how they should treat us. So this one's my really good one. This one's my favorite. What is it? It's this.

 

Mel Robbins (00:37:32):

Oh, you're rubbing your hands together.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:33):

Yes. So literally just rubbing your hands together as you're talking. So when I'm about to say something, oh, this is really good. This is really exciting. Even that small little gesture should be like, Ooh, this is going to be good. I don't know why I think we warm our hands this way, but a very subtle one is if you're about to share something good or tell something like, oh, this is such a good little story, that one little cue, it shows excitement. It triggers excitement. So you can often go from the this to the this. You know what I just

 

Mel Robbins (00:37:59):

Got as you were doing that?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:37:59):

What?

 

Mel Robbins (00:38:00):

It's almost like that's the motion you make when you're swiveling a stick to do a fire make

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:38:03):

Fire. Oh, yes. So it's like literally generating heat. Yes. That's so cool. Is what you're signaling. We're generating conversational heat if you're going to go with the metaphor. Wow. Now the common line, really, the bigger takeaway here is visible hands.

 

(00:38:17):

So every gesture I could teach you is visible hands. It's a palm flash, it's a steeple, it's a gesture. It's a gesture towards you. Visible is bare minimum. So highly effective people, they claim space with their shoulders and their arms. They have their hands visible because they want to show intention. Some gestures communicate 400% more information. If I were to say three, you're more likely to believe my three than if I were to say three and hold up five. So we just believe hands more often. So if I were to say, I have three really important things to tell you,

 

Mel Robbins (00:38:49):

I'm looking at your hands. You're be like, it's five and she's holding up as you're listening at all five. Well, is your thumb a finger? I don't even know. It's like

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:38:57):

All five fingers. Yes, A thumb is a finger. Yes. By the way, try hold up five, but say three. Horrible.

 

Mel Robbins (00:39:06):

You just can't do it. I'm trying to do it as you're listening, why

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:39:11):

You try

 

Mel Robbins (00:39:11):

To do it while you're listening?

(00:39:17):

Horrible. Horrible. Why? I don't know. I know. I'm going to tell you. That was a rhetorical question. I'm going to tell you. I was asking why to myself. So here's why is because it is very hard to lie with gesture. We are very used to lying with our words. And so it's very easy to say three, five easy. It is very hard to lie with gestures. So if I were to say, I have a really big idea, and I were to hold up my hands like this in a very small, I'm holding a little dimer, a penny, you would say, Vanessa, it's small. So our brain subconsciously knows this. We are more likely to believe a gesture over a word. Interesting. That is why highly competent people are so good with their gestures is they're basically signaling to you. I believe in my content so much. I know my stuff so well that I can speak to you on two

 

Mel Robbins (00:39:58):

Tracks, mouth and hands.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:40:00):

Yes. And so another kind of expert levels bottom is keep invisible. Keep your hands visible out of pockets above the desk, right? I like to greet hands first. Second is, can you be explanatory? Can you add a punctuation or an underline or a highlight? If you're going to say that you have a big idea, show me how big it is. Is it beach ball big? So

 

Mel Robbins (00:40:17):

For you listening, I really want you to get this. You might want to check out the YouTube version so that you can watch this. But as she was saying, big idea, she literally held her hands up to be demonstrative with her hands. And it does communicate belief, and it's like, you're right. It's like taking a highlighter with your meat mitts. That's it. And just being like, here we go. I believe in

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:40:41):

This. And it's purposeful, right? So it's not just gestures for the sake of gestures where I'm just jazz hands in it. It's like underlining purposefully. It's like giving someone an outline.

 

Mel Robbins (00:40:49):

That's so cool. So how do highly influential people communicate?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:40:54):

Okay, so highly influential people, they communicate with their nonverbal, their vocal, and their verbal. We talked a little bit body language last time. We talked a lot about vocal, but we want to keep our voice nice and low. We also want to make sure we're not using vocal fry. So vocal fry is when we're like this. If you hear yourself using vocal fry, just speak louder. Volume immediately gets rid of vocal fry. So if you hear yourself going into that pattern where it's like a sizzling pant, just speak a little bit louder. Same thing if you hear someone using vocal fry, you can ask them to speak up.

 

Mel Robbins (00:41:25):

Got it?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:41:26):

So nonverbal. We talked about vocal, we just talked about, we also talked about a lot in the last episode. Definitely go listen to that one. That was a fun one. Verbal. Verbal is the last big section. So we talked about labels. One thing I didn't talk about is how highly influential people use verbal patterns that change people's behavior. Here's one of my favorite studies. I think about this study all the time. What they did is they brought participants into their lab and they split them up into their lab. Lab. Oh, I thought you was like, wow, it's not that kind of study. Now this is a study.

 

(00:42:00):

I dunno what they'd be able to do in their labs, but we were talking about body language, so into their lab, and I should be careful with that word now that you're doing it reminded me of that. Okay, I think we were talking about body language. So I'm thinking about bodies. You're like, people were sitting in their laps. That's so interesting. We should do all of your interviews like that. They have brought people into their lab and they slid them up into two different groups. 

Mel Robbins (00:42:52):

So Wall Street versus community,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:42:53):

That's it. Everything else was exactly the same.

 

Mel Robbins (00:42:55):

Okay?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:42:55):

Can you guess what happened?

 

Mel Robbins (00:42:57):

People that were in the Wall Street game immediately turned it on like, I'm going to win. And people who were told we're going to play the community game, they turned it on to be connected.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:43:07):

Okay?

 

Mel Robbins (00:43:07):

Am I right?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:43:08):

You're exactly right. But the outcome is a little bit sadder than that.

 

Mel Robbins (00:43:12):

But

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:43:12):

The outcome is sad. You're right. The Walsh people wanted to win, which means they shared an average of one third of their profits in the community game. People shared an average of two thirds of their profits. In other words, people who were primed where they heard the word Wall Street thought about sharing or being less communal. So they didn't want to share as much. They were primed by the idea of Wall Street,

 

(00:43:37):

Whereas people who were told they were playing the community game actually acted more collaboratively. This is an incredible study because it shows that we can change someone's behavior with one single word. So when you think about your calendar invites, what kind of calendar invites are you sending? I don't know about you, but I usually get call meeting, one-on-one, conference, video, call, zoom. Those are sterile. They're not priming anyone for anything. You are actually telling someone. 

Mel Robbins (00:44:22):

What do you recommend?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:44:23):

Okay, collaborative session 2024 wins. Goal meeting, mastery, meeting, team session, team, collaboration, creative hour. They're not long, but we're using words that are actually setting people up to feel and behave in those ways. I dunno about you. I open my calendar multiple times a day. So if you send a calendar invite that is purposeful, that is actually setting up for success, you are priming them to feel an act that way. Every single time they open their calendar, that breaks autopilot.

 

Mel Robbins (00:44:56):

I love that we are implementing that. I

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:44:59):

Am

 

Mel Robbins (00:44:59):

Yelling at everybody now we're implementing

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:45:01):

That. Yes. And no more emails that say subject follow up.

 

Mel Robbins (00:45:05):

Follow

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:45:05):

Up is the worst subject line in the history. Worst one in history.

 

Mel Robbins (00:45:08):

Yes, Vanessa. I just love learning from you. And speaking of learning, I want you, if it's in reach to grab a pen and a piece of paper while we take a short break to hear a word from our sponsors. Also, make sure you share this episode with somebody that you love, because a little bit later in the episode, we are going to be playing a game that Vanessa says will change the way you think about productivity and focus forever. Stay with us. Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm so thrilled that you're here. You and I are learning so much about leveling up and the habits of people who are highly influential. That's you. And so Vanessa, for someone though that is again, nervous about saying the wrong thing, are there certain words that people use that are highly influential, or are there things that they talk about with other people?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:46:01):

So for people who are nervous about what they're saying, what I would say is you don't have to say more. You just have to be more purposeful with what you say. I think that's a common misconception of people who are nervous or introverted, is they don't want to have to say more to explain themselves. Actually using very purposeful behavior cues in your language allows you to say less. I can say, let's have our collaborative session tomorrow and then invite you to that. You know exactly what that's going to be, right? I don't need to write a whole agenda. I don't need to have to explain it. You immediately know I don't have to say. So tomorrow, I would really like us to open up and talk and maybe share some. No. All you have to say is let's do a collaborative session tomorrow. Or that's highly warm, right? If you want to be highly competent, let's do a brainstorm session tomorrow or everyone, tomorrow we're doing a power through day. Tomorrow's the day we're going to whip out those tasks. We are going to do it, Taylor. We're going to conquer some of those tasks. We're going to be super efficient. I'm wearing sweats. Let's

 

Mel Robbins (00:46:56):

Go

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:46:57):

Those I'm ready to run. That changes your perception of the day. It also changes how you would act in the day. There's another study that there was many studies that show the power of our words, especially behavior cues, but there's one other that I think demonstrates really the potential here. So what they did is they had participants come into their lab and they gave them a basic task, like an intelligence task, and they had two different versions of the task. One had a set of sterile formal directions, the kind of directions you always see, please complete the following, the best of your ability.

 

(00:47:28):

The second group had the same set of directions, but they sprinkled in a couple of achievement oriented words. So according to the research, achievement oriented words are words like master success, win, achieve. They wanted to know if just sprinkling in a couple of those words could change the way people performed. Here's what they found. Everyone who got the achievement oriented words performed better on the task. They also, this is more important, spend double the amount of time working on the task. They had more motivation to the task and they enjoyed the task more. This shows us that as humans, we are desperate for these cues. We want people to tell us how to act and think and behave or set us up for success, because that gives us motivation. When we hear a word like win or see a word like win, it makes us think more like winners. And that is a gift. It is a gift to use these words, to not be on autopilot with your emails, to not be on autopilot with your calendar invite. The onus is on us to wake up our words, to take interactions off of autopilot and to gift people motivation.

 

Mel Robbins (00:48:37):

I'm ready to win. Let's go. That's it. I'm ready to, come on, Vanessa. Let's go. What about self-talk? How does a highly influential person talk to themselves? I mean, are they super critical? I know a lot of successful people that are very

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:48:54):

Hard on themselves. So one, I think that a very simple research backed answer would be use more behavior cues on yourself, right? Use words like win for yourself. Give me an example on my calendar when I have to do my research. I'm in a research year right now. I don't label it Vanessa Block, right? 

(00:50:26):

And so the only way I think to talk to people with ease and confidence is to break autopilot and it's uncomfortable.

 

Mel Robbins (00:50:31):

Is there a question or two that

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:50:34):

Yes. Yes. So if you are willing with me, anyone who's listening to stretch a little bit, I think we have to break out of the how are you, what do you do, where are you from? In fact, I would like you to go on a diet with those questions. You are no longer going to ask those questions. You are immediately triggering autopilot with those questions. If I ask someone, what do you do? They've answered a million times before. Instead, I want you to ask, what's been good, what's good, what's good this week? Or you asked me this at the interview, working anything exciting recently? So what's good? Working on anything exciting recently 

Mel Robbins (00:51:24):

Also means if you're working on applications to go to school or you are working on training for something, or I'm working on not losing it with my children or, yes, exactly. Yes.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:51:35):

That question gives someone permission to tell you what they are excited about and that is a gift. So when you ask, what do you do? You're actually putting someone on a very specific box. So replace, how are you with what's good or what's been the highlight of your week, or what's the highlight of your day? Replace, what do you do with working on anything exciting or have anything coming up that's exciting or have any fun plans coming up? There's subtle switches, but they make a huge difference because when you ask someone working on anything exciting, their brain has to search for excitement, excitement, excitement. You just gave them a gift of optimism. You just ask their brain to think of good things, which is such a beautiful way to interact as opposed to I hear a lot been busy. Oh, no, no, never ask busy if you ask someone been busy.

 

Mel Robbins (00:52:22):

Oh, now I think about how busy I'm

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:52:24):

You are. It's so true. It's so true.

 

Mel Robbins (00:52:26):

And then I literally talk about how busy I

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:52:27):

Am. Yes. So instead of the thing that I'm excited about Exactly, and it actually triggers this negative loop of only talking about bad things. So one, never open on autopilot. Two, try to talk about things that are exciting, and three, if you can, you want to level up the conversation. So this doesn't mean, I think a big mistake that he'll make is they ask two deep questions too quickly.

 

(00:52:49):

So I don't want you to be like, what's your biggest dream in life? An introvert is going to run. They're going to run. By the way, as a note for introverts, there's a question. So we did a research experiment, a speed networking experiment where we assigned six conversation charters to our speed networkers. It was 500 speed networkers across three different events, and we had them rate the quality of their conversation. We found some conversation charters bounced to the top and some went to the bottom. There was one that almost broke my data, and it was because people either gave it a five, they loved it. They thought it was the best conversation they ever had, or they gave it a one, they hated it. And I was like, what is going on? Do you know what question it was? Of course. What is it? What's your story? Oh, I hate that question. Okay.

 

Mel Robbins (00:53:35):

I'm like, which version of me? I feel like I'm in a therapy session. What?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:53:41):

Okay, so introverts and ambiverts hate this question. What's an ambivert? Oh, an ambivert is someone who's in between introvert extrovert. They're called social introverts or introverted extroverts. So an ambivert. That is me. Yeah, I know that's you. Yeah. So you're an ambivert. So it's someone who can dial up into extroversion when needed, but you also need a lot of recharge time. I'm sure you're going to, after a really social event, you have to have nothing. That's why you live far away. Same with me. I don't want to talk to anyone for certain parts of the day. So ambiverts need a lot of recharge time. They can be extroverted when they need to. So introverts hate that question like, am I in a therapy session? This is horrible. Extroverts love that question. They're like, how much time do you have? Should I start with the childhood or my college years?

 

(00:54:25):

They are thrilled to tell you. So in leveling of conversation, be very careful with that question. If you're with an extrovert, that's a gift. They love that question and you want to give them lots of time to talk about themselves. If you're with an ambivert or introvert or you're not sure, for heaven's sakes, do not ask that question. You are going to level down that question. So instead, I recommend safe questions. The highest rated questions in our little experiment were what personal passion project are you working on? What was the highlight of your week? Those were two of the highest rated one, right? Or have any fun plans coming up? Those are still safe, right? If you just met someone or you're just catching up, those are all safe questions. So that's how you want to think very carefully about the questions you ask.

 

Mel Robbins (00:55:07):

I love that you have really interesting research about thank you, where you sit at work.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:55:13):

Yes, yes. Okay, so this is not my research, but it's research that I found that I was like, how does everyone not know about this 58,000 working hours across 11 different companies. So this is a massive amount of data, and these are companies in different industries. What they found was that if you sit within 25 feet of a high performer, you improve your own performance by 15%. Wow. Yes. What this implies is that our performance is contagious. That highly effective, highly charismatic people are contagious in a good way. They actually lift others up. When we see someone who's sitting in nice, high, confident body language, we are also more likely to sit in confident body language. So all of these cues are actually making you be the contagious high performer, but you also can hang out with high performers. And so I think that that power, you can get it from others. Great. And you can also give it to others

 

Mel Robbins (00:56:10):

Both. I also understand that the research shows that the negative is true. That if you sit in the wrong place or near the wrong person, how do you even know?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:56:19):

Goodness, what

 

Mel Robbins (00:56:19):

Are we looking for?

Mel Robbins (00:56:26):

What?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:56:27):

Yes. Lemme break it down. So this was study was done. They brought people into their lab, and again, they bump into two different groups. One group wore a sweatsuit where they catch the sweat. Yes, my God, it's going to get grosser. Just wait. They wear a sweatsuit, and they had them run on the treadmill and sweat into this sweatsuit. Okay, this is pretty gross. The second group wore sweatsuits and then were first time skydivers. They had them jump out of planes wearing the sweatsuit. Then they had two samples of sweat, non fear, sweat and fear sweat. They took these samples and they had unsuspecting participants smell the samples. They had no idea what they were smelling, but they had them smell these sweaty armpits of these folks, and they put them in FMRI machines and they measured their brain patterns. They found that everyone who smelled the fear sweat, even though they had no idea what they were smelling, caught the fear. Their own fear centers lit up. What they think is happening is that we are attuned as humans. If someone else is feeling adrenaline and cortisol, that leaks out and we catch other people's fear. So I think the kind of last channel of this is if you are secretly afraid at work, I think that we leak that out in micro cues, small nonverbal cues, chemical cues, and that is contagious. So a lot of this is about getting yourself right first,

 

(00:58:04):

Your day starting with what gives me energy, what socially gives me energy? What work gives me energy? How can I self-talk to myself to set myself up like a winner? Because I know that if you don't, you become more negatively contagious.

 

Mel Robbins (00:58:19):

You have also incredible research about specific places you should stand.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:58:24):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (00:58:25):

Where should I stand at a networking event?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:58:27):

So we did at our speed networking events, we had a pre-session where we observed the foot patterns of people on this map. We had a map of the event and we tracked where people were walking. Interesting. And we noticed patterns across the events. It was across multiple different events, is that there were really good places to stand and there were really bad places to stand. There were social traps and there were social honeypots where you want to stand. Okay? This is the mistake that most people make in networking events. They stand right at the entrance, so they don't know a lot of people. So they get there and they're like, I'm just going to stand up the door. I don't know anyone, and I'm going to try to get someone as they come in. This produced the shortest conversations. We literally watched as people had these really little awkward micro conversations.

 

(00:59:10):

Why? If someone comes into a room, they need to get themselves situated. They might have to go to the bathroom, they want to get a drink, they want to get something to eat. They also want to scope the room themselves. If you pounce on someone, I call it the starting zone. So if you pounce someone in that start zone, anywhere near the door, anywhere near the check-in table, anyone anywhere near the coats, you are going to get someone when they are not ready for a high quality connection, they're going to be like, autopilot, autopilot. I'm just going to get somebody to drink. You are not going to be able to make a connection in that start zone. So do not a

 

Mel Robbins (00:59:40):

Thousand percent

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (00:59:42):

Correct. Right? And that's a mistake that a lot of introverts will make. They stand there, they don't know anyone, and they're afraid to penetrate the room. No, it's actually triggering even more awkwardness. You're going to have worse. And then an introvert goes, why did I even come? I'm not even having good conversations. And you'll get that sort of deer in the headlight. Look, if you watch people, I love to sit and observe people. If you watch people when they walk into a networking event, they're very wide-eyed. And that is because from an evolutionary standpoint, they're trying to take in the room. Who do they know? Where's the host? Where's the bathroom? Where do I put my coat? Is there food? Right? If someone is pounced on when they're doing that kind of wide-eyed survey of glances, they are literally chemically not ready yet.

 

Mel Robbins (01:00:25):

Wow,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:00:25):

They're not settled enough. Where do I stand? Okay, so the best place, this is where the longest conversations happens in the most business cards were exchanged was right as people exit the bar, here's what would happen. People were nervous. They enter the start zone, then they go, I got to get a drink. I got to get a drink. Whether that's coffee or tea, whatever. People like to anchor themselves with something in their hand. It gives them something to do psychologically. So they wait in line and they're kind of waiting. They're thinking, oh, I'm here. And you literally physically see us. You are waiting in the drink line.

 

(01:00:56):

It's like they're here. Then they get their drink and they turn to the room, and you'll notice that's when people are ready to connect. That 10 seconds of I've got my drink in hand, took my first sip, and I've turned to the room. They're like, I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. 

Mel Robbins (01:01:34):

Wow. Have you studied social events? And where would you advise somebody to stand? If you're single or

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:01:41):

You're going to an event alone? Yes.

 

(01:01:43):

If you're going to an event alone, I do highly recommend staying in that exit the bar. The other place for a single person, or if you're going to event alone, is in the eyeline of the host or the most connected person. Here's why. If the host can see you, you don't have to be in the conversation, but if they can see you and they're like, oh my gosh, Rachel, I've been desperate for you to meet my friend, Jasmine, come on over. You are easily able to be connected to. So I always try to be an eyeline of the host if I don't know where I'm going. You also can stand in the eyeline of the most extroverted social person because they love to make connections. That is their strength, that is their social strength. That is a gift to an extrovert. So do you know where you should stand at

 

Mel Robbins (01:02:26):

A wedding? Oh, I haven't

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:02:27):

Studied it. Tell me,

 

Mel Robbins (01:02:29):

Oh, yay. Tell me the door that the caterers are coming out of with the trays. That's always very fine. Mel Robbins, get over here with the lamb chop

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:02:41):

Meatballs. By the way, it's so funny you say that. That is my favorite place tan because I'm always hangry. And what's funny is when I stand there, I say to the other people, caterers coming out this door. Whatcha looking for?

 

Mel Robbins (01:02:52):

Yeah, exactly. Get out over here.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:02:54):

I'll be a coke conspirator. I'll be like you. The tomato soup, grilled cheese. Got you. I got you. I saw one of those. I got you. You actually become friends with the people who are hangry like you.

 

Mel Robbins (01:03:01):

Yes, exactly. So what is your favorite productivity exercise? How do we increase our focus?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:03:08):

Okay, so I have a very unique approach to productivity, and I want to play a little game. Let's do a play game. Okay. So if you're listening, if you can kick out a pen and paper, that would be great. If not, just use your memory. We'll play a little game together. So what I want you to do, I call this alphabet work. This is my favorite productivity exercise. It's my favorite team building exercise. It should, if you activate it completely change the way that you work. So at the top of your piece of paper, I want you to write A, B, C, and D with four columns.

 

Mel Robbins (01:03:37):

Okay? So you're just making four columns. Yeah. One says A, one says B, one says C, one says D.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:03:43):

Yeah, got it. A, B, C, D. Okay. So what we're going to do is we're going to break your tasks and your work energy and your social energy into A, B, C, D, work. Your A work. We're going to start there. Your A work is only the tasks that you are better at than most people. Okay?

 

Mel Robbins (01:04:00):

So A is what I would

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:04:01):

Get an A on A is what you would get an A plus on. It gives you energy, you hit flow. You are exceptional at it without any exceptions, and you might even be known for it. So I want you to list different tasks on your A work. I also want you to list some social energy tasks. So where do you thrive? What is your favorite way to socialize? Who are your A people that you just feel like you're self, your authentic, they give you energy, you look forward to it. So I want you to put some of those things on there. Tasks on top, energy at the bottom, social energy on the bottom. B,

Mel Robbins (01:05:34):

C,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:05:35):

Okay. Sea work is work you are average at. You're not known for it. You're a little clunky with it. Sea work is marked by you're a little embarrassed, a little bit embarrassed by it, okay? Right? You're like, oh, I'm not so great at that. I wouldn't want people to see it really well. So that's your sea work. That's your C. Work is your average. D work should be the obvious one. D, work is work you are bad at.

 

Mel Robbins (01:05:59):

Got it?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:06:00):

D is work. You are worse than most people at this task. You should not be doing it. You are slower than most people. You make more mistakes in this work. Your D people are also the people who take away your energy. They drain you. They're the people who push your boundaries, who challenge you in a bad way. They're people who you dread seeing. Hopefully that's not a long list. So where do you feel like I am surviving, not thriving? Where do you feel like you just are not your best self? That's D. Okay. Here's why this is so important. Your day, your entire day should be about optimizing your A work and giving away your B, C, and D work your entire day should also be, I know it's a little uncomfortable, okay? Your entire day should be about figuring out the people you work with.

 

(01:06:52):

What is their A work and gifting their A work away? A mistake that people make on teams or when partnering up is they partner with people who have the same strengths as them. You want to partner with people you want to hire people you want to work with. You want to learn from people who have different work than you where their B and C work could maybe turn into your A work. So your day should be about optimizing your A work learning to see, could I level up my B work? Could I learn something or use a tool to turn a B work into my A work? And how can I give away most of my C and D work?

 

Mel Robbins (01:07:28):

I mean, this is really cool. I am looking at my list, and as you're doing this and you're listening along, I'm just going to try to recap so that I want to make sure that you get this.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:40):

Yes. And if you're willing to give examples, I think it would be very interesting to hear them.

 

Mel Robbins (01:07:43):

Okay.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:44):

I'm happy to give mine too, if that's helpful.

 

Mel Robbins (01:07:46):

Yeah, I think we should. So do you want to start with a

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:49):

A? Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (01:07:50):

Okay. So I am fantastic at giving ideas ideation.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:07:54):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (01:07:55):

If you want somebody to open a can of worms and to start flying ideas and getting everybody off track, call Mel Robbins. I can literally ideate better than anybody on the planet. You think that you're stuck? No, you're not. You think there's no way around it? Yes, there is. You think that there's an obstacles. I see an opportunity

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:08:14):

And I would that motivational. So ideation and

 

Mel Robbins (01:08:17):

Motivational. Oh my God. And it's also in content. What about this? What about that? What about the other thing? What if we did this? Oh, this would be great. I'll come out of this episode and I will have 17 different topics for us to then go do something on.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:08:29):

Okay, so here's critical people. You often give that away. So as you get busy and you're doing back-to-back interviews, don't give away the ideation time after your interview. Don't give away content ideation to someone else in your team because that's your A work. And so that could happen as we level up or we become managers, is we end up accidentally giving away our best work. So make sure there's someone on your team that you are ideating with. It's great. You're not giving it away. Tracy Mertz sitting over there.

 

Mel Robbins (01:09:03):

Second thing, business development,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:09:05):

A

 

Mel Robbins (01:09:06):

Hundred percent close rate in meetings, especially around speaking a hundred percent close rate. If I have an in-person meeting or zoom meeting,

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:09:13):

The deal is done, period. So this is really important because what happens when you get busy and successful is you have an agent or a manager, right? You're not always in the room.

 

Mel Robbins (01:09:21):

Correct.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:09:22):

And so that means that you have to hire someone who's a work is that, and they know that if it's a particularly hard close, they can bring you in. Yep. You cannot give that away creative direction.

 

Mel Robbins (01:09:34):

I just don't have any time for it. So I was a film major in college and just spent my entire college career in an editing room, and I love that. I have zero time for

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:09:49):

It. Is there a way you could do it one morning a month?

 

Mel Robbins (01:09:51):

Probably.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:09:52):

I think that's the question is do you have enough other a work where it's okay, or do you want to say, I'm going to carve out one block to charge me?

 

Mel Robbins (01:09:59):

Probably. Yeah. Well, we're giving correct. I mean, I do it all the time. I just feel like it's, and then recording, I mean, obviously the skills in terms of being able to just turn on a camera and go and coaching on the fly would be another thing in the A. And then in terms of social, my top thing is dinner at home. Love it. I love it to have dinner at home. And so

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:10:25):

People that I love, if you're listening to this and you're hearing Mel talk about this, a recipe for burnout would be if next month you see a week where you happen to have a bunch of dinners out. Yes. You would probably at the very end of that week go, gosh, I'm so wiped, I'm so drained. I don't like my life. You begin to question bigger things when actually it was that you did a little bit too much of that C or D work that week. That's okay. We can know that if you have a busy travel week. But it's critically important to know your patterns, to know that if you were to miss dinner at home a couple of nights in a row, it would probably trigger your burnout, but you wouldn't know why.

 

Mel Robbins (01:11:03):

Oh, for sure. For sure. And then in terms of B, I literally put everything else that is, and then I've got a couple things on CD, which is I'm horrendous at organizing. I'm horrendous at being on time. I do not know how to make an Excel sheet. My business partner's job, Christine, is protect the team from Mel. I protect, not because I'm a jerk, but I

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:11:30):

Destroy structure. Love it. Love it. Okay. So the recipe for anti burnout for Mel is looking at your task list for your week, for your day, for your month. Everything that is not in that a column should not be on your list. Christine,

 

Mel Robbins (01:11:48):

I hear that you need me to create an Excel spreadsheet for you. Yeah, I am a spreadsheet.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:11:53):

Disaster.

 

Mel Robbins (01:11:54):

Yes, I'm a spreadsheet. Disaster. You want to see roadkill on a page, ask me to put something in Excel.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:12:02):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (01:12:02):

You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to hand it over to Sawyer on our team or Emily on our team. Or Dara loves a good spreadsheet

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:12:09):

And a presentation. And in the meanwhile, I'm going to make us a lot of likes and views in my interview later today. Correct. I love that. I love that. Exactly. That is masterful. And here's the thing. So if your entire focus is more A, work less B, C, and D work every day, every month in your general tasks. When you say yes to projects, when you're looking at a project, people tend to think about the end goal. For example, so many people tell me, Vanessa, I want to write books. I say, really? Do you love being alone in a computer all day? Do you love that? Oh, you want to write a book? Do you want to spend three months writing and then years marketing it? Do you like that? And I always say that because I'm like, let's get real on what you like.

 

(01:12:56):

If you want to write a book, does your ego want to write the book? Do you want to be able to say you're an author? Do you want to be able to share your words with people? Or do you love writing? Because those are two different things. So for every project, you should do all the tasks. And then how much of those tasks are A, B, C, or D work? Sometimes you have to do D work. Sometimes you have to do C work. Know it assertively, own it. There is D work on my team where it's all of our D work. And you know what I do? We have a D work day say, okay, everyone ordering our favorite lunch, we're pumping some music. It's a D work day, we hate it. Sleep in, we're coming in at 10:00 AM and then we're going to grind it out. We're going to do our D work together. We D work is acknowledged for yourself as well as your team. It helps us feel like, okay, we're in it together. I know what my dwork is, and there's some dwork I still have to do, and I don't like it, but I know what it is. I build in buffers. I have that battery recharge. So it's about energy management.

 

Mel Robbins (01:13:56):

You know what I also immediately saw is it's like getting everybody, all right guys, let's all clean up after dinner together. Nobody wants to do it. Let's

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:14:04):

Do it together. But we love eating dinner, so we got to clean it up and let's turn on music and make it as fast and fun as we can. So what do highly influential people do at night? Ooh, at night, I think having a pause moment at the end of the day. Now, I haven't actually studied this, but I think that highly effective people give themselves a lot of time to think. When I study historical, highly effective people, you'll see that in their daily patterns, they have a lot of space. They're not busy, they're not burnt out. They're not working until the moment they shut their eyes. 

Mel Robbins (01:14:55):

How do highly effective people set goals? How would you recommend if you want to be really effective and level up your success that you go about? Even thinking about your goals for the day or the week or the year or the decade?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:15:10):

A, B, C, D work to break a goal into tasks and timeline is very important. I also think that when you're thinking about your goals, are you going to enjoy the process the means as well as the end? I see so many folks who are highly ambitious. They set these big goals. At the end, they'll be happy. And this is those if then statements, which I think are a killer for burnout and a killer for happiness, which is, if I am a bestselling author, then I'll be happy. If I lose 20 pounds, then I'll be happy. If I become a mother, then I'll be happy. That is a goal that's setting you up for burnout because you are saying to myself, you cannot be happy until you achieve that goal. And so I think we're talking about highly effective people. They enjoy the process of getting that goal as much as the goal. So that could be, I want to find workouts I love every day and find workout partners who make me laugh so I can lose 20 pounds.

 

Mel Robbins (01:16:17):

You just sparked something as I was listening to you because I was thinking, wow, that's a great way to think about it, that I am going to lose, I'm going to lose 20 pounds and I'm going to figure out how to have fun and enjoy it as much as I can while I do it.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:16:33):

Yes. Because then if you achieve the goal, fantastic. Right? But your goal is actually happy in the moment of actually doing it. So I would say when you're setting goals, what can you do to enjoy the means of that goal? So you're not delaying your happiness?

 

Mel Robbins (01:16:46):

How important is it for a high achiever to have something big that they're working on?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:16:53):

I think essential. I think essential. I think that everyone should have a quest. I think everyone should have a question. I know that's a very big statement, but all the happiest people I know, the most successful people I know, however you define success, whether that's they're the richest, whether they're the most famous on social media, however you define, they all have some big quest. And that could be traveling to every country in the world. That could be raising three children who find their passions that could be learning to cook, and they have micro quests and big quests. And so I think if you don't have some kind of quest that you're working on right now, it's hard to find meaning. I think meaning is incredibly important for giving you purpose behind your days and your actions.

 

Mel Robbins (01:17:37):

Amazing. So what is your final word to the person that has been listening and hanging onto your every word?

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:17:48):

What I haven't said is if you're burnt out, if you're stuck, if you're feeling like you're underestimated or overlooked, not getting what you want, it doesn't mean you're not trying hard enough. It actually probably means you're trying really, really hard. And it's okay to try a little bit less hard and just do it in different ways. And so one, you're doing enough, you're trying very hard. You are good enough. What I would say to think about is are there some things that you can say no to that is a gift to someone else that is their A work? And can you take back some things that would gift you energy so that you can work in a way that sets you up for success and sets others up for success without having to work yourself? Until you can no longer think that you are working enough, you are good enough. You just have to try something a little different.

 

Mel Robbins (01:18:45):

I love that. And I also love the piece about figuring out who in your life you're giving time to, that you're ambivalent about.

 

Vanessa Van Edwards (01:18:53):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (01:18:53):

And take that time back for yourself. Take it back. Vanessa Van Edwards. Holy smokes. I like you.

 

(01:19:02):

I like you. I like you a lot. I like you, and I like you too. And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I more than you, I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to take absolutely everything. You just learn and take up space and use these strategies to level up how you're showing up, how you're speaking, how you're supporting yourself, and go create an incredible life. I'll see you in a few days and for you, thank you, thank you, thank you for being here with me on YouTube. I not only like you, I love you, and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And I know that what you learned from Vanessa today is going to help you do that. And I also know that you're like, oh, this was so good. What did she talk about the first time she was here? Well, she's got all kinds of tips about confidence and charisma and the research too. So I want you to check out her last appearance on the Mel Robbins podcast. You're going to love it. And by the way, because I like you, will you like me? And please subscribe to this channel real quick. That's right. Thank you so much for doing that. I appreciate it so much. Here you go.