Become A Master Communicator with Vanessa Van Edwards

Vanessa bills herself as a “behavioral investigator” – what that means is that she is absolutely amazing at unpacking what makes people do the things they do and turning that into proven, actionable techniques for others to hone their own people skills. She’s written for publications like CNN, Fast Company and forbes and is the author of the brand new (and incredibly good) book “Captivate: The Science Of Succeeding With People.” You’ve heard me talk many times about the critical importance of soft skills in building a successful career as a creator, and Vanessa is THE authority on this mega-important topic.

What might surprise you about Vanessa – given that she’s dedicated herself to understanding the subject – is that she says people skills do NOT come naturally to her. I want to highlight this because it’s proof that people skills, like any other skill, can be learned. Yes, it may come easier to some than others, but that’s true of all skills – and the larger point is that no matter where you’re at, with a little hustle and some direction from brilliant folks like Vanessa you can and will build great people skills.

If you like what you hear in this show then I highly, highly recommend her classes on CreativeLive: Master Your People Skills, The Power Of Negotiation and The Power Of Body Language.

Today on the podcast,

She talks about the difference between decoding and encoding emotional signals and how to apply that idea – for example, monitoring the micro-emotions that you are encoding with your body language and facial expressions (if you suffer from RBF this segment is for you!)
Tons of amazing little hacks that will help you hone your people skills. As just one example that takes literally just a few seconds, when you see a closeup of someone’s face on tv, try making that same face – it will help develop your ability to feel empathy because you’ll find that you start feeling the same emotions that they’re feeling
Vanessa is also a master negotiator, and gets into some ninja negotiating techniques. You’ve heard me say that you need to raise your rates and these are the specific tactics you should be using to do so – this is the kind of specific, tactical stuff that I love

Enjoy!

As soon as you try to appeal to everybody, you appeal to nobody

FOLLOW VANESSA:
twitter | youtube | website

Listen to the Podcast

Watch the Episode

Some Questions I Ask:

How do you describe yourself? [9:08]
What kinds of research do you do? [10:05]
What are some examples of emotional intelligence? [17:24]
Can you be super specific about how we can encoding in every day creative life? [19:35]
How do you find non ambivalent relationships? [24:30]
Let’s talk about making friends. [29:07]
What is your business model? [31:45]
What are some more things we can do with encoding? [46:23]
What are a couple of key levers in negotiation? [53:25]
How do you prep for negotiation? [1:00:00]
Is there a piece of your work that you feel like is most easily digestible? [1:07:30]
What’s something that if people didn’t already know it, they’d be surprised to learn about you? [1:10:25]
What’s something that you’d like to share with the world? [1:11:50]
Give me some advice. [1:13:42]
What’s next? [1:15:25]
You write very evocative blog titles. What are some of your favorites? [1:16:05]
How do we find you on the internet? [1:18:58]

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

Why, growing up, Vanessa would rather clean chalkboards than go to recess. [2:28]
Vanessa’s explanation on why you chose the career you did. [3:50]
How my only child upbringing helped inspire this podcast. [5:00]
What resource theory is, how Vanessa uses it when dealing with me and how you can use it to get the best from those around you. [6:20]
Why some Ted Talks go viral, while others don’t. Cliff notes? Less content, more hand gestures. [10:34]
What your amygdala thinks when you can’t see hands. [13:30]
Why practicing for a speech may be one of the worst things you can do for your speech. [14:34]
Go buy Vanessa’s new book, Captivate, that’ll teach you how to learn people skills even if you aren’t naturally charismatic. [15:30]
The difference between decoding and encoding emotional signals. [18:00]
Why even if you don’t talk a lot, you could still be very charismatic and still be 100% yourself. [20:17]
Why ambivalent relationships are worse than toxic relationships and why introverts should beware of ambivalence. [21:20]
Vanessa making a new friend at the gym made her realize that it’s not socially acceptable for adults to search for friends. [25:27]
Why you should friend-date. [27:00]
The biggest problem people make online dating and how it applies to you and your business, even if you’re off the market. [29:20]
Why Vanessa’s distaste for negotiation tactics encouraged her to teach The Power of Negotiation on CreativeLive. [33:30]
Why Vanessa’s first attempts at business fell flat. See above re: ambivalence. [34:10]
How Vanessa decoded my mannerisms the first time we met, in the back of an uber. [36:30]
How you can use the 7 universal micro expressions to read people like a human lie detector. [37:36]
What the face of disgust sounds like. [40:13]
Why contempt is a dangerous emotion in business and relationships. [41:00]
Vanessa’s three favorite words to use when decoding others emotions. [44:30]
Vanessa’s cheat sheet for winning The Bachelor betting pools. [45:50]
How to cry on command and train yourself to be more empathetic. [47:18]
Why you may want to sell yourself as a pain killer rather than a vitamin. [54:30]
Why you should triple your rates. [57:00]
Value is how many problems you are solving for another person. [59:40]
The best things you can do when starting a negotiation. [1:00:25]
How you can use fortune telling tactics in your next negotiation. [1:02:10]
What “gotcha moments” are and what you can do to fight them. [1:03:50]
The only personality test that’s based in real science is called The Big Five. [1:09:22]
Why Vanessa broke out in hives during her last CreativeLive course, The Power of Happiness. [1:12:30]
The bot that Vanessa built to get you out of feeling awkward at networking events. [1:16:40]

This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world’s largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, craft/maker, money/life and the ability to make a living in any of those disciplines. They are high quality, highly curated classes taught by the world’s top experts — Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy Award winners, New York Times best selling authors and the best entrepreneurs of our times.