Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Today's episode is all about the science of success. Did you know that who you sit near at work matters a lot? Because it's either going to boost your success or if you're sitting in the wrong place or next to the wrong person, it could lower your success by 30%. That's right. Your success is impacted by where you are sitting and who you're sitting next to, and that's not all. If you're going to a networking event, did you know there's one place to stand in the room that will help you make better connections? Or if you're single, wouldn't you like to know where you're supposed to stand at a party to put the odds in your favor? Or the subtle thing that you can do with your hands that will make you seem more powerful and intelligent. I want to know the science-back strategies for a more successful life, don't you? Well, that's what we're digging into today. Simple, instant, tiny changes that you can make that will level up your success immediately. Hey, it's Mel. I'm so glad you're here. Lately, I've noticed more and more questions are coming in from around the world seeking advice on how to level up your success.

I decided to reach out to a world-renowned researcher who is the founder of the behavior lab called The Science of People. She has flown across the country to be here today for you, and she is armed with the latest research and so many takeaways that are going to help you achieve the success that you deserve in your life and your career. Vanessa Van Edwards is the founder of The Science of People, which is a behavior lab that studies high achievers and the science of confidence, charisma, and body language. She is the best-selling author of two books on interpersonal science. For all you new listeners, Vanessa is also one of the most popular guests that have ever appeared on the Mel Robbins podcast because she has the unique ability to give you specific behaviors, specific habits that you can use immediately for greater success. Habits like what high achievers do with their hands to display power intelligence, the specific place you should stand at a networking event. You'll also learn one thing you should never do in a conversation with someone else. I mean, there are so many takeaways and science-back shortcuts that you're going to learn today.

I cannot wait for you to start implementing these to help you be more successful and achieve your goals. Without further ado, please help me welcome Vanessa Van Edwards back to the Mel Robbins podcast.

I'm so happy to be back. Thanks for having me.

I am so excited to see you. I guess where I want to start before we jump into all of the tools and the research, you just bring it every time I talk to you. Why does it matter to either know high achievers or to be one? How does being a high achiever, other than the obvious, you're achieving your goals, but why does it matter?

I think that what's really crucial is that I've spent a career studying these high achievers, and I've noticed that they have very specific behavior patterns and communication patterns. What they do is they take what I call communication shortcuts. They are able to say no more easily to difficult people. That is something that I think everyone wants. For sure. They are more easily easily able to achieve their goals and enjoy the process. So many people, they achieve their goals and have no happiness, no satisfaction, no joy in achieving those goals. High performers, they enjoy the means and the ends. So there's the enjoyment, there's saying no to difficult people easily. And it's also, I think that from my perspective, high achievers very clearly are able to know who they are and they're able to share it. And so my goal today is to help people achieve those three things.

I love that. The person that is listening to this conversation right now is somebody who is well-educated, they are driven, they are curious, they're looking for ways to improve their life, they want the best for their family and their friends, they want to achieve their goals. I also notice that we are in the Mel Robbins podcast family, a group of people who burn ourselves out, who take on too much. Can you talk a little bit about just being a high achiever versus just finding yourself being too busy or burnt out? What is the distinction here?

Let's be very clear. Burnout is not a sign of success. We are not going to have any more. I hope that maybe we can challenge ourselves. Do not compete for who is busiest. I see so many extremely smart, successful people almost trying to one up themselves or one up others in busyness. Business and burnout is not a mark of success. Being burnt out just means you're saying yes to too much, you're doing too much. I don't think that's a mark of a successful person. I do think it's important to be uncomfortable, though. I think that if you're out of your comfort zone, it means you're pushing yourself. I think high performers are consistently stretching not their time. They're not burnt out. They're stretching their comfort zones. And so hopefully today we can shed that busyness competition and focus more on being assertive with our energy.

I love that. I want to unpack just that last bit, what does it mean to be assertive with your energy?

Okay, this is the first pattern of highly effective people. One thing that I noticed early on is that I think that there are two different types of energy. There's social energy and work energy. Social energy is the energy you spend every day having conversation, managing difficult people, thinking to yourself, I have an idea. How can I communicate this idea? Presenting your ideas, managing your personal conflict, getting things done with people. That's social energy. Very different is your work energy. Your work energy is how you tackle your tasks. It's when you're breaking down your goals. It's how you're getting through your day. It's how you're checking off all your piles or sorting your papers. Those are two distinctly different types of energy. What most people do, and this is the mistake I think smart people make, is they focus only on work energy. All they're thinking about in the morning is, what tasks do I have? What's my email? What do I have to get done? And they forget how much What social interactions can cost us from an energy perspective. And so what I want to think about is, okay, in your day, what are the things that give you social energy?

The people who are like, Oh, they just make you feel so good. The conversations The interpersonal activities that make you feel good. They are like, plugging into a charger. Okay. What are the things that take your social energy? The people, the interactions, the type of socializing. It's different for everyone. For example, For me, I get social energy from one-to-one conversations. I get social energy from teaching. I lose social energy from chit-chat. I am allergic to small talk. Even a little bit of small talk drains my battery faster than going right in a deep conversation. So even if I'm having small talk with my Uber driver on the way to this interview, exhausting. I'm just like, Oh, I can't do it. I can't talk about the weather. I can't. But this conversation, I'm charging. So that could be different for certain people. Like, introverts might feel that most social things take social energy. You actually have to think about that list. Work energy is the same. And later we can do a little activity on this of what work tasks fuel you, what gives you flow? What gives you productivity? What do you do? You're like, I could do this all day, versus, of course, what work tasks drain you.

And this also could be home tasks. It doesn't have to be just work. I don't mind doing the dishes so much. I pop in a podcast, I listen to you, I listen to my audiobook, I love a memoir. And I'm in my happy place where other people Oh, they dread it. I think that what highly effective people do to bring back this is they are relentless. They are assertive in saying no to these social tasks that drain them or boxing them, which you can also do. And they are relentless about grabbing the work that gives them work energy, taking it and assertively saying, I want it. So high performers, they are assertive about their social energy and their work energy, and they're very clear about it.

Are you recommending that instead of just waking up and going through your day and scheduling the stuff that you need to do that you take a beat and you think about, Okay, what social stuff drains me and what social stuff energizes me and what work stuff drains me and what work stuff energizes me, Then I need to get really assertive with how I'm directing my energy and what I'm saying no to.

I need to know it. I need to ask for it. The same thing goes for relationships. The relationships that are the most toxic are not the toxic relationships. They're actually the ambivalent relationships. Oh. And this is, I think, the problem is with social energy and work energy. It's ambivalence that drains us the most. It's like an app running in the background. It's draining you without even realizing it. Ambivalent tasks and ambivalent relationships are the same. So the hardest category is not just, yes, those work tasks drain me. It's the task where you're like, I like it. When someone says, I go, that was a flag for you. I don't want you to like it. I don't want you to like someone. It was okay hanging out with them. No. There's that famous adage now, you should be a heck yeah, none yeah. Let's break that down into some actual tasks and some actual systems. Ambivalence is a problem of our work energy and our social energy. Highly effective people are very good at not having anything ambivalent.

What does ambivalent mean? It's a big word.

Yes. Ambivalent means you're not sure if you love it or hate You could take it or leave it. You feel neutral often when you do it. That is actually more dangerous. I'll give you an example that happens the most with people. Ambivalent relationship structure, the hardest. You might have that friend where you see them on your calendar, You're like, Oh, yeah. Should I cancel? I'm so tired. Or I'm not really looking forward to it, but we've been friends forever. It's on the calendar for a long time. You hang out with them and you wonder, Is this fun? Or as my good friend says, Is this fun or am I just fun? Sometimes really fun people can mask they're having fun. Actually, they're just fun, but they're not actually having any fun. So you're wondering, Am I having fun? Or, Are they supporting me? Wait, was that passive-aggressive? Why do I feel so tired? When you leave this friend and you think, I should have just stayed home and watched Netflix. When you leave and you can't remember anything you talked about. When When you leave and you question, Do they really like me? Did I learn anything?

Did I get asked good questions? That is the ambivalent relationship.

And we pour a ton of energy into them.

A ton. They take more energy than the good relationships and the toxic relationships. When you think about the people in your life, and I would highly recommend, make a list of all the people in your life and put a star next to the people who you would drop things to hang out with. You would move some things around and hang out with them. That's It's a good relationship. Then put a minus sign next to people who you dread hanging out with. Sometimes these are obligatory relationships, colleagues or family relationships you don't really love. That's fine. Know it. Own it. Don't pretend that you like hanging out with them. That's okay. It's okay that we have you are not our people. Then put a question mark next to the people who you're not sure if you would forget if you didn't hang out with them. You know those people that weeks go by and you're like, Man, I haven't even thought about that person. Those Question marks, please stop seeing them. Just for a while. Do you miss them? Is your life different not seeing them? I think we have to be really careful with our social energy.

Well, and here's the other thing we don't think about. You're a question mark on somebody else's list. That's right. You wouldn't want somebody to make time and hang out with you if they're sitting there across the table from you going, Is this fun? Do I like this person? So don't do that to somebody Yes. The other thing that I'm getting from this, because this makes so much sense, is that if you were to take that energy and time and focus it on the people that you really like that you don't see enough of, it would lift your life up and it would make those relationships so much better.

That's it. You got to say no to the bad to make room for the right. Wow.

Vanessa, what does your research show about the top habits of a high achiever?

One is they start their day not just thinking about the to-do list, but thinking about their work and social energy. Second is they use the Pygmalian effect in their day. The Pygmalian effect is after a Greek myth that Pygmalian made a statue of a beautiful woman, and then he fell in love with the statue, and then he kissed her and she came to life. This effect is studied and research that if you set up a good expectation, that expectation will come to life. Highly effective people are constantly using power of labels instead of expectations. So they use labels for themselves, but they also use labels for others. So if they see someone who is an incredible speaker or presenter or organizer, they are constantly saying, You are such a magician with presentations. I don't know how you do that. Or, You are so good at cooking dinner. Thank you so much for cooking dinner. That expectations also turns people to life, and then everyone's doing better. So being clear in the beginning of the day, Pygmalian effect, no ambivalence. So getting rid of all those ambivalent relationships and those ambivalent tasks. And the last one I would say is the power of liking.

So this is another study that I just love. This study changed my life, changed the way I think about likability. I talked earlier about how you can be both assertive and likable. I truly believe that. Here's how we become likable. We've talked a lot about assertiveness, but how do we become likable to parent? This is a study that was done by Van Sloan, and he studied high school students. These are the original likable kids. He was curious, why are some kids popular and Why are kids not? If you were to ask someone, why are kids popular? I probably would have guessed athletes, or maybe they're the funniest, maybe they're the most attractive. He looked at everything, from athleticism to GPA, to attractiveness, to humor. As many variables as he could think of. He found that there was, and this was across a variety of high schools and across a variety of grades, so it wasn't just one school. He found there was one single pattern amongst all the schools and all the grades. He found that the most Most liked kids, the most popular kids, had the longest list of people they liked. Yes. In other words, yes, we are in control of our likability.

That if we find ways to like more people, we become more likable. In the hallways, when he studied these really likable kids that everyone put on their like list, they weren't having hours long conversations in the cafeteria. They weren't checking in on everyone all the time. They were just acknowledging every single person in the hallway, usually by name. Hey, Mel. Hey, Greg. Sarah, looking good. It was these micro moments of likability. That really chain of perspective is one, it's not about other people, it's about you. You being likable is about spreading likability, and it starts with you. But if you can find, and I mean assertively, find ways to like people, you become more likable. And that means the onus is on you. But if you're ambivalent about those people, so those question marks on your list, stop hanging out for a little while. See if you miss them. If you do miss them, here's your next step. Find ways to aggressively and assertively like them. Find the things that you love about each other. Find the commonalities and make sure they know it. I think too often as adults, especially, we are too cool to show that We like people.

We play it cool. We hold back. We don't want to be the first liker. No. My mission in life is to be first liker. I invite people to sit with me at conferences. I'm the first person to ask questions in conversation. If I like someone, I literally tell them, I like you. I like you a lot. I am constantly telling the people I truly like, I really like you. I like spending time with you. You're so interesting. Because if I know that I can truly say that, I want to be assertive about it. That's the next step is, I think highly effective people, the reason they're so charismatic is they relentlessly pursue people they actually like, and then they share it.

Oh.

Yeah. I like you, Mel.

I adore you. Okay, I'll take it. I like your brain. I like your takeaways. I like your energy. I like your enthusiasm. I like what is clearly a commitment that you have to helping us be more influential and also enjoy your life. Yeah, that's it. I got really choked up when you said that thing about the kid walking down the hallway. Here I am crying over this silly example.

I felt emotional when you said you adored me. I was like, Oh.

Well, because I think so many of us walk around feeling like shit about ourselves. Yes. If somebody just walks by and is like, Hey, I love your sweater. You look great today. You're like, Oh, thank you.

Or even, I really like working with you. Yeah. I don't know if I tell you that enough. I love when you're in a meeting with me. Oh. To be able to say that, and that's why it's so critical that first exercise of knowing who you like and not being ambivalent, because I don't want you to fake that. I only want you to be able to say that if you truly believe it. And so spreading likes, it feels so good. I also think it prevents our burnout. I think that the way that we prevent burnout is, yes, we can be doing lots of things, but if we're working with people we like and we're doing tasks we like and we can all feel good about it, it gives energy. It makes you feel so good. I think that making that list of people you like, I want that list to get longer. I want you to find ways to like more people because that makes you so likable.

Wow. You mentioned the fake. Don't fake it. I'm asking this because I completely understand the counsel and advice about removing things you're ambivalent about. Yeah. I would just like to know, though, because I do think that there's that kindness of acknowledging people and saying hello to people and calling them by name. Yes. But you're talking about authentically, aggressively liking people. I am. Does it backfire if you fake this?

Okay, I struggle with this one because I don't love the idea of fake it till you make it.

Me either. Yeah.

But I understand that there are folks who have to employ that tool to step into themselves. If that's you, that's okay. If that works for you, that's okay. But fake doesn't really work. They've actually studied this. Dr. Barbara Wild and her associates brought participants into her lab, and she showed them pictures of people who were authentically smiling. In other words, when they took the picture, they were told, think of something that makes you happy. Then they had people fake smile. They took the mood test before and after. Everyone who saw the real happiness caught the mood. They actually had an improved approved mood score. Everyone who looked at the fake pictures had no mood change at all.

Wow.

So that means that if you want to be more contagious, if you want to spread positivity, likability, real authentic happiness is more contagious. However, the people who saw the fake picture did not have a worse mood. They just had no mood change at all. So the way that I would frame this is, I don't love you to be fake. It just makes you less impactful and influential. However, it doesn't have a detrimental effect on someone. And so if that's what need to get through the day or you're in a situation where you can't be like, Well, I don't like you. We shouldn't hang out, right? Then that's okay. It's okay to be fake to get through. But if you can as much as possible, I think, stretching into or putting the... I put a question mark there on purpose. There are people in my life who I do have to fake it a little bit, but their question marks, I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic that one day we'll figure it out, I'm optimistic that One day we'll find something that we both like. I think that's okay. I think being fake with hope is okay.

That I like because what's authentic is your desire that it change for the better. So you're not being fake at all?

No.

Got it. Okay. I just loved what you shared about likability, and it makes me wonder, what about vulnerability? Does that make you more likable? Yes.

Okay, so I think there's a misconception that to be likable, you have to be perfect or you have to be impressive. I'm a recovering awkward person. That was me for many years, trying desperately to be perfect and be impressive and have funny stories. It just doesn't work. In fact, vulnerability is one of the fastest ways to show likability. There was actually a study that was done on this by Richard Wiseman. What he did is he had an actress go into the mall and do a smoothie demonstration. She was selling blenders. That was her fake activity. She did a couple of demonstrations where she made the smoothie perfectly with the strawberries and the bananas, and she blended it up and she poured everyone for smoothies. They had everyone in the mall rate her on likability. Then they had a series of them where she spilled the smoothie. She dripped it, spilled it, Oh, Oh, my gosh. So sorry about that. Just one little spill. Didn't make a whole thing of it, but spilled it. Everyone in those studies rated her as more likable. What a gift to know that your mistakes make you more likable. The reason this is because we know no one is perfect.

We know this. We also know that if someone is trying to impress us, they might be trying to cover something up. I love the idea of likable people are not prettier, they're not more impressive. Liking more people, yes, but also approaching them with your vulnerability. Being at a wedding, trying to make friends, 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 My feet are killing me. Are yours? I think that sharing some of our fears, some of our weaknesses, that is actually a way to make everyone feel like themselves. 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. 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. Then all these people started to tell me they feel awkward people, too. And that's when I started having a real connection.

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 will be waiting for you when we come back. Stay with 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. Vanessa, you can walk into a room and see who's influential Still, but can you teach us how to walk into a room and see somebody who's highly influential? Just distinguish? Yes.

The very first thing, 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 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 I amuse myself. I try to guess who the boss is in the room, or I try to guess work crushes. Almost always I can identify exactly who the boss in the room is 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 influence or a celebrity, even if it's just a mingling, I can almost always tell that everyone is like their eye is on that influence of that celebrity or the boss because their toes are pointed towards them.

The only exception to this is when people have to go, you will notice their toes will shift towards the exit. It's if their brain are going, What's my escape? When can I get out of here? So one is always look at toe direction. It can also show you hidden crushes. Not always, but sometimes. Usually, I can tell when someone has a little crushy crush on someone else based on where their toes, and that person will move and the person's toes who has a crush will usually follow them, which is a funny thing. So always pay attention to I suppose. That's the first way that we do it. The second thing is, typically, not always, highly influential people claim their space. So all of this cut ties together. When you are assertive, you are assertive verbally, you are assertive emotionally, you're also assertive physically. And this has been proven. So researchers from the University of British Columbia studied athletes. And they studied athletes across genders and races, and they found that winning athletes, athletes who win a race, they 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. 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 a room, I'm here. 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 earlobes and our shoulder.

Wait, what? I know. The distance between- Our earlobe and our shoulder. Right now, I think I probably have what? I got eight inches, six inches, something like that?

For you, that's max. Try to put your shoulder down as much as possible. Like down? Yeah, 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. That's what Vanessa is doing.

Turtle your head, put your shoulders up, try to touch your ears to your shoulders.

Yeah, look, pretend you're a teenager who's staring at your phone.

This is what happens. As we do this, a couple of things happen. One is we feel terrible.

You feel terrible? I was like,.

It feels terrible. It feels terrible. Also, our vocal power drops. It's very, very hard to actually give a lot of vocal. I go into vocal fry when I do this because it's very hard. It affects your vocal power. It affects your perceived confidence, like how you feel. It also affects how you look. You look less confident. If I were to give the entire interview like this- You can see her right now.

She literally- I have a hunch in my shoulders. Hi. She squeezed her shoulders up. You literally all of a sudden went from Vanessa renowned researcher to, It's Vanessa in middle school.

This is the only difference. This one little cue completely changes your perception of me.

For somebody who is introverted- Yes. 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 are an influential person. What's the body language that you can start to practice?

Well, first of all, I write books for you because I believe your cues can speak for you. Okay. For introverts, your cues are even more important because you can use small micro cues non-verbally to speak for you. For an introvert or anyone listening, you want to maximize the distance between your ear and your shoulder pretty much 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 up your ears.

And your shoulders are up your ears. Or you're waving hello with your shoulders up your ears. Or they walk into a date or they walk into a meeting. Morning. Your first impression is now little, small, defeated.

Here's the cue I want to give you as you're listening. If you are like, But I'm shy, but I am introverted, but 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. 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. 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 them down and stand up taller or sit up taller. That's it.

That one cue creates a loop. 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. That's why we do that? Yes, it's an evolutionary cue. 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. There's an evolutionary reason why we do it. If your shoulders are down and back, your head is held high, my jugular is showing, my brain says, 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. It creates all those awkwardness cues.

We can stop our awkward loops by simply changing our cues. This is the first distance is ear to shoulder.

I want to make sure you got that. 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 is talking about. I want you to take... You take your chin and you point it down and you put your shoulders up.

Point your chin down as if you're checking your phone. Now, hunch your shoulders up and then turtle your ears down so you're as small as possible so you're jugular, your neck is protected. If you sit like this, you are going to begin to feel more awkward and uncomfortable.

You're going to lose oxygen. It's hard to breathe, almost. Yes.

If you're going to lose oxygen, you're going to have vocal fry. Here is the biggest aha of 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. Accidently. 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? 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.

Up and out.

Up and out. Up and out. Right. 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 in 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 It's true.

I don't have my phone with me, but if.

You can look at my baby. I think there's a good picture.

If I've got it up like this- You can even put your elbow down on the table.

That's true.

Now I'm like, bicep flex. You're like, Well, look at that.

You look so powerful.

I'm like, I got I got to pull my phone out here and check it. That's it. Wow. Also, you can still text while you're doing that.

Or you can rest your arms on the table. That's okay, too. You're still looking out, right? Up and out. Up and out.

I love that. You said something about our Okay, that's the next cue.

What else we doing with our arms? Okay, so first cue, ears to shoulders. Second cue, distance between your torso and your arms. Watch this. 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.

Like you're giving yourself a little hug in front.

You will begin to feel like, I'm a little nervous, I'm a little anxious, a little uncomfortable. You will actually speak in shorter sentences when you say it like this. You're more likely to say no in research. They find that when you're in closed body language, you are more likely to say no.

This pose, if you're not watching on YouTube, is the pose you would imagine somebody sitting in in a gymnasium at a dance where they haven't been asked to dance. Yes. As you cross your arms in front of your body and you roll your shoulders forward, you do feel like you're a loser. Yes. I'm literally like, wow, I could get attacked at any time right now.

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. If I'm 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. We forget that when we're sitting in a meeting or we're going on a date or we're trying to psych ourselves, we're sitting in the car and I'm like, I'm so nervous. We're actually creating a negative feedback loop for ourselves.

What do we do with our arms?

Okay, so always, please make sure you are using a desk chair with armrests.

Okay.

This chair is actually a little hard.

Because we're getting new chairs. I can I could be your higher arm..

These are okay. We have small armrests.

You and I are both very tall.

We're very tall. I know. 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. For you listening, all What we're doing is moving our elbows out to the side. That's it. That's it.

I'm actually okay. 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. 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.

I don't either. You know why else I pick a chair with an armrest? Because I like to swivel. Oh, the swivel is so good. And rock, and I like to cock an elbow on in the back of the chair. That's so good. This? This is so good. So confident. I'm like super relaxed.

You're a cowgirl. That's basically what that is, right? Yes. That is a confidence to 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.

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 who's actually talking.

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, 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. And so the swivel chair adds to that. And then if you can add armrests, that immediately broadens us and immediately gives us more perceived and felt confidence.

You know 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. That's it. What am I doing with my hands?

Okay, so they actually studied this. They took videotapes of leaders speaking, and they had participants rate the leaders on their charisma, specifically their gestures. They had all kinds of gestures in these videos. They found there was one single gesture that people rated as the most charismatic. I call it the power pose for the hands. It is a steeple. A steeple is when you touch the tops of your fingers, chips 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.

Okay, so now we're not tapping your fingers. We're not drumming.

We're not drumming our fingers. That's very evil.

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

Just try this with me for a second. It will actually make you feel more grounded when you do it.

It's almost like you got like super power running from one hand to the other hand. You're like, zzz.

The power is your night. Good. All right. There we go. It's a very relaxed gesture. Now, whenever I teach a cue, there are 97 cues. Not every cue is going to work for you. That's okay. I I meant, 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 still feel ridiculous, you might not want to use it. I don't want you to A little silly.

What's the second recommendation for your hand?

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. Leaders, highly effective people, are queuing people around them to know how to feel. Cues tell others how they treat us. This one's a really good one. This one's my favorite.

What is it? It's this. Oh, you're rubbing your hands together. Yes. So literally just rubbing your hands together as you're talking. When I'm about to say something, Oh, this is really good.

This is really exciting. Even that small little gesture should be like, Oh, this is going to be good. I don't know why. I think it's because we warm our hands this way. But a very subtle one is if you're about to share something good or tell somebody, Oh, this is such a good little story. That one little cue, it shows excitement. It triggers excitement. You can often go from the this to the this You know what I just got as you were doing that?

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

Yes. It's 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. Now, The common line, really, the bigger takeaway here is visible hands.

Okay.

Every gesture I could teach you is visible hands. It's a palm flash, it's a steeple, it's a gesture towards you. Visible is bare minimum. 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. We just believe hands more often. If I were to say, I have three really important things to tell you.

I'm looking at your hand 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 all five fingers.

Yes, a thumb is a finger. Okay. By the way, hold up five, but say three.

Three. Horrible. You just... Can't do it. I'm trying to do it as you're listening. Why don't you try to do it while you're listening?

Say, I have three ideas, but hold up five.

I have three ideas.

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. Here's why. It's because it is very hard to lie with gesture. We are very used to lying with our words. It's very easy to say three, five. Easy. It is very hard to lie with gestures. 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, like I'm holding a little dime or a penny, you would say, Vanessa, it's small. 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 tracks.

Mouth and hands. Yes.

Another expert level's bottom is keep them visible. Keep your hands visible out of pockets above the desk. 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 you have a big idea, show me how big it is. Is it beach ball big?

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 out to be demonstrative with her hands. It does communicate belief. You're right, it's like taking a highlighter with your meetments. That's it. Just being like, Here we go. I believe in this.

It's purposeful. It's not just gestures for the sake of gestures where I'm just jazzhandsing it, it's like underlining purposefully. It's like giving someone an outline.

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

They communicate with their nonverbal, their vocal, and their verbal. We talked a little bit of 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.

Okay.

Volume immediately gets rid of vocal fry. So if you hear yourself going into that pattern where it's like a sizzling pan, just speak a little bit louder. Same thing if you hear someone using vocal fry, you can ask them to speak up. Got it. 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. 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 lap? Lab.

Oh, I thought you were just like, wow.

That's that study, now. Yeah, this is the study. I don't know what they'd be able to do in their lives, but we were talking about body language. So into their lab. I should be careful with that word now that you're doing it. I'm not going to be that.

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 brought people into their lab and they slid them up into two different groups. The first group came into the lab, they were greeted by the researcher, and they were told, Today, you are playing the community game. They went to explain the rules of the game and they the game. The second group came into the same lab, the same researcher, and they were told, Today, you are playing the Wall Street game. But the trick was, the games were exactly the same. Everything was the same except for that single word cue. Being told you were playing the community game versus being told you were playing the Wall Street game.

So Wall Street versus community. That's it.

Everything else was exactly the same. Okay. Guess what happened?

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

Am I right? You're exactly right, but the outcome is a little bit sadder than that. Okay. But the outcome is sad. You're right. The Wall Street 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. 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. When you think about your calendar invites, what calendar invites are you sending? I don't know about you, but I usually get call, meeting, one-on-one conference, video calls, Zoom. Those are sterile. They're not priming anyone for anything. You are actually telling someone, Keep your brain on autopilot. This meeting will be exactly the same as all the others. What I want you to do is think about how can you play the community game.

What do What do you want someone to feel, think, and behave like when they see that invite pop up in their inbox?

What do you recommend?

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 don't know 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 and act that way every single time they open their calendar. That breaks autopilot.

I love that. We are implementing that. I'm yelling at everybody now. We're You're implementing that.

Yes, and no more emails that say subject follow-up. Follow-up is the worst subject plan in history. Worst plan in history. 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 in the habits of people who are highly influential. That's you. And so, Vanessa, for someone, though, that is 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?

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 a collaborative session tomorrow, and then invite you to that. You know exactly what that's going to be. 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 of my... No. All you have to say is, Let's do a collaborative session tomorrow, or that's highly warm. 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 is the day we're going to whip out those tasks. We are going to do it together. We're going to conquer some of those tasks.

We're going to be super efficient.

I'm wearing sweats. Let's go. That's what I'm ready to run.

That changes your perception of the day. It also changes how you would act in the day. There's 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. What they did is they had participants come into their lab and they gave them a basic task, like an intelligence task. They had two different versions of the task. One had a set of sterile formal directions, the directions you always see. Please complete the following the best of your ability. The second group had the same set of directions, but they sprinkled in a couple of achievement-oriented words. 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 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.

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

One, I think that a very simple research-backed answer would be use more behavior cues on yourself. Use words like win for yourself. Give me an example. Okay, 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. Or Vanessa Writing Block. That is so boring, and that primes me to be like, Oh, a research block, a writing block. No, it's Vanessa Winning Morning. Get it done, Vanessa. Power up, All my alarms in my phone are super motivational of the words that I literally want to see. So one is in your own calendar invites, in your own alarms, in your own self-taught, the more that you can use these cues for yourself, the better. That is my research back answer, and It works. It does work.

How can you talk to anyone with ease and confidence?

Yes. Okay, first of all, transparency. I think the more that we can talk about our own behavior, the better. But I think that how we talk to anyone ease and confidence is by breaking autopilot. Conversations become stilted. Conversations become difficult when both of us are on autopilot. This sounds like this. Hey, how's it going?

Good.

Busy, good. Busy, Oh, how about you? Yeah, busy, but good. How are the kids? Oh, good.

That's a fake smile, Vanessa. I can tell.

I think that well-meaning people, they ask what I would call safe questions or autopilot questions, and they get the same answers. The only way, I think, to talk to you with ease and confidence is to break autopilot, and it's uncomfortable.

Is there a question or two that you like? Yes.

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 on anything exciting recently? So what's good? Working on anything exciting recently? And specifically with what do you do? That question is problematic for me because I think that what you're really asking is, what are you worth? You're trying to put someone in a box, and I get it. We want to understand where people come from. It is much kinder to ask someone, working on anything exciting these days?

Well, it also means if you're working on applications to go to school, or you're working on training for something, or I'm working on not losing it with my children.

Yes, exactly. 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 in a very specific box. So replace, how are you? With what's good or what's been the highlight of your week? What's the highlight of your day? Replace, what do you do with working anything exciting or have anything coming up that's exciting or have any fun plans coming up? They're 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 asked 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 if you're busy because if you ask someone, been busy?

Oh, now I think about how busy I am.

All busy you are.

It's so true. It's so true. Then I literally talk about how busy I am. Yes. Instead of the thing that I'm excited about.

Exactly. 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. Three, if you can, you want to level up the conversation. How? I think a big mistake that he will make is they ask too deep questions too quickly. I don't want you to be like, What's your biggest dream in life? An introvert is going to 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. 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. I was like, What is going on? Do you remember what question it was?

Of course.

What is it? What's your story?

Oh, I hate that question. I'm like, Which version of me? I feel like I'm in a therapy session. Like, What?

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. 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 I'm sure 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 because they're 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? They are thrilled to tell you. In leveling up 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 to them themselves. If you're with an introvert or introvert, or you're not sure, for heaven's sakes, do not ask that question.

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 questions. I like the second one. Or have any fun plans coming up? Those are still safe. If you just met someone or you're just catching up, Those are all safe questions. You want to think very carefully about the questions you ask.

I love that. You've really interesting research about where you sit at work.

Yes. Okay, so this is not my research, but it's research that I found that I was like, how does everyone I don't know about this? 58,000 working hours across 11 different companies. This is a massive amount of data. 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. I think that that power, you can get it from others, great, and you can also give it to others, 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? What are we looking for?

If you sit next to a low performer, it decreases your performance by 30%.

What?

Yes. Let me break it down. This study was done. They brought people into their lab, and again, they split them up into two different groups. One group, they wear a sweatsuit, and they had them run on the treadmill and sweat into this sweatsuit. This is pretty gross. The second group wore sweatsuits and then did 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 arm pits 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. I think the 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. A lot of this is about getting yourself right first. Your day starting with what 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.

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

Yes.

Where should I stand at a networking event?

Okay, 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 We had a map of the event and we tracked where people were walking. Interesting. We noticed patterns across the events, it was across multiple different events. 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 I understand. 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. They get there and they're like, I'm just going to stand right by the door because 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 microconversations. 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.

If you pounce someone in that starting zone, anywhere near the door, anywhere near the check-in table, 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 something to You are not going to be able to make a connection in that start zone.

So do not. A thousand % correct.

Right. And that's a mistake that a lot of introverts will make. They stand there because they don't know anyone and they're afraid to penetrate the room. And then an introvert goes, Why did I even come? I'm not even having good conversations. And you'll get that deer in the headlights. Look, if you watch people, I love to sit and observe people. If you watch people when they walk to 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? If someone is pounced on when they're doing that wide-eyed survey of glances, they are literally chemically not ready yet. Wow. They're not settled enough.

Where do I stand?

Okay, so the best place, this is where the longest conversations happens and 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 and they go, I got to get a drink. I got to get a Whether that's coffee or two, whatever, people like to anchor themselves with something in their hand. It gives them something to do psychologically. They wait in line and they're waiting. They're thinking, I'm here. You'll literally physically see it. People are waiting in the drink line. They're like, 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 I'm ready. If you are standing right there, you are a social savior. Because if you don't find someone to talk to in that couple of seconds, you're like, I don't know who to talk to. But if you're right there and you're like, Hey, that looks great. What wine did you get?

Or, Oh, what's good today? It seems like a fun event. You have just saved someone from having the awkward experience of not having to talk to. So right as people, exit the bar.

Wow. Have you studied social events? Where would you advise somebody to stand if you're single or You're going to an event alone? Yes.

If you're going to an event alone, I do highly recommend staying in that exit bar. The other place for a single person or if you're going to event alone, is in the eye line 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, Rachael, I've been desperate for you to meet my friend Jasmine. Come on over. You are easily able to be connected to. I always try to be an eye line of the host if I don't know where I'm going. You also can stand in the island 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.

Do you know where you should stand at I'm not going to get to the wedding.

Oh, I haven't studied it. I do. Tell me.

The door that the caterers are coming out of with the trays. That's always where you'll find Mel Robbins. Get over here with the lamb chow. Meatballs.

By the way, it's so funny you say that. That is my favorite place to stand because I'm always hungry. What's funny is when I stand there, I say to the other people, Caterers coming out the store, What are you looking for?

Yeah, exactly. Come on over here.

I won't be a co-conspirator. I'll be like, Oh, you're looking for the Teno 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 hungry like you.

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

I have a very unique approach productivity, and I want to play a little game. Let's do it. You're ready to play a little game? Okay, so if you're listening, if you can take out a pen and paper, that would be great. If not, just use your memory. We'll play a little game together. 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. At the top of your piece of paper, I want you to write A, B, C, and D with four columns.

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

Yeah. Got it. Abcd. Okay. 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. We're going to start there. Your A work is only the tasks that you are better at than most people.

Okay, so A is what I would 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. Okay. You might even be known for it. I want you to list different tasks on your A work. I also want you to list some social energy tasks. Where do you thrive? What is your favorite way to socialize? Who are your A people that you just feel like yourself. You're authentic. They give you energy, you look forward to it. I want you to put some of those things on there. Tasks on top, energy on the bottom, social energy on the bottom. B. B is where my smart people get tripped up.

What's B?

The work you're pretty good at, but you're not the best at it. They're not tasks that you hit flow. They're tasks that you can get through pretty easily. They're not tasks you're known for, but they're not tasks that you're bad at. This is the hardest column. Why is this the hardest? It's because we have to distinguish between tasks that we're exceptionally good at, that we hit flow at, and tasks that we're pretty good at. Smart people have a lot of things on their B list, but not always a lot of things on their A list. Smart people can get away with doing B things for a long time. Same thing with your social energy. What are some socializing things that you like? You don't love it, you like it, it's okay. You don't feel drained from it, but you can do it. Same with people, you enjoy spending time with them, but you would have to give a little bit of social energy to spend time with them. So you're B people. Okay. So you spend time doing that. C work. C. Okay. C work is work you are average at. You're not known for it.

You're a little clunky with it. C work is marked by you're a little embarrassed. A little bit embarrassed by it.

Okay.

You're like, I'm not so great at that. I wouldn't want people to see it really well. So that's your C work, is your average. Dwork should be the obvious one. Dwork is work you are bad at. Got it. 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 They're 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. 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, 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 people, 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?

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

If you're willing to give examples, I think it would be very interesting to hear them. Okay. I'm happy to give mine, too, if that's helpful.

Yeah, I think we should. Do you want to start with A? A, yes. Okay. I am fantastic at giving ideas, ideation. Yes. 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, not. You think there's no way around it? Yes, there is. You think that there's an obstacle? I see an opportunity.

I would call that motivational. So ideation and motivation.

Oh, my God. It's also like 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.

Okay, so here's what's critical. Busy people like you, you often give that away. 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 Merz sitting over there. Second thing, business development. I have 100% close rate in meetings, especially Especially around speaking, 100% close rate. If I have an in-person meeting or Zoom meeting, the deal is done, period.

Okay, so this is really important because what happens when you get busy and successful is you have an agent or manager. You're not always in the room. Correct. That means you have to hire someone whose A work is that, and they know that if it's a particularly hard close, they can bring you in. You cannot give that away.

Creative direction. I just don't have any time for it. 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 it.

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

Probably.

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?

Probably. 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. Then in terms of social, my top thing is dinner at home. I love it. I love to have dinner at home.

You would know. 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 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.

Oh, for sure. Then in terms of B, I literally put everything else. That is. Then I've got a couple of things on C and D, 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 for Mel. Not because I'm a jerk, but I destroy structure. 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.

We now know the script, thanks to you, which is, Christine, I hear that you need me to create an Excel spreadsheet for you.

I am a spreadsheet disaster.

Yes, I'm a spreadsheet disaster. You want to see road kill on a page, ask me to put something in Excel. 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 and a presentation.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to make us a lot of likes and views in my interview later today.

I love that. I love that.

Exactly.

That is masterful.

Here's the thing. If your entire focus is more A work, less B, C, and D work every day, every month, in your general task, 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? I always say that because I'm like, Let's get real on what you like. 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. 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. You know what I do? We have a D work day. Say, Okay, everyone, we're 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 Dwork together. When Dwork 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. 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 battery recharge. It's about energy management.

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 do it together.

But we love eating dinner, so we got to clean it up. Yes. Let's turn on music and make it as fast and fun as we can.

What do highly influential people do at night?

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 They're not burnt out. They're not working until the moment they shut their eyes. I think the end of the day is a time to look back and be like, Oh, good job. I did a lot of A work, or, I did a lot of B work today and I am tired, or, I did not have a good lunch with her. I think that pausing is the most important thing we can do at the end of the day.

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 about even thinking about your goals for the day or the week or the year or the decade?

Using ABCD 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. 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 best-selling author, then I will be happy. If I lose 20 pounds, then I will be happy. If I become a mother, then I will 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. 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.

Yeah, 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'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.

Yes. Because then if you achieve the goal, fantastic. But your goal is actually happy in the moment of actually doing it. 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?

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

I think essential. I think essential. I think that everyone should have a quest. I think everyone should have a quest. 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 riches, or 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. They have microquests and bigquests. I think if you don't have some 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.

Amazing. What is your final word to the person that has been listening and hanging on to your every word?

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. It's okay to try a little bit less hard and just do it in different ways. 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 there a work? 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?

I love that. I also love the piece about figuring out who in your life you're giving time to that you're ambivalent about. Yes. And take that time back for yourself.

Take it back.

Vanessa Van Edwards. Holy smokes. I like you.

I like you. I like you. I like you.

I like you, too. And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I more than like 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. Hey, it's me. All right. Hold on. I love it. Oh, my God. Are you okay?

That is the worst sound. That's the sound. What I bought. Now we get comfortable. You guys are buddies. You might come back a little bit. We feel that we're old friends. Yes. We feel it.

Awesome. Awesome. Oh, yeah.

Here we go. I know how this game works.

Yes, ma'am. Where were we? Oh, we're doing this. Okay, great. I want to do one more. Okay, keep going. Nice. We did it. Oh, and one more thing. No, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.

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