Vanessa Van Edwards on How to Liberate Yourself from Social Anxiety (Replay)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Vanessa Van Edwards on How to Liberate Yourself from Social Anxiety

Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu — March 5, 2024 (Replay)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Tom Bilyeu sits down with Vanessa Van Edwards, acclaimed author, human behavior researcher, and body language expert, for an engaging and science-backed deep dive into understanding yourself and others. They cover social anxiety, decoding personality traits, radical honesty, cultivating meaningful relationships, and practical techniques to navigate social situations and elevate everyday happiness. Vanessa shares transformative insights from her research and personal journey from social awkwardness to being a leading expert on interacting with people and “cracking the code” of human behavior.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Social Anxiety & Personal Transformation

• Vanessa’s Journey: Vanessa opens up about being a “recovering awkward person” who once hid in bathrooms at parties to avoid interactions. She emphasizes that social skills can be learned by anyone, but each person’s improvement curve may differ based on their starting point.

  “If you're awkward, a room looks like either a battlefield or a playground, depending on your mentality.” — Vanessa (07:01)

• Growth Through Observation: Vanessa leveraged her discomfort by becoming a keen observer, which enabled her to break down social situations in a formulaic way.

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2. Science-Backed “Matrix” for Decoding People

• Unique Research Approach: Frustrated by generic research (e.g., studies relying only on college students), Vanessa started her own lab to test behavioral theories in real-world settings and on herself.

  “Anyone could write an article about science... What could change was if I tested things on myself.” — Vanessa (08:00)

• Solving People: The Matrix Analogy: Vanessa proposes that everyone has a “cipher” — a set of values and personality traits you can learn to “solve” for better communication and understanding.

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3. The Big Five (“OCEAN”) Personality Traits Explained

• Breakdown of Traits:

  • Openness (adventurousness/innovation)
  • Conscientiousness (organization/routine)
  • Extroversion (sociability)
  • Agreeableness (team-player, compliance)
  • Neuroticism (response to worry/stress)

• Real-World Examples: Vanessa analyzes Tom’s car trunk and medicine cabinet to “decode” his levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness (12:17–14:26). Vanessa also points out how even language around these traits can have cultural biases.

  “For example, in Western cultures, there is an ideal personality type. Language is actually a huge issue.” — Vanessa (14:43)

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4. Decoding Environments & Objects to Reveal Personality

• Environmental Clues: Items like what’s on your walls or in your trunk often reflect your core traits. Art with motivational quotes? You may be higher in neuroticism and seek external soothing.

  “We can probably solve a lot of your personality traits just by looking in your wallet or bedside table.” — Vanessa (12:12)
  “High neurotics use more motivational quotes ... a kind of external regulator for their internal world.” — Vanessa (16:28)

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5. Relationships: Balancing Traits & Radical Honesty

• Balancing Personalities in Relationships: Vanessa explains that opposites can complement each other, especially regarding anxiety/neuroticism (19:20).

  “High neurotics prevent crises from happening in the first place. Low neurotics are wonderful in a crisis.” — Vanessa (20:05)

• Optimizing, Not Fighting, Your Wiring: Instead of fighting your instincts or your partner’s, set up life and partnerships to leverage each person’s natural tendencies.

  “Knowing how you are wired instead of fighting it.” — Vanessa (21:15)

• Radical Honesty in Friendships & Work: Vanessa insists on honest communication rather than polite excuses or white lies. She prefers to share her exact reasons for declining an invitation or expressing a need in both personal and professional contexts (41:45–42:32).

  “Instead of making up an excuse, I will just tell them the real reason I don't want to do something.” — Vanessa (41:45)

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6. Building, Breaking, and Managing Friendships

• Friend Archetypes:

  • Cotton Candy Friends: Fun, surface-level, “woo girls”—enjoyable but lacking emotional nutrition (26:01).
  • Brisket Friends: Substantive, deeply nourishing connections.

• Ambivalent Relationships & “Frenemies”:

  • Research shows that ambiguous or energy-draining work relationships are more detrimental than toxic ones, because of the added emotional uncertainty (27:31–29:53).

  • The Key Test:

    “Are you ever doubting that they're really happy for you?” — Vanessa (30:14)

  • Dream Killers: Friends who respond to your excitement with pessimism are not always “bad,” but recognize when to involve them.

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7. Decoding Nonverbal Communication

• Micro Advantages/Negatives:

  • Advantages: Smiles, nodding, open posture—showing approval.
  • Negatives: Leaning away, frowning, avoiding eye contact—showing discomfort or disagreement (45:45–46:49).

• Face & Body Structure:

  • Vanessa describes how facial features give subconscious cues about dominance, trustworthiness, etc. Tom candidly discusses his “resting bitch face” and how body language can make people appear more or less approachable (34:25–41:06).

  “When you push your eyebrows up, it shows openness, engagement — and it also softens your jaw.” — Vanessa (38:32)

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8. Motivation, Value Systems, and Resource Theory

• Primary Values Beyond Money:

  • Vanessa discusses discovering that a team member was more motivated by status and recognition than financial reward (45:11–48:50).

• How to Identify Values:

  • Watch for nonverbal cues/micro-advantages when people talk about things they value.
  • Be willing to ask directly in a radically honest, supportive way.

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9. Self-Awareness Tools

• The “34 Questions” Exercise:

  • Vanessa suggests using Arthur Aron’s questions to guide people (and yourself) to deeper self-knowledge.

  “It is the most amazing 2, 3, 5 hours you will ever spend with someone...” — Vanessa (50:43)

  • Tailor your approach for introverts vs. extroverts.

• Self-Soothing styles:

  • Some people need alone time/journaling, others need to verbalize with friends (52:45).
  • Recognizing if your current stress is logistical or emotional can help you ask for the right kind of help.

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10. Happiness Research & “Unlearning Helplessness”

• Learned Helplessness Study:

  • Vanessa summarizes Seligman’s research showing how people (or dogs) can get “stuck” in unhappiness from past experiences, even when the circumstances have changed (55:48–57:36).
  • Her lab’s research aims to redefine happiness through small, daily moments (“happy math”) rather than pursuing only rare, large victories.

  “Happiness comes in these very, very small moments every day... those minutes add up.” — Vanessa (57:40)

• Gratitude Totems: Use existing daily irritations (e.g., red lights) as reminders to practice gratitude (58:47).

  “Whenever I am stopped at that red light... I think about every single thing I'm grateful for.” — Vanessa (59:47)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Self-Acceptance and Optimization:

  “Never be angry at how you are wired, your genetics, how your face looks, because that is, I think, a huge contributor to your success.” — Vanessa (39:40)

• On Social Scripts:

  “My entire job is to try to get people out of zombie-ing through social interactions ... to wake people up out of their social interactions so they actually, actually have quality conversations and quality interactions and not just quantity.” — Vanessa (61:30)

• On Practical Self-Improvement:

  “The first thing is: you. Figure out how you're wired before you work on someone else. It's like in a flight, they always tell you put your oxygen mask on before you fix someone else.” — Vanessa (22:18)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Vanessa’s Intro & Hug Rituals: 00:45–03:56
• Learning Social Skills & Founding Her Lab: 05:36–08:57
• The Big Five Traits & Environment Clues: 11:19–17:49
• How Personality Differences Balance Relationships: 19:20–21:04
• Radical Honesty in Friendship & Work: 24:19–26:40 & 41:45–43:41
• Ambivalent Relationships/Frenemies: 27:29–30:14
• Decoding Nonverbal Cues & Face Structure: 34:25–41:06
• Happiness Research & “Gratitude Totems”: 55:45–61:06
• Outro & Final Impact Statement: 61:34–62:01

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Final Thoughts

This episode is packed with actionable insights backed by research and real-life application. Vanessa Van Edwards provides both theory and deeply personal anecdotes to help listeners liberate themselves from social anxiety, optimize relationships, and elevate their happiness. Whether you’re seeking deeper self-knowledge, ways to relate more effectively, or simply craving more meaning from your connections, this is a must-listen episode.

Explore more: scienceofpeople.com
Recommended Resource: [The Science of Succeeding with People by Vanessa Van Edwards]

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Summary by the podcast summarizer bot, preserving all essential insights, science, and memorable moments from the original conversation.

Transcript

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

You're listening to the Impact Theory podcast, your source of empowering ideas and actionable techniques from the world's highest achievers. Join host Tom Bilyeu, serial entrepreneur and co founder of the billion dollar brand Quest Nutrition, on a journey to unlock your potential and realize your vision of success. Welcome to Impact Theory. Hey everybody. Welcome to Impact Theory. You are here my friends, because you believe that human potential is nearly limitless. But you know that having potential is not the same as actually doing something with it. So our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that will help you actually execute your dreams. All right, today's guest is a human lie detector who has dedicated her life to cracking the code on interesting human behavior. A certified fraud examiner, body language expert, and author of Human Lie Detection and body language 101, she has literally written the book on reading people. She has traveled the world as a speaker presenting her findings to prestigious universities and Fortune 500 companies. And she's been featured on NPR, the Today show, the Wall Street Journal and a ton of other media outlets. But saying that doesn't even scratch surface of what makes her so special. The self described recovering awkward person didn't just read a few books, call herself an expert and start blogging. She founded her own research lab, conducted hundreds if not thousands of her own studies, and as the lead researcher at the Science of People, she has amassed what is arguably one of the most arresting sets of science backed insights into human behavior that I have ever seen. Every video, every article, every page of her books will leave your jaw hanging wide open with their transformative usability. She is transparent, super authentic and never afraid to ask an inappropriately intimate question for the benefit of all of us. And all of that gives her work an irreverent sparkle that makes it truly captivating whether you want to understand yourself or others better. She's got the data driven goods you've been looking for. So please help me in welcoming the woman who used to hide in the bathroom to avoid people at parties and is now the most captivating person in most any room. The author of the enthralling book, the Science of Succeeding with People, Vanessa Van Edwards. Well done. So good to have you on the show.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

That was the perfect hug.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes, that was wonderful. And we discussed it beforehand.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah, we did.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Which I think is important.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I like practicing hugs and handshakes just because you have that awkward moment that's like, are we going to handshake hug? Side hug? So that was perfect.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And what was the other one? Squiggle.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

A squiggle.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, that was. I had not heard of that. But as soon as you show.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah. So a squiggle is typically two women, but not always. So a squiggle is a moving hug. It's like a moving cuddle. So it's when people go hug, ooh, that's a squiggle.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. There are a lot of squiggles in my life. I'm gonna be really honest. I've witnessed them.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

You know, I think you might like it. You think like, I mean, it's kind of like, you know, it's like a bear hug, but there's movement in it. It's like a dance. We could swiggle at the end if you want.

[Tom Bilyeu]

We'll give it a shot.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

That is so you could try it

[Tom Bilyeu]

till you try it.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

And we should also come up with a name for that hug that where someone hugs and they pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I do that one a lot.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

You do that one. That's a man to man. That's a patty cake hug.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So I've got a weird thing with. So like my wife. My wife will just set her hand on me. For me, my hand has to be moving to show attention. Which is partly why I think I do the pat on the back thing. But then I've seen that made fun of so well.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

The thing is, so padding from a non verbal perspective, it's an interesting nonverbal move. So I don't know if.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I'm a little tense.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I know. So patting, if it's done from above, it's often a dominance gesture. So think about a dog, right? What do we do? We pat a dog's head. Think about a child. We say, good job, good boy. So if it's done equally like, you know, oh, wow, it's good to see you. It's not so bad. But just be careful. You're not like the, that I don't do. Right. So. And you'll notice that it's actually quite a demeaning gesture. There's certain politicians you might have seen out there that will. Yeah, just a few. And they will pat. They will pat on the upper shoulders or on the upper back. It's a way of saying good boy or good girl. It's a very subtle nonverbal cue. But usually the equal pat, which I think, I don't know. What do you think about patty cake? No, that's not man enough.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I don't, I don't.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Your facial expression doesn't look so good about it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I've never had the instinct to do that. But like the one handed, like I would say 90% of my hugs incorporate.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

You incorporate a pat.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So maybe that's the bro hug. Yeah, the brug.

[Tom Bilyeu]

The brug. Well said.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Let's just. I like naming everything. I name car turns, I name hugs. I like creating words.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Let's get into that because it's actually pretty fascinating. So what I love is that. So my core belief about human existence is that you can learn virtually anything.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You've come a long way from being the awkward person. Do you think people can learn anything?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I think people can learn anything. I think however, you have a spectrum of how much you can improve. So like let's say for example, sports are the easiest way to think about this. So let's say for example, you are a very lightweight, Compact male under 5 foot. You would make a great jockey. Right. Like you'd be great at riding horses if you're small and compact. Could you learn to be a basketball player? 100%. But your ability or your percent improvement is going to, is only going to be able to improve so much and you're going to have to work much harder for that compared to say a 6 foot 7 man who's going to have to work a little bit less hard to be able to dunk shots because he just is closer to the, closer to the nice. I think if you think about it that way, it's how much work do you have to do to get there?

[Tom Bilyeu]

So do you think that part of why you've been able to get as good as you have with breaking this stuff down because you had to learn it or do you think there's some. Another, another innate skill that you have that's allowed for that?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I think it's because. And maybe other recovering awkward people out there will feel this way. If you are a recovering awkward person and I don't mean introvert because not, you know, introverts do not have to be awkward, although I am introverted. We are very good at observing and what happens is, is we see inter in very black or white ways. If you are naturally charismatic or naturally good with people, you can walk into a room, you don't even have to think about a conversation starter. Whereas if you're awkward, a room looks like either a battlefield or a playground, depending on your mentality. And so if you see a room like a battlegun or a playground, you're instantly looking for who's on your team. You're looking for patterns, you're looking for verbal weapons, you're looking for different kinds of things and someone who will just walk into a room and naturally have it. So I think that what's helped is that I tend to see every interaction that way, which has helped me study it in a formulaic way. Totally different.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What, what drew you to like the science, the study? I mean not a lot of people start their own research lab.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So I was a journalist, so I was just writing stories and I loved science. I for from a very young age, my parents encouraged the academic side, the book smarts, the iq. And I think I totally forgot about the people smart side, the PQ thing. So I had all this ability to read 20 page academic studies and find some usable nugget. So I started to write about that for different blogs and journals out there. And I realized that the one thing that could differentiate me, anyone could write, you know, an article about science. But one thing that could change what I was writing is if I tested things on myself. So I either became a human guinea pig or I was able to actually do research in the real world. Because most studies are based on 20 college seniors who want academic credit for a psychology class. They're not representative of the whole population. So I thought if there was one thing that could differentiate this article from every other journalist, it would be adding my own take on it. So it was actually a differentiator. It came from a place of trying to differentiate my work from other journalists out there. And then of course a personal need that I had to try to solve people, which I don't know if it's possible, but I'm certainly still trying to.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's interesting. To solve people. What do you mean by that?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I loved in math class where you'd be working on a math problem and the teacher would be like, okay, here's a formula for you, right? It was like being given a cipher, you know, it Was like the most powerful thing. And I thought, what if there was a cipher for people? Like, what if there was a way, a formula for people? And so I, I have something that I call the matrix. It's a little bit different than the Keanu, Reeves, Reeves matrix, which I believe that every person has a cipher. They have a set of values that you can solve about them, that if turn it in the right ways, you can figure out how to figure out their motivations, how to figure out their values, how to speak to them so that they'll listen, how to make them feel loved. And so that's the closest I've come to actually solving people. And it's the only way that I found to interact successfully.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And when you say solve, though, you're saying to be able to have like a useful interaction or to not to

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

not be so baffled by people's choices.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Interesting.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I don't know if this is a pain point for you, but I was constantly feeling like I didn't understand where people were coming from or they were making choices. And I didn't understand why, especially with friendships. And so I found that if I can figure out how they're coded, how they're wired, no longer do their decisions and their actions become baffling.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Right. So give us some of those things. So, in fact, let me. You and I were talking about this, but let me break it down for you at home. Hi. So the way that I normally prepare for an interview is very different than the way that I will go through a book for a book review and started the book on an international flight. So I had plenty of time and started it just to read it as part of my interview prep for this interview. And then, man, like really fast, I was like, whoa, that was a cool insight. And then that was another one. And then rapidly it just turned into a book review. And I just like went in, like, all the different points and how they add up and just like all the things I wanted in my own life and started because you, and this is what I'd really like you to talk about. Now you start breaking down, like, what motivates people? What's their love language, what's their primary value? That kind of stuff. And so I started going, oh my God, like, what's mine? Like, first of all, I didn't even know mine. And I found it very weird because I consider myself super self aware. I found it so much easier to identify my wife's always than to identify my own. So what are the sort of key things to understanding someone Else or yourself.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah. So I like to think of people a little bit like an onion in that. You know, there's different layers.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Got it.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Exactly. But tastes delicious once cooked. Okay. So the outside layer, I think, is the easiest one to solve. That's when we start with. So this is the big five personality traits. And there's a lot of personality research out there. The only personality science that's actually backed, used by academic institutions is called Ocean or the big five. So this is someone's openness. So how adventurous they are, someone's conscientiousness, how organized they are, someone's extroversion. That's the one that we all know, how they like being around people. Agreeableness. So how they work on teams, if they default to yes or default to no. We can talk about that one if you want. And then neuroticism, which is the. Which is the one that no one wants to talk about. Neuroticism is my favorite. It's how someone approaches worry. So that's sort of the first. Those are the easiest to solve. And actually, research has found that I could look in your wallet, for example, or I could open your bedside table and probably solve a lot of your personality traits. I wish I could do that wallet.

[Tom Bilyeu]

If you don't have it, not on me. What would you be looking for? Cause I would give it to you in a heartbeat. That would be so fun.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So we are doing a study right now, actually, with science people, where I want people to take pictures of a couple different assets in their life. One, their car trunk. And by the way, if anyone watching wants to send me pictures of these things, I'm happy to analyze them. So their car trunk.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you want me to tell you what mine looks like? Yeah, it's empty. Only because my wife's pressure is unending. Otherwise it would be a filthy mess.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So that tells me that you are a little higher in agreeableness because you want to make your wife happy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You are so right. I am, like, extremely high in agreeableness.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yes, absolutely. And that's so the fact that that was your.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I didn't even mean to let that slip out, by the way. I'm just trying to be honest about the fact that it's clean. Oh, now this interview is because of my wife?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yes. Okay, so that's so. Because that's your motivation, Right? That was your motivation there. So your trunk, your medicine cabinet and doesn't have. You can hide your prescriptions. I just want to see how it's organized and how it's Laid out. What's in there?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't really have a medicine cabinet, but, like, stuffed in a drawer.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Stuffed in a drawer. Then maybe medium. And conscientiousness. So conscientiousness is how organized or how much you like routine.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So it's like people who are really high in conscientiousness. This is me. I find making a to do list like a sport. You know, like if I was an Olympic athlete, like, I could make to do lists. I could be a champion in this. I will put things on my to do list just for the pleasure of checking them off.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Nice.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Someone's high income.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You got someone over there?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I got you. We are the same. Yeah. Like, alphabetizing gives me an adrenaline rush.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Wow.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

You know what I mean?

[Tom Bilyeu]

When people jump out of airplanes, you

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

alphabetize alphabetizing like, you know, a bunch of books by color and by author name. My goodness. So anyway, so that's high and conscientious. Low in conscientiousness means you're much more easygoing. You're much more spontaneous. You feel that the creative process is going with the flow. And actually routine sort of boxes you in. So if your medicine drawer or medicine cabinet is, like, a little bit more haphazard, you don't really have a system to it. I would guess you're either medium low in conscientiousness.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, what's interesting. So I'm very low. I'm about as low as you can get on the conscientiousness scale. It is only because my wife is muddling your ability to read.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

That's right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Because she forces me to hide it in a drawer.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Otherwise it would just be left everywhere.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Everywhere. Yeah. Okay. So low in conscientiousness. And then I hate that name, by

[Tom Bilyeu]

the way, because that one made me feel weird about being low because I feel like I'm a conscientious person. I think about other people and what their needs are.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah. So conscientious. It's funny you mentioned that. Language. So language is a serious issue. So, for example, the book has now gotten picked up in 10 other languages. And it's a problem. Thank you. But it's. We're trying to figure out words. And, for example, in Western cultures, there is an ideal personality type. And you will notice that every romantic comedy, the woman is the ideal personality type for women. And the man is usually the ideal personality type for man. So in Western cultures, for women, it is high in conscientiousness. So that's sort of her funny quirk. She's really organized and doesn't like to be spontaneous. A high in agreeableness. So, yeah, whatever you want, sweetie. Either medium or high in neuroticism. So kind of a warrior. But it's cute and endearing. Very spontaneous and extroverted. And bubb and high in openness. Adventurous and imaginative. That's like the perfect diode. So the problem is when you talk about neuroticism, neuroticism should not be a negative word, but it is considered negative because then you're called a type or controlling. And so it's funny. Language is actually a huge issue. So conscientiousness does not mean that you don't care about people. It just means that routine is not your. Your love. Like. Like some people. So anyway, at. At the lab, we're trying to figure out if we can guess people's personality type or solve their matrix based on their different assets in their house.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Good so far?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah. So we're gonna ask people for that. And then the funny one is what's on your walls.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So we've got the Michael Jordan flu game.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Which is probably my most meaningful piece of art.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's all art. So I guess we'll start with that. And then mostly movies. So Matrix has like three or four appearances in the house, and then that's pretty much it.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So what they say is this is a research, according to Sam Gosling. He wrote a great book called Snoop, which is, if you're a snooper, this is the book for you. So Sam Gosling found that high neurotics use more motivational quotes. So I am a high neurotic. I'm definitely a worrier. And by the way, you know, if you're high neurotic or low neurotic, if you're really good at what if scenarios. So high neurotics, we love pros and cons list. We can think through every worst case scenario ever. Whereas low neurotics, they say things like, it'll all be fine. Which to a low neurotic is like the worst thing that you can say. Because we believe that worrying is like an investment account. Do you know what I mean? So, like, the more that I worry, the less likelihood it will happen. That is interesting. So motive. So high neurotic use. I love motivational quotes because it's like a external regulator for their internal world. So I have a lot of motivational quotes in my office space. You didn't have any. Which makes me think that you're not very high neurotic.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm super Low neurotic, but I'm insanely chemically impacted by motivational stuff. So, like, I keep a list of quotes that I find motivational or empowering. I follow a bunch of Instagram accounts that are all motivational.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Your list of quotes, is it in a book, is it covered, or is it for display?

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's in Evernote.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Okay, so that means that you are medium or low neurotic, because high neurotics, we. So can I get a little science? Yeah. Okay, so high neurotics carry a special form of a certain gene. It's called the serotonin transporter gene. So serotonin is a really important chemical in our body. It's what keeps us calm. It's what keeps us nice and stable. So, for example, if you're driving and all of a sudden someone almost hits you, they don't hit you, but they almost hit you. Your adrenaline goes, your cortisol goes. And you're like, oh, we almost got in a car accident. A low neurotic like you will begin to produce serotonin. So your body goes, we're okay. Everything's fine. And then a few minutes later, you're back to your music, everything's fine. A high neurotic like me has a harder time producing serotonin. We have a longer form of this transporter gene, so we produce less serotonin and more slowly, which means that my adrenaline and cortisol are pumping for longer than yours. So if I'm in the car with you and I'm like, gosh, that driver. And you're like, like, oh, well, he didn't hit us. We're good now. I'm still in adrenaline and cortisol, but you're calm. So what happens is, is that we, as high neurotics, are not as good at self soothing. So we tend to have reminders, external reminders to tell us to calm down. Whereas you, as a lone rotic, you don't need to see it. You can look at it when you feel like it. When you're curious, you pop up on Instagram or Twitter when you feel like it. Whereas I want to have them everywhere to remind me I'm okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Wow, that. That is really interesting. One of the things that I found so awesome about your book was, one, it was teaching me about myself. But two, it was teaching me about Lisa. So. And in. In the relationship, the ones where you were like, okay, the. This is probably where you want to be in agreement, where you're both like the same. And then these are ones where you want to balance. And you had talked about neuroticism and wanting to balance each other out and we balance each other out. So I'm really low neurotic and she's very high neurotic. Not in the Woody Allen way, but like you're talking about it right, where

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

she's just like, I get it. I, I know what you're saying.

[Tom Bilyeu]

She'll like go through like the thousand ways that this could go wrong and just be like, have a much harder time like self soothing. And when you said self soothing, that's.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What's really interesting.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So why it's important to balance. You don't have to, but there's actually studies that show that certain personality traits are better when they're matching versus opposite. So hynorotics get a bad rap, right? Everyone's like, oh, they're the worrier. They're the one who's always like, you know, overthinking things. But you actually need to have both. And the, the reason for this is because your low neurotic, you, Tom, are wonderful in a crisis. So if there's something bad happening or you need to get things done, you're the one with the level head. You know, it's all going to be okay. You can stay. Steady the course. High neurotics prevent crises from happening in the first place. What's funny is, so high neurotics need external reminders to keep them calm. So we like to see our to do lists or our pros and cons list. We like to have our rock nearby us at our side. Whereas low neurotics like to have external reminders of things they need to take care of. Yes, right. Because they don't have the internal alarm clock that's constantly screaming at them. I joke that the piles scream at me from the floor because I want to get them, whereas you might not see them.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I literally don't see them.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Don't see them.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I know I keep my regular day to day stuff in my travel case because I know if I don't and I travel, it'll never make it. I just won't remember it.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah, yeah. So that's a workaround for you. And I think this is what we're talking about here is knowing how you are wired instead of fighting it.

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[Tom Bilyeu]

That's interesting because I'm a big believer in fight anything that doesn't work for you.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

But you talk about what if we talk about optimize. So I think what I see a lot and this is with personal development and I'm a self help addict, right? Like I love every personal development book I love like self help and transformation. The problem is, is that if we feel like we can change everything, we also might not optimize for how we are naturally wired.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's interesting.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So the way that I like to think about it is every step in the book, you know, I teach a scientific principle, I tell a story, teach a scientific principle, then I give you three steps. Almost always step number one is you, right? Is figure out how you're wired before you work on someone else. It's like in a flight, they always tell you put your oxygen mask on before you fix someone else. It's the same thing. Like figure out your own wiring first. So you figured out that you will not remember. So by packing in that day pack, you've now taken out that worry, fix that problem and now you don't have to worry about it. As opposed to trying to take 15 different classes on how to be more of a worrier, right?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Fair enough.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Do you know what I mean? So I think that figuring out how your spouse is wired and not trying to change them, but rather trying to set up systems in your home or systems for your business partner or things for your friends to know how they're wired. Another example is my good friend Anna Lauren, if she's watching, so she is, is a worrier also. But if I give her too many choices, she'll get choice paralysis. So instead of trying to teach her how to make choices for herself and you know, go through a whole, you know, what is paradox of choice, you know, lesson plan for her. I know that if I want to go out to dinner with her, I'm better off giving her one time and only two restaurant choices, right? And I know that she likes to see the menu because she's high conscientious. So if I want to go to dinner, usually I will as an act of service say, hey Al, you want to go out for dinner on Monday at 7? I think we could do Thai. Here's the menu link. Or we could do sushi. Here's the menu link and she will get back to me really fast. If not, what happens is every day she goes, oh, yeah, but I'm not sure about this, but what about this restaurant? And we end up rushing on the plans last minute.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Are you, is this a two way street with your friends? Like they know, I mean obviously they know you, they know what you do. So they know they're in the matrix.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

They know they're in the matrix. Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But do you like walk them through? Like here's how you rate on ocean and do you show them that stuff?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah. So my closest friends, first of all, my closest friends know to be my friend. You know that every time you hang out with me it might be an experiment.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So you have a quote that I love. I would rather live in hard truth than ignorant bliss.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And you're really into radical honesty.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I am.

[Tom Bilyeu]

How does that play out in your marriage? How does that play out in your friendships?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah. So in my marriage I got very lucky. I married the most honest man I ever met. So he is very direct already. So he actually has helped me in that just very directness with friends. It's hard. I had to make the choice a long time ago when I first started this work, especially with lie detection. Lie detection is a skill that is a blessing and a curse a little bit. Just because you see inconvenient things, right. You see things that you didn't expect

[Tom Bilyeu]

to see about yourself or.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

No, usually about other people. I think you see in the personality matrix you see things about yourself you might not like as much. But with lie detection you tend to see things about other people that you might not find as convenient. So I find as convenient. Yes. Because what happens is, and this is what happened at the very beginning of sort of honing the skill and leveraging it is I started to see friends who were not only lying to me, but lying to themselves. And I had to make a choice without either going to have fewer high quality friends or less quality but more quantity friends. And this was right at that stage where I also was trying to figure out what kind of friendships did I want to have on social media. And it's the same I think question that we all have to ask ourselves. I think of social media friendships like cotton candy. I call these cotton candy friendships. So cotton candy friendships are great. These are the people that you love seeing at a party, right. You see them, you're like, oh, you do a squiggle. You're so excited to see them. You know, they're also the woo girls. You know, woo. You know, you see them and get excited. Tom's like, I don't know what that is.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I have zero.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah, okay. That's okay. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you've seen it before, and they're really fun to hang out with. There's not a lot of substance there. There's not a lot of nutrition. You wouldn't text them if you were going through something hard. You wouldn't, you know, call them if something happened to them. But it's a fun, exciting friendship. The thing is, is you eventually need to have a meal, right? Like, cotton candy is okay every once in a while, but if you have too much of it, your teeth begin to, like, rotten from it. You know, they ache from the sugar and they give you a sugar headache. And so I think that it's about, what are the friends that give you nutrition? Like the brisket friends, and then which of those friends that are kind of the surface ones. And that was a big decision I had to make.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You've talked about breaking up with friends, like, so how do you sculpt that garden of friendship?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

It's so hard. So I think that adult friendships is, you know how when you're a teenager, everyone's talking about, like, bullying and cyberbullying. I think that as adults, this adult friendship issue is the next sort of frontier of talking about how do we court friends, how do we build a friendship when it's not romantic, how do we break up with a friendship when it's been too long? And the biggest thing that happens with friendships is they do go stale. And that's a very weird thing to say. But there are people, I'm sure you can think of someone in your life where every time their number pops up on a text message, you're like, oh, it's been a while, I better call them. Or, you know, you see them out of convenience or out of location. And I think that those are the kind of friendships that really drain you. There's actually a study that was done on ambivalent relationships.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, this is so interesting.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah. I'm thinking about ambivalence a lot. So toxic people, we get it, right? We all understand that. We want to get rid of toxic people. That's more obvious. The real danger, I think, is ambivalent relationships. So these ambivalent relationships are the people where either you don't know how you stand with them, so you don't know if they like you or not. And they're also the people where you don't know if you really enjoy hanging out with them or not? Have you ever had that?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

And you're like, is this going to be fun? Was that fun? Is this fun? And I think those are the ones that take the more energy. There are also the more dangerous ones because they tend to creep in and stay in.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So the whole notion of frenemies I find really, really intriguing. And this is something certainly that I've dealt with in my life. And it was weird to me how until I read that, that it didn't register why that would be so insidious.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So what the study, what the science says, they did a research study with police officers and they asked police officers to identify the amount of toxic people in their workplace and the amount of ambivalent people. And they found that the police officers who had more ambivalent relationships were sick more often, had less happiness at work, and didn't like their job as much than police officers who had toxic people. People just, just think about that for a second. And the reason for this is because if you have a toxic person, boundaries are easy. They ask you to go out to lunch and you're like, no, thanks. Right? Like, you know, it's a no thanks. Whereas if an ambivalent person asks you out to lunch or ask you to their birthday party, or, you know, ask you to work on something, it takes this mental energy where you have this thing where you're like, oh, like, will it be good? Would I rather eat alone at my desk or would I rather have lunch with this person? And when it's not always easy, that's an incredible drain on our emotional energy. And if you are an intro or an ambivert, an ambivert is someone who is kind of splits between extroversion and introversion. Your energy is finite and our mental space is finite. And this is something that I did not realize until much more recently. I thought that mental space was sort of endless, right? You could learn forever, you could think about things forever. But actually we only have a certain amount of mental time every day. And if we are dedicating that to trying to figure out if someone likes us or not, which is a very important thing, we all like to be liked, whether we admit it or not. That, I think, is a waste of mental energy. Why would we want to spend it towards that? And that's why I think ambivalent people are more dangerous.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you have a checklist? Because I'm like thinking back to the people that managed to become frenemies in my own life. It's kind of Scary how long it took me to be able to put that label on them, to like sort of wake up to the fact that either they always were or the relationship had evolved to that.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Like years. Right?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Years.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I know. So I don't have a checklist. It's actually just one simple question.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Right, let's hear it.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Are you ever doubting that they're really happy for you?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Wow, that cuts right to the heart of it.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I mean, that's it. And that, that happens actually quite often. Like, there are these people who make these very passive aggressive comments where you're like, was that nice or was that mean? If you're ever questioning that, that means they are not truly happy for you. Or if you have a piece of really good news, they. A really true good friend will mirror and match that excitement with the. You. Someone who's not as happy for you will come in with dream killer questions. You know dream killers? Yeah. Dream killer questions are when they question your success, they doubt the success. They think of all the negatives. And dream killers are not always bad. I, I have dream killers in my life and I call them when I need someone to poke holes in a business idea. Right. Like, I'll pitch them because they're great practice, but I know that they are not the people that I go to when I have something I'm truly excited about. So that, that's the only question you have to ask yourself. And it might be an inconvenient truth. Like, don't answer it off the cuff. Like, don't answer it really quickly. Like, try to think of all the times in the last six months that you've seen them and shared something. Did you feel like they were as happy as you were about your happiness?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. And this is, this is one of those things that has made a big impact in my life because you can very slowly, especially in business, find yourself in a situation where you don't know who to trust. And I find, and maybe it's the psychic energy, like you were talking about emotional energy. For me, it became a question of emotional safety where when I know you're my enemy, I don't feel emotionally vulnerable. Oddly enough, even though I know you may actively be out to get me, like, I can handle that. It's when I'm like giving you my neck, if you will enough. And every now and then you actually take a swipe at it. And sometimes like, ah, yeah.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

That's when you lose sleep.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. Like, yes, literally.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

And you, and you sit in bed and you rerun all the things They've said or you've said, you worry about all the things that could potentially happen. You know, we talk about psychic energy. I actually think that we are. This is going to sound so weird. I actually think that we pick up on more chemically than we realize.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, talk to me about that.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Okay, so I, I don't believe in psychics and I don't believe in psychic energy, but I do believe that things happen beyond our conscious awareness in this sense. So there was a study that was done that looked at fear. So what they did is they took participants, they had them wear sweat pads, absorbent sweat pads, and run on the treadmill, and they collected sweat from these people running on the treadmill. Then they had participants wear sweat pads and jump out of an airplane for a first time skydiving experience. Okay, so they had sweat pads that were just treadmill sweat pads and they had first skydiving sweat pads. Okay, same sweat. But is it really. Then they had participants in a lab sit in an FMRI machine. So their brain was being scanned and smell kind of gross. Both pads, they did not know what they were smelling. They had no idea what they were smelling. They found that when participants smelled the fear sweat pads, the skydiving sweat pads, their own fear response activated in their brain. So that means that somehow I think that we can smell emotions. So if you are with someone and they are, either they do not mean well for you or they are planning on taking a swipe at your neck, you somehow smell that threat. And even though consciously your brain is going, they didn't say anything, they didn't do anything. Their body language is okay. It seems all okay. The other part of your brain, the animal part of your brain, which is firing in fear response or threat response is going, no, watch out. And that's what keeps you up at night, is your conscious brain wrestling with the unconscious part of your brain. I think that that's when we talk about being psychic or having premonitions. I think that that' what's happening. We're smelling or picking up on things that we don't even realize.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, that's crazy. And just for clarity's sake, when I said psychic energy, I did not mean psychic like a. I also think is nuts. Okay, that's. Yeah, that is incredibly interesting.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I was going to add the other aspect of this is like facial structure. There was a part in the book that had.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm obsessed with this book.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Were you able to sort of see the faces? Were you able to see them?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes, and I like to Think that I'm like, Jedi level at thin slicing.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Cool. Okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Just from the amount of interviewing that I've done, like, I'm totally obsessed with this notion of how much and it scares me because I think I actually have like a. I definitely have resting bitch face. So let's start with that. And then on top of that, like, when I would explain to people, like, what thin slicing is. Hey, you're walking in a dark alley, and you turn around and you see, like, this little old lady, and she seems so sweet like you. Thin slice immediately, not a throw. My brain immediately used the example. But if you turn around and see me, you're gonna get freaked out. And I thought, I have, like, a face that, like, I would thin slice poorly. Like, I would not thin slice myself. Like, what a loving, kind individual.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Okay. Okay. So I don't think you're wrong.

[Tom Bilyeu]

See, I don't think you're wrong. And you're like, this is what you.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I'm so sorry. I know.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh, fair.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I'm not. Inconvenient truth. But let me explain why. Why? Okay, so there is some evidence, and again, there's a lot of research needs to be done. This. But I find it fascinating about. In the womb, babies are exposed to mother's hormones. So that could be testosterone, that could be estrogen, that could be any, Any different variety of things. And those change or turn on different genes in the baby. So, for example, if a baby was exposed to a lot of testosterone prenatally, they're going to develop. Develop more masculinized features, both men and women. So we know a face is very masculine. If they have a very, very square jaw, if they have the presence of stubble, if they have flat eyebrows and. Or slightly hooded eyebrows, that's your face. Okay. Okay. Sounds wonderful. No, no, no, it's a good thing. It's a good thing because it's a very masculinized face. So what you. That is 100% right. So in the book, I have computer graphics of incompetent faces to competent faces, dominant, not dominant, faces to dominant, not competent to competent. And then I think it's trustworthy. Not trustworthy, trustworthy. So you fall very high on the dominance scale. So if someone turned around and you were in a. In a. In a back alley, you look very masculinized, which means that you have a lot of testosterone. And typically men with more testosterone are going to be, you know, more powerful, have shorter temper, all these things. So it's about the shape of your jaw, it's about the hooding of your eyebrows and then the presence of stubble. And you wear stubble.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah. So this is. I think this is a good thing. And this is a good thing.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Does it help that if the little old lady turns around and I actually worry about it, like, I distance my. Like, if I find myself and I know this woman is going to have a heart attack, she turns around, like, so I'll start slowing down or I'll walk, like, over to the side and fast so she can see.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Hi. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I try to do my neutral, goofy face, which.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Let me see it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

How is it? It's like the arched eyebrows. Like, I try to, like, half smile, and I feel like such a dumbass.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

No, no.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But I'm like, I have seen photo, so I used to do speech and debate in high school.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Oh, yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And one time, like, I crushed it. I was so excited. And I got the review back, and it was like, like, dude, what is wrong? Try not to look so angry. And I was like, what? Like, I literally. And so I read it to someone. They're like, yeah, dude, you, like, put your head down and then look up. You look like a serial killer.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I was like, what? So literally, I go. I go in the bathroom, I tilt my head down and I look up.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I was like, what the hell? Wait, do that to a camera? Cause that is it. That is. Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's when I realized.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah, that's intense. I'm like, that's fine. Yeah. So. Yeah. And. But now you know why, right? You know, it's the shape of your jaw and your face. So you. What you did is perfect. You optimized how you were naturally wired. Right? Okay. Right. So it's. Show me your. What did you call it? Your goofy, silly face.

[Tom Bilyeu]

My goofy neutral face.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Can I see your goofy, neutral face again? Okay. Okay, perfect. Okay. Can I explain why this works from a scientific perspective? Okay, so when we raise our eyebrows up, it is the universal sign of. Of interest or engagement. For example, if I were in a bar and go, you would know what I meant. Or if I were to be listening and be like, oh, you would know. That means I'm like, literally trying to see more. Right. It's like the invocation of that. So with your eyebrows up, it changes the shape of that hooded look. Right? So when you're like this. This is a very high testosterone when your eyebrows are hooded. So when you push them up, not only does it show openness, engagement, curiosity, say hi. It also takes away the Hooding. And then you also slightly opened your mouth. Mouth a little bit. That also softens your jaw, so in a way that takes your face and just makes it more open. I think that this is something. I think this is actually a very good thing because I think it's part of the reasons why you are so successful. Wow. We like people who are very powerful, who have high testosterone. We like it for both men and women. So your look shows intensity, it shows strength, it shows power. So never be angry at how you are wired, your genetics, how you're facing face looks, because that is, I think, a huge contributor to your success. I feel that way with everyone. We all have things about our face, about our personality, about our body, about that we don't like. But I think that if we can frame it as this has been an aspect or it can be an aspect of our success, that's extremely important. For example, I also have resting bitch face. Shall we critique? Should I critique myself? Like, I was critiquing you, so I should critique myself as well. So I have resting bitch face. And the reason for this is because my features angle downward. So at rest. This is me at rest, right? And I just look, like, terrible, right? I'm just like, oh, like I'm bored, I'm upset. And that is because my lips, when I'm. When they're at rest, angle slightly downwards and my eyes also angle slightly downwards. Even if I'm totally neutral, they angle down. So I know that I can look very, very serious. That has also helped me because I am a science researcher, right? Like, it's very important for me to look like I'm taking things seriously as I am. So when I want to be more on or eng, Notice that I actually do my makeup a very specific way. I don't know if you can see my makeup, so I angle up and I also put my shadow a little bit above my brow bone, a little bit above my eye to bring my eyes up. That is because I know that's going to make me look a little happier, a little less sad, a little less intense. So this is something that I know about myself. But I don't think that that's a bad thing. It's just something that I know I have to counteract a little bit.

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[Tom Bilyeu]

All right, so I want to go back to radical honesty. So what does that look like? Like. Like what are you actually saying to your friends in particular?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So this means that instead of making up an excuse, I will just tell them the real reason I don't want to do something. So, for example, a good friend of mine was like, hey, I'm. I have this networking event that I'm throwing. It's with a bunch of women in Oregon. I live in Portland. You should definitely come and do, like, a little speaking thing, and it'll be really great. Instead of me saying, oh, I'm really busy, or I. I don't really. I. I don't have time for it right now. I was like, hey, I do terribly at really big, loud networking events. You don't want me there. Like, I get really anxious. Like, it's really hard for me. Is there any way that we could do a luncheon instead where we're like, around a table where we can, like, talk sort of in a more quiet environment? So instead of making up some excuse, I actually will tell them the real reason why I do or don't want to do something, and then we try to work around it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And what does that look like at work?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

At work. Oh, so we have a wonderful team. So we're about six people in our lab, and then we have 120 science people trainers. So our trainers are body language trainers, and they do my curriculum in their different cities around the world. So basically what this means is we have a very direct task management system. So I think that is incredibly important with your team to a know their personality matrix. So I know everyone on my team, their personality matrix, and also how they like to receive feedback and how they like to brainstorm. So, for example, let's say that I have an idea and I want to do a big brainstorming session. I like to brainstorm out loud, but I know that two of my team members do not. So they might say to me, if we're in a big brainstorming session, I'm like, any ideas? Any ideas? And it's like crickets. They would say to me, and they would have complete permission to do so. Hey, Vanessa, would there be any way that you could write down these ideas? Give us about a week to kind of prepare something, and then we could get back together next Friday. I'M not really ready to brainstorm right now. Instead of having a really lame, drawn out 50 minute session where no one's really throwing around any ideas. So it's a much faster way to speak to our natural orientations in the workplace or on our team.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Talk to me about identifying primary values and what they are so that you know how to better deal with people.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah, so I, I was always fascinated by motivation in the workplace, especially how do you motivate a partner, how do you motivate a colleague, how do you appeal to their interests? I talk about this in the book a little bit. I always thought that when with colleagues the biggest motivation was money, right? Salary, perks, bonuses. I thought that was sort of most the reason why you work, you hopefully work for a little bit of passion as well, but you're getting sort of to trying to pay the bills. And so I had one of my employees who was doing an amazing job and I was like, you know what, I'm going to give her a raise and a bonus. She's been doing such a good job. So I, it was, I had to move around some things budget wise, but I really wanted to show her how appreciative I was. We get together and I say, I'm so excited, I would love to give you a raise and a bonus. And she was like, thanks. And I was like, that's it, that's all. And then I discovered this research on resource theory. And so resource theory says that every interaction, every relationship is a transaction. I know that sounds really terrible, but actually it's a very honest, very radically honest way of think of looking at relationships. And there are six different resources that we all give and take. And these are different than the love languages. This is resources, sources. One of them is money. And that's the one that we think about a lot, we talk about it a lot. But what I found out is this particular employee, her primary value was actually status.

[Tom Bilyeu]

How do you find that out?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So when I, when I realized she was sort of, she had kind of like a lackluster response.

[Tom Bilyeu]

She was like, literally you do the thing. Lackluster response.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

You're feeling a little, I feel, I feel terrible. I actually feel terrible because I went out of the way to make budget for her and I also really wanted to thank her for her amazing work. And, and so when she was like not happy, I was like, but you

[Tom Bilyeu]

had to read through not the lie, but like she was saying thank you. Yay.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Negative. Non verbal. Right. I was seeing. So when we're talking about Non verbal. There's either micro advantages or micro negatives.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Micro advantages.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Micro advantages or micro negatives.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So give me an example.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah, so like a micro advantage is if you ask a good question, I would be like nodding at you. I'd like smile. I'd be like, oh, that's great. I'd widen my eyebrows. Those are all micro advantages I'm giving you to say. I love that question. Okay, a micro negative. This is what you probably pick up without realizing it are all the things people do when they don't like a question. So maybe they lean back, maybe they make a face, maybe they pinch their eyebrows together. Maybe they crinkle their nose up at you. They might turn their head away and bite their nails. Those are all micro negatives. So I noticed that she wasn't showing any micro advantages and a couple of micro negatives, which is the exact opposite of what you would expect if you just told someone that they got a raise. So I felt terrible. I felt terrible also because I was worried that she was unhappy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And did you notice it right there?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Right there and then right in the moment? Yeah. And now that I hopefully just taught that to you guys, I'm very curious if you now start seeing them right away. The nice thing about body language is it doesn't take a long time. Once you know what to look for, you see it all the time. So I noticed it right away and I was like, oh, okay. Well, you know, it will be in your next month's paycheck. And, you know, I'm just so grateful. Thank you so much for all your hard work. I've really appreciated your work. And she's like, oh, yeah, it was my pleasure. I love the science he people. Okay, we're good. But I felt terrible because I was worried that she didn't like her job. Because I was like, what else could be the reason? What else could be the reason? I was like, oh my gosh, she's thinking about quitting. My minor autism went crazy. My neuroticism was like, she's going to quit. She hates me. She hates science people. Right? Like, I went all the way down that route. And so when I stumbled upon this study that maybe I was looking into motivation, I was reading a white paper on employee engagement and employee motivation because I was worried about losing her. I found this resource theory and I was like, wait a minute, status. And I started to think back to the times when she showed a lot of micro advantages. And one of the times was when we created an about our team page. And I Put pictures of each person on the page. She was so excited. She was like, oh, I'm gonna go get a new headshot. I can't wait. Like, she showed me like 15 headshots. She's like, which one has the best body language? She was so excited. And I was like, I. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I was like, I wonder if that status. So I had a meeting with her and I said, radically honest. I was like, you know, I offered you a raise last month because I'm so appreciative of your work. I don't know if that was what you wanted. Is that what you wanted? Is that if that. If I want to show you how grateful I am for you, what way can I do that for you here at work? And she said, actually, you know, I really have been wanting a director role. It's like, great, let's talk about a director role. Let's get you on a plan where we look at titles. So I didn't realize that there was all these other things like putting her name on the website, putting her in more YouTube videos with me. I didn't realize that that was actually a huge give and so easy for me to give because I am so grateful for her. And so for me, like, it was like, I was so thankful that we were able to get very quickly, very honestly to what her value was. I think this is the big challenge is, is figuring out yours and then also trying to figure out every single person that you work with, including your friends and family.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So what's interesting though is the biggest shock for me from your book was how I felt like I had never categorized myself in such a clear way. So what do you do when the person doesn't know?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah, so you are their decoder. And I think that that is the most fun role that we can play in life. So if you have someone who is not as self aware, right. Like they don't know, they hadn't thought about it, that you get this amazing gift of being able to unlock for and with them, I think. And that's a lot of responsibility, but I think that is one of the most amazing gifts we can give our fellow human beings. What I would do if I were you is I would go through the Series of Arthur Aronson 34 questions every couple should answer. Ah, so this is a really interesting study that this researcher wanted to find out how we get to love love. And he found that there are three different tiers of relationships. So in the first phase of A relationship. We're just trying to figure out interests. So it's like, you know. Do you like that? I like that too. What's your hobby and personality traits. That's the first level. That's also why I built the first level, the matrix to be personality. The second level are values which is why the next levels are around appreciation levels and values. So you're trying to figure out, you know, where does this person, what do they mean, what do they stand for? And the last one is how you relate to them. Like how they're, how your relationships can match up. So he developed a set of 34 questions to ask to take you through all three levels through just these questions alone. So we actually have a list of them. I can send you a list of them. You can, we can do them together if you want one day. And you actually go through each of these convers, these questions and they will take you through not only you getting to know yourself but also them doing a self exploratory exercise. It is the most amazing 2, 3, 5 hours you will ever spend with someone going through these questions. And that's I think how we guide someone to self know themselves. Themselves.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That would be amazing. We should put a link to that in the show notes. That would be really, really incredible.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

And if you can, it's, it's amazing to do them all in one session, but it's a lot especially if you have someone who's more introverted. So I think it's very important to respect people's natural orientations. So if someone is an introvert, that means they're going to use less words in the average day. It means they're more private and it means they like to think through their answers before saying them. Extroverts usually don't want, don't need any thinking time before they, they before they share. In fact, they tend to verbalize out loud so they verbalize outwardly. So if you have an introvert, I would highly recommend sending the questions ahead of time so they can think about them. It's a nice way to respect their personality and or doing a few at a time.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I love that.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What's one thing that people typically don't know about themselves that you think everybody should know about themselves?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Actually it's something we briefly touched on earlier. We didn't get to talk about how you say self soothe. So everyone should know two aspects of self soothing. The first is when you are in anxiety, whether you're a high neurotic or a low neurotic. Do you like to ver. Do you like to worry outward? Do you verbalize your worry or do you shut down and close down? So when I am very worried, I like to be alone with my journal. Like I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to like think about it myself. Whereas other people like to worry with others. Right? Like they like to talk through their worry and that makes them feel comfortable. So that's the first thing is how do you worry? Do you worry alone or do you worry with others? That's going to be very important. So that if you're in one of those really terrible low points, we all hit those points. You know exactly which direction you need to do. Is it out to drinks with friends, you know, do you have your, your brigade that you call or is it home with a journal and a big glass of wine? Those are two very different paths. That's the first thing. And the second thing is how can the people in your life help you? Self serve soothe. I think that, I don't think this might be more of a gender thing. I don't know. A lot of females, a lot of women in my life, when they're very, very anxious, they don't know how to ask for help, both logistically and emotionally.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What do you mean? How do you logist?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So there's two ways of asking for help. And maybe my women in the room will kind of. This feels familiar. You look so intrigued. Yeah. Okay, so when a woman is upset about something, and some men too, usually there's a logistical issue, right? Like let's say that it's in laws coming for the weekend and they get very stressed out. There's logistical issues, but there's also emotional issues. They are different.

[Tom Bilyeu]

They're very different from the in law example. So they're coming. That's the logistical. The emotional is my other in law.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

We'll break it down even more, more closely. So logistical. Gotta get the guest room ready, gotta do all the sheets, gotta prep the towels, gotta clean the house. So my father in law doesn't criticize, critique it. Okay. Those are, those are logistical words that

[Tom Bilyeu]

would think about once he starts critiquing it. And they're already in the house. So. Yeah, but I'm with you.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah, yeah. And women are all thinking about that way ahead of time. And then the four emotional worries might be how to make sure that they actually like the house, how to make sure that we're all going to get along this weekend, how to make sure that we bring up that issue about health that we really need to talk about and how do we make sure that we actually have a relaxing weekend and it's actually a good time? Okay, those are eight issues that usually come up around everything. There's all different issues, but they are totally different ways that we self soothe. So logistical. How do you, who do you ask for help and how do you ask for help? Right. Like is it going to your husband or your kids or your best friend? And for emotional issues, do you want to sort of take a few moments, take a few hours, meditate, do your thing, go for a run, you know, eat really healthy that day to get yourself in the right mindset space? Or do you want to go out with friends, have a really blowout night and like kind of work out all your anxiety before they come? If you don't know that you are going to set yourself up for failure and you're also setting up the people in your life for failure. So the biggest mistake that I think couples fight about, they have the same fights over and over again is they need to ask for help, but they have no idea how to ask for it. And by the way, if you don't go through this, that's how you get complete breakdowns because they've been.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's just bottling it up. They don't know where to go.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

And that's how you get someone who's like yelling and running around before everyone shows up to try to get things fixed, when actually they're really worried about the emotional stuff.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And the questions that you just walked us through are the questions they should be asking themselves.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yes. So very specifically, whatever it is. And you do this when you're in a point of calm. Right. Not when you're already in the worry. So how do I worry? Right. Do I worry out loud? Do I worry by myself? Who can help me and how can they help? And what are the differences between my emotional and logistical worries? Because they are different. I think if we know that about ourselves, we can then ask for help in better ways and it sets up everyone in our life for much more harmonious relationships.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh yeah, that's fantastic. So most of what we've talked about today is in your book. Just amazing. Read this book. But there's one thing that I've heard you mention, which is a two year study you're doing on happiness, which you didn't talk about in the book.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Didn't. Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you have any nuggets that you're ready to. To talk about?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah. So I have been researching happiness for a Long time. And that is because I have always been intrigued by my own happiness levels. And I felt like I always had a base point. Like, I always felt like, you know, I was sort of at a set point, and I couldn't go two points above or two points below that set point. And I wanted to know if there was ways to hack happiness. So we've been studying happiness for the past two or three years at our lab. So I think the most important thing that I have learned so far, and I'm going to put out more research on this, is this idea of learned helpless. So there's this horrible study. It was done by Martin Seligman. It's horrible. Can I share it?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. I know this study will.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Okay, yeah. So this study took dogs, and it put the dogs into a cage with a mat that just very lightly shocked them. And so the dogs would get on the mat and it would kind of shock them. Very unpleasant experience. They put them in these cages with these shocking mats, and then they changed the cage so that there was a space next to the mat the dog could move off the mat. Problem is, the dogs who had been on the shock for a long time just gave up. They never went off the mat. In fact, they just sat and took the shocks even though they could move off the mat. Whereas the dogs that didn't ever see the mat before immediately jumped off the mat and went to the place that didn't get the shocks. The idea of this is that we end up learning about our helplessness. So when it comes to happiness, we might have learned a pattern in college or in childhood or in our 20s, or when we were broke, when we were out of a job or whatever that was. And even though the mat's not there anymore, even though the shocks aren't there anymore, we stay in the same position because that's how we've always learned to be. And so when it comes to happiness, way more than personality, way more than decoding people, I think that we can absolutely change our entire happiness orientation. I think we can unlearn our helplessness to learn to help ourselves.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That sounds amazing. When are you going to start putting stuff out on that?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

So I have one course on that already. It's called the Power of Happiness. And it's like A. It's 10 different steps that we've just started learning about. But I will give you one just to start off with right now. And it's this. It's called. I call it the Skill the Chart of Happiness. So we end up thinking that happiness Comes with the big vacation once a year or the big blowout things once every month. We don't realize that actually happiness comes in these very, very small moments every day. And actually, that is, those are the happiness moments we have to savor. So what I'd highly recommend is for the next few days, sit down and make a chart of everything that you do in your life. Down to making a steaming hot cup of coffee, down to going for a run, down to doing laundry. And then I want you to rank each of those things on how happy they make you. And I don't mean like happiness like euphoric. I mean like happiness like content with your life. Like, I am content doing this. I know this sounds crazy, but even like laundry or cooking, something we often think of as a chore, can provide a certain amount of contentedness. If you look at that, look at it that way. So I want you to rate all of those skills, and then I want you to count up the number of hours you spend on each of those skills every day. What you'll end up finding is you end up doing what I call happy math. Happy math is basically looking at the fact that we end up spending the majority of our week, you know, 90% of our week, doing tasks that rank as a one or two or three, not very happy on the happy scale. And we end up having these really small once a week moments where we're actually having happy. But really they're these small little moments. It's. It's having that amazing cup of coffee or taking in your view from your window or whatever. These little small things, those minutes add up. And I think it's about slowly hacking. How can you add in more and more of those minutes? Here's another kind of tip on the happiness stuff that I just realized would be a really easy one to try. So I talked about these little moments of happiness. There's also these little moments of unhappiness that as humans, we cannot help but infect our entire life. So you know how when you're sitting at a red light and you literally question your entire existence? Is that anyone? Does that ever happen? Anyone? Sure. Yeah. So, you know, you're sitting in a red light and you're like, why do I sit in traffic? Why do I drive to work? Why do I do what I work? Why am I doing this? Maybe I should quit my job. Maybe I should move to Hawaii. Maybe I shouldn't have a car. Like, that's like what happens, you know? So one of the hacks that I have Found works really well is taking those small moments and turning them into what I call gratitude totems. So a totem is as like a symbol or something to remind you of something. So I have a red light by my house that I get stopped at every single day. It doesn't even matter what time of day. And I used to yell at this red light. I would curse at it. And then I realized, wait a minute. Like, this light causes me so much unhappiness. I have such a hard time being grateful. Like, every open magazine everywhere says, be more grateful. Who has time to be grateful? Right? Like, no one has time to do that. But now I have time. So whenever I am stopped at that red light light for the entire red light, I think about every single thing I'm grateful for. And now I get upset if I do not hit it, because I know that every time I pull up to that red light, I have a minute and a half just think about all the things I'm grateful for. Check. I got my gratitude off. I feel nice and good. I flipped a very unhappy moment for me that makes me question driving and cars and my life and turned it into something that actually makes me very appreciative.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That is. Is brilliant.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

All right. Where can these guys find you online?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Everything [e-mail] so that's our lab, and we do experiments. Come play. In our lab. We always have experiments running. We love for people to. I think right now we're doing a vocal power quiz. I know. Yeah. I'm not gonna tell you what it is, but you have to go check it out. It's very cool. And we are just very appreciative for all of your support and comments. So if you have any feedback, let me know.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Awesome. And last question. What is the impact that you want to have on the world?

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

I want to wake people up. I think that my entire job is to try to get people out of zombie ing through social interactions. I think a lot of the times we have conversations on autopilot, we interact with people on social scripts. And so my one goal, the impact I wish I could have, is to wake people up out of their social interactions so they actually, actually have quality conversations and quality interactions and not just quantity.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's amazing. Vanessa, thank you so much for the show. Guys. Let me tell you, this is somebody that you are going to want to dive deeply into. Like I said earlier, when I started the book, I was doing it to make sure that I understood the content so that I could come on and do a great interview and it so carried me away. I literally wanted to say captivate there, but that seems too obvious. It is literally captivating. The book about becoming captivating will arrest you. It will stop you because every bit of it. And I felt like the book was trying to teach me a lot about other people, but it was teaching me so much about myself. And I am somebody that obsessively thinks about self awareness and where I'm at and what I understand about myself and my natural impulses and what can be overcome and what's not worth fighting. And this book broke everything down and made it all so easy to understand. And if you really want to have a good time, drop her name into YouTube and just watch the videos one after the other after the other. It is the closest thing to being able to literally just let something autoplay every video that it selects that I've ever come across. She is so good at explaining these incredibly useful ways that humans are you will find it infinitely useful in all of the relationships in your life. It is going to make you better. It is going to make your relationships better. It is insane. I can't recommend it enough. So please guys, dive into that one. And this is a weekly show, so if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary.

[Vanessa Van Edwards]

Take care.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Hey everybody. Thanks so much for joining us for another episode of Impact Theory. If this content is adding value to your life, our one ask is that you go to itunes and stitcher and rate and review. Not only does that help us build this community, which at the end of the day is all we care about, but it also helps us get even more amazing guests on here to share their knowledge with all of us. Thank you guys so much for being a part of this community. And until next time, be legendary, my friends.