Transcript
00:00:00Why are some people incredibly likeable, but nobody takes them seriously?
00:00:04How can somebody be incredibly intelligent, but when they talk, they sound unsure of everything
00:00:09they're saying? And how can somebody's smile tell you in real time whether or not they're being
00:00:14genuine or fake? In this video, I want to help you, one, uncover what makes someone likeable,
00:00:20number two, how to be more respected, and number three, how to stop others from misreading you.
00:00:24I learned these lessons from a powerful communication book called Cues by Vanessa Van Edwards.
00:00:30And when I learned them, I look back at my own career and my own entrepreneurial journey and I go,
00:00:36ah, that actually explains a lot. If you're new here, my name is Vin, and for more than a decade,
00:00:42I've been an international keynote speaker, a communication skills coach, and now I've
00:00:47actually just become an author. Yes, I've finally done it. This is my book. Before we forget how
00:00:54to connect, I'm super proud of what I've been able to do. And yet my mom still isn't. She still wishes
00:00:58that I was an accountant or become an accountant. And when I reflect on the journey of writing over
00:01:04the last year, it made me think a lot about the authors and the books that have shaped me and the
00:01:09teacher that I've become, because they gave me a language for the things that I could never explain,
00:01:13even though I felt it and experienced it myself. So I wanted to celebrate all of the authors over
00:01:17the next few months that have been inspiring me all along in my journey as I release my book.
00:01:23Starting with cues. I'd love to share with you the three lessons that have stuck with me
00:01:28the most. And the first idea that Vanessa teaches explains why you can be incredibly talented and
00:01:34brilliant at what you do, yet people still don't connect with you. And it all comes down to what
00:01:39she calls charisma. Vanessa explains that when we meet someone, we're looking unconsciously for two
00:01:45things. Warmth, which means can I trust you? Competence, which means can I rely on you? And the people we call
00:01:52charismatic, they give us cues of both. When I learned this, I thought about my career as a magician,
00:01:58because I was incredibly competent. I was obsessed with sleight of hand, and I'd spend hours on one
00:02:03tiny move that most people wouldn't even notice. But when I performed for people, do you know what
00:02:07I'd say? Watch, watch, watch. I was basically the early career David Blaine without the TV deal. I was so
00:02:15focused on doing something impressive that I forgot there was a human being in front of me. And I made
00:02:19it all about me. And this is what Vanessa's framework helped me see. Being good at something doesn't
00:02:24automatically make people feel good around you and feel good about you. I had developed one side of the
00:02:30equation and completely neglected the other side. So I started learning showmanship, and that's essentially
00:02:35how to create warmth. I learned to tell stories, to be more playful and expressive with my voice and my
00:02:41body language. And I stopped performing magic at people and I started performing with them. And here's
00:02:46the bigger thing that I got wrong. I thought there was only one version of me as a performer. At that time
00:02:51in my career early on, I was quiet. I was serious. I was trying to be mysterious. I was trying too hard to be
00:02:57mysterious that it came across a little bit weird. And I just thought that was who I was. That's my
00:03:01personality. That's the way I use my voice. And that's the way I perform. And anytime I would perform
00:03:06in any other different archetype or different version of myself, being a little louder, being a little
00:03:10more charismatic, I just thought, oh, no, that's not me. That's fake. That's phony. But I want you to
00:03:16think about this. Let's say you play piano. You're not a fake pianist or a phony pianist. If you play jazz
00:03:22on a Friday and then on Saturdays you decide to play classical, you've just unlocked a whole new version
00:03:28of yourself, a whole new genre that you have access to. And that goes for your voice too. That goes for
00:03:34you as a performer, you as a communicator, you as a human being, you developing range and learning the
00:03:39art of storytelling, learning how to use your voice in a different way. It's not you being performative,
00:03:44again, fake or phony. It's you giving people the opportunity to experience more of you. So start to
00:03:52explore all the different parts of your communication because you can create warmth with your voice. You
00:03:58can create warmth with how you use your body language and you can also create warmth in the words you choose
00:04:03to use. This is the real secret to connection. It's not just about competence. It's also about warmth.
00:04:11That whole idea became a huge part of the reason why I called my book Before We Forget How to Connect.
00:04:16It's actually available for pre-order now. And the whole book is really about how do we expand our
00:04:21vocal range so people can connect with more of us. How can we learn how to use more of our body language
00:04:26to express what we're thinking, what we're feeling and the ideas that we have to share. How do we tell
00:04:32stories that allow people to understand more of us deeply? And how do we listen in a way that lets you
00:04:37understand them more deeply, more clearly? Because I don't want to turn you into a different person.
00:04:42I want to help more of the person that you already are become visible to the rest of the world. The
00:04:47link's in the description if you do want to pre-order my book and I've got a QR code on screen as well
00:04:52because if you do pre-order this month you also get a free ticket to join me live online for three days
00:04:57at an event that I'm running called Break The Mold. And we'll learn how to use the entire instrument to be able
00:05:02to gradually learn how to express more warmth more assertiveness how to become more humorous. You'll
00:05:07be doing it with me live next month. Okay now back to Vanessa's brilliant book because there's another
00:05:15tiny cue that completely changes how people experience you which brings us to lesson number two. It's about
00:05:21up-speak and I don't want to explain to you what it is. I want you to experience it. Listen to this. I've been
00:05:27teaching communication for the last 10 years and I'm certain that I can help you solve all your
00:05:33communication issues. Do you trust me? No. I'm telling you I'm certain but my voice says otherwise.
00:05:38That's up-speak. It's when your pitch rises at the end of your statement. Like you're asking me a
00:05:44question. Like me saying my name is Vin. I'm the CEO. The words say I know what I'm talking about but the
00:05:50voice says wait do I? The very moment I read about this in cues I thought about a student of mine,
00:05:56a doctor. Incredibly intelligent, really capable and she said something I hear all the time. Then
00:06:02the men in my industry they never take me seriously. Now I want to be really careful here because gender
00:06:08bias is real. I'm not pretending it's not. But when I heard her communication there was also something
00:06:14happening there that's within her control. Every statement sounded like she was asking permission.
00:06:18I think we should move forward. Maybe we could try this. And her body was doing the exact same thing.
00:06:24Because your voice and your body are connected. And an unsure voice creates unsure gestures. So we worked
00:06:31on both. We brought her pitch down at the end of her statements. And automatically this translated to
00:06:38her having more authority and certainty with her hand gestures. And we actually worked on one more thing.
00:06:44She would begin her sentences with the words I think, I feel like, maybe, sort of. So instead I got her to
00:06:51swap it out for two words. I believe. The difference was immediate. And notice it didn't make her more
00:06:58intelligent. She was already intelligent. She's a doctor. All we did was adjust a few small cues.
00:07:04And now she comes across with more authority and was able to command more respect. And this is the part
00:07:09I often think about. We become the things we repeatedly practice. So if you practice sounding unsure,
00:07:16then uncertainty is going to feel like your natural voice. And eventually you are going to say,
00:07:22Ah Vin, that's just who I am. I'm an unsure person. I'm an uncertain person. But what if that's not your
00:07:27identity? What if it's just your rehearsal history? What you've been practicing? Because if one behavior can be
00:07:34rehearsed, a different one can be rehearsed too. Your communication is not a life sentence.
00:07:39And now for the final lesson, the smile. Being a great communicator isn't just about the cues that you're
00:07:45sending away to other people. It's also about being present enough to notice the cues that you're receiving
00:07:50from other people. When I first started performing, I couldn't really see my audience. I mean, I could see them,
00:07:55but my whole mind was on the mechanics, the next move, the angles, don't flash, don't screw this up Vin.
00:08:02But once you've practiced something long enough, the mechanics actually become automatic. And suddenly
00:08:07you're in this situation now where you've got more cognitive capacity left over to be present in the
00:08:11moment. And when I became more present, I started reading faces. Vanessa talks about one cue in particular,
00:08:19a genuine smile. A real smile isn't just in the mouth, it reaches the cheeks and shows up around the
00:08:25eyes. It's often called a Duchenne smile. And as a magician, I know this expression well. Because
00:08:31there's this moment when someone absolutely has no idea how the trick has happened, and they lose
00:08:35control of their face completely. Their mouth smiles, their cheek rise, their eyes smile. It's pure
00:08:40astonishment. That's when I know I've got them. The controlled little smirk is different though. That
00:08:46one tells me they're thinking, they're analyzing, they're trying to catch me. The face is giving me
00:08:52information in real time. And this is where a lot of us go wrong. We're so busy thinking about what we're
00:08:57going to say next, that we've literally got no brain power left to be focused on the other person.
00:09:02So we end up missing all of the cues from the other person who's directly in front of us. The reason we
00:09:07practice our voice, our body language and storytelling isn't so that we just become obsessed with the
00:09:13technique forever, you practice the skill until the skill needs less of your brain power. So you have
00:09:19more available for them. And maybe these are the biggest lessons I took from cues. It's that communication
00:09:26is always happening in two directions, the cues you're giving and the cues you're receiving. The better
00:09:32you get at understanding both, the smaller the gap becomes between the message you're meant to send
00:09:37and the experience the other person actually had. Vanessa, thank you so much for giving me the language
00:09:42and frameworks to understand this. Cues is an amazing book. You got to get it. You got to read it.
00:09:48Those are only a few of the lessons from this amazing book here. So give her a follow on social media.
00:09:53That's book number one. I've got 11 more brilliant books in this series and 11 more authors I want
00:09:58to give some love to. Oh, and I almost forgot if you want to pre-order my book before we forget how
00:10:03to connect, the link is down below in the description and the QR code is somewhere on screen. And he's put
00:10:10it on my face, hasn't he? Dammit, he's put it on my face. You can scan that code on my face right now.
00:10:15And don't forget there's a pre-order bonus waiting for you. I'll see you in the next video.