Body Language Expert: 6 Psychological Tricks to Turn Awkwardness into Confidence

The Mel Robbins Podcast

Mel Robbins interviews behavioral researcher Vanessa Van Edwards to explore science-backed psychological tricks for building confidence and

Key takeaways

• High achievers focus on 'stretching their comfort zones' rather than just increasing busyness or burnout.
• The most draining type of relationship is not toxic ones, but ambivalent ones where you are unsure of your feelings.

Main topics

• Body Language
• High Achievers

Notable quotes

Burnout is not a sign of success.

Conclusion

Listeners gain practical, science-based tools to use non-verbal commun

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Oh my gosh, you are going to love this episode today, because today you're going to learn how to use body language and six psychological tricks that can help you turn awkwardness, shyness, self-doubt, insecurity into confidence. And you will love our expert today because she is a behavioral researcher. She teaches at Harvard University's Professional and Executive Development Program. She's a New York Times bestselling author, and she spent two decades sharing what you're about to learn today. Her research proves that your body is communicating something before you ever say a word. And when you understand how to use your body to communicate the right things, everything changes. Today, you're going to learn... Simple body language cues that will help you communicate more confidence immediately. For example, exactly where you need to stand when you walk in the room and you don't know anyone. What to do with your hands when you're speaking. How to carry yourself before a meeting, a date, a presentation, or an important conversation. After today, you're going to know the six psychological tricks that you can use so you can start building real confidence, communicate with more power. and show up like the person you want to be. Speaker 1 (1:26) For many of us, going further isn't a choice. It's a feeling we can't ignore. Because ambition has a way of outgrowing where it began, turning dreams into direction. Every journey brings us closer to the life we imagine. So, where will your journey take you? Etihad. Beyond Borders. Speaker 3 (2:01) I am so fired up for the conversation today because you're going to learn six psychological tricks. that turn awkwardness, insecurity, self-doubt into confidence, and you're going to learn it from a world-renowned expert in body language. And here's a fun fact about our expert. Her name is Vanessa Van Edwards, and she was one of the very first guests I had on the Mel Robbins podcast four years ago. And listeners around the world loved it. They're still listening to this episode, which is why I wanted to share this conversation with you, where she's teaching you six psychological tricks that... Create instant confidence. And here's the reason why I wanted to share this conversation again. I have been flooded recently with questions from your fellow listeners around the world. Questions about struggling with confidence. You're trying to get a job. You want to be more effective. You want to put yourself out there. Like, how do I carry myself when I don't even feel comfortable walking up to a circle of people? Well, today we're going to change that. You're going to learn how to walk into a room, meet new people, speak up at work, go after what you want without second-guessing yourself. Doesn't that sound great? Of course it sounds great. That's why I want to introduce you to one of the most respected experts on body language and confidence, Vanessa Van Edwards. She's a behavioral researcher, best-selling author. She teaches at Harvard University's Professional and Executive Development Program. She's also the founder of Science of People. a behavior lab that studies high achievers and the science of confidence, charisma, communication, and body language. And today, she's here for you. So let's jump into the moment when Vanessa Van Edwards first walked in to our Boston studios. Speaker 2 (3:44) I'm so happy to be back. Thanks for having me. I am so Speaker 3 (3:47) excited to see you. And I guess where I want to start before we jump into all of the tools and the research, I mean, you just bring it every time I talk to you. So why does it matter to either know high achievers or to be one? Like how does being a high achiever, other Speaker 2 (4:05) than the obvious, you're achieving your goals, but why does it matter? I think that what's really crucial is that I've spent a career studying these high achievers and I've noticed that they have very specific behavior patterns and communication patterns. And what they do is they take what I call communication shortcuts. So they are able to say no more easily to difficult people. That is something that I think everyone wants. For sure. They are more easily able to achieve their goals and enjoy the process. So many people, they achieve their goals and have no happiness, no satisfaction, no joy in achieving those goals. High performers, they enjoy the means and the end. So there's the enjoyment. There's saying no to difficult people easily. And it's also, I think that from my perspective, high achievers very clearly are able to know who they are and they're able to share it. And so my goal today is to help people achieve those three things. I love that. You know, the person that Speaker 3 (5:00) is listening. to this conversation right now is somebody who is driven. They are curious. They're looking for ways to improve their life. They want the best for their family and their friends. They want to achieve their goals. And I also notice that we are in the Mel Robbins podcast family, a group of people who burn ourselves out, who take on too much. So can you talk a little bit about just being a high achiever versus just finding yourself being too busy or burnt out? Like what's, what is the distinction here? Speaker 2 (5:39) Let's be very clear. Burnout is not a sign of success, right? We are not going to have any more. And I hope that maybe we can challenge ourselves. Do not compete for who is busiest. I see so many extremely smart, successful people almost trying to one-up themselves or one-up others in busyness. busyness and burnout is not a mark of success. So being burnt out just means you're saying yes to too much, you're doing too much. I don't think that's a mark of a successful person. I do think it's important to be uncomfortable though. I think that if you're out of your comfort zone, it means you're pushing yourself. I think high performers are consistently stretching, not their time. They're not burnt out. They're stretching their comfort zones. And so hopefully today we can sort of shed that busyness competition and focus more on being assertive with our energy. Speaker 3 (6:26) Oh, I love that. I want to unpack just that last bit. Speaker 2 (6:30) What does it mean to be assertive with your energy? Okay, this is the first pattern of highly effective people. One thing that I noticed early on is that I think that there are two different types of energy. There's social energy and work energy. Social energy is the energy you spend every day having conversation, managing difficult people, thinking to yourself, I have an idea. How can I communicate this idea? Presenting your ideas. managing interpersonal conflict, getting things done with people. That's social energy. Very different is your work energy. Your work energy is how you tackle your tasks. It's when you're breaking down your goals. It's how you're getting through your day. It's how you're checking off all your piles or sorting your papers. Those are two distinctly different types of energy. What most people do, and this is the mistake I think smart people make, is they focus only on work energy. all they're thinking about in the morning is what tasks do I have? What's my email? What do I have to get done? And they forget how much social interactions can cost us from an energy perspective. And so what I want to think about is, okay, in your day, what are the things that give you social energy? The people who like, oh, they just make you feel so good. The conversations, the interpersonal activities that make you feel good. They are like plugging into a charger. Okay. What are the things that take your social energy? The people, the interactions, the types of socializing. It's different for everyone, right? So for example, so for me, I get social energy from one-to-one conversations. I get social energy from teaching. I lose social energy from chit-chat. I am allergic to small talk. Even a little bit of small talk drains my battery faster than going right into deep conversation. So even like if I'm having small talk with my Uber driver on the way to this interview, exhausting, right? I'm just like, oh, I can't do it. I can't talk about the weather. I can't. But like this conversation, I'm charging, right? So that could be different for certain people. Like introverts might feel that most social things take social energy. You actually have to think about that list. Work energy is the same. And later we can do a little activity on this of what work tasks fuel you, what gives you flow, what gives you productivity? What do you do? You're like, I could do this all day. versus, of course, what work tasks drain you. And this also could be home tasks. It doesn't have to be just work, right? Like I don't mind doing the dishes so much. I pop in a podcast. I listen to you. I listen to my audio book. I love a memoir. And like, I'm kind of in my happy place whereas other people, oh, they dread it. So I think that what highly effective people do to bring back this is they are relentless. They are assertive in saying no to these social tasks that drain them or boxing them, which you can also do. Okay. And they are relentless about grabbing the work that gives them work energy, taking it and assertively saying, I want it. So high performers, they are assertive about their social energy and their work energy. And Speaker 3 (9:25) they're very clear about it. Are you recommending that instead of just waking up and kind of going through your day and scheduling the stuff that you need to do, that you take a beat and you think about, okay, what social stuff drains me and what social stuff. energizes me and what work stuff drains me and what work stuff energizes me. And I need to get really assertive with how I'm directing my energy and what I'm saying no to. Speaker 2 (9:50) I need to know it. I need to ask for it. And the same thing goes for relationships. The relationships that are the most toxic are not the toxic relationships. They're actually the ambivalent relationships. Oh. And this is, I think the problem is with social energy and work energy. It's ambivalence. that drains us the most. It's like an app running in the background. It's draining you without even realizing it. Ambivalent tasks and ambivalent relationships are the same. So the hardest category is not just, yes, those work tasks drain me. It's the task where you're like, I kind of like it. When someone says kind of, I go, that was a flag for you. I don't want you to kind of like it. I don't want you to kind of like someone. It was okay hanging out with them. No, there's that famous adage now, you should be a heck yeah, none yeah. Let's break that down into actual, some actual tasks and some actual systems. So ambivalence is a problem of our work energy and our social energy and highly effective people are very good at not having anything ambivalent. And what does ambivalent mean? Okay. It's a big word. And yes, ambivalent means you're not sure if you love it or hate it. You can take it or leave it. You feel neutral often when you do it. that is actually more dangerous. I'll give you an example that happens the most with people. Ambivalent relationships are actually the hardest. You might have that friend where you see them on your calendar and you're like, oh yeah, should I cancel? I'm so tired. Or I'm not really looking forward to it, but we've been friends forever and it's been on the calendar for a long time. And you hang out with them and you wonder, is this fun? Speaker 2 (11:29) Or as my good friend says, is this fun or am I just fun? Right? Like sometimes really fun people can mask they're having fun. Actually, they're just fun, but they're not actually having any fun. So you're wondering, am I having fun or are they supporting me? Wait, was that passive aggressive? Why do I feel so tired? When you leave this friend and you think, I should have just stayed home and watched Netflix. When you leave and you can't remember anything you talked about. When you leave and you question, do they really like me? Did I learn anything? Did I get asked good questions? That is the ambivalent relationship. And we pour a ton of energy into them. A ton. They take more energy than the good relationships and the toxic relationships. And so when you think about the people in your life, and I would highly recommend. make a list of all the people in your life and put a star next to the people who you would drop things to hang out with. Like you would move some things around and hang out with them. That's a good relationship. Then put a minus sign next to people who you dread hanging out with. Sometimes these are obligatory relationships, colleagues or family relationships you don't really love. That's fine. Know it. Own it. Don't pretend that you like hanging out with them. That's okay. It's okay that we have people that are not our people. And then put a question mark next to the people who you're not sure if you would forget if you didn't hang out with them. Or you know those people that like weeks go by and you're like, man, haven't even thought about that person. Those question marks, please stop seeing them. Just for a while. Do you miss them? Is your life different not seeing them? Speaker 3 (13:05) I Speaker 2 (13:05) think we have to be really careful with our Speaker 3 (13:07) social energy. Well, and here's the other thing we don't think about. You're a question mark on somebody else's list. That's right. And. You wouldn't want somebody to make time and hang out with you if they're sitting there across the table from you going, is this fun? Do I like this person? And so don't do that to somebody else. Yes. And the other thing that I'm getting from this, because this makes so much sense, is that if you were to take that energy and time and focus it on the people that you really like that you don't see enough of. it would lift your life up and it would make those relationships so much better. That's it. You got to say no to the bad to make room for the right. Wow. So Vanessa, what does your research show about the top habits of a high achiever? Speaker 2 (13:59) One is they start their day not just thinking about the to-do list, but thinking about their work and social energy. Second is they use the Pygmalion effect in their day. So the Pygmalion effect is after a Greek myth that Pygmalion made a statue of a beautiful woman and then he fell in love with the statue and then he kissed her and she came to life. So this effect is studied in research that if you... set up a good expectation, that expectation will come to life. So highly effective people are constantly using the power of labels to set up expectations. So they use labels for themselves, but they also use labels for others. So if they see someone who is an incredible speaker or presenter or organizer, they are constantly saying, you are such a magician with presentations. I don't know how you do that. Or you are so good at cooking dinner. Thank you so much for cooking dinner. That expectations also turns people to life and then everyone's doing better. So being clear in the beginning of the day, Pygmalion effect, no ambivalence. So getting rid of all those ambivalent relationships and those ambivalent tasks. And the last one I would say is the power of liking. So this is another study that I just love. This study changed my life, changed the way I think about likability. So I talked earlier about how you can be both assertive and likable. Yep. And I truly believe that. And here's how we become likable. We've talked a lot about assertiveness, but how do we become likable to parrot? So this is a study that was done by Van Sloan and he studied high school students. These are kind of the original likable kids, right? He was curious, why are some kids popular and other kids not? So if you were to ask someone, you know, why are kids popular? I probably would have guessed athletes or maybe they're the funniest, maybe they're the most attractive. So he looked at everything. from athleticism to GPA to attractiveness to humor, as many variables as he could think of. And he found that there was, and this was across a variety of high schools and across a variety of grades. So it wasn't just one school. He found there was one single pattern amongst all the schools and all the grades. He found that the most liked kids, the most popular kids had the longest list of people they liked. Oh, yes. In other words, yes, we are in control of our likability. That if we find ways to like more people, we become more likable. And in the hallways, when he studied these really likable kids that everyone put on their like list, they weren't. you know, having hours long conversations in the cafeteria. They weren't, you know, checking in on everyone all the time. They were just acknowledging every single person in the hallway, usually by name. Hey, Mel. Hey, Greg. Sarah, looking good, right? It was these micro moments of likability. And that really changed my perspective is one, it's not about other people, it's about you. You being likable is about spreading likability and it starts with you. But Speaker 3 (16:53) if you can Speaker 2 (16:53) find, and I mean assertively, find ways to like people, you become more likable. And that means the onus is on you. But if you're ambivalent about those people, so those question marks on your list, stop hanging out for a little while. See if you miss them. If you do miss them, here's your next step. Find ways to aggressively and assertively like them. Find the things that you love about each other. Find the commonalities and make sure they know it. I think too often as adults, especially, we are too cool to show that we like people. You know, we play it cool. We don't, we hold back. We don't want to be the first liker. No, my mission in life is to be first liker. I invite people to sit with me at conferences. I'm the first person to ask questions in conversation. If I like someone, I literally tell them, I like you. I like you a lot. I am constantly telling the people I truly like, I really like you. I like spending time with you. You're so interesting. Because if I know that I can truly say that, I want to be assertive about it. And so that's the next step is I think highly effective people, the reason they're so charismatic is they relentlessly pursue people they actually like, and then they share it. Speaker 3 (18:06) Oh, yeah. Speaker 2 (18:08) I like you, Mel. Speaker 3 (18:10) adore you. Speaker 2 (18:11) I like Speaker 3 (18:12) your brain. I like your takeaways. I like your energy. I like your enthusiasm. I like what is clearly a commitment that you have to helping us be more influential and also enjoy your life. Yeah. I got really choked up when you said that thing about the kid walking down the hallway. Like Speaker 2 (18:32) I, here I am crying over this silly Speaker 3 (18:35) example. I Speaker 2 (18:36) felt emotional when you said you adored me. I was like, oh. Well, Speaker 3 (18:40) you know, because I think Speaker 2 (18:41) so many of us walk Speaker 3 (18:42) around feeling like about ourselves. Yes. And so if somebody just walks by and is like, hey, I love your sweater. You look great today. You're like, oh, Speaker 2 (18:49) thank you. Or even I really like working with you. Yeah. I don't know if I tell you that enough. I love Speaker 3 (18:54) when you're in a meeting with me. Speaker 2 (18:55) Oh, right. Like to be able to say that. And that's why it's so critical that first exercise of knowing who you like and not being ambivalent because I don't want you to fake that. Right. I only want you to be able to say that if you truly believe it. And so spreading likes, it feels so good. And I also think it prevents our burnout. I think that the way that we prevent burnout is, yes, we can be doing lots of things. But if we're working with people we like and we're doing tasks we like and we can all feel good about it, it gives energy. It makes you feel so good. And so I think that making that list of people you like, I want that list to get longer. I want you to find ways to like more people because that makes you so likable. Wow. You mentioned Speaker 3 (19:40) the fake. Don't fake it. And I'm asking this because I completely understand the counsel and advice about removing things you're ambivalent about. Yeah. Speaker 3 (19:57) I would just like to know, though, because I do think that there's that kindness of acknowledging people and saying hello to people and calling them by name. Yes. But you're talking about like authentically, aggressively liking people. I am. So does it backfire Speaker 2 (20:12) if you fake this? Okay. I struggle with this one because I don't love the idea of fake it till you make it. Me either. Yeah. But I understand that there are folks who have to employ that tool to step into themselves. So if that's you, that's okay. If that works for you, that's okay. But fake doesn't really work. And they've actually studied this. So Dr. Barbara Wild and her associates brought participants into her lab and she showed them pictures of people who were authentically smiling. In other words, when they took the picture, they were told, think of something that makes you happy. And then they had people fake smile. And they took the mood test before and after. Everyone who saw the real happiness caught the mood. They actually had an improved mood score. Everyone who looked at the fake pictures had no mood change at all. Wow. So that means that if you want to be more contagious, if you want to spread positivity, likability, real authentic happiness is more contagious. However, the people who saw the fake picture did not have a worse mood. They just had no mood change at all. So the way that I would frame this is I don't love you to be fake. It just makes you less impactful and influential. However, it doesn't have a detrimental effect on someone. And so if that's what you need to get through the day or you're in a situation where you can't be like, well, I don't like you. We shouldn't hang out, right? Then that's okay. It's okay to be fake to get through. But if you can, as much as possible, I think stretching into or putting the, I put a question mark there on purpose. There are people in my life who I do have to fake it a little bit, but they're question marks. I'm hopeful. I'm optimistic. That one day we'll figure it out. I'm optimistic that one day we'll find something that we both like. I think that's okay. I think being fake with hope is okay. Speaker 3 (22:03) That I like. Because what's authentic is your desire that it change for the better. So you're not being fake at all. No. Got it. Okay. I just loved what you shared about likability. And it makes me wonder, what about vulnerability? Does that make Speaker 2 (22:17) you more likable? Yes. Okay. So I think there's a misconception that to be likable, you have to be perfect or you have to be impressive. And so that was, I'm a recovering awkward person. That was me for many years, trying desperately