Free Training: 5 Laws of Influence Vanessa Van Edwards · 1:01:16 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aFiUIEf-RE Captured 2026-08-10 · auto-generated captions (en) ======================================================================== [00:08] Hello. Hello friends. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are in the world. I want to be the first to officially welcome you to our science of influence training. Tonight we're going to be talking about research and tips. I'm going to talk about how you can increase your impact and your influence at work with people who matter to you and to be more known in an authentic way. Be sure to pop in a chat, say hi so I can see where you're from. Awesome. Okay. From Canada, from Brazil, from Montreal, I love it. So, be sure to pop in and say hello. For those of you who don't know me, I am honored to meet you and I'm so excited to have you here. My name is Vanessa Van Edwards and I'm the best-selling author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People. Maybe you recognize that one. And I'm also the founder here at Science of People. My goal, my mission in life is to help you get to your goals faster using people science. And that's what we're going to be talking about tonight. All right. From Los Angeles, from Nigeria, from Arizona, Florida. Hi everyone. Oh, this [01:10] is awesome. Okay. So, no matter where you are in the world, influence is deciding factor in your success. And since we already have so many people on, this is amazing. I'm just going to dive right in. I'm going to get started. You ready? You ready? All right, let's do it. By the way, if you want to grab a little pen and paper, we're going to be doing some challenges today. All right, let's get started. So what most people don't realize is that when we talk about being influential, influence is a deciding factor in so many of the small and big problems in our life. If you have a problem with your influence, you might recognize some of these issues. If you don't have enough influence, you have small daily annoying problems like people not replying to your emails or texts or replying slowly. If you don't have enough influence, you might have experienced, and I'm so sorry if this has been you, people interrupting you, people not taking your ideas seriously, people not listening to you or giving you the respect that you deserve. And [02:11] this brings me this one, not getting the respect or value you deserve for the hard work that you do. I know that if you are on this webinar, you are investing in yourself. You're taking time to learn about yourself. And so, I want to make sure that you have the influence to make sure that other people value you and your time. this one. So, this is actually an influence problem. Most people don't realize it that if you don't have enough influence, people don't value your time, right? So, they cancel on you last minute or they don't give you a deadline or they forget you're part of the project. That's actually an influence problem. Here's another one that I didn't early on realize was connected to influence. Influence affects our income. And the reason for that is because if we're not influential, if we're not being valued, we can't get our raise. We can't raise our rates. We get passed over for promotions. People don't value the kind of work that we do and they don't value our ideas. So that directly impacts our income opportunities. This is the hard one. When we don't have enough influence, we are overlooked. [03:13] People don't take us seriously. My goal today, my big goal, by the way, we're going to be having a lot of Shitz Creek analogies and gifts in here today. My big goal is I want to help you increase your influence so that other people respect you. Specifically, I want to help you identify what you care about so that other people can care about that, too. That's actually my definition of influence is that influence is the ability to know what you care about and make sure that others care about it, too. So, that's what we're going to be talking about today. We're going to be talking about championing oursel, about putting our influence into action. And I want to start off with our first case study. So, has anyone ever seen the show Shark Tank or Dragon's Den in certain parts of the world? H I love the show. Do we have any Shark Tank viewers? Okay, I love it. So, I'm obsessed with the show Shark Tank. And the reason for this is it's a show where entrepreneurs come into a tank and they pitch their business idea to a panel of investors called sharks. And these sharks have the opportunity to invest their own money in [04:13] these business ideas. The reason why I love this show is because it shows us different flavors of influence. It shows us that certain entrepreneurs can come into the shark tank and tell these sharks their big idea and some get overlooked, some get ignored, some get no deals at all. Well, others come into the tank and they have they blow them away with their influence and they get deals from every shark. Every shark wants to wants to take a bite. Every shark wants a deal. Now, I have been watching this show for many years, and I noticed, I don't know if you've noticed this as well with the show, that certain business ideas are great, but if they're not shared in a great way, somehow the idea falls, and that's an influence issue. So, we decided to do a huge Shark Tank study. I talked a little bit about this in some blog posts. I partnered with my research partner Jose Pena and we coded 495 Shark Tank pitches, hours and hours of Shark Tank. We wanted to know the [05:14] patterns. Why is it that some entrepreneurs come into the tank and even at home you want to invest in their idea? You pull up on their phone and you want to buy their product while other entrepreneurs you think that's a good idea but not for me or no sharks invest. And so what we decided to do was analyze all these patterns. So we coded these 495 pitches. This took months of work looking for anything we could find to see if there was differences between the yeses and the nos. So we coded this is a very small little snippet. We coded gestures. We coded first impressions. We coded body language. We coded verbal. And we looked at the outcomes to see what were the patterns. Why is it that some people can walk in and immediately you sense their influence and others don't? And this leads me to my very first step and this is going to be our first step together. So grab your pen and paper. One thing that we take for granted with influencers, people who have high impact, who are seen and valued and respected for their ideas and what they have to say is they have [06:15] hyperpecific goals. the investors, the the entrepreneurs who went into the Shark Tank and knew exactly what they wanted were more likely to get a goal. The more hypersp specific they were, the more likely they were to hit that goal. People on Shark Tank don't go on and say, "I want a deal. I'm looking for an investment. I want to be more successful." They actually get hyper specific about what they want. They say things like, "I'm seeking a $500,000 investment for 20% equity state." They say, "I'm looking for a partner to go in 50/50 with me on this deal. Lori, we'd love to work with you." In other words, the more specific an an entrepreneur was with what they wanted, who they wanted to work with, what their win deal was, the more likely they were to get it. And so, what I want to do for us is I want us to think about, so here's a couple of other examples of all the different really specific things that they go in with is I want you to think about what are your goals? What are your hypersp specific goals? Why do you want more [07:17] influence? What do you want and what do you care about? If you don't know what you want and what you care about, it's almost impossible for others to know that as well. So, here's what I want you to think about. If you were to have more influence, what outcome would happen? What would your desired outcomes be? And I want you to get hyper specific with these. I want you to imagine that you're walking in to talk to your VIP. That could be your boss. That could be client. Heck, that could be Shark Tank. I want you to think about walking into that very important person with all that influence in your back pocket. What would the desired outcome be? I want you to get as specific as possible. And I want you to split these up into two different lists. So on your piece of paper, I want you to make two different lists, right? So two different columns, two different columns. The very first column I want you to make is your outcome column. So outcomes are specific things that you hope influence will get you. So this these are just examples of things that that are that are hyper specific that you could want. So, get my raise. Build my relationship with a VIP. Have confidence in sharing my ideas. Raise my rates. By the way, if you're [08:18] feeling brave and you're willing to put these in chat, I would love to see them. I think that hypersp specific goals are a little bit contagious, right? Like the more we state what we want and say it out loud or say it in chat, type it out loud. I can you type out loud? The more you type it out, type it directly and then I could read it out loud, the more it feels real. So, I want you to think about these. Raise my rates. be included more, having people take me seriously. What are the outcomes that more influence can get you? Hyper specific. You have to know what you want and what you care about before other people can believe it. Right? Here's the second thing. I want you to think about the rewards. Oo, this is the good stuff. So, the rewards, these are the benefits of that influence. And if you were to have those outcomes, what what would the rewards be? This could be anything. Having financial freedom, meeting my soulmate, finding supportive friends, loving my work. I think that sometimes and this is something I've noticed after more than 15 years working with students and some of you I've recognized some names in chat have been with me for that [09:19] long. So I want to say thank you. I've seen that the more influence and respect you have the more you feel that you can have a genuine impact on the people that matter to you the important people in your life. The more you love your work, the more you love your time. the more you wake up excited, the less drained we feel. And that's because the more influence you have, the less work you have to put into being heard, the less energy is drained when you feel like that person is just not replying to me. So, I want you to get hyper hyper specific. Put these goals in chat. Put these outcomes and rewards in chat. I want to see them. I want to hear them. Okay? As you're working on that, so I want you to work on that all throughout the webinar. as I'm training and talking about all these different topics, I want you to keep filling out those lists. Before I go into the second thing, so the first thing is that there was no way no way that an entrepreneur would get a deal if they didn't know what they wanted, right? A shark could an entrepreneur couldn't walk into the tank and say, "Uh, I'd like a deal from some of you, you know, they had to have a specific ask." And another interesting [10:19] thing here and I'm and then we'll ask this question is we noticed that the more options, the more rewards and outcomes and possibilities that an entrepreneur had, the more likely those options were to be heard. So this list can be long, right? I want you to dream. I want you to dream big. It doesn't have to be one or two things. It can be five. It could be 10. We can have a lot of outcomes and rewards. Okay. The second thing, before I give it away, I wanted to give a little quiz, a little test. So put your answer in chat here. The second thing, what variable had the greatest effect on the success of an entrepreneur? Was it A color of clothes, B interactivity of the pitch, C, highest amount of revenue, or D, getting sharks to laugh? So, I have to see these answers here. I have to see them. Okay, let's see here. What do people have to say? Oh, B. Okay. Yeah, A. B. Okay, so B. Robert, you got this one. Okay, you were totally right. So the answer here is the interactivity of the pitch. Now I want to break this down. So 81% of [11:21] successful deals had some kind of interaction. They were handshaking. They were giving out puppies. They were uh test taste testing food. They were leaving that uh front part of the meeting to have some kind of engagement interaction with the sharks. And this is critically important for us to know in our work and our environment. Here's the reason. This is step number two. It's interaction. gets people off autopilot. The number one way to increase your influence, to have your ideas heard, to have people pay attention to you, is to make sure people are awake for it. There is no way that we can have an impact on people if their brains are on autopilot, if their brains are asleep. My goal and what I want to teach you in this webinar is how to get others emotionally excited. When people are emotionally excited, when they're off auto autopilot, when they're listening, when they're engaged, they become hyper tuned to you. Think about it. You know, on Shark Tank, they're getting many, many pitches in a day, and all the pitches begin to run together. The same thing [12:22] happens to you and me in meetings, right? I don't know about you, but I spend hours and hours a day on video calls, right? I have backto backtoback meetings. I open up my inbox and every email looks the same. When my brain is on autopilot after meeting after meeting after dozens of emails, I'm not paying as much attention to each person, I'm not as engaged, I'm not excited about what's coming next. So my goal is that in your meetings, your email in their inbox, in your chats, in your pop eyes, that you're learning how to slowly turn off that autopilot to tune people into you so they get excited to see you, to talk to you, to hear you, and to listen to your ideas. All right, so let's talk about how that works. We're going to talk some chemicals. Are you ready to talk some chemistry? So, let's talk some chemicals. Dopamine is one of my favorite chemicals, and it I'm going to simplify it for us. So, dopamine is a very complicated chemical in the body, but simplified for us, dopamine is the chemical of excitement. It's also the chemical of motivation. And this is one of the most misunderstood things about dopamine is dopamine is not just the [13:24] feeling of something good or or being excited about something. Like if I were to say to you, I have a surprise for you. And you get kind of excited to hear the surprise. That's dopamine. And yes, dopamine feels good. It feels exciting. But more importantly, it gets you to want to do things. So dopamine makes you want to get up out of your chair. It makes you want to lean in. It makes you raise your eyebrows. So when I trigger dopamine by saying, "I have a surprise," it makes you want to open that present, click that link, listen more closely. And that's because we like things that make us feel good. Dr. John Medina found that dopamine creates mental markers. And this is what's really important. Dop, we like people who create excitement. We like people who give us energy, who make us feel motivated. And so our brain creates what he calls mental sticky notes or mental post-it notes for people, emails, things that create dopamine. So the more that you can snap people off of autopilot, the more they will remember you, the more they will remember what you said and the [14:24] more they will want to listen to you next time. So dopamine is the critical ingredient here that I think woke the sharks up. When a pitch came in and had kind of the same old boring shtick and they walked and they said, "Hey sharks, today I'm seeking a deal for my company and I would like $200,000 and I'm looking and it all sounded the same as every other pitch. It looked the same as every other pitch. The same thing happens in your video meetings, right? How many video meetings I can't even say it fast. How many video meetings have you been in that all start the same way? Here's how they all start. Okay, let's pretend that I'm coming on a video meeting or in person meeting when those happen again. You ready? We'll do this. Hey everyone. Uh good morning. Um so today we're going to go over the weekly updates and we're going to do a team review. So, um, you know, not everyone's here yet, so we'll we'll wait a few minutes while people while people log in. All right, we'll get started in a few. Boring, right? Your brain is like, "This is going to be horrible." You open up your email, you open up a little bit of [15:26] Candy Crush, and that's because your brain has no dopamine. So, I want you to think about how can we begin to create dopamine interactions. The easiest, the most immediate way this happens is getting rid of social scripts. So I was stuck in social scripts for many years. Social scripts are answers to questions, questions and pitches or presentations or things that you have said a million times that your brain is basically asleep when you talk about these social scripts. You'll notice that entrepreneurs don't go on to Shark Tank and say, "How are you? How's it going? Let's do lunch." Right? They don't say the things that we've heard a million times before. They start with dopamineworthy things. They say things like, "I have the next big idea. Let me tell you a story. This will change the world." These first few words have a huge impact on waking people up. The easiest way to increase your influence is to signal to people what you're about [16:28] to hear is going to be different. It's going to provide value to you. What I want you to think about, and this is my first big challenge for you, what are the first 10 words you say in an interaction, we don't really think about interactions this way, right? Like we enter into a room or we stop by someone's office or we hop on the phone and usually the first 10 words out of our mouth are the most boring 10 words of the entire conversation, which signals the other person's brain, this will be boring, right? So, let's count my my old typical 10 words. It was hello. Oh, hi. How are you? Good to talk to. Boring. I lost those 10 words. And so, what I want you to think about is what are the first 10 words you use and how can you add a little bit of spark? How can you add a little bit of dopamine? A really good challenge here, by the way, is if you have any video calls you've recorded, go watch them and see the first 10 words you use. A lot of the times in our team meetings, we might not be the opener. We might be asking a question 30 minutes in or presenting our [17:30] piece of the presentation and oftent times the first word that we say is, "Oh, oh, sorry. Can you see me? Can you hear me?" No, no, no, no. We're giving away all of our dopamine. So, here's some better ideas. What? Oh, what I want to make sure of is we're not I think that the the tendency here is that we think that being professional means being sterile. And so, I think that's something that's happened in the last few years. I've noticed that people feel like to be professional, you know, to be influential, they have to keep their words short and crisp. But that just means they've removed all emotion and dopamine out of it. This is some powerful science. Okay, are you ready for this? This comes straight out of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and it blew my mind. Are you ready? Was that a good enough intro? Exciting dopamine for the intro to the science. I'm telling you, it's crazy. Okay. They wanted to know if the words we use could change behavior. They wanted to know if the first 10 words that someone read and directions could [18:32] change the way they behaved in a task. So they did something very very small. They took the directions on a little task and they swapped out just a couple of the words in those directions. So they added into the directions what are called achievementoriented words. These are words like win, succeed, master, achieve, race. They added just a couple of words into the first few words of those directions. They wanted to know could adding some achievement oriented words change people's behavior in the task. They found that when participants had just a couple of these achievementoriented words in the directions, their activity on the task improved. So just reading words like when makes you more successful in your task. That's not where it gets more interesting. Not only did it affect the participants behavior, it actually doubled their desire to keep working on tasks. Remember how we talked about dopamine is the key to motivation. It's the key to getting people to reply to your emails. [19:32] It's the key to people getting to reply to your chat. It's the key to people getting to show up. It's the key to making people make sure people are interested in you. And that's because dopamine is mo is a motivator. So what these researchers found is that when they just use motivational words like win, like succeed, like master, it actually created, it gifted more motivation to those participants. This is a gift. This means that we have the power to change an entire interaction and subsequently our influence with one word change. that if we use our words more purposefully, if we wake up our words and we add just a couple of more dopamine sparking words, we actually gift people more motivation, what a gift we can give to our colleagues. I hope you'll see that today's training, it's not just about our benefit. It's not just about increasing our influence. It's actually using our influence to help others feel more motivated, feel more engaged, to do better on their tasks. So when they switched out these words, their performance increased at double the participants desire. Even [20:34] reading words like when stimulates our testosterone and our dopamine. The first 10 words you use matter. The problem is we tend to stick to the same old boring words, right? How often do I get an email or a chat, we should grab coffee, or my least favorite phrase in the world, can I pick your brain? Or here are my slides. Let's do that review. Let's do a check-in. Let's do that meeting. All of those words, our brain stays asleep. Or how are you? Let's do lunch. What if we tried to swap out some of our words? So, they were just a little bit more exciting. Instead of asking people to grab a coffee, ask them to grab a waffle or grab a taco. Instead of saying, "Here are my slides." Or, "Here's the overview," can we say, "I want to tell you some fascinating stories." Instead of saying, "How are you?" Can we say, "What's the highlight of your day?" Instead of saying let's get started, let's say I've been looking forward to this. Instead of let's do lunch, or I'm going to pick your brain, let's hike. Let's walk and talk. Let's do some pottery. Any of those alternatives are slowly waking up your [21:37] words to signal to people, I'm worth listening to. I want to gift you dopamine to help you get motivated and help make it easier for us to listen. I feel like I'm yelling at you. I just get really excited. I'm gonna Okay, back up. Try not to be too loud. Okay, I get really excited about this science. I will try not to yell at you. Okay, back to the slides. Calm, calm, calm. Okay, the other uh research that I wanted to share here is that not only do achievementoriented words help us feel more motivated, but even simple swaps, and this is a mentality swap, too. I think we tend to be in a lot of me mentality. I, me, my, but actually the way to influence is a we mentality. We, our us. And science backs this up. Even using more in-group pronouns like we are and us increase the positive feelings of people in in a conversation. That we mentality is actually the key to influence. It's not just an us thing. It's actually it's not just a a me thing. It's an us thing. Here's some [22:38] really easy word swaps. So you could you're welcome to take a little screenshot of this or write these down. I want you to do a little email audit and I want you to see if you can just swap out a couple of words to be a little bit more off autopilot. So instead of tell me, share with me, instead of what can I do for you, right? We always answer what can I do for you? How can I help you? Now what's interesting about this is and there's some deeper science about this. I talk about this in people school which I'm going to talk about the end is when we read words like share, we are more likely to share with others. When we read words like collaborate, we're more likely to be collaborative. When we read words like help, we're more likely to feel safe that we can be helped. And so, not only do our words trigger that dopamine testosterone when they're when they're words that are different, that are unique, we also want to be purposeful with intention. The kinds of words we use actually produce the kind of behavior that we hope to get from others. So, I want you to think about how can you swap some words out to be a little bit more positive to set people up for success. Instead of let's review [23:40] or let's do an overview or let's meet, let's deep dive together. Instead of thanks for coming in, it's been wonderful to get to know you. These are small, right? These are tiny little swaps, but they do two things for your influence and they really matter. Right? We're only on step number two. One is they change the way that you think. If you go into your email, go into your interactions, go into your chats, go into your videos thinking, I want to gift dopamine, I want to gift motivation, I want to set people up for success. That creates a kind of positive intention, a kind of positive influence that is contagious. That's the first thing. That's a that's the best way for us to help our day, right? And the second thing it does is it actually impacts people we're with. So they feel dopamine. They feel more motivated. They think, "Wow, this meeting is going to be different. Wow, that that really felt good." And you can see that that is exactly what happens on the best pitches on Shark Tank. In the best pitches on Shark Tank, the really high influence entrepreneurs go in there and they shake [24:41] up the tank. The sharks lean in, they get excited, they raise their eyebrows. By the end of it, they're begging for a deal. We've even seen pitches where sharks get up out of their seat, walk over to the entrepreneur, and try to encourage or convince the entrepreneur by getting in their personal space to get the deal. That's how engaged and motivated they are. I want us to have the same kind of feeling with waking up our words, waking up our interactions. Okay. So, how do we wake up our words? Can we can we just go on a how are you diet? Right? Like whenever I'm asked how are you? It's like a social script. I'm like good busy. Isn't everyone isn't everyone in the world's answer the same? Like everyone I know I'm like how are you? They're like good busy. Good but good but busy right? Isn't that everyone answer? Or or right now good but man it's been crazy right? Just been cra it's the same answer. So let's try everyone let's try to go on a how are you diet. Replace it with something [25:43] else. Make the first 10 words you say spark. And bonus one here, go into your profile. Go into your resume. Go on your LinkedIn profile, your Facebook profile. See if you can wake up some of those words to make them more engaging. All right, let's talk about the third thing that we notice in those strike time pitches is that interaction creates opportunities for trust. The more interaction you have, the more you're engaging people in different kinds of ways, it actually creates opportunities for trust. And here's how that happens. So, here's a couple of funny little clips from Shark Tank. We noticed that not every interaction was different, right? Some were about laughter, but some were touch, some were about vulnerability, like there was uh entrepreneurs who went up and and cried and shared something really deeply personal. There were some that were bonding moments, that were some that were scientific ahas or discovery. There was some that were just surprises. The more creative you can be with engaging your people, being interactive, the more opportunities you have to trigger this kind of trust. I talk about [26:46] this a lot in my book, Captivate, so I won't go into it too much. I think our goal here is to influence for good. And what I mean by this is that when we influence for good, we trigger a beautiful little chemical called oxytocin. So, if you've read Captivate, if anyone's read Captivate, I'm so grateful to you. Oh my goodness. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That that book was a labor of love and I'm just I'm so so proud of it. So, thank you if you picked it up. So, what you learned and what I want to teach you here today, even if you haven't read Captivate, is that oxytocin is a critical ingredient to our success. Very simplified. Oxytocin is a neurotransmitter that helps us feel connected. It helps us feel trust. They've even found in the research that when you give someone a nose spray of oxytocin, they trust people more. they collaborate more in competitive games. So oxytocin is the chemical that makes us trust people. It's the chemical of connection and it is critical to making sure you have influence. And the reason for this is because we cannot value people or [27:46] respect people that we don't feel connected to, that we don't feel we can trust. So here's some science about this magical magical little chemical. They have found that nose sprays of oxytocin not only increases trust and interaction, it increases social cognition. This is the game changer, by the way. Social cognition is what helps you be more effective in interaction. It's you being able to share your ideas really effortlessly. It's you being able to decode and read facial expressions. They found that the more oxytocin you have triggered interaction, the better you are at socializing, the better your decoding abilities. That is a secret way to be a better a better decoder. Here's a big one. So, um I'm a recovering awkward person as I like to say. I struggle with some social anxiety and if that's you, I am gosh, you are so not alone. What I didn't realize is that oxytocin oxytocin is actually the antidote to that anxiety. They have found the more oxytocin we have in ourselves and in others, the less social [28:47] stress we feel, the less anxiety we have in interaction. I will venture to guess that if you're struggling with influence, fear and anxiety is a big part of it, right? If we have those gremlins, you know, those social gremlins that tell us we're not good enough and make us worry and make us afraid to share our ideas and make us feel judged and make us afraid of rejection. Those fear anxiety gremlins. The only quick antidote to that, I think, is oxytocin. We can work on ourselves. We can work on our behavior. We can build ourselves up. And that that is worth doing. That takes a long time. But the one that we need right now, the one that we need in our interaction is oxytocin. Oxytocin is actually the answer to that anxiety. Here's the good news. We create oxytocin quite easily and quite abundantly with touch and eye contact. The two main ways that we trigger oxytocin are having any kind of physical touch, handshake, high five, hug, cheek kiss, any kind of physical touch immediately creates oxytocin. And thank goodness, eye [29:48] contact. Especially in a world of social distancing where we're not doing as much touch. The moment we lock eyes with someone, we also begin to produce oxytocin. We notice, and this is so interesting, that interaction in Shark Tank produced more opportunities for oxytocin. That what happened to a lot of entrepreneurs who had great ideas, but they just didn't have enough influence. They stood all the way back in the very back when they first entered. They were over 10 feet away from the from the sharks and they did their entire presentation the same way. So autopilot, right? They were all in one place the same way. No interaction. There was less eye contact. The sharks were writing notes. The sharks were looking around. The sharks were looking at each other. There was no physical touch. There was no handshake. There was no handing them samples. There was no handing them demos. There was no kind of uh physical touch in the interaction. It was so much harder for those sharks to feel trust with those entrepreneurs. So, we can learn from this by trying to create interaction opportunities that create just a little bit of touch, a handshake at the beginning, at the end, a high five for [30:50] encouragement, a back pat, an armp if you feel comfortable with it, and eye contact. This is a trust bomb. If you are feeling a lack of trust in an interaction, the fastest way to get out of it, same if you're having a little bit of anxiety, if you're feeling those gremlins pop up, eye contact and touch. Eye contact and touch. That oxytocin, that chemical can help snap you out of it. What do you do on webcam, right? Like, if I could right now, I'd give you all a hug, right? I would give you all the touch I can, but I can't, right? So, how am I creating oxytocin with you? I'm delivering right to the camera. So research has found, thank goodness, thank goodness for this research, has found that we still produce oxytocin even through a webcam. So I am working really hard to make sure that I deliver my entire presentation right to you because I know that the more I look into the camera, the more trust and oxytocin I'm gifting you. And oxytocin is a gift. It feels so good. It feels the warm and fuzzies. Now what's interesting is my slides are here. So, [31:51] if I were to give my entire presentation reading my notes, looking at my slides, wouldn't feel so good, right? Could you imagine if I was like, "Man, welcome today. It's all about influence. My name is Vanessa and I'm reading my script." No, I memorized everything in this presentation because I wanted to make sure I could deliver directly to you. That's how important that oxytocin is, especially when we can't do the touch. We have to make up up for it in eye contact. So if I have any flubs or mess ups, it's all memorized up here. 60 minutes. So uh just give me a little bit of patience because I know the oxtocin is worth it. It's worth it for that memorization. So yeah. So my slides are here, my bonus cameras are here, but I'm making sure that I'm delivering to you. So make sure that you always look at the camera and not at yourself or at the slides or the notes on your computer just because it's so good to get that oxytocin. All right, this leads me to number four. Everyone get a little water. Little water. Okay. So, number four, open body, open mind. [32:53] This is actually my favorite of the tips because I think it's the least utilized. I think it's one of the best ways that we can very quickly increase our influence. And I don't think we think about it. Our openness, how open-minded we are, how open we are to connection is a critical piece of our influence. If we want to impact someone, if we want to convince them of our ideas, they have to be open to those ideas, right? You can have the best pitch in the world, but if someone's not open, there's no way that they're going to be open to that idea. If someone's not open, there's no way that you're going to be able to convince them or get them to take you seriously. So openness is actually almost like a precursor to influence. And there is a way to trigger this. Specifically, our openness is contagious. The more open you are, the more open others are. So, your non-verbal and your verbal have to trigger openness to create this contagious look. And we saw this so clearly on Shark Tank that the winning [33:54] pitches, the entrepreneurs who got a deal, who had the best interaction, who got the most money for their offers were nonverbbally open. I mean, literally, their torsos were open. Their they had nice loose arms. They never had anything in front of them. They were signaling non-verbbally, "I'm open to you. I'm open to your ideas. And interestingly, we take cues for openness based on non-verbal. I want to give you a little case study. So, this is my friend Brian Dean. Shout out Brian if you're on. So, I love Brian Dean website. He has a great website called Back Linko, which is where he shares uh website tips and optimization for search engines. He's just absolutely genius with his website. And I came onto his website and I noticed that he had this picture. I'll let you see him full. So he had this picture. I thought, huh, this is a closed body posture. So closed body postures are blocking in front, holding something in front of us. Blocking can also be even blocking the face, one arm across. It's any kind of [34:55] barrier between you and me. So in this shot, he is blocking. He's crossing his arms over his chest, which makes him looked more closed. And I thought it was so interesting because he was putting this closed posture next to an ask. So he was asking people to sign up for his email. And I wondered if openness is contagious, right? So if our openness is contagious, if you have a closed body posture, it's going to trigger closed-mindedness, people are going to be more closed signing up to your email. So I emailed him and I was like, "Brian, I have a crazy idea. Would you mind doing a little experiment with me?" And he's like, "Yeah." I was like, I have a hypothesis that if you swap out your picture for an open body posture, people will then be more open to your ideas and they will opt in more. So, your openness could trigger their openness. So, he was game. I was so excited. He swapped everything else was exactly the same. He swapped out the picture. So, the headlines were the same, the buttons were the same. He just used an open body [35:55] language. We wanted to see if this would trigger something different. He did what's called a split test. So, not to get too fancymancy, but he had 50% of visitors see the closed body language. He had 50% of visitors see the open body language. So, it's an exact um test. So, he was testing them against each other. He did this for 90 days. So, we wanted to get a lot of data. Over 237,797 people went through this test. This was not a small test. We wanted to see was there a difference. Can you guess which one? Okay, probably you can guess because obviously this this tip is called open body, open mind. This tiny Q change, this tiny swap of open body language brought in thousands more subscribers. It won by a lot. It was not even close. Why? When we see someone who has an open body, it triggers our openness, which makes us want to be more open with them. And it creates this beautiful openness loop. your body language, especially in your profile pictures, in your head shot, on your [36:56] dating apps, on your resume. It is critically important that you are open because when you have an open body, it triggers open mind. It triggers more openness and collaboration. So, I'm very, very excited that this research study, I actually did it for my next book, and I promised I would announce the new title for my new book. So, I'm so excited. March 1st, 2022. My next book will be called Q's. This Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication. This has been a labor of love. I've been working on this book for over a year and a half. We put research in this book that we've been working on for over a decade. When I wrote Captivate, it was so enormously successful. It's already been translated into 16 languages. And I realized there was so much left that I wanted to teach. And so Q's, which I'm so excited about. We have a couple months left. We're finally working on the cover. So get excited. I'll do a cover reveal in the next few weeks. This [37:56] is our next book. We'll be talking about the non-verbal, verbal, and vocal cues we'll be sending. And what's really cool is for this book, I'm going to be breaking down all kinds of body language. Yes, I'm going to be analyzing Britney Spears body language. I'm going to look at historical figures, Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher. I'm going to be breaking down their verbal and non-verbal cues. I'm even going to pick on Lance Armstrong a little bit. I'm going to pick on A-Rod. What I was able to do with this book is take a bunch of real case studies and break down the cues they were sending. My goal was to make cues that have been hiding in plain sight obvious that we don't realize that we're being sent thousands of cues every day. And if we know how to read them, everything becomes more clear. I also am very excited. I even break down the body language and the hidden non-verbal cues in the Last Supper. So, I even look at paintings and some really interesting historical examples. So, get excited. I can't wait. Still have a few months left. The cover is to be revealed. If you feel like giving it a pre-order, I'm [38:59] so grateful they matter so much in the back end. Otherwise, just uh wait for that to come out in the next few months. All right, back to it. So the other thing that I talk about in cues that I want to share it with you here is that it's not only our non-verbal that triggers openness, it's also our verbal. So the words we use not only trigger people to wake up, they also trigger how people think. We notice that when entrepreneurs went on Shark Tank and said, "Shark, Lisa, Mark, Kevin, we would welcome your ideas." That openness made them more likely to get a deal. the sharks or the invest the entrepreneurs that went on that were close-minded. Oh, we couldn't try that. No, no, we've already done that. No, I don't want to do that. The close the verbal close-mindedness that made sharks shut down and opt out. So, verbally for you in your day-to-day life. I want you to signal and trigger verbal openness. Tell me about you. I'm open to your ideas. I would love your help. How can I help? I would love your advice on something. The more open we can be verbally, the more [40:00] likely it is people are going to share with us, listen to us, and get out of autopilot. All right, let's go into our very last tip here. To have more influence, to win more influence, we have to look like a winner. We have to use winner non-verbal cues. We noticed on Shark Tank there was a winning look. There was a certain nonverbal look that entrepreneurs did on Shark Tank More successful. And this happens in real life too. Do you see some patterns? What do you see? What's part of this winning look? First, comfortable using space. If you notice, all these entrepreneurs were using space quite comfortably. Why does this matter? When we are comfortable, we are confident. We don't shrink down and shrivel up. We're okay claiming our space. We have space between our arms and our torso. We're proud. So, we tilt our chin up. We leave our body open, right? Our nice open torso. That signals to the world, I feel confident in my ideas and so should you. If you want to [41:01] have more influence, I want you to walk into a room with a little more space, a little open body. You don't need to walk in like this. It's a little bit socially aggressive, right? It's a little bit big, but just some space between your arms and your torso, and space between your ears and your shoulders. That signals I feel confident, and so should you. Next thing, ah, on video, this is also another one that I see all the time. I notice, have you seen this on video? So many people, they're either crouched over their computer, so their ears are really close to their shoulders, they're hunched over, or they're like, "Hi, good to see everyone, and they're taking up as little space as possible." So, while you don't have to take up the entire screen, I do want you to make sure that on camera you're open, and you're also signaling high competence with the distance between your ears and your shoulders. Nice and low, nice and high. That very quickly signals influential non-verbal cues. Second thing you might have noticed from those photos is visible hands. Now, if you watched my TED talk, you know I'm obsessed with hands. So, I give a whole [42:02] tutorial on hand gestures in my TED talk. You're welcome to check it out. Visible hands are incredibly important for building trust as well as an intention. We specifically noticed that the entrepreneurs did the best also used their hands to acknowledge. So, they would walk into the tank like this. Hey, sharks. Acknowledgement. They would say, Lori, we'd love to work with you. Hey Mark, that's a great idea. Uh Kevin, what do you think? So, not only would they use more gestures, but they also use their hands to specifically wake people up to say, I I'm open to you. I'm paying attention to you. A lot of open palm gestures and a lot of gestures that acknowledged. We also saw that some of those intentional gestures created touch moments, which we know are incredibly important. Now, on camera, the only way that I do this is I almost always start off with a wave. I say hello hello friends or good morning everyone. So that's great. It keeps your hands nice and visible and in person you can also be like hey good morning and then reach in for that handshake which creates that little bit of oxytocin. [43:03] And the last one of course was lots and lots of gestures. This one comes from a shark. We noticed that the most successful entrepreneurs had lots and lots of explanatory gestures. They explained their concepts along with their words. Funny little thing here. I just had to share this. I have noticed that not only do successful entrepreneurs, do highly influential people have visible hands and use more gestures, we notice that even in our YouTube thumbnails, the more gestures we use, the better. And specifically, the more specific gestures we use in a thumbnail, the better the video does. I think what happens is when we're looking to see if we can trust someone's message, we want to see how specific are they are with their content. you know, do they have three things to talk about? Are they talking about a really specific idea? Are they talking from the heart? And so, we're constantly looking for gestures to see hidden and deeper meaning. And so, with these ridiculous thumbnails, we noticed that if I was using a specific mid gesture thumbnail, [44:04] that worked better because it showed people I have something to say. So, a really quick influence tip, add more purposeful gestures to your verbal content. And specifically, if you're on video camera, make sure your hands are in the shot. Push back your camera, push back your computer to make sure that people can at least see the tops of your hands, right? The tops of your hands. That's going to immediately add more, make it easier for people to understand you. Okay, here are our five tips. You can take a little screenshot if you want. One, get hyper specific about your goals. Two, you stay off autopilot and trigger others to stay off autopilot. Three, trigger trust, specifically with interaction opportunities. Four, be more open. Trigger more openness with your non-verbal openness and your verbal openness. And lastly, you can win more influence by looking more like a winner. My entire mission today was to not only give you steps to immediately feel more influential, to give you more confidence, but also that has a benefit [45:06] for others. that the more influential you are, the more confident, the more charismatic, the more influential others can be, the more that we are our best selves, the more everyone else wins, the more other people are their best selves. So, I don't want you to do these tips just for you. I also want you to do them for others. If you want more help, I want you to go use all five of these tips. I want you to use them immediately in your meetings, in your work life. If you want more, this is the next step. If you would like, I'd love to talk about People School. So, People School is my pride and joy. It is our flagship course. It is a completely online program for high achieving professionals. What I've done in People School is I've broken down some of the more advanced tactics. You know, we've only had 45 minutes so far and I was shoving all the tips I could into that. In People School, it's actually over 31 hours of virtual content where I teach you the people skills I wish I had known. These are the people skills I wish id had in my career toolbox. Couple [46:07] basics before I talk about what we talk about. One, it is completely virtual. You can take it anytime, anywhere. We have students from all over the world at People School. I think there's some people school students in chat. So, if you're in chat, be sure to say hi and where you're from. I love meeting our students from all over the world. And once you enroll, you have lifetime access. So, I get to help you as you hit lots and lots of your career goals. I want to dive into what we talk about. So, not only do I expand on my influence framework, my influence science, I also talk about how to be more memorable. So, how we trigger that dopamine in lots of ways, ways that we don't realize are actually lots of opportunities or interactions. And this is actually a step-by-step process for having more productive communication. I think we don't realize that the more influence we have, the more memorable we become, the easier it is for people to communicate with us, and the faster things happen. The more people reply to our emails, the easier it is to get um authentic replies on emails, the easier it is to get to truth and have easy communication. [47:07] I also really want to focus on getting you better feedback. So that's faster replies to your emails. That's having people respect you in your ideas. That's helping you nail and absolutely love having your performance reviews or client reviews. We have both entrepreneurs and professionals who take people's school. So I want to teach you ways you can begin to get better feedback. influence can impact how people feel about us. I love talking about conversation and one of the things I want to teach you how to do is how to navigate the tough conversations, right? The ones at home, the ones at work, the ones with the people who matter to us, to our bosses, to our colleagues. How do we navigate those conversations and still stay charismatic? How do we have people still respect us even if we have hard or tough news? And this is uh my favorite section is how to get people to say yes. This is about being persuasive. What is the psychology behind being more persuasive so that you can earn more, get more, get the raise, get the promotion, get the sale you deserve? I don't want any more opportunities to be missed. And that's the biggest thing. We have so many high achievers who have so [48:10] much potential and I want to make sure that they don't feel like they're being overlooked or underestimated. I also have an entire section on likability. So, today we were talking about influence. Influence is incredibly important for our professional world, but likability is important too, right? We have to know how to build trust, how to build rapport, how to build connections, and how to do that more easily with our friends, with our partners. So, it's not just about work. It's also about building connections that sustain us, to have relationships that we actually look forward to being in. So, this is over 12 years of research. We have used a database of over 2500 studies to create the curriculum, People School. We put over $200,000 in development. You'll see that the videos are beautiful 4K. We wanted to make sure that it felt like the best experience you could possibly have in using communication. And these are the exact skills that I use in my corporate training. So for many many years, I was doing all these corporate trainings for amazing companies like Intel and Google and Facebook and LinkedIn. And I [49:11] realized that it was going to such a small portion of people that I wanted to be able to share my entire framework with people who were reading my newsletter, people who were watching my videos. So this is the exact skills that I use in these corporate trainings but even more expanded. We typically have three different buckets of people who take people's school. So our three different buckets first are high achieving professionals. These are folks who have a lot of career momentum. They're either at the beginning of their career or they're at the end of their career and they just want to go one level up, two levels up, three levels up. They have a lot of ambition. Oo, I love my professionals. Our second group of folks are entrepreneurs. So entrepreneurs, they're running their own business. Typically, they're wearing many hats. A lot of our entrepreneurs, they've had a great idea, they've invented something, and they love, they're passionate about their business, but they struggle with selling themselves or getting investment or having conversation with VIPs. So, I love working with our entrepreneurs on the people skills behind their business. And the last amazing group is what I call our pivoters. If you're a pivot, by [50:12] the way, you have to put in chat if if you think this is you. Our pivoters are in some critical moment in their life or career where they need a reset. They need to figure out what their next steps are. Maybe they're thinking about doing a side hustle or a side business. Maybe they're thinking about jumping to a different career. Maybe they're thinking about going back to school or trying a new path. And they're using People School as a jumping off board. They're using People School as a way to figure out or set themselves up for success for the next step. And I love following Pivoters all the way through. Um, I every week log in and check all of the People School students comments, all of your comments, and I love following your journey as you go through People School. Here's kind of the basics of how it works. So, the very first thing you'll get is a huge, incredible workbook. Your workbook has all of your social blueprints. And this is actually a physical workbook that we send you. We actually send you a whole swag box that you get physically when you send it to people school. I know these days everything is uh is online but we actually send you something physical little box of surprise goodies that trigger dopamine. This is a 150 page workbook with your exercises, your [51:14] templates, your scripts, your social blueprints, your conversation swipe files as all the good things. And then we have all 12 skills in 12 video training modules. And each of these modules has the same basic format, science, framework, strategy. And every single skill has a Q&A and we even have audio. So we had a lot of students who said, "I just watched people's school and now I want to listen to people's school while I run, while I drive." And so we actually created a audio versions of each course so people could both watch and listen to them, which is was really great idea from one of our students. This is I think the best part of people school. I look forward to it so much. We just did one yesterday. Every single month we do a live workshop. This is where first I teach the new stuff. I teach the latest science. What you experience tonight is very similar to what I teach every single month. People school students the new resources, the examples, the new strategies. I also answer requests from people school students. So people school students say, you know, we're really struggling with giving virtual presentations or I'm really struggling [52:14] with negotiating my rates or I'm really struggling with cold approaches at networking events. I will add in curriculum that uh our people school students have asked for. So in these workshops, I teach for the first half, the first 30 minutes, and then I answer all your questions. I review your log lines, which is a skill that you learn in people school. I answer all your questions. We give feedback to each other. It's really fun. I love them. What's great about it is now we finally have a office a library of all of our office hours. So, we've had now over I think we're at three and a half, four years of people school. We have dozens of office hours you can now go watch. We have them all in a library. So when you enroll, you actually get to see all of our previous office hours as well as all the new office hours. We also have a completion certificate. So uh we have people school students who their company pays for them to come to people school where their manager signs off them coming to People School. So we um have that as well as a badge you can put on your LinkedIn profile that shows that you've leveled up your people skills. I mentioned a little secret swag bag. And [53:15] we are very there for you as you learn. It's at your own pace. You take it as you like. We have a little email concierge that as you're learning, as you have questions, you can always email into support as well as put all those comments before your below the video so that we can answer your questions as you learn, which is my favorite thing. We've noticed there's sort of three things that happen for people school students. That first, in a matter of days, after just watching the first few lessons, you will begin to notice the difference. that in just a couple of days, you will begin to feel, "Wow, my interactions feel different. I have less anxiety. I feel more confident going to my meetings. My calls feel different." So, that's my goal right away is that immediately you feel like there are skills and tools you can use that day, right after you watch that lesson. In a matter of weeks, our students have told us that other people begin to notice the difference that that other people they work with will say, "Wow, you know, that was a great meeting. That that felt really different." Or, "Wow, I loved [54:17] that presentation." Or, "Wow, you're really uh really killing it at work right now." That they said they starting other people in their life start to notice the different skills they're using very, very slowly. By skill number 12 at the very last skill, my goal, the reason why I built this curriculum was to h give you a completely new way of interacting to give you a new blueprint for your interactions both socially, professionally, and if you'd like, romantically, that when you finish the course, you feel like you have a new toolbox that you feel like you're able to get out of that rut, hit that next level, finally ask for your goal. All those outcomes and rewards we did at the very beginning of this uh training, I want those to be actualized and I actually follow you through your goals. So the very first thing that you do when you join people's school is I have you pick one big goal or three or four depending on how ambitious you are and I ask you what's the one goal I can help you achieve with people school. And here's just a couple of examples. Land three new clients. Ask for a raise. Add [55:17] 100 high quality contacts to my network. Set up weekly lunches with influencers. I love reading your goals. My favorite thing is logging into People School and seeing your goals and then watching you track the goal. We've had students who go back and retake the course every single time they get a new goal. So, every single time they get a new goal, they go re-watch the course that I can help them through it, which I love. And there are so many bonuses. So, there are so many bonuses I couldn't even fit them all on this slide. We have, I think, over 15 different bonuses right now, including, this is a new one that we just had, our our People School Certified badge. We have bonuses on getting your raise. Like, I have a script you can use on raising your rates or asking for your raise. It's entire uh uh to-do list and script that you can use to do that. Cold approaches, finding your people. I give you a pre-event meditation. I give you my conversation swipe files, some favorite resources. Oh, there's so many that are on there, but we keep adding based on what your needs are. So just uh a week ago we added a brand new resource on phone interrogations and phone interviews because we had that request. I am [56:19] constantly adding bonuses and the reason for this is because I want to make this your resource forever that whenever you have a people problem or communication problem we are able to give you the answer the latest science a tactic a strategy you can use to use it. Here's the best part. It is 100% risk-free. So, if you come into People's School and it's not what you expected or you don't like it, you get a 100% money back guarantee in the first 30 days. And that's because I want to make sure you love it, right? I want to make sure that you love it, that it feels like it's the perfect fit for you. So, if you don't feel that way, it is totally okay. We have found that most of our students and this just is so was such a huge surprise with people school that most of our students are re-watching the course two times a year that they're watching it at a big career goal and sometimes in the new year. We have a lot of students who will rewatch the entire course in January just to reset just to make sure they're on the right track. And I love this because I've been watching students go through the course now multiple times [57:21] and I can see them achieving their goals and their outcomes and leveling up from entry level to manager. We've seen people go from their job they didn't like to a a career that they love. Oh, I like love it. And here's a little bonus for you. So, I don't know if you've seen our conversation HQ app. We have a little conversation starter app that we love. And this is actually not so little. We have over a thousand conversation starters. This is all handpicked conversation starters that I love broken down by different categories. And so if you enroll in the next seven days in People's School, you will get our premium conversation HQ app free. You can save your conversation starters. You can add your own conversation starters. They're broken down by category. Our goal with this was if you're in a meeting, if you're at a networking event, you can swipe in, look up a conversation starter for networking, look up a conversation starter for meetings, look up a conversation starter for a date, and we're there for you. So that's if you enroll in the next seven days, you get it absolutely free. A couple things if you might be worried. We found that sometimes these are some questions that pop up. You're welcome to uh email and ask at supportsensible.com. [58:23] I don't have enough time. I built this course for busy people. I built this course for professionals who have a lot on their plate. So my goal is that this will not only you'll be able to use the tips immediately but the better you are with people the better you are with communication the more time you save that being people productive makes you more work productive as well and remember I built it for busy professionals so you can take it whenever you have time another question that we often get is do people skills help me if I'm a the answer is if you interact with people in any way shape or form you work all virtually yes it will help. You work only on the phone. Yes, it will help. You work only with teachers. Yes, it will help. If you work with any people in your life in any capacity, these skills will help you get to the next level. Oh, my introverts, I won't, don't worry. I will not ask introverts to identify themselves in chat. The worst thing you can do to an introvert is ask them to raise their hand. Is ask them to selfidentify. So, my introverts, I see you. I see you. [59:24] Don't have to announce yourself. I built this course for you. I actually have specific callouts for my introverts. Now, my extroverts and amberverts, you are leveling up in a different way. I have sections for everyone. I wanted to make sure that the skills that I was teaching was not just teaching introverts to be more extroverted. I don't know if you found this, but I'm an ambrovert. I'm somewhere in between an extrovert, introvert. I found that so many of the people skills books and courses that I had taken in my life, they were all written for extroverts or they were written for people just telling them to be more extroverted. Right? I am not going to tell you to be more outgoing. I'm not going to try to fake it till you make it. I'm not going to try to tell you to be a more extroverted version of yourself. I'm going to help you find your social strengths and leverage those. So, if you're an introvert, an ambrovert, or an extrovert, you are so, so welcome. Will this work for me? We have had thousands now of successful students go through people school. We have honed this content and luckily it's 100% risk-f free. So, if it's not for you, you'll know right away. But I am sure that if [1:00:26] you're on this training and if you benefited from it, I would love to help you. Remember that everything in this training was completely free. I hope you use it and you love it. I will continue to post great content on our YouTube channel and in our newsletter captivate if you haven't already read it or cues next year. This is my life's work and I couldn't do it without you. So I am so grateful for you giving me this entire hour. I'm so grateful for your time, for your clicks, for your shares, for your likes, and most importantly, I am so grateful for you using these tips. The whole reason I put them together is so that you can use them and you can feel more empowered and more influential. Remember, the more you increase your influence, the more others will be better off, and then we all win. I want to thank everyone for coming on. Oh, the chat has been amazing. And we'll see you in our next live training. All right. Bye.