My guest today is Vanessa Van Edwards, author of Captivate. Vanessa jokes that she is a recovering awkward person and learned in college that she could apply systems thinking to people skills. Once she started making formulas around communicating with others, she found there was more people like her. “Treat others how you would want to be treated” is the golden rule. However, that rule should be changed to, “Treat others how they would want to be treated.” We think we know how others feel but we actually have very different ways of viewing the world and how we respond. Most are far better at intuition and snap judgment if they let their bodies do the work. Vanessa gives examples of our bodies sensing intuitively that something is wrong, exciting, etc. Our heart starts to pound, our palms start to sweat, and you may start blushing when your nervous. Your body also sweats differently when you are nervous or fearful rather than sweating from a workout. What does it mean to “Work a room?” Being a social butterfly at events meant nothing to her because she was not the most outgoing person to begin with. She ended up engaging in countless meaningless conversations that went nowhere. This prompted her to do a study on what it actually meant to work a room and what the best people do to connect and network. She found most make their first impression before they even open their mouth and that we can spark dopamine with good conversation. How do you leave typical social conversation scripts (i.e. “What do you do?” “How are you doing?” “Where are you from?”) and have meaningful talks? This is how she came up with the idea of “conversational sparks.” In this episode of Trend Following Radio: Bringing the unconscious to the conscious Confidence and lack of confidence Introverts, extroverts and ambiverts First impressions Conversational spark What makes a great presentation