Secrets to Charismatic Communication

Featuring Vanessa Van Edwards, this was a podcast on The Learning Leader Show hosted by Ryan Hawk, it is Podcast #468.

Verbal & Non-verbal Cues

Why cues are important: The cues that you send will dictate what people think of when they see.

For example: Your zoom background helps provide the person that you’re in a meeting with context about who and what type of person you are. If you have books behind you, that would suggest that you are well-read and are someone who likes to read. If you have a degree or awards, this also helps build your credibility and create an immediate impact on those in the meeting but could intimidate some people.

Tactics for giving proper cues:

Physical Proximity

This is described in the podcast with Vanessa describing how sitting next to someone might be better than across from them as the physical proximity is closer.

Fronting & Body Language

This is to angle your body towards the person that you are talking to.

Introducting yourself

She talks about how she introduces herself to others. In one case, she describes how she introduced herself to a group of highly successful people. as someone who is a: “Recovering awkward person”.

This in turn helped her make many friends and have a distinguished topic about which she can discuss her work or interests with other likeminded people.

Phrasing your ideas

One way to get to the meat of your ideas is to use a blueprint for how you are going to get there. Vanessa, who is someone who is inherently awkward and not confident, utilises blueprints to help her express her ideas properly to others. One way to also express ideas and thoughts to others is to approach what you say with your intentions. What this means, is that you are able to directly say what you mean with your speech.

Two ways to Running meetings or to Position yourself to others

Two key ways of positioning yourself to others: Warmth and Competence Warmth is built from situations of vulnerability or humour. It is reflected by words that build oxytocin, such as COLLABORATE, BEST, BOTH, TOGETHER, BOND, CONNECT.

This is perhaps, expressing your feelings and being vulnerable to others so that they can build a repoire of warmth with you. Or utilising humour, if you think about it, people want to be around people who make them feel good, humour is a good way of making someone feel good.

Warmth answers the question of ‘Can I trust you?’

Competence is being directive. Words that describe competence are words such as POWER, DONE, PRODUCTIVE, EFFICIENT. This is about building a repoire of competence amongst others so that they know that they can rely on you to get the job done. Competence answers the question of ‘Can I rely on you?’

I think that the knowledge of these 2 focuses can be thought of when planning meetings are deciding what you are going to say. Do you want to create a connection with someone? If so, use warmth as a focus. Do you want to show that you are reliable and can do the job? If so, phrase with competence.

The example that Edwards gives is also relatable to meetings and how you should run your meetings. She describes it as, if you a meeting to be about creating connections and exposing vulnerability, then you can focus on warmth. If you want a meeting to focus on getting work done or brainstorming for new ideas, then you can choose to focus on warmth.

Tips to work on

Show 100% focus towards the person that is talking in the meetings.

Maintain eye contact with the person talking

Not looking at or even bringing your phone into the room

Remain fully engaged for the duration of the meeting

Do not have a question inflection at the end of a sentence.

This instantly makes someone doubt you as you sound like you are unsure about what you are saying.

The example given in the podcast is about the founder of Ring, who went onto Shark Tank and were unable to get a deal before being sold to Amazon for 1 billion dollars. Edwards describe the question inflection as the reason for why he was unable to get a deal.