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Create Spark

(applause) Alright. We are on day five and today is all about creating spark. So you've got that person in the room, you've captivated them with attention. Now, how do you create that spark that makes them really want to connect more deeply with you? So here are my three goals for today. I want to show you how to increase your impact on the people you are speaking with. I also want to teach you the one trait that makes you irresistible. And there is one trait that is absolutely irresistible to others. And then I want to show you how to never be boring again. I want to show how to unleash that inner rock star or diva, so you are never boring, dull, or disengaged. Alright, so let's start with a warm-up. So today our warm-up is a question. I want to ask you, where could you use more confidence. And I actually want everyone to answer this very briefly. Where in your life could you use a confidence boost? And at home, I want you to go into your workbook and answer this prompt to think about...

where could you use a little bit of an up. Where could you level up? Terry, would you mind starting for me today? Where in your life could you use a little confidence boost? Just talking to people in general cause I'm not good at it and I'm not comfortable with it. Alright, perfect, that's every interaction so we are set on that. Do you need a mike? No, you're miked? Lavar tell me. One of the issues we all fear is how is this when our client walks in, their mere emphasis is on price rather than seeing the value in it. If I can have a confidence in that part of making them realize it's not about the price, but it's about the end product. We charge, there's a reason behind it, there's experience, there's skill, and all that good stuff there. In that department adding more confidence. Confidence around price and value. We're going to hint on that today. We're also going to talk about a lot more in persuasion and sales as well. [Female Audience Member] I would like more confidence with my, I guess, ability to not fear that failure is the end. Ah, yes. Your failures do not define you. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. [Male Audience Member] I'd like to get more confidence to reach out to prospects, get more customers that way. Pitching, cold emailing, and cold emailing. Absolutely, yes. [Male Audience Member] I just wanted to build confidence in my dating and social life. Dating. I love it. Yes. We haven't talked about dating a lot, but we're gonna have a whole section on love and romance coming up. So, yes, this is paving the way. Confidence in presenting my ideas. In any scenario. Yeah, owning them. All of the things that everyone has already said and then also for writing and letting others see my writing. Yeah, is that on your blog or private writing or fiction writing? Fiction. Fiction writing. Yes. Oh, I just discovered a new passion about you. I like it. Okay awesome. For me, it would be business. Same as someone else already mentioned. Selling myself, selling my business. Just owning your services and who you are. I love it. Yeah, Jason. We talk about leveling up, so confidence in meeting and having conversations with influential people. Yeah, those VIPs. Making sure that you can hold your own. I love it. Lacey. I could use more confidence in talking about myself. Whether it's business, like services and value. Or just stories. I learned that in the last segment where, I wasn't sure what to say for some of them. Because it's hard to talk about ourselves. Yeah, much easier to talk about other people. Harder to talk about myself. I love it. Okay, Maggie. I've been finding in the last year or two when all eyes finally turn on me and I'm being engaging or interesting to people, that's when I panic and shut down. (laughs) So I'd love to maintain the interest. Maintain it, so keeping that spark. Uh-huh. Yes. For me it'd be more, actually kind of like the opposite, in listening. So when I'm talking with clients, not feeling like I always add something. Yeah, not fear of those awkward pauses or silences. [Female Audience Member] I need more confidence in speaking to groups that are more than 20. (laughs) I'm terrified. About speaking in groups, yes. I'm similar Lacey in that in that talking about myself, the storytelling, I'm going in to be a coach, so showcasing myself. I need more confidence in that. Last, but not least. Large gatherings. Large gatherings of any kind. Either you in front or with other people. Right, walking into a big event. Yeah, and owning your confidence. Okay, I love it. So this sets the stage for us because we need to know exactly who you want to connect with on the path to connection. Where and why you need this confidence. So, we have finally reached almost the next step of deposit. Today, we're gonna finally go into deposit. So our hook, is our first impression, captivating attention. The next level of connection is doing our emotional deposit. If you think of people like a bank account, you want to make emotional deposits in their bank account and you want to receive emotional deposits in yours from them. We've learned the power of intention, triggering dopamine, and how stories can captivate our audience. And we're about to talk about spark. And that starts with you. We're going to start with your spark and then we're gonna talk about finding other people's spark. Here's how to light and find your fire. But first, I want to talk about some confidence science. Howard Friedman did a very clever research experiment where he wanted to see if confidence is contagious, if we can spread our confidence. What he did is he brought in students and he polled them to test their confidence levels. And he found high-confidence individuals and low-confidence individuals. Then he gave them a mood test. He wanted to see are you sad today, happy, irritated, depressed, to see what their current mood was. Then he put them into a room, a high-confidence person and a low-confidence person in a room together, but wouldn't allow them to speak. So basically, we'd both walk into the room, and they had to stand and they had to stare at each other for two minutes. They couldn't say anything. They couldn't touch each other. They couldn't use body language. All they had to do was stand in the room and look at each other. He wanted to know, would the mood transfer even beyond words. What he found was fascinating. He found that the high-confidence group infected the low-confidence group, and this was both with good and bad moods. So this means that a high-confidence person, whether they're in a bad mood or good mood, they can walk into a room and not even talk to anyone and infect others with their mood. That's like crazy powerful stuff that you could transfer your mood to someone else just by looking at them. Emotions are contagious, so one of the reasons why in this section I focus on lighting your fire is cause I want your contagiousness to be positive. I want you to transfer positive energy and not negative energy, that's what makes people good around you. When you have a good mood and you transfer it to them, they end up feeling your good mood. And so you both share that emotion. Emotions are contagious and this is our skill number seven. This is our 7th of the 33 people skills that high-effective people know how to harness their contagious confidence. They make their confidence contagious with nonverbal, verbal, and mental spark. And today, I hope I can light your spark. We talked a lot about confidence in the power of body language, so today I want to give you the brief and dirty overview of what confidence is all about and how we can harness it really quickly. I want to share one of my favorite body language studies. It was done by Professor Stephen Ceci. He wanted to know if body language alone could change his student evaluations. So here's what he did. It was quite clever. He had two of his classes which were exactly the same in terms of content. Same slide deck, same script, same textbooks, same homework. And he even filmed the courses to make sure his words and content was exactly the same from course to course. In one course, he had it exactly the same and in the second course, he used power body language, which I am about to teach you. Now, what he was hoping for is that he could get his instructor knowledge ratings up and his accessibility up. These were the five areas that students rate him on. And he was hoping that body language could help in those two areas. But here's what happened. In the second course, the body language course, not only did he score higher in instructor knowledge and accessibility, it scored higher in every single area, including textbook quality, which is incredible because obviously the textbook didn't change from course to course and he didn't even use his textbook in class. The textbook homework happened at home. So what he found was, is that body language has a halo effect. That when you have confident body language, it makes everything around you, everything you touch more confident. Now, confident body language doesn't just make you look powerful, it also changes the way that you feel. And this is one of my favorite parts about body language. That it's about looking confident and feeling confident. So I want to teach you one more study that followed up that Ceci study. And this is done by Amy Cuddy at Harvard Business School. Amy Cuddy at Harvard Business School wanted to see if our body language could change the way we feel about ourselves. So what she did is she brought people into the lab and she had them do four things. First she tested their saliva. She wanted to test their hormone levels. Then, she split them up into two different groups. In one group, she had them do power posing. And the other group, she had them do low-power posing. Then she had them gamble and then she tested their saliva again. Here's what she was looking for. A very, very brief, I promise, hormone lesson. She was testing cortisol and testosterone. So cortisol simplified is the stress hormone. It makes us have dry mouth. It makes us think more slowly. It hurts our performance. It's exactly the hormone that we do not want coursing through our bodies when we're presenting, pitching, or in social interactions. Testosterone, on the other hand, is the strength hormone or the power hormone. It increases our cognitive abilities. It increases our endurance. It makes us think faster, increases our muscle mass. It makes us perform better. So, she wanted to know, would power body language increase or decrease these hormones. She found that first, in the risk taking, people who were high-power posers took 86% more risks, so they felt luckier. They decided to take more risks. They felt more powerful and they won more often. This is one that really gets me. The testosterone levels of the power posers after only five minutes of posing changed. So the high-power posers had a increase in their testosterone levels. Where the low-power posers had a decrease in their testosterone levels. So the exact hormone that the high-power posers needed most, they got more of just by standing in confident body language. The opposite happened with cortisol. The high-power posers had a decrease in their cortisol levels. Where the low-power posers had an increase. This means that our body language is a positive feedback loop. When we feel low confident and we go into low-confident body language, we actually begin to feel more low confident. We produce the stress hormone that makes us feel even worse. So we get worse, and worse, and worse. Whereas if you feel confident and you stand confident, you begin to feel confident because you produce the exact hormone you need to perform well. This is like a crazy moment of science for this amazing study, right? This totally changes the way that we think about hormones and our feelings and body language. The way we look changes how we feel. And how we feel changes how we look. So I want to teach you the difference between low-power body language and high-power body language. Low-power body language happens when we contract our body. It's like we're deflating. Like we're a balloon that's like (sighs). We roll our shoulders in. We usually hang our head low. Oftentimes, we cross our hands over our torso or our chest. We often cross our legs tightly. When we're in this pose, our body produces cortisol, which makes us feel stress. Actually, I don't even want to do it for much longer. Which makes us feel stressed and makes us think more slowly. High-power body language is a little bit different. High-power body language is when we're expansive. It's when we claim territory. I actually want everyone to stand up, please. We're going to get our testosterone pumping (claps). Alright, so, I want you to expand your body. I want you roll your shoulders back, put your hands on your hips, make that Superman pose if you really want it. You can even do a little bit of a, anyone? Yeah, I like it. Those are that big power poses. So, standing like this with your head high, your arms out, your chest out. This makes you produce testosterone, so you get a hormone that makes you feel like you can conquer the world, which is exactly what I want. Now, I don't want you to walk into business meetings like this. (audience laughs) That is not what I'm saying. I mean, it might work for you, Jason. You might greet people like, "Yes, welcome to my gym. "Welcome to my gym. "I'm here." (audience laughs) That is great, but there is a spectrum and the spectrum is high power is great for before you walk in somewhere. Low power, we want to avoid at all costs. The ideal is somewhere in between. So I want us to take that down just a notch and we're gonna go into what I call a launch stance. So this is a much subtler version of our power pose. What we're going to do is, we're gonna keep our arms nice and loose. We're gonna have our torso open. We're gonna our shoulders down and back and our head up. You know what it's a little like? It's a little bit like you're wearing a cape. It's exactly like you feel like you're a superhero. When you wear a cape, you have to put your shoulders back. You have to keep your arms nice and loose. You have to keep your torso open because I think that everyone needs a cape of their own. (audience laughs) Because we are all inner superheros. And I want you to put on your cape and I want you to see what it's like to hold your arms and shoulders loose. Alright, here we go. Alright. Ah, I'm not a very good thrower, guys. Alright. [Male Audience Member] Someone's gonna get hit. And Terry, you get to wear mine. I'm gonna put it on you. Want to come on up here? I'm gonna put it on you. You are special. It's too much pressure trying to tie it. I know, it's too much pressure. Alright, I like this. Red looks good on you. I like it. Here we go. I love it. Alright. Can I leave now? You can stand on stage with me if you want or you can go back to your seat, Terry. Whatever you want. You're in a cape, you can do whatever you want. Fly away. So, when we forget what our launch stance is, I want you to envision an imaginary cape. At home, I want you standing. I want you with your shoulders back, I want you to envision a cape. Get a towel from your bathroom and tie it around your neck and that's your cape. So whenever you forget what that launch stance is, I want you to envision wearing a cape. And for the rest of the class, you can actually put this cape on the back of your chairs to remind you that you're that little superhero. Alright, you can sit down. Keep your capes on or off, whichever you want. I like everyone in my cap class look like superhero. (audience laughs) It's kinda great. Please, if you have a towel, I want that on you back home. I want it right around your neck and just let it flow in the background. I wanna explain a quick story about the power of this power body language. So one of our readers wrote in. She'd taken a power body language course and she said, "I was just in Brazil for the World Cup. "As a petite woman, I usually get shoved around "in these crowded environments. "This time, however, "while walking through the seas of people, "I deliberately used my launch stance while walking. "It made world of difference. "Over and over, people kept moving out of my way." Which I love and she's a little petite woman. And she said, "The power of body language changed "my usual uncomfortable experience." Her survive events. "In large gatherings to a more relaxed one "where I felt more in control." Body language gives us what we need to feel, to find our spark, as well as puts us in control of our emotions. So, I have everyone power pose, no matter where I go. I pose with Mickey Mouse. This is Michelle Ward. I was on set with her and I had her pose right before taking the stage. We have readers submit power poses from all over the world. This is Maria and Liliana in front of the Miami skyline. We had one of our readers sent pictures. He power posed in front of every monument in Rome. And he set this in. This is him in front of the St. Peter's Cathedral. This is the Carlisle family. They turned their Christmas card into a power posing bonanza, which I love, where each of them took a superhero. This is the Popular Popcorn team with a power pose and their popcorn. So what I want you to do is I want you to pre-power pose. Before you walk in anywhere, before anyone sees you, because it's a little socially aggressive. I want you to get that testosterone flowing. You can also slyly pre-power pose. Here's the problem. Most people tell me, Vanessa, I don't use low-power. I don't ever do this. However, this, checking our phone, is very similar low-power body language. We have our arms tightly across our body, they're in front of us. We roll our shoulders in and we duck our head. So we don't realize, before walking into a networking event, for a meeting or a date, if we're checking our phone, we're actually producing cortisol which is making us feel even more stressed. So checking your phone, check it like this. Or you can bring a newspaper. Whenever I'm speaking, I usually will bring a newspaper cause it's a nice, easy way to power pose before doing anything and not checking my phone or checking it out. Alright, this also works extremely well if you do a lot of cold calling. If you're doing a lot of phone conversations, you can actually power pose while on the phone and that translates into your voice. Not only does it help you feel more confident, they can actually perceive it as well. So reach by the University of Würzberg found. What they did is they had people read three different recordings. They had them do a neutral, positive, and negative tone. Extremely subtle so participants in the research experiment had no idea there was a difference. They couldn't even perceptively hear the difference. What they found was, is that even though the listeners couldn't tell the difference, their mood shifted to match the tone of the recording. So when they listened to the negative recording, they always had a negative mood after listening to it. If they listened to the positive recording, they had a more positive mood after listening to it. And they didn't even realize they were listening to a positive or negative tone. That's how powerful it comes across, phone or in person. Alright, we talked about nonverbal confidence. Let's talk a little bit about mental confidence. Getting ourselves in that game zone. And Jason, you talked a little bit earlier, you asked me about what happens if I'm in a bad mood? Right, how to switch that mood into something positive and that's where mental confidence comes into play. So I like everyone to do what I call a success routine. If you are about to go to an event, a meeting, a conference, a networking event, a date, how do you get yourself into that mental zone? Let's say that you've minimized your toxic calender events from segment two, but you still have a couple events you have to go to and you might have to survive through them. Here's what you can do to get yourself in that success routine. In your workbook, I have a long list of activities that you can do to pump yourself up. And here are a couple things that I put on there. Here are a couple things you can do. Pumped up playlist. Build a playlist that gets you going. Rocky music, little bit of Britney, whatever music kind of gets you pumped up that you can listen to either on a drive or while you're getting ready. This is great for audio-musical learners. People who are audio-musical intelligence, this is the best way to pump yourself up. You can phone a friend. You if you a supporter friend and you're interpersonal intelligence, a great way to do this is to leverage a really good supporter. You can watch inspiring videos or quotes. So at scienceofpeople.com/inspiring, I have my favorite inspiring videos you can watch to get yourself into that good mindset. So I have all my favorite content that I post to kind of get yourself, especially if you're a visual. That's a great way to tap into someone else's story to fill your own inspiration. You can also use our superhero activity list. So in your bonuses, I have a superhero activity list. I have broken this down into while you're getting ready for the day, for the week, and for the month. These are all activities that you can do, reflection questions, activities, music you can listen to to get ready and get yourself pumped up and increase your confidence depending on what you're doing and that's in your bonuses. Alright, we talked about finding your spark. Now it's time to talk about finding their spark. So hopefully, you're confidence is contagious and that will go into the person you're talking with, but how else can you light someone's fire? And we have officially now moved on to the deposit section of the path to connection. How to make emotional deposits into other people's bank accounts so they feel like they are receiving from you and that you receiving back from them. This leads us to our skill number eight, be curious. And this comes from the famous Dale Carnegie, an amazing people person who wrote, How to Win Friends and Influence People. To be interested, you have to be interesting. And this kinda is counter-intuitive. We don't using think that to be interesting, you have to be interested. We usually think to be interesting, we better be really interesting. We better be intelligent and fascinating, but actually, the best way to be interesting is to be interested. And I have kind of a weird story to show you the power of how this works. Jeff Guinn recently came out with the biography of Charles Manson. Charles Manson is a big time murderer and cult leader who's in prison right now for murders that he and he inspired to commit in the 1950s and 60s. So what he did, he actually was able to create a cult of women who killed for him. Now this rocked the media attention back in the 1960s when it came out in America because no one could understand. How could this man convince women to kill for him. Now, it just came out. Jeff Guinn was doing research and he found a very interesting finding which is that when Charles Manson first entered juvenile prison, they started a new prison program and it was the Dale Carnegie training program where they were trying to rehabilitate inmates to have better people skills. So, in prison, Charles Manson was one of the first people to take the Dale Carnegie course. Now, when Jeff Guinn found this out, he started to interview other inmates that were in prison with Charles Manson at the time. And they said that he used to come out of that class and he would be rehearse word for word the things they taught in that class. And when they interviewed the people who were in his cult, they found that he used the exact scripts of how to be interested to be interesting on the people that he influenced. Now, I don't want us all to be murderers. That is not the goal of this course. (audience laughs) But I just want to show you that these are so powerful they can be used for both evil and good, but we are only using them for good in this course. The first way that you be interested to be interesting cause how do you do that? How do you actually apply that? Is to be a master questioner. I want us to be experts in asking the right questions. Now we already started this when we talked about killer conversation starters, but here is the power of questions. They developed a robotic computer program called Eliza and Eliza's job was to ask really, really good questions. And they wanted to see if they put Eliza in with clients, would people think that she was a better therapist than a human. So they actually had clients sit with Eliza. They didn't realize it was a robot and they had people sit with a computer where a real therapist on the other end. And all Eliza did was ask questions. She wasn't programmed for any dialogue. She didn't give any advice. All she did was ask really good questions. And what they found was, is that people preferred Eliza to the human therapist. They preferred being asked really good questions. In fact, they rated Eliza as more likable, as more interesting, and more intelligent than the human therapist even though Eliza never actually gave any advice. So the myth is to be seen as interesting and intelligent, you have to be interesting and intelligent. That's actually not true. The truth is, the right questions make you interesting and intelligent, and we know this from Eliza's experience. So I wanna show you an example of how you can even use the master questioner technique in emails. So I got this email. I changed his name to protect to the innocent. And so, he wrote me an email and said, "Hey. "Nice to meet you. "How's it going? "I would love to write a guest post for your blog. "Let me know." It's an okay email, right? Here's how he could have added questions into this to get me. So the blue is questions that he could have added. And this is actually similar to an email that I got that I responded to. "Hey. "Nice to meet you. "Are you getting as many social shares on your blog "as you would like?" The answer is always no. Then, "I would love to help with your blog. "Is there a topic I could help you research and write about?" So instead of sending an email with kind of a vague question, these have a specific questions that tap into my needs that I'm like (gasp) that hooks me. What's the difference between those two emails? When you read those, which one would you like to respond to more? The second one. And why? Because you actually took the time to care about what it's like to be me and what I would need. Yeah, right. So master questioners, the reason why we talk about really good questions cause it's not trying to get to your needs, it's trying to get into the other person's needs. When this happens, you'll see that people light up. When people are asked the right questions, and this is again building on killer conversation starters, you tap into not only their dopamine areas in their brain, but they get excited and passionate to talk to you. That second email, I would love to talk to someone about getting more social shares. I love to talk to someone about what topics could we write about to reach my audience. Those are questions I actually want to answer. So what I want to do is I want to show you an example of how this works in action. This is an interview with Dana and he's gonna answer a question, one of our 10 killer conversation starter questions. And I want us to brainstorm what questions could we ask after his answer to level up. Okay, are we ready? I'm originally from Baltimore. I love the pride that the community has in Baltimore itself. So for instance, I'm a huge Orioles fan. I will always be an Orioles fan. I have lived for the west coast for the better part of 20 years, I will never be a Giants fan. (laughs) So what was the difference? The first question was a boring question, right? Where are you from? Then we asked, what do you love about your hometown? What was the difference? Yeah, Kim, tell me. There was a lot more life in his answer. He had a lot more to share and we learned a lot more about him. Yeah, absolutely. So what could we ask him, before we go to the next video, we could you ask him as a follow-up question to that story? Yeah. [Female Audience Member] Do you have a favorite memory at the Orioles stadium? Love it. Do you have a favorite memory of the Orioles stadium? What else could we ask him about after that story? Sheeba, what would you ask him? Have you ever been to a game? Have you ever been to a game? Right, what was that like? I've never been to an Orioles game. Right, let's watch one more and I want you to hear the difference between the boring question and the really good question and then we're gonna think about what questions we could ask. I am a product manager here at Creative Live. I am currently working on a project to improve public education in San Francisco. I'm a member of the Potrero Residents Education Fund and we are raising money and awareness to improve our public schools in the neighborhood. So what's the difference between those two questions, first of all? What's the difference in answers? Terry, what'd you see the difference was? Oh, sorry, mike, yes. Just the length of that answer. Obviously, the first one, it's business. I just do this. And then the other one, she definitely gets more excited. And we learn way more about her. She gets in promotion mode. Yeah, yeah! And you can see that kinda, she's like oh, I'm not just this. Oh, I'm the Potrero Hill. I'm trying to improve education system. We learn about her personal mission, right? We learn about what she values. We learn about what she does with her time. What question could we ask after seeing that answer? What question could we follow up with? What recently successes have you had with this campaign or the fundraising? Yeah, what project are you working on with this campaign? Do you have any campaigns coming up? How can I help? What else can we ask? Allie, do you have any ideas what we could ask next? Uh, no. (laughs) So, if she said that to you at a networking event, how would you follow up? And we've already gone down the interesting question? No, you can ask whatever question you want. I'm sorry, I'm drawing a complete blank. No, it's okay. So let's say that I'm with you and I say, yeah, I'm working on improving the education system in San Francisco. I'm developing my own programs for that. Mostly, I'm gonna just jump back, mostly what I was thinking about, which is why I was distracted, is it's amazing. I can remember her personal passion project, but by the time she started that, I had already forgotten what her answer was to what her job was. She was so uninteresting in her answer to that uninteresting question that it didn't stick in my brain even the 20 seconds, but I could still tell you what her personal passion and project was. It's makes her more memorable. That's what I was thinking about. Sorry, yes. When you asked the question, is how much difference it the staying power that it had in my brain because it was an interesting question and she was interesting when she answered it. I love it. So it made her more memorable and it also makes you more memorable. I love that. That it's difficult to remember some of those canned answers, but if I asked you in the next 30 days what her personal passion project was, you will be able to remember it. Absolutely. But also comes with a bit of a story. She tells a little bit of a story about how she's doing it. Alright, a special note here on questions. First of all, it's quality questions, not quantity questions. Now this is a problem that I have when I like to interrogate people with questions just because I have a little bit of a fear of silence. So it's quality questions, not quantity questions. And also, it's very important to listen to their answer. We're not just asking questions for the sake of asking questions. We're asking questions to actually get to know them better. And to not necessarily think about your next question, what it's gonna be, but to really listen to their answer and say, wow what interests me about that? What do I really, genuinely want to know next? This is when conversations start to flow, where you take them to the next level and we're going to talk about that specifically in the next segment. So the second thing that we do to harness our curiosity is what I call the law of addition. So the law of addition is when you ask yourself, how can I add to this person, situation, idea, or project? How can I be an adder and not a subtractor? The way that we do this is we ask more how and why questions as opposed to what and when questions. We ask questions that solicit deeper responses. For example, instead of "Where are you from?" The questions is, "why do you love your hometown?" Or instead of, "What brings you here?" "How do you know the host?" So going and transferring our questions, being an expert questioner, to get those questions that really untap something. Because we're the Christopher Columbus of humanity and we're the Nancy Drew of relationships, we want to find that question that unlocks them, that gives us more about them that taps into their values. And the other way that we do this is called the yes, and mentality. The yes, and mentality is actually a principle that's taught by Second City. Second City is an improve group in Chicago and they have one rule: that when you come on stage, you always have to have the yes, and mentality, which means that whatever is put in front of you, whatever is said, you say yes and you add to it. You take it and you say, yes, I'm gonna run with it. I'm gonna ask an interesting question, I'm gonna tell a story, I'm gonna see how I can add more value to what is being said. Now, in real life, we can't always blindLy agree with people and so that's okay. The caveat to this is the no, but. So if you don't agree with someone, that's okay. You can say, no, but and offer an alternative, circle back to them, find a common interest. We're gonna learn about the like radar in I think segment 14, which is finding a like again, going back to being an adder. So let's go back to that set of emails with Dave. Let's say that I reply back to him. "Hi, Dave. "Greet to meet you as well. "I'm not sure what kind of guest post you would write. "Where have you written before?" This is not using the law of addition. I have a negative. I'm not really sure. I don't really encourage or facilitate interaction and I end with a pretty basic question. What I'm gonna get back, the answer I'm gonna get back to this email is a bullet list. I'm gonna get a bullet list of all the places he's written before. That is a very stunted interaction. Here's how I can use the law of addition to reply back to him. "Hi, Dave. "Greet to meet you as well. "I can always use extra help on my blog." That is finding a true and authentic addition. "How do you pick what topic to write about?" So instead of asking where he's written, which might not tell me anything, I could ask how does he like to research, how does he work? "Please suggest some ideas and I'll take a look," adding the next step. So, I wanna give you an example, oh and here's how you use the no, but. Let's say that I wasn't actually interested in taking those emails. Here's how I can use no, but. "Great to meet you as well. "We're not using any guest posts at the moment. "But check back with me in November "when we will have more editorial openings." So at least that way I'm being genuine and I have to say no, but I give an option for a future alterative. Let's watch a quick video of John and he's gonna tell us an answer and I wanna figure out, how can we add? What question could we ask next if we were sitting with John at a networking event and he told us this, what would we say next? I just completely renovated my van and I'm working on a script of my own. So, can you tell us about the script? The script, it's a period piece about a 1920s grape farmer who owns a winery, but then it become illegal due to prohibition. So, by the way, you heard it here first with his script idea. I promised I wouldn't share it and everyone would steal it. You heard it hear first. First of all, that's an amazing answer, right? To hear about that. What would you say if you were standing with John at a networking event or a pitch meeting he told you this, what kind of you question could you ask? Or what way could you add to this conversation? If you had it made, who would be the lead actor? Oh, I like that question. We'll get John in here and we'll ask him. Yeah, Lee. What inspired the story. Yeah, where did you find this story? I love it. What else could we add? Yeah. [Female Audience Member] I wanna know more about the van and if he renovated it to do a road trip or something. Totally, yeah, totally. You've picked up on that first little nugget that he dropped. I love it. So these are all ways that we harness that add mentality. To often, when you're with people, you'll say a story or they'll tell a story and then it kinda dies cause people don't know what to say next. So when we harness the law of addition, we figure out we can trump up or level up the interaction. Let's try one more with Dana. Alright, what can we add and what question could we ask? Fear is my biggest fear and I think related to that, knowing or letting fear make decisions for me, is my biggest fear actually. (laughs) So an amazing answer, right, to this? This is a hard one by the way. Let's say that this comes out. You're with a client and you're talking deep, especially if you're working with clients on really personal issues, and they bring up something like this. What can you say? What questions could you ask to level it up? Yeah. I just read about something like this in a Malcolm Gladwell book, I believe. I love it. Have you read that book? I forget what it's called. Okay, I love this example because this is taking a previous story, idea, topic, and engaging on. Let's take it a step further. Have you read Malcolm Gladwell? What was that book? Let's figure it out. I love it. What else could we ask or say? Yeah. How do you like to make decisions? Yeah, what does guide your decisions? And by the way, what's your biggest fear, this tells us a lot about his personal motivation which we're gonna talk about in a little bit. So people who add, they ask interesting questions. They ask how and why questions more than what and when questions. They tell stories and they induce positive memories. People who subtract: they criticize, they complain, they disagree, they gossip, they scope the room for someone better to talk to. Those are subtractors and I don't want anyone in this course to be a subtractor. We're all gonna be adders. So in action, this works amazingly on phone calls and email. If you're trying to bond with someone over email, the best way to do that with a potential client is to be adder. Asking interesting questions, telling stories, trying to induce positive memories, asking the how and why questions as opposed to the what and when questions. That's what gets you responses. That's what makes you memorable. That's what makes cold pitching a lot easier. And of course, you can use this in meetings, events, parties, and conferences. So, what's coming up next? Officially, we are in the deposit. Tomorrow, we're talking about the art of conversation. So taking our levels to the next level, mastering the art of small talk, and how to engage someone so that we can connect. Step seven, day seven, it is a surprise. I'm gonna teach you the best kept secret for socially successful people. Our challenge is today to put everything together, is to put together your success routine. I want you to look at your activity list. I want you to look at your success routine in your workbook and pick out what are your favorite things to do based on your intelligence. Then I want you to think about what your next big thing is on your calender. It could be in the next 30 days, could be a wedding in the next few months, it could be a public speaking event, and I want you to think about how can you remember to re-watch this, to harness that law of addition, and the most irresistible quality is curiosity. Curiosity makes us irresistible. That's what makes us interesting. And lastly, I want you to practice curiosity and here's how I want you to do it cause it can be a little scary at first, to practice the law of addition in person. So what you can is go on and IM with an old friend. This is how I practice law of addition. IM, Facebook chat, and Gchat an old friend and start trying to ask more how and why questions. Try to use the law of addition. The nice thing about chat is it gives you a little bit of time to think about your answers and it's actually a great way to connect. Whenever I do this with old friends, it's amazing what I discover with them. I like go down these rabbit holes where I find out things they've been doing as opposed to what's been going on, how have you been? I have these robust conversations on chat where we end up talking on the phone and then meeting in person. So you can practice on IM and then in phone and in person, but you can slow and in your workbook, I have detailed instructions of how you can do that on chat if you want to sort of take it slow. Lastly, we're ready for what was the most important thing you learned today? What was your a-ha moment? JK, you want to join me on stage and I want to hear from you on Twitter. Chat me @vvanedwards or use the hashtag #peopleskills and everyone who responds for all 30 days, the best responses will win my dating and entrepreneur course. I like the sound of that one. Actually, one of our students earlier, was it Joshua, wasn't it? Said that dating is something he hopes to have his take away from this particular course. Days 18, 19, and 20 are our love days. You've got those to come. He's giving us the thumbs up, that's good. But is everyone's takeaway? Yeah, what's your number one a-ha moment or something that clicked for you today? Yeah. The first impression that we had on the board a couple of days ago, I want to be interesting and so, it takes the pressure off a little bit to know that it's be the master questioner that takes the pressure of me instead of thinking that I have to know all of this to be interesting, it feels good to now just concentrate on the questions. I love it, I love it. Joshua, actually, we were just talking about you and dating, what was your kind of a-ha moment or interesting thing that you learned today? Just being able to keep the conversation going and there's time where I would talk and then it would be a dead end and then have that really awkward silence, like (groans) so what do you talk about now? I'm able to know how to add on without feeling awkward. I love that. The reason why I start this early in the course while we're only on day five we're talking about this is cause it takes us all 30 days to practice it. The law of addition is a very different way of thinking about interacting and so everyday, we're going to be learning more techniques to be able to do that easier. So we're just starting. I know we're in the discomfort phase where you're like, (groans) the idea of doing law of addition, but don't worry, everyday we're going to be practicing that. That's why I start it so early. I want one more learning. Kim, tell me what you learned today. I love learning how the power poses can actually change the hormones in our bodies. Changes the way we look and feel. I love it. Yes. This has been another great day. And what I loved actually in just the last slide is before we were asking our students as well, is learning that it's not always about us. It's quite often about the people and how we interact with those people enhances our experience as well so we can take it away. What the definition of a bore? A bore? They're not interested. No, it's someone who talks when they want you to listen. Oh, I like it. And that's absolutely right. Both are right. Exactly. There you go. This has been fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us. We've got so much more to come on this particular course. We've got 30 days of material and we're only up to day five, so we hope that we'll see you back. Join us again tomorrow, same time, same place, and we'll see you then. (applause)