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Harness Charisma

Today we are talking about harnessing charisma. Charisma is pretty sexy. It's one of my favorite topics to talk about. And what we're going to do first is we're going to talk about the Science of Charisma. What makes someone charismatic. Then we're going to talk about mastering your presence. How to have that powerful impact when you first meet someone. And we're going to develop your personal mission statement which is one of my favorite things to do with people. But we always start with a warm up. So in today's warm up, I want to ask you a bit of a challenging question. At home I want you to write your answer in your workbook. Question is, how are you most misunderstood by the world? And if this question seems a little overwhelming for you, the caveat is, how do you-- What do you wish people understood about you? I know this is a hard one. I'll start with mine. So people often think I'm an extrovert. They're like, oh you love being with people all the time. And I do love people, but ...

I can't be with people all the time. So one of the things I wish people understood about me is that I do love people, but I also really, really, need my alone time, to sort of refuel and reengage. It's what we talked about in the last segment. Does anyone else have something they wish people understood about them? That I care about people? You care about people. Because I come across quite direct and so, it's kind of-- a tough balance to show that I care because I come across as not interested. I'm too busy. Too direct comments though. So what people must understand is that your directness. Your busyness is that you actually don't care when you do. I love that. Yes! And we can balance, directness and warmth. We're going to talk about that. Yes. What's something else that you wish people understood about you, or that you think people missed to understand about you when they meet you? It's a hard one, yes, Lacie. That just because I'm quiet, more quiet than normal, doesn't mean something is wrong. Ah. I'm okay. Like it's just a-- So do people ask you, are you okay? All the time. All the time. And really you're processing, you're thinking-- Yeah. Holding back? No, I just-- You can't be high energy all the time. Like at some point-- I just like to just be. Your quiet is just being. I love that. And being okay with that. Yeah. Yeah. Anyone else? JKO, do you have something that you think people misunderstand about you or that you wish people understood about you? So much, so many things. I don't even really know where to start. One of the things I have a challenge with is cultural misunderstanding by living in a completely, if you like, alien country to myself. Yeah. I quite often do not understand cultural references and they don't understand mine. That's something that would have occurred to me was a challenge of moving to a new country to live. Wow, so that's a contextual misunderstanding. So the reason why I talk about this is because when we start the path to connection and the first half of this course we are going up the path to connection, we're going up to make that really deep strong relationship. That initial meeting someone, all you really want is for them to understand you. You want to be able to put out who you are and them to see who you are, for who you are and be okay with that. So in our hook which is where we are now. We've already cleared the way. Yesterday we learned how to detox and set our boundaries and be with the right people, and so today we are going to talk about, once you're with the right person, how do you captivate their attention? So let's talk about the Science of Charisma. So this study, I think this is a fascinating study. They wanted to see if charisma is contagious. They wanted to see what makes charisma. And so what they did is they asked the question, what makes an influencer? And they had people rank 59 different personality traits. Competence, warmth, charisma, influence, persuasion, and out of those 59 traits, the first winner was charisma. It is one of those things that we all want, and that is very rare to have something that everyone wants to have. And that's their own unique brand of charisma. It doesn't have to be an extrovert it could be a quiet power. So, the important thing to know about charisma and why I spend the very first big day on it is because charisma pays off. It is worth the energy and attention. People with high levels of charisma have higher performance in the workplace. They're also in more leadership positions. Typically charisma is the first trait we rank when we think about a leader. We also have this myth which I've been talking about which is that you have be naturally extroverted, attractive or outgoing to be charismatic. That only pretty people or outgoing people can be charismatic. And that is absolutely not true. So charisma comes in many different flavors and studies have shown that we can raise our natural charisma levels. You do not have to be born with charisma. You can absolutely learn it, which is what we're going to be talking about today. And this comes down to our fourth people skill. So there are 33 different people skills we are going to learn in this course and as we go they're going to get deeper and deeper and deeper. And this is number four, which is purpose and intention. Knowing who you are, what you stand for, and why you're here makes you charismatic. The most charismatic people live with purpose and intention. So that's what I want to start with today. And that comes down to a really big question which is what is your legacy? And when I ask people this they're usually like, I couldn't even begin to answer what my legacy is. So I've broken it down into a little bit more of a digestible question, which centers around your personal mission statement. This is the mission statement that drives you. It's why you say yes to certain things. It's why you do what you do. It's why you connect with people. And so in your workbook, I have outlined a couple of different prompts for you to think about your personal mission statement. I've broken-down how you can think about what your personal mission statement is. From everything from what is your legacy to what you want to be remembered for. So here is a video I want to show you. One of the things we did at Creative Live to prepare for this course. I'm really excited about this. This is really cool. So I got 10 Creative Live staffers, who are very brave and awesome. I hope you guys are watching, to do video interviews with us and do a full personality mock up. So we had them take personality tests. We had them take intelligence tests. We had them do everything and then we asked them ten questions, where we wanted to see how they would answer those questions and if we could guess their personality and intelligence type based on their answers. So I wanted to show you a clip from that-- One of our Creative Live staffers answered. We asked him, what is your biggest fear? And I want you to see his answer because that speaks directly to his personal mission statement. I would have to say that my biggest fear would be dying without leaving my mark, or realizing that I have not influenced in a positive way the people around me in my lifetime. So, one of the things that we don't really think about in personal mission statements, is that that's a very private thing. You could never find that out in a casual conversation. Now, what is your biggest fear is a pretty deep question. But you can see that why he is here is he's wanting every day to leave his mark. To positively affect the people around him. We know just by that answer, why he's here. His legacy. His personal mission statement. So, I want to ask you the question. What do you want to be remembered for? Today, in this course, and after this your challenge today is going to be to develop your personal mission statement, to answer all those questions that we talked about. So I want to start with this one which is a little bit smaller than what is your legacy. So I want to hear, what do you want to be remembered for? From you guys, and at home I want you to start answering those questions in your workbook. Yeah. By connections and relationships I've built with people. I just want them to like know that that was something that they loved me for. That they wanted that. I love it. Yeah. That I empowered others to live their authentic life. Empowering people. Yes. That's very close to mine. I love it. Yeah. I want them to remember my presence. I want them to know that when we were together it was real, they felt honored, and they felt heard. Wow. Yeah. So having each individual interaction have on impact on them so they remember your presence. Yeah. That's a powerful one I like it. What else? What do you want to be remembered for? And this is a big question. I know I'm asking you to go deep here, and go vulnerable, and I appreciate your honesty because I know how hard this can be. And I hope at home, that you're getting inspired by some of these answers, and that's helping you answer some of those questions in the workbook. Let's give our students just a chance to think about it because the workbook is a bonus with purchase and I do recommend that you have this, because this is going to help you really follow along with the course and there is a lot of information here that Vanessa is actually not going to be covering during the live videos so make sure you have this to hand, as I said, you upgrade to Anytime Access you can have this as a bonus purchase. Lee, how about you? I'm curious. What do you want to be remembered for? A lot of things. I guess I want to be remembered as someone who brings them happiness. Yeah. That's an amazing answer. You want to bring happiness to those around you. So what I love about these answers is almost all of them had to do with other people. Right? It had to do with having an effect on the world and the people around you. And that's why it's so important that you want your legacy to be affected to your network. Not just you. Not just your success and achievement, which is wonderful but also how your success and achievement affects the other people in your life. So what I want you to do, after you answer those prompts. That's going to be your challenge today. Is I want you to write this next to your matrix. So in the back of your workbook, you're going to have a blank matrix. And this is your matrix where I want you to write down, your intelligence types, which we've already talked about. And I want you to write down the ideas you have for your personal mission statement. So my personal mission statement is to help people uncover their inner awesome. When I'm trying to make choices on a daily basis when I'm thinking about courses I want to do or books I want to write. I always ask myself, am I fulfilling this mission? Is in some way, shape or form, am I helping people reach their inner awesome? Someone earlier talked about helping people discover or overcome vulnerabilities. Who was that who talked about-- Was that-- Were you talking about vulnerabilities earlier? Helping people sort of face their insecurities? Yes. So is that something that you want to be remembered for? I would love to hear more about that. Oh definitely yeah. I want to be able to make my mark in psychology. Known that I might have made a huge difference in helping people, just bring out their true authentic self and not being so worried about being out there and showing their real self to people in the world. I love it. So that very much resonates with me because that is very close to my personal mission statement. So as you answer those questions I want you to write down, it doesn't have to be as succinct as one sentence. You have a couple of different things or a couple of bullets. I want you to write that down next to your matrix because that is the reason that we're doing this. That is the reason I'm teaching about connection is so you can fulfill that personal mission statement that helps us live with intention. So, we have our legacy and on a daily basis we have our legs. Our legs are the daily mission statements that we stand on. So, our legs is our daily mission statement. That is, when you wake up in the morning or you go to an event, why are you doing what you're doing in that day? So my question is, what is your daily mission statement for today? When you woke up this morning, I'm going to give you a little to think about it, because I want everyone to answer, what was your mission before you walked in here today? What was your mission at home before you decided to turn on this video. What did you want to learn, what did you want to do, who did you want to connect with? Now daily mission statements can be anything. They can be generating new business. Helping someone. Learning from someone. Having fun. Trying something new. Getting a phone number, if you're dating or going to a club. They can be anything and they can be small or big, but I want us to get in the habit of no matter what we're doing starting with a daily intention or a daily mission statement. So, a mini little bit of time to think about what your daily mission statement was. Would you mind starting and sharing, what was your mission today when you woke up? In general, this morning is maybe a bigger example than in general. Yeah. In general, it's to do one thing every day that scares me, that moves my business forward. Whoof. That's a good one. Get yourself out of your comfort zone every day. So you actually have one for every single day you try to do every day. I try to do that one every day. I love it. Okay, Erica how about you? I really try to be welcoming, especially when I come to these classes, I know that the first days sometimes can be sort of odd for people when they don't know what to do. So I try to at least find someone who I think looks a little nervous-- And welcome them. I love that. That's the best mission statement. What was your daily mission statement today? Today I just want to absorb and learn other things. Learn. That it. That's a great daily mission statement. Absolutely. Yeah? For me it was, learn one thing. Learn one thing. I hope we've already got one thing-- I hope we can get more than one thing. Yeah. Maggie. I wanted to show up and be really present with everyone I interacted with and just not think of things outside of what's happening in front of me. Be right here. Yeah. I feel you here, I like it. Lace. To be open to new ideas. Meeting new people. Being in a new city. All of it. And then to be brave and to actually implement things that I learn, new thoughts that might challenge me. Conversations that might be new and interesting, but also challenging to actually really just like-- Yeah, it takes a lot of courage to try new things, to learn new things and to show up and be vulnerable. So I very much appreciate all of you whether or not it was your daily mission statement or not at home, jut showing up is very, very courageous. It takes a lot of courage to change patterns. Jason. It's kind of a combination of things. So, you know, this morning it was helping people feel better then they did when they met me. Coming here is being present and learning and in the evening again, helping people do something for their own good that maybe they wouldn't have done otherwise. You're training, this morning, this evening. Yeah. Whoa. Wow. Kudos to you. I love it. Lee. Um, this morning was very specific for this class. I wanted to speak up more in class. So-- So I called on you, was that okay? Yes, yes. You know I'm going to remember that now. Okay. I like it. Kim. I wanted to learn and just share the enthusiasm that I have for this material with everyone else that I was going to meet today. You're doing it. Anne tell me. I also just wanted to be more open and feel like I can retain the information. Oh mic, sorry. I wanted to be more open and be able to retain this information and like really let it sink in and absorb it. Love it. I just want to just open to new people, like students around here. I wanted to connect with them and others, at least learn one thing from them. And then just get out of my comfort zone. I love it. Learn one thing from other students. I love that. Yes! Michael. I wanted to come here to finally meet you. Yeah, we've been talking over email forever. Yeah, a couple of months at least. To learn new things, and meet new people. Yeah. I want to lean how to more effectively empower other people to live up to their full potential to like do I guess fulfill their mission statement however-- I love it. That is. Yeah, helping people live at the very top, the self-actualization on the hierarchy of needs. Help people feel they're living up to their full potential. That's a big one. My mission for today was to become a human sponge and just absorb and learn and not only that but implement also because a lot of time all this learning and then you go home and it's all gone. Nothing changes. So before I sleep I'm going to make sure go over everything, learn it, write it, and-- Agreed, that's why we have those actions steps. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Just to push myself to engage more with others because I'm a solitary person and it's hard work. It's hard work. It is really hard work and I so appreciate you being here. For my introverts in the room, do you consider yourself an introvert? Yeah. Yeah, so I know how challenging this is. I know how hard this is. I so appreciate you doing it. I really do, because when you share, people at home, we can learn from you as well. So, I want you to do that every single day and here is why. Here is some intention science. We hear a lot about intention but we rarely hear A, how to implement it and B, why it actually matters. So setting intention is like warming up your brain. If you think about it, the prefrontal cortex, not to get too sciency on you. The prefrontal cortex is the part of our brain that performs executive functions. So it's the part of our brain that helps us talk to people. That helps us do things. That helps us complete tasks. But the problem is, it actually takes a lot of work to get that revved up correctly. So jumping into a task, is like playing a sport without warming up. Setting an intention, for an activity, whether that's training someone, whether that's meeting with a client, whether that's being at coffee, whether that's going on a date, is like warming up the part of your brain that you need to perform best. And so the reason I have you do intentions is because it actually is getting the exact skills, the part of your brain you need working already in gear. So when you get to the event, you're not starting cold, right? That's exactly why I have you do those daily mission statements. So setting your legs, your daily mission statement is like a mental rehearsing or a mental warm up. So I want you to pull out your calendar, that we've been filling out for the next 30 days of the events that you have. And I want you to pick one event that you have coming up and I want you to write in your daily legs for that event. So we're actually going to apply this right now. So what's an event that you have coming up if someone doesn't mind sharing. It could be a coffee, it could be a meeting. And I want you to tell me what your daily legs is for that event. So the calendar is in your free bonuses. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And we have a couple of blank ones, as well, so if you want to do it for a couple of months out, you can also do that. So who has en event coming up? Coffee meeting, networking event, party. Yeah. My husband's birthday is this weekend. I love it and what's your daily legs? So they'll be some of his co-workers that I don't know very well and I could use-- Maybe default would be to simply be talking to the people that I do know. So my leg would be to reach out to at least two people that I haven't had a conversation with and connect with them. I love it. Super easy. Allie yeah. I am teaching a class on micro expressions and my daily leg for that would be to go into it and get people as excited about it as I am. I love it. Yes. Make that excitement contagious. Yes. Okay, who else has an event coming up what's your daily leg? I want you to write it in. At home I want you to-- You can actually do a couple of these days, look ahead at what's coming up. Anyone else have an event coming up? Yeah. A client product launch, which is really long and not much sleep. And I have a general theme of there is always a way in my life just, there is always a way. Yeah. And even in the stress of it all I want to remember, there is always a way. Finding the way. Finding whatever way is getting creative. I love it. So, the reason that we do these is because it sets our intention. It gets us warming up. And you can do these anyway that you want. So we're doing them together now. But I want you to think about what wokrs best for you. So for you, that might be sitting down at the beginning of a week and looking at your calendar and writing in your daily legs for each event. That might be the way you want to do it. Or, you could do it while you're getting ready. You don't have to write anything down, but you know that your part of your getting ready routine is thinking about what your daily legs is for that activity, as you get dressed, as you do your hair, as you put on make up, whatever, you're going to think about your daily legs. It can also be during the commute, as you travel there that no matter what, whenever you're on the commute you're on your way to an event you're going to think about what your intention is. For me, I do this every morning when I brush my teeth. I brush my teeth every morning and before I go to bed and every morning when I brush my teeth I think about what my daily mission statement is for that day. Because the habit that I do every day, it's a really easy way to set my intention for the entire day. You can also do this while journaling. If you like journaling and that's how you express, you can do them at the beginning of the week or the beginning of the month. So any way this works for you, I want you to find a way to implement it into your life, to get your brain in that right place. Alright, let's move on to step five which is the second aspect of charisma. So the first aspect is setting intention and the second aspect is triggering dopamine. So dopamine is the pleasure chemical, which we're going to talk about in a second. So skill number five is to make people feel rewarded, positive, and delighted when they are with you. So one of the things charismatic people do really well is they make people feel felt. They make people feel their presence, which we've already talked about a couple of times today and they know how to trigger people's reward centers. If you want to remember this, we can think of it as they know how to turn people on, right? Charismatic people, they how to turn people on. And here is what's behind it. The science behind that pleasure feeling. You know that person when you meet them and you're just feel so alive and excited to talk to them. What they're doing is they're triggering your dopamine. So dopamine, simplified, is a neurotransmitter that's released when we experience pleasure or rewards. So it's the neurotransmitter in our brain that if win a race or get a gift, or see someone we love it's released in the brain. It makes us feel that pleasure, so what I want us to learn how to do, and we're going to be doing this throughout the course, is learn how to trigger people's dopamine so they feel excited to be with us. It's actually quite a simple thing to do once you know how to do it. The first way is with names. Names is the the very first thing that we love to do that triggers our dopamine. So compared to other people's names upon hearing our own name, we have greater brain activation, for my science geeks that's in the frontal, middle and superior temporal cortex, for my science geeks. So, when we hear our own name in an MRI machine, our pleasure centers light up. We love hearing our own name. We hear other people's names, nothing really happens. So just saying people's names and learning name signs is a very easy way to trigger dopamine. The other thing is that remembering someone's name has been shown to make people more likely to help you and more likely to buy from you. So names for business is essential. It is an essential, part of doing business. But here is the problem, all people say, yeah I get it. Names are important. But it's very difficult in the moment to remember names. So I want to give you a three part trick to remember names very quickly. Are you ready? Here is how it works. First, you want to activate the audio part of you brains. So you always want to repeat the name out loud. So when you meet someone, you want to try say it's very nice to meet you Lee. Oh Jason, tell me about you. If you say the name out loud once, two or three times is great too, but I can find that it's a little bit awkward to say someone's name, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason. It's a little bit weird. So even just once, it triggers the audio part of your brain. So saying it out loud back to them. Nice to meet you Jason. You can also do this by introing someone to someone else. Jason meet Lee. Lee meet Jason. That's a great way to say names out loud. Okay, go the audio part triggered. Part two, and this was found by Doctor Gary Small, you want to spell it out in your brain. It's the way that you trigger the visual part of your brain. We're getting all of the aspects so that our learning is really solid, is you envision how they spell their name in your head. So if they have a name tag, this is great because you can actually look at how it's spelled. But if they say, hey my name is Marie, in your head I want you to briefly flash it across the top of your head as if their name is in lights. That triggers the visual access key in our brain. And the last one is associate and anchor it. So there is two ways you can associate and anchor a name one, you can associate them to someone you know with that name. So for example, if I meet a Sarah, I have a childhood friend named Sarah. I visualize her face, and that makes it much easier that next time I meet this Sarah I associated her with the Sarah that I already know. So it's a trick for your brain to associate them with the person you already had remembered their name. You can also do this with celebrities. If you meet a David who looks a lot like David Beckham, or even if he doesn't look like David Beckham, you can associate them with David Beckham and when you meet them, you'll be like, who is that person? Oh yeah, right, David Beckham. Because you already remembered their name. The other way that you can do it, is by creating a mnemonic device. This is a game for your brain. It's like solving a puzzle for my puzzle intelligence, for my logical intelligence says this is going to work really well for you. This is when you try to associate their name with a puzzle that will help you remember them. So Lacie I'm going to use you as an example if I could. So Lacie I think Lacie's hair looks a little bit like an ace and so when I meet Lace it's like an ace, Lacie. Right? So that's how I remember her name. When I meet her, obviously I know your name now. But Lacie, that was a mnemonic device. So I want to practice how this works. We're going to actually practice it with each other as also with some videos. So, I'm going to show you a picture of a Creative Live staffer and hopefully you'll see her around today. She's watching and then you'll know her name. I'm going to show you her picture and I'm going to show you her name. And the first person who can come up with a mnemonic device is going to get a kiss. Yes. Alright, are you ready? Here is and we're going to say out loud, nice to meet you-- Nice to meet you Stacie. Nice to meet you Stacie. Alright, who can think of a mnemonic device? Oh yeah tell me. Glassy, that's Stacie. Oh I love it. Kiss for you. Alright. That was a good one. So the one that I thought of was really close, which was Stacie needs to see, wit her glasses. Needs to see, Stacie, right? That was a good one. At home, a kiss for you. It's the only kiss I have. Alright, are you ready for-- Oh and so by the way. Get what also triggers rewards, triggers dopamine is rewards. So there is a reason why I pass out rewards. It's because our brain loves rewards. So I'm triggering all your dopamine as much as I can. I have lots of rewards for you throughout the course. Alright, ready for the next one? Okay. Alright this is Bryan. Nice to meet you Bryan. Who can think of a mnemonic device for him? Eyes and Bryan. Eyes and Bryan. If that helps you remember I'm going to give you a kiss. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any other mnemonic devices? Bryan, he is a hard one. It's a hard one. Bryan is always smiling. Bryan is always smiling. I love it. I heard another one over here, yeah. He said crying Bryan. Crying Bryan. Alright, but yeah. That was a really hard throw. Kiss for you at home. I'm sure that you got that as well. Everyone knows Bryan wears bright shirts so we need Bryan's bright shirts. Bryan's bright shirts JKO. Kiss for you. Very good. Alright so, I love it. That is how fast I want you to do that. And of course, hopefully we said it aloud. We also flashed it in lights. You might not need to associate anchor. One and two might be enough for you and it often is. But it can help if you're learning a lot of names at once, right? Alright so, Oops. I'm going backwards. Alright, let's practice with each other. So I want you to turn to the person next to you and I want you to say their name out loud and I want you to help associate, so think of someone you know with that name. Think of a mnemonic device for that name. I want you to turn to the person next to you and remember their name, Ready? Go! Hi Maggie, hi. Nice to meet you. Vanessa. And turn to the other person ( audience chatting) Well, maybe. John Hannity. Okay, you go. Wait, I want to hear you guy;'s mnemonic. I want to hear you guy's mnemonic We don't have one. You don't have one? You guys have hard names. We just spoke before the classes. So we actually know the names. Actually it was very, very helpful when the Babbar said, my name right? No, no, no, Bobber, because it's like Robert. That helped me to associate your name. That was a great way to do it. I should come up with one. You should come up with one. Okay. Alright. Because they're like, what is it? So does anyone have any good clever mnemonic devices. I have kisses. I have plenty of kisses to give out. Does anyone have any good mnemonic devices they though of just now in that little activity? Yes. When I first met him, it's Bobber and I thought of a fishing bobber. Ahh, so that's how-- I love it. A kiss for you. I love it. Also, Bobber I love what you did when I first met you you said, it's Bobber like Robert. So you actually associated for me. So if you have a difficult name, and you can think of an association I would like you to introduce stuff and if you see someone really trying like they're trying to remember your name. You can give them ana association it really helps with your name retention. Alright, the next topic that triggers dopamine in addition to name signs and we're going to keep practicing that, I hope we're all going to know each other's names by lunch, is this question here. What do you think is our brain's favorite topic to discuss. Which os these four options produces the most dopamine wait, wait, wait for it. Maggie is like I know. Is it relationships? Raise your hand if you think it's relationships. Raise your hand if you think it's ourselves. Guys, you knew the answer. Well, yeah, it's ourselves. That's right. So our favorite topic to talk about is ourselves. When we talk about our own stuff, oh our dopamine triggers go nuts. So, a little bit of brain science on this. So Diana Tamir found that our brain activation is highest when we talk about ourselves. What they did is they put people in FMRI machines, they had them talk about all kinds of topics, relationships, gossip, and when we talk about anything that has to do with us our brain pleasure sensors just light up. Now here is a little bit of science on how much we talk about ourselves. In a typical conversion, we spend 60% of the time talking about ourselves. When we are speaking 60% of that time it is about ourselves and it jumps to 80% on social media. So when we're on social media we typically talk about ourselves a lot, or type about ourselves a lot. How do we do this in conversation? How do we get people talking about themselves? How do we trigger their dopamine? The way that I like to do it is by using killer conversation starters. So what these do is they trigger dopamine but they also stop social scripts. You know what I mean by social script? This is when you go up to someone and your like, how are you? Great. What do you do? I'm a this. They don't even think about your answer because you're asking them questions they've heard a million times before. So you end up getting really boring answers, not true answers or answers that they haven't really deeply though about. And you have the most boring conversations. So by using killer conversation starters, I'm going to give you a whole list of them, you get people to talk about themselves. You stop using social scripts. You spur fascinating conversation, and that in turn makes you more memorable. When you can trigger someone's dopamine, they have a pleasurable feeling when they're with you and they like spending time with you. So they want to spend more time with you. Ah yes, okay. So, I was like video. I want to show you how these conversations starters work in action. So one thing that we did, when we interviewed our Creative Live staffers is I asked them a really boring question. Like what do you do? Where are you from? Super boring. And then I asked them the killer conversation starter option to that question. And I want you to see the difference in the answers. That the boring one gets the same boring answer but the killer conversation starter you learn fascinating things about the person and they also light up. So I want you to see the difference between those two conversation starters. What I do is I work here at Creative Live as the edit notes person. My personal passion project right now I'm working on is a musical about Keanu Reeves called Keanu "the musical." That is the most amazing thing, what's her name? Stacie. Stacie, absolutely right. We know Stacie but she is working on a musical about Keanu Reeves. Now you would never have gotten that, if you just asked what do you do? You would have found out she's the edit notes person. Please don't edit this out Stacie, please don't edit this out. That she loves. This spurs a whole bunch of interesting conversations. What is a follow up topic you could ask her about this? About a musical about Keanu Reeves Yeah. Why Keanu Reeves. Why Keanu Reeves? How did you get the idea for the musical? All of the sudden you're in a fascinating conversation just by that one correct killer conversation starter. Alright let's do one more. And let's see, what he has to say. I'm a content producer here at Creative Live, so I work with instructors who are coming in to teach a workshop and I work sometimes, most of the time I work on the content with them, figure out what their going to teach and how they're going to teach it. I'm currently working on a documentary right now with my roommate, about autistic kids who are in a rock band. A teacher who used to play with Santana, Grateful Dead in San Francisco, he now teaches in San Jose, California, and teaches these autistic kids ho to play music and their band is awesome, and it's about how the music has changed their lives and made them able to jump back into society as kind of a normal contributor to society. So what's the difference between his two answers? Right? What's different. What did we learn about him? Length of the answer, is a bigger-- I love it. In the first answer you notice he kind of had this. I'm a this and it's this. And it's this. But in the second answer, he couldn't wait to tell us about it, and the rock band and you're going wow. What an amazing thing to be working on. And you have a whole bunch of questions that you want to ask him. Just by asking the right question. Just by stopping and using those social scripts. So, instead of, what do you do? Where are you from? How re you? Let's vanish these guys. Vanish them. No more. Let's try, what personal passion project are you working on? Anything exciting happen today? Sometimes just changing around the words of a typical question gets people thinking in a different way. It gets them out of the social script, or have any trips coming up? What does your next week look like? Is it a busy season for you? Changing around the words you use gets people out of automatic, default, boring horrible responses. I don't like boring, horrible responses. I'm allergic to boring. I love talking about how dull gives me hives right? I do not like boring. So I want to stop using these boring social script answers. I have a complete list of all of my favorite killer conversation starters for you in the bonuses. And I have them even broken down by situation. Openers, emotional conversation starters, situational conversation starters that you can use, that get the right conversation flowing to trigger that dopamine. So I want to ask you, what's the first question that you ask a client or in a business meeting? When you're sitting down, what do you-- We are not usually aware of the questions we ask. What do you think is the first question you ask when you sit down with a client? Typically. Yeah. Well, I'm a life coach and so I ask, so what sucks? What sucks. I love it. What sucks? That's a fill the blank kind of question. It is. And I have a variety of wordings, but that's the gist of it because that's why they come to me. I love it and-- I love the way that you say what sucks. That's like, that already triggers dopamine. Because we're like hmm, that's a different kind of-- That's a mental munchie that I can crunch on. If you ask how are you doing? That would probably produce a social script like answer. So just changing around the words. I love it. That is a much more dopamine producing conversation starter. Who else? When you meet with a client, what do you say to them? One of the first questions I ask is, what is your biggest problem or your biggest pain point. What is your biggest pain point, struggle, or problem. Now we're going to talk about that in the sales and persuasion days. We're going to talk a lot about hitting pain points. So I love that. That is one of the best openers. What other conversations are you using? It could be just as simple as how are you? It's okay if you use those. Yeah, Maggie? How are you like-- How was your day before you got here? And what kind of answers do you usually get? Pretty boring. Forgettable ones. You know. Fine, good, okay, totally. Yeah. What is exciting in your life these days? Okay, I love it. So what's exciting in your life, what exciting thing are you're working on. That's a great one. What kind of answers do you get? Well, it's cool because it can be in their personal life or in their professional life and it's always a surprise. But they're always excited to share what's exciting for them. Yeah, because exciting triggers dopamine. So, I want you to think about what's a better one. When you sit down with clients, what is the best conversation starter that you can use, to trigger their dopamine, to spur interesting conversation and to make you more memorable. Make that question purposeful. Set your intention for what you want that question to be. Here is a couple of so-- How is it going? Is usually the one that is typically asked in business meeting situations, and also on phone calls. All of our people skills as we talked about can be applied in both digital life, phone life and real life. So the same thing happens when you're writing an email. What's your opener in an email? Is it just how is it going or how are you? What's a better one that you can use? So instead of how is it going? Working on any exciting new projects? You read my mind on that one. Or how is fall treating you so far? So one trick that I like to use is sometimes if you break down seasons or you ask people like situational questions, it breaks them out of their mental pattern and it gets them thinking about huh. Is fall a busy season for me? Is spring a busy season for me? That's another way that you can break it down. How about, what is the first question you typically ask at a networking event or party? So what is your go to conversation? I see, I saw like disgust faces. You were like augh. I don't know if that was for networking event or your typical conversation starter. What do you usually ask? Or are you even aware of what you ask? What do you usually ask? Yeah. I always ask, what do you do? What do you do? That's the first thing you ask. What do you do? Anyone else? Yeah. How do you know the host? I actually like that question. We're going to talk about that question. Yeah, that's a good question. Typically that works. Yeah, especially if you have no context for how you know them. Absolutely. So, what's a better one. Instead of, how are you? Or what do you do? Let's try, have any highlights today? Highlights and lowlights are a great way to get people thinking about their day. It gets them talking about themselves, it triggers dopamine, or how do you know the host? I love it. You guys are reading my mind. Yeah. I can envision a situation where I would ask someone do you have any highlights today, and they say no. And then I'm just, Okay, let's put that out. Let's put it out. So I ask you, have any highlights today? No not really? Oh what happened? Just a regular old day. So what makes it regular? What does your day look like usually? Go into the office, sit in my cube. So at least we're out off the social script. Now usually, that's extreme. That's extreme, but that happens. But wither way, it gets them out of the social script because otherwise it would have been. What do you do? I'm in marketing. Right? So at least, it gets them out of social script even though I find people might show like la la, those are called downers by the way. We're going to learn about downers in human vampire section. Downers are like, wa wa. Every answer is like a negative answer. Their dopamine is actually triggering. You are asking them questions they are not usually asked and so you are working it. You might not see it right away, but you're actually getting them to go a little bit deeper, and getting them out of social scripting. Yeah. So it's a very good question. But you saw how those questions, you were able to still get out of social scripts. I'd like to share this quote at this point in the course by Maya Angelou who says, without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. And the reason why I share this right now is because it does take courage to try something different. Right? It feels very safe to ask someone, what do you do? Where are you from? And occasionally, when I'm in a situation or a survive event I do fall back on those conversation starters. Because I'm too nervous to go deep. I can't harness that courage. So I do recognize, actually speaking to what you were saying Erica. That's sometimes you risk trying something new, but it is worth the risk and reward, and I want us to harness that courage by practicing it. So in action this works great on first dates. Oh wow. In my workbook I actually have a link to my 13 favorite first date questions. And why they work. They're great conversation starters, they work at networking events. They work at parties, client pitches, and business meetings. I want you to use them in all areas of your life, including phone conversations, and emails. I want you to be purposeful about how you open those things. So coming up next. Tomorrow we are talking about captivating your audience and then we're talking about creating spark and this is finishing up our hook. So on the path to connection, hook is that first few moments of meeting someone. And so, with captivating your audience I want to show you, how to make an awesome first impression. I wan to show you how captivate a room, and how to command authentic attention, because all attention is not created equal. On day five, I like this day. There is a lot of presents on this day, Were talking about creating spark. And this is where I want you to unleash your inner rock star or diva, whatever is living inside of you that's awesome. I want it out. Alright, so were going to talk about how do we unleash that. I also want to show you how to never be boring again. Never, ever, ever be boring again. We are going to vanish boring. And lastly, I want to up your confidence. We talked about confidence a lot in the last segment so I really want to show you here in this segment how to up your confidence. Challenge. How do we put our learning into action. So I want you to use one killer conversation starter today. In some way, shape or form. And I want you to report back and tell me how it goes. And if you want, you can take my list that I gave you, in your bonus materials and you can print that out or you can put it on your phone. So before you go to an event if you're like, I need some new conversation starters to try. You can print it out and put it on your phone. So you can use it in action. I also want you to define your personal mission statement. So there is five prompts in your wordbook, about building your legacy and your personal mission statement. And I want you to go to through those prompts and I want you to post it. Here is mine. Help people uncover their inner awesome. It's right on my mirror when I get ready, So I can see it. So I want you to figure out what that is. Write it on your matrix and post it somewhere good. And we are ready to talk about the most important thing that you learned today. So remember that at home, I want to hear from you. You can tell me on Twitter, @Vvanedwards, with the #peopleskills, what the most important thing you learned today is. What your aha moment is I want to hear and the best answers we get over the course of 30 days are going to win my free dating and entrepreneur course. But first, I'm going to bring JKO up. And I want to hear from you guys, what was your aha moment today? What was something that clicked for you. This has been fantastic. Oh yeah. I actually identified with what Erica was saying there as well I thought earlier on. It is that slight intimidation, and then when you meet people, and I often feel like, If I'm the one sort of pushing all the questions it might repel them even further, particularly if you're not getting an answer. Yeah. So I think that-- It takes tremendous courage. I'm so glad you brought that up. Courage is what it's all about. What have we got to lose. It's what makes everything else better. Absolutely. Vanessa has mentioned the workbook a couple of times. I really do want to stress what an amazing purchase bonus this is. You really will need this to follow along. You'll see all of our students have this in the audience with them. And I really recommend that you have this as well when you upgrade to any Term Access. It's only 129 dollars. When you do that, you not only get the workbook, but you of course get the entire 30 day course for you to watch back and review at your own pace later on. But you also put together some wonderful free bonuses that all you have to do is click the RSVP button. I do want to also remind you that Vanessa's body language course is currently on sell when you buy this particular course. It's only $99 when you do that. Yeah, so. I want to hear what were your aha moments today. What was something that clicked for you. Do I have anyone right off the bat? Yeah. I realized that the points in time or the events where I don't connect and I say something like hey how is the weather, how about that and how was your day and all that stuff. Like the generic stuff, I don't normally do that. But when I do it I'm realizing it ties into events that are my survival ones. Yeah. That was a big one. Yeah, tying in and they all are interrelated. It's okay if you're like. I can't do it right now. But hopefully the more you practice them, the reason why I wanted you to practice them is you'll get so comfortable and excited, our brains get excited with the fun and interesting conversations that are coming and so hopefully that will spur you on, and this will make this event better. Any other aha moments? Yeah. It was interesting, because the question that you asked about what if people just kind of give you the dead fish, it just sort of made me think that these interesting questions are like qualifiers. If you do get something back then you know you want to have a conversation with that person. So you just gave me an aha moment. Because that is absolutely true. I never thought about how someone's response to an interesting non-social script conversation starter can actually tell you a lot about the person. Thank you for that. That is very cool. One more. I want one more aha moment, interesting thing that you learned today. I love what Jason was saying as well actually because it make absolutely sense doesn't it. Then is it that person you don't really want to talk to them anyway. That's the person you don't want to be finding yourself having coffee with. Right. They won't. Erica, show yours. I think that also we're playing back and forth here. One of my fears was I'm asking this sort of very interesting question, and their answer if they don't have anything to say back, I was putting that on me. Like I was making them feel like nothing exciting is going on. But it's not about me, it's what they have to say and whether or not we have a connection, or I want to have a connection. Qualifier and that it's not your fault, right? You are showing up as your best self. You're showing up wanting to connect with them and hopefully they'll want to connect back. If they don't. Maybe they're not the right connection. I love it. My opening question at networking events is are you as terrified as I am? I love it. You usually get the answer you want. So we're going to talk about that in a vulnerability day. You have to bring that back up again. I like it. But for now it has been absolutely fantastic. Vanessa thanks for being with us. Thanks to all of our wonderful students. We're going to see you back for our next segment tomorrow. We're looking forward to that, but same time, same place. See you then.