Vanessa Van Edwards: The Weird Trick That Makes People Like You

How do you know you talk too much? The first thing to watch for is non-verbal cues. Someone is checking out if they open their mouth as if to say something — I call it the "open fish." That's a subtle cue that you talk too much.

"Do you think they're listening right now and thinking that's me?" "Yes."

A recent study found that 95% of people have worked with someone who talks too much.

There's a "do you talk too much" test with five questions — if you answer yes more than three times, you're probably an overtalker. Which raises the question: which is worse, over-talking or under-talking?

I have spent the last 20 years studying master conversationalists, and I found that conversation is the vehicle to get what you want. I'm a recovering awkward person and really struggled with bad conversation for a long time.

I think the next generations will be talking to technology more than they talk to humans. Because we're having fewer conversations, one in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness. And yet I now, more than ever, am sending nine-minute voice notes to my friends — and a voice note is the most selfish form of conversation. In this age of technological change, the people who are masterful at conversation are going to have an advantage.

There's a blueprint to good conversation, and once you know it, it becomes easier. For example, we devised three different speed networking experiments with 500 speed networkers, and the best conversation starter was actually "What was the highlight of your day?" The moment we asked "How are you?" or "What do you do?", they ran out of things to talk about. But the worst question in the history of conversations is — though I also have a formula to immediately bypass that small talk, and a secret door to charisma. There are also five archetypes, and this is going to impact getting our promotion and finding your soulmate.

We're going to go through all of them, but one of the ways to get out of a bad conversation without offending people: we tend to focus a lot on the first impression, but we don't really think about the end — and it's all really important. I discovered this framework.

Here is a strange fact: most of the people watching this right now, about 58% of you, aren't yet subscribed to this channel. Statistically, that is probably you. So could I ask you a small favor? If this channel has ever given you any value at all, please hit the subscribe button. It costs nothing, and it helps us more than you could know. The bigger the channel gets, the more we can invest in the guests and the production. Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy this episode.

Vanessa Van Edwards, on page five of your new book Conversations, you talk about how we're in a connection crisis, and you say that conversations are getting harder, more awkward, and less satisfying.

At some level, I feel that too. My question to you is, why did you choose to write this book based on everything you could have written about, everything we've talked about before? Why is this book needed at this time?

People who are investing in conversation skills right now are creating career insurance. We like to work with people who are great at conversation. We like to be with people who are great at conversation. We like to date people who are good at conversation. And in this age of tremendous technological change, the people who are masterful at conversation are going to have an advantage.

So I wrote this right now because we are slowly losing our ability to connect. I think this is the last generation that will learn about conversation via humans — the next generations will be talking to technology more than they talk to humans.

The interviewer asked whether it is possible to become great at conversation, and what advantage that would actually bring to someone's life.

Conversation is the vehicle for getting what you want. If you want a promotion and you can chat with your boss in a way where they genuinely connect with you, you're more likely to be considered for it. If you want to meet your soulmate, you need deep, connected, meaningful conversation to truly get to know each other. And if you're lonely, finding friends who give you the real joy of conversation will boost your longevity.

The mistake we've made is treating conversation as extra—putting it second. Leaders focus so much on their idea, their technology, their business, that they forget the human element. We should think of conversation almost like going to the gym: we focus a lot on physical health, but our social health is critical to our emotional health. If we do conversation reps and truly become good at it, we improve. Conversation is a skill to learn—you're not simply born with it or without it—and it's the one skill that keeps on giving.

Asked whether people know when they're bad at conversation, and whether there are symptoms, the speaker said yes, there are. She backed up first: as a self-described recovering awkward person, she struggled with bad conversation for a long time because she was asking the wrong questions and approaching conversation the wrong way. The wrong way is trying to impress rather than discover. When you're trying to impress, conversation becomes performative, which is deeply unfulfilling—that's when small talk becomes soul-crushing.

She has spent the last 20 years studying master conversationalists. They live differently in the world—she only knows this because she wasn't one for a long time. They are more joyous, more confident, and more authentically assertive. They get more energy from interactions, whether introvert or extrovert, because their conversations give them energy rather than taking it.

She hesitated to label anyone a bad conversationalist, preferring "exhausted conversationalist," and named three symptoms:

• Dread. Dread is an important emotion. If you open your calendar and feel only dread, something is wrong—conversation should boost you and give you energy.
• Overwhelm and social overthinking. If you can't turn your brain off and all you worry about is what to say next, it's probably because you haven't learned the mechanics. There's a blueprint to good conversation, and once you know it, it becomes easier.
• Leaving feeling misunderstood. You leave feeling like you were the worst version of yourself or couldn't be your best self.

Really good conversationalists leave people thinking, "After talking to you, I feel like I understand myself better"—a very different mindset from trying to impress somebody.

How long have you spent doing the research behind this book? Accidentally, I've been doing it my whole life, because I was very bad at conversation for 20 years. Then 20 years ago I realized there are hidden blueprints behind our interactions. I wasn't sure what they were, but I could see that very good conversationalists were following some kind of plan. The real research began eight years ago, and it started with an experiment I call my speed networking experiment. It fundamentally changed the way I think about conversations.

I knew great conversationalists had some secret, and I set out to find it. We devised three different speed networking experiments with 500 speed networkers. We brought them into rooms with cameras set up in all four corners, because good conversation looks different. A good conversation has a lot of gestures, a lot of leaning, high energy, vocal charisma — the volume goes up. A bad conversation sounds flat: very low energy, apologetic facial expressions, low volume.

We assigned these networkers six conversation starters — three I thought could do really well and three I wasn't sure about. After each timed conversation, they rated its quality from one ("the worst, most awkward conversation I've ever had") to five ("the best conversation I ever had — I want to marry this person or connect with them on LinkedIn"). We ranked all the ratings, and there were clear winners and losers.

The losers: scripted, fact-based openers

The conversations that produced the worst connection and the most awkwardness were "How are you?" and "What do you do?" — fifth worst and worst respectively. These last two are very socially scripted. The moment we ask them, our brain goes into autopilot, the exchange becomes more of a performance, excitement drains out, and people run out of things to talk about. They're fact-based questions, and that's the trap of what we call level one conversation: you're trapped in facts. Where are you from? Got any kids? Married? The facts are dead ends — it's very hard for someone to break out of them because they're stuck in that social script.

The winner: "What was the highlight of your day?"

The best conversation starter by a lot was, "What was the highlight of your day?" Psychologically, it sounds casual, and it's not too deep. A mistake extroverts can make is asking too deep a question too quickly — "What is your greatest goal in life?" — and the other person thinks, "I don't know you." So it's not too deep, but it's a subtle replacement for "How are you?" You're actually asking the other person's brain to search for optimism, inviting them to think about what was good in their day. First, you break autopilot: the moment someone goes "oh" and thinks for the first time, their brain gets to do something new. And it's immediate — not too big a question.

The second question was, "Have anything exciting you're working on?"

This is kind of a subtle replacement for "What do you do?" If someone likes what they do, they're going to talk about it, but they'll reframe it as something exciting. And if someone isn't defined by what they do, they'll share something better. The third question was very simple: "Do you have any fun plans coming up?" The first three questions are literally searching for good—you're inviting the other person to only think about good things, and we're juicing excitement from other parts of their life.

The fourth question, the middle one, almost broke my data. This is where things really got interesting for me as a researcher. People either loved it or hated it: they either gave it a five—the most connective thing I felt all week—or a zero. And a zero wasn't even an option on my scale. The question was, "What's your story?"

Have you ever been asked that question?

Derivatives of that question.

Okay. Extroverts tend to default to that question because they want to go a little deeper. But it's actually a level three question—way too advanced for someone who's introverted or who has never framed their story that quickly. They're immediately put into cortisol, into fight or flight: "What's my story? How can I give that to you so quickly?" You're accidentally putting them into conversational fear. That's when I realized there's a hierarchy—we have to move through conversations at different levels.

For anyone listening on Apple Music or Spotify who can't see it: we have a three-tier stage in front of us—tier one, tier two, tier three. What are these three tiers?

Dr. Dan McAdams found that conversation isn't as fluid as we'd like to think. When we're trying to connect with someone, we're actually moving through three distinct levels. Level one is called general traits. That's why in the first few minutes you're basically trying to Google fact-check someone: Where are you from? What do you do? Married? Where do you live in LA? Our brain processes social facts from least intimate to most intimate, so we can't get to know someone's deepest dreams and worries without knowing the basic facts about them. That's why we fall into the trap of fact-based questions.

The key is that a really good level one question takes those facts but adds story, adds emotion. The best way to do level one better is to swap out the bad questions—"How are you?" "What do you do?"—for looking for a story. I truly believe a fact is a stop sign; a story is a doorway.

Give me an example of both.

One of them we can place right here: "What's your personal passion project?" That's actually a hunt for stories.

And would you open with that? Or does it not really matter?

It can come in the first few minutes. I probably wouldn't walk into a room and say, "What's your personal passion project, Stephen?"—that's a little bit much. We have to do our basic first impression first, and we can talk about the first ten words later. But as an opener question, it's better than "How are you?"

I have to pause here and say: everything I'm going to share takes a little bit of conversational courage. It's really safe to ask "How are you?" or "What do you do?"—but if you want to be memorable, if you want to actually spark connection, those won't serve you. It takes courage to ask, but the answers are incredibly interesting. You'll get stories and hints at values. If you want to know whether they're married or have kids, they'll probably tell you by accident.

Same with the one I mentioned in the study: "Working on anything exciting these days?" It's one of my favorite swap questions because you're hunting for something good. At level one, you're trying to gift someone a chemical cocktail, and these two questions do a lot of heavy lifting—they're now competing with your feed. I went to a PTA meeting recently, and those are torture if you've ever been to one as a parent.

PTA meeting—oh, a parent-teacher meeting.

I recently moved across the country and went to a PTA meeting hoping to meet other moms. I walked in excited, and everyone in the room was scrolling on their feed. I realized that conversation now isn't just a way for me to make friends — it actually has to compete with that feed. I have to make my questions and answers so dopamine-worthy that they beat the feed, otherwise people go right back to their phones.

That's why these questions have to do more lifting. To compete with the feed, I have to produce a little dopamine — a bit of excitement, a bit of motivation — and create what I'd call, forgive me for the word, "conversational confetti." We have to lift a little more in our conversations, because otherwise someone goes right back to scrolling, their brain off in their email or their feed.

In my research on amazing conversationalists, one person I studied was Howard Stern. However you feel about him, he's a master — he carries on long, fascinating interviews and gets people to say things I could never imagine. I analyzed thousands of transcripts of his interviews and found one pattern: he creates information gaps very well. He'll ask, "What's the weirdest thing you've ever done?" or say, "The most surprising thing happened to me yesterday. You want to hear what it was?" Your brain doesn't like not knowing. When it hears "the most surprising," "the weirdest," "the biggest," "the worst," "the most embarrassing," it creates an information gap — it feels it has to know. Using these phrases in conversation is a way to create more intrigue and interest.

That may sound trivial, but think about it: if something crazy happened to you yesterday and you walk into dinner saying, "Guys, the craziest thing happened to me yesterday," everyone puts their phones down. At that point I couldn't say something boring like "I was stuck in traffic" — unless I wanted to be funny. Looking for these opportunities to create a bit of conversational confetti is where questions like this come from.

The last one: "Have any fun plans coming up?" I agonized over this third question — there are three questions per level — because it's a subtle way to bring up a potential shared future. Psychologically speaking, we bond with someone when we feel we could do something fun with them, or they're doing something fun we'd also like to do. Part of asking these questions is becoming known as someone who hunts for excitement. Then people start bringing these things to you — work friends and friends outside work know you'll ask about their personal passions — so next time you can say, "Hey, last time we talked you mentioned XYZ. How's that going?"

These personal details also become your call-backs. They make conversation easier later, because people you know at work or outside of work will bring these things to you — they know you'll ask about personal passions — so next time you can say, "Hey, last time we talked you mentioned XYZ. How's that going?"

Everybody starts from a remarkably different place here, though, in terms of skill, but also energy and willingness to do it. A lot of introverts listening right now are probably thinking, "What's the point? I don't like people anyway, it's so much energy, and I've got to ask these questions and pretend to be interested. This is going to drain me."

I agree — and two things can be true. It's exhausting in the sense that you're trying, putting energy into conversation. But it's also exhausting to have really shallow small talk. I find it exhausting to stand at an event or schmooze backstage talking about nothing. So which do you choose: very boring, predictable conversation where you're less memorable, they're less memorable, and you're just waiting to get home to Netflix? That's not what I would choose. Or do you choose to break a script — try to do level one better, trigger a little dopamine, learn something you didn't know before, which might, just maybe, bring joy? And if you get a really great answer, remember there are two sides of conversation: talking and asking.

Even for introverts, they have really big goals in their life that they care about. If you can tell me how asking "Any fun plans coming up?" helps me become a better CEO, founder, father, mom, or daughter — whoever I want to be — then I'm in.

Conversation is not anti-productive

Let's talk about founders and CEOs specifically. There's a mistaken belief — and I work with a lot of companies and founders — that conversation is anti-productive. They worry, "I don't know if I want my employees to talk a lot. I can't waste time on small talk." The research shows the opposite, and logically, if you think it through: connected people collaborate better, engaged employees work better together, and we're more productive when we feel good.

The key word here is friction. When a company has a lot of communication friction, you get employees who doubt themselves, no psychological safety, real difficulty brainstorming, people withholding information, and more information silos. Communication friction costs companies money.

If you have a community of employees with very easy level one, they don't need to get to level three. You don't need to get to level three with everyone in your company, and you don't need it with your Uber driver. But if you have really easy small talk and banter — where someone knows exactly what your personal passion project is, who you are, what fun plans you have coming up — the first five minutes of your meeting becomes not only frictionless but actually pleasurable. People show up on time, they're more productive, and they want to be there because they actually want to connect and collaborate — remote or in person — because they know they have these loose ties, and loose ties actually make us more productive. We're looking for frictionless communication, and that happens at level one. In fact, work conversations should be ideal level ones.

Is this also the fastest way to get to connection? Yes. Because CEOs, founders, and busy people generally are time-poor — they don't have thirty minutes to work their way to connection. These are shortcuts.

It's way worse for a coworker to think, "I've been told I'd better be warmer" and then force it. Most of my students are brilliant, talented, and smart, but a little awkward and want to get it done. They focus on confidence and warmth, so they try to do warmth because they feel they should — and it comes out as a social script: "How are those kids?"

The scripted exchange—"How are you?" "Good, busy, but good"—doesn't work; it's actually counterproductive. I'd rather you skip that level quickly and make it good.

The team intervention I encourage every virtual or in-person team to do is this: once a week, at the start of a meeting, begin with "tell me something good." Everyone goes around very quickly and shares one win or something good—it can be small or big. That takes less than three to five minutes, depending on team size. We do it on our Tuesday team calls.

What it does is create a safe, contained space for good-level conversation—it's only good. Otherwise people will accidentally complain: "Oh, the weather, the traffic." You're putting a frame around it that's good and time-boxing it, and you very quickly create these team connections.

So create time in your meetings, and in your culture, to ask slightly better questions. All of these level-one things have one thing in common: they provoke a positive search and response. That's really the crux of level one—a question that produces a positive response.

But it's not always positive. I do believe in toxic positivity, and it can kill a conversational vibe very quickly. What we're actually looking for is emotion and story.

And by the way, I love my introverts. They always ask, "What if someone says they don't?"—you ask them about their personal passion project and they say, "I don't have one." Well, great. What an opportunity. If someone doesn't have a passion project, or they're going through a hard

If someone doesn't have a personal passion project, or they're having a bad day, you have an opportunity to connect even better. It doesn't have to be positive—you're looking for any kind of real emotion. If someone says, "I've been going through a hard time and haven't had much energy to work on personal passions these days," then you can choose to say, "Wow, is there anything I can do to help?" or "Do you want to talk about it?" So it's not always positive; it's about looking for authentic emotions, and ideally story.

Another master conversationalist I study who is excellent at level one is Jerry Seinfeld. He has a little conversational trick, which is in level one of the book. He often meets people after his events who are so starstruck that they don't know what to say, and the conversation is really awkward. The trick he developed—and this works really well for CEOs and introverts—is to ask a numbers-based question. Instead of "How are you?" or "Where do you live?", ask "How long have you two been together?" If it's 38 years, you say, "Oh, what's been the highlight of your 38 years?" If it's really short, "Oh, you're in the honeymoon phase—that's the best part." It works well for introverts because it's fact-based: it's an opener, and usually from there it's a jumping-off point to a story. So level one doesn't always have to be positive. That's great if it can be, but practically speaking, it's more that there's a small emotion or a small story.

The other day I was in Las Vegas doing a step-and-repeat, meet-and-greet thing after an event, where people come up and get ushered through very quickly. I always want to say something to learn a little bit about a person in that time.

What would you recommend? And this might be applicable for networking generally.

Whenever I speak about books, I ask, "What was your favorite part, or what did you learn the most?" I immediately ask a question I want them to take home with them. That's actually level two, which we can skip ahead to—though not too far. "What have you always wanted to learn?" or "What are you learning?" goes to level two. You can ask it, especially if someone's just spent an hour listening to you.

Well, what's the difference between level one and level two?

Oh, sorry—we skipped ahead. Let's put a pin in that. One thing I want to say about that question: I read about Dan McAdams's framework while doing conversation research, and then I got invited to one of the weirdest parties I've ever been to. I get in and they tell me to take off my shoes, so I'm committed—I can't leave. Then they say, "Guess what? We have a rule for this party: you cannot talk about what you do." This was a party of, I think, very successful people, and all of us were like, "What?" Because I don't know about you, but I'm pretty defined by what I do—I talk about it, I love it. I started to panic: what do you even talk about if you don't talk about that? So many of our conversations veer into work.

My brain flipped off autopilot immediately, and I had to get more creative with my questions. I decided I was just going to discover things about them—try to figure out what they do by not asking. That was an aha moment: we should treat level one, these three bottom questions, as a treasure hunt. If you go into it looking for some kind of conversational gold, your questions have a much different attention. What I ended up asking was, "What do you talk about when you don't talk about work?" That gave us a freedom in conversation, and I want to give everyone permission that really good conversation does not have to stick to the same old boring topics. It doesn't have to be about what you do—it can be about anything that is engaging or exciting you in that moment. That's level one.

Level two is personal concerns. We have general traits, so we must start there—we cannot skip too quickly to level two. Personal concerns is where we begin to connect deeply: our motivations, our goals, our values, our worries.

And I'm assuming you do level two once you've gotten past level one connection.

Exactly. That's us going deeper with the person—or leveling up, as you wish.

Right. The mistake people make is skipping level one—they try to go too deep too quickly, and it feels invasive or like an interrogation. So we must know the basics first, as long as we do them well rather than on autopilot.

Level two is when you start to understand what motivates someone. The mental trick I use is: you're on level two with someone if you know what gets them up in the morning—what goal is driving them all day—but also what keeps them up at night, what worries them.

As you're reading, I encourage you to think of the five people you interact with most and place them on a level. Do you only know the basic facts about them, or are you all the way at level three, which we'll get to? You'll notice patterns. I love level two—I want to get through level one as quickly as possible and reach someone's motivations, their secret side hustle, their dreams and passions, what keeps them up at night. But I can sometimes jump too fast.

Level two is about making someone feel heard and understood, and it's different than discovering treasure. The biggest skill in level two is what I call dream building. Everyone has a secret desire, dream, side hustle, or passion—can you be there and help them uncover it? That's the goal of level two.

Examples of dream building

Before we started, I told you I have a new goal: I'm pitching a TV show. That's my secret side hustle—something I've been working on secretly and quietly. If we were at lunch, we would have double-clicked on it and I would have told you all about it.

Another way to think about it: what does someone daydream about? What is occupying their mind in a good way?

A framework I give people is the pet or pest project. A pet project is like a pet at home—you think about it, dream about it. What is someone hoping to achieve, find, or do? A pest project is like a pest in the attic: it worries you, and you wonder how to get rid of it. They want help with it but are too afraid to ask, because pest projects carry a lot of shame. On level two, people have to feel safe enough to expose what they feel shame about. Pet projects, the things they love, carry a lot of pride. In conversation, you're trying to figure out whether you can make someone feel safe enough to share either one.

Questions that evoke dream building

"What have you always wanted to learn?" is an interesting question because it triggers growth mindset—the belief that you can change yourself, change your trajectory, learn something new. You're asking, "Are you willing to grow with me?"

Another easy one is "What is your biggest goal right now?" You can also time-anchor it. Around someone's birthday, ask "What's your big goal this year?"—that's a level two question, leveling them up in a safe way. Around New Year's, in January and December, I ask everyone I know what their biggest goal is right now; same with a new quarter or a new performance review.

When we talk about goals, it activates a part of our brain that triggers dopamine. Thinking about our future self activates the part of us that wants to get motivated. So level two is also giving someone motivation: in conversation, they're actually discovering an aspect of themselves and tapping into their own resource for motivation.

It gives them permission to dream a little bit. You're giving them the motivation they already have, but bringing it into the conversation. Recently we've become so focused on the intrapersonal — a lot of what you see on social media right now is mindset, mantras, affirmations, and productivity. I love all of those things, but that means people are using all that excitement alone when they're journaling, meditating, or working on their to-do list. We've forgotten, I've noticed, to bring those goals into conversation. People seem almost embarrassed to talk about their secret side hustle or their secret passion. If we give someone permission to bring what they've been motivated about privately into conversation, you get to be an ally instead of hitting a dead end when you ask these level two questions.

Well, then you get to answer — because some people haven't quite figured out what their biggest goal is.

Absolutely. Especially sometimes...

Introverts in conversation also need more time to process. You might ask them, "What are you learning right now?" or "What's your biggest goal?" and they might not know in the moment—they just need a little time to think. Two things can happen: if they don't have an answer yet, that's okay, and you also have the opportunity to share.

But what if you keep hitting brick walls? The host raised the scenario of a taxi driver—the podcast has many taxi driver listeners—whose passenger simply doesn't want to talk, no matter how many level one and level two questions they try.

Then respect that. If someone doesn't want to talk to you, back out. They're going through their own thing. You also need the courage to be disliked. You can try your best in conversation and bring the best questions, but if someone is not your person or isn't ready to connect, why waste your energy on that?

Asking these questions is like making a bid: can we do this? Do you want to banter with me? Should we have level one, or even dip into level two? Great. If not, cool—they're not your person, or it's just not their day.

Adapt the questions to your context

Taxi drivers usually ask her things like, "Got anything exciting today?" or "Are we going anywhere exciting?"—a great swap for a level one question. These questions are suggestions, and modifying them to fit what you're doing is even better. At book signings or after speaking events, it makes sense to adapt the learning or goal question to "What did you learn? Did you learn anything new? What was your favorite part?" A taxi driver adapts it to "Heading anywhere exciting? Doing anything exciting today?"

These aren't prescriptions—they're guidelines to make the research applicable. She has spent most of her career reading academic studies, some of which are thirty pages of jargon with one nugget. Dan McAdams's research is incredible, but when she first read it, she wasn't sure how to use it: general traits, personal concerns, level one—she wasn't certain. These questions are simply ways to activate the behavioral research driving all of our interactions, and you get flexibility in how you apply it.

The goals of each level

The goal of level one is a treasure hunt: put someone at ease, ask them about what they love, and harvest story. The goal of level two is to give someone permission to share a dream, a secret desire, or a secret worry. And level three—there's one more level—they'll get to that shortly.

Do you have to actually care about the answer? There have been times in conversation where I'm not sure if I care yet, so I'd say you don't care yet. You might ask the question without being bought in, and then hear an answer that deeply resonates with you. We can't always know if we'll care about someone we've just met—but you never know who's going to be your next best friend, or when you'll hear an aha moment that changes your business. So many of the pivot points in my business have come from random conversations where I happened to ask the right question and someone gave me a brilliant piece of advice.

So is it okay to pretend to care? If you're asking the question, you care enough to try. If you're listening to this podcast, you already care enough to think, "I know I should be a better conversationalist." Like so many leaders I work with, they might not feel warm, but they know they need to be warm. I think that's intent enough—we just have to find the questions that work for you.

"Been busy" — the worst question in conversation

Earlier we talked about questions that lead to dead ends, like "What do you do?" I have a question I hate a lot—one I want to leave our vocabulary. It's the worst question in the history of conversation: "Been busy." What do you do when you're on the receiving end of questions like that, since you'll get them everywhere, forever?

First, boring questions make you boring—we know this. But boring questions asked of you are an opportunity. You can really surprise and delight someone by breaking the script on their boring question. Let's talk about two buckets here.

The first bucket is "What do you do?"—you're going to be asked that a lot, so you'd better have a great answer. Having one creates opportunities for yourself. Most people's mistake (I have an entire chapter about it in the book) is forgetting that when someone asks what you do, they're looking for something. They're trying to understand who you are; maybe they're even asking what you're worth. So the ball is in your court to break the script and surprise them: give an answer that explains exactly what you do, then adds a little hook—a small information gap, a bit of curiosity. And we don't want to overcomplicate or be vague.

While researching this book, I was sitting in a coffee shop eavesdropping on conversations—if you listen to conversations in the wild, the things you hear are great. I heard a woman, apparently on a date, ask "So, what do you do?" The man answered, "I have a system for maximizing achievement in young learners." She said, "What?" He explained that he works with fifth grade students and has a system for how they can learn math and reading. She said, "Oh, you're a teacher." "Yeah, I'm a fifth grade teacher."

His intention was to be interesting—he didn't want to say "I'm just a fifth grade teacher." But he gave the brain too many calories. The brain wants the simplest, easiest road possible. If you want to put people at ease, what doesn't put them at ease is an answer that sounds like you're reading your resume. It's either jargon-filled, too formal, or too complex, and it turns people off.

So that answer was vague, complex—and it got the social hierarchy of facts backwards. I have to know what you do before I can know your how. So what should he have said?

What he should have said is not the how but the what. I love the why, but I think that needs to come second. He should have said: "I'm a fifth grade teacher, and I've been working for the last 10 years. I developed this really unique system that speeds up reading."

Now we're talking, because my brain went, "Got it. Check." Fifth grade teacher—got it. Then I got to hear the how: wow, 10 years. That answered another question we always have—how long have you been doing that? You're trying to skip ahead. And then it added this hook of "I figured out how to get students to read faster."

When you think about what to say, here's a little formula, if you're willing to play around with it—and again, always take a formula loosely and make it fit:

1. I do blank
2. for who
3. by how

It's like a gift to the other person. You're giving them a very clear label of what you do so they can put you in a box. I hate being put in a box, but unfortunately our brains need it. Especially make it easy to understand the "for who," because people always want to know: can you help me? Can you help my friend? Is it for my sister? And then, if it fits, they'll ask about your how.

A lot of people listening now are more multi-hyphenated than ever before—they do a this, a that, a violin, a creator, a LinkedIn thing, a speech, a dance, an improv. So how should those people answer the "what do you do" question?

Two things. First, we understand complexity as humans—we get it. You can say, "I daylight as a fifth grade teacher, but I moonlight as a cinematographer." You can literally say you're a hyphenate. If you're in a career pivot—and we have a lot of students who come to us mid-pivot—we love a hero story: "I've been working in marketing for the last 20 years, but I'm thinking about going back to school for psychology." We think people can't handle it, but conversation can handle a lot, and it doesn't take a long time.

The mechanics of conversation

There are two aspects of conversation: the art—like weaving in excitement and harvesting story—and the mechanics. Let's talk about the mechanics first. The Canarder Corpus is a huge research study on this. How long do you think a typical turn should take in conversation?

15 seconds.

Wonderful—15 to 30 seconds. In average conversation, we like 15 to 30 seconds. 45 seconds is okay, but we start to turn to a monologue. That means how long you speak before letting the other person speak—before we start to feel like "I'm talking too much, it's not my turn."

By the way, if you go back and listen to previous Zoom conversations, it can be helpful to know whether you're an overt talker or an undertalker. Under 15 seconds, you might actually be creating conversational scarcity—not talking enough.

Which is worse?

Which one's worse, do you find?

Well, I'm an overt talker, so I'm going to say undertalking—because I'm an overt talker, so I'm going to say it's worse. [laughter]

The art of conversation is being stripped away

Can I take a hit at podcasts for just a second? The other reason I wrote this book is that I think the art of conversation is being systematically stripped away piece by piece, and it's well-intentioned. This is not a natural conversation—I'm in an interview. I would never normally take this long on turns if we were having dinner. You're reading notes; I have notes. But more and more of our off time is spent listening to podcast conversations, and those are not real conversations—they're interviews. So first, we're hearing conversations that aren't real. They're a bit performative, and they don't follow the mechanics of conversation. That's affecting our conversational muscle in the brain.

Second, we're having more and more asynchronous conversations. I now more than ever am sending nine-minute voice notes to my friends, and they send them back. A voice note is not a conversation—it's a monologue. When you're giving a voice note, I don't get the "oh, it's my turn, me too, how dare you, I don't like that, I don't agree." There's no back and forth. In fact, it's the most selfish form of conversation—and this is from someone who sends a lot of voice notes, because I don't need to hear your opinion, I get to go as long as I want, I don't have to worry about whatever you're doing. And I'm usually multitasking: listening to my best friend's voice note while cleaning, cooking, or exercising.

That has skewed things, because when we get into real conversation it feels hard—our muscle has been atrophying with all this asynchrony. And then we're also conversing less: only three in 10 Americans socialize on a daily basis.

That means people are spending more time alone and conversing less. We can get so much work done asynchronously, and we also spend so much time on self-care, longevity, and workouts that we're simply doing less with other people. One in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness, and I believe that's because we're having less conversation—and when we do have it, it happens asynchronously.

The last and hardest point is that we are now talking to technology more than talking to each other. I don't just mean talking through technology—we've done that for a long time—but only recently have we started talking to technology itself. And when I talk to my technology, it sounds different from when I talk to you. I was sitting next to my husband while he was working, and he was talking to his AI, saying, "Do better. That's terrible work. Do better." Then I asked him a question, he turned to me, and I said, "You better not tell me to do better."

We talk to technology in a way we would never talk to other humans, but our brain doesn't always know the difference. So I think this conversational muscle is atrophying.

On the question of knowing whether you are a good conversationalist: a recent study of over a thousand Americans found that 95% of people have worked with someone who talks too much. These chatty co-workers spend an average of 90 minutes of their workday just talking, and 71% of respondents said talkative co-workers prevented them from getting their work done.

How to tell if you talk too much

First, do an intervention on yourself: if you have recorded Zoom calls, go back and time yourself. There is an appropriate length — 15 to 45 seconds, 45 seconds at most.

Second, watch for non-verbal cues that someone is checking out. If they are opening their mouth as if to say something — I call it the "open fish" — that is a subtle cue that they want a turn but are going to wait. You did it to me earlier and I totally stopped, because I realized you wanted to say something.

Yeah, I do actually give people cues that I want to say something sometimes. And some of them see them and some of them just do not.

You're on the more sensitive end of the scale, where you're almost watching what I'm doing. Having done some 700 of these interviews, it's fascinating that with some people I have to remain completely still, because they are surveilling me for cues that they're doing a good job — if I move or look away, they immediately change. Whereas other people don't even know I'm here, which is actually what I prefer, because then I can glance at my notes, look in the books, go to the toilet and come back. It's just easier.

And this is why this is not a natural conversation. But I think people like you are better at conversation, because you see conversation not as a megaphone you're shouting through, but as continual feedback. That's why I sometimes have to be on edge with people like you — I know you're taking cues from me.

Reading eyebrow raises

I'm looking for your eyebrow raises. Neil deGrasse Tyson says that every book he's written is every eyebrow-raising thing he's ever said — he'll go on airplanes, just talk to people, and when they react, he writes it down. I'm doing the same thing with you: watching your eyebrows very closely. Don't ever get Botox — it would be so hard to read you.

If you raise your eyebrows, I want to "double click" on it. You're the tastemaker: I know I'm saying things that interest me but might not interest you, so if you raise your eyebrows, I'll go deeper, give you an example, or tell you a story. That's why this isn't a normal conversation — and those moments are the ones that go viral, the replayed parts, like when you go "ooh" or "wow."

We're all here because we're trying to reach people. So if you're in a back-and-forth conversation and there are no eyebrow raises, no "ooh" or "wow," and the other person is either looking away or has that open mouth — no one is "double clicking" on you. By the way, that open mouth is also how I can interrupt someone politely if I want to.

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I'll be honest, Vanessa — I was thinking about someone I'd consider to be in the over-talking category. When they talk, I don't think they have any concept that there's anybody else in the room. They might as well have their eyes completely closed. I was thinking about this the other day when I was with this person: they might as well be sat there like that, and they're going to finish when they feel like they've run out of things.

There are two types of conversational people: entertainers and appreciators.

One of the biggest questions I get is, how do I talk to VIPs? How do I talk to my boss? Whether someone is a VIP or not actually doesn't matter — they are an entertainer. I discovered this framework in the green room for a speaking event, when a very famous person came in.

Who was it?

We're going to cut this.

No, we keep it in.

He's pretty famous — massively famous. He came in, and we had a little downtime before he had to go up. I watched person after person try, the same way people approach their boss or a VIP: either a compliment or a question. "Oh, I love your stuff so much, I've been watching you since I was a kid, you changed my life." Or, "What's the best thing you've ever done? Do you have any advice for me as a young person?" He was just not having it — a quick "nice to meet you," a quick selfie, no real engagement. That's exactly what I would have advised back then: go with a compliment or a question. No. Then one person came up — actually one of the AV guys, who was going to mic him.

Then one of the AV guys came up to mic him and said, "Can I tell you the funniest story?" You could literally see him light up — "Yeah." And this guy began telling him hilarious stories about the first time he watched one of his movies, hilarious stories about him and his siblings playing sports, and he's laughing. The guy is laughing, and then he starts asking him questions. And I realized: he wants to be entertained. He doesn't want to entertain.

So what I realized is that there are certain people who want to entertain. They speak longer, so they're more at risk of talking too much. They want you to laugh at their jokes. They want to share their stories. Their love language in conversation — what gives them energy — is other people giving them adoration, listening to their stories, listening to their ideas. They love giving advice. They talk more in conversation.

The other type of person — and I think this is you, and actually this is me, even though it doesn't look that way on podcasts — we are appreciators. I talk all day long for my work. The last thing I want to do when I go to dinner is talk. In fact, when people ask me deep questions, I sometimes say, "Can we go back to level one and can you just tell me everything?" Appreciators talk less. They love to laugh at other people's stories. They love to hear interesting, awe-inspiring, weird, surprising, embarrassing things. They are much more hesitant to open up about themselves. Like, as long as we've been talking, we are not personally on level three — we're able to hide that because we keep it back.

It is critical when you're talking to bosses or VIPs to know which one you're talking to. Entertainers want questions, but appreciators want people to tell them stories — they don't want a lot of questions. So your friend is an entertainer. You get to make the choice: are you going to go into their superpower and let them just entertain you, keep going and keep talking as much as they want, or do you want the ball?

But what if the thing they're saying is boring? When you hear "entertainer," I interpret that as coming up to someone and sharing something fun and interesting. But some people roll up and they talk about themselves, and that's what they want to talk about. It could be a self-esteem issue — they want to convince you that they are whatever.

>> Conversational narcissist.

>> Okay. Is that a thing?

>> Yeah. These are people in conversation, and this is when the levels still hold. In fact, sometimes a conversational narcissist will walk themselves right up all three levels. They'll answer for themselves in level one, tell you all about their goals, and tell you the deepest things you did not want to know. That's when you get verbal vomit — someone who won't stop talking and is just telling you things you didn't even want to know.

You have a choice. You can either try to teach them that that's not how they should be in conversation — you can literally say, "Is it my turn yet? Do you want to hear about mine? Do you want to hear about my goal?" If this is a person you're going to invest in and care for and like, you have to stand up for what you want to share.

Asked where conversational narcissism comes from, Vanessa's answer is insecurity. She doesn't even know the person in question, but they're insecure — and her bet is they're trying to impress you, trying to find something that raises your eyebrows. What they don't realize is that the more they talk, the more you're thinking, "Can I go home?"

Steven asks whether conversational narcissists know what they are — whether listeners are thinking, "That's me." The person he had in mind knows they talk too much: they say so themselves and have received that feedback multiple times, but they can't seem to stop because it's so deeply ingrained from their childhood. He wants to know how they fix it.

Her answer: curiosity. But she doesn't think there's a hard-and-fast rule on awareness. Some conversational narcissists are aware of it and hate themselves for it — they literally know what's happening and think, "Why am I doing this? Stop talking," but they can't stop because they're so scared of the awkward silence.

She points to her own research: when her team asked a couple thousand people — about 4,000 — what their greatest conversational fear was, she expected rejection or judgment to win. It didn't. The top answer was awkward silences or not knowing what to say — running out of things to say. That was one of the multiple-choice options, and rejection still lost. So the reason people talk too much is that they're terrified of that moment sitting with Steven Bartlett when a silence falls and you say, "Bye."

Steven notes that as a podcast host, you have to accept that the guest might stop talking at any moment and you might have nothing else to say. "That's why I don't have a podcast," she laughs.

The fix, again, is curiosity — specifically assertive curiosity. Not just the passive follow-up "tell me more," but the what, the how, the why, the when. Let's actually dig into this dream; let's really talk about it. So yes, a conversational narcissist would recover by being aggressively or assertively curious about you.

Steven pushes back: he feels they already know they talk too much. Her response is something he won't like: maybe you're not giving them enough to be curious about. What she'd ask next time is, are you curious about me, or do you not feel the curiosity? Saying "do you want to know my answer" or "is it my turn yet" is really a way of testing whether curiosity is there at all.

Breaking a conversational rut

She thinks this matters for relational patterns, not just newish people. Her deepest wish for the podcast is that listeners will have a "cornerstone conversation" with someone and ask all nine questions. A conversational rut can happen in friendships, with people who are used to being the overt talker in the relationship, or in marriages where you only talk about logistics.

Asking the nine questions breaks the rut because the whole point is turn-taking. She'd be so curious to see what happens if you go to dinner with that person and say, "Hey, my friend Vanessa came on the pod and gave us nine questions. Do you want to do them together? I'll go first." Could he do it? That's how you find out whether there's actual curiosity there — because she always assumes the best in people, hoping this person is well-intentioned and just deeply insecure.

A framework like this can sometimes break you out of a conversational rut with someone. Steven closes by recalling something she once told him: the key to great conversations is being interested, not interesting.

Yes — that line comes from Dale Carnegie, and I wish I had coined it. Carnegie is the person who got me thinking about being less selfish. If you enter a conversation focused entirely on yourself — how can I be impressive, how can I seem smart and funny, how can I get them to like me — that's okay, but it's quite selfish and it puts a lot of pressure on you. When I started asking instead, how can I put this person at ease? How can I make them feel like they can impress me? How can I be interested so as to make them interesting? — hopefully that has a rebound effect of making me interesting. That is real conversational generosity. One small goal for the book was to create more of it: if someone is overtalking, you can be generous enough to say, "Hey, can I have a turn," or to let them entertain you because they're entertainers, or to ask even more questions.

And you mentioned last time that there was a study finding the most liked people were those who were interested in others in conversation.

The most popular kids were the ones with the longest list of people they liked. Meaning: if you want to be likable, you have to go around assertively and aggressively liking as many people as possible. If you enter conversations thinking, "How could I like you? How could I like you more?" it becomes less about you, and you ask questions that set them up to be likable. I'd love to take a crack at this conversational narcissist — if I asked more questions of them, really set them up to entertain me, to go deep, to level two and maybe even level three if they want, would they calm down? Would their insecurity feel: I'm understood, I'm chosen, I'm loved? You're an intimidating person — I thankfully have confidence, but if I were at dinner with you, I'd probably feel a bit nervous too, at least when I first met you two years ago. My guess is this person doesn't feel liked, understood, or chosen by you. And the quieter you become while just trying to respect them, the less they feel those three things as they keep talking. So I'd try asking better, deeper questions — lean into it and see if that calms them enough to think, "Oh, he chose me. He loves me."

What I've observed is that people like that step more into the conversational narcissism with certain people.

Yes.

For example, in this case, if I were a beautiful woman, this individual would be full-blown word vomit — it would fully come out. Or just women generally, even in a platonic relationship — they become even more intent on being understood, chosen, and loved by that beautiful woman. Such a deep desire. So I wonder whether you could defuse it by actually answering those three questions for them, putting them at ease.

I also think it's important to talk about another aspect of bad conversation: making the driver of the conversation feel like they're a bad driver. This person knows they're an overtalker — they're driving, and all the passengers are thinking, "Oh my gosh, this person is so bad." And what does a bad driver do? They get even more tense and even worse at it. The flip side is: how can you make them feel like a better driver? One way we accidentally do the opposite of dream building is dream killing — shutting down a dream, making someone feel not liked, not understood. Very smart people have an accidental effect where they dream kill with logic. I call it my lovely smart leader line: you're fact-checking, not gut-checking.

Right. If you're fact-checking all the time, trying to kill the idea with accuracy before the person is even there yet, you create a conversational scarcity that makes them feel like they have to prove themselves and dig in — "Now I'm going to talk more because I want to convince you." So the opposite of dream building is dream killing, and very smart people tend to dream kill by accident. It shuts down connection completely: you won't get to level two, you'll bounce off level one, or you won't have a relationship with that person at all.

At my previous company, we interviewed someone who was extremely intelligent — unbelievable credentials, and it was obvious how smart they were. Yet the interview feedback from everyone who met them was neutral or negative. I remember thinking, do you know what it is? This person is so obsessed with the pursuit of truth that they put being liked or being pleasing to the side; they just care whether what you're saying is true or not. That's it. And in some respects that might hold them back — it's also why I think this person is amazing, but getting through an interview process with all those social dynamics would be really tough.

This takes us back to why conversation is essential. Very smart people think all about their ideas, their knowledge, the facts. But you can be the smartest person in the room, and if people don't feel connected to you, they don't believe your smarts. That comes directly from the research: competence without warmth is likely to leave us feeling suspicious. You could be incredibly smart, but if you can't manage the mechanics of connective conversation, people feel suspicious — it literally triggers a part of their brain that says, "I don't know about this person."

That's why level one is so critical and can't be skipped: what we're doing is creating ease, which is another way of saying warmth. We're trying to make someone feel they can be understood with us — and if they're understood, they're chosen, and if they're chosen, they're loved.

This brings me to the sixth question. I struggled with narrowing these down — by the way, I started this research with over 100 questions and was testing them all, making everyone try every different kind, using my students as testers. I also wanted to make sure they worked at work, at home, and with kids; you have to alter them slightly, but I wanted them to work across the board.

The sixth question is actually a signature question: what do you love to talk about in conversation? Not necessarily hear about, but talk about. We're going to reverse engineer it — this question is about reverse engineering your love. If you like talking about psychology and people's behavior, then you'd want to reverse engineer questions about how and why: "Why did you make that choice? What made you choose that path?" You'd want to ask more behavioral questions.

Even from an interviewing perspective, I believe in behavioral interviewing — questions that actually tell you about someone's behavior, not just their opinions. Interviewers often make the mistake of asking, "What's your greatest weakness?" That's not a good question, because the candidate will answer with a prepared answer; it won't be real and won't tell you much. I'd rather you ask, "What would your last manager say is your greatest weakness?" That's a very different question. It won't be as practiced, and you're asking the person to step outside themselves from a behavioral perspective. When we step outside ourselves and consider someone else's opinion, we see different things even about ourselves — and they're likely going to call your previous manager anyway.

Right. They can confirm that in a phone call. You could even say, "When I call your previous manager, what would they say is your greatest weakness?" You're going to get a juicy answer, and you can go verify it.

Another behavioral technique—which is why I like behavior so much—is not just asking, "Tell me about a recent time you managed a project." We always ask for examples in interviews. That's okay, but not great, because they're going to pick the best one. You're better off saying, "Tell me about the most recent time you managed a project." It should be in the last two or three months, not a year or two ago. So: ask for recency, and ask for other people's opinions. The point is to craft the kind of answer you want—information about a previous experience that is real and not rehearsed. For you, that means asking more behavioral questions at dinner and in your conversations, since that's what you love.

Many successful people have signature questions. Amy Poehler, at the end of her podcast, always asks, "What are you laughing about? What's making you laugh recently?" That's her signature question. The example I use in the book is Ginny Urick, who has the "1000 Hours Outside" challenge—spending a thousand hours with her kids outside, playing more, off screens. She asks everyone on her podcast, "What was your favorite outdoor memory?" because she loves talking about the outdoors and childhood nostalgia.

So the sixth question is: what do you love to talk about, and how can we engineer that into your conversations by looking for opportunities to bring it up?

At this stage, once you feel you have depth with someone, you ask them what they love to talk about. If they say sports, that opens a door and gives you a clue for how to connect with them—future conversations should orient toward sports, psychology, or whatever their answer was.

It's not just that they ask you the question; it's that you tailor your questions to them. If Steven loves talking about behavior, you ask him more behavioral questions. You get to create your sixth question yourself. Right now, since the host is talking about conversation, his signature question is "What's your favorite conversation starter?" When he was researching cues, it was "Who's the most charismatic person you know?" and while researching Captivate, it was "What's your favorite body language cue?" The question can change based on your interest, but you're creating it for yourself—it's a bespoke one.

Since the host is interested in psychology, his would be psychology-related topics, or something like "What drives you?" The guest notes that some of the level three questions might interest him.

The "Do You Talk Too Much?" Test

Before moving to level three, they close off with the do-you-talk-too-much test from the book. It's a set of five self-check questions, such as "I leave a conversation realizing I don't know much about the other person." If you answer "often" more than three times, you're probably an overtalker—and all five questions are secretly asking, "Are you curious enough?" Curiosity is the antidote, which is why the test sits at the end of level one: you really can't go to level two if you're talking too much. You're not curious enough, so you won't learn their dream.

They run through the five items together. The host answers "rarely" to leaving conversations without learning about the other person, "sometimes" to people nodding politely without responding after he finishes speaking, and "sometimes" to loving long detailed stories—though he notes he only tells them on stage when someone has paid him to, which doesn't count. He answers "rarely" to being told he talks a lot, and "sometimes" to noticing people glance around the room mid-story. He passes.

The test matters because overtalking can create conversational friction, especially at work. The best muscle to build is asking more and talking less.

The Yap Challenge

The guest proposes a specific challenge: the yap challenge. You open your phone camera, hit record, and teach something or share an opinion without notes. If you naturally go 15 or 30 seconds, you're probably good. 45 seconds is the max. If you're up to a minute or two minutes, you probably talk too much. It's about your typical answering length being longer than conversationally appropriate for a question about you—a yap challenge could be sharing your opinion about veganism.

The host doubts he could get an opinion done in 15 seconds, since everything in his head is a story first. The guest counters that introverts absolutely can—and they'll often go too short. She shares a yap challenge she's been thinking about, which they'll do together on social media: "Someone recently asked my friend out by asking for her Instagram handle, not her number. Agree or disagree?"

It depends on her vibe—what energy was she giving, and what was the context? Was that after a two-hour date, or just meeting her on the street?

If someone rolled up on the street, I actually agree with the Instagram approach, because it's less invasive. It's like saying, "I will earn your number—give me the chance to earn your number."

Okay, you just convinced me. That was interesting. By the way, I think that was about 12 seconds.

You're keeping it tight. I disagree, but that is an interesting nuance. I'm not going to give you my Instagram, because my Instagram is performative—everyone's Instagram is performative. If you're looking at my Instagram, it's like saying, "I don't want to get to know you through conversation. I'm going to look through everything and know everything about you before I decide if I want to take you out." You take the joy out of discovery. If I'm with you and I ask, "Do you have any pets?" and you say, "Yeah, I have a dog," then I can follow up: "How'd you get the dog? What's the dog's name? How'd you choose that name?" Versus just looking and thinking, "Oh, she has a dog named Stewie."

Your phone number is reserved for people in your personal and professional life. So asking for it on the street is really saying, "Let me into your personal and professional environment, stranger." Instagram, by contrast, is a public environment, and I think it's a much more socially appropriate place to invite yourself into.

But if you do that, your first-date conversation will be more awkward, because you feel like you've already learned about the person. You're discovering more of their public persona, but you've seen their friends, where they hang out, what they do on weekends, whether they hike, whether they have pets, that they have lots of siblings from the Thanksgiving photo. I think this is why first dates have gotten even worse: you arrive having already discovered all the level-one stuff you think you know. So even at your very first conversation, you have to jump to level two, which is much harder and unnatural. It's unnatural to know information that was never transmitted human to human but was performed. Then in person it's harder to come up with conversation starters, because you already know a lot.

I'm not single—I haven't been for a long time—but if someone asked for my Instagram, I'd say I have one just for friends and family, but maybe you can get there one day. I want you to message me instead. I'd rather banter and find out: are you funny? Will you ask me good questions? Are you going to be a conversational narcissist? Then we can ask over dinner whether it's going well over text or the phone.

So less context results in better conversation. And less performative context, too—our social feeds are not 100% real. You weren't listening to me talk about something; it's a curated highlight reel of my life. People who follow me on Instagram might feel like they know me, but my life is quite different from my Instagram, because I show a very small piece of what I do. Same with you. So if I were single and someone asked for my Instagram, even as a non-public figure, I'd have no casual level-one banter with them—and that banter is socially critical for understanding their basics. When we skip level one, we do damage to our potential connection later. We create more awkwardness and friction for ourselves.

So my challenge for single people is: stop asking for handles and ask for numbers.

Are people going to get mad at me? A lot of them are meeting via dating apps now.

And I think that's okay. A dating app is much more limited than an endless feed. I don't know how many photos are on dating apps these days, and it's still the most performative—look at me at the gym, look at this car I bought—but it's not forever. You can't scroll back through someone's Instagram since they were in high school; it's six or ten images, and you have these pre-subscribed questions. I'm actually okay with that. I love dating apps; I think they can connect people very quickly. But you don't feel like you know everything about me.

I feel like people on dating apps hate dating apps.

Of course they do. But how else are we going to meet people when we have our AirPods in all the time? You're not going to meet people at the gym—we talked about this last time—if your AirPods are in and someone wants to hit on you, you won't hear it. So we have to use dating apps; I think they're the only way we'll be able to connect. I'm pro dating app. Of course I'd love for people to approach in person, but I'm not pro not-talking-first. And if someone asks for your handle, you're fair to say it's just for friends and family—let's try to get there.

Okay, I concede.

It makes sense, even if it's hard to repeat. This level is wonderful, but it's reserved for your most important people. And I think the mistake people make is being afraid of going too deep too quickly—afraid of going deep in conversation because it feels scary to be vulnerable.

Is the fear of going too deep too quickly justified? Yes. If we share too much too quickly, especially at work—and I wrote this book with work in mind—people are going to think you're weird. There is such a thing as vulnerability regret: you shared something too vulnerable and it wasn't a safe space or it wasn't received well, and the heartache from that is soul crushing. You walk away thinking, why did I do that? It's painful.

I've walked away from situations thinking maybe that wasn't the appropriate place to share that. It immediately brings to mind an interview I had two weeks ago: in the first 25 minutes, the candidate shared really personal things about their very early childhood. I thought I was going into an interview to ask about work stuff, but I almost had to pivot into being more of a counselor.

So we actually have to gate level three. It's been a little confusing culturally, because we're loving vulnerability and authenticity right now—and that's really good—but there's a very fine line. Being authentic is great; being too vulnerable too quickly is very awkward and sometimes not safe. That's why I say level three should be reserved for your most important people.

The self-narrative

Level three is called your self-narrative: the story you tell yourself about yourself. It's how you make sense of your journey and purpose in life. And that story is self-creating—if your narrative is one of hardship and bad luck, you're probably going to see more hardship and create more bad luck for yourself.

There are two types of self-narratives. People with a redemption narrative frame the facts of their life so that no matter what comes their way, they can overcome anything with hard work, grit, and resilience. In our research, this narrative holds across their whole life—their work, their love, their parenting—they repeat the same redemption frame in everything they do.

People with a contamination narrative feel that all the hardship and struggle has happened to them and they can't make it through. No matter how hard they've worked, they're a victim of circumstance; they typically feel very unlucky and out of control. With this kind of narrative, it's less about the facts of your life and more about the frames—how you're seeing those facts.

Our narratives are changeable; these are not fixed personality traits. But the only way I think we can change a contamination narrative—whether it's yours or someone you're in a relationship with—is via conversation. My secret hope with level three conversations is that when you're in a safe relationship, when you can truly share who you are and feel understood, you can rewrite your narrative—flip from a contamination frame into redemption. That's my secret goal here.

Spotting narrative hints

The first step is uncovering what your narrative is, and what someone else's is. Our brains are storytellers—that's why we love story—and even at level one, when we talk about our passions and side hustles, we're telling a story about ourselves all the time.

In conversation, people leak the kind of narrative they have through what I call narrative hints. Someone might say, "Everyone always zigs and I zag," or "Everything bad always happens to me," or "Of course—yet another thing." People who use superlatives like always and never tend to be more contamination-oriented: they see things in black and white, as permanent. Redemption people leak positive hints and feel very lucky—"Good things always happen to me," "There's always a silver lining," "Just my luck, I got it." They're saying things about how life is happening to them, and in doing so, they're leaking their narratives.

People with redemptive narratives end up being more successful, happy, and healthy. Research has found that they live longer, have better immune systems, better connections, and feel happier. That's because they feel they can handle whatever is thrown at them — they have a strong internal locus of control. The good news is that this is learnable: if we begin to talk about our narratives with our children and our partners, we can teach them that they have agency over their own story.

What internal locus of control means

An internal locus of control means you feel that you're in control — you have agency over your decisions and over what happens to you. Things can happen in your life, but you decide how you interact with them and how you behave. People with an external locus of control, by contrast, get their worth from outside sources. They feel validated when someone else tells them they look good or that they're doing well, and they look for external ways to feel better — vanity metrics like likes, follows, how many friends they have, how often they're invited, whether they're getting compliments.

The analogy I was thinking of is that you either think you're a bird or you think you're on a roller coaster. A roller coaster has a fixed track, and irrespective of what you do, it's going to go up, down, left, right, spin — you're just holding on and going with it. A bird feels it has the agency to go anywhere; there's no rail. Some people do think they're on a roller coaster, on a track.

I don't want to get too deep, but in a normal conversation I would ask you about fate. Questions like "Do you believe in luck? Do you believe you're lucky? Do you believe in fate?" can begin to uncover someone's level three. If you believe in fate, you're more likely to believe you're on a roller coaster — a ride that's predetermined, now going up and soon going down with a loop coming. So I wonder whether someone with a high belief in predetermined fate would feel an external locus of control, and whether that wouldn't be as good for their mental health.

After nearly 700 interviews with some of the most interesting people in the world, one unexpected lesson is that vulnerability is the doorway to connection. After sitting with a guest for two or three hours, I feel a deep sense of connection to them, and as they leave I ask them to write a question in the Diary of a CEO. We've taken all of those questions and put them on cards with the name of the person who wrote each one. So you can sit at home, as I do with my fiancée, my colleagues at work, and other people in my life. Whenever we get a minute, we play the Diary of a CEO conversation cards, and it's incredible what happens.

These cards are great if you're in a romantic relationship and want to connect more with your partner, great for a team that wants to bond, and great for families that want to learn more about each other and need a good excuse to spend time in the analog world, connecting human to human instead of in a digital one. It's remarkable what the right question at the right time can do. Go to thediary.com and you can get these conversation cards right now.

The "Are you lucky?" question

Going back to these contaminators: we're listening for narrative hints, and we can ask questions like "Are you lucky?" It's a sneaky question because it sounds so casual, but the answer really matters. There are three possible answers.

The first is an immediate yes. When I asked you this last time, you said yes.

Yeah. I feel like I have so much privilege in my life that I am lucky.

Yes, I feel the same. I'm so grateful that I get to have this super unique career, so I feel lucky.

If someone says yes right away, that tells you a lot: they probably have a high amount of gratitude, a high amount of control or agency, and confidence — the speed of the answer matters here.

Then there are people who say, "What? No, I don't think I'm lucky." This is a really important thing to know about them, and I don't think you should try to change it. That would be a version of toxic positivity — telling someone, "But you're so lucky, think of all the things you should be grateful for." That usually makes them dig in and feel very misunderstood. The best thing you can do when someone says they don't feel lucky is to understand it: why, what are the forces, when did that happen, did they ever feel lucky before? Sometimes people flip from lucky to unlucky with a very bad circumstance, and it's crucial to understand that before you judge it. Curiosity gets engaged. If someone says they're unlucky, that's an opportunity to really reach out and meet them where they're at.

Are you going to disagree with me?

No, no, no. I was just thinking about how wonderful a question that is for when you first meet someone — in an interview or on a first date. Maybe I should ask people in an interview: "Do you think you're lucky?"

You should.

Because what is that revealing if they say yes?

Multitudes: their gratitude, their perspective on life, their internal locus of control.

You're an optimist.

Often. Not always — sometimes it can be realists.

Right — I'm objectively lucky because I have all these things. But you're going to learn a lot. The whole point of level three is predicting behavior: if you know someone's luck, you can predict a lot about how they'll be in a relationship, as a friend, and at work.

Fate is another interesting question to ask someone. And there are other questions that seem silly but actually carry tremendous meaning — level three is all about meaning.

The third answer to "lucky" is the person who's afraid to answer. I've asked this question of thousands of people, and you get this bucket of "um, well, kind of." That's very revealing, because it tells you they're probably not that introspective. One of two things is going on. Either they genuinely don't know — they've literally never thought about it, and they'll say so while sitting in front of you reanalyzing their entire life to answer the question. That's helpful information too: if you're in a relationship with someone who isn't introspective, it's good to know. Not good or bad, just good to know — especially if you value it, as I do; introspection is one of my core values, so that might not bode well for me.

Or, second, they don't feel safe with you yet. A "kind of" or "I'm not sure" can be a hint that you went too fast — you may have jumped to level three too quickly, and they aren't ready to share. Or they're embarrassed about something: they carry shame, or something in their past they feel was very unlucky, and they don't feel ready to share it.

Asked whether studies have been done on this question, the guest replied that she believes only her own lab has. Richard Wiseman has done a lot of research on luck specifically, including an official luck test — a ten-question diagnostic asking variations of "how lucky do you think you are?" — which her lab has used. So the question of whether you feel lucky is academically studied. What hasn't been studied yet, at least not by anyone, is how your answer dictates your life. She would love future research in her lab to ask: if you consider yourself very lucky, do you make more money? Less? Is there any income effect? Are you older or younger? Are you a child of privilege or not? She thinks that research is coming, and that's where the excitement comes from for her as a behavior researcher.

The other speaker added that he had just been looking at Dr. Richard Wiseman's study. Wiseman found that people who answer "yes, I am lucky" actually generate their own good fortune by acting in very specific ways: they have lower anxiety, higher extraversion — they tend to talk to lots of people and build many friendships and relationships — high openness to experience, and relentless optimism.

The guest said she has seriously considered running a luck workshop whose only purpose is to help people harvest their own feelings of luck. Feeling lucky — waking up in the day and feeling lucky — is so healing and fulfilling. It's better than gratitude, she argued, because gratitude is shaming in its own way; she describes herself as kind of anti-gratitude. Feeling genuinely lucky is empowering. So she has thought about creating luck labs, small workshops where the goal is to convince you that you're lucky, because it's that good an investment in your happiness.

The host then turned to the audience: do you feel lucky? He asked for honest answers in the comment section, purely for research purposes — and knowing full well that listeners had just heard that lucky people have better lives, he asked them to be completely honest anyway. He predicted that people who don't feel lucky will be the honest ones: they'll say exactly why, and they'll get angry, saying something really bad happened to them and asking how dare we claim luck is good. He had heard them do it before. The guest laughed that they could direct that anger at him instead of her, and he said he had no shame — it was fine.

He explained why he was asking: he comes from one perspective, from his own life experience, feeling grateful and privileged, and he wants to understand why other people don't feel lucky. It would also be interesting, he added, to hear from people who have been through objectively horrific things yet might still feel lucky. He said he would be reading the comments.

The guest responded that this is exactly the distinction between fact and frame. The way we begin to rewrite our story, she explained, is through self-authorship. There is a story you tell yourself about yourself, but you are also the author of your own life and narrative. We take up the pen by asking ourselves questions: why do I have that idea? What is the evidence for it? The facts might be there, but our frame of them is different. As an example, she takes a breakup — asking someone about a breakup almost always reveals their contamination or redemption narrative. People with contamination narratives will almost always say, "The breakup nearly destroyed me. I don't trust men anymore. I don't trust women anymore."

People with contamination narratives say things like, "It just took from me. I feel like a shell of myself." And it stays that way. Everyone has a rough period after a bad breakup, but they never get through it—they feel the breakup fundamentally changed them for the worse.

Someone with a positive or redemption narrative, even after a horrific breakup, will say, "I will never do that again. That made me stronger. It was horrible, one of the worst times of my life, but I know now who not to choose and who to choose." It made them feel stronger—it's that anti-fragile piece.

Would you give someone a second date if, on the first date, when you asked, "Are you a lucky person?" they said, "Absolutely not"?

I probably wouldn't.

No, wait—let me turn it around. If I was on a first date and I said, "Are you a lucky person?" and they said, "Absolutely not," okay, I'd be curious. I wouldn't leave the date, and I'd want to hear more. But if they were then extremely pessimistic, I'd probably conclude this is not going to be a match, because that's not my inclination—it takes too much energy out of me.

That's a good bridge to the next concept. Once you begin to uncover these narrative hints—talking about luck, redemption or contamination—I believe, and this is more art than science, that there are five archetypes of these stories. I've harvested hundreds of narratives—hundreds, not thousands. It's actually quite hard to ask someone directly, "What is your self-narrative?" But there are questions that do harvest it, and I notice the same patterns over and over again—about five of them.

I think we share an archetype, though maybe I'm flattering myself. The first archetype is the ambitious hero. This person has had challenges and obstacles, but feels their grit and resilience have let them overcome them. Their struggle is that they are never satisfied.

An archetype is not a personality type like MBTI or the Enneagram, which are fairly stable. It's a fluid archetype of how you're seeing your story in this moment. For example, I might ask you: if you had to write a memoir, what would its title be?

This shapes how you have conversations with people, how you behave interpersonally, and how you act at work. An ambitious hero is going to act very differently at work than a contented pragmatist. It also dictates who you're attracted to, platonically and romantically — your relationship patterns, how you converse, bond, and connect. And more importantly, since I'm so interested in work conversations, it shapes how you work and how you view effectiveness and efficiency. Ambitious hero founders will have the same struggles over and over again, and they'll be very different from contender pragmatist founders.

The Ambitious Hero

The ambitious hero's internal monologue is: "I got this. I can do this. Hustle, hustle more, bigger, more, bigger." One of the nicer ways to describe them is shiny object syndrome — a founder who won't stop trying new initiatives and keeps throwing new ideas on the table before finishing the first one.

Do you have that? Well, yes, but I've put systems in place to make sure it doesn't sink the company. As Jeff Bezos said, "I've got enough ideas to sink the company, and he has to learn to release them at a cadence the company can tolerate." That's self-knowledge, and everything we're talking about is self-knowledge. If you can talk this through, you have the self-knowledge to go to your team and say: when I come to you with a new idea next week, say no. Don't let me do that — it's too much.

Behaviorally, if you're the ambitious hero, you dream big, and you can burn out because you dream so big. Work almost regulates me: when I'm working, I think, "I'm being so productive, we're helping people — help more people, help all the people." It's too much, and we can burn out from a productivity perspective. We have shiny object syndrome, and in relationships people don't always understand our drive. We get accused of hustle culture a lot, and we can burn other people out by trying to bring them along at the pace and hours we want to work. Those aren't necessarily bad things, but they are behavioral traits.

How to Identify Your Archetype

This is number one, the ambitious hero. One way to suss these out is to ask: what book, movie, or TV character are you most like — not in looks or life choices, but in personality and core values?

I said The Pursuit of Happyness. Why did you choose that character? Because when I was 18 or 19 and literally shoplifting food to feed myself, I watched that movie randomly one day while I was in bed. It made me feel like the journey I was on mirrored his — the scene where he's in the disabled toilet with his kid. My life at that moment felt a little like that: doing things to feed myself and keep the lights on, dodging landlords because my rent was five months late, all the games I played just to survive. And then he went on to be successful, so it gave me a lot of hope. He's also Black, which mattered to me.

That's why it was really important, in that interaction, that I didn't assume anything about the character. I asked why, and then you told me a story about what you saw and when. A critical part of this exercise is asking about the character and then asking why — what traits? The traits they name next will tell you everything about that person.

For example, if I ask someone, "What person are you most like?" and they say, "Mother Teresa," I say, "Oh, why?" I might not agree with them—maybe I don't see it—but whatever they say next is going to tell me a lot about how they view themselves, whether it's true or not.

And this is the hardest and most inconvenient part of level three: you probably won't agree. There are a lot of times when people in my life have told me self-narratives and I'm like, "What?"

What's yours? What character are you most like and why?

Okay, so I relate most with Claire Dunphy from Modern Family, especially in her entrepreneurial years. Most people would be surprised that I actually identify first as a mother, not an entrepreneur. Most of my day is with my kids. I'm a little awkward and very neurotic, so I resonate most with her. That ambitious working mom is what I'm constantly struggling with—especially as an ambitious hero, because I want to do both perfectly and I cannot.

By the way, if you're having trouble with this question, this is one way I think AI can help. I have my own relationship with AI, but it can be a great brainstorm partner, conversational practice partner, or role-playing partner—and this is actually one way I like it. So if you're not sure, if you're like, "Vanessa, I don't know what character I am," go to AI and ask this:

What book, movie, or TV character is most like me in the way that I treat you? Especially if you have a relationship with your AI. I am fill in the blank.

For me, it was mom, entrepreneur, neurotic. My personality is—describe a person. My core values are—what character is most similar to me? It will pull a bunch of characters that match those traits. So this is one way it can sometimes help you brainstorm.

Okay, the ambitious hero—we started with that. Archetype number one. The second one is called the contented pragmatist. Again, these are a little more art than science. The contented pragmatist is somebody who likes it as it is. They are quite content, very happy with where things are. They don't really need to change it if it's not broken. They are not very ambitious because they're very grounded in where they are. They love habit and ritual and tradition in conversation.

In conversation, contented pragmatists struggle when people push them to try harder or do more, because their reaction is, "I'm good. Life is good. Why would we change things?" I have two very specific people in my life who are annoyed by me as the ambitious hero, because I have a new goal every month. They make great granola, and I say, "You should bottle it up and sell it at farmers markets," and they say, "But why?" and I say, "But why not?" Relationally, they're often seen as unambitious, but actually they're just quite content.

Do you know someone like that?

I do. I was also thinking about business generally, and how when you're hiring teams—or even in relationships—you can get a contented pragmatist holding back an ambitious hero. Friends often come to me saying they have a big startup idea they want to launch, but their girlfriend or husband is telling them to be realistic. Those partners tend to be a little more fear-based. It's not that they're negative, but they are so contented that they're hyper practical.

On a team, it's important to know which role each archetype serves best: ambitious roles, growth roles, rainmaker roles, leaders in an industry of change. I do a lot of finance conferences and work with a lot of folks in banking. Sometimes ambitious heroes can really be crushed in those roles, because there isn't a lot of fast-moving growth in those companies. A contented pragmatist can do really well in a very stable, traditional industry with a lot of regulation, because they are very happy to live in that regulation. I say might, because it really depends on your company, but in a corporate culture you might want a contented pragmatist running your books. They're quite conservative—they won't make a big leap, and their attitude is, "Let's keep it as it is. Let's know what we're doing. Don't change if it's not broken." As a hiring manager, you have to think about your roles, and it depends on what your company is like.

Conversation tips for each archetype

An ambitious hero gets so much dopamine talking about goals, new things, and progress. They are juiced by progress and want to hear about progress too. When someone asks me how I am, it takes everything in me not to share my metrics. I know that's not socially acceptable, so I have to say, "I am doing great. The business is exploding," and then just stop—because it would be weird to say we have 305% growth on Instagram. We love ambition, and I also love ambition in others. When I hear about my friend's side hustle that's growing, all my check-in texts are: How's the biz? How's the traffic? How are the book sales? How are the movie sales? I want to hear about growth.

A contented pragmatist wants to talk about ritual, about what works. They want to savor life's pleasures—they're very good at savoring. And this can be a wonderful relationship pairing sometimes, because the contented pragmatist reminds the ambitious hero: enjoy it. You've worked so hard—just take in the view for a moment. They love gratitude, habit, ritual, and routine. They love to be honored for what works. They're the ones who will make a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner and want that three-hour dinner, savoring it—not talking about next year or goals, just savoring the moment and talking about what they did last year and the year before that.

The selfless helper

This is the most important one to talk about, I think, and the least understood of all the archetypes: the selfless helper. Their narrative is so clear that I can almost always predict it within the first few minutes of conversation. Selfless helpers' entire story is about giving. Their entire reason for being is being of service. They almost always pick careers of service—teachers, coaches, trainers, nurses, doctors—because they are so ingrained with the belief that to have worth is to help.

The Selfless Helper: Pitfalls and Strengths

Where selfless helpers often get into trouble is that they don't feel worthy if they aren't helping. They give so much that there's nothing left, leading to compassion burnout or compassion fatigue, and they simply cannot say no. In a relationship, they're wonderful to be with because they're givers and nurturers. Many parents also flip into selfless helpers once they become parents—I've seen this with both moms and dads. The moment they have a baby, their purpose becomes taking care of that little person. The problem is that they have a really hard time saying no.

"They're people pleasers?" "Yeah. They struggle with boundaries. They say yes to too much and they put themselves last." This can be both good and bad in a relationship—if you're with a selfless helper, half the work is helping them stand up for themselves and not give too much. I've had many friends who are selfless helpers, and they attract takers; they attract high-conflict people.

A high-conflict person is Bill Eddy's work. He estimates that 10% of the population is a high-conflict person—someone who thrives on drama. They create difficulty in their relationships and almost enjoy difficult conversations. They think in absolutes, often speaking in black and white, seeing no nuance, and they weaponize emotions. These days they sometimes use psychology to their advantage by exploiting people. The worst high-conflict people are actually enablers: they can get other people to do their dirty work. They plant a seed in a selfless helper's ear, and the selfless helper thinks "how dare they" and goes to fight on their behalf. So selfless helpers sometimes get roped into things they shouldn't be doing because they're standing up for someone they care about.

Talking with a Selfless Helper

Sometimes they even think talking about themselves is taking. You might ask them a question and they'll say, "Oh no, no, enough about me—let's talk about you. How can I help you?" My selfless-helper friends—I can't get them to tell me what I can do for them, because all they want to do is check in on me. Sometimes they won't take the ball because they're worried it's selfish, so getting them to open up can be hard: they feel like their needs aren't important, even though they very much are.

In conversation, the greatest gift we can give a selfless helper is letting them know they're understood and valued—and that getting to know them isn't taking from us, it's giving to us. I have to tell my friends, "It makes me feel good to help you and to hear about what's going on for you. You're actually giving to me by telling me about yourself." We have to gift that to them and be extremely conversationally generous.

Selfless Helpers at Work

All of this applies at work as well. Not always, but often managers can do great things as selfless helpers because they're so attuned to others and very good at bringing out performance. I've seen truly amazing managers who follow their KPIs and know the ROI and metrics, but excel at figuring out how each person needs to be helped and how they could be their best selves—that person has great expert power, and so on. They're so good at this that they raise performance in everyone.

But they might avoid the difficult conversation—these people tend to be a bit conflict-avoidant.

They can be conflict avoidant, but they're very good at framing everything as "we're in this together." The really good managers who are excellent conversationalists are able to frame bad news and hard feedback as "I want to help you" — "the reason I'm giving you this feedback is because I so want you to succeed" — and the person on the receiving end responds, "I trust you. I know that."

So yes, if they're not excellent conversationalists, it's true that they can be avoidant. But if they learn to be assertive — and you can learn assertiveness — they become tremendous in conversation, because people trust them: they come from a good place.

The creative disruptor is my most challenging archetype, so I'll try to describe it positively. Creative disruptors don't like rules; their entire ethos is breaking things. They want to disrupt, go anti-norm, be countercultural — the ones who say, "I don't need a blueprint." They and I don't always get along in conversation. They're probably the ones in the comments saying, "This doesn't apply to me, for all these reasons," because they want to push and challenge.

That's wonderful, though, because they're often the truly creative thinkers, the ones thinking most outside the box, willing to challenge how something has always been done. The problem is that this can rub people the wrong way, and some of them thrive on conflict — it's just fun for them. Negotiating is fun, pushing is fun. My litigators tend to fall into this category, as do very disruptive entrepreneurs. I've listened to interviews with some on this show and thought, "That's a creative disruptor." They're not just building something, and they're not quite ambitious heroes, because they want to break things — build it and break it, reinvent the entire system. Edward Snowden is one example I give in the book: he wanted to change something, and he also wanted to stick it to the man, to break the system he was in.

Do you struggle with them in interviews?

They're really good in interviews. I actually interviewed someone like that recently. Everything they say is deeply contrarian by nature. But having people around whose default is to challenge is quite useful — it helps me refine my own points of view.

And they live as dream killers. It can be amazing, but it can be exhausting. In conversation, it helps to go in prepared, knowing either "I need this — I want to get stronger, to be anti-fragile; they'll break things to make me stronger," or "I'm a delicate flower right now; I can't do the dream killing, I'm exhausted by it." It's a fine line between that and pessimism.

Not always, but sometimes they are pessimistic. We have a creative disruptor friend — I did an Instagram post saying I have a friend who always texts "I hate everything." Instagram recognized it was him and served him the video, and he texted me: "Is this me?" And I said yes.

The last archetype is one we've already touched on: the unlucky struggler. This is someone with a contamination narrative who feels that no matter what they've done, they are unlucky and struggling. They often feel stuck, misunderstood, overlooked. The character to picture is George Costanza from Seinfeld — "everything is bad for me." They can be hilarious, but they are tortured.

In conversation, it's really hard for ambitious heroes not to try to convince them they're not unlucky. My biggest challenge with the unlucky strugglers in my life is not trying to flip them into something they're not, or convince them they're actually lucky. They can also be very funny in conversation — they make fun of themselves, they're so humble, with low self-esteem. Some of the best comedians are unlucky strugglers. So they're beautiful to be around, but sometimes you wish they had the confidence you see in them — that they had it, too.

Asked how to get out of a bad conversation without offending people, the guest explains it's called a graceful exit, and it relies on the peak-end effect: we remember the peak of a conversation and its end. We tend to over-index on the first impression—our opening line, the first few minutes—but the last few minutes are what we actually leave people with.

She has a formula that calms her own anxiety when it's time to go, whether the conversation isn't clicking or she simply has to leave: a future cue plus a compliment or action. A future cue means asking about or mentioning something coming up later, which subtly shifts the other person's brain from "here, now" to "later."

In a role play at a party where the small talk has run dry, she demonstrates: "Do you have any fun plans coming up this weekend?" The other person mentions a wine bar across town, and she responds that she hopes it's lovely and suggests trying a Chardonnay there. That's the future cue—asking about a future plan and wishing them well on it—followed by ending on a compliment or action: "It was so lovely talking to you. I hope you have a great time with that wine bar. I'm going to go get some more coffee."

When the interviewer asks what happens if the other person just dives back into conversation, she says that's exactly why the second piece—the action and compliment—matters. Wrapping up sounds like "It's been so wonderful talking to you," delivered in an exit voice, because tone really matters. Then mention a future action—"Be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn," "I was so happy we were able to trade numbers"—and state your own action: "I'm going to go grab more coffee, go say hi to the host, run to the ladies room, head home." At that point the other person can't continue; you've ended it.

You can also use non-verbal cues: the moment you take a step back or angle your body toward the door, the other person's brain subtly registers that you're physically disengaging. She usually pairs the verbal close with a slow back-up and angling toward the door.

And be assertive about it. The worst kind of last impression is lingering awkwardness—nothing is worse than the drawn-out "well, this has been good... it's been good for you... it's been good for me." If you feel it's the end, end it: "It's been so great talking to you. I'm going to grab some more coffee. Good luck at the wine bar this weekend." Otherwise the goodbye will linger, and that lingering awkwardness is kryptonite for charisma.

On the point of being assertive, I was talking with some friends recently about people who have aura and rizz. Honestly, I don't fully know what those words mean—I roughly understand aura, but I'm not sure what rizz means. So I'm curious how you define them, and how does one cultivate aura and rizz?

Aura and rizz are on my mind because my daughter asked me what charisma is. She had heard one of my YouTube videos, and since she's eight, I gave her a simple answer: charisma, or rizz, or aura is someone you really want to be around. When they walk into a room, you want to go talk to them, sit near them, listen to them, work with them, play with them. I asked if she knew anyone like that, and she immediately named two kids in her class. What struck me is that those were the exact two kids I had already mentally identified as the charismatic ones in her class—the ones you really want to be around, the ones with that aura about them. So I think that definition works: it's someone we're drawn to, verbally and physically. Some of it can be physical, and there's something hormonal there as well, but fundamentally it's someone we're drawn to.

Asked what the basics of teaching someone to have aura and rizz would be, based on 20 years of research, the answer starts with: be really easy to talk to.

The point of level one is to put someone at ease. We like people who are clearly signaling — we don't like people who are mute with their body language or who under-signal. We like people who clearly like us, so we have to be very loud with our liking: saying things like, "It's always so fun talking to you," or, "You always have the best stories," or, "I love when you're put on my team."

Verbally, there's something called signal amplification bias — the bias where we think we're being really obvious with our cues, but we're not. We assume people know we like them, but people actually underestimate liking; this is called the liking gap. So we like people who are very clearly broadcasting their liking.

This hit embarrassingly close to home. Friends often ask her to sus out their potential partners — she goes on a lot of second or third "ghosty" coffee dates for this purpose. On one such dinner, the guy — call him Schmobbert — was just okay to her: nice, but no green flags. The next day, the friend called asking what she thought, and before she could answer, said, "You know what? He just loved you. He thought you were so funny, he already bought your Audible book, he just loved talking to you." And hearing all this, she started to like him more — he's clever, he's smart, he liked her jokes. She was horrified by her own response.

The realization: we so want to be liked that when someone clearly signals liking, it makes us like them more. So one path to charisma is sending clear signals of liking.

The second is that, as discussed before, 82% of our impressions of people are based on warmth and competence. People who first signal "I'm open, I'm friendly," and then signal "I'm capable, I'm efficient, I'm effective," make us feel like we're in good hands. When we first meet anyone, we're trying to answer two questions: Can I trust you? And can I rely on you? Charismatic people signal both: you can trust me and you can rely on me — I'm going to get it done, I'm only going to speak when I know something, I'm going to be assertive and carry us through this conversation.

This came after Cues in a good way: Cues was about picking your signals, but conversation is about being a bit assertive about the plan. If you read this book, you're going to feel in control in conversation — you'll approach it knowing what you want to do, because you have intention, and we like that. Charismatic people carry us: "We got this. I'm gonna ask about this, I'm gonna do dream killing, and if I like you, we're going to talk about your character." That plan is a secret door to charisma.

Asked whether there's anything else people accidentally do that holds them back from having high aura, Vanessa says yes: they try to be impressive. When you enter a conversation trying to sound smart or impress people with your accolades and background, you actually create distance.

She illustrates this with a story from when she lived in Austin, Texas. She was invited to a VIP party and immediately felt imposter syndrome — "why am I being invited?" On arrival she recognized people whose YouTube channels she knew, and within the first five minutes the group's leader announced that everyone would stand in a circle and introduce themselves.

The first person introduced themselves as, as she heard it, a billionaire who invented the internet. The second person, in her words, "cured cancer." Person after person got more and more impressive, each saying things meant to shock and awe. When it reached her, she said: "My name is Vanessa and I'm a recovering awkward person, and I help smart awkward people with my books and my YouTube channel." Everyone laughed and took a deep breath. She had other accolades she could have shared, but they felt like nothing in comparison, and she wanted to be a little vulnerable, so she added, "And I don't know why I was invited to this party." Everyone laughed again.

That small vulnerability changed the rest of the introductions: every single person after her also said "I'm a recovering awkward person," so they too could admit feeling awkward. When the circle broke up for networking, most people came over to her — not the billionaire, not the cancer cure, not the climate change guru — to talk about awkwardness, her YouTube channel, and being smart but uncomfortable. She realized she was simply the easiest person to talk to in that circle.

Her takeaway: we don't have to put so much pressure on ourselves to be impressive. The billionaires she has met are mostly quite humble and downplay their success because they've already made it. If we all put less pressure on ourselves and just tried to connect, it would be easier.

The host agrees, noting that the people in his life with aura aren't the most successful or accomplished — they're the ones you'd most like to spend time with. Vanessa adds that it works both ways: you can be introverted or extroverted. People assume master conversationalists are extroverted, but that's usually not the case — extroverts sometimes fall into their own traps with conversational narcissism, while introverts often do really well.

Another definition of aura is the person who just seems to take up more space — they speak slower, and you kind of watch them walk across a room. Asked how people cultivate that kind of aura, the guest offered her best guess, noting she has wondered about it herself whenever someone walks into a room and commands attention. Examples came up: Michelle Obama — whom the host has never met but can only imagine — and Tony Robbins.

She believes it's both internal and external, and the physical side has actually been studied. Whether someone is short or tall, "winners" physically claim more space: more distance between ears and shoulders, more space between torso and arms. If she did an entire interview taking up as little space as possible — as she's seen some guests do — you wouldn't be as drawn to them. And it's not about walking in with arms raised; it's micro-movements, like a slight drop of the shoulder or a slight lift of the head. Those small adjustments affect everything, including vocal tone.

One concept she thinks about a lot is the maximum resonance point — the lowest end of your natural vocal range, which signals pride and calm. When she's afraid or nervous, she drifts higher in her range; delivering a whole presentation that way would be unbearable to listen to, because anxiety tightens the vocal cords, shoulders, neck and chin — more of a "loser" feeling. The host noticed she was also speaking faster in that mode, which she hadn't realized: rushing, with less breath. When we run out of breath, we're speaking too quickly, the vocal cords are tense, and you can hear it — the person takes up less vocal space too.

Winners use their maximum resonance point, and she demonstrated: take a deep breath and say "hello" at the top of your breath. The host tried it — admitting he was a bit sick and deeper than normal — and produced a strained, breathless "hello," which she bluntly called horrible. She noted she hears exactly this on Zoom calls, where people hold their breath and their very first word — "Good morning," "Hello everyone" — gives away their vocal competence, because it's far from the maximum resonance point. Speaking on the out-breath keeps the vocal cords relaxed. Comparing the two — a high "hello" versus a relaxed one — she pointed out that both are her, but you'd treat her totally differently.

The host tried again on the out-breath, and she said that sounded more like his usual voice — he already uses his maximum resonance well. In work culture, people who use their maximum resonance point are listened to more and are easier to talk to, because we want to listen to them. They carry more aura, more "rizz," because you can hear their confidence and relaxation.

Vocal cues are a crucial aspect of charisma: how you say your words matters just as much as what you say. She demonstrated by asking "What's your passion project?" in a careless, strained tone — the lack of vocal care is immediately audible and makes you tune out. If she doesn't have genuine intention, it leaks out. That's why, earlier, when asked whether intention matters, she said that if you intend to care and try, it will show — but if you're not trying, people will hear it, and much of that is in the voice. Very charismatic people imbue their voice with that winning, calm confidence, and we want to catch it.

Beyond the conversational questions at the three stages and vocal tone, is there anything else that makes a great conversationalist? We've covered hands and taking up space, but what about eye contact? It takes real confidence to look someone in the eyes and ask them a question.

That's because eye contact chemically produces oxytocin, which is great for connection, but it also limits how much you can process. This is why eye contact is complicated, and why short social media clips miss the nuance. Yes, universally, eye contact is good because of the oxytocin, but I cannot do complex thinking while holding it. When I'm trying to remember something, I immediately look away—if you asked me a complex math problem, I'd look away.

So in conversation, we don't want 100% eye contact, or even 70%. Around 60–70% is more ideal in Western cultures. And if someone is deep thinking or socially processing, you actually want less eye contact, because they're trying to access their memories. When I'm holding eye contact, I'm purely focused on the connection—but in an interview, I'm also thinking, what does my research say? What was the number? That's why constant eye contact can feel uncomfortable: it doesn't allow your brain to think; it's only about connection.

But when you're delivering a point, you look away while deliberating, then come back to make eye contact as you deliver. That happens for two reasons. One, you're trying to connect. Two, when you're delivering, you want to watch my face to see whether I believe you—am I raising my eyebrows, showing disgust, hardening my lower lid in disbelief? So we process, then deliver, because two things happen at once: we want you to hear our point and feel it with oxytocin, but we also want to see whether you believe us.

The interviewer makes more eye contact to see where the guest's interest lies, while the guest looks at their notes to get to the next question and make sure everything gets covered. That's why this dynamic doesn't occur in natural conversation.

In ordinary conversation, you're better off making eye contact in the first few seconds of an interaction—right at the greeting, "it's so good to see you," whether on video or in person—because that gives a burst of oxytocin. After that, you're okay to look away and process. You might want to make your eye contact strongest when trying to gauge how the other person is receiving what you're saying.

That also makes you easy to talk to: if I notice you lighting up about something, I can pivot more into it, and if I notice you reacting with "that's horrible," I can pivot away from it.

When asked what makes someone a good listener, Vanessa points out that people often get it wrong in different ways: some interrupt with "yeah, yeah, yeah," others nod and cheerlead excessively, and some unknowingly scowl while you're talking.

She admits this last one bothers her personally, as a people pleaser. She has a friend who defaults to a disgusted micro-expression without realizing it. This is a facial punctuator — a non-verbal habit that doesn't actually mean anything emotionally; it's just how the person looks at rest. She's had to remind herself that he doesn't actually feel disgusted.

All listening cues are about warmth. Nodding is one — including the triple nod — though in India, Bulgaria, and Pakistan nodding works a little differently, so she always notes that caveat. A head tilt is a universal warmth signal because it exposes the ear. A lean is both warm and competent, since you're literally getting closer to understand more deeply.

A competent listening cue is the lower lid flex. It's a universal response: when we flex our lower lids, we're trying to see something better — biologically, we hood our eyes to block light and pick up more detail. So when you're speaking and someone does this, they are trying to deeply understand you. It is not positive or negative; it's a cue of intense focus. Take note, because whatever you just said has triggered something in their brain.

When presenting to a seated audience or important people like investors and she sees a lower lid flex, she has a choice: bookmark what she just said, or stop and present dynamically — check in ("does this make sense? any questions?") and adjust. Watching for these cues also makes you a pleasure to listen to, because you're so deeply listening that you respond to the other person's emotional reaction to what you're saying.

The interviewer agrees this is an unappreciated part of being a good conversationalist: being dynamic based on the cues you get back. Vanessa wants to double-click on this for her "planners" — people who prepare their questions in advance. What she doesn't want is for them to ask a question, check it off, and move to the next one. The whole point is to be dynamic: you might ask "What's your personal passion project?" and spend hours there, and that's a delight — you both lit up, so you can dive deep. Have a plan, but be dynamic with it; both can be true.

Asked what the conversation missed from her new book, Conversation: How to Connect with Anyone and Make Every Interaction Count, she offers one practical tip for preparing for good conversation: you are going to be asked boring questions. Write down the questions you're asked most often — everyone gets similar ones depending on their job, industry, and where they are in the world — and figure out how to answer better. Then think of what would be gifts to the other person: not just an interesting fact about yourself, but a story, anecdote, or answer that prompts the other person to say "me too," "really?", "what got you into that?", or "why did you do that?" That way your answer does two things: it's interesting, and it's conversationally generous — you're not creating a dead end for yourself.

And this is so true, because there is a most interesting thing about everybody, and that most interesting thing will get the same set of questions. There's someone I know who has a very interesting career, but in one part of it she went to Bible school for a couple of years, and I've never met anybody who went to Bible school for three years. I imagine she always gets asked about those three years, because everybody wants to know about them. I remember thinking, that's the question everybody asks when you introduce it—"Bible school?"

Another example I give in the book is my friend Jason, who can't smell or taste. He's the editor of Entrepreneur magazine, so he's always at dinners with people. He brings it up on purpose: people ask about food all the time—"What are you ordering?"—and he says, "Well, actually, I have no sense of taste or smell. So what's your favorite thing? If I could taste something, what would you have me taste?" It produces incredible conversations. So much so that when I was talking to my friend Nicole Lapen, she said, "I know Jason," and began telling me his interesting stories. She remembered his interestingness from that answer.

So consider your settings, too. Are you doing coffee? Are there interesting coffee anecdotes? Are you always at meals? You can set yourself and the other person up for success with those interesting answers. Have a script for the questions you get asked most that offers gifts to whoever is on the receiving end of the answer.

The last thing I would say is that this is a plan, and the entire goal is for you to feel more in control and more confident. As someone who wasn't confident for a long time and had very awkward conversations for a long time, just knowing I had good intent helped me a lot. So this is the plan—but also feel free to totally deviate from it. When you're in the moment, if you're feeling excited, interested, and engaged, go with it. And if you're feeling "I don't like this person, this isn't working," you can leave the conversation.

Asked who the book is for, Vanessa said it is for people who want to stop dreading small talk. Dread was a real motivation for her, because so many of her students would say things like, "I have to go to the networking event and I'm dreading it," "I dread talking to my boss," "I hate those first five minutes of my team call," or "I don't know what to talk about on a date." First dates can be horrible, but they can also be fun if you have a conversational plan—even if the person isn't right for you. Conversation doesn't have to be awkward; it can be great at the start of a meeting if you know how to do it. Her goal is to remove that dread and awkwardness, because the deeper issue is that we are in a loneliness epidemic. If we don't remember how good the joy of conversation is, we won't do it—and if she can take away the dread and give people beautiful conversation, with their person or not, they will feel less lonely.

The host agreed that it sounds like a book for all of us, and called it perfectly timed at a moment when AI and computers are robbing us of the joy of human conversation. He noted that teachers already tell him kids in class lack the basic skills of relating to each other through conversation, and that children will increasingly struggle with this.

The book took Vanessa twenty years to write. It is titled Conversation: How to Connect with Anyone and Make Every Interaction Count, and the host said he would link it below for anyone who wants to buy it. Vanessa thanked him for helping bring it into the world, saying she is simply obsessed with people.

The Closing Question: Regrets About Sacrifice

The host explained the show's closing tradition: the last guest leaves a question for the next guest without knowing who they're leaving it for. The question left for Vanessa was whether she felt there were things she sacrificed in her personal life to build her success that she regrets and wishes she could get back.

She answered yes. She had briefly mentioned moving to be closer to family, and explained that she thinks she sacrificed friendship and family relationships in the hustle. She moved to Austin for work and left her family behind. She doesn't regret Austin, because she had some great growth there, but she regrets being away from her family when her children were very little—it was really hard to have babies without her mom and her sister. She wishes she could have figured that out differently, but she's here now.

Asked what she wishes she could get back, she said she felt very alone as a new mom, and she doesn't think that helped her or her children. She wishes she could get back the time to feel more communal, since having a baby is such a beautiful thing for family and friends—but it was very lonely because she didn't have many people around her.

Now she is back, by the beach in LA, and her sister is at her house right now with her kids.

Final Recommendation

The host closed by urging viewers to buy Conversation: How to Connect with Anyone and Make Every Interaction Count, calling it a brilliant book that we all need, and thanking Vanessa.

He then pointed to YouTube's recommendation algorithm, which uses AI and viewing behavior to suggest the next video for each viewer, and told viewers to check out the recommended video.