My guest in this episode of the podcast is researcher, speaker and bestselling author Vanessa Van Edwards. Vanessa is one of the world’s leading experts in ‘people skills’ and interpersonal intelligence.

She has over 2 million views on her TED talk, 600k subscribers on Youtube and her new book Cue teaches the reader how to master the secret language of charismatic communication. In the book, and throughout our conversation, Vanessa explains how to interpret, control and master these social signals to help you make an amazing impression at work and anywhere else you’d like to stand out - in the right way.

I’d watched Vanessa’s TED talk and seen her in interviews and was fascinated, not only by what her research shows about how we interact with others, but how refreshing it was to hear her describe herself as a ‘recovering awkward person’. 

Being around other people can be challenging, especially if you don’t feel confident and, as Vanessa describes, you can create a cycle in which you feel awkward, misinterpret the situation, feel more awkward, misinterpret the situation further and so on…

If any of that sounds like you, then this episode is a must-listen because Vanessa breaks down how we can become a super cue-reading machine, how to recognise the different cues - non-verbal, vocal, verbal and imagery - and how to interpret them to not only make ourselves feel comfortable but to make the people around us feel comfortable too.

She also explains how our own cues can tell the world how to treat us and how empowering learning that skill can be as well as why we should all ask ourselves, before any social interaction, ‘what is my social goal?’ plus she gives some hints about ones to think about if you’re not entirely sure.

We also discuss narcissists, how to spot them and how to navigate away from them, toxic personalities, why you may be one of the many people who isn’t an extrovert or an introvert but is actually an ambivert and why being vulnerable isn’t a weakness

Vanessa's book Cues is available now.

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