Guess what we're talking about today. You and me, baby. We're talking about the it factor. That's right, the it factor. I don't even know how to say it, but we're talking about it. Some people just have it, don't they? Just think about who you admire. That has the it factor. I'll give you my list. Oprah, the rock, the Dalai Lama, Taylor Swift, oh, and the late Robin Williams and doctor Martin Luther King Juniore. Those folks, they have the it factor. Why? Well, because they have this ability to make me lean in and care about what they're saying. We not only admire folks like this, but we like them and we trust them. That is the heart of having the it factor. And based on the research, when people have the it factor, you know what it means? It means they have charisma. Charisma is a really cool thing because charisma will make you more influential, it'll help you make a bigger impact. And charisma absolutely is going to help you make some more money. Because according to the research, 82% of people's impression of you is based on whether or not you display charisma. Did you hear that?

82% of someone's impression of you based on whether or not you got charisma. I know I said it twice. That's how important it is. And here's the coolest thing about charisma. It's really easy to hack when you know the simple things you need to do. So today, here's what we're doing on the show. You're going to meet one of the world's leading researchers and experts on charisma and body language, Vanessa van Edwards. She's a behavioral investigator, the founder of the research group Science of people, the author of the best selling books on these topics, captivate and cuesta. And she's here to prove to you that you have the IT factor. Yes, I'm talking to you. And the skill of charisma. That is how you are going to bring your it factor to life. So you can make an impact, you can influence people, and you can make more income. Let's go, man. Class is in session. I am so excited for this. So let's dial up the skill of charisma. Let's bring the it factor to life. Let's increase our influence, impact and income, people. And let's welcome Vanessa to the Mel Robbins podcast. I'm so excited for this.

Vanessa, I'm so glad you're here. Well, welcome. I'm so psyched you're here.

I'm so happy to be here, I can't even tell you.

Well, let's just jump right into it, because you have written the book on both charisma and body language. And so I want to start with, what is charisma, and why does it matter?

What people don't realize is that charisma, more than any other attribute, is the single most important aspect of you being successful. It helps in your relationships. It helps you professionally, helps people take you seriously. It helps you also feel more confident and purposeful in your interactions. So charisma is that missing ingredient that we need to trigger or activate our success.

Wow. I mean, you hear so much about confidence. You hear about extroverts versus introverts, but how is it that charisma impacts all those things more than your personality or confidence?

When research looks at highly charismatic people, they find that we are looking for people who are signaling high charisma because it shows all those other things. Highly charismatic people are confident, they are competent, they are warm, they are likable. The most amazing aspect of charisma is it can be learned. It is not an innate trait. You don't have to be born with it or not. That anyone can be, can learn how to be more charismatic through a very specific set of cues.

That's crazy. And you say that you were very awkward before you leveraged all the cues you're about to teach us. Will you tell us a little bit about what you struggled with?

So what's funny about charisma? I've always been fascinated by this trait. I'm a recovering awkward person. Charisma does not come naturally to me. I've always been fascinated by the cool kids. I watch them and I'm like, oh, how do they know what to do? And so I was for many years trapped by this mistaken belief that to be charismatic, you have to be extroverted, you have to be bubbly, you have to be life of the party. And I am not an extrovert. And so I always thought, well, I guess I can't have it. It's an innate trait. You have to be extroverted. What research actually finds is that charisma has nothing to do with your extroversion. Your attractiveness, your athleticism, even your intelligence. The actual definition of highly charismatic people, what makes them different is they send a very specific set of social signals. Specifically, they are constantly signaling high warmth. So trust, likability, friendliness, along with, and this is the key, a balance of high competence, capability, power, effectiveness. And what's magical about this is, if you're with someone and you are drawn into them, you immediately are able to answer two questions. I can trust you, and I can rely on you.

And so, highly charismatic people, that's what they're signaling. Warmth and competence at all times.

Wow. Okay, so let me see if I just can bottom line this.

Yes.

So, charisma. If you have charisma or you display charisma, I guess, is what I should say.

Yes.

If you display charisma, other people are left with the impression that they can trust you and that they can count on you. Is that right?

That is exactly right. And the funny, the hard part about this is you can be the warmest, most competent person in the world, but if you don't show those signals, the world does not believe you. And this comes from amazing research out of Princeton University, which found that under signaling. So not signaling enough. And this is what happens, I think, with very smart people. So most of my students are off the charts intelligence high achievers, and they think, oh, my smarts will speak for me, right? I'm really smart. I can make it through anything. I'm super prepared. I have great answers. And the problem is, they under signal, the warmth and competence cues. And when doctor Fisk found the creator of this research, she found that without enough warmth, people do not believe your competence. So the problem of smart people is they think their smarts work for them, but if they're not using the right signals, the world literally cannot believe them.

Wow. That's. So is this why charisma matters?

So, I think of charisma like a lubricant. Right? So when we're in social norms.

Sexy. That's not exactly the word I was that I thought that. Or the metaphor I thought you were going to use. Okay, so charisma, it makes sense. Social lubricant, everybody. Yeah. Okay.

You know, it makes it smooth because, listen, my interactions, my social interactions before I learned this science, were, like the opposite. Smooth. They were crunchy. Like, not in a good way. Right.

Okay, so you said you were awkward. Give us an example. Come on, Vanessa.

I'm a recovering awkward person. So, awkwardness, let's talk. Awkwardness is one of my favorite topics. Awkwardness dresses up in different ways. So my awkwardness. And everyone has different things. I'm curious, Mel, if you have any awkwardness, how it dresses up. Some people, they feel awkward because of fear. Their fear being rejected, fear of being criticized, fear of saying something silly or sounding stupid. And so their awkwardness will dress up as shutting down. So, for me, my awkwardness. I'm an overthinker. I'm the person who I get in bed at the end of the night, and I literally rethink every conversation I've had the whole day, or, like, I overanalyze my answers before I even say anything, which makes me a terrible conversationalist and listener. So my awkwardness would make me shut in, shut down. And so my introverts listening. This is often what happens when you feel awkward. You're afraid of a silence or being judged. You shut in, you close down, you stop talking. Other people, my extroverts, their awkwardness dresses up as something else. Their awkwardness dresses up as showing off over the top, being a drama queen, talking too much. Some of my extroverted, awkward friends, they'll say, sometimes I just can't stop talking.

Literally, my mouth just keeps going. And so awkwardness is this really interesting way that we try to cover our fear. And so when I say I'm a recovering awkward person, I've had to conquer a lot of internal fear to be able to have interactions that I desperately, desperately want to have. That could be in a professional setting, sharing my ideas, but it also could be just trying to make good friends, trying to be open with my partner. And so I think that charisma is this lubricant, because awkwardness makes our relationships, our conversations, our communication, crunchy. Awkward. Halty. We talk too much. We talk too little. There's an awkward silence. We don't know what to do with our hands, right? We're like, what do I do with my body language? We make weird faces. We awkwardly nervous laugh. So my goal with charisma, what I've found, is that it's a smoother, it's a lubricant, which I just. We have to stick with that metaphor.

Well, it's hilarious. And it also makes it when you use the word about those moments when you feel awkward. That makes a lot of sense to me, because whether you're an over talker, oversharer, nervous laugh, interrupting people because you're extroverted, but you feel afraid of how people are gonna view you or whether you withdraw because you're afraid, that crunchiness is that sort of disruption you feel internally. And so I love this idea that charisma, which you say is a skill that anybody can develop, that charisma helps you be yourself, and it helps you be more influential, and it helps you enjoy social settings, whether you're introverted or extroverted. That's what I'm kind of getting from this.

Oh, that's it. And so I think that what we're looking for here is a lot of people talk about confidence, and I love confidence, but I am not naturally confident. And so what happened is, I would say just be more confident. Like, I would, you know, I'd be, like, trying to mantra myself into it. And if you tell someone who's awkward to just stop being awkward, it doesn't work.

Well, it just makes you more awkward, I think. Because then you're now focused on the fact that you're awkward.

It's like a meta. Meta, right. Like, I worry that I'm a worrier, and that makes me worry, so. Right. So, like, it's like a horrible meta. So what I say is, okay, I like confidence, but let's put it to the side for a second. Let's talk about being purposeful. Purposeful is much more impactful and active. It's an active emotion. Okay. So if I say I want to show up in this interaction as highly charismatic, I want to be my warmest self and my most competent self, and I want to clearly signal with purpose to the other person. I am trustworthy and likable, but I can also get it done. I'm powerful and capable. The key here is the balance. Most of us have an imbalance. So there's four segments of the population. This is what the research finds. There's the sweet spot of highly charismatic people. High warmth, high competence. That's the rare birds among us.

Now, can you give us an example of somebody who is highly charismatic?

Let's do the classic Oprah.

Okay.

Oprah is highly charismatic, and here's why. She can be in an interview, and she can make the other person feel so comfortable, they share their darkest secrets. That's warmth. That's trust. She can cry with the other person. She can mimic their facial expressions. Her warmth literally draws out other people's warmth. However, you also take her very seriously. You know, she is smart. She knows her answers. You can't sneak something by her. And that's her signaling I'm competent. I'm going to make sure that I get to the truth here. You can rely on me to ask the hard questions. That's the perfect example. What Oprah does and what most charismatic people do, which I want to teach everyone who's listening how to do, is you can use charisma like a dial. It's just like a thermostat. So in some situations, when you want to dial up a little bit extra warmth, you can use more warmth. Cues. And Oprah does this exceptionally well in her hard hitting interviews. She'll dial up competence. She'll hit them with the hard questions. Go watch her interview with Lance Armstrong. I talk about Lance Armstrong a lot in the book.

I pick on him a lot. Her interview with Lance Armstrong, she is high competence. She has just enough warmth to make him feel comfortable. But she asks hard questions versus some of her other interviews. She's dialing up warmth. She wants to make the other person feel comfortable. So that's an example of someone who's very nice balance and kind of uses her warmth and competence as a dial. Let's look at, for example, Steve Jobs. So, Steve Jobs is zero warmth, am I?

No, zero warmth. Zero warm jobs. Zero warmth. The guy's a jerk.

Zero warmth. So he is the perfect example of high, high, high competence. He's constantly signaling, take me seriously. I'm powerful. And most importantly, what highly smart people don't realize is if they over signal competence, people see them as cold, intimidating, not a collaborator, not a team player, hard to talk to. So, yes, he was brilliant, but his lack of warmth made people feel like he wasn't a collaborator. He wasn't a good team player, and his legacy is changing the world, but also being not kind. So, that's an example of high competence. My highly smart people, my engineers, my really technically brilliant folks, they often get trapped. And high competence because they don't know how to signal warmth. By the way, they might have all the intention to be a collaborator, but we are not taught how to signal warmth. And so they go, well, I guess I don't know how to do that.

So that's high competence.

That's one bucket. And by the way, so if you're. As you're listening, I want you to think about what sounds like you, what feels like you. So, do you feel like you have the balance? Do you feel like. No, you're off the charts. And competence, you know, your high incompetence. If people always think you're in charge, you know you're high in competence. If people ever told you that you're intimidating or hard to talk to, you know that you're in a relationship or have a partner who's high in competence, if they constantly google fact check you. So highly competent folks, their mission is to get it right. They are very dominated by the idea of get it right, get the facts. And so they'll be in a conversation with you and be like, let me Google fact check that. Let me just see if that's. That's right.

Do they share their emotions? If they're high competent, usually less.

They're much less comfortable sharing their emotions because vulnerability, sharing emotions is an aspect of warmth. So that is one way that competent people can hack warmth is sharing more of their emotions. But usually they don't like that as much because emotions aren't correct, right. It's hard to be right with emotions. So they'll often, the reason why a highly competent partner, I have one of those is I'm going to use the word afraid of emotions or uncomfortable with emotions is because it can't be fact checked, right? If someone says as a partner, I feel upset with you, how do you verify that? How do you fix it? Where's the solution? A highly competent partner, they love solving things, right? You come to them and you're like, I'm just having a bad day. And they're like, let me fix that for you. And you're like, I don't want you to fix it, I just want you to listen. They're like, no, I don't know how to do that because they're fixers.

Got it.

So highly competent people, you have that super strength of getting it right, being fixers. Warm folks, my warm folks. So my highly warm folks, you are filled with empathy. Your cheerleaders, your supporters, your mission. So competent people want to get it right. Highly warm people want to be liked. They want everyone to feel good, they want everyone to feel comfortable. Typically highly warm folks, they're super strengthen is empathy nurturing, making you feel loved and warm. But they often give too much of themselves in sacrifice of being liked.

Got it. So like people pleasing doormats is what you're talking about.

That's the far end. People pleasing is what they struggle with. And so I think that highly warm folks in the workplace, this is the other really important thing to understand, is if you're highly warm, you are fighting a battle in yourself, which is your desire to be liked gets in the way of your need to be respected.

Okay, stop. I need everybody to hear that. If you default and you are too warm, especially at work, your need to be liked is getting in the way of your need to be respected.

Yeah.

When you are too focused on getting it right and too focused on being smart and too focused on dominating the conversation or the knowledge bank, your need to be right is dominate. How did you say your need to be right?

Right is getting in the way of your need to be liked.

Yes, yes. Your need to be right is getting in the way of your need to be liked. That even rhymes. That's amazing.

I didn't do that on purpose.

I want to go back to something in the very beginning that we were talking about.

Yes.

So when I asked you, what is charisma? Yeah. And you said it has nothing to do with personality. It has nothing to do with introversion or extroversion. It is not about being confident that charisma is something that you display to other people. Correct?

Yes.

And charisma matters because if you have charisma, people trust you. They like you, they count on you. Which I would think means it makes you more influential, it makes you more successful. It makes you have greater influence. Is that what the benefits of charisma are?

Influence, impact and income. So the reason why.

Hold on. So charisma impacts the three eyes?

The three eyes? All three of them.

Why?

If you are warm and competent, you are less likely to be underestimated. You're less likely to be dismissed and doubted. Why? We are attracted to highly charismatic people because charisma is contagious. And they've actually proven this in the lab. The more charismatic you are, the more you clearly and purposefully. I keep using the word purposeful on purpose. The more clearly you signal warmth and competence, the more contagious you are. We like to be around warm, competent people because they make us more warm and competent. And so nonverbal signals, vocal signals, verbal signals, we are constantly aware of because we want to catch them. So the reason why we're drawn to people who are that influence piece, that influence or impact piece is because we are influenced by people who we want to be contagious with. We also want to be more warm and competent. So if we're around someone who's warm and competent, it makes us feel like our best selves. If you think about the most charismatic person you know. So just think about them for a second. They make you feel better. They make you feel like your best self. That's the difference, I think, between, for example, a highly charismatic person and a narcissist.

This is not just about confidence. It's about someone who actually is positively infectious. They've proven this with both negative and positive cues. For example, Doctor Matthew Lieberman at UCLA, he flashed people a fear microexpression. Fear microexpression is when we raise our eyebrows up our forehead, we widen our eyes to our white show, and we take in a deep breath. We go, yes. So that expression, if he flashes that expression to someone in a fMRI, their amygdala, where they process fear, begins to activate. We catch the fear. Literally, just seeing someone with a fear face makes us feel afraid. The most important part of this experiment, though, is the moment that someone labeled the fear. So in their head or out loud said fear, it deactivated their amygdala. In other words, being aware of the cues that are being sent to us, both negative and positive, makes us aware of who is infecting us. So that influence, that impact, is that highly charismatic people are so clear with their signals. It's like they're gifting another Oprah reference. They're gifting warmth for you, competence for you, charisma for you. And not charismatic people. People who are anxious, afraid, awkward, they are signaling negative cues.

That's why we don't want to be around them. We don't want to catch that fear. We don't want that fear. And so we're like, whoa, I don't like those signals. And so we avoid them as much as we possibly can.

You know what I love about your research? What I love is that, first of all, you're about to teach us all how to become more charismatic. You're also about to give us hacks related to body language and getting intentional about what we're displaying and signaling. But what I also love about your research is that I need everybody listening to understand something. Right now. You are unintentionally sending signals and cues to people. That's it. You are walking around, and whether it's a negative mood or it's anxiety or it's insecurity or it's awkwardness, or you're so focused on being right that you don't realize that you're sending signals and cues that make people not like you and not trust you, or you're so focused on being liked and that you're sending these signals of being a warm pushover, which is why you're never respected and why you're passed over at work. And so what I love about this research is that you're helping us focus on two factors that you can display that will increase influence, impact, and income. And it doesn't matter whether you're shy or whether you're bossy. These strategies are going to work for all of us.

One thing I would love for you to talk about before we talk about the cues is this. So, in that study that you cited from Princeton, they also found that charisma accounts for 82% of how people evaluate you. So, can you unpack that? Because I think it's really important for us to understand this is not only a good idea because you're going to make more money, be more influential, and make a bigger impact based on the science. This is how people view you. And so can you unpack this for us?

So I was also shocked by that number. By the way, it's very rare to see a number that big in science, right? Especially because if I were to ask someone, how do you want to be perceived? You're going to get a list of 100 adjectives, funny, extroverted, bubbly, attractive, whatever, actually, when someone is interacting with us. And by the way, this is not just in person. This is on your LinkedIn profile, in Zoom, on the phone, in chats, in slack, in DM's, in your email inbox. People are using warmth and competent signals to make up 82% of their judgment of you.

Okay, stop, everybody. Did you just hear that? People are using warmth and competence, which are the two things that make up your charisma. 82% of how people judge you, evaluate you, size you up, decide to hire or date you, has to do with whether or not you're warm or competent. That's bananas.

It's bananas. And it's not just your first impression, it's actually every single impression. So, yes, your first impression is important, but even if you don't feel you've had a good first impression, that's okay. We are reevaluating this on every Zoom call call. If someone sees your name pop up in their inbox, they're also wondering, is this a warm and competent email? In other words, can I trust this email? Can I rely on this email? The more warm and competent your email is, the faster response rates you're going to get. We, as humans, have a really hard time responding to connecting, with building rapport, with being impacted by people who under signal, or people who signal in an imbalanced way. So what we're talking about here, that 82% is making it easier for people to interact with you. I believe that your warmth and competence tells the world how they should treat you.

Wow. Here's what I believe, Vanessa. You want to hear what I believe, Vanessa? I believe we all have a huge blind spot when it comes to what we're signaling other people, that you may think you know how you come across and what you're displaying, but I have a feeling that we are about to learn from Vanessa that we have a massive blind spot when it comes to warmth and confidence and how you're displaying charisma or not. So how can we, number one, figure out how charismatic we are? What do we do? Vanessa?

Okay. All right. So first, we're. The first kind of diagnostic that I talked about was just which one sounds more like you. That's where we start. Right. So where do you think you fall you? Higher in warmth, higher in competence. You have a balance, or are you under signaling? Right. Do you shut down and not signal enough? The next thing you can do is you can actually do our diagnostic. It's totally free. And I love this because there's two ways that you want. I want you to do this. You can take this as many times as you want. The whole point, the reason I put it up from the research is because I want people to be able to take a diagnostic, see how they come across. So they're going to be very simple questions.

Does that mean a test?

Yes, it's a test.

Okay.

Really simple test. Science people.com charisma.

Wait, hold on. What's it called? What is the URL?

Scienceofpeople.com charisma.

Scienceofpeople.com charisma. Wait, is that the New York Times science of people?

No, just my science of people.

Oh, that's your site. Okay. Scienceofpeople.com charisma. We will put that in the show notes. So you can take this test as.

Many times as you want. And so first I'm going to take it as you. I'm going to take it as you, and I want you to take it not on your ideal self, your real self.

Okay? Okay.

So on a normal day, I want you to screenshot your results. Then what I want you to do is I want you to do a 360 review. I want you to send the quiz to a partner, a friend, a colleague, and ask them to take it as you. This is the key, because it's going to show you how other people see you and have them screenshot the results and then go to dinner and get a lot of wine because it'll be a great conversation.

So, do you find that most people have no idea how they're showing up with other people?

You were right. Most of us have a blind spot. We think, we hope, we think of ourselves as our ideal selves. And there are days, of course, we are a little closer to that sweet spot of warmth and competence. But what's really key, what we find, is that not only are people giving them different results, but they even might even have different results for home and work. So they're showing up as two selves. And that's a very important thing to know about yourself. If you're going to work and you're dreading it. You're burnt out, you're drained. It could be that you are not honoring who you truly are because you're either under signaling competence or under signaling warmth or trying to fake it till we make it. I have a little problem with that phrase. I don't love that phrase, because I think that the problem is, if you're going to fake warmth, it's exhausting, right? And so this is also a way to sort of get a very quick snapshot in how are people perceiving you? And is it what you think you're showing?

You also have a suggestion that we record our Zoom calls in order to read how charismatic we are. That sounds horrible.

It's horrible. I'm not going to lie. It is horrible. And not only do I want you to record a zoom call, I want you to record a Zoom call that you worked hard on, presentation, an important client meeting a call. And then I want you to code it.

So when we talk about code, it mean.

Okay, so when we talk about cues. So, cues are the social signals humans send to each other. Okay, there are four different modes of cues. Verbal. The one we talk about the most, so our words. This is what we, most of us, think about all the time. We want to prepare the perfect answer, share the perfect presentation. We practice our stories. So, verbal is only one mode of cuesdae. Second is nonverbal. Our body language, our gestures, our facial expressions. The third, the most important one that's overlooked, is voice tone. Our vocal power, our volume, our pace, our cadence, our tone. And the last, smallest one is ornaments. The jewelry we wear, what's behind us in our background, the color of our nails, how we wear our hair, our glasses. Those are the ornaments. What I want you to do is I want you to code yourself for every cue that you're showing, everything from how many gestures you're using to what your facial expressions are doing to your movement, to your fidgeting, to your vocal power, to the kinds of words you're using. That's also going to give you a snapshot, because what we've found in our research is that there are certain very clear signals of warmth, cues of warmth and cues of competence.

And the last one are dangerous own cues, cues that are negative. My goal, this is a way that you can see, is, how are you signaling warmth and competence? What are you doing with your body and your. Your voice and your face that's making people treat you the way that they're treating you?

Okay? So I feel like everybody needs to grab a pen and a piece of paper. And this is definitely one of those podcast episodes that I know every single parent is going to be forwarding to their kids who have interviews. If you could just speak directly to the person who's listening and tell them what they're about to learn and how their life could change if they really apply what you're going to teach them today.

Sure. So I think there are two things. The first thing is, I think we sail through life generally, not really understanding what's shaping how we feel and behave and what's guiding us in the directions that we happen to be moving. So the first thing is, I think you're going to understand a number of the things that are guiding you that you don't recognize are there. But the second thing is, because you understand what those things are, you're able to act on them. You're able to use them to your benefit. Maybe the ones that are pushing in the wrong direction, you can kind of stave them off. So I think it's a combination of both of those things.

What made you want to research things like colors and these environmental. I don't know, like, things outside of us and within us that shape our experience of life.

Yeah. So, you know, I think, like a lot of people, I'm sort of fascinated by this idea that so much of what goes on is hidden from us, that essentially life is kind of like the iceberg, where there's a little bit above the surface of the water, but a lot of really interesting stuff is unconscious. It's hidden from us. And so I wanted to try to understand as much of what's going on under the surface of the water. And a lot of it is these things that are shaping us in ways we don't recognize. So a lot of my research has been about trying to uncover those and then figure out what we can do about them.

I love this. All right, so let's dive in. There is so much to learn. So much of your research also focuses on the environment around us and how that can influence all different outcomes. Can you share some of that with us?

Yeah. So it's huge numbers of different factors, but around us all the time, there are colors. Sometimes we're in a built environment, like a room, and sometimes we're in a natural environment. And so a lot of my work focuses on how these different cues shape how we think, feel, and behave, and our welfare, our well being. A lot of the focus for me recently because I've been very interested in the effect of spending huge amounts of time in front of screensh is what happens when you go as far from screens as possible to natural environments, which we all sort of have the, I think, general sense that that's good for us. It's good to be in a natural environment. But the effects there are among the most profound I've ever seen in any research that just spending a bit of time near a body of running water or hearing wind rustle through trees or spending 12 hours driving to the eclipse, which is what I did, it's a huge amount of energy that you put in, perhaps to get to those kind of environments, but they have a huge effect on your welfare, and it's worth doing.

What effect does it have on your welfare?

So one thing about the way we live our lives today in the modern era, is that we are constantly sapped. Our attention is sapped. We're asked to pay huge amounts of very focused attention all the time, whether we're looking at screens, whether we're having extended work conversations, whether we're doing work. And so by the end of the day, you're kind of depleted. Depleted? Depleted. If you wear one of those watches that tracks your body battery, you see it just kind of goes down and down and down. And that's a good metaphor for the way we live our lives. It sums it up pretty well. The thing about nature is that apart from actually being asleep, being in a natural environment is replenishing. It basically turns that dial upside down, and so your energy starts to climb again. So it gives you back a lot of what is sapped by that very focused attention. Because when you're in a natural environment, your attention is still grabbed by things. You might hear a bird, you might hear the running water, you might look at trees, whatever it might be, looking at the ocean. But that kind of less focused attention is really restorative.

And there's actually a whole body of research called attention restoration therapy that focuses on exactly this idea that being in natural environments is one of the best forms of medicine we have.

So let's unpack that, because I could feel the person that is listening to us right now literally stop on the treadmill, or hopefully you're outside walking, or you just stopped loading the dishwasher and you're knowing that what Adam is saying is true. Yeah, but there were a bunch of things you talked about that I would love for you to dig in further. The first one was this idea of the. I think you said something about attention therapy.

Attention restoration therapy.

What is that?

Yeah, it's basically this idea that your attention is constantly being sapped it's being taken away. And the kind of attention you have in a natural environment, which is not demanding, it's replenishing.

It's true.

It restores you. It brings you back. It gives you something that you don't have. I think the single most profound example of this for me was a study that was done at a hospital on people who were recovering from surgery, and they were randomly assigned to different rooms. And some of the rooms looked out at a natural environment, a beautiful green lawn, some trees. And some of the rooms just where they happened to be in the building did not have that view. They were looking out at another part of the building. And they wanted to track how these people recovered from identical surgeries, depending on which room they happened to be assigned to. And they found they needed, like, half as much pain medication. They spent three days fewer in hospital recovering. Just looking out at that natural environment was the best form of medicine there was. So it's true. You know, I run maybe four or five days a week, and I try to do it outside when I can, and I know on some level it just feels good, but there's a huge amount of science behind that as well.

So what do you recommend for us to put into our lives? Because we've had neuroscientists, medical doctors, sleep experts come on the show and talk about the importance of getting natural light first thing in the morning. We've also had someone talk about if you're kind of burnt out and you are having one of those moments where you just feel your energy draining, even looking off at the distance out the window can help you restore your energy. What are some of the. The takeaways or the science back things that people can implement in their lives to tap into this research.

Yeah. So I think the biggest thing is, I ran yesterday in a forest, and it was wonderful. And there was running water, there were all these ingredients, and it was incredibly restorative. But as a runner, my instinct is to just keep going, which is how we live our lives. Right. You're doing something, and you want to keep going until it ends, till you finish doing it, till you can check it off. And I had to push myself to stop for five minutes to sit on a rock and just let the water go by. And that was by far the most restorative, wonderful part of the day. And I think there's something to that, this idea of purposely stopping yourself. So I would say whether you're in a big city or whether you're not in a big city, find a little patch of natural environment. And by the way, if you're in an apartment in a big urban environment and you don't have that option, even little trees, little plants that you have in the apartment, the sound of a little fountain that you have with running water, that stands in for that experience, too, is just spend, say, five minutes a day doing absolutely nothing but taking in drinking in that natural environment, even if it's a tiny one in your apartment.

If you can get out, all the better. But it's very important to do that, I think, as a sort of daily.

Practice and also, as your research shows, a countermeasure to the fact that modern life is requiring this intense focus that is just sapping your energy. You mentioned colors, and there is so much that you have uncovered that is fascinating about how colors influence so much in terms of our mood, our behaviors, our physical strength. Let's unpack that.

Yeah. So some of this is my research, some of it's other people's research. And I got interested in color because I can't see color very well. I'm colorblind.

Oh, you are?

I'm colorblind. So I'm sort of fascinated.

How did you figure out that you were colorblind?

It took a while. When I was young, I would get colors right because all the colors in little picture books are so bright and obvious. So that was never a problem. But as I got older, it seemed like I lost the ability to distinguish colors. I think my parents were a bit concerned. They were like, what's going on? There's something going on in Adam's brain. We need to figure this out. So I did a series of tests, and I identified that I had certain kinds of color blindness, and so it made total sense. But it's kind of subtle, so you can't pick it up. When kids are very young, sometimes it takes a little while to figure it out. But it made me really interested in color, and in particular in the question of whether. What the way I see the world is, whether it's different from how you do. Do we all see the world the same way? And then assuming that there is some uniformity to that, is that exposure to color influencing us in any way? That's predictable? And the answer is yes. There are all sorts of interesting effects.

Let me ask a question. So, given that you're colorblind.

Yes.

And you are researching the impact that color has on our mood, our emotions, even things like physical strength, it also can influence the actions that you take. Is the color influencing all of us the same way, even if you're colorblind and the color appears slightly duller or, you know, if you're, if you're color, you see what I'm saying?

Yeah, 100%. So there are two ways it could affect you. So one of them is just association. So I see, maybe I see the color yellow, and it makes me think of the sun and fire, and I see green and I think of natural environments. So it's just the association. It reminds me of other things that are green or yellow or blue or whatever the other one is. As you say, maybe it doesn't matter if you can actually see that it's green or yellow. Maybe it's something about the wavelength, it hits your eye, it hits your retina, and your brain is doing something with that information that whether or not you can see that it's yellow or green or red or whatever, you're responding the same way. I think most of it is association for us that there are certain things that have certain colors, and then that reminds us of those things. So a lot of us talk about blues and greens being more soothing, reds and yellows being more activating, which can be good or bad, depending on what you're looking for. I think if I didn't know that a color was red and I couldn't see it and it looked washed out to me, it would have less of an effect for me.

Got it. So what colors affect our moods?

Well, all colors have some effect. They have some effect not just on mood, but on all sorts of different outcomes for us. There's really interesting research looking at how the colors that competitors wear in sports affect how they play. So there's some work looking at Olympic athletes in combat sports, like judo and wrestling and taekwondo and in the Olympics, what they did a while ago was they decided that they were going to randomly assign each competitor to either wear blue or red before each bout as a way to just be fair. Like, we're going to randomly pick red and blue, and you're going to get your color, and then you're going to go into the bout. But one of the things that researchers discovered was when we wear red, we feel stronger, we feel more dominant. And when you see someone else wearing red, you perceive them as more dominant. And there are very lower order reasons for this. Like, if you look at animals, the animals with more red are more dominant in general. So if you look at 100 birds from the same species, the ones with more red feathers or a redder face will be the alpha birds, and that's going to be true for apes and other animals as well.

So the color red has a really big effect and it's associated with sort of how well your blood flows through your body and things like that. And it's a sort of signal that someone is strong and dominant. And what you actually find is in these Olympic bouts, when the competitors are evenly matched, if you are assigned to wear red, you win about two thirds of the time despite being evenly matched.

Really?

It has a huge effect on these outcomes. Yeah.

Wow. So, Doctor Holter, does that mean if I'm going in for a, like a negotiation for a job, I should be wearing red or an interview or a date?

Yes. With a caveat. Okay, so the yes is yes. It will do that. It'll make you seem more dominant. It also turns out to make people more attractive to others.

Really?

Which is interesting, too. Yeah. So there's research looking at dating profiles where you have the same picture. You just change every two months the color of the shirt you're wearing. People get much more attention online when they're wearing, it's the same picture, but when they're wearing red rather than any other color.

Wow.

So there is all sorts of good reason to surround yourself with red. It's true. Even if you have a border around your picture and it happens to be red border rather than blue or green or another color. But red also has other meaning too. Right? It's not a color that we don't notice. So you're signaling something beyond just I'm dominant and making yourself look more attractive. It's a conscious choice. And so if people are seeing that and making other, drawing other inferences from the fact that you've chosen red, then maybe it's something you don't want to do if it's very unusual in that context, for example. But beyond that, as long as that's not an issue, there is very good reason to wear it.

Wow. And what colors calm us down?

The most calming colors are generally blues and greens. And I think a lot of that is the association we have with nature, which we discussed. So natural environments are very calming. Water, the sky, trees, leaves, things like that. And so I think a lot of that comes from just the sort of calmness you get with the association with those colors.

So one of your international bestsellers, drunk tank pink, very interesting name. And there's very interesting research about that sort of bubble gum pepto Bismo pink color. Can you explain that?

Yeah. So the name is drunk tank pink is a name that was given to this very bright, bubblegummy pink. Color. It was used for a while inside. They were called drunk tanks, where you put people who are kind of aggressive, often drunk, you're trying to calm them down. And researchers found that if these drunk tanks were painted pink, in their words, you could calm these people down much more quickly. Within 15 minutes, they'd be calm.

And did it work?

There's some evidence that it worked. I think the research is a little bit shaky, but there was some evidence that this pink color did come calm people down. It got a huge amount of attention. In the eighties, there was a 60 minutes episode about it.

Wow.

It really got a lot of attention. And so I thought it was just a sort of fascinating emblem of the kinds of effects you might see from cues that you might think would have a smaller effect on us. But by being surrounded by those colors, there are huge effects. In fact, the visiting locker room at the University of Iowa is painted drunk tank pink in an attempt to calm down the opposition when they spend time in that locker room. So it's been used in a lot of different contexts more recently.

Yeah, well, and I think where my mind goes is both to the Miami soccer team.

Right.

But they're a little bit more bright and also to the beautiful trend of athletes wearing pink for breast cancer awareness, which obviously is signaling something else. But I think that's fascinating if you're put in a bubblegum pink room, that it just sort of dulls your mood a little bit if you're a bit aggressive.

Yeah. Regarding inter Miami, there are people who, when they box, they only wear pink boxing trunks because they think it'll make their opposition a little bit less strong. And so there's. I don't think that's why inter Miami is pink and they have that pink uniform. But that's one of the theories.

Wow. So can you talk about mirrors and how you can use them to change your behavior?

Yeah. There's a lot of research looking at what happens when we see a human face. So one of the things that happens when you see a face, particularly eyes, is you feel that you're being watched. And when you're being watched, it changes your behavior in certain predictable ways. So if you think about a store that has a lot of shoplifting, one of the things these stores do, if they can't afford constant surveillance is they put up more mirrors because we are less likely to behave badly when we have to look at ourselves doing it.

Really?

Yeah.

Why?

Because it basically forces you, not just metaphorically, but to look into your own eyes, literally. And you have to decide is this the right way to behave? It makes us much more introspective and thoughtful about what we're doing. So there are these really interesting experiments where you say to people privately, you can toss a coin, and if you get heads, you get a delicious jelly bean, and if you get tails, you have to eat something that's not very nice. And if you let people do that without a mirror, they all report, oh, yeah, I got heads. There are a lot of people who report getting heads. More than 50%, which you would expect. So people are kind of fudging the numbers a little bit when you get them to do that same task in front of a mirror where they're looking at themselves 50 50, so they become honest again.

Really?

Yeah. So, you know, there are some, I think, interesting implications. One of them that's that I've always found quite, quite useful is if you. A lot of people might have, like, a cupboard in their home somewhere, maybe in the pantry where they keep their chocolates and things that they want to eat. Only occasionally.

Mine's in a drawer.

Right. Or a drawer. And when you open that cupboard or when you go into the pantry, one thing a lot of people do now is they'll put up a little mirror.

What?

So what happens is you're like, I'm reaching for the chocolate. I have to look at myself in my eyes. I have to scrutinize this decision. And sometimes it's fine, but other times, maybe I look at myself and I'm like, okay, fine. I'll leave that chocolate sitting there for a little bit longer. So it basically forces you to be a little bit more thoughtful about your decisions.

Well, I could see how that would happen, because, you know, if you think about opening up a fridge.

Yeah.

If there was a giant mirror in there, I'd be like, oh, you again? Okay, shut the thing. So I might actually have to try this. Putting a mirror in the bottom of the drawer.

Yeah, there you go.

Where I have all of our snacks. We call it the snack drawer. So could you use a mirror to kind of cue yourself when it comes to bad habits? Is that like, an environmental trigger that can be effective in making you stop and think?

Yeah, I think so. So I think what the mirror does is it makes you think more deeply, and it especially makes you think more deeply about doing the wrong thing thing, where it's something that's contrary to what you think you should be doing, because you have to do it in your own presence. It's like you're watching yourself, and so it's a very powerful cue in all those cases.

I love that. Yeah, I can think of a lot of implications for that. Like if you're somebody who's trying to cut down on drinking, having a mirror, sitting there when you open up the cabinet where the. Okay, I see you. Not so fast today. I understand there's some interesting research about how simply looking at money can change you.

Yeah, there's sort of interesting evidence that it can do lots of different things. So one thing it seems to do is it makes you a little bit more independent, makes you feel a little bit stronger and reminds you of resources and having more of things. The other thing it can do is, though, it makes you a little bit less helpful towards other people. Makes you a little bit less generous. Makes you a little bit more independent. Yeah. There's some research where if you show people money or you show them dollar bills or things like that, and then you have a task where they have to be helpful. They're going to be a little bit less helpful if they've just seen money than if they haven't. And I think that's because one thing you get from money is you can stand alone a little bit more. You don't need other people quite as much. That's at least the theory. And so it makes you more independent and less communal minded, and it might make you a little bit less generous.

Well, doctor Alter, maybe that's why I'm such a generous person, because I never have cash in my wallet.

There you go. It's all about the credit cards.

So do you have favorite tweaks based on the research that you either recommend or use in your own life that help cue you to be your best or to make behavior change stick?

Yeah, I've talked about the one, the biggest one. Six years ago, I left New York City with my wife and two kids, and we moved to a town where it was natural and beautiful. And we could go less than a mile in any direction, and we would have either a beach or we would have a forest or we'd have something.

Where is this Shangri la? You still work in New York?

The Shangri La's in Connecticut, just outside. Wow.

Okay.

So it's beautiful. And it means that on any day, I can drive for ten minutes or even walk for ten minutes and be somewhere that does all of this restoring. So I think being around nature, for me, is a huge one. Different people have different things that matter to them. That was very important to me. It also. It drew me back to my childhood, because growing up in first South Africa and then Australia. Natural environments and especially the beach in Australia was a big part of what I was used to, and I missed that. And so being near a beach, the sand and the water was really important to me. So I think picking the location that does the best for you most of the time is really important, that it's worth some time sacrificing other things for. And that's something that I've always. I've always followed.

You know, that makes a lot of sense. I remember this was decades ago, but when I had just graduated from law school and I moved to New York City, I basically spent all of my puny income so I could live walking distance to Central park and so that I could also get to the west side highway, because just being able in the big city to get to some green space was critical. And you said that thing about it also has this sort of nostalgia thing of being able to be outside. Anything about your inside environment, like the way that you think about your workspace, or you might think about the kitchen or places where people want to be primed or prompted to be their best.

Yeah. So we mentioned earlier, especially if you're in a big city, it's useful to have something natural inside that environment. It could be, hopefully, a real plant, but if it's not real, a fake plant, anything that gives you the sense of that greenery and that nature, maybe even like a little fountain feature, just a little thing that you plug in and maybe has a light and a little bit of running water. Even the sound of running water reminds you of all these things. And I had the same experience in New York. I was always in Central park or running on the west side. And so to the extent that you can bring these features into your home, there's a huge amount of benefit to that. I think, for me personally, and this varies, but I think the lack of clutter that you create in a place is really an important source of well being. So for me, trying my best, and this doesn't always happen, but trying to remove clutter from an environment, especially where I'm trying to think, is really important. I think that's a really good way to think about doing your best work in general, that having blankness in front of you and just moving forward and pouring out your ideas is the best way to go without being infringed upon by other things that are in the environment around you.

Why does lots of stuff around the environment where you're trying to work or focus impact your ability to do your best thinking?

Where every single thing, even if it's in a small way, is distracting. Everything draws you out of the here and now. Some things more than others. A smartphone, massively distracting for all sorts of reasons that are obviously even other objects. Like, if you have a memento that's in view, that's really nice. A picture of a loved one, that's really nice. But of course, if you stare at it, it's going to take you out of the here and now. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have photos of loved ones on your desk, but you should at least recognize that if there are a thousand different nice mementos around you, the clutter of that, while it's lovely and it brings back good memories, that's probably not the time and place to do it. So having clarity in front of you as you work, I think, is a really important driver of good ideas and creativity in general.

I'm sitting here thinking about my workspace at my home, and it is knick knack attack, like, everywhere. Like little stuff that I really love and means a lot to me. And I can tell you this is probably an indication of just how distracted I am, because I could look at my computer, and I've got, like, four little mason jars with all the pens in one and sharpies in another, and pencils. And then I got a photo of my mom and my grandmother, and then I've got a little compass my parents sent me, and then I've got a mug that Chris gave me. And then, I mean, it just. It's like a little zoo of objects.

If it makes you feel great, though.

I don't know that it does. I just feel like, holy cow. Even though I'm not staring at all this stuff, you're saying that subconsciously, your mind is still pulling it in. To some extent.

To some extent, it's processing things around you constantly. And so to the extent there are things around you all the time, you might ignore them consciously, right? But they're always there. They're always. The clutter is always there. And on some level, even if it's on a small level, each little thing is pulling you away in some small sense. And that's the opposite of what you need. Especially in the world that we live in now, where everything is so distracting, we're actually getting ten minutes of good, hard, quality work is vanishingly impossible.

That's it. Ten minutes.

I mean, it's very, very hard for a lot of people to work if you track them across the day, to get 1015, 20 minutes bursts of good, hard work. It's tough for a lot of us, especially if your phone is nearby, if your computer's dinging you with emails and things like that. It's really hard to do the same task for 20 minutes in a row.

In order to set up our conversation about these three simple decisions that will make you feel incredible. I just want to underscore how important it is that you don't just listen today, but that you take action and you try what I'm about to teach you. Because you don't change your life by just thinking about changing it. You change your life by doing something. And that's what we're going to talk about today. The decisions that you make to do something or nothing. And so many times in life, you will find yourself stuck in this gap between knowing what you need to do versus doing it. Knowing isn't enough. And I can give you a bazillion examples of this. You can know what you need to do in order to be healthier. You know that you need to exercise, yet you don't make the decision to do it. You may know that you need to work on your resume if you'd like to get a new job, yet you don't make the decision to sit down and work on it. You may know that you need to call a particular person back. It's going to be a difficult conversation.

You think about it all that, but you don't do it. There's this huge gap between knowing something and making the decision to do it. And one of the reasons why it can be really hard to bridge this gap is because you don't feel motivated. You don't feel motivated to exercise, you don't feel motivated to work on your resume. We're going to talk about the other reason why you can get stuck in this gap of knowing what you need to do but not doing it. And the reason why you can get so stuck is false confidence. You have this false confidence about what you're capable of or how your decisions are going to impact you. And I'm going to give you an example that I know that you are going to relate to, and then we're going to get down to the these three decisions and how false confidence is a part of this. It happens to me all the time. In fact, false confidence just swooped in and bit me in the rear end last week. Let me, let me tell you how it impacted my decision. So I was out in Vegas for work and I was there because I was giving a speech for Keller Williams a big real estate company.

There were 17,000 people in the audience. And after the speech and the meet and greet and all that stuff, my team and I, we went out and we had a great dinner together. We were celebrating. We were wrapping up a great week. And it was an early night. I love an early night. And so we all kind of piled into the uber and we were heading back to the hotel. And we were getting back to the hotel. It was only 08:45 p.m. i mean, that's kind of amazing. I'm not one of these people that needs to close down the night in Vegas. And I also had a plan. I had been looking forward to going up to my room after dinner, and I was going to run a hot bathe, and then I was going to soak in the tub. And the hotel that I stay in always gives you these little packets of salt. And so I can pour the salt in the tub and I can soak in the tub. And it's quiet in my hotel room. There's no dogs, no family. I can just relax and then I could pack up my stuff, you know, beforehand.

So then I would climb into bed, I'd get a good night's sleep, and then I'd wake up early enough to be able to get a workout in and still get out the door for my 06:30 a.m. flight. I mean, I was so excited. But as we're heading back to the hotel on the uber and we're cranking the tunes and the group was like, rocking on the high of an incredible week in Vegas and the great dinner that we had, I just didn't want the day to end. I mean, do you know how hard it is to say while you're getting out of an Uber? This is great. What a great week. I love you guys. I'm going to give you a hug right now because I got an early flight and I'm going to head upstairs. And, you know, in the long run, you know that saying goodnight is the best decision. Why? Because it's going to make you feel incredible tomorrow morning. But then someone in the group says, as you're pulling up to the hotel and you're starting to say goodnight.

What?

You're not going to bed, are you? Come on, we're in Vegas. Hang out a little. Let's have a nightcap. You've been in a moment like this a thousand times, haven't you? Do you stay out a little longer and hang out with your friends? Or do you call it a night and you get a good night's sleep now, sitting here listening to me, you're like, oh, you got a good night's sleep. No, you don't. No, that's not the decision that you make. Come on, let's weigh the options here. You're having a great night. Do you join your friends in having a drink or smoking a joint or eating that dessert? Or do you say no because you've either had enough or it's just not your thing? That's the decision. And the mistake that you and I make is we base the decision on how it's going to feel right now instead of making a decision based on how it impacts you in the long run. It is so easy to say, oh, you're right, I'll stay out a little bit longer. But easy decisions make your life hard. When you learn how to make a hard decision, life gets easier.

And that was the exact situation I was in last week in Las Vegas. I could have easily said, you guys go have some fun. I need to go to bed. I got an early flight. I wanna go take a bath. But see, here's what happened. False confidence comes swooping in. This is not about motivation. This is about false confidence. It swoops right in, in that moment when your emotions are all swirling around and you literally think that your decision in the moment will not impact you in the future. And as I say to my friends, oh, you're right, I'll just stay out a little bit longer. What happens? Oh, my God. Next thing you know, it's freaking midnight. You've talked about nothing. Your flight hasn't changed. It's leaving at 630 in the morning. You still have to pack. You haven't taken a bath. You're definitely not exercising in the morning anymore. But somehow when you said, oh, sure, I'll just stay out a little bit longer, you had this false confidence that you could somehow handle it all, that somehow time would freeze for you, you just, you awesome human being, Mel Robbins. And that this decision in the moment to just scrap all the plans that you had, its not going to impact me tonight or tomorrow morning.

That somehow, Mel, you're the only human being whos not going to be affected by staying up too late. Of course I was affected by this decision. I didnt take my bath. I still had to get up at 05:00 a.m. but this time not to exercise. I had to pack. I mean, I was racing around like a lunatic in that hotel room at 05:00 a.m. trying to get myself packed up so that I could catch the flight on time. I didn't feel incredible. I felt horrible. I was mad at myself. I had that feeling that I'm sure you felt before where you're, like, exhausted, and now you're on the way to the airport and you're like, why the hell did I do that to myself? I could have felt so different right now. And there are so many examples of false confidence. I mean, it's everywhere in life. And one other thing I want to underscore here is that it is so easy to see this in other people. Like, the true skill is catching it in yourself, which I did not do in Vegas last week. You can see it in other people. Like, for example, I'm sure you have a friend, we all have a friend who literally, you cannot understand why they continue to date losers.

People that treat them like garbage. And your friend will be like, I know, I know, I know. He doesn't give me the attention I deserve, but he's trying. He's trying to improve. And you can spot their false confidence a mile away. You're like, you're deluding yourself. You are not a special princess. You are not going to turn this frog into a prince. He is not going to magically turn from a person who treats you badly to a person who treats you well, and you know it. But you are falsely confident. Boom. You can see it in someone else. Maybe you spot this false confidence in your boss. Every time they walk into a meeting, they're like, so we're going to add this huge project to your workload and it's due in a month. And no, I'm not hiring anybody else, but we can get it done. You're thinking, what planet do you live on? Like, you are deluding yourself with this false confidence. Or your sister declares, I'm going to lose 30 pounds. But she's nothing changing her diet or exercising at all. I mean, based on the way the world works, that's not going to work.

But false confidence, it always convince you that the laws of nature and science and common sense, well, they don't apply to you. You can just declare this stuff and suddenly time shrinks, or your body does, or people magically change around you that even though it is the wrong decision or the wrong approach for anyone else on the planet to do it, somehow, somehow it's going to work for you. I mean, I do this all the time. I literally say, you know what? I think I'm going to clean out my closet over lunch today because I think I can get it done in 30 minutes. Oh, yeah, Mel. Exactly. You know what happens in 30 minutes? I tear everything apart, and then I've got a gigantic pile on the floor of my closet. False confidence is what created that. Yeah, Mel, you're the exception. You're the one person that can clean out an entire closet in 30 minutes flat and get everything hung up, color coordinated, and folded perfectly like you're at a store at the mall.

Mm hmm.

Time stops for you, Mel Robbins. A night of partying won't give you a hangover. Your metabolism is superhuman. This is false confidence. It's when you ignore common sense, the research, the science, what you know to be true. And, in fact, researchers and psychologists have a word for this because it's such a well established cognitive bias. It's called the over confidence effect. It's like this magic potion that we drink where you delude yourself into thinking, oh, you know, if I were given somebody else advice, I would tell them to go to bed at 845 so they can catch their flight and exercise and take a bath and get a good night's sleep. But if I am in the situation, I can make a decision, and those same rules do not apply to me, and they will not affect me. And I'm explaining this concept of false confidence because it's killing your mornings. I'm serious about this. False confidence is showing up in three places every single morning. And it's very sneaky, by the way. Very, very sneaky how this false confidence is showing up in derailing your mornings.

So we do believe, from a neuroscience perspective, that you have a tribe that influences your behaviors. So, for instance, if you're immediate friend group is overweight, then you're more likely to be overweight. And this is not because it's contagious in the sense of what we've discussed before, but because of what becomes socially acceptable. So, again, like, if most of your friends are really into exercise and healthy eating, then it's more likely that you're going to be like that as well. But there are some stats on social contagion that, for example, things like, if someone in your social circle gets divorced, you're more likely to get divorced. Now, again, it's not because it's contagious, but it's because if your relationship was already struggling, but everybody else in your group was married, and it felt shameful to be, you know, the one to break that, then if someone else does, it's almost like you then have a choice of either staying in a relationship that's not working or deciding that actually it's okay to. To end it.

Mm hmm.

Hmm.

Does it work in the positive meaning?

Yeah, absolutely.

Cause I tend to hear the examples of the negative, right. That if you are around smokers, you'll smoke. If you're on drinkers, you drink. But it works in the positive ways, too. As a neuroscientist, MD, PhD, is there anything that we can do to motivate or change other people? Is absolutely. Anyone capable of changing?

Yes. Any age, any stage, any mindset? And I get a lot of questions from people who are neurodivergent. And neuroplasticity literally is hope for people.

And what is the biggest barrier to somebody changing?

Not wanting to.

So when people are, like, when people come to you with excuses and time and self doubt and past stuff and neurodegenerative, like, every excuse in the book. Right. For you as a neuroscientist, it still comes down to not wanting to.

Well, you know, and that sounded very negative. So I'll give you, like, I actually.

Don'T think it did, because I. I believe you're saying something extremely profound and way deeper than a desire to change at the surface level.

Yeah.

Because you have very clearly stated, Doctor Tara, that from a neuroscience standpoint, absolutely. Any human being can change. Your brain structure can change in three different ways. Your brain can be rewired to align with the person that you want to become, the behaviors you want to exhibit, the mindset that you want to have. It is scientifically proven. It is possible. We have the evidence. There's no debate here. When you say the word whether or not somebody wants to, can we go about seven layers deeper and can you explain what you're talking about?

And that was very much the answer to the biggest barrier. So there are obviously other things as well. But it's easy to say not wanting to, but it's that there's a reason that deep down they believe that they shouldn't be doing this thing. And the cutest reason I can think of is when I was working with a dad who was a banker, and he had become quite overweight as well, and he wanted to get back to his running, which was like three times a week, half an hour. And he said to me, but, you know, Tara, I got married late in life, and we had a child later in life, and I feel terribly guilty about not spending all my spare time with my child. I work long hours already. And so I said, you know what? I completely get it. You would have to think that taking one and a half hours a week out of away from your son is going to make you a better dad. Otherwise you're never going to do it. And I'm not even going to try and help you to do that if that's what you believe. And he just suddenly said, of course it's going to make me a better dad because it's going to make me live longer.

Because right now in my state of health, I don't know if I'm even going to see him turn 18. And it was just like that. And I'm not saying I make that kind of change with my clients all the time, but I just knew there was no point trying anything else. If he thought it was going to make him a worse dad, he just was not going to do it. But when he had that insight himself, he started running and kept it up for a long time and lost all that weight. It was really lovely.

What you're basically talking about is having it tied to your deepest value. Yeah. In life. And that's a super clear example. Here's ways tactics that you can start to use in order to be more intentional and more influential in a virtual or remote or international work environment. Number one, create an influence map. And when you're thinking about it from a remote standpoint, don't just do two or three. I want you to think about all the people that you need to influence or you have an influence on. So people whose support that you need in order to get things done, people who you need to motivate, who are doing the work, people who you need to make sure know about you that are above you and what you're going to find when you create a global influence map of all the people that you need or that you impact with your work. Your influence is a lot bigger than you're giving yourself credit for. That's number one. Now, I want you to pick the top three people on that map that you want to create a stronger relationship with. And you're going to use the advice that I already gave you, which is you're going to send a morning text message or a morning.

If there's an internal slack channel, I don't know what y'all use, but if there's an internal sort of instant messaging platform, not email. An instant message. A good morning message. Good morning. And if it's a follow up from a conversation, if it's a check in about a project popping up first thing in the morning with a good morning email. Just wanted to say hello. Reminding you that I'm here, that will keep you top of mind. It's a way to create a water cooler moment when you're not face to face in an office. It will feel little odd when you first start doing it because you're not used to doing it. But trust me, that instant message first thing in the morning, just checking in. If it becomes a habit, you will create that consistent relationship and trust that's required for elevating your influence with that person. Another thing that you can do if you're managing remote teams. This is going to sound cheesy, but you could take a photo of yourself with your phone number and mail it to the people that you're trying to influence to remind them that if they need you, you're there to call you.

Because a lot of times if you're not top of mind, they forget about you altogether. So if there are people you need to influence that you wish, pick up the phone and call you. Put something physical in their space. Send them a card with your phone number on it, something they can put up to remind them that you are there to help. And finally, I'm a humongous fan of video messaging. Not video conference calls, I'm talking about video messaging. Take out your selfie camera on your cell phone and instead of sending somebody a voicemail, text them a video message of you filming yourself with a selfie. Something that you need, something you wanted to communicate, and then text it to them. Instant message them. It creates the real in person feeling. It's unexpected. It's fun. If you want to present something to somebody, use loom. Loom is a screen recording software where you can talk and you can record your own computer screen and walk somebody through a presentation and send it to them. Final thing, I've already mentioned this, but boy oh boy. Make sure you're checking in with the folks that you want to influence so that your work is strategically aligned with what actually matters and that your focus is strategic.

Do end of week recaps because that keeps you top of mind and is super helpful for the people that you're trying to influence. Solve big problems, raise your hand for big challenges. You do those things consistently and it will elevate your influence. Remember, you're not going to think your way to greater influence. You must act your way. There. You now have the five second rule, 54321. If it's uncomfortable to show up differently, use the five second rule to push yourself. Identify what you want people to say about you when you leave a room and how you want to make them feel. And then start acting like that person that you want to become. And if you need feedback because you're worried about your perception, go get it. Ask for specific examples about specific behavior. And don't forget the SKS rule. What do I need to stop doing? What do I need to keep doing? And what do you need me to start doing? You get all of that and you will have so much influence, you won't know what to do with it.

I need to throw this out there. We're going to start off with this New York Times bestseller again. Number two selling book on all of Amazon for the high five habit.

Now, how do you feel about hearing.

The impact and reach of this project?

Well, you know, it's interesting. I am really blown away and I am a person that is driven by impact. So it's wonderful that we've made the New York Times, but I would rather not make it if it meant that we would reach more people. You know what I mean? Like, I think those accolades from outside sources are absolutely amazing. In business. They're super important because if something like the New York Times gets you on their list, then more and more people find out about the book, more people write about it. But I am a entrepreneur that is driven by making an impact in a real person's life. And so what blows my mind is the fact that this book has only been out for three weeks and there are 128,000 people from 91 countries who have taken and completed a five day free challenge that I created as part of this book. And not a single person that has completed the five day challenge out of 128,000 people has said that they didn't feel something change in their life. And so knowing that that is what's going on. And look, I know that you're a 75 hard person.

My daughter and my husband. My husband's already completed it. He's now doing it a second time. Our 23 year old daughter is doing it. I understand challenges. I was more like a 75 ride along kind of person this time around. But I am so committed to getting the tools of this book into the hands of people. I got an email last night from a guy who wrote into our just the website randomly. You'll probably never see this, but people would be surprised to know I see everything because it's important that you measure what matters in your business and in life. And what matters to me is the impact. So I'm constantly looking at how is this impacting real people? So this gentleman is a truck driver who has lost like 300 pounds credits. The five second rule. Another tool that I invented with helping him change his habits. To do that, he has read the high five habit. He was writing about it on Facebook. Some woman that follows him randomly reached out for help. She had the bottle of pills in her hand, ready to end it. Overwhelmed by life, he used what he learned in chapter four, five, and six of this book, where I talk about something called the reticular activity system in your brain.

That's a filter that you can change in real time to help your brain work for you instead of against you. He used what he learned in those three chapters of the book, a truck driver with a high school education to help a woman through the worst moment of her life. And now she literally. Reading the book feels a totally different outlook because she has the tools to take control of her mind and take control of her default thinking, and that changes her entire experience of life. That is the shit that matters right there.

I love that.

It's interesting, as I'm listening to you, typically, you have people that are starting out, they say, document the journey to the top. And then there's people like, I'm at the top, and they're just sharing the top of the mountain. Here's what's up here, and it's cool. It almost feels like you're saying, I'm about to go through this process. I'm going to document the journey again. Knowing you and how you share and what you do, would that be accurate to say in some way?

Yeah. It's the only thing I know how to do. Like, I don't ever feel like I arrive anywhere. I am always, you know, given that, I feel like I'm more of an artist than anything else. And my medium just happens to be making videos, writing books, talking to people, soon to be podcasting as well. I. I think when I finally gave my permit myself permission to realize that being a businesswoman and a deal maker and being an artist are the two things that I love to do. And it means that I'm always going to be creating something. And with every project or every new thing that we take on, there's always something that you're going to learn. I mean, what's interesting and what I'm really proud of is that everything that I have done in the last ten years, I had never done before, ever. I didn't study to do this. I didn't. I let my curiosity and I let my desire lead. And so when I decided to write the five second rule book, I had never written a book. I literally wrote the book because so many people were emailing about my TEDx talk and asking questions.

I'm like, if I ever want to see my kids, I better write a damn book. And as I've already confessed to you, being dyslexic, really, really hard to do. So I self published that book. We self record the audiobook. I learn a tremendous amount in that process. I had never done projects for audible before. We just jumped in and figured it out when, you know, just three years, four years ago, I had 2000 followers on Instagram, and I started doing what Gary Vaynerchuk was doing. I just hired two really awesome, talented folks. They traveled with me. We documented everything just like you do. We started cutting it up, and we started, we didn't know what we were doing. And so one of the skills that I've developed that I love, and that will serve me forever, is that I love learning new things. I love trying new things. That's why I'm so excited about launching a podcast. It's brand new. I haven't done it before. And so before I do it, I'll become a student of it. And just like any good student, I will also probably be sharing my notes with other students, and I'll probably also be reporting back about what was on the test to other students.

And I'll probably also talk about what professors work and which thing happened, because that's just who I am. And so I wouldn't be able to do it any other way than to bring people along for the ride and share all the mistakes we made and all the kind of crazy things that we learned doing it that we didn't expect to learn.

Yeah. And I think that's probably why your mind is such a cool place to, like, listen, because I was at Napa, and I obviously just kind of mentioned person I was over hearing you talk to. I might have been Mel or might have been Dean, and just like, I was copiously taking notes like it was gold dripping out of your mouth, I'm like, what is write this. I got to talk to her privately and figure stuff out. It's just like. But you only get that because of the practice of going and doing new things or having some topic to talk about and the craft of explaining it in a way that engages humans, which is second nature to you now, which is, it's beautiful to watch, and I love how it flows out, which is cool.

And talking about one of the geniuses of your brain trucks and your son's brain is that when you're ADHD and if you then throw in, like, dysgraphia, dyslexia, executive functioning, any kind of other language processing thing. You tend to be an experiential learner. So, for me, reading about something isn't how I learn it. For better or for worse, I have to jump into the swimming pool and teach myself to swim tactile. And that's how I've gone about business. It makes for very painful mistakes, but it also makes for really accelerated learning.

Yeah. Do you find joy in that, though? Like, it's almost like. Is it, like, masochistic, borderline?

No. I feel the most alive when I'm learning something new or when I'm sharing what I've learned with somebody.

Gotcha.

If you want a different life, start making different decisions. Stop bitching about what's not working, and get to work working on it, to change it. You are in control of so much more than you are willing to admit. I'm not suggesting that it's easy to change your life. It takes time. It takes discipline. It takes commitment. It doesn't happen overnight. You got to fight for it. But you have a choice. Every morning when you wake up, you get a. You get this. You get a blank fucking page. You get to decide whether or not you're going to hit the snooze button five times and you're going to wake up a hot mess, and you're going to make all the same decisions that you made today. Or you can decide that today is the day I am changing my fucking life. Because I am changing the decisions and the patterns of behavior that I engage in. I am going to get up when the alarm rings instead of racing into my day late. I'm going to take a minute and make my bed because that one small thing of getting up when the alarm rings and then taking a minute and making your bed so that you have one thing done, so that you have one less thing of clutter.

And then I'm going to walk into my closet and pull on my exercise clothes because, damn it, I know I'm in a better mood when I take a walk outside. And once these clothes are on, it's one less thing that I need to do, and it's going to remind me. And then I'm going to walk into that mirror, that bathroom, and I am going to brush my teeth, and then I'm going to high five myself, even though I hate what I look like, even though I don't like what I weigh, even though I have so many bills to pay that it's overwhelming and I focus on the regrets. But I am going to high five myself because I am committed to silencing this shit in my head. I am tired of listening to my mother's voice. I'm tired of listening to my father's voice. If you want to change your life, you are going to have to fight like hand to hand combat all day long against the current patterns that you have that are making you miserable. And what are those patterns? Those patterns are criticizing yourself. Those patterns are focusing relentlessly on the things you're doing wrong or the one thing you didn't get to on your to do list.

Those patterns are picking yourself apart. Those patterns are focusing on the things that are in your way and complaining about the excuses. Those patterns are obsessing about the mistakes that you've made in the past. And what do you need to do to break these patterns? Well, by God, number one, you've got to stop labeling yourself and you've got to start identifying labeling the behavior that's making you feel broken. Number two, you need to start focusing on all of the amazing things you do right? You got up, you get a high five. You made your bed, you get a high five. You brush your teeth, you get a high five. You slapped some yogurt on that counter and those kids slapped it. You get a high five. Mandez, you let the dog out today. You get a high five. You responded to one text and what? You get a high five. You need to start to focus on everything that you're doing right. Another thing you need to do, you need to stop obsessing about the past and look ahead and figure out what you want the future to look like. Because your future will not be different unless you make it different.

And finally, finally, finally, you have got to start celebrating, supporting and encouraging the woman you see staring back at you every morning in the mirror. Changing your life is one of the most important and challenging and difficult and profound things that you could ever do. And nobody's going to do it for you. You got to make a decision that you deserve to be happy. You can change these patterns of behavior and thinking that make you feel broken. And it begins with how you treat the woman in the mirror. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, by God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family. I love you. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.