Vanessa Van Edwards: The Weird Trick That Makes People Like You
In a Nutshell
Master conversationalists use a three-level blueprint—Level 1 (hunt for stories with questions like "What's your personal passion project?" or "Any fun plans coming up?"), Level 2 (dream building about goals and worries), and Level 3 (self-narratives)—instead of dead-end fact questions like "How are you?" or "What do you do." The most effective people create information gaps, speak in 15-45 second turns, and focus on being interested rather than interesting to trigger dopamine and connection. Charisma comes from signaling warmth first, then competence, while avoiding conversational narcissism through assertive curiosity about others.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Non-verbal cues indicate someone is checking out if they are opening their mouth as if to say something. This is called the open fish, a subtle cue that you talk too much. A recent study found that 95% of people have worked with someone who talks too much. There is a do you talk too much test with five questions, and if you answer more than three times, you're probably an overtalker.
The last 20 years have been spent studying master conversationalists. Conversation is the vehicle to get what you want. As a recovering awkward person, bad conversation was a struggle for a long time. The next generations will be talking to technology more than they talk to humans. Because we're having less conversations, one in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness. Voice notes are being sent more frequently, but 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 is a blueprint to good conversation, and once you know the blueprint, it becomes easier. Three different speed networking experiments were devised with 500 speed networkers. The best conversation starter was actually what was the highlight of your day? The moment how are you and what do you do are asked, people run out of things to talk about. The worst question in the history of conversations is but there is also a formula to immediately bypass that small talk. There is a secret door to charisma, and there are five archetypes that will impact getting a promotion and finding your soulmate.
A lot of focus goes on the first impression, but the end is not really thought about. A framework was discovered for this.
58% of people watching right now are not yet subscribed to the channel. Conversation skills are career insurance. People like to work with people who are great at conversation. People like to be with people who are great at conversation. People like to date people who are good at conversation. In this age of tremendous technological change, the people who are masterful at conversation are going to have an advantage. This book was written right now because we are slowly losing our ability to connect. This is the last generation that will learn about conversation via human. The next generations will be talking to technology more than they talk to humans.
It is possible to be great at conversation. Conversation is the vehicle to get what you want. If a promotion is wanted and you can chat with your boss where they connect with you, you're more likely to be thought of for that promotion. If you want to meet your soulmate, you have to have deep, connected, meaningful conversation to truly get to know each other. If you are lonely, finding friends that are actually fulfilling and give you the joy of conversation is going to give you a longevity boost. The mistake that has been made is thinking of conversation as extra. Leaders focus on their idea, on their technology, on their business, but they forget about the human element. Conversation should be thought about almost like going to the gym. Physical health is focused on a lot, but social health is critical to emotional health. If conversation reps are being done, if you can truly become good at conversation, and conversation is a skill to learn. It is not something you're born with or not. You can learn to be good at conversation. It is the one skill that keeps on giving.
There are symptoms of being a bad conversationalist. The wrong way to approach conversation is trying to impress, not discover. If you're trying to impress people, conversation becomes performative. That is so deeply unfulfilling. That is when small talk becomes soul crushing. Master conversationalists have been studied for the last 20 years. Master conversationalists live differently in the world. They are not only more joyous, but they're also more confident. They're more authentically assertive. They get more energy from interactions, whether they're an introvert or extrovert, because their conversations are giving them energy, not taking energy.
The symptom of bad conversation is you dread it. Dread is a really important emotion. If you open your calendar and you see only dread or you feel only dread, there's something wrong. Conversation boosts us, gives us energy. You feel dread in social interactions. You feel overwhelmed when you're in conversation. If you're in conversation and you're social overthinking, you cannot turn your brain off. All you're worried about is what you're going to say next. It's actually just because you probably haven't learned the mechanics of conversation blueprint. There's a blueprint to good conversation. Once you know the blueprint, it becomes easier. The last symptom of bad conversation is that you leave feeling misunderstood. You leave feeling like you were the worst version of yourself or you weren't able to be your best self. Really good conversationalist people leave conversation with them thinking, wow, after talking to you, I feel like I understand myself better. That's a very different way of thinking about wanting to impress somebody.
Accidentally research has been done for this whole life because conversation was very bad for 20 years. Then 20 years ago, it was realized that there are these hidden blueprints behind our interactions. It wasn't quite sure what they were but it could be seen that very good conversationalists were following some kind of plan. Then eight years ago, this is when the real research began. It started with an experiment called the speed networking experiment. This fundamentally changed the way conversations are thought about.
Three different speed networking experiments were devised with 500 speed networkers. They were brought into rooms with cameras set up in all four corners of the room because good conversation looks different. Really good conversation has a lot of gestures, a lot of leaning, high energy, vocal charisma, the volume goes up. In a bad conversation, it sort of sounds like it has very low energy, like apologetic facial expressions, like low volume. Six conversation starters were assigned to these networkers. Three of them were thought could do really well and three of them weren't sure about. They wanted to see.
Six conversation starters were given and after each timed conversation they were asked to rate the quality of it. One being that was the worst most awkward conversation I've ever had to five being that was the best conversation I ever had. I want to marry this person or I want to connect with them on LinkedIn. All these ratings were taken and ranked and there were clear winners and clear losers. The losers, the conversations that produced the worst connection, the most awkwardness were the last choice.
The fifth worst was a typical question you ask in the first minutes. The sixth was something about the weather. What do you do was the worst. How are you and what do you do are very socially scripted. The moment those questions are asked, our brain goes into autopilot. There's a lack of excitement in the conversation and they ran out of things to talk about. They're fact-based questions and this is the trap of what we'll call level one conversation which is you are trapped in fact. Where are you from? Got any kids? Married? The facts are dead ends. It's very hard for someone to break out of that fact because they're stuck in that social script.
The best conversation starter was actually a sneaker. It was, what was the highlight of your day? What this question does psychologically, it sounds casual. First of all, it's not too deep. A mistake that extroverts can make is they ask too deep too question too quickly. They ask what is your greatest goal in life and you're like, 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. You're literally inviting their brain to think like what was good and then they think well highlight of my day. So autopilot was just broken. The moment someone goes oh and they're thinking for the first time their brain goes oo we get to do something new. So they got to think of something new and it was immediate like it wasn't like a too big of 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're going to reframe it in something exciting. And if someone isn't defined by what they do, they're going to share something better. The third question, very, very simple, was do you have any fun plans coming up? These questions, the three first three are literally searching for good. You're inviting other person to only think about good things and we're juicing excitement for other parts of their life.
The fourth question, the middle one, almost broke the data. This fourth question, people either loved it or they hated it. They either gave it a five, that was like the most connective thing I felt all week, or a zero. And a zero wasn't even an option on the scale. It was the question, what's your story? Extroverts tend to default to that question because they want to go a little bit deeper. But actually that is a level three question. It is way too advanced for someone who's introverted or someone who has never like framed their story that quickly. They're immediately put into cortisol. They're immediately put into fight or flight. They're like what's my story? Like how can I give that to you so quickly? So you're by accident putting them into conversational fear. This is when it was realized there's a hierarchy. We have to move through our conversations with different levels.
Dr. Dan McAdams found that conversation is actually not as fluid as we would like to think. That actually when we're trying to connect with someone else, we are trying to move through three distinct levels. Level one is called general traits. This is why in those first few minutes you're basically trying to Google fact check someone like where are you from? What do you do? Married? Where do you live in LA? You're trying to ask all those questions because there's a sort of social hierarchy. Our brain processes social facts from least intimate to most intimate. So we cannot get to know someone on their deepest dreams and worries if we don't know the basic facts about them. So that is why we often fall into that trap of those fact-based questions. The key here is that really good level one question is taking those facts but adding story but adding emotion. The best way to do level one better is you're swapping out those bad questions. How are you? What do you do with looking for a story. A fact is a stop sign. A story is a doorway.
What's your personal passion project is actually a hunt for stories. It can come in the first few minutes. Everything shared takes a little bit of conversational courage. It's really safe to ask how are you. It's really safe to ask what do you do. But if you want to be memorable, if you want to actually spark connection, those won't serve you. It does take a little bit of courage to ask this but the answers you're going to get are incredibly interesting. You're going to get stories. You're going to get a hint at values. If you want to know if they're married or have kids, they probably will tell you by accident. So it's like a hunt for stories. Same with, working on anything exciting these days. This is again one of the favorite swap questions because you're hunting for something good.
When thinking about conversation in level one, you're trying to gift someone a chemical cocktail a little bit. In level one, these two questions are doing a lot of heavy lifting. They are now competing with your feed. Conversation now is not just about a way for me to make friends. It actually has to compete with that feed. Questions and answers have to be so dopamine worthy that they're actually going to beat that feed. Otherwise, they're going to go right back to their phone. That is why these have to do more lifting. Because if you want to compete with the feed, you have to produce dopamine, a little bit of excitement, a little bit of motivation. You also have to create what would be called conversational confetti. We got to lift a little bit more in our conversations because otherwise someone's going to go right back to scrolling. Their brain is somewhere else. Either their brain is in their email list or their brain is on their feed.
One of the people studied is Howard Stern. However you feel about Howard Stern, he is a master conversationalist. He can carry on long very interesting conversations. He gets people to say things that could never be imagined. Thousands of transcripts of his interviews were analyzed and one pattern was found. He does a very good job of creating information gaps. He'll say, what's the weirdest thing you've ever done? Or he'll say, the most surprising thing I heard that happened to me yesterday. You want to hear what it was? And your brain doesn't like not knowing. So when it hears the most surprising, the weirdest, the biggest, the worst, the most embarrassing, the brain creates this gap. This is an information gap where the brain is like I have to know what is the weirdest thing. What happens with these kinds of questions is we're creating these little information gaps and actually saying and using in conversation these phrases is a way that we can create more intrigue and interest. If something crazy happened to you yesterday and you walk into dinner and you're like guys the craziest thing happened to me yesterday. Everyone's like phone's down. Right now, something boring couldn't be said. Something like I was stuck in traffic couldn't be said unless you want to be funny. Looking for opportunities to create that little bit of conversational confetti, they come up with questions like this.
Have any fun plans coming up? The reason why this one is important is have any fun plans coming up, is a subtle way to bring up potential shared future. Psychologically speaking, we bond with someone when we feel like we could do something fun with them or they're doing something fun that I would also like to do. Part of these questions is being known for asking better questions like being known for searching for hunt or hunting for excitement because what will happen is with people who know you at work or your work friends or outside of work friends is they'll bring these things to you. They know that you're going to ask about personal passions. So next time you get to say, hey, last time we were talking you mentioned XYZ. How's that going? So they also become your call backs. They make conversation easier later.
Two things can be true. It's very exhausting in the sense of you're trying, we're putting energy into conversation, but it's also exhausting to have really shallow small talk. It's exhausting to stand at an event or be smoozing with people backstage and be talking about nothing. You can choose to have very boring, predictable conversation where you're less memorable and they're less memorable and you're just waiting to get home to Netflix. Or you can choose the heart of I'm gonna break a script, I'm gonna try to do level one better, I'm going to try to trigger a little bit of dopamine, I'm going to try to learn something that I didn't know before, which is going to maybe, just maybe, bring joy. If you get a really great answer, there are two sides of conversation, talking and asking. Even for those introverts, they have really, really big goals in their life that they care about.
For founders and CEOs specifically, there is a mistaken belief. They believe that conversation is anti-productive. They worry that they don't know if they want their employees to talk a lot. They can't waste time on small talk. The research shows the opposite. Connected people collaborate better. Engaged employees work better together. We are more productive when we feel good. The key word here is friction. When you have a company that has a lot of communication friction, you have employees who doubt themselves. You don't have psychological safety. They have a really hard time brainstorming. You have people who withhold information. You have more information silos. Communication friction costs companies money. If you have a community of employees who have very easy level one, they don't need to get to level three with everyone in your company. You don't need to get to level three with your Uber driver. But if you have really easy small talk, easy banter where someone knows, oh yeah, I know exactly what their personal passion project is. I know who they are. I know what fun plans they have coming up. The first 5 minutes of your meeting becomes not only frictionless but actually pleasurable. People show up on time. People are more productive. People want to be there because they actually want to connect and collaborate with her and this is remote or in person, because they know they have these very loose ties and loose ties actually make us more productive. We are looking for frictionless communication and that happens at level one. Work conversations should be really ideal level ones.
This is the fastest way to get to connection. These CEOs or founders or busy people generally are very time poor. They don't have 30 minutes to move their way to connection. These are shortcuts. It's way worse for a co to be like, shoot, I've been told I better be warmer. A lot of students are brilliant, very talented, very smart, but a little awkward and want to get it done. They're much more focused on the confidence and the warmth. So they try to do warmth because they feel like they should. And they're like, how are those kids? And then it's like a social script. Good. Or how are you? Good, busy, busy, but good. And they're like, it's not working. It was anti-productive. I'd rather you skip ahead. Make this
The recommended team intervention is to start meetings once a week with "tell me something good," where everyone shares one win or something good. This takes less than 3-5 minutes depending on team size. The purpose is creating a safe, contained space for positive level one conversation, preventing accidental complaints about weather or traffic. The time-boxed format creates team connections through a framed positive structure.
All level one questions have one thing in common: they provoke a positive search and response. However, toxic positivity can kill conversational vibe quickly. The actual goal is emotion and story, not always positivity. When someone says they don't have a personal passion project, this presents an opportunity to connect even better. Sometimes the goal is authentic emotions and ideally story, rather than forced positivity.
Jerry Seinfeld uses a conversational trick for awkward meetings after events where people are starstruck. Instead of asking "how are you" or "where do you live," he asks numbers-based questions like "How long have you two been together?" If the answer is 38 years, he follows with "What's been the highlight of your 38 years?" If short, he comments they're in the honeymoon phase. This works well for introverts and CEOs because it's fact-based and serves as a jumping-off point to story.
Level one focuses on general traits and basic connections. Level two involves personal concerns where deeper connection happens through motivations, goals, values, and worries. The mistake people make is skipping level one and going too deep too quickly, which can feel invasive or like an interrogation. Level one must be done well rather than on autopilot.
At a party where attendees were instructed not to talk about what they do, the constraint forced more creative questions. The realization was that many conversations default to work topics. This led to the question "What do you talk about when you don't talk about work?" The insight was that really good conversation doesn't have to stick to boring topics or work - it can be about anything engaging or exciting in the moment.
Level two is called personal concerns and involves motivations, goals, values, and worries. You're on level two with someone if you know what gets them up in the morning (their driving goal) and what keeps them up at night (their worries). Level two is about making someone feel heard and understood, different from discovering treasure in level one.
Dream building is the biggest skill in level two - helping uncover someone's secret desire, secret dream, secret side hustle, or secret passion. Two frameworks include: pet projects (things someone dreams about and hopes to achieve) and pest projects (worries that carry shame). On level two, people need to feel safe enough to expose what they feel shame about, while pet projects involve things they have pride in.
"What have you always wanted to learn?" triggers growth mindset and asks if someone is willing to grow. "What's your biggest goal right now?" can be time-anchored around birthdays, New Year's, new quarters, or performance reviews. When people think about their future self, it activates motivation. Level two gives someone permission to bring privately motivated goals into conversation, making you an ally.
If someone doesn't want to talk, respect that boundary. Asking level one and level two questions are like bids to see if connection is possible. If someone doesn't take the bait, it's okay - they're not your person or it's not their day. Having courage to be disliked means you can try your best without wasting energy on unwilling participants.
Questions are suggestions, not prescriptions. They should be modified to fit the situation - for book signings, ask about learning or favorite parts; taxi drivers can ask if passengers are heading anywhere exciting. The goal is making research applicable with flexibility rather than rigid application.
You don't need to know if you'll care before asking a question. Sometimes you ask and then discover deep resonance with the answer. Many pivot points in business come from random conversations where the right question led to brilliant advice. If you're asking the question, you care enough to try. Leaders who know they need to be warm even if they don't feel it have sufficient intent.
Boring questions make you boring, but boring questions asked of you are opportunities to surprise and delight by breaking the script. When asked "What do you do," give an answer that explains exactly what you do plus a hook creating a curiosity gap. Avoid jargon-filled, formal, or complex answers that sound like reading a resume.
The recommended formula is: "I do [blank] for [who] by [how]." This gives people a clear label to put you in a box (which brains need), answers who you can help, and includes the how. For multi-hyphenates, you can say you daylight as one thing and moonlight as another, or explain career pivots using hero story format.
The Cander Corpus research shows typical conversational turns should be 15-30 seconds. 45 seconds is acceptable, but longer becomes a monologue. Under 15 seconds might create conversational scarcity. Podcast conversations are not real conversations - they're interviews that are performative and don't follow natural mechanics. Voice notes are monologues that lack back-and-forth interaction and represent the most selfish form of conversation.
Our muscle for conversation has been atrophying with asynchronous communication. Only three in 10 Americans socialize on a daily basis, meaning people are having more time alone and conversing less. This is because work can be done asynchronously, and people spend so much time on self-care, longevity, and workouts that they are doing less with other people. One in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness, and this is because people are having less conversation.
When conversations do happen, they are often asynchronous. People are now talking to technology more than talking to each other. This is different from talking through technology. People talk to technology in ways they would never talk to other humans, but our brain doesn't always know the difference. This contributes to the atrophy of conversational muscles.
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.
To know if you are the person that talks too much, first go back to recorded Zoom calls and time yourself. The appropriate amount is 15 to 45 seconds, with 45 seconds being the maximum.
A non-verbal cue that someone is checking out is if they are opening their mouth as if to say something. This is a subtle cue that someone wants a turn but they are going to wait. This is called the "open fish" cue, meaning they want a turn.
Some people are on the more sensitive end of the scale where they are almost watching what the other person is doing. They are surveilling for cues that they are doing a good job or that they want them. Other people don't even notice these cues.
There are two types of conversational people: entertainers and appreciators. Entertainers want to entertain. They speak longer so they are 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 is that 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.
Appreciators talk less. They love to laugh at other people's stories. They love to hear interesting, awe, weird, surprising, embarrassing things. They are much more hesitant to open up about themselves.
When approaching VIPs or bosses, people typically try the same approach: either a compliment or a question. However, this approach often fails. The key is to know whether you are talking to an entertainer or an appreciator. Entertainers want questions, but appreciators want people to tell them stories. They don't want a lot of questions.
Conversational narcissists are people who will walk themselves up all three levels of conversation. They will answer for themselves in level one. They will tell you all about their goals and the deepest things that you did not want to know. This is called verbal vomit, where someone won't stop talking and tells you things you didn't even want to know.
Conversational narcissism comes from insecurity. These people are trying to impress you. They are trying to find something to raise your eyebrows, but they don't realize that the more they talk, the more the other person wants to leave.
Research with a couple thousand people found that the greatest conversational fear is awkward silences or not knowing what to say. This was ranked higher than rejection or judgment. Four thousand people reported their biggest conversational fear as running out of things to say.
Conversational narcissists can recover by being assertively curious about the other person. This involves asking the what, the how, the why, the when. This assertive curiosity digs into topics rather than just saying "tell me more."
If someone knows they talk too much, the issue might be that the other person is not giving them enough to be curious about. Asking "Are you curious about me or do you not feel the curiosity?" can help assess whether there is actual curiosity present.
In long-term relationships like friendships and marriages, people can get into conversational ruts where they only talk about logistics. A framework to break this rut is to ask all nine questions together. This creates turn-taking and tests whether there is actual curiosity in the relationship.
The key to great conversations is being interested, not interesting. Dale Carnegie allowed thinking about being less selfish in conversation. When going into conversation thinking about how to be impressive, smart, and funny, this creates pressure and is selfish. Instead, the focus should be on how to put the other person at ease, how to make them feel like they can impress you, and how to be interested to make them interesting.
Conversational generosity means that if someone is overtalking, you can be generous enough to either ask for a turn or let them entertain you if they are entertainers, or to ask even more questions.
A study found that the most popular kids were the kids who had the longest list of people they liked. If you want to be likable, you have to go around assertively and aggressively liking as many people as possible. Going into conversations thinking "How could I like you?" leads to asking questions that set people up to be likable.
When dealing with conversational narcissists, asking more questions and setting them up to entertain can help calm them down. Making them feel understood, chosen, and loved can address their insecurity.
Conversational narcissists step more into the behavior with certain people, particularly those they want to be understood, chosen, and loved by.
Making the driver of the conversation feel like a bad driver makes them get even more tense and worse at conversation. The opposite of dream building is dream killing, which is when we shut down a dream and make someone feel not liked or not understood.
Very smart people have an accidental effect where they dream kill with logic. This is called fact-checking instead of gut-checking. When constantly fact-checking and accuracy-killing before someone is ready, this creates conversational scarcity that makes them feel they have to prove themselves and talk more to convince you.
Very smart people think about their ideas, knowledge, and facts. However, competence without warmth is likely to leave people feeling suspicious. You can be incredibly smart, but if you cannot manage the mechanics of connective conversation, people feel suspicious. This literally triggers a part of their brain that goes "I don't know about this person."
Level one conversation is critical because it creates ease, which is another way of saying warmth. The goal is to make someone feel like they can be understood, and if they are understood, they are chosen, and if they are chosen, they are loved.
The sixth question is a signature question based on reverse engineering what you love to talk about in conversation. Instead of focusing on what someone loves to hear, the approach is to identify topics you naturally love discussing and craft questions that invite others to share in those areas.
For someone who loves psychology and behavior, the signature question would involve behavioral questions like "Why did you make that choice?" or "What made you choose that path?" This technique applies across contexts including work interviews, dinner conversations, and general social interactions.
Behavioral interviewing focuses on questions that reveal actual behavior rather than prepared opinions. A common mistake is asking "What's your greatest weakness?" which elicits rehearsed answers. Instead, ask "What would your last manager say is your greatest weakness?" This forces the person to step outside themselves and provide more authentic responses.
Another technique is asking for recency in examples. Rather than "Tell me about a recent time that you managed a project," ask "Tell me about the most recent time you managed a project, within the last 3 months." This prevents people from selecting their best rehearsed example and provides more genuine information.
Successful people often have signature questions. Amy Polar asks "What are you laughing about? What's making you laugh recently?" at the end of her podcast. Jenny Urick, who runs the "A Thousand Hours Outside" challenge, asks "What was your favorite outdoor memory?" These questions align with their passions and create natural conversation flow.
The signature question can change based on current interests. When researching cues, it was "Who's the most charismatic person you know?" When researching body language, it was "What's your favorite body language cue?"
A self-assessment test determines if someone is an overtalker through five questions. If someone answers "often" to more than three questions, they are likely talking too much:
- I leave a conversation realizing I don't know much about the other person
- After I finish speaking, people nod politely but don't always respond
- I love telling long detailed stories, especially when people are too polite to interrupt
- I've been told gently or not so gently that I talk a lot
- While I'm midstory, I notice people glance around the room sometimes
All questions secretly assess whether someone is curious enough. Curiosity is the antidote to overtalking.
The yap challenge tests appropriate speaking length by recording yourself teaching something or sharing an opinion without notes. Natural speaking should be 15-30 seconds, with 45 seconds as the maximum. Speaking for 1-2 minutes indicates talking too much. The challenge can involve sharing opinions on topics like veganism or any personal subject.
When someone asks for an Instagram handle instead of a phone number after meeting, there are competing perspectives. One argument suggests Instagram is less invasive and allows someone to earn the phone number. The counterargument states that Instagram is performative and curated, removing the joy of discovery through conversation. Having someone's Instagram creates pre-knowledge that makes first dates awkward because level one information is already known, making natural conversation flow more difficult.
The recommendation for single people is to stop asking for handles and ask for numbers instead, as dating apps provide limited information compared to endless social media feeds.
Level three conversations involve sharing self-narratives and are reserved for the most important people. Going too deep too quickly, especially at work, can be perceived as weird and may result in vulnerability regret. Vulnerability regret occurs when someone shares something too vulnerable that wasn't received well or shared in a safe space.
Self-narrative refers to the story people tell themselves about themselves and how they make sense of their journey and purpose. There are two types:
Redemption narratives involve framing life experiences as overcoming hardship through hard work, grit, and resilience. People with redemption narratives repeat this pattern across work, love, and parenting.
Contamination narratives involve feeling that hardship happens to them without the ability to overcome. People with contamination narratives see themselves as victims of circumstance and feel unlucky and out of control.
People with redemption narratives live longer, have better immune systems, better connections, and feel happier because they possess an internal locus of control.
People leak their narrative type through conversation patterns. Contamination narratives often use superlatives like "always" and "never," and express that "everything bad always happens to me." Redemption narratives express feeling lucky, seeing silver linings, and believing "good things always happen to me."
Internal locus of control means feeling agency over decisions and circumstances. People believe they can decide how to interact with whatever happens to them.
External locus of control means getting worth from outside sources like validation from others, likes, follows, or compliments. People look externally for feelings of success and worth.
The concept can be understood through the analogy of being either a bird (with agency to go anywhere) or on a roller coaster (on a fixed track regardless of personal actions).
Asking "Are you lucky?" serves as a sneaker question that reveals significant information. Quick affirmative answers indicate high gratitude, agency, and confidence. Hesitant or negative responses suggest different narrative patterns. The speed of response matters as much as the content.
When someone expresses that they do not feel lucky, avoid trying to change their perspective through toxic positivity or telling them to think of things to be grateful for. This approach typically causes people to dig in and feel misunderstood. Instead, engage with curiosity by asking questions such as: Why do they feel this way? What forces are at play? When did this perspective develop? Did they ever feel lucky before? Some people flip from feeling lucky to unlucky after experiencing a very bad circumstance, making it crucial to understand their viewpoint before making judgments.
Asking someone "Do you think you're lucky?" reveals significant information about their character. A "yes" answer typically reveals their gratitude, perspective on life, internal locus of control, and often indicates they are an optimist. The question can also reveal whether someone is a realist who objectively recognizes their fortunate circumstances. Understanding someone's luck perspective enables prediction of their behavior in relationships, friendships, and work environments.
A third response category emerges when someone answers the luck question with "kind of" or "I'm not sure." This response indicates they are probably not very introspective, or they have never considered the question before. When asked this question, some people will literally reanalyze their entire life in the moment. This information is valuable in relationships if introspection is a core value. Alternatively, this response can indicate they do not feel safe yet, suggesting the conversation moved to deeper levels too quickly, or they have shame about something in their past they are not ready to share.
Richard Wiseman has conducted extensive research on luck, developing a 10-question diagnostic luck test. While this research exists, what has not yet been studied is how someone's answer to the luck question predicts outcomes in their life, such as income levels, age correlations, or whether they are children of privilege.
People who answer "yes" to being lucky generate their own good fortune through specific behaviors. They demonstrate lower anxiety, higher extraversion, tendency to talk to many people and form numerous friendships and relationships, high openness to experience, and relentless optimism.
Feeling lucky is considered more empowering than gratitude, which can sometimes feel shaming. Feeling lucky is described as healing and fulfilling, providing an investment in happiness. Workshops focused on helping people harvest their own feelings of luck have been considered as valuable interventions.
Self-authorship involves recognizing the difference between facts and the frame through which they are viewed. The way to begin rewriting personal stories involves asking questions about where certain ideas originated and what evidence supports them. Facts may be present, but the frame applied to them can differ significantly.
Breakup stories reveal contamination or redemption narratives. In contamination narratives, people describe how a breakup "nearly destroyed" them, stating they "don't trust men anymore" or "don't trust women anymore," feeling like "a shell of themselves" with the negative impact remaining permanent. In redemption narratives, people acknowledge the breakup was horrific but state it made them stronger, helped them learn who not to choose, and resulted in anti-fragility.
Five distinct archetypes of personal narratives have been identified through analysis of hundreds of stories. These archetypes represent fluid ways people see their stories at any given moment, distinct from stable personality types like Myers-Briggs or Enneagram. These archetypes impact conversational patterns, relationship patterns, work behavior, views of effectiveness and efficiency, and interpersonal attraction both platonically and romantically.
The ambitious hero has faced challenges and obstacles but feels their grit and resilience enabled them to overcome. Their internal monologue focuses on "I got this," "hustle more," "bigger, more," and constant improvement. They experience shiny object syndrome, frequently starting new initiatives before completing existing ones. They can burn out from productivity perspectives and may burn others out by trying to bring them along at their pace. Ambitious heroes are often accused of hustle culture.
One method for identifying archetypes involves asking what character from books, movies, or TV shows someone most relates to, focusing on life choices, personality, and core values rather than physical appearance. The "why" behind their choice reveals critical information about how they view themselves. AI can assist in brainstorming character matches by providing descriptions of personality traits, core values, and relationship patterns.
The contented pragmatist likes things as they are and feels quite content without needing change if something is not broken. They value habit, ritual, and tradition. They struggle when pushed to try harder or do more, responding that life is good as it is. They are often seen as unambitious but are actually quite content. In relationships, they remind ambitious heroes to enjoy current achievements rather than constantly pursuing the next goal. They excel at savoring life's pleasures and honoring what works.
Different archetypes serve different workplace functions. Ambitious heroes thrive in growth roles and change-oriented industries but may struggle in stable, regulated environments like banking or finance. Contented pragmatists perform well in traditional industries with significant regulation, serving effectively in fiduciary roles where conservative approaches are valued. They maintain stability without making unnecessary changes.
The selfless helper's entire narrative centers on giving and being of service. They typically choose careers as teachers, coaches, trainers, nurses, or doctors. They struggle with worthiness when not helping others, leading to compassion burnout and compassion fatigue. They have difficulty saying no, struggle with boundaries, and often put themselves last. Many parents flip into this archetype after having children. They can attract high conflict people and may be manipulated into doing others' "dirty work" through emotional seeding.
High conflict people comprise approximately 10% of the population according to Bill Eddie's research. They thrive on drama, create difficulty in relationships, prefer difficult conversations, think in absolutes with no nuance, and weaponize emotions. Some use psychology to manipulate others and may enable selfless helpers to fight battles on their behalf.
Selfless helpers often struggle to share their own needs because they worry it's selfish. The greatest gift in conversation with them is letting them know their needs are important and getting to know them is not taking from you but giving to you. The key message is that it makes you feel good to help them and hear about what's going on for them.
In corporate settings, managers who are selfless helpers are often excellent at bringing out performance because they understand ROI and metrics while being attuned to how each person needs to be helped. However, they tend to be conflict avoidant. The most effective managers learn to be assertive and frame difficult feedback as wanting to help the person succeed.
Creative disruptors are the most challenging archetype to discuss positively. They do not like rules and their entire ethos is breaking things. They want to disrupt, go anti-norm, and be countercultural. They don't need a blueprint and often challenge assumptions in conversation.
These individuals are often the most creative thinkers who challenge the way things have always been done. The problem is that their behavior can rub people the wrong way, and some thrive on conflict because it's fun for them. Litigators and very disruptive entrepreneurs often fall into this category.
Edward Snowden is given as an example of someone who wanted to change something while also wanting to break the system he was in. In conversation, creative disruptors are good to have around because their default is to challenge, which helps refine points of view, but they can also be exhausting and sometimes pessimistic.
The unlucky struggler has a contamination narrative where they feel unlucky no matter what they've done. They often feel stuck, misunderstood, and overlooked. George Castanza from Seinfeld is the character example - someone for whom everything is bad.
These individuals can be hilarious and tortured simultaneously. Some of the best comedians are unlucky strugglers because they can make fun of themselves with humility and low self-esteem. The challenge for ambitious heroes is not trying to convince them they're actually lucky or flip them into something they're not.
The peak end effect means people remember the first few minutes and last few minutes of a conversation most vividly. The graceful exit formula is: future Q plus compliment or action. A future Q asks about or mentions something coming in the future, shifting the brain from "here" to "later."
The exit voice is crucial - using a tone that signals the conversation is ending. Non-verbal cues include taking a step back and angling the body towards the door. Actions like "I'm going to go grab more coffee" or "I'm going to go say hi to the host" provide concrete exit strategies.
Being assertive with exits prevents lingering awkwardness, which is described as "kryptonite for charisma."
Aura and riz describe someone you really want to be around - when they walk into a room, you want to talk to them, sit near them, listen to them, work with them, and play with them. An eight-year-old was able to identify charismatic kids in her class using this definition.
Being easy to talk to is the foundation. People like those who clearly signal they like them. The signal amplification bias means people think they're being obvious with their liking cues when they're not actually being obvious enough. The liking gap shows that people underestimate how much others like them.
Warmth and competence form 82% of impressions. Charismatic people first signal they're open and friendly, then signal they're capable and effective. Every human being tries to answer two questions when meeting someone new: Can I trust you? Can I rely on you?
Trying to be impressive by sharing accolades and background creates distance. At a VIP party where everyone was trying to sound impressive, sharing vulnerability about being a "recovering awkward person" who helps smart awkward people made the speaker the easiest person to talk to. Everyone after her said they were also "recovering awkward people."
Most people came over to talk about awkwardness rather than to the billionaire or cancer cure inventor. The most impressive people are often quite humble and downplay their success.
People with strong presence seem to take up more space and speak slower. Physically, they claim more space between their ears and shoulders, and between their torso and arms. This includes micro-movements like a slight down of the shoulder and slight up of the head.
Maximum resonance point is the lowest end of your natural vocal range that signifies pride and calm. When anxious, people tend to go higher in their vocal range and speak faster with less breath. Winners use maximum resonance point to project calm confidence.
A practical exercise involves taking a deep breath and saying "hello" at the top of the breath to practice using maximum resonance point.
People often begin Zoom calls by holding their breath and saying "Good morning" in a high, tense voice. The maximum resonance point occurs when speaking on the out-breath, which relaxes the vocal cords and produces a more confident, relaxed tone. The difference between "Hello" delivered high and tense versus delivered on the out-breath is immediately noticeable. People who use their maximum resonance point are listened to more and appear easier to talk to because listeners can hear their confidence and relaxation. Vocal cues are an important aspect of charisma, and how words are said is just as important as what is said. Lack of vocal care leaks through and tunes listeners out. Charismatic people imbue their voice with winning calm confidence.
Eye contact produces oxytocin, which is beneficial for connection, but prevents complex thinking. People naturally look away when trying to remember something or solve complex problems. In Western cultures, 60-70% eye contact is ideal rather than 100%. Less eye contact is appropriate when someone is deep thinking or social processing. Eye contact should be made most during the first few seconds of interaction for a burst of oxytocin, then it's acceptable to look away and process. Eye contact becomes most valuable when trying to assess how the other person is receiving information. This makes someone easy to talk to because noticing when someone lights up allows pivoting into that topic, while noticing negative reactions allows pivoting away.
Good listeners avoid interrupting with repetitive "yeah yeah yeah" responses. Some people nod and encourage, while others unconsciously scowl or show disgust micro-expressions. A friend's default disgust expression is actually a facial punctuator—a non-verbal habit that doesn't reflect actual emotion. All listening cues relate to warmth: nodding (noting that nodding means something different in India, Bulgaria, and Pakistan), head tilts as universal warmth signals by exposing the ear, and leans as both warm and competent signals. A lower lid flex is a competent listening cue indicating someone is trying to see something better and deeply understand. This is not positive or negative—it's simply a cue of intense focus. When presenting, noticing a lower lid flex provides a choice to either bookmark that point or stop for dynamic adjustment.
Being dynamic based on received cues is an underappreciated conversational skill. Having a plan shouldn't mean asking questions and mechanically checking them off. Plans should be flexible—asking about someone's personal passion project might lead to hours of engaging conversation. Both having a plan and being dynamic with it can coexist.
Everyone gets asked similar boring questions depending on their job, industry, and location. Writing down frequently asked questions and preparing better answers creates conversational gifts. The goal is crafting responses that prompt follow-up questions like "Me too," "Really," "What got you into that," or "Why did you do that." This makes answers both interesting and conversationally generous rather than creating dead ends. A friend who attended Bible school for three years always gets asked about it. Another friend who cannot smell or taste brings this up at dinners when asked about food, asking others what he should taste if he could, which creates memorable conversations that people remember and share.
The book is for people who dread small talk, networking events, talking to bosses, first five minutes of team calls, and first dates. First dates can be fun with a conversational plan. The deeper purpose addresses the loneliness epidemic—removing dread from conversation helps people feel less lonely through better human connection. The book is meant for this moment when AI and computers are reducing human conversation, and when children are struggling with basic conversational skills.
Moving for work meant sacrificing friendship and family relationships during children's early years. Being away from family when children were very young was difficult, lacking support from mother and sister during that period. The regret centers on time spent feeling alone as a new mom, which affected both the parent and children. The desire is to reclaim time for feeling more communal, as having a baby should be a beautiful experience shared with family and friends rather than a lonely one.
Keep The Diary Of A CEO in your library
Save the videos and channels worth coming back to, and find them again in one place.
