The key ideas

Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication

Vanessa Van Edwards, 2022

Why does one person with a good idea walk away without a deal, while another, with a similar idea, gets one? Vanessa Van Edwards studied hundreds of pitches and recordings and found the answer in cues: the small movements, tones, words and images we send out every second. You will learn what uncertainty sounds like, what makes you warmer and more convincing, and how to build your own charisma out of warmth and competence.

Who it is for

For people who go unheard in meetings even though they have something to say. For people who are seen as nice but never invited onto the big projects, or respected but a little feared. And for anyone who presents, sells or negotiates.

Learning cues is like finally speaking a foreign language that everyone around you already speaks.

A million in sales and no deal

In 2013, the inventor Jamie Siminoff went on the TV show Shark Tank. There, entrepreneurs ask well-known investors for money right in front of the cameras. Siminoff brought Ring, a smart doorbell with a camera. His sales had already passed a million dollars. And yet he left the studio without a deal. The product was good, as time would later prove. So what went wrong that night?

Vanessa Van Edwards is a behavioral researcher and the founder of the Science of People lab. With her team, she analyzed around five hundred Shark Tank pitches and many other recordings. That is how she identified 96 cues that charismatic people use. Cues, in her book, are the small signals we send to others all the time: with our posture, our face, our choice of words, our tone of voice. We barely notice them in ourselves, but the other person reads them instantly.

The main idea of the book is this: charisma is not magic and not an inborn gift. In the author's model, it is a blend of two impressions, warmth and competence. Both are built from cues, and cues can be learned, like the words of a foreign language.

You will learn the four channels cues travel through, which movements make you warmer and which make you more convincing, what a powerful voice sounds like, and what the colors in your photo say about you. And near the end, you will find out which tiny sound got in Siminoff's way in the studio.

Two questions we ask when we meet someone

When we meet someone new, whether it's a job candidate, a new colleague or a salesperson, the brain quickly looks for answers to two questions. The first: can I trust you? The second: can I rely on you? In Van Edwards's account, the first question comes before the second.

The answer to the first question is warmth: goodwill, friendliness, the sense that this person is on your side. The answer to the second is competence: capability, strength, the ability to see things through. The author points to research from Princeton: warmth and competence account for 82 percent of our impression of another person. And the people we see as charismatic are high in both warmth and competence.

This gives the book its formula: charisma is warmth plus competence. Not volume, not looks, not being funny. A quiet person can be deeply charismatic if they send both signals. According to the author, the Shark Tank analysis showed the same thing: successful contestants quickly made it clear that they could be trusted and that they knew their business.

Van Edwards admits she used to think otherwise. The research changed her mind. And everyone ends up with their own version of charisma. Some people are charismatic in a loud, vivid way, others in a quiet, thoughtful way, others through care. The aim of the book is to help you find your version and back it up with the right cues.

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About the author

Vanessa Van Edwards is a behavioral researcher and the founder of Science of People, a research lab that studies how people communicate. She is the author of the bestseller Captivate.

All books by this author: Vanessa Van Edwards

Terms from the book

  • Princeton
  • mirroring
  • Oxytocin
  • Charisma
  • Shark Tank
  • Armstrong
  • Science of People
  • Warmth
  • Siminoff: Jamie Siminoff, an American inventor and entrepreneur, the founder of Ring.
  • Ring: An American company that makes smart doorbells with a camera. Amazon bought it in 2018.
  • Cues: The small signals a person sends to others through posture, face, voice, words and appearance. The author's key term.
  • Competence: In the author's model, the impression of capability and strength: the answer to the question of whether you can rely on someone.
  • Larry King Live: A talk show hosted by the American broadcaster Larry King, which ran on CNN from 1985 to 2010.
  • Doping: Banned substances or methods athletes use to improve their performance.
  • Steeple: A gesture where the fingertips of both hands touch each other. For the author, a competence cue.
  • Self-soothing: Small repeated movements a person uses to release tension: twirling keys, bouncing a leg, picking at nails. The author puts them in the danger zone.
  • Question inflection: A rise in the voice at the end of a statement that makes it sound like a question. In the author's view, a cue of uncertainty.
  • Vocal fry: A creaky, rattling quality in the voice, most often at the end of a sentence when you run out of air.
  • Paul Zak: An American scientist and professor at Claremont Graduate University, known for his research on oxytocin and trust.
  • Postscript: A note added at the end of a letter after the signature, usually marked P.S.

All terms

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