The Art of Manliness - #540： How to Be a More Compelling Person

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. We all know

00:00:11.500 people who have a certain magnetism and charisma. What is it exactly that makes them so compelling?

00:00:15.920 My guest today explores that question in his book, Compelling People, the Hidden Qualities

00:00:19.460 that Make People Influential, and primarily locates the answer in two such hidden qualities,

00:00:24.020 strength and warmth. His name is Matthew Kohut. Today on the show, he explains why it is we find

00:00:28.360 the combination of strength and warmth so attractive in others and how we can cultivate those traits

00:00:32.500 ourselves, including the way we dress, carry ourselves, and talk. Matt then gives advice

00:00:36.760 on how to display strength and warmth in different situations we might find ourselves in, from

00:00:40.620 acing a job interview to managing a crisis at work. We enter a conversation with that most

00:00:44.720 perennial question of body language, what do you do with your hands when you speak? As the show's

00:00:49.680 over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash compellingpeople.

00:00:58.360 Matthew Kohut, welcome to the show.

00:01:05.460 Thanks for having me.

00:01:06.620 So you are the co-author of a book called Compelling People, the Hidden Qualities that

00:01:10.920 Make Us Influential. So what got you started researching what makes compelling people compelling?

00:01:16.500 Well, you know, my co-author, John Neffinger, and I, and a third partner, Seth Pendleton, we

00:01:21.780 came to this through politics, actually. All of us were speechwriters. We were working with

00:01:26.220 different folks, and full disclosure, we're Democrats. And we were watching people lose

00:01:31.460 in the early 2000s here. And we were trying to figure out, how do we make messengers more

00:01:37.020 effective in that setting? And it led us really on a journey to try and figure out how people

00:01:42.500 got the thing that we call the it factor, this idea of charisma or whatever it is you see when you

00:01:48.880 sense that somebody is a very magnetic presence.

00:01:52.360 And around the time we're trying to figure this out and doing some speechwriting for some folks,

00:01:57.600 we also started working with some first clients. And it led us to identify two fundamental

00:02:03.560 problems that clients would have. Some of them were really towers of strength in the sense that

00:02:10.900 they were incredibly capable, but they were cold. And that was one set of problems. And then on the

00:02:17.200 other side, we'd see these people who were the nicest people in the world, but they were always

00:02:20.740 tripping over themselves and apologizing for themselves. And we saw this again and again

00:02:25.620 in this early client work. We were sometimes doing things for free with people and getting friends

00:02:30.680 who were just having problems communicating. And we noticed these two things happening.

00:02:35.660 And we were also research geeks. And we were talking to different behavioral economists and

00:02:40.860 reading social psych. And we looked in the research and we found an answer that essentially supported

00:02:46.600 our hypothesis that there was really something there about these two fundamental qualities

00:02:52.740 that we were identifying as problem areas for a lot of people.

00:02:57.460 So yeah, you make the case that strength and warmth are these two things that people look to

00:03:02.620 when they're making judgments at people. Because oftentimes we think, oh, when you make a judgment

00:03:06.040 at a person, there's like one thing you're looking at. But you say we're making two separate

00:03:09.780 judgments on whether they're strong and warm.

00:03:12.240 Yeah, that's right. And, you know, in some way you can think about it almost, I'm going

00:03:17.000 to go sort of pseudo evolutionary biology here. You see somebody coming over the savannah, you

00:03:23.260 know, far off on the hill. And you look at that person, you think, is that person a threat?

00:03:27.580 Is this person maybe an ally? And we make these kinds of judgments all the time. We look at

00:03:33.460 people's capabilities and their intentions. And we say, what can this person do? And are they

00:03:38.440 my kind of person? And so, you know, it's interesting that we chose the word strength

00:03:43.200 and warmth very deliberately. And yet in the years that have followed, sometimes I find

00:03:47.500 that talking about capability and connection is also just as accurate a way to describe

00:03:52.580 these qualities, because ultimately it's showing people what can you do? And do you care about

00:03:58.200 the same things I do? Are we on the same page in some way?

00:04:01.800 Yeah, I think it's great that, I mean, you came from this in the political perspective,

00:04:05.280 because like politicians from like the very beginning have been balancing these two factors,

00:04:09.060 like why politicians, they want to appear strong, but it's like why they kiss babies,

00:04:13.700 right? When they're on the campaign trail, they want to appear warm. Or it's like, they're like,

00:04:17.880 you want to be the guy that you can have a beer with, right? Or you're relatable.

00:04:21.620 Right. Sure. Right. And that relatability factor is why people eat, you know, fried dough at

00:04:27.980 county fairs and do all those kinds of things you were mentioning.

00:04:30.740 Even though they hate it and you can tell they're just not want to be there. All right. Well,

00:04:35.580 so let's talk about these two attributes. What do you mean by strength and why do we respond

00:04:40.740 positively to strong people?

00:04:42.860 Well, you know, strength, the easiest way to think about it. And again, if the word capability

00:04:47.420 works better for you, use that. But think about it as a combination of your skill plus your will.

00:04:52.200 The academic words that we tend to connect to make this concept are competence and assertiveness.

00:04:57.640 And not to go too far down the rabbit hole here, but the academics who have looked at these two

00:05:02.360 qualities, they really focus on competence and warmth. John and I, in our practice,

00:05:08.660 we're really seeing something more than that. Competence alone doesn't really explain what we

00:05:14.620 respond to in people. There is a facet of our will that's in here, the assertiveness side of it.

00:05:20.400 In other words, you can probably think of people who are really competent in something,

00:05:23.280 but they don't speak up for themselves. They don't put themselves out there. So we kind of

00:05:28.360 combine these combinations, combine these qualities and hit on this idea of strength or capability

00:05:34.800 as the thing that really matters. And at a fundamental level, strength says you can get

00:05:40.060 things done. It also says you can protect yourself and you can protect others. And that's part of what's

00:05:45.540 really attractive about strength is when we see somebody who's either very capable at something and

00:05:50.040 we admire their capability or that ability to protect. That's a really, that's a very positive

00:05:55.520 thing. Now there's a downside to strength too, which is that strength can be used to get things

00:06:00.200 done that you don't want done. You know, when you see someone else using their strength in a way that

00:06:04.980 is not to your liking, they don't share your intentions. Then you look at that strength and say,

00:06:10.700 oh my gosh, yikes. And there, it can elicit a fear response when it's all strength, no warmth.

00:06:15.560 And you also have the book that some people are skeptical of strength. They're like, I don't know

00:06:19.920 about that. Absolutely. So when you think about the, I'll kind of go traditional here. When you

00:06:26.140 think about, let's cast our minds back 50 years, it's the anniversary of Woodstock here. Think about

00:06:31.720 hippies looking at the establishment back in the 1960s. And you know, this is on the backdrop of the

00:06:37.680 Vietnam War and all those kinds of social factors. There was a very skeptical view of what you might

00:06:44.420 think of as traditional strength at that time. And you can argue rightly so. And it's a very

00:06:49.780 interesting dynamic. There are people who almost as a disposition are skeptics about what you might

00:06:56.140 think of as traditional strength displays. And I don't mean to say that they're all hippies. There

00:07:00.520 are plenty of people who share that disposition of all sorts of stripes politically, but it's an

00:07:06.460 interesting thing that you see some people when they see a person posturing in a way that is sort

00:07:12.880 of traditionally perceived as strength, given whatever culture you're in, they'll kind of give

00:07:17.840 it the hairy eyeball and say, what are you up to? And they won't necessarily believe it's anything more

00:07:22.660 than that kind of a posture, or they might even just reject the posture on its face.

00:07:27.160 So what goes on in our body when we display strength?

00:07:29.960 Yeah. Well, I mean, the key hormone where strength is concerned is testosterone, and that's not a secret.

00:07:35.940 And it's also about one of the things that people tend to associate strength with on the physical

00:07:43.220 side is taking up space. And so when you think about how you feel when you're triumphant, when

00:07:49.220 you're taking up a lot of space, while you're doing those kinds of things, your hormones are

00:07:53.960 shifting too. And people who have just been in some sort of a more triumphant kind of a setting

00:08:00.260 feel more confident, and their hormonal balance is shifting as they're doing these things too.

00:08:05.080 We're never at rest hormonally. We're always doing something. And for sure, there are different

00:08:12.380 effects that kick in depending on what behaviors we've just had, whether we've just been victorious

00:08:18.420 or felt like we did something really well, or if on the other hand, we've just experienced some

00:08:23.380 sort of a setback or are feeling downcast or dejected. All right. So strength is competence and

00:08:29.540 will. What does warmth look like?

00:08:32.440 Warmth is very context-based. I think the easiest way to think about warmth is showing people that you

00:08:38.700 share their concerns, their interests, maybe even their emotions, depending on what's in play.

00:08:44.260 And that can include values as well. And like I said before, a lot of times I talk about a sense of

00:08:51.320 connection because warmth is, it can both be biological in the sense of the way we feel around

00:08:57.300 the people we're closest to. Think about parents and their children. There's that warmth that is

00:09:01.800 really something that begins with skin-to-skin contact between mothers and infants. And then

00:09:06.820 there's also this sense we have with people we know in a more broadly social way of just having

00:09:12.860 common things in common with them. And we feel that they share our perspective in some way,

00:09:18.800 or they see the world through a common lens with us, even if we don't agree with them about

00:09:22.280 everything. And for most people, most of the time kind of walking through life, I find that's a more

00:09:28.400 user-friendly definition of this. It's that sense of connection where you see the world through a

00:09:33.740 common lens. You feel like this is my kind of person. Well, the downside with warmth, so the downside

00:09:38.960 with strength is that it could be looked at with suspicion or it can be, you know, you're using it the

00:09:43.500 wrong time. There's downsides to too much warmth, right? Right. So the extreme of warmth is the nice

00:09:50.240 guys finish last. This is kind of Charlie Brown with Lucy pulling the football away from him,

00:09:54.960 if I can use an old cartoon metaphor here. It's essentially that you can come across as the

00:10:00.640 lovable loser or at the extreme, somebody who elicits a pity response. If you think about somebody

00:10:06.560 who's super, super nice, but they just kind of keep tripping over their own shoelaces, at some point

00:10:12.380 you say, oh, that's too bad about him. And that's what, that's sort of all warmth, no strength at

00:10:18.700 its extreme. And what's going on with our biology when we, you know, are displaying warmth?

00:10:23.920 Well, you know, the primary hormone that's in play with warmth is something called oxytocin.

00:10:29.960 And it's this feeling of togetherness with other people. Some people call it the empathy

00:10:33.720 hormone. And it's not just about that. I want to be clear that oxytocin is something that we feel

00:10:40.200 when we're with people who we're very connected to. Oxytocin is a complex hormone. It's also the

00:10:45.280 thing that makes us sort of strike out at people who are outside of our tribe, so to speak. So I

00:10:50.540 want to be clear that it's not just all warm and fuzzy, but it is absolutely what we're feeling

00:10:55.820 when we get the warm and fuzzy with other people.

00:10:59.080 All right. So warmth is our ability to connect with others. Are we able to be both strong and warm

00:11:05.440 at the same time? So display competence and will and connection at the same time?

00:11:10.260 It's really hard. Let's put it that way. John and I sort of hit on the idea that it's kind of like

00:11:15.320 multitasking in the sense that you're never truly doing two things at once. You're shuttling back

00:11:20.720 and forth between them. And the same is true with people who are doing strength and warmth in the

00:11:26.380 same appearance, if you will. So when you're with somebody and you sense their capability,

00:11:31.700 and then you sense their sense of connectedness with you or vice versa, that's the better way to

00:11:38.000 think about it is different situations, even within the same meeting with somebody will in some way

00:11:44.340 offer you a chance to show them your capability and or your sense of connection to them. And it's

00:11:50.660 much more likely that you're going to have a chance to show both one after the other or back and forth

00:11:57.080 than anything would happen where you would just be able to kind of nail it, so to speak. There just

00:12:02.640 aren't... First off, it's very hard because there's a balancing act between these things. They are in

00:12:07.080 tension with each other. And realistically, the situations that come up just typically ask you

00:12:14.180 to show one more than the other in any given moment. Well, you call it like there's like a hydraulic

00:12:19.560 factor going on between the two. Like one goes up, the other goes down.

00:12:23.820 Right. That's exactly right. The more strong you seem, the less warm you seem and vice versa.

00:12:29.960 And so that's why if you're cognizant of these things and you know your own

00:12:35.580 tendencies, then it can be helpful to keep an eye on, hey, have I overexerted here on the strength

00:12:44.520 side? I have to remind people, look, I'm on your side or vice versa. And it's not that you're doing

00:12:51.060 this in some high self-monitoring way so much as you're just kind of being emotionally intelligent

00:12:56.340 with people and making sure they don't lose sight of these things where you're concerned.

00:13:01.500 So you mentioned earlier that there's sort of... You kind of alluded to it. There's like a spectrum

00:13:05.900 of strength plus warmth combinations, right? If you're just super nice, all warm, no strength,

00:13:11.780 that elicits that pity response from people. And what are some other combinations on that sort of,

00:13:17.560 I guess it's a matrix that you've developed? Yeah. So this two by two, which came out of some

00:13:22.420 of the academic research, it's something that's kind of fun to play with. So if you think about

00:13:28.120 yourself and your combination of strength and warmth as something you can plot on a two by two graph,

00:13:35.060 then here's one way to think about the thought experiment. And then I'll kind of get to your

00:13:39.140 question about the combinations here. So if you ask 10 of your friends, hey, here are these two

00:13:44.600 qualities, strength and warmth. How would you put a dot for me on this two by two here?

00:13:49.340 And then you average those dots. That kind of gives you a pretty good idea of where you stand.

00:13:53.320 None of us are great at seeing ourselves as others do. But if you had 10 of the people who knew you

00:13:57.840 best put a dot on that thing and you average those dots, that would kind of give you an idea

00:14:01.460 of pretty much how other people are seeing your combination of showing them that sense of capability

00:14:07.840 and connection or strength and warmth. Now, as far as archetypes that fall between these things,

00:14:13.120 it kind of gets granular at this point. It's almost like thinking about Jungian archetypes or

00:14:17.840 something. One of the things that I found talking about this with people since the book came out is

00:14:23.580 that there's a category of people who oftentimes are subject matter experts who, while they're doing

00:14:31.320 strength more than warmth, the strength they're doing is really about competence. And it's not this

00:14:37.360 kind of domineering assertive strength. They're doing a lot of subject matter expertise.

00:14:42.700 These are typically really, really smart people who are really invested in what they do. And they

00:14:48.800 sometimes have warmth challenges, but they are fantastic at the competence side of strength.

00:14:56.180 Now, another side of it is the person who's the bully, essentially, who's domineering. They may not

00:15:00.820 know much, but they're great at just pushing people around and they can lack the warmth. Those are some

00:15:06.220 of the gradations on the strength side. On the warmth side, where you have some degree of capability,

00:15:13.380 but you have people who are helpers, for instance, their instinct is to do for others. And they're the

00:15:20.600 person who's maybe the go-between with people, the person who is always mediating or facilitating

00:15:26.280 interactions among people. That's something you can see with someone who is more warm than strong,

00:15:32.440 but they're not deficient on the strength side. And you have people who play roles that require a

00:15:41.640 little bit more of one than the other. It's hard to generalize about people in different combinations

00:15:48.280 too much here. But when you think about people doing things like teaching or doing things like

00:15:53.400 parenting, both of these qualities are required in these roles. And it's worth thinking about

00:16:01.140 how are you navigating these things? So rather than thinking about archetypes that you see in

00:16:05.820 the four quadrants, it's almost more interesting to think about the roles you're playing and how they

00:16:11.300 might require some of each.

00:16:13.820 Yeah. And I liked that you had this matrix and you talked about different responses you give

00:16:19.000 to people because that was useful for me. So you talked about someone who's low on warmth and low

00:16:24.920 on competence or low on strength. Like those types of people, they're just really annoying,

00:16:29.720 right? So you have like content.

00:16:31.380 We tend not to.

00:16:32.520 I mean, you use the word content.

00:16:34.560 You don't notice them, right?

00:16:35.040 Right. You use contempt, but like, you know, those people are just like, ah, geez, like he's not useful

00:16:39.160 for anything. And he's just, he aggravates you. Like everyone's had that person in their group. So yeah,

00:16:44.900 that's low warmth, low strength that you have contempt or just, you're just annoyed by them.

00:16:49.260 High warmth, low strength, you've, you know, that pity response, high strength, low warmth,

00:16:54.160 it could be envy or fear. And then like the sweet spot is high strength, high warmth,

00:16:59.900 and that's sort of admiration. Like that person has prestige.

00:17:03.420 That's right. And you know, the way I like to think about that is you can almost draw some

00:17:07.860 concentric circles out from where the two lines cross and, you know, you can sneak into the

00:17:13.220 quadrant of high strength, high warmth or, you know, the strength plus warmth quadrant.

00:17:17.300 And this could be lots of people, you know, you might say, Hey, this person really gets things

00:17:22.260 done and I admire her. And that might be somebody who's in there for you. And then you can think of

00:17:27.500 somebody you've worked for, who was the best boss you ever had and say, wow, that's a person who's

00:17:31.820 really got it going on here. I admire that person. And then you can go for the history books and go

00:17:37.540 for those people who you say, wow, great leader who used all that capability on behalf of others.

00:17:43.560 So it's not just people who have buildings in the town square who make it into that upper quadrant

00:17:50.540 there. You know, think about team captains, for instance, if you ever played sports, that person

00:17:56.420 ideally is the person who was both great at their position. And also they had the ability to inspire,

00:18:03.140 lift up, really rally people together. And that's the warmth side in that setting.

00:18:08.480 So that's an interesting, you know, I find that there's, so there's room in each of these

00:18:12.520 quadrants. It doesn't mean you're just kind of automatically at the tippity top of each of them.

00:18:16.400 Right. So I imagine whether you display strength or warmth is very context dependent. So like some

00:18:22.140 situations call for strength and others warmth. How do you figure out that, you know, what,

00:18:27.960 when you need to display strength and when you need to display warmth?

00:18:30.380 You know, it's, you're, you're spot on that is totally context dependent and all of us are

00:18:35.800 different in different settings too. So think about your work self and your family self or your social

00:18:40.480 self, and you probably come across differently in different settings. You know, you think about

00:18:45.660 some jobs that are really competence driven in the sense that you're there and it's all business

00:18:52.100 all the time. I don't know, air traffic controllers or something, you know, where you really have to

00:18:56.480 just be super hyper-focused and the competence is the thing that you are there for. Then it's not so much

00:19:04.060 about being, you know, I'm not, I don't want to generalize about any given job. I don't mean to say

00:19:09.800 air traffic controllers aren't warm people by any means, but I just, you know, certain settings will

00:19:14.980 obviously require you to focus on one or the other, you know, get, go the other way. Therapists,

00:19:20.160 therapists have to be great listeners. They have to start with that sense of drawing people out and being

00:19:25.280 able to connect with them. So certain settings tell you what they're looking for. Beyond that,

00:19:30.240 it really becomes a question of emotional intelligence and asking yourself, what do I

00:19:34.540 need this person to understand from me? Do they need to understand that I can get this thing done

00:19:39.280 or do they need to understand that I see the world through their lens? And I think you can ask these

00:19:44.560 questions in a way that is not trying to manipulate people. It's really from a question of shared

00:19:48.480 understanding. To me, that's what the real nugget of the book is, is that it's not about posturing.

00:19:54.020 It's not about putting on something. It's about really asking yourself, how can I help

00:19:58.500 connect more deeply with this person? Do they need to know I can get this done or do they need to know

00:20:03.140 that I understand what matters to them? Yeah. So you talk about Machiavelli in the book. He said

00:20:08.180 in the print, it's better to be feared than loved. You're saying, well, maybe sometimes,

00:20:13.780 rarely, you know, but most of the time you should probably look for being loved and having that

00:20:17.380 respect. Maybe not necessarily feared, but respected. Right. Well, okay. So with the Machiavelli

00:20:22.140 thing, since we're going there, if you read on, no one ever reads beyond that sentence,

00:20:26.940 he says, it would be best to be both, but it's very difficult in one person. And so we're going

00:20:33.140 for the Michael Scott of the office answer, which is easy, both. And we're saying, look,

00:20:38.480 there are opportunities for most of us in everyday life. We're not princes vying at the highest end of

00:20:44.800 politics for, you know, skullduggery. And we're not trying for the brass ring that Machiavelli was

00:20:52.620 addressing in his book, The Prince. But for most of us day to day, I think that we have opportunities

00:20:58.940 to show people both that we are capable and that we care about the same things they do.

00:21:03.600 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:21:06.960 And now back to the show. So let's talk about some of the things you dig into and how we can display

00:21:12.680 strength or warmth. And you start off talking about nonverbal cues that we give off. And the

00:21:18.680 first one is our appearance. Sure. So how does our appearance help determine whether we're perceived

00:21:25.460 as strong or warm? And my appearance, I mean, this could be, I mean, we can go clothing, we can go,

00:21:30.400 you know, your body size, your body shape, whatever.

00:21:34.080 Sure. Well, think about that for a second. One way to do this test for yourself, by the way,

00:21:39.020 is if you just are watching something on a screen, turn the mute button on so there's no sound and

00:21:45.400 just watch people. So you can do this watching TV or you can do it if you, a great way to do this,

00:21:50.280 if you actually are working on this for yourself is get some video of yourself out in the wild.

00:21:54.560 You know, if you're in a meeting or something, or you give a presentation or a speech or something,

00:21:58.940 get some video of it and get a look at yourself with the sound off and ask yourself, what are you

00:22:03.600 seeing? And we see strength typically first through posture. And you could be wearing a t-shirt or you

00:22:12.320 could be wearing a suit and you'll still see the strength in the way that someone expresses

00:22:17.600 themselves through good posture. This is the freebie for me, for everyone is just good posture. I mean,

00:22:23.500 this is the low hanging fruit and you would be shocked how many times Don and Seth and I are

00:22:28.840 still telling people, Hey, stand up or sit up because it's one of those things that we know

00:22:34.100 oftentimes we're just not aware of this in our day-to-day life, but that is the nonverbal number

00:22:38.620 one clue that we are in some way taking up our full height and our full width. Now you mentioned

00:22:44.920 appearance and dress. And if we can dig into that a little bit too, if you want, it's an interesting

00:22:50.520 thing. I'm not a fashion person, but I have some, just some thoughts about it. I'm curious if you

00:22:55.200 had any specific questions about that or we just wanted to go into more generally.

00:22:59.400 Yeah. Let's go. Like what, what type of clothing makes people appear competent and strong? And is

00:23:05.100 there clothing types that make people feel or get perceived as warm?

00:23:10.260 Well, I mean, there's some, you know, honestly, some of the research on this looks a little funny to

00:23:16.160 me just as somebody who's read a lot of research, but dark colors, you know, there's a reason people

00:23:20.640 wear black in more solemn occasions, more somber things. When you think about the clothes that

00:23:24.820 people in finance wear, they wear blacks, blues, and grays. And those things now in our culture,

00:23:30.860 we're kind of conditioned to think of those as the more sober and serious colors. And so if you're

00:23:37.800 trying to affect a more professionally competent demeanor, those, those kinds of choices can do

00:23:46.000 that for you. Now we're in a shifting time too. And I spend a lot of times with tech firms. And

00:23:51.500 if you wear, you know, God forbid you wear a suit, you'll be laughed at the office. But, you know,

00:23:58.800 we have, you know, entire workforces where people are wearing the equivalent of jeans and t-shirts to

00:24:03.760 work. And so then you're making these choices and you're making them in ways that are through

00:24:08.980 different gradations than you saw even 10 or 15 years ago on workplaces. And so you have interesting

00:24:15.760 choices around this stuff that, you know, I think it's a shifting landscape and I don't have as hard

00:24:21.340 and firm recommendations as I have for somebody who's thinking about how they're going to present

00:24:25.180 themselves to a CEO of a fortune 500 company. I think it's, like I said, it's a moving target right

00:24:31.680 now. The interesting question to me about it is when something's almost like uniform and you're

00:24:38.200 trying to fit in a little bit, that speaks to warmth more than it does to strength. And the

00:24:42.180 question is, how do you also make sure that you're showing people that you're, that you came to play

00:24:46.620 if you think of that as more of the capability side? Well, in speaking of your world of politics,

00:24:51.340 you see this sort of how people change their clothes to whether to explain strength or warmth.

00:24:56.080 So, you know, on the debate, everyone, the men are wearing suits, power ties, whatever. Except for

00:25:01.320 Andrew Yang, he decided to go no tie, which caused him uproar. But then when they go to the county

00:25:07.660 fairs, you know, they got no coat on, they've got their, the top button unbuttoned, they got their

00:25:12.480 sleeves rolled up. So, hey, I'm relatable. Right. So there's an example of that being played out.

00:25:18.460 Absolutely. You know, Mayor Pete's an interesting example. He's gotten some attention for the fact

00:25:22.460 that he's essentially wearing a uniform. He's wearing the white shirt, the blue tie every

00:25:26.460 day. And it's his brand now. He's, he's made that his brand as much as Steve Jobs made the black 0.89

00:25:32.160 mock turtleneck his brand. And it's interesting because if you're trying to stand out in a group

00:25:37.560 of 20 people, then doing something consistently like that helps in that respect. And in his case,

00:25:44.560 it's also a competence driven brand. He's wearing the white shirt and the tie that you could have seen

00:25:49.960 anytime in the last 50 years, essentially. And as a younger guy, as a guy who's not just massive

00:25:57.160 physically, he's not, you know, six to 225 pounds or something, he's asserting competence with that

00:26:04.060 uniform. So not only do our clothes can display warmth or strength. And again, as you said, it's

00:26:10.000 context dependent. You have to be very kind of attuned to what's going on in the group, but just

00:26:14.760 even like the appearance that we were born with, right? Like our head shape or face shape, body

00:26:19.660 shape, skin color, like that can influence whether we're perceived as competent or warm.

00:26:26.340 Absolutely. Yeah. All the stuff we're born with, you know, it's funny because in some way these

00:26:31.660 things, it's frustrating to talk about them on the one hand, because you sort of have the hand you're

00:26:37.380 dealt and there's very little you can do about it. And then what we try to focus on in the book is

00:26:41.640 the things you can turn the dials on, but you're absolutely spot on that. These are the things

00:26:46.660 that we show up with. And people do read signals into everything from height, weight, ethnicity,

00:26:53.980 gender, sexual orientation, all those things do send stronger, warm signals. And they quickly,

00:26:59.800 rapidly descend into stereotype behavior too, or stereotype judgments rather, not the behaviors,

00:27:04.620 stereotype judgments of the people we're perceiving. And look, all of us stereotype people when we're

00:27:09.940 looking at them at first glance. And, you know, if you think you're not doing it, you're probably

00:27:14.600 fooling yourself. You are fooling yourself because there's just been reams of research done on this.

00:27:20.220 And it's a challenging thing. And it raises all kinds of questions about how our brains work,

00:27:26.380 but it's a sorting mechanism essentially for us. And, you know, rightly or wrongly, it's something that

00:27:33.200 does, like you said, send these strength or warmth signals.

00:27:35.800 Well, thinking of one for men that, you know, a common trait that you're just born with,

00:27:41.120 you either have it or you don't, is height. I mean, the studies show that men who are taller

00:27:45.060 are perceived as more competent and powerful than shorter men are not. So if you're a short guy,

00:27:49.480 you might hear that it's like, well, I'm hosed. Not necessarily so. You highlight, you know,

00:27:53.260 research and studies that show that, you know, even a guy who's not, you know, 6'5 or 6'4 or above

00:27:59.220 6' even. There's things they can turn, dials they can turn where they can still be perceived as

00:28:05.580 competent and strong by people.

00:28:08.120 So posture is the thing I mentioned earlier. And look, I'm 5'9. So for me, sure, do I wish I were

00:28:15.740 three inches taller? You bet. But I'm not. So I'm the guy who, and I'm relatively slender too. So for

00:28:21.020 me, I'm standing up straight and taking up my full height with my shoulders is part of what I just need

00:28:25.540 to do to make sure I don't get lost in the shuffle. It doesn't mean I walk around like a peacock with

00:28:30.360 my chest down. It just means I want to be cognizant of that as somebody who's a little smaller of

00:28:36.420 stature than probably two-thirds of the guys I bump into in a professional setting. So there are

00:28:44.120 things you can do around that. You also have choices around appearance too. And again, some people

00:28:50.440 who want to make sure they don't get lost in the shuffle might make fashion choices to help with

00:28:56.700 that as well. So there is a tall premium. You mentioned it for sure. The funny thing about

00:29:01.400 tall folks is a lot of times tall guys, because the world's not built for them, they will slouch.

00:29:06.320 And sometimes they will throw away their natural advantage. The thing they were born with that all

00:29:11.140 the rest of us say, wow, I wish I had a couple extra inches. Some of them will in some way undo that

00:29:16.780 by slouching. And partly it's because doorways are too low for them, but partly it's because they

00:29:21.180 don't want to hover over people and they don't want to make people uncomfortable. And when people

00:29:26.400 are going into public-facing settings, I always say, hey, own your height because you've got it.

00:29:32.480 Flaunt it.

00:29:33.600 So another nonverbal cue you talk about that can display both strength and warmth,

00:29:37.760 depending on how you use it, is a smile, which is interesting because you think smile will just be

00:29:41.420 warmth. That's how you show like, hey, I like you. I'm okay. You can approach me. So let's talk

00:29:46.860 about how can a smile display strength as well. Right. Well, you know, we talk about this thing,

00:29:53.340 we call it the steely smile. And the steely smile is that thing that you see that's, first off,

00:30:00.060 it comes paired with the good strength cues like posture. So it's, you're standing up full height,

00:30:06.080 full width, and your head is straight. And this is important because one of the things that we don't

00:30:12.140 typically think about is head angle also sends signals. If you've ever played with a baby or a

00:30:17.060 puppy and you've done this thing where you cock your head back and forth, you can entertain babies

00:30:22.120 for hours doing this by putting your head off angle and you smile at them and they smile at you

00:30:27.160 and puppies will go rant, rant with you too. And that's warm when you have your head cocked off to

00:30:33.080 the side. And that's a great thing to be able to do when you're trying to connect with somebody.

00:30:36.540 But when you think about this stronger smile, it's head straight up and down, you know, it's like a

00:30:42.200 plumb line running straight down the center of you. And then the smile is not that it's your eyebrows

00:30:47.540 or head. It's not, hey guys, great to see you. It's, hey, how are you doing? And it's a smile on the

00:30:55.760 bottom, but your gaze is relatively even at the top. It's not the eyebrows up at half, you know,

00:31:02.420 the flag at half mass, so to speak. Now that's not to say that that's not a good smile in other

00:31:06.840 settings, but it's the nice guy smile. And the nice guy smile says, hey, I'm not a threat.

00:31:11.700 The stronger smile we're talking about here where your posture is solid and your gaze is relatively

00:31:16.840 level. It's still a smile. Your eyes are still crinkled at the corners, but you're not,

00:31:22.140 you're not as eager as the eyebrows up smile, if you will.

00:31:27.400 Another aspect of, you know, something on our face that displays strength or warmth are our eyes.

00:31:33.260 What role does eye contact play in conveying strength or warmth?

00:31:36.700 You know, eye contact is so interesting. And I just want to be really clear at the outset,

00:31:41.380 eye contact is the most culturally specific cue that is hard to talk, to generalize about. So

00:31:48.780 eye contact in American settings, and I even generalize, I hate to generalize about in American

00:31:54.420 settings because we're a huge country of a diverse population, but the norms you see, let's say,

00:31:59.440 in American professional settings are that a lot of eye contact is expected, especially if you're

00:32:04.940 listening to someone, you're expected to be looking them in the eye. And the fact that we're comfortable

00:32:10.680 with eye contact when somebody says we're confident, and it's also a way we connect with people.

00:32:14.700 So eye contact is really about strength and warmth. You know, one of the things we mentioned in the

00:32:18.880 book is that two words that speak to this have a shared root. Think about intimacy and intimidation.

00:32:25.860 Two boxers at the, yeah, at the weigh-in, they're staring each other down. That's the intimidation

00:32:31.440 factor. It's all eye contact and whoever blinks first loses. And then intimacy, obviously, and love,

00:32:36.900 we're making eye contact with people. And so it's interesting how eye contact is really required of

00:32:43.740 us for both. And if we're uncomfortable with eye contact or we're avoidant with it, then it can

00:32:49.000 raise questions about trustworthiness or our comfort with something or our confidence. It can raise a

00:32:53.820 whole host of questions depending on what the context is. Yeah. And yeah, even said in America,

00:32:58.420 it can be very context dependent, even like in the situation. So in some cases, someone not giving eye

00:33:03.760 contact to somebody would be like a strength display, right? It's like, you're just, you're not even worth

00:33:08.540 looking at. I'm going to look away from it, right? Right. Yeah. No, and that's so funny because

00:33:13.700 in another setting, not looking someone in the eye could be, you're avoiding them because you're

00:33:17.340 scared of them. So you're, you're spot on. It's a hundred percent context driven.

00:33:21.260 Or you can, you, you can like stare someone down and that's like a display or I got strength,

00:33:25.600 a display of strength. And then sometimes, yeah, you look someone in the eye because like you're

00:33:29.460 supposed to show respect. So it's like a subservient thing. So yeah, it's all context dependent.

00:33:34.400 So you got to have that, I guess they develop that emotional intelligence to figure out what's the

00:33:37.940 best thing to do in whatever situation. That's right. You know, one last thing I'd say about

00:33:41.840 this is if somebody is not giving you the eye contact you're expecting from them, this is

00:33:45.880 especially true in a work setting, ask yourself, could there be a cultural thing in play here?

00:33:50.900 Or could it be that this person's uncomfortable in some way? And I would just suggest that people

00:33:54.980 be generous about that a little bit. You know, a lot of the stuff we're talking about around body

00:33:59.440 language and nonverbal communication, it can almost become this thing of a checklist in people's

00:34:05.420 minds. Oh, they're not looking at me. Therefore it means X. And I would suggest being a little more

00:34:10.240 generous, especially around eye contact, because you just don't know how people were raised.

00:34:14.360 And there are so many different expectations culturally, even among people who were raised

00:34:19.800 in different parts of the country that I really hesitate to generalize too much about it. And I

00:34:24.720 encourage people to try to understand that people may have a different norm or expectation depending

00:34:29.920 on where they're from and what was normal where they grew up.

00:34:33.600 Yeah, I think that's a good point about not obsessing too much about this stuff and like

00:34:37.560 making it a checklist thing. Because what ends up happening is you're going through your head,

00:34:41.300 it's going to make whatever encounter you have like super awkward, right? Or it could make it awkward

00:34:45.960 because you're just thinking, okay, am I being strong? Am I being warm? So like you're probably

00:34:50.140 like not looking strong because you're looking like, you know, going through the thing through your

00:34:53.900 head. And you're also not looking warm because you're being incredibly awkward because you're trying to

00:34:57.320 figure out all of my boxes checked. Totally. Yeah. You know, it's funny. Bruce Springsteen

00:35:02.160 said something a year or two ago that completely caught my ear about this. He said, the weirdest

00:35:08.360 and worst place you can be when you go on stage is if you suddenly realize, hey, I'm on stage now.

00:35:15.520 Because you're not there. You're just thinking about the fact that you're there. And the same is

00:35:19.240 true around all this. And here's where this gets tricky is, so how do you operationalize the insights

00:35:24.000 in the book around posture or gesture or eye contact or anything like that? And it's really

00:35:28.620 a process of making this stuff second nature. And so there's a learning curve. And at some point

00:35:34.600 during that learning curve, it does feel self-conscious. And the idea is to get this

00:35:39.460 beyond self-conscious to the point where it becomes unconscious because our nonverbal behavior is

00:35:44.380 largely utterly unconscious to us. We're really not aware of what we're doing. And if you're thinking,

00:35:48.800 where are my hands? Something like that, then you're distracting from making a really good

00:35:54.060 connection with somebody. And so going from that conscious incompetence to the unconscious

00:35:59.840 competence, as they call it, that continuum, it does take a little bit of practice. And it does

00:36:05.980 take, there is a process where this stuff leaves your conscious mind. And you want to get there as

00:36:10.920 soon as you can. And that's why one of the things we do when we're working with speakers is getting

00:36:15.520 them practicing, practicing, practicing, watching themselves on tape, and then forgetting about it

00:36:19.440 so that these things become second nature and you're not thinking, oh my gosh, I've got my head

00:36:23.880 off axis again or whatever. So we've talked about nonverbal cues. What are, how can our words display

00:36:30.440 strength or warmth? Well, let's start on the strength side. A lot of strength is about being very clear,

00:36:37.340 being very concise, and knowing what you're talking about. I think about it as expert, clear,

00:36:41.540 concise, and expert. And people who tend to talk in bullet points, that's what that's about.

00:36:46.700 An extreme of this might be if you think about military communication, where it's very critical

00:36:51.840 that you communicate the bare facts really quickly and no one is unclear about it. Or think about

00:36:57.880 communication in operating rooms, where people have to be very specific about what they say.

00:37:03.300 That's really strength-based communication in a lot of ways. And there are lots of different kinds

00:37:07.920 of settings where you can think about that, where the words are very carefully choreographed and mapped.

00:37:13.060 And anything that's extraneous is out because it's not helping with the competence.

00:37:17.440 What's a thing that I find is much more interesting in some way is that the warmth side is where there's

00:37:25.320 often a lot of low-hanging fruit. And when you think about what warmth in words means, it essentially

00:37:31.580 means you're connecting with people. You're showing them you care about the things they care about.

00:37:35.980 And that I find people don't, they tend to not necessarily have the vocabulary for that or

00:37:42.800 think about ways that you can demonstrate that.

00:37:45.360 I mean, so what does that look like for the warmth side?

00:37:47.640 Well, we talk about this idea of showing people that you understand their concerns,

00:37:54.460 their interests, and their emotions. And the way you do that, there are a couple of different ways.

00:37:58.300 One of the easiest ways, the shortcut to do this, essentially, is to tell them a story that shows

00:38:05.520 them, rather than trying to tell them. Rather than saying, oh yeah, I get where you're coming from,

00:38:10.880 you use an anecdote or some sort of a story that essentially demonstrates exactly that.

00:38:16.560 Because we're all wired to take in story. We love stories, just as human animals.

00:38:21.320 And if you can use story language to show people that you felt the same way, they felt you've

00:38:28.040 experienced something that's similar to what they've experienced, all of a sudden, they feel

00:38:32.760 that sense of connection. You didn't have to do anything to make that point. There are a couple

00:38:37.380 other things too. So one is using the same language they use. I know that sounds really obvious. I don't

00:38:42.660 mean you're speaking English, they're speaking English. I mean, using the same kind of vocabulary

00:38:47.500 they use. Sometimes people who have specialized lingo, for instance, speak that specialized lingo

00:38:52.980 around people who don't speak it. And then the people they're meeting are lost, and they don't

00:38:58.560 know what the heck they're talking about. So that creates a barrier to that warmth, to that sense of

00:39:02.380 connection. And being actually a great listener and asker of questions, I don't mean an interrogator,

00:39:09.220 but somebody who really takes an interest in other people, that's where warmth starts for me,

00:39:13.580 is by saying to somebody, hey, it's great to meet you. And then getting into what's interesting to

00:39:20.680 them. And just being the person who's able to ask them a simple question and unlock things and say,

00:39:26.020 huh, that sounds really interesting. Tell me more about that. If you are good at that, you're good

00:39:30.440 at warmth. Now, the last thing along this line is validating people's concerns, their interests,

00:39:36.220 especially their emotions. You're dealing with somebody and they say, you know, Matt, I'm really

00:39:40.600 frustrated that you did blankety-blankety-blank. If you can validate that frustration, that goes a

00:39:47.180 long way toward demonstrating this warmth. And especially around emotions, everybody's emotions

00:39:54.380 are true on their face. You may not agree with somebody around the substance of something, but

00:39:58.180 you can't argue with people's emotions. And if you can validate their emotions, when they say,

00:40:02.700 look, I'm frustrated, and I say, look, I hear you. And I'm sorry that this is frustrating. I know what

00:40:09.820 you mean. If you can do that from a place of legitimate agreement or some sort of affirmation

00:40:15.400 where you're not, it's not window dressing. You have to feel it. That's the trick here. It has

00:40:18.940 to be genuine. But if you can validate like that, that's warmth with words.

00:40:23.920 So yeah, you gave a great example of like showing that you understand instead of telling you

00:40:27.940 understand. You gave the example of Robert Kennedy. When he was giving a speech, he was in Indianapolis.

00:40:34.460 It was in front of a lot of, I guess the audience is African-American. And he got the news that

00:40:38.720 Martin Luther King was assassinated and he had to be the one to break the news. And he did it in a way 0.71

00:40:44.020 where it, like he showed people that he understood like the anger and pain they felt.

00:40:50.400 Right. That's right. This is a really great historical example where, I mean, you think

00:40:55.940 about the anger in that community and the sense of outrage that Martin Luther King has been

00:41:02.880 assassinated. You know, you're in an African-American community. You are a white man standing there to

00:41:08.380 deliver this news. And you know that this is, could provoke any kind of reaction. It could provoke

00:41:16.400 violence. It could provoke any kind of thing from an audience that's going to feel so devastated by

00:41:21.500 this. And he talked about the sense that he had experienced loss too. He had lost a brother too.

00:41:28.940 And everyone in that audience knew what he meant because they knew about his own brother being

00:41:33.700 assassinated. And he didn't in any way, there was nothing condescending in the way he did this. He

00:41:41.720 just was pitch perfect in the way that he expressed that sense of anguish about what people were feeling

00:41:50.820 and was able to connect himself to it in a way that was genuine because of his own shared past that

00:41:59.060 people were already familiar with. We call this move getting in the circle with the audience you're

00:42:03.400 with. And if you can do that, if you can show people who are already in one place that you

00:42:09.700 have felt the same way, or you do feel the same way, or you have some experience that legitimately

00:42:16.380 connects to the way they are feeling or the thing they're experiencing, that's it. That's really what

00:42:23.140 warmth comes down to.

00:42:25.100 So let's talk about this display of strength and warmth in different situations that all of us

00:42:28.920 will encounter. One example you gave was a job interview. And so that's one, like you have to

00:42:34.480 show both because the goal is to want to show you're competent, but also too, you're trying to

00:42:38.660 show, hey, I would be, you would really want to work with me. I'd get along with you. So how do you

00:42:43.160 do both in that same, in that one, you know, maybe 20 minute interview?

00:42:47.160 You know, you're spot on that you are going to be showing both in these settings. Here's my thought

00:42:51.220 about that is the resume got you in the door on your competence. The resume doesn't typically do

00:42:56.600 warmth. It's a strength display. And then the questions as they come are asking you to do a

00:43:04.120 little bit of both. To me, the tell me about yourself question, which is often the first one

00:43:09.520 that comes in, is asking you to do the, essentially the quick version of, so here's, here's who I am as

00:43:18.380 a person. And here's what I've, here's what kind of person I am. Here's what kind of professional I am.

00:43:22.940 And you're doing a little bit of the competence by being relatively succinct about it and knowing

00:43:28.920 your story that you can give somebody in that fairly quick bite there. I think part of what

00:43:36.160 you're trying to remind people, like you said, is that you're going to be a good team player.

00:43:40.560 You're going to be somebody people are going to want to come to work with. So that as you're

00:43:44.440 thinking about showing people examples of what you've accomplished in the past, it's not about

00:43:48.960 you. It's not the me show. It's the, it's the me succeeding with others, helping others succeed,

00:43:55.040 being the person who is able to lead or to be the driver of that collaboration. Because honestly,

00:44:01.360 none of us get anything done alone at work. It all happens in a team setting and reminding people

00:44:07.400 that you know how to work effectively with others, to lead others effectively, whatever,

00:44:11.680 however you want to characterize that. That's what a lot of the warmth is going to come across as,

00:44:16.440 as far as the content of what you say. Then the way you say it, of course, is it's not rambling.

00:44:22.400 It's not just the me show. It's showing the person that you're listening to their questions and

00:44:27.560 giving them appropriate signals non-verbally that you understood what they want to hear.

00:44:32.960 It's a, it's a whole combination of those things that does the warmth there too.

00:44:36.820 So another thing that people will, all of us probably have to do at some point in our life is

00:44:40.040 either give a speech or a presentation. And I thought in the book, you guys did made a really

00:44:44.580 interesting point that public speaking is a lot trickier now than say a hundred years ago.

00:44:49.900 Why is that? What's changed?

00:44:52.160 Well, you know, it's interesting because we live in the age of Ted and there are literally

00:44:57.300 hundreds of thousands of people who have met this level of speaking that they need to do

00:45:04.100 where they're putting on these 10 to 15 minute talks and they've got them memorized.

00:45:08.120 And nowadays we are really prioritizing conversation over oration. And what I mean by that is a Ted

00:45:16.740 talk is supposed to be intimate. And we're part of the intimacy is you're wearing a microphone so you

00:45:22.340 can use your conversational voice. You're not orating so that the people in the back of the room can hear

00:45:27.380 you. You're not projecting your voice in some way that people had to before amplification.

00:45:32.040 And you're supposed to give people some of yourself as well as no stuff. And I think it's tricky

00:45:41.140 because first off, the bar's high because of the Ted effect, but it's also just that time where you

00:45:48.420 have to figure out how can you bring enough of yourself so people get that sense that you're

00:45:54.300 showing them you're true or authentic person. And how can you demonstrate that sense of competence

00:46:02.080 or expertise that people want to take from you? So then there was something for them to hear,

00:46:07.380 you know, why, why were they listening to you in the first place? Was it something

00:46:10.200 interesting about your background? Do you know something? And it's making sure you balance those

00:46:14.860 things. That's in some way, fundamentally different than it used to be where it was more about speakers,

00:46:19.860 speakers, speakers, audiences, listen. Now there's a more conversational dynamic to it. And what was

00:46:26.700 more formal speech now just sounds stiff and wooden. So it has to have that conversational tone. And yet

00:46:31.880 you also have to hit that mark for competence. So how do you display that intimacy and warmth when

00:46:37.500 you're in front of a large audience? So you can have a more conversational tone, but are there other

00:46:41.000 nonverbal cues you can do? Absolutely. And a good speech will take you on a journey and it'll do a

00:46:47.380 bunch of these things. And sometimes there'll be a moment where you're really just kind of hitting

00:46:51.600 the marks on what you know, but then sometimes there will be either a change of direction or a

00:46:58.520 pause or a break. And someone will tell a more personal story. Maybe their voice will come down

00:47:04.240 a little bit and say, look, this is really hard. And suddenly you're listening and you're connecting

00:47:09.360 to them as a person and then they bring you back up. And so it's thinking about hitting multiple

00:47:15.160 notes in a talk. It's not all at one level the whole time. It's making sure that there are

00:47:20.180 different beats in it where you're connecting with what people already know and then taking

00:47:24.320 them into unfamiliar territory where they haven't been there before and giving them enough variety.

00:47:30.320 It's kind of like a symphony where you've got to have enough different movements to it that

00:47:33.520 it keeps people engaged the whole time, but also takes them into unfamiliar turf at some point.

00:47:39.580 So what do we do with our hands? That's the question everyone wants to know. What do I do with

00:47:43.040 my hands when I'm up there? Right. This is the one thing when we work with people in person that

00:47:48.940 they remember more than anything because everybody's obsessed with this question.

00:47:52.700 Now, look, let's just kind of acknowledge culturally that there are differences around

00:47:55.800 gesture around the world. So let's put that on the table. Within the United States, at least,

00:48:00.460 one way to think about this is a lot of times the gesture that's seen as strong, it almost is

00:48:05.320 a cliche, is the karate chop. It's the kind of straight down, your hand's almost like a blade.

00:48:11.020 It goes straight down and says, look, here's the thing. And it's very insistent. And if you're

00:48:15.960 twice as strong, it's the double karate chop, the right hand and the left hand. And you can almost

00:48:20.100 look like a Ginsu knife salesman on infomercial at two in the morning saying, bye now with the hands

00:48:25.780 like that. It's kind of a joke. And then the extreme, so think of that as an extreme of strength.

00:48:30.680 On the other extreme of warmth, think about if you're welcoming your relatives who have come

00:48:35.060 great distances to see you and you open your arms to them at the airport. And so warmth is really

00:48:40.720 opening ourselves to people. Strength is almost drawing that barrier. And if you think about the

00:48:44.980 balance between these things, between this blade that's cutting the air in front of you and arms

00:48:49.720 wide open, it's almost like, imagine you had a basketball in your hands and you had it somewhere

00:48:55.240 between your hips and waist. Yeah, go ahead and do it right now. Imagine you have a basketball.

00:48:58.880 I'm doing it right now, yeah. I've got my imaginary ball here.

00:49:02.020 Yeah, the imaginary ball is actually a great tip if you're the kind of person who's not sure what

00:49:05.960 your hands should be doing when you're gesturing. And depending on the point you're making, your

00:49:10.400 ball can get bigger or smaller. So if you're making a little bit bigger point now, now make your ball

00:49:13.940 a beach ball. Now, if you're ever going to do one of these TEDx talks or something like that,

00:49:18.180 that biggest point in your life, that big takeaway is that thing at the gym, that Pilates ball,

00:49:23.200 that giant thing. And now you've got the ball out. It's maybe beyond your shoulders on either

00:49:27.060 side. Now you can shrink the ball back down. Now maybe in your left hand, there's just a

00:49:30.940 baseball there for a second. So move that baseball out to the left side, maybe shift hands, put the

00:49:36.480 baseball on the right-hand side. Sometimes you can pass it almost like a basketball.

00:49:40.620 And the ball is a helpful corrective if you're the kind of person who flops around a little bit

00:49:45.460 with your hands. I don't mean to say, hey, just do this ball thing all the time. That would be a

00:49:51.060 misconstruing of what I'm saying here. But if you're a person who you've seen yourself on video and

00:49:55.280 your hands tend to flail around and they're just doing things like the illegal motion sign that you

00:50:00.100 see your referees doing football or something that is not consistent with what you're saying,

00:50:05.500 the ball can be a nice thing because it does a little bit of strength and a little bit of

00:50:09.560 warmth. It's open, but it also has a little bit of control or poise to it.

00:50:13.780 So let's talk about a crisis time. Let's say at work, you're a leader and there's something's

00:50:19.000 happened, right? And it's all hands on deck. I imagine you're, again, you're wanting to display

00:50:23.740 strength to show that, hey, we've got a plan, but you're also wanting to display warmth because

00:50:27.980 people are probably feeling anxious or whatever. So what does that look like?

00:50:33.020 It's so specifically context-driven that it's hard to generalize. Sometimes you have to be the

00:50:39.220 person that says, all right, let's do this. And that can be the perfect answer. And that's the

00:50:43.060 thing that sets people's minds at ease in that setting. Depending on another instance,

00:50:49.940 it might be the person who says, look, this is really tough. And they do the warmth move first.

00:50:55.360 And then they say, because this is so urgent, we've got to go do this. And it can be a quick

00:51:00.340 pivot there depending on the setting. So it's hard to know what the setting is, who the protagonists

00:51:07.380 and what the specifics of the challenge are. But if there's a question of people needing a little bit

00:51:13.600 of a morale boost, maybe that's where the warmth moment comes. If it's really about which way do

00:51:19.180 we get out of the jungle here, being the person who says, let's go that way, that can be the place

00:51:23.820 where you say, okay, we need just the strength, the competence answer now, and somebody who sounds

00:51:29.080 like they know which way to go. So yeah, you're going to get the balance, strength, and warmth.

00:51:33.220 So sometimes show strength, sometimes you got to show the warmth. Well, Matt, this has been a great

00:51:38.120 conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:51:40.460 Well, the book is out there on Amazon and all those places. And we have a bunch of resources

00:51:46.680 on the K&B Communications website about this. And I've written a few things on Medium over the years

00:51:52.300 that people can find as well if they just search on my name. It's been a real pleasure to talk with

00:51:56.040 you about this. It's been fun seeing this stuff work out in the wild for several years at this

00:52:01.180 point. And it's fun to talk through it with you. Well, Matt Kohut, thanks so much for your time.

00:52:05.540 It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me. My guest there was Matthew Kohut. He is the co-author of the

00:52:09.560 book, Compelling People. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. Check

00:52:13.080 out our show notes at aom.is slash compelling people. We can find links to resources. We're

00:52:17.040 going to delve deeper into this topic.

00:52:25.780 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at

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00:52:33.260 as well as thousands of articles we've written over the years on things like charisma and social

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The Art of Manliness - September 04, 2019

#540： How to Be a More Compelling Person

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