You are contagious | Vanessa Van Edwards | TEDxLondon

Summary

Vanessa, a self-proclaimed recovering awkward person, delves into the science behind social interactions and TED Talk popularity. She reveals through extensive analysis that successful speakers use an average of 465 hand gestures in 18 minutes, emphasizing non-verbal communication's impact. Vanessa also explores the contagious nature of emotions, backed by studies on body language and its influence on perception. Her talk encourages embracing positive emotions, effective communication, and the power of enthusiasm to make an impact.

Takeaways

• 😄 The speaker, Vanessa, humorously shares her past social awkwardness and how it led to her career in understanding human behavior.
• 🔍 Vanessa and her lab conducted an extensive experiment analyzing TED Talks to identify patterns that make some go viral while others don't.
• 🤔 They investigated various factors including body language, hand gestures, vocal variety, and even outfit choices to understand their impact on audience engagement.
• 👀 It's revealed that people first look at hands when meeting someone, a behavior rooted in our evolutionary past to assess potential threats.
• 🙌 The study found that popular TED speakers use an average of 465 hand gestures in an 18-minute talk, significantly more than less popular speakers.
• 📈 Hand gestures are crucial as they underline concepts and are given more weight by the brain, enhancing the speaker's message delivery.
• 🌐 Vanessa's big idea is that humans are 'contagious,' constantly sending and decoding body language signals, which also applies emotionally and chemically.
• 😖 A study demonstrated that emotions like fear can be transferred through non-verbal cues, even via smell, activating similar responses in others.
• 😃 Genuine happiness expressed through facial expressions can be contagious and improve one's likability, as shown by the University of Finland's research.
• 📞 The speaker suggests that even on the phone, emotions can be conveyed and picked up by others, impacting how likable one is perceived to be.
• 🗣️ Vanessa emphasizes the importance of using conversation starters that trigger dopamine release, leading to more pleasurable and memorable interactions.
• 🎉 She concludes with a challenge to use excitement-inducing conversation starters and to spread positivity and enthusiasm, making oneself more infectious in a positive way.

Q & A

What was Vanessa's personal phase humorously referred to as during her talk?

Vanessa humorously referred to a personal phase as her 'plaid vest phase' during her talk.

What did Vanessa and her lab researchers set out to discover about TED Talks?

Vanessa and her lab researchers set out to discover why some TED Talks go viral and others do not by analyzing thousands of hours of TED Talks for patterns.

What was the surprising initial pattern Vanessa's team found in TED Talks?

The surprising initial pattern Vanessa's team found was related to the use of hand gestures, which they later quantified in the most and least viewed TED Talks.

Why do people tend to look at someone's hands first when they meet?

People tend to look at someone's hands first due to an evolutionary trait from caveman days, where it was important to check if the stranger was carrying a weapon.

How many hand gestures do the most popular TED Talkers use on average in 18 minutes?

The most popular TED Talkers use an average of 465 hand gestures in 18 minutes.

What does Vanessa suggest is the impact of hand gestures on the brain's perception of the speaker's message?

Vanessa suggests that hand gestures underline concepts and are given 12.5 times more weight by the brain, thus reinforcing the speaker's message.

What study did Vanessa refer to that demonstrates the contagious nature of emotions?

Vanessa referred to a study where participants smelled sweat pads from treadmill runners and skydivers, with the latter causing the participants' fear response to be activated in an fMRI machine, demonstrating that emotions like fear are contagious.

How does Vanessa suggest we can be contagious in three different ways?

Vanessa suggests we can be contagious non-verbally, verbally, and emotionally. Non-verbally through hand gestures and expressions, verbally by using dopamine-triggering conversation starters, and emotionally by expressing excitement or nervousness.

What experiment did Vanessa conduct in Portland, Oregon, to demonstrate the contagious nature of non-verbal cues?

Vanessa conducted an experiment in Portland where she stood in the street looking up at nothing to see if passersby would mimic her behavior, demonstrating the contagious nature of non-verbal cues.

What is the facial feedback hypothesis mentioned by Vanessa?

The facial feedback hypothesis is the idea that not only do our emotions cause our facial expressions, but our facial expressions can also cause our emotions.

How did Vanessa's experiment with phone greetings aim to understand the impact of emotions on likeability?

Vanessa's experiment with phone greetings involved recording different emotional tones in hellos and then having participants rate the speakers on likeability to understand if expressing happiness, sadness, or anger affected perceived likeability.

What advice does Vanessa give for improving the quality of conversations and making oneself more memorable?

Vanessa advises to avoid typical conversation starters like 'What do you do?' and instead use ones that trigger dopamine and excitement, such as asking about exciting recent events or upcoming vacations.

What was the result of the singing experiment Vanessa mentioned, and what does it suggest about the power of mindset?

In the singing experiment, students who were asked to express excitement before singing into accuracy software scored an 80% accuracy rate, suggesting that mindset can significantly influence performance and that expressing excitement can enhance outcomes.

What is Vanessa's final challenge to the audience, and why is it meant to be infectious?

Vanessa's final challenge is for the audience to yell out 'I'm excited' with all their energy. This is meant to be infectious as it embodies the idea of expressing excitement to trigger positive emotions and make oneself more memorable and impactful.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 The Science of TED Talks and Body Language

Vanessa, a self-proclaimed recovering awkward person, introduces her journey into understanding human behavior. She delves into a study analyzing TED Talks to determine what makes some go viral while others don't. The research involved scrutinizing body language, hand gestures, vocal variety, and even outfit choices. A significant pattern emerged regarding hand gestures, which historically were crucial for cavemen to gauge friend or foe. Vanessa demonstrates the discomfort caused when hands are hidden and reveals that popular TED speakers use an average of 465 hand gestures in 18 minutes, compared to less popular speakers who use about half that number. This implies that hand gestures are a powerful tool in communication, conveying confidence and familiarity with the content.

05:02

😖 Contagious Emotions and the Power of Fear

The script discusses a study on the contagious nature of emotions, specifically fear, through the analysis of sweat samples from individuals in fear-inducing situations versus those in more mundane activities. The 'disgusting' part of the study involved participants unknowingly smelling these sweat pads while in an fMRI machine, revealing that those who smelled the fear-inducing sweat exhibited activation in their brain's fear response. This experiment suggests that our emotions, including fear, are not only displayed through facial expressions but are also mirrored by others, serving as a social and survival mechanism. Vanessa further explains the concept of microexpressions and how they play a role in conveying and spreading emotions such as fear, which is crucial for group safety.

10:02

😊 The Impact of Genuine Happiness and Facial Feedback

Vanessa explores the concept of facial expressions, particularly happiness, and their impact on our own emotions and those of others. She discusses a study from the University of Finland that examined the effects of viewing genuine versus fake happiness expressions on mood changes. The study found that genuine smiles, which involve the upper cheek muscles and crow's feet, not only make the person expressing them feel happier but also positively influence the mood of observers. This phenomenon is linked to the facial feedback hypothesis, which posits that our facial expressions can cause our emotions. Vanessa also touches on the importance of authenticity in expressions, noting that fake smiles can be detected and do not elicit the same positive response.

15:03

🗣️ The Art of Conversation and Dopamine-Triggering Questions

In this section, Vanessa discusses the art of conversation, focusing on the power of questions that trigger dopamine release, thereby making interactions more pleasurable and memorable. She details an experiment involving speed networking and the analysis of conversation starters that lead to higher quality conversations. The study found that questions that prompt the brain to recall positive experiences, such as asking about exciting projects or upcoming vacations, were more effective than common, less engaging conversation starters like 'What do you do?' or 'Where are you from?'. Vanessa emphasizes the importance of steering conversations towards topics that generate excitement and pleasure, as this not only makes the interaction more enjoyable but also makes the person asking the questions more memorable.

🎉 Harnessing Excitement and the Contagious Effect of Positivity

The final paragraph of the script focuses on the contagious nature of excitement and positivity. Vanessa shares an experiment where students were asked to sing 'Don't Stop Believing' under different emotional states, revealing that those who framed their nervousness as excitement performed significantly better. She challenges the audience to consider how they want to influence others and suggests adopting strategies such as asking dopamine-boosting questions, using expressive hand gestures, offering genuine smiles, and maintaining a positive demeanor, especially on the phone. Vanessa concludes her talk by encouraging the audience to declare their excitement aloud, aiming to leave them feeling inspired and ready to spread positivity.

Keywords

💡Social Awkwardness

Social awkwardness refers to the discomfort or lack of ease in social situations, often due to a lack of social skills or confidence. In the video, Vanessa, the speaker, mentions her own past social awkwardness, which led her to a career in understanding human behavior. This concept is central to the video's theme as it sets the stage for her exploration of non-verbal cues and their impact on social interactions.

💡TED Talks

TED Talks are a series of short presentations on a wide range of topics, delivered by experts in various fields. The speaker and her lab researchers analyzed TED Talks to identify patterns that made some talks more popular than others. This is a key part of the video's narrative as it provides the context for the study of body language, hand gestures, and other non-verbal cues discussed throughout the presentation.

💡Hand Gestures

Hand gestures are movements made with the hands to accompany speech, often used to emphasize or clarify points. The video highlights the importance of hand gestures in communication, revealing that popular TED Talkers use an average of 465 hand gestures in 18 minutes. This finding is directly related to the video's theme of how non-verbal cues can influence the effectiveness of communication.

💡Contagious Emotions

Contagious emotions refer to the idea that emotions can spread from one person to another, similar to a contagion. The video discusses how emotions such as fear and confidence can be contagious, influencing the emotional state of others. This concept is integral to the video's message about the power of non-verbal communication and emotional influence in social interactions.

💡Microexpressions

Microexpressions are brief, involuntary facial expressions that reveal a person's true emotions. In the video, Dr. Paul Ekman's research on microexpressions is mentioned, emphasizing their universality across genders and races. The video uses the fear microexpression as an example to illustrate how these subtle cues can communicate emotions and contribute to the video's overarching theme of emotional contagion.

💡Facial Feedback Hypothesis

The facial feedback hypothesis is the theory that facial expressions can influence a person's emotional state. The video explains that not only do emotions cause facial expressions, but the act of making certain expressions can also trigger corresponding emotions. This concept is used in the video to demonstrate how non-verbal cues can affect both the communicator and the audience.

💡Dopamine

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, reward, and motivation. The video discusses how conversation starters that trigger dopamine can lead to more engaging and memorable interactions. This is relevant to the video's theme as it suggests a method for enhancing social communication by stimulating positive emotional responses.

💡Conversation Starters

Conversation starters are phrases or questions used to initiate a conversation. The video challenges common conversation starters like 'What do you do?' and suggests using ones that prompt the brain to recall positive experiences, thereby increasing excitement and pleasure. This concept is central to the video's exploration of how to make social interactions more engaging and memorable.

💡Non-Verbal Communication

Non-verbal communication encompasses all forms of communication other than the spoken word, including body language, facial expressions, and gestures. The video emphasizes the power of non-verbal cues in conveying emotions and intentions, and how they can be used to influence others effectively. This is a key element of the video's message on the impact of non-verbal signals in social dynamics.

💡Optimism

Optimism is a positive mental attitude reflecting hope and confidence about the future. The video suggests that by asking questions that prompt others to think about exciting aspects of their lives, we can encourage optimism. This concept is tied to the video's theme of emotional contagion and the positive impact of spreading positive emotions.

💡Mindset

Mindset refers to a person's established set of beliefs or attitudes. The video uses the example of singing 'Don't Stop Believing' to illustrate how changing one's mindset from nervousness to excitement can significantly impact performance. This concept is relevant to the video's theme as it highlights the power of perspective in shaping emotional states and outcomes.

Highlights

Vanessa, a recovering awkward person, found a career in understanding social dynamics.

A large-scale experiment was conducted to analyze patterns in TED Talks to determine virality.

Researchers analyzed body language, hand gestures, vocal variety, and outfit choices of TED speakers.

A pattern emerged showing the importance of hand gestures, with popular TED speakers using an average of 465 gestures in 18 minutes.

The audience's first look at a person is their hands, a behavior rooted in ancient human survival instincts.

Hiding hands creates discomfort, as it prevents the audience from reading intentions.

TED speakers use hand gestures to convey friendliness and familiarity with their content.

Hand gestures are weighted more heavily by the brain, influencing perception more than words alone.

Humans are shown to be emotionally and chemically contagious through body language signals.

A study demonstrated that fear can be 'caught' through the smell of fear-induced sweat.

The speaker conducted an experiment showing how non-verbal cues can influence others' behavior.

Dr. Paul Ekman's research on microexpressions highlights their universality and role in conveying intense emotions.

Facial expressions not only reflect emotions but can also trigger them, known as the facial feedback hypothesis.

Authentic smiles that reach the eyes can boost happiness and are more memorable than fake smiles.

A study showed that phone conversations can convey emotions through tone, impacting likability.

Conversation starters that trigger dopamine production lead to more engaging and memorable interactions.

The study in Portland, Oregon, revealed the importance of dopamine in verbal communication for creating pleasurable exchanges.

The speaker challenges the audience to replace common conversation starters with ones that elicit excitement.

An experiment showed that reframing nervousness as excitement improved performance significantly.

The speaker concludes with a call to action to use our contagious nature to spread positivity and excitement.

Transcripts

Translator: Ki Yun Lee Reviewer: Peter van de Ven

Hello, my name is Vanessa,

and I am a recovering awkward person.

(Laughter)

This is me at the peak of what I like to call my plaid vest phase.

(Laughter)

Luckily, my years of social awkwardness

led me to a fascinating career trying to figure out how people work.

So, what I didn't realize is that many years ago,

I would do an experiment

that led me right on this stage in front of you here today.

My lab researchers and I were curious about TED Talks.

We wanted to know,

Why do some TED Talks go viral and others don't?

So we embarked on a huge experiment.

We analyzed thousands of hours of TED Talks, looking for patterns.

I wasn't sure if we would find anything,

so we were analyzing body language, hand gestures, vocal variety -

we even looked at outfit choices,

which made today particularly pressure-filled.

And very quickly, there was a pattern in the data that made me curious.

And after we coded more and more TED Talks,

we realized there was a pattern.

Now, before I tell you what that is, I have a personal question for you,

which is, When you see someone,

what part of the body do you look at first?

You can just call it out.

What do you look at first when you see someone?

Face, eyes - so most people -

shoes.

(Laughter)

They are very high.

So most people say eyes, face or mouth.

But actually, when we first see someone,

the first place we look is the hands.

And this is left over from our caveman days.

Because if we were approached by a stranger caveman,

the first place we looked was the hands

to see if they were carrying a rock or a spear.

We wanted to know if we were safe, if they were friend or foe.

Now, this actually still remains from caveman days,

and when we can't see someone's hands,

something interesting happens.

So I just did something a little mean to your brain.

You should start to feel just a little bit uncomfortable.

The reason for that is when you can't see my hands,

you wonder, What is she doing back there?

(Laughter)

And then, the longer I leave my hands behind my back,

you get more and more distracted because you can't see them.

And eventually, your brain is just screaming,

Can't she just bring her hands off from behind her back?

And the moment I bring them back out,

it feels so much better.

And this because our brain knows that if we can't see hands,

we can't see intention.

And we found as we compared the most viewed TED Talks

side by side with the least viewed TED Talks,

we found a pattern with hand gestures.

Specifically, on average,

the most popular TED talkers use an average of 465 hand gestures

in 18 minutes.

Yes, we painstakingly counted every single one.

I have 465 prepared for you today.

(Laughter)

And the least popular TED talkers use an average of 272 hand gestures.

Almost half.

What's happening here?

So when TED speakers take the stage,

they are showing you first "Friend, friend, friend."

You'll notice when I walked onto the stage, I waved.

I was saying, "Friend, friend, friend, friend."

(Laughter)

And the other thing that TED speakers do -

see if this looks familiar.

So they come onto the red dot, and they do something like this.

"Today, I want to talk to you about a big idea."

(Laughter)

"I am going to break it down into three different areas

that are going to change your life."

Right?

(Applause)

So the most viral TED talkers

seemed to sit in the same way with these hand gestures

because what they are doing is they are showing you,

"I know my content so well

that I can speak to you on two different tracks.

I can speak to you with my words,

but I can also explain my concepts with my hands."

And this way, they underline their concepts with their words.

For example, if I were to say,

"Today, I have a really big idea."

(Laughter)

"It's huge."

(Laughter)

You laugh, and you are like, "Vanessa, it's so small, it's not very big,"

and that is because your brain gives 12.5 times more weight to hand gestures.

So today I have a really, really big idea,

and I am going to explain it to you in three different ways.

My big idea is that we are contagious.

Specifically, as humans,

we are constantly sending and decoding body language signals.

We also do this emotionally and chemically.

To explain this,

I have a rather disgusting but very fascinating study.

So, in this study, researchers collected sweat pads

from people who ran on a treadmill.

Then they collected sweat pads

from skydivers on their first time skydive.

Two very different kinds of sweat.

Here is the disgusting part.

Then they had poor unsuspecting participants -

(Laughter)

I know -

they had unsuspecting participants in the lab

(sniffing)

smell these sweat pads while they were in an fMRI machine.

Here's where it gets interesting.

Even though the participants had no idea what they were smelling,

the ones that smelled the skydiving sweat pads

had their fear response in their brain activated.

In other words, they caught the fear.

This means that our emotions are contagious.

Our fear is contagious. Our confidence is contagious.

And this begs the big question:

If our emotions are contagious,

how do we make sure that we are infecting people with the right ones?

So, I believe that we can be contagious in three different ways.

The first one is non-verbally.

Now, to test this idea,

I did a very simple experiment in the streets of Portland, Oregon.

What I did is I stood in the street,

and I looked up at nothing.

And I wanted to see

if people would catch or mirror my non-verbal.

So you can see in this video,

I stand in the streets looking at nothing,

and slowly one by one ...

(Laughter)

I infect people walking by.

(Laughter)

And slowly ...

(Laughter)

we begin to gather a crowd.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

This poor woman, you know - she was standing there with me,

and we are standing there, and remember, we're looking at nothing.

And we are standing, and I am going, How long are we going to stand here?

Who's going to break first?

And after about 40 seconds,

we are looking, and she leans over and says,

"Is he going to jump?"

(Laughter)

And this experience taught me that we catch emotions,

and then we create rationales for why we've caught that emotion.

Now, this is actually a good thing.

As humans, this keeps us safe.

Dr. Paul Ekman has studied something called the microexpression.

It's a universal facial expression,

and he's discovered there are seven of them.

Across genders and races,

we all make the same expression when we feel an intense emotion.

This is the fear microexpression.

So, fear is a really important emotion

because we want to catch it from someone else

to warn us if something is about to go wrong.

And this facial expression also keeps us safe.

So imagine for a second that you're walking and you see a snake.

Your eyelids and your eyebrows jump out of the way

so you can take in as much of the environment as possible.

"Is there another snake? What is my escape route?"

Then your mouth - "huh" - opens

so you can take in oxygen in case you have to fight, yell for help, or flee.

We make this face before we consciously realize we've seen a snake.

Now, what's interesting about it

is you should be starting to feel a little bit anxious.

That's because when we see other people have fear -

If we saw this face in the subway,

we would be like, What's wrong? What's going on?

Because it keeps us safe.

So I want you to try it with me.

Open your eyes as wide as possible.

Raise your eyebrows up. Very good.

Now, take in a short breath.

(Gasp)

Perfect.

Do you feel anxious?

What's interesting about facial expressions

is they cause our emotions.

So not only do our emotions cause our face,

but our face also causes our emotions.

It's called the facial feedback hypothesis.

So when we see someone with this face, we catch their emotion,

and then we are ready to fight, flee, or yell for help.

Luckily, this also works with positive emotions.

So one of the faces behind me is a real happiness microexpression,

and one of them is fake.

(Laughter)

So the real happiness microexpression is when the smile reaches all the way up

into these upper crow's feet muscles, those upper cheek muscles.

And this is really important

because, you know, when you tell a frenemy good news,

(Laughter)

and they say they are happy for you, but you know they are not really.

It looks like this - "Oh yeah, I am so happy for you."

(Laughter)

So try the fake expression for me first.

Just try this fake smile, only on the bottom half of the face.

You can even go, "Uh, uh."

It doesn't feel so good, right?

It feels inauthentic.

Now, go all the way up into your eyes.

So smile all the way up to the upper cheek muscles.

Ah, that one should feel so much better.

What is interesting about this facial expression

is it causes our own happiness.

And we also catch it when we see it.

Researchers of the University of Finland looked at these two facial expressions.

They had participants look at photos

of people with the real happiness and fake happiness.

They found that when they showed participants

pictures of the real happiness smile,

those emotions caught -

they caught the positive emotions,

and they themselves had a positive mood change.

But when they looked at the face with the fake happiness smile,

they caught nothing.

In other words, if we show up to events that we are ambivalent about,

interact with people that we don't really like,

we become less memorable.

This doesn't just happen in person, it also happens on the phone.

So I worked with a lot of different clients,

corporate clients who are on the phone all the time.

They said "Vanessa,

I get being happy in person, but how about on the phone?"

So we decided to do an experiment.

We had participants in our lab record different versions of their hello,

the first impression on the phone.

We wanted to know

if people could hear happiness, sadness or anger.

So we had people record different versions of their hello

with happiness, sadness, anger and while power posing.

We wanted to see if they would sound different.

So I wanna play you two different versions of hello

and see if you can guess which one is the happy hello.

Are you ready? Alright.

Same person. Here is a).

(Sound recording) Hello.

Here is b).

(Sound recording) Hello.

How many people think a) is the happy hello?

How many think b) is the happy hello?

Very good.

We can hear this difference.

We can hear this microexpression.

Now, I thought this was interesting, but I wanted to take it a step further.

So we devised a second part of our experiment

where we had participants in our lab listen to these recordings

and rate that person on likeability.

We wanted to see

if the happiness microexpressions or the anger microexpressions

or the power posing expression did better.

Here's what happened.

After we asked people,

"I do like this person a lot,"

"I like this person a little," or "I do not like this person,"

we found that the happiness microexpressions

across all trials for both men and women,

they became more likeable.

Whereas the same persons who baited the anger or sadness microexpression

were less likeable.

This is the happy side effect of having your confidence be contagious.

Not only do you infect someone else with that happiness,

you also become more likeable.

We talked about non verbal,

and I have to talk about what comes after the hello.

How do we infect confidence verbally?

So in this study we did in Portland, Oregon,

we took 500 Speed-Networkers,

and we asked each of these Speed-Networkers

to go through a conversation starter round -

eight of these rounds.

So we assigned each participant

a conversation starter to have with a stranger.

Then we set up cameras in all corners of the room,

and we analyzed each of these speed rounds for patterns.

We were looking for body language patterns:

leans, nods, laughs, smiles, confidence.

We were also looking for volume differences.

In a really good conversation, usually the volume goes up.

In a really awkward bad conversation,

there are lots of silences, the volume goes down.

And we also asked each of the participants to rate the conversation starters.

We wanted to know which ones produced the highest quality of conversation.

What we found was that the conversation starters that worked

centered on this little chemical called dopamine.

So dopamine is the neurotransmitter that we produce when we feel pleasure

or when we get a reward.

And I noticed that most of our chit-chat

that we have at parties or networking events is the same.

It sounds like this.

"So, what do you do?"

"Where are you from?"

"Live around here? Huh?"

"Well, I am going to go get some more wine.

It was great talking to you."

Those conversations happened over and over again.

It was almost as if they were socially scripted.

My brain was on autopilot.

What we found was

is that the worst ranked conversation starters,

the ones that got the lowest ratings,

the ones that produced the lowest volume,

the ones that got the most leans away, worst head nods, worst microexpressions,

those were the ones that we use the most.

"What do you do?" "How are you?"

"Where are you from?"

from a physiological perspective, have no effect.

No pleasure.

So what we tried was to find conversation starters

that could spark or create some kind of excitement.

Can you verbally trigger dopamine?

We found that the brain is really interesting.

If you ask somebody a question, it tends to look for hits and not misses.

What I mean by this is if you ask someone

"Been busy lately?"

their brain immediately looks for all the hits of "been busy."

They think about negative things that have happened -

the stress, the busyness, all the bad things in their life.

Whereas if you ask someone, "Working on any exciting recently?"

their brain immediately begins to look for all the hits of "excitement."

It starts to think about the good and happy things,

all the excitement that's going on in their own life.

And that does two things.

One, it creates pleasure for them.

You are literally asking them

to borrow excitement from other places in their life

and bring it to the situation that you're in.

And the other thing that it does is it makes you more memorable.

Dr. John Medina found that dopamine,

when it's triggered in a verbal conversation,

makes a mental post-it note.

In other words, when you ask someone else to think of what's exciting in their life,

the happy side effect is that you become more memorable.

So here's my big challenge for today.

Instead of using the typical

"What do you do?"

"How are you?" and "Where are you from?"

let's banish those conversation starters forever,

and let's try ones that ask the brain to look for hits of excitement.

Try "Working on anything exciting these days?"

"Have any vacations coming up?"

"Anything good happen today?"

I think this is the greatest gift we can give our fellow human beings.

We are asking them to flip into optimism.

We are triggering dopamine and excitement and getting them off autopilot.

The last way that we are contagious is emotionally.

So, this study is one of my favorites.

In this experiment, they asked students to sing the song

"Don't Stop Believing"

into an accuracy software.

Now, this a very nerve-racking experiment.

They are rated on vocal tone, words,

and they are given no preparation.

But they did three different trials of this experiment.

First, they had them just walk into the room

and sing into an accuracy software.

The second group got into the room and had to say out loud,

"I'm nervous."

And the last group had to walk into the room and say,

"I'm excited."

They found with this simple reframe

the nervous group got 53% accuracy,

the control group got 69%,

but the "I'm excited" group got 80% accuracy.

Why?

Anxiety and excitement are very similar emotions.

The only difference is mindset.

So my challenge for you today

is to think about how you want to infect people.

When you want harness incitement or trigger excitement:

ask dopamine-worthy conversation starters;

use more hand gestures;

make authentic smiles;

and never pick up the phone in a bad mood.

(Laughter)

And the last thing I want to do is I want to end on a note of excitement.

I want to make you really infectious.

So what we are going to do to end this talk

is on the count of three, with all the energy you can muster,

I want you to yell out "I'm excited."

Are you ready?

One, two, three!

"I'm excited."

You rocked it.

(Applause)