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Optimize Interaction and Design Your Personality

Lesson 11 from: Master Your People Skills

Vanessa Van Edwards

Optimize Interaction and Design Your Personality

Lesson 11 from: Master Your People Skills

Vanessa Van Edwards

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Lesson Info

11. Optimize Interaction and Design Your Personality

Lesson Info

Optimize Interaction and Design Your Personality

(audience applause) Hello, welcome to day 11. Today we are talking about optimizing interaction and personality. And our goals today are three-fold. First I'm gonna teach you the Free Trait Theory, and this is gonna help us optimize our interaction and show us how we can design our personality to be exactly what we want it to be. So the warm-up today, I want you to think about who in your life, who in your life do you want to discover their matrix? Who in your life are you like, "Gosh, I so want them to fill out the big five factor test. "I'm dying to see where they fall on that scale.". So who is that special person? It could be your riser, it could be an intimate, it could be a colleague or a client. I want to know who it is and why you want to know that about them. So I see people thinking, anyone have any answers? Yeah. I think I want my riser to, and this is my- Who's your riser? College roommate, we were really close, lost touch, and now we're getting back together. And in part...

it's because she is always very level, (laughs), she doesn't really get excited about things or she doesn't, there's a lot of levelness. But I think that's more sometimes maybe just a front she's putting on, versus what's really going on inside. So that's why I think it'd be really interesting for her to fill that out to get little deeper. So you want to crack, see what's beneath the surface. That's your reason, is to get a little deeper to see, is what I see what I get? Is it authentic? Because you want to honor and respect her for who she is. Anyone else have someone they really want to discover or tap into? Yeah, Maggie. I've been realizing that I'm a lot more like my dad than I ever thought in the last couple years, and I'm trying to build a better relationship. I think it'd be nice to know how similar we are in a lot of these personality traits. That would be awesome. Parents is a great one, I didn't even think of that. Yeah, what are our parents like, and are we similar to which one or more one than the other? So we are in the bonding section of The Path to Connection. We learned our first impression, we learned how to make emotional deposits when we're meeting someone. We learned how to crack a little deeper, fracking into their emotional needs. And now we're in bonding, which is the final and last step on The Path to Connection. Yesterday I taught you how to read someone's matrix, and today we're gonna talk about how to optimize it. First I want to go over a couple of big five trends. Now that we've been exploring the big five, we know a little bit about our personality, I want to talk about some general trends that research has found fall with the different factors. First, differences between men and women. So women tend to be higher in neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness to feelings, whereas men, in general, tend to be higher in assertiveness, which is a facet of extraversion, so men are typically higher in extraversion. And they are higher in openness to ideas. So they fall in the middle of the spectrum. Women are much more open to creative feelings, I want to hear what you're thinking, I want to be imaginative with you, whereas men want to explore creativity in ideas. So there's an interesting little change in an aspect, the openness factor. Another trend is that low conscientiousness is the hardest on couples. They found that couples who struggle the most, it's because one or both members of the couple have low conscientiousness. So the reason we're gonna talk about that is because we're gonna talk about optimizing our conscientiousness later, and that might be a reason, if you're a low conscientiousness person, to think about, what are ways you can get that up there? That's the hardest part of couples, when one or both are low conscientiousness. High agreeableness positively predicts leadership success. So they found that among leaders, the best leaders tend to be high in agreeableness. They tend to be awesome team players, that's why they're great at managing a team. They're very compliant, they're very trusting, and they tend to rise much faster. Trends over time, I think this is really fascinating. Over age, as we get older, people become less open to new experience. So our openness tends to fall as we get older. And this makes sense. If you have a grandpa that's like, "I don't try anything new, "I like everything the way it is.". That's not how grandpas usually sound, but let's just go with it. So that is actually a trend over time, we tend to get less open over time, we get more stuck in our ways. Neuroticism wanes in women, but not in men. Over time, women get less neurotic over their life, whereas typically if a man it neurotic at the end of his life, unless he wants to optimize it, it typically stays the same. And extraversion declines in women, but not men. Women tend to get less extroverted over time, whereas men tend to get more extroverted over time. These are very interesting things. If we think about people in our lives and if they change or how they change, it's kind of interesting to see how they fit in the different patterns. That's gonna help us, inform us, on how we want to optimize. A couple more. High extraversion, they tend to have increased dopamine response, so they pursue rewards greater. This is an overview of what we learned yesterday. For high neuroticism, they have an increased response to negativity and threat. So they are more vigilante and they tend to have depressive feelings more often. Low conscientiousness. They have inhibiting behavior and lower will power, so they have a higher chance of addiction. They found that people who are addicted, it actually happens because they have less will power, and so they keep going into the drug because they cannot get a control, get their feelings or addiction under control. It typically goes with low conscientiousness. High agreeableness. They tend to put others first, but what happens is their needs can go unmet, because they're afraid to ask for them, they are into people pleasing, and they can be taken advantage of. And high openness. They have a breadth of mental associations, they're really good at combining things and trying new things and thinking new things. But this can make them have divergent beliefs, and also their gullibility tends to go up, people who are high in openness. They're so open to new ideas, they're like, "Sure, that could work, I love it.". So they can tend to be gullible. So this all comes down to the Free Trait Theory. The Free Trait Theory says that you could optimize your traits if your goals are high enough. So we have a goal for something, we can change our trait to fit into that goal, to help us get to that goal. That is why I made us talk about our personal mission statement. And this leads me to skill number 16, which is optimize personality. We can optimize natural traits to achieve our goal. This is the Free Trait Theory. Our personalities can be designed to fit our personal mission statement, which we talked about in segment two. So what is your personal mission statement? Hopefully yin your workbook, you've been going to the personal mission statement questions, you've been thinking about why you're here, what your legacy is, what drives you. So has anyone solidify their personal mission statement, thought about why they're here? Actually somebody had done it yesterday. Josh, you had said something about helping people overcome their vulnerability. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, so basically I've been living like that for so long, just always worried about securities and how I'm perceived, and I want to be able to help people that are the same way, that don't know how to do it, how to break out of it. And I want to be able to just break insecurities in people. I love it. Do you think that's your personal mission statement? Definitely, yeah. Lacy, did you talk about your personal mission statement, have you thought about your personal mission statement, what drives you? Helping other people remember who they are and sharing their gifts, talents, passions, with the world. That's a huge one. That's a huge one. Why not dream big? Yeah, I love it. So I want you to keep these personal mission statement front of mind for the next five or six slides. That is what we're talking about here, because not everyone needs to design or optimize their personality. If you love it, you keep it. But if you know you need to change or optimize something to achieve your goals, that's what I want to talk about today. So let's talk about the positive sides and the negative sides of both ends of each factor. So extraversion, people who are high extraversion, on the plus side, they're very charismatic and they tend to be popular. On the negative side, they can be seen as rude, they can bored easily, and sometimes they can be perceived as bossy, because they're so direct. On the other side, on low extraversion, they're seen as thoughtful and observant. On the low side, they can feel loneliness, they can be seen as passive, as if they don't have opinions, because they're afraid to share them, and they can go unheard. Their needs, their wants, who they are, we can miss it. Their brilliance, we don't see it. So what I want us to ask ourselves is two questions, and I have these in your workbook for you to go through. One, "My personal mission statement requires me to "be more or less...". And it could be exactly the same. And the second, "What's one action step I "need for myself to get there.". So what's one thing I can do to optimize it? And an inspiration I have here is Jackie Kennedy. So in Jackie Kennedy's biography, she was actually quite an introvert. She really, really was nervous about lots of people, having lots of people around and big crowds. But she knew, it was in her personal mission statement, she didn't use those words, but one of the things that drove her, she wanted to use her position as First Lady to affect and help as many people as possible. So she pushed her introversion, she optimized it. So she said, "I'm gonna make sure that "I'm a really good public speaker and that "I meet the right groups, that I use my position as "First Lady to reach the right people.". She optimized her introversion in a way that she was comfortable with. She didn't have to be an extrovert and love people, but she found ways that she could optimize it. So what are some ways, I want you to turn to your partner, and you can say, "I love I'm an extrovert, I own it, "it helps in my business.". Fine, but is there something that you want to push that fits in your personal mission statement? And I'm gonna pull people up on stage to talk about it with me. At home, I want you to write out, if it fits, and what your action step could be. Who haven't I pulled up on stage? Bobber, who's your partner? Yeah, come on up, yeah. Bring the mics, too? Yes, bring the mics, and turn to your partner, and start talking. Is there an optimized trait here you want to do? Come on up. (overlapped chatter) Hello. Hi. Right here, right here, perfect. Right here. So where do you fall on the extroversion scale? I'm like both. Both. So what is your personal mission, do you know? I want to empower others to live their dreams. Alright, so what do you need to do? Is it extrovert, introvert, action steps to do that? I think that I'd really love to be able to switch both like I do now, but I'd like to have control over when that switch happens. What's an action step for that? I have an idea, do you? No. (laughs) I have no idea. I have an idea for you. So, that first day, we talked about thrive, survive, and neutral. I want you to actually slightly change that, and I want you to do extrovert, introvert, and neutral. Okay, so do it for all of the above. Yeah, and see, where are the areas that you want to use them? How do you want to break it up? I love it, because then you can help people achieve their dreams, whatever situation that is for them. If it's one on one or if it's speaking. Right. Yeah, I like it. Bobber, tell me. My mission statement was to connect better with my clients. And I figured out that I need to work more on my listening, because I found that because I would get so expressive, and I would get so overwhelmed, that I would end up just talking on their behalf. Or like, "Hey I figured it out, I know what you want.". So just being a better listener. And the techniques I learned from here, were just calm down, give them more time, and be more impressed by them. That one thing has just got kind of driven into my mind, that I think that's all I'm going to be thinking, because again, at the end of the day it is, if they like you, if I have made them feel very special, I've got the job. I love it. So the art of listening skill for you. Yes. And being in highlighter for them. Yes, yes. I love it. Awesome, guys, yes, yes, thank you. Alright. (overlapped chatter) So, I know these are good, they're juicy conversations, I don't mean to stop them. So hopefully at home, that little exchange was really inspiring, because I was inspired about that exchange, about what I just learned about them. I hope to learn more of your personal mission statements as we go. So now we're going to talk about conscientiousness. On the high side, people who are high in conscientiousness are extremely dependable and organized, they get it done. On the low side, they can be perfectionists, they can fall into a routine prison, where they feel like they're so imprisoned by their need for control and organization that they can't break out of it. On the low side, they're laid back, they're free spirits, but sometimes they can be difficult to be in a relationship with, because it's hard to find them, it's hard to depend on them, and there's a lack of follow through, which can also be a challenge in work environments. So again, we come to this question of, does my personal mission statement require me to be more or less conscientious? What's one challenge or action step I can try for myself to push or optimize my personality type? A great inspiration here is Richard Branson. Richard Branson has many books that he has written, and they're awesome, they're hilarious. In one of his first books, he talks about how he is a free spirit, he loves adventure, he loves to be easy going and laid back, but he quickly learned that if he wanted to run an international company, he was gonna have to step up his game in conscientiousness. He was going to have to figure out how to be organized and dutiful and follow his schedule. And so he had to step up his conscientiousness, and he actually combines an amazing free spirit, Virgin Airlines, Virgin, Virgin Galactic. Still an explorer, still being easy going and fun and having a really fun brand, with conscientiousness where he needs it to run his business. And that's a great example of someone who's optimized their personality. So I want you to turn to your partner and talk about this. Who has not been on stage? You guys haven't been on stage for a little while. Jason and Maggie, you guys wanna come on up? Turn to your partner and talk about conscientiousness, how does it help or hurt you? Come on up. (overlapped chatter) So who wants to start? What is your personal mission statement, do you know? My personal mission statement is to help people live a better life. And my personal mission statement requires me to be more conscientious, and one goal that I have for this is just on those things where I'm not as conscientious, figuring out a way to either put structure in place or have somebody else take care of that thing. So building structure for yourself or reaching out to someone who is high in conscientiousness in your life and being like, "How can I structure this?". Yes, yes. Fantastic, I love it. That's asking for help. Yes. A high conscientious person, I am one, if someone were to say to me, "How can I organize this?". It's like you're giving me dopamine, like, "Let me show you my highlighters. "Can I show you how to color code this?". It's the best thing you can do, and it helps you, too. I love it. Okay, Maggie. So what am I saying? I'm sorry. Your personal mission statement, I'm sorry, I'm like... Your personal mission statement, do you know what it is? I'm kind of going (mumbles). It's okay, we can talk about it. I think it has something to do with helping people to see who they are and sharing the best side of people with themselves. Like I share it with them, but also that they can learn to do it on themselves, see themselves. It doesn't have to be a perfect sentence. That idea, I get you, I hear you. Yes, I understand that you make people feel that way and they make you feel it back. Fantastic, okay, so conscientiousness. Does it fit, does it help, does it hurt? I think that I'm very high conscientiousness, and I think it would be nice to, it helps to open people up to staying and feeling if you're low. And so a lot of times, I have to like turn that down to help people warm-up, because I know that in my head, my little checklist is going, and I know sometimes that can show, as opposed to just letting people be who they are, which is what I'm trying to get to. Optimizing low conscientiousness to give people space. Yeah, in the right moment. In the right moments. I like that a lot. I also have to do the same thing, I gotta work on that, too. High five, guys. Filling in the space I think when you're talking. Yeah, giving them space to answer. For introverts, that's really important. Thanks guys. Alright. (overlapped chatter) I love it because one on one, one by one, I'm learning your personal mission statements, and if you feel comfortable, I would love it, at home you can Tweet me your personal mission statements so I can learn a little bit about you, too. I'm @VvaneEdwards. Because I think the more we say these out loud, the more we can give ourselves accountability and support. And people don't know why you're here, they want to. I just learned tow new things about you guys that, now that I know that, I want to send more people to you because you want to help people, you want people to feel themselves, you want to be able to show that you're yourself. I mean, that's one of the best ways to interact with people, so I want to know that more about you, it's very exciting hearing about you two. Yeah, I want to give a shout out to Arianna, because one of my issues was I was very, very low with conscientiousness, like free spirit, not very caring. And we were just discussing, and she mentioned about a plug in in WordPress that for my clients, if I get it implemented, it can show them progress or what state their work is, rather than calling me, texting, emailing me. So they can just go in there and see what stage it is, so I want to thank her for this. Thank you. Yes, kiss for you. Thank you for that shout out. Anytime in this course you have a shout out, I want to hear it. I love it, I love that we're helping each other. You guys, we're gonna be so close by the end, we're like crying at the end. (audience laughter) Try not to cry on the last day. So let's talk about agreeableness. People who are high in agreeableness, they are great team players. As we talked about, they tend to be wonderful leaders. Leaders tend to score high in agreeableness. On the other end, they can be seen as gullible, as pushovers, and as naive, because they're so agreeable. People who are low in agreeableness, they are seen as steadfast, direct, dependable. On the low end, they can be seen as difficult, a little rigid, or stubborn, because they don't want to move in their ways. So I want you to think about, my personal mission requires me to be more or less agreeable. And what's one challenge or action step I can try for myself? And the inspiration here is Steve Jobs. So if you've read his biography or watched the movie about Steve Jobs, you will see that Steve Jobs was most likely a little bit low in agreeableness. He was brilliant, but team player, not so much. He was not very trusting, he was very suspicious, he liked to work on his own. So what he had to do, the only way he could build Apple, the only way he could change the world with his ideas, is he had to use a team. He had to find a way to work with people. People who worked with him might say that he didn't do that very well, but he did have to try, he did have to not be a hermit. Put on clothes, put on deodorant, he hated wearing deodorant. He had to wear shoes, occasionally, when he wanted to. So he had to learn how to work well in a team environment, because he wanted to meet his mission to change the world with his ideas and his brilliance. So I want you to think about, what are some ways, for your personal mission statement, that you might need to be more or less agreeable? Or are you exactly the way you are, you're exactly what you need? And what's one challenge or action step you need to try it? Kim, Michael and Kim, I haven't had you guys up on stage. Who's their partner? Oh, all three of you. Come on up. And you guys, turn to your partner, and let's talk about this one. (overlapped chatter) So we're gonna come kind of back, we're not gonna be able to front this time, we have to face out. So does anyone feel like they have to optimize their agreeableness for their personal mission statement? I do, I'm very agreeable, and one of the ways that's been getting in the way is I don't allow myself to have needs because I'm agreeing and taking care of everybody else's things. And so acknowledging that I do have needs and asking for help and allowing, like the team thing, I think would be huge for me. Yeah, you do have needs, and it's okay to ask for them. Thank you. I do. I want to own more of the, I'm a team player, but I want to own more of the leader, like solid in what I know, what I'm doing. Yeah, that's perfect. Michael. My neuroticism is a little bit in the way, because I don't know where I'm going yet. Okay hold that thought, I'm gonna bring you back up on stage for neuroticism, because that ties in, and that's absolutely normal, that a trait, agreeableness and neuroticism are so closely tied, you can't quite get in the way of what needs to happen next. Okay, awesome high five. Gold that thought, Michael, you're coming back up on stage. Yes, love it. You guys can take a seat. Okay, we're gonna talk about- (overlapped chatter) Neuroticism, neuroticism. What? We're busy chatting. You're busy chatting, I know. (audience laughter) And the thing is, these answers, you can talk about one of these answers for hours, right? I mean, you're talking about fitting who you are into your dreams, and I'm having to do it in a minute. So at home, you have the luxury to sort of self explore and go through these, because this I think is the most important thing we can do for ourselves. We're investing in who we are and how we want to get there. So neuroticism, people who are high in neuroticism, they are typically high achievers, and they are meticulous. They look at every single detail. On the low end, they tend to have high anxiety, high depression, and they are seen as hypersensitive, or they can be higher reactive. On the low end, so people who are low neurotic, are easy going and carefree, they're very stable. But the problem is sometimes they can be seen as careless. Carefree turns into careless. They're so detached. They can be seen as absentminded or unemotional, because they don't necessarily need to have an emotional reaction to everything. Sometimes people can see them as detached or unemotional, absentminded. I want us to think about, my personal mission requires me to be more or less neurotic in what way? And one challenge to try for myself could be. I want to explain, I'm actually going to give a n example after this one about who I think is an inspiration for this, they tie into two things. Right now I want to take it from you guys. And Michael, you talked a little about neuroticism earlier and you said it was getting in the way. Tell me about that. I liked to hop from project to project, and that makes me have no focus on going nowhere fast. I can go really deep into a project and when I think, "Okay, I figured it out", I recognize the pattern, which ties into my emotional or my intelligence. I think, "Okay I figured it out. Next.", and I switch to a different project and I lose interest. So I never get anything really done. I have an idea for an action step for you, but do you have an action step idea that you might be able to do? Stick to a project. Right, yes, that's a really hard one. I want to suggest a tool that I use, because I have a very similar thing, where I project hop and things kind of get done but not always. You're like, "I could go more on them.". I would suggest using a not-to-do list. We all have to-do lists of things that we have to get done, I want you to think about using a not-to-do list. On your not-to-do list, it could be working on your other projects that are distracting you. And you actually have to work on this one thing or these two things, and you can set that not-to-do list to have a time limit. Or you have to get all of this done before your next to-do list can kick in. That not-to-do list can be more effective than just, I need to finish the project. Because then you stick to the not-to-do list as opposed to a to-do list, because you do a lot, that's not the problem. It's not doing. Yeah, I'm excited to hear how that works. I use not-to-do lists every single day. Every single day I have one project that I want to work on, and my not-to-do list, it has all the other projects that are pulling at me, that I'm either excited about or I want to do or I have a deadline to do. But I can't do them, I'm focusing on the one. Like checking Facebook is often on my not-to-do list. Some days responding to email is on my not-to-do list. It's too distracting or me before I finish a project. I have one for every day, some people do them for a week or for a month. So I'm gonna give you some time to work on them after, I want to go through the next one, to talk about neuroticism. So let's do the last one, which is openness to experience and intellect. People who are high in openness, they're creative, they're intelligent, they're imaginative. On the low end, they can be impulsive, they can be seen as a little too liberal, too much rule breaking. Bosses don't love it. Or they question authority, because they're curious, they're open, they want to find out things. On the low end, people who are low in openness, they're unwavering, steady, and committed. However, they can be seen as boring, uninterested, or stiff, because they lack a certain curiosity in their personality. They much prefer what's dependable, what's routine. So an interesting example of this is with Chris Jennings, one of the other CreativeLive hosts who I love, we did a personality mock-up on him, we did an intelligence mock-up on him, we did the 10 interview questions. And we asked him, "What is your personal mission statement? "What gets you up in the morning?". And here's what he said, he said, "I get up in the morning because "there are so many possibilities! "Lot of opportunities to learn new things and "have new experiences each day.". So where do you think he falls in openness, low/high? High, absolutely. But what was interesting was, when he did his personality test, there was something different. In his personality test, he actually scored equal in openness, very neutral, and he scored low in extroversion. This is a CreativeLive host, this is someone who is on camera all the time, who's talking to people, who's interviewing audience members. So because his personal mission statement wants him to learn new things, he clearly pushes his extroversion and pushes the openness to be able to be here at CreativeLive and be a host. I think it's an amazing example of how his personal mission statement actually made him optimize his personality traits. And I wanted to show a quick video of him answering a question about this exact thing. I'm one of the hosts here at CreativeLive. My biggest fear. My biggest fear I think is not fulfilling potential, not taking the skills that I have and utilizing them in a way that is gonna benefit me the most. And just I guess being idle and lazy and not using my skills to the best of their ability. I'm actually wrapping up work on a Masters Program, and right now one of the things that we have to do in the thesis is working on an integrated marketing campaign. So marketing is one of my passions, and kind of working on something from start to finish and building out a plan for a brand. I'm very calm, I'm very insightful, and I'm very relaxed. So let's do his matrix together, from that really quick video, okay? So we already said he's equal openness and low in extroversion, which I wouldn't have necessarily guessed, but his desire to learn, his desire to fill his potential... His greatest fear of not fulfilling potential, pushes him out of that. So a couple clues. We heard host, we heard a detailed marketing plan, we heard learning something new, and that two of his words were relaxed and calm. So neuroticism, what about that makes us see that he's low in neuroticism? What about his words that he chose makes the opposite of high neuroticism? Relaxed and calm. Relaxed and calm, like it's an easy one. And what else could we guess, on agreeableness or conscientiousness? What do we think? Yeah, what do you think? High. High, absolutely. He talked about finishing things start to finish, not being idle, not being lazy. He wants to get it done. The only one that I think we had trouble figuring out was agreeableness. Low agreeableness, but not very low. I put it in red because I don't think we could accurately guess from just those answers. So now I go back to that question. My personal mission requires me to be or less and we talked about, openness or neurotic, neuroticism? And what's one action step or challenge I can try for myself to either push or optimize low or high openness and neuroticism? So I'm gonna bring two people up on stage. Actually, I haven't had you guys up on stage. Would you mind coming up? Yes, bring up the mic for sure. And I want you to turn to your partner and talk about those last two personality traits. Come up and stand right here. At home, I want you to please be filling these out along with us so that you optimize the personality trait that you want to have based on your personal mission. Alright, so tell me. So talking about agreeableness and- No, openness and neuroticism. About curiosity, imagination, yeah, and where do you fall? I'm actually very high on the openness, neuroticism I actually fall very low on it, like I come across as disinterested. And does that work for you in your personal mission or is there something you want to optimize there? I need to optimize the- Neuroticism. Neuroticism of not being as questioning at authority, and being more likable. So what's an action step you can do to try that? I'm thinking the first step would be to be not as critical and saying things, like I was just talking to her about it, saying things like, "Oh that's not so bad", is not a compliment. (laughter) No, it's true, that's not a compliment. So for you- To me it is. (laughter) I'm a little crazy, so. So be a highlighter. That lesson, we talked about avoiding spontaneous trait transference, harnessing that positivity, I want you to really focus on that lesson. The skills from that lesson will help you combat that. That will help you optimize your neuroticism. Yeah, I've got to practice that on a daily basis. A daily basis. Every time we do it, I love that you guys are helping each other on it. Alright, Lee. I'll actually try that for 30 days and see what happens. And then Tweet me. Good. I will. (laughs) I love it, yes, alright, Lee. So I rank very high on neuroticism, and kind of medium in openness. So I think my personal mission in general is to bring happiness in the world, and I think- But you do with tiny ... I hope so. You do. So I think in order for me to do that, I have to be a little less neurotic, and just learn to sometimes let things go, not take everything very personal. So I think that's... So what one acton step for you to do that? Because I think that's a big one, it's a big one. It's hard. I guess focus on things that, I always think about, since I'm very high on conscientiousness, I think about maybe picking things that I'm allowed to be neurotic about, letting the other things go. I love it. So I want you on this, in your workbook, I want you to make a list of the things it's okay, own your neuroticism. And things where you're like, "Okay, I need to work on these specific things.". I love that, harness it down. (laughter) Cool guys, I love it. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Okay, so- (overlapped chatter) I love learning all your personal mission statements. That's one of my big things, is learning why people are here and trying to help them do it. So I'm very jazzed. So the reason we do this lesson is for three reasons. I want to show you how to act on your strengths, so the parts of your personality that are working for you, I want you to use them even more, leverage them to their umpteenth ability. I also want you to optimize your limits. A limit or weakness is not a limit or a weakness if you optimize it. Thinking about, "This is a part of my personality and "here's how I wanna make it work for me, "and here's how I want to fit it into my goals.". And also showcasing your strengths. So showing, when you're in an interview or with a client, you can highlight aspects of your personality that will work for what you're trying out for. So if I'm working with someone and they tell me, "I'm really high conscientious, I get it done, "I'm very organized, I'm very dependable.". I'm like, "Awesome, I'm so glad to know that about you.". So showcasing parts of our personality for clients. If you're high agreeable, saying to someone, "I'm a team player, I just want to figure out "what works for you. "I want you to tell me how you feel, I embrace those emotions.". You leverage, you showcase your agreeableness to work with them and for them. We don't often think about talking about our personality that way. I love this quote. "In the best relationships, "you help each other be the best version of yourselves.". This is from my dad, (laughs). So my dad always said this to us, he said, "In relationships, you have to help the other person be "their best self.". And doing this, I want you to translate it to the people who matter most in your life. Today we've been talking about our own personalities, I want you to go to your partner, your clients, and your friends and figure out, how can you help them optimize their personality to meet their personal mission statement? So take it beyond you. If that means teaching this lesson to someone else, if that means just talking about what their personality is like, taking a test with them, I want you to figure out how you can help them optimize. So I want you to think about ways you can help your risers be the best version of themselves. So one way that we can really tap into people, we can level up with our riser, our riser's the people that we want to connect with, is you can help them achieve their personal mission statement. I want you to take some time n your workbook, and I want you to fill out their matrix. What's their intelligence? What are their five personality types? What do you think their personal mission is? What can you talk to them about? What can you ask them? How can you be a master questioner to figure out, what is their personal mission statement, why are they are and how can you help them? Tomorrow, we are going into speed reading people, which is using all of the skills we have learned so far. We're going to be putting into one lesson tomorrow, putting it all together. That is, trusting your first impression, bonding quickly, and the art and science of speed reading. 13, 13 is a big one. It's the last step before we go to the connect phase. It's the only way that we can get there, is to go through conquering our fears. I'm gonna teach you how to be socially fearless. I also want to show you how to stop feeling like a fraud. We're gonna talk about the imposter syndrome, and how sometimes our own vulnerabilities and inner worth gets in our way. And we're gonna talk about how you can make love to your fear. (audience laughter) Yeah, we're gonna make love to our fears. Our challenge today is what areas of your personality do you want to optimize? I want you to go through the workbook, use the prompts that I have and think about, "What is my personal mission statement and "how should I optimize?". And I want you to think about action steps. It's one thing to say you want to do it, I want you to think of one skill that we've learned in this course that will help you get there. People kept coming up on stage, we would talk about neuroticism or agreeableness, and the Ruck technique came up, and listening came up, and the art of silence came up. I want you to look at the skills that we've learned and see how they can help you in those action steps. And lastly, I want you to think of at least three ways you can help your riser be their best self. And that might just be being supportive of them with the offer mentality. That might be going into master questioner and figuring out, how can you ask them the right questions to tap into their own needs? It might be going through the personality matrix with them. So we are here. What is the most important thing you learned today, what was your 'aha' moment? J.K, would you join me? I didn't have an 'aha' moment. You didn't have an 'aha' moment? Because, and I don't think you know Chris very well, do you? Because I don't think you worked with him last time, but you nailed him, I thought that was fascinating. Yeah, I've never met him. I met once like really briefly. Exactly, but you have exactly just by going by that interview, you really got his personality down. So this proves this works. Yeah, it's amazing. This I think is the key to unlocking people. When you can tap into people's needs, it's amazingly empowering. You treat people the way they want to be treated. Chris is a wonderful person, he's a wonderful host, he's a great part of our team. I hope I get to meet him at some point. He'll be here later on. Alright, so 'aha' moments, what's the most important thing you learned? What was it about today for you? Alley, can I check in with you and see how it's going? The most important thing that I learned today, I have a little it of compassion for myself, because I'm high neuroticism but also high openness, which means that a personality that's anxious in new situations, also absolutely always wants to be ina new situation. (laughter) Wow. And through Joshua's excellent listening and questioning skills, we came up with the idea that I just need to build in more recovery time, a skill from one of our earlier days, maybe before or after I go into these new situations to kind of decompress from that. Yeah, blocking and refueling. And of course these days are really long for you, but blocking and refueling, which we learned in segment two, to detox, is gonna help you get there. And combine that openness and neuroticism, which I love you discovered that. Joshua, also kudos to you both for having those awesome questioning and listening skills. And Joshua said his personal mission was to be a really good listener and connect, so I love that you do that. That was perceived, projected, and picked up. Two other learning experiences. Yeah, Lee. So from the last lesson, we learned that it's okay being who we are, but it's also nice to learn from this lesson that it's okay being who we are, but if we want to get better and change, we can do that. So that was great. I saw one other hand, yeah. The Free Trait Theory and keeping those goals top of mind. Because I think a lot of times, I want to make these changes, but then that top of mind motivation goal is not there. And I just need to make sure that's it's conjured up so that I can keep moving towards that. And we get so buried into our work, we sometimes forget why we're here. We're like, "Gotta go to this networking event, "gotta go to this meeting.", we forget why in the first place we're interacting. I love it. Funny you mentioned Jackie Kennedy earlier on, because my ex wife, or is she my current wife, I can't remember- (laughter) Jackie Kennedy actually died while we were getting married, and so she became neurotic or paranoid, if you like, that there can only ever be one Mrs. John Kennedy at any time. (laughs) Mrs. John Kennedy! I like it.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Attraction Murderers
Awesome Club One Sheet
High PQ Skills Answer Key
High PQ Skills Template
Love Language Worksheet
Monthly Action Plan
The Matrix
Your Ideal Worksheet
Skills Worksheet
Personality Matrix Cheat Sheets
Questions Every Couple Should Answer
Citation List
Personality Matrix One Pager
The 10 Questions
Superhero Activity List
Your Next Big Thing Worksheet
Killer Conversation Starters
Bonus Video: How to be a Master Conversationalist
Workbook - Master Your People Skills

Ratings and Reviews

Adam
 

This is the best course I have ever taken on anything, anywhere, ever. As an adult with Asperger’s, I have been studying social skills and nonverbal communication for a long time. All the books I’ve read and other courses like these I’ve watched prior to this one, didn’t even teach me half of what Vanessa has taught me in this course. Master Your People Skills has provided me with literally everything I have ever wanted to learn from inner confidence, charisma, making conversation, making a great first impression, being memorable, etc. Vanessa is such a charismatic, passionate, and knowledgable mentor, who has a real gift of taking her many years of research and hard work, and teaching it in a way that is easy and fun to learn. This course is the real deal, you will be a master after you are finished with it, and I would recommend it to anyone.

user-15eb6d
 

I have just finished day 13 and so far the course has been amazing every single day. Vanessa is a great teacher and I love how her work is down-to-earth, practical, very applicable and rooted in scientific research. It's not the usual "ra ra ra, I can turn you into a master people schmoozer-type courses" found elsewhere. Anyone that wants to improve themselves and have better relationships in all aspects of their lives, both professional and personal, should get this course. There is so much quality material in this course, I look forward to going over the videos and the workbook more than once in order to improve my own people skills. The course is worth every penny and much more! Thank you Vanessa!

Student Work

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