Maybe this sounds familiar: you leave a party and spend the rest of the night convinced everyone was upset with you. Or you replay something you said in a meeting for days and second-guess every last word.
Vanessa Van Edwards has been there. As a self-proclaimed “recovering awkward person,” she’s spent two decades decoding the hidden dynamics of human interaction to make those skills teachable for introverts and extroverts alike.
Vanessa is a behavioral researcher, bestselling author, and founder of Science of People. In her book, Conversation: How to Be Instantly Likeable in Any Interaction, she makes the case that social skills aren’t a personality type, they’re learnable. And she believes we are living in the most critical moment in history to start learning them.
In this episode you’ll learn:
➡️ Why “just be yourself” is unhelpful advice + potentially cruel
➡️ The important everyday interactions technology + AI replaced
➡️ Where to stand at a party so someone always talks to you
➡️ How to have better conversations (+ why you already have the skills)
➡️ What the real antidote to awkwardness is
➡️ How to practice micro-social skills without turning people off
➡️ Why we’re all ambiverts + how to understand ambiversion
➡️ How soft skills drive major career inflection points
➡️ The concept of social fitness + the “nutrition” of your relationships
In this conversation, Vanessa lays out how even the most socially anxious among us can build real connections and become more likable… even in a world that has quietly removed all the places we used to accidentally get good at being human. And the secret isn’t confidence. It’s something far more generous.
This is… A Bit of Optimism.
Watch A Bit of Optimism on Spotify, and Spotify Premium users can enjoy the show ad-free.
Pre-order Vanessa’s new book, Conversation: How to Be Instantly Likeable in Any Interaction.
Want to learn more people skills from Vanessa? Check out The Science of People: www.scienceofpeople.com
