connecting with people becomes easy once you understand this

It's 2019 and I've just walked into the small kitchen area of a hostel. It's about 8:30 in the morning. The two balcony doors which are overlooking the sunny streets of Lisbon are wide open. So, the sun is beaming into this small kitchen, bouncing off all the metal surfaces. And I'm now stood in the middle of the kitchen looking round, feeling tired, feeling hungry, but also feeling very sad as well. Because since arriving in this hostel about two weeks ago to work as a bartender, I've felt

the loneliest I've ever felt in my whole life. I haven't made any friends yet. I haven't picked up the local language. So, speaking to the locals has been completely off the cards. And even the conversations I have been having with the other travelers in the hostel and the fellow workers, they just they're just not hitting because I can't seem to connect with the people there. They seem to be from worlds completely different from my 19-year-old world with different

tastes and different interests. So, I just keep waking up every day, wandering around the city, feeling sad and lonely, and then coming back and serving people beer, when really all I want is some new friends in this big new scary city. So, I turn towards the balcony, secretly hoping that maybe if I step out and get a bit of sun on my face, that might snap me out of my sadness. Or maybe if I look down at the streets below, there might be some new happy smiley faces looking

up at me to greet me out of my doom and gloom. But as I step out onto the balcony and clunk my elbow sadly onto the boiling hot metal railing and look down at the streets, I realize they're so quiet. I could hear a pin drop. Then it hits me. Maybe this loneliness and sadness is a bit too much for my 19-year-old heart to bear and I should just quit quit traveling, admit defeat, go back home. And then but then I realize I've still got two months left to work at this job. Two months which

now feel like 20 years. But then I hear a clunk in the kitchen behind me. A sound as if someone's opening a cupboard and searching for a plate. So I turn away from the sun in the balcony and drag my sunken shoulders back into the kitchen to see what the noise was. But then I'm greeted by a six-foot curlyhaired man with a mustache exactly the same as mine. So my heartbeat skips and the Labrador in my mind says in excitement, "New friend, new friend, let's get into a conversation." So I say

in a friendly voice to this new stranger, "Hey man, how's it going?" But then I hear the sweetest sound in the whole wide world, an accent exactly the same as mine. He responds, "Hey man, yeah, all good. I've just arrived actually." Heartbeat skips a second time. He's just arrived. That means he's staying. Maybe he's staying for 2 months and he can be my ticket into lifelong friendship. Not going to ask him, though, cuz that will mean I come across as a bit too keen.

But anyway, I dive head first into a conversation with him over the next five minutes, interviewing him for the position of being a lifelong friend, asking him about his story. Where's he going? What is he doing tomorrow? First of all, he tells me that tomorrow he's going to a local flea market around the corner to get some apple cider vinegar. Heartbeat skips a third time. He's into nutrition just like me. Finally, someone with my interests. So, we keep talking.

Now, other travelers are slowly drifting into the kitchen to make their breakfast around us, but we're not paying attention to them. We're 10 minutes into a really interesting conversation. We're in our own little friendship bubble. But then as 10 minutes become 15, something weird happens, I noticed that the excitement that I felt at the beginning of this conversation has disappeared and has been replaced with a feeling of unease as if something is wrong.

Firstly, because I've noticed that since I've been speaking to him during this whole 15 minutes, this young man hasn't broken eye contact with me once. Instead, he's been looking into my eyes so deeply, it's as if he's trying to spot his reflection in them. Nah, no biggie, I say to myself in my head. Maybe he's just direct. But as 15 minutes become 20, he continues. But anyway, I I still search for moment for opportunities opportunities to connect with him. So I ask him more questions.

But then strike two happens. And I realize over the last 20 minutes that we've been speaking, all he's been speaking about is how dialed in his discipline is, how brilliant his routine is, how he never snoozes on his alarm, how he only eats the most nutritious foods that optimize his mind and body so he can be in a perfect physiological and psychological state 24/7. So, my 19-year-old mind is quietly asking the heavens, "Why is it that I'm interested in the exact same things as this man,

but I just can't connect with him?" But an answer doesn't come. So, while he's still speaking and just to get a little bit of a break from this conversation while still maintaining my interest, I meander through the waves of the fellow travelers, go over to the sink, grab a cup of water, fill it up or turn the tap on to fill up the cup with water while still looking at him to maintain the interest in the conversation. But then I realize I haven't said anything or haven't said much during

this conversation. So, I realize, do you know what? I'm gonna admit something to him. And I say, do you know what man? I I was feeling quite low energy before this conversation, but I'm glad you came in. To which he responds, low energy? I don't have to deal with any of that. I don't masturbate nor ejaculate in the bedroom, so I've got an abundance of energy wherever I go. Strike three. So, now reading my silence to his comment as a sign to wrap up the conversation and stood by the door while

this conversation. So, I realize, do you know what? I'm gonna admit something to him. And I say, do you know what man? I I was feeling quite low energy before this conversation, but I'm glad you came in. To which he responds, low energy? I don't have to deal with any of that. I don't masturbate nor ejaculate in the bedroom, so I've got an abundance of energy wherever I go. Strike three. So, now reading my silence to his comment as a sign to wrap up the conversation and stood by the door while

I'm stood at the sink, he says, "Hi, man. Nice speaking to you. I'll see you in a bit. So, he leaves the door and my ticket to lifelong friendship leaves with him. I never saw that man again. But I have thought about him every single week for the past six years because I was so confused as to how I really wanted to connect with him and how I shared the exact same interest with him. But for the life of me, I just couldn't seem to connect with him. But that was until two

weeks ago when my confusion was turned into a light bulb moment when I learned that not only have I had at least 10 to 15 other interactions exactly the same as that in the last 6 years of my life after that interaction but the people who I had struggled to connect with in those moments who I really wanted to connect with they weren't necessarily narcissistic or egotistic. No, in fact, there was a much deeper psychological and scientific reason for why I couldn't

connect with them. And it's this reason that I have learned within the last two weeks that I'm going to share with you within the next few minutes of this video. So that you can prevent yourself from blocking your connection with other people and also so you can understand why you struggle to connect with certain people even though you feel confusion as to why you can't connect. But in case you have only got a few minutes, then here's the main takeaway I want you to have from this video.

The more self-controlled you become, the more the easier it is for people to admire you, but the harder it is for people to connect with you because they see the dialed in discipline, the perfect routine, and the wellput together life, but they don't see the human behind all of those things. I've got a weird feeling in my bum. Here's why this matters. If it's you and you fear you might be coming across as a bit cold towards other people and you're quite high in self-control, this could

explain why you might get fewer social invites, why sometimes people go a bit stiff around you, and why some of your social interactions feel more like formal meetings rather than chill social hangouts. If it's them, meaning there's someone you know who you admire because they're fairly self-controlled, but for some reason you just can't connect with them. This could explain why that person comes across as a bit cold or uninterested and why you feel you can't really be yourself around them. The

bottom line is in most cases they're not arrogant, they're just a bit armored, as we'll get into later. In either case, here's what to do next. If it's you and you would like to increase your chances of connecting with people so you're not left confused, why why did they go a bit stiff? Realize that people don't just want to see your self-control and discipline. They want to see that with warmth. Always remember you've already got one thing going for you well, which is your

high self-control, which people admire, but what they admire isn't what they connect with. But if you combine both of that, combine warmth and self-control, you're knocking them bandandy. So don't show people your calendar, show them your dents. What that means is in every other conversation, just allow yourself to drop 1% of your armor. Don't run around saying, "Hey guys, here are 7,000 of my insecurities." No, because you don't want to trauma dump or make your

warmth feel performative. Just dropping 1% of your armor might sound like admitting I get a bit lonely on Sundays. something like that. A little flaw, weakness or insecurity, a little dent into your in your armor which communicates to the other person, hey, I'm flawed just like you. Let's connect. If it's them, and there's someone who you want to connect with, but they're feeling a bit cold at the moment and you want them to be a bit warmer, always remember, you can't ask

for something that you haven't given yet. Meaning, you can't sit there in a conversation zipped up and expect the other person to just unzip and feel naked. So, use what we just covered in the what to do next in the if it's you section and go first. Just throw out a little flaw, weakness, or insecurity there and just communicate, hey, I'm flawed, just like you, even though you don't show it. What about you? How flawed are you? Show me some of your dents and give the other person time

because their armor has taken a long time to build. Again, as we'll cover later, that is the main takeaway I want you to have from this whole video. So, if that makes sense, then feel free to

Right. What are you doing? >> Well, uh I rank uh high self-control, so just trying to get warmer. One, you have the self-control of a three-year-old. Two, that's not what I meant when I said the word.

Right. What are you doing? >> Well, uh I rank uh high self-control, so just trying to get warmer. One, you have the self-control of a three-year-old. Two, that's not what I meant when I said the word.

Sorry about that. What I was saying is that is the main takeaway I want you to have from this whole video. So, if that makes sense, feel free to click off the video now. But if you would like to go a few steps deeper into all of this, then here's exactly what we're going to cover in the rest of the video.

First of all, we're going to cover the research behind all the claims we've been making so far in this video. Because you might be thinking, Louis has just had an experience when he was 19 and now he's generalizing it onto social life to make it objective truth. No, there's science that backs all of this up. That's the what. Then we're going to get into the why.

We're going to explain why the research says what it says with the three psychological reasons. The first one blew my mind. The third one blew my pants off. Then we're going to cover a bit of a grim picture by deepening the real social consequences of not doing the solutions we're going to follow with. Then we'll paint a beautiful picture by covering the root cause as to why some people come across as a bit cold. We'll take the compassionate view cuz there's real reasons why. Then we'll

finalize with the what to do next, the real solutions. Go through all of these stages. Give your time and attention to this video and you are going to understand something about human nature, social psychology that most people do not understand, which means you're going to take things a lot less personally and you are going to understand your fellow humans and become more socially fluent. So you can connect better with people. All right, enough of the theatrics.

Point number one. Oh, by the way, as we're going through this video, you don't need to remember all of it. This isn't exam prep. This is just chill social skills exploration. Absorb what is useful, discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own. First of all, let's begin with the research that backs up all of these claims. Well, let me introduce you to two psychological researchers, Samantha Lapka and Frankie Kung. They research self-control and how it affects well-being. And in a

brilliant article I read in prep for this video title, the title just instantly lured me in. Wish you had more self-control? You should hear the downsides. They really tackle this good PR that self-control has got in our day and age and they really highlight the flaws of it. But they back it up with their research. Of course, in 2022, they got a group of people to read a description of someone who was highly self-controlled or someone who was impulsive or and

someone who was impulsive. Sorry. They read both descriptions and the results show that the people or the participants described the high self-control person as less warm, less real, and less human. But they described the impulsive person as more real, more genuine, and more alive in the moment. The key thing to note here is they didn't describe the highly self-controlled person as stuck up or arrogant. No, just less warm and harder to connect with. I'm not going to bore you with all the

research findings. So, I'll put a link to all the research and studies in the description if you want to go deeper there. That explains the what, you know, the research that backs this up. Let's now get into the why. Why would people describe an impulsive person and a highly self-controlled person differently? Well, here's why. Now, the first Oh, by the way, the lighting is slightly darker here because the well, I messed up the original recording. Now, I'm re-recording it at

research findings. So, I'll put a link to all the research and studies in the description if you want to go deeper there. That explains the what, you know, the research that backs this up. Let's now get into the why. Why would people describe an impulsive person and a highly self-controlled person differently? Well, here's why. Now, the first Oh, by the way, the lighting is slightly darker here because the well, I messed up the original recording. Now, I'm re-recording it at

3:00 in the afternoon, which means the the British weather is extremely gray at this time. Nevertheless, the first reason as to why someone who has high self-control would be seen as less warm, less alive, and less genuine by other people can best be explained through the psychological model of warmth versus competence from the American psychologist Susan Vy. And this is the first reason that blew my mind. Here's the main takeaway I want you to have from this segment. Whenever you meet

someone for the first time, and in fact, in every single interaction you have with the people you already know in your life, and also when people meet you for the first time, and the people who already know you meet you again, your brain asks itself four questions within the ma within a matter of milliseconds. And those four questions it asks of the other person quietly to itself have four different themes. The first question is a question of survival. Your

brain asks of this other person, friend or foe, am I safe with you? Can I trust you? Are you going to hurt me? That's the most important question. Then the second, and by the way, this all happens unconsciously. You're not really thinking. The second question is a question of competence or what charisma researchers call power. These two terms are interchangeably used for the same thing. And this is also what we're referring to when we use the word self-control in

this video. This question sounds like, can you actually make things happen in the world? Then your brain asks a question of warmth of the other person, which sounds like, will you make those things happen for me? you know, will you do do you not just have the ability to influence people and things in the world, but can you direct that energy towards me as a sign of goodwill and me only? And then the final question your brain asks is, are you here with me right now?

this video. This question sounds like, can you actually make things happen in the world? Then your brain asks a question of warmth of the other person, which sounds like, will you make those things happen for me? you know, will you do do you not just have the ability to influence people and things in the world, but can you direct that energy towards me as a sign of goodwill and me only? And then the final question your brain asks is, are you here with me right now?

But the real kick in the nuts here is when you are when you have high self-control, that is a very big competence and power signal. So people unconsciously in their head very quickly see you as high competence, high power. But high competence, low warmth, and low presence is the combination people respect and admire, but they don't fully relax around. So, if you're in this category, you end up in this weird place where people trust you to water their plants and

water your own plants, but they don't fully trust you to hold space for them as they call you at midnight and reveal all of the secrets and insecurities lying in their heart. And just take a quick moment here to think about this combination because we all know one or two people like this, people who we really admire. You know, there is someone in your life. I know it for sure. Someone who you really, really admire, but for some reason you just can't connect with them. Okay, this is

what we've been saying throughout this video. Now, let's go into the second reason, which really unveils why this is the case.

with better lighting. The reason why people struggle to connect with someone who ranks as high competence but low presence or warmth is because of something called intimidation bias. You might get the gist of what we're going to say here. But the bottom line here is high competence people and high self-controlled people. Which by the way, we're using those terms interchangeably because self to be competent requires self-control. High competence people accidentally act as a

mirror to others because their dialed in discipline, perfect routine, and wellput together life reflects other people's chaos. And other people don't like to realize that. So the line of thought goes like this. Other people see the high self-control type and think, "Oh, wow. that awesome, you know, dialed in routine. That's, you know, I bet they never snooze. I bet they never skip a day. Awesome. I really admire that. But they also think, crap, am I being judged? Or I'm a mess next to this

person. Or, you know what? I'm actually so messy inside. I don't want to show this side to this person because they're so put together. So, I'm going to hide this messy side of myself, which highlights what we mentioned earlier. If you know someone who ranks as high competence but low warmth and presence, this explains why perhaps you feel like you can't be your full self around them because you know they have high standards and you know they might judge you for your messy side. But that's all

person. Or, you know what? I'm actually so messy inside. I don't want to show this side to this person because they're so put together. So, I'm going to hide this messy side of myself, which highlights what we mentioned earlier. If you know someone who ranks as high competence but low warmth and presence, this explains why perhaps you feel like you can't be your full self around them because you know they have high standards and you know they might judge you for your messy side. But that's all

an assumption in your head. Of course, you don't know whether that's true or not. So now let's move into the third reason which explains high competence, low warmth makes it harder to connect. And this is the explanation that blew my mind. No, this didn't blow my mind. This blew my pants off. Let me get my facts right. Final reason. In order to be self-controlled, sometimes you need to ignore your emotions. If you're the high self-control type, you'll know that you like being in

control of things and not emotional because emotions sometimes get in the way of getting things done, right? So, it's better to suppress them. If the high self-control type is someone else that you know, you'll know that sometimes they come across as a bit blank in expression, their emotional vocabulary is a bit lacking, and they don't have a lot a lot of emotional range throughout your conversations with them. But here's the downside of this. When you when you suppress your emotions,

you feel calm, but the people around you feel weird. What backs this up? Well, two more researchers I want to introduce you to, Butler and Gross, whose paper I'm linking now, I'm mentioning now, will be in the description. What they found is in a social interaction when one person is suppressing their emotions, the other person's heart rate increases, their blood pressure increases, and they get the general feeling that something is off. But the worst thing about this

something is off feeling is the person who's feeling it, they can't explain why. They just feel weird. But here's the real kicker. That person whose heart rate has increased then leaves the social interaction. So, the high self-control type is left alone thinking that was weird. I was calm. I was chill. I was measured. That they kind of acted a bit distant and freaked out. What did I do wrong? Well, what we're talking about now, emotional suppression doesn't calm the room. It

just elevates other people's emotions while calming yours. An analogy to think about here is when you suppress your emotions around other people to a really big extent, it's as if you're turning the volume down in your earphones, but you're turning the volume up in everyone else's earphones until they feel uneasy. Now, that is the third reason which really really blew my mind. So, let's quickly link this all back to the research we covered in point number one. Combine low warmth, low presence,

intimidation bias, and emotional suppression, and we get the exact same research findings we found in Lapka and Kung's study. High self-control reads as robotic, predictable, less warm, and less human. So now let's get clear on the real social costs of this so that we can set ourselves up nicely to cover the solutions. This is the last doom and gloom picture we're going to paint with this. And if you're sat there thinking, "Oh, this is so me. I just feel terrible

right now and this is making me feel worse." The reason I'm sharing this with you, it's is because I don't want you to hate your discipline. I want you to just see the costs of I just want you to see the bill you're paying with optimizing it at the expense of other things such as warmth. Not for you to beat yourself up over it, even though you might be doing that at the moment, but simply to

what was the thing I was going to say?

have clarity over why your social interactions currently go how they do instead of confusion. Okay, the real social costs. The first big social cost of being high competence, low warmth and presence is high self-control makes people think you're lower status. Not in every case, but the logic here is really interesting. So here here it is. When someone ranks high competence but engages in impulsivity every now and then, people see that as higher status because the logic goes, "Oh, well, this

person isn't confined by the rules, nor are they scared to break them." But if you are just high competent all the time and you don't express occasional glimpses of impulsivity, sometimes people can see that as being hyper regimented, meaning that you are confined by the rules and you're scared to break them. Now, there's something we need to mention here called the Prattful effect, which means people only see people who break the rules as higher status if that person can already

demonstrate some high competence. But if someone ranks low competence but high warmth or presence and they express impulsivity, then people won't always register that as high status. you the bottom line is you need the competence and the the occasional impulsivity for people to see you as higher status. Really interesting. I wanted to mention that. The second real social cost is sometimes you get cut out of fun plans, right? Because the logic goes people see your hyper discipline and they just

assume you don't want to come. This has happened to me so many times where I block myself off from connecting with other people and they have invited me to do things numerous times but I say no so many times that eventually they just assume that I don't want to go but that's not the case. I'm don't know getting a bit deep there but sometimes I'm just a bit scared to break routine and then the person stops asking and inviting me and I get a bit like oh that was the complete opposite effect I

wanted to have. Yeah that's a real social cost. Then the third one is there's two more. The third one is you become the reliable one. You know, if people always see you as the high competence person, then their expectations for you are going to increase, which means your relationship suffers because your partner always relies on you for emotional regulation or your boss always relies on you to do more work. And there's a blessing that comes with that, the responsibility that

comes from doing those things. But the danger of it is other people were are allowed to relax, but you're not. You know, if if other people always expect you to never drop any plates, then soon enough it you start to feel like you're not allowed to drop any and you're not allowed to fail. That's a really, really horrible place to be. The fourth and last social cost is you forgive less. And it shows. You know, if you have high standards, naturally, you're going to

hold other people in your life to those standards. And what Lapka and Kung also found is that people who rank high self-control are, what was it? I have it in a bullet point. I want to get it right. Oh, yeah. They see small slip ups from other people as bigger. They feel more stung by minor offenses and they hold on to tension and grudges for longer which just aids relationship dissatisfaction. I would say I you know I'm getting deep again. I do do that sometimes. I hold

other people to the standards that I have and every every now and then I slap myself across the face and have to say stop doing that because it's impossible for people to live up to that. Now there is some caveat to be mentioned there like you do want to have high standards in your life and you do want to live up to them but once it gets past the stage of oh now it's affecting all of your relationships and your ability to connect with people I think use that as a good sign to see let's ease up a

little bit here. A principle there is be objective with yourself subjective with with others. Now the last two costs here of being high competence, low warmth and low presence is they're personal costs. And the first personal cost is regret starts to creep in. You know later on in life, my assumption would be you won't regret all of the things. What how do I put this? You're not going to wish you were more regimented and more disciplined and more stiff and rigid. You'll regret the

opportunities that you said no to and the moments where you didn't loosen up a little bit. That would be my guess. So, high competence, high self-control can lead to that direction later on in life. And let's wrap this up cuz I feel like I'm getting a bit rambly. And then there's last social cost. not sorry personal cost is your emotional world starts to shrink. Going back to what we said in the emotional suppression part. The tricky thing with emotions is when

you suppress one, you tend to suppress all of them. And an analogy to think about there is imagine you're at a DJ mixing desk and you can turn all of the knobs and turn volume up and mix this thing and whatever. And all of the different knobs you can turn and press are your emotions. When you turn one down, you tend to turn all of them down when it comes to suppressing your emotions. And then soon enough, your emotional world shrinks and you just feel flat. Okay? Right? That was a lot of social

costs and personal costs to be in high competence, low warmth, low presence. Again, I'm not saying that to hate on your discipline. Discipline, high self-control is so important, especially for your success and flourishing in life. I just wanted to highlight these social costs and to give you the alternative and the downsides of it. Okay, that was a real doomy gloomy picture. So, what we need to do now is before we get into the solutions of what to do so you can rank higher or you can

demonstrate more warmth to other people to compensate for your competence or invite someone who's high competence, low warmth to invite them to bring out more warmth in themselves without it feeling fake or performative. Before we cover that, let's now cover the compassionate view as to why people come across as cold in the first place. And let's really unpack what we said at the beginning of the video, which is they're not arrogant, they're just armored. Here is why some people come across or

here are some reasons why some people come across as cold. Bloody hell, I'm dehydrated. I need to drink. Oh yeah, and the good news here just quickly is none of this is fixed. This is all changeable.

We're going to fix it. There's always a good reason as to why someone comes across as cold. Doesn't just happen randomly. Here are six reasons I found. The first reason is because their coldness is an armor that they wear to protect themselves. The thinking goes, "I can't afford to drop the mask." The cold person isn't thinking. They're not judging you. They're simply trying to keep a distance because they fear exposure of themselves. But why? Well, this isn't in every case, but

likely it's because when they were young, they were the reliable one. This is their origin story. What they learned is if I hold it together and suppress my emotions, then other people stay happy with me. You know, maybe they grew up in a chaotic household in which they had to learn to regulate alone and maybe they had to look after their siblings for whatever reason and they learned to suppress their emotions to look after other people. Or maybe they just had huge expectations

from parental figures or other people in their life to always have it together. for whatever reason. And that works at 7 years old, right? Because it helps regulate the adults around you. If I hold it together, people stay happy. But at 27, it blocks the it blocks connection with the people you actually want want to vibe with. And third reason is their perfectionism is a shield. And the thought here is if I slip up, if I don't maintain the perfect image of always being in control,

then people are going to leave. The fourth reason similar to this one really is emotional suppression soon becomes second nature. It's like a habit. If you always practice suppressing your emotions in favor of self-control, then that becomes normal. And soon enough, you know, you're at that DJ mixing desk and none of the emotional knobs work anymore. The fifth second to last reason is control feels safer than connection. letting go and shedding that armor. You

know what logically you need to do in order to connect with other people just feels too risky because the the person who comes across as cold doesn't know how to do that without letting themselves be fully exposed and feel naked. Letting go feels risky. Being in control feels much safer. And the last reason is well if you have high standards that's naturally going to lead to harsher energy with yourself. So you're going to block your emotional expression because you hold yourself to

the high standard for whatever reason of always having things controlled and regimented and in line because it feels safer to do that. So the cold person likely has a very negative relationship with themselves because they hold themselves to very very high standards. Now feel a bit sad saying all of these things really because it really is the compassionate view and it whether it's again like I keep saying whether it's yourself you're thinking about in this video or someone else this really does

explain a lot. You know, it might be one reason, one of these reasons as to why someone comes across as cold or yourself. No matter what, there's always a reason. It doesn't just happen randomly. Now, look, 1% of the population are psychopaths. Maybe that's why they come across as cold. But you're not a psychopath, are you? And the person you're thinking about probably isn't a psychopath. So, this just enables us to snap out of the doom and gloom for a bit and really see the compassionate view

here of why people who come across as cold, they're not arrogant, they're just armored. Now, we've covered a lot of problems in this video, and it's brought us to this point, which is now getting into the solutions. Because what we've covered so far just to round it off is well high competence, low warmth and presence makes people admire you but it blocks the connection that you can have with them. Here are some of the reasons why that might happen so as to not hate yourself or throw self

criticism criticism onto yourself but to realize ah that's why I might be like this or ah that's why that person might be like this. There's a deeper reason. So now let's cover the solutions and let's finalize this video. What do you need to do in order to increase your warmth to other people so that they feel more able to connect with you? And also if it's someone else you're thinking about who ranks as low warmth but you would like to connect with, how can you encourage them to open up so as

to facilitate the connection between you both? Here are the solutions. And we're going to split this up into those two sections. One, the solutions for what you can do to increase warmth. And then two, the solutions you need to follow for what you can do to encourage someone else to increase their warmth. Let's go. Now, let's increase your warmth. There's a lot of solutions on the board. Don't worry about remembering all of them. just pick out one to two as we go

through them that really stand out to you that you would like to practice in your social life going forward. Let's begin with the first part which is if it's you, what do you need to do next if you rank as high competence, low warmth, and low presence so that you can increase your warmth and presence? Well, first of all, drop 1% of the armor. If you're anything, if you're anything like me and you've spent most of your existence not opening up to other people for fear of being exposed,

then me telling you just open up and admit all of your insecurities and vulnerabilities to other people and be a trauma dumping open wound, that's going to feel fake and performative. So don't treat warmth as something that you need to perform. Treat it as a micro skill that you get 1% better at in each of your interactions. So, what does dropping 1% of your armor look like? Well, in your next few interactions, let yourself smile when you find something worth smiling about. Let your mouth sag

a little bit. When you find something sad, admit that you find something interesting. If something pops up in the conversation, tiny cracks make a big difference. Then, reveal your madness. I got this solution because at the beginning of the year, so about six or seven months ago, I was going on a date with a girl who I would who I had met at a sala class. We vibed really well. I found her attractive, so I got her number. Uh I was a bit nervous to do so, but I did it. And then we arranged to

meet up again. And I She lives in London, so I live just outside of London. And I messaged her and I said, "Oh, okay. We'll go to the South Bank, you know, the river in London. and we'll chill on a bench and I'll bring some cards, but I'll tell you what those cards are for later. Her mind jumped to the conclusion that I was bringing a board game. I wasn't. I was bringing some conversational cards. So, she messaged back saying, "Oh, shall I bring Uno?" And then sent a message,

another message saying, "No, probably not. I get too competitive." And that was like a window into her mind. And I instantly connected with her because it showed me that she was human enough to suggest something and then realize it probably wasn't the best thing because of how she might react to it. It was really it was a really interesting insight into her personality. So you can do that in your life. You know, reveal quirks of your own nature. every other conversation you might want to say

something like, you know, keep it genuine, but they might sound like, like we said at the beginning of the video, you know, sometimes on Sundays I get a bit lonely or I get a bit competitive when I play board games or sometimes I really just want to quit my job and spend all my time reading. Little windows into your personality, you know, not all the time, but every now and then, just drop one in there. Reveal your madness. Then ask, if you want about the other person's madness, you

might after going first yourself, ask them what's something silly that keeps you up at night or when you're laying in bed, what do you get most anxious about? Just little questions like that. If you have any ideas of great questions to ask other people, I'm always looking for them and I think other people would benefit from them as well. So, drop them in the comments. That would be awesome to see. Another solution is be present, not polished. Presence isn't something

you want to perform either. It's something you want to demonstrate and it's really easy. Posture towards people. We're having a conversation. Imagine if I'm just stood like this and you're there. Yeah. Oh, nice. Great. Shoulders directly in line with the other person's shoulders. Allow your face to warm and soothe a little bit as you're listening to them. And just have a light gaze into their eyes. Don't hold contact all the time because sometimes that can come across as a bit intense as

we covered at the beginning of the video in the story and it can come across as a bit too seductive. So just have a light twinkle in your eyes or imagine they've got angel wings behind them. One thing that I like to do is I like to imagine that everyone's chest is transparent and I can see their heart but not the physical biological thing like the actual glow. I know it's a bit woowoo but anyway be present not polished. You don't have to be perfect in your

presence. just enough to demonstrate I'm here with you and I care about this interaction. Compliment people specifically. Move away from general flattering cliche praise such as, "Oh, you're so beautiful." Or, "Oh, you're so funny." Or, "Oh," things like that and be a bit more specific. So, I feel really calm when I speak to you. Or, I love the way you tell stories. Or, I really like how you go out of your way to speak to strangers. give people the feedback of,

presence. just enough to demonstrate I'm here with you and I care about this interaction. Compliment people specifically. Move away from general flattering cliche praise such as, "Oh, you're so beautiful." Or, "Oh, you're so funny." Or, "Oh," things like that and be a bit more specific. So, I feel really calm when I speak to you. Or, I love the way you tell stories. Or, I really like how you go out of your way to speak to strangers. give people the feedback of,

"Oh, I know exactly what I did that had this effect on this person." If you want to go deeper in the six-minute video on compliments, then check out this video up here. Number six, the second to last one is smudge the image. You remember how we mentioned the pratful effect of if a high competence person makes a mistake, it makes them more human. But if a low competence person makes a mistake, then it ranks them as a bit lower status. Well, if you're high competence and you're quite a

self-controlled person, you've already got one thing going for you, which is the high competence. Which means if you smudge that image in any way and you embrace the Prattful effect, other people get a window into connection with you. And what that means is if you're saying something and you mess up your words or you mispronounce something, laugh. If you lose your train of thought midway through saying something, just say, "Do you know what? I've completely forgotten what I was

going to say." Because what that demonstrates to the other person is, "Thank God other people do this as well, and I'm not alone." Smudge the image. Final thing here which I need to practice more is add micro spontaneity. You know, if you're high self-controlled, then you already know that you're good at saying no to things and declining invitations and when things come up, just suppressing them so as to stay in control. So, you don't have to suddenly change

that and be a yes man and say yes, yes, yes to every opportunity that comes your way. just one in five invitations or things you would usually decline, say yes to and see what happens and just follow that path. And you might realize something that's very interesting that we covered a in a very separate video all about desire. And that is you can want something you don't like and like something you don't want. And what that means is there's a whole neuroscience behind it, but in the summary

just because you don't want to do something doesn't mean you won't enjoy it while you do it. So I used to have this. I was going to say something else there, but I used to have this all the time as a kid. I remember being in a car with my mom numerous times when I was 6, seven years old. I'd be driving to a friend's birthday party and I I would almost be in tears because I didn't want to go. I felt anxious and I just I didn't want to go. But my mom would always say, "When

you get there, you'll have a brilliant time and you'll come back and you'll never regret it." And that always happened. And that is an example of I

thought I wouldn't like it, but I did it and I liked it. Hopefully that makes sense. add micro spontaneity. Okay, let's finalize the video with the solutions of what to do now to encourage someone else who's high competence, low warmth to increase their warmth. Quick point here,

there's two books that you can read which will help you with this. One is Cues by by Vanessa Van Edwards. She really goes into what to do with your body in order to present more warmth, which I think there's a time and place for that message. I would not deny it and I think some of her work is very good. But I think that can easily be read as, oh, if I just do these few things with my body and don't actually change my attitude or the attitude in my head towards this person, then I'm going

to come across as charismatic. I think it's always best to lead with the attitude you have towards socializing first and then correct with what you do with your body. Which is why I would suggest you read that book later and read a book called the Charisma Myth, which will help you really understand what we're talking about here at a deeper level instead of just changing what you're doing with your body and hoping that that is going to register as high warmth in other people

um as other people seeing you as high warmth. Those are the two books I would suggest. Start with charisma myth. Go with cues. Final solutions. If you would like to encourage warmth in another person who maybe comes across as a bit cold, here are five things that you can do. The first one is play insecurity tennis. I got this from the book I'm reading at the moment called Sorry I'm late, I didn't want to come. Brilliant title. This the book is from a woman who was a introvert for most of

her life but after a few rocky life experiences she realized that her introversion was just leading her to be alone. So she tried to learn how to become an extrovert. And one of the things she did was go to a conversation class or a connection class where with complete strangers, their job was to sit down in front of each other and just name one or give one in insecurity back and forth. This might look something like this. All right. What? All right. Calm down. Look, I've got an

idea. Look, I'm fed up with your ideas. No, no, no, no. This This is a good idea. Trust me. Go on. >> So, we're both going to take it in turns to mention an insecurity. Why? Well, well, cuz apparently it makes you it helps you connect with someone better. It makes you more human. All right, go on then. All right, I'll go first. Well, sometimes I'm afraid I'm going to get into a relationship and then mess it all up and just realize that I prefer being alone and then I'm going to be alone

idea. Look, I'm fed up with your ideas. No, no, no, no. This This is a good idea. Trust me. Go on. >> So, we're both going to take it in turns to mention an insecurity. Why? Well, well, cuz apparently it makes you it helps you connect with someone better. It makes you more human. All right, go on then. All right, I'll go first. Well, sometimes I'm afraid I'm going to get into a relationship and then mess it all up and just realize that I prefer being alone and then I'm going to be alone

and, you know, be lonely forever and be, you just feel doomed and Yeah. All right. But now, what do I do? Well, you mention one like just mention something you're afraid of or that just makes you go, you know? All right. Well, I'm I'm insecure about I'm insecure about my mustache.

Sorry. Sorry. >> Really? Well, so much for your stupid game then. Look, I'm I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Well, just sometimes I don't know what to do with it. Grow it, cut it, keep it. Well, to be honest, me neither. Me neither. I'm sorry. I am sorry. Let's get back to it. Uh, it's my go. You can laugh at this if you want. Sometimes before I go to bed, I lay there awake and I accidentally imagine people close to me dying and then I get really sad. Sometimes I cry. Same, Margo. All right.

I have this constant feeling of dread like I'm going to get found out and I don't know get found out as a fraud for living or don't know. Sometimes when I record YouTube videos I feel like the video needs to be perfect and if it's not then it's a failure. Well, when I walk past an attractive woman I pretend I'm not interested in her but really I want to speak to her. I just don't know what to say. I'm scared I'm going to move abroad and get lonely and then really miss my

family and then one of them is going to die and I'm going to feel like the whole time has been a waste. What do we do now? I will leave it there.

Now, you might like to do that with this person, especially if you're fairly close with them. You might say, "Okay, look, we're going to try something new. Let's give it a go." Okay? And you might encourage them to do it. That might be quite big of a step. So some other things that are kind of lower stakes than that is something called no hassle. This is my principle for all socializing. If I ever speak to you then you'll realize that this is how I socialize. You want to give low pressure

invitations for someone to open up. Especially when you're inviting them along to do certain things with you as well. Always give them a way out. And what that sounds like is, "Hey, going to grab coffee later. Feel free to join if you want." or I'm going on a walk later if you want to hang out or I'm going on a walk around this park later if you want to hang out you'll know where I'll be you know where I'll be always give the person a way out and remove guilt

from the interaction where you expect them to say yes no ask give them opportunity to say no and respect their autonomy no hassle no pressure if you're inviting them to do things and inviting them to open up and three what we said at the beginning which is key never demand what you haven't modeled This goes for life in general. Again, what we said at the beginning of the video is you can't expect someone to unzip if you're sat there zipped up. So, open a little bit yourself. You know,

give a sec in security. Give a flaw. Admit something that is a weakness of yours. Give the other person something to bounce off. Not expecting them to instantly say, "Oh, yeah. I do this thing." Cuz they probably won't do that. just demonstrate to them, hey, you're safe with me here because I'm just as flawed as you, even if you don't want to show it. My best friend Joe does this brilliantly. Most of our conversations, especially if they're over the phone,

he'll be speaking for quite a long time, which he'll admit, and I have no problem with because I love listening and I like to my detriment being in the background and not opening up myself. But it's so easy for me to open up to Joe in comparison to other people because he's so willing to go first with admitting everything that's going wrong in his life or things that going here, there, and everywhere. Because on the call after 20 minutes, 20 minutes of him speaking, when he stops and he says,

"What about you, man? I've spoken for a long time. How's how are things going?" I feel more encouraged to open up in a safe way because he's done so for the last 20 minutes. You know, second to last point is show goodwill. When it comes to you encouraging other people to be more warm, more warm, your job isn't to be their therapist, their coach, or their surveyor. No, just just you're just giving people little nudges, you know, little nudges into what we said here. Hey, I'm weird. You

can be as weird as you want here as well. Show goodwill and then give them time with that goodwill. As you're showing up with unconditional positive regard and guiding this person in the direction of safety with you, understand that they're not going to shed their armor completely cuz they've spent their whole life building it. It's not going to happen like that. So, you have to give them time. But if you keep showing up and encouraging them and not just encouraging them, but demonstrating,

hey, you're safe with me, then over time, 1% chinks will give you more entry points into their armor. Now, one thing I would like to mention here, just to round this point off, is one thing I really like and have used with great success, not just on dates, but with my family and with my friends, is using conversational cards. This isn't a sponsor. I mean, look how old this is. I got these two from the School of Life. That's We're not really strangers. And I found that when you actually play a

game, it's not really a game, but once you well, the way you do it with these is you put them on the table and then one person takes a turn to pick a card and the cards are questions such as these. What would you ideally want to tell someone close to you if it wasn't so hard? If you randomly asked a person a question like that, they will be like, no matter who the person is. But if you understand that you're playing a game, then this is a brilliant container for deeper conversations and

encouraging people to be a little bit more warm. Now, you might not want to play that with your boss, for example, but you'd want to play that with someone you're on a date with, your family, or your close friends. Conversational cards are great. In summary,

if it's you, you don't need to get rid of your self-control or feel bad for being self-controlled. No, it's a great trait. Just remember, socially, people will connect with you when they see the human under all of that control. And remember, charisma, your ability to encourage people to want to socialize with you again and again is simply your combination of self-control, warmth, and presence. Keep working on that equation. And then if it's someone else who's coming across as a bit cold who you

would like to connect with, take your time and give them space and time to reveal the dents in their armor slowly. And always demonstrate the warmth you would like to see them radiate. And finally, when in doubt about someone who's coming across as a bit cold, always take the compassionate route. They're likely not arrogant. They're just probably armored. And that armor has taken years for them to build. In other words, thank you very much for your time and attention. Stay

disciplined, playful, and danger. Stay disciplined, and playful is pretty much the summary of this whole video. Stay disciplined, playful, and dangerous. Adios muchachos.