Notes from “Cues”, by Vanessa Van Edwards

Notes from “Cues”, by Vanessa Van Edwards

As I’ve been reworking how I read and take notes, the resulting notes file that I create after reading a book is much more comprehensive (and I’ll share that full process soon). This is even more the case with books like this one, where the author had clear breakdowns of her ideas in every chapter.

It’s a fantastic book, and these notes will be helpful for me to revisit over time. I encourage you to check out the book for yourself and let me know what you think.

Notes from “Cues” by Vanessa Van Edwards

In any profession, cues enable people to share brilliant ideas. How you say “hello” when you walk into a room significantly influences what everyone thinks of you. In Cues, Van Edwards shows how to convey warmth and competence in every interaction with co-workers and clients.

The Cues

Warmth Cues

• Tilting

• Nodding

• Eyebrow Raise

• Savor Smiles

• Touch

• Mirroring

Competence Cues

• Power Posture

• Flexed Lid

• Steeple

• Explanatory Gestures

• Palm Flash

Charisma Cues

• Leaning

• Fronting

• Anti-Blocking

• Space Smarts

• Gaze

Danger Zone

• Distancing

• Self-Soothing

• Blocking

• Shame

• Bothered Face

Introduction: The Signals That Are Secretly Shaping You

Summary: Introduces “cues” as the secret signals shaping how others perceive us, emphasizing that “small signals have big impact” in social and professional settings.

Chapter 1 – Cue for Charisma

Summary: Charisma combines warmth and competence cues to make people feel both safe and impressed; as she writes, “Charisma is a balance of warmth and competence.”

Warmth Cues + Competence Cues = Charisma

• “First, we quickly assess someone’s warmth, answering the question: Can I trust you?

• Then we look for competence, answering the question: Can I rely on you?”

“You might notice that highly competent people will often partner with highly warm folks to balance them out. Many famous duos include a highly warm character and a highly competent character. This is a good way to think about how these traits play off each other.”

Higher in Warmth: Your desire to be liked can get in the way of your need to be respected.
Higher in Competence: Competence without warmth is likely to leave us feeling suspicious.

Competent

• Impressive

• Powerful

• Smart

• Capable

• An Expert

• Effective

Warm

• Trustworthy

• Collaborative

• Kind

• Compassionate

• A Team Player

• Open

Chapter 2 – How Cues Work

Summary: Explains how our brains decode cues instantly to assess trust and power, noting “our neurons are wired to read cues before we are consciously aware of them.”

The Cue Cycle

• Decode: Cues read and interpreted from others ->

• Internalize: Cues affect our behavior and mood ->

• Encode: Cues we send to others – accidentally or on purpose ->

Part 1 – Nonverbal Cues

Chapter 3 – The Body Language of Leaders

Summary: Shows that leaders display powerful body language such as open postures and forward leans, with the insight: “Nonverbal prowess is a leader’s secret weapon.”

Lean Like a Leader: Lean in to show and stimulate interest, engagement, and agreement.

Open Body, Open Mind: To inspire openness, open up nonverbally.

Front Forward: If you want someone to feel heard, accepted, and respected, turn toward them.

Be Smart with Space: Highly charismatic people leverage space to show and encourage intimacy.

Engage with Gaze: Gaze with purpose

“We have just learned our five big charisma cues (and many little ones in between)—these are the nonverbal signals that can be used for both warmth and competence. Remember to front, stay open, lean in, use space, and gaze with purpose.”

Chapter 4 – The Wow Factor

Summary: Reveals that impactful first impressions rely on confident body language, neat appearance, and intentional signals to create the “wow factor” in any meeting.

Time Your Tilts: Head tilts show interest, curiosity, and appeasement.

Nod to Know: Nod yes to get more yeses.

Eyebrows Raise Expectations: The eyebrow raise is the fastest way to show interest and curiosity and capture attention.

Savor Smiles: Smiles spread joy and create joy.. but only when they’re sincere.

• “The best way to tell the difference between a real and a fake smile is that a real smile activates those eye crinkles, or crow’s-feet”

• “Don’t perma-smile, be smile ready.”

A Touch of Trust: Purposefully touch to build trust.

Mirroring Makes You Magnetic: Meet people where they’re at by mirroring – match the positive, transform the negative.

“Do any of your pictures have an open mouth smile and a head tilt? In an analysis, Career Experts found that LinkedIn profile pictures that depict an open mouth smile with a slight head tilt were seen as the best pictures.”

Chapter 5 – How to Look Powerful

Summary: Teaches how power cues like strong posture, steepling hands, and stillness project authority, stating “power cues command respect without a word.”

Powerful Posture: Use confident posture to inspire confidence.

All Seeing, All Knowing: A lower lid flex shows contemplation, suspicion, and scrutiny – be ready for it!

Smart People Steeple: The steeple is a power pose for your hands. Use it show confident contemplation.

Excel at Explaining: Explanatory gestures help you explain and others understand.

Palm Power: Show your palm to cue attention.

How to Nicely Get Someone to Stop Interrupting You:

• The fish (mouth slightly open)

• The Bookmark (hand up to say “I’ve got more”)

• The Anchor Touch (touch to get their attention)

Chapter 6 – How to Spot a Bad Buy … and Not Be One Yourself

Summary: Provides cues for detecting deception (e.g. incongruent microexpressions) and warns to avoid giving off untrustworthy cues ourselves, as “no single cue reveals a liar, but clusters do.”

Distancing: Physical distance can create emotional distance. Don’t turn away, turn toward. Don’t step back, move in.

Self-Comfort: Comfort gestures distract and detract from your charisma.

Block It Out: We block our bodies, eyes, and mouths to protect ourselves.

The Signal of Shame: The shame touch is a signal flare of nervousness.

Are You Okay?: Be aware of what cues your face is sending at rest – avoid accidental anger, contempt, and sadness.

• Anger

  • “Incredibly, research found that people who use Botox to numb their furrow muscles feel less angry and irritable. When your muscles physically can’t make the face of anger, you actually feel less angry. However, if people Botox their smile lines, they also feel less joy.”

• Sadness

• Contempt

“CONGRUENCE: When our nonverbal cues and verbal content align.”

Part 2 – Vocal, Verbal, and Imaginary Cues

Vocal Cues

Chapter 7 – Sound Powerful

Summary: Shows that vocal cues such as deep pitch, confident volume, and steady pace project power, with the key takeaway: “Your voice can cue power before your words do.”

How to Sound Confident: Use space and breath to engage the lowest end of your natural tone.

• “While we’re uncomfortable listening to a nervous pitch, we love hearing a confident pitch. When we use our lowest comfortable pitch, we project confidence. It’s important to draw a distinction here. Confident pitch is not as deep as you can possibly go in your vocal range, but is the lowest pitch you can employ comfortably.”

Be Taken Seriously: If you want people to stop questioning you, then stop accidentally using the question inflection.

Eliminate Vocal Fry… Forever: Vocal fry undermines your vocal confidence.

Volume Control Shows Emotional Control: Vary your volume to highlight what’s important.

Pause for Power: Powerful people pause purposefully.

Chapter 8 – Vocal Likability

Summary: Discusses how vocal warmth cues like expressive tone, vocal variation, and clear articulation make speakers sound likable and trustworthy.

Make a Memorable Vocal First Impression: Never answer the phone in a bad mood – or while holding your breath.

Sound Friendly: Warm people up with permission, authentic happiness, and a vocal hug.

How to Sound More Interesting: Vocal variety makes you sound more interesting.

• “When I’m nervous, I tend to swallow my name. I’ve had to practice slowing myself down. When I say my name, I gesture toward my heart and enunciate my name clearly, instead of rushing through it. I’ve found many people rush through their name. After all, we’ve heard our own name a million times but your audience hasn’t, so say it slowly.”

• “Struggle with pauses or speak too fast? Add pause lines.”

Sound Encouraging and Inviting: Vocal invitations gift warmth, encouragement, and appreciation to others.

Channel Your Charisma

Verbal Cues

Chapter 9 – How to Communicate with Charisma

Summary: Emphasizes using “power words” and warm language to influence perception, sharing the Hotmail example: “‘PS: I Love You. Get Your Free Email at Hotmail.com’ was the single biggest driver of user growth.”

• “They decided to try for both a heartwarming feel and a straight ask. They came up with this line and added it to the bottom of every email: “PS: I Love You. Get Your Free Email at Hotmail.com.”

• In just the first few weeks, Hotmail exploded in popularity. Bhatia and Smith didn’t realize the postscript is one of the most read parts of a message. In his research, communications consultant and author Dr. Frank Luntz found that the postscript is the second most read part of a message after the opener.”

Email Audit: Your written cues signal warmth, competence, and charisma just as much as nonverbal cues.

Stop Being Boring: When your communication matters, use verbal cues to make it memorable.

Create Charisma: Use warm cues to call out to warm people. Use competent cues to call out to competent people. When in doubt, use charisma cues to hit both.

Inspirational or Informational: Warm people seek inspiration. Competent people seek information.

• “No matter what, steer clear of the Danger Zone by avoiding asking anything boring or negative. Never ask “Been busy?” and try to stay away from non-question questions. These are questions that are so socially scripted we don’t even register them. “How are ya?,” “What’s up?,” and “What’s going on?” are boring, shmoring. No more, please!

• My favorite highly charismatic questions tickle both warmth and competence. Try “Working on anything exciting recently?,” “Anything I can do to help you?,” or “Doing anything fun this weekend?” Or my personal favorite casual opener, “What’s good?”

Be a Verbal Chameleon: Subtly mimicking the kinds of words someone uses to match their charisma style.

Imaginary Cues

Chapter 10 – Creating a Powerful Visual Presence

Summary: Highlights the power of visual cues like color, font, and design to signal brand warmth or competence, concluding that “our visuals speak before we do.”

Elevate Your Prices, Your Look, and Your Brand

• “ALL CAPS LOWERS COMPREHENSION.”

Images that Inspire: Use visual cues to attract the right kind of attention.

Your Nonverbal Brand: Using visual cues to signal values, culture, and personality.

Color Me Confident:

• Red: Red inspires action. Use it wisely.

• Blue: Blue is a great color for triggering calm, productivity, and trust.

• Green: Green means go… and eco-friendly depending on your associations.

• Yellow: Yellow is like sunshine – it makes us feel warm and lovely, but too much and you get a sunburn.

• “Use colors that appeal to your team. Back in 2016, my company was looking to hire a marketing agency. We received several proposals but one stood out. Why? The pitch used our brand colors, fonts, and images “from our website. Instead of having their brand all over the presentation, they matched ours. It made the company’s ideas look like our ideas because they were already using our brand visual cues.”

Cues That Bias

Conclusion – Cues Best Practices

Summary: Summarizes by encouraging strategic awareness and deliberate use of cues in all interactions to “project your best self consistently and charismatically.”