Why don't you study for people like you study for chemistry?

Why don't you study conversation and body language just like you study for subjects?

Vanessa Van Edwards is a behavioral researcher, a best-selling author, an instructor at Harvard University,

and a self-described recovering awkward person.

I know I'm a recovering awkward person.

I am the person that I try to help.

Soft skills can be learned, even if they don't come naturally to you.

The amount of a pause.

How long should a pause be?

How many pumps in a handshake?

You're an expert in nonverbal communication, so size me up. Vanessa Van Edwards is a behavioral researcher, a best-selling author, an instructor at Harvard University,

and a self-described recovering awkward person.

She's the author of Q's Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication.

And her YouTube videos on body language and social skills have received more than 70 million

views. We spoke to her today about decoding body language,

overcoming awkwardness, and putting your best foot forward.

So Vanessa, tell me about my posture and seating in this to begin.

You're an expert in nonverbal communication,

so size me up.

Well, first of all, I love that we're angled towards each other. I have a little bit of a pet peeve when people are angled half away.

You know, have you ever seen that where they have the setup where they're angled away? The brain loves when we're on parallel lines, so I love that even through a camera.

Also, a distance that most people don't think about is a distance between our ears and our shoulders. It's my favorite distance. The reason for that is because when we're anxious, when we're afraid, we tend to take up as little space as possible. You'll see people will turtle where they sink their head down and they tend to creep their shoulder. Exactly. They tend to

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