Are you a recovering awkward person? My next guest states she is—although you’d never know it given her amazing insights and understanding of what she has branded, The Science of People. As we know from being a child and certainly a preteen or teenager, we all feel awkward from time to time. Maybe some of us more than others. My own palms get sweaty just thinking about walking into school on the first day of school, after a fight with a friend- or worse, a break up. Blargh. And what about when walking into a party or school event when you aren’t sure who will be there—or when you do and the people who are there aren’t exactly the people you jive with. Do people even say “jive” anymore? Anyway, what if we could tap into the science of people so that we can give the kids and teens in our lives some hacks that allow them to be successful in social situations? And what if some of these hacks could help us connect better and have better conversations with our kids? That would be pretty great, wouldn’t it?

Vanessa Van Edwards is lead investigator at the Science of People—a human behavior research lab. She is the national bestselling author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding With People which was chosen as one of Apple’s Most Anticipated Books of the year. Her work has been featured on CNN, NPR and Fast Company. She writes a monthly column on the science of success for Entrepreneur Magazine and the Huffington Post. She even has a successful Ted Talk which is awesome. She speaks worldwide and I couldn’t be more thrilled to have her stop by our show today.