She and Adam discuss strategies for recognizing another person’s feelings, the distinction between empathetic validation and exaggerated praise, and why sometimes saying less is more.

Charlie Houpert is the co-founder of the confidence-building online platform, ‘Charisma on Command’. He is the author of books such as, ‘The Anti Pick Up Line: Real Habits To Naturally Attract Stunning Women’ and ‘Charisma On Command: Inspire, Impress, and Energize Everyone You Meet’. 

In this conversation, Charlie and Steven discuss topics such as, how to stop feeling awkward in social situations, the ultimate body language hack to build trust, how to become instantly likeable, and how to master the art of persuasion. 

Vinh Giang is an award-winning entrepreneur, part-magician, and full time communication coach. He runs masterclasses and has helped thousands of people improve their communication and vocal skills.

In this conversation, Vinh and Steven discuss topics such as, the top speaking mistake that makes people ignore you, small mistakes that make you unlikeable, how to effortlessly speak with power and confidence, and the number one word to avoid to be taken seriously.

Vanessa Van Edwards is the founder of ‘Science of People’, which gives people science-backed skills to improve communication and leadership. She is also the bestselling author of ‘Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People’ and ‘Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication’. 

In this conversation, Vanessa and Steven discuss topics such as, why your resting face matters, the 3 science-backed tricks for confidence, the best gestures for building trust, and how to spot a liar fast. 

There is also a You Tube version of this if you want to SEE what she's saying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHUrdELKjDw

Location:

Photo: Show us how you're starting off summer!

• If you implemented one idea from these texts tomorrow, what would it be—and what might the impact be?

• What obstacles might come up from implementing these ideas - and how could you navigate them?

• What teaching habits or assumptions might this text be prompting you to rethink?

• What evidence or research does the author rely on—and do you find it convincing?

I just moved back to in Italy after a year away, (going on 8 years of living here!) and so excited to eat ALL THE FOOD.

We just returned from a weekend trip to Penang, Malaysia. We visited a rainforest nature reserve called, "The Habitat Penang Hill." Fun fact: Jane Goodall visited back in 2019, when she was 85! She's my childhood hero! I felt so inspired by a plaque that quoted her as saying, "What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." It reminds me of our work as educators!

San Juan is a Valencian tradition where everyone gathers on the beach to eat food, build bon fires, and of course jump the waves at midnight. It is said that you have three wishes for the three waves you jump. Let's wish for another year filled with community and learning together.

Quotes:

"They're [the above] evidence-based strategies that drive equity."

"Real equity depends on something else: Knowledge"

Potential Obstacles:

• People thinking that explicit instruction is 'boring', 'stale', 'sit-n-get'. Helping all educators understand what powerful explicit, whole-group instruction looks like and how to do it, seems important to move learning forward for all students in our classrooms. (For example, in the space of one minute, students should be responding 3-5 times).

Rochester, NY, USA

Collecting the beautiful bounty of our garden and soaking up the summer sun with family and friends (and reading my giant book stack)—currently mulberry and sugar snap pea season 🥰

(I'm not in any summer pictures yet, so here's a cute one of my Margot 😊)

We started our summer in sweltering Alabama, then made our way to the Maine coast for some beach town charm, cooler temps, and amazing seafood. Currently in Massachusetts!

An obstacle. . . I tend to teach through facts rather than stories. I'm learning that charismatic communication integrates both. It does make me feel somewhat vulnerable to think about weaving stories into professional development, but I recognize why it can be invaluable for building connection and enhancing learning.

Obstacles: Teacher buy-in. Some teachers may feel their project-based, group-work-heavy style is more progressive, or worry that cold calls and other methods he describes as being responsive will contrast with their classroom culture. Others, especially when working with learners who require more support, may find stations easier for managing engagement. That’s why it is important that teachers are coached to refine the methods described in his book. Another idea is giving teachers the chance to shadow colleagues who are doing it well or co-plan with a coach to implement the strategies successfully.

Love the nod to mini whiteboards. It is true; they're great.

I LOVED watching this episode (and noticed so much more than when I just listened to the podcast)! One of the ideas that resonated most with me is the importance of high competence and high warmth, as I think this combo is EXACTLY what we need to bring to our work with schools.

I liked being reminded of the 5 Power Cues:

• steeple hands

• distance from earlobe to shoulder

• eye contact at the end of the sentence

• lower lid flex

• vocal cues

I want to be more aware of my eye contact at the end of sentences and watching for the lower lid flex in others. I think I often notice this, but usually feel like it's skepticism or criticism (hello, imposter syndrome! :). I want to start assuming that it's curiosity or a need for clarity, and use it as a cue to check for understanding and ask questions. I think this will lead to people feeling seen and heard.

I’m stateside this summer - soaking up the beauty of Seattle and my fam! - with little jaunts to Colorado, Montana, and thus highly anticipated EKC trip to Boston. Can’t say enough about how lucky I feel to work with people I love and admire and motivate me to outgrow myself again and again. (That’s you, too, btw!)

My RBF--if you know you know. It's not so much my resting face but it's that I don't know how in control of my expressions I am. I feel like sometimes, colleagues can say things that are so far from what I'm thinking that I don't think I am always aware of how I might be making them feel in how I nonverbally respond. I think I need to take a more intentional approach to what my face is conveying as I listen in--especially in moments when I think I’m being neutral but may actually be coming across as critical or even accusatory. It’s such a simple, human thing, but I can see how even a slight softening of my face or posture might change how teachers or colleagues experience a conversation.

The challenge is, of course, noticing it in real time. I’m pretty aware when I’m “on,” but it’s the moments in between—when I’m listening or thinking—that probably send mixed signals. I think the workaround is building in small, practical checks, like pausing before a meeting and at different checkpoints but I'm also wondering if I should try filming some of my smaller sessions with teams when I'm onsite (if they agree) and watching how I handle things. I know this is a big part of Jim Knight's coaching but I think I need to apply it to myself more. Not to be performative, but to be intentional. If body language is part of how I create trust, I need to SHOW that not just through how I speak to people but especially when I'm NOT speaking.

--Hannah (whoops, forgot to log out and log back in to my personal account)

This is me with my family in Sidon, Lebanon, after enjoying a fish lunch by the sea. Behind us is the beautiful Sidon Sea Castle, a 13th century coastal fortress. One of Lebanon’s most scenic historical sites with a frontrow seat to the Mediterranean.

Excited to be part of this incredible community and looking forward to learning with you all!

This summer, our little family is keeping it simple and sweet here in Dubai. While Mike and our two older boys are hard at work building our first-ever backyard garden 🌿🌞, 2-month-old baby Evie and I have taken on a much cozier role — offering encouragement from the sidelines and soaking up the snuggles 💗.

We love spending our summers home in Wisconsin surrounded by family ❤️ Our boys adore all the special time with their grandparents and cousins. We stay busy between swimming lessons, watching older cousins’ baseball games, jumping in the lake, eating (so much!) ice cream, and all the fun activities that come with visits to the friends and family that we hold closest to our hearts. One day our summers will be quiet and more relaxing, but for now, we’re embracing the chaos and soaking in all the fun & sweetness that comes with chasing adventurous, energetic boys around 🥰

Enjoying our school break back ‘home’ in London. It’s the first time our youngest, Harry, has been here to meet all the family. Soaking up every moment of this magical family time! 💫❤️

I’m also thinking about the science of learning. I’ve been knee deep in Hattie, Marzano, Rosenshine, and a little bit of Wexler this year trying to piece it all together and come up with language that works for me. The Nathaniel Swain work seems to communicate the science of learning ideas with much more Tom-friendly language than some of these other works. I’ve found that in this pendulum swing, the language we use and gravitate towards seems more important than ever. Swain’s style seems to cut through the noise a bit for me, perhaps because his specific examples like using graphic and advanced organizers and mini whiteboards made these ideas come to life more for me. For teachers practically navigating instructional shifts, the focus on more frequent review of previous content seems more like a good first step than I realized and can be done with relative ease. This is something I’ll be mindful of in my work with teachers this year. 

A potential obstacle is the perception that this would take too much time in an already packed schedule. In my experience, starting with one or two enthusiastic teachers who are open to trying new things helps. I typically collaborate with a “point person” on each grade level to test out strategies like this in a unit that might otherwise feel overlooked. When we reflect afterward on how doable and beneficial it was, it often leads to greater buy-in from the full team. It becomes a shared experience rather than a top-down mandate—which makes all the difference in fostering long-term change.

The warmth + competence = charisma formula makes so much sense to me. Going into this school year, I will be much more intentional about cues, both encoding and decoding them. (I may or may not have been testing some of the new ones I learned while engaging in conversation with family this summer 😅)

As I listened, I found myself nodding along most when Vanessa discussed warmth - this is definitely me! I will work toward dialing up those competence cues, but this is also the challenge I anticipate facing. It’s not that I don’t believe I’m competent, it’s that pesky imposter syndrome! 😉

• What teaching habits or assumptions might this text be prompting you to rethink? Many ideas promoted in the book were highly practical, which I loved. I like the way the authors spell out concrete ways to build workshops and learning experiences that promote equity for participants. Things as granular as planning for tech set up, catering, being early to ensure the environment is designed for belonging, spelling and saying participants names correctly. The book is chock full of practical ways I can enhance my facilitation practices. It gave me so many good ideas and challenged me to consider ways I may have unknowingly missed opportunities to create equitable spaces and experiences in past workshops. So powerful! Loved how they used the Frayer model to illustrate what the practice is and what it is not. Also "this can sound like" is really a helpful way to show practical examples of these ideas in real life scenarios.

• What evidence or research does the author rely on—and do you find it convincing? Adult learning theory/ principles (Androgogy) and culturally-responsive pedagogy are the two most salient. Convincing, yes, although it highlights just how much prep and thinking must go into a successful learning experience when seeking to reach this high bar for excellence. An important reminder.

I can already anticipate teachers’ concern: "Are we really going back to explicit teaching after focusing so much on UDL strategies and SEL?" To navigate this, I think it's important to clarify that explicit instruction doesn't have to mean abandoning the practices of emotional support or cultural relevance. The goal is not to return to a traditional "lecture-only" approach, but rather to intentionally combine rigorous, structured teaching with emotional and cultural responsiveness. This can actually enhance what teachers are already doing by giving students the tools to engage meaningfully with the content, rather than just feeling emotionally supported without mastering the skills or knowledge they need. I’d frame it as an evolution, not a return to the past. It’s about making explicit teaching and feedback part of an inclusive, supportive environment. In the end, academic rigor and emotional support are not mutually exclusive!

As I step into leading a new team, having a moment to pause and check in with myself (without showing it on the outside) will help me stay calm, grounded, and thoughtful. It keeps me from overreacting and gives others space to share without feeling shut down. I imagine this approach will build more trust and make space for better communication, especially in those early “getting to know each other” moments when tone and body language say a lot.

A big challenge I’ve been thinking about, especially after reading Teaching for More Equitable Outcomes: The Missing Ingredient, is finding the balance between explicit teaching and inquiry—especially in a school where inquiry is the main approach. There's often a worry that direct instruction might undermine student agency or creativity.

To navigate this, I want to share the article and research with my team and make sure they we are continue to reflect and debate what we are doing. Planning short, targeted teaching moments to build knowledge that fuels deeper inquiry. I want to share the message that it is not about choosing one over the other, but making sure both are working together to support strong purposeful learning.

I'm really looking forward to seeing Groshell at the September EKC Global Chat and continuing to lean on his work this year through my onsite work.

Groshell’s inclusion of visuals stood out to me, not only because it is grounded in cognitive science, but because it is a key technique for multilingual learners. I especially enjoyed these two points, which helped me better understand how to use visuals more effectively:

• Visuals with worked examples: Show step-by-step illustrations of how to complete a task or solve a problem. Groshell highlights the worked example effect, the well-supported finding that teaching without worked examples increases students’ cognitive load and hinders learning, compared to teaching that provides plenty of worked examples.

• Visuals with non-examples (such as in the attached example): Show what something is not. Groshell notes that teachers sometimes not only provide too few examples, but also focus solely on positive examples while leaving out non-examples. He shares, "Without non-examples, students are unlikely to develop an understanding of the variation within concepts (Ling Lo, 2012)." He points out that not all non-examples are created equal; when we are trying to select the best non-examples, we should also consider those that are only slightly different (i.e., "minimally different juxtapositions"), because they help us avoid leaving interpretation to our students.

Related to the science of learning, I recently came across this article about how Math requires knowledge-building, too. It led me to reflect on how explicit teaching across disciplines not only helps students build content knowledge, but also supports multilingual learners in building languages. Math and languages (and Music!) require us to tune into patterns, and I can see how the power of explanations and explicit teaching can help multilingual learners see patterns within a language system more effectively, so that they're better able to build bridges and translanguage across languages with greater ease and confidence.

Groshell grounds his thinking in a body of research on the science of learning and how the brain learns. I appreciate how he uses concrete examples, including Math. I recently read this article about how Math as a discipline needs knowledge building too.