Founder and CEO of Virtual Sapiens and Former Professional Ballerina

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Olympian. Professional ballerina. Presence and public speaking coach. Tech company founder. Rachel Cossar, CEO of Virtual Sapiens, which provides realtime body language coaching for video meetings, connects the dots and shares insights into her multiple career reinventions. She also shares terrific insights into the use of body language in our remote and hybrid work environments. This episode is one of a series focused on skill building and tips for career enhancement.

Relevant episode links:

Virtual Sapiens, The Muscle of Reinvention, The Graveyard Book, Snow Crash, Seveneves

About Rachel Cossar:

Rachel Cossar is a leader in the field of nonverbal communication and leadership presence facilitation. As a former nationally ranked athlete and professional ballet dancer, Rachel has a knack of translating unique skills into relatable business skills and competencies.

Virtual Sapiens comes as an evolution of Rachel’s combined work as founder of Choreography for Business, a nonverbal communication consulting firm as well as a faculty member with Mobius Executive Leadership and as a leadership presence facilitator with Ariel Group. Rachel has worked with leaders from GE, BCG, Pfizer, Accenture, McKinsey, HBS and more.

With the increased dependency of video events as a way to connect and drive impact across organizations, Rachel and her team at Virtual Sapiens are excited to open up a world of access when it comes to one of the most human, and most important skills in business – communication.

We are focusing on the beyond part of the bench, bar, and beyond with our guest, Rachel Cossar, who is the CEO of Virtual Sapiens, a former professional ballerina, and also a world-class rhythmic gymnast. She has quite a story of reinvention along her journey, and now as a tech founder. Welcome, Rachel. 

Thank you. It's an honor to be here. 

Thank you so much. I will just have to say honestly, I listened to your TEDx talk about your reinvention from ballet to coaching others on public speaking, and now even beyond that, to found this company as a result of some things you discovered during the pandemic about people's needs in remote work and presentations.

It was a very powerful speech. You are a great public speaker yourself, a disciplined person, and really inspiring based on everything that you have done with your life. I feel like I need to have a few more professional lives, I haven't had enough. Tell me about your background and how you got to the role you are in now, which I don't think you would have imagined years ago. Tell me about your athletic life. 

It's so funny. Sometimes, I feel like I looked at all of the different career options I could have had. I chose the ones with the shortest career span first, did them, and then now I'm in a position where I can age into this role because as many people probably know, you can't be a rhythmic gymnast and a ballerina forever. The evolution of those careers was rhythmic gymnastics, which, just so the audience knows, is with the ribbon and the ball. It's not with the flips. It's very related to ballet. That transition, while atypical, felt a little smoother. I had a wonderful career with Boston Ballet. Interestingly, ballet is a performing art that relies 100% on nonverbals to communicate messages. 

I have always had that affinity for what's not being said, but what is very powerful being communicated. I, unfortunately, got injured at the end of that career. I had to make a transition, so it wasn't necessarily at will. When I transitioned into a more traditional workplace and I was working in fundraising roles at Harvard and New England Conservatory, which are very relationship-driven, I realized that there was so much richness in this more traditional workplace application of non-verbal communication. That was the bridge that happened between this onstage experience and the beginnings of what came next. 

I think there are a couple of things in there that folks in law can relate to in any career, which is how your interlocking experiences over time can come together and allow you to see something that maybe others wouldn't see, and to either create a perfect role for yourself or move into a role that perfectly ties together all of your previous experiences. The second thing is recognizing how the skills that you have and that you have gained can be recast or have ways of having a positive impact. 

I think that not everyone would think about your previous professions as you did when you are saying, I'm looking at it through the lens of I'm telling stories with my body. It's this visual question, which becomes important in communicating generally. That's something I have a lot of experience doing, and I could help people translate that into the business world. That's a different way of looking at the skills that you had, a different perspective on them. 

I think that weaving these different experiences together is where a lot of innovation comes from. Anyone who's gone through a transition, which everyone does, there's always that moment where you are not prepared for whatever comes next, or you have to take that leap of faith. I think having the mindset of knowing that everything you have done to date is a platform you can stand on, and that can very well be a huge number one differentiator for you in a new space, and also it might unlock something like a blind spot that other people may not have seen. 

I think that's right. I think people think of innovation, which is true in some ways as completely creating something brand new, but a lot of it is seeing connections between things. I think that's even something that Steve Jobs said in one of his commencement speeches at Stanford, sometimes seeing those connections that others don't see. The reason you see them is that you are coming from a different background. Your transition to this. You saw the need and then you were doing a lot of hands-on in-person work on people and getting them prepared to present and present themselves well in business, and then 2020 happens. 

It's interesting because, with some of this live facilitation, workshopping, and coaching, I found a little bit of that performance quality that I missed so much from the stage. March 2020 hits, and everyone's virtual. I had a complete breakdown because you are realizing that communication and in-person connection has fundamentally changed, and now we are connecting over video. Very quickly I realized if people were having a hard time communicating effectively and with full awareness in person, this video thing is going to be a huge challenge. I did flip my curriculum to be fully virtual. I was doing all these live virtual presence and body language programs that were taking off. 

What I realized was the people who need at least a baseline of feedback to help give them that nudge of self-awareness and education around what are the metrics that matter when it comes to visual communication over the video, that’s a job that's way too big for one person. It's also a job that probably could benefit from some AI, some machine learning that has been taught to recognize a dynamic human that can track things like facial expression, variation, posture, and eye gaze. It was that gradual acceptance of what was soon to be a new world, and figuring out how we can evolve offerings to better meet where people are. 

I was thinking, to some degree, it allows democratization of that. Also, for you, there's only so much impact you personally can have on the world doing individual sessions with people, but you can have a more significant impact on how people show up around the world on video using other tools. 

The democratizing access to quality feedback is one of the ways we describe it. 

It's neat, too, because it's real-time. You can do it in real-time, and make the adjustments, or you can get your grade afterward after the presentation. When we went remote in court hearings and appellate arguments, that whole experience is so different, wanting to connect with the judges, but how do you do that over a video with the camera? They are all in 3 or 4 remote locations and not even connected in the same way sometimes during the height of the pandemic. Everybody was at home, including all of the judges, so navigating that and recognizing as you are doing it that you have to change. In order to be a good lawyer, you are going to have to up your skills and add skills to the video presentation. 

You have to be able to do it in court, and you also need to be able to do it well on video and maximize that. I think we were slowly coming to that realization also that this is going to stay. The courts appreciated access to justice. They recognized that it can be more efficient and less costly for clients if lawyers are doing remote appearances for more routine matters, and then coming in person for more significant matters where fact-finding is required and credibility needs to be assessed. Still, it's here to stay now, so you have to learn how to work with it to the utmost. 

It makes sense when we take ourselves back a few years. I think we were all week by week being like, “Then we will go back.” Early on, that was one of the biggest questions we got from investors was, "Is video going to disappear at the end of the pandemic?" It was looking at the numbers, especially once companies started to recognize that big deals could be sold over the video, important moments of connection could be had over the video, then you see the cost savings in terms of time, money, and environmental impact from the reduction of business travel. There are many other very loud incentives that can support this channeled communication. 

Even if you are not fully remote or operating in that way, people are comfortable with the hybrid model. People are also more comfortable with the idea of a meeting via video and an in-person meeting. Even if you are meeting with a client or coming into court, that's only part of your relationship. 

There was something you said earlier that made me remember. I think professionals, whether they are salespeople, lawyers, or recruiters that are able to shift very seamlessly between the skills that come to life when you are meeting in person and then the skills that help you pop on video and help you build and establish rapport quickly. They are going to own this new world of work that we are building around us because it's such an easy advantage to grab. 

You need both and you need to be able to show up well in both environments, so it's important to have those skills, too. What do you think are some good tips for those who want to up their Zoom game or Teams game? 

Video is the only digital means of communication that allows us to leverage body language. If we are choosing to use video for whatever message we are trying to communicate, then there are certain things that 100% should be leveraged to ensure that we are sending an intentional impression. I say intentional because it's not like in order to be successful on video, you have to do these things, specifically, but it's more like you have to be mindful of certain categories of communication. 

The first thing is your setup. You have to very mindfully ensure that your audience can see you, and can see you as a dynamic, engaging human being that your lens is at eye level so that you can very easily look into the lens without having to stoop down or look up. Frame, so that your hands enter the frame easily without you having to put your hands up by your head, which feels terribly awkward and looks a little off, too. 

Hand usage is interesting because I think a lot of people are inclined just not to do that at all. You do it quite effectively, and I think it helps engagement. There are also some tips about how to do that, so you are not making people feel uncomfortable on the other end of the video. 

Hands are one of the most human aspects of our communication. One of the main reasons why displaying open palms gestures with palms facing forward is considered to be so associated with things like openness, warmth, invitation, and open consideration is because it shows people very quickly that you are not reoccupied with anything else. You are not holding something in your pocket or fiddling around with your phone on the side. It gives this visual cue of, "This person is fully present with me." Even though a lot of that processing is happening subconsciously, what it does is helps develop rapport and build trust. 

If you are not using your hands, you become more of a talking head, which is very easy to disengage with and ignore because neurologically, we get used to things quickly, and then we immediately start to reduce the amount of mental energy that we associate with that specific object. Same thing when you are monotonous, it's easier to tone people out because you become accustomed to the sound, and therefore you are like, "It's not a threat. It's fine." Vocal intonation is another example of including some dynamic variation in the way you are communicating so that you can keep people engaged with what you are saying. It's more of a dynamic experience as a listener or an audience. 

Vocal intonation is an example of including some dynamic variation in how you talk. This way, you can keep people interested in what you are saying.

I think that's definitely the hand gesture part because I do think that people tend to shy away from just doing that at all. You naturally use your hands to some degree. 

To your point of what can you do on the video to use hand gestures in a way that feels authentic and like you, making sure that you are far enough from the screen so that you use hand gestures in a way that feels normal. You don't have to have your hands up by your head for them to get in the frame. Make sure your relationship to the lens is such that you can, with relative ease, have your hands showing, because then it's just the question of using your hands as you might normally, and just making sure they are being picked up by the lens. 

Other than trying to get them in there because it's so tight. 

It's very awkward. A big part of that is giving yourself a little more distance, which lets you breathe more and maybe gesture a little more expansively. Those things can go a long way. I will say though, from your point of, this is a virtual environment. In the same way that if I was coaching someone in person and I saw that they were gesticulating wildly all the time, I would say we need to be a little more intentional when we decide to use hand gestures. It can't be a constant flurry of activity. That is especially true on video because if someone is just waving their hands all over the place, that very quickly becomes so distracting. 

Moderation in all things. 

Intentionally using these hand gestures to enhance what we are saying. A lot of this takes a lot of practice. 

That's some good advice. If you are engaging remotely with judges and you want to get their attention. Is there anything in particular besides what we talked about that you might want to think about in that context? 

I would just drive home the point that if you are showing up as one among many of these virtual boxes, you want to make sure that the quality of your presence in terms of your lighting is the most eye-catching possible. I don't mean going over the top, but if you are able to have a real background that's simple, non-distracting, but very pleasing, it's more helpful than having a virtual background where you are maybe going in and out of it. 

If you are showing up in virtual boxes, make sure the quality of your presence is as eye-catching as possible.

I find the virtual backgrounds challenging. If you do move at all in expression, there's all this weirdness in the screen, and people are looking at that. That's definitely a challenge. You have to really stay still, which can then impinge on how you are engaging when you are talking. 

I understand that in some cases virtual backgrounds are mandated. If you are able to, as you have done, you have chosen a very tasteful background, it's very stable, and there's nothing moving in it. No one's going to walk behind you and you are pretty close to your fireplace. Those choices can be very helpful, especially in establishing authority. You are in control of what shows up in the back. You get to choose what decorates your background. It doesn't have to be complicated. It can be something as simple as a plant and one picture frame. I have this silk screen and a plant, that's it. 

That's really simple, but it balances things out as opposed to here I am in some blank room with a blank wall, which doesn't really give a lot of contexts also. 

It's an opportunity to show a little bit of your personality if that's appropriate. It's an opportunity to show your professionalism if you want to have certificates in the back, those are all associated with authority and credibility. I think it's really the color of clothing that you decide to wear. If you can render your image as high depth as possible, people's eyes will go to you. If everyone else is improperly framed, you can only see their head, they are looking down, or their back lens, people will filter them out and pay attention to humans they can see on the screen. 

That is interesting because you do when you see the whole range of boxes of people on Zoom, you just naturally do that. Who is the cleanest to look at? It helps you sort things out. That's some great advice. Thank you so much for those tips and for thinking of it that way. It was interesting when you said about the purpose of the background, the stability of the background being important because of that signal of control. I have certainly had situations where people will suddenly walk behind someone when you are talking because they are in the middle of some open-plan office, they can't really stop that from happening. It is distracting and it makes you think this person is on an island of whirling, destabilizing for a minute. 

In fact, many workplaces are not set up properly for video. That drives me crazy. You are calling people back into the office, and they will be spending their days on video. Help them represent the company properly. 

You need to set up a good location for that, or at least be able to set up something that looks good and presents well in that setting. Just in terms of podcasting, I know there are some companies and firms that have set up whole separate areas for podcasting for their folks to use to do podcasts. That's a little extreme. At least making sure that you can have a setup that allows you to have a pleasant experience with clients and people you work with if you are meeting with them by video, which you said is totally the case. Even if you are in the office, you are probably going to have a Zoom meeting. 

The other thing I will say that took a little bit longer than I care to admit is to recognize how important it is to have a great microphone. First of all, a lot of the ways that this video conferencing software work is it just allows one person to talk. If your audio is clear and crisp, you will have an easier time being that featured-focused person that the video conference focuses on. If your audio is a little bit spotty or scratchy, you can say two words, and it doesn't go to you, and it's a little bit harder to get the speaking baton. 

That's a really good point because that's in terms of what the program prefers. It prefers clarity. 

I have noticed it with my cofounder. We now have the same microphone. For a while, he had the great mic, I didn't. I would notice and was like, "Why is it so easy for you to just talk?" I feel like I have to wait for a pause in the conversation, and then speak up. I noticed the difference when I got a nice microphone. I was like, "Now, no one can stop me." 

I think that's particularly important for women because I think in many circumstances, we have to either fight for that if you have a group of people on a conference call or meeting, and then there's the perennial, let's wait for a guy to say that great thing that you just said, and give him credit for it. That happens a lot. At least this would give you the opportunity to be able to get your thought out there first if you have the crispest technology that allows you to be heard first. 

That's a cool idea. I like that. I'm curious, too, about your journey as a Founder of Virtual Sapiens, and how that adventure has been. I think all of us now are working on our own individual brands, marketing, and the development of our law practice. If we are in business also, we are focused on building our brand and also taking risks. Founding a company is a major risk. What have you learned about risk-taking and leading a company and a team? 

The question of risk is interesting. I had a wonderful, stable, flexible, and high-paying job before I jumped on the Virtual Sapiens train. I had this very clear feeling that taking this leap toward something that I feel like I could uniquely have an impact on didn't feel so risky because there were so many reasons to do it. It's almost like the difference between a mitigated risk and a blind risk. Even in the way that we have built out the product and gone from the market, you never just blindly put something out there. 

There are conversations with your ideal user that you have to validate ideas while they are in their infancy so that when you do put in those resources or bring in investor capital, you can point to the reason why you think this is going to work. Yes, very risky, but it's a calculated risk based on data that you have to support it. It doesn't feel as wild as it might to maybe someone who doesn't have that data. 

That's the difference, the refinement you made, and how you look at risk. I think people look at risk as one monolithic thing, but you are refining that and saying, "There's a difference between throwing yourself off a cliff with no plan and no idea of what might happen." That's one risk. There's another kind where you are calling it mitigated risk, but I think of it more as smart risk or something where you see an opportunity and think that your skills match that opportunity. You are also excited about being the one to create something and see where it goes. I think that's two different kinds of things. Each of them is scary, but the one you took is exciting. 

I talk about this with my husband a lot. He's in wealth management, and I have a hard time understanding any of what he does. When he's like, "We are going to put this many clients' accounts money into this," I'm like, "That seems really risky." He's like, "The reasons we are doing that for X, Y, and Z, and we think it's the right decision." To me, I don't have that context, so that's terrifying. He has all the data, so he is like, "This is what we are going to do and this is why." It's one of those same things. 

You are being very good and talking about data, but I also think there's another side to taking risks like that, which probably is a range of your experience that gives you the intuition. Intuition comes from experience, but I think sometimes there's an intuition about where things can go or where there's a need that comes to you from all of your experience. The data can reinforce or support that, or maybe give you ideas about other ways to go with it. Everything I have done seemed a little bit like, "What," but if you have an instinct for it or a sense like, "This could be good, helpful, and could serve someone." 

I even think about this show, people are like, "You are doing what and why?" I was like, "I don't know. I just think it could be positive. It seems like it could serve people and serve a good mission. I don't know exactly where it's going to go or how it's going to end up, and I'm open to it evolving. I just have a gut feeling that there's something positive that can come from this, and I'm just going to follow that feeling along with the data and input that comes along the way." I think there's part of that, too, trusting your gut. 

That brings us full circle to what we were discussing earlier, where it's our own experience that gives us the perspective that might uncover something that you are like, "I don't see anyone else doing this. I do think there's something here. I think there's a community of female legal professionals who could hear from one another. I think that we could leverage technology to help people feel more human on video." I would be curious to hear what you think about this, but now that you have had success with the show, now when you share it with people, I bet people are like, "That makes so much sense." 

We could and should definitely leverage technology today to help people feel more human on video.

People are like, "That's so great. I can't believe somebody hasn't done that." Now it's validated, and everyone's like, "That's great." To begin with, bless the women who jumped off with me to do it before there was anything and agreed to be part of it before it was out there. I want to mention that intuition part because I think that sometimes we ignore that. We know it, we feel something, or we see something. I think of it as seeing something, too. 

You see an opportunity that would be helpful, and then you tamp it down or say, "I don't know about that." You could have said, "I don't know about technology, so maybe I'm not the one to do this." You get a good cofounder who can help with that, but it doesn't mean you stop. I just think too often people stop early on that. I wanted to encourage people to not do that. 

It's a good point, too, because I did start Virtual Sapiens as a solo founder, completely non-technical. I'm starting this AI company in the video. I'm a subject matter expert and that's it. I got it to a point where I had a decent amount of starter funding. We had an MVP, and it was only then that I was like, "I really do need a technical cofounder." At that point then, you go to the next step. It's true in those early stages where it's like, "You are a ballerina who thinks you are going to do what?" 

I think you are a perfect illustration of that where people are like, "I don't know. That's interesting." I think that's true, too, that a lot of people wouldn't even start it. They would have said, "I need someone who has that technological know-how from the beginning." You didn't. You recognized when you are like, "If I want to bring this up to a certain level, I'm going to need a little bit more than what I have now." Being willing to evolve with that, but to move forward and to be willing to learn. "I don't know anything about this, but I do know about this, and I think we can put those together and do something helpful and new." 

Especially in law, our job is to de-risk everything. Our job is to identify risk and then avoid it. It could be hard personally. Professionally in your career, you are like, "I avoid all risk." This question of defining and refining risk is a helpful one, especially, for women lawyers because we are trained just to not do not head towards the risk in any way. That's where the adventure is sometimes, and that's where the joy is and where you can really create some interesting new things. 

Surprise yourself. 

That's why I was asking about it, too. You have reinvented several times, and that gives you the confidence to move forward the next time to say, “I have done this and adapted.”

In my TED Talk, the title is The Muscle of Reinvention because once you develop it, it becomes this effect of resiliency. When you are faced with change and adversity, you are like, "It's okay. We have done it before. Yes, it's jarring, but we will get through it." 

I think that's especially an important message after the last couple of years because you have to keep evolving and moving. You keep thinking, "In a couple of months we will get back to normal and this will get back to normal." Normal has blown up, and there will continue to be challenging. Having developed a way of dealing with them and moving forward, whether you call it resilience, grit, or confidence. It's particularly important to develop that now as things continue to change and be very different from where we thought they might have been. 

Thank you so much for joining me and sharing some of the tips and some of your journeys, which I think are inspiring on so many levels. I hope it will cause people to think a little differently about risk in their own professional careers, even if they continue to counsel their clients in the law in a very de-risky way. To close, I usually ask a few lightning-round questions, so I'm going to ask a few of those of you. One is, this might be really hard for you because you have a lot of talents, but what talent would you most like to have, but don't? 

I don't want this to be a downer, but I would love to have Wolverine in the X-Men show where he has the power to heal himself so fast. I wish that anytime I got injured or experienced pain, my body would just heal. That would be amazing. 

That would be amazing although I wonder how that would impact your life and career, given what happened in the past. I wonder if you had that power, things might be really different. That's interesting. 

Who knows? Maybe I'd still be dancing. It's one of those things in retrospect. That would be nice. 

I have not heard that one at all, so that's definitely unique. Next question. Who is your hero in real life? 

I have quite a few heroes. All of my sisters are heroes because they are all amazing. One of my sisters is a total warrior in her life. She's an Olympian, then a paramedic, and now she's pregnant with her first baby. I always look to her for perspective. I think she's one of the most grounded people that I know. Especially because she deals with the underbelly of society in her profession, she is so full of empathy. Anytime I have a real issue, I'm like, "I got to call Rose." 

That's really nice that it's your sister. It's an interesting observation of yours that probably she was pretty empathetic to begin with, which may have led her to her career, but how that's amplified from that experience as well. Who are your favorite writers? 

I have three favorite writers. One of them is Neil Gaiman. The Graveyard Book, have you read that? 

I haven't read that one. 

It's a total must-read. I also love this Canadian author named Robertson Davies. He's phenomenal. He really captures the full spectrum of a person. His heroes are never these perfect people. They are always very flawed, which is just not typical. Finally, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, and Seveneves. Those are my three top ones, but they change. 

The thing about Neil Gaiman that's so interesting is that he's really interesting to listen to, too, to hear him talk and talk about his creative process. He's really interesting. His writing is really great, too. 

On Netflix, The Sandman, have you watched it? 

I haven't. I have heard it's really good. I always worry about watching the visual of a book because you think I have my own. I don't want to know what your idea is. I want to know in my mind's eye what I was envisioning. I heard it was really well done though. Those are really great, except for the second one, I do not know, and I want to look him up. The two of them are interesting.

If you were to have a dinner party, whom would you invite to that party? It could be anyone with us or not. It could be more than one person. Sometimes, people just want to invite one person, but other times I think sometimes it's the connections or the discussion between very eclectic guests that might be interesting. 

I used to have a list of people, but I think the list of people I had a couple of years ago would be very different. I would love to have one of my best friends. Her name's Brittany Gregory, and she's just amazing. I would want to have her there for safety. I would love to have the Queen of England, may she rest in peace. That would be really interesting. I think it would be great to have Christian Bale, the actor. The Former Prime Minister from New Zealand who just stepped down, Jacinda. She would be great. I feel like that'd be a pretty cool dinner party. 

That would be. All the different eras. The Queen herself has seen so much. That would be so interesting. She's a really strong leader. Thinking about the New Zealand Prime Minister as a modern version of a woman leader of a country. What an interesting combination. I love that. Last question. What is your motto, if you have one? 

Ask for help when you need it. 

That's a good one. That's a good reminder for people and for yourself. 

I always have to remind myself. 

I'm of the variety, "I'm just going to go through it. I'm just going to take care of it myself." It's good to remind yourself of that. Rachel, thank you so much for joining the show, participating in this episode, and sharing a unique perspective and also some good tips for people. 

Thank you for having me. Everyone's welcome to try out our solution. We have free trials on our website. If there's interest in more tips, there's more where that came from. 

I think people should try it out, see what they think, and see where they can get some tips personal to them about improvements that they can do to be engaging on a video. Thanks so much, Rachel. 

Thank you.