Body Language Australia

 

Transcription:

Hi, it’s Diederik Gelderman here again.

Today is the second video about improving your communication and your likeability, trustability and respectability, especially with new people.

So, what am I going to talk about today? It’s a really, really, really simple thing, and that’s the power of the smile.

Let me ask you, from how far away can you see someone smile?

The answer is about 300 yards, or 300 meters, that sort of distance. Again (like last week), I talk about caveman and caveman days in the last video.

In this video it’s exactly the same thing. When a caveman was approaching us umpteen hundreds of thousands of years ago, we looked at two things, their hands, visible hands, and we looked at their face, and when we saw a smile and when we saw visible hands, we knew that person was very unlikely to be a threat.

So, a smile is really, really, really important.

They also did some studies on Shark Tank—I don’t know if you watcg the show, I watch bits and pieces of it here and there…

But they analyzed the 2016 contestants and the commonalities, the common things that all the winners did, the guys that got the Sharks to invest in their products, and they looked at what the commonalities where between all those winners and, it was a 50/5 split, about half the people got the deal, and the other half didn’t.

So, what was the commonality between those people that did the deal?

There were three about commonalities, I’ll share them all over the next few videos…

The first one was when those contestants came down, the gangplank or the walkway, or whatever you want to call it, when they were approaching the sharks, the winners were typically smiling.

The people that didn’t get the deal typically weren’t smiling.

So, when they walked down that walk way, the Sharks could see a big smile on their faces, and that first impression counted hugely later on when it came to doing the deal with the Sharks.

So remember, in every situation that you’re walking into, whether you’re walking into a networking meeting where you don’t know anyone, whether you’re presenting to a small group, whether you’re presenting to a large group, whether you’re meeting someone one-on-one for coffee, can I suggest that you get a smile plastered all over your face?

You may not think a smile is important on the phone, but it is absolutely important in that situation as well.

Let me suggest that you do a little experiment and you get one of your colleagues or coworkers or friends to help you….

You ring them and get them to pick up the phone and get them to pick up the phone in one of two ways. Either pick up the phone and say “Hello, it’s Diederik Gelderman here,” or get them to pick the phone with a big smile on their face and say the same thing, “Hello! It’s Diederik Gelderman here,” and see if you can pick the difference on your end of the phone. I bet you can.

That’s the message for this week. Whenever you’re meeting someone, first time, second time, anytime, in person or on the phone, smile. It will make you much more likeable, trustable and respectable.

If you like this video, there’s a lot more in the series, head over to my YouTube channel and sign-up and subscribe and you’ll get notification when the next video comes out.

See on the next video.

In the meantime, your homeplay for this week is to SMILE!

Transcription:

Hi, it’ Diederik Gelderman here.

When you meet someone for the first time, whether that’s face-to-face, in a one-on-one meeting, whether it’s when you walk in to a room and there’s a group of people there looking at you when you walk in, whether you’re doing a presentation on stage to a big group, or even to a small group, would you like to create instant trust, respect, generate rapport?

Well, of course you would because building that trust and rapport and respect immediately increases your connectivity and connectedness with that one person or with that entire group and, when you create that connectivity, the ongoing communication goes so much better.

So, I’m putting together a series which is going to give you a little titbit on improving your communication and connection skills in each episode.

Each week, I’m going to give you a short, small actionable snippet of information and you’ll have a week to implement that information and practice and rehearse and role play and get that strategy engrained into your neurology.

And these tips and snippets over time, are going to build up into a whole arsenal of techniques that you can and will use to improve your communication, as I said, with either one person or with an entire group.

What we’re going to talk about today is the foundation to all great communication and connection.

Let me ask you a question. I need you to think just a little bit here. When you meet a person for the first time, what is or are the things that you immediately look at?

When they meet you, what are they immediately looking at?

And what I’d like you to think about is going way, think way, way back to pre-historic days, caveman days—so, what does the caveman look at when someone was approaching?

Well, it’s these things here, it’s the hands.

And, at some level, still today, we still notice visible hands, or not-visible hands, as the first thing we look at. That behaviours goes way, way back.

Obviously, in caveman days, we wanted to see whether they were carrying a club or a spear, and whether they were a threat to us or not.

As I said, at some level, we still look at hands and whether they are visible or not, and we use that as an internal guide as to whether that person’s trustworthy or not so trustworthy.

There have been lots of studies done using juries, and asking juries what they believe of defendants and why they believe or don’t believe various defendants.

Juries typically tell us that if a defendant’s hands are visible and on the table, then that person is more trustworthy than a defendant who has his or her hands hidden or under the table.

So, when you meet someone for the first time, it’s really, really, really important that your hands are visible.

Now, invisible hands are when you walk in in like this (hands in pockets or hands in armpits – crossed arms).

Now, it doesn’t matter whether you’re cold and you’ve got your hands tucked in your armpits because you’re cold. It doesn’t matter whether you may be wearing or carrying a handbag or a computer and your hand is under the strap of the handbag or under the computer case or whatever it happens to be.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re carrying a book and your hands are hidden by the book, or even whether you are holding a clip-board…..

In each one of those cases, your hands are hidden and therefore, you will be regarded by the person that you’re engaging with as less trustworthy than if you had your hands exposed.

So, that’s the simple message for today. Whenever you meet someone, especially when you meet them for the first time, but also on an on-going basis, ensure that your hands are exposed, and visible, and that the person can see your hands. You will develop a better relationship.

Make sure that for the next week you practice having ‘visible hands’.

I’ll see you on the next video. Bye.

Bye.

Have you noticed that when people enjoy being with each other, they have a tendency to use the same words or phrases, or dress in a similar way or have matching body language? For example, observe a group of teenagers who are friends and notice the similarities in their clothing, their choice of words and how they walk or sit.

Have you noticed that people who are not in rapport have different postures, gestures, voice tonality and often don’t even make eye contact?

Have you ever had an opportunity to observe someone (or yourself) who did not want to attend a meeting or who did not trust the other people at the meeting? Did you notice a difference in their body language, voice tonality, where they sat, etc. compared to the others in the meeting? 

Next time you are in a restaurant or at a reception, look around and you will discover people who are enjoying each other’s company exhibiting similar postures, gestures and voice tonality.

 This shows us – the more we like the other person, the more we choose to be like the other person.

To build trust and enhance your relationship with the ‘other person’, either in a business or in a personal situation, try building rapport – using your body language, voice, voice tone and perhaps even your choice of words.

Rapport is the foundation for any meaningful interaction between two or more people – be it related to consultations, sales, negotiation, providing information or directions to a co-worker, subordinate or boss, a conversation with a family member, training, coaching, … .

Rapport can be explained in a number of ways. For me, rapport is about establishing an environment of mutual trust, understanding, respect and safety, which gives a person the freedom to fully express their ideas and concerns and to know that they will be respected by the other person(s).

Rapport creates the space for the person to feel listened to and heard and it doesn’t mean that they have to agree with what the other person says or does. Each person appreciates the other’s viewpoint and respects their model of the world (different models of the world is one of the precepts of NLP).

When you are in rapport with another person, you have the opportunity to enter their world and see things from their perspective, feel the way they do, get a better understanding of where they are coming from; and as a result, enhance the whole relationship.

Using your body language to match theirs is a simple, easy step that you can use to start building rapport