What Are Some Nonverbal Cues That Can Convey Confidence At Work?

Attributes like full control of the space, relaxed body language, a posture that is open, and a strong, authentic presence. To begin feeling that power yourself imagine a lion in the jungle. She establishes her space and territory; she's queen of the jungle. She's relaxed; she moves gracefully. If she met a mouse on her path, it's the mouse that would be tense. Her posture is open; she stretches out her limbs. She'd never have to battle for an armrest on an airplane. She's -authentic; she carries her confidence and stability with her. She's herself.

Take Up Space

Use the arms on the chair, stand with your feet a bit apart (men can do this more easily than women.)  A female leg stance in North America is with the feet typically 4 to 6 inches apart and a male power stance starts with the feet more than 8 inches apart which could make a woman look like a gun slinging cowboy.  

Choose where you sit and stand

For example the new power seat (seating in detail in the book) is the middle of the conference room table.  

Go First

Initiate interactions. Be the first to make eye contact, offer your hand to shake, have an idea or solution, go into a room, and make the call.  You can only afford to wait and go last when you are in the C-suite and ready to retire.  

The handshake

Always put your hand out to shake hands. A classic good handshake is one with full palm to palm contact.

Eyes

Occasionally initiate prolonged, eye contact, three seconds or longer as you initiate interactions.  Says, acts like communicates that you are powerful. The dominant person may alternatively prevent eye contact, saying “You are beneath me and I do not want even to look at you.” Women have to be careful of doing this when they don’t know the gentleman as it may be misconstrued as a sexual come on. (Yes, this is still true today.)  

Speaking

The person who speaks first often gets to control the conversation, either by talking for longer or by managing the questions. You don’t have to be loud to be confident but you may have to be a bit louder to get “the turn” to speak.

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Most Important Skill for Getting a Job, Skills Listed as Number One

Patti was quoted in Fox Business News on the "Importance of Strong Verbal Skills in Relation to Getting a Job." Verbal skills is listed as number one on a survey by the National Association of College and Employment.

Check the link below for Patti's insights!

http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2011/03/03/um-like-college-grads-lack-verbal-skills/



Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://pattiwood.net/. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Right Hand Good, Left Hand Bad? Gestures and Emotions

Right Hand... Good, Left Hand... Bad?
Does it matter to you and your audience which hand you gesture with? Well, in laboratory tests, "right and left-handers associate positive ideas like honesty and intelligence with their dominant side of space and negative ideas with their non-dominant side," says Daniel Casasanto of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. When examining spontaneous gestures in presidential debates during the 2004 and 2008 elections involving two right-handers (Kerry, Bush) and two left-handers (Obama, McCain) researchers Casasanto and Jasmin found that right-handed candidates made a greater proportion of right-hand gestures when expressing positive ideas and left-hand gestures when expressing negative thoughts. But the opposite was found for the left-handers, who favored their left hand more for the positive and their right hand for the negative. Obama's 'right-hand man' may be on his left. For years I have told my public speaking students who were nervous to try putting one hand in their pocket, For 30 years I have seen students who do this magic gesture with their dominant hand. As a coach for Politicians, the old school was to tell them to gesture mostly with their right hand and only to use their left hand when delivering bad news. The new data Cassanto shows is that people associate “good things with the side of their body they can use most fluently -- dominant is fluent, and fluent is good."

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://PattiWood.net. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Teaching College Students To Shake Hands

I just got this feedback from a professor at Purdue. He used the tools he learned in my workshop last week with his students.

Dear Patti,
Thank you very much for all the coaching you provided last week! I enjoyed the program so much. I learned a lot of new things, but I also re-discovered some forgotten attributes of my presentation skills and … of myself . I already applied many of the learned skills to my first lecture yesterday to sophomore students. Boy did they work! I used the hand-shake attention-getter and it fit perfectly with this class. This is the first class students take in electrical engineering, so the analogy to hand-shaking with a new person is obvious. This was also the first time I introduced a class with zero power point slides. Open gestures and taking more space added the right amount of confidence as well.

Research presentations are my next frontier…

Associate Professor
Purdue University


Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://pattiwood.net/. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Public Speaking and Body Language

Body Language when you're speaking can seem difficult. My most frequently asked question is, "What do I do with my hands when I am giving a speech?" First and foremost, let your hands show. Specifically you want to make sure the palms of your hands show. We are wired to look at the palms of the hands to see if you are armed and dangerous. So make sure your hands are open and so look safe. Because there is a tendency for some people to hide their hands when they lie, you also want to make sure you show the palms of your hands when you are speaking to look honest. A simple trick if you're stressed is to put your right hand in your pocket and hold on to a nickle. It anchors you and magically your left hand will gesture. I have given that trick to my coaching clients and they are amazed how effective it is. For more tips, go to my official website link http://www.pattiwood.net/
Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://pattiwood.net/. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Make A Great Impression On The Phone

There are certain techniques you can use to improve your effectiveness on the phone and create a positive impression. Patti Wood, body language expert, who has over 20 years of experience researching and teaching nonverbal communication shares her insights for The Business Journal. Check out the 8 techniques at the link.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/34851953/The-Business-Journal-Make-a-Great-Impression-on-the-Phone

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://pattiwood.net/. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Voice and Emotion

In fact, unlike other aspects of language prosody is universal. Emotional intonations are similar across all cultures. (Look at research done by Azia-Sadeh) I believe that some of the problems that people are having today with social interactions via email, text, Facebook and other similar mediums in the lack of the the access to Prosody and with the cell phone conversation that loss of quality sound makes it more difficult to read all of paralanguage. I have the new Iphone. And though I tell my friends if my Iphone could cuddle on the coach I would date it, the truth is I find the sound quality poor and have experienced frustration listening to people on the Iphone and not being able to read them accurately. In fact, I find I am interrupting friends asking if they are "still there." because I can't hear one of the most important factors of turn taking, breathing.


When I coach executives on public speaking skills we discuss the importance of communicating emotions. Reading notes or PowerPoint slides or any kind of list such a bullet pointed lists on a slide automatically make your voice go monotone.Creating a unemotional voice, boring and because emotions are one of the strongest links to memory, unmemorable!

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional The Body Language Expert Web- http://www.PattiWood.netI have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel

Speaking, risk.

I called my sister the night before a Live TV interview and shared with her that I was scared out of my ever loving mind. I feared being humiliated in front of a national TV audience and having it forever live on YouTube. She said, "Then why do it?" "Why put yourself through that?" "That doesn't make sense?" I said, "I do it because if I don't do it, I won't know if I can, and that would be excruciating." "If I do do it I will know I can do even more." "I have done this a million times, but if I don't keep working harder, I will not grow."





Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional
The Body Language Expert
Web- http://www.PattiWood.net
I have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!
YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel

Not a Timid Soul

After I finish speaking I often have audience members come up and ask how they can speak with out fear. I share with them, that I have many tools that I use that I can teach them to reduce destructive fear, use constructive fear and ride the wave of excitement to enjoy speaking. The fear is there when you care, it inspired you to work hard, to do your very best, and then risk to go beyond the hardest thing you have ever done, go beyond what you think is your very best. To take a step and even dare to leap into the void and believe that you can fly. Here is a quote to inspire you and to continually inspire me.

Roosevelt on Sweat and Timid Souls
One of my absolute favorite quotes.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
~ Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
American statesman (26th US president: 1901-09)
from "Man in the Arena" Speech given April 23, 1910

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional
The Body Language Expert
Web- http://www.PattiWood.net
I have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!
YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel

Attention span, Grabbing your audiance, First Impression

GRAB AUDIENCE ATTENTION WITH POWERFUL OPENINGS
If adult attention spans are limited...and they are...(a study by the Navy determined the average adult attention span is 18 minutes One research study actually
suggested that the attention span of most adolescents is about 11
minutes -- roughly the time between commercials in a typical
television show.?
Studies on attention span also shed light on why students have
difficulty with the traditional lecture format. Adult learners can
keep tuned in to a lecture for no more than 15 to 20 minutes at a
time, and this at the beginning of the class. In 1976, A. H. Johnstone
and F. Percival observed students in over 90 lectures, with twelve
different lecturers, recording breaks in student attention. They
identified a general pattern: After three to five minutes of "settling
down" at the start of class, one study found that "the next lapse of
attention usually occurred some 10 to 18 minutes later, and as the
lecture proceeded the attention span became shorter and often fell to
three or four minutes towards the end of a standard lecture." Other
studies appear to confirm these findings.?
Mittendorf and Kalish note that studies on attention span indicate
that, when passively absorbing information, adult learners usually
experience mental lapses after a mere 15-20 minutes.?
), then it's critical that business presenters craft a memorable message to enhance retention. One way to be memorable is to grab your audience's attention when you begin your speech with a attention grabbing opener.

A powerful opening gives your audience a reason for listening. A bonus is that getting them engaged and interested right at the beginning will minimize any nervousness you may be feeling.



Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional
The Body Language Expert
Web- http://www.PattiWood.net
I have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!
YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel

Being an Attractive Female Helps Your Speaking

In studies of female speakers, unattractiveness in the speaker caused a more negative reception of her views. Even when the unattractive speaker gave the more well reasoned, well constructed speech, the participants were more persuaded by the attractive female's poorly reasoned and ill-constructed speech.

How did you play as a child?

I have a question that I love to ask people at whenever I whenever I am with a small group say at a dinner party. I ask each person what was their favorite thing to do as a child between the ages of 6 and 10 and then I ask them what they do for living. I love how often people share how their childhood play became their adult work. A friend who took apart every electric thing in the house became and engineer, a friend that painted and drew became and artist, a friend who liked to figure out how things where made and how they could be made better became a six sigma process engineer, a friend who loved to read and write became and editor and writer for NASA.

I would love to know how you played and if your childhood play effected what you choose to do as an adult.

I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. I use to do “shows” as a kid. I would be Herman of the Hermits and sing and dance with my friends on the porch of our house. I was Queen of the Cooties on the playground and the leader of all the games, whether it was who can make the biggest bubble with the bubble maker, built the best fort, or who can make the snowman that last the longest on the lawn. From forth grade on I also loved to watch people and I would write little poems and songs about what I saw, I carried a little notebook with me all the time from forth grade till college and filled it with my fun observations. And even learned to play the guitar so I could sing them. I loved playing and I loved the game of watching people and trying to figure out their secret story. Now I get to do it all my favorite play as living. I am a body language expert and I am a professional speaker and trainer and get to play with my audiences. (See my website for videos of how much fun we have.)

Watch Bush's body language as he misquotes during his speeches

Watch Bush's body language as he makes various mistakes in several presidential speeches. In the first two he tries to search for the right phrase by moving his hands. This is actually and effective tool for retrieving files in your brain. But unfortunately it doesn't work for him so he smiles his little boy smile. In many of the other clips he doesn't even seem to notice his mistake! Watch talented new anchors. If they make a mistake they quickly say a transition word such as, "rather" then correct themselves and keep going without a pause. Funny. If I had been hired as his speech/media coach I would have taught him that bridging technique in a our first coaching session. Enjoy and laugh out loud!