What Your Bag Holding Style Says About You

Patti was asked to weigh in on different handbag hold styles by Refinery29. 

Which one are you and what does it say about you?

Click the link below to find out Patti's insights!

The Arm-Crook Hook

Held with a bent arm
Favorites of Paparazzi-chased celebs, this limp-handed style just screams power.  "you're wearing the bag as if it's a badge of honor or an award.  You feel as if you've got a sense of superiority."

The Briefcase
Held by the top handle
There's a certain type of woman who chooses to forgo the shoulder strap for the top handle.  "She's in business mode.  She's going fast and her bag has a lot of weight - she cares less about her appearance and more about where she's off to"

The Thumb-To-'Pit
Hooking your thumb onto the handle strap
There's a reason this move is associated with Carrie from Sex and the City.  "I see women in cosmopolitan cities doing this.  They remember their Mamas telling them to protect their bags...they don't want to get them pulled off while they're walking! They're street-smart."

The Hands-Free

Wearing a bag that crosses over your body
"The girl who wears a hands-free bag willingly covers up her silhouette and outfit.  It's useful, but it also shows you're slightly dorky.  I see this a lot with young women."

The Armpit Vice
Clutching a bag to your body without a strap
Clutches are hard to hold, we know, but this move keeps your bag in place while leaving your hands free.  "There's an awkwardness about it, and I see it happen a lot with women who are carrying a purse that doesn't fit her body."

The Third Arm Drape
Wearing a bag with a long strap over one shoulder and letting a swing
This move usually involves a bag with a long strap...but instead of crossing it over, you choose to wear it over your shoulder.  And since that baby is prone to slipping around, it shows a lack of awareness.  "It says, I don't have power over my world."


The "I've Got A Bag Bitch"
Not holding the bag yourself--because you've got someone else to do it for you!
You've got better things to do than to hold a bag, for some, that's what assistants and boyfriends are for.  "When people feel the need to look fabulous all the time, they can't be encumbered with anything."


The Twofer
Holding a bag in front of your body with two hands
Usually done with a coy smile and a leg cross, the two-handed twofer clutch denotes a shy, defensive person.  "This creates a fig leaf position as if you were protecting your goods.  If you find yourself doing this on a date, it's because you feel weird about where it's going."

The Shlepper

Holding 2, 3, 4, 5 bags at once
You've got two, three, four...five bags to worry about, so you've got a "whatever fits" strategy going on.  "You're fatigued, exhausted, and in a rush - the bags suggest you're a little spaced-out and have a hard time being present."

The Baguette
Holding by cupping it
A recent favorite of street style stars, the Baguette style, is a scoop-up, on-the-go method.  "It's a utilitarian look and you don't really care about the bag but rather what's in it.  You're goal oriented."

 

http://www.refinery29.com/bag-holding-style

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.

Get Powerfu! Change your body language to change your life.

By Patti Wood, MA, CSP body language expert and Author of Snap –Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma.

The first speaker walked confidently onto the stage with his shoulders back, his chest held high and stood with his feet apart and began gesturing broadly. The second speaker shuffled hesitantly onto the stage and stood with his shoulders slumped, his head bowed, his feet together and his hands twined together held below his belt. What do you think of each speaker and what do you think each was feeling?  Powerful body language is telling.  In a study of 132 business school graduates that took place over eight years and included extensive interviews, researches looked at women who showed powerful body language and discovered that  women  who can turn their powerful on and off according to their circumstances, (called self- monitoring) get more promotions than men or other women. We know that body language can make people think and feel differently about you but in her popular TED talk Amy Cuddy enthusiastically shares her research results that show that holding a powerful or powerless body language posture for two minutes can to change your hormones, (raising or lowering testosterone and cortisol) and thus how you feel.  Halleluiah, some great new research to support what I feel is one of the most remarkable and beneficial aspects of body language awareness. I say in my book Snap Making the Most of First Impressions Body Language and Charisma that however you hold yourself, however you move through space, and however you gesture, your body sends messages back to your brain to make you feel that way. So, if you are standing with your shoulders drooping and head bowed, the little pharmacy in your brain creates, and sends, chemicals into your bloodstream in less than a fortieth of a second - to make you feel less powerful. The great news is, if you know what creates powerful body language messages, and integrate that with an awareness of your own body language, you can feel as powerful as you wish to be in a fraction of a second.  What can you do to make yourself feel authentically powerful immediately? The four foundation principles of power are confidence, space, openness, and relaxation. 

So to feel more powerful:

1)      Take up space with your body. Notice how far apart your feet are normally and if you don’t feel powerful, stand or with your feet as little as one inch further apart to feel lion like stability and presence. If you are seated you can put your feet further apart or out and use those arm rests. Spread out.

2)      Hold and or gesture your hands above your waist, or to feel victorious and euphoric hold them very high up at or above your head. What I call Up posture makes you feel up and confident. So hold your head and body up. We spend far too much time looking down at our smart phones.  Train yourself to look up.

3)      Keep what I call your body windows open. Focus on the windows at your feet your pelvis your heart your neck and the palms of your hands. Stand or sit with your limbs unfolded and don’t close and block your windows with your stuff, such as your coffee cup or purse smart phone or by touching you face, your neck shirt collar in power reducing self- comfort moves.

4)      Relax your body. Tension makes us get small relaxing and breathing make you look and feel powerful.

You have the power to change the way you feel in any situation. So put your hands in the air and get powerful!

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.

How to 'take over' a brain

By Leonard Mlodinow, Special to CNN

updated 10:22 AM EST, Sun January 6, 2013

 

In junior high I was a science fiction fan, divorcing Ray Bradbury and Author C Clark novels of strange new worlds, robots, Martians and brain control. I was reading today about new research in the field of optogentics by Leonard Mlodinow.  The article sounds like someone out of science fiction and discussed fascinating new research in Optogenetics and the  discovery of a kind of protein that can be used to turn brain neurons on and off in response to light.

The exotic light-sensitive protein is not present in normal neurons, so scientists designed a way to insert it. That is accomplished through a type of gene engineering called "transfection" that employs "vectors" such as viruses to infect the target neuron, and, once there, to insert genetic material that will cause the neuron to manufacture the light-sensitive protein.

Put it all together, and you have that sci-fi-sounding technology: genetically-engineered neurons that you can turn on and off at will, inside the brain of a living and freely-moving animal.

It is the combined use of optics and genetics that give optogenetics its name, but it's not the "how" that makes optogenetics exciting, it is the "what." Scientists didn't really develop it to "take over" a creature's brain. They developed it, like fMRI, to learn about the brain, and how the brain works, in this case by studying the effect of stimulating specific types of neurons. To see how they are using it to study Parkinsons disease and Schizophrenia read on http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/06/opinion/mlodinow-science-frontier/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

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.

Some Humor for the Holidays

Funny Christmas Card Quotes

Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.  - Larry Wilde

Decorate your homes with lots of mistletoe... this won't really help the environment... But more kissing has got to be good for world peace. -   Arlo Guthrie

Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we'll be seeing six or seven. -  W. C. Fields

Why is Christmas just like a day at the office? You do all the work and the fat guy with the suit gets all the credit. -  Anonymous

“Dear Lord, I've been asked, nay commanded, to thank Thee for the Christmas turkey before us... a turkey which was no doubt a lively, intelligent bird... a social being... capable of actual affection... nuzzling its young with almost human- like compassion. Anyway, it's dead and we're gonna eat it. Please give our respects to its family... " -  Berke Breathed

Let me see if I've got this Santa business straight. You say he wears a beard, has no discernible source of income and flies to cities all over the world under cover of darkness? You sure this guy isn't laundering illegal drug money?  - Tom Armstrong

Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people once a year.  - Victor Borge

You know you're getting old, when Santa starts looking younger.  -  Robert Paul

Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space. -  Dave Barry

The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin. -  Jay Leno

Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer...? If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' upon his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!  - Charles Dickens, in A Christmas Carol

The one thing women don't want to find in their stockings on Christmas morning is their husband.  - Joan Rivers

Christmas is a race to see which gives out first - your money or your feet.  - Anonymous


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.

How to make your body language work for you during an interview

Patti was interviewed by Miriam Salpeter of US News on, "How to make your body language work for you during an interview." Check the link below!

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2012/12/12/make-your-body-language-work-for-you-during-an-interview

You’ve been practicing what to say at an interview, but have you considered what signals your body language is sending? (The Merrabian research I think you wanted to quote here Is not actually valid. Perhaps better to say it has 4.3 times the impact than words alone) Research suggests ____ percent of communication isn’t transmitted via our words, but is broadcast through our actions and attitude.

Patti Wood, author of SNAP: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language, and Charisma, suggests the following tips from the book to help you wow your interviewer:

Palm-to-Palm Contact Is Key. Wood explains, “My research is the US and Canada suggests that palm contact is more important than how firm your grip is…If someone shakes hands with you and gives you just her fingers and not her full palm, at a subconscious level you may think, ‘What is she hiding? What is she keeping from me?” Evaluate the all-important handshake and worry less about if you have a firm enough grip and more about extending your entire hand and palm when you greet someone.

How to Sit. Don’t make yourself smaller in stature. Appear brave by keeping your body open. Wood notes, “Keep your arms open and away from your body, legs uncrossed, and shoulders   back.”  Take note of how you sit. Wood explains, “Research says that women perch, sitting on the edge of the seat, curved forward, while men tend to slouch, relying more on the backrest. Perching the entire time makes you look less powerful. Vary your position, use lots of space, and occasionally place your arms on the armrest to look confident.” When you position yourself effectively, you’ll appear confident, vital, and energetic.

 Show Your Hands. Showing your hands helps you appear open, honest and approachable, so Wood notes, “Don’t hide your hands under the table or in your pockets or tuck them away. Keep your hands open and in view on the table or the arms of the chair.” She explains, “Gesture normally. Your hands show your emotional state. When you close your hand, the amount of tightness and the way the fingers curve show how you feel about the topic. In an interview, you want to be open, not closed.”

Match and Mirror. Research shows that people hire people who are like them. Use body language to help convince your interviewer that you are a good fit. Wood suggests you “match and mirror your interviewer enough briefly at the very beginning of the interview to make him comfortable with you. For example, lean slightly in the direction he is leaning, for instance, or match his smile with one of your own.”

Get Grounded. When the going get tough, the tough get grounded. Wood explains, “When people are nervous, they tend to either move a lot or freeze. To overcome the toughest interview questions, put both feet firmly on the ground. This makes it easier to use both hemispheres of the brain— the rational and the creative-emotional. Or, if you feel yourself freeze, move your feet in some way.”

End Well. While first impressions are important, people will also remember the last thing you do or say. Wood suggests, “The last impression, the recencey effect is critical and can improve a bad first impression” As the conversation winds down, make sure your belongings are on the left side of your body so you can easily shake with your right hand. You may shake hands more than once — when you get up, at the door, and after talking for a bit longer while parting.” Even if the interview didn’t go as well as you might have liked, keep focused and poised until the end and you may be able to improve the impression you leave.

 

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.