“It wasn’t what you said. It was how you said it.”
“Don’t look at me like that!”
“She was obviously super nervous.”
What do these have in common? They’re all common examples of how quickly and effortlessly we use non-verbals as a primary source to assess, evaluate, and judge meaning from others. Look at the examples explained directly:
“It wasn’t what you said. It was how you said it.” = The words you said were either accurate or neutral, but I interpreted the underlying tone carried a different meaning that doesn’t match the words and I’m paying more attention to that tone.
“Don’t look at me like that.” = I interpreted the way you pointed your eyes at me and the overall look of your face as having a negative meaning.
“She was obviously super nervous.” = Her body language, posture, eye patterns, and speech patterns were unnatural, looking like she was uncomfortable and wanted to get away or hide.
The simple skill of non-verbals is using your physical presence, movements, and style of speech to create or reinforce messages you want to send. Non-verbals are anything related to body language, facial expression, movement, posture, clothing, jewelry, rate of speech, tone, and volume. Basically anything that isn’t your exact choice of words.
One of the biggest challenges in communication is that we judge ourselves primarily by words and intentions, but others judge us primarily by non-verbals and experiences.
People can’t separate words they hear from how it sounds in tone and how it looks in facial expression and body language. It all comes across together, and if there is any misalignment, you can bet they will trust what they sense from your tone, body language, and facial expression above the exact and specific words you spoke.
Self-awareness
Develop an improved sense of what you look like and how you sound. Essentially, observe how you are presenting yourself so you build a better sense of it moment-to-moment. Yes, words matter, but no matter how much I appreciate the importance of language, how I say it matters far more than what I say. The right statement said the wrong way has a greater chance of misunderstanding than the wrong statement said the right way.
Self-discipline
Non-verbals are an imperfect discipline. First, there is no quick trick that always works in every situation. Second, there are so many complex moving parts happening with such speed that no matter how much you observe and how disciplined you are, you can’t manage all of it.
Start simple and build from there. Awareness comes first, then action. Are you aligning your non-verbals to display and enhance what you feel? Are you using your non-verbals to hide a feeling? Are you using non-verbals to create a new feeling you want, like confidence or energy?
Self-confidence
If you feel it, your body is going to show it. You can count on it. Every feeling and emotion has to express itself in some way physically. It comes out via foot tapping, palm sweating, volume increasing/decreasing, heart racing, stomach dropping, breath shortening, hands hiding, etc etc etc. That’s how professionals in negotiation, poker, interrogation, psychics, and countless others become experts in reading people. They train to find and recognize the emotion reflect in the non-verbals.
When you feel confident your body naturally moves and holds itself with confidence. Same for lack of confidence, but in reverse. So a helpful start if you don’t feel confident is to move and hold yourself as if you did have confidence. The point is not to hide nervousness or pretend you don’t feel it, but trigger more confidence by using confident non-verbals and not double-down on negative feelings with nervous non-verbals.
Do the work.
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