« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Public Speaking Tip – How to Make the Best Use of Your Body Language During a Presentation

Public speaking is a topic many people don’t like to talk about. They feel uncomfortable to speak about it but also the act itself makes many people feel anxious.

It then comes as no surprise that public speaking is the number one fear in the U.S. Closely followed by death.

But what can you do to deliver a better presentation? How can you use your body language to appear more comfortable?

I hope to answer these questions in the following article.

Posture
Your posture is extremely important when speaking in public. You should appear to be confident and even if you aren’t confident at all then simply fake it, after a while it will feel natural.

The first step to a better posture is to stand straight up. Put your feet shoulder-wide apart. That will make you appear more confident since it’s harder to fall over for you.

Shoulders
Depending on where your shoulders are it can make you look very insecure or on the other hand very confident. So what is the best way to use your shoulders to great effect?

Naturally it’s what your dad probably told you when you were little. You should put your chest out and pull your shoulders back. This is the natural posture of an alpha male.

Head
How should you use your head? Generally it’s easy to say that you should behave like people who are comfortable speaking in public. That means that you should look straight, not down or up. Don’t look too long at a certain person or you will be seen as cold or mean. On the other hand don’t look at your audience just for a second, that’s the behaviour of an insecure person. Simply look at your audience from time to time while you speak.

Public speaking is important and there is nothing more important than learning from someone who has the experience and skills necessary to deliver a dazzling presentation.

Tags:

To Negotiate Successfully Perceive Genuine Anger Using Micro Expressions

Glimpsing anger, via the use of micro expressions, is a unique way of gaining insight into someone’s real emotional state of mind. That’s due to the fact that micro expressions are not filtered by the mind, before an emotional act is committed. Thus, the emotions displayed via micro expressions are not contrived.

There are seven emotions expressed through micro expressions: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise, and contempt.

This article explores the emotion of anger when used in a negotiation. In particular, it explores how anger is expressed, how to detect it, and how to utilize the recognition of it during a negotiation by using micro expressions (note: the same methods of detection and utilization can also be used in your personal endeavors).

Once a negotiator recognizes signals that highlight a micro expressed action, that negotiator attains a huge advantage when interacting with people. When negotiating, the advantage almost becomes unfair. To gain such an advantage, consider discovering and detecting real anger in your negotiations by utilizing micro expressions.

During any negotiation, participants involved in the negotiation will possess and display a wide range of emotions. In some cases, it may not behoove the negotiator that’s angered to express his demeanor, for fear of divulging a hidden position that he does not wish to have exposed. In so doing, he may try to portray a different demeanor in an attempt to conceal his real emotion.

To detect anger by using micro expressions, observe an intense appearance in the eyes (that might be akin to someone staring/looking through you), eyebrows down and together, and a narrowing of the lips. In this emotional state of mind, the other negotiator’s eyes, while focused on you, are also being used as an introspective reflection of the thoughts being discussed. It’s another indicator that the other negotiator is fixated on the thoughts that are angering and confronting him. Once you sense genuine anger, validate your findings by addressing your perception with the other negotiator and the reasoning behind his anger.

Anger can cause the rational process of thinking to be abandoned. Thus, when one is genuinely angered, one does not think as clearly as would otherwise be the case. By harnessing the power of micro expressions, you’ll be able to detect if anger is being used as a tool of evasiveness, or to create ambiguity. With that detection ability as an ally, you’ll decrease the probability of being thwarted by false ploys. This in turn will allow you to be more successful when negotiating… and everything will be right with the world. Remember, you’re always negotiating.

The Negotiation Tips Are…

• Anger serves the purpose of changing one’s demeanor. In a negotiation, you must maintain mental control of your environment. Don’t allow yourself to be manipulated by the false pretense of anger.

• Micro expressions allow you to unearth potential problems in a negotiation. To be successful, heighten your senses when detecting anger in a negotiation.

• Determine the genuineness of anger by learning how to interpret micro expressions.

Tags:

Being Present And Living Fully

Where ever you go….there you are! Where ever YOU go….THERE you are!

Think about that for a few seconds. You may not realize it, but for some of us, that means “going” up to 25 or even 45 or 50 places a day. Each and every one of those is a separate transaction…and another opportunity to be YOU all over again. So, who will you bring to the party, the office, the grocery store, the kid’s school conference? Who will be laying next to your husband or wife tonight? YOU get to choose. That is what life is about; choosing WHO you are going to BE each and every day.

This is called being in the moment….or BE HERE NOW! It’s a technique that you can learn to utilize and one which you can call upon at any moment. It’s the quality of being able to move beyond past experiences and future predictions to seeing NOW for what it really is…a moment in time. Because, after all, we are human Beings…not human goings or doings. Right?

Imagine having the ability to interact with that difficult employee without conflict. Or, how it would feel to be able to listen to a friend’s sad story ONE MORE TIME, but hearing and responding to it from a completely different place than before.

What’s the value of such a technique, you might ask. Well, provides the ability to start over again and again with a clean slate. When you start to notice yourself falling into the same internal dialogue, zoning out during a business meeting, or mindlessly picking at your mashed potatoes over dinner as contemplate tomorrow’s wardrobe…simply state these words to yourself:

“Be here now”, and gently bring your attention back to where you want it.

FOR EXAMPLE: You’re attending a lecture and your attention strays from the speaker to all the chores you have, to a date, to the fact that you’re hungry. As you say to yourself “Be here now”, you focus back on the lecture and maintain your attention there as long as possible.

When it wanders again, repeat “Be here now”, and gently bring your attention back.

You may notice that your mind often wanders (as often as several times a minute). Each time just say,”Be here now”, and refocus.

Try not to judge the experience or to keep particular thoughts out of your mind because as the old saying goes, “That which you resist, persists”. For example, try this short exercise: Close your eyes for three minutes and try to think about anything except cookies. Remember, don’t think about cookies. When you try not to think about something, it keeps popping back into your mind. “I’m not going to think about cookies. I’m not going to think about cookies.”

So, when you find your thoughts wandering, gently acknowledge and let go of that thought and, with your “Be here now,” return to the present.

Initially, you might do this hundreds of times a week. But, over days (or even weeks) you’ll find that the period of time between your straying thoughts becomes longer and longer. So be patient and keep at it. You can do it!

Tags: