 Where do you sit at the table? Do you dare to take up some space, put your stuff on the table, or do you really harvest everything around you? These little things, you know, and when it comes to body language, when you feel that you're genuine and when you feel you have confidence, it shows and people, when you show confidence, people immediately see you as more trustworthy. What's up everybody and welcome to the show today. We drop great content each and every week and we wanna make sure that you guys get notified and in order to do that, you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. I once was allowed to teach about self-marketing and presentation and one person stood out because his suit was three sizes too big. So, you know, I dressed it and 18 months later he almost ran up to me because we met again in a different setting and he said, I never realized how important a different suit can be because what happened, people gave him more compliments but also people came towards him as networking became better because he had a different suit that made him feel different but also made him look less sloppy, you could say. I love all that and to add to that, for myself as a musician, I perform quite regularly and I will dress according to what I wanna project from the stage or I will also dress to be a certain character that will fit in with the band that I am playing. So, I'll use dress as something that will help me perform and project something or to fit in and move the whole visual to a different place. And so I can fully understand that and I can also say in times or this has been some Halloween shows or shows that we had dressed up outside of character just for fun, for an effect and how odd I had felt in dealing with that because it had altered not only my playing how I felt on stage and when I'm in front of people in that capacity, I wanna feel as comfortable as possible because I wanna elevate to the music. I don't wanna be second guessing or being self-conscious while all these people are staring at me and that outfit could do that. Yeah, so they're not focusing on the music but like, what is he wearing? Definitely, yeah. What were you wearing, AJ, when it was Halloween? Oh, so for me, I like going with the scrubs, going with the uniform, so playing doctor. I was a pre-med student back in the day so I find scrubs to be comfy but also give you that effect, that impact in a costume. Yeah. Now, you mentioned Amy Cuddy and one of our favorite quotes from her that she discusses becoming trustworthy. We often make the mistake in work situations of showing off our skills and our strengths before showing that we are trustworthy and I know many in our audience are at that point in their career where they're looking to get ahead, looking to become a leader and being trustworthy is gonna be one of those markers for success in your career. What are some of the easiest ways that we can begin to communicate that we are trustworthy in the workplace? Yeah, that's a great question. One of the things I again would address is know yourself. Who am I and what do I bring? You know, what do I bring to the table? Because trustworthiness starts with knowing yourself because you have to be genuine. You have to realize if you are quiet, if you're an introvert, be that person, don't try to be somebody else, but also realize what does the effect, what is the effect? And if you know that, then you can communicate about who you are and what the, again, what the effect is that you have. But knowing yourself and knowing what your behavior is and actually being genuine about that and knowing your qualities and pitfalls that come with that, that is really helpful becoming trustworthy. And I would also say one of the elements is knowing what you cannot do. So being open and maybe even kind of how would we say this, humble when it comes to starting, because sometimes I work with young people, young clients and they think they can do anything. So they're so focused on going up that ladder and they have this ambition showing off their skills. But knowing that you are still, or you're learning, be humble, try to figure out things. That helps as well. Definitely agree with that. I think many of us when we fall into the showing off and trying to prove ourselves, we actually tip towards faking it until we make it, which actually sends the wrong signals, makes us less trustworthy and puts people on edge subconsciously and I think one of the greatest signals that we talk about in our program is just working on the confidence to hold eye contact when speaking. So I know many in our audience early in their career, if they don't feel that they belong in the room, they're struggling with imposter syndrome or self-doubt it can be really difficult to look people in the eyes when you're communicating but that does convey a level of confidence and start to build that trust that you need in a leadership role. Yeah, exactly. And also realizing that when you come into a room, it's not just eye contact, but also where do you sit at the table? Do you dare to take up some space, put your stuff on the table or do you really harvest everything around you? These little things, you know? And when it comes to body language, when you feel that you're genuine and when you feel you have confidence, it shows and people, when you show confidence, people immediately see you as more trustworthy. We drop great content each and every week and we wanna make sure that you guys get notified and in order to do that, you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell and if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. We're discussing, you were talking about the little things and the niceties and where to sit and a lot of that just comes from a lot of socialization, especially as a child, as you're learning these things and you're learning to be cooperative with the other children, you're learning to read subconsciously the micro expressions and we're now going into almost what? Year two of this pandemic where these children are wearing masks, where they're separated, where they're not interacting and what do you see in the future of this and what are your thoughts on for these children where perhaps they can compensate for what they're losing at school? Let's not forget that even with a mask, we can still see a lot in non-verbal communication. We're wired to see everything else now and especially children. I had an interaction the other day wearing a mask in a metro and we were smiling but of course they couldn't see my mouth but you can see it in the eyes and you can make your eyes bigger so a lot is still drawn from non-verbal communication without a mask but I think that the interaction which would be different because a lot of people are on Zoom or a digital homeschooling, that is very interesting what's going to happen there if people are aware of, for instance, proximity, I would say there was a recent situation where people went back to school or children went back to school and they were all in shock because they've kind of forgotten how the other persons were behaving so the way they behaved was different than when it was digital so I think it's gonna be a challenge for people to pick up on how are we interacting? Even with myself, a lot of sessions I do are live of course and they're in large audiences so you are dressing a lot of people and you can read the body language of course in a different way when you see the whole body but I even have to, it's different to go back to it and to see a lot of things going on you have a lot of impulses, people have to be calm about it even or they have to readjust. Yeah, I think it's like a re-entry almost. That's a better word. We've talked about this on the show I'm feeling social anxiety even though we teach clients how to communicate more effectively simply because this experience has gone away for the last year and a half I hadn't been in the room with other people and you mentioned presenting and I think this is a real challenge now because when we were taught to speak on stage we're taught to take up a little bit more space actually work the stage we have more ability to use our hands to communicate and here we are communicating over video and we have this nice little tiny box here so how have you changed your presentation style and skills over Zoom versus being in front of an audience and you brought up a key point right now we don't have that ability to read the audience in their response we don't have a thousand little tiny boxes that we can stare at while we're presenting to see those cues back as a speaker so how have you adjusted to speaking in this new environment digitally? Yeah, I still try to observe so I'm seeing Johnny adjusting his hair and everything so I try to read it No, that's just an observation one of the things if I reflect on myself I had to tone it down when you say you work the stage it starts when you present yourself it doesn't start when you start your speech on stage it starts when you enter this venue when you're in the building, everything and now it's just okay, five minutes before you put on the video and it starts so that is an adjustment from my side that I had to get into the setting by myself without being in a venue where you chat a bit with others so that was a big adjustment There's an atmosphere there when you're live and you're in person and there's an energy from the crowd that fires you up or puts you in a position where you have to work a little bit more for it and you don't have that on the screen and it's difficult, we're all adjusting we're human beings, we can adapt to anything but I know I certainly miss being in the room with people and feeding off their energy and using that to propel myself and either playing on stage or to network Yes, it's hard because as you say you don't feel the energy but I would say even worse sometimes people are not aware of their behavior so they're watching somewhere else I even had somebody and I made that very personal who was laying like this during a speech being a body language expert I addressed it, which was fantastic because we could use it in the setting but it's very, very difficult to one, not make it personal how people are on the other side but also to get yourself energized on okay, I have to create an energy or a vibe that normally would come with everybody being present and in a venue