 Our first impressions episode, we talked about the static component of your first impression, meaning your looks and genes, and then we talked about the dynamic component, which was your body language. Today we're going to talk about five signals that you can send to change the way the world sees you on that first impression, and also how you may be misreading the room and judging people or misjudging people based on their body language. And I know, Johnny, you have a famous quote here that you really enjoy, so I'll let you tee that off to kick off today's episode. So Mae West mentioned that she could speak two languages, body and English. And I think that is a great quote because it shows just how important that your body language is because it is something that everyone's reading as well as what you're saying. Right. It either reinforces what you're saying, or if your body language and your words don't match up, it leads to confusion, and ultimately that person might misread you based on your body language. So it's a very important signal, and body language is such a broad term, right? You've had body language experts on the show, great interviews. You can delve very deeply into it. But the point of today's show is not to go overboard with all the different micro expressions and different ways to read body language. We're pulling out the five strongest signals that you want to send with your body language when you're meeting someone, when you're trying to make a great first impression, and when you're trying to connect with someone. And a lot of times we don't realize how our body language can work against us because we get so focused on our words. What to say? How do I say the right thing? How can I project that I'm funny and confident through my words? And a lot of times we forget that our body language can be reinforcing those words in the right way or the wrong way. Well, and to give the audience something that you mentioned, that they probably want, which is finding out what other people say. The best way to at least gather some information about what other people are thinking is to understand what these behaviors and actions look like in yourself first. So that's why we're redirecting it because if you are clear and what you're projecting out there, what you're saying about yourself and using your body language to project the right things, then you're going to be able to easily see all these signals and other people. And then rather than trying to read this piece or that piece, as you mentioned, maybe a microaggression here, microaggression there, it's now you're reading body language in clusters that will give you a better idea of what not really they're thinking, but how they're feeling, which is the information we really want. And to Johnny's point, when we can control the signals that we're putting out there, we can better assess the signals we're getting back. And what I mean by that is this whole idea of mirroring, right? If you're putting out strongly negative signals, but you're unaware that your strong negative signal is actually going out there, you might just be feeling the strong negative signal back from other people. The reason that's happening is because they're mirroring you. They're giving you a dose of your own medicine. So understanding that correcting these five signals gives you a better platform to understand other people's emotions and also gives you a better platform to nail that first impression. And when it comes to self-development, having any control in anything else starts here yourself. Yes. Now, in that first impressions episode, I touched on a Dale Carnegie course I took called High Impact Presentations and specifically how they videotaped us giving these talks to showcase for us our nonverbal communication. And they played the video first, no sound, just looking at our body language and asked us to, what do we feel watching this person present? Not necessarily hearing the words that they're saying. Did they look like they're commanding the room and fully competent with what they're saying? Or did their nervous energy lead you astray and send the wrong signal so that you couldn't really engage? And I was amazed at some of the negative signals that I was sending off. How my processing face when I was struggling to come up with a point actually was showcasing a little bit of anger and frustration to the room. Your body language is being read whether you like it or not. Whether you like it or not. We're not walking around in robes with little slits in our eyes where no one can see our body language. Your body language is readily apparent to everyone you come in contact with. So making sure, and in today's episode, we're going to delve deeply into five simple signals that if you master, you're going to set yourself up for success. And I know, Johnny, body language was big for you in your emulation of rock stars. Well, yeah, I mentioned this in the first impressions episode that when I knew what I wanted to do from a very early age, I wanted to work in music, I wanted to play guitar, I wanted to be in a band, I wanted to be a rock star that whole bit. And when I graduated high school, there was a part of me that was like, OK, well, you want to do that. So it's time to start being that person and and move forward. Because up until that point, I saw myself and I'm sure lots of people saw me as this scrawny, gawky, awkward teenager skateboarder. And I was like, it's time to now start being an adult, right? So the first thing that I thought I would do was change what I was projecting, start emulating the guys that I always idolized. And I made this list and I mentioned this in first impressions. And it was like all these pompous, effeminate British rock stars from the 60s, Bowie, Mark Bowen and Keith Richards and Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend, all these Mick Jagger was all those guys. Because I figured if you're going to shoot for something, shoot for the highest possible go for, you know, good at the time. I was in a lot of punk rocks. I was like, but why aim there? Go for it. It's it's the whole idea of you shoot for the stars. Maybe you'll land on the moon sort of thing. That was the way I looked at it. And I had a list of all my American guys who were basically ripoffs of the pompous ass British guys. So I always say that I was doubly fucked because any, any of my avenues of body language that I want to emulate or mimic or take after was coming down the line of these pompous, effeminate British guys from the 60s, from the Mild guys. And what was funny about that is, you know, I had done such a remarkable job in, in emulating, and it was, it was, it was not only body language. It was dress. It was fashion. It was the whole nine. And I got so good at it that people would see me from across the room and think that I was English. And then upon meeting them and speaking to them, wouldn't even hear the Pittsburgh ease. They, what they heard is what they saw. And that's a testament to how strong those signals are that you should be aware of, of what you're sending out. And then of course, for better or for worse, that I had to bring that around. And so the funny part of that is the very first job I got when I lived in North Carolina was working on a North Carolinian framing crew, right? Framers build the skeletons of houses. And we were building million dollar homes with 12, 12 pitch roofs for like UNC basketball players, families. And I remember getting, getting, so I'm 21 years old. I got care down the middle of my back. I was, I don't know, probably a buck, 40, buck 30, if that. And, you know, I show up to the job site, giving my best David Bowie, because I couldn't even not do that. It has been drilled into me for years at this point. And of course you can imagine. I'm sure that was well received, very well received. They named me Sally May and five minutes, right? Like that. And then I had to work through that and imagine the hurdle and hole that I had put myself in to try to do this job. That, that I had A, no business being at and knew nothing about. And then I show up dancing around like David Bowie. So there was a lot of work. Let me just say that I had done that job for two years. So you can imagine the, the hurdle or the hole that I put myself in, I had to climb out of and climb through to slowly to do that job and maintain doing that job. And what had happened? I always tell the story that after a few weeks in, I had remembered talking to a friend back home and questioning whether or not I can stay in North Carolina. And I wanted to do so bad because music at this time in the mid nineties was happening there. And I was listening to all these great bands. And I remember talking to my friend and she goes, what happened to your shitty, fake British accent? And I remember I was like, well, what are you talking about? And of course, because being there, I, the rule is the stronger frame will dissolve the weaker one. So just by going through Osmosis, being there from six in the morning to six in the evening, every day working, it was slowly being beaten out of me and being replaced with the gruff construction worker, construction cats on this, this North Carolinian framing crew from like Hazard County. And so there was a, there was an accent creeping in. There was manualisms and a dialect. And just by going there every day. And the thing is, if you have not chosen what you want to say about yourself, it's quite possible that it is being chosen for you by the environment in which you're put in. And for me, even though I had an ideal that I was shooting for, stronger frame dissolves the weaker one. I'm 21 years old. I'm on a North Carolinian framing crew. And yeah, day one, they're calling you Sally May. You're like, I don't want to this. I don't need this heat. Whether I like it or not, I was falling in line just by going every day and giving it my all. And our military guys experience. Of course. Right. You go through basic and what's the first thing they're focusing on? Tension. Yeah. Standing up tall. Your body language. Absolutely. Because the more you can conform with the body language, the more you're going to conform with everything else they're going to ask. And of course, there's so many other rules of the hell. That is a very base thing, because if there is no discipline in your body language and it's a slippery slope for everything else, which is why we love working with the military guys, the special forces that come through the boot camp. They understand the importance of body language. Yes, they do. And they've already put in a lot of work on it. But a lot of us right now, we're sitting in jobs where we're at our computer, our postures, crap. And maybe we work out a little bit, but we're not paying close attention to our body language. And a lot of times we get so caught up in other people's body language because we're trying to read and manipulate and figure out all this stuff about them that we're not even paying attention to all these signals we're shooting out to the rest of the world. So why is body language so important? And we talked a little bit about this demonstration, but you talk about this in class about the different perspective people would have just based on subtle changes in body language. Yep. And understanding that if I were to slouch down, make myself small, avoid eye contact and tell you that I'm confident, what would you believe? Oh, well, I'm going to go with what you're projecting. I'm going to go with your body language. And here's another one to to go on of just how body language plays a role in the and the public registering of who you are. Let's look at Martin Scurelli, for instance. Let's just pull him out of the pile of of easy targets. We're still talking about him. I thought he's locked up. Well, he is the easiest target. OK, because there's a couple of things I want to talk about with Martin Scurelli. So whatever politics that you're into and whatever going on, OK, like there's a lot of stuff going on with the whole pharma bro thing. But they threw this tag at him, right? And he has the most off putting shitty and smirk face, bad body language I have ever seen. And everyone that I know immediately just wants to lay in that guy. Just so his body language is working against him and working for the mud slinging. Right. It's reinforcing what everyone else is feeling. And how quickly did he turn into public enemy number one? As so all they needed to do was sling some mud. And then there's the picture. And of course, they're going to take the picture that goes along with the mud slinging. But there's all this video of him. And it's going right. Yeah, it fits the narrative. And therefore, the how you feel about him, whether it's and there's some contrarians who kind of dug his whole five because he was putting out there and it reinforced that. But for the hate he was getting, it was very reinforced and very easy to go on and and confirm for everybody just through his body language. And that's just it. Body language is the lightning before the thunder. It's that signal that gets sent before your words. So Martin Screlly was already setting himself up with that body language to be pilloried before he then reinforced it with all of the shitty he was talking. Yeah. Well, listen, what is one of the first things if you're going in front of a jury that you're going to need to do? You wanted to clean up your act, make sure you got a good suit and make sure that you're given the best presentation that you can because they're about to decide your fate. And that's not a hole that you want to be working out of. You don't want to have to distort this off with a bad first impression. Now, imagine if I stand up tall, I put my chest out, my arms are at my side. I get a big smile on. I look you in the face and I say, I'm shy. Yeah. Which are you going to believe? Once again, body language. Yes. So the body language signal and there are a lot of numbers quoted. There are studies that we don't firmly believe about the percentage of body language, but we can all agree that body language is a very important signal. And as we talk about here at Heart of Charm, let's control we can control before we start worrying about what other people are doing. And we can control our body language. It is easily manipulable. It is easily manipulated. We can easily change and shift our body language without too much extra effort and energy. It's some simple things that we can do. And we're going to talk about specific signals in a bit. But when your words and when your body language are in misalignment, what happens? Johnny, there's well, there's a lot of confusion and there's confusion within yourself and there's confusion. Well, everyone else is going to go with the behaviors and actions. But for yourself, it becomes confusing of I believe this, but I'm acting in this manner. So we have a cognitive dissonance that's going on. And what happens is you lose people's trust. Yes. Period point blank. And we see this in politicians, right? Why do some politicians fall for the gotcha moments when other politicians who will go unnamed don't have these same moments, right? And again, it typically comes down to all of the body language signals that led to that point that led someone to now believe and double down that gaffe instead of overcome that gaffe. So your body language, when it's in misalignment with your words, is detrimental to your message. And if you want to communicate more effectively, whether it's dating, networking or in your career, you need to take control and charge of that body language. And there's an important distinction that we want to make here, Johnny. And it's about intent of body language and what is that when it comes to our intent, our body language does a great job in exposing our emotions and how we're feeling in that moment. And it is there's even that expression that people wear their emotions on their sleeve or that some people do. And without being conscious of it, I think it's a normal thing for those emotions to come through. Think about the work that people while people like professional gamblers have to do in order to hide how they're feeling through their emotions about what cars they had just gotten. Yeah, they'll they'll even do it with sunglasses and hats and hoodies right to block these signals. Any sort of tells exactly that come through that leak through. As I was saying, it's that lightning before the thunder. Your emotions will bubble up through your body language and be projected out to the room before most of us have even vocalized or verbalized those emotions. And it's it's difficult. Like one of the reasons that we've been doing this company for we're rolling into 12 years now at the end of summer. But it's funny for all the some of the tough positions that we've been in, there will be times in meetings where you and I would have to wear sunglasses because if we looked at each other, we couldn't control it. We would be laughing because we would know what the other person was thinking just from the body language that was that was being shown because of how well we had known each other. Yeah. And and I can I remember several of those where, you know, we're leaving that meeting. You're like, you're an asshole. And I'm like, what did I do? It was like, I saw what you did over there. It's like, I didn't do anything. It's like, oh, yeah, Mr. Sunglasses and in. We've all been in those moments with our friends where we can just shoot them a look. They don't have to say anything. It's all shoot a look and fight or flight. We're leaving. Oh, that's our target. That's who we want to go talk to. That's how we're getting out of this mess. So body language is an important signal. And a lot of times for us, it's completely unconscious. We're not even thinking about it. It's just bubbling to the surface. So is your body language, you know, in a previous episode, I asked, what's your first impression? What do you think your first impression is? Yes. Pause for a second. Is your body language something that you're consciously working on to make sure it's sending the right message? Or is your body language something you've never even thought of or considered? Because I know for myself. I hadn't even really thought about my body language until that Dale Carnegie course when I started to see my body language on video. It just wasn't on my radar. I wasn't aware of the importance behind it. Well, I think, you know, that's a part of it is if you had been going through life with, let's just say, some some decent first impressions and things had worked out rather well, it's not something that you would eventually have to look at. Things have been going rather decently. So why change anything? It's not until like for me, there was a specific reason why I wanted to make a change because I had felt a certain way and this needed to now that I was an adult, which at least at that time, I felt like I needed to make that change. But I think for a lot of other people, certainly when they come through program, it's because they've tried other things and nothing else was working. And it was it was a time to reassess everything then. So if you've had these issues, perhaps it is what you've been saying about yourself to body language. In your case, you had had some successes that was never really moving along. Being we had talked in other episodes, being close to your sister, you had managed to be pick up a few things that allowed you to be somewhat successful girls. You had seen some doors open through school and and through that way. So you never had to go back and do that assessment. Right. And here's the kicker, right? This is the the main reason that we're even focusing an entire episode on this. Your body language not only impacts other people. It affects your own thoughts and beliefs, meaning we're not just sending messages to others. We're reinforcing our own thoughts and beliefs through our body language. And one of the ways that we do that is with this closed body language. When we close ourselves off, crossing our arms, making ourselves smaller, we're not only sending a negative signal out to the room of disinterest. We are actually priming ourselves mentally to become disinterested, disengaged and potentially even negatively view outcomes and the people around us. Well, yeah, you are you are now setting up the lens in which you're seeing the world. Also, you're setting up the lens in which you are dealing with your own thoughts and John producer had brought up a study in which we were talking about earlier where just in how you are. Well, people who tend to sit up straight tend to have more belief in their thoughts because it's coming from a place of of a confidently looking at it, where people who are looking at their thoughts coming from a very slouchy place are viewing it through that lens. Right. If you think about it, you know, to sit up is to be engaged. Your body is engaged. You're fully present versus slouching. It's easy to feel disengaged. It's what we do when we're lounging, right? Passively. So and I hate to credit Ohio State University for the pains me to point out the studies from Ohio State. But just that researchers found that people who were told to sit up straight were more likely to believe the thoughts they wrote down in that posture concerning whether or not they were qualified for a job versus those of us who slouched and wrote our qualifications tended not to believe what we were writing. So this is a powerful message that we're sending to the world, but we're also sending to ourselves. So taking control in this area cannot only impact your external results in terms of relationships and connecting with people, but can also impact your internal emotions, beliefs about yourself and even thoughts. With all of that going on, it pays in dividends to take control of that situation and take responsibility for that. So how does the body affect these emotions? And the intuitive approach to emotions is we feel an emotion and then we adjust our body language. Research actually says the opposite is true. Research says that we adjust our body language and then we feel the emotion. And in that first impression episode, we talked about the mind leads the body and the body leads the mind. Yes. Research is doubling down on this and saying that the body is leading everything. It's leading the charge here. So controlling your body language can impact your emotional state. Well, and it's something that we always talk about in class of. And I've said it on this show a billion times. It's easier to act your way into thinking and to think your way into acting. And by taking control of your body language, you're going to start to become in control of your emotions. And it's things, studies like that. Just like, well, I'm not looking at this in any other way. All the proof is right there. And we intuitively feel this, too. Right. Smiles are infectious. This idea that positive body language emotionally charged body language around other people, we feel intuitively and we can start to feel that happiness and that joy. So let's think about this. Why can't we make a conscious decision to change our body language to start feeling better emotions and start projecting the right version of ourselves? Well, it takes work. It does take work. And for a lot of us, it sounds intimidating. Correct. My body language like, how do I do that? How do I get started? Where do I focus? Well, the other thing that leads up to this is for how long of your life that you have not taken control of this situation. And now, all of a sudden, you're going to decide to make some moves in that. What the actuality is, is that now becomes a campaign to change a default that has been set in for years, possibly even decades that you're now trying to change. And once again, it goes back to the old saying that once you get started on it, right, it may seem like it's going to take forever, but it never takes as long as you think it's going to. So as long as you get on it, you're moving in the right direction, but then it will take some time. And let's start with the easiest place. And I love this study, famous study by Fritz Strach. Participants were asked to simply hold a pen in their mouth so that their mouth formed a smile or a frown. So basically they're manipulating their facial expressions and people with the artificial smile on their face while viewing a cartoon found that cartoon to be more entertaining and fun. Yep, there you go. People who were frowning and shown the same cartoon found that cartoon to be less funny and less enjoyable. So what does that say about how you're painting your experiences? And this is easy stuff. Start with a smile. And I can't tell you how many times in boot camp we're sitting in review on Thursday. We're going over how Wednesday's first field night went. Our first opportunity to go out and practice in public. The skills we've been working on with the support of coaches. And obviously there's a reason that the gentlemen on the couch are in the room with us. They have struggled with some negative thoughts and feelings about themselves socially, their abilities, their competence, and they're bringing that baggage to the experience. Yes, which will extend to how they're viewing the world around them. And we always start review with Braggs where you get an opportunity to share a positive about someone else in the room. The reason we do this is actually because when you focus on someone else's enjoyment and fun, you can start to relax about your own mistakes, discomfort and frustrations. And inevitably when you get someone smiling, their thoughts and feelings about the previous night go a lot different than the classmates who are scowling frustrated arms crossed. Sure. So understanding that even while we're wearing this body language, we can change our thoughts and beliefs about the past, right? If you try to think about a moment in your life where you felt a lot of shame, but you're wearing a smile while you're having that little thought experiment, you're going to feel a lot different about that experience than if you're scowling while thinking about that moment of shame or embarrassment. Well, it always comes back to setting yourself up for for success and of course, rolling into anything you want to be open to enjoying yourself, having a good time and being open to helping others that are in that room, you're going to have to go in prepped to throw on that smile, as we talked about in the first impressions episode. Do yourself a favor, keep your body language open, throw a smile on your face, allow the music to hit you to where you're just nodding along with it or moving with it a little bit and you will be surprised. Where that pushes propels you in a few moments. And these emotions are spread, right? That smile is infectious. So when you start smiling, the people around you are going to start smiling and everyone's going to feel a lot better about the situation. And we see this with our coaches who go out and feel like the whole goal is to keep everyone smiling and all of a sudden you get some positive momentum going and things become a lot easier when we're talking about social anxiety, those things that have given us anxiety in the past. So changing your body language changes your thoughts, beliefs and emotions in the moment. And that's just it. Body language conveys with pretty good accuracy our emotional intent, meaning research shows that your body will feel the emotion before you even think about the emotion. Yes, it goes through your body language first, then. While we're reading other people's body language, it's a matter of learning about other people's intense. That's important, not their specific conscious thoughts. I know a lot of times people come to the program with misconceptions that if I can just read body language, it's kind of like I'm a mind reader. I can know exactly what everyone in the room is thinking. And then I can do the correct thing to get the correct result. To get the correct result, and that's a lot of work. It sounds terrible. It's a tremendous amount of work. But isn't it funny how that's where usually someone will go to you first and figuring this out if I could just control others. Yeah, but in order to do that, I have to read other people's body language, understand their emotions and try to piece together how I'm going to handle all of that and then manipulate it to my advantage. Well, just imagine that I saw some things that leave me to believe something about this other person. Now I have to go into my Rolodeck and find an answer for the behaviors that I'm seeing. Kill me now. We can't stress this enough. We're not reading other people's body language to read their thoughts. We're seeing their intentions emotionally. That's what's going on here. But here's the important thing. The best way to make other people feel an emotion is to feel it yourself first. Start with yourself. I know it's a common theme on the show, but lead from the seat you've been given. Start with yourself. When you put focus and effort and energy on fixing what's going on with you, all these other tremendous results happen externally. But when we're trying to chase the external results and we give up on fixing the internals, that's when we really struggle. So I'd love to talk about the feedback loop that happens a little bit when we start working on these things, Johnny, when we start working on our body language. Because I know we see it in our clients on a weekly basis where they start fixing their body language and they start seeing different results while they're out. You can look at it as the people that you're interacting with are going to reflect back to you how you have made them feel. However, we mentioned it in the first impressions episode that if you have some anxiety going on, you're stressed out, you're uncomfortable, you're going to tend to focus inward, which is why it's important to do the video work so that you can see it from a third party. Third party and not being riddled with everything that's going on. So now you're watching it as detached and you can see for the first time how you're allowing the other person to feel and react to you. That is always... And if you see the person maybe lean a little bit away, and what's interesting is no one wants... There's not many people who want to go out and put fear in people's eyes on a social engagement, but yet when you see it on video, you're like, no, that's not what I wanted to do. Okay, well, what can we do to soften up your presentation? And that softening up is a lot of why the military guys are coming because what kept them alive on the battlefield is certainly not crossing over into the boardroom. And the best part about all of this is it is self-reinforcing. So to your point about mirroring, if I come in wearing a big smile, right? A big shit-eating grin, and I'm having a conversation with you and you're tense, you're not having fun. Over time, stronger frame dissolves the weaker one. So if I keep that smile on, I can wear down your coldness, right? Or the other way around, because you as a human being are geared towards the negative. So it's going to be more work for you to get me to go along with you than it is to get you to go along with what I'm doing. If we focus on maintaining that positive, warm smile and body language, keeping things fun and exciting with our own body language, we're going to start to change the person's body language that we're interacting with so that they mirror us, and now that allows us to feel even better, right? So in that moment, you have the choice, the choice of continue. Even if I'm not feeling comfortable to wear this smile, to showcase hourly that I'm having a good time, knowing that I might get that back in return and when you do get that back in return, you feel even more comfortable and confident in that setting. And that's the process that we work through on boot camp. Even when things aren't going your way, keeping that smile on, keeping a good, friendly nature with your body language can carry the day. Well, yeah, and regulating your emotions so they don't easily get knocked around so that you're not at the whim of them. And the other thing that we talk about, is why your social circle is so important because if it's going to take a lot of energy for you to keep on that smile and positivity and you have some negative Nazis in your social circle, that's how much work are you going to have to go through to maintain and not be thrown off? But let's also understand for human nature, we are easily influenced and so you may think you're getting out alive but there was a lot of energy that you expended to do that. So what makes it for the next part of your day, how much energy are you going to have left to continue this? And you only have so much. We all know how that works. We all know what you're capable of. Let's say you had a good night's sleep, let's say you had not such a good night's sleep and now you're rolling in work and now you're battling all the negativity in there. How much do you got to get throughout that day before you finally just say fuck it? Screw it, I'm done. And this transformation during the boot camp of focusing on these five signals that we're going to outline next, putting some real effort and energy there, as I said earlier, can really carry the day and what's fun about this is we find that our guys, starting the week, they'll be intimidated by some of the negative body language signals that they're seeing in other people because stronger frame dissolves the weaker, they don't feel that they can come in and really commit to and actually overcome that body language that they're seeing from the other person. By the end of the week, they're actually looking for opportunities to turn that frown into a smile. Let me find that challenging, that person who's got the closed body language and can turn it around. Well, to go along with that on the first day, which is your day, you're on Tuesday, you're rolling in and we have a bunch of people who don't know where they are, who don't know what's about ahead of them in a room with all these new people that they're just meeting, right? Though it's beautiful and we're in Los Angeles and everyone is there to make a change, there's a lot of unknowns. So, here comes AJ, big smile, proper body language, ready to give it his all. AJ has the combat, all the looks that he's getting from the guys sitting on the couches because are they in control of what they're projecting out? If they're coming to an AC program, most likely not really. Not yet. Not yet. They're about to be able to see that for the first time. But how much work is that coming in, knowing what you have to fight off and knowing once again why having that proper night's sleep, eating correctly, hitting the gym in the morning to come in as strong as possible because you know it's ahead of you. And the fun part is once you fix yourself, then it's easier to become the stronger frame and not have to worry about other people's frames. Nope. To allow yourself to keep wearing that smile when there is adversity, when things are difficult. Let's be honest, that's what life's all about. Life is full of adversity. It's not all about smiles. But if you can maintain and you can put a smile on when other people are frowning, you're winning the day. You're actually getting ahead. So that leads into our five signals. And number one is that smile. Science shows that a smile is one of the most attractive signals that you can give when meeting someone. A smile carries the day. And when we talk about a smile, we talk about a genuine smile. Not the smile you give your dentist where you're just showing teeth but you're in pain to do it. But that full face smile that we all know about where these little wrinkles form next to your eyes and it's like a beam of fun and a beam of excitement on the other person. It allows the other person to feel good knowing that both of you are going to go through something that is a little anxiety-ridden. Talking to someone for the first time, a stranger, can be a little anxiety-ridden. So putting yourself at ease of the smile can have a huge impact on turning the other person around and getting them to open up to you. I always like to say that it is a direct line for the other person to understand how you're feeling. And also when you're projecting that you're feeling great and that also how you're viewing the world is in a positive manner which allows the other person you're speaking to to be that much more relaxed if they can read that. So imagine that upon meeting somebody for the very first time you make your approach as you're at some social engagement. It's never... it's always about how comfortable can you allow the other person to feel upon approaching them for the first time. If you can allow them to feel relaxed and calm and good about talking to you then the rest is cake. And that just did, right? When we're around someone who's a negative Nancy who is despondent, closed up we naturally feel uncomfortable even if we're friends with that person. Even if we thoroughly enjoy that person's company it can wear on you. So imagine bringing that energy and that body language into an interaction with a complete stranger who has no investment in you. Right? Some of us right now are listening to this and they're like yeah I have that friend Frank he's just a very cranky guy he's always negative. Well you end up trying to hang out with him less. Right? You spend less time with that person. So imagine coming up to a stranger bringing that to the table. They're going to have even less time for you than a friend with which is zero. They're already looking for an escape when they see you coming over. Coming over, exactly. So, you know, don't by giving them more of a reason to get out of there you're only reinforcing what they're already going on through their mind. And if you're listening and you're not happy with your smile well let's fix that smile. This is such an important signal that you should be happy with your smile you should be proud of your smile and there are simple things you can do to freshen up that smile to allow you to feel more comfortable but you should not have to go through life hiding from your smile you should use that smile that important tool on your tool belt to your advantage. And I know when we get nervous it's even harder to smile because that tension comes in our face that tension we're feeling in our body it comes through our face so a lot of times we kind of have to force it a little bit we jokingly say that by the end of the week some of our clients cheeks will be hurting because they're not used to smiling so much. And for me the biggest difference was getting some crest white strips whitening my teeth a little bit I felt a lot more confident in my smile and allowed me to be just more relaxed in general and as we talked about your body language sets your mood and emotions and you're already worried about enough things so it's about taking things out of that stack of things to worry about. So if I don't have to worry about my smile I can worry about some bigger things. Yes, absolutely. The second signal that's important is our eye contact understanding that our eye contact can hold someone's attention but too much eye contact can repel people as well. So there's a balance to our eye contact but what we found most frequently in teaching this course is that a lot of us avoid eye contact in nervous awkward situations and in that avoiding of eye contact we actually don't allow the other person to feel comfortable or build the trust that we need for that relationship to start. Well and also think about all the advice you had about making a great first impression and it's always make sure that you show your confidence and at least a lot of men get in their brain that showing that confidence is showing the superior right on target laser beam eye contact and it's actually incredibly intimidating especially for the person you're meeting for the very first time. That the need to keep eye contact can actually tie the other person up mentally. Yup. Because science has shown that when we make eye contact we actually are taking away brain processing power. It makes it more difficult to listen and it makes it other it makes it more difficult for the other person to follow along. So I like to use my eye contact to start my communication so I'm making eye contact as I'm starting to talk to the person and I know this is going to sound awkward to a lot of people listening because it doesn't really make sense based on common knowledge or what they were taught. I actually break eye contact when I'm listening to someone for the first time before I know them very well. I will break my eye contact to listen because I know that prolonged eye contact ties up my brain it makes it difficult for me to follow along with what they're saying. I always get this question on Bootcamp of well won't they think I'm not listening to them if I break eye contact and I always say the same thing the words of your response will tell them whether or not you are listening more than your eye contact will. Absolutely. So if I break eye contact and we're talking about your amazing trip to Mexico and I come back and celebrate that trip and talk about my favorite tequila that I happen to discover in Mexico the person that I'm talking to is not going to focus in on where my eyes were while they were talking. They're going to feel that I was engaged in listening. So understanding that we want to make that eye contact about 70% of the time especially when we're talking to someone we just met. I want to add to that because you mentioned something earlier about being able to listen and make it easier to listen a lot of people out there who might think oh I'm a good listener I always listen really well that's not a big deal. You may be able to tune in and listen to your friends and be a good listener. However if we're meeting somebody for the first time and there's any sort of anxiety or nervousness which there always is upon meeting new people for the first time I don't care if you're an extrovert or an introvert putting yourself out into the unknown puts a bit of that and whether or not you do it all the time. So if there is attention and pressure going on because you're meeting somebody for the first time it's going to be that much more difficult to listen. So by doing this you're setting yourself up to compensate for the anxiety or nervousness that's there so that you can be the great listener that you are whether it's with your friends or not. So that's the thing as we talked about your body language is going to signal that intent it's going to signal your emotional state to someone. So the reason I love making eye contact while I'm talking to someone is because I can very quickly see the emotions in their face as they're listening. So I can get a pretty quick read on their emotional state based on what I'm saying and then I break that eye contact and move my ear actually closer to them gives me an opportunity to listen with full brain power and the most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said this is a quote by Peter Drucker understanding that if I can use my eye contact to see their emotional state break that eye contact to fully hear what they're saying I'm ahead of the curve. I'm setting myself up for success I'm fully engaged the problem with prolonged eye contact is it increases tension for both of us making it difficult for either one of us to follow along in conversation causing discomfort and that's what's going to stick with them and I want to reiterate here at least for those of you who feel that you have some approaching anxiety or always feel that meeting people for the first time is a nerve wracking experience understand that we're giving you the tips to ease this and make you better at it right now and I know eye contact can be intimidating so if you feel that you're struggling with eye contact we recommend a very simple game called observation your goal is to go out and note people's eye color it's great just note the eye color of the people you're talking to up John had brown eyes Sarah has hazel eyes oh those are beautiful blue eyes Steve noting people's eye color focuses you on maintaining that eye contact to make sure you're paying attention to this important signal now the third signal we want to talk about the third way to have better body language is to focus on your posture and this has been a struggle for me over the years working at my computer working in the lab being a slouchy guy in general I've struggled with posture and exercise has been one of the ways that I've pulled myself out of some poor posture by strengthening my back and not allowing my shoulders to be relaxed and rolled forward why exercise is so important I mean it plays a role in strengthening all those muscles that will allow you to correct and make it the best posture that you can play yourself in so taking your shoulders and rolling them back and down opens your chest and creates that solid posture that again projects confidence allows the other person to feel more comfortable around you and while we're doing this right that openness with our posture as we talked about having your palms facing out being a little more comfortable will allow the other person to feel some trust as they're working through conversation with you as they're starting to understand what you're saying I want to add to this as well to have the earliest feedback you're going to get and I mentioned this when you change your body language around you will notice that you allow them to feel differently so they're going to wonder what that is because the old comfortable feeling that you had been giving off has now changed and they'll say they'll make a comment there was something different about you they're not sure what it is I know for myself that when I changed my body language and this was going from the rock star stuff to a more confident body language a more presentable body language immediately I had people asking me the same questions and I was really excited but then hearing you just seem more confident lately that was all I needed to hear to confirm and strengthen that and want to do that more I mean what better compliment is that so posture standing up taller is important another important body language signal number four is your hand gestures and if you've watched any of our videos on Instagram you know that John and I love talking with our hands we enunciate with our hands and a lot of us when we get nervous what do we do we put our hands in our pockets right we get smaller we clench our hands we close off our hands and we do not allow our hands to be an important part of communication but utilizing your hands actually shows comfort and starts to build trust when people can't see your hands it creates a feeling of lack of trust distrust well and here's what happens there this is for the guys who are making their move approaching the girls that they like a tendency that guys will have is they don't want to be intimidating or scary so what they'll do is they'll put their hands behind their back so that what they feel is to show that they don't mean any harm but for the girl she's reading is where are your hands why can't I see them and if you think about it it makes a lot of sense when you think about all the cultures that tend to be handsy talk a lot with their hands there's a certain warmth to that communication it creates trust through touch being able to utilize your hands move your hands and people see your hands allows them to feel more trustworthy around you and it's something else that we had talked about where there's a congruency between what you're saying and your actions so when we're hiding our hands we're creating distrust the last signal we want to talk about and for a lot of us we're probably not even aware of them I know for myself I wasn't aware of my nervous ticks but I had a tendency to clench my hands yeah so your ticks twitching and fidgeting when we get nervous indicates discomfort and everything that we're talking about when it comes to body language everything that we're talking about in these signals is to allow the other person to feel more comfortable around you that's what they're going to remember they're going to remember how you made them feel not what you said not what you did they're going to remember how you made them feel so your nervous ticks and twitching and clenching and fidgeting is going to showcase your discomfort and ultimately make the people around you uncomfortable and feel that discomfort and I just to for those who are listening who are like oh I know those things okay so does everybody we've heard this about having great eye contact make sure you're smiling stand up tall we've heard this from day one and why are we talking about something that everybody knows and that everyone's been hearing since day one I will tell you because when you add tension anxiety nervousness to the equation those simple things that AJ has just described go flying out the window and one of the reasons why we do video work is so that you can see when there's tension or pressure added to a situation one of those simple fundamentals you go throwing out the window in order to work through this because once you see what that is you could put more conscious effort to making sure those are present rather than throwing them out the window so that your first compression can be all that it can be and we want to end with something really simple you can do a simple hack that will allow you to have good body language especially during those moments of your first impression and this is our doorway drill our doorway drill says that anytime you walk through a doorway do three simple things stand up taller so we can get that posture moving in the right direction and as I said roll your shoulders down and back so your chest is open so you're upright and now you're open and put a smile on your face and I found that you start putting some conscious effort here I'm gonna fix this and all of a sudden that conscious effort starts to pay some dividends you start getting some things moving and you're focusing on it and it starts to move to unconscious competence where now you're just doing it without thinking about it and the world is reacting differently to you and that's why we focus on the simple things it's not complicated I know it sounds commonsensical but when you're doing the simple things right amazing things happen yes and it's and it propels you by getting a few wins here so when you are getting into the harder things such as mindsets and building models and making sure that the beliefs that you have about the world are built on fact it makes those things much easier to work through when you have this take a care of and your body language is one of the easiest things to change but it takes effort it's free it doesn't cost you anything to change this it's 100% free so when you talk about biohacking and supplements and all these other things we're trying to do to change your physiology body language can change them without having to take a pill body language can change the response that you're getting from other people without having to go to a full fledged boot camp without having to spend loads of time reading books and researching how to read micro expressions if you just focus on fixing your body language you're going to be ahead of the pack you're going to be sending the right signals that start getting you the right relationships in your life I want to wrap with if you don't know what these signals are get some honest feedback solicit some feedback around your body language ask people is there anything I do that makes you nervous is there anything you noticed about me that showcases some discomfort and raising awareness to these things it's going to sound painful at first it's going to be a little difficult to put a magnifying glass to it but you're going to find that by changing these simple things that are free you're going to see major shifts in the way people respond to you and when you focus on this for the right reasons you start strengthening your frame around your friends your peers, your coworkers then when you are in those stressful situations when your boss calls you in you can maintain that confident body language that will allow that person to feel better about you and have a different perception