Is Your Body Language Affecting Your Business?

 

 

Listening isn’t just about the act.

It’s about the intention.

Through personal space and body language, we communicate more than our words ever let on.

Christian Vesterfelt: Just listening and it’s not the skills, it’s the intention. One of the things that I had written down here is that when you enter into a conversation, enter into the conversation truly interested. I am a curious person by nature, so when you say something I want to know, tell me more about it. I’ve listened to some of the most boring people that has ever graced this rock floating through space and I’ve been like, “That was fascinating.”

William Wood: Why are they grazing? That’s what I want to know. Why are they grazing?

Christian Vesterfelt: Grazing? Did it sound grazing? I said gracing.

 Oh grazing. I was imagining this really boring person bent over eating grass. I was like, “What?” I could see it now. Cows need therapy too, I’m just saying. It’s like equine therapy but it’d be what? Bovine therapy?

 

 

Christian Vesterfelt: There are individuals who I know would really benefit from it. Being truly interested in your bovine friend, the messages that they have to say.

William Wood: While they’re grazing.

 

Christian Vesterfelt: Tell me, how does that piece of hay taste? I see you’ve moved to a new patch, interesting. The other thing is that not only do you want to be truly interested or intrigued, you want to be a curious person.

I learn the most from my kids and the children around because they are the most curious people that have grazed this Earth. They do graze through my refrigerator quite often. What I’ve observed is that people get to a point where they know everything, and then they stop being curious. The moment they’re no longer curious the conversation ends.

 

Christian Vesterfelt: ​You can’t say anything to them because they’re like, “I already know. I already know.” Being truly interested and curious, like, “How do you see this? How are you experiencing this particular event?”

Really, earlier I mentioned something very personal and I would love to have a conversation where I was able to … Tell me, what was your experience in that conference call really like? I want to know and be totally honest. The other attribute that really contributes to what you were talking about in terms of the power, this isn’t technical like, “Here’s step A, B and C,” but the characteristics or the attributes of the individual is being genuinely concerned about receiving the message and about the person. Whether you really dislike a person or not you want to be genuinely concerned.

William Wood: Yeah. If the conversation is worth having, it’s worth listening. I’m not saying that it’s always worth having a conversation with someone but if you are going to enter in to influence somebody, if you’re going to enter into the process of engaging in conversation, you need to think about how are you going to do that.

Those first three steps are critical. The fourth step … Let’s review the steps real quick.

We’ve got empty your cup. We’ve got create a good emotional state inside of yourself, and sometimes that’s as simple for me as looking at the other person or imagining the other person and thinking, “I want to connect. I’m fully present,” and that’s enough to do it.

William Wood: ​Sometimes I need to go through a little ritual, like a little breath focus ritual or something to ground my energy into the present moment. If I’m in a session with a client and I feel our energies wandering, I’ll actually do that with that with the client.

 

William Wood: ​I’ll say, “Let’s spend a minute getting fully present so that we can be really totally focused in on what’s going on here.” We quiet, we close our eyes, focus on our breath and then come back with full attention. That’s been really useful for me. I’ve done that at home as well, although I probably am more consistent about doing it in the office.

The last step to listening is listening skills, and the beauty is that there are incredible skills that have been developed.

​Some of which are so powerful that there are certain groups that have wanted to limit the training of these skills because they say only a professional should have these skills in their hands, and yet I think all of us are professionals. All of us have children, all of us have spouses, all of use are in business, all of us have products or services that we represent in one way, shape or form, even if it’s just us and our services to our boss.

What are some of the major listening skills and how can they be used?

The first thing that you already touched on is the use of your body. Listening has more to do than just listening to words, meaning when someone is sending communication, a fraction of the meaning that they’re communicating actually happens with the words they speak.

The large majority of the meaning of a phrase is going to come in the body posture and in the voice tone the person uses.

Just listening right now on the radio, listen to the difference in this phrase. I love you. I love you.

I, love, you. I? love you? I love you. You know I love you. You’ve ever heard someone say that?

Seriously, for those of you that are at home you could probably think of another 15 ways to communicate that phrase. If all I was doing was just listening to the words then I’m missing the vast majority of that conversation.

 

William Wood: I was talking to a friend, a single friend. He was out at a dance, he had taken this girl out on a first date, they went dancing.

There was another girl there that he kind of knew and he kind of liked. He didn’t want to ditch his date so he went and he said to her, “Is it okay if I go dance with my other friend?” She leaned back, she crossed her arms, her eyes narrowed and she looked at him and said, “If you want,”just like that. He was a real literal guy, now his brain registered it later, but in the moment he’s like, “She thinks it’s okay.”

Christian Vesterfelt: Cool.

William Wood: He went. He went and danced with this other girl. It wasn’t anything crazy but he danced their dance, and then he came back and she was gone. He’s like, “What happened?” He was racking his brain, he’s talking to his buddy and his buddy was there and he was like, “Dude, didn’t you see her shoot laser beams into you with her eyes?”

One of the key listening skills is to remember you’ve got to listen with your eyes. You’ve got to listen with your ears but not just to the words, you’ve got to listen to the inflections that people use.

William Wood: When they say it are they saying it with certainty? Are they saying it with doubt? Are they saying it with hate? What’s the emotion behind the phrase? All of that is perceived with the eyes and with the ears as you’re tuning into to voice tone.

If you’re a guy this is a revelation. Most guys are lit- Not most guys but a lot of guys are literal listeners. It’s the engineer mind. It’s like, “She said she didn’t want me to surprise her.” Well yeah, that’s what she said with her mouth but everything else that she’s been doing for three months tells you that she wants you to surprise her.

Christian Vesterfelt: Surprise her.

Yeah, like,”Really? How do I hear that and see that?” You’ve got to start opening your eyes and paying attention. Part of that means taking your attention off of whatever internal world you’ve got going on and putting it on the other person. If you start doing that you’ll start perceiving a tremendous lot more. That’s the first real skill.

Along listening workshop we might actually spend a lot of time talking about that. I think another second important part of the skill base that has nothing to do with being too technique-y, is to mind your use of space. The way that you setup your space to listen is going to influence the person’s feeling of safety. Gosh, without going into a lot of training a couple of tips.

Probably most people are going to feel more comfortable with you off to one side or the other of them. Sitting directly across from someone sometimes, not always but sometimes can create a confrontational feel. You’ve got to gauge the person on that and you can gauge it in their body language.

William Wood:​ Interestingly enough, most people will have a preference as to which side you talk to them on. Some people will respond much better on your right or on your left. Whenever I teach a live event a lot of people are skeptical about this until I actually demonstrate it.

TALKING

 

William Wood:​ You can literally, as you’re talking to somebody you’re going to naturally probably turn one side or the other of your body towards the person and if that happened it has to be the side that they’re comfortable on.

They’ll either stay where they’re at or they might even lean in a little bit. If you sidle up to the side of somebody where they’re not comfortable while you’re standing, almost always there is a micro-lean away, or people will put their foot in between you and them to create space.

William Wood:​ I’ve done this thousands of times now as I’ve demonstrated this and consistently this surprises people. This will surprise professionals who’ve spent their whole life thinking about it. I taught this once to a group of psychotherapists.

There was one psychotherapist that was really having a hard time communicating with one of his clients and all he did the next time she came in was sit in a chair on the other side of her.

Held the session and the session went completely differently, by gauging the use of space.

There’s a use of space that’s there. There’s also distance things.

William Wood:​ In the United States if a guy gets too close to a gal, unless they’re in an intimate relationship or something, it’s like, “Wow,” it can create a weird energy. If you’re a real touchy person and the other person’s not a touchy person, it can create a real funny energy in the room. Your use of your body is going to influence and impact your ability to listen.

 

COMMUNICATION

William Wood:​ I’ve done this thousands of times now as I’ve demonstrated this and consistently this surprises people. This will surprise professionals who’ve spent their whole life thinking about it. I taught this once to a group of psychotherapists.

There was one psychotherapist that was really having a hard time communicating with one of his clients and all he did the next time she came in was sit in a chair on the other side of her.

Held the session and the session went completely differently, by gauging the use of space.

There’s a use of space that’s there. There’s also distance things.

William Wood:​ In the United States if a guy gets too close to a gal, unless they’re in an intimate relationship or something, it’s like, “Wow,” it can create a weird energy. If you’re a real touchy person and the other person’s not a touchy person, it can create a real funny energy in the room. Your use of your body is going to influence and impact your ability to listen.

Christian Vesterfelt: ​Here’s a good rule of thumb, extend your hand directly out in front of you, fingertips pointing straight out, so it’s like your arm is at a 90 degree angle to the floor and then lift your palm, keeping your arm parallel to the floor, raise your fingertips straight up. That’s about where most people’s personal space bubble goes to.

Now if you’ve got two people talking, like if Christian and I were talking to each other as two guys here in the United States, our bubbles would need to barely be touching each other to stay in a good comfortable contact.

 

Christian Vesterfelt: ​Basically, this means that if you’re a tall person you actually need to give people a little bit more space. That would mean that it’s like in your imagination you imagine that they have their arm extended and you have your arm extended and your palms are not touching. If you’re right about there in most situations you’re going to be pretty safe.

If it’s with the opposite gender you may even want to add six or eight inches. That’s the US, that’s very different, I had a friend from Europe and he would come try to have a conversation with me and the normal talking range was about six inches, nose to nose.

He would come up and I wasn’t use to that and it was like I would retract and he would follow me. It was this backwards dance, it was pretty crazy, until I breathed into, I’m like, “Okay, this is normal for him.” It’s like, here we are talking almost nose to nose. It’s like I can catch his spit in my mouth. I know that’s probably a graphic …

 

COMMUNICATION

William Wood:​ I was going to say a good way to combat that would be just to go and do it.

This was back in my college years, he was married, I was married. There was no romantic interest, this was a cultural difference. Culture by culture it’s going to be a little bit different.

One of the things that you can pay attention to is, how do you know if somebody’s uncomfortable with you?

It’s in a micro or a macro lean away. If they start to lean away from you or move back from you, or if you see them fidgeting with their chair and trying to move their chair into a different spot or something like, you’re probably not paying attention and minding your space and it’s going to affect your ability to create that safe environment that’s going to help them open up to you.

 

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