Tag Archive for: communicating

The Power of a Smile

 

As I walked down an extremely busy street in London sometime ago with a friend, a young man stopped me and said in a rather puzzled manner, “Do I know you?” I replied that I did not think so.

Later, as I considered this brief exchange of words, bearing in mind that I certainly had never seen him before; that I am not world-famous nor was he trying a smooth chat-up line, I concluded that the only reason he could possibly have had for stopping me was the fact that I had smiled at him, as I tend to do to many people. This little scenario got me thinking how important it is to maintain an openness and connection with other people even if we do not know them. Mother Teresa said “We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.”

Children, apparently, smile about 400 times a day; adults, however, smile 40-50 times a day when happy and only 20 times a day when not! Interestingly though it actually takes far less effort, from a physiological point of view, to smile than it does to frown and I often find myself encouraging clients to remember the power of a smile in connecting with others and simply to feel better.

The benefits of smiling are well documented and proven …

• Smiling helps you to feel happy and relaxed. If you are in a bad mood, simply by choosing to smile you can lift your spirits. Consequently, smiling can change your mood, your feelings, even your resulting actions by helping to generate more positive emotions.

The scientist Andrew Newberg has said that in experiments, the smile was “the symbol that was rated with the highest positive emotional content.”

• Smiling stimulates your brain’s reward mechanisms in a way that nothing can match.

• Smiling boosts your immune system.

• Smiling reduces stress as it leads to a decrease in stress induced hormones, this positively affects physical and mental health.

• Smiling is contagious. A recent study in Sweden showed that it was extremely difficult for others to frown when they looked at others who were smiling!

There is a reason that the most read book in the world says “laughter does good like a medicine”.

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Overcoming Difficulties with Speaking -“Can’t breathe, talk or think!”

 

The study of human communication (anthroposemiotics) is a fascinating and complex one; it is very diverse, as there are multiple layers pertaining to what communication is and how we use its different features as human beings.  Simply put, however, most face-to-face communication requires visually reading, listening and following along with at least one other person, offering gestures and verbal responses in reply, whilst maintaining eye contact throughout the interaction.  Much of these human functions we do quite naturally, especially if we have grown up with well communicating role models; and yet it is still so common and understandable that at times, especially in high stake situations, we have to be particularly intentional about presenting in a professional, calm and self-controlled manner.

So many amazing things are happening physiologically and neurologically as we communicate with other people;  these human attributes can either harmonise beautifully together or feel horribly disparate.  This is where we have to come at speech work in a holistic manner …

For example, in another area of life, people may experience financial difficulties which could be simply due to the loss of a job or a stream of income, but sometimes it can be more a symptom of a deeper issue ie. overspending due to lack of self esteem or an inability to budget and so clearly some fiscal discipline and management is needed. Similarly, this can be the case with regards to being able to confidently speak in front of others. The moment the spotlight is on us, if we are untrained and unskilled in this area, a myriad of unwelcome thoughts, feelings and responses can manifest which make it extremely difficult to function and do a great job.

Happily, I believe that there are some very practical ways through these difficulties …

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Skillful and hilarious communication!

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Take one, not very tall, man; some lights; a huge platform and 20,000 people… all laughing for one and a half hours!

It really was a fun experience to be in an arena with so many people all laughing together. Laughter is infectious, so good for us and certainly does good like a medicine.

Such was our very enjoyable evening when the hilarious Michael McIntyre was entertaining an enormous crowd with no props, no special effects and no visual aids whatsoever.

It was a great feat of memorisation, engagement with the audience and unfailing energy to entertain so many people with simply a voice and a body!  Michael McIntyre’s ability to make the mundane and familiar so amusing; to laugh at culture and language and to be so observant of the people to whose towns and cities he visits, is a gift.  He is undoubtedly a very humorous and accomplished communicator.

Some key skills that Michael exhibited were having great energy and enthusiasm to fill his stage; content that connected with his audience and clearly hours and hours of practice that enabled him to be flawless in his delivery. He was totally professional and flexible when a couple of ladies interrupted one of his stories, and handled the situation with grace and absolutely no sign of panic that he was off script!

A few keys for all public speakers there!

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Overcoming the fear of public speaking (2)

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“Hi Sarah, I  just wanted to let you know that my presentation went really well. I didn’t get that anxious feeling, which was great!”   Marketing Executive

 

 I love receiving feedback from my clients and hearing how well they have done, and are doing, in achieving their personal communication goals. One of these goals can be to actually begin to enjoy standing up (or sitting down) and sharing our thoughts, knowledge and ideas with others, in person or online.

What is it about speaking publicly that can make even the most robust of us tremble at the knees; and why does this very necessary part of our working lives continue to be cited as one of the greatest fears people have to face, second only to the fear of death?

Is it the knowledge of all eyes being solely on us? Is it the acute awareness of the responsibility to ‘deliver’? Is it a mistrust in ourselves not to do something that would make us look foolish?

There are certainly proven strategies and techniques for handling nerves that do not include drinking loads of alcohol prior to speaking, or taking beta blockers!

 

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”  Eleanor Roosevelt

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Voice Is Influence

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The Voice!  We have now seen twelve series in the UK of this well-loved singing competition, and have been promised a thirteenth! We love to see the buttons pressed, the chairs swing round and the thrilled look on a contestant’s face as they are recognised as potentially having a voice with star quality.

However, Voice is a lot more than just sounding melodious or hitting high notes, as admirable and as practiced as all that is.  Voice, we know, is about influence and it is also about passion.  In some contexts, we can positively affect and influence others by our actions alone but, many times, it is our words  and how we use them – persuasively, kindly, analytically, reasonably, encouragingly or harshly – that brings influence to bear.  We think of the evocative speeches of Martin Luther King Jnr, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Emmeline Pankhurst, Eleanor Roosevelt, Gandhi, Hitler, Lenin etc … men and women with powerful Voices and great ability to influence others, some for much good and some for great evil.

We live in a world where it is becoming increasingly important to consider how we are using our voices to bring a positive influence in our worlds of families, friends, and colleagues.

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Using your voice

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As we consider the miraculous gift that being able to speak is, we realise that, as with any other gifting, we can ignore it; take it for granted or abuse it.

Most of us probably fall into the second category with regards to using our voices until such time as we strain them through misuse and unwittingly find ourselves in the third category.  However, what about those of us who ignore the gift, and maybe due to negative experiences or self-inflicted limitations, find ourselves for the most part Silent.

Our mental health is improved as we yield to the deeply human need to speak and to be listened to. Remember Wilson, the volleyball that Tom Hanks’ character Chuck, dressed up in the film “Cast Away”. Wilson proved critical to Chuck’s mental health as his deep need to speak to someone – or anything(!) was evidenced.  Some people speak to their dog or cat or plants in the event of having no-one else to speak to.

For those of us who have become “silent”,  it is time to pick up the talking spoon again and start connecting with others verbally.

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“If only I didn’t have to speak!”

‘Confident Communicating’ regularly works with people who recognise that a lack of confidence in the areas of public speaking and interpersonal communication have held them back from pursuing their dreams and boldly applying for their desired jobs, or going after a promotion; these fears have stunted growth and quite literally kept some clients in a box from which they want to break out.  The good news is that it is never too late to begin to work at being a more effective communicator – we start where we are at.

In his book ‘ Power and Influence’, Robert Dilenschneider writes,  “You start to communicate effectively, this leads to recognition and recognition in turn leads to influence.”   I would like to add a fourth positive outcome to that quote … the word ‘OPPORTUNITIES’ … as we develop stronger communication skills, this leads to more open doors and further opportunities;  I have seen this, time and time again.

Our need to continue to grow and develop in our communication skills is a given, as life is full of people and people need communicating to at different times and in different ways!  Of course, ‘Communicating’ is not an exact science as we are speaking about human beings with all our idiosyncrasies, differing perspectives and views, presuppositions, expectations and programming, however, it is something that we will be doing until the moment we leave this mortal coil so let’s continue to work at it to be the best we can be in any season of our lives.

NOW is the time to make a CHANGE, take a STEP and G–R-O-W. There is help at hand and there is nothing more exciting than overcoming those things that have held us back for too long.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Keep growing – the importance of personal development!

Happy New Year from Confident Communicating!

I love the start of a new year. It speaks of freshness, newness; new hopes, new dreams, new opportunities … a natural break to celebrate the good things of the previous year and let go of the things that didn’t go so well. A time to get up and keep doing what is working and a time to adjust what needs changing. A time to stir fresh vision.

One thing that is a definite for all of us and that is that we must keep developing and learning. If we think we know it all then we will, at best, stagnate and at worst shrink back. What might our Personal Development goals be for this year ? …

I recently read a letter from the admissions department for Oxford and Cambridge University in which were addressed the concerns of a headteacher asking as to why her academically capable student had not been accepted into either university. The reply was that although the student had a great Personal Statement and had clearly spent his/her time pursuing many worthwhile things there was a big gap in their education … this was firstly an inability to engage in verbal conversation with tutors with confidence and intelligence and secondly, a lack of ability to read English accurately and fluently.

Continuing to develop excellent communication skills and an ability to connect and engage with others must be high on our list of goals for 2023!

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