Body Language is Critical to Success
By H.Bernard Wechsler
March 12 2012

Body Language is Your Competitive Advantage

The right Questions lead you to winning solutions

1. Visual Image: Do you look like an expert? Don’t we all expect a
lawyer, doctor, professor, computer-nerd, teenager, to dress and
look the part? When they don’t, we mentally question their credentials.

2. Eye-Contact: it is a subconscious, hereditary force. If I cannot see your
eyes, you are sneaky, and dangerous. Eye-contact is the basis folks
decide to trust you, or not. More is better than less.

Act as-if, feel as-if, think as-if you are making eye-contact, and your
subconscious mind (right-hemisphere) makes it so. How? Fake it ‘till
you make come naturally.

It is not lying, it is what you subconscious mind does to learn new stuff.

3. Posture: big-time tip: when you slouch, while standing or sitting,your shoulders droop. So What?

You entire diaphragm (lungs and chest) does not get enough oxygen.
Fact: your three-pound coconut requires up to 24% of the entire
supply of oxygen for your body. Stop and breathe from your diaphragm.

4. Voice: too loud and we come across as over-aggressive. “You aint theboss – of ME!” Listeners become argumentative, and distrustful.

If you speak too quietly, folks think you have “something-to-hide!”
Speaking too fast is the sign of a CONman. Too slow, and you sound
sleepy, and disinterested.

Vary the PITCH of your voice. The variety cancels boredom.

What is PITCH? It’s using a HIGH or LOW voice. Is there ENTHUSIASM
for what you are saying (in your voice)? If you don’t care, the listeners
tune-out.

5. People focus on your head, and on your face.Keep your head upright, vertical and horizontal to your shoulders.

Did you know that “tilting” your head to either side is a sign of
listening and acting friendly? Do it. Held-high and straight
communicates AUTHORITY and being an expert.

6. Arms: nervous people move their arms around when they speak.

7. Hands: simple rule: showing your palms means you are telling thetruth and trustworthy. Let your hands act naturally.

8. Smiling: even though smiling is #7, it is really number one.
It is normal for Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) to automatically
SMILE back, when encountering a smile from another.

So what?

Smiling is not just a facial expression, it is a power emotion, and a
physiological event. Did you realize that SMILING causes a floodof chemicals to be released in both your body and the body of
the viewer of the smile?

The pleasure Hormone, Endorphin is released, and excites your bodywhen you smile, or when someone you speak to is smiling.

Wait, there’s more. Scientific Fact: smiling improves your IMMUNE
system, your respiration become deeper, and your heart rate becomes
regular. Hold it: your blood pressure stabilizes at 120/80.

Smiling increases your own confidence, and persuades people to be-
lieve you. The two essential ingredients for life are: Oxygen and Glucose.
You have the option to be aware of adding more smiles to your life.

Will you stay consciously aware of how important Smiling is to success?

9. How long does it take for you and me to make a decision if we want to
talk (or listen) to someone? That’s right, we are all judgmental, and
decide in about 5-seconds from meeting another, if we like them.

Do we plan it? No, it is on auto-pilot, subconscious. What do we base
our decision on? Does this person REMIND me of someone else I like or
dislike? Underlying this is whether they are a threat to me or not.

Right, their face, posture, voice, eye-contact reminds me of someone else,and that’s all it takes to accept or reject this new person.

Is this important or irrelevant to my life?

This knowledge applies to maintaining or creating NEW relationships,
making a presentation to a group, sales, and convincing a client, and
getting promotions in your career. Wow!

10. Your SMILE: is either real or phony, and other folks can tell the difference.
A SMILE involved not just showing you teeth, but that PLUS your eyes
crinkling making crowfeet at the sides of your eyes. That’s REAL.

People look at your whole-face, and then focus on your eyes and mouth.
A smile invites further communication, involvement, and trust. No-smile
causes people to end contact with you, and distrust you forever.

11. For Smart-Asses only: there are three major muscles to a real, genuine,authentic smile. There are 13, but these are the Big-Three.

a) Risorius muscle: it stretches your mouth wide (laterally).
b) Orbicularis Oculi muscle: closes the eyelids, and creates crowfeet.
c) Zygomaticus Major muscle: lift the corners of your mouth.

12. BIG-SECRET revealed:

How do you create a REAL, GENUINE, AUTHENTIC smile anytime you want?

Answer: Imagination , daydreaming, and mental-visualization. That meansdaydream on purpose for a time (recently or in the past) when you had a
great big grin on your face, or something gave you the giggles.

Let that feeling overwhelm you, and SMILE now. You can access that emotion
and facial expressions whenever you choose. You brain communicates is
PICTURES, not words or numbers, images.

Show yourself a mental-movie of fun, smiling and laughing, and it occurs on you
face NOW. That’s your secret weapon. Test it and you will always use it.
We call it – Historical-Success.

Endwords

Do successful people, smile more, have greater confidence, and are trusted
more by ohers? The answer, using scientific research is Yes!
You can accomplish greater success in your life if you copy their strategies.

Start with Smiling more, and for longer periods. Most of us smile for no morethan three-seconds. Question: can you intentionally smile for ten-seconds?

But how times during your work-hours, do you smile?

The average executive smiles twice, maybe three-times, in each 7-8 hours.Is that a Law or part of the mission statement of your organization?

If you want to persuade, convince, influence others, and want the health
benefits that come with smiling, set a goal of smiling six-times during yourwork day, for ten-seconds each. You will feel and see the benefits within
24 hours.

See ya,

copyright © 2012, H. Bernard Wechsler

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Author's Bio: 

Author of Speed Reading For Professionals, published by
Barron's Educational Series. Business partner ofEvelyn Wood, creator of speed reading, graduating 2-million
including the White House staffs of four U.S. Presidents.