| Smile vs Frown How NOT to be a walking accident - Communication Dynamics |
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My heart was pounding. I was out. She had rejected me right from the start. What did I do wrong? Fast rewind. This happened when I was about 19 years old. Two girls were sitting close by next to the bar. I decided to go and talk to one of them. As I approached, I was lost in my thoughts: "OMG she is TOO pretty for me... this is fish than I can not handle'. By the moment I have arrived I was half the man I used to be. I looked at her and she looked at me. Her first look was quite gentle but she slowly started to frown and then she turned and looked away - WHILE I was speaking to her. *OUCH!* It was over before it even started. As I Returned To Base my mind was blank. But my buddies minds were not blank, they had found the whole incident hilarious and theywere rolling on the floor. It was clear that I did not fail because of what I said. It was something more subtler. I failed because of the WAY I looked at her. Facial expressions. It seems that the same pattern emerges every time you try to speak to someone that you meet for the first time. Your eyes meet his and a decision is made right there and then: 'Do we like each other?'. Remember that first impressions last for looooooooooooooong. Is there any way to get right that part - systematically? It is well known that non verbal communication is very important, as it judges your likeability. But it seems that the most important of all signals pass THROUGH facial expressions. The facial expressions are much more important than any other body language posture. I mean, people try to read body language postures all the time. They try to figure out if eg. crossing arms is good or some other crazy detail but they miss the most important point of all non verbal communications: Facial expressions. EVERY TIME two persons look at each other, there are four DISTINCT messages that are passed through: a) One from you to the other person and another vice versa. He looks at you and tries to decide mainly one thing: Friend or foe? Does he LIKE ME or not? In an experiment done some time ago, it was proved that people that smile are WAY more attractive than the rest. b) One from every person to itself. It seems that, the facial expressions you use, they produce a feedback loop TOWARDS YOURSELF. It is like they command your emotional state. If you smile you will feel more happy. This phenomenon is known for years as Facial Feedback Hypothesis and states that facial expressions could influence emotional experience. These types of non verbal messages control social relationships MUCH MORE than words do. So what happens when you meet another person: You look at each other. Then you judge each other based on the looks you have at that moment. You maybe the most sweet, attractive person in the world but, if at that moment you are thinking of something bitter, then your face expression will be slightly bitter.
So the other decides that you are not very likable. He adjusts his facial expression to that - involuntary mirroring. Your mammalian brain picks up the way his/her facial expression became worse the moment he/she lays eyes on you - and you decide that it has to be because the other person doesn't like you. Now you like him EVEN LESS and your expression is even more bitter. He picks it up and feels you don't like him enough. He then adopts a new face expression. This time it is even LESS likable. Now you are sure that the bastard must have frowned because he doesn't like you. Soon, and in a genuine egg-and-hen manner, a runaway process takes place between the two of you. So congratulations because in less than two seconds and with no reason at all, you lost a potential friend: This was the END of a lovely friendship. Could this process be reversed? Actually, yes. Completely. :) As a matter of fact the ball could also have rolled at the other side of the mountain, ONLY if one of the two of you had control of his facial expressions. And in order to do that you must be able to control your inner state. You see, you cannot fake a smile. This is because some muscles during smile are controlled only by your mammalian brain and not by your neo-cortex. So in order to have a true smile, you must be TRULY happy. You must be able to get into happy state EVEN IF the other person seems indifferent or angry. If you manage to control your inner state and ignore the outside stimuli, sooner or later, the other person will start feeling better and will become more positive towards you. This is the true essence of being a leader. Being so sure about yourself that others follow YOU. That is why in attraction IT DOESN'T matter what you say! You can say whatever you want right from the top of your head and it WILL work like a charm as long as YOUR STATE is GOOD. You then can LITERALLY pull her into YOUR happy state. That is why pick up lines are not so necessery. Focus on your inner state and the rest will FOLLOW. AN AMAZING STATE CAN BE CONTIGIOUS. Especially for beginners a well prepared pick up line is all they need to boost up their state. So in some cases it is good but you don't need it to be like that. To give you an example check out the next mathematical simulation. (Ok this is NO JOKE - This IS a mathematical simulation and took me more than an hour to get it right so you may have a GOOD look at it). This is a simulation of 4 persons interacting in a social situation - a party. The "Leader" has almost no feedback: He doesn' care what the others feel or think. The others though observe a bit more how the others feel. So what happens? After a while, the person with the less feedback gets to control the emotional state of the WHOLE GROUP. Makes you think eee? . Tips for facial control - How NOT to be a walking accident. * Inner control exercises. Here you want to be able to access a genuine happy state really fast. In order to do that, you must find an image or a thought that will bring a genuine happy feeling out of you. The more general, the better it will be. It doesn't matter what provokes it, the only important thing is that YOU can dive, really fast, into it - if necessary. * Happy state access exercise. You learn to dive into that feeling of happiness while you build a genuine or sly smile slowly. Now you have attached that smile with your good feeling. Try anchoring the happy state. * Acting. You practice the above in front of a mirror like an actor. You learn to communicate a good smile and learn how to build it slowly. * Emotional ladder exercise. Choose a feeling or an emotional state you want to practice and then start walking while amplifying that emotion and its appearance on you. Now walk backwards until you bring it back to zero. You must be able to move from wall to wall in a room while expressing every small increment of that emotional state. Emotional Control Tip: In order to be able to control your feelings you must learn to control your thoughts. So, if for example you are watching someone that you don't like, you must supress that thought and actually talk your self that you like him. This is the way to keep a happy face when you are facing people you don't like: Think of something happy. * Happy state robustness exercise No1. You download some pictures of different people. Make sure some are happy, some are cold faced, and some are angry. Now SMILE in front of them. Do it as much as you can, until you are able to dive into a good feeling no matter what the picture is. * Happy state robustness exercise No2. You take a video of your self frowning. No more than 15 secs. Start with a normal face and build up the frowning. Now play the videos and try to smile as you see yourself frowning. This will make you even more robust to the other person's state. * For those among you that stress too easily you can add an extra layer of state control. Do some running or push ups that will make your heart pounding and get back to perform the above exercises, while trying to stay calm. This is for newbie salesmen - dedicated to you M. If you get those exercises right THEN you can go out and practice with real people: a) Meet people that you don't know and no one has presented them to you and say one irrelevant statement while smiling. Do not use a question - it is too easy as people will try to be gentle with you. A 'hi, I like the weather' will do the trick. b) Do the above but built the smile gradually. Start from neutral and get to a full blown smile. Experiment with the level of your smiling. Experiment with the speed of your build up. * The Guardian exercise. This exercise needs two persons to take place. Goal of this exercise is to learn to 'live' your emotional states to their fullest by looking sincere and congruent with them. Two persons face each other. One guards an imaginary passage and the other wants to pass through through that passage. The role of the passanger is to ask the guardian "Can I pass ?" using any emotional state he wishes. He cannot touch the guardian and he should better use positive states. The role of the guardian is to judge if the emotion of the passenger was sincere. If it is he must let the passenger pass by stepping aside. However, he neither must speak nor show any type of expression. This exercise must be repeated as many times as possible until the guardian lets the passenger pass. * Emotional State - Bras de Fer. This exercise needs two persons to take place. Goal of this exercise is to learn how to force your state upon the other person via your look. He who cares less for the other or\and his state is stronger from the other will win. Two persons sit or stand facing away from each other. At a give moment, they turn and look at each other. One tries to impose a positive state and the other a passive or exhuberant negative state. Very fast one of the two will follow the other's state and will make his opponent a winner. If it is not clear a judge can play and help decide the winner. Note, this is not a stare down competition and blinking, as crazy as it may sound, IS allowed. Focus on your state and not at your look. If you want to train by yourself you can use a webcam and make ultra short videos where you look menacing to yourself or indifferent and then play them while you try to smile - your true smile. You will find out that this is not as easy as you thought. For an extra effect you can register the second video also and then check out how you did. It is a form of actor's training. This is very important for sales and pick up as it will learn to impose happy states to people that are bored or not interested. It also can learn you stay cool in front of angry or pissed, nasty looking guys. Now, if you find your self in that situation we hope you know some basic self defence: If you are punched, no matter how cool you may look, you WILL find your self facing the ground. However, do smile and remember to have fun in life. p.s. It is very clear that during these exercises you must be able to look someone in his eyes. Damn links for those who want to Read More
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