Eduttainable Idea #1
The way you present yourself and your body can make a profound impact on your life and business. Mark Bowden explains the truth plane and how it can reshape everything you thought you new about presenting using your body. The area in front of your belly button at 180° horizontal plane is the area that Mark refers to as the truth plane. If there’s only one thing that you take away from this idea it is that when talking to others, keep your hands in this plane and you will dramatically increase trust. If you drop your hands to your side you are in what Mark calls this the grotesque plane. Having your hands at your side immediately makes you less trustworthy. When speaking to others, you can unintentionally lack the ability to persuade when your hands are at your side. Tension can easily overwhelm you if you are not fully conscious of what you are doing. Above the truth plane is the passion plane and it can be used to emphasize ideas. When speaking to a group of people if you want to be a little bit more dramatic you can raise your hands to chest level. The majority of the presentations you do should be done in the truth plane. Once you are more confident with the different planes and their intended results you can move between planes to increase or decrease dramatic effect. A powerful gesture that Mark uses regularly when he presents is the open palm truth plane gesture. By opening the palms you show that you are not concealing a weapon. Although this may seem strange, if we look back at our evolution, showing that we are not carrying a weapon helps us trust others faster. Use the truth plane consciously when speaking to others and when you present. You will notice a dramatic shift in the way you are received.
Eduttainable Idea #2
Leaders must share an emotional story to lead effectively. “Employees and others who are involved in the success of an organization deserve to be told a story that involves feeling and emotion.” says Mark. It is a leaders job to share ideas that drive and motivate an organization. The effective delivery of this message will unintentionally cause followers to mistrust the message. Mark finishes the book with a powerful concluding quote,”Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point.” said Robert Anton Wilson. The idea of receiving, decoding and transmitting information is not something that we consciously think about every day. So much of what we share when communicating with our body must be an intentional. The decision to use your body as a tool to communicate effectively is absolutely worth the investment. What’s your story? Is it filled with emotion and feeling? If not it may be time to revisit your story and tell one that more profoundly influences the people that are most important to your organization success.
10,000 feet view
WInning Body Language is an ideal book for anyone who needs to communicate effectively. Our message can easily be missed if we don’t focus on the way we stand, gesture and persuade using our bodies. Mark does a fantastic job in helping you understand why body language is so important in communicating ideas and building trust. He provides an insightful look at our historic evolution and why certain body language gestures may have been advantageous to us as humans in the past and now may no longer serve us. Winning body language is full of stories, anecdotes and analogies supported by real facts that create a compelling case why it’s in everyone’s best interest to use their bodies to communicate clearly. This book can save you years of presentation training by practicing some basic principles. Let your body do the talking.
