Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog!
Do y'all remember the old saying...... Actions speak louder than words? This week in class we have discussed how we can measure a brand's success and I watched two Ted Talks. One of the Ted Talks stood out to me. I watched a Ted Talk about body language being able to shape who you are. The Ted Talk made me sit back and think if I believed that this was true. The first question I asked myself was: How does my body language come off to other people. I didn't want to base it on my own assumptions so I asked a few of my friends.
Before we get into that, let's talk about body language as a whole and the importance of it. According to the urban dictionary, body language is how you communicate with your body. Body language makes up about 55% of our communication. Our voice tones only account for about 38% of our communication and 7% for words that are spoken. Nonverbal communication helps us reiterate spoken words while being assertive. From my own personal experiences whenever I'm in a room with a group of people, I observe them by their body language. People's body language tells me small details about who they are, but sometimes body language can be misguiding. Let's move on to my friend's analysis of myself.
The first person I asked was my roommate: She said when she first met me she thought I was overly eager by my body language and persona. The second person I asked was an older roommate that I had my sophomore year in college. This story tends to be funny. Before we actually met in person, we had received each other's number through the office at our apartment complex. We texted for about a month before we finally met in person. I was excited and ecstatic to meet her because I had never had a roommate before and the conversations that we had had through our text messages seemed like a match made in Heaven. Right? Wrong!!!!! Move-in day came along and she walked in about 3 hours after I had arrived because she was at church. When she walked in my dad said "your roommate is here". I ran out of the room and into the living room to greet her because I thought I was finally going to get the big sister I never had. I ran up to her and said " Hey. I'm so happy to finally meet you,". She kinda just stared at me in a blank tone and she seemed uncomfortable by the look on her face and the stance that she was in. All she said to me was "you too,". She went back into her room grabbed a few things and left. Her body language from that one encounter made me so uncomfortable that after my parents had left. I packed a bag and went back home for an entire week until the first day of school. This story coincides with how sometimes body language can be misinterpreted. Every time we tell people this story we laugh because we ended up being roommates for 3 years and she will definitely be a bridesmaid at my wedding. Although I only spoke of two analyses of myself, all of my friends said the same thing. They agreed that I come off in a positive, eager, and assertive way. One of my best friends that I have known since diapers said that we can just look at one another and based on our body language we will either smile or have the look of OMG on our faces. They say that my posture shows that I'm warm and caring and a lot of them also said that when they're talking to me or telling me things, that I seem alert and that I care. Their analysis of me really made me smile!
Moving on! Not only can body language create beautiful friendships and relationships; it can contribute to success in the workplace. Having positive body language in the workplace is key because it can help create a strong working environment for the team. Who wants to work in a place where everything and everyone can flow smoothly together. Employees establishing positive body language can help manage and resolve conflicts that could possibly arise. We have all heard that actions speak louder than words, but haven't we all heard that we can't judge a book by its cover? We can't always base how someone is solely off of their body language, but if someone repeatedly has negative body language it can cause harm to themselves and how others view them. Negative body language leads to misinterpretation and misunderstandings with colleagues. In the workplace we can't establish a that's just how I am mindset because the key is to work together as a team to promote growth and success.
Now that we're through with that.... What do you all think? Should we be quiet and let our bodies do the talking. Growing up my parents told me that I had one mouth two ears and two eyes for a reason. Get it? If you asked your friends to do an analysis of your body language what would they say? If you did a self-analysis of your body language what would you say about yourself? Would it match your friends or would you try and give yourself a more positive connotation than who you really are? This is a safe space, so don't be afraid to be brutally honest with yourselves. For example, if you're not a morning person and you have to be somewhere extremely early in the morning; your body language may be different than it would be later on at night and vice versa.
Let me know in the comments.
I'm going to insert the link to the ted talk here. Watch it. I found it very informative and interesting.
See y'all online next week!
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