June 6, 2020 • 30 mins
Body language is super important when it comes to communication and social skills. How you present yourself should be on you mind when you talk to people. We talk about how you can improve your vocal tonality and how you can improve your posture and also I talk about one of the most important lessons from Dale Carnegie.
Help buy my beer ; D
https://www.patreon.com/TSSLpodcast
paypal.me/TSSLpodcast
Thank you!! - Nathan. : D
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:11):
Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to the
social skills podcast. This isepisode number two. I am your
host, Nathan Ament. Last week, Ijust gave a little introduction
to the podcast just went overwhat we're going to some of the
(00:34):
things we're going to cover inthe following episodes.
Andat the end of the podcasts, I
also recommended picking up abook, How to Win Friends, and
influence, and win friends andinfluence people by Dale
Carnegie. So I hope you didthat. Hope you read it twice. If
(00:55):
you haven't, why haven't you?
I'm just joking. But yeah, it'sa good place to start. I going
to recommend quite a lot ofbooks. So put them on your list
(01:17):
to read. And something good todo during our quarantine.
Because we are in a pandemicsituation, which might be
weighing heavily on your mind,like how am I going to go out
and practice these skills. Imean, we're in a quarantine
true. And, but there's alwaysopportunities to practice your
(01:41):
social skills. And if not, thenyou can always read in research
and learn as much as you can.
And then maybe take some notes,some things you want to really
work on. That way you can beready to go once things get back
to normal. And she got alwaysgot to take more responsibility.
And really take action, anythingyou can do to move forward
(02:10):
because we're all on thispodcast. So that's what we're
going to be doing. We're alwaysmoving forward. Actually, that's
not sure I saw that. But I waswhen I was thinking about doing
the podcast, and I was likegetting some ideas. And I was
like, should I do this? Should Inot do it. And then I just saw
somewhere, you always got to bemoving forward. And I was like,
(02:30):
You know what, that's it, I'mdoing it and I signed it up, got
it really just went from onestep to the next. I just got
mode, I don't know, I just gotmotivated by that always be
moving forward. So maybe that'llbe the overarching theme of this
show. I want to remind you thatI believe that social skills is
(02:51):
the most important skills, themost important skill you can
learn. I think it just opens somany new worlds, to you. And
it's really, it's entirely onyou because no one's gonna learn
this stuff for you. You reallyhave to go out there and do it
yourself. It takes a lot ofcourage sometimes to do just to
(03:13):
step out of your comfort zone.
But that's what that's whatmakes you grow as a person. I
think that's what actually lifemight be about is just growing
as a person, it makes it moreenjoyable. You just discover so
many new things when you grow.
Just real quick on the on thebook that I recommended. The
(03:39):
other thing I got out of thatbook that I thought the How to
Win Friends and InfluencePeople. One of the things that
said in there was it said I see.
I want to get this quote, right.
It said so Dale Carnegie said tobe hardy in your app probation
(03:59):
and lavish in your praise. Soapprobation just means praise,
will say praise or approval. Sojust means give more people. I
would say it's one way to saygive more compliments, but I
would say to actually be verygenuine as well. I mean, don't
(04:20):
just give people complimentsjust to give them out because
that it's not genuine justdoesn't come across, right. But
like let's say for instance,you're at a you're at a
restaurant, and it's like thebest steak you've ever had in
your life. You know, maybe onthe way out, you know, just yell
(04:42):
out in the kitchen. Hey, thatwas the best steak I've ever
had. Thanks a lot of guys orsomething like that. I'll give
you an actual example of this.
When I first read the bookFriend of mine was also reading
the same book, I think he was,but we had been talking about
(05:05):
it. And we went to a restaurant,like a bar restaurant called
BJs. And we were talking aboutthe book, and we both were
white. When we got there, we hadordered, I ordered, like,
a certain type of beer. And heordered a certain type of beer
and the, and the waiter said,Oh, hey, guys, I'm sorry. But we
(05:30):
don't have either one of thoseon tap. Can you guys pick
something else? And I was like,Oh,
I was like, Yeah, I guess I'llhave this other one. And my
friend like, okay, yeah, I'llhave this. And that was like, I
was like, Can we get it for freesince I was just kind of joking
around? And he's like, sorry,no. And I was like, and I said,
(05:52):
Well, is there any chance Icould talk to the manager? And
like, I wasn't saying it in a ina douchebag. way. I was just
kind of like, nonchalantlysaying it. I wasn't saying it
angrily. And he said, My manageris actually in a really bad
mood. Are you sure you want totalk to him? I'm like, yeah. And
(06:13):
so he left, and he probablydidn't want to have to do it.
But hey, I just wanted to trysomething out. Because I was
reading this book. And I told myfriend, I'm like, I was like,
Hey, I'm gonna see if I couldget our beers for free. Just
half joking.
So the manager, after a coupleminutes, he walks over. He's
like, how's it going, guys? AndI was like, I was like, Yeah, I
(06:36):
just want to let you know that.
Me and my friend here we comehere. You know, it was a
relatively new restaurant thatjust opened up maybe a couple
months ago. I said, Hey, I justwant to let you know, me and my
friend, we come here relativelyoften. And I just want to let
you know, this place is reallycool. I like the vibe here. You
guys have really good beer here.
(06:57):
And yeah, we just swell. Youknow, we really like coming
here. And he's like, he smiled.
Like, he looked like he waslike, tired. And he's like, Oh,
hey, cool. Thanks, guys. Ireally appreciate it. And he
leaves. And then the waiter cameback, like a couple minutes
later with our beers. And he'slike, he's like, I don't know
what he did. But he said, theseare free.
(07:21):
My friend. So yeah, wegot him for free. And my
friends, his jaw, like dropped.
He's like, holy cow. He's like,I can't believe that worked. And
I was like, I was shocked tothat it worked. And I actually
wasn't even trying to get a freebeer. At that point, I was just
(07:42):
wanted to say, Hey, I'm going togive this guy some praise,
because I do really like theplace. And we did come there a
lot. And we'd really like to behere. So I just wanted like, I
don't know, I just wanted to trythe giving some probation out.
So I mean, and this was reallyearly on when I was learning
this stuff. So I think it wasjust monumental to me that, wow,
(08:04):
this just learning socialskills. It pays off in a lot of
different ways that you don'tquite expect. And it just
sometimes it just works reallywell. It's really
counterintuitive. That's kind ofwhy I think some of this stuff
works really well. So it justlike I was like I was hooked on
(08:26):
like, I'm just gonna keep onlearning as much as I can. And
yeah, so it's been quite ajourney. So I've also just kept,
you know, kept up that spirit ofgiving genuine compliments.
Like, if I was at a, like, let'ssee if I was a club and that DJ
is playing is any play that wasplaying really well. I always
(08:50):
made it a point to like, youknow, if I was still around, I
saw like after he got off thedecks. Like if I saw him by the
bar, I would just be like, Hey,man, it was really good set. And
I'm gonna be asked to DJs lovehearing that shit. So he was
I've met a lot of people justfrom doing that. Just giving
(09:10):
genuine compliments about thingsthat I actually enjoy. I'll give
you another story about that.
There is a What's it called? Oh,bevmo by where I live. And they
sell like wine and beer andstuff like that. It's pretty big
place. And so I went there oneSunday morning to go get a beer
(09:32):
because I was gonna be watchingsome football later. And I
noticed next to the beerrefrigerators, there was this
little setup of like a littlewine tasting booth. And those
are there was this middle agedguy there. And he just called
out to me He's like, hey, do youwant to? You want to try some
wine tasting, it's only anickel. And I wasn't really a
(09:55):
wine guy. But when he saidnickel on like, Well, why not
all this track? And so but hehad like, no, no joke. He had
like 12 bottles of wine for anickel to taste in, like, that's
a lot. That's a lot of wine. Sohe, I could tell right away that
(10:20):
he was passionate about wine.
And he really went through eachone talked a lot about it. And
he told me that he does is he'sthere, they started doing this
every, every Sunday orsomething. And you know, it was
really close to my house. And Iand I, and I caught a nice buzz.
So and I don't know, it was justan enjoyable thing probably
(10:44):
lasted about 25 minutes orsomething like that I was there
for a bit. And I felt like I'mlike, yeah, you know, I learned
something here about wine. And Idid taste some wines, I thought
they were actually pretty good.
So I made it a point to wheneverI remembered to try to get over
there. And next and know thatevery week, more and more people
would be there. Andthis guy had a ton
(11:06):
of wine out every time and Istarted actually buying some
wines and trying them out. Andlike I taught me a lot. And I
remember, I think after like twomonths, three months, I was
like, Man, this this is this isit. This is really cool. I
really liked doing this. I madeit a point to start going when I
you know more often. And I justwrote and I'm like, you know
(11:28):
what, I'm gonna write an emailto bevmo. So I wrote an email,
talking about how I, you know,really like, how this guy got me
into wine, and I'm buying wine.
And this guy knows what, likehe's really passionate about it.
And I really enjoyed theexperience of blah, blah, blah,
blah. I was just really genuine.
And then. So I emailed her offand I I forgot about it. And
(11:51):
then the next time I went inthere, he pulled me aside, he's
like, Hey, I guess they sent mea copy of your email. And I just
went like, No, man, I reallyappreciate doing that. That's,
that was really nice to you. AndI was like, Oh, yeah, no
problem. I mean, it wassomething that took me about 10
minutes to write. Not a bigdeal. But it's doing stuff like
(12:11):
that. I think it goes a longway. Just because for one,
almost no one does it. So youcan really make a real big
impact by doing stuff like that.
Okay, so let's jump into thenext topic. Let's talk about
body language. So last week, Imentioned something about how
(12:32):
people when they communicate,the words are actually not the
biggest part of thecommunication. The biggest part
of communication is your vocaltonality and your body language.
I mean, it's like it's like,overwhelmingly more important.
(12:55):
So it's like, maybe 90% of yourcommunication is your body
language and vocal tonality.
tonality? Who knows exactlyexactly what the percentage is,
but the words itself are notactually nearly as important as
those two other things. So whatshould you do? You should really
(13:18):
focus a lot of efforts onimproving your body language and
improving your vocal tonality.
For one, I mean, justenunciating your words better.
Or if you talk too quietly,there's so many times where I've
been talking to someone and theytalk to quietly and I've, I've
mentioned to them, Hey, I can'treally hear you can you speak up
(13:42):
a little bit? And I swear aftertwo times of that, and they
don't really speak louder, Ijust give up. I don't really, I
don't like saying it over andover again. I just stopped
talking to him. And then soenunciate, in your words, let's,
let's say I mean, there's alldifferent types of exercises you
(14:05):
can do for better pronunciation.
Let's say like just focal lot ofvocal exercises, I'm not really
want to get into a lot of them.
But I mean, one thing I would Iactually did for a while is I
made a playlist of songs that Ilike to sing along to. And I'm
and any time I drove somewhere,maybe like once a day or every
(14:29):
other day, I'd make it a pointto sing along with the songs
like really into it.
I think that actually helped insome ways, some of what I'm
talking about. So let's talkabout well, I guess let's keep
talking about vocal tonality.
There's this book I read calledchange your voice change your
(14:52):
life by I mean, let me get thisguy straight. What is it? Okay,
thebook is called Yeah, change your
voice change your life by Dr.
Martin Cooper. It says, He showsyou how to develop your natural,
dynamic voice. And it's weird,like, it seems like the most
(15:17):
important part of the book wason like two pages. But he talked
about all these people hehelped. I don't know, maybe he's
just trying to stretch the bookout. But basically, it was like,
people are talking from thewrong part of their vocal cords,
they're talking from like,either too high, or I don't know
that. And it puts a like a realstrain on your voice. So you
(15:39):
should be talking from like, Idon't know, just pick up the
book, it describes it better.
But basically, like, when I amtrying to like, get into that
space of where I just like, kindof like, pound on the top of my
chest.
And I go, you're basically justlike humming, and then that's
(16:06):
where you want to be speakingfrom is like that hump where you
would hum fromso and it's kind of like in
like, just picture like, you'reyou're putting on a face mask,
that's kind of where all yourtonality is actually going to
come from, it puts a lot lessstrain on your vocal cords. I
don't know, I thought, I thinkit works pretty well. Relax
(16:27):
your, your mouth and your tongueby like, writing your name
inside your cheeks, like everyletter, like fully kind of
stretches out your tongue justyou just write out the letters
of your name inside your mouth,it kind of loosens up your
tongue. And then I'll do thelike the ni nine no new nom nom
(16:51):
nom. I'll do that over and overagain, really pronounced. And
I'll do that a lot. If I'm likegoing to an interview. Or if I'm
going to go out to meet up withsome friends or something like
that. I just want to make surethat I don't know. It's just
kind of like you're gettingready for performance, you want
(17:11):
your voice to sound good. Andwhen it sounds good. People, I
guess people like to listen toit more than if it sounded
crappy. Okay, another big thingabout body language is your eye
contact. So the eye contactthing is let me just say that
there's like levels of eyecontact, there's like two little
(17:35):
eye contact, and there's toomuch eye contact. I met this kid
wants up in Alaska, I wasworking with him. He had some
buddies from Sacramento, so wejust kind of hit it off. And but
every time I talked to him, Ijust noticed it like the guy
would just like full on like,just too much eye contact. And
(17:56):
it always just, I don't know, Iguess too much eye contact, it
kind of creates tension. Andthat's not necessarily the
effect you want. And I'venoticed that after a while my
eye contact, I got much morecomfortable with it. And
sometimes I'm I'm just socomfortable with it, then like
sometimes I think to myself,maybe like, I should probably
(18:18):
break some eye contact when I'mtalking to this person sometimes
because I don't know, I thinkjust too much is too much. And
alsoget a full length mirror. So
pick up, I mean, you could get amirror at Walmart or Home Depot
for like 10 bucks, pretty cheap.
(18:40):
It's a good way to practice youreye contact, like I just did in
my bathroom mirror. But alsohaving a full length mirror is
really important when you'retrying to like work on your body
language, but the full lengthmirror. So the eye contact
thing, when I first was like,read that I need to work on my
eye contact. I just like wouldlook in the mirror and look at
(19:04):
myself. And I noticed that I wasnot comfortable. Even having eye
contact with myself at first I'mlike holy cow, I can't even keep
eye contact with myself. It waskind of it was a an awakening
moment that my eye contact wasprobably pretty crappy. So you
know, you just get used tolooking at yourself in the
(19:25):
mirror. Good way to practice eyecontact without having to work
on doing it to someone else. Andthen but, you know, you'll learn
real quick that there's I mean,you don't want to like look
creepy. So that's a good reasonto have a mirror to practice in
marriage because you don't wantto have what they call the
(19:45):
Manson lamps. Like, I don't knowif you ever saw the sopranos.
But Tony Soprano's, alwaysmaking fun of Richie, this Guy
Ritchie, he'd get pissed off andhe would just like look at him
He's like, and he would say youdon't Give me with those Manson
lamps. Like Charles Manson. So,and let me I just want to tell
(20:10):
you real quick that I met. Imade friends with this girl,
like a long time ago when I waslearning this stuff. And she
told me, she told me that. Soyou know, when I first met you,
I thought you were like, Matt,you were like, mad, or something
like mad at me or mad. I'm like,What do you mean, she's like, I
(20:30):
don't know, whenever we weretalking, like, you just seemed
like, you might be mad aboutsomething. And I was thinking,
like, I was, like, mad. I'mlike, I'm like, I'm like, just
trying to be a good listener andlike listening, but like, I
guess, when I was really tryingto be like, focused listener, I
had this like, restingbitchface, or something like
(20:51):
that? I don't know. I don'tknow. So I was like, holy cow, I
need to work on this. So, youknow, that's one of the times
when I really started, like,trying to understand what my
facial expressions were doingwhen I was looking in the
mirror. So it's like, it's, Iguess you could just call it
doing mirror work. And I'veheard that, like, actors will do
(21:12):
a lot of mirror work, whenthey're trying to understand
exactly the expressions they aremaking. There's no really other
way to know exactly whatexpressions you're always doing.
And always, to know exactly howyou look, you can assume you
know what you look like. Butunless you do a lot of mirror
work, you're not really going toknow. So I mean, don't just work
(21:33):
on your, you know, you know,your resting icontact work on
other expressions to in themirror know exactly what you
look like. I guess another thingtoo, you could practice on in
the mirror is smiling. So I knowthat sometimes when I, when I
was smiling in the mirror, Ibasically looked like an insane
(21:54):
person, and doesn't really workto show doesn't really work to
work on your smile, unless it'sa genuine smile. But at least
you know what your genuine smilelooks like. My friend told me
the other day, too, that helikes doing the half smile. It's
kind of like a smirk. But notreally, I guess there's like a
level of either being like asmug asshole, which you don't
(22:18):
want to do. But a genuine smirkor half smile can be like, Oh,
yeah, this is pleasant. This is,you know, amusing, fun, or
something like that. And thatcan work really well as a good
tip for working on your postureis to just put your back against
a wall and just try tostraighten up as much as
possible. Kind of like you havea string on the very top of your
(22:42):
head being pulled straight up,that's genuinely genuine, that I
can't see that word. That'sgenerally the way you want your
posture to be. I know that sometimes people who are like tall.
Well, sometimes if they're, overtime, they'll develop a slouch
(23:03):
like they're trying tocompensate, talking to people
who are shorter than them. So ifyou're tall, just be aware that
sometimes you mightinadvertently be slouching. It's
not necessarily you don't wantto ever be slouching, it's just
not, it's not good for your backfor one, but it doesn't
communicate confidence. And alot of this stuff that we're
(23:24):
talking about, around bodylanguage is to convey more
confidence.
Because people like talking topeople who are confident, it
just makes everyone feel better,because you're basically putting
off a vibe. It's like, what vibeDo you want to put off. So keep
that in mind, too. That's a realbig thing I learned was that
(23:45):
it's kind of all thissocializing, when you're
socializing. You want to reallyhave be putting off a good
positive vibe. It just it justmakes everything go really well.
Another thing too, is when youthink about is your cell phone,
everyone's got a cell phonenowadays. So what do we do when
(24:10):
we're, you know, scrollingthrough our phone, or basically
our head is pointing down? Andit's like, not necessarily good
for our back or neck. And, youknow, we've had cell phones for
like, 10 years now or whatever,what's gonna, what, what's your
neck and your back gonna looklike, in 20 years, 15 years,
(24:31):
when you keep looking straightdown. So try to a either not do
it as much, or maybe start doingsome yoga. Like I did yoga. It's
been a while, so that didn't getdone yoga, but I did yoga for a
couple years. And I would say itis it is amazing. It really
helps your posture. It's goodfor your back. I've been going
(24:54):
up a chiropractor lately. Iheard that that can help with
your posture. So I've been doingthat. Also I hurt my back. So I
don't know some people are onthe fence of if chiropractors
are good or not. I'm on theother side, I think they're
good. So you can take thatadvice with however you want.
(25:16):
Another thing too, is workingout, when you start going to the
gym. When you start buildingmuscles, your posture also
improves. So, obviously,everyone should be working out.
I mean, it's hard right now,because there's a quarantine.
But if you work out, you'reobviously going to start feeling
(25:39):
better, and you'll communicatebetter. And they really do go
hand in hand. And I mean, Iguess I don't have to tell you
that you should be working outand exercising. That just kind
of goes without saying. But ifyou're trying to improve
yourself overall, then a that'sa big one that can help you feel
better really quickly. I don'tknow if I said earlier, but if I
(26:03):
didn't, I recommend picking up abook on body language. The one I
read was it was body languagefor Dummies. I just came across
it in a bookstore, Mike Oh,yeah. For Dummies book. I like
for dummies books. Makes me feelsmart. Because I could read it
real quick. And I know I'malways been the person. I don't
(26:27):
like reading books. Okay. Sowhen I recommend these books,
just know that I don't likereading books, but I like these
books so much that I'veI devoured them. Okay, so that
is a really good book. I've readit. I've read it a couple times.
It really helped me be aware ofmy body language,
(26:48):
I learned so much more aboutbody language just from that
book. I read another book, too.
I don't remember what it was.
But I thought that the the forbody language for dummies was
was way better. And it is. Letme give a little credit to who
it is written by it's written byElizabeth conky
(27:14):
was written in 2015. And yeah,it's a great book. So I
recommend I recommend readingthat I remember someone will ask
me. Someone asked me, oh, hey,if you've been losing weight,
and like I was like, No, myposture is just better. So
(27:37):
that's one of the benefits ofhaving better body language and
better posture. You You,you will look like he lost 10
pounds. So let's see next week.
We are going to talk about maybemeeting how to meet new people
(28:00):
and also what to talk about whenyou're actually talking to
someone.
It's actually a pretty bigtopic. People are like, Well,
what do I talk about? Well,guess what, there's a lot to
talk about. So and we'll betalking about that next week. So
I just want to say thank you toeveryone for listening this
week. And please subscribe tothe channel and tell your friend
(28:25):
and we will see you next week.
Take care
Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to the
social skills podcast. This isepisode number two. I am your
host, Nathan Ament. Last week, Ijust gave a little introduction
to the podcast just went overwhat we're going to some of the
(00:34):
things we're going to cover inthe following episodes.
Andat the end of the podcasts, I
also recommended picking up abook, How to Win Friends, and
influence, and win friends andinfluence people by Dale
Carnegie. So I hope you didthat. Hope you read it twice. If
(00:55):
you haven't, why haven't you?
I'm just joking. But yeah, it'sa good place to start. I going
to recommend quite a lot ofbooks. So put them on your list
(01:17):
to read. And something good todo during our quarantine.
Because we are in a pandemicsituation, which might be
weighing heavily on your mind,like how am I going to go out
and practice these skills. Imean, we're in a quarantine
true. And, but there's alwaysopportunities to practice your
(01:41):
social skills. And if not, thenyou can always read in research
and learn as much as you can.
And then maybe take some notes,some things you want to really
work on. That way you can beready to go once things get back
to normal. And she got alwaysgot to take more responsibility.
And really take action, anythingyou can do to move forward
(02:10):
because we're all on thispodcast. So that's what we're
going to be doing. We're alwaysmoving forward. Actually, that's
not sure I saw that. But I waswhen I was thinking about doing
the podcast, and I was likegetting some ideas. And I was
like, should I do this? Should Inot do it. And then I just saw
somewhere, you always got to bemoving forward. And I was like,
(02:30):
You know what, that's it, I'mdoing it and I signed it up, got
it really just went from onestep to the next. I just got
mode, I don't know, I just gotmotivated by that always be
moving forward. So maybe that'llbe the overarching theme of this
show. I want to remind you thatI believe that social skills is
(02:51):
the most important skills, themost important skill you can
learn. I think it just opens somany new worlds, to you. And
it's really, it's entirely onyou because no one's gonna learn
this stuff for you. You reallyhave to go out there and do it
yourself. It takes a lot ofcourage sometimes to do just to
(03:13):
step out of your comfort zone.
But that's what that's whatmakes you grow as a person. I
think that's what actually lifemight be about is just growing
as a person, it makes it moreenjoyable. You just discover so
many new things when you grow.
Just real quick on the on thebook that I recommended. The
(03:39):
other thing I got out of thatbook that I thought the How to
Win Friends and InfluencePeople. One of the things that
said in there was it said I see.
I want to get this quote, right.
It said so Dale Carnegie said tobe hardy in your app probation
(03:59):
and lavish in your praise. Soapprobation just means praise,
will say praise or approval. Sojust means give more people. I
would say it's one way to saygive more compliments, but I
would say to actually be verygenuine as well. I mean, don't
(04:20):
just give people complimentsjust to give them out because
that it's not genuine justdoesn't come across, right. But
like let's say for instance,you're at a you're at a
restaurant, and it's like thebest steak you've ever had in
your life. You know, maybe onthe way out, you know, just yell
(04:42):
out in the kitchen. Hey, thatwas the best steak I've ever
had. Thanks a lot of guys orsomething like that. I'll give
you an actual example of this.
When I first read the bookFriend of mine was also reading
the same book, I think he was,but we had been talking about
(05:05):
it. And we went to a restaurant,like a bar restaurant called
BJs. And we were talking aboutthe book, and we both were
white. When we got there, we hadordered, I ordered, like,
a certain type of beer. And heordered a certain type of beer
and the, and the waiter said,Oh, hey, guys, I'm sorry. But we
(05:30):
don't have either one of thoseon tap. Can you guys pick
something else? And I was like,Oh,
I was like, Yeah, I guess I'llhave this other one. And my
friend like, okay, yeah, I'llhave this. And that was like, I
was like, Can we get it for freesince I was just kind of joking
around? And he's like, sorry,no. And I was like, and I said,
(05:52):
Well, is there any chance Icould talk to the manager? And
like, I wasn't saying it in a ina douchebag. way. I was just
kind of like, nonchalantlysaying it. I wasn't saying it
angrily. And he said, My manageris actually in a really bad
mood. Are you sure you want totalk to him? I'm like, yeah. And
(06:13):
so he left, and he probablydidn't want to have to do it.
But hey, I just wanted to trysomething out. Because I was
reading this book. And I told myfriend, I'm like, I was like,
Hey, I'm gonna see if I couldget our beers for free. Just
half joking.
So the manager, after a coupleminutes, he walks over. He's
like, how's it going, guys? AndI was like, I was like, Yeah, I
(06:36):
just want to let you know that.
Me and my friend here we comehere. You know, it was a
relatively new restaurant thatjust opened up maybe a couple
months ago. I said, Hey, I justwant to let you know, me and my
friend, we come here relativelyoften. And I just want to let
you know, this place is reallycool. I like the vibe here. You
guys have really good beer here.
(06:57):
And yeah, we just swell. Youknow, we really like coming
here. And he's like, he smiled.
Like, he looked like he waslike, tired. And he's like, Oh,
hey, cool. Thanks, guys. Ireally appreciate it. And he
leaves. And then the waiter cameback, like a couple minutes
later with our beers. And he'slike, he's like, I don't know
what he did. But he said, theseare free.
(07:21):
My friend. So yeah, wegot him for free. And my
friends, his jaw, like dropped.
He's like, holy cow. He's like,I can't believe that worked. And
I was like, I was shocked tothat it worked. And I actually
wasn't even trying to get a freebeer. At that point, I was just
(07:42):
wanted to say, Hey, I'm going togive this guy some praise,
because I do really like theplace. And we did come there a
lot. And we'd really like to behere. So I just wanted like, I
don't know, I just wanted to trythe giving some probation out.
So I mean, and this was reallyearly on when I was learning
this stuff. So I think it wasjust monumental to me that, wow,
(08:04):
this just learning socialskills. It pays off in a lot of
different ways that you don'tquite expect. And it just
sometimes it just works reallywell. It's really
counterintuitive. That's kind ofwhy I think some of this stuff
works really well. So it justlike I was like I was hooked on
(08:26):
like, I'm just gonna keep onlearning as much as I can. And
yeah, so it's been quite ajourney. So I've also just kept,
you know, kept up that spirit ofgiving genuine compliments.
Like, if I was at a, like, let'ssee if I was a club and that DJ
is playing is any play that wasplaying really well. I always
(08:50):
made it a point to like, youknow, if I was still around, I
saw like after he got off thedecks. Like if I saw him by the
bar, I would just be like, Hey,man, it was really good set. And
I'm gonna be asked to DJs lovehearing that shit. So he was
I've met a lot of people justfrom doing that. Just giving
(09:10):
genuine compliments about thingsthat I actually enjoy. I'll give
you another story about that.
There is a What's it called? Oh,bevmo by where I live. And they
sell like wine and beer andstuff like that. It's pretty big
place. And so I went there oneSunday morning to go get a beer
(09:32):
because I was gonna be watchingsome football later. And I
noticed next to the beerrefrigerators, there was this
little setup of like a littlewine tasting booth. And those
are there was this middle agedguy there. And he just called
out to me He's like, hey, do youwant to? You want to try some
wine tasting, it's only anickel. And I wasn't really a
(09:55):
wine guy. But when he saidnickel on like, Well, why not
all this track? And so but hehad like, no, no joke. He had
like 12 bottles of wine for anickel to taste in, like, that's
a lot. That's a lot of wine. Sohe, I could tell right away that
(10:20):
he was passionate about wine.
And he really went through eachone talked a lot about it. And
he told me that he does is he'sthere, they started doing this
every, every Sunday orsomething. And you know, it was
really close to my house. And Iand I, and I caught a nice buzz.
So and I don't know, it was justan enjoyable thing probably
(10:44):
lasted about 25 minutes orsomething like that I was there
for a bit. And I felt like I'mlike, yeah, you know, I learned
something here about wine. And Idid taste some wines, I thought
they were actually pretty good.
So I made it a point to wheneverI remembered to try to get over
there. And next and know thatevery week, more and more people
would be there. Andthis guy had a ton
(11:06):
of wine out every time and Istarted actually buying some
wines and trying them out. Andlike I taught me a lot. And I
remember, I think after like twomonths, three months, I was
like, Man, this this is this isit. This is really cool. I
really liked doing this. I madeit a point to start going when I
you know more often. And I justwrote and I'm like, you know
(11:28):
what, I'm gonna write an emailto bevmo. So I wrote an email,
talking about how I, you know,really like, how this guy got me
into wine, and I'm buying wine.
And this guy knows what, likehe's really passionate about it.
And I really enjoyed theexperience of blah, blah, blah,
blah. I was just really genuine.
And then. So I emailed her offand I I forgot about it. And
(11:51):
then the next time I went inthere, he pulled me aside, he's
like, Hey, I guess they sent mea copy of your email. And I just
went like, No, man, I reallyappreciate doing that. That's,
that was really nice to you. AndI was like, Oh, yeah, no
problem. I mean, it wassomething that took me about 10
minutes to write. Not a bigdeal. But it's doing stuff like
(12:11):
that. I think it goes a longway. Just because for one,
almost no one does it. So youcan really make a real big
impact by doing stuff like that.
Okay, so let's jump into thenext topic. Let's talk about
body language. So last week, Imentioned something about how
(12:32):
people when they communicate,the words are actually not the
biggest part of thecommunication. The biggest part
of communication is your vocaltonality and your body language.
I mean, it's like it's like,overwhelmingly more important.
(12:55):
So it's like, maybe 90% of yourcommunication is your body
language and vocal tonality.
tonality? Who knows exactlyexactly what the percentage is,
but the words itself are notactually nearly as important as
those two other things. So whatshould you do? You should really
(13:18):
focus a lot of efforts onimproving your body language and
improving your vocal tonality.
For one, I mean, justenunciating your words better.
Or if you talk too quietly,there's so many times where I've
been talking to someone and theytalk to quietly and I've, I've
mentioned to them, Hey, I can'treally hear you can you speak up
(13:42):
a little bit? And I swear aftertwo times of that, and they
don't really speak louder, Ijust give up. I don't really, I
don't like saying it over andover again. I just stopped
talking to him. And then soenunciate, in your words, let's,
let's say I mean, there's alldifferent types of exercises you
(14:05):
can do for better pronunciation.
Let's say like just focal lot ofvocal exercises, I'm not really
want to get into a lot of them.
But I mean, one thing I would Iactually did for a while is I
made a playlist of songs that Ilike to sing along to. And I'm
and any time I drove somewhere,maybe like once a day or every
(14:29):
other day, I'd make it a pointto sing along with the songs
like really into it.
I think that actually helped insome ways, some of what I'm
talking about. So let's talkabout well, I guess let's keep
talking about vocal tonality.
There's this book I read calledchange your voice change your
(14:52):
life by I mean, let me get thisguy straight. What is it? Okay,
thebook is called Yeah, change your
voice change your life by Dr.
Martin Cooper. It says, He showsyou how to develop your natural,
dynamic voice. And it's weird,like, it seems like the most
(15:17):
important part of the book wason like two pages. But he talked
about all these people hehelped. I don't know, maybe he's
just trying to stretch the bookout. But basically, it was like,
people are talking from thewrong part of their vocal cords,
they're talking from like,either too high, or I don't know
that. And it puts a like a realstrain on your voice. So you
(15:39):
should be talking from like, Idon't know, just pick up the
book, it describes it better.
But basically, like, when I amtrying to like, get into that
space of where I just like, kindof like, pound on the top of my
chest.
And I go, you're basically justlike humming, and then that's
(16:06):
where you want to be speakingfrom is like that hump where you
would hum fromso and it's kind of like in
like, just picture like, you'reyou're putting on a face mask,
that's kind of where all yourtonality is actually going to
come from, it puts a lot lessstrain on your vocal cords. I
don't know, I thought, I thinkit works pretty well. Relax
(16:27):
your, your mouth and your tongueby like, writing your name
inside your cheeks, like everyletter, like fully kind of
stretches out your tongue justyou just write out the letters
of your name inside your mouth,it kind of loosens up your
tongue. And then I'll do thelike the ni nine no new nom nom
(16:51):
nom. I'll do that over and overagain, really pronounced. And
I'll do that a lot. If I'm likegoing to an interview. Or if I'm
going to go out to meet up withsome friends or something like
that. I just want to make surethat I don't know. It's just
kind of like you're gettingready for performance, you want
(17:11):
your voice to sound good. Andwhen it sounds good. People, I
guess people like to listen toit more than if it sounded
crappy. Okay, another big thingabout body language is your eye
contact. So the eye contactthing is let me just say that
there's like levels of eyecontact, there's like two little
(17:35):
eye contact, and there's toomuch eye contact. I met this kid
wants up in Alaska, I wasworking with him. He had some
buddies from Sacramento, so wejust kind of hit it off. And but
every time I talked to him, Ijust noticed it like the guy
would just like full on like,just too much eye contact. And
(17:56):
it always just, I don't know, Iguess too much eye contact, it
kind of creates tension. Andthat's not necessarily the
effect you want. And I'venoticed that after a while my
eye contact, I got much morecomfortable with it. And
sometimes I'm I'm just socomfortable with it, then like
sometimes I think to myself,maybe like, I should probably
(18:18):
break some eye contact when I'mtalking to this person sometimes
because I don't know, I thinkjust too much is too much. And
alsoget a full length mirror. So
pick up, I mean, you could get amirror at Walmart or Home Depot
for like 10 bucks, pretty cheap.
(18:40):
It's a good way to practice youreye contact, like I just did in
my bathroom mirror. But alsohaving a full length mirror is
really important when you'retrying to like work on your body
language, but the full lengthmirror. So the eye contact
thing, when I first was like,read that I need to work on my
eye contact. I just like wouldlook in the mirror and look at
(19:04):
myself. And I noticed that I wasnot comfortable. Even having eye
contact with myself at first I'mlike holy cow, I can't even keep
eye contact with myself. It waskind of it was a an awakening
moment that my eye contact wasprobably pretty crappy. So you
know, you just get used tolooking at yourself in the
(19:25):
mirror. Good way to practice eyecontact without having to work
on doing it to someone else. Andthen but, you know, you'll learn
real quick that there's I mean,you don't want to like look
creepy. So that's a good reasonto have a mirror to practice in
marriage because you don't wantto have what they call the
(19:45):
Manson lamps. Like, I don't knowif you ever saw the sopranos.
But Tony Soprano's, alwaysmaking fun of Richie, this Guy
Ritchie, he'd get pissed off andhe would just like look at him
He's like, and he would say youdon't Give me with those Manson
lamps. Like Charles Manson. So,and let me I just want to tell
(20:10):
you real quick that I met. Imade friends with this girl,
like a long time ago when I waslearning this stuff. And she
told me, she told me that. Soyou know, when I first met you,
I thought you were like, Matt,you were like, mad, or something
like mad at me or mad. I'm like,What do you mean, she's like, I
(20:30):
don't know, whenever we weretalking, like, you just seemed
like, you might be mad aboutsomething. And I was thinking,
like, I was, like, mad. I'mlike, I'm like, I'm like, just
trying to be a good listener andlike listening, but like, I
guess, when I was really tryingto be like, focused listener, I
had this like, restingbitchface, or something like
(20:51):
that? I don't know. I don'tknow. So I was like, holy cow, I
need to work on this. So, youknow, that's one of the times
when I really started, like,trying to understand what my
facial expressions were doingwhen I was looking in the
mirror. So it's like, it's, Iguess you could just call it
doing mirror work. And I'veheard that, like, actors will do
(21:12):
a lot of mirror work, whenthey're trying to understand
exactly the expressions they aremaking. There's no really other
way to know exactly whatexpressions you're always doing.
And always, to know exactly howyou look, you can assume you
know what you look like. Butunless you do a lot of mirror
work, you're not really going toknow. So I mean, don't just work
(21:33):
on your, you know, you know,your resting icontact work on
other expressions to in themirror know exactly what you
look like. I guess another thingtoo, you could practice on in
the mirror is smiling. So I knowthat sometimes when I, when I
was smiling in the mirror, Ibasically looked like an insane
(21:54):
person, and doesn't really workto show doesn't really work to
work on your smile, unless it'sa genuine smile. But at least
you know what your genuine smilelooks like. My friend told me
the other day, too, that helikes doing the half smile. It's
kind of like a smirk. But notreally, I guess there's like a
level of either being like asmug asshole, which you don't
(22:18):
want to do. But a genuine smirkor half smile can be like, Oh,
yeah, this is pleasant. This is,you know, amusing, fun, or
something like that. And thatcan work really well as a good
tip for working on your postureis to just put your back against
a wall and just try tostraighten up as much as
possible. Kind of like you havea string on the very top of your
(22:42):
head being pulled straight up,that's genuinely genuine, that I
can't see that word. That'sgenerally the way you want your
posture to be. I know that sometimes people who are like tall.
Well, sometimes if they're, overtime, they'll develop a slouch
(23:03):
like they're trying tocompensate, talking to people
who are shorter than them. So ifyou're tall, just be aware that
sometimes you mightinadvertently be slouching. It's
not necessarily you don't wantto ever be slouching, it's just
not, it's not good for your backfor one, but it doesn't
communicate confidence. And alot of this stuff that we're
(23:24):
talking about, around bodylanguage is to convey more
confidence.
Because people like talking topeople who are confident, it
just makes everyone feel better,because you're basically putting
off a vibe. It's like, what vibeDo you want to put off. So keep
that in mind, too. That's a realbig thing I learned was that
(23:45):
it's kind of all thissocializing, when you're
socializing. You want to reallyhave be putting off a good
positive vibe. It just it justmakes everything go really well.
Another thing too, is when youthink about is your cell phone,
everyone's got a cell phonenowadays. So what do we do when
(24:10):
we're, you know, scrollingthrough our phone, or basically
our head is pointing down? Andit's like, not necessarily good
for our back or neck. And, youknow, we've had cell phones for
like, 10 years now or whatever,what's gonna, what, what's your
neck and your back gonna looklike, in 20 years, 15 years,
(24:31):
when you keep looking straightdown. So try to a either not do
it as much, or maybe start doingsome yoga. Like I did yoga. It's
been a while, so that didn't getdone yoga, but I did yoga for a
couple years. And I would say itis it is amazing. It really
helps your posture. It's goodfor your back. I've been going
(24:54):
up a chiropractor lately. Iheard that that can help with
your posture. So I've been doingthat. Also I hurt my back. So I
don't know some people are onthe fence of if chiropractors
are good or not. I'm on theother side, I think they're
good. So you can take thatadvice with however you want.
(25:16):
Another thing too, is workingout, when you start going to the
gym. When you start buildingmuscles, your posture also
improves. So, obviously,everyone should be working out.
I mean, it's hard right now,because there's a quarantine.
But if you work out, you'reobviously going to start feeling
(25:39):
better, and you'll communicatebetter. And they really do go
hand in hand. And I mean, Iguess I don't have to tell you
that you should be working outand exercising. That just kind
of goes without saying. But ifyou're trying to improve
yourself overall, then a that'sa big one that can help you feel
better really quickly. I don'tknow if I said earlier, but if I
(26:03):
didn't, I recommend picking up abook on body language. The one I
read was it was body languagefor Dummies. I just came across
it in a bookstore, Mike Oh,yeah. For Dummies book. I like
for dummies books. Makes me feelsmart. Because I could read it
real quick. And I know I'malways been the person. I don't
(26:27):
like reading books. Okay. Sowhen I recommend these books,
just know that I don't likereading books, but I like these
books so much that I'veI devoured them. Okay, so that
is a really good book. I've readit. I've read it a couple times.
It really helped me be aware ofmy body language,
(26:48):
I learned so much more aboutbody language just from that
book. I read another book, too.
I don't remember what it was.
But I thought that the the forbody language for dummies was
was way better. And it is. Letme give a little credit to who
it is written by it's written byElizabeth conky
(27:14):
was written in 2015. And yeah,it's a great book. So I
recommend I recommend readingthat I remember someone will ask
me. Someone asked me, oh, hey,if you've been losing weight,
and like I was like, No, myposture is just better. So
(27:37):
that's one of the benefits ofhaving better body language and
better posture. You You,you will look like he lost 10
pounds. So let's see next week.
We are going to talk about maybemeeting how to meet new people
(28:00):
and also what to talk about whenyou're actually talking to
someone.
It's actually a pretty bigtopic. People are like, Well,
what do I talk about? Well,guess what, there's a lot to
talk about. So and we'll betalking about that next week. So
I just want to say thank you toeveryone for listening this
week. And please subscribe tothe channel and tell your friend
(28:25):
and we will see you next week.
Take care
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!