Non Verbal Communication Skills
Why are they so important?

The way we use our non verbal communication skills will often determine if others find us interesting, our message is believable and whether or not our true meaning is actually received by our audience.

Non verbal communication skills are simply all the other ways we express ourselves other then through the words we use. That is, your facial expression, your gestures the tonality of your voice and the way you move your body.

Have you noticed that sometimes you find it really hard to get involved or interested in what someone else is telling to you.

Yet on the other hand there are some people that engage you with their stories and anecdotes no matter what they are talking about. In fact you often think this person could sell ice to an Eskimo.

Well, often the reason for this is that the person who is unable to inspire you is not using all of the different types of communication skills available to him to tell his tale.

On the other hand the person who does excite you has mastered how to use all of his available tools to tell his story.

To help illustrate this point, try this simple communication skills exercise.

Firstly think of something you really love to do, then

• If you are not already sitting, sit down,
• hunch or drop your shoulders,
• look at the ground and
• in a really flat, mono-toned voice say out loud,

“Wow this is fantastic, I am loving this” with this being whatever it is that you love doing

How convinced are you about you own level of excitement?

Now try it again except this time

• stand up,
• straighten those shoulders and
• while looking slightly up,
• clap your hands together and

say the same again except

This time when you say the words feel as though you are bubbling with excitement and

You just couldn’t hold the words in a moment longer, they just pop out of your mouth.

“Wow this is fantastic, l am loving this”

What about now, do you feel more convinced that you are actually excited? I am guessing once you engaged your non verbal communication skills you felt more excited.

When our non verbal communication skills (i.e. our body language) and the tonality of our voices match the words we are saying then people believe us.

They even begin to get a sense of what we are saying and are able to feel our excitement. By using more descriptive, imaginative words we are able to really make our story really come alive.

If on the other hand our body language and tonality of our voices doesn’t match our words, others either will not tune into what we are saying or will not believe us.

Either way the message is lost, through either a lack of interest or disbelief.

Another classic example of words not matching our tonality or body language is when our children shout at us they are not tired and do not need to go to bed.

However, they are emotional, can hardly keep their eyes open and have dropped the toy they were playing with and not noticed.

Generally speaking unless we have lived in a cave hidden from civilization for most of our lives we already are fantastic at reading the messages behind our own and others body language.

In fact research has shown that the meanings behind our facial expressions are universal. A smile in the western world has the same meaning in the Eastern world and so on.

So I am not going to bore you with how a body looks when its happy or angry and so on. Just watch others and you for a while and it will become obvious that when someone is red in the face and clenching their fist they are angry, or when children are laughing freely and skipping along the path that they are happy.

However it you want a quick refresher on how we use our body language, just watch your kids for a day and see how they are expressing themselves non-verbally.

Even make a game of it. This morning, I had my kids walking around the house showing me how they could act grumpy, happy, sad, surprise and tired. I also had them guessing what mood I was in by watching my non verbal communication skills at work.

Instead watch out for my articles on how to use body language to fast track the art of developing rapport.

And how to use your own body language to heighten the excitement your kids feel or how to use it to help calm down our kids when they are over stimulated.

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