Page 48 - How To Sell Yourself

Selling Your Likability 47 They are gesture inhibiting
positions.
They are hand-hiders.
They are easy, but they are wrong!
The people looking at the no- no position are made uncomfort- able because the presenter ap- pears unhappy to be in front of a group or a camera.
What’s a person to do?
Once again, use your mirror. Stand erect. Shake out your shoulders. See where your hands fall. As uncomfortable as this po- sition seems to be, it happens to be the perfect and natural start- ing position.
Now notice I said “starting.” After the first gesture, the hands can go anywhere you’re comfort- able as long as that first gesture says “keep gesturing.” Like the smile, the gesture has to be ap- propriate and genuine. If it is, it will help you look like you mean what you say and you’re saying what you mean.
When the CEO says, “The company had a wonderful year,” the word wonderful has to be ac- companied by a physical move- ment. Otherwise, the word might as well have been so-so. Like the smile, the only time the gesture
At ease: The military mistakenly calls this position “at ease.” It looks anything but.
Female fig leaf: Nothing looks more aloof and defensive than your arms folded tightly in front of you.
seems wrong is when it’s not genuine or appropriate.
In conversation most of us are constantly gesturing. How of- ten have you heard, “If I didn’t use my hands I couldn’t talk”?