Page 89 - ConvinceThemFlip

work your ABC: attitude, body language, and congruence
and musicians. (You’ll learn how to do this on pages
281–282.)
Second, we ran a tonality check. I chose four attitudes:
angry, surprised, worried, and gentle. Then I showed him
a list of four phrases: “We have to take action,” “I’m hun-
gry,” “What happened at last week’s briefing?” and, as the
fourth, the day’s date, “August 14.”
I asked him to pick an attitude and say one of the
phrases. My job was to figure out which attitude he had
chosen. At first I was way off. When he thought he was
sounding surprised, I thought he was angry; when he
thought he was gentle, I thought he was worried.
Next we reversed the
roles. Interestingly enough,
he was virtually spot on at
picking up on me. He took
the lead one more time,
and I asked him to pause
and close his eyes for a
moment, pay attention to
his breathing, and remember a time when he actually
felt the feeling he was trying to express, and then say the
phrase. Bingo! It worked. Terry’s business personality had
been getting in the way of his emotions. The more Terry
calmed his breathing, the more his voice began to reflect
his true feelings.
If your words and
body language aren’t
saying the same thing,
people get confused
and put off.
81