Act how You Want to Feel and How You Want Other To Feel About You
How you turn, walk and gesture affects your emotions and other around you – and how they feel about you. We are startled, for example, then wary when we see a quick, unexpected movement especially when caught out of the corner of the eye. Conversely we are more deeply drawn to a singer who sweeps her arms above her head as she belts out that exultant line in her song.
Sometimes we even mimic an entertainer’s gestures. Whatever emotion they act out on stage, we feel and sometimes act out. That’s our mirror neurons at work, catching the emotions in the people around us just like we catch a cold.
Motion Intensify Our Emotions
The extra magic is that motions – yours and others – make emotions catch faster and more intensely. When you smile I instinctively smile back – even if you are on TV and I am sitting on the couch – and we both feel better.
Now there are fresh insights into how gestures attract or repel others. Winning Body Language author, Mark Bowden studied the work of two remarkable men. One was a mime, physiotherapist and acting guru, Jacques Lecoq. 
The other was an Iraeli spy, nuclear physicist and Judo expert Moshé Feldenkrais whose insights into how our movements affect our thoughts and emotions was revelatory for me.
Gesture to Get Along
1. To appear honest, factual and sincere hold your hands at the height of your navel. That’s what Bowden dubs the TruthPlane.
2. To avoid appear disinteresting and depressing do not gesture below your waist. That’s the GrotesquePlane.
3. To convey excitement or that you are offering a big idea, bring your gestures up to chest level. That’s the PassionPlane.
Connect With Your Gestures and Your Voice
Here’s a way to remember what to practice to look comfortable with yourself and to connect with others:
1. Lower
2. Slower
3. Less
These three tips refer to the level of your gestures and their speed and amount of motion. Alternatively, for example, quick, jabbing finger gestures pushes us away as you can see in this video.
Think of your voice in the same way. Lower your voice; do not race through your sentences and say less to invite other into the conversation.
Get in Body Sync With Others to Get Along Better
Whether you are around loved ones, strangers or colleagues, to connect better literally get in body sync with them. That means your heart rate, skin temperature and other vital signs become more alike. The more alike “we” are the more we like each other. From five researchers I follow here are some ways to get in body sync:
Get in motion together, the more similar the motion, the more likely it will be that you like each other.
• For example, eating across the table from each other, while you wouldn’t want to replicate another’s exact movements you will instinctively become more alike in the speed and amount of movement of your body and your hands as you eat.
• Always take the opportunity to shake hands. You are in exact sync with each other.
• When you walk together you are more likely to match each other’s pace and arm movement and thus strongly mirror each other. At a client company I suggested that teams walk together across the open quad to the other building where they would meet, and talk about the agenda along the way.
They noticed that they often accomplished more when walking to and from the meeting than while sitting still around the conference table. Sometimes, now team leaders call for Walking Meetings in which they “meet” by walking, grouped together, on the sidewalk around the quad. I enjoy walkabouts with friends up and down the steps here in Sausalito and along the water front. Sometimes this is the way I meet with clients.
By the way I disagree with the first phrase in the sub-title of Bowden’s book yet found many helpful parts: Control the Conversation, Command Attention, and Convey the Right Message Without Saying a Word.
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Accomplishing greater things with others than one can alone
Kare speaks, writes and consults on connective communication and collaboration – vital traits in this bottom-up, complex, connected world. This Emmy-winning former NBC and Wall Street Journal reporter was the Obama campaign's Team Collaboration Director. She’s the author of Walk Your Talk and Resolving Conflict Sooner
• Voted one of Top 5 speakers on Communication: http://speaking.com/top5/
• Be quotable, connect + forge profitable partnerships - phone coaching with Kare http://www.sayitbetter.com/coaching.php - or bring her to speak http://www.sayitbetter.com/meeting_planners.php
http://twitter.com/KareAnderson + http://howwepartner.com/
• Two of her blogs are featured on http://collaboration.alltop.com/ and another, Say it Better, on http://lifehacks.alltop.com/
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