[SPECIAL EPISODE] – Nonverbal Intelligence 101- What Every Lawyer Needs to Know about Nonverbal Communication

Ever wonder what you’re REALLY communicating in the courtroom?

Your posture.

Your tone.

Your presence.

It ALL lands with the jury LONG before your words do.

This week, I’m talking about something I call Nonverbal Intelligence and WHY it’s one of the most overlooked (and powerful) tools in your trial arsenal.

Here’s what we get into:

👉🏽WHAT you’re unconsciously broadcasting in court

👉🏽HOW to actually see what you're doing (and shift it)

👉🏽WHY awareness is the first step to showing up like a damn leader

You don’t have to be loud to lead…

But you do have to be intentional.

Tune in NOW! 🎧

Love,
Sari 💖

➡️Listen on Spotify

➡️Listen on Apple

“Most trial lawyers think if they just get the words right, they’ll win. But your nonverbals are saying more than your opening ever could. The jury is watching how you walk, how you breathe, how you hold space and if you’re not aware of what you’re communicating, you’re not in control of your message.”

sari de la motte

Transcription

Sari: All right. We are talking about nonverbal intelligence. What every lawyer needs to know about nonverbal intelligence is what we're covering today. We're talking about how to increase your nonverbal intelligence. Let's talk about what I mean by that. Last month, of course, you were increasing your nonverbal intelligence, but I'll show you what I mean here in just a minute.

Here's how we define nonverbal intelligence at H2H. It's really composed of three parts. You have to be aware, adaptable, and authentic. Awareness. What do I mean by that? Really, there's four pieces of the awareness. The first piece, which is what we're going to focus on today, is how aware are you of yourself. Do what you're communicating nonverbally? I find that most people have no idea what they're communicating nonverbally.

In fact, this is why we assign all of the video assignments in the Facebook group is, "Yes, we want to get to know you. Yes, we want to form the group." The group will only form if we're interacting with each other, which is why that Facebook group, even though it's not a major part of the membership, it's a major part of our group development, and that's why I want you in there if at all possible but it also gives you access to your own nonverbals.

Most of you have never seen yourself on camera. Most of you avoid yourself on camera. What I want you to do, if you talk to some of the founders who've been here nearly a year, by the way, founders, we have a gift coming to you this summer for being in it for a year. For the founders, many of them were like, "What? I need to go on video." I bet you anything, they'll tell you today that it's so much easier to upload a video because they're used to now seeing themselves on video.

People ask me, "How have you become one of the top speakers in the legal field in the United States?" I say, "Because I watch everything that I do." Not anymore, when I first started. I don't do it as much now, but I still do it now, but not as much. When I first started, I watched every last thing. I had Kevin following [chuckles] me around with a video camera wherever we went.

It was videotaped. I would go back, and I would watch it, and I'd take notes so that I knew exactly how I was communicating non-verbally. Because if you don't know how you're communicating non-verbally, you cannot fix it. You cannot adapt. You cannot grow yourself in non-verbal awareness. You've got to know what you're doing in order to play with it and make it bigger and more impactful.

Awareness of your own non-verbal communication is the first step in non-verbal intelligence. The second step in the first step, [chuckles] which is awareness, is once you're aware of what you're communicating non-verbally, you also have to be aware of what other people are communicating non-verbally. We skipped a step by starting with that last month. Last month we talked all about how, and I'll continue to reference that today, how to read other people.

Again, not in, "They're scratching their left earlobe, and that means they're going to vote for me or not." Not that observing. The observing of, "Are they an issue or are they in the relationship bucket?" Once you understand what they're communicating and what you're communicating, you can now do the second piece, which is adapting, which we'll get to in just a minute.

The third piece that you need to be incredibly aware of, and this is a huge part of this program, and I think it's one of the only programs that gives such emphasis to this piece, which is, you have to be aware of what groups are doing. Because groups are a completely different thing than individual communication. I say that with a caveat in that, group is not a group until and unless you form them.

I'm considering doing, because you're like, "Sorry, you've been in here for almost a year. When are you going to do this?" [chuckles] Y'all been begging for the group dynamics. I'm thinking either do it-- Well, I can't do Q3 because I'll be out Q3 for my surgery. Maybe Q4 or Q1 of 2022. A group is not a group until and unless you form them. Once they are formed, once you have a group, then they take on their own behavior and you have to be aware of what they're doing non-verbally. Because when you're aware of what the group is doing non-verbally, now that gives you all kinds of permission to do lots of really cool things.

For example, when you have a rogue juror and you're not sure who's coming in, if that person is safe, and you can decide to leave this juror on, you might think, "I would never decide to do that." Well, then you're not non-verbal intelligent. What would allow you to leave that "bad juror" on? Understanding what the group is communicating to you non-verbally. If the group communicates to you that person is an outlier, then you are safe leaving them on because they don't have any power. This is, of course, not true where you need a unanimous verdict. In the cases where you don't need a unanimous verdict, this comes in really handy.

Let's talk about the juror that is talking too much. You do not have permission to shut that juror down if the group is not formed. Why? Because when a group is unformed, whatever you do or however you treat individual jurors, every juror on that panel thinks that is how I'm going to be treated if I do the same thing. For example, if I start speaking up, I will also be shut down, so therefore I'm not going to speak up.

Now, when the group is formed and you have a juror that is speaking up too much, and the group is getting annoyed. In fact, they pass through three stages. We teach the three stages when you come out to the Voir Dire Studio. In fact, it's been fascinating for those of you who come out and those of you in the back room, and you watch that group go through these three stages from getting a little shocked, to starting to get irritated, to annoyed.

As that group goes through those three stages, in fact, you don't want to get them to the third stage because now they're not annoyed with the talker, they're annoyed with you. You now have permission to shut down that one juror who's speaking too much. Why? Because now the group sees them as an other or sees that behavior as not what this group is okay with. Do you see all the benefits of understanding how a group communicates non-verbally?

That's why you put that as the third level because, first, you got to know what you're communicating non-verbally, and then what other people are communicating non-verbally. Then, what is the group doing non-verbally? Finally, what's happening in the room? This is that level three listening. Those of you who are crewbies, go back and look at Q4 training from last year.

We did three trainings and one was, I think, powerful questions. The second one was levels of listening. That's what I'm referencing. That would be November's training, and then resonant conversations. We talk about the three levels of listening. Level one is all listening to yourself and being in your head. This is where most of you tend to reside in [chuckles] Voir Dire. The juror starts talking like, "It's a good question for me. It's a bad question for me." We're in our head. "What am I covering next? Where am I going?"

There's nothing wrong with level one unless you stay in level one. That's what I want you to get from level one listening. Level two listening is the listening that you've all been trained to do. Listen to someone else, fully, completely. All of the things we've heard about listening, that really falls into the level two bucket. The level three bucket, that is the listening of what's happening in the room. What's my intuition pinging me about? What wants to be said? What wants to be asked? How's the group feeling right now?

That's all happening in the level three. When you get to that level where you know what you're communicating non-verbally, you know what individual jurors are communicating, you know what the group is doing, and you have a sense of the level three, you will be unstoppable. Today we are going to be focusing on the part of ourselves, and that's the awareness that we're going to be increasing.

If you want to increase awareness of others, go back and watch last month if you missed it. All right. We're also going to look at how to adapt your communication. Once you're aware of what you're communicating non-verbally, then you have to be able to adapt. You have to do different things. This is why you need to attend Kevin's mindset session, which I believe is tomorrow. Kristy, remind me if it's tomorrow or Thursday. It's in the calendar. [crosstalk]

Kristy: That's right. Tomorrow.

Sari: Tomorrow. Thank you. Kevin is going to be talking to those of you who are like, "All right. I get all this. I think I should try all this, but I'm scared. I'm scared to act outside of my nonverbal norms." This is where people tend to quit this work, they're like, "I get what Sari's saying. I know what she's asking me to do, but I can't do it. It's too unnerving. It's too weird. It's too not me." Go to Kevin's mindset coaching, because that is all in your head.

Listen, anytime we do something new, it's not going to feel authentic, which is the third piece. Just because you're uncomfortable or something's new, doesn't make it inauthentic. What's inauthentic? I think I said this last month, when you tell the jury something that's not true. "Well, I grew up on a farm," because you're in a rural county and you didn't grow up on a farm. That's inauthentic, right? Or, you love guns because you're in conservative. You don't love guns.

None of that shit is what we want to be pulling. Using your arms a different way, that's not inauthentic. That's just weird at first. You got to push through the weirdness to get nonverbally intelligent. Nonverbal intelligence is that you are aware of those four things. You can adapt based on what's happening. We're going to show you that today, and last month was part of that, and you remain authentic to yourself.

You're not doing anything gimmicky. You're actually communicating and adapting so that good communication can happen. That's what makes it not inauthentic. We're showing you how to do these things because the ultimate goal is to make sure that good communication happens. That's what you have to want in your heart of hearts, then all of this becomes authentic, all of it.

There are four areas, and we're talking about nonverbal intelligence. There's, what do you do with your eyes, what do you do with the body, what do you do with the voice, and how do you breathe. Last time, what we talked about is, where are people looking? Because we're talking about other people. What are people doing and what do you do with that? If you notice someone looking a certain way, what does that mean?

If you notice someone doing a certain thing, what does that mean? We talked about, how do people sound? What is their voice telling you? We talked about how are people breathing, and what that tells you. Again, that was in last month's training. If you're interested in that, which you should be, it's very interesting, go and watch last month's training. I think that's one of the greatest parts of whenever you join this program, you have access to all of the content that ever was. You can go back and do all of that whenever you like.

Today we're going to change the conversation. We're going to talk about where should you look when it comes to eye contact? What should you be doing? How should you sound, and how should you be breathing? All right. That's what we're going to focus on today. Let's start with eye contact. We have all kinds of stuff around eye contact. I'm sure that you have all been told a lot of different things about eye contact.

I know you have because I have to undo all of this [chuckles] when you come out to work with me. Primarily what you've been told when it comes to eye contact is to make it all the time. In fact, when I did the Don't Shoot the Messenger training, when I was doing corporate training for years and years, and the Don't Shoot the Messenger-- I can do it for you guys. I think you would enjoy it. It's all about how do you deliver negative information.

Anyone here have to deliver negative information, either to your clients or your staff, even in trial? Let's make a note. I'll do the Don't Shoot the Messenger training for you, along with the Cats and Dogs training. You'll love that one too. Anyway, so the Don't Shoot the Messenger training is all about how you have the bad news on a visual and you present it that way to the person. Okay? That takes the heat off. There's all sorts of reasons for why that works and how that works.

I always remember sometimes people would say, "Well, you have to look at people when you deliver information." I said, "Let me ask you this. Are you telling me that when you are talking to someone that you look at them the entire time and you never, ever look away, like ever? Because if so, that's creepy." No one does that. There's times where we look and we don't look. This training is all about when you look and when you don't, the Don't Shoot the Messenger training.

What I want you to understand today when it comes to eye contact, is that eye contact is not the holy grail of communication. Eye contact does not equal respect, unless you are talking to your spouse, then you better look at them because they'll get mad. I won't tell you how I know this. What it means and what it represents is engagement. That's what I want you to remember when it comes to eye contact. Eye contact equals engagement, which means, for you today, is that, where do you want jurors engaged? That's going to tell you what eye contact you're going to use.

All right. Let's talk about body language. We're talking about what to do with your body. If you were here last month, you remember that we talked about, if you take that total stance of a drill sergeant or you take the stance of a valley girl. We have what we call Authoritative and Approachable Non-verbals on Steroids. Of course, we never would do them to those extremes. For example, your authoritative body language is where your weight is evenly distributed. You don't have anything going off to one side or the other. Evenly distributed. If you can see my toes, they'd be pointing forward. The head is still and the palms face down. This is your authoritative body language.

Now, we talked about last month, when you see this body language on someone else, you can almost always assume that they are coming or in the issue bucket. On the flip side, we have the approachable body language. Now that weight is uneven. The toes are not pointing forward. The head bobs up and down or tilts to the side, and the palms face up. Now, when you have this body language, you're noticing it in someone else, for example, this is telling you they're most likely in the relationship bucket.

That's what we talked about last month. The question now becomes, what does it mean for you? What kind of body language should you be using? You need to get pass these. Here is the general rule of thumb. If you are sending information, you need to use authoritative. If you are seeking information, use approachable. That's the general rule of thumb. For example, in Voir Dire, what are you doing in Voir Dire? Yell it out.

Paul: Seeking.

Sari: Mostly seeking, yes. What are you doing in opening? It's the other one. Sending. [laughs]

Samantha: Teaching.

Sari: Teaching. Sending. Yes. The question then becomes, am I totally authoritative in opening? Am I totally approachable in Voir Dire? The answer is no. Because that would be boring and weird. Let's talk about each individually. For Voir Dire, when you learn the issue-oriented Voir Dire, what you'll recognize is that we have what we call context statements. Context statements are a little statement that we say before a line of questioning to give the juror some context.

The reason we do that is because nobody likes answering questions if they don't know why you're asking. Just think about this. If your paralegal pops their head in the room and says, "Hey, what are you doing Wednesday afternoon?" [chuckles] Your first question is, "Why?" Before you answer. Same for jurors. If I want to ask them about car crashes, I might say, "In this case," or, This case involves a car crash."

Now, notice, palms are down, weight is even. "In this case," or, "This case involves a car crash," I'm sending information. Notice how my body language is going to change when I want to seek information out. Watch. Watch, watch, watch, watch, watch. "Who here has ever been in a car crash? Yes. Juror number seven. Can I hear from you? Tell me about it." Notice how weight went over, arm went up.

Now, people ask me, "Why do I have to have my hand up for the jury?" Because [chuckles] they don't know what they're supposed to do. Are they supposed to yell out answers? What are they supposed to do? This just cues them. This is how I want you to talk to me, at least at the beginning. As you go on, you may be able to drop this and just start having a conversation.

All right. Let me show you that again. Authoritative. In this case someone was injured. Who here have ever been injured in a car crash? Ways go over to the side. Guess what? We're going to go in breakout rooms now, and you're going to try that very transition. Let me have you play with your partner. We're going to give you about five minutes this time, and each one of you is going to try something just like that in Voir Dire. When we come back, I'll talk about what we're doing in opening. Give a context statement. I don't care what it is.

In this case, it involves a car crash. This case involves a hospital. In this case, someone was injured. It doesn't matter what the content is. What you're going to practice is having weight over both feet, palms down. Then, when you go to the question, I want to actually see you move, have the hand up. "Who here's ever been in a car crash? Who here's ever been in a hospital?" Whatever your content is, and then practice bringing that hand from here, palm up. "Yes, you're number seven. Could you tell me about that?" You're going to practice going from authoritative to approachable. Accept your breakout rooms. We'll bring you back in five minutes.

Kristy: Kevin, do not accept, and Sidia also do not accept. Oh, Samantha-- Actually, Kevin, I'm going to put you in a room with Samantha.

Kevin: Okay.

Sari: Accept your room.

Kristy: Wait. Sorry, move to--

Sari: I'll be right back.

Kristy: Okay. Paul, if you want to turn off your camera. Thank you. [silence] I'm recording. [silence]

Sari: Hello. Hello. How was that, ladies, back there?

Samantha: Yes.

Sari: Yes? Make sense?

Sidia: It was fun, actually. Yes. [chuckles]

Sari: Yay. Everyone should be coming back in just a minute.

Kristy: 20 seconds left.

Sari: Thank you. Yes, I don't see that on my end. Oh, if I click on it, I can see it. [chuckles] That helps. Welcome back. We've got about five seconds, and then we'll be back. Okay. Comments on that? Questions about that. Some of this should feel really simple. What I will say is it's simple, but it's not easy to get this down. What is it like? I'm particularly concerned about Ann, because she was in the room with Kent.

Ann: [chuckles] I know. I'm having fun.

Sari: We're so hard on Kent. I don't even see him. Where is he? He left. He's like why? Oh, there he is. Okay. [chuckles]

Kent: Sorry. I got a client that came two hours early, so I got to step out for a minute.

Sari: [laughs] Okay. No worries. Sure. Okay.

Kent: [chuckles]

Sari: What's it like? What was that like? Who wants to comment? Hard, easy, fun, I hate it, I hate you? What?

Paul: I didn't think it was too hard for my first time. I have a feeling that if I practiced it for just a few minutes, I'd pretty well have it down.

Sari: Yes, and I think this is a great point, is that people hear the word practice, and then they're like, "I'm out." That's inauthentic. If I have to practice this, then it's inauthentic. Unless it comes naturally, then it's inauthentic. I really want to challenge you on that because any new skill is going to take some practice. By the way, all of you have been authoritative or approachable in your life today.

Today, you could think of a time where you were a little bit more approachable, maybe to your child, or maybe the opposite, get your shoes on now. Whatever it might be, but we are constantly authoritative and approachable. I don't want you to take these skills and put them on a shelf, like, "These are the Sari skills." No, these are your life skills. We're just showing you how to put them in context. Again, the timing piece, when is the time for each? In general, it's sending, authoritative, seeking, approachable.

Now, this is all to cue our audience on what is appropriate now. When we use authoritative non-verbals, we're going to talk about authoritative voice pattern in just a minute, we cue the jury on this is one-way communication coming to you, and it's important. An opening. Our opening rule, authoritative. Employers must provide safety equipment to their employees. If they do not, and an employee is harmed, they're responsible.

We're sending this one-way communication. Same on approachable. When we use an approachable voice and approachable non-verbals, we cue the jury, now I want to hear from you. This is what increases our leadership because we don't have to say, "Now I want to hear from you." We're so aligned in our non-verbals that our leadership just shines through.

This is what we're taught. We're taught presence and charisma is that you don't have to constantly be narrating what you're doing or what you want other people to do because you're so non-verbally intelligent, people get it. That's what we're talking about here and the importance of non-verbal intelligence.

When it comes to opening, if you were to do your entire opening with the authoritative non-verbals, that would be boring. Of course, we're going to have approachable in there. Even though you're not wanting to hear from the jury or you can't hear from the jury in opening, you're going to want to use a variety of non-verbals, for example, in storytelling. Authoritative and approachable go out the door with storytelling. We don't even use them in storytelling. Why? Because we're becoming characters, we're doing fun things, we're using different voices, we're using props. We're not thinking about authoritative and approachable.

In fact, I think that's what I'm going to do the Facebook Live on Thursday about. Make sure you come to From Hostage to Hero, the big group, on Thursday. I'm going to talk about the difference between storytelling and presenting. These are two totally different non-verbal things. Places you can put approachable in for your opening, for example, is transitional statements sometimes, although I just did a podcast on how you don't want to use transitional statements.

There are some times where you use them. For example, let me tell you the story in this case, right? Notice, palms are up, head is tilted, voice is approachable, which we'll talk about in just a minute, right? You don't want to say, "Now, the story in this case." Like, "You will listen to the story, damn it." No, we want approachable. "Now let me tell you the story of this case. Come along." Or, "To do your jobs in this case, you're going to have to learn about." I'm inviting them to learn. Even though I'm not going to hear from them, that might be a place where I might use approachable, when I ask questions.

One of the things we wondered about before we took this case to trial is, can you be damaged if the car itself isn't very damaged? Here's what we found. Boom, now I go to authoritative when I give the answer. Questions, inviting them to learn, inviting them into a story, storytelling, which is his own set of non-verbals, all of those places are places that you can put in some approachable into your opening.

Let's talk about gesturing before we move on from body, because gesturing is a big deal. I'll tell you why. We gesture, why? Does anyone know why we gesture? We gesture to breathe. Sam's been following me for a while. You might think, "What the heck is Sam talking about?" We gesture to pause and we pause so we can breathe. Now, what do by we gesture to pause? It's really awkward to pause without any gestures, like right now. This is weird. It's not weird to gesture this long when you have gestures, or pause this long when you have gestures. It just changes everything.

Here's what I want you to remember about gesturing. Let me come back. First of all, I want you to remember to do it. The second thing, here's the rule for nonverbal intelligence. When gesturing, pause the hand. When you begin talking again, you can move the gesture. Whether you're doing the hands up or down, doesn't matter here, the rule for gesturing is that you freeze it during the pause. You don't move it again until you start talking again.

We're so used to being and playing small. The courtroom leadership in January, that training talks about bigness. Leaders take up space, my friends. They take up space. We always want to be here. To be out here feels awkward. To keep it out here, I love this, yes, to keep it out here is awkward. This is where mastering is, that where you are in front of your group-- Think about, the size of your gesture should be about the size of your group.

If I have a jury in front of me, in fact, we're probably going to set up some jury chairs so I can be gesturing to them and showing you guys. My jury, if I was looking and I had my two rows of six, I would have to be at least here for my gestures to be big enough to encapsulate the whole jury. This isn't going to do it. This is me talking to one, maybe two jurors. These guys on the outside and gals on the outside do not feel like they're part of this whole thing. I've got to go be here. Leaders take up space. Even though it feels awkward, I'm going to continue to push, have you push through the awkwardness? Because once you get here, this is where mastery is. It's to keep the gestures out. We talk about commanding a room. This is what we're talking about, commanding a room, is that you are in your high authoritative space. When we send the jury back into the verdict room, I'm going to put that on them with my gestures.

I'm going to say, "This group has the ability now to take this wrong and make it right." I'm going to put that on the jury. That's going to take big gestures. I can't do that from here. This group has the ability to, "This doesn't work. You got to go get into the space." That's what we're here to do is to be leaders, to be big. It's not putting on someone, it's leadership. It's leadership. This turned out to be more of a leadership training than anything.

In the last couple minutes we have, we still have two things to talk about but they're smaller things. Voice pattern. When we're talking about voice pattern, we go back to authoritative and approachable. Authoritative voice, because that head is still, the voice is flat and curls down at the ends of statements. You want to match your authoritative persona with an authoritative voice.

In this case, someone was injured. Sending information, curl the voice down at the end of the statement. It's not that the voice is down the whole time. Let's say you've got apples, that's up, bananas, that's up, and oranges, that's down. It's at the end of the statement. That's what you want to be clear on when you have your authoritative voice.

Here's what's important. We talk a lot about using expert language in the nonverbal classes or the nonverbal hot seats. When you say, "Here's why this is important," you're going to curl that voice down. Why? Because I'm sending information. I really want the jurors to get this. I'm not going to go, "Here's why this is important." Because then it sounds like, "Well, maybe it is, maybe it's not."

Here's why this is important. You must do the poke, stick, or whatever it was [chuckles] in Ken's case below here to avoid internally bleeding. Because if you do not, the person could bleed to death, which is what happened in this case. Notice how my voice curls down. It sounds important, it sounds definitive. Again, here's our guy to remind us, James Bond. [chuckles] I had to throw in his picture in the bathing suit.

All right. James Bond, that's your reminder. Proto voice. All right. Because of the bobbing head, now we have a more rhythmic voice that curls up. We want this voice pattern. Why? When we're seeking information. What we don't want to use is the authoritative voice pattern. You do understand that the dishwasher does not unload itself. Right, Kevin? No, Kevin always unloads the dishwasher. Notice how that's not a question.

You ask that question that way of the jury, and they're going to be like, "Mm-hmm." They're just going to agree with you because you sound scary. No, you want to ask questions in a questioning voice. "All right. Who here has ever visited a hospital or had to go with a loved one?" Notice my voice changes. I want to have that approachable sounding voice, and the way to remember that voice is the Mr. Rogers voice. We have to have both voices in our lexicon. If I am on the phone, I am more in tune with the person's voice that way. Same thing there. I can tell where the person is, issue versus relationship, but I myself can also be more issue or relationship-oriented depending on what voice pattern I use.

Now, that brings us to the timing here, which is the same, of course. The authoritative, you want to use the authoritative voice when you're sending, and the approachable voice when you're seeking. What I want you to remember here is, when we go to the breathing piece is that voice pattern plus breathing equals tone. If I'm using the authoritative voice pattern and I'm not breathing, I'm holding the breath up here, now I sound angry and impatient. If I'm using the approachable voice pattern and I'm having this high breathing, now I sound ditzy and stupid.

We want to make sure we're breathing, because when you're breathing, now I'm using the authoritative voice. You can hear it now as I'm doing it. It just sounds definitive, fair, important. If I'm using the approachable voice pattern with good breathing, now I just sound open and friendly. That's what we want. Now, here is the secret. Here's the secret before we go into our review, is that everything that we're doing, everything that I've taught you today, everything I will ever teach you is for one reason and one reason only.

Jurors or your audience of any kind, but we're talking about jurors, will continue to breathe. I use the correct eye contact because if I don't, jurors will stop breathing. They'll freak out. "Am I supposed to look at her? Am I supposed to look at the--" I use the appropriate body language and voice pattern because if I don't, jurors will stop breathing. "Am I supposed to call my answers? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to raise my hand?"

I want all my audiences, but I want jurors to be breathing. Why? Remember last month, what is the most reliable indicator of permission? If someone is breathing. If they're breathing, they're receptive. If they're not breathing, they cannot be receptive to you or anything else. I want my audience breathing. I will be non-verbally intelligent so that I facilitate breathing always. What's the number one way to facilitate breathing? Number one way, everybody.

Samantha: You need to be breathing.

Sari: [laughs] You need to be breathing. Out of all the things you've learned today, number one, make sure that you've got your breathing under control. We can tell when people stop breathing, so we've got to be breathing well. Why? It affects our voice tone, it affects how much information we're pulling down. It affects how we move, how we gesture, everything. Breathing is the be all end all. Not only for us, everything we do facilitates that someone else is breathing.

Okay. Let's review what we've learned today. You guys have been great. Hope you have had some fun here. Whatever you want people to engage with, look there. If you want them to engage with you, you're making eye contact. If you want them to engage the visual, you're looking at the visual. If you're storytelling, you're engaging with the story. Come Thursday, we'll talk more about that in the From Hostage to Hero group.

Authoritative equals sending, approachable equals seeking. If you remember that rule, you're good to go, whether it's voice pattern or body language. Freeze your hand in the air during the pause. That's really all you need to know about gesturing. Up for approachable, down for authoritative, fine. When you're not speaking, they're frozen. Out in the air, not dropping. Breathe to make sure your voice tone is perceived correctly. If you're not breathing, you're going to sound angry and impatient or ditzy and stupid. We want to make sure we're more fair and friendly versus those things. All right. Bye-bye everybody.

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