“You’ll be fine,” she said as I practically sobbed at the news. “No I won’t!” I wailed. How would I be fine? Until Val came along, I had been alone and doing everything myself. She had come into my life and made work fun again. She was my confidante, my go-to person, and the voice I heard on the phone every morning. Nonverbal Solutions wouldn’t be where it was today without her.

Eventually I decided to get my big girl pants on, and get to finding a business and marketing manager. So I did what most businesses do these days and put an ad on craigslist. I figured with the terrible job market, I’d have a ton of qualified candidates knocking on my door.

Boy, was I wrong.

So if you’re looking for a job, a few do’s and don’ts from a prospective employer:

Don’t ignore the requests in the ad. Over 75% of people either didn’t send a cover letter (something I requested) or if they did- didn’t answer the questions asked in the ad. Those resumes didn’t even get a second look. Your resume is a marketing tool. It must sell you in three seconds or less. If you can’t be bothered to follow instructions, then don’t bother applying at all.

Do your research. The job applicants I considered went to my website, referenced it in the cover letter, gave specific ideas about how they would be a good fit, and gave an example of something creative they would try if they got the job. Tailoring your cover letter to the organization you are applying for goes a long way, especially with entrepreneurs like myself.

Don’t mismatch with your interviewer. Interviewers fall into one of two camps: people-oriented or issue-oriented. People-oriented interviewers will smile, engage in small talk, and use approachable body language. They are interested in hiring someone who works well with others. Issue-oriented interviewers won’t smile much, talk less, and use credible body language. Their primary concern is if you possess the skills for the job. Too much small talk and smiling signals the issue-oriented interviewer that you aren’t credible. Not smiling enough and no small talk signals the people-oriented interviewer that you aren’t approachable. Match your style to the interviewer’s because research shows that people hire people who are like them.

Do ask questions that will allow you to position yourself as the ideal candidate. An interview is when we are peppered with questions and evaluated on our answers, right? Wrong. Savvy job-seekers will also ask questions of their interviewers. And not the typical questions -questions which should be strenuously avoided, by the way- such as, “do I have to work on weekends?” or, “what kind of benefits are included?” No, smart job-seekers will pose questions that allow them to position themselves as the ideal candidate. Asking, “What would be your ideal match for this position?” gives you insight into what the interviewer is looking for and allows you to sell yourself as the best fit for the position.

Don’t assume the interview has anything to do with your skills and talents. If someone has taken the time to interview you, they’ve already determined you are qualified for the position. An interview isn’t the start of the hiring process, it’s the end. The resume, your references, the initial phone screen, all of that has been conducted and now you are sitting in front of the interviewer and they are wondering whether to take a chance on you. At that moment, degrees, experience, references, etc., don’t matter. What matters is how you conduct yourself. What you wear, how much eye contact you make, how you sit, how you breathe, what your voice sounds like when you talk- these are the factors that will determine the outcome of an interview. Within the first 30 seconds an interviewer will have an impression of who you are. Within 20 minutes they will have already made up their mind. In an interview, you only get one shot, and it has nothing to do with how qualified you are, and everything to do with how well you communicate. Since nonverbal communication translates the majority of any message, it is absolutely essential that job seekers understand what they are communicating nonverbally.

I finally found a business and marketing manager. He included a cover letter with his resume that answered every question posed in the ad. He made references to my website and offered creative marketing ideas. He sailed through the phone screening by answering the questions I had about his resume in a calm, credible voice, yet he switched to approachable when asking me questions. Once in the interview he matched his style to mine, so I immediately felt at ease. He asked good questions and then positioned himself as the solution, for example, asking me what my weakness was (procrastination) and then stating how his style would assist me reach my goals (creating deadlines together and mapping out a plan of action.)

He’s been with me for a few weeks and is already reaching out to local and national media, has a social media plan in the works, has reorganized my office, and if I think of something, he’s already done it. Yesterday.

So either he is going to murder me while I sleep -because he’s too good to be true- or he really is the perfect employee. The suspense is killing me. But I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Stay tuned for my e-book: “Hired! 21 Nonverbal Secrets for Job-Winning Interviews” out in the next few months.

Big mistake.

She barely made eye contact, and, when I asked if I could walk with her on the break, she was fairly unsuccessful at concealing her eye roll.

Am I that annoying? I wondered. Did I offend her somehow? I couldn’t figure it out. Until I got home and emailed my friend Rachel to tell her about my day, and, being the genius that she is (or perhaps I’m just dense) she said, “Perhaps you were too direct.”

Of course. Too direct! Sometimes I wonder why I even get paid to teach people this stuff. I had ignored the cardinal rule of attracting a cat- thou must be indirect.

Our Cats and Dogs workshop is based on the analogy of household pets. Dog behavior is highly accommodating, whereas cat behavior is….not. Dogs come when they’re called. Cats….well, unless you sound like a can opener, the cat ain’t coming. And lest anyone accuse me of pigeonholing people: no one IS cat or dog. It depends on the situation, who we’re with, what we’re trying to accomplish, or all of the above. But we all have a resting place, a group of behaviors that feel most natural to us.

Dogs operate from a relationship paradigm. If you want to have a relationship with someone who operates from their dog, just be nice. Cats operate from an issue paradigm, and are not attracted by “nice” people. They like to be intrigued or teased. Think of a real cat. It is only interested in something that’s hard to get- a bouncing ball on the end of the rope, or the catnip on top of the fridge. A cat is attracted to the challenge, not the item itself.

I had been too direct. So the next morning I went in and ignored the hell out of her. I sat at a different table. I never made eye contact. I wasn’t rude, I just didn’t seek her out. On the morning break as we walked in groups, she and her walking partner approached, and as we passed she waved. Progress. By the end of the afternoon she approached me, sat down and said, “So. How ARE you?”

I had to laugh as I emailed Rachel that night to report back that she had been right. I often tell the participants of our workshops to give themselves grace as they learn these skills. Now I had to give myself grace. The quest for nonverbal intelligence is never over, we have to work at it every day.

Even us “experts.”

Receiving the news, my first thought was: my dad doesn’t have strokes. This is the same man who, after watching me complete a marathon, said, “that doesn’t look so hard” and started training at the age of 65, having never run before. He went on to complete not one, but three marathons. He is always working on something -installing new flooring in his living room, re-tiling the fireplace, fixing the roof- this wasn’t a man who had health problems, much less strokes.

Except that he did. And so I cancelled a keynote, immediately got on a plane and flew to his bedside.

My dad, -my superman, really- was now lying in a hospital bed, his face contorted and paralyzed, his speech and motor skills impaired. As I watched him struggle to put on his eyeglasses, or speak, or do any of the things that a few days before had come so naturally, I felt incredibly helpless. My sister and I took turns crying in the bathroom so he wouldn’t see our grief.

Because there isn’t a lot to do while sitting in a hospital room, I watched the nurses interact with my dad. Most were terrific, a few were ok, and luckily we didn’t have any who were horrible. The best nurses, though, were those who were able to blend their position and their person.

We all want nurses who know what they’re doing, since they administer the majority of care to our loved ones. And yet we also want them to be warm and encouraging. When you’re in a hospital you are incredibly vulnerable- nurses who maintain the dignity of the patient and treat them like people instead of invalids make all the difference in the world. Our trust in the nurses comes from their ability to demonstrate their competence, or position, while at the same time demonstrating their concern, or person.

This balance of position and person is just as important to all of us as it is to those in the nursing profession. There are times when it is appropriate to come from our position -when our credibility must be demonstrated- and other times it is more appropriate to come from our person -when we need to show we care. Charismatic people are a blend of both, and bring out what’s appropriate depending on the needs of the situation.

My dad made a speedy recovery -so speedy in fact, that he is already home, walking up and down the stairs, lifting weights, joking around. He can do everything he did before, albeit a little slower, and we like to tease him that when he talks he sounds a little drunk. When I asked if he ever asks “why me?” he said, “Sure. But then I think, why not me? It happens.”

Thank goodness that when it does, there are nurses like those who attended my dad.

*A big thank you to the nurses and therapists at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier, CA.

How you use your voice affects how receptive people are to your message. People are more in-tune with a person’s voice than any other nonverbal. There are two basic voice patterns: credible, where the voice curls down at the ends of statements, and approachable, where the voice curls up at the ends of statements. Most people tend to use one or the other, but all effective people use both.

And yet sometimes when we attempt one voice pattern or another, things go wrong. For example, a person with a naturally credible voice pattern will try and use an approachable voice pattern and just end up sounding goofy. And someone with a naturally approachable voice pattern will attempt to use a credible one and end up sounding angry or impatient.

So what’s really happening? It comes down to breathing. Oftentimes my husband will object to something I’ve said and I’ll retort, “What? What did I say?” He’ll answer, “It’s not what you said, it’s your tone.” When we pair voice pattern and breathing we get tone. I can attempt to hide behind my words, but my nonverbals give me away.

There are two basic breathing types. Breathing high -where you hold your breath and take tiny gulps of air- and breathing low -where you inhale deeply and exhale all of the air out. When we pair high breathing with credible voice pattern we get an angry, impatient tone. When we pair high breathing with approachable voice pattern we get the goofy, ditzy tone.

So how does this impact your career? All nonverbally intelligent people employ both voice patterns. But unless you’re breathing well, you won’t communicate what you really mean to say. So make sure to pair low breathing with a credible voice pattern if you want to sound definitive and knowledgeable. Likewise, pair an approachable voice pattern with low breathing to sound friendly and open.

And the next time your significant other accuses you of using that tone you can smile and thank him or her for reminding you to check in with your breathing.

Next time: How breathing makes a difference in the delivery of negative information.

Very.

My husband’s high school experience is a great example. He wasn’t too interested in school, so his grades weren’t anything to brag about. Except in one class. He received an A. “Why did you work hard in that one class?” I asked once. “Because I felt the teacher liked me,” he said. It was that simple.

Yet creating relationships with students is anything but simple.

I’ve observed in hundreds of classrooms, worked with hundreds of teachers, and I can speak from personal experience when I say that knowing a student doesn’t like you is incredibly painful and confusing for most teachers.

Add to that the expectation from administrators that teachers should be striving for high-quality student relationships, and most teachers are ready to pull their hair out.

It’s not that teachers are unwilling or unable to do this. There are so many issues out of their control- absentee parents, media influences, video games- that the pressure to be liked can often feel like a millstone around the neck.

Like the teacher I coached recently. He expressed that the office didn’t like it when he sent students out of the classroom, preferring that he take care of the discipline himself. So he did. And then they said he was too “authoritative.” So he tried joking around more. Until one student complained to his parents about a joke, and the parents called the school. He couldn’t win, he said.

Students learn best when the learning environment is safe and respectful. There are times teachers need to be authoritative and come from their position, but there are other times they need to be friendly and come from their person. Oftentimes a teacher only operates from one or the other. If position, they are seen as too authoritative. If person, they are seen as too accommodating. Nonverbal intelligence is knowing when each is appropriate and having the ability to do both.

Nonverbal classroom management assists teachers by allowing them to separate the student from the behavior when coming from their position. In other words, it allows the teacher to manage without making it personal. Through appropriate use of eye contact, visuals and nonverbal cues, teachers can foster trust and safety in the classroom without fearing they are being too strict or too lenient.

Effective use of nonverbal communication leads to clearer classroom messages, which means less misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Teachers feel in control and students feel respected. This is how I define high quality student-teacher relationships. Being liked is secondary.

So my advice to teachers is this: don’t try to be something you’re not in an effort to get students to like you. Be systematic in your use of nonverbal communication, but more importantly, be authentic. People, particularly students, respond to authenticity. The rest is just details.

Don’t get me wrong – I am in constant pain- but there isn’t anything necessarily physically wrong with me. At least anything that can be fixed by a new mattress, books on back pain, acupuncture, massage, meditation, trigger point workshops- and believe me- I’ve tried it all.

Supposedly, I am not kinesthetically intelligent. In other words, I am kinesthetically challenged.

Kinesthetic intelligence, according to my chiropractor, is knowing which parts of your body are supposed to do what, and awareness of what it feels like to move correctly. I don’t move correctly at all -my husband has kindly pointed this out in terms of my dancing ability- I use my smaller muscles (neck, shoulders, etc.) to do the work my larger muscles are meant to do, and in turn I have constant neck and shoulder pain.

It seems odd to me that moving- something we all do naturally- could be done wrong. It’s so…basic. Yet there it is, and there I am, in the gym, lifting a pitiful amount of weight, not to bulk up, Seth tells me, but to “learn what your muscles should be doing.”

It’s so embarrassing.

We tend to think the things we do naturally are “correct” because, well, they’re natural. But what comes naturally isn’t always effective. And just like it’s possible to be kinesthetically challenged, we can also be nonverbally challenged.

You can be academically intelligent, emotionally intelligent, socially, morally, and ethically intelligent, but if you don’t have a degree of nonverbal intelligence you run the risk of pissing people off, or going unnoticed, or coming on too strong, or a host of other things nonverbally intelligent people avoid.

Nonverbal communication translates the majority of the message. Yet how often do we think about the messages we are sending or receiving?

For example, if I am in an interview, and the person interviewing me has very credible body language -stiff posture, weight evenly placed instead of leaning to one side or forward, voice pattern that curls down at the ends of statements- I know to cut the small talk and get to the issue. People who use credible body language are issue-oriented. They want to know you’ll be able to get the job done and to their satisfaction.

However, if I enter an interview with someone who uses approachable body language -relaxed stance, bobbing head, voice pattern that curls up at the ends of statements- I know that small talk is warranted and I spend time getting to know the person. People who use approachable body language are relationship-oriented. They want to know you’ll work well with others, and that you’ll care about your future team members.

If I did what came “naturally,” I would only be effective with one type of interviewer. That’s a 50% chance of success. By increasing my nonverbal intelligence I can accommodate the needs of whatever situation I encounter.

What comes naturally isn’t always effective. Sometimes we need to bring things into our awareness that weren’t there before. Like consciously engaging my abs. I still don’t get what that means exactly, but I’m working on it.

We have very deeply held beliefs -especially here in the States- about the role of eye contact. We’ve been taught that eye contact equals respect, and that avoiding eye contact is tantamount to disrespecting the person you are engaging with.

This is bad advice and can really get us into trouble.

Eye contact does equal respect when you are in relationship. But there are times -delivering negative information for example- when we want to separate the relationship from the message.

There are three things to remember about the use of eye contact.

1. Go visual with information, especially if it is negative.

You must have the negative information on some sort of visual if you hope to have the person receive it and not attach the negative message to you. If you are working one-on-one, the visual will be small -a piece of paper, report, fax, or memo- if you are delivering negative information to a group the visual will be larger -a PowerPoint presentation, flip chart, or white board. Those in the medical field will also want to adhere to this rule. Although medical personnel almost always have an x-ray, lab report, or diagram handy they rarely use them effectively. A doctor often looks at a patient when saying, “You have cancer.” By looking at the person while delivering this information what he or she is really saying is, “You are cancer.” When the doctor uses direct eye contact the patient has a more difficult time absorbing the information. The patient may -understandably- become upset, volatile, or breakdown. This can be avoided using the next step.

2. Avoid eye contact if the information is negative. Use eye contact if the information is positive.

If a doctor -instead of looking at the patient- looks at the x-ray and says, “The x-ray shows that cancer is present,” the patient is more apt to breathe, take the information in and assimilate it without becoming as upset. The doctor can then turn to the patient and with eye contact say, “Now here is what we’re going to do.” By using eye contact in a systematic way the doctor nonverbally separates the problem (x-ray) from the solution (doctor and patient working together.) This works in the business world as well. When you have to lay people off or tell a group that there is a salary freeze, look at the information (which should be displayed visually) not the person/group.

3. People follow your eyes, not your hands.

These skills are only effective if you understand that people follow your eyes, not your hands. Oftentimes we point to a visual but maintain eye contact with the listener. This is ineffective. Think about it: when you’re sitting having coffee across from someone and they look over your shoulder and towards the door, what do you do? You also turn and look. We’re programmed to follow someone’s eyes, and rarely look where someone is pointing unless they are also looking there. When using a visual to give sensitive or difficult information be sure to look at the visual as well as point to it. This will cause the listener to look where you want them to look.

Nonverbal intelligence is all about having more than one approach. Sometimes we’ll want to maintain eye contact (when the information is positive) and other times we’ll want to look at something else (when the information is negative.) Train yourself to be systematic with your eye contact and you’ll have an easier time separating yourself from the message.

What I’m asking is, are you aware of what you are communicating nonverbally? What about what others are communicating? Do you know how to adjust your nonverbal communication to assist you during a trial? With a client? Nonverbal communication translates the majority of any message: Ignore it at your peril.

Here are three tips to increase your nonverbal intelligence.

1. Learn the difference between credible and approachable body language and voice patterns.

Use credible nonverbals when sending information, and approachable nonverbals when seeking information. Incongruent nonverbals send a mixed message. Using an approachable voice pattern to deliver an opening statement is just as ineffective as using a credible voice pattern to draw more input from a potential juror. Neither works. Knowing when to use one set of nonverbals versus another will increase your effectiveness in the courtroom or with clients.

2. Get your gestures under control.

Do you have any idea how powerful gesturing is? Gesture to your client while saying the words “manslaughter,” “murder” or “felony” and you might as well pack up and go home. You’ve attached the negative information to the client nonverbally. (On the flip side, prosecutors will want to do this.) Willy-nilly gesturing is not only ineffective, it is dangerous. Learn effective gesturing or reap the consequences.

3. Unlearn everything you know (or think you know) about eye contact.

We’ve all been taught that eye contact equals respect. Growing up, many of us heard, “Look at me when I talk to you!” Yet incorrect use of eye contact can potentially kill your case. As with gesturing, eye contact can attach the negative message to you or your client. The next time the judge interrupts you, don’t lock eye contact with the jurors. Instead, look down and wait. The jurors will look at the judge and associate the objection with him or her, not you. You come out clean.

Commit to increasing your nonverbal intelligence. Your case depends on it.