Be Easy

Before we relax, let me talk to you for a few minutes about something I think you already know.

You'd like people to come to you. At work, in a room full of strangers, at the cookout, in line at the store. You'd like to be the one people drift toward. And somehow it goes the other way. People are friendly to the guy next to you and polite to you. You end up wondering what you're doing wrong.

Here's what I've come to believe. You're not doing anything wrong. You're doing something careful. And careful, from across a room, looks exactly like cold.

A face that's thinking looks like a face that's judging. Somebody standing still with their arms folded looks like somebody who doesn't want company, even if what he's thinking is "I wish somebody would come talk to me." A quiet voice sounds like a closed door. None of that is who you are. It's what you look like while you're being careful.

The research on this is old and simple. People size each other up in a fraction of a second, before a word gets said, and they do it off the face and the body. Two things carry almost all of it: does this person look at ease, and does this person look warm. Not handsome. Not smart. At ease, and warm. Loosen the face, let the shoulders drop, let a half-smile sit there, keep your eyes on people a beat longer than feels normal, and the same person gets read as a completely different person. Same person. Different signal.

And here's the part that matters for you: you can't fake it from the outside for long. Hold a smile you don't feel and it looks held. The thing that works is the thing underneath. When you're easy on the inside, everything on the outside follows without you managing it. The face loosens by itself. The voice warms by itself. You ask people questions because you're actually curious, not because a book told you to.

So this session isn't about teaching your face to do tricks. It's about getting you easy on the inside, and letting your body figure out the rest. Which it will.