How One Communication Ninja Trick Can Change Your Personal Relationships.

Why is Body Language Important?

• It's 80% of communication to other human beings.
• Can mean the difference between a successful group, or a dysfunctional group if you are the leader or facillitator. 
• May prevent fights with your significant other if you read them well.
• May help you build rapport with business associates or closeness with your close family and friends.

What is Body Language?

I see body language as three different parts:

1. Posture:  How people present themselves to you or a group of people, with their body.
2. "Tone":  How people talk, and the facial expressions they make when communicating.
3. Behavior:  Combination of Posture and "Tone" in a conversation or speach that reveals someone's inner state or thinking.

How this one ninja-trick with body language can help your personal relationships:

Mirroring.  Mirroring allows us to build trust with people by subtling mimmicing their posture and "tone".  When done correctly, we can build relationships and understand where people are coming from.  This cool trick comes from mirror neurons that our in our head!  Give it a try the next time you need to influence someone, or build rapport in a short amount of time.

Things to watch out for:

• There is an art to mirroring.  If you are too obvious or obnoxious copying other peoples body language, they will notice and become annoyed! 
• Do not try to match people in real time.  If someone moves their arm, wait a few seconds and move your arm the same way they have.
• Do make this an interesting experiment!  If you think you are building good rapport mirroring with someone, a quick test is to change your posture and see if the other person mirrors you back!  It's cool, kinda freaky, and a great indicator you actually are in rapport with the other person!
• Do not make judgements based on other peoples body language.  If you are curious, ask how they feel.  So, if someone's arms are crossed and they do not mirror your mirroring, ask them if they are angry or cold to check in with them.