We've talked about the eyes when it comes to listening. What about the rest of your body? For starters, you need sort of an open stance, sitting or standing. When you're listening to someone, you don't want to be sort of turned off to the side that may be fine for personal conversations, but for something important in the workplace, you want to be facing the person and leaning in a little. If you're talking in the hallway and your boss says something boy, actually lean in a loop. If you're sitting down, hold yourself up and lean forward.

You're not at home watching your favorite sporting event. It's not about sitting back being relaxed, feet on the chair at the table. Hold yourself high, lean forward, blessed fidgeting, the better now I don't want you to be a statue and frozen. But your hands shouldn't be fidgeting and playing with pens and making annoying sounds. Things like that that should not be your focus. Focus on being open, listening, not doing anything distracting.

By all means when you're speaking, move your hands, move your body. And when you're listening to someone, for the most part, you should be still but certainly, your face should be expressive. person says something interesting, show that you're either surprised or intrigued. nodding is very key. Now, you don't want to be this bobblehead doll and nodding the whole time. But certainly when you hear something, showing, there's a key concept and you understand it.

You agree with it, you think it's important. nodding is very important. It lets the person know that you are in fact there. Now there's a verbal equivalent to nodding, when you're listening to someone just over the telephone, or any other electronic form of communication. And that is Uh huh. Yes, right?

Got it doesn't really matter what you say. But you don't want them to think that I did get disconnected five minutes ago, occasionally short little things, letting people know that you got it. Now, you can also do that when you are in person, if it's one on one, but it's not as important if they can see you nodding in agreement nodding that you understand. So keep the body language focused, open, really attentive to what the person saying, and you'll be in great shape. I wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about mirroring, there's a whole school of thought out there says if the person speaking to you is leaning this way, then you need to lean this way. I just find for most people that over complicates things and to think about, oh, they touch their finger like this.

So now I'm going to touch my finger like this. I understand. There's some research People who really do like it and believe it. In my professional opinion, most people are not going to do that. And it's a distraction, to try to focus on the whole mirroring thing as long as you're looking respectful, relaxed, pleasant, open, nodding occasionally, your body language will be fine