Gross oversimplification: When you think a thought, you create feelings that contribute to your emotional state. Your emotional state alters your physical body, and this stimulates further thoughts. As your body changes, signals will be given off that others may notice.
You are desperate to make a good impression at an interview. You notice a minuscule raising of the interviewer’s eyebrow. “He doesn’t believe me!” Tension rises, your face starts to redden, the room suddenly feels hot. “Oh no, I’m sweating now!”
Your desperate emotional state will have predisposed you to filter evidence in a particular way. Noticing his eyebrow rise triggers panic.
What if…
You are quietly confident that if the job is right for you, you’ll be tempted by an offer. You notice a minuscule raising of the interviewer’s eyebrow. “Ah, that point I just made is clearly of interest.” As you attend more closely to what he is saying, you lean in and your eyes start to smile. “This is going well!”
Much has been written on the subject of body language, yet this goes far deeper, and is far more difficult to fake. Scratching your nose, crossing your arms, that’s the obvious, and only a very small piece of the puzzle that is your emotional/physical presentation. Important but a very small part of the picture.
You see, we are far more capable of picking up on other people’s emotional state that we realise. When you meet someone, you’ll often get feelings about them. Where do these come from? Dozens if not hundreds of imperceptible clues. You may not be able to explain why you like or dislike someone on first meeting them, but you will be certain in that initial impression.
Unlike body language, the imperceptible clues we give off are impossible to fake, because we don’t even know we are giving them off. You may be able to use your body language to pretend to be confident, but the unseen clues will give you away.
This is why gravitas seems like a Holy Grail. You can wear the right clothes, stand up straight and all those things yet still get the annual feedback that you lack gravitas. As I’ve said elsewhere, the secret of gravitas is BEING confident.
The sad thing is that, particularly when it comes to interviews, the emotions that are on display may be very unreliable indicators of competence when in the role. A great many people are fully capable yet still appear to be lacking in confidence. And yes, the opposite is also true!
It is also likely that if you get caught by these negative emotional displays, your performance in the moment is likely to get worse rather than better.
Which means, that as you are preparing for an interview, or any important meeting, invest plenty of time in cultivating the right beliefs, feelings and emotions regarding the event. This is at least important, if not more important, than working out how you are going to answer those tricky competency questions!
The Gautrey Influence Blog
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