It was getting dark on a bitterly cold winter afternoon in Winnipeg. I was sixteen and returning home from an after-school piano lesson that had not gone well. Standing at the bus stop, chin tucked in and shoulders hunched in the heat-conserving posture that most Canadians adopt for five or six months of the year, I felt just then that very little in my entire life was going well.
The bus stop was a transfer point. Bus after bus pulled up to the curb to discharge and take on passengers, all but the one I was waiting for. Yet another unwanted bus arrived, and I happened to lift my eyes forlornly to its windows. Directly opposite me sat a young woman, not many years older than I, in the window seat. She looked down at me…our eyes met…and she smiled.
I was stunned! A perfect stranger had looked at my wretched self and smiled! A kind, friendly smile that said, “Everything’s going to be alright.” It was the last thing on earth I would have expected, but the warmth it brought my heart may have been what I most needed in the whole world. I hope I smiled back at her, though I may have been too shocked. I have remembered that smile over and over for nearly fifty years, and have blessed that young woman every time.
People need to be smiled at. Whether they are consciously aware of it or not, your audience needs you to smile at them. They need your warmth and acknowledgement, and at some level they notice if it’s missing. When you fulfil their need, your listeners are immediately more receptive to you. A smile makes a difference.
This is the final article in our series on making friends with your listener’s security guard – the one in the below-conscious level of their brain who decides whether they feel comfortable enough with you to listen or not. Since the security guard’s job is to assess the behaviour of a speaker, I have proposed that there are six behaviours that will get the guard to pass you through the gateway to your listener’s conscious, thinking brain:
- Stand with an upright, confident body carriage.
- Speak with a vibrant voice, lots of expression and clear diction.
- Make eye contact with your listeners.
- Present your information as a story and illustrate your points with stories.
- Be your own authentic self and let your passion show.
- Smile!
Even from a physiological standpoint, smiling at your audience is a smart thing to do. When the muscles in a person’s face crinkle up in a smile, it causes their brain to release chemicals like serotonin and endorphins. Those are the chemicals that tell us we feel good – safe, relaxed and happy. The mirror neurons on either side of the human brain make it probable that when you smile at someone, they will mirror your emotion. They will smile back. So when you smile at someone, and you cause them to smile, their brain releases good-feeling chemicals. Thanks to those chemicals, you are now associated in that person’s brain with feeling good. Presto! Their security guard trusts you and their thinking brain pays attention.
It needs to be a real smile, though, not a mere stretching of the lips. The smile needs to reach your eyes. Indeed, when you look at someone with appreciation, when you welcome them into your space, the smile originates in your eyes, and because it feels so good, your mouth decides to join in the fun.
The bonus for the speaker is that when you smile at your audience, you cause good-feeling chemicals to be released in your own brain. You feel happier and more relaxed, too. Isn’t it true that we do our best work when we’re doing it from a happy, relaxed inner state? It’s the only place from which we have anything of value to offer others.
Perhaps we all take ourselves far too seriously. Why not make us and everybody around us feel better? Let’s all smile a lot more often.
