To understand what someone is trying to tell you, listening to words alone isn’t enough. Most children communicate with gestures long before they speak. Even as we get older, we continue to communicate mostly through our bodies. I remember my younger cousin Opal watching sign language videos when she was two years old. Opal wasn’t...Read More
In the TV show The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Kimmy advises her friend Titus to feign listening to something boring by imagining that the speaker’s mouth and eyes are flipped. Kimmy claims that this makes her appear interested (or morbidly fascinated), but this distracting fantasy certainly does NOT help her to listen! That’s because it’s all...Read More
Imagine that you really want to tell someone something that is important to you. Picture telling the whole story to a friend (we’ll call her Gwen) who lets you tell your tale unhurried from beginning to end. Gwen faces you, leaning in and making eye contact, her facial expressions and gestures perfectly responsive to your...Read More
Do you remember the last time people praised you for doing a great job, but all you could think about were the things you could have done better? Because our brains are hardwired to see and solve problems, it’s normal and natural for us to gravitate towards the negative. When stuck in self-critic mode, though,...Read More
