How To Adopt A Performance Mindset When It Matters Most

As nice as it would be, we are likely not be feeling our best every single day. Most likely, there will be a particularly important day when you just feel low energy, under the weather, uninspired…the opposite of what you want to be feeling when you are about to present or do something big. As an athlete and professional ballet dancer, it was pretty normal to deal with sub-par feelings before an important performance. Barring any serious illness or injury, there is a lot that can be worked through with some simple performance mindset techniques. Here are my favorite, and I hope they serve you well the next time you are getting the jitters, or just don’t feel like yourself: 💪 Physical anchoring This is a personal favorite of mine. Physical anchoring is a practice many athletes and performers make their own in the moments before they walk on stage or have to perform. It is a mind/body connection exercise that actually starts by grounding yourself and your body in the present moment. Connecting with your body is a fantastic way to gain presence. Connecting your body to your environment, for example by rooting your feet into the floor, feeling the cool air flow or warmth of the sun, is equally as powerful. I teach physical anchoring in all of my workshops as a concrete takeaway for my participants to make into their own. Exercises like shoulder rolls, head and neck rolls, deep belly breaths, standing up and stretching your arms out are a few you can easily incorporate into your physical anchoring routine. You don’t have to do anything more complicated, it is a powerful tool to have in your tool belt. 😮‍💨 Breath work exercise (like the square breath exercise linked below) The breath! We live by it, and yet we so often forget about it. Half the time, our tension and stress is exacerbated by our shallow breathing and lack of circulation. There are many simple breath exercises you can practice throughout the day, and all of them help you regain control over your senses, your present experience, re-energize and they can even help you stop runaway thoughts in critical moments. Take a look at the square breath exercise below as one easy-to-execute example. 🎵Listen to your favorite/most appropriate song Perhaps even more simple than the above exercises, we know music has been scientifically proven to affect our mood and energy. If you are feeling anxious and frenetic, you can get yourself into a more focused and calm head space with music that has a slower rhythm, melody or beats per minute. On the other hand, if you are feeling tired and lethargic/cannot get into the right frame of mind, choose a couple of songs that amp you up. Music is a powerful tool you can use to your advantage. The next time you are feeling ‘off’, however that feels for you, consider trying out some of these tried and true techniques for performance mindset control. And remember, sometimes, you also just need to take a break. Not everything is worth pushing through.

Critical Nonverbal Behaviors For Recruiters

Who you hire is the number one most important factor in the success of a business as it grows. There is a lot of technology focused on how the interviewee might be doing…but what about the recruiter? How might their behavior be affecting the conversation, the level of trust and rapport that ultimately reflects the likelihood of a good fit being established? In this Ask Me Anything, Dr. Abbie Marono and I discuss the critical nonverbals recruiters should be aware of during the interview process. Give the below short video a watch and hear more about the following nonverbal behaviors and how they may be influencing the possibility of your next hire: ❤️ Show appropriate affect: What is the tone of this interview? Your candidate is looking for cues as to how they should be showing up. Be clear with the way you are communicating. ❤️ Don’t subdue your nonverbals: be expressive so your candidate is encouraged to show up as authentically as possible ❤️ Leverage hand gestures effectively: open palm hand gestures are welcoming displays or honesty and can help put a candidate at ease. It also helps them see you are fully present and with them throughout the call. ❤️ Show you are actively listening to them: Don’t underestimate this one. Studies show that when you exhibit displays of active listening, this encourages the speaker to open up more. ❤️ Keep your eye gaze from drifting away: Nothing like someone’s eyes gaze to let us know when someone would rather be somewhere else. Unless you explicitly want the conversation to end, (in which case, just say the words), keep your eye gaze aligned with the screen your lens is on. Especially when interviews are lengthy, or you find yourself in back to back interviews, keeping these behaviors in mind will save the interaction, and ensure you are getting to know the real person behind the screen. Not a recruiter and sound familiar? Of course! Because we are also describing any kind of conversation wherein you are trying to discover more about someone, to develop a baseline relationship from which much more can grow. Whether it’s sales, customer success, or managing a new team member, these things must be considered, especially over video where communication can so easily misfire. Give this video a look, and let us know how these behaviors might come in handy for you!

When Hand Gestures Get In The Way

At this point, it’s likely you’ve heard that hand gestures can be an effective way to convey trustworthiness, to appear engaged and energized and even to help your audience understand and retain what you are verbally sharing with them. We’ve written a number of articles on effective hand gesture use on our blog here, here and here. But is it possible to have too many hand gestures? Short answer: DEFINITELY. As with anything in communication, this is not really an all or nothing situation. And at Virtual Sapiens when it comes to hand gestures, we actually want to help you avoid both extremes of the hand gestures spectrum. I.e. no hand gestures use…and also, hand gestures overuse. Have you ever been in a meeting in person or on video and someone is over-reliant on hand gestures to get their point across? Maybe it shows up as a flurry of hand movements or a repeated circular hand motion that almost makes it look like they may be at a loss for words? In these cases, among others, hand gestures can actually compromise our presence and authority. They can make use appear nervous and not composed. Of course, everything in nonverbal communication depends on context, but we always want to be aware of what might actually be veering towards being ‘too much of a good thing’. A few rules of thumb (😉 ): 👋 You want to think about using your hand gestures running parallel with what you are saying👋 Hand gestures are especially effective during parts of your speech when you want to really drive a point home or illustrate a concept/idea visually👋 Keep your gestures varied, but not all over the place. Oftentimes we have a few go to hand gestures that we tend to rely on. Make sure these gestures align with what you are saying. 👋 If you are talking about a big idea, use open palm and more expansive gestures👋 If you are talking about something very small/nuanced and exacting, use a smaller hand gestures, with fingers pinched together for example, to convey the detailed nature 👋 If you find yourself waving your hands around willy nilly…this is a sign that you want to place your hands in your lap or on the table, and ground yourself more fully in your body. You are likely overusing your hand gestures. This can seem like a lot, but luckily, Virtual Sapiens is programed to detect too few hand gestures…and too many. See how you do with a free trial of our assessment product!

The Real Cost of Miscommunication

Grammarly recently conducted a study on the overall state of communication (both verbal and text based) and its relationship with productivity and deal win rates. Interestingly, the ‘ROI’ on communication has been notoriously hard to track. Did that deal go through because of what was said, how it was said, the time of day, the length of the meeting??? What this study brings to light is the incredible time lost, deals lost and energy spent when communication misfires. According to their results, when communication skills are taught, training and enforced, the following positive outcomes can be measured: 72% increase in productivity 63% increase in customer satisfaction 60% increased employee confidence 56% increased job satisfaction 54% improved relationships with colleagues When communication misfires, and time is spent solving issues that derive from things like poorly delivered and understood instructions, time wasted in meetings, low levels of trust/rapport building, the following losses can be observed: 19% lost business (30% of business leaders say the deal was either won or lost specifically due to the quality of the communication throughout) 43% lowered productivity This amounts to a $1.2 trillion dollar loss spread across a multitude of organizational factors. In our world today, the need for effective communication is only increasing. Communication training is not keeping pace with these needs. Both written/asynchronous and verbal/real-time channels of communication are up year over year, and these skills need to be sharpened. With our new foray into verbal communication cues, we are looking forward to being a key support to organizations investing in the improved communication, and confidence of their employees. Give this report a read and a share.

Top 3 Soft Skills You Need To Master

A broad study was published recently surveying the soft skills employers are seeking vs the soft skills employees feel they need training. This is all within the context of a drastically, and continually evolving world of work. The top three soft skills that were identified in this study, are: 🗣️ Communication ❓ Problem Solving 🌱 Adaptability 84% of surveyed employees believe it is critical to get training on these soft skills in order for them to develop as professionals, and excel in their jobs. In order to upskill a team to excel in soft skills like these, they need to be seamlessly incorporated into onboarding, and ongoing (some people call this ‘ever-boarding’) training programs. One of the call-outs we especially appreciate in this study is around specific skills training and intervention. This is important to note on both the skill level, but also on the level of the individual. Some people need more support in communication and others need more support in creative problem solving. This means you also need tools to quickly assess where individuals stand on a spectrum of skills awareness to mastery. At Virtual Sapiens, our tools are fantastic additions to onboarding programs and ongoing, reinforcement training. If your team is lacking in the very real skill of communicating over video, let’s chat:)

How To Account For Cultural Nuance Over Video

In communication training, cultural context is always a factor to consider. Over video, since we aren’t entering a room, shaking hands, bowing or kissing, how do we account for cultural nuance? Does it even matter? While we may think that cultural nuance in communication is erased over video…this simply is not the case. In this gem of a video, Dr. Abbie Marono is asked to explain how we can think about cultural nuance and context in nonverbal communication over video specifically. Dr. Marono explains the difference between universal nonverbals, which we have collectively evolved to understand and express as a human race. Things like open palm gestures as a sign of peace and non-threat, smiling as a sign of happiness, there are many nonverbals that we can depend on when we are communicating with other cultures. What is truly fascinating, and a topic that is as deep as it is rich, is the nuance culture brings to the table. Differences in head movements to signal agreement, happiness or excitement for example. Or specific hand gestures that mean different things tied to specific cultures. These are all learned, and not necessarily universal. These are the nonverbal cues we want to develop a vocabulary and awareness around when we are communicating across culture – especially over video. One of my favorite examples is the ‘head wiggle’ or ‘head wobble’ in Indian cultures. This demonstrates agreement and the vigor with which the head is wiggling, signifies the level of agreement and enthusiasm. A simple head nod in this case, might not resonate, but a head wobble…well, now we are talking! As Dr. Marono suggests in the video below, it is always wise to pay attention to different cultural cues, whether on video or in person. A small behavior can go a long way when developing rapport and trust. Our technology at Virtual Sapiens is designed around universal nonverbal cues. We specifically don’t get too nuanced around gesticulation and biases that might contradict across cultures. When you are next on a global call, see if you can do a bit or research ahead of time and spot in realtime some of the culturally specific behaviors.

Positivity Bias in Nonverbal Cues

Positivity bias is the tendency to favor behaviors that appear “positive,” such as smiling or nodding, even when they don’t truly reflect engagement. In nonverbal communication, this can lead to oversimplified feedback about facial expressions and active listening. At Virtual Sapiens, we focus on dynamic, authentic cues that demonstrate presence and thoughtful engagement—because effective communication isn’t about appearing positive, it’s about being genuinely engaged.

The Best Way To Interpret AI Facilitated Coaching

In this week’s AMA, Dr. Marono and I discuss the best mindsets to use when receiving and applying AI-facilitated coaching. As more and more AI coaching softwares present themselves, it’s important to be diligent in your selection process. As Dr. Marono and I discuss in the below video, there are many AI companies out there who lack real scientific rigor in the way they apply their models, providing inaccurate and often times irrelevant feedback. We are grateful to have Dr. Marono’s sharp eye as an additional watch dog keeping our insights and metrics aligned with the most up to date, peer-reviewed research. It is also critical to keep in mind that when AI delivers feedback, it is still up to you to interpret the results and decide how you would like to apply the feedback towards improved behaviors. At Virtual Sapiens, we take great care to ensure that we are not providing feedback that is too restrictive. We don’t want to prescribe specific actions, but rather, we want to help our users reflect on their behaviors and apply our feedback in a way that feels authentic. In this way, we can ensure our metrics are accurate, and directionally correct. Check out the full conversation below! https://youtu.be/ZRVDwNgtuQg

How AI and Humans Interact – Amplification…or Replacement?

At a recent documentary film festival, AI was a big topic of conversation. While a lot of uncertainty exists around exactly how AI will continue to evolve and interact with humans, a few specific questions are on everyone’s minds… In this week’s Ask Me Anything, Dr. Marono and I take a slightly deeper dive into the following question: Could AI Replace Humans in Relationship Driven Roles? The answers are nuanced, taking to light where we are with the technology today, where we aren’t yet, and also, where we might go. While it’s easier to see how AI could replace certain more technical or content oriented tasks, it is even scarier to consider how AI might grow into more relationship driven tasks, which require a much higher level of accuracy, understanding of context and idiosyncratic/interpersonal dynamics. Already we see conversational AI being applied to chat bots that are increasingly personalized and human-like. In some cases, as seen with Replika AI users and with the Human-like robot, Sophia, the future doesn’t seem so far off. Check our conversation out and let us know what you think about the future of AI and human interaction! https://youtu.be/1eIrCl5t3KU

Author: Rachel Cossar