TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

12 Apr 2018 · 2 min

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1:49

TJ Walker (host of The Habit Influencer) advises having a trusted "spotter"—a colleague, friend, or family member—to check your appearance and body language before important presentations, networking events, or formal occasions. He uses gym and keynote anecdotes to illustrate why external, candid feedback prevents embarrassing distractions (e.g., spinach in teeth, untucked shirt, jacket flap).

Chapters

You need a spotter. You've seen this in the gym. Someone is struggling to bench press £400. They have someone standing over them in case it falls down on them and they're choking. You need the same thing when it comes to your body language in your workplace. Create a strategic alliance with someone. Could be someone hired the same day as you, or someone you just are friendly with. Could be a boss or an underling, but someone you trust to tell you like it is. You don't want to stand up, give a presentation in front of a bunch of important new clients, and you have spinach in your teeth. You want someone to tell you. If you're standing up to give a presentation, a speech, a talk, you want someone to tell you, hey, your shirt fell out, it's not tucked in, or part of your jacket is sticking up. I know there have been times when I've given a keynote and I had the wireless microphone on and the microphone was causing the flap of my jacket to stand up like I had a tail. Thankfully, I had a colleague there who said, tj, looks like you have a tail. Do something. And you want someone giving you kind of a once over before you're giving any kind of important presentation, talk, speech, or even just showing up. An important networking event. It could be an important black tie event in your industry at a conference and you don't realize one of your buttons is off or missing. You want someone to tell you that so that people are not looking at it the whole time. So my advice, find a buddy. If you don't have one inside your place of work, make sure you have a family member who can really scrutinize you before you leave home.