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Welcome back to another accidentally intentional podcast episode, we have been in a help series and today I want to tag another one into that list. With help. I'm so awkward and feel so cringy. When I meet new people, what can I do about it? In 2019, I lead what was called a singles only small group, which you were only allowed to join our small group if you were single at the time of joining. Now, that's a funny side note. But here's what's important is for our first meeting, we're probably three minutes in to the small group. And I asked the question, who thinks they're awkward when they first meet someone, and every single person's hand went up. And that told me something? Everyone feels uncomfortable when they're putting themselves out there and going out on a limb, right? But for some reason, it's not the scenario that makes us feel awkward. We feel like we're the awkward ones. And I realized there's this disconnect happening. And I want to help people understand it, and help them not feel as awkward and insecure when meeting new people. Because when you follow that thread of feeling awkward, well, that's the top of it, right? If you dig a layer deeper, why do you feel awkward? Because I feel insecure, I feel like people won't like me, there's a fear that's rooted in it. And that fear doesn't go away unless you keep going again and again, and deciding that that fear should not win. So interestingly enough, one year later, the pandemic hits, and suddenly, bam, overnight, the world changes. And the world changed in a lot of different ways for everybody. But there's one that has stood out to me more than all the rest, people stopped hanging out with other people. For their safety, that's what we thought we were doing at the time was to protect ourselves. It was dangerous to hang out with other people. But I want to share with you what me and my friend group decided to do even not even 30 days into the pandemic, okay. It was freezing in Pittsburgh, like we were wearing winter jackets still at the beginning of the pandemic. And a group of us decided, What if we don't go fully inside, but hang out in someone's garage, and put baseball chairs, you know, those like, chairs, six to seven feet apart from one another, and just tuck with masks on, you know, like, fully covered that, but keep keeping our distances they're telling us to. And of course, we don't want to put ourselves in danger. But what we decided was, we're putting ourselves in more danger by isolating ourselves and not getting human interaction, and at least looking each other in the eyes face to face. Now I know that's not everyone's choice. And that's okay. But we did that. I remember that there was one time I think it was a couple of weeks later, my friend group drove our cars to a local park and all park them in like a circular formation, where we were all sitting in our trunks spaced out 610 feet apart from one another, and having a conversation, because in our minds, it was integral to get that face to face connection with one another. Even if we could only see each other's eyes, we were determined to make a way. Now the story was brought back to my memory as I was having conversation with a friend recently, who was telling me about her experiences with her church community. And as I was digging a little deeper, I was asking questions like, oh, yeah, like how often do you see them and hang out with them and, and there was a pause. And the response was, Well, I actually haven't been in person with them for over two years. And I wasn't alarmed by that. Because all of the statistics and data is proving that this is the case, especially when it comes to places of worship, for instance, and religious organizations, they are seeing somewhere between 30 and 40% permanent members not returning in person but choosing to opt for an online opportunity instead. Now the reason that we were discussing this, my friend and I because she was sharing that she's having trouble building a community and wanted to know how to fix that. And I immediately was able to determine that the reason you're having trouble building a community is because you aren't physically putting yourself in a community. Now I know that not everyone might agree with that. And there might be some fears about meeting back in person. Again, I don't know the scenario view but here's what I do know is that we are created for connection. And so when we are cutting ourselves off from connection, which isn't just FaceTiming There's something that happens in our physiological makeup that I would dare to say, is dangerous for us. Once you leave high school and college, there are no more built in communities that we have before us. And we have to go out there go out there and create them on our own and put ourselves in uncomfortable situations, even though it feels awkward, and even though it can feel scary sometimes. Now, I do want to say that FaceTime is an incredible supplement video chatting as a whole, and what a time to be alive that we have that opportunity right now. But that being said, it should not be our only form of interacting with people. And you may have noticed that I didn't even mention calling or texting. Because those two are completely insufficient, in my mind, as a solution to the problem. Yes, they can supplement but those cannot be the singular interactions as a whole. And here's why. We're always communicating with each other of that 7% of communication is through words. Isn't that crazy? We are trying to communicate with people all the time yet, only 7% of what we're saying, in the communication is actually what we're saying. So much more of what we're saying comes in our body language, and our tone, body language, and how you are expressing and communicating through your body actions, counts for 55% of communication. And the remaining 38% is tone, how we're saying what we're saying. It all works together to create what we call communication with one another. Now, I think all of us agree communication is important, but how you're communicating is most important. And because of that this is where people feel awkward. This is where it comes into play is because they feel awkward. So their body is doing awkward things, maybe we don't even know. But there's a way that we can fix it. And I've actually been loving, studying the work of Vanessa Van Edwards. She's a behavioral investigator, and she just wrote a book called cues. And it's all about body language. And it is so wildly fascinating. I'll put the link in the description below. A lot of her work has to do with her being a self proclaimed recovering awkward person and wanting to help others do the same. And she shares that we are always communicating something, whether we're saying words, or not. And before we even say a word, people are already able to do and come to conclusions about us. That's why sometimes you can be like they're judging me. Well, they're what could be happening instead, is people are making a decision based upon your body language and how it's making them feel what they need to know about you. So your body language is a very important piece, I want to give you seven body language cues that can really help you in your first time interactions when you meet new people. But before I go into that, I want to address this fear, again, that people have when it comes to meeting new people. And it's the fear of being awkward or awkward is the top piece the root of it is I feel insecure. And what if they do this? What if they do that? And what is going on is we're creating a story and projecting what we think would happen before any of it ever happens. And that is never helpful. Because you deserve the opportunity to meet new people, make new friends, love other people and feel really loved by other people. So that is why I want to give these seven cues to you today, in hopes that you can intern start implementing some of them and go out there and have the courage to make new friends and build more community in your life. Okay, are you ready for the cues? Remember, body language is 55% of our communication. So the first cue is smiling. And before you say oh, these are all gonna be dumb cues. No Hang on one second here. When you make eye contact with a stranger in the supermarket, I'm gonna guess that your face looks a little bit like this. And for those that are listening on the podcast, what I did was I did a closed mouth, little smirky smile. That feels a little weird when you receive it because you're like, okay, like they acknowledge me, but what are they hiding behind that smile? And that's actually what people feel when you give a smile, where it's just like a like a little nod acknowledgement. It actually doesn't make people feel super comfortable and makes them feel like you're hiding something. That's just how our brains are reading it. So here's something I've started to do. If I make eye contact with a stranger wherever I'm giving a full tooth smile, and it's hysterical. I will I'll say it's hysterical because it's so not normal for people to see that sometimes they'll double back and be like, what the, like, you can see that their eyes are saying, I don't know you, why did you just smile at me like that? But here's the thing. It's okay, because a genuine smile can make people feel known. So I give strangers a full smile as well. Okay, ready for number two, eye contact, keeping and maintaining eye contact, when you're in a conversation. Now, I know how hard this one could feel, especially if it's not something you usually do. But I promise you, this is so incredibly important for you to do. Because when you make eye contact with someone, they feel like they are one of the most important things in the world to you. In that moment. Which speaking of eye contact, that brings me to number three, this body language cue has to do with a prop. Keep your phone away, when you're talking to someone not in your hand away, out of your view, out of their view. Why? Because as long as you keep something near you, or in your vicinity, our brains are reading that as a potential threat as if, in any moment, this person can divert their attention away from me. So keep the phones away. I used to think like, it's totally fine to just flip my phone over. So it's facedown on the table. And I learned through this research I've done, it's not okay. It actually makes people feel at any moment that they should not fully open up because I can be waiting for something and leave them at a moment's notice. Okay, number four, this one is so interesting to me. And I was blown away when I heard it for the first time, because they found this out by studying the most successful Shark Tank pitches of all time. Yes, from the TV show Shark Tank. And here's what they found consistently across the board. Every single person that ended up getting an offer from a shark started with their palms open facing the sharks, whether it's a Hi, I'm Joe, or anything with like welcoming their greeting, they're pointing to someone with their hands, if their palms were exposed, they were more likely to get a deal with a shark. Why? And this is a huge thing, because we're in this Zoom video culture nowadays, right? If people can't see your hands, they don't know they can trust you. It has to do with the phone as a prop too. But people feel like you are hiding something when your hands aren't exposed. And you may be thinking this is so preposterous, but I promise you, they have done scans on the brain of the part of the brain that lights up whenever we cannot see hands, is the threat detection system in our brain saying, wait a second, something can happen at any moment. So opening your hands and having palms exposed is a very important thing. When you're meeting new people. Hey, nice to meet you. It actually doesn't it feels awkward to you. Why am I waving to the person that's two feet away from me. It's totally fine. Hey, nice to meet you. Um, so kind of give the simple side wave motion. And then uh, go in and show them my hand that I want to introduce myself and shake their hand. That's also why shaking hands is super important. Because you're showing your palms, you're showing that you can be trusted in not hiding anything. Okay, so that was for open hands. Number five is not crossing your arms while listening to someone talk. Now I know this feels like a really comfortable position. In fact, when I'm sitting listening to a speech or a message of any kind, I'm usually sitting crossing my arms. And I always catch myself doing it because I understand how was the speaker, what that feels like. And not even just as a speaker, as people in general, loosen your arms. When you give a cross arm body posture. The brain consistently reads it as they're holding back. They're on guard for some reason. Why did they think I'm a threat right now I'm not doing anything to them. And we might just be doing it for comfort. So I've learned the importance of taking your crossed arms and fighting to put him back down, even if it feels a little less comfortable. Because it actually makes other people feel more comfortable when you don't. Now I love this one. Number six body language cue that shows someone that you want to be intentional is by leaning in to what they're saying just a couple inches leaning into it. Now people might be like, Can you not hear me and you'd be like, No, I hear you. I'm just really intently listening. I'm intrigued by what you're saying. Leaning in shows people Oh, wow. They, they want to be immersed in this. They they want to hear me they want to know me. And it's a really positive body language cue to signal to the other person. And number seven. This is one that I changed in my life relatively recently, because I used to nod when Pete Before talking and it used to be this really like quick nod like, Yes, keep it up, keep talking. I love what you're saying. But what was happening is that our brains actually understand that it's something completely different. Our brains read really fast, not in cues as they want me to hurry up and get out of here. They don't like what I'm saying. But that's actually not true. So what I've done instead, and this is thanks to what Vanessa taught me, is to make it a slow nod now, a very slow, keep going. Wow, that's so interesting what you're saying, because that cues to the person talking, oh, though, I'm gonna keep going. And you'll be surprised when you give a slow nod. How much longer people talk for, they feel so open and free, and that they have your trust? Because you're leaned in, and you're nodding. And it doesn't even have to be an agreeing nod. You're just like, wow, this is so insightful right now. And these are things that I would definitely say, practice in the mirror beforehand. Make sure that you're not doing any weird things like winking. I used to do this thing. I don't know why I did. I used to do this thing where I would like wink and, and have like aggressive blinks. I literally have no idea why I did it. But I started catching myself in the mirror after practicing this stuff and be like, okay, that needs to stop. So I would say practicing this in the mirror before you meet other people. And while you're in the mirror, I talked about this in another episode. Tell yourself, hey, you're worth being loved. And you're gonna make amazing friends today. Just hype yourself up in the mirror. Because when we speak words, and we speak life, over ourselves, our chemistry and our bodies changes and starts believing that and starts acting out on it because it believes it. So those are seven tips and body language cues that can help you and help cut down on the feelings of awkward, nutty, I'm pretty sure I made that word up. Whenever you're meeting new people so that you can get back out there having the confidence in yourself that you are worth being loved and you have the capacity to love people just as much