Philli­pa Mor­rish

• Hand­shakes and In­tro­duc­tions:

When shak­ing hands and in­tro­duc­ing one­self, re­mem­ber the process is: Eye, Mouth, Hand.It is easy to re­call be­cause of the or­der of these or­gans on the body. Our eyes are first, fol­lowed by our mouth and then our hands. Re­search has proven that when eye con­tact is made be­fore shak­ing hands, the out­come of the meet­ing is much more pos­i­tive. For those women who find it dif­fi­cult to make eye con­tact, one tip is to imag­ine some­thing is in the oth­er per­son's eye and you need to find it. Al­ways smile as the in­tro­duc­tion is be­ing made. Ver­balise the greet­ing next. Hand­shakes should on­ly last as long as the ver­bal in­tro­duc­tion lasts. How­ev­er if the oth­er per­son con­tin­ues to shake, it is im­po­lite to re­lease your hand while it is still be­ing held.

• Cre­ate a Pos­i­tive First Im­pres­sion:

First im­pres­sions can give in­for­ma­tion or mis-in­for­ma­tion about who we are. If you are told "be­fore I knew you, I thought you were a dif­fer­ent type of per­son" it is a sign that your first im­pres­sions are giv­ing mis-in­for­ma­tion. A per­son should not be well ac­quaint­ed with you be­fore hav­ing an ac­cu­rate as­sess­ment of who you are. First im­pres­sions are made not on­ly by our ap­pear­ance, but our speech, at­ti­tude, our cor­re­spon­dence, tele­phone and e-mail con­tact. Re­gard­ing our ap­pear­ance, we can ask whether our im­age is one that we have out­grown or we are grow­ing in­to. We can make an im­age state­ment for our­selves and use it to pur­chase cloth­ing or in­flu­ence con­duct. For ex­am­ple, "I present an im­age that is so­phis­ti­cat­ed and dy­nam­ic." Use your im­age state­ment not on­ly to pur­chase ar­ti­cles but in­flu­ence be­hav­iour. For ex­am­ple, "how would a so­phis­ti­cat­ed per­son act in this sit­u­a­tion?"

• Pos­ture and De­port­ment:

Our pos­ture af­fects the way we are per­ceived by oth­ers as well as the way we feel about our­selves. It has been proven that if the hu­man body is held up­right, it af­fects mood as pos­i­tive­ly as a slumped shoul­der cre­ates neg­a­tive mood. The way we en­ter and ex­it a car is im­por­tant. A la­dy should en­ter a car by her back in­stead of her side. Legs should be to­geth­er en­ter­ing and ex­it­ing a ve­hi­cle. To cul­ti­vate pres­ence, a la­dy should en­ter a room from her hip in­stead of her shoul­der. Do not push your shoul­ders for­ward be­fore your body ful­ly en­ters a room. En­ter and pause for a few sec­onds... shoul­ders aligned to ears, hips, and en­ter with con­fi­dence. Con­fi­dence is en­tranc­ing and will trump beau­ty any day. If we act in a con­fi­dent man­ner long enough, we will be­come con­fi­dent.