Day 15 of 30: Mark Bowden: How to be more effective on Zoom and in person with body language #zoom

hello everyone this is faye from face world media and i'm very excited i've been telling everybody about this event i'm here with mark bowden who is a world expert yeah body language expert and i absolutely love it so before we get started i want to just quickly introduce mark um i feel like he needs very little introduction given our shared connections but just in case you're being exposed to his work for the first time mark bowden has been voted the number one body language professional in the world for two years running so yes now it's a time to sit up straight even if you are sitting at home mark is the founder of communications training company truth plane whose clients include leading comp leading business people politicians presidents of fortune 500 companies and prime ministers of g7 nations his highly acclaimed ted x talk an award-winning youtube show the behavior panel has reached over 20 million viewers and he's regularly called upon the media to comment on body language around election news human behavior including on the dr phil show mark has written four books on body language and behavior and um i download the kindle version uh truth and lies uh a week ago and absolutely love it and um there's so much we want to get into and and but you guys will now believe this especially if you're on youtube i've been talking about how to zoom how to moderate better all those videos and um i consider myself a little bit of an expert but mark is hired by zoom to conduct more training moderation i'm just super super thrilled welcome mark great to be here thanks so much faye it's a real pleasure to be here so especially a pleasure to be in your vibrant home uh right now we were talking earlier about this incredible artwork that your mother does which is just uh looks stunning from here i'm sure in the room it's even more vibrant so thanks for having me in your home i appreciate it thank you so much mark for for noticing this actually it's something that we're going to talk about as a as part of our discussion today and i want to just give a shout out to michael lackey for introducing officially thank you so much for being here michael and um yeah so thrilled so mark we're gonna jump right in actually since you mentioned the environment and noticing um what's in my home office and i'm feeling a little first of all i i was here early for the live stream and i ran off to my closet to have to find a jacket because i realized you always dress up for your regular meetings like no i can't be wearing a hoodie for this well you know i want everybody to understand just how important they are to me and so i'm i'm wearing exactly what i would wear if i came and did a live keynote a live meeting with you if i came you know to your office as a professional this is what i would be wearing and so i want to do the same even in that virtual environment simply so you know that this is just as important to me as if i met one of the leaders of the g7 if i was working with somebody who's running a multinational corporation it doesn't matter who you are if you've shown up live for me right now and especially because i'm in your home fee and you're in my home and you know we've got we've got to make sure that we i guess appreciate that that boundary of you know you've invited me into your space you i'm around your mother's artwork it's a it's a bit of a familiar relationship isn't it and i want to show you that i respect that actually now you mentioned i realized it does make a really big difference i know people carry different styles when they sit in front of zoom but yeah you know what you mentioned about that consistency of you appearing to a much larger audience which i've seen you spoke in front of thousands of people um there's one scenario i can think of in front of tens of thousands of people running naked we're gonna get into that not quite showing up like that today for you but okay very serious look but yet you're so warm your environment is very warm so i would love to hop right in for people you know you know mark i hear those all the time people are sometimes taking zoom calls from their basement work from a less ideal situation they're i don't know why maybe you know such a privilege for us to have these home uh offices but what are some of the tips that you can give to my audience uh for them to maybe reconsider decorating their office or making it into a more welcoming and more warmer environment yeah okay so let's go through a few things that i think will make a big big difference and listen before we go into this this environment behind me let me just show you one way to make this environment the environment of you know me a little more easier for you to to watch haven't you noticed that i'm going to try and change my camera right now haven't you noticed that there are a whole bunch of meetings uh that you're on that look uh a little bit like this uh has that changed it oh no it's not gonna change my camera for me unfortunately but look ultimately what happens is you end up looking up people's noses yeah like this because you're using the laptop as a laptop and so you end up kind of this up the nose shot and um you're looking at the ceiling rather than the the area around somebody so what i want people to do is think about getting their camera at eye level often that means you know getting your your waste paper basket like this and pouring out all the content of that and sticking your laptop on top of that you don't ever need to worry about the waste paper on the floor because nobody's going to see that but ultimately we want to get your camera at eye level so you don't hype dominate your audience be it one uh or many also you want to make sure that they can see more of the environment around you because your non-verbal communication is not just you know your eye contact your face your hands as well but it's the the premise under which they see you the framework under which they see you and what i'm trying to do here is just show you a little bit more of that environment just let you see some indicators by the way you can't see the whole room here if you saw other parts of the room you'd see it's a bit of a disaster over there it's certainly a complete disaster on the floor now but i've put this at an angle whereby i can orchestrate a certain area and show you symbols and signals of what's important to me what i would say kind of are value statements obviously books are important you know i have logoed up some of this environment as well see so yeah so so i can have a corporate environment you know and corporate logos but still be in my home environment i totally understand like you faye that that there are areas you know that that you know are private in your home of course and and you can only do what you can do so i understand if you want to use a virtual background but even so even if you're using a virtual background i wonder can it be something that indicates to your audience something of your values something of your personality rather than it being just kind of a blurred background where they don't quite know where you are so try and engage other people by showing them something of the environment that you're in just does that make sense faye yeah it absolutely does i love moving you to the the left the main seat so i we can always blow up your video and people can see more of you even on a live stream too that makes perfect sense i also noticed something about like you're basically taking you're taking advantage of the longest distance like that corner behind you and that had the the the depth you know the the depth view or something like that could you know somehow just make you look i think look a lot better whereas i feel like it's more even right i'm i'm just in front of a flat wall uh more or less well look you you've made the sense of the space that you can okay and i love your setup there we've got some some light coming in at the side so rather than light in the background you know right in the background which would probably your camera wouldn't know what to focus on it would focus on the light and turn you into a silhouette and then you'd look like you're part of some witness protection scheme that's never a good look in in most organizations but what i what i love is is you've got that that vibrancy of color and light and those are talking points you know don't notice how we started talking together about your mum okay and you're telling about your mum i got a lot of your family background and that's simply by me noticing something and going hey tell me about that and notice how easy you were about telling me about that background and me understanding some of your values because by the way you know your mum did those great pictures but you don't have to put them up but you do yeah and that's really important yeah i'm sure you know if you said to your mum hey mum you know these are beautiful pictures but they're just not right uh for my environment i'm gonna put up something else she'd go oh okay good good good good good good but here's the thing you choose to put up that artwork in the back and that means something very important about you and your mother and the history of her and the tradition of of that clearly it's very very valuable for you now i know that now i know how i might be able to connect with you on those values by the way faye i want to show you something oh please do so my mum made me this for my 50th birthday no way oh my goodness and it's a patchwork cushion obviously but it's made out of um my old hawaiian shirt collection so i used to go to hawaii every year and i collect these beautiful hawaiian shirts shows up great on this this camera wow yeah and so she made that for my 50th birthday for me so look you know that i've now now now we're here you know in a in a business situation but we're talking about our relationships with our mothers and how you know how incredible they are at art and the craft and and there's a connection there if we'd have met in a faceless starbucks cafe and had this conversation do you think we'd ever be connecting in that way no way no way yeah and so what i want people to understand is that you know over the last you know many months we've all had our issues with zoom we've all had you know our problems with you know transferring to that and really getting used to that but i want everybody to think about the opportunities that this has we uh have not you know talked face-to-face uh before and we're already in each other's homes and we're already connecting via our parents what an incredible opportunity that would have happened in no other place and time than than this yeah i mean to me mark you're you're first of all you're deep into uh uh you know sort of human connections body language and you're absolutely right pinpointed right away that especially in the past two years having been a an entrepreneur for the past six years i noticed just in the past two years alone with camera turned on any clients any prospects will immediately ask me about these artworks and um i i can't help but pouring my heart out and uh you know to to explain to them why it means so much to me and in fact yesterday i was telling my producer that before i die i need to build an art museum for mom i need to find a home for for her legacy and this is part of my legacy and it's really it's really serious business so thank you for noticing and and piecing all this for me really yeah well look and i want other people to notice other people's zoom backgrounds as well because here's what we know about people's homes is most people get somewhat of a choice of what goes on around their home i know not every choice but somewhat of a choice let's just say and usually usually they will choose items to be on display that have significance and value to them and if you're the person who can uncover some of that significance and value you'll uncover what drives them you'll uncover not only what drove them to put that thing on the wall or have that thing in the background but you'll incu uncover the values that drive a whole bunch of other stuff as well maybe they're buying decisions maybe how they want to be led maybe what kind of leader they are maybe what they see is a great vision for for the world or their community so so inquire about their backgrounds just go hey so i'm just curious i can't quite see here's another example actually faye let me do let me do this with you because i see there's a whole bunch of books there but i can't quite make out the titles but but out of all of those books that are there faye which one has had the most impact on on you which one stands out for you out of all of those books i'm just curious oh wow what a great conversation starter i i feel like i have to look at a list and i would say you know it's interesting i will talk about michael leckie's book the heart of transformation it has had a really a significant impact on me because number one with full transparency i've been working with michael for the past two years and this was very special uh is very special to him but his first book um to publish so we went through a lot i feel like emotional spiritual rollercoasters to not know exactly where this is gonna go and so i've never really had that like such an intimate relationship with a book as much as i've had with his and um you know besides you know also michael's a really good friend as well but besides that book i would say i'm giving away like one more book i would say super fans by pat flynn and meeting him in person like he i remember the book cover i don't have it handy right now but it says like oh not followers cross out followers cross our clients and it says super fans and those are the people who are there to purchase everything you ever produce which i have been a super fan of seth godin purchased and read every single book and made a ton of friends through his network so yeah it works interesting okay so look just by asking that question okay i got you know we elicited the relationship that we both have with with with mike leckie okay great and then you go okay there's this super fans thing and you're the kind of person who is prepared to go all in on seth godin like yeah i will i'll be all in on the merch and and the ideas okay yeah and that helps me understand something about about you but look how quickly i got there via looking at your nonverbal environment and and just being innocent and just going i can't see what's back there what is it what's most significant uh back there and i could i could carry on doing doing this so actually fate i see those are those those like lilies in the background there i'm not so good at being able to tell plant from plant what what what are those back there i know those are actually artificial those are like fake flowers because yeah they don't need much work but yeah it's a it's so funny i can't help but giving you all the details you didn't necessarily ask for but i don't know i'm doing this because i want people to see just how delighted another human being is when somebody goes i don't quite know what that is back there just how and you know what you're about to do is not only tell me exactly what they are but tell me the significance of them so anyway look i just stopped you there tell me about tell me about those oh it's interesting because my mom is the artist we bought the house a year ago so she kind of put herself on this like on this track of finding decors for the house and a lot of the flowers fake flowers that you find at regular stores look really fake yeah and they're not cheap either and they're fake and we happen to go to this thrift shops and where it's everything's donated and they're super and they're really really cheap and they're made out of handmade by this woman who has a story makes all the all these flowers using silk panels once again so they're really natural they look so real on camera and they need they need absolutely no maintenance so so look look again again connections to your mother connections to silk okay another value comes up which is the idea of the thrift store okay but but you want it to be really good quality okay you're going okay i don't want to maybe pay more than i should but i still want it to be really really good and and and be connected to a value system but that's the thing if if you show up or i show up in a faceless environment um then it's very hard for another human being to connect with us i have seen people out there and they they completely blur the backgrounds or they put up you know a very kind of dry corporate virtual background in there and uh what happens in for our instinct is when insufficient data we default to negatives so if we can't see enough we're not optimistic we don't go hey blurred background i bet it's all good news i bet they've blurred it because you know they're just in such a great environment they wouldn't want to offend me by just how how well they live we don't do that at all we go oh i bet they've clearly got a problem with where they live i wonder what's up with them oh oh they should feel like that i'm an okay person i wouldn't mind i wouldn't be offensive if they don't not quite living in the way they want to be living like we start making up all kinds of stories not really positive ones so you're better off just delivering something of the way you'd like to be seen because otherwise your audience will make up the difference and they will tend to not be optimistic around it so look i got loads of signals around here that hopefully you kind of pick up on but certainly hopefully comfort and warmth and being welcome that you know i'm here just having a chat with you you know like we might in a in a in a cafe or something you know i'm just kind of hanging out with you you might see awards to the side here as well that might you think make you think okay well maybe he likes you know winning stuff clearly books uh are important the little family portrait of the background there i've even got the lights switched on here which helps you understand that somebody's at home and they're thinking and it's warm here yeah it feels really warm even though i know you live in toronto i live in boston we're not it's cold cold outside yeah yeah it looks very warm and cozy you're not having a winter jacket on it literally that tiny little bit of warmth that color just makes me feel comfortable that you are comfortable and i love like i have to share this this kind of happened relatively recently when um i had a phone call with michael leckie who just moved across the country from connecticut all the way to portland oregon and um i noticed there was a keyboard i actually felt right behind him i actually thought it was awkward i'm like he never talked about music before i bet it's like the previous owner left it there and he doesn't know what to do with that piece of instrument and i asked him and he told me this whole story about how he wanted to learn the piano when he was younger he regretted that he didn't continue and he wants to pick it up again now he's very open about his age he's like in his 50s you really want to learn how to play music and i happen to work for and with several steinway artists and i put them together with cosmo bono in six months of learning you know believe this cosmo calls me which he rarely died he's like you not believe how talented and how dedicated michael is he's able to play all these chopin like bach music and it was just so beautiful right well again you know without these things in the background or taking the risk to play them to display them out there it's very hard for us to make these connections and therefore all we're left with is is the business of the day you know the meeting of the day rather than the connection and there's nothing wrong with the business of the day like you've got to get stuff done obviously but how how do you know how to trust people you know now faye now i know your connection with art your connection with your mother you know all of those elements that your connection with being all in on somebody you know if you find someone you go i really like this like you're all in uh on that that's really helpful for me because now i go well so what would it be like if we worked more together like are those the kind of values that i think um would be helpful in our work without that my brain is completely at sea completely at sea how do i know how to trust you what to trust you around well you can kind of say hey go and look at my website or go and talk to a customer of mine or whatever but it isn't like feeling the connection for yourself so you know well done for taking the the risk of the uh of the fake flowers oh thank you i i have so many follow-up questions because you triggered another thought in my mind about getting to know me as someone who goes all in which i do and um and so for instance like to uh i had to use the word promote but i really wanted to share today's conversation knowing that everybody's super busy especially on mondays that you know a lot of people ended up tuning in to these segments after we've gone live but if you're watching this live right now i know some of you guys are please leave us any questions there are no silly questions there's such a rare opportunity to have mark on so i decided to share a cross share about you your work on my social media channels i send it across my email list i have you know about 2 100 people there which is a lot from me and i shared it in my youtube community as well there's a community tab as you know uh you're also a youtuber and you know for me i actually thought for a second to say like okay i'm sort of taking a risk here too what if people don't like mark which i know everybody loves you um what if what if mark doesn't show up because we changed this meeting a couple of times but i feel like you know what once i'm committed i'm all in and it's okay like frankly i i had a backup plan in case julia says omar can't make it anymore he's running late all right i'm just gonna go live by myself but that's kind of how i see the world which is one thing that i heard from multiple people about the fact that you are someone you commit fully and you have you don't have a plan for necessarily everything which is totally counterintuitive for the world that we live in today everything's goal-oriented every everything has to have a specific outcome but you're more relaxed about it all so i kind of want to welcome your thoughts on that yeah so so first of all um i have never not made it so not making it in my like number one is you have to be there if you say you're gonna be there you're gonna be there okay so so um but so so then i arrive i always arrive i'm always there okay five minutes before yeah yeah i'm always there now um yeah i'm not good like some other people i know about having really kind of good crisp goals and going like you know this is what i want i want to achieve um i'm kind of good if it's a numerical goal if it's like um uh yeah so for example with this youtube award over here that was for a hundred thousand viewers and so and so with the work that we're doing on youtube at the moment with the behavior panel you know it it's it's tricky to work out the goal other than well let's get a million subscribers because it's because like and then we'll get a gold one now you know what are we going to do to do that i don't know i mean you know we'll work that out as we go along but there's the there's the goal i'm pretty good at numerical goals now um within that for me there is the importance and the value of how you're going to do that and that i have got very very set in the all i ever try to do now is show up and be helpful that's it that's it so all i'm trying to do right now is just be helpful for for people so that if we go away from this conversation and and some people go yeah i didn't i didn't like it i didn't i didn't like him didn't like what he was saying you know all i'll ever do is go oh that's a shame because i was trying to be really helpful there was nothing else going going on other than i was trying to be helpful and if it didn't help them nothing i can really do about about that so so that's what i'm trying to achieve and certainly with clients that i have when they go hey you know um the client just just now uh in in financial services who was you know they're they're launching that there's they're kind of relaunching their business and they want to grow and grow and grow and they were going hey you know we think we're going to get you know the the might of our marketing department onto making video and and you know we'll walk people around the office and show them the team and it was like oh right okay well like how's that going to help anybody with with the problem that they have you know that you might how's that going to help i mean why not just make some videos where you just deal with for free the most important problems that that people who should be your customers and clients have just why not start the work immediately which is kind of what i'm trying to do here with the audience that are watching this is is is help immediately and not go oh well actually for the answer to that fair you'd really need to look in my book and and you'll need to go away and buy uh that no it's just i'll give it away here and be helpful and if you're a client down the road that's great and if you're not that's great i don't really mind yeah i'm helpful that's great if i'm not that's okay as well but certainly all that's on my mind is can i just help as much as possible and then i can walk away going well i did what i wanted to do which was try and be helpful there i love it because i think that's really ultimately why you are very very successful at what you do it's not so much outbound marketing and sales but people come to you because they're you know because of the charisma the willingness and transparency of your content they are already being helped by i you know once again for people who didn't see this earlier i watch your three minute video i mean literally um turns out we both know dan and i i didn't know i i knew him until my partner told me about it but i watched your three-minute video sitting in a hotel room and you talked about this thing and then this was eye opening which i'll review why in a second about facilitating these 5000 person webinars and we the organizer and myself we've been looking for the solution forever so when i saw it and i wasn't thinking about like oh how can i save so many dollars or trying to recreate this piece of plastic myself like i trust mark and he's using it as an international speaker and that's great i got logitech brio as soon as that's done you didn't i noticed you didn't go like affiliate link click here do that it's like there you go the brio on a plexi cap no absolutely you know and dan was so down at plexicam and and you know i just want to let people know i don't have shares in the company i don't have any affiliate links the only reason i'm showing you plexicam is that it's brilliant that's the only reason is that if you get one you'll be better off than if you didn't get one now and there's as i i'm always trying to be helpful when i talk about plexicam so you know i show people show people my my brio on a plexi cam and you know let them know how you can you can now look through to the screen and hang it in the middle of your screen and i say every time look if you're handy with plexiglass make one of your own you know or and i do say i do often say you know i started off you know thinking about this idea and i was using a coat hanger you know and then i saw dad had done one with plexiglass i was ah that's brilliant that's much better than my my coat hanger idea that was scratching up my screen and all kinds of stuff like dan had a better idea but look nobody has to go and buy dan's plexi cam you can sculpt something out of a coat hanger it's just easier if in my mind it's easier if you go and buy the thing because it's only a few dollars and it works a treat so again yeah i don't need i don't need affiliate uh links for that because i've already got the value out of being helpful that's that's the thing and like you see cfa you know you go and get one yourself and you go oh yeah mark was right yeah okay yeah so it probably means if i give you some more advice or help you'll probably take that as well you know so so we go down a road of you trusting me um and and trusting that i have your best interests uh in mind absolutely and you know with that said i know some people here are really eager to learn some of the tactics that you have shared communicated on various channels for sure so um speaking of plexicam i actually have i would like to always improve the way that i present um host moderate on these zoom sessions granted i think i would say most of us are using zoom like 90 of the times and and then the other 10 microsoft teams or google me doesn't matter what you use but uh mark i i lately i've been hosting every other month these super uber massive sessions as a moderator i don't get to see any of the attendees i see their comments at the most and and then on top of that i'll be very transparent to say because of some of these people are very prolific and you know steve wozniak and you know and then also uh mark randolph from netflix so some of the questions are scripted which frankly makes it a little more challenging because i am also the go with a flow type of person and that's why plexi cam is able to allow me to see the script while i can kind of freestyle part of it but i would love to be able to engage with people more i want them to feel my presence as as if i'm in the same room with them um what are some of the advice perhaps you have for these much larger meeting audience where i don't really get to engage and i don't even know how much i'm influencing them until i get the survey and by the way the results are great but i'm still here to learn yeah so so um is it on those kind of events faye is there some way you can connect with the audience via text or anything like that or just like no way at all yeah so since i'm moderating it in in this case thank you for breaking it down because some people in some cases will be able to interact with them but since i'm the moderator with the guests i won't be able to really interact with them so the only presence i have is just it's sort of just me on stage but even i think worse than tedx right or ted talk where i can still sort of see the front row and and pinpoint certain things i'm i'm unable to do that so i wonder how i can be more natural and and just engaging like i'm really there not reading off a script yeah so what i want you to think about is what i'm doing right now which is every now and again i like lean right into the camera and i look right down the camera and i lower my voice because it's closer to my mic which is right in front of me here and what i do is get the sense of being even more intimate with you okay now remember if we were doing this as to live you know in in the same geographical location to thousands of people i would be you know right back here right back here somewhere you know talking on a big stage gesturing in a big way okay and that might be big and grand and i'd maybe have big images up to the side of me there but the intimacy has been lost and i'm somewhat in the darkness back here as well and i want you to notice what happens as i as i tiptoe through the garbage now that i threw on the floor but as i get more proximity with you notice the relationship that you start to feel now you know now i know you like it for me you're like a little square down here so it's rather like um i've got to remember that you're there yeah okay and i gotta remember that i'm talking directly to you the individual so i've not got to think about a big audience out there i've got to think about individuals i've got to think about you so i'll say the word you a lot or rather than you all so you so so so you know what you are thinking or maybe thinking right now and one way to make sure that i connect in some way with the idea of a human being is to have this here yeah okay and i place that just close to my uh camera the moment it's just kind of underneath what it means is is i'm looking right down the lens but i can still see that smiley face just down and it just keeps reminding me that there's another human being there essentially so again you've got to keep the intimate connection with the audience they'll feel it and you feel it for yourself i mean this already feels you know really quite almost secret between you and me though many many many people could be watching right now this feels quite secret and intimate between us anyway i hope that's helpful for you oh it's very very helpful and i notice that you're leaning in there are a lot of techniques i know it comes very natural to you but for people who are watching now or later it definitely takes practice and i think it's important to not over judge ourselves and how we look how we sound on camera necessarily right away but i love how mark you you're always animated and you're fun you're fun to look at and you know most people are just sitting there um with no emotions no gesture but you're always pointing you're running around the room which just makes the experience just so much more engaging and relaxing um so yeah thank you for that so i know that the scenario that i was describing for me that happens every other month which frankly i feel like i need more practice because every time i i go in i feel like it's something new and now i know exactly what to do now we have a lot of people watching this they're in more normal meetings it's them maybe one other person i love the one other person meeting but sometimes it's just even two three four other people up to a group of maybe 10 people are normal for people's standups virtual meetings and um in you know like it's hard sometimes for people especially for the hosts perhaps to help everybody to activate them to keep them energized to keep them engaged what are some of the advice that you may have for these mundane like everyday zoom virtual sessions yeah so look i mean you know people are doing many many meetings a day it's it's exhausting for all kinds of reasons that we could go into psychologically as to why it's so exhausting but ultimately what we need is some kind of zoom stamina essentially so how do you build that that zoom stamina well one of the things if you feel there isn't a social connection it's harder work for everybody so can you ask for that social connection uh up front because that's easier for the brain the brain gets upset if it feels it's not connected with other human beings especially if it feels that that it's being judged and judged harshly and isn't getting any feedback so here's what i do on on meetings be it to one people or many is when i show up and i see lots of dark screens there you know and just somebody's initials i go so look here's what i've noticed about virtual meetings if i can see you and you can see me this meeting goes much quicker we're going to understand each other so much better and you can get exactly what you need from me almost immediately so what do you want to do about that and then what i notice is we get more more people coming up because i've i've i haven't told them they need to put their camera on but i've made them a deal yeah if i can see and you can see if i can see you and you can see me the meeting goes much quicker okay so nobody was at the meeting going i want it to be interminably long they're going well i hope this is you know relatively fast um we understand each other so much better nobody's there going well i wanted to be misunderstood and if i say you can get exactly what you need from me almost immediately it suggests that there is some value here okay so let people know that it's more advantageous for you to be able to see each other and that way and there's a benefit to it that way you're more likely to see them engage in the environment around them and if you can't see the environment ask questions about people's environment so a good question is where are you in the world right now okay if you don't know this person already you don't know where they are find out where they are because you might be able to connect very quickly around the geographic location or what's happening in the weather system there at the time just connect that you are a human being that knows other geographic locations knows weather systems understands that you know it's a sunny day for you i've had sunny days as well you know we do get sun in canada uh now and again even in the winter quite a bright day out there so just find ways to connect and again that will build up your zoom stamina causes fatigue is being um is anti-social behavior okay which would be ultimately you can't see anybody and they're just voyeurs they are passive consumers not active contributors you need to help other people in the meeting give them space to be active contributors because otherwise they'll be passive consumers and they'll just consume and consume and consume and consume and then leave and you won't know whether you did anything that was valuable or not and that's antisocial when somebody just takes stuff and doesn't say hey thanks very much that was kind of useful because of this that's that's an antisocial behavior okay so don't help them out of that because this environment can easily create anti-social behavior the other antisocial behavior is is you looking at yourself all the time okay so that's that's a little bit tricky now you know i i often need to be able to see myself out the corner of my eye today am i in frame or not but really you know what i'm going to do is take my smiley face right now and i'm going to stick that smiley face over the top of my image right now so i can't see myself anymore all i can do now is focus on that camera and i've now got another instead of me i've got a little smiley face over here as well that's all already relaxed the part of my brain which is constantly going are you in frame are you in frame you're gesturing you animating the frame i can now relax from that a little bit now it's maybe calmed down my personality a little bit but you know probably about time uh gives me a bit of a of a rest so look think of all the things that might be considered anti-social and try and set up a situation where you're less likely to be anti-social and more likely to be social i hope that makes sense do you think yeah it it does absolutely you mentioned to create an environment that's positive and help people open up are there certain techniques or questions perhaps to uh open people up a little bit more asking them a question and actually wait for it you know like there's a one exercise i tried counting down instead of like trying to answer anything ahead of time for anyone else actually wait for the answer uh even five seconds could feel like a really long time but do you think creating that space on zoom is possible and helpful yeah i mean finding time to ask them questions and get answers from them if you use hierarchical questions so questions that cause their brain to go okay i've got to work out the best or the smallest or the biggest or the the the most lively or um uh you know so i could ask you a a hierarchical question you know out of all your mum's art that you have faye uh what for you is the most significant piece the one that you look at and go that i i that is the one i would have over anything else ah it's really hard right it's it's very challenging for me to answer that question i think i do like them all i know it's easy it's easy to like them all but if you were forced to pick which one would it be ah i i think oh wow um i i don't know i don't know the answer to that actually yeah it's it's interesting ah i really that i really it's always something that she's maybe currently working on um and uh is just opens up all the whole new possibilities like i'm always stunned by that the fact that she doesn't run out of any ideas and just dreaming these things up out of the blue um yeah notice what happened in that question is you know you couldn't find any you couldn't fight but i went again and went no pick pick pick no i can't pick i can't pick and then you went it's whatever she's working on at the time yeah and you found something there okay and so and something happened about the value system around that that that still at her you know amazing age she is still creating stuff yeah still making stuff and so it struck me there's a big value in that for you yeah a huge value in that for you so but the key there was to stick to the question because i could have immediately gone oh no it's okay well uh here's a better question then right right rather than going no i'm going to stick to this question so you have to get used in this environment well in fact in any environment where you're asking great questions you have to get used to hanging in there and not filling in the space for the other person because you know you get worried about them as the answerer and you force them into a question you force them into making choice and because the brain likes to create hierarchy yeah i mean you know notice how how hard your brain worked to try and go i've been asked for a hierarchy i've got to do it i've got to do it i'll do it i can't do it i can't do it oh i've come up with something it's the most recent thing it's the thing that she's doing right now okay you'll find an answer and that answer will have some real value to it you got to kind of force your audience be more um put more effort in yourself to forcing them into being more active around their participation fake it would be so easy and i could do it in the you know you get me on a call like this and basically i can talk to myself for out for hours you know and so again i need to be constantly aware of going get back to faye get another question get other people involved otherwise it's kind of anti-social it's just me talking at myself from for a long long long long time and i do that internally anyway you know my brain has parts of my brain have conversations uh with itself all the time anyway i hope that's a decent answer for you faye i love it i love it since i know that we don't have infinite i mean i you're i'm sure you hear this all the time it's very very easy and relaxing to talk to you it's strange in a way that because i'm consuming so much learning so much and have to reflect will continue to do so beyond this call yet i feel very at ease and i'm very relaxed which is not often the feeling i get while learning and it's unfortunately there a lot of problems in our educational systems to put so much pressure on kids so that they can't even enjoy the some of the really important things that they're learning but i gotta you know make sure that you know i let you go within 10 minutes or less is i would love to learn about your experience of the ability to run naked in front of i don't know is it 30 or 60 000 people well so so so if if anybody's out there going what on earth is faith talking about all you'd need to do is to google nike streaker nike streaker and uh and you'll find me uh there so yeah that was an ad that i did for for uh nike shocks um i can't remember what year it was it was the year that nike shocks came out there's probably some some some shoe aficionados out there who who know the exact date of that but we filmed that at millwall football club i think we had maybe about 12 20 maybe 15 20 000 people maybe in each and ago and they would be moved around and and other spectators cgi'd in um uh you know computer graphic uh later on but yes it was four days of filming in front of still a very large crowd of people running around completely completely naked other than some nike shocks and i didn't realize that you were actually wearing the jews i'm actually wearing the shoes yeah yeah i'm actually uh you wouldn't want to do that barefoot well that's interesting um i was trying to say like who got cast i mean you clearly got casted for the role was it like any competition were there like a line of naked men like competing for in london you can always there's always a line of naked men somewhere uh well i was already quite known for this this area of physical performance of being able to you know um demonstrate create a feeling an idea with my movement i've been in uh visual theater for many many years uh so i i i would have been part of a a list of people uh hopefully not massively long that not literally not not not a lineup of just naked people a lineup of very specific naked people uh who who uh could create what i create there which is really the idea when talking with uh is frank budgen who directed it the most awarded um uh ad director at the time uh so so extraordinary director um and what we talked about was how do we create this idea of being totally free how can we get this idea of of complete freedom um even when you're being chased down by the police and you're in such a massive crowd that would be such kind of social risk if you're naked and football players and what would freedom really look like i mean the idea of streaking was already there but then you know they're freaking and they're streaking and and hopefully what you see there is the epitome of you know the greatest streaker ever that was the you know what would be because that moment of running naked in front of a a crowd is that moment of light i just don't care like i'm outside of society i'm completely free around this so but you you've got to create that in in a few seconds that people must already know what an amazing streak of this is the best streaker ever so that's uh that's how i got the the role i was part of a group of people who could do that and had a conversation with the director and he went yeah let's do this one that's amazing i mean i remember i probably was like around early 2000 2000 to 2003 when the shoe came out and i remember watching thanks to michael who actually sent me the video i was trying to watch it and i realized it was like a four by three orientation it was a little pixelated so it wasn't super clear but did you have any fear then or now to say oh my god with a 4k camera the 6k camera these days like can be are you are you any at any moment concerned about what the level details people are seeing or like it's not really a big deal to you um well in the edit in the final edit they had they had to pixelate it or it wouldn't get broadcast on us tv so so so i mean there may be all kinds of footage out there but it but it certainly hasn't made the internet uh at least at this point we were shooting i mean yeah at the time it wasn't there was no such thing as 4k but he had hired um the channel for outsourc outside broadcast team to do the shooting on it much better quality cameras than they'd normally be using but ultimately he'd used people who were used to following football matches that was there that was their job for for life live um terrestrial tv in the uk um yeah i would listen uh the thing is you know when you're running naked around a football pitch you're more worried about sharp objects than anything else when you're being chased by stunt guys dressed up as police officers who you've said look just go for the tackle just try and get me down i will try and escape you just try and get me down you just try and take me down and of course uh they do a lot of the time so many many takes were me hitting the ground hard oh wow yeah so it it it's it's uh you know and i would do that for for a few minutes and then go okay uh i'm getting very very cold i can't run anymore and then i'd have to go in they had a massager who would get my legs back and moving and try and take away some of the bruising that was now happening around my body every time i'm taken down or i jump over a fence and i don't manage to make it and i hit the concrete and you know all of that kind of stuff happening and you know over four days you just you just you know do your best and then get your body back into the shape and go on again and but i do remember after four days i i came back home uh uh sat in a warm bath and basically went into shock it was you know at that point the adrenaline had gone down and and it was then the body was like what have you now gone and done to yourself ah speaking of stamina so funny i was a lot thinner by day four believe me wow by day four thank you so much for sharing this because i don't think i've heard the story in full length uh anywhere else on youtube during my research so you revealed visual theater and i think that would be my last question um which is i was gonna say i wonder what mark's origin story is gonna be why did he choose you know nlp neuro-linguistic programming and you know mirroring these and then body language it just seems like what a what is the perfect transition and that has you know lent itself to so many opportunities including working with zoom but i was just like where did all this come from that you just like picked this or yeah well i just really fell into it i was i was involved in in first of all visual art how you tell stories with pictures and then how you tell stories with moving pictures got really really good at that really good at helping other people do that and at the start that was in the in the theater film and tv context and then people in uh pr started to come to me in london and go can you do that with our clients that then these were people in business and politics and so i started working in business and politics with what are the environments and the human uh maneuvers that we can set up in order to convince the camera and therefore the public of um you know a certain outcome a certain to influence and persuade and i and i got very good at that within the theater film and tv context and it was and the and really you know business and politics weren't very far ahead in that at all there was really nobody who who knew what i knew was doing what i was doing in in the world of entertainment that it ever moved bought that only nobody was really doing what i was doing in entertainment at the level that i was doing it and then uh taking that into business and politics was a whole other step so once i took my work to there and like where i am right now they're you know there really was when i started there really was nobody who knew what i knew in the field that that i was in so it was pretty pretty unique and that's why in the world of body language uh when i wrote my first book winning body language where is it over here somewhere this book here the the information that was in this had never been written down before it was it was the techniques here were word of mouth actually going all the way back to ancient greece never been written down and been passed down within theater and visualized been passed down visually ultimately and in the and in the in the um the stories of of of theater which of course as you probably understand the greek theater was a a uh was ultimately a political uh propaganda it was a political manipulation so so you know everything was fit really quite nicely and um and i had something very very unique so to it to an extent uh i'm not sure i picked it it kind of picked me or i kind of floated floated to the top on that maybe well that sounds really interesting and uh you as you're revealing all of this i'm thinking it makes so much sense because you know my love for multimedia but i also have have interviewed so many cirque du soleil and circus artists from seven fingers from worldwide and and it's just uh and it's incredible uh even i've recently watched cirque du soleil's documentary and it's describing there's some parallels that you just said um community communicating a story in their world of fantasy and but it's not completely removed from reality and it's just so fascinating so i would probably surprise you trained a lot of people who work with cirque du soleil and a lot of friends who who were in shows as as well yeah yeah yeah so the connection is uh you know when i first started off in visual theater we had this you know we had early visions of of of circus without animals and therefore you know because the great thing about circus and animals is the implicit danger of it and and keeping that danger within the ring and within that tight ring and the audience their fear that that the danger will come out of the ring i mean it's only the clowns that ever get to pass that barrier and we started thinking about well because we already knew you know the the days of animals in entertainment are are going to disappear and disappear for some very good reasons and so we started going what could we have instead that's dangerous and thinking well just you know big machinery let's do circus with you know diggers and chainsaws and stuff that people would feel is is you know where do we get that animal danger essentially and then cirque du soleil came in and it had some elements of that danger but almost what it replaced it with was an aesthetic around a beauty just a delight an incredible imagination and almost danger of taking yourself into that totally big imaginative uh uh world so i so i love uh cirque du soleil's yeah unbelievable there's so much shared experiences there oh my goodness um i we have to talk about it uh for the montreal's uh you know completely circus week in july or something i uh went there for like watched like 15 shows in a row i recommend to it anyone anywhere so um i want to respect your time mark and thank you so much for joining me today and um yeah is there anything that you want to leave our audience with before we head off or before we end the stream no just look if you found this useful you found this helpful link in with me you know i sit around answering questions all day every day linking in with people you're very welcome to carry on this conversation with me via linkedin so you'll find me there amazing awesome all right i'm gonna end the stream now and mark don't go anywhere just yet all right thanks again for watching everyone

Channel: Feisworld Media

Views: 65

Keywords: mark bowden, presentation skills, the behavior panel, zoom tips, zoom tips and tricks, body language analysis, public speaking tips, zoom video conferencing, virtual presentation skills, virtual presentation, digital body language, virtual presentations, how to look good on zoom, how to read body language, zoom tricks, mark bowden interview, virtual meeting tips, virtual presentation tips, mark bowden ted, mark bowden zoom, feisworld zoom, feisworld livestream

Id: o-Kb-y_mUGI

Length: 60min 11sec (3611 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 14 2021