I was part of a conversation last week about AI-enabled platforms that can search across an organisation’s documents, systems, and internal knowledge bases and come back with high-context answers to specific workplace questions.
Ok… here goes: what constructive feedback would you give me, Tom. With the aid of video replay, I’ve spotted and tried to overcome pained facial expressions - didn’t even know I was doing that!
This is a really fun one. An exercise I did as a drama student was really getting to know my face, which sounds really odd but bear with me.
While standing in front of a mirror, create a face that you would like to be your default talking position, as it were, the face where if you're not trying to emote anything specific in the moment you relax to or go to while speaking. It will initially feel odd, forced, but that's actually a good thing. While holding that facial expression and looking at yourself in the mirror, really focus on how your face feels. Think about how each muscle group that you feel is in that moment. What's stretching, what's relaxed? How does holding that facial expression feel? The idea is to commit the feeling of it to memory so that you know whether or not that is the facial expression you are holding simply by how it feels on your face.
This is something that has to be practised again and again and again and again until you instinctively know what facial expression you're showing to people. It will always take some level of effort but the amount of your concentration you dedicate to this versus what you're saying or how you're moving in any other way decreases over time as you become more and more used to it. At which point you can also start exploring other facial expressions. I found it really useful over the years to draw on these things that are perhaps more typically used by actors. To understand how they can display a deliberate emotion through their facial expression rather than just hoping for the best.
Ok… here goes: what constructive feedback would you give me, Tom. With the aid of video replay, I’ve spotted and tried to overcome pained facial expressions - didn’t even know I was doing that!
This is a really fun one. An exercise I did as a drama student was really getting to know my face, which sounds really odd but bear with me.
While standing in front of a mirror, create a face that you would like to be your default talking position, as it were, the face where if you're not trying to emote anything specific in the moment you relax to or go to while speaking. It will initially feel odd, forced, but that's actually a good thing. While holding that facial expression and looking at yourself in the mirror, really focus on how your face feels. Think about how each muscle group that you feel is in that moment. What's stretching, what's relaxed? How does holding that facial expression feel? The idea is to commit the feeling of it to memory so that you know whether or not that is the facial expression you are holding simply by how it feels on your face.
This is something that has to be practised again and again and again and again until you instinctively know what facial expression you're showing to people. It will always take some level of effort but the amount of your concentration you dedicate to this versus what you're saying or how you're moving in any other way decreases over time as you become more and more used to it. At which point you can also start exploring other facial expressions. I found it really useful over the years to draw on these things that are perhaps more typically used by actors. To understand how they can display a deliberate emotion through their facial expression rather than just hoping for the best.
Love this. Like a memory pillow! Will give it a go. 🙏🏻