Principle IX: To be perceived as an authentic public person, you must align your nonverbal and verbal ‘conversations’. This means aligning your emotional intent with your conscious thought.

Most of us in the work world spend a good deal of our time saying one thing and doing another. By that I mean our body language is at variance with our overt verbal messages. We’re in a meeting, say, and it has been going on for an hour, and lunch is approaching, and what are we doing? We’re trying our best to conceal our signs of impatience and boredom.

Or, we’re standing up to speak and doing our best to conceal our natural signs of nervousness. Or, we’re having a bad day and someone asks, ‘How are you?’ and we say ‘Fine’, smiling anyway.

We don’t do these things because we’re bad people; quite the contrary, in fact.  We’re driven by a desire to help the group of which we are a part.  The social demands of the workplace cause us to attempt to appear more focused, more involved, and more enthusiastic at any given moment than we actually may be.

Most of the time, the stakes are low enough that our little white nonverbal (and verbal) lies either go undetected or get forgiven.

But occasionally, when the stakes are high, and everyone’s watching, it suddenly becomes important to have strong alignment between your content and body language.  It’s a crucial meeting, upon which big decisions and lots of money depend, for instance, or a critical speech, upon which the future depends.

Then, you need to focus clearly on your emotional intent.  You need to align your words with that emotional intent.  And you need to stay in that state of heightened emotional awareness for the duration.

Here’s the catch.  It takes practice to pull off that alignment and heightened awareness.  Actors and Buddhists call it being ‘present’ and if you spend most of your day unaligned, it’s very difficult to snap into a state of full presence and alignment all at once for that important meeting or speech.

So instead, to be successful, authentic, and charismatic, you need to practice that emotional alignment and presence daily.  Don’t settle for little white nonverbal and verbal lies.  Tell the truth.  Start to become more aware of your emotions from moment to moment, and learn to share them in appropriate ways – and a sense of humor – with the people around you.  The results will surprise you:  people will be drawn to you, your charisma will increase, and you will find yourself enjoying your day, with more energy and focus than ever before.