I attended the 800-CEO-READ Pow-Wow last week, in Chicago, and talked with the attendees about storytelling and about the importance of the two conversations – content and body language – to communications.  Among the attendees were some amazing bloggers and tweeters:  David Meerman Scott on social media (http://www.webinknow.com/), Jose Castillo also on social media (http://www.thinkjose.com/) , Kevin Eikenberry (http://www.kevineikenberry.com/blogs/index.asp) Pam Slim (http://www.escapefromcubiclenation.com/),  Sally Hogshead (http://www.radicalcareering.com/hogblog/),  Mike Moran (http://www.mikemoran.com/biznology/index.htm), the Fast Company book reviewer Lucas Conley (http://blog.lucasconley.com/), and of course Todd and Jack themselves (http://800ceoread.com/blog/).  I know I'm missing some great blogs; those were the folks I got to talk with the most. 

The story I told to illustrate the power, especially, of the second conversation – body language – to dominate an exchange between speaker and audience goes back a few years to when I attended a conference at which the Dalai Lama was to speak.

I sat in the audience, very excited, because I had read about the Dalai Lama’s narrow escape from the communists to establish his government in exile in India and had been fired up by the idea of this holy man on the run.   And beyond that, I was fascinated by Buddhism and everything His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama represented.

He was over an hour late, but no one seemed to mind.  The room was wildly overcrowded – it would have seated 50 comfortably, and there were at least 80 of jammed in, digging our elbows into each other’s sides and apologizing as we did so.  The vibe was very peaceful.  And warm.   

Finally, the lights dimmed, and a bent, middle-aged man in saffron robes walked slowly out, and sat down on the floor in the middle of the stage.  And said….nothing.  For one minute, two minutes – three minutes.  He just looked at us. 

And then he laughed, a weird, other-worldly laugh.  He said, “You all look so serious.  I’d better say something really important.”  And laughed again.  The audience was completely transfixed.  He had won us over entirely without saying anything. 

What I realized later was that the speaker and the audience had had a whole conversation silently in that three minutes.  It was a non-verbal, largely unconscious exchange, that was as profound for us as it was silent. 

That inspired me to learn all I could about the power of non-verbal conversation.  What had happened in that room?  What had the Dalai Lama ‘said’?  What had the audience said back?  What had either party heard?  And so on. 

I do know that I saw authenticity and charisma in action that day.  These powerful aspects of human communication happen at a level that comes before speech, and go from speaker to audience and back again faster than words.  If your career or your job depends in any way on authenticity or charisma, then you owe it to yourself to understand the basic of non-verbal communication.  Every communication is two conversations.  Learn to be fully present for both.  (I go into much more detail about these ideas in my new book Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma. (http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Steps-Authenticity-Charisma/dp/0470404353/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229113611&sr=1-1))