When it comes to communication you probably already know that what you say and how you say it will either talk people into your ideas or out of your ideas. Your tone, tempo and body language are important. We hear this a lot when it comes to communication. Something that is not being talked about too much yet precedes your tone, tempo and body language is the power of focus and how it impacts your nonverbal communication – what you are not saying. What are your eyes looking at? Are you looking at problems or are you looking at solutions? What you focus on determines where the conversation will go. Your focus is the key to talking people into your ideas without saying a word. What you focus on comes out of your eyes before it ever comes out of your mouth, your body language or your tone and tempo. So, take a look at what focus is, what it isn’t and the impact your focus can have on you and your conversations as well as how your ability to focus will help you talk people into your ideas before you have ever spoken a word.

What you focus on determines where you are going in all areas of your life – whether in conversation, work, goals or even driving a car. If you have an end destination in mind, you can move towards that goal. The same thing goes for conversation. The most powerful tool you have in your nonverbal communication toolbox is your ability to control where you focus. I love how Steven Covey puts this in his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit #2 says, “Begin with the end in mind.” What do you want? Where are you going? What does it look like? How do you know you have arrived there? The same thing goes for your conversations. What do you want from your conversations? If you can see that end in mind, you will move people towards that target during your conversation. You won’t take things personally, in fact any obstacles that come up during your conversation will become just that; obstacles for you to go over and or go around or go through rather than attacks that are going to stop you in your tracks. Your ability to control your focus in your conversation keeps that end target in mind in all areas of your conversation, even if arguing with somebody who you are in a relationship with. Do you want a solution or do you want a fight? When negotiating with your boss to get a pay raise, do you want to complain about why you haven’t had one or do you want to move towards what it’s going to take to get a pay raise? With a co-worker, do you want to focus and argue with them about why they are constantly late or do you want to talk about what it’s going to take for them to be on time. This changes your focus from why are they constantly late to what is it going to take to move them to being on time.

What you focus on becomes your target and that’s where your eyes, mind and thoughts go. Once you have focused and locked in on that target, your words start to form in your mind. It was said at a Tony Robbins program, “the brain can’t hear not or don’t”. I love how he said, “don’t think about your big toe”. It’s impossible not to! In fact, you are probably thinking about your big toe right now because the now IS the focus. Instead of having a negative target of “don’t” or “not”, have a positive target or a positive focus on what you do want because what you point to is what you will focus on including other people. Once you have identified what the problem is with a situation, change your focus and move towards a solution. That becomes your new target. It’s also a great way to stop and interrupt an old
pattern and replace it with a newer and healthier pattern.

So we’ve talked about the power of focus and how that ties in with your nonverbal communication because what you focus on is going to determine the direction of the conversation. Now think about the three types of people that represent you. You have got your public person, your private person and your secret person. Take a moment to think about each one of those people, what they focus on and how you can shift the focus of each one of these people within you so that you can feel, think and be more confident without saying a word.