Coming into a place of power every time you walk through a doorway
“Relentless improvement” is a term a colleague used to describe the work we do. I think my entire team tries to get a little bit better each day. It’s something that we probably preach throughout the entire organization.
The intent on daily improvement always extends outside work and into my personal life. Like I’ve written before, it’s all connected. In yesterday’s podcast listening, I heard Jordan Harbinger talk about the “door exercise”. This exercise involves coming into a place of power every time you walk through a doorway, which can be a lot.
Here is the deal
When we’re having an important conversation with someone, especially someone new, we try to have good posture, smile, and have engaging body language. Well, if we only do that when we are in front of people, then we’re not going to always be effective. It’s like Archilochus said, “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” Which means that in order to have control over our body language when we’re engaging with someone, we have to train our body by practicing when we’re not in front of others.
I tried this exercise yesterday and found it to be quite difficult to remember. I had to set myself little reminders to remember to practice it throughout the day. Each time I walked through a doorway, which was a lot, I tried to remember to smile and adjust my posture to stand up straight with my chest open. It felt a little weird at first, but as I kept doing it, I noticed a change in my mood.
When I would run into someone immediately after performing the exercise, I noticed that I was much more engaging with them. I would smile and in return they would smile.
I feel like this exercise also helped me with being more focused on my work. We’ve been interviewing candidates for a new position, and so it was essential for me to have a disposition that was engaging and approachable. I feel like my training helped me in accomplishing that.
Moving forward, I will be engaging in this exercise more often and learning more about body language. Don’t be surprised to see more writing from me on this topic in the future.
Call to action
I want you to try the door exercise today. If you’re like me, it might be difficult to remember to practice, so set some reminders. Whenever you walk through a door, try to remember to smile, stand up straight, and keep you chest open. After you’ve completed the exercise a few times, try to notice how you feel. Pay close attention to your mood and how you interact with other people. Good luck.
Originally published at medium.com