{"id":10846,"date":"2013-02-04T02:39:29","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T10:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/?p=10846"},"modified":"2013-02-04T02:40:55","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T10:40:55","slug":"the-art-of-looking-interested-and-being-interesting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/the-art-of-looking-interested-and-being-interesting\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Looking Interested, and Being Interesting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"img\" src=\"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/images\/lookint.jpg\" width=\"922\" height=\"456\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Foreign travelers in California (shown in the photo) have a great technique for looking interested&#8230;and maybe they really are. With a slight tilt of the head and the mouth opened half-way\u00a0 (no smile,) it appears that they are listening and are absorbed in the here &amp; now.<\/p>\n<p>The prognosis is clear! Our social media has made us less social, and less interested. Americans, especially, have reputations for being rude and uncouth when visiting foreign lands. We&#8217;ve all seen it first-hand, especially when traveling with people who don&#8217;t put down their devices and don&#8217;t listen when some knowledgeable person tries to explain centuries-old statues, buildings, art and traditions in their broken English accent. Not listening can be more than rude. Sometimes you may miss vital instructions for catching a plane or bus&#8211;the mistakes may be costly.\u00a0 But what can you do to keep others interested when you&#8217;re on the delivery end of\u00a0 presentation?<\/p>\n<p><strong>10 Killer Tips for Conducting a Tour or Delivering a Presentation:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1. Be entertaining and informative&#8211;and have fun. People want to have fun!<br \/>\n2. Match eye contact with everyone in the room.<br \/>\n3. Breathe In Not Out \u2013 Avoid &#8216;um,&#8217; &#8216;ah,&#8217; or &#8216;you know&#8217;, replacing those with a pause and a short breath in. The pause may seem awkward, but the audience will barely notice it.<br \/>\n4. Don&#8217;t apologize&#8211;unless you&#8217;ve done something wrong.<br \/>\n5. Project your voice.<br \/>\n6. Don&#8217;t plan gestures &#8212; they should be spontaneous. If not, they look stupid.<br \/>\n7. Ask questions or interject &#8220;good observation&#8221; to create interactive<br \/>\n8. Speeches are about stories &#8211; explain your points through short stories, quips and anecdotes to create an emotional connection.<br \/>\n9. &#8220;What&#8217;s in it for me&#8221; rule &#8211; put yourself in the listener&#8217;s shoes to create meaningful content.<br \/>\n10. 15 Word Summary &#8211; Know your message and be able to summarize it in 15 words so you can repeat it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Foreign travelers in California (shown in the photo) have a great technique for looking interested&#8230;and maybe they really are. With a slight tilt of the head and the mouth opened half-way\u00a0 (no smile,) it appears that they are listening and are absorbed in the here &amp; now. The prognosis is clear! Our social media has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[29],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10846"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seecalifornia.com\/traveltips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}