5 ways to lift the mood on your next video call – transcript
Frankie Kemp
31 March 2020
At the moment we are all stuck in a negative news cycle so when we get on video conference calls or video meetings it’s quite common to be like this: “Hi, how are you?” “I’m fine. It’s just really hard at the moment. Yeah I know.”
So I’m going to give you five tools to make yourself feel better and others feel better at the beginning of a video call. When you start to think of more positive thoughts, this generates oxytocin and oxytocin helps groups to bond. Here we go – five tools to lift the mood.
Tool number one is cool tool. Mentimeter. I love Mentimeter’.
Tool number two: show-and-tell. You can pick anything that you want to describe and it could be something that’s near you. I’m gonna actually do this on the hoof. Something I didn’t prepare earlier was this. It is a pot and in that pot is lots of soil because I managed to kill a cactus. Yes I managed to kill a cactus because I’m a plant killer. You have to be pretty good at killing plants to be able to kill a cactus.
So we have ‘cool tool’. We have show-and-tell.
Gratitude. I had a meeting last week with somebody and we began with a group hug well. It wasn’t a group because it’s just two of us. I’ll do this with you now. Ah, that’s nice. Right we did that. That’s not on the list. You don’t have to do that but I thought it was kind of a nice touch, so to speak but this was gratitude: one thing that you’re grateful for.
Ask people what they ate or cooked last night. If you’re living off Best Buy spaghetti you might actually want to start being a bit creative. I only like my salmon raw. It’s like cheap sushi. You can also ask people about something they saw or watched.
Think of something positive that’s happened to you this week. I got my mother to use Zoom. My 80 year old mother is on Zoom, using it like a pro. She’ll be doing breakout rooms next. How exciting!
You have the five tips. Here’s a recap:
- share a cool tool;
- share and tell (maybe you’re introducing your child on the call. I’ve met children, pets and parents so far…);
- gratitude. What are you thankful for?
- ask people what they cooked or ate last night or what they listened to or watched. No one’s talking about going anywhere so this is your substitute. Is ‘Stranger Things’? Maybe a Ted Talk…?
- think of something positive that happened to you this week.
You can practice this today because I can almost bet my bottom dollar you’ll be having a video call sometime fairly soon. Enjoy!
