You may call them the Royal Fab Four: The Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall and
the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
Each one of them has their unique personality traits and skills that they bring to keep
the Monarchy in high regard, but you'll be surprised by how important is Catherine in
that strategy.
And how do I know it? because she used 3 body language tactics at this event that prove
that she's the one keeping the Royal Family's image both fresh and powerful.
Welcome back, my body language buddies! my name is Jesús Enrique Rosas, I'm the Body
Language Guy, and it would be great if you join us by just liking this video, subscribing
and hitting that bell! let's get down to it!
I'm going to do an experiment so you can see a very interesting detail.
You know that the appearance of Her Majesty The Queen at COP26, in the form of a video
made headlines around the world, right? but it's important to keep in mind that it was
during the Evening Reception of the first day of the event.
Now, if you do a search of that event, and many people will do, because they wanted to
know more about the Queen's words, you'll notice a pattern.
In Google Image results, as well as every outlet that talked about the event, you see
that there are two high contrast, very saturated colors that come from the Queen's green dress,
that I already discussed in my video analysis of her speech, and Catherine's blue dress.
This was on purpose to create a coordinated impact, between what we could call the Queen's
generation and many years of service and Catherine that is the embodiment of this fresh generation.
The actual dawn of the next step of the Monarchy.
Of course, Prince Charles is the heir to the throne, but we have enough polls that tells
us that people just love William and Catherine.
And any public relations firm worth its salt would know that if you want younger generations
to identify themselves with the Royal Family's service, you need a young personal brand to
do that.
And this has become a major concern for the Royal Family.
Maybe not because the... attacks of some figures, including ex members, so to speak, but because
any kind of work always needs awareness.
You always need to be noticed.
You need to be in those headlines.
Everyone knows that Catherine is going to be noticed, wether she wants it or not.
It's something natural so she must be quite careful with the image she projects.
And she's got the responsibility of a very delicate line between being in the spotlight,
but at the same time not in a personal way but part of a family.
But that blue dress that night was the first powerful shot because she's making sure to
complement the Queen's green dress, and if we are talking about climate, it makes sense
that if you're going to stand out using high contrast colors, just make sure it's green
and blue.
Yeah, pretty much like the classic Windows wallpaper.
And when I say that Catherine was calling all attention to herself is not an understatement.
Even in pictures where it's next to impossible to identify people by their faces, you can
spot her, right in the middle.
She being in the middle of that group is quite interesting in itself because group dynamics
tend to form around the most important or popular people.
You might remember from school or from college, that every time you saw a group of people,
the ones with higher rank, or more popular, or simply the ones with a magnetic personality
were the ones in the middle.
So, navigating the middle of so many people of power requires a lot of self confidence.
Again, that blue dress helps a lot because it draws a lot of attention just for the sake
of contrast with everyone else.
But how do you strike a balance between calling all attention to yourself and being part of
a team? because if you break that balance then you can be seen as narcissistic, something
that you don't want and something that certainly, Catherine doesn't want.
She does this by using a very conservative body language.
And this is part of protocol and training.
Being part of the Royal Family you already know how you should behave in this kind of
situations.
But in this case is even more important because she knows that she's going to be photographed
many times.
That's why there are two pictures that I liked a lot.
This one, where she's openly smiling and offering William a petri dish of dead larvae, something
that's not very appealing but still, we already know that Kate has a great sense of humor.
So even in those situations she knows how to behave naturally, as a human being, and
I can tell you from experience that keeping that for hours, knowing that you'll be on
every newspaper the morning after... well, requires a lot of practice.
But I told you about two pictures.
This is the other picture that I found really interesting.
And this is a more candid photo of her, where she's not smiling and she's not in the middle
of the group at that moment.
I haven't made up my mind about the emotion of her facial expression.
What do you see?
I would love to read your thoughts in the comments.
Of course, to navigate these circles of power you still need solid body language chops.
And I'm going to mention briefly that photo of Joe Biden's hand on William's shoulder.
That gesture is usually one of power.
It's a bit more subtle and friendly when it's done to the side of your arm, but if it's
over the shoulder, the other person is signaling some kind of power over you.
In this case Biden is also showing a full eyebrow raise and we can see almost a full
smile, so he's trying to be friendly at the same time.
And by the way, he's not putting his full hand over William's shoulder but just the
fingers.
That's also important to notice.
But these dynamics are going to happen in a split second and you will not have time
to react if you don't have enough practice.
In this case, William is doing a very, very subtle head tilting to the opposite side,
and he's smiling at the same time.
So, that happens a lot, when two people's faces are giving a message, but their bodies
tell another.
And we're much more used to lie, with our faces than with our bodies, so remember to
pay more attention to people's bodies than their faces.
Only make sure you're discreet while doing that.
By the way, you can refine YOUR observation skills with my 100 body language tips that
you can download right in the description of this video.
And Catherine manages to show all the body language signals needed to build empathy with
those around her.
One great example is that subtle head tilt, that looks a lot like William's head tilt
that we just saw but in this case it means that she's actually paying attention to the
person talking.
Also, this series of photographs with Justin Trudeau helps a lot to picture the way she
interacts with people.
That head tilt, she looks directly into Trudeau's eyes and even uses a kiss as a greeting.
So, even with all the rules, and the protocol of Royal body language, Catherine manages
to build empathy with people, like using her hands to express an emotion, to reinforce
what she's saying but at the same time she keeps her elbows close to her body.
Again, there's always a lot of effort in knowing how to conduct yourself in these kind of situations
and make sure that your body language is always saying what you want it to say.
Catherine's brand image is not a personal one.
It's indeed part of this teamwork that the royal fab four is pushing to bring awareness
to their initiatives, that are more than a few.
But the hard part is that at the same time she cannot afford to lose her own humanity,
because paradoxically is her personality that makes her unique.
And it also makes her a very special member of the Royal Family.
My suggestion is that you try to spot the difference between the Royal engagements and
the more personal ones when she's with William.
That will help you get a good sense of that balance between being warm and at the same
time being part of the next generation of the British Monarchy.
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My name is Jesús Enrique Rosas and I'll see you soon, my body language buddies!