You and I use thousands upon thousands of gestures (micro and macro) every day to express ourselves. We furry our eye brows when confused or angry. We open our eyes in surprise. You and I may swallow when nervous. Imagine how much we are communicating without even realizing it?

The puppeteers behind the muppets cannot express emotions the way we can; they can limited expressions and gestures. Every gesture the muppet made to express itself mattered.

Imagine you could only change your facial expressions in 3 ways to express yourself. You would need to really think about how you wanted to change your face and what you really wanted to communicate to avoid being misunderstood or being ignored.

The reality is that we have an abundance of gestures we can make, we are often misunderstood, and many times we are ignored. The other reality is that we can do something to change that — we can think like muppet puppeteers.

When we want our work to resonate, we can think about using a strong gesture — symbol — to speak for us. What’s a strong symbol?

Silence, a hug, a question, a call, a text, an ear, a talk, and lots more. These actions seem small, but as the muppets show us, a carefully placed small gesture can make all the difference.