What every BODY tells us

Project Description

Subtitle: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People

By: Joe Navarro

Notes:

• Commandments:
  • Observe environment
    • Use all your senses to understand environment.
  • Examine what’s normal to understand what is abnormal.
  • Observe clusters of tells.
  • Observe others without making them aware of it. Be subtle.

• When people compress their lips together, they feel troubled.
• Aggressive behavior followed by passive behavior indicates weakness.
• Humans freeze when they are faced with danger.
• Feet locked behind a chair indicates stress.
• Ppl hide themselves by raising shoulders or not making eye contact.
• When someone touches their neck or lips, they are stressed or lying.
  • Men prefer to touch the face, women touch the neck, hair, jewelry, etc.
• Micro guesser are very telling.

Feet:

• The feet are the easiest tell of a person.
  • B/c they were the primary means for people to survive.
  • Watch children to see their honesty.  Feet will go in the direction they want to go.
  • Less accurate as you move up the table.
  • Feet in an L shape means they want to leave.
• Face is most often the area to bluff. We have the most control over it. Explains out feelings at the time, but the legs show this also.
• Tend to turn toward something that’s agreeable. Including the feet and torso.
• Knee clapse and lean forward means they want to leave.
• When a person looks like they are evading gravity, they are generally happier.
• Leg splaying out shows that ppl are trying to look bigger and is an aggressive move (aka, territorial move).
  • Can show aggression without saying it by getting bigger.
  • Crossing legs in front of others shows confidence, because they take off less room and are less fearful. Also tilts towards the one the favor.
• Sometimes people match the display of someone else when they are comfortable.
• To see what a person thinks about an introduction, do the following:
  • Shake hands, make eye contact, and step back and observe.
  • Step towards you is positive. A step away is a negative feeling.
• Predators generally walk on the insider of sidewalks and they lurk around with no purpose.
• During a conversation, any time a person’s foot goes from giggling to kicking, it’s a pretty good indication that they know something negative.
• Foot freeze: if a person is moving a leg and suddenly freezes, they be concerned.
• People interlock their feet and ankles when nervous.
• Liers generally don’t move when they are lying. Freeze mode.
• Feet moving from in front of a chair to under the chair is another concern.

Torso Tips:

• Ppl lean away from things that they find unpleasant.
• If they can’t lean away from each other, they will shield themselves with something: arms, clothing, etc.
  • Or lean over to fix their watch, shirt sleeve, or tie.
• Ppl feel cold when under stress. The body is moving blood away from the torso and to the arms and legs in order to help with potential flight.
  • That’s why they look pale or in shock.
• Torso bow or clicking heels is a show of respect.
• What we wear will influence others.

• Appearance:
  • Make sure to wear clothing that is congruent with what you are trying to explain.
  • Before ppl meet, the only thing that can go by is clothing and physical appearance.
• Shoulders:
  • High Shoulder shrugs indicate that they have confidence in what they are saying.
  • Low shrugs indicate they are not confident.
  • Slowly rising shoulders shows a lack of confidence. Turtle look.
    • Like a football team that just lost a game.

Arms:

• When excited, we don’t restrict our arm movement.
• Negative emotions make ppl droop.
• Arms behind their back means they are supplier, and they don’t want to make contact with you.
• Positive contact with humans and pets extends life and calms a person.
• Arms akimbo, hands on hips w/ thumbs back is very territorial and strong.
• Hands interlocked behind the head is a dominant poss… Like a cobra.
• Arms are billboards for advertising themselves.
• Tattoos single low status and lower rank. Conceal them to influence others.

Abuse:

• When children are restricted around their parents and they have bruises on their arms, then alert authorities.

Hands:

• We have a natural bias to focus on the hands.
• Use hands more often to be a greater communicator.
• Ppl like to see ones hands.
• Hand shake:
  • Don’t cover the top of hands with other hand when doing the hand shake.
• Steepling  the hands shows confidence and conveys an important point.
  • Great for interviews.
• Thumbs up / out of jacket or pants is a high confidence and high status display.
  • Fingers out and thumbs in is a low status display.
  • Will never see a leader with their thumbs in their pockets
• Natural thumbs displays show happiness and confidence.
• Hand ringing indicates doubt.
• Neck touching is a universal indicator of stress.

Face / Neck:

• Restricting the pupils will indicate stress.
  • Scwinting of dilating pupils sharpen vision and help them to focus on something.
• Low eyebrows is a cowering behavior. Sign of weakness.
• Wide eyes are a sign of good feelings. Opposite is also true.
• Gazing off in the distance shows comfort.
  • It also clears your thoughts or helps to process a feeling.
  • Focusing on the interviewer shows interest in the position.
• Eye blink rate increases with stress.
• Lip pursing indicates stress.
• Sneering indicates that a relationship is troubled or terminating.
  • Distinct sign of disrespect for the other person.
• Licking lips is a sign of insecurity.

Detecting Lies is Difficult

• We learn to lie so early, that we get better at it.
• Be as comfortable as possible when asking questions of suspected lier. This will help to ease them vs. putting up barriers to defend themselves.
• Ppl will mirror each other.
• Ppl speaking the truth are generally more comfortable than ppl who are not.
• Don’t put any objects between you and the other person so you can observe them.
• Holding a smile too long or blinking too long is a mask of stress.
• Liers sometimes increase eye contact.
• Good interviewers take their time. They wait to observe all the reactions.