I eavesdrop a lot. It’s a bad habit supported by the fact that I’m often traveling and spend a lot of time in the company of other peoples’ conversations. Sitting in the airport the other day I overheard a woman say to her friend, “what I look for most in a man is confidence. Confidence […]
A Lesson on Body Language from Making A Murderer
I’ve only recently begun to follow Making a Murderer, the very popular Netflix docuseries. Let me state at the outset that I have no opinion on the case it examines. But I recently came upon an article about Brendan Dassey’s lawyer that promotes a common misconception about body language. The article about Dassey’s lawyer, Laura […]
Listening To The Past
I’m heading into downtown Chicago this morning to attend an auction of vintage posters and memorabilia from long-ago magicians and mentalists. It’s a larger market that you would imagine, with collectors bidding from all over the world. The auction covers items from scores of artists, many of whom are famous to me, though you probably […]
Giving Successful Presentations Internationally
In January I’ll be flying to Doha, Qatar to perform for some of the top tennis players in the world at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open Tennis Tournament. I’ll be in front of an international audience, in a country whose culture is very different from my own. Since my shows rely so much on language, I’m […]
The Power of a Last Impression!
Whenever somebody says to you, “that’s a good question,” what they’re really saying is that they don’t have a good answer. In my lectures and seminars I put a lot of emphasis on the power of the first impression. I try to stress that first impressions are formed subconsciously, and once made they are very […]
Jumpstart Your Team’s Creativity
Here’s some exciting news for anybody who is in the business of leading change. As we all know, the right communication skills are crucial for fostering innovation in your organization. Recently, researchers at Stanford Universityexamined the correlation between certain kinds of body language and highly creative teams. They discovered that teams come up with the […]
Body Language Episode 1
Parsing the Percentage
It seems like you can hardly open a book about nonverbal communication without eventually coming across the claim that it account for up to 95 percent of our meaning. The claim usually states that 55 percent of our communication is body language, 33 percent is tone of voice, and the remaining 7 percent are words. If you’ve […]
The Picture Ages But You Stay Forever Young.
By Christopher Carter on May 30, 2013 in Facial Expressions, Impression Management, Personal Reflections, popular culture
It’s amazing what we’re willing to trade for a little bit of lost youth. This article discusses the psychological cost of using Botox. In a nutshell, because Botox freezes the facial muscles, it makes it impossible for others to perceive your micro expressions. As a result, people have a difficult time forming emotional connections with […]
A Letter From a Reader
I love getting questions from readers. Talking about body langauge in the abstract is so much less interesting than seeing how it plays out in real-world situations. A while back a reader sent me the following email: Ricky XXXXXXX () wrote: Is she interested: body language I was out on a date recently and noticed that my […]
