Can You Really Read Body Language? What Actually Works in Real Conversations
A few years ago, someone came up to me after a keynote and asked a question I’ve heard countless times over the years. “So… can you actually tell what people are thinking just by looking at them?” I understood why they were asking. We live in a world filled with television shows, viral videos, and
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What the First Laugh Reveals About Leadership and Communication
As a professional mentalist, I’m sneaky. Or at least…strategic. Before I ever walk on stage, I’m already gathering information. When I perform on luxury cruise ships, my introduction ends with the line, “He has been called the world’s greatest mind reader. But he is not psychic. He has no special powers. He is just in
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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
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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
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Why Facial Expression Matters More Than We Think
A few years ago, I found myself thinking about The Picture of Dorian Gray. I hadn’t read it since I was younger, but the central idea stuck with me all these years later. Dorian stays impossibly young while a hidden portrait absorbs the damage of time for him. Every flaw, every consequence, every mark of
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A Letter From a Reader
I love getting questions from readers. Talking about body language 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
Read MoreWhat Men and Women Need to Know About Each Others’ Body Language
Entire industries have been built upon pointing out the differences between men and women. Films have been made, plays written, pop psychology books penned, studies conducted, comedy routines performed, all revolving around the many ways the genders fail to understand the way each other thinks and behaves. It should come as no surprise that men and
Read MoreBody Language in the Presidential Debates
I was hoping to do a series on the body language of the upcoming presidential debates, but it turns out I’ll be working during each one. Luckily, there are plenty of body language watchers out there who are planning on covering it. With that in mind, here’s a preview of what to look for.
Read MoreWhat You Mean and What You Say
One of the bigger challenges I have when I give lectures is making people see that there is a difference between what body language means and what it “says” to others. This was borne out again recently after a program I gave at a Community College in Indiana. During the talk I had explained that
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