Reading Body Language

June 9, 2011

Interview with Joe Navarro, author of the book What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People

________________

Mike Carruthers:
Body language, if you learn to read it, can tell you a lot about someone.

Joe Navarro:
Our bodies reflect what we think, what we feel, and what we intend.

Former FBI Special Agent Joe Navarro, author of the book What Every BODY is Saying...

Oftentimes, for instance, you'll see two people are talking and all of a suddenly one of them will… one of their feet will rotate in the direction they want to go. It's an intention cue and it's extremely accurate - it says, "Hey, I've got to go."

In fact, Joe says, watching someone's feet can tell you a lot.

For instance young children when they're asked to kiss a relative and they don't like that relative, they may put on a smile but their feet won't go anywhere near that relative. They'll bend at the waist to initiate the kiss. And the feet are actually the most accurate - the face is the least accurate.

Men and women sometimes have different body language. Joe says women often do something men almost never do.

And that is, women when they are insecure, struggling with something or they feel threatened, they'll touch their neck dimple (that's that little area right below the Adam's apple it's also called the suprasternal notch) So they could be on the phone talking about the creep they just saw and they'll put their hand over this area. Or they walk into a room full of men and they feel insecure - they'll cover this area.