Interview With Blake Eastman: Nonverbal Communication

Ruwan talks to Blake Eastman, founder of the Nonverbal Group, a company that does research and teaches courses on nonverbal communication. He also was a professional poker player and founder School of Cards for teaching poker skills. We speak about theories on how people actually "read" each other and what you should know about how you communicate without words.

Transcript

Lucky number negative seven.

This is the seventh episode from the Rondo Podcast Faults with Blake Eastman.

Blake is the founder of the Nonverbal Group,

A school in New York City that teaches about nonverbal communication.

I've taken some of his classes.

They're awesome.

He also teaches,

He's also a former professional poker player and teaches about how to play poker and incorporates a lot of this nonverbal training in poker.

Obviously,

There's a lot of that in the game of poker,

Tells and whatnot.

But we have a great conversation about what it means to read people,

Demystifying some of the mystical beliefs around what it means to get a good read on someone.

I talk a lot about intuition and I trust it as a mechanism,

But I don't really understand how it works.

So it was great speaking with someone who's very grounded in scientific research.

He actually runs his own studies on nonverbal communication and it was great speaking with him about this.

Blake's awesome.

You should definitely check out his school in New York,

The nonverbalgroup.

Com,

If you want to take one of his classes on reading people or expressing better,

Stronger body language for whatever.

Actually,

He hates the term body language.

Better,

Stronger,

Nonverbal communication.

This is episode negative seven,

Blake Eastman,

Nonverbal Communication.

You're listening to the Ruwando Podcast,

Perpetual Orgasm,

Infinite Play.

Please subscribe on iTunes and enjoy the show.

Yeah.

So could you start off by speaking about how you got into studying body language?

Um,

It's kind of,

Really the original idea was this website called The First Date Files and I had this idea for creating a research driven advice for men.

So basically what I was going to do is I recorded a bunch of first dates and I wanted to see,

You know,

Specific themes that made them good or made them bad or what made,

Uh,

Data is more effective at a date and all those different dynamics.

And basically I started when I first did it,

I started to see that the underlying theme was the ability to identify nonverbal behavior.

So it kind of spun out of that.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cause I noticed in your intro class,

Which I took,

I guess it's like two years ago,

Um,

You really focus on specific things like blink rate and other quantifiable,

Um,

Like actions,

Is that,

Is that where the focus was originally?

Um,

I think in,

I think it's become,

It started off more holistic than it got very specific and now it's kind of a blend.

So it's a blend of looking at specific metrics and also just other ways of improving people's communication,

Which sometimes doesn't require awareness of these very specific and subtle things.

Like there's a difference between research and coaching.

So coaching requires less of a,

Uh,

What's the word coaching requires less of a finite approach where,

Uh,

Research definitely requires you to break things down into actual observable and measurable,

Um,

Components.

So it's kind of,

We're,

We're on the nexus of both of those.

We kind of oscillate between the two.

Yeah.

Cause that's one of those things that I've thought about with body language a lot,

Because,

Um,

A lot of books will,

Will speak about these specific,

Uh,

Tells or reads and whatnot.

Whereas I've met a lot of people,

I'm sure you've had,

Have to,

Who are really good at reading people,

Like can tell when people are lying or you can,

You can,

Uh,

Really like get a good sense of people,

But they have no idea what they're picking up,

Like the whole thin slicing thing.

Yeah.

I mean,

Definitely there's some people with a natural attitude for identifying like shifts in people's patterns and there's just certain people are more prone to that.

Um,

It's interesting cause there's a lot of people who think they're good at it and they're not.

So like a lot of people will be like,

Oh,

I'm really good at reading,

Just the bias that they've created themselves while there's other people that are really good at it.

And,

Uh,

It really depends on the person.

Usually people that are good at it usually have some sort of childhood trauma.

Or something that happened in their life that would make them pay attention to non-verbal behaviors.

So for example,

Like maybe a parent being abusive or living in a bad neighborhood or something,

There has to be some sort of essential reason on why people would want to pay attention to behavior at abnormally high levels.

Gotcha.

Um,

How did you come across with that,

Uh,

Conclusion?

Sorry?

You just broke up.

How did you come across that understanding that people.

.

.

That's,

I mean,

That's,

That's,

That's kind of documented.

It's,

It's poked at in the literature and it's also just in my coaching,

Right?

So like,

I'll talk to somebody who I think has a high aptitude and I'll ask them about their early childhood and there's always something,

Whether it's anxiety,

There's kind of a,

A,

A trend that definitely comes up for people.

Um,

Yeah,

It's,

It's quite interesting actually.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Cause I remember,

Um,

I think I might be remembering this incorrectly cause it's been a while,

But you said something about how you're really quiet as a kid and that's what put like,

What,

That's what you had you to focus so much on non-verbals.

Yeah,

I wasn't,

I was anxious as a kid.

Gotcha.

Okay.

So yeah,

I was pretty anxious as a child and,

Uh,

One of my ways to calm down that anxiety was to pay attention to everything around me and that kind of got,

You know,

Hypersensitive and my life work really revolved around that.

So it makes you even more and more and more,

Um,

It's an,

A consistently increasing skill set,

But you know,

In there,

Yeah,

I've been doing that my whole life,

Essentially.

Gotcha.

And was that,

Did that come from like this belief that if you can read people well enough,

You can control situations?

Yeah,

Pretty much.

I would say that's a consistent threshold or that's a consistent theme that like having a knowledge of where someone is or in their emotional state,

Or if they're listening or not listening or whatever it may be provides me with like kind of a power and a sense of control and that immediate dynamic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you did just mention that you don't necessarily have to be conscious of these finite things.

Whereas it seems like what you teach are like reading finite things.

Um,

And I've become so interested in this because I know you know a little bit about my background.

I've met so many people in like mystical,

Uh,

I guess modalities or whatnot who claim to read people really well.

And they'll say like really vague things like,

Oh,

I felt into that person's energy or whatnot.

Is that things like mirror neurons?

Are they basically just very empathetic,

Those who are actually good at it?

I mean,

That's a really good question.

So like,

Um,

I've met those individuals as well.

And it's split.

So there's some people that,

You know,

Maybe they think they're seeing something that they're not.

I don't,

I once,

I once had a woman in the office that was convinced that she saw an aura around me.

And she was like,

After speaking,

She's like,

You know,

You have a,

You have an incredible aura that I've never seen before and it's amazing.

And she started going into all this stuff.

And,

Uh,

And I'm looking at her like,

I really think she thinks she sees an aura around me.

Like whether,

Whether it actually exists in reality or not,

She believes to see that.

And all of her reads were really a byproduct of my three hour presentation.

And then she kind of summed it up at the end via her concept of an aura,

Which,

And I don't know,

I mean,

I kind of always oscillate between mixed beliefs about,

You know,

The presence of energy and stuff like that.

I really just feel that it's more a manifestation of behavior.

So I could see some people have described someone having this specific energy to them.

And to me,

It's not specific energy,

It's actual behavioral metrics or movement that creates the perception of an energy,

Right?

So it's actually can be quantified and qualified.

And it's not so much that they have,

Like,

I don't believe there's no one that I've ever met in my entire life that like has energy that supersedes an explanation from behavior.

Like until someone comes into my office and starts floating in the air,

Then I'll be like,

All right,

Dude,

Like you've won.

But there's just,

There are certain ways or certain patterns of communication,

There's certain communication styles that have a strong and powerful effect on people.

And it's been like that since the beginning of time.

And I don't really believe in,

I don't necessarily,

Yeah,

I don't believe in those kind of themes.

I do believe in observable trends and behavior that lead or link to,

You know,

An increase in charisma or an increase in the manipulation around a crowd or the ability to kind of lie and have nobody else know that you're lying.

I mean,

I don't feel that those are energies per se.

I feel that they're,

They can be more just,

They can be more broken down than people think that they can.

Once I start explaining it,

They're like,

Oh,

Yeah,

I see that.

Yeah.

So it sounds like you don't totally write off people though,

When they say,

Oh,

I see this aura or I see this energy.

It sounds like you translate it into your language.

I translate to my own.

I'm a pretty open minded person.

Yeah.

I do believe that there's some stuff that like we can't comprehend,

But I believe that there's so much disinformation out there,

Right?

There's so many people that aren't really speaking from an area of knowledge,

But there are some people out there.

I mean,

There's some people out there that are,

You know,

Psychics can be hypersensitive to behavior and that's how they solidify their reads and their intuition or their thoughts are guided by someone's behavior and not necessarily by someone's,

Are they actually seeing the future or not?

I mean,

This is a whole other discussion,

But like technically in order to see,

Like future tell,

You know,

If in order to see the future,

The future would have already had to have happened,

Right?

To see something that,

So there's like a whole,

This is a whole other thing,

But yeah,

Basically I met some people that say they see my energy and they have no,

Can I curse on this podcast?

Totally.

They have no fucking clue what they're talking about and they're absolutely nuts.

And I met some other people who have a profound insight into those things and the way they describe it is via energy.

So I'm very mixed on the subject.

Yeah.

You bring up a good point because like when people who I think are actually good at reading people or whatever they're,

Whatever they're claiming to be good at and they explain it in a mystical way,

Like I try to translate as best they can because like the concept of mirror neurons is a pretty recent understanding in science,

But people have been saying,

Oh,

I can feel into this person for forever.

And it could be,

I mean,

Like the word energy,

I mean,

When people talk about it in a mystical way,

They're usually just talking about a feeling they have.

And if you're feeling what someone else is feeling,

What someone else is feeling,

That's just empathy.

That's nothing magical.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Like empathy can communicate in a ton of different ways.

And some people just have that capacity to communicate a massive level of warmth and understanding where other people just don't.

And it's,

I don't know if they're gifted in a specific way in the sense of like,

You know,

The gods have given them this gift,

But they definitely have a unique ability,

Which shouldn't be discounted or discredited.

I'm just saying that I've definitely seen,

I've seen the spectrum,

Man.

I mean,

Like,

Cause I've had people in my classes,

I mean,

I don't really do live classes anymore,

But there is a point where there is literally like,

I don't know,

Like 500 people walking through the office every week.

And this is New York city.

So you just get a really wide range of practitioners and of coaches and of all these different things.

And I've definitely seen the gamut.

What's the craziest claim people have made to you?

Oh,

Man.

I've had,

I don't know if one of them stands out.

I remember one woman in particular,

She took the class and she was a,

Um,

Some sort of healer.

And it was a term that I've never heard before.

And I've heard of Reiki and all the different methodologies,

But it was something I never heard before.

And she was,

She was describing things that were just so like fifth and sixth level of what I perceive to be not craziness,

But just out there.

And she was talking about like how everybody's interconnected and it's themes and things that I've heard about before,

But the way she was telling it,

And she had like this kind of glance in her eye where I'm like,

This person is probably,

You know,

Yeah,

She's a little bit out there.

I mean,

And I believe there's a lot of this stuff.

There's a lot of stuff that works and a lot of stuff useful.

Somebody that works with me,

Eddie has been my right hand forever.

I mean,

He's,

He's actually,

I don't know if he's listening to me or not,

But he can hear this and he's pretty crazy in himself.

Right?

Like he'll have all these crazy things,

But like every once in a while,

What he says is exactly right and what you need.

So like,

I always believe that there's a balance,

You know what I mean?

Are you talking about like when it comes to tech stuff or like about the universe?

I'm talking about like,

Yeah,

The universe or communication or just some insight into something that may not be with something that I'm personally aligned with,

But the advice is still good.

Right?

Like that's,

That's kind of the analogy,

Right?

Somebody can be,

Let's say there's someone who's an energy reader and I don't know,

They,

They,

They practice energy reading of the fifth circle from a tribe in Mars.

Like it's the most craziest thing in the world.

And then they see someone on the street and they say,

You know,

Sir,

You know,

Your energy is,

Is very,

Is very burdensome right now.

And you seem to be really struggling with a lot.

And I really feel that if you do this,

This and this from my tribe,

It'll have a big impact on your life.

And they tell them to do something like,

I don't know,

You know,

Record their daily intentions or have say this every morning or whatever it is.

I mean,

Some of that stuff may fall in line with actual like modern day,

You know,

Cognitive neuroscience or modern day positive psychology or something like that.

And while the vessel might be different,

It still might be helpful.

So that's kind of why I've always kept an open mind with this stuff is that like,

You know,

Some of the craziest stuff,

It works for people and it doesn't need to be so validated.

And she might be right,

Or he might be right,

That energy might be exactly what that looks like it's emitting,

You know?

Yeah,

It's tough confirmation bias,

Because yeah,

Eddie might have superpowers,

But anybody you can find anything about anything.

Right.

Like,

So that's where it's hard to kind of,

It's hard to kind of draw the line.

And where we differ is it's not esoteric.

It's not an energy.

It's listen,

The reason why you're coming across stressed and awkward is because your gaze direction shifts every three seconds,

Your blink rates elevated,

You have slight facial grimaces in the lower half of your face,

Your upper half of your face is a little bit decreased in terms of emotionality.

And then people watch themselves on video and they're like,

Oh,

Shit.

Yeah,

I get it.

Yeah.

Speaking of that,

And actually speaking of Eddie,

Because he edited one of the video for one of my events.

And he mentioned about how he was going to get to know me really well,

Because he was watching me speak for 40 minutes.

Yeah,

Definitely.

And I became like really conscious of that afterwards because I've been editing these podcasts and listening to myself speak and like,

Wow,

I didn't realize I stutter so much.

I can't believe how much I say,

You know,

And um,

That's ridiculous.

Oh,

Yeah.

And my question is because so when someone starts stuttering or saying um a lot,

There's like an assumption that they're doing that because maybe they're nervous or they're not thinking or whatever,

Whatever negative traits there are,

Which is why people try to not say um.

Um,

My question is,

If someone becomes conscious of that and actually gets themselves to stop saying um or whatever this like undesirable trait is,

Would that actually change whatever the source was?

Like,

Would that change the anxiety or would that just be a cover?

So you mean if you try to fix someone that if someone's saying um and they're saying um um um as a manifestation of anxiety,

If you were to reduce the saying um would it reduce anxiety?

Is that your question?

Yeah,

As a covariant?

No,

It's the worst way to attack it.

Gotcha.

The worst way to attack little communication things like um,

Like um isn't the um is the manifestation of some like other issue,

Right?

People don't say um because they don't like,

For example,

If somebody were to say um every single time they had a conversation more than like,

I don't know,

30% of the times as their verbal fillers or whatever,

And they did that with best friends and they did that with their parents,

They did that with everyone around them,

Then that's a behavioral thing.

It's a behavioral pattern or quirk.

However,

If you don't say um that much,

Then all of a sudden you get on a stage and you're like,

Uh,

Um,

Well,

Um,

Um,

I'm not really sure.

It's a manifestation of your anxiety and the way to fix that or not fix it,

But improve it or reduce it is to essentially go after the core elements behind the anxiety as opposed to the saying um.

Like that's why I hate when people like count umms in a presentation.

Like the reality is this,

Like if you're truly present and you're giving a good presentation,

Like the average person won't be able to even understand umms.

Like I make upwards of 300 speech errors in a three hour conversation,

In a three hour presentation.

So I make tons of speech mistakes and errors and inconsistencies.

And do you count them when you watch the video?

Yeah,

I had someone count them.

And when you ask the audience how many,

How many of you heard or how many mistakes that I make,

They say like,

You know,

You know what,

What mistakes like two to five or something like that because they just don't,

They don't realize it.

And most people when they make these mistakes,

They're anxious.

So they bring mistake and they bring attention to the mistake.

So like,

Uh,

Um,

Um,

Everyone's going to notice that.

But if you just say,

Oh,

It's been a while,

People aren't really going to pick it up.

Yeah.

I was wondering,

Cause I heard some study or I've heard from somebody,

Maybe a psych student when I was in college that if you force a smile,

It releases dopamine in your brain and you actually can become happy even though it's like a reverse of the causation,

Like you're forcing mechanical action,

But you actually become happy instead of the other way around.

Yeah.

That's like the old classic,

Like put a pencil in your mouth study.

Yeah.

I mean,

Yeah.

Listen,

Like this is where these things become infinitely complex,

Right?

So it's like,

All right,

Let's take a,

Let's take a behavioral mechanism or a manifestation of happiness.

Let's reverse engineer it and let's measure specific,

You know,

Increases in hormones and neurotransmitters,

Dopamine,

Serotonin,

Whatever you want to do.

And a lot of those tests are like,

You know,

Independent variables studied in the lab and yeah,

They're interesting.

The impact that smile has on your communication.

See,

That's why I hate,

I don't hate,

A strong word.

I don't,

I hate the way some people apply academic research,

Right?

So like academic research is very,

Very rigid.

It's procedures and it's not really,

It's very difficult to replicate because of IRB and variables.

Let's take a look at like smiles on,

Let's take a bunch of calls.

Can you hold on a sec?

You broke up the last minute.

Could you repeat what you said about academic procedures?

Studies are very rigid,

Very controlled,

And they follow a set of like operating,

You know,

Refine things the way they want them to.

What tends to happen is like publications or authors or even like bloggers will like find a study like,

Oh,

Let's,

Let's,

Let's,

This is perfect.

This study says that if you smile,

That,

You know,

If you force a smile,

Don't be a mural crease and you'll feel happier.

So let's write in our top three,

You know,

Things of how to become more effective in a meeting,

It's one of the things you should do is smile because smiles will create happiness,

Which has mirror neurons effect.

And it's just taking it completely out of context in the sense that when you're executing that behavior or you're executing that smile,

It's having also an effect.

So if a really anxious person smiles,

They don't have this beautiful,

Natural,

Amazing smile that you do when you're not anxious.

They have this weird,

Awkward,

Anxious,

Written smile.

And that's the problem with when people try to coach communications with these things is that,

Yeah,

If you're sitting there in the middle of your room,

Yourself smiling,

Sure,

Why not?

It's not going to hurt anyone.

We shouldn't really necessarily be smiling to feel better or before an event or something like that because it impacts your communication and people don't know why you're smiling weird.

They don't know that guy's a little bit nervous.

He doesn't want to say,

Um,

He's just,

He read an article in INC magazine a couple of weeks ago that if you just smile before an event,

It'll help.

And they don't know that's why you're weird.

They just look at you and go,

That guy's weird.

Something's wrong with them.

And it's,

So a lot of the advice in communications is quite frankly,

Just,

It's just bad advice.

It's not grounded.

And it's grounded in science,

But so loosely grounded.

It's like,

You know,

Two steps away from the actual source.

And that's the thing is that,

And that's when the researcher,

When the person doing that study,

It's not their fault because they're not studying the effects of perception.

They're studying the effects of,

You know,

Specific neurotransmitters and how a smile affects those.

So what the cool thing is,

Is that,

You know,

Their study is perfectly fine.

I don't mind,

I love the academic research.

I hate the way it's repurposed basically.

Yeah.

I'm sure you heard the one about,

Um,

Like if you stand in a Superman position,

It raises your testosterone.

Same studies work.

Yeah.

Um,

I'm sure you're also familiar with the,

With the bitch face,

Right?

Yeah.

I mean,

There's more than just the bitch face.

Like there's,

Yeah,

Bitch face.

There's living gold polarized face,

Which is somebody that no facial expressions and all of a sudden they light up.

Um,

There's like,

There's sometimes the opposite.

So people are just overly happy.

So they're always positive and their,

Their intentions don't really make sense because they're telling you,

You're communicating some sort of information that seems to be serious.

Yet they're smiling while they're doing it.

So they're sending this message,

But like smiling is a manifestation of how they deal with things that are comfortable in that smile state.

Or some people don't smile at all.

I mean the amount of facial issues or facial diagnostics that there are are utterly incredible.

Yeah.

Well with resting faces,

Resting bitch faces or whatever,

Isn't it from like,

Like if someone has like a permanent frown,

Even though when they're not,

Even when they're not happy,

Isn't that from frowning too much?

It could be.

I mean sometimes people that have negative resting faces or negative faces are just negative people and that's the truly transparent thing.

But usually it's leftover from some sort of,

In my experience working with it,

It's some sort of behavioral quirk,

Some sort of things that people don't even realize.

And it's just the way they hold their face.

And when you put them under cameras and stuff,

They're like,

Oh shit,

I didn't even notice that.

Yeah.

I was having this discussion with a friend because he was going to introduce me to his girlfriend and he said like,

Don't be offended.

Like she has a resting bitch face.

And I couldn't like help inquiring like,

Oh,

Is she like mopey usually?

Or like,

Was it caused by something?

Because I remember like I was really like moody as a teenager and most of my resting photos from that era,

Like I do have like the lips,

The corners of my lips turned down and then later on that changed.

But I know it was,

For my case,

I know it was because I was frowning all the time and my face was stuck that way,

Literally.

Yeah.

I mean,

That could just be like a behavioral habit or leftover from the past.

We see a lot of those as well.

Little quirks.

So like,

Like,

Do this creepy thing where I look at somebody and I'll be like,

Did you stutter as a child?

And they'll look at me and they'll go,

How the fuck did you possibly know that?

And I'll,

I'll say,

And I'll smile and I'll be like,

Well,

What I found in a lot of stutterers are people with English as a second language or people that would perceive their speech to have some sort of issue with.

They tend to reduce the amount of eye contact they make when they're talking.

And they're really good listeners.

So when you talk,

They look at you really intently.

But when they speak,

They tend to avoid your reaction.

And it's something that I've seen in a lot of people with had early like language problems.

So I always throw that out there and every once in a while people are like,

How did you know?

And it's cool.

It's a little quirk that's left over from childhood.

It's because they're avoiding judgment.

Is that what it is?

Pretty much.

Yeah.

They're avoiding people's negative displays while they're trying to think of what they need to do,

What they need to say.

This is a question from a listener.

He sent it to me with a bunch of typos.

I'm going to try to translate it.

Hopefully.

Yes.

Is it possible to learn body language so well that you can predict what someone's going to do while you're speaking with them?

Predict what they're going to do while you're speaking to them?

Is that what you said?

I think first I hate the word body language.

I like try to use nonverbal communication just because the body language was a book in the 1950s.

In terms of I think,

Yeah,

I think you can get so good at not knowing what someone's going to do.

You can be hypersensitive to intention.

Being really aware of what they might or may or may not do in a given setting,

I don't think you can tell the future if that's what you're looking for.

But it's definitely a high aptitude to determine whether or not someone's going to.

.

.

I can look around the room that I'm sitting in right now and determine when someone's probably going to leave or when somebody is going to get up or when someone's going to be offended and things like that.

I don't think it provides you with some super level power of like dealing with the world.

I definitely do think that I fundamentally see the world differently.

So I believe that if you were to.

.

.

And most aware people,

So let's take somebody who's not really that aware and let's translate their brain or give them the power to see the way the world that someone that really is aware sees it,

I think it would be a complete shock to them.

I'd imagine they'd be like,

What the hell is going on?

I'd imagine that comes into play a lot with poker,

Which we didn't talk about yet.

But you do apply body language reading and tells and stuff to your poker playing,

Right?

Yeah,

I have a company called Beyond Tells,

Which teaches poker players how to read the behaviors to poker players at the table.

And the reason why it's so much better.

.

.

Poker is a relatively defined game,

Meaning like with people,

If you're talking to someone,

They look upset.

They could be upset for a wide range of reasons.

But in poker,

It's usually localized to the action at the game.

So it's probably one of the best places to study a behavior.

I mean,

It could have external sources that's easy to see.

So it's one of those things where your behavior is affected by a specific set of variables,

Which is really cool for us because we have the ability to kind of see what those variables are and know what the players have at all times.

So it's a really cool place to study behavior.

Gotcha.

So to answer the listener's question,

It is possible but not within a field where there's unlimited options and unlimited inputs.

Yeah,

Definitely.

I mean,

I think it's way more probable and a more specific.

And it's not possible for everyone.

It's possible in certain contexts and certain situations.

But yeah,

In terms of future telling,

I think it's like risk assessment.

Some risk assessment tools are really cool.

Like it's kind of what I studied in graduate school,

A risk assessment of sexual offenders.

You can determine with a pretty high accuracy based on a certain subset of variables that somebody is going to commit a crime again.

Does that mean that they're going to commit a crime again?

No.

I think you can predict it with a pretty high accuracy.

So it's kind of like just making assumptions that are much better than chance.

I think that's the way to sum it up.

Gotcha.

Yeah,

And I guess like when you pay attention to those things and someone does something,

It lessens your surprise when you think like,

Oh,

They're most likely to do such and such.

Right.

Yeah.

You see this,

I mean,

I guess a lot in sports with like Monday morning quarterbacking or like I watch UFC a lot and people always say,

Oh,

I knew she was going to do this or I know this person is going to get knocked out based on this,

But like it's so easy to affect.

Yeah,

No,

It's like the Ronda fight recently.

Like people were talking so much shit,

But if they really knew,

They would have put some money on it because it was getting crazy odds.

So like it's,

It's every hindsight is,

You know,

It's an interesting thing to say the least.

Yeah.

If anything,

I would have read it the opposite because this is like total aside,

But my family is from the Philippines and like cockfighting is a very common,

Like normal thing.

And we,

I mean,

When I go there,

When I visit them,

Like my cousins take me and we bet on chickens and I usually bet pretty well,

Like I've won way more money than I've lost.

And I always bet on like the chicken that kind of looks like Ronda Rousey,

Like the one who's like angry looking,

But also calm.

Where's the ones that,

Yeah.

And the ones that look flustered,

Like seem to lose really quickly because they're not aggressive.

And that's exactly how Ronda and Holly looked before their fight.

But obviously it had,

I bet on that first threat.

Yeah,

That's an interesting point.

So with the academic stuff and then you're saying it doesn't translate as well to like coaching communication.

I remember you have a class or you had a class where you videotape people doing things and then break it down with them in a tape.

So does that actually help them if they don't necessarily need to know all these micro expressions or whatever to communicate effectively?

Yeah,

I mean like that's the reason why is that like when you see someone or when you're recording someone's behavior and you're showing them this is the why,

This is the reason why you're being perceived this way,

It makes it very,

Very real for them when they're able to see what those actual reasons are.

So like I work with a lot of corporate executives and CEOs and stuff like that and like I'll make very strong claims.

Like I'll look them dead in the face and be like,

You know,

You look like an asshole.

And I'll say just like that.

And they can't really defend themselves because I have video footage of them looking exactly like an asshole.

So like it's kind of like this is,

This is how the,

This is what you look like,

Man.

This is not my opinion.

This is like,

Look at the,

And then they see it and they're like,

Oh my God,

Like I never actually realized that ABCD,

SGD and then it starts to become more aware or more hypersensitive to the things that they're doing.

Does anyone disagree?

It's not like a warm approach.

It's not like I don't look like an asshole.

Like that's just my happy face or whatever.

Yes.

Yes.

Every once in a while somebody will say something like,

Why is this behavior that,

And sometimes people are on some sort of autism spectrum in that case,

Or they have something called an NLD.

So nonverbal learning disorder,

They're just not able to process those things.

So the average person,

When they see their behavior,

They acknowledge it pretty quickly.

They're like,

Oh yeah,

This is,

I don't look the best,

But some people just don't see any problem with their behavior.

And usually that's dealing with something,

Something else.

Yeah.

I was just gonna say,

Bring up the autism spectrum because I have a friend who's autistic and he will often argue that he,

I mean that he can't do such and such or you can't read such and such and a part of me doesn't buy it totally.

Like,

Like he'll say like he doesn't notice when something's not aesthetically pleasing such as like a room being in disarray because he just doesn't feel those things.

Like one,

Do you think that's like always legitimate and two,

Is that something that can be trained out of someone?

Yeah.

I mean,

I think,

I mean,

There's,

There's,

If we're talking about like autism and autism spectrum disorder,

There's a really wide spectrum,

Right?

So like autism is something that is very,

I mean,

It's,

It's,

It's,

It's,

It's,

It's this,

This spectrum disorders fairly new thing in terms of diagnostic criteria.

I think it's going to develop a lot more over the next couple of years,

But like let's take somebody who's higher functioning,

Maybe like an S burger symptoms,

All like that.

People like that.

It's very interesting.

I've worked with a couple of them and yeah,

It can be taught,

But it's not easy,

Man.

It's like our brains,

Our brains processing the massive amount of information to make these reasons Macy's deduction,

Something that for the average person could be trained.

But for some people that I've worked with,

I've had to like build it from the ground up.

And like,

Think about it,

Like,

How do you,

Like,

How would you create a framework or how would you convey what a smile means to someone?

Right?

Like,

Oh,

What did that smile mean?

Like how would you begin to train that?

Like you can break it into like a real and a fake smile or a smile lay in with specific emotions,

But because there's so many emotions,

How do you choose what emotion lane with?

So if they really have no framework,

You'd have to rebuild it from the ground up,

Which takes considerable level of work and which requires basically to,

To kind of create this internal system of,

Of what certain facial expressions mean and to build on that system.

So I do think that,

Yeah,

There's people out there,

I've met people out there that I've shown them like somebody really angry and they're like,

Why are they angry?

Or,

Or basically like,

They look okay.

And I'm like,

Are you really?

And they're like,

Yeah,

And they just completely miss it.

Yeah.

My autistic friend is actually is very high functioning and you can't really tell that he's autistic,

But he says like he spent years studying what things mean and he just everything he does that seems natural.

He constructed consciously and he says it's exhausting,

Which I totally believe.

Yeah,

No,

It's definitely,

It's very exhausting.

So it's like the systems that you and I take for granted that are just become sort of more fluid or more natural.

They have to dedicate effort to which is,

Which is hard,

Right?

Like it's hard to be in a conversation and make sure you say the thing that is,

You know,

Oh,

This is,

This is the right thing to say at this right moment.

Or I don't want to come across as rude or disrespectful or,

I mean,

That's,

That's hard.

That's not easy.

It's definitely a population that is rewarding to work with anybody who's,

You know,

Kind of our mission for the nonverbal group is to help the people help change people's lives who are going through their suffering,

But they don't really know that they're suffering.

So like the,

The kid who's maybe really anxious and,

You know,

Terrified of a first date,

Like he may not define his,

His life as suffering.

He doesn't think he's suffering,

But if he can just get over these obstacles or hurdles,

His life can be so much better,

So much more powerful,

So much more enriched.

And that's something that's kind of what we do.

Like the people that are like knowingly depressed,

Like,

Yeah,

We want to help them too.

But it's so interesting to know that so many people live a life where,

You know,

They're healthy and normal and average,

But they're just so,

They're just so limited by their beliefs and so limited by their inability to read and navigate social citizen interactions that it really is a profound impact on their life.

So yeah,

Like somebody like your friend,

You had to go through a lot of work to get there.

It's admirable that he would want to do that much because most people,

I mean,

The average person just doesn't really dedicate that much attention to this area.

Yeah.

So when you've worked with people like this and you actually do go through all the work to rebuild this framework,

Does it get to a point,

And I guess it's different for every case,

But does it get to a point where they actually can be quote unquote intuitive or they actually can immediately recognize anger without having to think about it or will they always have to process it consciously?

Not enough data for,

Not enough data to answer that question.

Theoretically,

Yes.

I mean,

So what one of the things we're doing is we're building out the largest archive of human behavior pretty much ever.

So I'll have a sample,

Basically a database of probably like three to five petabytes of footage where I can pull like what it looks like to have an anxious smile,

What it looks like to have a genuine smile,

What it looks like to have a smile relating with anxiety,

And we can use that database to train people.

So that's one of the things that we're working on and basically our hypothesis is through rapid exposure to specific facial expressions and rapid exposure to specific emotional states,

People can in fact slowly learn what's good and what's bad.

It's like watching somebody shoot a basketball thousands of times and the good difference between good form and bad form,

Like slowly you start to learn,

Okay,

I see the difference.

And that's kind of what we're trying to create for behavior.

Gotcha.

Yeah,

But that must be something so hard to quantify with like this is how anxious the smile is.

That must be a huge challenge.

It's going to be a bitch,

But once you get it down,

It's,

I mean,

It just requires pretty,

Pretty,

It's just,

It's number one,

Creating a really good structure for the intake of the data.

Number two,

Like creating a way where you know how to measure anxiety.

Cause like anxiety,

Like,

Like,

I don't know,

Like,

Are you anxious right now?

You might say seven on a scale of one to 10 and if I viewed your anxiety,

I might be like,

You don't look that anxious.

You look fine.

It's just such a,

Such a tricky thing when you're dealing with that.

So we can,

We can define it via like,

You know,

Using like a polygraph or something like that as a measurement of anxiety,

But reality is just different for different people.

So it's,

It's such a cool thing.

Cause you always hit on something.

I mean,

No matter what you quantify,

You're going to hit on something subjective eventually,

Right?

And you just have to decide what you feel.

Yeah.

I mean,

That's the whole point is that like,

You can't like so carefully define everything because it's just not how our brains work right now.

Like we,

I mean like,

And all that facial identification software and stuff like that.

I mean like,

It's really cool and I find it very interesting,

But there,

To be honest with you,

I feel like there were,

We're a long way out in my opinion,

Like,

You know,

To identifying like to making it usable,

Like the facial software right now,

Like tells you what emotion you're like,

Oh,

Are you happy?

But it's,

It's isolated to like five or six emotions.

It does it.

It just does.

And then on the facial action coding system,

They basically created that.

And there's some Activa is a great company that's doing a lot of work in that area,

But I just,

I still feel like that humans are vastly better than any machine right now.

Yeah.

When you think about what we're able to process subconsciously,

It's crazy.

Yeah,

It really is.

And on your website,

You wrote that,

I mean,

You mentioned Dr.

Merablon's 93% of communications nonverbal.

I mean,

We've all heard that a million times.

And you mentioned your own research and having like a slightly different percentage and how it doesn't matter.

But my question with that was like,

How does one even quantify a percentage point of a message like how did how that's why it studies bullshit.

Yeah.

How many times I hear that like,

Oh,

93% of community.

Listen,

The study that he created,

He defined what nonverbal communication is he operationally defined how his percentages would be and from an academic perspective,

His study would be valid.

And he was peer reviewed because he made the definitions.

But how the hell do you understand what percentage of communications number I don't,

I can't come up with a way.

I always think that like,

If I can't like think of an actual way to come up with like,

Even one of the cool things is if you break down to this,

Like this exercise where you say in a,

In a finite environment where you could measure an infinite environment where you could measure anything and observe anything without any restrictions,

How would you figure how much communication is nonverbal given myself that those like unlimited constraints?

I still can't think of a way to do it.

Yeah,

We know that a lot of it is that's there you go,

Right?

Like a lot.

I don't know what percentage it is,

But a lot of communication is,

Is definitely nonverbal.

And when I say nonverbal,

I'm also talking about fluctuations in tonality,

Speech,

Words per minute,

Resonance,

Timbre and all these other aspects.

Yeah,

I guess it's just that people won't listen to someone saying,

Oh,

Most of your communication is nonverbal.

It sounds so good,

Right?

93%.

How can you can't get much better?

It's kind of like,

You know,

They'll do is like in marketing,

Like,

You know,

Like,

How I made $1,

000 last week is less likely to be open than how I made $1,

336.

96 last week.

Right.

Like it's kind of the same,

The same concept.

Yeah,

It must be real if it's so precise.

Yeah,

It must be real,

Right?

Yeah.

Have you heard of the book Reading Faces?

It's kind of a hard book to find by I think Leonard Pollack.

It's not a popular book.

I was curious if you heard of it.

You're talking about how facial anatomy leads into personality?

I mean,

The thing I read it in college,

And I just bought it actually for Christmas for my brother.

But on the thing in that book was about quartering the face and how like the different quarters of someone's face corresponds to different parts of their brain.

Are you familiar with that?

I've heard of stuff like that.

I am not familiar with it.

Now.

What does it what does it say?

Like what's the central thesis?

I mean,

The basic idea is that your left side of your face corresponds to your right brain and vice versa.

And so you can you can what they suggest is to take mug shots of people or yourself and then select your left face and your right face and then make mirror images.

You have a left left face.

For most people,

Those two faces look pretty different.

And by reading that face,

You can read like someone's emotional side versus the logical side.

And I wanted to and it's not like a very scientifically written book,

Which is why I think it wasn't that popular.

But I wanted to hear what you thought about that idea.

Yeah,

I kind of feel like.

So first of all,

A lot of like exclusive left brain,

Right brain stuff has been not disproven,

But like they're like,

All right,

This is definitely more complex than the left side of your brain.

Like,

Like when somebody goes like,

Oh,

I'm like a really right brain person.

Like,

Yeah,

It doesn't really make much sense.

And it's kind of like a story or label that people live into.

And I'm always Yeah,

I mean,

I wouldn't I would question the validity of that just based on it's so tricky,

Right?

It's like,

There's all these,

Do you know,

Like,

Projective assessments of personality are?

Do you remember that?

Like,

Psychology?

So like,

A projective assessment is like the rotrap test or the TAT thematic apperception test.

So this,

This is test where they basically like show you pictures.

So they have a guy and a girl,

A guy and a woman shaking hands.

And you say like,

What's going on in this situation?

The guy says,

Well,

That's the boss.

It's the secretary shaking the boss's hand.

And there's no indication there that would suggest that she's a secretary,

But the guy projects his latent biases about woman package.

Yeah.

It's like the scene in the end of software garage.

Yeah,

Yeah,

It's exactly like that versus objective measures where it's more like,

You know,

MMPI or like specific empirical tools.

And I feel like I can turn anything into like a projective assessment of,

You know,

Personality or a projective assessment.

So it's like,

Oh,

Yeah,

It sounds cool.

Like,

Oh,

If we split the brain into left side and right side,

And we look at this,

And we look at that,

Like it kind of like even makes sense,

But you could just be processing emotion in the face doesn't have to be localized to one side of the face or not.

It sounds I'd have to look at what he's saying before I really speak against it.

But my initial assumptions are like,

It sounds like,

You know,

Hokey pokey fun stuff.

It was a fun project actually took the info and turned it into a photography project.

Oh,

That sounds cool.

Yeah.

And it was really cool.

I mean,

If only for like entertainment value,

Looking at how people's left faces and right faces differed like I did.

Yeah,

Guys on my rugby team and like almost every guy looks super masculine on the right side of their face and like what kind of childish and like feminine on their left face and I was like,

Oh,

This book would say that they're trying to posture is more manly than they are like,

I mean,

Whether it's true or not.

Yeah,

No,

But it sounds cool.

Like it's like,

That's the thing about those those things.

It can be very once you know it,

You're like,

Oh,

Shit,

This is freaking cool.

Like,

Yeah,

Like,

Oh,

My God,

Like,

This links to this and this is powerful.

And you know what I mean?

Yeah,

Yeah.

Oh,

Actually,

Another thing from this book,

And not to talk about this book forever,

But they mentioned how most people look at each other's right eye,

Which,

According to them,

Is your left brain and whatnot.

But I'm having I have noticed that I tend to look at people's right eye when I'm making eye contact,

Like habitually,

Have you noticed that at all when it comes to eye contact?

No,

I've noticed people I noticed people have some,

Like some there's some old NLP stuff that we'll talk about,

Like looking into the certain left side,

Right eyes and manifestation of this and that,

But I haven't noticed people doing that I've kind of not the easiest thing to measure.

Honestly,

It's not the easiest thing to measure when I'm looking at my eyes.

Just because like at certain distances,

It's kind of hard to track,

Like where the eyes are actually looking.

So you need to get like the few I need to get a lot of variables correct in order to do that.

But software can do it actually super easy.

I kind of misspoke there.

But like,

For manual coding,

It's kind of annoying.

Gotcha.

So as far as using like all the awareness around body language for general communication,

Are there any general tips you give people in like how they can enhance their perception or enhance like how they're communicating?

Yeah,

I mean,

I think the most useful thing is to record yourself.

Like the most useful tip is to record yourself as like a best friend.

So see what your behavior looks like if you were talking to a best friend,

Somebody that you have like unconditional positive regard for and they know that they're not judging you or they're not making any sort of harsh conclusions about what you're doing or anything like that.

And then kind of see how that behaviors compares to what you look like in a scenario where maybe you are public speaking or in some sort of higher stress environment.

I really feel like the average person just doesn't know what they actually look like.

Is the idea when you're in an environment where you feel approved of that's like your best face?

Yeah,

Pretty much.

I mean,

The idea is basically there's this concept of a lot of people,

Usually what we do is we don't add behaviors,

We remove behaviors.

So a lot of what I'm doing is subtracting,

Not adding.

So I don't teach people skill sets.

I teach them how to remove the things that they perceive to be important that's not important in their life.

Gotcha.

So like what's really interesting is,

Yeah,

Like you were just saying,

Like most of the people's like most power and most,

It comes from definitely when they're the most comfortable and then they feel like they're in a safe environment.

You'll tend to see them really perform or have the best style of communication.

And that's probably what's behind the imagine the audience being naked thing.

That's a good point,

Actually.

I never thought about that.

Yeah,

That's pretty good insight.

I hate things like that,

Like imagine the audience or I don't like little quick tips.

I like,

Let's try to get you to perform better.

But yeah,

I mean,

That makes sense.

I guess it could and could not make sense in a sense that like for some people,

Like the concept of being naked or with someone could be the most extreme form of anxiety or other people,

It could be the most extreme form of comfort.

So I don't know.

Cool.

Yeah,

Well,

This has been super informative.

Thanks for taking the time to speak.

And I've taken your class.

I know you don't do the live class anymore,

Which is a shame,

Which I took it a few years ago and it was awesome.

To find out about your work is the best place,

The nonverbalgroup.

Com?

Yeah,

Beyond Tell is for the poker stuff and Nonverbal Group is going through a big renovation this year.

We're going to be doing a lot of crazy things.

So I'll be posting videos like pretty much every day and doing breakdowns of people are going to really,

Really,

I've just been focusing on the poker stuff for the past couple of years and I'm switching in and probably March to really focus on nonverbal.

So there'll be a lot of stuff there.

Okay,

Awesome.

Your poker class is great too,

By the way.

I took the intro to the show.

Oh,

Thanks.

Yeah,

Zulie taught it,

Right?

Yeah,

Yeah.

She's awesome.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Cool.

All right.

Well,

Thank you so much.

Thanks for listening.

Don't forget to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.

If you want to be a part of the virtual audience for future episodes,

Make sure to follow me at crowdcast.

Io slash Rwanda.

See you next time.