Transcript for:
Non-Verbal Communication and Social Intelligence

there's a second language out there that human beings are continually expressing and you want to make yourself sensitive to it because the degree that you can begin to piece together this puzzle will have tremendous power in the social Realm [Music] well something that I wrote a lot about in the laws of human nature I want to talk briefly about is the idea of non-verbal communication of the ability to decipher people the people that you deal with on a higher level because we are social animals to the degree that you walk around in this world not really understanding the people around you not really reading with their signs not really knowing but they're feeling what they're thinking puts you in an incredible disadvantage you're like groping continually around in the darkness and it makes you unhappy because it creates all kinds of trauma in your life where you're continually misreading the people around you you hire somebody based on their apparent charm you discover that they're actually a toxic personality and it can ruin the dynamic in your company you get involved in a relationship with someone who seems very loving and giving and then they turn out to be a raging narcissist creates years of trouble and Trauma for you so understanding people on a deeper level in a dimensional way is incredibly important and what I've tried to emphasize in particularly in the laws of human nature is that humans have two languages you are obsessed with one language which is words you are continually fixating on people's words and everything we know about words is we can lie I can tell you right now here on camera that I am you know the most brilliant person in the universe or I can tell you something else that I can dunk a basketball I can say whatever but it's an outright lie I can say whatever I want words are actually a form that can be used for a great weapon for deception okay but there's a second language that is not very much harder to express deception in and it's this it's not just a language of the body it's also a language of gesture and behavior so I want you to start thinking in this way I want you to start thinking there's a second language out there that human beings are continually expressing and you want to make yourself sensitive to it because the degree that you can begin to piece together this puzzle will have tremendous power in the social realm you won't get dragged into all of these needless dramas that will weigh you down and that you'll cause you sleepless nights you'll be able to influence people on a higher level you'll get them to be more interested in your ideas you will be able to pierce their defenses you can't read other people's minds I don't know what you're thinking right now out there of course I don't even know anything about you because you're visible but if you were here right now I wouldn't be able to read your thoughts but I can sense your moods your emotions we humans have that power so let me guide you very briefly through that and how you do that the most obvious way is the face okay you need to pay greater attention to people's facial gestures to people's facial Behavior so the eyes generally I express authentic emotion and and surprise and excitement by the way that they open right and we've always experienced people who have what we call who have like what I would call dead eyes right so something I've noticed a lot with people who are incredible narcissists narcissists can sometimes give you the impression that they're really really interested in your ideas right they seem to maybe have a degree of empathy they're listening to you they're letting you talk oh they can't be a narcissist but pay attention their eyes will give them away while they seem to be talking to you and getting their eyes are not engaging with you there's something dead about them there's a discrepancy you are looking for discrepancies in facial expressions the eyes say something but the mouth says something else right people are smiling a fake smile a fake smile has the the mouth going up but the eyes aren't the whole face isn't kind of showing excitement it's not going across the entire face you're looking for like something that doesn't quite fit where there's excitement in their voice but there's nothing happening on their face okay so be attentive to these signs to the signs of genuine emotion so when somebody really smiles when somebody's really happy when somebody's really interested in your ideas their whole face tends to become animated you don't see like one part is kind of dead and quiet in the other part is animated the whole face because we cannot control that part you're genuinely interested in everything lights up and you can't fake it all right read people's tone of voice people's tone of voice will tell you if they're sincere it'll tell you whether they're deceiving you it will it will tell you that they're full of fear or Not actors have learned over centuries that they can control to some degree their face to mole hold it to certain degree to show certain emotions but it's very hard to control the voice very difficult so people reveal a lot of their actual excitement or their lack of Interest through how how they talk their tone of voice I don't have to go into great detail about it because you know it you sense it you continually feeling these things day in and day out you go in a meeting and you think people were interested in you and such and you go out and you go I don't know if that went so well and when you have that balance because you probably sets on the non-verbal level that people seemed interested but their bodies weren't showing that they were that their voices weren't showing it you trust those kinds of opinions okay so body language is extremely important books have been written forests have been fell for paper for these books about how to read body language the thing you don't pay enough attention to are people's actions and gestures one thing that I've always noticed is very telling is how people say goodbye when you're in a meeting or you just had lunch with someone you've met them for the first time are they kind of quick to get out of there is there goodbye sort of perfunctory do they really want to cut it off and get the hell out or is there this kind of thing of where they want to go on and on and on and on right how people say goodbye how they end a telephone conversation how they end an email how they end a meeting or a lunch tells you a lot about how they feel towards you it's very eloquent it's it's either ah I'm impatient I really want to get away from this person I really want to communicate as little as possible or no I want more of them Etc so pay attention to that level pay attention to the tone in people's texts and emails believe it or not you think you can read everything just by in person communication but you can read a lot through texts and emails people reveal a lot of their excitement their emotion their interest in you and who they are and how they write even a simple text okay I'm continually aware when I read people's work like uh somebody in a newspaper or a book I can tell how much of a narcissist how big their ego is by the way they write so a narcissist will reveal him or herself in their writing style by all kinds of Flowery extravagant language that seems very interesting and very exciting all these kind of wild metaphors you go wow that's kind of interesting but then if you think about it their ideas are really rather empty there's nothing there they're trying to sort of impress you with their verbal pyrotechnics there's a columnist for the Washington Post he's on the conservative side I don't hold that against him his name is George Will very famous his writing is is so much involved in impressing people with how all of his Illusions about history all of his little verbal little Nicks and cleverness that I know for certain that if I ever met George will this guy is an insane narcissist so you can read these kinds of things by the way people write and they reveal it in their texts they reveal it in their emails they reveal it in their articles that they write look at whether people are on time the relationship to time are they people who procrastinate right who you've given them a task to do in one week and they take two weeks and cetera and then they have an excuse their relationship to time reveals something very deep about their personality whether they are conscientious that they think whether they're other directed or they're interdirected it's all about me I can take however long I want I can be five ten minutes late doesn't matter this is really just about me you're not paying attention to these details everything that people do how they drive how they write something how late they are it's all a language and the more you can pay attention to this I also tell people giving job interviews right don't pay so much attention to what people say but to look at how uncomfortable they are certain situations so you pose a question on them that you're hoping they don't know the answer to in a job interview you're kind of putting some pressure on them you're asking a question that comes a little bit from Left Field okay do they like double down and act like they know the answer and they kind of make something up on the spot kind of bullshitting their way through are they gonna go you know what I never thought of that I don't really know the answer to that I'll have to think about it that's a sign of somebody who's actually more intelligent and more interesting they don't have these incredible insecurities they'll be able to take criticism so on and on and on and the idea is you're walking around it's like a flat screen people in your life are like one-dimensional and you're projecting onto them onto the screen your own ideas about them your own preconceptions you know prejudices you're singing to people what you want to see into them you don't understand who they are because they are just this one-dimensional figure to you agree that you do what I'm saying try to enter their world you try to see their moods try to figure out what they're thinking what their world is about you're suddenly opening up Dimensions you're seeing them in two and three dimensions and they become a human being and you have the kind of understanding that will lead to Greater social intelligence which in this world is the key to any kind of power so that's all thanks