Transcript for:
Understanding Body Language for Confidence

Jimmy walks into a room full of people he doesn't know. He kind of slinks off to the side. No one notices him.

No one turns to look. No one even cares at all. It's almost like he's completely invisible. Now Chad walks into a similar room. Immediately he can feel the energy drawn to him.

People are turning their heads. People want to know him. People want to befriend him. The difference? Body language.

The impact that proper posture and confident body language can have on a person's life is immeasurable. It's crazy. I always say this story. One time, a few years ago, I met this YouTuber who I really admired, who was the same height as me.

We were filming something, walking around town, and I looked over at him, and he was just commanding the presence around us. I felt so inferior, despite being the exact same height. It was at this moment that I made the decision.

I need to perfect my posture and body language. So today I'm sharing with you guys the full body language guide. I could talk about this for hours, but this video is going to be the meat, the bones of body language.

Your beginner's guide to commanding the presence around you through your body language and posture. So let's get right into it. Standing.

Are you ever standing in a group of people? Maybe it's in a new setting, event or something. and you don't really know what to do with your hands or your feet, right? You got a few options. You could stand with your feet parallel, right next to each other, feet close.

This is a formal position showing neutral attitude. You can imagine used by someone like school children who are standing for the pledge or standing in line, or a soldier reporting to his commanding officer, you know, feet close together, standing at attention. You have a very small foundation with your feet close together so you look easy to push over.

So this makes it a very submissive or supplicative standing position. Then there's wide stance with your feet further apart. This is a semi-formal position signaling masculinity. You're kind of presenting your genitals with your legs apart. You could imagine athletes standing around in the locker room or gunslinger, you know, with the feet wide apart and your hand on your gun ready for draw, right?

You have a strong base. You look immovable. It's quite dominant. A little too dominant, perhaps. Or you could cross your legs, right?

If an open stance is dominant and masculine, then crossed stance is submissive and feminine. You're kind of hiding and denying access to your genital region. Imagine you see a group of men standing around.

The first group is standing, you know, legs wide apart, not being afraid to take up space and present their genitals. Yes, they look confident and masculine. The other group are standing with their legs crossed and their feet close together they look like they're unsure about each other they look as if they're protecting themselves in a quite feminine way. So what do you do with your feet? Well have you heard of forward foot position?

Since the Middle Ages men of elevated status have presented the inner part of their leg as a kind of signal of their erogenous zone and this has tended to be the perfect combination of a wide masculine stance but yet you're showing that more vulnerable erogenous part of your body as kind of a mating dance. And this has carried on even until today you see celebrities on the red carpet adopting the same foot positioning. And studies have shown that this is the most attractive standing leg positioning when it comes to attracting women.

And just like you don't want to cross your legs and coming off as feminine to women you don't want to cross your arms either. Subconsciously this shows that you are protecting your vital organs by kind of creating this barrier in front of your belly. But there's only so many other places to put your arms, right?

You put it in your pockets? No, this shows insecurity and meekness. Like you're hiding like a little kid under the covers from the boogeyman, right?

Taking your hands and hiding them away. You could put your hands on your hips. This is also known as a sizing up hand positioning.

Imagine two men looking at each other, kind of sizing each other up with their hands on their hips, trying to make themselves appear bigger than they really are. It's an impactful signal of masculinity but it is also quite douchey. So you don't want to look too effeminate but you don't want to look too overbearingly masculine. What do you do with your hands?

Well you do a combination of the both. You take one range of the spectrum and the other and find the middle. So what this looks like you could have one hand in your pocket and one hand down. You could have one hand across your belly the other kind of up on your face as if you're thinking.

hard. You could clasp your hands behind your back so you're crossing your hands but also presenting your vital organs. Or you could just put one hand behind your back the other, you know, kind of down in your pocket or in your belt loop. This has been found to be the most attractive hand positioning when it comes to standing for men. And then of course you want your head up, chest out, and shoulders back and down.

These are the fundamentals of great posture. If you struggle with this, I have a couple tricks for you. One is a mental trick I call the string theory.

You imagine that someone has attached a string from the back of your head and the other end is attached to your tailbone and somebody is pulling that string tight, kind of cinching up that straight line. your back. Another is a physical trick that you could try out and that is to put a piece of tape on the back of your neck, upper back area, and if you feel it crinkling a little bit, that means that your posture is getting sloppy and you need to remind yourself to straighten your posture out so that the tape is taut. From standing position, we naturally progress into walking just like babies, right? First you got to stand before You can walk.

We've all seen like a super attractive man, but the way that he's walking, the way that he carries himself is just sloppy and ugly and you can feel yourself losing respect for him. Don't let that be you. In walking, the principles are pretty much the same as standing.

You want your head up, chest out, chin down, just a little bit, shoulders back. Now I want to ask you, what separates men and women as far as bone structure? goes.

You ever heard that women are shaped like an hourglass? They have like a bosom and then it gets really thin and then goes out where their hips are because they need childbearing hips, right? So they have wider hips than men. Men are a bit of a reverse hourglass. They have wider shoulders, it gets thin, and then they got, you know, a little bit of a concavity.

Then they have a little bit of convexity usually at the waist, but not nearly as much as women. So the difference between women is their hips. So evolutionarily, they walk in a way where they sway their hips slightly to present their femininity. That's why you see the hookers in Grand Theft Auto, how they program them to walk and swing in their hips throughout. It's supposed to be an exaggeration of them presenting their femininity to attract, you know, customers.

So what differentiates men is not as much hips, but more shoulders. So naturally, men should adopt a little bit more of a sway to... their shoulders to accentuate their masculinity.

Now this obviously is going to take some practice and you don't want to be swinging around but just a slight dip and rise in your shoulders can make a huge difference in how you're perceived by others. Now you'll want to practice what I call the model walk and this is simple. You simply lead with your inside foot.

You know how we mentioned when you're standing you want to have kind of staggered with your toe pointed outward forward. It also is true when you're walking. If you're making a right hand turn, you don't want to have your left foot crossing over and pointing that direction in front of your right foot. That looks unconfident, unsure, and like you don't even know your own direction. It looks lame, right?

And it looks silly. So you want to always point your inside toe first in that direction, following with the outside foot. This signals confidence, direction, and leadership. And this is something I learned.

When I was a model walking the runway, they were like, do not turn with your outside foot first. It looks stupid. These are the main things to remember when walking. Then, of course, you want relaxed hands and arms with a natural swing and a steady gaze forward. It can help to find a focal point somewhere off in the distance to keep your head steady.

Try not to make any fast, sloppy movements. Always take your time before and observe the surrounding areas before you make any quick movements. Those are the fundamentals.

of walking. Before we get into the next segment, I got to let you guys know about my full glow up program. Yes, I finally made a course for you guys. There you will find everything you need to know about how to glow up in as little time as possible, as well as a full community that you can interact with and ask questions, ask for advice, and just make your life richer and fuller in every single way.

So I'm so excited for this program. I've put a lot of work into it. So I'll put the link down below.

Go check it out now. What am I doing right now? I am sitting.

Doesn't take a genius to realize that. People on average sit for six and a half hours a day. So during that time, you're going to be being looked at a lot by other people, presumably, right? So it's definitely advantageous to look as attractive as possible while doing so. So let's talk about the different types of sitting positions and what they mean.

You have narrow stance sitting with your legs together like so. subconsciously this position signals that you are being protective of your genitals it's a very submissive and defensive position you see men and women are biologically different because women have a wider pelvic girdle this is the bottom bone of their pelvis they need that extra space so that they can bear children so naturally their legs you actually point inwards a little bit so it's more natural and easy for them to have a close narrow sitting position. For men we are narrower so our legs tend to naturally point outwards and we end up doing this man spreading thing that we get attacked for when in reality that's our natural biological comfortable sitting position.

It's weird. So the next position is what I just mentioned wide sitting position with your knees you know a foot or more apart. This is a masculine sitting position, but obviously has this stigma of being misogynistic, you know, man spreading.

And it can also sometimes look sloppy if you have incorrect upper body posture, you're slouching, you know, and you look like a nerd. So a good way to counteract that and counteract looking like a geek and getting called a misogynist when doing this is to adopt what's called the starter's position. This is where you have a little bit wider stance, but you have one hand down on your leg and one elbow. And this is called starting position. Kind of like you would be on a starting block getting ready for a race, right?

That's why it's called that. It's a very attentive yet still masculine pose. And it's expansive.

Expansive is going to be the whole key when it comes to sitting posture. Expansive body language shows true confidence by the way of being comfortable taking up space. You don't want to be the guy that's closed off with a narrow stance, narrow legs and... It looks like they're trying to stay out of everybody's way and take up as little space as possible. Now think of a CEO, a leader of some sort.

They're sprawling out a bit. They have their leg up, their arm over the chair next to them. They're not afraid to take up space.

So I find that the starter's position is the best combination of being attentive and curious and interested in the person that you're in front of, but also being comfortable being expansive and taking up space. Especially... If you're not at a desk, you can't really do the starters position if you're at a desk. You certainly can do part of it, you know, with your arm maybe resting on the desk, hand on the face, so on and so forth. Next, we have legs crossed.

You can cross it three different ways. You can have the figure four lock, which is where you have one leg resting on top of the other at your ankle, which is a nice comfortable masculine positioning often used by you know, high schoolers and such. And then there's simple crossed legs where one leg is crossed over the other with your knee on top of your other thigh.

So you're basically taking that empty space from the figure four and just eliminating it. This is a more sophisticated, more elegant version of the figure four lock. You kind of look like a gentleman. You look a little bit James Bond-esque, if you will, but it only looks good if you have the vibe and the style to match that. You know, think.

Thomas Shelby or James Bond. But if you're wearing an oversized football jersey and blue jeans and you're doing the crossed legs, you look like a geek. You look kind of fruity. Don't do it. But the most important thing to keep in mind is don't be afraid of expansive body language.

Now of course you're sitting, you have your legs right. What do you do with your hands? You could take your hands and clasp them together.

Studies show that the more tightly your hands are clenched together, the more negative your attitude is. You can imagine if your boss calls you in for a meeting and their hands are tightly clasped, you get the feeling, the vibe that they are anxious to deliver to you some negative news of some sort. It's not good.

It puts everybody not at ease. It makes everybody feel a bit more tense. Then there's steepled hand positioning. The body language expert Ray Birdwhistle, cool name, right?

He found that people that see themselves as elite or highly confident are not as intelligent as they seem to be. adopt this hand positioning. It's where you have either one or all of your fingertips touching, forming sort of a church steeple image. If your hand steeple is higher, this shows confidence and security and leadership. The lower it gets, the more it transforms into adopting more of a listening attitude.

So this is definitely a hand position that you might want to consider adopting. Just putting that out there. Touching your face with Your hands. This can portray a wide array of signals. For instance, your hand flat on your cheek often signals boredom.

Your hand over your mouth often signals embarrassment for what you're witnessing. Your hand on your chin kind of signals that you're evaluating, you're making a decision. So if you want to use it to your advantage, you can kind of put people in a positional framing where they feel as though they're auditioning for your favor, right? Then this can be of use to you. Or if you have your closed hand on your cheek, you're showing interest in what they're saying, but only if you're using it along with nice posture and you're not using it as a support for your weak posture.

This makes you look uninterested and bored, like you're falling asleep and supporting yourself. So all this to say, what's the winner? Well, in my opinion, I believe it is the starting position with hand on the under your chin and your finger pointer going up the side of your face.

Communicating. This is the next topic we're gonna cover. Albert Morabian, a body language researcher, came to the conclusion for the first time that communication is 55% nonverbal, 38% vocal, and just 7% your words.

So this is debatable how accurate this is, but there's no doubt that anything even close to 55% nonverbal is still a huge amount so you definitely want to learn how to maximize that to be taken seriously. You could say all the right words have the perfect tonality but if you're just standing there like a zombie delivering what you're saying no one's gonna care. So non-verbal communication really comes down to three things.

Your posture, your facial expressions, and your hand movements. Now we touched a lot on the posture that's basically the same as when you're sitting you want to have a receptive posture, you know, with your back and spine erect and your eyes looking forward, making eye contact. But so much emotion can be conveyed by your facial expressions. The use of your eyebrows, eyes, and your mouth and surrounding muscles to convey your emotions. So some of the most common are smiling with your eyes a little bit, where you kind of crinkle your eye and get this crow's feet wrinkles to show.

This conveys compassion and appreciation for what the other person is saying. There's raised eyebrows which show surprise and excitement for what the other person is saying. There's pursed lips that show sadness for what the other person is saying, right?

So, so much can be shown or not. What I mean by that is just as you can emphasize and lean more into these facial expressions to show more emotion and kind of help out the person you're talking to, you're giving them feedback, you can also limit them. to convey a little bit more of a mysterious stoic vibe and this can also have an effect on that relationship.

Sometimes it can be beneficial to be seen as a bit mysterious. And last but not least is hand movements. This is huge when speaking and communicating.

It just adds an extra layer of depth to what you're saying. It makes what you're saying 50% more effective and impactful with the use of hand movements. If you scroll back a little bit in this video, you'll notice that I've been using hand movements this whole entire time.

And that's probably one of the reasons you're not bored out of your mind watching me. Or maybe you are. Great hand movements when speaking is a combination of four main things.

Points, sweeps, frames, and cuts. Points direct your attention at a person or your own words that you're saying. For example, during a speech you say, I want to be very clear about something. It kind of emphasizes this is important.

Listen up. or to direct your attention at a person you say, I want you to listen very closely to something. It kind of makes them perk up and listen intently to what you're saying.

Sweeps are a hand movement this direction or up and down used during general broad statements. They are connecting phrases. So for example, something like, we could talk about this forever, right?

And then you go on to the more important point, but I want to be very clear that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know? And then there's frames, which is the use of two hands. I can't really do right now. I'm holding the mic, but it is when you're speaking of something that is of measurable time or quantity. So for example, I studied from age 15 to 25, right?

You're making a literal timeline or there's way more information out there, you know? You're creating the illusion of something of quantity. And the use of cuts is to make a rigid point.

This is a strong stance on something. So you're speaking blah blah blah blah blah. I simply won't allow it, right? It's poignant.

It's very... it's non-negotiable. This is how it is. Right? So the greatest speakers use a combination of these hand gestures to amplify what they're speaking about.

An example is Graham Stephan. He does very well, very fluid, not so much points and cuts, but he makes these grand gestures, these sweeps, and it kind of creates poetry when he's speaking. Someone who has more rigid movements is Andrew Tate.

Love him or hate him, but it's part of the reasons people listen so intently to what he's saying. Uses his fingers, his points, and his cuts to amplify what he's saying. This is how to become an effective speaker.