So, it's a skill that's wired into us, wired into our brains; it's a very unique skill.

Stop thinking about people's words so much because the one thing about words, unfortunately, is people could lie; they can say whatever they want.

But body language, man, it doesn't lie.

This is a whole art you can learn.

I find it fascinating that, you know, there's quotes and things that say 80% of our communication is non-verbal, etc., etc.

Body language is so interesting to me because, again, I think that's one of the things that⏤it's just impossibly hard to fake.

I was reading, you know, a couple of books on⏤

there was a phase when I was, I don't know, 20, probably just after being rejected all the time,

when I was maybe 22, where I started reading books from pickup artists, and they would obsess on the topic of body language.

And one of the things they'd say is⏤and I... I try... I was explaining this to my girlfriend a couple of weeks ago⏤that when... when a man has lower confidence, when he's desperate,

he does this thing called "pecking" in a nightclub, where he'll like, lean in and, like, shout in your ear.

And when he's higher confidence, he kind of leans out and he'll... he'll wait for you to lean in.

Small things like that, subtleties like that... that, intuitively, we... we're reading and understanding and communicating and etc.

But someone that doesn't have the confidence probably isn't even aware that they do.

So, when I reflect on my rejection phase, I think, "Gosh, my body language must've been exuding desperation and low status and low value, low self-esteem."

What's your thoughts on body language and...?

Well, in my last book "Human Nature", I wrote a whole chapter on it.

You quoted the figure 95%, but who knows what it really is?

The thing it is that we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years before language existed, right?

And our earliest ancestors depended on the group for their survival and getting along.

And their powers came from observing other people and their body language⏤you could read it.

So, it's a skill that's wired into us, wired into our brains; it's a very unique skill that we humans have.

It's just that you don't learn that when you're a child, when you're two years old; you have it 'cause your life depends on it.

You... you have to see what⏤if your mother is... is loving you or... or your father is kind to you, because if not, you know, you could be abandoned; your life depends on it.

You're great at reading that, and children have... are incredibly adept at picking up body language.

So, if someone is fake, if someone's an impostor, they hate being around children because children see through you, you know, like, you know, like radar, right?

Because they're so attuned to it.

You had that skill when you were very young, but you lost it because you became so oriented with words and you became so self-absorbed that you're not paying attention.

But it's extremely important, right?

So, the whole body is involved in it.

So, you've got to first stop thinking about people's words so much because the one thing about words, unfortunately, is people could lie.

They can say whatever they want; they can say, "I love your screenplay. That was fantastic."

"You were great in that movie; I thought you were great," etc., etc.

They can say anything to please, to flatter, to cajole you.

But body language, man, it doesn't lie, right?

So, I talk in that book about the eyes and the fake smile.

The fake smile is something you see every single day, but you're not paying attention; it's like...

It's kind of tight, right?

It's like, yeah.

Right?

But a real smile?

Your... the whole face gets animated, and there's a little crinkly thing here as your face... as you... as it lights up and your eyes light up.

It's... it's hard to even put into words, but it's there; you can see it.

It's real, it's not faked.

Knowing the difference between a fake and a real smile is really important in seduction, in business, or whatever, to know if someone is like, "Yeah, I like that idea."

No, they don't really, they're saying that to please you; they actually hate your idea.

You master that language, you can start deciphering all this bullshit people are giving you.

The face, you can disguise it a little bit; actors know that.

But you know what you can't fake?

It's your voice.

If you're nervous, not even the finest actors in the world can fake that⏤your voice betrays so many things about you.

It betrays your weakness, it betrays your lack of confidence, or it betrays the other quality, etc., right?

So, pay, really, attention to the tone of people's voices, to how fast they talk.

People who talk fast are very nervous.

Someone who's talked⏤I know I'm probably talking a little too fast here, sorry.

My mind races, so I... I do that; normally, I don't talk so fast.

But, you know, you... you talk slowly, you have a certain tone, you have a certain intonation that kind of reveals confidence, OK?

Body language posture.

You were talking about pecking, right?

When you go and look at a meeting of people in... in a business meeting, you'll see all the employees kind of leaning forward and nervous and you'll see the boss kind of leaning back, arms like this, you know?

I'm the powerful one, you come to me; I'm the leader.

I'm the... I'm the top dog or she⏤it's a woman⏤I don't need to be like this, I'm like this.

Body language reveals a lot about leadership qualities, etc., etc., etc.

You know, if you go⏤

You're at a party and you come up to someone that you're meeting for the first time and they're talking to you, and you notice that their feet are angling away from you,

that means that they're not really interested, that they're looking for any moment to try and walk away and escape; they're not really into you.

Whereas their feet are facing you, they're engaged, they want to talk to you, right?

This is a whole art you can learn and you could sit there and you could read it.

And I talk about⏤

I give this story in "Laws of Human Nature" of a man named Milton Erickson, the founder of NLP and hypnotherapy, probably one of the most brilliant psychologists who ever lived.

When Milton Erickson was 19 years old or so, he had polio.

He nearly died; his entire body was paralyzed.

The only thing he could move, the only muscle he could move were his eyeballs.

Now, imagine that.

He was a young man with a very active mind; he can't talk, he can't do anything.

All he can do is move his eyeballs a little bit.

He was so bored⏤can you imagine how bored you'd be like that?

You can't read, you can't do anything.

People would come in to visit him; all he could do was look at them and study them.

He became the greatest reader of body language ever in the history of mankind.

People said it was⏤he was... almost had ESP.

He could read everything about who they were just by looking⏤'cause he ended up recovering, he became a psychologist.

Because his life depended on developing this skill.

He was gonna just die from sheer boredom if he didn't learn how to read body language.

He mastered that language much like somebody could master French.

And it's an incredibly powerful language that I... I can't emphasize enough.

You know, we can go about learning the language of body language, and I'm sure that will help.

But it's such a complex...

Like, va⏤there's, like, a thousand things with my body language at all times.

Like, how I'm speaking, my eyeballs, my... where I'm looking, my posture, my arms, like, am I crossing my arms, am I crossing my legs; all of these things.

So, the... the challenge of mastering all of that feels a little bit overwhelming.

Am I right in assuming the easiest⏤the easier challenge to master is, in fact, just, like, my sense of self?

Very well put.

Because, you know, if you feel confident, if you feel secure, if you're not all inward and insecure and worried about yourself, it will naturally radiate through your gestures, yeah.

You don't have to sit there and pay attention to your fingers, your arm, your ears, your eyes; it's just there, it's natural.

So, yeah, that is the solution.

So, the two game... parts of the game, it's your own body language⏤be aware that people are judging you for that, right?

And you can't, as you say, be monitoring everything or you'll drive yourself crazy and you'll look very weird, right?

So, the best solution is to feel these certain things that are gonna radiate and to not give the fake smile.

But when you're really happy, to just show it and show your emotion that way.

And the other side, which is more... is, I think, really important, is learning other people's body language, and that can come from study.

And it's much more a logical thing than... than constantly thinking about everything that you do.

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