Ever listen to someone speaking and realize that something about that person just did not ring true? Something about the way he carried himself conflicted with his words. Maybe, it was his inability to look you in the eye. Perhaps, his hands distracted you. Or maybe it was the facial expressions that just did not quite match what he was saying? No, now you realize it was his stance; focused, truthful people just don’t carry  themselves that way. As you will see, the body tells its own story. Often you can read someone and
reassure yourself whether that person is trustworthy or someone you are right to run away from right now.

Let’s look more closely at body language.

1. The Eyes Don’t Lie

• Have you ever conversed with someone who would not look at you directly? The person looked
  over your shoulder, above your head, at the floor, or even at someone else—everywhere but at
  you. What did you think? The person probably made you uneasy. Most likely, you doubted that
  person’s interest, honesty, and confidence. Or perhaps you felt ignored. Eye contact plays a major
  role in how people perceive one another, and, as a speaker, you should pay special attention to it.
  If you make eye contact with your listeners, they’ll think you are sincere, credible, friendly, and
  honest. These feelings have a great impact on how listeners receive your message.

• Eye contact has other benefits:
  • It allows you to establish a bond with listeners.
  • It holds their attention.
  • It demonstrates you are speaking honestly.
  • It conveys self-confidence.
  • It shows you are listening.
  • It acknowledges people.

• When speaking in front of a group of people:
  • Look at your audience before you launch your speech.
  • Scan from one side to the other before you speak.
  • Contact and connect with one person at a time.
  • Hold your eye contact for 3 to 4 seconds for each person.
  • Use the 4 C’s—contact, connect, communicate, and continue.

• Eye contact to avoid includes:
  • Staring too long at one person
  • Looking above people’s heads
  • Looking up at the ceiling, or out the window

2. Hand Gestures Show Conviction and Enthusiasm

Hand gestures are the most expressive part of body language. To be most effective, make your hand gestures above your elbow and away from your body. They should be vigorous and definite to show conviction and enthusiasm. A sweeping wave of your arm to show distance will add more to your message than a half-hearted hand wave. Hand gestures also should be full and varied rather than
partial and repetitious; making the same movement over and over is distracting. Make your hand gestures larger for large audiences to ensure that even people in the back of the room can see them.

• Some basic hand gestures show:
  • Size, weight, shape, direction, and location
  • Importance or urgency
  • Comparison and contrast

• Hand gestures to avoid include:
  • The parent—pointing figure
  • The fist—anger and stress
  • The karate chop—looks violent

• Sample hand placements include:
  • Hands cupped, one holding the other at the waist
  • Hand at side ready to make a gesture

• Hand placements to avoid include:
  • Touching the face
  • Hands in the pocket
  • Fig leaf position
  • Prayer position
  • Arms crossed at the chest
  • Same placement for too long

3. Make Sure Your Facial Expression Supports Your Words

Your face unwittingly conveys cues about how your listeners are supposed to react or feel. If you are talking about a terrible automobile accident, yet you are smiling and nodding, your audience will be confused, not sad. Your facial expression must be consistent with the feelings or information you are communicating.

4. Assume the Rooted Position to Convey Confidence

• The stance you assume while standing still is important because it indicates your confidence and comfort level. If you slouch your shoulders and fix your eyes on the floor, your audience will think you are shy and weak. If you repeatedly shift your weight from one foot to another, you appear uncomfortable and nervous, and your movement may distract your audience. But when you stand straight, with your feet shoulder-length apart and your weight evenly distributed on each foot, and look directly at your listeners, you convey confidence and poise.

• This is called the rooted position. Imagine your feet have roots buried deeply in the ground. It will be impossible for you to sway or get off balance. This is the position of power and strength.

Arvee Robinson, is a Persuasive Speaking Coach, Master Speaker Trainer, International Speaker, and Author. She teaches business owners, service professionals, and entrepreneurs how to use public speaking as a marketing strategy so they can attract more clients, generate unlimited leads and grow their businesses, effortlessly. www.instantprospeaker.com

So, where, besides AJ’s blog, can you get good information that not a lot of people have access to, which will help you understand what other people are thinking and experiencing? This information, of course, would help you become a better persuader.

Thirty years ago, Paul Ekman did cross-cultural research and identified seven basic human emotions. He identified the seven basic emotions through facial expressions. No matter where in the world, what culture, class, race, gender, or lighting, these seven facial expressions were identified across the board. By learning to identify these seven basic human emotions, you will get insight into just what people are experiencing.

The Seven Basic Facial Expressions:

(Pictures are from FOX’s new show LIE TO ME)

These emotions are displayed based on how the muscles in your face move. While researching the face, Ekman created a coding system to identify all of the possible movements that each of you facial muscles can make called the Facial Action Coding System. You don’t have to become an expert in the FACS to read faces though. Ekman offers a nice set of tools to help you better identify people’s facial expressions in real-time.

On his website, you can view a few video interviews that he has done over the years analyzing and explaining his reading of faces. These videos are great both as training tools to understand the range and depth of information that faces present. They also give you a great insight into how you can use facial recognition to more accurately read a person’s emotional state, both the subtle emotions people experience and the emotions they don’t want you to see.

Training Yourself To Notice Facial Expressions

Mr. Ekman has created two training modules that can help you identify these seven basic facial expressions with more precision and ease. It is relatively easy to identify these facial expression when we are shown a picture, but people don’t usually wear their expressions for minutes at a time! On his website, you can use his training videos to identify what he call micro-expressions and subtle-expressions.

Subtle expressions

Subtle expressions happen when someone experiences an emotion very briefly or when the emotion is not as intense. The subtle expression training tool shows you how to recognize the subtle movements in a person’s facial muscles that correspond with various emotions.

Microexpressions

Micro expressions occur when a person is trying to suppress or repress an emotion. Have you ever tried to not smile, or not look angry? In the show Lie To Me, the main character deals with people who are constantly trying to hide their emotions. This training enables you to read a person’s emotional state, even when they don’t want you to!

Using these two training programs will not only help you read ‘pure emotions’, but you will also learn to notice when someone displays conflicting emotions, as in where they’re not sure what to think or feel about something. Mixed emotions are displayed by people when they have two contrasting emotions. Because people can experience more than one emotion at a time, our faces sometimes give off mixed signals. For a brief instant, someone may smile with their mouth at a joke and at the same time display anger with their brow.

Lie to Me

The show Lie to Me on Fox is actually an application of Paul Ekman’s work. In the show, you will see Cal Lightman (the character of Paul Ekamn played by Tim Roth) help private individuals, companies and government investigators find out the truth behind a situation. By expertly reading the expressions of the people he interviews, he uncovers the story behind the story.  The show serves as a great introduction to reading body-language and facial expressions.

If you watch the show (close) enough, you’ll start to recognize the richness of information that people present through their facial expressions. Even after gone through the training tools myself, I find myself watching Lie To Me reruns on Hulu to see more of the subtly in facial expressions.

Further Information

You can also read Ekman’s books for further information about facial expressions and emotions. I tend to like his training tools literally because they are more visual and real-time than verbal (reading) in their presentation. Also graphic novelist Scott McCloud recommends Gary Fagin’s The Artists Complete Guide to Facial Expressions for a much more in-depth view of facial expressions.

About the Author: Byron Woodson also blogs on his networking blog Weaving Networks