Have you ever wondered how to read people's body language? I've brought in
an expert today, Ann Washburn joins us at Live On Purpose TV.
So I've got my expert
here today. This is Ann Washburn who is a speaker and presenter and educator about
primarily body language and we've learned a lot about that. Ann's here to
share with us a little bit more today about how to read other people's body
language which is a whole different skill set, right? - Well yeah. Well first we
get to know about our own body language and then that's going to teach us about
other people's body language and the thing is, as soon as I start teaching
somebody about body language, the first thing I start to hear from people is
"Okay, I saw so-and-so do this and what does that mean?" Because this soon as you
learn a few words, you want to know all of the words because body language is a
language. This is why I've spent the 10 hours to be an expert in it
because I wanted to fluently speak the language so I want to start off with
teaching you a very powerful tip on understanding people's body language and
the reason you can use this is because you also have a body which has body
language. - We're all doing it. - We're all doing it, we are and it's not going
anywhere, we're going to keep doing it, it's just that we notice that less
because nowadays people are so focused on their phones and
everything that people actually have to be taught more of the body language
because we aren't naturally watching it all the time so this helps with
that too because here's what you do, when you see somebody do something with their
body language and you wonder what was that? What did they just see? You do what
I call try on the body language. So not in front of the person
because this is not mirroring, mirroring is different. - Right and we're not trying
to confront them about anything. - No, we're not judging them. - So try it on. - Try it on.
So if you see somebody, let's just pretend you see somebody and they
all of a sudden in the middle of a conversation, they rub their arm and then
put their hands on the back of their neck and you're like, oh my goodness, what
did that mean? Why did they do that? So later, you know it doesn't have to be
a lot later but when you're not in front of them, try it yourself, try it on, rub
your arm and then put your hand on the back of your neck and then ask yourself
these two things, just say, what does that feel like and why would I do that? So
what does that feel like and why would I do that? - I was doing it along with you
and so I saw what it felt like and then as you asked that question, why
would I do that? It started a whole thought of or
a whole process of thoughts that might help me understand what that's all about
because that's what you're giving out. - Exactly because I can teach you that
that what arms have to do it and what neck has to do with it, the left side of
your body and body language often has to do with the past and rubbing your arm up
here, can have to do with having the strength or the support you need to have
capacity for something. - But you don't need to know all that. - I don't have to
know all of that and like neck has to do with our ability
to look at different direction and our stubbornness and those kinds of
things but you don't have to remember all of that - just try it on - try it on so
when you see it, you try it and go, why would somebody do that? Why would I do
that? And you'll get an answer because your body is a communication device,
your body will teach you things when you ask the right questions so ask yourself
what does this feel like and why would I do it? Then you don't have to carry the
manual around with you, instead you can try those things on, okay. So it's
really good, I love that because people are always like, I wish you could
just follow me around and tell me what everybody's saying and I'm like, that
would be fun but I can't do it for 10,000 people at a time but I can teach
10,000 people at a time to do it themselves
and that's what's important is empowering is when we can try it ourselves
so try one more on for me. What if you are in the middle of a conversation
and all of a sudden somebody's foot turns to the side. So I'm going to
put my hands up here as if they're feet and so their feet are forward
and all of a sudden they turn one of their feet to the side. So try it.
What do you think that feels like? - And you know what, Ann, it feels different if I
turn it toward you as opposed to away from you so
that's interesting. It feels like I'm going somewhere, about to leave, right? - Yep
you're going somewhere in fact, what it really is showing is that somebody's
attention has checked it out and exertive has been diverted, has checked
out of the conversation and has moved a different direction. Almost like their
foot is now pointed towards the door. - So you might get some feedback from people
as you're talking with someone. Let's say you're at an event or something and you're
talking with someone and you see them shift their foot towards the door..
We can't read everything, right? - Don't do this. When you see somebody's foot
towards the door, don't say "Hey, how come you're not listening to me anymore?"
We're not trying to judge people. - Not going to go well. - Exactly. Whenever I do a body
language training the first thing I teach people is to take judgment out of
it. We're not using body language to judge people, we're using it to
understand people and so when you see a foot move towards the door, instead
of judging them, start, you can ask a question or start wrapping up the
conversation because then you're not building rapport with them because you
recognize they have somewhere else they need to be or something they remembered.
- And then you can be sensitive to that and understanding and that helps your
relationship. - That builds rapport and increases connection when people feel
understood. That is one of the most powerful things to do with body language,
is to help people feel understood. - How nice. - Okay so you want
another one? - Yes bring it. - Okay so when you're talking to
somebody and you ask them a question, here's another thing to know, their eyes
will look somewhere before they answer the question. Now not every time because
sometimes people have an answer ready prepared and they don't have to look but
if they have to remember or find an answer, our minds are actually what
trigger the memory inside of us. Does that make sense? So what happens is if somebody, one
of the, well, they can look anywhere around the whole 360 degree
ability of their eyes but there's some very common places that people will
loo and those are up to their left, up to their left, not your left, it's
like when I'm looking at you, so they'll look up to their
right or their left. So you got to remember, it's theirs, okay. - From
their perspective, left is this way, that's your right. - Yeah, so
you got to just think about that so up to the left, up to the right,
straight to the side towards the ears or straight down,
those are the most common ones. Now here's what is cool about it. When you
know where they looked for their answer, you know what category of answer they
were looking for or found, for example, when somebody looks up into
their left, they're looking into the left side of their brain and left brain
thinking and answers has to do with data and numbers and facts and past things so
when somebody looks up into the left, they're looking into that left side of
the brain, up into the right same thing, up and to the right is right side of the
brain so that's going to be big picture, imagination, creativity or future things
that haven't happened yet. Now when somebody looks straight to the side,
they're listening to something that someone has told them or something that
they've read because very often when people read, they read the words through
their mind, they hear them as they're reading so when somebody looks straight
to the side, it's something they've heard or something they've read, something
someone's told them or they've heard or they've read. When somebody looks
straight down, it's an emotional answer, there's a motion attached to it and
the longer they look down, the deeper the emotion or the more emotion attached to
the answer that they're finding. So here's how you build rapport with
somebody. If they look down for their answer, don't try to pull them back out
of it too quickly, be patient and wait for them to look back up and
their answer because what we often tend to do is we try to rescue people when we
see them looking for an emotional answer and so we quickly make a joke, change the
subject, ask them another question but if you'll
let them find their answer and then look back up with that answer, you actually
build rapport with that person.- It's like you're acknowledging where they're
coming from and this is even more obvious I think and when someone starts
to tear up or you know, gets visibly emotional.
- Yeah, we're used to that thing. - That's a clear indication. Even then, it's
good to just let them feel what they're feeling for a minute, you don't have to
rescue them but what you're saying is you can catch it early in some of
the subtle cues that they're giving through their eye movement that
maybe this is an emotionally connected thing for them and give them time to
feel that which increases the rapport and the connection. - Yeah, wonderful. So for
example if I ask my child, are you ready for your test? And my child looks
up and to the left, they look up and to their left, they looked at
their preparation, they looked at their past results, they've looked at, they've
looked at - It's data.- It's data and if they if they look up to the left and
then they say yeah, I think I'm ready, that matches really well. If they
look up and to the right, now that has to do with the future and they're thinking
about how am I going to do on that test and then they say you know what, I'm not sure
about it or I think I might do okay, they might need some help studying for that
test because they aren't feeling confident about it yet. - It's more of a big
picture thing. - Let me tell you a quick story okay really lines all of
this up. Because one day my son, 3rd grade, comes home from school and he is, I asked
him this really profound question. I said, how was your day?
You ever asked a kid that? So I asked him that question, where do you
think they would look? Most of the time they're just like, fine, they don't even
look at someone, a non answer but if they look somewhere to decide how
their day was, where do you think they'd look? - Hmm
it depends. - It depends. Well this particular day, I asked my son how was
your day and he looked straight to the side and I thought, wait a second, why is
he listening to something that someone told him to decide how his day was? - Oh
interesting. - And so he goes, my day was fine and I'm like, hmm, because here's the
thing about body language.. When you see the body language not match the words,
it's time to ask more questions, that is the superpower of body language. If the
words in the body language don't match, don't judge, ask more questions. So
I thought, alright, I'm going to ask him about his day because he somehow heard
something that he was worried about and so I asked him, I said, alright,
well I thought recess might be a place that a kid would hear something so
I said how was lunch today? And he looked up in to the left which is the past
and he looked at me and he goes, "Lunch was good. I played with my friend." And I
said okay, I didn't find the answer yet so then I asked him about math class. Now
where's the numbers? Do you remember? - Well they're typically in the left, right? - Up
and to the left and he did, he looked up into the left, math class and he goes,
"Math was good, mom. I'm one of the best kids in the class at math." And I was
like, cool. So that was a positive but I still didn't find the answer so I asked
him one more time, I said "How was reading class today?" He looks straight to the
side and then he looked down so what do you think I did? - So this is a totally
different response, totally different response and he's looking
down so I waited because it was emotional. So he's looking down and
while he's looking down, he looks up and he saw that I was still looking and
waiting and he's like, oh shoot, she's still looking.
So he's still looking down and he did it, he did it twice, he looked up again. Oh,
she's still waiting because I wasn't like interrogating, I was just..
- You're not going to jump in and rescue him either, you're going to let him feel what's he's feeling
and be in the moment.
- Exactly so on the third time he looks back up and he has a tear and he goes,
"Mom, the reading teacher told me I was the dumbest reader in the class and I
was afraid that if I told you, you'd be mad at me for being stupid."
So did I find it? - You found it. - I found it. Now what should I do next? - Love him. - Okay, most
people go, "You should go to the school." but right then I'm
like, okay I have a chance to save him 20 years of therapy. If I can help
him process this moment right here and so I was like, okay, what am I going to
do? So I asked him this question. I said "Hey, who reads your math test to
you?" And he goes, "Why would anybody read my math test to me?" Then I go, "Well how
could you be one of the best at math and the dumbest reader you read your own
math test?" - Good point, mom. - So look at what he did,
he goes, "Yeah! Yeah!" And then he goes, "Can I go play now?" I was like, "Yes, you can go
play well I go on a field trip." But because I watched his eyes and didn't
make a judgment, I learned and showed respect for his
feelings and built connection with him because I listened. Does that make sense?
- You listen and you paid attention to this new language that we're talking
about new to us, you've got 10,000 hours of this. - Oh yeah but it's powerful. - But just what you
shared with us here today and can you see that this could be helpful in
your parenting, with coworkers? - Oh, absolutely. - Primary relationships. - But it
only works if you don't judge based on what you see. - Right, that's the risk.
- That's the risk. This is what actually stops people most often from learning
more about body language is they step into judgment and now their
relationships go down instead of up so you don't have to know 10,000 hours
worth of body language for it to benefit you, you can learn one piece and you have
it benefit you as long as you leave the judgment out of it, that's the most
powerful piece. So how do you read body language? Leave the judgment out. When the
words and the body language don't match, ask more questions questions and if you
really want to know why they did something, try the body language on, try
it on try see what it feels like. - Without judging, just try. Oh, I love it. - Oh, it is
powerful. - Thank you,Ann. - I highly recommend people learn more about body language.
- And you can get to some additional resources about that down in the
description, we'll keep you links there for you. - Yeah, for sure. Thank You, Ann.
- Thank you, thanks for having me. - That's fascinating stuff, body language,
understanding it. Comment below about what you've learned from this video and
in your own experience.