Newton Media Group

You’re missing what people aren’t saying—and it’s costing you in conversations, negotiations, and relationships. Learn to read between the lines by spotting micro expressions and nonverbal signals that reveal hidden emotions. Patrick King breaks down how to detect deception, read anyone’s true feelings, and decode the body language that contradicts their words.

You’re missing what people aren’t saying out loud. Learn to read people by decoding their nonverbal cues—the body language, facial expressions, and micro-behaviors that reveal their true emotions and intentions without them saying a wo

You can note every word someone says to you and still miss the whole conversation.
Because most of what people tell you are not saying out loud.
It’s in the crossed arms.
They have second flash across their face before they catch themselves.
The pause they take right before they lie to you.
Today I’m pulling from two of Patrick King’s books to show you exactly how to catch what people aren’t saying.
because once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Now, Patrick King’s written a lot of books on people reading, but two of them pair up almost perfectly for what we’re covering today.
The first is read people like a book.
That’s his deep dive into decoding body language, facial cues, behavior patterns.
The second is how to talk to anyone.
which is more about live conversational skill, but it has this one chapter that’s all about what you don’t say.
And it lines up with the body language material almost exactly.
So we’re going to go deep on reading someone’s body language first, then bring it into an actual conversation with the second book.
Same author, same through line, two angles on a single skill.
Body talk.
The body language, for instance, may be just as powerful a language to learn to read and comprehend as facial expressions.
After all, the face is simply a part of the body.
Why focus on just one part when people’s postures and general movements can speak just as eloquently?
X FBI agent Joe Navarro is generally considered an authority in this field and has used his experience to teach others about the wealth of information people share without ever opening their mouths, i.e.
what he calls nonverbal communication.
Originally from Cuba and having to learn English after moving to the US when he was eight years old, Navarro quickly came to appreciate how the human body was a kind of billboard that advertised what a person was thinking.
During his career, he spoke at length about learning to spot people’s tells, those little movements that suggest that someone is uncomfortable, hostile, relaxed, or fearful.
As with facial expressions, these tales may hint at deceit or lies, but primarily indicate that someone is uncomfortable or that there is a discrepancy between what’s felt and what’s expressed.
Armed with an understanding of how body language works, we can not only open up new channels on which to communicate with others, but pay attention to our own bodies and the messages we may be unwittingly sending to others.
Firstly, it’s important to understand that nonverbal communication is inbuilt, biological, and the result of evolution.
Our emotional responses to certain things are lightning fast, and they happen spontaneously, whether we want them to or not.
Importantly, they express themselves physically in the way we hold and move our bodies in space, potentially resulting in the transmission of thousands of nonverbal messages
It’s the more primitive, emotional, and perhaps the honest part of the limbic brain that’s responsible for these automatic responses.
While the prefrontal cortex, the more intellectual and abstract part, is a little removed from the body and more under conscious control, it’s also the part that’s capable of lying.
But even though a person can say one thing, their bodies will always speak the truth.
If you can tune into the gestures, movements, postures, patterns of touching, and even the clothing a person wears, you give yourself a more direct channel into what they really think and feel.
Navarro claims that the majority of communication is non-verbal anyway, meaning you’re actively missing out on the bulk of the message by not considering body language.
Consider that communication started out non-verbally.
In our earliest histories, before the development of language, humankind most likely communicated by gestures, simple sounds, and facial expressions.
In fact, from the moment a baby is born, it instinctively makes faces to communicate that it’s cold, hungry, or frightened.
We never need to be taught how to read basic gestures or understand tones of voice.
This is because nonverbal communication was our first communication and may still be our preferred form.
Think of all the ways you already take nonverbal communication for granted.
In the way you show love or demonstrate your anger, even if you aren’t aware of it, we’re still processing vast amounts of information on nonverbal channels.
Learn how to read this information and you can determine if someone is trying to deceive you or perhaps if someone is trying to conceal their feelings and true intentions from you.
You’ve probably heard of the fighter flight response before, but there’s a third possibility.
Freeze.
What’s more, these responses to danger may be quite subtle, but nevertheless, they speak to discomfort and fear.
Our ancestors might have shown fighter flight when running from predators or enemy tribes, but those instincts might have followed us into the boardroom or classroom.
The limbic brain is again responsible for these fear responses.
Someone who was asked a difficult question or put on the spot may look like a deer caught in headlights.
They may lock their legs around a chair and stay fixed tight in that position.
This is the freeze response.
Another possibility is physically moving the body away from what is perceived as threatening.
A person may put an object on their lap or position their limbs toward the exit, the flight response.
Finally, a third person may fight.
This aggressive response to fear can show itself in picking arguments, verbally sparring, or adopting threatening gestures.
In fact, the more competent you become at reading nonverbal signals, the more you may come to appreciate how fundamentally physical they are and how much they speak to our shared evolutionary history.
In the past, we might have literally fended off an attack with certain gestures or indeed set out to attack another with very obvious movements and expressions.
These days, our world is very abstract and the things that threaten us are more verbal and conceptual, but the old machinery for expression, fear, aggression, curiosity, etc.
is all still there, only perhaps expressed a little more subtly.
Let’s consider what are called pacifying behaviors.
These can offer a key insight into someone who is feeling stressed, unsure, or threatened.
Essentially, a pacifying behavior is what it sounds like, the unconscious attempt to self-soothe in the face of some perceived threat.
When we feel stressed, our limbic brain may compel us to make little gestures designed to calm us.
Touching the forehead, rubbing the neck, fiddling with hair, or wringing the hands are all behaviors intended to soothe stress.
The neck is a vulnerable area of the body, but one that is relatively exposed.
Consider how aggressive people go for the jugular and you understand how the throat and neck can be unconsciously felt to be an area open for fatal attack.
It makes sense then that someone unconsciously covering or stroking this area is expressing their struggle, emotional discomfort or insecurity.
Men may use this gesture more often than women.
Men may fidget with their ties or squeeze the top of the neck, while women may put the fingers to the suprasternal notch, the indent between the collarbones, or play nervously with the necklace.
Pay attention to this behavior and you’ll notice how it reveals someone’s fears and insecurities in real time.
Someone might say something a little aggressive and another person responds by leaning back slightly, crossing the arms and putting one hand up to the throat.
Notice this in real time and you can infer that this particular statement has aroused some fear and uncertainty.
Similarly, rubbing or touching the forehead or temples can signal emotional distress or overwhelm.
A quick tap with the fingers may reveal a momentary feeling of stress, whereas a prolonged cradling of the head in both hands can spell extreme distress.
In fact, you can consider any cradling, stroking or rubbing movement as the physical clue of a person’s need to self-pacify.
This could mean touching cheeks when the person feels nervous or frightened, rubbing or licking the lips, massaging the earlobes, or running the fingers through the hair or beard.
Pacifying behaviors are not just things like stroking or rubbing though.
Puffing out the cheeks and exhaling loudly is also his gesture that releases considerable stress.
Have you ever noticed how many people do this after hearing bad news or narrowly escaping an accident?
An unexpected stress release response is yawning.
Rather than indicating boredom, the body’s sudden attempt to draw in more oxygen during stressful times is even seen in other animals.
Leg cleansing is another, and it entails wiping down the legs as though to wash them or brush off dust.
This can be missed if it’s hidden under a table, but if you can notice it, it’s a strong indication of an attempt to self-soothe during stressful moments.
Ventilating is another behavior you may not pay much attention to.
Notice someone pulling their shirt collar away from their neck or tossing the hair away from the shoulders as though to cool off.
They’re likely experiencing discomfort or tension.
Though this might be literally because of an uncomfortable environment, it’s more likely your response to inner tension and stress that needs cooling off.
One of the most obvious forms of pacifying behavior looks exactly like what a mother might do to a young child to soothe them, cradling and hugging one’s own body, or rubbing the shoulders as though to ward off a chill all suggest a person who feels under threat, worried, or overwhelmed.
These gestures are an unconscious way to protect the body.
This is an important underlying principle across all of body language theory that limbs and gestures may signal unconscious attempts to protect and defend the body.
When you consider that the torso contains all of the body’s vital organs, you can understand why the limbic brain has reflex responses to shield this area when threats are perceived, even emotional threats.
Someone who is highly unresponsive to a request or feels attacked or criticized may cross their arms as if to say, back off.
Raising the arms to the chest during an argument is a classic blocking gesture, almost as if the words being exchanged were literally thrown, causing an unconscious reflex to fend them off.
On a similar note, slumping loose arms can indicate defeat, disappointment, or despair.
It’s as though the body is physically broadcasting the non-physical sentiment of, I can’t do this, I don’t know what to do, I give up.
Let’s take it further.
Imagine someone standing over a desk, arms spread wide.
Aren’t you immediately reminded of an animal claiming territory?
Wide, expansive gestures signal confidence, assertiveness, and even dominance.
If a person is standing with arms akimbo, they leave their torso exposed.
This is a powerful way to communicate that they are confident in taking up room and don’t feel threatened or unsure in the least.
Other gestures of confidence and assertiveness include that favorite of politicians and businessmen the world over, hand-steepling.
The fingertips are pressed together so they form a little steeple.
It’s the classic negotiating gesture, signaling confidence, poise, and certainty about your power and position.
as though the hands were merely resting and calmly contemplating their next move.
On the other hand, pun intended, ringing and rubbing the hands is more likely to demonstrate a lack of feeling in control or doubt in one’s own abilities.
Again, this is a pacifying gesture designed to release tension.
Hands are our tools to effect change in the world and bring about our actions.
When we fidget, ring our hands, or clench our fists, we’re demonstrating a lack of ease and confidence in our abilities or find it difficult to act confidently.
What about the legs?
These are often overlooked since they might be concealed under a desk, but legs and feet are powerful indicators too.
Happy feet can bounce and jiggle.
On the other hand, bouncy legs paired with other nervous or pacifying gestures may indicate an excess of nervous tension and energy or impatience or too much coffee.
You decide.
Toes that point upward can be thought of as smiling feet and indicate positive, optimistic feelings.
Physiologically, our legs and feet are all about, unsurprisingly, movement.
Busy feet could suggest an unexpressed desire to get moving, either literally or figuratively.
It’s also been said that feet point in the direction they unconsciously wish to go.
Both toes turned toward the conversation partner can signal, I’m here with you.
I’m present in this conversation.
Whereas feet angled toward an exit could be a clue that the person really would prefer to leave.
Other clues that someone is wanting to move, leave, or escape are gestures like clasping the knees, rocking up and down on the balls of the feet, or standing with a bit of a bounce in the step
All of these subtly communicate someone whose unconscious mind has fired up the engines and wants to get going.
This could mean they’re excited about possibilities and want to get started as soon as possible, or they may have a strong dislike for the current situation and almost literally want to run away.
Again, context matters.
Legs and feet can also reveal negative emotions.
Crossing the legs, as with the arms, can signal a desire to close off or protect the body from a perceived threat or discomfort.
Crossed legs are often tilted toward a person we like and trust and away from someone we don’t.
This is because the legs can be used as a barrier, either warding off or welcoming in someone’s presence.
Women may dangle shoes off the tips of the toes in flirtatious moments, slipping a shoe on and off the heel again.
Without getting too Freudian about it, the display of feet and legs can indicate comfort and even intimacy with someone.
On the other hand, locking the feet and ankles can be part of a freeze response when someone really doesn’t like a situation or person.
So, having discussed the face, hands, legs and feet and torso in general, what else is there?
Turns out, a lot more.
The body as a whole can be positioned in space in certain ways, held in certain postures, or brought further or closer to other people.
The next time you meet someone new, lean in to shake their hand and then watch what they do with their entire body.
If they stand their ground and stay where they are, they’re demonstrating comfort with the situation, you and themselves.
Taking a step back or turning the entire torso and feet to the side suggests that you may have gotten too close for their comfort.
They may even take a step closer, signaling that they’re happy with the contact and may even escalate it further.
The general principle is pretty obvious.
Bodies expand when they are comfortable, happy, or dominant.
They contract when unhappy, fearful, or threatened.
Bodies move toward what they like and away from what they don’t like.
Leaning toward a person can show agreement, comfort, flirtation, ease, and interest.
Likewise, crossing the arms, turning away, leaning back, and using tightly crossed legs as a barrier show a person’s unconscious attempt to get away from or protect themselves from something unwanted.
Those people who spread out on public transport?
They feel relaxed, secure, and confident.
Annoying, isn’t it?
Those that seem to bundle themselves as tightly as possible may instead signal low confidence and assertiveness as though they were always trying to take up less room.
Similarly, puffing up the chest and holding out the arms in an aggressive posture communicates, look how big I am in an argument.
Whereas raising the shoulders and turtling in on oneself is nonverbally saying, please don’t hurt me.
Look how small I am.
We’re not much like gorillas in the forest beating our chest during heated arguments, but if you look closely, you may still see faint clues to this more primal behavior anyway.
Those postures that take up room and expand are all associated with dominance, assertiveness, and authority.
Hands on the hips, hands held regally behind the back.
Doesn’t it make you think of royalty or a dignified soldier who is unafraid of attack?
Or even arms laced behind the neck as one leans back in a chair?
All signify comfort and dominance.
When you’re becoming aware of people’s body language, ask in the first instance whether their actions, gestures, and postures are constricting or expanding.
Is the face open or closed?
Are the hands and arms spread wide and held loose and far from the body?
Or are the limbs kept close and tense?
Is the facial expression you’re looking at pulled tight or loose and open?
Is the chin held high, sign of confidence, or tucked in, sign of uncertainty?
Imagine you have no words at all to describe what you’re looking at.
Just observe.
Is the body in front of you relaxed and comfortable in space?
Or is there some tightness, tension, and unease in the way the limbs are held?
A lot of the art of body language is, once pointed out, rather intuitive
Okay, so that’s the framework.
Here’s what I actually notice when I try to use this.
It’s never one signal.
Crossed arms alone doesn’t mean anything.
Maybe they’re cold.
Maybe the chair is uncomfortable.
What Navarro is actually teaching you is to look for the cluster, three or four things pointing the same direction at once.
I use this constantly in meetings.
If someone lanes back, crosses their arms, and their answers get short, that’s not a coincidence.
That’s a disagreement.
Quick thing if you’re new here, this is what this channel is about, breaking down books like this one piece at a time, so hit subscribe if that’s useful, and I’ll see you in the next one too.
Now, reading the body is one thing, but Patrick King’s other book takes this into an actual live conversation where you just don’t have time to observe.
You have to catch it in real time.
That’s where we’re going next.
Microexpressions are worth a thousand words.
So far, we’ve explored a few tips and tricks to make sure that you’re doing your best to communicate properly and connect with others to make you instantly more appealing and relatable to others.
Now, let’s shift our attention to the other side of the dynamic, i.e.
reading people.
Communication always has two sides, the sender of the message and the receiver of the message.
The better you are at seeing how your message has landed, and the more accurately you can perceive what’s being shared with you, the better the conversation will go.
You’ll not only understand others better, but they will actually feel as though you understand them better, and in turn, that will make you seem more friendly, likable, and even charismatic.
If you’re someone who frequently finds interactions a bit awkward or weird, but can’t say why, or if you often find that you’re misunderstood, it could be down to the knowing fact that what people say is often different from what people genuinely feel and think.
Being a good people reader is a big part of being a good conversation list, and it rests on equal parts observation and intuition.
Microexpressions are ultra-quick, one-fifteenth of a second facial expressions that are said to be genuine indications of people’s emotional state.
They’re the same as macroexpressions, only more fleeting, and the main ones include anger, fear, disgust, and surprise.
While anyone can fake a smile, a micro expression, the theory goes, cannot be faked or hidden.
And this is because it stems from our automatic physiological response to the world.
Therefore, if you can spot one, you get a glimpse of what people are really experiencing, despite the image that they want to portray.
What’s the point of knowing about microexpressions?
Well, they help us understand why we may sometimes leave social interactions feeling off.
There may be two conversations going on, the official one and the hidden, unspoken one.
When these two stories conflict, you may perceive it unconsciously and feel strange without knowing why.
Become more consciously aware of micro expressions, though, and you may be better able to detect ambivalence, masking, or flat-out deception.
Developing enough fine-tuned social intelligence to pick up these nuances takes time and practice, but it’s something most people can do.
Keeping interactions smooth and harmonious, or even just civil, is non-negotiable.
But sometimes to find that harmony, you need to be aware of what people are actually feeling.
One great way to do this is to simply look for discrepancies.
For example, when you’re out with your partner and a few friends and one of them suggests you go out drinking somewhere, even though it’s late and everyone’s tired.
You watch your partner smile and say yes, but immediately she flashes her glance towards you.
She’s smiling but you can’t help but notice her tense body language and the flicker of a frown the split second the suggestion was made.
You can see that she’s simply trying to be polite but doesn’t really want to go.
You smile and turn the friend down politely.
Here, noticing discrepancies allowed you to get a far deeper reading on an everyday situation.
Your wife said yes officially, but unofficially, her micro expressions showed what she really meant.
Had you missed this?
The evening could have gone in all sorts of different ways.
But in being sensitive to even small tales of genuine emotion, you become someone who’s more switched on and empathetic
You might be at work and notice that a colleague is acting angry, but by reading other cues and observing his micro expressions, you begin to believe that he’s actually more afraid than angry.
So the next time you speak to him, you take pains to put him at ease, to slow down, and to help him find reassuring solutions rather than go on the defensive, which is what most people do when they’re in the presence of an angry person.
This colleague may feel after talking to you that you are especially intuitive or empathetic, but it’s not magic.
You’ve just paid attention to things that most people do not.
Finally, one benefit of reading micro expressions is catching out a lie.
If someone tells you, I really love this birthday present you gave me, thank you.
Right after they flash a micro expression of disgust and shock, then you know what not to get them next year.
Just remember that reading micro expressions is something best done in concert with other observations you make.
Especially with people you don’t know, it’s best to compare any noteworthy observation against a baseline.
Look for patterns, also, rather than one-off incidents.
After all, something only one-fifteenth of a second long can easily be missed or misinterpreted.
Some would argue that most of these fleeting facial movements are so fast that they are undetectable consciously.
In that case, you can give yourself permission to trust your gut instinct.
Microexpressions happen in a fraction of a second.
But there’s a second skill in the same chapter that’s just as powerful.
And it’s the opposite of watching.
It’s what happens when you stop talking.
Honestly, this next part changed how I run meetings.
It’s not just what you say, but what you don’t say.
In music, the spaces between the notes are as important as the notes themselves.
It’s the same with conversation.
When you’re communicating, silence can talk.
Of course, it’s all about silences at the right time for the right reason.
Pauses are effective when they’re consciously chosen, they add structure and meaning to what’s being said, and they relax you and your listeners.
Some people talk a lot.
They make gush forth with a flood of information for many reasons.
Maybe they’re excited to share a passion, maybe they’re anxious, or maybe they have low self-esteem and don’t believe that they are truly being listened to.
And so they have to keep making their point over and over.
Whatever their reason, the irony is that such people tend not to be listened to.
They tend to get tuned out.
Talking too much can mean many things.
Repeating yourself, using extraneous or complicated words when simple ones would do, drawing out sentences or making them overly long, or constantly going on tangents.
A big part of this, too, is simply filling every moment with speech, seemingly never pausing to take a breath.
But if you can just pause, reflect, and carefully consider your next word before you say it, you’ll find a few things happen.
Firstly, you’ll make yourself more relaxed.
If you ever found yourself nervously running out of breath, or hearing your own voice change or get choked or awkward sounding, this is probably the reason you’re not breathing.
When you breathe, your body relaxes and your voice box, being part of your body, relaxes too and it sounds relaxed.
When people can hear the relaxation in your voice, they will themselves feel relaxed, not to mention read it as confidence and ease.
When you pause, you give your listeners time to actually process what you’ve said.
Choosing not to blast your listener with a fountain of information is just polite.
Remember that you already understand the point you’re making, but they don’t yet and they need a few seconds to get to where you are.
Rush off without them and you’ll probably just lose their interest.
When you use pauses to pace and moderate your speaking, you convey a sense of calm control, dignity, and a presence of mind to your speaking.
If you ever look back and wish you’d spoken more carelessly, no, but you’ve almost certainly regretted being rushed, saying something without thinking, or speaking in a way that could have been more carefully considered.
When you pause, you give yourself time to check in with what you’re doing and why.
Pausing also gives you breathing room to slow down and notice how other people are reacting to you so you can adjust there and then.
Have you ever spoken to someone who seems clueless to the fact that you’re bored to tears with their never-ending story?
It’s probably because they’re so engrossed in telling of that story that they don’t notice that you aren’t.
Finally, a pause is a perfect thing to substitute instead of aggravating filler words like um and like slow down.
Practice peppering your speech with pauses from a split second longer to one or two seconds long.
You can count one Mississippi in your head to measure.
You will instantly come across as more deliberate, confident, and in control.
Many people worry about pausing because they fear others will lose interest or interrupt them.
But just try it as an experiment and you’ll notice that when you give your own words more time and respect, people are more willing to do the same.
Where should you pause?
Keep it natural and put them wherever you’d have commas or periods in written speech.
Pause after you make an important point or just before you start a new sentence or reveal an interesting piece of information.
Pause in the places you want your audience to think or reflect.
Done right, a moment of silence can be powerfully engaging.
For example, right after a rhetorical question.
Compared with the right body language or facial expressions, a silence can be more powerful than any combination of words.
Watch stand-up comedians and famous public speakers and pay attention to where they pause, as well as their overall pace.
For example, try listening to the first part of Obama’s presidential acceptance speech.
Notice how he uses pauses, a lot of them, to give his speech gravitas and potency, and also to allow his audience to simply react to what he’s saying.
The pauses allow him to really savor his speech, demonstrate his full command of himself in the moment, and grab hold of the attention of the crowd.
Doing a little of this yourself will give your speech much more authority and weight than if you’d just hurriedly bumbled through.
You can find a paragraph of text and practice saying out loud, alone, to match that pace, just to get a feel for it.
Here’s the thing about silence.
Most people find it uncomfortable, so they rush to fill it.
But that discomfort is exactly what makes it useful.
If you ask a real question and then just wait, people keep talking.
They fill the space themselves, usually with something more honest than their first answer.
Combine that with what we’ve covered on body language.
You ask the question, you go quiet, and then you watch the cluster.
That’s the whole system in one move.
So read the cluster, not the gesture.
Watch for flashes across someone’s face before they catch it.
And don’t be afraid of the pause.
It tells you more than most questions do.
Now, both of these books go a lot deeper into what we covered here.
Read people like a book and how to talk to anyone.
Both by Patrick King and links, of course, are in the description.
If you want more of this kind of breakdown across his whole catalog, this channel is the place.
And if you want to see how the stuff shows up across a bunch of different authors, check out the main channel too.
Subscribe, and I’ll see you in the next one.