Body Language: Mark Bowden

YC: Thank you again so much for being here with me in the podcast. It's an honor. 

MB: My pleasure. My pleasure. Great to be here with you.

YC: So I want to ask you so many questions because you are the expert in body language. But first of all, I do want to understand in terms of what made you want to study body language?

MB: Yeah, it really just started as an obsession with, um, animal behavior and the natural world. When I was a kid watching TV, um, uh, natural history shows were very prevalent and very exciting for me. So I kind of got into it that way. Uh, then moved up to thinking about human beings and how to influence and persuade them how to engage better with human beings, how to, um, communicate in the best way. And nonverbal became an important part of that. I then started getting involved with, um, with visual theater, film, TV entertainment, and how you tell stories with moving pictures and then when into, uh, business and politics and landed where I am right now, which is helping people all over the world to stand out and win trust and gain credibility whenever they communicate.

YC: That is wonderful. And one thing as I was reading your book, one of your books, truth and lies, and the sense of when we think about the language, we think that there's some secret sauce and formula that we either, if we do something or if we read something that is the key to find what the person is thinking or doing or something along those lines, or if we act a certain way, we'll make us, you know, adopt, uh, uh, become a leader. All of a sudden, I do wanna understand based your studies, what are some of the misconceptions about their body language?

MB: Well, I think the major misconceptions are that there are absolutes, you know, this behavior equals that thought process, or if they do this, then they're definitely thinking that the, if this, then that idea around behavior, you know, which is always right until it's wrong. And you gotta hope that if it's gonna be wrong, that you haven't laid a huge resource on the outcome or because if you get it wrong in certain situations, it could end badly for you. So I think that's the major misconception is that, well, here's the major misconception because it's in the word body language. It's the idea that nonverbal communication, physical nonverbal communication is a language. And actually it is devoid of some of the important aspects of say our verbal language and therefore body language is just a metaphor to make it feel, uh, easy for us to understand. So I hope that makes sense to you.

YC: Yeah. So therefore it's a compliment I would say of, of kind of the rest of the other language. So it's not like if you, you can read the person necessarily just by reading their body language, is that correct? 

MB: Yeah, exactly. So again, that's a really, um, consistent metaphor that you can read people like a book. You can't read them like a book. There's nothing wrong with saying, Hey, I can read you like a book or it's a really good, um, metaphor or similarly, in fact, you know, it's, they are like a book. Yeah. But they're not a book what's important is, is what aspects are most like a book and what aspects are not like a book at all. And you'd wanna limit your understanding. If you going to use that, I can read people idea, you'd wanna limit yourself to really understanding what is it that is about their behavior. That is most like reading a book and what is completely not like reading a book. So for example, um, this book here, which you can, which is, uh, the fourth book that I, I wrote with Traci Thompson, you can literally read this like a book because it is a book.
Okay. Yeah. It's an actual book. Uh, okay. And so, and so just so you know, if you pick up this book today and read it, if you pick it up tomorrow, it will behave exactly the same as a, it behaved with you today. Nothing is going to change about this book unless I come in and tear pages out of it and hack it up a bit and, and really, you know, physically, um, changing it, nothing is ever changing about that book. Now, people aren't like that because they wake up differently often from how they went to bed that night before. Um, I mean literally physically differently. Some of the calcium that needs to get to one end back or to one end of a, a neuron in order to far off again, the next day, if they don't get enough sleep, if certain things happen within the, uh, if they eat a certain way, there's all kinds of factors. Okay. The calcium won't end up the other side of the, the neuron and therefore the things that you did with them the day before that caused them to behave in a certain way. They don't do it that day. Like their mood changes, this book's mood never changes that we can read people like a book. No, I mean that, and that's just one of the elements that is, that is nothing like a book.

YC: Yeah. That is interesting. So therefore the assumption that let's say, if I understand that a person is not looking at me in the therefore they're lying or something, those type of assumptions. So that's basically not something that we should take for as a, as a truth.

MB: Yeah. Yeah. So, that specific person, if they don't look you in the eye, sometimes they might be lying. Sometimes they won't be. And sometimes anything in between. I mean, we just don't know now, what would we, what could we gamble on not knowing them? Well, I mean, we could gamble that, that, well, there's all kinds of some liars, look you in the eye, some people when they they're under stress and pressure, don't look you in the eye. Some people when they're lying, go under stress and pressure. And so therefore they may not look you in the eye, but that's some people that's not all people, you know, and that's some people sometimes not all people all the time. Uh, and, and what, what often happens is people will get, well, all people all the time, don't look you in the eye when they're lying. Well, that's just plain wrong.

YC: How can we use, uh, knowledge about body language for our advantage, let's say, or when we are engaging in any conversation, what should we focus on on? Should we focus on how they're reading us, how we're reading them? What, what are some of suggestions you have when it comes to using the body language to kind of, uh, um, to our advantage or overall become more engaged in a, in a conversation?

MB: Well, so, so, so I think there are two layers of advantage. One is to use your own body language in order to put them, help, put them in a position where they are most likely to have a good conversation with you,  the kind of conversation that you are looking for from them. And they may be looking for. So how can you use your own body language in order to influence the environment around the and them so that they, uh, perform in a way which is to, to your advantage and their advantage potentially, and everybody's advantage. So you can use body language in that way. You can also use body language, um, in a way to look for what are ations from their usual behavior when not under stress and pressure or, or deviations from their usual behaviors. When they're, I guess, in a state that is to an advantage towards you. So how can you watch them? What watch for, if they are responding well to the situation that you are creating for them. So, first of all, deliver body language, that's gonna be useful for the situation and watch them to see if they're displaying behaviors that are useful to the situation. And in order to know that you've got to know what do they do otherwise we call that baselining. What's their usual behavior in certain situations. I hope that makes sense.

YC: Yes. Yes. And let's talk about specific situations. So, in the book as well, like for example, um, when talking to a supervisor or superior or knowing when a person is trying to establish dominance as well, um, what are some recommendations when it comes to speaking to a, having a constructive conversation or engagement with a person in a higher role?

MB: Hm. Okay. So, so, um, when people are trying to be dominant, they will, they will take up important resources. Okay. So the important resources around us are things like time, uh, volume, not only volume of voice, but volume of space, how much space they take, how much volume in their voice they might take up, uh, within the conversation. How much of that conversation, how many words are they taking up against? How many words are you taking up? Uh, what other resources are they taking more of other than the, the space and the, the as well. So think about, uh, what are important resources to the group that you might be part of. And they might be part of and think about how much resource there that person is taking up. And that might help you understand how they're trying to be, or they are being now, if you want to help them feel good and put them in a good mood, allow them and let them have, or even give them more of that resource and, and show, um, and show, show pleasure.
When they take up that us, let them see that it's good for them to have that resource, use your own body language in order to influence and persuade them and let them see that when they're with you. Yeah. They are, um, able to have, uh, you are able to let them have dominance. Yeah. Rather than they have to fight for dominance, if that's what you know they want. So again, you've gotta know what is that specific group? What are they striving for? What does this person strive for? What are the indicators of, of resource that show dominance? And can you display say to them that you are happy for them to take that dominance with that resource?

And what about if we're not happy that we're, they're taking that, uh, dominance? How do we kind of try to level, uh, the field, uh, with that particular person, if we feel that we're being either threatened or not taking serious or something along those lines, like how, how we level the field on that. Yeah. So, sso have an understanding of all the resources at play here. And if they're taking too much control of one of the resources, take another away from them. Yeah. Yeah. So, so for example, in, in some, but not all, um, groups with some, but not all individuals delivering strong eye contact to them and is a show of attention. It's a show of that. They are a valuable resource and therefore you're going to look at them. 

Okay. Uh, now therefore, if they start taking control of space resource or taking control, let's just say they take control of the space. That words go in. Okay. The time that words go in, like they're talking too much, they're dominating through talking very simple. I just move my eye contact or away from them stop. Yeah. And very soon as, as I move my eye contact away, they'll stop talking. And at the moment they stop talking, I bring my eye contact back again and start talking. Yeah. So, so now, if, if I don't understand that actually eye contact is not seen as a display of their status, that won't work. So I need to know what are the most valuable resources that they want to be dominant over in order to try and control one or some of those and distribute those. If they're taking too much dominance,

YC: When it comes to a of difficult, um, uh, negotiations. I wanna understand if when, when it comes to a negotiation instead of particular body language that we should, uh, either or a particular posture or anything that we could take when it comes to walking in, uh, either acting or you, you know, tough or friendly, or any general recommendations that you have for a negotiation scenario, where we both wanna take a, have a win, basically.

MB: So there are many different negotiation strategies for both people getting a win. Okay. There are many different negotiation strategies for one person winning and the other losing. So you have to, first of all, you've got to decide on your strategy. You've gotta decide on what are you trying to achieve here? Do you want both people to win or do you want one to win and one to lose and, and who do you want that to happen to? Because depending on the strategy, depending, look, there's no bad body language, there's just results that you wanted or didn't want. So, first of all, what result are you looking for? And how are you thinking about going about getting that result? Once you have that in your mind, then you can decide who you need to project yourself. As, you know, given that situation, then you're gonna walk in the room and you are gonna then find out who they're being, who they're projecting themselves as, or who you perceive them as.

Yeah. Or who they actually are. And then you might find, you need to change your strategy, or you can keep your strategy. So have a plan, okay. Have an idea of who you want to be in that plan and who you expect them to be in that plan. And then understand that you may have to walk in and rip up that plan and start again, depending on what's going on there. Interesting. Um, but, but in my experience, what most people fail to do within negotiations is have any kind of plan whatsoever, other than a win outcome, which is I want to win, but they've never discussed, like, what is a win? What's the, what is the bandwidth of win? At what point do they give up too much that it's not a win, it's now a loss? Are they prepared for them to win exclusively?

And the other party to lose, are they prepared for the, the results of that, what that's going to do to them immediately or later on down the line. So there's, so there's just, most people are walking to negotiations with a very simple idea of yeah, but I wanna win, but, but not, what does that mean? And how do you want to do that? And what do you think they want to do? So, look, it's very difficult for me to go, here's the body language to use in a negotiation, because I need to know, like, with who, like, what are you trying to achieve? How has it gone wrong in the past? Um, because I might look, if I just said, look, um, here's what you do in a negotiation, go in and take up as much space as possible. Dominate, dominate the landscape, dominate the, the soundscape dominate. Right. Okay. Yes. That may work until it doesn't

YC: A couple more questions. So particular scenarios that I wanted to ask you in terms of when it comes to, um, one thing, uh, I'm thinking about that happens usually during meetings, uh, there, when we have, we want to have an engaging meeting with people and we're very excited. And then we go into the room and everybody's basically wishing that they were someplace else, um, with arms cross. How can, if we, the outcome that we want for that particular scenario is to have everybody engage any particular recomme of anything that we could do to kind of either read and truly see that the other person is actually not interested and also how to react to that if that's, if that makes sense.

Yeah, sure. So, so the key is, is to check in with your assumption. So you walk in the room and you see arms crossed and you go, well, if arms crossed, then not engaged. That's an if, then, then that, uh, assumption. Okay. Which is either true or false or something in between. I just don't know, because sometimes people cross their arms. When they're making a decision. Sometimes they cross their arms when they're cold. Sometimes they cross their arms actually, when they're trying to engage. But the environment around them is not designed for them to engage. Like they cross their arms when they want to engage. And they haven't got arms on their seats to keep their, their arms up. And so their blood pressure and heart rate up so they can engage. So I want to know what's going on. Okay. So I might walk into the room and I might go, oh, wow.
Uh, everybody feels a little bit, seems a little bit down to me. Uh, gimme some feedback what's going on right now. Okay. So I ask, I tell them, here's what I'm seeing. Yeah. I might even tell them the behavior. I go, well, I'm walking in seeing lots of arms crossed at the moment. I don't know what that means, but it makes me feel like people may not be so engaged with this. Give me some feedback what's going on for you all right now. Yeah. And then I shut up and I wait for them to give me some information. So this is what we call, you know, um, into, of you or interrogation, or is, is you look at the behavior and you go, tell me what's going on right now. Give me some kind of information around this, because what could happen is, is I walk in and go, wow.

People are just not engaged at all because I, their arms cross, rather than understanding, actually they've already made the decision that they're super into this. And they're just waiting with their heart rate up to get this going. And they don't have arms on their chairs and it's a cold day. So I could completely misread that and go, ah, everybody hates me. They don't wanna be a at this meeting at all and carry on my behavior based on that assumption. So look, I use body language in order to be a trigger to ask important questions, uh, in a, in a manner that might elicit from an individual or a group, the truth about what's going on in their head right now, how they think, how they're feeling, what they feel is most valuable about the situation. So look, that group might go, yeah, we're not, we're not actually so interested in this and I might go, well, you know, um, the issue is, is that the organization or the law, or, you know, certain situations require that you attend what I'm talking about today. So I got one question for you, how engaged you plan on being, so now I'm going, this is, this is gonna happen. Whether you like it or not, because there are some, some certain things that happen. 

Like you can leave the room if you want, and then you won't fulfill some criteria that your organization or the law, or some kind of moral code says should happen. Um, I could do my bit, which is I'm showing up with good energy for this. Now I'm asking, what's your, I didn't say, Hey, you better pay attention. I didn't say, Hey, you better be here. I just said, how engaged you plan on being today?

YC: That is good advice. Cause we never think, we always think of the assumptions, our assumptions when it comes to like going back to that point of the, uh, we think we came, read the body language, but it's much more complex. So I, I like the point of kind of using that as a way to create a engagement, uh, with individuals.

MB: Yeah. So I would use, when you think about reading body language, think it, think a bit more about reading the index of a book or reading the menu of, of a, um, you know, a menu at a restaurant, the index and the menu are a bunch of possibilities. Okay. And so yeah, you can read the possibilities, then you can say, Hey, describe to me what's in that chapter. Or describe to me what is in that dish and why you are serving that today and why you like it so much, why you feel it should be on the menu and tell me, who's had this before and did they like it? It's not. So, so, you know, it's, it's a classic of communication, but, but it's a good one, which is the map is not the territory. The menu is not the meal in order to understand the territory, you have to do more intelligence in order to understand the meal, you have to engage with more intelligence.

YC: Yes, absolutely. How do we, um, gain, uh, continue cultivating, the skill of using this or, or understanding more about body language, it, any resources, uh, that you recommend for that?

MB: Uh, yeah. You know, I would get over to YouTube and watch the behavior panel, which is a show that I have with, uh, three friends of mine, uh, who are all experts in human behavior and body language, get yourself over to the behavior panel. That is a great way to upskill your, um, the amount of knowledge that you have, the vocabulary that you might have around nonverbal behaviors, um, and behaviors in general. And then I would also take a look at truth and lies what people are really thinking by myself and Tracy Thompson, and that will also help with your vocabulary, but also, so your critical thinking skill, what you want to engage with is a bigger vocabulary than you maybe already have around nonverbal communication and behaviors. And then the critical thinking skill to be able to put that vocabulary into structures that make it more helpful for you to understand what the truth and the lies are are of what's going on. Also get yourself over to truthplane.com, which is my website. And you can find out even more there.

YC: Thank you so much for your time and for all this wonderful information, it makes us definitely wanna look more and seek more understanding about this. Cause it's a very, uh, people assume it's an issue of trying to decipher minor cues, but it's much more complex than that. So I certainly appreciate all the advice, wonderful advice that you have given us today. 

MB: Thanks for having me.