Moment 172: 5 Body Language Rules To Read Anyone INSTANTLY!: Robert Greene

In this moment with best-selling author and world renowned thinker Robert Greene, he discusses the importance of body language and nonverbal communication. Robert says this form of communication is one that you cannot lie about, as we have a deeply rooted human and emotional response to it. Body language isn’t just one subtle gesture, but hundreds of different small signs, from a look, a gesture, to the complete vibe a person gives off. Even when people try to fake their body language, a good observer can always tell, from someone looking you in the eye but with their mind elsewhere, a tone of voice that reveals a persons lack of confidence, to a fake smile that is proven false compared to a genuine smile. Sometimes the clearest reveal is the micro expression someone unwillingly shows in the fraction of a second before they put on the act of who they want to appear to be. Listen to the full episode here - Spotify- https://g2ul0.app.link/1g3gdB4nwLb Apple - https://g2ul0.app.link/HX66M4jowLb Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Robert: https://powerseductionandwar.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Steven Bartlett?

  Body language.

• 0:04Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 0:04Steven Bartlett?

  I'm gonna talk about that.

• 0:07Steven Bartlett?

  Does it, you know, you said earlier, it's one of the things we can't lie about. Is there anything that you still look for in today when you're trying to read someone? Their body language? Are there certain cues, is there postures or?

• 0:19Robert Greene?

  Well, you know, you got it. In reading nonverbal communication, it's a different form of intelligence. It's not algorithms, it's not formulaic. It's human, it's emotional, it's empathetic. It's a reading without words. It's attuning yourself to other people. So I attune myself to people's emotions, to the vibe that they give off. In an overall sense, a gestalt is one thing that I like to do. So if I had to give it a word, I would say anxious. Or I would have to say outgoing and extroverted. Or I would have to say impatient or whatever. There's an energy that kind of defines them. It's a word and that word is not precise.

• 1:05Robert Greene?

  But there is an overall feel that I get from a person. And then I'm always looking at specifics. It's not like I'm sitting there consciously in my head going through a checklist. I'm just feeling certain things. And I'm feeling that the eyes are kind of dead. They're not engaging with me. And you can't put that into words, but you know the feeling. So when someone's looking at you, but they're not really looking at you. You know what that feels like, don't you? And a lot of psychopathic people, a lot of narcissists do that. So part of their face pretends to be interested in you.

• 1:48Robert Greene?

  They are looking at you in the eye, but they're not really looking at you. They're thinking of something else. They're seeing in you what they can get out of you. They're seeing you as an object, right? Eyes are hard to lie. They tell you something. Now actors, very skilled actors can kind of create some of these impressions. But one thing that they can't fake is the tone in their voice. And actors will tell you that it's the hardest thing to actually consciously control. So the voice of a person tells you a lot about their confidence levels. Tells you a lot about.

• 2:27Robert Greene?

  You know how, just about their general emotional tone, about their character, about who they are, it's very difficult to fake. And when it's hesitant, when it's like stammering, when it's not, you know, you can kind of sense something from people's voice and it's very hard to fake. And then the smile, the smile tells you a hundred different things if you know how to read it. There's the authentic smile, which I'm not going to fake right now, but well, I just, it lights up the whole face, you know? Like you really feel joy, you can't, you don't have to get, your eyes go up, your cheeks go up. Everything kind of connects together, right? The fake smile.

• 3:13Robert Greene?

  You know? Yeah. We've all seen the fake smile. Just when the mouth goes up from the rest of the face, doesn't bother. Stephen, I really like you. You're really wonderful, you know? Most of the time, most smiles are fake, but you can kind of, when you see the genuine smile and you go, that's what caused the genuine smile, you should become aware of that. And then body language tells you a lot, like is somebody, when they're talking to you and you're standing up at a, at a party, is their body kind of facing another direction while they're talking to you? Are they kind of looking out that way while they're talking to you? That means they're not really interested in you, they're not really engaged in you, right?

• 3:55Robert Greene?

  Also, when you catch people by surprise and they don't have the time to put on a fake smile, I often tell people to do this, like there's somebody in your office and you don't know whether they're a snake or that they're actually genuinely your friend, you suspect go either way. You kind of approach them from an angle, right? And you surprise them and you come up to them, you go, they look at you. And for a second, you detect what we call a micro expression of disdain. And then they put on the smile. That micro expression, which scientists, psychologists have studied lasts for like less than a second, much less than a second.

• 4:39Robert Greene?

  You have to be able to read it, but it reveals whether they actually like you or they're totally false, they can't fake it. So if you come to straight on, they'll, oh, hi, Stephen, I love it, great to see you. They come to you, oh, they kind of pretend, then they try and act and you can get clues like that. There's so many ways to read body language. It's such a fascinating subject, I could go on for hours about it.

• 5:03Steven Bartlett?

  How important is it, you know, you're talking about colleagues and team members there, and earlier you said that people are contagious. How important do you think it is to the success of our lives? And I pause there because success means it's a personal thing, it's a professional thing, to surround ourselves with the right group of people and to be intentional about that.

• 5:25Robert Greene?

  It's very important. I have a chapter in, excuse me, in the Forty Eight Laws of Power about infection. And I think it's an experience many of us have had where you're around somebody who seems at first glance to be very interesting. And they become your friend, maybe. They're very dramatic and they have all these stories to tell. And they seem almost slightly larger than life. And you engage with them and then you become friends. And then slowly, slowly, slowly, it becomes clear that they're a little bit nuts, right?

• 6:09Robert Greene?

  They're always talking about how this person screwed them, how that person screwed them, how this boyfriend or girlfriend was so awful and so nasty. You get to realize, is this true or is it maybe they're the problem? They are the problem. But now they're your friend and now you're emotionally attached to them. And now they have room to play all these kind of games on you and all of their drama starts infecting you. And it's like, god damn it, I want to get away from this person, but I can't. They've infected you with their negative energy and it gets under your skin. And so you have to avoid people like that. You have to read before you get involved with them that they are a drama queen or a drama king, because there are just as many men out there who have this quality.

• 6:53Robert Greene?

  You have to see that they are, that they play the victim of everybody else, but actually they kind of bring it on to themselves. Some people are genuinely unfortunate. Bad things have happened to them and it's not their fault. I'm never saying it's a misconception about that chapter, that you should avoid everybody who's unfortunate. There are people, and a lot of people out there, whose circumstances have put, made them, you know, in their, what's going on. It's not their fault, right? But there are other people you have to recognize. The bad things that happen to them are things that they have brought on because they have this infecting power. It comes from deep insecurity. You don't want them in your life.

• 7:37Robert Greene?

  Being around insecure people will make you insecure. Being around confident people who kind of know what they're doing, who've got their act together, who are trying to make things and accomplish things. Because there's so many people out there who talk and talk and talk, but never do anything. Being around people who do things, who get things done, who've made a business, who've made this, that, or the other. Their goal to be around, because they'll infect you with their positive energy.