Are they times when you suspect that you are being lied to? I have been having this feeling a lot lately, especially since my friends know that I have just started my own little business. For whatever reasons, they probably think that the minute I appear in front of the faces, I am going to sell them my products.. Ha Ha. Some of them will suddenly remember urgent important meetings, or equally important errands. These are easy to spot. But I think what is harder to spot would be situations where you are either about to be taken advantaged off or fooled by more experienced liar. And off course, also in business negotiation deals, would it be great if we are able to read from the other party’s gestures and mannerisms to gauge their thoughts?

Have you heard of Allan Pease, the Mr. Body Language himself? I have read one of his many books “People Skills For Life – Easy Peasy” which he wrote together with his wife. Anyway, he has also written many books on techniques for reading body language signals to give us confidence and control in any face-to-face encounter. I have watched his full length video on this and it was very insightful. This is the excerpt of the interview :

SKYQUESTCOM: Today we’re privileged to have Allan Pease. Allan, you’re famous for your series on body language. How did you get started in this area and why?

ALLAN: Well it started for me back in the late 1960’s teaching salesmen how to work things out when you’re face to face with someone – whether they’re with you or against you. Whether they’re likely to say “yes” or “no”. And observing the gestures and movements they had made that were relative to a positive decision versus a negative one.

And back in the early 1970’s, this became a training course on a brand new cassette medium called “audio cassette” – a little cassette tape that nobody had. We used to buy a 6-pack of that, with a cassette player because nobody had a cassette player. And that became a 16-mm set of training films in 1972, which is one of the first on 16-mm. And in 1976, it became a book called Body Language, which then went #1 worldwide and continued to be a best-seller for 31 years.

SKYQUESTCOM: What is the appeal of Body Language?

ALLAN: The appeal of Body Language in the book on the series and everything connected with it is simply that everybody likes to be able to work out what the other person is thinking – “How am I coming across with others?”, “Do they like me?”, “Are they with me?”, “Are they against me?”, “Are they going to say ‘yes’?”, “Are they going to say ‘no’?”

Of course, in business, that is a critical skill to be able to have. If you can do this in business, you’ll do very well! Which is why women are so successful at it because they’re good at it. And the other aspect, of course, is your social life. If you can work out with someone who likes you in your social life, you’ll save a lot of time.

SKYQUESTCOM: What is something about yourself in your background that surprises people when they find out?

ALLAN: Well, I think the most unusual thing about me and my background is – because I am one of the world’s biggest-selling authors on Psychology. They expect that I’m a Psychologist. In fact, I’m not. My training is in Finance and teaching negotiators how to sell Finance. Which is where the body language came from.

I’ve always had a dramatically keen interest in human behavior, why we do things we do. I am just fascinated with everything about human beings. I am fascinated by that. And that’s led me to nearly 40 years now to study everything about humans. I’m trying to work out where its history might be, where its origin is and importantly to develop strategies and techniques that you can use to win people over and do better with others in your personal and social life.

Basically, what the video covered were these areas:-

What you’ll discover in “How to Read Anyone”

  • Techniques for reading body language signals such as how handshakes are used to gain control
  • How to tell without a doubt that somebody is lying to you
  • Common male and female courtship gestures and signals
  • How to break the masks of “professional actors”
  • How to use non-verbal cues and signals to communicate more effectively and get the success you want
  • And much more!