The Body Language Rules

411 Pages·2009·7.38 MB·English

by  Judi James

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Copyright © 2009 by Judi James
Cover and internal design © 2009 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Christopher Tobias
Cover images © Junophoto/Getty Images
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Source-
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
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embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writ-
ing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative infor-
mation in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the under-
standing that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting,
or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance
is required, the services of a competent professional person should be
sought.—From a Declaration of Principles Jointly Adopted by a Committee of
the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations
All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks,
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cebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
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Originally published as The Body Language Bible in England in 2008.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
James, Judi.
[Body language Bible]
Body language rules : a savvy guide to understanding who’s flirting,
who’s faking, and who’s really interested / Judi James.
p. cm.
Originally published under title: The body language Bible, by Ver-
million in 2008.
1. Body language. 2. Body image. I. Title.
BF637.N66J35 2009
153.6’9--dc22
2009011927
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
CHG 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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To my mother, Renee Sale
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BodyLanguage.indd 4 7/28/09 3:42:25 PM
n T s
n T e
o
C
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Part One: Body Language Basics
Chapter 1: How Body Language Works . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 2: From Monkey to Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Part Two: Practical Body Language
Chapter 3: How to Make Your Body Language
Work for You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chapter 4: A Beginner’s Guide to Posture . . . . . . 59
Chapter 5: Gestures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Chapter 6: A Beginner’s Guide to
Your Hand Gestures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Chapter 7: Facial Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Chapter 8: Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
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Part Three: Using Body Language in the Real World
Chapter 9: Dating and Mating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Chapter 10: Dealing with Friends and Relatives . . 203
Part Four: Body Language and Business
Chapter 11: Getting on Board: The Skills of
Recruitment and Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Chapter 12: Bodytalk in the Workplace . . . . . . . 255
Chapter 13: Killer Occasions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Chapter 14: Reading Other People
in the Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .373
Body Language Dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .375
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .395
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n
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B ody language is the most fluent, lyrical, revealing, and
significant form of communication . As an off-shoot
of the psychology of human behavior, it is intriguing,
exciting, fascinating, and fun—and yet ultimately
frustrating . As a communication skill your body language
accounts for over 50 percent of the perceived impact of
all your face-to-face messages and so you underestimate
its power and influence at your peril . By creating and
defining your own body language, and therefore your own
image, you will avoid allowing others to perceive you in
a way that will have more to do with assumption and
misunderstanding than real skills and abilities . However,
body language is also a much misunderstood subject
and a lot of the current advice on the subject is drivel .
By using terms like body language “tells” and analyzing
gestures in a simplistic, comic-book style along the lines
of “scratching your nose means you’re lying,” many
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viii The BODy LAngUAge RULeS
psychologists, TV magicians, and experts have done a lot
to mislead the public, therefore damaging what should be
primarily an instinctive, sometimes random, but never-
theless revealing process .
Do you believe that crossing your arms means you’re
defensive? Or that someone stroking their hair must be
flirting with you? Then you’ve been reading the wrong
books, because the fact is that body language is not a precise
science . Tempting though it is to claim otherwise, any one
gesture can be interpreted in several different ways, just
as words can have several meanings . Crossing your arms
could mean you feel anxious or angry—or simply that the
room’s too cold . Arm folding can be performed to signal
displeasure or cut-off but it is also what’s called a discovered
action, something we do just because it feels comfortable .
Nose touching could show you’re covering your mouth to
conceal a lie, but it could just as easily mean you’ve got an
itchy nose . Some gestures are inborn, meaning you do them
out of instinct and have very little control over them .
To understand words we have to place them into the
context of a sentence, and it’s just the same with body
language gestures, except the sentence is formed by all
your other movements and signals . This is why I wrote this
book . When I’m training or speaking at conferences one
of the most frequently asked questions is what one gesture
or another means, as though my studies and experience
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InTRODUcTIOn ix
have endowed me with an almost mystical ability to read
people’s minds by a single movement or roll of the eyes .
Easy and tempting though it would be to go along with
this misconception, I have to admit that it’s just not that
simple . So here are the facts:
I your own body language signals release thousands of subtle
and subconscious signals about you as you speak .
I your signals can be responsible for success or failure at any
stage of your career, social life, or sex life .
I you are probably unaware of most of your signals .
I your body language messages are seen by others as a more honest
and reliable expression of your thoughts and feelings than your words .
When your words are at odds with your gestures it’s
your gestures that will be seen as the truth .
I By learning about your own signals and then working to improve
them you will enhance your effect and image .
I By studying others’ body language signals and increasing your
visual perceptions you will find it easier to understand the
emotions and thoughts behind their words .
I Look for “clues” or what are called cues, not “tells .” This
means taking each movement and gesture and then
evaluating it in the context of other movements,
not isolating them in a “one size fits all” way .
I By reading other people you will enhance your understanding
of them, getting 100 percent more value out of all your
face-to-face communications .
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