1183: Using Body Language to Strengthen Likability and Relationships with Joe Navarro

Pete Mockaitis
Joe, welcome back!

Joe Navarro
Good to be back. Good to see you.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, you, too. Well, I’d love it if you could kick us off with a high-stakes story where body language played a key role.

Joe Navarro
Well, how about one where nuclear “go codes” were missing and we had to find who was the culprit.

Pete Mockaitis
That sounds almost too good to be real, like Jack Bauer style.

Joe Navarro
Unfortunately, it was real. Unfortunately, seven nations were imperiled by this. This is during the Cold War period, and we come to find out that all this secret material is missing.

The US Army does a great job, narrows it down to one area and one individual that was involved. They finally arrest him, but we come to find out he had a co-conspirator. And that co-conspirator, even though he agreed to talk to me, I was an FBI agent at the time, said, “I’m not sure I want to get anybody else in trouble.”

So I said, “Fair enough.” So we got the army to give us a list of everybody that would have had access to the codes. And then, on a three-by-five card, we put the names of each individual, and then I just said, “Look, I don’t want to know if they’re involved. I just want to know if you know them and did you like them?”

And so I held the card up and then I watched his eyes. And, of course I hadn’t written any books on the subject, so he didn’t know what I would be looking for. But on two cards, his eyes squinted, and I was sitting about the distance between here and the screen, and his pupils constricted.

And just based on that, we requested that these two people be interviewed that we didn’t know were in any way connected. And as it turns out, they both confessed. So there. That happened in 1990, and it’s in the court filings, and pone of them went to jail for 36 years. So true story. And it was all based on body language.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Joe, you’ve really raised the bar for every guest ever when I ask a question about a story. It’s, like, “If there’s not nuclear launch codes and decades in prison at stake, then I’m going to have to move on.”

Joe Navarro
Yeah, pretty much. Look, I always tell people, it was luck, I happen to be at the right place at the right time. And I was that weird kid who, all my friends in high school were playing with baseball cards and exchanging baseball cards, I was writing down the things that I observed with body language and it paid off years later, so, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, it continued to pay off. Your latest book, it’s called Mastering Connections: Build Stronger Relationships with the Science of Body Language. That sounds real nice because most of us will not be in the position of interrogating someone in a legal matter. But I think all of us want stronger relationships.

Can you tell us just how much of an impact can this body language knowledge make in having stronger relationships?

Joe Navarro
I think what the first thing we have to realize is the mistaken assumption that texting and writing and direct messages is connecting. All that is is signaling.

Connections have an evolutionary perspective. We evolved to communicate first and foremost nonverbally. Our first language is nonverbal. That touching between the child and the mother in traditional societies, even the smell begins to shape. And how often we touch and how we look at each other begins to shape that connection.

And in modern society, we tend to think, “Oh, well, you know, I sent him an email message,” or a text message. And then we see the high amount of individuals that feel lonely, feel depressed, the extraordinary number.

I saw a number the other day that young people entering universities, as high as 36% of them, which is an astounding number, feel depressed or anxious, and so forth. And I think that has a lot to do with the fact that we’re not connecting the way that we should. And if we’re going to connect, then we should do it the right way, which, to a great degree, has to do with how far we stand with each other.

How do we look? Do we stare at each other or do we gaze? How often do we touch each other on the arm and so forth? I just, three days ago, four days ago, I had to attend a funeral.

And once again, it was a revelation of there’s not much you can say but how we revert back to that, our first language, which is, you know, arm around each other, hugs, holding each other’s hands, you know, big men weeping in each other’s arms, very tactile.

And it’s just a reminder that this is our first language, and it’s the way we show love and empathy and everything else.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s powerful. And I think that’s a great reminder that texting doesn’t get it done in terms of our relational biochemical, bodily beings for getting the connecting stuff happening.

Joe Navarro
Yeah, you’re exactly right. I mean, we are mostly chemistry. And, you know, one way to look at it is texting, it’s immediate. You can signal very quickly and so forth, but how often we ask, “Well, what did you mean by that? Were you…?” you know, we have to include an emoji. We have to do this and that.

And, I think, to a great extent, where oxytocin is released when we are in each other’s presence and we feel comfortable and there’s touch and there’s kindness in how we look at each other, versus dopamine, which, “Oh, I got the message. Oh, this is great.” And then you have that little dopamine high.

But then we see people in a clinical setting just crash, and so they’re constantly looking for the next dopamine high, which with algorithms now, you can be fed for hours constant little hits where, maybe, you interact and so forth, but it never achieves what oxytocin does, which is this profound feeling of contentment and joy and happiness and trust.

Pete Mockaitis
So just so that we are on the same page with regard to this oxytocin and connecting stuff. Texting, instant messaging won’t do it. Will live video exchanges do it? Or is it strictly an in-person kind of a phenomenon?

Joe Navarro
Well, that’s a profound question, Pete. I think virtual environment can do a lot, and it does. And almost 90% or maybe more of the calls that I now get or do, I prefer this environment even over a phone call because I get to look at the other person. It helps you with things like turn yielding.

It helps you with things like, “Oh, he’s pondering what I just said. Did I use a word he didn’t understand?” It allows you certain things. I think it has its place. And going forward, we’re always going to be, I think, now and into the future, well into this virtual environment.

But I have to say, at the same time, we can look scientifically at people who are truly connecting. And we see several things. From the Grant study, which I know you know is in the book, the largest study, it continues since the 1930s at Harvard, which looked at people and connections and so forth.

One of the things that stands out is best predictor of success in business was not IQ, was not where you grew up, was not where you went to school, but your ability to connect with others. And in doing so, you got promoted, you got invited to meetings, you got invited to play golf and all those things.

But the other thing we found is that, and young people don’t think about it, but older people do, is yet you will live longer. Longevity is one of the greatest benefits from that.

But it’s also those people who could connect at a very tactile level also tended to have happier marriages. There’s the occasional touch of the hand, there’s the rub of the back, there’s the caress, there’s, you know, the way to look at someone.

For instance, if I wanted to increase face time with you, one of the easiest things I could do is just tilt my head. And by just inclining my head a little bit, we know from studies that my company has done when I was working with attorneys, people will stay with you longer.

So there are immediate benefits to being present, and we haven’t even begun to study how our body chemistry influences each other. We now have research, and it’s solid research, where the amount of stress that we carry on ourselves, right, in the form of chemistry, will actually influence other people around us.

So if you’ve been in an angry situation and you have a lot of cortisol and it’s literally being exuded by you, it actually will affect the other person in the room. Conversely, if you’ve had a nice time, if there’s a certain amount of pleasantness and so forth, that is felt also. And our animals feel that.

I’ve seen animals alert on people. And you say, “Well, where does that come from?” Well, they’re picking up things that, subconsciously, we pick up on, but we tend to mask it. So there is definitely the benefit of the tone of voice.

On a screen, we don’t see the elasticity of our skin. We don’t see the subtle changes of colors when you say something that’s exciting to me. We don’t see the pupillary dilation of, “Oh, wow, that’s…” right? We just don’t see that.

I was just at a conference three months ago, and one of the questions that I was asked was, “What about AI? What’s going to happen with AI?” And my answer was that, “At this moment, we humans don’t even know how many neuroreceptors we have.”

We know that we can see, we can hear, but we know from scientific studies that some people are picking up other things around them. So we don’t even know what these neuroreceptors are.

Pete Mockaitis
What are they picking up? What kind of things are we talking about here?

Joe Navarro
Well, it can be anything from… we see this, for instance, when we study people who, suddenly, go blind and they begin to pick up on movements, they can sense, somehow. I don’t know. That’s what we don’t know.

We don’t know what the neuroreceptors are, but they sense, better than chance, “Somebody’s behind me. Something moved,” all sorts of things. And so my argument was AI, eventually, we can train it to do quite a bit, but we don’t even know what we’re picking up.

And the studies that now have been done with smell, there’s quite a few studies that I’ve looked at where the chemistry that we give off is influence not just the person in front of you, but a whole group of people. AI can never replicate that. It’ll be impossible. So it’ll be an interesting time.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, can you tell me a little bit about some of the most eye-popping science with regard to our stress is picked up by others, it’s impacting them, it’s affecting them? But, like, what is the nature of the impact, of the effect?

Joe Navarro
So I don’t have the experiment details with me, but, in essence, it’s this. They take what are called two naive groups, people that live in a house, let’s say, or an apartment, they don’t know what’s going to happen, they don’t know what’s going to go on.

And then we take one person and they are subjected to an extreme amount of what we call positive stress. So maybe they’re a skydiver.

So there’s a little bit of stress, and it’s sort of positive stress. Mountain climbers are notorious for this. And then we take another person and we subject them to a different kind of stress, the kind of stress where there’s arguing and there’s a lot of animosity.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. We take their T-shirts and we place them into a house or into those two apartments without letting anybody know. They’re just hidden there. And the people inside those residences, the ones where all that cortisol is at, become more stressed.

They get a little less patient. They tend to be a little bit more aggravated. So they are, without knowing what’s going on, they’re picking up on this cortisol. And part of the equation in this, and I think of my career is, you know, I’m thinking about the times I was on a SWAT team.

You come off of a SWAT operation, high risk, it already takes you two hours to mentally calm down, but you’re taking your clothes off, and I’m putting it in the laundry. You know, “Did that have an effect on my daughter and my wife and in other members of the family? And did that contribute to stress?” The scientific paper says it actually does.

And those are the kinds of things that we’re now finding out about. There’s all sorts of things. So we’re barely starting to understand all of the neuroreceptors that we have.

I’ll ask you something, Pete. Have you ever heard the term umwelt? It’s a German word, and what it refers to is, for instance, a pit viper, a snake, their umwelt is composed of the heat sensors. They sense the world around them by vibrations and heat.

Certain birds will only see in ultraviolet light, which gives them a broad spectrum to pick out very specific flowers and so forth. The human umwelt, we think of is, “Oh, we can hear, we can see, and we can smell,” and that’s actually only partially correct. Our umwelt, well, we can enhance it, obviously, with binoculars.

But our umwelt is actually much broader. We just do not understand it in its totality yet. And in the future, when we tap into that, I think it’ll change many of the things that we do.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow. Well, that’s fascinating stuff, an interesting future. I’d love to zoom in to the here and now a bit. You gave us an awesome tip with that head tilt in terms of folks then become more willing to engage with you or curious or hang on to what you have to say a bit longer. Share with us some of these other cues and things that really boost likability and connection.

Joe Navarro
Just the simple, you know, touching. This is the mentalist, that just touching this area while you’re listening to somebody.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, the chin area?

Joe Navarro
Like, you’re thinking, you’re pensive, it takes you from, “Oh, Joe has an agenda,” to, “Oh, Joe is pondering my agenda,” which makes you more likable. So the head tilt makes you more likable, the fact that I’m listening to you.

Now you have to be careful because if you start doing this, you know, and then it becomes one of these where your hand slips, and that just shows you’re not interested. So degrees matter, but just a little bit of pensiveness.

Reacting to words. For instance, you say something interesting and I react by arching, flashing my eyebrows and going, “Oh, yeah, that’s…”you know? I don’t have to say anything. I just like, “Wow!”

So there’s a whole repertoire of things that we can do. One of the easiest ones is to lower our voice. You say something, I say something, and we’re doing it up here, but then I change the pitch and I go, “Wow, Pete, yeah, that’s really interesting.”

And the fact that I changed the pitch positively affects the other person. That is very attractive to the human brain, and it’s universal. So those are a few of the things.

I know you can’t see it. We were talking earlier about the feet, but if you’re in the hallway talking to someone and you just want to increase a little bit the amount of face time, just by crossing your legs while standing so that you’re slightly off balance, if things are going well, usually, the other person will mirror that.

But one of the things that it does is it conveys, “I want to stay a little longer,” and more likely than not, the other person will stay a little bit longer just because crossing your legs is a high-comfort display.

We only do that when we’re comfortable. We never cross our legs and are off balance if there’s anything in front of us that we’re not comfortable with. So very simple behaviors to just increase a little bit of face time.

Now, obviously, if you’ve got somebody that’s got to catch a plane or they got to go, as you said, their feet immediately point in the direction of that gate and it just says, “Hey, I got to go.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, Well, so the theme here seems to be, or maybe a couple themes, is each of these signals convey, “I am interested in you, and I think what you’re saying is interesting, valuable, intriguing. I care to linger in your presence, in your midst.”

And so it’s, like, all of these things that make us likable seem to be the things that are putting good vibes toward the other person. It’s like, “They like me, therefore, I like them, and they are likable.”

Joe Navarro
Yeah, “They like me, and I like them,” and so it’s back and forth. In psychology, there’s a way to describe that, in saying, “Is this experience positively valenced or is it negatively valenced?”

In my book, I talk about comfort/discomfort. And so, the more things that we can do to make them positively valenced, right, if we were to meet in a hallway, yeah, I probably would be leaning against the wall.

I would probably be asking a lot of questions about, “How did you get started in this? I mean, how long have you been doing this? And, like, when you get up in the morning, how do you know what to ask?”

Because, you know, as an FBI agent, I know that I have to satisfy the statute, you know, “Did he enter the structure with the intent to commit a felony?” So I would begin to structure my questions out of curiosity about you, which we’ve known since 1926, and, you know, how to make friends and so forth, is we like to be asked questions.

So the totality of it is, “Was it positively valenced?” And then always thinking, you know, “The next time I see Pete, I want him to remember it as something positive.” Now here’s what’s interesting. Our brains have two hippocampi, the hippocampus, we have two of them.

Everything negative, pretty much, goes in there and it goes immediately in there. But here’s the trick, or the rub, it stays in there for a very long time, sometimes for decades. And so anytime we meet someone or we spend time with them, we want to put as many of those positive traits in there as possible because the hippocampus will retain everything negative.

And that’s why, when I ask an audience, “How many of you have had a bad handshake?” I mean, I’ve seen people just shoot that arm right up and can remember when they were bullied 20, 30 years ago, that’s because of the hippocampus.

And so the brain prioritizes the negative so that we can avoid that for survival. And so anytime we meet with each other, what we want to focus on is those positive things.

Pete Mockaitis
So we store the negative a lot longer than the positive.

Joe Navarro
Yes, which, by the way, is why you can’t get rid of post-traumatic stress. And you say, “Well, can’t you just think of something?” But, no, PTSD lasts for so long precisely because we have not just one, but two hippocampus. And so it retains all those negative events and you just can’t take a pill. That’s not how we evolved.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so to that end, what are some things we should avoid doing in our body language?

Joe Navarro
I’ll give you a list of the ones that stand out from surveys that I do in my classes. Number one is violations of space. Over and over, women will tell me that the guys stand too close to them. And so then the question is, “Well, how far is too much?” Well, culture determines spatial needs, but so do personal needs.

One of the tests that I do, and it’s a fun test, usually after lunch, when everybody is tired, I say, “All right, everybody stand up. Okay. All right, pair up.” I say, “Okay, find the perfect distance that you could maintain for a 20-minute conversation.” Of course, there were some young people there that said, “What do you talk about for 20 minutes?” Well, that’s another topic. It’s like, “What?”

You know, I’m thinking of the three- and four-hour spy interviews that I did, and they’re trying to figure out a 20-minute interview. I said, “Okay, find the perfect distance. Okay, everybody found it? Okay. Now I want everybody to bend your thumb so that you have this, okay?”

“And now I want you to walk forward that distance, which is about between an inch and a three quarter of an inch.” So each pair walks forward about an inch. And you should see how people begin to freak out. They start to giggle and get uncomfortable. And it’s like, “Hmm, I don’t know.”

And then you realize, just an inch or an inch and a half can make the difference between, “We’re going to have a long, comfortable conversation or one where I feel my spatial boundaries are being violated.” And that’s how sensitive we, as a species, are to our spatial needs.

So I always say, “When you come in, shake hands, fingers down, not forward, it’s not a gunfight. You don’t want to have your finger in someone’s erogenous zone here in the wrist.”

Pete Mockaitis
The wrist? Okay.

Joe Navarro
Yes, you don’t. Never. So always fingers down, gentle squeeze. Nobody is impressed with vice grips. And then take a step back so that everybody is comfortable. And then, over time, you will self-adjust. But don’t go into a fixed position that is violating each other’s space.

And now you’re guaranteeing the minimum amount of time because we know what we feel like when we’re violating space. So that’s the number one complaint that I get that, nonverbally, we do wrong.

The second one that I often hear about is that the person either is staring too much, or not making any eye contact, or looks away, there’s all sorts of things. And one of the things we have to realize is that, especially in the business world, we now have more and more people entering the workforce who are actually on the spectrum of autism, and they will make less eye contact.

And so we have to make adaptations and not feel like, “Well, this is strange or weird. He didn’t make eye contact with me.” We just have to accept. There’s a lovely man, he’s in Europe, really a lovely human being. He always attends my training, but he is on the spectrum.

And he waits in line to come and shake my hand, buy my books, and say hello. But he just can’t, you know, and it’s okay. It’s okay. You just have to adapt to that reality. So we can look at each other too intently.

I’ve had women say, “Well, I mean, this guy was just scanning me like he was a radar over the horizon trying to look at my boobs and this and that.” And you have to be respectful that way. Or you’re talking to someone, and this is one that I hear from a lot of senior executives.

They’re talking to someone, they’re talking about something important, and they’re giving priority to their smart watch or their smartphone. And they just find that really distracting.

And so, one of things that we now tell people to do is, “Put the device away. Let them know that you care so much about them that you’re, in fact, going to put the device away. That it’s just us. And they feel even more valued.”

And then someone said, “Well, what if I’m really expecting an important call?” Then front it. Then just say, “Listen, my wife is going to call me or text me if something happened to her,” and people will understand.

But this relentless need to constantly be looking at this at the expense of others, we just, we don’t abide by that. Because these are valued people and the minute you take your eyes off of them, you’re not contributing to that positive experience.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, certainly. Well, I’m curious, with this eye contact, too much, too little, do you have a rule of thumb or a guideline that’s close to just right for most people?

Joe Navarro
Well, because I travel all over the world and culture factors in, you know, if you get on the subway in New York, and study after study shows that you can only stare at somebody for about 1.22 seconds. Literally, one second point two-two.

Other parts of the world, the Middle East, Latin America, if you do business in Dubai, I’m getting ready to go to Doha, Athens, a lot of parts, different parts of the world, you have four, five, six seconds that you can look at someone.

And then you go to the Nordic countries, and it’s very limited. It’s very limited eye contact. So I tell people, “Just be aware of where you’re at. Just engage with a person you’re looking at, but don’t be staring at somebody,“ because in some places around the world, it’s offensive.

And, you know, every culture acts differently. Businessmen that I coach, and they’re going to Latin America, you know you’re going to go to an office and you’re probably going to, before anything happens, after introductions, you’re going to be served coffee.

And then you go to other countries, Germany, Austria and so forth, and you almost jump into business immediately without those niceties. And so you have to remember is what is preferred locally.

In the United States, we don’t have a need to, for instance, offer our pedigree. And yet, there are parts of the world where, before you talk about business, they want to know about you and your family, where did you go to school. They want to know about your values. And that’s just something that we don’t really do in America.

So, yeah, I’m a big proponent of knowing what country you’re going to, what culture. And even within the United States, I remember covering the Havasupai Indian Reservation along the Colorado River, and there’s other Native American groups around there, and just learning their culture about how they greet each other.

For instance, on a lot of the Indian reservations, I would ask, “Well, which way did the car go?” And you would expect somebody to, you know, point with their hand, but they point with their chin. They’ll go like this.

And so you just factor that in. You know, when in Rome, you do as the Romans. This works great for them. It’s a great way to signal direction. They do it with their chin, and you just get used to abiding by the culture that you’re in.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very good. Thank you. Well, Joe, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Joe Navarro
Well, you know, take a look at the book and think about the most important connections that you will make, and then ask yourself, “Would I be considered a high school level, graduate level? Or would I be a tier-one person at making connections?”

And I think what you’ll find is we can all do something a little better to make those connections just a little nicer and a little bit more significant. Something as simple as take a piece of paper, write them a hand note, not typed, slap a stamp on it, and mail it to someone, and you’re going to make their day.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Joe Navarro
I think my favorite quote is rather impertinent, and I’m trying to think if I should share it because it was from Mark Twain. But he said, “Don’t try to teach a pig to sing. It annoys the pig and it wastes your time.”

And the message was that spend your time with people that care. Don’t waste your time with those that will never appreciate it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Joe Navarro
I think one of my favorite experiments, and it’s one that anybody can do is the still face experiments, and those experiments done in the early ‘80s where you smile at someone and then look away, then come back, smile again.

But on the third time you just hold very still, which is one of the worst things you can do on a virtual call. You must never hold still. And watch what happens. With children, it’ll drive them to cry. With adults, they get very nervous when they see a still face.

And it’s a reminder that we evolve to exchange signals, not to just sit there like on a virtual call, which is the worst thing you can do on a virtual call.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So on a virtual call, I don’t want to have a blank still face, even if all I’m doing is just listening to what they’re saying.

Joe Navarro
Absolutely not, because your brain is picking up, subconsciously, all sorts of signals and a still face is seen as one less trustworthy but, even worse, it’s seen as a threat. That’s the research.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, boy, you got me thinking about the TV series “Dexter” now, and just like, you know, or what. Yeah, I mean, if you think about, like, really freaky psychopath characters, that is one of their go-to moves.

Joe Navarro
Exactly. And, you know, the still face experiments, you can go online and look at them on YouTube, and you say, “Why wasn’t I taught this 20 years ago or 25 years ago?” And you realize, “Oh, my goodness, how many times have I sat there? I’m sixth in line to be interviewed on a podcast, and everybody else is holding still,” and it’s the worst thing you can do.

Pete Mockaitis
So what do I do instead? I just try to, like, smile or tilt my head or…?

Joe Navarro
Smile, tilt your head, nod, ponder, touch the face, anything but not remain still. Yep.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Joe Navarro
Herodotus, “The Histories” by the father of history. I’ve now read it, I think, three times. But the 780 or so pages I’ve read are just wonderful, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Joe Navarro
I would just go to JoeNavarro.net or just Google my name. For some reason, it’ll pop up with my website, and there’s all sorts of goodies there. I have free bibliographies, and hundreds of articles that I’ve written that are available for free.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Joe Navarro
My final call to action is one that I gave at JP Morgan a few months ago, and I said, “By close of business this week, send a letter, not an email message, send a letter to someone who helped you along the way and thank them profusely, because you didn’t get here by yourself. And please do so.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Joe, thank you.

Joe Navarro
No, thank you.