 Louise, all 42 courses. Delighted to have as our guest today, Mark Bowden, who I will properly introduce to you in a minute. But first of all, what I'd love to ask all of you to do is, if you have the camera with, please put on your camera. It's great for us to see the faces of everybody who's joined us. And also, I'm going to ask you to do two things for me today, which is to obviously pay great attention to everything we're going to hear from Mark today. And maybe you could post on LinkedIn with two things. Number one, your biggest takeaway from our conversation today, what you learned, and then tag us at 42 courses. And what we will do is by two o'clock tomorrow, you've tagged us, we will have seen your posts. By two o'clock tomorrow, all of the posts will be in at 4.30. We will choose one of you. And we will be giving one of you free access to our brand new course that we've created at 42 courses with Mark Bowden, Body Language for Business. So one of you will be luckily there receiving free access to the course. So without more ado, delighted to introduce Mark Bowden, body language expert, best selling author of four books, co-founder of TruthPaint. Mark is a global authority on nonverbal communication. He's been voted number one body language professional in the world for three years. He trains groups, individuals, how to use their body language and stand out on wind trust. He's a TED speaker. Is there anything you cannot do, Mark? He's also on the behavior panel. So I'm going to hand over to Mark. I'm filling in all the gaps, but I'd love, Mark, to introduce himself and also to lead in and tell us how he got into this fascinating subject. Lovely, thank you. Look, all of you probably know something about me, but here's the usual the usual spiel, Mark Bowden, expert in human behavior and body language. And I help people all over the world to stand out, to wind trust, to gain credibility every time they communicate, including some of the leaders of the G7. I've written four books on human behavior and body language. And look, all I ever really try and do is help people with their communication. You know, when I was a little kid, I used to be fascinated with biology and the movement of animals, especially aquatic life, especially sea creatures. I was a big fan of Jacques Cousteau. I always used to imagine myself, you know, being underwater with those sea creatures. I loved how they move. I was so obsessed with Jacques Cousteau. This year, I even went and bought the watch, the Omega Ploprof that he made in my mind, so famous. So obsessed with animal biology and movement and how that works and how, you know, organisms communicate to each other through space, through movement. I went on to study fine art and especially performing art. So that's, you know, how we move as human beings, how we behave as human beings in order to communicate in an artistic way. Art for me is just something that reminds you that you're alive. So I was obsessed with what is it about our human body that reminds us that we're alive every day and reminds us that we're with other people and how does that physical communication work? And how can we use that to our best ability? What is it that we can do with our body? That means we can better interact with other human beings, get more of what they want, get more of what we want and essentially live better lives together because we understand human behavior better. So look, that's my obsession. I truly hope you have questions for me today because obviously I could rant and rant and rant off my own back on this, but more interesting for me is to answer your burning questions right now because, listen, as I've said before on LinkedIn, I rarely, rarely do this. This is probably only the second or third time I have ever done a live Q&A with an audience, you know, virtually. Obviously, I do show up to events and clients pay me to be there and answer people's questions, but not everybody gets to come in. And so you're here right now, so I would love your thoughts, your questions. So, Louise, why don't you let in anybody who has a burning question or if you want to put your questions in the chat, that would be great as well. Louise, I'm going to pass over to you so you can pull in these questions. Lovely, thank you so much Mark. Thanks for that lovely introduction and I cannot tell you all, I have hosted over a hundred of these events in various places and it's quite nerve-wracking hosting an event with somebody who is a body language expert. I'm feeling very, very self-conscious of everything that I do. So before we go over to your questions, which as Mark says, please put your questions in the chat, we can bring you in to put them to Mark yourself. Just as we started chatting before this event started, Mark, you commented on my background. And so maybe we'll kick off with that. Obviously, all of us are communicating with everybody virtually now, it's the normal way to communicate, but some of us do it a bit better than others. And I know one of the subjects that you particularly talk about is deciding what sort of impression you want to give with your background. So why don't you kick off with a few tips about that particular subject? Yeah, so let me tell you how important backgrounds are. When your brain judges people, it not only judges their non-verbal communication in terms of what gestures they're making, what's happening in their face, what they're doing in the space, how much space they're using up, but it judges them based on where they are, the context that they're in. If that human being is contextless, just say they're kind of floating in white space, you know, there's no context around them. That gives less information to the brain to judge somebody by when insufficient data we default to negatives. If I don't know your context, I am not an optimist about it. Now, I know there's outliers to that. You might go, I'm a real optimist about people. I don't judge them. Well, you just judged yourself about not judging other people. We live and die by our judgment systems. If there's insufficient data, we default to negatives. So I'm a pronant of putting information into the background because otherwise people are more likely to default to their own negative ideas about you. What's Mark hiding? We can't see what's in the background. What's really going on there? So now the question becomes, what do you want to place in the background in order to influence and persuade people's judgment? So look, if we look at Louise's background there, instantly we see a map of the world and we've got South America and North America up there from my understanding. And so instantly, here's what my brain starts to do is go, oh, so Louise has an idea of different lands. She's maybe traveled. Maybe those particular parts of the world are important to her. I've even forgotten that the rest of the map is probably there. I kind of think that she's chosen that area to show me. I start to make assumptions. Now, those assumptions are either accurate or inaccurate or something in between. But I will make assumptions and I will judge. So am I now judging in a way that plays into the image and the idea that Louise wants to project about herself? Or is it not what she wants to project? Look, there's no bad behavior. There's no bad body language. There's just results that you wanted or didn't want. There's nothing you can do bad with your body language. There's just results that you wanted or didn't want. That's all. There's behavior and then the behavior will get you within a context, results that you wanted or didn't want. And if you get any results that you don't want, change your behavior or change the context of that behavior or change the audience of that behavior. But something will have to change. But don't go, oh, you know, I was doing that badly. So look, the key is, is what can you put in that background that you think will most likely trigger the people you want to trigger with the idea about you or your content that you want them to have. Don't do anything by accident. Nothing in this background is an accident. It's all there for a reason. Yeah. And we can always curate that background in some way. You know, let me just answer one last question that was there up the front, which was somebody was saying, hey, I like the late night DJ talk voice that you have. You know, when I first started doing, by the way, some of my early work was in radio. I was a radio voiceover artist for quite a while. One of the things, one of the many things that I used to do. And what, you know, when you're when you're here talking into the darkness, in a sense, it's rather like talk, talk radio, where you're on at three o'clock in the morning. Nobody's really listening. You can't see anybody there. And you have to keep the content going and keep the content vibrant. I even have here one of the mics that they would use in a radio station, the RE, RE 20. I think it is the electro voice RE 20. It's the same mic that Fraser Crane uses. So it's that it's that classic radio voiceover mic. I've even got an old compressor and which is, you know, does stuff to the sound and an old preamp as well that gives it that kind of radio voice because I know your brain, when it hears that type of voice, it feels there's something of authority there. Look, there's what I say. And then there's how it comes across to you and the idea you create about what I say. And the nonverbal information that I put around this helps your idea about what I'm saying. I hope that makes sense to everybody. Louise, let's have some more questions that are coming in. Fantastic. Now there's loads of questions coming in. I'm going to bring you all in. I'm just going to put one more question myself. Yeah, we're all seated now, Mark. But many of us have either been in the office through all of this or are going back to office transitioning. I know that you give advice in terms of actually the seated presentation or the standing and then being aware of the height of your chair. Maybe just give us a few tips there. Coming into a room and deciding, am I going to sit? Am I going to adjust my chair? Am I going to walk around? Everybody has what they think is the thing that's going to put their audience at ease. But what are your sort of top tips for that environment? OK, so here's some of the stuff you want to be thinking about. And there's a lot there that I could talk about. First of all, let's think about if you're seated and I decide to stand and we're in the same room together. Depending on my proximity to you, I will probably have height dominance over you. And height dominance over you will look rather like this. OK? Same person, same expert in my area. But now I have height dominance over you. In fact, let me come back a little bit here. I'll raise my voice a little bit. But now you can see that I have height dominance over you. It's very different from if I sit down with you here. And now I'm on the same level as you. I could even give you some height dominance over me as well. I can change your idea of the power relationship based on do I have height dominance or not. So you want to pay attention to that. There's also how much space do I own? Do I take up? Am I coming into your space? So if I sit down in the room with you, probably one of the things that I might like to do if I need you to trust me is to make sure that you can see more of my body. So I will actually pull myself back from the table. Usually about a hand span will do it from the edge of the table. Let me kind of mock that up for you now. And now as my hands gesture with open palm gestures at exactly naval height in what I call the truth plane. Now you can see those gestures. So do you feel more comfortable with me? Now imagine you're in the room with me. Now imagine you're in the room with me face to face. And now you can't see my gestures in the rest of my body. I'm getting strong eye contact with you, but you can't see my gestures. Do you think you feel more comfortable when insufficient data you default to negatives? This is more sufficient data about do I have tools in my hands? Will they be the benefit to you? Could they harm you? Can you see their movement? Can you see their rhythm? So I'm always looking whether I'm standing or sitting to make sure that you are as comfortable as possible, unless I want to make you uncomfortable. Then if I want to make you uncomfortable for whatever reason, well, I do a whole bunch of other behaviors. I mean, one that I might do that you probably don't want to do, but people do it often by accident is encroach on somebody else's territory. Very easy in a modern world to understand what somebody else thinks their territory is, because just look where their mobile phone is. Just look where they've placed their mobile phone or their water bottle with in that area is their territory. If you want to annoy them, start gesturing and start gesturing over their mobile phone. If you want to really annoy them, tap with loudly close to their mobile phone. Yeah, you'll start to see some of the might grab their phone and bring it further into their territory and protect it more. Some of you them you might start to see the top lip tightness. They show anger because they don't want you in that territory. Now look, I don't know why you'd want to ever do that. Okay, but you wouldn't want to do that by accident. And continually, I see people do that by accident. You know, they get excited, they get excited by their pitch by their idea, they start gesturing out, they're moving into other people's territory and they can't quite work out. Why did I get such a bad result of that communication? Why did they ask me such aggressive questions? It's because you accidentally were being territorially aggressive. So the things you want to look at is, are you being height dominant? Or are you on the level with them? Are you taking up space to show that you have power and authority? Okay, but are you now taking up too much space and being territorially aggressive? Look, Louise, there's lots that we could talk about there. But let's move on to some other questions so everyone gets a bit of a chance. Brilliant advice. It's fantastic. I hope you're all crazy taking notes there. We are recording this. We'll share the recording. So there's a question that's come in from Marjorie. Marjorie Music. Hi there, Marjorie. If you'd like to unmute yourself, Marjorie, you can put the question to mark yourself. It's very interesting about being in long Zoom meetings. Yeah. Marjorie, unmute if you will and let me have your question. Let's bring Marjorie. Hi, Mark. Hey there. Hello, Louise. Nice to meet you both. Hi, Marjorie. Do go ahead. My question is about long Zoom meetings. I am in meetings a lot for work and people will talk on and on and I don't know how to make it look like I'm listening and interested for 45 minutes or an hour on a Zoom call. So I was just asking for suggestions about how to look like I'm paying attention and hearing what they're saying. Great. Great question, Marjorie. One of the things that you can do, Marjorie, is show your use of tools because the use of tools shows an engagement of the neocortex, the smart brain. We have a really smart brain. There's nothing on the planet that has as large a neocortex compared to our body mass as us human beings. I mean, whales have large brains, much bigger brain than us, but a whale is trying to move a whole bunch of muscle fibers, literally tons of muscle fibers. It doesn't have a super, super intelligent brain like ours and therefore the whale is never going to use a pen. I know it doesn't have hands. One of the reasons why it doesn't have a super big brain is it's never going to play Chopin as well. Even a monkey, never going to play Chopin, doesn't have the neocortex motor cortex to our level that can move the fingers in any way that could ever play the piano. So the moment we start picking up tools and using tools, it tells another human being that there is some neocortex engagement. There is intelligent engagement. Now, one of the things I can then do is show you that I'm taking notes. Now, I just unconsciously show you these things. And then I might put my head down. Now your brain knows that I'm writing. Now, am I writing or am I not writing? Well, you're never going to know. You're never going to know, but I'm now going to look like I'm engaged. Now, people might go, hang on, Mark. That's a bit unfair, though, because surely you're being a bit inauthentic and trying to con people that you're engaged when you're not. Look, some meetings are not very good. Some meetings are not very engaging. Some meetings you're showing up to and going, I have no idea why I'm here. But I think my pay packet or my contract relies on me looking like I'm paying attention. So there's all kinds of reasons for your benefit and other people's benefit that you would do inauthentic behaviors. And here's the other important thing. If you take a few notes, just a few notes, you might even trick yourself into being engaged. You might trick yourself into being engaged so well that you actually find that you actually are engaged. Because the moment you start writing down, here's what I think is interesting more important about what was said. Suddenly, information does become interesting and it does become important. So, you know, long answer there, Marjorie, but essentially, use tools if only to then get your head down and do something else that you think is more important, but keep people feeling that you're engaged in some way. You may even end up actually really engaged and surprisingly engaged. I hope that answers your question well enough there, Marjorie. Thank you so much, Marjorie. It turned out to really be a super question. So now I can see another question that has come up from Andrew. I did see Andrew here, Andrew Kay. Would you like to put the question yourself, Andrew, and join us? Yeah, thank you very much. Thanks for asking for my question. Time, Mark. I spend a lot of time working with people, delivering workshops face to face, and I can get a little bit overly concerned with a fleeting glimpse across a face or a changing posture that I'm prone to picking up micro gestures and making lots of conclusions from them. How important do you think micro gestures are? And if so, as a workshop facilitator, what would you say the top tells are that I maybe should be looking for from my audience of either engagement or disengagement, hopefully not put. Yeah, totally, totally. Okay, look, here's what I would be thinking about is anytime you see any body language, any behavior, whether it's micro or macro or anything, the first thing you do in your mind is go, oh, they're behaving. That's all. Try and stop the judgment of, oh, oh, I saw them, I saw anger, oh, oh, I saw disgust, oh, oh, oh, it's this, you don't know, you just don't know. What you do know is you have human beings and human beings will behave. So I may have, you know, sometimes I'm speaking to thousands of people and I'll look out and I'll see all kinds of stuff. I mean, there's so much going on. And I've just got to be going, okay, behavior, it's behavior, it's behavior. And I've got to go, what's my goal here? What is my goal? My goal is to get this information across. Okay, my goal is to help these people. Now, if I see a behavior, if I go, oh, behavior, and it's enough to trigger me into going, I would really want to investigate that behavior. I don't want to judge it. I want to go, what is it really? Then I would stop and I go, okay, so I'm just interested. How are we doing at the moment? What do you think? Give me your top takeaway so far, yeah? Okay, what do you think of the stats that I just showed here? Are you for them? Are you against them? Do you believe them? Do you not believe them? Because I want to see what happens in that person's face or what happens in their body language or what happens as a group. I want to see how engaged the group or how engaged or disengaged that individual is. But I want to know more for sure, so I now start an investigation around that. So the short answer to this, Andrew, is as somebody who has worked like you, has worked really hard to know what you're talking about and know how to best help people. To a certain extent, I've got to keep on going and not be knocked off course by the world's behavior. So I've got to stop judging that behavior. But if it gets enough, then I would want to investigate. Yeah, I'm still trying to not judge. I'm still trying to investigate to get to the truth of it to see whether I do need to change the way I'm going or the way I'm thinking or feeling. Andrew, give me some feedback on that. What do you think of what I've said there? How helpful is that? You're very astute in picking me as somebody who can be quite judgmental quite quickly. Because I'm pretty quick at picking up on the people that I think are really getting it and those that aren't. So that's been a really useful piece of just trying to spend that judgment with me or be curious not judgmental, the Ted Lasso stuff. I think I'm just showing interest and what's really going on here and trying to put the emphasis back on the people that are in the room. Because it's not just about me, it's about everybody else in there. It's a shared experience, isn't it? And trying to get them to take some responsibility and accountability for what's going on. And if it's not working, I can only change it if they tell me that it's not working. And if it is, I can go down the river that I'm about. So that's really useful. To go on LinkedIn later on, you never know. Yeah, totally. So look, I'm just using body language as a way of engaging more and getting to the truth more. But what do I really want? I want somebody to tell me with their mouth. I want the words. I want the words of I'm bored and the body language of I'm bored. Or I want the words of this is amazing, you know, and the body language of it. I don't just want one of those. I want to use body language as an entry point into a bigger, more engaged conversation. Thanks for that question, Andrew. I hope that was useful for everybody else as well. What else have we got there, Louis? Thanks. So one question that I particularly like is from Jutta. Now, let's see, is Jutta still with us before I choose that as a question? Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me? You are here. Hey, Jutta. So let's just find Jutta. And Jutta's question. Yep. Jutta, if you would like to put your question to Mark, very interesting whether we all have this skill of reading body language. Yeah, hi. I'm not sure if you can hear me. I can. You can. Yeah, excellent. Yeah, hello greetings from Finland. Yeah, thanks for having me here. Yeah, I was wondering, am I a great fan of yours in watching the behavior panel? Fantastic. And I have your mug as well. I can see you have one there. Yeah, I'm wondering because I'm very interested in body language and detecting all the signals from other people. And I can see that there's some other people who are, they're born with the reading skills and they can detect all the subtle little signals and all the little micro expressions and everything. And then there's me who finds it hard. So I was wondering if it's possible for everybody to learn or do we just have to accept that some people are better in it? Look, first thing is everything can be learned. Everything can be learned. And even if you think, well, no, I don't think you can learn this or learn that. I refuse to live in that world. I absolutely refuse to live in a world where there are things that cannot be learned because that limits me. And I will not be limited by other people's ideas of who I can be and what I can do. So number one, and people can disagree with me. No, no, you can't learn to do this. I refuse that. I absolutely refuse that. I'm not even entering into that conversation. It's boring. It's tedious to live in a world where, where things can't be gained and learned through the work of just investigating and getting, you know, whether it's through books, whether it's through videos, however you best take in that information, it is open to you and you can learn now. There are, there are people where nonverbal information has been more valuable to them. And so they've learned. They've been around people where nonverbal information was more valuable. And so they've picked up on that. They've been around mentors and parents and leaders of some sort. You know, it's not that you don't have that ability. There could be some neurology involved. They absolutely could. But we often find the neurology involved in, hey, I don't pick up nonverbal signals very well is actually that you pick up nonverbal signals extremely well. And therefore there is an overwhelm and therefore you kind of close off to that purposely so that there isn't this overwhelm. So often we think about, you know, the people with the neurology where we say, well, they don't really pick up nonverbal signals very well. It's the exact opposite in in many, many, many cases. So look, the key for me is what does nonverbal information do for you? Does it irritate you? Does it make you very emotional? Does it inform you and help you? Like, how, how, how do you respond to that? And do you find that you're closing off to it or you're opening up to it more? And what could you investigate? What education could you get? What training could you get in order to be more comfortable with nonverbal information to to accept it even more or even to be able to what I call thin slice it, which is to go, what do I really want to pay attention to? What's most useful in any one situation for me to pay attention to? So I'm not overwhelmed by it. Often it's not about learning about nonverbal communication. It's about learning the strategies to better take it in and use it. We all have at least if you're alive right now, you all are right now. If you're alive right now, you are excellent with nonverbal communication, simply because I know you haven't been run over by a vehicle because you're alive. Yeah. And vehicles move in a nonverbal way. They don't they don't tell us they're coming at speed. Okay, we nonverbally find out they're coming at speed. And we're either optimists or pessimists about that. And we either step back from the curb and not get hit. Or we misjudge it. We misjudge it for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes our nonverbal skill wasn't that great. And we get knocked out of the gene pool because of that. If you are alive today, it's because your ancestors were excellent at nonverbal skills. And you have inherited that excellence at nonverbal skill. So keep on, keep on, keep on learning, keep on learning. Thanks. There we are, Jutta. You are an expert. You just didn't quite know it yet. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm going to bring in now Ben, who claims to be a bit of a super fan. Really? So, Ben, if I could ask you to unmute yourself and join us. Yes. Welcome, Ben. Good morning, Mr. Bowden. Sorry, I'm really nervous, even over a Zoom call, believe it or not. Take your time, Ben. Don't worry, you are with friends. My question is, I'm kind of new to the whole body language thing. I've been following you guys on the behavior panel. I got winning body language and truth and lies, as well as a few other books from you all. My question is, it's easy to do on Zoom, but in person, when you're trying to get used to spotting these behaviors, how much eye contact can you get away with without looking like a complete nut or creeper? Without looking like a psychopath, doing a romance or business. Okay, look, you've got to mediate between being social and investigating people. If I start to investigate you, Ben, or interrogate you, ultimately, because we haven't made that arrangement, I'm doing an antisocial behavior, and your brain will pick up on that. Now, if I say, hey, Ben, every time you meet me, what will happen is I will be monitoring you. It's just the way I am and what I do. I will be monitoring you. I will be investigating you. I will be asking you hard questions to get to the truth of who you are and what you're doing. So if you don't want that, you should not get into an interaction with me. Now, at least we made a social deal. I told you how I'm going to behave. It's now up to you. Do you want to engage with me or not engage with me? But out there in the real social world where we're trying to get on with people, make deals with them, make lifelong relationships with them, we didn't make that deal with them up front that I will be monitoring you. So now you've got to work out how desperate are you to read people's body language? What is up? What is up that means you want to know without saying to them, hey, I want to know what's going on with you right now. I want to know, like, are you telling me the truth or are you lying to me right now? Why won't you ask that question? Okay, I think whenever you get in a situation where you're going, will they be able to tell that I'm checking them out and monitoring them and it's like, why are you doing that? What's up? What's going on? Like, why just be there with them. Just be there with them and see what happens. Okay. And if you're getting this sense of like, there's a problem here, like, there's summing up. Okay, well, you know, use your skills that you have to try and work out what's going on. But use those skills more towards asking them, finding out, finding out saying like, okay, how are you feeling right now? Like, what's going on? Like, tell me that again. Yeah, tell me that again, because I don't quite understand. I'm worried about what you're saying right now. Be more honest with them and they may be honest with you. And if you're in a situation where you're going, but I don't think I can be honest with them, well, either that's true or false or something in between. Okay. And that could be about your sense of risk. Yeah. Or just stop being around people like that. It's not helpful. Stop being around people that you innately feel or consciously feel cannot be trusted. A lot of clients come to me and they go, I have a real problem. You know, talking this, this person, it's like, we'll stop it then. Don't like, don't do it. Like, we can all save. I can save time and you'll save so much money right now. If you could say to me, oh, you know, but there are real problem in the meeting. Don't invite them. Don't invite them. Don't invite them. Thanks, Ben. Brilliant, brilliant question. Thank you. So I'm going to come back to everybody's questions in a minute. But from that advice that you've just been giving us, Mark, there's a very fine line, I think, that all of us tread and it's the JBY, just be yourself. Yes. But at the same time, we want to know that we are learning skills from people and then trying to incorporate them into our own behavior. So what's your sort of call on that being natural, but still using things like, oh, shall I try this? Or I don't usually put my hands here, but Mark says I should do this and it doesn't feel right. So it's kind of difficult, isn't it, putting your learnings but looking natural. Look, here's what I'd say about it. Everybody here today watching this, listening to this, you are perfectly built for where you are right now. That's why you are there right now. You're sitting there right now, thinking the things that you're doing, living the life that you're living because you are perfectly built for this. I probably won't move from this seat today and I'll be fine. And people will say, well, you should go for a walk and I'll go, yeah, yeah, I should, but actually I'm feeling very, very comfortable where I am right now. And so if left to my own devices, I will stay here all day, speaking to people like you, working on this computer, and everything will be fine until it's not. And when it's not fine or I go, I want more or I want less of that. That isn't good. I don't like that and I want more of this. If I don't already have it, it's because I'm not doing the behaviors to get it. I'm not doing, yes, being me is great. Being me has got me all this. Okay. But when I need different or more or less, I have to think about, do I need to do different or more or less of certain behaviors? I would say as a behaviorist, yeah, you do. Yes, you need to think a different way, but thinking, thinking doesn't win you the game of chess. You have to move the pieces. Okay. You have to get somebody else to move the pieces for you. Okay. The physical world has to know, as one mentor of mine said, Mark, you have to ask in your out loud voice. They are not mind readers. You've got to ask it in your out loud voice so they're here and there is risk to that. There is risk to using the out loud voice and there is risk to people seeing your behaviors because they might say, I don't like it or you can't have that. Yeah, or you're not good enough. They might have a judgment about you when they see these behaviors. So look, you're perfect as you are for where you are right now, but have you noticed that some of where you are right now, you did make changes. You did go, you know what, I got to step out of my comfort. I've got to step out of what's comfortable for me. I've got to almost step out of me, yeah, into a world of discomfort to move to a different place to get something that I want more of or less of or to help those other people. It's going to be uncomfortable for me. So look, be yourself. You're perfect unless you're feeling, I want more or less or something else or something for somebody else. And then I'd say choose your behaviors to get the results that you want to need around that. Hope that's helpful, Louise. Yes, fabulous. Now there have been several comments which have been talking about masculine and female movements. I don't know how well you're going to answer this question, but I would love to bring in Janet, if you wouldn't mind joining us, Janet. You've put a very interesting question. So if you would unmute yourself there and pop your question to Mark. Hi, Janet. Yeah, this is a little awkward, but I've never seen it addressed before, and I would really like to know what to do. So a lot of times when I'm in business, I'm a more technical person. So talking technical or talking to even executives, I don't care who they are, I'm engaged in the problem. But a lot of times in conversation circles, either in the hallway or after a meeting, say, I'll be in the circle with men and chatting with them. And I think everything's going fine, but then some man will step into my space and use the old arm brush. Oh yeah. And I don't know how to respond to that. I mean, I'm instantly put off. I don't want people copying a feel in public right in front of everybody else. But if I do this, I slouch and I look defensive. And if I step away, I get edged out of the circle. How do you win the space wars when you've got boobs? Yeah, exactly. If you can answer that question Mark. So let me tell you a biological difference between male and female. Okay, between males and females is I will win the bet on this is that if I take 100 males and 100 females, the 100 males, okay, are more likely to have testes. And the females are more likely to have ovaries. I know that, you know, I might lose on the individual, but on aggregate, I'm going to win that bet on male and female, not on masculine and feminine. Okay, but on male and female, I win that bet because I win that bet. I win that bet on who will out of those in that group of 100 who will have as a group the highest levels of testosterone and the highest levels of estrogen. If I take one male against one female, I may lose the bet. But on 100 males and 100 females, I win the bet that the males have higher levels of testosterone than the females. Now what does testosterone do? I mean, it'll make the vocal cords more flaccid, it'll grow bone structure. It'll also reduce for the brain the idea of risk. A male is less likely to see risk than a female, not individual, not individual. Okay, but as a group. And as a group, if you get males together, the testosterone, which is going to be on aggregate higher, I win the bet in the casino. If I swab people's mouths for where the highest amount of testosterone is, that is exchanged in the air. Okay, so look, if you want your team to win, okay, and you've got a male team or a female team or a mixed team, you find one individual who has high levels of testosterone and you put them in the changing room. Okay, the testosterone gets into the air, other people pick it up and they de-risk, they go, I don't think there's much risk out there in the world. So think about this group of males. Yeah, they think there's less risk. Their idea of space is not necessarily your idea of space or a group of females idea of space when the testosterone is lower. So how do you play against that? Because there is a tangible biological difference there and that makes a tangible difference to how the neurons are working. Okay, you, I would say, you want to take up more space. Okay, and you want to take up more space with your arms and your hands. Okay, here's how I do it. Okay, if I was standing in that group and I'm talking, I'm going to put my hands as I talk into what I call second circle, which means no part of my arm is touching another part of my body. Here's first circle. I'm talking to you now and I'm in first circle. You can see my elbows have come in. This means I don't see risk in the world because I've exposed these vulnerable areas of my body. Okay, what I'm going to notice, I might even move forward as I'm talking because I don't see so much risk to taking up people's space. Yeah, I'm going to de-risk it slightly because I'm going to blade in. Yeah, the males are not going to like it if you confront them front of body to front of body too much risk now, too much risk. But if I blade in to the side and I'm using up space, here's what's going to happen. They're going to start giving me more space. Yeah, now I might find that I'm part of that group and people are there's this kind of dance of space going on. But here's the thing, if everybody is feeling less risk, yeah, I'm not going to fit in if I'm feeling risk. Now look, there's no bad behavior. There's just results that you wanted or didn't want. That's all. Yeah, that's all. So I'm not going to say, hey, they're bad for feeling no risk. That's their neurology. That's testosterone. Listen, my son, his levels of testosterone are massive at the moment because he's a teenager. If I had that amount of testosterone, I would be ripping this place apart right now. I wouldn't be able to control myself. Yeah, his levels are so high right now. Okay, that's what it does. It does stuff to people that they cannot control. He doesn't know where the end of his hand is. His brain, he is growing neurons in his body as his bones lengthen very, very quickly. He's growing neurons in his musculature at a faster rate than his brain can, okay, often because he's not getting enough sleep. Okay, so the brain can't grow them really quick. So he has no idea where the end of his hands are. So I can't blame him if I'm going, look, man, you're taking up too much space. Stop knocking over that glass. It's like, that's the way his neurology is right now. Anyway, look, I hope that makes sense and I hope that's something you can do something physically. Thank you very much, Janet. That is great. So I know I've personally asked you a question you wouldn't have known it was from me at the time, but it was the conversation about poker players giving away things with their hands and they don't actually realize. And along this line, now, Roberto, are you still with us? I'd love you to ask your questions to Mark. Yes, I am. Hi, Roberto, you're very welcome. So good to see you. Good to see you as well. And now I was just wondering, I hear the term poker face, and I guess that there are people who train themselves because obviously there's a war behind his high, so they depend on it. But is there such thing that people can really control? I mean, if it's not the face, it will be any other signal because there will be someone else sitting at the other end that will know how to read the cues from other poker players, right? Yeah, okay. So look, there are some people out there with a very specific neurology that would display something we call flat effect, which is there isn't much happens in the face. That's not because they're emotionless. Often they are actually full of feelings, but have learned that if they, if those are communicated too much or all at once, the results they get are not good. Okay, so they have, they've created a flat effect, nothing happens in the face in order to manage, manage that. There's many reasons why that might happen. There are people who try and create that flat effect, that poker face, because they realize that if they give away too much information, they don't get the result that they're wanting. Now, in both of those cases, unless it's a case of, you know, there are, there are some examples of people having different muscle, musculature in the face or different neurology in the actual face that means that some muscles don't move. All of us have around about 52 muscles in the face, give or take a few, depending on how you want to classify them, and give or take that some of us don't have some of the muscles, because there's a lot of muscles there. And it means that, you know, in some people, they don't have all the muscles. So it's not that they don't have the feeling, they don't have the specific muscle in order to, for it to move in order to display that universal feeling. And some people try and learn the flat effect for certain results. Now, under stress and pressure, though, we can often get those people to break that flat effect in order to, unless the neurology is there, or unless they have really been, let's just say, punished by the world enough to say, the punishment of me showing this feeling, like you can't punish me, you can't put me under enough stress and pressure that I would never that I would ever show that that feeling. Okay, so that may that may happen. Okay, that there is there's and that that we might call trauma. Okay, that they're traumatized. And and we can't legally traumatize them at any level that they would ever show that feeling. For most others, you can try and create that flat effect. But I can very quickly put you without you even knowing under enough stress and pressure, that that you'll start your poker face will will drop, essentially, if we if we call it that. But when it comes to poker, by the way, here's what I'd say. First of all, work out the math. Like you will you will lose you can be the best body language expert in the world, you're still going to lose the mathematics win in poker. If you don't know the odds, if you don't know, if you don't know the mathematics of it, you will lose the body language is only useful once everybody's playing the same level of mathematical game. And you know the power of your hand, but you don't know the power of their hand statistically. Yeah, or you statistically know yours and you statistically know theirs. And now you're looking for the advantage. That's where body language comes in. That's when it comes in until that point. Get you like, you'll lose if you don't understand your own hand. So it's the same when you get into a conversation with somebody. Go bother reading the body language until you understand the power that you have and the power that they have. Like why are you even in that conversation? What power do you have? What power do they have? And then once you've worked out that, then go. So what advantage do I or do I not need in this situation? Hope that's useful for you. Thank you so much, Roberto. Now probably lead sounds like it might lead on from what you were just saying about having a conversation. Eric Zimit is with us. Eric, good friend of 42 courses. Can I ask you to unmute yourself, Eric, and join us to ask your question. Eric. Hey, how you doing? Good. I had a couple questions that I put in the chat. The first one was, sort of already answered a little bit, but I've studied micro expressions a little bit from Paul Ekman. Yeah. Always been interested in that. How big of a part, again, you already kind of answered this, but do micro expressions play in the whole body language? Is it part of it or is it a whole sort of separate area of study? Yeah, absolutely part of it. I would break things into what I would call the gross body is doing, the bigger body. How is it moving in the space? Where is somebody's center of gravity? What are their shoulders doing? Which way are they intending or moving? But I want to know that first of all. First thing I'm looking for is, where's your center of gravity? I don't care where your head's turned. Wherever your center of gravity is, that's where your head's going to end up. You may end over here, but if the center of gravity is going that way, you're going that way. Then I want to go, how is the gross body fitting into the space? We are a result of our environment. You can think what you like, but if the water wants to take you, you're going with the water. Yeah, you better be a good swimmer, because if the water wants to take you, think what you like. You're going with the water. So I want to know, what's happening in the environment? How is the human being dealing with gravity, the center of gravity? Now I'm going like, what are they doing with their tools? We've got this smart brain here primarily, first of all, so we can use tools. So what tools do they have? What are they doing with their hands? Whereabouts are those right now? We'll look at that context and I'll gradually work my way. Then maybe they're going, okay, so is there something happening fleeting in their face that may give me more information? But look at it this way, Eric. If I've gone through all of that process, the results must be pretty valuable. I'm not going to do this just for a laugh, just because I've got nothing else to do. If I've got nothing else to do that, I better find something better to do. If I'm doing that with there is no valuable result there, but listen, you can do it for your own pleasure. It's like, I love to look at people. I love, love is a valuable thing. I love learning about this. So I love looking at people. Love it. Great, do that. But doing it because, I'm super worried about that person that's threatening to me. Okay, valuable, valuable. But just because you've got nothing else to do, like find something else to do. My wife hates it when I do that. When I try to read her face, she hates it. Right. Well, I mean, you give me some feedback. Why do you like to read her face? Well, I guess it's just familiarity and just being around her more than maybe other people. But so it's a little practice, I guess, other than, you know, his book, Paul Ekman's books and things like that. I've studied the micro expressions, never got outside of that sphere into the body language. I always just kind of stayed in the micro expression space, which I look incredibly interesting. And there's nothing wrong with that. Because one of the things we do, I would say that I try to do as, you know, an expert in that, you know, so, which is just, you know, somebody who's obsessed with it and, and has found a way to, that it's valuable and valuable to other people is I'm, I've got a whole bunch of behaviors that I could choose to look at and elements that I could choose to look at. But what I do is go is narrow it down really quickly. So I might narrow it down to go, you know what, I'm just going to look for micro expressions because that's my best bet right now. That for me is around expertise or mastery of something is when you know a lot, but you start to choose as to exactly what you apply and why you apply that. So there's knowing everything and applying everything all at once, disaster. Like dogs, they're going to be a mess. So I don't, I don't, I'm not worried if you go, hey, I just want to concentrate on micro expressions. Great. Fantastic. Because it's a, it's a great way of purposely narrowing yourself down. Now you'll miss a whole bunch of stuff, but it may not matter. It may not matter. You may get a better result than somebody who was looking at everything because their brain was overwhelmed by it. Eric, I hope that, that answers your question there. Absolutely. Thanks for joining us. Well, unfortunately, we're coming to the end of the session. I've never felt an hour ago so quickly. It's been fantastic learning so much from you, Mark. And I hope that everybody who joined us has taken away a good number of tips. So just to remind all of you that we want you to go to LinkedIn. We want you to share your biggest takeaway from this session. Tag us at 42 courses and some lucky winner will win access to the new course that we have written at 42 courses, Body Language for Business with Mark. We're very excited. The official launch is next week and you'll get access to that course. And you can find Mark on now. How many different places, Mark? You'll find me everywhere. YouTube, The Behavior Panel on LinkedIn himself, Mark Bowden. Twitter, you'll remind us of your handle on Twitter. At Truth Plane. You'll find me by looking at the Truth Plane on Twitter. And it's been an absolute honor to be able to pick your brains, especially as you say, this isn't something that you do very often. So we're truly honored to have been able to take these learnings from you today, Mark. So thank you. I see Chris wants to jump in here. So Chris, I will just, I was going to say, I would like to bring Chris in just before we wrap up. So Chris, if you'd like to join us, I'll just spot like you. Thanks so, so much. Mark, thank you so much for listening to you. It's like, it's like getting sort of a shot of happiness and sunshine through the computer screen. So thank you. Whenever I have a chat with you, I always leave a happier, healthier person. So thanks so much for sharing your time. I just wanted to ask you something that was a bit sort of maybe a bit more lighthearted, which is sort of what, what sort of the most memorable body language moment you've ever seen in public or, you know, whether this is something maybe you've, you've analyzed on, on the behavior panel or just you've come across in real life. Let me tell you this one. I tell you this one, because it, I always remember this because it shows you how vulnerable power is. Is, is I was working with a prime minister who will remain nameless. And I said to this prime minister, I said, look, when you're in parliament and I want you to, you know, I want you to open up, I want you to gesture really big, really wide, open out your jacket as well. Okay. So we can get, so we're getting, you're getting, you know, taking up more space, you know, and, and he had the power. This wasn't somebody trying to be prime minister. This is a prime minister of a G seven country. And he said to me, he said, I don't want to do that because they make fun of my weight. They make fun of, of my body. Yeah. And, and he was utterly sincere about it, utterly sincere about it, that he didn't want to, and this is somebody running a country with like, you know, nuclear weapons and stuff. Okay. And he's worried about, and parliaments, as you well know, are brutal, brutal, whether you're, whether you're male or female, especially if you're female, they are brutal, and he said, no, I don't want to do that. And I, and I said to him, I totally understand it, I totally understand it. Parliament is, is, is brutal. I said, but you are, you are prime minister. Yeah. And yeah, you're a big lad, but you're going to, you're going to let people see that. He went, okay, okay. And they did, they did make fun of it. I mean, they did, they did make fun, they did make fun of it. But you know, it's always stuck in my mind, because we are, it doesn't matter where we are, we are all concerned with what this body is doing and what other bodies are doing. And we, and it doesn't matter who you are, you are concerned about how other people judge you. Yeah. And again, I'll just say it again, you know, there's no bad behaviors, there's just results that you wanted or didn't want. And if you're not getting the results that you want, think about what behaviors you could, you could use. And there's some things you just can't change quick enough. They're just you. And, you know, you just got to front it out, haven't you, and walk into the, the pressure and walk into the stress of that people will judge you and some of them will be nasty. It's just, it's just the way it is. Anyway, we're all human. We're all human. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mark. Thanks, Chris. Thanks. Everybody who joined us and do join us again for another 42 courses event and see you all soon. Bye now. Oh, thank you. Thanks for all the time. Fantastic to see you.