 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. Out of the comfort zone, it's a beautiful Tuesday afternoon and I'm your host, RB Kelly. Now today we'll be talking all about people problems and how you can solve them, but I want to start by sharing with you our Book of the Week. Now this is the like switch. It's one of my favorite books. It has a spot of honor on my bookshelf and it's something I recommend to almost all of my clients. So the like switch, I'll just read a clip from the back. As Special Agent for the FBI's National Security Division's Behavioral Analysis Program, Dr. Jack Schaefer developed dynamic and breakthrough strategies for profiling terrorists, recruiting spies, and detecting deception. So this book is something you can use to start building a relationship with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Something you can use to be more certain if someone's hiding something or lying to you. And it's also something you can use to get that first-class seat upgrade when you're flying to and from Hawaii. So I'm also pleased to have with us the author of the like switch, one of my personal heroes who I've been so excited to have on the show and he is here with us now. Please welcome Dr. Jack Schaefer. How are you? Good to be with you. I'm so excited you're here. So would you be willing to tell us a little bit more about how you got started being a behavioral analyst? You know, actually it goes back to when I was a young child, we used to go to the mall with my parents and I'd sit and just look at people and I was fascinated by people and it kind of grew from there. Just looking at people and then I got interested in body language and how people act and behave. So then I went and bought some books and I looked at some books and I gradually picked up from there until I became a behavioral analyst for the FBI and received formal training in psychology when I got a PhD. That's so cool. I am so excited you're here. I've been wanting to have you on the show forever and I'm so excited that when I reached out you just were so easy to work with and we made it happen. So in the book one of the favorite things that I have that you talk about is the friendship formula. And viewers, just so you know, this friendship formula is what I used to woo and win my husband. So Jack, would you be willing to kind of share more about what this friendship formula is and how people can use it? Yeah, the friendship formula is something that actually Joe Navarro and I came up with. He's a co-worker in the behavioral analysis unit. People used to come to us and ask them how do you recruit spies, how do you recruit informants, how do you make friends? So we sat down and we kind of thin sliced how people naturally make friends. And the first thing that you need is proximity. You have to be proximal to somebody, either virtual proximity or actual proximity. And one of the interesting things about proximity is if you're proximal to somebody and you don't even talk to them, if you just share that same space, people have a tendency to like you. There's a mutual liking that develops. And the next thing you need in the personal relationship formula is frequency. So if you're frequently with somebody, then there's a mutual attraction that grows. But it's not enough just to have frequency, you have to have duration. And the more time you spend with somebody, of course, the more time you've been influenced them. And then the last thing is intensity. These are all those nonverbals that you're talking about, mutual eye gaze. That's one of the most important features of the formula is when we have relationships with people, it's intensified by mutual gaze. We stare into one another's eyes for a longer period of time than normal, and that intensifies the relationship. And there's a leaning when people lean towards one another. It's another sign that there's intensity in the relationship. When people whisper, there's a sign of intensity in that relationship. When there's slight touching, there's the sign of intensity to the relationship. So there's a lot of these nonverbal indicators that let you know there's some intensity in the relationship. And that's how all relationships are formed. All of the relationships you had in the past, you're engaged in now or you're going to have in the future, is based on proximity, frequency, duration, and intensity. So you kind of can control your relationship. You don't know how to develop a relationship, follow the formula, because that's the way normal people develop relationships with one another. It's a natural way of developing relationships. And even at the time, I didn't realize that I was following the formula, but after I was happy with my husband and I found your book, I looked back and I was like, oh, I did this when I was trying to win him over. Oh, I did this. Oh, I did this. And it was so cool to be able to recognize that the formula had worked and that it was still working. But one thing you mentioned, you mentioned mutual eye gazing. So I kind of want to share my story with you, because growing up my parents thought I was slightly autistic, because I had such a hard time reading and interacting with people. I had a really hard time connecting to people. And so my parents started trying to teach me people skills. And so I got this body language book by, I think it was the definitive book on body language by Barbara and Alan Pease. And there was a section there about that eye contact that you mentioned, that mutual gazing. And it said that, yeah, there's a suggested range for eye contact, but even more important, you should make as much eye contact as comfortable. Now I didn't have the social norms to know how much eye contact was comfortable. So I read that as make as much eye contact as possible. And so using it as a high school to try and get a boyfriend, I would look at these boys and they would look at me and they would look away. And I would keep looking at them, just waiting for them to turn and see what magical eye contact we had. And you can imagine exactly how well that worked for me. You know, the key to that is if you, you know, there's three front signals that we send. The first one is the eyebrow flash. It's a long-term signal. When we approach one another, we quickly flash each other an eyebrow, quick up and down, moving the eyebrow. That's just signals to other people that we're not a threat. And that reciprocal eyebrow flash tells us that they're not a threat. And then the next thing you want to do is you want to tilt your head because when you tilt your head, that exposes your private artery, which is a very vulnerable part of your body. And that tells them I'm willing to expose a vulnerable part of my body because I trust you. And if you don't get this, if you have dogs or animals at home, and as soon as you come home and your dog greets you the door, the dog typically sits up and tilts its head. Or it rolls over and exposes its stomach. Those are the signals that your dog is sending you that I'm not a threat. And the last one is the smile. And if people smile at one another, it releases endorphins. So it makes them feel good about themselves. And the golden rule of friendship is if you want people to like you, you make them feel good about themselves. And that's one way to make people feel good about themselves is to issue a nice smile. So now what do we do if we have the eyebrow flash, we have the head tilt, we have the smile? Now how do we increase mutual gaze, especially when we first meet somebody we can't stare at them, that's not appropriate. So what you want to do is look the person in the eye, tilt your head, smile, and then you want to move your head away but maintain eye contact. So that's automatically going to increase the intensity and the length of the mutual gaze and that will increase the intensity in that relationship. So that combination of those four things predisposes people to like you before you even open your mouth. That is really cool. I want to practice that on the camera so our viewers can see this. So alright, I look, eyebrow flash, tilt my head, and wait, no I did it wrong. Okay, so look, eyebrow flash. Kind of like that, alright, keep looking but turn my head. Yeah, I call that like a cheesy eye call, like a cheese off the pizza, you know, please stretch it. So you can't stare at somebody because that's rude. So what you want to do is just turn your head because when you turn your head they're thinking the person's not staring at them because they're turning their head. But in fact you're maintaining eye contact and just stretching and that intensifies that relationship. It makes no person predisposed to like you. Alright, so how long do you hold the cheese on that? So it's like my eyes are stuck here, I'm stretching away. How long do I hold that eye contact? Yeah, you have to practice that a bit because if you hold the eye contact too long it's staring. Yeah, and it's weird. Yeah, you can practice. I used to practice in the beginning, I'd walk down the street and pass somebody and I'd give them an eyebrow flash, I'd tell them to smile and do the cheesy eye call and then of course when they passed me I'd turn around and if they gave me a creepy look then I know I did it wrong. And if they gave me a smile when I turn back, that means I've done it right because they do feel good about themselves and they turn around to see what I was up to. You see that in the movies. Yeah, you do, don't you? Do you ever use chin nons? Oh yeah, that's the other friend signal. Guys typically do that because when we see each other in the morning we go hi, how you doing? And we get a response saying hi, how you doing? But if you see that same person later on in the day, you don't have to say hi, how you doing? You give them an eyebrow flash and guys typically will do the chin thing. And that's a friend signal, guys typically use for one another to say I'm not a threat. And the reciprocal pin jutting says I'm not a threat either. So we're constantly going through life telling each other we're not a threat or when we sense danger we don't see friend signals from people. Right. So that is the difference. If you wouldn't signal back or reciprocate a friend signal, you'd get a creepy feeling. And this is what happens to a lot of students who go out for their first job interview. It's a scary thing. And they're in the fight flight mode. So they're wearing what I call the urban style. Yeah, the eyes are furl, your feet are showing, and you're giving them that cold like a stare. And that lets the predators know stay away from me. So the problem you have is when you're in the fight flight response you have a little anxiety going into a job interview. To send friend signals. And your boss says, Jesus, the kid has a great resume. You know, the applicant has, you know, got all the things we're looking for, but I just really don't like that person. I just don't know why. Well, I can tell you why. It's because they're not sending those friend signals. And I'll tell you an interesting story and path into me. I grew up in the south side of Chicago. It's kind of a rough neighborhood. And I met my wife out in the suburbs. And I'd walk around the city of Chicago with that urban scowl to tell the predators back off, stay away from me. And so she lived in the suburbs. I went out to the suburbs and all her friends said, my, he seems like a mean person. I don't want to talk to him. He's going to chop my head off. And that's because I failed to realize I took that urban scowl into an environment where people don't use urban scows typically. It's suburbs, a different environment. Do you have to be conscious of when to send signals and how to send signals into whom? That is so cool. I remember the first time I went to a really big city, like I grew up in a little small town. But I went to, I think I went to Louisville, went to Louisville. And it was this huge city, like more people than I'd ever thought of. And I was like, I went out that morning like super cheerful. I'm so happy to be here. I was smiling. I was making eye contact. And people just kept coming up to talk to me. And maybe they wanted me to feed them. Maybe they wanted, like, they just kept like, it felt like they were swarming me. And so by the time I was on my way home, I was like exhausted and frustrated. And I had that urban scowl on as I walked home and nobody bothered me. That's right. So if you get a lot, you can practice with panhandlers because what they do is they're always coming up, looking for the person that's going to give them money or more likely to give them money. So if you give them an urban scowl and don't look at them, they're not going to pick you to ask money for. They're going to pick somebody who smiles, who looks at them, who tilts their head, and that's the soft touch. So they're more likely to go to that person. So you can use it in many, you know, instances in life. You know, the thing that I like to tell people is how many times have we gone to a complaint desk to return something to a store? You know, that clerk has seen mean people come up and all we can think about is yelling at them because we don't like the product. We don't like this. We're demanding service for this. That person's pretty fed up with urban scowls and people getting yelled at them. So what I typically do, I walk up, I smile, tilt my head, and I blot flash them, and I use something to what I call an empathic statement. I say, must have had a pretty tough day. You look tired. And so what you're telling that person by mirroring back to them, all an empathic statement is, is you're mirroring back to them what they say, what they feel, or their emotional status. And so typically people will complain best if they're tired. So you'd say, wow, it looks like you had a rough day. They're like, yeah, you wouldn't believe all the people coming in and yelling at me. So wow, that must be tough people yelling at you. That's another empathic statement. So what are you doing now? You're sending friend signals. You're putting the focus on that other person. And they're going to be predisposed to help you out because that, that again, associates with the Golden Rule of Friendship. If you want people to like you, you make them feel good about themselves. So if I make you feel good about you, you're more likely to come see me again without me even asking. And you'll take on an excuse to come see me just to get that same good feeling again. So you can use that empathic statement in many ways to, you know, build friendships. So I typically go to a complaint desk and, you know, use a friendship or use the friend signals and then use an empathic statement. And people are predisposed to like you. And you know what the irony is? If you put them first and they like you, people have a tendency to want to help you. That's the irony. So you don't put the focus on you. You put the focus on the other person. And they would want to help you. And that's how I get a lot of upgrades on airlines. I just be friendly using empathic statements and they offer me upgrades. I don't ask for them. They just offer us, well, okay, I'll take an upgrade and I get upgraded all the time. So you can use these things to practice. I'm not saying go out, take advantage of people, but you can certainly go out and practice these techniques because there's nothing magical about these techniques because these are the things that people do normally when we make friends and what we should be doing when we have friendships. We should put the other person first and what stops us from doing it. And that technique, by the way, works 100% of the time. If I make the other person feel good about themselves, they're gonna like me. 100% of the time. It's so easy to do, but the reason we don't do that is ego as we think the whole world revolves around us. That's a good point. And I tell people they're wrong. The world doesn't revolve around them. It revolves around me. That's a good thing. Alright, so we have to take just a tiny break. We'll be right back in just a minute, but stay tuned because he's got more to say and I don't know about you, but I want to hear it. We'll see you in a minute. But with the power of breakfast, the kids in your neighborhood can think big and be more. When we're not hungry for breakfast, we're hungry for more. More ideas. More dreams. More fun. When kids aren't hungry for breakfast, they can be hungry for more. Go to hungeris.org and lend your time or your voice to make breakfast happen for kids in your neighborhood. My name is Stephanie Mock and I'm one of three hosts of Think Tech Hawai'i's Hawai'i Food and Farmer series. Our other hosts are Matt Johnson and Pomai Weigert and we talk to those who are in the fields and behind the scenes of our local food system. We talk to farmers, chefs, restaurateurs and more to learn more about what goes into sustainable agriculture here in Hawai'i. We are on at Thursdays at 4 p.m. and we hope we'll see you next time. Welcome back to Out of the Comfort Zone. I'm your host, Arby Kelly. It's a lovely Tuesday afternoon and we are here with expert and really cool guy, Dr. Jack Schaefer, behavior analyst or ex-behavior analyst for the FBI and now a professor at Western Illinois University. When we left, he was telling us all about empathic statements which is what you can use to make people feel special, really connect with them, make them feel seen and heard and sometimes even get them to do nice things for you. Jack, would you be able to tell us a little bit more about that? Well, the empathic statement, we don't use them naturally so there's a basic formula and that is so you and if you started when you're first beginning to use empathic statements you want to say so you and that just keeps to focus off yourself and onto the other person because as soon as you say I know how you feel, the first thing you're thinking is no you don't because you're not me. Nobody knows how I feel. That's right, so what I can say, you know and I do this when I go up from class to class I'll get on the elevator and there's a student that's smiling and happy as well. Everything's going well for you today and they go like yeah I just passed a hard test and I studied real hard, so and then I do another one, so you studied hard and it paid off. Yes, you wouldn't believe how that paid off and they just go on and on and that's how the technique that shy people can use when they meet somebody and you know how you lose conversation and you don't know what to say when you first meet somebody all you do is take what they said, the last thing they said turn it into an empathic statement and mirror it back to them they'll add something to that and take whatever they added make it another empathic statement and put it back on them and they're going to be thrilled because you gave them the attention the whole time and you didn't really say a lot and I'll tell you a story that happened to me on the airplane I was practicing and this lady next to me I said I'm just going to use nothing but empathic statements and so I did it for like 40 days about an hour flight and at the end of the hour flight and I said you're such a fascinating person I'm glad I met you and she said so are you wait a minute I don't even know your name I don't know anything about you so people don't know you're using empathic statements why because people think you they should be getting that kind of attention and if we don't get it it's a thrill to have somebody actually listen to you and that really develops a good relationship you know and I think this is something I think also Chris Voss talks a little bit about in his book never split the difference it's not as frustrating as if your life depends on it and he talks about using this in when you're trying to make someone calm down or feel better you kind of sum up how they're feeling is that something you do too yeah there's something I call the anger cycle if you meet somebody that's angry the first thing you want to do is they're not thinking when people are angry they're not thinking physiologically that's why it stops people from reasoning so what you want to do is let them vent so if somebody comes up to me and they're angry because they got a bad grade and I'll say oh you're angry because you got a bad grade and then they're going to vent again and then I'll say oh you studied hard and you still got a bad grade and they'll say yes I did and then they'll vent and eventually when they're done venting their shoulders drop and the head goes and you see the exhaustion because the thing about the last time you were angry and somebody listened to you you felt good at the end and you said I'm done as soon as you see that then you insert something called the presumptive statement that is a course of action you want the person to take and they have a very difficult time not accepting that course of action that is really cool so can you give us a couple examples of that presumptive statement I can select my wife I go away two weeks on TDY she's left home with the toddlers back in the day and of course she's doing double duty so when I get home I expect a nice warm hug and a kiss hi honey I'm home but that's not what I get I get like while you're away partying while you're away having fun I'm pulling double duty here and she's yelling at me you were overwhelmed with work while I was gone that's an empathic statement that kind of reflects how she's feeling and she goes yeah it is and in addition to that I wasn't able to go out with my girlfriends on Wednesday nights like I normally do to speak to normal people and go out and talk to adults and you're always babysitting well I couldn't go out and see my friends empathic statement is so you miss going out with your friends so she vents again and then you see this I'm done venting and then I say to her well why don't you go upstairs and take a nice warm bubble bath or something I'll grab the kids we'll take them over to my mom's house and we'll go out and have a very nice dinner because you deserve it and what did she do what are you going to say no that is so cool maybe it's possible if she could say no but what do I say then she'll say wait a minute Mr you're not getting off that easy so you go right back into the anger cycle and you say oh so you think you deserve a little bit more for the trouble that you went through that is how about a spa day or how about doing something and that will you know people vent the anger and then you direct them of course in action they want to go then you get them to that venting because they studied and did this and that and they'll think well why don't you come to my office once a week and we'll go over the material how are they going to say no because you're helping them get what they really want and not only do they feel heard and cared about but now you're offering them a solution that is something that can get them closer to what they want yeah many people can use this a lot and I get a lot of feedback when I teach either husbands or wives they're breaking this anger cycle they'll come back to me and say like my gosh this works it saved me a whole night of anguish it does after reading your book and Chris Foss's book this changed not only how I dealt with customers and customer service but also how I dealt with my husband and I remember the first time I realized I had really mastered this was when he went from being frustrated and angry and all this movement to I started using those statements and he'd vent and then he'd vent and then he'd vent and then he was done and I hadn't had to make any promises I hadn't had to actually do anything he just felt heard and I gave him a next step to help and feel cared for and it was done like easiest argument ever so that is really cool and I absolutely 100% recommend viewers if you haven't gotten this book check it out if you go to thelikeswitch.com you can get copies from Amazon you can get the podcast the audio book there is so much you can learn from this book and Jack we've only got like one or two minutes left is there anything else you'd really like to tell our audience that they need to know but what I like to do is tell people the material in the book is not magical it's what people should normally do when we meet one another and the thing is in today's tech world we spend so much time texting and emailing each other very seldom do we actually look at people and talk to people and acknowledge their existence so what are we doing we're losing those social skills and we're putting ourselves in a position where the things that we're best at are the nonverbals and we're putting ourselves in a position where we can't see the nonverbals and we're busy texting and emailing so we're putting ourselves in a bit of a disadvantage and I think this will help people either develop relationships, maintain relationships or make relationships stronger and that's what it's all about I think is at the end of the day you want to make someone feel better than they did before they met you that's 100% right Jack thank you so much for being a guest on the show it's been my long-term aspiration to have you here and I'm so happy you were here today thank you I'm glad to be here thank you viewers for watching please go ahead and share this with your friends because they also have situations where they need a little help solving those arguments, helping people to feel special and getting people on their side so next week I'm also excited we have another really cool guest like Jack Schaefer who's going to be so awesome so please do tune in and if you share this enough maybe Dr. Schaefer would come back on the show alright I'll see you next week bye