Reading minds through body language | Lynne Franklin

— Hi, I’m Lynne Franklin.
I have one question for you.
How would you like to be a mind reader?
— [Woman] Yes.
— ‘Cause part of me is thinking,
«I bet your mind’s thinking, ‘That’s not gonna happen.'»
Here’s the truth.
People’s brains process information, they think,
in three different ways.
And their body language will tell you all day long
what their primary style is.
You just need to know what to look for
and what to do when you see it.
And it’s not one of those where she’s leaning back,
her arms are crossed, she’s frowning,
so she must be unhappy.
It’s actually understanding how their brains work
and then presenting your information in a way
that people can see it, hear it, and feel it
and increase the chances that they’ll say yes
to whatever you’re proposing
and also decrease the chances
that you’ll do something stupid,
like this.
Back in my 20s before I knew any of this stuff,
I had a client who was a corporate controller,
and he would sit across from me in meetings
and he was always looking down
with the occasional glance up.
And I thought, «Okay, well he’s a numbers guy.
«He just feels comfortable looking at the numbers.»
And then as time went on I thought, «Well, you know,
«he’s just socially inept,
«and he doesn’t know how to give me eye contact.»
And finally, because I was young and stupid,
I thought, «Every time he’s looking up,
«he’s looking at my chest and I’m offended.»
And there was one point I actually in a meeting went,
«Excuse me, I’m up here.»
Ooh, yeah, talk about judgmental.
Here’s the scoop.
This guy’s brain worked in a way
that he was never gonna give me eye contact.
And no matter how many times
I modeled the behavior I wanted him to use,
all that did was make both of us feel uncomfortable.
So how can you tell?
How can you read people’s body language to read your minds?
We’re gonna show you right now.
And that means I’m gonna bring out
our first body language model, James.
(audience applauds)
Thank you James.
James represents 75% of the world.
You didn’t know this about James,
but James is a looker.
(audience laughs)
What that means is that James’ brain thinks in pictures
and images, in pictures and images.
And here’s how we can tell that James is a looker
from his body language.
First thing, he stands up tall.
He has good posture.
Second, he is dressed well,
because appearance is important to lookers.
The next thing you’ll notice
about James is that he holds a little stress
in his shoulders.
Lift up your shoulders a little bit.
Yeah, holds the stress there.
Next thing, you’ll notice he has wrinkles in his forehead,
because James looks up
when he remembers something he has seen,
and he looks up more often than most of us do.
Next thing you’ll notice
about James is that he has thin lips, suck ’em in.
You know, this is a chicken and egg thing.
We’re not quite sure why lookers have thin lips,
but most of them do.
And the other thing about lookers is they give you
lots of eye contact.
Look at ’em, look at ’em, look at ’em.
All of ’em, look at all of ’em.
Thanks James. — Thank you.
(audience applauds)
— Okay, now that you know that James is a looker,
here are the two things you do to build rapport with him.
The first is that you give him lots of eye contact,
because he literally believes if you do not look at him,
you are not paying attention to him
and you are ignoring him.
The second thing you do with lookers is you give them words
that have a visual component to it.
I see what you mean.
Or look at this.
Or let’s picture working together this way.
So you use the type of language
that is going on in James’ brain.
Those are lookers, 75% of people in the world.
Our next body language model is Marg,
and Marg represents 20% of the people in the world.
(audience applauds)
Marg is a listener.
What this means is that Marg’s brain thinks
in words and sounds, in words and sounds.
And this is the body language
that you will see in a listener.
First, Marg not as well-dressed as James,
’cause appearance is not as important to her.
(audience laughs)
Sorry Marg.
Next, Marg has a tendency to look down
and to the left, because that’s where you look
when you’re remembering something you have heard.
Next thing you’ll notice
about Marg is that a lot of times
she’ll put her head in her hand.
It’s called telephone posture.
Other things you’ll notice
about Marg is that she has a tendency to mumble to herself.
Go ahead and mumble.
(Marg mumbles)
(audience laughs)
And it’s not that she’s crazy.
It’s that she thinks in words and sounds,
so she’s literally talking to herself.
Another thing you’ll notice about Marg,
yep, she’s the pen clicker
and the banger on the pen on the table.
These are listeners, 20% of the people in the world.
Thanks Marg. — Thank you.
(audience applauds)
— If you wanna appeal to listeners,
you do two things.
The first thing, you do not give them lots of eye contact,
it freaks them out.
That’s exactly what was going on
with that corporate controller.
So what you do is that when they’re speaking,
you look at them and then you look away.
And when you’re speaking, you look at them
and then look away.
The second thing you do with listeners is that you use words
that are auditory.
That sounds good to me.
Or let’s talk this over.
That’s the type of language their brain uses,
so you’re using that to appeal with them.
Listeners, 20% of the people in the world.
And our final body language model is Marina.
And Marina represents 5% of the people in the world.
Give her a round of applause.
(audience applauds)
Marina is a toucher.
Not what you think.
What that means is that Marina’s brain thinks
in feelings and tactilely, in feelings and tactilely.
And here’s the kind of body language you will see
in a toucher.
First thing and the biggest tell in touchers is whether
or not they’ve ever met you before in their lives,
they are ready to hug you.
(Lynne laughs)
Second thing you’ll notice
about touchers is that they are dressed
for comfort rather than style.
Next thing is that they have full lips,
give ’em big lips.
(audience laughs)
Same thing, I know, more touchers have full lips.
Next thing you’ll notice
about touchers is that they have a tendency to lean in,
because they are trying to decrease the amount
of physical space between you and them
and build rapport that way.
Touchers also have a tendency to reach out
and touch your arm when they’re in conversation with you.
And touchers also have a tendency to look down,
because that’s where you look
when you’re remembering something you have felt.
Thanks Marina.
— Thank you.
(audience applauds)
— All right, you wanna build rapport with touchers,
5% of the people in the world,
here are the two things you do.
If you feel comfortable, let them touch you.
(audience laughs)
Appropriately, please.
But if you don’t feel comfortable,
because a lot of us if you’ve never met somebody before
and they’re ready to give you a bear hug,
the last thing you wanna do is is go,
’cause we’ve all done that, and it does not build rapport.
So if a toucher is coming at you,
and you don’t feel comfortable,
stick your hand out.
Give these people a point of contact with you.
That’s what they’re looking for.
The second thing you do with touchers is you use language
that either has a feeling to it or is tactile.
So I wanna hear how you’re feeling about this.
Let’s get in touch.
Reach out and tell me what you think.
That’s the kind of language that appeals to touchers,
people who process information
in feelings and tactilely.
So I’m gonna read your mind again,
and you’re probably thinking,
«So which one of these three am I?»
Let’s figure that out right now.
What I want you to do is close your eyes,
and remember an important memory.
Now this could be something from your childhood,
maybe your 10th birthday party.
It could be something that happened to you last week.
So an important memory.
Now I want you to pay attention
to how you’re remembering it.
Are you remembering it like a movie
or a series of pictures and images?
Are you remembering by hearing what people said
or describing what happened?
Or are you remembering it how you felt
or how things felt to you?
Okay, open up your eyes.
How many of you remembered it like a movie?
Right, most of you.
How many of you were describing it to yourself,
remembering what people said?
Right, listeners.
And finally, how many of you remember how you felt
or how things felt to you?
Right, now you know who you are.
That’s the good news.
Here’s the bad news.
You’re gonna treat everybody else
as though they think the same way.
And you’ve already seen how awful that can be
when you’re working with a corporate controller
who has a different way of thinking.
Here’s my invitation to you.
I want you to start paying attention
to other people’s body language
to figure out how they think.
Because here’s the magic part of it.
Once you start presenting your ideas
in a way that they get them,
they will say yes to you more often.
But here’s the scoop too.
I’m not asking you to become somebody else,
because you can’t change how your brain works.
It’s true, you think in all three ways,
but just the way you have a dominant hand,
you have a dominant style.
You can’t change that.
But what you can do is accommodate your language,
both body and verbal, with the people you’re with
in order to build rapport, which allows you
to reach the full spectrum of people
that you’re hanging out with.
And here’s the other magic thing.
You don’t even have to be in somebody’s presence
to figure out how their brains work.
Interested?
Right, all you need to do is listen to
or look at the words they’re using.
So if you’re in a phone conversation,
listen for the words.
If you’re reading an email, look at the words.
People who are lookers will use more visual language.
People who are listeners will use more auditory words,
and people who are touchers will use more feeling
and kinesthetic words.
You don’t have to be in that same space
to know who they are.
So here’s my challenge to you.
Go back and read some of the emails
that you have sent, and you will notice
now that you know who you are,
the kind of language that you’re using,
and it’ll back that up.
It happens with everybody.
So 10 minutes ago,
you didn’t think you could read people’s body language
to read their minds.
And now you know what to do.
So practice this stuff on the people at home
or the people at work, and when you do this,
when you use these tools to build rapport
with all kinds of different people,
you’ll become the most persuasive person in the room.
Thank you.
(audience applauds)

Can you read someone’s mind by looking at them? Almost. Lynne Franklin teaches you how to connect with 3 types of people by understanding how their bodies communicate. After a boy threatened to kill her with a machete, Lynne Franklin decided to learn everything she could about persuasion. She became a neuroscience nerd, studying how the brain works and how to build rapport with people. She has since worked with organizations to use persuasive communication to increase their performance, productivity, and profit, and published a book about her personal research called Getting Others to Do What You Want. In addition to her marketing and consulting work, Lynne is a member of the National Speakers Association and President-elect of its Illinois chapter. After a boy threatened to kill her with a machete, Lynne Franklin decided to learn everything she could about persuasion. She became a neuroscience nerd, studying how the brain works and how to build rapport with people. She has since worked with organizations to use persuasive communication to increase their performance, productivity, and profit, and published a book about her personal research called Getting Others to Do What You Want.

In addition to her marketing and consulting work, Lynne is a member of the National Speakers Association and President-elect of its Illinois chapter. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Reading minds through body language | Lynne Franklin | TEDxNaperville