In this CEO podcast episode, Vince Moiso and Scott De Long centers around the topic of body language. They discuss its importance in various settings, from business meetings to social interactions, emphasizing the power it holds in conveying messages and intentions. They delve into the nuances of body language, touching upon topics such as making eye contact, projecting confidence, and reading the room. Through self-awareness, external awareness, and being present, they stress the significance of aligning one’s body language with their intended message.
Transcript | Season 1, Episode 11
Vince Moiso
Hey, everybody, I am Vince Moiso. I am here with my friend Scott De Long, and this is the CEO podcast Cocktails, entrepreneurs, and Opportunity. We are drinking some local beer once again, swamis IPA from Pizza Port. And this is their signature IPA, which has been around for quite a while. But it is a solid IPA. Today, we are going to talk about body language, the importance of it, the power of body language, and certainly how to understand it. And some do’s and don’ts. And this was actually a suggestion from a listener. I just want to call out Jeremy Harper and say thank you for giving us a suggestion. In our second podcast, which was a two-part discussion on communication, it was suggested that we did not touch quite enough.
Scott De Long
I will say that. I have had this before, but I have always had it with their pizza. They are my favorite pizza. Their crust is excellent.
Vince Moiso
It is a good pizza. It is a good one to eat with pizza or drink with pizza. This is one of those IPAs that cannot go wrong when you are drinking or eating pizza port for
Scott De Long
Sure, you go.
Vince Moiso
And this is a topic that is easy. We could spend a long time, you and I, talking about whether or not this was something that we really wanted to devote an entire podcast to. And you laughed and said, I could literally teach a class on body language. For 20 or 30 minutes, there are discussion names.
Scott De Long
We touched it, but we did not go deep. There are people who spend their time learning about bodies. Dr. Paul Ekman, who was the executive producer of the show called Lie to Me. He would work on the fact that he was an expert in body language, and he actually had his studies go deeper than the body language that you and I know. If we take a look at the basic emotions, sadness, anger, joy, surprise, shame, or guilt,
Vince Moiso
There’s an expression for all those.
Scott De Long
And there are studies out there that suggest that most of us can pick five of the seven if we show the pictures. Quite a few of us can pick all six of the seven. Now, your forum went through an exercise with me. And everybody there got all seven of them, they did a flash of, of the look. And what emotion is it that they picked? Seven out of seven times. We know how to do this. We know how to do the basics and body language. And there is a lot more to it. So, I am excited about talking about this.
Vince Moiso
Certainly, it is when we think of body language, too. It is the things that we do subconsciously as well. There are times when you might have a look on your face, or your shoulder slumped, or it might be something else, and you’re not even realizing you’re doing it. And that has happened to me over the years where I have had people point out, hey, did you even know that your shoulders slumped? When do you say this certain thing? Or did you even know that your shoulders go back, and your head goes up when you get really excited over this? Is there so much that you do that you are just not aware of? Then, I simultaneously think about body language in terms of being aware of others.
Scott De Long
Reading the room. Understand who you are talking to and what it is that they are doing. One of the things that people talk about a lot is body language, and we all think we can do it. And we have proven with the facial things we can because we were taught that as children. Wipe that smirk off your face, young man. Never hear that. We learned not to be too smooth.
Vince Moiso
You may be.
Scott De Long
Never you. We think we are pretty good at that. But there are a lot of other subtleties that happened, and Dr. Eckman talks about micro-expressions, which are momentary. And we try to fake our bodies, or at least our facial expressions, a lot. And we can fake those, and we can make a cry, we could fake sadness, we could fake surprise. We can fake that because we learned how, but what he is suggesting is that you cannot fake the micro-expressions. Now. I am not good enough to know micro expressions yet.
Vince Moiso
I am not good enough to fake those expressions, period.
Scott De Long
I am working. But there is more to it than just facial expression. There is a lot to do with your hands and the rest of your body. It was interesting. Joe Navarro was an FBI profiler. And he has written a couple of books now. And he talks about things on some of the body language that he talks about, was really interesting. And what he is looking for, and this is why I am good at it now. He says, and I believe this, that we think that we can tell who is lying and who is not lying. And that’s really not true. We are not good enough for that. But what I try to focus on is to see who is comfortable. Who is in discomfort? That gives me some clues. If you are talking to me about a story, or you are listening to my story, and I see discomfort, something is wrong. Let us go explore that. That power of body language.
Vince Moiso
Making eye contact will tell you a lot about that. People tend to look away when they start to get a little uncomfortable with something, you know, they look down, you will not make eye contact whatsoever, they are embarrassed to make eye contact because they might feel a certain way about something that they might be telling you. Eye contact is incredibly important. We joked about you, and I have joked before about this, but what about the handshake? What about that eye contact and a handshake at the same time and then the power, the physical maybe if I want to dominate you, the physical domination of just a
Scott De Long
On top of that, this is fun to watch. Go on YouTube and or any TV show if you want and watch when people greet each other and how they are doing it when they come together with a neutral handshake where both hands are in alignment with each other. Great mutual respect and all that kind of stuff. Powerful people who want to expand their power will come over to the top, bring their shoulders up, and make sure that their hand, their palm, is facing down. And you cannot do anything about that. You have to take my hand the way that I presented the first one to make that decision. Donald Trump is interesting because he goes just the opposite. He defers power because he is going to get you later. He comes underneath his handshake, watching.
Vince Moiso
Did you tell someone we were talking about this before? He said some about Obama and to master.
Scott De Long
What Obama did, and you can go look this up. But what would Obama do if someone came into Putin, or whoever came into him with the power handshake over the top? Great, he has a power, more powerful position than I do. What Obama would do is come over here, and with his other hand on him or on his shoulder, in a more dominant position, gentle but dominant, just to say.
Vince Moiso
How much is being said without anything being said?
Scott De Long
Sure. Go back to when body language became an issue. Back in the 60s, it was 1967. There was a UCLA psychologist, Dr. Albert Mebrahian, who did two studies on body language. And if you have heard before that, 93% of communication is nonverbal. That came from Arabians. It’s not true, and he’s even backed off of that. And he said I did not mean all communication. I mean, as you and I are on the phone, almost 100% of it is going to be verbal. It is not all communication. But what he is suggesting is that 55% of the communication comes from the body, 38% comes from the tone of voice, and I can tell you, when my wife tells me all the time, most of what she reads is my tone of voice, especially when I am in trouble.
Vince Moiso
Let us talk about that for a second, though. You mention the phone call, and you are talking about that being 100% verbal; I actually would disagree with that. And the reason I say that is, if I am smiling, when I am talking to you, you are going to hear it and feel it. If I’m sitting up versus slouching down or whatever might put me if I’m outside versus inside, the expression I put on my face, the expression I put in my body, what I’m wearing, and we’ve talked about this before is in this virtual world of now we’re getting on Zoom and teams and, Webex and Got Webinar and all these tools that we can use to function online with each other. But when you dress in a suit, or you dress nicely, it puts you in a different mental state. And we talked about this on the phone before we had this conversation where you can feel if I am smiling when I am talking to you on the phone. And I do think body language can equally be important just in a phone call.
Scott De Long
Here’s one of the lessons of that: with the virtual world that we’ve gotten ourselves into in the last 18 months, put into in the last 18 months and what’s going to be happening in the future is going to be more zoom, there’s going to be more remote, there’s going to be more phone calls, there’s going to be more of that, and then the in-person thing, people are going to be working from home, don’t wear your pajamas to work, you wouldn’t do it. If you are going to the office, please do not do it. When you are not turning your video camera on, people can see. It is not just for them. It is for you, and it puts you in the frame of mind. I know I am going to catch some crap, especially for some of the younger generation. Who says what does it matter? Because I have seen kids go to school in pajamas, and they are going to say, what does it matter? But it matters. And I do not know that you can just say, Trust me on this. It matters to show up to work. Even if you are working from your bedroom, get ready for that Zoom call and put on the right clothes. I mean, we are in polos because this is the casual kind of thing. But let us have a meeting. I am going to be wearing business.
Vince Moiso
Of course, you are, and here is what I would say: There is a psychological component to all of that. And let us just hit that for 30 seconds to a minute. Psychologically, we equate pajamas with sleep. Just like if you have ever heard do not work in your bed. People who work in their beds have a hard time sleeping. Do you know why you are laughing? Because you are laughing? You just did a trick on your brain to say, oh, wait, am I supposed to be sleeping or working? Now? And is it the same thing you show up at school in your pajamas? Am I supposed to be at school, or should I be sleeping the whole day? Believe it or not, because you are in your pajamas, you basically told your body in your mind that I am ready for bed, and you have tried to go to school. And think about how exhausting that is going to be for you. It is the same as showing up to work. And by the way, don’t get, do not wear your pajama pants. And Shana Sue, on top of that, does not work either. Because you basically really mix things up for yourself, those of you that work in the kitchen, for example, psychologically, that does not work either, because your brain equates being in the kitchen with what? Eating, and now, all of a sudden, you’re doing work at the same time. It is confusing, and it is something that you are doing. You do not even know that you are doing it. Let us equate that to body language for a second because this is what I want to talk about. I really want to get to the crux of it: for everybody that is in a work environment, you’re going to meetings, whether that’s virtual or whether it’s alive, but you’re in meetings, and you’re in a lot of them, you’re having one on ones, whether that’s with a manager, with cohorts, or whatever that might be. You have all kinds of interaction people, you are going to be working with customers, and that might be virtual, might be face to face, whatever it is, and I want everybody to understand the importance of body language in just this right here. The message that you send from your body language is huge. If I show up, Scott, if you are going to interview me, I show up, and I am not dressed appropriately. And I walk in, I immediately sit down, I do not even shake your hand, I slouch. And I cross my arms and say, okay, I am ready. What message does that send to you? I mean, there are all kinds of messages in that, but what ultimately does that send to you?
Scott De Long
Are you interviewing me? You are not getting the full half hour. Sorry.
Vince Moiso
You are going to get about five minutes. And as soon as I saw the slides, I barely said a word, Like this idea of shame. I did not shake your hand. I slouched and crossed my arms. I mean, and I never said a word. And oh, by the way, you’ve basically just made your decision. And the first 30 seconds that I was there, I did not even say a word.
Scott De Long
Reading body language is important, but also being prepared and getting yourself set up for what you want to present is equally important. One of the things that I like to talk about is presence. I will, whether this is a fault or something that is good. I can command a room, like walk into a room and I own the room. I do not know why. I do. It has Ith the body language, just how I present. I come in, and I stand tall, as tall as I can. I stand tall. I walk into the room, and I own the room. It is my room until I give it back over to you, and that is all about me walking in head held high. Shoulders back, with the look on my face that I know what I’m going to talk about and all of that sets the tone for the meeting. Now, there are times that are intimidating, and I do not want to use them. I want to defer and put it in my back pocket, pull back on some of that. The use of your own body language is equally as important as being able to read the room and understand what the other person is saying by their slouch, their dominance, or their positioning.
Vince Moiso
Let us talk about that for a second, then because I feel like with what you just said, you are talking about, you know, as you are coming in to lead a meeting or give a presentation or whatever, I get that. But what if you are, what if you are just a participant? Let us talk about the use of the meeting as an example. And you said, reading the room and recognizing what else is going on. And I do not care if you are virtual or if you are live in a meeting. But if you are on your phone, and you are looking down and you are texting, you are not present, and that is body language is saying, you’re not here, right now, you are not respecting anyone else’s time in the room, and you are off somewhere else. And whatever it is that you are doing on your phone is more important than being here. I would rather you not be here than come to my meeting and focus on that.
Scott De Long
Energy drain that that one person who is sitting over there doing whatever they are doing, takes on the rest of the group. Absolutely.
Vince Moiso
Ironically, what is just as bad, and I have walked into a meeting like this, is the guy in the corner with his legs crossed and his arms crossed, and he is sitting back, as well as reading your text because you have just basically told me, you do not want to be there. You would literally rather be doing something else. And you are pissed off that you have to be at this meeting. I mean, that’s, that’s what that body language exudes `and so you just, you need to be aware, I mean, if I can just say it, I’ll just give this one piece of advice is just, you got to be aware of your body language, you just really have to be self-aware, if you can take care of yourself, worry about yourself, first and foremost, before you’re worrying about others, then you’re doing everybody a huge service, high value, that look be present, just be present on the phone, be present on a virtual meeting, be present in a physical meeting, if you can do that, and you get the mentality just to be present, you’re going to change your body language naturally because you’re saying I’m committing. And I have said this myself, especially in the last: the way I show up in meetings, both physically and virtually, is very different from what I did a decade ago. And I am very aware of my own body language and how I show up. And I have said to myself, I am committed to being present in this meeting, and as a result of that, my body language comes in like this. And I am sitting straight up, and my shoulders are back. I am listening, I am attentively listening, and that in and of itself gives me a presence to the rest of the room because I am saying to everybody else, I am here. I am ready. I am listening, and I respect everybody.
Scott De Long
Let us take this out of the boardroom or out of the conference room and take it into the social world. So here we are, out, looking to meet new people and in the social world. There was a lot of work and a lot of books written in the 80s about how to get dates and all that kind of stuff. And most of it had to do was not about pickup lines. It was about presence and body. Reading the room there. So, for instance, I will give you a couple of tidbits here. One of them was you buy somebody a drink, and they stay squared off, their shoulders pointing to you. They are not interested. That is a show of that interest. A show of interest is if they turn towards you, and they open up, and they present themselves. If they presented a 45-degree angle, that is a safe angle. If they presented a 90-degree angle, there is an interest in it. Buddy, sorry, relax. While we are there, it gets worse. If I really want to present my interest, I will touch you. Just bear right
Vince Moiso
Now you are going too far
Scott De Long
I open up, and I touch. That is in the books, along with how to meet women and do all those kinds of things, but there was something even more interesting than that, and this did not come from those books. You can take that too. I can take it; I can fake interest. 45 degrees is kind of neutral. Thanks for the drink. I want another one. But go ahead. That is fine, but I am just not interested. If you really want to know if there’s interest, do not look at the shoulders for that open position; check their feet. What is up with the feet? The feet point to where they want to be.
Vince Moiso
Oh, wow.
Scott De Long
It is amazing. This is really cool. Let us do this when you are in a group of people. If you see somebody whose feet are pointed out, like, here is the group, and we put the feet.
Vince Moiso
Outside, one foot out the door,
Scott De Long
One out the door, they walk out of here, no matter what they do with their touching, and they are smiling, and they are this, and they are being polite. We have learned how to fake it. Your feet have not learned how to fake it yet. The first thing you want to do if you are interested is see where their feet are pointed or pointed towards you; you have a shot. If they are pointed away, it is time to move on to the drink for someone else; that is a cool tidbit.
Vince Moiso
That is a new one. For me, one of my favorites. I did not know about the feet,
Scott De Long
It is checking the feet.
Vince Moiso
Wise, I just want to be clear about one thing before we go any further: I was not dating in the 80s. I was a kid. I just thought I had established that. If that is something that we learned by dating in the 80s. That is good. Still all relevant today, though, Scott, still all relevant.
Scott De Long
That goes along with one of my favorite sayings is always hanging out with someone with a little grayer hair than you.
Vince Moiso
I get wisdom, we get wisdom,
Scott De Long
And you look better. Makes you look better, too.
Vince Moiso
Thank you for all of that. I just want to do this, give our listeners three things that they should do today, to focus on body language.
Scott De Long
The first one is self-reflection. All learning comes from self-reflection. If I am not going to take a look inside myself, I am not going to learn shit. Just not. I have to look and see what I am going to do. Check yourself as one of the terms that are used, check yourself, and show up with the intention that you want others to see. If you want to be strong, stand tall. Shoulders back, hands down, in a neutral position. If you want to be dominant, come over the top and dominate somebody and grind their hand and do all that kind of stuff. If you want to be a little submissive, then differ a little bit and step back. Be polite and know your intent. And then, make sure that your body is congruent with the message that you are trying to send. If I want to be submissive, I come out pounding the table as incongruent. Believe the negative an. Faking something there? If I come on with this, it is the dominant body language. And yet, there are some weird comments that are coming out of my mouth that seem submissive, and I believe the submissive,
Vince Moiso
Self-reflection, know you in it? What is the third?
Scott De Long
And the third one is to read the room. Got it. Read the room, pay attention, as you said, it is more important. Start with knowing yourself, I agree. What are you bringing to the table, but also reading to the room? If I see somebody with their feet pointing out, I am not going to waste any more time; move on and do something else. If I see someone who is cold and disinterested, their arms folded. How do I break that down? What I need to do is look for a way if I want to continue this relationship; I look for a way to provide comfort rather than discomfort. A little bit earlier, comfort means someone is open and willing. Discomfort means they are a little protective, or they want to be out of there. See if you can just start there, reading between comfort and discomfort. Okay, you will know how to do that. What is the next thing that I need to do right now? Got it? Change the tone? Get out. Keep going. Read that port on. Comfort versus discomfort.
Vince Moiso
Okay, you said number one, self-reflection number two, know your int nt. Three read the room.
Scott De Long
Look for those two things, comfort versus discomfort, and then act accordingly after that.
Vince Moiso
I would describe the three things, and I will say it like this: self-awareness; I would say the word self-awareness versus self-reflection, self-awareness. It’s being aware of your body language at all times. The second would be external awareness, which you said read the room. Same thing as being aware of others, whether that is in a social setting or whether that is in a professional setting, whatever that might be. It is just that external awareness, and then the third thing is, for me, just being present and making sure that your body language represents being present congruent. Similar to what you said. I am saying them in a little bit of a different way. Let me ask you this: let us just talk about it before we finish; let us do’s and don’ts. Yes, so just give three do’s and don’ts.
Scott De Long
It depends. What is my intent? I am going to go back to what my intent is. If my intent is to own the room, and often my intent is to own the room, I am going to walk in as the chairman of the board, and I am going to be running the company, I am going to, whatever that might be, I am going to make a presentation on. My intent is going to be to own the room. To own the room, I have to come prepared, my stuff. Everyone needs to know their stuff, and I need to dress appropriately. And I need to walk in with the confidence and command that I want the audience to believe.
Vince Moiso
And your body language has to represent all.
Scott De Long
It has to represent that. I am going to be facing the audience. I am am going to be looking at them. One of the things they talked about was public speaking, some of the techniques that, oh, pretend they are in their underwear or look over their h ad. Just the opposite of that. Look in their eyes. You want to look into their eyes. Do you want to read the room? You cannot do that. If you are pretending, they are at war. Or if you are looking over their heads at the back of the room. You got to read the room by looking into people’s e es. for s re. That is my biggest fear: do not fall in line with some of the psychobabble that says, hey, we can get you through this. No. Have enough confidence that I can look you in the eye and tell you what I am going to tell you and adjust based on what you are hearing.
Vince Moiso
Mr. Miyagi right
Scott De Long
Look the eye
Vince Moiso
It is. That is a do for me, do make eye contact. That typically important because if you are attentively listening if you want to show people that you are having a conversation, and you are focused and present, you need to make eye contact. Do make eye contact Do not be preoccupied. When you are looking away, when you are looking down at your phone, when you know you are doing everything else but making eye contact, then you are sending a message that you are disinterested and almost disrespectful. Okay, secondarily, I have an almost disrespectful you are read ng. Just smile.
Scott De Long
On my watch or looking at the pretty girl that walked by instead of what you are talking to.
Vince Moiso
The baby is to smile as much as possible. I believe that smiling is totally infectious. It’s hard not to smile back when someone smiles at you.
Scott De Long
But who else are you infecting? You are infecting you first.
Vince Moiso
I feel better when I smile. And I know others around me feel better when I smile. So that is a big do for me do smile; I think smiling puts you, you know, your body language puts everything about you in that being present. And everybody around you will be infected by that. Is body language like slouching your shoulders and putting your head down? Here is body language, mom not. It is just that it is that deep breath. I am sending a message to you that there is something wrong with me. And I want attention from you, Scott, and always the first thing that I do when I see that I say what is wrong? Do not do that. To me, if you need to talk about something, then just say, hey, Scott, I need to talk to you. I need to talk about something with you. It is like, why go through all of that? Because the problem is, the mental state and the emotion that that puts you in is worse than just saying Scott, I got to talk to you about something. Here is my do: be as direct as possible with your body language and understand the message that your body language is going to send. Therefore, do not write; diminish. Or think that your body language is not that big of a deal. That is my big do ‘t. So, when you are sitting there with your arms crossed, or you are slouching, and you do not think that is not a big deal. It is a very big deal. Do represent the way that you want to feel through your body language.
Scott De Long
I am going to give a couple of tidbits here on things to read. You can see that the feet thing was really cool because that’s my favorite one. I like that one. But there are a couple of others that we all know that have crossed our RS, which means disinter st. But do you know why it means this inter st? What He is suggesting is it is protecting my organs, my vital organs; it goes back to the whole.
Vince Moiso
It is a defensive move.
Scott De Long
And to move to hold back and protect myself. The other protective mood and women do this more than men, is Oh my, and they put their hand up to their neck. I have never seen that happen with someone. If you see a woman, in particular, a woman who puts her hand up to her neck, she is protecting herself from that saber-toothed Tiger. That is an uncomfortable move.
Vince Moiso
That is crazy.
Scott De Long
I scared the shit out of that l dy. Because she protected her pearls, they are predicted. But really, she is protecting her n ck, which is going to kill someone in the neck.
Vince Moiso
Super instinctive.
Scott De Long
Anyway, here are a couple of tidbits about that.
Vince Moiso
Do you talk about this information? Where can I see it?
Scott De Long
Paul Ekman has an organization called the Paul Ekman group that you can do that you could learn the micro express on. You can go through there; they have courses that they can do. Joe Navarro writes books, reads books, and watches a lot of YouTube videos. Here is another thing that you can do: watch a lot of videos with the sound off. Most of the language, you can tell.
Vince Moiso
What they are saying.
Scott De Long
Most of the communication is overall. Turn the sound off and see if you can follow.
Vince Moiso
That is a great suggestion.
Scott De Long
You want to get better at it is. turn the sound off the TV and see if you can tell the plot.
Vince Moiso
What about just contacting their EQ?
Scott De Long
This leads to that. Certainly, emotional intelligence is important, and again, most of us think we are pretty good at it. Emotional Intelligence stuff and we are not, and it goes back to the self-awareness piece that we are not; it is easy to see when other people are fucking up. Oh, did I use that right?
Vince Moiso
You did.
Scott De Long
It is easy to point the finger and see what other people are doing. It is difficult to see
Vince Moiso
Point in words as much as you pause.
Scott De Long
I like this one when I am pointing my finger out at someone. One finger out at them. Three fingers are pointing back at me. Again, one of my favorite scenes is when everyone else looks wrong. It might not be them.
Vince Moiso
It might not be the most likely. It is you. I will tell you, body language is important, and self-awareness of that body language is the most important part of what the message is here to say. That is about all the time we got for this afternoon. That beer went down pretty easily for a Scotch to see an empty glass.
Scott De Long
I had as much to do with figuring out technology as it is. And the beer was good.
Vince Moiso
Cheers for that, folks. Thanks for listening, everybody. And I hope you got out of this, Sue. Please give us feedback. We love the feedback ck. And if it gives us content for our next podcast, then we are happy to do it. And we are happy to go deeper with these things. Keep the feedback coming. I appreciate it. As always, check out the CEO podcast.net for more information. If you want to contact Scott or me, listen to us on Spotify, Apple, and other places, and check out our YouTube. If you go on YouTube, you can find our channel. Just search the CEO post st. And you can see us on video as well if you are so inclined. There you go, until next time, cheers.
