Jocko Underground: How You Can Read Someone's Body Language to See What They're Really Thinking

This is the Jocko Underground podcast number eight with Echo, Charles, and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

Good evening.

Topic of the day is body language, and there's a bunch of great resources about this. There's an online college called Fremont College, and they had a really kind of nice. I was looking more of just an outline of things to talk about. They had a pretty simplistic one.

So as we know. So that's kind of what I used for talking through this.

Body language constitutes more than 60% of what we communicate. That's what they said. I've heard it say 70%. Have you heard that? 70. I've heard 70%. I think Sarah Armstrong told me 70% from eye behavior, direction that you point your feet, all these different things reveal what you're really thinking. And we as people.

Benefit by being able to read this language a little bit more clearly. Look, you get. We all naturally get the. We get the vibe, right? To use a parlance, a modern parlance. My kids talk about the vibe a lot. I can get the vibe. If Echo's standing there with his arms crossed, I might get the vibe that maybe he's not hearing what I'm saying. But it's a lot better to go a little bit beyond the vibe and actually be able to interpret a little bit more directly what some of these things tend to mean. Not guaranteed to mean, because you could have your arms crossed just because you're cold, right?

Yeah, sure.

But they also could be an indicator. So here's a couple things we're gonna go through. Eye behavior. Eye behavior can be very telling. And again, I'm taking this from this Fremont College stuff. I'm kind of paraphrasing and reading parts that I think are cool.

When communicating with someone, pay attention to whether he or she makes direct eye contact or looks away.

You hear this one all the time. Inability to make direct eye contact can indicate boredom, disinterest, or even deceit. Meaning, hey, when someone doesn't look at. Look at you, that means they could be lying. Again, it's good to know that. It's also good to know that it doesn't necessarily mean that they're lying. It could just mean that they're bored. And I'm one of the worst perpetrators. If someone's not. If I'm not. If I'm bored with what you're saying, I'm not looking at you anymore. I'm looking somewhere else. I'm looking at my phone. I'm looking at the jiu jitsu mat, whatever. Dean Went through a phase where when Dean would get. If I didn't, like, pay attention to him, he would attack me.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And it was really a bummer because getting attacked by Dean is a bummer. Especially when you're looking in the other direction because you're bored with what he's saying.

So I had to. I had to train myself to pay attention. It's good training. Yeah, good training.

And you know what's weird is I. This is. I don't know if this is good or bad. It's probably bad. Might be good, though.

I am. If I don't know you, I'm actually gonna pay more attention to you if, you know, because I'm give you the benefit of that. Like, hey, I don't really know you, but if I know you, you're my friend and you're boring me. Are you getting no mercy?

Yeah.

Dilated pupils. Someone's eyes get kind of big. That means it's favorable.

You gotta be looking pretty close to see those pupils dilate.

Have you ever seen anyone's pupils and notice them being dilated?

I don't know, but I've seen them. I've seen their eyes open up and seen their pupils get bigger. Yeah. So I guess I have seen it.

Pupils dilate when cognitive effort increases. So if someone's focused on someone or something they like, their pupils automatically dilate. Maybe that's why you've never noticed it.

Before, because they're never dilated.

No one's ever been interested in what you're saying.

Pupil dilation can be difficult to detect. That's probably why, because I know you're very interesting.

Thanks.

Person's blinking rate. Blinking rate increases when people are thinking, when they're more stressed. So they start getting stressed out, they start blinking. Blinking can also indicate lying.

Get that person that's blinking. Blinking. Watch your kids.

Yeah.

Kids have no ability to camouflage, like, when they're lying, you know, they just can't look at you.

Yeah.

So it's good. It's good to use your kids as a guideline to start beginning to be able to spot these things.

Unless they're, like, psycho kids.

Unless they're psycho kids.

So they'll be, like, straight up, effortfully, almost enjoying the lying or something like that. If. Yeah. It seems like some kids would be like that. That blinking one. For whatever reason, I pay attention to blinking all the time. Not in any kind of judgment or nothing.

But you're aware.

Yeah, big time. So where it came from was when I first started making videos and interviewing people, not for the interview part of it, but for the editing part of it. So when you edit and you want to convey a certain, like, emotion or whatever, and they're saying something awesome and. And then they're. If they're blinking, it ruins the whole clip. So. And this is where it would. This is where it would reveal itself a lot of the time, not all the time is at the end, you know, like. And you do a really good job on this. I have no idea why, but fucking. You do. The. At the end, once you say something cool, right? And it's done, you're done talking, you will just look and keep looking directly into the camera and not blink, right? And you'll keep looking, right? So a normal person would be like, boom, I'm done. So now not only will I blink, but I'll like, relax my body. I'll look away. I'll do whatever. I'm done with the take. I said what I said. But you have that trailing moment of a good 2, 3 seconds, which is the longest time, by the way, for that in that context where you'll just look and keep that same look on your face or whatever without blinking.

I'm comfortable with silence.

Yes, that's what it is.

Which I think is what it is, because also when I answer a question, I. When I get done, I'll just stop and I don't feel the need to continue explaining or talking or I also don't mind just silence if I'm thinking. If you ask me a question or I'm trying to formulate an answer, I'm trying to tell you something and convey a message. And I get to a point where I'm not sure where I'm gonna go.

I don't just fill that space with.

Or ah. Or any of those things. I'm good with it just being quiet.

Yeah, yeah, that. That makes sense to me. That seems to be the case now that you kind of explain it.

But when someone does start blinking, it can tell a whole different story. Not necessarily like actually what they're saying, but maybe if they're saying one thing, they. It can indicate that they're feeling, at the very least feeling a way different thing, for example. And also, you know, when I, like I said, I first started being really aware of it when I started making videos with people like, interviewing, right? And then I started editing it and trying to make it into some dramatic promotion or whatever. And then I started noticing it on actual movies. So, like, certain good actors will use blinking in their performance to indicate all these different things, and they'll do it effectively. Like, Denzel Washington does it.

Right?

Really good. Like, when he's, like, stressed or whatever. He'll use blinking when he's like, whatever. And if you start to pay attention to that, it's like that added detail with acting anyway. It's that added detail that really adds. Like this. You feel it more, you know?

Yeah. And it's weird because you feel it even though you don't know it's happening. Like, until now. Now you're gonna watch and go like, oh, I see Denzel. He's blinking, he's stressed. And that's working. I feel it.

So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen.

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