The School of Greatness - You Can be a Human LIE DETECTOR (How to Read Anyone!) Top Facial Expression Expert | Annie Särnblad

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

Today we have a truly exceptional guest with us, Annie Särnblad. Annie is often referred to as a "human lie detector" due to her remarkable expertise in reading facial expressions. She's a globally recognized speaker, strategic advisor to Fortune 500 companies, and the author of the captivating book "Diary of a Human Lie Detector: Facial Expressions in Love, Lust, and Lies."Annie's unique insights into the world of facial expressions and body language offer profound wisdom on how we can build better and more meaningful relationships with others. In this episode, we'll explore key non-verbal cues that signal trust and authenticity, universal facial expressions that reveal emotions and intentions, the role of empathy in interpreting these cues, and common misconceptions about reading body language.Buy her book Diary of a Human Lie Detector: Facial Expressions in Love, Lust, and LiesIn this episode you will learn,How to identify psychopaths, narcissists, geniuses, or con artists based on their facial expressions.Discover the key facial expressions to watch for on a first date to ensure your safety.Uncover the red flags in facial cues that can appear during a relationship.Understand how improving your ability to read facial expressions and body language can enhance your relationships, making them more meaningful and fulfilling.Find out if there are universal facial expressions and body language cues that can help you discern someone's intentions.For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1520For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]Want more COMMUNICATION HACKS?Vanessa Van Edwards: https://link.chtbl.com/1231-podDr. Ramani Durvasula: https://link.chtbl.com/1195-pod & https://link.chtbl.com/1196-podLori Gottlieb: https://link.chtbl.com/1191-pod

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My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Annie Sondblad in the house.

Good to see you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I just want to share a quick bio about you. You're often referred to as a human lie detector. You're a globally recognized speaker and strategic advisor to some of the most powerful human beings in the world, specifically in Fortune 500 companies. And the author of this new book called The Diary of a Human Lie Detector, Facial Expressions

in Love, Lust, and Lies. And already within first 15 minutes of meeting you, I felt like you have so much more information than I knew you had by just analyzing my facial expression and by giving me some cues already about what I'm doing and I guess things I could improve on potentially, but you have seen a lot and you've studied a lot. There's actually a certification that you have. What is it called? This, um, facts, which is facial action coding systems. And it is a background on scientifically backed, um, this FACS, what is it called? Which is Facial Action Coding Systems. And it is a background on scientifically backed micro-expressions and the ability to numerically code 10,000 muscle combinations in human expression. For me, I don't know how you do that because it just seems like

how many facial expressions are there, first off, that we can put words on? And what are the ones that we should be really looking for when we're first meeting or interacting with anyone, whether it's a potential love interest, whether it's a potential friend, a business colleague, a partner, a boss, what should we be looking for and how many facial expressions are there? Okay, so that's a lot of questions at once. That's really exciting. So let me start off with the facial action coding system was developed by a couple of behavioral scientists based on the work of Darwin.

Darwin wrote in 1872 about the expressions of man and animals. And he realized that going from tribe to tribe where people had no connection to each other, that he could start into years and years of going into civilizations where people didn't have connection to much of the outside world. He started to write down and chart and dissect the different muscle combinations in human expression because he started to notice even if he didn't understand the language, he could and chart and dissect the different muscle combinations in human expression. Because he started to notice, even if he didn't understand the language,

he could see if someone was angry, if they were happy, if they were afraid, if they were feeling surprised, for example. And that those facial expressions were the same. So the work that I'm doing, it's ironic because I'm an anthropologist, so I should be looking at culture, right? But the work that I'm doing is hardwired into us. It's the universal language of humans, us as a species. It doesn't matter.

Geography doesn't matter. Your age, your socialization. Even people who are born blind make the same facial expressions. It's universal. Universal. It doesn't matter what universal. Universal. It doesn't matter what language you speak. It doesn't matter where you're from in the world. We all make similar facial expressions. Is facial expression, do we all make similar body expressions too? And are they different? Facial expression and body language. So body language varies from person to person. You and your brother could react differently

with your body language. But your facial expressions will be the same. Yes, the facial expressions are all the same. So think about it. So look more at the face, not the body. Right. So I can talk about body language a little bit when we get further into this.

But think about it when you're scared. I mean, right now I'm a little nervous because we've just met for the first time and we're being filmed and this is kind of exciting and I've read your books, seen your podcast. So my hands are cold. Well, it's also cold in the room. I'm making cold in here, babe. On purpose.

But the reality is that the blood, when I'm afraid or nervous, the blood rushes down to my legs and my feet so that I can run. Ah, interesting. When we're angry, it pumps into our fists so that we are ready to fight. When we human beings are sad, we cry. When we're nervous, we sweat, palms of our hands and our armpits, sometimes on the brows.

On the face. Right? When we're aroused, the blood pools into the middle of our bodies. We would not survive as a species if this were not true. Okay. So that was like the, oh crap. That was the, oh crap, Annie. Here she goes.

But the reality is that every emotion leads to a change in blood flow and muscle movement in our bodies and on our faces. We have a physiological response to emotion. So what influences the emotion? Is it a thought that we generate or a thought that we... Well, that's a really good question. So like if I have a really hot cup of coffee and I touch the coffee, the first thing that happens is I move my fingers back. I don't think, oh my goodness, this is hot with my brain. My body, the muscle movement comes first. The micro expressions precede the thought process. So I can't, even after my years and years and years of training,

I can't stop myself from making micro-expressions unless I change what I'm thinking about. Unless you're intentional about the thought. You're like, okay, there's going to be loud noises. I'm going to act calm and relaxed, even though my body would probably flinch or react or turn around or see what's happening around me right the body reacts based on its environment sounds words expressions right right which is why those of us

have experienced trauma we get triggered really really quick very easily right and so when I said that trauma you you did the rectangle of your mouth your the tendons of your neck jump that's that's fear. That's, oh, crap. Right? That's a response. And you pulled your upper eyelids back. Okay? So that's also fear.

We make this full facial expression of fear, the macro. We pull our upper eyelids way back. We show the sclera, which is the white above our eyes. And we make our mouth into this giant rectangle. Why is that? Okay. So the pulling back of the upper eyelids is so that we gauge our exits. Why is that? Okay, so the pulling back of the upper eyelids is so that we gauge our exits.

And the opening our mouth into a huge rectangle is so that we can scream for help. And so what I call the oh crap is just that little piece of the rectangle. Yeah. And it's the only expression that makes the tendons of our necks jump. So even if I'm looking eye to eye and I see that little tendon, something was unsettling to you. Now, is this an observation of us mirroring and mimicking our parents or siblings when we were younger or watching expressions of others? Or if we weren't able to see anyone, would we constantly create this intuitively in our

DNA? All day long. Really? It's hardwired into us. So it's not a mimic. It's not a mimic. Because we mimic a lot of body language and languages.. Because we mimic a lot of body language and languages. Yeah, we mirror a lot of body language and mirror.

We're like parrots, right? Right. But so if you are really stressed and you come in and you keep puckering your chin because you're having a really, really hard time, and they say, Lewis, how are you doing today? And you say, great. And I'm like, oh, honey, do you need a hug? Even though your words said great, you're puckering your chin because you're feeling sad and vulnerable, right? So I know that micro-expressions are the very deepest of listening skills. So I see- You can tell easily if someone's lying based on facial expression.

Yes, because the facial expression won't match the words. So that's what we're always looking at. So for example, if you say great, when you show vulnerability, well, you're not feeling so great. No, you're not. You're maybe not trying to deceive me on a deep level. You're just trying to kind of fake it till you make it. Right? So you say, I hate broccoli and you show disgust, right?

When we have little children, when we have little children, this is what I call, I call it the no phase, but it's got three main pieces. The macro, which is a big expression. It's got the wrinkles next to the nose, the deepening of the nasolabial furrow, and the pulling of the upper lip. Did you have that girl in seventh grade is like, are you going to wear that? Are you going to wear that? Like, really? So I take the micro expressions and the way that I have been able to advance the field of science is i teach the one thing that's significant to each expression each emotion so with disgust if you just look for nostril shadows i mean i'm at i speak all these different languages so my thing

is translating so i needed to take this entire field and teach it to my little kids so they keep them safe yeah and so we call it the no face And so if you have deep shadows right next to your nose, that's no, I don't want to. That smells bad. I know that's icky. And the big expression of disgust actually shuts off our nasal passages up to about 80%. That's what it's there for. But we make that same expression when something is socially toxic. Like, I don't want to. So if you say, Annie, tomorrow I want you to come over at 5 a.m. and we're going to sit down and we're going to process a lot of this for three or four hours. And I go, right?

That doesn't mean I don't like you. It just means like, dude, I don't want to get up at 5 in the morning. I don't want to do it. Or I've already double bugged. Or it's just a quick no. It's just a quick no. It's just a little flicker of no. Interesting. And so if I'm saying I hate broccoli, oh, man, I will not give you broccoli.

You do not want to eat broccoli. I will not serve you broccoli. But if you're saying, yeah, I'm really happy to do this interview with you, Annie, today, I'm going, oh, honey, no, you're not. Wow. Annie today. I'm going, oh, honey, no, you're not. Wow. What have you seen for yourself personally and with the work you've done with high-powerful individuals are the three main benefits of mastering the art of facial communication? So empathy and safety. So what I call connection and protection. Okay. So when we see what someone else is really feeling, we can adjust, we can help, we can love them better. We can teach them, we can lead them better. We can, you know, if somebody is really feeling uncomfortable, we know that they're feeling uncomfortable and we can ask them questions and we can offer help.

Right. that they're feeling uncomfortable and we can ask them questions and we can offer help. Right. If someone, for example, is in a, is an emergence and acquisitions situation and you say, okay, so I'm buying your company. I need to know that your technology is going to be ready in three months. And they go, absolutely. And that's the fear, right? Yeah. Yeah. So your body's betraying you. Your body is saying that you don't believe. So do I know that you don't have the technology ready?

No, but I know that you know there's some, your body's telling me there's something off with that. And so maybe it's just more information to say, okay, I could go forward, but it could be a greater risk. It shows us where to dig. Right, let me dig in deeper on that. That's fascinating. Is it possible, like even with you knowing this and studying this for so long, is it possible for you to lie and get away with it facially as well?

Or is our body so intuitive that we could say a word and the body is just going to say the true meaning behind that word? So a really good spy can create two parallel lines of existing. It's probably just so uncomfortable or you have to disassociate with your mind and say, well, this is for a greater purpose or greater service. So I'm going to act as if I'm this person. Right. And why it's even really difficult for those of us who have loved ones who act because they're putting themselves in, right? Yeah. Well, and so you're going to, you're soon to be wife, right? You're going to have to have extra compassion when she's doing a role that demands a lot

of emotion. Yeah. It's very hard to just take off those clothes afterwards. And so her body is going to believe she's been through that trauma if she's doing a traumatic role. Yeah. Luckily she hasn't done any like traumatic stuff. She's done a lot more lighthearted, like romantic comedies. So it's a little bit, a little bit easier, I think, but you still have to play a character. Yes. And so, I mean, I think about, and my kids tease me about this all the time because I'm

always looking at these different actors and musicians too and going, oh, my God, who's parenting this person? Who's taking care of them? Because when we put ourselves through emotions, our body believes, our brain believes we're going through it. So I found that for myself when I teach and I'm holding the expression, like, you know, holding full on fear. Your body feels it. My body thinks, my brain thinks I've lived it you're in fight or flight so I would burst into tears the day after even though there's nothing dramatic going on in my own life you needed a release afterwards yeah so I need a 90

minute massage afterwards that is fascinating because I mean I grew up in the world of sports and playing football it was a such a switch of a mentality, getting on the field, one for safety, to like put yourself in a warrior state. Because it is a warrior state. I even had an alter ego, you know, an alter ego that when I crossed the line, I stepped into a warrior. Did you have a name for the alter ego? Well, my alter ego was Jerry Rice, to be honest, because as a wide receiver, I was like, okay, more of a visualization alter ego but i i embodied a character of inflicting as much pain as possible on people that was like a survival mechanism that's a lot for your body exactly it was like how can i inflict as much pain as possible to dominate and win and then afterwards you know it, it's like you need time to like shed that character in a sense.

You need time to shed it to like process. Yes. Sometimes I'd be in like a bad mood afterwards or just like, all right, I need like a night to just sleep it off and get back to like a loving, peaceful state. Right. It would be hard to go from there to go on a date and be soft and warm and snuggly, right? It's hard to go from there to go on a date and be soft and warm and snuggly, right? Yeah, it's like, but yeah, it's interesting. It's challenging for, I think, actors or athletes or musicians who have to play a character night after night and get back to a state of who they are, I would say.

And think about even, I mean, so one of the things when you're telling me this, I'm thinking, well, at least you were moving in all of this. At least you had an outlet. So like physically there was some result of this. And I was tired too at the end. I was exhausted. So if you just, if you're acting and there's no physical piece of that, then you're just stuck with all this sort of nervous energy and trauma. That's a really interesting. So you really wanted to master this one for yourself, but also be able to teach your kids on how to be safe. What are the things you really teach them to look out for from their early childhood to teen years and then now into some of them into their professional lives?

What were you teaching then and now? So the biggest piece is that the facial expressions need to match the words. So, nice to see you. That's disgusting contempt. That's growling. A grown man growling at a child, that's a problem. That's predatory behavior. Yeah.

And for those only listening, if you go to the YouTube, you'll be able to watch Annie's facial expression as you're explaining this. Yeah. Yeah. I have them all across my side. I just recently started to put up all the expressions on my website. It's on my socials. It's on YouTube. I'm putting them out out into the world so that other people can learn them to keep themselves safe. But the main focus for my little kids, when they were pre-verbal, we did a lot of mirroring you know how you can get little babies even before they start to speak you can get them to stick out their tongue when you stick

out your eyebrows and so we did a lot of like my dad one kid that still does this a lot of like crazy eyes i would get them to mirror oh a lot of and make sounds to the facial expression so we practice the big macro expressions and I would put words to them in the same way I'd be, you know, coffee, apple, banana. So they've never not had words for expressions and babies know this innately. It's our universal human language. It's the language on which we build spoken language. language it's the language on which we build spoken language so our facial expressions are across all cultures it's a species thing but we you know the sounds we make for different words are different but we use that if you're

looking at me and you're going I know that's something bad and if you're looking at me and your cheeks are popping up so let me ask you this how can you tell someone's giving you a real smile? If they're smizing. Smizing. What's smizing? Kind of like right there. Yeah. Your eyes are kind of like crow eyes. Okay. So I can give you crow's feet.

Oh, yeah. With a really fake smile. The bottom half is not there. Yeah. It's all in our cheeks. Is it? Okay. Okay. So when we're happy, our cheeks pop up and then this skin is usually flat. Uh-huh. And we get smile bags. Ah, okay. Yeah. So if we're happy, our cheeks pop up, and then this skin is usually flat, and we get smile bags. Ah, okay, yeah.

So if we have smile bags, that's good. So the cheeks are pushing up against the eyes. Yeah, it has nothing to do with them. Because you can fake smile, but you're not authentic smiling. Gotcha, interesting. So all you have to do is look at the skin right here. If it's fat, they're happy. And that was my four-year-old saying to me when I took them out.

I took my kids. We lived in Singapore when they were little. And I would take them out into the world and live narrate almost like a nature show in Swedish. Really? So I'd take my kids. So you'd see someone walking and you're having a conversation with each other. You'd say, they're doing this, they're doing this. Yeah.

And then most of the time I'd do what you do, which is ask the questions. What do you see? You know, kind of like there's a book. I can't remember what the children's book is called, but it's like Big Bear. What do you see? What do you see? And that's what I would ask. What do you see? You know, kind of like there's a book. I can't remember what the child's children's book is called, but it's like big bear. What do you see? What do you see? And that's what I would ask. What do you see? And they would say, well, he's showing disgust because she's in her space. What happens now when she says something funny? Well, now he doesn't mind because he lifts his cheek. And so my, my daughter, Emma was four when I was describing all these different points on the face for joy.

And she said, Mama, you just have to look at the skin right there. If it's fat, they're happy. And that was sort of the beginning of pulling this one piece that was specific for each emotion, which is what I teach. How many people innately know this? Because you hear a lot of people talk about, like, you know, trust your gut, trust your intuition. But why do so many of us go against our intuition or our gut? Because we're not taught to believe it. So we are not taught the science. So the Museum of Science in Boston has been one of my clients. It's all scientific. It's all biology. So that's the difference really between the body language and the facial expressions. I can tell exactly what you're feeling at any moment.

I can't tell why. I don't know what you're thinking. I'm not a mind reader. I'm just a feelings reader. But it's clear as day. I mean, I should have asked you before I said, like, am I allowed to use technical terms? Yeah, of course. Okay.

So if a man has an erection, he's aroused. Period. Uh-huh. If I see a naked man in front of me with an erection, he's aroused. Period. If I see a naked man in front of me with an erection, he's aroused. Now, I don't know if he's thinking of me. He could be thinking about the guy next door. He could be thinking about the beautiful model that he saw earlier in the day. I don't know. But clear as day, I know which emotion he's feeling. He's not feeling sad. He's not feeling angry. He's not feeling nervous. He's feeling aroused. Facial expressions are as universal as that. It's a change in blood flow and muscle movement in response to an emotion.

And it's clear as day. It is universal. And it is our species, our human species. It has nothing to do with anything else. Whether you're young or old, you make the same facial expressions. In our faces, arousal is a dilation of the pupils. Our pupils go ding and swell. And that's interestingly enough, that's arousal for money.

That's arousal for greed. That's arousal for romance. So it just basically is swell of the pupils. The dilation of the pupils is I want, I want, give me, give me, give me, give me, give me. It's desire. It's desire. Power, fame, success, money, all these different things.

So if you're in a negotiation and you see the other person, you're introducing your deal and you're pitching and I can make your pupils swell. I had a meeting once and I leaned forward and I said, you're a good leader. I can make you a great leader. And the guy's pupils went ding and I tripled my price. You're smart. Wow. I mean, to be fair, I was a woman in Asia and I was charging way too little money for my services. So there you go.

Wow, that's crazy. That's fascinating. Just the little cues that you could pick up on can help you make better decisions. The little cues that you could pick up on can help you make better decisions. Better decisions and safer decisions for your money, for your business, for your love life, for your friends. And so when I work, for example, with every once in a while, I'll go in and work with a family that maybe has kidnapping risks for their kids, you know, that lives a very high profile life and they want to be able to make sure that their kids know and have words to sound the alarm when somebody's acting in a dangerous way. And so equally important, usually I'm brought in because they think Annie's going to train

them to recognize predatory behavior. But if you're in the public eye, it's just as important to understand who loves you and who wishes you well. Because if we're raising kids to be fearful and weary of everybody, we're doing them a great disservice. Because as you and I both know, the meaning in life is finding people that we connect to and that we can love well and who love us well. Right. Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. And so the understanding intent has those two pieces of people that really don't wish me well at all or who want to use me or abuse me or hurt me. And then I want to know who doesn't care about my money or my fame or anything else.

They just want me to be okay and they just want to love me. How do you know the difference between someone who wants to use you or take advantage of you in life versus someone that wants the best for you? The facial expressions are going to tell you every time. So exactly like what I was talking about earlier, when if you had met me and you had said, so great to meet you and you're growling, no, you're not happy to meet me. Or you're saying, oh, I heard you got a promotion at work and you're doing the bunny rabbit twitch right here, you don't like that at all, no matter what your words are saying. But if you say, I'm so proud of you and your cheeks pop up and you get these smile bags and I'm going, oh, I said something really vulnerable when we just met. We talked for, what, five or 10 minutes before we started this interview. And as soon as I said something about something that was hard, you puckered your teeth. And you just do that intuitively.

That's empathy. That's kindness. That's I feel your pain. I care about that. I worry about that. I want you to be okay. And so when we see that empathy, that person's really feeling our feelings with us. And we do, you talked about mirroring earlier, and we do, we mirror other

people's expressions all day long, especially when we're connected with them. So back to that question that you asked, how do you tell, or can you change your facial expressions? I can change my facial expressions by changing the ideas in my head. So I had to fire a board member once, the ideas in my head. So I had to fire a board member once. Done these egregious things and we decided as a board that we needed to do it as a group because this person was going to try to go out to constituents and try to destabilize the whole organization. And so we sat down and they said, Annie will do it. Annie's not afraid of conflict. So I started reading this list. And I said, we need you to understand that this is unanimous. And we are firing you for your position.

And here is why. And I was growling at him as I was saying. You were. Yes, because I was saying these horrible things that he did. And I was disgusted at them. Yeah, I was disgusted. And then I'm thinking, because I know that I've got all these people that I have to get along with and they're watching me growl like a dog and I needed to change my own expressions. And I can't create those full parallel lines of thought, but I could feel myself just getting more and more

worked up. So I just repeated in my head, loving kindness, loving kindness, loving kindness. While you're saying those things you don't agree with. Wow. Yeah. And is fascinating. And I got pulled aside afterwards from a friend that I'd been training. And she said, you're halfway through. You switched. You switched. And I said, oh, yeah, here's what I did.

It's the only way I know how to do it. It's kind of like thinking, okay, I'm not enjoying this. Or maybe I'm having a difficult conversation with this person that naturally my facial expression would snarl or growl or whatever. Yeah. But I'm going to intentionally have as much compassion for this person as well. I don't agree with it. I don't like it. Maybe they wronged me or hurt me.

Right. But how can I also see the humanity in the person and, I guess, wish the best for them in the future? You know, it doesn't mean you have to. Which is most of the people. I mean, we just had a conversation about, you know, the people that wish you ill and the people that wish you well, but most of the people are kind of in the middle.

Yeah, of course. You know, they're just kind of struggling along, which is exactly what you're saying, right? They may not be the best person for you to have close in your life. Maybe you don't want to work with them. Maybe you don't want to be friends with them. But there's nothing, they're not inherently evil.

They're just somebody that you're saying, hey, this doesn't work for me. And, and yes, that's, that's how I cheat the system of my micro expressions is by loving kindness, loving kindness, loving kindness, just trying to find that empathy because most people are struggling. There's a Swedish movie remake. That's an American movie now, I guess, a girl with a dragon tattoo. I don't know if you've seen this movie. I haven't, it's too Swedish movie remake. That's an American movie. Now, I guess a girl with a dragon tattoo. I don't know if you've seen this movie. The girl with the dragon tattoo.

It's too scary for me. I think there's some, yeah. The English remake of it. There's a scene, uh, towards the end that essentially the psychopath murderer, um,

who like lost people up in the basement and kills people or whatever, tortures them or whatever. Uh, the main character goes to the house and cause he's kind of suspicious about him. He's like, huh, I think he's not a good person,

but he's in a position of power. He's part of this family business and he's going up to the house to kind of like check on his intuition and to snoop around. And then all of a sudden no one's there, but then the bad guy comes, drives back in and enters the house and he kind of gets caught and he like, he's outside walking around and the guy's like, Oh, why don't you, why don't you come on in? But intuitively he knew like something's off,

but he goes in anyways to be courteous, right? He's like, okay, like social courtesy. Okay, I'm going to go in and just have a conversation so it doesn't look like I'm suspicious. Eventually he, you know, drugs him or catches him. He's in the basement, tie him up, and he's having this conversation with him. The bad guy's having the conversation with the other guy.

And he's saying something like, isn't it interesting that our intuition knows, but we still follow, we still have that conversation with someone. Even when we know emotionally we should run away. But a lot of us do this in intimacy or relationships. I feel like I've done this in the past. Yeah. Where we know we shouldn't be in this relationship. We shouldn't get out. Or we start dating someone and we know like,

oh, there's some red flags or some signs that things aren't matching, right? Right. How can we tell either the signs or the flags when we're dating someone that we should really take this a lot slower? Yeah, can you feel it? You're doing this. Triangle, the triangle, right? That clenching.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the fear. That's the oh crap. Because you know what that feels like. And so is that more our reaction to someone or watching their facial expression do that? Like if we're yeah, you're doing it right now as you're as you're thinking about something that that's worrying, that's concerning.

And you're like, and then that was the discomfort, right? They're like, yeah, I remember what that felt like. That's uncomfortable, that's not safe. And so your face is live narrating your words and it's matching perfectly, right? So your words and your facial expressions match perfectly. But if someone's going out on a date or they're dating someone or they're in a relationship,

they're like, huh, how do they really know the difference between a potential narcissist or a sociopath or someone who's out of alignment versus someone that could be a healthy conscious relationship with them so first of all it's a great question and and we know in our gut i mean i always point to my solar plexus because that's where i feel it i always feel like this little almost sting right there. We know in our gut, and the problem for so many of us, especially those of us who've experienced trauma in our childhoods, is that our pain was intentionally or sometimes not intentionally dismissed. And we have been taught that our emotions aren't real and we can control everything. And really, we have this great security system in our bodies that does exactly what you're talking about, that tells us danger, danger, alert, alert.

out into the public so that people who are young are able to make safe and healthy decisions about who to align with romantically, professionally, and even when it comes to friendships. So if you and I are going on a date and say you're somebody who really doesn't wish me well, I can... Or I'm trying to get something out of you. I don't have good intentions or... Right. You don't care about my feelings. You don't care about my emotions.

Maybe you're attracted to me, but we're looking for attraction and emotional attachment. Most of us, most of us who want a real relationship, we want those two things. We want the person to be attracted to us and we want the person to be emotionally attached to us. Or emotionally committed or yeah. Yeah. Something, right? To care about our feelings at the very deepest of levels. But how do you know? Because there's probably some either women or men who are like going on dates that can act like they care, but they really just want the money or they really just want the sex or they really just want to use them in some way for their benefit. Right. So they're saying the right words. And generally for most of us and, you know, varies from person to person, but most of us feel something in our gut. Now, what I'm teaching is the facial expression so that you can see and test and get that

instant feedback before you're emotionally attached. Because most of us, six months down the line, will say about, oh, that creepy boss or the relationship where it turns out she just wanted me for my money or he just wanted me for sex or vice versa, right? That we know it, but if we can see the science in it immediately, we're unlikely to attach ourselves. We see the red flag. So what that does is it strengthens their gut. So for my children, for example, if they said to somebody, hey, do you want to come over? And that person did that no expression. They knew the person didn't want to come, but they didn't know why.

Or again, if they're saying something nice and complimentary but showing the no face, they don't believe it. They're not believing. Their body is saying, no, no, no, no, I don't actually believe this. With romance and emotional attachment in particular, we're looking for that kindness in the chin that you show so often. Yeah. The chin is a good indicator. Our achy, breaky heart is on our chin. Really?

So if I tell you something that's emotionally, physically, or financially painful for me, in general, you'll, you know, and just me saying that right now, you're like, oh, that's a lot, right? It's like she's going to be watching me to see how I respond, which is totally normal too. That fits. But if I were talking to you about a child with a learning disability or a family member that was going through health problems or something, your little chin is working the whole time because your heart is- I'm connected to it. You're connected.

And so if we're in a relationship or starting a relationship with somebody, we're starting to show our own vulnerability, they should be mirroring that vulnerability in the chin. It's not as much the eyes. It's more the chin. No, that's all of our vulnerability. So vulnerability is a piece of sadness.

It's a piece of empathy. And it's a piece of love. Right. Wow. That's beautiful. Yeah, it is. It's right on that chin. Right. Wow. That's beautiful. Yeah, it is. It's right on my chin. So I describe it in my book. Our chin

is usually like a smooth grape and then when we pucker it, we turn that grape into a raisin. Right. You can see a bunch of dimples in there, I guess, right? Wow. That's a good sign. That's a good sign. And you can't really fake that, can you? No. It's hard to, I guess. I good sign. And you can't really fake that, can you? No.

It's hard to, I guess, right? I mean, nobody knows now. We'll see if people all over the world start faking it. Unless you're a trained sociopath, I guess, and you're just trying to do that. The sociopaths never show it. They never pucker. They never do. They almost never do.

They don't show that compassion because they don't have it. They don't have it unless it's related to themselves getting hurt, and then they show it because they're compassionate towards their own feelings. How can you know if someone has narcissistic tendencies if you're going on a date, or if you've been in a relationship with them for a long time? Because they don't show me any kindness.

They don't show kindness? They don't care when I get hurt. Regardless of how I get hurt, or regardless of how somebody else gets hurt, they don't show that. Really? They don't show that. Really? They don't. No. They care more about themselves or they just don't have care?

I know narcissists that will describe something that they've been through that's painful and their chin will be working overtime. But for someone else, they probably won't have that. No, because they don't care. But how are they so good, I guess, at captivating you to love them? One, they tend to over the, well, the narcissists in my life tend to overdo the eye contact. So they're very present and connected? Yes. The gaze is long.

And then the other thing is that they've learned almost mathematically which phrases, which behaviors work. So I had somebody in my life, I won't mention who it is, but it's a family member of mine that I just lost it on him. We were living in Hong Kong and he was yelling at a taxi driver. And we got out of the car and the taxi driver had made a wrong turn, even though the person that I was with had said, turn to the right, made a mistake. And he just lost it on this taxi driver, and I was really angry afterwards. I said, do you understand that this is somebody who's trying to support his family,

working really long hours, like this is a decent human making, family, working really long hours. This is a decent human making, an honorable living, working hard, and probably has a lot of people depending on them. And you don't get to yell at somebody for making a mistake. We all make mistakes. Next night we were out and this person was trying to pick up girls. Puffed out his chest and said, I'm the kind of guy who's nice to taxi drivers. No. Wow. The next day? Jeez.

I was like, this is the weirdest, most surreal experience. But it really clicked for me, this narcissistic behavior. And I knew that this was a narcissist. This idea of, oh, there's a puzzle piece and a tool that I can use to impress other people. And it was just so artificial and strange, but people find a way to get their needs met. We humans tend to be really good at that. And if something works for us, well, we repeat that. We do more of that. Yeah, we kind of store that in our brain.

This worked before, so let me keep doing this thing. That whole love bombing and the whole, like I will tell you, and the narcissists that have ever tried to date me, I call them parrots. They try to figure out what is your thing. So I had a guy not that long ago, I've actually written about it, that was telling me, you know, I've been obsessed with micro-expressions for years because if you can't really connect with people. I mean, he'd seen me speak a couple of times, and he was just pulling all this stuff.

And I was lonely and newly divorced, and I almost fell for it. Really? Even with my stuff, because he was so good at the... Speaking to your heart and to, like, your things. Well, and he wasn't doing it face-to-face. He was doing it via text. And I kept saying, well, let's just jump on a phone call. No, no, no, didn't want to even jump on the phone call

because he knows that I can do more stuff. Wow. No FaceTime, yeah. FaceTime, you'd be like, eh. Didn't want to do the FaceTime. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So can you personally tell the difference between someone who is maybe a psychopath, a narcissist, and a genius? Can you tell the difference based on, and are there tendencies of all three, I guess?

That's a really good question you can be a genius and also be cunt right that doesn't necessarily be a narcissist and a genius for sure but the genius isn't necessarily overlapping the other ones the there are a couple pieces that I look for I look for what my kids call crazy eyes. So remember I talked about we pull our upper eyelids way back? You know, we do this, right? So that's a piece of fear. So if I walk into a room and I see somebody, you know, maybe standing with a gun behind you or like pulling out a knife and my upper eyelids are gonna gonna pull way back that fits right if i'm in a scary situation something scares me or somebody jumps out or there's a loud noise i'm gonna pull my upper eyelids back and and that look like crazy

yeah okay but that matches but we don't ever in fear the only time we will pull our upper eyelids back and hold them it roller coaster haunted house you know a terror loud noise right we never hold our upper eyelids pulled way back except when we're nuts when you're associated a psychopath you just like that all the time hitler really i'm gonna get in so much trouble for this elizabeth holmes oh. See, your face immediately goes like, there's a lot of people in the public eye, the school shooters. If you look at the pictures of them, mugshots, they always like, well, they're showing their sclera.

And there's something about mental instability and volatility and I'm not safe that, and I don't know what it is. And I've done a lot of research, just my own private research on that, but I almost always find that somebody who's committed a heinous crime and a really violent crime, they're almost always like, I don't know, 20, 30% of their pictures that you can find up on the blind where they're holding that. Really? That's interesting. Okay. So watch the facial expression of fear the full facial expression of fear and it like makes me sure is it?

Right watch when I take the bottom half of my face and turn it into joy or arousal or cheerfulness That is weird it's super creepy and it like sounds all these itchy signals to my brain But it's it's out of context. It doesn't match your whole body, your whole nervous system knows that when you see it. When I give you the vocabulary to pull this and dissect it, you're going, oh my God, I just talked about this thing. And that person showed crazy eyes, like almost like they were, there's horror and arousal at the same time.

That's the Joker's face from Batman. The arousal in the horror. The joy in the horror. That's horror. The joy in the horror. That's terrible. The joy in the horror. Right. That's something to watch out for. That is something to watch out for.

Now, are people, you know, I guess are psychopaths, are they more like that all the time? Or is that only sometimes? She seemed to show it a lot. Right, right. And I don't really, it's almost like I'm not all the way to the finish line with that research. Uh-huh. I just know. Something seems inauthentic, though.

Something's inauthentic. And you can have somebody who is not a bad person, but who is going through a period of severe trauma and mental instability also have that sort of constant deer in the headlight look. So you have to be careful. All of these facial expressions, you have to put them in context. You need context. And it's not like you see this in somebody, they're automatically a bad or a dangerous person. But they are more likely, in my experience,

to be violent against others or themselves. You sometimes see that facial expression before somebody takes their own. Yeah. Wow. So there's something, sometimes see that facial expression before somebody takes their own. Yeah. Wow. So there's something, there's some serious emotional health issue. With a psychopath essentially.

Yeah. Yeah. And what's the difference between spotting, I guess, a narcissist and a genius? And a genius who's actually kind and has good intentions versus a narcissist who is only out for them. So that's a really good question. And I'm sort of hesitant because I haven't really thought about it enough. Again, with somebody that doesn't have empathy, that's a problem. Now, I work with a lot of people on the spectrum, a lot of people with autism.

And there's this... They may not express themselves with empathy as much. Well, there's this really misunderstood piece. I have people in my life who have autism and have beautiful empathy. And the idea that you don't have empathy, that's crazy. It's all empathy. They might not... Well, and it's a tendency to be overloaded with information. You know, the eye contact becomes overstimulated.

I want to be careful because I'm not an expert. But from my own experience, they may not recognize the facial expressions. They may not have what I call situational empathy, which is also in psychology, they call it theory of mind, which is the ability to understand if this person's in this situation,'s how they would feel i see but if you have a conversation on a deeper level and you say this is how i feel and this is why the people in my life with autism have immense amounts of empathy and kindness and okay well then how can i help and i work a lot with kids or have worked in the past i don't do it as much right now. And my autistic clients are my best clients. Really? They are the ones, if I have an autistic

client that is good at pattern recognition, and those are generally the ones that I would take on as clients because those are the ones that I can be most helpful to. They don't do what neurotypicals do, which is this, you should be feeling this in this situation. They just look at the actual facial expression. This is what you're feeling. So I start with showing pictures and explanation. And I sometimes will have people like color in the facial expressions. Where on the face do you see this expression? And so for example, I had an eight-year-old that I was training. And then once we get past the still pictures, we go to videos so they can see it really. Because you don't really know microexpressions until you can see it live.

And I would always train the parents at the same time. And I'd show a video clip, freeze it, and the parents would say, well, this person's feeling this emotion. And the child would say, nope, it's this expression. And I would say, child's right. Oh, wow. Because the parents were so into, well, but in this context, nope, it's this expression. And I would say, child's right. Oh, wow. Because the parents were so into, well, but in this context, they should be feeling this. And that would influence their interpretation.

Interesting. Just because you should be doesn't mean you are feeling something. Right. And my autistic clients tend to be really, really good at that. It's all pattern recognition. And so they'd say, but, you know, she's feeling joy because the smile bags are here. She's feeling the no face disgust because there's nasal shadows or you've got the rectangle of fear, right? No, they're feeling empathy or vulnerability because the chins are raised and easy peasy.

If you're looking for a business partner or you're looking to hire someone for an opportunity or a job or a contract, and you want to set yourself up for the best chance of success with the partnership. What are a few questions you could ask someone to see their responses and see if it'll at least align with, okay, I'm setting myself up for success. Maybe this person won't work out in this career or this job or this business partnership, but I have good enough information where I feel like they're not going to try to screw me over. And they want the best in this relationship as well. What's a question or two you could ask to evoke a facial expression to see whether or not, okay, we're in alignment.

Right. So obviously stay away from, in general, the yes or no questions. The yes or no questions can be used to follow up. Okay. So you could say it, but then follow up with something. Right. But I would generally ask open-ended questions and I would ask things like, tell me a little bit about why you want this role or why you want to work with me, why you want to work with this business, and then watch to see that this person is, one, I mean, they have to give interesting answers, right? The answer itself needs to be something that is motivating for me or feels like this person's a good fit, like they have the skills and they have the desire. But I am watching if they match. Their facial expression matches.

Their facial expression matches the words. Because a lot of people can say, oh, you know, all the exciting things of why they want to be a partner or work at the job or whatever it might be, but their face isn't matching the words.

Yeah. Then you can tell something's off. Yeah. So this is suppression. We make that bubble. It's almost like, you know that,

the chewing, the people who do the chewing tobacco, so sometimes they take it out, right, exactly. They stuff it in the bottom. So sometimes they put up top but uh but it's almost a nordic country boy like chewing tobacco thing um and it's it's not even a micro expression but it's this this um it gives it takes so many muscles to make that brock obama king of suppression makes that face all the time it It's I'm holding back.

Doesn't he? What's he hold back on, you think? How he truly feels? How he truly feels or this is, you know, this information is not going to help or this is not going to be received well. I mean, you can imagine. Self-control is a good quality in a leader.

Right, but he's saying, you know there's something he's not happy with. Right, he's got, he wants to say, it's the grownup version of this. He wants to say something. He's biting our tongue. But he's being mindful of that. Okay. I might hurt myself if I say our truth. Right. Also could be simply if we're in a meeting and the meeting's going over and some subject is brought up and I'm like, oh, I have so many thoughts about this, but I'm not right now.

So it's just you're itching to say it. So that holding back is such a useful thing to see in board meetings and any conversation. So if I see somebody holding back on what they really feel, that would be a warning for me in a one-to-one interview. If we're in a big group setting, I would pull that person aside afterwards because likely they're not saying it because it's not something they want to say out loud in front of those specific people who are in a group setting. But the person will almost always spill afterwards. Interesting. So it's information telling you, hey, there's something underneath

this expression. Let's ask more. Let's ask more. But I would just generally, the more you know about microexpressions, the more it gives you the underlying emotion of what's going on. And I think as humans, we like to even tell ourselves that I'm not letting my emotions steer. I'm making rational decisions. But how many business decisions are made on, I want this. decisions but how many business decisions are made on i want this okay and it makes sense because a b c and d sure yeah sure i'm going to justify hiring this person because i really want to but um the micro expressions will give us that addiction that additional layer of seeing the red flag and getting the science to the red flag it makes it much safer because we if we see the red flag and we can dissect why we see the red flag, we're going, I'm not going to invest in this relationship.

I'm going to stop myself before I get emotionally or financially attached. Yeah, and before there's some bigger commitment or something. This is fascinating. So how long have you been doing this work and coaching and consulting with Fortune 500 executives and leaders? Since I was 28 and start well like five years in or uh yeah right that's where you do this with your nose which is the no face but also like the tricky business so the wrinkle is the tricky business. That's your mischief.

That's cute. Yeah, it's about five years. So, no, I started off with investment banking in Hong Kong and then I did management consulting in Sweden. And then when we moved, I got married, moved to Singapore. I lived in a lot of other places, too, across Europe and China. Many years you've been doing this. Many, many years. I really started when I was in Sweden.

I was the only person in the company, in the management consultancy, that had English as my mother tongue. And so I found I could hustle and wheel and deal. You were generally trained in one thing. Like you were trained in strategy or back in the day we called strategic IT or communications or change management or marketing. And I wanted to do everything because I've got a brain similar to yours, which is like, what can I learn from this? What can I learn from this? What can you teach me? What about you?

What can you teach me? What can I offer you in exchange? I like that reciprocity. Yes. I like that reciprocity. Yes. So I started going around door to door in this 150-person consultancy saying, can I be on your project?

You've got a really good thing. Back in the day before it was Sony Ericsson and it was only Ericsson. Or it was Volvo. We worked with Volvo. And I would say, if you let me in on your project, I'll write all your deliverables in English. Will you speak them too? Yes, I will present for you. Because it was at that stage where all the Swedish companies were merging with other companies and they were going over to English being the corporate language.

And the people that were 10, 20 years older than me at the time weren't particularly comfortable. They spoke English, but it was awkward. And they didn't want to do all the spelling mistakes and all that. Gotcha. So you've been doing it for a while, though. I've been doing it for a long time. What is the main thing that extremely powerful leaders want to learn from you? What is it that they're really trying to get?

And what questions do they ask you to develop from you? What is it that they're really trying to get and what questions do they ask you to develop more tools? You don't have to say their names. You can see my suppression and my mischief where I'm like, how honest am I going to be? Because they hire you because they want, it sounds like, to have more power, to have more influence,

to have more leadership abilities. They hire me with the idea that they can, that I will help them see under the surface. So give them more success. Yes, and protection. Right, protection, success, growth. What really happens is that because, you know, think about it. Like you hire me and they bring me, it's it's just straight on reputation somebody from their young president's organization or you gotta hire tiger 21 or some organization that

they're a member in or some friend has said she can change lives and they bring me and not really knowing what to expect and feeling really uncomfortable because you you get because you're reading them. Right. I'm reading them. Well, you get to the top of the pyramid and part of getting to the top of the pyramid is faking it till you make it. Nobody's good at everything. So they've gotten really good at presenting this polished, poised, like, yes, yes, yes. And then figuring it out behind the scenes. Like, I know all about that. And then, gosh, where's my Google? Right, right, right.

it out behind the scenes like i i know all about that and then where's my google right right right and so bringing somebody in who can see everything it's like being naked it you know it's like i don't want people to see me naked right you're vulnerable and um so the initial piece is almost always this oh crap like this is really, and I will often, if it's somebody that's powerful that I think can take it, I will live narrate their face. And they'll say, well, how much do you really see? And I say, well, you just showed fear. And then you just swallowed

because I made you feel uncomfortable and vulnerable. And now you're wrinkling your nose and a little bit of discomfort. And now you really realize I'm reading you. So you're pulling your upper eyelids back in fear, but your cheeks are, your inforbital triangles are rising because you're like, this is the best thing ever. And they're like, holy crap, you can see into my soul. And I go, yeah, but you know, it's fine. It's the same as everybody else. We're all the same. So they want to feel like protected and safe. Like, okay, I want to make sure that my business

or my organization is being taken care of. Do you feel like they care more about that or they care more about influence power and making more money? It's both. I mean, the number of times I will be on the stage doing a keynote and I'll get pulled aside as soon as I go off, you know, I need to talk to you in private or, and, and it depends on the kind of business. If it's a family business, if it's a family office, it can be something like, I don't trust my partner, my cousin, my whatever. I think there's something off. And I can see the facial expressions. I know this person does that.

I think they're stealing money. I think they're doing this. It can be any of the above. They don't generally know exactly what they need from me. They don't know what they want. They don't know what they want. And the person recommending me is often not telling them exactly what I did for them. So it's sort of this vague kind of thing. And they pull me in and I say, okay, so now that we've got this established that you're lonely, that you're struggling, that you're not good at

all the things that you need to project that you're good at, what are your real problems? And they go, holy. Actually, I'm dealing with this. And they'll tell me the real stuff. And the reason I've been good at the strategic advisory and the coaching is because people actually come to me with their real problems that they don't tell anybody else. They're honest with you. They have to be, I guess. Right. And most business problems are people problems. On one level or another, it could be with their board. It could be with their employees. It could be that they can't manage to connect with the people that they need to connect with. It could be that they don't trust the people that they need to trust. It could be simply that they don't have anybody to ask advice to. Because think about it. If you're the CEO,

you can't go to your board and say, with this merger, I have no idea what I'm doing. You can't tell your employees that you're over your skis. Your spouse is usually fed up because if you're a CEO, you're generally prioritizing work. And so they may not be an expert in your business or they may simply just not care anymore. So to have somebody who's kind of seen it all in terms of business, but also I think they take off their armor with me and just say, this is really what I'm dealing with. Okay. You know, fine. Let me just tell you. What would you say then are the three biggest problems of highly successful, powerful leaders? I think one of the biggest problems that I see is that when you're really powerful, everybody says yes to you and nobody calls you out on your.

And so you get deeper and deeper into being disconnected from your organization. You don't really know what's going on. You may have some toxic employees that are absolutely poisoning the water and you don't see it because because people aren't telling you. So that's one for sure. And you don't see it because people aren't telling you. So that's one for sure. I think in general, it's really, really hard to delegate well. And that in a smaller company, you can kind of manage to be juggling and holding all the balls in the air.

And as you grow, you just can't. And figuring out who you can trust and getting comfortable with letting other people make mistakes. And then the third one would really be modeling leadership. I think very few people, the personalities that tend to rise in an organization are, leadership is parenting. Leadership is parenting. It's all the same. And so if you're not able to model good behavior and the behavior that you want to trickle down in the organization, that can become very problematic. Interesting. Because the skills that got you to the top, which are kind of elbows out, don't necessarily make you a good leader when you get there. How many of the people that you've worked with in the past, percentage-wise, do you feel like are great leaders or they're struggling to be a great leader?

Like what's the percentage? I mean, all humans are struggling, you know? And we're good at different things. And I think that we need to give ourselves more grace that it is okay. The best leaders I know are very vocal about the things they're not good at. And I do have some clients that are really, you know, when I see them get up and talk, I feel this sense of warmth and pride because they'll say, okay, I'm not good at this, but that's why I have these people. Right. It's interesting.

You can be extremely successful in a business and not be a great leader. I mean, it's like Steve Jobs went through different phases where he was talked about as, like, this horrible leader in terms of his teams, like, feared him or didn't like him or he was aggressive or whatever, but he was able to build a massive business also. So it's just, it's figuring out,

and then it sounds like eventually he evolved and transformed into a better, you know, human leader of connection and empathy and kindness, but you can still be successful and essentially a bad leader. It sounds like you just might have be suffering more. Well, and the other thing is that we're just flawed humans and we're uneven. And I mean, you've talked about this in your books and I talk about it. I'm very open with being dyslexic. I mean, I'm really dyslexic. And once I started learning different languages, like all bets are off. All bets. I mean, my, my easy to learn other language being dyslexic because for me, I've struggled. So I have, I think it's because I can't read from a book and like, remember when I put in

pictures for you, but I mean, especially a different language. I mean, so like learning Spanish from a book doesn't work for me. So this is, I mean, I think they thought I was nuts because I was, I was telling, I was telling my editor, her name is Sarah. She's amazing. She's held my hand through this entire process and she's my editor and my illustrator and she did the font and she did. And she's the one who has said, you know, just do the big and the hard and do it scared and she did the font and she did and she's the one who has said you know just do the big in the heart and do it scared that's beautiful and jump and so I she said I kind of thought it was nuts when you said I want the illustrations I want the doodles and I said I'm dyslexic I need to pause and I want the dessert afterwards so you know I want the the poem and

then I want the picture that you can kind of pause. And I need lots of space between the lines. Me too. And I need different fonts so that my brain can kind of chill. To read it. Right. And I can follow the lines. And so I think that we give more credibility when we say this is what I'm good at and this is what I suck at.

And people go, oh. And this is what you do, right? You show your vulnerability. There's a piece that talks about you jump into the cold water first, then you turn around and give them a big grin and say you want to come? Right. How about now? Yeah, it's kind of like if you eight-mile yourself consistently

by talking about all your faults or mistakes or, I guess, inadequacies, then people trust you more also. It's like, okay, as opposed to saying, I have it all figured out. And it's saying, I'm on this journey and here's my vision and here's what we're creating. But I, you know, I still need a lot to learn on these different areas. And I still need support. I feel like people will trust you more. Yeah, a lot of support, yeah. Yeah. So there's this piece of, I don't know, when we're young, some of us think that if I'm polished and poised and plastic and perfect, then I will be loved. That's not love.

Wow. What is that? No, that's just a Barbie doll. That's just nothing. that? No, that's just, that's just a Barbie doll. You know, that's just nothing. So if, if, if you create this image of yourself, that's super, super fancy and everybody goes, Oh my God, he's so handsome. He's so smart. He's all these things, but that doesn't feel authentic to you. And I love you for that piece. That love isn't satisfying on any level. But if you show me who you really are and you're dorky and sweet and vulnerable and smart in very interesting ways and clueless and others, we're good, baby. Like we are good. And

then I love you for that person. You feel full and happy and adored and oh my gosh, and I'm so safe and I'm comfortable with Annie and she sees me and she loves me and I feel love for her back and that's beautiful and that's real and that's into the soul but if somebody really loves you if I come and see you when you're lying in bed and you're sick in the hospital and your face is is yellow and you you know and you have circles under your eyes and and I hold your hand and I love your soul, I don't care what you look like if I love you. That doesn't matter. But our connection and our trust and your ability to see me and my ability to see you, that's what real love is. If we're

pretending to be somebody else, we never get fulfilled from love. That's true. You know, we don't love a child because they're clever and they say the right thing. We just love them because we love them. We love their sweet little souls. You know, they're not communicating to us perfectly. They're, you know, they're crying, they're screaming, they're joyful, they're a range of emotions.

And we just love them. Yeah. It may be frustrating at times, but we love them. Well, and that's real. And the frustration is real too. And it's in the conflict that we learn to know each other. There's a Swedish saying, det är konflikten som läserna varandra,

which is in the conflict. It's in the conflict that we learn to know each other. And I love just the way, without over-translating it, it's when we fight and we resolve and we understand, okay, you feel differently, you express yourself differently, and you're showing me what you really, that's real. And we can't have a real deep connection if we're not willing to disagree and we're not willing to explain why we disagree. We can't learn from each other. And so I'm only interested and I, you know, this idea of publishing my diary is insane. But I don't care because I don't want to be loved for anybody other than who I am.

It's not real otherwise. Yeah, that's beautiful. and able to spot lies and spot the tells. If someone has no clue of how to tap into facial expression, reading facial expression, or maybe they're not going to go through the entire book at some point, and you could give people three keys to, I guess, spotting a lie or a liar, what would those things be? Watch for the bunny rabbit nose. Right?

If they're saying a positive and they're doing the negative bunny, the bad bunny. That's a potential liar. That's a liar. That should be, I don't like this. That makes me angry. Okay, fine. If you're saying something negative and you're doing that, that's a problem.

That should match a negative sentence, right? So we're talking about despotting a liar. Yeah, if someone's lying to you, how can you tell? Going to body language, there's a couple things. If you're in Western society, this means yes and this means no. So saying, I did not sleep with that lady, that's a problem. A no with a not now, if you go to Southeast Asia, if you go to India, there's lots of different head movements. Side to side.

There's lots of side to side. I don't know all of them. I know some of them. But in Europe, in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, this is yes and this is no. And our bodies will leak that all the time. And my son said to me the other day, wanted to go out with some friends for the weekend. And I said, maybe. And he goes, thanks.

And I said, maybe. And he goes, yeah, but when you say maybe and you nod, it means you're going to say yes. And when you say maybe and you shake your head, you're going to say no. So I look for that tell. That's a really, really concrete tell. Okay. That's not microexpressions. It's body language, but it's pretty spot on.

And it is culturally adjusted because this doesn't mean yes in every culture. And then I would watch for the weird words in the sentence. Like what? So going again, so adding qualifiers. I had a guy who told me, I'm a mostly good guy. I was like, dude, you are not a good guy. You couldn't even stomach saying it. He added the word mostly.

First of all, most guys won't say I'm a good guy. Like why are you trying to convince me that you're a good guy? That's weird. But if there's any extra words that just feel unnatural, so those are qualifiers. And then distancing language. I did not have relations with that woman, with somebody that you know well, or somebody who calls their wife the wife. That's a problem. That's just weird intention.

With the wife as opposed to my wife. Yeah. Or Cindy or Sarah. You're disconnecting it a little bit farther than the relationship is. What we call distancing language. Interesting. Wow. So being aware of that and be like, okay, there's something underneath that. So the biggest thing that I would say is if you feel like something's off, whether or not your brain has the vocabulary and the science to tell you why your brain's speaking the truth. We know it.

Do men lie differently than women? So I have friends that will lie to themselves. And I feel like a lot of the men in my life will lie to themselves. The men will lie to themselves? Yeah, they will. Like how so? I'm comfortable with this. I can absolutely do this. And I'm like, oh, honey, do you need a hug? Wow. And what'm like, oh, honey, do you need a hug? Wow.

And what will women do? I think we're too hard on ourselves. I mean, I think women and men are both too hard on ourselves, but men manifested in just kind of plowing through and not pausing to feel the emotions because that, as you so know, as we've been trained, especially in the U.S., that vulnerability is weakness. And intimacy, there is no intimacy without weakness. And you can't intimacy, there is no intimacy without vulnerability. It just doesn't even exist. So we have to be our true selves and we have to feel like that's okay. And that's who, that's how we feel loved. If we're going to just show this polished and poised, we're never going to feel filled. So women tend to be too negative on themselves and put other people's needs first in a way that's self-deprecating and sometimes even to the point where it's dangerous to themselves. If we're good at loving ourselves and caring for ourselves, then our batteries are filled

so we have something to offer. I'm so glad you're putting this book out there and this work out there, Diary of a Human Lie Detector, Facial Expressions in Love, Lust, and Lies. Make sure you guys get a copy of this. Also, there's the facial expression glossary, which is in the back of this book,

essentially, as well. Yes. We'll have both of those linked up there. This is really powerful. This gives you information and intel to understand if you are safe in relationships or, you know, if you're in a good position at your work, if you are surrounded by good friends who are well-intended, um, you know, teaching your kids, these things, these tools are extremely powerful.

So I'm really grateful that you're creating this and finally revealing this to the world. So I want to acknowledge you, Annie, for your work over the last, I don't know how long it's been, but a long time of doing this work and now sharing it with the masses. Where it was once for just, you know, powerful people that were paying you a lot, now you're sharing this to so many people and it's going to help a lot of people. So thank you for this work. I'm very grateful for you. I have a couple of final questions for you, Annie. This one is a hypothetical question. It's called three truths. So imagine speaking of the lie detection,

but imagine you get to live as long as you want in this life. Hypothetical scenario. You get to live as long as you want and create the life of your dreams from this moment moving forward. But for whatever reason, all of your work and your information, this book, this conversation, and anything you create, we don't have access to after you pass, after your last day. It goes with you to wherever the next place is for you. But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true, three lessons to the world. And this is all we would have to remember you by.

What would those three truths be for you? So that's really interesting because the reason I finally put this book out was that I realized I'm mortal, and do I die with it? Do I die with the things that only I know? And the answer is no. This book is really a

love letter to my children's friends. I've taught my children everything that they need to know, but their friends come over and they say, Annie, Annie, teach us one thing, teach us one thing. So I, this is everything. This is all the things. And so I really want people to learn the facial expressions so that they can recognize truth, so they can make safe decisions about their lives. But the really important thing is that when we understand facial expressions, we increase our ability to listen. And we really listen to each other. We can love each other well. And so one of the truths would definitely be that almost everybody is struggling. Be kind,

because that little, as soon as I said struggle, you puck your little chin, because you know that's true, right? You know that you've struggled. You know that your loved ones struggle. And all the people that you talk to are, because you show your vulnerability, they will tell you about their struggles. Be authentic and be true, because that's the only hope any of us ever really have of loving well and being loved. And then this other piece, I think neurodiversity is a beautiful thing we humans like to think it makes us feel comfortable and safe to think that everybody's wired the same way we are and when we really listen to other people we understand that we're all wired a little bit differently our brains are funky and nobody's good at

everything we're a little wonky as humans. And it goes back to this pretending. There's no reason to pretend that we're all good at the same things. We build teams, we build tribes, we build families on the idea that we're good at different things and we have different things to contribute. We should be grateful for that and we should honor it in each other. And we should, we should love each other for our differences. And that's, that's a good thing.

That's beautiful. Yeah. Was that three? That was three. Yeah, that was three. Again, the book diary of a human lie detector.

Make sure you guys grab a copy and get one for our friends. We'll have everything linked up with your website where they can connect with you, social media and all those different things. I've got one final question though. Curious. What is your definition of greatness? To love well and to be well loved. That's it. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can

support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.