Interview With Mark Bowden - Relationships & Dating - Confident Body Language (Mark Bowden)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] say hello we have got a very exciting guest for you guys today if you'd like to introduce dad gay absolutely we're speaking with mark bowden who's a renowned uh expert in body language and human behavior and we're just so excited to have him here because hi mark is either the most or one of the most watched ted talks on yes like almost three million views at this moment it's incredible and you've done some incredible work with with world leaders people delivering speeches and in politics and all these very kind of high caliber areas of such an important area of life that affects every single person so we're thrilled to have you here and we really appreciate your time thank you oh my pleasure it's great great to be here it's a lot of fun uh chatting with you both really good well we're dying to get into the connection element and how to make a good impression and like learning how to create connection over online situations and you know the way that dating's changed nowadays but i'd be really interested to find out how on earth did you get into you know the behavioral profiling learning about human behavior and yeah how do you get into that side of things yeah so people ask that that a lot because i think you know they may have an interest in there and they they maybe want to you know be doing what i'm doing and people that i'm with are doing it really just comes from an obsession it really just from a kid i was super obsessed with uh animal life we're all from the uk uh originally i know you guys are in the uk right now i'm in canada but uh you know back when i was a a kid uh natural history tv was was huge and and i learned so much from watching natural history television i got really obsessed with animal life especially in the sea aquatic life um and and i really enjoyed drawing and and pictures uh i have dyslexia so i'm not good at reading and writing though i've written four books i've read a whole bunch of books it's really hard work it's kind of harder work than sometimes i make it look so so making images was really important to me and so i started getting really interested in the movement of animals and then the movement of human beings because i wanted to understand why they were doing what they were doing you know i they came to a certain age for me where i got you know more socially aware and and now i'm going you know why are those people connecting with each other and why am i not connecting with those people you know what's going on here and i love movement and so i got obsessed with that i ended up doing uh essentially a fine arts degree and looking at moving images and how those affect us in terms of propaganda and influence and persuasion and psychology got really into that area there traveled all over the world working in those areas and studying with the best in the world in those areas until i became very adept at influencing humans their thoughts their feelings their attitudes via purposely showing them moving images of human beings got asked to do that in politics and then in business and now here i am you know i help people all over the world to stand out when trust gain credibility every time they speak um through the ideas of movement movement analysis there that's my that's my story that's amazing and i love the way it started with animals as well yeah yeah well i still keep uh hang on just stay there let me i'll be back in a second uh you know i still keep um you know these these little glass fish here just to remind me of of how this nice fish just to remind me how these things kind of start that you start off as a kid kind of getting interested in stuff and then you know luckily enough you know desmond morris came along with man watchings now called people people watching but that was a really important um book i was heavily into obviously charles darwin and uh evolution and charles darwin was one of the first people to be writing about facial expression and what bodies were doing uh across the world as he traveled around one of the first kind of international travelers so um so all of that natural history area has really influenced you know the way i think and feel about about body language and human behavior that's amazing what i'm really fascinated about is how it's not just an intellectual skill it's not just cool i can analyze all of these things happening out there you seem to have gone very much into the the hands-on how can i use this how can this be practically applied in real life to get real-life results with actual human beings yeah i mean that's that's out of necessity more than anything else i mean i do love the practical thing i do like getting my hands in there and making stuff like i like to make stuff and so now i would say kind of i i make i make people do things you know either by the work that i've done with somebody else that influences and persuades them to do things or i say to them hey you got to move like this so you got to say this and that will get you the result that you want so i so i move people and i and i and i make them uh do things and it has to be practical the other thing is is like nobody really pays you unless it's really practical nobody will give you any money unless it makes a a significant change in the world and a change to something really important and i guess you know that's why we're here to today is that is that you know what you're helping with people with is how they change their behaviors and the way they're thinking in order to get a really important result which is which is a really good human relationship one that you know may well last them you know a lifetime in many many cases you know how how do you do the right things to potentially get that right result in something which is potentially absolutely critical to many many people on the planet so yeah uh it has to be practical i love that i think uh yeah one thing i absolutely loved as well with your going back to your ted talk i just have to love because you open up with like well you know within the first five seconds you've already decided whether you like me or not if you think our brains taking that information straight away and you think about how critical that is in terms of okay am i going to spend my life with you like are you a potential mate you're a friend are you a foe or i look like indifferent do i even notice you yeah yeah i mean these are important important categories and we have to understand our brain is a best guess machine it's not a knowledge machine your brain doesn't know uh who you're gonna partner up with for the rest of your life it's making a guess on it now it could make a really good guess and or it could make a really bad guess but it's going to be making a guess it's judging risk essentially it's judging risk and reward based on um you know really an algorithm essentially uh a bunch of criteria that it's kind of stuck together uh some of it is very very innate and we all have those same criteria some of the criteria were given to you by the the area that you were bought up in some of them you've kind of created for your self um by you know what you've explored yourself and thoughts that you've had yourself but you've created a way of having a really good guess at uh who's going to be a great partner for you and some of it is very very um unconscious some of it is is less unconscious and some of it you might really be able to know about and think about yeah i have these four categories which is friend enemy potential mate or indifference and essentially if you if you are trying to attract somebody towards you you're trying to avoid indifference because they're just going to look at something else that might have reward or risk to it obviously you want to avoid a predator category uh the real predators out there they they will have some good ideas of how to counter measure your instinct for seeing that and they'll be doing that by um playing on other instincts you have mainly i would say your social instinct your social instinct things you you know your parents or or leaders told you about being nice and and and looking past those things they're trying to counter measure uh that and you you'll hear that in some of their languages they try and convince you to attach to them based on some some social norms that they'll say you aren't really following i mean there'll be other things as well but that's my main thing to to look out for you know classic example not necessarily from your world but you know you're in a dark car park and you've got some heavy bags and somebody comes up to you kind of out of nowhere and says hey i'll um i'll i'll help you carry your bags and you say no no uh it it's okay i'm all right because you're sensing something a bit awkward and a bit odd and you're feeling a little bit vulnerable yeah and they say something along the lines of well come on be nice i'm just trying to be helpful okay that's a huge red flag because they're using a social lever of you must always be nice and always take help it's like no i don't always have to be nice and i don't always have to take help you know so so um so you don't want to be in that predator category uh if you already truly are you know who you you are okay and then and then of course you want to get into mate category and there's there's um or at least friend well certainly friend actually friend and potential mate because because uh for the instinct mate isn't like all mate for life mate is like oh mate now and then on to the next one it's it's a very the mate category is not a lifelong association necessarily to the instinct so i think you know you're looking to get into that category of you know this this person there's there's a good potential for a long-term relationship around around this certainly more than more than the next few hours uh anyway i hope that makes sense to you both yeah toast totally does i think um you know looking for that friend makes a lot of sense because when you're thinking about looking at potential mate you're looking at someone who's basically influxed you with a load of chemicals loads of hormones and it's short term yeah absolutely yeah i mean so not only is there the the the chemical transmission that goes on so there'll be things like um uh you're you're able to detect their immune system via scent so you're you're able your instinct is able to detect if they have a different immune system from you and therefore if you're to mate the offspring would stand a higher statistical chance of having a better immune system because it would be immune to more things you know so yeah so so so there's that we're looking at facial features you're actually looking are the features similar enough that that that you are of like kind but not so similar that you'd actually be family yeah okay uh so so there's that going on so you're looking for your for some certain likeness and you're looking for some certain differentiation but ultimately this is genetics getting involved to go and going what's our best chance of survival of offspring based on this particular match now that's that's kind of good and logical from a genetic point of view at the same same time you have to the idea is if you to to you know have a long-term relationship um there's more to it than can you reproduce in an optimal way you can live and be able to get together now and again and it'd be really you know good and and worthwhile and useful and and and emotionally good for everybody so you got to be thinking further than your instinct yeah and the pickup artist industry is very much built around how can we hack into that little mental box how can i quickly get categorized as mating potential for long enough to mate and yeah maybe figure it out after that yeah i mean from what i've from what i've i've i've read of it and i have read some of it because some of it on an instinctual level is really quite incredible like some really good uh ideas and and and routines and technology are around that so it can't be dismissed um you've got to look at it quite carefully because it can be quite powerful but the things that it's playing on are some of the social elements um risks and reward differentiation um uh you know speciality you know things that make make the instinct go what on earth is that what's that over there and why can't i get hold of that that's different from all the rest and how come that's scarce at the moment so it's doing all kinds of things um with with the the algorithms in our head that will cause the brain to try and predict that that individual is of high value essentially now then once all of that stops you might realize the individual on other elements was of low value or it was just a mask for a certain period of time and having said that uh even if you're not in in that game and you do have a great relationship which which starts off really well and seems to be based on nobody putting on behaviors and putting on a mask and don't kid yourself because instinctually we are designed when we first meet to mirror each other to to kind of check out um you know is this going to be compatible or not and so we have in relationships what i would call the infatuation period which is everybody's getting on super well it's like this is great like you know uh you know he likes ice cream i like ice cream you know she loves the cinema i love the scent no you're just pretending you're just pretending to get it and then after a while it's like it's like wow i think i'm i'm in a relationship with a complete alien like it turns out turns out they don't they didn't really like ice cream i mean it was okay but it wasn't and they didn't even know that it's like it's like i found out after a while i didn't really like ice cream it wasn't it wasn't that big and that's why those first you know those first moments can be so energizing and sometimes so draining as well because the brain and the body are doing so much hard unconscious work to get you to to match up so look great relationships are hard work all the way through in order to in order to to make them work and you either decide to put in the work or you decide this isn't worth it for good reasons there's good reasons to decide it's just not worth the work and there's there's good reasons to decide this is really hard work and i'm going to keep on going with this so true because we were we've actually just recently did a video around how books fairy tales um rom-coms you know put this ridiculous idea into people's heads of what relationships should be like i think we were talking about i don't know if you've ever seen it and it's more like a teenage rom-com called twilight all right it's like oh my god how narcissistic and controlling is this and we're made to look at like oh isn't that so sweet and romantic and i want a relationship like that it's like no you don't right right yes so sometimes the the media that we watch or the stories that we hear um they will they will um they will lessen risk in certain areas and the work and they'll heighten risk in certain areas in the work so i'm thinking about twilight i've never seen twilight but i understand that they're vampires involved yes so isn't that like heightened risk in an area that isn't actually true i mean to my understanding there aren't actual you know blood-sucking vampires i know we could make some people analogous but ultimately that's a risk in relationships that is not actually true but this this story about relationships places that risk there to kind of distract us from the real risks because as a teenager or a young adult do we really want to understand the real risks and work of relationships maybe not so let's just create a risk that isn't really there so we can get involved in that now we could say hey we're still helping people understand the risks we've just displaced the risks into a psychological area of fantasy we call vampires and that's why you know if you sit down with an analyst and start talking about vampire dreams that you have you know an analyst will go okay i don't think this is an actual vampire risk that you're talking about this is a sublimation of an actual risk that you think is actually there in your life and you've just you know sublimated or displaced it into a fantasy world my guess is is is that's what twilight does though i'm not i've not watched it it was interesting i don't recommend it okay there's part of research apparently that's what we called it yeah so to speak to your point before about this initial infatuation window where it's like right we're addicted to each other let's see yeah okay is there or what are your thoughts on the idea of being able to not not quell that as such but to be have a more authentic or a more genuine connection that's based on who you actually are from the beginning is there a way to start intelligently injecting this into the way we connect with each other or is that just a thing we have to deal with yeah that's really good really good question i i think it's a thing that you have to deal with and i think it's a thing that you should deal with i think knowing about it is the important thing the the body and the mind will take over to an extent that you you you won't be able to control it and you probably shouldn't be able to control it because the body and mind are going this is not a bad bet okay it's basically going this is not a bad bet so so let's go all in let's go all in to re because if you're not all in if you throw the dice but you don't lay down all your money like you don't you don't really stand a good chance because because it's like well we don't really know because we weren't fully invested so so the body and mind are going we've we've highlighted this person as a really good bet we're going all in for the next few months okay or or even to some extent it can it can be years okay depending on the other measures that have come into to counter measure and counteract what's what what the body and brain are doing so so it goes all in um again if you if you're not prepared to do the investment you're never really gonna know and that's the risk of relationships is you throw the dice and you and and you gotta see you gotta sing you gotta be prepared to get hurt and you gotta be prepared to to win and actually got to be prepared for both of those those elements so i don't think you want to counter measure it but i think knowing about it as now everybody does watching this you now know you're designed for infatuation and just knowing you know what this feels really good right now there's other stuff to come in this relationship and this is a part of it and i'm going to really enjoy this and and but know that there's work to to come um when this when this starts to subside there may be a moment where you literally go who is that who is that person that's not the person that yeah and and and it's at that point that then conflict can often start to happen it's like i don't like the way you eat it's like well you did all the restaurants we were at you know i was fantastic it's like ah i was infatuated with you and that's a good thing that's a really good thing okay but now i'm not anymore so now i've got to learn to live with you if i want to live with you for a long long period so yeah i mean that's a great great point you make there you know and and it wouldn't it be great if you could go okay i switch off infatuation so i can so i can be you know more authentic infatuation is part of your authenticity it's you it's your infatuation it's nobody else's you know uh so so i think you gotta you gotta live with it and and and and i don't think you can do the two things together going i can i can tell i'm being infatuated right now and i'm gonna really enjoy that this and glide over it like a pilot you know watching the whole scene as well don't think you can do that as well you just got to enjoy what's happening knowing that it could change and i think that's where people as you said almost like they feel betrayed when things change and that feeling betrayal turns into like lashing out to each other whereas when you can be informed like look i've factored in the fact that things will go through phases and seasons and changes then hopefully everyone watching this like you say is informed of that now and you can go into it with four knowledge and work as a team like okay this is the phase we're going into now how are we going to choose to navigate it yeah listen if you can do that and and you totally can if you're able to um be with somebody who wants to talk about relationships together and you know you don't have to do it in a super heavy way [Laughter] you can you know you can make it light or you can mention it or you can you can you know it doesn't have to be super heavy look you can you can go and sit with another individual or another couple of individuals and talk about it or you can you know who are professional at that that's okay as well you can go and talk with friends about it uh that's that's all good um i think the the issue is going to be keeping it if it's about a relationship is keeping it totally to yourself um and of course yes listen there are some things about relationships that you can keep totally to yourself you are an individual and you're an individual part of a relationship and they are an individual they're part of a relationship as well and so it's quite complex like you won't know everything like you won't know ever you've got to know that as well it's like you are not a mind reader they are not a mind reader sometimes it feels like you are you're not you know you do not know what's going on in their their head they will lie to you they're not telling you everything that's okay listen uh lying is one of our most important social skills as is telling the truth okay and it's just knowing when to do it does my ass look big in this exactly yeah if if your partner says well yes it does and not because of the clothing it's because of the size of your backside and i don't think that's ever going to change for you because i don't think you have the willpower to ever really do anything about about that like how helpful is that you said you wanted me to be honest right okay so it's not so it's like what what is socially helpful to the relationship the relationship is important to you it's thinking about what's the helpful thing to do right now not necessarily the brutally honest thing to to do now and again when you when you're in a situation where you know um you're starting to feel like you've you've you know hooked yourself up with an utter alien and and so now you're feeling those things like you're saying like you know almost conned or certainly trapped maybe and so when you're conned and trapped or certainly you're confused it's like who is this i'm now totally confused what are you going to do fight or flight you're going to get triggered into fight or flight like there is like you are a trapped tiger or there is a uh an alien in the room that wants to kill you you're going to you're going to start doing what so you can lash out with with truth and then you might afterwards uh say look you know you told me to be honest so i was just being honest it's like yeah you're probably not being honest about what you were trying to do there which is you were trying to hurt somebody to because you're in fight and flight um so again you know we've got to know within these within the the progression of a relationship fight and flight is going to happen um you know all kinds of things are going to go on but be be forewarned about it obviously look being involved in in content like this um you know if you stay involved with this kind of stuff you'll learn more some of it will really resonate with you some of it won't keep the stuff that really resonates and go that that seems really useful you know explore more stuff that doesn't resonate so much forget it for a bit it might later on it may never who really cares but thinking about it you know smart people think about the stuff they're trying to get good at and then they do stuff about how they've thought less smart people though they can be really successful don't think about it so much and they just kind of by accident end up in a good place or a bad place but they find it hard to change or or remediate what they've done because they haven't really thought they don't know what they were doing uh if you know if you can know what you're doing a little bit more could be more helpful yeah this is the thing we talk about a little bit about um awareness when it comes to relationships if you're in a relationship where you're self-aware you've got a partner who's self-aware also accountable be accountable for your own actions and your own words and what you freaking do right and also when you're actually conscious like you you know when you're actually making decisions or saying things with the conscious you know with consciousness knowing that that's what you're doing or knowing that you need to change i think it's easier than to be in a healthier relationship because it is that collaboration element isn't it it's like you said you know sunshine rainbows unicorns all the freaking time you know it's it's going to have its ups and downs like we do as humans you know we all there are ups and downs your relationship does as well yeah i mean i like what you're saying about seasons there um because the great thing about seasons is they're relatively predictable like so i'm in canada like it snows every winter and it snows a hell of a lot and it gets cold exactly when it's going to get cold and and snow a massive amount well there's a window but it's always in the window like he's never outside of the wit for snow it's a big window here in canada uh but it always does it and does a lot you should never be surprised you should never walk out in northern canada and go it's it's winter and it snowed i am thoroughly disappointed obviously obviously we knew it was we knew it was coming it doesn't make it any less cold but it but it shouldn't really you know surprise you around that and the thing about seasons is is is they disappear and they come again and they disappear my dad's a big gardener and you know anything that was going wrong with with the allotment or the garden he would be like you know well it's always next year and then that's the thing like it comes the opportunities come again essentially it's never it's never it's never ended it cycles around and it and the opportunities come again it's out of interest if we go back to sort of the dating and like doing the the online things what's the best way for people to even make that great first impression so obviously know that the infatuation's gonna start yeah how how can we how can we actually um hedge our bets a bit when we actually meet someone especially if you haven't dated online before or met people online before yeah so you know and you know for complete transparency i've been out of the dating game for a long long time now so i'm not going to speak to to to this from any you know modern understanding of of how i would do how i would do this today in my experience but i will speak from some understanding of how humans function and and how i intervene in that in the functioning of of that and and i hope that people might see an application to the world that they're looking at um at the moment um okay so there is nothing uh more attractive to another human being uh i think be in in work or family or you know building family and long-term relationships than somebody who will accept you okay that's it in fact i would say from the moment you're born your body and mind are just going like am i okay can you tell me i'm okay and that i'm accepted and i'm part of the group so that now that isn't to say you've got to now rollick around the world accepting everything that you see or being agreeable because note because understand the predators are going to try and trigger you into being agreeable okay so so you know understand acceptance is not agreeable but acceptance kind of says i'm open to hearing about this i'm curious about it i don't know whether i'm going to agree with it but i'm not shutting it down until i have some kind of understanding of what this is and where this is coming i'm going to accept you know what's coming at me until i think i have an idea of what it is and then i might accept it some more or i may go you know i think i get what's happening here and it's you know i can't tolerate that it's not it's not right for me so so that's that's the end of it for me or or or i'm not going to tolerate this you just need to know that this can can continue but this thing i don't tolerate but i still accept it i'm not going hey you gotta you gotta stop that is unacceptable like i can go it's intolerable to me and i don't know what you're gonna do about that because it's intolerable to me and here's what happens when something is intolerable to me so i don't know if you want to do anything about that i'm just telling you but i can't make you do anything i mean i can coerce you i can give you punishment i say if you don't stop that i will do x or if you don't stop that i will take away this resource for you that's that's coercion um and it's not that in relationships and quite good relationships there isn't a level of coercion that can often go on um you know there's nothing wrong with coercion it's just if that's your only tool then and you don't have a good tool chest for relationships you've got to get some more tools acceptance is is a good way to do it so my my you know my thought to you is is how do you show up how do you show up in front of people being a still image or a real life human being in front of you live right now i mean recorded for for anybody else watching but you know we're all live together right now how do you show up with that sense of acceptance well i'm doing lots of open body language you'll see it all the time i i constantly give you uh indicators in my gestures and my body mass of of acceptance hopefully you'll see it in my face like even when you're saying stuff and i don't know what you're gonna say you'll see my head nodding up and down you'll see me smiling gently you'll see me indicating to you that i accept what you're saying sometimes it may look like agreement to you that's that's on you so yeah because you may need to ask me mark it feels like you're agreeing with me are you agreeing or not and i might say i no i don't agree with what you're saying i i'm just being really accepting because i want to understand more and i really want us to get on right now because i think there's some opportunity for us here and i'd rather do acceptance right now to really understand what's going on and then further down the line go i really understand you right now this is off you know so so i hope that makes makes sense to you and gives you something kind of practical to think about give me give me some feedback on that so like being welcoming to the information a person can present and say hey give me more show me more so that then you created a framework where someone feels safe to open up and show you their true colors as it were as much as they can and yeah then you can make an informed decision rather than a snap decision yeah yeah and just to follow on from that before before you say a bit there lily um by you doing that by you doing that they're more likely to mirror you because it's good because it's good behavior like most people like being accepted and they'll go the unconscious will go that's really good i quite like this okay i'm gonna mirror that so and your unconscious mind forgets that completely and it goes oh look i'm getting accepted here and you all open up more and quite honest if you do really strong accepting behaviors and they're doing unaccepted behaviors very quickly you'll be able to go yeah this isn't this isn't yeah yeah this is not gonna work because look i'm i'm being really accepting right now if that person isn't mirroring that either they're not in this for the same like we're in a whole different game here or they're a personality type that is going to find that for whatever reason nothing wrong with it but they're going to find it very hard to accept anything especially me you know because like this is low you know this is a first meeting and they can't they're not doing accepting behaviors like in a first meeting when they should you know they should be trying to to get something going here i mean what's the risk like what's the risk of doing some accepting behaviors for a bit and then going yeah this is not going to work so you may as well put in the effort but if not doing it then it's like okay maybe they haven't got the energy for for this anyway sorry lily i kind of cut you off there love that i really love that i love the fact that it's about the acceptance i think there's another element of like being understood that person's got a chance to actually say okay this person actually understands me so when you've got someone who understands you and rejects you from that point where they understand you it feels right it's like at least they understand rather than going oh hang on hang on i've got this to share as well that's not everything right right and and and yeah i think you're right it gives people the best opportunity to make a more informed decision which means that they can probably more consciously know why they're accepting or rejecting because i mean that's the horror of this of this whole piece isn't it is acceptance and rejection because as i said you know my theory would be is that from an infant stage we're just looking up and going uh accept me do not reject me because it's life or death for that child acceptance and rejection so so i think we we carry that on for very good reasons because having a great having great relationships is is life or death yeah for people i mean it's very hard think about it both of you and and and everybody watching you know right now if you were to lose those key relationships in your life how long would you last like how long we and i know many years ago well i wouldn't i wouldn't die uh yeah yeah you get depressed pretty if i take away all your relationships that mean anything you'll get depressed really fast unless you unless you're you know for want of a better word of sociopath like society doesn't matter to you you feel that you you live outside of it the rules don't apply to you you don't need anybody anybody else um you know even a psychopath is looking for to create you know on purpose strong feeling relationships in order to support them yeah it's a resource you know absolutely yeah it's a resource yeah yeah we all have some of that tendency we're you know there's a spectrum there and we all have some of that tendency in us yeah one thing i did love what you said as well it's about the um the difference between being accepted what was it and being agreeable yes oh my gosh i think that was just perfect that's such a lovely clean definition you can i think so many i think it does happen in men i think it happens more in women where you know you want to please you want to be the um the more feminine one i mean i've heard so many dating coaches going oh be more and you're feminine you're trapped the right man and yeah and you know how that kind of goes but it's like um it's being able to yeah be accepted for you and your beliefs and what you say and those side of things rather than going well okay i'll just i'll just do what you do so i think you're right you know if if you if you're listening to dating stuff out there and and they're giving you that advice of be agreeable i think that's cultural advice i don't think that's that's advice around the nature of human beings i think that's the nature of of many cultures right now and and throughout history whereby the the female um must be agreeable for all kinds of reasons you know right or wrong i'm not gonna make judgments around i mean i have judgments around that you're gonna make your own judgments around around that but but agreeability has become culturally important i think to the human mind at its at its fundamental level it's about acceptance so that doesn't mean that you know that either of you or anybody out there needs to be agreeable but you do need to um indicate and communicate your acceptance of what's going on then you could communicate your disagreeability to it so you so you know if you say hey you know mark how about we go and have you know thai food and that's and i know for me that that's it's not actually true i love thai food but but you know for me just so you know if you want to okay um but but i know for me like that's not that's not good i can still indicate to you oh you know do you really really love that and you can go yeah i do and i can go i totally get that so for me i'm not a massive fan of that tell you what i would be willing to go along and give it a try with you because because i'm happy to see you enjoy it just letting you know i may not enjoy it as much as you but but i'm willing to go along with it now i've told you like now i've told you now i'm not like in my mind going i better you know they told me on the dating thing that i should be agreeable so i better i better do that because it's it's you know we look we're good lives and we're not good lives and at the start of a relationship if there's infatuation we will be really good liars okay we'll be really good liars um and i'm not saying you can't you can you can totally mitigate that but you can soften that blow of of the drop from infatuation into into reality if you are um a little more uh communicative of acceptance rather than agreeability yeah i think it's i think it's like what you said it's almost like you can you can still voice it you can even voice it in a polite way yeah that's where people get stuck if i think about myself like went through some pretty narcissistic relationships right almost like okay well i'll just i'll just go ahead with this because i want to be nice i want to be seen as this i want to be seen as that it's almost like when we get told as children you know behave or do this or do that or think this and it almost gets transferred into all our other relationships you know whether it's right whether it's friends whether it's so i love the fact that it's almost like look you can be you can be accepted and you can voice things and you can voice them in a nice way it doesn't have to be no i'm not doing that aggressive right well because because over time as infatuation drops off you'll become like no i'm not going to do that what is wrong like why suddenly why is this alien i mentioned thai food you know and he's off on one she's off on one you know they're off on one like what what is going on here i only mentioned he said should we go and have i thought you liked that you know what is it and then it's like where is it me yeah it's kind of it's kind of both of us and that that we weren't kind of you know um uh accepting of of of what we like and what we don't like and communicative of of that now it's it's it's hard to do because again there are some social norms about being nice and so politeness is about social norms um you know uh the the version of so um uh you'll know uh that in the uk like you say please and thank you all the time yes every like it's like thoroughly like can i have some oh you know thank you very much please thank you it's like that happens all the time it's a social norm right here in canada you don't have to say please or thank you no can you see what happened there for you when i said that it's like what is it a different planet no it's a country full of human beings just like you and me it's just a different social norm and it's completely alien here's another one here's another one when you cross and i have to get this right because i'm dyslexic and i don't do left and right very well but if you okay uh right hand turns in a vehicle yeah you can do it any time so you can turn the corner even on a zebra crossing okay oh okay yeah so do you not do you see what i'm saying so so notice how when when you're in a world where that happens as somebody from from um the uk where you have to stop on that on that where for you be a left-hand turn um you have to stop to let people cross you don't hear they can be crossing and you can turn kind of at the same time well we just go well somebody's gonna die yeah they're just gonna die like the first time i came here i was going okay i'm going to see so many deaths today because this is just no because it's a social norm everybody gets it so everybody slows down everybody knows people are turning it works it works fine so politeness is a is a social norm for for different groups you know and your version of polite is not my version of what of polite you know necessary i mean for us it will be because we grew up under you know the majority of the same social social norms those social norms are designed so we stick together so we don't die so we stick together they're not necessarily true and they're not so necessarily helpful but they help us stick together because we all know how the rules work the rules may not apply anymore they may not be useful you can probably think of all kinds of social groups or even religions where you go why that rule like there's refrigeration like why would that you know you're not desert nomads anymore like why would you still have that because the rules help people know they're part of that group and being part of that group is so much more important than reality because reality is the group survival is the group and so i think to you to that point of being polite we've got to check in with politeness because sometimes politeness is is part of being the group and you have to be polite yes you know you have to be polite it's part of the so and that's why you know individual authenticity is such a tricky thing because you are not an individual you are an individual who is part of a group or you are sociopath which i know is not in the in the manual okay but i'm using that term just for anybody who wants to go i'm going to look that one up in that no you won't find it okay um but but we all know what we what we're talking about here is is somebody who who does not apply themselves to the rules of society uh as it's deemed by that by that uh that particular group they live outside of that or they are negative about the rules or uh they for some they just don't even understand that they're there it's like i don't know these rules we as as social mammals socially integrated there are times for us to be polite uh there are times to know we're being polite but know that we think and feel something else there are times to go i accept what you want there i'm gonna be polite around this and join in it's not actually my thing but i want to join in on this and there's some clarity around that again a bit of a rant there but i hope it made sense to you no perfectly and so these social rules around politeness and all of those things that spoken rules some of them like mind your p's and q's for us yeah yeah and some of them are unspoken they're just hereditary over centuries of a culture developing and yeah but that's how we're used to being with the current situation at the time of recording with lockdowns and all of that it's as if on mats humanity has been plunged into this quite new scenario where we're speaking over zoom i mean we worked as yourself probably internationally a lot so we were used to it there was no change but the majority of people having to work from home having to date from zoom and all of this it's like they're having to rewrite or or develop the new rulebook of how we have to interact now and i know you've done some work on how people can make a great first impression of the zoom and how we can capitalize on this medium so that like you said before this time doesn't become like a wasted time that we can actually still create quality connections throughout it yeah so i think you're absolutely right the thing is is that things have changed dramatically from for many of us we're not used to this medium here um even for those of us that are we're not used to it on a mass level across different social groups societies norms and so in many ways if we're smart about this we go okay what's the what are the norms that we're going to write for this so again remember the smart people think about it doesn't necessarily give them any advantage it just makes them smarter up front which is i'm going to really think about this like what's going on here how it is so one of the great questions to ask anybody when you're in a situation a modality that neither of you are kind of used to or there's it doesn't seem to like you don't instantly know what to do yeah is to go so this is kind of new to me i don't know whether it's new to you how are you thinking about doing this so it's just like let them give you the manual that they've worked out so far so they go well well because they might go well you know i did something last week and it really worked out well for me it's like okay tell me about that okay so okay give me some experience about this because then you might be able to get an experience exchange and then you might be able to go look here's the way i'm thinking of doing this what do you what do you think okay they may say something they're like okay here's the rule i'm making up and you might go to yourself okay i that feels really odd to me you know because but you might still want to accept it you know and go i'll go okay i i'm willing to give that a try gotta tell you it feels really odd to me but i'm willing to give it give it a try because i'm a bit of at sea around this so i'm willing to give it a go let's let's give that one a go then you know so so again not necessarily agreeability acceptance trying to work out what is what is the manual anyway let me give you some of the some some things that i've that i've realized uh that work really well through this modality okay seeing more works really well this is a visual medium and therefore we want to see as much as possible how do our eyes work light if you're not lit forget it like get yourself lit if you're showing up in the dark okay it's gonna be a big big problem for you know think about how i'm coming across to you right now and then i'm just gonna turn out some some light here my camera will compensate relatively quickly but just notice how how much better you feel about me when i'm just better lit up and that's just your instinct your your eyes go to the light not the darkness darkness uh darkness is where the predators are light is where the um where you'll be able to see the risks and rewards so get yourself lit show more of your environment so in this angle that i've got on the camera and i've got a camera here that does a 90 degree angle so it takes in a lot of the environment here i'm not saying you need to do that but i'm just showing you the principle of show them more the more information the brain gets the more optimistic it is optimistic they got it right even if it sees information that it didn't like it goes well i'm pretty optimistic because i saw it it wasn't hidden yeah it was easy to see it was well lit and i could see it so now i'm optimistic that i know what i'm dealing with there yeah i'm sure i'm dealing with something i think is negative but i saw it it wasn't in the dark for me so show them more cameras do close-up really really well they do long shot and close-up really well you're not there showing a you know a big american scene so you don't need to think about the long shot you really need to think about the close-up and so notice how you know i lean into the camera a lot and i look straight down the lens at you because i know prolonged eye contact when you are in a safe place for you yeah will increase your levels of dopamine and oxytocin so you will start to feel really optimistic about the connection with me if i give you prolonged die cut now do this in close proximity when you've only just met somebody okay uh you will trigger you will trigger fight or flight you know on on the whole or or you'll trigger infatuation really that but to get close to them quick okay that is some of the work of the of the pickup manuals of how you maneuver in fast okay i'm not going to tell you any i mean i use those in that in sales a great deal how you can use some kind of what i'd call collateral you know in a live meeting something to focus somebody's attention on so they don't notice that you sat right down beside them and triggered their brain into the proximity effect to build connection to them because if i move in and i've got strong eye contact with them and sit down next to them they are gonna it's gonna trigger fight or flight with the male or female doesn't matter yeah they're going to go fight or flight okay so but we don't need to know who do worry about that because we're going to suspect or hope that the person on the other end of the camera is in a comfortable safe space for them so they already feel at home so if you can come in close and get prolonged eye contact that's going to be good now understand you are triggering a feeling in them now why why might you want to do that because you you're doing prediction you're going to go what happens if i do this do they connect with me do they not connect with me yeah will i be open to connect even more with them am i going to try in this first meeting to really try and connect and be open and available because i'm throwing the dice and i'm going to see what happens i'm going to put in some effort and i'm going to think about it as i'm doing it i'm going to think about it afterwards yeah i'm trying to give us the best opportunity uh here not not um fake an opportunity for nefarious means though i have no problem with fakery like faker fake is really important yeah again it's fake is a really important uh thing um to be able to put on the behaviors of something yeah in order to stand a better chance of becoming that is so important that's how we learn mimicry mimosas which is the latin four to copy mimicry is our primary way of learning how did you learn to be the human being that you are today you mimicked the people around you without that moment of unconscious fakery you would not be who you are today all the good and the bad came out of that yeah so so you can use mimosas mimicry fakery um in order to start to make more conscious effort of being the person you want to be doing on purpose rather than the accident we do with all our heroes all the people that we look up to unconsciously yeah so so i got no problem with with fakery and i could talk more about that especially in art fakery and art is super important super important it's like conscious choice again as these because we're constantly you know we've been programmed to a level already you know through childhood and through experiences but it's almost making that conscious programming within ourselves it's like right okay well i need to act like this to be the certain person that i want to be um you know i need to portray myself to be this person um yeah and i think it's like almost making that just like conscious choice it might not be real might not be authentic but it's the intention behind it i think that's really important let me get that's triggered something i think that might be useful for people a little kind of tool that everybody can use uh which works really well for a lot of clients that i that i have in all kinds of worlds whether trying to lead a country or trying to get better relationships and it's about um choosing who you want to show up as in a certain situation now it's always you okay so let's let's if i may let's just talk a little bit about how personality works okay there's a lot of ideas out there around personality is a set thing you never change you were born with it um uh i think most uh well not let's just say not everybody agrees with that idea i certainly don't okay certainly i don't agree with it on a scientific level and i don't agree with it on a philosophical level because it means i can't choose elements of my life they're all chosen for me right from birth even if that's true i refuse to live in that world i refuse to live in the world where stuff gets decided for me it may be true but i'm gonna work against that even if it is and i don't even think it's true okay so so so our personality is a bunch of facets it's like a diamond it's a bunch of faces and sometimes you can move one face more towards uh the world and the light will shine off it a bit better and people will see that it's all your faces all your personalities sometimes an environment will come to you and and the faces will change and you won't have even noticed and it's like wow who showed up in that moment i didn't even know myself yeah i mean uh lily i'm guessing i'm going to guess and it may be right or wrong that your mum and dad are still still around tell me if that's not oh yeah oh yeah okay so when when you get on the phone with them let's just say with your dad okay when you get them on the phone with them do you talk to them like you're talking to me no yeah no yeah so so so are you being dishonest with me then i mean what's the real you yeah exactly all different and completely different circumstances both you yeah they're both you but i would hear you on the phone with you with your dad and going who the hell is that why is she being like that oh she you're showing some elements and facets of your personality because they work better for that situation they're right for that for that situation okay so but they're both you and so i can't go oh i think lily's being inauthentic with me because i heard her on the phone with her dad she's like it was like a different voice of course it's a different voice of course you like that facet brings out different tonalities different words even okay so so we're going to make a little a little chart okay and oh yeah you can see that yeah and we're going to put this uh not that okay this not that okay yeah okay and and um you know in in in your current relationship right now lily you know when you're to make it really work yeah to make it really work yeah how do you how do you want to be what do you think you can a way you can be yeah that will most likely make it work it's a good gamble yeah yeah give me give me a word give me something that comes to mind anything um i was gonna say yeah being open lovely lovely love it listen when you're making this list you don't have to be good at it you just have to come up with things because the list can develop okay the first thing is you start right open what's what's the not that what's not being open um as i say closed off or defensive defensive i like defensive because it's a little um it's a little more clear than than closed defensive okay so so you know look we could just keep on making this list yeah okay and you would come up with a list of this not that and then when you're going into a tricky situation you know uh you just look at the list and you go oh yeah i want to be open not defensive here okay now my guess is is you know how to be open and you know how to be defensive like you even know in your body like you know when your body is starting to get defensive you know the the ideas that go over in your head when you're being defensive you know the ideas that going on in your head when you're being open so you can choose yeah it can become your choice now i know playing it out might become difficult under circumstances but before you go into the situation and go hey i've got to have i know i've got to have an important conversation here which is important to my relationship i'm going to try and be you know i'm going to be open not defensive and i know what i do when i'm open i know how to sit when i'm open yeah i know i know the room in the house that i might be more open in so why don't i just go okay can we go and talk about it there okay so so if you met now anybody who's in that dating area when you're getting online like this you can have the list and you can say okay i'm going to be open not defensive i'm going to be this not that you can have the list up there in front of you to help you out like stick it up there so it's like every time i get on with i want to be i want to be this not that i like that's the important thing i want to be this not that it's choosing who you show up at the defense of you lily it's you that's you you open you i mean yeah so so even you know the tonality of the voice as well you just showed it to me okay so so so so in order to make this relationship work whenever you hear that voice because you because it had an effect on you it's like oh i hear that in order to make it make this relationship work how do you want to be like how do you think you should be when you hear that voice give me give me some ideas on that give me a word when i hear that voice it would need to be um strategic no i think empathetic lovely lovely um what is what is the opposite of that or the not that of empathetic um like uh self-righteous i guess i love that i love that because it's it's it's like defensive it's it's it's really kind of clear yeah um and and what i loved about it is you wrinkled up your nose and did disgust at the so it's like before you came up with the word so you know the feeling yeah like you know it's i know this i know i know and you know you can and my guess is you're already able to think okay here's the kind of things i do when i'm empathetic and here's the kind of things that i do when i'm self-righteous okay here's and now it can become a choice i'm not saying it's not hard to execute that under stress and pressure okay under fight and flight you know you can't even read the list okay but but you're thinking about it and that's going to make you smarter than most other people who are being empathetic by accident or self-righteous by accident and i know there'd be people out there going well no it's not an accident it's authenticity nonsense that's total nonsense yeah both of those things like well i'm being you know when i was being self-righteous when i was being empathetic it's because you know if i am an empathetic person i will i will um i will authentically become empathetic it's like no under stress and pressure you'll go to the negative you'll become self-righteous and you'll say that was authentic you'll go yeah because because i was right yeah you were right or wrong i don't know i don't know but it felt good for you and that's what authenticity tends to be around is like feels good to me felt good to me to be nasty felt good to me to be nice in that in that situation felt good for me to be nasty in that situation anyway i hope that's that's like a useful you know if i was going to give you i hope people can see that but it's just a very simple chart fill one of those out get it on a nice like you can even almost usually kind of fit it on a little post-it note and stick it up on your computer monitor there and have that in front of you why not yeah why not give yourself all the help you can of trying to make the best of these moments because to an extent um you know to an extent this won't last for long but yes but don't miss the opportunity of don't miss the opportunity of what this can give you which is to meet a lot of people and and and take a lot of gambles you know in a really good you know enter the casino uh being able to you know for one of a better metaphor play the game really well because because the outcome of that can be something that could last a lifetime for you really could there's no reason why not no reason why not sure i just want to say a huge huge thank you i mean like this has been brilliant absolutely brilliant we've taken so much away ourselves so i'm yeah watching through this again where can people find you where can them if us if people are really interested in your work and learning more about you know body language where people find you yeah look the first thing i would tell people to do is is get yourself truth in lives whatever what people are really thinking by myself and and tracy thompson who is my my life partner my my wife we're married we've got kids we live in this house together we've had a lot of years um and because the first uh whole section of this the first third of this is on body language and romantic relationships so you know you should get a hold of this and take a look at that get over to truthplane.com and uh you'll find me there and really the corporate work that i do uh if you love body language reading deception detection uh get over to the behavior panel um you know i know scott's been on this show and chase has been on this show um so get over and see us there that's a lot of fun but really you know you know for everybody listening today uh get that book yeah you'd find it really useful yeah awesome amazing thank you so much my pleasure it's been great talking to you both thanks for uh thanks for having me around it's been great to be back in the uk yeah it's been good to have you here welcome back [Music] foreign

Channel: Love With Intelligence

Views: 17,249

Rating: 4.9139786 out of 5

Keywords: body language, mark bowden, how to read body language, body language analysis, reading body language, body language expert, body language expert mark bowden, mark bowden body language myths, mark bowden interview, mark bowden body language, female body language, women body language, body language attraction, winning body language, mark bowden truthplane, exclusive interview, Mark Bowden, interview with, dating advice for women, dating body language tips

Id: MPWXBMwG0zY

Length: 69min 34sec (4174 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2021