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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 job was in ding and I tripped my price. You're smart.
Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Louis Howe as a 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.
Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guests. We have the inspiring Annie Sonblad 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. It was called, which is facial action coding systems. And it is a background on scientifically backed low 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 or partner, a boss, what should we be looking for and how many, 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 was a road 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 the 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 it 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. 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 doesn't matter what language you speak, 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 to, 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. And, um, 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. Um, but think about it when you're scared. I mean, right now I'm a little nervous cause we've just met for the first time and we're being filmed and this is kind of exciting and I friend of your books.
senior podcast, so my hands are cold. Well, it's also cold in the room. I'm making cold in here, baby. 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. 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 are our hands and our armpit, pit, sometimes on the brows, 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. Interesting. Okay. So that was like the old craft. That was the old craft. And 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.
and 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, I'm going to, there's going to be loud noises. I'm going to act calm and relax. 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 who experienced trauma, we get triggered really, really quickly. Very easily. Right. And so when I said that trauma, you, you did the rectangle of your mouth, the tendons of your neck, John, that's, that's fear. That's oh crap.
Right? That's a response. And you pull 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 weight above our eyes. And we make our mouth into this giant rectangle. Why is this? 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 so that we can screen for help. And so what I call the old crap is just that little piece of the rectangle. Yeah. And it's the only expression that makes the tendons of our next job. 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, you know, 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 when we constantly create this intuitively in our DNA? All day long. Really? It's hardwired into us. So it's not a mimic because we mimic a lot of body language. We do. Yeah, we mirror a lot of body language in there. And so we're like parrots, right? Right. But so if you were really stressed,
And you come in when 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 word said great, you're puckering your chin because you're feeling sad and vulnerable, right? So I know that. My corrections 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 to you, make it. Right? So if 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 called the no face, but it's got three main pieces, the macro, which is big expression. It's got the wrinkles next to the nose, the deepening of the nasal labial furrow and the pulling of the upper lip. Did you have that girl in seventh grade? It's like, are you going to wear that? Yeah, of course. 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 a, 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 a key. 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 AM, 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, whereas that doesn't mean I don't like you. It just means like, dude, I don't want to get up at five in the morning. I don't want to do it, or I've already doubled, or just a quick, no. It's just a little flicker of no. 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 in a few minutes 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 it's 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, somebody is really feeling uncomfortable. We know that they're feeling uncomfortable and we can ask them questions and we can offer help. Right.
If someone, for example, is an emergency and an accident situation, and you say, OK, 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? So your body is 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 are some. Your body is telling me there's something
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? And so you're going to, you're going to have to have extra compassion when she's doing a role that demands a lot of emotion. 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.
Luckily, she hasn't done any traumatic stuff. She's done a lot more light-hearted romantic comedies, so it's a little bit easier, I think, but we 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 brain believes we're going through it.
I've 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. And 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 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 I, when I crossed the line, I stepped into a warrior. Did you happen to me with 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 embodied a character of inflicting as much pain as possible on people. That was like a survival mechanism. Right, and 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'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 sucked. Yeah, 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. It 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. It was. That's 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, 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 lines? 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 in 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. But yeah, yeah, I have them all across my side. And 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 tongue. And so we did a lot of like
My dad's 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 expressions. 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. So our facial expressions are across all cultures. It's a species thing. But 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? After smizing. Smizing, what's smizing? Kind of like right there. Yeah. Your eyes are kind of like crow. Okay, so I can give you crow's feet 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. Okay, yeah. So if we have a smile bag,
So the cheese are pushing up against the eye. Yeah, it has nothing to do with the mouth. 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 that, 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 to the world and live narrate almost like a nature show in Swedish. Really?
So I take my kiss. You see someone walking and having a conversation with each other. You say they're doing this. They're doing this. Yeah. And then most of the time I do what you do, which is ask the questions. What do you see? You know, kind of like there's a book, a camera with 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 think.
How many people innately know this? Because you hear a lot of people talk about 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 it's day. I mean, I should have asked you before I said, like, what am I allowed to use? Technical terms? Yeah, of course. Okay. So if a man has an erection, he's aroused.
period. If I see a naked man in front of me with an erection, he's aroused. And I don't know if he's thinking of me. He could be thinking about the guy next door. He could be thinking about, you know, 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. It's desire. It's desire, power, fame, success, money, all these different things. So if you're in a negotiation, 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 job was like, ding, and I tripped in 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. Wow, that's crazy. That's fascinating. Just a little cues that you can pick up on can help you make better decisions.
Butter 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. That is 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, and he'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. 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 and 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.
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
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 hit the fire 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, I'll do it. Annie is 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. 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 things you don't agree with. Wow. Yeah. And I got, I got pulled aside afterwards from a friend that had, I'd been training and she said, you have way through. You switched. And I said, Oh yeah, here's what I did. It was the only way I know how to do it. It's kind of like thinking, okay, I'm, 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. 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...
most of the people, I mean, I just, 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. 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. Yes.
They're just somebody that you're saying, hey, this doesn't work for me. And yes, 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, Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. I don't know if you've seen this movie. Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. I haven't been too scary for me, I think. The English remake of it.
There's a scene towards the end that is actually the psychopath murderer who like lost people up in the basement and kills people or whatever tortures them or whatever. The main character goes to the house and because 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, Tom drives back in and enters the house. And he kind of gets caught. And he's outside walking around. And the guy's like, why don't you come on in?
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 gonna 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 guys having the conversation with the other guy.
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 shouldn't, 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. Uh huh. We should 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 you that 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 like, you're doing this. The triangle, the triangle, right? The punching. Yeah. Yeah. That's the fear. That's the old crap because you, because you know what that feels like. And you. So is that more our reaction to someone or watching their face or expression do that? Like if we're,
Yeah, you're doing it right now as you're thinking about something that's worrying, that's concerning, and you're like, and then that was this comfort, right? They're like, yeah, I remember what that felt like, that's uncomfortable, that's not safe, that's this. 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 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, that's a great question. And we know in our gut, 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. And what I am trying to do is get this information 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- Well, I'm trying to get something out of you. I don't have to get intentions. 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. Yeah, or emotionally committed, or yeah. 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, it 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 all that creepy boss or the relationship where it turns out, you know, 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 for 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 phase, 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 and the chin that you show so often. The chin. 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 know, and just me saying that right now, you're like, oh, that's a lot, right? 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, you just, your little chin is working the whole time because your heart is connected. 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. Like it's right on my chin. So I describe it in my book. You know, 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 lot 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 mean, nobody knows. Now we'll see if the people over the world start making it. Unless you're like trained sociopath, I guess, and you're just like trying to do that. The sociopaths never show it. They never pack her. They never do. They almost never do. They don't show that compiler 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 you've been in the 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. No. They care more about themselves or they just don't. But I know narcissists that will describe something that they've been through that's painful and their routine 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 narcissist in my life, tend to overdo the eye contact. So they're very present and connected? Yes, they think that 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, you know, turn to the right, it made a mistake. And he just lost it on this taxi driver.
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? This is a decent human making, an honorable living, working hard, and probably has a lot of people depending on them. 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. I left out his chest and said, I'm the kind of guy who's nice to taxi drivers.
No. Oh my gosh. Wow. The next day. Geez. It's like this is so weird. It's most surreal experience, but it was 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 upset.
That's 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. You know, even with my stuff, because he was so good at the... Speaking of your heart into, like, your things. Well, and he wasn't doing it face-to-face, he was doing 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 first.
Wow. No facetime. Yeah. Facetime. Yeah. So can you personally tell the difference between someone who's maybe a psychopath, a narcissist and a genius? Can you tell the difference based on another tendencies of all three, I guess? That's a really good question.
You can be a genius and also be kind. You can be a narcissist and a genius for sure.
But the genius isn't necessarily overlapping the other ones. 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 you, 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, you know, my upper eyelids are gonna,
going to 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 going to pull my upper eyelids back and that matches. Yeah. Okay. But that matches, but we don't ever interfere. The only time we will pull up our eyelids back and hold them rollercoaster haunted house, you know, a terror loud noise. Yeah. We never hold our upper eyelids pulled way back, except when we're nuts when you're a psychopath.
You just had Bundy all the time. Hitler. Really? I'm going to get in so much trouble for this. Elizabeth Holmes. Oh, wow.
Yeah. See, your faith immediately goes like, there's a lot of people in the public eye, the school shooters. If you, if you look at the pictures of them, they always like, they're 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, but I almost always find that somebody who's
committed a heinous crime and a really violent crime. They're all 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. That's interesting. Okay, so watch the facial expression of fear. The full facial expression of fear, and it makes me sure. 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 sends all these itchy signals to my brain. But it's out of context it doesn't match and 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. They should not, that's the Joker's face from Batman. They are arousal in the horror, the joy in the horror. That's terrible. The joy in the horror. Right. That's something to watch out for.
Now, are people, you know, I guess our psychopaths, are they more like that all the time, or is that only sometimes? She seemed to show it a lot. Right, right. And in the end, I don't really, it's almost like I'm not all the way to the finish line with that research. 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 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 tastes their own name. So there's some serious emotional health issue. With a psychopath, essentially. What's the difference between spotting 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. 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. Well, it's a tendency to be overloaded with information. 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 hears how they would feel. 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. They are the ones because 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 micro expressions 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. 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, it 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 or 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 reason. Easy peasy.
If you're looking for a business partner or you're looking to hire someone for an opportunity or 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 gonna 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 generally yes or no questions yes or no questions can be used to follow up okay so you could say but then follow up or something right but i would generally ask open-ended questions and i would ask things like do you know 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? It has to, 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. The facial expressions match the words. A lot of people can say, 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 faces in matching the words, then you can tell. Somebody's off. 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 at, right, exactly. They stuff it in the bottom. So sometimes they put it up top, but it's almost an 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. Barack Obama, King of suppression makes that face all the time. It's, I'm holding back. Doesn't he? What's he hold back on, you think? How he truly feels or how he truly feels or this is, you know, I, this information is not going to help or, um, this is not going to be received well. I mean, you can imagine self-control is a good quality and a leader.
Right, but he says, you know there's something he's not happy with. Right, he's got, he wants to say, it's the grown up version of this. He wants to say something. He's fighting our tongue. But he's being mindful of that, okay, I might hurt myself if I say how true it's been.
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, 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.
You know, 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 doesn't. 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 spell.
interesting. So it's just information telling you, hey, there's something underneath this expression. Let's ask more. Let's ask more. But I would, I would just generally the more you know about micro expressions, 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 decisions are made on? I want that. OK, and that 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 the micro expressions will give us that additional layer of seeing the red flag and getting the science to the red flag. It makes it much safer because 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 find a difference. Yeah, and before there's some bare commitment or something. This is fascinating. So, you know, you've been, how long have you been doing this work and coaching and consulting with, you know, Fortune 500 executives and leaders? Since I was 28 and start well. Like five years in or? Yeah, right.
That's where you do this. Easy. I'm 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 and moved to Singapore.
I lived in a lot of other places too across the era of China. Many years. I really started when I was in Sweden, I was the only person in the company in the management consultant that could, that had English as my mother tongue. And so I found I could hustle and wheel and deal by, you couldn't, 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. 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. So I started going around door to door in this 150 person consultancy saying, yeah, can I be on your project? You've got a really good thing back in the day before it was Sony Erickson and it was only Erickson or it was, you know, 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, it was awkward. And they didn't want to do all that like the miss the spelling mistakes and all that. Yeah. So you've been doing it for a while though. I've been doing it for a long time. What is the, 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 they ask you to develop more tools?
Not 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 ability to use to hire me. They hire me with the idea that they can, that I will help them see under the surface, so that they, you know, mostly. So give them more success. Yes. And protection.
Right, protection, success, growth. Right, what really happens is that because, you know, think about it, like you hire me and they bring me and usually it's just straight on reputation. Somebody from their young president's organization or 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're reading them. Right, I'm reading them. When 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? And so bringing somebody in who can see everything, it's like being naked. It's like, I don't want people to see me naked, right? You're vulnerable. And so the initial piece is almost always this, oh,
Rap, 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 or 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. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same as everybody else for 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?
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. 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 had no idea what I'm doing.
You can't tell your employees that you're over your skis. Your spouse is usually fat out because if you're a CEO, you're generally prioritizing work.
Um, 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 phone and so you get deeper and deeper into being disconnected from your organization and 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 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. It's all the same.
And so if you are 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. And we're good at different things. And I think that we need to give ourselves more grace, that it is okay, that 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 the sense of warmth and pride because they'll say, okay, I'm not good at this, but that's why I have these people. I mean, that's interesting. You could 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 did I 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, 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, 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 bad dyslexic. And once I started learning different languages, like all bets are off, all bets. I mean, my
Has it been easy to learn other language being dyslexic? Because from now, I've struggled. So I have. And I think it's because I can't read from a book and like, remember. Well, that's why I put in pictures for you. That's good. I have to have pictures. Yeah. But I mean, especially a different language I mean. So learning Spanish. Right. From a book doesn't work for me.
So this is, I mean, I think they thought I was nuts because I was telling, I was telling my editor by 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 in the heart and do it scared 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 poem and then I want the picture that you can kind of pause and I need lots of space between the lines. And I need different fonts so that my brain can kind of chill. Read it and yeah. 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,
And this is what you do, right? You show your vulnerability. There's a piece that talks about, you know, you jump into the cold water first, then you turn around and give them a big grin and say, you want to come? How about now?
Yeah, it's kind of like if you eight mile yourself consistently by talking about, you know, 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, right? Yeah, a lot of sport. 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 I'm perfect, then I will be loved. That's not love. Oh, wow. What is that? No, that's just, that's just a Barbie doll. You know, that's just nothing. So 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 yellow and you have circles in your eyes 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. Maybe frustrated at times, but we love them. Well, and that's real. And the frustration is, is, is real too. And it's in the conflict that we learn to know each other. It's a Swedish saying a conflict in us. And they conflict in us in Nashana, Veranda, 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, it's beautiful.
As a human lie detector 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? You 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, that's a, that's a liar. That's, that's a liar. That should be, I don't like this. That makes me angry. Okay. Fine. That if you're saying something negative and you're doing that, that's a problem. That should match a negative sentence. Right. Um,
So we're talking about just spotting a liar. Yeah, someone's lying. Someone's lying to you. How can you tell? Going to body language. There's a couple of things. If you're a Western society, this means yes, and this means no. So saying, I did not sleep with that lady. That's a problem. I know with the not now, if you go to Southeast Asia, if you go to India, there's lots of different head movements, right? There's lots of side to side. I don't know all of them. I know some of them.
But in Europe, in the US, 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, I wanted to go out with some friends or the weekend and I said, maybe. And he goes, thanks.
And I said, I just said, maybe. And he goes, yeah, but when you say maybe and you're not, it means you're going to say yes. And when you say maybe you shake your head, you're going to say no. So I look for that tell. That's a really, really concrete tell. That's not micro expressions. It's body language, but it's pretty spot on. And it is culturally adjusted because this doesn't mean yes in every in every culture.
And then I would watch for the weird words in the sentence. So going again, so adding qualifiers, I had a guy who tell 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. And first of all, most, 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, 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 their their wife the wife. That's a problem. That's just weird intention with the why is supposed to my wife's yeah
or Cindy or Sarah or disconnecting it a little bit farther than the relationship is. Well, we call this a 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, you we know what. 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. Like how so? I'm comfortable with this. I can absolutely do this. And I'm like, Oh, wow. And what will women do?
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 know, you so know, as we've been trained, especially in the U.S., that vulnerability is 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 how we feel loved. If we're going to just show this polished employees, we're never going to feel failed. 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 themselves. If we're good at loving ourselves and caring for ourselves, then we have batteries are filled so we have something to offer.
I'm so glad you're putting this book out there and this plus work out there diary of a human lie detector facial expressions and love lust and lies. Make sure you guys get a copy of this. Also, there's the facial expression and glossary, which is in the back of this book essentially as well. 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, 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 could believe 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, any, any teachers, one thing, teachers, one thing. So this is everything. This is all the things.
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 neuro diversity 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, like 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 love each other for our differences. And that's a good thing.
That's beautiful. Yeah. Was that three? Yeah, I was three. Again, the book, Diary of a Human Light 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 left. 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.
