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CHAPTER 3

The Basics of
Reading People

Think how wonderful life would be if you could recognize whether

someone had a positive or a negative effect upon you, or whether the
person really liked or loved you. Wouldn’t it be valuable to know if
someone was lying or genuinely had your best interests at heart?
While most people believe that you’re hearing your inner
voice or trusting your instinct or your gut is an inexplicable phe-
nomenon, it is not. It is a concrete, neurobiological experience
that comes by paying close attention to the four codes of commu-
nication—speech, voice, body and facial language—which I will
be explaining in greater detail throughout this book.
The ability to harness the skill of reading others is not an art. It
is a science. It is heightened awareness that comes from being in
tune with one’s senses. Emotions such as fear, anger, and happi-
ness originate in the brain, which controls how those feelings are
communicated via speech and facial expression. A person’s voice,
tone, posture or body stance, and facial expressions are the result
of the brain’s intricate wiring.

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34 I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING

The Four Codes of Communication

There are four primary codes of communication, which are pro-
cessed in the brain. Two of these, the speech and vocal codes, are
processed auditorily, while the other two, facial and body language
codes, are processed visually. This chapter provides an overview of
these codes; chapters 5–8 will explore them in more depth.
Although different areas of the brain are utilized to process
the information received in these codes of communication, the
brain arrives at an assessment of how one reacts to these codes
emotionally. The result is that all the codes are integrated to form
a personality profile of an individual.
Next, the internal aspect of the brain begins to make an assess-
ment whether someone is suited for us based on the emotional
assessment of the individual’s personality type. These codes pro-
vide a clearer picture of one of the fourteen personality profiles
we will discuss later, in Chapter 9. When deciphering these codes,
I am talking about vocal and speaking behaviors, movements in
our body and facial language we can do something about.
To make judgments solely on physical appearance as the early
literature on this subject did is extremely dangerous and perpetu-
ates prejudice. That is not what this book is about. This book is
designed to help people, not to alienate them. It will help you rec-
ognize signs others transmit, which can work for you or against
you. You will discover behavior in others that you can or cannot
tolerate, depending upon your own personality. It will help you
make the right decisions as to who should be in your life.

Listening to the Speaking Code

How you sound provides only some of the clues to inner reality;
the words you use and what you actually say when you speak are
R also important. What do people really mean by what they say? Are
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The Basics of Reading People 35

they sincere? Do they give backhanded compliments (uttering

pleasantries that deep down are really cutting remarks)? Do they
gossip about you? Do they constantly speak about themselves?
What is their grammar and vocabulary like? What are they really
saying between the lines?

Hearing the Vocal Code

The way you sound is an important clue to the way you are. You
experience this when you answer the telephone. In an instant, you
detect a mood coming from the voice on the other end. The vocal
code pertains to the tone of voice. Many aspects are familiar, but
you may not have paid close attention. They involve the pitch of a
person’s voice (whether it is high or low), the quality of the voice
(whether the person mumbles, trails off, is whiny, harsh, gravely,
hoarse, breathy, melodious, rich, resonant, dull, lifeless, enthusi-
astic, agitated, attacking, sickeningly sweet, or sing-songy), and
the volume and rate of speech, primarily dealing with the mechan-
ical aspects of a person’s speaking pattern.

Watching the Body Language Code

The body language code is like a personal blueprint, showing how
one walks, sits, and stands. Posture of the head is an essential
component in analyzing the body language code, as is the use of
the arms and legs. For example, how much space does a person
use when sitting, or how close does he or she stand next to you?
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36 I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING

Looking at the Facial Code

Every face has an expression and we read people from their faces.
The facial code reflects how a person holds his or her face when
listening and speaking. Eye contact is as crucial, as is how a per-
son controls the mouth. Does he or she keep the mouth open when
listening or purse the lips? Does the person furrow the brow, look
away, break eye contact? Paying close attention to facial expres-
sion can open a new world in reading what a person is really say-
ing. Each of these behaviors speak volumes about someone.
Later, I will explain what can be learned about people from their
facial expressions. We will evaluate patterns, such as what it means
when a person has a clenched or tense jaw, an aloof or deadpan
expression, or an overly animated expression. We will learn the sig-
nificance of blushing or blanching, staring, and facial twitches, and
will see what it means when the eyes are open wide when someone
is speaking, when the eyes wander, the lips are licked or chewed,
and the nose is wrinkled. And we will learn what it means to have a
confident facial expression.

Read Them, Heed Them

It is essential that you accurately identify the underlying emo-
tional tone in each situation. You will be able to employ the codes
of facial activities and body language so you quickly identify the
negative tones in any situation. That way, you don’t get hurt—
emotionally slapped.
While it is good to be open-minded, I strongly urge you to be
very wary of those who set off your alarm systems. Whether you
like it or not, there are toxic people who can harm you. These
people have personality traits that can be detrimental to your well-
being and hazardous to your health. This is natural—we don’t
R
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The Basics of Reading People 37

have to like and feel good about everyone, just as everyone doesn’t
have to like and feel good about us.
The first thing you need to ask yourself after you have read
someone is How do they make me feel—good or bad? Answering
this simple question can save you a lot of grief. Most people never
dream of asking such a question, let alone doing anything about it. If
a person consistently makes you feel bad, you have to ask why you’d
want to be around them. If you are deciding whether to do business
with someone, for instance, and you ask yourself this simple ques-
tion, you will be doing yourself a huge favor in the long run.

Using Your Brain

Emotional and Vocal Leakage
A recent discovery has revealed that the cranial nerves, located
within the brain, control both facial expression and vocal expres-
sion. That means the same cranial stimuli that trigger our facial
expressions also control our vocal expressions. This is manifested
in what I call vocal leakage. Even if you are trying to hide your
feelings, your true emotions will “leak” in both your facial ex-
pressions and your voice.

You and Your Neuroconnections

Consider a person who suffers a stroke that affects the area on the
left side of the brain that controls speech. When this area is dam-
aged, the brain has to work extra hard and call upon crossover
areas of the brain to compensate. As a result, when the person who
has had a stroke speaks, words come out labored, halting, and repet-
itive. The person must tap into the right neural connections to hear
the words, translate the meaning, think what to say, and have the
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38 I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING

speech areas stimulate various neuropathways to control facial

muscles. To a lesser extent a liar is performing the same neural
dance, although it takes much more skill to recognize it.
Imagine being so in tune with your senses that you can easily
detect such tiny shifts—whether they occur as a flash of movement
in a person’s expression or a change in vocal pattern—to know
exactly what a person means. You will learn how to quickly read
messages that others are trying to convey, even though they may not
want you to know. Even the chronically clueless can learn to read
the messages by understanding the four codes of communication.

There Is Only One Brain, Not Two

Many misconceptions have been perpetuated by writers of self-
help books, especially those on gender differences. I refer particu-
larly to discussions about the “right” brain and “left” brain. The left
side has been referred to as the “female” brain and the right side
as the “male” brain. This information is both erroneous and mis-
guided. In fact, the brain functions as a complex integrated unit,
containing two hemispheres, a left and a right, which are not sepa-
rate entities.
The brain is covered by an outer layer called the cortex. There
are four lobes, or areas, of the brain, each of which has different
responsibilities: the frontal lobe is responsible for reasoning; the
partial lobe is responsible for sensory inputs; the occipital lobe is
responsible for sight; and the temporal lobe is responsible for
speech memory, language, and hearing. Research shows, however,
that many functions cross over.
Voice and speech patterns emanate primarily from the left side
of the brain, which is responsible for speech and language, from
regions in the brain called Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area. An
area located deep within the brain called the limbic system (hous-
ing the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems) enables
R us to have specific emotional responses when we listen to certain
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The Basics of Reading People 39

voices, hear certain tones, or see people we know or don’t know.

Some of these emotional responses may be positive, others nega-
tive. The limbic system allows us to feel emotions such as anger,
love, excitement, disgust, rage, and sadness. Certain sounds, tones,
and words may bring out the worst in a person while other people’s
tones and words may elicit positive emotional feelings.

Use More of Your Brain

Researchers who study the concept of meditation have deter-
mined that there is an enormous potential of untapped resource in
the brain, which is stimulated through the focus and concentration
of meditative techniques. When we uncover the mysteries of the
working brain and learn more about its anatomy and function, we
begin to understand that if we develop certain areas, we will
become more productive in our daily lives.
By learning to access and stimulate the emotional centers of
our brain, we can begin to live a richer and more advantaged life.
We will detect certain danger signals a lot faster, determine who is
the right mate for us, or sense who is trying to cheat us.
We need to become more conscious of how our brain operates
and integrate both areas of our brain: the upper portion of our brain,
the cortex, where we objectively see and hear information, and the
lower part of our brain, the limbic system, where we feel the emo-
tions we see and hear. We do this by training ourselves to be aware
of what we are feeling. This will be invaluable to us in the long run.
Mrs. Jones hears her husband’s attacking tone in the upper
portion of her brain. She processes the information in her left
hemisphere, where she realizes, intellectually, that he is wrongly
interpreting what she has said. With that part of her brain, she
visually sees the makeup on his collar and the credit card calls to
another woman.
Now, with the deeper area of her brain, she is able to feel the
emotions of everything she objectively saw and heard. She feels
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40 I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING

the anger of his betrayal, the jealousy over another woman, and
the sadness that their marriage is over. As she integrates the two
parts of her brain simultaneously, she quickly gets in touch with
her emotions.

Don’t Get Emotionally Slapped!

Reading a person is a highly emotional experience. It is not
enough to determine the codes of behavior and analyze the per-
son’s personality type. You have to determine whether you like or
dislike that personality type and what it does to you emotionally.
You must decide whether that person remains in your life or not.
All too often, we refuse to pay attention to our feelings. Many
people don’t know how to do this. It can be overwhelming, espe-
cially when you haven’t been conditioned. Some people have
been raised in families where it was taboo to express their emo-
tions, while in other families it was considered bad if you didn’t
express them.
Even though we have the neurological capacity to react when
we see or hear something we like or dislike, we often fail to do so.
We may even react days or weeks later to something negative.
Why don’t most of us react immediately when something isn’t
right? Why do we wait until it’s too late? Why do we make the
same mistake in picking the wrong person? We were emotionally
slapped—stunned into inaction by the situation.
If someone walked up to you and unexpectedly slapped you in
the face, you would undoubtedly be shocked, perhaps so stunned
you couldn’t move. That is exactly what happens when people are
emotionally slapped, stung by someone who says things that are
rude and degrading. Sometimes your responses to what they say
and do aren’t as quick as you’d like. You wish you could have that
snappy comeback, but instead you react three days later. That’s
when you finally realize what the person really meant.
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We are shocked when we are emotionally slapped, because

most of us can’t believe it is happening to us. That is why so many
of us become emotionally numb and don’t react at all.

With a Friend Like That, Who Needs Enemies?

Paul has known Sandra for more than fifteen years. They have
done business together and treated each other with respect. They
always asked about the other’s family and made nice small talk.
They even exchanged Christmas gifts and had each other’s fami-
lies over for dinner.
Paul went out of his way to do Sandra numerous favors. In
fact, he was the one who told her about a job opening at a new
company. She got the job and wound up tripling her salary.
Paul couldn’t count the number of times he dropped what he
was doing to help Sandra, even if it didn’t benefit Paul in any way.
He didn’t mind. He was just a friend—a good person. And that is
what friends and good people do. Besides, he thought, if he ever
were in a bind, Sandra would certainly do the same for him.
In time, Paul needed that favor. He wanted her to make a call
to someone he knew, a business contact. Paul would call the per-
son and tell the person to expect a call from Sandra. She, in turn,
would say some nice things about Paul. That’s all.
When Paul asked for the favor, he watched Sandra’s body
stiffen, her mouth droop, her forehead furl, her eyebrows knit
together. Then she cleared her throat. He realized she would never
make that call.
He had improved the quality of Sandra’s life by alerting her to
a better job and doing many small favors, but she was too selfish
to reciprocate. That experience was an emotional slap.
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42 I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING

Green-Eyed Jealous Monster Strikes Again

Maureen and Julie had been friends since childhood. Maureen told
Julie she was getting married to a lovely man. She couldn’t believe
her eyes or ears when Julie replied in a matter-of-fact monotone,
“That’s nice.” Then she swallowed hard and gave Maureen a tense
smile, with no teeth showing and a deadpan facial expression.
Translation: “I am so jealous of you, I can’t stand it. I am just
thinking of myself and really don’t care about your happiness!”
Maureen definitely got the message. She felt numb. She didn’t
know what to do or say. She was emotionally slapped.
Like the people in these scenarios, we become so numb from
the shock of the experience, we ignore the event itself. Then,
when we finally come to and realize what has happened, we feel
the emotional pain, and it can be excruciating. Sometimes we can-
not bear to experience the pain, so we choose to ignore it. We pre-
tend it never happened. If we keep doing this, we can literally
make ourselves sick.

Feel the Signs

Most of us aren’t really that surprised when we suspect something
negative is going to happen and it finally materializes. If we are
aware of reading a person’s facial or body language, or their
speech or voice patterns, we know what’s about to happen. We
know we are going to get fired before it happens. We heard it in our
boss’s tone, or even the secretary’s.
Chip knew his boss was going to fire him by the way Lola, his
boss’s secretary, greeted him on the phone. She used to be so
happy when she heard Chip’s voice. Now she had a downward-
inflected, curt tone. As he listened, he knew what was going to
happen.
He believed it was only a matter of time until he would hear
R the bad news. He remembered there had been a lot more physical
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The Basics of Reading People 43

distance between him and his boss. Normally, there was a lot of
touching, backslapping, and kidding around.
The boss hardly looked in Chip’s direction anymore. His
expression was tense, especially around the eyes and the sides of
the mouth. He had little to say to Chip, where there used to be a
flood of words spewing from his lips. So when Chip was told his
services would no longer be needed, even though he felt disap-
pointed and hurt, he wasn’t surprised.
Chip was prepared because he used his whole brain and per-
ceived the entire situation. He knew what to expect. He used the
parts of his brain responsible for seeing and hearing negative mes-
sages he got from his boss and the secretary. He used the internal
aspects of his brain to let him know what he was feeling.
The sooner you tap into the maximum capacity of your brain,
the sooner you will be able to deal with the truth in reading others.