Body Language

Is it possible to see when someone is lying?

Interrogators are trained to establish a baseline of an individual's behavior and interpret deviations from that. Chase Hughes spent years developing specific formulas for these techniques and now trains professional interrogators. Learn more about the techniques outlined here by reading his book 6 Minute X-Ray.

Any of the behaviors listed below could be part of a subject's baseline behavior. You must interact with or observe an individual long enough to be familiar with their baseline behavior before assessing them with this criteria. The key to picking up on when someone experiences stress or nervousness in response to an event is to notice a behavior which is not part of their baseline behavior or an increase or decrease in a baseline behavior.

There is no concrete body movement which means 100% of the time that someone is lying. Context must be considered when attempting to interpret the meaning of a non-baseline behavior. When you notice unusual behavior, consider the surrounding events which could be triggering nervousness or stress. Keep in mind in a work setting that an event in someone’s private life outside of work could be the source of stress. Do not assume anything is intentional manipulation without meaningful context suggesting so.

3 Body Language Signs:

• Sudden increasing frequency of blinking can signal the person feels stress induced by the topic being discussed or question they are asked.


• Pressing the lips together can signal repressing a compulsion to say something or express a reaction.


• Nostril flaring may be a response to adrenaline - increasing oxygen intake - caused by a surge of excitement, happiness, or anger.

Use these skills and many others taught by Chase Hughes to not only recognize the subtle but valuable tells of those you interact with, but also to be more mindful of the signals you are displaying. I do not recommend using this knowledge to deceive or manipulate, but simply to consciously throttle the extent to which you express your personal emotional reactions. In general, it is appropriate to be more open in your private interactions and less open in business interactions. You can think of this as "poker face" - but you can still be friendly and outgoing at work while choosing to suppress non-productive emotional reactions.

Earning the trust of others takes time. People need to go through a number of interactions with you and see that your engagements with others in the group are fruitful - or at least neutral. The same way that we are naturally skeptical of a stranger who comes on strongly, such as an aggressive salesperson, we understand that it is unrealistic to expect a new acquaintance to immediately trust us no matter how sincere our intentions.

Despite the protective social requirement of trust being built on experience, there are tools at our disposal to speed up the process. Robert Greene’s life-changing book Laws of Human Nature gives us powerful insights into the mirror effect and the skill of mirroring.

All humans have mirror neurons which lock into signals we observe in the facial expressions, vocal tones, and body language of those we interact with. We automatically empathize to some degree with the feelings of someone we talk to. Our brain will generate some of that same feeling in us. It is easy to understand how this evolutionary development helped humans work as a team and build communities.

When we speak with someone, we have the option to consciously express a subtle mirror image of their emotional expressions. Doing so can show them that we are interested and connecting with what they are sharing. You can probably think of a time when you shared something with someone who did not seem to react at all. This probably felt confusing or at least made you sure they had zero interest in what you were saying. When we are genuinely listening with the intent to learn and connect, so long as we do not feel we are in an unsafe situation, our body automatically mirrors the speaker.

This works both ways. If we are being mirrored, we generally do not think about it because it is an expected and natural part of face to face communication. However, when the mirroring seems exaggerated or forced, this stands out and makes us uncomfortable - we may even feel threatened. A situation where this is likely to occur is with salespeople who are trained to practice mirroring to manipulate their targets into letting their guard down sooner than is natural. Abusing this tool for manipulative purposes will likely damage trust and harm relationships. Think of a time when you let a salesperson push you into something you really didn’t want to do. They may have made you feel they were friendly and helpful during the interaction but immediately afterward you felt betrayed and resentful. We must keep this in mind and understand mirroring as a tool for healthy and productive communication.

There is no shortage of social media content glorifying the “fake it ‘til you make it” idea. Plenty of influencers are happy to preach to hungry young minds about suiting up with phony unearned confidence and waking up at 6AM every morning. As you may have discovered, there is no such magic formula.

Copy-pasting someone else’s lifestyle will not give you their life. The secret to advancing is understanding why that simple strategy is insufficient. Your circumstances are unique. Even if your temperament, family situation, and socio-economic background were identical to any given historical figure, the business environment and state of technology are unrecognizable from then to now. The decisions and ideas which made Henry Ford a fortune, for example, no longer apply in the twenty-first century. Of course, some general principles and values - such as relentless efficiency - are useful, but that is a far cry from replicating specific actions. You must create your own original life story in the world you face now.

Imagine that you have an internal compass which points your attention toward subjects which you are genuinely curious about and driven to explore. You must allow this compass to guide you. This may not point to a specific job role or industry, but it will take you to somewhere which complements your personality and interests. A major factor in long-term high performance is the ability to maintain a higher level of energy in a role. Following your natural interests makes this not only easier, but inevitable. The alternative is perpetually fighting the looming distraction of your natural interests, or dividing your time between passion and profession and fading into mediocrity.