t’s his job to get inside the heads of
people—even if he never exchanges
a word with them. During his 25 years
with the FBI, Joe Navarro was in great
demand. It would have been a waste
of resources to allow him to remain a
simple agent: His instincts were sure,
and he had an outstanding ability to
create a new identity for himself and
make it his own as he penetrated the
secrets of a suspect. Navarro is able
to interpret even minute gestures to
understand the thoughts, emotions,
and motives of a person.
“Our needs, feelings, thoughts, and
even our intentions are processed by
the limbic brain and expressed through
our body language,” explains Navarro.
The limbic lobe of the brain is the part
of the ce rebral cor tex that ’s conce r ne d
with a person’s emotional responses.
“Limbic reactions are hard-wired in us.
T hey a re imme diate, time -te ste d, and
honest, and they apply to all of us,”
says Navarro. The FBI made him an
instructor so that he could teach his
method of behavior analysis to other
agents. Over the years that followed,he taught agents how to recognize
foreign spies in the U.S. and he was
involved in the unmasking of many of
them. He believes anyone can learn
to interpret body language. One of the
best training grounds: a poker game.
Navarro has analyzed the behavior of
professional poker players and has
eve n beate n some of the m, including
world champion Gus Hansen.BODY SIGNALS GALORE
Although some professional poker
players can suppress up to 90% of
their body language, the remaining
10% of cues is enough for Navarro.
In the game he won against Hansen,
his opponent was trying to bluff with
a hand that held a jack and a seven
and had less than a 6% chance of
winning. Nevertheless, Hansen’s
face remained expressionless as
he took both hands, shove d all his
chips to the center of the table,
and calle d “all in.” But the n to his
surprise Navarro called his bet,
risking $60,000 of his own cash.
Two signals he had seen in the
seconds before Hansen made
his final bid had told him what
he needed to know: Hansen
held his breath for a fraction
of a second and curled his
finge r s about an inch close r
to his palms. To Navarro,
both reactions indicated
that he was acting under
duress. And yet, these
motions were only two
of the many thousands
that Navarro is able to
recognize and interpret.
On the following pages
iD explores some of
the signals that each
of us is always put ting
out without our even
realizing it, and how
we might interpret
them when we
observe them
in others.“EVERYONE IS
CONSTANTLY
TRANSMIT TING
INFORMATION.”
Joe Navarro, former FBI agent
May 2020 52 ideasanddiscoveries.com