18 I Can Read You Like a Book
control over every twitch and tap. It is difficult for us to even
remember what we’ve done if the action has reached the point of
ritual or habit.
I teach professionals in finance and sales to read body lan-
guage, as well as investigators, interrogators, special operations
forces, and security professionals. For all of the latter groups,
the survival of their careers, if not their lives, may depend on that
ability.
In the following chapters, I will introduce you to a system I call
R.E.A.D.—Review, Evaluate, Analyze, Decide—an in-depth ver-
sion of the course I teach government and military students in my
body language classes. This is the same step-by-step training I give
them, but I’ve added other modules, as well as my new system of
reading moods, to make this book “the advanced course.” These
additional pieces address the interplay between body language and
emotions, how to use gestures and posture as tools in business and
personal relationships, and tricks to remain inscrutable by controlling
how and when your own body language leaks emotions.
Take a minute and refer to the flow chart provided on page 13.
I want to give you a narrative guide to it as a complement, so that
you understand at the outset how the information in the book helps
you build the skill of reading body language. In other words, if you
skip around, you’ll pick up some hot tricks, but you can’t become
adept at reading body language by taking that approach.
Beginning with some notes about communication of all beings,
I move to distinctly human communication. The next topic figures