22 I Can Read You Like a Book
subject have a little more humility. The ones who’ve also researched
what I’ve said are a little more cocky.)
I ask them what they know.
They often reference John Travolta’s 2003 movie Basic, which
“taught” them that a person looking up and to his right means he’s
lying; I tell them that they’ve been deceived. A broad conclusion
such as this about a particular piece of body language usually has
very little meaning. Until they are connected with other factors,
and until you have baselined a person to determine what is normal
behavior, you can’t draw a conclusion about truth or deception based
on a single eye movement. If you want to “read someone like a
book,” you need to look at the entire text and not just the section
titles.
Another common misconception is that crossed arms always
signify a barrier, a defensive gesture to block someone out, prima-
rily because of insecurity. This gesture alone means nothing, and to
make my point to students I cross my arms, furrow my brow, point
to the person with my head, and overly enunciate the words, “Do I
seem insecure to you?” This gets a chuckle from the students I
didn’t pick on, but my “victim” shuffles. He shifts in the chair, breaks
eye contact, and laughs nervously; he may even blush. Do you
recognize this body language? Yep, it’s embarrassment.
Some of the other mistaken beliefs even come from “expert”
sources writing about human patterns of behavior. They see a phrase
such as “73 percent of the time, a man with his fingers in a steepling