58 I Can Read You Like a Book
real emotions. Most of the people on the red carpet try hard to
behave in a stately manner and to accept their awards with dignity.
You can see a lot of glitchy behavior in this crowd because they try
to use rituals of the event to disguise their true feelings.
This norming criterion is also a good way to determine who is
not part of a tribe. The guest at a funeral who’s bored, and shows it,
probably isn’t a close member of the grieving family. The Phillies’
fan who applauds when Barry Bonds hits a home run needs to
leave town before he’s run out of it. When you practice this
evaluation, are you profiling?
Now that I’ve gone down that controversial path, I will tell you
that you will think differently about other people if you absorb the
lessons in this book and practice R.E.A.D. Depending on your level
of adoption of these techniques, I am changing your social norms.Exercise
Tell people you are reading a book on body language.
See what they do. When they respond with some
combination of curiosity and concern—and you read it—say, “They
said you would do that.” Keep watching, because the next response
will be predictable, too!
As you do this, your own social norms are changing a little bit
at a time.