The Non-Verbal Expert: These Behaviors Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Someone

Blake Eastman has dedicated his entire life to psychology and nonverbal behavior. In 2009 he founded The Nonverbal Group, a behavioral research and education company in New York City which conducts large scale studies on human behavior and uses a wide range of technologies to systematically deconstruct and improve human communication. Eastman dives deep into a number of subjects revolving around how we communicate with one another, including the ability to read nonverbal cues, his thoughts on big talkers vs. silent types, how we can communicate with our partners without complaining, the value of watching ourselves communicate on video, understanding the power structures and social dynamics at work, and so much more.

Eastman has also served as an adjunct psychology professor at the City University of New York for six years where he taught General Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and Group Dynamics. He is also a former professional poker player and the founder of School of Cards, the first brick-and-mortar poker school in New York City.

00:00 - Intro
00:47 - How to improve your ability to read non-verbal cues
04:29 - How does trust correlate with non-verbal cues?
07:30 - How to change other people's perceptions of you
08:55 - Eastman's forensic experiences
11:30 - How to evaluate the level of danger from someone's non-verbal cues
15:20 - How Eastman knew someone was cheating on their partner
18:35 - How to recognize danger in someone's relationship complaints
21:44 - Practical ways to improve your communication skills
27:55 - How to understand power structure and social dynamics at work
37:24 - How to improve your non-verbal communication at work
44:11 - How to improve your environment to improve your behavior
45:00 - How Bill Clinton makes others feel like the most important person in the world (and how you can too)
48:30 - How to recognize people who are deceitful
56:09 - On the infallibility to permanent video
57:18 - Eastman's tips on using non-verbal cues for better dates
01:03:02 - How non-verbal cues vary across cultures
01:07:28 - The Rockefeller Method and lessons from 'Titan'
01:11:16 - Eastman's routine for reading, taking notes, and using AI to learn
01:16:52 - Eastman's unique uses for AI and ChatGPT
01:22:30 - Why Eastman uses coaches, and what makes a good vs. a great coach
01:25:08 - Eastman's most pivotal life change, and why it happened
01:29:55 - Eastman gives tips to Shane for asking better questions
01:31:50 - The power of writing and thinking
01:36:32 - Eastman's definition of success

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ABOUT THE KNOWLEDGE PROJECT
Like the mentor you’ve always dreamed of having, The Knowledge Project shares timely yet timeless lessons for work and life. Past guests include Naval Ravikant, Daniel Kahneman, Jim Collins, Angela Duckworth, Seth Godin, Melanie Mitchell, & Esther Perel.

[jellyjams]

1:00:00 came up with this theory myself….. when you walk into a room, are you there for yourself and how people perceive you, or are you there to make a pleasant experience for the people around you. Amazing how much this changed my life.


Although it is hard to differentiate this between people pleasing. I think people pleasing still is fundamentally based on how the self is perceived. It’s more like “ do things for others while realizing that what they think of you is none of your business”

[mechelle]

The idea that being comfortable as being the best way to be authentic and trustworthy is beautiful in itself. Whether you are speaking or on stage or just being filmed or photographed, it makes all the difference in the way we communicate well.

[easymac]

I love this guys view on people and humanity. Everyone is living their life through the lens of their collective experience, every one is victim to our own experience and our own perception. People need to be able to see others as humans figuring out this thing called life just as YOU are, no matter their circumstance.

[isabelleboulay]

trust and respect are earned. Actions have to match their words. It's about exchanging and having integrity. It's rare

[shilohbell]

Oh my gosh! I was a Corrections Officer in a jail and I so agree! I once (with a reasonable co-worker) walked into the most dangerous gang pod and talked them out of rioting. The dangerous gang members didn’t scare me because you could reason with them, but ONE person with violent schizophrenia is scary as hell!

[joannhansell]

Death is handled so poorly in our society- my son passed and everyone tried to pep talk me- grief is a REAL blind spot in our society

[nez]

A lot of trustworthy people struggle with keeping eye contact.

[cococ]

A lot of coaches and consultants make the mistake that senior management and CEOs aren't aware of their behavior. Often these power structures attract certain personality types: Narcissists, control fanatics, megalomaniacs....
When questioned about their behavior, they respond by gaslighting.

[alanal]

In standup, I used to put my little recorder in the back of the room. Onstage, you're hearing the reaction up front. Sometimes, I thought a joke bombed, but people in back were laughing up a storm. For video, including the audience in the shot gives you a much better sense than close-ups of the speaker. So yeah, useful.

[Andrew-cexc]

Learn to feel vibrations, then learn what each vibe means.

[brendafulmernickel]

The best TRUTH you could ever relate was in your summation of success. It's a PERSONAL journey!! My point all the way through, and I am NOT in Competition and NEVER have been!!

[lizrogers]

I used to maintain eye contact deeply. Until I was rejected my some of my best friends and lost my friend group. It demoralized traumatized me. And now I am scared to be vulnerable, judged and removed ..by everyone.

[GoVoteDemocracy]

I love the idea of sitting down and talking about what an ideal relationship looks like to each other.
Watching the audience is so underrated, I had some coworkers get angry with me because I gave honest feedback on a presentation and my main point was that they didn’t take into consideration the audience when they created the presentation. I had a similar background (military/aviation) to most of the audience and I found the presentation childish and unserious. Needless to say the business didn’t continue in that setting.
The tips on reading are great, I also remember experiences, but couldn’t tell you what someone told me about a situation, or what a movie or book is about.

[WrcktalPrlapse]

Something that broke my heart when my brother was being charged w a felony and might’ve gone to prison was how my family treated him/the punishment he was facing (he only had to go to jail thankfully) and no one could understand/care WHY he did what he did, and how my family had a big hand in him being brought to that situation. I felt I was the only one who still saw him for who he was at that time. When I first heard the situation we were so close and both in shitty situations, I actually couldn’t comprehend why he’d been arrested, thinking he’d acted completely rationally for the situation. But the law makes no exceptions even for people living in a completely different reality than more privileged people.

[notodayorever]

I'm happy to be able to list him as one of my coaches "beyond tells"

[jenniferwidmer]

Really interesting. I like the emphasis on studying and coaching people to understand and help with perception issues rather than right/wrong behaviors.

[chaoswitch]

Men are different than women in distinct ways that I've seen two separate communication experts miss out on. Most women are open to communicate with and will be kind to men whether or not we're attracted to them. We will engage them as much, and sometimes more than men we're very attracted to because we're less nervous. Men tend to be the opposite, and we know this because women talk about how they're treated differently by men when they gain weight or as they age.

Secondly, women do not know whether we're attracted to most of the men we end up with when we first meet them. We can actually grow to love a man and become attracted to him for his personality. Men don't tend to do this.

[beunmessablewith]

Blake you are such a wealth of information and power. I love listening to you! Thanks for the shout out too.

[Dee-xf]

Eastman talks about how his team reads people's behavior through quantitative means—reading number and type of detailed movements from video, for example—and then talks about how "cool" it was to learn from his professor how to manipulate data sets to get data to illustrate whatever your predetermined POV or thesis is. This is a deeply troubling morale/mindset for a researcher to have, especially as we increasingly use behavioral predictions in our digital systems to determine who/what people are, what they should buy, which partners they should pair with, which jobs they should have, etc.

[frankievalentine]

Eventually you will know the norms so much you'll be able to very intentionally violate them to express yourself more genuinely, while also knowing exactly who never knew them to begin with!