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Recent Trip to Austin, Texas

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of Judges in the Austin, TX area on "Establishing the Credibility of a Witness." Their interest and enthusiasm for the topic of body language and deception detection was such a tremendous joy for me. One of the participants shared with my assistant today his appreciation for the program and told her that he had put photos from our meeting on his blog. He was also kind enough to put a link to my website on it too. On his blog, he covers all the political news in the San Antonio area. Below is a link to his blog which is called the "WalkerReport" covering the pulse of San Antonio.......check it out!

http://www.walkerreport.net/

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://pattiwood.net/. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Body Language of the Young Royal Couple, William and Kate


I was asked to read the Young Royal Couple, William and Kate, for several Canadian Publications. As the wedding approaches, you see the "look of love." They look at each other often and there is lots of mutual gazing but not for approval as Diane often did when she was first engaged to Charles but with respect and affection.

The "look of confidence" as Kate watches him closely when he is talking, she stands back slightly to show her place, but she doesn’t bow down her head in submission or lack of confidence as Diana would do in Charles' presence. Kate keeps her head and chin on what I call the mid-line for the throat window, showing her confidence and ease in the high stress media moments.

They are "in sync." You often see William and Kate in photos taking on mirrored body language poses of each other. That frequent matching and mirroring shows they are in sync. In a recent interview they did "tit for tat" matching. This is another kind of isopraixism in synchronous relationships. It's a dance of tit for tat movement. For example, one would move their upper body forward while the other would move an arm forward, one would move their head up and down, the other would move an arm up and down. Their body language shows synchronicity.

A "love story" - If you watch and listen as William tells the story of their proposal, you will notice that he is truly happy. His smile is large and his voice is animated and playful. He enjoys telling the story of the proposal. The words flow out smoothly and enthusiastically. When I am with couples, I often ask about their first date, when they fell in love and or their proposal. You can tell so much about a couple by how they tell and or listen and chime in as they tell their “love stories.” Kate didn’t chime in, which is appropriate to her role, but she certainly beamed and he wasn’t tired of the tale! When Kate speaks, her voice is happy and she too has a nice smooth flow in her speaking which shows ease and a true positive feeling.

Royal couple to wed April 29 at Westminster Abbey
Patrick Jephson, longtime private secretary to the late Princess Diana, say the austerity argument "doesn't cut it." "This is a future king and a future queen, this is the most famous young royal couple in the world, and it will indubitably be compared to his mother's wedding, so for all these reasons, the palace won't want to be seen as downgrading it," Jephson said.
William and Kate are making moves to put their own stamp on their big day. The couple, who Lowther-Pinkerton described as being "over the moon," are taking an active role in planning all the details — including the guest list. "I've never seen two happier people," he said.


Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://pattiwood.net/. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Contest for "Best First Impression Story"

I am currently running a contest for the Best First Impression Story. Just email me a one or two paragraph story about a first impression you had about someone that illustrates credibility or the lack of credibility. Your story can be from your work experiences or your personal life. It doesn't need to be in fancy language, just a story from your great wealth of experience.

The prize for the best story is $100 dollars and a 30 minute phone coaching session with me.
The stories will be judged by three writers. Email your story to: Patti@pattiwood.net by Friday March 15, 2011. Or if it is easier, just give me a call and tell me the brief story over the phone. My cell number is 678-358-6160.

Story Example
As a circuit judge, I read first impressions in traffic court. One day in my traffic court I had some one ticketed for running a stop sign. I tend to asses someone immediately if the person appears 1. -Guilty, 2. - Guilty, but he or she won't tell a bold lie, they feel bad or 3. - Innocent. My gut tells me this guy is a 2 - Guilty but willing to learn a lesson. Sure enough, during testimony he said, "I don't FEEL I ran the stop sign." I interpreted the use of the word FEEL and his body language to mean he knew he might have run the stop sign. So I had him take a video camera and tape 10 to 15 cars going through that intersection with the stop sign then come back to court. He came back in after viewing the video and with his face and voice expressed a mixture of wonder at the facts and embarrassment at his mistake and said, " I watched those other cars run that stop sign, and I realized I had run it too." I feel it is my job not to merely punish people but ultimately to make them better citizens in the future. In his case, I was glad he learned something and admitted his guilt and I let him off with a warning.


Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://PattiWood.net. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Techniques to Meet People, Conversation Starters

I love to talk to strangers. Typically, I initiate conversations. But, not everyone feels comfortable doing that. In fact, my clients often ask me, "When I go out, be it on business, or just out by myself, how do I get people to initiate a conversation with me? On a business trip to California I ate at the wonderful Pied Piper Restaurant. Because it had been a long day of speaking I wasn't in an initiating mood. That evening at the restaurant, without even realizing it, I used three of the methods I teach to nonverbally invite strangers to initiate conversation and as a result met two interesting people.
In my advice to people who want to meet new people, network, form business alliances, or find someone to date I suggest to invite conversation by engaging in an interesting and or unusual positive activity that can illicit a positive comment or question.

The First Technique I used was to sit at the bar not at a table. Sitting at the bar you get side by side conversation, it is less threatening than face to face initial interactions so the seating makes it easier for men to initiate conversation with each other and with women. (See my blogs on side by side vs face to face)


The Second Technique I used was to carry an interesting book or other interesting reading material such as an electronic book. That night I was reading a hardback by humorous British author David Nicholls “A Question of Attraction.” The young man siting next to me asked me what I thought of the book and we were off on a fun conversation immediately. A funny coincidence is that it was easy for me to converse right away with him because he had a book on the bar in front of him on Franklin Roosevelt.

During our conversation I learned he does training internationally and owns a coffee house in San Francisco. He was leaving for China that week and I had just read a very insightful article on China in “The Week” so we were able to discuss some of the points discussed in the article: the coming storm as China continues to pollute its water and runs out of drinking water, It's problems, similar to ours as more elderly people are in need of support than people working and finally because of its large population, China's increased need to purchase goods from other countries, thus increasing trade throughout the world.

The Third Technique I used was to order interesting food. For the main course, I ordered something I saw someone eating as I came in that looked marvelously unique. A big bowl with spiral pasta pasta, mushrooms, parsley and a dollop of sour cream on top. It also had truffel oil and was wonderful.

As I ate I noticed a gentlemen sitting next to me eyeing the big bowl of pasta.

Then I had dessert, chocolate peppermint cake. It was served on a beautiful long clear glass rectangle plate with pink ice-cream and raspberry sauce. It was so lovely, I even took a picture of the plating. That did it. The combination of the unusual maincourse, dessert and my IPhone photo session motivated the gentleman to initiate a conversation by saying, "I noticed that the dessert looked beautiful, obviously you did too!" He then asked, "What was it?" and the conversation was started. I discovered that the gentleman was from Malaysia. He shared with me that he is part Indian part Chinese and was raised in a big house with floor to ceiling books in the library that sounded like the library at the Biltmore. At 14 he left Malaysia for London and was accepted immediately into college. He went on from there to law school at Cambridge and then worked in international banking. He rides his bike or the bus everyday to his current job as a house council for a Bank. That fact alone impressed me! He talked about the chain of restaurants in China he just opened with his partners. The Chinese love cheese and California wine. Who knew! We also all shared favorite books. I told them about the novel I was reading. The same novel by humorous British author David Nicholls “A Question of Attraction.” (He reminds me of the author of “About a Boy” Nick Hornsby.)

The Law of Association (with good experiences)–By pairing yourself with pleasurable stimuli another person will begin to associate you with pleasurable things.


The next day I had breakfast in the hotel court. Check out the link for Photos. It is an extremely impressive hotel. Make sure you click to the court photos. It has an enormous glass ceiling like a garden conservatory in a Victorian home. In fact, the restaurants and lobby were gorgeous!

Http://www.sfpalacerestaurants.com/pied-piper


Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://PattiWood.net. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Southern Voices- Authors Body Language






















Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://pattiwood.net/. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.