Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. I hope the wind is at your back. I got with us today an incredible expert in the world, world, world of nonverbal communication. So aloha and welcome to a truly extraordinary conversation. Today we're diving into the profound, often underestimated world of human connection with a guest whose work reshapes the very fabric of how we understand communication. Dr. Steven Ferlich is not only a trailblazing scholar, but a pioneer in unveiling the hidden forces that shape how we connect, relate, and understand one another. Dr. Furlich is the best-selling author of Sex Talk, How Biological Sex Influences Gender, Communication Differences Throughout Life's Stages, and Nonverbal Epiphany, Steps to Improve Your Nonverbal Communication. With over two decades of teaching and groundbreaking research and communication, His work bridges the intricate dynamics between biology, psychology, and technology, offering us tools to navigate the complexities of human interaction. As an associate professor at Texas A&M University, Dr. Fulich has built an illustrious career presenting at international conferences, publishing in prestigious journals, and inspiring students and professionals alike to see communication not just as an exchange of words, but as a dance of nonverbal cues, biology, and mutual understanding. So get ready to explore the science, the art, and the humanity of communication with a thought leader who is as passionate as he is insightful. Dr. Stephen Furlich, thanks for being here today. How are you? Very good. Thanks for having me on, and I appreciate your interest in these topics. It's a fascinating time to be alive and to see the way in which we are communicating or perhaps not communicating in so many ways and the way the world is influencing that. I'm going to jump right in here. I already got a question lining up from – this one comes to us from Clint Kiles from Arkansas. He says, if nonverbal communication is the most primal form of human connection – Do you believe it reveals a deeper universal truth about who we are as beings? Are we more defined by what we don't say than what we do? I would agree with that. So the majority of what we understand in communication and research supports this is well over fifty percent nonverbal communication. That's our first form of communication itself. And research has found, and this is somewhat interesting as well, both that When someone contradicts what they say verbally and their nonverbal types of behaviors, then oftentimes the nonverbal behaviors are much more accurate than what they're saying verbally if there's a contradiction. And taking that a step further, I think this is something that he's trying to allude to as well, is that people often believe the nonverbal behaviors over the verbal behaviors when they contradict each other. So not only are they more accurate with what the intention is of the person, the nonverbals, but people often put more credibility in the nonverbals over the verbal as well. So just to bottom line it, Extensively throughout research of nonverbal communication that I've dug through, I've never seen any research out there that had shown that nonverbal communication is less than fifty percent of our overall communication. So it expands. I think a lot of times people just throw out the word body language too much, whereas I use nonverbal because it's much more encompassing. So it could be facial expressions, vocal tones. It could be the way that we dress. Pupil dilation, it could be the environment. So what's that say about what we have around us personally? It could be artifacts, the odors that we give off. So the odors that we actually give off at more of a subconscious level can actually influence other people's behaviors as well. Man, it's so deep. You're talking to someone and you, you got something off about this person. That's gotta be the nonverbal cues you're, you're, you're registering, but you don't know what it is because you can't, there's no linguistic pathway for it. Does that sound accurate? Yes, and I think somewhat is not necessarily on a conscious level, but a little bit more on a subconscious level, more of a gut instinct. So maybe it is something that we do give off certain types of odors nonverbally for certain types of things. Or maybe there's something that you pick up subconsciously, such as pupil dilation or a microexpression that consciously you just don't pick up on. One indicator that's a bit more reliable are the extremities. So what are people's hands, what are people's feet doing? So if you're in conversation with someone and you're facing them and they have one foot pointed towards the door, then that indicates they want the conversation to end and they're not that interested in it. What they found, I don't know if we have any gamblers out there or poker players, but what's one of the things that comes to mind when you're trying to understand someone else's hand nonverbally. Most people look at the eyes, and they wear hats and sunglasses. But what research has found is the way that they place their chips when they bet, the extremities, their hand, how steady of it, that's what's a better tell of how good of the hand that they have, whether or not they're bluffing or not. So the things that are farther away from the core of the body are more difficult to control, and people don't monitor those nearly as much. It's fascinating to think about. It makes sense, too, because the further you go away from the core, the harder things are to control, whether it's your extremities or whether it's another country. It just ripples out in so many ways. Oh, yeah. That's a good point. That's a good metaphor. I haven't thought of it that way. What about communication across time? Like as technology continues to mediate our communication, do you think we are evolving toward a new language of nonverbal cues in digital spaces? I would say that what we, so one of the things that I write in my book is that we have instilled within us thousands of years of evolution and you can't just change that in a hundred years. So I think a lot of these primal instincts and a lot of these primitive types of reactions are going to be within us, and you can't just change those quickly. So, for example, our brain structure, our sex hormones, all those things influence our nonverbal communication. One example is, and I'll throw this out here, that has been found consistently, and I don't think there's much of a debate about this, that biological females are much superior when it comes to nonverbal communication. So from an early age, they had more interest in faces, they look at them more, but they also understand subtle cues much more so than what males do. And they give nonverbal communication behaviors much more accurately as well. There are biological explanations for it. Testosterone hinders social ability, whereas estrogen helps it. And with biological adult males having at least twenty times more testosterone and with biological females having at least twenty times as more estrogen that comes into play. Also, biological females, they have more mirror neurons that are activated. during social interactions. What those mirror neurons do is you see someone else's nonverbal behaviors, and then you prepare your body to display those same similar types of nonverbal behaviors, and it activates your body in preparation. So what's that do? You have a similar type of emotional experience as the other person because you're preparing your body to display those similar types of behaviors as well. This thing was sort of enlightening in terms of that research really supports it. Brain structure, that biological females, they have many more connections across both hemispheres, whereas us males, we did have more connections within each hemisphere. So what's that do? That helps with their superior nonverbal understanding because they can access different areas of the brain more simultaneously at the same time. They can engage in conversation while analyzing other person's nonverbal behaviors much more than what us males can, where we could do one or the other, but asking us to do both at the same time, you shouldn't have the same expectation for males and females. So I guess what that is in conversations, females need to understand that us males, we're not going to pick up on those subtle types of cues that they may be displaying, that we're going to have a much more of a literal type of understanding. And for us males, we need to understand that it's beyond what she's saying literally for the meaning itself. Yeah, it makes up. It brings, that's a great, a lot to unpack there. I feel like on some level, it really sort of gets to the point of this discrepancy between males and females. Like there's so much argumentation. Like when you look at marriage or you look at relationships, there's all this, well, I told you this. Yeah, but I meant that. But you said this, but like that. It makes sense when we start thinking about we're having a conversation, but we're almost talking past one another just because the way our brains are structured. Yes. So language wise as well, from early age, it's been found that biological females are much superior when it comes to language ability. And again, prior to birth, sex hormones can influence that and can predict language abilities. Whereas these male typical types of sex hormones prior to birth can predict your language ability. Whereas these male typical types of sex hormones that we think of usually as testosterone androgens, they hinder language ability. Whereas with these female types of sex hormones of the estrogens, they help language ability. So boys are diagnosed with more language problems than girls are early on. And from, again, brain structure as well. Biological females have a larger, more active hippocampus, which is the area of the brain that's responsible for memory, language, and relationships. And again, having more connections across both hemispheres. And also having more of an intense type of emotional activation during social interactions. And they also have biological females have higher levels of oxytocin during social interactions, which is that bonding chemical. So all these things together helps her to communicate about the current topic tie in past emotion, past topics, and relate it to the current topic at hand, having more connections across both hemispheres, a larger hippocampus, more estrogen, all those types of things. Whereas us males, we usually focus more in on the topic at hand and not so much about bringing in previous topics or targeting any emotions because we don't have the brain structure for it or the sex hormones for it as well so she needs to understand if we just give uh responses that relate to the topic it doesn't mean that we don't care or that we're emotionally removed we just can't access both of our uh those areas of the brain At the same time, as easily as she can. And us males, we need to understand that when she ties in previous experiences and emotions and the current topic, it's not that she's off track or trying to personally attack us or whatever else. It makes sense to her tying all those things together. Yeah. I'm old enough to know that book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus or something like that. It just speaks to this idea of how we think differently. But I can't help think about what a critical role communication plays in relationships and to see the explosion of – how relationships have changed in the last fifty years when you look at just the amount of different cultures. Let's talk about culture for a minute. Does culture play a role in nonverbal cues in some of the research you've done? Well, in terms of culture and nonverbal communication, there are, and somewhat debatable how many, but it's usually around five universal types of emotions. that everyone experiences is the happy, sad, fear, contempt, surprise. And with those types of emotions, everyone experiences those and probably experience those similarly. But it's the culture that influences the way that we express those. So in more collectivistic cultures, Think of maybe of the Far East where you're more, you identify more as a larger group and less so of an individual, then you're less expressive of those emotions. Whereas us Americans, much more of an individual type of culture, um we express those much more so much more expressively and much more of our individual identity as well so we may experience uh the similar types of emotions but we're going to express those differently based upon culture so um just like most things in life it's a both and um It's more than one explanation. So that's one of the things that I try to stress in the nonverbal communication book is that's pieces of a puzzle. So I have a number of principles in there that help you apply in different contexts with different people. And one is don't rely upon only one nonverbal behavior, but take into account the context in the other nonverbal behaviors that accompany it as well. So if someone's... touching their face or rubbing their nose maybe their face or their nose has an itch and doesn't necessarily mean that they disagree or that they're trying to be deceptive covering their mouth it could be but you need to look at the other cues as well so pieces of the puzzle for everything is what I try to stress sometimes a cigar is just a cigar yes Um, gender communicate, like if, if biological differences in communication styles are innate, how do you reconcile this with the growing cultural shift toward fluidity and gender identities? Does biology adapt in culture or does culture ultimately reshape biology? That's a good question. Um, so we are born with, uh, certain types of biological influences in our sex hormones. And when you change those, um, then you change these social types of behaviors as well. So one of the things that I would like to throw out there, this is a bit more philosophical, I guess, epigenetics. So the experiences that we currently engage in in our life, that influences our DNA that we pass on. So it doesn't change our DNA, but it influences how our DNA is expressed in our offspring. So there's been numerous studies done. If you're obese at the time that you have conception of your offspring, then that's going to influence your offspring differently than if you're not obese. So those types of, if you, and there was one study out there If you are around more electrical types of currents, that can influence the way that your DNA is expressed. Diet, exercise. So when you change sex hormones, either naturally or artificially, it's going to influence it the same ways that we see it change the behaviors naturally as well. So one example is that artificially increase in testosterone levels. So let's say a biological female wants to transition to a male and you artificially increase the testosterone levels to higher levels. That actually decreases gray matter in the broca's area of the brain that's been found. And that's responsible for language abilities. So what have we already addressed previously? That biological females are superior when it comes to language ability. And us males tend to be a bit inferior when it comes to language ability because testosterone hinders it. So naturally it hinders it and artificially it hinders it as well. What about this? Let's say a biological male wants to transition to female. And what do you do? You artificially lower their testosterone levels. Well, testosterone is used to treat depression. That testosterone has been found to help with the serotonin system. And that helps with that emotional regulation and help to treat depression and fight depression as well. So if you're artificially going to lower someone's testosterone levels and that helps treat depression or fight depression or the serotonin system, then we need to understand what that's going to do as well. So I think we're still in the early stages of all this. And I think there's a lot of caution that needs to be taken of. What's this going to do? You just don't change from male to female, but you change the whole person and what risks are involved with that. And if that person chooses to reproduce epigenetics, what's that going to do to the expression of their DNA and how is that going to change our society as well? So I think there's a lot of ethical types of considerations to consider. And then especially, I think when you're talking about children, if you're going to do these types of surgical procedures with children, Can they really make informed decisions that are going to change the rest of their lives when you start doing these types of surgeries or hormonal treatment or whatever else? So if you're changing someone's hormones and that influences their emotions, what type of responsibility is placed on the doctor if something goes wrong with that? Yeah, it's an incredible time to be alive and I can't imagine I guess as parents, we are fundamentally shaping the lives of our children, but I can't imagine trying to change their brain structure or whatever. It's such a slippery slope, but it just seems... unethical and immoral to me on so many levels of course I'm painting with a broad brush there but you know it's it's it's just crazy to think about where we are and what we can do and what's possible even if you look at like the it's similar it seems similar in like the anti-aging group as well when I look when I look at a lot of different boomers like a lot of guys hgh testosterone or bioidentical hormones like that's got to be having a profound effect on on language and the brain and chemistry and communication as well right Yes. I mean, the sex hormones, the way that I see it is that they're going to do the same thing regardless if it's natural or artificial. If you increase it, then with testosterone, what's that related to? Individualistic behaviors, less social understanding, more aggression. We see that in sports. Broad range. So steroid range. And you see these athletes outside the sport sometimes just go crazy and go violent on people. And lo and behold, they're taking, you know, high levels of testosterone through steroids and things like that. So you see the same things naturally as artificially. And when you start tinkering and make it extreme, what do you expect? Things to just go calm? Yeah, it's true. It's interesting to think about. You know, I love different languages and I love the ability to communicate, but sometimes it seems as if people are just side monologuing or talking past one another, even in conversations you have with people you really care about. And as great of a tool as language is, it seems on some level like We're missing. You know what I mean by that? You can have a long conversation with someone, but maybe not even truly have it be heartfelt sometimes. What is that dichotomy there? Language is our best gift, but it seems like sometimes it's just not good enough. You can't get something really deep, meaningful, and purposeful sometimes. And that's one of the things I try to stress in both of my books is to understand from the other person's perspective. And I think that's one of the problems in our more modern society is the lack of empathy, where it's much more so of a focus on ourselves and the way that we understand. And less so of as a person understanding similarly to the way I am as well. So there's a dynamic out there relationship-wise that's been around in the communication research in my first book that I address in Sex Talk is demand withdrawal. And consistently it's been found in research that it's usually the woman who's in more of the demand role in that type of conflict dynamic. And then the male usually withdraws much more so because they feel personally attacked. And it's because... You're looking at the exact same relationship, but you're looking at it differently. So one of the things that we touched on a little bit is that testosterone hinders our social ability. Estrogen helps it. So it takes much more effort for males to process relational information. Let me throw this out here and feel free if you want to chime in or not. The majority of people who file for divorce over age fifty is by the woman. So what's the dynamic happen with that is what's happening is that's usually when menopause starts to kick in. So that changes her, that changes her, that changes the relationship. I think oftentimes in those long term relationships of marriages that maybe the male doesn't pick up on, that there may be cracks in the relationship and things may not be going as well because we just don't pick up on it nearly as well, whereas she sees it and maybe she gets frustrated by it. So where I was going with that is that maybe sometimes males, we get complacent because we don't see it. And we think as long as there's not something blowing up, then it must be going well in the relationship. Also with the demand withdrawal type of relationship, we've seen that play out with celebrities. So the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, that even came out in the trial as well. She said every time there's a conflict, Johnny, you just get up and leave. We saw Sylvester Stallone and his wife, what, like a year ago or something, same thing. She felt that she wasn't being valued in the relationship and that he wasn't putting as much effort. And then he started to invest more and put more effort into the relationship. And then now they're back together much more so. Some other things in it is that us males, we already talked about this, that we tend to have inferior language abilities. Females often expect us to express ourselves emotionally at the same level as what they do, and we're just not equipped to do it. That during social interactions, our left brain is activated for males, for language, and our right side for emotion. So it's difficult for us to do both at the same time, whereas she has more of her overall brain activated at the same time during social interactions. And there's more activation in the emotional areas during social interactions for females, So therefore, it's much more of an emotionally intense type of experience each time that there's social interaction, the relationship itself. So the bottom line with that is that neither one feels valued. That the male, what he does, that's often how he expresses his appreciation for the relationship, less so verbally, but what he does. And she doesn't feel being valued or heard. because he doesn't acknowledge or express emotionally at the same level of what she does. So here are some things that could be done to help this dynamic. They found that touch prior to conflict, so some sort of embrace, hand holding, arm around the shoulder, whatever it is, that that actually increases oxytocin levels and leads to more positive types of behaviors, that bonding chemical. So what that do is when you increase oxytocin levels, you empathize and you understand the other person at a much better level. So what you just introduced with before I went on this long tangent is that we have misunderstandings. So if you increase oxytocin levels, then maybe you will have their empathy, their understanding. The second thing, and this is somewhat of a barometer of how well is the relationship, and as you go to holiday parties, look at this with couples, is mimic behaviors. So positive nonverbal behaviors that each person in the couple are doing together that indicates a more positive and stronger relationship as opposed to if they're doing different types of nonverbal behaviors or mimicking. Even worse, if they're doing negative types of nonverbal behaviors. So look around at a group of people, you see a couple, are they doing the same types of positive nonverbal behaviors? And that's probably a more positive relationship. If they're doing different types of nonverbal behaviors throughout the night, then maybe there's something going on underneath that they're not on the same page and they're not empathizing with each other. What would be some examples of those positive nonverbal behaviors versus negative nonverbal behaviors? Smiling, having a head tilt oftentimes, maybe through eye contact, maybe even as simple as doing the same type of gesture, same type of posture, all these types of things. So what you visually see and is it a mirror image of the other person or is it different? Yeah, it sounds to me like if you're mirroring one another unconsciously, then you're more together. You're almost like one entity, like a relationship going into something and facing it together versus two people trying to fight their way through something. It's a lot more difficult to do it that way. And just simplistically, if you're doing the same nonverbal behaviors, what's that do? That activates the same areas of the brain. So if you're activating the same areas of the brain, then you're going to have a similar emotional experience and understand the other person much more so as well. Another example of that is not relationship wise, but they found that in the healthcare context as well. So the healthcare provider, the nurse, the doctor, whatever. if they mimic the patient's nonverbal behaviors, they found that they can more accurately assess the pain level of the patient themselves because of that empathy of nonverbal mimicry. Wow. That's amazing. And there's a slight difference, mimicry and synchrony. So the mimicry is more of the physical types of behaviors. And then the synchrony is more of the Body biorhythms, so the breathing, the blink rate, the heart rate, all those types of things. In my nonverbal epiphany book, I go into a little detail. If you're trying to persuade someone, then you can do that through the mimicry and the synchrony. So you go out to lunch, and one person, the other person uses their hand to grab their glass, and then you grab your glass. Or they grab the menu, then you grab your menu. They use a fork, then you use your fork. And then you stop. And then you start to do a behavior that's different and see if they follow your behavior. And then if they start to follow your behaviors, then they're going to follow your other types of suggestions or ideas or whatever else as well. And it all starts with that mimicry. Yeah. You start building some momentum. Get them to agree a couple of times and watch out. You close the deal. Yes. Yeah, it's fascinating to think about the ways in which behavior is contagious. Like we don't think about that, but it can be, right? That's a good point. And there's a term out there academically, emotional contagion. So for various reasons, non-verbally, that people tend to take on the emotion of the other person. So if you go to some sort of social gathering, And it could go either way. All it takes is one person in a bad mood to make everybody else uncomfortable or negative, or maybe just one person in a good mood and lightens up everything for everyone else. So it is very contagious in relationships as well, emotions. One thing, we talked about the positivity in relationships of mimicry non-verbally in relationships and what has been consistently found, unsurprisingly, is that it works much better and it's much easier for the female to adapt her nonverbal behaviors to adjust to the male than it is for the male. She's much more socially aware and it's much more easier for her to change her nonverbal behaviors to what the male is doing than it is for him to observe what she's doing and change to hers. Then if we apply the previous strategy, she's able to adapt first, create some mimicry, and then start mirroring, and then you can actually change the behavior in a way. That seems like a great way to deescalate a situation in a relationship. That's a good point. So one of the things I guess that you could take away from what we already said in conclusion is that females are just superior social creatures. So that's why maybe it's my opinion or whatever, but that's why I tell my classes as well that a bit more of the burden of the relationship is placed on the female just because they're very equipped socially, language-wise, empathy, understanding, sending nonverbal cues, all those things for how well the relationship is going. Then if you're going to put the burden on us males, we're all doomed. It's true. We just go to violence. We're like, this person's not doing it. I got more power watching this. I have a chapter in my first book, the sex talk book. It's called Women's Sixth Sense. And it basically details all the five senses and how women are superior in all five of them. So they can hear a larger range of sounds, more sensitive to touch. There's been a study done where they have a curtain. And they have people on both sides of the curtain. They reach their arm through and they just hold the other person's hand. And females can identify the other person's emotional state much more accurately than what males can. Or they show pictures of just the eyes and females can identify the emotional state of the person just by looking at the eyes much better than what males can. Smell and taste are much more sensitive for females than what it is for males. And this last one, it's been relatively consistent, is that females have a much better visual system. So color vision is on the X chromosome, and females have two X chromosomes who you think is going to have their color vision. Also, they have more P cells in the retina. So what the P cells in the retina do is they help with color vision, but also detail. So in my nonverbal epiphany book, I guess the image that cracks me up most and that I like most is I have a color kind of spectrum of all these different shades. I have a boy on one side, a girl on the other side, and then it shows what colors the boy can see and then what colors the girl can see. And you can see how females can pick up on subtleties, subtle colors, details, much more so than what us males can. So they need to understand I get frustrated by us if we overlook types of things or if we're just not that good with fashion with the way that we dress as well. Yeah, it's crazy to think that there's so many differences. But I think it also speaks to what can be an incredible team. If you're aware that your wife or your girlfriend on some level has these different way of seeing the world than you. then you can rely and you have a different way of seeing the world than she does. Then both of you can rely. If you have a healthy, trusting relationship, which is hard to do, but if you can, then you can really move through life in a way that's like a superpower. Cause you can rely on each other to move through the difficult times. Like sometimes you just need perseverance. Sometimes you just need the unrealistic expectations of a man. That's a dreamer. Like, listen, we're doing this. It's going to work. Trust me. You know, or some girls like I see the fucking road, George, that is never going to work. You know, you're like, I got it. Watch. But we need each other like that. And if you can rely on each other, there's a real harmony of moving through the world in togetherness, right? That's a good point. Complimentary. Yeah. Just like you talked about seeing the same thing differently, us males, we tend to look at more of the big picture. And females, they tend to look at more of the details. So you can see how that complements each other. One example is just numbers. Let's say you have seven different numbers together. Us males see as one large number. And then females tend to look at as individual numbers put together. Same thing with like a puzzle or whatever else. They see the individual pieces. We see the whole puzzle. So you can see how you can get a more accurate understanding of a situation by her looking at the details, us looking at the large picture. Something that's been around for a while, and a lot of people want to downplay stereotypes or whatever, but us males tend to be superior when it comes to spatial ability. Testosterone helps spatial ability, whereas estrogen hinders spatial ability. So us males consistently tend to be there when it comes to cardinal directions, north, south, east, and west. And females tend to rely upon, and they do just about as equal as what us males do with landmark directions. So they usually want what's a physical type of thing to turn. They don't want us telling them northeast is where you turn. Women are better at communication and men are better drivers. We got that going for us. I think the research supports that. It's amazing to think about just all the little idiosyncrasies and the little things that people snipe each other at during relationships and how they may have a biological reasoning for that, you know, and they become stereotypes and they become the jokes at parties and they become the little things. And unfortunately they can become the cracks that, you know, you know break open things but it's it's it's biological there's epigenetics or genetics in there we got another question coming in about the role of silence dr forlick it says non-verbal communication thrives in silence do you believe silence has its own kind of language one that is richer or more authentic than spoken words what does silence reveal that speech conceals There's a quote out there that I'm trying to think off the top of my head that I put in the book, but basically that what we exhibit nonverbally is what we don't say verbally. So basically the truth is what we reveal through our nonverbal behaviors. So putting more of a heavy emphasis on our nonverbal types of behaviors, much more so than our verbal behaviors. Deception. So with deception, there are a few things to keep in mind about that in terms of what are some things to look for in terms of deception. I think that's maybe what the question is getting at as well. So when it comes to detect and deception, professionals themselves, so let's say interrogators, FBI, police officers, whatever, what type of percentage of accuracy do you think they have in detect and deception? Not as good as you think, about sixty percent. So they're only about sixty percent accuracy. So it's very difficult, but they probably didn't read my book. So that's why I'm just kidding. So there's a few principles to keep in mind when you're looking at deception. One thing that's biological is that oftentimes when people look to the left, that tends to be that they're trying to pull up factual types of information looking at their left. So access is more at the right side of the brain. Whereas if they look at the right, then they're trying to fabricate or come up with something that's not exactly true. So that's one indication. So I usually teach my students that looking to the left, if the person looks to their left, it's much more literal and much more factual. Something else to keep in mind is that's something that I think a lot of people misunderstand when it comes to eye contact and deception is what you usually think. We see in movies or books or whatever else that people avoid eye contact when it comes to deception, but that's actually the opposite. What research has found is that people actually maintain more eye contact when they're trying to deceive. So the more they're trying to deceive, the more eye contact that they actually hold with the other person, probably because it is out there in popular culture and popular understanding that people are going to look for an avoidance of eye contact. So what you want to do is get some sort of baseline understanding of the other person during social interactions, have some just vague general types of interactions with them, maybe whether sports or whatever else. see how they normally communicate, and then see if they're communicating something differently when it's something that you suspect may be involved in deception. So are they maintaining longer periods of eye contact? That could be an indication of deception. Are they looking to the right? That could be an indication of deception. We talked about the extremities, that they often have an indicator that's much more truthful. Where are their feet pointed towards? Or their hands, what are they pointing towards? One of the things that's been found in research is that when it comes to deception, that they tend to use simpler types of behaviors, nonverbal behaviors, and they use the same ones over and over. So they're less nonverbally expressive and they don't use as many gestures. And the ones that they do are pretty simplistic and they do the same ones over and over because It's so mentally daunting to try and deceive. What are you trying to do? You're trying to remember what you just said. Have that make sense with what you're talking about now? And then think about what you're about to say, even though none of it's true or a lot of it's not true. So you're concentrating on that and not your nonverbal behaviors. And they tend to be less spontaneous as well. So it tends to look a bit more rehearsed, their nonverbal behaviors. That's why you need to understand their baseline again. And then, as we alluded to, females tend to be much better lie detectors than what we are because we talked about their superiority in five senses. They have a larger and more active insula. And what that does, it takes in more sensory information and processes it. So they have much more information and much more cues to go off of. than what we do so it goes both ways with females they're better at detecting a deception from other people but easier to detect deception from a female than is from a male probably because it gives more cues to go off of as well so if you're thinking uh you as a man is this person being truthful or not bring a female co-worker with you and have them uh try to assess whether or not it is And that also helps, having groups. Groups outperform individuals when it comes to deception as well. Yeah, it's a great way. Everyone's picking up the different nonverbal cues in their own way and being able to analyze it and get all that information together. It's probably why they have the cops with that one-way mirror watching those. At least in the movies, right? At least in the movies. What about the listeners? It's all pieces of the puzzle. So again, with deception, don't just go off of one behavior. Make sure that you're looking at multiple behaviors and the context and the topic at hand and the other person, how they normally communicate. So again, I think that's one of the things that people are misled on is everybody wants simple, easy answers for everything. And the world just doesn't work that way. Do you think there's some... There's some, um, let me see. Are there some, some patterns? Like when we use language as a pattern, a lot of the times you can see people using the same word over and over again, or you can see people stutter. Is that the same with nonverbal communication? Are there ticks or are there like a repetitive motion that they constantly do? And are those two things similar? Yes. So like one of the things that we talked about with deception and highlighting it is they tend to use more repetitive types of behaviors. And that could be the same thing with maybe the same words as well. But also, they also use more vocal fillers just to buy themselves some more time. So more pauses, more ums, more uhs, and other things that less fluency is what they found as well when it comes to deception because it's difficult trying to tell a story and have it make sense. So if you're suspecting someone of deception, then something that... A good approach may be is they have a story, start in the middle, and then ask them something at the beginning, and then ask them about the end. So if they met with friends, went out to eat, and saw a movie, they start with the restaurant. Where did you go eat? What did everybody order? What was on the menu? And then go back to, okay, what time did everybody meet at and who was there? And then lastly, the movie itself, because everybody rehearses their deception in order. And there's also a lack of sensory details. So they're not going to give as much sensory details, the temperature, what things smelled like, the colors, all those types of things as well. Everyone rehearses their deception in order. That makes me start thinking about this concept of time and how silence, sometimes that silent pause can really have this overwhelming effect on people. What is the role of time in communication? I know that's a broad question, but you know what I mean? Like the silent pause or waiting to talk or some people say if you just count to ten before you say something, the other person will feel it to have a little bit more gravity. But what's your take on time in communication? One of the things that's been found in the research is that oftentimes people are poor listeners because they're too often anticipating what they're about to say, not listen to what the other person's talking about. Also, that when it comes to time, what you do, I have a whole chapter on time. and how that actually influences our perception of time in terms of does it seem much longer or does it seem much shorter, depending upon what the task is, who you're around, and other things as well. So one of the things with listening is I think too often people are passive listeners and they're not active listeners. Some of the tips that I give is to actively critique what the other person is saying. So what are some of the strengths? What are some of the weaknesses of it? What type of support do they give? What are some of their nonverbal cues that go along with it? So the more active that you are in the process, the more likely you are to remember what they're saying and not just think about what you're about to say next. So again, I think a lot of it goes back to that empathy, understanding from the other person's perspective and less so on just about yourself and what you want to respond as opposed to what you're actually listening to. So active listening versus the passive of just standing there thinking about what you want to hear next, say next. Yeah, so you don't have your feet pointing towards the door. You're not thinking about other things. That seems to be a conversation that people enjoy, too, is when you can actually sit back and have something that's wonderful between the two of you is when you're both enjoying each other's conversation. It's like you're both actively there, like you want to be there. And those are present in the nonverbal, it seems like. And one of the things that... I don't think a lot of people are that aware of, and I cite in the nonverbal book, Nonverbal Epiphany, when you're having a interpersonal conversation with someone like you're alluding to, the triangle technique. So what are you trying to balance is being engaged with the other person with eye contact, but if you have too much eye contact, then that comes across as aggressive. If you have too little eye contact, then that comes across that you're disinterested. So the triangle technique is to look at their left eye and then maybe their right eye and then and then you break it down the eye contact to their mouth. So you try and go in some order of each eye and then the mouth. And you could go left to right and then down or down and then up to the right and to the left and some sort of variation. But what you're trying to do is maintain eye contact with the face during the whole time, but not come across as too aggressive by just looking straight at them with the eye contact itself and not trying to look away as well. You want to make sure that you break eye contact down because if you break it up, then that comes across as a power play, that you're trying to show that you're superior, that you're trying to be more aggressive when you make eye contact and you break it up. If you are trying to maybe show someone up or be a bit more dominant, then maybe you do consider breaking eye contact up instead of down. It's so crazy to me that we only come – it seems that we learn about these incredible techniques later in life, but a lot of them could be applied to an early educational system. We might be living in a better society if people could begin to understand this nonverbal language, these cues and what they mean and how – Like, don't you think that like children can learn this stuff? It's not like it's super difficult. I know what a certain maybe their brains develop. But what's your take on maybe moving some of this into a early education system? Is that possible? I think that's a great idea to that way we could empathize and understand people much better. starting at an earlier age, and then maybe it becomes much more automatic in us. Just like learning anything else, if verbal language is much easier at a younger age, then why would nonverbal language be different? So I think that is a good idea. Here's something I'll throw out here. And I don't know, maybe it's more of an opinion than research. So I'm old enough to remember that we had a coronavirus a few years ago. And everyone was wearing masks. And maybe not coincidentally, crime went up, violent crime. So maybe you don't empathize with the other person nearly as much and you can do harm on them. And it's much easier if you don't see the other person's face because it makes it less personal. So one of the things that we talked about is nonverbally a lot of times you empathize with the other person. Emotions. And facial expressions, how do we understand, even from an early age, someone else's emotion and facial expressions? It's through mimicry. So what often happens is we see someone else's facial expressions, and then our face does it very quickly, and microexpression, the same one that we see, and that's how we understand someone else's emotions. So if we can't see someone else's face, then we don't empathize with the other person. And maybe it is much easier to do a crime, to do harm on the other person because we don't see them as an individual person. We see them as just objects. What do you think about that? That's more of my own theory I threw out there. Yeah, I love it. I think it speaks to the idea of dehumanizing people. And on some way, when you put a mask on, I thought, this is amazing. I'm going to walk into this bank with a bandana on my face. Watch this. Like, this is amazing. I can totally do this and I won't even get in trouble. I felt like a gunslinger on some level, even though I was not going to commit any crime. But to think about the crimes that were committed during that travesty, like how much failed learning happened because people had mask mandates. Like that's criminal to me to take away the learning ability from children and the communication that happens, the rich communication between mothers and children and fathers and daughters and all of this. We're just going to wipe this out for this idea of something called the greater good. I agree with you one hundred percent. And there is a lot of research out there that the bond in How mothers and children bond with each other is through those facial expressions and the mimicry itself and how well healthy that relationship is between the mother and the child. One of the things that I touch on just briefly in the nonverbal book is autism. And so just a little bit about autism. People with autism tend to have much higher levels of testosterone. And we talked about how testosterone hinders social ability, social understanding. So we don't understand the other person nearly as well in those types of social cues. And you see how difficult it is in life. to go through when you're not as socially knowledgeable or attuned as what everyone else is. So just with some of the things that you just talked about, all that loss of learning, same thing with loss of social understanding of other people as well through being isolated and mask mandates and all these other things as well. It brings up another point that when I start thinking about language and I start thinking about nonverbal cues, I think about power and control in society and structures, like in an authority structure. Like when you go to a classroom, you can see a teacher or a boardroom for that matter. One person will get up and they're the person in charge and they stand up. So they have exert dominance on some level. And there's games we play where we're asserting dominance over people by posturing on some level. Do you think that these nonverbal cues change in group settings? Like maybe a group setting that is obviously a teacher in a classroom or a work environment versus a social setting. Maybe we could talk about nonverbal cues in different social settings. A lot of times the same type of nonverbal cues tend to relay the same message if it's one-on-one or in a large group. So they tend to have the same meaning and tend to have the same types of effects. So, for example, if you're talking to someone one-on-one or if you're talking to a large group and you tend to have, you do a gesture and your palm is down, then that tends to be much more of a dominant type of gesture as opposed to if your palm is up, then your palm up is much more of likability and trying to get along, openness to the other people as well. So a lot of times they transfer similarly with each other. It's interesting. I remember I did a lot of work as a shop steward. And sometimes the messages and the environment in which you're going to communicate become very tense. And I remember talking to some of the younger guys in there who would go into the meeting alone. And one of the things I would advise him to do if it was a tense match is like, don't sit down, you stand up. When they tell you to sit down, you just say, I prefer to stand. And it's fully mundane. It changes the way the relationship happens. Another thing that you can learn from something as simple as a cartoon is that like, I'll ask the questions here. You ever seen a cartoon where the person's like, hey, I'll ask the questions here. Whoever's asking the questions tends to be the person in charge. And it's so incredibly fantastic to see how fast you can change the dynamics in a relationship by just answering a question with a question. Pretty soon you'll be the person asking the questions. And a lot of the times you can flip that role around between who has a dominant in the conversation just by asking questions. Isn't it remarkable to understand the little unique things that can fundamentally change the power structure in a relationship? And the same thing, just like you mentioned, if you go into a group or whatever, the seating arrangement. So who's sitting at the front of the table or who's sitting in the middle? So whenever you have a new administration coming in, president or whatever, then look at where he sits, and then who's the people closest on his right hand, who's closest to him. That's who you usually try to predict of what type of cabinet positions that they're going to be appointed to. So based upon the seating arrangements and the person in power, and the table and stuff like that. All those things come into play. Another thing that I teach our students when you go to maybe a job interview. So what's the majority of people going, especially the younger ones going to a job interview, what they're going to have in their hand, their cell phone. Well, instead of having a cell phone in your hand, non-verbally, What if you bring in a periodical that's related to the job interview itself? So if it's in finance, maybe you carry the Wall Street Journal or this investor business daily in your hand as opposed to a cell phone. We had one student, a graduate student, who went for a faculty position job interview. And I told him before the interview, pick up the campus newspaper of that school and bring that into the job interview itself. And that shows that you have interest in that university that you're interviewing at. And then he was offered the job. Probably not for that alone, but it probably helped. Yeah, it blows my mind to think about the things that we can do to send a message without speaking. There's so many, like you said, so much communication is nonverbal. You emphasize the receiver's perspective in communication. How do you see this paradigm affecting the power dynamics in relationships? Does placing responsibility on the listener create more empathy or does it potentially shift blame? I would say that probably there is a heavy emphasis on the listener themselves in terms of understanding where is the other person coming from. So the context, their background, the topic, all those things come into play in terms of trying to understand the other person and their perspective as well. So I would say heavy emphasis is on the listener themselves, trying to understand where the speaker is coming from. Yeah, I think so. The next question comes to us from Desiree in Palm Desert. She says, if our biology heavily influence how we communicate, to what extent do you think our authentic self is biologically predetermined? So there's different estimates out there. And one of our, I guess you could say, people who really was always one step ahead in research, McCroskey, he estimated that our biology is probably sixty to eighty percent influences our social behaviors. So probably around Forty percent, I would guess, is more of our individual types of choices that we make and things that we do individually, experiences, culture, things like that. So I would say the majority is probably biology, over fifty percent. And then around forty percent or so is more of our own individual choices and experiences, cultures, things like that. So I see it as, and we talked about this with males and females, that there's a continuum on whatever it is, nonverbal understanding, language ability, spatial ability, whatever else. There's a continuum for each of those different categories. And we're born in a certain point on that continuum. We can move on that continuum forever. a little bit in different directions, but let's say nonverbal understanding, you just can't flip female and male on that continuum. You could get closer to each other or farther away, but biologically, it's just, I don't think it's possible to flip them and a male can all of a sudden be much superior than a female given the same experiences, this, that, and the other, because we just aren't as biologically equipped. Yeah, I agree. I think it's such a broad way to think about it. And I feel like we're just kind of scratching the surface of it. Sometimes I speak to a lot of people in the startup community, and especially AI, and we're talking about the way AI is influencing communication. What are your thoughts on AI and influencing communication? Here's one thing that's been around for a bit, and people aren't even aware of it, these artificial types of changes. So pupil dilation. So our pupils tend to dilate when we see something that we like. And when people see our pupils dilated, then they become more interested and like us more as well. I forget when it was, it was centuries ago, that women used to use some sort of dye to artificially increase their pupil size. And then they found out from that plant, it actually hurt their vision. But you see that in... images you see artificially enlarging pupils and images if it's online ads or other types of photographs magazines or whatever else oftentimes they artificially increase the pupil size because what that does is it makes the person looking at it um Our pupils tend to dilate as well in response. And then it shows that we have more interest and we like what we're looking at much more so And we're much more likely to buy it as opposed to if we have smaller types of pupils. So attraction is highly related to pupil size as well. With larger pupils, they tend to indicate that the other person's maybe more interested in us or more attracted to us. And in return, we tend to often increase our pupil size as a response as well and find the other person much more interested and much more attractive. A few hundred years ago, Chinese jewelry traders knew this. And then they started wearing sunglasses when they started trading jewelry. Because let's say you have three pieces out and you look at the other person's eyes and they dilate on piece two. What are you going to do? You're going to jack up the price on piece two when they show more interest in. So it's a good nonverbal indicator. level of interest and it's being manipulated like you're talking about artificially with AI or whatever else to get us to have more interest in whatever is they're trying to sell us man it sometimes when I think of of this ai revolution we're in and all the imagery that's coming at us I think it was marshall mccluhan who spoke about the medium is the message and the way in which we're communicated to or how we communicate to each other fundamentally changes he spoke about the printing press changing the way we see the world do you think ai is going to change the way we communicate the same way the printing press did I mean maybe I mean have that big of effect not the same thing but have a similar effect it'll be a different lens for sure So when you have a different lens, it's going to change it. And how much? I don't know. That's a good question. How much is biologically that it's just difficult to change, but at the same time, it's going to change it in terms of how we see things different. And is it going to be drastically different or are we just going to always refer back to our biological instincts? So that's a good question. One thing, not necessarily AI, but Psychology Today, the magazine, recently asked me to be a contributor. So if you just search my last name, Frelich and Psychology Today on their website, I have a few articles. And one article is about the contrapposto posture, or pose rather, contrapposto pose. And what that is, you see celebrities do it. So the article that I wrote about Taylor Swift, Sidney Sweeney, and a statue that's over a thousand years old all have this contrapposto pose where what they do is they have one leg that's slightly in front of the other. They have the back leg that's straight. They have a slight bend to the front leg. And what that does, the lens, the way that we see them, changes. So what's that do? When you have the front leg that's slightly bent in front, the back leg is where all your weight is, that's stiff, that's straight. So it makes that front leg slightly closer to the camera. So it makes their waist to hip ratio artificially that ratio much more contracted. So the waist is much thinner compared to what the waist is because the front leg is in front. So that looks larger than the hips are also in front. So that looks larger and the waist is slightly farther back. So that makes it a bit smaller. what's been found in terms of attraction is a slight asymmetry is more attractive than symmetry so we often hear that symmetry is attractiveness but not perfect symmetry because nobody is so what that does is you have that front leg with that slight bent it lifts that front hip up just slightly so when you lift that uh front hip up just slightly that creates that a slight asymmetry but then often also what's that do You have a slight bend in that front leg that creates a triangle with that back leg. And then you see Taylor Swift in the photo that I put in that article with her elbow out, the hand on the hip and the elbow out. Because what's that do? Sharp corners we're less familiar with. You just look around your house and objects and things. We've been conditioned early as children that sharp corners hurt. And we're less familiar with those. So therefore, we don't come in contact with them nearly as much. So it takes much more of a mental process to understand and process things that are corners. So elbow out and then also the knee with a slight bend is also a corner. And it brings more attention to them. And you remember it much more so as well. Contrapposto pose. Wow. That's mind-blowing to think that there's these ways in which we can hold ourselves that will fundamentally captivate people's attention in a way that we may not even understand. And it's been around for a while. There are statues of it. And attraction as well. So not only do you look at it longer, but you find them more attractive. And it also distorts to a larger extreme their body shape. Types of proportions and makes them much more attractive as well. So it is mind blowing what you just said that the statues over these statues are over a thousand years old with the same pose as today that modern science has confirmed. And then also I cite an article in there. where they actually do brain types of activation recordings in the areas of the brain that are responsible for beauty, have more activation when you're in this pose as opposed to a neutral type of pose. Wow. The idea of just stimulus response on some level is mind-blowing to me. Just the way that we, boom, stimulized response, stimulized response. In some ways, I think it's beautiful, but in other ways, I'm like, man, we are just so ripe for manipulation if someone thoroughly understands how to do it. yes and uh it's been exploited so I think that's one that's one of the good things about what you're doing today is bring awareness to it and try to understand if you're being exploited uh and manipulated into some sort of condition and response by these large corporations and products or celebrities or whatever else Yeah, do you think there's like – when we talk about this idea of stimulus response and we look at Pavlovian dogs or we look at this contrapose, it seems that – and you look at advertising today. It's mesmerizing to see how effective we can actually be kind of led by the nose in order to consume something or worse, feel bad about ourselves in some ways. It seems like that is escalating. Would you say maybe not – In a negative way, I'm sure the road to hell is paved with good intentions and people are trying to make money and make a life. But it seems like it's escalating. Do you think there's a danger if we continue to go down that path? Yes. So two areas that I have a whole chapter on colors and how colors influence our emotions and our perceptions. So with products or the way that you paint a house or whatever else, all those things influence our emotions. and the way that we perceive things. And then I have a whole chapter also on context as well, non-verbally. So when you walk into a large store where items are placed in the store themselves, and then also what items are by each other. so there's uh just like you previously talked about emotional contagion there's also that with products as well so we often have similar types of emotions to all the products in the same area so there's some sort of intentionality of it in terms of trying to influence our impulses that we may have as well based upon where different types of products are placed One of the things also in terms of maybe manipulation or communication itself, I have another article in the Psychology Today, and I talked about the sandpinch gesture. And I have Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump all doing the same gesture of the sandpinch. And basically, it's a gesture of trying to emphasize important points. So they're trying to bring attention to what they're talking about at that moment much more so and make it much more memorable than other things that they're talking about as well. So there's a level of whatever term you want to put in. Influence or I don't know if I want to say manipulation, but emphasis on or whatever else so being cognitively aware of it why are why am I remembering or what are they trying to have me remember much more so in a speech as opposed to other parts of the speech and what's their intention of it so what are they trying to motivate me to do when they do that sand pinch type of gesture what is that like this when they're like we're doing this right now like what is this it looks like this so it looks like you take your uh index finger and your thumb together. You pinch them together. And basically how this came about is what do we do early as children? We point at things of emphasis and draws attention to it. And then we learn as adults, it's rude and it's offensive to point. So it does the same type of reach. It's the same objective of making emphasis without being rude. So you're basically pointing without actually pointing itself to emphasize important points. It's fascinating. I can't help but draw the similarities between the idea of communication techniques and magic. We love to see magic. We love to see the magician, the David Blaine, and David Copperfield. We love these magic tricks. But once you show somebody how a magic trick is done, there's sort of this betrayal, this anger of, you tricked me. We hate that. But it's the same thing with advertising. It's the same thing with some of the techniques you see. the Godfather, like Robert Caldini do, and like all these individuals that have mastered this art of persuasion on some level, as soon as you watch the trick, then you're like, oh, this son of a gun, this guy got me right here. And we get mad about it. Like, why do you think that is? I think part of it is that there is somewhat of a allure to it. So we like things and we have interest in the unknown. I think just by biological creatures as humans ourselves, we like to explore things that are not known. And the less that we know about something, the more we want to know more about it. So I guess part of it is just like in everything else, scarcity. So the more scarce something is, the less known that something is, the more it captures our attention, the more that we want to know more about it. And maybe it just usually doesn't live up to our expectations. That maybe is just much more so of a disappointment because that expectation was so high. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Everyone wants to believe in the magic. And on some level, we're hardwired to believe in a better world. And maybe we need that on some level. And then when they pull back the curtain and you just see the little man back there, I thought that was the wizard. It's just this little guy. What's going on here? I think the government's like that as well a lot of times. decisions that are being made and um that's not necessarily the smartest people that uh get in the government and make the best decisions and then um look at our debt I mean how are we what was it uh I don't know um or something we didn't have much debt and now all of a sudden we're thirty three trillion in debt so how is it the smartest people getting the government and we get thirty three trillion dollars of debt um in just a few decades Yeah. You know, I think the best metaphor for that, that I like to use is like that movie casino where the, the, the, they go to this beautiful restaurant and the owner can't get one of the gangsters to pay. So we go to the mob boss and he's like, Hey, can you come in and help me out here? Maybe you can become a part owner. And the guy's like, I don't know anything about it, but he comes in, he takes over the restaurant. And the next thing you know, they run up, they rack up the bills, ruin the restaurant's credit. And then the very end is they burn it down and collect the insurance money. Yeah. One of the things you brought up in terms of manipulation, it's all around us and not as many people I think are as aware of it as my last chapter in nonverbal epiphany, the golden ratio. That's often manipulated by advertisers, large corporations in terms of the way that you create and shape products, present images. Plastic surgeons have a mask that they follow based upon the golden ratio when they do plastic surgeries. And I think people just aren't as aware of it in terms of these proportions to each other, distances to each other. Features to each other and it's in our human body. It's in nature. It's in the universe. It's in our DNA. These different types of proportions, financial markets tend to trade upon it of the golden ratio itself. This brings up another fascinating point that I find myself allured to all the time. And it's like the nature of language, whether it's the golden ratio or fractals on some level, or just sitting under a tree sometimes and thinking, wow, how did this flower know to bloom right today on August, to two p.m. on August twenty second. Like, it's amazing. It's almost like it has a script. It's almost like there's a language there. And you often hear about people having an epiphany or a discovering and they see something in nature and they're inspired. But it sounds like things are revealed to us. It sounds to me there is like a nature of language. And if we pay attention to it, we can uncover a lot of realities about how we communicate. Is that too far fetched? No, I think there is a lot to it in terms of there's an unspoken language and becoming aware of it. What's that do? That just gives you more information to make better informed decisions and be more self-aware and aware of other people in our surroundings as well. So your flower example, oftentimes the physical features are based upon the golden ratio as well in terms of what's the inner part of the flower versus the petals and things like that in terms of their shapes. So it's pretty interesting to see seashells, animals, the way that there are different types of features, art. So centuries ago, They're finding out that there's a lot of famous art types of displays that are based upon the golden ratio as well. And how much is that subconscious? How much is that intentional and now much more so intentional? when you have these artificially types of things that you could do um and uh again being aware of when are we artificially being manipulated or suggested or whatever else based upon maybe the golden ratio I love it. Sometimes I think of this idea about the evolution of language. And it seems that a recent evolution of language is to like verbify everything. Like now you Google stuff. If you want to name a company, you name it after a verb. And it or, you know, it seems to me like on some level, the evolution of language is changing nouns into verbs. And if you just think about my name, George, or your name, Dr. Furlich, like it's sort of a process. It's sort of a verb. Have you noticed this pattern? And if so, what might that say about where we're going? So when you write, one of the things that is often taught as a skill when you write is being more active. So just like we talked about in conversations, not being a passive listener, but being an active listener. One of the things when you communicate, give me a presentation, you want your audience actively engaged. So it makes them much more active, much more in the process and involved in it. When people are more active and involved in it, Maybe it's a suggestion of the word itself suggests being more actively involved, that you're more invested in it. If you're more invested in something, you're more likely to do something. So that's one of the things when you give a presentation is to have the audience active in it. So maybe you start out with a rhetorical question. Have you ever thought about or have you ever noticed or have you ever wondered? And then as you go throughout the presentation, then you ask questions of the audience to think about. You want them to have things that are unanswered and have them pay attention to give the answers to and the next main point that you give. So you always want them, you know, I think that's important. a good point that you bring up is having that active process that people are more engaged in and more invested. And the more invested you are in something, the more likely you are to continue. We're creatures of habit. So if you're invested in something, then you're going to continue to do those same types of behaviors because we tend to do the same types of things over and over. Think about your own life, how often you do the same things day after day, maybe similar things that you eat or similar clothes, styles that you wear, similar products that you buy. And I guess that's one of the things that they want us to do is to start early on being invested. And you shop at the same stores, don't you usually? Yeah. The same large corporations usually buy from. I'm trying to break myself from that. This Christmas, I didn't buy a single thing on Amazon. I have certain types of problems with that company. whether it's their involvement with politicians or not paying as much tax as what maybe they should or their political views or whatever else. So I think people get in the habits of it's easy to just click, click, click on Amazon and your Christmas shopping is done as opposed to going directly to the companies that make those products and just buy it from them. Yeah, our actions speak louder than words, they say. Let me come here. I got another question coming in for you. It says future of communication with advancements in AI and brain. Let me just hit this button real quick. Future of communication with advancements in AI and brain computer interfaces. Do you foresee a world where we bypass verbal and nonverbal communication entirely? If so, what do we lose in the absence of that human touch? I don't see it as bypassing it. I see it being reduced. And I see it as one of the things that you brought up previously. that makes things much more impersonal and that's going to change our behaviors as well. So I guess one of the things that we talked about is that when we were going through that coronavirus things and people were wearing masks that made things impersonal and then warfare as well. If you fly a drone, and you blow up ten thousand people it's much easier I would think than if you walk up to somebody and you stab somebody who you can see them face to face and look in their eyes so I think that changes things in terms of removing the individuality and the human aspect on that in that example but then also you're manipulating large groups of people, you're exploiting large groups of people and it's much easier than it is an individual where you actually see the outcomes as well. So Facebook, they're often criticized and probably rightly so with trying to make people addicted to certain types of things on their platform. and ex-employees have come out and say that's what their main goal was and certain and their job role was to get people more addicted on facebook with certain types of uh games or whatever else and it's much easier to do that to large groups of people as opposed to if you see someone go it go through that themselves um as a family member or whatever else um you see drugs coming in this country fentanyl and stuff like that it's much easier to do it on coming from china it's much easier to do that type of warfare on large groups of people as opposed to if maybe you have a family member who become addicted to it now they're living on the street you see them as a person so tying it back to your question The more impersonal you make it, the much easier it is to do bad things, I think, manipulate, exploit, not care about someone's well-being as long as you profit from it. And I think these large corporations, a lot of times, it's much easier for them. This is something that I heard, and maybe there is some truth to it, that – Facebook censored speech during certain types of elections or during the coronavirus or whatever else. They could censor that, but they don't censor bad things that are happening on their platform, which maybe they could. human trafficking, child exploitation, other things as well, maybe because there's a number of users on their platform and it increases their numbers and they're okay with certain types of exploitation. because that's what maybe their business model is and that harm they accept as being part of their business model but harm that goes against their political views they're not okay with that and they want to censor the views that misinformation or bad political speech or something that's against the vaccine or whatever else so they pick and choose what things are ethical and moral, what things are not. And I just think it's, I don't know if you want to say evil or to accept these types of things of human trafficking because it helps you get more online traffic for your business model. Yeah, it's interesting. There was a, there's a, excuse me. There's a recent podcast with Rogan and the guy Beans. I forgot. I think he was from Netscape. And he was talking about the way in which NGOs have done the censorship for government. Because technically we have this thing called free speech, but... No problem. Let's just hand it to an NGO, and then they can go and threaten to pull all the advertisements from whether it's X or whether it's Facebook, Instagram. Okay, you guys either censor this or all your ads are gone. You'll lose three billion dollars. You have to cut all your staff. And you start beginning to see how communication, while it seems on some level – is the one thing that can free us is desperately trying to be pushed down and shoved and manipulated and cornered into these areas where we start censoring ourselves, where we stop speaking what we think is true. And in some level, if you do that long enough, it seems like you lose the ability, or maybe that's the hope of people, is that if you can just squash it long enough, you can condition people not to speak out on some level. Do you think that's accurate? I think it's pretty simplistic when you can control what people can say, you can control what people can think. So you can control how people see things, view things, understand things. When you control what you can say, you control what they can think, and then it's much easier to control the society, manipulate people, and make a much more obedient type of society as well, especially when you start targeting certain people, certain groups, certain political views as being very harmful, going to end democracy. How many times do we see metaphors or analogies of Hitler And this political type of rhetoric that was going on as well. So if you have people see things in a certain way and you do that through language, then you control people's language, control people's thoughts and maybe control people's votes as well. Yeah. The the the best one I've heard about is is like so often you see was that Godwin's law when people talk about Hitler, like they just bring it up to to to ruin the whole conversation. But I heard this guy say one time someone said, man, you're just like Hitler. And he's like, I think I think anybody that talks about Hitler is worse than the Nazis. You know, the guy's brain just melted a little bit. But, you know, one thing maybe we can one thing that I want to kind of get into since we're getting into this is this idea of revolution on some level. And, you know, I'm a big fan of like Diego Rivera and seeing these murals with metaphors and like how how do if we look at the communication of revolution, you could argue that we see that happening all around the world right now with like the yellow vest in France and. The Arab Spring and things in Spain and all this eruption around the world seems to me – and I think I can make a pretty good argument for it – is the disillusionment with the authority structures around the world. Do you think that this uprising we're seeing is sort of a nonverbal uprising of dissent that's happening because people are unhappy? I think so. I think a lot of it is against – so – These people who are in power and control, what's that doing? Is it making our lives better or not? And we're being told that our lives are being better as maybe crime's going up, inflation's going up. You see that our standard of living is not improving. Our education is looking at our country. We spend probably more than any country on education, but look at our rankings. and look at our where do we fall in comparison to other countries it's much lower to countries that are spending much less so what are we actually getting for uh the money that's being spent of our tax dollars and things like that so I think people are just being frustrated and uh they're seeing uh certain types of uh coincidences or similarities or common causes, and they're rallying behind these types of common causes as well. So I think that really motivates people is what I'm trying to get at. And people are just frustrated and tired of seeing the same types of end results. One of the things that you saw, this sort of cracks me up, with Trump being elected again, this political term, that he increased in every demographic category the vote support for him except one. And that was the white, white people. So he fell in white people, but he increased whether Latinos or blacks, Hispanics, Asians, or Native American, whatever, all these different categories, he increases votes in those and decrease in only the one category of whites themselves. And I guess it comes back to that maybe we should stop trying to pigeonhole people and categorize people based upon race and assume that they need to think the same or have the same morals or values or whatever because they belong to a certain racial group or ethnicity or whatever else. But maybe people are more similar to each other in terms of what's important to them. And it goes across those types of boundaries that are being placed upon us. Yeah, I couldn't agree anymore. It blows my mind to listen to some. Sometimes you can watch television or you can listen to some people in positions of authority, especially in government. And a lot of the times in large corporations, definitely in large corporations and boards, they speak about this idea of we got to work as a team. We got to work together. but then they have words like target demographics. Like these two things are not the same. Like you can't target this group and we all be the same. Like those two things are not a cohesive piece. And like, you can just see the facade crack when you look at the way in which people speak about working together, but then look at the tactics and the strategies they use to win. They're two completely opposite things, right? Yeah. I think that a lot of it overlaps with With what we're talking about with artificial intelligence or whatever else, we're losing the individual and just seeing everybody grouped together with some sort of oversimplification. You don't see them as an individual person and as a human, but more so of what tribe do you belong to? And because of that, that's how you should behave. You should vote. You should act based upon the groups that you belong to. And I think people are just tired of it. And I think that was one of the end results of the past election was that people are being tired of being told how to think based upon what you look like or your background or whatever else. So when you start seeing people in a diversity, a diversity of races or ethnicities or whatever, having similar types of needs, then I think that alludes to much more so of our basic commonalities that we have are much more similar as opposed to us being told that we're different based upon it. So I think we have more similarities than we do differences. But it's those differences that people are trying to exploit, I think, in terms of trying to get more support for whatever causes that they have. So inflation with people in our city, how is that different from inflation with people living in rural types of places? Same thing with crime, same thing with these wars that we have breaking out all around the world. How are all those things racially different, ethnicity different, religious different or whatever else? I don't think it is. I think a lot of it just overlaps very similarly with people or people. And that's one of the things that I teach when I teach intercultural communication is that maybe there are some differences in culture in terms of behaviors. in terms of different levels. But when you go into things that are deeper, morals, values, right and wrong, that those things are much more individualistic And you can't just assume or pigeonhole people based upon those things that are deeper, the morals and values. But maybe with behaviors, they are different based upon culture. But that ends when you're trying to talk about these morals and these values and what's important to people. Yeah, it's interesting to to see the state in which we're in when it comes to language and the language of the war machine or the language of of manipulation on some level. I love different words and I like wordplay. Can you have a university? Aren't university and diversity the opposite of each other? How can you have a university with diversity? You know what I mean? Those two things are opposite on some level, aren't they? In the words alone. That's one of the things that really strikes me is that we talk about diversity and we talk about how important it is for diversity. But what is seldom brought up at universities, so in education universities, what's seldom brought up is diversity of thought. that oftentimes that's not encouraged, diversity of thought, that people are often encouraged to think similarly on whatever issue it is, whether it's abortion or the border or gender fluidity or whatever else, people are encouraged to think similarly on those topics. And there's often backlash against you if you have a different opinion. So how do you value diversity if you don't value diversity of thought? How do you learn? How do you progress in a society if you're not allowed to have opposing viewpoints? Or if you're not allowed to have viewpoints that people find offensive? Or if you're not allowed to have viewpoints that's against the mainstream? We saw how that was detrimental to our society, whether it was the vaccine or maybe this war in Ukraine or whatever else. You know, there's different reports going on. Where's all this money going to that were given to Ukraine? You hear reports that there are weapons that we give to Ukraine that wind up in Africa. So are some of those leaders selling those weapons that were given? And if you criticize anything on that war or the mind that's going into it, then people just try and pigeonhole you to a supporter of Russia. So when you try to limit criticism, you see how things get out of hand with you can't have a job if you don't take the vaccine you know we went through that phase yeah so trying to require people to put some sort of experimental drug into your body and not ask questions you saw what happened to rfk and how he was being vilified for questioning the vaccine and then you see people who are healthy take the vaccine and have these uh you know reactions to it Yeah, I had my best friend from high school. He got his second dose and then died two weeks later in bed. I was like, whoa. My sister got the vaccine and was rushed. She went back to the hospital for heart palpitations. And to have people you know brushed off as lunatics, that's so, man, it hurts me to think about that or just to see the reactions that happen there. You want to know an interesting story? When I was living in Hawaii, when that whole thing happened, I wrote a letter to my senators. It was like, hey, this is against the Nuremberg trials. I'm not supposed to do experiments on people. Two weeks later, I got audited by the IRS. Just magically like, oh, hey, here's an audit for you. And I'm like, what? I just blew my mind. I don't believe in coincidences. So it just blows my mind. Yeah. I look at your taxes after you said that, and it just so happens that you need to give us more information. Yeah, it's crazy to think, but it speaks to what we're talking about, about the coercive power of nonverbal language, about the language of power, about the language of who we are as humans and what we have to stand up against if we want to move. Do you think that this is part of the human condition? Do you think that maybe... In order for us to have a more meaningful dialogue, we have to come up against these behemoths of power and language and these ideas that we're overcoming. Maybe we're overcoming this idea of right and wrong. Maybe we're beginning to break free from these dualities and starting to see things like... Two things can be true at once. History is bullshit. Like, you know, maybe we're waking up and that's what all this chaos is. Like, that's what kind of gives me hope to think. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think that's a big part of it is that it's much easier to just break things down simplistically, black and white, right and wrong, fact and not fact, but yet the world is much more complex than what it actually is. And I think also, just like Dorsey from Twitter actually admitted that they were censoring different political types of viewpoints and this and the other in the previous election, you know, several years ago. So again, if you can control what people can say, you can control what people can think, and it's much easier to manipulate and motivate people in your direction when they're less informed about the different topics themselves. Yeah. It, it, it's mind blowing to me. What do you, as someone who's been a, as teaches and is a professor and speaks on these ideas of language, have you seen, do you think that the, the behavior from since you've been teaching has changed? Is it cyclical or are you seeing sort of like the next generation embrace change in a way that the previous generation hasn't, especially in terms of language? Well, I think one of the things that I've observed just on a larger scale, um, so is, uh, I guess during the, um, Bush administration, uh, no trial left behind and much more of standardized tests. So I see much less of critical thinking, uh, with students, uh, recently than when it was when I first started. So it's much easier for them to memorize. particular facts or definitions, and it's much more difficult for them to combine ideas, come up with their own original ideas and thoughts, And they don't question ideas nearly as much as when I first started to teach. And I think part of it is that it was used as maybe a tool to get people to follow directions and find the one right answer and not really question with this increase of the K- twelve standardized test. So when I give assignments, it's much more difficult for students to do something where they have to create their own ideas and write a paper as opposed to just take a test and memorize definitions. So if I give a test, I often give specific examples and scenarios and then for them to identify what word best represents that scenario as opposed to just memorizing definitions. So I guess If that's what their intention was with the government, with standardized tests, is to make people question things less and just memorize and follow directions, then they accomplished that. that our students don't have that critical thinking skills like they used to years ago because they didn't develop that in the K- twelve. And then you see that coming to the university as well. So some of the times when I give an assignment, You see the same types of answers and same responses in a paper that different students write, and it's all from hearing the same information over and over. That DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and then they just keep putting that in whatever paper they write. So for example, this semester I'm teaching a gender communication class and specifically I'm emphasizing the role of biology, but yet they're still putting in their papers, some of them, the influence of society, the influence of norms, the influence of feminism, all these types of things when that's not the focus of the paper or the focus of the assignment, but that's what they're used to. So you have more of a group think, I think, and less of an individual think today than what you previously did because you have a lot of classes that are too similar to each other of intercultural or whatever it is, gender or whatever it is, where it's the same themes being taught over and over. So in my first book, the sex talk book, I think it's chapter two. And I go into detail of the universities and how they failed students. in terms of the information that they do, in particular with gender communication, that there was a group of scholars out there, and I cite that in my book, who they were, and they intentionally submitted to these gender communication journals hoaxes, hoax articles, and they got published. So factually incorrect information they intentionally put in a paper to see if they would publish it, and they did. So, for example, one of the things that they talked about was how climate change leads to more sexism or something like that. And that's two things that are at every university. that every university places an importance on, environmental types of issues and sexism or gender stereotypes or whatever else. So saying how somehow climate change influences these gender stereotypes and things that were not based upon facts at all, they got published. And it's kind of interesting to read the different examples I put in that particular chapter too. So I guess the bottom line with that is that the people who decide what information becomes available, who teach the courses and do the research often think too similarly and diversity of thought is lacking. So there's often a bias and the students are not aware of that bias and they take that as being factual information and as the only answer to that particular topic itself. So I guess it's kind of concerning of who's controlling the information, how it's being disseminated and what's being taught and how it's being censored in academic journals or books, university classrooms, other venues as well. Yeah. Man, it blows my mind to think about you can just see the word integrity comes to mind. And when you don't have integrity at the very top, then the whole structure fails. Integrity can mean doing something that's morally correct, but it can also mean the foundation is not solid. And I think those two things are connected. When you start thinking about integrity and you start thinking about the way we run our lives, our corporations, our government, It's often without a whole lot of integrity. You know, it seems on some level we're led by the least among us. And whether that's through nepotism or whether that's through, you know, being born to the right family at the right time and, you know, giving a pass or I don't know. I hope I don't sound too cynical, but it seems to me that we're just lacking in integrity in some ways. What do you think? Yeah, I have a good example of that. So previously, I'm in communication studies. And previously, our program was in the English department. And with what my first book is about biological sex influence and junior communication differences, I proposed to the department that I should teach that as a graduate course. And then everything broke out. So you have all these radicals. talking about how there's no difference between males and females, and biology doesn't matter, and it doesn't influence anything this, that, and the other. And then the department head at the time threatened me, saying that I'll be a target on campus if I keep pursuing this type of avenue and research and this, that, and the other. So my research is based upon science, biology, neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, But somehow that is not credible. But then there's other research of this feminism research that's based not on science, but more upon their own personal interpretations of data, their own... critical types of scholarship where you just try to analyze it based upon the way that you see this symbolic representation that's much more subjective. It's not based upon statistics. It's not based upon experimentally controlled types of studies. So to say that's experimentally controlled types of studies based upon science and FMMR studies and sex hormones is not credible, but based upon someone's opinion and their own way of seeing something is credible, just doesn't make any sense. I mean, why can't you have a diversity of different ideas and perspectives and research? Why does it only have to be what the mob wants and what the mob controls? Yeah, the mob is an interesting one. You know, when you start thinking about the way people react in large groups, it can often be not only erratic but it it seems to be you know there's riots it's out of control you don't know what the mob is going to do and so it's it's it just seems crazy to me that that people would want to maybe maybe the mob has always been there maybe people become a mob the same way grasshoppers become locusts and it happens cyclically you know maybe that's just what happens when change needs to be changed when the world needs to have massive change there's no amount of emphasis. There's no amount of manipulation. There's no amount of bread and circus that can change the mob from coming. And maybe on some level, I see that happening. We are going through this incredible transformation right now. And it seems that it doesn't matter how much you try to change language or how much you try to stay in power. It seems that people clawing to power realize the jig is up and all they have left is the nuclear arsenal or the fear-mongering campaign or the the looting of the treasury, but it seems that we are on the cusp of this radical change and the more things that happen, the more ludicrous it sounds to all of us. What do you think? Yeah, I think so. at least from my perspective is, the more that you're ignoring facts in reality, then the less believable it is, and then the jig is up. So when you have to start saying that there's no difference between males and females, no social differences, and you see it in your own relationships, your own family members, coworkers, friends, gender communication differences and now science backs it up and you're being told there are no differences when you don't believe your own eyes, don't believe your own experiences is what you're being told. then everything else goes out the window as well. And I think people just throw up their hands and say, well, if you're wrong on this, it's telling us that there's no difference between males and females and that there is no biological differences or social behaviors or whatever else, then how can we believe anything else that you say as well? especially when you don't have the support for it. You don't have the objective, credible type of research to support it as well. So I think that goes into other areas as well with other things that we're being told as well, that if it's not believable based upon your own personal experiences, then why should we believe these other things that are being disseminated, that information as well? I think it speaks to the idea of awareness too. Like we've covered a lot of topics from like nonverbal communication to the history of communication to violence. And on some level, I feel like this is all under the umbrella of awareness. And it seems that this idea of awareness hopefully is a stepping stone to something brighter. But when I say awareness, what comes to your mind? More information. So more information is better, not less. So why should we censor? Why should we censor my research? Why should we censor people on Twitter? Why should we censor, you know, all these other viewpoints and stuff like that? Everybody, or not everybody, but I mean, it was quite popular and comfortable to throw out everything's an existential threat. So if we don't censor it, it's a threat. It's a major threat to everybody. Threat to our lives, threat to democracy, threat to our well-being, everything. So I think as long as people are going to keep throwing out the word threat, then that's just one way to censor viewpoints that they don't like. And then at some point, people are not going to take those threats seriously when there actually are threats out there. It just becomes every day. Yeah, I do. I see it every day. I pay attention to the world around us. There's a huge dichotomy between when you look at the window of the television or you look at the window of the internet, whatever, it's Facebook or Twitter or X or LinkedIn, whatever window you're looking through, and then you look at your window outside. There's this huge dichotomy of what's really happening. On some level, it's really easy to fall into the world of the window you're looking through. do you think it's like, that is a problem. And like, when I look outside, I don't see any wars. I don't see any of these things happening. And it doesn't really feel real to me to, to, even though it feels incredibly tangible when I'm looking through doom scrolling or something like that, like our nuclear war, Oh my God is happening. But then you look outside your window and your neighbor's mowing his lawn. Yeah. I think it, uh, personalizes it much more. So, you know, on the internet or on TV or whatever else, um, I think it's hyperbolic a lot of times yeah that just over exaggerates it and makes it uh much more so um more profound uh more expansive uh much more uh you identify with it and relate to it much more so than uh maybe what you really should yeah I guess one thing is uh Celebrities. I mean, look at celebrities and how many people identify with Taylor Swift or wherever else. And they never met her, you know, or politicians or whoever else that you don't really know who they are as a person. But you really think you do much more so through those windows that you're talking about, the Internet or TV or whatever else. Yeah. There's a great quote, I think from guide to board and love to get your thoughts on this. And it speaks to the idea of language through like a fall. And it says that we've gone from being into having and from having into the illusion of having and still further slipping into the only reason it's brought up is because it doesn't exist. I know it's kind of out there, but it makes sense in a way. Yeah, I think it is all these different levels of, uh, Reality. So in terms of looking at something on the internet or on TV, and then you actually go to that place in person on vacation, that reality is vastly different. So personal experiences versus virtual experiences, there's a gap between them. And I think they're trying to blur them the difference is, but that just distorts reality. So I guess, for example, if you see things on Facebook or Instagram or whatever else, what someone's life is on that versus what their real life is, is often vastly different. And I think that makes us self-reflect what's our life doing in comparison. So we have things, problems going on in our personal lives. You don't see that with other people, celebrities. So is that something wrong with us? Because we have problems and they don't, we don't see them. So those personal experiences, I guess what it comes down to is how we understand things differently than the superficial things. You don't see me posting on Facebook or Instagram of people of a messy room or conflicts or grocery bills or whatever else. But yet those are things that you all personally experience. So what's the reality and how do we compare ourselves? I think that's one of the things that we do is we're always trying to assess ourselves based upon how is it in comparison to other people. And it's not an accurate assessment because of all these distorted types of lenses that we have. Man. For me, like, it brings up this question of authenticity. When I look at content that's out there, people are so drawn to authentic content. And then you can see it get gamified or you can see it get warped. Like an example is, say that... Someone, you know, has breast cancer and then you talk about that and then all of a sudden everybody comes over and is like, hey, man, I'm sorry to hear that. And then you get all this attention and you go, wow, that was pretty good. I should talk about that more. But then, you know, it's it's it's as soon as the instrument becomes institutionalized, it loses its ability to cut through things and it's it's. I don't know, it's beautiful and tragic at the same time because we're there as a community for people when there's real injury, but it's so quickly diluted. It's so quickly twisted into something that can be monetized or changed in a way that is just gross in some ways. I don't know how to parse those things, man. One of the things that you often see is something that occurs and then it's being exploited. Then you find out it's not what happened. It's vastly different. So Jesse Smollett, that's a good example. How many people came on TV talking about how he was such a victim and how horrible Trump supporters are in Chicago in the middle of a snowstorm at two a.m. And then you find out that's not really what happened. And then he gets a sweetheart deal from whoever it was and doesn't really have much of a consequences from it either. And you see, jump on TV right away, whenever there's something that they can exploit. So they only wait for the facts to come in. And then they try to exploit whatever is right away, because that's how they make their living. So I think that's one of the things to keep in mind is, how do people make their living? Where do they? How do they make their money? And is that just part of their gig that they that they do to survive? Yeah. I mean, look at Hunter Biden's laptop. There was like forty people in the government at different levels that signed that it was not a legitimate laptop or they thought it was Russian misinformation right away. And that could have changed the election the first time. People didn't have enough time. And then Twitter censored it and other media outlets censored it. And then whoever did talk about it, a lot of them, they just talked about that. It was probably not his laptop. It was Russian misinformation. And now the majority of people in the U.S. believe that it was his laptop. Yeah, I see the, you know, I used to work for like a Fortune five hundred company and it was so. Mind blowing to me to see the way the internal communications happen, like you would see the people at the very top. call down the middle management and just treat them horrendously. Like you do F in this or you lose your job. And then that would translate to that guy telling me that. And it's like, wait a minute, man. Like, don't you know that so-and-so's kid just died? Don't you know that this person's going through these relationships? And that middle manager would be, Oh, like they would get it from both ends, you know, and I saw so many people in that position lose their relationships, get fired, lose their life because they're trying to balance this idea of the human being versus a number. And then the people at the very top. They sit around and talk about how hard it is to be them and make these important decisions and how difficult it is to have these – I got to make real decisions about these things. No, you don't. You have taken yourself so far away from reality that you have this buffer around you of people that are less than human that take all the heat and you get all the money. It's like this giant game of Jenga where you're just taking money from the foundation and stacking it in your pocket. And when I see our leaders today, be it in the boardroom or in government, it seems to me that all they're doing is undermining the very foundation of what makes a society successful. And the poverty, the violence, the emotion, the tragedy is a direct reflection of the leaders that we have, like the country, the city, the town is a direct reflection of the leadership, right? Do you think that's accurate? Yeah, I think so. I think what sort of brings attention to it, they had that one show, Undercover Boss. Yeah, yeah. And then that realization that they have that I didn't understand this is what the people are going through when they have to go through the exact same experiences. So I think the whole, you know, coming back to the whole empathy and trying to understand from other people's perspective, plays a big role in it yeah it's I think we are like it's you know it's interesting too I remember as we get back to the idea of the celebrity you know I the celebrity is the ultimate celebration of the human being and I remember one time I used to when I was driving They were filming this show called Hawaii Five-O, which was, you know, obviously about a cop in Hawaii. And they blocked off all these roads. And as a delivery driver, I had to go down these roads. And there's all these cops standing there. And I remember pulling up to this cop. And, like, you could see, like, the actor in his awesome Camaro getting ready to, like, you know, his off-scene or whatever. He's standing there being an all-cool guy. And I pull up to the cop. And I'm like, man, I got to park right over here. And he's like, you can't. I'm like, why not? And he's like, they're filming this show. And I'm like, hey, man, can I ask you a question? He's like, what? I'm like, does it bother you that that guy out there over there and that Camaro is pretending to be you, but he gets paid like a hundred times more than you'll ever make? And the cop just looked at me and he's like, go ahead and park. You know, he got it. He's like, yeah, what the fuck? This guy's pretending to be me and he gets everything and I get nothing. Like when you start seeing that reality and it comes back to this idea of awareness, you can't unsee it. And like that's one of the things I love talking to people like you about and having this podcast is like maybe on some level we're allowing people to become more aware of the lies that are being told to them. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. And it will create in you the necessary evidence The necessary, whether it's anger or emotion or empathy, whatever it is, it'll create this cocktail inside of you that forces you to change in some way. I think that's what we need on some level, right? Do you feel like your work is doing that as well? Yeah, that's one of the things I try to do is the more information, the better. So the more information, whether it's understanding nonverbal communication and what types of subtleties are being sent towards us or the other book, The Gender Communication. and trying to bury each other people's lives. So the underlying theme is just the more information to make very informed decisions about our lives and to reduce a lot of these problems that we have due to a lack of understanding, lack of empathy, and just lack of information is what it comes down to. Dr. Ferds, you have been incredibly gracious with your time. We just blew through like two hours and it felt like ten minutes. And I feel like we really got to unpack a lot of cool stuff. I mean, I would – you're going to have to come back because I would love to get into the ideas of Orwell versus Huxley and sort of these ideas about authoritarianism and communication where we might be going in the future. Take it down the Philip K. Dick route over there, but – You know, it's super awesome to get to talk to you. And I'm really thankful for your time. And as we're landing the plane here, I was hopeful that you could spend just a few moments talking about where people can find you, where they can find your books, what you have coming up and what you're excited about. So the easiest way to find my books is just go on Amazon and go to books category and then just type in my last name, Furlich, F-U-R-L-I-C-H. I also have a website. I have a few things, activities on there, drstephenfurlich.com. And then I want to be more active. I just started it with Psychology Today as a contributor. Just go on there and search my last name, Furlich. And I have a few articles on there about body language. And then, uh, Another one about political, but I'm trying to do something that's themed for whatever the season it is. So like we talked about the sand pitch gesture by politicians. I did that during the political season. And then we talked about the contrapposto pose. I did that for holiday pictures. And then coming up, I want to do before Valentine's. is intimacy differences between males and females. And what's our interest and how we get aroused differently in gifts, different gifts as well. So I want to try and get that article out before Valentine's. I love it. It speaks to the idea of categorizing and then getting the message and just layering it in a way that's so effective and efficient. But I'd expect nothing less from you. So one more time, can you give us the name of the website? Well, Psychology Today is where I'm doing it. And then my own personal website is Dr. Stephen Furlich. And that's Stephen with a P-H. So D-R and then S-T-E-P-H-E-N-F-U-R-L-I-C-H.com. Fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Christmas season. If you liked what you heard today and you want to become more aware, I can't recommend the books enough. Go down to the show notes. They'll be linked down there. Make a great Christmas gift or a stocking stuffer. I think it'll help build relationships and help you become more aware of the things you want in life and help you understand how to communicate in a way that is more effective. Dr. Fuller, please hang on afterwards briefly, but to everybody else within the sound of my voice, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. That's all we got, ladies and gentlemen. Aloha.