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"Facial Affect" Where to Notice and Benefits Of...Like Poker! · How To Talk To Humans

• 0:02
  Larry Wilson: Hi, this is Larry Wilson, and this is How to Talk to Humans.
• 0:07
  Larry Wilson: This is the podcast that shows you how to improve your communication skills.
• 0:13
  Larry Wilson: Are you looking to get a better job?
• 0:15
  Larry Wilson: Are you looking to find a relationship?
• 0:17
  Larry Wilson: Are you trying to do things in your life that have frustrated you and eluded you so far?
• 0:23
  Larry Wilson: I can show you so easily how to change that.
• 0:27
  Larry Wilson: Now, I can only do it with humans.
• 0:30
  Larry Wilson: If you're looking to deal with vampires or zombies extraterrestrials, this is not the show for you.
• 0:35
  Larry Wilson: But if you're really looking to improve your communication skills, I can show you what I've learned for 40 years in the show business working with the biggest celebrities and superstars in the world, and their secrets are unbelievable.
• 0:53
  Larry Wilson: What I'm going to be teaching you during the course of this podcast every week are tools that you can use to communicate toward success.
• 1:06
  Larry Wilson: Thank you for joining me for another episode of How to Talk to Humans.
• 1:14
  Larry Wilson: I really want to address something because a number of you have sent me emails asking about facial affect.
• 1:24
  Larry Wilson: We've talked about it here before, but there's always more room to explore.
• 1:29
  Larry Wilson: And maybe the name, maybe the official phrasing of facial affect was confusing or intimidating or unclear.
• 1:38
  Larry Wilson: And it's probably from a scientist or medical term using the word affect.
• 1:46
  Larry Wilson: It just means what's going on here, what we see on your face.
• 1:52
  Larry Wilson: Now, obviously, facial affect is joined with vocal affect if I lower my voice to an intimate tone.
• 2:03
  Larry Wilson: Or I come out with some commanding sound like a biblical old world prophet or something.
• 2:10
  Larry Wilson: All those things join together.
• 2:12
  Larry Wilson: And that's what I'm hoping you'll be integrating all the different parts using active listening, using eye contact, all these elements, we want them to work synergistically together so that the parts combined produce a much greater result than the sum of all the parts.
• 2:34
  Larry Wilson: That's what we're looking for here.
• 2:36
  Larry Wilson: But some people were asking how to practice.
• 2:40
  Larry Wilson: I think the real response was there were some people who were interested in my two-day boot camp, but they could not coordinate it with their schedule and everything else to come and join it, and they were hoping there was stuff they could practice on their own.
• 2:56
  Larry Wilson: So of course there is.
• 2:58
  Larry Wilson: There always is.
• 2:59
  Larry Wilson: The most obvious one, and if I really was as great as I think I am, I would get one of those hats, you know, that they use on the undercover shows that has a camera built into it, a concealed hidden camera that connects to some sort of phone or recording device or something.
• 3:21
  Larry Wilson: Because that may make it clearer than anything I can tell you.
• 3:24
  Larry Wilson: But the one place that I immediately think of as a great place for studying facial affect are airports.
• 3:37
  Larry Wilson: I'm obviously it's a low-hanging fruit for me because I seem to be in airports every week.
• 3:47
  Larry Wilson: I know people who get bored in the airport.
• 3:52
  Larry Wilson: I don't know how you could get bored.
• 3:55
  Larry Wilson: I guess it depends on how you process information.
• 3:58
  Larry Wilson: To me, it's like being at the circus.
• 4:01
  Larry Wilson: There's a fantastic glummapry of strange and unusual things to see and witness.
• 4:09
  Larry Wilson: You don't have to dive into it with the same fervor that I do, but don't be surprised if you find you're developing an unhealthy taste for it.
• 4:20
  Larry Wilson: If you are flying, then this is a perfect way for you to fill your time.
• 4:26
  Larry Wilson: You found your gate, you're checked in, everything's set, you have 30 minutes, an hour.
• 4:32
  Larry Wilson: Sometimes I'm on flights that have connections where I'm trapped in some airport for a couple hours, two, three hours sometimes.
• 4:40
  Larry Wilson: So it's incredible if you simply pay attention.
• 4:47
  Larry Wilson: I've talked before, and some of you know, uh my suggestion of practicing empathy skills by just trying to imagine looking at people.
• 4:59
  Larry Wilson: But let's bring that down even simpler, on a smaller level.
• 5:05
  Larry Wilson: Just examine people's faces who are all around you.
• 5:12
  Larry Wilson: Sometimes if I'm in a busy airport like Denver or Dallas Fort Worth, I avoid Chicago hair at all costs.
• 5:21
  Larry Wilson: But those kinds of airports where there's so many people, sometimes I'll be walking along, I'll just stop like a stone in the river and let the hordes pass over me.
• 5:35
  Larry Wilson: And I'm looking at their faces.
• 5:38
  Larry Wilson: There's so much semiotic information that you can observe.
• 5:45
  Larry Wilson: There's so much information coming off their faces.
• 5:49
  Larry Wilson: If I had to guess, I would guess that 99% of the people are completely unaware.
• 5:57
  Larry Wilson: Maybe I'm cheating you.
• 6:00
  Larry Wilson: Maybe I should really say 100%, except there are some people like me who are familiar with facial affect and have trained and have spent time and energy and attention on what's going on.
• 6:13
  Larry Wilson: But the vast majority of people are not aware of what they look like.
• 6:19
  Larry Wilson: They have a mirror at home.
• 6:22
  Larry Wilson: You know, there's a funny thing.
• 6:24
  Larry Wilson: Sometimes you'll see somebody who one part of them, maybe they have fantastic shoulders, and you you see them someplace.
• 6:34
  Larry Wilson: This doesn't have to be in an airport, and you'll say, wow, that person's shoulders really look great.
• 6:38
  Larry Wilson: But their hair is a mess, and their clothes are a mess, and there's all kinds of problem.
• 6:44
  Larry Wilson: Like you think, how did that person not see that at home looking in the mirror?
• 6:50
  Larry Wilson: Well, because a lot of times people simply focus on what they like or what they think of as their assets.
• 6:58
  Larry Wilson: So they may look in the mirror, they may say, Oh, I have such nice eyelashes.
• 7:04
  Larry Wilson: So that that may be the only thing they look at.
• 7:06
  Larry Wilson: And then they've trimmed their beard to look like an insane person or put on makeup that looks like a clown, or you know, they're not paying attention to that.
• 7:20
  Larry Wilson: If you look at them, you will see incredible stories coming off their faces.
• 7:31
  Larry Wilson: You will see some of them on phones, you'll see their face reflecting.
• 7:38
  Larry Wilson: I think again, almost all of them unaware, their faces showing you a reflection of what they're hearing on the other end of the phone, or when they're speaking to someone.
• 7:51
  Larry Wilson: Uh I'm I know you've seen people talking on their cell phones who are gesturing.
• 7:58
  Larry Wilson: They're not even aware they're gesturing.
• 8:00
  Larry Wilson: Not on, not on uh uh FaceTime, in other words, the other person can't see them.
• 8:06
  Larry Wilson: They're just speaking on the phone, but they're still gesturing.
• 8:09
  Larry Wilson: Listen, I'm not gonna, you know.
• 8:11
  Larry Wilson: Well, of course, this is not facial affect, but it is semiotic information that you can see what's going on with them.
• 8:21
  Larry Wilson: And in the process of observing that, hopefully it makes you more conscious about what your own face is doing.
• 8:32
  Larry Wilson: And as I've explained in other episodes of this podcast, that's all we're trying to do when you're doing conscious communication.
• 8:44
  Larry Wilson: You don't have to do this ever.
• 8:46
  Larry Wilson: If you wake up in the morning and go down to make breakfast for yourself and your wife or husband or kids or says good morning, you don't have to think, how would Larry handle?
• 8:58
  Larry Wilson: You can do whatever you want.
• 9:01
  Larry Wilson: I'm talking about business.
• 9:03
  Larry Wilson: I'm talking about when you have interactions that have to do with goods or services that you buy or sell or involved in.
• 9:14
  Larry Wilson: This can make or break your yearly income very easily, very easily.
• 9:24
  Larry Wilson: I've been talking recently with a number of people in real estate who uh seem to be using Wilson method techniques very successfully.
• 9:33
  Larry Wilson: And the way they phrased it to me, they said, oh, if I was able to just make one extra sale a year, that's a huge difference in my yearly income.
• 9:46
  Larry Wilson: One sale.
• 9:47
  Larry Wilson: And they said, I there's but one person in particular who trained with me, who, according to him, says, Oh, yeah, I've added hundreds of thousands of dollars to my bottom line using the stuff you taught me.
• 10:03
  Larry Wilson: Well, I'm not sure exactly how you measure that.
• 10:07
  Larry Wilson: I guess you look at last year before you trained with me, and this year after you train with me.
• 10:12
  Larry Wilson: I don't know, but I think it's fantastic if that's the case.
• 10:15
  Larry Wilson: What a great result.
• 10:17
  Larry Wilson: Fantastic result.
• 10:18
  Larry Wilson: So, depending on what your business is or how you're involved in it, little tiny incremental changes can have a huge impact.
• 10:28
  Larry Wilson: And I wanted to suggest, I know this is funny, but another place that's a great place for studying facial affect.
• 10:41
  Larry Wilson: And that is, um, based on my life experience, so many years I've spent working in casinos.
• 10:53
  Larry Wilson: And when I'm performing in Las Vegas or Atlantic City or Lake Tahoe or Reno, uh, I'm only working about an hour a night.
• 11:04
  Larry Wilson: I'm not, it's not like a regular normal job.
• 11:08
  Larry Wilson: So I have a lot of free time on my hands, and I find myself over the years gravitating to the poker table.
• 11:18
  Larry Wilson: Now, in other places, I'll tell you again, I'll mention again, but I this goes back many, many years when I first started working in Las Vegas.
• 11:31
  Larry Wilson: I would go to the poker table, and you know, I'm sort of a friendly, gregarious guy, and I'd get talking with people and be friendly.
• 11:44
  Larry Wilson: And all of these players were much better than I was.
• 11:48
  Larry Wilson: They, oh, they were running rings about them.
• 11:50
  Larry Wilson: But they sort of took pity on me, I think.
• 11:53
  Larry Wilson: And occasionally they'd say, Oh, you want to grab a bite or something?
• 11:57
  Larry Wilson: And I'd take a break from the game, we'd go get something to eat.
• 11:59
  Larry Wilson: And they'd say, you know, uh, you really don't get this game, do you?
• 12:04
  Larry Wilson: Yes, I do.
• 12:06
  Larry Wilson: Yes, I do get they'd say, No, no, you're you're really bad.
• 12:10
  Larry Wilson: Like, there are a lot of leaks in your play.
• 12:14
  Larry Wilson: And of course, I had no idea what they were talking about.
• 12:17
  Larry Wilson: And they would take pity on me, and I remember one guy writing on a cocktail napkin or a paper napkin in the coffee shop some some rules for me, you know, number one, number two, and he was trying to help me, and my game gradually improved because I was being tutored by people who were experts.
• 12:36
  Larry Wilson: And I thought this was so interesting to see simple things that were so obvious to them, but not to me.
• 12:47
  Larry Wilson: Well, one of them, I remember this very clearly, and I won't tell you his name because I'm not sure if he really wants people to know he's a professional gambler.
• 12:58
  Larry Wilson: Maybe it's no one's business at all.
• 13:00
  Larry Wilson: He's actually a very nice guy, and he uh I'll tell you this much, he's um he's an educated guy.
• 13:09
  Larry Wilson: He has uh advanced college degree, not just uh BA, he has advanced uh degrees.
• 13:18
  Larry Wilson: And he was saying, you know, when you're sitting at the poker table, most people are only paying attention when they're in the hand, when they're playing.
• 13:32
  Larry Wilson: That's the mark of the amateur.
• 13:36
  Larry Wilson: Now, there's nothing wrong with being an amateur, it's a game.
• 13:41
  Larry Wilson: People come to play it like they play any game for fun.
• 13:45
  Larry Wilson: But there is money at stake here.
• 13:50
  Larry Wilson: So you can only play so much before you run out of money or find yourself in bad straits.
• 13:59
  Larry Wilson: It's not exactly like playing Monopoly or Checkers or something like that.
• 14:05
  Larry Wilson: And he said, there's so much information coming off these people's faces, all of them, all the time.
• 14:16
  Larry Wilson: He said, when you're at the table, your job is to be studying all these faces.
• 14:25
  Larry Wilson: Now he didn't use the word facial affect, but that's what he was talking about.
• 14:29
  Larry Wilson: And uh he used a different kind of language.
• 14:34
  Larry Wilson: I'm also not gonna reference that because I, again, I don't want to I don't want to blow someone's cover here, but he was talking about semiotic information.
• 14:45
  Larry Wilson: Now, in this particular instance, this is a perfect example, it's very specific to this game.
• 14:55
  Larry Wilson: It might carry over to other elements of their lives or business, you never know.
• 15:02
  Larry Wilson: But as far as we're concerned, it's just about this game.
• 15:08
  Larry Wilson: And so he was explaining.
• 15:10
  Larry Wilson: He said, you know, I want you to see where people's eyes go.
• 15:15
  Larry Wilson: I want you to see all these muscles around their eyes.
• 15:20
  Larry Wilson: Do they flex?
• 15:22
  Larry Wilson: Do they tighten?
• 15:24
  Larry Wilson: I want you to see muscles here around their cheeks and their jawline.
• 15:30
  Larry Wilson: You know, they're all all the things that are happening with their faces, for the most part, are unconscious.
• 15:40
  Larry Wilson: They're not even aware of it.
• 15:42
  Larry Wilson: But, as he was quick to point out, then there are always the ones we call Hollywood.
• 15:50
  Larry Wilson: Because those are the players who think they're gonna do an act.
• 15:53
  Larry Wilson: Now, I will tell you this.
• 15:55
  Larry Wilson: Many years ago, I was playing in a game, a sort of a friendly industry game in Los Angeles, and the actor Jerry O'Connell was in the game.
• 16:10
  Larry Wilson: And he didn't really seem to know the game that well.
• 16:14
  Larry Wilson: I'm not sure he took it that seriously, I don't know.
• 16:16
  Larry Wilson: But at one point, I was watching him very closely, and I saw the way a hand developed, and I saw this very subtle thing going on where he seemed to be very excited about the hand, but was concealing it, and then seemed to act duplicitous, like he was going to fool someone.
• 16:41
  Larry Wilson: And I was in his hand with his, and I thought, oh, he made a huge hand, he wants to sucker me in this.
• 16:47
  Larry Wilson: And so I studied, and some bets went on, and I folded my hand, I threw my hand away.
• 16:52
  Larry Wilson: And then he exposed his hand, and he had been bluffing.
• 16:56
  Larry Wilson: And I thought, oh my god, this guy's a brilliant actor.
• 17:02
  Larry Wilson: Well, of course, he's a professional actor, but he did it so well, I've never forgotten it.
• 17:10
  Larry Wilson: And he sort of laughed about it.
• 17:12
  Larry Wilson: I don't know whether he realized, I got the feeling he knew that I was watching him very closely, and he gave such a subtle performance that he knew I would see all these tiny little details.
• 17:27
  Larry Wilson: But if you happen to be a fan of poker, the poker table, and you know, I'm when I say this, I don't mean like a friendly home game.
• 17:40
  Larry Wilson: I mean like in a professional casino situation where you're mostly with strangers, people you don't know.
• 17:47
  Larry Wilson: There's so much information that you can practice reading.
• 17:54
  Larry Wilson: Now, you you don't have to invest huge amounts of money.
• 18:00
  Larry Wilson: You could buy into a poker table for, I don't know, what, depending on what the limit was, for $50 or $100, and sit there for hours and not play any hands, and I guess maybe anties or blind bets, it might cost you a little bit.
• 18:16
  Larry Wilson: But the idea is if you it's again an opportunity like I was saying about airports, where the majority of people have no idea what's going on here.
• 18:25
  Larry Wilson: It doesn't mean you have to act on that information.
• 18:29
  Larry Wilson: But if you want to become an expert at facial affect and reading facial affect and reading semiotic information, I don't know if there's a better laboratory for you than the poker table.
• 18:50
  Larry Wilson: You can see so much.
• 18:52
  Larry Wilson: And sometimes they're little things, sometimes they're really obvious things where they they aren't an actor of the skill of Jerry O'Connell.
• 19:05
  Larry Wilson: So they aren't uh doing a subtle, they're doing something really big.
• 19:09
  Larry Wilson: They pick up their hand, they go like this.
• 19:13
  Larry Wilson: Well, that probably means they're really happy and they want you to think they're unhappy, you know?
• 19:20
  Larry Wilson: And in the same way, sometimes where someone will pick up their cards and go, like they're trying to tell you, oh, uh, I have a big hand.
• 19:29
  Larry Wilson: It usually means they're busted, they have nothing.
• 19:31
  Larry Wilson: But but there's so much information there.
• 19:35
  Larry Wilson: If you will study it, you will learn.
• 19:39
  Larry Wilson: There'll be some players who will give you a baseline where nothing's going on until they pick up a good hand.
• 19:47
  Larry Wilson: Then there are other people whose faces maybe are very expressive, and everything is coming out.
• 19:51
  Larry Wilson: Oh, I hate this.
• 19:53
  Larry Wilson: Oh, I'm delighted, oh, I'm confused by this, oh, I'm I don't know what to do.
• 19:58
  Larry Wilson: They may be showing you all kinds of stuff.
• 20:00
  Larry Wilson: But it's a perfect laboratory for you to practice looking at people's faces and in turn imagining what you're projecting with your own face.
• 20:17
  Larry Wilson: I hope you'll come back and join me again next week for another episode of How to Talk to Human.
• 20:25
  Larry Wilson: This has been Larry Wilson.
• 20:27
  Larry Wilson: I want to thank you for spending this time with me, and I hope you found this information useful.
• 20:34
  Larry Wilson: If you're looking for more, you can find it at thewilsonmethod.com.
• 20:39
  Larry Wilson: There's a ton of stuff there.
• 20:41
  Larry Wilson: In fact, if you want, you can even speak to me because I'm human.
• 20:47
  Larry Wilson: Send me an email at info at WilsonMethod.com because I read every single one.
• 20:56
  Larry Wilson: I hope that you'll join us next week in this continuing journey.
• 21:02
  Larry Wilson: And you'll be with me for the next episode of How to Talk to Human.