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How to Recognize and Respond to a potential tHReat

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Harness The Power Of Another...

Harnessing the power of other people’s eye accessing cues who aren’t nec-essarily the threat in your mind can be a very powerful tool in your arsenal. It is because eye accessing cues are so naturally ingrained in our ability to communicate that it is really difficult17 to undo them. In other words, it can be very hard to access a different theme when you are looking in the wrong direction.

By watching the out of place and out of character body language in the people around you, you can very accurately judge what is going on in your blind spots.

Take everyone’s individual personality into account and ask yourself if anything seems odd about how they are moving or acting. If you get several differences from

multiple people, you’ll be able to make good use of your periphery and position yourself to assess the potential threat without

tipping them off that you noticed.

If I wanted to think of something that was in my memory, it would be very difficult for me to remember something if I was to look to my left. This is because my memory accessing cue is located to the right.

17 Really, really, really, really, really, really, difficult!

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cHapteR 4: listening witH youR eyes

So keeping this in mind, we tend to understand subconsciously that we really have limited control over our eye accessing cues and that these are really powerful windows as to what our true intentions are. If people begin to hide these eye accessing cues then you know that they are trying to hide their true intentions.

One thing that I have noticed which happens a lot, is that people tend to try and hide their eye accessing cues by doing what is called “forced” or “stra-tegic blinking.”

Forced blinking is basically whenever someone blinks intentionally right as they are accessing a different part of their brains in an effort to keep you from seeing which part of their brain that they are accessing. They do not want you to know that they are moving to a different accessing cue. Usually it is an emotion that is designed to hide a vulnerability at that moment. So, usu-ally, the eye accessing cue that they try to hide is Looking Down.

You will be able to tell by watching someone whether or not they are blink-ing specifically in one spot, one sentence, or even one word. Then you will be able to get a pretty good sense if they are trying to hide how they feel or what they are thinking about that one thing. Keep in mind, that if you continue asking the same question and end up getting the same response, or they keep trying to hide the same eye accessing cue, then you know that they are trying to hide something.

This does not necessarily mean that they are trying to take advantage of you. So please don’t assume that. It may simply be that they feel insecure about something and are trying to hide it for that reason, which is completely nor-mal. But either way, be aware at that moment and make sure that triggers a red flag in your mind. Remember that the eyes are indeed the windows to the soul.


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Moving beyond the eyes, let’s move down to the lower chest or diaphragm area. Something that everyone does when they feel uncomfortable, or feel that they may potentially be attacked, is to cover up their diaphragm. This is com-monly referred to as ‘chest protection.’

If you want to see real-life examples of uncomfortable and emotionally submissive body language, get up and head to any bar... At all... When you get there, hold up this book and match this picture to as many guys as you can. Once you start to recognize the nuances in body language, it will be very apparent who is truly

confident and who is faking confidence and hoping that no one notices.

We will cover our diaphragm with our arms or with some random object during chest protection. I want to go over what this could mean as well as what this definitely means.

It could mean that they are emotionally unstable.

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It could also mean that they want to feel safe. But it could also mean that they are nothing more than a bit cold.

Keeping an Eye on the Weather... Keep temperature in mind as a factor when you are attempting to diag-

nose these aspects of someone’s body language. The most common, and often very deceptive, reason why students of body language reading misread body language cues is temperature. Almost every body language cue that we use to hide our intentions is also used when we’re trying to warm up. That’s why it’s so important to look for clusters of these types of movements and not only keep your environment in mind but also the temperature of your environ-ment as well.

If you happen to recognize a cluster of the movements outlined in this book and the others to come, keep in mind that the person in question is not necessarily a threat to you just because they are hiding something. But it does mean that they are trying to feel safe all of a sudden, which means they didn’t feel safe before. Watching submissive people react to a potentially threaten-ing situation will allow you to know how threatening the person that they are looking at actually is.

All in all, covering the diaphragm will almost always mean that they are afraid of some sort of attack. Usually it’s the fear of an emotional attack and not a physically one. If you ever want to see an example of this, go to any random bar, look around at all of the people there, and count how many guys there take their beers and put them right in front of their chest while they are standing and having a conversation. Anyone who does this is protecting themselves from an emotional attack. We may not mean to do it, but it is important to be aware of in yourself and in other people you are around.


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Let’s move from the diaphragm to the shoulders and take a look at what will be the body language triggers for them. We will take a look at slightly or extremely shrugged and constantly shrugged shoulders.

Once again shrugged shoulders could mean they are simply cold. But if it’s not cold in their perspective18 then they could be trying to stay calm.

What it definitely means is that they are subconsciously tensed. If they are constantly slightly shrugging their shoulders then they are naturally always afraid of something. And, usually, it means they are submissive to the core.

The difference between anxious and submissive shoulders is very subtle to your conscious mind and yet extremely blatant to your subconscious. And because your

subconscious mind bypasses your logical brain and speaks directly to your emotions, when you see someone with slightly shrugged shoulders, you automatically feel as

though they are weak. Make sure your shoulders are down and back. When you’re sure you look relaxed and dominant, look at yourself in the mirror

and remember the way your shoulders feel when you’re in that position. Try to recreate that feeling later on when you’re out in a public place.

18 Unfortunately everyone registers their resistance to low temperatures differently. Just because YOU aren’t cold doesn’t meant that THEY aren’t as well. But, one of the phe-nomena about body language is that overcompensating for fear with warming body language will sometimes heighten our sensitivity to low temperatures. In other words... Acting cold can make us feel colder!

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Keeping your shoulders up even to the slightest half of an inch or higher is enough to tell an assailant with a good eye that you are a victim. It is impor-tant to make sure that you always keep your shoulders down and that you look at someone who is potentially threatening to see if they have their shoul-ders down or if they are tensed subconsciously.

Nervous and submissive body language can be a powerful thing to recognize. Here, the subject’s eyes are widened, allowing him to see more threats than before, much like the natural design of prey in the wild. Big eyes, one on each side of the head

to maximize threat detection, his shoulders are shrugged, and his feet are too close together to be stable.

Those who are new to being a threat or new to being an assailant will not be able to control their shoulders because it is just going to be too much men-tal work. They will probably display slightly raised shoulders, have a nervous look, and be tensed because they are not familiar with the territory of being an assailant.


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Here the subject begins to pull his body inward to attempt to become a smaller target. He feels threatened because he expects to be attacked.

A powerful indicator of a true submissive personality.

Again, in my opinion, these are the people who frighten me the most. Yet it must be stressed that just because they have their shoulders up does not mean that they should be feared as an assailant, just as having their shoulders down doesn’t always mean that they will not attack. So make sure that you pay attention, but again, don’t come to conclusions based on very few indicators only. You have to find strong supporting evidence from multiple cues before you will feel comfortable making a flexible assessment.

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Here the subject begins to lower his head to give power to the people around him, to literally show he’s lower and less significant then them. He is fully invested in

looking around for threats and will begin to draw the attention of dominant people nearby as well.


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Twiddling your Thumbs and Shuffling Your Feet....

The thumbs are another weird phenomenon. It’s uncertain why people will do this, but it is in fact, a really strange but important body language trigger if you cover and grip your thumbs as if you are trying to hide them. It could be that you are in severe discomfort. It could mean that you are angry or just introverted. This could also be the same body language trigger that is used when someone is cold, but it is a very common trait for those individuals who display psychopathic behavior.

If someone appears uncomfortable in an apparently normal situation, you need to

be extra-aware of that person.

As children, we often cover our thumbs to feel protected from something. However, if you look around and see this happening and the temperature is

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not cold, this could mean that the person is just not comfortable. Consider this a good red flag and be very aware of this person.

Covering one’s thumb is a text-book sign of discomfort.

If you are getting a lot of triggers that point toward a person not being psychopathic, don’t assume that you do not have to worry about them any-more. Some of the best killers are sociopathic and have learned to hide most of their body language triggers. Just make sure that you don’t accidentally do this, yourself. Even if you forget the body language implications and how people will perceive it, it’s just a really bad way to hold your hand position. A lot of thumbs have been broken that way!


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Let’s take a look at the feet now. Many people who are training to read or ‘speak’ body language pay most of their attention to the upper half of their body and neglect the lower portions. If any part of the body is allowed to roam freely, that will be the portion that tells the true story.

If you can learn to read the person’s feet and shoulders at the same time, then you can get a pretty good sense if there is anything that is incongruent. That in turn means that you will also have a good sense as to whether or not they are hiding something.

If a person’s feet are turned outward, as in pointing outward in even slightly opposite directions, this could mean that they are extremely dominant or sloppy. It definitely means that they are open because their legs are physi-cally opened. It doesn’t matter where, or at what direction, only that their feet are opened a little.

Let’s look at the opposite now. Feet that are turned inward could possibly mean that they are submissive or that they are feeling insignificant. It defi-nitely means that they are closing themselves off in some way. Perhaps you will see their feet almost together or their knees close together as well. This will be a very good indicator that they are closed off.

Now just because you have figured out whether a person is closed or open, this does not necessarily mean that it will help you decide whether or not someone is an attacker. However, it will give you insights so that you can determine whether they are dominant or submissive. If they begin acting outside of those parameters and start acting dominant whereas their body language speaks submissive, you will be able to tell that they are faking it.

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Focusing...

The next one we will look at is another rather strange one. It is not neces-sarily something that you can easily see in someone else and not really some-thing that others can read in you. It is something that you will be able to use to be able to pay special attention to things when no one else thinks that you are paying attention to them. You’re going to be using the often over looked power of your focus.

It is very difficult for someone to see what you are focused on if you are

not showing an excessive amount of body language cues while you’re focused. You can tell if they are focused on something however, if you are reading an excess of their body language cues (like their eye accessing cues, the openness and the direction of their positive and negative body language, and domi-nance in submissive body language). If they appear focused on a lot of people at once, then they may be sizing up the competition. This may be an indicator that they are preparing to do something. And if you already have red flags from an earlier analysis of their body language, this is a state during which you should be extremely alert.


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Leaning back and showing true dominance while looking around the room projects that you are sizing everyone up to see if they are a potential threat or victim.

Looking back and lowering your head shows that, because of your dominant body language, you’re trying to hide yourself. At this point, people are beginning to seem

suspicious because you’re sending mixed signals.

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