Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are--01

So I want to start by offering you a free no-tech life hack, and all it requires of you is this: that you change your posture ['pɑstʃɚ] for two minutes. But before I give it away, I want to ask you to right now do a little audit ['ɔdɪt] of your body and what you're doing with your body. So how many of you are sort of making yourselves smaller? Maybe you're hunching [hʌntʃ], crossing your legs, maybe wrapping [ræp] your ankles. Sometimes we hold onto our arms like this. Sometimes we spread [sprɛd] out. (Laughter) I see you. (Laughter) So I want you to pay attention to what you're doing right now. We're going to come back to that in a few minutes, and I'm hoping that if you learn to tweak [twik] this a little bit,it could significantly change the way your life unfolds [ʌn'fold].

So, we're really fascinated ['fæsə'net] with body language, and we're particularly interested in other people's body language. You know, we're interested in, like, you know — (Laughter) —an awkward ['ɔkwɚd] interaction, or a smile,or a contemptuous [kən'tɛmptʃuəs] glance [ɡlæns], or maybe a very awkward wink [wɪŋk], or maybe even something like a handshake.

Narrator: Here they are arriving at Number 10. This lucky policeman gets to shake hands with the President of the United States. Here comes the Prime Minister -- No. (Laughter) (Applause) (Laughter) (Applause)

So a handshake, or the lack of a handshake, can have us talking for weeks and weeks and weeks. Even the BBC and The New York Times. So obviously when we think about nonverbal [,nɑn'vɝbl] behavior, or body language -- but we call it nonverbals as social scientists --it's language, so we think about communication. When we think about communication, we think about interactions. So what is your body language communicating to me? What's mine communicating to you?