Joe Navarro, former FBI agent

“EVERYONE IS CONSTANTLY TRANSMITTING INFORMATION.”

It’s his job to get inside the heads of people—even if he never exchanges a word with them. During his 25 years with the FBI, Joe Navarro was in great demand. It would have been a waste of resources to allow him to remain a simple agent: His instincts were sure, and he had an outstanding ability to create a new identity for himself and make it his own as he penetrated the secrets of a suspect. Navarro is able to interpret even minute gestures to understand the thoughts, emotions, and motives of a person.

“Our needs, feelings, thoughts, and even our intentions are processed by the limbic brain and expressed through our body language,” explains Navarro. The limbic lobe of the brain is the part of the cerebral cortex that’s concerned with a person’s emotional responses. “Limbic reactions are hard-wired in us. They are immediate, time-tested, and honest, and they apply to all of us,” says Navarro. The FBI made him an instructor so he could teach his method of behavior analysis to other agents. Over the years that followed, he taught agents how to recognize foreign spies in the U.S. and he was involved in the unmasking of many of them. He believes anyone can learn to interpret body language. One of the best training grounds: a poker game. Navarro has analyzed the behavior of professional poker players and has even beaten some of them, including world champion Gus Hansen.

BODY SIGNALS GALORE

Although some professional poker players can suppress up to 90% of their body language, the remaining 10% of cues is enough for Navarro. In the game he won against Hansen, his opponent was trying to bluff with a hand that held a jack and a seven and had less than a 6% chance of winning. Nevertheless, Hansen’s face remained expressionless as he took both hands, shoved all his chips to the center of the table, and called “all in.” But then to his surprise Navarro called his bet, risking $60,000 of his own cash. Two signals he saw in the seconds before Hansen made his final bid had told him all that he needed to know: Hansen held his breath for a fraction of a second and then curled his fingers about an inch closer to his palms. To Navarro, both reactions indicated that he was acting under duress. And yet, these motions were only two of the thousands that

Navarro can recognize and interpret. On the following pages ID explores some of the signals that each of us is always putting out without our even realizing it, and how we might interpret these signs when we observe them in others.