Introduction to Observable Human Signals and Subtle Cues: Skills People Will Need in The Age of Robotics

Communication and collaboration are 2 things all world's civilisations are hounding on and those things are what make us become multi-planetary. Nothing more!

To turn a great idea into reality we need to collaborate around it and in order to achieve it we need to communicate it to right people. And how do we distinguish right people for a particular collaboration at a particular moment in time and not?

Obviously, one simple "I like your idea and possess skills" coming from someone is a far cry from enough. It means we need to look closely and understand people, really. And here is where a paradox kicks in: your mobile phone, telly and colleagues tell you to be empathetic but never telling you how. People claim empathy and run from it every time someone shows it. So basically all voices want it while at same time punishing you when you are being too empathetic because they cannot afford being like that themselves or just want you to keep in disciplinary order so you are convenient.

In this short article I will describe simple fundamentals of where to look and how to become more empathetic and really look closely at people in order to understand them, on edge of freaking them out and winning their hearts.

When it comes to communication, your body always knows something about a person before your conscious mind catches up. Unconscious evaluation happens sometime before you meet them and in a split second, long before any words are spoken, if you really observe them. That is first and most important thing to pay attention to but in a way that is not mixed with Instagram signals in our heads.

Following are basics of foundational signals to look at and interpret. Anyone can practice them at home, workplace, supermarket, negotiations and basically in any human to human communication scenario.

Why Communication Starts Before Words Are Spoken

Before a single word is exchanged, our unconscious mind and body already pick up on other person's presence and energy they are sharing. Challenge is training yourself to bring this unconscious awareness into conscious awareness. Anyone who has mastered making decisions based on both conscious and unconscious assessment before doing anything has a good chance of living an organic life and achieving social goals. This skill gives anyone in any circumstance a significant advantage, whether it is a family context, a casual chat in a park or high stakes interactions at work.

General Appearance

We all form instant judgements based on general appearance. It is simply how human psychology works and that skill can be improved and consciously taken beyond limiting or poor paradigms in favour of something useful and deeper.

When you look at general appearance it is never random, never! Even if owners of those appearances say there is no meaning behind it, that itself gives us additional information to work with. Everything we put on is our deliberate choice (unless in very uncommon circumstances) and we take full responsibility for those choices whether we like it or not.

Every single detail in our appearance matters. It carries information that can be interpreted in a way that helps us understand people deeply because they are screaming who they are and how they want to be treated every second of their lives and they do it unconsciously.

Here I offer a very basic explanation of how general appearance can be interpreted.

Every colour and shade caries psychological weight. They can be loud, soft or smooth. They can be balanced or completely unrelated. It is all details of one large puzzle and by observing it you can tell something deep about people or any individual. As an example, you can open your wardrobe and look at patterns in colours and materials. Ask yourself a question such as: what is it in me that makes me choose similar things every time? Types of material matter as well. They mirror our internal world with high precision in same way colours do. They are always read together with colours and other observable details as one picture. However, qualities alone do not tell us about deeply hidden aspects of people but how to interpret them in order to reveal them is something I share in my one to one mentoring sessions and group workshops; Size of clothing matters as well. Whether it is oversized or slim fit, it can be interpreted in same way as all above and adds to bigger picture; Most importantly, general appearance sends us a message. People do it unconsciously. If you know how to interpret it or how to sense it, which is a more advanced skill, you will see that they tell us everything about themselves. They say who they are. They say what they really want. They show us what they try to hide consciously. They tell it all and almost never realise it.

They will often withdraw from a conversation when you point it out. They will contradict themselves because they say they want to be understood but when someone really looks inside, they freak out. That happens in vast majority of cases.

Accessories

Accessories often tell a much deeper story but together with appearance they create a whole picture. They can be shown or hidden, so accessories can be interpreted as well, same principle applies as to general appearance but adds more detail because in most cases they are more complex and tricky to interpret but very valuable. Examples of accessories are:

• Tattoos
• Jewellery
• Hairstyle
• Nails
• Sunglasses
• Makeup
• Belts and similar things
• Backpack or purse
• Shoes
• Hats and many more

Those are main things you can pay attention to and how they complete general look. At first they are observed together, then you can look at them separately and basically read message people send to external world and communicate with real them, high empathy and understanding.

However, every interpreter needs to be self aware and very well developed and equipped as a person in order not to fall into a mirroring trap and not to judge people for who they are and not put themselves in some kind of superior position as they imagine.

There are many hidden traps everyone can fall into while interpreting, but more you practise understanding others, more traps you see and avoid. It takes years to master, like any other skill eventually.

The Balance Effect: Nothing Is One Sided

A very common mistake in that kind of interpretation is to make visible only leading patterns and qualities. This is not always the case. Statistically people project to the world what they want to become, kind of best versions of themselves and very rarely project the other side and more often balance of both.

Balance here is very important because to any quality there is a counter quality that everyone possesses inside. For example, if there is a reliability pattern there is always an opposite pattern in context, such as carelessness or something similar. Another example is steadiness and impulsiveness. Those live inside one person and they express themselves differently depending on context.

Normally what we call shadow qualities, what people do not show, are mostly leading in that balance and what is shown are commonly growth signals if explained in simple words. Goal here for everyone is to integrate explicit and shadow qualities into one personality. That is rare and takes decades sometimes, but majority of people are not even aware of it so no integration happens.

So, if you do basic interpretation and not sure about the mechanism behind human behaviour, it is likely to harm you and others if you do not do it responsibly and accurately.

Building Theories and Validating Them in Real Time

Interpretation of the signals as a skill gives its holder a good chance to understand others deeply, but it is work that requires attempts. Best way to do it is to build a basic theory about people based on visual signals and validate it in real time. With a theory in mind you can ask questions and listen to what they say and observe their body language, because:

• What they state is often contradictory to what signals they project to world;
• Level of words sophistication often contradicts their actions, goals, etc;
• Their body language often screams very opposite things to what people state and how they react to things is very telling because...

real people live between a cause and their reaction to it.

Basically, in order to validate a theory you pulled from general appearance and accessories interpretation, you need to understand how to interpret speech, body language and mastered sensing as well because first thing you pay attention to in every communication is how person in front of you makes you feel in that moment and in general.

Again, there are many traps on that way you can get into. The main trap is projecting your own fears, imperfections and bias onto others and treating them as you treat yourself. Unfortunately that is what is happening all the time and at same time people say they are very empathetic. Only standing question is: empathetic to whom?

Body Language

This is one of most valuable sources of information after sensing. I won't stop for long here, however most important thing everyone interested in human behaviour needs to understand is that everything you need to know about any particular person lives between any cause and reaction to that cause. It reveals a lot about a person if you read it correctly. You can simply create those situations or pay close attention to those that happen already.

Just improving this skill and combining it with other sources of information will tell you a lot. Paying attention to subtle cues and posture in a broad meaning of those words will tell you general attitude towards you, attitude towards things or other people, so you can work with that information real time. This is Googleable, but be aware of traps I mentioned already.

The Energy Test

This is the most powerful things. Energy and what signals we send to the world is our Wi Fi and those who have mastered sensing enough can understand how advanced people are just by spotting their energy. That is the most advanced skill and requires practice and time.

More grounded thing everyone needs to pay attention to, is how people make you feel here and now. It is not observable cues but a very important piece of puzzle and the whole approach to human to human communication.

Speech and Text Patterns

This is separate but very complementary to interpretation of what people really are and what they want. As with body language I won't stop much here, but will hint at a general direction to what people should pay attention to every time they speak to someone:

• Word sophistication is a vital indicator of their worldview and general perception of given reality;
• How they phrase what they want to deliver. Conscious people will state what they want at beginning, maybe in middle and at end of speech or text. Majority, though, will deliver what they really want only at end. Rest of speech is just leading content but not what they really mean and want;
• What they stress is important as well. It gives you an opportunity to understand what matters to them at least unconsciously because words are a conscious choice but stresses are not. It is an unconscious thing and reveals a lot about them if interpreted correctly.

You can do a simple exercise: pay attention to what someone says, spot what they really mean, such as what they say at end of a sentence, and then ask them if that is only thing they really meant. If yes, ask why they delivered whole speech. You will discover a lot about them and about yourself by doing this.

Conclusion

All described above are just life skills. Nothing that anyone doesn't do every day unconsciously was not mentioned in this article. It is about taking already existing skills and mastering them to an absolute so you improve communication, both internal and external, see things that sit on surface but remain unseen, and get people better than they are ready to admit.

In the future, where the world will be flooded with robots and AI noise, people skills will become more important than ever. In decent self work or contributing to communities they will be a massive advantage and absolutely transferable to whatever project you do and to people around you, so everyone becomes more conscious about their decisions and more empathetic to others.