FBI Trained Expert Explains How to Read Body Language

Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Today, I am really excited to introduce you to a woman that I met over a decade ago, who is one of the world's leading experts in decoding body language. So for all you true crime junkies out there, you better buckle up because you're about to get a masterclass from a woman who has spent over three decades decoding body language.

Mel Robbins: Janine Driver has been trained by the FBI and the CIA. She's studied some of the biggest murderers in history. When a criminal case or an election or news story grabs our attention, every single talk show and newsroom from 60 Minutes to CNN puts Janine Driver on speed dial. The Today Show, they've had her on over 100 times to analyze both the body language and the words of criminals, politicians, and celebrities to let us know when someone is lying.

Mel Robbins: She can tell you what a shoulder shrug, a lip lock, a chin grab means. She can tell you how to decode the body language of somebody that you're dating or the person you're working for. She can even help you understand the signaling that your kids are giving you that they don't even mean to be giving you when they're hiding information.

Mel Robbins: But this goes way beyond decoding lies and deception. This is an episode about empowerment because there are simple things that you will learn to do in meetings, in interviews, on dates, and with your family to gain more influence, to be more persuasive, and to exude confidence.

Mel Robbins: All right, you ready? We're going to go from true crime, murderers, to confidence, and job interviews all in a single episode. I can't wait for this. Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome Janine Driver to the Mel Robbins podcast. Janine.

Janine Driver: Hi, Mel.

Mel Robbins: So Janine, I can't wait to just shout you and your wisdom from the rooftops. Thank you. Most people have seen you on TV. You've been analyzing murderers for the FBI, the CIA for decades. How did you get into this work?

Janine Driver: When I was at six years old. No, if we really do go back to six, quite frankly, at six, I was molested by a next door neighbor. And there's three types of people that are good at reading people. Kids who are abused physically, emotionally, verbally. They need to know when dad comes home and he puts his hat on a weird way or cracks open the beer or mom gets the vodka, whatever it is, that tonight's not going to be a good night. So for me, I happen to be a next door neighbor. And by the grace of God, my mother believed me.

Janine Driver: Now, I believe today as a swearing Christian, I believe everything happens for my greater good. But so at 16, a guy tried to kidnap me. I was going to Mr. Donuts. I worked at a Mr. Donut place, now it's Dunkin Donuts. I'm from Boston like you, right? And I picked up my check. I was on my bike. It was a rainy morning. It was 5:30 in the morning, 1986. And in my little 16-year-old brain, I just turned 16. I was thinking when this guy tried to kidnap me with his car, he's going to get me. I became like Liam Neeson in a future movie, right? Like he will get you.

Janine Driver: I swear having that trauma when I was six saved me at 16. He said, "Hey kid, why don't we put your bike in the trunk of my car and I'll give you a ride home." Gavin DeBecker will call it the gift of fear. The gift of fear just was like, and I knew I couldn't drive 2.8 miles home because he's just going to hit me with his car. He doesn't care if I'm dead. He's going to put my broken bones in the car and do whatever he's going to do to me. But I saw Bay Bank one block away and I'm like, if I can get to Bay Bank, maybe my parents will have the closure. Unlike Adam Walsh's family who were looking for him. They didn't know who took him outside of a Sears parking lot.

Janine Driver: And my little 16-year-old brain, because of the trauma at six, it just began to change how I thought of the world. And I said, if I can get to Bay Bank, maybe there'll be a camera. And I got there. And by what I call the grace of God, the fence behind Bay Bank had been ripped open, like cut open. It was a metal fence. It looked 20 feet, but it was probably like eight feet. And I rode my, he followed me right to the bank, Mel, and you at home listening. And I drove through the hole down a six foot embankment into another shopping plaza, called 911. My parents are sound asleep. It's 5:30 in the morning. A police officer drives me home. My parents have no idea I've left the house.

Mel Robbins: Oh my God. Janine, I have chills as I'm listening to you tell that story. And you're making me think of something. So I was also molested by an older kid when I was in fourth grade. And in the process of healing that trauma and learning about how that kind of experience can impact you for the rest of your life, I've heard the term hypervigilance.

Janine Driver: Yes.

Mel Robbins: Psychologists, trauma specialists will talk about the fact that when you experience that kind of sexual or emotional or physical abuse, you create this hyper vigilance where you're always on, you're looking for the next shoe to drop, you're looking for the signs. And I've never really connected the dots to the fact that it also can create this superpower spidey sense that you have this lightning speed when it comes to your intuition and reading danger signals and really creepy vibes from people or situations. And that's really fascinating how you just connected the dots that a lot of times these terrible situations actually equip you with the ability to read a situation like that. But how did you go from those experiences to ending up working as a profiler for the FBI and the CIA?

Janine Driver: When I went into college, I majored in English communications because I'm fascinated about what makes human beings tick. And then I ended up getting a job with ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. I never heard of them. They're originally Elliot Ness from the tax days. We used to be part of Treasury. Now with the Justice Department. Loved human behavior, how to spot if someone's lying. And I watched a Dan Kennedy marketing video one night. And I was like, oh, what am I an expert at? And so I was like, what am I an expert at? I need a claimant. What is it?

Janine Driver: And I went to work the next day at ATF in DC. And Ben Peters always gets a bagel with me. We all need a work friend like Ben Peters. He comes in. I go, "Ben, shut the door. What's going on? I don't know how to tell you this, but I'm leaving ATF. I'm a New York Times bestselling author. I go on TV shows all the time. I'm the go-to body language detecting deception expert for the media." He goes, "When did this happen?" I go, "9:35 p.m. last night."

Janine Driver: Two weeks later, I was on Fox News with Tony Snow, who later became the press secretary for George W. Bush. And then I put that on a website, Lion Tamer, L-Y-I-N, because I could tell if you're a lion, liontamer.com. Four months later, the Today Show sees it. There were three body language experts that had websites then. They dug my vibe or whatever, my Boston Moxie, I call it, Mel. And I've been on the Today Show, I don't know, over 100 times. Dr. Oz, Rachel Ray, the rest of Rachel Ray.

Janine Driver: Sidebar really quick. I'm like, what show do I want to get on next? I'm like, oh, this Rachel Ray chick, this back in the day, you know, 20 years ago. And I wrote to every single story they had coming up. Like, "Hey, are you meeting your future in-laws? We'd like to talk to you. Do you think your kids smoke?" And I'm like, I'm the human lie detector. They call me the lion tamer because I could tell your line. And I pitched them.

Janine Driver: See, my degree in college was English communications, and I had a concentration in public relations. And they taught me how to write press releases. People say, "Who's your press agent?" I go, "North Adams State College in the Berkshires, now called Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. They're my PR agent." And I wrote to 12, my son, who's now 17 and six foot one, was a baby. And I wrote to every single pitch, like every single upcoming show. And then that was a Wednesday, Mel. On Friday, my phone rang. "Janine Driver, this is Maggie Barnes, The Rachel Ray Show." And I said, "Swear to God, Maggie, I've been expecting your phone call."

Mel Robbins: That is a baller move. Wow. Wow. I want to make sure everybody got the incredible life lesson in that. She didn't sit around and wait for the phone to ring. She made it ring. At this moment in Janine's life, she is a mom with a baby on a mission and she takes it upon herself to do the research and to put in the work. She's looking at Rachel Ray and she sees that they've got all of these upcoming shows and she writes in and pitches herself for every single one of them. That's what you have to do, right? She didn't sit around and wait for the phone to ring. She made it ring. She's teaching you more than body language here, everybody. Put in the work, do the research, and make that phone ring if you want the phone to ring. Excellent, excellent.

Mel Robbins: So I want to go back and ask you something though, because at the very beginning you said there were three types of people who learned to read body language. What are the three types?

Janine Driver: One is kids who are abused in some type of way. Two, people like the Secret Service who are trained every single day to look for the anomalies, to look for what doesn't fit. And the third group is people who have had a left brain stroke and the right brain takes over. So people have left brain stroke, the right brain takes over, which is the nonverbals and spotting these little teeny movements that people make.

Mel Robbins: Can you start to give us an example of what a nonverbal is? There's a hand gesture that turns agreement to disagreement and no one's ever told us what it is. Mel, what is the easiest thing?

Janine Driver: So I say to you, you go, "Hey Janine, next time I'm in DC, I'd love to let's go to dinner, right?" I don't drink, but maybe you say "let's get iced tea." And I go, "Okay Mel, that sounds great." And I nod my head yes. I'm saying yes, but I take my hand and I touch the back of my head at the same time and I go, "Yeah, that sounds great Mel, sure, absolutely, yeah, let's get together." Or that's what men tend to do. Women will go to the nape of our neck and we lift our hair up for those of you who are listening and maybe not seeing us right now.

Janine Driver: And when someone says yes, and they shake their head yes, but they touch their head at the same time, that's called a high level pacifier. That's indicating there's something they're uncertain about. So maybe when you say, "Hey, when I come to town, Janine, let's go out for steak." And I go, "Okay, yeah, that sounds good." But I just became a vegan. Or I do intermittent fasting and I don't eat three days a week now. I'm saying yes, but I take my hand and I touch the back of my head at the same time. It's just telling you my definite yes actually has a nonverbal maybe. There's a problem.

Mel Robbins: So everyone, wherever you are in your car, at the gym, just say, "Yeah, that sounds really good, Janine. I'd love to get together" and pat your head, pat the back of your head. Yeah, you're literally like going, "I'm lying to you because I really don't want to." As I'm petting my hair or I'm touching my neck. I bet you see this a lot on first dates where somebody is trying to get it to a second date. And they're like, "I think we should do this again." And you probably see people nodding going, "Yeah, that'd be great." And then they go and touch their neck. And that means, "Yeah, not really."

Mel Robbins: If you think someone is not telling you the full story, how do you approach it?

Janine Driver: Say, "Maybe I'm wrong here. It seems to me there's something you're uncertain about. Wow, I just became vegan now. Can we get something vegan?"

Mel Robbins: You just said that phrase, "Maybe I'm wrong here. It seems to me." Is that what you recommend that we say whenever we get the feeling that something's off or we're getting mixed signals from anybody in our life? You just recommend that line.

Janine Driver: "I might be wrong." It's a softer way to kind of lean into this because I would bet that when we first start trying to decode other people, we're going to make a lot of mistakes. But you can train yourself to be better at it. I say you can't unsee it, unhear it, unexperience it.

Mel Robbins: You just said "unhear it." What do you mean by that?

Janine Driver: Words have hidden meaning. If I said to you, "Mel, I just left my office. I'm going to get to the restaurant 10 minutes early, Mel. Take your time. I've got some work I can do." What's my hidden meaning in what I just said? Do you know? "I just left my house." Some people will think I didn't leave and I'm trying to cover my ass for when I'm going to be late. Some people think I'm being passive aggressive and I'm saying "be there because I'll be there early." And maybe those things are true. But here's what I want you to focus on. The word "left" equals strife. "I left my husband. I left my job." If someone emails you, text messages you, tells you on a phone or face-to-face and they use the word "left," they're telling you about something that happened that involves strife, some problem. "I just left my house," "just" as a minimizing word.

Mel Robbins: I love how you're explaining this, Janine, because what you're essentially teaching us to do is to pick up on these mixed signals, whether it's physical or verbal, right? "Left," L-E-F-T equals strife. "I left my job. I left my husband." Well, speaking of words that are tells, I remember that you did a ton of commentary on the Casey Anthony murder case. And if I remember correctly, wasn't there something about the words that she used to describe the day her daughter died that were a huge tell that she was lying to the police?

Mel Robbins: And for those of you that were not following this case back in 2008, it gripped the nation. A young mom was accused of murdering her little girl by sticking her in the back of a trunk of a car. And there were all these details. And she was ultimately convicted of lying to the police. And if I remember correctly, Janine, didn't have something to do with the words because she went to prison for that, for lying to the police. So can you explain how you knew unequivocally that Casey Anthony was lying?

Janine Driver: Yes. So if you can just, I say you can't unexperience it, unhear it or unsee it. So when you see something weird or you hear something weird, slow down and try it on. Casey Anthony, the mother, her name is Cindy Anthony, Casey Anthony's mother. So she's the grandmother of Kaylee Anthony. She called the police on 911 and said, "My daughter's been missing. And I just found out my granddaughter's been missing for 30 days. And it smells like there's been a dead body in the trunk of the damn car."

Janine Driver: When police interviewed Casey Anthony about the smell in her car, she said, "Dead squirrels climbed in my engine and died." That's what she said. So if they're dead, how are they climbing? And then what, they "redied"? Are they zombie squirrels? But our brain plays tricks on us, Mel, and you at home. "Dead squirrels climbed in my engine and died." And what our brain does is says, "Oh, what she means is a squirrel climbed up into her trunk and died."

Janine Driver: Roger Clemens, "Did you cheat in baseball and take steroids?" He said, "How do I prove a negative?" What? You mean, "How do I get people to know that I'm telling the truth?" Our body and brain does not want us to lie. And they're having a conversation with one another. So the tells are there. We only talked about a handful. There's over 5,000 body language and words that have hidden meaning.

Mel Robbins: Wow. Well, speaking of tells, you started our conversation today by talking about what you called non-verbals, like hand gestures or touching the back of your head, or you said that a lot of women start touching their neck when they feel uncertain. And so that if you see these, I think you said they were pacifying gestures, that when you see these pacifying gestures, it's a sign that somebody's unsure or they're lying to you. Are there other places on the body that people touch when they're stressed out or lying or that indicate that somebody's not being fully transparent with you?

Janine Driver: So this pacifying happens at all parts of our body, but the higher the pacifier, the more stress and anxiety. Why? Our brain is in here. So you may be wringing your hands together or rubbing your hands or rubbing your hands on your legs to pacify stress.

Mel Robbins: I actually do that. I think we all do that at times.

Janine Driver: These behaviors with our hands indicate stress. And the closer that our hands rise up to our brains, the more stressed out we are. These high level face pacifiers are indicating stress. Think about people rubbing their eyes. Babies, when they're crying, Mel, you're a mom, I'm a mom. Maybe you at home are a mom or you were once a kid for sure. Babies just before they fall asleep, they rub their eyes.

Mel Robbins: That's right. They do.

Janine Driver: There is a nerve behind our eye. When you touch your eye, it then affects this nerve that tickles our brain and dumps dopamine in our body. Fascinating. So right now, if everyone just touches your eye and your boss says, "Hey, can you get this done by Monday?" And it's Friday at five o'clock, right? And you go, "Okay, boss, not a problem." And you touch the part of your eye. If you're in a meeting or on a date and someone starts touching their eye, it's likely stress has increased.

Janine Driver: By the way, Putin even does this when he's deceptive or stressed. He'll touch his eyes as well under high stress. So in a meeting, it says to me, subconsciously, right? Your brain is getting so stressed in your body that you're dumping dopamine to say it's okay. It's okay. You see world leaders. You see corporate titans. The president of Mexico said, "President Obama in the United States can help us curb the cartel problem in our country." And when he says it, he does a bunch of body language that indicates uncertainty and then touches his inner eye.

Mel Robbins: Wow. So you spent decades studying murderers, liars, world leaders, becoming an expert at decoding this hidden language. What do we need to know so that we can spot when people are lying, so that we can spot these signals that somebody is giving to us and be more empowered in life? Where do we even begin, Janine?

Janine Driver: It's a great question, Mel. First, I would start with us before decoding others. So let's start with self-awareness, okay?

Mel Robbins: Okay. That sounds great. Why don't we take a quick moment to hear a word from our sponsors, because they are bringing you this incredible masterclass at zero cost. But everybody stay right with us because we're going straight to what you need to know about decoding yourself with Janine Driver when we come back.

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Mel Robbins: Welcome back. Today, you and I are getting a masterclass in decoding body language. I freaking love this stuff. Don't you love this stuff? And so we have just been learning about, as she says, nonverbals. That sounds so like police work, nonverbals. Okay, but Janine said before we start decoding all the liars around us and calling people out, we actually have to look in the mirror and start with self-awareness. So Janine, where do we start?

Janine Driver: I call it a behavioral fingerprint. What's your behavioral fingerprint?

Mel Robbins: I have no idea.

Janine Driver: Okay, if you at home can imagine a tree. There's the four stages of how we communicate. First is the intention, the roots of the tree. The trunk of the tree is body language. After body language comes the branches. The branches are thought. And the last one are the leaves. The leaves of the tree, Mel, are the words. And if you think of a tree, Mel, and you at home, is that we're going to start with the roots of the tree. The roots of the tree is what we believe.

Janine Driver: I spoke at Georgetown University, and someone said, a woman, at the end of my presentation, "And excuse me, I have a group interview tomorrow. Five people are interviewing me. Janine, is there a question you would ask at the end of the interview?" And I said, "Yes, I would ask to each of them, 'What do you consider the ideal candidate to look like? And how do I measure up to your expectation of the ideal candidate?'" And the woman, had you all been there, you would have seen her and heard her say, "Oh, I could never ask that. I would look desperate." And you would have heard me respond, "You're right. You would look desperate. I would look confident."

Mel Robbins: Is that because of the roots?

Janine Driver: It's because of the roots of the tree. It's what I believe, because I really want to know that question.

Mel Robbins: Whoa. I want to make sure you got that, because Janine Driver just dropped a masterclass bomb on us. That is an incredible tip for any interview. And I hear you. Don't you dare ask that unless you really want to know the answer. And Janine, you know, this is making me wonder, in a very broad stroke, when it comes to gender, do you see any differences in body language or these verbal cues when it comes to confidence between the way that women and men present themselves? A lot of us, for the women who are listening, a lot of us women, we really do ourselves a huge disservice.

Janine Driver: Men go in and men say, "Excuse me, Mel, I just found out my mother's coming to town 4th of July. I'm taking four days off," confident, solid body language. Women, we ask the same question that same day. We will often, many of us come in shoulder shrugging and we put our shoulders up to our ears. "Hey boss, I just found out [shoulder shrug] that my mother's coming to town [shoulder shrug]. I didn't know she was coming. Could I take the 4th of July off?" And your boss says yes to Bob and no to Jane. And we walk away and say, "This is what happens." See, it's a double standard. Now I'm not saying there's not a double standard with men and women because there is. But there are some areas where we have to take responsibility for the results we're getting. When I come in uncertain, how am I making my boss feel, Mel?

Mel Robbins: Uncertain.

Janine Driver: Janine, you're so right. And I want to make sure, especially for those of you that are listening to this podcast, if you're watching us on YouTube, because we always put a longer, unabridged version of the podcast up on YouTube. So you definitely want to check that out so you can see Janine, you can see these moves. But I wanna make sure if you're listening to this conversation that you really get this, okay? Because you can't see what she's doing. Take a second and do it with me because the physical part of this is so powerful, okay?

Mel Robbins: First, I want you to hike your shoulders up towards your ears. So imagine that the tops of your shoulders are earrings. You got them up towards your ears. Now I want you to just say out loud, "Can I take the 4th of July off?" while your shoulders are up. Try it. Hike your shoulders up. "Can I take the 4th?" It's like your body and your mouth aren't working together. It's so weird because you have this physical experience that your body is questioning the words that are coming out of your mouth. It's impossible, Janine. It's impossible to feel confident if your shoulders are hiked up to your ears. I've never thought about it. I don't even feel confident if I've got my shoulders up at my ear and I'm sitting here shrugging.

Janine Driver: Well, you're planting pumpkin seeds and expecting tomatoes to grow. It's true. I mean, come on. It begins with the roots, though. And it's not our fault. It's not your fault because no one is teaching us this, okay? We just want to be light. We don't want to be inconveniencing people. We don't know if we're bothering. But if you look at many of the men and confident alpha women, they just come in unapologetically. That's the roots of the tree. What is it that you're planting? Because what you're planting is going to grow whatever the seed is connected to. So get to those roots of the tree. It's what do you believe?

Mel Robbins: What's the second part?

Janine Driver: The trunk. Okay. The trunk of the tree is body language. And now this is interesting because after body language comes the branches. The branches, Mel, and you at home, the branches are thought. So this means body language comes before thought. And here's the deal. It comes up to five seconds before thought. Mel, do you think five seconds is a good advantage for the military? Would five seconds matter? It's life or death. Do you think five seconds matter with an athlete? It's winning or losing. Can five seconds with you, with your five second rule, can five seconds make a difference?

Mel Robbins: Of course.

Janine Driver: With understanding what I'm talking about now, first is the intention, the roots of the tree, then body language, and then thought. This means you get a five second advantage to know how someone else feels before their brain knows how they feel.

Mel Robbins: Oh, I think I get it. I was a little confused when you said five second advantage, but I think I get what you're saying. You're trying to explain to us that these nonverbals, like shrugging your shoulders or touching the back of your head or touching your eye, that when somebody does this, they don't even realize they're doing it. So if you can spot somebody touching the back of their head or shrugging their shoulders, you have an advantage because you're reading the body language before the person even realizes that they're unsure. That's genius. And what's the last part of the tree?

Janine Driver: The last one are the leaves. The leaves of the tree, Mel, are the words. And words matter because words plant the next seed.

Mel Robbins: And you also just taught us, Janine, that words give us clues as to whether or not people are lying. They are part of this behavioral fingerprint that everybody has and that they're signaling to the people around them.

Janine Driver: If you understand people's behavioral fingerprints, and there's a bunch of things, maybe I'll come back and play again and answer questions. You can sell to them differently. You can raise the kids differently. You can understand them. There's 26 billion different behavioral fingerprints.

Mel Robbins: Oh my God. Now I'm overwhelmed. You know which ones I want to focus on?

Janine Driver: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: Deception.

Janine Driver: Deception. In your work, in your TED Talks, Janine, you use this term ESL, everyone's second language, and it relates to eye blocking, shoulder shrugging, and lip blocking. Those are the three horsemen of body language signals, eye blocking, shoulder shrugging, lip blocking, that can signal to you that somebody's lying to you or not telling you the whole story. Why is a shoulder shrug a tell that something's wrong? I mean, we all just did that exercise where we lifted up our shoulders and we felt how weird it feels, but why is it such a big tell?

Janine Driver: Here we go. Shoulder shrug. A shoulder shrug is uncertainty. When I say, "Hey, Mel, what do you want for lunch? A salad, a BLT?" "I don't know. What do you want?" A shoulder shrug makes sense there. Your verbal says, "I don't know." And your nonverbal says, "I don't know." It's congruent. But when I say, "Hey, Mel, your favorite TED Talk of mine is blank." And I shoulder shrug. It does not mean I don't like that talk, but it does indicate there's something I'm uncertain about.

Janine Driver: Ask me if I ever cheated on my husband when I was married to him.

Mel Robbins: Did you ever cheat on your husband when you were married to him?

Janine Driver: No. [shrugs]

Mel Robbins: Now, I said no. And for people who are listening, I shrugged at the same time. And that's why Mel's laughing. See, that shrug means, Mel, you opened a file in a cabinet that says top secret of something I don't want to share with you. And maybe what I don't want to share is that he cheated on me. And I'm called the human lie detector. Hypothetically, he cheated on me. Hypothetically, he went on Tinder two days before Christmas. And my friend told me because he showed up in her mouth, hypothetically. So the shoulder shrug doesn't mean I'm canceling what I'm saying, but it does mean there's something I'm uncertain about. And I may not even realize it yet. Why? Because you have a five second advantage over my brain. I don't even realize I'm uncertain about something right now. But if you can spot it, you can simply say, I call it M-I-W formula. "Maybe I'm wrong. You know, maybe I'm wrong here, Mel, but it seems to me or it feels to me that you're uncertain about something." And then let the person say, "Well, yeah."

Mel Robbins: I noticed in a lot of your commentary and some of the major murder cases that you have been an expert on, that shoulder shrugging while husbands in particular who went on to be found guilty or confessing to murdering pregnant wives or members of their family, that during press conferences, you were picking up on shoulder shrugging. Yes. So in our lives, if you have somebody in your life that you think is lying to you, whether it's a kid that you think is lying about what they were doing last night or a significant other that you think might be cheating or might not be telling you the truth, is paying attention to whether or not they just sort of inadvertently subconsciously raise their shoulders as they're talking. That is one clue that something's not right.

Janine Driver: Yes. Not only shoulders though, Mel, it's also hands. So sometimes a hand shrug, it's also uncertainty or a mouth shrug, like, "I don't know what to tell you." So a hand shrug, a shoulder shrug, or this like mouth shrug where you can feel that someone's uncertain. It's hard to describe it here is indicating there's a hotspot here. We don't know what the catalyst is, but there's certainly something I'd want to ask more questions on with regard to this.

Mel Robbins: So that was the shoulder shrugging. But there are two more that you want us all to understand. And so how about we hear a word from our sponsors who are allowing us to bring Janine Driver to you at zero cost. We are loving this. And when we come back, everybody, we're going to talk about the two other hidden signs, eye blocking and lip blocking. Don't go anywhere.

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Mel Robbins: Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins and we are getting a masterclass today in reading body language, spotting liars, uncertainty. I just love this stuff. Janine Driver is here and we have been covering the three body language horsemen. Whenever somebody rides this horse on in, they shrug their shoulders, they lip lock, they eye spot, whatever the hell that is. It means they're lying. So Janine, can you explain an example of what eye blocking is?

Mel Robbins: Yeah. So a murderer named Chris Watts killed his pregnant wife, Shanine, and his two young daughters, Celeste and Bella, little ones, like under the age of six. And when he was being interviewed, and then there was the other guy that killed his pregnant wife. Scott Peterson. If you look on my TikTok, I tell you how long they eye block. And so sometimes they'll just talk like this with their eyes closed. I think Susan Smith was something like 16 seconds. So if right now I'm closing my eyes, if you see me, everyone close your eyes and just talk out loud. So just I'm going to give it a hot second. And just close your eyes, Mel, you do it for me. Do not open them.

Janine Driver: Okay. This is so weird trying to talk. I, oh my gosh. And I'm trying desperately not to shrug my shoulders at the same time. Okay, that was about 11 seconds.

Mel Robbins: Oh my God, that's so weird. So here's eye blocking. Eye blocking, I have an iPhone right here, right? So I have to enter my code to get access to my cell phone. Yes. Eye blocking is you are putting up the code to inside your brain that you don't want people to have access to information that's inside your brain. So eye blocking can be I put my hand over my eyes. I could be adjusting my hat. I could be breaking the eye contact. I'm looking away. So eye blocking is there's something I don't want you to see right now. And I'm putting up my screensaver. And unless you have the code, which I'm going to give to you again, the MIW formula, maybe I'm wrong here. MIW. It seems to me there's something you're thinking about or something you're concerned about. And so eye blocking happens under high stress and high anxiety. People will block. As a matter of fact, if you want to know if you're a powerful person, which I know you are, Mel. High status versus low status. High status people give eye contact and look at you when they're listening to you. High status people also look at you when they're talking to you. Low status people look at you when they're listening, but when they talk, they break eye contact a lot. I do that. They begin eye blocking when they're talking.

Janine Driver: Janine, I do that, but I think it's my ADHD. Like I noticed that I have a really hard time staying in locked eye contact with somebody when I'm talking. I can do it laser beam focus when I'm listening to somebody, but there's something about searching for words or capturing my thought or something. I don't ever close my eyes, but I definitely look up or I look down and then I look back.

Mel Robbins: It makes you even more likable because it is a low status thing to break eye contact when talking. When we do that, it comes across as you're not a know-it-all. You don't think you're, you're still a work in progress. You don't think you're better than everyone else. It's almost like intimidating to not break the eye contact. So you, but you will be seen as someone as that has a lower status, like that you're not like the alpha dog saying, Hey, I'm the boss here. This is, you've got to do what I want to do. You're, you're, and that's not who you are. You're that team person. You're pulling us along with your journey.

Janine Driver: And the final of these three horsemen, you call it ESL, is lip locking. What the heck is lip locking?

Mel Robbins: Everyone pull your lips in and just say, not a problem. I don't mind. And pull your lips in. Okay. For those of you who are not watching this episode on YouTube, what Janine just did is She literally like put her lips together and then rolled them in. So she made her lips disappear. That's right. Right, Janine? You just make them disappear?

Janine Driver: Make them disappear. And so Mel goes, not a problem, Janine. I say when we don't like what we see or hear, our lips disappear. That's this.

Mel Robbins: Oh, so. Lips disappearing. Rolling those lips in. Okay. So Mel says, not a problem. I know there is a problem because Mel's lips disappear. So I know there is a problem. So I might stick around and say, Mel, you know, maybe I'm wrong here. It seems that you're disappointed or there's, you know, there's something I'm saying. I'm going to tell you what that person's going to say. Yeah, I am mad because last year you were supposed to come and you backed out three days before then. You have a five second head start if you can decode body language because the body language people are showing you. Their brain doesn't realize how they feel just yet. body language shows up before that thought.

Janine Driver: Wow. This is the trifecta of deception. So everyone, you got to be on the lookout for eye blocking, shoulder shrugging and lips. When somebody is sucking in those lips, they are lying people. That's what they're doing to you. Janine, does everybody leave a conversation with you and suddenly think that they are now a CIA agent? Like, you know, your unsuspecting partner shrugs their shoulders and you're like, I saw that shoulder shrug, don't lie to me.

Mel Robbins: If you're confronting the people in your life, stop saying whatever you do, don't lie to me. Our brain doesn't understand the word don't. And so you're giving them an embedded command to lie to you And it 30 approximately hypnotic more hypnotic than you just saying hey during this interview please lie to me So what you want to say instead is what hostage negotiators say. I'm not a hostage negotiator. I have a mentor, Jim Cavanaugh, who is. What they say is, whatever you do today, I want you to tell me the truth. Whether you tell me the truth or you don't, because we don't hear don't, don't tell me the truth. I know more than you think I know. So I'm going to use that embedded command after the don't to say, tell me the truth. So I'm going to ask you some questions about where you were last night. And whether you tell me the truth or you don't, pause, tell me the truth. I know more than you think I do. Now, last night, when you said you went out with your girlfriends, anyone else show up and talk to you guys?

Janine Driver: I'm scared. Shoulders down, lips out. I don't know what I did. I think I was here. I think I was here.

Mel Robbins: So, so hold on. I want to make sure that we get, so you now are gonna watch shoulder shrugs. Yes. If you are feeling like something's off, if you are then going to open up the file and explore more, you're counseling us, number one, to either start with, I could be wrong. Yes. Or to say, I'm going to ask you a question and you're either going to tell me the truth or don't tell me the truth. It's the pause, right? Because then they hear that, tell me the truth as the, cause I heard you say, tell me the truth twice. The don't sort of got swept under the rug, which is why I all of a sudden got nervous.

Janine Driver: Yes. Yeah. Well, kids, kids between the ages of eight and 13, the likelihood if you do this, the likelihood you'll get the kids to tell you the truth goes up to over 80%.

Mel Robbins: Really?

Janine Driver: Yeah. I teach something called statement analysis. I say what I want, not what I don't want. It's called priming. So I'm like, I say I'm hijacking your brain, you know, and I, and then if I want to take it to the next level, I'm going to assign you a trait that I want you to have. You know, Mel, everyone out here tells me you're a truthful person. Is this true?

Mel Robbins: Yes.

Janine Driver: Although I'm now thinking, am I truthful? I don't know if I'm truthful. Am I truthful? So you can say to your kid or your spouse or somebody that works for you, everybody says that you're a very truthful person. Are you a truthful person? You need to get them to say yes, because what you're creating is cognitive dissonance. Because if you know that you're not a truthful person, but I just said yes, that I am. Now we've created this fancy term called cognitive dissonance, which is confusing to the brain. And that's what we want. So hostage negotiator, my hostage negotiator mentor, Jim Kavanaugh, said to David Koresh, if you're in the younger side and you don't know about this, it was this branched Davidian compound, this cult out in Texas years ago, the 90s. And he said to David Koresh, David Koresh was inside the compound on a payphone. My hostage negotiator mentor said, everyone out here says you're a man of your word. Is this true? Koresh said yes. Later, when Jim Kavanaugh said, will you let women and children go if we get your words read on the National Christian Radio Network? Koresh said yes. Guess what? Because he had accepted the trait that he does what he says he's going to do, that he has integrity, he let women and children go. Two by two, he said, like Noah's Ark. When the other hostage negotiator came on from the FBI, no knock against the FBI, but not one other person walked out of that building alive. And it's not the FBI's fault. It was Jim Kavanaugh built such great rapport with David Koresh that he didn't want to work with anybody else. But we had ATF agents die. And so the FBI takes over. I don't want to get into that political battle, but assigning people the traits you want them to have.

Mel Robbins: Janine, can you give us an example that doesn't involve hostages? I mean, that was fascinating. But how do I use statement analysis, which is basically telling people the traits that you want them to have? How do you use this with like your family?

Janine Driver: My son, Angus, I went in and I said, you're addicted to video games. You're addicted to video games. How many times have you told your kids you're addicted to video games? And then we wonder when they're 20 and 30, they're addicted to porn, gambling, cheating, lying, alcohol. Well, the most important person in their life, us, told them over and over and over again, they're an addict. So how can we right now assign ourselves a trait? I'm the world's greatest mom, honey. And I just found out how to be even better. We got to start with us. We got to plant the seeds for us first. We're great. And then reframe and reset how we talk to our kids. Say what we want, not what we don't want. Because here's why it comes back to body language. How we are talking to our kids and to ourselves is then going to influence the circle again, what we believe about ourselves and then the body language interaction. So what do we say to them instead of, you're addicted, you're playing too much. I said to my son, Angus, hey, what game are you playing? Some zombie apocalypse. I go, how do you play? do you have to kill the zombies or catch them? He said, both. I go, so you understand the importance of balance. Is that true? Do you understand the importance of balance, Angus? He said, yeah. I go, hey, buddy, I thought so. I go, even your teachers tell me you're so good at balance. You know, you're always on time and stuff because you're balancing your schedule throughout the day. Is that true, Joe, at school? Yeah. Oh, good. I don't know if you know, baby, but you've been playing video games for like four hours and your two brothers are swimming in the pool. He goes, it's been four hours? I go, yeah. How about we go swimming? He goes, all right, all right. I mean, legit, go swimming.

Mel Robbins: So let's get on the offense, Janine. What are some body language moves, these kind of nonverbal cues that we can make in order to display confidence to other people?

Janine Driver: One is I'm doing it now. If you're seeing me, it's called steepling. It's fingertips to fingertips, making like a church steeple. When we steeple people, we intimidate people. The higher the steeple, the more intimidation. So it's a sign of confidence. So a nice low steeple, especially if you're a woman in a meeting and men are like over-talking you, instead of saying, let me finish with a palm down gesture like you're the police on a raid and telling people to get on the ground. If you just lean back and steeple, someone else at the table will quiet down the people who are interrupting you. So when we steeple people, we intimidate people. It's a sign of confidence.

Mel Robbins: Let me ask you a question about that. Just so everybody listening gets this, because I think this is critical. You're in a meeting at work or you're at a family dinner or you're out with a bunch of girlfriends and people are talking over you, you're saying that instead of raising your hand or stop talking over me or continuing to talk, if you lean back, you put your fingertips together and make kind of like a church steeple or a triangle and you lean back in your chair and then you stare at the person who is talking over you or what do you do?

Janine Driver: You could either stop looking at them or look at their forehead. and you would think that they don't feel it. But when someone's being disrespectful, if you look at their forehead, it can change it. When we talk to people, I talk out of my right eye into your left eye because you're opposite me, right? So I'm talking primarily out of my right eye. All human beings, it doesn't matter if you're righty or lefty. We talk out of our right eye into your left eye. If I want to intimidate you because I don't like your behavior or the inappropriate things you're saying, my right eye will go diagonal to your right eye. And when I you can do this to a waitress and they come to take your order and you just focus your right eye to their right eye. So you're going to go diagonal and they'll they'll start to pacify. You'll see them fix their hair, touch their throat because it's this little hidden power that we have. So you can look at someone's forehead. You can look out of your predominant right eye here as you're talking to someone's left eye, diagonal crossing. And then that steeple or just stop looking at them altogether and stop giving them your attention. and the steepling someone else at the table, whether it's professional or personal, will say, hey, Mike, hey, Jeff, hey, Susan, stop interrupting her. Let her finish. You know, I like to say, do you want to be right or do you want to be effective? My mother taught me steepling. She's since passed. And I had a boss that used to point and she'd be like, Richard, my office now, Marjorie. She'd walk into this pool of people at desks and they became cartoon figures, their eyes popped out of their head and they looked full of fear. And I called my mother, I was 25. I was in the World Trade Center in New York. And I go, mom, my boss does this aggressive thing. If she does it to me, I'm mouthy. I'm going to lose my cool job with ATF. My mother was a nurse for elderly homeless people, Mel in Boston, Committee to Elderly Homelessness at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. I went home, five foot two, I'm five nine, subpoena. She goes, I want you to do this. This is before I knew it was called steepling and fingertips to fingertips. And I go, what's that called? She goes, I have no idea. I just know when a doctor says my mom was Lorraine, Lorraine, can I talk to you about the last patient? She's always feel like I'm in trouble. So lo and behold, Colleen, my boss at the World Trade Center, did it to me two months later. Janine, my office, she pointed at me, was aggressive. I pulled out mom's move, which I now know is called steepling. Oprah Winfrey does it all the time. I walked casually behind Colleen with my steeple. When I went into her office, had you been there, you would of her to say, do you know why I called you in my office? And with my steeple in hand, I responded the way mom told me. I said, I have a pretty good idea, Colleen. She was, why? I go, I'm exceeding all your expectations. As you might imagine, she's like, what? I'll do that at the end of the year in an evaluation. I got to spread it out. I love attention from my boss, still steepling. Every now and then call me in and I'll come skipping in. I come in early. I stay late. I know I'm exceeding your expectations. Isn't that why you call me in? She didn't know what to do. I worked for her for three and a half years, she never called me in her office again. The reason she had called me in that day was to bully me. And when I said, why did you call me? And she said, oh, I just want to see how you're enjoying living in New York City. She was a bully boss. So if you have bully bosses and bully people in your life, pull out that steeple because when you steeple people, you have power over people.

Mel Robbins: I had always been told that if somebody's interrupting you in a meeting, keep talking and don't let them interrupt you. But I actually like the confidence of kind of putting the steeple up kind of high, like a giant triangular middle finger. Thanks, Bob. And leaning back like, okay, I'll wait while the hot air comes out of your mouth. Does it work with a spouse or somebody you're dating?

Janine Driver: Yes, and kids.

Mel Robbins: Yeah, they feel like they're in trouble.

Janine Driver: Yeah. So if you want to make them feel like they're in trouble and that you're not going to be pushed around easily, 100% steeple.

Mel Robbins: Steeple. I love it. It's almost like a little shield that you're creating. It's like you can become your own superhero superpower when you steeple. It's like Wonder Twins Unite and they used to hit their fists. You're now creating a force field. You are in charge when you put the steeple up. I absolutely love that. Thank you. That's pretty cool. When you're nervous, steeple, You can fake it there. So the other move I wanted to say is a chin grab. Indra Nui is the former CEO of PepsiCo. I love Indra Nui. She was raised in India. Her mother used to every night at the dinner table have her and her sister debate. You're running for president of the United States. You're running for prime minister of Australia. And they would debate. She grows up, becomes a female CEO of PepsiCo.

Janine Driver: Wow. Maybe that's what I did wrong. I've just been going, get your elbows off the table. To your kids.

Mel Robbins: So when she does an interview, look at Indra Nui. She grabs her chin. And I say, when we grab our chin, we're about to win. Take a picture of yourself. How do you normally sit? And now take a picture of yourself holding your chin. Look how much more intelligent we look. We look like we have a master's degree. We look like we have it all figured out. I literally look like I just won the Pulitzer Prize. And so here I figured I was holding my chin because it's very pointy. I don't really like it. So I'm kind of hiding it. But it does look very astute.

Janine Driver: Can I tell you what your pointy chin means?

Mel Robbins: Yeah. What does my pointy chin mean?

Janine Driver: It's like a shovel and a pointy chin. you can take it you can take something on the chin and a pointy chin is like a shovel and that you will fight for people you will fight you will have that determination is that that that chin right there how else janine can we use body language to turn on our confidence and tap into that power inside of us i spoke at an event called know your value it's a women's based event before me was sarah jessica parker i'm not saying this in a braggy way sarah jessica parker martha stewart and Bobby Brown, the makeup artist. They're before me. And then I'm the fat girl size 22 in the back of the room, right? Coming up next. And I have 25 minutes. And I got my stinking thinking coming in. People barely applauded. If they don't like them, they're never going to like me. No one even knows who I am. I'm not even famous to that level yet. And I go, Janine, pull your shoulders back. The difference between Superman and Clark Kent is a two-inch posture difference. Clark Kent, his shoulders are pulled forward. We always say, pull your shoulders back. that's actually wrong. You're never going to pull your shoulders back. You actually look weird.

Mel Robbins: I just pulled my shoulders back. The second you said there's a two inch difference. I'm like, okay, shoulders back. I'm about to get interrogated. Here we go.

Janine Driver: We've been taught wrong. Okay. What do we do? If you pull your shoulders back, it's actually uncomfortable and you look weird. Instead, I want you to think like Tony Stark, right? Iron Man. Iron Man. He's got this circle orb that keeps him alive on his chest. Right. I want you to imagine you have that in the center of your chest. and a laser beam shoots out of it. If that laser beam, based on your posture, is going to hit the ground, then you're being Clark Kent. If you want to be Superman, where the wall meets the ceiling is a confident feeling. So you just want to take that laser beam and lift your chest to where the wall meets the ceiling. Okay. Relax your shoulders. Relax those, yeah, much better. And as you're walking, you change how you are perceived. So I'm in the back of the room. I was coming from the back. and I'm after Martha Stewart and Sarah Jessica Parker, and I have my stinking thinking, and you can't be negative more than 17 seconds. Research says you have to, after 17 seconds, bring your self-esteem back up. If you add on a negative thing, you create momentum, and when you create momentum, then it's hard to stop the negativity. After 17 seconds, I give my positivity. I'm amazing. I know cool stuff. I'm going to change their life. People in here are hurting. At least one woman needs to know this, that she's amazing, and I do that and I go where the wall meets the ceiling is a confident feeling. I fire a laser beam right there where that wall meets the ceiling. And I come up for my 25 minutes and I got the only standing ovation for that conference. This girl that no one knew coming in size 22, 24 in the back of the room, hitting the stage. And all I did was notice my stinking thinking, no more than 17 seconds of negativity, say five things about me that I love. I changed my posture and then I just killed it.

Mel Robbins: Janine, I freaking love you. You are so awesome and you're hilarious, but I love these tools. I love how you simplify this. So I can remember Ironman and I picked up on that rhyme that where the wall meets the ceiling, it's a confident feeling. Thank you for that. And thank you for the steeple. And thank you so much for that statement analysis example that you gave. Don't tell people don't lie to me. Instead, you tell them the traits you want them to have. Balance, honesty, genius. It's like you're giving us permission to manipulate people, Janine. Let's go to another real life scenario, interviewing and dating. What's a body language move that we can use to exude confidence and to basically say, pick me.

Janine Driver: Two things. Number one, how you start the date or the job interview, I want you to end it. So if you start with a hug, I want you to end with a hug. If you start with a handshake, I want you to end with a handshake. We blow the ending so many times, especially in business, because that's called the recency effect. The recency effect is those last couple moments that you had with me. What happened there? So if I'm in an interview and you get a call and you're like, excuse me, Janine, it's a pleasure meeting. I got to take this call. I still want you in a second to lean over that table, stretch out your hand. Not a problem. Mel was great to see you again. Boom. Get that handshake. We blow it and the ending. We blow it on the ending. So book end it with that handshake or the hug. Okay. That's number one. Number two, where you sit is making a difference. Stop sitting directly opposite people. This is the fighting pose. On dates or in job interviews, the seat is right across from the person interviewing me, or you go to the Outback Steakhouse and you're in a booth. Do not sit directly across from this potential new significant other. You want to be 30% off center. And there's advanced techniques on which side. We'll have to talk about that another time. But be at the very least 30% off center. Here's why. They have a visual way out. It will decrease their stress and anxiety. You'll have a visual way out and decrease yours. Feel what it feels like tonight at the table or at work. Sit directly across from someone, shake their hand and say, I'm so happy you're here. Tell me what you love about our family. Then come in, move the chair 30% off center and have that same conversation. Watch what happens. we're all energy at the end of the day, right? My friend at the FBI, Frank March, he says, everything says something. Everything says something. Even no facial expression says something, right? 30% off center.

Mel Robbins: But Janine, if I go into an office and the chair's right there, you want me to move the chair?

Janine Driver: Yeah, yeah, I do. I want you to come in, shake their hand, move the chair, 30% off center. When it's done, you shake the hand and you put the chair back. So bookend it. I love elbow pops, by the way. An elbow pop, very 30s, 40s, 50s. Yeah, you pop your elbow over the chair. We'd see Liz Taylor do this with the long cigarette. Look at me, boys. Look at me. Very confident to do an elbow pop. Casual confidence.

Mel Robbins: Can you actually be with other people and not be decoding them?

Janine Driver: I can't unsee the detecting deception hotspots. I can't unnotice them. You have a great trick for knowing in an instant if someone is detail oriented like my husband, Chris, or not. So I wanted you to do a test and you at home anyone who pays attention to all the details like Mel husband right All these little teeny details I want you to watch how they drink their water tonight at dinner or tomorrow at breakfast or today at lunch, whatever time you're listening to this amazing Mel Robbins podcast. And I'm going to tell you what they're going to do with their water. These detail oriented people. And by the way, I am not one of them is when they drink their water, Mel, I want you to notice this for your husband. What's his first name?

Mel Robbins: Chris.

Janine Driver: Chris. All right. He's going to drink his water. When he puts the glass or the bottle on the table, he's going to watch it until it hits the table. When he goes to pick up the bottle, he's going to look at the bottle, keep looking at it as he grasps the bottle. He's going to keep looking at it. People like me who are not detail oriented, what I do is I see the table. I look down where the table is. I grab my bottle of water, but I'm still looking at you. So I look just to see, oh yeah, my water's still there. I look at the water and then I look back at you and I pick it up without looking at the water. And now I'm looking at you and I put it down without looking at the table. I figure gravity and the thing I just picked it up from are still there. Detail oriented people. When they talk to you, Jimmy Fallon, Amy Schumer, Jennifer Lawrence, their, their humor, all three of those people are about the details. They remember words from movies and words from songs, watch them in interviews. They will talk. They're like smart bombs. So it's not just the water. It's all their energy is directed in one area. So Jimmy Fallon will talk and his hand points up and his eyes point up. You see Jennifer Lawrence. Hi, nice to meet you with a handshake in her head. They're almost, I feel like I can't get away from their energy. If you're talking to me and all of a sudden, if Chris, your husband was doing this, I'd be like, whoa, detail oriented, aren't you? You like to research the research and then recommend more research. And watch how they put the drinks down. I'm speaking today at a company called Paylocity. And two of their big executives, I watched them last night at their little cocktail hour and I secretly videotaped them.

Mel Robbins: Oh my God. Are you going to play it during your keynote?

Janine Driver: Oh yeah. I went up and asked for permission today. But as they drank their water, they watched it till it hit the table as if like, hi, I'll be right back. You made it. And I said, are you detail oriented? Do you love to research the research to executives? They go, yes. How do you know that? I go simply by how I watched you drink your water. I said, if I put a coaster on the table and it was crooked, would you adjust the coaster? Both said 100%. So in meetings, if you're listening and you're a business person, especially sales, make sure you have coasters crooked on the table. Now, some people who aren't detail-oriented may just fix it because it's irritating. But watch if they watch their glass when they put it all the way until it hits the table. What does that tell you about how to sell to them? Two things. One, they're going to want lots and lots of details. That's number one. Number two, in your emails, if you're detail oriented, your emails are probably too long. And someone like me, I'm never going to read your emails. I'm going to pick up the phone and call and say, OK, what do I need to know about this event? What's the dress code? Where is it? What you need to do if you're detail oriented in your emails or text messages at the top, think like Twitter. Here's the three things you must know. Additional information is below. Someone like me who's not motivated by details, I don't look at the water when I put it down or pick it up. I need to do the opposite. Here's what you need to know. boom, boom, boom. Here's a link to additional information if you'd like to explore on your own.

Mel Robbins: I could talk to you all day long, Janine, and I can already anticipate one question that we are going to get from listeners when they listen to all of this incredible advice and wisdom that you're sharing with us. And that is this, what if I'm not confident? What if I don't believe it? You talked earlier about the roots, like it begins with the roots and the roots are your beliefs. So if we employ the shoulder pop or we use the steepling in order to exude confidence, but we don't feel it, how do we eventually start to feel it? So I think body language is great. And I can teach you to steeple. But if you steeple, but you have this limited belief about yourself that you're not powerful and that you're a loser and they're going to know you're trying to scam them with your confidence and it's fake confidence. And then your shoulders are going to be up and you're going to look like this like character, you know, out of a Harry Potter movie. So you've got to believe it. But how do you believe it if all you see is evidence that you failed or that you haven't believed in yourself or that you've put everybody else first? Like, how do you create new roots?

Mel Robbins: I call this a reset. And I took a class with a woman. Her name is Andrea Quinn. And she calls these moments when we fail or people knock us down, "good to knows." Hey, Mel, I did not appreciate you getting me back focused on detecting deception when I wanted to talk about leadership. Good to know. They're just a bunch of good to know.

I spoke at an event and there's like 42 women in line. I'm hugging them all. The last woman, she had big circle glasses, black glasses, circle, right? Short, spiky hair. She had a cool vibe, I thought. She came up to me and she said, "Hey, I wanted to stay here and talk to you because I just don't get it. You spoke twice today. I don't get what you're talking about, how it's interesting to people. I don't like your personality. I just don't get what my best friend who I've had for years likes about you."

Old Janine would have received that, taken it in, influenced my body language, how I held myself, my limited beliefs, my roots would have been destroyed. Because thanks, Andrea Quinn, I said to that woman, "Had you been there? Good to know. Anything else you want to share with me?" It's just three simple words. And it is so powerful.

And I just want to explain the research just a little bit as to why this is working. This is a reframe. See, when somebody says something crappy to you, or something happens to you, and you go up into your head, and you start to say to yourself now, the pile on, "Oh, you know, she didn't like me. 41 people that I just met really liked me, but that one bitch just came up and told me that she doesn't like me. And now I'm going to start to question myself and feel bad about myself." When you say "good to know," you are putting up a physical force field and you're not letting that negativity seep into your brain. "Good to know" is like swatting away a fly.

Mel Robbins: Now, does this work for everybody? Have you used "good to know" with your kids, for example, Janine?

Janine Driver: My son Angus, his girlfriend just broke up with him, his first girlfriend. He was all upset. And she was badmouthing him at the school and she broke his heart. And she was saying something loud enough for him to hear it. And he came in and he's laughing. He just took the ACT test this weekend. He came out laughing at the school. I go, "Why are you laughing?" He goes, "She wanted me to take the bait, but I didn't take the bait. She said I didn't text her this morning. So she's going to hate me for the rest of her life. But I was going to say happy birthday if I saw her. I didn't text her because she broke up with me, but I would have said it if I had alone time with her." And he goes, "She badmouthed me." I go, "Why are you laughing?" He goes, "Because it's just a good to know. I saw a side about her that I didn't know existed."

I love sharing it with people, including my kids, and to rewrite our story because I believe we are all entitled and deserve a comeback. Everybody.

Mel Robbins: I believe in that too, Janine. It's why I'm in the work that I'm in. I believe that absolutely everybody has the ability to claw their way out of a hole, to improve their mindset, and to chip away at making their life better. You can't convince me otherwise.

I'd love to talk a little bit more about boosting our influence and our likability because it really does matter, especially when it comes to success at work and increasing your influence and your visibility. So how can we use body language to do that?

Janine Driver: All right, confident and likable. We have three power zones. So our neck dimple, it's our throat right here. Our neck is that... the neck dimple, like the little dip, the dip in there, that's the suprasternal notch. Okay, where your necklace lies right there. So your neck dimple, your neck, your belly button, and then your lower extremity. I call it your naughty bits. It's from the Holy Grail. But you're learning today, you got to practice. Say today, I'm going to pay attention to belly buttons.

So keep our neck dimple, our belly button, and our naughty bits open. Now let's talk about the belly button. I call this naval intelligence. We face our belly button towards people we like, admire, and trust. So if I'm flirting with Brad Pitt, but my belly button is facing George Clooney, everyone thinks I'm flirting with Brad. I want to hook up with Brad. But really, my belly button wants to go home with good old George.

In a meeting, count up how many belly buttons are facing you. If you have 50% of the belly buttons facing someone else, then that person is probably your arch nemesis. And if I were to give you a tip, emotional intelligence being smarter, I would make sure I'd have meetings with that person first to get them on my side before going into that other meeting. Because 50% of the ears are listening to that person.

On a date, pay attention if the date is over. I'm a talker, right? So are you, like, talking past the sale, even in an intimate thing, like on a date, right? Pay attention. That belly button is angled towards the door, to the car, they want out. I call it naval intelligence. And it's our first connection to another human being. Our belly button was connected to the umbilical cord.

Mel Robbins: Let's say I'm a really nervous person. What are the steps you need to take to calm your own, as you say, stinking thinking when it takes over?

Janine Driver: First of all, give yourself a positive trait, right? Plant that seed, that belief. And then if you need to pacify, do toe pushups inside your shoe. One and two and three inside your shoes.

Mel Robbins: What does that do?

Janine Driver: It's getting out that stress and anxiety.

Mel Robbins: Wow.

Janine Driver: That's why exercise decreases stress. In law enforcement, we get more confessions walking from the jail cell back to the interrogation room, or the interrogation room to the police car, than we do in the interrogation room. When you move your body, you move your mind.

Mel Robbins: What do you think is the biggest thing that you've learned after decades of studying human beings and this hidden second language that we all have that's helped you in your everyday life?

Janine Driver: The biggest thing that I've learned? I would say that I believe in comebacks because I've experienced them. I believe in comebacks and I believe there's a story behind the story.

Susan Smith was the most hated mother in the world at the time when she killed her two young sons because she was dating a guy that didn't want to date a woman that had kids. But Susan Smith drowned her two kids. And what most people don't know is she started being raped and molested by her father at like three and four years old. [voice cracks with emotion] It makes me emotional. As a mother, just imagining my kids at the age of three... And I'm not saying what Susan Smith did was justified, but I'm saying there's a story behind a story.

And there's that expression, stop being so judgmental and start being curious, asking questions. And I think that there's a story behind the story. And Susan Smith was raped by her dad her whole childhood, even as a young woman. And then in her young teens would go back to the dad's house and have sex with her dad. And so I'm always interested in what's the story behind the story here? Can I find a little bit of compassion or empathy?

And I'm a work in progress all the time. I'm an eternal student. I was at this event this morning. I sat in there for five hours because I wanted to learn. I took about five pages of notes just listening to two CEOs who this company, Paylocity, just hit the billion dollar mark for the first time. I wanted to hear every word they had to say. They were asked what's the biggest thing that they learned on working together in their life and I'm taking notes right so I think that um I don't know I believe in comebacks

Mel Robbins: Janine, I just have to say I love you. Like you going from ball buster cop talk to getting choked up because of the compassion that you feel for somebody that did something so horrible, and yet you can look at her story and find understanding. Not that it condones it, but that explains how somebody could get to such a horrific point. I just love you. And I know everybody listening does too.

And one other thing I want to point out. This everyone is a woman who stands on a stage and teaches the world's leading brands, which she's just been teaching to us. And yet, I just want you to picture her sitting in the back of the room where she was the keynote speaker, getting paid a lot of money to share her expertise, sitting there like a student, taking notes and listening. Because at the end of the day, there is always something that you can learn from anybody else. And when you look at life, like just, you're just a student of life, there are opportunities to learn, to make a comeback, to be better everywhere around you. And so I just love that picture in my mind of you sitting in the back of this massive corporate event, diligently taking notes. You're just the greatest.

Janine Driver: Thank you. And I also believe in what you were talking about, which is when you seek to understand something, it doesn't condone what somebody did, but it can explain why it happened. Listen, I was molested as a kid.

Mel Robbins: Me too.

Janine Driver: I kind of became a Susan Smith. I happen to have a mother that loves me so much, that believed me. And if I can help anyone, like, please, I love... you know, my mother always said, "Your power is what you give to others."

Mel Robbins: Janine, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just appreciate your generosity. I know I'm speaking on behalf of you listening as well. Thank you for pouring into us, for bringing your humor, your humanity, for giving us so many tools. I just, I just want to squeeze you. I love you so much. And I also want to kick you out of here because you and I could talk for days and you got to get back to that room where you were taking notes yesterday as a student and get on that stage and wow everybody with your wisdom. All right. So I'm not going to make you late. Go, woman. Bye. We love you.

Janine Driver: Bye everybody. Thanks Mel. I love you.

Mel Robbins: I love you. I give you an air hug when you arrive.

Janine Driver: So I'm going to bookend it with an air hug back. Thank you.

[Pause]

Mel Robbins: I'm just sitting here reflecting on everything we just learned. And I realized my biggest takeaway is that this is really about trusting your intuition. That's what decoding body language and seeing words that don't match body language is all about.

And you've been listening to this podcast, so you know I talk a lot about your inner wisdom. And every time you catch somebody touching their eyes or shrugging their shoulders or eye blocking, they're not looking at you, or something just feels a little off, lean into that. And you now have the tools because you can not only spot it, but Janine also told us how to approach it.

Remember what she told us to say? "I could be wrong here. But something seems a little off. Are you okay?" Or maybe you had plans to go out to dinner and somebody just kind of shrugs their shoulder or touches their neck. You know what to do. When that spidey sense, that intuition inside you goes off, lean into that. All you have to do is say, "I could be wrong here. But it doesn't seem like you want to go out to dinner tonight." That's it. That is it.

But that's everything, isn't it? That is everything. That ability to connect with yourself and with your own wisdom and empower yourself to not only see the signals, but to find the courage and the confidence to say something about it, to trust yourself. Wow.

What a conversation. From true crime to truth telling to true deception. We covered it all. And I'm confident that you left with empowering and tactical tools that you can start using. In fact, I want to hear about how you use all this stuff.

And in case nobody else tells you, I'm going to tell you that I love you and I'm looking right at you like this. [pause] My shoulders are not shrugged. My hand is not on the back of my head. I am looking at you in the eye because I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to not only tell the truth, but to spot the truth and use it to create a better life.

Alrighty, I'll see you in a few days.

Oh, one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.