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Louder Than Words

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Why is it that some people have all the elements of success- education, skills, integrity, motivation- but can't seem to move from effectiveness to excellence in their careers? Behavior expert Joe Navarro reveals the long-sought answer.

In this exciting edition, not only do you read how nonverbal signals affect behavior, but also watch. Included are 22 fascinating videos that illustrate just how our body language is sometimes the loudest part of a conversation.

Louder Than Words teaches how to master "non-verbal intelligence," the ability to interpret and use nonverbal signals in business to assess and influence others. Drawing on his decades in the behavioral sciences, Navarro shows how to use his simple yet powerful "comfort/discomfort" model to decode what's really "being said" at casual exchanges that often impact decisions and reputations.

Follow Navarro's advice and anyone can jump-start their career.

260 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

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2826 people want to read

About the author

Joe Navarro

60 books939 followers
Joe Navarro is an author, public speaker and ex-FBI agent. Navarro specializes in the area of nonverbal communication or body language and has authored numerous books.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
Profile Image for Loy Machedo.
233 reviews214 followers
March 25, 2012
Loy Machedo’s Book Review – Louder than Words by Joe Navarro (with Toni Sciarra Poynter)

Joe Navarro, born 1953 is an author, public speaker and ex-FBI agent. He specializes in the area of nonverbal communication or body language and has authored the following books
• Advanced Interviewing Techniques; Proven Strategies for Law Enforcement, Military, and Security Personnel.
• Hunting Terrorists: A Look at The Psychopathology of Terror.
• Read 'Em and Reap: A Career FBI Agent's Guide to Decoding Poker Tells
• What Every Body is Saying.
• Louder Than Words: Take Your Career from Average to Exceptional with the Hidden Power of Nonverbal Intelligence.

Now Louder than words is around 223 pages divided into 9 Chapters.

On the plus side:
• Brilliant observations: Small changes in the way you position your hands, your feet, the way you move your eyes, eye brows, lips, head – speak volumes. The book has revealed the practical side of real day-to-day non-verbal communication.
• Tips & Suggestions: There are a few pages dedicated to the ‘how-you-can-succeed’ using the principles of non-verbal communication outlined in this book.
• Out-of-the-box-approach: When someone says non-verbal body language, we tend to focus on the body by itself. However, Navarro goes further than that and points out to the surroundings, the messy desk, the excessive use of perfume, the clothes the person wore and quite a number of intricate details people tend to miss out on. I loved the emphasis on the external surroundings.

On the negative side:
• More visual examples: There were a few which were extremely useful. However, they were not enough.
• The big question: The book poses as an observational text rather than a corrective manual. I am sure he could have given more suggestions and ideas. I am not sure why he didn’t choose to do so.
• Formal is everything? There is too much focus on the formal side of business. I may be a bit prejudiced here as I am completely tattooed and he didn’t speak very highly of tattooed people – but that being said, there is a big world out there that does not necessarily live in the stiff-upper-lip-corporate world. So this is not a book that covers everything.

Overall summary
An intelligent summary of thoughts by a gentlemen who dedicated his life to the one of the toughest crime-fighting organizations in the world. A well written script and a very interesting read. I loved the simplicity, honest and truthfulness that glowed throughout the book.

However, I know by reading in between the lines, there is a lot he could not spit out, by virtue of his association with one of the most top-secret camps in the world.

Overall Rating
8.5 out of 10.
It is indeed a good book.

Loy Machedo
loymachedo.com
Profile Image for Sanjay.
257 reviews515 followers
April 6, 2024
Powerful book. May change your perspective on how you see others and yourself.
Profile Image for Steve Cran.
951 reviews101 followers
July 7, 2018
Ever hear the expression “ actions speak louder than words”? Our actions in this instance is body language. Knowing how to read and interpret body language is a key tool to success. Body language though is a double edged sword. You also have to convey the right message.

Joe Navarro is a former FBI agent. He had to use body language in order to stay alive and succeed in his career. In effect you might say he had to be a bit of a psychologist. Reading this book will teach you a good number of things. First off when caught in;a fearful situation we have three options, fight , flight or freeze. In the office these would be situations that cause discomfort. The author uses a comfort/ discomfort paradigm in assessing body language. Such signs of discomfort would be squinting, rapid blinking, hyperventilating and nervous hand gestures. When questioning his suspects, Joe would let them get comfortable. After all a comfortable suspect is a cooperative suspect. Getting them comfortable allows you to set up a baseline and observe which behaviors denote what is comfortable for the individual you are dealing and also what denotes discomfort.

When dealing with clients it is important that they feel comfortable working with you. Comfort equals safety and stability. This comfort would mean falling into step with your client which would entail mirroring back vocabulary that the client uses. For example if they describe their automobile you follow up using automobile.

The emotional system will always trump our use of logic. When clients get angry then the best thing to do is let them ventilate. Let the ventilate to someone in charge so they know their complaints are being heard. Later the offending employee should write a letter of apology. This also gets rid of a lot of anger.

Little things can spell the difference between success and failure. How you seat people at a meeting can prove to be very conducive for productive communication or communication failures. Usually you want to have people seated at 45 degrees to one another. Office set up is valuable as well. Have a couch that people can sit and be comfortable with, cold drinks is a good idea as well.

Our body language and what we do sends a message. If you are meeting with someone important you may want to lean in and show interest . Playing with devices shows you don’t care. Image is almost everything.
Profile Image for Carolyn.
1,047 reviews9 followers
January 1, 2020
Depending on how well you know me, you would know how much I love studying what people say (or don't say) and do (or don't do) specifically to detect deception. For my job, not my personal life, people! From what I have found, there are two main sources of information on this subject:

1. Philip Houston (with two supporting writers) who worked for the CIA and wrote "Spy the Lie" which I keep in my office and have read once and listened to twice, and

2. Joe Navarro, who worked for the FBI 25 years catching spies and is someone who has become an expert on nonverbal communication. Joe is the author of this book.

Reflecting on these two different authors and their styles, I think the main difference is Houston focuses on detecting when someone is telling a lie with the end result being a "gotcha" and Navarro's focus is more practical in that his purpose is to show us how to read nonverbals to help you present yourself in the best light, and to get to the truth to enhance communication.

I've been chipping away at this book for a few weeks because it is a lot to digest. I have 110 highlights throughout a 242 page book so I know I will be going back over it again in the future. How do I condense this down to the key points of interest? Wish me luck.

We are constantly making assessments of people (and they are of us) based on astonishingly small amounts of information. These are called "thin slice assessments". The first half of the book was focused on image and what we project to others based on nonverbals. Little things such as your perception of a security guard based on whether they are standing or sitting and the opinions people form based on your shoes. Not just the brand but if they are clean - a person can be well put together in all ways until you get to their dirty ratty shoes and it completely changes your image of the person.

How about this for a nonverbal faux-pas? "The chairmen of the Big Three—Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler—went to Washington, D.C., to plead their case before Congress for $25 billion in taxpayer assistance. With millions of employees’ livelihoods hanging in the balance, they chose to travel to the nation’s capital on their company jets. Their nonverbal blunder earned them the scorn of Congress, the president, the unions, the press, and the average American worker. 'There’s a delicious irony,' said one congressman, 'in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands.'"

There was a long section complete with pictures that talked about various expressions and ways of carrying ourselves and the messages they display. Eyebrows raised or eyes squinting, splaying legs and the position of your thumbs. If you are speaking with someone and their feet are pointing toward you, that's good. They are engaged and want to talk to you. Once a foot points away from you and perhaps with the torso also starting turn away, you can bet they want to wrap up the conversation. I found this good practical information - people do not always pick up on nonverbal messages that say "wrap it up, please" to the point where the only way to politely end the conversation is to stand up and start walking out of their office. Navarro suggests that you be aware of these nonverbal cues so as not to annoy your boss.

Let's not just not annoy the boss but impress her or him. Lots and lots of pages were devoted to the importance of grooming and dressing in a certain way because all of that really matters. Whereas our country started with jeans on Friday, it now has become more and more casual and Joe believes that is a mistake because it affects people's perceptions of us whether we like to think so or not. This may make me unpopular by some, but I do agree that your credibility is compromised in a professional setting if you are wearing flip-flops! He also talks about nails not being overly long. I must agree with that, too. I have interviewed people with really long nails and it sure is distracting. He didn't only talk about women's appearance, but men's too. Clean and well manicured nails apply there, too.

Ok moving on. My favorite nonverbal he talked about is ATTITUDE! He said that "a person's attitude is our most subtle nonverbal we have to master." He talked a lot about the importance of SMILING and what a huge difference it makes in any customer facing role yet how it is becoming less and less common. The pace with which you speak and your tone of voice -low, slow and smooth is best if you want to instill confidence. Who you hang around with at work, how attentive you are in meetings, not wearing too much jewelry ("excessive jewelry says 'I need people's attention'") and so much more. This book was packed, I am telling you!

The second half of the book (and I will cover it much more quickly) seemed to be focused first on customer service related industries followed by reading nonberbals to aid in communication.

For the customer service section he ran through a ton of examples such as how people are less likely to shop in a store with dirty windows and how impressed he was to see a Fed Ex driver cleaning a Fed Ex drop box with a bottle of Windex. He urges us to call our own company's switchboard and experience what our customers experience. Does the phone ring more than 2 times? Do you have a nightmare of an automated attendant?

In the section on reading nonverbals for better communication he gave examples of how to read the eyes and body language to see if someone was being honest with you. Again, the purpose is not to catch someone in a lie but to give you a cue when you should ask more questions to uncover roadblocks or concerns the person may not initially tell you. The goal here is to ensure that people can deliver on time. If you ask if someone can complete a project and they touch their neck or swivel away or their eyes twitch, Joe suggests we slow down and use empathy - "you know, I want you to have work life balance and I am sure coming in on the weekend is not what you were hoping. What is a reasonable amount of time that you think you can commit to toward my request? " and that hopefully opens the door to the truth and a better relationship.

I think you might be picking up from this that the book was utterly packed with good information. I will close this review with something that I found valuable and that I needed to read. I personally find detecting if someone is lying very difficult. There are a lot of clues to watch for and you can look for clusters of "tells" but how do we ever REALLY know if we have it right? Maybe he is suddenly talking faster not because he is lying but because his cell phone is alerting him his battery is almost dead?

Near the end of the book Navarro writes: "You would think that, as a former FBI agent and a student of nonverbal communications for nearly four decades, I would be championing the use of nonverbal communications to detect deception. I would, if detecting deception were easy. I would, if such assessments could be at least 95 percent accurate. But it’s not easy and it is not nearly that accurate" He then goes on to say that with his tips we will probably only be right about 50% of the time and even his own highly trained FBI agents were able to detect deception accurately 60% of the time. I found that reassuring because despite pouring over this information time and time again, I think it has helped me in my job but I never feel 100% confident that I am predicting correctly. This reassured me that even the best of the best can't get it all the way right. I find the subject fascinating, though, so I will continue to try to be closer to 60% than 50%! If you are still reading....bless you for your patience and attention!
Profile Image for Shining Star.
27 reviews10 followers
May 23, 2023
Vertinčiau 4,5⭐. Prikaustė ir sužavėjo nuo pirmo puslapio, tik labai užkliuvo skyrius apie tatuiruotes... Dvelkia senoviniu, stereotipiniu mąstymu ir požiūriu. Nors gal kažko kito tikėtis ir nereikėjo?

Kiek šiai akimirkai teko susipažinti su Joe Navarro knygomis (ši – 2), didžiausias jų pliusas yra tas, kad kiekviena veido išraiška ar kūno padėtis yra ne tik aprašoma, bet ir iliustruojama paveikslėliu. Knygoje taip pat nestinga sąrašų su savybėmis (ar aprangos detalėmis), į kurias reikėtų atkreipti dėmesį ir/ar jų paisyti.

Ypatingai naujų ir nežinomų dalykų neradau, spėju dėl to, kad ne tik skaičiau to pačio autoriaus kitą knygą „Kūno kalba“, bet ir teko domėtis papildomai savo noru, tačiau nepaisant to, manau, kad knyga tikrai informatyvi ir kad „žalias“ šiuose dalykuose žmogus tikrai rastų ką pasibraukti, užsirašyti ir į ką ypatingai atkreipti dėmesį.
2 reviews
January 23, 2022
Durchaus interessant zu erfahren, wie sehr der Mensch doch seinen Instinkten folgt. Einiges wiederholt sich jedoch und weicht teilweise vom Thema ab.
Profile Image for Starfire.
1,356 reviews32 followers
December 19, 2010
Very well written book on non-verbal communication in the workplace; although I possibly didn't enjoy it quite as much as Mr Navarro's first book, What Every Body is Saying. He definitely knows his stuff when it comes to behavioural analysis (as well he should, given his background), and I like the balance he brings to his interpretations and the way he focusses on the body language of comfort/discomfort, as compared to that of truth and deception.

My one criticism would be that he makes some pretty sweeping statements about what is and isn't considered acceptable in a work setting in terms of both behaviours and dress... I think what he describes is probably valid in corporate or service industry America, but not necessarily outside it. The language and fashion rules he suggests abiding by would actually be out of place in most New Zealand businesses.

Aside from that though, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and look forward to reading more by this author.
18 reviews
February 11, 2025
3.9/5

"If you have the state of mind to change how you are precieved, then your nonverbals will change & so will the way people perceive you."

In this book, Joe Navarro, a former FBI agent, shares his expertise and wealth of knowledge of nonverbals. If you're looking to improve your interpersonal skills, I highly recommend this book. Navarro speaks the importance of identifying people's comfort zones to identify their discomfort zones, how appearance effects your perception, even how speaking has its own sets of nonverbals that we need to be aware of.

I picked this book up because it was recommended for a class I was nominated for at work. I like to think that my nonverbals have always been good. I believe this book took my skill set to the next level.

Although the book has a ton of content, it does have dry spells. This book is dense, & you have to want to learn about this topic to get through it.
Profile Image for Annie.
1,032 reviews856 followers
August 14, 2014
If you've read the author's other book "What Every BODY Is Saying," you'll find some repetition in the beginning of this book. This book is exactly what its title purport it to be - take your career from average to exceptional. Many of the observations that the author makes about businesses and individuals are obvious, like customers get upset when there's only one cashier to handle a long line and when another worker is called, the worker strolls to his station. Managers should be training their workers to be more responsive to customers if they want to keep their business. I think this book is still worth reading. Even if there is only a few good suggestions that you would apply, practicing some good work habits would improve your performance.
Profile Image for Harry Roger Williams III.
96 reviews7 followers
December 18, 2010
On page 200 in a section that begins on page 199, “Address Emotions, But Don’t Indulge Them,” Navarro writes “Misery really does love company: excessive emoters distract others, focusing attention on themselves, as coworkers feel they must demonstrate empathy and solidarity. Work is disrupted, and others may even act on the beleaguered employee’s behalf to try to fix things. Not surprisingly, this further entrenches the behavior.” This kind of insight and wise counsel elevates this book far above a mere guide to body language. I enjoyed this book a lot.
Profile Image for Gary.
6 reviews
October 4, 2011
This book is a great follow-up to "What Every Body is Saying", but don't read this one until you've read the first one. "Louder" builds on the ideas presented in the first book and applies them to a business setting (it's still very interesting, even if you're not reading it for business). I got the enhanced media version for the iBook reader, which included several videos from the author, which was well worth the extra cost.
Profile Image for Nicolò Lombardi.
7 reviews
July 10, 2025
Mi primera opción de estudios era Criminología y sentí que me privé de un conocimiento muy enriquecedor en mi aprendizaje. Mi abuela me regaló este libro y la verdad que es muy interesante entender las emociones y los pensamientos de los seres humanos a través de sus movimientos corporales o tics nerviosos. Anticuado, eso si.
Profile Image for Nick.
Author 21 books140 followers
November 26, 2020
Joe Navarro is one of the best known public experts on body language, so a book by him is a welcome event. This book works well for the general reader; it's not for the expert. But that's what the subtitle suggests; I'm not complaining, Joe! He begins with a general orientation -- body language is part of an entire milieu that creates an impression and affects our unconscious evaluation of another person. Say you meet someone in a business setting, for example. You might include in your judgment of the person, the fanciness of the office, the size of the foyer, the art work on the walls -- all of that becomes part of the picture.

Then Joe gets into the details, and here's where the going gets a little tricky. It's fine to recommend verbal mirroring in the discussion of establishing comfort and avoiding (or noticing) discomfort in the long process of building trust with co-workers, clients, and so on in the business world. And he's right to note the importance of establishing baseline behavior in observing body language, because one person's comfort level may be another person's cry for help. You can't assume, or read, strangers instantly without understanding their baseline behavior. In that context, then, intention cues are noticeable when they come from an emphasis on something outside of the baseline behavior.

All the rest of it, the details of hands and feet, face and head, and the orientation of the body -- needs to be taken with a grain of salt, because of the variability from one person to another, one culture to another, and one generation to another.

Joe's best insight comes back to his idea of comfort -- making other people feel comfortable so that they trust you, removing barriers to comfort, and noticing discomfort when it happens. Take that away from this book (and ignore the dated material about dress and offices and so on) and you can learn a good deal from this master negotiator.
Profile Image for Cora.
131 reviews
Read
May 23, 2022
Spannungen abbauen:
1. Lehnen Sie sich zurück; gewähren Sie Ihrem Gegenüber mehr Freiraum.
2. Starren Sie ihn nicht hypnotisch an, sondern konzentrieren Sie Ihren Blick auf eine andere (unverfängliche) Stelle seines Körpers.
3. Stellen Sie sich nicht mit verschränkten Armen oder in die Hüften gestemmten Händen vor Ihrem Gegenüber auf.
4. Drehen Sie sich leicht von Ihrem Kontrahenten weg. Indem Sie sich schräg zu ihm positionieren, reduzieren Sie die Spannung.
5. Atmen Sie tief durch, und achten Sie darauf, dass die Phase des Ausatmens länger anhält als das Einatmen. Die Anwesenden werden Ihre beruhigende Geste nachahmen, ohne dass Sie explizit beruhigende Worte aussprechen müssen.
6. Nehmen Sie eine Auszeit: »Wir sollten eine kurze Pause einlegen.« Oder: »Ich muss eine Nacht darüber schlafen.«
7. Wenn Sie die Unterredung im Stehen führen, sollten Sie die Beine kreuzen und den Kopf zur Seite neigen; mit dieser Haltung machen Sie sich angreifbar, Sie signalisieren somit Ihr Vertrauen in die andere Person und tragen so zu einer entspannteren Atmosphäre bei.
8. Stehen Sie auf, und nehmen Sie Abstand. Distanz hat eine doppelte Wirkung: Sie dient dazu, Spannungen abzubauen, zugleich drückt die senkrechte, erhabene Haltung aber auch Dominanz aus.
9. Gehen Sie ein wenig spazieren. Man kann nicht lange wütend aufeinander sein, wenn man einträchtig nebeneinander spazieren geht.
10. Gehen Sie gemeinsam essen oder trinken. Die gemeinsame Nahrungsaufnahme stärkt Vertrauen, Solidarität und Kooperationsbereitschaft.
Profile Image for Shriya.
291 reviews179 followers
February 23, 2022
Now, wait just a minute! Before you launch into a tirade about how you cannot read self-help books or didn't just expect "a consummate littérateur" like me to ever read, let alone review, one—let me just stop you right there!

This is not just a self-help book and while it may say things you "already knew," there are insights this book will give you about humans in general and interactions in particular, you'd wish you'd read it sooner!


No, this isn't something that will let you read criminal minds like an open book but it will tell you things about carrying yourself, holding a conversation with an important person or even a client and dressing to the occasion that you'd almost be reminded of things your parents/teachers/those Catholic school discipline in-charges told you when you were young. You were taught most of it. You certainly know it. However, typical to your human nature, you conveniently kept it locked in your mind palace and forgot where it was!

I have recommended it to every student I have and if I have gifted it to you like I did my mother and brother, then consider yourself loved and consider me someone who has your best interests at heart.

Now do yourself a favour and stop expecting this review to be an eye-opener because the real eye-opener is this book!
Profile Image for coffee.plantsandbooks.
187 reviews2 followers
August 19, 2023
Ich habe mir von diesem Buch erhofft in Ergänzung zu "Menschen lesen" von Joe Navarro einen tieferen Einblick in die Deutung von Nonverbalen Verhaltensweisen unter einem forensischen Aspekt im Rahmen der Vernehmungslehre zu erhalten.
Zunächst einmal war der Titel "Menschen .... lenken" schon sehr bedenklich und wirkte auf den ersten Blick (sofern man noch nicht ins Buch hineingelesen hatte) erst einmal wie Menschen manipulieren oder Menschen beeinflussen. Im Buch selbst ging es aber tatsächlich eher um den Part "Menscjen verstehen".
Im Buch selbst wurd einiges aus "Menschen lesen" wiederholt, ganze Passagen schienen abgeschrieben und die Abbildungen wurden übernommen, lediglich neue Fälle wurden zur Veranschaulichung erzählt.
Ab Kapitel 2 des Buches verstand ich dann nicht mehr genau, was das ganze mit Nonverbaler Kommunikation zu tun hat, z.B. wie ein Mitarbeitender im Kunfenservice ans Telefon geht.
Das Buch schien hier weit vom Kernthema abzuweichen um Seiten zu füllen.
Alles in allem war das Buch nicht besonders aufschlussreich und konnte wenig neue Einblicke in das Forensische Vorgehen bieten.
Das dritte Buch von Joe Navarro werde ich nach diesem vermutlich nicht anrühren...
Profile Image for Oscar Romero.
303 reviews
July 4, 2025
Wow--What a book. Thank you, Joe- I was very impressed by the fact that you are mixing the benefits of being able to read people by their behavior, paying closer attention to specific moves we make, even though we are not aware that we make those moves.

Very much enjoyed the section about businesses and their customer service--and the fact that, regardless of what they claim, what they do is much clearer to see and experience.

I guess it is the same with us--as we are also blind when our ego gets in the way when everyone can see right through us--when we say something but we are doing something else. My wife gets me all the time. Example: You are saying yes but I can see your face--you really do not want that.

I am definitely reading more of your books on this topic--as I really want to develop the skill to read my students much better. Only by knowing them can I really help them. Also, your notes about how depressed or sick people may have issues displaying "normal" body moves that may reflect their behavior or moods. Thank you, that really helps too.

I recommend this book for everyone as we all benefit if we learn to read each other better--it will help us communicate better too, for sure.
Profile Image for Prince.
68 reviews23 followers
January 5, 2020
Joe Navarro is an ex-FBI agent expert at reading body language (aka non verbal communication or NVC) and has a couple of interesting talks on YouTube. Louder Than Words is his second book on the topic and is aimed at the corporate world. This is a well written book, but really, the material is stretched quite thin, and it's all over the place.

Navarro makes two points that deserve mention. Firstly, unlike what you see in the movies, it would be a bad idea to use knowledge of NVC to detect when people are lying or not entirely being truthful. People under stress, sickness and other phenomena may exhibit similar tics and you might end up in trouble unfairly accusing a colleague or your spouse of hiding things from you.

Instead, Navarro advises the reader the use knowledge of NVC to broadly detect comfort and discomfort in people around you, and act according to what the occasion demands. This seems more reasonable to me, and one does not need to be Sherlock Holmes to do this.

Final Verdict: A lot of this stuff is covered in his talks on YouTube, and you're better off watching them if the topic interests you.
Profile Image for Nicole Lisa.
332 reviews16 followers
October 31, 2018
I read this book for research but it made me think about work and how my non-verbals are interpreted there.

I would have given this four stars, because it's full of useful and interesting information and helpful drawings, but the author completely forgets at times that women might be reading the book or that a different interpretation might need to be given to men and women making the same gestures. And when he does remember, well... some of his information is rather...lacking. For example, he tells men what kind of suit they should wear, whether to keep it buttoned or not, and other specifics. For women he says "don't show too much flesh, professional men don't like it and neither do other women." (paraphrased). Yeesh!

But if you want basic information about closed and open body postures, and a classification of gestures and postures on a comfort/discomfort binary (actually a useful categorization IMO) this is a good place to start.
89 reviews
November 13, 2019
Navarro zeigt eine vorwiegend amerikanische Perspektive auf das Thema, wenn er etwa Lächeln als Einstellungskriterium für Angestellte mit Kontakt zur Öffentlichkeit vorschlägt: "Wer nicht lächeln will, muss gehen." In den Vereinigten Staaten gilt das taktische Lächeln als ein besonders erwünschtes Verhalten, in Ostasien vielerorts sogar als ungeschriebenes Gesetz. Für Europa und Russland gilt das nicht in gleichem Maße. An anderen Stellen geht er wiederum genauer auf kulturelle Besonderheiten ein, zum Beispiel erwähnt er ein Verhalten, das für arrogante Europäer und nicht für Amerikaner typisch sei, nämlich die Nase hoch zu tragen.
Auch wenn das Buch auf ein amerikanisches Publikum zugeschnitten ist, sind viele der Informationen universell anwendbar, wenn man sie in den jeweiligen Kontext einzupassen versteht.
Profile Image for Milan Buno.
640 reviews40 followers
August 10, 2022
Od Joe Navarra som prečítal pár knižiek a musím uznať - vie písať pútavo, vysvetlí množstvo vecí, ponúkne praktické a užitočné tipy...a presne taká je aj táto kniha. Pomerne detailne sa venuje rôznym verbálnym a najmä neverbálnym signálom - telo ako také, postoj, ruky, nohy, ale aj tvár, nos, pery, oči.
Popisuje, niekedy pridá ilustráciu pre lepšiu predstavu. Viaceré veci možno poznáte, či už intuitívne alebo vedome, no neviete celkom prečo a ako to funguje. On to rozoberá, analyzuje a vy to môžete zasadiť do kontextu.
Knihu odporúčam čítať po troškách, pretože obsahuje naozaj neuveriteľné množstvo postrehov, tipov, a rád, ktoré vás naraz môžu zahltiť. Každopádne je to výborná pomôcka nielen k pracovným vzťahom, na rokovania, ale do bežného života.
Profile Image for Bruno M C Oliveira.
16 reviews
August 24, 2022
Very good, very practical. A must-read for leaders or anyone aspiring.

One of the key takeaways is the idea of looking for signs of comfort or discomfort, pain or pleasure. As Navarro puts it: "When you observe body language, ask yourself: Is it comfortable or uncomfortable? Pleasure or pain? When you anchor your observations around this paradigm, reading behavior becomes clear"

I was surprised to know that even specialists have an average chance of finding out if a person is lying, one of the most puzzling human situations. Navarro reiterates the importance of not jumping to conclusions when reading body language but instead using the signs as cues to further question and understand the emotions of the person in front of you.
Profile Image for Claire Binkley.
2,237 reviews17 followers
March 27, 2024
I finished this book the day of my oboe professor's birthday, which was two days ago, but didn't review it until approximately forty-eight hours afterwards since I was thinking about its messages and how to communicate better. Well, after all, with the musical instrument of our speciality, he and I are better able to communicate our intents and ideas, but this book offers a whole pictoral guide for people like you to observe others' behavioural mannerisms to see what they might be trying to communicate through them.

This author's Hassle Test is also a handy metric, in my opinion.

Tilly liked this book and thinks that you would too.
I myself prefer fiction, but did think well of the contents of the book.
Profile Image for Adam22 Peters.
6 reviews2 followers
January 28, 2025
Overall very useful for anyone working in sales, interacts with customers, or is starting business. A great guide on better observation of others comfort/discomfort and advice for the reader to change in nonverbal behavior. Excellent explanations and an easy read overall. I just wish there were more stories to explain. A lot of carry over from “What Every Body is Saying”

“Bear in mind that there are basically two kinds of people in this world: those who fill your cup and those who drain it. Be aware of people who seek your friendship but at the end of the day sap you of your energy, your thoughts, and your performance;
they are draining you.”
Louder than Words(100-101)

Profile Image for Sam Scott.
48 reviews5 followers
November 28, 2021
This is a great book. I have listened to Joe Navarro on several podcasts and love listening to him talk about this stuff. I found it particularly helpful to focus on comfort/discomfort rather than trying to assess the meaning of each action.

A lot of value in this type of book comes from the regular reminder to pay attention and practice at least for as long as it takes to read the book.

Would definitely recommend.
Profile Image for Bittu Davis.
30 reviews
May 25, 2021
What Every Body Is Saying by Joe Navarro is the first book I read on body language. It is a great book and I still refer it while I do my observation on people. Louder than words, is next step towards more in depth of body language. More and more into business levels and attaining good career growth by utilising the power of body language.
50 reviews
February 7, 2023
Milwaukee Tool Book Club book #3 for me.

It was fine. The author had some pretty extreme views on certain things, some of which seemed a little biased and over the top (don’t ever use a “politicians handshake”, women should NEVER wear distracting jewelry, etc). Definitely some good tips throughout though.
Profile Image for Duane Tate.
27 reviews7 followers
September 30, 2022
This book should be a part of the school curriculum nationally.

We spend all day talking and listening however we still fail I truly comprehending a vast majority of the information at the other person is conveying.
Profile Image for Allen He.
64 reviews1 follower
July 4, 2019
It is funny that this book has 1.5 chapters of 5 Star incredibly useful material yet all the other chapters are full of fillers and naive advice.
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