One stranger on Koffee with Karan said Saif Ali Khan's nose looked a little long. For the rest of that episode, Saif kept touching it. "Is my nose longer? Is my nose longer?" he asked, half-joking, but the hand told the truth. A single random comment shouldn't rattle a star of that stature — unless someone had planted that thought in him long before. That's the thing about insecurity. It sits quietly in the body until a careless word brings it to the surface.

I work with this connection every day: the link between what happened to a person and how they hold themselves now. Body language doesn't reveal certainties, but it reveals patterns. And almost every confidence problem I see traces back to one thing — a person who hasn't accepted themselves yet.

The body remembers what the mind forgets

Watch how some of our most beautiful actresses laugh. Katrina Kaif, Aishwarya Rai, Rashmika Mandanna — many of them cover their mouths when they laugh fully. It isn't a feminine habit; I've seen men do it too. It usually means someone once pointed at their teeth, or told them, "Don't laugh like that." Compare that with Alia Bhatt, who laughs with her teeth showing and nothing hidden. Nobody ever shamed that laugh out of her.

Meghan Markle has been my study subject lately. Coming from a different background into the royal family, she seems to have carried a feeling of not being good enough — and the body shows it through self-touching and pacifying gestures, the constant effort to fit in. In one podcast, when asked about tension between being relatable and being a Duchess, she said "No, no" and physically closed up, arms drawing in. When she said "I'm just doing my job, I'm just being real," her palms turned downward — a subconscious full stop. And when asked what she most wanted to tell people, she whispered "No one ever asked me that" while exposing her throat, the most vulnerable part of the body. No single gesture proves anything. It's the cluster, read against a person's normal baseline, that tells the story.

Confidence versus overconfidence

A confident person is comfortable — in their clothes, their posture, their voice. They've accepted themselves and made peace with being judged. Overconfidence is the performance of something you're not: the raised chin, the over-expanded body, the wave to a crowd you haven't even looked at.

Look at S.S. Rajamouli. By textbook standards he sits in a low-power stance — legs crossed, body slightly folded, taking up little space. Yet he is deeply confident, because when he speaks, everything aligns. That's the lesson. Confidence isn't a posture you copy. It's congruence with yourself.

This is why I distrust borrowed gestures — the forced steeple to look serious, the bone-crushing handshake meant to signal power. A crushing handshake usually means one of three things: attraction, an obsession with authority, or someone who just joined the gym. Confidence you have to manufacture isn't confidence.

What you can actually do

  • Name what you're insecure about — skin, teeth, hair, weight — and start working on accepting it. Until you do, it leaks into your body language.
  • Move less. The constant bobblehead nod reads as easygoing and forgettable. Stillness reads as presence.
  • Use your voice. A lower pitch is perceived as more authority; matching another person's pace and energy (voice mirroring) builds rapport.
  • Stop watching the outcome. Stage fright grows when you rehearse failure in advance.

For couples

The Gottmans' research gives two simple rituals: a six-second kiss and a twenty-second hug, long enough for oxytocin to flow. And two emotions quietly destroy relationships — contempt, when one partner feels superior, and disgust. Both show on the face and in the tone of voice, often as sarcasm with the very person you've chosen to live and die with. For every bad experience, build three good ones, intentionally.

Barack Obama remains my favourite example of genuine presence — his gestures match his words, and his body language is the same now as when he was president. He never exaggerated himself, and he doesn't undermine himself now. That is what self-acceptance looks like from the outside. Read yourself first. The charisma follows on its own.