We finished our first live body language workshop, and the thing I keep coming back to is how quickly the room stopped feeling like a room full of strangers. By the end of the first hour it didn't feel like a first meeting at all. The session was warm, talkative, full of questions — exactly the way learning to read people should be, because you can't decode behaviour from a slide deck alone. You have to watch real faces in real time, including your own.

What we actually covered

We worked through the foundations of microexpressions first — those brief, involuntary flashes that cross a face in a fraction of a second before the conscious mind can dress them up. From there we moved into broader body language: posture, hand movements, the small self-soothing gestures people make when they're under pressure. I always remind people that a single cue is never a verdict. Body language reveals patterns, not certainties. One crossed arm tells you almost nothing; the same gesture appearing every time a particular topic comes up tells you a great deal.

We also spent time on the early groundwork of decoding deception — what changes in a person's behaviour when they're managing the truth, and why that matters less than people imagine and more than they hope.

How people judge you in seconds

One section I particularly enjoyed teaching was how others form fast impressions of you. Long before you've finished your introduction, people are quietly reading you on four dimensions:

  • Aggressiveness — how much threat or push your presence carries
  • Likability — whether you feel safe and warm to be around
  • Competence — whether you look like you know what you're doing
  • Trustworthiness — whether you can be relied upon

These judgements happen in moments, often unconsciously, and they shape interviews, first dates and boardrooms alike. The good news is that once you understand which signals feed each impression, you can stop leaking the wrong message by accident.

What's coming next

I have a full year of workshops lined up, each built around a real situation where reading and managing body language genuinely changes the outcome.

  • Dating and the body language of an arranged-marriage setup — what to look for in someone across the table, and how to carry yourself
  • Professional body language — presence in meetings, interviews and everyday office life
  • A workshop for actors and aspiring actresses, and for those moving into modelling, on using the whole body to communicate
  • Public speaking — including how to hold yourself when difficult questions come from the audience

There's one more workshop before we close out this year, and I'd love your input on what else you'd find useful. Tell me the situations where you feel most unreadable, or most misread — those are usually the most valuable to work on together. Thank you to everyone who showed up, asked questions and made this first session what it was. We're only getting started.