The Jack Lemmon Lesson

In 1953, a young Jack Lemmon arrived in Hollywood to film It Should Happen To You alongside Judy Holliday.

During one of the rehearsals, the legendary director George Cukor cut Lemmon in the middle of a scene and told him:

“Jack, do less.”

Lemmon realized he was overacting, apologized, and tried again.

He was promptly cut short. “Do less,” the director said again.

The actor obliged and repeated the scene, only to be stopped once more with the same two words.

This happened so many times that Lemmon finally snapped and almost shouted: “Mr. Cukor, if I do less than this, I’d be doing nothing!”

Cukor smiled broadly and replied: “Now you get it, Jack!”

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“Why do some people feel exhausted and depleted after social interactions (and others feel energized by them)?”

And that’s something that happened to me on a daily basis. How did I solve it?

Well, at first I didn’t! I just labelled myself as an “introvert” and called it a day.

But of course, the social anxiety was still there.

Even after years of studying human behavior, I had not realized I was just looking for a way to cope with social interactions, but not truly understand why I dreaded them.

The Trap of Labels

We humans love labels. “Introvert” and “Extrovert” are two very popular ones.

Do you know why we love labels? Because they allow us to “belong” to a tribe or sub-tribe.

In my case, I wore the “introvert” label like a badge of courage—like something quirky or special.

It doesn’t help that there is a whole culture around the “power of being an introvert,” which it took me a while to realize was just absurd.

“Introversion” and “Extroversion” are treated like “cold” and “hot” as if they were two different things.

But nope, they are two terms referring to the same thing: temperature.

In my case, being an introvert was just a fancy word to say I lacked social skills.

The Realization

I began developing my social skills. I became a better communicator, more persuasive, and even controlled my body language like the best politician in the world (Yuck!).

None of that worked.

I realized that my mind was framed the wrong way. My social anxiety came from not having a SYSTEM to interact with people.

So, drawing from my love of video games, I came up with one.

The System

I began to see people as secondary characters (NPCs) in the video game of my own life. These people around me, in any circumstance, held “clues” to help me level up, reach the next castle, or finish the current stage.

I tricked my mind into remembering that rush of dopamine when talking to in-game characters. In a game, they give you tips, you use them, and voilà!—a creaky door opens, allowing you to go further down a moldy dungeon. Sweet!

In this case, it’s real life, but the principle is the same.

Your Own Life Quest

Maybe after reading this, you’ll still consider yourself an introvert. That’s fine! Just realize that social anxiety is not part of your personality—or anyone’s personality, for that matter.

You just need a system.

I found mine, and it worked. Perhaps you can use it; if not, you can use it as a stepping stone to find a system that is uniquely yours.

After all, in your life’s video game, I’m just a secondary character. ;)

The trick to overcoming social anxiety is to think not of the interactions themselves (which can be harsh), but of the gems and secrets that you could unlock.

Every person on this planet has at least one interesting story to tell.

So, go and find it!

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

What, you disagree? then let me make my point with the help of Juana Galán, which was like a nineteenth century Spanish Sarah Connor:

It was 1807 and Napoleon was really bored, so he started the Peninsular war against Spain and Portugal.

Throughout that conflict, the French troops had to pass through the town of Valdepeñas.

Most, if not all of Valdepeñas’ men were fighting their asses off elsewhere.

Juana Galán was a 22-year-old barmaid in the main tavern of the city.

A la “Molly’s Game”, she had the advantage of listening the gossip from travelers spilling all the alcohol-soaked beans.

So she was the first to know of the incoming baguette troopers.

She assumed that the French riflemen were not going to pass peacefully through a city full of vulnerable women.

So she decided to rip the ‘vulnerable’ out of the equation.

Juana assembled all the town’s women in an offensive that Netflix could put to good use today.

When Napoleon’s troops reached the city, they were ambushed with boiling water from the balconies.

The streets were flooded with boiling oil that wreaked havoc in the cavalry.

Amidst the confusion, the second degree burns and the French accented screams, a figure raised.

A group of women led by a baton-armed Juana (Although I prefer the version of an iron cast pan), began to fracture skulls and make grey matter ratatouille.

Seriously, I’d pay good money to watch Zack Snyder direct a movie about this, starring Gina Carano in all slo-mo glory.

The intruders had no other option but retreat and leave Valdepeñas alone.

— — —

Now, I know what you’re thinking:

“But what the hell does all this have to do with books being dangerous?”

Oh, right. The books.

They’re dangerous in the sense that you can think that knowledge is actually power.

And IT IS NOT.

ACTION is power.

Books nurture you with fresh knowledge (as Juana’s gossip). And that’s awesome, because you need to SEE what you are acting on.

That’s why I wrote my latest book. So you can ACT on what you FEEL.

Yes, I know. I just told you books are dangerous. But this one comes with a Juana guarantee — it's only useful if you act on it.

23 tactics. No theory. But what actually feels like to be manipulated.

How to Know If He’s Manipulating You — $4.99.

P.S. $4.99. Juana would approve.

From the first industrial revolution until the early 1980s, everyone “knew” that stress was the cause of stomach ulcers.

It’s logical, don’t you think?… more stress -> more acid -> ulcers.

Dr. Marshall disagreed, and set to work.

Marshall partnered with the conveniently named Robin Warren to show that stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria.

Hundreds of biopsies, cultures and experiments later, his hypothesis was practically confirmed.

But the scientific community laughed at him.

Animal tests were insufficient for demonstration.

He had to experiment on a healthy human.

So Marshall, as a mad scientist… did what any mad scientist would do in his place.

He drank a complete culture with the bacteria, bottoms up.

Because YOLO.

In less than a week, he developed an ulcer that would make any Mad Men publicist blush.

(And survived to tell the tale).

It was a statement for the whole community: Marshall matters.

This is where Barry made the experiment. Right?

Marshall’s experiment is considered one of the most important milestones in 20th century medicine.

Finally, in 2005 he won the Nobel in that field, along with Warren.

We all have one, even several, moments in our life that we have to put all of our chips on the table.

«All in», as they say in poker.

In Marshall’s case, he had absolutely all the evidence that his theory of healing ulcers with antibiotics would work.

But what about us?

Sometimes we have to make that leap of faith even though everyone warns us otherwise.

(Marshall himself concealed the experiment from his wife, including the tiny detail of increasing the chances of stomach cancer by 10x as a result).

Are you willing to do something like that?

But I also don't usually offer The Knesix Code at 60% off.

Today is the last day at $197. Tomorrow it goes back to $497.

Over 3,000 students. Three modules. Lifetime access.

knesix.com/masterclass

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

P.S. It actually goes back to $497 tomorrow. No exceptions.

knesix.com/masterclass

This magnificent basterd shows up to the Battle of Arnhem (an actual friggin’ BATTLE with bullets and explosions and a Tarantino-amount of dying), carrying an UMBRELLA.

Not a bulletproof gun-umbrella like Colin Firth in the movie Kingsman. I wish!

Not an umbrella with a secret sword inside. Or laser-powered. Or with the tip dipped in some radioactive Amazonian frog juice.

Nope. A regular-ass umbrella.

His explanation? So his own guys could recognize him as Bri’ish.

Because apparently the British accent, uniform, and him yelling “CHEERIO, OLD CHAPS” wasn’t enough.

Seriously, I had to DOUBLE-CHECK this story was true.

He also forgot essential shlit like his helmet and radio. But don’t worry! He remembered to bring some Shakespeare, because apparently a rousing soliloquy from King Lear helps curve Nazi gunfire around you.

At one point, this maniac led a bayonet charge while twirling his umbrella like Mary f*cking Poppins.

THEN he disabled a German armored vehicle by JAMMING HIS UMBRELLA THROUGH THE VIEWING SLIT.

Picture being the German soldier inside: “Hans, I cannot see! There appears to be formal rain protection inserted into our tank! MEIN GOTT!!1”

But here’s the punchline that will make you question everything about how the world works:

Not only did Digby survive this weapons-grade insanity.

THEY ALSO PROMOTED HIM.

Why? Because here’s a rather harsh truth in life...

Leadership, and sometimes even industriousness has below zero to do with competence.

It’s more like being able to see the battlefield in a way that no one else can (and maybe bring a wacky rain-deterring device with you)

Most people are getting played their entire lives because they think persuasion and success is about having the most facts or the best PowerPoint.

They think confidence is something you earn by actually knowing what you’re doing.

Oh, you sweet summer child! lol

You absolutely MUST know what you’re doing, but if we can learn anything from Digby’s story, is that he didn’t need to shout out “I’m in control” like he was at a Tony Robbins event.

And he didn’t have to do that because he was strutting through a warzone with an umbrella like he was late for teatime at Buckingham Palace.

This man had made a complete category for himself, and that’s the only reason why history remembers him.

His body language must have been screaming “I’m so far beyond giving a feck that I’ve circled back around to supreme confidence.”

But that confidence can only come from knowledge.

And as Sun Tzu said...

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

That’s EXACTLY what I built The Knesix Code to do.

Know yourself — your blind spots, your biases, your tells — so no one can use them against you.

Read others — their real emotions, their hidden intentions, their masks — before they even know you’re watching.

And then walk into any room the way Digby walked into Arnhem: like you already own the place.

Over 3,000 people have gone through it. Three modules. Lifetime access. Ten minutes a day.

It has always been at $497. Right now, it’s $197. That ends tomorrow.

knesix.com/masterclass

This is your chance to learn what crazy bastards like Digby accidentally figured out — except you’ll do it on purpose.

(And without the umbrella. Unless you want to. I won’t judge.)

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

P.S. Wednesday it goes back to $497.

knesix.com/masterclass

Something like a latent impatience to discover ‘that thing’ that will give it all meaning.

Your purpose. Your vision.

It can be maddening to watch others fully devoted to ‘that thing’ they’ve envisioned for themselves, while you keep wondering if you even chose the right path.

It’s perfectly normal. Many of us suffer through that for years.

To illustrate, let me tell you the story of Gabrielle.

Maybe her inner struggle will help yours.

——

Gabrielle was kneeling by the bed.

At just eleven years old, she watched her mother slowly fade away, sick with tuberculosis.

She died shortly after.

Her father, whom she barely ever saw, took her and her two sisters to a convent, promising to come back for them soon.

It was the last time she ever saw him.

——

In that strict, grey place, the nuns imposed fierce discipline. There was no room for distractions, or joy, or even the slightest decoration to please the eye.

Her life would have been miserable, if not for a handful of novels by Pierre Decourcelle, known for his romantic fiction.

She had discovered the forbidden stash hidden inside a convent wardrobe — confiscated from whoever managed to smuggle them past those thick walls.

Most of the stories followed the Cinderella pattern: a dispossessed young woman who ends up living in a palace by some twist of fate.

But what captivated Gabrielle the most was the intricate description of every dress the heroines wore.

That’s how she endured seven years, until at eighteen she left for a boarding school. There, she discovered theater.

She did absolutely everything to become a star: acting, singing, dancing. But deep down, she felt it wasn’t the right path to the success she was chasing.

——

Even for the most outstanding actresses of the era, it was hard to make a living from the stage alone.

So most of them sought to win over some wealthy admirer with the means to support them.

A ‘Sugar Daddy’, as we’d call it today.

It wasn’t long before Gabrielle found hers: Etienne Balsan.

Balsan, the heir to a considerable fortune, invited her to live in his château. There, Gabrielle became just another courtesan.

She had achieved her dream.

Or so she thought.

——

It didn’t take long before Gabrielle started feeling, once again, that something was missing.

She lived in a luxurious castle. She had all the clothes she could desire.

And still, she felt empty.

Wandering through the halls of that palace one day, she entered Etienne’s room and, without knowing exactly why, opened his wardrobes and began trying on his clothes.

Something clicked inside her.

She felt liberated.

Instead of the uncomfortable dresses and corsets imposed by the suffocating standards of women’s fashion, men’s trousers and shirts were infinitely more comfortable to wear.

It wasn’t about ‘looking’ like a man — she felt entirely feminine. It was about wearing clothes that didn’t restrict her movement.

In that moment, she understood the root of the dissatisfaction she had always felt.

Everything she had pursued throughout her life — the theater, the palace life, the men she had seduced — was the product of a continuous search for control and freedom.

The control and freedom she had never had, for as long as she could remember.

She realized she had always envied the power men held, and above all, their right to wear practical, comfortable clothing while women resigned themselves to a daily torture.

From the very first moment Gabrielle walked through the château dressed like that, she turned every head. She was finally in her element: power, transmitted through her clothes.

It was impossible not to notice the shift in her personality. If she had been captivating before, now she was overwhelming.

The other courtesans noticed instantly, and wanted to emulate her style. Now she was the center — they spent hours visiting her room, asking for advice, wearing whatever she suggested.

It was only a matter of time before that style transcended the walls of the château. Before her declaration of freedom went viral.

She was ready to hold the world in her hand.

Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel was an iconoclast who defined a milestone in the history of fashion: something as radical as the liberation of women’s clothing... by making it look more like men’s.

But Coco didn’t know exactly what she wanted, so she chased the ‘wrong’ goals for many years.

Fortunately, she never stopped searching. She never settled. And until her spirit had the certainty of having found her purpose, she did not rest.

How many people in this world settle for ‘whatever life gives them’?

How many don’t even bother to ask themselves what their purpose might be?

We live in a dangerous era where we’re exposed to hundreds of models of ‘success’ through media, and we don’t take enough time to reflect in silence about ourselves.

To try to define the vision we want to focus on.

You know what the problem is? We think our purpose is something we have to ‘become’.

That until we have the money, the connections, the degree, or the right job, we won’t be ‘it’.

Your purpose is not out there. It’s not something you ‘grow into’.

You already are it, even if you don’t know it yet.

Your purpose is already inside you. You just have to remove everything that’s covering it.

Sadly, we’re conditioned from childhood — without malice — by the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

They certainly don’t ask it with bad intentions, but it predisposes us to something: first we have to grow up, in order to be something.

First we have to get this and that, in order to be whole and happy.

No.

We must understand that wholeness and happiness lie in realizing what we already are.

Discovering ourselves. Knowing and accepting ourselves.

The search is internal.

You are a sculpture hidden inside an immense block of marble.

You just have to remove everything that doesn’t belong.

Your doubts. Your fears. Your uncertainty.

This step may be difficult, because it demands real emotional intelligence.

The sensitivity to know what it is that truly moves you.

But until you manage that — until you achieve a true introspection — you’ll keep drifting.

You’ll keep searching for something more, like Gabrielle.

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

The Knesix Code: my complete Body Language and Persuasion Masterclass. Over 3,000 students. $197 instead of $497, until Wednesday.

knesix.com/masterclass

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

P.S. It has always been at $497, and it’ll go right back there on Wednesday. Only time I’ve offered it at this price through this newsletter.

knesix.com/masterclass

Katy Perry’s wide eyes darted back and forth as she listened to the track.

The studio vibrated. A deep bass made the two ribcages in the room hum in sync.

“Well? Are you in?” David Guetta sounded almost pleading. Even though THE Mary J. Blige had agreed to lend her vocals, the young producer wasn’t convinced. He wanted Katy.

“David, the song is spectacular, but it sounds a lot like Firework… I’m trying to move away from the ‘techno box’ they put me in, you know? If it weren’t for that… I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

The man leaned back, visibly frustrated.

“Fine, I guess I’ll have to record it with Mary.”

But then she noticed her friend’s disappointment.

“By the way, whose voice is on the demo? It’s incredible!”

“Oh, that’s just the songwriter. She improvised that track as a guide for whoever ended up singing it.”

“Play it again.”

They listened to the song closely once more. Katy paid special attention to the vocals.

“You’ll think I’m crazy, but I think you should just leave this vocal track in. It sounds brutal. And I don’t just mean good—I mean brutal-brutal.”

“What? No! Besides, I don’t think she’d agree. She’s… quirky. She wrote the song for Alicia Keys originally.”

“You should consider it.”

David fell silent.

Months later, the track was finished with Mary J. Blige.

But David couldn’t shake Katy’s words. In a moment of pure, impulsive behavior—the kind that bypasses the prefrontal cortex—he stripped away the superstar’s vocals.

He kept the songwriter’s demo.

He didn’t call her. He didn’t ask for permission. He just did it.

Naturally, she wasn’t even the first to know. It was a fan’s tweet that broke the news:

“Hey, is that you singing on the new David Guetta track?”

Within minutes, she realized she was all over the internet. With her own voice.

Sia Furler, who had spent years trying to establish herself as a “serious” artist, was suddenly topping the charts with a “disposable” house track.

(Because despite having accepted the job to write the single Titanium, she actually detested dance music!).

The indignation was total. That explosive, uninvited fame affected her deeply. Her breaking point came while meeting a friend who told her he had cancer.

She broke down.

At that exact moment, a fan came jumping over: “SIA! TAKE A SELFIE WITH ME!”

And there, right in front of her grieving friend, with a face completely distraught, she ended up taking that fleeting selfie.

It lasted less than sixty seconds. It was surreal. Cruel.

Sia spiraled into a deep depression and substance abuse.

But truth is patient.

Fortunately, she recovered. She found herself again. She made 1000 Forms of Fear. She adopted the wig—a tactic to shield herself from a fame she never wanted.

Over time, Sia admitted the truth: “Titanium did for me what all my previous albums couldn’t. I might not like the song, but if it helps me pay the bills, that’s another story.”

Think about the sheer talent of a woman who wrote Rihanna’s Diamonds in exactly 14 minutes. That’s less time than it takes to watch an episode of Doraemon.

A talent like that is a force of nature. You better be prepared when the moment arrives.

Will you have the emotional grit to act with a cool head?

Sometimes, you stand at the edge of the diving board.

You look down. You calculate. You doubt.

You spend years in that “baseline” of hesitation… until someone comes along and pushes you.

It’s natural to feel outraged when someone acts against your will. Your autonomy is sacred.

But sometimes, that unwanted splash is the only thing that proves you can swim.

Are you waiting for a “David Guetta” to trip you into your own success? Or are you ready to jump?

That readiness doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from knowing yourself — your signals, your triggers, your blind spots — so well that when the moment arrives, you ACT.

And of course, knowing and READING others.

My complete Body Language and Persuasion Masterclass, The Knesix Code, is available this week at $197 (instead of $497). It won’t last past March:

https://knesix.com/masterclass

The water is waiting, not for long.

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús

Well, I have not (at least in the last 24 hours).

This IMHO is the ideal situation for body language sleuthin’. Not that you want to smile at them at all times, but rather you should perform the both beautiful and lost art of... redundancy.

And it has everything to do with asking for the upteenth time if the chicken is being defrosted or not.

But let’s move away from the kitchen and into a cold, marble lobby.

The Anatomy of an Idiot

Making his way through what looks like hundreds of people, a random guy comes in. He briefly stops, spots a security guard who looks like a man who has seen too many Mondays and not enough Sundays, and walks in his direction.

“Good morning.” Are all these people here for the talk?

“Mornin’.” The guard spoke in the tone of a soul clocked out hours ago. He turned and glanced at the darkened empty spaces that filled the place. There was only one classroom with the lights on, and it was the one destined for the talk. Is this guy serious?, the guard thought to himself. Then turned back at the man.

“Yessir, that’s the one.”

“Nice. Do those doors over there… do they lead to the inside of that room?”

The guard literally exhaled all his lost dreams.

“Uh, Yeah... doors generally lead to entrances. This is generally how doors work, sir.”

“Brilliant. And tell me, once I finish giving the talk, where am I supposed to go?”

The guard froze. The realization hit him like 2001’s Monolith.

“Oh, Are you... the speaker!?”

“Yes. Speakers are generally the ones that give the talks. This is generally how we speakers work, sir.”

There was a time in which people used to attend physical classrooms to be part of conferences and all that. Yes, I am old. None of this zooming in a Zoom meeting (no pun intended) to make out what is written in the top corner of a whiteboard.

That day, it was not a classroom but a hall, packed with around 300 people.

Anyway, this guy rushes in, sets up his laptop and gives the lecture of his life. Little more than half an hour. But he was not the only one addressing the room that night. He was like the roast beef in a sandwich of speakers.

And I say ‘roast beef’ because well, that guy was yours truly, and I made sure to make an impression. If I remember correctly, the speech was about persuasion and marketing. The good ol’ days when social media was not a battleground!

So what was the point of bombarding that poor security guard with stupid questions?

Could I have any control over 300 strangers sitting in a room I had never seen? Negative. Could I have prepared beforehand for those circumstances? Also negative. There was no carousel of photos to see how the place would be.

So I did the only thing I could. I asked. And asked. And asked again.

Not because I cared about the answers. I cared about what the answers REVEALED. The guard’s body language when he pointed to the doors told me more about the layout than any floor plan. His reaction when I asked about the audience told me what energy to expect. His face when he realized I was the speaker told me everything I needed to know about how the crowd would receive me.

Stupid questions are not stupid. They build up momentum. When you ask someone something obvious, they lower their guard completely. And THAT is when you read them.

This was not a simple task for an introvert like me.

Maybe you are familiar with this. You are watching those distant nights sleeping under the same roof and in the same bed. Wanting to ask the one question that matters but holding back because the silence that follows might confirm what you already suspect.

Asking the obvious is the only way to verify if the floor beneath you is solid or if you are just walking on a memory of what used to be there.

Don’t be afraid to be the “idiot” in the lobby. Playing dumb has massive perks.

Sometimes, asking if the chicken is being defrosted is the only thing standing between you and a very uncomfortable dinner.

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús.

The Body Language Guy

There’s something you need to know about narcissists. They don’t break you by yelling. They don’t need to. They break you by going completely still, while you’re falling apart. And that manufactured composure? It’s one of the most effective manipulation tactics you’ll ever encounter.

But once you understand the body language signals behind it, the whole strategy falls apart. And you’re about to see exactly how.

If you’ve ever walked away from a conversation feeling like you owed someone an apology for having feelings, even if YOU were the one who got hurt, you already know this tactic.

You just didn’t have a name for it.

But Here’s how it works. You bring up something real. Something that genuinely hurt you. And instead of any kind of emotional response, such as defensiveness, guilt, concern, anything... he goes calm.

But not the kind of calm that means he’s actually listening. We’re talking about a manufactured composure display, and their intention is to make your emotional reaction look disproportionate by comparison.

And it works! Because the calmer he gets, the louder you sound. And the louder you sound, the easier it is for him to lean back, tilt his head in that clinical observation posture, and then say:

“I think you should talk to someone about this.”

Now you’re not discussing what he did. You’re defending your own sanity. That’s not a conversation.

That’s a trap.

Now, all this sounds a bit abstract, so let me put you inside...

A REAL EXAMPLE SO YOU CAN LEARN TO SPOT WHAT’S GOING ON.

You’re in the car after a dinner with friends. A good dinner. He was charming, everyone loved him. But the moment the car door closes, he says:

“You know everyone noticed how much you were drinking tonight.”

And... yeah, it’s an odd way of speaking because it sounds like halfway between an affirmation and a question.

But anyway, it makes you think. You had two glasses. Same as him. Same as everybody else. And you say it,

“But... I had two glasses, just like you, just like our friends”

But he acts like you just spoke nonsense. And most likely he’s gonna do this slow exhale through his nose, controlled, deliberate.

That nasal exhale is a manufactured composure signal. It’s designed to communicate disappointment without giving you anything to push back against.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m just looking out for you.”

And then... nothing.

Silence.

But not neutral silence. This is a loaded silence. The kind that sits between you like an accusation waiting to be answered. Because there’s an unresolved argument lingering in the air.

So you react and make your point again. Because you’re a human being and you can feel it pressing against you.

“What do you mean? I had two glasses, same as everyone.”

So that’s when he gives you the half-smile. Not a real smile, but a contempt micro-expression: one corner of the mouth pulls up while the rest of the face stays flat. Because he was expecting you to react.

“I didn’t say it was a big deal,” he says. “You’re the one making it a big deal.”

And this is what you don’t understand. You got in that car feeling fine. Ninety seconds later, you’re replaying the entire evening in your head. Counting glasses. Wondering if your laugh was too loud. Questioning your own memory of a night you just lived through.

He didn’t raise his voice, not even once. But he didn’t have to. He got you to do the work for him. And this is exactly how you can spot this pattern, when someone’s body language is incongruent with the emotional weight of the conversation, and that weight is NOT marked by arguments but by a condescending silence, boy... that’s a huge red flag.

HERE’S WHY YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM FALLS FOR IT

Here’s what’s actually happening beneath the surface, and this is absolutely critical if you want to recognize manipulative personalities.

Emotional conversations, and conversations in general, are supposed to be bidirectional. When someone you love tells you “that hurt me,” the normal human stress response involves some level of emotional activation.

Concern, guilt, even defensiveness.

Something. Anything!

What the narcissist does is remove his emotional signal entirely. He flatlines. And your nervous system does not read that as calmness. It reads it as a wall. As absence. As danger.

So you escalate. Not because you’re irrational. Because you’re trying to reach someone who has deliberately made himself unreachable.

You’re knocking louder on a door because nobody’s answering. That doesn’t make you aggressive. That makes you someone standing outside a locked door.

But the problem is that this is a fool’s errand. The louder you knock, the more he hides. And that gap, between his artificial composure and your distress, becomes the only evidence he will ever need.

He doesn’t have to say you’re unstable. The contrast says it for him.

YOUR emotion IS his proof.

AND THAT’S HOW HE TRAINS YOU TO GO SILENT

This is the same pattern when you try to set a boundary and he says “I hear you” in a voice so flat you KNOW he didn’t hear a word. But what are your options? Repeat yourself with more intensity? no! because now you look obsessive. But if you drop it, now you have surrendered your position.

Either way, he wins.

It’s the same thing when you catch him in a lie and he doesn’t flinch. He just pauses, looks at you with complete stillness, and says:

“That’s... not what happened.”

As if you’re the one who’s confused. And because his body language displays zero stress indicators, no rapid blinking, no fidgeting, no jaw tension, nothing... some part of you wonders: am I the one who’s wrong?

“Am I going crazy?”

And it’s the same thing when you finally break down crying after months of this, and he sits across from you, arms folded, which is a classic emotional barrier posture, head at that clinical observation tilt, and says:

“I don’t know what you want me to do when you get like this.”

Pay attention to those words. “When you get like this.”

As if it’s a condition.

As if it just appears out of nowhere.

The worst part is that this compounds, and this is why this does real damage. Over time, you stop bringing things up. Not because the problems went away, but because raising them costs more than carrying them. Every time you try, you leave the conversation feeling worse than when you entered it. You learn that having a need is a liability. That expressing hurt leads to being examined.

That crying leads to a performance review.

So, you learn to go quiet.

And your silence? That was always the endgame. A silent partner is a controllable partner. The calm voice was never about winning an argument. It was about training you to stop having them.

BUT HERE’S THE ONE SENTENCE THAT BREAKS THE MACHINE

What do you do when the calm voice shows up?

You do the one thing he’s not prepared for. You refuse to be the loud one. Not by suppressing yourself. Not by going numb, but by saying one sentence that makes the entire performance visible.

When he flatlines and you feel that pull to escalate, to explain, to prove, to raise your voice, you stop. You take one quiet breath, and say:

“I’m not going to compete for who seems more reasonable right now. I said what I needed to say.”

Then you stop talking. And I mean, you don’t open your mouth again.

NOT as punishment. NOT as a power move. But because you want the pattern to stop. Because you are done performing for someone who’s grading your emotional response.

Here’s what will happen. He’ll pause. He might try the half-smile, the contempt micro-expression. He might say “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But the dynamic is broken, because manufactured composure only works as a contrast. It needs YOUR emotional activation to look composed.

Without that, it’s just a man sitting in silence with nothing to point to.

The moment you stop trying to reach him, his composure has nothing to push against. And a weapon without a target is just a man holding something heavy for no reason.

Remember what I said at the beginning: that narcissists break you not by yelling, but by going still. Now you understand the body language signals underneath it. The head tilt. The contempt display. The folded arms. The deliberate flatline.

You can spot these cues. You can recognize the pattern before it locks you into the cycle. And once you see the mechanism, it can’t work on you the same way again.

You were never the unstable one. You were the only person in that room actually feeling something.

That was never your weakness.

That was always proof you were still intact.

Now I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments — have you experienced this? What was the moment you first recognized the pattern? Let me know.

And if you want to become truly immune to manipulation, book a call with me here.

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús.

The Body Language Guy

One of the things I’ve said a couple times is that while I don’t consider ‘modern art’ art in itself, I have a special love for it. Maybe it’s the fact that can be completely random, or maybe it’s because it can take me by surprise. But for me, modern art usually helps me open my mind to new ideas.

So it was natural when I visited New York City back in 2013 to pay a visit to the Museum Of Modern Art (MoMA). Some years have passed and I have to acknowledge that from that visit, I just remember two exhibitions.

The first one was about classic video game consoles. And given my penchant for those machines and the hours I’ve spent on them, it’s no surprise that section of the gallery remains fresh in my memory.

The only other exhibition I recall, was… different, to say the least. I remember that we were on the very last halls left to see in the museum. One of them was a huge room in which the walls were light bright white with the projection of an elephant going around. That’s it. Just an elephant projected going around the room. Or at least that’s what I remember.

But that was the next to last room that I saw at the MoMA. The very last one, on the other hand, was quite bizarre. I remember it huge, white, with zero pieces or decorations. At the far end, I could make out a small crowd of people who were circling what seemed like a large horizontal glass cabinet.

As we began moving closer, I noticed that people were slowly swirling around the cabinet, making sure to peek from all possible angles. There was not that much people but enough to block any view of the glass box’ contents unless you were right on top of it.

The first thing I saw was a slim figure sleeping inside the glass box. A simple white linen covered the makeshift bed, while the figure rested with its back to me. I immediately noticed that it was a female frame, the white blonde hair cut short but pointy. My first impression was that it was a fantastic sculpture, but a bit underwhelming due to the prosaic nature of the…

Wait.

That’s when I saw her hands.

I still couldn’t see the figure’s face, but her hands were at a right angle, with her hands near her head. The moment I saw them I realized that this was not a sculpture – it was a living, breathing human being inside the glass cabinet.

“Alright, so that’s a lady with a blue shirt and navy blue pants. What is the point?”

The point is that the lady was none other than Tilda Swinton. I didn’t have to see the tiny card describing the installation at the nearby wall. I just saw part of her face and knew it was her. I was already a fan of her work since the movie The Beach, not to mention her 18 minutes of screen time in Michael Clayton that earned her an Oscar.

And there she was. I was less than one meter away from her. But she was… actually taking a nap? or was she acting like she was taking a nap? anyway, she seemed like in a deep slumber.

Why do I bring this anecdote? for a very simple reason:

Tilda came up with the idea of the installation, called “The Maybe”, and helped by her friend Cornelia Parker to bring it to life. The concept was simple: Swinton ‘sleeping’ inside a glass cabinet for 8 hours straight.

But what was so special about this? what exactly separates this from, say, a banana stuck to a wall with duct tape?

What I found truly special about this is that “The Maybe”, as in, the installation itself, has zero marketing or announcement in advance. Since its conception in 1995, it has just… popped up in museums here and there. Sometimes with more than a handful of years between appearances.

No warnings. It just pops up for a few days and then it’s gone.

So, being at the MoMA that day, and precisely that day, was the rarest opportunity to see Tilda Swinton sleeping. As un-striking it might sound, it was the ephemeral and spontaneous nature of the happening.

I mean, it was already 2013. We were pretty much engulfed by full-on social media and if you wanted to see a movie, or listen to any song, or access any sort of media, you could with just the push of a button.

I remember my 1980’s days when I waited for hours on end, finger ready on the ‘record’ button of my cassette tape player, to catch that elusive track that I wanted to keep in a mix tape. When it finally played, and my reflexes made sure that the intro was not (that much) badly chopped, it felt like a triumph of mind over randomness.

I have to say that I sometimes miss that randomness and spontaneity. Witnessing something unexpected. Living off schedule. Acting on an impulse. Existing like time is meaningless.

Rediscovering our chaotic essence, down to the subatomic particles that our flesh vessels are made of.

Maybe that’s why ‘the news’ can be so alluring. Because they’re chaotic, yes, but they’re predictably negative most of the time because bad news always draw the most attention, and since we’re in an attention economy, we pay a hefty mental sanity price for that.

But what if… that what is spontaneous and chaotic is, at the same time, absurd?

News always pretend to have a meaning. You should form an opinion about what’s happening. Maybe voice it.

But Tilda Swinton sleeping inside a glass box out of nowhere is as absurd as it gets. You can make up your own interpretation, if you want. Maybe she has her own. She voices a different one. I have one for myself. Or maybe not.

I must say that this is the way I want to live this year. And every future year, for that matter. A quest for the randomly absurd. For the gesture that surprises us positively, out of nowhere. For the experience that is as unexpected as fulfilling. For the times that we never see coming and are the hardest to forget.

For the moments that make us stop for a moment and just stare in wonder, in awe, or dumbfounded, or confused, or amused.

To become naively alive for a brief, fleeting moment.

That’s what I wish for myself, and for you, this year.

Here’s to the unforeseen twists of our journey together!

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús.

The Body Language Guy

This is a major concern for anyone aspiring to become a human behavior decoder. How exactly do we know for certain that what we are reading is, most important than anything else, accurate?

This is one of the main arguments of the ‘body language is a pseudoscience’ horde. Their misguided claims are based on the ad-nauseam-parroted argument that, since you can’t reduce human behavior to a formula, or a single algorithm to process every possible scenario, then decoding intentions by just looking at people is on par with reading chicken bones rolling inside a bowl.

And this is wrong for many reasons, that might or might not include chickens.

In reality, when we talk about how accurate you can become at reading body language, the first thing that should come to mind is blackjack, especially card counting.

Just in case you don’t know what blackjack is, it’s a card game in which you play against the dealer to see who gets closer to 21 with your cards without going over. That’s pretty much it! Now you can head to Atlantic City and lose your entire retirement in less than it takes to watch a Peppa Pig episode.

But now you need to know about that time I stumbled upon…

The VHS tape that got me into card counting

I’m sure you remember those times when we used to rent VHS tapes in Blockbuster Video. Maybe you are more or less my age or maybe you’re younger, but I used to go there to rent movies. I think it was the Mesozoic or Paleozoic era. Can’t remember. Writing hadn’t been invented yet.

After getting tired of both blockbusters (pun intended) and b-movies, I remember roaming the shelf of documentaries and general guides. For a curious dude like me, those pre-Encarta-Encyclopedia dark ages were a godsend. Multimedia CD-ROMs, and let alone the internet, were still a DeLorean trip away in the future.

On one of those trips I spotted this tape that was about blackjack, aptly named ‘PRO BLACKJACK winning techniques’, and took it home. Two hours of solid advice about how to play blackjack and how to make sense of all the possible card combinations that you should keep in mind to not make a fool of yourself at casino tables.

But it had a very interesting chapter on card counting, and how card counting was the actual way to beat the house’s odds.

Contrary to what you might be thinking, when we talk about ‘card counting’, you don’t need to do fancy calculations in your head while playing. In fact, it’s so simple that I’m pretty sure a chimpanzee could do it. Hell, even a liberal could have a shot!

It works like this: You start with a number ‘0’ in your mind. Whenever any card is dealt for anyone in your table, you either add or subtract ‘1’ to that brain-jelly-powered count. More specifically…

• If the card value is anything from 2 to 6, you add 1 to your count

• If the card value is between 7 to 9, you do nothing

• If the card is 10 to A, you subtract 1 from your count

What you’re doing with this is trying to predict the average value of the cards remaining in the machine, assuming of course that the machine has a standard distribution of card decks, which is something enforced by law. Depending on the number that you have in your mind, you hit (ask for another card) or stand (stop receiving any more cards).

That’s pretty much it.

TL/DR counting cards can literally help you beat the house, and this has been proven time and time again. In turn, the casino manager will politely invite you to play any other game *but* blackjack from that point on.

But before you risk getting your legs broken at the casino’s parking lot, we need to understand the concept of odds.

Yes, you can actually beat the house at blackjack, but you’re not gonna win every single hand that you’re dealt. That simply won’t happen. Because last time I checked, neither of us are Dustin Hoffman. And if by any chance you’re Dustin Hoffman, I loved you in Wag The Dog.

Anyway, I digress. You will not win every hand that you’re dealt, but you will win enough of them to make a profit. Does that make sense?

In the end, given enough instances, you’re gonna win.

IF you play enough times, you will have the odds stacked in your favor.

And that’s the idea that I want you to understand about body language reading. The more ‘cards’ you count, the better informed you are.

The difference is that in this case we’re not counting cards but observing postures, hand gestures, face expressions, head tilts, voice tones, breathing patterns, feet angles, blinking rates, you name it. Yes, it can be overwhelming but I’ll give you the exact ‘order’ in another article.

The principle is the same: the more factors you observe, the more information you have, and the sharper and more accurate your body language assessments will be.

I hope that the ‘body language is a pseudoscience’ horde understood this. Because yes, we’re using a statistical approach to reading human behavior. And I’m pretty sure statistical approaches are still approved by the scientific community to do, you know, science stuff.

With this approach to people reading, you’re gonna win many more times. Granted, this will always be more complex than just counting cards and hitting or standing, but on the other hand, definitely more fun.

This journey is like a Zelda game. We’ll unlock treasure chests progressively, cramming our inventory with all sorts of items and weapons; and every single one of these ‘reading skills’ we uncover raises our Decoding XP. I’d call it DP, but better not. Bad idea.

So, no, there’s no ‘The one facial feature or gesture to read them all’ that allows you to know if someone is lying. In fact, that’s one of the main gripes of the Body Language Deniers. You’ll see headlines like “STUDY: FACIAL EXPRESSIONS CAN’T PROVE IF SOMEONE IS LYING”, and you wonder why sites like Business Insider and Buzzfeed haven’t gone the way of Geocities. Because that statement is like saying “STUDY: EATING ONLY CHICKEN NUGGETS WILL MAKE YOU A YOUTUBE ESSAY”

Because it’s a non-argument. Body language reading has never been about ‘this ONE signal’.

No, you can’t guess behavior from just facial expressions. Or voice tone alone. Or the shape of someone’s bellybutton. You need to account for a number of other factors, including (shocking news!) what people say, which is obviously not nonverbal communication, but it’s part of the whole package.

Now, pretty much the same with Blackjack, you’re not going to ‘win’ every single hand you’re dealt, because…

Sometimes you’re going to get it wrong.

When it comes to deciphering body language, you’re going to mess up sometimes, no matter how many factors you read. And that’s ok! You need to give yourself permission to fail, even if you’re years or decades into this. You’ll never be 100% sure, but a 80% is a good deal in many, many scenarios.

And I haven’t mentioned one critical point: We’ve been talking only about ‘passive’ observation. As in, you’re detached of the event itself, or you can’t influence it in any way, like analyzing a video. But if you are reading a person who you’re talking to, this changes dramatically: because you can assess their reactions to your questions and statements, and this can take your accuracy well over 90% in a few turns.

(That is, if you know how to ask the right questions, which I’ll address in a future post)

That’s why we need to talk about critical thinking as well, in order to figure out people’s behavior. Because it’s not only observing, but elaborating hypotheses of where their behavior comes from, and what are their intentions, and how involved are you in those plans.

There’s no “Let’s use this one simple trick” No, that doesn’t work like that. If you use ONE simple trick, that simple trick will most likely fail 50% of the time. But if you add 10 or 20 ingredients to your behavior analysis soup, your assessments will only be richer and smack dab in the middle.

So, this is how body language reading works! Like card counting in blackjack. Sometimes you will get it wrong, especially if you use few or just a handful of tools, or you’ve counted just a few cards or played a few hands. But the more tools you use, the more tools you learn and the better your readings will be.

If you want a guide that includes all these tips and more to help you learn body language reading progressively, I suggest you grab a copy of my book “Body Language in 40 Days” here: https://www.amazon.com/Body-Language-Days-Step-Step/dp/B0991C7ZPN/

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús Enrique Rosas

The Body Language Guy.

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“All of you, relax. This is a matter of inconvenient timing. That’s all. Police action was inevitable. And as it happens… necessary. So let them fumble about outside, and stay calm. This is simply the beginning.”

“Die Hard” is IMHO the greatest Christmas movie of all time (followed closely by “Home Alone”, of course), and I can’t help but consider it one of my favorite movies ever. I’ve lost count the times I’ve watched it, and I was already a Bruce Willis fan from his work on Moonlighting when I saw this masterpiece for the first time.

But despite epic lines such as “Welcome to the party, pal!”, or “Yipee kay-ay, Motherf***!”, the piece of acting that somehow got imprinted in my subconscious with the most force is Alan Rickman’s nonchalant reaction to the police force finally arriving at Nakatomi plaza.

He tells his henchmen to relax. This is just ‘inconvenient timing’, which means that he was expecting it at some point or another. It was inevitable; it just came too soon. What’s more, it was… necessary. That was only the beginning of the plan.

It’s a given that the first dozen times I watched Die Hard I couldn’t tell what was so strong about that instant, those short 15 seconds of impeccable acting as Hans Gruber.

Then it dawned on me: He was acting (no pun intended), as if the police arriving was just part of his plan. This couldn’t be further from the truth, since he took extreme measures to make sure that nobody outside the Nakatomi Plaza found out what was going out – officer McClane’s interruption of his master plan is what made the cops arrive.

So, in fact, if everything had gone to plan, they could have left with the bonds and reduced the building (and the hostages) to a mound of rubble (What were the explosives for, after all?)

As in any movie script, the more you look at it, the more convoluted it sounds, so a bit of suspension of disbelief is always helpful. But my point is that Hans Gruber’s body language and behavior reacting to the cops arriving and spoiling their heist left a lasting impression on me.

After two dozen views of the movie and well into adulthood, every time I suffered any kind of setback in my life, I just recalled the character’s reaction and said to myself,

“This is a matter of inconvenient timing. That’s all. This is still part of the plan”

I added that last part to be succinct and to the point. I treated setbacks as inevitable, even part of a master scheme that I had devised well in advance. That primed my mind into looking at any event as an advantage. As if the universe was working not only in my favor, but exactly how I expected it to function. Every piece falling on its place, as I predicted.

Of course, seen from a super rational perspective, this attitude was foolish. Nobody can predict every outcome to a T. Another favorite villainy character, the Joker, is known for his meticulous planning of events. Heath Ledger’s Joker takes this to the extreme, but hey, it’s fun. Unrealistic, but fun.

But who says I can’t hypnotize myself into believing “everything is going according to my plan”? Even if I know for a fact that this is myself manipulating my perspective of events… it works. It has always worked. Some times I have messed things up worse than others, and sometimes I’ve acted even against my own interests (Hey, I’m human, after all!), but I regret nothing.

Always a paradox pops up: If I relived my life with what I now know, would I make the same mistakes? Hardly. But how did I get to this point in my life? Making those mistakes. So, making mistakes made me (mostly) mistake-proof.

Maybe it was part of the plan all along, for real?

I really don’t know. What I do know is that Alan Rickman’s accent is absurdly powerful and you bet that I’ll be using it every time things seem to go south.

Much Love and Bliss,

Jesús.

The Body Language Guy