How do you read people? Go with your gut.

What more is there?  Body language.  It’s said that at least 80% of what people say is through body language.  And in fact, people intuitively read body language.  They may not be conscious of it.

If someone is assertive, their posture is straight, chest out, shoulders back, head craned like a flamingo.

What if someone slumps, hesitates to look you in the eye, crosses their arms, and even angles their body away?  Could be signs of deception, signs of low self worth or esteem.  With everything remaining the same, but you add the characteristics of someone who’s assertive, then we can assume that person simply doesn’t find you attractive.  Or they can be looking for someone and just doesn’t see you.  Or they may be angry because someone stood them up.

But when reading people, I tend to go with my gut.  I do this with women.  Friends of mine have tried to set me up on blind dates.  The problem with that is within the first minute I can tell whether I have a connection with the woman or not.  And I’m old enough to realize the difference between lust and like.  Lust for men is pretty obvious.  Let’s just say feelings toward the woman I’m in lust for don’t originate anywhere within my chest.  And my eyes will most likely be focused on hers.

It sucks when I don’t feel a connection.  Cuz I gots to talks to her.  Kinda like talking to a blank wall.  I’m sure it’s the same for her.

Most people can’t seem to read people.  Why is that?  Have they lost that special power?  Can anyone read people?  First off, any human can read another human, unless said human doesn’t want to be read.  And you can lose that power by mistrust.  Whose trust?

Going with your gut means that you have to trust yourself.  Do you?  Well…do you need or ask others for their approval or opinion?  Read my post onGo with your gut. It’ll give you an example of how I seeked approval outside of myself.

The way to practice this is by people watching.  Sit in a mall.  As a person walks by, let your mind create a story.  And trust that it’s true, no matter how strange.  If you want to take a step further, go up and talk to them.  See how close your story came.

A better way of doing this is bring a friend.  My best friend and I used to do this a lot.  Most of the time we came up with the same story.  If our stories didn’t match, then we’d discuss why we read what we read.

Writing the emotions of different characters can take the form of telling:  He’s mad.  It can take the form of action:  He slammed his cup down.  It can take the form of body language:  She shoved him off and turned away.  Or it can take the form of dialogue:  “Get off me!”

Oooh.  Too much information.

Actors people watch a lot.  When I studied acting, I spent a lot of time people watching.  Now, I use that resource in my writing.  Because if you communicate emotion through just one way–telling, action, body language, dialogue–it can get boring.  Combining different ways allows for character development and variety.

Most important of all, trust yourself.  As kids, parents tell us ‘No’, ‘Do this’, ‘Do that’.  As a result, we’ve become reliant on others.  Rely on yourself, open your mind, and let the stories come about.  You may be surprised.

If you’ve read my bio, you’ll know that I’ve taught martial arts/sexual assault prevention for 16 years.  More than half of the people I taught were kids of all ages.  Eventually, I came to disagree with the one size fits all treatment way of teaching.  The problem comes from looking at a group class and not see the individuals.  Soon I’d started my business of teaching privately, focusing on the individual.

Kids represent an interesting puzzle.  They’re very much like adults.  They think about adult things, they try and act on adult decisions, but many times they don’t have the wisdom or knowledge on how to go about it.  This is where the parent is essential.  Here’s what I’ve learned from teaching hundreds upon hundreds of kids:

1. Always listen.
   • Specifically listen for words that’ll indicate whether they need your help or not.  Sometimes kids, just like adults, need to let go of the thousands of thoughts that go through their minds.
   • If you can’t read whether they need help or not, then ask them.
2. Listen without judgment.
   • Parents always complain to me about their kids losing their trust.  I think it’s even worse to lose the trust of your child.  Lose the trust of your child, you lose the ability to truly help.
   • If your child has done drugs, had sex, drank alcohol, it may come down to a couple of things.
     • They’re dealing with issues of emptiness, loneliness, nonacceptance, isolation, etc.  Some form of connection has been lost.  It’s the reason why kids of divorced parents tend to succumb to things like drugs, or kids join gangs, or kids seeking sex to feel that lost connection.
     • They’re being forced to do something they don’t want to do.  The source of this could be a parent forcing them to do well in school, molestation of some kind, nagging  adults – parents, coach, teacher, bullying.  One thing that most parents or adults realize is that kids know what they want and don’t.  That doesn’t mean you don’t guide them to do well in school, or go to sleep at a reasonable hour, or talk to them about sex, drugs, alcohol.  But decisions on social activities, academic activities, family activities should be a dialogue between parent and child.
3. Ask questions.
   • Whether they’ve threw up all their problems, or keep quiet, ask questions.  Even if they don’t say anything, it will open up lines of communication.  But please ask questions on what they’ve talked about first.  Once and if they’ve answered those, then a door may be opened for you to ask other questions that may concern you.
   • If they ask you what you think or what to do, turn the question around and ask them.  This is a really great way of finding out how mature your child is.  Many times I’ve found that my client knew what to do, but didn’t know if it was correct.  If they’re solution to their issue made sense, I’d congratulate them for coming up with it, then I’d agree.
   • Follow up with them to see if they’ve followed through.  Again, listen, don’t judge, ask questions, and guide them.
4. If your kids don’t have any serious issues like having sex too early, use of drugs, etc, then you’ve got a great kid.  Again, most of the parents I work with don’t count their blessings.  They focus on what their kids don’t have.  “They got a B instead of an A.”  So what?  They’re healthy, happy, and in your life.  Remember, you wanted to have kids.
5. Last tip, view your kids as adults.  They may not be 18, but their core characteristics will remain for the rest of their lives.  There was a study that stated once a child is three years old, their personality had been developed and ingrained.
   • This brings up an important point.  Start discipline early.  Too many times I’ve seen spoiled children run over their parents.

The San Francisco Writer’s Conference was my first writer’s conference. I didn’t know how things worked, but the conference was held over three days full of lectures. The crappy thing about it was several lectures were going on within each hour session. So I had to make a decision on which lecture to attend. Because this was my first conference, I really wanted to focus on the business aspect of publishing.

Over the next week or so, I’m going to post a lecture for you to listen everyday. So come back and check on what I’ve uploaded. Each one is about 45 minutes long, giving the attendees enough time to go to the next lecture.

The first one I’m going to upload is a lecture by best selling suspense romance novelist Brenda Novak. Her trilogy, The Last Stand: Trust Me, Stop Me, Watch Me, has become New York Time Bestsellers. She talks about strategies she’s used to make her more visible and credible before her first book was published.

Please feel free to download these. I apologize for the quality of the audio, but there was a lot of ambient noise. The format of the file is .caf, but you should be able to play them using Windows Media Player or Quicktime. Tell me what you think, and come back as I will upload others.

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What you can expect in future audio uploads from the conference:

Key Note speeches from best selling authors

Body Language

How to write plot summaries

Self-publishing

Branding tactics

Q&A with Agent panels for both fiction and non-fiction

Lecture from a top agent, Donal Maass