Body language secrets to read any room in 30 seconds

For millennia, humans survived by reading non-verbal cues. Evolutionary psychologists describe our brains as “stone-age minds”, wired to solve the daily challenges faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. We detected threats, assessed safety and security, and read unspoken language. But somewhere along the way, societal expectations and etiquette have encouraged us to ignore what we intuitively know. We’ve learnt to override our natural ability to read non-verbal cues, or even worse, we’ve stopped looking altogether.

Think about your last tense moment in a meeting. The signals were there; crossed arms, a blocked posture, hesitation before someone said “yes”. You might have noticed these signals, but did you actually trust what you saw?

My crash course in getting it wrong (then right)

Early in my speaking career, an agent received a last-minute request for a cruise comedian. Without hesitation, I said yes. Floating stage, captive audience… What could go wrong? Everything. I launched into my set about social media to an elderly audience who didn’t use Facebook. Material that had Melbourne audiences in fits of laughter fell into a dark void. The signals were screaming at me: arms crossed, bodies turned away, feet pointed towards exits. One woman angled herself away mid-joke and a man checked his watch – twice. But I kept pushing through, as if the audience didn’t exist.

Then came the New York experience. My flight into New Jersey had been chaos. A passenger named Harvey was trying to jam an oversized bag into an overflowing overhead compartment, blocking the entire aisle while passengers yelled and complained. It was pandemonium… and pure comedy. That night, at the famous NYC club Carolines on Broadway near Times Square, I scanned the room from backstage. They were locals, travellers, and people who had lived their own version of aeroplane disasters. I scrapped my polished set and delivered fresh material about the chaos I had just survived.

When I opened with, “So I just flew into Newark, New Jersey, and it… was… insane…” the room exploded. Eyes lit up with recognition. The audience smiled and leaned in, their shoulders relaxed. One woman in the front row even snorted as I re-enacted Harvey’s bag-cramming. The difference had nothing to do with my skill level. I finally learnt to read the room instead of performing blind. Professor Emeritus of Psychology Albert Mehrabian’s research revealed that when we communicate emotion and meaning, 7% comes from the spoken word. The other 93% comes from body language (55%) and tone of voice (38%). On that cruise ship, I was zoned in on my jokes – the 7% – while ignoring the 93% screaming at me to stop. Now, at every event, and in every meeting, I scan:

1. Body Language and positioning: Are they leaning in or pulling back? Are feet pointed towards you, or towards the exit? Are arms open or crossed? Our body always tells the truth.
2. Eyes and engagement: Are their eyes focused or glazed over? Watch for the Duchenne smile; a real smile that lifts your cheeks and creates crow’s feet wrinkles at the corners of your eyes. A fake smile only moves your mouth. When someone says “I love this idea” with a mouth-only smile, they’re being polite.
3. Energy in the room: Engaged silence has an anticipatory weight – people are thinking, processing, wondering. A room genuinely considering your idea leans forward and maintains soft eye contact. But resistant silence feels stagnant.
4. Silence and pauses: The pause before someone answers… The sigh when you mention a deadline … Silence is filled with information. Listening to silence often tells us what words won’t.

Psychologist Paul Ekman discovered seven universal micro-expressions that flash across our face in 1/25th of a second: anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. These immediate emotional responses reveal our true reactions before our conscious mind can control what we say. Mastering micro-expressions requires specialised training, but here’s what you can do: notice the mismatch. Watch for when a person’s face doesn’t align with their words. You don’t need to name the emotion; just catch the contradiction. That flicker is an important signal. Don’t ignore it.

In your next meeting, spend the first 30 seconds just observing. Scan the room. Notice the body language, the energy, and the pauses before responses. When you observe differently, you see differently. And when you see differently, you communicate differently. That changes everything.