Social Engineering, 2nd Edition

8I Can See What You Didn't Say

It is our responsibility to learn to become emotionally intelligent. These are skills, they're not easy, nature didn't give them to us—we have to learn them.

—DR. PAUL EKMAN

When I wrote my first book, Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking (Wiley, 2010), I was relatively new to the world of nonverbals. But I had started a relationship with Dr. Paul Ekman and learned from him as my mentor. Dr. Paul Ekman started his journey to understand nonverbals in the late 1950s, and for the last 60-plus years he has been leading the field of research into nonverbal communications.

Dr. Ekman helped me refine not only my work, but also how I communicated. That led to my second book, Unmasking the Social Engineer: The Human Element of Security (Wiley, 2014), which delves deep into facial expressions, body language, hand gestures, and every aspect of nonverbals. I even cover the part of nonverbal communication you don't see: the hijacking of the amygdala.

If you followed, read, or listened to any of my work before, it is probably not too hard to believe that when it comes to Dr. Ekman, I pretty much react like what you see in Figure 8-1 when I am around him.

Figure 8-1 What most people imagine I do when I see Dr. Ekman (not far from the truth).

PHOTO SOURCE: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elvis_Presley_-_TV_Radio_Mirror,_March_1957_01.jpg ...