Toxic People: Decontaminate Difficult People at Work Without Using Weapons or Duct Tape Read Free Page B

of an eye. The trick is for you to see it on other people.
    “Almost everyone—99 percent of those we’ve tested in about 10,000 people—won’t see the microexpressions,” says Ekman. “But it can be taught.”
    In fact, in less than an hour, the average person can learn to see microexpressions. Develop this skill and you will have a powerful tool for interacting with others. Google Microexpressions for more information.
    LOOK FOR CONTRADICTIONS
    Do their words match their facial expressions and their postures?
    Paying attention will help you to identify contradictions and incongruities. Watch and listen carefully to a Toxic Person.
    Your tendency is to play the mental terrorism game and think about all the ways you are going to get back at them.
    Sometimes when people are falsely saying, “Yes, she ’s the one who lied,” they will, without knowing it, make a slight head shake “no.” That subtle gesture contradicts what they’re saying in words.
    These contradictions, explains Ekman, can be between the voice and the words, the gesture and the voice, the gesture and the words, or the facial expression and the words. When you see a contradiction, watch out. Something isn’t quite adding up. They could be lying.
    NOTICE A SENSE OF UNEASE
    You can see untruthful people beginning to squirm. Watch their breathing. Are their shoulders moving up and down more than usual? If so, they are breathing shallowly, probably because of nervousness. Licking the lips too much, fidgeting, sweating, shifting from foot to foot, all can be signs of anxiety and uneasiness. You have to pay attention to the other person, not yourself!
    Listen for vocal interjections. Too many “um’s,” “uh’s,” or “you know’s” can be indicators that they are searching for more words to cover up their lies.
    BEWARE OF TOO MUCH DETAIL
    You have heard children include extra detail to cover their tracks and lies. Adults also do this when lying, but they are much more clever about it. Wordiness may be a behavioral and vocal trait, though, so beware of jumping to conclusions. In most cases, however, it is not and is used when people want to fill the airspace for their own reasons. Too much detail could mean they’ve put a lot of thought into how they’re going to get out of a situation and they’ve constructed a complicated lie as a solution.
    DON’T IGNORE THE TRUTH
    When the environment is toxic, you must be aware of when someone is telling the truth . Experience and the negative frames of reference can begin to jaundice you into thinking there is no truth.
    While it sounds contradictory, finding the truth buried under a lie can sometimes help reveal the answer to an important question: Why is a person lying?
    These 10 truth tips all help detect deception. What they don’t do is tell you why a person is lying and what the lie means.
    This is where your experience and training in human behavior will help you understand if emotions are concealed. When you think someone is lying, you have to either know the person well enough to understand why they might lie, or be a people expert.
    Learn to speed-read people, their expressions, and their approaches.
    Make it more about them and less about you. I believe that in today’s society most people are so focused on themselves that they don’t function well in any situation, especially difficult ones.
    Extra Tip: Be Trusting
    The dictionary defines trust as confidence in and reliance on good qualities, especially fairness, truth, honor, or ability.
    Is this you 100 percent of the time? We have the responsibility to take good care of ourselves and others. In general, we have a choice about which stance we take in life. Choose suspicion, and life is not going to be particularly pleasant, but we won’t be misled very often. If we take a trusting stance, life is going to be a lot more pleasant, but sometimes we are going to be taken in.
    My mom took the suspicion route and my dad took the trusting