Snap. Patti Wood

time, if Barb had a hard truth to tell Janet about something she’d done wrong or could have done better, Barb wouldn’t hesitate but would tell it to her straight. Barb’s voice, face, and words would be earnest, and Janet would never feel judged. Whatever problem she experienced, she felt better for having shared it with Barb.

      The most important factor in assessing others is credibility. Do you feel at ease in their presence? Are they themselves and fully present and attentive? When a person has credibility, she is who she says she is, with no facade. You can trust her. In fact, the words credit and credibility have the same root — credo, which means, “I trust or believe.” When someone is authentic, you recognize this in both her facial expressions and her actions. It really comes down to evolution: we are hardwired to pick up on credibility. In forming a first impression, the basic survival instinct says, “Can I trust this person? Can I feel safe in his presence? Is he going to pull out a knife? No, I can believe that what I’m seeing is the real thing.”

      Before I teach the four factors of a first impression, I survey the audience, asking, “What is the first thing you notice when you meet somebody?” Remarkably, in thousands of surveys, of audience after audience, year after year, I get the same answers. People either specify credibility or list trustworthiness, authenticity, honesty, or integrity — all of which make up credibility.

      Your True North

      Have you ever met someone who made you immediately feel safe and at ease in his presence? Do you know someone you can absolutely trust? The exercise “True North: Recognizing Credibility,” which appears later in this chapter, will help you recognize credibility. In my programs, when audiences complete the exercise and talk about their “True North people,” who are credible, their voices grow warm — whether they are describing their mothers, new neighbors, CEOs, high school teachers, best friends, or new bosses. I listen and watch their nonverbal behavior as they pause with wonder and their bodies unfold. Their breathing deepens, moving from high in the chests to the bellies. If they are excited, they are also at ease and in general seem calm. And they always smile. They are reexperiencing what it feels like to be with a credible person.

      One of the most important insights about credibility is that, when you are with someone who has it, you feel it in your body. Under stress our limbic system creates the freeze-flight-fight-or-faint response, but when we are in the presence of a True North person we feel the opposite of stressed. We feel not only safe but fully alive. And when you give others a True North impression, you feel comfortable and fully alive. Your body loves authenticity. If you try too hard to be someone you aren’t, it exhausts you. If you are not behaving with integrity when you meet someone, even a short conversation can drain the life out of you.

      Some people think it takes time to discover whether a person is credible. Time can certainly allow someone to build trust. But when a person behaves as his authentic self, as exactly who he is, no facade, you immediately develop a visceral feeling about him in his presence. And there’s something else interesting about this: a credible person is credible to everybody. Other people see him the same way you do. Credibility is consistent and universal.¹

      When I first met John, he was a senior vice president of marketing at BMG, the entertainment conglomerate. I was struck by his credibility, and over the years this first impression proved accurate. He would take a call from the head of Disney’s movie division, talk to an intern who came into his office, take a call from an überfamous musician, take a call from his boss, and turn to me, his friend, and use the same upbeat, happy voice. He is consistently himself with everyone; he gives each person his full attention while interacting with him or her; his gestures, the corners of his mouth, his voice, and his posture go “up” with enthusiasm; and the palms of his hands open wide as he talks, whether he is with his son, a musical star, or the waiter in a restaurant. He makes everyone instantly feel good. He is never “on” for important people and “off” while talking to others.

      There are three classic components of credibility: competence, trustworthiness, and dynamism.² You’ll find David K. Berlo and James B. Lemert’s three components in the stories about first impressions that I’ve discussed so far:

      • Competence is obvious in the knowledge and expertise expressed by the manager Barbara in her communications.

      • Trustworthiness is evident in the sense of ease and safety engendered by the high-level executive Ron, in the honesty and sincerity of Barb, and in the warmth that John at BMG conveys to everyone he meets.

      • Dynamism — a person’s energy and confidence — is clear in John’s consistent nonverbal behavior (which includes his energetic voice, his body language that moves and stays “up,” and his open heart and palm windows) with everyone he talks to or meets.

      You don’t typically meet someone and say,“Hi, I’m credible.” Rather, nonverbal communication — your facial expression, the quality of your attention, your expression of welcoming openness — is vital in demonstrating competence, trustworthiness, and dynamism in a first impression.

      Seven Ways to Lose Credibility

      I am often asked to determine the credibility of people in the media. For the History Channel special The Secrets of Body Language, which airs periodically, I was asked to focus on some famous — or infamous — moments in recent history. Here are some examples from that special and from other classic loss-of-credibility moments (specific cues that hint people may be lying) that I have analyzed and that show the power of nonverbal cues to change, in a snap, the impression a person gives. You can do things that make people doubt the veracity of a particular comment you are making and affect your snap only in that moment, or you might have a more lasting impact.

      The Eyes Have It

      The most noticeable nonverbal behavior affecting credibility is eye contact. Studies find that maintaining a steady gaze while communicating promotes credibility — especially the speaker’s trustworthiness and competence — and that avoiding eye contact undermines credibility.

      You may recall that former vice president Dick Cheney accidentally shot his friend Harry Wittington while on a quail shoot. In a televised interview four days after the incident, the vice president consistently looked down and to the right while making his main statement about the incident. For many observers, his credibility plummeted when he did so. It further eroded when he spent his interview time talking about his pain, calling the day one of the worst of his life, instead of recognizing it as likely one of the worst days ever for his injured friend.

      • A sports star is asked if he has used performance-enhancing steroids. He pulls his feet under the chair, and each time he replies, he gives a fluttered blink and the left side of his face lifts up in a smirk.

      • In a historical State of the Union address, the president smirks twenty times, so that the two sides of his face are mismatched. He makes tongue thrusts (brief movements of the tongue out of the mouth) more than fifty times as he talks about education and health care, and even at the end of the speech, when he says, “the United States of America.”

      • In a 2011 interview, everything Charlie Sheen said was overridden by the effect of his glazed eyes, disheveled hair and clothing, and manic gestures. And, guess what: he smirked — a lot.

      • In the White House press conference during which Bill Clinton said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky,” he touched his nose approximately every four minutes. He also paused oddly, in relation to his normal speech pattern, and he gestured out of sync with his words, using a finger that was crooked, not straight.

      • When Oprah Winfrey asked Jay Leno about his feelings toward Conan O’Brien, he said, “I have no hard feelings at all.” But as he said this, Leno frowned, moved an arm across the center of his body, shielding his heart, and rubbed his ear.

      • A judge in a well-known reality competition show rolled his eyes, smirked, and told one contestant, “You were great,” while looking away. (Okay, maybe that made him an interesting judge to watch.)

      • A presidential candidate said, “I love the United