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How to Be Interesting Without Saying a Word

How come a few rare people feel interesting yet they seem to do nothing? These people didn’t open their mouth to spark this tickle of curiosity. There is a list of characteristics about these people that I have learned to cultivate in myself that I’m going to share with you in this article – so you can be more interesting without having to say a word.

There are two aspects to communication: verbal and nonverbal communication. These interesting people do not say a word to make you curious about them so their interesting characteristics come from good nonverbal communication, narrowly known as body language. Good nonverbal communication makes you charming, and interesting.

Many lies and misleading information exist about body language’s impact on communication. One such example comes from Albert Mehrabian, a psychologist at the University of California in Los Angeles, who created the “7%-38%-55% Rule” – a communication rule that defines what factors give our words meaning. The rule says 7% of meaning is in the spoken words, 38% of meaning is in how we say the words, and 55% of meaning is in facial expressions. As I’ve revealed in the 15 greatest communication myths, this communication rule cannot be applied to all situations, as Mehrabian specifically says this rule applies only when someone discusses their likes and dislikes. Mehrabian does, however, emphasize that body language is a strong influence in communication.

Want to look attractive? Your body language has the power to communicate attractiveness. If you want to appear lazy, boring, or unattractive, slouch over with an expressionless face and others will judge you as lazy, boring, or unattractive. Your body language can communicate a lot – and in our case, how to be interesting.

I’ve learned three body language tricks to make myself look more interesting. These techniques are simple, but require a bit of practice for them to become second-nature. Eventually, people will see you as interesting and charismatic. Here are the three most powerful nonverbal skills you can put on yourself that make you more interesting, attractive, and approachable like never before with ease:

1. Gooey Eyes

As I write this article, it’s ironic that I’m listening to a song called “Open Your Eyes” by Snow Patrol while the next song to be played is “Iris” by Goo Goo Dolls. Eyes have always been important to humans. Without eyes, human communication relies on sounds. Communication is made or destroyed with eye contact.

Your understanding of good eye contact is probably to ensure you keep looking at the person, but there are eye contact techniques, like the gooey eyes trick, you can use to make yourself more interesting without having to say a word. The other person will see your great eye contact and instantly infer from your body language that you are no ordinary person. Excellent eye contact gives the message that you are interesting.

Gooey eyes has you momentarily increase eye contact with the person you want to be perceived by as being more interesting. It is a slow, deliberate movement to make people like you. The imagery you want to have – and where it gets its name from – is visualizing your eye contact with the person like a sticky toffee being peeled off a surface. Look at the person as per normal, but keep the eye contact going a little longer than normal as you smile. Right before you turn your head down, to the side, or to someone else’s eyes to break the eye contact, maintain eye contact a little longer by peeling your gooey eyes off the person as you turn your head. Peel your eyes off the person like a sticky toffee lifted from the surface it’s stuck on.

Peel your eyes off the person like a sticky toffee lifted from the surface.

Gooey eyes makes you interesting because your head shifts somewhere else, but your eyes momentarily focus on the person. It shows the person you’re confident enough to make strong contact, a dominant trait, as you continue whatever you do. The technique also communicates that you see a trait in the person that other people overlook. You go to break eye contact yet continue to visually absorb them because they interest you.

Gooey eyes contain several different levels of intensity depending on the person and the situation. Women to women and men to women can generally have strong eye contact. When someone makes strong eye contact with a woman in a conversation, their conversational intimacy heightens. The woman instantly feels more interested in the person.

Women interact with others to feel intimacy and strong eye contact is associated with intimacy. Note the time women spend on the phone. They can talk for hours about what happened in one day. Now think how long a man-to-man phone call takes. We punch in the numbers and are off the phone within one-minute. I’ve had so many man-to-man calls that have lasted less than 30 seconds. We are objective-based.

As a guy, you can be cuter to a woman you like by holding eye contact until she loses eye contact with you. This technique displays explosive amounts of confidence – a very hot trait to women. Make strong eye contact in addition to applying the gooey eyes technique as you look away. Women love slow, meaningful body language. When using these techniques, you better talk to her soon otherwise you will be seen as a creepy stalker.

Be careful with strong eye contact in cultures like Japan because it can be interpreted as threatening and aggressive. You can make strong eye contact without appearing aggressive in most cultures. You can be dominant without being domineering. If you’re a guy, aim to make eye contact about 70% of the time with another guy – and when you look away, visualize your eyes peeling off the guy like a sticky toffee. You won’t come off as aggressive or shy, but you will find a median that shows you are an interesting “someone”.

One last point I would like to make about gooey eyes is to avoid overusing the technique with a person. If you keep peeling your eyes off the person like a sticky toffee, you risk being seen as weird.

2. Illuminating Smile

Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence People says smiling is necessary to make friends, but how do we do it? Most of us know the influence of a good smile, yet many people don’t know how to smile well. You need to learn the “how” and not just the “what”.

A good smile is contagious because it makes the smiling person and witnesses feel good. Research has isolated a smile from other influencing variables to discover that seeing only a smile makes you feel better. Likewise, seeing a person frown makes you feel worse. It is a magical brain-to-brain connection that links humans in an almost mystical way. You can make people feel good, make yourself feel good, and make yourself look good by cultivating an illuminating smile.

Why do some people have a cold turkey smile that freezes a room’s emotional temperature? On the other hand, some people ignite your heart with a beautiful smile. How can you achieve an illuminating smile that lights up the room?

You can have great smile even if you were born with an ugly one. You also don’t need a beautiful face to carve a great smile. The face is comprised of muscles you simply control to develop an illuminating smile.

A cold turkey smile begins with the smiling person not feeling happy or excited. The incongruence shows in the facial muscles. An authentic smile shows when you feel positive emotions. Make yourself feel great to smile. It also helps to fabricate a smile by just smiling as research proves you feel better when you smile even if it is fake.

A cold turkey smile is simply an on and off switch, while an illuminating smile slowly increases in intensity until fully illuminated. I call this the “illuminating smile” because your smile is like a volume switch gradually turned to full power.

…your smile is like a volume switch gradually turned to full power.

To use the technique, “turn up” your smile after one second of good eye contact. Increase the dimming switch to gradually brighten your smile. Begin with a little smile, slowly increasing it over two seconds until it becomes a big smile. The initial eye contact to your largest smile totals approximately three seconds.

Practice smiling in front of a mirror. Make the initial eye contact and wait a second, then gradually increase your smile to illuminate the room. You will see how genuine and interesting your smile can become. (Note: Lock the door to the room in case someone sees you practicing your smile. It’s weird to see, but wonderful to do.)

An illuminating smile appears genuine because you do not instantly flick on your smile upon eye contact. You wait a second or two, begin smiling, then increase the size of your smile over two further seconds. (If you want more smiling techniques and further secrets based on facial muscles and psychological secrets to build a great smile, see my Big Talk program.)

3. Capitalizing Posture

An excellent posture rings a giant bell to everyone that you are an interesting “someone”. Women get instantly turned off from a guy if he holds himself poorly. A guy with an excellent posture switches all her right buttons and makes her interested. Likewise, a woman with good posture is hot.

I call this third technique a “capitalizing posture” for several reasons. Firstly, successful people use their assets better than an unsuccessful person. Posture is one of your greatest unspoken assets.

Posture is one of your greatest unspoken assets.

Secondly, a good posture is associated with being tall, high status, confidence, and power. A capitalizing posture is like buildings in a capital city. This does not mean you need to be an over-sized human to have good posture (like yours truly). A capitalizing posture has you focus on maintaining an upright position the best you can with ease.

It’s time to end a posture like The Leaning Tower of Pisa and reconstruct it into a strong, “Tower of Power” structure! There are several techniques you can use to grow your greatest body language asset. I’ve heard so many complex techniques to adjust your posture, but recently I discovered one amazingly simple technique that I wanted to keep secret.

What Do People Sense About You?

If you avoid eye contact, frown, or slouch, people may receive a different message to what you send. They may think you are anti-social, uninterested in starting a conversation, or rude if you have bad body language.

Body language techniques are not manipulative or deceptive; they help you send the right messages so people have a good feeling about you. People will judge you either way so learn how to better use your body language.

Here it is: all you do is lift your chest. That’s it! Your head will rise, your neck will straighten, your shoulders will drop back, and your back will straighten – all by lifting your chest! This is a capitalizing posture.

If you ever feel compressed in the day (like you might be now as you sit at the computer reading this article) lift your chest like Tarzan. Take on the capitalizing posture. While I recommend you breathe through your stomach (technically you can’t because your lungs aren’t there, but your stomach should expand), I want you to take a deep breath into the top of your lungs to lift your chest and stretch your posture into a taller position.

Try the capitalizing posture technique right now. You can do it on your computer chair. It only takes one second to do. You’ll feel more special and confident just by practicing the technique.

Practice the gooey eyes, illuminating smile, and capitalizing posture techniques in front of a mirror or in a conversation to see for yourself how these three body language adjustments instantly transform you into a more interesting person without having to say a word.

(Discover 14 other simple adjustments you can make to your body language that get people attracted to you by checking out my Big Talk program.)

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Joshua Uebergang aka "Tower of Power"

Joshua Uebergang, aka "Tower of Power", teaches social skills to help shy guys build friends and influence people. Visit his blog and sign-up free to get communication techniques, relationship-boosting strategies, and life-building tips by email, along with blog updates, and more! Go now to https://www.towerofpower.com.au/free/

Comments

Jennifer

What a great article. Not only can I now apply it to my interactions, I can now analysis why I find some people too aggressive, and nonverbally respond the way I want to. Really insightful, thanks so much!!!

Nisha

😯 Gooey Eyes
😆 Illuminating smile
❗ Erect posture

VIOLA’ ! lol

Poula

When I start reading your article, I thought for a while that it will be boarding like all other articles that I previously read, and could not practice any one of them in my social life. They are easy to read but difficult to apply. While I was reading your article, I found it becomes more interesting and I could not stop reading it. Then, I found myself practicing the smile technique, and then I start to increase my smile. Subsequently, I got a mirror and start to smile in front of it, and then I start to talk to myself and say “am I crazy to smile to a mirror”. Then, I discovered that I have a very attractive smile. I wonder why I was not using this smile often with my husband and kids. Now, I admit that I have a very nice, easy and free tool to gain the heart of people and I don’t use it frequently. I would like to tell you that your article is very good and the material is easy to understand, I also like the way you provided the material in a smart, smooth and interesting way. Thank you very much.

Eugenie

The great thing about this article is the focus on – body posture. I was reading this article, slouched in front of my computer and this chest lift, left me feeling invigorated and i guess signaled to others too that i was ready for challenges, and not bored with routine mundane work at office. Thanks Joshua for penning this technique which we take for granted.

Sumi

😀 Great advice and I must say to all you guys. Please remember that a smile may just save someone else’s life. You never know when somebody really needs a friend but doesn’t admit it. With your warm illuminating smile, you could open up their hearts and make them feel comfortable communicating with you. Life is all about learning and enjoying the greatness of each other. So whether we use the 😆 method or the :mrgreen: we must do it sincerely and whole heartedly. Thank you for this piece of art and please keep sending us more. This inspires me to go out there and transpire everything that I have read today. A job well done!!!

Reward

Dear Joshua,

This is magical.

Just making the illuminating smile has made me feel so good and the capitalizing posture, “lifting the chest up” does wonders.

I rate this article the best of all your articles I have read. Thanks

Lord M

Joshua, you seem to be a good researcher. With your tips I think I’ll sell my image better than ever and make major breakthroughs in life. Thanks a million. I promise to make my very humble contribution in making your research get going as soon as I lay my hands on the money. May you live long Joshua.

Tawe

That was great. I grew up as a sad faced youth and always felt jealous when my friends were liked over me. Reading through this article, I will make a dramatic turn around.

Thank you.

Rehan

The best part about this article is that you get to realize the power and qualities of the various parts of your body – though Josh touched three, they certainly open your eyes towards being able to respect what we have been born with…that’s what I felt.

Kavita

The article was great – especially the title because it was so catchy, but of course my eyes were glued to the article to the end. The way you put it up is appreciable. In simple language you really made me think for a while how to be interesting without saying a word.

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Joeann

You are really great Josh for sharing articles as good as this, you really help me improve all my aspects of life… this really not a waste… more power to you God bless always.

Matt

Hey, great site. Im a 27 year old male working to overcome lifelong shyness and low self esteem. I have found several useful tips on your site. Thanks for sharing.

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