Deception Tip 69 – Become Silent – How To Detect Deception

Hello and welcome to the deception tips podcast where you will learn amazing cues to detect deceit that will help you read people like never before. I’m your host Spencer Coffman, let’s get started.

Welcome to episode 69 of the Deception Tips podcast. We’re on a mission to read people and detect deception so that we can spot lies and not be hurt by them, you will really know exactly what every body is really saying. This goes deeper than telling whether or not someone is lying, it also goes towards caring more about other people.

When you can understand what they’re really thinking, what they’re really feeling, and what they really want, you can cater to that or you can help them out with that because you know the truth. 

You understand what’s going on inside their mind and you know what can be done in order to give them that even if they aren’t really saying what they want because they’re trying to be polite.

They don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, they don’t think that it’s appropriate, whatever the case may be, you’re going to know and that’s only because you’ve been learning how to read people and understand body language. So, last time we spoke of a deception tip that was with the breathing and different patterns of breathing.

We talked about someone can be breathing regularly and then their lungs are forcibly contracted or it’s as if they were forcibly contracted and they exhale right away, forcing the exhale. 

That’s almost like the wind gets knocked out of them or sucked out of them and this occurs due to anxiety or tension and can be like a panic attack. It’s not hyperventilating but it’s breathing normally and then all of a sudden, the exhale really quickly.

We’ve spoken of a number of different breathing tips or breathing pattern tips, we had that one and then we talked of one where they were breathing pretty regularly then all of a sudden, they started to hyperventilate and breathe rapidly. So, they were taking some shallow breaths then a long, deep breath, that was in episode 54 with several shallow breaths and then a longer, deep breath.

We’ve also said different things like with pursed lips in episode 46, that they would be breathing and then exhale through a long, slow exhale to pacify the tension in telling a lie. That was when they would blow them up like a pufferfish, they blow up their cheeks a little bit and then exhale slowly, so breathing is a big part of lying.

Remember the joke that in order to lie you have to be breathing, well, that is true because if you were dead then you wouldn’t be breathing and obviously you probably wouldn’t be lying unless you’re lying down. The point is that breathing goes hand-in-hand with lying, even if someone is not talking, they can still give away the lie with their breathing.

Remember we had guessing answers in episode 61 and then we also had a different episode of suggesting answers where they would suggest different answers or guess different answers. Then watch whether or not the liar would hold their breath or whether they would stop breathing or show that surprise. That was a nonverbal response, so that’s something that they would do if the liar isn’t talking.

They would try to guess those answers or suggest those answers and see what the liar will do. Suggesting answers was back in episode 21, I encourage you to review all of them because they are some great tips and some good information on whether you have a cooperating suspect or a non-cooperating suspect. In both circumstances, you can still get the truth out by watching their body language.

So, today we are going to switch gears to another topic, one that we have mentioned before, we talked about it a long time ago back in episode 13. So, for those of you who are my super fans and you know exactly what 13 was, it was about staying silent and letting the liar talk because they will continue to speak until they’re convinced that the target believes the lie.

So, this one today, episode 69 is related to that and it is about becoming silent to increase the level of discomfort that the liar is feeling. So, here it is deception tip number 69. When the target becomes silent the liar’s comfort level goes from bad to worse. 

Most of the time the liar will continue to speak to fill the gap. Here it is again, deception tip number 69. When the target becomes silent the liar’s comfort level goes from bad to worse. Most of the time the liar will continue to speak to fill the gap.

So, what does this mean? Well, when liars are speaking, they’re already uncomfortable, they’re trying to get away with and tell a lie, and inside they know that that’s not what they’re supposed to do. 

So, they’ve got the anxiety and the tension, the internal conflict of their conscience battling, the conscious and the unconscious are also fighting it out.

The unconscious wants the truth to be revealed, and the conscious wants to get away with the lie, so there’s a huge fight going on between everything inside. 

There are a lot of internal conflicts, there’s a lot of internal strife that is making them very, very tense and uncomfortable. In addition, they also have the anxiety over getting caught in their lie, which then they’re going to be in trouble for telling a lie.

They’ve also got the anxiety of covering up whatever it is they’re lying about and whatever the consequence may be for that, so there is a lot going on, they’re very, very uncomfortable. When you combine that discomfort with the awkward silence that in a normal situation is already uncomfortable, you’re going to push them off the cliff.

They’re going to go off the deep end with that because that is a huge level of discomfort that is now being magnified by this awkward silence. They are wondering what you’re thinking or why you’re not speaking or what is going on in your mind. 

Are they convinced? Do they not believe me? They’re going to be thinking so much about what’s going on in your mind that’s going to add to a lot of anxiety.

As you may know from personal experience, wondering or being alone with your thoughts about what other people think is a huge deal in our race. So, we’re going to talk a lot more about this and a lot more about the discomfort and the reason why becoming silent is such a good thing to do when you have a talkative liar or an insecure liar, and it’s all going to be coming up right after this.

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Welcome back to Deception Tip episode number 69 where we are talking about becoming silent and how it can be important sometimes for the target to simply stop talking. To become silent and to pause for a period of time, probably like 30 seconds or more, that’s a long time to be quiet. If you’ve ever given any public speech or any type of classroom presentation or anything like that and you pause for 30 seconds, it doesn’t seem like that long.

30 seconds, no big deal, try it sometime, try being quiet for 30 seconds and allow your students or your whomever out in the audience to sit and be silent and think or wait for them to ask a question or something like that. 

30 seconds is quite a long time in a speech, sometimes in this podcast, I have pauses that are like one second and it sounds like, wait a minute, what’s going on, why isn’t he talking?

That was only a couple of seconds right there and it was almost like, wait a minute, why is there no sound? As humans, we need that sound in our life, we need to hear noise whether it’s the background noise of a radio, a TV playing, or something like that, whether it’s your phone playing some music, whatever the case may be. Most people like to have something going on, they need to be occupied, and their mind needs to be occupied.

The reason is a lot of people are scared of their thoughts, they don’t like to think, we’ve proven that in society over and over again. All you need to do is walk around and you’ll see that there are a number of people that really can’t think for themselves. I don’t say that to be mean, I say it to be truthful. In your day-to-day interactions, you’ve no doubt had the thought of where is the common sense.

Why don’t these people do this or why is it so difficult? It’s so easy, why is it so hard? Why are they making it so hard? That happens time and time again, people are learning to let other people think for them, they’re becoming more reliant on cellphones, devices, and news media, and they just hear what’s going on around them, and then they repeat what is being said.

They read the headline of a news article, boom, that’s what they say, the headline might not even be correct. People are becoming less and less willing to investigate things and form their own opinions, they’re more willing now to just accept the opinions of others and then push them on other people.

Therefore, when you are in a situation where you’re interrogating someone or questioning someone if you become silent and let that person think, let their minds start to work, let them form their own opinion, or be alone with their thoughts for 30 seconds if that person is a normal person they are going to start to go crazy because most people do not like to be sitting there alone with their thoughts.

You might be listening to this saying, “Yeah well, it wouldn’t do me any harm because I sit and think all the time. I like to meditate, I like to have it silent when I’m working, I don’t want any radio playing, I don’t like the TV on, I don’t even like other people talking in the background.” 

Well, let me tell you this, you are rare, I am that way, I don’t like anybody else talking, I don’t like the TV going, I like silence, I like to be alone with my thoughts, I like what’s going on in my mind.

Can it be overwhelming? Yeah, at times it certainly can, you may be like that as well. In fact, if you’re listening to this podcast you probably are because you’re looking for more ways to fuel your mind and think more. So, you guys might be an anomaly, an outlier to this situation but just know that the majority of people like that noise in the background, they want that going on.

They cannot handle that period of silence especially when they’re already in a very, very high-stress environment, high-intensity environment. I’m not talking high stress physically or anything like that, I’m talking mentally, they’re already to the mental breaking point when they’re telling this lie. All that internal strife, worrying about the consequences, worrying about telling the lie, whether or not they’re going to be believed.

Are they going to get away with it? Oh my gosh, what’s going on it, are they going to believe me, am I going to get in trouble for telling this lie? What are they going to do if they catch me with this lie? What about what happens when they find out that I’m lying about this then I got the consequence of that? What are other people going to think when they find out I’m a liar.

They have all that going on inside of them and when you become silent, you give them even more discomfort because now they don’t know, they don’t know whether or not you are leaning towards believing them or whether you don’t believe them. That means that they’re going to sit there and they’re going to wonder, I wonder are they going to believe me?

They’re not believing me, I’m not getting away with this, or oh, yes, I think I’ve got it, they’re believing me. Oh, but what do they mean? Why don’t they say something? It’s going to go back and forth over and over and over again in their minds until you start to talk, but you’re not going to talk. So, that means pretty soon they are going to start talking, they’re going to start telling the story again and again.

As we learned in episode 13, they may contradict themselves or trip over their tongue thus revealing the truth. That’s what’s probably going to happen, they’re going to continue to speak, to fill that awkward silence, and then you are going to be able to catch them in their lie. 

You know that silences can be awkward, you’ve no doubt heard it in conversation with your friends or at school or at little dinner parties or whatever the case may be.

Where all of a sudden, there’s a group of people talking, and no one speaks and we’re talking no one speaks for like 3 to 5 seconds. Somebody in that group says the word awkward and you’re thinking like it’s not that awkward but for everybody else, it is kind of awkward, so they speak to fill the gap.

That is what liars do, if that happens in normal conversation, imagine what would happen in a stressful environment conversation when they want so desperately for you to believe their lie. They will continue to speak to fill that gap and they will, hopefully for your sake, trip over their tongue and reveal the truth.

I want to thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the deception tips podcast. I hope they’ll share it with your friends, subscribe to the feed, check out the deception tips videos, the blog, and take a look at the books I have available and as always, tune in next week for a new deception tip.

Hey guys, my name is Spencer Coffman, thank you for watching the deception tips videos, they’re all about teaching you how to read people and detect deception so that you will be able to tell if someone is lying to you. Today, we’ve got an awesome tip to talk about, it’s related to something that can be awkward, it’s also something that can really help you out even though it is a little bit awkward.

We’re going to talk about being quiet in conversations and we’ve talked about this a little bit before back in deception tip number 13. If you want to review that there’s a little card you can check out. So, here we go, deception tip number 69. When the target becomes silent, the liar’s comfort level goes from bad to worse. Most of the time, the liar will continue to speak to fill the gap.

This is important, so become silent. When you’re speaking with someone, if you are thinking that they may be lying to you, the best thing or one of the best things that you can do. Of course, you can do all these other tips we’ve been talking about but one of the best things you can do is to be quiet, you need to stay silent, become silent, let them speak.

The reason is because as we’ve talked about before, liars are tremendously stressed, they have the stress and tension of telling the lie, remembering the lie, they’re afraid of getting caught. They’ve got all that stress and tension, the consequence of whatever they did, the consequence of lying about it, there is all this stuff going on, they’re having a lot of anxiety and tension.

So, when you introduce something that’s already in a normal conversation like an awkward silence, that’s going to increase that stress and tension. It’s going to make their comfort level go from bad to worse. I paused right there for like two to three seconds and you’re like, “Wait a minute, what happened?” You didn’t know if I messed up or if something was going on.

That was a tiny pause, imagine if you paused for 30 seconds and you let them sit there and boil while they’re thinking, what are they thinking? They’re going to be really anxious about that pause for 30 seconds, a minute, however long it takes. Most of the time, in fact, I could pretty much guarantee you that they will continue to speak and to fill that gap.

Don’t talk, resist that urge, let them talk, oftentimes, they’re going to continue to speak until they convince you or convince themselves that you’ve believed the lie, that’s really what they’re doing. After a while, they’re done convincing you, now they’re trying to talk themselves into the fact that you believe their lie, which is something that they may never do because you may not believe them anyway.

So, let them speak because in doing so, they will often trip over their tongue, they may mess up, they might contradict themselves, and all of those little things will give you more and more material to work with. You have another thread you can pull and let their story unravel, you can keep in mind all of the other deception tips that we’ve talked about.

When they start to slip up or contradict themselves or go back to a different story, you can pick up on those and start questioning them and because you’ve found the little hole in their story as you question them, they will continue to trip up. It’s like a slippery slope, as soon as they’ve messed up once and you found out, you’re going to make them even more anxious because now they know that you might be on to them.

They don’t even know it, they just unconsciously think that something’s going wrong and pretty soon, they will be the result of their own downfall in you getting the truth. You didn’t even have to do anything other than be quiet and let them mess up because they will mess up if they’re lying and they think that you are on to them.

It’s just going to cause them so much more stress and tension and anxiety and the normal person cannot deal with that. People like pathological liars or who have psychological disorders, they’re probably able to deal with all that because they’re not right in the head whereas a normal person won’t be able to do that or handle that level of stress.

So, if this is your first time watching these videos, I’d love to have you subscribe to the channel on YouTube, feel free to comment with any questions you may have as well. Also, if you’d like some more information, we’ve got books, podcasts, and blog posts all available on spencercoffman.com that are dedicated to teaching you exactly what every body is really saying.

Until next time.