Public Pension Financial Forum: Denver, CO

On October 8, 2023 I presented to the Public Pension Financial Forum on the event of their 20th Anniversary Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado. The Forum was established in 2004 and it continues to be the only professional organization established by and dedicated to public pension finance professionals.

I began by stressing to the conference attendees that understanding how to read body language will help to interpret a person’s true emotion and help to gain insight into someone’s, even a complete stranger’s, personality. It will also help in extracting information that they can use to provide the best service possible for their clients. In the business world, having this insight helps to build trust and allows you to strengthen and better understand both business and personal relationships.

According to research conducted by Dr. Paul Eckman, a psychologist and the world’s most renown researcher of facial expressions, our facial expressions convey seven (7) emotions – surprise, fear, anger, sadness, disgust, happiness, and contempt. He went on to show that these seven (7) emotions are universal – the same in people in every part of the world! I explained that learning to identify the revealing details of body language is therefore critical for anyone who works or deals with people.

Much of my presentation to the conference was spent, in detail, on what I refer to as, “The Big Four”, - the lips, shoulders, hands and eyes. I explained that while the lips are the most emotional of the big four, the hands were the most expressive. But discussion and examples didn’t end with the “Big Four”. Noteworthy were discussions of easily the most “honest” body part, our feet, which in my opinion are the most likely to reveal a person’s real and true intentions.

The conference attendees were very interested in cultural differences and in hearing about other non- verbal influencers such as the environment, time, and territoriality. Many good questions were asked in this regard. I wanted the Denver conference attendees to know and appreciate that understanding body language can be a critical tool when you communicate with others and are trying to truly interpret and understand what they are saying, or what they mean. It’s not 100% foolproof, and won’t take the place of verbal communication but, rather, work in concert to help you gain true insight into the behavior of others.

I started by telling the conference audience that my goal was to have them start to recognize the importance of non-verbal’s and that my hope was to instill in them the motivation to learn more about it. I think I accomplished both!