How To Read People Accurately

People don’t just speak in sentences, they speak in layers. Layer one is what they say. Layer two is what they mean. Most people miss out on connection and misread others, not because they don’t care, but because they only listen to layer 1. Here’s why this matters. If you only listen to the words that people say, you’re going to constantly miss out on the deeper meaning being hinted at underneath. And that’s where things start to go wrong. You misread people, respond slightly off, and make the wrong assumptions. All of which creates tension, confusion, and distance in your relationships and interactions with others. So, in order to skyrocket your social intelligence, read a people so accurately they low-key think you’re CIA, and to just become that person other people describe along the lines of, “I just they they just get me, you know, I I love being around them.” Then don’t just listen to the sentence, listen past it. Here’s exactly what this looks like.

First example, layer one sentence could be, “You never text me first.” Below the iceberg, layer two, deeper meaning could be, “I feel unimportant. I need reassurance. I’m scared you don’t care.” Second example, surface layer one sentence could be, “Do whatever you want.” Layer two could be or deeper meaning could be, “I’m frustrated and feel unheard. I’ve given up arguing. I want you to choose me without me forcing you.” And final example, layer one sentence, look at the sunset. Layer two, deeper meaning, share this moment with me.

So now you understand the key to skyrocketing your social intelligence is to listen for layer 2. Which leads us to the most important part of this whole video. How to listen for layer 2.

Here’s how. Hear, sense, check. Let’s take the example of someone saying to you, “You’ve been busy lately.” You know, maybe it’s your partner or someone close to you. The bad response would be to instantly bite back and get defensive. You know, by saying, “That’s not true. We spent last weekend together.” That’s just going to create more distance and tension between you both. The better alternative is first of all, hear what they’re saying. Stay on layer one for the moment. What is the sentence that they’re actually delivering to you? In this case, it’s you’ve been busy lately. And then you move into step number two, which is to sense. Here you’re piercing into layer two. You’re going deeper and you’re in the realm of where your social intelligence is hiding. You ask yourself, what could they be feeling for this to make sense? You know, in the moment, just take a second to have a think about it. What could they be feeling for this to make sense? And what you’ll find is that beneath the layer one, you know, in the iceberg, the thing that this person is actually hinting at will be one of three or all three of these things. An emotion. So, for example, I feel lonely, a need, for example, I want more connection or a request, please change something. The emotion that the person feels is the problem. The need is the solution to that problem. So going back to the example of this person saying to you, you’ve been busy lately, they could be feeling lonely, want attention, and then or they could be feeling lonely, need attention, and want you to give it to them. So the layer two message that they’re hinting at beyond you’ve been busy lately could be, “I miss you.”

But who knows? You could get that assumption completely wrong. Which is why the final and foolproof way to make this a complete system is to check. You deliver your assumption and your guess to this person in the form of a sentence like this. Seems like you’ve been missing me a bit. You use the phrase it seems like to make it clear that you’re assuming seems like you’ve been missing me a bit. Then you follow it up. Is that right? Is that what you mean? Am I understanding you properly? And then you let them respond.

Here’s the key takeaway. Most people listen to reply. Socially intelligent people listen to decode.

Now, this is the main takeaway I want you to have from this whole video. So, if this all makes sense, then feel free to bounce. You know, click off the video right now. But if you want to go a few minutes deeper, then here’s what we’re going to wrap up this video with. First, well, next of all, we’re going to cover why people don’t say what they mean in the first place. You know, why do we talk indirectly most of the time? And then finally, we will finalize with covering what all of this actually unlocks. You know, the big benefit that we get from applying this new way of being socially intelligent. Okay, point number one.

First of all, let’s quickly touch on why people don’t say what they mean in the first place. Now there are three reasons why we communicate indirectly most of the time and by the way when we say communicate indirectly what we mean is by what we mean is not saying what you mean. The first reason as to why we don’t say what we mean a lot of the time is because it feels risky. Saying I feel lonely feels much more exposing than saying you’re always busy. So it’s a form of self-p protection. The second reason is because it’s softer. Your brain knows that if it makes direct requests of people, most of the time they’re going to get triggered. You know, do this, do that, do bend to my will. So, it insinuates and it hopes the other person picks up on the bait that you’re leaving them. And vice versa when other people do it to you, you know, do this. Oh, could you maybe

The final reason is because most people don’t even understand it themselves. me. In other words, most people’s words comes out come out sideways because they don’t even understand their emotions, needs, or requests in the first place. So, they don’t actually know what they’re trying to communicate to you. Which is why everything comes out in an unconscious, clunky way that requires more investigation to actually get clear on what this person is feeling, needing, and requesting. And again, vice versa, cuz none of us are perfect. Now that’s that covered very simply. Let’s wrap the video up by covering the real thing that social intelligence, you know, in this way of communicating. Getting get into layer two unlocks when it comes to the depth you can build in your relationships.

Most of what people say to you isn’t information. It’s a bid for connection. tiny little moments where the person is subtly hinting at the message of will you meet me where I’m at to go or to return to an example we covered earlier with the with my wonky birds the sunset example two you know two friends or a couple are walking along a hiking trail and one of them says to the other oh look at the sunset the layer one message is of course look at the sunset but the layer two deeper meaning below the iceberg it’s not about the sunset at all it’s share this moment with me I’m appreciating something and And I would like you to be looking in the same direction so we can share this moment together.

So by listening to layer two, what you really unlock is building connection with people, the people who you really care about and new people in your life as well. But if you don’t listen for layer 2, if you don’t capture these bits of connection, nothing really breaks, but nothing really builds either. So the bottom line is most people think communication is about saying the right thing. But the truth is strong relationships are built on not missing these bids for connection. By the way, this idea comes from the psychologist I believe John Gottman. It’s not my idea. It’s from him. Now here’s the summary.

The bottom line of this whole video is that most people misread others and miss out on connection not because they don’t care, but because they’re just listening to the wrong layer. So, in order to skyrocket your social intelligence and decode people so accurately they CIA and all that stuff I promised, don’t or listen don’t just listen to the sentence. Listen past it. Get to layer two. So my mini experiment for you this week after this video is try the loop of social intelligence on one person. Hear their sentence, sense what might be underneath it, and then double check that with them. Then circle back to the comment section. Let us know how it goes if you want. If not, no worries. Thank you very much for your time and attention. Stay disciplined, playful, and dangerous. Adios muchachos.