What Your Hands Say About You: Body Language Secrets That Sell

Hey there, welcome back to the Magnetic Communication Podcast. Today we’re talking hands. Not palm reading, not high-fives—though I do love a good high-five—but the secret language your hands are speaking even when your mouth is saying something else.

This week, I turned down a very promising sales proposal. Why? Because the salesperson’s hand gestures made me uncomfortable. His body said one thing, his words said another—and my gut? My gut did not buy what he was selling.

Here’s the thing most people forget: your body language is the outward reflection of your inner thoughts and emotions. It’s science. You might be saying all the right things, but if your hands are sending mixed signals, people will pick up on it. And spoiler alert—they’ll believe your hands over your words every single time.

I’ve been fascinated with body language since I was a teenager. One day, I swiped a book from my mom’s “psychology for fun” pile—thank you, Allan Pease—and I was hooked. That book, Signals, is still on my shelf today. A little battered, a lot highlighted.

What’s wild is that the gestures we make—how we move our hands, our posture, how we stand when we’re nervous or confident—are mostly universal. We learn them early. We copy what we see. And then they get baked in. They’re habits. And yet… most of us have no idea how those habits are showing up in our communication.

So today, we’re going to decode seven hand gestures that can totally shift how people feel when they talk to you. These aren’t about faking anything—they’re about aligning your intent with how you show up.