Years ago, when I was a kid, someone dared to carve my initials into a chair at our home.

My mother, who had never had formal investigation training, targeted me as a prime suspect. Her only evidence was the fact that my grandfather had just given me a new pocketknife. Pretty flimsy case, I thought.

Now, in all fairness, they were my initials. I disregarded that by reminding her everyone in the house knew my initials, including my prime suspect, my older sister. As far as I was concerned, my sister existed to torment me. Mom didn’t seem to put much stock in that theory.

After attempting to induce a confession, Mom played her trump card.

Looking sternly into my eyes, she said, “Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t carve your initials in that chair.”   The theory was that I couldn’t look her in the eyes and tell her a lie.

How do you reckon that went for her?

You see, she was trying to make me tell the truth.

What she actually did was give me one of my first lessons about lying. I thought if I could look her in the eyes and tell her I didn’t do it, she might just believe it.

I bet we have all been told something similar to that. So has every crook and con man in the country!

Our eyes are the most expressive part of our body language, but they are also the part of our body we practice manipulating.

Body language is automatic. When certain thoughts or emotions cross our mind, our brain tells our body what to do. We can control these gestures to some extent depending on several factors.

We will discuss these factors later.

Jim Leach is the author of ,“You Can Tell ME, Effective Interviewing Made Simple.” His books can be found at booksbyleach.com