Decoding our communication and to Unveil the Hidden Messages in our face that are beyond words.

Hello and? welcome today we have got Joseph McGuire, if you guys want to see anything and get your face analysed in communication and the unspoken words, this is your guy, he sits down and analyses faces and tells you about how they're acting in their physical, mental, and maybe spiritual access of how our face communicates through how we communicate. Hello, and welcome to the show. Joseph are you doing today?

Aron ? How are you doing? I'm very well indeed great pleasure to be here. As a

young child growing up did you have this intuition or this feeling that you could look at people's faces and figure out what's happening in the internal view, but as an external aspect as well, you know,

the faces that came later, but certainly as a small child, I knew I was picking up a lot of information from people and about people beyond what was being spoken about. Mike and I remember sitting, sitting on the floor of my parent's home was a very small child and knowing that I knew quite a bit about the adults around me. Now I don't I'm not talking about the intimate details, but just stuff about their personality, who was confident who wasn't who was holding stuff back. I just picked up a lot of that stuff. But then also, my father introduced me to sport, particularly football at a very early age, they would bring me to games, we would actually carry a wooden crate. So that I could say for me to stand on so that I could see over the side of the page, because I was probably only four years old or something initially, when they brought me and I realised I could see a lot of the patterns in the game see a lot of what was going to happen in terms of who was moving and where, who was who was going to move where the where the ball was going to go. And I just assumed everybody was doing that stuff. Obviously, they weren't. And then it was only many years later, when I lived in London, when I moved to London and started studying there, I was introduced to face reading as one of the diagnostic techniques used in traditional oriental medicine. When I was introduced to that it was to me it was like just bells ringing and lightbulbs flashing because it gave me a structure. It gave me a very defined structure to explain a lot of what I could see and what I was picking up. And it also made so much sense to me because it came from a philosophy, like the tradition of face reading in Chinese business, Chinese medicine, Chinese politics as some as at least 3000 years old. It's not that far back the documentation goes, what the understanding is that the mind and the body are one inseparable unit. And you could say could say the spirit as part of that as well. I had, I guess, intuitively always understood, we're not just the physical structure, that the mind is influencing the body and vice versa. And the body, in many respects is a metaphor for what's happening internally. When I started to study this and became immersed in it, it just opened up a whole, a whole new world of understanding, but also ways for me to explain what I was already doing. Intuitively. Allah gave us this because people like structure that just gave, it just opened doors for me to reflect, to think more why to think more deeply, I guess, as well. And to understand, or actually to be to be reassured even that there was a there was a tradition, there were other people who have been working and developed systems and understanding that was way beyond anything I had done. But also to know that I wasn't alone in the world, because it was, it was kind of strange growing up, knowing that I knew stuff that I couldn't explain to people. I guess also, because I grew up without any confidence. I just held a lot of stuff in as well. So to be exposed to this world where I was being given this information, this knowledge from this deep tradition, and then sharing it with colleagues and a whole new circle of friends. It opened up the world to me in a way that it had never got had never been available to me before.

As a child, your parents identify this and notice it in this in you

know, it was not a particularly expressive household anyway, I wouldn't have had the confidence to say it anyway. I just basically kept my mouth shut when

you have the confidence. Oh.

That's a deep question, Aaron. Yeah, I guess. I know, I know, my birth was traumatic. I know. There was a lot of stress in the family in terms of my father being having major, major health issues around the time of my birth. And he had health issues right through his life. Like he worked hard. He was he was physically strong, but internally, they had a lot of serious health issues, which were very debilitating for him. And I think that that caused massive stress. My mother, my mother would be quite a fearful individual anyway, I didn't I didn't have any of that. The horror stories that people talk about in terms of abuse. All about it was just a non expressive household. I think it was a very conservative Catholic household, which didn't sit with me even as a small child, like I'm not against Catholicism or any other religion. But it was, it was way too strict for me, I just the fact of the other very, very young age withdrew into myself, I didn't really know how to express what was going on. For me, it was I guess, like, in retrospect, I can say it was some kind of protective mechanism, when I was thinking it know about at the time. So it's been a, it's been an ongoing journey, building confidence and finding a place in the world and finding the like, it's the willingness to express myself as much as I wouldn't even I wouldn't even say courage, more the willingness to express myself. And that's painfully altogether better, stronger, healthier place now. But it has been, it has been a long journey. But I'm very grateful for the unlike I was a therapist for many years, myself, and I treated people who had the most horrendous backgrounds and histories. And I'm very grateful that that wasn't part of mine. But we all have, we all have different histories and backgrounds, as we know. And we all respond in different ways. And it took me many, many years, I guess, to, to understand that. It's not what happened to us, but how we respond that counts on to realise that I actually had choice. And that's part of what I love to share with people now in my own training, that we're always in that place of having choice, we can, regardless of what has or hasn't happened to us, being in the present, is a very, very powerful place to be. And that's the place from which to make the choices in terms of creating a future. And that's probably a roundabout answer to your question. But it all kind of fits together in my head anyway.

Did you want to become a therapist? Or is that kind of made you discover to identify your confidence as well? Oh,

I didn't want to be fair, I didn't. I didn't search it out. as such. It was one of those like a synchronistic happenings though, as a kid growing up, I wanted to be a professional footballer. That was the only thing I wanted to be. And in retrospect, again, I'm very glad that I never did become one. I didn't have the ability to be at that level anyway. But and if I had been in if I had been exposed to that, because I didn't have the confidence, I think I probably would have been quite damaged. Because it's a tough world. No, it was only when I moved to London, I had to see I'd been introduced to natural foods before I left Ireland moved to Israel initially to spend time in a kibbutz then moved to London that had some addresses to follow up on my interest in natural foods because I found that gave me the the change of diet gave me such a huge boost in energy, well being, vitality, all of that. I wanted to follow it up with follow up date this, these new discoveries. So it was a particular centre, I went to visit in London one evening, they had a vegetarian restaurant, they're like, just got sitting at a table opposite the guy who happened to be there, had no idea who he was, he was from Denmark, we just got chatting. And he said he was over for a course. And the guy came by the table on my new friend called him over and pointed at me and said, This guy wants to do the course, which was the first thing I'd heard about it. And that happened to be starting that night. I just said, Okay, let's go for it. And that was the beginning of my training. So there was no plan at all. It just It just

happened. And probably at the time, Ireland natural foods wasn't the way it is today. But tell us how you came across natural foods,

I guess another those synchronicities. I had acupuncture treatment for a back problem in I think 1976 Which would have been very novel in Ireland at the time. And like, I didn't get any information from the acupuncturist, but I my back injury was cleared very quickly. So I was fascinated by that. Some years later, I had a knee injury from playing football. And I initially went to the Mater Hospital a few times and just I was told different things each time so I just gave up on that one. Because it wasn't making my knee any better. So I came across this other acupuncturist. I'd went to see him and he at that stage was recommending all his patients change their diet to a natural foods diet. And I had literally gone to him it was a Saturday afternoon I'd gone for lunch and mcdonnell's went to him got this list of foods from foods to eat foods not to eat, place the address of a place in the city centre and double up where I could get those foods, went back and got them. I was still living with my parents at the time. So brought them home, put them on the kitchen table because I was a good Irish boy, I didn't do any cooking, brought them on the kitchen table, said to my mother, would you cook those from replays because that's what I'm eating now. So I literally changed my diet overnight. She had no idea what the foods were I'd never seen or heard of them before. I rang the guy got basic cooking instructions. And initially I would say it was like eating a combination of polyfill and with gravel because it was so badly cooked. But I just got such incredible energy from it. Like I'd always been fit but this was this was beyond anything I'd experienced because after a while and it didn't it was like it was a very short turnaround matter of weeks, I started to feel so much energy, but I actually felt it was like a waste of time going to bed at night. And I also then was fortunate to find a restaurant in Dublin City Centre, I think the probably the only one at the time, which served this food and it was actually delicious. So that was obviously a lifesaver. But I learned a few basic recipes than that, right, that started to do myself. So I was absolutely fascinated by all of this, then say I'd made arrangements to move to Israel for a time. So that kind of disrupted things. But then once I got once I got to London, I was able to really start following through and learning and learning how to cook and prepare the foods and all of that. So it became just became our way of life then why did you go to Israel, Israel had been a beacon for me for many years, I'd always had a fascination with history, not just Irish history, but global history. And I guess, I guess probably because I was so lacking in confidence myself, I tuned into what I perceived as injustice in the world. Always my favourite football teams, my favourite singers, my favourite actors, my favourite film roles always seem to be to do with people who are struggling or fighting injustice, or were the underdog. So I always kind of identified with that. And I read a lot about, about the formation of, of, of Israel, the whole history of the Holocaust. I've read various novels to do with that whole period of time, I knew a number of people who had been to Israel and spend time on one or other to kibbutzim, it just it was like, it was just like a beacon calling me. I know, there wasn't that I wanted to become Jewish or anything like that. There was just something about Israel that resonated with me. And I connected with an organisation called Project 67 in London, and one could go would could be placed on a kibbutz through them. So that was what I did. And again, it was very fortunate that I did because although I'd connected with natural foods, before leaving Ireland, I had been made redundant from the company I was working in, and I couldn't see a future in Ireland. And I was, even though I was stopped drinking alcohol, I was still going to the pub with my friends most nights of the week, because it couldn't see anything else to do. Life wasn't exactly open and fulfilling here. So the prospect of going somewhere else, for whatever reason that resonated with me was the I was very significant. And then going to Israel, I was exposed to people from so many other cultures and glorious sunshine and different foods and different ways of thinking different languages. So that opened up a whole nother VISTA or probably series of VISTAs about life. So I guess there was a ignore, I didn't see it at the time. I didn't know it before I went, there was a bigger purpose behind going there as well.

So you spend time in Israel to go to London via what happened in London to continue this fascinating journey of exploration. Okay,

well, I signed up for that course, which was initially a three month course, which was like four evenings a week, many weekends. That included nutrition, how to cook, how to cook whole foods, how to cook and prepare Whole Foods, much of what we were eating was actually very much oriental style cooking, which really appealed to me and still does. There was there was training and shiatsu which is a branch of oriental medicine offer treatment, often referred to as acupuncture without needles, who has facial diagnosis, we did some learn some other forms of diagnosis as well. I was also then working for one of my teachers at a health food store that he owned. So I was getting a huge amount of practice because as soon as anybody would walk in the store, he would ask, okay, what's his condition? What's our condition? So it was full on training, which I absolutely loved. My whole social circle became people were interested in the same stuff. So we were constantly feeding off each other sometimes literally the true visiting and parties and all of that, but through our to our conversations was was all around learning this stuff. And I just felt felt like a I guess I'd found my place. And it just kind of just opened up a whole new ways of thinking and it was kind of the treaded course. That was the first course so there were several other courses following on from that and then other kind of adjuncts and more specialised shiatsu training, etc. But it was kind of a I guess it was it was kind of expected of us who were who were doing those courses that we would become therapists. I met as part of that broader community. I met a German lady who she's now my ex wife, our best friend was married to the director of a smaller Centre in, in Hamburg, and they were looking for people to come and work there. So that was kind of the next step. Moved to Hamburg start practising start teaching. And that's where that's where that side of things sort of led me and that's where that took off.

While you're learning this. Diagnosing to understand your therapy. You probably were going through your own personal diagnosis as well. Oh, yeah.

That is ongoing. Yeah, I guess. I guess I didn't realise it. Even then I'd probably for quite a number of years, how little real self competence I had. So that was still that was still holding me back in many ways. In some ways, it was probably beneficial to because I actually thought I was further along than I, then I was in terms of my own personal development, personal transformation, it probably allowed me to take some risks that I might not have taken, I had been a bit more self aware, I might not have gone to Germany because when I got when I went to move to Germany, I didn't speak any German. So I was learning from scratch, I was learning through conversation, I probably wouldn't have automatically said yes to teaching German groups of people in Germany, because within the first six months of being there, and again, not speaking German, I taught something like 50 Odd classes, never having taught anything before either. And I didn't realise how naive I was on how unprepared I was to teach anything. Whereas if I had been more self aware, I might have done a much better job. I didn't I don't know that I did a bad job. But I think I probably would have done a better job, but I probably wouldn't have been willing to take the risk in the first place. Especially given that I didn't speak German at the time. So my naivety was very helpful, but the transformation again, it has been ongoing. I guess one of the things I did learn, I'm particularly I've been so heavily influenced by Oriental Philosophy over so many years. But Taoism and Zen I guess, in particular, would call quote that immediately comes to mind here is that life doesn't show just mirrors how we are. I was I certainly recognise that the people who are coming to me for treatment, particularly to an extent for classes, but particularly for treatment, are reflecting something in me, I'm mirroring something. So I was learning a lot, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, through to that whole experience, and then obviously, to the broader experience of being in their very to me foreign society. And it's been Yeah, it's been a gradual, I would describe this as much learning in our own learning as learning. Because a lot of stuff needs to be unlearned as we go, a lot of the social conditioning, a lot of the parental conditioning, the environmental conditioning, the educational conditioning, all of that, which in many respects, hasn't served us to any great degree, certainly not in terms of recognising our deepest values, our deepest, our deepest purpose, I guess, because I do believe we all have a purpose here. I know I get, I tend to give very roundabout answers to questions, as you're, as you're noticing. One of the things that happened, as I developed my practice has that we had both in Hamburg and then later back in back in Ireland, was that when I reach a plateau, where the my skills only could only help people to a certain point, and then I would get people with a whole different range of problems, different personalities, and sometimes much more challenging. So I had to, I had to grow more, both in terms of my skills, but also my awareness and my self awareness, my understanding of my understanding of where I was really at and what I really had to offer. And I often don't have to stretch myself to go beyond previous comfort zones, I guess, it has been and remains and unfolding remains a fascinating journey, because there's always so much learning there. I guess one of the great breakthroughs was that instead of, I guess, for a time, I saw it as Oh, god, there's all this other stuff. I have to learn to grow in so many ways. And can I manage it and all that, right now, it's just a joy to recognise Oh, there's so much more to learn. There's so much more possibility out there, like I say, a roundabout answer to a very simple question, but that's fairly normal for me.

I also think when we're young and naive and eager to achieve we sometimes when we're older, we're wiser and we say, I shouldn't have done that, or should have done this, but we're in the moment is like, that sounds great. I'll jump on it. And I like that analogy of the mirror. I think it's so so true. And discovering She asked you were you interested in the likes of Buddhism, Taoism or that kind of come through the exploration of shiatsu?

Well, I've always been interested in different philosophies. One of the great gifts my parents gave me was they introduced me to rate while I was in school introduced me to reading but my parents enrolled me in the local library at a very early age. And I became a variety a voracious reader, I read very, very widely. And I was fascinated by I guess, social history, even and some hands topology, different cultures. So I read a lot about different backgrounds, different traditions, different significant figures in different traditions as well. So it wasn't, I guess, I guess that was Zen and I don't pretend. I mean, I'm under no illusion that I have an in depth understanding of Zen but in as much as I can, as much as I do understand it. It was very, it really resonated with me and that word keeps coming up resonance resonated very strongly and Taoism as well because it was, it was a philosophy of being present and being in flow with life. That just made so much sense. And it because so much of what I grew up with was life being struggle. And not just not just me personally, but that is that was what was being modelled. For me, you have to work hard and life is a grind and all of that inside internally, it just didn't make sense. And there's nothing. It's not to knock hard work. Because I've always been willing to work hard. But there was a just a deep, deep intuitive sense that life could be a lot easier. If I found if I found the key and philosophy, the lessons in Taoism and Zen kept coming back to me and kept just that there's like they were prodding me to say, yeah, just just tweak it a little bit, just tweak your understanding, tweak your tweak your way of being, and life will be easier. And I really, I very, very slowly realised that I was living life in a way that was way too intense, I was trying very, very hard to figure life out. Because I guess I felt for most of my life that I was, I was in this alien place life, as I saw it in the world around me, it didn't make sense to me how people were living didn't make sense how society was structured didn't make sense, I knew there was a different way to do it, for me, at least. But it's been, it's been a very gradual unfolding, to be at ease within myself and to be at ease with the world. And to recognise that life as a whole can be a very light and joyful experience. And that's more and more what I'm looking to share. Now through my own work. Yeah, there's just a sense of just a sense of deep, deep connection with the basic philosophies of of that guy was sad, because then then takes you out of logic. And it's like, it stops you thinking, but that allows your mind to drop into another place, which is beyond thinking. And it's, it's a difficult one to explain in words. And the more you try to explain it in words, the more elusive it becomes. But to experience that state, without thinking is something incredibly profound. I don't know that one can stay there. And I don't know if that one could function in the world with it. But I've certainly experienced that on many occasions, and it transforms one's view of the world, I love life, by the standard case of how to how to bring that into life and how to apply it and how to apply it not just for one's own benefit, but for the benefit of those those within when comes in contact, whether that be on a personal or professional level. It really got me thinking here.

So we're in Hanover, in Germany, we're doing treatments, the facial diagnosis happen at this time, or did it happen before or after, kind of give us a little how you do this discovers? Yeah, because

I was based in this centre, there were so many courses being offered there, it just made sense for me to offer courses on reading the face. And initially, I was doing it purely from a diagnostic perspective, the more I delved into it, and the more conscious I became, I guess, of my own internal workings, the more I was bringing in the the personality and behavioural side of things, the communication side of things. That was altogether more intriguing for me, like the Chinese perspective is, particularly in traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese perspective is that all illness starts in the mind or the mind energy level before it becomes physical. And again, that resonated with me. So I guess, because I'd never taught anything before as well. And because I was also learning to speak German, I was easing my way in, but I was I was teaching, I was teaching shiatsu and facial diagnosis on a very regular basis. When I moved back to Ireland, I started to expand it in terms of how I was doing it. So again, initially here, I was teaching it to both public and healthcare professionals that and that when I say healthcare professionals, that was from very eminent medical consultants down to the most, shall we say, way out alternative practitioners, sometimes in the same room together, but I just gradually evolved into bringing in more of the, as I say, the personality behaviour communication side of it, like my classes have always been interactive. So I would use people to use the people in the room, including myself as models to illustrate why there was I was talking about, it became more and more about not just pointing out details of what they meant, but then how to identify the deeper strengths that very often we weren't living. And again, that I guess that also comes back to the building idea that George Bernard Shaw quote, that we teach the things we most need to learn. So I was gradually revealing myself to myself as I was doing the work and independent process i was because I was emphasising to other people what their strengths were more clearly than they in office seen that before. I was helping to bring out more of my own as well in the process. That

was I spent a lot of time and in front of the mirror in the bathroom, look at your own face to master this.

That's not my preferred occupation. assure you, I guess initially when I when I was introduced to this, I could say my own as I would have seen that shortcomings. Very clearly. I would have been very, very self critical, hyper self critical, and also had certain perfectionist tendencies. Oops, So I would have seen all the things I didn't want to see. So spending time in the bathroom looking at the mirror, it was not my favourite occupation by any means. And I suppose I had one big wake up call early on, where the first person on whom I saw a really serious illness before it was diagnosed was my own father, where I saw a heart condition. And I was naive enough to point it out, which caused ripples in the family. It wasn't that long after that, he was diagnosed with a heart condition. And he had a series of heart issues. And that died from heart failure after having a triple bypass, but it caused caused anxiety in the family, particularly with my mother, because for quite some time afterwards, anytime we were made, I was still living abroad. Anytime we would meet, she would ask okay, what's what do you see on my face? What's wrong with me? So which is which is a very uncomfortable place to be with anybody, particularly if they're at a surface, you know, family member or somebody you're close to? Sorry, I've gone off. I've gone off track for the question there. Apologies.

Do you regret this?

I don't live with regrets. And that's something my father taught me. When I got married. My ex wife was from Kelowna, and we got married there. And my parents came over for the wedding, I spent some time just showing my father around cologne. And one of the things he said to me was that he realised he had made a lot of mistakes. But my sister and I, when we were children, we had no regrets because it gives the best record at the time. And I really took that one on board. Yeah, I could certainly say I've made a lot of mistakes, I could say I've had a lot of failures. But I don't think that way anymore. I just accept that. I was where I was. And I've moved on. And I've learned from it. And I've helped more people that have hurt in the process.

And you can make ties with the family. Now over the last four years, it's still recovering yet didn't,

didn't damage things in any kind of permanent way. Like my father, my father's long dead anyway, he and I did become very close. In the last few years, it was like, I'll be at the fact that I wasn't living in Ireland, I was still living in Germany when he died, which had a massive impact on me for a long time. Not being there. But I guess, like my mother would never have been particularly emotionally expressive anyway, so we kind of just got along. And I guess my mice got two sisters, but the guy that's closest to me, and he was three years younger than me. She had a medical background, but she's very, very intuitive. So she I guess she would have got so wouldn't have been anything I said wouldn't have impacted her so much. In that in that context. She was living abroad and has been has been living abroad since as well. So so there was no there were no there was no was no rent in the family. In that regard. It just caused those ripples of discomfort, I guess that that's probably the best way to describe it.

You are diagnosing and understanding people's people's faces. But if I met you in the street, and you didn't know, we didn't know each other, and you looked at my face, and I tell you, I'm Erin, I do A, B and C through our communication. Can you identify triggers or things I'm saying through looking my face while communication with me? Yeah,

yeah, your face. Even if you don't speak Your face will tell me a huge amount about you, then one of the things I'm looking at are tuning into I guess is the best better term, when people are speaking as well as whoever they're part of what the face is telling me is resonating what they're telling me verbally, because that's one of the big things in communication is there's this there's the verbal and the nonverbal, like I do work with body language as well, what I'm looking for when people are actually speaking his congruence or lack thereof. That's why people speak with what people say. And some people are incredibly articulate, as we know, very verbally dexterous, some people are real smooth talkers. But I'm looking to check whether this is really congruent the words and the body language, the gestures to face the facial expressions, whether that whether there's real congruency there or not. And many times they're not, that simply isn't isn't presence. And that's one thing that like, when I would be called as part of my work, if I'm called to sit in on interviews for like senior level roles, that's particularly what I'm looking for, because people who have reached to a certain level, C level, etc. In business tend by and large to be fairly articulate and good at presenting themselves, but I'm looking at what is real substance there, whether it's just whether it's just words,

and how you know if it's a lie, or honesty by the way their face reacts to the conversation or yeah, that's,

that's always a key question. That's what I want to be asked a lot. The reality is, from surveys that I've brought up in aware of, generally, your average person, if I can use that term, would be would have us would have a 5050 chance of gauging whether somebody is lying or not, and many professionals like in police force CES or even some body language professionals wouldn't be any more accurate. I guess I've learned to, I'm not even sure that I can explain how I do it. I've learned to tune in more like one of the things I guess one of the things I talked about is may make it a little bit clearer. I still have a fascination with reading and studying. And one of the areas that fascinates me particularly is neuroscience, neuroscience, neuroscience, they talked about three brains, which got the head, and the head, the heart and the gut. And it's like it's been demonstrated that we have brains in each of those areas, that those brains are continually communicating with each other. If those brains are working, coherently and congruently, we're much more attuned to ourselves emotionally much more attuned to what's going on in the world around us and the people we're dealing with. So we have the good feeling we have the we have our heart is telling us and then we have the logical and interpretive side, where we process information on that intellectual level, I'm not looking to check whether people are lying, I'm allowing the information to present itself to me. And I'm, I'm checking in in those areas, whether that information is really congruent or not. If I Are we start actively looking for x in somebody's presentation, somebody's conversation, it's very easy to miss the bigger picture. It's like, it's like a blood test. The blood test has to be for something very specific. It can't be for everything. I don't know if that analogy makes sense to you. But again, it does make sense to me. So it's very much allowing the information to come to me, and then checking it as it comes. Checking for discrepancies. So

when you meet someone, are you constantly on page looking for what they're not communicating? Are you in the flow of conversation as well

by a large amount of flow, because if I were constantly looking for stuff, and constantly looking to interpret and assess, and analyse, I think I would be demented, quite frankly, because that would be that would be information overload. So when I meet people, I'm just looking to meet them. And hopefully, without without getting into some kind of some kind of like, meta analysis of super analysis mode, just recognise how best to communicate with them as an individual, just very simply submitting but not not not taking, it's not taking it to any great depths in terms of Oh, to show that to this socialist speak this way, but just just relaxing with the person. And when I meet people for the first time, and then they hear what I do, it's not unusual for people to feel or to feel or to tell me even they feel that bit uneasy here. Or some people have taught that, that I was looking into their soul and all sorts of weird stuff like that, which I wouldn't do. I couldn't, I couldn't do I wouldn't want to do it. And if I could, so it's very much about just meeting the person and just relaxing with them. And if they're anyway uncomfortable, helping them relax, because it's all about relationship building. That's really what it comes down to and building building harmonious relationship to the, you know, whether that's on a, again, a personal social or business level, the more harmonious relationship, the more we can work together effectively for the benefit of all

doesn't 16 you decide to go towards business? Is that right? When do you miss? Yeah, yeah, well,

that was, again, that wasn't a particular plan as such, but I had been a therapist for almost 30 years. And a lot of what I did was hands on, because I trained in an offer a number of different modalities. And then I did a lot of exchanges with other therapists where we were learning from each other. And I got a reputation I learned through exchanges rather than training, how to do deep tissue work, got a reputation for being good at it, the last few years in Dublin, because I've moved several times. But the last few years in Dublin, a lot of what I was doing was deep tissue work, I'd also had a lot of marital life, stress, etc, as well, the deep, deep tissue work took a major toll on me on my body. So it reached a point, after a few years where my body just said, can't do this anymore, because I started getting strains of tendinitis and my shoulders and bursitis and wrist problems and various other things, which meant I just couldn't physically work anymore. The only thing I was trained to do was to read faces. And I knew there were a number of people in the States in particular, who have been working, working in the corporate world with face rating, unknown, HR, sales, training, interviewing, etc. And those people working with with the legal profession as well, which wasn't an area particularly wanted to go to. So it just made sense to transfer the skills I had utilised him in a different context. So I did a bit of road testing, basically just held a number of free events, business connections, I knew because I have already started engaging in networking and in business environments. So inviting people, advising people I knew and then people they knew, and then making sure they were interactive, and then getting feedback from people as to what was working and what wasn't working. Again. It's been a while It's been a gradual process of building building that practice. And in some cases, there were things I thought I would be doing that haven't really happened and other things that I'd never thought of which I've really flourished. But it would put the, it wasn't a plan to start doing it, it was just necessity

must have been cool. To be honest, the deep tissue guy, that's a cool title, title.

Wow. Yeah, I'm very glad that I wouldn't be doing it anymore. Because I mean, one of the things that was that I had throughout my experience as a therapist was that as soon as I would touch somebody, I would pick up on a lot of their emotional stuff. And a lot of their nuts, again, not like not like the intimate details of what was going on in their lives, but it would pick up on a lot of their life stresses. So in some cases, I might as well have been working on I might have been working on a wall, or a Bannister, because people's muscles were so tight. And I was so I was, on the one hand, I was having to work physically hard to try and break down the lesions of the strains. But I was also picking up on their tension. I was also carrying a lot of my own tension. So it might be a cool title. But it was a very challenging experience. So I'm very glad I'm not in there anymore.

How are you able to deal with your own tension and other people's tension to differentiate? Is this mine or theirs?

Good question. I wasn't as good looking back, I wasn't as good as I thought I was, I was never one of you know, this strutting male sort of macho types, or I was physically strong. And I guess I saw myself and that was partly because I also had a martial arts background as well, I did see myself as kind of a warrior. So kind of bring it on in terms of whatever, not another in terms of aggression, but in terms of like challenges and whatever problems people brought me. And I thought I was handling my stress a lot better than I was, I thought I was letting go of other people's stresses better than I was. And I think that's where it all culminated in my body, basically, just giving up because there were a lot of there were a lot of other health issues that are relatively like nothing, life threatening, or anything, but there was a whole series of life or health issues that arose which, and because of my background was very clear to me that a lot of this stuff was not non physical, it's not physical in origin. So it had to, it made me have to reflect, to re examine where I was and how I was operating. It's fair to say, it's certainly fair to say I've been a slow learner in many ways. I've learned a lot through adversity through when there's been more than a few occasions where life came crashing down, I didn't see my role in creating that. Thankfully, I'm a lot more awake now. A lot more, a lot more tuned in to what's mine and what's not mine, a lot more tuned into how to be in the world painfully. I'm in a much more, I won't say constantly joyful place. But I, every day, for much of the day, I recognise the joy in life. So there's a lot of stuff that just doesn't get to anymore. There's a lot of stuff and certainly in my past that I don't need to deal with because it's just gone. But also, like, I noticed is very much taking you're taking the answer to the question off in a slightly different direction. But one very huge, very, very significant piece of information is inside rather, which actually has been I've gained it through working with a mutual friend of ours late to anywhere that the past is just information so I no longer look back on the past as anything, certainly in anything negative. I just recognise that what happened happened. That's been immensely helpful. both personally and also then and how I help other people because it's no longer about regrets and recrimination, self recrimination, self criticism, all that stuff, either for me or people I work with, it's it's very much about okay, we're here now. And let's just deal with what's happening now, that's just look forward up what we want, we want to create the life we want. So it's no longer it's no longer taking on stuff, either personally, or taking on other people's stuff. It's, it's a completely completely different state, a completely different way of being it's so much freer, so much lighter, and recognising one doesn't have to one doesn't have to carry one's own stuff. And when it doesn't have to take a lot of stuff from other people. So it's not to say life is stress free, or when a stress arises of any description internally or externally, it's so much easier to let go of it so much more quickly. And that's part of the joy the recognition that one can do that, as part of the joy of the joy of being and it's it makes life so much more fun. And it's also it also goes back to that word on learning. When we are realising that we can just unlearn all that other stuff, all the other conditioning and live in a very different way. Very different state very different perception of life very different perception of oneself very different perception of other people and how we engage with each other how we interact the world we're creating around ourselves. So it's opened up, it's opened up life itself with myself. And that's as I've opened up, life has come to meet me In a much, much more fulfilling and rewarding way than I would ever have experienced before. And obviously, obviously, I want a lot more of that. Not just for me, but because having gone through all those experiences and having gone through the learning, and the own learning, and the opening up, it gives me so much more to share that can actually benefit other people as well. So there's another long and roundabout answer.

So you're coming to a point where you're your body saying, no, no, no, no. And you're thinking, I don't want to do this. It sounds like you were avoiding to do the face stuff in business and legal and all the business world that we that we can assist in? How do you come about coming to that by her decision of saying, I can't be doing this massage work or this deep tissue work anymore, but I need to focus on something different, that must have been a very hard but amazing decision to come to. At the same time. No,

I probably I probably didn't express something there as clearly as I might have. Because as a therapist, my clientele was very came from so many different backgrounds. And I treated quite a number of police officers, detectives, lawyers, prison officers, probation officers, amongst others, overarching impression I got from dealing with them was how stressful that whole profession is. And obviously, it's a series of professions intertwined. And how challenging so many of the personalities are, and so and how much aggression there is in it. So it was more that side of things I didn't want to deal with. I didn't want to I didn't want to engage in that. And I have been like I've been approached about working in that field allergists I just that's where I still say no, that's definitely not an area I would I would go to because I think for me, that would be very disruptive. But the business side was more I was feeling I was much more open to that because as I said, I was already engaged in business networking, I was more open to that. And I'd always loved that I just I just loved reading faces anyway. But it was a case of those cases of how to adapt it. Again, it took me a while to recognise the importance of the difference between what I really enjoyed doing and what they needed, and what they got most benefit from, because it was always fun for me to do it. I like it, I could do it at the drop of a hat. And I had to make sure equally that it wasn't just seen as a party game. But the thing of doing it doing it for business people know that that I was open to it was just a case of how best to do it and how best to present myself. And again, it also goes back to part of my own journey, I guess my own process, where the more I opened up to myself, the easier it was to engage with, with the business world in terms of what I was doing both in terms of the depth of connection that was making the quality of connection and what was being offered to me what was being presented to me as opportunity. So you're really you're really getting me thinking here are

you're a guy who's lived on the planet for a good length of time

to read diplomatic IVR.

Out of everyone that's touched you who's inspire you throughout your life to do you want to do or kind of push you to a point where Hey, Joseph, you know, here's some wisdom. Interesting

question. I guess there have been several key inspirations. My father would would be number one, as I say he has been dead many years, but I can still feel his influence, I can still feel his energy because for all the challenges he had us in his life, and he had challenges way beyond anything I would ever have experienced very, very tough childhood and major health issues right through his life. What he was a man of great integrity, Great Spirit, a true gentleman. So I've learned a lot from that. I wouldn't say he was following his own path in the sense of doing what he really wanted to do. And I'm not sure what it was he really wanted to do. But he dedicated himself to raising a family. And that was obviously part of his upbringing, etc. And, you know, I'm very grateful to him for all that he did for the have been, I guess there have been a number of teachers I've met through the years at different stages, different people have helped me different people have inspired me. So I don't know that there's one particular figure beyond that. I think there's several and what I'm finding actually now is I'm meeting more and more people who just inspire me through through their friendships through how they're living their lives. And I'm recognising that for all the, I guess, restrictions I've placed on myself over the corporate life through my life. And I think that's probably the best way to phrase it. It's just time to get on with it now just be myself. A true to myself do do the stuff I know I'm really capable of doing and do it to the very best way ability. There was a famous expression of Brandon Viens. And I won't use that I won't use the first word but basically said sod the big Rogers, people, some people will like me, some people won't like me. Some people would get it some people won't get it. It doesn't really matter. The more open I am to myself, the more the opportunities just present themselves and the better the opportunities I've had against so many opportunities that I would never have even thought over so many areas to to express myself and express what I have to offer. are presenting, like I did a little homework yesterday. And I was just listing number of either actual or potential collaborations that I can see, most of which have only arisen in the last probably even nine months, actually, most of them. And at the moment, there's between all of them this this 19 potential collaborations that I can get to good very easily yes, that there may even be more that I haven't thought of yet. Like, there are opportunities that have come primarily because I've opened up to myself, because I've been very consistent also in in my networking and in building connections, and then helping people in the process, that it certainly hasn't been just about, what can you do for me and help me give me etc, etc. I've always been very willing to share what I've got with others, to help them as best I can. And it's kind of wasn't a particular business network many years, many years ago, where their philosophy is givers gain. And that that particularly resonated with me as well. So there's been a lot of people I've experienced who've shared that. So it's not down to just one individual, or highlighting one individual or another. There are more and more people now inspiring me just just to our connection, some, some well known some not so well known, but I don't put I don't put anybody on a pedestal anyway. So at the inspiration, just there's always there's always some daily inspiration from somebody, or there are particular people I guess I'm closer to mentioned, you mentioned Lee, Tony, were there. This is a particular friend. And he's been a massive, massive support, they certainly continues to learn so much more to my interactions with Lee, but not just leaders, there are many, many others as well. Male and female, young and old. And it's also being open to being inspired, being open to opening up oneself, to bring the best of oneself into the situation. So there's always there's never a point where you think, Oh, I've cracked it, I've done it, I've reached I've reached the you know, I've reached the best of myself, it's always there's always more to open up to and there's always more, there's always more fun, there's always more joy, there's always more learning. And there's always more sharing and sharing and engaging. It's a continuous, continuous daily unfolding. You know, I was obviously just named to particular people there. But there are so many more. There's, there's so many more, tell

us about how the the name of the website and how the book came about.

Okay, well maybe just start with with the website, basically, the company name is clear sight communications. And I basically did a little bit of mind mapping, came up with a lot of different words, but the word clear sight jumped out at me. And that's because there's so much evidence that is really available in clear sight. So when I look at somebody, the information is there, they don't have to move, they don't have to say a single thing. There's so much information visually available in clear sight about people. And then the communication bit is about so much information being communicated. But it's also to help people clarify the communication, clarify the message so that they're getting it across to the person or the people they're dealing with that person or those people need to receive it. Because it's very easy to relatively easy anyway to be good or even excellent at what we do and to really know our product or service thoroughly. But it says different thing entirely to get it across to the person or client or prospective client or customer in the way they need to receive the information. And though and the way they they actually process the information. So it's very easy for us to be articulate in terms of describing what it is we do. And what we did was we offer what they might be hearing in the head effect, you know, the equivalent of rhubarb, rhubarb rhubarb, you know, their crowd scenes and movies and TV TV dramas. And it's very easy to bombard people with technical terms, which are just not part of their understanding. So I can help people identify how John or Mary needs to receive the information so that they can process it effectively. So you can actually build a relationship and seal the deal, the book came about, people have been asking me about a book for many, many years. And eventually I started and after a while realised that what I started to do how it started to do it was just not going to happen wasn't going to work. Because I had this because it's so much information in my head, like I can recognise something like 168 either individual facial features, or combinations thereof, and then how they interact. So that's an incredible amount of information. And I was trying to put it all down, and it would have been, it would have been a book I'd never have been able to finish writing. So I had to just abandon that and strip it right back and just give a few key examples of each feature in terms of what they mean in terms of communication in terms of behaviour style of the individual. So giving a giving a clear visual image of six different sets of eyebrow, six different sets of eyes, that kind of thing, very clear visual image and hopefully a clear explanation of what that actually means in terms of an individual with that with those particular characteristics. So the book is a book is an information primer, I guess a simple accessible manual for people who want to be able to understand what it is Ace actually conveys so that they can, again build effective relationships. And I've titled it face facts, the activating your clients, the prospect for sales, negotiation and recruitment. But it doesn't just apply in those areas that applies in life. I've obviously aimed it at a business audience, which hence the title, but it applies in any area of life in any area of relationship. Because really, the more effectively we communicate and communicate, both in terms of giving information and receiving information allows us to build more bridges and much more, build bridges much more effectively and communicate more effectively and build stronger relationships in all areas of life. So yeah, so that's, that's how the business name came. And the book

was listening to an interview you did there a few months ago, I don't know at the time period was being described as an elephant's pregnancy. And I thought that's a great way to describe the project. You can't write a book just.

Yes, yeah, I kind of felt like that. And it was, yeah, because I, because I'd written so much. And then I do, I realised, I just have to scrap this. So I was obviously able to retain some of the information. It's a funny process, writing a book, because it's what one thinks when I was writing. And then this one actually emerges as one writes, then the technical challenges, like I needed very specific images. So that took a lot of time in itself. And then I needed images that a connection that had the rights to use, which was a separate thing. And then does the end is the process of getting it printed and printed in particular formats because I self published and I wanted a hardback I was advised particularly on that was somebody had gone through the process many times. So there were a whole was a whole other series of processes that I would never have thought of before I started writing them understand when the book is ready, you realise, oh, that's not the end of the job. Now you've got to go out and present it to the world. So that's, that's that's a whole other process in itself. Yeah. So there was the elephants pregnancy. And teaching teaching the baby elephant to walk as it were,

did you use mind mapping to do this all? Or was it kind of back and forth? No,

not all of it's the title of the book title, particularly another use, I use mind mapping every so often, I found it a very, very useful tool, I had the good fortune of meeting Tony was on a number of years ago in Dublin, he came to speak at an event like Dan Parker was was running, I was fortunate enough that I got to be his chaperone for the afternoon. And then we went for a meal. And he's a very, very engaging man. And he was very generous with his explanations as thoughts, his background, etc, etc. So I learned a huge amount from that experience. And it gave me a lot of ideas on how to use mind mapping effectively, I still I still use, I don't use it all the time, it wouldn't have been helpful to use it all the time for the book, because a lot of it just flowed because I had the information I've had it for so long anyway. But there were certain times in the process when I used it. And certainly, if I'm embarking on anything new, I will almost invariably use it because it's such a rich and creative way of bringing out one's thoughts and often the thoughts that one isn't even consciously aware of, because putting the words down on paper in that particular way, and particularly using colours as he as he really recommends. It's such a way of drawing on a very deep well, of internal knowledge, internal understanding internal insights, often memories, but also it can trigger areas that we realise, oh, I need to check up on that I need to learn that. For anybody who's listening. If you haven't used mind mapping, I highly recommend exploring it. think anybody in any walk of life get a huge amount from it. It's like

having a filing cabinet in the mind where you can softness and full of ideas and, and structure. And everything you've you've done. If someone met you on the street, what advice would you give them?

If I'm giving advice to somebody I look to tailor tailor it to their needs, as opposed to just giving generalised advice. One thing I have learned is I will only tend to give advice when I'm asked rather than volunteering it. Because I did recognise that a long time ago when working as a therapist that there's a line between, like invitation and interference. And if one just promotes a prefers advice to people and it's not asked for Yeah, it can be it can be it can be a little bit intrusive. So I don't just give advice. I look to tailor it to the person or the individual person and their situation and what's actually going on for them.

Fascinating. We all have to be tailored instead of one half. It's all

absolutely absolutely yeah. Yeah. Because it's very easy to come up with. Yeah, almost like recipes for success or recipes for life, etc. Very generalised advice and truisms and cliches and what have you. But if we can tailor it to the individual, it deepens the connection that shows them that we're actually paying attention to them. It's to my mind, it's much more respectful. So Much more caring, and caring, respect and kindness, more and more central to how I look to be in the world today. I think they're increasingly essential qualities for all of us. We're going through as we know, massive change anyway, in force change in some respects. But we're having been given the opportunity to reflect very deeply on how we've been living, how we've the choices we've made in life, the values we've we've taken on. Certainly I for one I'm seeing even though we're not necessarily in close physical contact, but I'm certainly seeing more examples online and through conversations online with people etc. I'm certainly seeing far more examples of caring and kindness, and respect. And we are long may that continue to grow.

Do you still play soccer or do martial arts?

No, I, I love I love soccer, nothing has ever replaced it in my life. I still love it. I but not just I could say I support particular teams. But really, I just love the game. Because for me, the game was always about expression was about, again, Character Movement, athleticism, balance, grace, elegance, creativity, as well as the actual physical contest of the game, because I do have a strong competitive element than me. So I love watching it, I do miss it. But I don't think my body would be able to play it again, at any significant level. And it is a long time since I've practised the martial art I practised was Aikido a long time since I practised, I may look at doing that again, at some point, because it's still something about it still resonates within me. And I do need to be more physically active. I know, you and I have had a conversation about running, I know you're an ultra runner. And at some point, it is part of my ambition to run an ultra. I don't know when that's likely to be what it's there for me. Because again, it's the there's a joy in running that I probably don't get from anything else. And it's not that I'm not a serious runner. And somehow, let's be honest, it's quite some time since I actually ran. But there was a period where last year when I was running, just a local sort of 5k My own circus, just for the sheer pleasure of doing it. And I know, that's, that's part of my intention isn't even a strong enough word. That's, that's something I'll be doing again, so but just for the sheer joy of being in the flow of that movement. So running is probably the thing I'm most likely to get back to sooner than any of the other things as

a competitive guy, how do you how are you able to balance the therapy and as well,

I guess the competitive bit more is more with myself, and continually learning continually improving, continually opening up to doing it better to serving people more effectively. So it's not a it's not an aggressive competitive thing. It's just more enjoying the challenge of, of just doing it better. Just getting a little just getting more insights into art. Yes. If I, if I did that, that could really help more. So that's that's more how the competitive bid comes out. It's not, it was never really an aggression thing. But it was always more about, there's always just more about me being better off whatever it was I did. There was a joy. It was, yeah, for want of a better time, there was a fierce joy in improving and learning more. And I'd stay I will say I still have that. But it was never a fierceness in terms of other people.

You mentioned about enjoying the art of football. And you also mentioned Zen and Buddhism, and they focus on the art of life. So it sounds like perfection and a competitive and art of enjoying what it is sounds like it's in your nature you make up? I

would say so. Yes, absolutely. And I needed I would say to connect with those Eastern philosophies and Eastern ways of life to allow me to emerge more fully. Because certainly growing up in the western world as I as I experienced it, and I'm not I'm not anti Western, I feel like the world has I experienced it just didn't make sense to me it was too logical to mechanical, even though I wouldn't have been able to put a title on it or a name on it at the time. I guess looking back, I could say it was very much people living from that Cartesian model. Gari logical undefeat. It's not that I have a scientific background, but the model of Newtonian physics and chemistry where I'm seeing again, it's not that I understand it in any technical sense, but I'm seeing resonance between the ancient oriental philosophies, and quantum physics, neuroscience. And I'm seeing more and more of a blending of those areas, which makes sense to me at least, where again, it's about a deep, deep interconnection, which enables me to again, just flow more effectively, with life flow more engaged more effectively with other people. I guess you could say, there is an art to that, and I'm continually learning the art. So that's probably again, part of my competitive expression. which doesn't quite doesn't quite align with the Taoism I guess, being competitive, but it's a way of I'm continually exploring how to flow more effectively, because I recognising the more I flow more effectively, the more I can affect more easily I can express the best of myself so that I can best help other people, whether again, whether that be professionally or personally, Joseph,

if people want to get in touch or read or find out more working to find you. Okay, my

website is clear sight communications.com. that's all one word clear sight communications.com, I tend to be quite active on LinkedIn to just find me under my own name, Joseph McGuire. I do have a personal Facebook page. But there's also a clear site communications Facebook page. They're the most obvious ways to get there. If people want a copy of the book, the hard copy, the signed hard copy is available only through my website. There is a version available on Kindle, obviously through Amazon, but they're they're the obvious ways to reach me,

Joseph, I want to say thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a pleasure and a joy. It's

been an absolute pleasure. For me r&d have really got me thinking about a lot of things that I really hadn't thought about for a long time and probably some some new things as well. So you've really, really stimulated the creative juices there today. So thank you so much absolute pleasure.

ChatGPT

Certainly! Here is the corrected transcript with spelling and grammar adjustments:

PE2021 JOSEPH MCGUIRE _ REPURPOSE FROM AODS 24 Sat, May 18, 2024 11:29PM ? 1:01:28

SUMMARY KEYWORDS people, guess, learning, work, realize, life, terms, world, face, teaching, therapist, part, opened, happened, recognize, years, thought, gave, process, business

Thank you.

Hello, welcome. On today's episode of Partially Excited, we have Joseph McGuire. If you want to see anything and get your face analyzed in communication and the unspoken words, this is your guy. He sits down and analyzes faces and tells you about how they're acting in their physical, mental, and maybe spiritual aspects of how our face communicates through how we communicate. Hello, and welcome to the show. Joseph, how are you doing today?

Iron? How are you doing? I'm very well indeed. Great pleasure to be here.

As a young child growing up, did you have this intuition or this feeling that you could look at people's faces and figure out what's happening in their internal view, but as an external aspect as well?

You know, the faces came later, but certainly as a small child, I knew I was picking up a lot of information from people and about people beyond what was being spoken about. I remember sitting on the floor of my parent's home as a very small child and knowing that I knew quite a bit about the adults around me. Now, I'm not talking about intimate details, but just stuff about their personality, who was confident, who wasn't, who was holding stuff back. I just picked up a lot of that stuff. But then also, my father introduced me to sport, particularly football, at a very early age. They would bring me to games, and we would actually carry a wooden crate for me to stand on so that I could see over the side of the pitch because I was probably only four years old or something initially when they brought me. I realized I could see a lot of the patterns in the game, see a lot of what was going to happen in terms of who was moving and where, who was going to move where, and where the ball was going to go. I just assumed everybody was doing that stuff. Obviously, they weren't. And then it was only many years later when I lived in London, when I moved to London and started studying there, I was introduced to face reading as one of the diagnostic techniques used in traditional oriental medicine. When I was introduced to that, it was like bells ringing and lightbulbs flashing because it gave me a structure. It gave me a very defined structure to explain a lot of what I could see and what I was picking up. It also made so much sense to me because it came from a philosophy, like the tradition of face reading in Chinese medicine and Chinese politics, which is at least 3000 years old. It's not that far back that the documentation goes, but the understanding is that the mind and the body are one inseparable unit. You could say the spirit is part of that as well. I guess I had intuitively always understood that we're not just a physical structure, that the mind is influencing the body and vice versa. The body, in many respects, is a metaphor for what's happening internally. When I started to study this and became immersed in it, it just opened up a whole new world of understanding, but also ways for me to explain what I was already doing intuitively. People like structure, and this gave it to me. It just opened doors for me to reflect, think more widely, think more deeply, and to understand, or actually to be reassured even, that there was a tradition. There were other people who had been working and developed systems and understanding that was way beyond anything I had done. But also to know that I wasn't alone in the world, because it was kind of strange growing up, knowing that I knew stuff that I couldn't explain to people. I guess also because I grew up without any confidence, I just held a lot of stuff in as well. So to be exposed to this world where I was being given this information, this knowledge from this deep tradition, and then sharing it with colleagues and a whole new circle of friends, it opened up the world to me in a way that it had never been available to me before.

As a child, did your parents identify this and notice it in you?

No, it was not a particularly expressive household anyway. I wouldn't have had the confidence to say it anyway. I just basically kept my mouth shut.

When did you gain the confidence?

That's a deep question, Aaron. Yeah, I guess. I know my birth was traumatic. I know there was a lot of stress in the family in terms of my father having major, major health issues around the time of my birth. He had health issues throughout his life. He worked hard, he was physically strong, but internally, he had a lot of serious health issues which were very debilitating for him. I think that caused massive stress for my mother. My mother would be quite a fearful individual anyway. I didn't have any of the horror stories that people talk about in terms of abuse. It was just a non-expressive household. It was a very conservative Catholic household, which didn't sit with me even as a small child. I'm not against Catholicism or any other religion, but it was way too strict for me. I just withdrew into myself at a very young age. I didn't really know how to express what was going on for me. In retrospect, I can say it was some kind of protective mechanism, but I wasn't thinking about it at the time. It's been an ongoing journey, building confidence and finding a place in the world. It's the willingness to express myself as much as I wouldn't even say courage, but the willingness to express myself. I'm in an altogether better, stronger, healthier place now, but it has been a long journey. I'm very grateful for that. I was a therapist for many years myself, and I treated people who had the most horrendous backgrounds and histories. I'm very grateful that that wasn't part of mine. We all have different histories and backgrounds, as we know. We all respond in different ways. It took me many, many years to understand that it's not what happened to us, but how we respond that counts, and to realize that I actually had a choice. That's part of what I love to share with people now in my own training, that we're always in that place of having a choice. Regardless of what has or hasn't happened to us, being in the present is a very, very powerful place to be. That's the place from which to make choices in terms of creating a future. That's probably a roundabout answer to your question, but it all fits together in my head anyway.

Did you want to become a therapist, or did that kind of discovery help you identify your confidence as well?

I didn't want to be a therapist. I didn't search it out. It was one of those synchronistic happenings. As a kid growing up, I wanted to be a professional footballer. That was the only thing I wanted to be. In retrospect, I'm very glad that I never did become one. I didn't have the ability to be at that level anyway. If I had been exposed to that, because I didn't have the confidence, I think I probably would have been quite damaged because it's a tough world. It was only when I moved to London, I had been introduced to natural foods before I left Ireland. I moved to Israel initially to spend time on a kibbutz, then moved to London. I had some addresses to follow up on my interest in natural foods because I found that the change of diet gave me such a huge boost in energy, well-being, vitality, all of that. I wanted to follow it up. There was a particular center I went to visit in London one evening. They had a vegetarian restaurant there. I was sitting at a table opposite a guy who happened to be there. I had no idea who he was. He was from Denmark. We just got chatting. He said he was over for a course. The guy came by the table, and my new friend called him over and pointed at me and said, "This guy wants to do the course," which was the first thing I'd heard about it. That course happened to be starting that night. I just said, "Okay, let's go for it." That was the beginning of my training. There was no plan at all. It just happened.

At the time, natural foods probably weren't as prevalent in Ireland as they are today. Tell us how you came across natural foods.

Another one of those synchronicities. I had acupuncture treatment for a back problem in, I think, 1976, which would have been very novel in Ireland at the time. I didn't get any information from the acupuncturist, but my back injury was cleared very quickly. I was fascinated by that. Some years later, I had a knee injury from playing football. I initially went to the Mater Hospital a few times and was told different things each time, so I just gave up on that because it wasn't making my knee any better. I came across this other acupuncturist. I went to see him, and he was recommending all his patients change their diet to a natural foods diet. I had literally gone to him—it was a Saturday afternoon—I had gone for lunch at McDonald's, went to him, got this list of foods to eat and foods not to eat, and the address of a place in the city center in Dublin where I could get those foods. I went back and got them. I was still living with my parents at the time. I brought them home, put them on the kitchen table because I was a good Irish boy and didn't do any cooking. I brought them to the kitchen table, said to my mother, "Would you cook those for me, please, because that's what I'm eating now." I literally changed my diet overnight. She had no idea what the foods were. I had never seen or heard of them before. I rang the guy, got basic cooking instructions, and initially, it was like eating a combination of pollyfilla and gravel because it was so badly cooked. But I just got such incredible energy from it. I had always been fit, but this was beyond anything I'd experienced. After a while—and it was a very short turnaround, a matter of weeks—I started to feel so much energy that it felt like a waste of time going to bed at night. I was also fortunate to find a restaurant in Dublin city center, I think the only one at the time, which served this food, and it was actually delicious. That was a lifesaver. I learned a few basic recipes and started to do them myself. I was absolutely fascinated by all of this. I made arrangements to move to Israel for a time, which disrupted things, but once I got to London, I was able to follow through and learn how to cook and prepare the foods. It became a way of life.

Why did you go to Israel?

Israel had been a beacon for me for many years. I had always had a fascination with history, not just Irish history, but global history. Probably because I was so lacking in confidence myself, I tuned into what I perceived as injustice in the world. My favorite football teams, my favorite singers, my favorite actors, my favorite film roles always seemed to be to do with people who were struggling or fighting injustice or were the underdog. I always kind of identified with that. I read a lot about the formation of Israel, the whole history of the Holocaust. I read various novels to do with that period of time. I knew a number of people who had been to Israel and spent time on one or other of the kibbutzim. It was just like a beacon calling me. It wasn't that I wanted to become Jewish or anything like that. There was just something about Israel that resonated with me. I connected with an organization called Project 67 in London, and I was placed on a kibbutz through them. That was what I did. It was very fortunate because although I had connected with natural foods before leaving Ireland, I had been made redundant from the company I was working in and couldn't see a future in Ireland. Even though I had stopped drinking alcohol, I was still going to the pub with my friends most nights of the week because I couldn't see anything else to do. Life wasn't exactly open and fulfilling here. So the prospect of going somewhere else, for whatever reason that resonated with me, was very significant. Going to Israel, I was exposed to people from so many other cultures, glorious sunshine, different foods, different ways of thinking, different languages. It opened up a whole series of vistas about life. I guess there was a bigger purpose behind going there as well.

So you spent time in Israel, then went to London. What happened in London to continue this fascinating journey of exploration?

Well, I signed up for that course, which was initially a three-month course, with classes four evenings a week and many weekends. It included nutrition, how to cook and prepare whole foods, much of which was very much oriental-style cooking, which really appealed to me and still does. There was training in shiatsu, a branch of oriental medicine often referred to as acupuncture without needles. We learned facial diagnosis and some other forms of diagnosis as well. I was also working for one of my teachers at a health food store he owned, so I was getting a huge amount of practice. As soon as anybody would walk into the store, he would ask, "Okay, what's his condition? What's her condition?" It was full-on training, which I absolutely loved. My whole social circle became people who were interested in the same stuff. We were constantly feeding off each other, sometimes literally through visiting and parties, but through our conversations, it was all about learning this stuff. I just felt like I had found my place. It opened up a whole new way of thinking. That was the first course, but there were several other courses following on from that and other adjuncts and more specialized shiatsu training, etc. It was kind of expected of us who were doing those courses that we would become therapists. As part of that broader community, I met a German lady who is now my ex-wife. Her best friend was married to the director of a smaller center in Hamburg, and they were looking for people to come and work there. So that was the next step. I moved to Hamburg, started practicing, and started teaching. That's where that side of things took off.

While you were learning this, diagnosing and understanding therapy, you were probably going through your own personal diagnosis as well.

Oh, yeah. That is ongoing. I guess I didn't realize it even then, probably for quite a number of years, how little real self-confidence I had. That was still holding me back in many ways. In some ways, it was probably beneficial because I actually thought I was further along than I was in terms of my own personal development and personal transformation. It probably allowed me to take some risks that I might not have taken if I had been a bit more self-aware. I might not have gone to Germany because when I moved to Germany, I didn't speak any German, so I was learning from scratch, learning through conversation. I probably wouldn't have automatically said yes to teaching German groups of people in Germany because within the first six months of being there, and again, not speaking German, I taught something like 50-odd classes, never having taught anything before either. I didn't realize how naive and unprepared I was to teach anything. If I had been more self-aware, I might have done a much better job. I don't know that I did a bad job, but I think I probably would have done a better job, but I might not have been willing to take the risk in the first place, especially given that I didn't speak German at the time. So my naivety was very helpful. The transformation has been ongoing. One of the things I did learn, and I have been heavily influenced by oriental philosophy over many years, particularly Taoism and Zen, is that life shows us mirrors of how we are. I recognized that the people who were coming to me for treatment, particularly for classes but especially for treatment, were reflecting something in me. I was learning a lot, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, through that whole experience and the broader experience of being in a very foreign society. It's been a gradual process of learning and unlearning because a lot of stuff needs to be unlearned as we go. A lot of the social conditioning, parental conditioning, environmental conditioning, educational conditioning—all of that, which in many respects hasn't served us to any great degree, certainly not in terms of recognizing our deepest values and purpose. I do believe we all have a purpose here. One of the things that happened as I developed my practice, both in Hamburg and later back in Ireland, was that when I reached a plateau where my skills could only help people to a certain point, I would get people with a whole different range of problems, different personalities, and sometimes much more challenging ones. I had to grow more, both in terms of my skills and my awareness and self-awareness, my understanding of where I was really at and what I really had to offer. I had to stretch myself to go beyond previous comfort zones. It has been and remains an unfolding journey. There's always so much learning. Instead of seeing it as, "Oh God, there's all this other stuff I have to learn," now it's just a joy to recognize there's so much more to learn, so much more possibility. So, a roundabout answer to a very simple question, but that's fairly normal for me.

I also think when we're young and naive and eager to achieve, we sometimes, when we're older, wiser, say, "I shouldn't have done that," or "I should have done this," but in the moment, it's like, "That sounds great, I'll jump on it." I like that analogy of the mirror. It's so true. Discovering shiatsu, were you interested in the likes of Buddhism, Taoism, or did that come through the exploration of shiatsu?

I've always been interested in different philosophies. One of the great gifts my parents gave me was introducing me to reading. While I was in school, they enrolled me in the local library at a very early age, and I became a voracious reader. I read very widely. I was fascinated by social history, anthropology, different cultures. I read a lot about different backgrounds, traditions, and significant figures in different traditions as well. Zen and Taoism, I don't pretend to have an in-depth understanding of them, but in as much as I do understand them, they resonated very strongly with me. Taoism is a philosophy of being present and in flow with life, which made so much sense. Growing up, life seemed to be about struggle, not just for me personally but what was being modeled for me. You have to work hard; life is a grind. Internally, it didn't make sense. It's not to knock hard work, but I had a deep, intuitive sense that life could be easier if I found the key. The lessons in Taoism and Zen kept prodding me to tweak my understanding and way of being, making life easier. I realized I was living life in a way that was too intense, trying very hard to figure life out. I felt like I was in an alien place. Life, as I saw it in the world around me, didn't make sense. How people were living, how society was structured, didn't make sense. There was a different way for me, at least. It has been a gradual unfolding to be at ease within myself and with the world, recognizing that life can be a joyful experience. That's what I'm looking to share through my work. Zen takes you out of logic, allowing your mind to drop into another place beyond thinking. It's a difficult state to explain in words, but to experience it is profound. I don't know if one can stay there and function in the world, but I've experienced it many times. It transforms one's view of life. The challenge is how to bring that into life and apply it for one's benefit and for others.

In Hanover, Germany, were you doing treatments? Did facial diagnosis happen at this time, or did it happen before or after?

Because I was based in this center offering many courses, it made sense to offer courses on reading the face. Initially, I was doing it purely from a diagnostic perspective. The more I delved into it and became conscious of my own internal workings, the more I brought in the personality and behavioral side, the communication side. The Chinese perspective, particularly in traditional Chinese medicine, is that all illness starts in the mind or the mind energy level before becoming physical. That resonated with me. I had never taught anything before, so I was easing my way in. I taught shiatsu and facial diagnosis regularly. When I moved back to Ireland, I started expanding how I was doing it. Initially, I was teaching it to both the public and healthcare professionals, from eminent medical consultants to alternative practitioners, sometimes in the same room together. It gradually evolved to include more of the personality, behavior, and communication aspects. My classes have always been interactive, using people in the room, including myself, as models to illustrate what I was talking about. It became more about identifying deeper strengths that people often weren't living. As I was revealing strengths to others, I was helping to bring out more of my own.

Did you spend a lot of time in front of the mirror in the bathroom, looking at your own face to master this?

That's not my preferred occupation, I assure you. Initially, when I was introduced to this, I could see my own shortcomings very clearly. I was very self-critical, with certain perfectionist tendencies. I would see all the things I didn't want to see. Spending time in the bathroom looking at the mirror was not my favorite occupation by any means. I had a wake-up call early on when the first person on whom I saw a really serious illness before it was diagnosed was my own father. I saw a heart condition and was naive enough to point it out, which caused ripples in the family. Not long after, he was diagnosed with a heart condition and had a series of heart issues, eventually dying from heart failure after a triple bypass. It caused anxiety in the family, particularly with my mother, who would often ask, "What's wrong with me?" whenever we met. It was an uncomfortable place to be with anybody, especially a family member.

Do you regret this?

I don't live with regrets. That's something my father taught me. When I got married, my ex-wife was from Kelowna, and we got married there. My parents came over for the wedding, and I spent some time showing my father around Cologne. One of the things he said to me was that he realized he had made a lot of mistakes, but he had no regrets because he gave his best effort at the time. I really took that on board. I could say I've made a lot of mistakes and had a lot of failures, but I don't think that way anymore. I just accept that I was where I was, and I've moved on and learned from it. I've helped more people than I've hurt in the process.

Have you made amends with the family now, over the last few years, or is it still recovering?

It didn't damage things in any permanent way. My father has been dead for many years, but he and I became very close in the last few years of his life. I wasn't living in Ireland; I was still in Germany when he died, which had a massive impact on me for a long time—not being there. My mother was never particularly emotionally expressive anyway, so we just got along. My sister, who is closest in age to me and has a medical background, is very intuitive. She would have understood and not been affected by what I said. There were no permanent rifts in the family, just ripples of discomfort.

You diagnose and understand people's faces. If I met you on the street and we didn't know each other, could you identify things through looking at my face while communicating with me?

Yes, your face, even if you don't speak, will tell me a huge amount about you. When people are speaking, I'm looking for congruence or lack thereof between their words and body language, gestures, and facial expressions. Some people are incredibly articulate and smooth talkers, but I'm checking for real substance. When called to sit in on interviews for senior-level roles, that's particularly what I'm looking for. People who have reached a certain level tend to be articulate, but I'm looking for real substance.

How do you know if it's a lie or honesty by the way their face reacts to the conversation?

That's always a key question. The average person has about a 50/50 chance of gauging whether someone is lying or not. Many professionals, like in the police force or body language professionals, wouldn't be much more accurate. I've learned to tune in more. One of the areas that fascinate me is neuroscience, which talks about the three brains: the head, heart, and gut. These brains communicate with each other. If they're working coherently and congruently, we're more attuned to ourselves emotionally and to the world around us. I allow the information to present itself to me and check for congruence. If I start actively looking for something in someone's presentation, it's easy to miss the bigger picture. It's like a blood test that has to be for something specific; it can't be for everything. Allowing the information to come to me and then checking it as it comes makes sense to me.

When you meet someone, are you constantly analyzing, or are you in the flow of conversation as well?

By and large, I'm in the flow because constantly analyzing would lead to information overload. When I meet people, I'm looking to meet them and recognize how best to communicate with them as individuals. When people hear what I do, it's not unusual for them to feel uneasy. Some people think I'm looking into their soul, which I'm not. It's about meeting the person and helping them relax. It's all about relationship building, whether on a personal, social, or business level.

In 2016, you decided to go towards business, is that right?

Yeah, that wasn't a particular plan. I had been a therapist for almost 30 years, doing a lot of hands-on work because I trained in different modalities. I did a lot of exchanges with other therapists, learning from each other. I learned deep tissue work and got a reputation for being good at it. The last few years in Dublin, a lot of what I was doing was deep tissue work. I also had a lot of marital life stress. The deep tissue work took a major toll on my body, leading to strains, tendinitis, bursitis, and wrist problems. My body just couldn't physically work anymore. The only thing I was trained to do was to read faces. I knew people in the States were working in the corporate world with face reading, doing HR, sales training, interviewing, etc. It made sense to transfer my skills to a different context. I did some road testing, holding free events for business connections and getting feedback. It was a gradual process of building that practice. Some things I thought I would be doing didn't happen, and other things I never thought of flourished. It wasn't a plan, but a necessity.

It must have been cool to be known as the deep tissue guy.

Yeah, but I'm very glad I'm not doing it anymore. Throughout my experience as a therapist, as soon as I touched somebody, I would pick up on a lot of their emotional stuff. In some cases, I might as well have been working on a wall because people's muscles were so tight. I was working physically hard to break down the lesions and strains while also picking up on their tension. I was carrying a lot of my own tension too. It might be a cool title, but it was a very challenging experience. I'm glad I'm not in it anymore.

How were you able to deal with your own tension and other people's tension?

Good question. I wasn't as good at it as I thought I was. I saw myself as physically strong and kind of a warrior, taking on challenges and problems people brought me. I thought I was handling my stress better than I was. I thought I was letting go of other people's stresses better than I was. That's why my body gave out. There were a lot of health issues, not life-threatening, but clear to me that they weren't physical in origin. It made me reflect and re-examine how I was operating. I've been a slow learner in many ways, learning a lot through adversity. I'm a lot more awake now, more attuned to what's mine and what's not. Life is much more joyful now. There's a lot of stuff from my past that I don't need to deal with anymore. One significant insight, gained through working with a mutual friend, is that the past is just information. I no longer look back on the past negatively. It's been immensely helpful. It's no longer about regrets or self-criticism. It's about being present and looking forward. It's not about carrying stuff, either personally or from others. Life is so much freer and lighter now. It's a continuous, daily unfolding, recognizing the joy of life and the ability to let go of stress quickly.

So you're coming to a point where your body says no, and you think, "I can't do this anymore." How did you come to the decision to focus on something different?

I probably didn't express something clearly. As a therapist, my clientele came from many different backgrounds, including police officers, detectives, lawyers, and prison officers. I treated many of them and saw how stressful their professions were. I didn't want to engage in that. The business side was more open to me because I was already networking in business environments. I just loved reading faces. It was a case of how best to present myself. It took me a while to recognize the importance of the difference between what I enjoyed doing and what they needed. The more I opened up to myself, the easier it was to engage with the business world and the opportunities presented to me.

You've lived on the planet for a good length of time. Out of everyone who's touched you, who's inspired you throughout your life?

Interesting question. There have been several key inspirations. My father would be number one. He had a very tough childhood and major health issues throughout his life, but he was a man of great integrity and spirit. He taught me a lot. There have been a number of teachers and friends at different stages who have helped and inspired me. I'm meeting more and more people now who inspire me through their friendships and how they're living their lives. It's time to get on with it and be true to myself. I was influenced by a famous expression by Brendan Behan, "Sod the begrudgers." People will like me or not; it doesn't really matter. The more open I am to myself, the better the opportunities. There have been many inspirations, and I continue to learn from new ones.

Tell us about the name of the website and how the book came about.

The company name is Clear Sight Communications. The word "clear sight" jumped out at me because there's so much evidence available in clear sight. When I look at somebody, the information is there. The communication part is about clarifying the message so that it's received effectively. The book came about because people had been asking me to write one for many years. Eventually, I started and realized that my initial approach wasn't going to work. I had to strip it back and give clear examples of facial features in terms of communication and behavior. The book is an accessible manual for understanding what a face conveys to build effective relationships. It's titled "Face Facts: Deactivating Your Clients and Prospects for Sales, Negotiation, and Recruitment," but it applies to all areas of life. The writing process took time, including getting specific images and going through the printing process. It's like an elephant's pregnancy, and then you have to present the baby elephant to the world.

Did you use mind mapping to do this all, or was it back and forth?

Not all of it. The book title and some parts used mind mapping. I had the good fortune of meeting Tony Buzan, the creator of mind mapping, and learning from him. It's a very useful tool for drawing on a deep well of internal knowledge and insights. I still use it for new projects. It's like having a filing cabinet in the mind. I highly recommend it.

If someone met you on the street, what advice would you give them?

I tailor advice to the individual's needs rather than giving generalized advice. I only give advice when asked. There's a line between invitation and interference. Tailored advice deepens the connection and shows respect and care.

Fascinating. We all have to be tailored instead of one size fits all.

Absolutely. It's very easy to give general advice, but tailoring it to the individual is more respectful and effective.

Do you still play soccer or do martial arts?

No, I love soccer, but I don't think my body could handle playing it again. I used to practice Aikido, and I may look at doing that again. I need to be more physically active. Running is something I enjoy, and it's part of my ambition to run an ultra. There's a joy in running that I don't get from anything else. I'll get back to it for the sheer pleasure of it.

As a competitive guy, how do you balance therapy and competitiveness?

The competitive part is more with myself, continually learning, improving, and serving people more effectively. It's not an aggressive competitiveness but more about enjoying the challenge of doing better. It allows me to express the best of myself to help others.

You mentioned enjoying the art of football and the art of life through Zen and Buddhism. It sounds like perfection, competitiveness, and the art of enjoying things are in your nature.

I would say so, yes. Connecting with Eastern philosophies allowed me to emerge more fully. The Western world, as I experienced it, was too logical and mechanical. I'm seeing resonance between ancient oriental philosophies and modern science, like quantum physics and neuroscience. It allows me to flow more effectively with life and engage more effectively with others. There's an art to that, and I'm continually learning it. The more I flow, the better I can express myself and help others.

If people want to get in touch or read or find out more, where can they find you?

My website is clearsightcommunications.com. I'm quite active on LinkedIn under my name, Joseph McGuire. I have a personal Facebook page and a Clear Sight Communications Facebook page. The signed hard copy of my book is available through my website, and there's a Kindle version on Amazon.

Joseph, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a pleasure and a joy.

It's been an absolute pleasure for me, Aaron. You've really got me thinking about a lot of things I hadn't thought about for a long time and probably some new things as well. You've really stimulated the creative juices today. Thank you so much. Absolute pleasure=