Body of 9 – How to Improve Communication Using the Body With Susan and Martin Fisher

Music:   This is RecruitingDaily’s Recruiting Live Podcast, where we look at the strategies behind the world’s best talent acquisition teams. We talk recruiting, sourcing, and talent acquisition. Each week, we take one overcomplicated topic and break it down so that your three-year-old can understand it. Make sense? Are you ready to take your game to the next level? You’re at the right spot. You’re now entering the mind of a hustler. Here’s your host, William Tincup

William Tincup: Ladies and gentlemen, this is William Tincup, and you are listening to the RecruitingDaily Podcast. Today, we have Susan and Martin from a company called Body of 9, and we’ll be talking about how to improve communication using the body. Can’t wait to learn from them, can’t wait to get into it. So without any further ado, Susan and Martin, would y’all please introduce yourselves and introduce Body of 9 as a company.

Susan Fisher: Well, my name is Susan Fisher, and I found out what we call my Natural Number, 20 years ago. And when I found out it authenticated who I am in a way that was so powerful for me, that I knew I found my life purpose. And as a result, I’ve been working with this discovery for 20 years and never straight from that path.

Martin Fisher: And I’m Martin Fisher. And I found out my Natural Number, going on for 12 years ago now, and it helped me make sense of the world. I knew what was going on, I had some idea about how the world worked, but I didn’t quite understand why. And this really helped me understand how it is that we managed to miscommunicate with people and how that is really hard to actually communicate because we’re all so different, but all so much the same.

William Tincup: I love that. I love that. And I definitely want to learn more about Body of 9. Let’s dig into the topic. How do we improve communication using the body? When you first interact with folks and they have that question, like, “Okay.” What are the basics and where do you start people?”

Martin Fisher: Well, basically, even though there’s seven billion some people on the planet, there’s only actually nine, what we tend to refer to as bodysuits, but nine different ways that our bodies develop. There are nine centers in our body and one of those centers is actually activated in the womb. We can actually tell. And when babies are born, they start to grow and develop based on what we call this Natural Number. And one of the first things that we realized, is that these Natural Number don’t repeat in families. And in general, we don’t tend to hang out with people of the same Natural Number. 

And at companies we work at, we are surrounded by people of all different Natural Numbers. And your Natural Number determines and guides a lot of your physical reality, it shapes how your body’s built, it shapes how you move, it shapes what you care about, it shapes how you communicate, how you use your eyes. So your entire reality, the body to body communication is so different, person to person. And so what we figured out is, by looking at a person, we can figure out what is that Natural Number and what they care about.

William Tincup: Oh, that’s fantastic. Now, you obviously, Susan you probably get questions from folks that might be familiar with personality and personality assessments, et cetera, how similar or dissimilar is your Natural Number from one’s personality?

Susan Fisher: We talk about your Natural Number as your nature, where most the personality systems are really pointing to your nurture. So how have you been nurtured over the course of your life that layers on top of our nature. So when you look at a person these are personalities system like Myers–Briggs or the Enneagram or any of the systems that are out there, the way that they’re developed is by asking a lot of questions. And then based off how the people answer and they’re grouped based off of the answers. And then you’re put into a bucket based off of that grouping. 

Our system starts with the body. So your body tells us which one you fit into. And then what we’ve done is, we’ve met with over 8,000 people from around the world, over up to almost a 1000 of each Natural Number. And we’ve asked them questions about what it’s like to live in that body. And then we’ve distilled that down to the most core messages and the very specific language that each of the Natural Numbers uses. Which it allows us to identify much more accurately, and also to understand what it really means and what the language that you use means for you. So you get this really authentic body-based actionable analysis that you can actually do something with because it’s body-based.

William Tincup: I love this. I wish we had an hour and a half to unpack all of this, but we’re going to focus. So one of the things, is you mentioned, you’ve talked to and worked with people all over the world, and there’s nine different bodysuits. Is there anything culturally different that you’ve seen? I’m thinking male or female, someone in Pakistan versus someone in Dallas, Texas, is it as simple as there’s nine suits and everyone fits regardless of race, religion, color, all of this stuff that separates us, you fit into the nine suits?

Susan Fisher: Yes. As it turns out, you have one common with a bushman in Africa, if you share a Natural Number, than you do with anybody in your family. It does cross race, culture, gender, everybody’s got a Natural Number. The recognition of it has gotchas, because there are cultures in which, for example, eye contact is not supported and other cultures where it is. And it turns out of the nine, the first four use eye contact to create a very particular relationship. So if that’s not supported in your culture, you’re right off the bat not supported.

William Tincup: Right. [crosstalk 00:05:38] You can be marginalized because not because you’re following a cultural norms, but because you’re following what your number norms are.

Susan Fisher: Exactly.

Martin Fisher: Yeah. We see that, so for example, in some cultures, Natural Number 5, which is my Natural Number, is also known as a nerd. And some cultures actually honor the manliness ability to be a nerd and other cultures actually dismiss it. 

William Tincup: That’s right. 

Martin Fisher: So there’s a lot of history and culture that gets in the way of your nature.

Susan Fisher: Yes. So that’s the nurture that layers on top. And because our mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers don’t understand us, they have no idea why we’re doing, what we’re doing because what people care about and their reasons for their behaviors, very significantly based off their Natural Number. So if you look at me and you assume, because I’m not looking at you in the eye that I’m being disrespectful, you’re going to be wrong, five out of nine times. So it just really helps us to understand what words like connection, energy, engagement, intuition, what do they mean? They’re very, very different, depending on which part of your body is born active.

William Tincup: Well, Martin, you had mentioned that there are nine centers. Is that similar to the chakra?

Martin Fisher: We found that the chakras, at least the seven that have knowledge to be in the body, are co-located with the exception of the heart chakra actually, is containing three energy sensors.

William Tincup: Oh, interesting.

Martin Fisher: There are three in the head, three in the chest, and three in the lower body. And as it turns out, the odd numbers, one, three, five, seven, nine are in the top part of the body, the even numbers in the lower part of the body. And so that they are co-located, but it’s hard to tell, if someone really knew the chakras, can you see three different colors in the heart? And we’ve never had that conversation, but other than that count, okay.

William Tincup: That’s fascinating. Take us into the nine different bodysuits.

Susan Fisher: Well, each of the Natural Numbers uses a very specific set of muscles, bones, and fascia to create a very particular activation. And at the core, the three in the head are one, five, and seven. One is underneath the chin, seven is on the forehead at the glabellar using the frontalis muscles of the forehead, and then five is in the back. One, five and seven, have a very much more unembodied experience of life. They have a more spiritual bands. And each one of them has a part of our understanding of what it is to be alive. Then in the chest, you have three, six and nine, which are dealing with energy, the movement, the focus, and the expansion of energy. 

So three, six, and nine operate as the engine for movement and creation of using what’s here in the universal planet. And then two, four, and eight are our most body-based numbers. They deal with, how do I feel things in my body? How do I want to feel? They bring feelings into it. How do I feel? How is my body informing me at a much more detailed level than the other six? And so the body-based numbers are here, landing us into this world, into relationship with each other, into connection through the body. So each of them has a very specific function, that when brought together creates a beautiful human flow.

William Tincup: So I noticed that both of you didn’t mention the brain. Is the brain the operating system?

Martin Fisher: Yeah. I’d like to think of the brain as the dashboard. 

William Tincup: Right. 

Martin Fisher: And depending on whether an even number or an odd number, even numbers tend to give more weight to their body’s input. Everybody listens to their body, everybody knows what their body is doing. But the odd numbers take it as input, but it might not necessarily be the driving input. Whereas Natural Number 4, for example, emotions are very much part of the driving input, but Natural Number 5, the other end of the body, emotions are there. And honestly, in some cases, I try and avoid my emotions instead of trying to embrace my emotions. So it definitely makes a difference, what part of your body you’re using. And the fun thing is, you can learn to activate light, which really gives you a lot more information.

William Tincup: Right. So back to the topic of improving communication using the body, one layer would be to understand your own Natural Number, but also understand the Natural Numbers of the people that are around you.

Susan Fisher: Absolutely. We talk about this as an evolutionary journey. When you first find out your a Natural Number, it’s almost like you’re in a state of shock. And then you start to notice, how do I move? How am I informed? How is what Susan and Martin have said about my Natural Numbers consistent with what I know about my own reality? And it’s like, you’re opening a flower. And over the bloom, you become more fulfilled, more on purpose and happier, even if you already are all those things, it still accentuates that experience. 

But then learning to see it out in the world, around you, how is everybody they love so different than me? And then learning to see, oh, wow. For Martin and I, I know when he’s upset. He’s actually disappointed with his own ability to meet a particular need of mine, that I may not even have wanted him to meet. So you can predict the perpetual conflicts and you can nurture the deep connections that are available in any two combinations of the Natural Numbers. So as you learn about them out in the world, your world starts to open up and fill with awe and wonder and curiosity, instead of judgment and resistance.

Martin Fisher: And if you think about it, we like to say that, your Natural Number is like tuning into a radio station. There are nine stations out there, and you can hear one with a lot of static, but once you identify your Natural Number, that radio station becomes more clear and you can start to receive and broadcast more clearly. And most of our communication, depending who you talk to is either 45 to 85% body-based. How do our bodies communicate with each other, not what the tone is and what the words are.

Susan Fisher: And I would add a little bit to that which is, there’s studies out there that say particular postures, particular ways of standing mean particular things. It turns out it’s a little bit more complicated than that. So for example, as a Natural Number 6, I like to stand with my arms crossed because it supports my chest. It doesn’t mean I’m standoffish or holding you away or any of the things that people think crossing your arms across your chest means. So there are interpretations of body language that are actually unsupportive of us as people. Same thing with the eye contact and the variety of different ways of being that, get judged and misunderstood. So our bodies have this opportunity in understanding this to really get clearer in what our bodies are communicating.

William Tincup: Well, you can see the natural fit in understanding your Natural Number and understanding the people around you and marriage, and building teams and interviewing, you can see it proliferating. How does one get started? How do you start to unpack all yourself and those around you?

Martin Fisher: Well, we’ve been doing a lot of research. We spent between 2012 and about 2020 doing the research, working mainly with individuals. And so we spent a lot of time, we work with 8000 some people. In the last couple of years, thanks to COVID, we’ve actually been able to identify people using zoom, which has been awesome. And now we are spending the last year or so, setting up the tools to teach coaches and other holistic practitioners, how to identify and how to be with other people and to use this knowledge in their practices.

Susan Fisher: Right. So you can get identified over zoom, websites, bodyof9.com, go there, purchase an identification for yourself, your family, or as a couple, then you have that experience and we support you with that. And then from there, it’s like, well, okay, what do you want to do with it? How do you want to explore in your life? And we have the trainer programs that we’re just starting now as well. So if you want to actually learn to activate online, anybody can learn that, and then you can apply it in whatever modality or discipline or practice that you are interested in understanding.

Martin Fisher: Yeah. One thing I want to make clear is that we are not saying that people need to be put in buckets. 

William Tincup: Correct.

Martin Fisher: Everybody, every employee can do any job, but how they do that job and what they’re going to… What sometimes we like to call it jokingly, their superpower is, really is going to determine how they’re going to approach that particular job. And as an employee or as an employer or a manager, you’ve got to know the people that work with you, are not like you and certain things are going to really motivate them more than others.

Susan Fisher: Right? For example, if you have a Natural Number 8 boss, they are going to want you to do what you said when you said you were going to do it and if you don’t, you break trust and if you lose your boss’s trust, you’re never going to recover because eights really operate based off of trust. Whereas if you have a Natural Number 1 boss, they’re going to honor you and support you and give you a very different structure, but if you treat them disrespectfully, that’s where you’re going to lose that trust. Very, very different things, support those interactions especially in the workplace, as well as in family.

William Tincup: It’s very interesting, especially in this era of diversity and inclusion that we’re still operating through, you mentioned eye contact, it’s something that I’m not great at. Never have been, just never, even though people have mentioned it to me, talked to me about it, et cetera, I’ve just never really paid attention or cared that much about it.

Susan Fisher: Right. Exactly, right.

William Tincup: But we’ve got to unlearn… I’m not going to learn how to stare at people’s eyes. I care more about what’s coming out of their mouth. But in general society, especially in a work context, we’re going to have to unlearn some things so that we can be more inclusive of the people that we’re bringing into our organization.

Susan Fisher: Absolutely because as I said, we judge these behaviors and we apply meaning based off of what it would mean for us. And that’s just completely inaccurate.

William Tincup: So what-

Susan Fisher: Talk about diversity inclusion, it really accelerates that, because this does cross all the other issues that we’re talking about out in the world and presents a whole nother layer of inclusion, and ability for people to contribute and the ability to see people’s gifts, is it doesn’t matter.

William Tincup: So for both of y’all, how do we unlearn some of these things that we’ve learned either through the media or experience or history or whatever it is? How we’ve learned some of these things, how do we get folks to unlearn those things?

Martin Fisher: Well, I think it starts with curiosity. There’s an element obviously, most companies do a lot of work to help people understand each other using the tools that you already talked about. Myers-Briggs, the rest of those things. There’s an element of curiosity about… Well, okay, supposing what Martin and Susan are talking about is real, there are nine different kinds of people, then if that’s the case, then I can be curious about, “Well, what kind of person are you?” Anybody that I’m talking to. And what is it that I can do to best support you and honor you for who you are and your gift, not just how you’re contributing to the organization. So there’s an element of moving humanity forward a little bit. I know it sounds a little bit grandiose, but we really believe that we can do better as human beings by honoring each other more rather than just seeing each other as…

Susan Fisher: An irritation.

Martin Fisher: An irritation. Thank you.

William Tincup: Right. We see them in the form that we want. We’ve optimized them in the form that we want them to be in, not necessarily what they want to be. And so some of that I guess, is just stepping back and allowing the inclusion of other people in the way that are meeting them where they are. So if someone doesn’t look at you in your eyes, you don’t judge that, you try to understand that you respect it, you honor it.

Susan Fisher: Exactly.

William Tincup: And then again, you unpack. Because everyone’s got… Every one of the nine I’m sure, have things to hold them back to or might be misinterpreted. So it’s basically allowing enough space for everyone to understand the differences that we have. And again, we’ve artificially created differences with race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, this, that, the other. And those are in the way they all talking about it, those are false ways to think of the way that people are different.

Susan Fisher: Yes. And also when you learn to activate another Natural Number, all of a sudden you begin to see the world from their perspective at a body-based level.

William Tincup: Oh, interesting.

Susan Fisher: That gives you information that’s never been available to you because at least consciously. At times you may have stumbled into the activation of another Natural Number or even just stumbled into the activation of our Natural Number. There’s a very specific state activation that enables you to observe yourself and the world around you at a much more cosmic level. So it brings you up a level from the head spin space and allows you to make choices about how you’re going to behave. And that’s really powerful. When I can say, “Oh, here’s my belief systems.” I can see my belief systems because I’ve got my observer going. And I can say, I don’t really like the belief system that for example, my beauty as a person is related to my weight, right?

That’s a belief system we have out in the world. If you’re fat, there’s something wrong with you. And or even if you’re just slightly heavy, you’re not as much value as somebody who’s thin. That’s a crazy belief system, but those things get embedded in our body and when we don’t have the ability to make a conscious decision to say, “You know what? I don’t really want to behave in alignment with that belief system anymore.” So when you turn your conscious observer on, you can make choices about what you want to create in your life based off of your behaviors, beliefs, and actions.

Martin Fisher: Yeah. I’ve got a story about something that happened when I actually activated a different Natural Number for a long period of time. We were bunny men, many years ago. Normally when I drive, I drive looking in front of me, looking out for traffic and things like that, but I activated national number two and it stayed with me. And on the drive home, I found myself looking at the person I was talking to rather than looking at the road, which freaked me out and some of the people in the car. So being in a different reality, actually changes your awareness of how wonderful your own reality is as well.

William Tincup: Yes. I love that.

Susan Fisher: Yes. So you educate about yourself and the importance of the gift that you offer, because you have something very specific that comes with your Natural Number. So each of the Natural Number has a very wonderful and amazing gift that they offer you, when they’re in their strength.

Martin Fisher: And if you don’t show up as you, if you are going to just sit in the corner and just hide and not could contribute to the family or the business or wherever you’re at, you’re actually withholding that superpower, that gift to other people. Even though you are head maybe there, if you’re not being you, then you’re not being the best you, for the people around you.

William Tincup: Right. And again, it’s like closeted or you’re being fake. You either don’t know your Natural Number and thus… Or you know it, and you can’t express it because of your circumstance.

Martin Fisher: Yep.

William Tincup: And this is a geek question. So Martin feel free to… Because I’m thinking about how AI is programmed, and again, if one’s Natural Number is a person that’s programming the AI, do you see anything in the future related to outsiders, our Natural Numbers, or at least mimicked in metaverse, or in virtual reality or AR, or even shows up in AI. Do you either fear or think that some of those things will show up elsewhere?

Martin Fisher: Well, talking about the metaverse, like people’s avatars, I think surprisingly are abled to express the movements of a particular energy.

William Tincup: [crosstalk 00:22:58]. How interesting.

Martin Fisher: So if you look at anything that’s based on models, built from real people then you can actually see their movement and in the avatar. On the liberty exposure they have some of these games to some of these computer-based or AI-based, if you will, avatars, there is an element of expression that comes across, because expression is actually the way your face expresses, is actually very dependent in specific, to a Natural Number. So in terms of the interaction of people in the metaverse, then I think that there’s going to be some expression, because again, it goes back to how we use communicating body to body. Our words and the phrase we use and even our pacing is also very much Natural Number dependent. 

Now, AI the ability to talk to human beings, I think that because I really believe subconsciously this is not new information to our bodies, it may be to our minds, that if we are being talked to by an AI, that is just generic, I think we know that. I don’t think you can have the experience and range of interaction that perhaps you’d like without giving some sort of more Natural Number list, if you will interface to that AI.

William Tincup: Yeah. And again, as you mentioned earlier in the show, some of the Natural Numbers you attract and some of them are not going to work as well together, especially if they don’t have the understanding of the other person’s number. 

Martin Fisher: Yeah.

William Tincup: So I [crosstalk 00:24:37] can see that. Go ahead.

Susan Fisher: Turns out. Yeah, attraction actually comes in relationship… We’re most attractive the energies we know well. So we give love in a very particular way. One of the ways I test when I’m identifying people in person is at the end, I give them a hug. And I look for a very specific hug in return. And each of the Natural Numbers, hugs very differently, but very consistently [crosstalk 00:25:04].

Martin Fisher: So another way, the look of that is that, we are used to being loved hopefully, by our parents and by our brothers and sisters, so we’re used to receiving that loving energy, however you want to express it, from the people that are on a particular Natural Number. And the other thing that also works, if you’ve had a traumatic experience with a particular Natural Number, you will find that your body will act negatively, to people of that Natural Number, which is-

Susan Fisher: Or in some unhealthy way.

Martin Fisher: Or in some unhealthy way. So at work and things like that, sometimes in life, we tend to find… Well, you see someone that you immediately think, “I like that person.” And you see somebody else say, “I can’t relate to that person at all.” And we believe that’s strongly correlated to your experience of those Natural Numbers.

Susan Fisher: Yep.

William Tincup: It’s fascinating because, again, you’ve had either an experience or that singular experience with that person and you automatically know, which is really interesting, because I think people listening to the podcast will understand that. They just didn’t know, how that happened. Like, “I don’t like that person.” From the jump, “I don’t like that person.” And they don’t know why they don’t like that person. I’m sure that this will help them. Susan, Martin, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This has been fascinating.

Martin Fisher: Thank you for having us.

Susan Fisher: Yes. It’s our favorite subject.

William Tincup: Absolutely. And thanks for everyone listening to the RecruitingDaily Podcast until next time.

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