An In-Depth Handwriting Analysis by Jamie Mason Cohen of the Co-Author of, Truth & Lies, Body Language Expert and Keynote Speaker, Mark Bowden
Mark Bowden has a DE slant which means that he is good with people and has an affable personality that makes him the life of the party. This high level of emotional responsiveness is especially true when combined with his large, celebrity-style signature. He is a natural salesman of ideas, very persuasive in moving others through the use of words and displays a dramatic and artistic flair.
People are drawn to him because he knows how to tap into others’ feelings and push their emotional buttons. He is a born showman and actor and plays the role exceptionally well.
This magnetic, personable, likeable writer with a healthy ego underestimates the powerful impact he has on others, not seeing himself, in the same way, the world does.
His depth of writing is moderate to heavy indicating a man who has strong likes and dislikes. He has the proclivity for brilliant, vibrant colours in the clothes he wears. This is highlighted by tall d-stems, indicating pride in his appearance. He has a hearty appetite for the spice of life and for spicy foods. He’s open to experimenting with foods from different cultures, Anthony-Bourdain style. His impulsive and spontaneous streak adds layers to his desire for change and variety and passion for seeing different cities throughout his life.
He empathizes deeply with others through an emotional responsiveness listening style. Add to this, a high level of emotional intensity stacked with intuitive insight and an uncanny knack of a fluidity of verbal communication of saying the right thing with the pitch-perfect tone of voice. This characteristic in his personality moves people enormously.
His relatively small writing shows that he intensely concentrates when focused on a task or project like writing a book or new presentation. He combines laser-beam focus and emotional force channeled into a given project.
His large signature shows the easy-going, larger-than-life, charismatic person that he wants the world to see, his writing shows who he is when the world’s not looking. Houdini worked for sequestered periods of 18-hour days but hid his effort from the world so that his magic would seem effortless. The private Mark takes the same approach so that the world only sees the effortless brilliance, not the effort that went into it.
He trusts his emotional response and highly tuned intuition when it comes to people and projects. In doing so, he will say, “yes,” to a project or collaboration in a flash if it feels right. He may go back after and do some investigating to make sure his initial feeling was correct.
In his work, he is meaningfully productive because he focuses his valuable creative and emotional reserves on projects and the development of ideas that move him. He works well with collaborators who relish certain kind of details and tasks inevitable in the creation and completion of a project. It’s not to say that he doesn’t welcome creative partnerships. He likes to lead the creative process but is open to some, but not all ideas that he feels are synergetic with his overall vision. He sometimes skips over details that he thinks sap his energy and time, preferring that his collaborator deal with certain logistics.
One aspect of his success in his field is a combination of sensitivity to what others’ perceptions of him and the capacity for deep empathy. He can mirror the pains and pleasures that exist within individual members of an audience. As a result, he can seamlessly revise his approaches on-the-spot in order to adjust and adapt his message to different audiences.
Mark makes people feel that he is speaking to only them in a crowd of a thousand, or that they are the only ones there in a packed reception.
Ironically, some may not trust this sui generis social aptitude and rare emotional intelligence because they may not have experienced someone listening and interacting with them like this before.
Mark thrives with the partnership of a manager who keeps him on track. The paradox here is he loves to investigate ideas. Depth over breadth is an apt description to describe his focus on a topic that compels him.
He is a life-long learner with vast interests and has absorbed an expansive range of knowledge. As a gifted raconteur, life experience and book knowledge merge through conversation that stimulates or the creative process full of insights inspired by prior learning. He loves to talk and express himself with words and has a flair for the dramatic.
He is keenly comprehensive as shown in the steeple-shaped writing of the small “n” ’s and “h”. He is quick to size up a situation and make instant decisions. He thinks and evaluates circumstances rapidly. His mind works so quickly he can examine any case or situation without effort. What is happening is that the comprehensive thinker becomes a little irritated, almost comes across as in a rush, with slower talking and slower thinking people. He is a very active person.
Let’s be clear that he is particular about the kinds of details that intrigue him. The ones he is interested in will flip a switch in him. He will become passionate and even obsessed with learning every detail about ideas for which he cares.
Another aspect of this trait is that he forgives certain small errors and imperfections in others. He’s not a perfectionist or anal-retentive about every single detail being perfect. He’s adaptable and goes with the flow when minor things don’t go exactly as planned.
He has definite likes and dislikes. He will graciously mask the dislikes when he’s in public by appearing to be accepting and patient. The person may never know if he disapproves of them or something they’ve done in public due to his mastery of dealing with people and social grace and skills that’s he’s developed over many years. He may just move on quickly if irritated by someone or something.
He has a love for variety of eclectic music from around the world that inspires him emotionally, is drawn to a kaleidoscope of colors that instantly helps him get into a peak performance state of the winsome self-confidence he projects. He likes different kinds of foods, including spicy foods.
If he enters a room where the color irritates him or a picture frame is awry, it may disturb him or make him, a bit distracted, especially at home. He is too socially adept to say it publicly, however. He may appear to others as light-hearted but privately he can be intense, and focused for concentrated periods of time.
His fluidity of thought is striking in his uncanny ability to make both oral and written connections between seemingly unconnected ideas in an instant.
He likes to acquire new ideas and knowledge. He has a self-reliant streak often found in leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, Chelsea football coach, Jose Mourinho, and Thomas Edison. This trait, which also shows that the individual welcomes responsibilities in their areas of expertise is in the upward strong underline of his signature.
Self-reliance refers to trusting his powers to succeed. The upward slant of his name shows a positive outlook on life combined with the upward slanted small t-bars in his writing which also demonstrates an inner positive belief. Einstein’s observation that “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle” could fit within your inner belief system. As a result, there is integrity between this positive outlook in both his private and public spheres.
There is a flare for the dramatic as shown in the last letter of ‘leader’ combined with the large signature, which shows a high aptitude for entertaining and moving people in social situations. This trait fused with an energy that has a forward-moving, dynamic force in the public sphere balanced with a harnessing of that energy into deliberate practice and study in the private sphere.
Communication Leadership Lessons in the book, ‘Truth and Lies’ http://www.harpercollins.ca/9781443452090/truth-and-lies
If you’ve ever wondered what your selfies say about you, why people ‘ghost’, what impression your profile pics give off, how long is too long to stare, the signals that show someone is hiding something, and everything essential about what your body language says to your date about you, then Mark Bowden and Tracey Thomson“Truth and Lies” is a must-read.
The SCAN model presented in “Truth and Lies” is a game-changing methodology that has the power and practicality to change the way you assess, judge and change your behaviour, actions and impact in any situation.
This book is for anyone who wants to dramatically improve the way they communicate and have a more positive impact in the way they interact with their next date, their co-workers, family or friends.
