Pease, Allan 1951-

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Pease, Allan 1951-

PERSONAL:

Born 1951, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; married; wife's name Barbara.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Pease International Party Ltd., P.O. Box 1260, Buderim, Queensland 4556, Australia. E-mail—info@peaseinternational.com.

CAREER:

Business person, consultant, lecturer, and writer. Pease International Party Ltd., Buderim, Queensland, Australia, cofounder. Previously sold insurance and was a senior executive and partner in Australia's largest life insurance brokerage.

WRITINGS:

Body Language: How to Read Others' Thoughts by Their Gestures, Camel Publishing (North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), 1981.

Signals: How to Use Body Language for Power, Success, and Love, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1984.

(With wife, Barbara Pease) Why Men Don't Listen & Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What to Do about It, Welcome Rain (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Barbara Pease) Why Men Don't Have a Clue and Women Always Need More Shoes: The Ultimate Guide to the Opposite Sex, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2004, condensed versions published as Why Men Don't Have a Clue and Why Women Always Need More Shoes, Pease International (Buderim, Queensland, Australia), 2006.

(With Barbara Pease) The Definitive Book of Body Language, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2006.

(With Barbara Pease) Are You Made for Each Other? The Relationship Quiz Book, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Easy Peasey: People Skills for Life, Pease International (Buderim, Queensland, Australia), 2006.

(Author of foreword) Dale Beaumont, Secrets of Great Public Speakers Exposed!, Dream Express (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2007.

Author's works have been translated into fifty languages.

SIDELIGHTS:

Allan Pease is an international expert in body language and, with his wife, Barbara, author of the best-selling book The Definitive Book of Body Language. Pease began his career as a salesman at the age of ten when he sold household sponges door-to-door in Australia. He went on to become the youngest person in Australia to sell one million dollars of life insurance at the tender age of twenty-one. Pease has drawn on his skills as a salesman and in other areas of his life to become a consultant and speaker focusing on areas of achievement.

Though his talks and efforts initially focused on achievement in business, the author found that after his talks attendees would come up to him and ask about personal matters. "Guys would come up to me during breaks and ask questions about what to do when they were down at the local pub talking to a girl and how to know when they were crashing out," the author told Danuta Kean in an article on the Orion Books Web site. "So I started to expand the course beyond business." Now Pease addresses both business and personal issues. In the process, he has reached a cult status in many parts of the world as an accomplished communicator who can teach others about communication and its importance to relationships. Pease has presented seminars in more than fifty-five countries and his books have been sold around the world.

Pease's first book was Body Language, first published in Australia in 1981. In the book, the author writes about how a person can read another person's movements and posture to determine what they really think. The book became a best seller around the world and is used as a textbook by several universities and colleges. The author went on to write more books about body language, including Signals: How to Use Body Language for Power, Success, and Love, published in 1984, and, with his wife, Barbara Pease, he wrote The Definitive Book of Body Language, published in 2006. "Basic body language doesn't change," Allan told Kean for the Orion Books Web site article. "If you look at paintings over hundreds of years, you can see that basic expressions and ways we communicate with our bodies are the same. But we now understand more about what those gestures mean." The Definitive Book of Body Language includes a section discussing how changes within society, such as women attaining powerful positions in the workplace, have had an impact on modern body language, such as women assuming more manlike body language because they perceive it as a way to succeed.

Pease and his wife have also collaborated on several other books, including Why Men Don't Listen & Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What to Do about It, which grew out of their own personal marriage problems. To solve their personal problems, the authors wrote down a list of what they did not like about each other and then discussed them point by point. They decided to write the book when they realized that their personal dislikes concerning their partners were universal in nature. Although Pease and his wife often use humor in their speeches and writing, they stay away from political correctness. For example, the authors conducted research on the evolutionary differences between men and women for their book and present their findings in a straightforward fashion without regard to whether or not men or women like the picture that the research paints. In a review of Why Men Don't Listen & Women Can't Read Maps, a Publishers Weekly contributor noted: "Feisty and crystal clear, this controversial work will appeal to readers of both sexes."

Pease told CA: "I first became interested in writing when I realized there was a niche in the market.

"The strongest influences in my work are in the areas of evolutionary biology and neurobiology, which include people such as the zoologist Desmond Morris, the evolutionary psychologist David Buss, and the anthropologist Helen Fisher.

"When I write, I start with a draft of initial ideas from a male perspective. Barbara, my wife, rewrites it and adds a female perspective. We then give it to people whose opinions we trust for their comments. Then we do the final edit.

"The most surprising thing I have learned as a writer is that writing a book is a difficult process and I usually do whatever I can to avoid it.

"The Definitive Book of Body Language is my book that is nearest and dearest to me. It changed the way people perceive communication. I know my books have changed people's lives because people have told me that as a result of reading my books they have a different perspective on life."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America's Intelligence Wire, February 14, 2004, "Interview with Allan Pease, Barbara Pease."

Computer Weekly, November 4, 1999, "Allan Pease," p. 50.

Library Journal, May 15, 2000, Pam Matthews, review of Why Men Don't Listen & Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What to Do about It, p. 114.

Management Today, March, 2002, "Body Language," p. 42.

Publishers Weekly, May 1, 2000, review of Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps, p. 64.

Shape, July, 2006, Sarah Robbins, "What's Wrong with This Picture?," p. 35.