Pro Exploit

To get someone to do what you want, you need to know why people make the decisions they do. Most decisions made on a consistent basis are boring and people don’t put a lot of stock in them. If you like both pizza and pasta, are you really going to care which you eat for dinner? If someone suggested pasta, you’d agree. If they suggested pizza, you’d agree. It’s this same principle that allows you to get people to agree with you.

1: How important is it?

As you might guess, someone has a lot more of an opinion about who they marry rather than what they eat. Try to think about their decision and decided if it’s something you may influence. You’d be surprised at the amount of influence you can have, but you’ll be unlike to manipulate someone into have your child or handing over their life savings.

2: Appear sympathetic.

You need to bond with the person in question. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a stranger or a friend you’re quite familiar with, you need to make them feel in the moment that you must have their best interests at heart. Compliment someone before suggesting an alternative action. For example, if you wanted someone to come on a trip with you, you may say something similar to, “I’ve always appreciated how close we are and how much fun we have together.”

3: Lie, lie and lie. But make it convincing.

You need to make a move and start getting the person to side with you. Once you’ve complimented the other person and made them feel close to you, they are more trusting. Their ego is stacked and you can sneak a lie in. You need to pick one main lie to support what you are going to suggest and then support it with auxiliary lies. For example, if you want to see a specific movie tonight, comment on how terrible the ratings were on a particular website for the movie someone else wants to see. If they realize they’re being lied to, never admit it, you need to support your argument with more lies or play it off as a joke. It can be quite successful when caught to say, “Okay, it may have gotten great reviews, but that director is a known alcoholic and wife-beater and I just can’t support his work.”

4: Break their resolve.

You need to make the person question his or her judgment and how valid his own opinion is. At this point you may now criticize their weaknesses, such as “Katie, you have always been such an awful judge of character.” Everyone takes personal attacks seriously regardless of their validity. If you tell your friend she’s fat because you need an exercise buddy, she’ll be on the track with you in no time.

5: Strong state your opinion and become friendly again.

If you’ve followed the other steps correctly, the other person is now confused, but manipulable. You need to convince them you have their best interests at heart. Compliment some more. Tell them exactly why your intended course of action is best for them as well. If it’s not, lie and say it is. For example, you’ve just complimented your friend on always being so smart and hardly needing to study. You want them to go out with you rather than study for their test tomorrow. You tell them that they really don’t have much of a social life and they need to get out some more. You then say, “I know we will have so much fun tonight. You’ll are the whole reason I have so much fun!”

Try it out, pay attention to what you do. Be somewhat respectful, you’ll never get someone to agree with you if you tell them how they are completely worthless and never get anything right. I look forward to hearing any questions.

In the past two days, I’ve talked about signs of lying you may see in someone’s body language and speech. Today, for my last day, I’m going to cover what I’ll call behavioral patterns. This basically covers general rules that don’t specifically fit in another section. The majority of liars will slip up with one of these rules as it’s extremely hard to lie as well as they tell the truth.

Behavior Patterns:

• Liars will often resist answering questions.
• Liars can become very defensive. So can honest people, but liars are generally more defensive than the innocent.
• The liar may accuse you of lying or being dishonest.
• Liars will try to manipulate you out of the conversation by blaming you for something you have done wrong in an effort to turn the attention away from themselves.
• Deceptive people make contradictory statements.
• Deceptive people use sarcasm and/or humor to deflect the situation away from them.
• Deceptive people will employ stalling tactics during questioning to avert the accuser from the matter at hand and to prolong the inevitable discovery.

Final Notes:

Liars prefer concealment as opposed to out-and-out fabrication. With concealment, the liar only needs to avoid revealing the lie. The liar can tell the truth, to the point of the lie, gloss over the lie, and return to the truth. Liars will usually continue talking until the person accepts their version of the truth. If the person listening to the liar would patiently stare in silence, unconvinced, the liar would likely reveal information. Not because they are being questioned but because they just had to fill up the silence.

This is the second of three posts for my Signs of Deception: Mini-series. Our first day covered signs of deception or lying that appear in your body language. Today, I’ll cover signs that may appear in someones speech and language.

Language Patterns:

• Liars tend NOT to use first person words (I and my) and contractions as often in speech and writing. For example, they may say, “I did not do it” instead of “I didn’t do it”.
• A liar can experience a change in the pitch of his/her voice.
• Liars may exhibit lots of stammering in their speech (umm, ahh).
• Liars can suffer from chronic throat-clearing, due to dry mouth or stress.
• Liars will use your own words to answer your questions. For example, if you say “Did you steal the cookies?”, they may say “No, I did not steal the cookies”.
• Liars will talk too fast or too slow and often speak in monotone, adding no voice inflections.
• Liars commonly offer too much explanation as an answer when just a simple one would suffice.

No one rule can tell you if someone tells the truth or a lie, but pay attention to their mannerisms and you’ll be better than most at spotting one.

Signs of Deception is a three part series I’ll be releasing over the next three days. Simply put, each part will focus on one facet of deception and signs of it’s use. Our first day covers signs of deception or lying that appear in your body language.

Body Language:

• Constantly moving feet, fidgeting.
• Feet that pointing toward the door. (Subconsciously the person wants to escape).
• Building a barrier of objects between themselves and the accuser (to create distance and partial concealment.
• Frequent liars will often increase eye contact, so don’t rely too heavily on eye contact as a clue.
• Avoiding eye contact during particularly intense questions can indicate distress.
• Rapid eye blinking and eyelid flutter can also signal sensitive topics.
• Head movements should match verbal affirmations or denials. People will unknowingly shake their head in the truthful direction while making a denial. (Nodding yes when saying no.)
• Liars tend to move away as opposed to leaning toward the person with whom they are talking.
• Liars often breathe faster, taking short breaths, followed by one long deep breath.
• A tense mouth with pursed lips can be an indication that the liar is restraining themselves physically, emotionally, and verbally.
• Covering the mouth while talking can be an indication of trying to cover up the lie.
• A liar rarely points a finger or emphasizes with hand movements. Liars also rarely steeple their fingers (fingertips touching each other) a sign of assurance of thought or position.
• Liars often keep hands motionless and draw their arms close to their bodies. Liars try to occupy as little space as possible.
• Liars often slouch, feigning comfort.
• Liars may yawn repeatedly, feigning boredom.

If you think someone is trying to lie to you, try to look for these signals. If you are trying to deceive someone, try to avoid these easy giveaways. Even people who may not specifically be looking for these clues may naturally feel deceived due to prior experience.

Framing, is the act of leading someone into a conversation with language the pressures them to agree with you. It doesn’t matter that someones position differs from yours if you word things correctly. Which sounds better, estate tax or death tax? Opponents of the estate tax (tax that is collected when someone dies and passes their belongings down to their children) call it the death tax as a propaganda tactic to aid in the appeal of said taxes. Which would you be more inclined to be opposed to, the estate tax or the death tax? This is just one example of how framing can be used, but you can also use it to a lesser degree in all of your conversations.

Studies have been done where a large amount of people have been split in two and each asked one question; whether they supported one candidate or were against another. By framing the question either positively or negatively, the people responded differently. The percentage of people supporting and opposing each candidate changed drastically just based on the language used.

A conversational example:
Q: You don’t want Italian tonight, do you?
A: No, let’s get something else.

When you ask the question, the answer is already implied and most people will correctly follow suit.

Whenever you meet someone new, there’s initially a period of time in which you know nothing about each other. Many people are wary and don’t trust strangers. Follow these few tips to instantly build rapport with someone you meet and be well liked almost immediately.

The simple secret:

Just do whatever they do after a 2-4 second pause. If they cross their arms, wait and cross your arms. If they sit down, do the same.

Other things to mimic:

• Posture
• Rate of speech
• Breathing pattern
• Inflection
• Speak as they breathe out and inhale as they do

Doing these things, you’ll instantly be accepted by them. For some reason, psychologically, we feel close to people in a similar state as ourselves. Give it a try and see what happens. Make it natural, you don’t want to be obviously mimicking someone or it will be interpreted as insulting.

Have you ever heard the quote, “If you put your mind to it, anything can happen”? I’m going to go a bit beyond that today and give you a simple set of rules that when followed, allow your wildest dreams to come true.

One: Decide what you want.

If you don’t have a clear cut idea of exactly what you desire, you have no chance of getting it. How can you find something you don’t know you’re looking for. Once you have a solid idea of exactly what you want in detail, you’ll be better situated to get it.

Two: Tell everyone.

You shouldn’t be the only one who knows what you want. Tell everybody. There’s many ways this can help you. It might provide additional motivation so that you don’t look like an idiot. For example, if you tell everyone you want to be a doctor, you’ll be even more motivated to try hard in medical school. Someone else may be able to help you as well. Perhaps you want to be a photographer. If everyone knows that, perhaps when a family member’s wedding comes up, they’ll recommend you.

Three: Never give up.

I’m sure many of you have heard the statistic about how many shots Michael Jordan missed but here it is again:

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

The most successful basketball player of all time has failed thousands of times! It’s important to realize that you will always fail at things. It’s important to try again and again and again. For example, if you want a job as an editor, apply to every newspaper, then work on your skills and do it all again. You miss 100% of the opportunities you don’t attempt.

Four: Believe in yourself.

Nothing dooms you quite like expecting failure. You need to have confidence. Believe in yourself and believe in your success. You will be more successful by being confident, so be confident in your success.

Readers: Any additional tips to add? I’d love to hear your input.

The following motivators cover the strongest motivators that most humans share as a species. They may not be all your top motivators to do things, but its a pretty good general list.

Wealth:

Human desire for wealth and money motivates us to work. Greed also us to be tricked time and time again.

Sex:

We all desire to be found attractive and to be wanted by the other sex.

Revenge:

Putting one over someone who wrongs us is one of the strongest motivators. A businessman who is fired, vows to start his own company and eclipse the old company in sales, and succeeds is motivated by revenge.

Helping Others:

There are many altruistic people in the world that do things simply to help others. Some people dedicate their entire lives to service.

Being Strong:

Many people make decisions just to be viewed as a strong person by their peers. They may directly go against a suggestion to demonstrate they have a strong will. Ironically, the only people who need to prove they are strong purposefully, aren’t as strong as the people who do not.

In their book, “Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming”, Richard Bandler and John Grinder discuss what they call Visual Accessing Cues. Their experiments led to these eye movement hints:
(note: these cues are based on an “average” right-handed person who is facing you. With a left-handed person, the left and right movement cues will be reversed.)

Movement: Up and to the Left

Suggests: Imagined Response (Vc or Visually Constructed)
Ask someone to think of, say, a “green unicorn”, and their eyes will most likely move in this direction as they try to build a picture of something imaginary.

Movement: Up and to the Right

Suggests: Memory (Vr or Visually Remembered)
Ask someone to remember their childhood home; they’ll look in this direction, pulling on the memory of a real image.

Movement: Straight to the Left

Suggests: Imagined Sound (Ac or Auditory Constructed)
Ask someone what they think a giraffe coughing sounds like; as they try to imagine a sound they don’t know in their mind, their eyes will move to the left, constructing the sound.

Movement: Straight to the Right

Suggests: Memory (Ar or Auditory Remembered)
Ask them to “think of your mother’s voice”. This is a real sound they know and remember, and their eyes are likely to move to the right.

Movement: Down and to the Left

Suggests: Stimulated Sense (F or Feeling/Kinesthetic)
This cue isn’t something imagined, but sensory, like a feeling, smell, or taste. Ask someone to remember the first time they tasted coffee, and their eyes will move in this direction as they think about the memory.

Movement: Down and to the Right

Suggests: Inner Conflict (Ai or Internal Dialog)
As someone “talks to himself” the eyes typically move in this direction.

How do these cues help detect a lie?
Here’s an example: say your child asks you for a cookie, and you ask, “What did your mom say?” As the child replies, “Mom said, ‘Yes’,” watch if her eyes move to the right or left. If they move to the left, this suggests a made up answer, as she is constructing it. If they move to the right, she’s most likely remembering the actual conversation with her mom.

Most daily decisions are relatively unimportant, making them easy to influence. Follow the five steps below and you’ll be manipulating people in no time.

Step 1: Determine how important the decision is to the target.

Find out whether it’s reasonable to expect that you can influence your targets decision. You generally won’t be able to manipulate someone into giving you their wallet, but you might be able to convince them to give you a few bucks. Small decisions are easier to influence than big ones.

Example: Matthew wants to take his girlfriend to a Chinese dinner, but she wants Italian. It’s a small decision, and Matthew’s girlfriend can easily manipulate him to get her way.

Step 2: Express Sympathy.

Sympathizing with the target will show that you understand their position, making them easier to manipulate. Kindness works. Give them a specific compliment.

Example: John is considering buying an expensive car, but you know that if he does, you’ll be paying for everything you two do for years. You let John know that while you understand how cool the car is, another model gets better mileage. Say: “John, I’ve always admired your ability to make smart financial decisions.”

Step 3: Tell a believable lie.

Shattering the target’s resolve by appealing to their ego lets you lie right to their face. This is the foundation of the remainder of the manipulation process. If the target senses the lie, return to step two and try again.

Example: Mary wants to grill hot dogs, but you hate them. You’ve just told Mary how smart and nutrition-conscious she is, and you say: “On 20/20 last night they did an expose’ on meat-packing plants, and hot-dogs are 5% horse meat.” “Wrong!” she replies. “Alright, but they do contain lungs and hooves.” Mission accomplished.

Step 4: Will-Breaking.

This is where you make the target question themselves so much that they begin to value your opinion over their own. Criticize the target’’s weaknesses, distracting them as you complete the manipulation process.

Example: Mike hates tennis, and refuses to play. Say: “Mike, you look a little chunky, I just thought it would be good for you to get outside.” Before he knows it, Mike will be running to the courts.

Step 5: Replace the target’s opinion with your own.

You’ve reduced the target to a shadow of their former self. Their defenses are down. Decide what you want from the target, and say it.

Example: Jill is depressed because you reminded her of the “D” she scored on the history test. Explain that sex will keep her mind off school, and kiss her. Add another compliment here. It affirms the lie that you only want what’s best for them.

Enjoy!