Are you ready for this? I’m not sure you are…

Here it is:

You trek to a specific monastery in north-western Tibet, find the scholar with 11 teeth and 2 follicles of hair and tell him to accept my LinkedIn connection; after which you need to transfer exactly 2.664 Bitcoin to my wallet(this step is crucial to your success), I will personally email you the link that will teach you to be a master mind-reader and manipulator.

It's that simple

Well maybe not.

If you’re still reading and aren’t one of my friends who will edit this, you have experienced one of the most common, yet complex forms of manipulation on the internet: Click baiting, however, there are actual ways you can read people’s minds and with that knowledge, use it to help get your point across amongst other things.

Let’s start off easy

Mind reading tactic #1: Using relatability to get information.

This is going to sound simple but when you think a little deeper you’ll see how you can use this to your advantage: Think of one of your very good friends, maybe even your best friend; also, think of someone you are acquainted with, someone you’re in the same class with or work together but aren’t as close.

Now answer these: Who do you relate more to? Who do you know better?

The answers to both will be that good friend, and if you haven’t already made the connection, the person you relate to more, the more you know about that person. Now, you don’t have the luxury of becoming best friends with every individual just to know what’s going on in their minds, but you can use this to relate to someone at the moment and once you’re in control of the situation, extract the information you require.

It’s the idea of positive reinforcement on a subconscious level. The more you remind someone of themselves, the more they will want to talk to you; and when you control the conversation, what they tell you can be exactly what you want to hear from them. This helps you mentally insert yourself into their immediate in-group.

But the problem arises: what if you don’t relate to this person at all?

This becomes a bit tricky since I’m not preaching that you should be fake and tell them you love their kale and quinoa smoothie when even the thought of it makes you want to throw up.

Being able to deal with this is what differentiates between an expert and a beginner. An expert will use general ideas that are very commonly held opinions and go down the proverbial funnel to the point where the other person becomes relatable enough. The other thing an expert can use in the surrounding(this interaction has to be in person, can’t really use surroundings over text). There is a reason both of you are at this place, at this particular point in time; capitalize on that. Take an interest in their reasoning for being here and getting to know them as a person.

Ever notice how asking an expert in any field about their expertise can turn into them giving you an hour-long lecture on the said field?

Get the other person to talk about the field that they are the absolute expert in: themselves. As you show them that you’re interested. Start taking control of the conversation and when you can drive the conversation, you can change it without the other person realizing how the conversation developed to your agenda.

This leads to the 2nd tactic.

Mind reading tactic #2: Mimicking non-verbal communication.

More commonly known as body language, it is very important when it comes to reading minds. Simply observing body language doesn’t actually help you do anything. The main goal is to mimic it as a subconscious way of relating to the other person.

Start by mimicking their body language after you’ve gotten them talking about something. Often when people talk about things they are even remotely interested in, their body language is something that gives off cues without them being aware of it. For example: hand gestures, changes in facial expressions, stance, and rate of movement (how fast they are shifting their weight while talking). If you can reciprocate those cues when they talk that’s half the battle.

The other half of the battle is manipulating it.

Once you’ve locked onto their non-verbal cues, keep them up when you speak. This reinforces the idea of relatability. This will engage their mirror neurons(read the research paper that is linked, all the factors that play into this are groundbreaking) and as you change your cues, you will see they will follow suit.

But you have to keep in mind, you have to stay in control of the situation. If at any point you’re breaking the subconscious connection, and it was weak, to begin with, it will become very hard to pick back up and you might have to start again by talking about their favourite kale and quinoa smoothie.

Now, this is the final part, the manipulating

Manipulating the mind: Testing

This, believe it or not, is actually the easiest part.

Now that you have established a connection, associate yourself with their definition of positive, and having mimicked their non-verbal cues; its time to test them.

You do this to establish the strength of the connection you’ve created. Since this is no hypnotism, you can’t have a 10-minute interaction with someone and manipulate them to becoming a chicken.

There are no quantitative indicators to the strength of the connection you’ve created. As a beginner, it is very hard to even guesstimate the strength so start by mastering the basics and manipulate conversations, then you can use that to manipulate minds. As you become an expert on people and social interactions, it will get easier and you’ll have to do fewer tests.

A test can be as simple as changing your body language and seeing if they reciprocate to a bit more advanced where you bring up an opinion that the other person would not identify with, and how they respond to it will give you an indication of how strong the connection is.

I never said this was a quick and easy process!

If you thought that this takes 5 tries and boom you’re manipulating others to give them your life savings, this is the wrong article(but I might know a guy so stick around).

Your agenda will determine the length of this process.

If it’s getting them to agree with a point you’re about to make in the same conversation, that doesn’t take time at all, but if you want them to start a company with you, that might take a little more time, give or take 2 years?

Having all the knowledge in the world is useless, unless you apply it towards a purpose.

-Some ancient Greek philosopher.

This entire article was inspired by the book The Art of Reading Minds: How to Understand and Influence Others Without Them Noticing by Henrik Fexeus. I couldn’t cover all the contents of the book, so I highly recommend you give it a read yourself!

Since Fexeus is a mentalist and a lot of the content is strictly psychoanalytical, I tried putting in some scientific evidence to help further support these ideas.

Key Takeaways + Action Items:

• You can’t read someone else’s mind if you’re the one talking most of the time; listen more intently and talk less.
• Relate to them subconsciously; you can do this by bringing up things both of you have in common.
• Observe non-verbal cues like hand-gestures, facial cues, stance etc and mimick them; you’re firing their mirror neurons, this is where you start taking control.
• If you think you’re in control of the situation, test it. Don’t be overconfident or you might blow it and the person across from you is going to think you’re weird.
• Try this out with the people around you, see if you can read and manipulate their minds. On the flip side, if you’re in a conversation, be attentive, because someone might just be using these tricks on you and now they know the name of your first-born and your social security number.

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How to Read Minds and Manipulate Them, Subtly was originally published in Work In Progress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.