When I first wrote about this in The Psychology of Persuasion we were really on the cutting edge of something special. Today we’ve honed to an absolute science. I want to give you some of the original work as well as some of the growth about “mind reading.” Do enjoy!
I’m going to reveal a few of my most closely held secret methods of determining what people are thinking in the moment in the next Science of Influence CD and the next couple of CDs in this series. I am going to give you some incredible tools. You will learn one of my favorite models for determining current thought, and I am going to give you one of my favorite models for utilizing that specific information in gaining compliance.
Maybe it’s just me, but I like to know what other people are thinking.
I don’t want to guess.
I want to know.
When you can know, you can determine how to best help that person get what they want in business and in life. Instead of being involved in a long drawn out process, you can get rapid outcomes that are favorable to everyone involved. Ultimately, that’s what we all want. Most people experience massive idiopathic fear when it comes to communication in almost any context. In other words, they feel uncomfortable putting their feelings and thoughts on the table for fear that they will be hurt in some way. When people cloak thoughts and feelings it makes communication incredibly difficult…honesty becomes compromised and everyone gets poor outcomes. You see this in every aspect of life.
When people don’t tell you what they are thinking/feeling, you simply need to discover, calculate, or determine those thoughts in other ways.
You can utilize body language, psychographics, evolutionary psychology, psychobiology, cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, peer pressures, psychological profile and expectancies along with prior behavior to determine almost anyone’s current thoughts with some significant degree of accuracy.
On larger scales you can read groups, cultures, specific demographics, and nations using essentially the same tools.
The more you know about someone or some group, the easier it is to gain compliance. It’s that simple.
It’s true in relationships, it’s true in family and friendships, it’s true in the selling context, it’s true for all aspects of business, it’s true for the therapist and it’s true for nations dealing with other nations. “Intelligence” in the military sense is what separates the men from the boys in every aspect of life.
The ethical use of influence is never more necessary than when you have good intel about your client and customer. Knowledge is potential power and that power can just as easily be used for good as it can be bad. And the line is not always instantly clear…and sometimes the line changes.
Without having excellent intel about your clients and consumers you have little chance of being persuasive beyond random luck. With good intel, you can achieve incredible results in gaining compliance. And, if you think it’s important in business, can you imagine how important it is in personal relationships? When you have power the importance of doing the right thing grows in magnitude. With that reminder, turn the page...
