Welcome to Social Skills Coaching, where you learn to be more likable, more charismatic, and more productive.
Today is May 23, 2023, and these are your quick hits.
Keep your eyes on the ground because it's Lucky Penny Day.
You might find one today.
If your name is Ethan or you work as a medical coder, today is your day.
And for lunch, a limited menu with Taffy Day and whatever this is Drinking with Chickens Day.
There's a little bit of leeway, though, because it is also World Turtle Day, which celebrates not only turtles, but Tortoises as well.
Today's episode is from Patrick King's book how to Extract Info, Secrets and Truths, and we take a look at the topic of cold reading.
This is a technique often used by psychics or scam artists to seemingly discern personal information from strangers or first time acquaintances.
If you've seen the movie now you see me.
This is what's practiced in part by Woody Harrelson's character.
Today we'll take a look at how we can implement these techniques in our everyday conversations.
Thanks for listening today.
Chapter four, read and Tell.
So far, this book has been about ways to extract information from people without them being aware that you're doing it.
With the power of observation and a few targeted questions, you can read far more into people than what they believe they're sharing with you.
And so, in this spirit of developing a special kind of listening for things that aren't said outright, we have to take a look at those people who have thoroughly mastered this skill con artists.
More specifically, we'll look closely at the techniques employed by those claiming to be psychics, mystics, mediums, and clairvoyance who can hear the voice of your dead auntie.
Now, two points before we continue.
First, we won't discuss the truth of the claims made by such people I.
E.
Whether it is or isn't possible to tell the future, hear the dead, or read minds, and leave this to your own discretion.
Second, the point of learning these techniques is not to become a TV show charlatan, wearing beads and going into trances.
Rather, we'll take a look at how the methods used in this admittedly cheesy phenomenon can actually be used more universally.
In other words, if we want to learn a few more techniques for reading people, well, the fake psychics have a lot to teach us.
So called cold reading techniques are a little more advanced than the clues and signs we've learned about in earlier chapters and require us to think on our feet and adapt pretty quickly in evolving situations.
But the great thing about cold reading is that it can be done well, cold I e.
Without you ever having met the person before.
With practice, you can combine many of the techniques already discussed, such as body language, clothing, mannerisms, et cetera, with cold reading to make it even more powerful.
The essence of cold reading is that you are guessing nothing mystical or magical, just guessing.
The trick, however, is to make guesses in such a way that it seems like you aren't guessing.
Usually you make a guess that has a high probability of being right and then closely observe the result, altering your strategy as you go according to the information you're given.
A good cold reader also hurries on so quickly from wrong guesses, and the audience barely notices he was wrong because he's busy weaving new connections and links and emphasizing his hits.
Cold reading works because it is a very ordinary, obvious practice that is cleverly camouflaged to seem quite mysterious and unlikely.
To show you what I mean, let me cold read you right now.
Imagine that I have the paranormal gift that allows me to psychically examine the readers of this book to reach out supernatural tendrils and connect to your innermost feelings.
Ah.
Now I see you.
This is what I see you've recently experienced some change, but are doing your best to adapt.
You're a complex person with many things you don't tell others.
Although when you're close to someone, you are open and enjoy good company.
You sometimes feel a little socially anxious and worry about mistakes you've made in the past.
You are unique and quite different from most other people.
Sometimes you're fearful of the future.
Though you like novelty and excitement, you also do appreciate time to rest.
Chances are all of the above applies to you, dear reader.
But it's not magic.
Why?
Because this description applies to almost everyone.
The above is the perfect example of a high probability guest that is broad enough to have some hits when offered to a complete stranger.
If I could be in the room with you right now, I could have subtly tweaked this description to include things I noticed about you your facial expression, age, gender, accent.
To make the guests appear even more accurate, maybe I noticed you're wearing a t shirt with a political slogan on it.
Maybe you say something like, well, I guess it is true that I'm not much like other people.
Or maybe you merely smile when I allude to your individuality in my description.
Maybe I notice that you're young, female, outspoken, and have an uncommon accent you seem to be trying to conceal.
I put all of this together and know instantly what to focus on in the rest of my reading.
It's easy to create the impression of supernatural gifts or intuition if you want to, but you can use cold reading techniques more benignly to gather huge amounts of information from others.
Why not use it to learn more about the people around you, or to create rapport and a feeling of connection, perhaps without knowing it?
People like psychologists and other helping professionals also use a little cold reading to quickly get to know the people in front of them.
Good cold Reading uses several of the techniques we'll consider in a moment, as well as the powerful observational and listening skills we've already discussed.
If possible, try to prepare beforehand.
Fraudulent psychics will secretly spy on the crowd or specially select a group known for their suggestibility.
For our purposes, you can prepare by learning as much about your audience ahead of time.
If you can't simply consider the context and what it might mean for the people you'll encounter.
For a various obvious example, if you encounter a youngish couple at a baby fair one weekend, you might reasonably infer that they were attempting to have a baby or were already pregnant.
Technique One shotgun Statements fire out a load of guesses and see what hits.
A shotgun statement is broad, but doesn't appear like a meaningless generalization.
I e.
Not too specific, but not too vague either.
This is how TV psychics begin.
I'm being shown someone with a name beginning with M.
It's the kind of thing that people might overlook as applicable to everyone in the room if they instantly connect with it themselves.
One way this is done is to focus not on factual details, but on emotional content, which some people are very willing and ready to connect with.
This technique takes a little adaptation for everyday use.
It needs to be possible to drop and move on from your statement if you're wrong in your guess.
If you're right, you need to grab it and run with it.
You seem like the type to be really into sports, but not the usual sports, obviously.
More things like gymnastics and dancing.
Dancing?
God, no.
I have two left feet, but I do a Zumba class once a week.
I knew it.
See, you can always tell when a person is very physically active.
Technique Two Barnum Statements this technique is also called the forer effect, or, in psychological terms, the personal validation fallacy.
We've already seen an example in the mini cold reading we did above.
Human beings have an innate capacity to take vague statements and connect them to their own personal lives, making private links and connections to what is objectively neutral information.
The hallmark of a barnum statement is hedging or noncommittal phrasing, such as sometimes or occasionally.
This covers all bases and makes a claim without being too strong.
If the other person doesn't connect with your prediction, it's not a problem.
After all, you only said it happened sometimes or could happen horoscopes work on this principle.
If Leo's prediction for the day is you may encounter some minor difficulties either in work or love, it's hard to imagine who wouldn't find the prediction come true.
A good barnum statement is a win win.
Either you're on the nose or you subtly fish for the other person to reveal information by how they respond to your miss.
Barnum statements are like verbal rorschach blots they're vague enough that other people can project their own meaning onto them.
I'm very intuitive, you know, and I can tell that you're someone with strong personal opinions.
Pretty much.
Sometimes you agree with people, but I think that occasionally you have a few unconventional ideas about things.
How'd, you know, notice that the above exchange could have gone in a completely different direction.
I'm very intuitive, you know, and I can tell that you're someone with strong personal opinions.
Strong opinions?
Really?
Said doubtfully.
Oh, absolutely.
Sometimes you agree with people, sure.
But I think that occasionally you have a few unconventional ideas about things.
Yeah, maybe most people think I'm pretty easy going, but I do stick up for myself when it's important.
That's exactly what I mean.
I can see that clearly.
The people in the above conversations could be polar opposites from one another and yet respond to the same statement in very similar ways.
Technique Three ignoring the misses.
Closely connected to the above is the seamless easy, skipping over any time you actually make a guess that's wrong or make a claim that doesn't land.
Cold reading is like fishing.
Sometimes you have to send out a few lures to catch a fish, but if you catch nothing, you throw the lure out again, preferably without drawing too much attention to your failure.
As you engage in the conversation, you're homing in closer and closer, starting from generalizations and whittling down, using the person's responses to guide you.
When you miss, you drop that approach, but when something sticks, you pursue that avenue and expand on it.
Keep doing this and within a minute or two, it can genuinely seem like you have an eerily accurate understanding of the person you just met.
Minimize mistakes and amplify hits.
You need to shift your strategy quickly and invisibly so that it almost appears as though you were on the right course from the very beginning.
The typical psychic cold reading goes like this I'm getting someone who's recently died, maybe cancer or something to do with the heart.
Crickets if not the heart, then I'm being shown something internal in the body, like perhaps a gut or liver ailment.
I'm seeing someone who is a bit overweight, someone who loved life and loved to eat.
My uncle maybe.
Hit psychic zooms in on this person.
Yes, it's a man, and I'm seeing that he really loved food.
Right.
Knowing that this comment about eating prompted a response previously, the psychic ignores everything they said about cancer or heart and liver diseases.
Yes, he did love food.
Who doesn't?
And was he a big man?
Kind of a large guy, vague statements that can be retroactively changed to mean fat or tall, depending on the response?
Well, not really, but he had a bit of a belly, I guess.
Yes, I see that.
He was a middle aged man.
He was very troubled near the end, I think in a lot of discomfort if he's died.
Chances are he wasn't very young and most men with bellies are middle aged.
It's also a pretty good guess that he was uncomfortable before he died.
Yes, that's right.
He had a lung infection.
Notice that the psychic has said nothing about lungs, but the person might not have noticed this mistake.
Technique Four passing off failures as successes.
Gradually, by ignoring the misses and emphasizing the hits, the fake psychic spins a tail that seems right on the money.
But another related technique relies not on ignoring misses, but actually pretending they were hits all along.
Again, your goal is to conceal the fact that you're actually guessing and make it seem as though you had it right the very first time.
People who visit psychic shows are often quite willing to believe what they're told and play along consciously or unconsciously.
So if the fake psychic has to massage the truth a little to alter the meaning of what they said retroactively, the audience might go along with it.
Let's say the psychic closes their eyes and makes a show of hearing messages from beyond, then opens their eyes and claims they're being shown the name Elizabeth.
Note takers from the crowd ellie, Eliza, a name beginning with L.
Something like that.
The psychic continues.
No dice.
They try again.
I see a woman's face, blue eyes, recently passed.
My Aunt Linda passed recently.
Ah, that's it.
It wasn't Ellie, but the letter L, as in Linda.
But she had brown eyes.
Yes, I know, but she's showing me blue eyes for some reason.
Did blue eyes have any significance for her?
And so on.
At a push, a clever faux psychic will stick to a story that nobody is buying and simply claim that the error is on the side of the living, or that someone's not sharing all the details they could.
More than a few psychics have tried to pass off misses as a secret that the living simply don't know yet, or just claim that the clue will make sense in time.
Worst case scenario, a miss can be covered up by blending it in with something that's true or couldn't help but be true.
For example okay, she's laughing now.
She says, don't worry about the blue eyes thing.
She has a great sense of humor, your aunt, doesn't she?
She's telling me to tell you not to worry about her and that she's fine.
Technique Five keeping it Vague it might seem pretty bold to claim to have supernatural abilities and perform in front of a crowd, but most of the success of fake TV psychics comes down to the fact that many of them are actually rather conservative in their predictions.
When you boil it down, what they say is not all that special or precise.
Keeping vague keeps your opinions open and ensures that you make claims that have the highest probability of being correct or close to it.
This then, buys you time, and in that time you can gather more information by observation, under promise, and over deliver.
It's far better than over promising and losing the confidence or faith of the person you're talking to.
Conversations are living dynamic things.
If you hope to extract information from people in ordinary life, you need to learn to dial up your observation skills while gently steering the conversation.
You can't force the direction of the conversation too much, because you need to be ready to perceive what's going on with your audience and adjust immediately.
In time, you can firm up your statements.
For example, a psychic may make a vague claim just to see what the response will be.
If it's vague enough, they can move on or shift the direction quickly.
I see a brick house.
I'm feeling that he was in a lot of confusion and discomfort before he died.
I'm sensing you had a strong connection with your mother, just as you would with Barnum statements.
You want to make claims that are universal without seeming like they are.
Although, a word of warning don't make the mistake of using insensitive stereotypes about groups of people that's unlikely to go down well.
Psychics are essentially in the business of telling people what they want to hear.
Their audience might be so willing to hear it that they'll round up almost any statement to fit the bill.
So a TV psychic could say, I'm sensing that someone in the audience tonight has been doing a lot of soul searching lately, and two dozen people in the room will quietly believe that they are the ones being referred to.
It's a bit ironic that you can create this feeling of personal connection most effectively when you use general and vague statements.
But hey, cold reading is not about appealing to human beings rational side psychics have a great backup plan to cover up for any mistake.
They are, after all, hearing transmissions from the other side.
And a few crackles in the transmission are to be expected, right?
So when a psychic is making a big deal about seeing things in a hazy light, hears an indistinct voice, an unclear image, a hunch, a strange feeling they can't nail down, you know that they're either fishing for something firm to hold onto, or else covering up for a mistake made recently.
In everyday life, you can use vagueness in much the same way as a psychic uses it to buy time.
Make gentle, Barnum like statements, but keep open ended and wait until the other person gives you something to work with.
If you're patient, you may be surprised how often people are willing to jump in and supply you with just the information you thought would be concealed.
A psychic can, as a last resort, claim that the spirit world sometimes speaks in riddles, or that you're tired today and not hearing as clearly.
In everyday life, vagueness is a clever way to shunt the conversation back to the other person until you have something more definite to say.
Make a loose, noncommittal claim, and then ask them a question or see how they respond.
As a rule, it's always a good idea to start with general vague statements and work from there, allowing the other person to guide you.
A closely connected technique is often called the rainbow ruse, and its vagueness lies in the fact that you're essentially saying two opposite things at once.
I e.
It's contradictory.
There is some overlap here, again with Barnum statements.
The key to a rainbow ruse is to make a claim that sneakily covers all possibilities, so that the psychic is always going to be perceived as accurate no matter what.
You are an introverted and shy person, but when you're with people you know and trust, you can have a wild and outgoing side that comes out.
You are a very kind and considerate person, but there have been times when you've shown particular cruelty to people you were unhappy with.
You are a person who knows what they want in life, but there have been times in the past that you felt very unsure of what you're doing.
These sentences link two opposite ideas by varying things like mood, you're like X, except when you're unhappy.
Then you're like y.
Time you're like X, but at times can be like Y.
And potential, you're like X, but you have the capacity to be Y if you wanted.
It sounds too easy on the surface, but statements like this work because human beings are incredibly complex and often do possess two contradicting beliefs, traits or desires.
In addition, most people have a range of experiences that change over time, and when hearing a rainbow ruse will simply attach to the part of the statement that seems most relevant to them at that particular moment, it's the response to the claim that tells you so much, rather than the truth of the claim.
In other words, it's almost irrelevant whether someone is or isn't an introvert.
But if they choose to grab hold of that part of the claim and expand on it, you know that they like to think of themselves as introverted.
And that brings us to our final technique watching for reactions.
Our final technique is perhaps the most important, since the other five will be fairly useless unless combined with it.
One half of cold reading is what you put out into the conversation, and the other half is what you're gathering back up again.
You're not just making strategic guesses, but carefully watching how these guesses fall so you can run with them or drop them entirely.
You are always, always looking for clues.
Have you noticed that psychics seldom offer their services over email or text?
This is because most of them need face to face interaction.
If they can't tell how any one statement is being received by their audience, they can never really move things forward.
Nothing will stop a Cold reader dead in their tracks faster than someone who is expressionless and shows no response to what they're being told.
In TV psychic shows, people are happy to raise their hands or verbally say yes or no to claims, but even minor reactions can give you an idea of whether you're on the right track or not.
If you're lucky, a person will happily give you information.
For example, no, that's not right.
I think that maybe refers to my uncle or my cousin.
Maybe.
But if the other person's keeping quiet, you can still watch their body language and facial expressions to see if you're getting close.
As a rule, people noticeably respond to things that do apply to them.
If the person is sitting stony faced while you're talking, but suddenly shifts in their seats and seems to widen their eyes a little at the mention of the word cancer, you can guess that cancer is somehow relevant to them.
At psychic shows, after all, people are waiting anxiously to see whether something will be said about them.
When it is, they can't help but light up, smile, or give other clues that they are suddenly paying attention.
The trick is that the person having these reactions isn't really aware that they're communicating this to anyone else.
It looks on the surface like you're making guesses about them, but in reality there's a dialogue going on between you both, only a subtle one.
Even more subtle is using general powers of observation to read people before they've even had a chance to react to what you're saying.
The techniques we discussed in earlier chapters can be used to great effect here.
Look for wedding rings, tan lines, baby food stains, expensive shoes, religious jewelry, tattoos.
Note if someone is slouching, leaning forward eagerly, frowning, crossing their arms, or looking exhausted.
Sure, little things like this are not much in themselves, but they add up quickly if you're paying attention.
A great way to practice this skill is simply to observe people more often.
Try a bit of people watching and observe others where they're not observing you, and where verbal communication is off the cards.
For example, in a busy street or airport, look at people and guess who they are, their age, where they're from, what matters to them, what makes them sad, what their hopes and dreams are, what kind of car they drive, what work they do, what accent they have.
If you can just practice seeing what's in front of you without stereotyping or entertaining prejudice, you'll soon be astonished by just how much people are already telling you about themselves long before they get into conversations with you.
Ask what stage of life is this person in?
And what is statistically most likely for that age group?
What socioeconomic group do they belong to, and what primarily concerns people in that group?
What social and cultural markers do they have?
And what does this tell you about who they are or who they want to be?
Practice often enough and it may even become second nature.
For instance, you might unconsciously register a person's clothing, demeanor, hairstyle, voice, and gestures and instantly recognize them as someone who is gay or Italian or afraid of aging or a nurse or whatever, you may make a guess about them and surprise yourself by how accurate you are.
True, people are all unique, and you may often be off the mark.
But remember that in cold reading, you don't have to be right, just close enough.
Make a vague claim or a Barnum statement and watch what happens.
Speak slowly to give the other person time to react to you.
As amusing as all this is, chances are you're not literally going to attempt to practice cold reading for real, although it's a fun practice so long as everyone is informed about what you're doing.
Cold reading, understandably, has a bad reputation, but there are intelligent ways to use these principles in ordinary conversation without being underhanded.
In reality, all these techniques blend into one keep things open, universal, and vague at first, and then fine tune the direction the conversation is going based on what the other person is giving you.
Tailor your approach according to their response.
Keep things light and flowing.
You'll be surprised at how quickly you can get people to say, wow, how do you know so much about me?
Takeaways we can improve our information extraction skills by following some of the techniques used by fake psychics when they do cold reading.
General principles for cold reading include being subtle, open ended, and allowing the other person to guide you without them realizing that you're not doing anything magical, but merely working with the information that they provide.
Shotgun statements are random statements made in order to see what response you get so you can follow it up on what sticks.
Barnum statements are those that are likely to be perceived as relevant to individuals, even though they apply to almost everyone.
Barnum statements are broad guesses that look specific but actually have a high probability of being on the mark.
When using shotgun or Barnum statements, a cold reader can also ignore their misses and focus on their hits, concealing the fact that they are guessing.
Another way to mask misses is to pass them off as successes, retroactively, or rework your claim to make it seem as though you were right all along.
Cold readers deliberately keep things vague to start with and then fine tune their approach according to the feedback they receive.
They begin with a noncommittal low stakes guess and then by degree, inch closer to the truth using their audience's response or lack of it.
A key principle in cold reading is to pay attention to reactions of all kinds, including nonverbal ones.
Expert cold reading combines all of these techniques seamlessly and swiftly to give the impression that the psychic has plucked accurate information from the air, when in reality it's been fed to him unwittingly by the audience all along.
We will recap today's episode in just a few moments, but first, a little news.
My episode demographics show that there might be some interest in this topic although we don't delve too much into sports, but Carmelo Anthony, a ten time All Star and a three time Olympic gold medalist, is going to retire from the NBA after 19 seasons.
And while we're on the topic, the Nuggets sweep the Lakers.
Tyler LeBron if you're not into sports, there's some good news on the streaming side of things.
HBO Max and Discovery Plus are going to merge into a new streaming service called Max, and it's available beginning today.
Paramount, plus and Showtime are following suit.
They're going to launch together in the US.
On June 27.
Let's recap today's episode with the Takeaways.
We can improve our information extraction skills by following some of the techniques used by fake psychics when they do cold reading.
General principles for cold reading include being subtle, open ended, and allowing the other person to guide you without them realizing that you're not doing anything magical, but merely working with the information that they provide.
Shotgun statements are random statements made in order to see what response you get so you can follow it up on what sticks.
Barnum statements are those that are likely to be perceived as relevant to individuals, even though they apply to almost everyone.
Barnum statements are broad guesses that look specific but actually have a high probability of being on the mark.
When using shotgun or Barnum statements, a cold reader can also ignore their misses and focus on their hits, concealing the fact that they are guessing.
Another way to mask misses is to pass them off as successes, retroactively, or rework your claim to make it seem as though you were right all along.
Cold readers deliberately keep things vague to start with and then fine tune their approach according to the feedback they receive.
They begin with a noncommittal low stakes guess and then by degree, inch closer to the truth using their audience's response or lack of it.
A key principle in cold reading is to pay attention to reactions of all kinds, including nonverbal ones.
Expert cold reading combines all of these techniques seamlessly and swiftly to give the impression that the psychic has plucked accurate information from the air, when in reality, it's been fed to him unwittingly by the audience all along.
And with that, we come to the end of another episode of Social Skills coaching our Life and Death section.
Today we have birthdays for entertainer and actor Drew Carey, the reality star Jackson Duggar, the makeup artist James Charles, actor comedian Jason Nash, as well as the musician Jewel.
On the other end of the spectrum lost today in history were Bonnie and Clyde, killed by the police John D.
Rockefeller that's way back in 1937.
Roger Moore, who played James Bond for a previous generation in 2017.
Today we quote from John Rockefeller try to turn every disaster into an opportunity.
You the.