Lone Iguana

The brilliant folks on Reddit have these suggestions for mind hacks:

• It’s much harder to access memories if you’re not allowed to break eye contact. Liars usually easily keep eye contact because they’re not remembering anything.
• Tell new salespeople to speak assumptively, ending each sentence with ‘ok’. This will change how they form sentences, and their subconscious attitudes. Once that sinks in, they can stop saying ‘ok’, but the language practices remain, and help make sales.
• Give someone two options you’re okay with and they’ll be more inclined to pick one, rather than think of an alternative. Ex. should we meet Saturday or Sunday?
• “Take your left (perhaps non-dominant) hand, and squeeze your thumb inside it. Squeeze hard. Now, with your free hand, take your pointer finger, and poke at the back of your throat. You no longer have a gag reflex. Enjoy.”
• “Look at the other person’s elbow and never miss at High Fives.”
• “It occurred to me a while back that a security uniform, ANY security uniform, will get you past everyone including security guards from a different company with a completely different uniform. As a security contractor, businesses at malls for example will call me to watch their store specifically for different reasons, mostly at night. Once time I got lost I ended up at the entrance of a closed department store at a mall, and the manager himself pretty much ushered me in. If I hadn’t asked how to get to my destination, he would have just bolted off and I would have had the place to myself. It’s not the first time I wandered into places I shouldn’t be, completely unchallenged. Also, It’s really nice for when I want to smoke a joint in plain view. Cops just nod or wave at me, no matter where I am standing at whatever time of night, with absolutely no idea if I should be there or not. And all my uniform consists of is black slacks and a polo with an arm and chest patch. Nothing flashy or even that noticeable. Most of the time I feel as though I’m just dancing in everyone’s peripheral vision, and they contrive for themselves that whoever I am, I should be here and don’t need to be questioned. It’s a head trip.”
• “If you ask a question, and receive only a partial answer, respond with polite silence. Simply wait. A more complete answer will usually follow.”
• “If you’re trying to find something, try looking right to left as opposed to left to right. Your eyes tend to skim over things if you search in the direction you are used to reading in, so skim the opposite way. It takes me a bit more effort to do this, but I notice more details.”
• “The door-in-the-face technique. The general idea is that you ask someone for a huge favor which you’re relatively confident they’ll say no to. Then you ask them for a small favor.”
• “There’s something in sales called the Sullivan Nod. Basically when you’re asking someone something, nod up and down while you’re asking. Their mirror neurons start firing and they begin nodding and agreeing with you subconsciously. 60% of the time it works every time.”
• “I’m a paramedic. When a patient is possibly faking unconsciousness we have 2 tricks to determine if they’re really unconscious or not. First, you can lightly brush their eyelashes with your finger. Their eyes will flutter if they’re faking it. Alternatively, if they’re on their back you can lift their arm over their face and let it go. A conscious person will drop their arm away from their face.”
• ‘There was a study a while back about people who were lined up to use a copy machine. One person came up and said “can I use the copy machine because I need to make copies?”. a majority of the time they were allowed to cut to the front.’
• “I have an awesome conversational technique. During a conversation, repeating the last couple of words in and make it a question triggers people to give more information. This is really helpful if you a) don’t know what to say or b) not in the mood to talk to that person. I once used it in a 30 minute conversation with a middle-aged woman. We didn’t relate at all and she was complaining about something. I didn’t listen to her at all, just repeated her sentences. Afterwards she said it was a great talk.Example. “So I just bought a new tv yesterday.” “New tv?” “Yeah I didn’t need one but hey it was on sale.” “on sale?”

   

• “if you feel sad, look up. clears your head.”