At the end of the round, he failed to qualify for the national tournament by two shots. In the clubhouse we had a drink then talked about what he did well and what he could have done better. “I was surprised by the quality of your chip shots and game around the greens,” I remarked. “Everything went within 2 meters of the pin.” Not to concerned about the disappointed day, Nathan replied, “Yeah, you’re right. My wedge game was strong today. Just…” to which I interrupted and said, “The eleventh 2-iron.” He echoed my words, “Spot on, the eleventh 2-iron.”

I let him continue to talk as his words almost perfectly described the words in my mind. Something happened between our minds. It was like a magic trick taking place. A mystical cable connected our minds, leading to strange psychological phenomena.

The distance between two brains was removed as two minds overcame physical boundaries to connect with one another.

It seemed we almost had psychic powers. He was not just reading my mind, I was also reading his. There was a shared connection, a relaying of thoughts exchanged between minds. The distance between two brains was removed as two minds overcame physical boundaries to connect with one another.

There was no two persons trying to talk to one another – frustrated in their misunderstandings. There was no interpretation, judgments, or confusion about what each other meant. We were attuned to one another that we did not have to say a word and we would understand what was in the other person’s mind.

What happened here? Was it a fluke, a lucky break? Were psychic powers at work? How does psychology explain this? How can you use this information to read someone’s mind and improve your communication skills?

We Were Born to Connect: The Roots of Empathy Gave Us Innate Psychological and Physiological Connections

In 328 BC, Aristotle said humans are social animals. Nowadays, evidence is showing that humans are born to connect with one another. Much fascinating research on psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and child development is revealing how we connect in our relationships.

From birth, a baby prefers his or her mother’s voice, sight, and smell than that of a stranger’s. The mother is more connected to the baby than an outsider. As the baby grows, other attachments form. Should a babysitter come over to look after the toddler as the mother leaves the house, the toddler experiences separation anxiety and clings to the mother’s leg. (The anxiety is important for survival and avoiding dangerous situations.) The child can be joyous 10 seconds prior to seeing the babysitter, but the sight of the stranger creates distress.

As the mother leaves the house, she feels her child’s anxiety. The child may say no words or cry no tears, yet the mother mind-reads her child’s emotional state. She is able to feel exactly what the child feels. There is a mind-to-mind and mind-to-body connection.

Interpersonal communication is not just about the direct channels of verbal and nonverbal communication obvious to people. Though we can be aware of people’s words and body language, reading someone’s mind goes to the next level. When you know someone well enough, you pick-up on indirect channels that give you hunches about the other person. Nothing needs to be said or expressed nonverbally; it is your intuition – almost a sixth sense – that tells you what is on the person’s mind.

People connect not just through a topic of conversation they enjoy, but at a biological level. Our bodies adjust to match the body of someone else. When you deeply connect to someone in a conversation, your posture, movements, and heart rate match. (Do not confuse this with mirroring taught in NLP.)

This power gives you the ability to control a person’s mood. A mother can relieve her distressed baby only with her soothing voice. You literally change people’s bodies with your thoughts.

Social and emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman is a leader in the mind-to-mind and mind-to-body connections we share with each other. In a New York Times article, Goleman discusses the powerful connection we share with people. He refers to one study that measured a female’s anxiety. Researchers had a group of females hold someone’s hand prior to receiving an electric shock. When a female held hands with a stranger, she remained distressed. When a woman held her husband’s hand, brain scans confirmed little activity in the emotional parts of her brain. She kept calm. The husband’s hand was a biological source of emotional rescue. Our psychological and physiological states affect ourselves and other people at astonishing levels.

You Have Superpowers

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.Napoleon Hill (1883-1970), author of the classic Think and Grow Rich!

The greatest reward is to know that one can speak and emit articulate sounds and utter words that describe things, events and emotions.Camilo Jose Cela, Spanish writer and recipent of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Literature

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.Meryl Streep (1949-present), American actress

Each of us has innate abilities to connect with others. Believe it or not, everyday we read each other’s minds. Whether a friend asks for your opinion on their clothes, a boss wants your input on a coworker’s performance, or a child asks for a gift, you receive what feels like a sixth sense that signals you how to respond. When a friend asks for your opinion on their clothes, you can guess what they think. You have memories, empathy, and gut-feelings about the person’s thoughts that tell you how to respond.

You already have “superpowers”, an ability to determine another’s state. If you did not have such abilities, you would fail miserably in your relationships; you would fail to intimately connect with your partner; you would struggle to persuade others as your negotiation skills would be insufficient to determine what the other person really wants; you would be unable to sense when someone manipulates you. Without this “superpower” to read someone’s mind, you would struggle to cooperate and connect with people.

Unfortunately, the less time you spend with someone and the more distanced you are with them, you become less able to read a person’s mind. We have imperfect abilities to cue in on another person’s thoughts. If it were perfect, there would be little reason to communicate. We would know exactly what everyone thought.

Does this mean a couple intimately connected to one another should know what their partner thinks because time in a close relationship helps build the individual’s mind-to-mind connection? Married people might be laughing at that. Too many married couples can recall endless occasions when their partner had no clue what they thought – yet alone, what they were thinking when they tried to explain themselves.

You come to act as the person acts, feel as the person feels, and think as the person thinks.

William Ickes, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Arlington, is the leading expert in empathic accuracy. Ickes says misunderstandings in marriages occurs from a lack of insight into the partner’s way of thinking. Insight happens through observing and listening. While you may be motivated to understand your partner early on in a relationship, says Ickes, people’s empathy for their partner during the first few years of marriage decreases because they become overly confident in understanding their partner.

Assumptions destroy your human powers to read someone’s mind, build understanding, and establish empathy. Reading someone’s mind is not about guessing or contriving information to arrive at a conclusion – it is about being immersed in the present as you allow yourself to be absorbed by the person’s reality. You come to act as the person acts, feel as the person feels, and think as the person thinks.

Become a Better Superhero: Mind-Reading Tricks (Empathy Techniques)

The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), famed German writer

Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

You can smile and the whole world smiles with you. That is the magic of “emotional contagion”, a term created by psychologists to describe the infectious nature of emotions. If you frown at work, you infect coworkers with your sour mood. This connection we have with one another is there for a reason: it connects us! Emotional contagion plays an important role in connecting people together.

We would be separate from each other without emotional contagion; we would have little concern for how people feel; we would be unable to read another’s mind. Intelligently taking on a person’s reality by allowing yourself to become infected with their emotions, lets you infer their thoughts. Some psychologists allow emotions to transfer from their client to themselves, which gives them the ability to peer into their client’s inner world. A psychologist can then discover a thought or feeling their client is not aware of.

Emotional contagion connects us.

Goleman in Social Intelligence discusses the amazing mind-to-mind connection, a connection that transcends physical boundaries. He says the intimacy of our communication controls the degree we can connect with others. When a couple are highly engaged with one another, Goleman says, “Such mental intimacy bespeaks an emotional closeness; the more satisfied and communicative a couple, the more accurate their mutual mind-reading.”

The intimacy of our communication that creates a psychic connection has a neurological justification explains Goleman. It is not some unexplained magical power, but neurological adjustment. As we communicate with someone and experience what other people experience, our neurons form pathways. These neural pathways unconsciously direct messages to form our sixth sense that gives us gut-feelings about what people think. “Our trains of association run on set tracks, circuits of learning and memory,” says Goleman. “Once any of these trains has been primed, even by a simple mention, that track stirs in the unconscious, beyond the reach of our active attention.”

Intimate communication that shapes the brain can only be achieved by intimately sharing another person’s reality. Quietening your inner dialog makes you more able to detect another’s emotions. Without inner silence, empathy becomes a difficult task because there is no two-way communication.

Think back to a time when you were angry with someone you talked to. Your anger was illogical as it caused you to do things you later regretted. You did not care what the other person felt, you were just concerned with releasing your anger. (The 10th chapter on emotions and logic in my communication secrets program can solve this problem for you.)

Better emotional management helps your mind-reading skills to improve your relationships. Four researchers in a study titled Physiologic Correlates of Perceived Therapist Empathy and Social-Emotional Process During Psychotherapy found that therapists and patients who felt the same had a more positive relationship. Similar feelings between people help their relationship.

The researchers from the study say that talking uses a different part of the brain than emotional responses. Being a blabber-mouth kills your ability to emotionally connect with people and read their mind. Listening plays a huge role in connecting minds. By talking too much, you block your biological ability to feel what another person feels – and fail to build a connection akin to mind-reading.

As you quieten your inner dialog to tune into a person’s emotions, be aware that their thoughts and desires will be different to your thoughts and desires. Psychologists call this a “theory of mind. The theory of mind describes the ability to determine another’s mental state and at the same time acknowledge its differences to our own.

How to Read Body Language

Body language and other nonverbal cues help us achieve seemingly psychic powers. Annie Murphy Paul, in a Psychology Today article titled “Mind Reading”, says that body language cues such as facial expressions are a good way to tap into people’s thoughts. Focus on little facial expressions to see what someone feels. “We tend to focus on others’ eyes, and that helps us,” says Paul. “The many surrounding muscles make eyes a richer source of clues than other parts of the face: downcast in sadness, wide open in fright, dreamily unfocused, staring hard with jealousy, or glancing around with bored impatience.”

While the eyes play an important role in determining someone’s thoughts, as does other nonverbal signals like voice, “it’s the content of speech that contributes most to our success at mind reading” says Paul. Meaning is not always directly expressed through words, but words give us insight into people’s way of thinking. It is next to impossible to mind-read someone speaking another language.

Another trick you can use to read a person’s mind is to keep learning about communication, personal development, and human psychology. As you learn more about yourself, you learn more about other people. You come to understand what people feel, how we act, and what we think in certain situations. It is crazy how good I am now at digging into someone’s mind and knowing what is going through their mind in a conversation. I know how people react to many statements, the feelings one has during certain moments, and how to shift all this around to make it work for me.

Responsibility Comes with Power – Be Weary of the Dangers of Empathy

There needs to be a word of warning about your mind-reading superpowers. Before you go out and use the magic tricks of mind-reading, a series of techniques that use our innate ability to connect with one another, use your powers wisely. Empathy expert Ickes, with his academic partner Jeffry Simpson, advise people against the surprising dangers of empathy. “Empathic accuracy and understanding can be bad for relationships,” writes Ickes and Simpson in their study Managing Empathic Accuracy in Close Relationships. “While accurate understanding should be good for relationships as a general rule, too much understanding in certain contexts may have deleterious consequences.”

Diagnosing is one such example of a poor application of mind-reading skills, which is discussed in my communication secrets program. We diagnose others when we express people’s intentions. We try to act above others. You can try to mind-read your partner by diagnosing them (“You’re just jealous”, “Why do you always try to argue with me?”, or “Liar, I know what you really mean”) and hurt the relationship as a result of your diagnosis.

As you learn more about communication, you may be tempted to use the communication barrier of diagnosing because you understand the human mind. Just as someone in marriage gets into relationship-trouble by assuming an understanding of his or her partner, the same happens when you are overly confident about understanding how our minds work.

The sad thing about diagnosing is its accuracy is irrelevant. Merely assuming or revealing someone’s intentions makes them defensive. Your superpowers and all the tricks you have been given to read someone’s mind that are suppose to connect people together, can separate you from people.

Use your mind powers wisely young Jedi. Know when to get into someone’s head and when to stay out. It is not your ability to read a person’s mind that gives you great power with people – that is a skill we all have. Rather, having the skill to keep on understanding people gives you power. Understanding is after all the purpose of peering into someone’s mind.

(To discover cool mind-tricks used by popular magicians to “wow!” their audiences, check out this cool guide.)

There are two aspects to communication: verbal and nonverbal communication. These interesting people do not say a word to make you curious about them so their interesting characteristics come from good nonverbal communication, narrowly known as body language. Good nonverbal communication makes you charming, and interesting.

Many lies and misleading information exist about body language’s impact on communication. One such example comes from Albert Mehrabian, a psychologist at the University of California in Los Angeles, who created the “7%-38%-55% Rule” – a communication rule that defines what factors give our words meaning. The rule says 7% of meaning is in the spoken words, 38% of meaning is in how we say the words, and 55% of meaning is in facial expressions. As I’ve revealed in the 15 greatest communication myths, this communication rule cannot be applied to all situations, as Mehrabian specifically says this rule applies only when someone discusses their likes and dislikes. Mehrabian does, however, emphasize that body language is a strong influence in communication.

Want to look attractive? Your body language has the power to communicate attractiveness. If you want to appear lazy, boring, or unattractive, slouch over with an expressionless face and others will judge you as lazy, boring, or unattractive. Your body language can communicate a lot – and in our case, how to be interesting.

I’ve learned three body language tricks to make myself look more interesting. These techniques are simple, but require a bit of practice for them to become second-nature. Eventually, people will see you as interesting and charismatic. Here are the three most powerful nonverbal skills you can put on yourself that make you more interesting, attractive, and approachable like never before with ease:

1. Gooey Eyes

As I write this article, it’s ironic that I’m listening to a song called “Open Your Eyes” by Snow Patrol while the next song to be played is “Iris” by Goo Goo Dolls. Eyes have always been important to humans. Without eyes, human communication relies on sounds. Communication is made or destroyed with eye contact.

Your understanding of good eye contact is probably to ensure you keep looking at the person, but there are eye contact techniques, like the gooey eyes trick, you can use to make yourself more interesting without having to say a word. The other person will see your great eye contact and instantly infer from your body language that you are no ordinary person. Excellent eye contact gives the message that you are interesting.

Gooey eyes has you momentarily increase eye contact with the person you want to be perceived by as being more interesting. It is a slow, deliberate movement to make people like you. The imagery you want to have – and where it gets its name from – is visualizing your eye contact with the person like a sticky toffee being peeled off a surface. Look at the person as per normal, but keep the eye contact going a little longer than normal as you smile. Right before you turn your head down, to the side, or to someone else’s eyes to break the eye contact, maintain eye contact a little longer by peeling your gooey eyes off the person as you turn your head. Peel your eyes off the person like a sticky toffee lifted from the surface it’s stuck on.

Peel your eyes off the person like a sticky toffee lifted from the surface.

Gooey eyes makes you interesting because your head shifts somewhere else, but your eyes momentarily focus on the person. It shows the person you’re confident enough to make strong contact, a dominant trait, as you continue whatever you do. The technique also communicates that you see a trait in the person that other people overlook. You go to break eye contact yet continue to visually absorb them because they interest you.

Gooey eyes contain several different levels of intensity depending on the person and the situation. Women to women and men to women can generally have strong eye contact. When someone makes strong eye contact with a woman in a conversation, their conversational intimacy heightens. The woman instantly feels more interested in the person.

Women interact with others to feel intimacy and strong eye contact is associated with intimacy. Note the time women spend on the phone. They can talk for hours about what happened in one day. Now think how long a man-to-man phone call takes. We punch in the numbers and are off the phone within one-minute. I’ve had so many man-to-man calls that have lasted less than 30 seconds. We are objective-based.

As a guy, you can be cuter to a woman you like by holding eye contact until she loses eye contact with you. This technique displays explosive amounts of confidence – a very hot trait to women. Make strong eye contact in addition to applying the gooey eyes technique as you look away. Women love slow, meaningful body language. When using these techniques, you better talk to her soon otherwise you will be seen as a creepy stalker.

Be careful with strong eye contact in cultures like Japan because it can be interpreted as threatening and aggressive. You can make strong eye contact without appearing aggressive in most cultures. You can be dominant without being domineering. If you’re a guy, aim to make eye contact about 70% of the time with another guy – and when you look away, visualize your eyes peeling off the guy like a sticky toffee. You won’t come off as aggressive or shy, but you will find a median that shows you are an interesting “someone”.

One last point I would like to make about gooey eyes is to avoid overusing the technique with a person. If you keep peeling your eyes off the person like a sticky toffee, you risk being seen as weird.

2. Illuminating Smile

Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence People says smiling is necessary to make friends, but how do we do it? Most of us know the influence of a good smile, yet many people don’t know how to smile well. You need to learn the “how” and not just the “what”.

A good smile is contagious because it makes the smiling person and witnesses feel good. Research has isolated a smile from other influencing variables to discover that seeing only a smile makes you feel better. Likewise, seeing a person frown makes you feel worse. It is a magical brain-to-brain connection that links humans in an almost mystical way. You can make people feel good, make yourself feel good, and make yourself look good by cultivating an illuminating smile.

Why do some people have a cold turkey smile that freezes a room’s emotional temperature? On the other hand, some people ignite your heart with a beautiful smile. How can you achieve an illuminating smile that lights up the room?

You can have great smile even if you were born with an ugly one. You also don’t need a beautiful face to carve a great smile. The face is comprised of muscles you simply control to develop an illuminating smile.

A cold turkey smile begins with the smiling person not feeling happy or excited. The incongruence shows in the facial muscles. An authentic smile shows when you feel positive emotions. Make yourself feel great to smile. It also helps to fabricate a smile by just smiling as research proves you feel better when you smile even if it is fake.

A cold turkey smile is simply an on and off switch, while an illuminating smile slowly increases in intensity until fully illuminated. I call this the “illuminating smile” because your smile is like a volume switch gradually turned to full power.

…your smile is like a volume switch gradually turned to full power.

To use the technique, “turn up” your smile after one second of good eye contact. Increase the dimming switch to gradually brighten your smile. Begin with a little smile, slowly increasing it over two seconds until it becomes a big smile. The initial eye contact to your largest smile totals approximately three seconds.

Practice smiling in front of a mirror. Make the initial eye contact and wait a second, then gradually increase your smile to illuminate the room. You will see how genuine and interesting your smile can become. (Note: Lock the door to the room in case someone sees you practicing your smile. It’s weird to see, but wonderful to do.)

An illuminating smile appears genuine because you do not instantly flick on your smile upon eye contact. You wait a second or two, begin smiling, then increase the size of your smile over two further seconds. (If you want more smiling techniques and further secrets based on facial muscles and psychological secrets to build a great smile, see my Big Talk program.)

3. Capitalizing Posture

An excellent posture rings a giant bell to everyone that you are an interesting “someone”. Women get instantly turned off from a guy if he holds himself poorly. A guy with an excellent posture switches all her right buttons and makes her interested. Likewise, a woman with good posture is hot.

I call this third technique a “capitalizing posture” for several reasons. Firstly, successful people use their assets better than an unsuccessful person. Posture is one of your greatest unspoken assets.

Posture is one of your greatest unspoken assets.

Secondly, a good posture is associated with being tall, high status, confidence, and power. A capitalizing posture is like buildings in a capital city. This does not mean you need to be an over-sized human to have good posture (like yours truly). A capitalizing posture has you focus on maintaining an upright position the best you can with ease.

It’s time to end a posture like The Leaning Tower of Pisa and reconstruct it into a strong, “Tower of Power” structure! There are several techniques you can use to grow your greatest body language asset. I’ve heard so many complex techniques to adjust your posture, but recently I discovered one amazingly simple technique that I wanted to keep secret.

Here it is: all you do is lift your chest. That’s it! Your head will rise, your neck will straighten, your shoulders will drop back, and your back will straighten – all by lifting your chest! This is a capitalizing posture.

If you ever feel compressed in the day (like you might be now as you sit at the computer reading this article) lift your chest like Tarzan. Take on the capitalizing posture. While I recommend you breathe through your stomach (technically you can’t because your lungs aren’t there, but your stomach should expand), I want you to take a deep breath into the top of your lungs to lift your chest and stretch your posture into a taller position.

Try the capitalizing posture technique right now. You can do it on your computer chair. It only takes one second to do. You’ll feel more special and confident just by practicing the technique.

Practice the gooey eyes, illuminating smile, and capitalizing posture techniques in front of a mirror or in a conversation to see for yourself how these three body language adjustments instantly transform you into a more interesting person without having to say a word.

(Discover 14 other simple adjustments you can make to your body language that get people attracted to you by checking out my Big Talk program.)