YOUR TRAINING PLAN
The process of becoming a behavioral operative / Behavior Pilot starts small. This will cover an outline of recommended training, exercises, and techniques to build your skill up to a surgical level.
While many read books on behavior and think to themselves that they’ve got things figured out, I want you to be the person that actually does it. I want you to take the vital training you’ve been given and translate it into a skill. Knowledge of these things does nothing. The skill does everything.
What you’ve been trained in thus far is the most powerful rapid behavior profiling system in the world. That’s why the elite use this system only for their operations.
The training process for 6MX is broken down into four phases:
VISUAL
In this phase, you will grow your skills of observation. This phase specifically deals with the observation of behavior while you’re speaking with someone.
AUDIO
This phase involves listening between the lines and identifying the revealing aspects of language you hear from others.
RESPONSE
This phase involves the ability to alter your language in conversations in response to information you receive from the visual and audio cues.
MENTAL
This phase of training is where you will be able to create an entire behavioral compass mentally and incorporate all of the information into unconscious responses in conversations.
THE VISUAL PHASE
This phase relies heavily on the quadrant method. Go through the visible behaviors listed in this book and begin to profile these in conversations. Limit yourself to no more than four behaviors at any given time. Some may also choose to only do one at a time.
The visual phase should last a minimum of 2 months; allowing the observation of these behaviors to become automatic.
As you become competent at automatically identifying behaviors, move them off the quadrant, and allow new ones to take their place.
You. May decide to spend an entire week identifying the blink rate. The videos you watch online, the conversations you have, and even looking across a restaurant at the blink rate will become your new ‘norm’. As observing the human blink rate becomes automatic, you can begin to add in another behavior such as postural tilt. Then a week or two is spent observing nothing but blink rate and postural tilt in conversations.
As you do this, you’ll notice something start to happen; you’ll start to see how powerful observing each of these behaviors are on their own. Just looking for one or two behaviors gives you so much insight that you’ll naturally want to continue adding new observations and behaviors to your list.
Try this with your significant other: Have a movie night, but watch a reality TV show or something without actors in it. Watch the episode twice. Compete with each other who can spot shifts in blink rate with the volume completely turned off. The second time you watch the episode, go back and turn on the volume and identify the context that caused the shift in the blink rate that you observed. This trains your brain initially to observe the behavior and allows your brain some ‘breathing room’ to get that handled. The second time helps your brain to connect those two things, so it becomes easier the next time you observe it.
This is something you can do with your kids, a friend, or even as a ‘date night’...if you’re a behavior nerd like I am.
Keep in mind that you’re building this skill one piece at a time. Much like building a house, you need a single brick at a time to make sure they are well-placed. Gradually add these bricks as you become certain the previous one is firmly set in place.
THE AUDIO PHASE
This phase only requires you to search for audio information. The good thing about this is that you can do this with television, podcasts, interviews, online videos, and normal conversations.
Since you’re only listening for pronouns, adjectives, and sensory preference, you can take your time with this. Listen to a podcast with the sole intention of identifying the guest’s sensory preference. Listen to a conversation on TV with your eyes closed, only listening for the pronoun preferences someone has. These small steps that you can do alone will lead to increased success as you begin to layer them into real conversation.
You can utilize the audio from any conversation and hear all three of these things jumping out at you. Over time, after a few months of practice, layer the behavior profiling (visual) skills on top of the audio skills you now have. As you combine these together, you’ll experience what many of my students do; it starts to feel like a superpower and can become a very healthy addiction.
THE RESPONSE PHASE
This phase is where it all begins to come together. You’ve mastered the art of spotting all the physical behaviors and the delicate skill of listening with the intent to hear behavior where no one else can.
In the same room as a hundred people, you’ll see information flowing from people that no one else in the room is even aware of. In the response phase, you’re going to focus on altering your communication to suit the behaviors of the other person.
Initially, pull out a Behavior Compass, and fill it out as you watch a television show. As you fill it out, hit pause, and write out how you would word yourself differently based on the information you just gathered.
If I was selling cars, I would change my wording drastically based on the information I get. As I watch the show and fill out the compass, I’m going to pause the show, write out all the ways I might modify my language to suit the client, and verbally rehearse it. There is an exercise at this phase that is very helpful.
Consider the following questions as you develop your Behavior Compass:
These are only a few questions to ask yourself. But as you progress, this becomes automatic behavior. I can assure you that this doesn’t take as long as you might be thinking. Small amounts of practice can sharpen these skills in no time. And keeping logs and journals about your development will most definitely make the process much faster.
THE MENTAL PHASE
In this phase, you will realize your superpowers. The techniques are woven together in a perfect, surgical toolkit.
To get it into the unconscious, take it one step at a time. Begin to commit changes in blink rate to memory. As you memorize the causes of blink rate shifts, your communication and language will automatically start to shift. This may initially seem as though the shift won’t be automatic, but I think you’ll be surprised.
Your first priority in this phase is data acquisition - remembering the behavioral profiles you observe and acting on them in real time.
Spend this time combining the other three phases and develop these skills into an unconscious process.
THE TRAINING PLAN
The following is a sample 25-week training plan for learning the 6MX process:
Week 1:
Spend every moment in contact with people using the four laws of behavior and seeing them through the fourth lens, ‘Reasons’.
Just the daily practice of seeing people in this way will drastically change your life. This entire week, hone your skill by keeping the four laws of behavior in mind as you interact with people. People are suffering and insecure. Many times, the ways that we hide this from others becomes the mask we wear. The mask is something that forms as a means of protection in childhood. Start seeing people in this way, and everything changes.
Make a shift this week to seeing people through the eyes of the four lenses. How does seeing people through the fourth lens affect your interactions? Prove to yourself that the fourth lens is the ideal way of seeing anyone - revealing that they aren’t who they seem to be initially, but a compilation of suffering, reward, and shame. Our shame governs what our mask looks like.
Week 2:
This week, profile the Gestural Hemispheric Tendency in everyone you meet. Notice that you can move in this direction to pitch your ideas. Watch the facial expressions in others if you move the other direction.
Week 3:
Spend time in every conversation profiling shutter speed and blink rate. Make notes when you can about when you saw increases and decreases in speed.
Week 4:
Confirmation glances show us so much. In each conversation, look to see where attention goes, and if someone glances at someone else for confirmation. Use the eyebrow flash when introducing yourself, or even at the checkout line to see who automatically returns the gesture.
Week 5:
The lips tell us so much. Observe the face this week, and make mental notes every time you observe the two critical behaviors involving the mouth; lip compression, and object insertion.
It’s vital to note the topic of conversation that’s being mentioned as you witness the object insertion or lip compression.
Week 6:
The face is a superb communicator of truth. Keep an eye out any time you see facial expressions this week. Watch for the two indicators of false facial expressions, asymmetry, and sudden stops of expression.
Week 7:
The nose and mouth are important to all of us. Watch during your interactions this week for nostril flaring, and mouth-covering (hushing) behavior. When do you observe these? Is it during a time someone is apprehensive about agreement, or it’s when they become excited about something you’re mentioning?
Week 8:
Our limbs move a lot when we speak. This week, make a mental note of where the limbs go. Do they cross across the body, cover the genitals with a ‘fig leaf’ or a ‘single arm cross’? What was being said when you noticed these behaviors? If you see someone crossing their arms, make a mental note of whether you’re seeing digital flexion or if the fingers are relaxed.
Week 9:
This week, look for two reliable indicators: If you’re seated with someone, observe their hands. Do you see digital flexion or extension? When you see digital flexion, you know you’ve got work to do, and digital extension means you need to memorize the topic.
Week 10:
Which way are feet pointing? Since feet are such a reliable indicator of psychological intent, spend time in each conversation observing which way the feet are pointed. Determine if the person is interested or disinterested in the conversation. If you see groups of people, observe which person most people’s feet are directed towards. If you’re in line at the coffee shop, observe whose feet point to the cashier and whose point to the exit.
Week 11:
When we expose our bellies, we feel very little fear. Pay close attention to how much belly exposure you’re seeing in conversations.
Secondly, how quickly can you pinpoint someone’s dominant hand? See how many times you’re able to identify this.
Lastly, at the beginning of every conversation, identify whether someone is breathing into their chest or their abdomen. The key, as with all of your behavior profiling skills, is in noticing whether this changes during the conversation. When it changes, you’ve obtained valuable data as long as you’re able to identify the conversational context that likely caused it.
Week 12:
Our shoulders are strong communicators. From protecting us from large tigers a few million years ago to showing our kids we have no idea how to solve that math problem, they do a lot. This week, observe when you see double-sided shoulder shrugs and single-sided shoulder shrugs. Ignore the rest of the body and simply focus on the shoulders.
The shoulders will also show when someone is in disagreement with us. As we are able to identify which hand someone uses to write, we know that the same shoulder will ‘retreat’ whenever they feel a sense of strong disagreement.
Lastly, our shoulders move to show where our attention is, at the beginning of any conversation. Make a small shift to build compliance-wedging and make note of whether the shoulder reorients to face you as you move.
Week 13:
Barriers behavior can show us a lot. I’ve seen it in hundreds of interrogations: the suspect picks up a cup of water from beside him, takes a sip, then places the cup between himself and the interrogator. Make note of any time you see increases or decreases in barrier behavior this week. Does someone place their phone in between you and them? Did you see someone reach down and button their jacket (assuming it’s not freezing outside)? Were you able to pick up when someone moved an object out of the way as you interacted with them?
Make note of the topics of conversation when you see any barrier behavior; removal, and placement. Each of these provides you with invaluable intelligence about the situation.
Week 14:
We make a lot of behavioral adjustments to our bodies. Over the course of this week, make sure you’re able to identify when you see hygienic gestures. When in the conversation, did that person sit up straighter? What was being said as you saw someone lick their lips? What was the detail you mentioned as you noticed someone adjust their hair?
Week 15:
Detecting deception is not what most people think. Most of the time, we see ‘deception’ behaviors when someone is simply stressed. Review the full deception section of this book and observe several videos and interactions for these indicators. Being a ‘stress detector’ is something that will serve you for the rest of your life.
Week 16:
Anytime you speak with someone this week, practice elicitation. Use the elicitation skills and challenge yourself to ask a few questions as possible. Sit down and briefly write out a few statements you can use in everyday life that can serve as your ‘go to’ for the time being.
As you progress through the week, make note of how effective the statements you are using are at getting people to open up. What might need to be tweaked or changed about the statements? Did you find yourself asking too many questions? Don’t worry, it’s our nature to default to questions when we need information. This takes time to develop into a practicable skill.
Week 17:
Revisit the elicitation chapter one more time. This week, set a goal of one piece of information you’d like to get out of everyone you speak to. For example, you may want to discover the hobbies of everyone in your office. Develop a sample elicitation statement for each of the elicitation techniques and have them handy in your phone or on a notecard.
The more you’re able to use elicitation, the more information you will get. The more information you get, the more connected you become with the other person. The more they speak, the more you’re able to profile them for the previous 6MX behaviors you’ve learned and developed skill in seeing.
Week 18:
The Human Needs Map can be one of the most scarily accurate tools you’ll ever use. Keep the Needs written on your phone or a notecard and write down the fears on the reverse side. As you interact with people, profile their needs by listening to their words and observing their behaviors in social settings. One trick I teach students to do is to add this data to the contact in their phones in the ‘notes’ section.
Write out the fears associated with 9 people this week based on their Human Needs.
Secondly, go online. Check out 13 of your online friends on social media and see if you are able to determine where they are on the Needs Map based on their activity. Remember to focus your search on the information they say to others, not what they say about themselves. If you were profiling someone on LinkedIn, for example, keep a close eye on what they say when commenting on someone else’s posts or offering recommendations to other people. When we speak to others, we tend to offer compliments and praise that we want to receive.
If you know them well, take a look through the associated fears. I’ll bet you’re able to identify an issue in the past with them that originated based on these fears.
Week 19:
The Human Needs Map shows us social needs, but the Six Pillars shows us how people make decisions. Whether or not someone decides to buy a car or choose a partner will be screened through the filter of the associated question on their Pillar.
Identify 12 people in person this week on the Six Pillars chart. Where do most of your close friends reside? They are most likely close to you, if not the same Pillar as you are. When you identify someone you know well, think back to a time they made a decision based on their Pillar. You’ll start to see a behavioral pattern that they aren’t even aware of.
If you’re watching an interview or television show, see how many people you can profile on the Six Pillars chart and how you would convince them to do something based on their Needs and Pillar. What would you change in your descriptions of a product? How would you convince them to try out a new restaurant? What words would you use to describe a crime to them if they were in a jury, and you needed them to convict someone?
Week 20:
Take along a copy of the Needs Map and Six Pillars this week. As you interact, prove to yourself you’re able to profile the Needs and Pillars of anyone you speak to within a few minutes.
You can do this!
The Needs are so powerful they are literally drugs, and the pillars is how your clients will make decisions to buy from you. Get these firmly under your belt while you speak to people this week.
Week 21:
How many times in a few minutes can you spot sensory preference?
Take a quick look at this excerpt from an interview Emma Stone did with Interview magazine. Can you spot her sensory preference? If you look at the full interview, I’m willing to bet you can see the pattern for her sensory preference.
“STONE: Like, within the hour. I remember being on the floor . . . I have never felt anything quite like that. It was so visceral. It’s like someone has killed you, and you have to live through it and watch it happen . . . It was awful.
CROWE: Was it a surprise?
STONE: Yes. What was your first heartbreak like?
CROWE: Falling off a building . . . I’m getting a stomachache just thinking about it. [Stone laughs] But creatively, do you think it’s true or false that many of the artists who we know and love are often governed by a single event that happens in their life, and that event then becomes this vivid, iconic thing they return to over and over in their work?”
From: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/emma-stone
This week, listen closely for only sensory words. You’ll be astonished at how reliable this one indicator is in predicting not only how people experience and remember the world, but how they like to be communicated to. The words that match their sensory preference resonate with them tenfold.
Week 22:
Identifying pronouns gives us an even deeper dive into how someone experiences the world. When we can spot which pronouns someone uses, we can communicate with them in a whole new way that makes more ‘sense’ to them.
This week, whether online or in person, identify which pronoun preference people are. You should be able to do this a minimum of 15 times.
If you’re on social media, check out the posts and comments of one of your friends. You’ll learn a lot more about their view of the world than you did before.
Week 23:
Adjectives don’t always reveal personality and behavior, but they do show us which words people like to use. When we hear positive adjectives, we can use those same words when we describe our product or service. When we hear negative adjectives, we can blend those into a discussion about something we’d like someone to avoid.
This week, identify which adjectives people use when talking about positive things and negative things. You might ask them about a vacation, then casually steer the conversation to traffic jams, or their boos they don’t like. You’ll hear words that you now know will trigger positive and negative emotions in them.
Week 24:
You’re well on your way. Pull out a post-it note pad and start filling out small quadrants for every interaction you have. Bring the behavioral traits you have the most trouble with into the quadrant first, and gradually rotate through them over the next several weeks until you’re comfortable.
Week 25:
At this point, you should be able to fill out a Behavior Compass on your own.
The challenge: sit with your partner or kids and watch a television show (with real people in it) and see how many items on the behavior compass you can identify.
There’s even a BONUS Behavior Compass that you can use immediately. It generates a Behavior Compass for random people every time you hit ‘refresh’. This training tool is a vital part of getting the skills OUT of this book and INTO your head. You can access that Random Compass Generator by going to:
https://randomcompass.herokuapp.com
Print a few of them out, and challenge yourself in meetings, watching TV, or even in person, to fill out the card.
As you progress through the year. Keep a Behavior Compass handy, and make sure you’re continuing to sharpen these skills. They really are a superpower.