The Manipulation Detector

 

A sense that is vital for you to cultivate in life is to get good at recognizing when people are trying to manipulate you. It's not always so cut and dry, is it? We've all had our fair share of times where we've been duped, conned, tricked, swayed...whatever...into doing things we might not have otherwise done. It sucks. You realize it on the back end. But if you can get good at this recognition skill, you can watch out for yourself all the more readily, and not have to be the victim of the world's master manipulators.

You really have to sit back and consider how you get manipulated in the first place. I want to lay out a couple things for your consideration. Maybe this will help you moving forward.

First of all, I want you to think about the things that we have in our bodies to process inputs. We have our brain, and we have our heart. They work in VERY different ways. The brain: purely logical.  A computer. Thinks methodically, systematically, machine like. Then you have the heart. An emotional ball of goo. Things get so mushy in there, don't they? They go in one way and come out as something totally different. Some days it works in one fashion, and other days it works completely opposite. Not always so reliable, given that particular facet. Purely driven by "feel". There is NO LOGIC in that. It's just a feeling processor that spits out data based on an emotional reaction to inputs. Strange, huh?

Anyways, if we can agree on that, I hope this next part will resonate with you. Here's the main point of the article. When people are trying to manipulate you, they are deliberately trying to incite an emotion within you. 

Think about that for a second. When people are trying to sway you into some course of action, they make a definitive attempt at creating an emotional reaction within you. They could try to make you feel guilty, sad, angry, hopeless, etc., etc., etc., heck, even happy. Whatever the case, there is a clear cut departure from the black and white of a situation and an exodus into the heart. They are trying to tug on your less rational emotional side in hopes that it will drive you to do something they want you to do.

Here's an example:

Your Boss: Hey, can you pick up an extra shift this weekend?

You: No sorry I have plans with my family.

Your Boss: Ok thanks, have a nice week. See you on Monday.

This is cut and dry. Black and white. Straight forward. Yes or No.

Here's a contrast:

Your Boss: Hey, can you pick up an extra shift this weekend?

You: No sorry I have plans with my family.

Your Boss: Oh, well, geeze. Are you really sure about that? I mean, business is really hurting right now and if things continue to go like this I'll have to start laying off people and your best friend John is the first on the chopping block to go and you know, John's wife has a baby on the way and you don't want him to be out of a job, because then they will have no money for food and then they will begin to starve. It will just be really bad if you don't come in to work. You don't want John's baby to starve, do you?

Now this, this is not cut and dry. This is an embellished example story that I've used to make a point, but you see this sort of thing going on each and every day in the world all around us. People intentionally trying to make you feel a certain way to get you to do something. It's not always so easy to identify. Some people pull this off very well, or in a sly manner. And heck, it's not always completely nefarious...BUT...at the end of the day, manipulation is manipulation. And you get to decide what to do with the situation once you can draw the distinction of when someone is trying to manipulate you.

So this is the part that I want to stick with you guys and girls. This is gonna sound so elementary, but your manipulation detector is your brain. Simple as that sounds, but this is it. Your brain is capable of making this determination. Your heart, is NOT. 

You have to DEVELOP the ability to take a step back from each and every situation where you think this might be happening to you and ask yourself this one VERY important question about whoever this person is and what they are doing:

ARE THEY TRYING TO INCITE AN EMOTION HERE?

If YES > They are trying to manipulate you

If NO > They are not trying to manipulate you

That's the line in the sand. Get good at posing this question to yourself. As I said, once you identify manipulation, you get to decide where to go from there...