Have you ever wished you could learn everything about someone simply by looking at them? What’s Six-Minute X-Ray by Chase Hughes about?
In Six-Minute X-Ray, behavior analyst Chase Hughes says that you can learn everything about a person without talking to them. His Six-Minute X-Ray (SMX) system allows you to rapidly gain deep insight into who someone really is, based on their behavior, speech, and mannerisms.
Read below for a brief overview of Six-Minute X-Ray.
Overview of Six-Minute X-Ray
In Six-Minute X-Ray, Chase Hughes argues that you can read anyone in just a few minutes based on their behavior, speech, and mannerisms. His Six-Minute X-Ray (SMX) system is a comprehensive set of techniques for rapid behavior profiling, developed based on Hughes’s military intelligence work and 10 years of research. It allows you to rapidly gain deep insight into who someone really is, based on their behavior, speech, and mannerisms—information you can use to build rapport with and influence others in your professional and personal life.
Hughes is a behavior expert specializing in behavior analysis, persuasion, and influence. He worked in US military intelligence for two decades, during which time he devised and field-tested his SMX system. He’s also the author of The Ellipsis Manual—the best-selling book on influencing and persuading others—and the founder and CEO of Applied Behavior Research, which offers training in behavior analysis and influence techniques.
Establishing a Behavior Profile
According to Hughes, a behavior profile is an inventory of information about someone based on your observations of them: It gives you an understanding of their motivations, goals, and tendencies. You can use this understanding to quickly build rapport with them and, if desired, influence their behavior and decisions.
To form a behavior profile, Hughes explains, you’ll identify someone’s social needs and decision-making style based on their speech and behavior within the first six minutes of interacting with them. In the next sections, we’ll explain how to rapidly ascertain these two key attributes.
Identify Someone’s Social Needs
First, we’ll explore what social needs are and how to identify them. Then, we’ll explain how you can use this knowledge as an influential tool.
Many people are familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which includes needs all people share—such as the need for safety, social belonging, and esteem. Hughes explains that, in addition to these universal needs, all humans have social needs, which they attempt to meet through their interactions with others. There are six social needs, according to Hughes, each with a corresponding fear:
- The need to feel important (and the fear of being dismissed or mocked)
- The need for approval (and the fear of rejection or disdain)
- The need for acceptance (and the fear of criticism or alienation)
- The need to be perceived as intelligent (and the fear of being seen as dumb)
- The need to be pitied (and the fear of being ignored or disbelieved)
- The need to be perceived as powerful (and the fear of being disrespected or challenged)
Hughes explains that everyone has two of these six needs.
Hughes writes that you can identify someone’s needs based on their behavior and, in some cases, their appearance. For example, someone who needs to feel important may have extravagant status symbols like expensive clothing or accessories. Someone who needs approval may show people-pleasing tendencies. Someone who needs to be perceived as powerful may talk loudly in public and tell stories about what a great leader they are.
Use Social Needs to Establish Rapport and Influence Behavior
Hughes explains that you can use information about someone’s social needs to quickly establish rapport with them—and then, potentially influence their behavior.
To establish rapport, he says, subtly communicate that you can meet their need in some way. For example, if you know your employee has a need for approval, saying things like, “You’re doing a great job,” can quickly win them over. Or, if they need to be perceived as powerful, you can float the idea of a promotion to get them to do what you’d like them to do.
To influence someone’s behavior, Hughes continues, imply that the behavior you want them to do will ensure their needs are met. For example, if you’re trying to convince a friend to seek therapy, and you know they’re someone who needs to feel pitied, you could say something like, “When I started therapy, I felt so validated. My therapist affirmed that my problems were significant and needed attention.” You’re not telling them what to do, but you’re implying that what you want them to do will fulfill their need for sympathy.
Use Fears to Influence Behavior
Hughes explains that you can also use the fear that corresponds to someone’s social need to influence their behavior—specifically, to get them to stop an undesired behavior. To do this, suggest that the undesired behavior would make their fear a reality.
For example, imagine you’re selling car insurance and you have a customer who’s deciding whether to purchase your services. You’ve identified that they need to be perceived as intelligent—which means they fear being perceived as dumb. You share a story of someone who chose not to purchase your insurance, got in an accident, and then found that their chosen insurance company wouldn’t cover the damage. You lament how they should have been more discerning in their decision, suggesting that they made an unintelligent choice by not choosing your services. Your potential client doesn’t want you to think they’re dumb, too, so they buy your insurance.
Identify Someone’s Decision-Making Style
Next, we’ll look at Hughes’s second component of a behavior profile—decision-making style. Identifying someone’s decision-making style gives you insight into how they make their choices, enabling you to understand—and potentially influence—those choices.
According to Hughes, six factors motivate all of our decisions, from making a purchase, to going on a date, to confessing to a crime:
- Deviance: You make decisions that ensure you stand out from the crowd, such as buying a flashy car instead of a more modest one.
- Novelty: You make decisions that lead to new experiences or compel others to view you as a trendsetter, such as wearing the latest fashion.
- Social image: You make decisions that influence others to view you positively or that facilitate connections with others, such as taking the lead on a charitable community bake sale.
- Conformity: You make decisions that help you blend in with your peers, such as taking on the religious beliefs of your friends or family.
- Investment: You make decisions that get you the most out of what you invest, such as only agreeing to a second date with someone based on whether you can imagine having a long-term relationship with them.
- Necessity: You make decisions that fulfill a practical material need, such as only buying essentials and avoiding frivolous spending.
Most people’s decision-making styles will align with at least two of these factors, and according to Hughes, people are more likely to be motivated by factors that are adjacent to each other in this list. For example, someone primarily motivated by investment is likely to also be motivated by conformity and necessity (though to a lesser degree).
Use Decision-Making Style to Build Rapport
Hughes explains that you can quickly build rapport with someone by conveying that you use the same decision-making style as them (even if it’s not your primary style). For example, you notice that someone has a hairstyle that stands out from the crowd and deduce that they have a deviance-based decision-making style. To build rapport with them, you bring up an interest of yours that deviates from the norm, such as a passion for competitive dog grooming.
Use Decision-Making Style to Influence Behavior
To influence someone’s decisions, subtly communicate to them that the decision you want them to make is the one that best fits their decision-making style.
For example, imagine you’re interviewing a potential employee. You’re impressed, and you want them on your team. When you ask why they got into this line of work, they explain that many of their friends also chose this career path—revealing a conformity-based decision-making style. To convince them to choose your company, you might say something like, “We have a lot of employees in your age group who really seem to like it here.” To tap into the adjacent social image-based decision-making style, you could also highlight some of your company’s charitable activities.
Eliciting Important Information
As we’ve seen, a behavior profile (based on the person’s apparent social needs and decision-making style) can be an invaluable tool in understanding, relating to, and influencing someone. However, there may be times when you need even more information from someone—which they may not be eager to share. In these cases, Hughes explains, you’ll have to do some strategic prompting.
According to Hughes, the key to prompting others to share information is to make them feel like they’ve offered it willingly. You’ll get more information if your conversation feels natural than if it feels like an interrogation. Additionally, information-sharing tends to compound: The more information you obtain, the more of a connection the other person will feel with you, and the more that person will continue to open up.
In this section, we’ll explain how Hughes shares four ways Hughes says you can prompt others to share more information than they normally would: leading statements, flattery, complaint baiting, and mirroring their speech. You can use your behavior profile to enhance these techniques, or you can use them on their own if you haven’t yet formed your behavior profile.
Technique #1: Leading Statements
According to Hughes, you can use leading statements to prod someone to share information you’re interested in. These are statements meant to provoke a response from the other person on a topic you’ve subtly introduced. For example, if you’re speaking to your child’s new teacher and want to get a sense of how much homework they assign, you could say, “I bet you spend a lot of time grading students’ homework.” If they respond with, “Yes, it takes about two hours each day to get through it all,” then you know they assign a lot of homework. Alternatively, if they say, “Not really, I spend more time grading in-class work,” then you can assume this teacher assigns less homework.
By doing this instead of directly asking “Do you assign a lot of homework?” the teacher won’t feel interrogated or get defensive. Instead, they’ll feel a connection with you because you made an empathetic statement that highlighted their hard work.
Technique #2: Flattery
When receiving compliments, most people feel naturally inclined to deflect them in order to appear modest. According to Hughes, the details of the deflection can reveal significant information. For example, if you attend a musical performance and speak to the performer afterward, you might say, “That was incredible, you’re clearly very talented.” They’re likely to respond with modesty: “Oh no, I’m lucky because my parents were able to get me private lessons as a child.” This tells you multiple pieces of information: This person has been working on their craft for years and they’re not self-taught, and it even gives you a glimpse into their family’s socioeconomic status.
Technique #3: Complaint Baiting
According to Hughes, complaining or venting feels freeing. This feeling of freedom can cause someone to get carried away, often disclosing more information (or more sensitive information) than they usually would—thus establishing a connection with you. To bait someone into complaining, casually comment on a negative aspect of something they experience that’s related to the information you want from them.
For example, imagine you’re a therapist working with a child who’s struggling with their parents’ divorce, but is reluctant to open up. When you ask them about school, they roll their eyes. Seizing on that, you say, “It must be frustrating to focus on your schoolwork while things are so difficult at home.” They respond, “Yeah, especially my English class. I’m supposed to spend an hour every day at home reading, but my dad moving out is so distracting I can’t concentrate.” You’ve now made a connection with this client and have opened the door to further conversation.
Technique #4: Speech Mirroring
Hughes explains that you can elicit information by reflecting what someone has said back to them. Reflecting someone’s ideas makes them feel seen and heard, which creates a bond with them and prompts them to share more. One way you can do this is by simply repeating the last three words of their statement.
For example, you’re at a community event, and you overhear a stranger remark, “I love the annual sci-fi convention here, I never miss it.” You mirror, “Never miss it?” The stranger, feeling acknowledged, opens up with enthusiasm: “Yeah, the speakers are always fantastic! And between you and me, I heard George Lucas is doing a panel this year.” Your simple, mirrored reply has now sparked an engaging conversation about a shared passion, as well as some insight into a possible special guest.
Hughes notes that for best results, mirror the general idea of what the other person has said to you and then follow it up with a leading statement. For example, imagine you’re at a speed dating event and want to quickly learn as much as you can about the other person’s career and interests before it’s time to switch dates. They mention that they’re a special needs teacher who’s worked in the local school system for seven years, so you say, “Special needs? That sounds like a rewarding job.” This combination of mirroring and a leading statement will prompt your date to share a ton of information.
Reading Into Behaviors and Speech
So far we’ve seen how you can observe someone’s behavior and mannerisms to develop a profile of their behavior, and how you can use certain techniques to draw information from them that they may not otherwise share. In this section, we’ll look at how you can read someone’s behavior and speech to detect stress—and potentially, signs of deception.
Physical Indicators: Detecting Stress
Despite popular belief, it’s impossible to tell when someone’s lying based on their behavior and body language. However, Hughes explains, people tend to feel very stressed when they’re lying—so monitoring someone’s behavior for signs of stress can help you determine whether they may be lying.
Before we get into the signs, Hughes warns that the most important part of monitoring these signs is to notice change in someone’s behavior. Someone might display a stress-associated behavior, but if they display that behavior the entire time you’re interacting with them, you can’t accurately label the behavior as a sign of stress. However, if their behavior changes at some point in the interaction, you can deduce that their stress level has increased as a result of something that just happened in the conversation.
We’ll look at three physical signs of stress that Hughes discusses: increased blink rate, closing or extending the fingers, and facial touching.
Physical Indicator #1: Increased Blink Rate
According to Hughes, paying attention to how quickly someone blinks can tell you about how much stress they may be feeling. Generally, people blink around nine times per minute. However, people blink more frequently when they’re stressed. When you first start talking to someone, take note of how frequently they blink—fast, slow, or somewhere in between. If at any point in the conversation, you see their blink rate speed up, that’s likely a sign of stress. Conversely, if their blink rate noticeably slows, that’s a sign that they’re feeling relaxed.
Physical Indicator #2: Closing or Extending the Fingers
Hughes explains that watching people’s fingers can also give a strong indication of whether or not they’re feeling stressed. When people feel stressed, they often curl their fingers inward as if they’re going to make a fist. This movement is usually very slight; a person probably won’t clench their whole fist when a topic makes them uncomfortable, but you may be able to notice a minor inward twitch. On the other hand, extending the fingers is a sign of comfort and relaxation.
Physical Indicator #3: Facial Touching
According to Hughes, people often touch their faces or cover their mouths when they’re feeling stressed. This is an instinctive response we frequently see in children—for example, if they’ve just said something mean to another child and then they realize their parents overheard it. This behavior is a sign of stress in adults as well.
Speech Indicators: Detecting Stress and Deception
Again, physical indicators of stress may indicate deception, or they may simply signal stress or have other causes. Signs of stress in someone’s speech, however, are much stronger indicators of deception.
Hughes describes many signs to look for in someone’s speech, but we’ll focus on these four: hesitation, changing speed and pitch, reversing a question, and attaching caveats to statements.
Speech Indicator #1: Hesitation
According to Hughes, if you ask someone a question and they take a long pause before responding, they may be stalling for time to think of a lie. This also applies when someone repeats your whole question back to you. For example, if you asked your employee “Why were you so late turning in this project?” and they say “Why was I so late turning in this project? Well…” before answering, they might be thinking up a lie.
Speech Indicator #2: Changing Speed and Pitch
Hughes says that people’s voices tend to get higher and their speech faster when they’re lying, so pay attention to whether someone’s speech patterns change as they speak.
Speech Indicator #3: Reversing a Question
Hughes explains that another way people often hide deception is to reverse a question that’s asked of them. For example, if you suspect your spouse is cheating on you, you might ask them, “Have you ever thought about being with someone else?” If they defensively respond, “Have you ever thought about being with someone else?” they may be withholding something important from you.
Speech Indicator #4: Caveats for Excluding Details
People may include caveats in their statements that allow them to omit certain details without explicitly lying. Examples of these caveats include, “If I remember correctly,” “As far as I know,” “If memory serves,” and similar statements. The context of these statements is important. If you ask someone if they’ve ever committed a murder, they shouldn’t need to search their memory for that information. If they preface their response with “As far as I can remember,” you may want to avoid spending time alone with that person!
