You may have jumped to this chapter because you suspect that someone is using these techniques on you—not in a good way. Let me assure you: You don’t have to know how to use the techniques to be able to recognize that you’re a victim of them. You notice the approaches; you don’t have to have names for them. You feel scrutinized. First, ask yourself why that person might be doing it. Second, consider that, if someone has gone to all that effort to extract information from you or force a change, maybe you should get out of that relationship now. The straightforward path to self-defense could be divorce or a new job.

The simplest self-defense advice I can give you is to say, “Don’t toy with me” when you become certain that another person is trying to manipulate you with these techniques. A slightly more complex defense is to be cognizant of where your own eyes go and of what emotions your body is starting to leak. Skimming the rest of this book will give you clues as to how you must be self-aware.

The rest of this chapter gets a lot more complicated in exploring your options on self-defense, both proactive and reactive.

You’ll know for certain that someone is using these techniques on you if you feel that you’re a bad rider on a good horse. I’ve watched an inexperienced rider mount a horse whose job in life is to carry riders. He’ll use reins and kicks in an effort to get the horse to behave. With no ceremony or display of emotion, the horse will saunter over to a fence and rub the rider’s leg on it so hard that he begs for mercy. If that’s how you feel, you need to know how to get that person to back away from the fence.

In a meeting where your employer or a colleague denigrates your performance or judgment, you need to adopt the survival mechanism of a hostage. The situation could be a one-on-one with your boss who wants to fire you, or it could be a large meeting in which someone wants you to lose ground. Your role as an employee of a company is a living role that gets constant feedback from your employer. It isn’t the whole “you”—it’s one of your roles—and that role is being battered in the meeting. That attack is life-threatening in terms of your role. You have to do only one thing well: survive. The steps to doing that are:

The best self-defense in an argument of love, as well as in business, is to personalize the argument—to make it dangerous for the person to continue that line of thought because his attack on you is an attack on himself. You want the person to have a vested interest in keeping you whole. Fundamentally, it’s a variation of the argument you use with the boss trying to fire you: “You chose me and you’re a smart person, so how bad could I be?”

Unfortunately, in arguments at home, I know it’s not as simple as that. Maybe the best you can hope for is that you can escape the argument with some self-respect intact. While someone is attacking you verbally, look for his weaknesses. Don’t even rebut right away—or at all. Just store up the factual errors, the missteps in logic, the emotional responses. Let those bonehead mistakes build you up the whole time that person is trying to tear you down.

Do not allow circular logic. Circular logic is nothing more than using a step from your thought process as a founding principle for the process. Consider the following example:

We live in a time when our lives are so saturated with media that we can have a hard time separating fact from fiction. Visit www.urbanlegends.com if you want a sampling of the ridiculous things that people believe—many things built on circular logic. Any time you are dealing with someone who cannot define a reason for something, challenge where it came from. Much of the time, you will find the argument relies on the original supposition to support its existence. Circular logic in arguments allows someone to take you down a twisted path with no foundation in facts. When someone projects his failures on you because you hired him and firing him would reflect on you, that is circular logic. Defend against it with real logic.

When I was a 21-year-old Specialist (E4), I had a Sergeant Major yell at me for 45 minutes. As part of his rant, he threw some expletives at me and barked, “You’ll never wear green tabs in my battalion.” Green tabs are a designation that infantry and combat arms troops wear when they achieve a leadership post. I didn’t have a Military Occupation Specialty, or MOS, that would have qualified me to earn green tabs. After 35 years in the Army, this guy should have known that. His ignorance amused me, which distanced me from his tirade. This is exactly the kind of stupidity you want to focus on when someone rages at you.

Another part of your self-defense strategy is telegraphing to the person what he is allowed to attack you on. For example, I want you to attack the red-headed kid with big ears. I know how to defend against that. I don’t want you to attack my being incompetent in fixing the roof, or my procrastination in fixing the roof that now leaks. If I’m guilty of those things, my defenses are lower.

What is your spouse likely to pick on you for? You’re fat. You’re skinny. You have a big nose. You walk into walls. You drive into walls. You flunked 10th grade. You’re a lousy cook. You’re unemployed. You can’t spell. You drink too much. Whatever it is, you already know it about yourself. Put a key word in your head that puts you in a strong defensive mode and make it ring out over and over again when someone mentions it in an attack on you. You have to be able to think: If that’s all you got, then you’re inept. There’s a lot more to me than that, and you can’t touch it.

To reiterate, three techniques that will help you leave the argument with some measure of self-respect and mental clarity are:

And when you find yourself slipping into limbic mode, get yourself out of it immediately. Visualize. Figure out how much it would cost to take a weeklong vacation in Cancun. Take any other action that will pull you back into cognitive thought.

Approaches you are likely to use in business are the same ones you want to have used on you. By that I mean, your best defense against someone using flattery, emotion, or subtle bribery to get information or a desired action out of you is for you to invite an approach for which you are prepared. You decide who comes to the dance and it won’t be the person in you who is vulnerable to that approach.

For example, you can invite a pride-and-ego down approach by telegraphing that you’re self-conscious about something. You have gray hair coming in, so you color it or wear a hat to disguise that sign of aging that “makes you uncomfortable.” So, that’s what he tries to use as leverage. Great—you have no problem with aging and no matter what he says, you’re resistant to that kind of approach. He can go on and on about “you old hag” and he will not increase his leverage on you.

The advantage to you in this kind of abusive situation is that you can remain in control of your emotions. You have the distance you need to really listen to what he’s trying to push you to do instead of react to an insult.

In a business situation, an easy way to invite an approach is to put particular pictures on the wall of your office. Put up your degrees, awards, and a picture of you with the President of the United States and you will surely hear pride-and-ego up approaches. Pictures of your wife and family invite an emotional approach. You want to talk about your family—it’s easy—and the photos invite that conversation. Talking about your family gives the person no edge with you. At the same time you get to baseline the other person to run your own approach. If you want someone to use an incentive approach, suggest what means a lot to you: fame, money, freedom, 356-bit encryption, and so forth.

In the last chapter, I gave you a victorious Samantha who closed the deal because she had a lock on her prospect’s body language, trappings, information sorting style, and so on. What if that prospect knew just as much as she did and set her up? What if they had read the same book!

Rhett had come out of his office to greet Samantha so he could see what she was doing as she waited. Whenever he saw people who had come to solicit his business just staring at the wall and drinking coffee, he wondered if they would waste his time, too.

Rhett always held small meetings such as this one at the table Samantha chose because it sat in the open. Any nervous twitch or fumbling with paper would be obvious. He admired her confidence for proceeding straight to it. He put the Tower of London photo up purely as bait. No question about it, he loved travel and, in fact, had been to the Tower five times, but he displayed the picture solely to see how observant his guests were. At the very least a “what’s that?” told him the person had enough sense to know that a photo that was so prominently positioned must have importance to him.

When Samantha got right to the point of her visit, Rhett saw that she leaked a little emotion. Her index finger rubbed over her thumb—a tiny auto-erotic gesture that helped her adapt. “Good,” he thought. She’s not arrogant and she’s not taking it for granted that I’ll respond to her directness. He concluded that, so far, he liked her style and that, yes, she had done a good job of establishing rapport with him.

He had to admit that her approach had appeal. It also occurred to him that her leading questions didn’t come from nowhere. He never did figure out that she had seen the photo of him and his Harley; he concluded that something about him projected, “I don’t want to spend my days and nights worried about this company. I want other people to do their jobs so my life has balance.”

As Samantha asked some of the tough questions that led to a discussion of money, he noticed again that her right index finger rubbed over thumb. Now, she seemed to know it, though, and she picked up the pen she had used for note-taking and simply held it, as if she were channeling excess energy into it.

He decided he needed to see how well she handled pressure—she’d have to deal with a lot of during the product launch—so he pushed her to what he thought would be a very uncomfortable position. “The more I think about our slip in this product release, the more I realize that PR isn’t my priority right now. I appreciate your coming in, but this conversation is probably premature. I won’t get my head back on this part of the problem for a month or two.” Rhett paused and watched her. Eyes down left. She was calculating, not responding emotionally. No finger rubbing either. She sat up straight in the chair and leaned it, as if to say, “I’m ready for this.” So he continued, “We don’t have any news to put out right now, so I figure we won’t need your services until we do.”

Samantha’s planning and preparation served her well. She knew he might go in this direction—any smart negotiator would—and she was ready: “I understand that, Rhett.” By using his name, she made the statement personal. “But in my business, just like yours, I know that preparation is everything. Before news breaks, you have to have your positioning statements, your campaign objectives, and every other aspect of the plan. Your news has to hit the right people with the right words and the right time. You want your announcement to be one in a million, not one of a million.” She could not have played that better, he thought.

By the time he gave her figures on the unit sales of the first product, he had already decided to hire her. What he didn’t reveal was the fact that the margin on the new product was 5 percent better than the margin on the first one. If her work did generate advance sales of 600 units, he’d see a magnificent profit—higher than she could have calculated.

His “candor” on sales of the first product had invited an incentive approach and she went for it. He gladly accepted the low-end figure in her bid range and concluded, “She’ll make plenty out of this deal. And doing business with me will make her deal-making skills sharper.”

The approaches that you’re likely to encounter in love and business have straightforward defenses. I’ve suggested a few here, and you will likely come up with others. The one thing all defenses have in common, however, is the need to remain or get back into cognitive thought.

A common way of tracking down leads that seem insignificant but garner huge returns is through conversation that trails on and on, seemingly going nowhere. Every once in a while, the interrogator will ask a question, which may or may not signal real interest. Some people have learned how to do this to extract important business information at cocktail parties. Some people have learned this tactic works on someone they want to take home from a bar. You’ve no doubt encountered this on some level and thought later, “I can’t believe I told her that!” The real trick here is to take control of the conversation and lead the conversation to a fruitless end. Everyone knows someone who does this naturally. I once worked with an interrogator who, by her very nature, would bring every conversation back to horses. It maddened most folks, but I could tolerate it. I could turn the conversation as well because I knew enough about horses to ask questions she couldn’t comfortably answer.

If you know someone is collecting information, transfer the subject to one without a return path. Focus on a concept or word that will take your conversation so off track that you can’t get back. You’ll accomplish your goal of evasion without seeming impolite. For example, the representative of another company you meet at conference reception talks about all the traveling she’s been doing lately. Her objective is to find out if you’ve been traveling a lot, too, because where you’ve been might clue her in to the new markets your company wants to penetrate. You give a broad smile and say, “I’ve finally found a way I love to travel. My wife and I hop on my Harley and take off down the highway. Makes your own neighborhood seem exotic! Have you ever done a trip on a motorcycle?” At that point, dragging you back to a conversation about business is not only difficult, but it probably confirms your suspicion about her motives for bringing up the subject.

Look at the challenge from another angle: You’re the one lying. You wake up to the fact that someone is questioning you because she doesn’t believe your story. You hear questions related to time of occurrence, nature of an event, sequence of action, or other request for a level of detail that seems to spotlight an inordinate curiosity. Whether you’re lying or not, you can use the question to take the inquisitive skeptic down a path of your choosing.

You’ve just lied by omission about your early morning run. You say that you set a personal record by doing 7½-minute miles and that you ran eight miles. In truth, you did a couple of 7½-minute miles surrounded by six 10-minute miles. The person asks you when you left the house; she was thinking of calling you this morning, but wasn’t sure what time you usually get up. You respond that you got up at 6:30 and were out the door by 6:45. At some point later, she finds a casual way of asking when you returned from your run. Your response to sidetrack her away from scrutiny of your lie might be, “I know exactly when I got back because I have a function on my watch that helps me time my runs. In fact, it even has a heart monitor. Have you ever seen one of these things? It’s amazing. Let me show it to you.” And you’ve slyly managed to avoid the truth—at least for the moment.

I don’t recommend that you practice this. Pointless and seemingly harmless lies such as this can haunt you more than you may realize.

You could also be on the receiving end of a sidetrack. Without even giving it thought, people commonly undermine the control a boss or partner is trying to establish by verbally squirming or shuffling. You call an employee in to discuss a performance problem and he looks at his watch to say that he only has five minutes because he’s trying to fix a problem that you told him to fix. You tell your spouse you want to talk about the family budget and he starts thanking you for the amazing birthday dinner you made him. Articulating the specific reasons for the meeting will center the conversation and help you regain control. Think about it: Why are you talking to this person at this time about this topic?

Conditioning a question is an evasive maneuver designed to conceal the facts. It allows you to respond with truth—that is, something that’s true to you—but it doesn’t tell the questioner what he wants to know.

When President Clinton said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” in response to a question about Monica Lewinsky, he conditioned the question. And from the legal analyses to the jokes, this comment sparked conversations about truth-telling because people knew that the questioner aimed for a “yes” or “no” answer. Instead, President Clinton responded with a statement that was true to him. Recently, in taping a British television show on interrogation techniques, I began my questioning of one of the volunteer “prisoners” with, “What were you doing there?” He responded, “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.” He could look me straight in the eye and tell the truth with that statement, but he obviously wasn’t answering my question.

How many times have you done this over embarrassing matters? Your wife says, “Honey, the car has an awful scratch on the passenger’s side. Did you hit something?” Your answer: “I did not run into anything with the car!”

The truth: You let go of a heavily loaded shopping cart at Wal-Mart and it scraped the side of the car. By the way, this man’s wife would know he was masking the truth if he usually uses contractions, but did not in making this assertion. Such deviations from speech patterns highlight deception.

Conditioning the question, or framing a question, is one technique used to perpetrate dishonesty without (technically speaking) lying. So how do you get past that clever language game, often played in courtrooms, to know that the subject is deceiving you on some level? You give auditory signals—pitch, tone of voice, and choice of words—when you are lying that combine with shifts if your body posture, facial micro-gestures and the other indicators I’ve described earlier.

To defuse a potentially confrontational situation, particularly one in which someone is trying to nail you in front of others, you should rely on your talents and background. Here’s a time to be funny, highbrow, folksy, or whatever else comes naturally to shift the emotional states of people around you or even derail someone in a line of questioning.

Within the United States, how certain terms are used telegraphs where a person is from. A native Georgian will likely use “Coke” as a generic term for “soda,” which is the same as “soft drink” in Pennsylvania. A simple regionalism such as this puts people at ease by reminding them of a common bond. A regional expression can also take the heat off you if it’s something the group isn’t likely to have heard before. In a conference call with people from various parts of the country, I once put a confrontational group back on track by saying, “You’ve got to state your case clearly. I’m like a hog with a wrist watch when it comes to finance.” Except for the Texan on the phone, no one had heard that before, so they laughed and became a lot more accommodating.

Now turn the situation around: Pay attention to these types of quips if you are on the offensive. Folksy expressions can be so funny and endearing that they not only take you off point, but they humanize the person to a degree that makes it difficult for you to engage him. Southern men—and I can say this because I am one—are masterful at making self-deprecating comments. If we want you to think we are less intelligent or powerful or wealthy than we are, we know how to do it by using homespun phrases.

Traditionally, Southerners also do not get confrontational with the same alacrity as someone from the Northeast. If you are from the South and an associate from New Jersey gets in your face, use whatever tools you can to stay in cognitive thought. That outburst, that language—it means nothing, y’all. And if you’re from the Northeast, you know that this behavior will likely put someone from the South in limbic mode pretty quickly. You can accelerate your process just by doing what comes naturally to you, but it appears to be a fear-up approach to the person you’re addressing.

I was born with the tools for deception. I have the type of mind that allows me to imagine the possibilities to the point of reality. If you fit in the intuiting/feeling temperament type, you may have this “gift,” too. Test yourself: Try to commit to memory the vision of a simple deceit—say, changing a flat tire on your car this morning. Can you get yourself to the point where you access it on your visual memory side?

Even my mind, with its unique qualifications to lie, can be tricked under high pressure. Very aware of that fact when I was a student at SERE school, I took a photo of my ex-wife, a photo of my nephew, and my wedding ring. My interrogators seized on the photo of my wife, a blond, and my nephew (supposed son), who is brunette. “How could a blond and a redhead produce a little boy with brown hair?” they yelled as they called my wife all sorts of derogatory names. I was able to tell them which hospital he was born in, how old he was, his birthday, his middle name, and a plethora of other details. This was simple transference of facts from my brother’s life to support the details. For those who cannot visualize lies as facts, transference is your best recourse. Realize this is not going to protect you in high limbic thought and that your chances against a good interrogator are low. But in daily life, unless you are in a darker line of work, this should work for you.

I opened this chapter by recommending “don’t toy with me” as a legitimate comeback to a manipulator. Sometimes confrontation has to be less obvious.

Body language holds tremendous power in both establishing control and self-defense. We all know from social and business interactions that stature can change the way you relate to someone and either establish control or disrupt someone’s control. Regardless of your size, weight, or chest measurement, you can use what you have to make your point: Don’t mess with me. Sit up straight, lean forward, square your shoulders, and baton with your arm, and you can convey power regardless of your size. Watch short politicians for clues on how to do this. In The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin’s Hitler character, Adenoid Hynkel, plays on the importance of stature in a scene when the relatively short dictator meets the Mussolini character, who is tall. Failing to keep his rival for world domination vertically challenged with chairs of different heights, Chaplin finally resorts to standing on his desk to dramatize his superiority. I don’t recommend you do this because I’ve actually seen a variation of this done in an Asian country and, believe me, it’s still funny.

A person with certain physical attributes—looks, height, girth, and even a disability—can get away with establishing an advantage only when he is in an encounter with someone who lacks confidence, or facts, or brains, or a plan.

The first thing to keep in mind is that, any time a person relies primarily on any of these externals as leverage to get what he wants, he is vulnerable. You can take away that person’s power related to physical characteristics very easily with your confidence, facts, and brains, and/or a plan. What’s in your head is the most powerful tool you have, and it’s not a matter of IQ. It’s your ability to think under stress, your ability to adapt to stress, and to project your outcome.

The intended impact of displaying physical dominance is that you feel subservient: Don’t let it have the intended impact. If you suspect someone is running this game on you, ask yourself how you feel. They can establish control of the meeting—sometimes that’s appropriate—but that doesn’t mean they control you.

Mechanisms for quick stress-release can help you regain control and move back into cognitive thought when someone is hammering you. Try one or all of these to see what calms you down quickly:

You can have all the tools you need to maneuver people toward your desired outcome and still not achieve it. Why?

If you fall into the first category, I can’t change you, but I can offer advice that you can definitely follow: Do your planning and preparation. That is, research your source, pay attention to facial signs and body language, note rituals and trappings, think about what approach would be the best for the circumstances, and think of the questions you want answered. Even if you never execute the next set of moves, you have prepared yourself to spot a liar.

As for the second category, have fun with him or her. The likely outcome of that encounter is that you both tell the truth. How bad is that?