Having a good relationship with your audience is a must. I’ve laid out three ways you can use it to improve your mind reading performance. What is a report? The report is a relationship. A pleasant feeling of mutual trust, affinity and friendship established through verbal and non-verbal means.
When you introduce yourself to people you don’t know, whether or not they accept you is an important factor in determining whether the effect will work well or not. There is nothing worse than acting around someone who doesn’t like you and wants you to fail. This can cause your mind reading performance to crash and leave you red-faced. For your mind reading and mentalism tricks to be truly successful, you need the audience on your side. To get them on your side, you need to build a good relationship with them. I’ve listed 3 great ways to build rapport.
Mirror Body Language – A great way to get a non-verbal report is to mirror the body language of the volunteer. Reflecting is basically copying what the other person is doing regarding how you are sitting, standing, where your hands rest, if you are cross-legged, hunched over, upright, etc. Now, you don’t want this to be too obvious, so a great way to casually mirror the other person is simply with small movements that mimic their hand gestures. When they scratch their heads, you scratch yourself, etc.
Use the same words: Another good way to build a rapport with someone is to copy their dialect, scum, or metaphors. As you talk to people, you will find that they will use the same words and dialects to describe things. A great way to build rapport is to use the same words safely when talking to them.
Match Your Voice – This is a more advanced strategy and is used by copying your tone of voice and rate of speech. Some people speak quietly and at a fairly fast pace. It is your job to copy them without being someone you are not. If you are a loud and outgoing person and you are dealing with someone who is introverted and quite quiet. Bring your animated shapes one or two notches down. This will build a good relationship with them where you can then slowly return to who you are and they will comfortably follow your example.
These tips just scratch the surface of rapport with someone, but they are a good starting point for any mind reader or mentalist.
