How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 17

always to control what others think and they do so by controlling the way information is presented to
them.
In order to control and change your mind, however, they first have to read it. Manipulators will observe
you, collect information through how you answer their questions and what your friends or colleagues
tell about you, but also through finding out more about you: who you associate with, where you live,
what your life is like, how you feel, what you read, which music you listen to, what you do …
Nowadays this kind of personal information is always more found through electronic traces that you
leave on the internet: social network profiles, comments, things you published, …
Manipulators continually collect, consolidate, then sift all of this information in order to find thought
patterns that can be interpreted as your personal disposition, i.e., to better understand your personality,
character matrix and hence find your weak spots.
Here is a warning for in case you would consider starting to take advantage of some people yourself: If
you treat some people unselfishly, you will basically treat everybody you deal with unselfishly. But if
you take advantage today of some people, you will end up taking advantage of anyone.
“Show me a man who mistreats his enemies, and I’ll show you a man who stabs his friends in the back
too.” (R.B. Sparkman – The art of manipulation)

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