Mind Control, Mentalism & Manipulation: Invisible Persuasion Skills | Duncan Stevens

Is hypnosis a real thing? Is Neuro-Linguistic programming a scam?Are there important elements of influence and persuasion that just can not be taught?You will discover the answers to all these questions and more as we delve into the secret world of the mentalist.Mentalism is the performance art of demonstrating seemingly magical and mysterious powers of influence and persuasion, at times appearing to cross into the realms of magic, but as my guest Duncan Stevens tells us, mentalism and magic are very different worlds. If you have ever seen the amazing Derren Brown at work, you will know that mentalism and tricks or sleights of the mind can be very entertaining and also quite spectacular.Duncan Stevens is a professional mentalist, a terrific keynote speaker and the author of Effective Influence, one of the few books on influence and persuasion I have ever come across that gives us useful and practical examples of influence and persuasion at work. Duncan is also the CEO and founder of the Influence Association in the UK, an organisation that helps businesses understand and apply the psychology of influence and persuasion, to be able to stand out in the marketplace.In this very enjoyable and fun conversation, Duncan and I got onto talking about things like manipulation, using influence and persuasion to con people and how stage hypnosis works. We also had the chance to discuss suggestibility and the predictability of humans who like to think of ourselves as unpredictable, which he very capably demonstrates on me with several tricks.In this episode:What is mentalism?Is hypnosis real?Why mentalism is not magic.Is manipulation always bad?Will Duncan be able to trick Johnny?Why we need to understand influence on businessCan you be mind-controlled?What is the one tool of influence that can not be taught?You can find out more about Duncan at DuncanStevens.com and at the InfluenceAssociation.com and you can check out his book Effective Influence on Amazon https://amzn.to/3KSM322. For Kindle Unlimited users, you can read it for free as part of your subscription. (We use Amazon affiliate links and we may make a few pennies from your purchases but it won't cost you any extra.)Next time on the show I am speaking with the silky smooth voice of Daniel Tolson, a professional coach, speaker, trainer and podcaster who had so many business fails you would have thought he'd give up. He didn't and he is now very successful and also a super nice guy. I promise you won't want to miss it. Also, keep an eye out for new influence & persuasion book reviews coming up and some new style of episodes where I'm going to share some of my knowledge and experience around influence and persuasion. Did you enjoy the show? Did you learn anything new or useful? If you did, then the best way to show your appreciation is by sharing the show with your online network. Tag me and I'll give you a shout out on an upcoming episode. Leave a review and I'll read it out on the show.Of course, if you REALLY liked it, you're welcome to support the show financially too using the link below.Support the show (https://speakinginfluence.supercast.tech/)Mentioned in this episode:Podfluence...