Read People Like a Book by Patrick King

The concise art people reading through their body language and personality 

People are motivated by psychological, social, financial and evolutionary factors, all of which interact with one another in interesting ways. What do people care about? Asking about interest, values, goals, and fears is more or less asking about motivations. Once you know where a person is coming from you can understand them and their world in their own terms. 

Motivation as an Expression of the Shadow

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung put the shadow self as everything we have disowned, ignored or turned away form. These are the parts of ourselves we hide from others and our selves. Pettiness, fear, vanity, rage. Jung thought that in order to live whole some life one had to accept all parts of oneself even those one has buried deep beneath oneself. 

The shadow is filled with painful, uncomfortable feelings. One relives this pain by ignoring or denying the feelings or sometimes projecting the matter to someone else. That’s when one attributes those feelings one want to ignore on oneself to others. 

The point of acknowledging these parts in others is to be as compassionate and understanding towards them as one can be in order to cultivate that compassion and understanding in ourselves. A great way to consider ones and the other person’s shadow is to watch what feelings their behavior triggers in you.

Next time you meet someone ask yourself these questions:

1. What is this person consciously and unconsciously portraying to me right now?
2. What is this person unwilling to acknowledge about themselves?
3. How is this un acknowledged behavior driving their behavior towards me right now?
4. How is this person making me feel right now? Do I feel they’re projecting on me or triggering my shadow?
5. How can I communicate compassion and understanding for what’s in their shadow right now?

This is a great way of reading between the lines.

The Motivation Factor – Pleasure or Pain

If you can grasp and understand other people’s motivation you may understand them much better even to the point of even able to predict how they may act in the future. 

The most famous motivational factor is the pleasure principle. It’s also the easiest to understand. It asserts that the human mind does everything it can to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

The pleasure principle is employed by our reptilian brain, which can be said to house our natural drives and desires. It doesn’t have any restrain. It’s primal and unfiltered. It goes after whatever it wants to fulfill our body’s urges for happiness and pleasure. 

People work harder to avoid pain than to get pleasure. It’s one of the hardest things our brain works to avoid. 

Our perception of pain and pleasure are more powerful drivers that actual things. It’s what’s really driving the cart. And sadly those perspectives are flawed which is why sometimes we work against our best interests. Pleasure and pain are changed by time. 

The reptilian brain only focuses on the here and now: what can I get very soon that will bring me happiness? Also what’s coming at me very soon that could be intensely painful that I’ll have to avoid. Emotion betas logic. When it comes to pleasure, your feelings tend to overshadow rational thinking. 

Survival overrides everything. When our survival instincts gets activated, everything else in our psychological and emotional make-up turns off. 

Next time you meet someone new or are trying to get a read on someone consider looking at their actions in terms of motivation of pleasure or pain. What do they gain or avoid by acting the way they are?

Defense of the Ego

Protecting yourself from others is a frequent reason for our behavior and we are highly motivated to shield the ego for many reasons. The ego’s instincts to protect itself can be reality-bending can can cause mass intellectual dishonesty and self-deception.

The ego will turn an unwanted situation and rationalize it in a way that either we didn’t want it or is someone else’s fault for the results we didn’t get. This is based on the universal principle that no one likes to be wrong or to fail.

When the ego senses danger, it has no time or interest to rationalize the facts. It seeks to alleviate discomfort in the quickest way possible. And that means you lie to yourself so you can keep the ego safe and sound. Defense mechanism are the specific way we protect our ego, pride and self-esteem. The most common ones are denial and rationalization, but we’ll explore others. 

Denial is when you claim that something that is true as false.

Rationalization is when you explain away something negative. It is the art of making excuses.

Repression is when you push away the though or feeling that they regret. It’s as if the emotion or thought never existed. It’s also when we push the emotion so deep within us, we forget it exist until it comes out in other ways.

Projection is when we place unwanted and unaclaimed feelings onto someone or something else instead of accepting they are part of ourselves. 

Reaction formation is when we not only deny something is happening but we claim the opposite is.

Regression is when we cope with a distressing situation by going “back” to a simpler time. 

Sublimination is when we channel our unwanted emotions through a more acceptable outlet: cleaning, doing charity work, journaling, etc. 

The Body, the Face and the Clusters

When we’re interacting with others and trying to understand what makes them ick, it’s important to be cautious of making assumptions. The art of reading people isn’t to take a holistic view on all the information they’re giving you. Not just verbal or body language. 

Look at My Face

 Haggard and Isaacs filmed couples’ expressions during therapy and they noticed that some expressions were so microscopic you had to slow down the film to notice.

There are expression that are so fast that they could easily be ignored by the untrained eye. According to Emmanuel, facial expression are actually physical reactions. These expressions occur when you’re not around anyone who could see them. He found out that across cultures people used these expressions to display their emotions on their faces even when it was unintentional. 

His research lead him to know that micro-expressions are spontaneous, tiny contractions of certain muscles groups that are related to emotions regardless of culture, background, and upbringing. By catching them and understanding what they mean is a way to out-thought what is merely said to get to the truth of what people say and believe. Since they’re difficult to exaggerate or fake you know you’re getting the truth.

Within the brain there are two neural pathways related to facial expression. The first in the pyramidal tract, responsible for voluntary expression and the second one is the extrapyramidal tract, responsible for involuntary expressions. Researchers have found this in individuals who experience intense emotional situations but also external pressure to conceal that emotional experience activity in both these brain pathways or ticks.

According to Elkman there are six universal emotions, all with corresponding minuscule facial expressions: 

Happiness is seen in lifting of the cheeks, with the corners of the mouth raised up and back. Wrinkles appear under the eyes, between the upper lip and nose, and the outside corner of the eyes. 

Sadness is seen in the outer corner of the eyes, they drop down, along with the corners of the lips. The lower lip may even tremble. Eyebrows may form a telltale triangle shape.

Disgust, the upper lip lifts and may be accompanied by wrinkles above it and wrinkles on the forehead. The eyes may narrow slightly as the cheeks are raised.

Anger, the eyebrows lower and tense up, often at a downward angle. Eyes tighten too. And the lips may purse and held stiffly open. The eyes are staring and piercing.

Fear, on the other hand, entails similar contractions but upward. Whether open or closed, the mouth is tense, and both the upper and lower eyelids are lifted. 

Surprise or shock shows itself in elevated eyebrows rounded rather than triangular, like with sadness. The upper eyelids lift up and lower eyelids stretch downward, opening the eyes wide. Sometimes the jaw can hang loosely open. 

The best way to catch these fleeting emotions is by looking at the discrepancies between what is said and what is actually demonstrated through facial expressions. One classic indicator of someone lying is the lifting of the shoulders slightly while someone is vehemently confirming the truth of what’s being said. Scratching of the nose, moving of the head side to side, avoiding eye contact, uncertainty in speaking and general fidgeting also indicate someone may be lying. Now that is not to say that these emotions are sure tell sing of discrepancies, but ultimately the point of these exercises is to become more empathic. 

Pay attention also to asymmetry in facial expressions. Natural, spontaneous and genuine expressions of emotions tend to be symmetrical. Forced, fake, or conflicting expressions tend not to be.

Body Talk

Firstly, it’s important to understand that not every communication is inbuilt, biological, and the result of evolution. It’s our more primitive part of the brain that’s responsible for these automatic responses.

Take for example the “fight or flight” response to danger, but there’s a third response: freeze. Someone who is asked a difficult question or put on the spot may look like a deer caught in the headlights. Another possibility is physically moving the body away from what is perceived as threatening. 

The more competent you become at reading nonverbal signals, the more you come to appreciate how physical they are. 

Let’s consider what are called pacifying behaviors. These can offer a key insight into someone who is feeling stresses, unsure or threatened. Pacifying behavior is what it sounds like: the (unconscious) attempt to self-soothe in the face of some perceived threat. In the case of stress our limbic system may prompt us to make little gestures to calm down: touching the forehead, rubbing the neck, fiddling with hair, or wriggling of the hands are all behaviors intended to soothe stress. 

Consider any cradling, stroking or rubbing movement as the physical clue to a person’s need to self-pacify. Consider any cradling, stroking or rubbin movement as the physical clue of a person’s self-pacifying. Puffing of the cheeks and exhaling loudly is also a gesture of releasing stress. Yawning can also be another way to self-pacify for the body is trying to bring in more oxygen to release stress.

Cradling gestures such as rubbing of the arms or crossing them is another way to pacify yourself from unwanted stress. 

Taking up room such as putting your hands on your hips spreading of arms and leaving your torso exposed is a powerful way to communicated confidence in yourself. 

The feet are also another source of information: busy feet suggest an unexpected desire to get moving. Someone may be in a hurry or discomfort when their feet are point out away from the speaker, they’re bouncing up and down or are standing on the balls of the feet.

The legs can also reveal negative emotions such as the crossing of them, especially when the crossed leg is titled away from the person. If the person likes you they’ll tilt the leg towards you and if its a woman, she’ll tangle her shoe on her tip toe.

Th general principle is pretty obvious: bodies expand when happy or dominant. They contract when threatened, unhappy, fearful or uncomfortable. Leaning towards a person can show agreement, comfort, flirtation, ease and interest. Crossing the arms, turning away, leaning back and using tightly crossed legs as barriers show a person’s unconscious attempt to get away from or protect themselves from something unwanted. 

When you become aware of people’s body language, ask in the first instance whether their actions, gestures, and postures are constricting or expanding. 

Thinking in Terms of Message Clusters 

Shifting away from physical actions that may or may not mean or suggest something else, and instead consider human behavior in terms of the overall message it communicates to others. Rather than trying to imagine what every possible manifestation of aggression looks like, we can focus on aggression itself, and watch for resulting clusters of behavior. 

Aggression is shown by confronting great urges, or those that move actively and energetically towards a target. Invasive, approaching gestures that move in on another person can signify an attempt to dominate control or attack. Physically it can look like standing too close ,or even displaying or exposing one-self as if to demonstrate superior strength. Aggression is all about sudden, impactful and targeted gestures. It’s as though the entire body is clenched around a single pointed attention. 

Assertive body language is forceful but not direct. This a person standing their ground, being firm, balanced, smooth and open in expression of a confidently held desire. 

Submissive body language is the complement – look for lowering, self-protective gestures that makes the person seem smaller, smiling excessively, being motionless, speaking quietly, turning the eyes coward, or assuming a vulnerable or non-threatening stance. 

Open and respective gestures will signal open and crossed arms and legs, unguarded facial expressions, easy speech, or even opening or removing layers of clothing to show informality.

Romantic body language will emphasize intimacy. The focus will be on sensuality (touching the other person, preening, stroking, slowing down, warm smiles) and connections (prolonged eye contact, questions, agreement, mirroring). The perception is that of an invitation to close distance. 

Deceptive body language is anything that is characterized by a sense of tension. Look for anxiety, close body language, and a sense of distractedness. Look for someone who’s trying to control themselves, with an anxious effect.  

Personality Science and Typology

The Big Five 

This theory reduces personality to five traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticisms. 

According to the theory, it’s how much of each trait and where we land in the range between the extremes that determine our unique personality.

Openness to Experience

Openness to experience determines how willing you are at taking risks or trying something new. You seek out the unknown. 

On one extreme, people high in openness are curios and imaginative. They get bored easily and turn to their creativity to uncover new interests and even daring activities. These people are flexible and seek out variety in daily life. Routine is not an option.

On the other end, people who are low on openness prefer continuity and stability to change. They are practical, sensible and more conventional than their peers. Change is not their friend. 

Openness is linked to leadership. If you’re able to entertain new ideas, thinks outside the box, and adapt quickly to new situations, you’re more likely to become a successful leader.

Conscientiousness 

Conscientiousness determines how careful and cautious you are. It’s about thinking twice, maybe three times before making a decisions. People who have high levels of conscientiousness tend to be extremely focused on their goals. They plan things out, focusing on detailed tasks at hand, and they stick to their schedules. They have better control over their impulses, emotions and behaviors.

On the other hand of the spectrum, people not so conscientious tend to be more impulsive and disorganized. They become demotivated by too much structure, and can procrastinate on important work, and have weaker ability to control their behavior. 

Conscientiousness has been linked to better success after training, more effective job performance, higher job satisfaction and careers with greater prestige and higher income. 

Extroversion

Extroversion determines how outgoing or social you are. Extroverts draw their energy from being around other people and thrive being the center of attention. For that reason they maintain a wide circle of friends and thrive in meeting new people. 

Introverts, on the other hand, aren’t shy, but they simply prefer solitude to socializing or calm to chaos. They draw their energy from being along. 

Agreeableness 

Agreeableness determines how kind and sympathetic you are and how warm and cooperative you are with others. If you’re empathetic and caring towards others and driven by the desire to help you may be quite agreeable. You feel their pain and may be compelled to do something about it. 

People who are less agreeable may find they take less of an interest in other people’s lives. Instead of trying to solve problems in a group they’re more than happy to do so alone. They’re not agreeable because they are determined to do exactly what they want do. Because of their nature they may seem unpleasant or offensive to be around. 

Neuroticism 

Neuroticism determines how emotionally stable you are. It identifies your ability to remain steady and balanced versus anxious, insecure, or constantly distracted.

Neurotics tend to approach life with a high dose of anxiety. They worry more than most and their moods tend to shift quickly and with little prompting. This kind of behavior can make them prone to being stressed or even depressed.

Those on the less neurotic side of the spectrum tend to be more emotionally stable. When stress comes their way, they have an easier time dealing with it. Bouts of sadness are few and far between, and they see fewer reasons to stress about whatever may come their way. 

In the end we have fives scales that have been proven to at least be a major elements of personality for you to evaluate peoples on.

Personality is yet another date point to help you interpret and make sene of the information you’re confronted with in the moment. 

Jung and the MBTI

The MBTI is based, like the Big Fie, on four very distinct dichotomies:

1. For personality, the spectrum of extroversion (E) versus introversion (I).
2. For perception, the spectrum of sensing (S) versus intuition (N).
3. For judging, the spectrum of thinking (T) versus feeling (F).
4. For implementation, the spectrum of judging (J) versus perceiving (P).

The ideas is that everyone can measure themselves along these four spectrums, and certain patterns will merge discovering your personality type. 

Extroversion versus introversion signifies the source as well as the direction of a person’s energy expression. 

Extroverts are action oriented in comparison to introverted people who are more thought oriented.

Sensing versus intuition represents how someone perceives information. When a person is sensing they believe information received directly form the external world. This may come in the form of using all their five senses. Decisions come in more immediate and experienced ways. 

For someone using intuition, they believed information from an internal world – their intuition – over external evidence. This comes from a “gut feeling”. It may take a little longer to make decision to be made.

Thinking versus feeling has to do with how a person processes information. Thinking is when someone makes a decision mainly through the process of logical thinking. They also think in tangible means, when they look to rules to guide their decisions making.

Opposite to this is the feeling where someone would rather make a decisions based on emotion. For decisions, these people look to what they value as means to choosing their best option.

Judging versus perceiving is how someone will implement the information he has processed.

Organization is how people plan their lives, sticking to their pre-thought plans. These people like to have order and structure. Their sense of control comes from being able to control their environment as much as possible.

Judging types will normally use previous experiences as a catalyst to either control or avoid certain behaviors later. They like to see things settled and done with.

How can we use this theory practically? It’s difficult to categorize people into the 16 types but next time you interact with people try to determine: whether they’re more introverted or extroverted. Try to determine if they’re more intuitive or sensing. The tactile, practical and direct person may be more sensing than someone who answers “it’s complicated” to every question no matter how simple. 

Determine whether they’re more sensing to feeling. Are they engaging you in facts, idea and abstract plans? Or are they talking about people, relationships?

Try to determine where someone comes from by adapting your body language and style of communication. Are they more or less engaged?

Kerisey Temperaments

David Keirsey organized the 16 MBTI intro four temperaments:

Temperament one: The Guardian
This happened when someone results in being a sensor or judge. These people have longing to belong, contribute to society, and are confident in their abilities. They’re also more concrete and more organized. Logistics is one of their greatest strengths; they’re excellent at organizations facilitation, supporting and checking. Their roles are administrators and conservators. Administrators tend to be more proactive and direct, most efficient at regulating. Conservators are reactive and expressive and are best at intelligence supporting.

Temperament two: The Artisan
This occurs when an individual tests at being a sensor and perciever. These individuals live freely and through a lot of action filled events.
Artisans are completely adaptable. They seek out stimulation and virtuosity. They’re concerned at making an impact and their greatest strength is tactics. They’re extremely efficient at trouble-shooting and agility.
Artisans have two roles – operators and entertainers. Operators are the direct and proactive version of artisans. They have a high capacity to expedite and are the attentive crafters and promoters of the role variants. Entertainers are more informative and reactive versions of artisans. They have great way of improvising and are attentive to detail. 

Temperament three: The Idealist
This happens when someone results in being an intuitive and feeler. These people find meaning in their lives while helping themselves and others be the best version of themselves. They value uniqueness and individuality.
Idealists are abstract and can be compassionate. They work to seek significance and meaning in almost everything. They are concerned with their own personal growth and being able to find their true identity. They’re very good at diplomacy and have strengths in clarifying, unifying, individualizing and inspiring others. They have two roles: mentors and advocates.
Mentores are the proactive and directive versions of idealists. They are very good at developing and their attentive varies the roles are counselors and teachers.
Advocates are reactive and informative idealists who are very good at mediating.

Temperament four: The Rational
This happens when someone tests as being intuitive and thinker. There’s always drive to increase their knowledge and they are highly competent. 
Rationals are objective and rational. They seek to be masters of their craft and self-control. They’re usually concerned with tier type of knowledge and competence. Strategy is their greats strength, and they have the ability to logical, investigate, engineer, conceptualice, theorize and coordinate. Their two roles are engineer and coordinator.
Coordinators are proactive and directive. They are great at arranging and their variant roles are masterminds and filed marshals. Engineers are the reactive and informative versions of rationals.

Temperaments overall have the ability to give people a better sense into how they are and what they can do to change their personalities. 

Temperament identification allows people to score themselves and potentially make a change for the better. 

Depending on which temperament the person falls on, you could change the style of communication in order to read their reactions better. 

The Enneagram

The enneagram test was developed in the 1960s as a way for people to attain self-actualización. The focus is primarily on self-improvement because it forces people to face their won faults head-on. What makes it unique is that it aims to identify the how and what rather than the what people do. 

There are nine types that can be identified when taking the test:

Type one: The Reformer 
These types of people are usually concerned with always being right and have a high level of integrity. They can also be deemed as being judgment and self-righteous. 

Type two: The Helper
These people have a yearning to be loved and appreciated. They are usually very generous but can also be seen as manipulative and prideful.

Type three: The Achiever
These types of people love to be praised and applauded. They are workaholics, which can make them narcissistic and vain. 

Type found: The Individualist
Typically, these types will search for meaning in their lives and need to be unique. They are certainly creative but can also be moody and temperamental.

Type five: The Investigator
These people strive to be knowledgeable and competent. Most of the time, they are very objective, but they have the tendency to hoard themselves away.

Type six: The Loyalist
These people are thoughtful in their planning and are very loyal to anyone they care about. They do question everything, and this can make them suspicious and paranoid.

Type seven:  The Enthusiast
These types of people like adventure and are very energetic. They make the best of everything, and this can force them to be reckless and overindulgent.

Type eight: The Challenger
These people always have to be in control or have power. They are assertive, which can come off as being aggressive and extreme. 

Type nine: The Peacemaker
Lastly, these people are stable and mediate situations. They’re normal easygoing and accepting of all things. But this type of naive behavior can make them oblivious to negative situations around them.

To make sure you’re using these theories to their best advantage, you need to remember that they are simply models, nothing more. Models have limitations, and they are always oversimplifications of complex phenomena. 

Lie Detection 101

The Problem: Uncertainty

The trouble is that the things we typically rely on to help us read people – facial expressions, body language, word choice – can always show a degree of variability. 

Also, practice liars will know all the signs needed to spot a liar. Touching of the face, fidgeting, poor word choice. In fact, if you’re dealing with a person who is very accustomed to lying, or in some way almost believes the story they’re telling you, they may show no signs at all.

So, why bother learning to detect lies if it’s something that’s so difficult to get right? Because there are certain conditions under which lie detection accuracy can improve. 

Lie detection is generally most accurate when:

– You have a solid baseline of behavior against which to compare current behavior. 
– The person doing the lying is spontaneous. 
– The lie comes with real consequences for getting caught. 

Unfortunately, there is no single cue or sing that is reliable indicator of someone’s dishonest. 

We could turn things around and look at it from the other angle – instead of asking how we can become better at spotting deception, can we understand why we get decked in the first place? From this point of view, nothing much can be done about the existence of liars but we can certainly look at ourselves and ask what aspects of our own personalities, beliefs and behaviors go unnoticed.

It’s All About the Conversation

Of course body language matters. But in a way, a lie is a verbal construction – it’s a narrative that’s presented dynamically, in real time, and always in the context of another person listening in active conversation. Spotting lies is more than just watching like a hawk for a facial twitch here or sweaty palm there. It’s about working with the entire conversation. 

Your abilities to detect a lie will come down to the way you engage with the person telling the lie. Your interactions needs to be strategic and proactive. The first thing to keep in mind is to use open ended questions to start with. Let the other person speak first, and often. Give the time to lay out any possibly conflicting facts of threads you can unravel later to prove a lie. 

You want to keep your input to a minimum, at least at first. If you have any evidence or information of your own, keep it quiet about it for as long as possible. Remember, the liar is in a difficult position. They have to convince you of a story yet they don’t usually know what you know. Withholding this information is often enough to get someone to accidentally blurt out something that resolves the issue for you completely. 

Watch for how the information is presented in general. Liars will usually offer a complete and highly detailed account all at a once, but have little to offer beyond that when questioned. They’ve rehearsed the story in their heads, but they haven’t rehearsed questions they haven’t thought of. People telling the truth, however, tend not to come out with everything all at once, but will easily answer when questioned further.

Next time try to ask an unrelated question and see how the person responds. Truth tellers are more likely to say “I don’t know”, whereas liars struggle to find key details to answer such question. 

When you notice a discrepancies on the lie, don’t let on that you do. Wait a little and watch. When you eventually do confront such a person with evidence of deceit, continue to watch their response. People caught in a lie might get angry or shot down. People who are telling the truth will get confused and keep repeating the same story. 

How to Increase Cognitive Load

Telling the truth is pretty easy – just remember what you can say and say it out loud. Telling a lie is much harder for it’s not something that you’re remembering, its a story you’re fabricating – one that has to have sufficient credibility. The best way to catch a liar is to ask the details on certain questions until their brain overloads and you catch the with information you know it’s no true. 

Listen closely and apply gentle pressure to parts of the story that seem a little thin. Add information you know may be true and see how they include it in their story. 

Ask unexpected questions that will have them temporarily abandoning their rehearsed story. When they come back to it, they may have forgotten the details themselves. Take an inconsequential part of the story and repeated it back with an extra piece you added, or  a small detail incorrect. See what they do. 

Finally, watch how emotion is expressed during a conversation. Behind every lie is an emotion: guilt, nervousness, fear or even secret thrill at getting away with things. You may see the person carefully adds a bit of fake emotion here and there for effect, but if you know them well, these expressions may seem a little off somehow – either the emotion seems delayed, timed strangely, last too long or are of an inappropriate intense. 

Using the Power of Observation

How to Use “Thin Slicing”

In psychology, thin slicing is the ability to find patterns using only very small amounts of data. The idea is to use very few clues to arrive at accurate predictions of future behavior. 

How can we use thin slicing in our own attempts to better read and understand those around us? Could it really be that intuition and gut instincts outperform our more rational, deliberate and conscious efforts to reason through a decision or judgement? 

Yes and no. Intuition is powerful and often accurate, but we want to make sure we’re not just giving in to unconscious confirmation bias, instead use conscious decision making, too. 

Indirect Questions: Direct Information

Through innocent questioning, we can uncover a host of information that represents an entire worldview or set of value. 

These questions are meant to inspire deep thought. They ask people to dive deeper such that we can begin to understand their behavior and thought patterns.

1. What kind of prize would you work hardest for, and what punishment would you work hardest to avoid?
This questions might reveal the true motive behind an individual’s drive. 
2. Where do you want to spend money, and where do you accept skimping on or skipping altogether. 
This answer revelas what matters to someone’s life and what they want to experience or avoid. 
3. What is your most personally significant and meaningful achievement and also your most meaningful disappointment or failure?
This answer will let you know how people view themselves. 
4. What is effortless and what is always exhausting?
This answer is designed to better understand what people actually enjoy.
5. If you could design a character in a game, what traits would you emphasize and which would you ignore?
This question ask what people see as their ideal self and also what they feel is less important in the world.
6. What charity would you donate millions to if you had to?
Answering this question forces one to answer what they care bout in the world at large rather than just their own life. 
7. What animal best describes you?
People are far more comfortable talking about certain traits they admire in others than they are about asking directly about themselves.
8. What’s your favorite movie? 
With this question, people are really sharing with you the narratives and stories they’re drawn to, which in turn show you in a deep way what their inner moral universe looks like, how the think of the good and bad guys, and even how they envision their own grand story as it unfolds. 
9. What would you rescue from a fire in your home?
This is another question that taps deeply into a person’s most fundamental values and priorities. 
10. What scares you most?
You can learn a lot about a person by what they actively avoid, detest and fear.