10 Ways To Charm Someone According To A Former CIA Agent

A former CIA spy revealed what it takes to make targets fall for him. Andrew Bustamante has some tips for people who want to use spy skills in their daily life.

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It’s not all Fast Cars & Beautiful Women

Andrew said it’s about creating a connection. This could mean trying to romance people across the sexuality spectrum.

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Build a level of trust

Whether it’s romancing them or just being friendly enough to extract secrets, Andrew says the important thing is to build trust. You want the target to feel you’re the only person in the world to understand them.

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It’s all in the conversations

Andrew says that contrary to popular belief, people don’t fall in love in one meeting and don’t immediately divulge their secrets. The trick is to put the time in and build that trust day by day by speaking to them.

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Go from broader topics to more personal ones.

Andrew says that once you’ve started a conversation it has to lead somewhere. He gives the example of a conversation he had with a barista and what he inferred from it.

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"So, when that barista tells me she used to be a waitress, what does that tell me? That tells me that for the last two jobs, she's been in the service industry, a low wage service industry... like, she probably doesn't have a lot of nice things."

Perspective vs Perception

Now that he knows she used to be a waitress, he knows that it is her perspective that needs to be given importance and not his own. So, he will ask further questions to see what she thought about the experience.

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“I use that to gain some perspective. And take the question a level deeper. 'Oh, what restaurant did you used to work at? Sometimes I hear that those customers are rude on that side of town', right? You make a joke.

Windows & Doors

Andrew says that every conversation has windows and doors. When he starts the conversations as he did above, he likes to use that perspective to understand them better.

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"She's going to start telling you more and more. 'Oh, yeah, they were rude. But that's okay. Because, you know, my faith tells me that you're supposed to forgive all people’."

Now he knows that she follows a certain faith. That is a conversational door for him to open and ask further questions.

Never trust a quiet person

When it comes to charming people you need to know which ones to weed out. Andrew Bustamante says that a quiet person has more to themselves than you would think. While most may count someone quite as boring, Andrew says that they’re probably looking, listening, learning, and most importantly planning their next move.

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Act, Don’t React

For those of you still waiting to make the first move, this is your sign.

“Most people,” he says, “live in a reactive world – actions happen and we react. Spies actually can predict behaviour. They don’t wait until something happens to act – they set a stage, control their environment and make things happen.

Andrew Bustamante

Get to know yourself better

There is some sense to what all those gurus say after all. Andrew's training told him that it was important to be "...able to understand who you are, so you can manage the experience around you in a very deliberate way.

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His No.1 rule

Listen. Don’t talk.

EveryDay Spy