Are You Mind Reading? When Patterns Become Predictions

The Danger of False Certainty

Someone doesn't answer your text.

Your boss closes the office door after a tense meeting.

Your partner's tone changes.

A founder who has promised to step back suddenly starts questioning every decision.

You notice it.

And within seconds, your brain gets to work.

Something is wrong.

He's angry.

She's pulling away.

They're talking about me.

He doesn't trust the team.

She's going to leave.

This deal is about to fall apart.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

What actually happened?

A text wasn't answered.

A door closed.

A tone changed.

A founder asked more questions.

Those are observations.

Everything after that may be an interpretation.

And that tiny space between what happened and what we think it means has become one of the most interesting things I study.

Because I recognize patterns for a living.

And I have learned that recognizing a pattern and knowing what it means are two very different things.

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“Can You Read People's Minds?”

I've been asked this more times than you might expect.

Sometimes it happens after I speak.

Sometimes it happens after I've pointed out a pattern someone hadn't noticed.

Someone will look at me and say something like:

“You can read people's minds.”

No.

I can't.

I recognize patterns.

I've spent years noticing behavior, language, tone, inconsistencies, nervous-system responses, communication, and what happens to people under pressure.

Sometimes those patterns become obvious to me very quickly.

But recently, I've been paying attention to something more subtle.

What happens after I recognize the pattern?

Because pattern recognition can give us valuable information.

It can also tempt us into believing we know more than we actually know.

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Observation Is Not Interpretation

Here's a simple distinction I use.

Observation: What actually happened?

Pattern: What does this resemble?

Hypothesis: What might it mean?

Certainty: What do I have enough evidence to know?

Prediction: What am I assuming will happen next?

These stages can happen so quickly that they feel like one thought.

Someone withdraws during a meeting.

That's an observation.

You've seen that behavior from disengaged employees before.

That's pattern recognition.

You think this employee may be disengaging.

That's a hypothesis.

“He's checked out. He's going to leave.”

Now we've moved somewhere else.

We've turned a hypothesis into knowledge and then used it to predict the future.

Could you be right?

Absolutely.

That's what makes this complicated.

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Certainty Is Not the Problem

I want to be very careful here.

Certainty is not bad.

Certainty is incredibly useful.

We need facts.

We need conclusions.

We need to make decisions based on evidence.

There are plenty of things we can responsibly say we know.

The problem is false certainty.

False certainty happens when an observation or hypothesis gets promoted into knowledge without enough evidence.

And here's the tricky part for people who are good at recognizing patterns:

We've been right before.

A lot.

You recognize something.

You predict what happens.

Then it happens.

Your brain remembers.

The next time that pattern appears, your brain becomes a little more confident.

Eventually:

“I've seen this pattern before.”

can quietly become:

“I know exactly where this is going.”

But yesterday's accuracy does not give us access to tomorrow.

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I Recently Caught AI Mind Reading

I had a funny example of this recently while talking with ChatGPT.

We were discussing a situation involving another person.

ChatGPT gave me an interpretation of what that person had experienced.

It sounded reasonable.

It was compassionate.

It made sense.

And I stopped.

Wait.

We don't know that.

Maybe the interpretation was correct.

Maybe it wasn't.

We had information about what the person had done.

We did not have direct access to that person's internal experience.

That's when I realized how much more sensitive I've become to definitive language.

I hear it everywhere now.

“I know he feels…”

“She definitely thinks…”

“They're trying to…”

“He's going to…”

“She would never…”

How do we know?

Sometimes we do.

Sometimes we're mind reading.

Not psychic mind reading.

Ordinary human mind reading.

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Anxiety Loves the Courtroom

This became especially important for me because I've dealt with severe anxiety in my life.

Looking back, I can see how pattern recognition became associated with safety for me.

If I could understand what was happening, perhaps I could prepare.

If I could anticipate someone's behavior, perhaps I wouldn't be blindsided.

And sometimes that worked.

But eventually, pattern recognition could become something heavier.

I wasn't simply recognizing what was happening.

I was trying to figure out what was going to happen.

Anxiety doesn't particularly enjoy unanswered questions.

What does this mean?

What's going to happen?

Why did they do that?

Are they upset?

What if I'm right?

What if I'm wrong?

The mind wants resolution.

Sometimes even a painful answer can feel more comfortable than no answer.

So we decide.

I know.

For a moment, that may even feel better.

Until court is called into session.

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Welcome to the Courtroom

I know this place well.

Once I've decided what something means, I can build an excellent case.

Suddenly I have Exhibit A.

Then Exhibit B.

Then Exhibit C.

And apparently we're calling witnesses from 2018. 😂

Remember when they did this?

And then they said that?

And what about last Christmas?

See!

I knew it!

There's just one problem.

I'm no longer investigating.

I'm prosecuting.

And those are very different things.

Once I enter the courtroom, I can lose curiosity.

I can lose humility.

My attention becomes narrower.

I stop asking:

What else might be true?

Instead, I begin looking for evidence that supports the conclusion I've already reached.

The evidence may even be real.

That's important.

But real evidence doesn't automatically mean my interpretation of that evidence is complete.

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The Pendulum Has Your Attention

This is where I see a fascinating connection to Reality Transurfing, the philosophy introduced by Vadim Zeland.

One of the concepts in Transurfing is the pendulum.

Pendulums can be understood within the Transurfing framework as structures or dynamics that capture attention and energy.

Think about how easily this can happen when something is deeply important to us.

A relationship.

A career.

Money.

A conflict.

Our reputation.

A merger.

A company we've spent 30 years building.

The higher the stakes feel, the more easily our attention can become hooked.

Now add another Transurfing concept:

Importance.

Suddenly this isn't simply something I noticed.

I NEED TO KNOW WHAT IT MEANS.

My attention gets tighter.

My energy gets pulled toward the situation.

And ordinary human negativity bias can make threatening information especially easy to notice.

That comment matters.

That facial expression matters.

That unanswered email matters.

That meeting matters.

Everything becomes evidence.

And before long, I'm back in my courtroom.

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The Pattern May Be Real—But Your View Is Narrow

This is an important nuance.

Being emotionally hooked doesn't necessarily mean you're imagining everything.

You may have recognized a very real pattern.

The problem is that your field of vision can become too narrow.

You see the evidence supporting your interpretation.

You may stop noticing the evidence that challenges it.

And that connects beautifully with another Reality Transurfing concept: the space of variations.

Within Transurfing, the space of variations represents possible versions or paths of reality.

I find this useful as a way to think about perception.

When I become absolutely convinced that I know what happens next, the possibilities I can see begin to shrink.

“This relationship is going to end.”

“This employee is leaving.”

“The founder will never let go.”

“This acquisition is going to fail.”

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Other possibilities haven't necessarily disappeared.

I've lost sight of them.

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“Maybe, Maybe Not” Is Not Denial

This is why I've become so fond of three simple words:

Maybe. Maybe not.

This isn't about ignoring evidence.

It isn't toxic positivity.

It isn't pretending everything will work out perfectly.

And it certainly isn't abandoning intuition.

It's a way of separating what I recognize from what I know.

I can say:

I noticed something.

I've seen this pattern before.

I have a hypothesis about what it means.

And...

Maybe. Maybe not.

That tiny pause keeps curiosity alive.

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Bonus: Five Questions to Leave the Courtroom

When you notice yourself becoming very certain about another person's thoughts, intentions, or future behavior, try asking:

1. What did I actually observe?

2. What part of this is my interpretation?

3. What pattern am I recognizing?

4. What information would challenge my hypothesis?

5. What don't I know yet?

That fourth question is especially powerful.

Don't only ask, “What proves I'm right?”

Ask:

“What would I expect to see if I'm wrong?”

Now you're gathering data again.

You've left the prosecution table.

You're observing.

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This Matters in Leadership, Too

Imagine a founder-led company going through an acquisition.

Pressure rises.

The founder becomes more controlling.

A senior executive grows quiet.

Another leader becomes unusually critical.

Someone immediately says:

“The founder can't let go.”

“The executive is disengaged.”

“That leader is trying to undermine the transaction.”

Maybe.

Those may be excellent hypotheses.

But human behavior is complicated.

The founder could be afraid of losing information rather than control.

The quiet executive could be processing uncertainty.

The critical leader may be identifying a legitimate risk nobody else wants to discuss.

Or the original hypothesis may be exactly right.

We don't know yet.

That's why human diligence requires curiosity.

Observe.

Ask.

Listen.

Gather data.

Look again.

The goal isn't to ignore patterns.

The goal is to become more disciplined about what we do with them.

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Pattern Recognition Doesn't Need Omniscience

This has changed the way I approach my consulting work.

I don't need to walk into a conversation already knowing what someone needs.

I'd rather ask questions.

I want to understand the situation.

I want to hear what they've noticed.

I want to look at the patterns.

Sometimes I need to sit with what I've heard.

And occasionally my conclusion may be:

I don't know yet.

I'm comfortable with that.

Because my value isn't pretending I know what everyone is thinking.

My value is noticing things others may miss—and remaining curious enough to discover what those observations actually mean.

I don't need to be a mind reader.

In fact, I'm discovering something much more useful:

I trust my pattern recognition enough that I don't have to turn it into certainty.

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What Happens When You Break the Pattern?

There's one more step to this.

What happens when you recognize a familiar pattern...

and then deliberately do something that doesn't fit it?

Not to manipulate anyone.

Not to force an outcome.

Not to prove yourself right or wrong.

Just to see what happens.

I've been experimenting with something called an anomalous challenge.

And that's where we're going next.

Because sometimes the most interesting thing you can do with a pattern isn't predict where it goes.

It's introduce something the pattern didn't expect.

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Want to Look at a Pattern Together?

If you're seeing something in your business, leadership, communication, relationships, nervous system, public speaking, or personal life and you can't quite tell what you're looking at, that's often where my consulting begins.

With a conversation.

I don't assume I can fix your situation.

I don't even assume the problem you initially describe is necessarily the problem we'll discover.

I'll ask questions. We'll gather information. We'll look at what you're observing and where interpretation or certainty may have entered the picture. Then we'll determine whether I can be of service.

Book a conversation with Kathie

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About the Author

Kathie Owen is a private consultant, author, speaker, and host of The Kathie Owen Perspective. Her work centers on recognizing human patterns under pressure and helping people see what can be difficult to see from inside their own patterns.

Her consulting spans leadership and executive presence, communication, public speaking, nervous-system regulation, personal patterns, and human risk inside founder-led and private equity-backed companies. Rather than beginning with a predetermined solution, Kathie begins with observation, questions, and curiosity.

She is the author of Human Patterns Under Pressure, where she explores the predictable ways people respond when pressure enters the room, along with the principles of Non-Attachment, Radical Responsibility, and Courage.

Explore Kathie's articles, videos, podcast episodes, books, and consulting at Kathie Owen's website.

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Transcript

  Being right can become a problem, especially when you're really good at recognizing patterns. And I know that sounds strange, because we're usually worried about being wrong. But what happens when you've recognized a pattern over and over and over again? You see it. You know you've seen it before. You think you know where it's going, and then you're right.  It happens exactly the way you expected. Do that enough times and something very subtle can happen. Your brain stops saying, "I recognize this pattern," and it starts saying, "I know." And those are not the same thing.   Welcome to the Kathie Owen Perspective podcast. My name is Kathie Owen. I'm a private consultant, and much of my work begins with one thing: I notice human patterns. I notice what happens when people are under pressure. I notice the stories we tell ourself. I notice the ways we communicate, what happens in the nervous system, and the subtle behaviors that can affect our presence, our relationships, our leadership, and the decisions we make. And my consulting can look very different depending on who's sitting across from me. Sometimes I'm working with a leader or an organization, and sometimes we're working on communication or executive presence. Sometimes it's public speaking. Sometimes we're looking at nervous system regulation, personal patterns, or a transition someone is trying to navigate. I don't start by assuming I know what someone needs.  I start by observing. I ask questions, I get curious, I gather data, and then we look at what may actually be happening, which is rather ironic considering what we're talking about today.  Because I've spent much of my life recognizing patterns in people. I notice behavior, I notice language, I notice changes in tone, and I notice inconsistencies. I notice what happens under pressure. And sometimes I notice a pattern very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that I've had people ask me after hearing me speak, "Can you read people's minds?" No, I cannot read minds. Sometimes it may look like I can, but I cannot. I recognize patterns, and lately I've been learning something that has changed the way I think about that ability. Recognizing a pattern doesn't mean I know what it means, and it definitely doesn't mean I know what happens next. Here's a distinction I started making. First, there's an observation. What did I actually see? What did I actually hear? Then there's the pattern. What does this remind me of? Have I seen this behavior before? And then comes the hypothesis. Hmm. What might this mean? And then we have certainty. What do I actually know? And finally, there's prediction. What am I assuming happens next? Those things can happen so quickly that we don't even notice the transition. I can observe something and almost instantly go, "Oh, I know what's happening here." Maybe, maybe not. And I wanna make something very clear. Certainty is not bad. We need certainty. There are things we know. There are facts. There is evidence. There are conclusions supported by enough information that we can responsibly say, "Yes, I know this." Certainty helps us make decisions. It helps businesses operate. It helps leaders lead. It helps us navigate life, and I'm not trying to turn certainty into the villain. The problem is false certainty. That's when I take an observation, add an interpretation, and quietly promote that interpretation into knowledge, and I've become fascinated by how often we do this. I've been deliberately paying attention to definitive language lately. Words like definitely, always, never, I know, he's going to, she thinks, they meant. Recently, I was having a conversation with ChatGPT about a situation involving another person. ChatGPT gave me an interpretation about what that person had experienced, and guess what? I caught it. I stopped and thought, "Wait a minute. We don't know that." It was completely plausible. It might even be correct, but we did not know. We had information about what the person had done. We did not have access to that person's internal experience. And I thought, "There it is. That's exactly what I've been watching in myself." That's mind reading. Not psychic mind reading, regular, everyday, human mind reading. He's upset with me. She doesn't respect me. They're trying to push me out. He does not care. She meant that as an insult. I don't know why they did that. Do you? Maybe, maybe not. I've recognized patterns for as long as I can remember, and looking back at my own life, I can see how pattern recognition became associated with safety for me. If I can recognize what's happening, maybe I can prepare. If I understand someone's behavior, maybe I can anticipate what comes next. And if I can anticipate what comes next, maybe I won't be blindsided. And here's the important part. Sometimes that worked. That's why I refuse to make pattern recognition or certainty the bad guy in this story. Pattern recognition has served me incredibly well, and it still does. It's a part of what makes me good at the work I do, but there was another side to it that I didn't understand for a very long time. I wasn't just recognizing what was happening. Sometimes I was trying to carry what was going to happen next, and that created tremendous anxiety. I've experienced severe anxiety in my life, and I've talked about it often on my channel. And when I look back now, I can see how often anxiety and certainty became tangled together. Anxiety hates an unanswered question. What's gonna happen? What does this mean? Why did they do that? What are they thinking? What if this happens? What if that happens? The mind wants an answer, and sometimes an answer, even a painful answer, can feel safer than uncertainty. So we decide, I know, and for a moment, there can almost be relief. The mystery is solved, except now there's another problem. I have a case to prove. This is what I call the courtroom. Oh, I have spent some time in this courtroom. I can build a fabulous case. I've got exhibits. I've got witnesses. I've got evidence from eight years ago. Your Honor, I would like to present Exhibit A. And while we're here, let's discuss Exhibit B. And remember what happened three Christmases ago? Before I know it, I've built the entire case, and something happens to me in that courtroom. I lose curiosity. I lose humility. I stop asking questions. My attention narrows because I'm no longer gathering information. I'm gathering evidence for a conclusion that I've already reached, and that's an enormous distinction. The strange thing is some of my evidence might be completely valid. I may have recognized a very real pattern. That's what makes this tricky. But recognizing a pattern does not give me omnipresence. It doesn't tell me everything another human being thinks. It doesn't tell me every variable involved, and it doesn't give me tomorrow's ending. And this is where one very simple phrase has become incredibly useful to me. Maybe, maybe not. That phrase doesn't erase what I observed, it doesn't make me naive, and it doesn't tell me to ignore my intuition, and it doesn't require me to pretend I didn't see something. It simply keeps the courtroom from declaring the case closed too early. And here's what surprised me. I once thought uncertainty was what made me anxious. Sometimes it absolutely can, but I've started discovering that false certainty can be incredibly heavy too. Because once I've decided I know what's happening, I have to carry that story. I have to defend it. I have to look for evidence. I have to anticipate what happens next. I have to prepare for a future that hasn't happened. That is freaking exhausting. And when I started catching myself and saying, "Maybe, maybe not," something changed. My nervous system didn't have to solve tomorrow. I could actually come back and look at what I actually knew today. I could recognize the pattern and leave the ending alone. And for me, that has been a tremendous relief. This is also where I see a powerful connection to   📍 📍 Reality Transurfing. Vadim Zeland talks about pendulums. I think about a pendulum as something that can capture our attention and pull our energy into its dynamic, and boy, can this happen when something matters deeply to us. A relationship, a marriage, a career, money, a company, a conflict, an acquisition, our reputation. The more important something feels, the easier it can become to get hooked. Importance rises, attention narrows, and now I'm watching everything. What did they say? Why didn't they respond? Why did their tone change? What did that email mean? Why wasn't I invited? Why did he look at her when he said that? And because hu- our human brains naturally give special weight to threats and negative information, we can begin spotting evidence everywhere. Back to the courtroom we go, but now something else happens.  We may still be recognizing real patterns. We're just no longer seeing the whole field. We're seeing everything through the pendulum, and that's where another   📍 📍 Reality Transurfing becomes useful to me, the space of variations. There may be possibilities available that I cannot see because I've become so attached to one interpretation of what is happening. I haven't necessarily lost those possibilities. I've lost sight of them. My field of vision has become too small, and I have decided this is where this is going. Maybe, maybe not. I can recognize the familiar road without deciding it's the only road available.  Now, take this into a founder-led company. Maybe you're in the middle of a merger or acquisition.  Pressure is high. The founder suddenly becomes more controlling. An executive starts withdrawing. Someone who normally contributes in meetings becomes very quiet. Another leader becomes unusually critical. Those are observations, and if you've worked with people under pressure long enough, you may recognize the patterns immediately. Great. Now comes the important question. What do they mean? The founder is controlling because he can't let go? Maybe. The executive is quiet because she's disengaged? Maybe. The leader is challenging decisions because he's trying to undermine the transaction? Maybe, maybe not. What else could be happening? That's where human diligence matters. Ask another question. Watch another meeting. Look for the anomaly. Gather more data. Talk to people. Pay attention to what changes under pressure. Maybe your original hypothesis becomes stronger. Maybe it completely falls apart. Maybe something appears that nobody had considered. This is a huge part of how I approach consulting today. My value isn't that I walk into a room knowing what everyone is thinking, because I do not. My value is that I tend to notice patterns other people may miss. And I've become increasingly disciplined about not pretending I know more than the evidence gives me. Sometimes the most responsible thing I can tell somebody is, "I don't know yet." That is not weakness. That is curiosity, and curiosity keeps gathering data. False certainty stops gathering data. That's also why working with me starts with a conversation. I don't assume I can fix your problem. I don't even know if you have the problem you think you have yet. And yes, that's probably a terrible sales pitch. Book a call with me. I have no idea whether I can help you. But it's true. I'm not interested in walking into a conversation with a solution I've already decided you need. I want to ask questions. I want to hear what's happening. I want to gather data, and I want to look at the patterns. I may notice where certainty has entered the picture. I may see something completely different, or we may talk and discover I'm not the right person to help. That's useful information, too, because I don't want to build the case before I've heard the evidence. I'm not trying to become less certain about everything, and I'm definitely not trying to become less perceptive. I'm learning to become more disciplined with my perception. I can notice something without immediately deciding what it means. I can trust an intuition without calling it a fact. I can recognize a pattern without predicting the ending. In fact, I started thinking about it this way. I trust my pattern recognition enough that I don't need to turn it into certainty. I can say, "That's interesting. I've seen that before. I have a hypothesis. Let me get curious. Maybe, maybe not." And sometimes after gathering enough information, the answer really is, "Yes, I know." Great. Certainty has earned its place, but until then, I don't have to force it. And this leads directly into what I'm exploring next. Because once I stopped automatically assuming that recognizing a pattern meant I knew the ending, another question appeared. What happens when I recognize a familiar pattern and then deliberately do something that doesn't fit it? Whoa. Not because I'm trying to control what happens, not because I'm trying to prove the pattern wrong, just because I'm curious. What happens if I introduce an anomaly? I've been experimenting with something called an anomalous challenge, and it has become fascinating. That's where we're going to talk about in the next episode. And until then, where your own mind says, "I know," maybe you do, maybe you don't. Get curious. And if this brought something up for you, a leadership situation, a relationship, a company transition, a pattern you s- keep seeing, check out the article that accompanies this episode. You will find that linked in the show notes and description below, and on YouTube you will find that article linked in the very first comment You'll find additional resources there, along with a link to my calendar, and that's where working with me starts, with a conversation. I make no promise that I'm going to magically fix everything in one conversation. I'm a pattern recognizer. I'm not a mind reader, and these days I'm pretty happy about that. So I'll see you on the next time on the Kathie Owen Perspective Podcast.