Covert Metaphor

I was introduced to NLP in junior high briefly through a friend of my mother and then forgot about it for some years. This was in the 80’s and NLP was still predominantly used for changework. There wasn’t much talk of persuasion applications. When I was 19 years old I bought Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Volume I (The Study of the Structure of Subjective Experience)  by Robert Dilts. I remember it was roughly $45, but I’d become serious about studying linguistics and its relationship to the human mind and perceptions of reality. NLP seemed like a good place to start as any.

Some weeks later I happened upon a set of Milton Erickson’s books in a used bookstore. I hungrily bought them all and locked myself up in a room for the next few weeks. After I’d read about punctuation ambiguity I couldn’t wait to go out and work it into my conversations with all my friends. My friends and I went out regularly to the cafe near the university for hours at a time, discussing language, mathematics, chess, philosophy, and history.

I remember that afternoon vividly. I walked up to their table and said, “As I look at my watch closely what I’m doing I notice it’s already 4:30pm.” They all looked at my like, “so what?” They really had no idea what I had just done. Their conscious minds had latched onto the noun and not the verb meaning of watch. I had used punctuation ambiguity successfully and slipped in a suggestion. I’d been sure someone would have picked up on the odd structure of my sentence.

Punctuation ambiguity is a word with multiple meanings, that can be both a noun and a verb, but isn’t necessarily always the case. This word is usually referred to as a pivot word. My best results have come from constructing a sentence with the pivot word ending the first part of the sentence using a noun and using the verb meaning of the same pivot word to begin the command or suggestion. A few examples should make this clear.  These examples are off the top of my head, and not all that clever. Decide an outcome and spend a little time on these and no one will be the wiser. Makes you kind of wonder how much ambiguity is being used everyday to influence you through the media.

“So, you’re thinking about buying a new home in on my words closely.”

“It was crooked so I adjusted the picture yourself in my arms.”

“The fields were on fire and the sky was filled with smoke this cigarette and feel good now.”

“The stairs were a bit slippery and he said, “Open your mind your step and hold onto the railing.”

Punctuation ambiguities work well with metaphorical stories as well:

And then she wanted to know if I was going. “Going where?” I asked, unsure of the place this message deeply she was talking about.

Now, some of you may think this looks a bit strange and there’s no way someone wouldn’t notice this. I thought the exact same thing. The only time someone understood what I was doing is when I explained it to them. It is truly amazing how pivot words bypass the conscious mind so easily. Go ahead and take a few days to try it out in your daily conversations and tell me how it went.

admin :: Jul.22.2007 :: NLP, advanced language patterns, metaphor, persuasion :: 5 Comments »

A master at work.

Make sure and turn up the volume. The sound quality is low.

admin :: Jul.20.2007 :: advanced language patterns, covert hypnosis, hypnosis, persuasion :: 1 Comment »

I have previously written about quantifiers, but not exclusively. Today I want to take a little time in doing so because lately, I have been consciously aware of their usage more than usual.

Recently, I have attended a few sales meetings worth noting. Whenever I am given a business card with the word “sales” in their title, I force myself to remain external and aware of their words and body language. Many efficient salespeople do not always consciously know how they do what they do. They are just naturally good at what they do.

I was sitting for a sales presentation when I heard, “A lot of companies have budget for this now.” It was slipped in the conversation so smoothly. I observed those around me, but it was apparent it didn’t register at their conscious level. Why is this so effective?

A quantifier is a form of a presupposition. It is an assumption.

In my example the conscious mind will tend to focus on the direct statement following the presupposition. In order for the statement to make sense the presupposition needs to be accepted, which is usually done unconsciously. So, the listener will focus on the direct statement that there is a budget for this now, but we must presuppose there are a lot of companies. Here we are assuming there are a lot companies, but we don’t know how many. Perhaps there are really only two, who knows? But if there are a lot of companies that have a budget for this now, doesn’t that include us?

What if he had said, “Few companies have budget for this now.” Notice the shift in energy this statement causes.

It’s amazing how easily and even without thinking, many people who read my articles can learn so many things and make so many changes in their lives.

admin :: Jul.19.2007 :: NLP, advanced language patterns, covert hypnosis :: 6 Comments »

When I was a child I noticed that adults drifted into trance during a conversation numerous times. I did not know what this state was called at the time of course, but I definitely could recognize the signs. I watched many grown-ups space out or become deeply absorbed in their activities. It was not long before I realized they did not hear everything I was saying to them. This was extremely amusing to me and when I noticed my parents, for example, spacing out during their conversations, I would slip in a nonsensical sentence between whatever I was saying. One particular phrase I can remember using often was, “Mickey Mouse in his underwear.” This went on for days before it was consciously recognized by any of my victims.

Common Trance States

Common trance states with a little practice are very easy to recognize. We drift in and out of trance all day long when we, for example, read a book, watch TV or drive a car. We become so absorbed in our internal experience, that it causes notable external changes to our bodies. Our breathing may change, our pupils can dilate, and the hue of our skin may alternate between different shades. Simply observe others when they engage in any activity that requires a focused awareness and you will soon learn to recognize most signs of trance.

Embedded Commands

Dr. Milton H. Erickson, considered the father of modern hypnotherapy, and his wife Elizabeth Erickson, were pioneers in the art of embedded commands. It was during the 60’s that this husband and wife team began to teach these techniques, but only to professionals with advanced degrees in medicine, psychiatry and psychology. Some years later in the early 70’s, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) was created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. At this point, other individuals who were not necessarily therapists, began learning and teaching embedded commands.

It was not until the 80’s that embedded commands were used in the context of persuasion. Embedded commands were the privileged black arts of elite underground sales groups. How else could they sell a Delorian?

In 1990 the book Unlimited Selling Power: How to Master Hypnotic Selling Skills by Donald Moine and Kenneth Lloyd was published, helping many people already in marketing and sales to learn conversational hypnosis and hypnotic selling skills.

Embedded commands are suggestions which circumvent the conscious mind and slip unseen into the unconscious mind. Embedded commands can be found naturally in many people’s everyday speech. For example, when parents tell their children, “Make sure you don’t drop that glass.” What usually happens? The child imagines that very experience which they want to avoid, only to watch juice spill everywhere moments later.

Traditional embedded commands usually employ a transitive verb to identify the beginning of the suggestion in combination with a change in tonality or physical gesture. Embedded commands must be marked off consistently in a conversation in order for the listener’s unconscious mind to pick out the patterns.

Tell a Story

Causing distraction by using a nonsensical sentence within a story can cause someone to temporarily go internal and experience a sort of mini-trance, giving the conversational hypnotist ample time to embed a suggestion. If the listener is already obviously absorbed in their own thoughts, this makes the task that much easier.

For example, “Those shoes you are trying on remind me of a friend of mine. He is very attractive and has a keen eye for nice clothes. Although, every time I go out with him it can get quite annoying. Women constantly flirt with him, smile and say hello. I wonder where those women studied watercolor. Move forward and buy those shoes. My friend also had great taste in coats. Are you looking for a coat as well?”

Many beginners learning these techniques are apprehensive and fear they might get caught immediately. In my experience, it is very rare that anyone ever recognizes nonsensical phrases just before an embedded command is used. Even friends and family will be at the mercy of your story.

admin :: Jul.17.2007 :: advanced language patterns, covert hypnosis, metaphor, persuasion, psychology, storytelling :: 7 Comments »

I thought I might play around with something fun today.

A referential index is a noun or pronoun that refers to a specific group or category. It is possible to delete a referential index and have nobody actually receive an action. People do this all the time in real conversation.

“Frank told me he went to Walmart on Thursday to buy a new pair of workboots.”

Now come the deletions:

“He told me he went to the store sometime ago to buy this.”

There is no referential index and yet it still makes sense, but it is now a more subjective experience. The listener is left to themselves to fill in the blanks. It’s almost like those adlib stories we entertained ourselves with as kids.

So, now for the fun part. I’m going out to digg to pick a random story, something with specific referential indexes. Then I’ll delete them all and rewrite it, hoping it will still make sense.

I’ll take the first paragraph:

BP to dump more toxins in Lake Michigan

WHITING, Ind., July 14 (UPI) — An enormous BP oil refinery in Indiana is planning to pour significantly more ammonia and industrial sludge into Lake Michigan, it was reported.

OK, time to delete it all!

Some company to dump more stuff in a lake

An enormous company in some state is planning to do more of something in a lake, it was reported.

The scary part of this is that most of our news (what news?) and many people’s (who exactly?) conversations lack a referential index. What the hell do we talk about most of the time anyways?

admin :: Jul.15.2007 :: advanced language patterns :: 8 Comments »

I don't know whether you've decided just how far you will take yourself as you learn what I write about because you might become aware of a whole new range of possibilities when you allow your unconscious mind to start using this information naturally in your everyday life.Because you may already have started to notice the changes in your quality of life as you allow yourself to learn these words effectively which means eventually you will have mastered all of the things I write about.Because a person may not know exactly how your unconscious will signal that you've already mastered this material means there is no need for you to picture yourself using the things I write about in your everyday life.As you can imagine by the time you hear yourself using these words naturally throughout your day, you'll really know how my writing is helping you to change your life for the better which means...

You might even come back here tomorrow to read more.

Ha ha! That kind of hypnotic language sounds better than it looks. Conjunctions such as ‘as‘, ‘because‘, ‘means‘, and ‘and‘ allow you to let your speech flow without pausing. The conscious mind eventually begins to give up, especially when so many of those type of presuppositions Dr. Milton Erickson was famous for, are thrown in. Pick your own theme and pick a victim (just kidding) to try similar language on. Note down their reactions.

For those salespeople…

As you choose which option you like better I don't whether you've decided to sign up for a monthly subscription or simply pay the full year now because it's OK not to make a decision between these two quickly, isn't it?

admin :: Jul.10.2007 :: NLP, advanced language patterns, covert hypnosis, persuasion :: 3 Comments »

By Allen Parks, (c) 2007

1. Develop pacing naturally.

When you first learn how to pace, it can sound very stiff
and robotic. But pacing can become a very natural part of
you. Just feed them back their statement with a question. It
is important to remember not to paraphrase, but to use the
same words the person you are talking to is using. If they
say, “I went to such and such movie last weekend”, you can
respond by asking, “Oh, you went to a movie last weekend?”
Covert hypnosis is about allowing all of these
complex methods to flow unconsciously. The more questions
you ask using their own language, the faster you will build
rapport.

2. Keep your attention external.

You are trying to persuade another person which means you
want to observe their actions. That means you should pay no
attention to your own thoughts. Each time you go inside
yourself and ask yourself a question about the situation,
you are no longer watching them and you may miss what is
really going on. Simply watch their facial expressions, body
language, and listen to the types of words they use without
thinking about what technique you should be applying based
on their actions. Your response should be unconscious and
come about naturally. This is the secret of the real
covert hypnosis masters.

3. Write 100 examples of a new language pattern.

If you have to think about a language pattern in order to
use it, then its effectiveness has been severely diminished.
Language patterns should be expressed unconsciously and
naturally. This can be done by writing out 100 examples of a
newly learned language pattern. Then go out and slip into
every conversation as many times as you can. Do it so often
that you become bored with it. Then move onto learning a new
pattern. But remember covert hypnosis is not about learning
patterns. Without the right emotional state, body language,
tonality, and rapport you will most likely be perceived as a
strange talking weirdo!

4. Learn their yes and no positions.

Everyone has a direction the move towards when they say yes
and no. They will tend to nod in that direction, and they
may even turn their body slightly or even to a large degree
in that direction. Learn their yes and no positions and
gesture in those directions accordingly depending on your
objective. If you want them to perceive something in the
negative then anchor that thing in their “no” position. If
you want them to perceive something in the positive then
anchor that thing in their yes position. Good salespeople
use their hands often placing their product into their
client’s “yes” space and their competition into their
client’s “no” space.

5. Learn 3 minute stories.

Telling stories is one of the most powerful ways to persuade
someone. Our brains are wired for metaphor. We experience
reality through concepts and not directly. Learning to tell
short stories with a covert message in under three minutes
will increase your persuasions skills exponentially.
Practice a story many times in the mirror using different
tonality and body language. Express the emotion outwardly
that a words represents. Tell these stories to as many
friends and family members as possibly. Then begin telling
your stories to strangers.

6. Learn their representational systems.

People’s representational systems are predominantly visual,
auditory, or kinesthetic (VAK). I can see the bright blue
ocean, I can hear the crashing of the waves, or I can feel
the warm sun on my skin and the sand beneath my toes. Some
so-called experts like to give percentages, but this is just
a model and every person is different. Speak to others from
their own unique perception of the world. What types of
sensory vocabulary do they respond more to? It is possible
for someone to have a predominant visual rep system, but
also respond favorably to sound words. Each person is
unique. Find out why!

7. Anchor yourself and others.

Many NLP practitioners learn to anchor the emotional
states of others, but never apply the same anchors to
themselves. By learning to anchor your own emotional states
you will have a better understanding of how those same
triggers work on others. Anchors can be anything.
Traditional anchoring involves a touch on the shoulder or
hand, but actually we can anchor facial gestures, a lean of
the body, a certain word. Use anything you want to. It’s ok
to be creative when using these covert hypnosis techniques.

8. Feel that what you want others to feel.

After you learn to anchor your own emotional states you can
put yourself in the same state that you want to elicit in
another person. If your outcome is to make another person
feel good, but you do not feel good because you are stressed
out about other issues, you probably will not get very far.
A person’s unconscious mind picks out every facial
expression, every minute detail of body language. Learn the
art of self-hypnosis. If you cannot get excited about the
product you are selling, how can you expect someone else to?

9. Practice tonality with yourself.

I have plenty of hypnosis CDs by other hypnotists. Some of
them are really wonderful, some of them need to thrown in
the trash. The deciding factor is 9 out of 10 times,
tonality. If you are being told to relax, but the pace of
speech is fast and jittery, and the voice is uneven and
high-pitched, you mostly like will become uneasy and
nervous. Learn to slow down and draw out your words. Drop
the pitch of your voice and learn how to turn tag questions
into commands.

10. Keep a journal.

Make sure you write an entry in a journal every day. Include
every thing you tried out during the course of the day.
Write down what did work and what did not work. After you
have written for a few months look for common themes your
unconscious mind may be communicating to you. When you feel
down because you are not sure if this covert hypnosis mumbo
jumbo is working or not, review your journal. You will be
surprised how far you have come along.

admin :: Jul.08.2007 :: NLP, advanced language patterns, hypnosis, metaphor, persuasion, self-hypnosis :: 1 Comment »

There are three types of intonation patterns: a question, statement, and a command.

When we ask questions we tend to end the sentence with a rising tone. For example, “You’re going to the store, aren’t you?” This indicates an uncertainty on the part of the person asking the question, as well as the expectation of an answer. If we were to say the same statement flatly, without changing the inflection, this might be considered a statement.

By dropping our tone at the end of the sentence we can make a command. Tag questions make this a little easier to execute. Some tag question examples are as follows: isn’t it, aren’t you, don’t you agree, won’t it, and so on.

Practice the following sentences which use tag questions, using all three type of intonation on each one. Make sure you say them out loud to yourself.

“You’ve begun to recognize all of the possibilities, haven’t you?”

“Once you’ve purchased your own home, it will be satisfying knowing you’re investing in yourself, won’t it?”

“You’ve accomplished quite a bit here, haven’t you?”

“It’s nice knowing how far you’ve progressed , isn’t it?”

“You want to do that, don’t you?”

“Many people make powerful leaps in their lives with this material, don’t they?”

“This will be very easy to do, don’t you agree?”

admin :: Jun.28.2007 :: advanced language patterns :: No Comments »

I’m having great success with Jamie Smart’s Ericksonian Hypnosis Cards and Irresistible Influence Cards. Basically, they’re playing cards with language patterns on them. The idea is to have fun learning these patterns with other people, while playing a card game. After only playing a few times, I noticed myself slipping this stuff into work conversations or emails. I’m curious to know how successful you will be too. I wouldn’t tell you to buy these cards because it’s up to you how to learn these patterns repeatedly.

admin :: Jun.07.2007 :: advanced language patterns :: No Comments »