influence

Did you ever see the film “When Harry Met Sally”? If you have not seen the film, I am sure that you saw or heard of that very well known and rather hilarious clip in the film where Sally (played by the beautiful Meg Ryan) simulates an orgasm, very vocally and dramatically, while at the table in a busy diner sat opposite Harry. She writhes at the table exclaiming the words “Yes… yes…. YES!!”

Amazing how that simple little word is the only word needed to demonstrate how much pleasure she was supposed to be having at the time. I want to go into some detail about that orgasm word today… the word yes.

Have you ever seen what the word “NO!” does to a well trained dog? Or even a not so well trained dog? Well you will also remember what happened if you were told “NO!” as a child and throughout your life… just think right now, if someone said to you that word, you have to go inside yourself and find references to all the other times you were told it and it kind of leaves an unwanted feeling, doesn’t it?

Getting a yes tends to evoke something completely different. YES! I love that word, don’t you? Yes opens doors to all kinds of wonderful things, it gets the sale, it gives us permission, it makes us celebrate, it sends a positive message, it makes us happy… we even scream it when we orgasm!! It is the orgasm word!

YES! YES! YES!

Hallelujah, yes!

I just love saying it. Other people generally love saying it too and it is something you want to encourage other people to say more often. You gain compliance, agreement and develop better relationships the more times people say yes to you.

My hero, Milton Erickson, the man who much modern hypnosis theory and technique is based upon, used what we call the “yes set” extensively in his therapeutic practice with his clients. This helped him to get the agreement of his clients unconscious mind. A Yes Set, is a series of statements or questions that has the client saying or thinking “yes, yes, yes, yes,” so that when the hypnotist (or any other therapist for example) adds a crucial instruction or question, the client again responds, “yes.”

Ok, please follow along with this:

You are breathing. You are sitting here reading this article, and while you are doing that, you are probably thinking about certain things. Because you are interested in many things that have led you to be reading this kind of article, aren’t you? That means that you will be able to learn these kinds of thing far more easily from now on.

Read that paragraph again. Notice how reading it makes you feel in your body. I drew four automatic, effortless “yes” responses from your unconscious mind, so that then, my embedded command to learn these kinds of things more easily, would glide smoothly into your unconscious mind and get yet another yes from you. Didn’t I do that? Yes.

Many of the techniques of conversational hypnosis are designed to create agreement too, whether it is on a conscious or an unconscious level. To induce conversational hypnosis, the knowledgeable hypnotist may use statements such as:

“It is nice to get away from the office every now and then, isn’t it?”

“You’d like to be in a stress free environment more often, wouldn’t you?”

“Sometimes, we’d like all our problems to just float away, wouldn’t we?”

“When I go in the sauna at my gym, it feels like they are all melting away, it is nice and comfortable to melt away, isn’t it?”

As the person agrees with these yes-set questions, they begin to experience the comfort and relaxation that is being discussed, and they are agreeing with it!

Have you ever seen one of those stereotypical discussions between the hairdresser and their client where one is talking and the other is just continually saying “yeah… yeah… oh yeah…” in a trance-like automatic way? You know what I am talking about don’t you? These kinds of conversations go on all the time, where compliance and agreement is occurring with the agreement word yes being answered consistently.

You see, once you create a “climate of agreement” in any communication, bigger requests can be made and the person who is now in a habit of agreeing with you is far more likely to follow your suggestions. Imagine how useful this is as a parent, a salesperson, a therapist, a politician, a clergyman or anyone else.

As people agree with you more, they tend to fall into a habit that increases the likelihood of continued agreement.

Have a go at doing this for a day, where you increase agreement with everything you say in every communication you have. You can start with simple things at the beginning of conversations such as “this is the 8th of October isn’t it?” and “You are Susan Smith, aren’t you? Nice to meet you.”

You can build up in conversations to using yes-set questions such as “people like to buy really good quality products that last long times, don’t they?” or “we are all interested in saving more money aren’t we?” In addition to creating a yes-set, you are creating a climate of agreement.

I have worked with top salespeople that have continually used the yes-set with questions and statements all the way until the final close of the sale: “People like to make more of their purchases with the convenience of credit cards these days, don’t they?” This statement is the truth, so it is agreed with, you get a “yes” and they may even tell you that they want to pay cash instead on this occasion, either way, the close of the sale has been successfully made.

The basic tenet here is that when any person has said “yes” throughout a communication, it is then very difficult for them to say “no” at the close.

You can take any statement or question and simply tag on the end a small question and it initially softens the statement wonderfully, like melting butter left in the sunshine, and it starts off or continues a yes-set. Tag on these kinds of questions to any factual statement to turn it into a yes-set question:

“Didn’t they”

“Won’t they?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Is it not?”

“Aren’t you?”

“wasn’t it?”

“wouldn’t you agree?”

“haven’t you?”

“don’t you?”

You know that I use these tag questions throughout my articles every week, you spot them though, don’t you?

Today, use your creativity to come up with lots and lots of new yes-set questions; you can use the present tense (isn’t it?), past tense (wasn’t it?) and future tense (won’t they?) and use them in all manner of conversations and communications to create more agreement, more influence and more hypnotic communication.

Adam is a best selling author, consultant and speaker please visit his website for a vast range of personal development resources and to receive your free, instantly downloadable hypnosis session and amazing ebook: http://www.adam-eason.com Thanks.

Tags: hypnosis, Hypnotic, influence, language, orgasm, persuasion, wordshypnosis, Hypnotic, influence, language, orgasm, persuasion, words

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Recently, I ran a seminar in central London. After the first day, from where I was I could see out in to the hotel reception area where a lady was requesting to keep her room for several hours after check-in the next day as her husband was ill. She wanted him to rest until nearer their flight time; rather than hang out in the city.

The receptionist kept on giving her all the excellent reasons why this was not possible. The lady listened respectfully and then kept coming up with even more compelling and articulate responses.

I watched her be charming and articulate while also being logical and practical. Without ever being rude or pressurised, she hung on in there, pursuing her desired outcome. Finally, the receptionist gave her a conceding smile and said “Ok, you are the winner here, aren’t you?”

How did she get what she wanted? Because she was flexible enough to keep offering varying behaviours and new conversational stances until the receptionist was unable to keep up with the thrust and parry of the disucssion for a second longer.

You can’t keep thumping and bullying someone into understanding your point of view. At least, not if you want a progressive outcome that is good for all concerned. The best communication tends to come from those that have a good persistent, genuine, regardful flexibility. For many people, flexibility does not come naturally or easily. I know what it is like; sometimes we can be so sure that we are right about something, can’t we?

Many people consider resolving an argument or discussion as something that is like verbal boxing. They bash and thump their way through an argument (with lots of those Batman-style ‘Kapows’ and ‘Ker-runchs’) until they get what they want. When you look at more artistic models of oriental martial arts, such as the form of t’ai chi, you see that the idea is not to overcome or overpower force, but to parry and redirect it - not to meet force with force, which is a bit brutal. Instead, you learn to align yourself with the force directed your way and guide it in a new direction. That is what the lady in the hotel did so wonderfully.

One thing I learned from the field of NLP when I first studied it was the notion that there is no such thing as a resistant person: There are only inflexible communicators. I really rather like that idea.

Here is what I think about that particular ever-present, three letter word - “but.” Yuck!

Often used unconsciously and automatically, it can be one of the most problematic words in the English language. If someone says “That’s true, but” What are they saying? They are actually saying it is not true or maybe they think it is irrelevant!

The word but tends to negate everything that was said before it. How do you feel if someone says to you that they agree with you, but?
What if you simply substitute the awful word “but” for the word “and” instead? Yeeaahh, that’s better isn’t it? What if you say, “that is true, and here is something else that is also true”? Or, “That’s an interesting point, and here’s another way to think about that.” In both cases, you start with agreement. Instead of creating resistance, you’ve created an avenue of redirection.

Now, just as there are phrases and words in your life that automatically trigger feelings of hostility or resistance, there are also ways to communicate that keep people amicable, agreeable, engageded and open.

For example, what do you think would happen if you had a communication tool you could use to communicate exactly how you felt about an issue, without compromising your integrity in any way, and yet you never had to disagree with the person either? Would that be a pretty powerful tool? Well, here it is:

It consists of a series of phrases that anyone can use in any communication to respect the person you are communicating with, develop lots of nice rapport, share with them your point of view, and yet never resist their point or opinion in any way. You see, without that kind of resistance, there can be no conflict.

Here are a sample of those type of phrases:

“I appreciate that and”
“I respect that and”
“I agree and”

Of course, you have to fill in the blanks, I can’t spoonfeed all of it to you, let me explain:
With these phrases, you are doing three things. You are developing rapport by entering the other persons world and acknowledging their communication rather than ignoring it or dismissing it with words like “but” or “however.” You are creating a frame of agreement that bonds you together, and you are opening the door to redirecting something without creating resistance. Beautiful eh?

Let me give you an example. Someone says to you, “You are totally wrong,” about something. If you say, “No, I’m not wrong, I am right” just as strongly, are you going to remain in rapport? Are you going to create an agreement frame? Not on your nelly. No way.

There will be conflict, and there will be resistance. Instead, say to the person, “I respect how you feel about this, and I believe that if you were to hear my side of it you may well feel something else.” Which is just what the lady in the hotel foyer was saying.

You do not have to agree with what the other person is communicating; as was shown here. You can always appreciate, respect, or agree with someone’s communication without agreeing when you don’t. You can appreciate their feeling because if you were in their shoes, you may well feel the same way.

You can also appreciate someone else’s intent. For example, many times two people on opposite sides of an issue don’t appreciate each other’s points of view, so they don’t even hear each other. But if you use the agreement frame, you will find yourself listening more intently to what the other person is saying - and discovering new ways to appreciate people as a result.

I was once at a Tony Robbins seminar and he did an experiment that gave some great results on this. He had two people take different sides of a question and debate it without ever using the word “but” and without ever trying to belittle the other’s point of view. A bit like verbal t’ai chi, cool eh? People found this a liberating experience and I have used it when working with couples in my consulting practice or employees when I have corporate clients.

They learn more because they are able to appreciate and respect the other person’s point of view rather than feeling they have to tear it apart. They can argue without getting antagonistic, hostile or upset. Most importantly, they can reach points of agreement.

Have a go at doing the same thing with someone. Pick a subject or topic that you can take opposite sides on and argue it precisely the way I described above - as a game of finding commonality and then leading in the direction you want to go. I don’t mean you should sell out your stance on the matter; I don’t want you to be an unnecessary “yes man.” But you’ll find you can reach your outcome far more effectively by gently aligning and then leading rather than by bashing violently. And you’ll be able to develop a richer, more balanced point of view by being open to another perspective.

Most of us look at discussion as a win-lose game. We’re right and the other person is wrong. One side has the truth and the other side is in darkness.

I have found in so many circumstances that I learn more and get where I want to go much more quickly by finding an agreement frame. Another really worthwhile exercise is to argue for something you don’t believe. You’ll surprise yourself by coming up with new perspectives.

When I trained as a hypnotherapist I bought a wonderful book called “The couple who became each other” By David Calof. The author had hypnotised a troubled couple to be each other for the duration of the session and they had to argue the side of the other one; thus learning more about the other ones point of view. I have done this in therapy many times with fascinating results. Is that getting a new perspective, or what?

The best sales people and the best communicators, all know it’s very hard to persuade someone to do something they don’t want to do. It’s very easy to get them to do what they do want to do, by creating an agreement frame, by leading them naturally rather than through conflict, you do the latter, not the former.

The key to effective communication is to frame things so that a person is doing what they want to do, not what you want them to do. It is very hard to overcome resistance. It is much easier to avoid it by building on agreement and rapport. You then turn resistance into assistance. Did I really just say that. Yuck for the second time today.

So when you are out there in the world in this coming week, be more flexible and see how often you can create an agreement frame to create more harmony in your communications and get much more of what you want.

Adam is a best selling author, consultant and speaker please visit his website for a vast range of personal development resources and to receive your free, instantly downloadable hypnosis session and amazing ebook: http://www.adam-eason.com Thanks.

Tags: communication, flexibility, Hypnotic, influence, resistancecommunication, flexibility, Hypnotic, influence, resistance

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