The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret

Salvador Dali

Have you ever wondered how hypnosis works?

Surely if we all knew that particular secret we’d be able to influence anyone to do anything!

Well, let me tell you a secret….

There’s good news and bad news.

First the bad news: not everyone is susceptible to deep hypnosis. That’s why stage hypnotists choose their volunteers carefully and why hypnotherapy isn’t for everyone.

Now the good news: most people are susceptible to some of the language strategies hypnotists and astrologers use. And they are simple enough for us to replicate when we want to influence someone.

One of the key tools is to use imprecise rather than specific language. As human beings we use imprecise language all the time without realising it.

Take a look at these examples of generalisations, deletions, unspecified references and general mind reading:

He never washes up

I don’t understand

They don’t listen

know you’ll enjoy this

The beauty of imprecise language is that it can be very useful when trying to influence other people’s behaviour or way of thinking. We don’t always notice that we or others have made a generalisation and so our perception of the situation is distorted.

Hypnotists exploit imprecision in language to achieve a hypnotic trance and to make powerful suggestions that may have a deep impact on the hypnotic subject.

Astrologers use imprecise language to produce predictions that will resonate with the maximum number of people.

So in order to influence people we might wish to deliberately introduce imprecise language.

For example, when trying to persuade someone to follow a new process, you might say something like:

As you become more familiar with the new process you will realise it is much better

It can be particularly useful when you want your audience (large or small) to fill in some of the blanks using their own motivators, beliefs and experiences.

For example, if someone is struggling with a particular issue, it might be appropriate to say something like:

I’m not sure what personal resources you might find most useful to you here

This implies that they have several resources, that these resources are solid ‘things’ (nominalisation), that their resources are useful and that some are more useful than others.

That person’s subconscious will do the rest.

And we all know how powerful the subconscious is….

To explore this and other ways to use language to influence join us on our 5 Keys to Leadership elite public course.

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