Monthly Archives: October 2017

My Hero!

Show Them Their Hidden Hero

Lately (last ten years or so) they’ve been a LOT of superhero movies and TV shows.

Word on the street is that ten or twenty years ago, studio execs were a little iffy on superhero Hollywood movies.

Dudes dressed in tights running around didn’t seem like such a good idea.

Great for comic books, but not up on the big screen.

But then they stared making them, and the movies started making money.

Now there’s ALL KINDS of superhero’s on TV and in the movies.

Why do we love these clearly fictional superheroes so much?

The answer to that could fill a doctoral dissertation in philosophy, psychology or even evolutionary biology.

Maybe it’s because we would all love to be “saved” by the superhero.

Or maybe we all secretly wish we could BE the superhero.

Maybe that’s why a lot of them are anonymous.

“Regular people” by day, but when they put on their costumes, (so nobody knows their identity) they run around saving people and beating up bad guys.

Maybe it’s a useful fantasy. Maybe we all really DO have some kind of “super powers” but we’re afraid to show it.

So the “anonymous superhero” is compelling to us.

But there is a tricky way you can “be” a superhero in real life.

You won’t get to beat up bad guys, but you’ll be able to move people emotionally to wonderful places they can’t otherwise get to on their own.

All while remaining anonymous.

How’s that?

First, you understand the superhero structure. The deep structure that is in nearly all stories.

Then wrap your “suggestions” for them in a superhero story.

Then “hide in” in a few other stories, carefully nested in the center.

That way, it’s not really “you” telling the story.

It’s some character within the story that is telling the story to another character.

One is YOUR alter ego, the other is THEIR alter ego.

But because you’ve hidden both identities, nobody will know what’s going on but you.

And you will have hidden your superhero powers in the best possible place.

In plain sight.

Learn More:

Hypnotic Storytelling

Metaphors Are Cool

Middle Mind Bombs

Metaphors are pretty cool.

They are amazing devices that writers, poets, and other literary geniuses use.

For example, there’s that poem, “The Road Not Taken.”

Is it about an actual road? Is it about our life’s path? Something even deeper?

That’s the cool thing about metaphorical descriptions. You can take a relatively simple one and it will flip people’s minds around for a long time.

If you are a genius, (Like Robert Frost, the author of the aforementioned poem), you can come up with a very simple set of words, and they’ll be discussed for generations.

“The Road Not Taken” is four verses, maybe elementary school level vocabulary, but about as deep as anything we’ll ever read.

Do you need to be a literary genius to tell mind bending stories?

Not in the least.

In fact, it may actually be a hindrance.

Why?

It all depends on the outcome you want.

Sure, if you want people to think of you as an esoteric poet who is always describing deep truths of human nature, that’s one thing.

But if you have a specific outcome in mind, like getting people to feel more outgoing, to increase their buying desire, or even to get them to fall in love, you might want to leave the deep metaphors at home.

Because if you HAVE a specific outcome in mind, what you DON’T want is for people to be standing around thinking, “Wow, that was cool, I wonder what it really means?”

In fact, you want to have the OPPOSITE effect.

The whole idea of telling hypnotic stories is to get their attention OFF the actual stories, and on their own emotions.

How do you do that?

But telling super simple stories, split up in a way so they’ll be burning nearly all of their brain power just to pay attention.

Then in the middle, when they are most transfixed (and wondering what the heck is going on) that’s when you deliver the power.

You don’t need clever metaphors, you don’t need ultra colorful language.

Because in the those middle stories, you can look directly at them, and say EXACTLY what you’d like them to do or feel.

Just have those words coming from ONE of your characters to ANOTHER character.

Once you deliver the “goods” then you can go back and finish all the loops.

They won’t really remember much of what you said, but they WILL feel like doing what you described.

And THAT will make all the difference.

Learn How:

Hypnotic Storytelling

Love Advice

Maximize Collective Genius

A famous quote that’s been attributed to many different guru-types, and even a few politicians is a variation of this:

“It’s amazing what humans can do together when nobody cares who gets credit.”

Meaning if you combine enough people together, with a diverse enough background, and set them to a common task, their collective problem solving ability is enormous.

Much more so than any one guy or gal.

(Or even a supercomputer for that matter.)

This has been proven time and time again in all kinds of studies.

One thing that will kill this genius problem solving ability is if ONE GUY is in charge and needs to be recognized as the “idea man.”

We all have experiences with people like that.

You’re in a group, trying to figure out something, and on one level, people are trying to come up with an actual solution.

But on another level, it’s like people are having an “idea contest.” Once they spit out their idea, they defend it no matter what.

They’ve even done studies on jury deliberations that show this.

When everybody says out loud, “guilty” or “not guilty” those trials take twice as long as those when they always keep it secret.

Meaning when they write “G” or “NG” on a slip of paper and then count the votes anonymously, those trials are over a lot quicker.

People are more focused on finding the truth rather than defending their version of it.

Something about saying “your idea” out loud makes it VERY HARD to change later on.

Social scientists are always trying to figure out ways to tap the collective problem solving ability of groups, without getting killing it with the “my idea is best” syndrome.

This is one of the reasons why giving advice rarely works.

It’s a subtle way of saying, “My idea is better than you’re idea.”

And since you’re giving them advice, they sort of presupposes that they’ve ALREADY stated their idea.

But here’s the funny thing.

If you tell a story, and wrap your “advice” in the story, they’ll look at it, and see your idea, but think it was their idea.

Especially if you take a bunch of similar stories, all on the same theme, and tell them one after another.

They’ll think you’re just talking random gibberish when this sudden spark of inspiration hits them.

They’ll actually look at you as if the idea just “came to them.”

Any idea will work, so long as you can wrap it in a few simple stories.

And the more people you tell the stories to, the better ideas they’ll come up with.

The only thing you need to do is turn off your own, “my idea is best” switch in your brain.

And you can get them to do anything.

Learn How:

Hypnotic Storytelling

Emotions Are Awesome

Escape The Rigid Hierarchy

I watched a pretty goofy movie the other night on Netflix.

It was a romantic comedy, and the “hero” was a salesperson for a big drug company.

They had them memorize a sales pitch, and they had to practice saying it while holding a lit match.

The idea was to finish before the match burned out.

And in order to “close” doctors (they people they were selling to) they had to hide out in the parking lot and wait for them to pull in.

Then they’d run up and hammer out their sales pitch.

When you’re selling like that, it’s clearly a number’s game.

It’s about as cold as you can get.

Meaning the customer (in this case doctors) have no idea you’re there. Then you show up out of nowhere and start pounding them with “features and benefits” in twenty seconds or less.

This is the model of almost all sales, even with warm customers.

You walk into a shop, and your sort of interested, but they still use the same technique.

They take a bunch of pre-set, memorized ideas, and try to FORCE them into your head.

This is precisely why sales is high tension, and high turnover.

Few people can handle that much “confrontation” for very long.

Why is it like this?

All the way up the food chain, it’s the same way.

The upper managers (in the movie and in real life) train the salespeople.

The sales people are told EXACTLY what to say, and then they turn around and repeat it to the customer.

A very tight chain of command.

There’s no room for dissent, no room for discussion.

The ideas are created at the higher level.

Then they are “implanted” into lower level minds (salespeople) who go out and forcibly try and “implant” them into the customers minds.

This is what happens when people aren’t allowed any independent thought.

The ideas come down from the top, and that’s the way it is.

Whoever gets those ideas (in this case the memorized sales pitch) into the most minds gets the most money.

Of course, it doesn’t HAVE to be that way.

You can be an independent thinker.

And independent idea creator, not only in YOUR mind but in the minds of people you are talking to.

When you’re going from the top down, it’s ALWAYS about content.

But when you’re an independent operator, a freelance “thinker,” you can start with the emotions.

And give your listeners the FREEDOM to “dress them up” with their own content.

This is much easier (and fun) for you, and much more enjoyable for them.

You can think of it of setting their minds free from the rigid chain of command.

Learn How:

Hypnotic Storytelling

Social Authority

How To Engineer Social Authority

Next time you’re at a party or social gather, do a little experiment.

Any time people are sitting around talking about whatever.

When one person is talking, watch the other people.

Try and decide when they’ve stop listening, and have starting thinking what to say when it’s “their turn.”

Also notice the times people that are speaking get “interrupted.”

Every once in a while you’ll get a group where one person is the clear “leader” and does most of the talking.

But most of the time there are at least two people who are vying for the social conversation “leadership” role.

This is human nature.

Humans always self organize into hierarchies.

And within those hierarchies there is also a lot of shuffling going on.

Nobody thinks this way consciously. This “social hierarchy” instinct is like hunger.

But much more subtle.

One way people notice who’s “in charge” is by the cues given by the other people.

Unless you’re in a high stakes poker game or a prison gang, the person “in charge,” especially during social situations, is usually the one doing the most talking, or getting the most attention.

For most people, this is natural and automatic. Both the talking part and the paying attention part.

But it’s VERY EASY to engineer this.

There are all kinds of very powerful language techniques to build MASSIVE interest in whatever you are saying.

And because these happen at the structure level, and not the content level, people will think it’s got something to do with YOU.

From a content standpoint, if somebody is talking about something EXTRAORDINARY, then people will KNOW that it’s the content.

But when you use regular content (normal everyday stories) but use them in a specific structure, people will be mesmerized but they won’t know why.

Some of these structure techniques are easy to learn, and can use them right away.

Some of them take a bit more practice, but are INSANELY powerful.

When you are doing your “conversation experiments,” see if you can find somebody that talks for more than a couple of minutes, while EVERYBODY else can’t take their eyes of him or her.

THAT could be YOU.

Learn How:
Hypnotic Storytelling

Secrets Of Influence

Allow Them To Discover You

Giving advice is always a tricky subject, both receiving and giving.

Nobody really likes to be told what to do, even if we have a pretty good idea that the other person has our best interests in mind.

One of the fundamental concepts of our human nature is given a choice, most of us would rather live self-determined lives rather than be micro-managed.

But sometimes, though, you see somebody doing something and you KNOW it’s not going to end well.

Or you have an idea of something they could do, and you KNOW it would work out well.

But it’s not really something you could give “advice” on.

What do you do in that situation?

If you’re in a straight up persuasion situation, where you KNOW what they want and they KNOW they it’s your job (either as a friend or your actually job) to help them, it’s pretty easy.

Like if you were a waiter and somebody asked you, “what’s good?”

You’d give them your opinion.

If you sell something and somebody walks into your shop, it’s a fair assumption they will EXPECT you to help them decide.

But what if you’re hanging out with friends, or even socially, and it’s not really appropriate to say, “Well, what I think you should do is…”

What then?

Telling stories is perfect.

Give them an example of somebody else, who was in the same situation as them, and explain how THEY solved the problem.

But you’ve got to be careful.

Because sometimes you KNOW what they should do, but not only do you suspect they won’t like your “advice,” they also don’t think they should be doing anything differently than what they are.

Maybe they’re about to make a huge mistake. Or maybe they don’t recognize the opportunity that is standing right in front of them.

If you aren’t careful, your “story” will sound VERY MUCH like “advice.”

Luckily, there’s a way to mix up a few stories so they will easily be able to “discover” your “advice” on their own.

What’s more, is you can set it up so they will REALLY LIKE this “advice.”

And they’ll have the pleasure of thinking they “discovered” this advice on their own.

All in a couple of minutes of regular social conversation.

And once you figure out how, you can use this powerful technique in any situation where people are talking.

Learn More:

Hypnotic Storytelling

Wrap Their Minds In Mystery

The Wall St. Journal Pattern

One of the longest running sales pages was for the Wall Street Journal.

The same ad ran for nearly twenty years.

Why was it so successful?

It told a simple story.

Once upon a time there were two guys.

Both had the same degree. They both lived in the same sized town.

But one guy was ultra successful, while the other guy was average successful.

Why?

One had access to information the other guy didn’t.

Which meant one was able to see things, predict changes, take advantage of situations and opportunities, while the other guy didn’t.

The information, of course, was the one guy’s subscription to the Wall St. Journal.

Think about your favorite commercials on TV.

Very few of them are of some goof standing there saying, “I’m an expert and I recommend you try brand X!”

They’re usually a short story of some type.

Or if not a story, a short scene within a story.

The most famous commercials are serialized stories, with each commercial an unfolding of the tale.

Why do we love stories so much?

Think back to before we humans invented society.

They’d go out hunting, and then come home for the night.

Sit around the camp fire and talk.

What would they talk about?

Who knows, but judging by the plethora of mythology around the world, they probably told each other stories.

About heroes and monsters and angels and devils.

Humans are hard wired to not only enjoy stories, but to tell them, and resonate with them.

Which means no matter what idea or message you’d like to convey to somebody else, if you can wrap it in a story, it will be much more effective.

Learn How:

Hypnotic Storytelling

Scary Forests

Raining Buckets In Their Brain

Language is a funny thing.

Written language has only been around for a few thousand years.

Spoken language maybe a hundred thousand.

Nobody’s really sure, since there was no way to record when people started speaking.

They can only guess.

Interestingly, this is also why we can’t really pinpoint when phrases were invented.

We can only look back and see when they appeared in print.

Even this is iffy, since lots of books and newspapers were printed and that was that.

If the actual paper or book isn’t around, we have no way of knowing exactly WHAT phrases were used.

So when researching phrases like, “Raining cats and dogs,” there’s no way to KNOW when it started being used that way.

Sure, there are plenty of interesting theories, but since things are spoken for a LONG TIME before they are written down, even the guy who first WROTE, “raining cats and dogs” maybe didn’t know why it meant that.

Only that it meant that.

This is an interesting subject for linguistics.

They can actually test whether we think of a phrase as a singular thing, or as a collection of things that mean something else.

They flash words and sentences, and by recording how quickly (or slowly) our facial expressions and other non-conscious behavior responds, they can tell if we need to TRANSLATE that phrase into a meaning or if we IMMEDIATELY take in the whole phrase to “mean” something.

Like the phrase, “kick the bucket.”

We interpret that phrase the same way we interpret the word “die.”

Linguists have a theory that when most people associate a phrase (like “kick the bucket”) with a single meaning (die) then it’s part of the common language.

Once it gets to this point, nobody needs to know WHY it means what it does.

Of course, that doesn’t keep us from having fun guessing.

The cool thing is that this is just as true for each WORD in our language.

Nobody knows when or how or why the sounds were put together to mean certain things.

All we need to know is that when we make these certain sounds in certain orders, we will conjure certain ideas in the brains of other people.

Which is pretty cool when you think about it.

(Which most people don’t).

By taking the time to learn how to put words and sounds together, you can purposely create some amazing ideas in other people’s heads.

And since YOU’LL be the one making those crazy ideas in their mind, to them it will seem like you’ve got super powers of mind control!

Street Hypnosis

Yeah Baby, Yeah!

The Harpo Marx Pattern

Most people have heard of the “handshake interrupt.”

It’s one of the more famous “NLP party tricks.”

The idea is that we think of a handshake as one “thing.”

So when you “interrupt” that singular “thing,” our brains get confused.

Some people get a little confused, some a lot.

But there’s another version of the handshake interrupt that goes back WAAY before NLP.

The Harpo Marx handshake interrupt.

He was the one that played the harp, dressed like a hobo-clown, and didn’t talk.

He’d reach out to shake your hand, you’d stick your hand out.

Then he’d lift up his leg and place it in your hand.

Most people would instinctively take it, (like most people do) and Harpo would stand there with a goofy grin on his face.

Since humans are social creatures, we have a LOT of pre-programmed, automatic behaviors.

And handing something to somebody is one of those.

Any time we shift into “automatic behavior” mode, it’s a GREAT time to quickly sneak into their brain and cause some mischief.

Luckily, our language is FILLED with these automatic behavior structures.

In fact, Noam Chomsky, the original ho-daddy of linguistics, showed that we have neurological language switches in our brain.

And when you understand how these switches work, you can have a lot of fun.

When I was a kid, my mom HATED taking me to the department stores.

This was back when they first started making computers. Before windows, so it was just DOS.

I knew just enough programming (BASIC) to make infinite loops of curse words on the screen.

“Hey, mom! Look!”

Once you understand the deep structure of language, you can do this with people’s brains.

You can have fun, like Harpo, or you can give them silly ideas that get them giggling.

Whatever you do, you’ll be the life of every party.

Learn How:

Street Hypnosis

Coke and Popcorn Flash

The Popcorn and Coke Pattern

There are a lot of goofy math problems that find their way online.

They are allegedly “simple” problems that were given to kids, but adults can’t figure them out.

One made the round a couple weeks ago.

It was a simple arithmetic problem.

The difficulty was in what they call “order of operations.”

You’re supposed to do multiplication before addition.

If you don’t do things in the right order, you get the wrong answer.

They also have something called the “distributive property.”

For example, if you were a math student, and you saw this: 8(3x+4) then you take the “8” and multiply it by both the “3x” and the “4.”

The “8” gets “distributed” evenly across the “3x+4” expression.

But when the same thing happen in language, it can get confusing.

And if you’re a hypnotist, confusion is pretty fun to play with.

(Unless you forget to take it out of your pocket and wash your pants. Then it gets all over everything…)

Because when the mind is confused, it will grab hold of anything that sounds normal, even if it’s a command to cluck like a chicken.

Sometimes, the distributive property is easy.

I’m going to eat some candy and popcorn.

The “eat” HAS to be applied to both the “candy” and the “popcorn.”

Because otherwise, the popcorn is all by itself without a verb.

And when you leave nouns all alone without verbs, they tend to get lonely and run away.

And since popcorn is better popping than running away (because you were mean and left it all alone without a verb) our kind human minds tend not to treat it that way.

(I know, that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever).

But what if you walk up to candy counter (the one where you were going to get your popcorn and candy from) and said:

“I’d like a large popcorn and coke.”

They person taking your order might understand, but they might not.

They would probably repeat it, to be sure:

“Large popcorn and a large coke?”

Because they assumed the “large” went with both the popcorn and coke.

(Distributive property of adjectives).

But what if you responded:

“Wait, you have cokes in different sizes?”

This would you mean you thought that popcorn came in different sizes, but coke only came in one.

Their brains would need to freeze just for a minute.

They naturally assumed you wanted a “large popcorn” AND a “large coke.”

They just repeated it to make sure.

Now they have to go back a few moves in their mind, so they can try and pace YOUR WORLD where there is ONLY one size coke.

Kind of like if you’re playing chess, (without writing down all your moves) and you realize you’d made a mistake and have to recreate the board from a few moves ago.

Even people that play chess don’t flip flop around in conversations to go back before assumptions were made.

This is just one simple example you can try today.

Go to any fast food place.

“I’ll take a large X and Y.”

Then they verify that you want large X AND large Y.

And you stare at them and ask sincerely, “Whoa! I can get Y in different sizes?”

And watch their face as their brain freezes momentarily.

Of course, the more you practice this, the LONGER you’ll be able to keep them on the edge of “reality.”

Click Here To Learn How