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: