Covert Hypnosis Attitude

Covert hypnosis articles > Covert Hypnosis Attitude

Covert hypnosis is funny in a way... You can know all the tricks in the book, you can practice out loud until your tongue bleeds, but it's only when you adopt the proper attitude that it suddenly snaps all together and you just stand there in awe of how much power these techniques and strategies really have...

Let's face it. About 50% of the meaning of what you say is interpreted from the actual words spoken. The other 50% is interpreted from body language, facial expressions, voice tone and context. There are some claims to be found that words only contribute about 7%. Well, this hasn't actually been measured scientifically yet. But professional, educated guesses are that it's about 50/50. It depends on the situation, but it’s there somewhere. This means that AT LEAST half of the message you convey is NONVERBAL!

OK, now that we know that actual words spoken aren't the whole part of communication equation and that other nonverbal parts contribute considerably, how can we make our persuasion efforts successful? What is the underlying thing that will bring our verbal and nonverbal parts of intended message together so that it will have the most impact? Note that even in writing not all persuasion can be attributed to words alone. Consider, for example, the importance of where the text is published (context)! But let’s focus on the spoken language here…

So… what will bring verbal and nonverbal parts of intended message together so that it will have the most impact?

It’s the ATTITUDE. And boy do I have a surprise for you…

Generally the attitude should be that “what you try will indeed work”. But in case it doesn’t, you pull back and try something else. It’s good to look at it as a “fun experience” and a “chance to contribute to a better world”. The part of the attitude that will bring you most success is “I’m doing this WITH you and not to you”.

Now… you can cultivate such an attitude through experience and many develop it quickly by going in the field and practicing, which is what you should be doing anyway.

But what’s very easy to miss – and most do – is that a successful attitude is context and personality dependent! And by personality I mean personality of the person you want to persuade. It’s no use to have a completely dominant attitude when trying to persuade a drill sergeant – especially if you’re a recruit. This will get you nowhere.

If a person has a very dominant personality and you appear very dominant yourself, he won’t open up to you and listen to your suggestions and so on. No. He’ll go in a defensive mode or even in an attack mode. Consider a very aggressive salesperson that wants to dominate you and sell you something in that manner. Will you buy? Probably not. My guess is you’ll try to get away from him as soon as possible. Those salespeople get some sales, but they are missing out a lot. If they only knew this little secret you’re about to learn…

End result is what matters and this is YOU getting what you want. It doesn’t matter if you appeared humble as a humming bird or dominant as a lion. A great part of successful persuasion is to position yourself correctly in the mind of your audience. Sometimes you’ll want to position yourself as equal to the person you’re talking to. Other times you’ll position yourself as just slightly below them, but above everybody else. Still other times you’ll be in a complete dominant position. And so on.

And during one conversation the positions can also change depending on need! Be fluid.

Generally, people will respond well to people perceived just slightly more dominant or even equal. Again, context is very important here.

OK, for the end, let’s quickly recap what we talked about… Besides words, an equal if not major part of communication is contributed by your body language, voice tone and facial expressions. What mainly drives those nonverbal parts in communication is your subconscious mind. Those parts will convey to the listener your deeper purposes, beliefs and so on. Nonverbal cues will also convey your relationship with the person you’re talking to.

These cues will trigger some reaction in the listener. Your job is to trigger a more open mind and you can do so by internally establishing your attitude and relationship with this person. The more you do this, the easier it will become to guess just the right position to get the best outcome possible. And pretty soon, you’ll find yourself doing it completely unconsciously. That’s when you’ll know you’re a master of covert hypnosis…