There is a quality to the imprecision of a well-designed story that activates both sides of the brain. If a story is “too perfect or too pristine”, then you will fail in your goal. There must be “holes” in your story to keep attention. Just like every great piece of popular fiction from Sherlock Holmes to John Grisham’s work, you must have plenty of holes that need to be filled by the reader. You want to do the same. The goal is there. The linear process is there. The sensations are there. The feelings are there. But you don’t have all the information until the person says “yes.” This is a secret of captivation!
Women will tell you they find a man intriguing while he is still complex and somewhat mysterious. When the entire puzzle is solved, it is time to put the puzzle in the closet.
She is the product of her genes and her social construction. You can only rewire her brain if she finds you enticing in some respects. She will find you fascinating and want more of you when you make her brain light up like a Christmas tree. Both sides. The stories must link up her emotions, feelings, sensations as well as her sense of staying with the story moment by moment. This is true whether you are a man or woman, and whether you are selling yourself, your therapy or a product.
Here, I’m going to present to you a taste of new research about one set of strategies that we have discussed very little over the past year. This article touches on some of the more incredible information I’ve disseminated to you in the last few years….
In fact the process of rewiring her brain is, in part, a microcosm of changing groups, cultures, country and world opinion. Understanding the stickiness of one helps understand the other. And the way you change one person or a group is essentially the same although there are some additional challenges in changing the individual outside of the group. (It’s much easier to create change or get “yes” in a group than it is in a one-on-one situation.)
In this article you’re going to learn the following:
- People’s beliefs and behaviors are “sticky.” (Most don’t change easily)
- People’s brains, which generate these beliefs and behaviors, can be rewired.
- Groups, societies and nations exhibit the same “stickiness.”
- Virtually everyone’s brain can be re-wired.
- Some people rewire faster than others due to individual differences.
- Specific strategies.
Nothing shows this clearer than the world events of the past 10 days.
10 days prior to engagement in Iraq, the United States Citizens were split about 50/50 as to whether this would be the right thing to do. Two days after the first engagement, polls showed 70-76% of citizens felt it was the right thing to do. Why? Behavior precedes attitude change. As soon as the collective behaves in one way, then individual change begins. Note: Not everyone will change in every collective.
FIRST KEY: Behavior precedes attitude.
It should be easy.
The troops will free Iraq and then her citizens can go and do what they want for the first time in their life. This will take time, because behavior and stories will take time to integrate. Freedom is a new conceptual reality and not a behavior or story.
But, in reality, freedom takes getting used to.
Very few people in the world, less than 5%, completely embrace and utilize freedom even when they have the opportunity. Most people wake up in the morning and go to the same place they did yesterday at the same pay, with the identical hours, with the same co-workers, with the same specific tasks or jobs to do.
Now, imagine that you take this normal person in a free society (Where one can choose what they do for a living, who they work for, determine what religion they will adhere to and what political beliefs they will choose.) and tell they can have an even better life. They are now “free to leave.” They are free to leave and go anywhere they choose. In the examples in this middle part of the story we will talk about their employment (as opposed to where they live, their hobbies, their friends, their spouse.
Recently in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, there was an enormous article about how employees at Northwest Airlines “fear for their jobs.” Wow! The United States has 200,000,000 different jobs and a person is afraid they will lose their one job with only 199,999,999 left to compete for. If someone is only average they can compete for 100 million jobs…
You set them free.
What does the person do?
They freeze. They become fearful. They wait for the company to re-hire. They come back to the same job, pay, hours and co-workers. Every day. Very few will leave for a long time. It takes enormous pain to get people to move from point one to point two.
When a fish is placed in an aquarium and a clear plastic barrier is placed at the midpoint of the barrier the fish only has access to half the aquarium’s space to swim. After one week, the kind owner of the fish (who lovingly gave him one cubic foot of water to live in) removes the barrier so the fish can swim through the entire aquarium. What happens?
The fish stays on her side of the aquarium. She doesn’t move into the other side of the aquarium. She wouldn’t know how. There was always a barrier there, there continues to be one after it is removed.
This experiment has been done many times and is just one of hundreds of experiments that are related to changing behavior when one is free to do so.
All of these experiments and an analysis of interpersonal communications and social change show that without enforcing behavioral change…almost all changes are accomplished slowly. There are exceptions. One notable change was the willingness of American Citizens to relinquish some private information in exchange for a substantially safer country to live in. (Airport Security, Immigration Information Upgrades, etc.) This change, which would have taken decades in normal circumstances, happened in less than six months. A rare exception to the rule. The exception was, of course, one of necessity and not “will” per se. Fear is a potent motivator, as you have learned from past articles.
Research on recidivism at prisons across America shows that the vast majority of people who enter prison once soon come back again. The longer they stay, the more likely they are to return.
It is indeed very difficult for even the most reformed prisoner to return to the “real world” after living in prison. The time in prison is very regimented. Every basic absolute need (food, water, shelter, clothing) is met even though few core human drives are fulfilled. (Sex, safety, acquisition).
The prisoner is put on a schedule. They are told when to eat, where to eat, how to eat. When and where to sleep. When and where to exercise. When and where to work. There is no choice. At the onset of captivity the prisoner resists these changes from the real world. After 4-8 weeks, the changes become the new status quo and become very impermeable to change. The more regimented, the more difficult to change.
On “the outside,” there are choices. Too many choices for someone used to captivity. The former prisoner must learn to eat on a different schedule, eat different food, shower at different times, exercise at will and sleep on a chosen schedule. The choices are too numerous for most to handle and the prisoner ultimately returns to that which he knows best.
Much like leaving a job after five or ten years is considered a devastating experience by most, the prisoner is thrown into a state of flux upon release. No matter how unpleasant the status quo is, the brain knows what to expect and can thus predict what will happen…the same thing that happened yesterday. The need to be able to predict the events of the future has historically been critical to human survival…and….it is also the great obstacle in change. The person leaving the job tends to return to the line of work he just left. The prisoner returns to the cellblock he once lived in.
Even in a free society like The United States, Canada, or the U.K., people tend to shy away from utilizing their freedom. On average, people prefer far fewer choices than having a universe of possibilities.
The oldest part of the brain, what we will call the unconscious part of the brain, moves through day to day activity by reacting to the same stimuli in the same fashion that has been successful every day in the past. When new information and challenges are presented the brain doesn’t know how to respond with certainty so it doesn’t. The conscious part of the mind pauses and “thinks.” It starts to look at possibilities and options. It is…work.
What will happen in a country like Iraq?
With a respected, trustworthy, caring interim leader who is seen to have the best interests of the masses at heart… and delegates labor on a somewhat socialistic system, they will probably succeed. Ultimately, in 10 years, a conversion to a democratic society where freedom of choice exists if the person chooses to utilize the freedom can work. These changes are slow though. Anyone expecting social stability even in the best case in a currently oppressed society, is expecting too much. It takes time. Sometimes a generation or more. Many people believe that capitalism and democracy “don’t work” after having lived in a “democratic society” after communism or a dictatorship. And indeed, it is rare that the first generation “works” because you would be expecting an entire nation of people to be able to intelligently choose jobs, spouses, hobbies, religions, political parties when they have done so.
It’s much like asking a kindergartner to tell you which is the safest street to take on her walk to school. She may guess correctly but she probably will fail until she learns how to make choices…makes the choices…then tests them by walking them. Then she will become convinced in her own mind which is safest…whether it really is or not.
So how do you rewire her brain if you can’t actually get her to take physical actions?
Story….but only a specific kind of story.
In Covert Hypnosis Volume 1, (now available in the Covert Hypnosis CD Set, I gave you some of the examples of stories but I’ve never revealed the ingredients of a story that will begin the rewiring process in her brain.
When you are talking with that (beautiful) woman across the table from you, you may fail at getting her to take an action but you won’t fail at getting her unconscious mind’s attention and begin changing circuitry. But you must do it correctly.
Stories can destroy your chances of getting to “yes,” or they can ensure it.
Effective stories must be goal oriented and linear to engage the left brain. If you stop there you will lose (and so will she!). This is one of many reasons why most self help programs don’t work. Communicating a goal to yourself or someone else in and of itself is simply going to fail. Don’t even bother.
You must engage the right brain, also. You must observe a Christmas tree of lights going off and on in the right brain. How do you accomplish this?
There must be verbal and nonverbal activation of emotion in your story, which will turn on the lights in her right brain. This, combined with a linear and goal-oriented story will fully engage her mind in what you are saying. In addition, it begins processing and reprocessing of information and her thoughts about you, literally beginning the rewiring process and putting you in a positive light.
KEY POINT: Feelings, thoughts, behaviors and sensations must be included in all rewiring stories or the rewiring will fail. The influential communication will be lost on her and you walk away with an expensive dinner and a “thanks for the evening.” Or you lose the sale…or you lose the battle for the public mind.
To learn much more about sculpting the brain you will want the Covert Hypnosis CD Set and Workbook. (New! - see below.)
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