Tag questions are easy and effective.  They are also not strange sounding, so people have no idea what you’re doing.  They slip straight into the unconscious.  Look at the first paragraph again.  I used a tag question at the end.  It was, “isn’t that right”.

Whenever you make a statement about something to someone else, you can build in stronger compliance by getting the person to think “Yes” in their head.  They don’t need to actually SAY it out loud.  Often times thinking it is enough.  I’m sure you can think of times that you mentally agreed with someone without actually speaking, haven’t you?

(That was another tag question)

Here are a few examples of how to use tag questions as a language pattern:

1. It’s easy to learn new skills.  In fact, there are many skills that you’ve learned in your life, and when looking back you may have noticed it was easier to master the skill than you first though, wasn’t it?
2. People don’t always want to try new things.  Sometimes people hesitate because they make a particular picture in their mind, and the picture isn’t attractive.  And simply changing that mental picture can really effect someone’s desire to do something now, can’t it?
3. There is a form on this website that you can fill out to get access to free CDs with fantastic information about hypnosis.  It’s easy to fill out that form and get those CDs, isn’t it?

You can use the phrase “I said to myself” to bury a suggestion in a conversation.  Quoting yourself is just part of a mini-story that takes the other person’s unconscious “armour” off.

For example:

When I was in a situation like that once, I said to myself, “Just make a decision and move forward”, and then I was much more clear about my direction.  When I first hit a roadblock I said to myself, “You’ll surprise yourself by finding a way around the problem”, and sure enough I managed to come up with a creative solution.

Using this pattern can be very effective.  I remember telling myself “just use this pattern more often” when I was first learning about hypnosis.

Here is how it works.  You simply decide up front what you want to embed as a command.  Then you make up something that someone *else* could have said where that command is built-in as part of the sentence. Finally, you deliver the command to your subject.

Say you wanted to ensure that your friend cleared his schedule on Friday night so that he could help you plan an event.  You know he has something interesting going on, and will probably try to avoid it if you just ask him directly.  After building rapport you might say:

“I was reading a really interesting newspaper article this morning.  The columnist had done a tone of research on the importance of giving.  He interviewed a bunch of people who were really generous with their time or money, and then he interviewed a bunch of people who were really stingy about helping others.  Here’s what he said that really made me think.  It’s important to dedicate enough time to help people.  It always comes back to reward you in the end” (italics marks out the embedded command).

…and then you can subtly shift gears to another topic.  A minute or so later, you simply ask for help and you’ll very likely get it.  So if your friend was originally going to say “no” and make his other event seem much moe important, you’ll have seeded a feeling of “need to help” within him.

This doesn’t classify as what most people would consider “hypnosis”, because there is no formal trance induction.  I say who cares!  The point is that you’ve used covert techniques to manipulate someone else’s state of mind and his or her behavior.  That’s what you’re after, right?

I didn’t explain it ahead of time (except for the title of this post), but I used a language pattern there to create influence.  That pattern is to say, “experience shows … (fill in the blank)”.

Who’s experience?  What experience exactly?  How exactly does it show this?  These are all questions that the Meta Model (as taught in NLP ) would teach you to ask. But most people won’t ask those questions.  They’ll accept the statement as truth.

A salesman could say “Experience shows that customers who buy this model of vehicle have the greatest level of satisfaction over the life of the vehicle”.  It’s typically going to be accepted.

This pattern can be used to influence people.  You can use it within a covert hypnosis session, or you can use it in ordinary conversation.  After all, there really is no difference, right?

Confusion principles are a way to overload the conscious mind with language that seems to be tough to understand.  As you do this, the critical faculty (sometimes called critical factor), or “guardian of the gate” of your unconscious mind, is temporarily overwhelmed.  When this happens, you can drop suggestions straight into the unconscious mind.

Here is a way to use the confusion technique in ordinary language.  Read this aloud if you want to get the best impact:

“Yesterday I was at a store and I was trying to decide if I should buy this one particular set of shoes.  They were the last pair that was left, and I wasn’t sure if they weren’t the right size for me.  The first store that I visited was the last store that would close at the mall that night, and there were many stores left for me to visit to determine if the right shoe for me would be avaible in the right size, and I didn’t think it would be right for me to go home with just whatever was left, so I wanted to make sure that the right shoe was what I had in my hands, at the end of the trip.  Sometimes the first pair you pick out are the right ones for you but other times the last ones you find are the only ones that are left and they end up being better than the first pair that you weren’t sure were not right for you “

Now – I hope that you found this whole sequence confusing!  That’s the point.  Right in the thick of the confusion you could simply look at the target and say whatever you like (preferably in the form of an embedded command).

In the example above I layered in several confusing items.  I used the word “right” in the context of right/wrong and also right/left.  I mixed them together. I also threw in a variety of uses of the word first/last in varying ways to add more confusion.  Finally I used double negatives such as “I wasn’t sure if they weren’t the right size for me”.  This double negative use really tends to add to the overall confusion.

Now – I’m not sure that you shouldn’t decide not to forget to use this tool when you’re not yet sure if you’ll want to begin to learn covert hypnosis today, or perhaps you’d just like to listen to some great free CDs to help you get started.

Here is a recent example.  Last night my wife and I had to go out to Home Depot to buy some hardware before our dinner date (having a babysitter once a week is awesome!).  We had a few small items in hand, and were ready to check out but we remembered we wanted to also buy a gift card for a Christmas present.  The gift cards are not sold at the cash, but at the service counter.

We asked the girl at the service counter to sell us a gift card, and let her know we also had to pay for these other items of hardware that we had with us.  She told us that she could sell us the gift card, but that the other hardware would have to be paid for at the regular cash.

We were not in a rush, there were few lineups, and I guess I wasn’t naturally in a mood to get my way.  So I was about to just comply with her answer.  But my wife said to her, “I’ve paid for things here before when I bought gift cards in the past”.  I heard her say this and instantly switched into “persuasion mode”

The girl behind the counter basically said, “We aren’t supposed to do that”.  Now, here is the magic that you must recognize if you want to get good at persuading people.  When someone says, “not supposed to”, or something to that effect, what you should hear is “it’s possible – I can do it but I’m told to say no”.

Here’s the thing:  People will take the lesser of two evils when given a choice.  Naturally, she did not want to allow us to check out at the service counter because it was against policy.  All I needed to do was to make it awkward for her to say no to me.  The possibility of a minor problem with her boss would then be less than the guarantee of awkwardness with me.

So let’s get back to the story.  She had said “I’m not supposed to”.  I calibrated in her what seemed like a small moment of confusion.  I jumped at it.  I immediately smiled, and politely said to her, “Oh, well just check us out for these small items with the gift card because we are in a bit of a rush”.  I then actually handed her the items we had to pay for and pulled out my credit card.

I never gave her the opportunity to say no.  I noticed my moment of opportunity and jumped at it without being rude, or seeming like a jerk.  I was very nice to her and thanked her for the help.  I wished her a nice evening and a great weekend.

Let me point out one last thing:  The word “because” has magic powers of persuasion.  Notice above that I said to her “well just check us out for these small items BECAUSE …”

The format is important.  There are three parts to the sentence.  Part 1 is a command.  It is not a request such as “would you be able to” or “can you”.  It is a polite order.  “Just do xyz”  Part 2 is the word “because”.  Part 3 is your request.  If you use this tactic the unconscious mind simply hears the word “because” and is programmed to understand that there is a reason.  Any reason will do.

When I first learned this back in 1993 the guy who taught it to me said you could literally use ANY reason after the magic word “because”.  It’s true.   You can almost say anything.  It works very often.

Enjoy!

To enhance the power of the technique you can add a word such as “tonight” to the end of the sentence. But, to make it ambiguous, and therefore allow it to slip past the conscious mind even more effectively, you continue with another sentence. The idea is to have the word “tonight” serve as the last word of the first sentence, and the first word of the last sentence.

Full example: “”It’s easy for some people to sleep easily at night … tonight … I am probably going to go to bed early and I look forward to the rest”.

So you can notice how the embedded command is used, followed by the word “tonight”, which bridges the first and second sentence. This is a classic Milton Erickson technique. The conscious mind spends time wondering how to interpret the sentence, while the unconscious mind understands the message.

Check out the free hypnosis CD downloads available by clicking here.