We think with our bodies as well as with our brains. Scientists are finally waking up to this fact, as I reported in a recent post.

And some of us have known about this for years, and have been using that knowledge to influence others.

David Grove, creator of Clean Language, used his knowledge of embodied cognition to devise a therapeutic process called Clean Space, which I’ll write about some other time.

But he also had a particular take on the gestures people use – which you can use to build rapport with people and so set the stage for influencing them.

All you do is watch their gestures, noticing where they ‘put’ the things they are talking about in the space in and around themselves.

Then when you mention those things, look at, and/or gesture towards, exactly the same place as they did. Not the same place in or around your body: the same place they did.

As one delighted student put it, “it’s as if you agree to treat their imaginary friends as real.”

They’ll soon believe you see the world in exactly the same way as they do.

And what happens next is up to you…

Warning: If you know some NLP, please don’t mistake what I’m about to describe for the NLP technique “mirroring”. The approach I’ve outlined above is simpler for most people to learn – and works more effectively, too.

P.S. For more on ‘space’ why not check out James Tripp’s despatch live from the heart of the Orion Nebula… What’s the metaphor there? :-)

P.P.S. Update 23 Feb: I’ve just been alerted to a blog on this by James Lawley here.