minds, metaphors and (ethical) manipulation
Archive for April, 2011
How to be a Good Listener
Apr 28th
Did you know March 2011 was Listening Awareness Month? No, I hadn’t heard either
But this article from the Chicago Tribune is interesting – and highlights some of the ways that Clean Language can help you become a better listener.
In the piece, Travis Bradberry offers five strategies for better listening: my tips on using Clean Language to help are in italics.
- Don’t take notes at meetings. Using the Clean Language technique of parrot-phrasing, repeating back their words, will hep you to remember key points.
- Clear your mind. You don’t need to be planning your response when you know you’re going to be asking another Clean Language question.
- Absorb the feedback. Clean Language almost forces you to do this: you need to have absorbed enough of their exact words to ask your next Clean Language question.
- Don’t argue, understand. You can use the Clean Language questions to get increasingly clear about what they mean. In Dutch, the questions are called “the clarifying questions” – with good reason!
- Study your conversation partner. Clean Language pays particular attention to gestures and uses gestural information in a specific way. I blogged about it here.
So, to become a better listener, learn Clean Language! Simples!
- Want more? My new YouTube video series will help you start using Clean More >
How to lose weight quickly and easily
Apr 21st
I’ve just lost some weight and I’m delighted – I’m fitting into clothes that have been packed away for ten years. Yippee!
Judging by the response to my comment about this on Facebook, it’s a subject that matters to a lot of people. And I’m reckoned to be an expert in influence, persuasion and the subconscious mind.
So would you like to know how I did it?
I’d love to say that it was all the result of using Clean Language on myself to influence my unconscious mind (fill in your details at top right to find out about this).
To be honest, it wasn’t really. But metaphor was definitely involved!
To put it simply, I stopped eating “like a girl” and started eating and exercising “like a body builder”. And it worked!
Here’s the process:
- I got some crucial information by reading the right book: Tim Ferris’s 4-Hour Body.
- As a result, I understood where I’d been going wrong with my diet and what to do instead.
- I did that.
- The excess fat disappeared, in less than three weeks.
- You can see the result (and one of the ten-year-old outfits) in the picture.
Perhaps this is an argument against “Cleanness at all costs” – the principle that a coach or consultant More >
How to get people to trust you
Apr 18th
I’ve been blogging recently about the relationship between words, physical actions, metaphor and influence.
One expert who really “gets” this, who I had the privilege of meeting recently, is Mark Bowden, author of Winning Body Language.
Let me share my biggest takeaway from the many useful things he taught me. It’s something I started using straight away and, based on my results, I’m not about to stop any time soon!
Mark says: “The following simple piece of body language, hundreds of thousands of years old and still applicable today, is totally overlooked in understanding by nonverbal communication “experts” and business presentation trainers around the globe. It has, however, been handed down within the community of visual communicators for centuries. Until this point, it has never been put in writing for any business audience…
“So here is that signal that instantly lets the members of an audience know that you are genuine in intention and can be trusted: Gestures on a horizontal plane extending from the navel.”
Mark calls this horizontal plane the TruthPlane and adds:
“When the hands gesture within the TruthPlane, an energized calm, confident and balanced effect is felt by both the communicator and the receiver.”
And: “Across all cultures and at all times, it More >
