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Who’s making you fat – and how?

Apr 5th

Posted by Judy in Influence

1 comment

Welcome! If you're interested in how people think, click to get The X-Ray Listener's Quick Guide To Metaphor and unlock a new perspective on the mind... for free.

Your colleague’s husband’s sister can apparently make you fat, even if you’ve never met. But how does that happen?

In Connected, Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler explain that there are two main ways that people may influence each other.

  1. By changing what you do… and
  2. By changing what you think.

My focus has mainly been on how language – and specifically listening, questioning and metaphor – can be used to influence the way another person thinks. That’s a vital set of skills to master. It’s subtle, and it can be used in a huge range of contexts.

But at the same time I want to acknowledge that when you influence someone by changing what they do, it often has a greater impact.

Real-world action is so much more obvious, so much more measurable, and so much more convincing than “thought”!

For example, the great hypnotherapist Milton Erickson told stories to influence his clients. And he also gave them assignments in the real world, which typically gave them an experience of doing what they said they could not do. For example, legend has it More >

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Confused? Grab a great metaphor

Jan 19th

Posted by Judy in Influence

2 comments

I blogged recently about the power of compelling metaphor to act directly on our emotional centres – to tug at our heartstrings and twist at our guts.

I quoted Martin Luther King, a master of the art, as he borrowed from Shakespeare and others in an inspiring passage:

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood — it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.”

And I pointed out that the fact metaphors act directly on the emotions, often bypassing the rational mind, is one of the reasons that great persuaders love them.

But there’s another important reason that persuaders frequently use metaphors: they are great ways to explain More >

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Are you a good listener? How do you know?

Jan 13th

Posted by Judy in Influence

2 comments

Are you a good listener? Whether you think you are or not – how would you know?

It’s slightly alarming to realise that if you’re NOT a good listener, you probably won’t be aware of that fact!

As James Borg points out in his bestselling book Persuasion, it’s one of those things that people are often criticised for – but behind their backs.

Think about it – would you try to tell someone he was a poor listener? And would he listen?

Here’s an experiment. Offer to listen to someone – a good friend or family member, perhaps – for two minutes, as they talk about something that’s important to them.

Your job is to keep them talking, without speaking. If they stop talking, stay silent and wait for them to start again.

You can nod or make encouraging sounds, but:

  • DON’T ask any questions
  • DON”T offer your opinion
  • DON”T start telling your story of when something similar happened to you…
  • In short, DON’T interrupt!

Now set your phone’s stopwatch (really!) and do the listening!

Then ask your “listenee” how they found the experience.

For many people, it’s the longest they’ve been listened to in years! Even though it’s an unfamiliar experience, most people enjoy being listened to – it makes them feel very special.

And More >

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The great trick of public speaking

Jan 11th

Posted by Judy in Influence

No comments

I wonder, have you ever considered buying a book or a course on public speaking? That’s something a lot of people do – and there’s a less-than-obvious reason for it.

As I mentioned in my recent report, Seven Intelligent Ways to Influence and Persuade, many sales and persuasion trainers put the cart before the horse.

They pretty much all agree that a structure for effective persuasion is: 1. Find out what the other person wants, and 2. Demonstrate how you can fulfil this desire.

And then they all put their focus on the second part – on speaking and presentation skills.

It makes perfect sense from their commercial point of view. Most people are know they are nervous of public speaking – and they are prepared to spend a lot of cash to try to change that.

So for the “persuasion gurus’, selling a product which promises to help you overcome the fear of public speaking is a solid business move.

However, it may not be the best way to help you, their customer, to get better results when you need to persuade someone to do what you want them to – such as buy your product. That’s the big trick that’s being played on you.

In More >

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Motivating your elephant

Jan 7th

Posted by Judy in Metaphor

4 comments

You possibly already know that we all have an elephant and a rider. The “elephant” is a metaphor for all the parts of your system that lie outside your own conscious awareness, while the “rider” is that small percentage of your being that you’re consciously aware of – probably less than 5 per cent of your thinking.

The metaphor comes from The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt.

And there’s another brilliant book which picks up this metaphor and runs with it.

Switch, by Chip and Dan Heath, is subtitled “How to change things when change is hard.” It’s packed with examples of how people around the world have found ways to get elephants and riders working together to make great things happen.

The key elements, as the Heath brothers see them, are:

  • Direct the rider
  • Motivate the elephant
  • Shape the “path” – the route from where we are to where we want to go.

For each of these elements, the brothers have practical approaches to suggest, backed up by solid research and plenty of stories.

It’s an easy read – and it includes plenty of powerful metaphors of its own. One that I particularly like is the idea of a “destination postcard”: that’s a vision of a clear goal, that More >

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