There is a lot of noise around this one. It's really very simple and almost irresistible − when you do it right. So let's learn to do it right. Also keep in mind that it is NOT the only one and not the most useful one of the pattern interruption techniques. Later in this book I am going to describe half a dozen of other techniques from this category.
What is a pattern of behavior? It is something we do automatically, without thinking about it. As the mater of fact, it is so automatic that it has NO MIDDLE. Like a handshake.
If you describe a handshake, it will go like "first, offer your hand. Then grab the other person's hand..." And this is a correct description. But the truth is − it has became a condition − response sequence LONG TIME AGO for most of us and especially for the men (men are shaking hands more often). So when it happens, we are not going through the checklist, like "hand offered − check..." We just do it.
Now − suppose that I initiate a handshake (or you can initiate it − doesn't mater) and I am confident, of course. You know exactly what to do − you are reaching for my hand. And then in the middle, BEFORE our hands touched each other, I grab your right wrist with my left hand and raise it, as if you have a little mirror in your hand (on your palm) and I want you to look in this mirror. The pattern is interrupted. You have NO PROGRAM for this scenario (some people do. People from special forces, for example. They are trained to strike first and to analyze later). And as you have no program − you have to GO DEEP INSIDE looking for a solution. What to do? And as you are "deep inside" now (you are still noticing all these little hypnotic patterns here, right?) and you are actively looking for a program − I have a chance to give you this program. I will talk about the "short commands" later in this book.
What are the important details? First of all, I already mentioned CONFIDENCE. You
should give away no warnings that something is coming. Look at other people shaking hands and notice if they are looking on their hands? Or are they looking at the face of the other person? Or do they look at the hand and then at the face? There is a rule (not for all techniques!) that if you want to confuse a person you need to look between his eyes as if you are pushing with the beam from your eyes on the spot between his eyes (the "third eye" if you want to use this terminology). This behavior is a pattern interruption by itself as the person expects the look in the eyes (that's approximately where you are looking) but there is no "look in the eyes"... And he is confused... And as you keep doing it − confusion is growing. Powerful staff.
After you grabbed the opponent's wrist, move to his left. The objective here is not to be in front of the person, as it makes more difficult for him to stop looking at his palm and to look at you.
After you delivered a command, move back to the position in front of the person, bring his hand down and complete the handshake.
An important point here is about creating two realities. I am going to discuss it later in the chapter about the "triple spiral". The idea is that if you behave differently before and during the pattern interruption and after you are done your behavior change back to the "before" type − your opponent might just forget about the whole experience.
Let's have an example of a partial handshake interruption during business negotiations. You are gone and the business partner asked for some time to think about the proposal you give him. You are doing the "good buy hand shake". Before your hands touch each other you say with energy and enthusiasm, smiling "well, it was a pleasure (hands almost touching, but then you move your hand away as if you are using your hand to point your pointing finger up − people do this gesture to
"make a point". Just do not complete this movement so that hands are still close and
your partner do not disengage − he should still be in a "handshake mood"). And you say "I expect great results" with different voice tonality and − should I mention that by that moment you should be in a total rapport matching at least the posture and breathing? Then you complete a handshake and say with the "before" voice "see you again soon".
What just happened?
When you created a state of confusion by offering the person a hand and then taking it back, you created a trance and the person's "conscious mind" went on a quest for the answer "what to do next". And then − being in rapport − you are saying "I
expect..." Well, for the person's unconscious mind (no others!) it is HIS expectations!
Bingo.
There is also a large area (as I mentioned) about what to say, how to use the
ambiguities and negative commands in a short phrases and about the way your voice should sound and your mimics should look. I am going to discuss it in the next chapters.
Anchors. Anchoring trance. Anchoring naturally occurring trance.
You worked hard so far. You spent at least five minutes bringing the person into the state you want. You have all "textbook" signs of trance and he/she is following you without any interference from the critical faculty (see below). And then some idiot is walking right into your conversation with the standard idiot greeting number one
"Hey dude (friendly punch in the person's shoulder. THAT sure will alter person's physiology and break the state), how are you? Good? Me too. See ya..." And the entire work of the last five minutes is ruined! You can do it again of course, but with
the corner of your eye you see bunch of other idiots that are waiting to approach you with idiot's standard greeting... or so it seems. If only you could have the Save button!
You know, like in a computer game when you know that you are about to be killed by the monster around the corner of this dark corridor, you just save your game and reload it later so that you can continue from where you was and have the second (twenty second?) chance.
Well, bad news for you. This button does not exist. Now good news for you. You can CREATE this button. And as it is a real world and not a computer game, creating buttons here is fast, easy and it is fun. Those buttons are called ANCHORS.
It all began with the Pavlov and his dogs. When you feed the dog − the dog salivates.
Now, when you feed the dog AND ring the bell, the dog thinks "what the hell was that?" and still salivates. As the brain (including dog's brain) is the pattern detection machine, soon enough it will figure out that ring and food are related. So when you ring the bell the dog salivates. Now, humans are like dogs. Does it ring a bell for you?
Yes, some of them are not, some of them are like angels. That's not what I mean.
People are like dogs BECAUSE their brain is doing the same pattern detection job.
And if you ring the bell...
I remember the story from my school time. I just graduated and came to school to attend some kind of celebration where the principle would congratulate us and give us some further directions. But I already was a free man, which means − no classes.
So was the rest of my classmates that was waiting in the hall, some sitting, some standing and having the casual conversation.
And then the bell rung! Remember − we was NOT supposed to go to any class. But...
Everybody − and I mean − everybody − stood up and did couple of steps in the random directions, or changed the person they was talking to. And no one noticed!
Except for me ;)
Now, THIS particular button was installed by over ten years of practice. You hear the ring − you go somewhere. Can we install it faster? To answer this question I invite you to think about phobias as about a button, or an anchor that was installed, sometimes by the single event in the person's happy life and then work reliably for the rest of the person's miserable life! Unless of course this person runs across an NLP−trained guy, in which case the phobia is gone within five minutes but it is a different story that I know is in works of Bandler and Grinder but I personally like using it with the timeline as in Time Line Therapy and the Basis of Personality.
Sometimes not. Sometimes it is so simple, you just started and phobia is already gone.)
Alternatively you can use the State of Power state (see the State of Power Tutorial) but it is too long if you only want to cure the phobia. The State of Power is for those who want to achieve major change in their lives, in all areas.
I want to stress that NLP and modern Hypnosis as well as many "borderline"
techniques, like modern seduction techniques (it is out there. On the streets. Ignore it, if you want) are based heavily on the anchors. Learn to THINK using this model, learn to apply the "buttons" concept FIRST and only then consider other
explanations, like "I liked him because he has a rich personality". NLP gives you unprecedented opportunity to find and if you choose to − destroy the anchor so that your behavior is not affected by the irrational consequences of something that happened to you when you was four years old.
You can also build new anchors, ones that would give you the necessary resources in the necessary situations. Afraid to approach a woman? Scared by the very thought of speaking in public? How about creating an anchor where the trigger (bell ring) is the situation you are uncomfortable with and the response (salivation) is the state of mind you want − like confidence or excitement? And now every time you approach the woman, you will be salivating... Just kidding... Just kidding...
So how do we set an anchor? Keeping in mind, that anchor is the condition−response and nothing more, we need to find a state that we need and to find a trigger that we need and as the person is in the desired state we do the trigger, or as NLP folks would say − we fire an anchor.
Let's say we need the humorous state. We want this person to smile every time you want and humor is good for it. Tell the joke. Something like "One drop of nicotine kills the horse. One drop of whisky − and horse is up and running again". Or "if it does not work the first time, then probably sky diving is not for you". Wait for the reaction. The moment before the peak of the reaction touch the person's hand. That is an anchor. You can do it again if you want to make anchor stronger.
Now, there is an important point I want to stress, it is timing. As you observe the person building up a laughter, anchor the state right before the maximum. If you do it after the peak of an emotion, you are anchoring the "stop laughing" state which is not what you want.
Do it covertly. The less aware the person is about anchor − the better it works, but there are exceptions.
Make sure the trigger is unique. The handshake is an example of a really BAD anchor
− it is fired all the time, especially with men so the anchor will soon wear off.
In the American society, where the percentage of Auditorial people is negligible, a voice tonality, tempo, pitch or the direction of the voice (which way you look while talking) will almost always go unnoticed. Say you are in the business negotiations.
Then talk about good things looking slightly left and talk about bad things while looking slightly right. And then use this anchor − talk about your services while looking slightly left and if the conversation touches services of your competitors (and if not − you can always bring it up) − talk about them while looking slightly right.
This way your opponent will get an unconscious message saying "this guy is good and his competitors are not".
When you attend the presentation, move while you are talking. Stay in different spots, while talking about different subjects. It is called a spacial anchor.
Another example − calling a child by the full name is usually an "I am in trouble"
anchor for him. Is it good? What if the teacher calls him by the full name − will the child feel helpless?
Visual anchors are very powerful, especially in the situation when you cannot touch the person. I hope TV will never be able to translate kinestetics (i.e. sense of touch).
Can you imagine what they will do in commercials? So far they can only show us pictures (and an image can be an anchor − think of the Coca−Cola logo) and sounds.
Smell is one of the most powerful anchors. Perfumes are used for this purpose for ages. Smell of the dentist's office will make most people nervous. Stores use aromatizers to create relaxed state in the customer mind and to bring him back − if you walk into the store and smell flowers, you will FEEL GOOD. And when you want to feel good − where would you go? Not to the store in which you smell burning rubber that's for sure. What about the travel agency that is using "smell of the ocean"
aromatizer? Sea... I want to go there... here is my credit card...
The first thing that comes to mind is to use anchors to move the person from one state to another. It works well if the state is mild and the anchor is strong. Remember all those Hollywood movies when the young man is afraid but then he gets a gun and now he believes (and he is wrong, after all it IS a Hollywood movie) in himself and he is not afraid anymore? Well, the gun is an anchor that fires up the "I am powerful"
state and it was installed − what a surprise − mostly by other Hollywood movies.
Or remember those amulets that people suppose to touch, or strange rituals they do, like touching the wall every time before you go play tennis? This is an anchor and YES, IT WORKS. So do not laugh when people do it.
There are other ways however, to make the anchors work for you. What if the state is so profound and so unpleasant that you cannot think of a single positive state that would overweight it? Or what if the desired state is very far from the state you want to change? You cannot expect that when the person is scared to death with the public speaking he is about to perform, you just touch his hand and he magically changes into the confident and ready to rock−and−roll state.
To deal with a situation like that we must ask ourselves a question − how does this change happens in "real life"? Today the person is scared, or sad, or feels powerless and tomorrow he is fine, laughing and having great time − what happened in between that made those changes possible?
The answer is... OK, how do you eat an elephant? − One piece in a time. How do you change strong negative state? One piece in a time. You do not want to do a "quantum leap" change, you would rather perform three, maybe four little steps.
Think about it as about driving the car − do you start with 4th gear right away? No.
You accelerate one step in a time.
OK, now we have our anchors, for example two of them. One for "bad" existing state and one for "good" desired state. Let's say that every time you are in certain
circumstances you feel depressed. And you want to feel resourceful and generally good. You found the desired state and set up an anchor. Now, fire the first anchor that is for the original state. You can do it on yourself with the little practice or you can do it on someone else. When doing it observe the person's behavior and all verbal and non−verbal clues. It is called a calibration. When you fire an anchor you should be
able to notice the person's physiology change to the physiology of the state you anchored. At the peak or almost on the peak of the state but NOT after the peak fire the second anchor, the one you have for the desired state.
Let me get back to the "SMILE" part. What will happen if every time you feel depressed you catch the very beginning of it and force yourself to SMILE? Say, you are depressed every time you think about particular event. Keep thinking, just SMILE and sit straight. Some time later you may find that you are smiling automatically as you think about it.
What happens is you make the first state to act as an anchor for the second state, so whenever you go to the first state it fires the second state! So the moment you feel depressed, you BEGIN SMILING.
This technique is called Chaining of Anchors. One of NLP favorite places to set anchors for this technique is on person's nockles. There are enough of them to create long chain and it is a good place as those anchors are not usually fired by accident.
But you can use shoulders, hands, gestures, voice tonality − anything you want. I read a story about a salesperson, who wanted to be a "family man" at home and an
aggressive salesperson at work − I do not remember where I read it, so unfortunately I cannot credit the source. So entering home became an anchor for "family man" state and exiting home was used to switch him back to "shameless salesman". For the person who is afraid of rejections and who in the same time have to do phone marketing the phone can be made an anchor. Picking up the phone should fire pleasant state of anticipation, or something like that.
At this point you might ask if all this anchors have anything to do with Hypnosis.
They do, otherwise why would I put hem in this book ;) Because you see, we can ANCHOR the trance state.
Why do we need it. First of all, as I already mentioned, to save our work and to
"reload" it later so that we don't have to go through the entire process again.
"reload" it later so that we don't have to go through the entire process again.