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Tom:    Hello  everyone,  it's  Tom  here  and  welcome  to  this  evening's  very  special  
tele-­‐seminar  entitled  'Advanced  Language  Suggestions  and  Thought  Viruses'  
presented  by  Master  Trainer  Michael  Breen.    
 
We've  got  a  great  session  lined  up  for  you.  For  the  next  75  to  90  minutes,  Michael  
is  going  to  go  beyond  the  traditional  mean  that  circulates  in  many  NLP  and  
hypnosis  circles-­‐-­‐  which  is  getting  ideas  inside  people's  minds  is  really  all  about  
saying  the  so  called  right  language  patterns  and  using  “Yes”  sets  covert  
embedded  suggestions  and  stacked  presuppositions.    
 
In  fact,  as  you  are  going  to  learn  today,  that's  an  outdated  view  and  that  there  are  
many  more  cool  ways  for  ceding  suggestions  that  you  can  use  through  
unconscious  influence  by  priming  and  also  using  context  metaphor  and  elegant  
use  of  Polya  patterns.    
 
So  by  the  end  of  this  event,  you  can  look  forward  to  much  improved  skills  in  
terms  of  language  and  what  you  can  get  with  the  technology  of  NLP.    
 
So  without  further  ado,  I'd  like  to  welcome  Master  Trainer  Michael  Breen  on  the  
call.  Michael  are  you  there?    
 
Michael:  I'm  here  Tom.  Good  evening  to  everyone  from  London.  Wherever  you  
are,  I  hope  you  are  ready.  We've  got  some  really  cool  stuff.    
 
Tom:  So  Michael,  let's  start  off,  we've  got  a  lot  to  cover  in  the  next  75  to  90  
minutes  or  so.  One  of  the  things  I  thought  would  be  interesting  to  start  off  with-­‐-­‐  
what  are  the  major  areas  that  you've  seen  people  traditionally  use  your  approach  
when  they  are  using  NLP  for  ceding  suggestions  or  setting  up  thought  viruses?    
 
Michael:  Are  you  talking  about  the  kind  of  results?    
 

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Tom:  The  kind  of  results  and  also  in  terms  of  this  idea  within  NLP  that  it's  really  
about  using  stacked  pre-­‐suppositions  and  there  are  certain  magical  phrases  that  
people  can  use  and  that  if  they  do,  they  can  get  amazing  results.    
 
Michael:  That's  a  fantastic  place  to  start.  One  of  the  things  that  seems  to  have  
happened  over  time  is  that  because  the  language  patterns  can  be  quantified,  they  
can  be  broken  down,  you  can  write  them  out  in  a  particular  way  that  something  
has  been  overcome  which  used  to  be  present  in  training  in  the  early  days.  And  
this  is,  what  are  you  using  those  patterns  for?  In  other  words,  what's  the  
objective  that  your  use  of  language  is  being  put  too.    
 
When  you  put  the  emphasis  on  the  tiny  pieces,  the  components  and  parts  but  you  
lose  the  overall  sense  of  direction  or  overall  sense  of  strategy.  Then  you  end  up  
with  a  situation  where  people  spent  a  lot  of  take  stacking  pre-­‐suppositions  and  
learning  the  half-­‐nelson  suggestion  and  arm-­‐twisting  approaches  and  all  the  rest  
of  that,  that  they  find  that  they  don't  get  the  results.    
 
What  we  are  going  to  start  talking  about  tonight  and  also  in  some  of  the  other  
tele-­‐seminars  is  how  to  get  back  to  what  is  actually  going  on  in  the  interaction  
with  another  person.  And  how  to  make  it  so  rather  then  trying  to  bend  
somebody's  arm  in  order  to  get  them  to  accept  a  suggestion  instead  they  pick  it  
up  and  they  go  because  that's  where  they  want  to  head…    
 
It's  the  difference  between  keeping  the  emphasis  on  what  you  think  your  doing  
and  concentrating  on  the  experience  that  the  person  or  people  that  you  are  
talking  with,  their  experience.    
 
Tom:  Perfect.  And  that  brings  up  an  important  point  Michael  which  we  should  
set  out  early  on  and  that's  this  whole  idea  that  we  talk  about  in  NLP,  is  what's  
inside  and  outside  should  affect  somebody's  Meta  model.    
 

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Michael:  And  this  is  an  important  distinction,  especially  if  somebody  who  is  
listening  tonight  who  hasn't  trained  with  me  before.    
 
When  we  use  the  meta  model,  there  are  a  number  of  different  ways  that  it  can  be  
used.  And  the  way  that  I  teach  it  and  the  way  that  we  use  it  takes  the  meta  model  
and  puts  it  back  into  the  cognitive  processes  that  people  are  using  when  they  are  
making  sense  out  of  their  experience.  And  this  is  based  in  the  natural  logic-­‐-­‐  the  
unconscious  logic  of  how  people  stick  labels  onto  things  and  identifying  what  
things  are.  How  they  compare  them  with  what's  going  on  in  their  mind  at  the  
moment  and  also  where  they  are  going.    
 
So  we  talk  about  what  is  inside  a  person's  Meta  model  and  what  is  outside  their  
Meta  model.  When  I  say  inside  their  map,  what  I  mean  is,  from  the  words  that  
they  are  saying  what  can  be  inferred  or  presupposed  must  be  so  given  what  
they've  said.    
 
Outside  the  Meta  model  will  be  those  things  which  cannot  be  inferred  from  what  
they've  said.  But  if  we  change  the  way  that  we  are  looking  at  what  they  said,  it  
could  be  within  the  domain.    
 
So  for  example,  when  somebody  says  I  can't  give  talks  in  public,  I  don't  know  if  
you've  heard  this  kind  of  thing  before  but  I  work  in  corporations  and  not  a  week  
goes  by  when  somebody  doesn't  approach  me  and  say,  'Could  you  give  me  a  hand  
with  this?  I  can't  give  talks.'  What  they  are  inferring  is  that  it's  not  possible  for  
them  to  give  talks.    
 
What's  inside  their  map,  if  I  ask  the  question,  what  stops  you?  Is  either  their  
explanation  or  the  sequence  of  experience  that  leads  them  to  conclude  that  they  
can't  give  talks  in  public.    
 
But  that's  right  there  from  the  language.  What's  not  in  their  Meta  model  at  that  

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particular  time  are  all  of  the  conditions  where  them  talking  in  public  might  be  
possible.    
 
So  for  example,  somebody  says  they  can't  give  talks  in  public.  But  they  could  give  
talks  in  public  to  a  small  group  of  children  who  are  around  them.  Talk  to  kids  at  a  
kids  party  and  tell  them  what  to  do,  that  kind  of  thing.  They  are  using  a  
statement  that  suggests  that  it  is  not  possible  for  them-­‐-­‐  the  inference  being  
under  any  circumstance.  But  what's  actually  the  case  is  that  it's  a  very  specific  set  
of  circumstances  that  causes  the  problem.  Inside  the  model  is  what  they'll  
understand  the  cause  to  be.  Outside  the  model  are  all  the  other  possibilities  that  
they  haven't  included.    
 
Why  this  is  important  is  because  when  somebody  presents  you  with  a  limitation  
or  an  obstacle  or  any  statement  at  all,  if  someone  can  make  a  statement,  they  
have  a  way  of  making  that  statement.  There  will  have  been  experiences  that  
they've  had  or  judgments  that  they  would've  made  that  led  to  that  statement  
being  the  correct  statement,  the  right  statement  for  them  to  make.    
 
And  so  when  we  are  asking  questions  about  what  is  inside,  we  are  getting  them  
to  fill  in  their  Meta  model  to  specify.  And  that's  the  more  traditional  use  of  the  
meta  model  which  is  getting  people  to  fill  in  the  blanks.  So  if  somebody  says,  'I'm  
depressed,'  if  you  follow  what  it  says  in  chapter  four  of  the  Structure  of  Magic,  
then  the  way  that  you'd  answer  that  is  'about  what?'    
 
Do  you  get  how  if  you  ask  somebody  for  more  information  about  a  state  they  are  
in,  they  have  to  go  deeper  into  the  state  in  order  to  give  you  that  information?  
Whereas  if  you  point  outside  of  their  Meta  model,  if  you  ask  a  question,  who  says  
that  you  are  depressed?  Is  this  just  you  or  does  everybody  think  it?    
 
They  don't  have  that  information.  They  won't  have  that  in  their  minds.  So  that's  
outside  of  their  Meta  model.    

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The  way  that  we  are  going  to  us  this  later  on  is  when  we  are  talking  about  things  
like  ceding  ideas  or  using  Polya  Patterns  and  truisms.  We  need  to  know  or  have  a  
good  idea,  be  able  to  make  a  reasonable  guess  about  what's  inside  that  Meta  
model  before  we  go  open  up  our  mouths  or  picking  out  what  forms  the  language  
is  going  to  take.    
 
Tom:  Exactly.  And  that  brings  up  two  other  things  that  I  wanted  to  highlight  at  
this  early  stage  to  those  that  haven't  joined  us  on  some  of  the  tele-­‐seminar  series  
before.    
 
And  that  is  obviously  if  you're  talking  about  advanced  language  patterns  and  
ceding  suggestions,  it's  in  relation  to  some  outcome.  Which  using  your  
terminology  would  be  the  outputs  that  one  is  pursuing.    
 
Can  you  talk  a  little  bit  about  that  and  also  about  the  essential  role  of  being  
aware  of  the  pre-­‐suppositions  and  the  expectations  in  terms  of  the  impact  your  
communication  has  on  somebody  else?    
 
Michael:  Understand  that  while  we  are  talking,  that  this  is  advanced  use  of  
language.  We  are  not  talking  here  about  somebody  who  is  just  learning  how  to  
use  suggestion  or  just  beginning  to  work  with  pre-­‐suppositions.  The  kinds  of  
things  that  we  are  talking  about,  I  would  expect  some  degree  of  familiarity  with  
the  tools  and  approaches  in  NLP.    
 
Nothing  happens  in  NLP  without  us  having  a  desired  state  adequately  specified.  
If  you've  been  on  the  practitioner  course  or  whatever  courses  you've  been  on,  
there  is  usually  a  page  somewhere  where  they  talk  about  the  well  formedness  
conditions  for  a  goal  or  an  outcome.    
 
What  those  well  formedness  conditions  are,  they  are  a  formalization  of  the  tips,  

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hints  and  bits  that  if  somebody  has  a  goal  or  a  notion  of  direction  that  they  want  
to  head  in  that  is  adequately  specified  in  order  to  be  able  to  chose  the  right  
approaches,  the  right  tools  and  to  also  know  when  they  are  done.    
 
If  we  want  to  talk  about  one  thing  that  goes  wrong  more  often  then  not  when  
people  ask  me  to  coach  them  and  they  are  used  to  the  tool-­‐set,  is  that  they  don't  
have  an  adequate  representation  of  the  differences  that  they  want  to  see  in  the  
person  that  they  are  working  with  when  they  finish  compared  to  when  they  
start.    
 
That  difference  between  once  you  are  done  compared  to  when  you  begin,  that's  
what  I  call  behavioral  outputs.    
 
Tom:  So  let's  get  the  highlighter  out  because  I  found  this  myself  is  many  times  
lacking  when  you  are  working  with  somebody  who  is  trying  to  persuade  
somebody  or  trying  to  do  something-­‐-­‐  Is  they'll  say  I  want  the  person  to  be  happy  
or  I  want  the  person  to  do  something  for  me.    
 
When  you  are  talking  about  it,  you  are  actually  tying  it  down  to  something  the  
person  can  observe  in  the  world  as  an  actual  tangible  physical  behavior.    
 
Michael:  Absolutely.  How  else  are  you  going  to  judge  or  evaluate?  On  the  basis  of  
how  you  feel?  I  tend  to  know  who  good  trainers  are  when  I  ask  them  how  they  
know  the  jobs  been  done  well  and  how  they  know  if  the  training  has  been  done  
well.  The  poor  trainers  are  the  ones  who  talk  about  how  great  they  feel.    
 
You  have  to  have  observable  criteria,  externally  focused,  in  order  to  be  able  to  
test  effectively.  And  when  you  are  using  the  tote  which  is  what  we  put  the  
desired  state  into,  the  comparison  between  where  you  are,  where  you  want  to  
get  to  and  the  effect,  the  feedback,  from  the  methods  that  you've  chosen.  Without  
that  observable  external  criteria,  I  have  no  idea  what    one  is  up  to.    

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And  that  comes  in  terms  of  not  doing  it,  what  that  comes  from  is  people  not  
pushing  their  goal  states  far  enough  down  into  specifics.  That's  a  training  matter,  
that's  something  that  you  have  to  train  yourself  to  do.  It's  not  about  attending  
more  trainings,  it's  about  training  yourself  to  think.  To  break  down  the  outcomes  
into  observables.  To  break  the  sequences  down  a  little  bit  further.    
 
Tom:  Yeah  and  if  people  took  just  that  one  process  and  entrained  themselves  
with  that  with  their  existing  language  patterns  and  experience,  they  could  
actually  get  a  lot  more  mileage.    
 
Michael:  A  huge  amount  of  mileage  because  that's  essentially  what  we  are  doing  
with  NLP.  You  might've  heard  or  read  that  we  are  acting  as  human  bio-­‐feedback  
through  the  process  of  communication.  Without  the  tote,  what  are  you  doing?  
How  do  you  know  whether  you  are  doing  something  that  is  heading  into  a  useful  
direction  or  not?  Intuition?  You  have  a  feeling  that  it's  going  well?    
 
This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  as  well  in  terms  of  goal  setting  and  the  tote-­‐-­‐  in  
the  Platinum  Audio  News  Club,  that  was  one  of  the  first  things  that  we  put  in  
because  it's  the  most  common  thing  that  people  have  left  out.  Even  people  who  
have  been  on  multiple  Master  Practitioner  Trainings,  quite  often  they've  got  their  
head  stuffed  full  of  concepts  but  those  foundational  things.    
 
When  I  talk  about  foundation,  foundation  does  not  mean  beginner.  If  we  are  
talking  about  construction,  the  foundation  of  a  building  is  what  transfers  the  load  
from  the  building  above  into  the  earth.  The  foundation  is  the  thing  that  allows  
you  to  build  high.  And  if  you  don't  have  adequate  foundations  for  the  building,  
the  building  falls  over.    
 
So  foundations  are  the  things  that  are  always  there.  Strong  foundations  are  what  
allow  you  to  build  complex  and  high  buildings  up  above.    

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Totes,  strategies-­‐-­‐  those  are  foundational.  Without  having  these  foundational  
things  in  place,  you  are  just  throwing  stuff  out  in  the  air  and  hoping  the  
techniques  or  whatever  else  you  are  doing  are  going  to  act  in  some  kind  of-­‐-­‐  I'll  
use  the  word  and  then  I'll  define  it-­‐-­‐  a  Procrustean  bed.  The  Procrustean  solution  
is  one  which  chops  the  person  or  the  people  that  it's  made  for,  chops  them  up  in  
order  to  fit  the  solution.  And  it  comes  from  Greek  myth-­‐-­‐  the  myth  of  Thesis  
where  he  stops  on  the  road,  where  there  is  a  little  road  side  hut  and  the  chap  
who  runs  the-­‐-­‐  he  has  a  kind  of  road  side  coffee  place  and  where  people  can  bed  
down  for  the  night-­‐-­‐  his  name  was  Procruste.  And  what  he  would  do  was  he  
would  give  the  travelers  food  and  then  the  food  would  be  a  drug  that  knocks  
them  out.  He'd  take  them  to  the  side  room  and  he'd  put  them  on  the  bed  that  was  
in  the  room.  If  their  legs  were  too  long  for  the  bed,  he  would  hack  their  legs  off.  
And  if  their  legs  were  too  short,  he  would  put  them  on  a  rack  and  stretch  them  
out.    
 
So  a  Procrustean  solution  is  one  which  destroys  the  elites,  distorts  and  
generalizes  the  world  in  order  to  make  the  word  try  to  fit  some  abstract  
conception.    
 
If  you  want  to  talk  about  why  things  don't  work  or  if  people  are  having  trouble  
getting  something  to  work  using  NLP  as  a  Procrustean  solution  is  usually  the  
source  of  the  problem.    
 
Tom:  Cool.  Talking  about  memes  Michael,  what  exactly  is  a  meme  and  what  
function  does  it  serve?  And  in  terms  of  using  your  language  skills  to  be  able  to  set  
one  up?    
 
Michael:  There  are  a  few  things  before  we  get  to  that.  In  order  for  you  to  be  able  
to  work  it  in  these  subtler  ways,  the  first  thing  that  I  want  to  make  sure  the  
people  understand  is  that  the  time  to  start  going  subtle  is  not  after  you've  had  

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the  door  slammed  in  your  face.    

 
Sometimes  when  people  ask  me  how  they  can  get  an  idea  into  somebody's  head  
or  how  they  can  work  conversationally,  the  example  that  they  give  me  is  a  
situation  where  they  just  tried  to  arm  twist  somebody  to  do  something  they  
didn't  want  to  do.  And  then  imagining  the  kind  of  things  that  we  are  talking  
about  here  will  act  as  some  kind  of  magic  words  in  order  to  suddenly  make  the  
person  want  to  do  it.  That's  not  how  things  work.    
 
A  lot  of  times  in  the  talk  about  rapport  people  get  stuck  at  the  level  of  the  'here  is  
what  you  do  to  get  rapport.  You  match  people's  non-­‐verbal  behaviour,  you  match  
their  tone  of  voice  and  their  rate  of  speech  etc.  And  then  suddenly,  they  feel  
“rapported”.  
 
But  the  thing  is,  is  that  rapport  is  not  a  verb.  It's  an  abstract  description  of  a  
process  that  goes  on  through  relationship  and  communication.  Before  we  talk  
about  memes  and  before  we  talk  about  all  of  the  language  patterns,  the  first  thing  
that  I  want  people  to  take  hold  of  is  this  notion  that  the  meme,  the  ceded  ideas,  
the  suggestions  grow  within  someone's  Meta  model?  They  are  not  something  
that  you  beat  somebody  over  the  head  from  outside  with.  Before  you  get  to  the  
notion  of  placing  ideas,  before  you  get  to  the  notion  of  these  more  subtle  thought  
viruses  and  memes.  You  have  to  be  inside  their  Meta  model.  You  are  not  meeting  
somebody  at  their  Meta  model  of  the  world.  By  the  time  you  are  ready  to  start  
working,  you  should  already  be  well  inside.    
 
In  other  words,  you  have  to  know  how  to  make  somebody  right.  What  makes  
whatever  behaviour  is  appearing  in  front  of  you  that  you  can  recognize  that  it  is  
the  correct  choice  for  that  person  to  make  given  the  unique  characteristics  of  
their  Meta  model  and  their  understanding  of  the  world.    
 
You  can  have  lots  of  change  from  many  people.  We  have  these  as  NLP  pre-­‐

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suppositions  as  the  kind  of  assumptions  that  we  use  to  make  the  model.  But  
you've  got  to  operationalize  that  notion-­‐-­‐  it's  not  an  abstract  generality  that  
people  make  the  best  choices  they  make  given  their  Meta  model  of  the  world.  It's  
that  when  somebody  tells  you  something  or  they  have  a  problem  or  an  issue  or  a  
challenge.  However  they  are  formulating  that  is  the  right  thing  for  them  to  think,  
feel  or  say  given  what's  going  on  on  the  inside  of  that  map.    
 
And  this  is  one  of  the  factors-­‐-­‐  stop  arm  wrestling  people.  Stop  trying  to  make  
them  do  what  you  want  them  to  do.  If  you  are  having  to  arm  twist  or  wrestle  or  
force,  you  haven't  found  out  what's  inside  of  that  map  that  makes  whatever  it  is  
that  they  are  doing  the  right  thing  to  do.  And  that  takes  practice.    
 
Now  we've  got  some  tools.  We  have  things  like  the  framing  tool  and  how  we  
structure  the  use  of  the  meta  model  that  can  help  people  do  that.  But  the  basic  
point  here  is  that  before  we  can  talk  about  how  we'll  be  using  things  like  truism,  
class  of  metaphor  and  most  importantly  timing  in  order  to  make  it  easier  for  
people  to  follow  it  along,  to  say  yes.    
 
Ultimately,  the  purpose  of  rapport  and  of  that  process  of  getting  into  their  Meta  
model  is  to  make  it  so  they  can  say  yes  to  you  easily  and  follow  what  you  are  
doing.    
 
So  it's  from  inside  the  map  first.  Rather  then  start  with  the  memes  and  the  
thought  viruses  and  all  the  other  sexy  sounding  imagistic  stuff,  let's  talk  about  
what  is  essential  in  the  process.  And  that  has  to  do  with  how  ideas  will  act  as  
expectations  or  constraints  on  what  somebody  is  willing  to  think  about  and  what  
they  are  willing  to  recognize.    
 
So  there  is  that  phenomenon  that  works  in  many  different  areas.  It  works  
conceptually,  in  other  words  over  a  whole  span  of  ideas.  It  works  at  the  semantic  
level-­‐-­‐  word  for  word.  It  works  at  the  perceptual  level.    

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If  we  identify  or  think  something  is  so,  we  will  be  more  ready  to  accept  or  
recognize  something  that  is  associated  or  related  to  whatever  that  first  thing  
was.  And  let  me  give  an  example-­‐-­‐  if  I  were  going  to  ask  a  series  of  questions  and  
then  put  down  the  speed  at  which  somebody  recognizes  particular  words-­‐-­‐  if  one  
of  the  words  was  Doctor  and  then  the  next  word  was  Nurse,  they  would  be  able  
to  recognize  in  their  brain  that  word  nurse  faster  then  if  we  put  down  the  word  
Doctor  and  then  the  second  word  was  Avocado.  The  relationship  with  Doctor  and  
Nurse  acts  as  priming  for  what  comes  after  it.    
 
Now  this  works  for  example  at  the  conceptual  level  as  well.  This  would've  been  
in  the  early  1990s.  Here  in  London,  one  of  the  underground  train  lines,  the  
Central  line,  changed  its  trains.  And  it  used  to  be  that  you  would  have  to  press  a  
button  on  the  outside  of  the  door  to  the  left  or  the  right  in  order  to  get  the  door  
to  open.  And  on  the  new  trains,  they  had  buttons  that  were  on  the  center  of  the  
door-­‐-­‐  more  central.    
 
So  this  was  fairly  soon  after  they  had  made  the  change  to  the  trains  and  I  was  on  
the  train  watching  and  there  was  a  person  there  who  looked  a  little  bit  
distracted-­‐-­‐  they  had  gotten  onto  the  train  and  were  absorbed  in  themselves.  The  
train  got  to  their  stop  and  they  went  to  press  the  button  on  the  outside  to  the  
right  or  the  left-­‐-­‐  they  tried  to  press  where  the  button  wasn't,  but  where  it  had  
been.  They  were  primed  in  order  to  look  for  the  button  there.    
 
So  they  went  to  the  right  and  started  pressing  where  there  wasn't  a  button.  Then  
they  went  to  the  left  and  started  pressing  the  wall  there  where  there  was  no  
button.  Then  they  started  kicking  the  door  and  shouting  about  the  what  a  f***ing  
stupid  door  as  the  train  continued  and  pulled  out  of  the  station  they  wanted  to  
get  out  at.    
 
Their  previous  experience  had  setup  an  expectation  of  how  doors  open.  And  

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what  they  didn't  do,  was  they  didn't  use  their  senses.    
 
Now,  with  this  priming,  whether  it's  at  the  word  level  or  the  concept  level  or  at  
the  perceptual  level,  we  can  very  very  powerfully  make  it  so  that  somebody's  
brain  is  more  ready  to  hear  what  has  to  be  said.  More  ready  to  accept  what's  
going  to  come  afterwords.  We  can  even  change  how  somebody  feels  and  we'll  
evaluate  us  afterwords.    
 
It's  incredibly  powerful.  But  priming  and  how  we  use  priming  doesn't  exist  at  the  
level  of  technique  in  the  same  way  when  people  talk  about  well  I  stacked  three  
pre-­‐suppostions,  one  on  top  of  another  and  then  I  hit  them  with  a  direction  
suggestion.    
 
The  priming  exists  at  the  topic  level  and  it  needs  to  be  spaced  out  over  time.  So  
consequently,  when  figuring  out  what  direction  you  want  to  head  in  and  what  
the  behavioural  outputs  are,  then  selecting  the  method  that  you  are  going  to  use.  
And  then  thinking  through  what  kind  of  states  might  facilitate  using  the  strategy  
and  generating  the  outputs.  We  can  then  go  ahead  and  think  about  how  we  might  
climb.    
 
Let  me  give  you  a  specific  example  about  how  that  might  work.  One  of  the  things  
that  I  do  when  I  have  people  come  over,  almost  always,  is  I  offer  them  a  drink  
before  we  start.  That  could  be  a  cup  of  tea,  cup  of  coffee  or  whatever  they'd  like.  
There  is  now  evidence  that  indicates  that  if  you  hand  somebody  a  cup  of  tea  or  
coffee  and  give  them  a  procedure  of  something  to  follow,  upon  reflection  the  
warmth  from  the  coffee  seems  to  affect  how  they  think  and  feel  about  what  
happened.    
 
This  is  incredibly  powerful  and  incredibly  subtle  stuff.    
 
But  it's  through  this  priming  that  we  can  set  things  up  in  such  a  way  that  when  it  

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comes  time  to  give  the  suggestion,  whatever  our  magical  phrases  are  going  to  be,  
that  it  makes  it  more  likely  that  the  person  is  going  to  accept  what  we  have  to  say  
or  not.    
 
How  is  that?  Is  that  clear?    
 
Tom:  Yeah,  that's  fascinating  that  at  a  perceptual  level,  they  are  getting  heat  
from  the  cup  that  they  are  holding  and  without  their  conscious  awareness  it  
affects  how  they  evaluate  the  person  that  they're  meeting,  in  terms  of  how  they  
experience  that  person.    
 
Michael:  Absolutely,  and  I'll  give  you  another  example,  these  are  actually  at  quite  
a  superficial  level,  but  they  have  a  profound  effect.  One  of  the  other  things  that  I  
will  do,  and  I  actually  showed  this  as  a  demonstration  this  past  weekend,  on  a  
training;  always,  at  the  front  of  the  room,  no  matter  what  sort  of  a  training  you're  
using,  whether  it's  in  a  hotel,  whether  I'm  in  the  offices  of  a  client,  no  matter  
where  it  is,  I  always  make  sure  that  there  are  flowers  in  the  room.  I  put  a  bunch  
of  flowers  up  on  the  front  table  with  me  so  that  they're  behind  me  and  just  next  
to  me.  Preferably  a  pretty  big  display,  we're  talking  a  couple  of  feet  worth  of  
flowers.  I'm  not  talking  here  about  taking  some  little  tiny  potted  mint  or  herbs  
and  sticking  them  on  the  table.  I'm  talking  big.    
 
So  I've  got  the  flowers  behind,  or  a  very  big  fern,  and  then  go  ahead  and  teach.  
What  I  did  this  past  weekend,  during  a  break,  I  took  the  flowers  away,  and  put  
them  into  a  cupboard  and  then  went  back  and  taught  another  piece.    
 
On  the  evaluation,  on  the  de-­‐briefing  at  the  end  I  said,  "Okay,  how  are  you  feeling  
right  now?"  They  went,  "We  don't  know.  Something's  changed.  That  last  frame  
wasn't  as  good  as  the  other  ones.  I  don't  know  what  it  is."  I  said,  "Just  notice  how  
you  feel."  Then,  I  walked  to  the  cupboard,  got  the  flowers,  stuck  them  on  the  
table.  Boom!  It's  back  again.    

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So  the  object  there,  affect  state  in  a  primary  way,  and  then  from  that,  from  the  
aesthetic  response  to  that,  I  would  then  select  various  kinds  of  metaphor;  things  
about  growing  and  blossoming  and  seeds  and  all  of  those  type  of  metaphors.  The  
presence  of  the  flowers  has  an  aesthetic  effect  on  people's  states  and  it  acts  as  
priming.  That  makes  the  content,  then,  a  little  bit  easier  for  them  to  take  in.    
 
A  very  interesting  experiment  to  try  is,  if  you  have  meetings  in  airless,  sunless  
rooms  with  nothing  alive,  besides,  purportedly,  the  people  attending,  try  putting  
some  plants  in,  some  ferns  and  whatnot,  and  notice  the  difference.    
 
Alright,  now  those  are  more  conceptual  kinds  of  priming  but  there's  another  
phenomena  with  this,  as  well.  If  I  were  to  show  you  pictures  of  a  hamburger,  
fireworks,  an  American  Flag,  and  then  a  picture  of  Abraham  Lincoln  your  brain  
would  be  faster  to  detect  and  identify  the  picture  of  Abraham  Lincoln  than  if  
there  was  something  else  there.  In  other  words,  that  chain  or  sequence,  acts  to  
set  the  filters  so  that  you're  more  ready  to  take  in  and  connect.    
 
Now,  this  is  mission  critical  stuff  if  we're  talking  about  how  to  move  beyond  the  
use  of  truism  and  metaphor  as,  "Now,  I'm  going  to  tell  you  a  story,  here  are  my  
three  truisms  in  a  row."  You  see,  even  though  each  of  the  pictures  has  their  own  
identity  to  them,  the  aggregate,  the  pile  of  them,  tends  to  point  in  a  certain  
direction  and  it  makes  it  easy  for  the  person  who  is  looking  to  draw  the  inference  
to  make  the  next  step.    
 
This  is  where  things  get  really  interesting.  Because,  rather  than  using  truisms  
just  to  stack  up  a  bunch  of  trivial  observations,  you're  here  on  the  phone,  you  can  
hear  what  I  have  to  say  and  you're  wondering  what  the  next  thing  is  and  you're  
going  into  a  trance.  That  kind  of  thing,  the  kind  of  typical  approach  to  using  
truisms.    
 

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Now,  in  terms  of  how  you  select  stories,  yo  can  use  the  associations  of  the  
truisms,  along  with  how  you  tell  your  anecdotes  and  stories,  in  order  to  create  a  
state  that  amplifies,  both  by  the  demonstration  that  you  offer  and  by  the  
inferences  from  the  class  of  metaphor.    
 
An  example  of  that  is,  I  think  that  I  did  it  on  the  Platinum  Audio  News  Club,  and  I  
might  have  told  it  somewhere  else,  but  it's  a  story  that  fits  within  a  much  bigger  
piece,  where  I'm  talking  about  learning  to  hear.  what  it  is  that  isn't  said.  In  other  
words,  learning  to  listen  structurally,  for  what  must  be  so  and  what  can't  be  so.    
 
So  I  tell  this  little  story  about  a  fellow  that  I  know,  and  his  kids,  and  I've  known  
his  kids  since  they  were  tiny  and  the  youngest  child  was  14  years  old,  and  I  was  
there  one  day,  at  their  house,  and  I  was  waiting  for  my  friend  to  finish  something.  
The  kid  comes  in.  His  name  was  Issac  and  he  was  just  coming  back  from  school  
and  I  said,  "Hey,  Issac.  How  are  yo  doing?"  He,  as  14-­‐year-­‐olds  are  one  to  say,  he  
said,  "Uh."  I  said,  "What's  up,  man?"  He  said,  "Uh."  I  said,  "Issac,  come  on.  What  is  
it?"  He  said,  "Nobody  likes  me,  nobody  talks  to  me.  Nobody  likes  me,  and  nobody  
talks  to  me."    
 
Pretty  much  anybody  can  see  that  there  is  something  wrong  with  that  statement.  
Although,  Issac  might  feel  like  nobody  likes  him,  because,  and  that's  kind  in  
parentheses,  because  nobody  talks  to  him.  What  is  the  flaw  with  that,  as  a  
statement?    
 
Tom:  That  it's  universal.    
 
Michael:  That  it's  everybody,  but  what's  the  problem?    
 
Tom:  Obviously,  you're  liking  him,  Michael.    
 
Michael:  I'm  talking  to  him,  right  then  and  there.  So,  in  other  words,  my  

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communication  with  him  is  not  part  of  the  map.  So  he  says,  "Nobody  likes  me  and  
nobody  talks  to  me."  So  I  said,  "Well,  I'm  talking  to  you  and  I  like  you."  What  do  
you  think  he  said?    
 
Tom:  You're  not  important?    
 
Michael:  Well,  he  said,  "You  don't  count."    
 
Tom:  [laughter]    
 
Michael:  So,  what's  the  obvious  next  question?    
 
Tom:  Who  does?    
 
Michael:  Who  does  count?  Now,  here's  the  thing;  so  he  took  a  moment,  he  took  a  
beat,  and  he  said,  "The  kids  at  school."    
 
Now,  here's  the  thing;  the  kids  at  school.  "The  kids,"  we  have  a  non-­‐referring  
noun  phrase,  "The  kids  at  school,"  more  non-­‐referring  noun  phrase.  This  is  an  
example  of  a  pseudo-­‐communication.  There  seems  to  be  a  communication  going  
on  there,  but  there's  actually  nothing  being  said.    
 
So,  I  could  either  follow  the  direction  and  say,  "Well,  which  kids,  specifically,  are  
we  talking  about  please?  Fill  in  the  inside  of  your  map  for  me,  in  detail,  so  that  we  
can  have  a  conversation."  Instead,  I  did  something  kind  of  clever,  actually  I  was  
having  a  good  time  just  thinking  about  it.  There  were  two  things  that  came  to  my  
mind  while  he  was  talking,  two  events  that  had  happened,  two  little  dots  that  
connected  up  with  a  third  dot  and  gave  me  a  wicked  idea.    
 
So,  the  first  thing  that  had  happened  was  that  he  had  started,  quite  recently  to  
begin  to  take  showers,  but  without  having  to  be  threatened  to  within  an  inch  of  

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his  life  to  take  them.  He  would  just  take  a  shower  each  day,  and  not  a  problem.  
He  was  combing  his  hair  and  trying  the  experiments  with  the  shaving,  even  
though  he  really  didn't  have  much  of  anything  to  shave  off.  So  there's  one  thing.  
Then  another  thing,  and  he  did  this  and  he  almost  killed  his  mother;  he  asked  her  
how  to  iron  a  shirt.    
 
[laughter]  So  he  started  taking  showers  and  how  to  iron  a  shirt  and  the  very  next  
thing  that  I  thought,  given  what  he  had  said,  was,  well,  you  know,  I  could  have  
been  wrong.  Here's  the  thing,  I  could  have  been  wrong.  I  could  have  said  
something.  There's  lots  of  different  ways  to  chop  up  kids  at  school.  He  could  have  
been  bullied  or  it  could  be  the  kids  in  the  senior  class,  or  lots  of  different  ways.  It  
could  have  been  boys,  it  could  have  been  girls,  it  could  have  been,  who  knows,  
but  I  just  thought  that  I  would  take  the  risk.  I  would  make  the  leap.    
 
So,  I  looked  him  right  in  the  eye  and  I  said,  "What's  her  name?"  I  got  the  most  
incredible  response;  he  went  red,  then  purple,  then  red  again,  then  kind  of  a  
green  color.  It  was  amazing  hitting  the  target  like  that.  I  could  have  been  wrong,  
right?  It  could  have  been  boys,  right?  It  could  have  been  a  boy.  It  could  have  been  
a  completely  different  situation,  and  if  I  were  wrong  he  would  have  corrected  
me.  "What's  her  name?"    
 
He  told  me  and  I'm  just  looking  at  him  and  he's  now  flushed.  Now  we  have  the  
real  problem,  the  real  issue.  It's  not  that  nobody  likes  him,  because  nobody  will  
talk  to  him.  It's  that  this  girl  doesn't  talk  to  him,  so  he  thinks  that  she  doesn't  like  
him.    
 
Then,  I  did  the  meanest  thing  that  you  can  do  to  anybody  in  the  universe.  Do  you  
know  what  that  is?  If  you  can  apply  their  rules  to  them.    
 
So  I  said,  "Well,  have  you  spoken  with  her?"  He  said,  "No!"  I  said,  "Well,  first  of  all,  
don't  you  think  it's  a  good  idea  that  you  speak  with  her  before  you  get  married?  

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The  second  thing  is  maybe  she  thinks  that  you  don't..."  and  I  just  let  it  hang.    
 
He  sat  back  in  his  chair,  and  his  eyes  de-­‐focused,  count  of  1-­‐2-­‐3  and  then  it  was  
kind  of  like  the  machine  came  back  to  life,  and  his  eyes  flicked  off  to  the  left.  Then  
they  flicked  up  to  the  right.  Then  he  started  turning  his  head  a  little  bit  from  side  
to  side  and  he  looked  at  me  and  he  said,  "Can  I?"  I  said,  "It  would  be  a  good  idea,  
before  you  get  married,  because  she  could  be  a  total  jerk."    
 
Anyway,  I'm  sorry,  what  were  we  talking  about?  Yes,  we  were  talking  about  
giving  examples  and  priming.  Now,  I  had  already  primed  the  bits  for  that  story  in  
our  previous  comments  and  what  we  did  there,  did  you  notice  that  at  certain  
points  I  was  going  into  a  sentence  fragment  and  then  just  leaving  space?    
 
Tom:  Uh-­‐huh.    
 
Michael:  Also,  asking  questions,  which  I  was  about  to  answer,  and  then  you  fill  in  
the  blanks,  yeah?    
 
Tom:  Yeah.    
 
Michael:  This  is  one  of  the  ways  that  you  could  get  people  to  take  the  ideas  on,  
where,  even  though  I'm  telling  the  story,  you're  filling  in  the  blanks,  following  the  
inferences  and  filling  in  those  gaps.  Most  people  already  figure  out,  because  I'm  
really  laying  it  on  with  the  trowel  and  putting  in  these  big  pauses  in  the  time.    
 
Well,  he  started  taking  showers  all  by  himself.  Because  people  can  connect  the  
dots  in  that  way.  So  what  happens  is,  rather  than  me  explaining  about  how  
inferences  work,  and  the  number  of  examples,  and  how  a  Napoleon  pattern  is  
set-­‐up,  what  we've  created  there  is  an  example  where  the  people  who  listen  are  
able  to  lead  the  head,  and  to  draw  the  conclusions  for  themselves.    
 

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If  I  use  this  story,  there's  a  couple  of  other  stories  that  are  from  the  same  
category  or  class  that  I'll  use  before  I  teach  the  meta-­‐model,  and  before  I  teach  
certain  patterns  in  the  meta-­‐model.  So  what  happens  is  that  by  the  time  we  get  to  
it  they've  already  had  5,  6,  7  examples  of  them  figuring  out  which  is  the  right  
pattern  to  use  and  I  don't  have  to  write  it  on  the  board  and  stick  it  out.  The  
important  point  there  is  that,  because  we've  got  the  process  to,  it's  called  
'instanciation',  making  the  connection  between  an  abstract  output  and  a  specific  
example.  In  other  words,  by  doing  it,  and  by  the  time  we've  done  it  3  or  4  or  5  or  
7  times,  by  the  time  we  get  to  it,  it's  an  explicit  communication.  It's  dead  easy.    
 
Tom:  It's  pretty  amazing,  in  terms  of  just  there,  and  just  recapping,  there  isn't  
any  major  truisms  going  on,  in  terms  of  "yes  sets"  and  various  other  bits  and  
pieces  and  the  conventional  tools  that  people  usually  think  about.    
 
Michael:  I've  already  used  the  "yes  sets"  and  conventional  things.  It's  just  that  
we  were  talking  about  other  stuff.  See,  this  is  actually  one  of  the  paradoxes  or  
dilemmas  or  subtle  humor  in  the  situation.  When  you  teach,  or  when  you're  
working  with  somebody,  you  should  be  demonstrating  what  you're  talking  about  
while  you're  doing  it.  That  acts  as  priming,  and  if  you  do  it  enough  and  if  you  get  
the  sequence  of  activities  in  the  right  order,  it  will  make  what  comes  afterwards,  
in  terms  of;  how  you  request  compliance,  how  you  ask  them  to  follow  you,  what  
you  ask  them  to  do;  it  will  make  it  much,  much  easier.    
 
Even  when  it's  pointed  out,  people  will  sometimes  miss  it.  So  I  know,  Tom,  
you've  seen  me,  and  if  anybody  else  has  seen  me  doing  a  workshop,  I  sometimes  
pull  out  an  imaginary  five-­‐foot-­‐long  fluorescent,  neon,  yellow,  highlighting  
marker  and  with  that  imaginary  marker  I  will  highlight  statements  and  
sentences,  in  order  to  show  where  the  pieces  are.  Because  that's  a  good  way  to  
do  it.  You  work  with  a  transcript,  you  write  the  transcript  down  and  then  use  a  
highlighting  marker  and  a  pen.    
 

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Even  so,  because  people  are  looking  for  something  else,  they're  looking  in  the  
wrong  place  for  what  it  is  that  isn't  there,  and  sometimes  they  miss  what  is  
obvious  and  what  is  there.  Have  we  heard  that  before,  Tom?    
 
Tom:  Yes,  we  have,  earlier  in  our  call.    
 
Michael:  Yeah!  What?  You  mean  I  don't  just  rattle  off  stories  and  anecdotes  
because  they're  troancy  and  conversational?  It  all  hooks  up.  That's  one  of  the  
things  that  makes  it  possible  for  people  to  recognize  and  take  the  next...  You  
know?    
 
Tom:  Exactly.    
 
Michael:  [laughter]  That's  reverse  mind-­‐reading,  by  the  way,  reverse  mind-­‐
reading.  I  set  up  the  pattern  several  times  and,  going  with  the  sentence  fragment,  
you  filled  in  the  blank.  Then,  in  order  to  create  an  instance  of  something  that  I'm  
talking  about,  I  just  left  that  space  there  and  let  you  finish  it.  This  is  how  you  take  
the  next...  Yeah?    
 
Tom:  Exactly,  yeah.  The  cool  thing  is,  when  you're  doing  that,  obviously  that's  
another  instance  of  instanciating  whatever  it  is  that  you're  looking  to  prime  or  
position,  in  terms  of  somebody's  mind.    
 
Michael:  Doing  what  you're  talking  about  while  you're  doing  it.    
 
Tom:  Cool!    
 
Michael:  Cool!  It's  very  straight-­‐forward.  This  is  the  other  thing,  it's  very  
straight-­‐forward  but  you  have  to  have  the  other  bits  of  the  technology  in  hand.    
 
It's  not  like  a  technique  or  a  Procrustean  bed,  going  back  to  earlier  metaphors.  

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It's  not  a  Procrustean  bed,  where  you  come  up  with  some  magic  words  and  then  
blame  the  client  if  they  don't  react.    
 
Ericsson  said,  he  was  asked  on  a  regular  basis  about  what  to  do  if  the  client  
doesn't  respond  or  react  to  a  particular  suggestion-­‐-­‐  and  he  always  said,  "I  really  
don't  care  if  somebody  responds  or  reacts  to  any  particular  suggestion."    
 
It's  the  pattern  overall.  The  word  programming  in  NLP,  I  think  leads  people  the  
wrong  way.  Human  beings  are  not  machines.  It's  not  like  the  old  rock  band  joke.  
When  I  was  younger  playing  music,  there  were  jokes  from  all  the  musical  
instruments.  And  so  the  joke  about  drummers  was,  "What's  the  difference  
between  a  drummer  and  a  drum  machine?  You  only  have  to  punch  your  
instructions  into  a  drum  machine  once."    
 
People  aren't  like  that.  We  don't  punch  our  instructions  into  them  and  then  they  
respond.  It's  a  dance  and  the  significance  is,  and  the  place  in  which  the  work  
occurs  is  inside  the  mind  and  inside  the  body  of  the  people  that  we  are  talking  
with.    
 
We  use  the  tools  in  order  to  change  our  behaviour  in  response  to  the  feedback  
that  we  are  getting.    
 
OK,  let's  talk  a  little  bit  about  Polya.  Because  with  priming,  what  the  priming  
does  is  it  takes  the  stimulus  from  one  point  and  it  makes  it  more  likely  that  
another  stimulus  at  a  future  point  is  going  to  be  recognized,  observed,  picked-­‐up  
etc.    
 
Polya,  because  he  was  working  in  a  completely  different  area  and  at  a  different  
time,  the  psychologists  haven't  yet  made  the  link  but  the  basic  Polya  pattern-­‐-­‐  for  
those  who  haven't  heard  the  name  before,  George  Polya  was  a  famous  
mathematician  and  he  wrote  a  wonderful  little  book  for  school  kids  called  "How  

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to  Solve  It,"  which  was  a  little  book  on  theorists,  theoristic  problem-­‐solving  for  
math.  His  hobby,  you  know,  he  was  one  of  these  guys  that  loved  math  and  loved  
everything  about  it,  and  he  would  read  the  history  of  math  and  mathematician's  
autobiographies  and  he  became  fascinated  by  the  decision-­‐making  process  that  
mathematicians  would  go  through,  but  particularly  how  they  would  make  the  
apparently  magical  leaps  of  logic,  in  order  to  reach  some  new  principle,  some  
new  whatever  it  was.    
 
So  he  ended  up  writing  two  books;  Patterns  of  Plausible  Inference,  and  they  are  
about  how  mathematicians  formulate  generalizations  and  how  they  make  leaps.  
He  illustrated  a  number  of  patterns,  things  that  are  present  around  how  
plausible  inferences  are  drawn,  but  there  was  a  basic  pattern  behind  them  all,  
and  the  basic  pattern  is;  if  something  can  be  demonstrated  or  proven  to  be  so  
and  what  follows  after  it  is  also  plausible  or  can  be  demonstrated  to  be  so,  and  if  
what  comes  from  that  is  an  inference  that's  plausible,  then  it  makes  the  
increasing  examples  that  are  given  seem  more  and  more  plausible.  Plausibility  is  
built  on  the  presumption  of  plausibility.    
 
This  is  where,  again,  we're  going  to  draw  that  distinction  between  using  "yes  
sets"  as  a  mechanical  trick  that  you  pull  on  people  to  make  them  more  likely  to  
say,  "Yes,"  and  into  how  we're  going  to  use  ideas  and  components  and  pieces  
from  within  somebody's  map  or  model,  in  order  to  increase  the  plausibility,  the  
credibility,  for  the  suggestions  and  ideas  that  we're  going  to  be  giving.  The  idea  
for  the  Polya  patterns  is  quite  simple.  How  you  practice  it  and  use  it,  it  really  
does  all  come  down  to  practice.    
 
Most  people,  when  they  learn  truisms,  learn  them  as  either  cliches  or  really  big  
statements,  things  that  you  wouldn't  in  your  right  mind  try  and  challenge.  Those  
are  things  like  cliches.  Those  are  things  like,  "Well,  it  never  rains  but  it  pours,"  or  
statements  that  can  be  validated  immediately  through  the  senses  by  the  people  
who  are  watching  or  listening.  So,  those  of  you  who  are  listening  to  me  here  o  the  

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call,  there's  an  example  of  a  truism.  You  could  validat  e  Ericksonian  
communication  or  hypnosis,  one  learns  to  put  one  of  these  and  then  another,  and  
then  another  and  then  just  slide  in  a  little  presupposition  at  the  end.  So,  let's  say  
you  do  five  truisms  in  a  row,  and  then  one  presupposition.  Then,  your  next  
whack  at  communication  has  four  truisms  followed  by  two  pre-­‐suppositions.  
Then,  three  truisms,  etc.,  Learning  how  to  move  back  and  forth  between  the  two,  
but  this  is  something  different.    
 
This  is  where  we're  going  to  use  other  people's  experience  and  what  can  be  
inferred  or  concluded  from  what's  inside  the  map  or  model,  in  order  to  create  
examples  and  anecdotes  and  stories  that  will  be  very  easy  for  them  to  situate  
within  their  own  experience.  So,  let  me  give  you  an  example,  the  typical  truism,  
at  the  beginning  of  a  trance  session  or  at  the  beginning  of  a  workshop.    
 
So,  you're  sitting  there  in  the  chair  and  you're  listening  to  the  sound  of  my  voice  
and  you're  wondering  what  the  experience  of  trance  might  be  like.  As  you  listen  
and  continue  listening,  you  might  become  aware  of  certain  sensations,  and  so  it  
goes,  and  it  rolls  and  it  rolls.    
 
I  want  to  tell  you  about  a  training  that  I  was  asked  to  do  for  one  of  the  big  four  
consultancies,  and  I  was  asked  to  work  with  a  specific  population  within  the  
organization.  These  people,  they  had  been  hired  from  other  companies,  after  
they  had  retired.  Basically,  what  this  consultancy  was  attempting  to  do  was  to  
use  very  successful  business  people,  people  that  had  long  careers,  very  
successful  careers  as  consultants.  Very  smart,  it  was  a  very  clever  idea.  The  only  
challenge  that  they  had  was  that  these  people  were  used  to  being  the  ones  to  give  
orders  and  they  weren't  used  to  being  consultants  and  having  to  ask  the  
questions,  probe  in  a  sensitive  way,  etc.,  and  the  other  thing  that  they  had  
forgotten,  if  they  ever  had  it,  was  how  to  ask  for  the  business.    
 
In  other  words,  they  were  perfectly  happy  to  tell  somebody  else  what  was  

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wrong.  They  were  perfectly  happy  to  give  them  advice,  but  they  couldn't  sell  
their  services,  which  of  course  made  them  practically  useless.  If  you're  a  
consultant,  if  you're  a  coach,  if  you're  a  trainer,  if  you're  anything,  you're  going  to  
be  involved  in  sales  at  some  point.    
 
So  they  had  tried  in  various  ways,  bringing  in  a  variety  of  consultants  and  
trainers  and  other  people  to  teach  them  about  selling,  and  they  had  gotten  very  
bad  results.  So,  I  was  invited  in,  and  I  was  told  to  conduct  a  program  with  them  
on  influence  for  senior  executives  and  senior  consultants.    
 
Here's  what  the  Director  of  Training  and  Chief  Executive  said  to  me,  I  was  called  
into  a  meeting  and  I  was  told,  "We  just  thought  you  should  know,  that  this  group  
has  eaten  up  and  spit  out  more  external  consultants  than  you  an  imagine."  This  is  
them  trying  to  make  me  comfortable.  I  don't  know.  So  I  said,  "So,  you're  telling  
me  this,  why?"  They  said,  "We  just  wanted  you  to  be  prepared..."  For  what?!  For  
being  frog  marched  out  of  the  building?"    
 
I  thanked  them  for  their  concern  and  I  said,  "I  think  you're  going  to  be  surprised.  
I  think  you're  going  to  be  really  surprised  at  how  smoothly  this  is  going  to  run."  
The  head  of  HR  and  the  Chief  Executive  looked  at  each  other  and  they  looked  at  
me  and  they  said,  "Well,  we  admire  your  optimism,  but  we'll  see."    
 
So  I  went  in  the  morning,  but  before  I  went  in  I  had  a  think  and  I  thought  
through,  "Alright,  we've  got  a  group  of  senior  executives.  These  are  people  that  
had  long  careers  and  they've  been  very  successful.  They're  now  consultants  and  
they  now  have  to  be  taught  how  to  persuade,  influence  and  sell."  So  my  question  
was,  "What  would  make  chewing  up  and  spitting  out,"  their  words,  "an  external  
consultant  the  right  thing  to  do?  What  would  make  it  the  necessary  thing  to  do?"  
Do  you  understand?    
 
Rather  than  making  them  wrong,  even  though  it  is  rude,  even  though  I  wouldn't  

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want  to  experience  it,  rather  than  making  them  wrong,  "What  would  make  that  
the  right  choice?"  I  would  be  willing  to  bet  that  you  could  come  up  with  a  whole  
big  list  of  possibilities,  even  if  you  don't  work  in  an  organization.  What's  one  
thing,  Tom?  What's  one  possibility  that  would  make  chewing  up  and  spitting  out  
somebody  the  right  thing  to  do?    
 
Tom:  Well,  whoever  the  previous  people  were,  that  came  in  to  do  stuff  with  
them,  came  across  as  know-­‐it-­‐all  or  didn't  treat  them  in  the  way  that  they  
perceived  they  should  be  treated,  given  their  seniority  and  experience,  etc.    
 
Michael:  Absolutely!  Perhaps  they  were  patronized.  Perhaps  they  thought  that  
there  was  nothing  for  them  to  learn.  Perhaps  it  was  just  the  perception  of  
arrogance.  What  else?  There  are  lots  of  possibilities.    
 
Tom:  That  they  thought  that  it  was  a  waste  of  time.  That  they  actually  felt  
offended  in  the  first  instance,  that  they  were  even  asked  to  be  in  the  room.    
 
Michael:  They  could,  exactly,  it  may  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  person  who  
comes  in.  It  may  be  a  political  matter.  There's  lots  and  lots  of  possibilities,  but  it  
was  from  those  possibilities  that  I  had  a  think.    
 
Okay,  so  I'm  thinking,  "Class  of  metaphor."  I'm  thinking,  "Statements  that  they  
can  recognize  as  being  true."  I'm  thinking  about  inference  and  I"m  thinking  about  
building  up  a  pattern,  using  that  pattern  of,  "If  this  is  so,  then  it  makes  the  next  
one  more  likely  to  be  so."    
 
So,  I  went  in  the  morning,  and  the  director  of  personnel  met  me  at  the  door  and  
went  to  the  Chief  Executive's  Office,  they  looked  a  little  nervous.  They  said,  "How  
are  you?"  I  said,  "I'm  looking  forward  to  a  really  great  day."  They  said,  "Well,  
okay,  alright.  We'll  take  you  down  to  the  room."    
 

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Now,  this  office  that  they  were  in  had  wood  paneling  in  the  hallways  and  it  was  a  
very  long  hallway.  So,  we're  walking  down  this  hallway,  three  abreast.  I'm  in  the  
center  and  they're  on  either  side,  like  taking  the  guy  to  the  execution.  At  the  end  
of  the  hallway  there  was  door  that  was  open  and  we  could  hear  a  lot  of  laughter  
coming  from  the  room.  They  sounded  like  a  pretty  lively  bunch  and  they  sounded  
like  they  were  good  fun,  but  basically  as  soon  as  we  got  to  the  room  they  all  went  
silent  in  an  instant.    
 
They  came  in  and  the  Chief  Executive  said,  "Good  morning  people.  This  is  
Michael  Green,  we  asked  him  to  come  in  and  do  this,"  and  while  that's  going  on,  
I'm  watching  the  group.  You  could  see  that  they  were  just  un-­‐naturally  still.  
There  wasn't  a  lot  of  movement.  There  wasn't  a  lot  of  breathing  going  on.  I  
thought  to  myself,  "Hm,  so  then  the  head  of  HR  made  a  few  comments  and  they  
made  their  way  to  the  door.    
 
In  the  door  there  were  those  little  tiny  square  windows  that  they  usually  put  
three  or  four  of  in  a  row  so  that  you  can  look  into  a  room  without  disturbing  
what's  going  on  in  the  room.  So  they  closed  the  door  and  then  they  were  hanging  
out  there.  So,  I  said,  "Good  morning,  everyone.  My  name  is  Michael  Greene,"  and  I  
looked  at  the  response  and  it  was  not  good.  i  looked  at  the  door  and  the  two  
faces.  There  were  two  little  faces,  of  the  Chief  Executive  and  the  Director  of  
Training.  They  were  looking  in  through  the  door.  I  went,  "Scat!  Go!  Sorry."    
 
I  said,  "Before  we  begin  the  program  for  today,  there's  a  few  things  that  I  think  
need  to  be  acknowledged.  First  and  foremost,  each  and  every  person  who  is  in  
this  room  is  here  for  a  reason.  Each  one  of  you  is  here  because  you  are  incredibly  
successful.  in  the  work  that  you  did.  There's  the  expectation  that  you  will  be  
incredibly  successful  in  the  job  that  you're  doing  now.  It's  important  that  you  
understand  that,  first  of  all,  there  is  nothing  that  I  can  teach  you  about  how  to  do  
your  job  better.  You  are  the  experts  on  your  own  job.  Further  than  that,  I  think  
that  it's  also  important  to  recognize  that,  let's  put  it  this  way,  there's  a  few  more  

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notches  on  your  gun  holsters,  most  of  you  in  this  room,  than  I've  got.  You've  got  
more  business  experience  than  I  could  ever  have,"  and  while  this  is  going  on,  as  
I'm  talking,  I  noticed  that  they  started  to  relax,  they  started  to  breathe,  they  
started  to  get  a  few  head  nods.    
 
So  I  carried  on  and  I  said,  "Whilst  I've  got  nothing  to  teach  you  about  business  or  
about  consultancy  or  about  how  to  do  it,  what  I  do  have,  that  you  may  or  may  not  
be  aware  of,  is  some  recent  research  around  influencing  people.  In  particular,  
influencing  people  in  senior  positions.  So,  what  I  was  thinking  was  that,  over  the  
next  couple  of  days,  we  would  go  through  some  of  this,  try  some  experiments,  let  
you  have  a  look  at  the  data  and  then  you  guys  can  make  up  your  own  minds  
about  what  to  do  with  it."    
 
Then,  I  walked  to  the  board  and  I  picked  up  a  marker.  I  was  going  to  begin  to  
write  the  agenda,  but  I  just  stopped  in  the  middle  and  I  turned  to  them,  and  
there's  one  more  thing;  it  is  very  important  that  you  understand  that  I've  already  
been  paid  for  this  work  we're  about  to  go  through.  So  it  doesn't  matter  to  me  
whether  we  have  the  worst,  most  sullen  time  or  whether  we  make  this  into  the  
most  kick-­‐ass,  enjoyable  experience  you've  ever  had.  The  choice  is  up  to  you.  
What  do  you  think?"    
 
This  one  chap,  who  looked  like  a  ring-­‐leader,  he  undid  his  tie  a  little  bit,  took  his  
jacket  off,  everybody  started  to  chatter  back  and  forth,  and  I  went,  "Oh  boy!  I've  
got  a  live  bunch  here."  So  I  said,  "Right!  I'll  tell  you  what.  Let  me  just  take  you  
through  the  agenda  here.  I  want  to  show  you  what  I've  been  thinking  and  then  
you  can  tell  me  if  there's  anything  we  need  to  add  or  anything  we  need  to  take  
away.  How's  that?  Excellent!"    
 
So  off  we  went.  Do  you  know  what?  This  wasn't  a  group  of  mean,  dinosaur  
external  consultants  chewing  up  people.  This  was  a  bunch  of  pussycats.  We  had  a  
fantastic  time.  All  I  did  was,  by  starting  to  talk  from  within  what  was  true  and  

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what  they  already  knew,  and  then  built  out  from  there,  it  was  phenomenal,  and  
excellent  time.    
 
Basically,  at  lunchtime  the  two  little  faces  appeared  at  the  door,  and  we  were  
laughing  and  having  a  great  time  and  I  waved  them  in.  They  came  in  and  they  
just  stood  there  and  the  Training  Director's  mouth  just  hung  open  and  the  Chief  
Executive  looked  and  he  kind  of  went,  "What's  going  on?"  We  laughed  and  I  let  
them  go  for  lunch.  He  took  them  all  out  for  lunch.    
 
At  the  end  of  the  day,  after  the  day  was  over,  the  Chief  Executive  said,  "Can  I  have  
a  word  with  you  for  a  moment?"  He  said,  "I  had  lunch  with  those  people.  What  
did  you  do  to  them?"  I  said,  "I  didn't  do  anything  to  them.  I  just  leveled  with  them  
and  I  talked  to  them  and  gave  them  the  respect  that  they  deserved."  Whereas,  
actually  what  I  did  was  listen.  I  went  into  their  world  view,  their  map  or  model,  
and  built  up  from  there.    
 
The  bottom  line  on  that  one,  which  is  really  funny,  the  Chief  Executive  was  
looking  at  me  kind  of  doubtfully  and  he  said,  "They  looked  like  you  were  all  going  
to  take  a  house  by  the  sea  to  get  there."  [laughter]  I  think  that's  one  of  the  best  
compliments  that  I  was  ever  given.    
 
Anyway,  sorry,  yes.  We  were  talking  about  Polya  and  truisms.    
 
Now,  here's  the  thing;  when  you  climb  inside  the  world  view  and  you  talk  from  
within  the  world  view,  it's  not  patronizing.  You  need  to  get  over  this  notion  that  
there's  an  outside  and  there's  an  inside.  You're  not  using  the  royal  "we".  You're  
not  using,  "I'm  the  expert  talking  to  you  about..."  The  truisms,  so  far  as  you  use  
them,  have  to  be  valid  and  true  constructions,  but  they  have  to  be  true  from  
within  the  people  or  the  person  that  you're  speaking  with's  Meta  model.  That  
may  mean,  for  example,  if  you  don't  know  them  very  well,  being  a  little  bit  looser,  
in  terms  of  the  construction.  I  had  some  information  that  I  was  able  to  do  some  

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calculations  and  hypothesizing  about.  If  it's  somebody  that  you  don't  know  that  
well  then  you  might  have  to  use  more  general  considerations  but  what  you  can  
then  do,  within  that,  is  you  can  then  start  to  seed  ideas  for  what's  to  come  later  
on,  and  then  we  can  start  to  get  to  what  I  call  "the  thought  viruses"  or  what  you  
call  "the  memes".  So  do  you  have  any  questions  so  far?    
 
Tom:  One  that  is  a  pattern  that  I  noticed  is  the  way  that  you  shift  between,  when  
you're,  for  example,  priming  and  using  truisms  and  various  other  aspects,  is  that  
sometimes  you'll  say  it  directly,  in  terms  of  to  them,  and  other  times  you're  using  
stories.  So  you're  telling  it  within  a  story.  "Is  there  a  purpose  behind  that?"  is  the  
question.    
 
Michael:  I'm  going  to  hit  it  at  every  level,  and  I'm  also  going  to  switch  the  
referential  index  right  in  the  middle  of  the  sentence.  Do  you  know  what  I  mean?  
I'm  going  to  hit  it  from  every  direction.  I'm  going  to  put  it  in  the  first  person,  as  a  
narrative  for  me.  In  the  middle  of  that  I  will  switch  it  over  into  a  third  person  
narrative.  I  will  go  to  the  side  and  ask  them  to  find  an  example,  "Have  you  ever  
had  something  like  that  happen?"  and  collect  it  up,  and  build  it  into  one  state  
overall.    
 
Now,  things  that  can  help  you  are,  for  example,  to  get  that  recognition,  that  
priming  experience,  to  work  for  you  is  keeping  your  metaphors  within  either  one  
or  a  few  related  classes  of  metaphor.  So  I  was  talking  about  things  like  notches  
on  your  gun  belt.  I  was  talking  about  things  like  aiming  for.  I  was  talking  about  
things  like  shooting  at,  in  order  to  use  this  notion  of  "business  is  war"  and  I  
basically  treated  them  as  veterans,  rather  than  as  school  kids.    
 
What  that  does  is  it  makes  it  a  little  bit  easier,  as  we  got  through  and  I  change  the  
stories  and  change  the  direction  for  people  to  connect  up  with  what's  heard.  The  
other  thing  is  that,  if  you  think  through  the  classes  of  metaphor  that  you're  using,  
it  makes  it  easier,  in  terms  of  your  selection  of  sensory  predicates  and  time  and  

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space  predicates,  which  are  how  we  think  about  time  and  space,  but  also  how  we,  
and  where  we  establish  certain  sub-­‐modalities,  thing  like;  location,  distance,  etc.    
 
You  see,  your  words  elicit  responses,  and  quite  often  they'll  elicit  visual  
responses  for  visual  predicates,  auditory  responses  for  auditory  predicates,  etc.,  
but  more  important  is,  rather  than  just  getting  them  to  make  a  picture,  what's  
more  important  is  for  them  to  have  the  feeling  that  they  can  recognize  what  it  is  
that  you're  talking  about.    
 
Michael:  In  their  mind,  as  you're  saying  that,  when  you're  describing  going  into  
the  room  and  being  three  abreast  and  the  door  at  the  end,  and  all  of  that,  those,  
to  me,  as  I  listen,  and  I'm  sure  for  everyone  else  listening,  I  was  in  the  experience,  
I  was  there,  associated,  looking  at  the  door  and  feeling  the  feelings  that  were  
going  on.    
 
Tom:  Absolutely!  That's  the  idea.  That's  what  we're  creating  there.  Now,  when  
we're  talking  about  getting  ideas  to  stick,  and  particularly  ones  that  have  these  
qualities  of  the  "meme"  quality,  a  "meme"  is  like  an  anchor  that's  attached  to  a  
thought  which  creates  an  affect,  in  other  words,  a  feeling  experience  that's  self-­‐
reinforcing  and  that  also  tends  to  spread  and  go  from  place  to  place.    
 
I  sat  down  earlier  this  year,  I  was  thinking  about,  there's  this  little  frame  that  I  
teach,  and  I'm  using  a  bit  of  martial  arts  and  a  bit  of  this  and  a  bit  of  that  in  order  
to  make  a  learning  up  about  all  kinds  of  stuff,  including  anchoring,  including  
focus,  including  what  you  do  with  your  awareness,  intention,  the  whole  lot.  In  it,  
there  is  a  kind  of  anchor  phrase.  It's  more  like  a  tagline  or  an  easily  recognized  
line,  and  when  I'm  doing  a  demonstration  with  somebody  I'll  comment  on  them  
and  I'll  say,  "Strong  like  bull,"  and  there's  a  certain  gesture  that  goes  with  it  as  
well.    
 
A  few  years  ago  I  was  watching  an  interview  on  television  and  it  was  Sandra  

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Bullock  and  Sandra  Bernhard  were  being  interviewed  by  somebody,  and  they  
were  talking  about  some  film  they  were  in,  and  they  were  going  back  to  the  
experience  that  they  had  of  making  it,  and  they  both  at  the  same  time  went,  
"Strong  like  bull."  Now,  I  first  started  teaching  this  in  1985  and  my  first  kind  of  
exposure  to  that  punchline,  I  guess  there  are  other  people  who  have  been  
stealing  my  act,  because  I  taught  it  to  26  thousand  people.  We  know,  from  the  
Mckenna-­‐Breen  that  there  were  24,000  and  then  on  top  of  that  there  were  
probably  another  couple  of  thousand.    
 
Anyway,  point  being,  that  line  and  that  gesture  has  jumped  from  place  to  place.  
I've  never  trained  Sandra  Bernhard  or  Sandra  Bullock,  but  somehow  that  phrase  
and  that  idea  and  the  demonstration  that  goes  with  it,  was  powerful  enough  to  
make  the  jump  from  place  to  place  to  place.  Now  here's  the  thing;  if  anybody  else  
claims  to  have  invented  that,  or  written  the  line,  ask  them  where  the  line,  "Strong  
like  bull,"  came  from.  I'll  just  tip  you  a  little  hint,  it's  only  one  half  of  the  phrase.    
 
So  anyway,  it's  pride  of  authorship.  Do  you  know  what  I'm  saying?  It's  pride  of  
authorship.  Now,  those  kinds  of  ideas,  those  kinds  of  anchors,  aren't  that  difficult  
to  instanciate.  One  of  the  things  that  I  will  teach,  for  example,  if  I'm  teaching  
consultants,  and  I'm  teaching,  even  coaches  I'll  teach  this  to,  there's  so  much  
material  about  building  relationships  with  clients,  about  developing  rapport,  
about  how  you  influence,  and  how  you  make  it  so  that  you're  state  is  attractive  
enough  for  other  people  to  make  you  follow-­‐able.  There's  lots  and  lots  of  
material  and  lots  and  lots  of  exercises.  Which  means  that  it's  harder  and  more  
likely  that  people  won't  actually  do  the  practice  that  they  need  to  do  in  order  to  
be  able  to  become  skilled  at  all  of  those  different  bits  and  places,  but  there's  one  
thing  that  you  can  do,  which,  if  you  do  it  consistently  and  you  do  it  over  time,  it  
influences  how  you  approach  every  situation.  It  influences  what  you  bring  into  
situations  and  it  also  influences  how  you  respond  to  other  people.  I  call  it  "5%".    
 
No  matter  what  the  situation  is,  whether  it's  one  person  or  whether  it's  10,000  

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people  in  a  space,  whether  it's  when  you  go  into  work,  into  a  meeting,  whether  
it's  at  home,  whether  it's  with  your  kids  or  with  your  family,  the  rule  is;  bring  5%  
more  energy,  intensity,  humor.  Even  if  such  a  thing  is  possible,  I  don't  know,  5%  
more  listening,  5%  more  compassion,  5%  more  anything  that  you  care  to  notice  
that's  going  on  in  the  room,  bring  5%  more  than  what's  going  on  and  keep  your  
contribution  to  the  event  at  5%  above.  It's  not  a  competition,  nor  is  it  a  
technique,  as  such,  it's  a  direction  that  you  want  to  head  in,  5%.    
 
If  you  want  to  develop  your  charisma,  5%  more  volume,  5%  larger  gestures,  5%  
greater  intensity  around  what  you're  talking  about  than  what's  going  on  in  the  
room.  Just  5%.  If  you're  running  a  meeting,  just  5%  more.  If  you've  got  kids  
around,  bring  5%  more  awareness,  5%  more  enjoyment  to  the  process,  5%  
more,  and  keep  that  level  up.    
 
Do  this  and,  over  time,  what  will  happen  is  that;  a)  you  will  have  developed  the  
muscle,  the  "energetic  muscle"  if  you  will,  to  be  able  to  bring  more  and  more,  and  
thus  able  to  fulfill  success  principle  number  one,  which  is;  if  you  want  to  succeed,  
you've  got  to  show  up.    
 
It  amazes  me  that  people  will  go  to  events,  go  to  meetings,  go  to  situations,  they'll  
hold  a  coaching  session,  and  they  don't  actually  show  up.  If  you  want  somebody  
to  follow  you,  you've  got  to  be  follow-­‐able.  If  you  want  somebody  to  follow,  
you've  got  to  be  interesting  enough,  attractive  enough,  have  enough  energy  for  
them  to  know  which  way  to  go,  that  5%  solution,  that  5%.    
 
That  one  chap,  he  brought  a  little  square  block  of  post-­‐it  notes.  What  are  they?  
Two  inches  by  two  inches  by  two  and  half  inches,  and  he  just  wrote  5%  in  big  
marker  on  them  and  he  sticks  them  up  everywhere  to  remind  him.  Five  percent  
note  on  the  computer,  five  percent  note  on  the  fridge.  Five  percent  less,  in  that  
instance,  5%.  Five  percent.    
 

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Curiously  enough,  it  doesn't  tire  you  out.  Interestingly  enough,  it  energizes.  It's  
one  of  the  coolest  things,  and  it's  one  of  the  most  effective  ways.  Do  that  for  a  
week  and  notice  the  differences.  What  will  start  to  happen  is,  not  only  will  you  be  
more  charismatic,  listen  more,  you'll  notice  more.  Funny  old  world,  your  stories  
will  be  more  interesting.  Your  metaphors  will  be  more  interesting.  You'll  have  
more  stuff  to  bring  forward,  which  leads  me  on  to  talking  about  cooking.    
 
[laughter]  I'm  sorry.  Brain  slip.  Do  you  have  any  questions  about  what  came  
before?    
 
Tom:  First  question  is  from  Praveen  in  India.    
 
Michael:  Praveen  in  India.  Hello,  Praveen.    
 
Tom:  Can  a  complete  piece  of  change  work,  for  example,  curing  phobias,  be  done  
using  just  language  patterns,  or  are  there  limitations  to  what's  possible?"    
 
Michael:  What  a  lovely  question,  and  the  presuppositions  in  the  question  are  
very  interesting.  When  you  say,  "A  complete  piece  of  change  work,"  do  you  mean,  
somebody  doing  something  different?  It  happens  all  of  the  time.  Language  
doesn't  exist  separate  from  all  of  the  other  parts  of  the  communication  and  
conversation.  The  simple  answer  to  your  question  is;  yes,  but  you  may  not  have  
enough  representations  to  be  able  to  see  how  that's  possible.  I'll  give  you  a  
couple  of  examples,  quickly.  What  did  she  say  was  the  whole  piece  of  work?    
 
Tom:  In  this  case,  the  example  was  in  relation  to  curing  phobias.  Can  it  be  done?    
 
Michael:  Oh,  curing  phobias.  Okay,  keep  in  mind  that  phobias  are  not  a  disease  
and  so,  therefore,  they  are  not  cured.  Phobias  are  an  example  of  a  one-­‐trial  
learning,  and  that's  a  situation  where  only  one  experience,  an  intense  enough  
experience  of  the  body  creating  a  fight  or  flight  to  the  normally  not  dangerous  

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stimulus,  in  order  for  the  pattern  to  be  set  up,  but  absolutely!  Just  using  
language,  and  even  in  the  short  space  of  time.    
 
1995,  I  took  part  in  a  documentary  on  the  secrets  of  hypnosis  and  I  did  three  
demonstrations  on  camera  for  how  phobias  can  be  removed,  and  one  of  them  I  
did  with  a  fairly  conventional  NLP  style  phobia  removal.  One  of  them  I  did  with  
an  unusual  kind  of  priming  language  approach,  but  it  was  the  third  one,  the  one  
with  the,  what  was  her  name?  Julia,  and  she  was  travel  agent,  of  all  things.  She  
was  terrified  of  flying  and  hadn't  been  on  a  flight  without  being  sedated  or  drunk  
in  her  entire  life,  and  she  wasn't  able  to  take  her  daughters  to  Disneyworld  and  
she  wanted  to  go  to  a  friend's  wedding  following  Spring  and  wasn't  able  to  say,  
"Yes,"  and  wanted  to  get  rid  of  her  fear.    
 
So,  basically,  I  met  Julia  during  the  selection  process  and  then  I  met  her  once  for  
about  20  minutes,  and  this  experience  was  the  time  when  I  acquired  my  phobia  
of  documentary  makers.  Because  they  just  did  horrible  things  to  the  people  who  
were  involved,  because  it  had  to  be  televisual.  So,  what  do  you  do  if  somebody  
says  that  they're  afraid  of  flying?  How  do  you  make  that  televisual?    
 
Tom:  Get  them  in  the  plane,  terrorize  them.    
 
Michael:  Right,  you  terrorize  them.  So  what  they  did  was  they  told  her  to  bring  
her  passport  and  an  overnight  bag  to  Heathrow  at  a  certain  time  and  I  would  be  
waiting  there.  Basically,  what  they  did  was  they  took  her  and  they  walked  her  
through  customs  and  the  security  process  and  got  her  to  gauge  her  fear  on  a  
scale  of  zero  to  ten  and,  of  course,  it  was  at  1001.  [laughter]  Okay,  great.    
 
So,  anyway,  it  was  the  end  of  January  when  we  did  the  work.  We  were  taken  out  
to  RAF  Lyneham,  which  is  an  Air  Force  base  in  England,  and  it  was  cold  and  it  
was  raining  and  there  was  a  small  break  in  the  dorming.  They  were  going  to,  as  a  
test,  to  show  that  she  had  gotten  over  her  phobia,  they  were  going  to  take  us  up  

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in  a  Hercules,  which  is  a  warehouse  with  wings,  and  they  were  going  to  open  the  
back  door.    
 
See,  I  don't  think  that's  a  great  measure  for  how  well  somebody  has  gotten  over  
their  fear  of  flying.    
 
Tom:  For  many  people,  I  think  they  might  be  afraid,  even  if  they  were  
comfortable  flyers.    
 
Michael:  Hell,  I  didn't  even  know  what  it  was  before  I  got  in  there,  and  I  was  
afraid.  I  had  to  do  the  work  that  I  did  with  her  in  my  own  head.  So,  anyway,  the  
way  that  they  said  it  was  going  to  work  was;  they  were  going  to  out  and  set  up  
some  cameras,  shoot  some  shots,  and  I  was  going  to  have  an  hour  or  two  to  do  
the  work,  and  then  we  were  going  to  take  the  plane  up  and  we  were  going  to  
shoot  the  test  of  the  work.    
 
We  had  just  been  shown  into  this  little  side  room,  when  the  Director  came  in  and  
said,  "Guys,  we  have  to  be  ready  to  go  in  less  than  15  minutes.  The  clouds  are  
coming  in  and  they're  going  to  cancel  all  of  the  flights  for  the  day,  so  we  have  to  
leave  really  soon."  I  said,  "Okay,  well  I'll  be  done  in  a  couple  of  minutes.  What  
should  we  do  with  the  extra  time?"  He  looked  at  me  like  I  was  nuts.  I  just  sat  
down  with  the  woman,  her  name  was  Julia,  and  I  said,  "Okay,  Julia.  Tell  me  why  
you  want  to  do  this."  First  step,  right,  motivation;  why  do  you  want  to  do  this?  
She  told  me  about  the  daughters  again,  told  me  about  the  friend's  wedding,  and  
then  I  said,  "Okay,  wouldn't  it  be  terrible  if  the  girls,  as  they  got  older,  were  never  
able  to  go  on  a  holiday  with  mum,  going  to  Disneyworld  because  mum  wouldn't  
get  over  her  problem?"    
 
So,  we're  talking  like  this  for  a  few  minutes  and  she's  going,  "Let's  just  get  rid  of  
it,  shall  we?  Please."  That's  called  motivation.  In  other  words,  get  her  to  say,  "I  
don't  care,  let's  just  do  it."  I  said,  "How  do  you  want  it  to  be?  What  do  you  want  it  

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to  be  like?"  She  said,  "It  would  be  great  if  it  were  just  like  going  to  Tesco  on  a  
Saturday  afternoon."    
 
[laughter]  Flying  a  plane  like  going  to  Tescos,  whatever.  So,  we're  having  this  
conversation.  I  asked  her  what  it  was  like  going  to  Tescos,  the  kind  of  things  that  
she  thought  about,  etc.,  etc.  I  said,  "You  know,  its  kind  of  interesting.  I  wonder  
what  it  would  be  like  if  you're  sitting  there  on  the  plane,  you're  thinking  about  
exactly  those  things  that  you  told  me  about  when  you're  going  to  Tescos,  which  
is;  what  we're  going  to  cook  this  weekend,  the  kinds  of  things  we're  going  to  do,  
what  kind  of  things  have  to  be  picked  up.  You're  getting  on  the  plane  thinking  
about  where  you're  going  and  what  you're  going  to  be  doing.  You  put  the  seat-­‐
belt  on,"  and  basically  what  I  had  her  do  was  I  had  her  create  an  associated  
representation,  through  the  stories,  all  in,  "Wouldn't  it  be  wild  if,"  and,  "I  wonder  
what  would  happen,"  without  actually  saying,  "Now,  make  a  picture  of  what  it's  
like  when  you're  driving  to  Tescos."  Instead,  it  was  all  just  conversational  and  
hypotheticals,  "Look  at  it  this  way;  wouldn't  it  be  cool  if  you  just  think  about  it  
exactly  like  you  do?"  I  just  did  the  work  conversationally  with  her,  and  covertly.    
 
I  then  did  two  more  tiny  little  things  with  her,  just  to  make  sure  that  I  would  
have  a  way  to  bring  her  out  if  she  went  inside  and  freaked.  Then,  finally,  I  said,  
"Alright,  so  who's  going  to  be  the  first  person  that  you're  going  to  call  when  we  
touch  down  and  you've  been  successful?"  She  said,  "Oh,  I've  got  to  call  my  
husband.  He  doesn't  think  that  I'm  going  to  be  able  to  do  it."  I  said,  "What  a  
schmuck.  Have  you  made  a  bet  with  him?"    
 
So,  we're  talking  and  they  kind  of  collect  us  and  we're  kind  of  still  talking  as  
we're  walking  out  to  the  plane,  and  I'm  just  going  through  all  of  the  possibilities  
of  this  stuff;  people  are  dumb,  they  try  and  talk  you  out  of,  if  you  felt  good  or  
made  a  change,  they  talk  you  out  of  it,  we're  talking  through  all  of  these  things  as  
we're  going.  There's  been  no  hypnosis,  there's  been  no  technique.  It's  just  a  
conversation.  It  took  less  than  ten  minutes.  We  were  just  chatting  and  walking  

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out  to  the  plane.    

 
Suddenly,  this  plane  just  loomed  up  over  me.  This  thing  was  like  stories  high.  
This  was  like  3  stories  high,  this  plane.  It  was  like  a  giant  warehouse,  and  you  
climb  into  it  and  there's  no  seats  in  it.  They  put  us  on  either  side  of  the  plane  and  
we  were  quite  far  away  and  we  were  sitting  on  this  tiny  little  wooden  bench,  and  
they  pulled  down  this  kind  of  nylon  webbing  around  us.    
 
Then,  on  to  my  flight  jacket,  they  put  a  nylon  cord,  and  then  hooked  it  to  a  wire  
that  was  threaded  to  the  top  of  the  plane,  and  they  switched  on  the  engines  and  I  
couldn't  hear  a  damn  thing.  I  put  on  a  helmet,  and  now  we're  talking  through  
headphones,  and  they  were  explaining  what  we  would  have  to  do  if  I  wanted  to  
talk  to  Julia  or  if  I  wanted  to  talk  to  the  Director.  Then,  the  flight  controller  said,  
"Please  look  up  above  your  head.  Please  ensure  that  the  cord  that's  attached  to  
your  jacket  is  hooked  to  the  wire  there  because  when  we  open  the  back  door,  
that's  going  to  be  the  only  thing  keeping  you  in."  At  that  point,  this  little  voice  in  
the  back  of  my  head  went,  "Oh  shit!  This  is  dangerous."  See,  that's  not  the  kind  of  
thing  you  want  to  say  in  the  middle  of  the  experience,  in  which  you're  pointing  
your  mind  in  that  direction.  So,  anyway,  I'm  looking  over  at  Julia  and  she's  just  
fine.  She's  just  fine,  same  non-­‐verbal  as  when  she  was  talking  about  going  to  
Tescos  on  a  Saturday.  I'm  having  kittens.  I'm  looking  at  the  director  on  the  other  
side,  and  he's  just  looking  forward  to  getting  up  in  the  air.    
 
I  just  noticed  the  time.  There's  more  to  that  story.  [laughter]  It's  just  language.  
It's  do  just  through  talking.  By  the  way,  that  took  ten  minutes.  The  actual  work  
itself  took  ten  minutes.    
 
Another  occasion,  now  here's  another  example,  a  different  one.  On  another  
occasion,  I  infrequently  will  teach  people  how  to  do  hypnotic  process  without  
trance,  without  trance  ritual.  We  had  about  60  people  in  the  course,  one  of  whom  
was  a  woman  who  was  a  hypnotherapist,  who  had  worked  as  a  nurse  in  the  NHS  

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for  years  and  years,  was  a  senior  nurse,  had  been  the  negotiator  for  her  trade  
union,  was  just  a  little  fireball.  Just  recently  retired,  and  she  had  a  fear  of  spiders.  
Now,  she  had  tried  all  kinds  of  stuff.  She  had  tried  hypnosis.  She  tried  the  phobia  
cure  with  somebody  else.  This  is  the  point;  it's  not  the  techniques  [empty]  
person  does  in  their  head.    
 
So  she  insisted  that  there  was  nobody  else  who  could  talk  with  her  except  me,  
and  I  was  trying  to  keep  my  eye  on  the  rest  of  the  group.  So  two  assistants  
marched  her  up  and  I  asked  what  the  situation  was.  She  said,  "You're  the  only  
one  who  can  do  it."  I  said,  "I'm  not  going  to  do  it.  You're  going  to  have  to  tell  me.  
What  do  you  do  for  a  living?  How  long  have  you  done  this  spider  phobia  thing?  
Where  do  you  live?  Who  do  you  live  with?  Do  you  have  family?"  While  she's  
talking,  she's  doing  it  all  in  the  same  tone  of  voice,  all  with  the  same  non-­‐verbals,  
all  just  sounding  terrified  because  there  was  going  to  be  a  Chilean  rose  tarantula  
in  a  few  minutes,  and  even  the  idea  of  it,  she  found  to  be  terrifying.    
 
We  don't  sort  of  turn  one  loose,  by  the  way,  that's  not  how  it's  done.  I  have  an  
animal  handler,  somebody  who  gives  animals  for  films.  So  we  have  a  stunt  
spider,  a  people  spider,  a  film  actress  who  is  a  spider.    
 
So,  anyway,  we're  chatting  and  she  says  she's  married,  she's  been  married  for  X  
amount  of  time,  she's  got  a  son,  she's  got  a  granddaughter  called  April.  When  she  
talks  about  April,  suddenly  her  whole  state  changes,  just  the  whole  thing,  in  one  
go  she  changes.  I  went,  "Right,  grandmother."  [silence]  Very,  very  much  available  
for  leverage.    
 
So,  as  time  was  short,  all  I  said  to  her  was,  "Oh,  my  goodness.  It  sounds  like  you  
love  April  very  much.  [noise]  Does  she  follow  you?"  "Yes,  she  does  everything  
that  I  do  and  we  have  the  best  time  together."  [noise]  "You  care  about  what  
happens  to  her?"  [noise]  "'Wouldn't  it  be  terrible  if,  in  addition  to  the  family  
recipes,  and  the  stories  that  you  tell,  and  all  of  the  wonderful  things  you've  done  

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together,  what  if,  in  addition  to  all  of  that,  you  also  passed  on,  by  demonstration,  
this  fear  of  spiders  to  April?"    
 
She  started  to  tear  up  and  her  lower  lip  started  to  tremor,  and  I  said,  "Oh,  boy.  
What  if,  inadvertently,  April  passed  that  on  to  her  children,  just  by  
demonstration,  or  worse,  her  grandchildren?"  At  which  point,  this  woman,  she  
pulls  herself  up  and  she  says,  "Where's  that  goddamn  spider?"    
 
[laughter]  She  was  going  to  push  me  out  of  the  way,  right?  Basically,  when  the  
motivation  is  there,  people  will  do  things.  I  said,  "Hold  on  a  minute!  You're  going  
to  kill  the  spider.  She's  an  actress.  She's  a  stunt  spider.  She's  a  people  spider.  You  
have  to  be  gentle."    
 
So  I  showed  her  what  she  would  have  to  do  and  how  she  would  have  to  handle  
the  spider  and  then  I  said,  "Okay,  alright.  If  you're  going  to  go  off  and  do  that,  first  
of  all,  are  you  going  to  show  April  how  to  do  this,  how  to  get  over  the  fear  and  
how  to  feel  good  about  this?"  She  said,  "I'm  going  to  show  everybody."  I  said,  
"Okay,  why  don't  you  go  get  in  the  line,  and  go  have  a  word  with  Octavia  the  
Spider,  and  come  back  when  you're  done."  We  chatted.  It  was  just  a  simple  chat,  
maybe  about  ten  or  fifteen  minutes,  just  finding  out  what  was  what.    
 
She  went  up,  she  handled  the  spider,  there  was  no  fear  whatsoever,  and  so  then  I  
said  to  her,  "Yeah,  but  who  is  going  to  doubt  that  you  actually  did  this?"  She  said,  
"Oh,  my  husband."  I  said,  "Let's  figure  out  what  we're  going  to  do  about  him.  
What's  his  name?"  She  told  me  his  name.    
 
So  we  figured  out  that  what  she  was  going  to  do  when  she  went  home  and,  by  the  
way,  she  lived  on  a  farm,  spiders  everywhere,  was  that  She  go  on  a  spider  hunt  
and  go  find  a  spider  and  pick  one  up.    
 
Now,  this  woman  lives  in  England.  She  lives  on  a  farm  in  the  middle  of  nowhere.  

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If  it  were  Borneo  or  if  it  were  Australia,  that's  a  little  different  situation,  context-­‐
dependent.  The  advice  there  is,  in  Australia,  if  you  see  a  spider,  it's  quite  likely  it  
wants  to  kill  you.  So,  kill  it.  Whereas,  in  England,  they're  just  like  house  spiders.    
 
So,  anyway  I  showed  her  several  ways  to  pick  up  a  spider.  Then  I  said,  "What  do  
you  think?  Shall  we  go  on  a  spider  hunt?  Let's  do  it  now."  So  we  went  outside  for  
a  few  minutes  and  we  looked  around  in  the  bushes  until  she  found  a  spider.  She  
picked  it  up  and  held  it  and  went,  "Oh,  that  is  so  cool!  Are  you  going  to  do  that  
with  your  husband?"  She  said,  "Yeah."  We  carried  on,  we  talked  about  it  a  little  
bit  more  and  off  she  went.  At  no  time  did  we  do  any  sort  of  obvious  technique,  
obvious  from  a  listener  or  a  watcher's  point  of  view.  Whereas,  actually  what  I  
was  doing  was  finding  counter-­‐examples  that  would  allow  the  trigger  to  be  split  
off  from  the  automatic  response,  and  something  more  important  being  
substituted.  In  other  words,  the  desire  to  be  a  good  grandmother  and  a  good  
example,  to  take  it's  place.  Then,  the  sheer  joy  of  proving  her  husband  wrong.  
That  organized  the  strategies.  Do  you  understand?  When  you  get  the  desired  
state  strong  enough  or  rich  enough,  quite  often,  the  resources  organize  
themselves.    
 
I  told  you  about  Izee,  that  young  chap,  a  little  earlier.  If  that  thing  about  ironing  
the  shirts  and  taking  the  showers  probably  came  about  because  he  saw  
something,  something  that  he  wanted  and  he  figured  out  for  himself  what  he  had  
to  do.  Understand,  he  wasn't  pushed  to  do  that.  The  desire  organized  the  search  
for  the  resources  and  he  just  had  a  little  bit  of  trouble  putting  it  in  gear.    
 
So,  the  limitations  are  not  so  much  in  technique  as  they  are  in  how  you  use  the  
tool.  Practice  more.  Language  is  a  means,  it's  not  the  end  in  itself.  Language  
patterns  are  a  means,  they  are  put  into  the  service  of  goals  and  creation  of  
outputs,  etc.  With  enough  practice,  your  skill,  as  a  tool  set,  gets  better,  but  it's  
always  a  case  of;  what  do  you  want  to  create?  What's  the  best  tool,  and  what's  
the  person  for  using  that  tool?  If  you  give  a  crayon  to  a  five-­‐year-­‐old  you'll  get  

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one  thing.  If  you  give  a  crayon  to  Picasso  you  would  get  something  else.  The  
difference  is  how  the  tool  is  used.    
 
Tom:  Cool.  Another  question  from  Praveen,  Michael;  is  language  always  
processed  through  the  body?  For  example,  if  an  anxious  person  is  told  to  relax,  
will  they  momentarily  physiologically  relax?    
 
Michael:  Not  necessarily.  Language  is  always  processed  through  the  body  
because  I  can't  think  of  any  other  place  for  it  to  be  processed.  It  has  to  go  through  
the  ears,  it  has  to  go  through  the  body.  Whether  somebody  is  going  to  be  able  to  
respond  to  a  suggestion  depends  on  this  priming  thing  that  we  talked  about  
before,  but  also,  for  example,  if  somebody  is  paralyzed  with  fear,  you  can  tell  
them  to  relax  all  you  want.  It's  the  same  thing.  Haven't  you  had  somebody,  if  you  
were  uncertain  about  doing  something,  you're  uptight  about  it,  you  felt  bad  and  
somebody  else  told  you,  "Hey,  just  relax,  will  you?"  What  do  you  think?  You  think  
about  hurting  that  other  person.    
 
if  somebody  is  nervous,  there's  an  old  intervention  in  strategic  therapy  called  
"paradoxical  intention"  or  "paradoxical  injunction"  and  in  the  example  of  
somebody  who  is  paralyzed  with  fear,  if  you  just  tell  them  to  relax,  their  body  is  
so  fully  engaged  in  responding  to  terror  that  they  may  not  have  sufficient  control,  
but  if  you  reinsert  a  way  for  their  conscious  intention  to  enter  the  process,  you  
can  create  enough  space  for  them  to  be  able  to  respond  physically.    
 
So,  I  used  this  once  with  a  chap.  It's  an  old  strategic  and  brief  therapy  
intervention,  which  is,  if  somebody  has  got  a  problem,  you  get  them  to  do  the  
problem  more.    
 
So  this  chap  was  terrified,  about  to  give  a  talk,  and  he  was  shaking  all  over  and  I  
said,  "Well,  you  may  be  terrified,  you  may  be  shaking  all  over,  but  I  would  be  
willing  to  bet  that  one  of  your  legs  is  shaking  more  than  the  other,  which  one  is  

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it?  So  he  starts  checking  back  and  forth.  In  other  words,  he  started  to  evaluate  
which  leg  was  shaking  more,  and  he  went,  "My  left  leg."  I  said,  "Okay,  you  say  that  
you're  left  is  shaking  more.  Is  it  the  upper  part  of  your  leg  that's  shaking  more,  or  
the  lower  part?  It's  got  to  be  one  or  the  other."  It  was  the  lower  part  of  his  leg.    
 
While  he's  doing  that,  the  rest  of  his  body  was  relaxing  because  he  was  
concentrating  on  something  else.  Eventually,  we  got  down  to  that  he  had  very  
nervous  ankles.  His  left  ankle  was  very  nervous  but  he  wasn't  shaking  anywhere  
else.  So  we  were  able  to  get  him  to  just  relax  that  shaking  and  make  it  so  that  it  
was  okay  for  him  to  have  those  nervous  ankles  and  get  on  and  do  what  he  had  to  
do.    
 
The  answer  is;  yes.  Everything  is  processed  through  the  body,  but  what  it's  going  
to  take  to  get  any  particular  individual  to  respond  may  be  different.  I  hope  that  
answers  your  question.    
 
Tom:  Matt,  Michael,  has  asked  about  training  groups.    
 
Michael:  Who  is  this?    
 
Tom:  Matt  from  New  Castle.    
 
Michael:  Matt,  M-­‐A-­‐T-­‐T.    
 
Michael:  Oh,  Matt,  M-­‐A-­‐T-­‐T.  Hello,  Matt  from  New  Castle.    
 
Tom:  Matt  says  he  runs  training  groups  and,  basically,  the  people  who  attend  his  
training  groups  are  typically  told  by  their  employers  that  they  must  attend,  it's  
mandatory  rather  than  optional  and  he's  curious  if  you  have  any  techniques,  
tools,  or  thoughts  on  how  he  may  be  able  to  help  overcome  that  very  
understandable  resistance  that  he  encounters  amongst  the  people  that  attend  

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the  trainings  that  are  mandated?    

 
Michael:  Well,  Matt,  I  think  you  already  have  a  few  ideas  from  earlier  on.  
Basically,  it's  funny,  you  said  he's  from  New  Castle?    
 
Tom:  Yeah.    
 
Michael:  In  1991  I  was  working  for  a  hotel  group  and  we  were  doing  trainings  
up  and  down  the  country,  and  there  were  a  group  of  managers  who  had  been  
forced  to  come  onto  a  training.  I  didn't  know  this,  but  basically  they  arrived  
surly.  They  arrived  pissed  off.    
 
Whenever  anybody  is  forced  to  do  something  that  they  don't  want  to  do,  it's  
going  to  generate  its  own  resistance.  So,  what  you've  got  to  do,  Matt,  is  you've  got  
to  start  thinking  through  what  they're  bringing  into  the  room  with  them.  I  don't  
know  if  you're  familiar  with  the  concept  of  setting-­‐up  the  communication.  This  is  
something  that  we  teach.  I'm  going  to  be  teaching  this  on  the  training  mastery  
course  that  I'm  going  to  be  doing  in  November.  It's  part  of  how  you  create  these  
truisms  and  these  kind  of  suggestions  and  put  together  your  design,  in  such  a  
way  that  people  are  willing  to  join  you,  even  if  the  conditions  weren't  ideal.    
 
So,  what  you  do  is  you  think  through  what  they're  going  to  be  bringing  through  
and  what  they're  going  to  be  bringing  in  with  them,  in  terms  of  expectations,  in  
terms  of  judgments,  in  terms  of  concerns.  The  basic  principle  is;  if  something  can  
be  talked  about  overtly,  it  does  not  become  something  that  is  used  as  an  excuse  
for  passive-­‐aggression.  If,  in  the  comments  that  you  make,  you  are  able  to  hit  on;  
their  thinking,  inside  their  map  or  model,  some  of  the  concerns,  then  what  tends  
to  happen  is  that  when  you  offer  them  possibilities  or  ways  to  move  forward  
with  it,  they're  more  likely  to  say,  "Yes."  There's  less  reason  for  them  to  object.  
There's  less  reason  for  them  to  be  covert  and  then  trying  to  destroy  the  situation  
there  because  you're  open  about  it  and  you're  willing  to  talk  about  it.    

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So  what  that  means  is  that  you  have  to  be  prepared  to  deal  with  and  answer,  
sometimes,  very  legitimate  concerns.  So,  for  example,  if  you  come  into  a  group  
and  they've  been  forced  to  attend,  and  they've  been  on  other  training  courses,  
and  the  training  courses  didn't  help  them  in  any  way,  somebody  coming  into  
your  session  who  is  feeling  like,  "This  is  going  to  be  a  waste  of  time,"  you've  got  
to  have  a  way  to  address  that.  So,  one  of  those,  as  part  of  the  set  up,  may  be,  
"Alright,  now  look,  ladies  and  gentlemen.  I  know  that  you've  been  asked  to  
attend  this.  You've  been  told  that  you're  going  to  attend  it.  I've  been  on  trainings  
before  where  I  didn't  have  a  choice,  I  wasn't  allowed  to  make  the  choice  about  
whether  I  attended  or  not,  but  let  me  tell  you  what  this  is  about  and  how  you  can  
make  the  most  out  of  the  time  that  we've  got  together.  First  of  all,"  and  then  you  
tell  them  how  to  deal  with  the  situation,  or  how  it  should  be  addressed.  You  do  
this  one,  twice,  three  times,  and  what  starts  to  happen  is  that  they  start  to  realize  
that  you're  not  going  to  talk  down  to  them,  and  they  start  to  realize  that  it  makes  
it  possible  for  them  to  follow  your  instructions.    
 
Technical  expression  is;  they  become  response-­‐attentive.  That  response-­‐
attentiveness,  in  other  words,  when  you  ask  for  something,  that  they  respond  to  
you,  is  your  minimum  bid,  before  you  can  actually  carry  forward  with  a  group  
process.  It  all  happens  during  the  setup.  During  those  times  when  you're  
welcoming  people,  thanking  them,  and  going  through  the  agenda.  So  this  is  a  
matter  of  incorporating  more  of  their  points  of  view  as  truism,  but  then  also  
saying  how  the  various  things  can  or  should  be  resolved,  and  what  will  happen  if  
they  agree  to  follow  your  instructions.    
 
So,  for  example,  within  the  set  up  would  go  things  like,  "Alright,  now  I  know  that  
we're  away  from  the  office  for  a  couple  of  days,  and  I  know  that  people  are  
concerned  about  getting  out  as  early  as  possible.  Believe  me,  I'm  with  you  on  this  
one.  If  you  will  cooperate  with  me  on  the  break  times,  we're  going  to  have  breaks  
at  11AM  and  at  3PM,  just  a  quick  break  for  15  minutes.  Then,  we  get  back  in  the  

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room,  we  get  back  to  work.  With  lunches,  we  keep  them  to  45  minutes  or  an  
hour,  whatever  it  is,  let  you  get  back  in  and  on  time.  I'll  do  my  very  best  to  get  
you  out  the  door  by  5:00.  Will  you  do  that?  Are  you  willing  to  help  me?"  More  of  
that  on  training  mastery  and,  at  some  point,  we  will  do  something  for  NLP  Times  
for  trainers,  specifically  on  the  topic.  Does  that  answer  the  question?    
 
Tom:  Yes,  it  does  indeed.  So  the  next  question  that  we've  got  is  from  Shawn  in  
Rockaway.    
 
Michael:  Shawn  in  Rockaway.  Okay.    
 
Tom:  Yeah,  first  question  is;  what  are  some  of  the  ways  to  mix  suggestion  within  
casual  conversation  without  setting  off  the  alarm  bells  or  it  sounding  unnatural?    
 
Michael:  Shawn,  I  love  this  question.  It's  great,  although  I  have  never  actually  set  
off  alarm  bells  with  a  suggestion.  Well,  actually,  [laughter]  okay.    
 
Mixing  suggestions  within  a  casual  -­‐  Shawn,  you  already  do  this.  It's  a  part  of  our  
natural  conversational  practice  as  human  beings.  You're  already  making  
suggestions,  making  offers,  making  little  bits  and  pieces.  One  of  the  things  that  
happens  when  you  learn  something  like  NLP  or  hypnosis,  is  that  it  seems  like  
you're  learning  a  specific  procedural  technique.  It  is  not  that.  When  we're  having  
the  conversation  and  we're  doing  a  piece  of  work  with  someone,  we  are  pursuing  
an  agenda.  There  are  things  that  have  to  happen,  there  are  things  that  will  have  
to  work,  but  it's  not  like  you  suddenly  become  some  other  species.    
 
When  you're  talking  with  somebody,  it's  always  appropriate  and  easy  to  use  
analog  marking,  and  it  doesn't  have  to  sound  like  that.  It  can  be  as  simple  as,  
"Look,  when  you're  having  an  ordinary  conversation,  you  can  use  analog  
marking.  It's  a  normal  part  of  the  conversation."  Do  you  understand?    
 

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All  of  these  things  are  just  a  part  of  the  flow.  What  you've  got  to  do  is  shift  you're  
attitude  and  intention  around  what  you're  doing.  Sometimes  people  have  
problems  because  they  treat  NLP,  or  the  work  that  they're  doing  with  it,  as  if  they  
were  doing  something  weird,  or  some  kind  of  an  alien  autopsy  on  people.  So  they  
behave  strangely  and  they  sound  strange.  It's  all  just  simple  conversations.    
 
I  suppose  the  fear  around  things,  like  making  suggestions  or  analog  marking,  is  
that  it  may  be  too  subtle.  Whereas,  actually,  as  I  mentioned  before,  Erickson  
would  often  repeat  things  several  times  and  Erickson  didn't  have  a  vast  range  of  
possibilities  in  his  non-­‐verbal  behavior  because  he  was  in  a  wheelchair  and  had  
three  known  forms  of  polio.  He  didn't  have  a  tremendous  amount  of  tonal  
variation.    
 
I'm  lucky.  I'm  trained.  I've  got  a  very  flexible  voice.  I'll  use  all  kinds  of  voices,  I'll  
use  caricature.  I'll  sing,  even,  if  I  have  to.  Even  if  it's  just  about  putting  a  little  
pause  in  before  you  make  the  suggestion  and  then  carry  on  the  thinking.  It's  not  
that  difficult  as  long  as  you  are  attempting  to  communicate  meaningfully  and  
purposefully  with  the  person  that  you're  speaking  with.    
 
It  takes  a  bit  of  practice.  It  takes  a  bit  of  practice  but,  also,  the  first  thing  that  we  
talked  about,  in  using  the  TOTE  model  and  using  the  goal-­‐based  communication,  
it's  not  that  different  from  when  we  have  conversations  with  people  ordinarily.  
Even  if  you're  talking  about,  you're  having  a  conversation  with  a  significant  other  
and  it's  the  first  part  of  the  conversation.  You  might  want  to  find  out  how  she's  
doing,  or  he's  doing.  Even  at  that  point,  you've  got  a  desired  state  in  mind,  which  
is,  "I  want  to  find  out  how  they're  doing."  Now,  in  that  instance  it's  a  fairly  
obvious  thing,  so  you  ask,  "How  was  your  day?"  You  then  listen,  and  if  that  
matches  the  criteria  that  you've  got  around  giving  the  answer  you  want,  well  
there  you  are.  You  move  onto  the  next  thing.    
 
When  you  are  using  the  NLP  tool-­‐set,  there  are  more  of  these  behavioral  outputs,  

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more  of  these  desired  states  that  you  have  to  learn  to  track,  but  that  doesn't  
make  your  communication  unnatural.  That  doesn't  mean  that  the  client  doesn't  
interrupt.  That  doesn't  mean  that  there  are  significant  side-­‐roads  that  are  taken.  
It's  all  in  a  very  normal  tone  of  voice.    
 
My  applications,  the  way  that  I  use  NLP,  I  work  with  senior  executives.  we  are  
sitting  in  either  their  offices,  or  we're  in  meeting  rooms,  or  sometimes  if  I'm  
facilitating  for  a  group,  it's  a  slightly  bigger  group,  but  it's  always  in  a  corporate  
environment.  At  no  time  does  the  conversation  ever  turn  to,  "Now,  make  a  
picture  inside.  Make  it  brighter.  Make  it  bigger.  Pull  it  closer."  It's  all  done  
through  the  quality  of  the  anecdotes  that  I  use.  The  suggestions  are  all  there  in  
normal  conversation.  It's  just  a  matter  of  practice.    
 
If  you  started  on  the  Platinum  Audio  News  Club,  there's  some  stuff  on  this  in  
there,  but  I  think  we're  going  to  be  doing  more  on  telling  multiple  stories,  
unconscious  communication  at  little  bit  later  on  in  the  teleconference  series.  I  
think  probably  if  you  write  in  one  more  question,  clarifying  question,  and  let  me  
know  how  much  experience  you've  got,  I  can  give  you  a  specific  example,  a  
specific  exercise  about  how  to  move  forward.  How's  that?    
 
Tom:  That  sounds  good.  Just  in,  again  from  Shawn;  how  do  you  work  with  people  
who  seem  to  disagree  with  everything  you  say,  whether  it  be  a  suggestion  or  just  
feeding  back  to  them  what  they  said?    
 
Michael:  Okay,  Shawn,  there's  a  phenomena  called  "polarity  responding"  and  
these  are  people  or  situations  where  whatever  is  presented,  the  people  will  go  in  
a  different  direction.  It  comes  in  two  basic  flavors.  One  is  polarity  mismatching  
by  counter-­‐example.  These  are  the,  "Yes,  but,"  people.  These  are  the  last  word  
freaks.  These  are  the  ones  who,  whatever  you  say,  they've  got  to  come  up  with  
something  slightly  different.  The  other  ones  are  the  mismatchers  by  polarity.  
That  means  that  if  you  say,  "Yes,"  they  say,  "No."  There's  a  number  of  different  

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possibilities  around  that.  One  of  them  being  that  they  just  don't  like  the  shape  of  
your  head.  There  are  some  people  who,  if  they  don't  like  you,  they're  just  going  
to  say  the  opposite,  just  because  they  don't  like  the  shape  of  your  head.  Those  
people  are  rare,  fortunately.    
 
Sometimes  there  are  some  folks  who,  when  they  do  this  polarity  responding,  
they  do  it  because  that's  their  life.  They've  got  to  be  the  ones  who  make  the  
decisions,  make  the  choice.  We  had  one  of  these  chaps,  I  finished  a  program  this  
past  weekend,  and  right  from  the  word  "go",  for  every  damned  exercise,  he  was  a  
nightmare  for  the  people  who  were  around  him  at  first.  A  lovely  chap,  but  as  
soon  as  somebody  told  him  to  do  something,  or  asked  him  to  do  something,  he  
would  say,  "No,"  or  go  in  the  opposite  direction.  For  that  kind  of  person,  anything  
that  comes  from  the  outside  is  treated  as  if  it's  an  attempt  to  take  control.  So  with  
this  chap,  what  he  realized  is  that  all  he  cares  about  is  control.  So,  in  giving  him  
information  or  suggestions,  it  would  have  to  be  put  into  the  third  person,  and  it  
would  have  to  be  put  in  what  I  call  "a  laundry  list".    
 
In  other  words,  you  don't  tell  him  what  to  do,  you  don't  tell  him  what  the  right  
thing  is,  you  don't  make  the  offer.  You  offer  a  number  of  things,  a  bracket,  a  small  
list  of  possibilities.  You  do  it  in  the  third  person.  You  give  the  list  three  to  five  
items  and  then  you  say,  "Of  course,  you  have  to  make  up  your  own  mind.  You've  
got  to  make  the  decision  on  this  one,"  and  that  puts  them  into  a  double-­‐bind.  
Because  if  you  say,  "You'll  have  to  make  the  decision,"  they  won't  want  to  have  to  
and  they'll  pick  from  the  list.    
 
Yeah,  a  polarity  responder  is  like  a  three-­‐year-­‐old  who  doesn't  want  to  put  their  
sweater  on,  "No!"  "Come  on,  it's  time  to  put  the  sweater  on."  "No!"  So,  what  you  
have  to  do  is  you  have  to  attack  in  the  other  direction.  If  somebody  is  a  mis-­‐
matcher  by  counter-­‐example,  knowing  that's  the  case  gives  them  room  to  do  it.  
In  other  words,  relinquish  your  own  need  to  be  the  one  who  gives  all  of  the  
examples,  and  make  sure  that  if  you're  doing  something,  create  space  so  that  

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they  can  create  with  it.    

 
and  if  you're  clever  enough,  and  it  takes  a  little  bit  of  practice,  you  can  make  it  so  
that  they  will  attack  away  from  you,  in  order  to  go  in  the  direction  that  you  want  
them  to  go,  but  that's  a  much  longer  conversation.  Basically,  if  you're  not  getting  
the  response  that  you  hoped  for,  you  need  to  change  what  you're  doing,  bottom  
line.    
 
You  probably  haven't  either  set  up  the  relationship  adequately,  asked  enough  
questions  to  find  out  what  it  is  that  they  want  or,  if  that  pattern  maintains  there,  
then  it's  just  simply  a  matter  of,  "That's  how  they  do  things."  So  the  methods  that  
you  choose  have  to  make  it  so  that  they  can  carry  on  doing  that.    
 
The  metaphor  is;  yes,  indeed,  you  can  push  water  uphill,  but  you've  got  to  have  
some  damn  good  plumbing  to  do  it.  It's  a  much  longer  conversation  for  another  
evening,  but  I  hope  that  gives  you  an  idea  of  the  direction  to  head  in.    
 
Tom:  That's  great,  Michael.  So  that's  it  for  this  evening,  everyone.  I  want  to  thank  
you  so  much  for  joining  us  on  this,  I  think,  it  has  been  a  really  good  teleseminar.    
 
Michael's  given  us  so  much  great  content  on  advanced  language  patterns  and  I  
know  that  you're  going  to  look  forward  to  reviewing  the  audios.  We're  going  to  
send  out  some  assignments  in  the  coming  week,  and  if  you  really  want  to  get  
good  with  this,  as  Michael  has  been  saying,  it  comes  down  to  practice.    
 
So  make  sure  that  you  do  all  of  the  assignments.  We  would  also  encourage  you  to  
re-­‐listen  and  review  the  call  so  that  you  can  identify  what  are  the  things,  in  terms  
of  priming,  seeding  suggestions,  setting  up  inferences  in  order  to  become  a  more  
effective  communicator,  influencer,  and  persuader.    With  that  said,  on  behalf  of  
Michael  and  I,  thanks  again  for  joining  us  and  we  look  forward  to  seeing  you  on  
another  NLP  Times  Live  Teleseminar  again  soon.    

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