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Rapport
from a (magical) performer's perspective…
What dose rapport
mean? With my entertainers hat on, as a magic man, purveyor of
illusion or entertainer, well to him it means getting people
into the right place, to lead them with the use of suggestion
and influence, with the aim of creating entertainment. Leading
people to become a part of an unforgettable experience, leading
people into a fun and exciting place for a little escapisum and
that is what entertainment should be. The reason for gaining
rapport with people is to lead them, whether its the purchasing
of goods or services or to lead them in the relinquishing of
fears and anxieties, toward the gaining of confidence and
motivation or indeed for any other purpose.
In
my work I start by assuming that I have rapport already and
lead. Many of the masters of influence and rapport will also
assume they are leading and generally people will follow.
Sheer personal power and charisma are enough to put you
in the leading position and the more we continue to develop our
charisma the more we become likeable and influential and the
easier we make it for others to gain rapport with us as we lead.
There is more, you are also a performer or a speaker, therapist,
salesman, consumer or in any kind of situation with people and
they are giving you their attention, right? They are listening
and ready to follow, so you can influence and lead them to
better health, wealth, happiness or any number of other vibrant
destinations…
Buying
some petrol the other day I walked happily up to the counter and
in a confident manner announced/asked: "good morning
Graham, and how are you?" to the man I had never met
before, displaying as per Sainsbury's directions for all the
world to see his most personal of all possessions, his name.
Making full use of a person's name will go a long way to
creating rapport, taking the time to say hello and enquire after
him opened a dialogue, a happy and upbeat dialogue with Graham.
When
working as the aforementioned prestidigitator in delightfully
exotic and splendid locations I like to introduce myself to the
table or group by firstly explaining to them what I'm doing and
then by supplying my name. I then proceed to ask the names of
all the people on the table; once they have all been supplied I
restate my name and the magic begins. The audience are no longer merely passive observers but are
now all active participants in the event because; I have entered
into a dialogue, a verbal exchange with everybody on the table.
They are already doing what I have asked, admittedly I
have only asked them to tell me their names and I volunteered my
name to them first, nonetheless they have still complied with my
request. Next I can ask them to comply with other small
requests, like choose a card and they will follow more
readily…
We
already have rapport with people; it's just a question of
deepening it. When on holiday if you meet a person from the same
hometown as you, in general most people will instantly feel a
connection, (a connection will even be felt when they are merely
from the same country as you, if you are holidaying abroad). The
differences between you and them, have been minimised by finding
some commonality. There are many ways of minimising those
differences, as I'm sure you are aware. The use of techniques
like:
-
Matching and mirroring of body
language.
-
Matching of predicates, (The
words we use)
-
Matching of voice tonality
and Rate of speech.
-
The sneaky use of embedded
commands.
-
Association etc…
These
techniques all have their place. As a performer I have the
lovely position of choosing who I work with and from an audience
I pick the person with whom I think I will get the best results,
based on my observations of them from the outset. With maybe 10
minuets in each groups delightful company it is I find important
to establish rapport very quickly.
A
table, just as any audience will have its leaders and followers
(it is normally foot stools and chairs that follow tables);
there will always be loud people on the table just as there will
always be quiet, shy people there.
If you attempt to gain your maximum rapport with the shy
people on the table the louder and more dominant people, wanting
some of the attention for themselves, will split the dynamic of
the table or group. If however you angle a higher percentage of
your attention to the person or people in the group who seem to
be dominating the table already and gain rapport with them the
others will follow their example much easier (and the example
they are to follow is one of respect and indeed in the giving of
clear and open sensory input channels to me.) This luxury
affords me the opportunity to be aware of my influence on other
people who are en-rapport with me and, for a moment in
time, lead and entertain them…
…where
will you lead and who will follow? Learning N.L.P and hypnosis I
find will inspire you to become more interested in the whole
area of persuasion, influence and the development of yourself
and your abilities in every area of your life that you are aware
of and indeed new areas you will find as you continue with your
adventures on our most resplendent planet, Earth.
Waking
State Trance
What is a 'waking state trance'? First, lets explore what
direct overt hypnosis and indirect covert hypnosis are…
Direct
authoritarian hypnosis is the kind of hypnosis that stage
performers use. It is the type of Hypnosis that a hypnotist uses
when they direct a person into trance. The fanciful swinging of
a watch that is seen in the films is about 'fixation' of the attention. A
stage hypnotist or practitioner performing overt direct hypnosis
will have a person fixate their attention on an object and then
continue to direct the person with suggestions to close their
eyes, relax their body, walk down a set of stairs etc.
Covert conversational hypnosis is where a
person is lead into a trance without overt suggestions. This
could be in the telling of a story about a holiday, a massage or
a relaxing experience and obtain eye closure in a covert
fashion.
Waking state trance
is when the suggestions of the hypnotist are given and accepted
without the formal trance.
Has anyone ever told you something and you believed them?
Well of course they have and of course you did. They offered a
suggestion and you accepted that suggestion. A hypnotist will
offer a suggestion that smoking is bad, the suggestion is
accepted and the person stops smoking. There is no difference
between somebody telling you that a film is good and you
believing that suggestion, or a hypnotist suggesting to you that
feeling confident is good and you accepting that suggestion and
acting upon on it. A competent hypnotist will know how to pitch
the suggestion just right so that it is accepted; so for that
matter will a salesman. A close friend of yours can tell you
something he or she has learnt and believes and the resistance
of your conscious mind maybe bypassed resulting in your
unconscious mind accepting the suggestion.
We are all using hypnosis on each other all the time,
whether we realise it or not. Even when we do not verbally
respond we are still communicating volumes.
There are various techniques that can be
used to ensure that the suggestions are accepted more readily.
The gaining of Rapport is paramount (see my article: Rapport
Magic, for an overview of Rapport) and the use of Embedded
Commands (Analogue marking can be used to make the embedded
commands more powerful). The use of ambiguous words and words
that sound similar, marked out and embedded as commands, will go
unnoticed and unchallenged by the conscious mind allowing ideas
and concepts to be fed direct to the unconscious mind. Metaphor is a method
of giving the mind a concept without directly referring to the
specific example you wish to suggest. The
more you direct a person towards a point of view the more the
unconscious portion of the mind will become familiar with the
new opinion. If pleasant emotions are associated with this new
point of view it will seem appealing.
To covertly elicit a 'state of mind' from
someone, a state of interest for example, and then place your
product or service into the thoughts of that person or group of
people, will associate the feelings of interest with the
product. This is something
advertisers do all the time, the major brand names
continue to spend hundreds of millions, billions even, on global
advertising because it works!
The more you can influence
the unconscious portion of the mind the more you will see those
influences manifested as actions and behaviours in the person or
group of people.
Embedded
Commands a tool for Suggesting ideas
An
embedded command is a set of words that form a command (rather
than a question or statement) that is hidden inside a larger
sentence, enabling the command to be delivered with less
conscious resistance. Embedded commands become more powerful
when used in conjunction with 'Analogue Marking'. When a command
is hidden within the sentence structure and marked out by a
subtle shift in rhythm, gesture, or voice tonality, it will
become more effective. The idea is to modify your behaviour in a
subtle way so as not to be consciously obvious.
The
words do not even have to be next to each other in the sentence,
just so long as you make them diffrent, and mark them out to the
unconscious mind. If you alter your tonality too much it will
become obvious to the person listening, so you need to be
subtle. It is also useful to modify your behaviour in some other
way like making direct eye contact on the words to be marked out
and go back to just looking at the person's face more generally
for the rest of the words. You can also perform a discreet
movement with your head, arms, or body language in some way on
the commands.
Below
is a simple example of this, that you can play with today (and
tomorrow), and if you do achieve a success with this the first
time you try it, great, build on it, think of real world
applications for this technique. If you do not succeed first
time and you do want to learn, do it again. This will work best when you have a good rapport with person
you are talking to, if you do not have their attention or are
just not en rapport with them wait until you are or do
it with someone you have a good rapport with. So we will attempt
(and succeed) in getting someone else to rub or touch their eye
(this is a measurable response, something you can easily observe
and not too out of place an activity for someone to exhibit).
The following are just a few example phrases of the way you can
use the words 'touch' and 'eye' in the same sentence, even right
next to each other. Of course you are saying the word 'I' but it
sounds the same as the word 'eye' (this is called a phonological
ambiguity). Practice it, hone your skills, and have fun.
"I
said to him let's stay in touch. I (eye) know he
is the type of person who will call me…"
"…strange
turn of phrase that isn't it, stay in touch. I
mean when we are on the phone we aren't touching are we, just
talking!"
"…he
uses the phrase touch a lot, I
mean with him it's always touch base, touch
on this idea, touch, touch, touch, I now know
its because he is a very kinaesthetic kind of person, but it use
to…"
Rapport
Deepening Techniques using Meta Programs.
A Meta Program is the name given, in Neuro Linguistic
Programming (N.L.P.) to describe patterns of behaviour. For
example, do you notice the similarities or the differences? This
would be a 'Same/Difference' Meta Program. You may notice what is similar in a
situation or what is different, or with an object how it is
'like the one you have', or how it is 'different from the one
you have'. Some people will talk about what they want to achieve
(moving towards) while others will talk about what they want to
avoid (moving away from). This is the 'Moving towards or away from' Meta Program. For example: 'I want to
be thinner' or 'I don't want to be fat'. Both of these are about
weight loss and have the same end goal but they are stated very
differently.
There are many Meta Programs, in this article I will
focus on the Big Picture/Detail Meta Program and its
applications within group work. I
shall illustrate this Meta Program with an example: if you are
performing or speaking from a stage, in an environment where
people have chosen where they sit (rather than being given a
seating plan), you will find a pattern, something that generally
tends to happen is the people who sit in the front rows like to
see the detail. These people want to see the details first and
then they like to understand the bigger picture. Conversely,
there are people who like to see the bigger picture first and
then get to the fine details. Those people who choose to sit in
the middle and towards the back of the audience fall into the
second category.
So,
when you invite a member from the audience to help, you know
right away that when you explain what is requested of them it
will need to be presented to them as either an outline first
followed by the detail, or the details first followed by the
bigger picture, just from where they were sitting. You might
say: 'We are going to make this Elephant disappear and what
I would like you to do is...', for a person who was sat
near the back that is now assisting you, or you would say 'What
I would like you to do is... and then the Elephant will
disappear' for the person from the front of your audience
who is helping you. You could instead choose a person in a
specific place in the audience and know that a particular
presentation is better suited to them.
Will
it work every time with every one? Does anything? You will
certainly stand a much better chance of creating a good rapport
with your helper than if you don't use this simple technique and
when the audience sees that you are getting on well with the
person on stage they will like you more. These are the small
details that when thought about and applied help you to stand
out from the majority of performers/speakers who don't know
about such things. This as I have said is just one of many Meta
programs and there are many ways we can use them.
A
Linguistic Trick using Suggestion and Influence Techniques
Asking
somebody if they have the time and then interrupting the pattern
of behaviour that follows i.e. the person looking at their
watch, noting the time and then relaying the indirectly asked
for information is a useful trick. Never is the question
"Do you have the time", answered "yes" and
the actual time of day then not shared. What happens is; a
series of actions are triggered that run one after each other,
initiated by the close-ended yes/no question. When a series of
patterns are interrupted for a split second the conscious mind
is confused, tripped up, short-circuited if you like, and
suggestions can be given directly to the unconscious mind
without the resistance of the conscious mind. In the following
example we interrupt this pattern of behaviour verbally by
continuing the sentence so that it is no longer a request for
the time, but a request to see if the person has enough time to
do something, it will also evoke reciprocity and offer the
opportunity to collect some useful information at the same time:
"Have you got the time…? To accept my offer of a gift for you,
by just going to my website, filling in your details and you
will receive the free download (or the CD/DVD through the
post)."
By
continuing the sentence after a short pause, just long enough
for them to have started the process of engaging in a single
unit of behaviour you interrupt their pattern as they realise
you are not asking for the time of day. Embedding the command
'accept my offer', whilst also anchoring it visually or
kinaesthetically, if appropriate, will give you a useful tool
later when you may indeed wish to have the person except your
offer.
Also
by the action of giving a gift you are invoking the first rule
of reciprocity as defined by Dr Robert Cialdini. It is accepted
by sociologists and anthropologists the world over that a person
or group of people will normally repay to a larger extent than
that which was given or indeed offered to them. This can be most
commonly seen in the act of giving gifts at birthdays or other
occasions, people feel bad when they have even just forgotten to
send a card to somebody who sent one to them. When somebody else
buys you dinner or a present you feel obliged to reciprocate the
favour. This is even true when all that has been offered to you,
(even uninvited) is a discount.
The
'rejection then retreat technique' used by salesmen is a prime
example of this, first they start at a high price only to reduce
it 'specially for you, just for today because…", to you,
this makes you feel like they have given you something and as a
result you become more likely to give then something, i.e. the
price that they were after all along!
Also,
you capture the email address of an interested, potential client
for future free advertising. To the savvy Internet marketer this
information is worth the time in creating a free download or
CD/DVD to send out.
With
this one action you have: embedded a command and anchored it.
Evoked reciprocity and collected a potential customer's contact
details and all in just ten seconds!
When you understand what a Timeline is, you can use it to
influence people. Then, the more you understand what a Time Line
is the more you will notice when other people are influencing
you, whether they realise it or not!
A Time Line is simply the line you can draw between the
imagined location of things that haven't even happened yet and
between the remembered location of (visual) memories (images) of
past events that don't exist anymore. If you imagine something
vividly from the past and notice where your eyes are looking and
then think of a different memory from the past and notice the
location of that, you can start to plot a line from the past to
the future.
Some people will say they don't visualize. It would be
best for that kind of person to ask someone close to them to
observe their eyes as they imagine memories from the past - it
is important for the observer to be someone who is observant; a
person who is able to notice not only where the eyes move, but
how focused or defocused they are - and they will notice that
that person is looking in different places and focusing at
different depths. They can then plot the Time Line for the other
person.
Your Time Line maybe a straight line left to right, from
behind you on the left hand side to in front of you on the
right-hand side, or a crazy looping backward and forward
scribble all over the place. Anything is possible, and there is
no right or wrong answer, although some style of Time Lines are
more useful for certain things than others.
"As you see yourself in the future…" spoken to
someone who is daydreaming about their future, "…and see
all the things there…" while standing in the future of
their Timeline will make it much more likely that you will
feature at least to some degree in their future. Whether it's
just a casual thought a day later or marriage and the building
of a business empire together will depend on your use of
suggestion. People will have a total conviction that certain
things are going to happen in their future. Dinner tonight,
birthday in June, holiday in August, Christmas in December etc
and if you can put your ideas into someone's future just as
concretely, they will have a total conviction of belief
concerning your new ideas.
Covert
Hypnosis and the Art of Suggestion
Much
has been written lately about the so-called 'Covert Hypnosis'
and 'Covert Hypnotic Techniques'. They exist. They are powerful.
They are also very subtle.
'They
exist' this is true, but do they work? The simple answer, 'Yes',
will meet with some parties agreeing while others would
disagree, and they would both be right from their point of view;
so lets explore further and get a common agreement. Can everyone
who tries these techniques get them all to work? Of course they
cannot. Not even the world's most experience Hypnotists can
perform every so called 'hypnotic phenomena' that would be like
asking a painter to be able to paint in the style of Salvador
Dali's surrealism, Constable's realism and Monet's impressionism
along with every other style there is. The volume of diffrent
paining styles is huge and no one could ever hope to paint like
all of them!
Some
people try a few techniques, they do not work, and they give up.
The opposite of that is that some people try a few techniques
and keep trying them and eventually achieve successes that spur
them on to learn more, and most importantly, keep practising. If
you put a hand out and reach, with maybe a little nod of the
head you can influence some people to pass you the TV remote
controller or a magazine without you saying a word. Everybody is
able to use some form of body language to influence or change
people's minds, even if it is just shaking your head! Even so
the 'technique' of shaking your head (mastered by infants) is a
non-verbally given suggestion, universally recognised as meaning
'No'.
This
is the equivalent of the painting 'technique' called 'throwing
paint on a canvas' (also mastered by infants) and this is indeed
a method (or technique) of getting paint on the canvas, indeed
even used by some professional painters exhibited in some of the
most prestigious galleries! -what an achievement it is to
convince the art world that paint thrown on canvas is art. An
artist can convey thoughts in images... An image really does
speak a thousand words, and if you know how to speak in
pictures, well you could convince with them to! - Describing
shaking your head as a technique is using the word 'technique'
as loosely as possible! Nonetheless it is nonverbal
communication and therefore a 'physical suggestion', the use of
'body language' as it is sometimes called.
Adopting
the point of view that shaking your head is a non-verbal
suggestion means you are already a master of some non-verbal
suggestion techniques. With practice you can become more
successful with other 'techniques'. Some people for example can
have a person kiss them without speaking; maybe they have been
in a relationship for years or just met that night! There are
some people who can give such a look that... well you know...
Some people can suggest images and thoughts to people in an
entertainment setting; there are many forms of suggestion and
many outcomes.
Accepting
that these things are brought about with suggestion and, that
suggestion is the main tool of the hypnotist makes these
'hypnotic techniques'. The reason they are covert is because
most people would not call them hypnosis, so they are hidden
from view. When you kiss your wife or girlfriend because she
leaned over suggestively and invited you to kiss her without
saying a word, are you thinking about her use of suggestion or
just acting on the suggestion? Just like the handshake
suggestion, you put your hand right out there and hold theirs
while shaking it up and down. To call these things hypnosis
seems laughable and that is why they work so well because nobody
is ever looking for them, people do not analyse your every
movement, there is too much happening to consciously keep track
of. As you think back and realise you do not remember everything
I said in this article, that means your conscious mind cannot
challenge what it has forgotten I said, and so those suggestions
are, for the time being, and maybe even for the rest of your
life, something that you act upon. That is covert hypnosis, or
at least one very small (700 word) expression of just one part
of the enormous subject of 'Conversational Hypnosis.'
A
Magician Acting, or an Actor Performing Magic...
(Dose the actor perfroming magic become a magician by default?)
Both, is the answer to the above
question. It is a trait of most people to have a 'this or that'
point of view, however a more useful 'point of view' to have
first is one of always looking for a third option, then maybe a
forth and more, before making any decision.
People who have taken the time to learn
how to act can move into performing magic, this is
possible and does happen. Just as magicians can and, really
should, move into the arena of acting, especially while
performing their magic. Accepting that magicians' act (we do
after all have our script (patter) don't we?) then a style of
acting must be chosen to fit with the outcome that the magician
is aiming to achieve. Consider the stage illusionist, the
large-scale stage illusions shown on T.V. and stage can be
amazing when done right.
Most stage magicians perform to an
audience without talking to them and so to convey any kind of
engaging quality they rely on a number of factors from young
dancers in tight costumes, dramatic music, lighting, smoke etc
and of course the acting. A stage magician will engage a
non-verbal set of actions when pushing a sword through a box
that contains an assistant. The acting in most stage magicians'
performances are punctuated by the music's cadences and so the
acting is in turn accentuated to fit the dramatic music.
Striking dramatic poses in time with the music while pushing a
sword through a box that contains a person, whose protruding
toes and hands (both wiggling) and smiling face maybe with a
'surprised expression' can end up looking cheesy!
When
words are not the primary form of communication with the
audience the message that is communicated has very little real
drama if this dramatic and overly cheesy acting style is used;
this style seems to have been the norm for a lot of stage magic
during the past decades. Just as David Blaine took the world
(the spectators world) by storm presenting a fresh new angle on
close-up magic and Derren Brown, likewise, with his Television
and live shows as a mind reader, maybe it is time for a very new
kind of large-scale stage performer of magic… maybe you
can do for stage magic something similar to what David Blaine
and Derren Brown have done for magic and mind reading? While
doing so remember to act the part well.
Key
Bending and the Art of Suggestion
Professor Richard Wiseman and Emma Greening recently wrote a paper
about studies on suggestion and influence regarding that classic
PK effect 'bending
a key'! Magic enthusiast Richard Wiseman discuses an experiment
in which two groups were shown the same short film where a bent
key was placed on a table, it was suggested to the first group
that the key was still bending, while the other group, watched
the same footage, with no suggestions. It comes as no surprise
to us magicians that the first group claimed to see the key
continue to bend. As we performers are aware if we continue to
tell our audience that the object is still bending, (especially
while performing some clever little moves), the audience is more
likely to not only believe this, but also to 'see' it.
There are two types of performers who present this, the first being the
performer who claims to be able to bend the item using 'mind
powers' for example Uri Geller has always claimed that his mind
has the ability to alter the composition of the metal in the
item and so it bends; whereas the second type, magicians/mind
readers who bend keys and cutlery do so, not as 'mind powers'
but as more of a strange magical feat.
Let us consider the use of the 'continuing to bend' suggestion, whether on
the table or in the spectators hands. As a magician if your
audience and volunteers believe that the object did continue to
bend while in their hand or on the table, you have performed
some amazing magic, you were not merely demonstrating
sleight-of-hand but instead creating a really magical experience
for them.
What suggestion? For this we rely on the 'presupposition'. For example:
"Do
you see it bending?" A close ended question, it is bending or it is not
bending.
"As it continues to bend you might see it flicker in
colour or get lighter for a brief moment or two?" a presupposition that it is still bending. It
is just a question of whether you are aware of the colour
changing slightly or it getting lighter as it continues to bend.
There is also an ambiguity here, when spoken in this sentence it
is unclear whether you mean lighter in colour or weight, this
further adds to compound the suggestion.
Decide upon what you wish your spectators and volunteers
to experience, then construct a sentence that can only be true
if what you want them to believe is actually happening. The more
presuppositions you use in one sentence the more the conscious
mind is likely to accept them.
As you read over this last bit again (presupposes
you are going to read over this again) and realise that you
already use presuppositions (presupposition that you will
realise this) and decide (presupposes you will decide)
to take a few moments to think about new ways (presupposes
there were old ways) of using them, either now or while
performing (presupposition that you will do this either now
or later) the more you learn (presupposes you are
learning) and
the more fluent (presupposition that you are to some degree
already fluent) you get at using presuppositions.
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