Distraction & Misdirection

Conversational hypnosis is a lot like stage magic. In order to make it work, you have to redirect your audience’s attention to a place where nothing is happening while you are making the changes that appear to be magic.

Look at it this way, you’ve set the stage (developed rapport), prepared your audience (shifted them into downtime), and set up the scene (set context) for the magic trick. Now to disguise what you’re doing so the ‘trick’ isn’t seen, you have to direct your audience (distraction/misdirection) to look at something other than what your hands are doing (the subliminal persuasive message).

This is where power persuaders rise head and shoulders above all others. It is in mastering this skill that you will find yourself persuading others in ways that others simply don’t understand. Once you have this skill down, people will see you as some sort of miracle worker, or in possession of a degree of luck that could only come from the gods.

What most people don’t understand is that everyone uses the techniques of distraction and misdirection all of the time. It’s built into language at the very core. Yes, you’ve already been performing conversational hypnosis and you didn’t even realize it!

When we communicate to another person, we are trying to give that person a report of an experience, or knowledge that may lead to an experience. Even if we are trying to describe a physical object, our language is striving to give the listener an experience of what that object is.

But words are not experiences, nor do they contain experiences in themselves. Words by themselves have absolutely no meaning whatsoever. Have you ever tried to understand what someone was saying who spoke a language you did not understand? The very fact that you did not understand the words used should be proof enough that words themselves do not convey meaning. Only the interpretation of those words yields meaning.

It is simply impossible for anyone to give a full and complete description of anything using language. So we generalize and leave out details. In order for anyone to understand what we’re saying, they have to try to interpret what you’re saying in a way that makes sense, so they have to mentally go looking for the bits of information that you left out to make a complete picture. And while they’re looking for the missing information, they’re not paying as much attention to what you continue to say, giving you a perfect opportunity to communicate directly to their subconscious mind. Voila! Conversational hypnosis.

Missing information is only one technique of distraction & misdirection. Disguising the context of the words we use is another. Power persuaders are very fond of telling stories and using quotes. When a person is listening to a story about someone else, they do not consciously associate the content of the story with themselves. But due to the Pink Elephant Principle, and the requirement to experience words in order to understand them, your prospect will imagine themselves as being the subject of the story just to understand what you are telling them.

“I have a friend who wanted to start a business. But it seemed that no matter what he tried, he could not get a bank to finance his venture. Over the course of several years, he applied for the money he desperately needed for his business from bank after bank, getting rejected each and every time. It was heartbreaking.

But one day, my friend found PowerKeys Publishing and all his troubles evaporated like the morning dew on a hot summer day. They told him ‘Stop wasting your time looking for financing! You can make tons of money just by promoting this excellent course through our affiliate program.’ They showed my friend how to set up his affiliate business and promote it to a global market, and do it all using the money already at his disposal.”

You’ll notice in this example that no-one is telling the listener what to do, but if you were to say something like this to your prospect, they will interpret the quote ‘Stop wasting your time looking for financing! You can make tons of money just by promoting this excellent course through our affiliate program.’ as if it were directed at them, and start thinking about how they could do the same.

Later on, you’ll learn all about many forms of distraction and misdirection. We’ll also include enough examples so that you’ll have an easy time applying the techniques to your unique situation.