Once you learn the secret of reframing you'll find persuading other people to think like you do to be easy like magic.

Here’s a quick example of how to use a “Reframe” to literally “Change someone’s mind” and convince them to come  to your way of thinking . . .

(Put really simply, “Reframing” is just a way of changing the context or “frame” of a situation so you can look at it from a different angle and with a different set of conclusions and beliefs.)

Last night I was hanging out with a friend of mine (a very awesome, redheaded friend of mine who’s touch makes my skin tingle and who’s smile turns me to goo) and talking about the work of Dr. Joseph Riggio . . .

If you haven’t heard of Joseph, you should. He’s a done a ton of fascinating work helping high-achievers find real power and satisfaction in their lives and “going” deep with his stuff has had a tremendous effect on my mindset and productivity.

(He’s also a client of mine and I’m currently in the middle of writing a project for him. Joseph meets all my criteria for an awesome client: Understands the value of what I do, has legitimately good stuff to sell and I actually LEARN something by working with him. Certainly a lot more fun than another weasely Bizop site.)

One of Joseph’s core teachings is to learn to live your life utterly without compromise  . . . . to be the “Lion” among the “Elk” and to never apologize for being who you truly are.

Now, to some people the concept of “Living without compromise” can translate to “being an obnoxious dick.” Which really isn’t the point at all.

In fact, my friend had a similar thought. She said “That sounds interesting, but one of my core beliefs is that you don’t have the right to hurt anyone else.”

Here’s how I reframed the concept of “Living without compromise and never apologizing” to fit neatly into her belief structure.

I said . . .

“OK, here’s a way to think about this that I think you’ll find really useful.

Once when I was a teenager, my Mom and I got into a fight.

I don’t really remember what the fight was about (maybe I mouthed off, maybe it was about nothing) but I must have said something pretty dumb because my Mom (who is definitely not a violent person) pulled back her hand and went to slap me across the face.

Now, at this point I’d been taking karate for a while.

I think I was a green belt.

So when her hand came rocketing towards me, I did what came naturally. Without even thinking I put up my arm to block her slap.

Her arm hit mine with a sound like a two Lincoln Logs coming together and my Mom suddenly clutched her arm in pain.

‘You hit me!,’ she sobbed, tears streaming down her face. ‘I can’t believe you hit me!’

And, being a petulant, angry teenager I yelled right back and said ‘I didn’t hit you! I stopped you from hitting me!’

Which is kind of how I feel about Joseph’s concept of living without compromise.

It’s not that you go out and “hit” other people. It’s just that you live your life being fully and powerfully YOU.

You never hurt anyone, but if through their own actions someone else hurts themselves because they can’t accept you for who you really are or because they’re trying to “Hurt” you or force you into a role or box you don’t belong in . . .well, that’s not really your fault at all, is it?”

And my friend who I was telling this story nodded her head because suddenly the whole concept made sense. The cool bit of “Judo” here is that I took her concept of “Being yourself = hurting other people” and turned it on its head or “reframed it.”

Kind of cool, huh?

Personally, I use reframes and storytelling concepts like this all the time both in my personal life (when I’m helping friends get their thinking clear on things . .  .which I do A LOT) and in the marketing I do. (Metaphors, similes and other stories are REALLY powerful stuff, especially in videos.)

Heck, I’ll often use a reframe with timid clients who are afraid to use proven Direct Marketing Methods.

I’ll say . . .

“You sell a quality product, right?”

And they say, “Yes! We sell the best gosh darn dooowizzits in the industry.”

I say, “And you have competitors whose products are NOT as good as yours, right?”

And they say, “YES! The fiends at CRAPCO sell CRAP compared to what we sell.”

I say, “But your competitors at CRAPCO sell a lot of stuff, right?”

and they respond with . . .  ”YES! They do all this Direct Marketing and SELLING stuff to get people to buy from them even though our product is better and is even priced better.”

And then I go in for the kill and say, “OK, so if we know that Direct Marketing WORKS and we know that you have a better product than your competitor, then don’t you think you OWE IT to your customers to sell to them in the most effective way possible? I mean, if CRAPCO is out there using ‘good’ marketing to sell ‘crap’ then don’t you have a RESPONSIBILITY to use the most effective, hard-hitting and powerful marketing available to make sure they buy from YOU instead of from them? In fact, by NOT using direct marketing in your business you’re actually HURTING your prospective customers who really should be buying from you.”

And that’s when they write me a check.

Do you want more of this kind of stuff? Leave me a comment and let me know.

(You can learn more about Joseph and his work at http://www.josephriggio.com)

Yoda knew more about marketing than he was letting on.

You remember Yoda back in Empire Strikes back?

(You know the GOOD Star Wars movie back before big George Lucas decided to make Darth Vader all emo).

In “Empire,” Yoda rides Luke around  Dogabah like a whiny pony and teaches him the ways of the force . . .

Near the end of his training, Yoda tells Luke to use the force to raise his sunken Starfighter out of the swamp so he can fly off and get his hand cut off by his Dad.

Luke looks at the multi-ton X-Wing, glances at Yoda with a “you’re nuts” look on his face and (already anticipating defeat) says “OK, I’ll try.”

Which prompts Yoda to utter one of the greatest bits of pop philosophy of the last 50 years (and one of the most quoted lines in movie history.) He says . . .

Do or do not. There is no try.”

Which is great for a couple of reasons.

1. It’s one of the coolest bits of “Pop Philosophy” of the last 50 years (and makes you wonder what happened to Lucas when he started writing the downright-horrible sequels).

2. Hidden in that sage statement is some REALLY good advice for marketers and persuaders of all stripes . . . and some cool little copywriting advice that can subtly shift even “tough” prospects from tire-kicker to eager buyer in just a few little sentences.

Here’s why . . .

According to Dictionary.com “Try” means . . .

• 1. To attempt to do or accomplish. Try before you say it’s simple.
• 2. To make an attempt or effort; strive. Try to complete the examination.

(There are other definitions having to do with opening windows, playing rugby and sailing ships, but they don’t apply to what we’re talking about here today so we’ll skip them.)

Look up "try" in the dictionary and you'll see that it's telling you to fail.

The key thing to notice in both of these definitions is that while they say you’ll ATTEMPT to do something, they don’t actually say you’ll be successful at doing it (or that you’ll actually come close.)

When you come down to it, the word “Try” actually gives you permission NOT to do what you say you’re “trying” to do and lets you off the hook for failure.

So if you ask someone what they’re doing, they might say . . .

“I’m trying to get into med school.” “I’m trying to write a great salesletter.” or “I’m trying to be faithful to my wife.” (Oh, Tiger, how you have fallen.)

But do you notice how when you’re trying to do something you’re not actually DOING it? In fact if you’re TRYING to do something, it’s pretty much impossible to get the result you say you’re trying for. Why? Well, as soon as you actually DO what you say you’re doing you can’t “Try” anymore.”

Here’s where this gets fun:

In hypnosis, NLP and (gulp) marketing, you can  actually use the word try to command someone NOT to do something.

For instance, think about these two commands:

1. Move your left foot.
2. Try to move your left foot.

If you really let yourself notice, you’ll see that they feel radically different in your brain.

If we’re sitting somewhere together and I, using my freaky “hypno voice,” tell you to “move your left foot” a whole bunch of neurons will fire in your brain and (if you’re in a mindset where you feel like doing what I tell you to do) you’ll probably feel a little twitch down your left leg.

Heck, you might even start tapping along like a jazz drummer working furiously on his hi-hat.

But if I tell you to TRY to move your left foot a whole different thing happens . . . your subconscious starts thinking about the IDEA of moving your left foot but will actually come up with a whole bunch of excuses for why you can’t actually move your left foot no matter how hard you “try” (because, like I said a second ago as soon as you actually DO something you’re not TRYING anymore.)

No matter how hard he tries he . . . OMG he's FLOATING!!!

A fun example of this comes from the old “sticky hand” hypnosis trick where you convince someone that they’re sweaty mitt is stuck to a wall. Whoever’s doing the hypnosis would say . . .

“And even though you might try to move your hand off the wall you find that no matter how much you try you can’t move your hand because your hand is firmly glued to the wall like your hand is made of metal and the wall is a powerful electromagnet. In fact, the harder you try to move your hand the more firmly you feel stuck.”

Or something like that.

As you can see, “Try” is actually kind of a weakness word. Or an “excuse” word. (Kids use it all the time “But mom, I TRIED to clean my room.” Whatever, kiddo.)

And the more you think about it the more you’ll realize that telling someone to “Try to relax,” “Try to remember,” “Try to stand,” “Try to forgive” or “Try to write a blog post” is actually cutting your own legs out from under you and leading you to failure.

(Try not to think of a giant pink elephant wearing a bikini. Ouch. Bet you just failed at that one.)

Man, you can find ANYTHING on the internet.

“OK, Chris, you’ve had your fun, but how do we apply this concept to our marketing and copywriting?”

Great question (I love it when you guys pay attention).

There’s two main things I want you to do after you read this blog post.

1. Go through your marketing and ad copy and make sure you’re not sabotaging your sales process by telling people to try (and fail) when you actually want them to take action.

If you’re doing future pacing in your copy (where you want someone to imagine how great their life is going to be once they put your product into action) the worst thing you could do is tell your prospect to “Try to imagine . . .”

And I’m sure you would never even think of getting to your big, awesome close and then say “Try to order now. We’ll try to take your order when we can.” =-)

2. If you wanna be sneaky, you can start using the word “Try” in your copy, your emails, your videos and everything else you do cause your prospects to come around to your way of thinking . . .

“Listen: After coming this far down this letter and hearing everything I’ve told you today I think we both know that, no matter how hard you try, you’re not going to be able to go back to your old way of dealing with your problem. You’ve seen the pot of the gold at the end of the rainbow . . . you know what it will be like to be able to be finally free of the anxiety that’s hounded you for so long and no matter how hard you try you can’t forget that.”

Blah blah blah. You get the idea. “Try” is a great way to destroy an idea or a concept that you don’t agree with. Powerful stuff.

3. Think about how you use the word “try” in your own everyday life.

You’ll be amazed at how your interactions with your boss, your employees and your mate change when you become just a LITTLE BIT more aware of how the word “try” works.

And if you want to have a LOT of  fun, pay attention to the language you use when you’re talking to your self. Are you subconsciously telling yourself to “Try” to be successful? Could the fact that you’ve been “trying” for so long be what’s actually holding you back?

Got it? 

Leave me a comment (don’t TRY to leave me a comment, freaking DO IT) if you have any questions or comments.

And let me know if you want more of this “Language Geek Hypno Stuff” I’ve got a whole bunch of it banging around in the back of my brain.

* Special thanks to Igor Ledochowski who’s the guy who first introduced me to hypnosis and woke me up to how a lot of this stuff works. Great teacher and a great guy even though he dresses like an Austrian Count . . . (Wait, he IS an Austrian count. I guess he has an excuse.)

** There’s a whole lot more that can be said about words that give you permission for success. For instance, if a friend is stressed out I might say “And you begin to realize how easy it is to allow yourself to relax.” That gives the subconscious mind the “excuse” it needs to actually chill the freak out.

* Yeah, I’m a geek and I love this stuff. I admit it.

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