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How to Use Mirroring and Anchoring in 3 Easy Steps

Jul 302010

Our Brains are made up of complex stuff that we use to communicate with the world around us. How to use the Brain effectively is always a challenging problem. Imagine if you thought you didn’t need it,you’d need it to think that thought about not needing a Brain that thinks. That thought about not needing a brain would be important for you.Every thought is important to a human being,it helps us to confirm our existence and to communicate with other people.

How do we communicate?

During the 20th Century many fantastic discoveries were made about the Brain and it’s Capabilities. The problem was that the people who discovered these fantastic things, either didn’t feel that normal people should know about it or they themselves were often not in the position to articulate their findings in an understandable way. Have you ever tried to read Freud or Emanuel Kant? Those works are fascinating,mind boggling, often inaccessable writings of great minds that discovered and developed ideas that should have been very useful to the common people. Yet, the common people should accept that their brain wasn’t up to the task of understanding the thought processes of the uncommon minds that discovered useful things about the common mind. The Good News is that we now live in times where we have access to works that have been written and compiled by men and women who have kept their feet firmly on the earths’ surface and their head at the same level as the common people. The result is that we can now access powerful writings that make sense to the overloaded brains of the busy,hard working sentient beings of this Planet. Below are 3 simple ideas that you can take, understand quickly and implement into your daily life. They are solid techniques that are fun to practice and can greatly enhance the quality of your life.

Step 1 Mirroring a Person

Practice the art of Mirroring other people. Mirroring the people you talk to or find in your close environment creates rapport. When you build rapport with other people you strengthen communication with those people. To practice mirroring another person start with simple gestures. Watch how the person speaking to you uses non-verbal language to enhance the meaning of their expressions. Hand gestures are common and you can emulate the same hand gestures and facial expressions in conversations. Be reasonable about it. Avoid being obvious. Notice that if you are sincere and especially if you begin to mirror at the beginning of a conversation, your conversational partner will accept that they are your gestures. Remember that to mirror a person means to reflect their body language accurately. That means that if they raise their right hand to their face and you mirror this, your left hand will be raised. Just like in a mirror. When you mirror successfully the other person will identify with you and be less defensive. Mirroring is fascinating because you will get great results with a simple technique. Body language is complex and can be perceived as being the slightest movement or twitch in a persons body. The slight twitch of an eye means something in conversation. Which way did it move,left or right? Practice makes perfect and that leads to mirroring becoming an automatic response that can pick up the most minute details of language.

Step 2 Look into their Eyes

The eyes are the Windows of the Soul. Study peoples eye movements. Learning to notice where they place their eyes during conversation will help you to accurately anticipate what is about to be said and from where in the Brain the language is coming from. Imagine, You ask a person a question about their past experiences. You expect them to use their memory to recall something. When they think, their eyes should move to the left which is memory recall mode. Whilst they relate that experience to you , observe how their eyes will probably flick to the left quite often and occasionally, they will go right, right is constructing an idea. When this happens it is simply that they are filling in gaps of memory with what they think probably happened in the past. White lies to complete the story. Ask a friend to recall a memory and watch what happens. Then tell the friend what you are doing, namely observing memory recall through eye movement. You would think that he could out-wit you, he can’t because the reflex movements are so ingrained.

Step 3 Anchoring

To Deepen Rapport while in conversation you can use a technique called “anchoring”. You may find yourself in a satisfying conversation with a business partner or prospect who is beginning to open up to you. To strengthen rapport you could ask them to relate an interesting experience to you about something that is in context with the conversation. While they talk, listen precisly to what they are saying. Observe their body language and watch how it changes as they near the most enjoyable part of what they are telling you. They are experiencing emotional intensification as they speak. At that moment react to them with an invented signal of the hand or face. Make it something that doesn’t distract attention. You may want to raise your hand with only three fingers extended and the little finger bent into the palm. This helps you remember the position, lay your hand against your chest in a specific position. Do it naturally.You may find it good to practice alone beforehand. Do this exactly at the point when you observe hightened emotional expressions in the speaker. This will act as an Anchor. The speaker has noted it as part of the emotional experience and it is connected with his story,unconsciously. If you then return to your original business chat and during the conversation use the anchor signal when discussing important points or trying to close the deal, you will find that the other person will be more open and willing to agree and may even express glee at signing your contract. This is because the anchor will elicite feelings associated with the enjoyable story they told earlier. You may want to try these techniques. Practice them and then let me know how much success you had. Your comments are most welcome on this site and you may also wish to receive Free updates by using the email form in the top right corner. Sean

Personal Development and Being Yourself

personal development

May 302010

Personal development is about discovering the Best Person you can be. It isn’t about turning Yourself into something that you think you should be.

The most important aspect of Self Development is to find out who you are. When you discover things about yourself and see how good they are and how interesting it is to learn about yourself, you will be in a better position to define yourself with the qualities that you desire to have.

It’s no good just grabbing at ideas about Personal Development and thinking that you can attribute them to yourself and hope that they will stick. It doesn’t work that way. Life is a little more complex and the personality that you have is unique. Therefore self-knowledge is the all important first step to Personal Development.

The uniqueness of your Personality is the key to working with yourself and Developing your mind and spirit. by this I mean that when you know something about how you live through your conditioning and habits then you can build on them in a positive way.

Think about a particular personality trait that you possess. Something positive and helpful like your ability to emphasize with other people. You may realise that it is something you never had to work on, it’s probably a part of you due to your genuine interest in other people and how they feel about life. You’re the one that people turn to when in need of real help – because they know that your ears are open. How could you learn from this and expand on it as a character trait?

Well, think about the associated actions involved in empathy. It means that you are a listener,a person who as strong feelings that relate to others, you are prepared to give your advice and time to others and it means that you find people highly interesting.

These ideas lead to more associations like deepening your knowledge of people. You could investigate the idea of studying people as in psychology or therapy training. you may discover that the academic route isn’t for you but that your interest is more artistic. Therefore writing about people may interest you more. There are many paths that are associated with people where such a personality could flourish. To flourish is the result of practical Personal Development and to develop as a human being is to gain happiness.

The point is this, you must expand on your self knowledge to discover the qualities in life that you really desire. Self Development is about harnessing ideas that we desire but the ones which are good for us personally. The ones that really are building blocks in our lives.

To say that you want to be rich and famous and really mean it is okay, but it ain’t gonna happen that way. You must really want it. If you really want it then you will take the whole thing very seriously and develop your knowledge of how to become rich and famous. Study the subject that will be your vehicle to wealth. Understand what fame means to you and why you want it. These are the things to study, they will tell you things about yourself and your motivations in life. When you understand your motivations then you will know what it is that you must Develop personally.

The keys to understanding the self lie in your own actions. How you live your life and what you do. Your actions are the expression of your soul. Every time you act, you strengthen the idea of that action which becomes habit and eventually it becomes second nature. You live the action without thought. That’s an example of how you can develop qualities that you desire. By seeking out similar people to yourself and observing them and their habits you will see that they possess certain qualities. Their characters are built on solid habits that are core to their person. You can elicit characteristics that appeal to you from these people. You must only know that it is really desirable to yourself , that it is suitable for your personality and motivations in life.

Self development is a habit in itself. By practicing this habit of self observation and gaining self knowledge through actions we will see what is missing from the puzzle and be able to slowly but surely be able to piece together the puzzle of life and with to develop our personalities to become happier, wealthier and caring people.