How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | Page 159

excitement.” - And then proceed to be fun, light and outgoing to help
further put the person at ease.
Start taking guesses as to how others are feeling and verbalize it. If you
are wrong they won’t remember but if you are RIGHT they will
remember for a very long time! (This is how mentalists and psychics are
still around, but that’s for a different article.)

Technique #5: Half and Half
And last but certainly not least we have the “Half and Half”- technique.
This technique is used tremendously by hypnotists and is incredibly
powerful and yet easy to pull off! Basically check this out. Psychological
studies have shown that when we agree with the first half of a statement
we automatically have to agree with the second half of it! So a classic
hypnotist induction is:
“As you sit there with your feet on the floor and your hands on the
armrest you can start to feel your eyelids becoming heavier and heavier.”
Because the person agrees with the first part (after all, they are sitting
there with their feet on the floor and their hands on the armrests- that part
is true- so it must be the second part of that statement, that the eyelids are
getting heavy- is also true and they begin to feel their eyelids getting
heavier!)
But how do you use this in real life? Well simple, when you are talking to
somebody you are trying to persuade, say something at the beginning that
is factual that they have to agree with, “You are a man with principles and
therefore you can see how good this would be for your company.”
Or my personal favorite, “You as a woman(or man), can certainly agree
with
the
fact
that
…”
By saying that at the beginning they have to agree, because nobody is
going to argue on their gender.

159