By Roy H. Williams
ONE - In the language of human persuasion, verbs are more powerful than nouns. Why is this important?
TWO - The eyes and the ears are separate organs, and the processing, storage, and retrieval of sight and sound are accomplished in completely unrelated parts of the brain. Why do you need to know this?
THREE - The three types of memory are working, declaratory and procedural. Working memory is the thought that you are thinking NOW. Declaratory memory is stored information you can recall. Procedural memory is a pattern of mental connections that trigger involuntary recall. Procedural memory is where branding occurs. Do you know how to implant a procedural memory and create a brand in the mind?
FOUR - The four types of thought are verbal, analytical, abstract and symbolic. Verbal thought is like listening to a voice in your head. Analytical thought is linear and sequential and seeks to forecast a result. Abstract thought occurs in the realm of instinct and intuition, the heart instead of the mind. Symbolic thought is by far the most powerful and is the secret of human persuasion. Do you know how to harness symbolic thought and use it to work miracles of persuasion?
I ask you these questions to help you better understand how much is still out there for you to learn. But rather than leave you hanging by the ropes of curiosity, let me give you the short answers to each of the above:
ONE - A person can do only what they have first imagined. The listener cannot imagine doing what you want until you use a verb that describes the desired action.
TWO - According to Professor Steven Pinker of the department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, “The brains of mammals, like the bodies of mammals, follow a common general plan...When a species has a noteworthy talent, it is reflected in the gross anatomy of its brain... [In human brains] the olfactory bulbs, which underlie the sense of smell, have shriveled to one third of the expected primate size (already puny by mammalian standards), and the main cortical areas for vision have shrunk proportionally as well...while the areas for hearing, especially for understanding speech, have grown to twice what a primate our size should have.” In other words, the principal neurological talent of man is that we are uniquely gifted to hear and understand speech. Now that you know this, will it affect how you choose to communicate?
THREE - Procedural memory (branding) is a product of relevance and repetition. To create a procedural memory, you must say something that matters to the listener and then keep on saying it, again and again. Most contemporary branding efforts lack sufficient repetition over an extended period of time.
FOUR - The left brain is full of doubt and suspicion, while the right brain is open and trusting. Music, metaphors, parables and similes are different forms of symbolic thought, each one creating a bridge between intuition and logic, right brain and left. Win the heart (intuitive right brain) and the mind (logical left brain) will follow. Doing it backwards just doesn’t work.
But I think maybe you already knew that.
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