Sleight of Mouth – Model Of The World Frame
That’s An Interesting Way Of Looking At Things
Conversational reframes are great way to covertly invite your listener to “think outside the box” when facing an objection or limiting belief.
The Sleight of Mouth Language Patterns are specific verbal strategies to use conversational reframes skillfully so any objection, obstacle, or limiting belief you come across doesn’t stand a chance.
The pattern for today is “Model Of The World Framing.” This is based on the idea that “The Map Is Not The Territory.” This truism from NLP holds a lot of weight, and deserves some attention.
We humans move through the world, and collect information through our five senses. Every idea, every thought, every fear about the future or feelings of the past are created with memories involving these five senses.
However, something happens in between the world “outside” and our representation of that world that is constructed in our brains from that sense information.
The data is distorted, deleted, and generalized. This is necessary, since our conscious minds can only handle a few bytes of information a second, but the amount of information constantly being presented to our fives senses runs in the millions or even billions of bytes per second. Our brain has to make some hard choices, and make them in real time.
So what happens?
Our brains are filled up with interpretations of what we really think is “out there.” And these interpretations are often generated by the meaning we give to events. However, most of us don’t see things that way. We don’t feel as if we give meaning to events, we feel as if we discover meaning in events.
By using this particular pattern, the Model of The World Pattern, we invite the listener to question their interpretation of certain events.
Simply by labeling their belief, which they likely assume is absolute set in stone truth, as merely a “model of the world,” it gives them some mental wiggle room to come up with some different interpretations of the same events.
Some ways to help them along these lines is to give some examples of others who see the same events, but don’t draw the same conclusions. Another way is to carefully find out how long they’ve held that particular model. Yet another way is to ask who they learned that particular model from. Speaking in these terms, it makes their belief or objection seem much more pliable and easy to shift around until they find something more resourceful.
Other ways are to use words like “seem, appear, feels like, etc.” to give the belief or objection a subjective frame, rather than a frame of absolute truth.
Some examples.
I can’t get a good job because I don’t have a college degree.
That’s an interesting way of looking at things. I’m sure it seems like that right now. Do other people believe the same thing? Do most people that don’t have good jobs that have college degrees believe that? How about people that have good jobs, but don’t have a college degree, what about them? What do you suppose they believe?
I’ll never fall in love because I’m too fat.
You feel like you won’t ever meet somebody if you are overweight? Have you always believed that? Can you remember a time when you didn’t believe that? Do you remember who you learned that from? There are plenty people that are overweight, and happily married. What do you think they feel about finding a partner while being overweight?
My friend is angry at me because she didn’t return my phone call.
Yea, it sucks when somebody doesn’t call you right back. Has that always meant that she was angry with you? Can you remember a time when you knew she wasn’t angry and she still didn’t call you back? What about others? Do other people’s friends not calling them back mean they are angry with them, or could it mean something else? What if you called somebody you didn’t know, and they didn’t call you back, would that mean they were angry with you?
Learning these patterns is difficult. I’ll never be able to use these conversationally.
I met this guy who happens to be a sales rep other night at my Toastmasters club. He said he learned these patterns several years ago, and he’s been easily making six figures ever since. He said this was the best time investment he’d ever made, even more so that his formal college degree. I wonder if he thinks these patterns are difficult and too complicated to use conversationally.
An easy way to practice this pattern is to simply look at things, and practice giving them different meanings. Or find something you think is absolutely true (like ‘math is hard,’ or ‘it’s tough to make money in a down economy’), and find three or four different people (as different from you as possible) and try and guess what they believe regarding this.
Another way is to practice is on Internet forums, where the topics of discussion are easily flammable, like politics, religion, etc. Find some beliefs that people state relatively clearly, and practice using this pattern, either on paper, or actually posting to that particular forum.
Practicing this pattern on your own beliefs will give you an incredible amount of mental flexibility that can serve you very well throughout your entire life, so take some time to get familiar with this.
