Sleight of Mouth – Ecology Framing
Whatever Works For You…
Sleight of Mouth is without question the most powerful set of linguistic skills to conversationally destroy objections and obliterate limiting beliefs, oftentimes with your listener unaware of what just hit them.
Today’s pattern is called the “Ecology Frame.” Basically it invites the listener to examine whether or not the particular belief or objection is going to be beneficial for them in long run. It’s deceptively simple to generate, and can have some profound effects on your listener.
Most people assume their beliefs and objections are “out there” in reality, and set in stone. Just by speaking of them in terms of useful or not useful, it can create a feeling of choice with respect to their previously rigid beliefs and objections.
Most don’t even consider that they have the option to adjust their beliefs to produce a more resourceful outlook, so this pattern can bring some refreshing introspection in your listeners.
The way to use this pattern is fairly simple. Just take their belief or objection at face value, speak of it in terms of something they’ve chosen, and wonder out loud if it’s helpful or not to continue to believe this.
So let’s take an example, somebody that says, “It’s too hard to get up and exercise every morning.”
(being difficult causes me to not be able to do it)
First of all, accept their belief, but speak about it in “choice” language:
- So you’ve decided that getting and working out is too difficult?
- How long have you felt that way?
- How long since you’ve made that decision?
- Have you always felt that way?
- When did you choose to feel that way?
- What affected this decision?
Then wonder about the future, and how this belief will either help them or hold them back.
That’s interesting. You’ve said before that you want to get in shape, does thinking that it’s too hard to get up in the morning support your goals of fitting into that dress by summer time? If it doesn’t, have yo thought of a different way that will compensate for this?
Simply by speaking of the belief in these terms, and posing the questions this way will force them to think of their beliefs as personal decisions, rather than something imposed on them by the gods above.
This, of course, will give them the mental wiggle room to not only reevaluate their decision, but to start to see beliefs as actual choices that have consequences, rather than arbitrary truths about reality.
A great pattern to use with this is the Criteria and Values pattern. By showing them their chosen belief will give them something other than what they are trying to achieve, it can have a powerful additive effect (like chocolate and peanut butter).
Some more examples.
I can’t get a job because I don’t have a college degree.
Well, obviously you’d like a good job. I wonder if thinking that you need a college degree will help you or hurt you in the long run. Do you feel more positive about your future if you imagine a big roadblock ahead keeping you from the good stuff because of your lack of education? How does your future look if you imagine that you don’t need a college degree to get a good job?
I can’t get a date because I’m overweight.
That’s an interesting way to look at things. If you were at a party, and you saw an attractive person that smiled at you from across the room, does thinking that make it easier or harder to go and talk to them? What would happen if you thought the opposite? Which would you rather choose as your default belief pattern?
I can’t learn these patterns because they are too difficult and complicated.
Yea, lots of people feel that way. Does thinking they are difficult make it seem easier to learn them? I met this guy once that would always decide things were easy to learn before he learned them, so he could learn them easier. He learned a lot, and I’m wondering if that may be a better way to look at things. What do you think?
I could never use these patterns in a normal conversation, it would seem to awkward.
Yea, I can understand that point of view. If you had an opportunity to use one of these patterns, does thinking that it would feel awkward make it seem easier or harder to actually use them? What would happen if you thought it would be fun to use them, how would make you feel?
As The Bard Hath Spake:
“Nothing is good or bad, but our thinking makes it so.”
