It takes willpower to use the language of agreement

When I am training NLP workshops and courses, I ask people to do two simple exercises to build agreement. In one exercise, I ask that they have a conversations where they start everything they say with a form of Yes. No matter what their partner just said, they have to say yes before they reply. In the second exercise, they have to begin by repeating exactly a few words that their partner has just said.

It's hard to imagine a simpler language pattern. When you want to build agreement, show that by saying a form of yes every time you speak. When you want to build connection, show that you are connecting by repeating something you heard before you change or add to it. These two language patterns have the power to change how people respond to you. They are 100% reliable.


So what happens? People forget. They can either say yes or they can have a meaningful conversation, but they find it hard to do both. They can repeat back words or they can have their own thoughts, but they struggle to weave the two together. This is as true for accomplished sales professionals as it is for people who have never been trained in language or scripts. The brain leaps so quickly to what it identifies as the next point that it is hard for the tongue not to leap with it. 

Language that builds connection and agreement takes willpower. It involves continually focusing on the result you want from your language instead of the meaning you are trying to represent. It requires that you give up trying to be right in favour of trying to get results.

This is why quick trainings in complicated language patterns are seldom effective. A quick training allows you to encounter language, but not to condition yourself to use it when you need it to get a result. That takes skills in outcome formation and self-management. And it takes practice.

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