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The Structuring of Reality 

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." -Tom Waits

Reality has to do as much with the structure that is defined as it does with the assumptions that we make about that structure. Huh? Read that sentence a few more times. It will really make an impact.

Reality is made up as much with the structure that's defined as it does with the assumptions we make about that structure.

Your ability to persuade will skyrocket once you understand and put this one sentence to use.

This is even more powerful when it comes to words, what they imply, what they presuppose. The following truism about persuasion is something that has formed the basis of my work, even before I was able to articulate it in exactly this way: people might believe what they are told, but they'll always believe their own conclusions.

Think about it. This is important: People might believe what they are told, but they will always believe their own conclusions.

It's possible to persuade by telling someone something and having them believe you. The real power, however, is in having them conclude on their own what you want them to conclude. That is going to become a very solid belief for them. The second part of this truism is that they will form their conclusions as much from what you don't say, as from what you do.

I want you to memorize this and live by it. People might believe what they are told, but they will always believe their own conclusions and they will form those conclusions as much from what you don't say, as what you do.

A major key then is to learn how to structure what you say such that what you don't say communicates more powerfully than what you do say and makes people come to the conclusion that you want them to have on their own.

The following is a linguistic category called Spoonerisms. This illustrates the idea that people might believe what they are told but they will always believe their own conclusions. Spoonerism are often thought to be a slip of the tongue but often they are a play on words. The example of 'Go and shake a tower' might be a funny and more subtle way of saying to someone that they smell bad. When you hear 'go and shake a tower' the brain automatically fills in the statement that was unsaid, 'Go and take a shower.'

You hear the actual words I'm saying, but your brain reverses them to make sense of it.

However, you had to hear the opposite, you had to hear that, and you did it on your own. And that's what I'm saying when I say people might believe what you tell them but they will always believe their own conclusions and they will form those conclusions as much from what you don't say as what you do.

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Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent clients using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.

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