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The Secrets of Vocal Influence are the cornerstones that
everything else sits upon. Your voice is your most powerful tool. It is also the
one that is most commonly overlooked. That is why it is the very first thing we
work on at the Essential Skills Accelerated Seminar.
- Find your natural voice
- Speak with power and influence
- Lead with confidence and emotion
One of the things that Kim and I noticed very early on in our
studies of NLP, hypnosis and other stuff, is that at the seminars that we
attended it seemed that the one problem that was the most common was the use of
tonality. People seem to be so focused on being clever that they took no time at
all to work on the quality and content of their voice. The result was that
people were either mimicking someone else or were sounding like they had a
speech impediment. Neither is advisable for everyday conversation and
influence.
There are three aspects of vocal influence.
The first is the actual sound of your voice. Everyone has
their natural voice but many people do not use it. Your natural voice is a voice
that you use when three things come into alignment. The first is your physical
body. That is your posture and body positioning. Second is your breathing. Third
is your projection. When these three mechanical things come into alignment
you're on your first step speaking with a vocal influence.
The second is the quality. This includes the ability to use
emotion and inflection. Asking questions that are not really questions but our
commands structured as questions is a powerful tool. If the first half of the
sentence has question tonality it opens up an unconscious door. The second half
of the sentence becomes a command that slides straight into that unconscious
doorway. Making statements in a question tonality induces doubt and opens up
possibilities. Taking an emotionally charged thought and repeating it as a
statement without emotion can take the charge out of it.
Learning to empower your words with emotion can make
playfulness actually sound playful. Can make intensity, intense. It can make
relaxation truly relaxing. Learning to speak in this manner is essential when
eliciting states. If you can't demonstrate the emotion and lead with that
emotion tonally, it's going to be much more difficult for you to influence
others.
Third, is the vocabulary of influence. That means the actual
use of embedded commands and ambiguities. In embedded command is a command that
is marked out to the unconscious mind in a way that is NOT obvious. You can mark
out in embedded command several ways. You can mark it out with volume, time or
physically. These need not be exaggerated. They're supposed to be subtle and
undetectable. More importantly he should not be able to distinguish them from
normal conversation.
When learned properly vocal influence sounds like normal
conversation. It has no similarity to what Kim calls the dreaded hypnovoice. Yes
that probably works fine in a therapeutic situation. Most people I find do not
want to become therapists. They want become influential.
Vocal influence is the foundation that everything else is
built upon. Inducing trance without control of your voice is very difficult.
Leading people's imaginations is almost impossible without control of your
tonality.
This is a very first thing we teach in the Essential Skills
Accelerated Seminar will be conducted on October 7-10 in New York 2004. Over the
next four days Kim and I will be giving many examples of using the skills. You
will be giving many exercises that require them. The best way to learn is by
using the skills. That accelerates learning process in a safe environment where
feedback is available.
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