How to Influence Your Moods and Influence Others

Have you heard of the saying, ‘What is in the inside shows on the outside’?
This is true with Influence & Sales as well.

Internal feelings impact influence

How you feel on the inside AT THAT MOMENT makes a world of difference in your communication. Think of it this way: people unconsciously can and will pick up on an ongoing basis every emotion that you are feeling internally when you are communicating with them. And they will attach a meaning to that based on the context of the ongoing situation. Even if the cause of your emotion and the ongoing situation are not connected!

What could be the impact of this?

Think about a scenario where you just had a bad argument and it is still somewhere lingering in your consciousness. For example: You walk into a very important meeting. A meeting where you want your influence skills at its best! And you are into it fully and the other person is speaking. And suddenly your mind begins to drift, and you drift to the incident that happened just moments ago. You are remembering that unpleasant stuff. And your emotions drift with you. You are feeling the ‘negative’ set of emotions you felt during the previous conversation, not fully, but just fragments of it. And when all this is going on, the other person is picking up non-verbal clues unconsciously and intuitively and/or consciously recognizes that you are not in the best of your emotional states.  The other party perceives this as mixed signal and makes a decision influenced by this.

vs

Another scenario where you just had a bad argument. And you walk into this important meeting. And when you are there, you are fully focused on what the other person is saying. You are thinking of the possibilities of what is going on in the room. You are curious, excited, and super convinced and super sure of whatever you are proposing and purely so. Purely as in, there are no mixed feelings. In addition to the logical progress, you are also now connecting with the other person on an emotional basis. The other person then picks the non-verbal clues and perceives this as complete agreement to both what you are saying and the their intentions. And then make a decision influenced by this.

Which one of the two scenarios would you like to choose for you?

Which States of Mind are useful?

This is a tricky question. Because all States of Mind are useful given the right context. So, for this purpose, I would classify them as ‘useful’ or ‘not useful’ in a context as against ‘positive’ or ‘negative’.

For example: If you are dealing with someone and everything looks just fine on the outside. But your intuition is warning you of something that you have not consciously recognized yet. Fear is a damn good emotion for that context.

Let’s do the following:

1. Think of some situations where anger is very useful for you
2. Think of some situations where peace is very useful for you
3. Think of some situations where fear is very useful for you
4. Think of some situations where courage is very useful for you
5. Think of some situations where doubt is very useful for you
6. Think of some situations where confidence is very useful for you
7. Think of some situations where laziness is very useful for you
8. Think of some situations where super-charged emotions are very useful for you

So, the trick is to be respectful to your own ‘useful’ emotions in any given context. And ask the question, “How is this emotion useful?”

It helps us to understand the purpose of the 1000s of emotions and states of mind that we shift through everyday but not as much as giving the freedom for the unconscious to pick the right pure state of mind based on the moment and based on continuous feedback from the outside world (from the billion bits of information we process every millisecond unconsciously).

Letting the Unconscious Choose the Right State of Mind

This is one of New Code NLP’s contribution to the world! This is what the founders of NLP mastered. Thanks to Dr. John Grinder for documenting the importance of it as well as developing systematic ways of doing it with New Code NLP.

The ability to be ‘in the zone’ where there is a continuous shift of states, just like dancing. Now, these states are picked by the unconscious based on the following:

1. Your ability to get into a state of mind where there is no internal conscious processing. This is technically called uPtime and recently known as the Know-Nothing State.
2. Your current choice of states. The states of mind and emotions that you have acquired in your lifetime until now.
3. Knowing the consequences of shifting to specific states of mind (unconsciously based on feedback) as well as the boundary conditions where a shift is critical.

I recommend reading Turtle all the Way Down (Prerequisite to Personal Genius) by Dr. John Grinder and Judith Delozier for 2 and 3.

This article is on achieving the ability to go uPtime on demand.

Getting uPtime On Demand

uPtime is the state of mind where all your attention is on the outside. This allows for quality sensory-based feedback (eyes, ears, smells, skin, and taste) , giving you the opportunity to be in the most useful pure state for any given moment. The term was first described in ‘Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D.’ by Dr. John Grinder and Dr. Richard Bandler.

This section is for those who may not have had NLP training yet. If you are trained on NLP, I would like you to go one step ahead and program yourself ahead of time for uPtime. If you are already trained on new code NLP, just do any of the New Code game properly to achieve this. If you are trained on NLP but not on New Code NLP, you can use patterns like chaining anchor to achieve this and when you do remember to repeat and test for generalization.

So, what I am going to share here is a very simple technique and a very effective technique for momentary shift of attention to an uPtime state. Since I have a baseline from my NLP experiences of uPtime (know-nothing) states, I have tested practices from various art forms like Yoga, Martial Arts, and Music, and I have borrowed some practices from them to do.

Following are some simple and effective ways of going uPtime:

1. Drop your tongue to the floor of your mouth and maintain it there or use the tip of your tongue to touch the ceiling of your mouth.
2. If you do any of the activities like dancing, running, swimming that involved moment of your body, you may be aware of the focus state of mind you get into when you are doing the activity. All you have to do is activate what are called micro muscles that are activated when you actually do this activity. And you will get the same state of mind. And to do this, all you may have to do is assume you are doing the same activity right now. Do not move, but just be aware of the muscles that are getting activated. With practice, you can just think of the activity and you will get into the uPtime state.
3. Take three long breaths within and leave a pleasant aaaaahhhhh sound when you breath out slowly. Do this three times. A Master Hypnotist I know bought a device that measures brain waves. He ran a series of tests  in which he conducted a set of inductions and measured the states of mind: Alpha, Beta, Theta, and so on. And he found there are hundreds of complex hypnotic inductions, but what got anyone to go into a deep state of focus quickly was three long breaths as they exhale with a pleasant aaaaahhhhhh sound slowly.
4. Just decide to be in uPtime. For some gifted people this just does the trick.
5. Sit or stand such that your center of gravity is on your stomach. This is not the same as broadening your chests and artificially pulling your shoulders backward. This is rather a position that feels the most comfortable for you naturally. As though there is no effort necessary to sit. Play with your body. Make some minor adjustments in the way you sit and calibrate for yourself which one forces your attention fully on the outside with no internal conscious thoughts. For some, imagining a line that is connecting the head all the way to the solar plexus and all the way to the ground through your body can do the trick. You can explore more of this if you like by reading ‘Awareness Through Movement’ by Moshe Feldenkrais, the author of the popular Elusive Obvious.

Initially, the uPtime experience can feel very different and may also seem uncomfortable. This is true about anything new that we do. It may appear like your flow of words is interrupted. With practice, you will learn to trust your unconscious as well as enjoy the experience fully.

Programming Ahead of Time

Remember, all these are ways to momentarily get into uPtime states on demand when you recognize your brain is drifting in different directions and not paying attention to what is going on fully. What will really be good is if you can program yourself ahead of time. I doubt if I can deliver to the latter in a written article. However, there is a very old post, something that I wrote two years ago about a pattern called Breath of Life. Breath of Life is a new code pattern designed by Dr. John Grinder. You may find that useful to program yourself ahead of time for going ‘uPtime’, although it is not the same as having the real experience.

The other thing that may work for you is if you repeat this often enough and quick successions, your brain may pattern it. You can also alternatively schedule a 2-hour session with me for peak performance. I will accept the proposal if you come in as a group of 8 at the same time. All requests can be sent to [email protected]

If you are already trained on New Code NLP, just do the Alphabet Game – Properly and in the Correct  Sequence!

This single ability, the ability to go uPtime during important moments, in you can transform the way you can influence anyone in any form of communication.

The article you just read is a series of articles on using NLP for Sales & Influence. You can find the first article on this series by clicking this link.