"Simply breathe - deeply and often, and whatever you do, don't stop breathing!" --Cheryl Lynne Rubbo Obviously, we all breathe. In this exercise, you're going to take credit for someone doing this very basic biological function. It's a persuasion tool that can determine how deeply you are in rapport with someone and help to deepen rapport from the start.



When we use pacing and leading with our prospects, we are understanding that the part of the mind we're going after is absolutely childlike. It's literal. It does precisely what it's told. By issuing directives, embedded commands, instructions as if we were drill sergeants, we are speaking with authority to a place in their minds that thrives on being ordered.

The unconscious is not an intelligent, thinking thing. It's more of a reactive, just do it, kind of response. A friend of mine, a massage therapist, once told me that when she wants her clients to take a deep breath, she doesn't say, 'take a deep breath', she actually takes a very deep, audible breath and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the client will follow this lead.

If you're in deep enough rapport with someone and you say in the course of the conversation, 'Breathe', they'll breathe. This is another way of checking rapport. You might just say, 'You know, one of my clients said to me, (pause, lower your tone) just breathe.' And watch them. I imagine your results with this will be the same as with the massage therapist's results.

The nice thing about this directive is that if you watch for ten seconds, most everybody is going to breathe. They will either breathe and continue living, or they will go against your directive and die. The latter option is unlikely. And when they do take that next breath, you can simply say, 'Yes. Just like that.' This deepens rapport and has the added benefit of a really deep breath.

Embedded commands and hidden directives can be immediate or time released. These commands have the capacity of being repeatedly recalled by our prospects and clients so that when another conscious deep breath occurs, they will link it back to you.

Because you said 'breathe', this all comes back to you. Look for additional ways to do that from time-to-time. For anybody who wants a challenge, look for other self-fulfilling prophesies that have to be carried out and which you can then take credit for. If you come up with some good ones, post them to www.maxpersuasion.com/blog.