warningspeakers

Can you imagine showing up to a workshop or
seminar, only to discover that the presenter is
using a language that you don’t understand?
Unless you speak Mandarin Chinese, listening to a
speaker using this language will be of little use in
terms of learning something new. I don’t know
about you, but in a situation like this, I would retreat
to the inner sanctuary of my mind, and engage in
mental doodling while the nonsense took place
around me……and when you’re bored to tears by
a speaker, I’ll bet that’s exactly what you do.

I’d like to talk a bit about something that’s generally
not thought of as a language per se, but has the
power to effortlessly captivate, or cause other
people to close their minds to you. Each person in
your audience has a preferred way of “listening” to
the verbal world around them. Imagine for a
moment that you have three different screens or
filters, a screen about the size of a common house
window, with a wooden paddle like handle attached.

Now, pretend that a new law requires that when
listening to others speaking, you must choose one
of the screens, pick it up by the handle, and then
hold it up in front of your face. The purpose of the
screen is to filter all of the words spoken by the
person you are listening to. Each screen serves a
different function; the first one allows only visual
related words to come through, words and phrases
like “I see what you mean”, “it was so bright”, “the
way it gleamed”, “the deepest red I had ever seen”,
etc., and blocks everything else. The second one
allows only the words that are associated with
sounds, or auditory words like “I hear what you’re
saying,” “sounds good to me” “that rings a bell”,
etc. Finally, the third screen only allows “feeling” or
what’s known as kinesthetic predicates and
phrases through, words and phrases like “ I just
need to get a grip on things” “ It felt as though a
sun was warming me right down to my bones” and
“There was just a heavy feeling in that room.”

Each person’s brain has developed the cognitive
equivalent of just such a screen, but rather than
noticing that there are several screens available,
they tend to only consciously recognize one, and
their experience of the world is then “filtered”
through that screen.
For reasons too numerous and complex to cover in
any detail in this article, each person has
developed a particular “channel” preference; they
literally feel pulled in towards you by deep feelings
of intense curiosity, when you are presenting the
content of your topic peppered with ample helpings
of the words and phrases that originate with their
“channel” preference.

I use the metaphor of “channel” intentionally. When
I am in a room that has a television, I will
immediately stop what I’m doing and direct my
attention to the television if someone pauses on
the discovery channel; the discovery channel is full
of things I’m interested in, and noticing the
discovery channel logo on the bottom of the screen
says to my brain, “Hey, this is stuff you like!” Let
the person with the remote flip to the cooking
channel, and I’m right back to my previous project; I
love to eat, and don’t mind cooking, but I’m not
exactly fired up when I hear others talk about it…..
the cooking channel is the wrong channel for
capturing my attention.

When speaking to just one person, the strategy is
simple; we listen for the preferred “channel” they
use, and then construct our message to them,
using their chosen “channel.” If for example,
someone said to me, “Jim called the other night
and he was really down. I just felt like he needed a
lift or something. You know, we just never know the
burden that others are carrying on their
shoulders.” I would reply in their obvious “channel”
preference of “feelings” or the kinesthetic mode
like this: “Oh yes, that’s heavy stuff. I mean,
sometimes we just can’t seem to grasp that we
always have others that would lend a helping hand,
and who would be glad to make our life a little
lighter.”

In the above example, the other person will feel
very connected to me and the message I deliver. If
instead, I would have said, “I see what you mean.
Look, sometimes we just don’t have a vision that
keeps us looking forward, when all we really need,
is to understand that there’s someone out their
who can brighten our day.” With a reply like this,
we might as well be from another galaxy,
neurologically speaking; it’s like a foreign language.

“That’s all fine and dandy Vince” you might be
thinking. “But not everyone in an audience is going
to have the same channel you bucket head, so
what good will this be when I’m speaking to 25-
1000 people at once, or recording an audio
program that will be listened to by thousands?” My
reply: You are exactly right….you will have people
with all of the channel preferences, so you have to
become “tri-lingual.”

As you learn to weave the words and phrases of
the three major preferences into your
presentations, you’ll find that more and more
people are leaning forward on the edge of their
seats when you speak. An example of this “Tri-
Lingual” approach of presenting would be, “So
ladies and gentlemen, as you envision a future with
the people around you that support your mission,
saying things to yourself like “it feels so good to
have so many people behind me”, you’ll see just
how good it can feel to have people telling you that
you WILL make it…..” Each of the three “channels”
has been incorporated, and much like a buffet at a
Midwest diner has something for everyone, so will
your presentations offer tasty morsels of verbal
wisdom for your audience members.

To become masterfully proficient with this skill,
think of a message you would like to deliver, and
then construct it three different times, writing it out
once for the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic
“channels.” Then, after you have reviewed the
three separate messages, blend them all into one.
Imagine a dark green, medium green, and a light
shade of green food coloring, all three blending
into the ivory white vanilla ice cream in a mixer. At
first, the three shades are visible as they begin to
swirl in the mixer, but within seconds, a lovely
gestalt has developed, and a fourth shade,
consisting of all of the previous colors, but
belonging to a new, and distinctly different “brand”
of color will evolve.

While you won’t master this skill overnight, you will
be amazed at how quickly you begin to notice the
use of the preferred “channel” words and phrases
by others. Allow this awareness to expand each
day, continually incorporating more and more of
the preferred words of others into you own content.
Don’t be too surprised if the knowledge of
“channel” preferences finds its way into your
relationships at home too. What language does
your wife speak? Your children? Your husband?
Your significant other? Once you know, you’ll be in
the position of being able to deepen those
relationships…or not. Have fun.

© Copyright 2007, Vincent Harris-All Rights
Reserved.