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Powerful Persuasion--Eliciting Peak Emotional States with Music

By: Kenrick Cleveland

We've all had this experience: a song comes on the radio and we're transported back to a time and place ten, fifteen, twenty years ago or longer. Maybe it was a song that reminded us of a time when we were struggling through a broken heart, or maybe it was just the opposite, the soundtrack for our first true love.

As you listen to that song, you drift back in your memory to that first date, the first time you held hands, the first kiss. . .

I was about sixteen years old when I met my first wife. The song 'Twenty-five or Six to Four' by Chicago was popular at the time. When that song comes on the radio still, to this day, I'm transported back to my new Toyota Celica GT, driving through the Columbia Gorge off to my girlfriends house, full of excitement that I was going to be able to spend time with her. When I put myself in the memory, I'm driving east on 84. The car smells new. Chicago is playing on the radio. I'm full of anticipation and power and a thrill to be alive.

That was over thirty years ago and it's crystal clear. And I'm taken back by a song.

Do you have an 'our song'? That's the song where you and your significant other both hear it and go, 'oh, that's our song'. Maybe you've had one in the past. . .

What is this? And what does it have to do with persuasion?

It's called anchoring and anchoring has everything to do with persuasion. Music has the ability to put you in intense emotional states. These emotional states are connected with the stimulus of the memory. They travel through neuro-pathways of emotions and memories that words and language cannot. And sometimes music affects us so intensely that we want to share it with others, but a song that touches me deeply may not touch you as deeply. It's extraordinarily individual and powerful. Aldous Huxley said, 'After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music.' We're constantly exposed to things that we have been conditioned to react to. It's often been said that we are far more reactive than proactive. The human brain is really more on automatic pilot than it is a conscious device. We think we're conscious. We have a vested interest in thinking that. But we're really not.

Most of the things our bodies do are habitual. At our core, we do many things automatically. For example, how long or how often do you pay conscious attention to your breathing? Probably not for very long. Seconds? Minutes? You certainly don't pay attention to it twenty-four hours a day. . .when would you sleep?

For persuasion purposes, the key is to elicit emotion and move it to it's peak. Then we pair that peak emotion with a stimulus which is unique so that every time we want to elicit that peak emotion, we fire off that stimulus to remind them of that state.

Obviously we're not going to elicit our client's musical tastes, and play songs that are attached to their happy or special memories, but if you can understand this concept, you understand how anchoring works. The example of 'our song' is the concept of anchoring in a nutshell.

And, you can use this knowledge by eliciting your clients' strongest emotional states that are immediately usable for anchoring purposes and what would those be? Criteria. When a person tells you their highest criteria, it makes them emotional. They'll feel it. And when that happens, you can pair it with some unique state. It's just that simple.

Stay tuned for future articles on anchoring as one of the most important tools in your persuasion toolbox.

Article Source: Main Articles

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

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