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Everything Happens For A Reason
Last week I got a call from an acquaintance of mine. He said, 'Remember that conversation we had about Africa a few weeks ago? Well, I just checked my e-mail and you won't believe it. I won an international lottery originating in Africa. You know, I'm just convinced everything happens for a reason, don't you think?'
Last week I got a call from an acquaintance of mine. He said, ‘Remember that conversation we had about Africa a few weeks ago? Well, I just checked my e-mail and you won’t believe it. I won an international lottery originating in Africa. You know, I’m just convinced everything happens for a reason, don’t you think?’
I thought for a few moments and I responded, ‘You know, I think you’re right. Everything does happen for a reason and really it’s a good thing that we’re talking right now.’ I went on to explain that I personally win probably three or four international lotteries a day and none of them are real.
I got to thinking about this conversation and I realized that people look for supporting evidence for what they want in their environment. In this case, here he was remembering our conversation, then he received an e-mail talking about winning a lottery from Africa and somehow he kind of put two and two together in a way that didn’t add up. That’s when he began talking about everything happening for a reason.
Unfortunately, I had to burst the bubble in order to keep him safe, but the point of it is why did he use that language? This language pattern is going to knock your socks off and enable you to influence and persuade in a very deep and profound way.
People are looking for supporting evidence for themselves and what they want in their environment because we’re living in an unstable world. In order to balance this instability, people turn to religion, they turn to God, they turn to spirituality, they become more and more superstitious.
As I explain this pattern to you, please understand, my goal is to break things down in a way that gives us tremendous power with our language, our words and persuasion, and in so doing, help you to have more success in your life. That’s my purpose in this discussion. If you don’t believe in God, or you’re not a spiritual person, my point is not to influence you towards or away from anything except towards a language pattern or away from not being as successful as you like, that you’ll be able to use these patterns for your benefit and for the benefit of your clients.
When I told my acquaintance that ‘everything does happen for a reason’ I was implying and alluding to something much more than what he understood had happened. I said, ‘It’s a good thing we are talking because. . .’ This sets the stage for me to have an entry point into his mind, and I was able to explain the difficulty he might have faced if he were to move forward with this lottery e-mail he received.
As persuaders, we can give people the supporting evidence they are looking for. These language patterns are powerful and very popular in our current cultural lexicon.
Here’s an example of where and how to use this: say you’re an adviser and you have a potential client or prospect who says something very positive like, ‘It’s lucky that I’m talking with you because . . . ‘ This is an excellent entry place for this pattern. Simply respond, ‘Absolutely. I completely agree. You know, there are no accidents and everything happens for a reason.’
Is this a stretch? I don’t think so. No matter what our belief system this seems to work. If you think of it this way, everything does happen for a reason—it’s just a matter of whether or not you like the reason.
No language pattern is an island and our goal as persuaders is to layer pattern upon pattern and these patterns piece together a deeper sense of reality when you do this right, what you’re going to be doing is using all sorts of these patterns at high speed.