A Users Guide To Mind Hacking The Reptilian Brain

There has been a wonderful shift of focus in my wife recently and it is something I am thrilled about. For a long time now she has yearned for something of her own, something that isn't me, and with the best will in the world, isn't our two children. The project that has sparked this shift in focus is network marketing and her enthusiasm has consequently drawn my attention, for comparably different reasons however.  My wife has found something she can invest her energy and abilities into while simultaneously exercising her zest to socialise and make new connections with like minded people. It is not-so-much a monetary goal which has sparked her enthusiasm, it is more the sense of belonging and identity which has channeled her focus.

I thought perhaps I might write her a short blog on something I am confident and knowledgeable in, which is in it's simplest terms - people; how they think and how to get the best results from their resources within. This blog can be universally translated for anyone wanting to understand how to firstly attain, and then maintain, results when working with other 'humans'.

I am a certified trainer of NLP & hypnosis and performance coach and who works with many elite international athletes including world & olympic champions,  successful entrepreneurs, award winning CEO's & company directors. I also work with every kind of person imaginable from people wanting to lose weight, find confidence or conquer fears; and everything in-between. I do this work by understanding how the human mind works and teaching my clients to leverage this incredible muscle between their ears to achieve.

With this in mind I thought about compiling my top 5 'mind hacks' everyone should know about how to leverage the mind and how to understand the minds of others - namely people participating in the consummatory act of buying.

The important consideration and thought is - you need not be a brain surgeon to have a working a knowledge of how the brains functions, I certainly am not!

1. Know which parts of the brain makes decisions. The frontal part of our outer brain, called the frontal cortex was the last part to develop around 2 million years ago. This happened once we learnt to cook food allowing calorific energy to be transferred from our intestines to our brain, subsequently from this development we were able to invent language and imagined spirits such as the mythical Peugeot god. The curious thing about humans are atrophic by nature (not naturally muscular), we don't invest in strength we invest in brain power. We sit below the middle of the food pyramid but without doubt are the planet deadliest predators. This is the reason we have been able to ascent to the pinnacle of natures pyramid, because we are (allegedly) the smartest creatures but by no means the strongest. Like a government diverting its funding from defence to education we were able to grow our brains utilising the increased access to calories diverted from our digestive system. This 'new' part of the brain is our logical, academic, deliberate and rational thinking brain. This does not make the all of the decisions however, the old parts of the brain (reptilian brain & limbic brain) can and do make these decisions before the neocortex is even given access to the information. The world we experience through our 5 senses first passes through the reptilian & limbic brains so they monopolise the first thoughts in any decision. In the process of selling we often focus on convincing the buyers thinking brain when we should be convincing the reptilian brain. The result is the reptilian brain sends signals which intuitively turns the person off, worse still it may even flood the right amygdala with hormones to instigate a flight of fight response. The two amygdala's we all have play apposing roles, one is linked to positive emotions the other to negative emotions. Often it is suggested that the right amygdala is linked to negative emotions, if your product ends up here you will never convince the buyer!

The key to engaging the 'croc' brain is to tell a story and not rely on data and facts, simple as this sounds stories engage and draw people in at a deeply unconscious level. If a picture paints a thousand words then a story paints a thousand pictures. Think of all the greatest public speakers in the world and the narrative of their speeches is filled with stories, metaphors, analogies and similes; they do this for a reason. Stories sell, facts tell.

2. Perception is Projection. How you perceive yourself internally and how you project yourself externally are linked at an unconscious level. If you are internally passionate and 'believe' in what you are communicating then the people you are communicating with will 'buy' into you. Conversely what we recognise outside ourselves is what we truly are inside, otherwise how would we know how to verbalise experience? So if you're often annoyed by a certain person or behaviour then in reality you're annoyed because at an unconscious level you display the same behaviours and it frustrates you internally. In my experience people buy into people, thats the primary reasons for the variation in results within any business. Consider for a moment some of the people in your field of expertise who are achieving fantastic results, then consider what they're perceiving inside and what they're projecting outwards. My guess is with every fibre of their soul they believe in their product or project, the benefits and also the ecology of what they are doing? If you self-doubt and inwardly lack confidence in your message, the projection outwards will be entirely congruent with your internal representation. Humans are very intuitive beings, it is how we have survived and adapted over millions of years. This sixth sense, or 'gut feeling', which picks up the millions of pieces of information away from our conscious awareness at a deeper unconscious level.

Fundamentally if you're not congruent with your internal perception you should work on becoming positively congruent before projecting yourself externally. Every conversation should be an opportunity to develop your positive projection and progress your mindset towards the future, do not think you can chat freely about your reservations with your closet friends and then not communicate this message at an unconscious level when it matters with potential customers. 

3. Patterns are paradox. We are creatures of repetition and find great comfort in the presence of familiarity. Consider for a moment any training courses you have participated in, you will know that the place chosen on the first day will be the place chosen for each day of the course. Likewise, when entering any social gathering we will immediately look for familiar people to interact with initially because of our desire to establish safety in numbers. As with much of what I study this an ancestral self-preservation strategy, we are safer in numbers and these 'numbers' are identified with familiarity, hence the comfort in patterns. This is why you have a certain positive internal representation (+IR) when you see an old friend and likewise you might have the same +IR sat comfortably on your couch on a cold December morning when the Christmas Coca Cola advert appears for the first time of the festive season. There is a paradox associated with patterns though. For example if their has been a multitude of adverts on your potential customers Facebook news feed they may have developed a negative internal representation (-IR) of your product. With this in mind the first sight of the product will trigger the Reptilian Brain to flood the amygdala with fight or flight hormones. They may feel angered and resentful followed by a desire to, at best skip past the advert and at worst delete the person from their FB, this is a Reptilian Brain survival reaction.  

Make your patterns something of real pleasure, intrigue and interest to your potential customers. Laziness is mimicking the industry norms and replicating success, humans are very intuitive of such techniques. Try and be the person who immediately excites by originality, thus engaging the Reptilian Brain when your posts appear on FB news feeds. This can take the form of engaging info graphs, cartoons,  feel good stories and relevant & interesting educational content not directly related to the product. Motivational quotes are good when they're carefully considered with a call to action (CTA) question which engages social interaction. Adopt the pattern of quality over the regurgitated pattern of quantity. 

4. Be proactive (professionally-active) & Use Pareto's 80/20 Rule. It's too easy to be a busy fool, especially online. I teach the art of the deliberate to my clients, with this mindset you act deliberately, you are measured and focused with your approach. All social media releases can be scheduled for the entire week at peak traffic times, this can be done with 1 hours work on a free evening. I use Buffer to release across all my platforms blending intelligent video content from YouTube, motivational quotes that are relevant to my audience and contain a CTA, personal blogs, interesting articles etc. Added to the interesting articles I encourage you to make short videos using your own YouTube channel then pasting the link onto social media. Short videos are hugely engaging and certainly yield many more views than written or even  pictorial content. Once agin these can be added to Buffer and released periodically. By using these tools I am able to redistribute my time into other areas to support my business and in doing this apply Pareto's Rule of 80/20. This equates 80% of your success will come from 20% of your time investment, the importance is in recognising which 20% and focusing. The principles of using the art of the deliberate apply to athletes, online entrepreneurs, business men & women as well as network marketers.

Invest time don't spend it. Examine your time and how you invest it, developing the art of the deliberate will empower you in all areas of your life. Research ways to automate, outsource or streamline workload. There are too many social media hacks to list here but some of the best which should be researched are, Buffer or Tweet Deck, Snip.ly, Mail Chimp (releasing monthly news letters) and the many outsourcing websites available. 

5. Understand your RAS. Your Reticular Activating System (RAS) is the google search bar inside your brain. It filters the information received from your 5 senses and distributes to the different outer parts of the brain. Have you ever noticed that negative people are able to generate and abundance of evidence to support their negative mindset, conversely how positive people do likewise with theirs? Every time you insert a thought into your RAS it searches your brain for all available data to understand the experience you're having. One of the fundamental components to achieving a positive mindset is to fill your RAS with positivity; you are what you think. Much of the work I do is reconditioning the RAS of my clients, often I find that people who suffer with low confidence and even depression have a google search bar full of bad content, hence searches in the brain yield those results.

This works on two levels, both for yourself and your customers. When possible you should operate from a RAS of excellence, likewise you should be mindful that unfortunately many people have a negative RAS; added to this they are unaware of their RAS and it's role in patterns of thinking. Through positive coaching clients can turn their RAS into a force of positive energy. When a person feels positive they are more energised and consequently far more likely to maintain their commitment which will in turn yield the results they desire.  

These are some of the techniques I teach my clients which helps them realise their potential. My clients expect to achieve results and I am judged on those results. The reason I have complete faith in meeting this demand is I understand how to leverage the human mind, which is more powerful than any computer made by the mind of a human. Developing this winning mindset takes time, energy and most importantly consistency.

Thinking how to win is the precursor for actualising it?

phil.quirk@hbp-training.com
www.hbp-nlp.com