Insane Frame Building
Sleight of Mouth (SOM) is a very powerful set of tools to overcome objections on a linguistic-logical level. However, they work for a lot of reasons besides the way people think they work. For example, let’s consider a very common price objection, which serves as a model in many books and courses on SOM.
Customer:
Yea, that looks good but I think it costs too much. I think I’d rather look around some more.
SOM Salesperson:
That idea will sure prove costly, if you keep shopping around you’ll miss out on this great bargain, which is only good for today. And when you realize that the more you look around, the more you’ll keep convincing yourself to spend more than you really can afford, you’d better hurry and buy this now before you run out of money!
Customer:
Wow! I didn’t think of it that way! Here’s my credit card! Charge me whatever you think is fair!
Never By The Book
Unfortunately, it rarely goes this smoothly. The problem with many NLP type linguistic tricks is if that if you only apply them to the actual words that are being used, it’s already too late. Why is this? When we humans talk, the actual words we use are really only a very small part of the message. Many estimates suggest only five to ten percent of any message is the words.
Temporal Considerations
What? We’re time traveling? Not yet. But consider this. What does it really mean that 5% (we’ll go with five just cause it’s easy to think about, the actual amount doesn’t really matter) is our words, and the rest is something else? Communication is a process. A process that is always happening. Think about the idea that you “can’t not communicate.” What does this mean?
It means if you’re sitting there reading a book with your shoulders hunched, your legs and arms crossed, and you nose a couple inches away from the book, the “message” you are communication to those around you is “don’t bother me.”
When Do Words Happen
Let’s imagine that guy up there in the price conversation. How long does a sales presentation last? Twenty minutes? An hour? Does the guy not consider the price until the very last minute? Probably not. If you’ve ever listened to a long sales presentation, the price idea has been in your mind the entire time.
Price Is Always An Issue
Even if you’ve got a pocketful of cash, the price will always be an issue. It’s really a case of do you believe you are getting something worth what you’re paying. The words, “Yea, that cost a lot” is really an expression of a much deeper anxiety, one that has been in the guy’s head before he even walked into the shop.
Surface Level Reframes Don’t Apply To Deeper Issues
So even when you use those clever reframes, unless the objection was a pure representation of the deeper issues, they won’t even address the deeper issues. So now we’ve got a couple variables that those SOM books don’t really cover.
Objections Are Solidified Before They Are Spoken
The first problem is that by the time anybody gives you an objection for any reason, it’s one they’ve been thinking about for a while. So by the time they say it, they’ve probably dug in pretty deep in their mind. Also consider that since most people aren’t comfortable saying objections out loud, by the time they do say them out loud, they’ve thought about them enough to make them very real in their mind.
Stated Objections Are Representations of Deeper Issues
Another issue is that when they say something like, “Yeah, that seems pretty expensive,” they’ve probably got a whole collection of issues that are keeping them from making the purchase. It’s just that the price issue is the easiest to say out loud. Few people would actually say something like, “Yeah, but I think that product is really a piece of junk that will fall apart in a couple of weeks, so, uh, no.”
Believe it or not, most people don’t enjoy being offensive. But since most people are also not the best communicators, they simply choose the easiest thing to say to represent the “I want to leave this conversation without making any kind of commitment” feeling that’s been building in their mind for the past few minutes.
So Why Study SOM?
The real reason to study as many SOM patterns as you can is it will significantly improve your inner game. Why would you need to build up some inner game? Consider how humans communicate. Not just the words, but beyond the words. Let’s do a couple of mental experiments.
Mental Experiment One
Imagine a movie you watched recently. A move on Netflix or Amazon or any other streaming service. One that was so horrible you turned it off after ten minutes. One of the reasons was probably that the acting was terrible. This is what it’s like when you communicate to somebody else when you have a weak frame, or weak inner game. The words are there, but the solid inner game and frame strength is not.
Mental Experiment Two
This might take some time, but come up with a good one. Think of one of your favorite movie scenes that meet the following characteristics. One, there was very little dialogue. Two it was very emotionally moving. And three, it was a standalone scene, meaning it wasn’t set up by previous scenes. Ideally something that took place in a normal setting, (street, outdoor scene) and most of the emotion was conveyed by the actor’s facial expressions or body language.
This is the kind of inner game and frame strength that doesn’t require any clever language patterns. What is inner game and frame strength? An extremely congruent set of beliefs in what you are saying. Actors get paid millions of dollars because they really get into their roles. When they look up and see a monster, even though the monster is CGI, they really put themselves in such a congruent mindset they believe the monster is really there.
What’s This Got To Do With SOM?
Let’s put this in the scenario of walking across the bar to talk to a pretty girl and get her number. You see her, and you like the way she looks, and figure you’d like to get to know her. So you walk over, and present yourself to her. In a sense, this is very much like a guy selling cars. The car salesman needs to convince the customer that the car is worth the asking price. You’ve got to convince the girl that spending time with you is worth her time.
Exchange Is Always Present
This is a hard pill to swallow, but any time any human spends time with you, they have to believe that spending time with you is better than anything else they could be doing. Which means if you walk over and ask a girl for her number, you are always trying to persuade her that your presence is worth her time and energy.
The Origin Of Frame Tests
So when she tries to poke holes in your frame, she’s really doing the same thing that customers do when they ask questions about a particular car. What’s the gas mileage? How long will these tires last? What kind of customer reviews do you have? These are all intended to make a better and more informed decision on whether the car is actually worth the asking price.
When a girl tries to test your frame, she’s doing the same thing. Only when people try to “feel out” the value of other people, we do it automatically and unconsciously. The more you believe you are worth her time, the more she’ll believe it. The same thing goes with car salesman. The more they honestly believe the car is worth the money, the easier a time they’ll have selling the car. Just like actors who have a stronger belief in what they are pretending to be going through, the more we’ll enjoy the story.
Frame Strength Is Always Subjective
If you truly believe you are worth a lot, you will present that to the world. The world is filled with people all with varying strengths of beliefs. This is why having a very strong frame is one of the most essential ingredients for any kind of success. Not the only one, but a critical one. And when it comes to human romantic relationships, it is very integral part of how women choose the men they are attracted to.
Subjective And Subconscious
But women don’t ask questions like shoppers ask about a car. Women are instinctively programmed through evolution to subconsciously sort out a guys frame. This makes your ability to create attraction in women a perfect test to measure your own frame strength. This means that if you have to wait for those questions to come up and then pull out a couple on-the-spot SOM reframes, it will be way too late.
Metaphysical Experiences
Salespeople and seducers who have spent plenty of time practicing SOM exercises usually find something pretty amazing (but won’t be so amazing once you understand why). It usually goes like this. You are a salesperson, and you keep getting sales objections that you can’t overcome, and lose your money. Then you go home and practice plenty of SOM responses. Once you are so confident you can overcome the objections, they never come any more.
What Is Going On?
The objections that you cannot overcome represents weaknesses in your actual belief system. You can’t overcome them because you honestly believe they can’t be overcome. Once you practice overcoming them, you slowly change your beliefs. And once you believe the opposite of the objection, they don’t come any more because they are precluded by your frame strength.
Wait, What?
Suppose you are selling cars and you keep getting an objection that says, “this costs too much.” Let’s assume the reason you are getting that objection is because you don’t believe the car is worth the value. So then you go home, and you write out a bunch of reframes to the cost objection. In doing so, you actually change how you think about the car. Now you actually believe it is worth the money.
SOM Practices Changes Your Beliefs
This means that practicing the SOM patterns works, but not in the way most people think they work. They work by changing what you believe about the thing you are presenting. And since this new belief gives you a strong frame about that particular thing (value of a car, etc.) then how you present that will be as congruent as an A-list actor looks up at a monster. You believe it, so your customer believes it.
SOM Practice Increases Frame Strength
This means that practicing how overcome your worst feared objections from women will actually change how you feel about yourself with regard to women. If you never even think about these, never address them, just go out and try through trial and error, of course she’s going to sniff out your frame weakness and poke holes in it. But after you dig deep and find your worst feared objections from women and overcome them, you’ll have incredibly powerful frame strength.
How To Get Iron Clad Frame Strength
This means you can actually build up massive confidence and congruence with women without having to go out and get rejected over and over. All you need to do is take some time uncovering your most feared objections from any woman, in any situation, and then patiently go through all the SOM patterns and write out reframes to each of these worst-feared-objections until you feel confident you could overcome them if they actually did come up. We’ll go through a step by step process how to do that below:
Find Your Most Feared Objections
Imagine approaching any woman that would cause you anxiety. And imagine her saying something that would be the most difficult for you to overcome. This technique will work like gangbusters, but the main ingredient is finding the real objection you fear most. Many people are terrified of even admitting their worst fears. Just the idea of acknowledging them brings up the equally terrifying idea that you’ll never be able to overcome them.
For many, the natural solution to this is to ignore them. Pretend they don’t exist. This is the most common response that most guys have to their natural fear of women. Even reading this, you’re probably saying to yourself, “fear of women? I’m not afraid of women! I just don’t know what to say!”
Our deepest fears are very clever at hiding from us. One of the ways they do this (or we do this to ourselves) is by presenting more appropriate shortcomings. Saying you don’t know what to say to women is much easier on the ego than saying you’re terrified to walk over there.
Paradoxically, the two ideas are intertwined. Fears do have a structure. And by practicing saying the words that describe the opposite of your fear (the reframed fear) you slowly obliterate the fear. But in order to do that, you’ve got to actually identify the fear.
Sentence Completion
A great way to figure out your deepest fear is with some sentence completion exercises. Just imagine walking across the hall to a woman. Starting a conversation and asking for her phone number. The idea is to come up with the most horrifying objection you can think of.
I don’t want to give you my number because…
Write that at the top of a piece of paper, close your eyes and imagine hearing a girl say that. Think of the absolute worst thing she could say that would make you freeze and not be able to respond. Since everybody’s answer will be different, we’ll go with a common one of:
I don’t want to give you my number because I don’t give my number to people I just met.
This is a very common response. However, understand it doesn’t represent the true objection. If you were six-six, ripped, rich, and gorgeous, she would give you her number. Just meeting you wouldn’t be an objection. The real objection is:
I don’t want to give you my number because I’m not attracted to you.
Which also means:
I don’t want to give you my number because I don’t like you.
Which also means:
I don’t want to give you my number because I’m not interested in you.
Which also means:
I don’t want to give you my number because you are not interesting.
This is likely the worst way to put it. She puts it all on your. If you, as an individual, are not interesting, then you are not interesting to anybody. On the other hand, if she were kind and polite and said, “it’s nothing personal, it’s just that you aren’t my type,” it wouldn’t really say anything about strong, it would say something about her. Which is easy to recover from.
But that same idea externalized to you (and makes her feel like an innocent victim who is being bothered by an objectively uninteresting person) is much harder to recover from.
And that sentence (you are not interesting) and it’s cousins (you are not attractive, handsome, rich, etc.) is what guys fear most. That some random girl is going to be able to look into his soul and find his biggest shortcoming.
Good News
The good news is that once you’ve got your biggest objection in the form of “I don’t like you because you aren’t…X” where X is a positive trait most women look for in men, you’ve got something to work with.
Start With The Objection
The objection we are working with is:
I don’t want to give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
In order to reframe with the SOM patterns, we need to put it in one of two forms.
X = Y
For the above, this is said linguistically as:
(A) You are not interesting.
or
X causes Y
For the above, this could be said linguistically as:
(B) You not being interesting causes me to not be able to give you my number.
Now we’ve got something to work with.
SOM Patterns
We’ll look at either of those sentences (A or B) in the appropriate patterns. Keep in mind that reading these patterns isn’t nearly enough. And there isn’t a set amount to do. Think of these like situps or pushups. There’s not set amount of pushups to do and then be forever done. The more you do, the better shape you’ll be in. If you were to dedicate thirty minutes a day to writing out these patterns, on any objection you can imagine regarding talking to women, you will slowly turn into a fearless player, capable of walking up to any girl anywhere anytime and speaking to her with zero fear and anxiety. Once you get to that level, the words you say won’t be important. Your frame and presence will do all the work for you.
Meta Frame
Point out something that hasn’t been considered. So when she says “you aren’t interesting” think of something (bigger picture) that she hasn’t considered yet.
You’re not interesting.
Maybe I’m not interesting but my future certainly is. I guess I’ll share it with somebody else. Take care.
Change Frame Size
This is similar to meta frame, but you can go up a frame size or down a frame size. Point out something either in a larger frame or a smaller frame.
You’re not interesting.
Well, I’ve been a lot of places and I’ve talked to a lot of people and I’ve found that what we as individuals find interesting is really limited by our own experiences. It’s also dependent on our own attention span, which seems to be getting shorter and shorter lately. I find it interesting that after only short time together you’ve already made the decision that I’m not interesting. Why do you think that is?
Apply To Self
This requires two sides (X=Y or X causes Y). There are two cases, where you apply either side to the person making the statement or holding the belief.
You are not interesting.
That’s an interesting thing to say. How did you come to that conclusion?
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
I subscribe to the number-theory idea of meeting interesting people. Since how interesting somebody is can sometimes take a while to figure out, I tend to collect as many number as I can, knowing the more numbers I collect, the more interesting people I’ll eventually meet.
Reality Strategy
This is when you ask them how specifically they know the belief or idea is true.
You are not interesting.
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
How specifically do you know I’m not interesting?
How long of a conversation to you have to have with somebody, or how long do you need to interact with somebody to really find out if they are interesting or not? How specifically do you know when you’ve crossed that threshold before knowing this person is interesting and after knowing they are interesting?
Model Of The World
Taking their belief and expanding it to a general way of seeing everything.
You are not interesting.
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
So you only exchange contact information with interesting people, that’s a curious strategy. I mean, what if somebody is desperate to hire you, but they aren’t interesting. That would mean you can only work with, order food from, have your car fixed by, etc. interesting people. I would imagine that would be quite limiting.
Intent
This is when you try and understand why they are saying what they are saying.
You are not interesting.
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
I understand you only want to surround yourself with interesting people. I mean, I hate to be stuck with somebody that’s boring, which is why I’m always trying to be as interesting as I can so I don’t end up in those situations.
Redefine
You can either redefine the equation in both directions. If they say X mean Y, you can either say:
X doesn’t mean Y, X means something else.
Or you can say:
X doesn’t mean Y, Q means Y.
You are not interesting.
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
What I’m not is I’m not trying to get into your pants if that’s what you think. I just thought you might have an interesting personality to go along with that pretty face.
What’s not interesting is trying to demand people create interest within the first few minutes of meeting somebody, as I’ve found that’s very restrictive, since people that are massively interesting during the first few moments of a conversation usually get very boring later on.
Counter Example
This is when you give any contrary evidence of the stated objection.
You are not interesting.
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
My last girlfriend thought I was very interesting.
I bet a lot of non-interesting people have your phone number, otherwise you wouldn’t be by yourself tonight.
Chunk Up
Take the objection and talk about it in a more abstract, big picture way.
You are not interesting.
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
Well, interest is very subjective and very fluid. Some of the most interesting people in the world probably bore their best friends to tears.
Is it really your phone number? I mean sure, now it’s connected to that particular device that is your phone, but all of this is really temporary anyway. Might as well have some fun while we’re here.
Chunk Down
Take their belief and look at it in a very tiny and specific scale.
You are not interesting.
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
What is interest, specifically? How do you know, from your subjective viewpoint what is interesting and what isn’t? How do you go from being interested in something and being excited about something?
But if you gave me your number, you would still have it. And me having it doesn’t really do anything. It’s what I do with it. And since all communication is two way, and is totally under your control anyway, there are a lot more variables involved other than the simple transferring of digits from one device to another. I mean my phone wouldn’t even know the difference once your number is stored in my phone. I mean, it won’t weigh any more, it won’t burn battery power quicker.
Metaphor
Take the objection and tell a story where it isn’t valid.
Once upon a time there was a kid that nobody found interesting, so nobody wanted to be his friend. Later he built a huge empire, and how Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world. I’m glad Melinda Gates didn’t demand he be interesting from the first second she saw him.
Another Outcome
Take the second half the objection and make it less relevant.
You are not interesting.
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
Whether I’m interesting or not isn’t really the issue. What’s more important is whether or not I can see past your outer beauty and see your inner beauty which I’m sure many men take for granted.
It’s not the exchange of information that’s important, it’s whether you are brave enough to share your personality with me, since I’m not so impressed with only physical beauty like most men are. I seek something deeper. I’m wondering if you have it, or not.
Consequences
Take the objection take it to the natural consequences.
You are not interesting.
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
If you only give your number to people who are interesting in the first few minutes of meeting them, you will soon be very limited in your social circle to non stop entertainers. That would become very tedious.
Hierarchy Of Criteria
Go up a few levels in what’s important.
You are not interesting.
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
Well, I think there are more important things that being interesting. Things like future income potential, creativity and how one sees oneself in the world and where it’s going. Don’t you think there are bigger things at stake here than simple entertainment?
Take It To The Threshold
Explode the objection to silly levels.
So, do you have to be laughing out loud to give somebody your phone number? What if you see one of the hottest guys ever, but you’re in the library? What happens then?
Reverse Presuppositions
Flip both sides of the belief around.
You are not interesting.
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
How would you be more likely to give your number to a non-interesting guy?
How would you be less likely to give your number to an interesting guy?
How is not me even less interesting?
In what ways am I interesting that you haven’t discovered yet?
How To Practice
The best way is to start with the simple objection of:
I can’t give you my number because you aren’t interesting.
And then write out each of the patterns. Then repeat it by swapping out “interesting” for anything else you wouldn’t like to hear. (Tall, attractive, etc.). Spend a few weeks just writing our reframes for different adjectives.
Once you’ve spent some time on different adjectives, spend some time on different actions. Change “give my number’ with “go out with you,” or “kiss you” and then go through all the objections again.
So Much Time!
Yes, this will take time. Plenty of time. In fact, if you want to become socially fearless, consider spending the rest of your days writing out these patterns. This can be your secret weapon of social fearlessness. Think of these just like you’d think of doing sit ups or push ups every day. These aren’t things you do once or twice and think you’re done. These are things you do every day for the rest of your life.
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