One of my favorite lines from the TV show “Breaking Bad” is also a fun pattern from NLP.
It’s based on the idea of ambiguity, where you’ve got a bunch of words together in a sentence, and it’s unclear, since there’s more than one meaning, which words apply to which other words.
Like for example, “I’d like the boiled potatoes and vegetables.”
Does the “boiled” apply to the potatoes, or the potatoes AND vegetables?
The line from Breaking Bad is when they show up to hire a lawyer to help them get out of a jam.
The “brains” behind the operation “complains,” as the lawyer’s office is some sleazy strip mall.
But the guy he’s working with says, “In this situations, you don’t need a criminal lawyer, you need a criminal lawyer.”
On paper, they look the same, but he says them differently. The first one refers to a lawyer who helps criminals. The second sentence refers to a lawyer that IS a criminal.
If you search YouTube for “Breaking Bad Criminal Lawyer” you’ll see what I mean.
This is just one pattern out of the whole collection of language patterns in hypnosis.
The reason they work so well, these ambiguous words, is because the things they are describing, the reality around is, is JUST as ambiguous.
Few things in life are absolute, which means pretty much EVERYTHING is open to interpretation.
Including opportunities all around you, right now, that can help you take your life, whatever shape it’s in now, and transform it into a masterpiece.
Who’s in charge of how to interpret “reality?” That depends on YOU.
If you leave it up to others to define YOUR reality, you’ll be living in a world where other people call the shots.
But if you live in a reality where YOU define what means what (criminal lawyer or criminal lawyer), YOU get to call the shots.
All of them.
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