At the Core of Life, is Language

I have a challenge for you.

Pick your favourite of something – a movie, a band, a book, anything.

And now aim to describe to someone what you like about that something without using any language.

No words, no body language, no tonality.

Go ahead… You’ve got 10 seconds.

How did that go for you?

A little stuck?

A little… hopeless?

You should feel like you just walked directly into a wall, with any potential expression rendered impossible.

It’s to be totally expected.

This impossible challenge can be failed within just a couple of seconds, but the lesson here in terms of how we are persuaded into decisions is key.

And that lesson is the fact that at the core of all human life and experience is psychology.

And at the core of that psychology is the use of language.

More specifically, this language comes in three forms – our words, our body language and our tone of voice.

We take these three forms for granted more than perhaps anything else in this life.

Because these forms of communication are powerful in so much more than just describing our favourite movie, band or book.

These forms of communication are what our mind uses to make up its very definition of the reality it perceives.

This is why we can describe or experience anything without attaching some form of language to it.

Without language, we have no stories.

Without language, we have no connection between things.

Without language, we have no meaning.

Without language, we don’t even know ourselves.

Why does this matter when it comes to influence and persuasion?

Because we must understand that we are caused to be attracted to a particular product or service based purely on the language we (or our sales professional) use to describe it.

A rare, beautiful guitar played by Jimi Hendrix himself is worth far more money than a 50 year old piece of timber with a hole cut into the middle and strings attached.

But, they’re the same thing.

One is just described using different language.

And that language created a new reality in your mind.

And your mind then decided the former must be worth more money.

Because it was sold more effectively.

The brain uses language.

That language is used to create a reality.

Then we make decisions based on how we feel about that reality.

And we call that entire process life, of which ‘language’ is at the centre.

Darcy J Smyth is the lead trainer and creator of the Tonal Persuasion Method for Sales – the methodology designed to ensure you are closing sales without the need for the dreaded ‘Hard Sell’ that turns so many buyers away in the modern business landscape.