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The average human blink rate varies from about 17-25 blinks per minute (BPM).
As we become interested, curious, entertained or otherwise focused on a stimulus, our blink rate can slow significantly to around 7-10 BPM. During stressful times and emotionally pressing events, our blink rate can soar up to about 50 BPM without us even realizing it. Try to even REMEMBER taking the SAT's without blinking a lot. How does this apply to real human life? As you become more interesting or your conversational topic starts to gain more focus and attention, you will actually see the blink rate of your subject(s) start to decline. This isn't a skill you will have to practice much. Within two days, you can likely become very proficient at observing this behavior. What happens when you're talking and the subject's blink rate starts to get faster and more frequent? You're boring someone to death or the topic is causing emotional stress.
Start using your new skill today! Remember the law of compounding effects with body language: "The more small bites you take when learning, the less attention they cost over time, so you can spend your limited supply of attention on more important behaviors." Enjoy.
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 Everyone you try to speak to seems to have an abundance of distraction-inducing triggers in their environment; from text messages in a conversation to interruptions by people, music and television, it seems like it takes more effort to maintain someone’s attention than ever before.
The tips that follow have been field-tested and proven to markedly increase the attention and focus of your audience. You need to become familiar with the reasons people don’t typically listen. This will allow you to mentally make conversational course changes in order to get your message across more effectively. 1. The subject is not interested a. This may be the most difficult barrier to overcome, but the phrases in the second section will most assuredly keep their attention long enough to get your message across. 2. The subject is distracted a. We all get caught up in our own thoughts while people speak to us b. Subjects can easily become distracted by environmental stimulus c. Cell phones and kids will always throw your subject’s focus off course. You will learn how to get it back on track easily. 3. The subject is waiting to talk a. The subject is distracted by trying to remember what they wanted to say; rehearsing the chain of thought in their head b. The subject becomes overwhelmed with a desire to tell you all about THEIR experience or opinion and has no concern for yours c. They have no interest in hearing your story unless to one-up whatever you’ve been speaking about 4. They would rather talk a. Talking, to all humans, seems much more useful and productive for THEIR needs. This is natural and occurs throughout almost every interaction b. They need to control the interaction and keep their conversational agenda in the spotlight, keeping you from talking about things of interest to you. You will learn two methods of maintaining conversational focus and interest here: 1. Physical 2. Verbal Obtaining Focus Using Physical Movement Facing and Mirroring The concept of mirroring behavior is a natural occurring human trait that you, as the operator, are going to deliberately control in order to shift the behavior and emotional state of the subject. Behavioral mirroring is not a gesture-for-gesture mimicry of the subject. Most of the gestures you replicate will follow a three to four second delay. Some gestures shouldn’t be copied at all. Two concepts are at work when mirroring body language: The mirroring of body language and the matching of body language. Mirroring occurs when you are positioned opposite (or facing) the subject and replicates a mirror image of behaviors. Matching occurs when you are next to a subject (facing a similar direction). If positioned opposite a subject and you observe them cross their left leg over their right, you would need to mirror the behavior by crossing your right leg over your left. This creates a mirror image to the subject of the body language display. Conversely, if you and the subject are standing or seated so that you are both facing a similar direction, you would match their gesture instead of doing the mirror opposite; your left leg would be crossed over your right. The shifts in body language should be subtle and appear natural. Drawing the subject’s attention to unusual displays of your behavior will only activate their conscious defense systems (which we need to be offline in order to use Ellipsis Systems). Never become obvious in your observations of their behavior before mirroring and matching. Beginner operators typically make the mistake of almost staring at a subject’s movements before making their own movement, then staring again to confirm they’ve done it right. This is hard to resist in the beginning phase of training and will occur when you are practicing some of the exercises in the training planner. Your level of mastery will be directly proportional to the amount you exercise your skills in everyday life outside of operations. When mirroring body language and gestures, the best rule of thumb is to mirror/match three gestures and movements, and ignore the fourth. This cycle should repeat until you have the ability to lead their body language. Leading body language occurs when you’ve developed enough rapport within the interaction to the extent the subject begins unconsciously mirroring/matching yourgestures. Once you’ve gained the ability to unconsciously influence behavior in this way, the brain becomes easily led. Leading the physical body creates a social context in which the subject’s brain begins to follow you as well. Since body language has so much influence on how we feel, imagine how easily it would be to modify a person’s mood simply by making them follow the body language signals you wanted them to. Typically, it takes about four minutes of mirroring and matching body language and gestures in order to cause a subject to follow your movements. After this point, the rule of thumb is to follow one of their movements every two minutes or so. While many experts have dedicated timelines to this process, conversation and interaction is so organic that any specifics applied to them would only degrade from the influence capabilities of an operator. Subtle Cues to Your Mouth A very brief (using minimal contact) touch of your mouth wile you are speaking will draw the attention to your mouth/words for a short period of time. Shift Position Moving your position in reference to the listener will cause them to reorient their body to you and bring them back into the present moment. This will establish focus for about 60 seconds in highly distracted subjects. The movement needs to be enough so that the listener will at least have to move their head in order to maintain eye contact. Unexpected Movement The quick and unexpected movements of anyone will draw attention and temporarily shake someone out of a distracted mindset. Simply bending down to adjust your shoe in the middle of a sentence is enough to break someone’s distraction for a moment and guide them back on course. Starting to Speak at the Ground When you first begin to talk, looking at the ground and speaking slower than normal seems to be an ‘I-need-to-listen’ trigger for almost everyone in the western world. This is also a therapy technique taught to psychiatrists who work with mentally ill patients who aren’t able to focus well. Verbal Cues There are a few ways you can almost subliminally influence a subject’s focus with simple words alone. Using words like ‘listen’, ‘focus’, ‘concentrate’ and ‘pay attention’ while very subtly gesturing your hands toward yourself will direct their unconscious mind (that always seeks direction) where to go. Something as simple as figuring out how you can weave one of those words into your conversation can impact their attention ten fold! This is all covered in several chapters in the Ellipsis manual, but this small tactic alone will blow your mind when you use it. Phrases The following phrases can be inserted virtually anywhere in conversation to ‘trigger’ the subject’s attention and focus. You’ll find them incredibly powerful even after the first few times you use them. They are designed to cause a slight feeling of suspense and almost forces a subject to keep listening. 1. After all… 2. And guess what… 3. And look at this… 4. And the result…? 5. And while we are at it… 6. The bottom line is… 7. They key to… 8. The secret to… 9. The trick is... 10. Then it hit me… 11. There’s another thing… 12. What this means is… 13. Truthfully… 14. This will surprise you… 15. Trouble is… 16. To make matters worse… 17. Up until now… 18. Vitally important point…. 19. That’s why… 20. Stated a bit differently… 21. That means… 22. Remember… 23. Please understand… 24. One important thing is… 25. Of course, … 26. Now, listen to this carefully… 27. Most important of all… 28. Moreover… 29. Look no further… 30. Make no mistake… 31. Let’s assume that… 32. And this is the secret… 33. I’ll explain… 34. In short, … 35. In fact, … 36. I’m sorry, but… 37. Here’s how easy it is… 38. Here’s the scary part… 39. Here’s the secret… 40. I suppose you could… 41. I’m sure you can guess what happened next… 42. And I’ll tell you one more thing about… 43. Back to the purpose of what I was saying… 44. Best of all, … 45. But here’s the most important part… 46. First, a warning… 47. Even if you were to… 48. That’s only half the story… 49. There’s the problem… 50. By the way… 51. Consider this fact, … 52. Fact is, … 53. With that said, … 54. You’ll be glad to know that… We hope this was informative and is something you can save to your phone for future use. Email us anytime with suggestions or cat photos.  "See the suffering in every person first, in front of all of their behavior that seems to be offensive to others. Suffering is the source of almost all behavior. Be compassionate."
-M. Anderson (My Mentor)
A group of three women are seated by the door. I notice one is an outsider by the way her friends are crossing their legs and facing their torsos away from her. My focus draws for two seconds on the outsider. She makes eye contact with me and moves her eyes downward before turning back to the table. Her purse is tucked under her leg. History with untrustworthy men, possibly abusive relationships based on her lip tension while her friends speak about relationships. The puddle around the base of her drink is enormous…she hasn’t taken a sip in quite some time… "The exhaust I'm putting on this thing had to be shipped from Italy. I want you to test drive it," my friend continues. About five seconds have passed. We walk by a man on his cell phone, covering an ear to block out the modern lounge music. The hand holding the phone is darker than the other one. Golfer. He gets frequent haircuts and has excellent posture. Good golfer. "You wouldn't believe the sales guy at the dealership here on 5th; he's amazing." I spot the bartender, still thirty feet away. He leans in to hear people better and tilts his head as he listens to a man drinking. Empathetic, honest. Socially intelligent. A couple is seated to our right as we continue walking in the direction of the bar. The man is rubbing his fingers together with an amazing amount of pressure as we pass by…nervous. A streaked water mark is visible on the table from where he slid his glass to the side to get it out of the way of conversation. He wants to communicate. He likes her. He's nervous. As he looks away at us passing, she licks her lips. Hygienic gesture…wants to impress him. Likes him. First date? Looking back at the man, he's breathing into his abdomen, not his chest. He's getting comfortable within these two seconds. "Far as I can tell, you can legally ride between cars on the freeway here in California. Not sure, though." That's my friend, still going on about his motorcycle. A lone man sits at the bar as we approach. His feet are propped on the footrest of the bar stool. The heel of his right shoe is significantly worn down at a slant more than his left shoe. Knee, joint, hip problems. As I approach the bar, I notice his watch is set five minutes ahead of mine, his cuticles on his left hand are picked down to what looks to be a painful pink. His nails are bitten in much the same way. Suffering, I remind myself. The bartender begins to make his way over to us. A group of people are seated directly to my left at a table against the wall. One woman is wearing hot pink scrubs. Deep-seated creases run down the backs of her pant legs. Sits all day…medical assistant….administrative. Her phone on the table is next to everyone's glasses of alcohol. Somewhat careless. She's close enough that I can see small indentations on her nose from having worn glasses all day. Computer? As she listens to her friend talk, her blink rate is low (about a 12, but I didn't time it with a watch). Interested in her friend. Relaxed. Comfortable. "They even have helmets with Bluetooth in them now," my friend says excitedly. "You can make calls going 80 miles per hour." The friend of the medical assistant woman has her purse tucked tightly against the wall, furthest from public reach. Her upper arms are closely hugging her body as she speaks. She leans away from the man and her shoulders go up an inch almost as he starts to speak. Too much hidden fear and aggression at this table. Why am I still looking? I break away. Focus on the room. I start profiling clothing, hair styles, posture, relationships, head-tilting, breathing, jaw tension, swallowing…stop! As the bartender walks in our direction, a man is sitting behind him on the other side of the bar. His shoulders are raised, almost in what looks to be a permanent way. His posture seems forced and his facial expression of contempt is obvious. Extreme insecurity. Wounded. Wants to be seen as tough. Will transition to fighting quickly if he feels subordinated. He will lie about his job tonight to someone. As the bartender leans in and asks my friend what he would like, we squeeze into a small opening to order, offer up the Visa and wait for our drinks. Why does he shave his hands? Weird. While I'm honestly trying to guess what kind of cat produced the very long white cat hair on the pants of the woman next to me, my friend interrupts me. "Not even the new Ferrari can beat this thing…" I take hold of my glass from the bar and turn to find a table for us. I spot an open table near the back and we pass by a man on a laptop. His briefcase is one of those zip-up types. Practical. I notice that even though his laptop is on the table, he zipped his case back up. Meticulous, procedural, secretive? It's tilted under his feet in a way no one can reach it. His fingernails have little white spots in them. Leukonychia…that's what that's called. It means possible liver disease…he's got a big drink… His shoes are polished and clean. A small and straight wrinkle goes downward from his left shoulder to his chest. He just drove here…quite a ways. "The only bad thing is that I can't carry my golf clubs on the bike, you know?" As we sit at our table, a man sitting alone adjusts himself. A faint tan line from a recently removed wedding ring is apparent. The band of his watch looks new; it seems stiff, as if it's had no permanent curve from long-term wear. Liar. As we get settled, my friend's abdomen is moving. Breathing comfortably. His blink rate is low and he crosses his legs. Comfortable. "Dude, when are you going to come see the bike?" he asks. This is our first three minutes in the bar. |
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