Cause People to Hallucinate like Milton Erickson

by Lou

In NLP we have something called “Future Pacing.” In a therapeutic context, it’s where therapists or coaches get their client to imagine what life would be like after an NLP technique (such as the Swish Pattern) has been used.

In a sales context, it’s where the salesperson gets the prospective customer to imagine actually using and enjoying the product.

There are a variety of ways to future pace including timelines, visualization and reframing. And there is also a language pattern we can use to future pace. Here it is:

What’s it like when you imagine/think about/see yourself (WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO THINK ABOUT)?

This pattern is great because when I ask you “what’s it like”, you have to search your personal experience and at the same time you are imagining what I’ve told you. Here are some examples:

  • “What’s it like when you imagine making 20% more sales?”
  • “What’s it like when you think about how persuasive you’ll be using NLP Language Patterns?”
  • “What’s it like when you see yourself and your family in this living room?”

You can use this language pattern for moving toward motivation (pleasure)—like I did in the above examples—or for moving away motivation (pain) where you future pace an unpleasant experience so they stop doing the activities that would lead to it.

Apply this pattern to your presentations, videos, websites or in your conversations.


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