Tonya Reiman

Many struggles that people face at home, at the office, in school, and on the dating scene, stem from their inability to get another party to say one simple word: YES. With a yes, comes open doors, tickets in, passes for the party, a wave-through for the promotion, a paycheck from the sale…but without it, you've got the same old thing as yesterday.

In your quest for more YESes, your frame of mind, the reframing of circumstances, and your ability to pull others into your frame are invaluable tools. Your situation, or the situation of your target, doesn't have to change -- only the perception of that situation needs to change -- so it's made clear that you're the best person to relieve pain or improve the forecast. And that's where your frame of mind (and your ability to pack it with portraits of clients, dates, and bosses) comes in.

Manipulating Mind Strings with Words

If you were selling home security systems to a fearful family, would you refer to criminals as dirty rotten thieves or ingenious opportunists? Would your description change if you were selling black market stereos to a middle man?

If you met a fun-loving girl in whom you were romantically interested, would you refer to yourself as a hopeless workaholic or a motivated individual? Would your self-depiction change if you were talking to a buddy about your high stress level, and lack of free time?

Often, when posing an idea to another party (or parties) from whom you want a YES, it's important to frame ideas in ways that serve your purpose. Framing can be defined as spinning something, with words, to fit an agenda, redefine it, or put it in a more positive light. If you were speaking of an opponent, you might call her hard to please, but if you were touting your own, similar, quality, your might call yourself meticulous. If you're upset at your husband, and trying to make a point during an argument, you might call him overbearing. But if you're celebrating your anniversary together, at a tiny table in the corner of a romantic restaurant, you might refer to him as strong.

In a real-world example, George Lakoff, a linguist at the University of California-Berkley, cites the way that George Bush referred to tax cuts as tax relief. The revised phrase brought with it a picture of morality, and liberation from affliction by a perceived hero…all with a simple word change. As a result, more individuals were on board with his tax cut proposal.

Words help people to digest information, and it's up to you to determine how that "food" will sit in their "stomachs." If a word relieves pain, or elicits excitement, it will strike a chord, or manipulate a mind string. Good wordsmithing bypasses the conscious mind and pulls on those mind strings, to conjure the feelings that will best serve your YES agenda. Words not only change your delivery, but change the receipt of your information.

Another consideration when using words is perception. For instance, you can use the word cool when speaking to a group of college freshman, and to speak to a group of senior citizens at a retirement home. But if you do, you'll surely want to be describing a fashionable t-shirt and a personal air conditioning apparatus, respectively. People will filter words through their own realities. That's why it's important to know your audience and identify the emotions and connotations that you want to elicit.

Use carefully chosen words to manipulate for your own purpose. When you do, you will instigate others to do the same, and they will further your cause for you. Managers of a credit union might choose to call a fee-based checking account a membership checking account. Membership implies that something must be done (registration, fees, etc.) to join, but it also implies benefit; whereas fee-based simply indicates a money hemorrhage. Members of the credit union will begin to refer to the checking account as a membership checking account, and will, in turn, spread the notion.

True, the words you use to describe people and situations often slip beneath your own radar, but with practice, you can use this valuable framing tool to persuade others to give you the YES that you're hoping for.

If your Frame is Negative, Reframe

Your frame of mind can be defined as your mental attitude, your outlook, or you mood. Your work situation, for example, can shape your frame of mind. If you've been subjected to a barrage of work lately at the office -- coming in early, staying late, fielding customer complaints, wooing clients -- while your boss abandons some of the duties that were once his in exchange for early dinners and golf outings, you might choose to take on a negative frame of mind. You might choose to complain to coworkers, or to treat your boss with bitterness. It's not a good frame of mind; but it is, nevertheless, yours at that moment, and we'll use it as a starting point for the next example.

The frame of mind illustrated above would be a bad one to pull someone else into, if you wanted a YES for anything. Instead, your plan of action should be to reframe the situation that's putting you into a funk.

The first type of reframing is Context Reframing. Here, you will strive to change the context of the happening to increase its value. Sure, at first blush, you may see no value in working harder, longer, and taking on more duties for the same paycheck. But after further examination, and pulling it into your new, positive frame, you might see that your added responsibilities increase your employee value. Your new duties make you more versatile, and more qualified for future promotions. You've effectively changed your frame of mind, and morphed the context of a dismal situation to fit into a frame of positivity.

The second type of reframing is Content Reframing. With this type of reframing, you search for an alternate meaning to a negative situation. You ask why something happened, and open your mind to positive reasons. In the above example, you might think of the extra duties and responsibilities that your boss is dumping on you as his way of priming you for an upcoming promotion. You'll perform to your best ability, so that he notices your efforts and rewards them.

Often, reframing is necessary when you're initially met with a NO. For instance, if you're selling insurance, and your highest premium price is met with a flat-out NO, you can reframe it with a connotation of incomparable value…by showing your prospect more inexpensive plans with lesser (maybe even relatively inadequate) coverage. Using the word cheaper, rather than inexpensive when referring to the other plans can serve to lessen their values even more, catapulting your initial offering into a different frame, and a better light. The YES is now a notable possibility.

Or, if a prospective client declines purchasing a new office copier because it's "too fancy and expensive," offer to allow her to keep it and use it, free of charge, for a week. Human psychology tells us that once a person has access to a product, gets to touch it, to manipulate it, to admire it, they will feel virtual ownership of it. When she's given the opportunity to press those buttons, see the color functions, reload the paper once per week instead of five times, she'll be invited into the tactile frame of the product that she had once only seen on paper. The old black-and-white copier will pale in comparison. Your chances of getting a YES to the copier sale just multiplied.

When you reframe a situation, you can change perception, belief, and the context of any experience. Once you master changing your own frame of mind, and reframing circumstances to fit nicely into it, you can use your mastery on other targets to get the YES you've been looking for.

Pulling Others into Your Positive Frame of Mind…for the YES

Frames are relative, they constantly change, and must be fashioned to custom fit your agenda. If you're selling diet pills, the notions contained within your positive frame will be different than if you're selling gym memberships. The first might involve effortless weight loss, while the second involves notions of overall health.

In order to draw others toward you (and a YES), you'll need to create a frame and then draw them into it. For example:

1. You're hoping for a promotion at work, and your boss asks you to give him a good reason to promote you.

2. Maybe you know your boss well enough to know that he's always looking toward future opportunities for success, and the less work that he has to do, the more piqued his interest is. You can use this knowledge to create a frame into which to pull him.

3. Make a statement like, "The client sent me a card today saying that if I hadn't stepped in and helped her with restructuring, she couldn't imagine how grim her company's prospects would be."

4. The word imagine is pivotal in this statement, because you know that your boss looks to the future, and it prompts him to envision his company without you. It asks him to consider the fact that you might not be around unless you get that promotion.

5. You get your YES because your boss can't picture his business dealings without you in them.

Don't allow yourself to be pulled into someone else's frame. If you do, you won't get your YES. If, in the above example, you would have allowed your boss to dismiss your recent feat as the work of your partner, you probably wouldn't get your YES to the promotion. If someone does attempt to pull you in, simply reframe their latest statement to align with your frame and continue.

Additionally, don't allow another person to pull you into their frame of anger. Don't fight with an angry person, and don't change your frame of mind to match theirs. Instead, let that energy bounce right off you with something like, "Wow, that really made you angry, didn't it?" That person will have two choices: to enter your frame and talk about it, or to keep that anger to himself and move on.

Putting a Mirror in Your Frame for Rapport and Trust

You can't simply yank someone into your world and expect them to feel comfortable with giving you an unbridled YES. You must establish rapport and trust, and one incredibly effective way to accomplish this is with mirroring.

Have you ever yawned in response to another person's yawn, or lowered your head in embarrassment for a person giving a nervous presentation? Both situations showcase your mirror neurons at work. Your mirror neurons can be described as the roots of empathy.

Both of the above examples are circumstances in which unconscious mirroring is at work. And the good news is that you have the power to utilize this tool, consciously, for your YES plan. We are drawn to people who are similar to us, so if you can effectively mirror the person from whom you want a YES, you will establish rapport and gain their trust (to open the pathway of communication, along which that YES can travel).

Here are some examples of how you can build that YES connection through mirroring:

• Verbal: Listen to the words that your associate (or client, or date) is using to describe places and experiences. If they use visual statements like, "I can't see what the problem is," respond with something like "Let me show you." If they make auditory statements like, "It sounds strange to me," you can answer with, "It didn't resound with me either, at first." And if they speak in a kinesthetic way, like, "I don't feel like she understands me," you might respond, "Can you sense some confusion?"

• Breathing: Try to match your breathing rate to that of the other person. This will put the two of you "in sync."

• Voice: Match the tone, pitch, volume, and tempo of the other person. If you speak more loudly than her, you might be viewed as domineering. If you speak too softly or too slowly, she might see you as weak.

• Blinking: Try to match your blink rate to that of your YES target's. You don't have to match blink-for-blink, but you can imitate his blink rate (slow, medium, fast).

• Posture: Match the posture of the other person. If his body is open, mirror that. If he's standing tall, mirror that. If his legs are crossed, cross yours in some manner.

• Gestures: If a person's gestures are low and subdued, make yours the same. If he's waving his arms with exaggerated movements, then show your wingspan a few times. If she's playing with her hair, touch yours.

• Facial Expressions: Smiles are contagious, so mirroring the smile, especially when there's a joke or a funny story involved, is easy. But when the other person is speaking about a troubling matter, don't smile. Feel their emotion; tilt your head, furrow your brow; your facial expression should indicate your empathy.

• Cross Mirroring: This incorporates true mirror opposites (if she shrugs her left shoulder, you shrug your right). Or, it can include actions that are similar but not the same (she picks up a fork, you pick up a pen; she touches her hair, you scratch your face).

• Catchphrases: These are usually "insider" words that aren't found in everyday speech, and are usually parts of inside jokes or references. When you make these bizarre words customary between yourself and another person, you build rapport and trust, and drop an anchor to secure a shared memory.

You know for sure that your mirroring has worked when the other party suddenly switches to mirroring your actions. It doesn't have to be an exact mimic, but it can be any type of similar movement. If you pick up a fork, and she picks up her glass, or if you cross your leg and she crosses soon after, you've established the harmony (leading stage) that's necessary for taking your relationship to the YES stage.

Be careful when mirroring. If you become like a mirror image, mimicking every movement, your intentions will backfire, and you'll be viewed as a stalker, a ridiculer, a psycho, or some other type of entity worthy of a defiant NO.

Once you connect with someone via the mirroring method, you can then steer them into your frame…slowly, gently, and with tact…

The Rest of the YES Factor

I'm overjoyed at the opportunity to present my newest publication, The YES Factor, to the world. In it, readers will find that framing and mirroring are just two miles along the road to YES. Establishing yourself as the one to get the YES involves your entire package. The way that you carry yourself, the way that you dress, your gestures, your listening ability, and a plethora of other YES-worthy attributes (a.k.a. learned behaviors) will open minds to the connections that you strive to make.

Getting the YES means listening, communicating through channels you have learned to uncover, taking bold steps outside of your comfort zone, and understanding the psychology of summoning that little word that can transform your world.

YES has the power to transform a stumbling block into a milestone; and YOU into your most confident, fascinating, and authentic self.