Today I want to talk about a term called phonological ambiguity.  I know it may sound pretty complicated, but what it means is that the brain cannot distinguish the difference between two words that sound alike but have different meanings. 

For example let’s take the word 'nose,' which represents the thing on your face that you use to smell things and the word 'knows,' which represents the fact that you understand something or have a certain amount of knowledge on a situation. 

Because these two words sound exactly alike, the brain cannot distinguish between the two of them.  In other words, they are ambiguous within your mind and can be understood interchangeably.

Here's how you can use this knowledge to influence just about anyone to do anything that you want. 

Within each of us is a conscious mind and a subconscious mind.  The conscious mind thinks, computes, calculates and can perform various other functions that involves “thinking.” 

The subconscious mind on the other hand does not “think,” it simply exists.  It makes rapid-fire decisions without you even realizing it, based on every previous experience you had in life. 

In the world of NLP, we use something called embedded commands to leverage the power of this truth.  Embedded commands, or analog marking, are the idea of marking out certain words in a statement that you are making. 

Many of these commands can be broken down to three word commands.  So the key is to break down the action that you want the person to take in just three words.  For example, let's say you wanted your friend to go to the store to pick you up some food, the only three words that need to be a part of this command are “Go to store.” 

But what makes embedded commands so interesting is that you are taking and formatting them in a way that is covert or so the person does not realize that they are receiving a command; but rest assured, they are.

This is what makes embedded commands so powerful.  Essentially, we can insert them into parts of conversations that have nothing to do with the command itself and get the person to do exactly what we want them to do. 

All you simply need to do is make a statement to someone and ensure that the three words essential to the command are in place, you just need to slightly emphasize them more. 

For instance, using the example of wanting someone to go to the store for you, you could use a statement like this (simply put more emphasis on the words in bold): I was trying to find someone's house the other day, but wasn't sure which way to GO so I asked TWO people and they said drive up to the next STORE and make a left.

What you have done here is created a statement that has absolutely nothing to do with what you want this person to do, yet they will eventually comply, because the command “GO TO STORE” was embedded in the statement. 

What makes this technique so great, is that it can be used in text messages and e-mails, just as it can in verbal communication.  When using it on both platforms, simply change the way the commands look in some aspect by either capitalizing or changing the font or making the words bigger.

Remember, it doesn't matter that I used the word two (which represents the number) in place of the word “to” because the mind can make a distinction anyway.  That makes the technique even more covert.

The key here is to just make sure that the commands have a slightly higher emphasis put on them than the rest of the words.  Notice that I said “slightly higher.” The idea is not to shout these words in a way that you bring attention to what you're doing just simply modify them in some way to make them stand out in the person's mind.