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A SUREFIRE FORMULA FOR MANAGING YOUR STATE

FOR THE RECORD, I CONSIDER my discovery of olfactory anchoring to be one of those fortunate situations where I was able to stand on the shoulders of a genius.

The genius to whom I’m referring is Dr. Richard Bandler, the brilliant and wildly enigmatic scientist, visionary, entertainer, and hypnotist extraordinaire who invented NLP, in conjunction with linguistics professor John Grinder.

Focusing on inner-world distinctions such as belief systems, value hierarchies, and state management, NLP took the self-development world by storm in the early eighties and has played a central role in fueling the industry’s growth ever since.

The reason I began studying it was a desire to learn two specific strategies that NLP was particularly well known for at the time. The first strategy was a timeline regression, which was designed to help people crack the code of their limiting beliefs and replace them with empowering beliefs; and the second strategy was anchoring, which, as discussed in the previous chapter, was designed to help people trigger a peak emotional state at will.

In the end, while I had tremendous success at implementing the former, but the latter, as I explained, had come up seriously short. So it was that, in the summer of 2009, I began testing various ways to enhance anchoring’s effectiveness.

In early 2010, I struck gold.

In retrospect, I’m still not sure why it took me so long to crack the code for anchoring. After all, the difference between NLP anchoring and olfactory anchoring is only two strategies I added, each of which addresses one of the two crucial aspects of anchoring that Bandler considered especially vulnerable to being poorly executed.

The first vulnerability had to do with how intense you were able to get your state to at the precise moment when you introduced the anchor. The key, Bandler explained, is that you have to be at the absolute tippy-top of the state, in terms of the emotional intensity you feel inside, in order to successfully set an anchor. Anything less than that, and the anchor won’t set.

In terms of how this would relate to the certainty scale from Chapter 1, you’d have to be at an absolute, unequivocal 10, with no ifs, ands, or buts; only then, at that precise moment, when you felt the certainty literally bubbling up inside you, like a seething volcano, could you introduce an anchor and truly set it.

So that’s the first aspect of NLP anchoring that tends to trip people up: the difficulty of trying to artificially get yourself into a state of absolute certainty or, for that matter, absolute anything, as opposed to being there organically.

The second vulnerability had to do with the type of anchor you choose (the equivalent of the bell in Pavlov’s experiment).

As Bandler explained, not only does the anchor need to hit you all at once but it also needs to stand out in a dramatic way. A common, everyday sound or gesture simply won’t cut it. It needs to be extreme—the more extreme the better, in fact—and the more unusual the better too. In essence, you want to use something that’s going to hit your brain in an unforgettable way and literally shock your senses. That’s what a great anchor does, and it’s absolutely crucial that you have one. But don’t waste any of your time trying to find one. A little over seven years ago, I stumbled upon the world’s greatest anchor, and I’m going to be handing it to you on a silver platter in this very chapter.

Now, in terms of the best way to teach you olfactory anchoring, what I’ve found, over the years, is that the secret is to take you through NLP anchoring first. This provides you with the perfect context for truly mastering olfactory anchoring, which, by the way, is so easy to master that not only will you be able to do it in one sitting but a seven-year-old could do it as well.

So, with that, let’s get to it.

There are five basic steps to NLP anchoring:

Step 1: Choose a state

This is where you set an intention for the emotional state you want to anchor. This will always be a conscious decision, based on the circumstances that you’re about to face, not what you’re currently facing. In other words, anchoring is a forward-looking process that’s proactive in nature.

For the purpose of this exercise, let’s choose a state of absolute certainty, as this is the state that you must be in when you enter any sales encounter.

Step 2: Choose your focus

This is where you close your eyes and go back to a moment in your life when you were feeling absolutely, positively certain. A perfect example of this would be the moment after you just closed a really tough sale, as a result of sounding totally awesome. For whatever reason, you were at your very best that day, and now, as you bask in the sale’s afterglow, you have that superconfident feeling—that feeling of absolute certainty where you know you can take on the world and close anyone who’s closable.

Once you’ve located that memory, I want you to create a vivid picture of it in your mind’s eye. I want you to take in the whole scene, so you can see all the players who were there, looking just the way they looked, including how they were dressed, how their hair was styled, and even how the room looked.

Creating an internal picture like this, where you’re looking down at yourself from above, involves being in what is called a disassociated state, and it’s a crucial aspect of goal-setting and self-motivation—inasmuch as it allows you to see yourself completing a certain goal or task or an even more complete vision for your future. However, for the purposes of setting an anchor, there’s an even more powerful way to use this internal picture, which I’ll get to in a few moments, in step four.

Step 3: Choose your physiology

This is where you’re going to change your physiology to match the exact physiology of the state that you’re trying to anchor. For example, in this case, you’re going to make sure that you’re standing certain and holding your head certain and walking certain and talking certain and even breathing certain, so that literally every aspect of your body, including your most minute gestures and facial expressions, is resonating with the emotion of absolute certainty.

If you think it’ll help, you can even take the picture from step two and actually put it in motion, so you’re now seeing yourself in a movie, and you can use that as your model as you adopt the physiology of absolute certainty.

Remember, being shy or bashful with your physiology is not going to serve you at this point. Quite simply, this is one of those cases where more is more, not less is more, and that goes for your focus too, as you’re about to see right now, in step four.

Step 4: Intensify your state

This step involves using your five sensory modalities—also known as your five senses—to take the picture you’ve created in your mind’s eye in step two and use your brain to manipulate it in a way that intensifies the feeling of absolute certainty that it creates inside of you.

First let me take you through the five sensory modalities, which are:

Visual: this is what you see, both externally, in the real world, and internally, in your mind’s eye. In the latter case, the picture can be from a memory, or it can be something that you’ve created yourself using your imagination, or it can be a combination of the two.

Auditory: this is what you hear, both externally and internally, and with the same permutations as above.

Kinesthetic: this is what you feel, both externally and internally, and with the same permutations as above.

Gustatory: this is what you taste, both externally and internally, and with the same permutations as above.

Olfactory: this is what you smell, both externally and internally, and with the same permutations as above.

Now, for the most part, we tend to rely on the first three modalities to make sense of the world, with our visual modality being the most dominant, followed by our auditory and kinesthetic modalities, respectively. But, of course, when you’re dealing with the brain, nothing is set in stone. For example, if you’re a chef, then you’ll rely heavily on your gustatory modality, and if you’re a wine taster or perfumer, then you’ll rely heavily on your olfactory modality.

As I explained above, the way to use these modalities in anchoring is to take the picture in your mind’s eye and alter it so it becomes more powerful to you emotionally.

For example, if you focus on the image right now, in your mind’s eye, you can instruct your brain to make the picture bigger, and brighter, and sharper, and you can even move it closer to you; and doing that will tend to amplify whatever feeling the picture gives you, which, in this particular case, is a feeling of absolute certainty. However, as it is in real life, there’s only so far that a still picture can take you, which is why the feelings that we get from watching a movie or a TV show are far more intense than the feelings we get from looking through a stack of pictures or from flipping through a magazine.

In fact, the evolution of the motion picture business serves as a perfect metaphor for the relationship between the size and the quality of the images we see and the emotions that we feel as a result of them. For example, the industry started with silent movies shot in black-and-white, which were replaced by talking pictures shot in black-and-white, which were replaced by movies shot in color, which were replaced by movies shot in Technicolor and stereo, which were replaced by movies shot in wide screen and Technicolor with stereo and Dolby sound reduction, all the way to IMAX theaters, with 3-D and surround sound and so forth.

Notice the obvious trend towards making things bigger and brighter and clearer and more realistic . . . until they hit a certain point and the trend began to reverse itself, with things like super-tall IMAX screens, 3-D, and the shaking seats of Sensurround never really catching on, despite their providing a more “lifelike” experience.

You see, this is exactly how we use the five sensory modalities to intensify our state of certainty—by taking the image you’ve created in your mind’s eye and putting it through the same evolutionary process as the motion picture industry. I’ll guide you through it right now.

PUTTING YOUR BRAIN TO WORK

I want you to start by taking the still picture you created in your mind’s eye and putting it into motion, so you can actually see yourself moving in the picture, and being your best self, as you go about closing this huge sale. If it helps, you can even put a frame around the picture and imagine that it’s a flat-screen TV.

The point is that by turning a still picture into a motion picture, you’ll start feeling more connected to the scene and your state of certainty will start to intensify—especially when we execute our next step, which is to add on dialog from your memory. So, do that right now: add on the appropriate dialog, as best as you can remember, and give yourself that same, perfect tonality and body language. Or, if the dialog you recall doesn’t suit you, you can create new dialog—choosing words that will empower you and help you trigger the exact state you want.

Now it’s time to make your movie bigger and brighter and clearer and move it closer to you, and even add on 3-D or any other change—but, remember, each change should make the movie seem more real to you and, hence, increase your level of certainty; so if you reach a point of diminishing returns with any of your changes (like when you are forced to sit in the front row of a theater or when you turn up the brightness on your TV too much or the volume is too loud), slowly reverse the change until you hit the exact sweet spot with each aspect of the movie.

As you’re making these various “edits” to this internal movie, notice how the feelings associated with this memory continue to intensify and intensify. And then you can intensify those feelings even further by imagining them occupying a certain part of your body, like just over your heart or your solar plexus, and then placing the palm of your hand over that spot and noticing how the feeling tends to spin or tumble in a certain direction. Then allow your hand to move with that feeling, until they merge into one entity. You can use your hand to spin the feeling even faster, and you can even infuse your favorite color into the feeling, or have little explosions of fireworks shooting out if it . . . And, with that, let’s pause for a moment.

I have a quick question for you:

Are you thinking that I’ve lost my mind a bit? I mean, feelings that tumble and spin and have colors and fireworks shooting out of them? There’s no denying that it sounds a little bit wacky, don’t you think? In fact, I’m the first one to admit it! But here’s the thing: do you think I would really waste your time and mine going through all this when I have more than enough other things to write more directly about than just the Straight Line System, which I invented?

All these little adjustments you make, using the power of your mind, will, in fact, intensify your state even further, which is crucial, because you can only set an anchor when you’re at the absolute pinnacle of a state! (This strategy alone won’t get you there, but it sets you up for olfactory anchoring in a very big way.)

Step 5: Set your anchor

Now we’re at step five, which is where you actually set your anchor. What this entails is taking the intense state that you’ve just created and linking it to a word or mantra, or to some external sound or sharp feeling, like clapping your hands and screaming the word “yes”—which was when the entire process had begun to break down for me.

It started with my struggle to find a sound or a word or a movement that felt extreme enough and unique enough to serve as an anchor that I could fire in any situation. For whatever reason, nothing felt right, nothing felt profound—until, one day, it did.

Just how I came up with the idea to use sense of smell I don’t fully recall, although it definitely had something to do with my memories from childhood. You see, as an adult, it never ceased to amaze me how even the slightest whiff of something that I had smelled during my childhood—a freshly cut grass field in the Catskill Mountains during summer camp, low tide at the jetty where my dad took me fishing, or the musky, mothballed scent of my grandma’s house—was enough to send the most powerful memories rushing back, to the point where they viscerally hit me.

Once I hit upon the idea of using the sense of smell to set an anchor, it didn’t take long to find the perfect product. There were two requirements:

1 It had to be a scent that was extreme enough, unusual enough, powerful enough, and pungent enough to meet Bandler’s criteria, yet still be pleasing enough to the nose to not gross me out or become its own negative anchor.

2 It had to have an unobtrusive delivery system that was portable, practical, and personal to me—meaning, I could easily slip it into my pocket, remove it without fanfare, and then use it to fire off my anchor without the scent escaping into my surroundings and impacting the people around me.

The name of the product I found was BoomBoom. See what this is at www.boomboomenergy.com.

BoomBoom came in a sleek black tube about the size of a ChapStick, so all I had to do was unscrew the top, give myself a blast up each nostril, and, just like that, I popped into my ideal state.

It was an amazing breakthrough for sure, although the breakthrough it paved the way for was considerably more amazing, and what truly turned olfactory anchoring into the foolproof state management strategy that it is today.

So what was this second breakthrough?

Well, simply put, I figured out a laughably simple way to eliminate steps two, three, and four from NLP’s five-step anchoring process, leaving behind a leaner, meaner, and infinitely more user-friendly two-step process that I officially dubbed olfactory anchoring—because of the odorous centerpiece on which its foundation was built, namely BoomBoom.

To explain exactly how I did it, let me go back a step:

After I became a master practitioner in NLP, I spent the next six months trying to set an anchor for myself for a state of certainty. But, no matter how many times I tried, when I got to step four—which was using the five modalities to intensify my focus—things began to break down.

The problems started with the memory I chose to focus on. I figured what moment in my life had I ever been more absolutely certain than on that magical Tuesday evening when I first drew the Straight Line on my trusty whiteboard? I’m talking about the moment I described in detail in Chapter 2, where my window of clarity opened. I couldn’t think of a time when I felt more absolutely certain about anything.

But, to my own shock, when I tried to set an anchor, it didn’t take. No anchor was set. So I tried again, and again, and again.

Nothing. No result.

So I tried focusing on different memories—older memories, newer memories, recent memories, memories where I was selling, memories where I was training salespeople, memories when I was speaking onstage—but no matter how powerful the memories were, and no matter how many times I tried to use the five sensory modalities to get to the absolute pinnacle of the state, in my heart of hearts I knew I hadn’t gotten there.

The necessity of having to be at the absolute peak of a state in order to successfully set an anchor makes this strategy extraordinarily tough to execute. Whether you have someone guiding you through the process or not, to actually manufacture an artificial state of absolute certainty—I mean, to truly-truly do this, with no bullshit or exaggeration—is a major long shot, and most importantly, it’s also prone to massive self-delusion, where people try to talk themselves into having succeeded because they desperately want the benefit.

In fact, when it comes to setting an anchor with NLP, I’ve seen more of that well-meaning self-delusion than anything, especially at live events, where people feel compelled to go along with the crowd, so they jump up and down and cheer and clap their hands and scream the word “yes” like wild banshees, and then high-five each other over the “successful” anchor they’ve just set.

The stark reality, however, is that the numerous benefits they’re getting from being in an elevated state—they’ll learn faster, they’ll remember more, they’ll have an experience that they’ll never forget (and that they’ll buy tickets for again!)—are only temporary.

So where am I going with all this?

Well, in the end, what I eventually came to realize was that the only surefire way for me to be truly at that ultra-intense level of absolute certainty that’s required to set a legitimate anchor was to wait until I was actually in that state organically and set my anchor then.

In other words, why try to manufacture an ultrapeak state of absolute certainty through a series of powerful yet entirely subjective NLP techniques and never really know if I ever got there? All I had to do was wait until I closed a really big sale, in the real world, which caused me to pop me into a peak state of absolute certainty organically, and then, right then—and I mean right then, in that very instant—when I was basking in the afterglow of closing an awesome sale, and I knew in every cell of my body that I truly was in an organic state of absolute certainty, as opposed to an artificially manufactured imitation, I would bring out my BoomBoom and take a giant whiff up each nostril —boom! boom!—and just like that, I’d have set myself one powerful anchor.

Anchor

So to sum it all up: with zero preparation, beyond simply choosing what state you want to anchor, all you have to do is wait for that awesome moment when you close a really big sale (or any situation that causes you to organically pop into a state of absolute certainty, or absolute anything, for that matter), and then, right then, in that very instant, when that moment hits, you whip out your tube of BoomBoom, unscrew the cap, take a deep, prodigious blast up each nostril so you can literally feel the rush of the mint and citrus bathing your olfactory nerves, giving you that pleasant, invigorating burn. Then ball your hands into a pair of fists and start squeezing tightly, with your fingernails digging into your palms so you can really feel it, and belt out the word “yes” in a forceful yet controlled manner, so the bulk of the volume and power is directed inward, right to your solar plexus, where it resonates with your heart and soul and liver and loins and your very gizzard itself. And that’s it. You’ve just set yourself an extremely powerful anchor that you can use the next time you’re about to enter a sales encounter.

Here’s how it looks, laid out in steps:

Step 1: Choose a state

Like before, let’s choose a state of absolute certainty.

Step 2: Set your anchor

You wait for a very specific moment, and then take out your BoomBoom, unscrew the top, and follow the steps above—take a massive blast up each nostril and then ball your hands up into fists and dig your fingernails into your palms, and belt out the word “yes” in a powerful yet controlled manner.

Then, ten seconds later, with the scent of BoomBoom still lingering but the initial rush gone, repeat the process again.

And that, as they say, is that.

You’ve anchored in a state of absolute certainty.

Now, just to be safe, you can repeat this process one more time—the next time you close the same type of awesome sale—and stack a second anchor right on top of the first one. It certainly can’t hurt, as anchors become stronger when they’re stacked; but, either way, even if you only set the anchor once, it should be very powerful the first time you fire it off, which should be right before you’re about to enter a sales encounter. And just to make sure your anchor stays firmly locked in, for the next month or so, whenever you close one of those especially awesome sales, the ones that cause you to pop into a peak state of absolute certainty, take another one-and-one of your BoomBoom, and keep stacking anchor on top of anchor on top of anchor, until the linkage is so engrained that it will stay with you forever.

So that’s olfactory anchoring in a nutshell.

I’ve seen it work its magic with countless people, who’ve been impacted by this in a far more profound way than I. After all, state management was always something that came easy to me in a sales or business setting; but I’m the exception to the rule. For every guy like me, there are a million others who are the exact opposite, and they are held back massively for no other reason than that they lack the ability to show up to a sales encounter being their best self.

To that end, I can’t even begin to tell you how gratifying it’s been to be able to throw those people a lifeline, in the form of a little black tube with a wickedly pungent smell. All it takes is a quick shot up the left nostril and a quick shot up the right, and managing your state becomes as simple as taking a few drops of Visine to get the red out.

In fact, between the awesome power of the Straight Line System and the assurance olfactory anchoring gives you that you’ll be in a state that allows you to tap into that power, you’ve set yourself up to accomplish virtually anything you put your mind to.

So now let’s shift back to the actual skills of the Straight Line System—picking up right where we left off, with a deep dive into the ten core influencing tonalities and body language principles.