Adjusting Your Lens
Kenrick Cleveland
So now we have some framing basics. By no means can framing be summed up in three little articles, but in that, there's a beginning foundation from which to build our persuasion arsenals.
People who wear glasses to see better don't walk around with just the frames on. They have lenses made to fit their prescription.
Some lenses distort. Drug addicts and alcoholics have frames of 'how can I get more of what I want'? They look through highly distorted lenses of denial much of the time.
Are all of our specific issues lenses? If these issues are strong enough to warp and distort reality, then I'd say, yes. My whole life I was using a really strong lens when it came to food. I'd think about my next meal as I was eating. My blood sugar was so out of whack that I craved more and more sugar or simple carbohydrates after finishing and filling up on an entire meal. The lens I was looking through was overpoweringly focused on unhealthy foods and fear of scarcity. But by adjusting this view, things have changed dramatically.
At the other end of the spectrum, think about the anorexic who looks at themself in the mirror and sees fat. This is a distortion of the lens they're looking though.
Social issues are also lenses. Consider the camp from Northern California which teaches campers to unlearn social issues of racism and sexism. The lessons are based on the presupposition that if we have grown up in the U.S., attended institutions of learning, been exposed to the media in any way, then we have been indoctrinated into a racist, sexist society. Their claim is that equality and social change can only happen if we examine these lenses through which we've been viewing the world.
Whether or not this is something you believe, it is a strong frame. By unlearning the isms, the camp facilitators believe the lens becomes less distorted.
What are some other distortions that prevent us from seeing the real picture? How about religious fanaticism? How scratched, cracked and myopic is a suicide bomber's lens on the world? VERY. Their views go WAY beyond framing.
Addicts have distortions, violent criminals, the mentally ill. . . Extremists such as the Klan literally view the world in terms of 'black and white'.
One of the first steps to persuasion is the ability to persuade yourself. We don't have to eliminate all of our quirks and blockages (though self improvement is always a good thing), but simply to examine how our frames and lenses define us and how there may be an equally strong opposing belief out there.
I'll tell you a little secret. My lens is powerfully, intensely, vigorously focused on persuasion. Some might thing to the extreme. Okay, maybe that's not a secret. But it's definitely my lens to the world and I'm thrilled to share it with you.
Kenrick Cleveland teaches strategies to earn the business of affluent prospects using http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion strategies.
|
