Rules of the Game (31 page)

By Thomas Scott McKenzie

An artist frames a painting. A carpenter frames a house. Project managers establish a time frame for getting work done. A criminal evades capture by framing a stranger. A film director frames a shot. Bowlers get ten frames a game.

There are dozens of different interpretations of the word
frame
, but most of them have to do with a structure or an agenda. In
Introducing NLP
, their classic book on neurolinguistic programming, authors Joseph O'Connor and John Seymour define frames as “the way we put things into different contexts to give them different meanings; what we make important at the moment.”

In other words, a frame is the context through which a person, thing, or environment is perceived, and framing is a way that you can shape an interaction to achieve the result you desire. You can change your own frame, someone else's frame, or the frame in which a certain conversation or situation seems to exist.

Reframing is the process of changing the frame or providing a new view. “Reframing literally means to put a new or different frame around some image or experience,” Robert Dilts writes in his book on the subject,
Sleight of Mouth
. “Psychologically, to ‘reframe' something means to transform its meaning by putting it into a different framework or context than it has previously been perceived.”

In fact, most kinds of flirting really amount to reframing. For example, if a woman bumps into you and you ask, “Did you just grab my ass?”—you've just reframed the situation from an accidental collision to a sexually charged situation.

Most social rules can also be thought of in terms of frames. The alpha male, for example, is the person with the dominant frame (or point of view) in a given situation. Dominance, however, should not be confused with being stubborn or a control freak. As Dilts asserts, “The person with the most flexibility will be the one who directs the interaction.”

When you first meet a woman, it's important to have a strong frame, so that she feels a need to seek your approval, rather than the other way around. This is one of the reasons you're filling your Stylelife calendar with events: so that the woman can enter your world.

Even most of the things you're not supposed to do when approaching—such as acts of supplication, like buying a woman drinks so she'll talk to you—can be seen as evidence of having a weak frame or giving in to someone else's frame.

Though there are innumerable techniques for reframing, in
Sleight of Mouth
Robert Dilts focuses on four specific ones.

Dilts uses the movie
Cabaret
as an example of how frame size affects our perception. One scene in the film begins with a close-up of “an angelic-looking young boy who is singing in a beautiful voice,” he writes. But as the camera pulls back, viewers notice that he's dressed as a soldier. As it pulls back a little farther, viewers see his arm—and on it, an armband with a swastika.

“As the frame size gets larger and larger, we eventually see that the boy is singing at a huge Nazi rally,” Dilts concludes. “The meaning and feeling conveyed by the image is completely changed by the information coming from the changes in the frame size of the image.”

So during your interactions with women, imagine that you have a movie camera and can control the frame size. Let's say that you want a woman to leave the bar and go home with you, but she's worried about what her friends will think. Her frame is the equivalent of a group shot in your movie. You can zoom way out and tell her that her time on this planet is short, that adventures she'll always remember are awaiting her, and that if she constantly inhibits herself based on the opinions of others, life will pass her by. Or you can zoom into a close-up, cutting her friends out of the picture and focusing on just her wishes and desires, creating an intimate world between the two of you that she doesn't want to leave.

Context reframing is based on the fact that the same event will have different implications depending on the circumstances or environment in which it occurs. “Rain, for example, will be perceived as an extremely positive event to a group of people who have been suffering from a severe drought, but as a negative event for a group of people who are in the midst of a flood, or who have planned an outdoor wedding,” Dilts writes. “The rain itself is neither ‘good' nor ‘bad.' The judgment related to it has to do with the consequence it produces within a particular context.”

This is useful to your inner game as well as your outer game. Let's say that
you've just tried a new opener, but the woman gave you a funny look and walked away. In the context of trying to get a phone number, you would view the interaction as a failure. But if you reframe the context so your goal wasn't to obtain the digits but to determine the effectiveness of your new opener, then the interaction was a success.

Content reframing acknowledges that people see the same thing differently based on their personal attitudes, likes, dislikes, needs, and values. Dilts uses the example of an empty field of grass. A farmer sees it as an opportunity to plant crops, an architect sees it as a lot to build a Gothic home, a man flying a small plane that's running out of fuel sees the field as an emergency landing strip.

We all see things differently. Reframing based on content means looking at each individual's perspective and the intention behind his or her external behavior.

So, suppose you're back at that bar with the woman you want to take home. But her friend keeps telling her, “You guys should just stay here. Why do you need to go anywhere else? You shouldn't leave with a guy you just met.”

It would be easy to simply dismiss the friend's behavior as selfish and controlling. But try to find a positive intention in her actions. Maybe she's worried about her friend's safety. Maybe she thinks you're the kind of guy who drives a van with garbage bags taped over the windows and power tools banging around in the back.

She may seem hell-bent on frustrating you, but her behavior is actually coming from a positive place. And the quicker you understand her frame, the better you can handle the objection. For example, you can deal with the situation by spending some time talking with the friend so that she trusts you more, and then giving her your phone number. This way, if she's worried about her friend or wants to find out where she is, she has the option of calling you.

The problem with critics is that they don't just point out what you're doing wrong. They often point out what they think is wrong with you.

To deal with critics, it's important to get beyond the negativity and realize that their judgments are usually made with good intentions.

This also applies to your criticisms of others. When a friend offers an idea,
for example, avoid responding with something negative that could start an argument like, “That'll never work.” Instead, ask a positive, constructive question that he or she won't take personally, such as “How are you going to pull that off?”

This type of reframing also works well on your fiercest critic: you. Take any excuse you may have that keeps you from achieving your goals, such as “I don't have time,” and turn it into a solvable problem: “I don't use my time efficiently.” Then turn that problem into a question: “How can I use my time more efficiently so that I can reach my goal?”

Reframing criticisms and limitations as “how” questions can turn a dead end into an open door.

The more you learn about frames, the more flexibility, fun, and success you'll have in your social and professional life. At the very least, always keep in mind the following three things when interacting with women: