Timing in life is everything. Ten seconds too late and you miss the train that would have got you to work on time. Ten seconds to early and you just walked by that contact
or potential partner that could of opened up a whole new
world of possibility for you.

Timing and it role in the process of establishing an anchor is widely misunderstood.

There are many skills one needs to be competent at to be able to anchor others elegantly. One skill you CANNOT AFFORD TO DO POORLY is having a good sense of timing.

Good timing is key for many aspects of NLP such as being humorous, knowing when to ask that penetrating question, knowing when to pause (for example when presenting or doing a hypnotic induction) to name a few. However most of us
have not come from a musical or dance background where you performance lives or dies by the timing you keep.

So how can we get good at this critical skill? Well before we get into that there are a couple of other skills and topics you need to know about.

First off - when anchoring - what you are looking to do is create a FUNCTIONAL Anchor - one that works, can be repeated to produce a specific result. Often this may be a state but it does not need to be.

A lot of folks get tied up in questions like:

• "Should I anchor at the peak",
• "Should I anchor on wave up to the peak"?
• "How do I know if I have an anchor?"

When you realize that anchors are everywhere - that literally you and the people around you are firing anchors off all the time .. and WHAT HAPPENS AFTER AN ANCHOR is fired off?

A Story Of "Secret Thearpy"

The other night I was out with a good friend John and his new girlfriend. We were about to enjoy some food in a very popular Thai restaurant. As the waitress started walking us to our table, I could smell many rich aromatic flavors of the pipping hot food in the air. I'm known for being playful by my friends and in seems
to be in Irish people's nature to both give and take the mickey out of each other. So a plan spawned....

John had a bad break-up with his ex-girlfriend Liz, which was unfortunate as they both cared a lot for each other. John had been telling me that all the stuff with Liz was all behind him now so I played a trick on him ...

As we were mid way through the process of sitting down together I playfully but in a serious and urgent sounding tone said:

"John ... I think that is Liz sitting over there .." as I kept my head still, as if being all hush-hush, and motioned my eyes quickly to the left, and gave a little "Yes" nod.

In an INSTANT, my good friend John's state changed RADICALLY. His eye's had defocused, he facial muscles went flat, the color drained from his cheeks.

Immediately when I said "that is Liz over there" he took a RAPID breath in, and started waving his head in a quick darting motions back and forth as he tried to  scan with his eyes for her.

Indeed, the EFFECT of this simple anchor was SO POWERFUL on him that it entirely interrupted the seating process he was in, and he was still standing while the rest of us were now sitting down!

So let's go back over what just happened. There was a lot of things that went on in that short 15 second description of being out at a restaurant.

So as I was saying The first thing to get is TIMING was KEY, as was another component and that is CONTEXT.

The skills and process of anchoring will blow your mind when you really learn, and can actually anchor without any hesitation and with deliberate and conscious intent.

If I had said the exact same thing to my friend John if him and I were just out chilling in a bar WITHOUT our respective partners present, the effect would of been significantly less.

The CONTEXT of firing off the anchor when we were in a highly social situation, where his NEW girlfriend was present (whom I knew was anxious about the ex-girlfriend) and that if Liz was present, in such a small social situation, would make it awkward to avoid an interaction.

The Role Of Timing

Now let's look at my choice of timing.

Timing was KEY for this trigger to go off well however I didn't have to do any pre-building of the state before hand to get the response. I didn't have to have my friend "go inside and remember a time you felt really bad when going out with Liz .."
etc etc.

That would of been complete nonsense and in actuality, would of most likely diffused the sense of shock that firing the anchor (her name in this context) created.

Also it was very intentional and by design that I WAITED until right in the moment when we had started the movement of sitting down before I fired the anchor off. This is similar to doing a handshake interrupt, in that I SUSPECTED that if
he had any serious residual emotion there the suggestion of Liz being right "over there" would overload his conscious processes and thereby interrupt what he was
doing.

Remember, up until this point, John had been telling me he was all over Liz, and that "all of that" didn't bother him any more.

In essence all of these factors, the restaurant, the new girlfriend present, the fact I said it precisely when we were literally in the process of sitting down AND
said it in a rushed, urgent tone all had the EFFECT of AMPLIFYING any sense of fear/sacredness or panic that may or may not have been present.

Before I fired the anchor I didn't know if he was going to react in a shocked/mildly panicked way - I had a guess, tested it, and it worked.

The Effect ..

So what happened?

Well, as soon as John had somewhat composed himself he turned to me and said "where, where is she?" as he continued to hurriedly look around and scan the restaurant.

At that precise moment I turned and looked at him and ... BURST out laughing and said to him "I'm only messing with you.."

Now here is the critical point - particularly if as your reading this, you are inside your head going, "that's cool" and your laughing along or you are inside your head going .. "gees that's harsh. How could you?".

You see, right in THAT MOMENT when I laughed and told him, he laughed AND I ANCHORED HIM kinesthetically (slapped my hand on his shoulder and left it there) as HE BEGAN TO RELAX DEEPLY and SIT DOWN.

Again his state changed RADICALLY as he began to RELAX FULLY and THINK ABOUT what just happened. And he said to me "You fecker, you got me good there..." and we continued to laugh together.

I amplified the laughter state and fired off the anchor several more times for him to relax and laugh WHILE I ever so "innocently" talked about him and Liz and their relationship in a very precise yet normal way ... and what it would be like to see her in the future.

This last step was in actuality what the GOAL of my 'trick' was all about. The specific process that occurred in him AFTER I initially shocked him served several purposes:

1. It let John know that I knew he was B.S'ing me about being "over her" which was an important part of the healing process.

2. It demonstrated to himself that there was a lot more "emotionally" going on to him that he wasn't either aware of or facing up to.

3. And most importantly I had in the space of 90 seconds helped break an intense and bad anchor for him, and re-trained his brain toward a powerful and positive way to respond when he taught about Liz in the future, all without his conscious awareness. I repeated the process several times to hardware a new response (breath, relax and feel good).

This is what has become known as doing "secret therapy stuff".

This playing with anchors was a thousand times more effective than just "talking about" how he felt etc.

Realize this: When change occurs and sticks, it happens in the body of the person. It's not just in the mind or some conceptual idea of his relationship etc. In order for it to stick and work the change needs to happen at the neurological, chemical and
physical level, i.e.  a fancy way of saying in the body.

Am I a miracle worker, far from it, I just used the process of anchoring the way the technology is meant to be used - for creating more freedom and opportunity for everyone. Everything I did and more, you could do too, once you know how.

So to close out, timing is key. But in truth the whole matter of timing on the "peak", "upward slope" etc is pretty mute.

The only thing to be really concerned with for now is do you have a FUNCTIONAL anchor that will do what you need it to?

Sure, it's nice if you do anchor at the peak but it doesn't matter (in most cases) if what you anchor works and gets you the result you want, which may be to reproduce a given state from an individual 30 seconds from now.

Avoid over complicating the theory - practice noticing when people's states change and when someone is really getting into a given state like say laughter, anger, confidence etc then do something unique and consistent. Even if you're not near them, just click your fingers precisely at the moment when you think the state is intense enough to anchor and you will train your own brain to become more skilled and precise to be able to anchor far more effectively.

Lastly, if you'd like to learn all the major distinctions on how to anchor like a pro, in 30 days or less and enjoy step by step
exercises on exactly what to do to build up your "anchoring muscle" then be sure to go here now ..