Pacing and Leading

These are two extremely effective NLP skills I employ in almost every set-even outside of PU. Pacing and leading are components of building rapport with any other human being. Ever notice how groups of best friends speak to each other in the same way, or use the same vocabulary? Maybe you’ve noticed that when people are really engaged in a conversation, their body languages mirror each other’s. Pacing and leading allows for the PUA to use exactly these types of behavior to calibrate a set so that creating rapport is done subtly, [partly] nonverbally, consistently, and easily.

Pacing.

After whatever opener you’ve used, and considering you’re speaking to the HB, begin to pace them. This means that you are mirroring, as the technique is also called, the unconscious cues that they are projecting. Elements include
• Mirror their pace of speech (does she speak slowly, quickly?)
• mirror their vocabulary (if HB particularly loves to use the word “really” , for example, to describe something she’s fond of, use and emphasize that match word while you’re speaking back to her.)
• mirror their breathing rate
• mirror their excitement, or lack thereof
• mirror posture
• cross over mirroring: if your subject makes a physical gesture, as if to put her hair back behind her ear, you mirror that same behavior in a more subtle and less exact way. In the afore mentioned example, a possible cross over mirroring gesture by the PUA could be scratching his ear, nose, forehead or hair briefly. If the HB crosses her legs, the PUA could cross his legs too. And so on.. (be careful to be subtle in certain, but not all, cross over mirrorings, as they can be perceived as you mocking the HB.)
After quickly reading your subject, you can start pacing them using the techniques listed above. All of these are common occurrences that happen when two “click,” and what this technique does is that it refines the elements that make that “click” happen, and allows the PUA to generate a “click” when he wants to.

^ honestly much easier done than said. Yes. In fact, this is something you can practice everyday with everybody. The next part is even easier.

Leading

Once two people have a rapport, it’s very easy for one of them to lead another. After having paced and mirrored, enough so where you can feel a rapport already built, you’re now able to lead. Leading can be done verbally or non verbally, and is usually effective in the form of a suggestion. Commands are harder to make work, but are possible-especially if you disguise the command in the form of a suggestion. Command: Go to the bar with me to have a drink. Suggestion: hey you know, I could really do for a drink.
If you’ve created the appropriate rapport, when you lead, it’s going to feel like you both want to do ___, or go ___. The way that I personally lead most often is nonverbal. After establishing the rapport, Ill start turning my feet towards wherever I want to go. Because the HB is already in a state of rapport, she’ll often mirror me subconsciously. While my upper body is still facing her, ill transition into just slowly walking into that direction. Remember to make this step by step, and not just: one second you’re talking to her face to face, and the other you’re walking away. Instead, turn one foot, then the other, then take one step forward, stop, gauge her reaction (maybe more rapport needs to be established?), take another step and turn it into a walk.
You’ve said nothing, she feels comfortable, and you’re going to where you want to go.

Practice this, and you’ll see how effective, easy and simple it is to lead people. You can even adapt this principle to make the other person agree with you verbally, its basically the foundation for a compliance ladder. In fact, this whole post could have been summarized in: 1. Mirror. 2. Lead. It’s easier than assembling furniture from Ikea.
cheers,
Ali