Where’s the milk in your refrigerator? I’m sure you know, but how do you know? You make a lightning-fast picture in your mind’s eye of the inside of your refrigerator and saw where the milk was. Amazing.

What’s your favorite song, Got it? How did you do that? You played it in your head to check it out. What does sand feel like? Same concept. You went inside your head to retrieve sensory information, to check out your experience.

This is the language of the brain-pictures, sounds, and feelings. Spoken language comes after input from the senses. Now, can you make a picture of yourself not doing something? Not feeling something? Not seeing something? You can’t because the brain can’t process negative pictures, sounds, or feelings. Here’s what I mean.

In your mind’s eye, can you make a picture of yourself not doing something? Not seeing something? You can’t because the brain can’t process negative pictures, sounds, or feelings. Here’s what I mean. In your mind’s eye can you make a picture of yourself not feeding a dog? No, you can’t.

All you can do is make a picture of yourself doing something else-standing by the dog, walking the dog, bungee jumping with the dog. Your brain can work only with positive information. It gets this information from the experiences of your five senses, which it then manipulates in the emotional blender we call the imagination.

From the book: Convince Them in 90 Seconds, by Nicholas Boothman