“Did you ever have sex with an animal, Jack?”
I’ve been running a fever for the past 48 hours. So I decided to download a movie to make the time pass.
The movie is called Midnight Run, and it’s a 1980s comedy starring Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. De Niro plays Jack Walsh, a bounty hunter who’s in charge of bringing in John “Duke” Mardukas, an accountant (played by Grodin) who stole $15 million from the mob.
At one point, Jack and the Duke are on a train. Jack decides he won’t talk to the Duke any more because it’s all business and because the Duke is annoying him.
It’s an awkward situation. Just silence in the air. And then, the Duke starts talking. But he’s not getting a response out of Jack. So he says:
“Did you ever have sex with an animal, Jack? Remember those chickens around the Indian reservation? There were some good-looking chickens there, Jack, you know, between us.”
Jack smiles.
“Yeah there were a couple there that I might have taken a shot at.”
And the next thing you know, the Duke and Jack are laughing and talking again.
That is an example of a pattern interrupt. In copywriting circles, this term is often used to describe a surprising first sentence to suck readers into the rest of your copy. But a pattern interrupt is something broader and more powerful.
It comes from NLP, or at least I think so, based on some Tony Robbins tapes I’m listening to. Says Tony, it’s easy to completely change how you think and feel, even about things that have been bothering you for years. All it takes are three steps:
First, you have to get leverage — in other words, you have to have a strong reason to want to change.
Second, you interrupt your current, negative pattern of thought or behavior by doing something unexpected.
Third, you create a new, more useful pattern for yourself.
It’s a simple process and useful if you’re trying to make yourself into a happier, more productive person. But it works just as well on other people as on yourself. So if somebody around you starts getting sucked into a negative pattern you don’t like, try asking them, for example, if they’ve ever had sex with an animal.