Don't and Do

I was reading an interesting book, Forget Selling: 12 Principles of Influence and Persuasion in Sales, Leadership, and Life by Edie Raether, There was an interesting statement in it.

Technically the brain can not distinguish between a do and don't statement. This is because don't is not a noun so we do not visual it. (See you just tried to visual it, even when I said don't)

Don't think about the elephant.

Don't smoke

This is a sneaky way to persuade someone into doing something. Place the thought in their head and come back around to it.