While getting good with NLP involves learning many skills, there is one communication skill you must master. It is called "Response Attentiveness" …

Its something that every good story teller, hypnotist, trainer and communicator can do with ease. Can you? Before I get into that, answer me a question, what time is it there where you are?

Response attentiveness means you get a response when you ask for someones attention. The two questions above, and the second being a specific "do something" action are both examples of asking and hopefully getting for your attention. Did you answer "yes" to my first question or go "don't know, you haven't told me yet what response attentiveness is!" and did you check the clock on your computer, watch or phone or find yourself wondering .. "why is Tom asking me this?".

You see when you are asking and getting someone's attention, when you do it intentionally and with a more useful purpose than than the basic example above, you get to effect what a person will experience and feel. And if you want to be a great story teller, change agent, coach or hypnotist then getting and keeping peoples attention and having them follow your suggestion/invitations/instructions is essential.

Think about it ..

Having your listener follow along and DO what you are asking of them is important to doing effective change, coaching, hypnosis and persuasion work. Yet this is something I've noted many NLPers seem to rush through in the process of "applying a technique". There is no point starting your conversation, doing a "deepener", running someone through a fast phobia technique or decision destroyer IF you don't have their attention and if they are not doing what you are asking of them. So if you find you are telling a narrative or giving an instruction but the person is not following along then DON'T proceed and just continue on, STOP, loop back and get their attention. Do whatever you need to, to have them sync up with your request.

Have you ever heard a trainer at start of a talk ask the audience "how many people here are x?" and if they get little response they will rebuke the audience and say "People, this is yes …  (head nodding up and down) .. and this is no (head moving side to side) .. so let's try that again, how many people here are X?", and then the audience responds actively. That is an example of response attentiveness at work.

Many times something which you think "didn't work", was as a result of you not having your listener's attention rather than the NLP technique etc was ineffective. You can do as many fast phobia routines as you want or have someone change the way they look at a specific memory but if they fail to follow along and do what you say as you guide them through it then it can easily appear that it "didn't work."

So what do you do? Simply test and find out if they have been following along ..

Check this out for yourself. Next time you don't get the result you expected for some use of the technology .. test to see if the person you were relating/working with was following along or were you racing several steps beyond where they were? And so they never went through the change/instruction process with you?

Making it Practical:

Theory is nice, but as Yoga Bear said the difference between theory and practice is in theory there is no difference but in practice there is!

So let's take this simple concept and go apply it in the real world.

First, if you don't know if you are able to get and hold people's attention at will then you need to start tracking that. Pay attention next time BEFORE you speak if you have the person's attention. How do you know? Well you can observe a behavioral indicator that tells you "you have my attention". That could be the person is looking directly at you, head slightly forward or tilted to one side etc .. eyebrows elevated etc saying "your turn" or "I'm listening" …

For example I was at a wedding recently and when the groom got up to deliver his speech and 120 people continued to talk over him as if he wasn't there! It was the first time at a wedding I'd ever seen anything like that happen. Here was the groom, giving the "speech of his life" and half the audience were talking right over him!

Afterward he was confused as to how that happened and assumed that "the audience must of been bored of hearing speeches" But the real answer was because he started talking before he got their attention. You have to have people's attention first before you start having them follow a story, do an action etc.

Another speaker got up, who did know how to pick up the audiences attention and before he started talking he non verbally picked up the attention of the audience by simply stopping at the podium, while everyone was still talking, extended his energy out and quickly picked up the attention of the entire room by moving his eyes over each table, until a noisy post wedding dinner room came to a complete silence …. and THEN he began to talk.

If you already good at gathering people's attention then practice holding that attention for 1, 2, 5, 30 minutes and see if how well you can have others engrossed and actively following what you are saying and have them demonstrate via different responses that you have their complete attention. You can do this by asking them a question, pausing mid sentence and have them do a forced mind reading (where they finish your sentence for you) or watch their eye accessing ques as you have them follow you through a story that has them access different sensory systems. Be creative. And have fun.

The more ways you have of gathering someone's attention and then keeping it the more powerful a communicator you will become.

PS: Got a question about NLP, a comment or suggestion about a blog topic, simply leave a comment below and I'll do my best to answer it.

Ever wonder how unconscious installation really happens? Ever wonder why some trainers can create awesome learning experiences that stay with you for years after you have left them?

It comes down to a few key skills…that anyone can learn .. with guidance and solid practice.

Trying to go into what is involved in unconscious installation is to big for one email, but I will share some key distinctions that will help set you in the right direction.

Let's deal with the first of three big obstacles that get in most NLPers way:

Unconscious learning isn't possible Vs. Unconscious Installation is an automatic "program upgrade" that requires me to do nothing

As surprising as this may sound, many folks in NLP I've meet think that unconscious learning doesn't exist or others who think if someone does an "unconscious installation" that they don't have to do anything.

Both are worldviews that hold serious practitioners back. As I've mentioned before there is no empirical evidence to show that we have something called an "unconscious". Rather this is a mental construct and a useful metaphor to describe a set of processes that handle many activities outside of our immediate awareness. As human beings we are constantly absorbing and learning from those around us .. and "unconscious learning" is therefore happening all the time. In fact most of the things you know you never learnt consciously. You can't remember learning the "technique" for walking or "speaking" your native language.

If you have ever spent alot of time around someone who is excellent at something, then you may have found that "parts of his/her skill" rubbed off on you. Without realising it you start asking yourself similar questions or approaching a situation in the same way that did. You didn't learn their behaviours consciously, it just seem to "happen" when you spent time around them.

That said … other people fall into the worldview that "I don't know if I have the said skill, I think I do .. I mean XYZ trainer did an unconscious installation on me".

This is a bit of the empire in new robes approach to learning, or thinking you've learnt something. When a trainer/guru/skilled teacher takes you through a process to "install" a skill in you they will have metaphorically wired you up to be more able to do X activity. However you still need to output the behaviour or put into practice the skill.

If you went inside your mind and I guided you through a process to get the skill of cycling .. you would still need to get on a bike and cycle and get primary feedback to truly active any pre-learning that me or anyone else would have setup.

So what does this mean?

It means we all have to take responsibility for our learning, even if Dr. Bandler did the installation. However in the right hands your learning time for getting these more advanced skills can be dramatically shortened.

And learning how to install strateiges and powerful learning experinces for others is a brillant skillset to have as a highly skilled NLPer. That's why I had Master Trainer Michael Breen spend several hours sharing exactly how to install strategies and get you skilled up to be able do this with greater ease.

If you'd like to learn how to truly install strategies with skill, something that you will have for a lifetime. Then check out the Platinum Audio News Club here.

To your increased mastery,
Tom

PS: Got a question, opionion or idea for a post, simply post a comment below.

Natalie Angier at the New York Times made a good post yesterday about the latest findings in the field of enhanced cognition  called "Abstract Thoughts? The Body Takes Them Literally".

What researcher have recently verified  is that we process information not just with our brains but our entire bodies.

That how we all process Time and Space references has a very real physiological response in the body. And this plays in nicely with what we have known for a long time in NLP … about being able to detect how a person is responding to our communication and how, through the intentional use of conversational sub-modalities, we can affect the way a listener experiences our communication - literally.

I'll do a post on that topic another day, but for now I'd recommend you can check out Natalie's full article here.

Did you know there is a little known but powerful framework that you can use with the Meta Model that can transform the results you can achieve with the technology of NLP?

It's called the Framing Tool and in this post I want to give you a brief overview about this very powerful framework for thinking that takes what you may already know about the Meta Model and gives you the ultimate "Swiss Army Knife" of thinking tools to use in your business and life. The Framing Tool is a fantastic tool to have in your toolset and was developed by Master Trainer Michael Breen.

Let's look at an example of it in action …

The other week I got a phone call from a very successful consultancy company asking me to help them figure out a viable solution to a complex resourcing problem that a large multinational company was having in the city of London. They hadn't won the business yet, they simply were after getting an invite to tender and help them solve the problem, after spending sixty minutes doing a meet an greet about the problem with the client.

I love these kind of challenges, because they require one to demonstrate really good thinking skills and bridge any doubt and trust question that a new client who has never before worked with you, naturally has.

Getting To The Real Frame Of Reference

So I spent ten minutes on the phone talking with the founding consultant of the firm to get his frame of reference on the problem. And at first I wasn't interested in the sensory details of the problem like most of us have been taught the Meta Model … to drill down so if a person says "My girlfriend is angry at me", you say "angry how specifically?" or "angry compared to what?", "who says she is angry?" etc etc. This is what I call "getting a person to describe the water, when they are, more often than not, already drowning!" .. No first I needed to get clear on whether the issue in focus was …

- The right issue
- A solvable one
- Would meet the clients requirements

Getting to grips with the stated and real frame of reference is key to doing effective change, influence, thinking work.

The frame of reference guides and directs a person thinking about a given topic and is the end result, the conclusion, that they will have made (typically  unconsciously) after completing a series of thinking processes.

You see when any of us make a statement or utterance is it the output of a long line of internal processes, the communicator will have had to leave out a vast array of information about the event/experience/topic under discussion.

As any given event occurs, our brains  will  be  going  through  a  series  of  unconscious  processes.  These  include identifying,  labeling,  categorizing,  and  establishing  new  cause  and  effect  relationships  and  meanings,  as  events  occur,  based  on  previous  references  and  conclusions already established. The end result is what we call the surface structure statement. This  statement is a conclusion that the client has reached, as a result of a complex  neurological process.

So the first thing I asked inside my head is "What must be true in order for the lead consultants statement to be the right thing to say?."

This question is at the core of correctly identifying the frame of reference that a client has. Asking this question along with using the Meta Model challenges of presuppositions, mind-reading and cause-effect with the lead consultant on his own thinking, quickly flushed out that he wasn't sure if indeed he had correctly identified the true scope and nature of the clients problem.

But now we had an issue .. the follow up meeting was fast approaching AND he couldn't go back to the client and qualify if indeed they had really identified the clients real problem.

And this is where the framing tool came in so handy ….

In fact all of the steps outlined above were based on using the framing tool. There is a whole series of questions and understandings that the framework has about how thinking works that makes it so powerful.

But before I digress, let's return to the "problem"..

Calculating The Clients Reality

What were we to do … we knew after spending ten minutes or so talking that in fact we only had probably about 25 to 35% of the end clients actual problem but we couldn't go back and get more. So I meet up with the consultancy bid team and lead them through a process of calculating the missing pieces …

Side Comment:

You may not know this but the famous NLP Volume 1 book was actually called "NLP Volume 1, the study of the structure of subjective experience AND what can be calculated from it" … this last bit is missed off the officially released title but it a key area of NLP .. being able to calculate certain things from only a limited set of inputs … and this is what the Framing tool can help you do.

You see Michael's Framing tool focuses on two key aspects of human thinking .. causal modeling … and the process of abstraction and instantiation.

Casual Modeling refers to the process of how we establish a link between one or  more  events,  objects  or  circumstances,  which  suggests  that  one  of  the  events,  objects  or  circumstances  is  produced,  generated  or  created  by  another  of  the  event(s).  In  essence  causal  modeling  describes  how  cause  and  effect  reasoning  underpins our experience of reality. Causal modeling teaches us how we bind our  experiences together.

By working through what has to be there, what could be there, what consequences and benefits etc must exist etc as a result of the causes we were able to quickly identify not just what the immediate "scenario" for the client was today but what the causal chain of consequences would look like if left unchecked and the significant benefits that they would enjoy by making certain adjustments.

In fact, by going through this simple but powerful process, I was able to help the bid team identify several hundred thousand pounds of "invisible" but real costs and negative consequences that allowed them to build a powerful business case for implementing a solution we proposed to the client.

We used the same powerful combination of the Framing Tool and Meta Model to create the slide deck, pitch at the presentation which lead the client to say take on board enthusiastically our definition of the real problem and solution to resolve it. Any anyone skilled with these two models can do the same thing in whatever context they want.

The Value Of The Framing Tool:

The Framing Tool, combined with the Meta Model allows you to rapidly get inside your clients model of the world and gives you the keys to being able to create transformative experiences for yourself and others.

You don't have to figure out "which technique" you need to work or try a million different questions to get to result. In fact using these two models for problem solving is just one application. It is just as versatile in any endeavor from persuading your boss for a rise to creating change.

If you are interested in learning more, Michael and I cover this and the many related deep, real world, NLP skills and topics in a lot more detail inside the Platinum Audio News Club. You can sign up for a complete risk free, free trial here today and enjoy $200 of exclusive NLP Times products on us, in the member's area.

Simply click here to find out more.

Making It Practical:

Getting highly skilled with the Meta Model and Framing Tool is covered in depth in the Platinum Audio News Club but if you want to put what you learned here into action right now then start by listening to your friends family and clients and asking yourself these two simple but very powerful questions:

1. What must be so in order for "X thing" to be the RIGHT and only thing to say?
2. What will be/could be consequences or benefits of this statement be?

X thing = the central issue or statement under focus

Keep doing this over and over .. and quickly you will be able to predict things about them and the way their are holding their problem that seem "magical" and then able to use whatever Meta Model challenge that will have the largest impact on the presenting issue.

For those who are more advanced, use the above two questions and loop iteratively forward and backwards .. meaning if the person says "I hate men/women!" you will anticipate the precedents and influences several steps in to the past and the consequences/benefits of such a statement several steps into the future.

Quick quiz for you ..

How many of the ten statements below are true?

The unconscious mind is real

The purpose of the Meta Model is to elicit deep structure and drill down to get to answers

*    The unconscious mind is real
*    The purpose of the Meta Model is to elicit deep structure and drill down to get to answers
*    Anchoring is really just stimulus response conditioning
*    Strategies are real and are how people process experiences and act in the world
*    Meta States are real
*    Modeling is all about replicating human behaviour
*    With NLP, you can fix anyone once you know the right technique to use
*    Human beings have many parts to them .. that is why they have conflicts
*    The field of NLP hasn't changed much in the past 30 years
*    NLP is a science

Ten, nine, seven? What did you guess?

Actually the answer is 0.

That's right zero.

You see all of the above are long standing myths or errors in their presentation but that sound real. In fact most people still teach them as real.

These and many others, are the kind of myths that cause no end of confusion around getting really good with NLP. They did for me. In fact, possibly like you, I've consumed tens of thousands of pages from many NLP authors that said as such.

And what do you think happens when you treat something as REAL?

Well for most of us … it usually means we CAN'T see it another way. Our mental filters become fixed, stuck and unless something comes along and jars it you are not likely to ever notice it as any different. And something worse happens .. you also adopt the limitations of that worldview. And you also, as so many others have done, install in others the same limitation!

So for example by thinking that you only use the Meta Model to drill down to get more sensory specific answers you don't realise that you can use it as an elegant tool for persuasion and installation…

When you adopt the worldview, you take both sides of it .. the limitations and the benefits. And sometimes the limitations can keep you stuck or be less effective with it as you might otherwise be.

I know some members reading this might think that this is heresy.

But before anyone starts flaming, stop and think about what Richard Bandler once shared with me…

He said:

"Be distrustful of feeling right if you can’t alter something quickly and easily … [The most important distinction for NLPers to get about NLP] is to shut up the f*** up inside their head.  That thinking about skills that you’re supposed to perceive is a BIG mistake."

Clearing Up Any Confusion:

Now so we are clear, let me review some of the statements I made earlier so you get where I am coming from…

If the unconscious is "real" then where is it? No one has ever empirically proved there is anything called an unconscious. Yet we accept is as "real". The terms conscious, unconscious and sub-conscious are mental constructs we use to talk about processes that we believe are occurring. And they can be handy metaphors but aren't literally true, to the best of any persons knowledge.

Anchoring is not stimulus response conditioning because it doesn't take into account one time learning experiences which a functional anchor is an example of.

Strategies are a model, a description we (NLPers) use to describe processes that we note to be occurring in others. It doesn't reflect everything that is going on inside of someone when they are .. making a decision, buying, feeling attracted etc .. but it is a very powerful tool we have for doing all kinds of effective work.Yet if you think that "strategies" are inside of people you can quickly start over-focusing on eliciting the strategy and not seeing the human being in front of you!

Meta States - this will be a hot potatoe I suspect, but these aren't real either. Why? Well think about it, a meta state is a linguistic description about a neurological process. The term itself is a consequence of trying to language a neurological process. The body is a whole and integrated system. If I am sad, and you ask me, how do you feel about being sad .. there are lots of things involved .. it presupposes that I have a feeling about my first feeling "sad" and so sends my attention inward to do a TDS and now label a new feeling to my first experience. Bingo, if I follow along I now have a new linguistic description to describe my experience. I might say, well I feel annoyed about being sad and a "meta state" has been formed .. or has it?

One can repeat this process several times and come up with a chain of meta questions "how do you fell about being X, about felling Y, about feeling Z?" and very quickly you have created a whole linguistic world … and specific feelings that come with that line of meta-thinking, but ultimately in the body it is experienced as ONE state.

Personally for me I don't mind what "new inventions" or ideas anyone comes up with but it is important that we keep perspective and our meanings about "what is what" and "what is stuff we make up" clear so we don't trip ourselves into distorted worldviews that have little to do with what is going on "out there". If we don't test our thinking on goingly (and the Meta Model is a great tool for that), we risk getting caught inside our own or someone else's mentally invented worldviews … and suffer the consequences .. and rewards (assumedly the new models were found by some to be better that what they had before).

Change Your Thinking & Be A Practitioner Of The Changes

The field of NLP is constantly changing and updating but only inside the minds and community of those who are constantly challenging their thinking about it and testing the results they can get. There is ALOT more to the elegant use of the Meta Model for example that masters of the field can do today than what Richard and John wrote down in the Structure of Magic. Neither of the founders from what I can see have stopped developing and refining what they are doing with their own take on the technology.

However, after spending years reading, learning, and practicing NLP, I've realised that in the majority we seem to be suffering of over theorisation about NLP and that is why I co-founded the Platinum Audio News Club. To try and approach learning and getting really good with the technology of NLP with minimum theory and have Master Trainer Michael Breen lead the program from someone who has been on the inside track of NLP, part of a small group of "old school" NLPers who are constantly challenging and updating their thinking about the technology for circa twenty five years.

And learning to challenge and update our skills and thinking is something we can all do more of. So I'll leave you with a quote, from Dr. Bandler that inspires me to constantly evaluate and improve my own thinking and skills:

"I’ve learned so much so quickly because I never assume that I understand.  So I always go and ask and then make sure that what they’re telling me actually
works.  And that I have enough of the process that I can do it.

…. It’s like you keep finding out until you can do something.  How do you know when you have enough?  When you actually can do it.  And then you’re sure you
have enough when you can teach somebody else to do it.  And once you understand a limitation you begin to discover that it’s always a double edged
sword.  It does good things but it also does bad things.  So you have to separate them out."

If you'd like to buy the full interview I did with Doctor Bandler, including the full transcript you can get it here.

For people interested in expanding their thinking and skills with NLP, feel free to check out the Platinum Audio News Club here.

Got a question or a comment, feel free to leave your thoughts below.

For everyone who has been emailing asking "when will the Platinum Audio News Club" be open … it now is.

Master Trainer Michael Breen and I have been working hard the past few months adding lots of new modules focusing on advanced language skills, strategy work, how to do unconscious installations and much more.

We've gone far out to bring you the key distinctions, skills and knowledge that can can dramatically improve your skill levels, regardless if you are an NLP novice or trainer  or Coach.

For full details about this unique monthly NLP membership program, and to get lots of cool bonuses and first month FREE, check it out here.