NLP Training, Techniques & Products for learning NLP

There are many levels of mastery one can demonstrate with NLP. We could summarize it into three tiers  of skill, being able to create change for yourself, being able to crate change in others and being able to create change in large groups of people. Recently I've had a number of emails from NLPers on both the middle east and in the west who have highlighted they have had a challenging changing habitual behaviors .. the story goes much the same

… I have this situation where I am not at control of how I respond ..

… I get angry, annoyed, peeved off when situation x happens

… I've studied NLP often up to Master Prac level

… Yet I still feel stuck and haven't been able to shift my response

Sound familiar? Perhaps you can relate. 

Usually over a few email exchanges we quickly identify what is driving and organizing their pattern of behavior and create a change. Something that they may have been triggering them off into all manner of negative states can be changed in a very short period of time. Even more "complex" so called "problems" can be changed rapidly. This is one of the core promises of NLP - that change can be created quickly.

Yet if we are honest with ourselves you know that there are probably several areas where you haven't created the changes that you want, that you have been repeating patterns that don't serve you and you haven't done anything about it. Perhaps you feel you can't.

Rather than going "how do you know?", a better question for this post is "Why not?".

NLP isn't a magic bullet but it does provide us all with phenomenal tools to create change yet there are a few guide rules if you intend to use it to it's maxim and create enduring change.

Let's review some of the core principals to raising your game in 09 and making all manner of great things possible.

Making it practical:

The first requirement for self-change is awareness - in order to change a 'problem' it is neccessary that you are aware in the first place that it there is an emotion-thought-behaviour that isn't serving you. The next step to mastering it as opposed to having it master you is to track it and become aware of where it shows up, what events/activities trigger it and what response it calls up in you.

The second requirement is taking complete responsibility for creating this change and making it happen. Are you owning the responsibility to create the change you want to see in your life? I suspect 99 out of 100 people don't - and the number of us who come to NLP to create change but then farm out the responsibility to someone else to make it happen is mind boggling. Many NLP students take the same approach to learning.

To use an expression, you have to get some "skin in the game". Why should another human being even listen to a darn thing any of us say about our problem if we are not willing to help ourselves and be a malleable to let change happen. Are you? Or are you invested in maintaining the status quo?

The third rule is having a clear outcome for what it is you really want. Sure, putting it through the NLP well formed outcome technique will help greatly, but to get traction you will want to make sure you have a really compelling desired state one that calls you to action. Ideally this would be something that compels you but more often a good jolt of perceived pain will do you more good. You're looking to get yourself moving to getting this resolved.

Fourth, once you have awareness, own the change and have a clear compelling outcome getting strong leverage on yourself is a must. Have you created leverage in your own life to jump start the change?

If you have no compelling feeling to change right now, today then your screwed before you begin. Most people will find it difficult to get it going if there is no juice in the engine. You want your brain just goes "ahh he/she is doing some more of that positive personal development self talk and isn't serious about creating a change - it's business as usual here!"

The fifth principle to live by is once you have all of the above now you can apply all your great NLP techniques and learnings about interrupting the patterns, creating a new pattern of behaviour and using any of the 100 plus NLP techniques that are available and then conditioning the response so that it sticks. But all that detail is for another post.  

For now, review the core questions raised here, put them into action when facing an area of our life you want to change and ask yourself "Do I want 2009 to be another groundhog year or will I make it a year of tremendous freedom and fulfillment?

Take some action today.

Tony Robbins, often gets a bashing in circles of NLP, but regardless of what you think he has touched the lives of millions and for many for the better.

For many years people familiar with NLP and Tony's work would ask is really is there any difference between what Tony does and calls NAC (Neuro-Associative-Conditioning) and NLP? Well it appears in recent years that story has gone away because Tony has re-branded what he does and now focused on his "Six Human Needs Psychology", which by the way are worth having a look at.

Whether you're a Tony fan or not, it's worth watching this great video of Tony sharing his model on why people do what they do. It's interesting seeing how Tony presents in a group of non personal development people.  

This video is recorded at TED, where some of the best of brightest minds across all different disciplines come together to share ideas .. worth spreading. Enjoy the video.

Your Brain learns quickly - quicker than you realize. Our brains detect patterns, make decisions and get into motion faster than your conscious mind becomes aware. In NLP we usually think that is a good thing, but have you ever though just how much that is costing you?

For example, have you ever had the situation where you've been out taking a stroll and suddenly a really attractive girl or guy with big eyes and a smile to die for catches your eye, you are busy looking them over .. and in that instant you lose complete track of where your going or what you are doing .. and for that moment while you hold the glance .. do you realize you are nearly blind!

You think you can see what's going on in front of you but that is just very loose attention from the periphery of your eye. It has very little signal value. And without realizing it you bump into someone coming against you or worse .. if you're driving you drive right up the back end of car in front of you!

Right then you have a Homer moment of "Doh!".

Just look at this video of Miss South Carolina answering a question about why apparently one fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S on a world map.

It's great that our Brains can learn so quick - but without any direction as to what we are focusing on and how we use our minds we can get ourselves into all kinds of trouble as this unfortunate young woman did.

Now go look at the video again and this time pay attention to her eye accessing ques … what can you observe this time?

Notice anything interesting with her eye patterns .. her initial strategy for answering the question seems to go: VeC -> Aid -> VeC. She makes a picture - talks to herself (probably repeating the question and prep some dialogue) and then makes few more visual constructed images before starting into here "I personally believe". It isn't long before her brain goes to mush (from 23 seconds onwards) and hits brain gridlock and starts looping the merry go round (0:30) with "and such as".

In fact if you watch it again you'll notice that is a a lot more going on that we can detect regarding what she was going through. For instance, she goes into an altered state between second 7 and 9 as she realizes she doesn't have any "canned answer" to the question (which these girls are pre-rehearsed on) and although her initial answer about "people out there in our nation don't have maps" actually could be a plausible answer as to why apparently one fifth of Americans can't identify the U.S. on a map, her brain only had one idea and didn't know where to go after that.

At 31 seconds you can see the poor girl appears to be aware that she's drowning and tries to rally her resources to come back with a half good answer but unfortunately she dies again and trips over the idea of America should help other nations.

So what can we learn from this?

Couple of things are worth noting:

1.Your Brain is a Powerful Sports Car

All our Brains, to use a metaphor, are like sports car engines .. once we rev them up and give them a direction to go .. it will tear out of the pits before we can get a chance to control where it's going.

Which leads into point two …

2: Make Sure You Are The Driver

As Rodolfo R Llinas (a founding father of modern brain science) said "Prediction is the Ultimate Function of The Brian". Our brains are constantly on the look out for patterns of activity and sensory based feedback upon which it makes decisions and calls into effect "tried and tested" response programs.

So in lay mans terms if we want to avoid brain gridlock and also be more intelligent we need to make sure we don't set our brains in forward motion until we have made sure we've got our hands firmly on the steering wheel, i.e. we've given it specific instructions and ideally thought through (at least once) in our mind how we will respond when we are consciously directing our resources in response to a challenge.

3. Remember You Are Are Not Invincible

We all have moments where we mess up, have a brain "burp" etc. You would be niave to think that you or anyone else doesn't occasionally have "grid lock". Our brains get locked into a pattern and typically if you are in a public setting and become aware of your fumbling it only get's worse (but the reason behind that is for another time).

Just look at this video of former Prime Minister Tony Blair and George Bush

Even world leaders have their off moments ..

Or did they .. look again to see if you can figure that out.

So what solid practices can we use to avoid brain gridlock and be more intelligent?

Here are my top three:

1. Manage your state

The state you are in massively effects the resources you can call up and how you respond in a given situation. The best way to condition this is to train your body how you want it to respond ahead of the context arising.

That means either mentally rehearse what you want to happen ahead of time or if possible put yourself several times in the situation but each time consciously directing your attention onto the outcome you want.

If for some reason grid lock occurs unexpectedly in a everyday situation - break your state - step back - breath and gather your thoughts before you open your mouth. If needs be STOP, figure out what you need to next and then start over.

2. Use Heuristics Everywhere

Heuristics - or mental shortcuts are great - think of them as pre-wired or habitual ways of thinking that you can call on in a bind to get your brain moving. There are loads of heuristics one can call on for all manner of things depending on the outcome.

In NLP we use ones like Desired State - Present State - Resources to structure our thinking in every engagement. A good heuristic can give your brain a jump start on how to structure your response and make sure you've payed attention to all the important pieces.

3. Ask Questions

Many people when they don't know something, for example in a meeting or public context will pretend that they do and thereby get themself into a bigger hole. Therefore if you want to avoid gridlock and also be more intelligent get used to asking lots of questions. Ask great questions, creative questions, off the wall questions. By being willing to acknowledge openly that you don't know everything (nor need to!) you can give yourself the breathing space to identify what is important in order to solve a problem, give a great answer or show yourself a notch above the common response of rambling on and saying nothing.

Making It Practical:

So go out and identify in what contexts do you let your brain go on auto-pilot or close down? What are the triggers that inform you it's time to have "grid lock" and what interventions can you create to transform that way of being from now and long into the future.

Pay attention to the questions other people ask and heuristics they others use to solve problems, come up with solutions and give great answers. If you become a student of brilliance, soon you will shine with the best of them.

And Just When You Thought It Was Over:

By the way, almost all of the things I described above regarding Miss South Carolina's response were labels, evaluations and judgements -  none of us can ever really know what processes are going on inside another person. Even she wouldn't know if we could interview her.

All of the NLP toolsets and indeed even the strategy model are simplifed and made up versions of what we as NLPers think is going on. They are not a true and complete representation of "reality" .. nor do they need to be…

In the end, as NLPers we are primarily interested in creating models and descriptions that "work" and are useful to help us achieve the outcome that we want. Thanks to the creative genius of Richard Bandler and others, we have many excellent resources we can draw on.

I hope you enjoyed the post.

A lot of people are interested in being able to influence others. There is book after book on Amazon and countless courses -  yet in a recent survey carried out by NLP Times we had over 90% of participants, the majority of whom are NLP Prac's and above, indicate that they feel like they don't yet have influence and how to persuade deep in the muscle. So a good question is - what does it take to really influence or persuade anyone?

From an NLP perspective there are several keys to being more influential and persuasive but I'll cover a few of the most important here. If you put into action what you'll learn here you will be able to be far more persuasive in a very short period of time. Persuasion isn't rocket science but doing it well does require a number of skills so as always practice is key.

Through applying a number of the things I've outlined below I've used my own persuasion & influencing skills to raise $1M in capital for business ventures, helped build relationships with key movers and shakers in the industries I've been involved with, triple my income, help family members overcome serious health challenges and be a positive force in helping others achieve the things they want and much more.

For me, there are few more enjoyable skills than influencing yourself and others. Yes, influence also applies to yourself and learning how to use your own resources to achieve the things you want to do. For this post I'll stick to some key principles to influences others.

If your like many NLPers I'm sure you have had the experience where your trying to persuade someone of something yet no matter what you try or do it just seems to "bounce" off of them. You might be trying to convince them to change, start a new behavior, make a purchase, start a new venture etc. Well if this sounds familiar to you then a quick review of the following 3 keys to effective persuasion will help.

3 Keys to Truly Effective Persuasion and Influence:

1) Start from inside their model of the world

Most people fail to influence others because they never truly get inside the other persons model of the world and therefore all the suggestions and tactics they say simply get deleted or distorted by the receiver. If your partner would like to change an annoying behavior but hasn't and it's getting on your nerves to see them do it over and over then you first need to understand what is going on for them, in their worldview that is making that response/pattern the right thing to do AND THEN AND ONLY THEN should you really start to build a bridge from their worldview toward the desired outcome your want.

If you've been watching the middle east situation unfold you will notice the marked difference between the Bush administrations approach of "talk and tell them how it's going to be" and the (apparent) Obama approach of "start off any engagement by listening". These are sounds words of advice in any context where you are trying to influence someone.

How can you hope to be truly effective in persuading someone else if you have no idea what is the perspective, values and attitudes the receiver of your communication has towards the topic under discussion. And remember it doesn't really matter what their belief, values, attitudes or worldview is rather we are interested in what functions do they serve … as enablers or disablers on the person behavior….

If you wish to be effective and continue to be influential, particularly for the long term then never try to push from the outside in, rather start from within their map and lead them to a new "promised land"…

2) Understand how they make decisions

In order to elegantly influence yourself or others you need to know how you and others make decisions. By understanding how for example the person you are speaking with makes decisions, what is the strategy they typically employ and how it operates - you can custom tailor your communication so it fits perfectly inside their own thinking AND ultimately have them FEEL like it is the best choice from their perspective and NOT yours.

As is often said in NLP, people can't resist their own thinking. By understanding how they typically decide in a given context, how they organize their resources (example how they code feelings of certainty, uncertainty, what representation system that acts as a convincer) you will be able to have the biggest impact in the least amount of steps.

For example if as part of their decision strategy they ALWAYS seek external validation that "this is the right choice", you will want to know that so you can address it in some way (for example perhaps you reference that XYZ magazine recently had an article that said "option A is the best vendor and leading choice" for this option and three other leading authorities confirm this"). Otherwise you may find that the process you guide them through doesn't stick etc.

So understanding the listeners decision making process is key to really great persuasion and influence.

3) Choose your tools based on the size of the job

Depending on the size of the persuasion change your are trying to get someone to, you should use your tools accordingly. For example if you are looking to persuade someone to choose one restaurant over another in a dining context or if you are trying to persuade them to choose one career path over another, the size of the metaphorical bridge you will build will vary greatly. And so will the depth that you will need to go to achieve the outcome.

Similarly to moving someone from say apathetic to motivated, you typically won't jump start someone between these two diverse states in a single story, suggestions or technique, so don't make the mistake that many do and try to do this in a single move.

As they say in the world of tailoring, you need to cut your cloth and measurement to fit the task. So for situations where the "jump" between the present state and the desired state is much larger you will want to build, stage by stage positive progress towards the end goal and verify en route that you are getting closer as you go. Look out for any "big sign posts", that you know if you can change or bring to bear on the way the person is looking at a given context will automatically fast track you toward the desired state.

In closing as you can see, there isn't a cookie cutter approach to really masterful influence, the process you apply will vary but can follow a similar routine, however unlike some books and sites would have you believe, there isn't a "magic bullet" that if only you say will work every time.

Making it Practical:

To get the most out of this post, pick one person or context where you would like to be more persuasive and influential. It may be with your child, a friend or work setting.

Loop through the three keys outlined above and run through how you can employ each of the key distinctions shared within. Do it from multiple perspectives.

• Do you really understand the other persons worldview on the situation fully and in sufficient detail?
• Have you a good idea of the key frames that are organizing their worldview?Can you now and can create a bridge to the desired state of what you want them to believe/do/choose?
• Have you elicited or observed how they make decisions and which things work well vs. those that don't (i.e. the role of meta programs) on their strategy?
• Finally once you have this identify how you can organize your communication in a way where you engage the various NLP tools to help this process of persuasion to appear to occur naturally and with great ease.

Until the next time, wishing you every success as you continue to learn and apply the technology of NLP in your life.