NLP Training, Techniques & Products for learning NLP

If the technology of NLP is known for one thing, it is known for being able to create change for people quickly.

And we have many ways of creating change quickly, as indeed several other fields do .. but one of the coolest things about NLP is when your very skilled with it you can do it conversationally. You don't need to stop and tap someone on the head (although that is both fun and can be cool too!), rather you can simply have a conversation and change minds … with only your words …. and the more you do it the more addictive it can become that you naturally find yourself helping others overthrow self-imposed limitations, disabling beliefs and just crazy stuff that is sucking joy and happiness out of their life.

But what is the key to creating change?

Rather than focus on a specific technique lets focus on three behaviours.

These are

- Being Tenacious
- Being Attentive
- Being Adaptable

All three are a must.

If you treat people as "broken" or as a "machine" then in my experience you have already put yourself in a poor position because you are looking for what is "not working" rather than focusing on what is .. and more important how X behavior is the right thing, the only thing that should show up given the unique patterns of thought, feeling and behavior is driving the result you have the client describing.

If you project stuff onto the person you are trying to help without being aware that you are doing it .. you might just be screwing yourself over. For example a client comes to you telling you of fear and you instantly think "technique and phobia removal pattern" you will find many times when it just work … and you will also have hamstrung yourself … because you are most likely MISSING what is exactly going on. Not all fears are phobias and not all behaviors can be changed with canned NLP techniques and box 1, box 2, box 3 NLP patterns. (And for the record this doesn't at all mean that the patterns don't work, rather not all patterns work for everything or everyone)

One of the questions I asked Richard Bandler when I did the MTM interview series was "What are some of the habitual questions you have asked … throughout the years that allowed you to be the genius that you are to have created so many innovative technologies?" to which he replied":

"A big question that I ask all the time is what the f*** is going on? "

And that really is an AWESOME question to ask yourself any time you are trying to help someone.

Richard went on to say "The strongest instinct in human beings is not survival it’s to make things familiar."

So when something happens all of us try to filter what we see through the experience of WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW (if you let it) .. and sometimes that can screw things right up. You label something as X when really it is not. In a social situation perhaps you think that look means he/she is annoyed in you, interested in you .. in a work context you think that the lack of feedback means your going to get fired etc etc .. and soon the habitual mental processes of your mind start spinning in high gear.

The best service you can do for yourself and the people you are trying to assist is first start from a place of not knowing .. of asking yourself "What the f*** is going on?" and then stay in uptime and notice what is present, what does show up. If you want to spot a pattern don't chunk down, chunk upward and out .. and notice what is the thing that is driving this behavior-thought-feeling and identify where exactly is the leverage point that you can tap to create a big change for that person.

Tenacity … is the third thing you will want to have in spades … if something shows up and you have never seen this type of thing before .. or don't have a clue how to create a change .. that's when you should be playful … stick with it and drive forward doing whatever it takes to get to results. And most importantly … if you are one of the people who hear a voice inside your head that claims "I can't do this" … " I don't know how to" .. tell that voice to shut the heck up! Yes, it may be right, yes you might not be able to get the person all the ways to the desired result but the fact is you aren't going to become any more skilled and certainly not going to help the person IF you accept some idle natter inside your head before you start.

Making It Practical:

Information and theories are nice but results are better. So today when you are around friends and family notice as new stuff happens and ask yourself that question "what the f*** is happening?" and notice at a sensory level what you can detect .. what you see, hear and externally feel and then notice the narratives and stories yourself and other put on the stuff that has arisen .. is that really what is going on or is it something yourself or someone else has now projected onto a situation?

When your working with a client or trying to help a friend again, ask yourself "what the f*** is happening?" and look to track the patterns that are present .. that one could point to and then once you have figured out what is really the structure that is driving the so called "problematic" behavior be tenacious, attentive and adaptable as you help transform that behavior.

As always if you have a question or comment feel free to post it below. Also if you are someone who has a negative semantic response to using or saying the work f*** then change it to heck or something that works for you.

To your increasing mastery.

Tom.

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.