NLP Training, Techniques & Products for learning NLP

Ever stop and wonder how your learnt everything you now know – the kind of stuff that without any thought you can do and take for granted? Chances are if you are like most people, the answer is a resounding no.

Yet as NLPers becoming more aware of how people learn, when they are unaware that they are learning, is one of the most profound areas for developing greater skill in helping anyone create a change or wire up a new skill.

In this post I am going to share some questions and thoughts that if you use and apply to yourself, will help you become a much better NLPer. Note this content aims to go beyond the typical mantra in many NLP books, and for some folks new to NLP may want to read it more than once to fully get what this is pointing towards.

But first, lets start off with some questions:

What is the connection between:

• A tribe in Africa that wears huge rings through their noses
• A person who straps a bomb onto their chest and blows themselves up
• A bus driver who always waits when he see someone running to get to the bus?

What springs to mind for you?

Well, all could be described as examples of:

• Goal directed behaviour
• Where none of them came into the world with that behaviour “hard wired” as the thing to do
• And each person has gone through some experience or series of experiences where they “linked up” that X outcome was the thing for them to do
  

So the natural question for to ask is “What is the process (assuming of course there is one) that each of them went through in order to wire up some behaviours?, and is there a common pattern that drives each experience?

I think there is.

And it is the same pattern that is behind all the “unconscious” stuff you or I have learnt and continue to learn, so long as we live. It is right in front of us, in plain sight but for the most part, remains completely hidden.

To begin to find an answer lets look at the basic of things we humans can do.

The basic experience pretty much all of us share as human beings is having five senses (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, gustatory and olfactory) contained within our body, in which we can either make pictures, sounds, feelings etc inside our mind-body or sense various things as “external” to us.

We can consciously and other than consciously, play with the sub-modality components of each experience which changes and impacts the ongoing experience and the influences the “unconscious” learning process. And we can loop around, have meta-awareness about certain things and cross combine those components in many very beautiful and colourful ways.

All of what I have just said is presumption, and not a complete or necessarily accurate picture of what goes on in the brain-body, but will suffice for our discussion. Remember in NLP we are interested in useful models of human behaviour, not necessarily discovering “reality” or what is empirically valid.

So the question is “how does someone link X event, object or circumstance in the world to a specific behavioural response?”

How does a one human being strap a bomb to their chest and proceed to go out and blow up tens or hundreds of others and through whatever process assumedly feels “OK” with doing that, and also are sufficiently directed to end their own life in the process.

To find the answer, I think we first need to turn the torch in on ourselves and identify how did each of us pick up a lot of the habitual patterns of thought and behaviour that govern our lives. Take for example whatever is a “thing” that you habitually do and identify what is the driver behind that behaviour? When, where and how did that “thing/action/repeating thought process” get wired up and become a habitual behavior for you? So that anyone who knows you well can be guaranteed that you will do it.

For example:

If you are always kind, how did that get setup?

If you are always snappy in the morning, how did that get setup?

If you find you are the helper or “keeper of the peace” etc, how did that get setup?

Etc. etc.

Chances are you weren’t born pre-wired for that specific behaviour. Or perhaps science will find one day that we are. Who knows.

But for now assuming that we are not, can you identify what processes were at play that brought that behaviour into life?

And then the question becomes, what keeps that habitual thought, behaviour going now?

These kind of questions, I believe are at the heart of NLP. Because they aim to identify the underlying process upon which all change in thought of behaviour, and specifically behaviour that operates within a specific context and one that sticks (meaning stands the test of time) occur. When you become much more aware of the process by which we all learn you are no longer restricted to using rote NLP patterns and techniques and can come up with interventions on the fly that work without having any obvious “NLPness”. But that is for another day.

If you can trace process by which X behaviour got linked up, you may find that like many people, the habitual behaviours and dreams we are pursuing are fulfilling and the remnants of some other than conscious process for which we are unaware of and are unable to articulate how and why they are doing what they are doing. When you enquire with someone why they are doing X repeated behaviour etc they will tell you “it’s just because”.

This is somewhat like, for those of you who have worked in a large organization, the response you get when you ask “why do you do it that way?” and you get back “because that is the way we have always done it!”

There is no consciousness brought to that process any more. No questioning. The “learning” process is for the most part closed. The cup full. The person, persons or organisation has forgotten how they have learnt to output that thought or behavioural response and all they are now doing is acting because they have a typically internal strong kinaesthetic response - “a feeling that tells me so”.

Very little thought is given to the validity of their cause-effect and complex equivalence structures that they have bound together to form a well-established response.

Because to them, and indeed to each of us, it just feels real.

In another post I will go into detail on a number of the processes that I believe are work whenever we learn something well and also forget how we have learnt it. But for now, if you want to become an even more skilled NLPer, pay exquisite attention to narratives and experiences that are going everywhere around you right now on TV, the web and in your everyday social encounters noticing to identify how people:

• Link up new meanings where previously no meaning has been wired up
• Link up new cause-effect chains of thought and behaviour
• The richness or vividness in which those experiences occurred

Have a great week.

Tom

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

Ever wonder how some people who have gone through real hardships can be happy, while other people who have had a relatively even ride through life can define their life in negative terms and feel it has been full of unhappiness?. In this video renowned psychologist Daniel Kahneman reveals how our "experiencing selves" and our "remembering selves" perceive happiness differently. Kahneman is famous for co-inventing behavioral economics, the study of human irrationality as it applies to economics and how we make decisions.

As NLPers it has lots of useful insights for us as to how anyone can experience ongoing happiness. Go watch it below - whether you are a coach, therapist or unofficial people helper this video will give you many ideas on how to help yourself and your clients experience more happiness right now.

Making it practical:

So Daniel covered a lot in his presentation - couple of the high points of note were:

"We don't choose between experiences but between memories (and anticipated memories) experiences"

Next time you find yourself feeling an emotion that you describe as unpleasant, especially if you have wanted to shift it but are struggling remember that chances are you won't remember it most likely a few hours or days from now. So let is move through you and fizzle into the abyss.

As Marcus Aurelius Augustus, a former Roman Emperor put it:

"Reflect on the rapidity with which all that exists and is coming to be is swept past us and disappears from sight. For substance is like a river in perpetual flow, and its activities are ever changing, and its causes infinite in their variations, and hardly anything at all stands still: and ever on our side is the immeasurable span of the past and the yawning gulf of the future, in which all things vanish away. Then how is he not a fool who, in the midst of all this, is puffed up with pride, or tormented, or bewails his lot as though his trouble would endure for a great while?"

A great saying and a great example of elegant language usage. Fact is .. whether we are dealing with ourselves or with a client, all we have is the current experienced moment - which Kahneman defines as 3 seconds or so long, with everything else that is going on being a choice we make between memories (which the brain "makes up" and re-presents to us) or anticipated memories.

This brings home another important point - whether you are happy when you think back about your life, the last year or even last month has a lot to do with what and how you are comparing stuff. If you want to help yourself or a client feel better about their life .. then help practice changing 1) what you are comparing yourself, your life to and 2) how you are running that comparison at a representational level.

Become like your very own Michelangelo of your mind. Paint the stuff you would like to feel better about with richer and more intense colors making it truly compelling and satisfying and the stuff you had been comparing yourself to as that of a scene of a non important, nondescript event. The exact coding of this will vary for person to person, so figure out what works well for you. (And if you don't know how to do this, feel free to leave a question below and I'm happy to give you some suggestions.)

"Being happy in your life and being happy about your life, are two very different concepts…"

As NLPers this points first and foremost to our awareness of the affect of language… and being conscious of what presuppositions you are using in your speech when you are communicating with someone. Asking someone "are you happy in your life?" vs. "do you feel happy right now?", vs. "are you happy about your life?" - are all very different questions. Knowing what the likely effect you will create when you ask a question is very important - especially since every question you ask anyone will have the function of directing their consciousness in one way or another and evoke all kinds of associations and with them states.

Kahneman statement also points us to notice how we are accessing our sense of "happiness". Wellbeing and happiness are two different concepts. And if you feel unhappy about something, go in search of some other references you can draw on. Intentionally direct your consciousness.

This process helps illuminate beneath the surface of the statement - "In life, (some) pain is necessary but suffering is optional". As strange as that may sound, even in apparent hardship you can have moment by moment happiness.

Three things influence how the Remembering Self remembers: changes, significant moments and endings

We can think of these things are the markers the "remembering self" uses to track and index what we remember of the millions of moments that we have in a decade.

Embedded in all of that I think there are a couple of other filters that drive what gets remembered - such as first and foremost does the said change affect you? In order to define something as a significant moment, someone had to first label it as "significant" relative to some comparison (perhaps the other events in ones life). As story tellers, anytime we can tell a story that the listener can directly relate to  or see themselves in it, the effect of that story will be much greater than if a person has no connection to it (conscious or otherwise).

The third marker, endings, influence how the Remembering self remembers. This also plays an important role in many contexts from persuasion to creating change to leaving a lasting impression etc. If you want someone else to remember you or some key learning point, then make sure that you do something that is

1) a noticeable change in the status quo that captures the other person's attention

2) significantly changes their state or a long held view on something (ideally for the positive - if you want them to have a positive association to you)

3) had some form of specific instruction or frame of reference included in it that you would like the person to take on board

4) is linked to some form of environmental trigger that you know the person will see/be in the presence of at a later point (so that it triggers them to re-call back or remember that situation with you and everything that went with it)

Learning NLP has always been focused in the doing rather that the theory so have fun applying whatever resonates most for you from this post. If you put into practice the one habit of connecting more consciously with the "experieicnign self" and being more aware and intentional about what gets called back on by the "remembered self" you can literally transcend hardship and experience much greater happiness and moment by moment joy.

Wishing you much happiness in all you do.

Almost everyone likes to believe they have good powers of observation, but as NLPers many of us, hold ourselves to a higher standard (or at least expectation/desire) that we should be able to notice things better than most. Unlike practitioners of TFT who use their SUDS (subject/subjective units of distress) test to calibrate where the person they are working with is on a scale of 1 to 10, we as NLPers often are tracking for non-verbal changes like a change in state, access ques, shifts in breathing etc, in addition to what the person says.

Yet as human beings first and foremost, we can be as "blind" as the next person in thinking we are excellent at observing others. As a species the information gathering capacities or our body exceed the capacity of our central nervous system to process it. We are constantly deleting stuff out. And many times, what we delete or distort after we have begun processing it, is important stuff.

Refining our observation skills is key to doing greater and greater work with the technology, whether on ourselves or with others. In this post I have two fun observational tests for you and share some insights about the implications of not seeing what is actually there and the pitfalls and benefits of this.

But first, what are some of the key factors that cause us to miss so much.

1. We are limited by the our biology

Specifically we are limited by how much the brain can consciously track. The usual story line is we can only track 7 + or - 2 things "consciously", although experience will tell you that sometimes people can only track 1-3 things. In addition, because there are literally so much potential data points we could focus on, our body deletes out massive amounts which means that we typically have little awareness for the multitude of things that are going on inside and outside us - things like how you are holding your body (posture), the relative tension, the pressure of the air around you, and so and and so forth.

2. Our perception is also limited by what we focus on (and how we focus on it)

Whatever grabs our attention, temporarily has got us hooked and tends to be what we focus on. During this time our brains filter out most of everything else that is going on, depending on how "hooked" we are on whatever it is we are focused on. If you have ever had to shout a few times to get someone's attention while they were engrossed watching a program on TV, you know this problem only too well. Usually it ends in the person who was shouting saying to the viewer "are going deaf, I was calling your name!"

But it isn't just TV that hooks our attention. There can be any number of things, however once we do get hooked we then to quickly frame how we are looking at that thing or situation from a specific perspective. For example, lets say you hear from a friend that "John was out last night and threw up all over the sidewalk". Well if you have already had some prior experiences with John and these have always been about him getting very drunk, then without the person saying anything more, there is a good chance that you will instantly assume (lock in on) that John was getting drunk again. However he have just eaten a bad curry!

In fact there may have been many reasons why he threw up, but your brain will instantly lock in on the most probable bias you already have wired up, and then you will most likely state it as fact.

"John is always on the bender. I don't know why he just doesn't take it easy and have one drink and not twenty when he goes out".

This tendency of human nature to lock in on a fixed perspective, typically without any reference to reality, rather simply a pre-wired model of the world and then treat their opinion as if it was "reality" can cause no end of mis-understandings and problems.

It can also be very useful, for example if you see a car swerve in front of you when driving and will trigger you to "be careful, pull back" pattern etc.

The problem of "I have seen this already" mindset for NLPers is we instantly label something as X (our prior judgement) and think however we described the said situation is the only way of that something is. This can have  negative consequences because you completely miss out on what is actually going on in a situation. And in a learning context this can result in years of waisted effort.

This human behaviour pattern can be summed up as: we have lost touch with "reality", and replaced it with "this is the same as that" and so we lack awareness of what is actually occurring.

Take for example an NLP training. Over the years, many NLPers and non NLPers have said "I attended so and so's seminar and I couldn't notice them anchoring .. they were just telling stories… were they actually anchoring us?". Inevitably they almost never get how to do conversational anchoring, as least while they are framed by their current model of the world. This pattern of putting a pre-conceived label on top of what is actually occurring, frequently repeats itself many times and soon a person comes to the (inaccurate) conclusion "NLP doesn't work", and often moves on to something else.

So what is the antidote? We will come to that in a moment.

The important point for now is: if you can't spot when your mental models are holding you back (relative to some outcome you are in pursuit of) and don't know how or what to change them to .. then you are going to experience considerably more pain and so called "failure" when your "model of the world" doesn't match up to what is required by the environment and goal success factors you are in pursuit of.

So let's take a quick test of your basic observation skills.

Watch this YouTube video below and see how accurately you can passes the players in white make.

So how did you get on?

Did you see it or miss it? It doesn't matter if you did or not, you just want to "stay frosty" as they say in the military which means be alert and keep your senses fresh.

Many people miss the _________, and are convinced that she wasn't there the first time round .. until they rewind the video back.

Regardless of how you got on, now lets see how well you can get on with this awareness test. This test is somewhat tricker, your job is to find a specific scene (which the video will tell you about). Go watch it now.

So did you spot the lake, ducks and bear background? If not you can catch it between seconds twenty two and twenty three seconds - there is a very rapid flicker of it.

The point of these short videos is to warn all of us to never think your way of thinking or perceiving is telling the complete picture (this applies to me as anyone else). In fact, the situation is even somewhat worse, in that only thing we have is the present moment in which to make our observations - everything else so called "past memories" is only accessed through our minds and we all know how inaccurate ones memory can be. Of course camcorders are handy, but again that is from a single external viewpoint.

As NLPers this has big implications for when you are "rewiring yourself" and also when working with clients. The quicker you are able to identify how a person keeps themselves stuck, the quicker you will be able to help them and visa versa.

However missing key pieces of what went on isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact as NLPers some times we deliberately will want to shift a persons focus so they no longer lock in on something that they remember as having occurred. We deliberately intend to distort their perception of what went on.

Where could that function be useful in your life?

Making it practical:

So try something out with me. Pick an area of your life where you are "stuck", somewhere in your life right now where you feel you can't or haven't yet been able to make the shift in X situation (life, business, career, nlp skills etc). Got it? Good. Now drop all sense of certainty, at least temporarily that the way you think of it, is as you describe. Just let it soften and dissolve.

Now assume you are framed by your own thinking. Re-connect with your senses. Stay with what is sensory observable. Become like a architect… write down on paper how you are currently holding X situation i.e. what narrative do you use to define the situation? What story do you be-lie-ve is at cause for you not yet having what you want?

Take another step back, ask yourself what presumptions did I make about the problem state? How many weren't true? Assume they are not and look for evidence that indicates your previous way of looking at this thing is inaccurate or at least partially incomplete.

Once you discover how you have been holding the "problem" state it's time to "kick the legs" off the old assumptions and identify what specific action steps you can take to liberate yourself and get yourself closer to the outcome you want. Assume there is a way, especially if your first pass doesn't produce the solution yet that you want. Keep trying on different perspectives by doing "what if scenarios?" that will give you new insights.

If you need some creative input, seek out other people's perspectives about how they would go about solving X or what can they see about X situation or how you are approaching it, that you are presently not?

Listen and test out their ideas as hypothesis that can lead to a possible dissolution of the problem or at a minimum a workable solution.

Continue until you have shifted that thing that had been bothering you.

Have fun with this process and stay frosty.

Tom

PS: If you'd like to read the latest news from science about "how blind we are to change" then check out this article here.

PPS: If you'd like to learn the strategy for developing enhanced sensory acuity used by those who excel then check out our digital download training here.

There is no doubt that NLP as a general term has become way more popular in recent years. And there is a good chance that in everyday social conversation that someone there has heard of NLP. However I've yet to hear someone at a dinner party or social function go "Yea I've heard of NLP, that's that really powerful change and influence technology that top communicators and conversational change agents use!". In fact the most common pattern of thought I've heard goes along the lines of:

"NLP - yea I've heard of it … isn't that the stuff that is used to manipulate people" or "you know NLP eh?, how do I know you haven't spent the past hour trying to manipulate me?" or "I once had a boss who was really good at getting what he wanted, and he used to tell people he was using NLP on us all the time. I never could trust him".

Chances are you have had similar experiences. The mass perception (in my experience) that most people have of NLP is that it is some form of manipulation, con, a tool or thing to do to others, or worse is dangerous. Even many people trained in NLP have shared with me that they don't feel good using it "because it is manipulative and bad and I don't want to manipulate people". This kind of thinking reminds me of a story I often heard Richard Bandler tell how in the early days of hypnosis, Doctors weren't allowed practice hypnosis because "hypnosis was dangerous and didn't exist".

Certainly with the popularity of Derren Brown shows in the UK, stage hypnotism around the globe, the occasional story of 'rogue hypnotists'  mind controlling others, and the rapid rise in popularity of NLP techniques being employed in the speed seduction community, that for many the main perception of NLP is it is manipulative.

But anytime I hear something think that way, I am reminded of another thing Dr. Bandler once said .. "NLP doesn't exist!".

You see there is no living THING called NLP. NLP is made up of people who for the most part simply take and apply the techniques and patterns of NLP in some context. There is a small few who are are actively developing the field, but for the most part, most of us use the output of the various models developed and do not "refill the well" as John Grinder has rightly said.

So how could some-thing that doesn't exist be manipulative? I don't think NLP is manipulative .. that's somewhat like saying a match is a killer. A match can help start a fire to keep you warm, dry our wet clothes or it can be used to burn a house down. But to get the first spark going a match needs to be struck, which requires an action, a someone to initiate some thing and that requires a person. So perhaps a better question is .. are some people manipulative?

Well that doesn't need a scientist to say .. yes!. Some people would fall into the category of manipulative (depending on who is doing the measuring and how it is being measured).

Interestingly, the root of the word manipulate dates back to the 1830's when it meant "to handle skillfully by hand", then later, in the mid 20th century it became known as a euphemism for "masturbation." Are we seeing a connection here and how some people think or use the technology? Perhaps…

More recently the common meaning held is "to influence or control shrewdly or deviously", something which many do not regard as necessarily good. Who likes the idea of "being manipulated?".

Yet, NLP isn't manipulative, or is it? What do you think?

I remember Steven Covey once saying something to the effect that he thought NLP was a truly powerful technology however his only bone of contention with it was it was amoral. It didn't dictate any moral way of using it. While we have the core presuppositions of NLP there isn't an overt 'law' or 'rules' for how anyone who learns the technology is required to use it. That said, most trainers I've meet put a strong emphasis in their training, on using it for "good". But not everyone's intentions are designed that way.

Is NLP manipulative? .. it all depends on how you look at it.

Feel free to leave your opinion or comments in the box below.

The Internet is an awesome resource, but if you think of it as millions of ongoing conversations, happening all at the same time, then it is easy for ‘Chinese whispers’ and misinformation to spread around.

Take for example the other day I was on Yahoo Answers and came across two articles talking about body language and read the following statements:

Tyra:

"Whenever a man messes with his belt buckle he wants to have sex and whenever someone you have sexual tension with bite their lower lip they wanna kiss you"

Or Tueur: "This is how to detect someone lie." followed by some commentary about using traditional eye accessing ques information.

or

RM: "when a person talks fast, it means they have a confidence issue"

Do you think these are ‘true’?

To be fair, even highly trained NLPers will talk about someone being a "visual person" or he is a totally "kinesthetic person" etc, an not be aware of the generalization they are making.

In most cases, where we have ‘X behaviour only and must mean that’ kind of statement we have nothing more than a form of projection going on, which becomes a filter we now sort all future similar actions through.

Test it for yourself.

If you are someone who speaks fast, did you know that you MUST suffer from a confidence issue?, or that you MUST be nervous?

Why? Because so and so says so and it must be real because it is on the Internet.

Gentleman, did you know that ALL women think you want to have sex when you touch your belt buckle. Best be VERY careful around the office, especially when you pop out from the bathroom …

Ladies did you know that anytime a man looks up and to the right he MUST be lying. Or that if he uses words like see, clear, quick he is ONLY a visual person.

Of course, I've been deliberately amplifying the implications proposed by each of the above worldviews. Making such broad generalizations with no other conditions or contextual information is usually wildly inaccurate. Yet that doesn't stop people from thinking that it is so .. and therefore the inferred conclusion is there can only be ONE meaning to any given expression is unfortunately widespread.

But making statements about body language, without any contextual indicators of substance to support why X must mean Y isn’t so much the problem as the implications of such conclusions. When you think the ONLY conclusion for X behaviour is it means Y, then without realizing you take on that presumed bit of projection/information as a fact and then act as if it were most certainly the case. And that can get you in to all kinds of hot water.

A girl smiles at a boy in the office and he thinks, “she MUST like me”. A wife sees that her husband gets a text, which upon opening she notices he smiles, giggles but he won’t show it to her and says it’s a work thing, so she instantly worries he is cheating on her.

A boss asks you into the office for an 8:30AM meeting unexpectedly and you instantly think “I’m going to get fired!” and you then you can’t sleep that night. Mis-reading social ques, body language and other people’s behaviour can land one in all kinds of problems.

But it can be reduced when you understand a couple of key things.

Making It Practical:

If you want to be good with body language, or if you'd like to be able to detect and notice emotions as they are happening, to be able to read state changes easily then the first step is to spend some time taking the wool from ones eyes by asking yourself "how do I know X body gesture means such and such?" … "Am I projecting here?" .. "What else in terms of behavior, if it was present would invalidate my assumption about what I thought was going on?"

Challenge yourself and your worldviews on a regular basis. Sometimes your gut instinct will be right yet other times it will be clouded by misperceptions and specific ways you are filtering the world (most of which without challenging you will be never aware of).

If you ask yourself these three questions you will become far better at staying awake from the cultural mass hypnosis about what specific body language means. You will be much sharper at noticing what is really going and detecting behavioral patterns in others, which can be very useful to a skilled communicator, but that is for another post.

Remember in NLP we hold the perspective that people communicate in multiple channels at once .. so you will have lots of other indicators that indicate state change and what is really going on … such as change in skin colour, voice tone, inflection, body posture etc. Stay alert, challenge your own assumptions and be wary when you see only ONE way of interpreting what is going on, without first challenging your thought processes.

And if your curious to learn more and would like to accelerate your ability to track and notice sensory differences and really get a grip on body language, then check out our new 90 minute training called 'Enhanced Sensory Acuity' here.

Got a question or comment?

Enter it below and when I can I'll answer it.

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.