“Panta rhei (Everything flows).” Simplicius (often attributed to Heraclitus)

Simplicius might have known NLP before it was created. His most famous quote reveals that he understood a very important Meta Model pattern: nominalization.

Has this ever happened to your client?

Sometimes, a client will butt against an invisible obstacle. This may happen during or in-between coaching sessions. When you ask what specifically prevents him from moving forward, he responds with an answer such as:

• “I can’t get past this conflict.”
• “I want to, but my anger problem won’t let me.”

Time for the Meta Model!

Turning intangibles into tangibles

Credit: Dribbble.com

Let’s take a quick look at these two sentences and isolate the obstacle in each. In the first sentence, the obstacle is “the conflict.” In the second, the “anger problem.”

Let’s examine the structure of each. First, ”I can’t get past this conflict.”

This sounds like “I can’t get past this rock.” or “I can’t get past this mountain.”

A rock and a mountain are concrete, tangible obstacles. A conflict, on the other hand, is not. A conflict is an abstract concept, an idea. The sentence “I can’t get past this conflict” is purely metaphorical, but it creates an imaginary obstacle nonetheless.

Now, let’s examine the second sentence. “I want to, but my anger problem won’t let me.”

Once again, we have metaphorical language at play. Your client speaks as if shackles were holding him back or an authoritarian adult had grounded him.

Just as conflicts aren’t tangible obstacles, an anger problem has no concrete restraining power.

In cases like this one, the real problem may not be the conflict or the anger problem itself, but the language used to describe the problem.

Sometimes, simply altering the language will allow you to frame the problem in solvable terms. Even better, you’ll sometimes be able to wipe out the obstacle completely.

Let’s learn how to do it by leveraging the Meta Model.

A Meta Model pattern: nominalization

“Nominalization” is a linguistics term that simply means “turning verbs into nouns.” In the Meta Model of language in NLP, it means “turning processes into things.”

Let’s nominalize a few processes right here:

• “My nose is congested” becomes “I have a congestion.”
• “We argue” becomes “We keep having these arguments.”
• “I failed in this venture” becomes “I am a failure.”

Sometimes, we even carry it out further.

• “He frowns when he looks at people” becomes “He has an attitude problem.”

Do you notice how all these verbs morph into nouns? While nominalizing can be incredibly useful, it can also be disempowering if used inappropriately.

How to dematerialize problems instantly

Sometimes, you can resolve a client’s problem instantly by helping her denominalize the problem. A simple way to do this is to presuppose that you’re dealing with energy rather than an object. In quantum physics term, turn the particle into a wave.

(This is not a conventional way of teaching this Meta Model pattern. But I find it’s much easier to understand.)

When you hear “I can’t get past this conflict,” dematerialize the “conflict” by asking a question or making a comment.

• Question: “So you’re striking at each other? How about a new way to interact?”
• Comment: “It’s a hard one. The good thing is, as soon as you get tired of striking at each other, you’ll find a new way to interact. It’s just a matter of getting exhausted.”

Notice how the question and the comment both take your client from a passive, victim role into an active, responsible role. In the first case, he’s a victim of “the conflict.” In the second case, he’s “striking at someone else.”

In summary: dissolve nominalizations

As a coach, you always need to leverage the #1 NLP Skill. Pay attention to your client’s language. Is she materializing actions or feelings?

In the NLP Meta Model, we call this language pattern “nominalization.”

If she turns actions or feelings into concrete things, be sure to flip them back into “wave mode.” You can do this by asking questions and making comments.

Questions? Still have some doubts about this? Leave your comment below.

As a coach, you definitely want to pay attention to everything your client says and does, particularly for Meta Model distinctions. Have you ever heard statements like the following?

• “All the problems we are experiencing right now are caused by the rich. The rich always act in selfish ways.”
• “Employees suck. Everything would just be fine without employees.”

When a client describes a problem situation or an obstacle to you, her language may often contain vague nouns such as “men, women, people, americans, foreigners, employees, customers” and ambiguous pronouns, such as “they, them” and so on.

Of course, she loosely utilizes these terms to refer to specific elements of their model of the world. She placed these elements in their MOW as a result of their experience in life. Unfortunately, they have packed a single experience into generalized ones or abstracted them into a vague pronoun. This can lead to some limitations. If she has had a single bad experience with men and she generalizes that experience to include all men, her relationships with men will suffer.

This language pattern is known in the NLP Meta Model as “unspecified referential index,” since it also includes pronouns that have no contextual reference in the model.

You need specifics to reproduce the model

Let’s look at a few examples:

• Example 1: “Dating experts say I should go approach her, but I don’t know if I have the confidence.”
• Example 2: “Salespeople are manipulative.”
• Example 3: “I hate watching the national team play. We always lose and it gets me down…”

When listening to your client describe a situation or condition, your goal is to recreate his model. As he describes it to you, you are reproducing it in your own mind or writing it down.

Have you ever seen art students copying masterpieces in museums? Your work as a coach involves a similar craft. As the client reveals his model, you “copy” it.

The statements above, due to their general nature, do not enable you to copy the model accurately. They include generic words that cannot be depicted figuratively on a “painting.”

The two sentences at the beginning of this post include the words “the rich” and “employees.” The three examples include the words “dating experts,” “salespeople” and “we.”

The reason you cannot effectively reproduce the model is that you don’t know who specifically is being talking about. Which rich person? Which employee? Which dating expert? Which salesperson? And is he part of the national team? The statement is vague.

In each case, that person probably has had one or many experiences with a rich person, employees, dating experts and so on, but has generalized that experience to include all members of the category.

Use Meta Model questions to increase the resolution

Your role is to tease out the specifics of the situation so you can accurately reproduce the model. To do that, ask Meta Model questions that elicit specificity while at the same time maintaining rapport.

• “Which rich people are you referring to?”
• “What employees are you thinking of when you say that?”
• “What dating experts are you getting counsel from?”
• “Which salespeople are manipulative?”
• “Are you part of the national team?”

Your questions can serve one of two purposes. They can:

1. draw out more precise and accurate information so you can better reproduce the model, or
2. challenge your client on his model and force him to expand it.

The difference between the two is subtle and can often be communicated purely using your intonation. You’ll become more adept at using one or the other with practice.

In summary: tease out vague nouns

As a coach, always remember the #1 NLP Skill and be attentive to the nouns and pronouns your client uses. Do you really understand what she’s referring to? Or are the nouns vague and generalized?

The NLP Meta Model refers to this language pattern as “unspecified referential index.”

If the statements are too vague, be sure to elicit more specificity to make sure you are recreating her model of the world accurately. Do this by asking the right questions.

Anthony Robbins has introduced more people to Neurolinguistic Programming than anyone else I can think of. And while many practitioners frequently dismiss him as being no more than a showman, a businessman or a “disco” NLPer, we can still learn much from him. I for one have participated in almost all of his trainings, for reasons I’ll explain in greater details in this article.

1. Model.

Anthony Robbins achieved what he achieved because he understood and practices constantly the core discipline of Neurolinguistic Programming: modeling. In an interview, John Grinder retells of the days when Anthony Robbins was his student. He recounts that once the seminar ended, Tony approached him and said he understood that modeling lied at the heart of the field and that he was committed to modeling. He then asked Grinder what project he could undertake to prove his commitment. John Grinder suggested firewalking. “The rest,” as Grinder puts it, “is history.” Anthony Robbins is primarily a modeler and you must adopt this identity.

2. Do what works.

In his seminars, Anthony Robbins amply demonstrates his change techniques. The advanced student distinguishes NLP therapeutic patterns in his interventions, but also other patterns that he created or incorporated from other fields into his work. The most important trait he demonstrates during his intervention is his absolute commitment to getting the result that he’s after, notably to move another human being into a place of greater access to inner resources. And he’s a master at doing this.

3. Involve physiology at all times.

Few if any other trainers focus on physiology as fiercely and intensely as Anthony Robbins does. The only one I’ve come across who focuses as intently on physiology was his teacher: John Grinder. To him, physiology defines the limits of a person’s access to his or her resources. That’s why he pushes and stretches all participants in his seminars to get to their physical edge. Because he understands that, due to the mind-body connection, you can only go as far as your physiology permits.

4. Learn from and pay attention to John Grinder.

This lesson is perhaps the strangest or most uncommon of all. But you must attend to it. Of all the early students of Neurolinguistic Programming, Anthony Robbins is far and away the most successful. This is not to say that he is the best teacher or that he has reached a greater refinement in exercising his skills. But he has leveraged his mastery to accomplish more than any other student in the world. And his master was John Grinder.

Richard Bandler enjoys the greater popularity of the two co-founders. The term “Richard Bandler” receives more than 10,000 searches a month, while “John Grinder” receives less than 2,000. His creativity and mastery of language keeps seminar participants spellbound during days. I acknowledge Bandler as the creative force behind NLP. Yet, Bandler lacks the health, discipline and vitality that I’d expect from someone who has mastered NLP.

That’s where John Grinder shows up. Well in his sixties, he actively involves himself in challenging physical activities such as climbing and scuba diving, constantly pushing his edge. And while I’ve never heard or seen him display the verbal prowesses that Bandler displays, he is a much more inspiring model overall to aspire to. I recognize him to be the organizing, disciplined and directive force behind NLP. And this distinction is absolutely fundamental. Anthony Robbins has benefitted from this.

What Anthony Robbins Can Teach You

If you’re new to NLP, don’t be too quick to judge Anthony Robbins. Many people in the field trash him day in day out. The most important thing to keep in mind is to learn from Anthony Robbins by watching him, as opposed to listening to what he teaches. Observe how he works. Observe his movements. Observe his posture. Feel his intensity. Hear his tonality. In other words, model him. Just as Grinder and Bandler paid little attention to what Milton Erickson had to say about hypnosis and a lot of attention to what he did to produce results.

Anthony Robbins is a genius at producing change within people (and also marketing himself and his products) and for that reason, you’ll find it worth your time to model him.

The neat thing about his work is that it has a specific structure — and you can learn to emulate it.

Here’s how you should begin >>>

In a previous article I mentioned that the modeling done in NLP distinguishes itself from other forms of modeling in significant ways. In this article we’ll explore this distinction more deeply.

NLP Modeling is incredibly exciting and rewarding. It leverages the behavioral learning skills that all of us used as small children to develop our first abilities. Unfortunately, most of us lose access to those skills after we grow up. But it’s never too late to bring them back…

Let’s first get a sense of the steps involved in NLP Modeling. There are six of them.

Step 1. Identify a model

This first step requires that we choose a top performer. Maintain as your most important criteria to choose someone who produces outstanding result or results consistently. For instance, you could model a soccer player’s unique way of dribbling. Or you could model a top salesperson’s closing skills. Or you could model a clinician who has an unmatched record for helping patients recover from illnesses. Find someone who can get a result you’d like to produce time and time again, consistently without fail.

Step 2. Assimilate their behavioral patterns unconsciously

Whereas in most modeling methods the modeler acts simply as an outside observer, NLP Modeling demands that the modeler actually step into the shoes of the outstanding performer. Through repeated imitation and practice, you will unconsciously absorb his or her behavioral patterns.

This is the crux of NLP Modeling. So let’s talk about this some more.

When using other modeling methods, you’d be constantly trying to figure out how the top performer is achieving those results. You’d be analyzing his movements, his behavior, his words, his tonality, and so forth, trying to understand consciously how he produces those astonishing results.

NLP Modeling is different. When doing NLP Modeling, you’re supposed to imitate the genius without trying to figure out what’s going on. Just do as he does. Or do as she does. Copy him. Mimic her. But not in a caricatural way. Do it in a genuine way, trying as best as you can to let that person mold you so you become just like her.

As an example, imagine you’d want to model an outstanding tennis player’s serve. In Step 2, you’d actually pretend to be the player, going through the same motions over and over, seeking to emulate the player’s behavior.

For how long should you do that? You do it all the way until you…

Step 3. Produce results similar to those of the top performer

Image Credit: rapgenius.com

You know you’ve unconsciously assimilated the behavioral patterns of the top performer when you produce similar results in roughly the same amount of time. Depending on the modeling project, this may take minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or even years. It all depends on the complexity of the skill you’re working on acquiring.

In the case of our example, you’d know you’ve unconsciously assimilated the other player’s serve once you were able to consistently produce a similar quality of serve.

Criteria are subjective, but you can always enlist outside help to evaluate whether your results are congruent with your model’s.

Step 4. Clean up the pattern

In anyone’s behavior, even that of a top performer, there will always be “white noise”. This simply means that certain parts of their behavior will not be necessary to produce outstanding results. In this step, after you’ve demonstrated that you’ve absorbed the pattern by producing outstanding results, you start testing what actually needs to be included in the pattern and what can be left out.

Let’s go back to our example:

Imagine that you were modeling an outstanding tennis player’s serve. One piece of the player’s behavior is to bounce the ball three times on the court prior to starting his serve motion.

During Step 4, you’d actually test serving without bouncing the ball three times on the court to verify whether that piece of the pattern is essential to maintaining the serve’s quality. You might discover that it’s absolutely necessary and you might also discover that it’s completely dispensable.

Step 5. Build a model

Once you’ve cleaned up the pattern, it’s time to figure out what’s going on and to create a description of what you and the outstanding performer are doing. The key here is to describe this in a way that anybody truly committed to mastering the pattern can do it.

Step 6. Pass it on

This is where the rubber meets the road. The last step and master purpose of the modeler’s job is to transfer or teach the pattern to someone else. In this step, you’d take the model you created in Step 5 and transfer it to a new person. If this proves difficult, you might find it necessary to modify the description you created of the pattern until transferring it becomes easy.

The most elegant models can be absorbed very quickly by a committed learner.

Conclusion

There you have it! The 6 Master Steps of NLP Modeling. If you’re interested in furthering your comprehension of NLP Modeling, read Whispering In The Wind by John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St Clair. The distinguishing characteristic of NLP Modeling exists in Step 2. In most other forms of modeling, the modeler acts as a mere observer. In NLP Modeling, the modeler gets deeply involved in the modeling process.

That’s how as a small child you developed your first behaviors. How about claiming that unique skill back and using it to increase your overall sense of personal excellence?

You’re driving to work in the morning. If you’re like me, you always take the same route from home to your office. We’re like monkeys: totally conditioned to repeat tasks in the same way, every time.

The cool thing about this is how economical it is. You don’t really have to think. You put yourself on auto-pilot, head off to Bermuda in your mind, and your unconscious mind takes care of everything for you.

And so you’re cruising along on the way, daydreaming of sun and waves, and snapping your fingers to call the waiter who instantly brings you a…

KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!

Right in front of you, a giant tree collapses onto the road, completely obstructing your path. You feel yourself slamming on the brakes and the car comes to a screeching halt as the tires try to grasp to the road.

And for a few minutes, you have absolutely no clue as to what happened or what you’re doing.

Now, your unconscious doesn’t know how to respond. It’s awaiting instructions either from your conscious mind or from someone who’s conscious.

The Power Interrupt NLP Technique

Our unconscious excels at running patterns or programs automatically. This frees our conscious resources to ponder other matters while we perform certain activities unconsciously.

This sometimes can present a problem when trying to change your own or someone else’s habitual patterns of thought, emotion or behavior. You want to change but your unconscious keeps doing the same thing over and over and over.

What the heck do you do?

Here’s the key principle that allows you to make changes in your behavior:

The unconscious mind sucks at making a decision. That skill belongs to the conscious mind.

And herein lies the power of the pattern interrupt. And this is your opportunity to leverage the Pattern Interrupt NLP Technique.

To force the unconscious mind into “decision-awaiting mode,” you have to send it into a tailspin.

You have to break the habitual flow of how things happen, and force it to get into “what now?” mode.

It’s at the time of the pattern interrupt that you can insert changes into the unconscious’s programming.

When the unconscious is saying to you “Ok, what do you want me to do now?

At that point, there’s space for you to insert new instructions.

Now, let’s practice

Drill 1 – Interrupt your own pattern

1. Choose a behavior you’d like to change that you normally perform automatically, without thinking.
2. Observe how the pattern runs, what is its route.
3. Create a pattern interrupt that has nothing to do with the behavior. If you bite your nails, the pattern interrupt might be to jump up and down, or rub your nose intensely. If you eat every time you watch TV, the pattern interrupt might be to think of cow poop every time you open the fridge. Come up with a pattern interrupt that will jolt you like a tree falling in front of your car.
4. When you notice the pattern running, use your pattern interrupt repeatedly.
5. Observe what happens to the pattern.

Drill 2 – Interrupt someone else’s pattern

1. Observe someone who has a habitual pattern that you’d like to play with.
2. Create a neat pattern interrupt. For instance, if your mother or wife eats butter every morning, without thinking about it, use blue food coloring to change the butter’s color. If your child has been curious about playing with electrical outlets, have some balloons ready at hand; pop them anytime (s)he approaches an outlet.
3. Observe what happens to the pattern.

What Are Accessing Cues?

When people are thinking, they demonstrate light and subtle behaviors that help them engage the appropriate sensory representational system. For example, moving their eyes, changing their vocal intonation, physical position, breathing and gestures.

Why is that useful to you (and any other NLP-trained person)?

These behaviors actually help you track which representational system someone is using to express themselves or to respond to you or to a situation. While they don’t necessarily reveal “what” the person is thinking, they will certainly help you figure out “how” the person is thinking about it.

Stop for a second a consider any interaction you may have had with people. Can you remember anyone ever:

• being almost out of breath;
• making noises or onomatopeic sounds;
• making faces;
• using particular gestures like raising their hands and moving them around;
• scratching themselves;

These physiological changes associated to mental processes, over time, become automated, predictable patterns, outside of conscious awareness. While Richard Bandler and John Grinder uncovered these patterns during the 1970′s, the AQAL model Ken Wilber presented in his masterpiece “Sex, Ecology, Spirituality” clearly accounts for the direct and simultaneous correlation between physical and mental processes.

Ken Wilber's AQAL Model

As you practice NLP, you will learn to decode and interpret these automatic behaviors by using calibration. This will allow you to influence others’ thought patterns. What follows is a list of patterns coded in NLP that you can use as a learning structure:

1. Kinesthetic mode accessing cues: Head and eyes down, gestures in direction of the body, breathing down in the abdomen, slower speech tempo, deeper voice.

2. Auditory mode accessing cues: Head and eyes leaning to the sides, gestures at ear level, diaphragmatic breathing, speech tempo alternating between faster and slower, varied intonation.

3. Visual mode accessing cues: Head and eyes up, gestures above the shoulders or upward, breathing up in the lungs, eyes semi-closed, high-pitched voice and higher-speeed speech tempo.

Now, let’s practice accessing cues

Get together with a practice buddy and follow these instructions. Then, ask your buddy to tell you what happened at each step.

1. Think of a fun experience you had.
2. First, focus on the physical feelings associated to that experience.
3. Now, let go of the feelings.
4. Second, focus on the images associated to that experience.
5. Now, let go of the images.
6. Third, focus on the sounds associated to that experience.
7. Now, let go of the sounds.

Ask your buddy to take note of what happens to your gestures, posture, breathing, facial expression and tone of voice.

Then, switch roles! Your partner goes through the instructions and you observe and report.

In this short article, you’ll discover the two elements that make up 95% of hypnosis. This will help you focus your practice and learning on the linchpins of the field.

In his book “The Forbidden Keys of Persuasion,” Blair Warren points out that hypnosis consists essentially of two things: distraction and suggestion.

You can use two other words if you want: trance and instruction.

Personally, I prefer the latter two for two reasons:

First, the notion of distraction is associated with “moving away” from something. You’re getting distracted from something supposedly important. Trance, on the other hand, is something you can “move towards.” This distinction makes it easier to teach and learn hypnosis.

Second, the notion of suggestion is vague at best and exists only in the lingo of hypnosis. Instruction, on the other hand, is a notion all of us are familiar with. From television manuals to standardized tests, we all have learned to follow instructions. Instructions consist in commands delivered in a step-by-step format, designed to produce a result.

When you learn hypnosis, you explore different ways of delivering instructions. Sometimes, you’ll be more direct. Sometimes, you’ll be more subtle – especially when using covert hypnosis. However way you do it, you’ll be delivering instructions.

Let’s have a closer look at the two of them.

Instructions

When I first started to learn hypnosis, all I could focus on was the part about instructions (or suggestions, if you will).

*** QUICK NOTE *** Whenever you hear me referring to “instructions,” you can equate this with “suggestions.” If you’re going through different programs to learn hypnosis, most of them will use the term “suggestion.” *** /QUICK NOTE ***

Many new students of hypnosis are attracted to the instruction portion. I sure was. The reason is that instructions is where you actually get to influence or help the other person. Instructions are the behavioral guidelines you offer to the subject.

When you learn hypnosis, you learn how to formulate instructions. Funny, they really don’t differ all that much from what you’d find in an “instruction” manual.

You start with a verb in the imperative. Then, you complete the sentence. Here are a few examples:

• Shut the door.
• Stop eating sugar.
• Brush your teeth.
• Forget about it.

All the previous sentences are examples of instructions.

Once you become more proficient at formulating instructions, you can begin playing with other linguistic structures to soften the instructions.

• “You might want to” shut the door.
• “You can” stop eating sugar.
• “You may remember to” brush your teeth.
• “Once you” forget about it, [...].

In other words, you will learn how to “hide” your instructions in more sophisticated sentences.

Simple, isn’t it?

Trance

Once I was through my instructions binge, I finally turned my attention to trance.

Let me tell you: it blew my mind!

I LOVE trance.

If hypnosis had only trance to offer and nothing else, I’d be a happy camper.

In the trance portion of hypnosis, you will learn how to work with altered states of consciousness. You will learn how to shift people’s normal, everyday awareness to states with different levels of focus, sensory and linguistic awareness.

To really learn hypnosis, you must master this. I’ll even suggest that you begin by learning how to induce and work with trance. Start right away.

Because trance is apparently the most “esoteric” of the two, it’s the one that students feel the most apprehension about.

It’s nothing to worry about. It’s nothing weird. You go into altered states constantly throughout the day. Now, you get to learn how to direct them voluntarily.

Let’s recap…

You want to learn hypnosis. So you’ll have to learn about two different areas:

First, how to deliver instructions. You accomplish this by phrasing imperative sentences.

Second, how to induce trance. You achieve this by shifting people’s ordinary state of awareness.

Now, practice

I strongly recommend you acquire “The Mystic Trance.” It’s a program I’ve created to teach new students how to induce trance. Those who have used it call it “The World’s Easiest Hypnotic Induction.”

Really easy to learn. You’ll try it on yourself and you’ll be surprised at how effective it is. In 3 minutes, you’ll be hooked. Then it’ll take you 10 minutes at most to learn how to use it on others.

That’s your drill for now. Get the Mystic Trance and practice using it on yourself and others. You’ll be glad you did.

To learn how to perform the world’s simplest hypnotic induction, visit http://mystictrance.howtomasternlp.com.

There are times in your life where you need to get the upper hand.

Perhaps your survival or that of a loved one is at stake.

Or maybe the future of your company and the jobs of all your employees are on the line.

You must get compliance. Period.

Just like pattern interrupts, covert hypnosis is an essential skill in your toolkit.

The easiest way to get the job done is to first get the other party into a trance. From there, you’ll be able to steer the situation even more rapidly in the direction that favors you.

Forget about the problem you’re facing in that instance. You must first take control of your state so that you can in turn take control of the other person’s.

Why use covert hypnosis?

The answer is simple. If you pull out a pendulum or start spinning a spiral in front of the other person’s eyes, there’s no way in a million years you’ll be able to guide them into a trance.

In order to achieve it, you’ll have to operate under the radar. That way, you’ll be able to gain their compliance faster, more elegantly, following the normal course of conversation.

Once you learn how to use covert hypnosis, you have in your hand a communication tool you can use as needed to gain compliance.

In the following section, I’m going to explain what you need to know to hypnotize anyone, anytime without them realizing what’s happening.

How to hypnotize anyone covertly

You’d be amazed at how simple it is to actually hypnotize someone. The reason for this is that we all have a natural trance mechanism within us.

Stop for a second to realize how often you move in and out of trance states through the day, and let me tell you how this works.

Have you ever been driving your vehicle, perhaps for several miles, and at some point “woke up” and wondered how far you’d gotten on the road? That in-between gap, where you were “lost in your thoughts”, clearly illustrates a state of trance.

Similarly, the secret on how to hypnotize someone is to help them get “lost in their thoughts.”

Covert hypnosis happens in two steps:

1. You induce a trance.
2. You give suggestions to your subject

How to induce a trance

As you begin the process, focus on the goal you want to achieve: captivate the person’s unconscious attention.

What does that mean?

Your goal is to focus their full attention on you and your voice. You can achieve this through several means:

• Take the other person somewhere where you are by yourselves
• Eliminate surrounding distractions
• Stand up and/or get closer to them

You want to dominate and captivate their undivided attention.

Once you have their undivided attention, shift your vocal tonality to the most full-bodied tone you’re capable of producing. The more pleasant your tone of voice, the easier it will be for them to surrender to it.

Now, put yourself and them on the same page. To accomplish this, you can:

• Pace your on-going sensory experience by describing your surroundings, or
• Tell a story of how the two of you got to where you are

These are the two easiest strategies to get the other person on the same page as you. Of course, many more strategies exist. But these two are the street-smart way to get the job done.

At this point, if you can, establish some sort of physical contact. Put your hand on their shoulder or simply touch their arm. Since you’ll be the one initiating the contact, you will instantaneously be in a position of power.

At this point, the other person is more than likely in a trance.

How to give suggestions

We use the word “suggestion” in NLP and covert hypnosis because the other person may or may not choose to follow suit with your requests.

However, a more adequate term to describe what you’re doing is “instructions.”

When you give suggestions, you instruct the other person on what to do, in a step-by-step manner.

You must format these instructions exactly the same way you’d find them in the manual for assembling and electronic device.

For instance, “1. Open the battery compartment.   2. Insert two AA batteries following the drawing on the back of the latch.” And so forth.

The most effective way to instruct the other person is to package the instructions inside a story. The following story will reveal to you how to package instructions.

“The other day, the President of the company came to visit our regional offices completely unannounced. Because this happens so rarely, everyone at the company was surprised. You know how sometimes, the unexpected can take you off-guard? And you wouldn’t believe the kind of opportunity this opens up.

Anyway, he talked to my secretary and asked to speak to me. My secretary called me on the phone and asked if he could come in. ‘Of course,’ I replied. He walked in and didn’t waste any time. He looked at me straight in the eye and said:

‘Good morning Steve. Let me cut to the chase. We’ve finally figured out how to solve your problem. Here’s the solution. We’ve wasted enough time on this issue in the past. Get it now and solve the problem once and for all. In a year, we’ll celebrate this moment at the top of the hill. I trust that you’ll get things going.’

Now, when someone high on the food chain gives you permission to go forward, you can just let go and actually do what you’ve been wanting to do for a long time but kept fumbling around with. So at that point, you just do it.

And it’s done.”

Read back on the following text and notice where the instructions are. If you have any questions about it, type in a comment below so we can discuss it.

Let’s recap…

You need compliance. And you need it now. So you have to know how to use covert hypnosis.

First, induce a trance. You do that by focusing their full attention on you, assuming a full-bodied tone of voice and putting the two of you on the same page.

Second, give them instructions (that’s how we call “suggestions” in Rogue NLP Training). You do that by embedding them into a story.

Now, practice

If you haven’t read this page on the importance of practice, make sure you do it now.

Drill 1:

1. Identify a goal you want someone to achieve or an action you want them to perform.
2. Write out a story that contains the instructions they must follow to carry out this action.

To learn how to perform the world’s simplest hypnotic induction, visit http://mystictrance.howtomasternlp.com.

Eventually, all of these will be linked to descriptive pages on this site and the rest of the internet.

And now, without further due…

Here’s the list:

1. Aligning Perceptual Positions
2. Analogue Marking
3. Anchoring
4. Belief Chaining
5. Calibration
6. Cause and Effect Distortions
7. Chaining States
8. Changing Personal History
9. Chunking Down
10. Chunking Up
11. Circle Of Excellence
12. Collapsing Anchors
13. Comparative Deletions
14. Complex Equivalence
15. Compulsion Blow-Out
16. Conflict Resolution
17. Conflicting Beliefs Integration
18. Congruence
19. Conscious And Subconscious
20. Conversational Hypnosis
21. Conversational Postulate
22. Core Transformation
23. Criteria Installation
24. Decision Destroyer
25. Deletions
26. Denominalization
27. Disjunction
28. Distortions
29. Double Binds
30. Downtime
31. Ecology Check
32. Elicitation Of Learning Strategies
33. Eliciting Subconscious Responses
34. Embedded Commands
35. Emotional Pain Management
36. Extended Quotes
37. Generalizations
38. Hierarchy Of Criteria
39. Hypnosis
40. Implied Causes
41. Inducing Amnesia
42. Interrupting Limiting Associations
43. Intonation
44. Kinesthetic Criteria
45. Lack of Referential Index
46. Linguistic Ambiguities
47. Linking Words
48. Logical Levels
49. Lost Performatives
50. Meta Model
51. Meta Programs
52. Meta Transformation
53. Meta-Model Challenging
54. Meta-Model Intentional Usage
55. Meta-Model Violations
56. Metaphors
57. Meta-Programs Identification
58. Meta-states
59. Milton Model
60. Milton Model
61. Mind Reading
62. Mirroring
63. Modal Operators
64. Modeling: Second Position
65. Modeling: States Of Excellence
66. Modeling: Third Position
67. Nested Loops
68. Nesting
69. New Behavior Generator
70. Nominalization
71. Non-Verbal Cues Recognition
72. Parts Conflict Integration
73. Parts Negotiation
74. Pattern Interrupt
75. Perceptual Positions
76. Phobia Cure
77. Phonological Ambiguities
78. Presuppositions
79. Punctuation Ambiguities
80. Quotes pattern
81. Rapport: How To Create And Sustain Rapport
82. Rapport: Pacing & Matching
83. Rapport: Pacing and Leading
84. Re-Imprinting
85. Resolving Internal Conflicts
86. Resourceful States
87. Scope Ambiguities
88. Selectional Restriction Violations
89. Self Anchoring
90. Sensory Acuity
91. Six Steps Reframing
92. Sleight Of Mouth: Content Reframing
93. Sleight Of Mouth: Context Reframing
94. Sleight Of Mouth: Outframing
95. Sliding anchors
96. State Induction
97. State Of Consciousness Awareness
98. Stimulating Representational Systems: Auditory
99. Stimulating Representational Systems: Kinesthetic
100. Stimulating Representational Systems: Visual
101. Subliminal Persuasion
102. Submodalities: Digital Vs. Analogue
103. Submodality Overlapping
104. Swish Pattern
105. Syntactic Ambiguities
106. Tag Questions
107. Transderivational Search
108. Universal Quantifiers
109. Using Rep Systems
110. Utilization
111. Values Hierarchy Identification
112. Visual Squash
113. Well Defined Outcomes

Throughout the years, NLP has become primarily associated with therapy due to the fact that Richard Bandler and John Grinder founded the field by modeling outstanding therapists. This close association has created much confusion for the field.

While NLP has produced exquisite techniques and tools to resolve personal problems, the field remains agnostic as to its applications. As a competent practicioner, you can derive applications in various fields, including therapy, counseling, leadership, writing, publishing, advertising and many others.

You’ll find it useful not to box NLP into a area of application. In the book “Whispering In The Wind“, John Grinder and Carmen Bostic StClair create a parallel between how physics relates to engineering and how NLP relates to communication.

Quoting them:

The required distinction is the same as the distinction between physics and engineering, or medical research and clinical practice, or chemistry and pharmacology. Physics, for example, is the study of the patterns that govern the physical phenomena about us. Such studies over centuries have resulted in the coding of certain patterns, principles, laws of nature… An engineer designing a bridge will draw upon this body of tested and verified patterning (especially the computational formulae) to carry out his work. He is said to be applying the principles of physics in order to work how specifically the bridge should be constructed. Physics – the study of the fundamental patterns of physical phenomena – can be applied in multiple instances from bridge building to the design of extraterrestrial vehicles. Such examples are applications of physics, pure and simple.

Comparably, the modeling of geniuses done by Grinder and Bandler created the field of NLP, resulting in a series of models of excellence. These models coded patterns that govern the patterns of interactions among people in certain contexts (change work, hypnosis…). A business consultant addressing a challenge within a client company will draw upon the patterns. She will be said to be applying this body of tested and verified patterns in order to determine how specifically to resolve the challenge.

NLP – the study of the fundamental patterns of excellence in human performance – can be applied (in the context of business practice, for example) to management practice, strategic planning, personnel, recruitment, new product design… Such examples are applications of NLP, pure and simple.

In other words, you’re studying the physics of thought and behavior. How you apply the principles you uncover will be up to you.

So keep your perception of NLP open, so as to tap into the full potential it holds in store for you.