…and it’s not all about good times — with the “professional persuaders” warming up there influencing muscles as another election looms over us and we’re subjected to a barrage of vague abstract “Spin” – what can you do to tune up your “bulls***” detectors?

Tonight we took on the “thorny” subject of how to communicate, influence and persuade people ethically and effectively in everyday life.

NLP has a whole raft of tools and techniques to help you do this and my outcome for this session was to introduce a simple 3 stage model that I’ve developed that will ensure that your messages are more likely to be accepted.

The 3 simple steps of this model allow you to use all of your NLP skills in a structured way that flows naturally with how your 3 brains keep you alive, happy and sane ;o)

We could call this the Anth’s “Evolution Model” of persuasion, but, Aristotle was teaching this 2000 years before Darwin, Bandler or Grinder…

…and he just noticed what was going on around him – Don’t you think it’s amazing what you can notice if you keep your eyes peeled, ears tuned and others senses open?

If you were there last night don’t be too suprised if you begin to discover new things about what’s going on around you, because as you practise what you’ve begun to learn this evening, you are going to be noticing more than you expect.  Maybe they’ll make a movie about it one day – I wonder what movies you’re already playing a role in, do you?

Keep enjoying what you’re noticing in the people around you and I’ll look forward to seeing you for some more laughing and learning next time.

Anth.

But no, Alan had decided to introduce this apparently simple technique as not only a great technique in its own right, but also as a fun way to review submodalities, metaphor and presuppositions in language.

(Alan did attribute the Cloud to its developer – but I’ve currently forgotten the guy’s name – so apologies to the nameless one – I will add his details as soon as I get them)

Anyway, back to the evening after a brief review or introduction to submodalites and metaphor we soon got to the meat of the evening “The Cloud” – which turned out to be a very simple technique which really helped open up people’s thinking to new choices in their lives.

Judging by the laughter in the room and the feedback afterwards we had all kinds of clouds appearing and disappearing in the room as people let go of old ways and practiced designing and building new resources for themselves.

Were the clouds real? Who can tell?

But real or not it they certainly worked and it’s really easy to do too

Next time (31^st March) we’re going to be looking at NLP approaches to working with difficult people – not that you know any of those of course

…and no it doesn’t involve lying down staring at clouds.

Bye for now,

Anth.

Tonight we began with the communication model and filters then focused in on on getting to grips with really listening to what was being  said – and more importantly for this evening what was missing so that we could really understand and picture what the other person was describing.

By the end of the evening most people were surprised at just how powerful even these “basic” techniques were in clarifying what the other person was really saying and how useful taking the time to do that could be.

We finished off the evening with working with nominalisations and how easy it can be to free ourselves and others from the “stuck” mindset that can result when these go unchallenged.

Another fun evening and I’m already getting great feedback from people about how they’ve used what they’ve learned to good effect in therapy and business, which is kind of the point of the group really ;o)

Anth.

But with only 7 words, how could you do that?

What if you only had one word?

We finished off by embedding in the changes and insights fro mthe evening with a creative use of triple induction – if you haven’t tried it yet, give it a go – I think you’ll like the results.

Anth.

Tonight, we combined sensory acuity and listening skills to identify and then feed back values conversationally – but, what would you buy if the seller could identify exactly what you wanted, and they had everything in stock?  (an in-joke for those who were there on the evening – sorry ;o)

Anth.

Anth.

Maybe word weaving is easier than you thought?

Anth

We’d decided that relaxed natural story telling was our desired outcome this evening, as we worked/played and laughed our way through a whole series of exerices designed to get our creative juices flowing as we switched over to allowing our minds to weave free flowing and enthralling stories – or was it just an excuse for a night of laughing?

Anth.

Before jumping in to see how New Code could help us to create new “content free” resourceful states, Richard explained that John Grinder created New Code to address the issues he saw with NLPers doing great work for clients, but struggling to apply it well in their personal lives.

Would you like to use NLP even more effectivly in your life? Yes, then read on…

Pretty soon we we’re moving in new ways playing New Code “games” to access new resourceful states…  Judging from the amount of laughing everyone enjoyed this, I know I personally enjoyed got a lot out of it, and the great thing is that as soon as you can do one game, you can change it and start all over again….

…it’s a funny thing I personally couldn’t “name” the state I found myself in but it felt clear, fun and resourceful – which I think I maybe kind of the point?

A quick switch led us into another Diltz change process – a mixture of perceptual positions and timelines which found many fans and some significant shifts. Always good to find new ways of combining and exploring…  techniques may not be NLP, but application of techniques can make CHANGE SO EASY, especially when combined with curiosity ;o)

The last thing we explored this evening is very important – Richard introduced us to a novel way of helping people explore what was important to them (hint: values) using some really interesting and secret techniques… sorry but what happens in the room, stays in the room… suffice to say that we learned some great ways to get to the core of any area, that’s right the core where small changes can lead to great BIG results, not to mention finding a great tool for planning joint holidays.

Thanks to Richard for all your efforts in creating a fun and useful evening,

Anth.

PS:

Next meeting is Wed 27 May and we’ll be looking at Metaphor, getting to grips with why they’re so powerful and practising how slipping in suggestions can be so easy.   I remember early in my study of NLP someone telling me those formal techniques can be great for quick change and are often obvious but conversational change WOW! That’s where you really see the rubber meet the road, but where does the change occur during what seems a simple conversation? Is it really MAGIC? When I started NLP my main interest was in helping my coaching clients change even more easily yet most of my clients were telephone based, so I grew to love applying techniques conversationally without a formal set up. I still remember having to bite my tongue after conversationally taking a client on a trip up and down their timeline and hearing begin to talk about their old problem in the past tense – sometimes the hardest thing about NLP is keeping a straight face ) just suppose you were to further master metaphor, where would that lead you in the weeks and months ahead…after all we all love stories and maybe, just maybe metaphor is the ultimate…. But you knew that at some level already, did you not?

See you next time, Anth.