NLP for Speakers and Trainers

Workshop in Singapore, June 22-24, 2011

Most of us have experienced a boring speaker or found ourselves wondering at the relevance of a training we  were attending. Conversely when we have been engaged, enthralled and excited by a masterful presentation our minds become curious, ”how did the speaker get to be so good”.

Speaking can change minds and Training can be the most effective way of developing behaviours and skills in an organisation, however when done badly both are a waste of time and money. Download brochure.

Neuro Linguistic Programming

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) allows us to model or understand any human experience or behaviour is constructed and then duplicate or improve upon it. With this knowledge speakers and trainers can strengthen what they do well, eliminate what doesn’t work and incorporate the best practices of the masters in the field. Think about how powerful it will be when you can compress your learning curve and to increase the value you offer to your students or clients.

Imagine stepping in front of your audience feeling confident, relaxed and focused. Picture yourself connecting with individuals, seeing eye to eye and noticing the subtle non-verbal cues that let you know just how to land your message in a way that just makes sense.

With NLP skills you can structure a speech or training in ways to facilitate accelerated learning, reduce resistance and increase buy-in because NLP teaches you how the mind and body really work. Download brochure.

Speaking and Training Skills

If you are a new or seasoned speaker, trainer, coach or lecturer then you will want to develop your skills to positively influence and audience. In the NLP for Speakers and Trainers program you will learn about:

• Training State – how to overcome fear and increase confidence and focus
• Training Design – how to plan your presentation to get maximum learning, engagement and application
• Managing the Audience – how to influence the audience’s thinking and feeling
• Unconscious Learning – how to overcome resistance and create a deeper impact
• Closing the Knowing-doing gap – how to turn ideas into actions

Plus you will be personally coached to the next level in your presentation skills.

If you are in Singapore or can travel then Download the brochure for more details.

NLP is essentially a model of learning and demonstrates that we can model human thinking, behaviour and communication.

‘Neuro’ refers to our nervous system and recognises that communication is so much more than words. When we give or receive information our neurology and our physiology (mind-body system) is affected. We re-present reality on the screen of our mind.

‘Linguistic’ refers to the way that words create meanings when they are used to communicate. Humans are meaning making machines and are eager to make ‘sense’ of any communication. In the urgency to make meanings from events or communication, dis-empowering conclusions are often drawn.

‘Programming’ infers that we can take control of this process and run it more effectively, just like computer software. With NLP, if something is not working for you it is possible to re-program your neurology and physiology to behave in a different and more empowering way.

Initially the Neuro Linguisitic Programming model was used in therapy, but people quickly recognised its uselfullness in communication, selling and influence. Personally I found knowing NLP to be highly useful in my coaching practice.

Much of NLP has been absorbed into other fields and Neuro-Semantics is is an evolution/fusion of Neuro Linguistic Programming, Cognitive Behaviourism and General Semantics. Neuro-Semantics, developed by Dr L. Michael Hall and Dr Bobby Bodenhamer, is about translating great ideas into reality, about performing our highest meanings, about enriching our performances with the most compelling intentions, and getting to the heart of things via communication. 

Neuro-Semantics brings awareness to the simple fact; that we create meaning out of what happens and is said to us (semantics), and we get those meanings incorporated into our mind-body system (neurology). Then how these meanings drive our behaviours and how these behaviours determine our success or failure.

I am grateful to both NLP and Neuro-Semantics as they gave me an early framework that was foundational in my researching the field of Self-leadership and I still teach a class on NLP for Speakers and Trainers.

From a self-leadership perspective, the answer lies in the question – to change we must change our ‘selves’. ‘Self’  is a matrix of frames of mind which includes our self beliefs and values which make up our ‘identify’ and we tend to conform to our identity. In short you behave to meet your expectations of how your ‘see’ yourself.

Ignoring the philosophical problem of who is the self that sees the self, the key to making a change in behaviour and a resoltion that sticks is to see your self in a new way.

In Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) there is technique known as the SWISH pattern and Positive Psychology has a similar intervention known as Best Possible Self.

The Swish works by imagining yourself as “the you for whom there is no problem”. For example if you procrastinate to exercise, overspend on  your credit card or lack confidence with new people, then you construct a ‘mental image’ of the you that can easily and successfully handle these, and other, situations. Once you have a rich and comprehensive idea of what the ‘new you’ would look like, sound like and feel like, you ‘step into’ this identity and believe and value this as the you that will move into the future.

Best Possible Self is similar with a diary option. 1 ) Imagine yourself in the future. 2) Imagine everything has gone about as well as it could have, and you have gotten most of the things that are important to you. 3) Spend 10 to 20 minutes of free writing describing this person.

You have heard of self-fulfilling prophesy, so why not write the prophesy you want fulfilled? Personally I am going to combine both techniques to ensure my 2011 is my best year ever. What about you?

 The evening meal had finished and a man stands, the group falls silent but with excited curiosity about what the man might say. The man, who was not old by our standards but had an appearance that communicated his wisdom and authority, starts to speak. He commences by taking his audience back in time to events that anchored them to deeds of courage, endurance and sacrifice. His words entrance each listener and carry them on a journey inside themselves so that they relive each story; even if they had not been present.

 Sometimes the storyteller would just recount passed events but other times when the group was facing a new challenge he would draw analogies from nature to prepare the group for ordeals to come. After the stories the group would sleep and dream and wake the next morning renewed, refreshed and ready to face the day.

 The storyteller has a special magic that allows the listener to travel in time and space and access states and resources from their unconsciousness. Storytellers have been with us from since man first learned to speak and have survived the printing press and the advent of electronic entertainment. Today, a leader, speaker or trainer who wishes to bypass resistance, prepare hearts and minds and facilitate lasting changes for his or her audience will be wise to study and practice the structure and delivery of story and metaphor.

 Neuro Linguistic Programming and Metaphor

 The early developers of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) modelled a great storyteller, the founder of modern hypnosis, Milton Erickson. Erickson’s stories are ingenious, enchanting and extraordinary examples of the art of persuasion. According to Sidney Rosen MD, a student of Erickson’s, anybody who listned to Erickson was likely to experience varying levels of hypnotic trance. In trance we are most open to the messages, suggestions and influences embedded in the stories. Erickson also believed that if the listener “forgot” a story – developed amnesia for it – its effect could be even more potent. To this end, Erickson and subsequent NLP trainers would create story loops, by nesting one story inside another, inside another taking the listener deeper into trance and increasing the chance of amnesia.

 Stories and metaphors can be used to:

•  Induce emotional states
• Cause the listener to access mental resources
• Reframe a situation
• Reduce resistance to change or new ideas
• Build rapport
• Entertain
• Break negative states
• Punctuate speeches or trainings

What is a Metaphor?

The world ‘metaphor’ comes from Meta, meaning above or about and Phorine, which means meaning, it can also be translated as ‘to transfer’ or ‘carry over’. When we use a metaphor we cause the listener to go meta to meaning which creates awareness which creates choice and choice allows change.

We meta state when we use metaphors by putting one thing in hierarchy to another. The philosopher Aristotle (circa 300BC), knew this when he said, “Metaphor is the application to one thing of the name belonging to another.”

 In linguistics, a metaphor is the act or process of denoting one concept (the tenor) with a sign conventionally tied to another (the vehicle), with the purpose of (i) emphasising certain associations of the tenor over others (my dentist is a butcher); (ii) enriching the conceptual structure of the tenor by analogy with another domain (the CPU is the brain of the computer); (iii) conveying some aspect of the tenor which defies conventional lexicalization (the leg of the chair, the neck of the bottle).

 The dictionary defines a metaphor as, “A figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another by way of suggesting a likeness or analogy between them”

 One of the exercises I ask my NLP students to do is to write five metaphors that can be used for a specific purpose such as a training. If you were put in this position your first reaction might be to run out and buy a book on metaphors – I know, that was my first reaction when given the same task. It’s not necessary, the best metaphors are staring you right in the face, you are living them, and they are everywhere. It’s like the fish asking, “Where is the water?” In fact it is more difficult to find something that is not a metaphor.

 Just prior to writing this I was coaching a client on the phone who was berating himself for personalising someone else’s anger. “Can you imagine someone learning to shoot basketball hoops”, I said, “Some shots they get in and some they miss. Eventually they get more in than they miss. You have only just learned about Self-leadership, so it’s OK to drop the ball occasionally as long as you learn and improve.”

 The Construction of a Metaphor

 There are a number or ways to construct metaphor depending on whether you are using it for a state induction or for helping an individual or group to overcome a particular challenge.To create a basic metaphor use the following steps.

 Displace the focus
It’s axiomatic that nobody likes to be told; they like to discover the answers for themselves. By changing the focus of the story from the listener to some other time, place or person reduces resistance by allowing the listener to draw their own meanings. For examples of this refer to the parables of Jesus of Nazareth eg. Casting seeds, faith like a mustard seed etc.

 Get the listener to search their unconscious
By using non-specific descriptions your metaphor will induce trance by causing the listener to go inside and to fill in the details from their own mental map or experience. An example would be; “Perhaps if you were in a similar situation you would have an idea as to what to do.”

Pace the Structure
For the metaphor to be effective it needs to have the same stucture as the problem it sets out to gain perspective on. So if the listeners are facing a challenge and don’t know how to resolve it then the subjects of the metaphor will also face a challenge. The difference is the outcome.

 An Outcome
The metaphor needs an outcome or resolution that will add resources to the listener; this will often be in the form of a reframe of what the situation means, for example “they discovered that the challenge was in fact an opportunity to do things better.”

 The Delivery of metaphor

If you are not already a natural storyteller, set an outcome to hone your skills, listen to others who have the ‘gift’ and then practice. If you have children, read them bedtime stories and then practice creating your own. If you can enthrall a child you are well on you way. 

A metaphor must be meaningful; it needs to pace the elements of the listeners intellectual level, experience and current situation. Good storytellers gather information about their audience and not only pace content but pace their delivery. No two audiences are the same and so a single story may vary in length and detail depending on how it is being received.

Just as with state induction the storyteller must use his or her voice and physiology to act out the story for maximum impact.

So learning to tell stories is like learning to cook, at first you start with a few simple ingredients but after a few tries you can add flavour and spice and make a meal that is both satisfying and memorable.

Have you seen the TV series ‘Lie to Me’?  Lie to Me is based on the work of Paul Ekman, a psychologist who has been a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. The show is compelling  because the main character can read when people are lying and appears to have an almost supernatural ability to read minds.

If you are in any kind of relationship; whether it be work, social or romantic the ability to read the other person’s thoughts and emotions about a topic will improve communication providing the skill is used ethically.

I have previously written about psychometric tests which are used in a corporate setting to understand employees personalities and get the best from them, but what about being able to read people on the fly? It is certainly possible and I have taught this skill to managers, coaches, trainers and even intelligence services.

To read people you need to learn to listen with both your eyes and your ears. People are always transmitting what they think and feel, the same way a wireless network is always sending a signal so that you can connect – it’s just that some people are more  encrypted than others!

Mastering the ability to decipher body language, speech patterns and micro expressions takes time but even the novice can get results by learning to notice what people are actually saying.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) provides an excellent framework for noticing and calibrating; eye movements, breathing, gestures and facial expressions. The language we use and how we use it gives clues to what’s important to us and topics we feel strongly about as well as our preferred way to process and respond to information.

Here are a couple of exercises to get you started:

Reading Yes / No

Ask a friend to not speak but respond to a series of questions with a definitive “Yes” or “No” in their mind. As you ask them questions that you know the answers such as; your name is, you are x years old, you like icecream – notice how they respond with their; eyes, face, mouth, breathing, jaw tension. When you are clear that you can read yes/no then ask them some questions to which you don’t know the answer and see if you can guess based on what you see. Once you have mastered this you can calibrate people in general conversation by noticing how they respond in the affirmative or negative. With this information you will never be left guessing about whether you have got the sales order or if they will call you again.

Reading Values

Values and beliefs drive behaviours and so if you can read someones values you can predict how they will behave. As you listen to someone notice what they talk about and particularly what they talk about with emphasis. Emphasis can be demonstrated by voice tonality, volume or non-verbal gesture. You can check your read by asking clarifying questions such as, “that seems important to you, can I ask what’s important about that?” This line of questioning delivered in a curious, non-threatening way will uncover values.

These exercise are just to whet your appetite and of course will improve with the right coaching from someone who knows what they are doing. If you would like to learn more then contact us at Self Leadership International.

In this short video I suggest that what to do with your hands is to make meaningful gestures.

An intention is a frame of mind that drives action, when you have a clearly defined intention you gain a laser like focus and begin to take action. Effective execution occurs when intentions are transformed into well thought out behaviours.

People can often read your intentions but the world rewards your effective execution. Here are four questions to ask:

• What is it you want to do?
• What actions do you need to take?
• What will be the effect of those actions?
• Will these effects be in line with your intention?

Here is a short video on intentionality when it comes to public speaking:

Footnote: Experienced NLP practitioners will recognise the embedded frames and state inductions in this video.

Now while I never present the genius state as a hypnotic process and state, it absolutely is.  When you experience this naturally occurring state (and everybody does at some time), it seems to happen to you, to come upon you, and when you look back on it, you typically remember it as a wonderful experience.

What induces it?  Usually something that’s very important to you, something that you actively engage with and when you do, you get lost in it.  You become thrilled and absorbed in it.  It could be reading a book, it could be walking in a Redwood forest, it could be gardening, it could be playing catch with your dogs, writing, watching a great movie, having a fantastic conversation with a friend, making love, climbing a rock wall, playing a video game, and on and on the list goes.

The key is absorption in something that you care about, an absorption that pulls you into it so much so that you can get lost in it.  Then, in that moment when you are in that “flow” state, you are not multi-tracking.  You have lost all of your meta-mind awarenesses about all of the other things you need to do and track and you have become of one mind about the absorption.   Now in that moment, you won’t realize this!  If you were aware of it, you would be double-tracking.  But you’re not.

It is only later when you look back on the experience that you realize that you during that time you were all there— fully and completely. And during that time you realize that many of the central factors of your consciousness disappeared.  Time disappeared and you were lost in the now, this moment, and your awareness of time just vanished.  So did the world and others and even your self vanished.  These facets of the matrix of your mind were still there, but you lost consciousness of them.  You became self-forgetful, time forgetful, world forgetful.  All you were aware of was the subject of whatever the focus was about.

Athletes experience this as when a gymnast disappears the audience and they are there alone with the high bars or the floor.  A baseball pitcher similarly disappears a whole stadium.  In their focus-flow-genius state all that is there is the ball and the batter.  When an athlete goes into this special state, they typically call it being in the zone. And a couple years ago Tim Goodenough and Mike Cooper, two Meta-Coaches modeled out 13 distinctions from top South African athletes (Olympiads and national champions) in their Neuro-Semantic book, In the Zone.

In the field of NLP the first work on the prerequisites of the “personal genius state” was developed by John Grinder and Judith DeLozer (1983- 1987).  The processes that they came up with were interesting, but quite convoluted and therefore ineffective.  They were fooling around with meta-levels as they were trying to figure out how to utilize the guidance of Gregory Bateson and his principles of the higher levels.  And they even wrote that they knew the secret would tie in somehow with managing the meta-levels.  They got thta from Bateson, they just didn’t know how to apply it.  That came later after I created the Meta-States model (1994).  One of my very first applications of Meta-States was to the genius state prerequisites and that brought about the Accessing Your Personal Genius state or induction (and hence the APG training).

What Meta-States was able to do as a process, and as the ultimate hypnotic state, was to set the required meta-levels (as meta-states or frames) over the primary state so that you can let go of the meta-awarenesses and be fully present in the primary state. Doing this commissions the higher meta-states to operate as an out-side of conscious awareness structure.  It’s paradoxical, as is many hypnotic states.  To release the multi-tracking kind of consciousness, you learn how to embrace your meta-level states and use them so that you are freed for letting them go— from your immediate awareness.

Then you can be all there— with all of your resources available for the flow or in-the-zone state.  Then when you read, you fully comprehend because you are there (and not elsewhere!).  Then when you write, you don’t suffer the dreaded “writer’s block.”  Then when you are there with a client or loved one, you are there and they can feel your full presence. And now you know why we use the APG training to create your genius coaching state, genius training state, genius writing state, wealth creation state, etc.  It is the ultimate Neuro-Semantic state for operating from your highest and best.  So that makes it a self-actualizing state.  And now you know why APG — Accessing Personal Genius— is the flagship training of Neuro-Semantics.

This short video will certainly help.