NLP

by Tom Hoobyar

  These may seem like pretty big promises, and yet the possibilities are not overstated. The basis for this is NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It’s a funny name for an essential function of life: understanding and managing your own mind. NLP is famous for its fast fixes for phobias and long-held fears and anxieties—and much more.

  Like many great ideas, the concepts of NLP have been embraced by many leaders in their fields—now, several decades since its inception, echoes of NLP appear in all kinds of books, training courses, coaching, and motivational speeches. As you go through this book and learn more about NLP, you’ll find yourself recognizing the many places and people who have adopted it as part of their work.

  This essential guide provides you with multiple ways to create and maintain motivation to keep you moving forward toward your goals. You’ll also learn two tremendously important processes for selecting and validating your goals. That alone is worth the price of admission. When you truly know what you want, and that what you want is worth having, you’ll find all your internal resources aligning. You’ll find the friction, distractions, and hesitations melting away. You’ll learn what NLP calls internal congruence, and that gives you a strong running start.

  You’ll discover new ways of relating to and understanding other people that will make getting cooperation and giving direction easier and more satisfying than ever before. And I’m speaking as a guy who used to have real issues with shyness and public speaking.

  You see, I know firsthand what a difference using NLP has made in my own life. Using its concepts and techniques can have powerful and long-lasting effects. I have trained hundreds of people in NLP concepts and techniques—and have seen people make remarkable changes in their lives.

  You’ll also get a new understanding of other people because you’ll have a better idea about what’s going on inside them. For the most part, many people don’t know how they work inside. They really are unable to tell you what makes them think a particular thought, or do what they do. You’ll learn about other people’s inner workings by simply observing behaviors and noticing the right key signals.

  Having this awareness also helps you to be a little more approachable, a little more “simpatico,” and a little smoother when you’re communicating. Of course, the reward here is the power of influence. The knowledge you’ll gain about how people work gives you real persuasive power.

  Your relationships will improve across the board because you will become more understanding, and more understood. That combination makes you an easier person to be around. Frankly, it makes you more attractive.

  You’ll find your performance at work improving. Mine certainly did. I became a better team player. And, even though I was the boss, I became much more approachable to my employees. You’ll become healthier, too, because you’ll be better able to manage your motivations to exercise, to eat well, and to reduce or do away with some of your poor health habits.

  The bottom line is that by reading this book and doing the recommended activities, you’ll develop the skills to become better at just about everything you do. You’ll gain powerful tools to be able to overcome whatever you believe is your number-one problem.

  If I were you, I might be thinking, “Why should I trust this guy—and invest my time exploring these ideas?” Here’s why. For most of my career, I’ve made my living as an inventor, engineer, and entrepreneur, and after NLP training, as a consultant to people dealing with personal and professional performance issues.

  I know what’s proved most useful to me over the last fifteen years and that’s what I’m going to share with you. This book is not simply an encyclopedia of NLP. Instead, this is an interactive user guide that puts the power of NLP at your fingertips right now. I am, first and foremost, an NLP user. It’s how I navigate life.

  Let me start with how NLP really got my attention. It’s the story of how, after thirty-six years, I found a way to stop smoking. I had been trying to quit for eighteen of those thirty-six years. Nothing worked for me. I tried hypnosis, putting money in a jar every time I would break down and have a smoke, telling all my friends and family that I quit, drinking myself to sleep for one stretch of six nonsmoking months. Nothing worked. Every time I “quit,” I would find an excuse to start smoking again. Once I even used my dad’s death as an excuse to stop on the way to his house to buy a pack of cigarettes. “Emergency,” I told myself. “I’ll quit again when I get through this.”

  Yeah, right. And I felt like an idiot. Here I was in charge of a start-up firm, and I was the only smoker in the company. Out of consideration for our employees, I had declared our offices a nonsmoking zone. So I would be alone, standing outside in all kinds of weather pounding down a quick cigarette before meeting with my staff, stinking like an ashtray and knowing that I was broadcasting my weakness. Then, one day, I saw an NLP process in a book. I thought I might as well try it.

  That was more than twenty years ago and I haven’t lit a cigarette since. A few years later, when the company was on solid footing and I had a little breathing space, I started taking NLP training. Wow.

  I had spent my entire adult life figuring out processes and technologies, but this new discipline blew those strategies away. As my questions about human nature (and my own inner workings) were answered for me, I realized that I had stumbled on to the coolest technology yet—the technology of human behavior.

  What Is NLP?

  NLP is a revolutionary study of the PROCESS of human thought. In other words, it’s the study of what’s actually going on when we think. I don’t mean the physical or electrochemical reactions, but what we would notice if we looked at the step-by-step activity of thinking.

  The interesting thing about the mind is that if you take a brain and cut it open, you can’t find the mind. You can’t find a poem or the taste of chocolate or the feeling of a first kiss or the music from the prom dance. All you find is a bunch of nerve tissue. The nerve tissue in your brain acts as a substrate. It’s almost like your computer. It acts like your hard drive or your motherboard, and basically it’s designed to store various bits of data and to assemble, reassemble, and rearrange them and call them up whenever you want.

  NLP is an understanding—not of the brain—but of how the mind, using the brain, expresses itself in your life and creates what you call your experience.

  Right now, for instance, you’re reading these words. But these words by themselves are not your experience. Your experience is these words blended with what else you’re seeing around you at the moment, where you’re sitting, and how your body is feeling. Part of your experience right now is composed of the things you’re saying to yourself, like, “Geez, I wish he’d say more about that point,” or “That’s interesting,” or “I don’t know if that’s true or not,” or “Am I really going to get my money’s worth out of all this time I’m spending?”

  The comments you make as you go on, coupled with your visual and your physical sensations as you read, blended with my words—all of that combined becomes your experience. Now, how does your brain do all that? Before I answer that, let me give you a little background information about NLP.

  NLP started at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the early 1970s and has grown rapidly since then. NLP differs from psychology because its philosophy and techniques are derived from a specialized form of studying people called “Modeling.” NLP researchers interviewed and observed people doing many activities—and then shared the huge body of knowledge they accumulated about how people think when they’re falling in love, grieving a personal loss, shooting a gun, flying a plane, learning a language, or falling asleep. Thousands of people have been studied over the years, and much has been learned about how we think, and how we can adjust our own internal thought processes.

  NLP popularized the “Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic” learning styles in addition to many new technologies utilized in education, psychotherapy, and communication. It’s used in business for interviewing, hiring, training, man
agement, and sales. Entertainment and business professionals, as well as athletes and coaches in amateur, professional, and Olympic sports, use NLP coaching to improve performance.

  In the beginning, I studied NLP because I wanted help inventing products and being a better CEO of the high-tech company that I had founded, and I got it!

  Every day I was managing people, making phone calls, negotiating with vendors and customers in the business world. NLP really influenced my view of my employees. Even though I could see that some of them could probably resolve some issues and be happier (not to mention, be better employees), I wasn’t licensed to be their therapist. I was their boss.

  Even though I was getting very excited by the things I was learning about human nature, I couldn’t really talk much about my discoveries. I certainly couldn’t ask other people, “What pictures are you making in your head right now?” or “Are you hearing a voice?” It wasn’t safe to try that and it certainly wouldn’t have been very effective.

  So I decided to use this growing knowledge for my own personal development, and allow it to change my language and my gestures to get results for me first. Then I discovered how this also allowed me to get results with other people. You see, the funny thing was that when I changed, the people around me changed, too.

  It actually turned out remarkably well—and that’s what I want to share with you. My goal with this book is for you to learn about the operating principles of NLP, about how you think and how others think. You’ll be able to manage your life more easily, and to dramatically improve your communications with other people.

  What I didn’t know back then was that there would be so many additional benefits from using NLP skills. NLP has helped me be a better husband, father, and grandfather. It’s helped me be happier, easier to get along with, a better family member, and more productive in my professional work.

  Since retiring from manufacturing, I’ve worked with clients as a consultant and coach. NLP has helped me to share my skills and experience with thousands of people in many walks of life and in many situations.

  I’m an NLP Master Practitioner and Training Coach. I have a lot of other certifications for NLP and related training because I found the field so fascinating. In my home library, there are hundreds of books on the subject. I’m also the founder of the international NLP alumni group, the NLP Café. In this book, I’ve distilled the best of everything I’ve learned from NLP—which is a lot! You don’t have to be as focused on NLP as I am to reap many benefits from this information. You’re sure to find a payoff within your first hour.

  Two Important NLP Principles of Human Nature

  NLP researchers originally studied therapists who were famous for getting almost miraculous results with their clients. One of the psychotherapists initially studied was Fritz Perls, who developed “be-here-now” Gestalt therapy. He was a genius at reading body language and at getting immediate changes. His unique approach was the direct opposite of psychoanalysis, which requires years of therapy and self-study to develop an understanding of how one came to be who they are.

  The second therapist was Virginia Satir, the brilliant developer of family therapy. Instead of working with just the one person in the family who was disruptive or troubled, she dealt with the entire family. She felt that each person and their behavior were part of the family dynamic. She found that if she addressed only the one person, they’d go back to the family structure and get a little crazy again, so she worked with the entire family.

  The third person they studied was Milton Erickson, a medical doctor who was the primary developer of clinical hypnotherapy. A genius, with a completely different approach to therapy from Perls and Satir, Erickson also produced results that appeared to be magic. The fourth subject of initial study was a man named Moshe Feldenkrais, a body worker who did brilliant healing work with his hands.

  NLP’s underlying operating principles, called “Presuppositions,” reflect the underlying unifying beliefs of these key individuals who were studied to discover what was most effective—and these became the operating principles of NLP.

  The interesting thing about these distinctively different leaders was that their deep beliefs about human nature were pretty much the same. Two of the beliefs I want to emphasize for you are important because they flow through everything we do—and they contradict a lot of what most of us have been taught.

  THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN INNER ENEMY.

  One belief is “There is no such thing as an inner enemy.” There’s no monster within. You’re not broken. You can really let go of old beliefs like this.

  When people do things that are not good for them—and it doesn’t matter whether it’s biting their fingernails or committing serial murders—they are doing what they are doing because some part of them thinks it’s essential. A part of them believes that it’s necessary for survival, for their well-being. While some behaviors may not be sane, healthy, or anything most people would condone, it’s important to understand that in that individual’s worldview, in their mind, that behavior is absolutely necessary.

  BEHIND EVERY BEHAVIOR IS A POSITIVE INTENTION.

  So suppose you have an issue—let’s say there’s a certain person you just can’t confront. Every time you see them, your knees turn to jelly and you start stuttering. Maybe it’s an attractive coworker, somebody’s boss, your mother-in-law, your spouse, or maybe it’s one of your children. The thing is, you’re not broken, and there’s nothing wrong. The reason you have such a reaction is that part of your mind thinks that not confronting them is what’s essential for you to do to survive.

  Maybe the behavior is intended to keep you safe. Maybe it’s to preserve your self-respect, or self-love. Maybe it’s to get “justice.” No matter how weird or inappropriate it may seem, for that person there is an inner logic that makes perfect sense. It sounds a little crazy, doesn’t it? Why would this “logic” be true? Well, in the example above, if we did a little looking, we might find that your mind reached that conclusion when you were three or four years old.

  Long ago, you might have had a difficult experience with someone who reminds you (in some way) of the person in your present life. It doesn’t have to be obvious—it could be how they look, their tone of voice, their role in your life, or just the way your unconscious sees them in relationship to you. When we use NLP, we look inside the mind, to find out exactly what pattern is operating to produce that response, and then we can alter it. By reading this book and putting the principles into practice, you’ll be able to do this, too!

  The two things I’d like you to hold in mind are that there is no such thing as an inner enemy and that behind every behavior is a positive intention. Your mind—as well as everybody else’s mind—is operating the best way it currently knows how. It may be wrong and it may need an adjustment, simply because most brains decide how to operate when people are four or five years old.

  But enough about NLP and me. Let’s talk about what’s ahead for you.

  What Is an NLP “Power User”?

  There are many reasons people study NLP. Some people are just curious about how human nature operates. Others want to discover how they themselves think. Power Users want to use NLP in the real world, where this skill set makes a tremendous difference for them.

  There is a world of difference between “knowing how” and “being able.” My goal is to make you able. I’ve known many NLP Trainers and Practitioners who were pioneers and Power Users in this field. I’ve also studied the methods taught to hostage negotiators, Navy SEALs, and Army Rangers. I’ve studied other skills that I’ve found useful in life, such as the self-management skills of entrepreneurs, actors, and therapists. I’ve adapted the best of these here for your use.

  NLP is more important today than ever before. Here’s why. In our world of ever-evolving technology, we are constantly connecting—with people we work with, people we love, people who have information and/or access to others. We’re so busy responding, we hardly have time t
o think. So in the following pages, I’m going to guide you through dozens of “Discovery Activities,” where you will be able to explore your personal thinking patterns—and learn how to manage and change them if you wish. You’ll also learn about whole new ways of dealing with other people and understanding how they are thinking and feeling.

  Ready? Curious? I hope so—this oughta be fun.

  Section One: It’s All About You

  CHAPTER ONE: UNDERSTANDING HOW YOU THINK

  What’s going on in there?

  Life consists of what a man is thinking of all day.

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  You know what you think, right? We all do. You’re thinking about what you like or don’t like, and what you want or don’t want. You also probably think of what you wish you wanted less of, like gorging on chocolate ice cream, TV, Web-surfing, shopping, drinking, or working.

  In fact, when anyone talks about thinking, they talk about what they’re thinking about. They don’t talk about how we go about thinking those thoughts. What you’ll learn from this book is how you go about forming your thoughts, the effect that has on you and others, and how to change it to better suit you.

  The understanding you’ll gain here is largely based on Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which is commonly referred to as NLP. NLP is based on the theory that all human thinking occurs in pictures, sounds, feelings, smells, and/or taste: the five senses. No one has yet ever effectively challenged this theory by giving me an example of a thought that isn’t expressed in some combination of words, pictures, smells, tastes, or feelings.

  Can you do that? Right now, try having a thought that’s not an image, sound, feeling, smell, or taste. Just kinda makes your brain stop for a minute, doesn’t it?

  After you have a thought, you have a response. Maybe it’s a funny feeling, followed by a comment like “This guy is nuts,” or some other internal dialogue, picture, or feeling.