NLP

by Tom Hoobyar

  Despite my heritage, I grew up in suburban Los Angeles and was raised with the distance requirements that are typically accepted here. I find that if I’m talking with somebody from another culture who gets close to me, I’m aware of it but it no longer makes me uncomfortable. It used to—and with some people it will create a subliminal dislike. And, if you’re too far away, it will create a subliminal dislike because they’ll feel that you don’t want to be near them or you don’t like them.

  You’ll find that eighteen to thirty-six inches apart is generally a reasonable space for most conversations, close enough to reach out and touch someone, but not so close that you’re right in their personal space.

  A Focus on Them, Not You:

  How to Create a Sense of Being Felt

  A key element of safety and acceptance is feeling felt. To do that, shift your focus from you to them. Here are three easy ways to do that.

  Just One Look: Eye Contact and “the Gaze”

  To help someone feel seen, you need to make eye contact with them, right? Probably as a kid, you glared at somebody in anger. You might have even been able to get away with that with your parents when you couldn’t talk back to them. I couldn’t get away with what we called the “hairy eyeball” with my dad because my dad was way too sensitive about that kind of behavior. But as kids, my brother and I would glare at each other in anger and in threat.

  And yet, a gaze can also be inviting, can’t it? As adults, when we feel flirtatious and want to make a kind of romantic connection with somebody, we might look at them a little longer, too.

  Through unconscious teaching, we’ve all learned the amount of time that it’s polite to look at a person’s eyes. You can, of course, look at them longer when they’re talking to you. And when you do it with positive intention, it gives them the feeling they’re really being seen and heard. This eye contact has to do with the length of time that you lock eyes with a person. I call this “the gaze.”

  Holding someone’s gaze is fun to experiment with. It’s something you can easily do and you’ll be delighted with the internal and external results. For example, you can look at a person when they’re talking to you, then look away, and then look back at them. What you might not be aware of is the amount of awareness that the other person has about this kind of attention. It actually changes the way they feel about themselves, the way they feel about you, and the way they gauge the value of what they’re saying.

  So try this. Look directly at a person whom you might ordinarily dismiss, like a waiter, a toll taker, or a store clerk who answers a question you’ve asked. Normally we don’t look at these people for very long. We glance away because we’re on a mission. We’re anxious. But if you look at them half a second longer, what happens is you make a direct human connection with them. That’s all you need to do. It acknowledges them as an individual.

  It also is important to look directly into a person’s eyes when you say “Thank you” or “Please.” Even if you’re just asking for more ketchup, you’ll get better service if you meet the server’s eyes directly, instead of just looking at your plate or your dinner companion and saying, “Can I have more ketchup, please?”

  If you stop and look at the waitress and say, “Can I have more ketchup, please?” and she says, “Sure,” hold her eyes and say, “Thanks a lot.” It’s surprising—all of a sudden, you jump up in priority. It’s a tiny change, but it’s like nuclear power. Remember, people need to feel safe and at ease. So if your interest is too intense, it can feel carnivorous. It has to be enjoyable. Try this subtle, longer gaze and notice how your interactions shift.

  To make a person feel felt, you’ll want to subtly mirror them and get into sync with them. But you also need to sincerely make them feel seen and interesting. Lots of people feel that they have not been recognized by the world. And you may not be aware of this, but most people don’t feel okay. Many people don’t feel understood. They feel like they’re being treated like they’re objects.

  If, for example, someone is your customer, then you want to be careful to remember that they’re a person, too, and that they have value to you beyond a business transaction. They’re human beings, no matter what their role.

  Tell Me More: Questions That Get Them Talking

  It doesn’t matter if someone is a police officer, doctor, CEO, janitor, or thirteen-year-old soccer player. Everyone is a human being first, so they have feelings. They will be aware of their own feelings first when they’re dealing with another person. It’s amazing how feelings drive our behaviors—whether we’re aware of those feelings or not.

  The thing to do here is to get in sync with another person body language–wise, and then instead of talking, ask questions and listen. This is huge. Experts say, “Be interested, not interesting.” So how do you make the other person feel felt? Simple: you relax, back off, and allow your attention to rest on them.

  What many of us do when we get together with another person, especially when we’re nervous or keyed up, is to increase our intensity. We persuade, encourage, argue, push, entertain, tell them a lot about ourselves, and that overburdens people. What people really are good at is knowing how they’re doing.

  So if you listen, ask questions, and reflect back, it’s an easier, softer, less demanding way to engage with somebody. Rather than lead with “So tell me a little bit about yourself,” think of it as a detective game where you want to learn as much about them as you can without subjecting them to an interrogation. What works well for me is to ask, “How’d you get into what you do?” And usually, the person will tell me things that I find pretty informative, and that’s only the beginning. I want to keep the conversation flowing, so I don’t say, “Okay, thanks.” Instead, I say, “That’s interesting. What do you like best about what you do?”

  These are just a couple examples. You can ask, “What are you trying to accomplish that’s important to you in your business or in your life?” You don’t phrase it that way if you’re dealing with somebody with a different vocabulary. You might say, “What’s most important to you?” “What do you like the most?” or “What are your plans for the summer or the holiday?”

  If they say, “I’m going camping with my family,” say, “That’s interesting. What do you like most about that?”

  The reason I ask this is that someone might say, “The thing I like most about camping is the people you might meet,” or they may tell you, “What I like most about camping is the food,” or “The thing I like most about it is the smells.” Another person may explain that it’s the activities—it’s hiking, rafting, or it’s seeing their kids when the damn television isn’t on. You’ll discover their reasons, and this will give you more information about who these people are.

  Then, when they’ve told you something, say, “Oh, that’s fascinating. Why is that important to you?” It’s a little like a tennis volley—your goal is to keep the ball in play, not hit a smash return or place the ball so far out of range that they cannot easily make the next move.

  In addition to asking good follow-up questions to demonstrate that you’re listening, you want to reflect back. When someone feels that you heard and understood them, they’ll let you know, and often they open the door to talking with you longer or more deeply.

  So, pursuing the example we’ve been playing with, you could reflect back by saying, “So, the most important thing to you about going camping is that you spend time with your family and you have better connection?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Well, what’s it like at home?”

  “Well, you know, we hardly ever see each other. We rarely even sit down to dinner together.”

  “Oh, it must be really busy for you at home.”

  And they might say, “Yeah, it is.”

  “Do you work long hours? What’s your job? What do you do?”

  Or, in response to it must be really busy for you, they say: “Well, I’ve got this project and I’m really active in the local radio club, so we do
rescue work.”

  If you’re genuinely interested when you’re talking with someone, you’ll find as you begin asking questions that they will be more disclosing. You’ll notice that they begin leaning forward or toward you. We’ll explore nonverbal behaviors more in the next chapter.

  Basically, what we’re talking about now is how to make a good first impression, which is very simple. To summarize, make sure that you’re okay and then look at making the other person feel okay. A good first impression is 50 percent an inside job of managing yourself so the other person feels safe, and then 50 percent of managing the conversation so the other person feels interesting and appreciated.

  I Get It: Questions That Show You Care How They Feel

  In addition to asking questions that show you’re interested in them, you can ask questions that let them know that you care how they feel. Again, instead of giving them a lot of information, you get a lot of information.

  If you hit a nerve or if they come up with something they feel strongly about, you can attach emotion to it. You can say, “I’m trying to get a sense of what you’re feeling, and I think it’s this. That thing really irritates you, is that correct? And if it’s not, what are you feeling?” They will confirm what you said or share more information. People are not always accustomed to someone caring about how they feel, let alone talking about that. Yet we can explore these things in a way where they feel safe and validated.

  Your goal is to demonstrate that you care more about how they feel than about making them feel any certain way.

  The most important thing about NLP, and the reason I organized the book the way I have, is to give us power over ourselves, and our automated, sometimes unconscious patterns. As we gain this kind of inner influence and do the change work on ourselves, we will become better company, which enables us to have more enjoyable interactions and relationships.

  Changing Lights: Warnings That Signal a Disconnect

  I want to underscore two things we talked about earlier—attention-direction and intensity—and how important it is to notice the response our efforts to engage someone are getting. For example, my wife is a very energetic and outgoing person. Early in our relationship, I noticed that when she was eager to tell a story, she’d say, “And . . . and . . . so . . .” and pretty soon she’d lose her audience. Because they didn’t get it or they were preoccupied, she pushed a little harder to make her point. She hardly ever does this now, but she used to, especially with her sons. Now, when she talks with them, she looks for warning signals that they’re disengaging.

  We call this “zooming out”; it’s a little like going into the third perceptual position. And this is particularly useful when we get intense. When we’re excited or feeling a bit desperate, we sometimes find ourselves trying to encourage, trying to persuade, trying to assert. These intense behaviors push people away. It’s that old foot-in-the-door salesman or telemarketer who continues long after you politely said no. To avoid this, pay attention to how someone is responding to you. When you notice someone’s lack of interest or a change of being in sync, step back, stop talking, and let them lead.

  I had an opportunity to do this at a family brunch just the other day in the Bay Area. I was talking about NLP to the young husband of a cousin of my wife’s. Because he’d asked me about it, I thought he was interested.

  As soon as I began talking about this passion of mine, I saw him look away. That was my cue, so I said, “Well, let’s leave this for another time when we’re not in the middle of a family brunch. So tell me about your new car,” and he immediately brightened up. I just dropped my topic. I just recognized and respected his lack of interest at that time and moved into something else.

  Boy, if years ago I’d known how marvelous this flexibility is, it would have saved me so much hassle. But I know now. And when I look back and see people in my life who were gracious and clever with other people, I realize, “Oh yeah, somehow they knew this early on.”

  More Choice Is Better:

  How Being Versatile Helps You Connect

  Earlier, you learned the NLP presupposition that the most flexible element in a system has the most influence. As you change yourself, become more peaceful inside your head . . . more intrigued by the changes you make . . . less subject to involuntary emotions . . . and more flexible in how you communicate, the people around you will change, too. You’ll find that the way they respond to the new you is somehow different. So the easiest way to change our experience of other people is to change ourselves.

  As you do that and as you look at other people, you begin to realize, “Oh, if I’m moving into this interaction and I’m concerned about how the other person thinks about me, or I’m concerned about making my point, or I’m concerned about being well liked, that’s going to be counterproductive.”

  Sometimes when you make changes that you think everyone around you will be thrilled about, you’re in for a surprise. For example, a forty-eight-year-old friend of mine who was an IT guy had been overweight for years—and so had his sister. Somehow he got into running and eventually even did a marathon. He told me that the thinner he became, the more it upset his sister. He said, “I think she takes it as a criticism, when I just want to feel better. I just want to be able to take care of my family and not be a burden.” He was clear that this was more important than his sister’s being a bit upset, jealous, or scared that she was now alone in her problem. Remember, you, too, may experience this kind of ripple effect.

  The most important thing that I can do is to approach another person with a sense of curiosity, expectation, optimism, and interest. “There’s going to be something fascinating about this other individual—I wonder what that will be. Because everyone is unique and knows something special, I’m going to learn something by talking with them. And I don’t know what that is. This is going to be cool!”

  As you may recall from discussions in Section 1, our expectations shape our experience, right? When you have that sort of curious and positive expectation, you can become sort of magnetic. Just think about it in your own life. People like that seem to magically draw others to them, don’t they?

  As you well know, some people are easier to talk with than others. You may call these folks difficult, moody, closed, or prickly; how you refer to them doesn’t matter. What does matter is what you do with the feelings you have about them, or about interacting with them.

  A Case in Point: The Importance of Versatility in Difficult Situations

  Here’s a story that illustrates how the wheels can come off in a conversation, maybe even kind of derail a relationship, and what you can do about it. When I asked my client, Terry, a thirty-six-year-old accountant, to give me an example of people with whom she has a difficult time communicating, she said, “It’s hard for me to communicate with people who are accusatory in what they say or how they say it.”

  When I asked for a “for instance,” she told me her son said, “You left the lights on!” Now, this was specific, but I didn’t immediately understand why she felt it was accusatory. Frustrated with me, she said, “He was just being passive-aggressive. It’s not because the light was on, it’s because he was already angry about something.” She went on to explain that when her son bought a new house and showed it to her with pride, she simply said, “It’s really nice.” She didn’t respond with a lot of enthusiasm, “This is gorgeous! This is beautiful! This is blah, blah, blah.”

  When I asked if she thought he was disappointed because he’d hoped she would have been more impressed, she said, “Well, if he was, he should have told me that instead of being accusatory all the time.” So that’s when their relationship started to derail—and they became sort of locked in this new dance. To help shift their pattern of communicating, I thought it might be useful for Terry to learn how to cool someone off when emotions are running high.

  Here’s the short version of what I recommended. I invited Terry to consider that her son’s feelings were hurt because she hadn’t been enthusias
tic enough; then he displaced these feelings and acted out in another way. Most of us do that at one time or another.

  Next, I asked her to imagine her son in that moment again, when he was first showing her the new house and she said, “It’s really nice,” and to notice what emotion he seemed to be feeling. She said it was sadness, sadness that she wasn’t impressed.

  Here was a fork in the road. I said, “So if you noticed he was sad, then you could have said, ‘I get a feeling that you’re sad, sad that I didn’t make the right compliment. Is that true?’ ” She explained that she didn’t recognize this in the moment; that, in fact, it wasn’t until a year later that she put all the pieces together. Even so, we were talking now about how she could handle him. We discussed that it’s not about how she felt or feels at this point in time; it’s about addressing the other person’s feelings so they feel like you want to understand and connect with them.

  Asking Questions That Show You Care How They Feel

  The thing to do when somebody is emotional is to attach an emotion. I’ve tried this and it works like magic. You might say, “I’ve got the feeling that you’re angry. Is that true? Or upset. Is that true?” If they say, “No, I’m not,” then I say, “I’m sorry. If it’s not that, what are you feeling?” and I get back whatever the person chooses to tell me.

  The next thing I want to do is to understand how big this is for them. So I usually say something like “I see. How upset are you?” or “I see, and you’re upset because . . .” At this point, it’s important to give them all the time they need to vent, because you’re asking these questions so the person can express their feelings, not so you can gather information.

  Again, this goes back to the sense that many of us feel undervalidated. Since I started studying this, I’m amazed at how often I find this to be true. I’m astonished. It not only works with my consulting clients, but it apparently also works in serious situations because I read this in a hostage negotiation handbook. It was amazing that the most successful negotiators are the ones who instead of reading the mind of another person, they just go far enough to try to guess at what the other person’s emotion is and then they feed that back. The goal here is to allow the other person to know that you know what they are feeling.