by Tom Hoobyar
Here’s the beautiful part about a story. My daughter could be saying in her mind or she could be saying out loud to me, “Dad, I don’t need any help with this. I’ve got it. Thanks. I can deal with it. I’m a grown woman,” all of which is true because she’s a superb woman. But even if she’s quietly protesting, she’s going to hear the story anyway out of politeness. And as she hears the story, she’s going to identify with that other client that I was talking about, and she’s going to experience what that other client experienced. She’s going to experience a success. So in her mind, no matter what her attitude, she will have tried that solution on.
A Book and Its Cover: How Appearance and
Environment Are Clues to Other Worlds
I won’t say that people are like an open book, because while some folks are easy to understand, others remain a mystery. Often, though, the cover of the book will attract you and reflect something about the quality of the read itself, and the same is true with people.
Here’s another example of how metaphor works in our lives. Let’s say that you’re out to dinner with friends and you’re joined by somebody you don’t know, a friend of a friend. The person is introduced to you as somebody that you might want to get better acquainted with, maybe because you could help each other professionally, or because you want to learn a skill they have, or because you have common interests and connections, or for some other reason he or she is somebody that you’d be interested in knowing better.
Because each of us lives in metaphor, one of the first things you want to do is just to look at them. Our whole lives are a metaphor for what we believe and how we live. We each tell ourselves a story about our lives, and we dress according to that inner story. Our choice of clothes, hairstyle, jewelry, shoes—everything reflects that story. Although we may sometimes feel like these choices are forced on us, they aren’t. In a life where there are millions and millions and millions of free choices, people are often astonished at how consistently those choices will reinforce their personal metaphors.
A Case in Point: Personal Appearance
I’ll give you an example. I like personal comfort. I’ve had many jobs where I was on my feet all day. I’ve been in a lot of service occupations and I’ve been in management for about forty-five years now, usually moving around. So I used to wear moccasins a lot. I’m casual, obviously. I don’t wear starched white shirts and neckties. Now I wear Merrells, which are walking shoes that I can slip in and out of easily. I wear Levi’s, khakis, or cargo pants, and I like wearing shirts that have two pockets on the front. They’re handy for me. I’m a guy who’s had lots of different occupations that frequently involved tools so I like to carry a lot of stuff with me.
So what does that make me? That makes me kind of an explorer, a person who likes to go on adventures like safaris. I’ve got a little knife in my pocket with a little flashlight attached, I have a cool pen that does different things, I have a tiny screwdriver that works on machines and my glasses. You get the picture, right? I try to be ready for just about everything, like a Boy Scout. So you could say a lot of things about me just from the way I’m dressed and the way I present myself—and these observations would help you know how to approach me to make me feel comfortable and interesting, right?
One of the ways to get to know another person is to ask about something they have in their office or home, or about something they’re wearing, “That’s a really interesting necklace you’re wearing. I’m fascinated by it. How did you come to choose that?” and then they’ll tell you. It was given as a gift or they acquired it at a certain place, but what you’re really interested in is getting them to tell you what they value about that possession. What they tell you is important about it will let you know a lot about their values and who they are.
A Case in Point: A Personal Possession
As an example, I had a business associate, who was a fifty-something very buttoned-down attorney. He was a very well placed, very skilled corporate attorney who was very well-off, and for decades we were friends.
Over the years that he provided some legal assistance in my various businesses, I noticed that he always used the same pen. It was sort of a fancy silver pen with some kind of crosshatching on it. I’d never seen one quite like it before so I asked him about it once.
A big grin lit up his face and he went on to tell how this pen—not this particular pen, but one very much like it—had been given to him by his wife when he passed the bar exam, and how he had had it for years and years and years. It was manufactured by Cross and he loved it. But one day he lost it and he didn’t want his wife to know, so he contacted Cross and tried to get another one. And because they didn’t make it anymore and he couldn’t track down another one, he found someone to make him a custom pen that looked exactly the same!
This story gave me a whole new impression of his love for his wife, his appreciation of her support, and his consideration for her. It also let me know that little things were really important to this man. Again, an innocent question opened up a whole world of someone else’s reality to me.
As you can see, playing with stories is fun. When you plan to tell a story, be sure the protagonist is interesting. It’s probably you or someone you know. And by interesting I don’t mean somebody out of a novel, I mean somebody just like you and me. Tell a story about someone who feels real and about something that happened that would be interesting to you. Ideally, this story will contain one or two key ideas you want to share with your listener.
That information could be “I knew somebody who was in the same jam that you’re in, and they came out okay,” or “I know somebody who was in the same jam you’re in, and everything went a little wacky for a while and they survived it anyway. It’s survivable,” or “I know somebody who had the same opportunity as you did and passed it up, and here’s what that cost them,” or “I know someone who had the same issue that you have, and here’s how they solved it.”
In examining my own experience and hearing about other people’s lives, I find that we’re okay until we become really convinced of something, and then as soon as we do that, we shut off all the other possibilities. That’s when we get into trouble. There are lots of ways that you can use a metaphor or a story to soften your conversations with people and to loosen their grip on a conviction that’s limiting them. Just telling a story is a lot less confronting than directly contradicting someone; it leaves them freer to come to their own choices without having to feel they’ve “given in.”
Toxic Relationships:
How Difficult People Tax Your Personal Resources
You might be thinking, “Cool, I can easily do this kind of exploration and match the way someone processes, or use reframing or metaphor to help a lot of people.” Yes, you can—and yet you’ll find that making this energy investment will not pay off with everyone. So let’s talk a little bit about toxic people.
In my view of the world, a toxic person is someone who’s basically kind of a pain in the neck. It may be a bully, or a critic who makes himself feel good by putting you down, or putting other people down. It may be a whiner, who isn’t really interested in any solution. They’d rather just complain, because that’s enough for them. They may be a psychopath of one sort or another. They may be a taker, having no real interest in you, other than what they can get from you. They could be a narcissist. Or they could be someone who is basically just frozen in first position, almost exclusively self-centered.
Remember the first, second, and third perceptual positions? As we’ve discussed, first position is “I know who I am. I’m me and you’re you and we’re different and I know what I feel.” That’s a very authentic position; however, it can be infantile if that’s the only position a person has.
Second position is “Now I’m feeling for you. Now I’m thinking that if I were you, and what happened to you happened to me, I’d feel pretty much like you do.” That’s the position where you get great empathy and compassion for someone else.
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nbsp; The third position is a fact-finding position where you can evaluate. This position is sort of disassociated because you’re not emotional about what you’re evaluating. You can be well meaning, you can be kind, but you’re not really sucked into the emotions of the moment.
Many toxic people have no second position. They cannot empathize. They cannot feel what it’s like to be somebody else. They’re not even interested in anybody else; that ability got pruned away when they were little kids. As we discussed earlier, it’s necessary for sanity and health to be able to flicker between all three positions appropriately, and that simply isn’t possible for most toxic people.
So what can you do about the toxic people who are in your life? If you want your life to be easier and happier, it’s wisest and simplest to just remove them from your life wherever and whenever you can.
Frequently, people I’m coaching find themselves in a relationship with a toxic person and, for one reason or another, they can’t end it. Maybe the toxic person is a relative, or an employer, or someone whom they feel they have to put up with. In that case my advice is “Okay, but don’t expect to change that person. The relationship with that person is always going to be a one-way exchange where they ask and you give, so just know that.” Just being clear about your choice to tolerate them knowing they won’t change will help free you from some of the bad effects of having them in your life.
On the other hand, if you’re the supervisor of a toxic employee, work with human resources to improve performance, or move them out. As you well know if you have one toxic employee, they affect the whole team and work environment, and not in any good way. They almost always drag the whole team down to their level of behavior and frequently drive off the good ones. It’s important to fix the situation quickly even if it costs you something to dislocate and replace the person. If the toxic person is the boss, it’s probably worth finding another job, even in a bad economy.
When the toxic person is a family member, this is a challenge that requires good boundaries. That means you have to understand and again accept that there are some people you cannot help or change.
They may not be able to change or they may not perceive a need to change. You can offer information. You can sometimes shift their attention—but that’s it. People need to live their own lives—do their own activities, make their own choices.
Communicating your boundaries can be done humanely and lovingly—and still get the job done. For example, you can say, “Here’s the way the situation is for me. When you do this, it’s inconvenient for me, so I don’t want you to do that anymore.” Or “When you do that, I have this inconvenience, so I can’t do that with you anymore.” This way, you’re not condemning anyone, you’re only pointing out what your limitation is—and why you can’t do it anymore.
The best boundaries are boundaries that aren’t defensive or offensive; they just exist.
There are people whom I’ve told, “I’m sorry, I just don’t have the time for that.”
In response, they sometimes said, “Isn’t this important to you?”
“Actually, no—it’s not. It’s important to you and I understand that, but with my responsibilities and where I am in my life, I’m sorry but I can’t take the time for that.” When this happens, I will usually recommend an alternative—a connection, a book, workshop, or website.
I’m older now and I’ve stopped beating my head against the brick wall of toxicity. Too many times, my intentions were good, but I was trying to help people live their lives or I was actually trying to live their lives for them.
As a result, my investments of personal energy didn’t work out well. I suffered, and sometimes the most important folks in my life did, too. When it comes to toxic people, you have to set limits—budget for how many of them will be in your life and how much of your time or other resources you’ll spend with them, and do not have any expectation that you’ll get anything in return.
Connecting the Dots:
Linking Key Concepts and Skills to Opportunities
This chapter has been about connecting the dots—understanding how to build on things you’ve noticed about someone’s inner world—so you can communicate even better with people you know—and those you will meet.
Discovery Activity:
Applying Your Discoveries About Someone Else’s World
Here’s an activity that will help you apply your knowledge and observations to interactions with someone you already know. In Chapter 6, you selected a person you’re close to and answered several questions that invited you to peek into and explore that individual’s inner world. You identified the way you think they relate to time, their preferred representational channel and meta-programming patterns, and some beliefs you’ve heard them express.
Flip back to the notes you made in Chapter 6. For each of the answers you gave, list at least two specific things you could do to “try on” their world, or enhance communication with them.
Then, as you interact with this person, use these potential steps, discreetly or overtly, and notice how it changes your experience and the tenor of the interaction.
This activity will help you put what you learned from this chapter into practice. Consistently challenging yourself every day to play with small changes in your language will deepen your understanding and appreciation of its power. In Chapter 8, you’ll learn how to build on these skills to more creatively collaborate and resolve conflicts.
Key Ideas
• Moving someone from resisting to listening to considering depends more on what you get them to tell you than the other way around.
• Stepping back or “zooming out” gives someone psychological air and space to exhale when they appear to be tense or feeling pushed.
• Asking, “What has to be going on in that person’s world for this to be true for them?” is a way to stand in someone else’s shoes and get a sense of their internal experience.
• To speak someone else’s language, it’s helpful to adapt to and mirror their preferences, their preferred representational channel and meta-programs, and their orientation to time.
• Beliefs are mostly out of a person’s awareness and are stated as fact. Because these ideas shape the person’s view of the world, they are often dearly held and can become a source of conflict, or of close agreement and rapport.
• When someone is stuck or seems like they’re struggling with a limiting belief, reframing is a simple, subtle, and effective way to suggest a more positive perspective.
• Unpacking a belief to understand how it’s expressed (pictures, sounds, etc.) and the associated positive intention increases the possibility of loosening the belief so it can be updated.
• When asked a question, the human mind can’t help but create an answer. Asking questions that open up possibilities engages more of the listener’s brain—which, in turn, changes their blood chemistry and their mood.
• Metaphors and stories are powerful and fun ways to shift someone’s attention and attitude. Sharing anecdotes or tales often works well because the listener instinctively relates to the protagonist and can’t help but try on the situation and the solution as they listen.
• Because we all live our lives in metaphor, someone’s appearance, their toys, and their environment (in addition to their language) provide a glimpse into their unique map of the world.
• Inner conflicts that have been reduced to a condensed report like “I’m really disconnected” are too generalized and abstract to work with. Finding a specific (ideally recent) experience can provide enough sensory information to “try on” the other person’s reality.
• If we establish sufficient rapport, most people will respond well to us. They will accept our efforts to mirror nonverbals, match predicates and meta-program language, as well as loosen and reframe beliefs, which will generally make life more interesting and fun for both of us.
• Our efforts to help someone shift may not always be welcome or appreciated. Sometimes this i
s because we may have misread the extent of our rapport (and the permission that gives us) or we were inappropriately inserting ourselves.
• Other times our efforts are unaccepted because some people are so self-focused they’re kind of toxic. Reducing the amount of contact with such individuals or maintaining clear boundaries can protect our energy and enable us to focus on what’s most important in our worlds.
To enhance the skills you learned in this chapter, check out the recommended Bonus Activities at our special “Essential Guide” website: http://eg.nlpco.com/7-4 or use the QR code with your phone.
Discoveries, Questions, Ideas, and Stuff You Want to Work On
CHAPTER EIGHT: CREATIVELY COLLABORATING AND RESOLVING CONFLICTS
How do we get from here to there?
Creativity is a lot like looking
at the world through a kaleidoscope.
You look at a set of elements,
the same ones everyone else sees,
but then reassemble those floating bits and
pieces into an enticing new possibility.
—Rosabeth Moss Kanter
In NLP, we think that choice is better than no choice. Curiosity and creativity are pathways to more choice—they enable you to play with the different pieces of any situation and discover new possibilities. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to build on the knowledge and skills you’ve learned so far and apply them to opportunities for collaboration, innovation, and conflict resolution.
An Embarrassing Example