Neuro linguistic programming (NLP) is the study of

what works in thinking, language, and behavior. It is a

way of coding and reproducing excellence that

enables you to consistently achieve the results that you want

both for yourself, for your business, and for your life.

We live in a world of unprecedented change. We are

immersed in unpredictability and complexity. The more we

discover the more there is to discover. Every question reveals

yet more questions.

We need skills and attitudes to help us learn how to make

sense of chaos. We need to know how to find certainty within

ourselves about what we want and what we believe when

everything around us may seem to challenge who we are.

Neuro linguistic programming (NLP) is a process of modeling the conscious and unconscious patterns that are unique to each of us in such a way that we are continuously moving toward a higher potential.

Neuro

By increasing our awareness of the patterns in our thinking, we can learn how these thought patterns influence the results we are getting in work and in life. The key to finding personal and business success comes primarily from within ourselves and learning about how we think enables us to tap into our inner resources.

Linguistic

Our language is our life. What we can say is what we can think and what we can do.Learning to understand andmaster the structure of our language is essential in a world where we trade increasingly through our ability to communicate.

Programming

We run our lives by strategies, in a similar way that a computer uses a program to achieve a specific result. By understanding the strategies by which we run our lives we give ourselves choice: choice to do more of the same or choice to enhance our potential and our individual excellence.

In essence, NLP is the study of our thinking, behavior, and language patterns so that we can build sets of strategies that work for us in making decisions, building relationships, starting up a business, coaching a team of people, inspiring and motivating others, creating balance in our lives, negotiating ourway through the day, and, above all, learning how to learn.

We Have Strategies for Everything We Do.

The good news is that we can learn how to refine existing strategies as well as learning new ones and even discarding those that are redundant. The bad news is that for the most part the critical pieces of these strategies are outside of our conscious awareness. We typically do not consciously know what we do

and especially how we do it.

This is Where NLP Comes in.

With NLP we can unpack not only the conscious elements but especially the unconscious ones so that we can learn how we do what we do. This allows us to do what we really want and achieve what we deserve.

What Will You Gain From NLP?

Success comes from within. Our success depends on our ability to be excellent in everything we think, say, and do. NLP provides us with a way to achieve this. By mastering the concepts in this book and making them your own you will begin to excel more and more at what you do. You will achieve more of what you really want and become more of who you truly are.

Excellence is Context Specific.

Many business models fail because they assume that what works in one environment will work in another, yet what makes a leading entrepreneur in one environment may be quite different to what constitutes success in another.

NLP enables you to code excellence and enhance it so that you can establish what really works for you in your environment and with your skills.

How Does NLP Work?

NLP pays very little attention to what people say they do, as that usually bears very little or no resemblance to what they actually do. You might think that by asking top achievers how they succeed you would get precise answers. You would be wrong!

The key to success is often unknown at the conscious level.

The previously unknown pieces are sometimes referred to as the magic of NLP. However, it is not magic, merely an awareness of what really makes the difference that is so often missing in more traditional models and techniques. Using the tools of NLP you can elicit these unknown pieces so that you can “code” talent.

There will be things you do that you do not (yet) understand. Do you know, for example:

❏ What you do that is different in those relationships where you have exquisite rapport, where you know what the other person is going to say before they say it?

❏How you control your feelings in some situations when in others you lose control?

❏ In those situations where you feel especially confident, how you generate that inner feeling of calm and certainty even when everything else is stacked against you?

❏ How it is that some of your remote communications achieve as much if not more than face-to-face conversations? What it is about the way you use technology at those times that influences people to want to do business with you?

❏ How it is that sometimes everything you do seems just right, you feel at one with yourself, and you achieve new personal bests?

❏What happens at those times when you are able to shift gear to a more successful way of being so that you achieve more than you previously dreamt was possible?

When you know the answers to these questions and others like them, you begin to have more choice over the way you think, feel, and behave. You have more influence over the way in which you can respond to your unique calling in the world.

Summary

NLP high performance coaching is founded on the study of our subjective experience. By discovering how we structure our memories, our imagination, and our thoughts, we can find out how we are making our work and our lives exactly what they are. Compare eliciting the code of a computer program to

understand how we are getting the output that we are getting. And if we are not getting what we want we can look for the “bugs” in the program and “debug” it.

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QUESTIONNAIRE:

IDENTIFY YOUR PREFERRED THINKING PATTERN

The aim of this questionnaire is to help you identify any preferences you have in your thinking patterns. This is in no way a definitive analysis but is merely to intended to raise your awareness of how you think. Your thinking patterns can vary from one circumstance to another or you might be very balanced in your profile. Through awareness you can consider the choices you are making and whether they are influencing you and others in the way you would choose. The real advantage of learning the different thinking patterns is to be able to use them in real time.

For each of the following questions, think about the item, the person, or place described and tick the sense(s) that come to mind. The examples given are just that, examples. Be aware of what you are thinking before you look at the examples with each option. Check your answers on the analysis sheet provided at the end of the chapter.

You may tick as many senses as are true for you for any question. You may, for example, have one sense ticked for one question and five for another question. Work through each question and be aware of what comes to mind the moment you see it. Then tick the relevant sense(s). Go through each question in turn and answer them all immediately.

1 .Petrol

a An image of some sort, e.g., a car, a petrol station?

b A sound, e.g., the sound of petrol pouring into a tank, the sound of an explosion?

c A touch, e.g., the feel of the pump handle?

d A smell, e.g., the smell of the petrol?

e A taste, e.g., the taste of petrol (assuming you know!)?

2. Your best friend

a A sound e.g., the sound of their voice?

b An emotion, e.g., your feelings toward them?

c A smell, e.g., the smell of their perfume?

d A taste, e.g., the taste of a meal you ate with them?

e An image, e.g., what they look like or a place you have been to with them?

3. The way you would most like to spend your time

a The sounds associated with doing this, e.g., the sound of people’s voices or the

sounds of the environment?

b A taste, e.g., the taste of a favorite meal?

c A smell, e.g., the aroma of your environment?

d An image, e.g., where you would be or who you would be with?

e A touch or an emotion, e.g., how you feel when you think of spending your time

this way, the sensation of your muscles working in your body?

4. What you did yesterday

a A taste of some sort, e.g., what you ate?

b An image or picture, e.g., the scene of where you were?

c A sound, e.g., of a conversation?

d A touch, sensation, or emotion?

e A smell, e.g., of your environment?

5. A time you didn’t enjoy very much

a A smell, e.g., of something distasteful?

b A sound, e.g., what you heard or what you were saying to yourself?

c A taste, e.g., of a bad meal?

d An image, e.g., the feel of something, or an emotion, how you felt at that time?

e What you were feeling?

6 .Your favorite restaurant

a A touch or emotion, e.g., how you feel being there?

b What you see, e.g., the people you are with, your surroundings.

c What you hear, e.g., the conversation, the music?

d A taste, e.g., of the food?

e A smell, e.g., the aroma from the kitchen?

7. Something from your childhood

a A smell, an aroma, a perfume?

b A touch or an emotion?

c An image?

d Sounds or voices?

e A taste?

8.Your work

a A sound, e.g., of equipment or voices?

b An image, e.g., the picture of what you do?

c A smell, e.g., of your surroundings?

d A touch or an emotion, e.g., the texture of what you can feel or how you feel

about your work?

e A taste?

9. Where you might be tomorrow

a An image or picture?

b An emotion or touch?

c A taste?

d A smell or aroma?

e A sound?

10. Something you find difficult to do

a An image or picture?

b A taste?

c A sound or an inner conversation?

d An associated emotion or a touch?

e A smell?

11. Something you find rewarding

a An emotion, e.g., a feeling of satisfaction, or a touch, such as the physical

sensation of a sport?

b A taste?

c A smell?

d A sound, e.g., what you say to yourself or the sound of voices or your

environment?

e An image, e.g., of what it looks like?

12.Something you find amusing

a A sound, e.g., what someone says or what you hear?

b An image, e.g., something or someone you see?

c An emotion, e.g., the sensation of amusement, or a physical touch, such as the

feel of something?

d A taste?

e A smell?

13.A goal that you have for the future

a What you are seeing?

b What you are hearing?

c What you are feeling?

d What you can taste?

e What you can smell?

14.Your expectations for the rest of this week

a Your image of what you see happening?

b Your emotions about what you expect?

c An aroma?

d A taste?

e How you are feeling?

15.What you are doing this moment

a What you can smell?

b What you can see?

c What you are hearing?

d What you can taste?

e What you are feeling?

Thinking patterns analysis

Circle the letters you ticked for each answer and total the number of ticks in each column:

VisualAuditoryFeelingsTasteSmell

1abced

2eabdc

3daebc

4bcdae

5dbeca

6bcade

7cdbea

8badec

9aebcd

10acdbe

11edabc

12bacde

13abcde

14aebdc

15bceda

The higher the score, the higher the preference. It is usual for visual to bea preferred sense and for taste and smell to be lower preferences. However, there are no rights and wrongs in this—it is merely important to know what you do currently prefer. You may want now to check this out with your actual experience in situations and see what preferences are influencing your responses to situations. If you do not score anything for a sense it does not mean that you do not have this sense; it just means that you are not aware of it.

Ultimately, if your outcome is to develop your flexibility and influence, then you would want topractice being aware of using all senses so that you have the flexibility to adapt to differingcircumstances.

Personal development: Increasing your awareness

As a result of doing this questionnaire you may want to develop your awareness of some of your senses.

One of the simplest ways to do this is as follows:

1. Choose the sense for which you would like to raise your awareness.

2. Choose a time of day (it need not be more than 30 minutes) when your role is less significant and you can direct some of your attention to how you are doing what you are doing.

3. Program yourself with the question “What am I seeing/hearing/feeling/tasting/smelling?” (Choose

whichever one you want to concentrate on.) If it helps, write the question down so that you have it in front of you for that time. If you are working at a computer you could put it as the screensaver.

4. Do this as many times as you want to until you recognize that you are unconsciously being aware of this sense. You could do the questionnaire again after three or four weeks to see if your scores have changed for this particular sense.

5. Now repeat the process for another sense.