Why Ask Questions?

Coaches ask questions. Counsellors and therapists ask questions. Even good presenters and leaders ask questions. Lots of questions.

But why?

If you've got a point to make, just say it, right? Why beat around the bush, go round the houses?

The answer is simple. You don't listen.

It's not your fault. From an early age, you developed an abstract map of reality, and as that map formed, your ability to listen to others diminished. Your map contains physical constructs, so that you can find your car's ignition or your bedside lamp even in the dark, and it contains abstract constructs too, such as relationships, desires and problems.

A problem is something that prevents you from achieving a goal, and it's a collection of representations. Think about any problem that you have, right now. It's a collection of elements, isn't it? Objects, people, conversations, beliefs, past experiences. This unique collection is a problem, and the reason that you can't solve it for yourself is that it's part of your map, and you go to great lengths to protect your map from outside influence. In short, you don't like being told what to think.

We each have a critical filter which evaluates incoming information to judge it against our own beliefs and perception of the world.

The filter is useful because it protects us from other people’s beliefs. Unfortunately, it also prevents us from accepting new information too.

Any solution that you offer, no matter how brilliantly conceived, will be rejected.

Fortunately, we can bypass this filter quite easily. Secondly, you can use the two forms of communication which will bypass the critical filter. One is a story; an account of events which aren't here or now. The other is a question.

Why do questions bypass the critical filter?

How do questions bypass the critical filter?

Questions don’t convey any information or instructions, do they?

We hear questions when:

The speaker’s voice pitch and eyebrows rise towards the end of a sentence, not to be confused with a stereotypical Australian accent which is different
A sentence starts with a word such as why, when, where, how, what, which, who, if, is, could, would, might, may, can
A statement ends with a tag question, such as couldn’t it?, don’t they?, do we?, can it?
A question bypasses the critical filter completely, because it conveys no dangerous information, it requests information and since you're always right, you love to talk about what you think. However, the question directs your attention, and can help you to uncover aspects of the problem that you were unable, or unwilling, to consider previously.

If you ask someone questions about the problem, you're probably gathering information to give them a solution. After all, if they're telling you about a problem then logically they haven't solved it and they can't solve it, so they're asking you to solve it.

When someone says, "I don't want you to solve it for me, I'm just thinking out loud, I'm just letting off steam" then don't believe them. That's just their way of saying, "Don't tell me what to think!"

So here's the paradox. The person is stuck. They can't find a solution, but they don't want to be given a solution. Somehow, we have to gently direct them towards the resources that they already have. Asking questions about the problem doesn't help, so we have to ask questions which are not about the problem. Weird, eh?

I know. It seems counter-intuitive. Yet it really does 'work'. So much so that I created a free online tool and app to help you do it, called The Unsticker. And I'll be presenting The Unsticker at the International NLP Conference on May 19th 2018. I know, it seems like an advert, but the app really is free. No advertising or anything. It's my gift to the world.

You can, of course, also learn the principles of asking questions for yourself. But would you want to?

www.theunsticker.com

___________________________________

Peter Freeth is a SNLP Master Trainer, author of more than a dozen books, coach, talent management expert and lots more besides. He has been learning, innovating and teaching NLP for over 20 years and has created many new techniques and tools that are used by coaches and trainers all over the world.   Peter runs training up to Trainer level in the UK, Europe and Asia.

https://www.nlpconference.com/peterfreeth

Take a look at my upcoming NLP training dates here for Practitioner, Master Practitioner and Trainer

NLP Practitioner in Manchester

NLP Practitioner in Manchester - venue and dates confirmed

Module 1: September 8 - 11
Module 2: October 8 - 11

If you want to attend only a Foundation course in NLP rather than a full Practitioner, the first module is structured so that you get all the basic, practical techniques of NLP in module 1, and the more complex techniques and the linguistic tools come in module 2.

The venue is in Northwich, Cheshire with each access from the M6, Manchester, Liverpool and the Midlands.

£445 for attending only module 1

£795 for the full Practitioner training, including SNLP certification

Take a look at my upcoming NLP training dates here for Practitioner, Master Practitioner and Trainer

NLP Trainer Training in India

NLP Trainer Certification in Delhi - 25 November to 2 December. I guarantee you will learn the inside secrets of training NLP that you will not get from any other trainer today.

At the end of the course, after passing the certification criteria, you will be a Society of NLP licensed trainer, able to certify Practitioners and Master Practitioners.

Learn how to make your technique demonstrations work first time, every time - no other trainer will show you this because no other trainer can do it!

Learn how Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory is woven through the entire learning experience on multiple levels.

Spacial anchoring? It's nonsense. Stop it. You're distracting the audience and you think you're anchoring states? You're not.

Venue is Zorba the Buddha in New Delhi.

The cost is Rs 69,950 or £770 which includes drinks and meals during the daytime. There is accommodation available at the venue too if you need that.

If you want to certify your own Practitioners and Master Practitioners then not only is this the best Trainer Training you can attend, it's also the most thorough, it's SNLP licensed and it will cost you less than a Trainer course in the UK, even including your flight to amazing India. Plus you get a trip to amazing India!

Take a look at all of my upcoming NLP training dates here for Practitioner, Master Practitioner and Trainer

I'm also producing a new published book as the course manual, to join the NLP Practitioner Manual and NLP Master Practitioner Manual. Here's a sneak preview:

Why learn in a residential format? Is it really worth it?

After a few years in decline, the market for NLP training, certainly in the UK, seems to be picking up again. I don't know why that is, the coaching market seems to have matured, mindfulness seems to have been forgotten. Maybe's it's just the hype surrounding Bandler and Grinder running Practitioner courses again - separately of course.

On the other hand, the recent NLP conference in London could have been busier. We've got a variety of people saying that they were part of NLP's origins, and we should listen to them. And then we have a new generation of innovators who aren't bound by the legacy of NLP and who can incorporate the latest experimental, peer-reviewed research in fields such as psychology and neurology. That's where I sit.

I run Society of NLP certified training at Practitioner, Master Practitioner and Trainer levels in the UK, Spain and India several times a year. I used to run training only in the UK, in meeting rooms and the usual places. I've run long courses and short courses, weekends, evenings, contiguous, modular, every permutation over the 15 years or so that I've been training NLP.

I've found that the most popular format is short modules, because that fits around people's work schedules. However, I've found that the most powerful format in terms of the learning experience and the depth of learning and integration is the contiguous format, 8 days straight, and I've further found that a residential format amplifies the power of the experience amazingly.

Meta Model - Going Beyond the Superficial

When many NLP students first learn Meta Model in NLP training, they become insufferable by questioning all of their friends, all the time. ALL of their friends????? They say, with a crazed expression on their faces. ALL the time????

Yes. Stop it right now.

This shows a significant and fundamental misunderstanding of Meta Model on the part of their trainers. The problem is this; most trainers don't understand Meta Model so they don't teach it properly. Some I've seen don't even teach it at all, which is very very bad. Mainly because NLP is Meta Model. I even read a review of my book The NLP Practitioner Manual, where the reviewer said it was very good, except I had spent far too long talking about Meta Model and it only needed a couple of pages.

*Exasperated*

I would therefore like to take this opportunity to show you why Meta Model is the single most important thing that you will ever learn in your whole entire wild life, whether you are NLP person, or coach, trainer, teacher, mother, lover, babysitter and so on and so forth etcetera etcetera.

Comparative Deletions

If you've studied NLP then you will have seen Meta Model, the questioning structure that enables us to uncover information hidden in a client's words.

One of the first Meta Model patterns is the Comparative Deletion - words such as more, better, easier, less, faster, slower and so on. Here's an example:

"This is better"

If you've attended NLP training, you were probably taught to respond with,

"Better than what?"

If this is familiar to you, then your trainer was one of the great majority who simply don't understand Meta Model. To ask, "Better than what?" is a trivial use of Meta Model.

Asking, "Better than what?" will essentially get the same level of response as the question, "Why?" in that the speaker will give a reply which sounds like a reason but is in fact a justification or proof of their world view.

This more analytical approach to Meta Model is much better.

What did you just say to yourself when you read that last sentence? Did you think, "Hmmm, yes", or "Better than what???!!!", or "Better for me...", or, "Better than that rubbish trainer who ran my Practitioner course", or, "No it's not!"

The point is this: Information was missing, and you filled in the gaps from your own experience. Hence, used as an instruction, the Comparative Deletion is a Milton pattern. It's better to relax. It's easier to ease yourself into the chair. You might find it more valuable after you've read this article.

Let's consider three levels of Meta Model analysis.

Level 1, the trivial, we can ignore. It's clumsy, it doesn't flow in the natural conversation and it doesn't tell us much.

Level 2 takes us to the two missing pieces of information.

In order for the word "better" to be grammatically correct within the sentence, we need to insert the missing reference, for example, "This is better than watching paint dry". So the point of reference is the first missing piece of the puzzle. The reference is not an 'it', it can also be a 'where', a 'whom' and, most importantly, a 'when'.

The second piece of the puzzle is the criteria for the reference. Take a moment right now to look at your hands. What differences do you see? Which hand is better?

Immediately, a question comes in to your mind: "Better for what? Better at what?"

Noticing a difference only requires perception. Giving that difference a bias requires judgement, a cognitive process. What is the judgement based on? An unpleasant previous experience? A preference for chocolate? A desire to get home early? An intention to save money? When we ask about the criteria, we discover the very narrow set of features which are being compared, and the judgements used to make those comparisons. We can explore those judgements further.

So level 2 takes us to the deleted reference and the deleted criteria which makes one of the elements being compared preferable to the other.

That sounds pretty good, yes? That's certainly a lot of information to explore. So what is level 3? What more could there be?

Level 3 is about time. Take a moment to look at your hands again. Compare them. Notice some details or sensations and compare them. Do you find yourself looking from one hand to the other? Of course, you must do, because your focus of visual perception is extremely narrow. You can't read these words out of the corner of your eye, you must look straight at them. The cells on your retina are not uniformly distributed. Outside of your focal area, the cells and their neural connections are optimised for detecting movement, which is change over time. In the focal area, the cells and their neural connections are optimised for picking out real time details.

You can't look at both hands at the same time, so your eyes move from one to the other. Which means that when you look at 'this' hand, you are not comparing it to 'that' hand, you are comparing it to your memory of 'that' hand, and one thing that we know for certain about our memories is that they are faulty. In fact, they're dreadful. It's amazing that we remember our own names.

We know that, in order to cope with the volume of sensory data available, we delete, distort and generalise, before we become consciously aware of what we are noticing. By the time we know that we've encountered something, we're already experiencing a distorted version of it.

Right, so what does this tell us about Comparative Deletions?

When a person says, "This is better", they are comparing an extremely narrow facet of their current sensory experience to a past experience, and that past experience will be distorted. It's not distorted randomly, it's distorted to prove their current judgement.

I was in Dubai last week. I first went to Dubai in June last year. Last year I hated Dubai. It was a big, expensive, hot, dusty building site. I hated it. I regretted going there.

Last week, the weather was much more pleasant, I saw different parts of Dubai, and most importantly, I wasn't feeling ill.

Dubai had not changed in those few months. Well, they built a dozen more skyscrapers, and opened some new shopping malls. But apart from that it was exactly the same. What had changed was my experience of Dubai.

It wasn't Dubai that had changed. It was me.

What the Comparative Deletion tells us is that the person has distorted an experience in order to fit their expectation, or to explain an exception to their expectation, so that they can be right, then that experience has become a reference so that they can maintain their rightness in the future.

"My way is better"

How do you know? You haven't tried any other ways!

"I just know"

So what you really mean is that you deviated from your routine once in the past and had a bad experience, and now you're afraid to try again? And because of that, you're missing out on opportunities to improve, and you're giving control to your fears, and you know where that road leads to, don't you?

(Sound of cogs whirring)

When we understand what the Comparative Deletion tells us about the client's inner world, their experiences, their distortions of those experiences and their future expectations, we can explore those reference points with far greater tact and dexterity, and what's even more important, instead of a Meta Model interrogation, we can actually have a normal conversation with them.

Learn NLP in Spite of Peter Freeth!

Yes! You too can fulfil a lifelong nightmare and join Peter Freeth in Spain this September for literally some fun, and an experience of learning NLP which you are guaranteed to never forget, and for all the wrong reasons!

With Peter's expert training and 20+ years of experience, you will come to regret learning:

• The secrets of aversion therapy, with Peter's home thawed 'chicken surprise'
• The key's to you're deeper understanding of the English language
• Countless new ways to skyrocket your powerful use of exaggeration
• The six secret contract terms that will keep your clients coming back for more
• How to bore your clients into a trance
• Banish those phobias with the full contact swish
• Some other things

Seriously, you just can't beat this NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner training, and to prove it, I have never given a student a refund in 20+ years!

Only you know just how much this training will win you the much needed approval of your parents and workmates, and the adoration of many people who, according DNA samples, really are of the opposite sex. Not male or female, just opposite.

What are you waiting for?! Places are strictly limited! You'll never believe that learning NLP can be so much! For so little! But not often. Just once a year in Spain...

NLP Practitioner - September 15 - 23

NLP Master Practitioner - September 26 - October 4

And in India too, if you are feeling even more adventurous.

Both are just, only, merely, unbelievably £1,495 fully inclusive of training, accommodation, meals, drinks, airport transfers, books and SNLP certification. I know, I can't believe it either. The only possible explanation is that the training is rubbish.

Book now to ensure disappointment!

NLP Practitioner in Delhi - starts February 27

February 27 to March 1 2016 - Join the first of two NLP Practitioner modules with Peter Freeth in Delhi.

And if you want to try NLP out and discover how it works for yourself, simply attend just the first two days!

Peter Freeth is the author of 9 books, an International trainer for the past 20+ years, and a recognised innovator in the field of NLP and coaching.

You'll learn NLP as you've never seen it before - easy, practical, accessible and fun.

You will learn practical, simple tools and techniques that will make a significant, measurable, valuable difference in your life, and enable you to make a different to the lives of your family, friends, colleagues and clients.

The 8 day SNLP licensed training is divided into two modules.

The first module is February 27 to March 1

The second module is July

You can even just attend just the first two days and enjoy the benefits of some really simple and practical techniques to improve your quality of life. And if you realise that you want to learn more, just stay with us!

I'll be posting the prices and full schedule here in the next couple of days.

---

Remember that I'm also running NLP Practitioner in Pune, April 20 - 27 so that is an 8 day course, full time.

For more information about the Pune course, contact Gaurish Borkar.

NLP Practitioner in Pune, April 2016

I'll be running a NLP Practitioner in Pune, India in April 2016

My friend Gaurish Borkar is organising it, here's the link to his page so that you can contact him for more details...

http://www.prosperitynjoy.com/2015/08/nlp-practitioner-course-with.html

'Read more' to see the full course content...

Everything you know about NLP is wrong

I'm speaking at the NLP Conference to be held in London, April 2016 on the subject of...

Everything you know about NLP is wrong

And that's why you can't always get the results you intended.

When trainers just emulate the pseudo-science they’ve been taught instead of testing for themselves, they pass that on to their students. So instead of an evolving, developing field, we have bad techniques being taught badly, and then we wonder why NLP gets a bad name.

For example, if you have trouble getting anchoring to work reliably, it's because you've been taught it wrong. And you're probably trying to use it to access resources such as confidence, which is the wrong way to use it.

Swish? Having trouble keeping the client's mind on the process? You've been using it wrong.


Just can't get your head round the Six Step Reframe? You've been doing it wrong.

But how can all of these experts be so wrong? Because they have failed to take into account the 30 years of neuroscience research since NLP was first created.

And we’ve learned a lot in 30 years...

Overall, delegates will learn to incorporate the last 30 years of real scientific research into their NLP practice, so that they can use NLP more reliably and consistently and avoid many of the myths that surround the field.

Delegates will learn the easy, right way to perform techniques such as:

Anchoring – and use it correctly, not just to access states
Swish – and use it any place, any time, even in business meetings
Six Step Reframe – surely, there’s an easier way?

Delegates will also learn the ‘truth’ about some of NLP’s most loved concepts, such as Eye Accessing Cues, Metaprograms and Logical Levels.

Delegates will even learn the most surprising revelation of all – that submodalities, the very bedrock of NLP’s approach to subjective experience, are completely made up.

This workshop will be practical, it will show you a better, easier, more reliable way to use NLP’s techniques, and it’s based on 30 years of research in neuroscience and 20+ years of personal research and experimentation.

Overall, this workshop will bring delegates’ knowledge of NLP up to date and give them a new understanding of the subject which will make them measurably more effective in applying techniques with their clients.

Peter delivers hundreds of hours of training, and hundreds of coaching sessions every year and incorporates fresh insights and learnings back into his books and his training at every opportunity.

Does that mean that he knows best? No, it only means that he’s open to the challenge, that to evolve, we must often let go of our most valued beliefs.

Are you?

What does it take to really learn NLP?

For the past 30 years, people have been learning and using NLP to get some amazing results in their lives. People have overcome the toughest problems, achieved inspiring goals and created exciting, enriching, powering relationships.

But what does it take to really learn all of this? Do you just turn up to a training course, go home with a certificate and wait for your life to change? Do you wait for the right time for the life you dream of to fall into your lap?

No. That time will never come. You cannot wait for the right time. You must make it.

Learning NLP is just one route to improving your life and relationships. It’s definitely not the only set of tools to help you get more out of life and work, yet it is certainly one of the most flexible, powerful and easy to use. You could think of NLP as a user interface for your mind. We can’t open up your head and directly rewire your brain, so NLP gives us a wide range of tools and techniques to make those changes indirectly.

Making changes with NLP is surprisingly fast – so fast that some people won’t believe it. We would rather be right than be happy, so for some people, their fears are comforting. They give certainty to life, yet there is a much greater certainty – that you are more. Much more. You are all of your fears and doubts and hopes and dreams and many, many more wonderful things. You are all of this, and more.

But how do you achieve all that you are capable of? How do you tap into that ‘more’?

To really learn NLP, you have to be honest with yourself. If you’re prepared to do that, then your life can be full of everything you could wish for. If not, you’ll keep going round in circles. Is that what you want? Don’t you deserve more than that?

On Sunday 15th November 2015, Peter Freeth will be in Delhi, visiting from the UK. As the author of 9 NLP books so far and with over 20 years’ experience, Peter is one of the most highly regarded and innovative trainers working in the world today. Peter is running training in Goa, Pune and Delhi over the next year, so this is a perfect opportunity to ask whatever questions are important for you and discover why other students say, “Your profound, skilful, knowledgeable and supportive style has taught me not the words of NLP but the grammar of it, which means I now have the means to express my skills in so many useful ways - confidently, competently, courageously and with care.”

Come to Aumtara at 5:00 pm and experience a three hour introductory workshop for just 500 rupees where you’ll discover more about yourself than you’d imagine possible. You’ll learn some simple, valuable techniques to make your days easier, and you’ll learn more about what you can achieve from NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner training.

Remember, you can’t wait for the right time to come, you have to create it.

The right time? Sunday 15th November 2015 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm

The right place? Aumtara, K-14, South Extension, Part I, New Delhi- 110049

The right person to speak to? Jas Bhatia +91 9810234576 http://ignitingspark.com/

The right choice? Be there, and be more.

Everything You Know About NLP is Wrong

I've been writing my proposal for the NLP Conference to be held in London, April 2016 ... do you think it's provocative enough? It's entitled...

Everything you know about NLP is wrong

Here's the description:

Everything you think you know about NLP is wrong.

And that's why you can't always get the results you intended.

When trainers just emulate the pseudo-science they’ve been taught instead of testing for themselves, they pass that on to their students. So instead of an evolving, developing field, we have bad techniques being taught badly, and then we wonder why NLP gets a bad name.

For example, if you have trouble getting anchoring to work reliably, it's because you've been taught it wrong. And you're probably trying to use it to access resources such as confidence, which is the wrong way to use it.

Swish? Having trouble keeping the client's mind on the process? You've been using it wrong.

Just can't get your head round the Six Step Reframe? You've been doing it wrong.

But how can all of these experts be so wrong? Because they have failed to take into account the 30 years of neuroscience research since NLP was first created.

And we’ve learned a lot in 30 years...



Overall, delegates will learn to incorporate the last 30 years of real scientific research into their NLP practice, so that they can use NLP more reliably and consistently and avoid many of the myths that surround the field.

Delegates will learn the easy, right way to perform techniques such as:

Anchoring – and use it correctly, not just to access states
Swish – and use it any place, any time, even in business meetings
Six Step Reframe – surely, there’s an easier way?

Delegates will also learn the ‘truth’ about some of NLP’s most loved concepts, such as Eye Accessing Cues, Metaprograms and Logical Levels.

Delegates will even learn the most surprising revelation of all – that submodalities, the very bedrock of NLP’s approach to subjective experience, are completely made up.

This workshop will be practical, it will show you a better, easier, more reliable way to use NLP’s techniques, and it’s based on 30 years of research in neuroscience and 20+ years of personal research and experimentation.

Overall, this workshop will bring delegates’ knowledge of NLP up to date and give them a new understanding of the subject which will make them measurably more effective in applying techniques with their clients.

Peter delivers hundreds of hours of training, and hundreds of coaching sessions every year and incorporates fresh insights and learnings back into his books and his training at every opportunity.

Does that mean that he knows best? No, it only means that he’s open to the challenge, that to evolve, we must often let go of our most valued beliefs.

Are you?

Is Learning Dependent on Environment?

I'll start this post with a blatant advert - due to cancellations, I have one remaining place on each of NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner in Spain this September. If you're interested, or you know someone who's interested, see www.nenlp.com for all the details.

Now, I mention this because one of the most important aspects of the training in Spain is that it takes place in a wonderful environment. Peaceful, relaxing, beautiful, and a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of daily life.

You roll out of bed, have breakfast on the patio and join the training, all in the glorious Andalusian sunshine. Previous participants have said that the environment is a great place to learn, but does it really make a difference? The course content is the same, regardless of whether it's delivered in the foot hills of the Sierra de las Nieves or in a meeting room at the Holiday Inn just off junction 25 of the M1. And at the Holiday Inn, you don't have to make your own coffee, it's provided for you in thermos flasks conveniently located outside the training room. Also, you get proper flip charts and fluorescent lighting for those dull autumn afternoons.

Intuitively, you're probably thinking that you'd rather work in the sunshine. Doesn't it evoke memories of primary school, and being allowed to work outside on the sunniest of afternoons? And doesn't it make your manager think that you're skiving, not working?

My experience is that taking people away from their daily routine for long enough that they actually forget their routine is what 'works', rather than the specific environment. Going to a hotel function room for life-changing training is exactly like going for a team meeting or health and safety training. The associations that we make probably include boring, waste of time, mandatory, irrelevant and so on, whereas the associations that we make with travelling to a villa in Spain are the opposite - exciting, valuable, free choice.

'Alternative' meeting venues are popular for corporate training, team meetings and team building events, and superficially these offer a good alternative to hotel rooms, except for one big problem - in order to cater to what they think the corporate market wants, they provide... meeting rooms with flipcharts, projectors, bowls of sweets, coffee on demand, cheap biscuits in individual packets. So as soon as you're past the lovely landscape, or the museum displays, or the fun stuff, you're right back where you started - in the hotel meeting room.

In Spain, we'll be putting lining paper on entire walls to work out language structures, and we'll be using all of the outdoor space as a 'breakout area', and as soon as I call it a breakout area it sounds boring. There will be no flipcharts. Outdoor and indoor activities, demonstrations, practice sessions and group discussions will be broken up with videos and other media. None of this is any different to how a course would run in the UK. The difference is the whole set of associations that students make before they even arrive.

So, does environment make a difference to learning? Absolutely, yes. But it's the anticipation of the environment that makes the biggest difference of all.

Stop Trying To Get Into Rapport

On any NLP Practitioner training I've ever seen, students are taught how to get into rapport. Seriously, it's a total waste of time, and at worst, harmful to a normal working relationship.

We're a social species. Rapport is our default position. You don't have to do anything to get it.

You already know what rapport is. It's that thing you have with people you like, when you're on the same wavelength, see eye to eye and feel a real connection with them.

You can think of rapport as being a conduit for communication. Without it, it's very difficult to engage the processes of agreement and compliance, and you have to work harder to be understood. 

When you have rapport you can take a lot of shortcuts, such as asking a close friend to pass you “the thing”, and expecting that they’ll know you meant the TV remote control.

Let’s make a useful assumption: you already have rapport, so there’s nothing you need to do to create it. From the moment you walk into a room, you are already connected with the people in there. 

Some of them will be connected with the real you, some of them will be connected with their own mental models of what a trainer is like – their previous experience. And sometimes that previous experience will be helpful to you, and sometimes not, so there are certainly times when you don’t want to be in rapport with other people, so that you can avoid being drawn into their hallucinations.

If someone is reacting to you in an odd way before you have really started, the chances are they are reacting not to you but to their own expectation, so that’s a good time to stop and find out what is really going on.

As I said, we're a social species. Rapport is our default position, and while you don't have to do anything to get it, it is very useful to learn how to control it...

Want to know how? Join me for NLP Practitioner training in Spain in September 2015. 

And you can download my book NLP - Skills for Learning from Bookboon for FREE. Most of this post is an extract from that book.

Answers to a Reader's Questions - Six Step Reframe, Logical Levels and Metaprograms

I received some questions from a reader recently, and my reply got so long that I thought I'd share it here.

• Six Step reframe and parts are just metaphors. How useful is the topic of parts and six step reframe?
• What do you think about logical levels? I find it bit unpractical in many areas. What do you say?
• You said that "I think metaprograms are nonsense"- I also somehow agree with you. I am currently going through DVDs of 'LAB profile program' by Shelle Rose Charvet. Where she talks about Metaprograms. I am really confused because those metaprograms are contextual. How can we understand the context fully? Am I being incompetent or is 'metaprograms' plain rubbish?

Six Step reframe and parts are just metaphors. How useful is the topic of parts and six step reframe?
I find that parts is such a universal, common metaphor that it's useful for that reason. People say that they are 'in two minds', when you ask them what they want to do, they say, "part of me wants...", so people already think in terms of parts. They have internal conversations with each other, which presupposes dissociation and therefore the metaphor of parts is useful because it ties in with how people already think about themselves.

When people try to solve problems, what often goes wrong is that their ability to be creative in finding a solution is prevented by their belief that they cannot solve the problem, so they generalise and say that they're stuck, or they are not creative.

In one situation, a person can be creative. In another, they are quite certain that they are not creative. What we need to do is create two separate contexts for solving the problem - one where they can creatively come up with ideas, and one where they can test and apply those ideas.

De Bono's 6 hats has 6 different thinking styles so that ideas aren't 'shot down' too quickly for them to be fully explored.

The 6SR does exactly the same thing. And the team problem solving exercise called 'brainstorming' is exactly the same - come up with as many ideas as possible, and only then do you evaluate those ideas.

So yes, 6SR is very useful because, really, it's just NLP's version of other well known problem solving tools.

What do you think about logical levels? I find it bit unpractical in many areas. What do you say?

Logical levels is useful to think in terms of separating a person from their behaviour, which is a central theme of Transactional Analysis and Person Centered Counselling. Having multiple levels allows you to dissociate a person's sense of self from their behaviour, in the same way that the fast phobia cure allows you to dissociate a person from an experience.

Here's an experiment. Find some friends and family who are parents and ask them, in their minds, when did they become a parent? Was it at, before or after the moment of their first child's birth? You'll hear someone say that they have children, but they don't call themselves a parent yet. In the same way, someone can fix their kitchen sink, but they're not a plumber, or they like to play the piano, but they're not a pianist.

I am really confused because those metaprograms are contextual. How can we understand the context fully? Am I being incompetent or is 'metaprograms' plain rubbish?

I think there are two types of metaprogram, those that Robert Dilts wrote about, and the others that Shelle added. I think she created many just to fill up a book. So let's look at the 'core' metaprograms.

Internal / External
Options / Procedures
Similarity/Difference
Towards/Away from

I actually think that all of these, and therefore all of Shelle's, are derived from the first one. If your focus is internal, i.e. in your memory, then you must therefore be paying attention to things that have already happened, which are procedural, because they only happened one way. Options can only be in the future - as soon as you commit to a course of action in the present, it becomes the past. When you think about what you would have done instead, you are not replaying the past, you are playing forward a past memory into a possible future. But of course, the future doesn't exist. We might even argue that the past doesn't exist either.

Similarity or difference tells us about the frame of reference for a comparison.

Look at this character: ¬

Now look at this character: ]

What do you notice?

Did you notice that you made a comparison? And to make that comparison, you had to look at one while projecting the other from your memory? So by definition, one was in the present and external, one was internal and therefore in the past.

Did you answer, "One is..." or "They both are"? And is that defined by your metaprogram, or by how similar or different to the characters are? When we move to comparisons between more complex concepts, like jobs, it is maybe not so easy to see. I don't know if focusing on the internal memory or the external visual is key to the similarity/difference metaprogram. I feel like it's the answer, but I don't know yet.

Now think of a goal that you have. Compare it to where you are now. Do you feel good about the goal? Towards. Bad? Away from. So how do you understand the context?

Isn't context just an excuse for why metaprograms are inconsistent, because they are dependent on how you feel about the thing you're focusing on.

Here's another way to think of metaprograms - perceptual filters.

The next paragraph will contain a lie, but you won't be able to find it.

We know that we delete, distort and generalise, but how? What do we delete? What do we distort, and into what? And when we generalise, what is the higher level rule or category that we generalise into? How many mistakes must a colleague make before you say, "They always make mistakes", instead of, "They never make mistakes, so they must have just had a bad day".

Did you spot the lie?

The point is that you were looking for a lie because I told you to. There wasn't really a lie. The expectation affected your perception. A metaprogram works in a similar way, but outside of your conscious awareness. You don't know that you are distorting to make a goal more compelling for the same reason that you don't notice the air you're breathing or the ground you're standing on.

There's an experience that we all have which changes the way we see the world forever. As a baby, we either had our needs met by our parents or we had to meet our own needs. We were either comforted, or we found ways to comfort ourselves. We therefore hard wired our brains to either seek comfort in others or in ourselves. The difference that this makes in our lives is huge.

If, as a child, your needs were mostly met by	Yourself	Others
Your dominant tendency is to	Compete	Accommodate
You tend to trust others	Less	More
You tend to rely on others	Less	More
Under pressure, you tend to	Blame others	Blame yourself
Under extreme pressure, you might even become	Isolated	Needy
You tend to see resources as	Limited	Abundant
You tend to believe	Yourself	Others
You tend to value	Initiative and drive	Teamwork and harmony

What if this were the only 'metaprogram'?

Could we say that the person who learns to rely on themselves has an internal reference, and the person who relies on others has an external reference?

Focusing internally means that the person thinks about procedures, because he knows the way that worked before. Focusing externally leads to options.

Similarity and difference are about classification, and therefore generalisation. If I look for similarities, I have to start with a class that includes all of the items I'm comparing, so that's an inclusive point of view. If I look for differences, I have to put the items being compared in their own classes, and that's an exclusive point of view.

I just tried this with my laptop PC and the TV remote control.

They're both electronic - puts them both in the class of 'electronic devices'.

One is a computer, the other is a remote control - puts them in separate classes.

We know that the brain organises information hierarchically, and so language is organised in the same way.

If I rely on others, I see myself as part of a social group - family, society etc.

If I rely on myself, I seem myself as an individual, separate to the group.

Does this correlate with the metaprogram? I need to think more about this.

Bookboon have made my book, NLP - Skills for Learning, their book of the week!

Bookboon have made my book, NLP - Skills for Learning, their book of the week!

Here's the interview they've put on their blog...

Peter Freeth on how to enhance your potential

By Sophie Tergeist | December 13, 2013

Bookboon.com interviewed author Peter Freeth

Ever heard of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)? Bookboon.com author Peter Freeth answers a few of our questions around his book  ”NLP – Skills for learning” and explains how progress starts with what you tell your brain. Take a look! 

1. Can you tell us more about what a “labelling system” is? You mention it in the context of how people develop behaviours throughout their lives.
One of the most important mental mechanisms that we develop from early childhood is the ability to represent the world as a series of symbols. Starting perhaps with ‘mama’ and ‘dada’, children quickly move onto ‘cat’, ‘dog’ and then actions such as ‘give’. Just think about your computer – there are several different symbols that you understand for the command to print something, including a menu action, the keyboard action ‘control P’ and the printer icon on the toolbar. As we grow and learn, we have new experiences and have to figure out how to symbolise those experiences and communicate them to other people. When you describe a holiday, you don’t just say, “We went to Spain on August 30th and returned on September 14th. The weather was mostly warm and sunny”, you tell people how you felt about it, so that they can better understand your experience.
Our labelling system is therefore a vital part of how a trainer can begin to interact with a learner’s inner world. By paying careful attention to the language that people use, we can gain valuable insight into how to help them learn new behaviours more easily and effectively. And by behaviour, I mean anything from ‘leadership’ to computer skills – all involve the learner doing something, so by definition this is a behaviour which is underpinned by the learner’s model of the world.

2. When coaching, why do you think it is a good idea to include physical versions of exercises into a session? Can you give an example of physical exercises?
When a coach works only conversationally with a client, all they get in response is words, and perhaps some facial expressions. A significant proportion of the client’s communication is therefore inaccessible to the coach or trainer. When the coach asks a question, the client has too much time to think of the ‘right’ answer rather than saying what’s really true for them.
Here’s an experiment that you can do. Next time you give someone a choice and they say something like, “I don’t mind”, such as where to go for dinner, or which film to watch, hold out your two hands, palms up. Tell them that, for example, your left hand is pizza and your right hand is Chinese. Look them right in the eye and ask them which they want. A second or two before they answer, you’ll see them glance, very quickly, at their preferred choice. What their body tells you is often very different to what they say.
So physical exercises help in three ways; firstly they enable the coach to get the answer that is really true, rather than the answer that sounds good. Secondly, they enable the client to answer without having to actually answer, which is a big help when they’re discussing something emotive or traumatic. Thirdly, it enables the client to uncover information that the client may not themselves be consciously aware of yet, such as reaching a decision that they have been mulling over for a long time.

3. You mention the difference between someone saying “I can’t do…” and “I don’t do…”. How are these two types of declarations different?
These declarations are called modal operators, and they modify the way in which a verb works. I can play badminton, but I’m not doing it right now. However, I can’t play squash. When you listen to the modal operators that a person uses, they tell you how that person organises their memories and abilities around a certain task. You perhaps already know, at least instinctively, that if a person says that they’re going to try to do something, it means that they expect to fail. “I’ll try to come to your party”, or, “I’ll try to get my report finished” are ambiguous, and the listener will typically hear what they want to hear, instead of hearing the “try” for what it really is.
Many people will be making New Year’s resolutions soon, so this is a good time to notice modal operators in practice. “I really ought to lose some weight”, “I want to start cycling to work again”, and “I must get round to booking myself onto an art class” all say very different things about the speaker’s confidence in their resolution.
Trainers can use modal operators in two ways to overcome barriers to learning. The first involves listening to modal operators and adjusting their approach accordingly. The second is to modify modal operators to get a desired result. If a learner says, “I can’t do this, I’ll never get it right”, then the trainer might respond with, “Yes, I can see that you’re not quite there yet, that must be frustrating. Sometimes, people get frustrated just before they find the solution, don’t they?”. The trainer has converted the learner’s “can’t”, which means “never” to a “not now” which presupposes that success is just around the corner.
Probably the biggest difficulty with using language in this way is that, in the cold light of this sentence, it seems like it can’t possibly make a difference. But you’re not in the state of mind or the situation of the ‘stuck’ learner, so you interpret the language very differently. The important thing is to have a go and see what happens for yourself.

4. Let’s talk about the “images” you refer to as ways to create confidence. How does this work? Seems like a great method! Do a lot of people use it?
In fact, I would say that everyone uses it, because every person on the planet is goal oriented. We think about what we want before we take action to get it. That might be months ahead of time, or it might be just milliseconds. However, every action is preceded by a thought – an idea, a need, a desire, even a fear or an instruction from someone else. That idea usually takes the form of either a feeling (like thirst) or an image (like you winning the lottery).
It seems that many people worry, and worry is just an application of the same process – you imagine something that hasn’t happened yet, you picture it turning out badly, and you act as if it is happening now. If the things that you worry about were to really happen then your reaction would be entirely appropriate, however they haven’t happened, and so your response is more likely to make them happen. Going to a job interview under a dark cloud because you’re sure you won’t get the job gives the interviewer a sense that you’re pessimistic, negative and withdrawn. Not the kind of person they want to hire, and also not the kind of person that you are!
The simple trick that I’ve developed to help people with worry is this. Most people will ask the worrier, “Why are you worried?” but this is an unhelpful question because it confirms the worrier’s fears. Instead ask, “What do you imagine is going to happen?” The worrier then describes their image, and you ask, “Is that what you want to happen?” The worrier answers, “No!”, and you say, “Well, imagine something else then!”
It’s important to be realistic in all of this. If you imagine winning the lottery, it might encourage you to buy a ticket, but that’s not really an ideal way out of financial difficulties. It’s better to picture yourself taking action, getting results that you’re in control of and feeling good about yourself as someone who can set goals and make them happen.

5. When did you discover NLP? What were you doing/using before?
From when I was at school, I read books on psychology and sociology as I was interested in how people worked. In 1992 I went on an internal training course in the company that I worked for which turned out to be about NLP, and from there I just used the little that I knew in everyday meetings and so on. In 1999 I started running a large practice group in London that attracted some very well-known International trainers and up to 90 people each month, and from there I took a voluntary redundancy opportunity and started my own business. So I think that before I discovered NLP, I was just doing what most people do, learning to get through human interactions by trial and error, mostly error! I started writing about what I’d learned in about 1999, really as a way to help me to organise my own thoughts and capture some of the interesting discoveries I’d made. However, other people seemed to like my books too and it all grew from there. Today, I concentrate more on ‘modelling’ with NLP, which is a process for getting inside the heads of experts and figuring out what they do. It’s the process used to create all of NLP’s techniques, and I use it to model high performers and create custom training programs for corporate clients.

If you want to learn more about NLP and coaching, download Peter Freeth’s book “NLP – Skills for learning” right here.

A marketing experiment

I decided to list my books on ebay, not primarily to sell them via the marketplace as I have done previously, but to experiment with ebay as a marketing channel.

If nothing else, you can get yourself a genuine, brand new paperback book for possibly a ridiculous price.

Genius at Work

The NLP Practitioner Manual

The NLP Master Practitioner Manual

Why not visit the pages and grab yourself a bargain?

NLP v Science

Today, on an online training discussion forum, someone posted a comment about how it would be good to see more of NLP's techniques 'scientifically tested'. But his angle was to give NLP validity,  saying, "I agree with many NLPers that if something is useful and works it does not necessarily have to pass a scientific test. There are many billions of people around the world who are guided by religions which fail most scientific tests but I know that many find it useful in their lives, it works for them."

Well, I see it from two sides.

"If it works then don't question it, just enjoy the results" - that's one way to paraphrase what NLP trainers might say.

"If it works, find out why, so that you can do it again" - that's one way to paraphrase a scientist's view.

In my limited experience, I have found that most NLP trainers buy Bandler's pseudo-science so completely, even though it's based on models of neurology that are decades out of date, that they don't question, or research, or form their own theories.

But I digress. The point I wanted to make is this: It IS important why something works. Because when you can understand why something works, you can refine it and improve it. If you don't question why, you just get better at doing the incantations and rituals which are the things you do WHILE it's working. And even many NLP trainers have said to me that they realise that the incantations of NLP, such as trance or timeline, give the client a reason to believe in the cure, rather than being the cure themselves. They fully realise that the client just decided to change. And Derren Brown's most recent TV performance where he gave people a placebo kind of supported this. His theory was that the placebo allowed the people to give themselves permission to change. Now, 'permission' is a very person-centered philosophy and I'm not sure I agree with the use of that word to explain the placebo effect. My personal view is to use 'excuse' rather than 'permission'. The person had given themselves reasons for why they had to smoke, or be afraid of heights, or be afraid of singing in public. They had built a lifetime of excuses around that assertion, so they can't just change their minds because then that makes them look like a weak, hypocritical liar. So instead, give them a big enough excuse, "Well I used to be terrified of potatoes but I took this new wonder drug that's really special and new and changed my brain chemistry and it cured me. There used to be something wrong with me, honest, but now the drug has cured me".

Faith in a religion, and the strength that your faith gives you to face life's trials is something important and valuable. I'm not a religious person myself, but I sometimes envy people who have that level of true faith. But the mental resilience that a person atributes to their faith is not a good enough reason to say that religion 'works' and we should leave it alone. I have generally found that people with true faith delight in having that faith tested through enquiry and debate. The people whose faith is a show, a pretense, get defensive and aggresive when you defend it. But that's always the case with people who don't truly believe what they say. I admire anyone with the courage of their convictions, whatever their faith or beliefs may be.

Coming back to the question about scientific analysis of NLP, I find that in any 'coaching' interaction, I could say this:

Something in the technique works, and something in it is an excuse.

A scientist tries to find out which is which.

NLP is Dead

Further to my last post, showing the declining Google search activity for NLP, I thought you might like to read the original article that I referred to, so here it is...

NLP is Dead

Or at least, the market is...