Posted by: nlpboot on: May 23, 2010
If you’re interested in NLP you have no doubt heard of the 4-stage learning model – you know, the one that says learning goes in 4 stages:
At a Boot session in the far distant past, Edward showed us his own cyclic version of this model, which can also be run backwards, eg. from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence. When you think about it, NLP is full of examples where we can bypass the model and run straight to unconscious competence, then de-construct the result to tinker with it (conscious competence) only to discover certain weaknesses (conscious incompetence).
For instance, take state elicitation. Let’s say you want to boost your rapport-building skills. In my experience, rapport is usually discussed in terms of observable behaviour, such as matching and mirroring. Just like we can train our behaviour to match and mirror, we can also go a little deeper and train the intentions that guide our behaviour, and one way to do this is state elicitation.
Rapport is something we all do, sometimes very competently. Can you think of a memory of intense rapport? I mean the kind of moment when you felt everyone involved (including you) was delighted to be present and participating. What did it feel like? Where did you feel it in your body? Can you associate a colour with the feeling? Can you make it stronger so it permeates all your cells and spills out into the space around you? Can you give it a name? Is there a gesture that will help you call up the feeling?
Once you’ve practiced anchoring the feeling with the colour, gesture and the name, you can start using it to target random people and see what happens. Take that colour/feeling/name synthesis and reach across the room with it to touch a person. Let it infuse the inside of that person with the same delightful feeling.
Regardless of whether or not you can psychically infuse someone with your good energy, here is what will happen. You have generated a congruent state in which your whole neurology is favorably predisposed to connect with the other person, and it will show. The unconscious signals you will be giving off – exuding, dripping with – will be apparent the moment that person’s eyes come anywhere near your air space. Do you think this might increase the chances of a positive reaction from them?
Even if you cannot maintain this state for very long – it takes a lot of energy – the residual thought patterns will linger and, for a while, be anchored to that person, or even that place or situation. You have trained your intentions which are training your responses. Now you can relax and let the mirroring, matching, attentive body language and welcoming facial expressions come out naturally, in tune with the moment-by-moment. You can notice what contributes to the atmosphere of rapport. You can even notice what is destructive to rapport. This is Edward’s backwards cycle!
And…you now have a well-anchored synesthesia that can help you evoke rapport-building behaviour in those times when you don’t feel like it, which may be when you need it most.
Let’s back up a little more. Once you have trained your intentions to cloak yourself with rapport magnetism … or invisibility … or invincibility, now what? You might not want to spend all your public time projecting neurological states. You can just relax and let your deeper intentions guide you about when to call up one of your super powers. Life starts to get more interesting.
For more ideas and practice, come to the next NLP Boot tomorrow night (May 24) at 7 pm. Email me for the location.
