NLP is hard to explain, because it is something that needs to be experienced.

I give a different answer every time.  Most answers you give that have detail and a high level of accuracy, will be answered with a blank stare, and misunderstanding. I think it is important to use terms that people can relate to, even if you do run the risk of being a little vague, and using terms that are not so much less accurate though aren’t the official terminology. It is more important for people to have a general idea about what NLP is, than someone having no idea what you are talking about.

Here are elements in your answer you could consider:

1. General explanation using known terms that most people can relate to.

Example:
NLP is a toolbox of techniques and communication tools, taken from 3 among the most succesful and capable American psychologists, years ahead of their time. They had an extraordinary high success rate, were extremely effective and created solutions or improvements much faster than their counterparts.  This makes NLP the psychology of what works, and of advanced interpersonal communication.

I am may throw in “working with unconscious processes of the mind” or “we all have a different subjective experience, this is what NLP works with.” Depends on the person.

If anyone asks about the 3 psychotherapists: Virginia Satir (renowned for her extraordinary skill and success in family therapy), Fritz Perls (father of gestalt therapy), Milton H. Erickson (father of modern day hypnotherapy and renowned psychotherapist.)

2. Where can NLP be applied:

Examples: coaching, therapy, education, business, interpersonal relationships, health, wellness, any areas where excellence and success are required.

3. Explain what NLP is not:

NLP works with processes of the unconscious mind, making it different from traditional (dare I say old fashioned) psychology where it is more about the conscious mind. Many (definitely not all) psychologists take a talk therapy approach, where you talk about your past and your problems. Though this can be cathardic for some people, for many people it takes a long time to feel better, to achieve success and talking about problems makes most people feel bad. For example in traditional talk therapy it takes more than 20 sessions (of mental anguish) to resolve a phobia, while NLP has a much higher success rate with doing so in 10 minutes or less. NLP is about directing the brain “here” instead of “there.”  Where “here” is state of excitement, excellence, motivation, happiness, confidence, self love etc. And “there” are states that are the opposite of those. Instead of talking about problems, you talk about solutions, and use special patterns and techniques to change the way your brain codes subjective experience and information.

When someone asks about coding information in the brain, use as an example a bank robbery with 10 witnesses, each have a different account of what happened.

4. Using metaphors

Example:

The brain is a like big and complicated computer. Our mind is like software installed on that computer. Most of us have software installed of which the programming sometimes cause us to feel insecure, poor learners, incapable, unmotivated, afraid or even phobic. NLP helps you work upgrading this software, to feel confident, capable, motivated and help you achieve any goal strategically.

5. Using examples that people can relate to:

Example:

To someone with a fear of public speaking: for instance there are several NLP techniques, that will resolve your fear of public speaking, and feel confident, motivated and capable instead.

To a business person: NLP helps you set goals, achieve excellence, enhance your skills, adopt skills of people you think are good, become a master communicator, and achieve a high level of understanding of verbal -and non-verbal communication.

To someone with relationship problems: NLP helps you understand how people work, and how people communicate differently. Understanding that will give you a great insight as to how to communicate to your partner. And communicating together in a more effective way, where you can understand each other.

To a teacher: NLP understands what students do inside their head. How do they store information? What strategies do they use to for instance spell really well? And how can you teach a bad speller the same strategy or process a good speller uses? How do you teach and speak to a student in order for them to understand you better, understand and retain information.

Someone who needs change in their life: NLP has a series of techniques that help you set goals, become more motivated, helps you achieve excellence in your new projects, build additional skills. And moves people from the effect side of their life, to being on the cause side of life. Techniques that move people from a state where they feel stuck, to a place where they are unstuck.

5. Mention techniques by name/outcome:

Fast phobia cure, trauma relief pattern, language for negotiation and getting a “”yes”,  discovering root cause problems in someone’s past, technique where someone can learn to step in to feeling of excellence and confidence, technique that help you get rid of habits like nail biting or even smoking, techniques to motivate you to eat better and exercise more. Etc.

6. If you are an NLP Practitioner, let someone experience NLP. Or do a quick demonstration.  Something simple like lettting someone experience  the difference is between association and dissociation.

There is no short answer really. If I have to give one, and I don’t want to get too many questions or dazed looks:

“NLP is a modern highly developed form of psychology. Psychological techniques that are highly effective, fast, and can be learned by anyone. It is the psychology of what works, and of advanced interpersonal communication.”

More resources:

Global NLP Training Website: What is NLP?

NLP in the Press

When someone asks you what is NLP what do you tell them?

What is NLP according to you?

Example: Your client previously felt extreme anxiety when speaking in public. You have been working with your client to feel relaxed and confident the next time he or she goes on stage to give a speech to a large audience. You ask your client to imagine him or herself on stage.

Why future pace?

1. Testing your work. Does the client look calm and relaxed imagining being on stage? Have you completed your change work successfully?  In order to properly test your work, you have to watch verbal, and non-verbal cues such as body language, speed of breathing, lower lip size, skin color changes, tonality of voice etc. You have to be in tune as to how your client looks unresourceful in the old situation of being on stage, versus how the client looks calm and relaxed in the new situation. This means you need to calibrate. A way to do this is asking your client at the beginning of the coaching session to imagine what it currently feels like to be on stage. And then ask your client to think of a situation where he or she felt calm and relaxed. You have then calibrated how your client looks, when having certain emotions. At the end of the coaching session, your client will display what he or she looks like calm and relaxed. If you have done your job well.

2. Embed the change in a future situation. Making sure that your change work not only applies to past and present, it also applies to the future.

3. Mental rehearsal. Future pacing is also a mental rehearsal for the client, to now feel resourceful in the contexts he or she previously felt unresourceful. Practice makes perfect.

Another effective way to use future pace for mental rehearsal is have your client imagine the situation in the future, and mentally practice road blocks that may come up. For instance in the above example, how to answer certain difficult questions, how to respond to applause, how to handle a mistake in the speech etc.

4. Future pacing is a way to give the brain positive images/sounds/feelings, which makes success much more likely (or at the least make the client feel good.)

In addition, emotions are addictive. If you could pick to be addicted to anxious and depressed emotions? Or happy and confident emotion, what would you choose?

5. Future pacing may also bring required elements of preparation to light, additional steps to reach a goal, contingency planning, or other areas that need to be covered.

6A. Future pacing makes it real to the client as to what it feels, sounds, and looks like to reach a certain goal, or feel resourceful in a certain given situation. It is a way to motivate your client. When the client can associate to what it feels like to have something, how can they not want to put in the work required to reach it!

6B. Know when the goal is reached.

7.  Prepare for situations that are hard to prepare for. As it is the clients imagination, you could future pace someone in situations he or she never experienced, yet is for instance expected to perform in the future.  An athlete is to perform in the Olympics in front of millions of viewers world wide, yet has never done so before. Using the above example, you can have the client imagine to speak in front of an audience of 200. This type of mental rehearsal for an event is hard to recreate in real life.

8. Future pacing also works well in sales. If the client can imagine what it feels like to own something, imagine himself sitting in that sports car, the comfort of owning that house….how can he or she not what that?

9. An excellent ecology check. A well trained NLP coach or life coach always checks for ecology before applying change, during and after.

This may seem redundant, however there are many coaches still not monitoring ecology. Future pacing a client in to having unresourceful feelings is something you only do by mistake. Meaning this only happens when you thought you successfully coached someone and did successful change work, yet you didn”t.

There are a meriad of coaching and change work tools available to effectively coach someone in to feeling resourcesful in situations where they previously felt unresourceful.

Future pacing is taught in the better coaching certification programs, and also in the better NLP training. If you are currently researching training programs, this would be a sure way to find out  if your NLP or (life) coach certification program is really teaching you the skills you need to successfully do change work and coach a client.  It is also taught in many self-help and personal development books. Future pacing is one of those key topics that any coach needs to be able to know how to do.

One day a human went to heaven in the way that humans often do.  Upon arrival, the human was greeted by a host of angles and given a tour of all of heaven’s wonders.  Over the course of the tour, the human noticed that there was one room the angels quickly glided past each time they approached.

“What’s in that room?” the human asked.

The angels looked at each other as if they’d been dreading the question.  Finally, one of them stepped toward and said kindly, “We’re not allowed to keep you out, but please believe us-you don’t want to go in there.”

The human’s mind raced at the thought of what might be contained in that room.  What could be so horrible that all the angels of heaven would want to hide it away?  The human knew that one should probably take angels at their word, but found it very hard to resist temptation.  “After all”, the human thought, “I’m only human.”

Slowly walking toward the room, the human was filled with dread and wonder at what horrors might be about to be revealed.  But in fact, the room was filled with the most wonderful things imaginable: a beautiful home; nice things; great wisdom; a happy family; loving friends; and riches beyond measure.

Eyes wide, the human turned back to the angels.  “But why didn’t you want me to come in here?  This room is filled with the most amazing things I’ve ever seen!”

The angels looked at each other sadly, then back at the human.

“These are all the things you were meant to have while you were on earth, but you never believed you could have them.”

In a previous post we discussed the process of developing goals.  All conventional wisdom points to the basic aspects of developing goals as being personal, specific, stated in the positive and with a plan in place to obtain feedback as to your progress toward your goals, and ways of using that feedback to adjust what you are doing to keep you on track toward achieving your goals.  Development of business related goals follow the same guidelines.  Conventional business wisdom calls for a five year plan broken down into one year segments and finally adjusted and revised every quarter.  Goals set and plans worked using these guidelines can result in reliable attainment of basic business and personal goals.

For many years we learned of the method of developing S.M.A.R.T goals.  Goals that are simply stated, measurable and meaningful, achievable, realistic, and timed moving toward what you want.  Although tried and true, there may be some reasons why S.M.A.R.T. goals may not be so smart.  The number one reason people don’t already have what they want is that they have learned not to let themselves want what they don’t think they can have.

In reality, it’s easier to have what you really want than what you think you can get.  In fact, your goals may actually be in the way of your having what you want.  By setting goals based on what you think you can have instead of what you really want, you will often wind up without the inspiration necessary to fuel you journey.  Setting goals that make you say “Wow” fuels the soul and stimulates the mind.  Try the millionaire’s guide to goal setting:

Once or twice a year, sit down with a nice glass of wine, or a really nice dinner.  Take as long as you need to ask yourself, “What do I really want to do with my life.  What would be fun and exciting to make my life about over the next year?”  Take as long as needed to write down a list of ideas that totally inspire you.  Check once or twice a year on your goals and adjust them up or down depending on how things are going.  Remember that the only real purpose of a goal is to inspire you to fall more deeply in love with your life.  Use the “Wow” scale to rate your goals:

0-10:  Kill me now!

10-30: Life’s a bitch and then you die.

30-50: What can I do, I have a family to feed.

50-70: If I can just do this a few more years, I’ll have enough of what I need to be happy.

70-80: Why not?

80-90: This could be fun. I could really see myself doing/being good at this.

90-99: Absolutely as good as I can imagine it.

99-100: WOW!!!!!

A simple formula for life changing results.  Try it for yourself to stretch the impossible to the possible.  Reaching for the ultimate goal will make anything in between far more than it could have been.

A new branding, a new website…..and a new blog.

The old blogs took a permanent vacation, retired, enjoying their well deserved time off. For the next months we will post the highlights out of the old blogs, as well as a series of new articles.

We will also feature articles from former students.