Chapter 1

Getting to Know NLP

In This Chapter

Setting out on an NLP journey

Exploring the key themes of NLP

Getting the most out of NLP

Here's a little Sufi tale about a man and a tiger.

A man being followed by a hungry tiger, turned in desperation to face it and cried: 'Why don't you leave me alone?' The tiger answered: 'Why don't you stop being so appetising?'

In any communication between two people, or in this case between human and beast, more than one perspective always exists. Sometimes people just can't grasp that fact because they don't know they need to change their behaviour to communicate in a way that gets them what they want.

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is one of the most sophisticated and effective methodologies currently available to help you communicate effectively. NLP centres on communication and change. These days everybody needs the skills to develop personal flexibility. Tricks and gimmicks aren't enough: everyone needs to get real.

So welcome to the start of the journey, as this chapter gives you a quick taster of the key NLP themes.

Introducing NLP

All able-bodied humans are born with the same basic neurological system.

Your neurological system transmits the information you receive from your environment through your senses to your brain. Your environment, in this context, is everything external to you, but also includes your organs, such as your eyes, ears, skin, stomach and lungs. Your brain processes the information and transmits messages back to your organs. In response, your eyes, for example, may blink. The information can also create emotions, and you may cry or laugh. In short, your thought processes make you behave in a certain way.

Your ability to do anything in life - whether swimming the length of a pool, cooking a meal or reading this book - depends on how you respond to the stimuli on your nervous system. Therefore, much of NLP is devoted to discovering how to think and communicate more effectively within yourself and with others.

The term neuro-linguistic programming breaks down as follows:

• Neuro concerns your neurological system. NLP is based on the idea that you experience the world through your senses and translate sensory information into thought processes, both conscious and unconscious. Thought processes activate the neurological system, which affects your physiology, emotions and behaviour.

• Linguistic refers to the way you use language to make sense of the world, capture and conceptualise experience and communicate that experience to others. In NLP, linguistics is the study of how the words you speak and your body language influence your experience.
• Programming draws heavily from learning theory and addresses how you code or mentally represent your experiences. Your personal programming consists of your internal processes and strategies (thinking patterns) that you use to make decisions, solve problems, learn, evaluate and get results. NLP shows you how to recode your experiences and organise your internal programming so that you can get the outcomes you want.

To see this process in action, begin to notice how you think. Imagine a hot summer's day. You're standing in your kitchen holding a lemon you've taken from the fridge. Look at the outside of it, its yellow, waxy skin with green marks at the ends. Feel how cold it is in your hand. Raise it to your nose and smell it. Mmmm. Press it gently and notice the weight of the lemon in the palm of your hand. Now take a knife and cut it in half. Hear the juices start to run and notice that the smell is stronger now. Bite deeply into the lemon and allow the juice to swirl around in your mouth.

Words have the power to trigger your saliva glands. Hear the word 'lemon' and your brain kicks into action. The word tells your brain that you have a lemon in your hand. You may think that words only describe meanings, but in fact they create your reality - a concept we explore throughout this book.

Providing a few quick definitions

NLP can be described in various ways. The formal definition is that NLP is 'the study of the structure of your subjective experience'. Here are a few more ways of answering the elusive question 'what is NLP?':

• The art and science of communication
• The key to learning
• The way to understand what makes you and other people tick
• The route to getting the results you want in all areas of your life
• The way to influence others with integrity
• The manual for your brain
• The secret of successful people
• The method of creating your own future
• The way to help people make sense of their reality
• The toolkit for personal and organisational change

Considering where NLP started and where it's going

NLP began in California in the early 1970s at the University of Santa Cruz. Richard Bandler, a master's level student of information sciences and mathematics, and Dr John Grinder, a professor of linguistics, studied people who they considered to be excellent communicators and brilliant at helping their clients change. They were fascinated by how some people defied the odds to get through to so-called difficult or very ill people where others failed miserably to connect.

NLP thus has its roots in a therapeutic setting thanks to three world-renowned psychotherapists studied by Bandler and Grinder: Virginia Satir (developer of Conjoint Family Therapy), Fritz Perls (the founder of gestalt psychology) and Milton H. Erickson (largely responsible for the advancement of clinical hypnotherapy). In their work, Bandler and Grinder also drew upon the skills of linguists Alfred Korzybski and Noam Chomsky, social anthropologist Gregory Bateson and psychotherapist Paul Watzlawick.

From those early days, the field of NLP exploded to encompass many disciplines in many countries around the world. We can't possibly name all the great teachers and practitioners in NLP today but you can certainly find a wealth of information online.

In the 1980s, Grinder became dissatisfied with some early coding work done in collaboration with Bandler, which he now refers to as Classic Code. Together with Judith DeLozier, he initiated some new models known as New Code (documented in his book Whispering in the Wind) and he continues this work today with Carmen Bostic St. Clair.

So what's next for NLP? The discipline has certainly travelled a long way from Santa Cruz in the 1970s, and since we wrote the first edition of this book the interest in NLP shows no sign of waning. So many more pioneers have picked up the story and taken it forward - making it practical and helping to transform the lives of real people. New neuroscientific knowledge offers some scientific explanation for many ideas that NLP practitioners have developed more intuitively. In particular, the world of coaching is heavily influenced by NLP. Today, NLP applications are being used by doctors, nurses, taxi drivers, salespeople, coaches, accountants, teachers, animal trainers, parents, workers, retired people and teenagers alike. In Chapter 21, we list just a few such practical applications.

Each generation takes current ideas, sifts through and refines them, adds knowledge discovered through its own experiences and communicates it in its own way. Information about NLP is now distributed via LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and so on - means of communication that didn't exist ten years ago.

Much of the development of NLP today focuses on the applications rather than the core models; people who are experts in one field incorporate NLP tools and take them into their own field. If NLP encourages new thinking and new choices and acknowledges the positive intention underlying all action, all we can say is the future remains bright with possibilities. The rest is up to you.

Offering a note on integrity

You may hear the words integrity and manipulation associated with NLP, and so we want to put the record straight now. You influence others all the time. When you do so consciously to get what you want, the question of integrity arises. Are you manipulating others to get what you want at their expense?

To make sure you behave with integrity, ask yourself a simple question: what is my positive intention for the other person in this interaction? If your intention is to benefit the other party (perhaps in a sales situation), you have integrity - a win-win situation. If your intention is to benefit yourself alone, you're manipulating the other person. When you head for win-win outcomes in your dealings with other people and organisations, you're on track for success. And always bear in mind that what goes around comes around!

Encountering the Pillars of NLP: Straight Up and Straightforward

Neuro-linguistic programming is based on four pillars (check out Figure 1-1). These four foundations of the subject can be described as follows:

• Rapport: How to build a relationship with yourself and others is probably the most important gift that NLP gives you. Given the pace at which most humans live and work, one big lesson in rapport is how you can say 'no'...