If you are reading this blog, you are curious about Human nature. If you are curious about Human nature, there is a book you ABSOLUTELY have to read.  It’s the book I just finished.

Daniel Kahneman is a Professor of psychology. An extraordinary one. A psychologist who won a Nobel Prize in Economic Science.
Together with his long time collaborator Amos Tversky, they conducted research since the 1970’s that have disproved the widely accepted economic model which traditionally assumes that humans are rational and maximise utility.
Their research lead to the development of a new science called ‘Behavioural Economics’ based on the assumption that humans are irrational, and that we tend to be influenced by data that is totally irrelevant to the topic at hand.

For example, in one experiment they asked college students two questions:
“How happy are you with your life in general?” and “How many dates did you have last month?“
When asked in this order they found almost no correlation. However, simply changing the order of the questions influenced the students a great deal: those who had been on a lot of dates rated themselves as much happier than those who had not.

In another experiment in Germany, they found that experienced judges were much more likely to give shoplifters a longer sentence if they had rolled a dice loaded to give a higher number just before making that decision.

‘Thinking, Fast & Slow“‘ is a great way to start the year: after reading the book, you will feel completely comfortable being as irrational as you want, and let’s face it, nothing is more liberating than irrationality.

Another way to understand Human nature and the complex processes behind our decision making is to take one of the NLP courses that we have lined up for you this year. Visit the schedule of all courses to read more about them.

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The NLP section of this blog has been moved to the following webpage.
www.mastermindsnlptutorials.com
Visit the page to read about NLP on the public blog, register for a workshop or a certification training, or enrol in our online NLP course.

To check all publics and training dates and details, click HERE (or copy and paste http://themastermindsgroup.eventbrite.com in your browser)

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One of the most crucial skills for success and happiness is the ability to change our perspective on circumstances, people, situations, behaviours etc…

The technical term for this is “reframing”.

Reframing is about changing the meaning OR the context of a presenting problem or behaviour. It is used ALL THE TIME. In selling, reframing is called handling objections! Reframe yourself to regain motivation, or change perspective on a challenging situation. Reframe clients in coaching. The list is endless.

How Does It Work?

So, how do you reframe, how do you change the meaning or context in sales, in management, education or in coaching in order to change how you or others understand the world around them?

The Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski coined the phrase “The Map is not the territory”, which indicates that all meaning is context dependant. Let me write that again: all meaning is context dependant. If a certain word has a certain meaning, the meaning depends on the context in which it appears.

This is how they make dictionaries! By checking in what context the word appears in all the books in print. All meaning is dependant upon the context in which is appears.

What does this mean? All content is reframable by changing the context, if we change the structure of what we are talking about, we can reframe virtually anything.

By the way, if you are in the business of advising or coaching people, this  is a fundamental truth to keep in mind: what your client tells you (the content) does not matter as much as how they tell you (the structure). Advertisers and marketers have known and utilised this for decades!

In sales, the ability to reframe means making a difference to your turnover. What’s one of the most common objection in sales? “It’s too expensive”. A few years back, l’Oreal created what has become one of the most famous reframes in the world of marketing with the tagline: “Because You’re Worth It”.

Different Types Of Reframes

There are many ways to reframe, but in this article, we’re looking at 2 major reframes: Context and Meaning Reframes.

What do we do when we reframe? We shift our thinking from the level we are at, to a higher logical level; it is like handling a paradox. You are thinking outside of the box the person in front of you is thinking. Your ability to think OUTSIDE OF THE BOX is what is going to make a difference in your results.

Context Reframe

It is best used when someone tells you “I am too …” or “It’s too…” (as in “it’s too expensive”)

You ask yourself “what’s another context for this behaviour where the meaning will be different or the person will respond differently to the same behaviour.”

An example you have probably heard before. “I do not like this food!” “Well, some people do not have anything to eat!”

Another example: “It’s too expensive.” “Expensive? It’s only $2 per day! Less than the price of a cup of coffee!”

You can shift the context by shifting
– location
– time back and forth
– circumstances of the family
– shift to business or relationship
– age
– resources, what skills do you have now
– intention of the behaviour or consequences of the behaviour
etc…

Ask yourself: What is another context for this behaviour that will shift the meaning of this behaviour?

Meaning reframe

Best used when someone tells you “it makes me feel bad”, or “Whenever X happens, I respond Y”

Here, you want to change the content.

Ask yourself: “what else could this behaviour mean?” “What is another frame that will change its meaning?” You change the meaning of the behaviour.

An example: a few years ago, an ad to sell cheap White Tuna went like this “the only Tuna that will not turn pink.”

Another example from one of my coaching clients: “My boss always comes to me when he wants someone to deal with this most difficult customer who is also the most important.” “He must trust you so much!”

Ask yourself: “What else could this behaviour mean?” “What is another frame that will change its meaning?” You change the meaning of the behaviour.

So now what?

OK, so not, are you ready? Just for fun:

1. Make a list of the most common objections you get in your line of work,

2. Ask yourself the 2 questions above and jot down some possible reframes, write as many as come to you, and at least 2.

3. Go ahead and next time you hear the objection, deliver your reframe and see the effect.

Practice and you’ll become a master at reframing!

Want to know more?

Check out the next training HERE (or copy and paste http://www.themastermindsgroup.eventbrite.com in your browser).

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Negotiation is the process of getting into Agreement. Problem-Solving requires what’s commonly called Lateral Thinking. Here are THE two secrets that will make both processes easy and smooth, and that will bring results every time!

It has to do with our ability to think at different logical levels. It’s very simple, and it goes like this:

Let’s imagine that I want to buy a computer (by the way, I’m thinking of buying an iMac, so, it’s a real life example). And let’s imagine that I am asking you for advice about my options.

If you know anything about computers, it is likely that you are going to go into details, look at the different parts and explain about CPUs, types of RAM, and hard disk sizes. And if I ask about the types of RAM, you could go into more details still, and advise me to buy a DDG3 RAM because that will boost the processing speed.

If your tech knowledge is more limited, you may prefer to explain about different categories, whether I should purchase a MAC, or a PC, and if I choose a PC, shall I go for Windows Vista (nooooooooo!!!!!) or wait for Windows 2007 to come out.

In both cases, you’d go into more details about computers. This what we call CHUNKING DOWN. Computer>MAC or PC>Windows Vista or Windows 2007 etc…

The question you want to ask to chunk down is “what (or how) specifically?”, or “what’s another example of this?”

Now, let’s imagine that I am not even sure whether I want to buy a computer, and I ask you whether I should buy one or not. Then, you would probably ask me what is the reason why I am thinking about buying one, for what purpose. I may tell you, “well, because I want to keep in contact with my friends”, but that would not necessarily give you enough information to provide an answer, so you may ask “keep in contact with your friends, yes, and for what purpose?”, and I may tell you “well, to communicate with a large number of people” and so on.

In this case, what you’d be doing is trying to get my higher intention, what is the big picture reason behind my thinking about buying a computer. Once you know the higher purpose, you can advise whether a computer is the best choice for me.

This process is called CHUNKING UP, which means going toward the bigger picture.

So starting from computer, if we chunk down and go into more details, we get to parts (CPU, RAM, hard disk) or categories (PC or MAC) and if we chunk up, we go toward the larger picture (computer>networking>communication) You’ll notice that if we chunk up high enough, we always end up at “existence” or “universe” because in order to communicate, we have to exist right?

The question you want to ask to chunk up is “for what purpose, what’s the intention?”, “what’s this an example of?”

Now, I know you are thinking what does this have to do with the negotiation table? well… EVERYTHING!

Negotiation is the process of getting into Agreement, we said that at the beginning. Well, you know what? if you chunk high enough, it is IMPOSSIBLE not to get into agreement. Differences of opinion only exist at chunking levels where there are enough details to disagree upon. So what you’d do is to chunk up in the discussions, to a level where both parties would have to agree, then chunk back down (go into more details) only as quickly as everyone could keep a background focus on the higher intention.

I’ll give you an example of that. A few years back, I worked with 2 business partners who could not agree on anything! They had opposite opinions on where the business was heading, on business planning, they even did not agree on the colour of the room and the furniture! They decided to seek assistance, because they could see that the business was suffering. So we all sat down, and I asked both of them “what are you in business for, what’s your higher purpose?” Eventually they both got to “making a profit”. So from there, we chunked down while keeping the agreement. And what happened was magic! Once they had realised that they both had the same higher intention, they were much more willing to give up control over the smaller details. Both of them had gone into business together in the first place because they had very complementary skills, and through the process, they naturally allowed the other person to take decisions on whatever was their area of expertise.

You can see from here that this is not only useful in business, but in family mediation, relationships, and all areas where two parties want to reach an agrement.

A word of caution here: for an agreement to happen, there has to be a will to agree in the first place. Some negotiations are doomed from the start because one or both parties have already decided to get out anyway.

OK, so what does this have to do with problem solving? Well… EVERYTHING!

How?

Someone’s ability to problem-solve is proportional to his or her lateral thinking skills. How do you think laterally? Very simple. By chunking up first (asking yourself “what’s this an example of”), then chunking down (what is another example of that?”)

So for example, in our computer story, to chunk laterally from  “computer”, you’d ask yourself “what’s computer an example of?”, and you’d get to say, communication, then “what is another example of communication?”, and you could say “mobile phone”, but also “books” or “musical score” (which are other forms of communication). Then, you can become really creative, and connect things which are seemingly remote from each other. This is when you problem solving ability increases ten-fold!

Want to know more? Watch the video in the next post. There, I give other examples of why and when the chunking process can be useful. I also touch on one of the most powerful form of chunking up that’s used by politicians, public speakers and generally anyone in the business of convincing all over the world, and which is called “nominalisations”.

Liked this article? Leave your comment below, or email me helene@themastermindsgroup.com

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THE NLP TUTORIAL GROUP SITE CLOSED FOR NOW, WE SOMETIMES REOPEN THIS TUTORIAL. SIGN UP TO BECOME THE MASTERMINDS CLUB’S MEMBER NEWSLETTER (it’s fr.ee) TO GET NOTIFIED WHEN WE REOPEN.

To know more about NLP, go to the NLP Tutorial website. It is a member only website (you need to be registered as a student of our certification course to have full access), but the blog is public, so you can read more on NLP there.

NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming. Nowadays, it is widely used in business to improve management, sales and achievement/performance, inter-personal skills; in education to better understand learning styles, develop rapport with students and parents and to aid in motivation; and of course, NLP is a profound set of tools for personal development.

Neuro: The nervous system (the mind), through which our experience is processed via five senses:

Visual
Auditory
Kinesthetic
Olfactory
Gustatory

Linguistic: Language and other nonverbal communication systems through which our neural representations are coded, ordered and given meaning. Includes:

Pictures
Sounds
Feelings
Smells
Tastes
Words (Self Talk)

Programming: The ability to discover and utilize the programs that we run (our communication to ourselves and others) in our neurological systems to achieve our specific and desired outcomes.

In other words, NLP is how to use the language of the mind to consistently achieve our specific and desired outcomes.

So, what’s NLP all about?

It is about understanding and knowing what’s going on inside our mind in order to master our behaviours, our emotional states, and ultimately our results.

Sign up for The MasterMinds Club Members Newsletter to be kept informed.

Speak soon!

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Click below to listen to the Switch-Position exercise.

switch-position-super-power

Is that useful for you? Please leave me a comment below!

Thanks!

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Sometimes, misunderstanding arises when we do not understand other people’s map of the world, or in other words, when we cannot put ourselves in their shoes.

Each person reacts to the other, the situation escalates, emotions intensify, and the chance of reaching a mutually beneficial agreement disappears in a puff of smoke.

Whether you’re preparing for a meeting, dealing with family members, selling, negotiating, coaching, or giving a presentation, the ability to put yourselves in other people’s shoes massively increases the likelihood of success.

When you are able to adopt a different point of view easily, you gain in your ability to detach from the immediate situation, and to keep your cool in challenging circumstances.

In a word.. you don’t go bananas!

Sounds good to me!

But not only that…

Your ability to look at things from a number of different perspective makes you more flexible, more adaptable, more able to see everything from a higher point of view, and therefore more likely to keep on the right track rather than get swallowed up in non-essential issues.

In a word, you make better choices and decisions.

Sounds really good to me!

The Background for the exercise

The idea is to adopt 3 different perspectives
1. Your own perspective (seeing through your own eyes, in NLP terms, it is called “Association”)
2. Another person’s perspective on the same situation (seeing through THEIR eyes)
3. The Fly on the Wall perspective (a totally detached, 3rd party perspective).

Now it’s important you actually DO IT! Understanding intellectually and experiencing and 2 VERY DIFFERENT THINGS! When you experience, you fix things at the unconscious level, and it is easy to get back into state.

The exercise

OK, so here’s how you do it. I’ll detail the process step by step below, read through it, and then go ahead!

So the first thing I’d like you to do is to recall an argument that you had with someone recently. Not necessarily a major argument, but chose something important enough that you can feel something when you recall the event.

Got that? Good!

OK, ready to go? Sit comfortably and close your eyes now.

1. See what happened through your own eyes, see the other person’s face, his/her facial expressions, what he/she looks like, how he/she moves, the gestures.

Hear the other person’s voice, the tone, the pitch, is it loud, is it soft?

And feel what you were feeling at that time.

Now, I’d like you to float up outside your body, and float down into the other person’s body. And when you do that

2. You see everything that person saw: he/she can see your face in front of him/her, so see your face right now, the facial expressions, the gestures, the body language.

And hear your voice as you are speaking to that person, the tone, the pitch, the volume.

Feel what that person is feeling at that time.

And now, float outside that person’s body, and go and adopt the 3rd party perspective, be the fly on the wall.

3. And see these 2 people there, see their gestures, their body language, their faces, the facial expressions.

Hear the voices, how they speak to each other, the volume of the voices, the different tones, the pitch.

Notice any feeling, or are they not there?

And now come back into your body and open your eyes.

Debrief

How was it, did you notice anything different as you were adopting different perceptual positions? How about your feelings?

What have you learned? What are your conclusions on that matter?

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Compelling New Year Resolutions that LAST!

Have you made your list of new year resolutions yet? Does motivation usually somehow seem to dwindle as the year goes by?

HOW DO I KEEP THE MOTIVATION GOING?

I am really excited when I start things, then I just lose interest…

Motivation has been at the heart of human behaviour for ever! Going our hunting in the snow 10,000 years ago, starting the revision for a test next week, finishing that oh so important company project, or finding inspiration in front of that blank page.

You know what I am talking about! But have you ever noticed: WHAT motivates you? Like donkeys, Humans have 2 basic types of motivation: the carrot and the stick! In NLP terms, we talk about “TOWARD” and “AWAY FROM”.

Can you think of a time in the past when you had to do something you did not feel like doing? Good! (if you never had that problem ever, are you sure you are human?) Now, at that time, what moved you into action? The carrot/the reward (TOWARD), or the stick (“if I do not finish this, I am fired”!) (AWAY FROM)? Can you think of another one? And another one? Based on your usual pattern, are you more motivated by reward, or by wanting to get away from what causes more pain?

A few years ago, a journalist did a parallel between Bill Gates and Donald Trump, based on her research about the 2 men. Donald Trump, who has been bankrupted several times, turned out to be motivated to make money by his fear of not having enough (AWAY FROM), whereas Bill Gates was moving forward toward exciting goals that he had fixed for himself (TOWARD).

Basically, when you are motivated by AWAY FROMs, you move forward looking back on what you do NOT want. The problem with that is simple: your motivation diminishes as the distance you put between you and what scares you increases! Once you moved far enough away from where you do not want to be, it is gone completely.

Imagine someone you REALLY, really hate, and put the picture of that person right in front of your eyes, 2 inches away from your face! How do you feel? Probably not too good. Now push it to the other side of the room, then further back to outside the building, then further away to the sky, and still further to the moon, and shrink it soooooo much that it is a little black dot. Now how do you feel? Probably pretty neutral about it. It is the same thing with motivation. The further away the source of your motivation is, the less compelling it is.

Now, imagine someone who moves TOWARD. Moving forward toward their goal actually brings the source of their motivation closer to them! So the more motivated they are, well.. the more motivated they get!

That’s all very nice, but HOW DO I DO THAT?

Step 1: Define a GOAL! Most people know what they do not want, but are not clear about they WANT.
Your goal needs to be specific, for yourself (i.e. do not set goals that depend on others doing something), timed (you need a DATE! When I say a date, it means something like 31st of December 2009, not “the end of the year”), measurable (if it involves money, you need an amount, as opposed to “make more money”) and As If Now (i.e. in the present tense, “I am making $xxxxxx per month/year). OK, now you are CLEAR about WHAT YOU WANT. (By the way, this works best when you select a goal for ONE domain in your life: career/business, personal relationships, health, self development for example; You can go through the process several times.)

Step 2: TAKE ACTION! This is the MOST important step, and it is usually the “skipped step” (try saying that 10 times quickly). The most beautiful dreams will remain just that, dreams! if you do not take action to manifest them.
2 Questions to ask yourself:
1. What is the last thing that needs to happen for me to know that I have my goal? (if your goal has to do with re-training and getting new practical skills to increase your effectiveness for example, the last thing that needs to happen could be booking your space on a course, or decide to take a course, or step into the training room, YOU decide what works for you).
2. What is the first step I need to take toward getting my goal? (in the example above, it could be make a list of what you are good at, or do an internet research on possible courses)

Step 3: You are clear about where you are going, have started taking steps toward your goal, now you need to STAY FOCUSED on your goal until you have got it 100%! Now, don’t tell anyone, but the secret about that is in the title of this article! Got it? Yes! The more compelling the goal, the most likely you stay focused on it.

Contact us to enrol in the “Compelling New Year resolutions That Last” and NLP Coach Certification training courses.

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What are reframes? The process of reframing is shedding a new, positive light on a behaviour or pattern that is understood as negative.

For example, to a father who was complaining to him about his headstrong daughter, Erickson said that this was a quality which will be extremely useful when she grows up and can fend for herself.

How can you reframe how you consider some of your own behaviours?

Want to know more about the art of reframing? Contact us!

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