why something is important to them unless you have good rapport already and are in a situation where they feel safe to explore.
Identity
To gain rapport at the identity level, you need to understand and respect another person’s core beliefs and values, and pay attention to them as an individual, not as a member of a group. You need to be genuinely interested in who they are in themselves, and be willing to share some of your own beliefs and values. Hidden agendas and manipulation prevent rapport at this level.
Beyond Identity
At a social level, this comes from a shared culture. At a spiritual level it comes from realizing that you are part of humanity. This is where you are most yourself and most connected to others.
It is possible to have rapport at some levels but not at others. Generally speaking, the further you go up the neurological levels, the greater the degree of rapport you can achieve. Mismatching at a higher level is liable to break rapport that has been established at a lower level.
Mismatching is a useful skill, however. You can mismatch body language to end a conversation in a natural way. The more rapport you have built up through matching, the more effective this will be. You can end overlong telephone conversations by mismatching voice tone (for example speaking more loudly and quickly) while saying something like ‘Sorry, I have to go now. . .’ The other person gets the message on both the verbal and non-verbal level.
ACTION PLAN
1 Watch people talking in shops and restaurants. Can you tell who is in rapport and who is not?
2 In a telephone conversation, begin by matching the other person’s voice – talk at the same speed with the same volume and the same latency period. Notice the quality of the conversation. When you want to end the conversation, mismatch. Talk more quickly and loudly and change the latency period. Can you close the call without actually saying something like ‘I must go now . . .’?
3 In conversation, be interested in the other person. Imagine they have great knowledge and wisdom. Review the conversation afterwards. Did you have rapport? Did you match their body language without even thinking about it? If you can get a friend to observe the conversation and tell you about it afterwards, that would be even better.
4 See the film Don Juan del Marco on video, even if you have already seen it. There are two main characters – Don Juan, played by Johnny Depp, and the psychiatrist, played by Marlon Brando. Who paces and leads whom?
5 Is there anyone in your life you cannot seem to get on with? If you do want to get on with them, think about which neurological level you are mismatching on. Match at that level. What difference does that make?
 | NLP is based on how we use our senses. We pay attention to the outside world and gather information using our five senses: |
| V | visual | seeing |
| A | auditory | hearing |
| K | kinesthetic | feeling |
| O | olfactory | smelling |
| G | gustatory | tasting |
Joy, pleasure, understanding and keenness of thought, everything that makes life worth living comes through your senses.
| ATTENTION |  |
Attention is directed through the senses. By paying attention on the outside, you enrich your thinking. By paying attention on the inside, you become more sensitive to your own thoughts and feelings, more sure of yourself and better able to give your attention to the outside.
External Attention
There is so much that we could be aware of. Our conscious attention is limited to about seven things, but there is much more that we notice unconsciously. NLP grew by modelling – noticing differences that other people had not noticed before, differences that turned out to be significant. NLP pays attention to eye movements, for example. When you study NLP you become aware of eye movements in a way that you never did before, yet they were always there. What else could be out there in your environment that is significant, but as yet unnoticed?
Some things are missed because people favour one sense. You may notice a lot visually, but not listen so much. After talking to someone, you may remember what they looked like very well, but may not be so clear about what they said or their voice tone. You may listen well, but not be so visually acute. After a conversation you may remember what was said and the nuances of voice tone, but not remember so well what the person looked like or what they were wearing. You may pay attention mostly to feeling. You may remember feelings and emotions and intuitions from a conversation, maybe a sense of empathy, but will not be so clear about the details of what was said or what the other person looked like.
The way to develop yourself is to play to your weaknesses. Set aside certain times when you will deliberately pay attention with your weaker senses. It will be uncomfortable, but you will learn more.
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got. And there is always more.
Internal Attention
What are you aware of in your body?
Often we try to blank out signals that we do not like instead of paying attention to them. When you pay attention, you will be able to understand and appreciate yourself on a deeper level. This is part of pacing yourself – simply being aware of your thoughts, feelings, emotions and states without necessarily trying to change them. The more we become aware of our internal world, the more we will appreciate who we are and come to know ourselves.
Systematic internal awareness is called ‘taking a personal inventory’.
| TAKING A PERSONAL INVENTORY | |
What are you mostly aware of?
What feelings do you have in your body?
Feel the connection between all the parts of the body.
Which parts feel at ease and which parts feel uncomfortable?
Do not try to change anything, just notice, without judging.