to the middle brother and one ninth to me. But how can we divide a herd of 17? We do not want to chop up any camels, they are worth far more alive.’
‘Take me to your house,’ said the sage.
When he entered the house he saw the other two brothers and the man’s widow sitting around the fire arguing. The youngest brother interrupted them and introduced the traveller.
‘Wait,’ said the wise man, ‘I think I can help you. Here, I give you my camel as a gift. Now you have 18 camels. One half goes to the eldest, that’s nine camels. One third goes to the middle son, that’s six camels. And one ninth goes to my friend here, the youngest son. That’s two.’
‘That’s only 17 altogether,’ said the youngest son.
‘Yes. By a happy coincidence, the camel left over is the one I gave to you. If you could possibly give it back to me, I will continue on my journey.’
And he did.
How is NLP like the eighteenth camel? It could be that it is brought into the situation by a wise man, solves the problem quickly and then disappears as if it had never been there.
| THE PILLARS OF NLP |  |
NLP has six basic principles. They are known as ‘the pillars of NLP’.
1 You – your emotional state and level of skill
You are the most important part of any NLP intervention. You make NLP real by what you do. Just as a tool can be used to create beautiful art or rubbish, so NLP can be used well or badly. Your success depends on how resourceful and skilful you are. The more congruent you are, the more successful you will be. Congruence is when your goals, beliefs and values align with your actions and words, when you ‘walk your talk and talk your walk’.
2 The presuppositions – the principles of NLP
The presuppositions of NLP are its guiding principles, those ideas or beliefs that are presupposed, that is, taken for granted and acted upon.
3 Rapport – the quality of relationship
Rapport is the quality of relationship that results in mutual trust and responsiveness. You gain rapport by understanding and respecting the way another person sees the world. It is like speaking their language. Rapport is essential for good communication. If you have rapport, others will feel acknowledged and immediately be more responsive. It is possible to build rapport at many levels, but all involve paying attention to and respecting the other person. Rapport can be built instantly and rapport over time evolves into trust.
4 Outcome – knowing what you want
A basic skill of NLP is being clear about what you want and being able to elicit from others what they want. NLP is based around always thinking of outcomes in every situation, so you are always acting in a purposeful way. An outcome is what you want; a task is what you do to achieve it.
Outcome thinking has basic three elements:
Know your present situation – where you are now.
Know your desired situation – where you want to be.
Plan your strategy – how to get from one to the other, using the resources you have or creating new ones.
5 Feedback – how will you know you are getting what you want?
Once you know what you want, you have to pay attention to what you are getting, so you know what to do next. What are you paying attention to? Is your feedback both precise and accurate? Most of the time this means paying keen attention to your senses – looking at, listening to and feeling what is actually happening. Your senses are the only way you have of getting direct feedback. You have only your senses to ‘make sense’ of the world. The information you get from your senses lets you know whether you are on course for your goal.
6 Flexibility – if what you are doing is not working, then do something else
When you know what you want and you know what you are getting, the more strategies you have to achieve your outcome, the greater your chance of success. The more choices you have – of emotional state, communication style and perspective – the better your results. NLP encourages choice governed by purpose in a relationship of rapport and awareness.
| THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF NLP | |
The 13 presuppositions are the central principles of NLP, its guiding philosophy, its ‘beliefs’. These principles are not claimed to be true or universal. You do not have to believe they are true. They are called ‘presuppositions’ because you pre-suppose them to be true and then act as if they were. Basically, they form a set of ethical principles for life.
1 People respond to their experience, not to reality itself.
We do not know what reality is. Our senses, beliefs and past experience give us a map of the world from which to operate, but a map can never be completely accurate, otherwise it would be the same as the ground it covers. We do not know the territory, so for us, the map is the territory. Some maps are better than others for finding your way around. We navigate life like a ship through a dangerous area of sea; as long as the map shows the main hazards, we will be fine. When maps are faulty, we are in danger of running aground. NLP is the art of changing these maps so we have greater freedom of action.
2 Having a choice is better than not having a choice.
Always try to have a map that gives you the widest number of choices. Always act to increase choice. The more choices you have, the freer you are and the more influence you have.
3 People make the best choice they can at the time.
A person always makes the best choice they can, given their map of the world. The choice may be self-defeating, bizarre or evil, but for them, it seems the best way forward. Give them a better choice and they will take it. Even better, give them a superior map with more choices on it.
4 People work perfectly.
No one is wrong or broken. We are all executing our strategies perfectly, but the strategies may be poorly designed and ineffective. Find out how you and others operate, so a strategy can be changed to something more useful and desirable.
5 All actions have a purpose.
Our actions are not random; we are always trying to achieve something, although we may not be aware of what that is.
6 Every behaviour has a positive intention.
All our actions have at least one purpose – to achieve something that we value and that benefits us. NLP separates the intention behind an action from the action itself. A person is not their behaviour. When a person has a better choice of behaviour that also achieves their positive intention, they will take it.
7 The unconscious mind balances the conscious; it is not malicious.
The unconscious is everything that is not in consciousness at the present moment. It contains all the resources we need to live in balance.
8 The meaning of the communication is not simply what you intend, but also the response you get.
This response may be different from the one you wanted, but there are no failures in communication, only responses and feedback. If you are not getting the result you want, change what you are doing. Take responsibility for the communication.
9 We already have all the resources we need or we can create them.
There are no unresourceful people, only unresourceful states of mind.
10 Mind