Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming

For what you're talking about, I would design a completely different strategy, because you're going to have to know what you're thinking and feeling in order to talk about it. But I don't think that will produce connectedness with another human being. Because if you do that you're not paying attention to them, you're only paying attention to yourself. I'm not saying that it's bad, I'm just saying that it's not going to make you feel more connected with someone else. You're not going to have more contact with the woman sitting next to you if you're inside making pictures and talking to yourself and having feelings, and then telling her about them. That's not going to put you in contact with her. All that's going to do is tell her conscious mind a lot about what's going on inside you when you're not paying attention to her.

I have an attorney who has a great strategy for solving legal problems. He first has a visual construction in his head of what problem has to be solved. Next, in outline, he goes auditory internal A and checks with a visual eidetic A, auditory internal B and checks with visual eidetic B, and so on, until all of his auditory and visual eidetics add up to that visual construction. Then he knows that he's got that problem solved. It's a super strategy for legal problems, but it's a terrible strategy for personal relationships, and he uses it for that, too. He will make a picture of how he wants to interact with somebody, and then try to find pictures of when he's done it before. He can never do anything new with anyone unless he's already done all the component pieces before. It's just not a terribly good strategy for that task. And while he's using that strategy, he's gone—he isn't there at all!

Recently on TV, a psychologist was instructing people about how to have better communication. In essence, she was saying "Make a picture of the way you want to be, and then behave that way." But there was nothing in it about noticing feedback from other people. She had all these cardboard people standing next to her who were her students, going "Yes! We are very happy and we can communicate. And it is so nice to meet you, yes!" They didn't even know whether they shook hands or not. They had no contact at all, because they were inside making pictures. They all had smiles on their faces, so maybe they were happy, but it's not a very good strategy to communicate.

We once ate lunch with a retired army colonel who decided that he was going to become a communicator. He has two strategies. One is to give commands, and the other is designed to get agreement. Neither strategy has anything to do with gathering information; his entire strategy just simply ends when there is agreement. So no matter what he says, if you say "I agree with you," he can't function anymore. He's the kind of person whom you would never naturally agree with about anything, no matter what he said, because he's got a voice tone that gets you to respond negatively.

When we sat down, everyone went crazy, because they kept saying "Well, I wouldn't put it quite that way," and getting into arguments with him. Finally I stopped them all, and Leslie and I said in unison We agree with you." Whatever he said, we'd say "We agree with you." when we did that, he couldn't generate any behavior! He ceased to function. He would sit there quietly for ten or fifteen minutes, until he would take issue with something that the rest of us were talking about.

We would simply say "We agree with you" and he was gone again. His strategy to decide what he wanted on the menu was to get everyone to have anything off the menu. His strategy was not designed to get food that would please his palate; it was designed to get other people to have the same thing that he had. I guess that's a good strategy for a colonel in the Army. But it's a lousy strategy to get something good in a restaurant, or to pick a restaurant, or to have friends, which is something he didn't have.

Having total sensory experience is a life-long project, and there isn't any limitation to it as far as I know. I now see things, hear things and get information tactually that two years ago would have seemed like ESP to me. That's a statement about my willingness to commit some time and energy to training myself to refine the distinctions I make between internal and external realities, the refinements I can make in every sensory channel, and in every internal representational system.