by Joseph O'Connor
Posted by: DailyOM
Some people appear more gifted than others. NLP, one of the fastest growing developments in applied psychology, describes in simple terms what they do differently, and enables you to learn these patterns of excellence.
This book offers the practical skills used by outstanding communicators. Excellent communication is the basis of creating excellent results. NLP skills are proving invaluable for personal development and professional excellence in counseling, education and business.
Introducing NLP includes:
- How to create rapport with others
- Influencing skills
- Understanding and using body language
- How to think about and achieve the results you want
- The art of asking key questions
- Effective meetings, negotiations, and selling
- Accelerated learning strategies
This book is an introduction and guide to the field known as Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. NLP is the art and science of excellence, derived from studying how top people in different fields obtain their outstanding results. These communication skills can be learned by anyone to improve their effectiveness both personally and professionally.
This book describes many of the models of excellence that NLP has built in the fields of communication, business, education, and therapy. The approach is practical, it gets results, and it is increasingly influential in many disciplines all over the world.
NLP is a model of how individuals structure their unique experiences of life. It is only one way to think about and organize the fantastic and beautiful complexity of human thought and communication.
NLP represents an attitude of mind and a way of being in the world that cannot adequately be passed on in a book, although some sense of it will come from reading between the lines. The enjoyment of a wonderful piece of music comes from listening to it, not from reading the score.
NLP is practical. It is a set of models, skills, and techniques for thinking and acting effectively in the world. The purpose of NLP is to be useful, to increase choice, and to enhance the quality of life. The most important questions to ask about what you find in the book are, "Is it useful? Does it work?" Find out what is useful and what works by trying it out. More important, find out where it does not work and then change it until it does. That is the spirit of NLP.
Our aim in writing this books is to satisfy a need that we perceived in talking to the growing number of people who are becoming interested in NLP. We set out to write a book that would provide an overview of the field. It would share our excitement at the insights into how many people think and the changes that are possible. It would cover many of the most useful skills, patterns, and techniques in a way that makes them readily available for use as tools for change in a changing world. After a first reading, it would continue to be useful as a reference book. It would give practical guidance in buying other NLP books to follow up particular interests and applications. And it would offer guidance in choosing NLP training courses.
We particularly want to encourage you to explor further in the field of NLP, and to use these powerful ideas with integrity and respect for yourself and others, to create more choice and happiness in your personal and professional life, and in the lives of others.
NLP is best experienced live. Read the menu, and if you like what you read, enjoy the meal.
A photograph never was the person.
A stepping stone is not the journey.
A musical score is not the sound.
There is no magic, only magicians and people's perceptions.
Chapter 1 - Maps and Filters
Whatever the outside world is really like, we use our senses to explore and map it. The world is an infinity of possible sense impressions and we are able to perceive only a very small part of it. That part we can perceive is further filtered by our unique experiences, culture, language, beliefs, values, interests, and assumptions. Everyone lives in their unique reality built from their sense impressions and individual experiences of life, and we act on the basis of what we perceive our model of the world.
The world is so vast and rich that we have to simplify to give it meaning. Map making is a good analogy for what we do; it is how we make meaning of the world. Maps are selective, they leave out as well as give information, and they are invaluable for exploring the territory. The sort of map you make depends on what you notice, and where you want to go.
The map is not the territory it describes. We attend to those aspects of the world that interest us and ignore others. The world is always richer than the ideas we have about it. The filters we put on our perceptions determine what sort of world we live in. An artist, a lumberjack and a botanist taking a stroll through a wood will have very different experiences and notice very different things. If you go through the world looking for excellence, you will find excellence. If you go through the world looking for problems you will find problems. Or as the Arabic saying puts it, "What a piece of bread looks like depends on whether you are hungry or not."
Very narrow beliefs, interests and perceptions will make the world impoverished, predictable, and dull. The very same world can be rich and exciting. The difference lies not in the world, but in the filters through which we perceive it.
We have many natural, useful, and necessary filters. Language is a filter. It is a map of our thoughts and experiences, removed a further level from the real world. Think for a moment what the word "beauty" means to you. No doubt you have memories and experiences, internal pictures, sounds, and feelings that let you make sense of that word. Equally, someone else will have different memories and experiences and will think about that word in a different way. Who is right? Both of you, each within your own reality. The word is not the experience it describes, yet people will fight and sometimes even die believing the map is the territory.
Our beliefs also act as filters, causing us to act in certain ways and to notice some things at the expense of others. NLP offers one way of thinking about ourselves and the world; it is itself a filter. To use NLP you do not have to change any of your beliefs or values, but simply be curious and prepared to experiment. All generalizations about people are lies to somebody, because everyone is unique. So NLP does not claim to be objectively true. It is a model, and models are meant to be useful. There are some basic ideas in NLP that are very useful. We invite you to behave as if they are true and notice the difference that makes. By changing your filters, you can change your world.
Published by Red Wheel Weiser
Book Excerpt, Self Improvement, Philosophy