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  CONTENTS

  Foreword: Trial by Fire: My Personal Introduction to NLP

  Authors’ Note and Appreciation

  Introduction: What You’ll Get Out of This Book

  What Is NLP?

  Two Important NLP Principles of Human Nature

  What Is an NLP “Power User”?

  Section 1: It’s All About You

  Chapter 1: Understanding How You Think

  What’s going on in there?

  A Taste of NLP: A Firsthand Experience

  Discovery Activity: Accessing Personal Resources

  You First: Understanding How You Work

  “Ouch” or “Yahoo”: How We Create Our Feelings

  Autopilot: The Mind’s Three Favorite Options

  A Well-Oiled Machine: Body, Brain, and Mind

  Different Planets: The Worlds Inside Our Minds

  Discovery Activity: Discovering Your Inner World

  Not Just Basic Cable: “Representational Modalities”

  Mental Sticky Notes: The Power of “Anchors”

  Discovery Activity: Creating a Personal Anchor

  Anchors at Work: Intentional and Unintentional Anchors

  So What? How You Can Use This Information

  An Easy Ride: How This Book Is Structured

  Chapter 2: Managing Your Mind

  Who’s driving the bus?

  Where Do You Want to Go? Outcome Frames

  Discovery Activity: Creating a Well-Formed Outcome

  Being of Two Minds: Congruence/Incongruence

  Discovery Activity: Recognizing Incongruence

  Are You In or Out? Being Associated or Disassociated

  Subtle Distinctions That Matter: Sub-Modalities

  Discovery Activity: Tinkering with Visual Distinctions

  What’s Your Day Going to Be Like? Sub-Modalities and Your Emotional State

  The Way You Do the Things You Do: Understanding Motivation

  Discovery Activity: Exploring Roots of Procrastination

  That Damn Report: An Example of Procrastination

  Two for the Road: Tips for Uncovering the Roots of Procrastination

  Discovery Activity: Reducing Internal Resistance

  Been Down Too Long? The Power of Inner Voices and the “Auditory Swish”

  Discovery Activity: Removing Negative Auditory Cues

  Emotions as Passengers, Not Drivers: Choosing and Changing Your State

  Depression: Auditory Cues That Hold the Story

  Shaping Your Experience: The Habit of Fine-Tuning Sub-Modalities

  Chapter 3: Living in “The Zone”

  Whoa, is my brake on?

  High or Low? How Expectations Impact Performance

  Discovery Activity: Exploring Your Expectations

  In the Mind’s Eye: The Power of Mental Rehearsal

  In Sync: The Link Between Physiology and Energy

  Roadblock Removal: “Eye Movement Integration”

  Discovery Activity: Decreasing Resistance or Trauma

  Not Just Pollyanna: How Energy, Enthusiasm, and Optimism Act as Drivers

  Discovery Activity: Understanding Your Motivation

  Discovery Activity: Amping Up Your Confidence

  Mission Critical: Motivation Tips from Navy SEALs Training

  Messing with Hecklers: How to Silence Critical Inner Voices

  More Than Maintenance: How to Increase Energy and Productivity

  Discovery Activity: Strengthening Your Anchor

  Chapter 4: Upgrading Your Self-Concept

  How’d things get this way?

  Life Vest First: How to Prevent and Reduce Stress

  A Look in the Mirror: Who You Are Today and How You Got to Be This Way

  Clues to Beliefs: The Deep Structure of Language and the Meta Model

  Like That: How Our Language and Behavior Reveal Individual Preferences (Meta-Programs and Predicates)

  Today’s You and the Desired You: The Impact of Self-Concept

  Discovery Activity: Identifying Something You Like About Yourself

  Discovery Activity: Adding Elements to Your Self-Concept

  The Archaeological Dig: An Example of Self-Concept Work

  Ripple Effects: How One Change Often Creates More Change

  Section 2: It’s All About Relationship

  Chapter 5: Making Comfortable Connections

  How come we don’t connect?

  Internal Systems: How You Work Is Similar to How Others Work

  Inside Out: How to Adjust Your Inner World to Be Better Company

  Discovery Activity: Identifying Ways That You’re Good Company

  Friction on the Line? How the Three Parts of Your Brain Work Together

  Instant Processing: What Your Filters Process First

  Discovery Activity: Identifying Ways Other People Are Good Company

  An Inside Job: How to Help Other People Feel Safe

  Not Just Imitation: How Mirroring and Matching Help You Make Connections

  A Focus on Them, Not You: How to Create a Sense of Being Felt

  More Choice Is Better: How Being Versatile Helps You Connect

  The Bird’s-Eye View: A High-Level Summary

  Chapter 6: More Than “Mind Reading” Other People

  What’s going on inside them for that to be true?

  A $500,000 Example: Communication in All Three Channels

  Powerful Telegraphing: What Your Nonverbals Communicate

  Traffic Signals: How Other People’s Nonverbals Provide Direction

  Discovery Activity: Recalling Nonverbals of a Positive Experience

  Discovery Activity: Identifying Nonverbals from an Uncomfortable Situation

  Galaxies Away: Why It’s Important to Step into Another’s World

  The Grand Canyon: How Missing Details Create Gaps in Understanding

  Zooming In and Out: Tips to Understanding Someone Else’s World

  Detective Mode: How Questions Fill in Gaps and Facilitate Understanding

  Different Journeys: How Beliefs Distinguish Our Inner Worlds

  Discovery Activity: Identifying Your Beliefs

  Discovery Activity: Exploring a Personal Belief

  Wants and Needs: How Exploring Beliefs Uncovers Motivations and Meta-Outcomes

  Beyond Belief: How Language Reveals Other Personal Preferences

  A New Approach: How to Apply Your Understanding of Nonverbal Behavior, Beliefs, and Personal Preferences to Interactions with Others

  Discovery Activity: Exploring Someone’s Inner World

  Chapter 7: Making Your Point Easily

  How can I help people understand what I mean?

  Chronicle: High Points of the Journey So Far

  Physical Connection: How Touch Enhances Connections and Impact

  Oxygen Mask First: How Managing Your Inner State Keeps the Focus on Others

  Rules of the Road: Quick Tips to Navigate Uncharted Territory

  The Local Language: How to Communicate According to Someone Else’s Preferences

  Discovery Activity: Using Predicates of Preferred Channels

  A New View: How the Process of Reframing Expands Possibilities

  Super-Glue Removal: How to Loosen and “Unstick” Beliefs

  It’s Kind of Like That: How Metaphors and Stories Support Shifts

  A Book and Its Cover: How Appearance and Environment Are Clues to Other Worlds

  Toxic Relationships: How Difficult People Tax Your Personal Resources

  Connecting the Dots: Linking Key Concepts and Skills to Opportunities

  Discovery Activity: Applying Your Discoveries About Someone Else’s World

  Chapter 8: Creatively Collaborating and Resolving Conflicts

  How do we get from here to there?

  An Embarrassing Example

  Movin
g in the Same Direction: Effective Collaboration Using the Well-Formed Outcome Model

  Creativity: How Imagination Expands Possibilities

  Expert Advice: The Disney Creativity Strategy

  Innovation: How to Use the Disney Strategy with Groups

  Discovery Activity: Applying the Disney Strategy to One of Your Opportunities

  Up Against the Wall: How the “Conflict Integration Process” Supports Creative Problem Solving

  Discovery Activity: Identifying One of Your Conflicts

  Internal Battles: How to Apply the “Conflict Integration Process” to Inner Conflicts

  Discovery Activity: Applying the “Conflict Integration Process” to One of Your Opportunities

  Discovery Activity: Examining Ways You Get Stuck or Make Things Harder

  Different Strategies? What “Conflict Integration” and Negotiation Have in Common

  Powerful Emotions: How to Facilitate Discussions with People Who Are Upset

  The Unexpected Strategy: An Approach to Consider When You’re Upset

  Chapter 9: Maintaining Your Momentum with NLP

  What’s next?

  Journey Highlights: What You Learned

  Next Steps: Options for Additional Development

  21-Day Guide: The Next Steps to Creating the Person You Want to Be

  Afterword: A Lasting Legacy

  Common NLP Terms

  References

  Acknowledgments

  Index

  About the Authors

  Back Ad

  Praise

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  TRIAL BY FIRE: MY PERSONAL INTRODUCTION TO NLP

  Tracy Hoobyar

  NLP has been a part of my life since the mid-1990s. My father began studying NLP to learn more about himself and those around him. Because my dad was the son of a preacher, anything he learned, we all learned!

  As time went on and I listened to Dad tell me what he had learned, it all sounded interesting, but, after all, it was Dad’s thing. I was busy with a toddler and didn’t have time to worry too much about it.

  In early 2002, things changed drastically for me. My then eleven-year-old daughter was hospitalized at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, at Stanford University, for anorexia. Her heart had been affected and was weak, her bones were brittle, and we were given a very bleak prognosis. After three weeks and more than sixty thousand dollars’ worth of care, they wanted to admit her to a residential psychiatric hospital out of state. We would get to visit her occasionally. We were told there were no other options—she wouldn’t survive if we didn’t follow their suggestions.

  Against medical advice, we decided to check her out of the hospital. As you might imagine, the primary doctor was not impressed. He invited my entire family to find other care in the future, and wished us well. Outpatient services were unsatisfactory. Counseling was not productive. It really began to look like this was going to be as bad as they told us.

  Unwilling to accept that, I talked to Dad about changing her prognosis. After a lot of hours, Dad and I devised a plan to help my daughter—to defy all the rules and statistics—and help her get better. Our plan? Use everything he knew from NLP, everything I knew about psychology, and work with her to help her recover. While we used a combination of techniques, the most effective, and the quickest, tools came from the NLP world.

  We worked with my daughter to understand, and accept, the part of her that was struggling for control by restricting her food intake. With her, we explored what she was thinking and feeling. We “played” with different techniques until we found what worked.

  We went to her doctor three times a week at first, then twice, and then only once a week. He monitored my daughter for the typical challenges anorexic kids encounter upon release from the hospital. He checked her vitals and urine tests, and evaluated her for improvement.

  She was never hospitalized again, gained weight steadily, and worked through her “demons” with the support of NLP and those who loved her. The doctors thought we were crazy when my daughter would talk about how she pictured anorexia, how she was able to make changes in her relationship with this disease and with food by playing with the size and color of the picture—and other things that sounded equally odd to those trained traditionally.

  It was not an easy road back, but it was well worth traveling.

  Today, my daughter has spent more than ten years in recovery. I’m convinced that without NLP, we would have lost her. With my newfound belief in the power of NLP, Dad and I worked harder than ever at real-world, practical applications. We found ways to help kids dealing with abusive histories, elderly people dealing with chronic pain, and businesspeople dealing with day-to-day issues.

  Our dream was always to put together a program to help real people deal with real problems. Dad had such an amazing way of presenting information. He would use stories to help people understand what he wanted them to learn. His genuine compassion for others, and desire to help them live better lives, guided his actions and writings.

  What you hold in this book is the realization of the dream we shared. He spent countless hours in trainings, reading books, working with the experts, testing theories, and applying techniques to everyday challenges. He researched NLP and its applications in more detail than most people could ever imagine.

  The amazing thing is that you’re going to benefit from all of that. He literally helped hundreds of people overcome their challenges; here, he shares the tools he used to do that. Whether the struggle you’re concerned with is a fear of public speaking, dealing with the hurdles of major life changes, living with chronic pain, or some other issue, Dad has used NLP to positively impact something like it—and he is going to show you how to do the same.

  This book will show you how to use NLP to become the person you want to be. You will learn the skills and tools to reduce stress, manage your thoughts and feelings, improve your communications with anyone in your life, and live the life you want to live.

  You will hear stories that will enlighten you about your own stories. You may even discover something you didn’t know about yourself. I know I did. Here’s what I can tell you. NLP offers many powerful tools to change your life—tools that can also change the lives of those around you, if they’re open to that.

  This book takes years of information and presents it all in a friendly, simple-to-read format that is easy to understand, learn from, and implement. Every once in a while, you find a book that really speaks to you, that is just the right “teacher” at the just the right time. I think author and speaker Garrison Keillor said it best: “A book is a gift you can open again and again.” I’m very happy and proud to share this special gift from my father with you.

  AUTHORS’ NOTE AND APPRECIATION

  Tom Hoobyar was an avid learner and adventurous explorer who embraced life’s mysteries and questions. He was the originator of six patents and the majority of his forty-five years in business exposed him to diverse issues in small businesses, Fortune 500 firms, as well as twelve start-ups that grew to be number one in their industries.

  While he was CEO of a Silicon Valley manufacturing company, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) became a vital tool that enhanced his leadership skills and his company’s success. He later used NLP as the foundation for his writing and coaching practice, which enabled him to touch and change the lives of hundreds of people.

  While compiling his secrets of success for this book, Tom died from pancreatic cancer. Tom dreamed that his message would live on long after him, and asked us to transform his notes and transcripts from his teachings into this book. To honor the confidentiality he promised clients, we’ve changed the names and situations of the people in his stories.

  Tom’s wide-ranging background and rich life experience enabled him to bring a special perspective and approach to NLP, which makes his insights and message more useful outside the training room or coaching session. We’ve done our best to preserve how ea
sily accessible he made NLP to others.

  Because Tom Hoobyar had a unique gift for communicating and making complex subjects fun and easy to understand, this essential guide is written in the present tense—enabling you to have an engaging conversation with him that can change your life.

  Many people contributed to making this book possible. With this in mind, we’d like to especially thank:

  • Robert McDonald, whose precise and heartfelt teaching style inspired Tom Dotz to train with NLP Comprehensive and then found NLP California, where Tom Hoobyar and Susan Sanders were likewise inspired with the possibilities NLP made real.

  • Steve and Connirae Andreas for their creativity in developing new processes, their generous spirit of teaching, and their leadership in the NLP community. Without them, Tom Hoobyar and the two of us would not have met or shared our journeys of learning NLP.

  • The NLP Comprehensive Training Team for continually bringing NLP concepts, skills, and processes to life for thousands of students—in particular, Charles Faulkner and Steve Andreas, who were the chief editors on NLP Comprehensive’s first book, NLP: The New Technology of Achievement.

  • Adam Korn and Trish Daly at HarperCollins for embracing this project and shepherding it through to completion.

  INTRODUCTION

  What You’ll Get Out of This Book

  There are hundreds of potential turning points in each person’s life—and this book will be an important one in yours. How’s that possible?

  Here’s how. You’ll discover HOW your one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-duplicated special mind actually works. You’ll find out how you were able to use your brain before you could even say a word. Even better, you’ll be able to “get under the hood” of your own thoughts and adjust them to fit your current needs. Since most of our beliefs and values were created when we were children, this is a good thing. Some of those patterns might benefit from a little updating, don’t you think?

  In this book, you’ll get specific processes for updating these old patterns and creating new ones. You’ll explore simple, solid solutions to issues including anxieties, procrastination, and motivation. You’ll learn and practice powerful strategies for immediate, lasting results in areas like self-confidence.