QUESTION #1: What am I no longer willing to tolerate or compromise on in my life?

QUESTION #2: What are my basic core beliefs?

QUESTION #3: What specific things do I need to be doing for my behavior to be more aligned with what I truly believe.

QUESTION #4: What would I be willing to give up to have more of what I truly want?

I won't provide many examples because I don't want to limit how you might think about these questions, but Question #2 might require a bit of explanation.  For this I try to think about things where my internal thoughts don't seem to match my external behavior.  So I might really believe its important to serve in my community, but I never really do.  Or do I really believe its important?  I mean watching TV is pretty important to, right?  Or I might believe that be truly successful at the level I want I'd need to eat a healthy diet, but I eat at McDonalds twice a day, or....what is it for you?  And what does it take to begin doing more of what really matters?

Happy New Year!

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Kevin Hall.

I love to be surprised and this book surprised me in many ways.  There is so much in the personal development community that has become tired and re-hashed, but I found this book to be a breath of fresh air.  I was originally very skeptical with the premise that understanding the origin of words could make any real difference in ones life, let alone help someone discover their purpose in life.  In the past when I've heard people pontificate about the origin of a particular word it has sounded like an academic exercise only of interest to those who enjoy reading dictionaries in their spare time.

Little did I realize that pulling apart the origin of words does in fact lead to deeper meaning and causes real reflection.  Thinking about a new word from another culture has caused me to examine common, tired ideas in a fresh light.  Re-examining a familiar word in a new way, and thinking deeply about what it means has led me to think in a fresh way.  Kevin is a masterful storyteller who is able to pull out great examples of how these words apply in common, everyday life.  The book is fun and captivating and not at all some kind of dry, academic tome.

It's hard to find a favorite word from the book, but the one I have found myself reflecting on the most is Genshai which means to never treat another person in a way that would make them feel small.  The examples Kevin uses are inspiring, moving, and thought-provoking.

In addition Kevin begins to describe in this book some powerful strategies for journaling and learning more deeply from everyday experience.

The book is both illuminating and inspiring and at least in the Top 5 of all the books I've read in the past 10 years.  It's a truly amazing book.  Aspire! is currently only available on the Power of Words web-site: http://www.powerofwords.net.  Do yourself a favor and be one of the first people on the planet to read this book.

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Last week we described the basics of NLP Representational Systems and how to identify how another person is representing their own internal model of the world.  This week we are going to refine this a bit more by showing how the eyes reveal important information and and we'll follow that up with an article that will really explain how to put all this information together into useful applications.

Eye Accessing Cues

In the early days of NLP, Bandler and Grinder noticed that people who were visual tended to look up when accessing their thoughts; auditory people tended to look sideways; and kinesthetic people tended to look down.  These are somewhat generalizations, but are surprisingly accurate.  In addition they noticed that if you ask someone a question that requires that they acccess an image (e.g. "What did your first car look like?") about how something looks that they are remembering they will look to a different side than if you ask them to "make up" up an image (e.g. What would George Bush look like in a mini-dress and stiletto heels?").  So for the first question, it's quite likely (better than average chance) the person will look up to their left (at least for a moment), but for the second question they will look up and to their right.  The same basic pattern applies for accessing auditory representations.  It's useful to distinguish between what is called "Auditory Analog" and "Auditory Digital" as well.  Digital refers to words and analog refers to anything else you would hear including tones, tempo, pitch, etc.  So when someone is generating internal self-talk they will tend to access Auditory Digital (down to the left).

If you say to someone, "So how do you feel about that?"  They are likely to look down to their right.  When somone is looking for the words to describe something (Auditory digital) they are likely to look down and to their left.

The directions described above are for someone "normally organized". This simply means that most people look left for remembered and right for construction. Other people will be opposite and look right for remembered and left for construction (informal estimates are that about 90% of the population is normally organized).  This pattern appears to be highly consistent and independent of culture. John Grinder has noted that the only exception he's aware of is the Basques who don't follow a readily identifiable pattern.

It's worth a reminder at this point that these are generalizations.  You should test all of this and learn to notice for yourself the relationship between questions and how other people access their representations. A way to calibrate is to ask a series of questions relevant to the context you are in. So if you are in real estate and want to calibrate you might ask a colleague :

Q: Remind me, what is the color of that house we have listed on Elm Street?

This question already suggests that you want the person to remember, and then the question you ask presupposes a visual response (for the vast majority of people). You may notice as you ask questions that some people will continue to stay focused directly ahead and their pupils may dilate rather than moving horizontally or vertically. This usually indicates accessing information visually.

The chart below shows the eye accesses for people who are normally organized. 

NLP Eye Accessing Cues

So what use is this? First and foremost, once you are aware of how people around you are representing their world you can utilize that information to communicate more effectively. In upcoming articles we will be building on eye accessing cues and explain how to use them in many interesting ways. For now we recommend learning the basics of noticing what is going on and learning to ask good questions that let you isolate what is happening. That brings us to the exercises:

Exercise 1: Write out 3-5 questions that would let you calibrate the access (like the real estate example we gave above) for each of the 3 major representational systems: visual, auditory, kinesthetic.

Exercise 2: Use the questions you have written out with at least 10 people over the next week and see what you can notice.

Exercise 3: Watch people talk in a natural setting and see how people access information with their eyes.

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The Meta-Model was first described by John Grinder and Richard Bandler in their book Structure of Magic vol. 1.  In their observation of successful therapists, like Virginia Satir, they began to notice systematic use of certain language patterns that allowed these therapists to ask just the right question and enabled them to often get right to the heart of the matter.  This page describes the meta-model patterns.

Introduction

John Grinder was a professor of linguistics at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and his area of speciality was something relatively new at the time called Transformation Grammar.  The meta-model is based loosely on some of that model of linguistics, particularly the notion of surface structure and deep structure.  

Basically, surface structure describes the words being used, and deep structure represents the intuition a person has about the words that enables them to make sense of it.  The surface structure and deep structure are different, in that the surface structure contains deletions, distortions, and generalizations.  These 3 processes, while essential to functioning in the world, can also allow people to walk around with limitations in their view of the world.  For example, if someone walks up to you and hits on the head, and then another person, you might conclude that you should avoid all people because "People always hit me on the head."  It might useful for preserving ones safety in certain situations, but not very useful in forming wonderful and long-lasting relationships.  The meta-model provides a way for you to open up possibilities in what people say... 

The Model

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