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Michael
01908 506563
NLP Training: PPI Business NLP Ltd

Transcript - Draft

Liam : So what is modelling, and why do people find it useful?

Michael : Modelling is tremendously useful. People use it when they're picking up skills. And from a purist NLP point of few it's about how we picked up skills when we were kids. The reality is that children tend to learn faster than anybody else, because they tend to learn huge sets of behaviours that are then useful or not for the rest of their lives where are adults tend to learn little chunks of things. So NLP Modelling has potentially all sorts of applications. It's about how you can learn as you get older.

Liam : What approaches towards modelling do you use?

Michael : There are at least three approaches. There are probably thousands of ways of doing this - but there are at least three approaches that I personally find very useful.

One is based on something called Logical Levels, which a guy called Robert Dilts did. And it gives you a very easy set of questions that you could ask somebody that won't necessarily let you model them, but that will give you some great ideas you could copy if you chose to, and give you a great idea of where to go next. So if you were going to do a modelling project they can be some very useful questions you could ask because it would give you very good information as to where you could go next and you may fight it tremendously useful in it's own right - so that's the first bit that I like in modelling.

The second is strategy elicitation. It's taking a small chunk of behaviour and asking that person specific questions about that strategy - specifically what they go through - and if I were going to do it how would they teach me to go through it. And by doing that I'm helping them go through what they do, but also I'm learning from it. The more people that I ask these questions to the more I learn, which makes me more useful when I'm coaching and working with other people.

The third one is more what I would call true NLP modelling. It's a little bit like learning when we were a child - It's learning through play - it's learning through being like somebody else. It's almost an extension of what we talked about in rapport where you become like somebody, and almost by osmosis you take on some of those skills. As I describe it it may sound a bit strange, but in reality that is what we do as kids. That is how we've got most of our information about the world.

Liam : Could you show me an example of a modelling exercise in NLP?

Michael : Yes, certainly. Who would you like to model?

Liam : Buster Keaton.

Michael : Buster Keaton. OK. And do I take it that you've seen lots of Buster Keaton movies and videos?

Liam : Yes, definitely.

Michael : OK. Just sit in the chair and easily make yourself comfortable. And I want you to easily and comfortably just imagine yourself watching a Buster Keaton DVD or film - and just tell me when you're watching him and you can hear the sounds.

That's absolutely brilliant. Almost let yourself relax so you're not so much focusing on what it is that he's doing, but you get the movement, you get the patterns, that sort of thing.

Just give me a sign to confirm that you've got it. That's brilliant. What I want you to do now, is in you imagination just find yourself almost moving from the chair so that you're drifting into his body, and as you drift into his body just imagine that it's you doing all the movements, all the sounds - so you can feel the micro-muscle movements in your body. You can see what it's like from the inside. And just let me know when you've got that.

Good. What I want you to do in a few moments, not yet, is to be drawn back out of Buster Keaton's body in whatever way that means, and be drawn back into the chair - but be drawn out in such a way that you pick up any skills or behaviours that would be useful to you some time in the future. So now just drift back out of Buster Keaton's body - find yourself in your chair, but in that wonderful position where deep inside you have all of those skills and attitudes and behaviours that will be useful to you if you choose to use them sometime in the future.

That's right. That's right.

And now as you're sitting there in the chair, I just want you to imagine sometime in the future when it will be genuinely useful for you to be able to exhibit these behaviours. And I just want you to imagine yourself again, just easily and comfortably, honestly, exhibiting those behaviours so that you can feel the muscle movements - you can hear and feel what you say and you can see the people around you.

Whatever way that means something to you just go inside and make the changes you need to make sure that any skill or attitude that you've learned from that that will be useful to you in the future, you take on board.

What I'd like you to do is just take a time in the future, think of a place and think of a context where it would be fun and totally safe to exhibit those behaviours. Just imagine yourself easily and comfortably just doing what you had been before, but in a time in the future.

And there again, when you're ready and you've learned what's useful to you from that exercise, just take the time that you need to come back into the room, and make any further changes to make sure that you can use this information, only to your benefits - and then come back into the room a bit more - to demonstrate that you're back here.

Thank you.

Liam : Is there anything about modelling that you feel is particularly important that you would care to emphasise or repeat?

Michael : As far as modelling goes I'd really like to add what I consider to be a real balance between modelling and coaching. I think that they work really well together. When you're coaching you don't really have to do a full-blown modelling exercise, but you may want to model parts of somebody that you're working with, parts of their behaviour - because it gives you a way of improving it, but it also gives you models that you can use to work on other people.

So there is a huge tie up in my view, of modelling and coaching.

Liam : Michael Beale, thank you

Michael : Thank you.

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Michael
01908 506563
NLP Training: PPI Business NLP Ltd