“Okay so let’s talk about presuppositions. Now what is a presupposition?
It’s not quite a belief. It’s not something that we believe is absolutely 100% true. Because we might be able to find counter examples to some of what I’m about to teach you but think of them as attitudes.
When we take on produce predictably excellent results as a coach as a hypnotist these are great attitudes to take on when I’m working with clients. I encourage you to take these on as attitudes and try them you may find some you really like some you don’t like so much so try them out in your personal life.
Try them out in your professional life and notice for yourself where they work and serve you. Notice where they’re useful in your life first and then you can worry about the exceptions down the road. When we presuppose something we’re making an assumption that something is true and then we’re building upon that.
So for example if I say well you know by the end of the entire NLP practitioner Training I’m not sure which part of it you will have enjoyed the most now could have been the live demos that we will be doing with you and you will be doing with one another, it could be the learning of particular NLP processes and how you can apply those processes to create dramatic and rapid change.
In different areas of your life or in helping others it could be in the expanded model of how you look at the world and what you believe is possible In your life.
I don’t know which part you’ll enjoy most, that’s really up to you to discover for yourself so you can imagine that now realize what’s the first thing that I presupposed. What’s the first thing that I built upon and that was that you’re going to complete the NLP practitioner training that you’re going to be here for all those weekends.
So let’s start with presuppositions. The first one and this is I believe one of my favorites is behind every behavior is a positive intention. Now what does this mean? Well you know in in thirteen years of working with smokers I’ve never met a smoker who was smoking trying to get Lung cancer, okay?
Doing thousands of cases with weight loss I’ve never met an overweight person eating the doughnut trying to get diabetes. If you think about it if you take the attitude right that behind every behavior even when that behavior is no longer useful even when it is even destructive is some positive intention.
Some universally acceptable positive intention that really can open your mind to number one assessing is this behavior working or not?
Can it really help to tea up dropping that behavior if it’s not working and replacing it with something else that could now?
The reality is the reason why most people smoke is they believe that smoke is going to give them relief and relaxation, and in truth the act of smoking the ritual of taking a break.
Walk in a way doing 10 deep breaths. Does work to give you relaxation? Give you relief the fortunate thing for them is that it doesn’t require the cigarettes and nicotine and tobacco to do it!
Why do most people overeat?
Because they believe it’s going to give them a sense of comfort!
This is what we mean by the positive intention behind the behavior. Another classic example is ask yourself you know most of us if we’re honest have beaten ourselves up about something we’ve done or said or did.
Why did I do that that was stupid I shouldn’t have done that right and if you ask yourself what’s the positive intention of being hard on yourself of self-criticism judgment condemnation, the positive intention most people will tell you is well if I’m really hard on myself, then I’ll behave better and if I behave better then I’ll get better results, and if I get better results then I’ll be happier and then I can relax and then everything’s going to be good.
A question how’s that working out for you? Because the reality of it is is that most people, when we beat ourselves up we just feel worse.
In fact I’m pretty sure that’s what happens for everybody. So if the behavior you’re using like beating yourself up in order to improve your behavior to make you happier is making you miserable, well then I guess It’s not working is it?
And now we’ve created a pathway. We’ve opened up an opportunity for you to let go of that old behavior and replace it with something new. It also takes on the attitude that no one is inherently just a bad person or evil.
Next one, there is no failure only feedback. This is another great one because failure implies judgment. Failure implies it’s over finality and it implies that we are somehow making a judgment now based on what we’re doing, whereas feedback is just simply feedback.
It’s more of kind of a curious scientist view of the world. Now what we know from doing behavioral change work for years on end is that when we plug our self-worth into what we’re doing and go this means this about me. If I do it it’ll mean this about me and if I don’t do it and fail it’ll mean this about me well. That makes that learning process a million times harder.
Children don’t generally think that way right? When they’re learning how to walk and they’re crawling around, and then you know they finally get up and get some balance and then they flop over like a weeble wobble and they go through the weeble wobble stage and then eventually they kind of propped themselves up. Some things and now they’re walking around like the drunken sailor. Then pretty soon they’re top-heavy and they’re walking around and crashing into things or what-have-you.
Imagine how hard that would be if they said my God if I don’t get walking perfect the first time that’s gonna really mean something about me. Feel how heavy that is to put that on somebody?
You know call me crazy but you know I see this in weight loss all the time. I just don’t think you should you know I don’t think your self-worth should be dependent upon what you eat for lunch or how quickly you quit smoking, or whether your first attempt at something worked out or not.
I mean if you think about it doing things perfect was a requirement the first time we’d all be lying on the ground in diapers unable to speak right because we wouldn’t be able to walk, wouldn’t be able to talk, and we wouldn’t be able to go to the bathroom.
It’s the cutest thing in the world to watch my my little ones try to get the fork into their mouth the first time when they’re just learning how to do that and they end up putting the spaghetti on the side of their face.
You know that’s how we learn. We learn by trying and doing and getting feedback and learning from that feedback.
The more you apply judgment to it the more you know pass or fail, or look at the world that way the less feedback you really get, because it doesn’t feel good.
And when it doesn’t feel good when looking at what we’re doing doesn’t feel good, or when we’re afraid we’re gonna get judged or criticized, or condemned people want to avoid that.
You sure you would so if we can replace that attitude of judgment with curiosity which is observation without the judgment, that can be extremely useful in creating a nice feedback loop.
The more feedback we get the better we learn. Business owners know this when they stay on top of their numbers.
They stay on top of the business it thrives, and when they don’t they start to have problems.
Next presupposition, people work perfectly to produce the results they’re getting.
A big difference between an NLP coach and a therapist and there’s nothing wrong with therapy it’s just a very different domain is that an NLP coach when you come into our office we never look at you like you’re broken like you’re a bird with a broken wing that needs some sort of triage or what have you.
We take the attitude that you work perfectly to produce whatever results you’re currently getting which means whatever strategy you’re using to produce the results you’re getting it works perfectly to produce that particular result.
Which means if we then change that strategy that new strategy will work perfect to produce a new result or a different result.
So we will adjust That strategy until We’re getting the results that we Actually desire does that make sense Okay good let’s go to the next one the Next presupposition I believe this one Can truly save a marriage and any other Kind of relationship and this is the Attitude that the meaning of my Communication is the response that I get The me of your communication is the Response that you get so what does that Really mean Notice what happens when most people Have a disagreement one person will say One thing the other person will take it A different way and then they’ll compare Notes and they’ll say well that’s not What I meant well that’s what you said Well you should know me more than that You should give me more credit and Pretty soon they’re fighting and they’re
Defending themselves and what happens With the communication it disintegrates It turns into a meltdown or a fight now Imagine what would happen if you took This on as an attitude that the meet of My communication is however it lands on The person that I’m communicating to What that causes me to do is it causes Me to now put my folks in attention on Them not on me on them and noticing how My communication is landing and if it’s Not landing exactly the way I wanted to I can instantly adjust my communication Real-time and so I’m getting the Response that I want it puts the onus on Me to adjust my communication and it’s Much more reality based so the me and my Communication is not what I said it’s Not what was in the email it’s not what Should be obvious it’s not what’s in the Contract right it’s however it lands on The other person so be willing to try That on particularly in your personal Relationship and I think what you’ll Find is you get phenomenally better Results with less effort and that’s of Course one of the things that NLP is Known for helping you to produce and Create the next presupposition is that We have all the resources that we need Now we’re just going to take this on as An attitude that since we’re not broken Since there’s nothing fundamentally Missing since none of us have really
Come from the island of misfit toys and We didn’t come from the factory Defective that we have all the resources Internally to produce the results that We want if another person can do it we Can do it this doesn’t mean that I’m Going to go try out to be a linebacker You know for the San Francisco 49ers Next year of course But if we take on the attitude that we Have all the resources we need it keeps Us open to the possibility keeps us Looking for new options and adding more Choice which of course is going to Likely increase the chances of us Getting the result that we’re after no The next presupposition that we’ve Already covered is people respond to Their map of reality not reality itself This is why two people see the same Event and have a very different response Why because we’re not responding to Reality we respond to our own internal Distorted skewed twisted version of Reality that has an agenda built into it And it’s not a good thing or a bad thing But when you realize that is how we Operate it allows you to step back and Get some perspective if you know that as You go down the river of your life that Around the next bend it pulls hard to The left the current of your life just The way you’re wired pulls hard to the Left and you’re just trying to get
Through well then it’s nice to know to Stay to the right isn’t it and that’s Exactly how you can use that the next Presupposition is that to change your Response change your map and there’s Lots of ways to do that you can add more Data in to enhance your map you can Change what you’re comparing it to you Can enrich your library of internal Representations or collages and you can Compare it to different things you can Try laying on a different meaning okay Down the road you’ll learn things like Different what we call perceptual Positions where you can actually imagine Stepping into the other person’s shoes And be in their body seeing the world Out of their eyes having had their Experiences and that will also enrich Your map and quite often create empathy For the other person and the final one Is choice is better than no choice the Beautiful thing about doing something Like neural linguistic programming and Hypnosis and the other skills and Techniques were going to teach you is That it helps you to add more choice in Okay it helps you to add more choice When you have one option it’s been said That’s a problem when you have two Options now it’s a dilemma and realize This is how Lot of military type and cult-like type Influence happens are you with us or
You’re against us pick a side right but When you have three options or more now That is the birth of a real choice and We in NLP believe that the unconscious Mind will always make the best choice Available to it at the time and so what We want to do is we want to increase Your set of choices that you have to Choose from Why so that you can make the best Decisions for you and for your life
