“This is Your Brain, This is Your Brain on NLP”

[Meaghan Quinn]

First off, my apologies for the irreverent title- I couldn’t resist. As the daughter of a coach, I hear the latest coaching trends discussed across the dinner table. To be honest, many of them don’t stick around for too long. Although various techniques can be useful and interesting mind candy, many of them wither away only to be replaced with the next latest buzz. I have concluded that nothing, nothing, can replace the effectiveness, guidance and wherewithal of a damn good coach. The flesh and blood person who with that motivating and razor’s edge ability to cut through the excuses and get things movin’.

That being said, NLP comes pretty close to the holy grail of coaching techniques. NLP, or Neuro-liguistic programming began in a circle of psychologists in the seventies and has been sidling its way into the personal change movement ever since. So this is NLP 101, with a little bit of philosophy, cog sci, and a twist of self-help.

For starters, many of you may be familiar with the famous quotation, “The map is not the territory.” Coined by General Semantics founder Alfred Korzybski, it uses an analogy to describe, well, more analogies. Sound complicated? It’s not. It describes something that most human beings naturally understand- our thoughts, interpretations and metaphors for reality are not the same as reality itself. Brains develop and build neural pathways that work for a time and eventually may become outdated. The neural nets in our brain may be analogous to a map. NLP uses techniques to recreate a new map, a more effective, more pleasurable, more profitable map in our brain. The adage “old habits die hard” is no longer true if the person is using NLP.

For a coach, to pursue NLP certification can be very beneficial for increasing client effectiveness and retention rates. Clients who may not need weeks or months of coaching can now cure pesky old phobias within a few simple sessions. Coaches that use techniques like hypnosis and meditation can now add NLP to their toolkit to achieve faster and more trusted results. The techniques involve processes like visualization, diffusing the traumatic event by reframing it and overlapping a new story onto it, or anchoring, where a new stimulus-response habit is recreated to build a new pattern.

NLP can also be particularly effective in the business world. There are techniques for creating rapport, balancing life and work, reducing stress, and creating congruency. For instance, a client may seek out NLP because every time he asks for a raise his voice quivers. Wanting to maintain a confident air, he can use the "circle of excellence" technique to develop a new brain pattern that helps him to confidently convey his desires. Instead of shaking like a kindergartener at show and tell, he now looks his boss in the eye and confidently makes his request. (You can imagine the potential of this technique for actors and auditions!) So keep your eyes open for more about NLP and its many uses on the coaching horizon.

I would like to credit Kathy Quinn of Coaching for Smart People for her help with information that appears here.