Planning on taking a Speakers course?  Keep this in mind:
Negative reinforcement does NOT work!

Many speakers training groups/courses have training methods that are riddled throughout with negative reinforcement techniques.  For example, if a speaker happens to utter "ahhh" or "ummm", then a trainer or assistant makes a loud buzzing sound, or a beep sound, or flashes signs as a way of telling them... "Stop that! That's a bad behavior!"

Negative reinforcement is the perfect recipe for lowering a speaker's confidence and self-esteem.  When training speakers, I prefer to ignore unwanted habits initially, so as not to interrupt a speaker's natural flow.  Then, after a presentation is over, I'll celebrate the best things I liked about what they did, then offer a brief mention of something that could be eliminated or phased out, followed finally by a method or two that I know will help them achieve changes in an optimal direction.  Finally, I'll end my feedback by directing their attention towards something they probably hadn't yet thought of doing.  The vast majority of that feedback is positive and constructive.

More importantly, I'm not flagrantly interrupting their ability to flow while trying to nurture the very same.  Why is this important?  Because negative reinforcement makes it harder to stay on track with your thinking while on stage (it creates anticipation for pattern-interrupts, which hinders internal accessing patterns).

If you don't yet believe me 100% on this, read the wonderful book "Don't Shoot the Dog" by Karen Pryor, and then consider the implications of using negative reinforcement, in light of the above book, and in light of how NLP anchoring works. Negative reinforcement for training speakers actually trains dysfunctional speaking patterns.

How come so many speakers courses aren't at least 80% positive re-inforcement-based?

This mystifies me, it really does.

Author: Jonathan Altfeld

It's a very common concern for speakers, being fearful of losing track of one's train of thought while training or speaking.

And that fear or concern is justifiable. When you're on stage, you need to be at the top of your game. Clear minded. Clear spoken. Analytical but pragmatic. Effective. Strategic. And flexible... very, very flexible.

Losing your train of thought potentially makes your mind seem haphazard, not in control. Worse, the avoidance of this often creates more worry, concern, and anxiety.

However, breathe easy! This can actually be eliminated (or at least, highly diminished)!

To solve this, use (1) compelling values-based headlines, and (2) emotional-state-chaining.

For values-based headlines, study the use of headlines in marketing as a way of building curiosity for the right reasons (and no, not cheesy newspaper headlines!).

For emotional state chaining, you can study how famous speakers like Anthony Robbins move audiences (though he doesn't actually train that skill, himself). You can also learn this from my "Automatic Yes" CD-set.

The pair of these strategies is absolutely amazing for speakers. And for those people who want the fastest possible route to getting good at solving this challenge, I teach these skills in depth at my version of a trainers' training -- my "Speaking Ingeniously" course.

Once you get really good at headlines & emotional-state-chaining, then... you may forget a particular point, or a particular way of expressing a point, but... if you keep in mind (1) your headline, and (2) the larger emotional chain, you'll always be able to recover where you're at in the chain. And that leads to more fluid presentations, less lost trains of thought, and more action from your audiences!

This particular success strategy is truly a 'thing of beauty', and more importantly, it eliminates unwanted anxiety or stress for speakers, when your process on stage becomes "Fault Tolerant!" Enjoy!

Author: Jonathan Altfeld

Here's Why I Like Training 15 People Max -- and not 1500+!

I'd far rather coach 15 people at a time, maximum, to become gifted presenters, than share my best secrets en-masse to 100's of people. (Though some of my courses accept up to 30 people, my speakers course accepts 15 maximum).

The 1st format guarantees major results in terms of integrated new skills, for every single participant. That rocks!

The 2nd format guarantees students can be complacent dissociated learners who may or may not take anything away with them. I want nothing to do with that. (This is one of the big reasons I haven't offered "CEU's" to students. Some people who need CEU's will take almost any course that fits their schedule and budget just to meet their requirements. Some view courses that help them meet their CEU requirements as an unfortunate necessity, rather than a privilege and an unprecedented opportunity to learn and become more gifted. Granted, some of those seeking CEU's will be motivated students. But by not offering them, I have found that everyone who attends my courses comes entirely for the fun & the deep skills they'll get from attending, not to mention the likelihood of some major personal and professional breakthroughs. You can be assured of meeting some amazing people at my courses, all of whom, literally ALL of whom, are deeply motivated to get blazingly good at these skills! I simply don't see complacent students at my courses. Ever. And for me, that makes my work a joy!

It is true that in the second format (i.e., training 1500+ students at a time), an occasional gem of a student will learn and retain a lot, but will still have next to no functional skills in place by the end, if they haven't been building the new skills into their behavior, every day of a course, with constant feedback.

There is no joy for me in the largest audiences. But when I can work with a small group of accelerated learners and committed speakers, every one of them will have tackled their biggest "Achilles Heels," and learned a profoundly effective model for presenting, in 5 days or less. That's inspiring work!

How many presenters, trainers, speakers (or wanna-be's...) talk too much? Are they too verbose? Do they speak beyond the optimal closing moment and maybe even lose the sale? This is evidence a speaker isn't keeping BOTH output AND input channels open while training or speaking.

In other words, while talking, a speaker shuts off their awareness of how their audience is responding. It's a form of temporary deafness or blindness.

If a speaker needs to "pause" their presentation, in order to reconnect with where their audience is at, that's a huge piece of evidence, that means they're not yet able to pay external attention while expressing their message. That's a major obstacle to their path to greatness as a speaker. Not being able to listen and watch while one talks and behaves is an enormous hindrance for most speakers, between just being "good," and reaching for deeper excellence as a platform communicator or coach or trainer. If this describes you, then you NEED to read this!!

You may be getting in your own way, ignoring your audiences, and blindly pushing your message instead of tuning it real-time.

If this describes you, then you may only be opening one communication channel at a time -- output VS input -- instead of both concurrently.

It IS trainable, and I know multiple ways to get you to open both channels at once. A couple of exercise drills, some repetition, and the closed channel opens up... you begin to flex the new muscles of concurrent awareness -- of external and internal awareness. The end result is far less verbosity, and much greater influence over every moment of your presentations.

Here's a place to start: When you communicate a lesson or story to a group of people, while you're communicating to your audience, plan to lead into a yes/no question about your content already delivered that could get mixed responses from the group. And I want you to do that without any extended pauses. If you can correctly predict the individual audience members' answers to the question you're about to ask, BEFORE finishing speaking, then chances are you've got both channels open. If you needed to stop and think about who would answer what, and could only do that after you stopped speaking, then... this hindrance is truly worth solving, as quickly and as thoroughly as you can.

If this is your obstacle, I invite you to grab this opportunity to finally solve this challenge, with me, at my next Speaking Ingeniously course. I have a 100% success rate at getting people to use BOTH channels concurrently!

Speakers, take note: Sequence is everything.

Is it possible that in the past, you've shifted between speaking to your audiences about resourcefulness, and then back and forth to problems or obstacles or other issues, without designing and following an absolutely clear, intentional sequence?

If you're not aware of exactly how you're doing this... if you don't design those transitions intentionally, then you may very well have been inspiring listeners to DISTANCE themselves from your message, instead of connecting themselves with your message.  In other words, you want to spend most of your time sequencing your audiences from problems and obstacles to solutions and resourcefulness... and next to no time moving in the reverse direction (without clear interrupts and state-breaks designed in, between the positive-back-to-negative transitions).

When you learn to become ridiculously good at emotional state-chaining while speaking... you'll finally plug the gaping holes in your customer/student retention system. 

Just a thought... a thought you might want to absorb and act on!

If you're near me, you probably listen to Mix95 radio on occasion.  There's a popular morning show with DJ's Rick & Lisa.  Good show, for a small town, by the way.

On today's morning show, about 30 minutes ago, I heard a commercial for local car dealership "Hamilton Nissan" that (whether intended OR NOT...) demonstrated an incredibly bad/poor example of advertising techniques that can be described by any NLP Practitioner or Hypnotherapist as "hypnotic" advertising. Note this does NOT mean they necessarily used hypnosis or hypnotic writing, but it means their radio ad was a great example of BAD hypnotic advertising.

So let's explore the ad in more detail, in NLP & Ericksonian Hypnosis terms:

(And, keep in mind this is not a verbatim script -- this is my memory of what I heard, knowing what I know, and knowing how to listen for this. The actual recording may have been slightly differently worded -- but not significantly so).

It started out OK with the first couple of phrases, using "Pacing & Leading" for Rapport-building & influence. It started out sounding like facts, but all too quickly became an ad. "Well it seems there are signs the economy is picking back up; the big 3 car manufacturers all seem to be doing well." Then it immediately became an ad for Hamilton Nissan. This was inelegant and likely created an instant emotional experience for most listeners (whether mild or strong), of "Bait & Switch." Your loss, Hamilton Nissan.

Then, the crowning example of bungled hypnotic advertising was...

wait for it...

The horribly badly delivered 'embedded command', for "BUY NOW!" I couldn't stop laughing for about 5 minutes when I heard it.

It was combined with an incomplete sentence. Sentence fragments are an Ericksonian Hypnotherapy technique for putting people partly on hold; it creates less resistance in listeners. What they didn't tell you, Hamilton Nissan, is that that only works when everything else you're doing at the same time is increasing acceptance of your suggestions.

So here's how they did it: "Well I know you're thinking... BUY NOW... all the vehicles over at Hamilton Nissan..." then they left that sentence incomplete... and moved on to other topics. Using incomplete sentences and "embedded commands" such as "BUY NOW" are well-known NLP/Ericksonian hypnosis technique.

Their PRESUMED intent was for you to consciously hear ALL of the above, but unconsciously hear and respond to just a portion of the incomplete sentence: "BUY NOW... all the vehicles over at Hamilton Nissan..."

In fact, the use of "Buy Now" as a casual phrase in advertising is SO ubiquitous these days, it's seen/heard as cheesy in hypnosis/NLP circles now. My opinion: No *effective* marketer in their right mind would use it anymore.

If you think I'm making this up, google "embedded commands buy now" and explore. By the way, though, about half of those articles that show up in google use what I would describe as less-than-elegant phrasing. I'm an authority on this specific language pattern, both in terms of phrasing, and tonal delivery, and I think a lot of people don't quite get it fully. So I'm not saying everyone writing articles about this subject are worth reading; I'm pointing out that there's a LOT of material on this stuff out there.

Never mind that the advertiser's delivery of "BUY NOW" in terms of tonality and pausing was incredibly ineffective. I mean, if they were actually going to use that embedded command, they probably should have learned more competent tonal techniques. If you knew what I know, you'd have been cringing while listening.

If it was intended (99.9% likely in my opinion), then it was very badly delivered. I'd use that radio commercial as an ideal example of what never to do, and how not to do it.

If it wasn't intended (I acknowledge the limited possibility of pure ignorance here), then the "interviewee" (read: Advertising guy at Hamilton Nissan) happened to stumble accidentally on what I believe is one of the worst possible ways to turn off their potential customers. Because whether the radio listeners have the self-awareness and/or vocabulary for it or not... many are likely feeling a mild, weird sense that something's *not quite right* about what they just heard, and who they heard it from/about.

They MAY have just succeeded in doing exactly the opposite of what they'd intended. They MAY have just created distrust for/of their dealership.

You've all heard them before.

• "My way or the highway."
• "Well if you don't want me doing that, I won't do anything."
• "If you do X, that's the end of it, I'll Y."

What are "ultimatums" or "hostage patterns"?

The word "hostage" here refers to someone holding someone hostage to their own needs/expectations. In each case of the above... someone who uses these patterns above is doing so either from a position of a need for control, a fear of losing control, anger over perceived lack of appreciation, or an emotional "threshold" whereby if their own demands aren't met, some consequence will be delivered to (or something will be taken away from) the listeners.

On occasion, this is seen as masterful management, when there's a very strong leader at the helm. If a company is extremely successful... then nobody wants to mess with success. All well and good in such a situation, if you're Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. But most ultimatum situations aren't central to a success strategy; in fact, most of the time they are a recipe for disaster, or at least a painfully slow demise. If you throw a frog into boiling water, it jumps out. If you throw a frog into tepid water, and very slowly heat that water, the frog will stay put & be cooked.

Most of the time, ultimatums and hostage patterns are a form of behavioral dysfunction. It's worse when it becomes an organizational dysfunction, because decisions have to be made by committees and can't be made fast, "at will." Such an organization can potentially be the proverbial Frog, slowly boiling to its own death, unaware anything is actually happening.

What's the Problem? And how to Solve it?

If you cater to these demands, if you agree to their hostage pattern, you are as much or more a part of the dysfunction than was the person who delivered their ultimatum. And if you REMAIN supportive of that organizational dysfunction, your very behavior is teaching others that it's OK to deliver ultimatums, and it's OK to cater to or support them.

Many people are completely unaware they're part of the problem. Some are aware, but prefer to remain complacent. They think breaking out of the dysfunction would take too much effort. Yet what lesson does that teach others? Others are almost always watching, and learning.

Here's another problem. There is no easy way to slowly and gently exit dysfunctional patterns like these. The only practical way to break dysfunctional patterns like these, in any sort of timely way, is to:

(a) introduce entirely new patterns that are more desirable for the larger system (group, household, marriage, whatever)... and practice those new patterns/behaviors/choices until they become a new habit that replaces the old one.

OR:

(b) break the old pattern, cold-turkey. Exit the dysfunction. Refuse to cater to the ultimatum.

The most challenging aspect of all this is -- usually relationships are involved. Centrally involved.

Often in disagreements, it's useful to ask the question:

"What's more important, your point? Or the relationship?"

Most of the time, in most disagreements, the answer is... the relationship.

However, when ultimatums or hostage patterns are involved, if you value independence, proactivity and balance, and want to be a good example for others... most of the time, the answer isn't "the relationship."

Yet, one can't be quite so cold in discarding connections, especially when other relationships are affected as well! This is why it's so challenging to resolve organizational dysfunction! To do so requires a deeply skilled navigator of cause-effect patterns, and cooperation from at least some of the organization.

It's always easier afterwards, looking back in hindsight, to track the arc of our development, and to see the evidence of our ability to adapt (or lack thereof).

The evidence is visible in the trail of our behaviors. But the "cause" of either stuckness or flexibility... is in how we react to things, and in what we're paying the most attention to. Sometimes we can be pleased with our flexibility. Sometimes we're not happy with how we behaved or spoke. Fortunately, these patterns of reactivity and attention... can be changed!

How can we change how we think, to become more flexible?

One of my coaching clients, somewhat like myself, has experienced a career arc that's taken them rather far away from the kind of thinking patterns they were trained in all through college. And as I've reflected on that, it seems apparent that the degree to which they've been successful in their newest professional role is based on shifting values and beliefs. But the flip side of that is, the degree to which they're not yet as successful in that role as they'd like to be... is based on habitual mental patterns/filters. In NLP we often look at these habitual mental patterns and filters, and work with these. We call them "Metaprograms."

So the challenge for anyone who wants to get rid of less useful thinking patterns, and develop more useful ones... is all about changing what observations or patterns we sort for, and how we process information/ideas. One example might be that some people usually look for possibilities, while others may look for exceptions. The engineer had better be or become able to find exceptions. The visionary had better be or become able to ignore them and shoot for the moon. Another example might be, do you tend to look first for all the ways in which things are different? Or do you look first for the ways things are the same as other things, or that you already recognized/valid? NLP may offer _some_ instant/rapid shifts... but changing metaprograms (core personality traits) usually takes time, willingness to work and think differently, and there can be some effort involved. Mistakes/setbacks do occur. But it's SO worth it...!

Here's an example of the sameness vs difference in more 'layman' language:

When someone is speaking with you.... as they're talking... and you're listening... which do you do inside your head first, or more of?

• Do you think about what aspects of what they're saying are correct (or agreeable)?
• Or do you think about what aspects of what they're saying are incorrect (or that you know exceptions to)?

HOW we process information often dictates the quality of our relationships, our communication, our listening skills, our ability to fulfill the roles we've chosen (or that other people have chosen us for), etc. And how we communicate our responses, creates completely different perceptions about us, in other people's minds.

To what degree do you think you're processing your experiences optimally?

And are those processes/habits serving to help you be perceived the way you want to be?

Let's stay nonjudgemental when we explore these! There is no bad or good here; I like to think of these sorting patterns as more or less useful for current/desirable results. Not good or bad, just more or less useful. The smaller-chunking and sort-by-difference patterns that are essential to high-quality critical thinking from an engineer's perspective, has a far less useful place in a top executive's role. Just as the pie-in-the-sky visionary thinking that an executive or high level entrepreneur needs, for convincing others of his vision for the future... is likely to cause some major trouble in an engineer's role (in terms of unanticipated technical hurdles: "It was your job to anticipate and prevent that!").

Also, would you want to be married to the engineer's thinking patterns? Not if they couldn't leave that mindset at work when they came home each night. All of these patterns has at least some useful contexts -- more or less for each person's unique circumstances and roles.

The real challenge for most people is that "catching" yourself using these sorting patterns is extremely difficult, because these patterns are unconsciously habitual for us. And the more habitual/practiced they are, the harder they are for us to track. So it really helps to have a coach trained to track these patterns.

Here's another simple example. Have you ever known someone who was a "polarity responder?" Someone who always argues literally every point you make? You could tell them "you're a polarity responder" and they'd respond "No I'm not," at which point, they'd have proven your point, displaying the same trait in answering you the way they did.

Another example is asking a procrastinator when they're going to start learning to do things promptly, and they tell you "they'll get around to it eventually."

So perhaps the BIGGEST question is, what aren't you even remotely aware of, that's holding you back?

Maybe everyone should have a coach, who can hold up a friendly and supportive mirror to our less-useful patterns, outside of the context of our daily family/friend/co-worker relationships.

I've written about these subjects elsewhere in articles, etc... but thought you all might want to discuss these "sorting patterns" a bit. Find out how they're helping or hurting you!

Here's an example of NLP Anchoring demonstrated and explained in a primetime cable entertainment show.
I just randomly saw a few scenes from the latest episode of "Leverage" (starring Timothy Hutton), entitled "The Reunion Job."
I was surprised to catch the following scene:
One of the main characters had caused another to repeatedly refill her teacup whenever she wanted. When she was asked how she'd gotten him to pour her tea repeatedly, she said (possibly paraphrasing here):

"Neuro Linguistic Programming. Some sugar... [...] and then a few strategic taps on the arm... [...]".

NLP insiders will simply recognize this as describing how one might set an anchor, for later firing off.
Granted, this was an oversimplified example, as real artistry with anchoring requires more nuances and variables, but... it wasn't badly portrayed, and that counts!

Many students regularly want some guidance on how they might go about structuring an NLP "session" whether for coaching, therapeutic, or hypnotic purposes. I'll answer from the perspective of a coach (though I will say that I believe many of my ideas will apply outside of that context).

Begin with a Pre-Talk!

With a new client I usually offer a pre-talk that prepares them for the session, builds response potential and rapport, and innoculates against undesirable results or perceptions. Good NLP work done elegantly would almost never result in any unwanted result, and only offer positive options for moving forward, and a more positive mindset and perspective. However once in a while, a client's tendencies can enable them to blow things out of proportion or revert to unwanted patterns. E.g., if a client has a tendency to focus on the question "What if it doesn't work?" then likely, it won't. Or it will briefly, but then, revert back. What we focus on determines what we get.

With a pre-existing client doing ongoing coaching, I usually begin by asking for a quick report on what's happened since our last session, how things have gone. I praise them for their progress, correct any misunderstandings, and offer adjusted advice if they need any feedback or fine-tuning. I rarely if ever hear from an ongoing client that my previous advice "didn't work," because of course, any advice previously offered was heavily targeted to their filters, values, beliefs, and current capabilities. But I do periodically hear about new previously-unanticipated situations where their other successes didn't bridge over as easily as they'd wanted to the new contexts -- that's common enough. Also, with pre-existing clients, I check in with their larger/longer-range goals to measure overall progress, check for scope-creep (i.e. how outcomes occasionally drift -- sometimes good, sometimes not), and ensure an appropriate sense of useful movement in the right direction.

Ensure Well-Formed Outcomes

Whether with new or existing clients, after any initial exchanges and a quick review of past activity, then I begin the current session by getting/clarifying desired outcomes not only for the current session but also quickly revisit longer-term or larger scale outcomes. I make sure these are and remain, "well-formed." This refers to ensuring goals & outcomes are expressed in a way that maximizes the likelihood people will actually achieve their desired outcomes. Did you know that how you express your goals can make them more -- or less -- likely to achieve?

Sometimes people set the bar for a session way too high (rare, because we can achieve so much so quickly with NLP, but it does happen -- so only once in a blue moon do I suggest a client reduce his expectations for a session).

Often, NLP clients set the bar WAY too low for a session. They ask to help them resolve an unpleasant conversation. I'd much rather help them resolve that one and every similar one from there on out. So I often ask a client to chunk up or think bigger!

Sometimes people will initially ask for a certain MEANS to an end, and what I want to do first in such situations is, interview my way to the primary desired END, rather than focus only on their chosen means. If they tell you the method they'd want to use to get the final end-result, sometimes that's fine, and sometimes that means/method was chosen from an impoverished view of how to get out of their current problem. The means they suggest is not always the optimal way to help them solve their problem. So said differently, I want to help them get the ENDS, whereas I'm not necessarily invested in using their suggested MEANS to those ENDS.

Never Use Scripts in live NLP Sessions. Be Fully Present, and Design Custom Solutions!

From that point forward, what's done with a client is best handled on a totally unique basis. Here's my view as to why:

In my Linguistic Wizardry course, at the end, during my "Village Council" skills-integration exercises, NLP students are given a first-class lesson in how rich and meaningful human communication is (even when it isn't!). Repetitious rounds of that exercise drill... teach students experientially that you often see, hear, and feel within the first 2-3 sentences out of a client's mouth -- all you'll ever need to know about (a) the structure of someone's problem, and (b) an optimal solution for them. 2-3 sentences!

And, if any NLP Coach/Practitioner isn't seeing, hearing, feeling enough information during those 2-3 sentences to plan out most (most, not all) of a client session... then we probably have to blame the NLP marketplace for allowing training lengths & quality to dwindle significantly over time (& thus NLP consumers, for rewarding those providing shorter certification training providers). Again: The information we need about how a client structures their problem and any of several optimal solutions is usually all conveyed both verbally and nonverbally, in parallel, real-time, within the first 2-3 sentences of their communication.

Without question or doubt, the best advice I can offer is... get skilled at ramping up your sensory acuity and awareness, track client patterns, notice what they're not noticing, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and design a solution to get them from where they are, to where they want to go.  Depending on your methods and your particular discipline, that may involve running them through certain techniques, or teaching them new patterns, helping them build a new habit, using hypnotic communication, creating pattern interrupts, working with their timelines, or other approaches.  But the less "cookie-cutter" your solution, and the more unique and targeted you can be when creating solutions for clients, the better.

Ericksonian Tasking

The simplest interpretation of this is assigning your client some homework.  From a hypnosis or NLP perspective, this goes far beyond assigning homework.  It can be as simple as giving them some follow-up research.  It can however be far more enlightening, unconsciously empowering, and it can help a client lock in changes you've helped them imagine.  I adore the idea of using Ericksonian Tasking, and encourage everyone reading this to make an active study of this art.  Brilliant work. 

I would encourage any student of Ericksonian Tasking to consider this very much an art of pattern matching and creativity.  Blending what conscious behavior or cognitive patterns a client presents, with what unconscious behavior or cognitive patterns a client presents, with some creativity for designing metaphorical tasks that a client won't consciously notice or understand the reason for, yet... over time, helps the client get the desired result.  (I would say that at least some of the testimonials I receive are due to a love of this particular skill.)

I would also say that when you have a plan for the client to use over time after their session, they're more likely to feel that you know what you're doing (and naturally, that would also be true, because you're thinking across the larger scope of the client's process.  This is one form of evidence you're operating from a "generative" solution approach, and not just a "remedial" solution approach.

Wrap-Up...

If a session was done mostly with "conscious" communication, and you know for certain a client has enjoyed the session, then I would say it's fine to ask for responses, conclusions, etc., to help solidify the work that was done.  This helps lock in client certainty that progress was achieved.  I would ensure that I ask questions that are very likely to receive a "yes" response.

If your session was done mostly with unconscious communication, and you know the client will not unpack or draw conclusions from a session until after they go home or go to work, etc., then do not ask for their conclusions or ask them any questions to which the answer could be "no."  This isn't because the work wasn't effective, it's because their unconscious minds may need time to process the work, and you don't want to tip the scales in any negative direction while they're processing.  Most of the time, in such a situation, I would not even ask digital (yes/no) questions.  I would ask vague and open-ended questions they can't answer with yes or no, possibly through conversational postulates.  E.g., "I wonder in how many circumstances or ways you'll find yourself noticing these changes occuring in your life?"  "How easily might you be surprised to find these new approaches just happening naturally for you?"  These are future oriented, positive questions/statements that direct the unconscious mind to start expecting the best results.

Finally I would wrap-up consciously, possible with some time-distortion, possibly with future-pacing, list the homework or  tasks or follow-up steps I may have assigned them, and possibly with some suggestions for what they can do if various things happen for them after the session.  This helps them handle the unknown with greater comfort.

Interested in deeper NLP Session skills?

In 2009, I shelved my Linguistic Wizardry course, after training it 30-some-odd times all around the globe.  And as of 2012, I've received enough requests to bring it back.  :)  Why not join me at my next LW course?