By: Shantanu Das Sharma, Sr. Associate Editor, ICN Group
Quick recap of what we have covered in Part 42
Our Strategies: Our Mental Roadmap
Ineffective Waking Up Strategy
Effective Waking Up Strategy
What Makes Up a Strategy?
Effective Waking up Strategy
Why Learn Strategies
How to Discover Someone’s Strategy
Formal Strategy Discovery Script
Let’s say you wanted to discover a person’s motivation strategy. You can ask them the following series of questions.
- Can you recall a time when you were totally motivated? Can you recall a specific time?
- What was the first thing that caused you to be totally motivated? Was it something you saw, something you heard (or a tone or voice/music) or something you felt?
This question identifies the trigger that starts off the strategy. It is normally something external you see, hear or feel.
- After you (saw, felt, heard) that, what was the very next thing that happened that led you to become totally motivated? Did you picture something in your mind? Say something to yourself?
Have a certain feeling or emotion?
- After you (saw, felt, heard) that, did you know that you were totally motivated? If ‘yes’, then the strategy is complete. If ‘no’, then continue to ask question 3.
Continue asking these series of questions until the strategy is complete (the outcome of motivation is reached).
Demonstration of a Formal Strategy Discovery – Motivation
Let’s assume that Damodar is attempting to discover Naren’s motivation strategy. Here is an example of what typically might happen.
Damodar Can you remember a time when you felt totally motivated? Can you remember a specific time?
Naren Hmmm…Yes
Damodar What was the first thing that happened that caused you to be totally motivated? Was it something you saw? Something you heard? Or the touch of something or someone?
Naren It was something I saw (i.e. Ve)
Damodar Good. After you saw what you saw, what was the next thing that caused you to be totally motivated? Did you picture something in your mind? Say something to yourself? Was it something you heard? Did you have a certain emotion or feeling?
Naren I had a picture in my mind (Vi)
Damodar Good. After you made this picture in your mind, did you know you were totally motivated or did you say something to yourself or have a certain feeling or emotion?
Naren I said something to myself (Ad)
Damodar Alright. So, after you saw something (Ve), that made you create a picture in your mind (Vi), you then said something to yourself (Ad). Did you become totally motivated or was there something else that happened?
Naren Well, I just felt motivated at this stage.
Damodar Ok. So that completes your motivation strategy.
Now, we know that Naren’s motivation strategy is
Ve ➨ Vi ➨ Ad ➨ Ki (Motivation)
Once you find the components and sequence of Naren’s strategy, you must also find out the sub-modalities of what he saw, heard or felt.
Damodar So, this picture you made in your mind. What was about it that made you feel motivated? Was it the size? Was it associated or disassociated? Was it a movie or a still picture?
Naren It was a large, associated movie.
Damodar So, what you said to yourself, was it loud or soft? Which direction did it come from? Was it high or low pitch?
Naren What I said to myself was loud, low pitch and from the left.
Damodar O.K. Thanks
You can test to see if this strategy is accurate by getting him to run the same strategy in his brain. If you do this well, this person will become motivated instantly
Exercise 1
To truly understand and master the ability to discover someone’s strategy, it is best that you take action and experience the process for yourself. It is a stretch, so put yourself on the line and you reap the benefits now. So, here is your assignment. Go out and find someone with whom you can spend at least 20 minutes with and model their motivation strategy. You can follow the script given above, but be flexible and explore as much as you can.
Demonstration of an Informal Strategy Discovery
Sometimes, you may need to discover a person’s strategy informally, without them being aware of it. This is especially so when you are a salesperson, teacher or parent who wants to be able to discover and utilize your client’s (or child’s) strategy.
What is important is to first establish rapport with that person and use softeners before asking strategic discovery questions. For example, as a salesperson, you could ask, ‘Mr. Client, just so that I can serve you better, would it be o.k. if I were to ask you a couple of questions?’
Let’s say that you were selling clothes and a customer walks towards your section. In order to get the customer motivated to buy,it would be useful to find out his buying strategy. No matter what we buy, we tend to follow a consistent mental processing sequence in evaluating a purchase and becoming motivated to buy.
Salesperson Hi! That’s a great shirt you have. How did you decide that it was the shirt for you?
Customer Well, I liked how it looked (Ve)
Salesperson Did you know that it was the shirt to buy just by looking at it? What else was important in your decision?
Customer Well, I kind of imagined how I would look in it (Vi)
Salesperson Did you buy it right away?
Customer No, I had to make sure it was value for money (Ad)
Salesperson If the price is right, would you buy it right away?
Customer Well, the material must feel right and I would try to make sure it fits (Ke)
Salesperson You felt that it was the right shirt for you?
Customer Yup! I felt it was the right decision (Ki)
So, from the conversation, we can kind of guess that that the customer’s buying strategy is:
Ve ➨ Vi ➨ Ad ➨Ke ➨ Ki ➨ Take action and buy
Obviously, in a real life scenario, you will never be able to ask a series of questions and get such accurate answers so easily. More often than not, you have to subtly ask when the time is right and guess their strategies through the answers they give.In the next article, we will learn in greater detail about how to utilize a person’s strategy.
Now that You Know How to Discover a Person’s Strategy -You Must Know How to Utilize It!
Once you have discovered what someone’s strategies are, you can begin to utilize that person’s strategy by feeding information back to them in the exact same way. When it is done, the information becomes irresistible for them. For example, you can utilize a person’s strategy to help them become motivated towards doing something such as taking action to buy something or perform a task.
Let’s say, a person’s buying strategy was
Ve ➨ Vi ➨ Ad ➨ Ki
In other words, in order to get motivated to buy, their brain’s recipe is to first see something, make a picture in their mind, say something to themselves (make sense of the information) and feel good about making the purchase. While presenting your proposal for an interior design project, you could say to them, ‘Here, take a LOOK (Ve) at this proposal, IMAGINE (Vi) how good it would make your office LOOK. From the quote and specifications, you will find that it meets your CRITERIA (Ad). Does it FEEL good to you? (Ki). They would probably feel very motivated by what you said and won’t even be consciously aware why. The way you present information to a person is extremely important. If you present it in an order and sequence in which their minds process information (their strategy), your suggestion would seem attractive,
However, if you were to present it in a different sequence, they can feel very differently about it. If you were to just present your proposal verbally (Ae) without first showing them a result they could see (Ve), they will not feel as excited by it because their buying strategy is not being effectively triggered off. It is like you are punching the wrong keyboard commands to access his motivation program. It just cannot run.
I facilitate Thought Leaders, Change Makers; Professionals & Business Owners translate NLP concepts into actions to achieve and elicit personal excellence. I conduct NLP Lifestyle Coaching Certification programs for individuals, corporate and celebrity clients. In the next article, you will learn about Re-Designing an Ineffective Strategy. And after that you will come to know in subsequent articles, how you can utilize concepts of NLP+ in all walks of your life to replicate the success blueprint of a winner mindset to win through life. So, stay tuned every Monday & Saturday and fasten your seat belt to ‘Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+’)
Shantanu Das Sharma, Creator of the concept NLP Lifestyle Coaching with NLP+ and Founder of Neuromind Leadership Academy is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author, NLP+ Lifestyle Master Trainer & Coach, C-Suite Advisor; First Certified Social Panorama Consultant in Eastern India directly trained under Dr. Lucas Derks, Clean Language Facilitator & Strategic Interventionist. To explore about NLP+ Lifestyle Coaching you may visit http://shantanudassharma.com/nlp-lifestyle-coaching/
