I have had this question asked to me so many times by so many people. And right at the outset, let me just set the tone of this blog, yes it does! Then they say, prove it and that is the fun part. So, I start off with the definition of NLP (and everyone has their own definition). I give them my definition of NLP which is, “It is a science of programming your brain (for techies it is like upgrading the software of your brain) so that you can achieve your goals in any walk of personal and/or professional life”. And I’ll give you an example of how tooth-paste manufacturers are programming your brain through their ads to achieve their outcomes. If you have ever noticed the amount of tooth-paste they show in their ads that should be squeezed out on the toothbrush, you would have noticed it pretty much covers the length of the toothbrush. The same with shampoos. Observe how much shampoo they pour out on the beautiful lady’s hands in the ads. Quite a lot, right? Same thing with sun-screen lotions or any kind of moisturisers for that matter. Now think of how much tooth-paste you squeeze out every day. Now, you might claim ‘very less’ for yourself but try brushing tomorrow with half the amount of tooth-paste you usually take on the tooth-brush. And I’m pretty sure you will be able to brush your teeth well without any germs or decay problem. The idea is, they show you the visuals of how much you need to pour out and you do approximately same thing because of the way the ads have programmed your mind. That’s an example of how your brain can be programmed.

Well, if your brain can be programmed from someone outside your system, you can do that for yourself as well. Using NLP, it is usually easier to motivate or program yourself from the inside. If you are not using NLP, you are probably working harder. Here is another example of programming the brain. Imagine a lemon slice in your hand. Now squeeze this imaginary lemon into your mouth so that the juice trickles on your tongue. I know you are getting that strong taste and that too from the imaginary lemon slice. See, it is so easy to make your brain think/feel the way you want. Doesn’t that give you the feeling of the great power you have within you. I’m sure you must have realised the kind of control you have over yourself and also the creative potential your brain has.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming! Let me first tell you what it is. Of course you can read all about it in my earlier blog which is right here. Infact, let me share a condensed version.

There are 3 words in this. Neuro is the brain, the central nervous system and all the 5 (or 6) senses which are capturing your experience which is subjective. The word ‘subjective’ is important here because we all have our own ‘maps’ when it comes to any experience. It is this ‘map’ which can be programmed for a better result. Remember, all of us are working perfectly well to get the results we are getting currently. So, if you want better results, you need to change the ‘map’. Linguistics can help in doing that. Linguistics is the way you code your thoughts and feelings in the form of language. Obviously, what you say to yourself and to others may result in change in thought patterns, beliefs, mindsets and helps in getting things done successfully for yourself. They say, “Your success in life depends on the quality of communication”. Effectiveness of communication can be measured through the response that you get. Take Leadership for example. Almost every aspect of a Leader’s success depends on the effectiveness of communication, be it motivating team members, getting things done from them, giving them a constructive feedback for behavioural change etc. For a Sales Professional, the way communication is structured, the choice of words, the compelling language patterns are of great importance to make the sale happen. Hence linguistics is an important stakeholder in your success in whichever field you are in and any walk of personal and professional life. “You are what you say”. What are you saying to yourself about yourself? Now you are thinking and it is good to think. You are carving yourself for better for sure.

So, let us discuss some success stories of NLP. I know some people think NLP is esoteric. It cannot be proven by science. I wonder, which part of psychology can be definitely and comprehensively proven by science. Every person is a different book of psychology. Which is why, trials and errors are a part of psychological interventions. I have this belief that if something doesn’t work for you, you should do something else. NLP I pretty much like that. There are no side-effects of NLP interventions. The worst that can happen is, something might not work. In that case, use another technique. There are lots and lots of techniques to deal with a cognitive problem. Broadly, if I were to simplify applications of NLP for you, I would say NLP interventions/patterns can be divided into two categories which would make your life much better, simpler, easier to deal with and achievement oriented. The first category deals with the interpersonal part and the second one deals with the therapeutic part. Let me just throw some light on how NLP helps/works with some of the many interventions:

Sub-modalities: This according to me is the most powerful intervention in NLP and it has its applications in various areas. Sub-modalities are all about how your brain codes information or any product, person, memory, beliefs etc. Firstly, if you have too much of a craving for something (food or anything else), sub-modalities can help in taking away that craving. It’ll definitely take away the compulsion. I have nice story to explain this. I told a friend that I had spit in his glass of beer while he was in the washroom. Now I had two glasses for myself. By the way, it wasn’t true, but the brain just changed the internal coding of the existing beer just because I made that statement. Suddenly, my friend started thinking differently about the beer, for no fault of the beer. Happens in relationships as well doesn’t it? One of my friends changed the coding of his wife when he caught her lying about being at home, whereas she wasn’t. The reality was, she wasn’t lying to him. She was out to buy some vegetables when my friend called her and asked her where she is. She said she was at home. Then he asked her to open the door because he was outside the house. Then she told him she was out shopping. Now, the shopping centre was just two buildings away from their home, so somewhere I wouldn’t blame the wife, because she was ‘almost’ at home. But now you have the husband suspecting his wife for every single action because the coding in the brain has changed. How ridiculously simple is that? Read more about this here.

With this logic, you can help yourself with:

1. Dealing with unwanted habits
2. Dealing with allergies
3. Dealing with limiting beliefs to form new empowering beliefs
4. Motivating others (including kids) using the right words

Phobia Cure: We’ve had people with elevator phobias coming to us climbing the staircase to our office on 8^th floor because they have elevator phobias. We have cured their phobia in a matter of 25 mins and they have gone down the building in the elevator. Phobias are basically visual-kinaesthetic synaesthesia. You see something and you feel something after seeing it. The problem is, the feeling is too strong and you can let go of the ‘irrational fear’. Having a phobia means you have a very good memory. Something has to have happened in your life which has created a phobic neural pathway. This neural pathway gets ‘lit’ up when you see the same phobic content. Its like, you cross a sugarcane field right through the middle of it and do it every day, several times. Now you have a pathway. It’ll take some effort to eradicate that pathway. It is just a question of how you destroy the phobic neural pathway. Fortunately, we have two techniques in NLP to deal with phobias and both of them are amazingly effective, easy to run and less time consuming. They work like magic. You can read more on this here.

Rapport building: Another very powerful intervention to get that instant connect with the other person. I’ve never failed when I have used this technique. The concept of why this technique works is, we all want our kind of people around us all the time. In college, you were a part of one group of friends and I am sure you were not friends with everyone. And by being friends, I mean you have that emotional connect. By not being friends with everyone, I don’t mean that all others were your enemies. You will realize that everyone in your group had the same tastes and were quite similar to each other. In my class, we had a group of all back-benchers or front-benchers. We had one group which consisted of all fat people and one group consisting of all beautiful girls in the class (at least I found them beautiful). So basically, if you match and mirror the other person’s taste, style of communicating, learning style, physiology (up to certain extent, don’t beat it to death) then the person starts thinking, “Oh! S/he is just like me”! That when people feel the comfort of communicating with you because you are like them. “People like each other when they are like each other”. Abraham Lincoln had once said, “I don’t like that person, I must get to know him better”. Think over this statement and you will realize how deep and profound it is when it comes to connecting with others is concerned. Leaders can use this technique and connect with their teams. Read about that over here.

Sales guys definitely need this to connect with their clients. Remember, “Resistance in a client is due to lack of Rapport”. Read more about it over here.

Being in the right state of mind: “There are no un-resourceful people, just un-resourceful states”. You need to be in the right state of mind before an important presentation, or an important client meeting or even dealing with high pressure situation at home or office or in relationships in general. The question is, do we have a choice? Yes, of course we do! We can be happy whenever we want to be. We just need to create those conditions externally or internally in our mind. I know some of my friends who start being nostalgic and happy while listening to ‘Summer of 69”. This is the reason why ‘being happy’ cannot be a goal because it is a state and you can be in that state whenever you want. There are so many techniques and interventions in NLP which can get you to the most optimum state that you need. You can use these techniques to deal with some difficult people in your life. I’ve used this technique so many times in my childhood (not knowing it is an NLP technique) to be composed and not laugh when my teacher used to yell at the class. For some reason, I feel like laughing when someone yells at top of their voice. I used to say to myself that your crush will die if you start laughing. It instantly got me into the serious or composed state of mind just thinking about that thought. And we do this so many times, not to mention movies from Indian film industry. If you are a Bollywood fan, you would’ve heard the dialog where the coach or the main character motivates the other people by saying, “We need to win, otherwise we they’ll take everything from us”. Bam! The right state of mind arrives, just with that dialog and everyone rushes to beat the hell out of the other team. You can also read about being in the right state over here.

Some more interventions and their themes:

1. Perceptual Positions: Dealing with other people with whom you have problem with. The concept is, you get wisdom by looking at the same situation from different perspectives: Your perspective, the other person’s perspective, the third person’s perspective (the fly on the wall perspective). We do that so many times when we are watching a game. All of us suddenly become experts in that game advising what the captain should do. This means, we are capable of dealing with our problems, it is just that we need to take a step out of the problem and think about it like a third person or an ‘expert’. I believe that if you have a problem with someone or something and if you take yourself out of the equation then actually there is no problem. So, you can acquire wisdom for yourself and do away with the unwanted states.
2. Parts Integration: A very simple intervention in NLP which is used when you have a dilemma of whether to go for option A or option B. You may have said this to yourself sometime, “On one hand I would like to do A and on the other hand I would like to do B”. If that was the case then we call it a ‘Parts’ problem. ‘Parts’ is the metaphoric expression that represents option A and option B in your brain. Well, let me tell you folks. Irrespective of whether you go with option A or B, the highest intention of both the options is same in your mind. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have a Parts problem. Do this when you are all by yourself. Think of what option A will do for you. Keep chunking it up by saying to yourself, what will that do for you and then what will that and that and that do for you. You will reach a highest point beyond which you may not be able to think or you might come a ladder down repeating the same take-away. Do the same for option B, the entire process. I’m pretty sure you will have the same highest intention of option B as option A. So, it really doesn’t matter, you can go with any option. Or in the process, you might find the most feasible, viable option.
3. Time-Based Techniques: A lot of us have issues dealing with negative emotions like anger, hurt, grief, fear, anxiety etc. If you really want to deal with these emotions so that you are not being driven by them then Time-based techniques work well. Let me explain metaphorically of how this works. Let us say you have a bead necklace. If you break open one end of the necklace by pulling out the first bead, all the beads would fall off. The beads are different events of that negative emotion throughout your life till today. Few days ago, I was supposed to pick up my son from his school at 11.30 AM. Before that my wife had asked to buy some noodles from the super market but some-how I got late getting out of the house. So, I skipped buying the noodles and rushed to the school. But it took my son 20 min to come out of the school because of some skit practice. Well, I said to myself, I could have easily gone to the super market and done my work. But you know, there is no point feeling sorry about the missed chance. I didn’t know my son would be late, did I? That’s exactly how Time-based Techniques work. What you know now, if you knew then, you wouldn’t be acting that way. That’s how you can be at peace with various such disturbing events in life by acknowledging the learnings from them and understanding that how much we think we know at a given point in time is always less compared to how much you know any time after that. This technique has a full ritual or a procedure to help the client deal with negative emotions. Not only that, time-base techniques also help in goal setting and definitely achieving those goals.

You know, I could just on and on explaining about how effective all patterns of NLP are effective. They have helped me in a lot of ways in my life. I am using them to change other people’s lives for better. Do the first level of NLP and be a Practitioner and you will see the positive change. I have always maintained that NLP Practitioners need hand-holding for at least 6 months after the course to be able to implement what they have learnt. I, as an NLP Master Trainer firmly believe in that and provide my participants with free coaching and mentoring sessions for the first 6 months after the training. Hence, I am ensuring that people make good use of what they have learnt in NLP and that changes their life. Finally, I would just say, “You have all the resources within you to achieve the goals you want to achieve. Just access them easily using NLP. If you aren’t using NLP, you are working too hard”.