Neuro Linguistic Programming

80 Part II: Winning Friends and Influencing People

Romilla was driving down a dual carriageway late one night, when it started to

rain: a very fine, misty drizzle. She could see a white, ethereal figure in the dis-

tance, by the side of the road. With a pounding heart, the conversation with

herself went something as follows:

‘Oh my goodness, it’s a ghost.’

‘Don’t be stupid, there’s no such thing as ghosts.’

‘You know you’re being idiotic. It isn’t a ghost.’

‘Yes it is. What if it’s a ghost?’

‘But it isn’t.’

‘Yes it is.’

And so on. To her extreme relief, but also in another sense bitter disappoint-

ment, the figure turned out to be a tramp in white plastic sheeting looking

really spooky in the misty rain.

This anecdote involves distorting an image, but you can also distort the

meaning of another person’s actions.

Jacqui had a male boss, Tom, who because of his cultural background, found

dealing with women at work very difficult, and was very abrupt in his interac-

tions with female employees. Jacqui misunderstood Tom’s behaviour and

decided Tom didn’t like her; she distorted the facts. The situation may have

spiralled out of control if Jacqui hadn’t confided her misgivings to another col-

league. When Jacqui understood that Tom’s upbringing was responsible for

his behaviour, she no longer reacted emotionally. As a result her behaviour

changed to reflect her confidence in herself, which resulted in an improve-

ment in the way Tom treated her.

Persecuted by the number seven

Here’s a revealing quote by George Miller, from

his article ‘The magical number seven plus or

minus two’:

My problem is that I have been persecuted

by an integer. For seven years this number

has followed me around, has intruded in my

most private data, and has assaulted me from

the pages of our most public journals. This

number assumes a variety of disguises, being

sometimes a little larger and sometimes a little

smaller than usual, but never changing so much

as to be unrecognisable. The persistence with

which this number plagues me is far more than

a random accident. There is, to quote a famous

senator, a design behind it, some pattern gov-

erning its appearances. Either there really is

something unusual about the number or else I

am suffering from delusions of persecution.