90 Part II: Winning Friends and Influencing People
Ever heard the term ‘use it or lose it’? Through your life experiences, you
become conditioned, which can make you a bit lazy about learning. When
you find that you’re good at one way of doing things, that’s the method you
continue to use. So, assume that as a child you draw a picture, sing, or dance,
and you enjoyed doing so and received positive reinforcement from a teacher.
Clearly, you’re most likely to concentrate more attention on that successful
area, in which you show promise, to the detriment of other endeavours.
The same thing can happen with your sensory awareness. You get very good
at using one method of thinking, processing, and indeed, sharing information
in a particular context, until it becomes more natural to focus consciously on
that one sense to the detriment of the others. You use your other senses, of
course, but aren’t consciously aware of them. For example, when you watch
a film in vivid 3D, you may not be as aware of the soundtrack as the visual
images in front of your eyes.
Leonardo da Vinci mused that the average human ‘looks without seeing,
listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves
without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour or fra-
grance, and talks without thinking.’
What an invitation for personal improvement!
In this chapter, we invite you to try out some new ways of engaging with
the world, fine-tuning your incredible senses, and noticing what a difference
doing so makes to your life. You can look forward to fun and self-discovery
along the way.
Getting to Grips with the Senses
The NLP model describes the way that you experience the external world –
which by the way is called real life – through your five senses, of sight,
sound, touch, smell, and taste.
Notice what happens inside your head and body, for example, when we write:
‘Think about a delicious meal you’ve enjoyed.’ You may see a picture of the
table spread with colourful dishes, hear the sound of knives and forks, a
waiter telling you about today’s specials, or a friend chatting in the kitchen.
Perhaps you notice a warm and pleasant anticipation inside as the aromas of
food drift your way, you hear the uncorking of a bottle of wine or feel a cool
glass of water in your hand, and then you taste the first mouthful: a delicious,
multi-sensory experience. And you’re only thinking about it.
Until now you may not have thought about how you think (the process), only
what you think about (the content). However, the quality of your thinking
determines the quality of your experience. So the how is just as important, if
not more important, than the what.
