152 Part III: Opening the Toolkit
- Ask them to think for a minute about someone they really dislike,
whose company they don’t enjoy – paying attention to any pictures,
sounds, or feelings that arise.
- Observe your friend and compare the differences in their reaction to
a positive and a negative experience.
Some people may demonstrate a dramatic change in their body language,
whereas for others the differences may be so subtle that you’re hard pressed
to spot them.
An NLP presupposition goes as follows: people can’t not communicate. Like
it or not, you’re continually influencing other people. Just by a look or a word,
you have the skill to elicit states in other people and in yourself, and it
happens so easily – just by being yourself and doing what you do, with no
conscious effort.
When somebody, such as a boss, parent, teacher, or partner, praises you, tells
you off, or expresses joy or disappointment, you recognise that they use a
particular tone of voice. Well, your own tone of voice also acts as an anchor.
Varying your tone of voice is a way to change other people’s states. Try out
this technique when you want to change the state of an audience or an indi-
vidual person you’re talking to – sometimes you may need to be animated, at
other times authoritative, calm, or restful.
Developing your own repertoire of anchors
One great way to work with NLP concepts is to find optimal states for your-
self: simply put, the best way for you to be yourself. The idea is to develop
this ability in the same way that you may acquire a repertoire of tennis or
golf shots. To start, ask yourself what may be the best way for you to do
the following:
✓ Learn effectively
✓ Perform at your best
✓ Relate to other people
Remember times in the past when you’ve been particularly successful in
these areas. What was going on for you at the time? Where were you, who
were you with, what were you doing at the time that was helpful? What was
important to you?
Build a range of visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic anchors that make you feel
good about yourself and other people. You may want to enlist the help of a
friend and work with each other on this project.
