Chapter 12: Driving Habits: Uncovering Your Secret Programs 197
confirmation of someone cutting you up. The outcome is to make sure
that the driver in front knows exactly what you think and for you to
relish thoroughly the feeling of giving in to the red mist of uncontrol-
lable rage (kinaesthetic).
- Operate is the process by which you gather the data that’re going to
help you carry out your strategy. So for your road-rage strategy, you
remember where the car horn is, where the headlight switch is, and
which rude hand gesture you want to use. In this example you use the
visual modality as you picture what you’re going to do. You may then
invoke the auditory digital modality as you recall all the juicy rude
words you know. You then launch yourself into your best road-rage
behaviour.
- Test 2 is where you compare the current data and situation with your
outcome for running the strategy. Yes, you blew your horn (auditory);
yes, you mouthed all your worst swear words (visual for the transgres-
sor’s benefit) and made the appropriate gestures (kinaesthetic for your-
self and visual for the other driver). Yes, the red mist feels goooood as it
holds you in its deadly embrace (kinaesthetic). But... oh no! You didn’t
flash your lights (visual).
- Exit is where you exit your strategy. In this example, because you didn’t
remember to flash your headlights, you loop around to continue operat-
ing the strategy and exit when you’ve flashed your lights at the offending
driver.
During her NLP Master Programme, Romilla was asked to break a piece of
fairly solid wood with her hand, and she was worried about failing this test.
Her strategy for ‘psyching’ herself up was to see the board breaking (visual),
feel energy in her solar plexus, pulsing up her chest and down her arm (kin-
aesthetic), and say repeatedly, ‘You can do it’ (auditory digital). Here’s how
this approach fits into the TOTE model:
- Test 1: Stepping up to breaking the board is the trigger that starts this
strategy.
- Operate: Romilla’s strategy for psyching herself up used the visual, kin-
aesthetic, and auditory digital modalities.
- Test 2: Testing whether she was sufficiently psyched up.
- Exit: Romilla looped around to operate the strategy, building up her
confidence until she was ready. When she was ready, she exited to the
actual board-break strategy.
