Chapter 12: Driving Habits: Uncovering Your Secret Programs 199
Figure 12-3:
This dia-
gram shows
the eye
movements
when you’re
looking at
someone
who’s right-
handed.
Visual Constructed
Auditory Constructed Auditory Remembered
Visual Remembered
Kinaesthetic Auditory (internal) Dialogue
Vc Vc
Ac Ar
K Ad
How a person’s eyes move depends on whether that person is right- or left-
handed (Figure 12-3 illustrates a right-handed person). Left-handed people
may tend to look to the top and their right when they make a visual memory.
So when you’re trying to figure out someone else’s strategy, always check
that person’s responses by asking a few innocuous questions such as, ‘Which
route did you take to get here?’ Such questions force the person into visual
recall and give you a clue as to which eye strategy (left- or right-handed) is
being used.
Flexing Your Strategy Muscles
Throughout your life, you continually develop strategies. You create most
of the basic ones when you’re young, such as walking, eating, drinking, and
choosing and making friends, and you develop others as you come across
new circumstances in life. Sometimes you find that a particular strategy isn’t
as effective as someone else’s, perhaps because that person is starting from a
more informed platform or had a good teacher.
For example, in your professional life, you may be very good with numbers
but less so at public speaking. Perhaps your career strategy was to learn
about figures through studying hard and getting lots of practice at working
out budgets, but now you expect to be a good presenter without putting in
the same level of study or practice.
Recognising that a strategy may have grounds for improvement is a useful
tool. If, say, a colleague is cleverer at negotiating a higher salary than you
for the same job, perhaps they present their successes to the boss more
effectively than you. If so, maybe you should work out and implement
their strategy.
