Stortytelling Golden Keys Training Transcript

Storytellings
Golden Keys Training Transcript
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Storytellings Golden Keys Training Transcript
Table of Contents:

Track 01 Welcome .......................................................................................................................... 3
Track 02 - What Do You Want ....................................................................................................... 5
Track 03 - Get Clarity First ........................................................................................................... 12
Track 04 - Storytelling Translate Your Intentions ............................................................. 19
Track 05 Focus On The Function Make Yourself Followable .................................... 25
Track 07 - Be Moved The Secret To Great Storytelling ................................................... 32
Track 08 - The Framing Tool Quick Review ......................................................................... 39
Track 09 - The Framing Tool South Axis ............................................................................... 44
Track 10 - The Framing Tool North Axis ............................................................................... 48
Track 11 - Working Through An Example ............................................................................ 55
Track 12 - Leverage Requisite Variety ................................................................................... 60
Track 13 - Identify The Role You Play ..................................................................................... 65
Track 14 - Define Your Outcome Before You Choose A Method .................................. 72
Track 15 - Working Through An Example ............................................................................ 81
Track 16 - Bring Commitment. Storytelling Is An Emotional Activity ...................... 92
Track 17 - Role Function Output ............................................................................................... 97
Track 18 - End of Day 1 ............................................................................................................... 105
Track 19 - Day 2 Introduction .................................................................................................. 109
Track 20- Recap .............................................................................................................................. 114
Track 21 - Functions For Storytelling ................................................................................... 118
Track 22 - Call Back Connecting Things Up ........................................................................ 126
Track 23 - Getting People To Join You .................................................................................. 131
Track 24 - Universal Moments ................................................................................................. 139
Track 25 - Universal Moments Assignment Review ....................................................... 143
Track 26 - Exercise Universal Metaphor ............................................................................. 151
Track 27 - Predicates Causal Modeling & Model Operator Dynamics .................... 156
Track 28 - Putting It Into Practice .......................................................................................... 164
Track 29 - Bring Awareness. Master The Fundamentals .............................................. 176
Track 30 - Understanding Is The End Of The Learning Process ................................ 178
Track 32 - Learn From Everywhere ....................................................................................... 198


Track 01 Welcome

Michael: Welcome to Storyteller's Golden Keys. This is a special presentation.

Making an exception to the rule, whenever Richard asks me to do something -- I
do workshops on request for people and as I've told some of you before, we take
the content and we break it up into pieces and then we put it online through NLP
Times.

And we've got Tom O'Connor there at the back who is going to be filming. You
aren't going to be on tape, don't worry, you won't be on film unless I go So none
of that is going to happen.

Also this is one of the last workshops that we are going to hold in this workspace.
This is where all the distribution happens. It's our working area.

And about five years ago when I decided that I had enough of hotel rooms, I had
enough of the suites. Because you go into a hotel, and you go into hotel room
mode which is being completely fake.

And it's not a good learning or working environment. So I thought, "screw it."
Come into the place where we actually do work. Let's have a real relationship.
Let's have a real interaction in a working environment. So here we are.

Anyway, next time you come, we've got a new place. It's in a building called The
Chocolate Factory. And when you get out of your car, there is still a commercial
bakery on site and you'll smell bread wafting through. And we are right where
the chocolate was made. Our office is right in the space where the chocolate was
made.

I'm thinking I have to change my name to Willy Wonka or something.

Anyway, we'll have a new training suite, new training facilities.

Also I like this space because of the working aspect. But in the new space, we
actually have a fully kitted out cabaret kind of space. So we'll be able to do some
of those presentation skill things where I put you up on a platform, turn the
lights on and terrify the crap out of you. And then teach you how to do that.

So welcome. So storytelling, right? What do I know about storytelling anecdotes?

So we work in a small group because that means that I can eye ball each one of
you as we go. And what that means is that in addition to what I have to offer to

you and to take you though, I can also work with what you want and incorporate
it into the program.

Although I have many skills and abilities, I'm not a mind reader. And so in order
for me to understand what it is that you want, somebody is going to have to tell
me. And one of the ways that I really love to do this is I like to have you guys talk
to each other and find out what the other person wants and why they are here.
And then you report back, rat actually, to me about what it is that they want.

And then I give them what you tell me.

So in other words, you become responsible for what the other person... No
pressure right up front.

So I'm going to ask you in a minute to have a chat with somebody. And I want
you to find out what they want.

So that might include, for those of you who are Practitioners of NLP or who have
been involved in some kind of process where you know about asking questions.
You might want to find out what would make this worthwhile for them. In other
words, what would make this a good thing to have done?

What's their bottom line? What do they really need? What would they like to
have? What do they intend to get? What must they have?

You can ask them, "what do you want when you are done? In your desired state..
Where are we now in your present state and we can compare between the two."

Or you can ask it some other way.

But basically what I'd like you to do is find out their deepest, darkest secrets.

Choose someone that looks like they need your help. Make a little space for
yourself and find out that information for me.

Off you go.

Track 02 - What Do You Want

Michael: It's this attitude that says a task takes what it takes -- we aim for
efficiency, we aim for efficacy, we aim for elegance -- all of lovely E's. Ethical, it
has to be an ethical interaction.

So it takes as long as it takes. Some people finish quickly, other people took a few
more minutes. What I want to know is, who is going to be first to tell me to
introduce the other person and tell me what they want.

Audience: I will start. What Juliette would like is.. She is here because of
curiosity. And she would like to have some more structure about the work she
does with and around stories, storytelling and metaphors.

Michael: What sort of work does she do? Did she give you any hint?

Audience: Business.

Michael: And she uses storytelling.

Audience: Yeah.

Audience: Leadership.

Michael: OK, so leadership. She already uses storytelling. She would like some
more structure.

Audience: Particularly when working with a sense of initial coolness in a
relationship or coolness in a situation or context. So how to use story and
metaphor to build a rapport and move people into a different reality. A different
perspective. Is there anything I've missed?

Michael: Fantastic. See, this is good. You see the early part of the training is me
getting a look at you, you getting a look at me and me listening and watching.
And then also in the interaction, I can point stuff out like, if you don't know
something, ask.

It's really cool. You are going to make this very easy for me.

So?

Audience: I think you've got it pretty accurate. I think with the coldness we
talked about when it is a 'cold meeting' and how you go from using storytelling

and you feel you've got them in your hand, and you move out of storytelling
mode I suppose, in an elegant way.

Michael: The storytelling mode. I'm fascinated. This is the stuff I need to know.

So you've got a storytelling mode?

Audience: No. I work very intuitively.

Audience: Intuitive disruption.

Audience: Absolutely and it's about not crunching on a gear change, when you
are at that stage in a meeting.

Michael: In an initial meeting. So this cool initial meeting? OK.

I've got some really cool stuff for you, but it's the other kind of cool. Not the cool
that you don't want, but the one that you do.

It's going to be one of those.

Alright so if you have that, will you be happy?

Audience: Yes.

Michael: Is there anything else that you need?

Audience: No, I'll let you know as we go along.

Michael: You'll let me know as we go along? I'm happy to work on that basis.

Someone else? Richard.. Phillip?

Audience: Yeah, Hi, Phillip is looking to do more narration work. You are almost
viewing your own work, other people are doing narration and that's part of
what you want to do.

I asked whether or not does he first construct a story and he has actually writing
a book which has been going on for 10 years.

Michael: He's been writing a book going on for 10 years? OK, that ought to be a
good book.


Audience: But he understands the structure, but doesn't trust that he actually
has that knowledge, it's almost getting permission.

Michael: Permission.

Audience: He knows what he's doing. But then it's like how to do what they do.
How to write the scripts. How would you ...

Michael: This is an extraordinarily impressionistic presentation. I love it. In fact,
as a storytelling technique, it will work.

I still need to know though exactly what it is that he needs.

Audience: Structure and how to create stories.

Michael: Structure and how to create a story.

Audience: And how to tell it.

Michael: Oh and how to tell it.

OK, I always wonder about these things because we are telling stories all the
time.. we are using anecdotes.

Just when my favorite workshops, the storytelling workshop comes, my mother
announces that she is coming for three weeks to stay with me. So I have my
mother right now at home. She has been with me for a week.

We are talking about anecdotes. We will drop in and out of stories and anecdotes
about this, that and the other thing. The taxi this morning coming in..

We do this without a thought. And yet when it comes to doing intentional work
or leadership work, there is a sudden switch in our mentality and it leads us to
treat the communication as if it's something exotic and something other than
what we do as human beings.

You are going to go home tonight, if there is somebody there waiting for you, you
are going to tell them about the day and how wonderful it was. Or they are going
to tell you about the day that they had.

We are going to sit down and watch the news, and as far as I can tell is gossip
with a little bit of style wrapped around it.


We do this naturally. And so I'm wondering, what is it that you think you need
that is different from what you will already do with Debbie when you are telling
her about something that happened to you.

Audience: That's a little bit more interesting.

Michael: More interesting? OK. Well we've got some special stuff here.

If you get that, love it. If you get that, will you be happy? I live for making people
happy.

Audience: Might be a bit of contempt.

Michael: So how are we doing? The score is 0 - 100 and they say they are 80%. It
doesn't work that way in here. Can't aim for 80%.

What else do you need? What do we add to this in order to make it totally happy.

Audience: More than just interesting.

Michael: You don't know.

Audience: Well no, I couldn't put an answer on it... rewarding.

Michael: I'll tell you what. So as we work, what I'll look to do is I'll look to give
you more options which means that you'll know what to ask for. It's great that
you know a little bit of what you want, but with a little bit more information you
can know what specifically to ask for.

I'll ask you again later on once we have some more information?

Audience: That's great.

Michael: Excellent.

Who else?

Audience: Let me tell you about Nora is a Wordsmith. She takes images with
words, she believes she has inherited an inability to tell stories from her mother.

Michael: She believes that she has inherited an inability to tell stories from her
mother?


"I'm not sure that I'm qualified to deal with this although you can tell us about
the toilet training if you wish."

So you've inherited a disability to tell stories from your mother?

Audience: She'd like to be able to tell stories. She doesn't know how to. She
needs the tools to construct stories.

Michael: You don't tell stories now?

Audience: No, just making single words.

Audience: But what about the time you traveled to Morocco.

Audience: I don't even like speaking out loud in front of other people.

Michael: What is it about speaking out loud?

Audience: I've always wanted to go on a course that taught me presentation
skills and how to say what you are saying.

Michael: Have you ever given a dinner party?

Audience: No.

Michael: One of the things about dinner parties is you spend a lot of time
thinking about what other people would enjoy.

Audience: I'm not comfortable with the whole thing.

Michael: Well you've got the first point. You have the very first point. Everybody
who arrives wants to have a good time, wants you to do a good job. Wants it to
be an interesting evening. You are half way there because they already want it.
So all you have to do is relax. It's just like at a dinner party.

If you are relaxed and having a good time, other people will as well. If there is
something about your non verbal behavior that makes it seem like a tooth
extraction is going to be performed through the rectum, that's just not going to
appeal to most people. They are going to react to it.

So all it comes down to is it starts with inviting people in. And if you are a playful
kind of person, that's how you start. And if you aren't a playful kind of person,
you start exactly as you are.


But it's about them.

It's kind of cool, you don't have to worry about you. I know it's backwards. It's
the opposite of what you thought. You don't have to be somebody special and
different, it can be you. And everybody wants you to succeed.

When people are listening to you, they are hoping you are going to tell a good
story.

Audience: But I can't!

Michael: We are going to deal with this, this is great. Although we might have to
go back in time and we may have to change the genes -- the genetic code for
storytelling.

If she actually had this as an adaptation, she would be a mutation -- the only one
on the planet.

Is there anything else that you'd like? If we can change that, will you be happy?

Audience: Yeah, I need to know how to start, begin and end.. and make it
compelling and end with a sort of 'wow!'

Michael: So she has already got some structures, she already has some ideas
around how to structure the communication which is great. She is already on the
road, she just doesn't know it. She is probably going to be one of these people
that is going to object at every stage as she tells great stories with a 'Wow' at the
end.

OK, we can work with that. We'll make one more check. So let's say we can do
that quite easily. What would make that even better?

Audience: Get a book published maybe.

Michael: I do know some publishers, I do know some agents. There are people in
here I'm sure who could help you.

That's an aside but is that what you want?

Audience: Perhaps, yeah.

Michael: Do you have an agent?


Audience: No.

Michael: Do you know publishers or know which publishers might be more
likely?

Audience: I'm not at that stage yet.

Michael: So you don't have a book proposal or anything like that?

Audience: No.

Michael: Well as we go through the couple of days, we'll figure out exactly where
you are in relation to getting a book published. And there are people in here who
know people, so we can facilitate that.

So going once, going twice -- Is there anything else while we are here?

Audience: That's it.

Michael: We'll work towards that, thank you.

Who else?

Audience: Nick, would like to walk away from here with new toys to play with.
Bring playfullness into his conversations. He want to tell metaphors and share
metaphors as storytelling but also to encourage the people he's talking with to
share their stories.

And he would like to walk away with the golden keys.. Or maybe he'd like copper
keys as well.

Michael: He can have whatever colour keys he wants. The reason why we call it
golden is because.. There is a little quote in the notes there that comes from
Woosashi the Swordsman. And he said, 'Learn one, master a thousand things.'

And what we are going to be talking about are the ones that if you learn, you can
apply in a thousand different ways. Learn one and then you will know a thousand
different things. That's why we call them golden.

As to the colour, as for the metals you make, as for whatever you do with them,
that is totally a matter for you.

Track 03 - Get Clarity First

Michael: You aren't a stranger to telling stories, are you?

Audience: No.

Michael: So tell me, how will you know that we are going to get something
different than what you had before? In other words, if you just have the same
that would be alright, but what specifically are we looking for in terms of
difference?

Audience: I think new perspectives, new ways of looking at things. And new
ideas around structure, I'd like to know what's behind the door which obviously
the keys must open.

Michael: Absolutely.

Audience: We can be playful with metaphors there. And maybe there are other
doors and more keys behind that door.

So really just a sense of awakening to what's beyond my own current limitations.

Michael: I'm trying to remember the name of a poet who talked and the
difference between heaven and hell being two tableaux -- one which people were
sat at a table and they were bound and there was food on the table and they
couldn't do anything.

And then on the other tableau, although they were bound, they were feeding one
another.. The secret in all of this, A) You have to keep magic wands with you.
How are you going to do magic without a magic wand? So I keep a magic wand
with me at all times. But then secondly, if you are going to go to the magical
place..

It's like Mary Poppins, eventually I'm going to pull a bowling ball out of this.
You've got to be ready. And so I always keep a spare fork with me. As you can
tell, I'm somebody who appreciates a good meal but also..

Know how to offer it to other people and do it in an interesting way.

I've been waiting years to use this thing. I've been carrying it in my bag for years.
So thank you for giving me the opportunity..

I tell you, eventually a bowling ball is coming out. You have to be prepared. You

have to have your bag packed with a lot of cool stuff.

What's behind the door? I would say there is really truly only one thing that is
worth considering behind the door. And we can start right now with it -- and that
is relationship.

There is no other reason. Control? Why would you want to control another
person if you can't control yourself? What do you think controlling another
person is going to do?

The only reason to have somebody in front of another person or guiding the
process or leading, is to create relationship between something conceptual and
something in another realm and the people who are there. Or facilitating and
creating relationship between those who are there.

As far as I can tell, there isn't much more that is worthwhile. There isn't a lot else
to do here.

What else are you going to do? Are you going to collect money? What is money?
Anybody worried about money?

For a moment there, I thought I had forgotten where my money is. But my money
is right here. My money.

Do you know what this is? We'll call it a 20 pound note but do you know what it
actually is? It's paper, it has ink on it. But what does it represent? It represents a
debt, it doesn't represent anything at all other than that it's an IOU that says I
will give you one piece of paper with the words 20 on it in exchange for this.

But it's nothing real.

Audience: It might represent like an hours work.

Michael: It could if we negotiated that. So it's a special piece of paper that we use
to represent something else. But what it isn't is what it used to be.

In the old days, you could have a piece of paper that said 20 pounds on it and
there would be a little line that says, 'The bearer is entitled to 20 pounds
Sterling.'

In other words, you could go, you could present it at a window and they would
give you silver worth a certain amount with what they call 20 pounds. But not
anymore.


The money, like quantitative easing when they talk about it, is the creation of
money from the air. But what most people don't know is where the money comes
from for your mortgage. Where does it come from?

The bank has the capability of creating debt. When you sign your mortgage
agreement, the money is called into existence. And when you pay it back, it is no
longer there. But it was never there in the first place.

This stuff can drive you nuts if you actually think about how things actually
work, you discover it's a handful of nothing. Even though I'm holding paper, I'm
holding a handful of nothing.

That's not what this is all about.

If I'm going to say, "Hello there... this is what it's about." And I can entertain you
for the rest of the day with a 20 pound note and a long fork. I am that good. But
we aren't going to do that. That's not what this is about.

When we do things, when we tell stories, when we create exercises and we
create drills, it's for a reason. It's to create relationship -- relationship between
one another or to experiment with.. have a relationship with ideas and concepts
and possibilities.

It's always about people. And it's always about this intentional interaction. It's a
dance. It's an exchange. It's those wonderful Batesonian, the mutual exchange of
signals beyond, 'Hi are you still there? I am still here. How are you doing? Are
you alright? Good.'

Those proforma communications that we have. The simulation of relationship,
those kind of place markers that we have.

Because there are sometimes when you have to perform a function for other
human beings.

So for example, you work as a change agent or a facilitator or a trainer or anyone
of these things, then you are expected to assist in the creation of an output.
Something to transform. Something that is different when you are finished
compared to when you start.

This approach to intentional communication, communication that intended to
create an effect.. to create relationship in such a way that the other people who
are listening can do something differently than they were able to do before.

That's what we are here to talk about.

I would keep the definition at a very high level. I would suggest that if we are
talking about what storytelling is -- intentional communication -- in pursuit of a
response or reaction using some sort of narrative structure.

So we have three parts to it. The narrative structure is the key to the whole thing.
What makes up a narrative structure?

We can go into all of that detail, all of that good stuff, all the techniqy kind of
stuff. We have to stay a little bit higher up within the definition and talk about
that pursuit of a response -- a specific response or a reaction.

Let's think intentional communicators, professional intentional communicators -
- people like comedians or comics. What is it that they are seeking? What kind of
a response are they seeking with their communication?

Audience: Laughter.

Michael: Pretty straightforward. They are looking for a certain kind of laugh and
then they'll talk about things like building the laugh throughout the show. That's
what they are seeking. All of their communications are geared towards the
elicitation or production of laughter.

But there is more than one kind of laughter, isn't there? There is laughter from
discomfort. There is laughter at absurdity. There is laughter at the foibles or falls
of other people. There are many different kinds of laughing.

So there has to be something more than just laughter, than just the state. What
specifically are you seeking as the response?

Well we notice that comedians have styles. That they have a certain kind of way
of pitching a joke and a certain relationship to the ideas.

So for example, with Tony Hancock, how would you characterize Tony Hancock if
you remember him?

Tony Hancock.

Audience: Stuff happened to him.

Michael: Stuff happened to him.


Audience: He wasn't aware of other people's stuff.

Michael: So there was a consistency there around how he related to the world
and to other people. And the comedy came out of the imposition onto this chap
and his lack of awareness.

Are there any other characteristics of qualities that you'd use to describe
Hancock?

What was the primary state? If you've seen him, what was the primary state
response that he had?

Audience: A sense of being put upon by the world. A victim.

Michael: A victim. Indignation at his victim status. He was very loud about that.
And as it got louder and more exaggerated, it becomes funnier and funnier.
There is nothing like seeing someone who is self absorbed in that way.

Encountered nemesis and encounter the world.

But it was out of the way in which he held the world -- the frames, the filters, the
relationship between himself and what was going on that created the response
further down.

Let's go up one more level -- the intentional communication. What is intentional
communication? What's the difference between .. 'How are you doing? Good?'
And perhaps some sort of analogy or metaphor that you might use with a client.

Is there a difference between them?

Audience: I think it's elicitation and having some purpose in mind.

Michael: Having some purpose in mind. When you say some purpose in mind, do
you mean, 'I wonder what I'm going to have for lunch today?' Is that what you
mean?

Audience: In relation to the other person.

Michael: Ahh.. 'I wonder who I am going to go to lunch with. Well I have a client
meeting at lunch today.' Is that what you mean? What do you mean when you say
having that purpose in mind? The purpose for what to have happen?

Audience: Actually that actually could be something solid and worthwhile.


Michael: We are back to Bateson again. Bateson talked about how every
communication has two aspects to it. It has both the informational aspect to it
and then it has the demand.. you could call it a request but it's not, it's a demand -
- a demand for a response. Even the simple, 'How you doing?' is a call to have
that response occur.

Audience: There is a difference between transactional and transformational.

Michael: That's right. In the transaction, which is where we spend an awful lot of
time, we have the pro forma communications -- the ordinary things that we use
in order to facilitate movement through the world.

But then there is those times and moments when we enter into a dance in such a
way that something greater happens and we can't be more specific. A chance
occurs. Something perhaps not expected, but certainly when we entered the
dance in the first place, we didn't expect the change to occur in quite the way it
did.

The transformational aspect of communication with intention is what makes
storytelling special. And it's just like that road to hell, paved with good
intentions. It's the difference between, 'Alright everyone, I will now apply the
Ericksonian metaphor. Bend over.'

It's that kind of thing. Metaphor.. 'Once upon a time there were a group of baby
squirrels. And there was one big asshole squirrel at the front. And he was being
mean and patronizing.'

You know, imposing stories on other people. And also being really weird with the
frame of reference.

There is an approach to using metaphor in therapy which is you try to find a way
to structure your story, your little fable or fantasy, so that it matches something
about the narrative structure of the problem. "Once upon a time, there was a
family of alligators and the daddy alligator was being mean because he was an
asshole."

You know it's like dirty to run the parallel between the two. The only problem
with it as a form of intentional communication is it's all too easy for that to
become deeply patronizing as if one person could know the right way for
another person to resolve their problems.

It's a big challenge today. More often than not, I'm approached by people who

want me to tell them how they should be living their lives. And I have no idea
how other people should live.

From a totally objective and God-like perspective, I can tell them how to live. But
of course I won't be there to suffer the consequences. I won't be there once
they've made those choices to have to live through it.

Unless we are scrupulous, right? From the word go with what are these
intentions, where do they come from and what are we hoping to do? You can end
up in deep water or creating an unintentional cult of weirdness.

There are these books that you can find of Ericksonian metaphors. Like if you
have a head cold, here is the story to read to someone.

That reminds me of a story. Once upon a time, a long time ago in ancient Greece
in the legendary times, there was a great King called Theseus. And people were
coming to his court and telling him, 'Theseus there is this awful person way
outside of Athens, and he has a road side inn. And what he does is he invites
people into his inn and he gives them food with drugs in it. And once they are
drugged, he takes them to the guest room and he throws them onto the bed. And
if their legs hang over the end of the bed, he hacks their legs off.'

'And if their legs aren't long enough, he puts them on a rack and stretches them
out until they fit. His name is Procrustes.'

Theseus says, 'Can't have that in my Kingdom.'

So what do you think he did? He's a hero, what do heroes do?

Audience: Charge right in.

Michael: Exactly. He goes to the inn, pretending to be a humble traveler.
Procrustes tries to drug him, and he knows what the trick is, so Theseus doesn't
eat the meal. He pretends he is asleep, gets put on the bed and as soon as
Theseus tries to hack his legs off, there is Theseus with his sword. And what does
he do? He takes Procrustes and puts him on his own bed.

But he doesn't stop with just hacking the legs. When you've got a problem like
that, you want to break it down into very small parts to make sure it never comes
back again.

I was watching a horror film last night. And this notion of the Procrustean bed.
This notion that there is a one size fits all approach, that with one magical form

of communication, we can resolve everybody's problems.

Can you guess where I stand on that? I'm not into it. I'm not into it at all.
Track 04 - Storytelling Translate Your Intentions

Michael: What we are going to be talking about with storytelling is how to
translate our intentions into a form that makes it possible for us to communicate
in a simple way. Whether that's through analogy which is close to that parallel
technique that we talked about but hopefully not as patronizing.

Through metaphor, through things like simple anecdote, even through symbolic
communication -- sometimes a symbol is enough. Sometimes all you have to do is
show them a sign and that will stand for an awful lot of longer storytelling.

Once you know about the better Procrustes and the Procrustean bed, we can
develop them into an intervention. I will show you how to do that later on.

Alright, is everybody cool with this as a general frame that we are going to work
within? Does anybody have any questions so far?

So we'll start from the cognitive side, we'll start from the mind.

Alright, so you are a trainer, communicator, facilitator. What do you do with
communication? Do you therapize? Do you train? Do you lead? What kind of
functions do you perform for people?

Audience: I invite them to look at their current situation from different
perspectives so that they can make wise choices.

Michael: Do you do this one to one or with groups?

Audience: Both.

Michael: Do you use your storytelling and metaphor in the context of.. Do you
use it as a way to create another perspective?

Audience: Sometimes I will use a story to challenge or to get across a point.

Michael: So we have challenge, illustrate.

Juliet, what do you use stories for?


Audience: I use them to connect.

Michael: Connect.

Audience: Confirm.

Michael: Confirm. So here is one of mine, you've just shown me one of yours, so
here is one of mine.

You said connect, what was the other one?

Audience: Shared experience..

Michael: Shared experience.

Richard, what do you use stories for?

Audience: Use them to confuse.

Michael: Why would you do that?

Audience: When they are confused, they aren't in a strong state. I can move
them. If people know what they have got, I can confuse the wrongness.

Michael: You can confuse the wrongness and that makes it right?

Audience: It makes it whatever it is going to become next.

Michael: So as a function to confuse. Not to be confused with Confucius, the
Confucius technique.

How about for you?

Audience: Impart knowledge.

Michael: When you say impart?

Audience: Share.

Michael: I'm just thinking about imparting knowledge. I can come up with a few
choice ways to impact knowledge. But it doesn't tell me what to do.


In the same way when we talk about sharing experience, how do we share
experience? How do we impart knowledge?

Audience: Tell, talk etc.

Michael: So you tell what? Information? Data? Experience? Procedure?

Audience: Experience.

Michael: So you tell people about experiences? And when you tell people about
experiences, what's the difference between that and me talking in exquisite
detail about the curry I had the other evening plus its outcome?

Audience: Couldn't tell you.

Michael: You are a musician. And you also help people with their computers.
What else do you do?

Audience: I record people's vocals.

Michael: So when you tell people stories and use anecdotes..

Audience: Sometimes I share other people's experiences to the vocalist or
whoever is coming in..

Michael: Other people's experience. So you borrow the tales of other people in
order to?

Audience: Pass on that knowledge to the vocalist I'm recording at the moment.

Michael: You want them to do something?

Audience: Yes, better than what they are doing.

Michael: There is the intention. As a director once put it to me, 'Alright let's go
again, just do that better please.'

So you use the stories in order to elicit improvement?

Audience: Correct.

Michael: So to elicit.. and we'll put in the block there the process of
improvement.


And all of these have to be further specified. But as you can see, there is a range
of intentionality -- state change being the massive one. I would put that up at the
top.

Audience: Show people who you are.

Michael: When you say that, how would we know that you were showing
someone who you are?

Audience: One of the ways that people think about themselves.

Michael: Interesting. So it's sharing values by demonstration? So it's the
demonstration through the storytelling? So we could say demonstration of
values. Who you are etc.

Audience: That's not always a conscious one.

Michael: Well we are doing it all the time anyway.

Any other functions that you perform? Francesca?

Audience: When filling in missing information, missing bits of the strategy,
teaching without teaching.

Michael: Teaching without teaching. We have a technical word for that which
you are allowed to say -- it's the instantiation, creating an instance of an abstract
principle in a specific place.

So teaching without teaching or instantiation. There are variant spellings on it.
It's a logical term which we've imported.

When in NLP they talk about installation, that's actually what is being done. It's
creating an instance or an example of a specific principle or strategy. And stories
are fantastic for that.

Audience: Inspiring?


Audience: You know I could do that too.

Michael: And that relates to? Sharing experiences and confirming.


Others?

Audience: Building relationships. But also, the opportunity to build state, right?

Michael: Sure. So we can either facilitate powerful states that connect or those
that disengage.

So building relationships or to disengage.

Sometimes it's much more polite to bore someone than to say shut the f*ck up.

Audience: Sometimes that's part of mis-matching and moving onto something
else.

Michael: Very true.

Each of these different aspects aren't intrinsic within the stories themselves --
they are within us as communicators and as intentional communicators.

This is one of the reasons why, for those that have been with me before on the
business courses, when we talk about rapport, we don't start from things like
matching our language patterns or anything like that. We start from intention.
We start from what you are doing and what you are there to do.

And that influences your state which then influences the choices that you make.

If you want to clean up your storytelling, clean up your intent. What are you
there to do? What's in and what's out?

Audience: It's paradigm shifting..

Michael: Paradigm shifting, we'll call that shifting the frame of reference. But
paradigm shift is just fine.

In old style NLP, they called it reframing -- a paradigm.

Audience: Inoculation as well.

Michael: Now we are starting to get into words that actually don't have anything
that touches the ground. Because I've never seen a paradigm. Have you ever seen
a paradigm on a table?


Audience: I felt it.

Michael: Feel the movement of the paradigm.

Audience: Inoculate - something is like something else.

Michael: That's right. But in order to instantiate these, in order to connect with
these, we have to come up with an example and say they are connected -- create
a complex equivalence for them.

These are all fine.

Audience: Appetisers to tell stories.


Audience: Use them as tools to influence as well.

Michael: Well advertising is the brain child of Edward Bernays who was
Sigmund Freud's nephew.

When he went to America, he was the first person to open an office on Madison
Avenue to advice businesses on how they could better persuade people to buy
things. And it was Edward Bernays's work that was brought back to England to
the Tavistock during the war to look at propaganda and mass communication.

It was all about the story. And advertising is still all about the story. And indeed
at lunch today, I'm going to talk to somebody at an advertising agency about...
how to tell better stories.

It's the whole matter. It's the whole matter of communication. Our songs and the
songs that we sign, our religions, our sacred texts -- it's all stories that create
context, that creates frames for us to connect with or relate through.

Audience: Interestingly, there is one ad that I'm totally confused by and I don't
understand it and I still think about it.

Michael: Which is the ad by the way?

Audience: It's a French Connection -- this is the man, this is the woman type of
thing. I just didn't get it. But at least it's still on my mind and I'm still thinking
about it. And when I pass them I think of their adverts.


Michael: I first started working with ad agencies in the late 80s and since that
time, there has been no major transformation of how they evaluate the
effectiveness of ads beyond whether you remember it.

And when you are purchasing it, would be more likely to consider it? The
problem is that you can't trump on the meat side, the preference for what has
been done before. As soon as a woman in Britain becomes pregnant, the
tendency will be for her to seek out the brands that her mother used when she
was a child.

They've demonstrated this over and over again. If it was dad's, dad's will become
an obsession.

There are businesses now in the USA and Australia for emigrants, where they
can get childish, childhood brands -- and I would imagine it is the mom's who are
driving that.

Even Cadbury's Flake or whatever the sweet is that the atavistic, the reptilian,
the ancient parts of the brain kick in.

Those stories become hardwired, the way in which we are brought up, become
part of the stories that we transmit for the future generations.

I do my my mother with me at the moment. I am hearing the same stories that I
have been hearing since I was a child. It's amazing. She is telling them as if it's the
first time.

It's one of those things -- breathe, relax, put the knife down. It will be OK.

Back away, it's not actually communication anymore. We are just hearing the
same -- the story creates the future. The time binding function they call it. It's
how we transmit culture from one generation to the next.

Even if I died, my stories would go on. My mother would tell those same stories
about when I was 1, 2, 5 to my nieces and nephews. And then some night around
a camp fire or whatever, that story would be transmitted.
Track 05 Focus On The Function Make Yourself

Followable

Michael: Alright, so depending on the function that we think we are performing,

the way in which we tell a story has to change.

Why? It's a very simple matter. Imagine Hound Dog being played as if it were a
Baroque composition -- it doesn't work.

Jeremy Rifkin, Joshua Rifkin with the Beatles book. He took Beatles songs and
made them into a Baroque cantata kind of thing. It's hysterically funny but it's
because of the clash of the style along with what the tunes are actually saying.
Please please me in a 17th century style doesn't work. It creates humor.

The style choices do not come from us jumping up and down. If you've been
through a training where they've told you to jump up and down in order to
create excitement, don't. Because it makes you look like an idiot because it's non
relational.

In this school and in this way of doing things, you do not have to be super human
just extraordinary.

I just want you -- just 5% more than usual -- just that much more.

So for those that haven't been with me before, our first order of business in
preparing to work with stories is not to come up with structures or to come up
with content. It's to make ourselves a little bit more followable.

And the way that we are going to do that is not by doing some kind of a magic
trick inside your head or making images of yourself as a golden God and a golden
realm and a golden helmet that you buff all the time.

It's a very simple matter. And it has to do with, you pay attention with what's
going on in front of you, then you bring just 5% more. 5% more volume. 5%
more pace, no speed. Or if it's slow, we go 5% slower.

Whatever is presenting, you go -- just 5%. Volume, pace, size.

Do me a favour. Take your index fingers and we are going to draw a box. Start
with where you imagine the top of your head would be and draw it to the waist.
That's about the space most people use when they communicate with their
gestures and when they look. It's as if there is a box. It's as if they are looking out
through to the world through a viewing box.

It's very rare that you'll see someone moving outside of that box. Find out where
their box is. You can draw it with your mind, you can just go, there it is. Just make
it that much bigger. Just that much bigger.


And it only takes a tiny amount for us to notice that there is more going on.
That's what makes you watchable, that's what makes you listenable.

So in performing this experiment, I'm going to be asking you to do a state change
inside first before you go ahead and do that. How big of a room am I in?

Audience: It's a big theater.

Michael: That's bullshit, isn't it? It's weird. Thank you.

I'm going to have you work in twos in just a moment. Does that make sense?

5% is all that we need. You can go for 10% if you like, but it's like weight lifting.
We have our pattern, we have our habit, we have our tendency and we habituate
to the energy requirements for what those are. So you are going to have to do a
little bit of practice, a little bit of weight lifting.

What's cool about the 5% solution is you can do it anywhere. You can do it at
anytime. You can do it at the family dinner table.

Just a little bit more, not too much. You can do it at lunch. You can do it with the
waitress. You can do it in the supermarket. Just that much more.

If for example you are working on your email, just go a little bit faster than you
usually do. If you are on the phone, speak just a little bit louder. So you habituate
to making that adjustment -- 5%, 5%, 5%.

And then the game becomes finding where is the space for the virtuous circle to
begin?

Part of the problem that people experience when they are working with groups
or one to one is that they aren't getting the kind of response that they want. It's
not that hard, if you aren't getting the response that you want, you have to
change the stimulus.

But the way in which you change it is just by amplifying just what works.
Anytime you see something that you like, you just tag it. How do you tag it? By
acknowledging it. How do you acknowledge it? How do you acknowledge things
in ordinary life? Do you acknowledge things in ordinary life?

Of course you do. We are willing to be moved by what we see in front of us.


You want to add more play? You want to add more fun? Be more willing to be
moved.

I don't know if you've had an aunt of an uncle who used to be easily moved by
just about anything? You know that thing you are supposed to do when a five
year old brings you the crayon drawing that is a mess? You know what you are
supposed to do? You know the game? You understand what the role and function
is?

Do it with me -- the five year old brings you the drawing, what is your response?

Audience: Wow!

Michael: Cool!

Would you like me to write that down? It doesn't require it to be written down.
The reason why is because that's the right way to behave within our culture.

Audience: What do you mean by if you aren't getting the response, change the
stimulus?

Michael: Change the stimulus, absolutely. I just did it. All I did was I just made a
bigger gesture. And as you smiled, I had seen that smile before, so I just went
with it like that. Now your head comes up, you are smiling more.. and that's it.
That's exactly what I'm talking about.

It's a dance of mutual responsiveness. This is what that phrase meant. This is
how you create the virtuous spiral. It's not by you, the therapist or the
programmer or whatever sitting in some space and saying, 'I shall anchor you
into the state of ecstasy. Prepare for ecstasy. Remember the state..'

If we are talking about doors and you have manners, what do you do? You
unhook the door, you show them which way to go.

Or if they are over there, you say, 'It is over here.' You open the door and you go
through first.

One way or the other, the doorways there, that's fine. Or I'm going to go through,
come on through! It's a delight in here.

So if you aren't getting the quality of response, you intensify your own. And it
doesn't have to be that much. Get it?


So here is the game. I'm going to ask you to speak with someone else and what I
want you to do is I want you to find a really cool experience that they had. The
reason why we choose a really cool experience is because hopefully once you
find it, and you won't have to dig very far in order to do so, that they won't feel
terribly inhibited talking about it.

In other words, it's fairly easy to get them into the output mode. What do we
want them in the output mode? Because I want you to respond to them. I don't
want you to be the questioner, the expert, the one who is driving the process. I
want you to get them into a place where they are willing to go, and through your
non verbal behaviour, through the way in which you are willing to be moved, to
intensify their state.

And you'll do that by how you listen! And if you have to ask a question, by how
you ask the question!

It's simple. Instead of sitting there like the Zen Master.. Actually I had a Jungian
supervisor, I had trained in strategic and grief therapy, but I had a Jungian
supervisor. The reason why? I couldn't stand the strategic and grief therapists.

I found a training analyst who said this sounds interesting.. but of course it's
completely wrong but we went ahead.

What he taught me how to do was to sit there and listen pretending I was some
sort of a sage. He's listening to me and I'm asking what he's doing? And he says,
"I am listening to you and I'm pondering deeply." I said, "It's ponderous, that's
for sure. Come here! Look at me! I want to have a relationship. Let's talk!"

He wanted to go off into the abstract. But that's not where the relationship is.
The only thing that's off in the abstract are ideas. And you can do those at home.

When you are with someone else, how you listen affects how they will
communicate. Even if people are not conscious of all of this stuff, when they get
attention and when they get the response, they go further.

In other words, you are giving people permission through your non verbal
behaviour to go further where they like going anyway.

People like talking about cool stuff, and they do like talking about themselves.

I'd like you to choose someone. Have them select an experience. Get them to start
narrating -- no special language techniques either. I don't want you to do the half
nelson reframe or any of that kind of stuff.


The technique is, tell me about a time when you had a really cool experience?
What was your favorite holiday? What was the time of your life? When you look
back, what was the wildest thing that you did?

They will start.. if you need to ask more questions.. Does anyone need technique
for this? I don't think so. What's the technique?

I want to hear about whatever it was -- 5% above where they are. So in other
words you have to gauge it, 5%. If you don't get the response back if they don't
raise it, when you raise it, you are going to have to raise it again. Do more with
your non verbal behaviour.

It's one of these things of, you are just going to have to have more fun. You are
just going to have to be willing to enjoy them more especially the boring ones.

Anyway, I want you to choose someone who looks like they are going to be fun.
Find some space.

That's how you get things to happen. Who looks like fun? Boom.

Last night we were talking about fear, uncertainty and doubt in a tele-seminar.
Forget that.

13 billion years from now, the light is going to go out forever. Now if you think
about that enough, you are going to get depressed -- nothing endures, this life is
so short.

Or you can think about, I wonder what would be fun? Who looks like they are
ready to have fun here? OK you, come here!

That's how you do it.

Track 06 - Build Response Attentiveness

Michael: How did you find the exercise?

Audience: Exhilarating.

Michael: There we go. That's a virtuous spiral. That's a much bigger response.

What did you notice?


Audience: My response got larger.

Michael: And they still are. That volume is turned up to 11 which is great!

You sat next to Richard earlier this morning, didn't you?

Audience: Yes.

Michael: That's bigger, isn't it?

Audience: Yes.

Michael: Absolutely. More of that?

Audience: The story kind of elicited it. Really.

Michael: Really? His story about the zip line and all the rest, cool!

Audience: You asked for something cool.

Michael: I did ask for something cool and apparently he had something cool
happen.

It's also in how you respond. If I now just relax and I'm relaxing my feet and my
legs and making sure that my breathing is relaxed..

So did you enjoy that experience? What will happen is people will naturally tend
to come down to match you.

This whole thing about matching and pacing. Look, I watched all of the available
Virginia Satir videos. She was the source for that matching and pacing thing. I
watched all of it. Everything that was available, the only time when Virginia Satir
would match or pace the client was when she had broken rapport with them.
Because she was a pile driver of love.

She would hammer her loving interpretations into the poor helpless client.
"What you don't understand is your husband is only trying to...." Really heavy
duty stuff. And it's only when the client would go [noise], then she would take
that lumbering 6'4 frame and make herself a little smaller and modify her voice
down.

Otherwise it was the pile driver.


You don't pace, pace, pace, pace in order to build rapport.

When we feel it is safe to interact with other people, we will often reduce the
overt differences between us.

But we don't have to match anything in order to feel that we are understood.. in
order to feel that another person is worth following. In order to respect a person
enough to do what they say.

Fantastic story about Teresa Epstein. I taught Epstein who was an early NLPers
wife who had been a patient of Milton Erickson, the great hypno-therapist. And
somebody asked her, "Did Erickson do all of that stuff that Bandler and Grinder
wrote about?" And she said, "Yeah he would do those things. But that wasn't why
I changed." "So why did you change?"

I think I will tell you after we take a break for tea, coffee and pee.

We'll take a break now and we'll start again at five minutes to eleven.
Track 07 - Be Moved The Secret To Great Storytelling

Michael: Rather than getting overly fixated on cognitive structures and places to
park our minds and imagination, really where we have to start is within the
relationship and within the primary mechanism that we have as human beings
with interactions to communicate our state and what's going on. And that's
through our responses.

The notion that I was talking with Nick about was when you are listening to a
group or watching an individual, there are things that you see that are lovely,
that are good, that might be useful or helpful. It's those places that you focus on.

So you love the vulnerability that was present? That's what you pay attention to
and you watch for the signs of it. Then whenever you see those signs beginning
to emerge, that's when you send the signal. Because the problem that we've got
with non verbal language is this and it has many meanings.

Yes, I understand. Yes, I agree. Yes, I'm just simulating consciousness, waiting for
you to shut up so that I can speak.

The other problem is that the other person isn't going to know which one you
mean, but most likely it will be the wrong one.


You've been on the active listening course and the counseling course. And so you
are going to affirm that you've been listening and so you go, 'Uhuh.' And they go,
'They agree, life is shit. My life is over. I'm going to kill myself.'

Not just nodding your head. It's a communication. Whether you intended it or
not, you maybe going, 'Uh huh. I am just waiting.' And in their heads they are
going, 'Oh he agrees. Oh he agrees.'

Find the place where the response is what you like or it's moving in that
direction, and then allow yourself to be moved.

Did you manage to see where that little box was where people were moving? Did
you manage to get them to cross the box to go outside the box? Did you see it?
Did you see the box?

You guys were standing within 3 feet of each other so it would probably be a
little bit harder to see. Did you see it? This little box? When you were responding
to him, did the box get a little bit bigger?

Great. In the first instance, and in fact for today, I give you permission ex
Cathedral to go over the top with your responses. Because I didn't see anybody
going over the top here. You weren't in any danger. There was no danger.

So if you see somebody going in that direction, try picking up what they are
doing, their gesture.

Audience: I did. I didn't want it to see too mechanical.

Michael: Don't worry about it at this stage, let's just get it happening first then
we'll get subtle with it.

But the point is, it's not mechanical with regard to them. It's different with
regard to you.

Once you learn that you can do anything and it will still be your gesture, because
there is your box. This is how I'm comfortable. This is how I do things.

Whereas all we are doing is taking what somebody else does and reflecting it
back as a form of communication. Just making it a little bit bigger. Yeah?

What else did you notice?

Audience: Smiling.


Michael: Absolutely. With Richard, did you notice that he increased his rate of
speech? His rate of speech shot up through the roof. And he went on to other
things as well, other topics.

Audience: Topics.. hand gestures.. emphasize on the hand gestures.

Michael: Excellent.

Any questions on that? [silence] She is going...

That's called a subtle, non verbal cue.

Audience: I'm just thinking about how you can record an event, but when you
are living the event, it's much more real. I'm trying to bring an event in the past
into this environment...

Michael: Yes, absolutely.

Audience: almost relive the event with the person.

Michael: This is going to become so important later on.

Audience: I really struggled with that.

Michael: It's a practice thing. Because you see, if you go back into an experience..

Audience: This is what's going on now.

Michael: Exactly. But when you talk about the past, if you report on it..

For example, yesterday morning at breakfast, I sat down at 6 minutes past 8. The
table was set. There was toast already on the table, a combination of brown and
white toast. I'm using sensory reference..

But there is nothing terribly interesting here. Shall I go on?

As I said, my mother is staying, so she insisted on cooking even though it's one of
the reasons why I live 6000 miles away, so that I don't have to submit to that
except occasionally.

And so she made scrambled eggs. And I had scrambled eggs and toast. She put
them on the red plates.


I'm reporting what happened but it's not terribly interesting unless you are nosy
about that kind of stuff.

When you get involved in the story, and when you retell it as if it's happening,
the degree to which you are willing to go with the emotion, is the degree to
which we can join you.

Have you ever listened to a kid talking about what happened when they don't
want to tell their parents what happened? 'What did you do last night?' We hit
the psychoanalytic.. I think we call that a trigger.

'What did you do last night?' 'Nothing.' 'Oh come on, you went out with your
friends didn't you? What did you do?' 'Hung out.'

Whereas actually if they gave the narrative of what happened, of course the
parent would have to strenuously object unless it's Peter in which case he'd have
to go, 'Oh this is difficult.'

It would be hypocritical but maybe that's what I'm supposed to be doing as a
parent.

But when you are willing to go, the gift that you are giving to the people who are
listening is your state. It's the primary thing that creates your impact, not the
words.

We are state responding beings. We take our cues from other people non
verbally. The degree to which you are willing to be moved, whether by your own
communication or by the communication of others, is the degree to which people
can join you and participate.

Remember what I told you about pulling teeth in a particular way? When people
will not engage at the level of 'I' first person and go with it, that's when you get
into those conversations where it's just data. [phone ringing]

I used to have this rule where if a phone rang in a room, it was always for me.
Where you there when I answered the phone in the training room?

Audience: No.

Michael: You have 800 people in the room when a phone rings, I'd stop the
whole show. Go down to the 3rd or 4th row, 'Give me the phone.' And I'd say,
'Hello Bob's phone. I'm afraid Bob can't come to the phone right now. He's in a

workshop with Michael Breen.'

I'm standing on the stage in front of 800 people.. Well because the phone rang.
And I'd just keep it going for as long as possible and then take the message. 'Yes
you want him to call the office?' And I'd write it on the flip chart in big print. And
I'd only have to do this once, just once. And then people would make sure that
their phones were switched off.

Isn't this true Tom? It's very true.

Now that's cheeky fun. That's an anecdote for cheeky fun.

But the degree to which you are willing to go to be moved to show, to
demonstrate, to share, is the degree to which people can engage with you.

Have you ever shaken hands with someone who doesn't want to shake hands?
It's really unpleasant. The first gift is the gift of your state.

If you are going to be communicating with people, you might as well get with the
notion that you are going to be there. Just like with the dinner party -- you don't
think about all the most awful things that could happen at a dinner party in order
to plan it. Or the worse possible foods on the planet, stuff you don't like and you
know they won't like.

The time for experiment is not when you are sitting there and thinking about
what's going to happen at the party?

Who here is a dinner party giver? Do you give them frequently?

Audience: Not that often.

Michael: If I were going to, in another circumstance, I might not pursue that line
because there was a bit of ambivalence there.

Let me ask you, are you good at giving dinner parties?

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: How do you know?

Audience: Because my intention is that people are going to have a good time.

Michael: So what kind of things do you think about? Like party balloons?


Audience: Yeah, we set the lighting. We think about drinks. I think about the
customer journey.

Michael: Oh my God!

Audience: Do you know what? It's actually about giving... So I put a lot of effort
into the food so that everyone has a good time.

Michael: That's it. And by the way, did you hear her volume increased? Her
gesture.. went this big to this big.

That very thought was adequate to call out. What's necessary as a storyteller or
as a change agent? It was enough to call out the 5% for everybody to tie into. You
didn't have to go through any internal conniptions or making big screens or
turning your internal dialogue to Donald Duck or any garbage like that.

We are talking about when your intention is clear, you know what you are doing,
you are thinking about other people. That's it. You are ready to rock.

It's not that complicated.

Yes sir, did you have a point? Of course you have a point.

Audience: There is a point to that if you are using that analogy, is that the
pressure that you put on yourself is in fact a fine balance between wanting
everyone to have a good time and the pressure you build to give that.

Michael: Ahh. But that pressure..

We have this weird reaction to adrenaline and to the desire to do well and
performance. Without either the external pressure either to conform or to react
in certain ways, or the internal pressure of wanting something but not having it.
That's what drives the arousal in the body.

I'm talking about physiological arousal. The extra physiological energy in order
to perform. It takes energy to do this and that's why 5% is such a great thing to
calibrate to and retarget. It won't take all of your energy, it will take a tiny
amount. But over time, what it will build for you is the so called requisite variety.

It will give you the range. It will give you the possibility of going big or going very
small without having to make a particular effort with it.


But what will always be there, is that if you are communicating intentionally and
thinking about your role and what you are there to do, there is going to be a
pressure there. Without that pressure, I don't know how great performances are
going to happen.

One of the most effective simple interventions I've done with people around
these issues around self confidence and self esteem and how they go through the
world, their internal dialogue and the rest.. Is basically, if it doesn't work on the
outside, you do it on the inside.

If you talk to yourself in a way that wouldn't work with another person, don't do
it because it's not going to work any better.

Essentially, what you have to do is you have to lift your standard. You have to
raise your standard in terms of how you communicate with yourself internally.

When we talk about self respect, it's not about seeing yourself in some
exaggerated way. It's about respecting in the same way that you would respect
other people.

Raise that bar on yourself? Raise the bar in terms of what you are bringing to the
game, in terms of the intensity with which you hold the intent, the role and the
focus. Everything else will go up with it.

We are going to start working with the simple structures next and creating an
intentional communication with a simple structure. But unless you have this
intent, the strong intent for somebody to have positive and enjoyable
experience.. for them to get the very best for them.. for them to get what they
want.

I have no idea what your desires are for the people that work with you. But
unless you are fully committed to it, it doesn't matter what I write on the board,
what goes into those little reference notes. We could have a big thick book of
metaphors and anecdotes, but it won't make a damn bit of difference.

One of the reasons why there are so much bad anecdotage and so much bad
metaphoring and storing around.. I go to conferences and I listen to these people
and it's just awful stuff.

It's because they are trying to stay in some kind of presumed separation -- I, it.. I
am the one who is going to do it to you.. you the it.

We go back to the 20s, I am thou. Until you have the I and the thou and until we

are in that dance state, it's going to sound like a prepared TV dinner.

Do you remember TV dinners? Do they have TV dinners over here where they
freeze everything in a little aluminum tray and then put aluminum foil over it
and stick it in the oven for an hour and everything burns? It's kind of like airline
food but worse. Flash freezing -- they would take a piece of fried chicken, some
mixed vegetables, some potatoes on an aluminum tray and cover it over and
flash freeze it. They'd ship that out for people, stick it in the oven for an hour, it
burns and it dries up and you serve that to your family. That was considered to
be convenient.

It's kind of like that. When you are clean about what the intent is, what you are
there to do, you are willing to enter the dance and response.. dance a whole other
matter. Then it's a living matter of relating with someone else.

And then our questions about what is a metaphor, what's the difference between
a metaphor and an analogy? Those type of questions become very simple
because it's all in the service of.. well what do you want to have happen? What
changes do you want?
Track 08 - The Framing Tool Quick Review

Michael: Quick review -- for those who haven't been with me and haven't heard
of this thing that we use called the framing tool. The framing tool is a cognitive
device for the speaker, listener, questioner in order to find out what must be so
and what cannot be so with regards to what another person says.

So there will be an issue, a question, problem, challenge, goal, dream, vision,
statement. It doesn't matter what it is, which goes into the center. And I will put
some empty quotes and some ...'s there.

Whatever it is that the client, the group, the person, the situation says, that's our
system and focus. That is our frame and focus.

And we can ask some questions about it. We can test certain assumptions that
we have about what is said by asking questions. We organize the two key
heuristics that are using in thinking along a vertical and horizontal axis.

Along the horizontal axis, we organize our intuitions about causality. In other
words, events don't just happen.. a purple cloud appears and then suddenly
things are a particular way, that there has to be a precedent. That there has to be
something that comes before.


And that the precedence determines what's here. So if somebody says, "Those
people in HR are complete morons." Well we can just take that to be true as a
self-evident truth. Or we can say, what must be so if what they are saying is so?
What level of assumption can we make about HR being complete morons? What
can we assume?

Audience: Does that mean one, does that mean all? Does that mean in every
option, in every case?

Michael: A something or a something has occurred. Events occurred which led
to..

Audience: The situation.

Michael: And for the business practitioners here, what do we call that? It's a
presupposition, but what's the language pattern?

Audience: Generalization.

Michael: It's a form of generalization but it's a lost performative. It's a judgment
without who made the judgment connected to it.

What else can we assume if the person says, HR are complete morons..

Audience: That they've taken a perspective.

Michael: That they've taken a perspective but the perspective came from what?

Audience: An event, a conversation, relationship.

Michael: It could've been a story that somebody else told.

So now what we are doing is we are starting to populate our thinking machine
with potentials. And as we formulate our questions and ask them, our questions
will either point to certain possibilities or eliminate them.

But now we are actively participating in the process of hypothesizing. We are
preparing our minds to take up all the information and process it through.

The precedent which came before, we also have the potential influences. So what
might influence someone? In other words, if there is a direct precedent, what
might influence them in terms of this attitude?


Audience: Their values.

Michael: Could be their values.

Audience: Self-interest.

Michael: Yes, but there are very specific kinds of things which influence people.

For example, if you read a book or you listen to a certain kind of literature..
something on TV.. there might've been something on TV before. And all this does
is it sends your mind out and says, A) Am I aware of anything which could
influence it? And B) As a generic proposition, what influences might be there?

All of these things are preparing your brain to recognize what's being said.

Third thing, our expectations. What expectations does the person have with
regard to what they are talking about? Do they tell you about in terms of that
perspective or point of view they are taking about what they expect is going to
happen, what they are afraid is going to happen?

All these things that carry forward from the past and condition how the present
is viewed, you can either draw an inference about and test or they will overtly
say it.

With a little bit of practice with this, what happens is you start seeming psychic
whereas in fact it's not. It's just you are really good at figuring out that if that
happened, then something else must've happened before it.

I should also say with the framing tool and the approach that we are taking, we
do not deal with any happenings, events or doings as if they are a problem. I
don't actually believe in problems. A problem is a description of not getting what
you want, but that's not a problem. That's just a mistake.

No problem. Always results.

So consequently, when we are listening to somebody describe something that is
challenging for them or an issue, what we are hearing about is their description
of how they managed to not get the thing that they want.

In other words, everything is fine. Everything is just fine. What we have to find
out is what that 'just fine' constitutes. What had to happen in order for this to be
the only result.


If what they are saying is true and valid, then there will be certain consequences.
In other words there are certain things that are going to happen in the future, we
can summarize that in terms of benefits and consequences -- further benefits and
consequences. "If you keep doing that, you are going to go blind."

As a tool for listening and a tool for analysis, this gives us both a way to
hypothesize with increasing specificity. But when it comes time to making
stories up and when it comes time to offering suggestion or attempting to
persuade, what this gives us is the structure for causal reasoning. This gives us
the sense of this follows that. And in terms of the meta model for the NLPers, and
the Milton model.. the presuppositional forms.. this gives us causal modeling.
This gives us those forms of presupposition where one thing comes before
another.

It's a very powerful way of learning to particularize your suggestions.

This is another reason why I'm against the script based approach -- magic words.
It isn't the case that you are not already doing the thing that you didn't want to
do before. But that's just non-sense.

If you want the magic words, when you find out what the causal structure is, the
causal narrative structure that someone is using to hold it together.. And you find
the one presupposition within it based on the causal reasoning, and you
challenge what came before..

So in other words, it's like mind reading except you are using a what must be
true. You counter example that or you give a piece of information that makes the
frame change, then the whole problem vanishes.

This is why you asked earlier... During a training that Richard attended a few
years ago, I was talking about Egyptology for some reason. But after that what
happened was, certain problems just fell apart -- couldn't do them anymore.

I'm pretty sure what was going on there was I was setting up a circumstance
whereby the identification of a problem would mean that the frame wasn't valid.
"Oh, that's how the magic trick is done!"

In other words, the game was, if you think it's a problem, you are wrong. Oh, I
must be wrong, so the problem seems to go away -- the appropriate resource set
is called up usually because I would say 80-90% of problems aren't real issues.
They are just mis-perceptions.


Once you start dealing with just walking forward and doing what needs to be
done, resource sets will generally come into place. It's only when you are trying
something new, or when you are fighting an established frame of reference, that
is just plain wrong.

This is what we were talking about the other night -- the FUDs -- fear,
uncertainty and doubt. When people are freaking out about it, most often they
are freaking about what isn't so and what will never be so. But they direct all of
their energy and awareness to what it is that isn't..

Phil, can you just move a little bit away from that table? I just want to make sure
in case there are monsters under the table. I'm just trying to be responsible here.
We haven't lost anybody yet.

Well you are a dad but you are both dads so you've got monster defence stuff.
Have I told you the monster defence moves yet? Actually we may have to have
somebody do that. I just want to keep everybody safe.

You know, if you go like this with one hand and the other hand goes up and down
while you do it, the monsters and tigers stay away. Look around. You don't have
to tell me, I know I am right.

If I'm thinking about what isn't so and I come up with a defence against it, the
very fact that the defence seems to coincide with the non appearance of what it is
that isn't so, creates a counter-intuitive validation.

Does this make sense? I hope it does in a weird kind of way.

In other words, you have to fight bullshit with bullshit.

You were a kid once?

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: Truisms, right? You were a kid once? Of course you were -- it was a
long time ago but..

Did you have monsters in the house, under the bed or in the closet?

Audience: No.

Michael: You were quite lucky. Did your parents have someone come in and
clear the place out? Wouldn't that be a great service?


Instead of Monsters Inc, it's a reverse Monsters Inc. It's like Ghostbusters but for
kid's bedrooms, to clear out all the imaginary..

Who here had an imaginary monster? Did it have a name?

Audience: No, I was just really frightened.

Michael: Did your have a name?

Audience: No, mine just lived under the bed.

Michael: Mine too, but it was called the Owl Man.

Audience: Mine was a man too.

Michael: If I say the words, the monster snorkel, do you understand what I
mean?

Audience: No.

Michael: So clearly that didn't make it around. I figured out a way to avoid being
taken because of course, they just love the hands, faces and feet... If you pull the
covers up over your head and you make a tube enough to breath through, the
monster can't get in that far.

And what made that persist was the evidence that everytime I used it, I woke up
alive.

So the monster snorkel was effective as a solution.

Now as a kid, I didn't understand the excluded middle. I didn't understand that
there are a lot of other reasons why I am still alive. There is just that little thing
there.

Quite often when we are talking about uncertainty, fear, doubt or monsters
under the table, what we are dealing with is not looking at the bigger picture. Or
I should say, the bigger picture.
Track 09 - The Framing Tool South Axis

Michael: So the second thing with the framing tool in terms of contextualizing

what we are talking about, is we have going from specification in the world..
detail.. and then going through the various process of abstraction, leading up into
the purely cognitive.. the purely abstract realm.

So we have examples of instances of evidence of ... And this goes right down to
the sensory level.

That's a film camera. Ralph Harris, I am not.

And that southward arm, we have what people use to instantiate, in other words
to say is an example of what they are talking about.

As soon as somebody says there is, that's that presupposition of existence, as
soon as they say there is, that creates .. their must be examples or references. It's
just how the process works.

As soon as they state it as an is, the presupposition of existence calls the rest into
being.

It may be that they aren't aware of it, but at least you know it's there.

When we go north, we are then talking about the notion that.. I think if you've
read a book on NLP that you might've heard that all behavior is positive. "All
human behavior is positive." Have you ever read those things? I hate that. I
always have.

From the first time I read that, I just went, "No that's just wrong. That's just some
humanistic what not trying to impose a value."

Because there are behaviors that are not well intentioned towards the only one
who matters if you know what I mean.

What we can say that human behaviour is purposive or adaptive given some
specific context. To that degree we could say it is positive, it's purposive or
adaptive.

So we can look at the purpose for any particular behaviour, any particular
statement. Or it's adaptive quality.

In simplest terms, toward or away from. In simplest terms, toward or away from.
Simplest terms, in terms of state response, towards or away from is also a very
important characteristic of stories in terms of how they operate.


So with its purposive or adaptive quality, when you look across contexts, you
start to see people are often pursuing similar ends -- not exactly the same. But if
we organize those purposes or those adaptive mechanisms into a single group,
we might be able to talk about it as a generalized intention, a generalized
direction. They are constantly seeking a particular kind of thing like security,
safety or whatever.

It's not quite a value, it's more of a proactive and outward directed thing. I'm
going to call it, for our purposes, an intention with a capital I. It's not what it is,
it's what we are going to call it. Does that make sense?

It's the thing that they are always doing. The thing that they are always seeking.
There maybe more than one. But you'll start to see, it's kind of like I told you
with my mother who is telling me the same God damn story she'll been telling
me my whole life. And there is no change in them whatsoever. It's that tendency,
that natural direction that people will head in.

Now those natural intentions express importance through their repetition. In
other words, your nervous system chooses for you what is important via
repetition. The neuron that has the thickest body to it is the one that has the
greatest amount of transmission over it. That's the way it works.

Repetition creates an increasing size in the neuron. And when a signal
propagates down the neuron, it goes for the biggest ones first.

When we talk about values, what's most important? What we are talking about is
usage. We aren't talking about just the abstract assertion that something is
important, but the doing.

So we'll talk about values. Values at the level of embodied demonstration of
importance through repetition.

We can have talks about talks if you want. We can talk about what is most
important to you.

Do you remember what mission, vision, values with organizations in the 80s
when that was really big? One of the first projects I did was I had to take the
Times top 100 companies, and I had to collect up all of the mission, vision and
values statements for a client. And do you know what I found out? Most of those
members of the Times top 100 companies, their main purpose for being in
business was to make money.

When you boiled it down, we are in business to make money.


And then they'd have a statement of values. "People are our most important
asset." And as soon as you start thinking about classes of metaphor, what do you
do with assets? You exploit them. That's what you do with assets, you exploit
them. And that explains the 90s.

But there is always a gap between the stated values, the asserted values, the
things that people say are most important. And then that aspect of what they
actually live. And it's in the gap between the two, that's where the adventure is
and that's where the fun is. And that's where you find out down-line how the
game rules work -- do as I say and not as I do. There are one set of rules for me,
or there are no rules for me, and there are my rules for everybody else.

I've explained to some of you before that when I'm made God emperor, yes there
will be changes, but I promise you things will work a lot better.

So for example, we won't have to introduce new laws. We will just enforce the
laws that we have like for example traffic. I'll I'm imposing is that we enforce the
traffic laws as they are, but we just enforce them a little bit more sternly.

So for the first offence, I'm thinking a 500 pound on the spot fine, whether it's a
parking or moving offence, it doesn't matter. You get a warning for 500 pounds.

The second offence, moving or parking violation, 1000 pounds plus seizure of the
vehicle, all of its goods and the people in the car -- the grannie, the kids or
whatever -- indenture servitude for 20 years. We have to draw a line.

Third offence. What was Marble Arch called originally?

Audience: Tyburn.

Michael: And do you know what happened to Tyburn?

Audience: Hanging.

Michael: That's right! Do I have to go on? I don't even have to finish it. We have a
pathway that is open. We have a direction. And we have an angle and you know
where this is going to go.

What do they call it? Tyburn. What happened there? Hangings.

We are talking about penalties. You are smart enough to know that there is a
build going on here. It's not that complicated. You get where the build is. You

follow where the energy goes.

So when we talk about values, what's most important, is an embodied
phenomenon rather than as a spoken one.. Organizing what people seek, the
specific of what they'll seek which is then manifested in particular circumstances
as a purpose or an adaptive tendency and then expressed as problem statement.

So a vast of information. You won't need it everytime. But it's nice to know that
we have that there.

This is how, when I sit down with corporate clients, how I can very swiftly sort
through what's going on and what can't have happened. And it's now at the stage
with most of them that we have a 30 minute talk and I tell them where to look --
it's here, it's there etc.

It's kind of like detective work. It's kind of like an inference structure. But it gives
you the opportunity to be wrong. And you are wrong most of the time with this.
That's its joy. You are letting the client correct you all the time.

Quite different from being the expert. The framing tool is going to help us when
we start telling stories, is it's going to give us a way to know exactly which one to
tell and what has to be in it and what shouldn't be in it.
Track 10 - The Framing Tool North Axis

Michael: Now we've got some more head room by the way. We don't use it as
much. I've put something in your notes for you to read tonight. If have the box
here, we go dot, dot, dot up to values. Values are organized within a world view.
The world view is not all of the detail of the mapper model. It's what makes this
way of looking or speaking or thinking, good, true, valid, necessary.

The world view gives you the organizing presuppositions behind what someone
is saying.

So for example, when somebody says.. I think the example I used in there is the
'The Secret' kind of stuff. The people who believe that all you have to do is want
something hard enough and then it will happen.

When you start looking at the world view behind the secret, then what you have
is that the world is organized in such a way that those who focused most
intensively on what they want will get it.


So focus is the primary there. And that's why if you look at the range of things
that the secret producers recommend, it's all about making collages that you
stick into a cupboard and look at once a day.

I just wish I could build a business by making a collage out of papers, torn from
magazines and then white pasting them onto a thing. Stick it into a cupboard so
that nobody can see it... that's the cool one.

Audience: It's called a 'business plan'.

Michael: That... you sit around the table and hallucinate. But you keep it in your
wardrobe, you open it once a day and you think hard about how much you want
it. I just love that.

Above world views, there is another one which is cosmology. You don't have to
go there very often but it's good to know that it is there.

Cosmology is how the universe has to be. How the universe has to be organized
in order for whatever that idea is.

So for the secret, what kind of a universe does it have to be? A responsive
universe where the greediest and the most emptiest of heart and the ones who
are responded to. In other words, everything that we see is the result of greed.

I find that really curious that this should emerge as a world view at this
particular time. It wouldn't have made sense 1000 years ago. Why? Because
there was no way to fulfill all that greed.

We now have lots of ways to do that. We have credit cards. We have QVC. We
have the internet. We have lots of ways for stuff to move around.

When you were a kid, what do they call that time of year when kids get super
greedy?

Audience: Christmas.

Michael: I don't know about you, I was living in western New York at the time
and we had something called the Sears catalogue which is that thick, in color. The
pictures go right to the edge of the page with a toy section that thick. When I was
6 or 7, my wrist was immense. And this started in June or July -- What do I want?
What do I want? What do I want?

There is no way Santa could bring all of that stuff in one go. He'd have to have a

second sleigh with a B team bringing them along.

But what I discovered was that no matter how hard I wished or how long a list I
wrote or how intensely I wanted those things, I would only get 2 or 3 items.

This used to piss me off to no end. But that's why I learned it -- the universe isn't
organized that way.

Emo Philips, the America comic. Have you heard of him? He's fantastic in terms
of his use of language and his ability to reframe. He had a routine where he said,
"When I was a little boy, I was told that you pray to God for what you want. I
prayed for a bike and I didn't get one until I realized that's not how it works. So I
stole someone else's bike and prayed for forgiveness."

The universe doesn't work that way. When you think about how the universe
must work, it gives you opportunities for comedy but also, for example, if you
have to suffer somebody who is pulling one of those numbers on you, where do
you find the counter examples that knock them dead?

Sometimes you have to go quite far.

By the way, I don't have if anybody believes in the secret or if they believe that
greed organizes the universe or that desire is the main factor or principle in this
place. I don't care, that's great. Just don't get in my face.

We don't go messing with people just for the sake of messing with them. There
are times when people are going to come in and they are going to say, I want X
but I can't have X because that's not the way the universe is. And you are going to
have to literally work with world view.

Audience: Question. When dealing with people with depression, and as time
goes on finding there is more of it.

Michael: Isn't that interesting? That as our time goes on, more people are
coming down with anxiety related disorders and depression. Why now?

Audience: We're focusing on the wrong bloody things.

Michael: There are a lot of reasons. But it's happening now. It didn't happen
1000 years ago, it's happening now.

Audience: It is so profound.


Michael: You have to go outside that frame.

Audience: I recognize the Framing Tool, past, present, future etc.

Michael: What do you know about the brain chemistry of depression?

Audience: Not enough.

Michael: They actually know that if somebody spends more than a few months
in clinical depression, brain changes start to occur. The actual structures of the
brain start to be affected. The little spaces between the foldy bits, those get
bigger and the brain literally shrinks.

There is a guy who actually figured out what to do about that. Vasant Puree up in
Birmingham -- amazing studies where they worked with people with clinical
depression and schizophrenia. They took pictures of their brain before and
pictures of their brain after. They can restore the brain to perfect structure -- it's
fish oil and evening primrose oil in the right quantities and processed in the right
way along with the right B vitamins. Huge doses.

It's what happens when a normal person takes it that's really interesting.

Point being, when you say depression and the framing tool, what are you going
to point it at? If you just point it at the words that people are saying, how do you
know that you've got the right stuff.

There is some stuff in your notes about, the higher portions of it, it becomes
relevant when we are talking about finding the right stories.

Audience: It's interesting that depression is showing up so much now.

Michael: Well if you look at, for example, the development of psychoanalysis to
behaviorism to the humanistic movement, those are all paced by the
development of consumer culture.

And the humanistic movement didn't get off the ground until the values and
lifestyle inventory happened in the 50s. This was Edward Bernays again. It was
the first wide scale evaluation of differences in values depending on age,
demographics etc.

It was the source of A, B, Cs. A1s.. A2s and that sort of thing.

So this was in the 50s, it was after that when Maslow did his landmark work

saying, let's study people who are well rather than people who are wrong. And
he came up with what he proposed was the universal model -- Maslow's
Hierarchy.

What's at the bottom? Survival needs. What's at the top? Self actualization needs.

It's not a universal map or model. All you have to do is go to India and wander
around, they are called Sadhus. They don't care about survival needs. They don't
care about food. They don't secure anything. They go wandering. Sometimes they
don't eat for days. Sometimes they die. They don't care. Why? Because they are
preserving what is most important to them.

So game over, it's not a universal model.

It is a model that sits very well in 1950s, the beginning of consumer America.

The humanistic movement, the notion that you, your feelings and your thoughts
are the primary ones that need to be addressed, that need to be worked with and
developed and acculturated.

That developed at the same time as the consumer culture emerged. In other
words, that the means to fulfill those values developed at the same time.

Late 20th century, we watched the transformation in the UK where subjects, in
American it's citizens, from subject citizens into consumers. We consume
democracy. We consume the services of government.

We have an economic relationship with our government. We aren't subjects
anymore which changes our expectations. It changes what we think and feel.

What was that American Army phrase? Be all that you an be in the Army. We are
told, have it your way. We are told by L'Oreal, you are worth it.

Guess what? You aren't worth it. You can't be all that you can be. Nobody cares.
Nobody really wants that. They are selling you stuff. We are being sold values.
We are being sold pre-packaged sets of values and being told what's important
and what's good.

What do most 16 year olds want to be today according to the studies?

Audience: Famous.

Michael: How on earth did this occur? Do you have any idea at all how? It's

obvious. It's being pushed on them 24-7. It's what's being advertised.

Now in a situation where you are told that in order to be happy, you have to have
your own house and car. And that encounters the reality principle which is, you
aren't going to be that. You are going to spend most of your life being in a job. So
you might as well just grab what you can while you can. And whether that's
through credit, or whether it's through smash and grab.

So here we are. You want to know why depression is increasing today? It's
because everybody is told how huge their possibilities are and expectations
should be, and how little there actual chances are. It's going to even worse with
the economic situation.

Anxiety? People used to think that everything was under control and all we had
to do was let our lords and masters get on with it. But what have we discovered
over the past 10 years? They are looking after themselves. They aren't looking
after us. They will not rescue us. They aren't going to support us.

What are they doing instead? Who are they giving money to? Who are they
giving our money to?

Audience: Themselves.

Michael: The banks and themselves.

We have more information today than we've ever had in the entire history of
man about how this place operates. The more we discover, the less happy we are
going to become. Why? Because it's not how we were told it was actually
working.

That's why people are getting depressed.

Audience: I had this conversation with someone about the criticisms of the
situation, but actually, in this moment, the reality of now, is it doesn't matter at
all.

Michael: Doesn't matter at all.

Audience: And that's so difficult to hang onto.

Michael: These are good old fashion values. The value of contentment. Learning
to be content with what you have going on now.


I give an exercise people with those little phrase changes that we do, which is,
moments of enjoyment consciously created, consciously enjoyed.

It's not doing more with less. It's optimizing what you've got. Creating. Creating.
Creating.

We knew how to do it before we turned it over to others and let them sell it back
to us.

So we have present state and desired state. Hopefully there is an overlap
between the two. There is where we want to go, where we want to be and where
we are.

So the question becomes, how are we going to close the gap between the two?
This is the beginning portion of what's called the tote -- test operate, test exit
loop. The Pribram, Miller and Galanter tool that we pulled into NLP, we don't
need all of that technical stuff.

What we are going to do is we are going to figure out what's missing for the
people that we are speaking with and that they need in order for whatever that
present state is to be made into the desired state.

It doesn't require anything more complicated than.. Well, what do we want to be
the difference once they are done compared to when they start? What have we
got, and got in the room, and what's missing? Where do we find it?

And then our choices are -- we have provision of data so that the interaction as
an exchange of data. For people that believe that trainings or meetings or
facilitation is about the data, I would suggest to you that the data component of
most programs could be more efficiently and easily and simply communicated
through a short memo that's less than a page.

It's not about the data.

We can offer literal description of strategies. In other words, do this, do that, try
this then that.

We can offer analogies for the process.

Here is a similar situation. We can give examples or models to follow. We can use
symbols in order to evoke the requisite resources.

So with these five possibilities, we can begin the process of cooking. And it's far

less complicated than most people have imagined. It's as simple as, what do they
need? Have we got one here? Do I have one? Do I know anyone who had one?

And then we begin. It's that simple.
Track 11 - Working Through An Example

Michael: So let's take some specific examples from the work that you do. So
Juliette, you work with organizations? What kind of work do you do around
leadership?

Audience: I develop top and second tier leadership around communication.

Michael: Develop top and second tier leadership around communication?

Audience: It's around communication.. it's to do with their ability to operate
under challenging conditions with difference in terms of different people.

Michael: With difference in terms of different people.

Audience: Just different personalities and just about clear decision making, their
thinking and emphatic.

Michael: How do you make them empathic?

Audience: We start getting them out of their own map of the world.

Michael: This is cool.

Audience: That flexibility of thought around...

Michael: OK, so tell me about a time when..

See we start from here, and she started with the data level. I'm just going to walk
it down.

Audience: One example is someone who was not looking forward to meeting
someone and we did some perceptual position work.

Michael: She whispered, do you know why?

Audience: He said he's a cave dweller. So I asked him to go into the cave. I asked

him to go into the cave and see what it's like in the cave.

Michael: You extended his metaphor on him.

Audience: I did.

Michael: And then what happened? It's great. This is exactly what I want! This is
it.

So he was a cave dweller?

Audience: No. He thought some of his staff were cave dwellers.

Michael: Is that because he didn't pay them well?

Audience: I think it was around what he recognized..

Michael: OK, I love that we jumped to that cave dweller level.

I want to hear more about this cave dweller.

Audience: I had him physically have him move him into a cave.

Michael: You physically had him move into a cave?

Audience: I physically created a cave out of papier mache and I had to go and
dwell in it... No I didn't. [laughter]

Michael: What a great idea.

Audience: It would've been nice at the time. But he did get a fresh perspective
on how he could really... where he was lacking.

Michael: Was his name Bob?

Audience: No.

Michael: Call him Bob. Everybody is called Bob. With most stories, everybody is
Bob.

So here is what I want to know. So were you working with the company before
you started talking with Bob?


Audience: I was working with certain senior management. But not all of them,
but some of them.

Michael: OK, so you were working with Robert?

Audience: I was working with Robert..

Michael: Roberto and Bob and Bobby.

Audience: Yes.

Michael: So how did you come to work with Bob?

Audience: Bob had some issues around having a big argument with another
head of the department.

Michael: OK.

Audience: About he felt like he needed some tools to help him develop his way
in how to be a more impactful leader because he was in a senior management
position but it was a very anti social way of dealing with it.

Michael: An anti social way of dealing with it. Was he killing people or punching
people out?

Audience: Not quite but he did nearly did punch the guy out.

Michael: Really. So he came to you in tears?

Audience: He didn't. But the CSO said he needs some coaching.

Michael: So the CSO said that he needs coaching? Not therapy? Coaching.

Audience: Yes.

Michael: So is that where you were called in?

Audience: Yes.

Michael: I see.

When you went for the first meeting, were you afraid?


Audience: No.

Michael: What were you thinking about?

Audience: How to help him. I was curious to know.. so curiosity and a belief that
I could help.

Michael: Curiosity and you knew that you could help.

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: So you sat down and what did you do? Did you just ask him questions?

Audience: He had done some pre-work before hand and so I had something to
go on. And we started the conversation, as it always is, it's a conversation.

Michael: It's always a conversation. And at what point did he reveal to you about
the cave dweller?

Audience: On the 3rd session, it was because he got really frustrated with his
team and he felt no one was performing.

Michael: The only thing standing between you and this being a kick ass anecdote
is the timeline. It's perfect. All of this is great. Very interesting stuff. It's always a
communication. It's always a dialogue. The cave dweller, the image -- all the
pieces are there.

Your desire to help is there. But why are you being so selfish with it?

Audience: In what way?

Michael: Well you aren't sharing it.

Audience: OK.

Michael: And look, she sits up. You are just being selfish. Are you usually this
selfish?

Audience: Sorry.

Michael: I hope you are. I would like you to share this with the rest of the group
because it's really good stuff.


The reason why she didn't is why? She doesn't recognize her role.

Audience: Interesting.

Michael: I know.

You thought this was about you having to speak and do things. It's not. It's about
you sharing something from your experience that is valuable.

So tell me more.

Audience: About?

Michael: About Bob and this interaction.

Audience: The cave dwelling interaction?

Michael: You can tell it from wherever you need to.

Audience: OK. In terms of like... am I looking to perform to?

Michael: You don't have to. All you have to do is just share what happened there.

Audience: OK. He was really not looking forward to the meeting, his thoughts
around the appraisal were quite negative. So we were looking at how to... God
this is really hard!

Michael: Come on out. All I want you to do is I want you to share it with me. The
reason why? Because you have a skill that other people don't. And you are
playing all coy with it and selfish with it, doesn't suit your style.

Audience: It's really interesting actually. Because he was really fixed on this
person being a cave dweller and his whole world view was around the cave
dwellers he had on his team.

I invited him to play the game of going into the cave and looking and seeing what
it's like for that person in the cave. He did. He went "God my boss, he doesn't
seem to like me. If I keep my head low and maybe he won't notice me. I think I'll
just keep my head low, he won't give me any hassle. I don't think he has very
high expectations with me which might be draining my confidence. Making me
feel kind of disengaged.

Now him having that experience of going into the cave before he had the

appraisal, made it absolutely crystal clear about what he needed to do to help

that person.

Michael: Yes.. at first it's like pulling teeth.

See, the secret is, I don't care about the narrative. I really don't care about what
she said.. Don't care, not interested. Great for the diary.

What I do care about is that you've got something important to say, something
that other people haven't heard, and all it takes is just that adjustment in the
frame and you are off and I don't have to say another word.

It's not about putting on a performance. It's you've got a message to
communicate. And once you get it, and that it's being received..

Audience: When I first started telling, you were like "am you taking the piss?" I
was thinking, am I doing this wrong? I was beginning to get unsettled by your
responses.

Michael: That's right. Once you started driving..

Audience: OK.

Michael: Did you notice her volume increased? As soon as you started driving.

Audience: She began to tell it as a story.

Michael: It's called requisite variety by the way.
Track 12 - Leverage Requisite Variety

Michael: For those that are NLPers who have been involved in this matter
before, what requisite variety means is that in terms of communication, it's not
just the person who has the strongest state will tend to guide the rest of the
group. It's the person with the strongest and most coherent state will determine
how the rest of a group will respond.

If I did the Mr Angry thing and wound it up very powerfully, I could shut
everybody down.

You know somebody who controls others through anger? Have you ever seen
that?


When you get the role and how important it is.. when you push up and
communicate clearly through it, it makes everything else settle down. It doesn't
matter what else is going on.

If you stand with somebody who is angry, you look them in the eye and you
repeat their contact back to them -- in other words you get that they are being
heard, but you don't yell..

It's not about making them angry. It's about making them realize that their
feedback is not appropriate. It's simply at too high of a level. The intensity is too
high. Turn it down.

As soon as you step up, as soon as you turn that up, everybody else can turn to
you. It's that simple. It's that easy.

You have something to say that is clear. Get the world straight first, and the rest
will follow.

Audience: What role was I meant to play?

Audience: I don't know what role you were meant to play, you'd have to choose
one. There are plenty of roles to play. But the one that we played with there was
that you are sharing rather than somebody who is having stuff pulled out.

Audience: What were you doing?

Michael: In that, drawing into play. At first it's no, no, no.. yes, yes, yes.. Come on,
play. And then you play. And then you are great.

It's not easy. We get too hung up about who does it seem to be? Who does this
seem to be? Oh, that doesn't feel comfortable..

None of it matters. Discomfort doesn't matter. None of it matters.

If you just take the walk forward, you step up and the resources will come into
place.

It's a whole different ball game than you might be used to. And in terms of, 'I
have to get myself straightened here and I've got to talk to myself.. '

It's that you have to get to the place ready to communicate. Get the role clear and
then step forward and it works. It has nothing to do with all of that stuff in the

background and everything to do with.. as soon as you step in, the game starts.

It's that thing with the hand shake. Sometimes I'll go like this. No? I'm pretty
clear what I want to say, I have the message there.

Well I guess it's them. No, it's just this.

If I want you to shake hands, it's easier to demonstrate. I've always shaken hands
with him, it was a very nice handshake. But look at that, I have no idea what this
means.

In fact, perhaps we should have a conversation first to find out whether he is
ready. I don't know, what do you think? Should we? Or we could just try it out.
Oh my goodness, how are you Richard?

Audience: I'm great.

Michael: Oh my goodness. Do not worry about whether you feel ready. Do not
worry about whether you are psychologically prepared or whether you have the
structures there.

That thing about being prepared in order to communicate is a non issue. It's that
FUD -- fear, uncertainty and doubt. You already know how to communicate
through anecdote, through metaphor, through story. Now what we have to do is
get it so that you are willing to put it into gear straight away.

You already know how to do it. You already do it well in other contexts. Now let's
get it so you get the role correct, and then we can start working with structure.

It's a funny old world because you never feel ready. You never feel like you've got
enough. It's always like, you walk out there but it doesn't matter. It doesn't
matter whether you had the right cup of coffee, the right kind of oatmeal, the
right comments last night from someone else.. the perfect email.. None of those
things matter.

Role, story, what you are trying to communicate -- and it will work.

By the way, that sounds like a great story.. the one about the cave thing.. I would
make that into a party piece if I were you. It's a fantastic image.

Audience: Which bit?

Michael: The whole thing.


Audience: Papier mache.

Audience: I just got him in a little cave man outfit.

Michael: Oh cool! Why not?!

Audience: It makes a difference.

Michael: You switched on when you do it. That's cool. If they switch on with you,
that's your evidence.

In a sense, our level of responsibility raises as communicators because we
cannot not influence others.

But rather than pretending.. The thing that drives me absolutely mad is the
pretense of politeness -- that we won't offend anyone, that we won't challenge
anyone, that there won't be anything which require energy or anybody to come
out.

I remember one person saying, "You can't just tell stories to people because you
want them to change." And I say, "My mother does it to me. She does it to me all
the time. I don't have a choice. I wasn't aware that I had to have permission to
pray for other people."

Have you thought about that? You don't need permission to pray for other
people. In fact, "Oh God, please change them into someone who is more human."

People are telling stories all the time. People are interacting with one another all
the time. If somebody doesn't want to listen or somebody doesn't want to
participate, they don't.

Will you? Won't you? Will you? Won't you just the dance? Use the story.

If you find them all going, [noise], you've got a response. If you find them leaning
forward, if you find you are getting greater connection, go further. Intensify the
response.

The backwards first? It's just like the drawing the string of a bow. Move
backwards and come forward.

Audience: I remember one time someone, he told a story but I think he was
probably embarrassed once it was out there.


Michael: What story?

Audience: He wasn't telling a story, he was using an analogy. It was almost like
he was embarrassed so I decided to join him in his embarrassment. And it did
really help him feel comfortable.

Michael: Yes and if you've been trained as a coach or a counselor, then you'll
know about normalizing which is the first intervention. Most people when they
have a problem, they feel like they are the only one in the world or they are the
only one who has felt embarrassed before. That's a fantastic thing to do.

If you notice somebody is feeling embarrassed, then you go, "Hey, oh my God,
you should've seen my first one."

Cool. Those are natural functions.

Do you want more of those kind of strategies? There are a handful of those things
that are commonplace in therapy -- normalizing being the first thing that most
people need. I can throw some of those in if you'd like.

Any questions on this? Any questions on amplifying response?

At lunch what I'd like you to do is, before you ask someone to serve you at lunch,
all I'd like you to do is change your state, take a breath, look at them as if they are
human. Look at you as if you are human. Find something that is lovely, nice..
something that you can appreciate about that person. Think about that, let blast
with your smile and give them your order.

It's this thing of, we are going to influence each other anyway, there is no way
out. There is no way out. There is no clean language..

Anybody here heard of clean language? Clean language is an attempt by dirty,
awful, mean spirited people to avoid responsibility for the influence that they
have with their clients.

Somebody actually with a straight face, tried to tell me -- "OK, think about your
problem. Now what's it like? Does an image come to mind?" He's not
presupposing a direction , and that that's somehow clean.

Do you remember how dirty that is?

Actually I know Penny and James quite well. They are just lovely people. And so

desperate to avoid responsibility. They will join this whole new movement in
order to get away from the evil Dr Bandler and his presuppositions. So they jump
into something that has middle class presuppositions which is, if you say it with
a nice inflection, that it makes it somehow less manipulative. Whereas in fact,
"Hi, how are you doing? You alright?"

It's a demand. So do it good. If you are going to have to do it, do it well.

In the same way I was telling a kid the other day, if you are going to hobble, you
are going to hobble with style. One way or the other, so we might as well make it
a good one.

We are going to pause and take a break for lunch.
Track 13 - Identify The Role You Play

Michael: So this is a chap from an ad agency who wants me to come along and
talk with their new people about pitching and about storytelling. And he says,
"Do you know what they need? They need to hear from somebody that is
outside.. it's not about technique and it's not about pitching but it's about
creating a party. It's about creating an experience for them."

I said, "OK I think we can work on that. What else?" He said, "The other thing that
they need to know is they need to know that it's about personal communication.
It's about connecting."

I said, "It is really funny you say that because we are talking about that right
now." And he says,"That must be why I'm having you come in because God
ordained it." I said, "Hallelujah."

Everything he talked about we talked about this morning. Very odd. But apropos.
State and the creation of state.

So first things first, we set aside the need for us to be in a particular state in
order to move forward. The notion that we have to feel good before we can go
out.

This notion that we have to feel like we are the star? Not so.

What we have to figure out is, what function are we performing? In other words
what has to occur through our interaction.. And then the role that we are playing
in relation to them.


So let's talk a little bit about roles. So if you are a counselor or a coach, what sort
of roles, aside from the job title, do you play? What are your roles?

Audience: Sponsor.

Michael: When you say sponsor, sponsor how?

Audience: Holding the space.

Michael: So this is the roles.

So as a sponsor, you hold the space. And when you say hold the space, what do
you mean by that?

Audience: To hold the space between the coaching session between two people.

Michael: Exploration. Do you make that explicit with your clients?

Audience: Very often.

Michael: It sounds fantastic. It really sounds good.

This thing of space for exploration so that you sponsor.

What's another role?

Audience: Confidante.

Michael: What do you mean by that?

Audience: Very similar to that, but a 'safe' space.

Michael: OK. So when you say safe space, what do you mean?

Audience: That they can say what they like. Freedom for expression.

Michael: What's curious is that the safest spaces that I've ever been in are ones
where each of the people who is involved has a sword in their hand.

I have a certificate from what used to be called the British Society of Fight
Directors and now it's something like the British Association for Stage Combat
etc. And the safest time is when you've got somebody who has a sword and who

knows how to work with it. Because the primary thing you learn first is foot
work and the first thing you learn from the foot work is how to keep a safe
distance.

You also learn that when you are cutting with the sword, it is your job if you are
on this side to keep a safe distance. So it doesn't matter how big and theatrical
and violent it looks, it always has to be at the right distance.

And all of that is what you practice and you habituate to so that when it comes
times to choreograph the fights and figure out what's what, everybody knows
how to fight viciously and safely. So you can trust the other person.

It's an odd thing but when the guy has the sword or knife there and he knows
what he's doing and he's qualified, you are safe.

It's things like coffee which sometimes is very dangerous when you don't know
where you are and you don't know what the roles are or what the rules are.

So a confidante, I love that. What's another role?

Audience: Cheerleader.

Michael: I love that. You are a cheerleader. What are you doing as a cheerleader?

Audience: Wave your pom poms..

Michael: Which is an image.

Audience: Acknowledging progress.

Michael: Energetically I hope. Can you imagine a depressed cheerleader?

What other roles?

Audience: A challenger.

Michael: Challenger. When you say challenger..

Audience: You are challenging.. it's a reality check.

Audience: Challenging limitations. Perceptions.

Michael: Challenger. Limitation. Perception.


Anything else?

Audience: Mirror. Embracing.

Michael: When you say embracing.. Mirror, what's the function of the mirror?

Audience: To reflect.

Michael: Purely to reflect. And then you said?

Audience: Embracing. Sharing.

Michael: What's the role there?

Audience: Liaising.

Michael: Liaising? Is to embrace and share and be warm? There is another word
for that.

Audience: [inaudible]

Michael: Lover! You can use the L word. It's an emotional word, go ahead.

It's a metaphor. The roles are metaphors, they aren't literal.

To embrace. To join as one.

What's another?

Audience: Frame.

Michael: So you hold the space but you also frame the interaction and hold that
frame, or adjust the frame.

What else?

Audience: Joker.

Michael: Joker? And what's the function there?

Audience: I think it's about taking people to different state. A different way to
challenge I suppose. To create humour.


Michael: Change state. What the joke does, what the humour does is it creates
two perspectives in one.

You know sometimes it's the non verbal plus the message. Sometimes it's that
the message itself contains.. What's creating that possibility?

What else?

Audience: Questioner.

Michael: How is that different from challenger? Is it different from challenger?

Audience: Could be.

Michael: We'll use questioner. And the function there is?

Audience: To allow the person to explore their thinking.

Michael: OK. If you like questioner, we'll leave that.. To explore thinking.

What's another role?

Audience: Magician.

Michael: What kind of magician?

Audience: Transformation magician.

Michael: I love magician. And it is to magically transform.

What about the basic ones? Mother and father. Parents.

Audience: Teach. Exploration leader at the same time. The one who take the
lead and shows them "I am not going to die by doing this".

Michael: Let's say leader.

Parent is to keep safe and what?

Audience: The joker sits so much, in so much of this.

Michael: For you?


Audience: Absolutely. It's easy to fracture things gently. So even the joke that
even if somebody is looking like a 'rabbit in the headlights' then taking that
straight up.

Michael: So for you, the joker kind of comes in with other roles as well?

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: The parent joker.

Audience: Yes.

Michael: The challenger joker. I see. The sponsor joker. The confidante joker.

What does a leader do? What is the function for the leader?

Audience: Kind of has to do with safety.

Michael: What's the main function for the leader?

Audience: Set the direction.

Michael: Set direction.

Audience: It's a double edged sword. They are allowing the direction to be set.

Michael: Well I wonder if there are occasions when.. Exactly.. and this goes on.

This is the beginning of a contemplation. It's the beginning of a consideration
about the roles that you tend to accept and tend to play versus the range of
possibilities that there are in front of a group. Or even on a one to one
circumstance.

When you change the role, and you change the function that you are performing,
that in itself will call out from you a change in state.

I'd like to suggest that sorting out what you are there to do plus what the role
and function are.. If you commit to those, a lot of the other questions -- How am I
doing? Do I feel good? Do I feel bad? Do they like me? Do they not like me? Those
go away because you are there to do a job.

In other words, you get paid by getting paid and not by getting strokes.


The ones who are going to be problematic.. when I'm running a consultancy team
with trainers in it, the ones who are going to be problematic are the ones that
need the applause all the team. And who are there for the standing ovation. Or
who are there for the, "Oh that was wonderful."

The good ones are the ones who are there to create that for the other people. Get
your focus on the right set of people just as with your dinner party. Concentrate
on them.

The absolute need for a particular state, it's one of the ways within our inter-
personal dynamics that without desiring to, we will control one another by
insisting that everybody play a certain game at a certain level and in a certain
way.

For example, I think one of the worst things that you can do is cater to someone's
preferences simply because it's a preference. And if it doesn't serve a function,
there are some people who spend most of their lives trying to get everybody to
match them, to not go in the places that are going to scare them, or not go to the
things that are going to annoy them.

Whereas in fact, that's just one of the control mechanisms within the system.

In the same way, you don't select methods in order to create something until you
know what you want to create.

We now have the learning styles movement where we are going to teach every
child according to their preferences. That's how you handicap them. That's how
you ensure that they don't learn.

The reason why is because the style and the preference is not about flexibility.
It's about reducing the number of possibilities down to one. And there are some
activities for which the concrete and kinesthetic style aren't going to be helpful.

We talked about this on the business practitioner, you can do addition, you can
do subtraction, you can do them kinesthetically. But what about when you come
to multiplication?

The function and the result that is looking to be created is not a kinesthetic one.
The preference doesn't match what has to happen in order to perform the
function.

In the same way, somebody's preference for an abstract theoretical approach to

things with a reading list -- "Here is what it's about, here is how we are going to
do it."

If we are talking about learning how to swim, the history of swimming, the
chemistry of water, while all of them are valid, relevant and true within their
own domain, have nothing to do with the act of swimming.

They maybe useful in order to get someone into the water if you need a way to
coerce them. But they are actually not directly connected with the skill itself.

This is where we start talking about, with storytelling, once we get it clear what
we are there to do in terms of the function and the role that we are playing, we
can then figure out what is it that we want to occur.. what is it that we want to
facilitate to help to assist, to create etc.

And that's when it gets magical. That's when it gets cool.
Track 14 - Define Your Outcome Before You Choose A

Method

[music] [music] [music]

Michael: So here is what I need from you. I need from you a something that you
want to get -- either individuals if you are an individual coach or therapist, or
groups to do, to experience, to feel.

What's one class of outcome that you pursue with them?

Audience: Curiosity.

Michael: You want them to become curious? Cool.

Audience: Ability to consider change?

Michael: Ability to consider change? Or consider change?

Audience: To consider change.

Michael: They can consider.. that's a human capability. If you want them to
consider another perspective, then considering another perspective is what you
are aiming for.


Audience: To talk with each other openly.

Michael: When you say openly, what do you mean?

Audience: So there is safety to speak where everyone knows what the problem
is but doesn't want to talk about it. So that openness and honesty.

Michael: Speaking with candor and frankness about things that are going on?
OK.

How about for you?

Audience: Remind me of the question.

Michael: Sure. What's something that you try and get out of the group or out of
individuals to do? What's an outcome that you are seeking?

Audience: Committing.

Michael: Committing to?

Audience: Whatever it is that will take them to that step of that something they
haven't yet committed to.

Michael: Are we talking about a complete program, an initiative?

Audience: No. Whatever they need to buy in.

Michael: OK, that's a big box but I think we can work with it.

Phillip?

Audience: Result.

Michael: What you are seeking to create? So you work with singers?

Audience: Vocalists.

Michael: OK. And what's one of the things that you want them to do that they
can't always do?

Audience: Have more confidence in delivering a oratory.


Michael: Fantastic. You?

Audience: Realization.

Michael: Realization of? Can we pick something? Because the generic realization
of is not the same thing as realizing that X, Y and Z are true.

What's something that you'd like people to realize?

Audience: Something about their performance.

Michael: Can you tell me about one thing in particular?

Audience: Maybe Westerners having a reputation of judging everything by their
own standards.

Michael: Is that your judgment?

Audience: That's not very liked. So to be able to say that in a way that people
will actually think, maybe I do that.

Michael: That we can work with.

Richard?

Audience: Confidence.

Michael: What about it?

Audience: Help so they have an embodied experience of it.

Michael: How would you know that they were having an embodied experience
of it?

Audience: Be able to see them make a shift from where they were..

Michael: Are we talking about a physiological shift? What physiological shifts are
we talking about?

Audience: Grounded, symmetrical...

Michael: This is important because it says that he has criteria that can be
checked quite explicitly.


See, we can't figure out what tools to use or what techniques or how to put
things together until we know exactly what it is that we want.

If you are looking at a lovely vista and you think to yourself, boy it would be
really lovely to have a landscaped oil painting of that vista. And you go back to
your cupboard, and all you have is marble, a chizzle and a hammer. It doesn't
matter how good your intentions are. It doesn't matter what you do to those
things -- they are marble, a chizzle and a hammer.

If you want an oil painting, you have to have a canvas, you have to have the
paints, you have to have the paint thinner. Hopefully a ground cloth because you
are paying attention to the tidiness.

Once you know what you want to create, then you can make your selections
around method.

So let's start with yours. Give me a context where you are going to try to get a
group into that state.

Audience: Family business.

Michael: Family business.

Audience: Is being split into two sections, two parts of the family are going in
different directions. And each section of the family have got to create their own
business which means going back to the bank, business plan etc.

And there is a lack of honesty and a lack of support in the group. And a lack of
honesty in understanding where each other's skills are. And really just a lot of
ostrich behaviour.

Michael: OK. Ostrich behaviour?

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: In other words non action?

Audience: Yeah. Total British avoidance.

Michael: I see, it's genetic?

OK, let's go back to the front page and figure out what we are doing. There is a

goal.

So what would make ostrich behaviour and lack of support and lack of moving
forward the right things for them to do?

Audience: Mmm

Michael: What would make that the right response?

Audience: Fear.

Michael: Fear of?

Audience: Fear of recognizing, their own incompetence.. their own lack of
ability, lack of knowledge.

Michael: So self protection? What else would make these the right choices?

Audience: Definitely about image. Fear of losing what they've got.

Michael: And you are making noises like, "They are being unreasonable." Fear of
losing..

Audience: Emperors new clothes is what shouts in the back of my head.

Michael: What else?

Audience: The two primary ones, who they think they are and the fear of losing
absolutely everything that they've got.

Michael: That maybe it. That's a place to start.

Audience: Family dynamics per se.

Audience: Could be.. Could just be old habit.

When you say family dynamics what you are saying is old, established habits.

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: So here we go. So we are starting from an assumption. There is
something that you want to intervene with, and what's your role?


Audience: I'm currently probably one of the ostriches.

Michael: Oh you are an ostrich? And you are now going to move into which role?
What role might serve?

Audience: The role I serve would be as a challenger.

Michael: Why would you be accepted as a challenger?

Audience: I will stick my head in.

Michael: I wouldn't recommend then picking that as a role. Understand?
Everything makes sense.

Audience: Questioners is a big one.

Michael: What about petition seeker? Seeking a hearing.

Audience: The behaviours are so embedded, it's just like a row of clams.1

Michael: Let me make a note of that. That was really interesting. You suddenly
went from this conversation about his role and what the situation is, and now we
are talking about a row of clams that comes from out of nowhere -- well it comes
from somewhere.

Let me make a note of that -- row of clams.

What would be a credible role that you could take with one or the other of them?
So rather than trying to place yourself above it.

Audience: My real role is supporting.

Michael: Supporting? So you are a supporter. What function when you are
supporting?

Audience: That fits into confidante, reflector. I do take a lot of those roles.

Michael: So supporter. Which goes back up to reflector and confidante. That's
fine.

So as a supporter, let's pick somebody who has been in this position that you are
talking about. You are playing the role of supporter, now what do you want to
have happen differently?


Audience: The consequences for the family businesses is horribly apparent.
Because if they don't get their heads around what they are doing, the
consequences financially are huge. And to the families all around.

There is a massive amount of reason for the right thing to be done, yet the right
is being avoided.

Michael: I would like to suggest that the right thing is being done. The right thing
is absolutely being done. In other words, there is no magic in it, there is no
mystery about it.

They are doing the right thing at the moment because they haven't had the right
kind of signals, triggers and communications yet. There is nothing that says to
them to go ahead and get this thing sorted.

Pick someone. Who can you be a supporter to?

Audience: Sarah.

Michael: Pick someone else.

Audience: I'm inclined to say Martin.

Michael: So say Martin. You are in the role of supporter, what change do you
want to influence, suggest or make?

Remember you can't solve the problem for them.

Audience: It's not a role for me that we are talking about.. He absolutely needs
somebody with a good business head to discuss what he's doing wrong.

Michael: And he hasn't done that?

Audience: No.

Michael: What would make that the right decision? In other words, are you
wanting this for somebody who doesn't want it?

Audience: Yes cos the dividing line there is what we need.

Michael: Alright, so this is for you. And this may be the answer to the question of
why you came as well.


Quite often what I've seen you do is you look for solutions where people really
don't see the problem yet. And then you end up in one of these roles uninvited --
challenger or whatever -- and it bounces straight off.

You aren't going to get into the system by trying to insert yourself where you
aren't welcome. But in the role of supporter to Martin, do you have relationship
with him? If you want him to get open to the idea, now you can think through
what he has to gain, what might happen. What further benefits and
consequences he might enjoy if he makes the change.

What will it do for him, get for him or give him? What will it do for him, get for
him or give him?

Audience: He gets the financial backing that allows him to keep going. To even
start. Although it's there, with the separation of the two.
Bank says no. What has to be done.

Michael: Alright. So helping him to get what he wants. So is that the frame of
reference? Is that where you as a supporter can come in?

Audience: No because you are right about the first bit.

Michael: The point in all of this is you cannot solve problems for other people,
you can want things for other people, but unless they want them, you really are
trying to push the water in the wrong direction.

This is the prep work that you have to do. Otherwise you end up telling people
stories and giving them strategies and instructions for what it is that they don't
know. You don't push on a door that is locked shut. You go for the door that is
open.

One of the keys of storytelling is you find out where the door is open.

That's what the framing tool, and if we put the other bits of the tote in the
middle.. By doing that, thinking in advance, and finding a credible place for you
to stand because at the moment you don't have a place that is credible to you.

Audience: Actually it has been absolute avoidance.

Michael: Exactly.

Audience: Not proud of it.


Michael: The solution for you is, if you want to intervene, you have to find a way
to make yourself useful to him within his own frame of reference. That's a
different matter, a whole different matter.

Now you can work on that. But until you find the open door, you don't start
pushing.

I love the row of clams though. Super image.

When you are doing your prep work, when stuff comes out like that, a row of
clams. That just calls up all kinds of unusual and interesting possibilities.

Let me hear another one, a specific situation that we can work with. What did
you say your situation was?

Audience: Elicit curiosity.

Michael: OK. Let's pick a group that you've been with.

Audience: Mine is more one to one.

Michael: OK. What kind of topics are being discussed?

Audience: The solution I'm working on at the moment -- how can the bar tender
elicit curiosity in a potential drinker to try a particular beer that he or she may
never have tasted before. And you've got about 30 seconds to do it.

Michael: Perfect. That's the perfect environment. We can come up with a range
of stories for that.

Let's start here. So we've got a bar tender who wants to get people to try
something new. They've got 30 seconds to do it. Now what would stop someone
from accepting a recommendation from the bar tender?

Audience: Lack of rapport.

Michael: What's another one?

Audience: Trying too hard.

Michael: What else?


Audience: They know what they like.

Michael: I know what I like and I don't want to take advice from a bar tender!

Audience: A lack of persuasion.

Michael: Lack of what?

Audience: I think it goes into rapport as well. Lack of engagement.

Michael: What else?

Audience: They don't drink.

Michael: That's another one.

Audience: Let's say this potential drinker has said to the barman, "Which of
these six beers would you recommend?" So let's say that they are a drinker
otherwise it's not going to happen.

Michael: Is this is a forced choice situation?

Audience: No the drinker has come in and wants a beer, sees a row of
possibilities. He asks what the barman recommends. And the barman is going to
say, "I would recommend this one." So to elicit curiosity to allow this person to
become a potential brand leader having drunk the drink.

Michael: Cool. Fantastic.

It's looking to guide someone to make a choice that they haven't made before.
They are in the market, we've already established that they are there for the
beer. So what can we do to make it so that they are more likely to follow the
recommendation of the barman?
Track 15 - Working Through An Example

[music] [music] [music] [music]

Michael: With our framing tool we have a situation here. We have what holds
things in place. We have the purposive or adaptive aspects which sit above and
behind it. We also have the general intentions probably one of which is I want to
drink. No.. [laughter] I want to change my state now.


And the values are drinking is good, you know. We can make some assumptions
about those. What we're gonna come up with is we're gonna come up with some
possibilities by first thinking about role, then function. And then we're gonna
combine those and come back to the framing tool and come up with some
possibilities.

So, what role does our bar man typically play?

Audience: As an expert.

Michael: Expert. OK.

So as the expert they provide what? Recommendations? What? What function
does the expert play?

Audience: Tell them stuff they could have.

Audience: Knowledge and experience.

Michael: Knowledge and experience. All right. So if we take on -- our, our
barman is in the expert role and the function that he's hoping to perform is
provision of knowledge and experience. Let's think of -- let's get the direct ways
out of the way first.

What could he do to get somebody to take a -- to try a beer that they haven't
tried before?

Audience: Just ask him the question "Have you tried X?"

Michael: Have you tried X? Okay, so that's one.

And that will get an answer in a certain amount of time. But, what Nick was
interested in, in finding was getting curiosity. So the state that he wants
connected with it is curiosity.

So what makes people curious?

Audience: Well, someone has come up with the idea of, of saying something
about beer which is unusual and creates a gap of information.

Michael: Something, saying something unusual that creates a mystery gap.
Something that holds attention.


Audience: Something the expert would know but...

Michael: Mystery holds attention. Novelty holds attention. Some of you.. actually
-- I'm not sure any of you have been in the room when I did this. All right.

We have six beers here. Each one comes from a specific region. Each beer has
unique qualities and characteristics. Each beer -- I'm saying words that are fairly
common, fairly predictable, and there's nothing in there for the brain to become
aroused by. But if I say, "Oh, so, all right? Are you here for an adventure or for
just a drink?"

And I've changed my role. I'm now a tour guide.. I'm a magical tour guide.
Ohhhhh. Are you here for an adventure or are you here for a drink? Yeah? Ooh.

Audience: I'm rabbit, town rabbit.

Michael: Down the rabbit hole. But because I'm here, I'm a magical tour guide.
The question actually isn't so important. What I am interested in is I am
interested in going into that state. And right now -- do you want to know what
I'm curious about? Which one you're going to choose.

Now, do you want to know which ones -- yeah? Which ones -- do you drink one of
these usually? Do you like that? What do you like about it? Do you want
something the same or different? The same or different. That's one approach, all
right? Now let's change it again. Let's change the role.

Okay. All right. There are a number of, of -- I don't have the beer language. The --
there are a number of taste possibilities within this range. We have -- we start
with the rye and the, the wheat beers at this end, and then we have the more
hops-based drinks here. What sorts of beer experience were you hoping for this
evening?

So we go to that -- I'm gonna raise the level. What's another possibility we could
try? Change the role. Actually, I like mommy [laughter]. Let's do mommy. Are you
old enough? [laughter] Just come up with some...

Audience: [Laughter] Cheerleader!

Michael: Cheerleader. Do you...

Audience: Which one are you gonna go for?


Michael: Which one are you gonna go for? [laughter] You can't do that.
[laughter] [laughter]

Audience: Ah.

Michael: We're talking about requisite variety.

We are talking about what your range is plus one. Requisite variety means range
plus one. All right.

So, with this chap -- is this chap somebody who is up for trying different
experiments? Okay. In which case is he curious enough? Is he curious enough to
explore the possibility that there may be more than one way to do it? Have you
thought about game show host? We haven't...

Michael: Yeah. There's another role, game show host. What would happen if you
were the game show host trying to induce somebody to choose? Just think -- just
try -- I'll tell you -- put six imaginary beers in front of you here. And you be the
game show host. So ask us, then -- tell us about the beers. What does a game
show host do?

Audience: He projects his own personal element.

Michael: Have you ever seen a game show?

Audience: I have.

Michael: One reference is enough.

Audience: Okay.

Audience: So, which of these, which of these six do you think might hold the
secret ingredient that could change your life forever?

Michael: Oh, really? Secret ingredient that could change our life forever. Yes.
Hmm. I don't know about that, but more of that. Can you go even further than
that? Can you push it further than that? I like the secret ingredient thing. Right?

How about giving us a little show? Have you ever seen that where they, you
know...

Here's number one, number two, number three. Have a go. Try it and just -- try it
with a non-verbal -- on the non-verbal side of thing, taking game show and

pushing it. [noise] [noise] [noise]

Actually, stand up and do this. Game show hosts stand. Okay? All right. Now have
you -- and most of them do this 'cause they don't know what to do with their
hands [noise] [laughter]. Okay?

So you're going to have three beers [noise] on your right, three beers on your
left. Now give us that same pitch again about the mystery ingredient but put
three on your left and three on your right.

Audience: Okay. Well, there is a mystery ingredient in all of these. Six...

Michael: Excellent. More.

Audience: On this side you have a mystery one, here's a special kind of hop. On
this one there's a kind of dark barley from Eastern Europe...

Michael: Yeah.

Audience: ...and believe it or not, we have the -- this beer which is a special kind
of yeast...

Michael: Super.

Audience: ...an amazing quality of beer. Down here we have the rye and the
wheat, and this one is made of absolute pure undiluted shit.

Michael: Exactly. Perfect. Now just -- stand there for a second, all right? You see,
it actually doesn't matter what he says. That's not what we're paying attention
to. What we pay attention to is your energy. Yeah?

And, in going for that, in going for -- game show host, right? In going for the game
show host thing and creating as you went, it creates a different level of
possibility for us to become involved with you. If we put some structure to it and
a little bit of content, you're done, you got it.

Now -- no, well, sorry. No, that was just your first round.

[laughter].

Audience: Well, what about for a second round?

Michael: All right. He's, oh, oh, hey. Hot, tick, ding. Okay. So now, now it's a game

show host, hmm. Well...

Audience: Magician.

Michael: Let's add magician with this, yes. I think you've got how we're gonna
work this. So now it's game show host and magician. Not Paul Daniels. Look,
look, it's under the cup, under the cup, under the cup, yeah?

Let's think Siegfried and Roy, something a little bit bigger. Let's pull the chair out
of the way a little bit, okay? Give yourself just a step back. There you go.

And let's make this space a little bit bigger. So perhaps we have magical pints.
They're not this big. They're that big. Okay? And let's see it again.

Audience: And they said we're looking at

Michael: We're stage magician plus game show host.

Audience: Now which of six ways would you like to transform your life? In this
pint, what we have is an ingredient that will make you larger than life.

Michael: Yes.

Audience: This one...

Michael: Yes.

Audience: ...will allow you to focus on bigger intense as the aroma...



Michael: Okay.


Michael: Yes.

Audience: ...it's a matter of complete secret.

Michael: Ohh.


Audience: I'm gonna say nothing about it, except you should explore it if you so
wish. But this one, this has a kind of je nais se quoi. It's a masterpiece of French
art of brewing, not being found anywhere south of Sherbrooke since...

Michael: [Laughter]

Audience: That's all.

Michael: Okay. Now, one more time. You can have a seat now.

Audience: Okay.

Michael: And now I'd like you to present, with that energy on the inside, but just
having a conversation with someone. So in other words, the show is that big on
the inside, okay? Let's see it.

Audience: That was -- I think it was in 1273 that the Abbott of Buwah created
this superb, superb masterpiece of brewing perfection. A wonderful balance of
hops, barley, and possibly screwed it in water from behind the groundwells. Now
over here...

Michael: Excellent. Now you see what we've got here is we have the stage -- the
game show host and the stage magician -- that's almost small screen, yeah? with
that level of energy and focus you will hold for whatever length of time is
necessary. And now all we have to do for your criteria is we have to shorten it
down and make it tight.

Audience: Really?

Michael: And that is a piece, a little piece of theater and a little piece of magic, a
30- second show that somebody could put on. And it's just by changing the role
and the function that we're trying to do that we find the package...

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: ...that things are going to go in. So let's, let's now change it and -- you
can relax now. You've done your work. You've done your hard work. Yes, thank
you, yeah [applause].

Audience: Do you know what that reminds me of?

Michael: What does that remind you of?


Audience: There was this guy in Covent Garden and he's had a big issue, and he
said, "You've got lots of money. Buy two and give one to a friend. He hasn't got
any money. Get together with a friend. Buy one between -- half each.

Michael: [Laughter]

Audience: He is not unemployed for very long because he was just getting
laughed when people were walking by.

Michael: That's fantastic. And the other thing that was interesting was while you
were doing that, you noticed how -- as soon as he upped the ante, you know, in a
game. You put it -- when you put -- place your bid in, it's called the ante. You ante
up.

As soon as he upped the ante with what he was putting in, the most interesting it
becomes. And we go oh, what are you going to say? The fact that you didn't have
content at this stage -- not important.

Audience: You know, what amazed me -- it didn't really matter what he said, his
voice was so interesting...

Audience: [laughter].

Michael: Yeah. [Laughter].

Audience: All the colors that came out.

Michael: But the point here is that level of intensity that you brought to it is
what then holds the content for the story. If we added then a personal journey
through beer, that would be one thing. We can then take that role function -- we
could make it into the game -- further on the game show and you could actually
make it like that. We could take the more data communication and then just give
the data, but with tremendous energy. That's another possibility. And it gives
you these different ways to test it out. But it starts from there.

So now we're gonna change it. So somebody else is gonna have to do the, the
acting so that Nikka can get a break and can see what happens. [silence]

All right. Let's use the confidante. I like that secret idea that you had, but we'll
change it now to the confidante.

So the role we're playing is confidante. Do you know, Richard, do you know how
to play that role, what a confidante does? You know -- I mean, there must have

been somebody that, you know, you could share secrets with and -- yeah, yeah?
Okay. All right.

Do me a favor. I'd like you to pitch for six beers -- to make a choice amongst these
six beers, but as a confidante, as somebody who shares secrets.

Audience: Okay. This is beers. And there's something very interesting about
each of them. This one here is the special one.

Michael: [Laughter].

Audience: This one here is Jack Daniels of beers.

Michael: Fantastic. Let's add in -- okay, so now -- you sometimes see it on
television -- the people are gonna tell you the market secrets, you know. There's -
- this stock is doing really well at the moment. You can invest here. Gold is still
gonna up.

Don't listen to what the naysayers say. I want you to add in that you've got
something really special that not everybody -- so it's like the exclusivity, yeah?
But it's with a confidante energy.

Audience: This is the Dom Perignon of beers. The thing is it's going to be too
cases of this. But in this case I happen to have one case of it.

Michael: I don't drink beer and I want it. Yeah? It's just playing the exclusivity of
it, right?

Audience: Right.

Michael: Okay. We change the role and the function, it changes the intensity and
the level. Now what we do is we start coming up with content. So far do you get
how this works? I'll tell you what. Actually what I'd like to do is I'd like
everybody to have a play with this. Let's do this in two little groups of three. You
can change the roles. You can add roles if necessary.

And the principle here is that whatever the person is doing, I'm sure it's going to
be fine. We won't talk about -- let's make it simpler also because not everybody
knows about beer. Let's say it's getting them to try a new dessert, a new dish, a
new this, a new that, a something that hasn't been done before.

So you have to create the product; you have to create the idea. This transfers
across whether we're talking about creating the benefits of a particular idea,

getting buy-in. We're gonna do it big; we're gonna do it small. We're gonna do it
in many different ways.

So pick your product. It could be food. It could be a whatever. Something you
know about. Something that -- the words will come out. I mean, for example, do
you know about pens?

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: Okay. You picky about pens? If you're a writer, you're probably picky
about pens. Then I'd like you to see a particular pen. Yeah? So like, for example,
do you know what size nib is the right one?

Audience: The right size for me.

Michael: Yeah, well -- don't you know the game rules are -- yeah. Your
preferences are the correct ones.

Audience: Well...

Michael: If you're selling that pen, it's the correct pen. You've got to get them to
try it. How else are they going to find out unless you allow them to try? You
aren't, like, trying to keep all the point sevens for yourself, are you?

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: Do you use a point seven?

Audience: I don't know.

Michael: What do you use? Yeah?

Audience: But it comes with a box of six.

Michael: But it comes with a box -- oh, but -- okay, so, emphasize that.

Audience: [Laughter].

Michael: Got it?

Audience: Okay.

Michael: All right. Talk about what you know. But then what we want to do is we

want to change the role and the function. So what I'd like you to do, I'd like you to
tell us about that but do it as a mother. In other words, the act -- looking after
your kid. They're gonna resist but they're going to do it anyway. All you -- it's not
think. It's just do.

Okay? So you start by explaining and then you change the role. You imagine just
like a mother. You go, look, when you go to school, when you're doing this, you
got to have the right pens. These are the right ones. Now please, just take them
now. Don't make me beg. Or whatever mother is for you. All right? Change the
role again. Okay?

Keep changing the role until you find something that, A, is a little bit different
from where you are; but B catches and holds attention. And here's the magic
secret. It doesn't matter what you say if you can't gain and hold people's
attention. Whether we're talking about giving lectures from a lectern, a sales
process -- this client that I had lunch with today who wants me to teach his new
ad people how to pitch to groups in order to sell advertising to companies -- it's
called response attentiveness.

And it's move number one. Who here has heard of response attentiveness
before? Please put your hand up if you've heard of it. All right? And who here
hasn't heard of response attentiveness before? Please put your hand up if you
haven't heard it? And who here hasn't put their hand up yet? Please, put your
hand up.

That's called response attentiveness; that when you ask for something, they
respond. The great storyteller never goes into the body of the story until the
audience is already responding. If you've ever seen Robert Bly, the American
poet -- have you seen Bly?

You'd love, you would love to see him because his style is kind of laid back, a
little close to your, your natural style. But what he does when he comes out -- he
has a big colorful waist, waistcoat. And he might have a cellist with him and a
drummer.

And he'll talk about an experience that he had where he discovered that the
poets of old would never, never speak their pieces unless they were
accompanied by music. Unfortunately I found this out quite late in my career and
so I wasn't able to learn a complicated, melodic instrument. But I found a
rhythmic instrument, and here it is. And he pulls out some ethnic instrument
that's got one string or two strings. And this goes on for 20 minutes.

And he's talking about the one-string thing from the, the plains of wherever, and

he plays a rhythm, and he starts -- here's the name of the poem and I'll tell you
the poem, and then he stops playing and tells you more about the country and
about the this and the that. And for 20 minutes this goes on until everybody is
completely spellbound. They're entranced, but not because of this, but because
he's told a number of interesting stories that relate to what he's talking about.

Once everybody is responding to him in exactly the way he wants, then he starts
with the poetry. Then he starts with the music. It's genius. It's genius. But we --
what we have to find within ourselves is that ability, first of all, to create the
change.

So get into little groups of three, take whatever your topic is, pick out some roles.
You know you can get some help and some input on that if you want. Create
some new roles if they aren't up on the board already. Try the experiments; see if
you can stretch. Feel foolish by all means while you do this [hand clap]. This is
something to feel foolish about because it's a stretch. It's one of those ones of,
you know, you're gonna, you're gonna look -- feel like you're doing the Egyptian,
right?

That's just 'cause it's new. Remember, if you could do it already, I wouldn't ask
you to do it. Off you go.
Track 16 - Bring Commitment. Storytelling Is An

Emotional Activity

Michael: Now, here's the thing. With this level of energy and commitment, and
the ability to change it, it's this that guides people's non-verbal responses. It's
this that draws them in. With that level of energy -- not necessarily the shouting
or the whatever, you can talk about going to the shops, and people pay attention.
You've heard the stories before about somebody being able to read from the
telephone book? Yeah? And entertain. This is how it's done. The great storyteller.
The great raconteur.

You know the way that when I do those 10- day programs without looking at a
set of notes and, and do the instantiations through storytelling and anecdotage.
That comes purely from the level of energy and the commitment that I'm able to
bring. And that's a bit of weight-lifting and then some of the structuring that
we're going to start in just a few minutes.

But what I want you to get is that storytelling is not a cognitive activity. It's an
emotional activity. It's a physical activity. If it doesn't lead people in and create a
change in state -- mm, we're hanging out a bit at the data level, at the

informational level.

Before we do the technique, you have to be, first of all, persuaded or convinced
that you can change the level of volume that you give or the sighs or the gestures.
That was brilliant by the way.

Audience: That was brilliant.

Michael: And that was brilliant.

Audience: That's not right.

Michael: Yes.

Audience: Whether she was...

Michael: Fantastic. Yeah?

Now, can you put that level of commitment of what it takes to do that into
something much smaller? It's that that creates that magical something that
you've heard about with great communicators, where they say, even though
they're speaking with many people, it sounds like they were talking to me.

That's how, in terms of networking, when you're shaking hands with people,
bringing that level of intensity to shaking hands. There's a magic secret. I've
heard this from many, many people who are really good at the, the hand- shaking
thing. When you shake hands with people, you're not shaking hands. Yeah? It's to
connect with the other person, and inside my head I'm going, this is gonna be
amazing. Yeah? This is gonna be amazing, that's what you think. And you really
believe it. Yeah?

Yeah?

Michael: All right? It doesn't matter whether the words communicate or not. It's
what it does on the inside, yeah? You've heard that expression where, where
sometimes we'll say something like, you know, you're gonna get what you want,
or you'll die while we're trying? That's a sincere commitment.

It's how far I'm willing to go in order to...

The point there is that it's that level of commitment both inside and outside,
and it doesn't come from setting a prerequisite that I have to feel good, that I
have to feel like I've been served well, that I'm being petted or applauded

properly, that I'm not looking foolish, yeah? We -- there, there's an expression
from -- it, it, actually, it's a holdover from the '60s. I picked it up in the '80s.

But it's a good one: You've got to get off it. Whatever your image is of yourself,
you've got to get off it. Yeah? You, you have to be the one who's willing to be the
fool. I am -- as I said before, I'm willing to be wrong more often than right in front
of my clients. And what that does is it brings a tremendous energy along with it.
I'm correctable, yeah? That communicates as well. One of my clients said, "One of
the reasons why I like working with you is you're so persuasive, but you're also
persuasible." Lift that.

So, game rules from now on. I -- personally, I think this is, this is a set of rules for
moral activity in the world.

Number one, bring energy to every interaction, every single interaction. Our 5%
solution -- doesn't matter whether it's going for the paper, whether it's in the
restaurant, whether it's with a friend, with family, for your clients. Bring energy.

Number two: the degree to which you are willing to be moved by the people who
are with you, is the degree to which you will be able to create that virtual cycle,
that upward energy.

Number three: The role that you assume depends on the functions that you have
to perform and what you're there to do. If you make a decision, you make an
offer. Just as when we were playing the handshake thing earlier, putting the hand
out. That's an offer. It might be accepted. It might not. You might think that
you're making an offer to say hello, but if they don't get it...

Audience: Hello.

Michael: ...oh [laughter], gee, ah, whew. I was getting worried there. Yeah? You'll
have to change and do something different.

So with this little exercise what I wanted to bring up for you is that it will always
be this relational aspect of the energy and commitment that you're bringing to
the communication, okay? Any questions on that? Any comments on that? Does it
feel possible? Am I asking for something that's too great? It's a big ask, yes. But is
it too great?

Audience: You talk about being wrong.

Michael: Being wrong.


Audience: What is wrong...

Audience: Yeah.

Audience: ...with your plan?

Michael: I am talking about if I'm -- like when I ask questions and I've got a
heuristic that I'm pursuing and I think that maybe I might have an inference
that's valid. I'll say, "Is that going on? I'll go no. I don't know. There's just
something bugging me." And I'll say it, and they'll go, "No, you're wrong." I'll go...
[silence] ...like that, "Just wrong. So what's the right thing then?"

Audience: [Laughter]

Michael: And then they'll tell me. And that's also one of the reasons why clients
have -- I just -- you know, I -- with this client that I went to, I did a gig for them
before, and they had 12 people from industry, from business. They had the top
QC there. They were trying to bring in really a unique and highly skilled group of
people in order to guide this. And I'm the only one they invited back.

And they've invited me back now twice to do two lots with this new group. And
so I asked him, "Well, why did you do that?" And said, "Well, because they came
in one way; they went out another, and everybody loved you by the time you
were done. They hated you when we started. But by the time we were done, they
loved you." And the reason why that happens?

It's because I'm not gonna let them fall. I'm not gonna let them drop. I will not let
anybody fool. I will place myself under the person who jumps off the top of the
building. I'm saying, "You're not gonna get out of this easily."

You know? You will raise your volume, yes? And I'll put myself underneath it,
yeah? But that level of commitment, because of what I'm doing, that influences --
yeah. It can be practiced. I don't know if it can be taught, but it can be found. It
can be discovered. But it's discovered. And this is the thing that I would
encourage you to move forward on in your own lives by simply trying things out,
by not worrying about whether you know it or not because you won't, because
it's new. It will feel weird. It was very uncomfortable just jumping up there and,
you know, trying to talk about what it is you don't know. Thank you. I
acknowledge and I honor you for that.

That's how it's done. That's how it's done. We were talking earlier about
embarrassment, right? You know, the things that people bring up:
embarrassment, shame -- anybody doing shame here? You know, didn't have the

right upbringing, didn't come from the right class, right family, right whatever?
Aah, you know, anger, boredom, doubt, discomfort?

All of these things. You have to get over them. Once you do, you can sit anywhere,
you can be in any room, you can contribute, you can provide value, you can feel
nothing in particular and still create value if you remember what your role and
function is. It's in the doing in other words. You're not being called on to feel any
particular way. I believe that that is, that is beyond a reasonable expectation. I
think personal development and professional development where they intrude
into the emotional realm, I think sometimes is abusive.

A company has no right to ask its employees to change if they're not being paid
to change their emotional framework, yeah? in order to love people more or
whatever the, the latest thing is. But you can get people to change their behavior,
what they do. Yeah? And what you'll find if you pursue this further is that you
will discover all you have to do is do it. We have another one of little one phrase
change things. We call it JFDI, but yours is different. What is yours?

Audience: Just do it any way.

Michael: Ours is...

Audience: More gential..

Michael: Well, yes, because you're more gential. That's perfectly appropriate for
you, Richard. Yeah.

Hey, I was born in Buffalo, Buffalo, New York. What can I say? Yeah? JFDI -- Just
Fuckin' Do It. Yeah? You don't have to believe in it. You don't have to feel like it.
It's that thing I finally discovered it. I was actually 40 years old when I
discovered that I didn't have to want to have to do the dishes.

Audience: No.

Michael: The -- my -- the dishes being done had nothing to do how I felt or my
level of energy or whether I was emotionally ready to do it or not. All that
mattered was clean the dishes. Put them on the shelf. There's no level of sacrifice
or martyrdom involved in it. It's just wash the dishes, put the -- the action of, and
put them away.

As soon as you remove the need to feel in a particular way in order to accomplish
it, your life becomes straightforward, very straightforward, because we've
removed the overhead from activities that don't require it.


Imagine instead of having to motivate yourself to do things, instead you just did
what was obvious. If you want more clients you've got to contact people. Doesn't
require therapy; doesn't require a big workshop to do it. It does require a simple
strategy and you getting on with it and doing it. And the same way -- when we
get to the storytelling, the proper storytelling tomorrow, we want to get it to the
point where it's not like you doing some big act of magic.

I think this is one of the mistakes that people fell into with NLP and it came from
the top, which is that people had to feel intense emotional states in order to be
able to do anything at all. All this stuff about, you know, having to get into
heightened states of arousal in order to get out of bed -- that's the wrong way to
go. You don't want to have to make an 80-foot picture of yourself as a golden god
in a golden realm with a golden helmet that you're buffing all the time in order to
get out of bed in the morning.

We want it so that getting out of bed is the easy thing, the obvious thing, the
smart thing, and the fun thing to do. We want it so that it's the -- on the
downward slope rather than the upward one. We want it so that when you do
the things that actually produce business for you, that you do them because it's
the right thing to do and it feels good to do it, and it doesn't require anything
more than oh, yeah. I know what will come if I do that. It's straightforward. It's
the same with the stories. We want to get it so that the stories are just part of
how you communicate, part of how you create instances of principles.

And whether it is an analogy, it's just like, or whether it is more of a metaphor or
some kind of a symbolic representation, or even if it's an example from a life, a
model for reference, it's just a natural part of the flow of communication and not
once upon a time there was a family of squirrels. And the father squirrel... well,
let's put it this way. He was nuts.

Oh, God. I think you need tea, coffee, and maybe other letters of the alphabet so
we'll take a 10-minute break.
Track 17 - Role Function Output

Michael: The medium is the message. Get too wrapped up in the technique of the
story and you'll get lost and vanish up your hypnotic whatever, yeah? We need
structure. There are key structures that will help...

But your primaries are role, function, and output. What are you seeking to
create? Curiosity is a fantastic one 'cause there are so many ways to do it. I mean,

you know -- have you ever seen one of these before?

Audience: No.

Michael: I think this is one of the coolest interventions, yeah? You know, also
just for like going into a restaurant, you can kind of like create a kerfuffle over
there. It takes several people's place [laughter].

Oh, my goodness. Okay.

Audience: The Western chopstick.

Michael: The Western chopstick, indeed. Okay.

Audience: That's just the chaos that ensues about putting it back.

Michael: How -- did you write down your row of clams? Will you remember your
row of clams?

Audience: I'll remember that.

Michael: That sounds like actually, it sounds very a Richard kind of an image
which we shall use.

Audience: It somewhat...

Audience: More appealing that a line of hostages.

Michael: Row of clams. Okay.

So with regard to the person or the groups that, that you're in your first
consideration, we have here is role and then two is function. And then three is
output.

Output being -- behavioral outputs being defined as the difference in that person
or people between when they finish whatever it is you're process is compared to
when you start. Without a thought about what that might be, you have no
business picking a method unless part of your thing is well, we're just here to
hang out and find out what happens. Hey, like, you want to play monopoly? I love
that, you know? Wouldn't it be great if people would pay you to pay -- to play
monopoly?

Audience: I think the future.


Michael: You could probably do it. Now, one of the things we talked about here
was the difference between, for example, -- and she was talking about buy-in and
trying to get buy-in. Do you understand how hard it is to get buy-in? And within
it, within buy-in, is the possibility that they're gonna say no thank you.

And if you have buy-in then you're gonna have a hit rate, you're gonna have a lag
and have all that stuff that goes with it. Whereas if you change the role to
revealer of the obvious -- in other words -- or something along, along those lines.
That actually you're not trying to get them to buy into anything. What's you're
doing is you are making clear that sometimes elusive obvious. I'll go slower if I
have to, yeah? It's not a question of buy-in. But what about respecting their
choice? They have a, they have absolute discretion. Do you understand? Absolute
discretion. They can say no to you.

But it's better that they say no to you clearly with a explicitly stated reason than
passive aggression, non-participation, and non-performance. So as a sub-
heuristic that we work with is anything that can be explicitly talked about or put
into our early communications in the frame will not arise later as an occasion for
passive aggression or for non-participation or non-compliance. In other words, if
it's on the table and can be talked about and discussed, it won't come up later on
as a, as a problem. Do you understand?

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: It will have to -- things will have to be addressed, of course, but by
decriminalizing the fact that people have differences of opinion or that things
don't work the way they should or, or, or, or. Putting it up front and putting the
resolution process there in advance, people will relax.

As I said earlier, I do not care whether someone is scared, embarrassed,
ashamed, humiliated, or whatever. Those are choices. If we can make it so that
those states go away, better, but someone's ability to perform does not depend
on them being in a particular state. It will be more pleasant for them if they're in
a particular state. If they're trembling from fear and terror, it's going to affect
their vocal folds. I don't recommend terror as a good performance state. Yeah?
Interest, fun, focus on everybody else's enjoyment. You know, party. Dinner
party, birthday -- children's birthday entertainer.

Audience: Ah.

Michael: Okay, everybody. Well, it's getting near the end of the day... [laughter]
Okay, who here doesn't know journey home? Who's going more than five miles

home? Who's going more than 10 miles home? Okay. You don't do that. Home,
yes, I have.

I love it when people tell me what I can and can't do 'cause usually I've already
done it. Remember, we're in service. We will do what has to be done. And if it's
children's entertainment then it's children's entertainment it will be. That will
influence the choices that we make. Ah-ha. Maybe we have to play a game right
now. Would any -- let's get some balloons out. We'll play a yupee game or a --
we'll get some coloring books out. Ooh, coloring books for leadership program.
How about getting just the leadership model? But it's -- actually it's in black and
white. And we'll do it with markers but it's actually coloring books. [laughter]
Coloring...

Audience: Stay within the lines.

Michael: Stay within the line -- well, yes, stay within the lines.

Audience: Could we do the Anarchist coloring...

Michael: The anarchist coloring book, right, so there's no lines [laughter]. Just a
pair of eyes. With role of function and outputs we can then start thinking about
how we're going to do that. So sometimes how -- how we're going to create the
outputs.

So sometimes it's a much more straightforward proposition to just --
straightforwardly say or suggest whatever it is that you want to do. Sometimes
that's the best choice. Sometimes we have to take a different approach.

So, for example, there are occasions when we want to make it possible for the
trainees or for the people who are listening to come to a conclusion themselves.
We want them to go through a process in order to get there, yeah? That's when
more indirect methods, perhaps using the anecdote, the metaphor, the symbolic
activity, can become helpful. But it will always be in the service of creating those
specific outputs.

So for Nick you were talking about generating curiosity. In terms of generating
curiosity, to come back on something that I started when I was talking about
using the very simple sentences, you know, we have six beers here. Each one
comes from a different part of the world.

Each of the words -- it's relatively easy to connect the word that I said previously
to the word that's coming up. It's predictable. In terms of how the brain will
process it, it's a very relaxing kind of sound, whereas if I choose structures of

sentences that are unusual to the point of possibly never having been heard
before. [Silence]

Your brain has to sparkle up. It has to -- your ears have to listen with just, you
know, with extra magnification in your ears.

What? A, that doesn't make sense. B, I have to create an image in order to
understand it. C, what is he talking about? [laughter]

Listening with a little more intensity. Essentially the less predictable your
communication is, the more people have to, have to listen to what's said.

So, in the midst of your explanations and stories, if you begin with these
unusualated phrases -- That kind of depends how I use the portmanteau words
and jam things together. How many of you have heard of my discipline
hobnozzledefognostication?

That's taking taking incredibly simple things and making them terribly
complicated and in reverse. The only problem with it is that the discipline is so
advanced that you need three PhDs, one of which is in astrophysics in order to
attend the intro, and even though I created the discipline, even I am not qualified
to attend the intro.

What can you do about it? That's this thing about somebody wants once asked
Richard Band;er, "So what qualifications do you have in NLP?" He said, "None at
all." [noise]

When you haven't heard the words before and they're in an unusual order, and
you can't quite predict what's gonna come next, the brain has to work a lot order.
You literally glisten up. You sparkle up. Glisten up? Sparkle up? What the hell is
that? They're images that you have to make up what the response would be in
order to make sense of out of it. So, if we put one of these unusual words -- like
what does a sparkle up look like?

Audience: Seldom appreciate it with your hands.

Michael: 'Cause I did it with my hands, 'cause I demonstrated what I was talking
about through my state. I'm changing my role in order to make it possible for you
to see exactly what it is I'm talking about.

Do you see my point? It can go that -- to that level of comedy, yeah? It's one of
these things -- you know, Richard, it's just one of these things that you need to
feel. Now, do you have a feel for what I'm talking about? That kind of thing. Play

with words and language. Is he going -- yes, but, what am I agreeing to? I don't
know. You don't have to worry about it 'cause this isn't a hypnotic thing. Too
much work. Too much work, especially for something that doesn't exist.

What doesn't -- the unconscious. What do you mean the unconscious doesn't
work? I don't know. Who am I talking to? Oh, I'm talking to you. What do you
mean there's -- the unconscious. What were we saying just a minute ago about
unusual things that don't quite make sense? The brain suddenly goes phht, wait,
what is he talking about? The unconscious does exist. I know. How do you know?
How do you know the unconscious exists? How do you know?

Audience: 'Cause my heart beats and I'm pretty...

Michael: Because your heart beats. But how do you know that your heart doesn't
beat just because your heart beats?

Audience: I'm telling it to.

Michael: You're not -- ahh, so you thinks he has to be told.

Audience: And he has other people inside.

Michael: And there's other people inside of him who -- right, he's married
obviously. Do you know there's no empirical evidence, empirical evidence, for
the existence of the unconscious mind? It's a concept.

Audience: It's a label.

Michael: It's a what?

Audience: A label.

Michael: It's a label.

Audience: Right.

Michael: A label...

Audience: Many times there are things I know that I'm not aware of in the
present moment...

Michael: Yeah, ooohh.


Audience: ... because I can find when I lose it.

Michael: I love it, love it. It's kind of like gravity. Do you know we don't know
how gravity really works. There's actually -- it's not just the God particle, you
know, the particle accelerator at CERN which is in search of the Higgs Boson
which the need in order to patch together standard theory with quantum theory.

And if they don't find God particle they've got a big, big problem. We're also
missing another particle called the graviton. There's no graviton. There should
be a particle called the graviton if gravity exists. But we know that gravity exists
because moreover gravity is like the unconscious. It's kind of like -- have you
ever thought about where instincts live? Where do instincts live, and where do
they come from? Well, they're genetic. Oh, really?

And how do the genes get the instincts in them? Well, it's already in there. It's in
the DNA. So you're saying instincts are DNA? No. Well, what are instincts? Well,
they're like gravity. They're a way of talking about something. It sounds like
something real. And it doesn't matter how many scientists use the expression, it
doesn't change the fact that it's a great big box like a label across the front that
says "A miracle happens here." [laughter] [Silence]

We've got a lot of concepts like that that we accept as if they, they exist when we
really don't know. As Nick says, it's a label but there are certain kinds of
experiences that we don't have another label for, another way of talking about.
And when you, you said go there. That's what I love. The unconscious is a place
that we have to go to.

But I would ask you then, is this the same place you go to at night when you
sleep? Like, for example, where do your dreams happen? Anyone? Where do
your dreams occur? Think about the last time you had a dream. Where were you?
Well, I was in a city and I was driving around and... No, where were you?

Audience: I was in bed.

Michael: How do you know? Were you there? [laughter] How do you know? If
you can make a claim, yes? on the basis of experience, you go to sleep in a bed.
Stuff happens. Black again. And then you wake up.

Audience: It's still coming.

Michael: Astro-travel. That's another name. In terms of the, the continuity of our
existence, we paper over the stuff that we don't have explanations for with
conventionalisms. That we all just go la-la-la. [laughter] Instead of saying

instincts, unconscious, or gravity, just substitute la-la-la. [laughter] It won't have

the same effect, all right?

Audience: And we could same of the self.

Michael: Absolute. Thank you. I wasn't gonna be that vicious and that
provocative, but I think, I think you are absolutely right.

Audience: And you could say...

Michael: You're right.

Audience: We know...

Michael: You are correct. You are correct that there -- see, I'm unfortunate in
that I come from a mixed family in that we have -- half are skeptical science
believers and the other half are crazy.

I'm sorry -- our -- you know, my, my brother is a judge and he is a member of the
Committee for the Investigation of Scientific Claims of the Paranormal. My
mother is a spiritualist medium, all right? Talk about adolescent rebellion. But
the trouble is he's as much of a bonehead as she is. And we don't get any clarity
in the discussion because their terms are completely different. And yet I can find
just as many counterexamples in his argument as he says, "Don't confuse me
with the facts." [laughter]

Yeah, I have my opinion. Don't confuse me with the facts. Which I think is a very
rational way of living, right? Pick the facts that you like and that support your
argument. Forget the rest. That's called being normal. Yeah? It's just that damn
scientific claims that's the problem because in science you don't do that. La- la-la.
The self ain't no -- I love that. Yes, but there are certain things in the core where I
have my peeler. If I peel you back, [laughter] where is the core?

No, that's not what I mean. Well, what do you mean? I have this feeling. Ohh, you
have a feeling. And is that feeling self? Well. I see.

So, okay, is the self -- it's the essence of you, the core of you? But then what about
Alzheimer's? Then what? Does that self go away? It's not a permanent self if it
can go away by a disease. No?

Damn, it's those counterexamples. Remember those counterexamples we started
talking about? And they're a problem. And yet, if I say to somebody, you know,

what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to just go through the back of your mind and
I'd like you to think about [laughter] and reflect on those things, you know.
Those things that have happened in your life -- there in the back of your mind.
And, and I can give process instruction, yeah?

Go into the back of your mind. Think about this. Compare it to that. Go here and
go there. And people will do stuff. This is what's so cool about being human. It
doesn't even have to be real. It doesn't have to be actual. All it has to do is be
affective. In other words, it has to influence our emotions. Ooh.

Now, when we add in from this side our planning and thinking -- this is our state
work actually. We're not gonna go terribly far into, you know, now I'm imagining
myself standing on the four corners of the universe as Shiva so that I can have a
feeling. We're not gonna do that. We're gonna draw our sensations and states
from getting clearer about what we're doing, what we're there to do, what we're
there to create, bringing greater energy and commitment do it.

But then we have to put it through structures. We have to put the examples that
we're gonna create for people, these less direct examples then just handing over
the data, through structures. In order to do that we have to get people to think
about things, to imagine things, to connect with things.

And that's what the storytelling is about. How do we create the scenarios and
the, the narrative form?
Track 18 - End of Day 1

Michael: I'm going to give you something to think about for tonight. I bet you
didn't see this one coming.

How many of you believe in tarot cards? Have you ever seen a tarot card reading
where they turn the cards over?

Let me show you something about tarot cards. This is the so called Celtic Cross
which actually Arthur Edward Waite in his book on taroting, he kind of invented
it. It's not ancient, it's turn of the 20th century.

The first card that is placed down, is called the significater. And the significater
stands for the person to whom the story is occurring. That can be the person
who i s asking the question or it can be somebody else.

Who is the main character in the story?


Then another card is laid on top of that. And that's called overall. It covers the
entire situation, it's like a summary. "So and so went and did this and was
looking for that to occur."

The next card that is laid down, is what crosses. That's the block or the obstacle.
Little Red Riding Hood going to see her grandmother interrupted in the forest.

What's above, these are the desires and intentions consciously expressed. Below,
these are the psychological dynamics.. what is acting beneath and out of sight.

What came before is what led to the situation plus the obstacle. What is to come
is where all of this is leading.

Does this sound like something to you? It's both a strategy and a narrative
structure.

We then have here, what's the questioners role? How are they presenting
themselves? So we'll call it the presentation.

How do others perceive this or see you? In other words we have perspectives or
points of view.

Hopes and fears. What are you afraid is going to happen, what do you want to
have happen? And finally, what is the outcome?

It's not a tarot spread, it's a narrative form. It has nothing to do with reading the
future, it has everything to do with communicating a story in a coherent way. It
has all the elements of storytelling within it. It has a person who is going through
a particular action, they are blocked my something. They have intentions, hopes
and desires. There are dynamics that they don't see that are driving the situation
that come from one place, are going to another.

This is how they are presenting themselves, but this is how other people see
them which creates more of the psychological drama. "Here are the hopes and
fears that we are bringing to the situation." And then the situation resolves itself
in the outcome before it moves on.

I'm showing this not because I'm particularly interested in tarot of having you
pick it up. But the fact that there are narrative structures and places to borrow
the structures from pretty much anywhere. They are on TV, on radio, in the
media. They are in tarot books.


You listen to somebody telling a story on the way home tonight and you will hear
a structure. And the basic structures are chronology. They are always pulled
across. We talk about the beginning, the middle and the ending.

As you listen and you watch, there will always be the beginning, middle and
ending. Any particular story that you might hear might have a larger beginning --
more elements to it, more bits to go into it.

Some stories the middle might be where all the action is, and have a very rapid
ending. Some it might be a long slow beginning and a big middle build up leading
to the finale.

But it will always have what starts it, how it develops and then the ending.

Everywhere in the world, everywhere I go, I can find information about
structures. We can tell stories using just about anything that we see -- using it for
inspiration, for ideas about content or structure or for roles.

I see in your future us creating some stories tomorrow based on what it is that
you are looking to create. I foresee certain difficulties but also I see those
difficulties resolving themselves without me having to intervene for long periods
of time.

I also see you learning more about storytelling perhaps than you imagined was
possible before. But just as importantly, that it was much much easier than you
could've imagined before you had started out.

I think that would be a good place for us to finish tonight.

In your notes, I've included some notes on the top part of the framing tool. It's
contextualizing information and it's important stuff to have when you are
looking to choose stories or create stories because when you are weaving
together what other people tell you with the directions that you want to head in,
you have to be able to move up and down that hierarchy of importance -- The top
bit of the framing too without too much difficulty.

And that will give you at least an introduction. And by the way, I talk about The
Secret in there, I have no animus towards The Secret, it's just a very clear
example where cosmology is a very easy place to counter-example what it is that
they are talking about.

Other than that, I think that is a good day's work. Go gently on the people who
are around you. Be kind to yourselves. Be moderate in all things with the

exception of moderation.

I will see you tomorrow morning at 9:30.


Track 19 - Day 2 Introduction

Michael: Oh, God. In the mini-cab this morning? I was just all happy and like
ready to go and then the mini-cab driver has on one of the talk radio things and
it's a Chinese Englishwoman who was subjected to eugenics experiments in the
'30s. And this went on for like 20 minutes, right?

And, you know, it's like, well, I was abandoned by my mother and father and
broken up like that for 20 minutes of misery. And I'm sitting there and I'm like
going, no, no, happy, happy. Must go and talk with people. Be happy. Be, be
happy, friendly. Right? And so I say to the mini-cab driver, I said would you mind
changing the channel on that to something a little bit brighter. He says, oh, but I
like the sound in the background. Well, I'll make sound.

So he switched it off and I explained to him about the fact that like racists and
eugenicists and all the rest of that are idiots. Reason why? The game's over.
Already been concluded. We're all related. We're all family. We're all related to
one of seven women genetically. Sometime between 70,00 B.C. and 120,000 B.C.,
everybody's related to one. And all of those seven are related to one much
further back, except she had more hair and walked like that. No, seriously. They
know. There is a primordial Eve who knows seven women are related to.

So the seven Eve's and then the primordial Eve. We're all family. We're all mixed
race, yeah? We are all -- what do they call those when you can't -- a Heinz 57, a
Heinz 57. It doesn't matter where we come from, we all have that mixture of
races. Isn't that lovely, yeah, you know? I know I'm pure Arian. Pure airhead
more like it. [laughter]

Ain't no such thing, you know? Gosh. And I was like.. [noise] really like this? So
then I had to So then I had to think happy thoughts like, for example, one of the
things. So I was looking at my shoes this morning, my shoe collection.

Audience: Into shoes are you?

Michael: Well, I have a collection of shoes, you know. You have the brogues for
business and you've got a selection of knock-about shoes, and then there's a pair
of sandals or two. I mean, it's, you know -- how many pairs to you have?

Audience: Five.

Michael: Five. I have 12.

Michael: How many pairs of shoes?


Audience: I have six in.

Michael: Six in. How about for you?

Audience: I didn't count.

Michael: You can't count.

Audience: I don't want to count.

Michael: You don't want to count which is a different matter but I understand
completely. Okay.

Michael: Hey. No, no, no. It's some -- you see, for, for, for some people -- I, I, you
know, I would say if i weren't being so careful about being sexist or -- ah, screw
it. Women. God damn it. They have so many shoes. I've only know one guy who
had as many shoes as some of the women. I have a client who has a room in her
home of just shoes. She's...

Audience: I can't see the need for it.

Michael: Sorry.

Audience: I can't see the need for it.

Michael: Oh, oh, well, when you have as much as she's got -- and she actually has
a room of shoes and special boxes constructed for every pair of shoes.

Audience: Oh, that's crazy.

Michael: Mirrors at the right angle so that she can see the shoes. Lighting for the
shoes. A special place where one of the servants can work on the shoes. She is a
close personal friend of the designers, you know, of -- she has, what do you call
it? a, a something thing of Jimmy Choo. She gets the call before everybody else
does and a tragedy is a day when she can't perfectly accessorize. That's a
tragedy. It -- seriously.

Audience: I've got in mind who your client is. [laughter]

Audience: I would like to know who your client is.

Michael: You know. Well, but I'm saying is, is that this person is, is a real person

but she's also not the only one. There are, there are many people like this who
have more money than sense from a totally objective and god-like -- sorry. Yeah?

So, it's a, it's a tragic day when it can't be perfectly accessorized. Whereas for me,
I've got one of 12 and I have to make decisions. But I wore my crappiest pair of --
well, we call them shit-kickers -- today for a reason. And they're...

Audience: Kicking, kicking to death?

Michael: No. No. It's because there's a story connected with them. Well, oh --
don't you have pet pieces of clothing, articles of apparel, yes, that are connected
with stories?

Audience: Oh, yeah.

Michael: You have jewelry that's connected -- oh, this bangle I bought here, this
thing I bought there, this scarf came from... Yes?

Audience: Yes.

Michael: Oh, oh. Yeah. No, the reason why -- I was watching a program last night
on cable TV and they were talking about science and religion. And I was thinking
about the interview that Carl Sagan did in the late -- in the early '70s with the
Dalai Lama. And he said, "Your Holiness, if it were conclusively discovered by
science that reincarnation did not exist, how would you respond to that?" And
the Dalai Lama said, "Well, if reincarnation is proven not to exist, I guess we'll
have to do without it," you know. And then the kicker. "You don't have any such
evidence, do you?" And Carl Sagan says, "No." And he says, "Well, I guess we're
safe then." He is a cool customer.

And in terms of name dropping I can, I can say that the Dalai Lama is one of my
closest waving acquaintances that I have. We know each other by a wave. Why?
Because I was a patron for an event, an event in Austria.

I stayed in the same hotel that he stayed in. Not by choice. It was by accident. I
was on the floor beneath. These guys stay up half the night. I can hear people
shuffling around upstairs and making noise half the night. I was thinking about
getting a broom and going oh, phone me. [laughter]

So, you know, I'd be out every morning at 7:30, 8 o'clock in the morning getting
ready to go over to the venue, which was about the time the Dalai Lama would
come out. And a couple of times the driver in the car would -- hadn't come
around by the time the Dalai Lama was there.


So I'd be standing outside the hotel waiting for my mini-cab to come. The Dalai
Lama would come out with his bodyguards on the other side, and stand there.
And he'd have little officials talking with him, boring him. And I'd be standing
and, and looking around and pretending not to notice the orange and russet
robes, yeah? And a couple of times I would look over and he looked over at me
and I looked over at him and I'd smile at him and he smiled at me. And eventually
it became this thing of morning. You know, like at the tube station, right?

So during the event, because I was a patron for the event -- they kept us in a
corral -- there were just a few of us and we were put with Tibetan government
officials and celebrity monks, and all that kind of stuff. Kind of keeping us away
from the hoi polloi. God forbid we should have to use the same toilets, you know?
And when the Dalai Lama would enter the room there would be a rush to the
side of the room he that would come in.

Like, like all the air had been sucked out of the room through one side, and
everybody pulled. And I watched this happen on the first morning -- a stampede
of people pushing to the barriers to try and get close to him while he was making
his way to the stage. And what I saw was just revolting. There were these little
old men and women, Tibetans, who -- in their culture, you know, to see the Dalai
Lama, to hang out and to do this whole thing, this is like a lifetime's wish. It's the
greatest thing that ever happens to them.

And I watched this old couple being stomped on and trampled by young
Westerners. Literally, they just, plowed 'em down, practically knocking 'em over.
I'm going, that's not on. I don't care if they're Buddhists or not, they're gonna
behave. You know what I'm saying? Yeah? Don't give 'em a special pass just
because they're Buddhists. You don't get to trample whoever you want just
because you think you're holy.

So the next day I got close to the, to the tape from the VIP area into the other
area. And when the Dalai Lama came in, it was -- I saw it happening again. I just
opened it up, pulled the two old people across, closed it up, and stared at the
stewards, you know? Try and stop me. Shepherded the, the people to the, to the
barrier, and then the Dalai Lama, when he sees old Tibetan people, he tends to go
up to them and, and talk with them.

So, he's got these two little, this Tibetan couple, and I'm standing behind them
and, then there's the rest of the VIP enclosure. And so he comes over and he
starts chatting with them. And he looks up and he goes, "Ah, and it's carried on
this way. So it just so happened I was walking through grass which was where
the event was happening, and there was a whole bunch of cars in one of the side

lanes, and a bunch of amber and rust-colored robes going out. Where is that
coming from?

So, from a shoe shop, and basically the Dalai Lama had just been -- had just
bought a pair of shoes. So I'm chatting with the shop-keeper there and I'm
thinking, you know, I need a pair of shoes. Hey, these are all natural. The so-
called negative heel. And because I have wide feet in a wide size, the ship is also
were wide -- that's another of their key features, and I thought that's cool. All
right.

So, which one is a wide size and has a big -- I mean... He says, this is the ones that
the Dalai Lama purchased. I went, good enough for him, good enough for me. He
said, "Please, take a seat. The Dalai Lama has just sat there." I sat in the Dalai
Lama's ass-wet print.

Audience: It was, it was still warm.

Michael: It was still warm. [laughter] People get souvenirs, they get, yeah?
autographs. No, no.

Audience: You get memories.

Audience: Yeah, you haven't washed it since.

Michael: I haven't washed it since. But I still have the shoes. Unfortunately,
they're ready to go now. They are ready to go. The tread is worn in. They're torn
on the side. But still, I can just feel that ass print. [laughter] It's kind of like -- you
know how -- who here likes cool cushions or cool pillows on the bed?

Audience: Turned over if necessary.

Michael: Right. Yes, you like them? Who likes warm pillows?

Michael: He hates them, yeah?

Audience: I'm like them cool.

Michael: Cool?

Audience: I never thought about that.

Audience: Yeah, cool.


Michael: Cool.

Audience: Yeah, cool.

Michael: Yes, cool.

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: Okay.

Audience: I don't know how do they get warm. Sorry, I don't...

Michael: Are they from someone else's head, your head? [laughter] A cat, a dog,
being next to the heater.

Audience: Okay, yes I would turn it over if a cat sat on it.

Michael: Yes, or in the sun.

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, yes? There are lots of possibilities, yeah? I refuse to sleep if the
pillows too warm. It's amazing. I will say, this pillow's too warm. It doesn't
matter where. Even in a room by myself.

Well, you have to turn it over. Flip the pillow over. Or you change the pillow case.
Does anybody know what's the magic material that stays cool? Ooh, there are
magic materials that will stay cool.

Audience: But when you, I, I...

Michael: Like with eye-shades and all of that. Yes, indeed, they actually make
pillowcase covers that stay extra cool. Yeah. And then you don't have to flip the
pillows over and over again. But this is the executive sleeper's secret. Yes?

I'm not sure whether I can reveal the secret material. We'll have to initiate you
into the club for it.
Track 20- Recap

Michael: OK, so I've given Nick a chance to arrive late. He will be arriving later
no doubt. We are going to start.


So yesterday in terms of the golden keys for storytelling, unlike what you might
imagine, it's not about the words. It's not about the content itself. It's about the
kinds of states that you are looking to induce.

We identified yesterday that the role that you assume and the function that that
role is creating are far more important.

Audience: The function?

Michael: The function is what you are actually creating. Role and function.

So then along with that, we then have... before you can do anything, you have to
pull in and hold onto attention. But how that happens is not necessarily through
the fascination with the story but it starts with the state, and we're back to the
business practitioner -- state then structure then content.

So this is aligned with the other work that we've done. But then the next step..

Do you remember at the end of the day when we started talking about how the
brain attempts to predict what is coming next when we hear words that are
relatively predictable. There isn't a lot of action that goes on up on top.

But when there are words and ideas and sentence structures which are novel or
less familiar, the brain has to switch on and learn harder. This is one of the
reasons why when you are doing new brain work, it can be as tiring as physical
labor.

One of the ways that you can tell.. they sometimes say in the whole learning and
development sphere, "Learning should be made fun. Nobody should experience
any struggle of effort at all." Which again, is a sure way to handicap people
because that's not how the world is, that's not how life is.

You have to match the input strategy to the output strategy.

For kids, yes indeed, if you want to catch their attention and get them to take
some nasty medicine, then you do sugar coat it and you do play games with
them.

But the ideal, in terms of the kind of development that we are talking about is
learning to stretch your own preferences so that rather than being one kind of
learner or having things only come through one kind of a channel, that we are
capable of walking into any environment or any situation and modifying our

preferences to the needs for the outputs that are there.

In other words, that it does not matter how people present. It doesn't matter
about style. It doesn't matter about form -- that we can go anywhere and we
become capable of learning.

And this points to, in the training design workshop, this notion of the strong
emphasis on outputs. And until you get those outputs and nail them, you have no
business picking methods.

How are you going to know what tools you need if you choose ...

What's God's own food? Pizza. If you don't have the right flour, if you don't have
the tomatoes or whatever, it's not going to be much of a pizza. We can substitute
the flour with other things, well what have you got? I've got a brick. I have a
mirror. I have a razor. I have some chemical cream that I could use there.

Those are not going to amount to a pizza, no matter how hard I try or no matter
what I do to those materials. You have to get the right materials for the right job.
Now those materials might be useful for shaving, their natural use and we could
shave all kinds of things. You could shave your face, arms and legs. You could
shave the tiles in the bathroom. But that doesn't make much sense unless you
have hairy tiles.

Clear outputs, assembling the specific tools you need to create those tools. And if
you are going to have a creative use for these tools that you've got, make sure it's
something useful and necessary. It's not that complicated.

Now the second thing in terms of these golden keys for storytelling -- because
some of the stories that Erickson told sounded like fairy-tales, and some of the
stories that Bandler and Grinder in the early days told sounded like, "Once upon
a time, there was a..."

But then of course people copied that and then you end up as a copy of the copy
of the copy. That is only one style. That's only one way, one possibility.

So in moving away from the notion that storytelling and anecdotage and using
metaphor amount to a special form of communication that is separate from all
others, what I'm looking to do is reintroduce metaphor analogy and anecdotage
in the flow of ordinary conversation. And whether that ordinary conversation
happens one to one or it happens in groups, or it happens as mass
communication, there is no difference.


It's really interesting. A couple of my clients are politicians and when they have
party conference speeches, the ones who do best are the ones who realize that if
you read a script that that's pretty pointless.

Cameron the other day blew it. It was just statement, statement, statement. It
was clear, it was just statement, statement, statement.

The reason why is because he hasn't quite got it yet. They have a coach for him
and I don't think it's quite working the way that it should. Because he hasn't
gotten that his role and his function there is to inspire.

And to do that, he has to be inspired. I don't think he's inspired. I think he's doing
the job.

Anybody inspired by Cameron? Somebody might be. I'm not. I get a sense of
somebody who is doing a job behind the scenes which handles the media.

Audience: It comes across as mechanicalized.

Michael: Every once in a while Tony Blair got it. And when he connected in
properly, then he was inspiring even if he was a complete liar.

Audience: He couldn't finish a complete sentence.

Michael: Ahh, sentence fragments. That's a linguistic trick. We aren't going to
cover sentence fragments today.

But it's this notion that if you want to perform well, then unless that role is
handled first, it doesn't matter what the words say.

People will applaud anything -- a sock puppet at a conference would be
applauded if it said, "We must kill the immigrants! Lower taxes!" Wouldn't that
be fine?

I get these texts from people at various conferences. Some clients tell me who
has been on, who has done this and who has done that. Very few of them
understand the role of it's just simple communication. It's direct communication.

So today we are going to start structuring stories that actually do something..
that actually perform a function. But it has to be within those game rules that we
established yesterday.

Lifting the energy 5% above. Bringing energy to every interaction. Lifting. Being

clear about the role. Clear about our intent. Clear about the function we are
looking to perform. And then we can go on and we can start storying around.

Track 21 - Functions For Storytelling

Michael: Now, let's talk about functions and stories. All right. Primary function
for storytelling and the most important thing that we do with it in here and in
other places is we use the story as a context to hold attention so that we can
change state, okay.

So it's the two things: hold attention plus change state. That is the fundamental
mechanism by which the stories work. And it's exactly the same from the first
storyteller that you heard -- who was the first professional storyteller?

Audience: Aesop.

Michael: Aesop. Who was the first professional storyteller that you
encountered?

Audience: Jack I knew as a kid.

Michael: How about your mom or dad?

Audience: Yeah. I still go.

Michael: Yeah? They were the first storytellers, yeah? And Francesca, I know it
doesn't apply me. Oh, God, they were terrible.

Audience: They didn't do it.

Michael: They didn't do it.

Audience: No.

Michael: Oh, my goodness.

Audience: School did that.

Michael: School did. They were telling stories with a purpose though, weren't
they? How many of you only had the stories before bed? Right? There was a
purpose there, yeah?


Audience: Yea.

Michael: Yeah, I know. We were, we were told stories in order to read, to learn
to read. Yeah.

So we would have the books there. And my mother and father would not
necessarily read the story. They'd tell the story, point to the pictures, and then
say, "Now, let's read what it says here." And so they'd point to each word.

So it was, it was an occasion for reading. Within the context of telling stories in
order to change state, you can tell a story, in terms of its length, for as long as you
can hold attention and keep the state held high enough to hold attention. How
long is that? There's no limit. There is no limit.

Billy Connolly, when he does his show, all he does is tell stories. And it's, it's a
chain of endless anecdotes, hopefully ending in hysteria. But all he's doing,
essentially, is holding attention and then changing state with that, within that
range of laughs and self-deprecation and all the rest of that. [silence] The best
stories that you're ever gonna tell will be for a simple change of state. Time and
time again.

So many occasions.

Welcome, welcome ..

Audience: Pardon me.

Michael: It's no problem. It's okay. You missed the best part of the day, the
explanation about the crappy shoes, which were the same model that the Dalai
Lama bought. The fact that I sat in his ass-print after he just purchased them, and
absorbed the warmth though my basal chakras. Yes?

Audience: But he's in time for the coffee.

Michael: Well, in time for my coffee. That's good.

Audience: [laughter]

Michael: Change of state, please. This is for your benefit, not mine. Keep telling
the stories until the coffee arrives. Ah, the training can begin properly. What's
one of your most important training tools? Coffee. [noise] You don't want to see
the rest of the day without coffee. All right.


So we've done our review. Take it as read that you got everything from yesterday
and that it was very straightforward and the, the beginning golden keys are not
about words but about states. All right.

So, with this commitment, and it is a commitment, to the role and the function in
pursuit of an output of very specific creation, we then have our canvas set and
we can begin to create.

So it's then what do we want to do? What kind of changes do we want to create?
The first stories, anecdotes, and metaphors we're gonna be telling are geared to
illicit states.

So having listened to the examples this morning, I used one category or class of
story anecdote metaphor in order to perform the beginning bit. What did I do?
What was the first thing I said? [silence] I love this.

Audience: Something about the...

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: Something about the taxi. Something about the taxi. That chronological
story of I -- just before I came here, and I was in the mini-cab.

Audience: You had to have a happy state.

Michael: And I had to have a happy state, why?

Audience: 20 minutes of misery in a monotone voice.

Michael: 20 minutes of misery in a monotone voice talking about?

Audience: Eugenics.

Michael: Eugenics in the '20s, the Chinese Englishwoman who had been -- had
experiments performed on her. And this is going on and on and on and on. And I
didn't want that. Not for you, anyway. Those awful images of a tooth extraction
through the rectum. Yes, none of that. Ah, happy state, happy state, must chain .
Then where did we go?

So, by the way, what function did that perform where I was talking about the
awful things like eugenics and experiments, and the Chinese-Americans, and an
interesting fact though I stuck in it. Did anybody remember the fact? What was

the factoid?

Audience: Women descended from, from primeval Eve.

Michael: Primeval Eve. There was one and her -- she was a knuckle-dragger.

Audience: And the seven.

Michael: And then there were seven, and everybody's related to one of the
seven, and then from the seven back to the one. Therefore?

Audience: We're related to each other.

Michael: We're all related to each other. Now, A, that happened about 45
minutes ago. Yeah? That was a while ago. You still got it. That's still there
bouncing around. All I need to do is bring that out again later on in terms of
content. If I wanted you to remember that fact, that wouldn't be difficult if I
wanted to expand on that, if I wanted to use it somewhere else. But you can put
data and content and the rest into the anecdotes for unpacking later on.

Your brain has already had it flashed past. Beginnings, middles, and endings are
important. I need to double white board because we have the functions of
stories, and now I want to talk about some brain- mind functions. One of the
functions, in terms of how memory works, is what's called primacy and recency.
Two keys to what we will tend to remember. We remember the beginnings; we
remember the endings; we don't remember the middle.

And one of the things that the brain loves more than anything else is to have
things finished. So the primacy- recency effect. Relating to story telling where I
pointed to at the end of the day, in terms of chronology, that's beginnings and
endings. Yeah? Once upon a time. The end.

Audience: You tell a good story.

Michael: Once the once upon a time happens -- remember what I said about
what's predictable? Your brain can go towards it. Once you've heard the once
upon a time it's just like with the swords.

Remember we talked about the swords yesterday, right? In terms of sword play,
the basic rule for fight choreography is once the swords come out, once they're
unsheathed, nobody in the audience is gonna go to sleep. Why?

Audience: Something might happen.


Michael: Something might happen because you don't take the swords out for no
reason. Got it? Once the swords are out, ahh, something's gonna happen. When,
where? Ahh, well that's the question.

So with primacy and recency, the opening and the closing as it were of the file
folder, what goes into the middle is open for debate and open for mischief, and
open for use. The grand opening, the grand finale. But there's one more thing.

And it has to do with what happens if this process of moving from primacy to
recency is interrupted. If we have our beginning and it goes on, and we get to the
middle somewhere, and it just peaks our interest. There's something that catches
our attention and arousal to the point where we want to get to the ending, where
we want to know what the point is, we want to know what the finale is. The brain
puts a marker there if anything happens like, for example, my mother. Oh, God.

So I got home last night and -- by the way, I'm not gonna do it but I could go on
for another hour talking about all the stuff that went on and my mother and
another anecdote and another here and another there, and we're mid-concept.
We're mid-idea here. Your brain puts the marker down. Goes, wait a minute.
That's not complete. He said there's something important about that. Yeah, what
is it?

It's that that fragment with the arousal to the point where people want to know,
the brain will seek closure. It wants it to close. It's desperate for it to close. And
that is a very important part when we tell stories in terms of style.

Audience: Because certain the 20 years on the radio about 20 years ago seeing
bishop and pianists something like that. Then the announcer said it's -- and that
was played by Steven Bishop. Everybody knows why he changed his name. But
didn't explain it because it had happened the previous week or something like
that.

Michael: I had somebody who came on a workshop early on in my career come
to a workshop later on because a metaphor stayed open. Do you know who that
was?

Audience: No.

Michael: No? I think you met him; I think you met him. This chap -- there was a
story about a dog and something else, okay? He came to me like 20 years later
and said, "Well, I'm back." And I said, "Well, welcome back. Great to see you." And
he says, "Do you know why I'm here?" I said, "No." He said, "Because you didn't

finish the God-damn story." "Which one?" "About the dog."

Now you have to understand, right, when we leave the room my brain starts to
going I'm not sure whether I prefer chocolate or strawberry, you know? It's like
this, you know. The brain softens a little bit. I can't remember the metaphor that
I used 20 years ago. But there was a reason for not finishing that, that bit. It kind
of -- I'm sorry.

Audience: Yesterday you left us for lunch with a cliffhanger and you never came
back.

Michael: I know.

Audience: No. And...I came back.

Michael: And you're still thinking about it.

Michael: I'll give you the cliffhanger. You will get the -- yeah? But this is what I'm
talking about.

Audience: Okay.

Michael: See, your brain knows that there was something there that you wanted.
And it's that [noise]. It's that that we use within the stories in order to move
them along and in order to make them transformational.

You see, without motivation and desire, without the person reaching forward
and wanting to become within it, your stories are just data unless there's some
participation, unless there is some desire for the people who are listening.
They're just -- it's just more data, you know?

You can read any number of stories if you're in a disconnected state. They're not
gonna make an impact on you. But one story, just one little story that touches
you deeply or that is significant in some way to you, it can stay with you for years
and years and years as can an unfinished little cliffhanger. This is how the brains
works, you know? When they talk about brain-based learning, this is the real
brain-based learning.

Unfortunately, though, it doesn't fit the middle class learning and development
paradigm which is that we explain everything to everyone according to their
learning preferences. We start with here's what we're gonna be doing. Here's the
theory of it. Here's when it started. Here are the developers of it. And here's what
science says about it. Here are three places where it's used and -- oh, it's the end

of the day. We haven't had any time to practice but there you are. Off you go.

You know that thing about where we have to teach all of these bits in order for it
to be complete? Rather like the financial services company. I got called in to
correct a program that had already gone wrong. They had decided in their
wisdom that all of their unit managers in their recently combined businesses --
they now had property, you know, real estate plus financial services together as
one. They decided that all of their unit managers should be up to FSA level three
in terms of their knowledge and abilities. And they decided in their wisdom that
two weeks would be sufficient for the task of training people before they were
administered the exam. I mean, you know, they all had first degrees. All the
managers had first degrees.

So they should be intelligent enough to do this. Well, what they hadn't
considered is, all right, so you want them to pass these exams. Is, A, not only
what the content is for the exams, but, B, do the people who are gonna be in the
training actually have the strategies switched on, connected, and desiring to
drive through with them, so that whatever they know will be able to turn into
positive test results?

And the answer from their pilot definitely was no. But worse than that, of the
pilot group that they had, they had more than half the group out with other
physical illness or alcohol-related problems following on for it.

Because what they did was they just stuck 'em in a room. They had a, you know,
great big overhead projector. Somebody stand at the front with a big, thick
manual, and they just read the content to them for whole days. And, of course,
what's gonna happen if you stick people in a room for a whole day and you read
the content at them and there's no connection to it? Eventually they're gonna get
stressed out and they're gonna start drinking. [laughter] They're in financial
services.

So anyway, I mean, you know, when I came in it was, it really was not that --
what needed to be done was not that clever. But what they needed was
somebody from the outside to say, look, guys, you know, you're not the getting
the result this way. You're gonna have to change it. And one of them was that you
can't just expect people to have the right strategies there.

The ones that will produce the positive test results. They have to be taught. They
have have to be demonstrated. They have to be induced. Yeah? Different kind of
training. Problem. They're training people new the right way to train. And the
right way to train is that you produce scripts.


And there's a manual that the trainer reads from. There are overheads. The
quality of the training depends on the depth of the trainer's manual. Right? Well,
you know, they have the tick mark, right? They have the ISO tick mark which
says that you have everything done in a particular way and it's all, all of that. And
they had some great readers. People who could read from a script, do it really
well.

Unfortunately, this is the way they delivered every program. What do we call this
approach? What is it? It is a... [silence] What kind of a, what kind of a bed?

What is it?

Audience: Procrustean.

Michael: Procrustean. It is a procrustean bed. This is how trainings are. They all
happen the same way. They all have... yeah? Oooh. Anyway... No, no, no, no, no. It
won't work that way. Especially if you say you've only got two weeks.

You know they should have added in the criteria that they wanted the people
alive at the end of the two weeks. And having passed the exams. We had to put in
things like practice exams. You would have -- to me that sounds like a reasonable
thing to do. If the output is passing exams, then on the input side and on the
practice side you put in practice exams. You teach them how to take multiple
choice exams. You teach them how to deal with what's going to come.

To me, that looks like sense. But that was quite radical. Because there were no
comments about the overhead projections from the, the rest of it. And I said
we're not doing that. The actual problem was the training department rather
than -- the guys and the women were great. Ah, but I'm sorry. We were talking
about that stopping in the middle and going somewhere else. It's the brain
function. It's how the brain learns.

Once you harness this and you understand that in pursuit of a specific output
everytime you stop and add in another piece, perhaps from a different angle, you
can repeat the same material in a different way. You can go from a metaphor or
an anecdote about to an exercise. You can pull in another necessary component
and start working on that. As long as, if we're talking about whatever the critical
path is, when you interrupt there if you came back to it the brains will go, oh,
yeah.

That was the thing, that was the place where we wanted to stop. In a -- sorry,
where we wanted the closure to come. Okay.


So you pick and choose how you want the closure to happen. And there are some
things that you would leave open for a long time and there are other things that
you would do for a very short time.
Track 22 - Call Back Connecting Things Up

Michael: So for example we go back to the beginning of the day, I talked about
getting on the mini cab. We talked about eugenics. We talked about what? Shoes!

Now I wonder why you are the one who remembered shoes? A room full of
shoes, something unusual. Something that doesn't happen very often unless you
have too much money.

A room full of shoes with special boxes. And mirrors.

So if somebody says, "How are we going to remember all of this through the
stories? How are we going to remember the content?" This is how -- you will
remember this. The reason why is because it's put together in such a way that
you cannot forget it.

Audience: Financial services.

Michael: Right, in terms of the content, it's a slightly different matter because
you have to simulate for them their expectations around what a training should
be. But while that's going on, actually deliver something that is going to trigger.

This is only one mechanism that we are talking about and I have a few more for
you.

For financial services, you have to trick them into interest. You have to give them
challenges. You have to give them puzzles. You have to present them history of
'here is what happened.'

Now I want you to predict what the ending will be.. Getting them arguing about
what was. And while that's going on, then you give them instructions.

Audience: But do we need to know the content?

Michael: We are going to talk about content later on. We are still talking about
the brain.

The reason people don't do it is because they get it in the wrong order. State first

overall. Attention. Change state.

And now we start adding in how the brain functions.

So we had shoes. By the way, if you are going to use this little mechanism here,
you have to remain aware of what your role is, what your function is, what the
outputs are, and where you stopped.

I know exactly where we stopped and I always do. Even when I asked you where
are we.. Why would I pretend that I got lost? What do you think that does? It
forces you to kick in and do it.

We repeat things dozens of times throughout a program. By the time we are
done, you will have gone through the content, area and bits in many different
ways. Some of them in the form of exercises and writing down. Some of them in
the form of, 'what did I say?' And you go, 'oh it is that.' Switching the brain on and
running it to there.

I have many ways of getting you to think and getting you to repeat and re-
enforce.

Now where were we? Shoes. And from a room full of shoes, we then went onto?

Audience: Your shoes.

Michael: You have the sequence. It is there.

Audience: What is the best material then?

Michael: We are coming into that. I'm sorry you missed this because it was a
really good instantiation..

Audience: But I haven't.

Michael: Because you are here now and we are going to go through it again.

So shoes.. and where did I have to go to get these shoes?

Audience: Gradst.

Michael: The story based approach and the conversation, all of the detail, all of
the data is available to you. But there is more there than just the detail of the
story. There are points behind the story. There are inferences about which I

might use later on, especially around values -- way up that framing tool that we
talked about yesterday.

You remember later on in the story when I was talking about standing? Where
was I standing? I was standing there and I was waiting for? Oh, that came up
again didn't it?

We started with a mini cab and then there was another thing about a mini cab.
There is like a theme there, that class of classes.. we keep coming back and
coming back. And so the mini cab comes up again.

But this time, I'm waiting for a mini cab where? Outside the hotel in?

Audience: Gradst.

Michael: Gradst. And who comes out? The Dalai Lama comes out of the hotel.
And who is he with?

Audience: Bodyguards.

Michael: And what happens?

Audience: He smiles because you are waiting.

Michael: Because I'm waiting and there is a guy in robes there. What else? Then
what?

Audience: There is a stampede.

Michael: When we get to the venue.. that's the good bit.. this is the setup bit. The
emotional bit, the reactive bit. Right now there is the back and forth, the nodding,
the acquaintance. This happened several times and then we get to the venue and
we are there in the pen, the VIP enclosure and then blah, blah, blah.

So now we come to the point where I'm going to make a change which is we are
going to change the state. Up until now, I've been looking for response
attentiveness and getting setup for the things that we are going to be doing in
just a little while.

Now change of state. What happened? What was the event?

Audience: The crush forwards.


Michael: The crush forwards.

Audience: And the old people.

Michael: And the old people who were in the other section. I'm there in the
patron's area. They are in the other section. And I watch what? The disgusting
event happen -- what was it?

Audience: Western Buddhists trampling..

Michael: Trampling little old Tibetan men and women so that they can get close
to the Dalai Lama.

I did something kind of weird there. At that point I went into a little routine.

Audience: You took on the responsibility of a security guard and protection.

Michael: Did the protection method, but what did I do about the Buddhists? Do
you remember?

Audience: You lifted them.

Michael: She has the story. I didn't actually pick them up, I just kind of pulled
them across the barrier and pushed them to the front. But I said something about
the Buddhists, do you recall?

Audience: You made a value judgement on western Buddhism.

Michael: What did it do? It flipped it.

I don't care if they are Buddhists. They are going to pay attention to other people
and look after their safety and their.. I don't care if they are Buddhists.

We expect Buddhists to be good people and I flipped the thing around. Why?
Because that's not what we think about Buddhists, and that's not what Buddhists
do.

Audience: They are people.

Michael: Exactly, and all the rest of that. But it's not expected. It's the reverse.

In order to make sense of it, you have to think -- wait a minute, stop. And it's at
that moment that we began the next part in terms of the story which was to

move the state up, to get people laughing, to lift the energy.

We are running parallel within the structure of hold attention and change state.

Now while I'm doing that, there is a whole bunch of other things in terms of
content and in terms of where we are going this afternoon. I'm kind of peeling it
back so that you can see how it works.

The important thing is, it's done conversationally. And we can address what
comes up in the room, as it comes up in the room. But most importantly, it works
in such a way that your brain will hold the content.

I already identified the secret of that yesterday. I'm 100% committed to it, I'm
100% in it in terms of the stories.

We had the moments. The first big funny moment after the eugenics thing about
being pulled down. We had what?

Audience: Oh yes!

Michael: Oh yes! You remember, don't you?

Audience: I do.

Michael: What's there?

Audience: Mr. sweat band.

Michael: That's the Dalai Lama's ass print on the chair. The warmth, his aura,
being observed through..

I do this for a living.

By the way that's an odd image isn't it? It's a vulgar, it's unexpected. It's weird. It
was very warm.

Audience: Can I ask a question?

Michael: Go ahead.

Audience: When you are working with big groups, you've got a broad group of
followers. When you were going there, you started to rattle people's...


Michael: Rattling cages, yes.

Audience: You are not attacking but they are going to deal with their values
coming up.

Michael: OK. Big global bank. I was doing the key note address for some of their
senior leaders. I was asked to go in and do what I do.

I can do the standard business presentation and all the rest of that. But they
asked me to do it the way that I do it.

So for the business practitioners here, the so called setup, the initial comments
and laying out the stall and explaining how things were going to work and what
was going to be in and what was going to be out, that was the crucial moment.

So while I was doing that, I just said, "You can expect this, you can expect that.
Don't expect this, don't expect that. Here is how we are going to play."

It was during that, that I'm also doing the.. "You understand?" Yes you
understand. Of course you do. Which is? What do we call that? What do we call it
when..

Audience: A contract.

Michael: No, we have a technical word for it which we worked on yesterday.

The first thing we go for is?

Audience: Response attentiveness.

Michael: Good, good. So it's all there.

Got it? You need to think more about their response.
Track 23 - Getting People To Join You

Michael: Okay. All right. So within that primacy and recency effect we have the
interruption at a point where arousal is building, okay?

Now the third thing that we have here is, we'll use NLP jargon, association and
disassociation. [silence]


And it has to do with how people are going to make pictures and how they're
going to get involved in the story.

And this is where we start to get into a -- it's a -- it becomes a technical matter.
[silence]

There was a bicycle. There was a bicycle in the hallway last night in the building
that I live in. And it was exactly the same color as the first bicycle that I had when
I was a kid. [silence] All right? That's very specific to me.

But just think about the words that I'm using, and are they words that, for
example, you could instantiate on in your own experience? Could you find
examples within your own experience? The first bike that you used? Okay. And
as -- that's a direct instruction by the way. All right?

So -- and I'm looking at this bike and I was thinking about what else went along
with that first bike. Okay? I'm talking at a very general level but in order for you
to understand me you provide from your own experience content. I have no idea
what that is but I am choosing the category through the statement. And by
inclusion I know that there will be certain things present and there will be
certain things not present within that.

Right. I mean, when I learned how to ride -- it's a whole different matter today,
people riding bikes, then it was back then. There's more gizmos; there's more
gadgets. The bikes fold down into little -- when I was a kid, it was a big piece of
metal and stabilizers. [silence]

What is, what is this? What are stabilizers? Well, it's connected to the bike but I
haven't said anything about it. How many of you had stabilizers on your bike? A
few of you. See, it doesn't matter who does and who doesn't, yeah? I can say, oh,
my God, and I also had... [silence] And a few of you go, "Oh, I had some
streamers." Yeah? A few of you went, "What is he talking about?" I'm not talking
about anything. I'm just waving my fingers.

For some people that's sufficient to evoke because now what I'm doing is I'm
putting out fragments or pieces of... We also had playing cards with a clothes peg.
UK, you didn't do that so this might have been an American thing where you take
a playing card, put it onto the wheel. I'm sorry, onto the spokes. And now we go
clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack.

Audience: Cigarette packets.


Michael: Cigarette packets. See, we didn't, we didn't do that. In America they

keep the kids separate from that stuff. [laughter] I guess they start you early here
in the UK.


Michael: That's right. So, anyway, so there I was. There I was what? Where?

Audience: Where?

Michael: Exactly. That or?

Audience: Ahh

Michael: In the memory, yeah? Yeah?

Audience: Yea.

Michael: And suddenly -- and we're into the story, yes? Now, all I'm doing is I'm
using these very high level descriptions staying with the presumed revelry and
then just dropping the sentence fragments, the little bits and the pieces, in. And
as I'm watching I see how many people pick up on them and instantiate.

How do you know? Ahh, because people respond. Very few people. They just sit
there and stare into space. When I've collected the larger portion of the people
who are there, then I will carry on with whatever the next stage in the process is.
In order for people to associate with what we're talking about they must be able
to instantiate.

So, in getting people to find instances within their own experience -- we don't
have time for the full workshop on this -- but you need to focus on -- and I'll give
you some criteria. We'll do this in red. Universal experiences. Universality is
relative. For example, Not everybody comes from a country where they have
bikes. You would think the experience of putting your hand up might be a
universal experience.

Once I asked everybody to do something with their hand and put their hand up if,
you know, there was any issue. And somebody put something else up -- their
hook. Because I don't have a hand; I just have this. Ouch. What's a universal
experience by the way when it's at home? What's one? What's a universal
experience when it's at home?

Audience: Major life events.


Audience: Probably like major life events.

Michael: Like what?

Audience: Like taking your first step.

Michael: Like taking your first steps. Yeah. What else?

Audience: Making tea.

Michael: Putting on the kettle.

Audience: Cleaning your teeth with some kind of...

Michael: Cleaning your teeth for most of us. What else?

Audience: Getting up out of the bed.

Michael: Getting out of bed in the morning. What else?

Audience: Bodily functions.

Michael: Bodily functions, hopefully. What's another one?

Audience: Breathing.

Michael: Breathing. Now let's start thinking about -- so we've got some big
universals. Now let's start thinking about some groovy ones.

Audience: Concept, more concept like loss.

Michael: Like -- well, okay, like loss. But let's see if we can particularize it like,
for example, I'm thinking about -- you know, some people have a thing about
stationery; some people have a thing about art; some people have a thing about
TV shows. I'm afraid with me it's stationery.

Okay, now we're gonna go back and I'm gonna pull all that together but tension
and change the state. Mama, she wanted to go to Oxford. Mama wanted to go to
Oxford last weekend so that she could take the Inspector Morse tour because
she's a fan of Inspector Morse who is a fictional character I've tried to explain. He
didn't actually go to Oxford. It's a TV program. Ah, yes, but she loved John Thaw
anyway so she thought she'd pay 15 pounds to have somebody take her around

to all of the film sets, the places where they film for this.

Now, I find this terribly, terribly boring. This is not my thing at all. This is not
what I want to be doing. This is not how I want to be spending my weekend
much less my life. But it's Mama, and if it will amuse and entertain and keep her
from telling me stories about stuff that happened when I was a kid, it's worth it.
So we went, off we went to Oxford. By the way, what are we talking about?

Audience: Universal experiences.

Michael: Universal experiences. We're getting there; we're getting there.

So, anyways, so Mama's off during her thing and we were booked into a hotel
called the Royal Oxford Hotel which is actually kind of like a cheap and cheerful
place just across from the train station. And right next door to that is Staples
Office Stationery. You see, Staples has everything. It's like, it's cruel to put
somebody in Staples who likes stationery as much as I do. You know why? 'Cause
I want it all. And then I don't want it to write on or to use. I want to look at it. It's
not the fact that you do things with it. It's what it represents.

But even worse. They had just a huge section full of bargains, like the coolest
stuff. Like, let me see. They're bringing what is it now? Like I got these tiny little
highlighting markers for 20 pence that were end of the range. And they have like
a - kind of a latexy thing that you grab hold of on one side and a little hook thing
on the other and so I bought a handful of those.

And I bought -- they have these like little plastic cases for putting documents in
or putting -- you could put a passport into it or -- I found, actually found, four --
you know with Post-it Notes? I always want to have Post-it Notes with me and I
can never, never, like -- they go in the bag and the bag is clean. I clean the bag our
regularly, but there's always stuff in the bag. And so you get stuff in the Post-it
Notes. Furthermore, I only like the Post-it Notes that are fluorescent, super
fluorescent yellow.

Those are the Post-it Notes I like. I don't like the -- you know what I mean. Yes.
Good. Just don't challenge on that. There's a right kind and there's a wrong kind. I
found a little plastic case that just fits the Post-it Notes that I like. So now I can
keep my little Post-it Notes with me. All right. So, why don't we just pause there.
All right. So I'm using banal common experiences in order to particularize.

Now you don't have to have an obsession with stationery. But people do
appreciate, in terms of where I was going with these, one bit of it or another
because I was incorporating stuff that people have told me before. Like, for

example, some people don't like using paper unless it's perfect. They don't like
using stuff unless it's clean.

The notion of being in a shop where you want one of everything and you don't
even want to use it, etc., etc. And while I'm telling the story I'm watching. And
then Richard comes in with his amen, all right, we're getting there. And it lifts
and it lifts and it lifts. And everybody's sitting forward. And then we're getting
more of this and there's a point at which everybody's going together. And I go,
right.

So now we can move on. Now we'll go to the next bit. Now, where were we?

Audience: Universal experience.

Michael: Universal -- sorry, no, no, no. We were in Oxford. And I'm... [laughter]

Audience: In the stationery shop.

Michael: In the stationery shop which was next to the...

Audience: Hotel.

Michael: T hotel, which was -- I love it. I just love... You see, you do have to
master things like sensory-based language, like time and space predicates, the
particularization of the concepts. I'm gonna give you some exercises that you can
do to develop that capability. Much, much easier than you would expect. The
exercises have actually been in existence since the '50s.

And they keep changing their name. But they're so good the people keep stealing
them, renaming them, and reselling them again, yeah? I'll give it to you so that
you can develop it yourself. But the point here is that in order for you to join me
and to begin to instantiate, I have to give, A, enough detail within it so that you'll
join the story flow.

But, B, keep it at a universal enough level that at -- you know, maybe it's not the
whole story. Maybe it's just that 10% or that 20% where you have an example of.
Like how many of you here have had to take a trip with Mama? Yes? How many
of you here have had to do something with relations that you really did not want
to do? How many of you here have stayed at a cheap and cheerful hotel and you
don't like that. I should have gone on and talked about kind of hotels I do like
compared to, to that.

And then there's, yeah, the Inspector Morse tour, right? which is something from

a totally objective and god-like perspective that's just plain stupid, yeah? But you
have to tolerate. Everybody's got one of those, yeah? When I put it all together
we have a unique experience which, actually, by the way, this is the other thing
that I want to state for the record. I am not in favor of people just making stuff
up.

The truth is far more persuasive and there's enough there by changing
perspective, by changing the amount of saturation in the colors, the sub-modality
aspects of it as it were, that you can cover any situation that you need to from
within your life experience with the life experience of the people who are around
you. You can borrow from other people. You can put things in quotes. You can
borrow stories from other people. Use truth as much as you can. Why?

Audience: Because it is easier to remember.

Michael: Because it affects your state profoundly.

Audience: It's real.

Michael: It leaves you...

Audience: There's a lot of flexibility...


Audience: ...in the description because it actually easier.

Michael: I should say, by the way, everything I've told you so far is true, in terms
of experience, including all that stuff with the Dalai Lama. It's just -- yeah, oh,
yeah.

Audience: You love women's shoes?

Michael: What's that?

Michael: You love women's shoes?

Michael: Yeah. Don't you? [laughter]

Audience: Well, I thought what was interesting was that it might when you talk
about people kind of playing out stories...

Michael: Mm-hmm.


Audience: ...and I felt there was a mismatch between what you were saying
about loving before post it notes. I don't know, there were just things in your
story that I thought, I wouldn't have expected that and that's really funny.

Michael: Right. That's fine. That's fine.

Audience: Unexpected.

Michael: There's that too. There's that too, but it's not -- it doesn't have to be
100%. You see, the place where people go wrong is that they, they demand
everybody to be in the same state at the same time and in the same moment. And
it simply doesn't occur unless you are telling people what to do. Close your Go
inside. Go into a trance state. Do this, do that. Imagine this. See that.

Those occasions don't happen very often unless you belong to a certain church.
Yeah? What we have to do is we have to get people into the ballpark and willing
to comply. When the requests come for a specific action, they'll do it, yeah? You
don't have to have 100%. Remember what I said yesterday about being liked? It
also applies at every other point in the story. You do not have to be liked. You do
have to be followable.

Michael: Yeah, liking is not the same thing.

Audience: You think people will listen to people they don't like?

Michael: They do all the time.

Audience: Really.

Michael: You work in business.

Audience: [laughter] It's true.

Michael: I know. I know. Yeah?

Audience: Adolph Hitler. Let's take it big.

Michael: People loved Hitler.

Audience: Yeah. They loved him.

Michael: They loved him.


Audience: They didn't like him.

Michael: You know.

Audience: We don't like him.

Michael: We don't like him, but they loved him.

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: If you look at life, if you look at real life as lived, you'll find that you will
interact, you will negotiate with, you will listen to, you will agree with all kinds of
people including those you don't like. Not every senior person that you every
worked with. Not every junior person you've ever worked with. If you're a
parent, you have favorite kids.

Sorry, [laughter], you know? You have aspects of the kids that you love that
about the kid and the other one, well, ohh... Do you get what I'm saying? Even
within that full embrace, you still have a preference for this or that. That's fine.

It doesn't have to be 100%. It has to be sufficient. Understand?
Track 24 - Universal Moments

Michael: In terms of NLP, for those of you who are NLPers, this is where when
we are talking about truisms and pacing content, you aren't doing this to placate
nor are you doing it to "yes sets", one of the most absurd things I've ever heard.

When you repeat back to someone, it's to communicate that you heard what was
said and it doesn't require any further explanation. It literally closes in their
brain the need to explain further if the words have been heard. If you paraphrase
what someone says, they have to retranslate that. And then they go, "I choose the
words I choose.. that's not exactly it. So I have to keep going."

So we use the same phrases. And when we repeat back the sequence of things,
it's so that the brain will close and that we can move forward. That doesn't mean
liking.

One of the most powerful things you can do with somebody where there is
antagonism, is to articulate their points for them. They said X, Y and Z and it
seems to be an antagonistic situation, repeat their points back because it says

that you are listening.

That's the thing. If you want to achieve that Zen-like state of non defensiveness,
especially business from across the table, is to articulate back what they said. Put
it in the right sequence, articulate it back, that's it.

I'm not sure that's the right way to go.

Audience: Sometimes actually repeating the words back they actually hear what
they are saying and think that is a load of rubbish.

Michael: Especially if they are mismatchers. That's what you do to a mismatcher,
repeat back their own words to them and then they will change them.

OK, universal experiences. Let's think about particular universal experiences.
Let's think about very specific moments that are universal.

Sorry, what was I talking about? I was talking about stationary. Now I don't know
if you have the same thing that I have, but there are certain kinds of pens that I
really like to write with.

By the way, you know how sometimes when you hear about NLP, you hear about
things like micro muzzle movements. Who cares? If a left eye lash is fluttering a
little bit on someone, that's all the neurological involvement that is happening ..
enough to flutter the left eye lash.

I want neurological involvement that is like that! Profound! it's affecting the
body.

So there are certain pens that feel good to write with. And others you can make
notes with them, you can take a note with them.

But you have to go through and you have to try a whole bunch of them. She's
going, "He is absolutely right."

Do you understand? Now we will carry on with her.. we are well in the ballpark.

So it's that moment, that tiny little moment I'm thinking about of choosing the
pen and of which pen you are going to write with. That's a very particular
moment that is universal.

What are some other examples of these? Well let me ask you, you know how
when you go to a restaurant for the first time and they give you the menu, how

many already know what you are going to be eating before you open the menu?
In other words, by the time you walk in the restaurant you've already decided
you are having fish today. Or you are having chicken or whatever. Does anybody
do that?

Audience: Not always.

Michael: When you first look at the menu, some people go to a particular section
of the menu first. Some people don't like to confess which section that is -- some
people go to the deserts first. Most other people start at the top of the menu and
read each of the items on the way down.

What's the first approach to the menu?

When for example you are looking at the menu, do you make pictures? Who here
makes pictures? You make pictures? How do you know what to make pictures
of? Well the words that are there... but you've never seen it before.

What are you making pictures of? Well Ameila one time in the past but not now..

Who here tries to taste the food and imagine what it tastes like? And how do you
do that when you read an item?

Audience: Imagine what it might be like .. if I spend a lot of time in foreign
restaurants and I don't know exactly what it is. And then imagine connections
between..

Michael: How about for you? When you look at the item on the menu?

Audience: I look if it the two dishes go together.

Michael: How do you know if they go together or not?

Audience: I just think would I like that combination?

Michael: Then how do you make the decision? Do you taste it, do you see it?

Audience: There are a number of ideas that I like already.

Michael: So the menu is more of an indication of a collection of ideas. And if you
like the ideas, you'll say yes. Cool.

How about for you?


Audience: I'd pick something that I'd like.

Michael: How do you know that you'll like it?

Audience: If I've had it before.

Michael: Is it the word chicken?

Audience: Yea.

Michael: It's that interaction with the menu and the menu being the first point of
acquaintance in a restaurant. That moment when we sit down and look at the
menu. That's a very specific moment. You'll have lots of different combinations to
it, but it's also a place where attention can be brought together because each of
us has a very specific response to it.

Audience: For me it is how I will feel after eating this?

Michael: How you'll feel after eating it.. See so now what we are doing with this
very particular universal experience, we have door ways.. we can go in some
many different directions from here.

I can tell you stories about restaurants and categories of restaurants, and
categories of stories about restaurants. There are a 1000 different possibilities.
But everybody now is fully hooked up with their own experience and at their
own level.

I could pitch this if I wanted to apropos of nothing and start there and work my
way up. Or I could say, "Alright we are going to be talking about categories of
metaphor and about evoking experiences in people so I can go with that more
conventional approach and explain that we are going to look at this, and the
other." Or I could do something completely different. Which is, what I'd like you
to do is I'd like you to arrange yourself in a group of two. And I'd like you to come
up with a list of 100 very specific particular universal moments that people are
more likely to share than not.

You have 5 minutes. A vast task and 5 minutes.

Audience: The universal?

Michael: Relatively universal. You can do whatever you want. You can try
Western.. you can try universal human. You can try whatever you want.

Track 25 - Universal Moments Assignment Review

Michael: The most important thing about this exercise is that you got the brain
working. And did you notice, once you get the brain working, off it goes.

It's not the exercise that is difficult or the lack of instructions or whatever.

You simply have to get the brain going. Once it gets going, then you find the
direction.

This is another thing about learning .. people think that we must have absolutely
explicit fully detailed instructions before going.

That's one of the reasons why collectively we are slaves because we've been
taught to wait until somebody tells us what to do.

Children have to be educated out of learning. Children know what to do which is,
if you see something interesting, what do you do?

Audience: Find out.

Michael: Play with it, find out.

What happens as we get older? Wait. Somebody will tell you what you should be
doing.

And that affects every area of life.

Tom, on the other side of the business, NLPTimes, where we do the public
products, one of the things that we do is kind of a distance coaching program and
a chap sent in a reply to something that we did. And I have never seen such a
lengthy self-pitying, trapped description in my life.

Somebody who wants something but can't see a way forward. And goes into
what I call a tap dance. It's a tap dance of misery. It's a defence of why they can't
have what they want.

The whole document was a statement of lack of resourcefulness. But the only
thing it actually represented was fixation on the wrong thing.

Because what this person has in their immediate environment is access to people
who have already done what he wants to do. Who already know how the
situation works.


He simply hasn't been told who they are and what they are.

What we are trying to get him to do, is when he gets in trouble, instead of going
inside and talking to himself about what it is he doesn't know and then getting
angry at everyone for not explaining how the world is, is to turn outwards and
ask.

If you want a clue about which way to go, ask. But don't wait for explicit
instructions. The rule is, as you have instantiated fully in your life now?

Audience: Just do it anyway.

Michael: JDIA.

Audience: JFDIA.

Michael: JFDIA.. That's the New York way of doing it. You just do it.

Actually engaging and taking the step forward and then suddenly you
discovered..

How many items did you get on your list?

Audience: 103.

Michael: Fantastic. What's the action number? I picked the number 100 because
it would be tough to do.

Audience: I have a lot.

Michael: More than 10?

Audience: Oh yeah.

Michael: 20?

Audience: We did it thematically.

Michael: That's cool.

Audience: There are some good ones in there.


Michael: How many did you do sir?

Audience: I can't count that high, but maybe about 40.

Michael: Excellent. For you guys?

Audience: 60 maybe.

Michael: They only got 40. They only got.. only got..

Congratulations.

Now tell me some of them. This is great. Tell me. What were some of them?

Audience: Saying goodbye.

Michael: Actually, saying goodbye.. absolutely. Two more weeks.

Audience: [Laughter] Waiting.

Michael: And watching the arse end of the plane.

Audience: Laughing.

Michael: [laughter] Is that what you meant? No, you meant something else.

So saying goodbye. Laughing. What else?

Audience: Singing. Dancing. Picking a fruit.

Michael: Picking a fruit where?

Audience: In the garden.

Michael: No. In fact, I'm grossly offended -- middle class.

Come the revolution, we know where he lives.

Picking fruit at the supermarket maybe if you're upper working class, middle
class..

Audience: Stealing fruit.


Michael: Stealing fruit? Yes! Great, alright.

Stealing apples. Fantastic.

What about you guys?

Audience: Tripping in public, banging your head. Hitting your elbow.

Michael: You like that, don't you? Once again, if you like it, go ahead.

What are some other ones that you like?

Audience: I liked when the one of laughing at inappropriate moments.

Michael: Laughing at inappropriate moments.

Oh my God, I was at a funeral, and it was really great.. anyway.

What else? Other favorites?

Audience: Anything emotional.

Michael: Like running out of coffee?

Audience: Yeah

Michael: Exactly. Last week, I got up in the morning and had a long day ahead of
me. I was getting ready, I was doing all the things that one does in order to
prepare oneself to face the world for a difficult day. I went into the kitchen, when
I switched on the coffee machine -- it's an espresso machine, it's one of the new
ones..

Do you like coffee?

Audience: I love it.

Michael: It's a necessary component of a healthy diet. One of the five major food
groups -- coffee, sweets, iced cream -- that kind of stuff.

So I go and I've got a little metal box, and inside the metal box I keep the
capsules.. The magic capsules.. the ones that you take when you want to feel
better..


And I look, and there is nothing there. Someone had forgotten to buy more
coffee.

So I'm thinking really evil thoughts about this person who forgot to buy coffee.
Unfortunately the evil person was me. I'm looking at the box there, and I'm
thinking, "There is no coffee."

I look in the box and there is still no coffee. And I'm thinking, "What am I going to
do? I can't start the day without coffee."

I had to push through the shower. The shaving took forever. Going into the
wardrobe, picking the shirts..

Audience: They do have coffee delivery.

Michael: They do have coffee delivery but some idiot won't do that. He doesn't
like have to pick up coffee from elsewhere because he is never home when they
deliver.

Anyway, what were we talking about?

Audience: Emotional moments.

Michael: What's another emotional moment?

Audience: Hurt.

Michael: Particularize it.

Audience: A loss.

Michael: Those are categories.

Audience: Someone dying.

Michael: OK, that is a universal experience.

Michael: The disappointment that someone didn't die soon enough?


Michael: This was like a comedy preparation thing?


So someone dying, just not quickly enough.

And somebody keeps sending me these really rude texts with these really awful
jokes like media comentary about the death of Steve Jobs. Some of the comments
were not PC.

That is terrible. That is just terrible. Why would somebody send me that?

So loss, let's talk about loss. Let's go to a specific moment rather than to the
grand ones.. Let's pick a small one, like for example, do you have a favorite coffee
cup or tea cup or favorite item and then it breaks?

I had a cuff-link break..

Audience: I think my cat dying.

Michael: Oh your cat dying. Indeed, your cat dying. And that would certainly
induce states in people.

Let's see if we can make that loss into a.. Rather than going for the ultimate loss..

Seriously, your cat dying is an important one. We'll talk about this later one
because what these things call up is.. do you have one of these? I have one of
these.

You are right, we had a cat put down a number of years ago and I made a
commitment that I would hold the cat and keep it calm while it happened. I
didn't realize it would be traumatizing.

And about a year after the cat was put down, I fell into a depression -- and I don't
get depressed about anything.

I started to get down, and just wasn't feeling right. And then on a particular day, I
just kind of went, this is awful -- I don't know why I am feeling so bad.

I looked at the calendar, and something kept drawing me back to the calendar
and I questioned what the calendar had to do anything. And I realized it was one
year to the day that I had looked in this cat's eyes as it died.

Oh my God, somebody in there was keeping track of something I didn't want to
keep track of.

Also, if you have pets, don't look into their eyes while they die. Not a good idea.


So now that you brought us all down -- say it's her fault!

Let's talk about loss, like the cuff link.

Audience: Favorite tea cup when it gets a crack in it.

Michael: I won't tell you about that bitch, my mother. When I was 5, she threw
away my little stuffed dolphin thing that I got..

Now look at what you've done!

See, it's kind of like crisps, once you start with a category, it's tough to stop.

Let's pick another category.

Audience: Father Christmas.

Michael: What is wrong with you people?

Audience: Exams!

Michael: All the horrors of life!

We are going to do a story workshop -- the golden keys in how to depress people.
[laughter]

The only good thing about misery is it can be shared.

This is like the secret policeman's ball.. The first Monty Python amnesty charity
where he comes out with a one man band on. And he has the spectacles and he
puts on a voice like Bob Dylan and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have suffered
from my heart, now it's your turn."

Great stuff, I'm glad you did it -- do you have any happy ones in there?

Audience: Bodily functions.

Michael: Oh they are always good for a laugh. Which ones, name one.

Audience: We didn't name them.

Michael: So when we go forward, you need to really name them.


Like for example really having to fart but being in an important meeting. And so
trying to figure out whether you can let a crafty one fly while the CEO is
speaking. And just the uncertainty and the discomfort and wondering whether it
should go on the left or on the right.


Michael: Well what has happened to you then? Have you ever farted in an
important meeting?

Audience: I don't think so.

Michael: On a date?

Audience: Don't make me talk about that.

Michael: OK, this is just a tip. The sooner you make it into a topic..

Audience: That's not my style, sorry I can't do things on the...

Michael: That's fine. But what I'm suggesting is, if you want other people to join
you..

Audience: Not in a discussion on that.

Michael: No, not on a discussion on that. So choose one that you do.

Audience: OK.

Michael: What is one that is OK?

Remember, small! Pick a nice one.

Audience: Everyone dreams. Things about anxiety, flying, falling..

Michael: OK, dreams about anxiety. Dreams about flying. Dreams about falling.

Let's pick a little one. Do you like tea?

Audience: Yes.

Michael: What kind of tea do you like?


Audience: All kinds of tea.

Michael: There we go.

Just in that little movement there, all kinds of tea, that's where we are going to
start. And we will build it from there.

So let's say you've been working on something for a while and you want to take a
break. And you decide it is fine for a cup of tea or coffee. So you put the work
aside and you go out the kitchen and you look at what you've got there. And you
say, do I feel more like..

What's one kind of tea that you like?

Audience: Rooibos or Earl Grey.

Michael: When I think of Rooibos, I think of sticks and leaves and dirt. [laughter]

But Earl Grey, which is like a perfectly good cup of tea ruined by squeezing an
orange into it.

So we have Rooibos, we have Earl Grey, there is Worker's Tea.

Audience: Tetley.

Michael: Tetley..

So how do you decide? You stand there and you decide -- we say something like,
"What do I feel like today?"

Who would've thought it, a cup of tea as a metaphor for life.

What kind of tea do I feel like right now?

Well you will have to make that decision for yourselves as well as any other
letters of the alphabet.

We'll take a break and we'll start again at 11:30.
Track 26 - Exercise Universal Metaphor


Michael: We are going to start the beginning of a communication. And you have
a completely free choice of the category and class of anecdote that you wish to
communicate. I would ask that you choose a universal metaphor. Your sole intent
is to get people relaxed, comfortable and laughing -- not in the big belly laugh
sense. But in a relaxed, pleasant and open state ready to go.

Let's see, twice the intensity, from when you start. So maybe when you first sit
down in the first round, everybody is going to be terrified because nothing has
actually happened yet. Nobody has given a demonstration yet of exactly what's
going to occur. So the first person up is going to say, "I had peas for dinner last
night."

And so to get that twice as far is going to be one thing. But the third person who
tells a story at the end, that's going to be a different matter because the states
have already changed.

So the question is, is it better to go first? Or is it better to go last? The decisions!
Will it be easier to affect a state at the beginning or at the end? And how much
further do you have to go?

It's that thing about .. if you go now, they won't be as far along. But then again
there is kind of an expanding scale. Once they are high, what if the second person
makes them high as a kite? And if you are the 3rd person telling your story in
order to raise their state? Oh my God! Will the pea story be sufficient? Can I make
the peas sufficiently hysterical?!

Alright. So do you have sufficient material with you there? Do you have an
anecdote? Can you choose a role to play with those people? Sure you can.

Your function? We've already established which is to get and hold their attention
and change their state. But it's always going to be relative to where they are.

So you better bring your 5% and your potentiatiometer, your dial so you can
ratchet it up. "I didn't tell you what happened.. I'll tell you later."

Alright, choose a new group of 3. Find some space. Off you go. You have 5.5
minutes per role.

How did you do? How did it go?

Audience: I'm awful at it.

Michael: No you aren't. You can't tell a story? Tell me what happened.


Audience: I started then got lost and didn't finish.

Michael: Is that how you felt about it?

Audience: Yeah.

Michael: Well STFU.

So tell me, how was it with her, what happened?

Audience: There was a very good story behind it. And it had my attention. And
as soon as she said "Oh I'm really disappointed."

Michael: Tremendous state elicitation which is cool!

Here is the thing, do you remember what I said yesterday about how you feel and
how it doesn't matter? It doesn't matter how you feel. What matters is how who
feels?

Audience: The listener.

Michael: That's right. You can be in the depths of despair and depression and
concentrate on others and create for others.

Some of the greatest artists in the world did that. Great comedians who are very
sad sacks when they are off stage. The great trainer, the great storyteller, the
great whomever is the one who pays attention to the response.

Ken Dodd has pushed this probably to the pathological level. I saw him in 1983
and it was 11:40 at night. The stage manager walked onto the stage and said, "Mr
Dodd, the trains and buses are going to stop soon. We have to let people go." And
he said, "Oh yes.." But then he carried on until 12:30 in the morning after
everything had stopped. He could not stop. I think that was a feedback the other
way. He loved to laugh so much that he couldn't let it go.

He is definitely one who is going to die with his boots on. That's too much.

But in terms of intent, the intent that people are going to get what they want, and
they are going to change their state and they are going to get it .. will be sufficient
if you allow yourself to be moved by it.. for you to create a result when you don't
think you are doing so good.


It's this audience of one has to be turned around into the audience.. how they are
responding, how they are feeling, how they are doing.

You are OK. You are fine if you would stop wasting all of that energy on all of this
pointless self examination and pointless self critique simply because it's stealing
energy from the people who matter.

All of that energy that you are devoting to judging yourself harshly in which you
seem to enjoy so much is stealing life force that can be contributed to the people
who are listening.

I mean really, stop being so selfish.

Audience: Fart more.

Michael: What's that? Fart more.

What a great name for a school, the Fart more Academy.

There are too many boys in the room I think. -- Alright what else did you
discover?

Audience: I know stuff I shouldn't know.

Michael: Like what?

Audience: How some people's embarrassment has been made.

Michael: What else?

Audience: Tissues can save lives.

Michael: What else did you discover?

Audience: It's good to open up one's embarrassing past and tell it through a
story.

Michael: There is nothing to be embarrassed about. There is nothing to be
ashamed about, to be humiliated about. As soon as you speak the monster..

Remember that thing about turning towards the monster? As soon as you speak
it, it's gone. That's it.


But if we forget the role... I want to share with you a very painful and personal
experience that I had.. that's where everyone is going to go. They will follow you
into that. But that's not what we are there to do.

If we are going to use our humiliation, our embarrassment or whatever, then
through the role that we choose and the function that we are looking to perform,
we open it open so that being embarrassed is no longer a problem.

Think about some of the comics that use their own personal discomfort,
embarrassment and humiliation. Who is the newest one who is brilliant at it?
Sarah Milliken -- have you seen her? Make a point of finding her.

Sarah Milliken is from the north and she is a mousy blonde and kind of homey.
And her whole act is self denigration until.. It's kind of like self denigration, self
denigration and then just a vicious turnaround that is wonderful.

She does this self denigration act better than anybody that I've seen for a long
time. But it's out in the open and it's on the table and it's being talked about. And
what you hear and what you see is everybody in the audience identifying with
her. They either identify with her because they've had the experience or they
identify with her because they've seen others doing it -- "Oh my God, my
girlfriend does that all the time."

So open up. Self disclose just enough.

Cool. What else did you discover?

Audience: That people who live in nudist colonies wear visors when they are
playing tennis.

Michael: Wow people in nudist colonies wear visors when they play tennis.

Audience: Well the amazing thing is, they have these expensive shoes, sweat
bands around their wrists, green visors, expensive tennis rackets except they
had no pants on. It's vulgar.

Michael: How many of you make an image as Phillip is talking about them going
to serve. That's where the unusual, the unexpected, the slightly vulgar literally
compels people to the sensory description. This is how you create images in
people's minds.

How do you get people to think things? In this instance, it's something that we
don't want to think. We don't want that image. I certainly don't.


In fact I now have to put an artfully arranged screen in front of that image so that
I don't see it anymore.

Audience: That's nuts.

Michael: That's nuts. That man is nuts.

For God's sake, too many boys in the room. There are too many boys.

Audience: I'm not screaming that!
Track 27 - Predicates Causal Modeling & Model

Operator Dynamics

Michael: So within the stories, when we get to these extraordinary moments,
then our ability to use what are called sensory predicates -- a predicate is
everything in the sentence that isn't the subject.

So the sensory predicates, the descriptive language and the time and space
predicates.. the predicates that indicate the where and the how.. They are the
secret words.

For those of you have been with me before, we have in terms of the structure of
the narrative, we have the beginning, the middle and ending. And we have the
causal form, the causal modeling as it were of the story.

In other words, the beginning, middle and ending are arranged usually in the
form of.. something happened which leads to something else which causes
something else to occur.

But within that, the dynamics which drive the effective stories and anecdotes
etc., are those which involve a particular form of mode in the verb. And it's called
the modal operator of desirability.

So we'll just call them the desirability words. Can you guys which words those
are?

Audience: Like.. love..

Michael: Like, love but more importantly?


Audience: Want, need..

Michael: And? Don't want.

So we are playing back and forth between those two.

What creates the emotional impact in these stories which are particularly
effective.. one of the golden keys being.. the modal operator of desirability is
what we are playing with the scenarios -- the want and the don't want.. the
moving towards yes, yes, yes. And the stuff that we don't want -- no, no, no.

And it's in the dynamic and the play between those two.. that the drama compels
the audience to join.

So we could draw relatively universal, relatively specific and unique.

Desirability -- yes, yes, yes. Undesirability -- no, no, no.

And now we have another compass, another set of dynamics to play against..

By the way, this is one of the reasons why in NLP, the word is there but very few
people understand why it is there -- the word calculus. Like predicate calculus is
for example one of the foundations for the language models.

Not Chomsky, not linguistics, logic. And predicate calculus tells you about the
kind of changes and what is connected and associated with language and with a
specific form of language. The calculus is, for example, the rate of change over
time -- that's what calculus gives you.

It's two sets of dynamics and how they work together. Not just comparing yes
and no. But a spectrum compared to a spectrum and what happens as this one
decreases, that one increases.

That's what we are playing with.

It's submodalities and language and how they work together. That's the calculus.

When you hear certain things, like for example, we were talking about in an
organization where somebody calls up the consultant and says we have 300
people demotivated, disempowered and under performing and we want a
training. In that, we are hearing both here is the problem and here is our
proposed solution set.


But if we take a step to the side, we can also calculate that there are a lot of other
possibilities. And we can also calculate what will happen if they don't make a
change -- if they carry on as they are.

That gives us a profound ability to make predictions. We can't know what's true,
but we can say on the basis on what I've seen before, if this situation is like that
situation, that one and the other one, then it's quite probable that X, Y and Z will
show up.

This actually becomes a tool for prognostication. It actually becomes a tool for
being able to make really good guesses about what must come next.

I don't know what time it is.. but you know that there is something coming. Just
as spring follows fall.. just as P follows T. T follows P -- Get it in the right order.

The modal operator of desirability tells us moving towards and moving away
from.. that's what drives those really good stories.

But then, controlling the towards and away from, we have how they are located.
So we have the time and space predicates.

And those predicates are the ones that indicate things like before and after.. All of
the physical relationships of embodied existence under the condition of gravity...
In extension of time.. So we have before and after. We have above and below. We
have above all. We have at the foundation.

We have a little bit ahead, and not far behind.

What other kinds of words that we have like that.

Just try a few.

Audience: Accelerate.

Michael: Absolutely. Accelerated development.

Audience: Advance.

Michael: Absolutely. The word advance.

Audience: Progress.

Audience: Proceeding.


Michael: How about in? In a moment. On the way. During. While.

By the way, for those who are Ericksonian hypnosis trained or NLP trained,
although those are forms and presuppositions, the function that they are
performing.. We are talking about a different function, we are now talking about
the relationship to time and space rather than how they fit within an abstract
academic cognitive schema of the 29 presuppositional contexts in English -- the
syntactical presuppositional contexts in English.

You mean there could be more than one category? Yes.

It's one of the reasons why there is so little intelligence that has been applied
across NLP.

It's either a generalization, a deletion or a distortion. No.. that was just a way to
sort things out in the early days and it got people to shutup for a while. But it
doesn't actually mean anything. Because some of the distortions are
generalizations. And some of the generalizations are distortions.

In other words, that way of sorting the language patterns is not a functional
arrangement. It's a cognitive arrangement fro a particular point of view.

For those who have studied with me in more recent times, the way that I've
arranged the meta model based on predicate calculus and based on chunk size
within the language, you can take the meta model and the framing tool and put
the two together and what you get is you get information about not just the
content of what must be so. But exactly where the submodalities will have to be -
- what will show up or won't show up.

Why? Because they aren't separate, they are one.

So that relative desirability as an overall state response controls the specifics of
the time and space predicates.

But before we go to deeply into that, I want to introduce the rest ...

So we go onto the next level. What do the time and space predicates act on? What
do they constrain or control? What do they place and arrange?

Audience: Stuff.

Michael: Stuff. The sensory words.


Audience: Attributes.

Michael: The sensory predicates.

I hope one of my master practitioner students recognizes where these patterns
belong on the meta model. Please God.

Inside? Outside? Or somewhere else?

Think meta model, where do most of these patterns fit?

Audience: Don't know.

Non re-enforcement signal .. in other words, no reward forthcoming. Not
punishment, just simply the sign that there will not be any treat.

Audience: Ahh

Michael: I'm sorry but you are providing... As I sometimes say, there is no
suffering on my trainings. On my trainings, suffering is optional and if you want
to suffer, you have to provide your own.

But there are definite non re-enforcement signals. There are definite times when
I'll have to deal with my own disappointment at home tonight. I don't even drink,
but I may be stopping at the liquor store on the way home.

Audience: OK, you can tell us.

Michael: Can I? Oh dear. I don't believe in punishment. I don't punish as such.

If I'm going to be wounded to the heart, in response to having my expectations
not fulfilled.. especially from someone who said that they study so hard..

Michael: Alright, if I ask you how do you know something is true, where do you
look for the information? How do you know?

Audience: Wikipedia.

Michael: That's true. Wikipedia is inside your mapper model as a place to go.

Audience: Inside our own experiences.


Michael: Absolutely. So you go inside of your maps and models.

If we are looking at and listening to the modal operators, the mode of the verb is
an inherent part for cause and effect reasoning. Every single verb will have the
mode within it. The mode might be, to be or is.. simple statements of existence..

But in this instance, we are talking about desirability or lack of desirability.

So it's there within causal modeling but in our representations of the meta
model, we place them where we place those modal operators. Where do the
modal operators fit?

Audience: I just can hear this level of discomfort..

Michael: You have to go back to your master practitioner manual and see the 12
page article on this very topic. All this says is, I'm going to have to assign that a
lot more. Read it. Do I have to do a test on it?

I'm wondering what kind of pain I'm going to have to suffer..

Audience: Are we talking about deletions?

Michael: We aren't quite talking about deletions, what we are talking about is
that whenever you hear a causal statement, you will also be hearing an inferred
mode to the verb. You'll also be hearing an inferred scope.

So when we overtly ask a question about the causal reasoning, you say that they
are doing that makes you feel some other way.. How do you know? There will
also be inferred -- the mode that it is necessary.. That it's an exclusive statement -
- This is the way it has to be. This is the right way to talk about it.

So the mode of the verb is necessity. The scope is universal or exclusive.

We can also challenge those cause and effect things. Not by saying how
specifically does X cause Y. But we can also say, is that always true?

So there we are challenging the inferred exclusivity.

We can also challenge in terms of its necessity. Do you have to feel that way?
Who said.. go over to that lost performative over here.

Do you have to feel that way? Who says you have to? Oh it just feels like you.. Oh
it feels like you have it?


Well that's a horse of a different color, isn't it?

So the modal operator is one of those patterns that doesn't force you to go one
way or the other.

Remember if we are challenging even those old school NLP -- could, should, have
to.. I have to do X, I can't do Y. Well what would happen if you did? What would
happen if you.. I can't swim.. I just simply can't go swimming. Well what would
happen if you did go swimming?

Where does somebody have to go in order to answer the question? Where do
they have to go?

Audience: Into the water.

Michael: No, in their mind. Well, yes into the water, but where do they have to
go? Do they go to their past experience or do they go to some place they haven't
been before?

Audience: Some place they haven't been before.

Michael: Is that inside the map that they have? Or is that outside?

Audience: Outside.

Michael: That's outside the map.

Yes, inside the mapper model is where we've been and the things we know and
all the things that we would rely on. Outside the mapper model, are those places
we haven't been. And also from a linguistic point of view, the functions that don't
show up in the surface structure but that affect it.

So I can't go swimming. Well what would happen if you did? You are asking them
to imagine the very thing that they say that they can't do and that is change its
state.

But you could also ask, what stops you? What stops you? That's asking somebody
to go inside..

What stops you from going swimming?

Audience: Fear.


Michael: In that case they would answer fear because they've got a number of
experience that they refer to that they conclude is fear.

But we can ask any other question.

Who says that being afraid is the key issue here? Who says that it matters? Who
says you have to be afraid?

How do you know? That's the mind reading question. How do you know?

Any claim to knowledge at all will have instantiation.

So we can use many different meta model patterns to challenge as long as we
know which function within the sentence we are looking to ask the person to
reflect on.

So clearly for the business master practitioners who are here, I may be going
back and examining certification documents...

The meta model sits in that relationship where we can point in either direction.
We can point inside someone's mapper model with it or we can point outside.

Desirability and lack of desirability. We can go inside the mapper model to find
things that are just like.. or things that they don't want to have happen again. Or
we can go outside, we can build something they haven't seen before.

Now the modal operators act on time and space predicates. But the time and
space predicates don't actually say whether it has to be inside or outside of the
mapper model. And the same thing with sensory predicates.

In other words, these patterns sit in the middle. They sit between, inside and
outside the mapper model.

So this is the bit in terms of working this chain up and down that we haven't
talked about before.

I had some vain hopes that you'd be able to identify the causal modeling points
inside the mapper model and the modal operators [inaudible]

But there we are. I shall take that up with the bartender this evening. Thank you.

But now what we can do with this and what we can do with this chain, is we can

start to build things into which content is placed as long as we know what our
role is, what our function is.. what function we are performing at that moment,
and then what's the output that we want to create?

The actual content for the stories, whether it's going to be a fairytale or whether
it's going to be an anecdote.. Whether we are going to try and build some kind of
an analogy or draw an analogy from somewhere depends on where we are in the
strategy.
Track 28 - Putting It Into Practice

[music] [music] [music]

Michael: So desirability and lack of desirability, those will often come from
recognizing situations as being enjoyable or not enjoyable.

An obvious one would be like the first day of school. I don't know what it was
like for you, I do know what it was like for me. Going on and talking about it, and
go through all the different elements and pieces. Just cracking off the instances,
instances, instances. And while we are doing that, doing the best that we can in
order to collect 'Yes, yes, yes.'

And as soon as we get that lock in and the way you can tell is by watching, then
we can move onto the next bit which is, we have attention.. We've gathered state
in, we have response attentiveness and now we can move onto the next bit.

We are going to connect up that bit of the story to let's say it's curiosity.. about
how to apply something.

So then we'll say, I had an experience last year, an educational experience, in
contrast with the early experience there -- that only if they had done that back
then, what they did at the British museum just a few months ago would've been
different. A whole different ball game.

When I went to school, I describe my primary and early school as forced
socialization through coercive means -- that was primary school for me.

When you are that small but also that fixed in how you want to go about doing
things, and having to instruct the teacher when they are not doing it right.. they
wanted to sing songs. I didn't, I wanted to take over Europe.

I sincerely believe I'm one of those people who has Genghis Khan's DNA, the

1.7% of Europeans have it. I wake up in the middle of the night and think about
wide open grasslands and riding horses.. It's somewhere in the DNA I am sure.

But last year, the difference between what happened when I was a kid and last
year, was at the British museum where they were charging 15 pounds to look at
papyrus from the Book of the Dead. And in a little corner where they were doing
a little exhibition on the history of man and the ascent of man, they had a little
card table setup with a white felt covering on it and a retired archaeologist
sitting behind it. So he's behind a card table with a little chair. And there is a little
gate around the edge of the table and there were three hand axes.

And one of the hand axes was from about 80,000 or 90,000 years ago. The other
one was from about 300,000 years ago. And the final one was from 1.3 million
years ago. They actually let us pick them up and handle them.

This archaeologist person is there to tell the story about what it was, where it
was found, where it came from.

So we had a concrete example of something that was used.. And you could pick it
up and you could feel the weight of the hand axe. You had to have a bit of
strength for this. And with the middle one, the 300,000 year old one, the edge
was still razor sharp. You could hurt yourself with it or you could hurt someone
else with it. You have to be careful.

And then the oldest one, which was very discrete and delicate, as he was talking
about where it was found which was the Rift Valley. The Leakey family found it
as part of their explorations. You got that there was not just.. it wasn't just a
reactive thing of gathering nuts and berries and running away from Sabertooth
tigers. There was a real intelligence that went into crafting this hand axe.

We spent 20 minutes. I was there with somebody who knew how to ask
questions. So we tag teamed it. We kept this archaeologist going for 20 minutes. I
got everything in terms of information, in terms of data, from this person that it
took a whole year of anthropology 101 to get through. But we got it in 20
minutes.

And we had the direct experience of holding onto these amazing artifacts.

If they had done that when I was a kid, either brought us to the museum or
brought the museum to us, it would've been a whole different ball game. Why?
Because it was real. Because it was tangible. Because there was no abstraction in
it at all. It was right there in the palm of my hand.


OK, got it? So you go from one and then to the next and then to the next. We went
from 'Ahh what the hell is that?' Down into a specific experience where I'm
talking about education and then talking about this very specific thing that really
happened. And this was so cool. If you ever get an opportunity to do this, do it. If
they have them on tour and they are taking the hand axes out, do it. It changes
your relationship to the early history of man.

I would imagine that's one of the reasons why we like going on holidays to
historical places and looking at castles. We like to get involved with stuff and at
that very specific level -- holding that hand axe.. it's this big, it weighs that much
and it's heavy! We had to hold our hands over the white table cloth so that we
wouldn't break it.

So a whole different kind of educational experience was created.

So as we move from undesirable, weird, strange, we then find the laser beam
circuit of specific learning experiences which in this instance was quite unique to
me. Only Murray Lachlan Young and I had that experience.

But the things that we are talking about, the concepts, the cognitive bits, quite
specific. And you can recognize what we are talking about right down to being
able to feel the weight of something in your hand and the cool aspect of it.

So while working from the generalized experience of where we are right down
into the sensory specific of this one experience. And so we've gone from collect
attention , gather from all the different places -- yes, no, I don't know what the
hell he is talking about. Here we go, locked on. And then we are into the story.

If I wanted to I could carry on. Anybody see the Book of the Dead exhibit? What
did you think?

Audience: There is a lot of it.

Michael: I hated it. I thought it was a dreadful exhibition.

So carry on with that.. we could talk about exhibitions.. we could talk about
health and safety.. could talk about design.. could talk about ancient Egypt.. could
talk about people in groups.. could talk about lunch.. could talk about ...

You know it's coming, you just don't know when.

What else is connected with museums?


Audience: Art.

Michael: What else?

Audience: Culture. Gift shop.

Audience: Crowds.

Michael: Each of these, now we can go down one more level.

Gift shop I like because that takes us right to the tangible level. Tell me about gift
shops, the specifics, what's in there?

Audience: Books. Cups. Souvenirs.

Michael: Name a souvenir.

Audience: Key ring.

Michael: Thank you.

OK, so I'm going to carry on with the anecdote now. So we have education,
coercion -- what is all this weird sh*t he is talking about? British museum..
specific incident.

We are now down and we are talking about these hand axes and what that is like.

Key rings. So that's where I want to go next.

The British museum has an incredibly difficult job to do in that they have a vast
collection of objects stolen from all over the world that have to be organized and
displayed. They have to be organized and displayed and made sense out of and
then stuff put away and not looked at by anyone other than the Royal Family
because they think that they own it.

And then it has to be kind of made to work as a public structure. So we have the
display spaces, we have the cafeterias..

We have the gift shop.

What I find amazing is that no matter where you go in the world.. I love the
Louvre. I've gone 15 times and have never finished it yet. It's one of those things,
you can't eat a whole one, you have to make your choices.


Have you got one of these Nick? Have you been to an art gallery or museum?

Audience: Even bigger.

Michael: Exactly. You know what I'm talking about!

And you go there, and then eventually if you are with a relation, an elderly
relation in particular like a mother..

Remember that thing about categories and themes coming up again and again.
We've had mothers, what's another theme that has come up several times?

Audience: Food.

Audience: What's another one?

Audience: Tea cups.

Michael: Another one?

Audience: Dancing.


Audience: Shoes.


Audience: Taxis.

Michael: So now we have these as an abstract constellations -- stuff that is up
there in the cognitive space that we've talked about before.

So now I have another point that I can use for references of what we've talked
about or thought about already. And I can go, 'Hmm.. I've got keys. We have
lunch, but not yet.' We have this, we have that, we have the other. We have the
Louvre..

What's your favorite museum?

Audience: Hermitage.


Michael: So we have other countries.. So where are we going to go?

This is called internal process being demonstrated in public. So where do I want
to take it? I want to take it up a botch. I do like the Hermitage, I do like the
Louvre. We want to get the key rings in there because..

OK, you walk around in a gift shop. So you walk around in a gift shop, it doesn't
matter where you are in the world -- whether you are in Russia, whether you are
in France, whether you are in Britain or America. It's the same damn thing every
single time.

They have the books on whatever the exhibition is. They have the history of the
gallery. They have his work work on art.

Audience: They have post cards.

Michael: And sometimes it's even the same post cards -- they have post card art
of works of art in the gallery.

And then there are those key rings, it's the same key rings every time. You go to
the Louvre, you go to the British museum, it's exactly the same key rings. They
have the little works, they are in little Plexiglas with a gold big thick key ring. You
know the one I'm talking about?

And so we can buy these things. Do you remember penny candy? Do you
remember candy that used to be a penny? A long time ago.

That stuff looks like it should cost a penny, at least from a totally objective and
God-like perspective. Where do we go over here? We pulled in that childhood
thing.

You look at a key ring, how much should a key ring cost?

Audience: They should give it away for nothing.

Michael: A pound or two. That's what I figured.

But you look at the price tag on it and how much are they?


Michael: You couldn't afford them, exactly.


So they make these things which are supposed to be little things to bring back
and give to other people so that they feel bad about throwing them away. Isn't
that the case?

Think about the stuff that you've been given. Do you know what chotchkie is?
Chotchkies is the stuff in your house that is supposed to be decorative. It
somehow accumulates and quite often you forgot how it got there.

And without doing anything at all, it multiplies. It is kind of like those rules of
economics, bad money pushes out good. Bad chotchkie pushes out good
chotchkie.

Over time you find that it just kind of accumulates and you have to make a
conscious effort to clear the chotchkie.

So souvenirs are the chotchkie that your family and friends impose on you from
places around the world. And you have to keep it for a certain amount of time,
even if you hate it -- you keep it in a drawer or you tuck it away somewhere. And
you wait a decent period of time before throwing it out.

But the amount of time that you keep it is some kind of bizare internal
calculation.

So the key rings are?

Audience: Yea.

Michael: Yes.

Audience: In price, they are too much.

Michael: Too much! But we buy it anyway.

And so you go back from your visit with 2 or 3 key rings. Maybe you've decided
that one goes to one particular person, but you still have two left.

Audience: Different sizes of the Eiffel Tower.

Michael: Have I made the point? I'm talking in terms of particular experiences
that I've had. But I'm talking in universals to get it so that people are
participating in the process.

So now if we are going to go to the educational side of it, here we are talking

about the brain mind aspect and the brain mind functions.

If I can get you to find an example of what I'm talking about -- have you got one
of these? So the universal experiences combined with the particular ...

It's under the heading of, have you got one of these? You don't actually say that.
Just to be clear.

But it's under that heading.

And if you choose carefully enough and get good at it, then you'll start to come up
with different things.

For example, if you have a group that is international and is relatively world
aware, then you'll get people who have been to a variety of museums.

If you've been on a tourist thing at all, you are going to find those key rings. And
they are the same, I promise you, they are the same everywhere in the world.

There is also the banks that are made up of aluminum of tin made in the form of
whatever the building is that is closest to you. It's like there is one manufacturing
facility that makes all of these things. And something that looks like the House of
Commons, they'll also make one that looks just like the White House.

And in fact, it's pretty much the same tin, just decorated differently.

So have you got one of these?

Now right now we are using anecdotes for the content. The same principles
apply when we are talking about using examples, role model examples, facts
from the media.

When we are talking about even a fairytale, it's creating the detail within the
story so that people will particularize it within their own experience.

And that comes by learning how to think through and decide the relative
universality and whether or not it is going to hit or miss. You get a certain
number of misses before the individual or the group switches off. And a certain
number of hits, after that number, they stop counting. And they will just say,
"That's fine."

Audience: What was the function of telling that story?


Michael: Which story? To bring it so that we go down to one point we are all
focusing on one thing coming together and then to separate. It's to bring together
and to release.

It doesn't have to be a sophisticated thing. It can be a very simple thing. But the
functions will change depending on where you are.

So if we were going to talk about derivatives, exotic derivatives and you were
teaching a new group of people about exotic derivatives, it might be that we talk
about meatloaf.

So the mortgage scandal in America. Most people don't understand that for a
company, if you have a liability, it sits on your balance sheet. The liability sits on
the balance sheet unless there is a way that it can be covered and passed on
somewhere else.

So the great innovation after the Glass-Steagall Act was rescinded in 1999... The
Glass-Steagall Act was put in after the Great Depression in order to separate off
speculative banking from your main street lending for houses and what not. Up
until 1999 in America, you had to pay a deposit, a substantial deposit. And you
had to have money in that bank in order for them to lend you money for the
mortgage. After that, anything went.

What people don't know, or don't imagine, but speculative financial services is
not merely about gambling. It's job and what they do is they find ways to bend
the rules. That is their function. They live in order to find out how to make the
rules profitable for themselves.

So after Glass-Steagall was rescinded, I imagine it was a bright spark who was
sitting there in a blank room at a table with a piece of paper and pencil and he is
saying, so we don't have this separation anymore between main street and
investments.

I wonder if we took the liabilities for the mortgages and bought and sold
responsibility for the liabilities in very small amounts, kind of like insurance for
each other, I could take a handful of whatever we had -- it could be the worst
possible credit in the world, and mix it in with standard commercial credit. And
then take a handful of some long-term bonds, mix it in and make it into a
meatloaf. Mix them all up together and then sell off tranches, sell off a little bit to
you and a little bit to you and a little bit to you. And I'll buy the liability from you.
And we'll all buy a little bit of liability from each other.

So everybody is trading off these slices of meatloaf. And what that does is it

spreads the risk. Any particular piece can default, it doesn't affect the world
world.

So as long as the meatloaf stays as meatloaf and everybody sells it off, not only do
we spread the risk but what happens is the specific liability that was on our bank
sheet, it's now gone. We can take it off our balance sheet. It doesn't have to show
up anymore because it is covered. Our balance sheet improves and that risk is
spread out across the world.

We don't even have to know where the risk has gone.

Do you know what some people did with their meatloaf that they bought from
everybody else? They made a new meatloaf out of those slices that came from
elsewhere. They made a new meatloaf, sliced it off again, so now we have a mix
or a mix, and sold those liabilities for that again.

Well if you've done it twice, why not do it three times?

They call this gearing, where you rearrange the debt and sell it off and make into
a transaction.

Remember Lehman Brothers, the one that went down? Do you remember what
sort of gearing they went down with? 40x. So 40 meatloafs worth.

So we are using meatloaf in order to talk about debt. And at the same time,
depending on how elaborate the metaphor is, you can draw people in. And if we
wanted to, we could talk about different kinds of debts, different kinds of
mortgages. We could've brought in all kinds of content -- talk a little bit about
bonds, talk about ordinary commercial credit, talk a little bit about the mortgage
market and build it up from there.

You can start pretty much anywhere but you have to get to the particulars.

Audience: Meatloaf is almost an anagram of metaphor.

Michael: Meatloaf is almost an anagram for metaphor. Excellent. I like that.

Audience: What is the desirability because there is a lack of desirability in that
story..

Michael: Well it's not desirable what happened..

Audience: As it's missing in that one.


Michael: That's a good point. The answer is no but it is what happens when you
do.

If you manage to get the don't wants aligned with the wants, clearly running
away from this and running towards that.. In NLP, we call that a propulsion
system, when you get them both happening at once.

That's how you create very powerful motivation.

It doesn't have to be there. But when it does..

Audience: In that story, you could segway in and how because of the creativity
they would pay themselves huge bonuses. So from that perspective, there is the
desirability from the banker's perspective.

Michael: Absolutely. We aren't doing anything illegal.

Audience: And greed is universal.

Michael: Greed is good. That's a quote from Michael Douglas in a film.

Audience: That's how they generate cash, because every time they sell
something, they make more money.

Michael: Once it starts.. We've already set a direction with this. There is an
inference and there is a direction to go and you are already picking up. And you
are extending the metaphors now.

So what has happened is the structures that we've been working with and
talking about, you've now got and you are demonstrating back to me that you
know how they work. Now we just have to practice it and we have to apply it.

So right now we are using anecdotes. But we can use quotes from the media. We
can use factual history. We can take historical fiction, moments in time. Anything
you like.

As I said before, I have a bias towards what is actual because it makes us more
congruent. I think truth is compelling. The truth in itself is compelling. But the
game becomes, how do we drive things down into something that people will
instantiate particular location physically in space, and with particular senses.

So let me go to the notes. Let's get the time and space words out. We can do a

little something with that before we head off for lunch.

Let's go to page 19. The desirability or the lack of desirability is communicated
usually by our.. the phrase is kind of odd but it's an important one.. by our
response to what we are saying.

So in other words, rather than saying, "Here is a very nice thing." Instead, we talk
about..

Who here likes hot chocolate? What do you like about hot chocolate? Is there a
particular kind that you like?

Audience: The texture. Smooth. Comforting.

Michael: Right now in my head I'm going, chocolate. And I'm letting that come
through my voice, in through my state.

It's in my reaction to it that it conveys the attitude. Rather than saying, "Hot
chocolate is a very nice thing, I'm sure you all agree."

With this approach we never have to take the Royal Wee or the Royal P.

It's always as a response or a reaction to what is said rather than directly stated.
It's via the inference.

OK, have you got the time and space predicates listed out here? I want you to get
how these things work, and especially with regard to something that is desirable.

So I want you to choose.. hot chocolate will work really well.

What I'm going to do is I have some words here, these special predicates about
time and space, and I'm going to start with the space ones. And I'm going to try
some sentences about hot chocolate and about the wheres and whens of it. And I
want you to just notice what it is like.

So we are talking about hot chocolate and I'm going to say, aside from hot
chocolate, is there any other food or drink that you really like?

Audience: Doesn't mean you have to escape.

Michael: Oh really? Isn't that cool? As soon as I said the word 'aside', something
happened inside her had that had to.. It could've been a biscuit, but why wasn't it
like a stack of money? Well because that doesn't go with hot chocolate does it?

Unless you are in Switzerland and a banker who counts their money while
drinking hot chocolate.

So a biscuit, what kind of biscuit?

Audience: Don't know.

Michael: So beyond hot chocolate, are there any other food choices or foods that
you really like?

Audience: I look out the window in to my house.

Michael: Are you saying that just by using these tiny little words, they affect how
you think?

Here is what I want you to do, I want you to get into pairs and I want you to
choose something that you really like. Tell the other person what it is, it doesn't
need a lengthy description. I want you to come up with some statements using
the space words, the time words, and putting them into some bigger structures.
And notice what happens when you do that.

OK, choose somebody who looks like they'd be interesting.
Track 29 - Bring Awareness. Master The

Fundamentals

Michael: What did you discover?

Audience: Journeys happen.

Michael: Journeys happen. Shift happens as you say.

How did that come about? How did the journey happen?

Audience: The spatial or temporal word just triggers the opportunity to follow a
direction that somehow emerges in the mind.

Michael: It's this thing about movement as the primordial submodality.

Through your language and descriptive language, if you can provoke that sense
of movement and that connection with movement, you are half way there.


I've been staying firmly with these smaller stories for a reason. Every effect that
you think you need to create a grand metaphor for can be just effectively, or
perhaps more effectively done through something beju every day.

As long as you have this aspect of, the time and space predicates and the sensory
language being evocative -- that it calls up the movement.

You noticed where we were playing with just one word and it causes that kind of
change to happen. You have that, kind of, not just possibility. But you also have
that as a responsibility.

This is why in terms of our state, yes indeed, you deal with your state first. But
it's at the level of your responsibility to others if you accept the task, if you
accept the mission, can do the work for you.

Otherwise, then you do have the obligation to lift your own state and lift your
own energy before you go attempting to lift others.

The challenge that we have particularly with trainers, communicators and
leaders who want to communicate through stories is that if their energy levels,
their emotional tone, tends to be low then they will drag people down to their
level simply by their position and by their authority.

We start from that proposition of we lift first -- we lift our own energy first and
we literally make ourselves followable in that way. And then we add in our
content.

And here it goes right down to the level of, the predicate level. We can create
experiences just by adjusting these small words in the language. But this is
something that will require practice -- something that you are going to have to
learn. I'm going to give you some suggestions how to practice it through writing.

These are the fineles and the ligatures and the subtleties of the font life of stories
and storytelling. And yet they can make a profound impact.

Have you ever changed the fonts on a piece of work you've done and suddenly it
changes the impact? That's what we are talking about here. We are changing the
fonts with which you are telling your story.

After we come back from lunch, we'll come back and we'll start structuring some
stories using various forms of narrative and put it all together into a really nifty
way to impact people's states, lift them up and make choices more positive.

Track 30 - Understanding Is The End Of The Learning

Process

Michael: You see the thing of it is, right, understanding is the end of the learning
process. But we've been told to think that we understand when we have words,
particularly somebody else's words and somebody else's description, and that if
we can reproduce some one else's description, then we understand.

In other words, when we take what it says or what somebody else says, move it
over to our brains, and then we have a feeling that says ah, got it, that that's
understanding, whereas I think that's actually part of the problem for our culture
and for our society as a whole -- that we give people pieces of paper which are no
better or no worse than the piece of paper that the Wizard of Oz gave to the
Scarecrow. And we expect people to then perform.

Anybody who's ever hired a school leaver or a university leaver to fill an
organizational position knows that they know not a goddamn thing that's of use.
They come out of university and then what do we have to do? Got to train them
up. Why? Because they've been made useless by three years or four years of
whatever it was they did. You're laughing because you recognize this. Have you
been involved in that?

Audience: Yeah, and I, and I went through the university so absolutely know...

Michael: No...

Audience: ... University has little value.

Michael: ...I didn't say that. It does have a value, yeah. It keeps them off the
streets [laughter]. No, I think university is a fantastic process for people who love
that process, for people who love the process.

Audience: I think it's to help people think in a sophisticated way.

Michael: Interesting, interesting. And where do you meet these people who
come out more sophisticated...

Audience: Well learning how to analyze information and, I mean, I think...

Michael: Interesting, interesting.

Audience: ... it's an intellectual...


Michael: Because there's a certain organizational consultancy corporation that

hires the top 1%...

Audience: Yes.

Michael: ...those school years. And do you know what they do with those people
as soon as they get into the organization? They train them for three years, three
further years.

Reasons why? Because they can't think; because they're not numerate. Even if
they're in the upper percentile they still have to be -- yeah? The process is a
grand one. It's an ancient one. It's a wondrous one. But the paper itself
guarantees nothing. It's the same with every other piece of paper, yeah? It's not
the paper. It's the person. It's not the paper. It's the person. It's not the building,
it's...

Audience: The person.

Michael: Yeah, the person having been through the process. And part of the
problem with the process is that other P. What P did we talk about yesterday?

Audience: Procrustean?

Michael: Procrustean, yes, procrustean process, because here is our challenge.

Here is our challenge, all right? We expect to take a variety of inputs, of different
inputs, and put them through one process. And then expect a standardized result.
Okay? But if you keep the process, procrustean, tight, all it can do is it can reduce
variety from the input until it comes down to the characteristics of the output. In
other words, if you want to have many different inputs come to one particular
output, the process itself has to have sufficient variety in order to address all the
kinds of inputs that it takes.

Basically, if you don't mind whether the output fluctuates, go ahead. Impose one
process.

It's -- this is, by the way, this is an internal dilemma. This is not one that can be
resolved by saying this is the right way and that's the wrong way. It's the
expectation that one process will generate one specific result without addressing
the inputs and their variety. That's where the problems arise. People are
different. People come in with different things. They come in with different skills
and different levels.


They come in with different example abilities to know how to make decisions,
abilities to know, as we were discussing earlier. More than three quarters of the
managers who were put through that process that I told you about did not know
how to take a multiple choice test in any systematized way. It was intuitive. They
did the best that they could do, but they didn't know what the strategy was.

Part of what I did was we relooked at the structure in terms of what the content
had to be required. But also at the strategies that they needed, the acquisition
strategies that they needed in order to be able to make use of that. And we match
the acquisition strategies to the output. And that looks quite different from the
original training they got. Why? Because it was more about getting them to do
the thinking processes involved in taking tests rather than talking through the
more important content.

Unless you know how to take a test, and unless you know that there are patterns
to it, and unless you know the shortcuts and heuristics, you risk having trouble
when it comes to the testing time. If you know that the evaluation is going to be
done on the basis of a multiple choice test then that's what you teach to. It's the
pragmatics of the situation. If oil painting is how -- what will be evaluated -- did
we get it?

Then you better be sure you got canvas, paint, and all the other tools that you
need. When things get disconnected and we start saying, well, we'll put them
through four years or three years or whatever it is of lectures which, by the way,
do you know where lectures came from? For the actual process of lecturing came
from...

Audience: Reading.

Audience: Reading from...

Michael: The lecture.

Audience: ...rare books.

Michael: Basically, the monks. You would have a lectern and the one copy of the
book -- probably the only copy for hundreds of miles -- and that would be on the
lectern. And then there would be a number of monks who would be there at
stations with blank sheets of paper and there would be the lecter, or the lector I
should say, who would read from the book. And then those who were there -- by
the way, that lector would give the lecture, yes? And then those who were there
would do the preliminary scribing. Not the drawing and all the neat stuff; the
preliminary scribing so that copies of the books could be made.


Audience: It literally was.

Michael: It literally was...

Audience: And gets stuff done.

Michael: ..transferring the data from one book into another without passing
through the minds of anybody present, and hence, lectures. Ooh. You see, it's
kind of like -- what is a lecture for? What is the form for? What is the form for?
What does the form produce? You have to match that process to the kinds of
outputs that you want.

Audience: What is perfect for the culture that is do, developed filling empty
vessels with conventional content so the people don't think.

Michael: Some, and some courses, and some courses they do teach you how to,
how to think and how to reflect, and how to formulate.

Audience: Have you ever studied philosophy.

Michael: Well, I had first-year philosophy and I stopped because of the first year
philosophy which was "Read these books. We'll come and talk about it and I'll
tell you what's right."

Yeah? Eventually we gave up because that guy had written a book. So we just
read his book to find out what was right and give him what he filtered for. And
that's called management by the way. In management we eventually filter for
what management wants and we don't give them what they don't want. That's
one of the reasons why things go wrong, because there's filters in place to take
out reality and take out all the messages that they don't want to hear.

So some courses, they actually teach you how to think, or they give you that
opportunity. What -- did you go to university where they did that?

Audience: Yeah.

Audience: Which one?

Audience: I went to Manchester University.

Michael: Manchester. What was the course?


Audience: Politics.

Michael: Yeah. Cool. Love it. And they taught you -- they gave you the space to
think.

Audience: Yeah. I did varied courses outside of that and I learned an awful lot
about different things and just being exposed to people. But, yeah, I think it gave
me space to debate and come up with your own ideas and that sort of thing.

Michael: That's cool. That is so amazing.

Audience: Yeah?

Michael: Because that's not like the experience a lot of people have.

Audience: Yeah, I think maybe as well now, but some of the courses are very
specified and I don't -- hey-- look, I won't because I followed my career wasn't to
be a politician or to do something with it. It's because I was fascinated by the
subject...

Michael: Cool.

Audience: ...to the extreme.

Michael: Cool. You see, it's not a condemnation. I'm not condemning the process
as a whole.

What I'm saying is, if what we want is people who know how to think, who know
how to follow their heart, who know how to challenge their own heart when it's
appropriate, the conventional forms that we have may or may not be adequate
for that.

From my experience and from what I've seen in organizations and with this
particular consultancy whom I'm not allowed to name for contractual reasons, I
didn't know -- when I signed -- I signed a contract with this organization. I, I
coach and then I also helped out their senior management. I signed an 18-page
confidentiality agreement.

The Official Secrets Act had two pages where I signed it. Two pages for national
security. 18 pages for this consultancy. And one of them is that I may not name
this company publicly. I cannot say that I worked with them. Why?

Because the stuff that I work with them on are the things that you would expect

them to be able to work on themselves because it's what they do for other
people. And what kind of things do I do with them? I do -- say the things like,
"What are you doing?" [laughter] "Why are you doing that? That does not make
any sense. Can you explain this to me? No?"

Those kind of questions, the hard ones. 18 pages. And they have their own
educational process. They take the top of the top and then it takes three years in
order to get the people kind of -- you deform them and then you reform them as
company people, and they they're ready to present. And they are sharp when
they're done. They're sharp. And then they're ready to be exploi... to be.. duh...

Audience: [laughter].

Audience: Utilized.

Michael: Utilized, in all the different functions and facilities. It takes time to learn
how to understand that understanding isn't required. That what we call
understanding is not understanding. The understanding that we want to
understand isn't understandable. That the -- that the map that we make and the
map that we seek, the answer that we seek, it's not it.

Why? Well, in 1997 I woke up one morning. It was a beautiful April day. I turned
on the radio and they said scientists had determined that the universe was
rather flat. Stuffed in the middle and flat at the edges, so pancake-like as it goes
out but puffy in the middle. And I was told when I was growing up and at
university that the universe was expanding in all directions. I was told and tested
on whether things expanded in all directions or whether the universe was a
different shape. And I answered on the test that the universe expanded in all
directions and in all ways, and was given correct credit.

So I woke up that morning in 1997 to discover that the universe had changed
shape overnight. And I looked out the window and I couldn't tell the difference.
But I grew worried because I got it right on the test. But was somebody gonna
come and take the credit away from me?

Audience: That's ridiculous.

Michael: Oh, just wait. Just wait. Linguistics. When I first went -- when I went to
university they thought that human speech developed about 25,000 years ago.
And I remember saying that can't be so. It had to be 75 to a hundred thousand
years ago, and that's what I put on on the test, and I got it wrong. I was marked
wrong.


Guess what? They've changed their minds. They now think it's 75 to a hundred
thousands years ago. I want that credit. You understand? What was I being
tested on? What was I being tested on? Compliance.

Audience: Misunderstand...

Michael: How much you comply and are able to comply with whoever is the
authority at the time. It has nothing to do with thinking. It has nothing to do with
reality. It has to do with compliance. Yeah? I was tested. It was a true or false. Do
you understand? They said what was true was false and false is true. Do you
wonder why the world is the way it is when they tell you that what's true is
false? They take credit away from you for being right and they give you points for
being wrong. You wake up one morning.

You were having a perfectly adequate life. And suddenly they changed the shape
of the universe on you. That's the world we live in. That's the universe.
Personally, I think it's because the world is at an angle. We're about 19 degrees
off of straight up and down, and the world spins like this, but we think we're
straight up. That's why. All our problems tip over into the electromagnetic space
of the person next to us. You actually don't have your own problems. You have
the problems of somebody who's 19 degrees away from you.

Audience: That's a alright.

Michael: [laughter] Wouldn't that be great if we actually didn't have the
problems that we had because they were somebody else's. Haven't you noticed
how much...

Audience: It's much easier to solve other people's problems...

Michael: Exactly, exactly.

Audience:. Then tell my wife what she needs to do.

Michael: Exactly. And she knows -- she has discovered a way to ignore you every
single time which is just amazing. This is the world that we live in.
Understanding as the end of the process means that exploration and discovery --
for example, you were talking about perspectives earlier. And finding new
perspectives might be the answer.

Or, indeed, that the answer may be that the answer to questions is not in the
provision of information for an answer but instead the dissolution of the need for
the question. In other words, that the questioning mind is what dissolves rather

than the correct answer being given.

Audience: For years, I thought the phrase "you like to consider", meant
you might like to consider. I didn't understand why I was being told it by my
bosses. Because I go away and said I think I'll -- I like what I'm doing. I think it
works.

Michael: [laughter] It all comes down to we think we're thinking. And when we
think we're thinking, and we think that that thinking is valid and accurate and
true and eternal, we get into big trouble because through language and through
thinking and through the maps that we rest. There is no reality in them.

There's only correspondence, co-relations, and things put together. It's one of the
glories of science. They keep changing their minds over and over and over again.
I love that. They built CERN and spent billions and billions of pounds for what?

So that they can find one little particle? The Hills boson? We talked about the
Hills Boson before. I think we mentioned it. The Higgs boson? Have they found it?
No. They probably won't find it either. Why?

Audience: But they have found.

Michael: What did they find?

Audience: That there's something that travels faster than light and is.

Michael: There is something that travels... don't even start. Don't start with me.
Don't, no, nothing travels faster than speed of light. This is Einstein. This is
special relativity, right? This is to make -- it's standard theory. in order for it to
be the way that it is, it cannot travel faster than light. Are you telling me that they
changed their minds again?

Audience: The point was they sent the speed of light and the other thing
whatever it was, to Italy. And that we all know that things travel slower in Italy.

Michael: There we go. Well, there you go, so. Phew. Speed of light is equal -- do
you get what I'm saying? We think we know what is so. We think we know what
is fact. We think we know who we should believe and who the authorities are.
Don't. It changes.

We never have adequate information. We always make the decision by placing
our confidence in different authorities, different places, and it keeps changing.
What we're looking to do is to create a situation whereby rather than relying on

permanent understandings or a feeling of certainty, even if it's mistaken, we

want to make it so that we can walk and move and choose and decide knowing
that we don't really know. We don't have the answers.

That turns into a spiritual matter ultimately, that you take the step out not
knowing where the foot is going to land, but with a confidence that something
will come up to meet your foot. This is Zen. This is Dzogchen. This is embodied
phenomenology. NLP is spirituality. No, it's about learning. Okay. To come back
to here. In terms of this eternal dilemma in communication we have -- well,
there's, there's two of them.

One is that if you stay at the level of principle, you can cover many more
possibilities at the level of principle than you can by going only through specific
examples. But, it's much, much quicker to pick up very specific heuristics and
rules of thumb by practicing them.

So, in other words, by taking everything apart and instructing people first you do
this, then you do that, then you do the other, people will become skillful very
quickly. Problem, not generalizable. The tighter you instruct and the more detail
you put in the instruction, the less they'll generalize. The quicker they'll pick up
the specific thing but the harder it will be to generalize. When you stay in terms
of the principles, they'll be able to think through more situations.

But to be able to recognize that there's an application there, it doesn't happen.
This is eternal by the way. It's an eternal dynamic because it has to do with the
nature of practice and the way that we build up inferences and patterns. There
has to be a mix of the big and the small. How you put those together and the
structures that you use for that depend on who is attending and what they're
bringing in with them, w kind of filters they're bringing in.

So, for example, if people are afraid that it's gonna be too much for them or that
they went to something just like that before and that they won't be able to cope,
that acts as a filter that's in front. Everything that you say will be filtered through
that.

So what they bring in is gonna be important. The other things that are going to
influence that are: what kind of skill levels do they have with regard to what it is
you're already doing? Do they think their -- they already know? Or do they have
some part of it but not all? Where are you in relation to those desired outputs?
And in that comparison between here's what we want to create and here's where
we are, we can start to build a bridge.

But the bridge will be different each time. The bridge -- you can't say that you

need a bridge that's so high and so long until you know. Here's where I want to
end up and here's where we're starting, and this is the span and the gap that has
to be reached. The procrustean bed only goes so far as a form of education. You'll
catch some but not all. Now, we have here, if this is a single process, we can put
in the greater variety of inputs but the outputs will tend to vary as well. If you
have a variable process .. and just one kind of input, what you can get is a very
specific output.

So, in other words, the closer we get a one-to-one relationship between process
and what's coming in, we can get those very, very specific outputs. You have to
vary your designs depending on audience, time, content, presenter, you know?
Somebody said how long does it take to, to make somebody a practitioner of
NLP? And I said well, probably years. Why?

Well, you know, you've got who is it that's doing it? What specifically did they
know when they start? What content are you trying to teach them, and who's
doing the teaching? And then, how much practice are they gonna get? I would
probably say years, two to three years before you get a solid practitioner as long
as you get all the good pieces in place. Yes, but don't you do a practitioner in 10
days or seven days or 22 days or whatever?

No, no. In 22 days which by the -- do you know how 22 day practitioner came
about for the NLPers? It was great.

Audience: And you did it in nine?

Michael: No, actually no. It was far too many days. They used to do a little three-
day, seven-day, and 10-days at the beginning of NLP. No, what happened was
that they were getting teachers and therapists coming into their early programs.
And they were saying, well, we have continuing educational requirements for
our state licensure.

We'd like to do it in this stuff, but we need 22, 26, 28 days' worth. And Richard
said, "I can make this stuff stretch out that long," yeah? Because he, he was lazy,
fundamentally lazy. So he said, "Yeah, we'll do it in 28 days," and that's what they
did. Oh, but then that whole procrustean thing kicked in. People going well, since
it took 28 days for me to go through that process, then we'll make everybody go
through it. And then we will learn how to ask questions by, for example, they
used to make people write down the questions. And you would have to write
down examples of unspecified verbs.

But long lists of unspecified verbs, yeah? And then you'd wonder why A, people
couldn't apply unspecified verbs in the right place or B, why they were always

looking for unspecified verbs. How specifically, how specifically, how

specifically? [laughter] Because that's what you programmed in. And that's
because they, they weren't thinking. They didn't know. They hadn't applied the
method to the method. Ah. Ah. Ah. I'm considered a radical because I believe in
applying the method to the method.

I turned it back on itself, and that's considered radical.

So you think about what it is you want, what's coming in, and what has to be
bridged. But then more than that, whether it's 28 days, 26 days, 10 days, 7 days.
There are a couple of people who, whom I've met and have worked with who
would only need a couple of days. Why? Because they already have the strategies
naturally in place. They already did it anyway just naturally and by accident.
There are, there are a couple of people I've met who are that good with their
questioning. Intuitive. Don't know how, don't know why. All the needed were
labels to stick on it. Them I could give a paper and pencil test to. Everybody else
we need practice 'cause it's about the doing and it's about the skill.

So we have this, this variation between -- if you have a single process you're
gonna have a hard time getting a specific result. If you have variety within the
process, then you can account for all the different stuff that comes up to get to
the end there for one. Okay.

Audience: Is that variety coming in as well as variety?

Michael: Variety coming in. Either your process acts as a filter which cuts variety
out. Shut out back there. Sit at your desk. Come on. What are you doing?
Remember, remember what I said about control?

Audience: Mm-hmm.

Michael: That's what they teach you in the kindergarten, the garden of children.
Yeah? Too many Prussians died in the war against Napoleon. And so they put a
top thinker on it and his conclusion was there weren't enough people willing to
lay down their lives and die when instructed, yeah?

We must borrow from the Jesuits. We must educate young Prussians to do what
they're told to do. And so we are implementing a new program across the
country. It is called the garden of children, the kindergarten. And this is not an,
an image of, you know, creating beautiful flowers and fulfilling their... We're
talking about cabbages here and getting them just to the right size.

Audience: Yea, I know there is a massive difference between giving a public

talk...

Michael: Yes.

Audience: ...to giving a talk within an organization...

Michael: Yes.

Michael: And this is where we're going. This is where we're going right now.
Now we talk about structure. Now we talk about the design aspect. Now we talk
about getting stories to work, okay?

It starts from who are you speaking with. It starts from what they're bringing in.
Your method choices, come from where are they in relation to what has to occur?

Track 31 - Review Story Structures

Michael: All right. We have our basic structure. Causal reasoning organizes
human thinking. We are set up to make connections between this happens and
that seems to be a cause. We don't know why. We do know that it goes across
languages and across cultures. Cause and effect reasoning and time, yeah?

This happened first then that happened. It's our biggest problem in terms of
science because we assume that if one thing follows another that they're
somehow connected, yeah. That's a co-relation but not necessarily a causal link.
But that's not what our brains do. The closer two thing are in terms of time the
more our brains tend to go they're connected. Cause and effect.

So for the NLPers and for the Ericksonian people there's a whole bunch of
language. And, in fact, most of the presuppositions relate to causal reasoning. and
putting things into a relationship. First this happened and it caused that to
happen. As this happened then something else happened. And layers of meaning
and significance, connections, we call them complex equivalents, are built up by
number of examples and the intensity thereof. If you have one good strong
emotionally resonant example, much, much better than three kind of weak ones.
But three weak ones are better than none at all.

So our narratives are generally going to follow this kind of cause and effect chain,
right? and to the endpoint which is the conclusion. Now what's cool is that just
by using the chronology beginning, middle, and end, going from here's where it
started, here's what it caused, here's what happened, following that, following
that, following that to the conclusion, that's just fine. That will take of, mm, what?
half of your storytelling necessities? You know, there's here's what happened.


Here's the start. Here's what was caused from that. And here was the effect of
that. We have our three-part structure. An awful lot of anecdote stories and
metaverse take that form. But we can also move the end to the beginning. We can
put the conclusion first and then tell the story later on. Most of our stories will
follow one of two basic forms.

So, here we have time organizing them. And the second one is theme, topic, or
association. This is a cognitive, a more cognitive structure in that we can talk
about things like relationships. God love 'em, yeah? Tell me about relationships.
Well, there's how we meet. There's the kinds of ways that we meet. There's what
we do once we're in a relationship like, for example, the stuff that men know and
the stuff that women know. The stuff that women know is actually much greater
than the stuff that men know. That's because men's brains are simpler. What
women don't know is that men's brains are that simple.

They don't understand that, for example, if you want a happy man a large screen
TV is just required. Don't ask why. It's gonna dominate the room. But you'll have
a happier life if the screen is big.

Secondly, men don't want to know what's on television. They want to know what
else is on. That's it. There's nothing deeper than that. There is nothing deeper.
We just want to know what else is on. It's the same thing with getting the
garbage to the curb on Tuesday or Wednesday. It has nothing to do with the
garbage. It has everything to do with somebody telling us. Yeah? Honey. Yeah, I
know. What are you doing? You have to get the rubbish out. No, I'm just waiting
for the end of the, the match. You must get it out. Come on. You got to get it out
tonight. Yeah, yeah. I'm just watching. Women confuse men.

By the way, this can go on forever. There's just tons of this stuff. This, how
relationships develop, how they end. There's where people meet. What else is
there about relationships?

Audience: What people have in common.

Michael: What people have in common.

Audience: What people have in common.

Michael: Fantastic. What people have difference. What else?

Audience: Conflict, difference.


Michael: Conflict, difference. What else?

Audience: Mother-in-laws.

Michael: Say that again.

Audience: Mother-in-laws.

Michael: In-laws. Okay. Yes. Extended families and in-laws. And mother-in-laws
is a subset of that. Fantastic. Indeed. Isn't there like a manual that they have?
Yeah? Like, you know, if you wanted to go this way, you do that. If you want to go
that way, you do that. What else?

Audience: Rules.

Michael: Roles, fantastic.

Audience: Rules.

Michael: Rules. Well -- oh dear, Richard. You're not still...

Audience: It's nice. I bring in two, two different nationalities.

Michael: Look. What does it say in the book that they gave you when you got
married? What's rule number one?

Audience: Sex.

Michael: No. Come on. Yes, dear.

Audience: Right.

Michael: Yeah. it's a pheww. Anybody who's been married knows this or they're
not married. Yes, dear is the survival phrase.

Audience: I remember.

Michael: [laughter] It's the same thing, it's the same thing. Are you still trying to
solve her problems?

Audience: No.

Michael: Oh, thank God. Okay. We can carry on forever and create chains of

anecdote and topics and like, for example, you could give a talk to -- since we're
talking about relationships -- no men ever attend relationship things unless
there's something wrong, yeah? No, really.

Look, in the '80s and the '90s I went to the men's groups. There was something
wrong. I went there because I there would be something cool. No. The men, the
men went to the -- there was something wrong. Don't go to men's groups. God.
Go fishing, go to the pub. Those aren't men's groups. Those are groups of men.
Okay? Do you think -- okay. All right.

So, we can organize cognitively by -- we can turn this into a format by going,
what are the five top themes or topics in the area of. And suddenly we can
organize. Now, keeping in mind we're thinking role, function, and outputs. The
times when you do something like this is when you have a construct, a map, or
something to deliver, and you want to create -- what would you guess?

Audience: Numbers.

Michael: Numbers. Sheer number of examples. Number of examples is one of the
ways that we come to conclusion. It doesn't matter how good the reasoning is. It
doesn't matter how rational it is or how logical it is. Number of examples. Get
enough numbers of examples, the brain starts to go hmm.

If there's this many there must be something to it. There you are. Boy I said
before about truth. The more carefully you think it though, using that framing
tool, and the more truth you get in those examples, the more persuasive it will
be. The more congruent you will be.

Audience: Hmm.

Michael: But what it does, what this will do, is it now gives you a structure for
putting in those examples. How do you know when to stop?

Audience: When you've got rapport.

Michael: When you've got rapport...

Audience: When you get signals from your,,,

Michael: And the signals are that they anticipate where you're going.

So, in other words -- oh, now you get it. This is one of the things, in terms of the
business practitioner and business master practitioner process, why people pick

up stuff but don't know where it came from. That's because I was doing it by
building a whole chain of inferences.

And you didn't know that I was stopping when you guys were completing the
sentence, taking the next step with the analogy. Then I would give you an
exercise and say use what you just did there in the following exercise. And
suddenly the behavior is there. You can perform a certain activity. You're good at
it. But you don't know that you've learned it. And do you know what that means?
That means you can't screw it up.

Audience: It's gonna stick.

Michael: It means it's gonna stick why? Because it came from inside of your
reorganizing. Part of the problem with the conventional approach is that we start
with the conclusion and we stop with the end, and assume that the end or the
understanding is the most important thing for us to deliver. Whereas, in fact,
that's the thing that has to be generated from within on the other side.
Remember when we were talking about brain-friendly?

Let's go back to brain-friendly. [noise] Because we've gotten used to having other
people tell us what things should be and then we close, it's -- that's also one of
the other reasons why stuff goes in one ear and out the other, or why it -- if you
study for something that you've been told it goes out. If instead, through the
stories and through the inference structures, people start making the
connections themselves, it's not just an abstract association that's happening.

It's literally the brain is moving, creating, and cutting new neural links. New
neural connections. The brain likes to use them. As soon as you got it, then the
brain goes okay, now what do I do with it? And that's a very simple matter.

Audience: When you say learning about story telling, I am going to walk out of
here with.

Michael: Well, what we're doing is we're starting because -- in terms of
feedback, in what? running the exercises? What people are starting to do is
they're starting to go to the next step that hasn't been described yet. We're gonna
do structures now, yeah? They're already there. They're already coming out.

Now that I've seen them coming out, now we'll talk about them, now we'll go
through them. Now the ones that you recognize are the ones that you recognize.
The ones that you don't are the novel ones and the ones that we will work on and
practice with. But we've already been through it.


Audience: They're already in maps?

Michael: They're already within maps, yeah. And that's why it comes out from
within. Because it's been primed and repeated and repeated and repeated.

Audience: Given it has been instantiated in the body.

Michael: That's correct. All right. So here we go. So we're starting with the
simple structure of endpoint, beginning, and middle. Something happens in the
development.

So yesterday we talked about -- what was that structure I gave you? Where did it
come from? We talked about...

Audience: Tarot.

Michael: Tarot. Now, what people get involved in that stuff think is that they've
getting involved in a future reading or whatever. They're not. It's storytelling,
pure and simple. Except that the story elements are usually -- here is the
narrative structure, the layout, the spread. Here are the symbols. Now make up a
story using these symbols. For some people there's even specific meanings for
the symbols.

So all you have to do is come up with the link between this bit and that bit, yeah?
And string it together. So that, as a story structure, I wanted to show you this. We
have the significator. The significator is the whom of the story, okay? So I told
you this morning a story when I came in. Who was the significator of that first
story? The significator is the one that the story is about.

Audience: And you?

Michael: Me. I was telling an anecdote from the first person from my own
experience. I was doing that so that I could use my own state, change my energy
in relation to you, and lift the energy. So we then had what covers the situation.
That's the overall. That gives you the contextual information, the characteristic,
and quality. So I told you about the what?

Audience: Taxicab.

Michael: The mini-cab ride with the radio on and I was in such a great and
friendly happy open state, but -- and hoping to come in in a great state so that I
could start with your guys. But there was something crossing in exactly eugenics.
Okay?


What the challenge is, what the obstacle is -- it's here, in that little cross between
them, that we have drama. Someone is pursuing something. It wants something.
But they're blocked. That's the essence of drama. That's also the essence of
martial arts. It crosses many, many contexts. Above, we have desire or intention.
This is the conscious desire. Below, we have the unconscious dynamics. What
isn't known? What is beneath?

Before we have the precedent; in other words, where it's coming from. Ahead we
have the consequence. What's appearing? [noise] You get how we have here the
past, the future. And we have story elements above and below. There's what's
being sought consciously. But then there's what's driving it beneath. This gives
us plenty of places to create our story from. We don't even need any of the other
stuff from the side here. We can create a complete narrative and a complete story
off of that.

So, let's say that your desire is to communicate about some interesting or cool
experience that you had during the day. It doesn't matter where; it doesn't
matter when. Who had a cool experience?

Audience: Just today?

Michael: Just -- or any time.

Audience: Lunch.

Michael: Yeah, what was it? All right so. Who's the -- are you gonna tell the story
from your position?

Audience: I can do it.

Michael: Do me a favor. So you tell the story from your position and I want to
you just tell us overall. So what this is about.

Audience: Overall, I had a long morning, you know, and, and I -- we were
shopping the session...

Michael: Mm-hmm.

Audience: ...when Tom -- a little bit after my internal clock wouldn't light and so
there was a desire coming up to, to eat...

Michael: Right.


Audience: ...with friends.

Michael: Fantastic. Okay. What crossed your path?

Audience: Michael. We...

Michael: Oh, man.

Michael: Such a -- thank God it wasn't Richard Ballard because he would have --
you know what Richard Ballard used to do? He went like this. Well, it's 1:30.
Lunchtime. I'm not hungry though. [laughter] And then would carry on, yeah? I
mean there's some people that have to eat at very specific times. I understand
that. Okay.

So. But what was the unconscious dynamic? What was driving the situation?
[silence] Make something up and make it good.

Audience: Well, I...

Michael: It can be either evil, good...

Audience: Actually what that was -- part of me was quite interested in going off
by myself to, to eat. And suddenly...

Michael: Yes.

Audience: ...Richard...

Michael: Yes.

Audience: ...invited me to the group...

Michael: Yes.

Audience: ...and then there was a dilemma, a little drama...


Audience: ...and so I had to make a choice.

Michael: And, yes.


Audience: And so I was being by myself and that had to be resolved.

Michael: Fantastic. Now, you see, this is all very interesting. So tell me. Where
did that lead to?

Audience: Where did that lead to?

Michael: Yes.

Audience: Ah, that led to, the consequences were I let go of the space I was in
beforehand and I entered into the offered relationship of eating in a Thai
restaurant which was another cross because it was both.

Michael: Oh, cool; oh, cool. Okay. Now do you get how we're creating a narrative
using the structure from something as simple -- it's called the Celtic Cross. It's
not the Celtic Cross. What it is is how you tell the story. This is a basic dramatic
structure which Arthur Edward Waite stole from -- I think he was told it was a
gypsy story-telling thing. And then he added some bits to it and called it the
Celtic Cross. It's a complete fraud. It's not the ancient way of reading. It's made
up. But what it has, is it has all of the elements.

What I like about it is that it's Tarot and so even if you, if you do believe in it then
you got ooh, ohh, ooh. And if you don't believe in it, then you go aah, aah, aah. But
we're still gonna use it anyway. In other words, it's a resource. We're just gonna
use the resource. And so from out of this simple thing, and his experience at
lunchtime, we're now getting a narrative to develop. And what's cool about this
is the structure is -- that we're going to be using it first of all to just structure
personal experiences. You could also take traditional stories. You can tell stories
from the news.

You could tell the story of, of Kennedy's assassination. You can tell the story of
whatever you want using this structure. We're just gonna do this bit in a
moment. But before we do that I thought it would be a good idea if we took a
break for tea and coffee, and I also pass the chocolate box around. What do you
think?

Back to using a basic structure, a basic story structure. Keep in mind that we
choose role and function and output first.

So we're working a little bit kind of out of, out of sync with that. But what I would
like you to do is I'd like you to use that simple structure that we got from the
Taro to organize an anecdote and story. What may be injected into it and which
you're not used to articulating is the bit about the drama, unless you're a drama

queen.

Audience: Yea.

Michael: What?

Audience: I'm a bit of a drama queen.

Michael: You're a bit of a drama... -- yeah, it's funny. Some people can dramatize
anything. I am now -- I was gonna say something else. I'm gonna say, you know,
my mother can dramatize getting on the bus, get off the bus, having a cup of tea,
not having a cup of tea -- endless fucking drama. Oh, sorry. Okay?

And what I want you to do is I want you to pick some incident, you know, big or
small, it doesn't matter. What I want you to do is intentionally track through,
right? Who's the story about? That's you in this case, the significator. What
covers the situation. What crossed you in the situation. What was the conscious
desire or direction you were taking? What was the unconscious dynamic driving?
What came before and where, where it was heading.

So just use those forms, and in terms of the intent, the intent is to hold attention
and raise state. All right? I want you to form a different group of three or a
slightly different group of three than you did before. Take a moment to choose
which incident you want to use. Make any notes you want to make. And then off
you go. You ready? Rock and roll.
Track 32 - Learn From Everywhere

Michael: Now here is the coolest, most glorious thing on the entire history of the
world.

A) You can borrow any structure that you read about from anywhere, and just do
it in a way that we did it here. And, secondly it actually doesn't matter whether it
is an official structure or not-- watch the news, watch television and re-describe
the story that you are seeing to yourself.

There's a person walking down the street so I guess this is what's coming before.

Past, present, future.

Oh someone has pulled a gun on them for no particular reason and is shooting
them. Oh, they've just fallen down dead so I guess the show isn't about them. So,

all of that is the past.

Alright, now the police cars arrive and the CSI people are there and the story
begins. You can actually re-describe a story that you're reading or a story that
your watching, or something that you're hearing. A new structure will come out.
And what you do is re-describe and re-sort onto either past , present, future.. you
could use this. You could use the...

I mean, you're fond of the hero's journey?

Audience: I use the hero's journey.

Michael: You use the hero's journey. Do you use the 7th stage? Or 9 stage? Or a
13 stage process?

Audience: The 7th or 8th.

Michael: The 7th or 8th stage process, based on just Campbell's work. If anybody
would like to see that I have a handout that I could send you that gives you the
stages. There is nothing sacred in the different stages. What they provide you
with are places to send the narrative.

So in other words here is what covers the situation and surrounds it. Here is
what's the crossing or the blocking obstacle. Here's what I was trying to achieve.
But here is what was underneath driving it.

So what came before was this, we made it to here and where it's going is that.
And there's more to it than that. But, for our purposes that's sufficient, to move
the thing forward.

Now for any personal experience, a structure as simple as that. No problem. But
what about if we took a news story? What? A news story and stretched it across.

Audience: New or news?

Michael: News.

Audience: News.

Michael: According to that, a news story. That might be an interesting
experiment to try. But, before we do that...

What else did you notice? I don't think you even noticed that you were doing

everything you were supposed to do, and getting all the reactions you were
supposed to get.

Audience: I don't think I got it.

Michael: It got close. When I was walking past, I could follow where you were.
You may not have gotten everything in there. Don't worry about it. In a tarot
reading, sometimes the cards go in and you go, "I don't like that."

So you don't talk about it.

What the structure does is it keeps you moving. And it always keep you moving
towards the ..

Audience: Conclusion.

Michael: The conclusion or whatever the ultimate is within it.

Many many years ago, I saw a Shaman, shell Shaman who.. they take a handful of
these shells -- they throw them in the air while they are asking the question, then
they look at the patterns and how the shells move.

And in doing the divination that's a big deal. There is a ritual and there's a this
and the that -- they threw the things up in the air, they hit the ground.. looking at
it this way, looking at it this way.

And the guy starts going "No, no, no, no, no."

And he starts re-arranging the shells. "No, not that, this. Do it this way!"

He didn't like the reading he saw so he re-arranged it more to his purposes.

Sometimes I will play games, like I can do readings with playing cards, I can do
readings with tarot cards, I can do readings with clouds, I can do reading with
how you guys are sitting in the chair. It doesn't matter because I don't know
what the future is. Nor do I know what's going to happen but, I can tell you a
story in such a way that you will connect up with it.

So I don't actually read the future. I make up stories that people can then connect
up to.

And one of things with the tarot, that is quite interesting, is that there are images
that can be dealt with symbolically and they can go in any direction. There are

meanings that are attached to them and you can read the meanings off. Or you
can do something completely different.

Sometimes I will make a little play up about the cards and the pictures on the
cards and I'll just stand the cards up and I'll move them around like a kid does.
It's not about getting all the pieces in place .

It's about creating an event or an experience out of that narrative, that changes
state -- You did that.

I heard you actually, when you were talking about what was most important to
you and also about some of the things that drove you. And how you discovered
that. All that fits within here, and was heading towards there.

Suitable for purpose first time through? Full marks.

If you want to major in a correction or a change then you can go through and
work on.. here we are going to work on what's above the story, those conscience
desires, a way to articulate those a little bit better, perhaps with a little bit more
impact. A bit more sensory-ish language. Let's create more of that time and space
by using richer descriptive language.

And in fact, you know if we had time, I would have given you the exercise. But, I'll
just have to describe it to you anyway. The one that is really old that I promised
you? It's this -- The more you practice articulating and describing things the
better you get at it. This is science. This is case proven. No more questions about
it.

They actually know that if you have kids, practice describing in sensory rich
terms using time and space predicates, what it is that's going on in their mind-- if
they are thinking about an experience that they've had, been on holiday or
whatever -- for every 50 minutes of practice, their IQ permanently increases one
point.

The more they practice articulating in sensory rich terms, the more intelligent
they become.

Here is the cool thing-- when adults do this, (and you don't have to do it like a kid
would, which is just telling it to somebody else) you can just do it with a tape
recorder.

By describing something, a scene in mind, a memory scene, something just in
your imagination.. whatever is there.. describing it in sensory rich terms into a

tape recorder for 5 to 10 minutes.. It doesn't matter, really.. just describing.

Creating ever richer sensory based descriptions.

After your 5 minutes is done, switch the machine off. Take a breath, listen to
what you recorded. And here's the magic -- call up whatever you were thinking
before and describe it again, a second time.

It's in the second time through that your brain adds in all the things it did say
before. And that's how the growth occurs. If you practice doing that, particularly
of stuff you want to be articulate in describing or talking about. And in a very
short space of time your skill will improve.

Practice talking -- 5 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day, doesn't take much.

Dear old Win Winger, if you went to Germany, who was a hypnotist by the way
for those of you who are fans of Wins. He was a hypnotist in the 50's. He denies it
but, sorry that what he was. He calls this image streaming.

And in fact there are instructions online for it with his copyright and his IP
statement -- sorry it was long before Win Winger hit the planet.

This description and then re-describing again, that's been around for years, and
years, and years.

For your story telling, it's a great way to practice. Once you think you have a
theme, a structure, and a content. Tell the story once, record it, listen to it. Don't
critique it, just listen to it.

And then when your done, do it again. It's that simple. What else?

What else did you notice?

Audience: Well, naturally if you tell a story and you start to find one situation
where something is holding you back and you resolve that and then there is
another situation etc. and on and on.

It's just a natural rhythm.

Michael: It's just a natural rhythm.

The closer we stay to these natural rhythms, the easier it is for people to
recognize. And even if you're talking about -- what was it, hair straighters?


Audience: It was.

Michael: Even thought Richard's a bloke, he was still able to follow. But it's
because you were well connected to what you were talking about. It's in that
sharing thing, and it is in that intent to share the communication. The role first,
the function and the output.

Audience: The follow-ability.

Michael: And that creates the follow-ability in all the rest of it.

Okay, so while we are going onto this next bit I'll just pass the chocolate box.

Okay, so this is one structure and what I like about it is it contains several others.

So along here, we have the aspects of the framing tool that we've talked about
with the added limitation, limiting belief, problem or whatever you want to call
it.. problem statement.

Oh my goodness, well we'll have to send them around the other way. Guys, you
have to help me out here, if you don't eat them now, then I'm going to have to eat
them later. Take one now, please! What about for Sarah or the kids? Are they
allowed to have chocolate? You don't deny them chocolate.

Audience: I couldn't trust myself to carry that..

Michael: I see, I just thought you were being an evil daddy.

Do you have kids? Do they like chocolate? Why don't you take some chocolates
home for them?

OK, so here we have those aspects of the framing tool which relate to problem
solving and the kinds of topics that we deal with on the business practitioner.

But also, when we are listening to what somebody is saying about their situation
and we are trying to unpack it, this little cross in the center here is where most of
us spend most of our lives in talking and interacting with others.

When you add on the up and down of it, we have what is on top of someone's
mind.. that purpose and adaptive quality.. Maybe the intentions and the values as
per the framing tool but then we have what is below it.. the driving dynamic, the
thing that the person hasn't considered that adds something extra to these
stories.


Now this is a good structure. Let's think about news.

Audience: Doesn't this fry your brain a bit?

Michael: I chose it because it is quite close to that.

As I've said, there are 100s of structures that all contain an aspect of past,
present and future. I chose that simply because it is close enough that with one
we can hit many. And by using this, it will point you back to that which will lead
you to reflect on other things. It has a circular but forward moving pedagogical
principle to it.

So let's think about news stories for a moment. Let's think about what is going on
in current events or historical events. Is there one that we could quite easily
mapped across to..

Audience: Occupy Wall Street.

Michael: Who is this about? Did you see that thing in the news last week about...
what?

Audience: I can't remember saying that.

Michael: This is the thing. She got so involved that she forgot that if she said it,
she was going to have to do it.

She got so absorbed in the learning process, that she forgot!

So who is this about?

Audience: About politics.

Michael: Who is this story about?

Audience: Everybody.

Michael: Well that's going to be a long story because.. Michael went to the toilet
and went into the kitchen..

Audience: It's largely about finance.

Michael: Then Michael went to the ATM. Is that what you are talking about or

are you talking about something else?

Audience: I'm talking about Occupy Wall Street..

Michael: Who is it about?

Audience: People of America who are against the way things are.

Michael: So you saw the story last week?

Audience: People who want change.

Michael: So what do they do? What did they do?

Audience: They went down to the financial district in New York and started
camping there.

Michael: What were they seeking?

Audience: Change.

Michael: Spare change? Is that what you mean?

Audience: They want everything to change.

Michael: Like Hogwarts?

Audience: They don't want to be paying for the mistakes of the rich.

Michael: Don't they know their place? Don't they know their i role?

What's crossing it?

Audience: The institutions are really established. And politics are the way they
are.

Michael: But what actually got in their way?

Audience: They are still carrying on, aren't they?

Michael: What tried to get in their way? Think drama.

Audience: It's not getting reported at all.


Michael: What did the police try and do?

Audience: I don't know too much about it.

Michael: The police tried to stop them. There were some pretty ugly pictures
last week of peaceful demonstrators being hit over the head.

Audience: They arrested 700 people on the first day.

Michael: They arrested 700 people on the first day.

But where did this come from? How did this come about?

Audience: Because they have been suppressed for so long.

Michael: They feel that their voice hasn't been heard.

This is your story, so you are telling it, so that's what you say has come before
what?

Audience: It was in the news story, it's not my story, it's a news story.

Michael: You are telling the story.

Audience: I don't have all the facts.

Michael: It doesn't matter, you are telling it now.

This is the story as you are telling it now.

Audience: They are so used to the way that things are that they don't expect a
change. But the institutions always use violence to protect theirtheir interests.

Michael: And where is this going?

Audience: Major change.

Michael: Tell me more.

Audience: Gathering more consciousness. Making more people aware.

Michael: The game going forward for you is to make the move from the label

level, the box level, to coming up with an example to fill the box. And that's not
hard. You can learn to do that while you are on your feet.

You can follow the structure. That's not difficult. Or you can just say, here is
where it came from.. here is where it is now.. here is where it is going to.

But it is in the specifics in creating the particulars of the situation that everybody
else can join you with the story -- even if you don't know everything.

Here is a story. There is a teenaged girl, we don't know what happened to her
mother and father but we do know that she had been adopted by some members
of the family. Clearly she is not happy where she is. She is a bit of a hell raiser.
She tears up a local librarian's front garden. She has a dangerous dog.

Basically she runs away. She goes to a new town. The first thing she does when
she gets to this new town? Kills a pagan straight away.

So she runs off and as the story develops, she picks up with three near do well
companions. And what they think is, they are going to go off to this magical place
where everything is wonderful and there will be this magician there who is going
to sort them all out for them.

But what they actually discover is that magician that they were hoping was going
to solve all their problems was just a con man.

Sorry, this is the Wizard of Oz. This is the story of the Wizard of Oz just told from
a different perspective. It's taking the same incidents that happened, but moving
them.

It's all the detail of the story. It has changed a little bit. There is a huge amount
taken out. There is a lot added to it.

I especially like the bit where she comes to town and kills the pagans straight
away. That was the hardest one to come up with. That's the hardest thing.

Audience: Officers with batons.

Michael: Oh yes! Excellent!

Audience: Thank you.

Michael: We can take and change those stories.


What's another story? Let's take another story and change it. It can be a film, it
can be a history story.

Audience: Abel and Cain is a classic.

Michael: Don't tell me what, I don't care about what. Tell me the story. Who is it
about?

Audience: Ahh

Michael: See, they get so involved in the learning task, and now it's time for you
to do the instance.

Audience: Able and Cain.

Michael: Just tell us the story.

Audience: There are these two brothers, one is a goody and one is a baddy.

Michael: According to whom?

Audience: According to the parents.

So one of the children was loved more than the other. Is it any wonder things
turn out the way they do? I blame the parents.

Audience: The second one did what all middle children do.

Michael: Carry on.

Audience: So he decides to do this own thing and sets off on his own.

Michael: Fantastic. So what cuts across the situation? What's the drama? What's
the obstacle? What is the limitation?

Audience: I have to make up that bit. So he goes off and get lots of life
experiences and he gets lots of life experience, the other brother stays at home.
But things go badly wrong. And then the harvest goes wrong. The parents get
killed.

Michael: Fantastic. You've got it. We are taking an ancient thing and turning it
into something else.


We can modify all of these stories by referring to another schema.

Now the simpler schema -- beginning, middle and ending -- that will only give us
a certain amount of leeway.

But as soon as you add a conflict of one kind of another..

Nick, you've got a system where there is a different kind of.. what kind of
conflicts come up in the structure that you use?

Audience: The heroes journey. So there is a hero. And the hero feels the call to
take some action to take some action that might be just. Something not right.

Michael: There is something not right with the world.

Audience: And to take up the call to action, he has to make a decision but there
is a refusal -- I'm not ready for it.

Michael: I don't want to do this. So he has a challenge but he doesn't want to face
it.

Audience:There are two. There is on internal and one external - crosses.

But then he chooses to do it. cross the threshold into the not ordinary world.
And often I need to find the mentor.

Michael: The resource search.

Audience: Face dragonss which will be be both external and likely to be internal
fear and courage to catch the grail, whatever that might be.

Michael: Excellent, thank you.

That's the basic NLP model. It's exactly that. For those of you who are
practitioners, it's exactly what Nick was talking about. It's all here.

Audience: And the Score as well.

Michael: There is another tool called the score model, it's all there.

The ordinary tools of analysis that you use can be used to create narratives.

Here is another one. If we have the act over here. If we have the evaluation here.

If we have the plan and we have the desire.

So the desire, the plan, the act, the evaluation of the act and the self reflective
loop there is a description taken from Albert Bandura's work on motivation and
self efficacy.

It does not exist in the real world, it only exists on paper here.

So we can tell a little story about, well this morning when I got out of bed, and I
was feeling pretty fine.. and I was thinking about the kinds of things that would
be good for you guys to learn today and the things that I'd like to present and
offer and see how they go.

As I was thinking about this, I looked down into my magic box. I've got this magic
box, and it's that magic box that helps me to do the things that I want to do. And
inside that magic box is coffee.

There was half the magic in the box that I had hoped was going to be there.

This can carry on by the way. We can infinitely expand any of these sections.
Now I'm talking about trying to plan for this wonderful thing, but my magic is
missing. My mojo, where is it? It's not in the box. I'm going to have to find a
substitution for the mojo.

So the search for mojo in the morning without coffee carries on etc.

And in evaluative bit later on, is the lesson that I learned.

We can take any structure, any model, any tool and turn it into a story. And all we
have to do is put somebody going through the journey. It needs a person and it
needs that -- what role are they playing? What function are they performing?
And what are they seeking?

With that, everything becomes a narrative structure. And anything becomes a
narrative structure.

Yes?

Audience: That story.

Michael: Yes?

Audience: The one that went traveling and the one that stayed at home. You can

use an analogy for and they actually needed to work as a team rather than..

Michael: There you go.

Michael: And that's what I'm talking about. And that's where the story becomes
intervention.

It's not that you don't have enough stories. It's not that you don't have enough
analogies or patterns, it's that you have to think them through. And starting from
that structure, function, output. And then stretching it across a simple narrative
device.

Very easy. Very straightforward.

Here is what I'd like you to do. I'm going to give you some file cards. You can grab
them for yourself, I want you to work in groups of three. So you take a stack of
file cards each and a market. And what I'd like you to do, is I'd like you to take all
of the moments, all of the notable things, all of the insights.. All the stuff that
really caught your imagination while we've been together and just call them out.
And when you call it out just make a note of it.

So what's one thing? What caught your attention?

Audience: Attentiveness.

Michael: What about it?

Audience: People telling people to listen and respond.

Michael: OK, listen and respond. And what I'm doing is just capturing the key
words from it.

So it says here attentiveness, listen and respond. What's another thing?

Audience: Miracles happen here.

Michael: Miracles happen here.

So around the group, you call it out, and whatever you call out, you write. So one
per card, big enough letters.

Carry on. And then once you've kind of emptied your mind of all of those bits,
those pieces, those elements, those moments, I then want you to take the cards

and spread them out with all these bits, pieces and moments.

And what I want you to do, is I want you to pick a simple narrative structure. It
could even just be past, present and future. It could be that. Or it could be that or
something else.

I want you to take these little bits and pieces and turn them into a story. But not
about the workshop, it will be about something else.

Understand? You'll be taking what we've got here and making it into something
different. It will have points, insight. It will have bits and pieces. But it will have a
narrative structure to it made up out of all of those things.

Choose people who look like they've got interesting bits.

Off you go, groups of three.

Track 33 - End of Day 2

Michael: So before we go, and in summary, there are just a couple of things that I
want to tie up for you and make into a nice bow and finish off.

First of all, the secret is silk.

Audience: Silk!

Michael: It's obvious! The secret is silk.

You see, it's a big mystery of how to keep those pillows cool. But then the
mystery is revealed and it's actually really simple. And just like Dorthy, you knew
it all along.

By the way, the actual protagonist of the Wizard of Oz is Toto. I want you to think
about who initiates all the activities and who goes through, it's Toto. Toto has
actually planned that whole thing out, from going and messing with Mrs
[inaudible] garden. To standing during the house during the tornado because she
runs and Dorthy runs after her ... to all the rest of it.

Who reveals that the wizard is a fraud? Toto. Watch that film again and what you
will see is Toto is the driver behind the whole damn thing.

Audience: I haven't watched it for years but I remember Dorthy goes and has to
rescue Toto which causes a drama in itself.


Michael: Exactly. Have a look at the Wizard of Odds, there is some great stuff
about storytelling in there.

A lot of the secrets ... As I get older, the secrets that I was told were secrets when
I was younger are actually almost always right there on the surface. They are
hidden in plain sight. They are the elusive obvious. They were always there. We
just didn't know what we were looking at.

Audience: The gateless gate.

Michael: The gateless gate indeed.

Once you know the secret of the Koan, that seemingly nonsensical thing, which is
it's about levels and it's about different levels all being present at the same time.
You just have to stop trying to make it one level or the other. And then suddenly
things will make sense.

Brilliant story, one of those Koans is brilliant. The monks on the west wing and
the monks on the east wing were fighting over a cat. So the master comes in and
he says, "Say a good word or I'll cut the cat in two." And nobody says a word so
he cuts the cut in two.

That night he goes to his teacher and he tells his teacher about it. And his teacher
takes his sandals off, puts them on his head and walks out of the room. He then
says to the air, "My teacher could've saved the cat."

It's a fantastic story. And it doesn't make any sense at a normal level. Basically
what it is, is it's several layers of meaning and significance all happening at the
same time. Some is literal. Some is metaphorical. Some is a metaphorical
response to a literal offer. A symbolic response to an analog.

You let all the levels be true at once. And suddenly he could've saved that cat but
not with sandals as it would've taken something else.

Where you go with this is what I'll be paying attention to. Always when we go
through a process, the answer to the question 'what was learned?' cannot be
apparent until sometime after the event occurs.

Here we have been learning some new structures, we've been learning some new
ways of working and some new attitudes. They will only be evaluatable once you
try them in the real world.


So as you go out, I would invite you to think about where you'd like to try and
use some of this stuff. And if there are particular people or a particular context,
think about how you might apply it.

The thing that I would say to finish is that the golden keys to storytelling aren't in
cognitive structures, they are a dime a dozen.

There have been so many wonderful books and lots of not so wonderful books
written about storytelling. You can read them safely and comfortably. But the
real art of the storyteller, the real art of the raconteur is not in the detail of
content and outlines. It's in how they tell them.

What does the great raconteur say? It's how you tell them. And that comes from
relationship and all of those wonderful things that we talked about earlier.

I've enjoyed spending the past couple of days with you. Some groups are nicer
than others and you guys are amongst the nicest. So thank you as you've made it
easy for me to come in in the morning.

I would ask that as you go forth that you use this material for good. May all the
trances that you create be good ones. May all the suggestions be happy ones.

I lift the proscription on being moderate in all things with the exception of
moderation. Go ahead, do what you want.

I hope to see you again sometime.

So please go out. Story around. Please use the stuff wontedly and wonderfully
and let me know how you do with it.

I will be seeing you again sometime hopefully.

Thank you, we are done here.


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Storytellings

Golden Keys Training Transcript

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Track 02 - What Do You Want

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Track 03 - Get Clarity First

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have to have your bag packed with a lot of cool stuff.

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That's what we are here to talk about.

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Audience: He wasn't aware of other people's stuff.

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of communication, we can resolve everybody's problems.

Track 04 - Storytelling Translate Your Intentions

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Audience: I felt it.

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Track 05 Focus On The Function Make Yourself

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the way in which we tell a story has to change.

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Audience: My response got larger.

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You don't pace, pace, pace, pace in order to build rapport.

Track 07 - Be Moved The Secret To Great Storytelling

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workshop with Michael Breen.'

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Track 08 - The Framing Tool Quick Review

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