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Q&A Session
Igor: Good morning everyone how are you?
Robin: We’re great.
Igor: I think it would be good to start with a Q&A session in terms of your experiences over the last few days. The good, the bad, the ugly, the questions,the answers, the epiphany’s…
Mia: You said yesterday that there are stories that have no point.
Igor: I did. Was there a point in the question?
Mia: Yes. That has not been my experience, that even stories without a point there’s something happening.
Igor: The stories that I say have no point, it means when they come to an end it’s an anticlimax. It’s like you expect a big final clash of heroes and so on, but nothing really happens. Those are the stories where all the fun of them is really in the telling of it, their journey. Hence, the monastery story the ending of which is pointless, it has no meaning, but actually the fun of the story is how you get engaged in the excitement the drama and all the things that happen in between.
That’s what I mean by pointless, not that the storytelling itself is pointless. It’s that you’re free from the tyranny of having to make a dramatic ending.
Robin: Once upon a time I used to believe that my NLP trainers, who shall remain nameless, told really purposeful stories and that they thought it out really carefully and they were so clever to create these elaborate tapestries of stories. In some ways that was a bit of a problem for me, because I heard stories about all the things they’d gone and done and I thought if they can do it I can too.
I went out and tried it and did it. Whew! I learned quickly…
Igor: It’s called artistic license.
Robin: Then I realized that if you put enough complexity together, enough stuff out there, then you naturally get interesting resonances occurring between the different stories you’re telling, that come because of the connections you make. More importantly, every single person in the audience takes their own specific lesson from a particular part. They go oh I know what he was trying to do there. That’s very clever. How did he know?
Then they come up to you and say, that’s amazing how did you know that? You say hmm yes. If you want to encourage mystic. If you want to be honest you go, I don’t know. Well done, thank you for getting that lesson.
Glen: I was reminded of something that was from something said yesterday about the notion that if you ask someone what their favorite book was from early childhood you often get a sense of what their life is like. Have you come across that before?
Robin: That’s priceless, thank you Glen.
Igor: It kind of goes into what we’re talking about today.
Robin: Can you give an example, like for example I remember, because my name is Robin Manuell, the guy before me when they called registration was called Christopher Lee, so when they called the register it was always Christopher, Robin and we’d both go yes. Now, my life is strangely like wondering through the woods with little piglet by my side.
When they remember that and it has made a powerful impact on them and it’s not funny, like when I first came to England the earliest images of fiction that I have in my mind are a little poem or nursery rhyme, Who Killed Cock Robin and another is about the Robin hiding his head under his wing when winter comes, and Robin Hood. I identified with all those books and I’ve been hiding in the woods stealing from the rich to give to the poor ever since.
Igor: Watch your wallets to see if you have any money today. You’re on notice.
Robin: Yes or if there are bandits outside to mug you, they’re my men in green.
Igor: Any other questions or comments?
Michael: Yesterday we were sharing stories and it was like my partner shared a story which triggered another story within me and bounced back and forth between the two of us really getting a close connection.
Igor: That’s exactly how it works. Thank you for sharing that.
Robin: If there’s one thing I hope you will take away from this weekend is that this is how we communicate. It’s naturally what we do and the process of becoming better as a storyteller and better at presenting yourself in a way which is congruent with your true values and effective at influencing and persuading people in the world to simply becoming more conscious of what you’re doing and then handing it back over to your natural sense of what works.
Igor: Anymore?
Student: I was just wondering a little about how humor gets into the stories? Do they have to be a humorous story from the beginning or is it just like when you see a completely composed person and then they go I don’t know. That’s when you relax a person, just like hitting them in the head, the brain with a brick and acting like it never happened, so it just pops out?
Igor: Here’s my take on humor in general. First, things that make things really funny is if you go first. In other words, if you find it hysterical than people get pulled into that. You have to be able to appreciate the humor of the situation. As a rule I think that a lot of humor comes from a part of the brain called the amygdala which deals in novelty.
When something new happens it just kind of pays attention to figure out if it’s dangerous and whether it should be afraid and run or fight. If it’s not dangerous than all that psychological energy has to go somewhere and I think it usually gets dissipated in humor, so if you get surprised by something… have you ever noticed how when people get really surprised they start laughing.
Occasionally if they get really surprised they start crying and laughing and aren’t quite sure whether they’re happy or unhappy about it. We aren’t here doing a standup comedy shop or anything like that, but if you lead the mind down a particular path and suddenly switch directions unexpected, which is where puns come in, where they think they hear one thing but are actually saying another. Then that surprise could be where the humor comes in. So you don’t have to have humor all the way through. In fact, you can tell a serious story and then a pun at the end which is when people start laughing.
If you think about it, the monastery story was pretty serious throughout, not a huge amount of humor in it and it wasn’t until right at the end that you had a choice of either lynching me as a mob or laughing, and I’m very happy you chose laughter, because I wasn’t entirely sure to be honest which way it would go.
Robin: We had actually arranged an escape plan.
Igor: The reason for this curtain is that there’s a big door back there and some big men with guns.
Robin: Car, engine running.
Igor: Then on the other side of course there are stories like the one Robin told, which was in itself was actually quite tragic, but all the action within it was humorous. It was characterized in many ways as exaggerations that took you different places and you can clearly see Robin enjoyed telling the story, whilst doing it.
I think it’s more complex than just saying you have to start with a joke from the beginning. There are lots of different ways of doing it. Really, just go with what’s there for you. If you have a quiet more sedate character than you can be the straight person who tells quiet sedated stories and at the end of it people go, wait, no. Then suddenly and slowly the penny drops and they’re rolling on the floor laughing.
If you’re more of a comic character, joking, jumping around, teasing people and so on then that’s more the kind of story you’ll tell as well. You want to also stretch yourself at some point, but then if you’re really telling a story for influence for the humor value of it, tell it within your own character and what amuses you. It tends to amuse others as well. Does that help?
Robin: The strategy Igor mentions, if you find something funny yourself… there’s a Scottish comedian named Billy Connelly. I think that’s his style of comedy very much is that he gets into telling a story and he finds it funny. He thinks nothing of cracking up to himself on stage about the joke.
To get practical the cat story, for example, I’d never told that story before. It literally happened last week and I could see it had potential. I had this central idea because I did actually end up in my bedroom with the curtains and door closed, thinking oh my gosh I’m being stalked by a cat. Is this guy going to come round? At the time I thought this is ridiculous, so there has to be some mileage in this.
As I started telling the story I had no idea which bits you’d find funny and which you wouldn’t. It’s simply when you did laugh I noticed it, sometimes repeated what I was doing and reincorporated it later. It’s in the rapport and relationship that you build up with the audience. Until about 2001/2002, I did the trainers training with Bandler. Oh no that was the master track I’d already done the trainers training before then. I got the whole modeling thing down pat. I never thought I was funny. I thought I told good stories, but I didn’t experience myself as a funny person on stage. I didn’t think I could make people laugh, particularly.
I went out and got a whole load of videos by Billy Connelly, Bill Hicks, Eddie Izzard, just a bunch of comedians. I sat down and put myself in a modeling trance state and watched the videos through. I gave myself hypnotic suggestions to learn and identify with those role models. I actually locked myself away for a week with those videos every day, so it was an intense learning.
Then for the next month or so, I was coming out with routines, practicing some of the things that I’d heard them do. Finding myself coming out with their voices, mannerisms and things like this, as I was experimenting in public. Over the course of two-three months people started laughing at me, in a good way. I don’t think I was very funny until about 2002 and now I think I’m quite funny.
You’ll notice if you watch, I mean, Eddie Izzard is a master of anchoring and reincorporation. He tells a fantastic… he’ll do a whole load of routines and each routine he’ll come up with a little mime or something random and at the end he’ll tell a story and put all those mimes into the story. So he’s basically retriggering all of those anchors.
If you watch Ken Dodd with his tickle stick, again he’s doing this waving at the sections of the audience that are laughing to his responses. He’s anchoring that laughter. You’ll see some comedians doing it with tapping the mic. You’ll also see a favorite thing which is they’ll steal something from the previous comedian’s mannerisms or set and step into the laughter and appreciation that the previous comedian has got. If you want to be funny look at that and try some deep trance identification. I’m glad that our teaching is so complete that you don’t feel you need to learn anything more.
Igor: If there are no more questions, let’s move forward because there’s more that can be learned despite all the things they have.
Student: Will we be doing something called trance words today or is this a premature question? The query specifically is, when you’re listening to somebody and you’re developing that deep rapport, there are certain keywords that they’re dropping in their subconscious, activation words if you like. Things like, it felt amazing or it was such a wonderful feeling, for example, those words will slip right through if I understand correctly into their subconscious when you repeat that story or echo that story back. Will we cover that today?
Igor: One of the things we’re about to come onto is, in fact it’s taking that idea even a step further and how we can take the actual raw material that’s inside their mind, their unconscious territory that they’re responding to without realizing and work that into your story so that the story actually feels more like their story.
The language is part of it but really it’s about the whole metaphor behind it. It’s kind of more coming to the question asked, if you can recall the stories you told yourself as a child you’re probably living them right now.
Robin: Yes, we’ll be doing a lot more of that today.
Igor: Let’s begin.
Robin: Before we step off with some content can I suggest just a little exercise to warm us up a bit and get us started. Everyone get on your feet. Shake it out a little bit.
Igor: Here we go again.
Robin: Remember those hips. We’re not going the whole Tony Robbins way, but I’d like for you to turn to the person on your left and say hi, good morning.
Igor: If there’s no one on your left go to the one behind you.
Robin: Share just one piece of learning that you can take away and use from this weekend.
How To Make Stories Relevant
Igor: All right. Now that you’re nicely warmed up. Yesterday you told a bunch of stories is that correct? Did you notice that some of the stories really hit home and you went oh yeah, I can tell a story? And some stories were like yeah, there’s something missing here because they’re not really getting engaged or interested.
What do you think might be happening there?
Student: The content of the story isn’t resonating with the audience.
Igor: That’s a very nice word resonating. Why do you think that might be?
Student: It doesn’t match their experience.
Igor: Right, because it’s your story not their story.
Student: Yes.
Robin: Not only does it not match their experience but it may not be relevant right now to their immediate needs, like the nested loop patterns that we used where Rita was getting to a strangulation point by how many were getting layered on there.
I don’t know whether you’ve noticed but I used to have this magical ability that I could sit down anywhere and attract some crazy person to sit next to me. It would be like the tramp and they’d sit down and start rambling away and telling me one story and then segue into another one and then another and I’m losing the plot and wondering why I’m here, but I’m still listening.
Actually, I discovered that you could learn some really interesting things about people by actually paying attention and listening. So you get to that sense of frustration of, I have to go now but I can’t go because you’re in the middle of a story and it would be rude to interrupt you, so I hadn’t learned to that point to just go I’m really sorry I just have to go or something. Plan your escape route in advance.
There’s actually a video on my blog about this. I think there are four elements to ensuring that your story is congruent with that other person’s experience and draws them in.
1. Passion
The same passion that I mentioned in the earlier five elements model. It’s your passion. If you have passion for something that is often enough to engage people because they’re thinking where does that come from and where is this going?
We have a kind of box that we put around ourselves that limits what we’re prepared to express, how far we’re prepared to go and if you can step outside that box, one of the most powerful things that you can do as a storyteller, I think, is going somewhere vulnerable. Whether it’s tears, laughter or anger, by going far enough out there you give other people permission to follow you and that’s a very powerful thing.
2. At the same time you have to keep the ongoing rapport, which is the second element.
By rapport I mean everything you know from your NLP and hypnosis training, the unconscious interplay of posture, gesture and non-verbal communication that goes on between you as you work together.
3. The third element is jeopardy. Anybody know what I mean by that? Jeopardy, danger, how much have I got to lose? Risk. What’s at stake? The more there is at stake, which is why movies are typically about the end of the world or saving someone from being murdered. It’s what’s the jeopardy?
I don’t know if you are fans of Dr. Who. That was always one of my favorites when I was a kid. Maybe I still watch a few episodes now and then. Maybe I get there on a Saturday and sit down, turn it on and there’s a new episode. Every episode the end of the world is at stake. Dr. Who has to save the universe from the invasion of aliens. I don’t know how they managed to save the universe for 40 years every week. Thank heaven he’s around.
Igor: Thank God for Dr. Who. Let’s us go home and eat ice cream and know that we’re safe.
Robin: Stories about, I was present when a volcano erupted. I was hanging by my fingernails from the edge of a cliff looking down wondering what was going to happen next and how I’d get out of this situation. I was told I had an incurable illness. Jeopardy, what’s at risk, what’s to lose?
4. The fourth element is relevance.
How is this relevant to the person I’m talking to? We’re all human beings aren’t we? So we share a certain set of universal experiences. We were all born. Most of us had parents at one time or other, certainly primary caregivers of one kind or other. We all had some kind of experience with the education system. We’ve all fallen in love. We’ve all been afraid. These are universal human experiences.
Igor: I’ve not.
Robin: No. Fear.
Igor: No.
Robin: Sorry I just imagined my daughter then, she chases me down the street saying I’m blind daddy… Of course you are darling… argh… If you can get all of those elements into your story than you’re away. The question is relevant, how do you know what’s relevant? People tell you.
Igor: Without telling you directly.
Robin: In some situations they’ll tell you because they want you to help solve a problem. In other situations you’re playing a more active role in wanting to be able to influence them, whether because you’re leading a change process and want to get a team together or sell something. In those situations it’s really important to consider what the world view is, what the weltanschauung of your audience is.
Igor: Or our German audience.
Robin: That’s good he knows how to spell it.
Igor: I also know how to say it.
Robin: Think about an example that may relate directly. How many of you do stop smoking or weight loss?
Igor: Any kind of hypnotherapy?
Robin: Your client when they come in will be telling themselves a particular story about…
Igor: I’ve tried five times already and I just can’t quit. It’s so hard. It’s a constant battle against these cigarettes. I fight it and fight it and I always lose.
Robin: Okay. There are some keywords in there; can anyone tell me what they are? Battle and fight. What’s the underlying world view there? It’s battle, struggle, fight…
Igor: It’s a war.
Robin: It’s a war. I know it’s been hard for you hasn’t it? You’ve probably had opportunities, all these battles to stop and yet you haven’t given up yet you still want to win the war?
Igor: I do but I keep getting defeated. It’s painful. I’m ready to give up almost.
Robin: I’m really glad you’ve come here today because this is going to be an opportunity to rally your forces together, get the supplies you need in place and set things up so you have a well coordinated plan of attack. You may or may not choose to use that particular approach. You might choose to reframe that story in the first place, but you get where I’m coming from.
People will drop certain keywords that give you clues to their entire metaphorical landscape. It’s also affected in that it will come out in terms of their motivation and why they’re here. Do they want to stop smoking because it’s their health and they’re concerned about their health? Is it because they see themselves as family is really important to them and they’re doing it for their kids.
Igor: Very common.
Robin: You really want to be able to find and address what that world view is. Clear. Cool.
Igor: Robin, how do we do that?
Robin: Well, let’s start with a simple exercise. Let’s consider, have a quick minute each way in pairs, situations where you’ve missed it.
Igor: Where you’ve talked to people and thinking about it now, looking back on it, they probably offered you on a plate what the perception was, their world view or was it on a journey, were they fighting a war or nurturing a garden or family of some sort. They presented to you their perception of the metaphor on the line, whatever the situation was but you missed it and maybe ran with your own. So there was a clash of some sort.
Robin: Consider the alternative as well where someone has said something to you and missed your world view.
Igor: Yes. Easy. Spend a minute, find a partner and off you go.
Robin: With the same partner, just to keep it simple for now, what I’d like to do is take in turns for one of you to come up with a problem area. It may be a genuine problem or something you make up.
Igor: If you make it up just think of a specific person who generally has that problem, just so you can channel it more effectively, so you get more of a sense of the kinds of answers they would give.
Robin: So your person with a problem, coach for now. As a coach I want you to ask one simple question. So this whole problem in your life, the reason that’s brought you here, what’s that like?
Igor: And learn how he’s taking the whole problem, to encompass the whole situation which goes through more of a global view and he’s not asking for any content or details, what do you do or what happens?
Robin: Let’s find out what comes out when you ask that question. Go.
Igor: Easy. Two minutes apiece. Off you go. [Exercise starts]
How did that go? What kinds of interesting symbols did you get? Of course some of you are still getting… what kinds of things came out? This is the interactive portion.
Student: I thought it was a great question, what’s the whole thing like. It was a great question to find out what modalities…
Robin: Thank you. What answer did you get?
Student: What answer did I get specifically?
Robin: Yes.
Student: Inner feelings.
Igor: So you got like an emotion thing.
Robin: Okay, that’s not what we’re looking for. That’s okay this is the purpose of the exercise is because people will typically respond in certain ways that aren’t what we’re looking for so thank you for giving us one of those examples.
Igor: Let me ask you this. At any point, whilst they were talking about the feeling and so on, did something symbolic at any point slip out?
Student: No.
Igor: Okay. That’s what we’re hunting for. We’ll get more examples so we can get as a group an idea of what we’re talking about.
Oresztesz: For me, I had a tough time even understanding the exercise to begin with, because they’re saying okay, how do you feel about that or what’s your view about that? It’s like I have no context in which to put it in.
Robin: This whole problem or area that you chose to focus in, in this exercise whether it’s real or imagined we don’t need to know, what’s that like for you?
Oresztesz: I told him it’s frustrating because I don’t know what’s expected.
Robin: Okay. Thank you for that, you’re telling me about your feelings. I didn’t ask you that. What I asked you is what’s it like?
Oresztesz: What’s what like?
Robin: What’s this whole situation in your life like?
Igor: The problem situation.
Oresztesz: I’m still not understanding.
Robin: Okay thank you very much, let’s get the next question.
Igor: Let me do something. Just to help you out, there are many ways you can think of something being like. You can feel it, talk about other situations that are similar and so on. What we’re interested right now is if you were going to give us an analogy what would it be? What scenario or scene or world would best represent what the problem would be like?
For example, you know the film ‘Forest Gump’, life is like a box of chocolates. It can be like a lot of other things too.
Oresztesz: Okay.
Igor: So what’s your problem like?
Oresztesz: Oh, so you’re…
Igor: That’s it.
Oresztesz: I think you mean to extrapolate and say some sort of analogy about my world view.
Igor:
Robin:
Igor: So what is the problem you’re thinking about, that you were talking about with your partner, what would that be like if it were like anything? Let’s move on. Ponder that and we’ll move on. Thank you.
This is an important step right now because we’re getting past the normal social interaction element into somewhat more unconscious territory, which is why sometimes it can be a little difficult to get there. The story is classically there because otherwise you wouldn’t have the problem. It’s important to make that next step because that’s where you really connect to the kind of stuff that was being asked about early on which is the really unconscious material.
Student: I would like to share something that was in the first exercise, when we were thinking about what’s not happening, what’s not helping and it made me realize something that may be of importance to you and I’m willing to share it even though it’s kind of a bad thing for me.
My stop smoking clients weren’t very successful, I would say, just about 50%. Now that I realize it happened ever since I read a very famous Englishman that has been successful in this area with logical arguments, breaking down how the smoking thing goes consciously. Ever since I read that book I started to apply some of it but it ended up being a fight.
I’m finding the client in their own world they would end up like this, looking at me and it was like okay now I’ve got myself into some trouble. That was something I think that broke down a little bit, a lot of rapport with many people and trying to force them into my way of helping them.
Igor: This is such an important point, which goes to the heart of what we’re talking about here which is never disagree with their conscious mind, because all you’ll do is trigger a defense mechanism, as you have noticed. What we’re looking for here is to figure out what the unconscious mind is actually attached to. What is the metaphor it’s working from? Because in doing so you bypass the resistance because you go oh great, now we know what country we’re in.
Robin: So this whole problem/situation that’s brought you here today, whether it’s imaginary or real we don’t need to know, what’s that like?
Student: Oh that part went fantastic. It’s like walking in a bubble, not paying attention, just floating through the day.
Robin: Okay thank you that’s enough. So it’s like you’re walking in a bubble. Fantastic. Thank you that’s enough for now.
Student: We talked about a problem. It was insomnia. He told me that he was willing to stay awake and the other day he was tired. So the image was he was trying to get the last drop of the orange but the next day the orange was completely dry. That’s the image.
Igor: That’s a nice image.
Robin: Can I just ask again, this problem or situation that has brought you here today, what’s it like?
Student: That’s how I explain the situation.
Robin: What’s it like?
Student: I don’t feel any frustration about that, because actually I tried to optimize.
Robin: Thank you for telling me about your feelings and behavior. I’m asking you what it’s like. It’s like an orange being squeezed dry every day?
Student: To the last drop.
Mia: My problem was like being in a strange house trying to find the door out. There are many doors that lead to other rooms.
Robin: So it’s like you’re in a strange house, you’re trying to find your way out and there are lots of doors leading to different rooms.
Igor: Very nice.
Glen: The catch phrase I got was a pain in the ass.
Igor: Thank you.
Robin: So it’s like a pain in the ass.
Leonard: We got one I think many can associate with. The problem we came up with at first is it’s like facing a wall of tasks.
Robin: Are you beginning to get clear about this now?
Igor: We’ll do two more and then we’ll do another exercise so you get experience
with this.
Student: It’s like a very difficult knot that we are trying to untie.
Igor: Thank you.
Robin: It’s like I’m trying to untie a really difficult knot.
Pamela: With my partner, oddly enough it was like, I think for both of us, being in a silent movie and making all these pantomiming gestures and stuff and no one is hearing you.
Robin: It’s like I’m in a silent movie and I can’t hear anything anyone is saying.
Pamela: No, like they can’t hear you.
Robin: It’s like I’m in a silent movie… I suspect if you explored that a little more you’d
find you were actually in a bubble, but we’ll come onto that at another time.
Igor: Okay. Let’s do a quick exercise on this now. So you get the idea of the kind of things we’re not really looking for and it’s the kinds of things people normally talk about. Have another chat with your partner. Any problem, including the one you might be frustrated about and not being able to figure out how to do the exercise, that’s a useful one too.
Robin: What’s that like?
Igor: The question is, when we ask what’s that like, you’re looking for anything that’s like an analogy, a simile, a metaphor whatever these words mean to you. You’re looking for some other situation that somehow describes how this particular event feels to them or how they perceive it in some ways.
Robin: I’d just like to point out, notice how Pamela reacted there, when I tried to give her something that wasn’t right. Very strong. That’s important, because you don’t always get it right so it’s important to notice and test, because people are often much clearer about what it’s not like than they are what it is like. You see how people are… it’s quite difficult to get through our conscious reactions like behaviors, feelings and vision. You’ll see people processing as they try and answer the question.
Student: I just want to make sure I understand the point of the exercise. Is it to understand the subconscious map coordinates so that as they’re experiencing something in their view of the world you’re able to match that and understand how that terrain works?
Igor: For the moment don’t worry too much about how you’re going to use it, we’ll get onto that. The main thing you’re looking for more unconscious content than conscious. Beyond that we’ll come back to more later.
Robin: All the fluff or usual stuff they would give you in this situation that you might choose to work with is left brain stuff. This like question maps straight onto what their right brain representation is going to be.
Igor: Spend two minutes doing that again and we’ll come back to see if we can make it easier for the next round after this one. [Exercise starts]
Hands up if you want to talk about what you got the second time round and if it was any easier or different. We’ll do another round to see if we can make it even easier.
Student: It was a lot easier this time round. The answers that we both got were much more interesting as well.
Igor: Excellent. Do you want to give us an example?
Student: Yes. The problem was like being on a bicycle and pedaling and the foot keeps slipping off the pedal.
Igor: Beautiful. You can see a nice simple metaphor there right and already some material that might be useful somehow to merge, even though we don’t know how yet. Thank you, very nice.
Student: Like walking in a maze.
Igor: Again, do you see now the more symbolic elements of underlying stuff that’s coming out. Anyone else?
Student: All right. The metaphor I got was, like sleeping in the morning and the alarm clock starts ringing and you push the snooze button and again and again and again… when you eventually wake up and get up it’s too late to have breakfast.
Igor: Very nice. He’s given us the whole story. I presume one or two of you had slight difficulty in coming up with a metaphor or simile. Something you can do, a slightly more risky strategy with a stranger, but if you have enough rapport that they’re willing to engage there’s a simple way that you can get the unconscious material the symbol to come out and basically you needle them politely. You misunderstand them. Would someone that had a problem with this like to have an example so we can have a real thing? What’s the general problem area?
Student: I have to go to a meeting to present results on the problem I’m working on and I feel nervous even though there’s no need to feel that.
Igor: Okay. What’s that like? We get the problem coming out. I don’t know. It sounds a bit like you’re a Mexican bandit about to jump into a bar and shoot everyone. Is that what it’s like?
Student: No.
Igor: Okay. Am I surprised? What is it like? What’s it more like?
Student: Afraid of what’s going to happen. So going into a room and not knowing how they’re going to react.
Igor: Oh great, so it’s like going into a room and not knowing how the people inside are going to react.
Student: Yes.
Igor: So is it like jumping into a shark tank and wrestling the big fish?
Student: Yes, perhaps.
Igor: You tell me. I have a sense it’s more like something else.
Student: Maybe they’re not sharks but they certainly give me a very uneasy feeling.
Igor: So if I understand you correctly, you know there’s a room you have to go into and you think you’re going to get a hard time from the people in that room. Is that right?
Student: Yes and thinking they’re not going to be satisfied.
Igor: They’re not going to be satisfied. So what are those people like?
Student: Those kinds of people are like salespeople, big mouth, always criticizing.
Igor: All right. So it’s like walking into a room with big mouth criticizing people that aren’t going to be satisfied with what you have to say, is that right?
Student: Yes.
Igor: Thank you. Do you see how simple it is when you poke them a little bit? Of course we can elaborate on that and get an even richer metaphor. The point is if you get stuck on one level don’t necessarily loop around it too much. You could force it a bit more. Did you feel like I was being unfair or did you dislike me for misunderstanding your situation or was it more like he’s trying to understand me but he’s not getting it?
Student: Not at all.
Igor: Which one?
Student: I meant to say that you were not intruding. You were polite.
Igor: The attitude on one side is respectful in terms of an inquiry, but you can still prod a little in terms of what is this really like and by presenting the false analogy, false symbol and false metaphor it forces them out a little bit. Your preference as far as the exercise should be, not to actually present your symbol to get a reaction, because you’d rather it just be pure coming out of their mind.
He almost bought into the whole shark metaphor which would have been unfortunate because that’s my fish in his dream, literally. However, if you’re getting stuck on one level just prod a little bit and see what comes out and then you get a much nicer, smoother process going on. Does that make sense?
I’d like you to spend two minutes again, find a different partner and different problem so it’s a fresh thing, sit and have a normal chat and just ask them what is that like? If they don’t understand it at first feel free to misunderstand it sometimes. You have plan B and C, give an analogy, ask for an analogy and then give a false example. The more extremely false it is the less likely you are going to interfere with their symbol. [Exercise starts – off you go]
At the risk of punning, what was that like? Who’s getting more of a sense that they’re getting to more symbolic stuff?
Student: She gave me a good symbol straight off and I sat there thinking, oh shit, she’s answered the question already. I needled her by deliberately giving a slightly ridiculous symbol and she responded with something that was much better than the first and we both agreed that touched on the matter.
Igor: So you got some tools for exploring and getting richer things back. Excellent.
Student: I think it’s very important too when the person has problem to work with symbol to bring him in another state.
Igor: Yes. Part of the advantage of symbols is you don’t get so stuck in the content and ‘logic’ or ‘reasonableness’ of the problem, you work in a more symbolic realm where symbolic solutions can work too, right?
Student: Let’s say for that story what he was thinking I immediately get in mind Bloody Mary drink.
Igor: That’s a nice metaphor. I’m not quite sure I understand it, but it’s interesting.
Student: Talking about juice, vodka and very hot stuff.
Igor: And that fit the context your partner was talking about.
Student: Yes with the story he was talking about.
Igor: The key here is you want to make sure you get as much or as close to get their symbols out rather than introducing yours, oh I know what it’s like it’s like when Robin was misunderstanding Pamela earlier on. You want to make sure you get what is actually going on inside them because that’s going to be the material that will be useful for our stories when we get round to that point later.
Student: When I presented my metaphor I got another one. That took me off my metaphor but it didn’t really help me because I was thrown away, like that’s not how it feels. For me I would have appreciated it if he would say how is it like to be in?
Igor: So, when the person asked you, you gave them a symbol and metaphor and then he misunderstood you on purpose and that took you further away is that what you’re saying? This is important. If you’re already getting to the symbolic stuff there’s no need to prod them anymore. The last question wasn’t necessarily something you need to do all the time it’s more to help you when you get into a position where you’re not quite getting the symbolic bit. In fact, in time where we want to get to is where you can conversationally draw these metaphors without even realizing you’re doing anything.
Robin: Yes, these are training wheels. This is an exercise to help you establish exactly what it is you’re looking and listening for. We wouldn’t expect you to actually do this straight conversation. Igor: Because then what will happen is you’ll have a conversation like, let’s say Robin and I are chatting… hey how’s it going?
Robin: Good thanks it’s all right.
Igor: What’s up, you sound like something happened?
Robin: I feel like I’m a little bit stuck.
Igor: Do you hear it? What do you mean? Stuck in what way?
Robin: Well, it’s like I’m walking through treacle all the time.
Igor: All right. So it’s like walking through treacle and getting stuck in there.
Robin: Yes.
Igor: There’s a conversation you might have with a friend in a restaurant, café, bar or wherever. If you don’t know what to look out for then that becomes a throwaway line that you can ignore. Then you go oh, I get you. I get like that sometimes too. For me it’s like walking through the snow and it’s heavy and stuff. Now we’re totally talking about different things.
We do that naturally. I’m sympathizing. I understand his metaphor. I’m searching for similar experiences in my life. I give him my metaphor which means I’m putting my fish in his dream and he’s going what are these fish doing here? Does that help?
These are literally training wheels to get passed being aware of it and the nice thing is that as you become more aware of it, you’ll hear these things popping out constantly anyway.
Student: That’s the point of conversational hypnosis, to get on with it.
Igor: Exactly. We’ll get into more conversational stuff as we get on with it. Shall we add more?
Robin: Sure. To move this to the next stage we’ll give you some more choices and more questions to ask, as well as variations on this theme. We’d like you to consider some situation, some area where you have a victory, a triumph and a positive experience.
Igor: Where you did great. Where you were proud of. Where you feel happy about. A wonderful moment you’ve experienced. A touching moment. Something wildly positive. Then have a chat with them again to see if you can get their symbols to come out, but now you have some more questions around that like what is that like? What kind of stuck is that? It’s like walking through treacle. Is there anything else about that treacle that is about that stuckness in that treacle?
Robin: It kind of clings onto my feet and every time I try to take a next step it’s really hard.
Igor: Are we getting clear in terms of how you’re starting to feel about this? Importantly folks, at this stage start feeding back exactly what they’re saying. It’s like you’re in treacle and you’re stuck and every time you try to move your feet the treacle is stuck to your feet and it’s hard to lift them up. That stickiness of the treacle, what is that like?
Robin: It’s like it kind of goes on forever.
Igor: So you’re stuck in this treacle and every time you try and take a step…
Robin: Yes it’s like an ocean of treacle. It’s actually like Western super mare in there at low tide.
Igor: That’s a lot of treacle. Do you see how you naturally start pulling out the bigger metaphor? Again, right now we’re doing it mechanically just to get sensitive to these things whereas, in time you’ll be able to do it little more conversationally.
Let’s take two minutes apiece, different partner and this time ask them about something positive, happy and vibrant in their life. Off you go. [Exercise starts] Okay, so is it getting easier yet?
Group: Yes.
Igor: Are you starting to get a sense of the symbols coming out and so on? Any questions so far? We’ll have a break in a minute. First of all, when you go into break you will chit-chat that’s what happens, so I want to invite you to listen out for the hints that there’s a metaphor on the line for the conversations you’re having. If you should be moved to ask a question like what’s that like or no, that pigeon you were talking about, what kind of pigeon is that exactly? Then I really can’t you prevent you from doing that on a break that’s your own time, you can do whatever you want. Off you go.
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