When you ask him why he thinks he’s “bad” and “evil”, he says that he has no friends, and therefore he must be “bad” or “evil”; either that, or everyone is “bad” and “evil” for not wanting to be friends with him. S also keeps saying that the world is a very bad place and we just don’t know it yet, but we will realise it sooner or later and be affected by it (I think he’s thinking about stuff like global warming, nuclear war etc).

The scary part is how deeply, how completely, S believes what he’s saying. It’s a very striking example of how thoughts affect reality. S is deeply entrenched in his own very negative thoughts, and that’s what his reality has become right now. We’re trying, but we can’t get him out. His existence, his reality, his entire world is indeed bad, evil, hopeless and grim – and he made it that way, for himself, through the sheer power of his own thoughts.

What’s Really Keeping S Trapped?

S sounds like he’s trapped in a ‘double-bind’ belief; he’s damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. When someone is caught in a double bind, it can be very hard to change his beliefs because he’ll use everything, even evidence to the contrary, to reinforce his beliefs.

Richard Bandler, co-founder of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), likes to tell the story of a mental patient who kept insisting that he was a living corpse. Hitting upon a bright idea, a doctor asked him; ‘do corpses bleed then?’

The patient replied; ‘of course not!’ The doctor promptly pricked him, and when the patient saw blood dripping out of his wound he exclaimed; ‘well I’ll be damned – corpses do bleed!’

How Beliefs Turn into Thought Viruses

NLP developer Robert Dilts explains double binds in his ground-breaking book Sleight of Mouth: The Magic of Conversational Belief Change. In NLP we say that the map is not the territory – our beliefs about reality is not reality itself.

Healthy beliefs exist in an eco-system; they’re linked in a cycle to our internal states, values, experiences and expectations. And so they can change according to our inner states and outer environment.

Adapted from a diagram in Robert Dilts’ book Sleight of Mouth.

According to Dilts, beliefs become ‘thought viruses’ when they’re cut off from this cycle. A belief, disconnected to internal and external feedback, then feeds upon itself – and change becomes difficult because it refuses to ‘listen’ to anyone but itself.

Adapted from a diagram in Robert Dilts’ book Sleight of Mouth.

This leads to all sorts of problems because the belief becomes a circular argument and double-bind…like a Catch-22. In the classic novel ‘Catch-22’ (which is hilarious by the way), WW II airman Yossarian wants to escape the horrors of war by leaving the air force.

But he can’t, because of regulation ‘Catch-22’. Catch 22 says that if Yossarian can prove himself insane, he can be discharged. But only a sane man would ask to be discharged because no sane man would want to risk his life. So by requesting to be discharged on the grounds that he’s insane, Yossarian proves himself sane and can’t be discharged. It’s a circular argument that Yossarian can’t win.

Breaking Out of a Double Bind

Reading Mr Wang’s description of S, it’s obvious that S has caught himself in a double bind. He has no friends, therefore he’s bad and evil. Whomever doesn’t want to make friends with him is also bad and evil. Therefore, everyone is bad and evil.

So how can you help someone who is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t?

I’ll be honest with you; there aren’t any easy answers to this question. In essence, you’ll want to open up his double bind belief so it’s receptive again to feedback from his internal states, values, experiences and expectations – this makes the belief open to change.

In Dilts’ book Sleight of Mouth he reveals (more than) one way to break down limiting beliefs; applying the belief back onto itself.

For example, if I were working with S; to the belief that everyone is evil, I could say that ‘yes, the world is an evil place…because of evil beliefs like that‘.

There are even more methods, like speaking to his values, chunking his beliefs or conditioning new behaviors. But in a situation as advanced as S’s, change needs time and someone by his side who can get a more comprehensive view of his situation than the internet can give.

See them better than they see themselves.

2) You are no better than the people you coach.

Walk with them shoulder by shoulder. You’re both on the same path.

3) Skill doesn’t change people. Love changes people.

All the skills in the world aren’t worth a dime if you don’t care.

4) You still need skill.

Effective coaching is not an accident.

5) You don’t change people. People change themselves.

You can show them the door, but they’re the ones who walk through it.

6) The most important person you coach is you.

Do your best to walk the talk and lead the way.

7) Your client is a magnificent being, and so are you.

With all your heart. See them better than they see themselves.

2) You are no better than the people you coach.

Be their equal, not their boss. Walk with them shoulder by shoulder. You’re both on the same path.

3) Skill doesn’t change people. Love changes people.

All the skills in the world aren’t worth a dime if you don’t have good intent. Your clients can sense it a mile away.

4) You still need skill.

Good life coaching is not an accident.

5) You still don’t change people. People change themselves.

You don’t have a magical wand that makes people do what you want them to do. When you take credit for someone’s change, you rob them of their personal power. You only show them the door, they’re the ones that walk through it.

6) The most important person you coach is you.

You can’t teach what you don’t know, you can’t lead where you don’t go. Be the best person you can be. Do your best to walk the talk and lead the way. ‘Nuff said.

Inspired by Gaping Void’s mini-manifestos, and last Wednesday’s talk with Tim and Yezhong when we had the reunion with Paiboon. Any further suggestions, fellow life coaches?

A canned routine life coach can’t step outside of the boundary of techniques, he’s bound by the steps and formulas and needs to proceed step-by-step always. You can tell the type: when a person has a problem, he’ll always have a magic technique to whip out for the occasion…even if he has to bulldoze his way to complete the technique, he will.

In contrast, when you see a natural game life coach at work, you might think they’re slacking off. They’re not doing anything remotely resembling what you think a life coach should do, lest for a strange question here and there. You can’t see or hear a single technique they’re pulling…yet they get results. Why?

Before I tell you, let me confess: I’ve been both. More canned routine when I was starting out, and more natural game after I got better. There are times and places for both, magic is in flexibility and choice, not being stuck in either mode.

A natural game life coach understands the principles of the techniques at work. Instead of seeing steps and formulas as ‘whats’ to do, she understands ‘why’ they’re done. That’s why on the surface she looks like she’s not doing any canned routine, but subtly, underneath the surface structure she’s directing the same deep structure as the canned routine life coach.

Ninja life coaching!

A lot of you know I don’t do formal life coaching anymore, but I use my powers for good once in a while…and to keep in practice because I get rusty too

Here’s a simple technique of natural game ninja life coaching you can use, and probably already use if you’re naturally good at cheering people up – now you can understand why.

2 easy principles you need to believe first:

1) People make better decisions when they feel good.

2) People make sucky decisions when they feel bad.

So what happens when you need to natural game someone from a stuck problem state into a positive solution state?

Make them feel better first!

As much as we’d prefer to think otherwise, we make most of our decisions based on how we feel more than what we think.

And here’s the guiding strategy:

Focus people on a positive future, and leave the sucky past where it belongs – in the past.

Listen, here’s a reason why I got so many results as a life coach – I was too damn impatient and lazy to go digging around for ‘original causes’ of problems in people’s pasts.

Yeah, yeah, I know. You’ve heard it all, from Sigmund Fraud, motivational coaches and your neighbor’s cat that the reason you’re so messed up now is because when you were a child, you didn’t get the chocolate ice-cream you wanted.

Here’s a thought: let’s say you were moaning and groaning about the chocolate ice-cream you didn’t have yesterday. Now what if I brought you into an ice-cream store with 101 flavors of ice-cream to choose from? Would you prefer to go digging into your past and find out just why you didn’t motivate yourself to go get one yesterday? Or screw that and just go get a new ice-cream right now?

Yes, there’s a time and place when working on your past can help. But while insight into the past can be helpful, it doesn’t change the past. The point as a life coach is to make the future so overwhelmingly better that the past doesn’t matter anymore, because people live in the present and they move forward into the future – whether they’re looking forward or backward. Might as well look forward so you can steer better.

When someone comes up to you and starts telling you about their problems, listen – but don’t get sucked into it. Take what is useful, but remember your sacred mission is to orient them to a positive future.

Add the principles and guiding strategy up, and you have this:

Make people feel better and get them talking about a positive future.

It’s as simple as that, and it’s as difficult as using all your skills, language patterns and life coaching techniques to get there.

P.S. I know, a lot of your will be clamoring all over me to reveal more, instead I’ll point you to the original ninja life coach: Milton Erickson. Don’t read, devour Phoenix: Therapeutic Patterns of Milton H. Erickson. More than a book, this is the bible of ninja life coaches everywhere.

How did I shift the beliefs of a woman with a death wish into one so excited about living she took up salsa lessons? How did I persuade a man who had been carrying the burden of guilt for over 40 years that it was time to forgive himself? How did I use the power of words to propel my coaching success to become the fastest promoted senior coach in the history of one of the largest training companies in Singapore?

In the Secrets of Changing Minds series I reveal step by step the key communication tips & strategies from NLP and indirect hypnosis you can use to change minds and transform beliefs.

Become A Time Traveller

I thought I’d finished this series with the most important key, but it turns out I still have something left to share

Changing someone’s mind doesn’t just mean changing their perspectives, it can also mean changing the way they think through time.

People can be stuck in a way of thinking not just from a perspective, but also from a fixed focus on either the past, present or future. A sneaky way you can change someone’s mind is to use your language to change when they’re focusing on as well as what.

Look Back From The Future, What Do You See?

To get people to change their state from feeling stressed over a present problem into a positive focus on solutions, I’d ask something like this;

“Imagine tomorrow that you’ve already resolved this problem successfully. How would things look, feel and sound differently?”

You bring them forward in time and get them to look back at now as if it’s the past, and ask them what’s different.

How Have You Already Achieved This Goal?

If I needed to help them find steps towards a desired outcome to which they have no idea how to get to, I’d ask;

“So imagine in the future already having achieved this goal, looking back at now, what were the steps you took that helped you get there?”

So instead of looking from the present to the future and planning how to get there, we focus on the successful future already accomplished, look back to the present and plan backwards.

How Would You Know When You’ve Already Made This Change?

The 2 questions above work when the other person already knows what she wants. But what happen when she doesn’t? That’s where the miracle question from Solutions Focused Brief Therapy works very well:

“Imagine that tomorrow somehow, in some way, this whole problem has been overcome. How would you know that things are different? What would you see, hear or feel?”

How You’ve Been Sold With This Technique

This technique is often used in sales. Someone might say;

“I know it looks expensive now, but after you’ve used it for years and saved all the maintenance costs you would have paid with the other machines, you’ll realize it was a fantastic deal.”

The 3 Keys To Changing Minds Through The Future

Confused? You might already have noticed the 3 keys to shifting time as a way to change someone’s mind.

1) Talking about the present in the past tense. Looking back from the future at now, so that what you’ve learnt reading here adds to your magic bag of mind-changing tricks.

2) Presupposing a more positive future. If you’re going to make a future, might as well make a good one. You use the trick of going into the future to presuppose a positive one in which problems have been solved and outcomes achieved, and look back at the more problematic present to see how you got there.

By the way, pessimists are great at this technique, only they often create a worse future to look back from!

3) Noticing what’s different. The core question is to notice what’s different about having a positive future experience compared to a negative present one, so you have the keys to knowing what needs to be changed and what a good change would look like.

In actual fact, no-one really travels to the future, but by using this trick of orientating them to a better future they can experience now instead of a present in which they’re stuck, they activate the wealth of positive states and resources which they already have.

Still confused? Well, confusion is the first step towards new learnings Leave a comment with your questions so you won’t be confused after.

How did I shift the beliefs of a woman with a death wish into one so excited about living she took up salsa lessons? How did I persuade a man who had been carrying the burden of guilt for over 40 years that it was time to forgive himself? How did I use the power of words to propel my coaching success to become the fastest promoted senior coach in the history of one of the largest training companies in Singapore?

In the Secrets of Changing Minds series I reveal step by step the key communication tips & strategies from NLP and indirect hypnosis you can use to change minds and transform beliefs.

What To Do When All My Smarty-Pants NLP Tricks Failed

It’s what you must have from the start and it’s what pulls you through until the end. It’s the simplest key and also the hardest of all. The most important key to changing someone’s mind is just to care.

Not as sexy as giving hypnotic commands, but true.

I rose fast through the ranks of the Akltg coaches, becoming the faster coach ever to be ranked senior coach in the Patterns of Excellence programs. I was a little snotty as I became an NLP elite; I knew more about NLP than most of the coaches and I knew it.

But being the snotty NLP encyclopedia I noticed coaches that didn’t have my gigantic (awe-inspiring really) arsenal of NLP tricks up their sleeves…who still got wonderful results with their participants. What was going on?

I wondered over that for a while, until I gradually came to understand it: those coaches cared. And that caring, more than any coaching technique, was the key ingredient in helping their participants make changes happen.

People are smarter than we give them credit for. We may not always notice it but there’s an inner intuition that lets you know when someone is ‘right’ or when someone is ‘wrong’, you know when someone is acting with your interests at heart or not.

In all my experiences of coaching children, teenagers and adults it’s always been the same: if you can’t come from a position of caring you can’t affect change. If someone senses you’re coming for you more than for them, they’re going to switch off.

When you want to change someone’s mind, change it for them, not just for you. You’ll feel better for it, and you’ll succeed more often.