Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+© Series: Part 10

By: Shantanu Das Sharma, Sr. Associate Editor-ICN Group

Quick recap of what we have covered in Part 9

Accept Responsibility for How YOU Feel

How do You Become a Master Communicator!

Take 100% Responsibility for the Success of Your Communication

All Communications Are a Mix of Words, Tonality & Body Language

KOLKATA: The most important thing you may choose to understand is that our communication consists of three major elements. The words we use, our tone of voice and our body language. Research finds that the total impact of our communication consists of words (7%), tone of voice (38%) and body language (55%). And body language is made up of our facial expression, gestures, posture, breathing pattern, eye movement and muscle tension.

Communication = Words (7%) + Tonality (38%) + Body Language (55%)

Although WHAT we say is extremely important, it is least impactful when compared to HOW we say it (tone of voice and our body language). Test this out (not for real, but in front of a mirror). You can tell a client how great and exciting your company is but if your tone of voice is placid & dull, your face expressionless and your body is sagging with fatigue, they won’t buy what you are saying. I once had a teacher ask me in the most boring tone of voice and with a deadpan face, ‘I wonder why I can never motivate my students no matter what I say?’ ‘I felt like telling him to listen to his own voice and go look at his face in the mirror. But I just couldn’t be so direct as to be rude.

The matter of fact is that when we communicate, we must pay attention to not only our words, but more importantly to our tone of voice and our body language. Very often when our children don’t get motivated despite what we say, or when our clients don’t buy what we sell, it could be because our non-verbal communication is sabotaging us.

In Reality There Are No Resistant Students, Only Inflexible Teachers

In my NLP Lifestyle Coaching engagements, I get a good number of teachers and lecturers who come wanting to learn to become more powerful communicators. I usually tell them to adopt this belief (of excellence): ‘There are no resistant students, only inflexible teachers.’ Initially, a few will get offended. But they eventually realize that by following this principle, it puts the responsibility back on them and gets results. Why? Because with responsibility comes the power to do whatever it takes to build rapport with the students, until they listen.

Once there was a teacher who asked me what to do with all the attention deficit children in her class. I replied saying, ‘Attention deficit is an excuse given by boring teachers.’ I almost got thrown out of the room for that one! But the point I later made was that in the classes that I conduct in schools, every student, even those that had been labeled attention deficit were extremely focused, attentive and participative. The reason? Because I conducted my lessons with lots of fun and excitement! I kept modifying my teaching style until I got the response I wanted, attentive learning! When we label people ‘attention deficit’ or ‘stupid’, it gives us an easy way out. It is also applicable for the training or coaching profession as there are considerable learning which trainers or coaches are expected to impart to their trainees or coachees.  

Once I was in Hyderabad for some work. And a senior management person of a premier secondary school got to know that I was in the city. And she invited me to address the students to inspire them to be more sincere in their studies. I did not know that those students were a rich brat’s group with high attention deficits. When I conducted the talk, I did my very best to convince the students that how privileged they are being in that premier school. And their increased interests and attention to studies would be a great investment for their parents and that it could change their life. As you know, only one student raised his hands when they were asked how many understand and accept the idea. There and then I had a choice. I could have chosen to blame all of them for being stupid boys and girls who did not care about their future. Instead I chose to accept that my communication was not effective.

It could have been my choice of words, the tone of my voice (like too slick?), or my body language was not right. By taking responsibility, I had the power to change my communication until I got the response I wanted: that it was for them to realize how great the opportunity it is to focus on study was, and they were excited enough to keep asking their queries for over an hour after the talk was formally over. Because I then replied them in a way that they wanted to hear!

And You Always Have a Choice!

So called intellectually (I call them left brainers) intelligent people always ask, ‘But what If it is really not my fault? What if the situation is totally out of my hands?’ Well, I believe that we always play a role in creating whatever is happening to us, whether consciously or subconsciously. We create our experiences either through our thoughts or our actions. You can say something emphatically, but if you are thinking something else, people can pick up the vibes that show up in your body language. The disconnect shows!

The people who are in control of their lives believe that they create their world. If everything is going great, then they created it, not anybody else. If things are not going well, then they created it as well. Some people tell me that they never get a good break. They never get lucky enough to land a great opportunity. They are never at the right place at the right time. Again, I believe that you create your own luck. Or I prefer the word opportunity or break. If you never find any good opportunities, it could be because of your limiting beliefs and thoughts. If you keep believing that there are no opportunities around, your mind will tend to delete all the great opportunities, even if they are there right before you. You see what you want to see. At the same time, if you keep thinking negative thoughts, you will, like a magnet, keep attracting everything that is negative for you!

So you can choose to create positive thoughts and empowering beliefs, and the world around you will surely change!

For Things to (Truly) Change, I Must (Truly) Change First

If there is one single most important message I want to give you in this article, it is this: ‘For things to TRULY change, we must first TRULY change ourselves.’ When we take responsibility for what we get and change ourselves, everything and everybody else will change with us!

One time the owner of a chain of boutique hotels attended my coaching program. He complained that all his staffs were demotivated, uncommitted and incompetent. He also complained that he kept getting clients who were prone to bargaining and had little purchasing power. ‘For some reason, the staff that we get are always lazy and useless; we never get the hardworking, ambitious type’. I sat down with the man and asked him to list down the attributes of his ideal staff. He took about five minutes and came up with an incredible list of the perfect staff. The person had to be highly motivated, responsible, have good work experience, strong track record, passionate… the list went on. I took a look at the list and a look at the owner and asked, ‘Would this ideal employee want to work for you?’ Initially he was taken aback by my comment, but pretty soon, he was getting my point. I went on to say, ‘If you want to attract the best employees, you have to be the best company (in your field).’ ‘If you want to attract the perfect staff, you have to be the perfect boss.’ For things to change, he had to change first. He caught on. Over the next six months, he asked himself, ‘How do I make this company the best place to work for, such that the best and brightest will want to join me?’ He started to put in a rigorous recruitment selection scheme, an exciting profit sharing plan, new classy uniforms, a rebranding campaign for the company and created an honest and open communication culture. And he also started giving more autonomy to staff in decision making.

Sure enough, many of the old, demotivated staff started leaving because they could not take the pressure of the new weekly feedback sessions and the performance-based pay scheme. But then young, energetic and motivated people started coming in and the whole business turned around. At the same time the new image created by the company’s re-branding campaign, its new culture and bright new and knowledgeable staff started attracting higher spending customers who didn’t haggle. Does this only apply to business? Of course not! This applies to virtually anything in your life.

I once met a woman who could not find the right partner and she had been looking for the last 20 years. She was in her late 30s and getting concerned she would never find her ideal guy. When I asked her what she was looking for, she started describing this perfect man who had to be rich, handsome, humorous, sensitive and charming. Again I asked her very bluntly, ‘Would this man with all these traits want to marry you?’ ‘Would this ideal guy be attracted to someone like you?’ If you want to attract the perfect man, you must first be that perfect woman to attract him! There was a mother who complained to me that her son was not motivated at all to learn Mathematics. He kept giving the excuse that Mathematics was really difficult and that he did not need to learn it. She kept trying to convince him that if he put his mind to it, he could do it. She also kept trying to make him see that Mathematics was an important subject to learn at secondary level. ‘I’ve tried everything. He just won’t listen and change his mind set about learning Mathematics.’ I asked the mum, ‘Do you make your son practice Mathematics at home?’ ‘No, my husband and I can’t solve mathematics as we were both from Arts backgrounds,’ was her slightly surprised reply. I then asked, ‘Have you thought of learning mathematics yourself and sit with your son at home to get him practice doings mathematics (problems) in your presence so that your child will have more practicing exposure?’ ‘Oh, it’s just too difficult to learn. Anyway, we don’t have to use it’, was her reply. She had given the reason why her son was so resistant to learning Mathematics. I explained to her that although she was verbally telling her son that Mathematics was easy and important, her actions communicated the total opposite, and she was responsible for him not being motivated at all. Fortunately, I convinced her. When she decided to put in the effort to learn together with her son and use mathematics at home, her son started to get motivated as well.

So…

If you want to attract the best staff, be the best boss

If you want to have the best kids, be the best parent

If you want the perfect wife, then be that perfect husband

If you want the highest income, add the greatest value

If you want to attract the best customers, become the best company

Learn To Use ‘I Choose’ Often

The words we use daily are a reflection of how we frame experiences in our mind. When you start to use the word ‘I choose’ often, you start to perceive your experiences with more control than you ever thought was possible.

Although it may seem difficult at times to say that you choose to create something, especially when it is negative, you immediately put yourself in the position of being the cause. And therefore the agent of change. Yes, by exercising the choice of creating something, you have the power to choose to change it. When you say ‘I am depressed’, it implies that you are depressed by something and there is nothing you can do about it. When you say ‘I choose to feel depressed’, you acknowledge that you are creating your state of depression. You are allowing something or someone to cause you to create that state. See the difference? Now, just by changing your physiology and your internal representation, you can change how you feel in a moment! That’s awesome power within your grasp.

I realize that by saying ‘I choose to allow the staff to be demotivated’ or ‘I choose to allow the company sales to be down’, it may sound as though you do not care and are happy it is happening. Remember that this not at all the intention. So you may not want to communicate ‘I choose’ statements to others. It may make you seem like a real a**h***. ‘I choose’ statements are purely how you would communicate to yourself internally.

(I facilitate Thought Leaders, Change Makers; Professionals & Business Owners translate NLP concepts into actions to achieve and elicit personal excellence. I conduct NLP Lifestyle Coaching Certification programs for individuals, corporate and celebrity clients. We explore the ‘Power of Our Beliefs’ in the next article and after that you will come to know in subsequent articles, how you can utilise concepts of NLP+ in all walks of your life to replicate the success blueprint of a winner mindset to win through life.  So, stay tuned every Monday & Saturday and fasten your seat belt to ‘Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+’)

My #1 Amazon Best Selling book ‘Awaken The Incredible Within – Incredible Is The New Giant’ is available at Amazon in English at  http://bit.ly/Awaken-The-Incredible-Within

Shantanu Das Sharma, Creator of the concept NLP Lifestyle Coaching with NLP+, Founder of Neuromind Leadership Academy is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author, NLP Lifestyle Master Trainer & Coach, Clean Language Facilitator & Strategic Interventionist.