A few brave folks have gone into therapy, sales, courtrooms, psych wards, business and a whole slew of contexts to figure out just what makes a spectacular communicator. They are a rare breed called NLP practitioners.
I've been studying this thing called NLP for a good while now. I read about it in one of the best-selling self-help books ever: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. Apparently, Covey used techniques in NLP to help his son become a better quarterback and better at school work. I'm sure that it has helped him in other areas also. Because I was so curious, I read everything I could get my hands on about it and even earned a certification in the summer of 2001.
In layman's terms, NLP studies the connection between our experiences of the world and the language we use. It studies it both ways. It looks at how words impact our experience and the reverse, how words express our experiences.
In not-so layman's terms, NLP stands for Neuro-Linguisitc Programming. The neuro part, our experiences, covers how we use our sensory systems to percieve, store and represent information. The linguistic part covers how we use certain types of words and syntax as a way to represent and point to ideas and things. The programming aspect covers how we use the neuro and the linguistic aspects to structure our experiences and deal with the world over time.
One of the central topics of this blog will be how we can use NLP to become better people, and better communicators (not necessarily in that order). By being better communicators, and of course better people, we will be more able to build networks of people and relationships around us. So check back, you'll find some interesting tidbits and ways to increase the effectiveness of your communication.
Happy Wednesday!
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