Jamie Smart’s NLP Tip 74

Advanced Rapport– 15 October 2004

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Salad Training Schedule – 2004/2005

Are You Ready to Begin Having The Experience Of Your Life?

·  Are you ready to let go of what has in the past limited and stopped you from fully inhabiting your experience, connecting with others and having your life unfold completely and fully?

·  Are you ready to step into the sacred, space of your own magnificence and leave behind the desire to have the life you dream about to enter into the experience of having the life of your dreams?

This Week’s Tip

Hello everyone, welcome to this week’s newsletter & to the 39 new subscribers who have joined us this week (to see previous tips, go to The NLP Tip Archive.) 

This week I am delighted to present a tip from one of my teachers, Joseph Riggio. Joseph is without a doubt one of the most skilled NLP Trainers and coaches on the planet, with a wealth of experience working with individuals and companies. I highly recommend Joseph and his trainings (he is running a training called The Dance of the Elements from November 13^th – 15^th in the UK), and would advise anyone who is serious about their own development to spend some time with Joseph.

Advanced Topics: Leading Up to Building Rapport

One of the simplest concepts in NLP may be “rapport.” ‘What’ and ‘how’ you sync-up with another person. Why, you’d want to sync-up with someone is another question entirely … and completely relevant to what … and how specifically to build rapport. The very first thing to remember is to keep separate things separate … in this case first ‘what’ and ‘how’.

Here’s a different and unique way to consider the steps to building rapport … some things to consider as you open up, invite and enter into interaction and intercourse … nothing new just a newly formed way of thinking and acting as you do …

Begin Before You’ve Begun:

Begin with the idea of what specifically you want from the interaction. In this moment you’ve begun to organize yourself to be in rapport. Notice what you do when you consider what it is that you want and with whom specifically.

Step 1 – Calibrate/Track Yourself:

Notice what is true of you when you consider the specific result you want. Where did you relax your body and where did you contract it? What happened to your breathing … and where in your body do you breathe from when you consider this? What came up in mind immediately after thinking about getting your specific result?

Make your approach from this position … and to continue holding this position in mind as you make the adjustments with your body, your posture, your movement, your rhythms.

Step 2 – Calibrate/Track/Match the Other Person:

As you approach notice what the other person does before you make contact, especially how they either begin to open or close the space between you. Then immediately as you are doing this notice their rhythms, the pattern and pace of their movement. What you want is to calibrate and track the micro-movements and adjustments they make as you approach them.

What you most want to match is their rhythm and their tendency to move in or away at that crucial moment when initial contact is about to be made. What you’ll be doing is matching them at a deep pre-conscious level, entraining with them and matching their meta-programs outside of their conscious awareness. This creates a profound sense of familiarity and comfort … surely essential elements of rapport.

Form your greeting inside of the rhythm you’ve calibrated … matching the rate, pace and pattern of your movements and words to the rhythms you’ve observed.

[Note: A simple trick is to think about ‘singing’ their rhythm silently to yourself to establish this form before you connect or speak with them. Only then shake hands or say “Hello” inside the song of their unique rhythmic pattern.]

Step 3 – ‘Match/Mirror’ So That You Can ‘Pace/Lead’

Think about shaking hands with someone … what you’re doing is matching at the macro level (as opposed to micro-movement) … they extend their right hand and you extend your right hand … perfect matching … a natural beginning to rapport. Then immediately begin to mirror them … matching their posture, movement, gestures in reverse, i.e.: your left side matches their right side … so they see themselves in you as though in a mirror. Overlay these so that matching and mirroring occur simultaneously and not sequentially.

Pacing is extending Step 2 into and through Step 3 … noticing what they do and how they do it, sync-up with what is elemental … their rhythm, patterns and their pace. The ‘trick’ here is to continue doing this as you begin to lead them to where you want to be going with them. That’s not pace, pace, pace, lead – it’s pacing as you’re leading – pacing to lead. Fundamentally keep pacing and leading concurrent – not sequential.

Step 4 – The ‘Critical Connection’

There is a moment in which you can no longer discern who is leading whom. The ‘critical connection’ is built and held in this singularity. The way in is complete surrender to something new entirely … to the excitement of coming together … simultaneously arriving at the climax of your intercourse … … all hesitation and resistance spent completely … achieving your desired and intended result … in a mutually satisfying way. In this moment separation … and the need to remain separate … dissipates … rapport emerges and a connection unfolds … waiting to be entered and engaged … brought to full fruition where rapport becomes not only possible, but fully manifest.

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