The Basics of Reality and Rapport
November 4th, 2008 by AndyIn my last article, A Look in the Mirror – Evaluating Your Own Confidence, I discussed a technique that you can use to not only evaluate your confidence, but also begin to learn to observe non-verbal communication. One reader asked in a comment if the someone who is being “unreasonable or hostile” might be reflecting her non-verbal communication. Personally, I don’t think that “reflecting” is the right word. It is more likely that they are “reacting to” her non-verbal communication.
Before I even begin to explain how our verbal and non-verbal actions affect others, I have to introduce you to reality. You must understand that each of us lives in our own reality which is created around the things we have learned and have observed. No two peoples realities are identical because no two people could possibly have seen, heard, read, and learned the exact same things.
Another very important thing to understand is that our actions and reactions are based completely out of our reality. In other words we will respond in the way we have learned to respond to something. In NLP the things that cause our responses are referred to as triggers. When we hear a word, it is attached to some representation within our mind. So the word is a trigger to retrieve its meaning within our reality.
If you look at two separate cultures, it is much easier to see how our realities differ. For instance one culture may eat bugs while another finds the idea repulsive. It may be the case that eating the bugs is perfectly healthy, yet for some reason or another, the other culture developed a belief that it is repulsive. From generation to generation, this belief is taught the offspring.
In a less obvious example, one person might interpret a smile as being a very positive gesture while another, even though she knows the gesture is meant to be positive, might have a negative reaction to it. This negative reaction is because somehow a smile became a trigger for negative feelings. Perhaps the smile stirs up a reminder of a previous bad experience where someone had a smile on their face.
Both of these concepts are extremely important to understand because without them we can’t even begin to understand how to gain good rapport with people. If we understand these concepts we can begin to observe peoples reactions to things, and adjust our own actions to get the reactions we would like to see.
So the answer to her question more completely, those reactions are not a reflection of her non-verbal communications. They are instead a glimpse at the reality of the other person triggered by her non-verbal communication.
If this is the case, you may wonder why having very confident non-verbal communication is so important. To answer that, look back the at example I gave above about two separate cultures. Culture creates the basis for our reality, and in most, if not all cultures around the world, confidence is considered a positive attribute. In addition, our signs of nervousness are similar – sweaty hands, fast breathing, shakiness, etc… So it makes sense that being confident and radiating confidence through both our verbal and non-verbal communication will make it easier to build rapport with people. At the same time it is possible that some people will have associated certain aspects of our confident actions with negative representations, so it is also important that we be able to recognize this and adapt.
I think I’ve done about the best I can to explain this. This is just a very topical explaination however, so if you really want to understand how all of this works, I recommend reading the works of John Grinder and Richard Bandler. I believe that “Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D.” volumes I and II and “Frogs into Princes” do a very good job of explaining these concepts.
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