NLP and States for Presentations, Meeting Speeches, & Teaching

How can formal education, corporate, and business environments benefit from NLP?

Has it ever crossed your mind how…different things would be if formal education professionals paid attention to the states of their learners?

• Have you ever been asked at school how you were feeling before your class started?
• Have you ever been asked whether there was anything you needed to do / feel before your class started?
• Have you ever been asked what the best state for your learning was or would be?
• And even if you had been asked this question, would you know the answer to it?

If you would, great for you!  But you are in the minority.  Most people have no clue, because they’ve never been compelled to explore these areas.  Yet, our states of being can be used as a tool for producing excellence.

So how can we use them? One example are presentations.  Have you ever faced the hell of giving a presentation?  What state were you in at that time?  And when you finished, did you feel nervous?  Inadequate?  Incompetent?  Like someone is gonna come up to you and say it was boring?  Did you plan what states you’d like to take your audiences through?

This is it! You might not be aware of this, but folks like standup comedians, orators, and inspirational speakers [including politicians] use states to induce responsiveness of their audiences.   And while listening to them you will be going through sequences of states that are carefully designed.

So the next time you find yourself facing the challenge of putting together a presentation or a meeting / wedding speech, first consider what state you want to be in.  Then consider:

• I’ll have the listeners start here [here = in state x].  And we’ll gradually move to here [state y].  And we’ll finish at this point [state z], because this is the note I want them to leave the room on.

So in planning the speech, resort to this:

• What state do you want people to be in when you begin?
• What will be the sequence of states you will take them through?
• What state do you want them to finish in?
• And how will that be useful to them thereafter?

Equally, if you’re an educational professional, be it in a one-to-one tuition, in a kindergarten, at a university, or teaching anyone else,  nothing’s stopping you from making this approach part of your life.  And you’ll see how much success it’ll bring you and those around you!