I recently finished reading “Introducing NLP: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People.” I first heard about Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) while reading “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists.”
I thought it sounded like an interesting subject, because I spend a good deal of my time dealing with people and trying to learn new things. If you’re interested in becoming a better communicator or finding out what your preferred way of learning is, this book will probably help!
Below are some of the key concepts I learned.
The Four Stages of Learning
This framework really helped me understand how skill development actually works:
- Unconscious Incompetence - You don’t know what you don’t know
- Conscious Incompetence - You realize you suck at something
- Conscious Competence - You can do it, but it takes effort and concentration
- Unconscious Competence - You can do it without thinking
I’ve definitely experienced this progression when learning new programming languages or frameworks. First you don’t even know the language exists, then you realize you need to learn it, then you’re constantly looking up syntax, and finally it becomes second nature.
Communication Beyond Words
One insight that really surprised me: Communication is so much more than the words we say. These form only a small part of our expressiveness as human beings.
Research shows that in a presentation before a group of people:
- 55% of the impact comes from body language (posture, gestures, eye contact)
- 38% from tone of voice
- Only 7% from the actual content
This completely changes how I think about giving presentations or even just talking to colleagues. The technical content might be perfect, but if my body language is closed off or my tone is flat, most of the message is lost.
Reading How People Think
Here’s something I never noticed before: We move our eyes in different directions in a systematic way depending on how we’re thinking. Neurological studies show that eye movement both laterally and vertically activates different parts of the brain.
Even more interesting - movements and gestures tell you how a person is thinking. Many people point to the sense organ they’re using internally:
- Point to their ears while listening to sounds in their head
- Point to their eyes if visualizing
- Point to their abdomen if feeling something strongly
The book emphasizes that these signs don’t tell you what a person is thinking about, only how they’re thinking it. It’s body language at a much more refined level than it’s normally interpreted.
Beliefs as Choices
One concept that really stuck with me: Beliefs can be a matter of choice. You can drop beliefs that limit you and build beliefs that will make your life more fun and successful.
Positive beliefs allow you to find out what could be true and how capable you are. They’re permissions to explore and play in the world of possibility.
This applies directly to programming - how many times have you thought “I’m not good at algorithms” or “I’ll never understand databases”? Maybe those are just limiting beliefs we can choose to drop.
Towards vs. Away Motivation
The book describes two fundamental motivation patterns:
Towards people are energized by goals and rewards. They talk about what they want to achieve or gain.
Away people are motivated to avoid problems and punishment. They focus on situations to avoid and problems to steer clear of.
Neither is better in general - it depends on the situation:
- Towards people are excellent for goal-getting and driving projects forward
- Away people are great at finding errors and work well in quality control
Art critics usually have a strong “away” orientation, as many performing artists can testify!
Learning How to Learn
This quote really resonated with me:
“A good teacher will be able to create an environment, so her students learn for themselves how to get the results. Learning to learn is the most important skill in education, and needs to be taught from reception class onwards.”
The book argues that our educational system concentrates mostly on what is taught (the curriculum) and omits the learning process itself. This has two consequences:
- Many students have difficulty picking up the information
- Even if they do learn it, it has little meaning because it’s been taken out of context
As someone who’s constantly learning new technologies, this really hits home. The most valuable skill isn’t memorizing syntax or frameworks - it’s developing effective strategies for learning new things quickly.
Key Takeaway
One principle that appears throughout the book: If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve got. If what you are doing is not working, do something else.
Simple advice, but surprisingly hard to follow. How often do we keep using the same approaches even when they’re not working?
NLP offers some practical tools for reading situations and people more effectively, and for being more intentional about how we communicate and learn. Worth checking out if you’re interested in these topics.