Figuring Out People: Reading People using Meta-Programs: Second Edition - Softcover

Hall, L Michael

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9781899836109: Figuring Out People: Reading People using Meta-Programs: Second Edition

Synopsis

This book contains all you ever wanted to know about Meta-programs, the tools by which we can evaluate how people function! First it provides an in-depth explanation of the Meta-programming technique, and then furnishes fifty-one examples of Meta-programs. It thus provides clear insight into our own behavior as well as that of other people, challenging us to understand how people operate and how to change our behaviour accordingly in order to communicate with them successfully. An essential addition to any NLP library.

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About the Author

Bob Bodenhamer and Michael Hall are two of the brightest and most enthusiastic authors on the NLP scene today. Renowned for their integrity, their compassion and their dedication to applying and expanding NLP into areas where it has not travelled previously, both have already made major contributions to the expansion of this intriguing field.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

In this work, you will discover that we have moved far beyond all the models and instruments that try to figure people out by classifying them according to types and temperaments. Since the early Greeks with their model of the "four basic temperaments" (they called them "humours"), hundreds of models of personality typing have arisen. The authors base these types upon the assumption that people walk around with permanent traits inside them and that explains "why he is the way he is." You will find none of that here. Instead of beginning with assumptions of permanent inherent traits, we have opted for another assumption. We have opted for an assumption that Richard Simon, editor of The Family Therapy Networker (March/April 1997) summarized by saying, "people are not nouns but processes." Here we have looked, not at what people "are" in some absolute, unchangeable trait way, but how people function.

How does this person think-and-emote?

How does this person talk, act, behave, and relate?

What processes and patterns describe this person's style for sorting (paying attention to information)?

What mental operational system does this person use in remembering?

What human software (ideas, beliefs) does this person use to think? By focusing our attention on how people actually function in terms of their cognitive processing (thinking), emoting (somatizing ideas into their bodies), speaking (languaging self and others),and behaving (responding, gesturing, relating, etc.) we discover not what they "are," but how they actually work in any given context or situation. The value of this focus? Recognizing how a person works enables us to figure out their model of the world (their mental paradigm) that describes their internal "reality." This increases understanding and enlightens us about "where the person comes from." It also increases our sense of empowerment. Why? Because in knowing how I work, or how someone else works, enables us to evaluate and match that working.

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