Unlimited Power: The New Science Of Personal Achievement

by Anthony Robbins

For ...

1. Tingling 2. Hot—Cold 3. Muscle tension 4. Sharp—Dull 5. Pressure 6. Duration 7. Intermittent (such as t...

By using submodality distinctions like association versus disassociation, you can radically change your experience of life.

I want you to think of a very pleasant memory. It can be recent or distant. Just close your eyes, relax, and think of it. Now take that image and make it brighter and brighter. As the image brightens, be aware of how your state changes.

Next I want you to bring your mental picture closer to you. Now stop and make it bigger. What happens when you manipulate the image?

All people have access to the three modalities or representational systems—visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. But people rely to different degrees on different representational systems. Many people access their brain primarily in a visual framework. They react to the pictures they see in their head. Others are primarily auditory. Others kinesthetic.

Bring back the pleasant memory we’ve worked with so far. Raise the volume of the voices or sounds you hear. Give them more rhythm, more bass, a change in timbre. Make them stronger and more affirmative. Now do the same with the kinesthetic submodalities. Make the memory warmer and softer and smoother than it was before. What happens to your feelings about the experience now?

I want you to do these exercises in a focused, intense way, being careful to note which modalities and submodalities have the most power for you.

Here’s a simple exercise that helps many people. Have you ever been plagued by an insistent internal dialogue? Have you ever been in a position where your brain wouldn’t shut up? Lots of times our brain runs dialogues over and over again. We debate points with ourselves or try to win old arguments or settle old scores. If that happens to you, just turn down the volume. Make the voice in your head softer, farther away, and weaker.

This time think of something in your experience that you were totally motivated to do. Relax and form as clear a mental picture of that experience as possible. Now I’m going to ask you some questions about it. Pause and answer each question one by one. There are no right or wrong answers.

As you look at the image, do you see a movie or a snapshot? Is it in color or black and white? Is it close or far away? Is it to the left, to the right, or in the center? Is it high, low, or in the middle of your field of vision? Is it associated—do you see it through your own eyes—or is it disassociated—do you see it like an outsider viewing it? Does it have a frame around it, or do you see a panorama that goes on forever? Is it bright or dim, dark or light? Is it focused or unfocused? As you do this exercise, be sure to note which submodalities are the strongest for you, which ones have the most power when you focus on them.

Now run through your auditory and kinesthetic submodalities. When you hear what’s going on, do you hear your own voice, or do you hear the voices of others in the scene? Do you hear a dialogue or a monologue? Are the sounds you hear loud or quiet? Do they have varied inflections, or are they a monotone? Are they rhythmic or staccato? Is the tempo slow or rapid? Do the sounds come and go, or do they keep up a steady commentary? What’s the main thing you’re hearing or saying to yourself? Where is the sound located—where is it coming from? When you feel it, is it hard or soft? Is it warm or cool? Is i...

For example, people will come to me for counseling and say, “I’m so depressed.” I don’t ask, “Why are you depressed?” and then ask them to represent to themselves and me why they are. That would just put them into a depressed state. I don’t want to know why they’re depressed; I want to know bow they’re depressed. I’ll ask instead, “How do you do that?”

Some of you may be thinking, These submodality changes are great, but what’s going to keep them from changing back?

The way to do this is through a process we call the swish pattern.

A swish pattern takes internal representations that normally produce states of unresourcefulness and causes them to automatically trigger new internal representations that put you in the resourceful states you desire.

Here’s how the swish pattern works.

Step #1: Identify the behavior you want to change. Now make an internal representation of that behavior as you see it through your own eyes.

Step #2: Once you have a clear picture of the behavior you want to change, you need to create a different representation, a picture of yourself as you would be if you made the desired change and what that change would mean to you.

Step #3: “Swish” the two pictures so that the unresourceful experience automatically triggers the resourceful experience. Once you hook up this triggering

Here’s how to do the swish: Start by making a big bright picture of the behavior you want to change. Then, in the bottom right-hand corner of that picture, make a small dark picture of the way you want to be. Now take that small picture, and in less than one second, have it grow in size and brightness and literally burst through the picture of the behavior you no longer desire. As you do this process, say the word “wooosh” with all the excitement and enthusiasm you can.

The key to this pattern is speed and repetition. You must see and feel that small dark picture become huge and bright and explode through the big picture, destroying it and replacing it with an even bigger, brighter picture of how you want things to be.

No one is always depressed. Depression isn’t a permanent condition like losing a leg. It’s a state that people can pop into and out of. In fact, most people who are experiencing depression have had many happy experiences in their lives—maybe even as many or more than the average person. They just don’t represent these experiences to themselves in a bright, large, associated way. They may also represent happy times as far away instead of close.

The meaning of the experience is determined by the order of the signals provided to the brain. The same stimuli are involved, the same words, yet the meaning is different. This is critical to understand if we are to effectively model the results of successful people. The order in which things are presented causes them to register in the brain in a specific way.

We’ll use the word “strategy” to describe all these factors—the kinds of internal representations, the necessary submodalities, and the required syntax—that work together to create a particular result.

What are the building blocks of syntax? Our senses. We deal with sensory input on two levels—internal and external. Syntax is the way we put together the blocks of what we experience externally and what we represent to ourselves internally.

In order to create a recipe, we must have a system to describe what to do and when. So we have a notation system to describe strategies. We represent sensory processes in a shorthand notation, using V for visual, A for auditory, K for kinesthetic, i for internal, e for external, t for tonal, and d for digital. When you see something in the outside world (visual external), it can be represented as Ve. When you have a feeling inside, it’s Ki.

Consider the strategy of someone who gets motivated by seeing something (Ve), then saying something to herself (Aid) that creates the driving feeling (Ki) inside. This strategy would be represented in the following way: Ve-Aid-Ki.

The key to eliciting strategies is knowing that people will tell you everything you need to know about their strategies. They’ll tell you in words. They’ll tell you in the way they use their body. They’ll even tell you in the way they use their eyes.

People who are primarily visual tend to see the world in pictures; they achieve their greatest sense of power by tapping into the visual part of their brain. Because they’re trying to keep up with the pictures in their brain, visual people tend to speak quickly. They don’t care exactly how they get it out; they’re just trying to put words to the pictures. These people tend to speak in visual metaphors. They talk about how things look to them, what patterns they see emerging, whether things look bright or dark.

People who are more auditory tend to be more selective about the words they use. They have more resonant voices, and their speech is slower, more rhythmic, and more measured. Since words mean a lot to them, they are careful about what they say.

People who are more kinesthetic tend to be even slower. They react primarily to feelings. Their voices tend to be deep, and their words often ooze out slowly like molasses. Kinesthetic people use metaphors from the physical world.

Everyone has elements of all three modes, but most people have one system that dominates. When you’re learning about people’s strategies to understand how they make decisions, you also need to know their main representational system so you can present your message in a way that gets through. If you’re dealing with a visually oriented person, you don’t want to amble up slowly, take a deep breath, and speak at a snaillike pace. You’ll drive him crazy. You’ve got to speak up so your message matches the way his mind works.

Carry on a conversation with someone and observe his/her eye movements. Ask questions requiring him or her to remember images or sounds or feelings. Which way do her eyes go for each of the questions? Verify to yourself that the chart works.

Here are a few types of questions you could ask to get specific kinds of responses.

As people represent information internally, they move their eyes, even though that movement may be slight. With a normally organized right-handed person the following holds true, and the resultant sequences are systematic.

TO GET

YOU MIGHT ASK

Visual Remembered...

“How many windows are there in your house?” “What is the first thing you see when you wake up in the morning?” “What did your boyfriend or girlfriend look like when you were sixteen?” “Which is the darkest room in your house?” “Which of your friends has the shortest hair?” “What was the color of your first bicycle?” “What was the smallest animal you saw on your last trip to the zoo?” “W...

Visual Cons...

“How would you look if you had three eyes?” “Imagine a policeman with a lion’s head and a rabbit’s tail, with the wings of an eagle.” “Imagine the skyline of your city going up in wisps ...

Auditory Rem...

“What was the first thing you said today?” “What was the first thing someone said to you today?” “Name one of your favorite songs from when you were younger.” “What sounds of nature do you like best?” “What’s the seventh word in the Pledge of Allegiance?” “What’s the ninth word in the song ’Mary Had a Little Lamb’?” “Sing to yourself The Rose.’” “Listen in your mind to a small waterfall on a quiet summer day.” “Listen in your mind to your favorite song.” “Which door in your house slams the loudest?” “Which is softest, the slam of your car door or the slam of your trunk lid?” “Who of your acquaintances has the pleasantest voice?” Auditory Constructed “If you could ask any question of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Ken...

Auditory Internal...

“Repeat this question to yourself on the inside: ’What’s most important t...

Kinestheti...

“Imagine the feeling of ice melting in your hand.” “How did you feel this morning just after you got out of bed?” “Imagine the feeling of a block of wood changing to silk.” “How cold was the ocean last time you tested it?” “Which carpet in your house is the softest?” “Imagine settling down to a nice hot bath.” “Think of what it would f...

Other aspects of people’s physiologies give us clues about their modes. When people are breathing high in their chest, they’re thinking visually. When breathing is even, from the diaphragm or the whole chest, they’re in an auditory mode. Deep breathing low in the stomach indicates kinesthetic accessing.

The voice is equally expressive. Visual people speak in quick bursts and usually have high-pitched, nasal, or strained tonalities. Low, deep tonality and slow speech are usually kinesthetic. An even rhythm and clear, resonant tonality indicate auditory accessing.