Complex Meta Programs Introduction and Metaphors I would like to tell you a story about Milton Erickson, that

was told by Charles Faulkner. Now, Charles Faulkner was part of an independent research team. At that time, the research team was dedicated to exploring the relationship between language and beliefs. Their research was based on "transformational grammar," a concept that was originally formulated by Noam Chomsky. And, Noam Chomsky went on to write a book called "Transformational Grammar" in 1957. The research team's findings suggested that human beings are capable of creating tangible life changes by simply restructuring their beliefs. Anyway, Charles Faulkner goes on to tell the story about when Milton Erickson was a teenager growing up on a farm in Lowell, Wisconsin. So, it was on a hot, dusty, summer day, and Milton was walking along on one of the dirt roads near his farm. He was just walking along when he came upon a horse that was loose and standing next to the dirt road. He slowly approached the horse until he was able to get close enough to where he could talk to the horse. And he spoke to the horse in a soft, gentle voice. Now Milton was a good persuader, even back then, so, he was able to persuade the horse in to letting him ride on his back. Now, the horse didn't have a saddle or bridle or anything to hold on to; so, Milton climbed on the horse's back and they began to ride. So, he let the horse decide on which direction he wanted to go.
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Soon, Milton and his new found horse friend came upon a fork in the road. So he stopped for a minute or so, just to let the horse gather his senses and bearings. The horse seemed to want to go one way, but Milton nudged him to go the other way, and the horse took off with Milton still on his back. Soon, they came upon another fork, and once again the horse stopped and started to go one way, but Milton nudged him the other way. _______________________________ My Dogs I'm sure you all have heard stories about when animals have been separated from their protectors and managed to travel, sometimes miles and miles to find their way home. Well, my story is a little different. It was several years ago, when my wife and I, along with our kids were moving from a condo to a townhouse, that was about 2 miles away. We had just looked at the townhouse and signed the papers on the same day. Later that day, we rented a u-haul truck and started packing. In doing so, we had left the front door open so we could load the u-haul truck. I didn't pay much attention to our 2 Labradors because they were very well trained and usually stayed in the house until we took them out for bathroom breaks. Anyway, it was a couple of hours later before we noticed our dogs were not in sight, so we did a sweep of the condo, and sure enough, they were gone. We looked around on the grounds but couldn't find them. Both animals had identification implants so if they did get lost and they went to a pound or vet, they could be identified then we would probably be called. So, frantically, we drove around our subdivision while calling their
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names. This went on for about 2 hours. By that time we had called animal control to see if they had been picked up, but they had nothing for us. We also called the pounds, animal hospitals, etc. Anyway, we were beginning to get really worried. While we were standing there with all these thoughts running around in our heads, my phone rang. _______________________________ The Fisherman and the Businessman There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village. As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish. The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, How long does it take you to catch so many fish? The fisherman replied, Oh, just a short while. Then why dont you stay longer at sea and catch even more? The businessman was astonished. This is enough to feed my whole family, the fisherman said. The businessman then asked, So, what do you do for the rest of the day? The fisherman replied, Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night. The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman. I have a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible.
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When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches. The fisherman continues, And after that? The businessman laughs heartily, After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich. The fisherman asks, And after that? _______________________________ How Much do You Make an Hour? With a timid voice and idolizing eyes, the little boy greeted his father as he returned from work, Daddy, how much do you make an hour?" Greatly surprised, but giving his boy a glaring look, the father said: Look, son, not even your mother knows that. Dont bother me now, Im tired." But Daddy, just tell me please!? How much do you make an hour," the boy insisted. The father finally giving up replied: Twenty dollars per hour." Okay, Daddy? Could you loan me ten dollars?" the boy asked. Showing restlessness and positively disturbed, the father yelled: So that was the reason you asked how much I earn, right?? Go to sleep and dont bother me anymore!" It was already dark and the father was meditating on what he had said and was feeling guilty. Maybe he thought, his son wanted to buy something. Finally, trying to ease his mind, the father went to his sons room. _______________________________
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 Why are meta-programs so important? How many of you have ever wondered how certain people get

motivated, process information or make decisions? Would any of you like to know how to understand, predict and influence other peoples' behavior? How many of you would like to know exactly the right questions to ask at the right time? And, who would like to know where to look for your answers in the responses you get? How many of you would like to be able to negotiate a deal where all people involved get exactly what they wanted? Wouldn't it be nice when sometime in the future, you have a situation where you can use this tool, and all you need to do is simply reach into your tool bag and pull out exactly the right tool you need at that moment, won't that be wonderful?

WHAT? So, the reason we're all here today is to learn about Complex Meta Programs. What are Meta Programs, anyway? Meta Programs are mental processes which manage, guide and direct other mental processes. Meta Programs influence the way we think and act and have been described as powerful determinants of our personality and unconscious filters that determine in what ways we perceive our world. You could compare them to a switchboard that controls which two telephones will be connected to each other for the process of having a conversation, or a thermostat which controls whether your air conditioning system is turned on or off. These are both metaphors for one system that controls another system. These unconscious filters affect the way we communicate and process information, and have a huge influence on the way we think and behave.
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If you remember from our Communication Model, we receive about 11 million bits of information every second, but from all of this information, we can only consciously process 126 bits of this information every second. That's a huge amount of data at any one given time, and we're talking about every second. In computer jargon, it's much like a data dump where the computer dumps all the information that it has open at any one given time into a temporary file and stores it on the hard drive, which in a way, acts like the unconscious mind. We sift through or filter all of this data in one or a combination of 3 ways. The first of these is "deletion". The original developers of Neuro Linguistic Programming, Richard Bandler and John Grinder describe deletion as, "as a process by which we selectively pay attention to certain dimensions of our experience and exclude others. To give you an example of this, just think about the ability people have to filter out or exclude all other sounds in a room full of people talking, in order to listen to one particular conversation... In other words, tuning out everything else. Deletion reduces the world to proportions which we feel capable of handling." Since there is no way to handle all of this massive amount of information every second, we need a way to filter this information, or we would just go into overload, and deletion is one way of handling this information. The second filter is distortion which is a little trickier, to define. Bandler and Grinder describe "Distortion as the process which allows us to make shifts in our experience of sensory data. Fantasy, for example, allows us to prepare for experiences which we may have before they occur... It is the process which has made possible all the artistic creations which we as humans have produced..." If you look at all the great novels and all the revolutionary discoveries of the sciences involve the ability to distort and misrepresent present reality. Distortion is different in the eye of the beholder. While the process of deletion concerns selection, the process of distortion concerns accuracy.
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And one person's accuracy is another person's distortion. Everybody distorts information, and different people distort in different ways. To give you an example, have you ever been to a party with a friend, and after the party ask your friend about certain events or people, and chances are, that they remembered these events or people different from you. And now we come to our third filter, called generalization. "Generalization is the process by which elements or pieces of a person's model become detached from their original experience and come to represent the entire category of which the experience is an example. Our ability to generalize is essential to coping with the world... In other word, this is where we filter by categorizing the bulk of the data. If someone experiences something one or more times, then they process and store this data with a conclusion of some sort. An example here is, let's say for instance you see someone walking next to a busy freeway, what's the first thing that comes to mind. Looks like their car broke down right, but maybe they are walking to work, or maybe they are walking from..... and you fill in the blanks. Do you see the possibilities? Another generalization may be you see a slow driver, and you say that must be an old man or lady. Listen to this one, a woman gets verbally abused by a man. So now she says, "All men are jerks!" The interesting thing here is, that she may choose to avoid the same experience at all costs - if it may cause any kind pain in the future or isn't pleasing to her. Earlier I said that we filter all the information that continually bombards us, and we do this through a number of filters, and one of which is Meta Programs. Now, Meta Programs do NOT have content, while the rest like Values and Beliefs do. Its important to bear in mind that there are no right or wrong, or good or bad Meta Programs. They simply show that people think in different ways.
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Understanding your own Meta Programs is also useful as this helps you operate more effectively. Of the 19 Meta Programs, we will only talk about 5 today, and we'll cover the rest later at a later time. This is how we would elicit the following Meta Programs. We will look at these from an employer's standpoint. The idea is to develop questions based on your particular needs or the needs of your company, etc. And when you're creating these questions, keep in mind that few people are at one end or the other of these filters. So, this is how you ask the questions? The first is the DIRECTION FILTER What do you want in a job? Whats important to you about this job? Do you know what you need to do to be successful at your job? Whats important about what you do? A) Toward B) Toward with a little Away from C) Both Toward and Away from equally D) Away from with a little Toward E) Away from Here, we are looking for is to see what motivates them. Are they moving towards a goal or are they doing something so "X" doesn't happen. Let me tell you how you can use this, If you ask a potential employee , Whats important to you about this job? and their answer is "I'm looking for job security", You will know they are motivated by money. Now, if they said "Job Satisfaction or working in a team environment was important to them, then that would be
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towards motivated. In other words, are they motivated by the carrot or the stick. Listen to what they are say. There is something else I wanted to mention. Pay close attention to their body language when they give their answer. Oftentimes, they will move their body in the same direction as their toward or away from answer. Then, if you see that their answer is incongruent with their body, you may ask them another question to confirm the answer for yourself.

2. REASON FILTER Why do you choose to do your present job? Why do you choose to do what youre doing? A) Possibility B) Necessity C) Both This motivation reason filter can show whether someone chooses from necessity or possibility. If they are choosing based on necessity, it can seem as though they do not have a choice. It is part of how we motivate ourselves. This is a strong motivational filter and will indicate if the person is motivated by possibilities in life or by obligations. It will also give you a good idea of whether a person acts as if they have a choice in life. Let me tell you how you could you use this filter? You would carefully listen to what the person says and particularly to the modal operators they use. A Modal operator is a verb that modifies another verb, so it is always followed by another verb. They are also called adverbs. Now, listen and try these next 4 sentences on, and notice the feelings you get every time the Modal operator changes. "I want to work for XYZ Company." "I have to work for XYZ Company."
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"I choose to work for XYZ Company. " "I need to work for this XYZ Company." 3. FRAME OF REFERENCE FILTER How do you know when youre doing a good job? Does the person check inside to see how it sounds or feels to him? Or does he reference externally. A) Internal B) External C) Balanced D) Internal with External Check E) External with Internal Check Internal: Others cant convince you of anything. Only you will know for sure. External: Do you consider what others think in this job... Internal With External Check: As you check inside you will know that the evidence indicates that you're doing a good job... External With Internal Check: "As you check externally and bring it in to see what it looks, sounds or feels like.

4. CONVINCER REPRESENTATIONAL FILTER How do you know when someone else is good at what they do? A) See B) Hear C) Read D) Do This is the way the person has to have the information represented in order to be convinced: Do they have to see it, hear it or experience it for themselves? Think about this for a moment - suppose you have a employee. (pause) In what way are you going to know if they will be a good worker - will you need to be convinced to see if they're going to be good in the job? If
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you have to see it to be convinced that the person is going to be a good employee, then chances are you will also have to see it to be convinced of anything else. Or maybe, if someone tells you the person has been doing a good job, or maybe if you read about heir accomplishments at the job. 5. CONVINCER DEMONSTRATION FILTER How often does someone have to demonstrate competence to you before youre convinced? Here we look at Time as a convincer. Will it be? A) Automatic B) Number of Times (e.g. 2 or 3 times) C) Period of Time (e.g. 2 weeks) D) Consistent (e.g. all the time) Our convincer filter is about what we become convinced about after we have gathered information in our convincer channel. We develop this through our experiences of trust. We may never believe anyone, or maybe we are prepared to give someone the benefit of the doubt. It is part of our overall convincer strategy. For most people, it takes more than one convincing piece of information to be confident that something is true. We might need a several examples. We might need to do things with a someone several times before we can extend that trust in their abilities. Or, it might take 1 week, or maybe 2, etc. _______________________________________ Lets now see how these work. In the end, the responses will give you a fairly good picture of the person. Obviously, one has to test the assumptions made about the person. Demo Goes here.

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Exercise: Now that you have learned about these five Meta Programs, we are going to do an exercise. Please take no more than 15 minutes to prepare at least 2 questions for each of the Meta Programs at your tables, and then pair up with another person from another table that you have not spoken to since the beginning of this training. That will give you a chance to learn about someone new. Each of you will take up to 5 minutes to ask the other person the questions you prepared, and then take 5 minutes for a quick break. That gives us 30 minutes for this exercise15 minutes to prepare the questions, and 10 minutes to carry on the conversation, and another 5 minutes for a quick break. Go ahead and begin your exercise. Exercise Goes here. Welcome back! What did you learn? What do I need to know? What questions do you have? WHAT IF? _______________________________ So, the father went into his son's room and asked, Are you asleep son?" asked the father. No, Daddy. Why?" replied the boy partially asleep. Heres the money you asked for earlier," the father said. Thanks, Daddy!" rejoiced the son, while putting his hand under his pillow and removing some money. Now I have enough! Now I have twenty dollars!" the boy said to his father, who was gazing at his son, confused at what his son just said. Daddy could you sell me one hour of your time?" _______________________________
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So, the businessman says, After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night! The fisherman was puzzled, Isnt that what I am doing now? _______________________________ As I was standing there, wondering what am I going to do about my Labradors, I received a telephone phone call. Now, luckily, both of our Labradors had their names and my cell phone number engraved on their collars. Anyway, the caller told me that both dogs were in his front yard and could I please come get them. He gave me the address, and I said to him, "Isn't that in such and such complex", and he answered "yes". So, I told him, I will be there in about 3 minutes. So, I drove 2 miles to a townhouse 2 doors down from our new home. I could not believe it; our dogs knew where we were moving. They were not going to let us move without them. It was like they had packed their bags and were going to move there first. _______________________________ Anyway, Milton and his horse must have riding for miles, and they finally, they came upon a farm, and the horse rode up to a fence about 30 feet from where a farmer was standing. The farmer said, "Hey, young man, that's my horse!" And, Milton said, "Yes, I know". The farmer asked him how he knew to bring him home? And Milton said, I didn't, the horse knew.

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