The Story Of Rule #6 - How To Break A Pattern Of Behaviour

Hi everybody,

It's Jackie here with another chocolate chunk of NLP,

A nice small yummy piece of very usable NLP insight.

So thank you for joining me for this talk.

Now actually what I'm going to share doesn't come directly from the NLP canon as it were.

It does however demonstrate how NLP can be used in a conversational way through our language,

Which is a very powerful tool.

If you want a taste of how powerful our language can be in influencing our behaviour,

Then I encourage you to listen to my track called The Power of Do.

What I'm going to share is a story about how to change an unwanted behaviour.

Before I do that,

It will be useful to know how the unconscious mind works and specifically how it's a keeper of our behaviour patterns.

One of the things we learn from NLP is how we're all programmed in our responses to external events and how we respond automatically to various triggers,

Various situations and how our memories work with that.

Those programs and patterns are held by the unconscious mind.

It is one of its many jobs and in fact if we didn't have those embedded patterns and behaviours,

The conscious mind would be overwhelmed trying to work out what to do in every situation.

And the unconscious mind has learned those patterns over time as we ourselves have learned to do those things.

Everything from walking to the most complex things that we do,

Over time they become a pattern and our unconscious mind takes over the running of that so that we don't have to think about it.

If we didn't have those embedding patterns and behaviours,

The conscious mind would be overwhelmed just trying to work out what to do in every situation.

So imagine having to work out how to do something very simple like brush your teeth every day.

The patterns of brushing your teeth makes it quick and easy for our unconscious mind to provide the already embedded response to that trigger that you need to brush your teeth.

In the pattern it knows how you hold your brush,

How long you brush for,

How you move the brush around your mouth.

All of these things it has learned and put down into the pattern so that you don't have to think about it very much whilst you're brushing your teeth.

And that's because it already has that program.

It's already been taught how to do that.

Just to prove this,

When you brush your teeth next,

Just try using the other hand.

What you will absolutely notice is that you'll have to pay close attention to the process because the unconscious mind doesn't already hold a pattern for doing it with the other hand.

Now sometimes the way that we automatically behave or respond is very useful.

In fact,

Most of the times it's very useful,

But sometimes it's not so useful.

And it's not,

You know,

A great way to be reacting or behaving at that time.

We've all come across those situations where we wish we could behave differently,

Where we've got this automatic way of dealing with that particular situation,

That stimulus,

That input.

What I'm going to talk about today is an NLP concept,

Which is a pattern interrupt.

It's a technique that's used in NLP to stop and change a particular way of behaving.

And a pattern interrupt is what I'm going to talk about today.

It comes in the way of a story.

Now I came across this story many years ago.

I was a team leader in a contact centre and I managed a sales team of mortgage advisors.

And the contact centre manager was a guy called Lindsay Tasker,

A really amazing guy,

A really,

Really good leader,

Such a great manager of people.

And one day I came back to my desk to find that Lindsay had left a book for me.

It wasn't unusual for him to stop by your desk,

Grab a chair,

Have a chat,

Coffee in hand.

Sometimes he'd leave you something that just got you thinking,

Or sometimes the conversation that he had with him just left you wanting to think more about a particular situation.

Now,

On this one occasion,

He left a book on my desk and it's called The Art of Possibility and it's written by a couple called Ben and Ros Zander,

That's Z A N D E R.

It's a really interesting book.

Now,

If I remember rightly,

Ben was the director of learning for the Boston Junior Philharmonic Orchestra.

It's a bit of a mouthful.

So he teaches young musicians who have been chosen to join the orchestra and inspires them to be the best they can be.

The stories that are in that book around how he does that are really quite inspiring.

And his wife is a therapist and she works with people in a very similar way,

Inspiring them to be the best that they can be.

So the book is basically telling you about how they interact with the people they work with,

What they teach and how they support them to be the best versions of themselves.

So one of the chapters in this book is devoted to this story that I'm going to tell you and it's called Rule Number Six and this is the story.

So there are two prime ministers.

There's a hosting prime minister and a visiting prime minister and they're discussing affairs of state.

They've been talking for a while when on this particular morning suddenly someone comes bursting through the door,

Arms flailing,

Gesticulating,

Shouting,

I'm not going to put up with this anymore prime minister.

This is a terrible state of affairs and they're getting themselves into a bit of a state.

Prime minister turns to them and says,

Remember rule number six?

And the person quiets down and becomes calm,

Says thank you prime minister and leaves.

And the prime ministers carry on talking and a little while later again the door flings open,

Someone comes rushing in shouting,

I'm not going to put up with this anymore prime minister.

We shouldn't be working like this.

It's a terrible state of affairs etc.

And the prime minister says,

Remember rule number six?

They immediately calm down,

Say thank you and leave the room.

And as the morning goes on this happens again.

Now the visiting prime minister can't keep his curiosity in any longer.

He says,

Please,

Please tell me.

I've never seen anything like this before.

Tell me what is rule number six?

So the prime minister says,

Well rule number six is don't take yourself so goddamn seriously.

The visiting prime minister says,

Hmm that's a very interesting rule indeed.

So tell me what are the other rules?

And the reply is,

There aren't any.

And that's the story.

It's a great example of an embedded pattern interrupt.

The behaviour that was not useful was changed to a more useful state with a simple and gentle instruction.

An instruction that held a message that was universally understood.

Now I've shared that story so many times I've lost count.

I love sharing it because it's a simple story with a powerful message.

And my first share was with my colleagues at the contact centre and every now and again when things got a bit tense I would hear,

Remember rule number six?

And everything would calm down.

Another really amazing little chocolate chunk of how sharing a story maybe with the people that you work with or the people that you live with about rule number six can actually be a really good humorous way of interrupting a pattern and bringing people into a more useful state.

So that's my share today.

Why not come back tomorrow and listen to another track or even check out my courses which are full of chocolate chunks of NLP wisdom.

So until the next time,

Thanks for listening and all love.