One of the critical components of calibration is the ability to read and interpret eye accessing cues. Literally, the ONLY skill more important than calibration is observation.

Eye accessing cues are just a model. The co-founders don’t intend to make them an absolute truth in any way.

With that said, they generally clue us in correctly in which representational system the other person is processing.

But let’s learn how to calibrate using eye accessing cues. The way to do this is to ask questions that elicit the use of specific representational systems.

So you could ask the person:

“Remind me, what was the color of the second house we looked at?”

Pay attention to the person’s eye movements.

If the person is right-handed, (s)he will normally look up and to the left to access this visual cue.

Attention! Often times, the person might first repeat and re-hear the question in their mind prior to accessing the answer. Should (s)he follow that process, (s)he will first display a different eye movement pattern. This does not discredit the eye accessing cue model. It simply means that you need to pay close attention to all the processes that person follows before reaching an aswer.

Use questions to effectively calibrate how the person accesses specific sensory information.

Remember, you MUST practice to become proficient. With that in mind, here are four drills you can use to train yourself to calibrate eye accessing cues.

Drill 1: Come up with 5 questions you can ask to calibrate eye accessing cues for each representational system.

Drill 2: Apply! Ask each question to at least 20 people over the upcoming week and calibrate their responses.

Drill 3: Observe people’s eye accessing cues in every day conversations.

Drill 4: Play around with eye accessing cues yourself. Try to visualize while looking down. Try talking to yourself while looking up. Try to elicit a feeling while looking sideways.

I'm resurfacing an old post from 2013. I think you'll find the dialogue beneficial.

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A few days ago, one of my readers - who we'll name Charles - emailed me, feeling a bit frustrated with the dismal return on his time and monetary investment in NLP. I asked him if I could post our exchange here for your benefit. Perhaps you've been feeling as he has. His messages will be indented and posted in blue.

Charles:

I have read a lot about NLP. I have also practiced many of the techniques from the books. I have had minimal, at best, results from what I have learned. To date, I have NLP to be a very complicated technology only usable by those few who spent a fortune to attend live training courses. NLP, to me, seems more like a secret group of followers who promote NLP in order to get others to spend vast sums of money in order to become part of this secret society of practitioners and masters. I spent $200.00, back in 1987, so I could quit smoking. I went to a local NLP practitioner. I went from a pack and a half per day to 3 packs a day before the year ended. In 1992, I attended a live hypnosis session at a local hotel meeting room. There were about 12 of us in attendance. I paid $35.00 USD to sit through a brief talk. Before entering, I threw out 18 packs of cigarettes. We were asked to close our eyes and relax while the host played us a prerecorded hypnosis session. I sweat and shook for 4 days, but I never smoked again.

I don't believe hypnosis or NLP had anything to do with me becoming a non-smoker. I think I had had enough and reinforced my efforts by throwing about $40.00 of cigarettes in the trash.

I must also admit that I am fascinated by the human mind and the hype or fantasy of NLP. I just cannot honestly say it is real or has worked for me.

I look forward to your email so I can observe your take on NLP. Thanks.

Here's my reply:

Hi Charles,

Thank you for your message. It's great to hear from you.

I'm really sorry your experience with NLP hasn't been a thrill. I completely agree with you that, so far, it's been made to be this panacea that requires massive investments in order to become proficient at it.

You wrote:

"NLP, to me, seems more like a secret group of followers who promote NLP in order to get others to spend vast sums of money in order to become part of this secret society of practitioners and masters."

You're dead on. It's exactly what it's become: cult-like. People get indoctrinated into this sect and become anointed as trainers.

The good news is that it has nothing to do with that. Once we're able to see past the money-making gimmicks, the field brings a lot to the table. While it's peddled as magic, in a way, it truly offers a concrete approach to bring the scientific method into our lives.

You wrote:

"I don't believe hypnosis or NLP had anything to do with me becoming a non-smoker."

Bingo! It really didn't. While Pracs, Master Pracs and Trainers would like you to believe that, it's not true. You were ready to change and pretty much any approach would have succeeded at the time.

NLP revolves around a simple idea: there's a structure to how great performers produce results and we can decipher it. It provides a code, like HTML or C++, that allows anyone who knows it to see how human perception is structured.

The whole therapy bit misled everyone because Bandler and Grinder modeled therapists as their initial project.

The good news is that the code is easy to learn, provided it's described simply.

There are also a few skills to develop. Skills such as observation, listening, calibrating, using your voice differently, etc. You'll become proficient at them by practicing in the real world, not in seminar rooms.

Charles:

Hi Martin,

Thank you so much for your kind response and for not misunderstanding what I wrote or taking it personally. I was expressing my frustration. Thank you for understanding.

I wonder if others might feel as I do. I also wonder how others have been able to get beyond the hype, expense, and frustration and are able to learn, practice and apply the "mysterious" technology. Personally, I am still looking for the best, yet, least expensive way to best learn and apply NLP.

PS - I found great value in your reply.

Guys, NLP is simple. There's no mystery to it. It's been, in my opinion, poorly described and taught so far. I want to make sure you get it. I want to make sure you're equipped with the basic knowledge you need to go out in the world, explore and confidently develop your skills.

By email or in the comments below, let me know the answer to any or all of these questions:

1. Where are you stuck?
2. What's unclear to you?
3. What do you find p0orly explained?
4. What's confusing to you?
5. What do you want to be able to do that you aren't?
6. What would you like to better understand?
7. What skills do you find hard to build?

Every expert in the world, especially teachers and public speakers, should have that tattooed on their forehead when they step up to give a speech.

Therapists tried to figure out what Milton Erickson was doing for years before Bandler and Grinder came along.

Milton lectured! Milton taught!

People heard it from the horse's mouth. But for some reason, they didn't get it.

That's the way it goes for most areas.

If you listen to someone talk ABOUT it, you'll seldom get it.

In fact, it may be downright misleading.

Magicians are aces at this. They talk and talk and talk and you can't even notice what they're doing.

Experts do the same thing. They mislead you without meaning to.

How do you get beyond that?

What you need to do is put the cook in the kitchen and watch him in action.

Then, you model the cook's actions.

Otherwise, the cook is going to pump you full of his stories and beliefs as to why he's able to produce results.

Want to become an outstanding therapist?

Watch a great therapist doing his schtick and model her.

Want to become a great cook?

Become a great cook's apprentice.

That's how you build expertise and competence.

So if you want to learn how to tie your shoelaces properly, watch how Terry Moore does it.

Disclaimer

Most people think of NLP in terms of "techniques."

First, for purists, NLP offers no technique. It offers a modeling methodology and code. Whatever patterns a practitioner distills from his or her modeling activities pertain to their native field — not to the field of NLP.

Second, most of the so-called NLP techniques are really protocols of change — sets of step-by-step instructions that a Practitioner can follow to assist another in creating change in his or her life.

As such, it's useful to distinguish the term "technique" from the term "protocol."

Third, some of these "NLP techniques" are really skills. Anchoring, calibration and analogue marking, just to mention a few examples, are competencies that a practitioner has to practice. They are not a technique that someone can simply follow and apply.

So, with this disclaimer out of the way...

1. Aligning Perceptual Positions
2. Analogue Marking
3. Anchoring
4. Belief Chaining
5. Calibration
6. Cause and Effect Distortions
7. Chaining States
8. Changing Personal History
9. Chunking Down
10. Chunking Up
11. Circle Of Excellence
12. Collapsing Anchors
13. Comparative Deletions
14. Complex Equivalence
15. Compulsion Blow-Out
16. Conflict Resolution
17. Conflicting Beliefs Integration
18. Congruence
19. Conscious And Subconscious
20. Conversational Hypnosis
21. Conversational Postulate
22. Core Transformation
23. Criteria Installation
24. Decision Destroyer
25. Deletions
26. Denominalization
27. Disjunction
28. Distortions
29. Double Binds
30. Downtime
31. Ecology Check
32. Elicitation Of Learning Strategies
33. Eliciting Subconscious Responses
34. Embedded Commands
35. Emotional Pain Management
36. Extended Quotes
37. Generalizations
38. Hierarchy Of Criteria
39. Hypnosis
40. Implied Causes
41. Inducing Amnesia
42. Interrupting Limiting Associations
43. Intonation
44. Kinesthetic Criteria
45. Lack of Referential Index
46. Linguistic Ambiguities
47. Linking Words
48. Logical Levels
49. Lost Performatives
50. Meta Model
51. Meta Programs
52. Meta Transformation
53. Meta-Model Challenging
54. Meta-Model Intentional Usage
55. Meta-Model Violations
56. Metaphors
57. Meta-Programs Identification
58. Meta-states
59. Milton Model
60. Mind Reading
61. Mirroring
62. Modal Operators
63. Modeling: Second Position
64. Modeling: States Of Excellence
65. Modeling: Third Position
66. Nested Loops
67. Nesting
68. New Behavior Generator
69. Nominalization
70. Non-Verbal Cues Recognition
71. Parts Conflict Integration
72. Parts Negotiation
73. Pattern Interrupt
74. Perceptual Positions
75. Phobia Cure
76. Phonological Ambiguities
77. Presuppositions
78. Punctuation Ambiguities
79. Quotes pattern
80. Rapport: How To Create And Sustain Rapport
81. Rapport: Pacing & Matching
82. Rapport: Pacing and Leading
83. Re-Imprinting
84. Resolving Internal Conflicts
85. Resourceful States
86. Scope Ambiguities
87. Selectional Restriction Violations
88. Self Anchoring
89. Sensory Acuity
90. Six Steps Reframing
91. Sleight Of Mouth: Content Reframing
92. Sleight Of Mouth: Context Reframing
93. Sleight Of Mouth: Outframing
94. Sliding anchors
95. State Induction
96. State Of Consciousness Awareness
97. Stimulating Representational Systems: Auditory
98. Stimulating Representational Systems: Kinesthetic
99. Stimulating Representational Systems: Visual
100. Subliminal Persuasion
101. Submodalities: Digital Vs. Analogue
102. Submodality Overlapping
103. Swish Pattern
104. Syntactic Ambiguities
105. Tag Questions
106. Transderivational Search
107. Universal Quantifiers
108. Using Rep Systems
109. Utilization
110. Values Hierarchy Identification
111. Visual Squash
112. Well Defined Outcomes