I do want to step in on this one. First of all, who cares what perceived Meta Program is being processed? A towards away, an away towards, or an away from the middle of towards that has no end but the beginning?. These things are not things at all, but ways of thinking. And, with thinking being a word that describes a process, or many processes----WAIT!

Let me go at it this way. If you can establish a genuine, honest, rapport, then it simply doesn't matter what the person was using as a motivation strategy. These things are not written in stone. Besides, people don't just have one way of thinking. Everyone uses an away, a towards, and many variations of these processes depending on context. And, rapport, at the appropriate logical level does away with the need for context based rapport. It sounds too damned mechanical when you say this person HAS an away, like it was the color of her eyes! Are we talking about #$%ing machines here, or human beings? .....Which brings me to this.

NLP needs to be derailed from the ridiculous, totally limited, singular patterned based way of thinking. Bringing it back to, or even forward into the idea that communication needs to be fluid to be effective. Learning NLP is not about not being able to open up to the notion that many people have gone astray in their zealous need to pace the limited thinking that has come out of organized conventional educational institutions when SELLING NLP.

I have said it before, and I will say it again right here and now. All of these things, Meta Programs, eye accessing cues, phobia cures, swish patterns, and the like, have been packaged in a way that were designed to PACE a perceived sample of what was considered AVERAGE ways of thinking in mass. Now, and in the past, there is a real need for people interested in mastering this most wondrous technological art form, which we now call Neuro Linguistic Programming, to come out from the PACE, and begin leading themselves into a more fluid, dynamic, multi logical level approach of understanding the relevance of how limited singular, single dimensional thinking is to the forward evolution of our species.

The individual patterns people in NLP are talking about, when considered from the point of view of the student of NLP, are very misleading. When considering a particular pattern, we also need to consider all of the smaller pieces that need to be there, or were presupposed as being there when many of these patterns were offered to a group of people in the midst of an interactive, live training that included many of the following skills sets. Rapport skills. Language skills. Calibrations skills. TOTE Models. Embedded Language. Metaphor Skills. And so on.

I have never been interested in pacing the mediocre just so that I could further that mediocrity. Human beings are complex organisms that are capable of learning anything. And, in the face of live, dynamic communication, when we think we can limit this wondrous creature down to fulfil some preset we have in our mind about how this, or that human being works, in this or that context, we are only fooling ourselves. For EVERY example, there will always be a COUNTER example. And, if you limit your model down to a set of singular closed end processes, then, you are not going to be prepared for the awesome flexibility inherent in each human being. Mastery, the ability to take this technological art form and use it to with expanding success, first with yourself, then with others, is something that requires commitment, and honest to goodness hard work. Sure, we can make it fun. We can make it exciting. But in all, the only path to Mastery, is one that allows for an open approach that goes beyond what we already know. What we have already learned was the right way of doing something. It takes continued commitment that goes beyond any simple patterned way of thinking.

Now, I will put that all aside, and go into a bit of description here. When I use the words genuine rapport, and honest rapport, this is what I am meaning to say.

Genuine Rapport.

A state of mind that says. "If I approach this individual cleanly. That is, I am not here to install anything, but instead to discover what is there. Who this person is? What are there dreams and desires? How do they see the world around them? What can I learn here?"

Honest Rapport

What this means to me. If I can be helpful, I want to make certain that I am being helpful to this person, and not only considering what I want. What is in it for me! I want to build in a feeling that lets this person know I am there to serve. I am there for them in this capacity. How they live their lives is perfectly OK. I am not there to judge, or to make them fit what I think is the right way in which to live, but only to be of service. No more, no less.

Logical Level Rapport.

Now, when I say the right logical level of rapport, I am saying this. If I am going to connect with this person, I want to connect in a way that goes above all of the differences that make us both wonderfully unique. I want to connect at a place in which we can both understand the similarities we share at a level in which all pettiness is aside, a place in which we both can safely exist as one. I will be totally open in this, and it is totally safe for you to be open as well. Here, TOGETHER, we can both explore. We can both savor the awesome, almost magical gift we call life. Here, we can work as one. We can be as one. And later we can take the benefits with us, integrating them into our own unique personalities.

You see, there are many levels in which we can establish rapport. And from the point of view of chunk size, we can establish rapport because we both like cars, but only the same color cars. So we can connect and have rapport while sharing a particular red, or blue color car. Or, we can go on chunk up a few, and perhaps connect because we both like a particular model car, say a Ford Mustang. Or to go up further, we can establish a rapport that goes to the actual make, or manufacture. We can both like Ford itself.

Now, to take up further, we can go to the level of transportation, which will include cars, boats, airplanes, trains, the space shuttle, and so on. Or, we can go up even further to a particular religion we both share. Or right on to the ultimate, at least seemingly so, to that of existence. We both exist!

Now, as we consider the different levels of logical rapport, figure this in as well. The lower the level, the more difference there will be. The higher the level, the less difference, and the more ambiguity we will use.

Now, if you are going to set it up so that you are establishing rapport at lower levels, then you will have to be more concerned with what process. But, when you chunk way up, you can operate above all particular learned behaviors, or current ways of thinking that have yet to change.

Not only is this how I see, hear, and feel the notion of rapport.......this is also how I use it. When a person comes to me to change a behavior, ANY behavior, and together we chunk up in this safe, genuine, honest rapport, we can look down at what it was, and from this point change anything at all. And we can do so easily, because we are now above it.

If I were going to sell, I would never stay at the level of the thing I was selling. I would chunk up, way up, come back down only as quickly as we did into the person having purchased what was being sold. But, I do not sell. I don't have to. I just establish rapport and serve. And, if what I have will serve that person, so be it. If not, I will keep my commitment, and help them get what they need anyway by directing them to where they can get their need filled.

Not only is it more useful to chunk up when establishing rapport, but it is also a very wonderful place to be with another human being. And, if you really think about it, rapport at this higher level it is a more natural function than is difference. Difference we learn as we go through life. Difference is what happens when we find out we are black, white, yellow, brown, Italian, German, French. But, if you go to any playground where children are pre verbal, you will find that all of these different children are able to function inside of rapport many of us have forgotten since the time of our own childhood's. This is what I create in a training. This wonderful playground in which we can all explore, learn, and enjoy one another. Not because we want to get one over, but only because alone we can do so little in this world. But together, well together, we can achieve anything. We can accomplish anything. And more, we can drink from a place in which our own needs and wants can have an opportunity to not only be fulfilled, but to also be expanded. Because as we move into this space, this safe and special place in which competition simply fades away, we can bring together the minds of many, thus solving the issues of the one. There is power in rapport that goes beyond just trying to get someone to go your way. And although I am not sure what this power is. I have witnessed it time and again. Of all the things I do know, it is the things I do not understand that seem to give me the most joy. The most benefit. And this is how I see rapport.

As for the ability to work inside of the detailed patterns that are part of how we make up strategies, or the particulars if you will, this too is an important set of skills to develop as well. But these are the easiest parts of learning NLP. Anyone can follow a step by step set of instructions, but to take these skills to a place of total fluidity requires a total commitment that few may be willing to make in their own lives. More times, I have found that people have learned to sacrifice the long term benefits of Mastery, for a short term limited set of skills. Yet, there are ways to gain workable skills in the short term, while at the same time using wisdom into the future. Pacing someone into buying a particular product says little about first establishing a solid, deep, honest rapport that will offer a benefit of having a customer for life. And that is only a side effect, as the intent is not then on selling, but in establishing rapport. If you have this kind of rapport, the rest takes care of it self. Or, the rest will be taken care of as a part of your ongoing relationship.

Carmine