Effective Communication With NLP & The Enneagram

Have you ever had difficulty grabbing the attention of your audience during a presentation or speech? If you ever experienced such difficulties, it’s perfectly normal!

Audiences normally have short attention span. Grabbing their attention at the start is only useful initially, you need to continue to capture their attention periodically. Here are some tips on how you can do it:

1. Asking questions
Asking questions engages the audience and puts them in a thinking and active mode, instead of a receiving and passive mode. Also, it gives you time to plan your next move.

2. Telling stories
Everybody loves stories. If you can relate what you are saying to an anecdote or life story, it’ll definitely be well received.

3. Use quotes
Quotes, when used appropriately, can help motivate or inspire the audience, and anchor the message into their minds.

4. Use humour
Some presenters use humour for the sake of just cracking jokes. If you can use humour that is relevant to the topic, that’s an even bigger plus.

5. Use demonstrations
Where appropriate, demonstrate what you mean. You can even ask someone from the audience to assist you. This captures the attention of the audience because it is real action compared to just visual aids and listening. If one of their friends is assisting, it makes it even more interesting.

Of course, these five are just among the many tips available in gaining the attention of your audience. Do you have your own unique methods? Share with us by posting your comments here!

Have you ever had situations where you felt that you couldn’t achieve something? Or perhaps a friend of yours was lacking in motivation and felt that they wouldn’t be able to complete a task?

How do you normally handle such situations? How do you empower yourself or your friends, and bring them from a “limitation state” into an empowered state?

One of the quickest way is to use “How Questions”. How questions allow you to turn people around easily. When faced with challenges, we usually think of limitations and things that we can’t do. This is normal, and very human.

So for example, a friend of yours tells you there is no way he or she would be able to complete the marathon you’ve both signed up for. Instead of just encouraging by saying things like “Of course you can!” or “I’m sure you can do it”, empower that person by asking “How can you start training up for the marathon?”

This puts the person in a state of mind where he or she must now think of actions to take, in order to be ready for the marathon.

Likewise, if someone were to say “I’m not confident enough to speak in front of people”, you can empower that person by asking “How can you start to be relaxed about public speaking?”

So there you go. Start using statements that shift your mind towards possibilities instead of limitations, and increase your influence!

When someone gives you a smile, what is the most natural response you would give?

I hope you said a smile too because researches have shown that smiling is contagious and we would very naturally return a smile with one as well. Smiling is an important part of communication, both in our personal lives, as well as our workplace. In fact, smiling is one of the most powerful elements of non verbal communication.

Smiling allows you to overcome barriers and open doors to new opportunities. So it’s good to smile all the time. However, there will be situations where you don’t feel like smiling. Perhaps you are feeling lethargic after a hard day’s work, or maybe you encountered something unpleasant.

Well, the good news is that our body is wired to our mind. So by changing either your physical or emotional state, you can still generate a smile.

Physical state – When you are in a lethargic physical state, such as slouching or slumping into the chair, your mind reacts by going into the same state too.

Of course, this means you can get into an empowered state simply by changing your physiology. Sit or walk straight, chest up, and put your lips together. Lift up the ends into a smiling shape, feel your eyes twinkle, and you’ll find your mood improving naturally.

Emotional state – This is essentially also the mental state because happiness is all in our minds. If we want to be happy, we will be happy.

So when you’re finding it difficult to smile, think happy thoughts. Think about the time you went to the beach, the waves and the cool breeze on you. Think about a joke you heard, a loved one, or something nice that happened to you. The moment you put yourself into a calm and happier state of mind, smiling becomes easy. So there you go. Start smiling more today, and reap the benefits that come along. Also, smiling makes you more approachable, and increases your influence!

Have you ever had difficulty starting a conversation with someone?

Perhaps you’re at a party, or maybe the start of a seminar, and you see people mingling around. Do you sometimes feel self conscious just standing there, and wonder to yourself how you can start talking to others?

You know what? The other folks standing around are probably feeling the same as you. So take the initiative and start getting to know others, they’ll be more than willing to start a conversation with you, and you’ll gain confidence from making the first move too!

Here are some tips to get you started:

1. Greet and introduce

The simplest of all (and the most no-brainer approach). Just walk up to someone, make eye contact, smile, and say hello with your name.

2. Look for something to comment

You can comment on the atmosphere, the decor, or the person whom you are talking to. Just remember, give complements rather that complaints. You can complement about the person’s dressing, accessories, hair, etc. This will act as a platform to link to other topics.

3. Ask questions

Open ended or leading questions are normally the more appropriate ones to kick start a conversation. Open ended questions encourages the other party to talk, while leading questions attempts to guide the other party’s answers. Of course, if your open ended question is not getting any response, don’t be disheartened.

Sometimes, it may be difficult to start expressing our opinions or views when rapport is not strong. So throw in some close ended questions that requires simple one word answers, then follow it up with open ended again.

Here’s an example:

Assuming you have introduced yourself,

Close ended – “Have you been to such seminars before?”

Possible reply – “Yup.”

Close ended – “Nice, when was the last seminar you attended?”

Possible reply – “Hm.. about 3 months back”

Open ended – “That’s quite recent. So what was the seminar about?”

Of course, the above is just an example. It’ll be difficult to list down all possible variations of how the conversation will turn out. Do you have other ways to start conversations easily? Do share it on the comments board =)