This article is primarily focused at healthcare professionals, particularly dentists although the content is relevant to anyone in business.

Did you know there are four primary ways that we make sense of the world around us:

1. Visually
2. Kinaestheticly
3. Auditory
4. Auditory digital (logical structured)

When you understand which one you are primarily it makes it far easier to recognise why you think in certain ways, it also will help you communicate with people which represent the world around them differently to you, but when you think the plans patients or dealing with other team members.

Visual

People that represent the world around them visually think primarily in pictures. Most of us do this to a certain degree although some people do it far more than others. Visual people will often be artists, designers, photographers or anything to do with visuals.

When these people think in pictures they will literally create a picture in their mind’s eye… Even a visual speller will visually see the letters of the word in their mind (by the way, this is the strategy to use if you are not a great speller, visualise the letters in the word rather than try to use simple memory).

A visual person will often say things like:

• “do you see what I mean?”
• “do you get the picture?”

The words they use literally explain how they represent their world.

Top Tip: if you are presenting a treatment plan to a visual person then use plenty of photographs and diagrams to explain what you mean

Kinaesthetic

People that represent the world around them in a kinaesthetic way are more connected to feeling. This is both emotional feeling and physical feeling. Kinaesthetic people will often have touch related jobs e.g. massage, reflexology or even something like a potter. They may also be counsellors and connect with feelings and emotions in their job.

A kinaesthetic person will often say things like:

• “does that feel OK?”
• “What do you feel about that?”

Top tip: If you are presenting a treatment plan to a kinaesthetic person have study models that they can hold and feel, have physical models of implants and crowns so they can touch and hold them.

Auditory

One of the least common representational systems. Auditory people will be very focused on the way the world around them sounds. They may be musicians or work in jobs relating to sound. An auditory person will also a very distracted by sounds around them and will often want to work in a quiet environment. If you’re talking to an auditory person they may find it difficult to hold a conversation with you if other people are also talking in the background.

An auditory person might say things like:

• “How does that sound?”
• “Do you hear what I’m saying?”

Top Tip: If you are presenting a treatment plan to an auditory person it will be absolutely fine to explain by voice alone what the treatment plan is. You could also record your explanation and send it to them as an auditory file.

Auditory digital

This relates to internal dialogue and logical thinking. Auditory digital people will often be engineers, scientists or people which think in very clear, logical straight lines. An auditory digital person needs order, flowcharts and processes.

I’ve run many courses looking at these different types of representational system and by far the greatest percentage of dentists are auditory digital. Auditory digital people like to think, plan and organise.

An auditory digital person might say:

• “there is logic in what I’m saying”
• “does that make sense?”

Top Tip: if you are presenting a treatment plan to an auditory digital person use statistics to back up your argument for example, success rates, number of treatments completed etc. Present your treatment plan logically using reason, systems and analysis to present it. And above all, if you are a dentist the chances are this will be your primary representational system, so be flexible in the way you communicate.

So how do you represent the world around you?

Which of the representational systems looks, sounds, feels or logically is more like you? (See what I did there!).

If you do some digging around online you should be able to find a representational system preference test (alternatively send me an e-mail and I can provide one for you), this will give you an idea of what your own representational system is.

And the biggest tip I can give… Just because something seems right to you, does not necessarily mean it is right or make sense to someone else… Remember, most dentists are logical auditory digital thinkers, and most people in the general population are visual. Remember to present your treatment plans in a way that makes sense to the person you’re communicating with.

NLP Communication

There was a recent report by the government department responsible for statistics which highlighted that many people in the UK at the moment do not feel happy.

They went on to look at the ways in which people found it easiest to find happiness in their lives, looking at money relationships and suchlike. The report was a detailed analysis of both what made people happy and ways in which people felt anxious. Indeed one of the questions asked was do you feel more less anxious today than you did yesterday.

I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of the report was, why would a government want to highlight how unhappy people are?

The real issue for me is that this statistical analysis did not seek to find out, nor help people to be happier. All it did was highlight the reasons people are unhappy-and that’s a wholly different thing.

You see, happiness is a state, much like motivation, excitement or being relaxed.

So, why is this important?

This is hugely important as states can be accessed at any time, and are not dependent upon external influences if one so chooses.

Neuro linguistic programming or NLP is a way that we can control our state to access motivation, excitement, relaxation  or indeed happiness. Try this:

Think about a time, a specific time when you felt truly motivated in the context of your business. As you think about that specific time float down into your body looking through your own eyes and see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel those emotions of feeling truly and utterly and totally motivated. Did you do that exactly as I said? Okay, let’s do it again.

Think about a specific time when you felt truly motivated in the context of your business. As you think about that specific time float down into your body looking through your own eyes and see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel those emotions of feeling truly and utterly and totally motivated.

Now notice your increased heart rate and breathing! Perhaps you even feel motivated or exhilarated? You see with the right NLP motivation techniques it is possible to access any state at will. And this includes happiness.

Nothing your business in Rickmansworth or Watford makes you unhappy or demotivated or sad. All that happens is an external event is taken in through your senses, the NLP communication model then explains that this external event is converted into your own internal representation, based upon past experience memories and suchlike. This then affects your physiology and state. A behaviour in response to that external event then happens, in other words you feel sad, motivated or unhappy.

The thing to remember, is that you can control this process. You can decide how to represent that external events internally in your own mind. And if you so choose, using the power of NLP for your mind and business you can decide that you are happy now.

Only when we take full responsibility for everything that happens in our life, can we make changes. And that taking responsibility starts with how you respond to external events.

So, how are you going to choose to make a happy internal representation next time something happens? Can you choose now to be happy knowing that happiness is a state that can be accessed at any time.

Mark Oborn runs a successful business consultancy in Rickmansworth, Watford and Chorleywood in Hertfordshire. With his unique blend of MBA skills and neurolinguistic programming (NLP) mixed with hypnosis and timeline therapy he is able to get real change in each business by dealing with the mind and heart of the business owner.

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I just wanted to give my thoughts on the concept of using a coach. As you may know I’ve run my own dental laboratory for 16 years using the best Dental Office Space for Lease for this, I now run a marketing company helping dentists with online marketing plus I have an MBA… I guess I’m pretty qualified to run a decent business…

However I have a business coach (and am a coach myself) – this is where my coach helps me:

1) To remove negative emotions. Anger, Fear and Guilt can be BIG hurdles and restrictions in business – think back to things you’ve done in the past… often anger is there, fear and other negative emotions. Most people then self sabotage their current and future successes by not removing these old negative emotions, being fearful of mistakes, angry at situations or guilty about what might happen .

2) To remove limiting beliefs. Typically people have restrictive beliefs about themselves – things like ‘I’m not worth it’ ‘I don’t deserve success’ ‘I’ll always be a failure’. If a person holds these beliefs to be true.. then they are true and that person will NEVER achieve what they want. Once again a suitably trained coach can help you remove these limiting beliefs.

3) Conflicting personality parts. Many people have internal conflicts that they are not at first aware of. e.g. “part of me wants security and part of me wants freedom” or “Part of me wants to be a business owner and do what I want and part of me wants the security of an employer” this type of conflict will again prevent a business owner from achieving and a coach can help that person overcome this.

This type of coach works with business owners but most often does not get involved with the day to day business activities… this is where the wonderful Chris Barrow (CB) and Kevin Rose (KR) some in to play (These are top UK coaches for dentists).

This coaching style (and indeed why I have my own coach) is to ensure that my head is in the right place, with no unconscious sabotage, with every part of my personality aligned to reach my business goal free of negative emotions and limiting self belief. In my opinion there’d be a whole load more successful businesses if more business owners sorted out the negative and limiting ‘shit’ going on in their head!

You can then work on your business, either on your own or with the likes of CB, KR or other ‘implementation business coach’ to ensure that the business itself is working efficiently and effectively.

Does that help answer the question “why do you need a business coach?”

You can not not communicate

Yes I know, it sounds like a brain teaser but it’s true… you can not not communicate.

Everything you do communicates something, even turning the other way, not saying anything and not showing any facial expression communicates something… I’ll leave it up to you to decide what that would communicate if someone did it to you.

Neuro-Linguistic Programmming is often accused of being manipulative as it teaches you to control your body language and be ‘in tune’ or ‘in rapport’ with the body language of others… yet as you can see even doing nothing is manipulating what you are saying… or not saying.

The truth is that NLP is a way to help communicate much better by actually meaning what you say, rather than communicating the wrong thing. So here are a  few classic examples of how people communicate the wrong thing.

1. By accidentally ‘breaking rapport’ with the other person, for example by folding their arms while the other person has an open body posture.
2. By saying things to kids like “Don’t slam the door” this has an embedded command to slam the door, plus our brain’s can’t process negatives… don’t think of pink elephants… oops too late, you see!

If we can communicate more effectively we can:

1. Close more sales
2. Have better relationships
3. Engage more clients
4. Keep more clients

There are many many ways that we can learn to communicate more effectively, and here is just one simple way you can start today – we need to listen out for modal operators.

Modal Operators of Possibility

These are words like:

• Could
• Might
• Can
• Will

Modal Operators of Necessity