This belief which enabled master therapists like Milton Erickson and Virginia Satir to help people whom other people had labeled ‘hopeless’ is also known as:

There are no resistant clients, only inflexible coaches/ therapists/ salespeople/ teachers

Also phrased sometimes as:

Resistance is a sign of lack of rapport

When Lack of Rapport Led Me Resistance

This was it. It was the moment. I’d been talking with and thinking about this coachee for days, and I’d finally identified his limiting belief, and he was just about to demonstrate it live yet again. I was watching like an eagle ready to pounce on his afternoon snack.

The moment he did it, I delivered the smackdown: ‘Coachee X, is this a limiting pattern in your life?’ and the moment I said that, I could see his face drain and the walls slam shut from a mile away. I knew I’d lost him, and it was my responsibility, because I hadn’t built enough rapport for him to listen to what I had to say.

Why is it that you can sometimes get away with saying the most audacious of things while othertimes you get shut down?

The difference is in rapport.

We all have friends with whom we know we can be honest, crazy, fun, and tell them that yes, that dress does look fat on them and they’d be ok (well, semi-ok at least) with that.

And we’ve also had experiences where the most minor thing we say to someone we hardly know can cause major misunderstanding and unintended results.

If everyone had the same map of the world, getting into rappport would be as easy as pie. But since we don’t, how flexible can you be to shift from your map of the world to include theirs?

As a parent, how flexible can you be to shift your map to that of your child? As a teacher, how flexibly can you shift your map to that of your teenage student? As a salesperson, therapist, coach, friend, son, sister, life coaches blogger?

How Can You Use This To Kick Ass?

Take responsibility is the ultimate takeaway for this belief. When I crashed and burned with my coachee, it would have been easy for me to say ‘oh, he’s just being an ass-err, resistant. Yea, resistant.‘ but that would have brought me even further from my intended outcome to help him break his limiting pattern.

Instead, if I recognize that I can be more flexible than him, and do my best to understand his map of the world, I can better understand him and operate within his map to help him make changes.

If There Are No Resistant Listeners, Only Inflexible Speakers, What Would Be Different For You?

If there are no resistant listeners, only inflexible speakers, how would you approach communicating differently?

NLP 101 Series:

NLP 101: What is NLP? Part 1
NLP 101: What is NLP Special for The Super NLP Hardcore
NLP 101: What is NLP? Part 2
NLP 101: So Dark The Con Of NLP
NLP 101: How NLP Changed My Life
NLP 101: The Map Is Not The Territory
NLP 101: There Is No Failure Only Learning Experience
NLP 101: Every Behaviour Has A Positive Intention
NLP 101: The Meaning of Your Communication is The Response You Get
NLP 101: You Cannot Not Communicate
NLP 101 Thoughts: You Cannot Not Change The World
NLP 101: People Are Always Making The Best Choices They Have
NLP 101: People Are Not Broken
NLP 101: You Cannot Not Communicate: The Pygmalion Effect
NLP 101: Everyone Already Has All The Resources They Need
NLP 101: There Are No Resistant Listeners, Only Inflexible Speakers
NLP 101: Life Is A Series of Systems