STRATEGIES THE MIND-BODY CONNECTION TO BEHAVIOR  

by Tad James, M.S., Ph.D., Certified NLP Master Trainer Copyright © 1985, 1999  

I often ask people in the seminars that we give, before beginning to teach 
strategies, "How many people used a strategy today?" I'm interested in how 
many people will raise their hand, and how many won't, and usually only a few 
people raise their hand, because people typically are not aware of their pervasive 
use of strategies.  

Now, a strategy is any internal and external set (order, syntax) of experiences 
which consistently produces a specific outcome. For example, when I go 
somewhere, I need to make a picture of where I'm going and how to get there in 
my mind. And I gather information verbally  until I have a clear picture of the entire 
route that I'm going to travel. When I have enough information, I then forget it and 
trust my unconscious mind. That's my strategy for driving somewhere, when I do 
it successfully. When I don't do it successfully, it's usually because I haven't 
gathered enough information. So, I don't have a clear picture, and then I may 
even take the wrong turn or get lost. Do you use a strategy when you go 
somewhere? Of course you do, although you may not have been aware of it until 
this moment. Think of it, what is your strategy? What do you do when you go 
somewhere?  
We use internal processing strategies for everything we do. All of our 
apparent external behaviors are controlled by internal processing strategies. All 
of our overt behaviors! So that means that we use strategies for love, strategies 
for hate, strategies for learning, strategies for math, parenting, sports, 
communication, sales, marketing, wealth, poverty, happiness, death, sex, eating, 
disease, creativity, relaxation, attention and fun. There are strategies for 
everything.  

We first develop a particular strategy when we are young. At an early age, 
perhaps you put a series of internal and external experiences together, and 
made (for example) a decision. Then, at some point when you knew it worked, 
you generalized the process that you used before in making the decision and 
said, either consciously or unconsciously, "OK, this is a good way to make a 
decision", and you then probably used it over and over and over again.  

Let's say, for example, you made a picture in your mind and talked to yourself or 
someone else about it, until you had enough information, and that was how you 
made the decision. If that syntax worked for you, then at some time you began to 
use it over and over again.  

In our lives, we use strategies for everything that we do. And so the second 
question I often ask people, in the process of doing a seminar is, "So those of 
you that didn't use a strategy yet today, how did you get here?" "How did you get 
to the seminar?" "And how did you decide what seat to sit in?" So, a strategy is 
essentially what it is that you do in your mind in the process of doing something.  
Since NLP deals with form and not content, we're not so much interested in the 
content of the  thought, just the form. You might say, "Well, I thought of this", or "I 
thought about that" or "I thought of flowers" or whatever you did. Rather than the 
content, what did you do, did you make a picture in your mind, did you have a 
certain set of words that you said to yourself? Did you think of somebody else's 
voice, or did you have a certain feeling or emotion? Our interest is in the context, 
form, and process instead of the content.  
NLP was created as a result of Modeling. Bandler and Grinder's system for 
Modeling was essentially to discover somebody's belief systems, physiology, and 
mental strategies. In the process of modeling, they would elicit a person's internal 
program, which they called "mental syntax" or "strategy." In terms of modeling, 
then, one important element is the internal syntax or what they do inside their 
head when they do what they do. What strategy do they use?  
Now, as an example, let's see how you might model a foreign language. If you 
were modeling a language, like French, you'd model three things. First, you'd 
model the vocabulary, actually learning the vocabulary. You'd learn "plume" 
means "pen." Next you'd learn syntax. So, you'd learn how to say sentences in 
French, putting certain words in certain order. Regarding the order a nd sequence 
of words, Tony Robbins is fond of pointing out that "The dog bit Johnny" is 
substantially different from "Johnny bit the dog." It has a completely different 
meaning, yet they're the same words. But they're in a different order. The 
difference in meaning is created by the syntax (order, sequence).  
And also in modeling a language, you'd also model the mouth movements. You'd 
learn how to pronounce "plume" so you could say it with the correct accent.  
Modeling mental strategies in NLP allows us to take a strategy from one place 
and move it to another place. Now, if I'm dealing with content, then it's hard to 
move content from one place to another. But if I'm dealing with process, if I'm 
dealing with the "how to" regarding processing information then I can discover 
somebody's internal program and I can install it in someone else.  

Another purpose for discovering strategies is that you might want to change 
someone's strategy. We talked about this in a seminar that I did recently where a 
participant had a buying strategy of "see it", "feel good about it" and "buy it." So, 
"I see something I want and I get a feeling right away, and I buy it", is pretty 
efficient for making quick decisions, especially if you're an airline pilot. She felt, 
however, that it was not really effective for buying because she'd see a lot of 

things she liked and she bought them. So, she decided she wanted to change 
the strategy.  
Most strategies that people have can be easily learned or modified, according to 
whatever our outcome is. And that's why in NLP one of the presuppositions is 
that people have all the resources they need. For example, if someone is very 
decisive at home and they have trouble making decisions at work, one of the 
things we can do is move their decision-making strategy from home to work.  
A Strategy is a specific syntax of external and internal experience which 
consistently produces a specific behavioral outcome, or to put it in plain 
English, a strategy is something that somebody does in their brain and nervous 
system that produces a specific result. It's what somebody does in their head 
when they do what they do.  

An analogy that seems to work really well in describing strategies is the analogy 
of baking a cake. In the process of baking a cake, you get all the ingredients 
together, get a bowl, and you put the ingredients into a bowl in a certain order. 
It's important to take all the ingredients and put them in a bowl in a certain order. 
In a recipe, there's a certain order or sequence of when the elements should go 
into the recipe. And so, if you put the elements of the cake into the bowl in the 
wrong order, or even in the oven before you put them into the bowl, you'll get a 
substantially different outcome.  
A strategy is a specific order and sequence of internal and external processes or 
internal and external experiences that consistently produce a specific outcome. If 
you reverse the strategy, that is, if you reverse the order and sequence of the 
strategy, the outcome that you get may be substantially different.  
So, how do you discover someone's strategy for doing a specific thing? Well, just 
ask. Just ask, and listen to their predicates, watch their eyes (eye patterns), and 
make note of the order and sequence of the modalities as they are presented to 
you.  
What are the elements that can go into a strategy? There are only six, 
fortunately. There are only six things that people can do in their mind -- what a 
surprise. You thought you could do a lot more than six things, didn't you? There 
are only six things that you can do, though. The six are pictures, sounds, 
feelings, tastes, smells, and you can talk to yourself. And you can do each of 
those things either internally or externally.  

If you're making note of the syntax of the elements in a person's strategy, we've 
developed a shorthand notation process for strategies. And they're shown below:  

?  V = Visual  
?  A = Auditory  

?  K = Kinesthetic (feelings)  
?  O = Olfactory  
?  G = Gustatory  

In addition we can say certain things about those Representational System 
elements:  

?  e = External  
?  i = Internal 
?  t = Tonal (At)  
?  d = Digital  
?  c = Constructed  
?  r = Recalled  

The strategy notation that we use corresponds directly to the eye pattern chart 
below. As you listen and watch the person you're eliciting the strategy from, note 
first the major modalities -- [V], [At], [K], [O], [G], [Ad]. Also make note of whether 
they are internal or external. For example, seeing a picture in your head is Visual 
Internal (or Vi), looking at a car to see if you like it is Visual External (or Ve), and 
may include a comparison to a remembered or created car (Vr or Vc). Talking to 
the salesperson, and gathering information about the purchase to find if it meets 
your criteria is Auditory digital (or Ad), and External. Or feeling a rug to discover if 
you like the feel is Kinesthetic external (or Ke), while feeling good about the 
purchase is Kinesthetic internal (or Ki).  
Making sure that your shorthand notation for each step of the strategy includes 
the distinction of whether it's internal or external, we make a superscript, "e" for 
external and "i" for internal. And when dealing with auditory, you want to make 
the differentiation between auditory digital [Ad] or auditory tonal [At]. Digital 
includes lists, criteria -- whether it "makes sense", whereas tonal is more 
concerned with whether it "sounds right". Make a subscript of "t" for tonal or "d" 
for digital.  
You will want to note the elements in the order they occur. And, it's OK to ask 
over and over again until you have a strategy that you can be confident about. 
Make several tests. Ask over and over if you need to so you get it right, and you 
are sure that the building blocks are in their correct order.  
The T.O.T.E. Model: Bandler, Grinder and Dilts and others in the book, Neuro-
Linguistic Programming, Volume I, refer to a model of strategies called T.O.T.E. 
The T.O.T.E. model was designed to represent how people process information. 
T.O.T.E. stands for test, operate, test, and exit.  

The notion of strategies actually comes from George Miller, and Galanter, and 
Pribram in a book called Plans and the Structure of Behavior. They're the ones 
who originally developed the concept of the T.O.T.E. model.  

As the theory goes, a strategy or T.O.T.E. begins with a certain test. It's a test 
that actually starts or fires off the strategy. It's the starting point. As you look at 
the diagram below, follow along beginning with the word "T.O.T.E.", where it says 
"input" (this is where the information comes from for the strategy), and to the right 
of that, you see the first test.  

 
TEST OPERATE TEST EXIT -- THE TOTE MODEL  

Adapted from Miller, Galanter & Pribram 
Here's how it works: 

The information gathered provides a trigger, setting off the first test, and the 
strategy begins. It operates for a while and it tests again, to see if it's complete. If 
it's not complete, it goes back to a certain point, and then comes back to the test 
again. It continues this loop until it gets a positive outcome, then it exits.  

The first test establishes the strategy test criteria that are carried forward to the 
next test. So, the first test starts the strategy and it establishes criteria for the 
next test.  

As an example, let's look at how you know to be motivated. What's the one thing 
-- the trigger that gets you motivated? (The first test can also be called the trigger 
because it's what sets you off.) Is there usually one thing (like something you 
see, or hear)? Remember a time when you were especially motivated. What set 
you off? Do you remember the trigger? If not, pick another time. Do you 
remember the trigger, now? Was it something you saw, something you heard or 
the touch of something or someone? It's really important in the process of 
eliciting, utilizing, designing or creating new strategies to discover a specific 
trigger that will get the person into the strategy. For example, if you design the 
world's greatest new strategy for a person that doesn't have an appropriate 
trigger, it won't ever get set off. So it's important to discover the trigger that sets 
off the strategy. 
Next is the operation. The operation accesses and gathers the data required by 
the strategy. The operation of a strategy, TEST-OPERATE, is going to access 
certain data. The data that is going to be accessed in the operation section is 
threefold. What do you think they should be?  

The first kind of data accessed is external (remember the notations that we 
covered earlier?) visual external, auditory external, and kinesthetic external -- 
any external process in the process in the Operate part of the strategy will be 
gathering data.  

The data accessed could also be internal. And if it's internal, there are two 
possibilities. The two data could be either Remembering data or Creating data -- 
Memories or constructed data. So the three types are external, which is 
gathering, and internal which could be remembered or created.  

Test: Then there's the next test. We've gone through TEST - OPERATE - TEST 
... we're at that point now. The second test is a comparison. It's always going to 
be a comparison that allows you to know that the strategy is complete. It's a 
comparison of the new data to the criteria established at the first test. So the first 
test will establish the criteria. The second test will compare all the known data to 
the criteria established in the first test. And, typically, the test will occur with a 
comparison in the same representational system (V, A, K, O or G). Now, at that 
point, if there is a "plus", which means that the  test is successful, there will be a 
match between gathered data and the criteria, and we'll have an exit at that point. 
If there is no match at that point, then we'll usually go back and continue the 
strategy.  
Exit: Finally, the exit is going to be a decision point or a choice point, and it's a 
representation of the test where the strategy will either exit at that point, or loop 
back and get more data.  
To summarize, the functional properties of strategies are the TEST, OPERATE, 
TEST, and the EXIT. The fi rst test is a trigger. The trigger feeds information 
forward to the second test, which compares the data to the output of the process 
of operation, and which (the operation) is gathering or accessing data or creating 
data. And then, when the test is successful, the strategy is, at that point, 
complete.  
All our outward behavior is a result of these neurological processing 
patterns. All overt behavior is controlled by these sequences of internal and 
external neurological representations. If a specific patter n occurs, then a specific 
behavior is generated. If the neurological pattern does not occur, then the 
behavior does not occur.  
A typical neurological pattern is the result of either one of two basic processes: 
Either (1) synesthesia patterns (which occur in much the same way that anchors 
do in that their associations are connected together in a chain where there are 
representational system overlaps) or (2) strategies. And a synesthesia pattern is 
somewhat like a very short fast strategy with only two components.  

Synesthesia: A synesthesia pattern, goes something like this: "... it's kind of like 
I want to see how I feel about that". Linguistically, you can spot a synesthesia 
pattern when somebody says, "Well, I've got to see if it sounds right." A 
synesthesia pattern also occurs when you touch something with your eyes 
closed and then make a picture of it automatically.  
A synesthesia pattern occurs when two modality accessings (like Visual - 
Kinesthetic) are closely linked, with one of them possibly outside the awareness. 
Some typically occurring synesthesia patterns are see-feel (mentioned above); 
another is, in school, if the teacher spoke to you with a harsh tone, you'd feel 
bad, and so now every time somebody speaks to you with that tone of voice, you 
feel bad, even though they don't mean anything by that tone of voice; or an 
accident -- let's say you saw an accident, you see blood, and you feel nauseous; 
or feel angry  --  blame someone. Has that ever happened to you? Or in therapy, 
for example, client says, with his eyes going up and to his right, "Gee", and then 
down to the right, "I don't know why I feel this way." As you observe the client 
across from you saying, "Gee, I don't know why I feel this way," you also see that 
he's making pictures, constructi ng pictures, probably of bad things that could 
happen and then he's jumping to a feeling about it. That's a synesthesia pattern! 
In this case, the pictures may also be outside of his awareness. That's a 
synesthesia pattern.  
Strategy Elicitation: Now, let's talk about strategy elicitation: There are two 
ways to elicit strategies. One way is formal, the other is informal. And, if you just 
ask someone informally, "How do you do that?", they'll tell you. More often than 
not, they'll also tell you in a way that includes the modalities that they use in 
processing that information. They will tell you their strategy.  

Many strategies will come out spontaneously and naturally during a conversation 
and won't have to be elicited formally. Informal strategy elicitation can be as 
simple as someone saying to you, "Gee, every time I see that particular sight, I 
get motivated." And you say, "So, how do you know to get motivated. What is it 
about that sight?" The fact is that people do internally what they're talking about. 
So they will demonstrate verbally and nonverbally the strategies used to access 
and make sense of those experiences. So, for example, as someone talks about 
a past decision, they will ordinarily also run through the strategy steps. They will 
actually go ri ght through the steps in the strategy --  like an instant replay. Have 
you ever watched a sports show on T.V. and saw an instant replay? Just like 
that.  
Formal Elicitation: Strategies can also be elicited formally with a formal script, 
and your formal notation. It makes it a little easier when you have the person's 
cooperation, and in the early stages of learning strategy elicitation it may be a 
little easier to just read the script. In formal elicitation, you can go over and over 
the steps of the strategy until you get it. My suggestion is to learn how to do both 

formal and informal elicitation so that you can do both as needed. If you're doing 
formal elicitation, just follow this outline:  

 
TEXT FOR FORMAL STRATEGY ELICITATION  

Can you recall a time when you were totally X'd?  

Can you recall a specific time?  

As you go back to that time now ...  

What was the very first thing that caused you to be totally X'd?  

?  Was it something you saw (or the way someone looked at you?),  
?  Was it something you heard (or someone's tone of voice?), or  
?  Was it the touch of someone or something? 
?  What was the very first thing that caused you to be totally X'd?  

After you (saw, heard , felt) that, what was the very next thing that happened as 
you were totally X'd?  

?  Did you picture something in your mind? 
?  Say something to yourself, or  
?  Have a certain feeling or emotion?  
?  What was the next thing that happened as you were totally X'd  

After you (list previous), did you know that you totally X'd, or...  

(Continue until complete.)  

 
TRANSCRIPT OF STRATEGY ELICITATION --  MOTIVATION STRATEGY  

Let's do that now. Bill, can we talk? How are you doing? "Great". Can you recall a 
time when you were particularly motivated?  

"Yes".  

Can you recall a time when you were totally motivated? 

Thinking ... "Yes".  
Can you recall a specific time? (He nods.)  

As you go back to that time now ...  

What was the very first thing that happened that caused you to be totally 
motivated? (without pausing) Was it something you saw or the way someone 
looked at you? Was it something you heard or someone's tone of voice? Or, was 
it the touch of someone or something? What was the very first thing that caused 
you to be totally motivated?  

"It was something I saw". 

Good. After you saw what you saw, what was the very next thing that happened 
as you were totally motivated? Did you picture something in your mind? Did you 
say something to yourself, or have a certain feeling or emotion? What was the 
next thing that happened as you were totally motivated?  

"I made a picture in my mind".  

Great. After you made a picture in your mind, did you know that you were totally 
motivated or did you say something to yourself, or have a certain feeling or 
emotion?  

"I said something to myself".  

Good, after you made a picture in your mind, and said something to yourself, did 
you know that you were totally motivated or did you say something to yourself, or 
have a certain feeling or emotion? What was the next thing that happened as you 
were totally motivated?  

"Well, I was just motivated, that's all."  
Good, so you felt motivated? 

"Yes, that's right."  

Now, we know that Bill's motivation strategy is:  

 
Now, we can also elicit the submodalities of each of the major parts of this 
strategy, and I am not going to d o a complete elicitation of submodalities now. 
When you are doing it, you may want to get out our chart of possible 
submodalities. So, Bill, what was it about what you saw that caused you to be 
motivated?  

"What do you mean?"  
In what you saw, what was the  important thing that made it motivating to you? 
Was the color important?  
"No, not really."  

Was the size? 

"Yes, well, if it had been smaller, I'm sure I wouldn't have been as motivated."  

So size was important. Was how close you were to it important?  
"I don't think so. Just so I could see."  

Now when you made the picture inside that you made when you were motivated, 
was that picture a memory or did you make it up in your head?  

"I made- up a picture of me doing something new."  

Was that picture near or fa r? 

"It was really close- up."  
And could you see yourself in the picture or were you looking through your own 
eyes?  

"I was looking through my own eyes."  
And what did you say to yourself?  

"I said, 'Wow'."  

Thank -you, Bill.  

"Thank - you."  

Informal Elicitation: After you've mastered formal strategy elicitation, you can 
move on to informal elicitation. You could elicit someone's decision making 
strategy just by saying, "Hey, I love your shirt, how did you decide to buy it?" and 
then just listen and watch. L isten to the predicates, and watch the eye patterns 
and the other nonverbal cues. Since strategies can be elicited either informally or 
formally, if you do nothing else except just talk to the person, they will tell you 
exactly how they do whatever they do, and all you have to do is just watch them 
and listen to them. In business many times, its a little easier to discover 
somebody's strategy without doing it formally, so we're going to also cover 
several ways of doing strategy elicitation without being particularly formal or overt 
about it.  
The next type of strategy elicitation is elicitation from eye patterns. You could just 
walk up to somebody and you could go, "Wow, I really love your watch! How did 
you decide to buy it?" and what they will do is, they'll move their eyes in a certain 
direction as they remember it.  

 
(This is how they look when you're facing them.)  
Not Every Movement A Strategy: The first thing to remember when eliciting 
strategies from eye patterns is that not every eye movement you see is a 
strategy. Some people are going to process the information you just asked them 
before they begin accessing their strategy. They may, for example, repeat to 
themselves exactly what you said, "Oh, he just said 'beautiful watch', how did I 
get it? And then they'll run their strategy for you with their eyes. Some people will 
immediately understand what you said and jump directly into the strategy, 
moving their eyes in a certain direction as they access their strategies. Most 

people will move their eyes in a recognizable pattern as they access their 
strategy or as they replay the information in their head. The question is, do they 
move their eyes so that you ca n see them adequately? And that's where your 
sensory acuity becomes very, very important. That's where your sensory acuity 
makes a major difference. My suggestion is that you make sure that you've 
gotten really well-grounded in the eye patterns, and that you learn them very 
well. Having done that, you can just relax and let the information come to you. 
Just watch their eye patterns and then note them on a piece of paper -- one of 
the things I do is carry a little piece of paper with me, and write down the o rder 
and sequence of their eye patterns as I get them, so I'll remember them -- and 
note them, using the notation form above. 

I suggest that as with any strategy elicitation, you also test the strategy elicitation 
from eye patterns wherever possible, questioning them over and over again, until 
you're sure you've got it. It's OK to check several times because the major 
question in the elicitation of strategies from eye patterns is, "Where does the 
accessing the information end and the strategy begin?" So you may have to elicit 
the same strategy in a couple of different situations, or a couple of different 
contexts in order to discover how did they do it.  

Strategies from eye patterns are probably one of the most powerful things that 
you can learn in NLP, and later we'll put it all together when we show how to 
utilize those strategies in designing embedded commands.  

 
Strategy Elicitation: Let's elicit some strategies. What follows are transcripts of 
actual strategy elicitation:  

As we sit across from our good buddy Dave here, and say, "Love your car, Dave. 
Where'd you get your car?" And Dave says, "I got it at the Plymouth dealer" and 
he holds eye contact with us, right? So Dave's one of those guys whose got a 
"look-to-talk" rule. And so, then what do we do? We change our eyes, we shift 
our eyes away from Dave, and we say, "So, what did you do, you walked into the 
car lot and the car jumped out at you and you bought it." And Dave says, "No, not 
really" and accesses kinesthetic. (Hold on a second, Dave.) We don't have a 
whole lot of information there yet, do we? (OK, go ahead.  --Dave moves his 
eyes...)  

 

So, we've got Dave's whole strategy right there. We have got Dave's whole 
strategy in the eye patterns. And what we have is:  

 
We could also ask Landon (age 7). Landon, how do you know when a toy is a 
good toy? (Landon responds without moving his eyes.) He was actually looking 
at me. You have to tell them, too. How do you know -- let me ask you the 
question again -- How do you know when a toy is a good toy? ("When I play with 
it a lot".)  

 
So, what he said was, "When I play with it a lot." and what he did was moved his 
eyes in certain directions. And so the first thing he did was he moved his eyes up 
and to the left, and then he moved his eyes down and to the left, which is 
kinesthetic. So, Landon, let me ask you again, how do you know when a toy is a 
good toy? Look at his eyes.  

 
Now, what he did in this case was he moved his eyes down and to the right, 
which was auditory digital, so he was repeating back the question, "How do I 
know when the toy is a good toy?" He moves his eyes up and to the left so he 
creates playing with the toy in his mind and he checks out his feelings and sees if 
he feels right. (Is that right Landon? So, you play with it a lot, and then you see 
how it feels, yeah?) And when I said that, he just moved his eyes down and to 
the left -- kinesthetic.  

When you're eliciting strategies from eye patterns, you may find that you get a 
visua l construct or a visual recall and it's actually a visual external. Typically 
when you see a visual-recall right at the beginning, it's a visual-external. Or it 
may be a visual constructed, and so the question will be, how are they 
constructing it? You may also find that they move their eyes back and forth:  

 
In this case, note it as Vc/Vr. Vc/Vr indicates a comparison. First, a constructed 
(or it could be remembered), and then it's compared to a memory (or the 
construct). This eye pattern simply means that there's a comparison that begins 
the strategy. In either case, it's not absolutely necessary to make the distinction 
between recall and external when constructing embedded commands using this 
sequence.  

Now, let's elicit a strategy from Craig's eye patterns only. "Craig, (dahling...) I 
love your watch. Did you buy that yourse lf? (No.) I love your shirt, Craig. Where'd 
you get it? Were you by yourself for your decision? (No.) Craig, I love your car. 
Did you buy that yourself? (No.)  

Now, why did I say, "Did you buy that yourself"? I wanted to know if Craig made 
the decision by  himself, or if somebody else assisted him on it, because the 
decision with somebody else, when they're right there, is going to be different. 
(Craig says that he did buy a dishwasher himself.)  

So, Craig, I love your dishwasher, where'd you get it?  

 
Now, notice that Craig moves his eyes up and to the left, then to the right, and 
then he moved them down and to the right and then to the left (as you look at 
him). Then he's done.  
We've seen him do it twice. Each time I ask him to get back into the strategy, he 
does the same thing. So, if he does it several times in a row, you can be pretty 
sure that's his strategy. So, where'd you get it, Craig? So... what... you walked 
into Sears and it jumped in your lap? OK, now this time he did go over and 
access kinesthetic.  

What you want to do is you want to throw him off -- so, you ask him, "Did it jump 
in your lap", "Did it jump on you", "Did it pop on your b ack", or "When you got that 
watch, did it..." But you don't want to use something that leads them into a 
strategy. So, you don't want to say something like, "Oh, did it shine brightly, so 
that's what you wanted?" No, because that's going to lead them into visual. Or 
"Did it call your name?" --  that's going to lead him into auditory tonal. Or, "Did it 
have a better feeling?" You don't want to lead them, however, what you do want 

to say is something that throws them off that allows them to think freely and also 
breaks eye contact.  
So, let's go back to the very beginning. Craig, you walked into Sears and what 
happened? And this is what we saw:  

 
What we see is: visual construct,visual recall, auditory digital, kinesthetic. OK, so 
you're walking into Sears and you ask for their dishwashers ... (and, by the way, 
walking into Sears and asking for the dishwashers is not part of the strategy, no. 
We're not there at the trigger point of the strategy yet, based on what he's telling 
us ...) So, what did you do? ("Went over and looked at it.") So, you walked into 
Sears and asked where the dishwasher was. You asked the salesperson 
questions about the dishwasher you wanted to buy.  

Now what we're doing here, is we're checking to make sure we got the eye 
patterns making sure we recognize them correctly. So, you walked into Sears, 
asked where the dishwashers were, walked over to the dishwashers. ("Yeah, and 
then I picked out a dishwasher.") Aha. Now, see, he didn't give us that verbally 
before, did he? He said, "I picked out a dishwasher". So you saw a dishwasher 
that you wanted. ("Uh huh.") How did I know that? I saw his eye patterns, right? 
OK, so you saw a dishwasher you wanted, then what did you do? ("I got a 
salesperson to see if it had a certain criteria that I had.") Whoa! Is that auditory 
digital, or what? So, he runs through his list of criteria.  

OK, Craig, so we're going to go back, here we go back again, yo u ready? So, 
we're going to go back again, and as you go right back to that time, you walk into 
Sears. Now, why am I saying this again? To get him right back into the state. 
You're walking into Sears and you say, "Hey, where are the dishwashers?" And 
they' re over there. You walk over to where the dishwashers are and what? ("I 
saw the ones on sale.")  

OK. Now we've got more criteria, don't we? "Saw one that was on sale." Now, 
was that a major criteria for you? ("Yes, it was.") Ah, OK, so you just gave us 
another criteria. That's why we want to loop, loop, loop, keep testing, keep 
testing, keep testing. OK. You walked over to where the dishwashers were and 
you saw one on sale, and you liked it. What was it that you saw about that 
dishwasher that caused you to know that was the dishwasher you wanted to get? 
("I wanted a portable that could be permanently affixed, and after talking to the 
salesperson, I found out that this one could be permanently affixed.") OK, now 
what we've got here are criteria. We don't necessarily have the decision making 
strategy yet, by the way. But we have criteria that are probably part of the 

motivation strategy. Now whether he got them later or not, is not really important. 
If we're selling him something, we do know that sale prices are criteria for him, 
especially on the dishwasher.  

So you saw the dishwasher. But what was it about what you saw that caused you 
to know if that was the dishwasher? ("A sign on the top that said the price I was 
within the price range that I was looking for . Also, the color dishwasher was red. 
A criteria of our kitchen -- that it would match with the kitchen.")  

Very good. We have some visual sub -modalities. So now the color. Now he's 
given us Ad criteria before. So, let me ask you a question, did you check the 
color first, or did you check the price first? ("I checked the price first.") You did 
check the price first? ("Because usually they have all the colors...") So, you 
checked the price first because you knew you could have any color you wanted. 
("Yeah, well, at Sears".) OK, so you saw the dishwasher you wanted and you 
checked out a bunch of criteria. Now at that point when you checked out a bunch 
of criteria, you talked to the salesperson, got the criteria. Did you then -- now he 
just moved his eyes over to kinesthetic --  he just finished the eye pattern for us. 
Thank -you Craig!  

I talked him through it, and at any point I can get him to re-access the eye 
patterns again. He just accessed kinesthetic. So I'm going to ask him just to be 
sure. Craig, at that point, when you finished talking to the guy, did you know that 
was what you wanted to buy, or did you have a good feeling about it, and then 
you knew? ("Actually, I knew it was what I wanted to buy, but I accessed my 
feelings because it was a shared appliance, something I wanted to make sure 
that everyone else was going to use. So I accessed my feelings ... I knew that I 
accessed.) So, it was OK with you, but you wanted to check your feelings out to 
make sure everybody was OK with it? ("Right"...)  

Now, so we've got that particular strategy we know that that was how he made 
that decision. The question is, will a kinesthetic exit generalize to all his other 
decisions? My guess is that it will.  
So, now we run just a little test so that we can be absolutely certain. That 
kinesthetic exit is just a guess on my part. It only comes from having elicited a lot 
of strategies, you know, along the way. But, let's test another strategy of Craig's. 
Craig, do you remember when you bought your last lawn-mower?  

 
When we asked him that, he flashed back and forth, visual construct / visual 
recall. He constructed his last lawn-mower. Or he constructed what he thought it 

ought to be and then he went over to visual recall and remembered it. And that 
wasn't the strategy yet. So, Craig, what happened when you bought your last 
lawn-mower? ("It was sitting in a box at the office that we had gotten on a trade, 
and then I could get a half-price deal on it.") So, do we have a sale coming up as 
another criteria? Yes, I think we do! Well, he saw the box, knew he could get it at 
a good price -- criteria. And, at that point, did you have a feeling about it, and 
knew that that was what you wanted to do? ("Well I knew that it was a good lawn-
mower...")  

 
He just got to the end of his strategy and when he said that, he accessed his 
kinesthetic again. It's apparent that he gets enough criteria till it hits his 
kinesthetic plus button and then he's done. And you saw that, right? Good. That's 
his strategy  -- his decision making strategy, which is part of the buying strategy, 
is see something (Visual external), and that it meets your criteria (Auditory 
digital), and you feel good about it.  

 
In this strategy, if you get an AD plus (meaning it meets his criteria), it's followed 
by a K. If not, you loop back to visual external. Because, if it doesn't meet your 
criteria, you're back into looking some more. Now, is that tr ue? I'm just 
hallucinating now, wildly, I might add. You're the one whose strategy it is. ("Yes")  

In the case of the lawn-mower, he made a picture in his mind. So you made a 
picture, or you recalled a picture, and that's what I mentioned earlier. In the case 
of the dishwasher, he went to Sears and saw the dishwasher. In this case, he 
didn't see the lawn- mower, but he either created or recalled that the lawn-mower 
was in the crate. Now we can make some really fine distinctions here and we can 
test it, right?  
So, as you go right back to that time, and you go right back to the office -- and 
he's flashing his back and forth between construct and recall and then he ran his 
whole strategy just then for us.  

 

And it was recall, wasn't it? So, you recalled, your eye pattern said it was recall. 
So you recalled the --  is that right? ("Yes") Craig recalled the picture of the lawn-
mower in the box and said, "Hey, I know I can get this on sale" --  criteria, criteria, 
and then he felt good about it. So Craig does operate on his feelings. He comes 
out of that with a K plus. So what I would say is that there was a visual-external 
or a visual recall, and what I usua lly write is visual recall.  

When I'm doing strategies from eye patterns for the purpose of doing embedded 
commands, I only note the eye patterns that I see, because I'm only noting the 
actual eye patterns. AND, if I'm doing this only from eye patterns, I don't question 
you like I am now. If I'm actually doing a formal elicitation, I will note Visual 
external, and question much more closely.  

OK, so then we go -- visual recall, auditory digital, kinesthetic, and the loop back 
is from auditory digital back to visual. And if, for example, Craig, you had made a 
picture of the lawn-mower and gone to your boss, and he said, "Well, there's no 
way that I'm going to sell that to you for half price, you're going to have to pay full 
list." What would you have done the n? OK, so you would have gone to their client 
and so, what he got was a K minus. So he's got to go look for more lawn-
mowers, or since he's already motivated -- this is not his motivation strategy, it's 
his decision making strategy.  

We've done two strategy elicitations, both so far, of decision making strategies, 
and note that features, criteria, being on sale -- all of that information is auditory 
digital -- criteria. It "makes sense".  
Extended questioning when eliciting strategies from eye patterns can help you 
gain greater precision in strategy elicitation. It's a very effective technique and 
you may, at times, need to get a little more formal with it in order to fill in the 
submodalities or discover the criteria.  

Now, the next step before utilization, by the way, which we should do right now, 
is to go back and to elicit the sub -modalities of Craig's strategies to make sure 
that we have the submodalities of each major piece of the strategy.  

Craig, as you go back to Sears and the dishwasher, what was it about what you 
saw that caused you to know that it looked right? (By the way, the major tests are 
Visual -  Looks Right, Auditory Tonal -  Sounds Right, Auditory Digital - Makes 
Sense, Kinesthetic - Feels Right.) Craig, earlier, you mentioned the color. ("Ye ah, 
the color matched the... really, the color was not important because I was at 
Sears and I knew I could get the color I wanted.") And you saw the right color. 
("And the right color happened... actually the one that was delivered to my house 
was the one on the showroom floor.") And it was the right color. Good. Was there 
anything other than color? Was it shape? Was it the way... was there anything 
else about the way it looked? ("No")  

OK, let's go to lawn -mower. When you imagined the lawn-mower, what was 
important about the way the lawn- mower looked? Did color have anything to do 
with it by any chance? ("No, it was in a box. Well, it was red, but I don't really 
think...") What color was your dishwasher? ("Green, like the refrigerator.") Ok, so 
there's no commonality this time, and sometimes when you do something like 
this, you will find similarities in the strategy.  

Now, let's get over to the auditory digital section of the strategy with Craig, 
because Craig is probably more AD than your average street person. I don't 
know why, but... Ok, Craig, so let's talk about the criteria.  
On sale is a major criteria. What other criteria are there? In the terms of the 
dishwasher, there was size. ("Now") Ah, so can you have it there now? And what 
about the lawn- mower? Was having it right away important? Supposing your 
boss had said, "Yeah, I'll sell you the lawn-mower at half price, but you need to 
wait two weeks, because we want to do a display." You had to have a lawn-
mower -- OK. So you bought it. What we've got is two major criteria. One is sale 
price and one is "I've got to have it right now". Not unusual, by the way. So a 
major criterion for Craig is "now". What other criteria do you have as you think 
about it? As you go back to the lawn-mower, for example? What o ther criteria are 
there that existed? ... Easy. Easy. Ok, easy to do. If the dishwasher was hard to 
do, would you have not done it? ("I would have weighed that against having 
someone else do it in terms of price...") Did you buy the dishwasher alone? 
("Yes") So, if the dishwasher was hard to use, you would have ... gotten another. 
("Yes")  
We've got Craig's whole strategy here--easy, on sale, you can have it now -- his 
major criteria. And by the way it's very easy to use that to feed back to Craig ... 
and Craig, here it is (holding up a pen), so you know you don't have to wait. Look 
at him, he's ready to go.  
The Steps in Strategy Elicitation: All right. So that's elicitation from eye 
patterns and then we went around a circle and checked it several times. And if 
you can't read eye patterns, you can use the script which we covered earlier. In 
actually eliciting someone's strategy formally there are ten steps:  

 
STEPS IN STRATEGY ELICITATION -- OVERVIEW  

1.  Make sure you're in Rapport with the person.  
2.  Set the Frame.  
3.  Get into the Specific State you're eliciting.  
4.  Follow the Outline (below).  

5.  Make Sure that the person is in a Fully Associated, Intense, Congruent 
State.  
6.  Anchor the State.  
7.  Make sure the state you elicited is intense [if not, select another state, or 
check your own state].  
8.  At each step, fire the anchor to assist them in accessing.  
9.  Elicit Modalities until complete. 
10. Then go back and elicit the sub -modalities.  

 
STEPS IN STRATEGY ELICITATION   

1.  The first step is to get in a rapport. That's very important in any process. 
We've talked about that in a previous chapter.  
2.  The second step is to set the frame. What you want to do is to set a 
softening frame. The softening frame in this case might be, "You know as 
we sit here talking about your business, I'm really motivated to ask you 
some questions that will allow me to  serve you better."  
3.  Then you want to get into the state you're eliciting. So, in this case, if I was 
dealing with somebody, I'd want to know their decision-making strategy 
prior to the time I had to ask them for a decision, so I could present 
information to them in a way that allowed them to decide easily. So I 
would get into a decisive state --a state when I made a decision. Now, if 
you're in rapport, that will lead them into the state and make it easier for 
them to access their own decision-making state.  
4.  Next, the formal elicitation text which we've given you earlier.  
5.  The next step: After you've said, "Can you remember a time...", and 
concurrent with anchoring, make sure the person you're eliciting the 
strategy from, is in a fully associated intense cong ruent state. That is, that 
they are actually associated in the memory of the event. (Associated 
means that they are looking through their own eyes, and are not seeing 
themselves in the memory.)  
6.  Step number 6 is to anchor the state. (see anchoring)  
7.  Step 7 is just a check -- Make sure that the state you elicited is intense. 
Now, that means it is a good state. Meaning that you can fire the anchor 
(step number 8),and get the same state again.  
8.  Fire the anchor. (Which is also useful if a guy says, "Gee, I'm ha ving 
trouble making a decision," and you're in the process of enrolling him to be 
a client of yours, then you can just fire that anchor and he'll go back into 
decisive state. He won't have any trouble making a decision.) Then in the 
process of eliciting strategies, you can fire the anchor at each step to 
assist them in accessing.  

9.  Then you elicit all the modalities until you're complete, and go back and 
check it like we did with Craig, and  
10. Then go back and elicit the submodalities. 

And, those are the ten steps in formal strategy elicitation.  
  
In case you run out of ways to get into a strategy elicitation, here are some other 
things that you can say:  

1.  "Has there ever been a time when you were really motivated to do 
something?" (Motivation)  
2.  "What is it like when you're exceptionally creative?" Or, "Has there ever 
been a situation in which you were exceptionally creative?" (Creativity)  
3.  "Can you tell me about a time when you were best able to do 'x'?" (a Skill)  
4.  "What is it like to "x"? 
5.  "Can you, 'x'?" or "How do you 'x'?" or "Have you ever 'x'ed?"  
6.  "Would you know if you could 'x'?"  
7.  "What happens to you as you 'x' 

Any of those can be used to begin a formal strategy elicitation, or even an 
informal one for that matter.  
Strategy Utilization: Now that you k now how to elicit strategies, the next step is 
utilization.  

Once you've discovered what someone's strategies are, the next thing to do is to 
utilize or use that person's strategies in feeding information back to them in a way 
that it becomes irresistible to them. For example, you might want to utilize 
someone's strategy in the process of assisting them to be motivated in a certain 
way, or causing them to want to do what you suggest, or in the process of selling 
them something.  

Once elicited, you can then use the strategy as a framework for the information 
you want to feed to that person, and in using the strategy that way will present a 
structure of information to the person so that the information becomes irresistible 
to them or irresistible to their neur ology, regardless of the content of that 
information.  
Feed the Strategy Back: It's a very simple matter to feed the information back to 
a person inside of their strategy, meaning you put the information contextually in 
the form of the strategy that they just gave you. For example, if a person's 
strategy was visual, auditory digital, and kinesthetic, and if in the auditory digital 
they were comparing criteria, you could say to them, "Have you seen our 

proposal yet, so that you can see that it meets your criteria and feel good about 
it?" They would feel good about what you said, and probably wouldn't be aware 
of why. More importantly, they would also feel good about your proposal!  

Let's say that you elicited a strategy that was visual external (submodalities-big 
picture), auditory digital, kinesthetic (feels solid, grounded), and in the auditory 
digital part they said, "Is this okay?", and then when it was okay, the person 
would say, "Yes, this is the one." What you would say to this person is, "I think 
you should take a good look at this so you can see how it will fit into the whole 
picture. I'm sure you will find that it will answer all the questions we've been 
asking ourselves, and you'll really be able to say 'yes', this is the one", and feel, 
as I do, tha t this is the most solid grounded choice available.  

The way you present information to someone makes a big difference if you 
present it in the order and sequence that they process information (inside their 
strategy), or if you put it in an order or sequence that is different (outside their 
strategy).  

Obviously, you will want to discover someone's strategies and then fit your 
communication into that order and sequence directly. We were recently teaching 
someone how to do embedded commands. (And essentially, by doing embedded 
commands inside of someone's strategy, what you're doing is making the 
embedded commands even more irresistible then they already were.) As I was 
showing her an example of using embedded commands and strategies, I used a 
"standard" sequence visual  - auditory digital -  kinesthetic (which was not her 
strategy). As we talked, she was having Then, I put it inside her strategy (which 
was auditory digital - visual kinesthetic), and she immediately understood it at 
that point.  
The first time I said, "You will probably see in a moment that this makes sense to 
you, and you can feel good about learning it." No response. So, I pointed that out 
to her, and said "Well, I think that you will probably discover this makes sense to 
you as soon as you can see that it feels right." And she went, "Oh, yeah, now I 
understand." The idea is, then, to feed back the information to them inside their 
strategy.  

The next step after mastering embedded commands inside strategies, is to 
enclose the entire sentence with a beginning and ending temporal predicate. A 
temporal predicate is a predicate or a word that deals with time. What are some 
words that deal with time? Well, when, when are you going to, later, now, soon... 
tonight.  

We could say (assuming a visual construct / visual recall -  auditory digital - 
kinesthetic), "I'm wondering (hypnotic language pattern) how soon... " (which is a 
temporal predicate) "I'm wondering how soon you will have the opportunity to 
look at our proposal and recall, seeing that it meets your criteria for feeling good 

about it tonight, won't you (hypnotic language pattern). And so that becomes a 
very, very powerful form of embedded command.  
The magic number is three presuppositions in a single sentence, which 
immediately gets you beyond the conscious mind. He says when you get to the 
magic number 3 in a given sentence, if you put three presuppositions inside the 
sentence... actually the following sentence had 6.  

Given the above strategy, here's the sentence: I'm wondering how soon [1] 
(assuming they haven't even agreed to look at the proposal yet) you'll have the 
opportunity to look at our proposal [2], and recall seeing that it meets your criteria 
[3], so you can feel good about it [4] tonight [5], won't you [tag question-6]. Here's 
how it works:  

So, what we have is a hypnotic language pattern followed by a temporal 
predicate at the beginning, and at the end, that collapses all 3 of the embedded 
commands together into one highly irresistible sentence. You can construct them 
any way you want by putting temporal predicates at the beginning and the end 
and putting the embedded commands in the middle.  

How do you learn how to do that? You discover their strategy, then (if you need 
to) write it out on a piece of paper as you construct the embedded commands. 
Then put the hypnotic language and the temporal predicates at the beginning 
and end and say it. You see, in the previous sentence there's also a command to 
feel good about the proposal tonight as opposed to some other night, which 
presupposes again that they're going to look at it tonight, whereas we began by 
asking them how soon, we now have ended up by suggesting that its going to be 
tonight.  
Now, while you were in the process of eliciting someone's strategies you may 
also have set some anchors.  

When we do training for retail salespeople, we suggest they use anchoring in 
addition to strategy elicitation, and embedded commands. When somebody 
walks in to talk to a salesman on the floor that we're instructing how to sell, one 
of the things that we suggest is that the salesperson ask the client, "Have you 
ever purchased a computer (let's say it's a computer salesman), that really works 
well and you felt really good about?" And when the client or the prospective 
customer remembers that, they're going to access that entire strategy of buying 
that computer, aren't they? They're going through and access that state. When 
the salesperson asked the customer if they'd ever had a computer that they felt 
good about and really worked well for them, they'll have to go back and access a 
time if they did. If they did, it's going to access a state of having a computer that 
worked well for them, which you can anchor. Then you say, "How did you 
purchase the computer?, which elicits the decision-making strategy.  

You say to them, "Have you ever bought a computer you felt really good about?" 
They're either going to say yes or no. So if they say yes, or even if they say no, 
anchor that state! Assuming they said yes, you've also got one or more anchors 
placed with them at the time of eliciting the strategy. When you go to close, you 
can do the close inside their strategy, and feed back the information to them in 
exactly the same way as they process the information, you can also fire the 
anchors. So, with a positive anchor set, assuming an auditory digital strategy, 
you can say something like, "I'm sure as you look at our computer you'll see that 
it meets all your criteria for computers, and that you can decide that you want to 
do it (firing the anchor), don't you? That's a visual auditory digital strategy. Okay?  
And, if you get a negative response to the question, "Have you ever bought a 
computer you felt really good about," anchor it, too. You can always use it to 
attach to an objection that they may have in the future.  

Strategy Design: The next element in strategies, is strategy design. Now, you'd 
want to design a new strategy for a person if the strategy they have is particularly 
inefficient or did not process data well for them. For example, a client might have 
a visual kinesthetic buying decision-making strategy. That is, they see it, want it, 
buy it. "They want it" is a feeling. And they might be in a situation where, "Hey, 
I'm buying too much."  

You can assist them by adding another point to that particular strategy. There are 
some things you should know. When designing strategies there are some things 
that are very important:  
1.  The person must have a well defined representation of the outcome. It 
must be a well designed outcome. We need to know what kind of outcome 
we want as a result of changing the strategy. And so, we go through the 
Keys to an Outcome and the Meta Model and design a very well defined 
representation of the outcome. Ask, "for what purpose..." why they want 
the change.  
2.  Second, the strategy should use all three of the major representational 
systems, that is, visual, auditory and kinesthetic.  
3.  The third thing is there should be no two -point loops. A two -point loop 
becomes a synesthesia (like a V-K synesthesia). And a synesthesia loops 
around too quickly, and is harder to get out of. If you're in a synesthesia 
where you're going around in a circle, V-K, V-K, V -K, it's really hard to 
break out of that kind of loop. Whereas, if it's a three-point loop, there's 
more time in between the going back and picking it up and going around 
again, and if they have some auditory digital they can say, "... hey, it's time 
to get out of here."  
4.  Which leads us to point number four, that is, after so many steps the 
strategy should have an external check. What we don't want to do is, what 
I've seen so many times, people who have strategies, of course 
unconsciously designed, where they literally go and they end up in this 

auditory digital feedback loop where they're just evaluating criteria, 
gathering more information, they continue to get stuck in this Ad loop, 
where they talk themselves right into and out of a decision. They go Visual 
- Auditory Digital, should I make a decision? No ...gather more information 
... talk yourself out ... they end up in a very tight digital loop w here they're 
just not making a decision. So the point is to have a three point loop.  

Now, there are three more points about the functionality of the strategy you're 
going to design. In the process of designing a strategy, there are three more 
points that are really important:  
First of all the strategy should have a test, and part of the test should be a 
comparison of the present state, and the desired state. Remember we said at the 
beginning of this chapter, that typically there's a trigger or a test that feeds 
information forward to the next test. The information that's in the feed forward 
part sets up certain criteria.  

In the comparison, the strategy should have a test which is the comparison of the 
present state to the desired state. That will give you either a minus (go back and 
continue the strategy), or a plus (exit successfully).  
The second element on the functionality of strategies is that the strategy should 
have a feedback step, that is a representation resulting from the plus or minus, 
that is a representation resulting from the plus or minus that is the congruence or 
incongruence of the test comparison, so that a strategy when installed should 
have a plus and a minus place where it goes back and loops back or where it 
exits.  

Finally the strate gy should have an operation. This comes right out of the test 
exit. The strategy should have an operation that is a chain of representational 
and/or motor activities for the purpose of altering the present state in order to 
bring it closer to the desired state, that is, it should have a series of steps, in 
other words, an operation should have a series of steps or a chain of 
representational systems or internal/external advance.  

Just a couple of more observations about strategies, now. First of all the strategy 
with the fewest steps is probably better than the strategy with the most steps. In 
other words, if you designed a 23-point strategy for someone, and you're going in 
and install it, forget it. What's a lot better is to give them as few steps as possible 
to allow them to achieve their outcome. So based on what our criteria is, in terms 
of structural well-formed strategies, the criteria would be somewhere between 
three and having as few steps as possible.  

Another point is that having a choice is better than having no choice. So you're 
going to install a strategy, make sure you're giving the person a choice, rather 
than no choice.  

You should take into account the Direction Meta Program. It's important to take 
into account whether the person moves Toward or Away From in the design of 
the strategy.  
Installation: Finally, installation is a matter of rehearsal, swish patterns, and 
chaining anchors installed to recall each step of the new strategy. 
 
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