The Question Behind the Question
Every question someone asks you is also a statement about how they think. Learning to hear the structure behind the content changes what you can do with the conversation.
Notes
Notes on how people think, decide and change
Working notes from the practice. Each one takes a single idea — a list, a model, a set of questions — and makes it specific enough to use the same day.
7 notes
- VALUES10 min read
Core Values List: 200+ Values, With Examples of Each in Action
A core values list of 231 personal values in 12 groups, each with an example of the behaviour behind it, plus how to find, test and rank your own core values.
Read the note - VALUES8 min read
Values Elicitation: How to Find What Really Drives Someone
How to elicit values: the exact values elicitation questions, how to rank a values hierarchy, and how to tell stated values from those that drive behaviour.
Read the note - COGNITIVE FILTERS10 min read
Meta Programs in NLP: 12 Patterns With Examples and Questions
A practical NLP meta programs list: 12 patterns with examples, the questions that reveal each one, and how to phrase things so your message matches.
Read the note - LANGUAGE9 min read
The Meta Model: NLP Questions That Recover the Missing Detail
The NLP Meta Model explained: deletion, distortion and generalisation, each pattern with an example and its question, and how to ask without interrogating.
Read the note - LANGUAGE9 min read
The Milton Model: Language Patterns From Milton Erickson, With Examples
The Milton Model explained: Milton Erickson’s artfully vague language patterns, from embedded commands to double binds, with an original example of each.
Read the note - OBSERVATION9 min read
Sensory Acuity: How to Notice What People Don’t Say
Sensory acuity is the skill of noticing small changes in another person. Learn calibration in NLP, what to observe, practice exercises and the limits.
Read the note - FRAMEWORKS7 min read
The NLP Communication Model: How Experience Becomes Behaviour
The NLP communication model shows how events pass through filters to become internal representations, states and behaviour. With a worked example and limits.
Read the note
Observations
Being written
Why Advice Rarely Works
Advice assumes the other person’s decision-making structure is the same as yours. It almost never is. Here’s what to do instead.
The Structure of Stuck
Feeling stuck isn’t the absence of options. It’s a specific internal configuration — a pattern of beliefs, values, and representations maintaining the current position. The configuration is observable.
What People Mean When They Say ‘I Don’t Know’
‘I don’t know’ is almost never literally true. It usually means: I haven’t accessed it yet, I don’t want to say, or I don’t have language for it. Each one requires a different response.
Before You Change a Behaviour
The instinct is to fix the behaviour. The more useful move is to find the structure producing it. Change the structure, and the behaviour changes as a side effect.
The Difference Between Knowing and Understanding
You can know a principle intellectually and still not have it available when you need it. The gap between knowing and understanding is a gap of internal representation, not information.
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