UNCOVERING YOUR LATENT RESOURCES

There are a multitude of resources all around us— some we call them natural resources. Examples include forests, rivers, coal, gas, oil, sunlight, and on and on. Others are human resources— assets that enable you to be the best version of you— intelligence, faith, hope, joy, love, courage, persistence, resilience, and on and on. Of these resources— some are active and readily available, some are latent and have to be developed.

We sometimes describe NLP in terms of resources— identifying, developing, refining, and applying resources. With the Well-Formed Outcome questions, the resource questions follow the interference question (What stops you?) and asks, “What resource do you need to handle that block?” It could be an external resource (time, money, personnel, advice, coaching, etc.) and it could be an internal resources (courage, understanding, humor, etc.).

Often you have to go in search of a resource— you have to go explore where it is and how to access it. Just as people explore for oil, explore for wind, water, and sun energy sources, so you may have to explore and then develop what at first may not seem like a resource. When people first discovered oil seeping up from the ground, it was considered a problem, a mess, an inconvenience. They did not want it and that was because they didn’t know what they could do with it.

Resources are like that— if you don’t know what to do with a latent resource, you will tend to discount it, view it pessimistically, treat it like a problem to be solved rather than realize it is an asset to develop. In the book Neuro-Linguistic Programming, the authors described environment variables— the sources from which we can develop resources.

“Each ... involves a shift from the class of environmental variables into the class of decision variables by reframing or restructuring the way a problematic phenomenon fit into our models. It is the continuation of this process, the shifting of environmental variables into decision variables by sorting and punctuating the way the variables fit into context, that is the goal of neuro- linguistic programming.” (Dilts, 1980, p. 9)

That’s fancy language (which is not all that clear) about turning a problem into an asset. It speaks about shifting an environmental variable into a decision variable which you can then take advantage of. Now you have choice!

“NLP extends the limits of the modern scientific model by placing the locus of behavioral control in the individual. ... NLP takes one further step and proposes to examine the correlations between what we experience as the external environment and our internal representations of that experience.” (1980, p. 12)

In other words, how you think about the external problem can turn it into an internal resource. Using the example of oil, once people learned about it, discovered ways to use it, their inner

perception changed it from a problem to a resource— how to provide abundant energy and how to create an economy based on it. We did that with rivers as we built dams to capture the energy and then transfer it into wires that today light and warm our homes. In fact, hundreds of external things (environmental variables) that our ancestors considered as problems, or as unusable factors, we have turned into assets that frequently creates an economic fortune for those with this ability. When once people saw a lake frozen over, they viewed that as a problem, today we turn it into a ice skating ring and charge people to go skate. That’s also reframing as we change our mind about an external factor, removing it from one category to a more useful category.

In a most creative way, Joe Cheal took the four dysfunctional communication stances of Virginia Satir (e.g., blamer, placater, distracter, and computer) and noting that when one of these are used ‘in moderation’ there are useful qualities within them that can be used as a personal strength. So from the liability of blamer can come the asset of Expresser (direct, focused, emphatic, strong, clear, etc.). From the liability of placator can come the asset of Engager (inviting, consulting, asking, open, including, etc.). From the liability of distracter can come the asset of Entertainer (amusing, light-hearted, cheerful, charming, creative, etc.). and From the liability of computer can come the asset of Education (factual, evidence-based, credible, intelligent, explaining, etc.). (Acuity, 2013, p. 51)

What are some of your latent resources— variables that today you may think of, and conceive as, a problem— that if you could, or would, change your mind, you would discover it as a source for wealth, health, creativity, love, courage, etc.? People create wealth all the time in this way. Others use complaints, problems, frustrations, etc. for creativity, for love, and for resilience.

For many, the pandemic, the lock-down, the economic down-turn has been nothing but an unmitigated problem. The media used it to spread a pandemic of fear and paranoia. Yet it doesn’t have to be that way. Simply ask, “How can I turn this environmental variable into an asset?” I used the lock down to accelerate my research and writing (last week’s Neurons #64). Some used it to develop a daily exercise routine. Some used it to build up an inner sense of resilience.

Think about a latent resource as a resource-in-waiting. It is there, it is simply not activated — not yet. It could be an understanding, a meaning, a competence (capacity), a symbol waiting to become an overt resource. Latent resources, however, can be deceptive. On the surface, they do not normally reveal themselves as resources. That’s why you have to look deeper, explore more thoroughly, frame and reframe to find and develop that hidden resource. It is a potential that can be actualized, yet it takes a robust meaning-maker to do so. This is the challenge— are you up for it?

For more, see Mind-Lines which is about the art of reframing, Unleashed which is on the process of how unleashing potentials work, or Neuro-Semantics — how we construct meaning and then actualize it in our performances.