WHAT DO THEY ALREADY KNOW?

If you do trainings, here’s a critical question for you. And my recommendation is— do not even think about attempting to engage in training until you ask and answer this question. “What do my participants already know?” This question is critical if you want to be successful. Actually, you cannot be effective if you cannot answer that question. After all, where would you star t? Are you starting with things they already know? If so, you better present it as foundational and quickly move on. If not, then you better back up and provide some foundational understandings so that they can follow you.

The question directs you, as a trainer, to pay close attention to those who come to participate in your training. What do they already know about NLP? What do they already know about communication, language, states, neurology, etc.? Now as you are drawing out their current knowledge, you will be able to detect what previous learnings you can build on and which you will have to challenge. That’s because you are going to hear their cultural learnings — biases, assumptions and beliefs. And many will be misconceptions.