I recently immersed myself into doing NLP with groups; however, the only group I could easily access was of Indiana State prisoners. All 5'5", 150 lbs. Of me presented to a group of violent inmates in recovery from criminal behavior and/or chemical dependency.

This challenging group provided me with instant feedback as a speaker, to put it mildly. I'm thankful I knew NLP. It allowed learning and integrating skills quickly. I didn't have a lot of time to "get into rapport."

The group was a Rational Recovery meeting of five offenders. Rational Recovery prefers a rational approach to recovery over the spiritual approach of 12-steps. Among the five original members, there were intellectual humanists, serious Satanists, ornery atheists, and one Christian who thought 12-steps was a sin. The offences included manslaughter from a DUI, rape and child molestation, armed robbery, and drug trafficking. They had been court-ordered into recovery - maybe one wanted to be there.

The good news is after a few months of sharing NLP and hypnosis with the group, not only did I become an excellent speaker (I'm alive and well), but also the group grew to the maximum size the Department Of Corrections (DOC) allows for any gathering of offenders without prison guard supervision - 35 inmates.

Two steps were used to grow as a speaker and grow the group using NLP with recovery and addictions.

1. Establish a trackable, recognizable pattern for all the meetings.
2. Transform the beliefs the inmates had about themselves, each other, and recovery.

I learned from Dr. William Horton, founder of the National Federation of Neuro Linguistic Psychology (NFNLP), the techniques of presenting. One of the most valuable insights I gained was the model for a presentation. The steps in my version are:

1. To housekeep and build rapport.
2. Grab the audience's attention.
3. Provide instruction.
4. Release them to go boldly with something specific in their hands to do.
5. Provide positive feedback.

Housekeeping is mundane. It is simply welcoming new people, making any announcements about meeting changes, and instructing people of the location of bathrooms, etc. This is a place to build rapport and slowly take a position of leadership while extending freedom to the group (such as instructing them to use the bathroom located in the back of the room as needed, no need to raise hands.)

When welcoming new people, keep yourself on the spot and not them. Say, "Welcome to an exclusive group. I'm honored you've chosen this group, and it's my sincere hope you find great value here. If you have any questions feel free to share them (or hold them till the Q & A at the end), my name is Paul and your peer leader is..." All this should take no more than three minutes.

Immediately follow by grabbing the room's attention. Experience demonstrates story telling works best. Bandler himself is a master storyteller and extols the power of metaphorical and state inducing stories. To build a story treasury, listen to other speakers and collect their stories. You can also use resources like the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. Additionally, your life experiences can be old as stories. By far the stories, which gained trust and attention, were retelling my own blunders and surprise successes.

The most critical part of the story telling phase is that you quickly hook it to the topic for presentation. I've found that any story can be connected to any topic. Usually the line, "And that story brings me to my topic I've come prepared to share because..." can be used to link story with topic. The stronger and clearer the connection the better.

At this point people are ready to learn; however, I discovered quickly that my audience had little interest in learning from an academic who perhaps didn't know what it was like to live in a ghetto or wake up after a binge and not know what happened the night before.

Sharing my mistakes, hardships and blunders helped; however, preparing the room for new learning helped more. Have your group brainstorm a list of everything they already know or believe about the topic for the day. Write everything down without judgement. Express the wish to have each participant's ideas. Conclude the brainstorming by saying, "Clearly we all know a great deal about this topic already. What I'd like us to do is just put the things we know and believe to the side for a moment and consider what may be a new perspective." Use NLP body language to anchor a new place in front of the "old" information.

After clearing out the existing beliefs, the group must be convinced the information is valid. I developed the four P's for presenting. The promise, pain, price, and process. The promise is usually told through stories about the dramatic effects others have had using the strategy of the day. The pain is what someone stands to lose by neglecting the strategy. The price is what is asked of someone, to enjoy the promise and avoid the pain. The price recognizes how anything worth having is worth full payment. Finally, the process explores the new tool and how it is practically used. Demonstrations of NLP should be kept simple. The NLP training from NFNLP is perhaps the most down to earth, pragmatic demonstration of NLP I've experienced. If you're unsure how to communicate NLP activities without the mystifying language, you may wish to refresh your existing knowledge with one of the NFNLP certified trainers.

I conclude with "the test." I let participants know the clock is ticking and the opportunities to get the benefits starts now. I encourage them to go boldly and test or try the new idea. I ensure that participants leave with something tangible (usually a report retelling the steps they learned.) This element alone was responsible for the growth of the group from 5 to 35 inmates in about 10 meetings. The inmates would go to their bunkmates and share the information.. .in many cases actually doing the exercises together. After a few exposures to the positive attitudinal changes and life benefits of NLP, the roommate would attend a future meeting.

One specific example is, when teaching how to use eye accessing cues to detect truthfulness and to access certain states (looking down to feel feelings or up to recreate mental pictures), one of the inmates used the deception sensing component on the guard. Afterwards the guard confessed he had made up the answer. Meanwhile, inmates were calibrating each other and the cell- block had a laughter-filled time trying to be deceptive. The next week the room size doubled!

The second key to presenting to a hostile audience is to change their beliefs. Let me pull from a sample session allowing you to see both the belief change, as well as, the representation pattern we just reviewed.

One of the most successful meetings began with housekeeping. Immediately after, I told the story of Roger Banister - the first human to run the mile in less than four minutes. Modern experts concluded beating the four-minute mile was impossible. The experts agreed the human heart would fail and lungs would burst under the strain. One Olympics, Banister beat the time. After his success a few other athletes mirrored his accomplishment. More powerfully, within a year, high school students were running the mile in less than four minutes.

This is a classic story where a model provides a change of belief, which becomes real. It also addressed the values of this group. They resist the experts who say 12-step spirituality is required for recovery.

After the story I hooked the room to my topic. I claimed I would show them they had unbelievable brains and abilities. Like Rodger Banister, I first demonstrated something they believed impossible then showed them they could do it too - effortlessly, easily and enjoyably.

We discussed the benefits of doing the seemingly impossible and the costs of staying inside the box of conventional thinking or allowing all the "experts" do all their thinking. The inmates Socratically identified the price of changing view was greater responsibility.

Finally, we moved onto the process. I had the men generate a list of 20 shopping list items. As they created the list, one inmate wrote it on the blackboard behind me. After the last item was listed, I told them I had already memorized the list of 20 items in such a way I could tell them the item if they called out a number of the number if they called out an item. They took me to task. I succeeded. You may have seen such memory demonstrations.

Upon modeling the skill and demonstrating what they believed impossibly or very unlikely, I said, "You may be thinking to yourself, "Of course he can do that, he's the hypnotist. There's no way I can do it..." So who really feels they could never memorize a list of items?" It turned out there was a person with a diagnosed learning disability who had suffered additional brain trauma.

I shared the techniques with the room as I specifically did them with volunteers on a new list. In 48 seconds he was ready to be tested. He passed, and his peers...killers, thieves, rapists....applauded him. He later told me it was the first act of recognition he had ever had in years.

As the members left the room, they received a copy of the memory techniques. Many also left with the original lists generated in the room in their notes. Most didn't require a list because they had it memorized. Several were amazed, especially new members who came that day.

In researching more about NLP for the chemically dependent, I discovered a stage hypnotist who uses a similar system. He hypnotizes the room and selects the highly suggestible. He then does a "dog-and-pony show." Throughout he explains how the brain is amazing and powerful. He suggests it makes sense to keep it clear, clean and healthy. He successfully builds a desire to be sober, and some people get so excited about NLP and hypnosis they get hooked.

Several at the prison are hooked, too. I worried I had transferred one addiction for another. However, I realized if all I had done was transfer from a destroying substance to the life affirming quality of NLP; I had done something great. From there, I could trust the self-healing universe and NLP to do the rest. After all, the homeostatic universe and NLP taught me to be a presenter when my life depended on it.