S7E9: Designing the Experience Journey

How does Neurolinguistic Programming contribute to emotional breakthroughs and behavior change? The episode discusses the importance of crafting a transformative experience journey for participants and emphasizes the significance of event planners shifting their focus from tangible outcomes to the process itself. Be sure to follow along for more episodes in the coming weeks!

Today we are discussing:
Facilitating Behavior Change (1:48)
Neurolinguistics Programming (LPN) (4:07)
How LPN Applies to Behavior Change (7:38)
Designing Unique Experiences (9:30)
Focusing on the Process (12:30)

Visit the Experience University website for more information!
www.experienceuniversity.org

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Facebook: Experience University
TikTok: @DrKDoesParenting @EventswithDrK
Instagram: @kristin.malek

Transcript

Dr. K:
You are listening to the Experience University podcast with Dr K. Season 7, Episode 9.

Speaker 2:
Welcome to Experience University, where we aim to educate, inspire, and empower individuals who wish to design transformational experiences. Now, your host, Dr. Kristin Malek.

Dr. K:
Hello, hello, my friends. I had a couple of people point out that I always say, "Hello, hello, my friends," at the start. And so now, sometimes when I say it, I just instantly start laughing because I know I say it every time. You are all my friends, my extended friend-family network, and I'm so glad to be here with you today. I mean, you're listening to me, and I'm talking directly into your ears and soul, and I think that puts us on friend status. So if you don't like that, that's okay. But I am never going to change that.

I have to say, the last podcast, it kind of blew up, and I have been getting so many messages, which is awesome. I love to hear from you all. Keep adding me on LinkedIn, keep sending me messages, keep DMing me on TikTok or Instagram. My Instagram, I restarted, so it's a fledgling little account, so feel free to go and check me out there. And I do have a Facebook page, Experience University. I am getting so many messages, keep them coming. Because of that, I've gotten some really interesting requests that had some really interesting verbiage. I wanted to spend the first part of this podcast clarifying some verbiage because I think it's really important.

This whole season has been about talking about behavior change and behavior change design. We're going to continue on with that. But some of the questions that I'm getting are very specific to their situation, and that's great. You can always send me those things. I would love to talk about it, analyze it, and bring it on the podcast. But when you're asking me questions like, "How can I change so-and-so's behavior?" First of all, it sounds like a relationship issue. Sounds like a relationship, dating coach kind of thing. "How can I change so-and-so's behavior?" But, "How can I change so-and-so's behavior in the workforce?" or, "How can I change so-and-so's behavior in this situation?" I want to be very clear that we are not changing so-and-so's behavior. We are designing and facilitating experiences that encourage these participants to be curious. We are designing these experiences where we are encouraging them to choose to plant the seeds for growth and change into their subconscious and for them to recognize it consciously.

We are not changing behavior. We are not sitting there saying, "Hi you, you need to change. I'm changing your behavior." We are designing experiences that facilitate your change. It seems like a minor little thing there. But it's kind of like the difference between a therapist and a life coach. We have to be particular with the language because I am not changing your behavior. I am designing an experience that will facilitate your journey to behavior change. Okay? I wanted to be very, very clear on that. I think that's really important, similar to therapy, therapists. We don't fix problems. We are asking the right questions, giving the right scenarios that inspire people to think about the world differently, their world differently, their place in the world differently. So again, a little nuanced but very, very important. I don't want you all to go out and sell that you are changing: I am changing so and so's behavior. I am designing behavior change, and that is just a little bit different. So along these spectrums, I've had a lot of questions that are specific to some of my experience. And I wanted to talk about that for a little bit.

So some of the training that I'm trained in, I've mastered, I’m an expert in. One of them is neurolinguistics programming. Now, every single thing in our world is a scale, and I feel like this could be its own podcast on its own. Anything that you think is dichotomous, right and wrong, black and white in those examples, you know, it's a scale. There's always the gray, there's always that questionable spot in the middle, but we don't often think about it in every area of life. Anything that you think has two or three options really has infinite options between them. It's just like when you're at a hardware store and you're looking at paint samples, and you think there's black and then there's white. You can think about the fact that there's white and then there's off-white, and then you have 75 different shades of white between off-off-white and white, right? So those people that sit there and be like, “Why am I painting four white samples on the wall?” It's because they're all just a tinge different, like one degree of yellow drop, one degree of blue drop different. And that makes a huge difference. And so when we're sitting there thinking about that, these different changes, we have to remember that every single thing is a scale.

And when I have my neurolinguistics programming and when I first went into it, I heard a lot of, "This is bad. People do bad things with this. People are manipulating." Yes, everything in this world has a scale. We have a right, a wrong, but we don't, we have 1000 shades between. So yes, people have used NLP (Neurolinguistics Programming) for very selfish or hurtful things. In the past, people have also used it for a lot of really, really good things. I'm also trained as a master practitioner in the timeline technique. So you'll read some people on the internet call it timeline therapy. That's kind of how it's known, but it's a timeline technique. And I do these eight and these 10-hour breakthroughs. So people can call me and say, "Kristen" or "Dr. K" depending on what version of my life you're coming from. You can call me and you can say, "This is the issue that I'm dealing with right now; I would really like to get over this.” And I will design a custom eight- or ten-hour breakthrough experience for you.

And there are people who are certified as a practitioner in NLP. I'm a master practitioner which means lots more training… lots more training, a significant amount more training and a significant amount more money too. But we can use these techniques in different ways. So some people, they're choosing to use their NLP, and they're just working with clients who have anxiety. There are people who are doing NLP and they're just working with weight loss. There are people who do NLP, who are just working with high performance clients. So it can be applied in a variety of different ways. Essentially, in this breakthrough, we facilitate a journey that enables individuals to release limiting beliefs or limiting decisions. You can remove imposter syndrome, help you feel confident in sales or money, remove anxiety, smoking, all these things. I want to clarify the difference between these sessions and therapy. I am even certified in hypnosis, and no I am not using it on the podcast. You just love this because you love this, not because I am using hypnotic language. And the difference in all of these things, the key difference here is that with NLP, I never actually know the specifics of your situation. So, while designing this eight- or ten-hour custom journey for you, we guide your subconscious mind to release these limitations, but we do not relive your past experiences or traumas.

Unlike in therapy or other forms of coaching, we don't make you relive those difficult moments or trauma or act them out. Instead, we focus on the lessons learned and facilitate a journey of understanding from those experiences. Now, you might be wondering, 'Kristen, this is not a therapy podcast. Why are you explaining this?' Well, I think it's really important for who we are as experience designers and as event designers because, similarly, we never fully know our participants' specific situations. We know some of their learnings, psychographics, and personal traits, and we know what the desired behavior change is. But, we don’t know these specific situations, and that’s okay.

Sometimes, I hear people making excuses, saying, “I can't design a custom experience for them because I don't know everything that happened in their life.” Every individual's life is unique - ‘yes, and.’ Using lots of improv here too: ‘yes, and.’ Yes and yes, everybody's life is singular. Everybody's life is unique, and I am huge on inclusion, and not just inclusion based on psychographics and not just inclusion based on our demographics or disabilities or other areas. I am huge on inclusion and understanding that every single person has a unique situation in unique lived experiences and need unique things.

I think so often we try to label people or put people in buckets, but this is where my polymath mindset comes into play. Everything overlaps, and everything comes together. Being a master practitioner in NLP and conducting these eight- and ten-hour custom experiences that is really a custom set of questions, techniques, it's a process. I am taking people through these processes. And let me tell you, I thought that I knew who my clients were going to be for these breakthroughs when I first went into this. However long ago, it was when I first went into it, I was like, “I know exactly who I'm going to talk to” I'm going to talk to students with this background and this demographic, and they're going to be dealing with anxiety and be unsure about themselves, or I'm going to work with event planners who have perfectionism and maybe some imposter syndrome. They don’t think their work is valued. So I already had it in my mind who I was going to work with. And let me tell you, almost 90% of my clients are white males who are at a certain level or above who are super, super successful. And when I say successful, I mean financially, for them in their situation, although that is not how we all define success.

I am shocked, like to my core, that is who all of my clients have been. I love, love, love, love having a diverse client portfolio. But I will tell you the reason why I think this particular demographic is drawn to NLP, in particular, is because you never have to talk about the situations. You can sit there and you can have these situations, whether it's abuse or trauma or insecurities in your background. I have worked with previous Navy Seals, up to chief marketing officers in major organizations. I have worked with the gambit of people. I have seen people you would never think would cry, who are literally crying in front of me with their hands coming together. It's absolutely incredible, and I never know what the situation is. And I think that that's really powerful.

So when we're designing experiences, it's the exact same thing. We're designing a process that we're taking our attendees through. Our attendees are participants, they're relating this process to their current lived experience throughout life. They're unwiring their neural pathways and rewiring the neural pathways based on our process.

I think so often as experienced designers, we're focused on the actual product or the outcome. It's very rewarding for us in our particular career that we get to actually be on site. We get to see something be built and then we get to live it and then we get to take it down. And it's very gratifying to actually see the fruits of our labor. But the difference between that and behavior change and behavior change design is you don't always see the fruits of your labor.

It's like when you're a teacher that's not teaching to a test. When you teach a test, you get to see the test results and you're like, “Yes, I taught that well. My students have this test.” It's more like you're giving people the opportunity to, if they choose themselves, you're giving them the opportunity to acquire life skills, to give them that opportunity for real behavior change.

So stop thinking about the actual outcome, the show itself, the product, and really start to think about designing that process, that experience journey that your attendees are going to go through, and I promise you, you will be significantly more impactful and transformational. I hope that everybody could follow this path. I was overlapping some different concepts. I got passionate at one point and went a little bit off script. I hope we all came back together and ended up at the final point together. I love all of your comments. I love all of your DMs and your messages. Keep them coming. Feel free to add me on LinkedIn and stay tuned for all of the incredible things we have coming up. I am so excited.

Speaker 2:
Thanks for listening to the Experience University Podcast. Stay tuned for our next episode.