Mind Reading, Calibration, Sensory Acuity & NLP
Most NLP trainings will give you a fair amount of calibration training. But few will help you to build the kind of state of mind where you can see, hear and feel more than you can consciously realise possible.
Calibration is more than that of course. A video camera can record a lot of visual information but it can make very little sense of it. Most video cameras these days are auto-focus and continually adjust to lighting conditions.
You know how you can be engrossed in a conversation in a public place yet as soon as a stranger says your name you're suddenly switched into listening to them?
That proves that we're constantly monitoring and responding to our environment. How and to what extent depends on your state of mind.
Before any NLP training, most people are extremely unaware of what goes on around them. They rarely think about how they are a fully integral part of their environment, that everything anybody else does affects them, and anything they do affects everyone else. It's also unusual for people to think about what they're actually intending to achieve with their communication...
Because behind every communication we have a purpose - or several. And all these purposes have something in common: they involve influencing the person we're communicating with in some way.
Now regardless of how important the communication is, you might as well do it well. And one of the first things they teach you in NLP is that "the meaning of your communication is the response that you get". That is, when you aren't getting the response you want, and you still want it, change how you're communicating.
So, how can you know if you're getting the response you want? Calibration of course! But it's inevitable that if you're not calibrating at all times, you're not going to be fully informed.
Therefore, it comes down to making sure that all the time you're communicating in real-time, you are calibrating to the best of your ability. Just as if you're typing, you're watching the screen to make sure you're typing what you intend to type.
The degree to which you're calibrating can depend on how you're communicating - sometimes it's best to regard who you're communicating with as something completely alien. Sometimes you may have to look away from who you're communicating with. But even then, you can pick up an incredible amount.
When I trained with Carmine Baffa, he taught us to calibrate standing back
to back and a foot apart. Pretty much in the same way you can tell if people
are staring at you, you can calibrate purely through sensations in your skin.
Won't believe it? Your loss ;)