The Rotary Club of Coconut Creek invites interesting experts on various topics to speak to our members and guests and our last speaker, Dr. Simone Alicia, “The Self Esteem Doctor,” gave us both fascinating and practical insights. As a practioner of NLP (neurolinguistic programming), Dr. Alicia helps her clients to develop useful business and personal skills like building rapport and identifying and reprogramming negative thoughts and attitudes that may stand in the way of our success.

She spoke about how each person’s life experiences creates multiple layers of filters through which we see the world. Our filters and other people’s filters can result in very different and incompatible perceptions of the same set of facts and can often lead to miscommunication and hurt feelings. She cautioned us to understand a basic NLP premise, “the map is not the territory,” which means just because we see something and interpret it a  certain way, it doesn’t mean that  it is objective reality.

Through observation, we can identify some of the other person’s filters and make the best of it to create stronger relationships in our business and personal lives. We can also use the concepts of NLP to reframe situations. In a situation, we may come up with a negative interpretation of another person’s behavior that is not based on actual facts. We can reframe the situation by sticking to the facts and ascribing a positive or neutral interpretation to the circumstances.

Dr. Alicia told us how to build rapport with others in a sales relationship to increase the likelihood of making a sale, and many other useful and interesting tips. In addition to sharing fascinating information, she was engaging, personable and fun.

Join us for our next meeting to see what other wonderful speakers we have in store!