As a Meta-Coach, you know all about the basic conversations that are inherent in coaching.  You have been trained to discern the first five: Is this a clarity conversation?  Is this a decision conversation?  Is this a planning conversation?  Is this a resourcing or experiencing conversation?  Is this a change conversation?  The great majority of coaching conversations will fall into those five basic categories.

In PCMC training and in the manual, there are pages about the distinctions within those conversations.  And the importance of that lies in being able to think strategically with your clients.  That is, to think in terms of where are you in relationship to what your client wants?  Further each conversation entails a different state and a different strategy.  Almost every conversation begins with a clarity conversation because it takes the communication dialogue of going back and forth in an effort to understand your client— on your client’s terms— and to begin to recognize the meaning-making patterns which your client uses.

There are, of course, many more coaching conversations.  You will find some in the book, Coaching Conversations, you will find specific ones in Systemic Coaching, as well as in Executive Coaching.  And when it comes to coaching groups of people, there are yet even more coaching conversations (Group and Team Coaching).

Now for another question, and one that may seem strange upon first glance.  Can a coaching conversation be hypnotic?  Actually that’s an easy question to answer.  The answer is yes, of course.  Anytime you take a client inside so that he focuses narrowly on some concern— a memory, an imagination, a concept— you have just induced a hypnotic state.  This state differs from an uptime state of being in external sensory awareness.  It is a downtime state (to use NLP language).  The person has gone down inside herself.

I said, “yes, of course,” because to exchange words, to dialogue about meanings, to “communicate” is to invite your listener and responder to go inside.  It is inevitable.  That’s how words work.  To make sense of any word, phrase, sentence, or story, you have to go inside yourself to access the linguistic code that you have learned.  If you didn’t learn the linguistic code, then all of the words are gibberish to you.  You do not know what they are saying or talking about.  It is in this sense that language itself is hypnotic.  That’s why in NLP we say that all communication is hypnotic.

So whenever you and your client are engaged in an intensely focused conversation about things not present — the person’s job, spouse, children, boss, financial dealings, exercise, etc.— you and your client are, at least partially, in a hypnotic state.  That’s what you learned when you learned the Milton Model in your NLP trainings.  And if you took Master Practitioner training, you learned the basics about how to recognize hypnotic language patterns and how to use them.

This is important as a Meta-Coach.  Why?  For many reasons.  Here’s one.  Because a basic core coaching competency is state induction (skill #7), your ability to elicit, induce, invite, deepen, and use your client’s state is essential to being an effective coach.  That’s what makes coaching experiential.  If you cannot do this — and most coaches cannot! — you cannot truly “coach.”  You are only have a chat.  You are merely intellectualizing about coaching and not coaching.  Coaching, as an intimate, intense, deep, personal conversation absolutely requires the induction of state so that the client feels and experiences the meanings of the conversation.

Is that a strong enough reason why?  Watch most coaching conversations, especially by people who have not been trained in NLP, and you will be watching boring, blah, bland, and non-transformational talks.  Anyone could carry on those talks!  What distinguishes a true coach — and hopefully every Meta-Coach, is that you know how to get a person to experience and emotionally feel things.  That’s what state induction is all about.  If your client’s are not getting significant transformational changes — review and practice the state induction skills in your ACMC manual.  Then practice daily until you can look like and sound like what you’re talking about.

While coaching is not hypnosis, to the extent it is a deeply felt conversation that gets to the heart of things and brings about transformation — coaching is hypnotic in nature.  That’s what the new book, Thinking Hypnotically (2020) is all about and more specifically what the PDF file book, Hypnotic Conversations is all about.

作為一名大成教練(Meta-Coach)，你知道所有關於教練的基本對話。你已經接受了五種對話的訓練：這是清晰對話嗎？這是決定對話嗎？這是計畫對話嗎？這是資源或體驗對話嗎？這是改變對話嗎？絕大多數的教練對話是屬於這五種基本類別。

在PCMC培訓和手冊中，可以找到關於這些對話的區別。而重點是在於能夠與客戶進行戰略上的思考。也就是說，思考你與客戶渴望東西之間的關係。接下來的每一次對話都需要不同的狀態和不同的策略。幾乎每一個對話都以清晰對話開始，因為它需要通過溝通對話來來回交流，從客戶角度瞭解客戶 – 並開始認識客戶使用的製作意義模式。

當然，還有更多種類的教練對話。你會在《教練對話》書中找到一些，你也會在《全體性教練》以及《高管教練》書中找到一些具體的教練對話。至於團隊方面，《團隊教練》書中也有團隊教練的對話。

現在來回答另一個問題，乍看這似乎是很奇怪的問題。教練談話能有催眠效果嗎？其實這是一個很容易回答的問題。答案是當然。當你引導客戶進入內心，使他聚焦在某個問題上 – 可能是一個記憶，一個想像，一個概念 – 你就引發了一種催眠狀態。這個狀態不同於外部感官意識的運作狀態。它是一種停機狀態（這是NLP的用語）。這個人自己進入了內心。

我說，「當然」是因為交換詞語、交換關於意義的對話以及“溝通”就是邀請聆聽者和回應者進入內心。這是不可避免的。這就是詞語的運作方式。要搞懂任何詞語、短語、句子或故事，你必須進入你的內心，去提取你所學到的語言代碼。如果你沒有學習語言代碼，那麼所有的詞語對你來說是胡言亂語。你不知道他們在說什麼或談論什麼。從這個方面來理解，語言本身是催眠的。這就是為什麼在NLP，我們說所有的溝通都是有催眠效果的。

因此，每當你和客戶在進行一場激烈談論一些不在場的事情，例如他的工作、配偶、孩子、老闆、財務交易、運動等，你和客戶，至少有部分，是處於催眠狀態的。這就是你在NLP培訓學習彌爾頓模式時所學到的知識。如果你也有高級執行師培訓，那麼你就學會了如何識別催眠語言模式以及如何使用它們的基本知識。

對大成教練來說，這很重要。為什麼？原因有很多。這是一個。因為一個基本的核心教練能力是狀態誘導（技能# 7），你可以引出、誘導、邀請、加深和使用客戶的狀態對成為一個有效的教練至關重要。這使教練過程是體驗式的。如果你不能這樣做 – 而且大多數教練都不能！- 你就不能真正「教練」客戶。你只是在聊天。你只是在理智上談教練，而不是在教練。教練，作為一種親密、強烈、深度的個人對話，絕對需要引入狀態，使客戶感受到和體驗到對話的意義。

這是一個足夠強大的理由嗎？觀看大多數教練的對話，尤其是那些沒有受過NLP訓練的教練，你將會看到無聊、毫無意義、平淡和沒有蛻變式的談話。任何人都可以進行那些對話！一個真正的教練有什麼區別？那就是你知道如何讓一個人體驗和在情感上感受事情，我希望每一位大成教練都有此區別。這就是狀態誘導。如果客戶沒有發生重大的蛻變 – 請你回顧並練習在ACMC手冊的狀態誘導技能。然後每天練習，直到你看起來像，聽起來像你說的。

雖然教練不是催眠，但在某種程度上，這是一種能進入事物核心的深度感覺對話，並帶來轉變 – 教練在本質上是催眠的。這就是這本新書《催眠思考》（2020年）以及《催眠式對話》（PDF檔）要表達的具體相關內容。