The basis of NLP is that we receive information via our five senses: visual (pictures), auditory (sounds), kinaesthetic (external feelings/touch), olfactory (smells) and gustatory (taste). Think about a favourite fragrance. The chances are that you can remember the smell and recollect specific sounds of a past event associated with that fragrance or aftershave. This in turn may produce an internal state, such as happy, sad or exhilarated.

Why is this a common experience? We filter the information we receive through a process of 'deletion' (information is ignored), 'distortion' (we adapt the information to what we expect) or 'generalisation' (we quickly jump to a conclusion based on past experience, e.g. it looks like a car, so we recognise it immediately as a car) €“ based on our values, beliefs, attitudes, memories and decisions that we have made in the past. As these are individual to us, this explains why two people viewing something can perceive the same event completely differently.

Through these filters we will make a representation of an external event. This creates an 'internal state' €“ our internal emotional condition, such as a sad, motivated or happy state. The state determines our behaviours and hence our results. So we are in charge of our own state and this, in turn, means that we are in control of our behaviours and our results.