Two people can be in the same situation and experience it completely differently. In leadership and sales, we often explain this through motivation, mindset or competence. But there is another layer that is often overlooked. In NLP, this is described through submodalities NLP – how we structure our thinking.,
You don’t just think – you represent
When you think about an experience, you are not accessing reality itself. You are recreating it internally. You might see something, hear something or feel something. What matters is not only that you do this, but how it is structured.
An internal image can be close or distant, clear or unclear, static or moving. Sounds can vary in tone, volume and tempo. Feelings can differ in intensity, location and direction. These qualities are what NLP refers to as submodalities. In submodalities NLP, they determine how an experience is perceived.
Submodalities NLP: The structure creates the experience
If the structure changes, the experience changes. Not because the situation itself is different, but because the way it is represented internally has shifted. This is why two people can look at the same situation and respond in entirely different ways.
In practice, this means that it can be useful to become curious about the structure of your own thinking. When recalling something that feels motivating, you might ask what it is about what you see that makes it so. Is it the size of the image, the clarity, or the way it moves? The same questions can be asked in relation to experiences that feel less useful. The differences between the two often reveal the structure.
From awareness to change
Most people focus on the content of their thoughts. In our work, the focus is on how those thoughts are organized. When this becomes visible, it also becomes apparent that the experience is not fixed. It is structured, and therefore it can change.
This is where submodalities NLP become relevant in everyday life. Not as a way of forcing yourself into a different mindset, but as a way of understanding how your experience is created in the first place. Once that becomes visible, a shift often becomes possible.
What does this mean for leadership and sales leadership?
This is where the subject becomes especially relevant for leaders and sales leaders. As a leader, you are constantly interpreting situations, people and performance. The way you internally represent these things will influence your state, and your state will influence how you act.
Leading your own state
A sales target, for example, can be experienced as pressure or as opportunity. A difficult conversation can feel overwhelming or manageable. The difference is not always the situation itself, but the way it is represented internally.
The same applies to your role as a leader. How you internally represent a team member, a challenge, a negotiation or a performance issue will affect the quality of your attention, your communication and your decisions. And that, in turn, is what others respond to.
Working with others
The same mechanism is present in the people you lead. Two employees can be given the same goal and respond very differently. One moves forward, another hesitates. One sees possibility, another sees risk. When you begin to notice that this is not only about capability or willingness, but also about internal representation, it opens up a different way of understanding performance.
Rather than trying to change the goal or push for a different reaction, it becomes possible to explore how the experience of the goal is created. This often leads to more precise questions, better conversations and a clearer understanding of what drives behaviour.
A simple exercise
Think of something that motivates you. Notice what you see, and ask yourself what it is about that image that makes it motivating. Is it the size, the clarity, or the movement? Then think of something that does not motivate you and observe the differences. Stay with those differences for a moment. That is often where the structure of your experience becomes visible.
A different level of awareness
Submodalities NLP are not about controlling thinking, but about recognizing that experience has a structure. When that structure becomes visible, something begins to shift. And in leadership, that matters, because the way you experience a situation will always affect the way you lead within it.
Explore this further
If you are interested in understanding how thinking is structured and how it influences behaviour and performance, this is something we work with in our Personal Leadership Program – PLP™. Here, submodalities are not just explained, but explored in practice as part of how you work with yourself and others in real situations.