The Counter Model

In this chapter we are going to explore an idea that may seem unusual. We are going to dive into the world of counter models, the shadow counterpart to the ideals of the model. We are going to explore four different ways of using the shadow, three of which we will describe here. The fourth will appear in the chapter pertaining to the ‘Super Villain DTI’ as the shadow of the Super Hero DTI.

The first approach we will examine is the counter model as a model of unconscious incompetence.

Understanding what it’s like to not know how to do something, but to be unaware of this

‘not-knowing’, allows you as the modeler to judge your own progress on a learning scale that stretches from the unconscious incompetence, “I don’t know how and I don’t care anyway,” to unconscious mastery, “I can do it easily and naturally.”

The second approach we will consider is the counter model to counter-balance the model’s weaknesses. Model and counter model may each be deeply flawed as separate individuals, but together they may create a perfect whole.

The third and final approach in this chapter will be the counter-model as an alternative path or strategy to achieving your goal. Having multiple ways of achieving the same goal creates greater behavioral flexibility. In this approach, each of the two strategies, the strategy of the model and the strategy of the counter-model, will each lead to the same destination.

Counter models provide a ‘three-dimensional’ approach to the DTI process, the three dimensions consisting of model-modeler-counter model. Counter models allow us to think about and develop skills in ways that are no longer limited by the constraints of the model, and by our own weaknesses.

Counter models give the unconscious mind a point of comparison, leading to greater flexibility and opportunities for integration, so that the modeler’s learning goals are met more quickly.

Counter Model as Unconscious Incompetence

We go through four stages of learning when undergoing any learning process.

The first stage is that of ‘unconscious incompetence’; not knowing something, and not knowing that you do not know it. It always reminds me (Shawn) of the old joke, “Can you play the piano?” “I don’t know, I’ve never tried!” I enjoy this joke because my daily attempts to extract a recognizable tune from our piano makes me pine for the days when I didn’t know I couldn’t play! Here’s another example, a month before purchasing this book you may not have known about Counter Model DTI and you didn't know that you did not know about it. It wasn't within your framework of experience, therefore there was no way to know that you did not know.

The next stage of learning is conscious incompetence. This is knowing there is something out there that is possible, and knowing that you do not yet know about it or cannot yet do it. This is the unfortunate stage when you first try something that looks easy, and realize it is anything but. Most of us have learned to ride a bicycle, and perhaps it looked easy when we watched the other kids ride theirs. But as soon as we got on our first bike and tried to pedal while steering and staying upright, we became conscious of our own incompetence. When first leading a client into DTI, you may have to check steps in the DTI process, this too is conscious incompetence; you know about the process but it is not yet at your fingertips.

The third learning stage is conscious competence. This is when a learner knows how to do a particular skill, but it still takes a great deal of conscious effort to actually do it. In this stage we like to have steps to follow. An example of this would be a musician learning his or her instrument, Shawn

playing the piano perhaps. I can play a tune, however it still takes concentration. The flow is not yet established. Similarly when learning the techniques of DTI, when you have read a chapter, tried the techniques and gained some experience in DTI, you will be in the place of conscious competence.

The final learning stage is unconscious competence. At this level we do not even need to think about the skill. We do it automatically and with ease. You no longer need directions or steps, it just happens. If you've learned how to ride a bicycle, you are likely now at the point of unconscious competence; you can ride one without thinking. Even if you haven't ridden a bike in years, if you were to climb on one now you would be able to ride with ease. The concert pianist is unconsciously competent and is able to focus on musical interpretation while her body takes care of pressing the right keys at the right time. And as your DTI skills develop, you will begin to absorb skills easily and naturally.

Within DTI, learners will go through these four stages. It is the use of trance that allows the four stages of learning to be compressed and speeded up. This is the benefit of DTI, its whole purpose.

So the first of the counter models we will be focusing on is that of unconscious-incompetence, someone who is at step one of the stages of learning. We will deliberately choose the counter model for their unconscious incompetence. The benefit of this is to give your unconscious mind a point of comparison. The unconscious mind is able to compare wherever you are in the learning process right now, to the experience of the counter model representing the first step of the four stages of mastery.

Using this first counter model allows you to consciously and unconsciously chart your progress throughout the DTI learning experience.

If you don’t use such a counter model, you run the risk of always comparing yourself to the model, rather than how you were when you started the process. Let's imagine for example that you want to DTI with Walt Disney in order to expand your own creativity. You would like to tap in to Disney's ability to ‘dream’ ideas into realities. Modeling Disney's creativity could be quite a tall order for the average person, although by doing so you will undoubtedly become more creative than you were before you started the process. However, your conscious mind may be comparing your ability to Disney; “You’re not as good as him, you never will be, who are you kidding!” The question becomes how do you, as the modeler, know that you have achieved a higher level of creativity than what you started with? You need something to gauge your progress against, not just your ultimate, ideal destination. This is where the counter model becomes very useful. You will choose a counter model that represents the opposite of creativity, by which we mean not only uncreative, but with no interest in being creative. This could be, for example, a rigidly-minded politician, a by-the-book educator, or someone else who for you represents that “This is how it’s done, and there’s no reason to try anything new.”

For me (Shawn) the counter model for creativity is represented by SALY. In business consulting, SALY is my enemy, she stands for Same-As-Last-Year. When consulting for a business and asking why something is done a certain way, the person responsible might answer, “Well, that’s how it was done last year, that’s how it’s always been done.” Never mind if it’s right or wrong. Never mind if it’s

the most efficient way. It’s the same as last year and that’s enough for SALY. So SALY, or rather the followers of SALY, are my counter models for creativity. Who or what would your counter model be for creativity?

Counter Model Process

The DTI process entails associating into the model so that the modeler’s unconscious mind knows which direction to go, using any of the DTI techniques described in this book. The modeler first visits third position and views the model from this dissociated position, before associating into the model.

Next she will dissociate from the model, in this case Disney, and back into herself (via third position). Wow, that was fantastic!

How do we utilize the counter model within this process? Well, we can lead the modeler to experience the counter model in much the same way she did the model, although likely in less detail, and utilizing fewer events. She can once again visit third position, this time to take a look at the counter model. She can then associate into the counter model, experiencing the world in a more fixed, less creative way (if modeling Disney say). “This is the way it’s always been, no reason to change now!”

Now she has an experience of the model and an experience of the counter model. What do we do with these two experiences to make them meaningful within the DTI experience? What we are seeking to do is to create a mental pathway that moves from Unconscious Incompetence through Conscious Incompetence, and Conscious Competence, until we finally reach Unconscious Competence. We can create this path using perceptual position shifts.

The modeler has associated into the model, the ideal of Unconscious Competence, the end-point of the path we are creating. Now she goes back to the start of this path by associating into the counter model, the ideal of Unconscious Incompetence. She can now dissociate from the counter model by moving to the observer, or third position. From third position she can observe the counter model. This observation of the counter model represents Conscious Incompetence, because she sees the counter model from third position and realizes his Incompetence.

Staying in third position she now turns to observe the model. Observing the model represents Conscious competence, meaning she can observe the competence of the model, but is not yet able to fully access that competence without conscious effort. Finally she associates once more into the model, accessing the model’s Unconscious Competence.

The experience of moving in this way begins to move her through the stages of mastery, from the Unconscious Incompetence of the counter model to the Conscious Incompetence of observing the counter model, through Conscious Competence of observing the model, to the Unconscious Competence of being the model.

As hypnotist we can begin to condition this chain of learning. Create a break-state after associating

into the model and before restarting this process. Now run through the four stages by associating into the counter model, dissociating into third position and observing the counter model, from third position observing the model, and finally associating into the model. The more times this process is run, the more the four stages of learning are anchored and ‘chained’ together.

Let’s take an example. Your client wants to model Steve Jobs. Her counter model is Ken Olsen who said, “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home”. After doing the DTI with Jobs you want to condition the learning chain for your client:

1. Associate with Olsen

2. Move the third position and observe Olsen 3. Turn and observe Jobs

4. Associate into Jobs

5. Break state by shaking off the experience.

Now repeat steps 1 through 5 to condition them.

Once the steps are conditioned, you can lead her to move from directly from counter model to model, from Olsen straight to Jobs.

By moving from counter model to model, the creativity of the model will seem much greater, much more pronounced, because the comparison will be with the counter model. My experience moving from myself into Disney is something like, “Wow, he was so creative!” But moving from SALY into Disney provides a seismic shift in experience, like moving from a sketch to a full color cartoon. The creative state feels so much stronger and more powerful.

Finally you return your client to third position, then back into herself, taking the learnings not just of the model, but of the learning process itself, with her.

In addition to anchoring in the four stages of learning, using the counter model also allows the modeler to judge her own progress as she applies the skills of the model. She may even see a timeline with the counter model in her past and the model in her future. She can then measure her progress literally by the distance between her position on this time line, and the position of the counter model (the distance she has come), or the distance between her position and that of the model (how far she has to go). With each DTI or real world experience the modeler can move step by step closer to the position of the model, moving further away from Unconscious Incompetence and closer to Unconscious Competence.

Counter Model as a Balancing Influence

The next counter model technique is to use a counter model as a means of balancing the less resourceful traits of a model. If we were to take a moment and think about the major cultural icons people will often choose to model, these figures tend to have very strong positive qualities, but also

strong negative qualities. These negative qualities could cause an ecology issue for the modeler if not addressed. Using a counter model in this way allows the modeler to fully step into the positive traits of the model while also experiencing the complementary resourcefulness of the counter model.

An excellent example of this is Steve Jobs. Jobs had an amazing ability to create the impossible. He was able to bend reality so that the people at Apple were able to build a computer that provided the average person access to a home computer system that exceeded the imaginations of some of the brightest minds in the field at that time. On the negative side, this same drive and ambition caused issues in Jobs’ personal life, which in many ways was not nearly as successful as his professional life. The same traits that allowed him to succeed in business, hurt him in many of his personal relationships.

When modeling Jobs, it may be useful to have a counter model who can complement Jobs’ positive traits, while filling in the blanks in the areas where Jobs was lacking or had negative traits. In this case, Steve Wozniak as a potential counter model comes to mind. For those not familiar with the history of Apple, Wozniak was the creative, smart, and talented friend of Jobs and co-founder of Apple. Woznik is well respected in the industry, and in fact was technically more talented and creative than Jobs, although lacking Jobs’ visionary side. However, Wozniak is also considered a

‘nice-guy’, a person who is able to maintain healthy and positive personal relationships, without the negative and destructive personal traits that dogged Jobs.

By DTIing with Jobs, but also with Wozniak as a counter model, you can step into the shoes of Steve Jobs to experience his ability to distort the reality of those around him, making the impossible possible. But you can also complement this experience with Wozniak’s ability to maintain healthy positive relationships that in many ways Jobs lacked.

In order to absorb the best of both model and counter model you will have to integrate both experiences, the DTI with the model and the DTI with the counter model. This integration can be accomplished a number of ways including using a visual squash with both the model and counter model as presented in Chapter 15. The modeler can also practice compartmentalizing both models by anchoring the positive traits of Jobs in one specific context, while anchoring Wozniak’s traits in another. For example, the modeler can experience making the impossible possible in the office as Steve Jobs, while at home experiencing the importance of family and friendship as represented by Steve Wozniak.

Counter Model as Alternate Path to the Desired Outcome

The final use of a counter model that we will explore here is that of the alternate path to the desired outcome. There is more than one way to develop a skill set. And the counter model can provide an alternate route for the modeler to achieve her goal, so that she can unconsciously choose the best route to accomplish that goal. This use of the counter model teaches the unconscious mind to be flexible by illustrating that there is more than one option available.

Once again we can consider Steve Jobs as the model. Perhaps the modeler wants to be more original and creative, for example, using Steve's experience in building the Apple II as reference for ‘creating something original’. In Steve Jobs' map of the world, style was everything, and it was impossible to separate form from function. The look of the computer, the feel of the computer, and the style of the computer were intrinsic to the computer as a tool. Jobs was also a perfectionist, separating the world into the ‘insanely great’ (anything that he did), and everything else anyone else did, which was basically crap. And Jobs believed that hardware and software were inseparable, that the software had to fit the hardware like a hand in a glove.

Of course at the same time that Jobs is creating the Apple II, Bill Gates was also creating software in which the computer industry would come to rely. In some ways Gates and Jobs appear to be similar, they both worked extremely hard and as a result they both became enormously rich, building two of the world's leading technology companies. But if we look at how they did it, we will see a very different picture. Gates was very much about practicality, about making things work. Arguably Gates’

real skill was going to market and finding a way to secure strategic business advantages for Microsoft. The form of the product had limited interest to Gates, as anyone who remembers MS-DOS will know. In MS-DOS there were no beautiful interfaces or varied fonts, just a blinking green cursor.

In fact DOS was not even Microsoft’s product, but one they licensed from another company to license on to IBM. It is difficult to imagine Steve Jobs ever licensing someone else’s product to on-license to IBM. Unlike Jobs, Gates had such a distain for style that he suggested people who wanted a black computer didn’t need to buy a Mac, instead they should buy a PC and a can of black spray paint. Of course, Apple’s focus on style has ultimately forced Microsoft to massively improve its own user

In fact DOS was not even Microsoft’s product, but one they licensed from another company to license on to IBM. It is difficult to imagine Steve Jobs ever licensing someone else’s product to on-license to IBM. Unlike Jobs, Gates had such a distain for style that he suggested people who wanted a black computer didn’t need to buy a Mac, instead they should buy a PC and a can of black spray paint. Of course, Apple’s focus on style has ultimately forced Microsoft to massively improve its own user