Some people need feedback from external sources to judge how they are doing. These are the type of people who, for example, might not trust their judgment about how much something weighs but would rather use a scale. Or, if they are presenting an idea to their manager, they might glance at that person quite frequently to gauge the approval level. Their presentation will likely contain facts and figures rather than their opinion.

Internally oriented people often don’t need this type of feedback. During a presentation, they will likely be focused on their materials rather than looking around the room for approval. They might rely more heavily on their interpretation of the facts to support their conclusion.

This provides a good example of how NLP can help you interpret body language. Let’s say that you are attending a presentation where the presenter doesn’t look around the room very much, and they insert their opinion and their beliefs quite frequently. Some people might interpret this as conceited or arrogant. With NLP, however, you can easily identify that this person is likely internally oriented. You can then look past these cues (rather than being distracted by them) and get to the real point of that person’s message.