NLP Training, Techniques & Products for learning NLP

Quick quiz for you ..

How many of the ten statements below are true?

The unconscious mind is real

The purpose of the Meta Model is to elicit deep structure and drill down to get to answers

*    The unconscious mind is real
*    The purpose of the Meta Model is to elicit deep structure and drill down to get to answers
*    Anchoring is really just stimulus response conditioning
*    Strategies are real and are how people process experiences and act in the world
*    Meta States are real
*    Modeling is all about replicating human behaviour
*    With NLP, you can fix anyone once you know the right technique to use
*    Human beings have many parts to them .. that is why they have conflicts
*    The field of NLP hasn't changed much in the past 30 years
*    NLP is a science

Ten, nine, seven? What did you guess?

Actually the answer is 0.

That's right zero.

You see all of the above are long standing myths or errors in their presentation but that sound real. In fact most people still teach them as real.

These and many others, are the kind of myths that cause no end of confusion around getting really good with NLP. They did for me. In fact, possibly like you, I've consumed tens of thousands of pages from many NLP authors that said as such.

And what do you think happens when you treat something as REAL?

Well for most of us … it usually means we CAN'T see it another way. Our mental filters become fixed, stuck and unless something comes along and jars it you are not likely to ever notice it as any different. And something worse happens .. you also adopt the limitations of that worldview. And you also, as so many others have done, install in others the same limitation!

So for example by thinking that you only use the Meta Model to drill down to get more sensory specific answers you don't realise that you can use it as an elegant tool for persuasion and installation…

When you adopt the worldview, you take both sides of it .. the limitations and the benefits. And sometimes the limitations can keep you stuck or be less effective with it as you might otherwise be.

I know some members reading this might think that this is heresy.

But before anyone starts flaming, stop and think about what Richard Bandler once shared with me…

He said:

"Be distrustful of feeling right if you can’t alter something quickly and easily … [The most important distinction for NLPers to get about NLP] is to shut up the f*** up inside their head.  That thinking about skills that you’re supposed to perceive is a BIG mistake."

Clearing Up Any Confusion:

Now so we are clear, let me review some of the statements I made earlier so you get where I am coming from…

If the unconscious is "real" then where is it? No one has ever empirically proved there is anything called an unconscious. Yet we accept is as "real". The terms conscious, unconscious and sub-conscious are mental constructs we use to talk about processes that we believe are occurring. And they can be handy metaphors but aren't literally true, to the best of any persons knowledge.

Anchoring is not stimulus response conditioning because it doesn't take into account one time learning experiences which a functional anchor is an example of.

Strategies are a model, a description we (NLPers) use to describe processes that we note to be occurring in others. It doesn't reflect everything that is going on inside of someone when they are .. making a decision, buying, feeling attracted etc .. but it is a very powerful tool we have for doing all kinds of effective work.Yet if you think that "strategies" are inside of people you can quickly start over-focusing on eliciting the strategy and not seeing the human being in front of you!

Meta States - this will be a hot potatoe I suspect, but these aren't real either. Why? Well think about it, a meta state is a linguistic description about a neurological process. The term itself is a consequence of trying to language a neurological process. The body is a whole and integrated system. If I am sad, and you ask me, how do you feel about being sad .. there are lots of things involved .. it presupposes that I have a feeling about my first feeling "sad" and so sends my attention inward to do a TDS and now label a new feeling to my first experience. Bingo, if I follow along I now have a new linguistic description to describe my experience. I might say, well I feel annoyed about being sad and a "meta state" has been formed .. or has it?

One can repeat this process several times and come up with a chain of meta questions "how do you fell about being X, about felling Y, about feeling Z?" and very quickly you have created a whole linguistic world … and specific feelings that come with that line of meta-thinking, but ultimately in the body it is experienced as ONE state.

Personally for me I don't mind what "new inventions" or ideas anyone comes up with but it is important that we keep perspective and our meanings about "what is what" and "what is stuff we make up" clear so we don't trip ourselves into distorted worldviews that have little to do with what is going on "out there". If we don't test our thinking on goingly (and the Meta Model is a great tool for that), we risk getting caught inside our own or someone else's mentally invented worldviews … and suffer the consequences .. and rewards (assumedly the new models were found by some to be better that what they had before).

Change Your Thinking & Be A Practitioner Of The Changes

The field of NLP is constantly changing and updating but only inside the minds and community of those who are constantly challenging their thinking about it and testing the results they can get. There is ALOT more to the elegant use of the Meta Model for example that masters of the field can do today than what Richard and John wrote down in the Structure of Magic. Neither of the founders from what I can see have stopped developing and refining what they are doing with their own take on the technology.

However, after spending years reading, learning, and practicing NLP, I've realised that in the majority we seem to be suffering of over theorisation about NLP and that is why I co-founded the Platinum Audio News Club. To try and approach learning and getting really good with the technology of NLP with minimum theory and have Master Trainer Michael Breen lead the program from someone who has been on the inside track of NLP, part of a small group of "old school" NLPers who are constantly challenging and updating their thinking about the technology for circa twenty five years.

And learning to challenge and update our skills and thinking is something we can all do more of. So I'll leave you with a quote, from Dr. Bandler that inspires me to constantly evaluate and improve my own thinking and skills:

"I’ve learned so much so quickly because I never assume that I understand.  So I always go and ask and then make sure that what they’re telling me actually
works.  And that I have enough of the process that I can do it.

…. It’s like you keep finding out until you can do something.  How do you know when you have enough?  When you actually can do it.  And then you’re sure you
have enough when you can teach somebody else to do it.  And once you understand a limitation you begin to discover that it’s always a double edged
sword.  It does good things but it also does bad things.  So you have to separate them out."

If you'd like to buy the full interview I did with Doctor Bandler, including the full transcript you can get it here.

For people interested in expanding their thinking and skills with NLP, feel free to check out the Platinum Audio News Club here.

Got a question or a comment, feel free to leave your thoughts below.

When do fitness clubs makes their easiest money?

January through March … when they have lots of us sign up for those "awesome 2 months for 1" deals, but in reality on a minor percentage of new gym members ever go to the gym more than once a week, if that.

Why?

There are lots of reasons but one reason is the absence of motivation. But motivation is a psudo-noun, a normalization. When we strip it bare we find motive … or as the dictionary defines it "excitement to action".

Regardless of what ever you call it if you are going to have an amazing 2010, in terms of manifesting more of the things and experiences that lead to you calling the year amazing, then you need two types of processes in action  to get this metaphorical plane off the ground …

1. A strong motive to get yourself going

Anthony Robbin's is famous for saying "reasons come first, answers comes second" .. if you want to lock in power and certainty that you will achieve your goals this year then do, a brain juice check as John LaValle would call it and make sure you have a strong feeling that compels you to action. If you don't either do something to get "that engine running" (some ideas here) or remove that goal from your list.

A strong burning desire will call into being the will and motive in you to bring your goal to reality. You won't need to pump yourself up with positive self talk .. because every part of you will demand this result for you.

As a side note, if you want to get it really locked in get yourself 'absolutely certain' that the said outcome will happen, that there can be no other way, and the chances of the desired outcome of happening go through the roof. A forthcoming post will walk you through a process of how to do this.

2. A process to keep yourself going

Getting started is only part of the equation of getting to results. Unless you have a burning desire (intensity scale of at least 8 out of 10), then you will need to have a process that reinforces and rewards you along the way.

Many people start on a goal but stop early on or half way through because the energy  or emotion that was there in the beginning that got them going is no longer there any more and so they don't "feel" any compulsion to continue to act.

Setting up weekly or fortnightly reviews on your major goals where you reinforce your wins and progress towards your outcomes is a great way to "stay focused and motivated to get to results". Of course even better is every time you part-take in the said activity you reward yourself and end on a 'win' and remember to feel good when you have made ANY progress towards you said outcome. This will help train your neurology to "do more of this" and naturally lend itself to wiring you up for ongoing and continual success.

Making It Practical:

Take your number 1 goal or desired outcome for 2010 and ask yourself:

How motivated are you to achieve this goal?

If already 18 days into 2010 you find your "motivation" is waning then take ten minutes to really ASSOCIATE into many cool and wonderful things that you will enjoy either directly or indirectly from pursuing and completing this course of action.

Have you got some process setup to keep yourself going toward your goal?

This can be anything from:

- a supportive buddy or external coach who encourages you on and whom you know you will have to report your updates to

- to a strong internal reasons you immediately think/hear/feel when you think about the said goal

- to a journal where you write down your wins and words of motivation and encouragement

- to scheduled checks and "milestone" rewards for yourself where you treat yourself to something fun and fulfilling for reaching your outcome ..

There are many ways of doing this .. the most important thing right now is to ensure you have the motivation to get you started AND the motivation to keep you going.

A strong motive force is like jet fuel .. with it you can get to almost anywhere …. without it you won't even pull out of your yard …

A lot of people who get into NLP believe that getting really good with language is about memorizing countless language patterns.

But you know, that simply ISN'T true. Yes by knowing a few dozen language patterns you can get some level of results, but it still doesn't resolve a bigger problem.

What's that?

Well the Bigger Problem with learning language patterns and NOT UNDERSTANDING what they are doing and why they do or do not work means that you are always tied to memorizing language techniques and not being able to become unconsciously and naturally really
good with language.

Over the coming emails I'm going to talk some more about this and what you really need to do, to get hot with language.

But First …

There is one thing you need to know, and I don't mean conceptually, but something you know in your body as true, and that is:

Words, and they way you sequence and organize the expression of language has a profound on the listener of your language ….

Whether I say to you:

"Orange prison uniforms are cool"

or

"That blindly bright orange prison uniform on that six foot five, mean looking guy over there, to your left, next to the bike shed near the back wall" creates two VERY different experiences for
you. Check it out for yourself in your own experience. What do you notice as different?

Again if we take the example and extend it a bit we have:

"I'm just wondering, you have been learning NLP for some time and from everything that you have done up until now shows that it continues to have some level of interest for you. Yet you don't yet feel you have learnt entirely everything you wanted and because of that you have a sense you would like some things, like your NLP skills perhaps … to be different … much more .. so I'm just wondering how much improvement do you want to do?

Vs.

"Reading this blog post is the beginning of you starting a journey as you are getting into NLP all the ways now and you don't yet know what awaits, but there is a part of you .. that can do so now … because some people when you say this out loud can see that end desired state of how you want to be squarely right in front of them vividly now, others will feel a growing sensation perhaps feeling a that you are going to get really good with language now. Because whatever happens you something has already began to change right now."

Vs.

"You really want to get good at NLP. You've done other stuff before and it hasn't got you fully the results you desire, your hungry to really get good at NLP. You want to be that good, right now. Then you're going to be excited by what is coming down the line."

So which felt best for you?

Were you able to track what IMPACT the different sequence of words had on your mind .. and importantly on your feelings?

Each sample above, did something quite specific and intentional inside the mind-body. And I'm going to start covering this in more detail in the other mails that I send out. But for now, I want you to get that words, and the kind of words you use and the sequence you use them have had a very different impact on your emotions and thoughts. Because what I want you to get if you really LOVE LEARNING LANGUAGE is that the old phrase "It ain't what you say, it's how you say it" is actually quite true when it comes to using language powerfully.

Master Trainer Michael Breen and I cover this in detail on our monthly NLP training program, called the Platinum Audio News Club, which is re-opening its doors next week.

So the first guideline for getting great with language, is notice the IMPACT your language has on yourself and others.

If you are a complete beginner at NLP, then just try asking five different ways of getting something next time your are out with friends. Which one gets you the response you want more of the
time?

If you are more experienced with NLP, then make intentional use of representational sequencing and chunking to figure out the impact your communication has on others. If your up for it play with sentence fragments, switching referential index (i.e. I, you, they) and nomilizations and notice what happens to the people you talk with.

To your increased mastery,
Tom

Eckhart Tolle's book "The Power of Now" is one of the top selling personal development books of recent times. Currently it is has an Amazon.com sales rate of 149. With over 300,000 new books being released each year in the United States alone that is pretty impressive. Ever wonder what people who read self-help books are looking for? Perhaps happiness, peace, success .. the list goes on.

But the question today is, can NLP really help anyone become more spiritual? Because for the most part, the field of NLP is not known for it spiritual Guru's, yet the technology is incredible flexible and can be a very powerful tool for creating all of the above experiences and much more.

The Meta Model - As a Tool For Growth & Connectedness

Let's take the Meta Model - simply using the Meta Model regularly on your own internal dialogue can do an amazing job on de-cluttering your mind and help you become aware of the 'monkey' - that experience of thoughts arising and disappearing. Indeed one Meta Model question alone, "Who Says?", if you applied it consistently and recursively could create a spiritual shift for you. I'm serious!

The works of the great spiritual sage, Ramana Maharshi could be summed up in answering that question, 'For whom?' or 'who says?'. He always directed the seeker to look inward to discover who is this "I" that thinks so much and feels quite little.

For example, as stuff arises in your life and you find frustration or 'problems' arise, ask yourself

"Who Says I am frustrated?"

"I do"

"Who is this I?"

Keep drilling down and looking beyond the I .. that is your mind's association with a given thought, and you will realise a deeper sense of what really is.

This gives rise to the phrase "there is no one to save, and no one that needs saving". For generations, the language entire cultures have used have framed or fixed certain limited and flawed viewpoints on us. Like the idea that anyone needs 'fixing'. You don't. Neither does anyone else. Rather there are certain behaviors that keep showing up, which someone (you, the client, a 3rd party) describe as a 'problem' and need 'fixing'. The Meta Model, skillfully applied can be a wonderfully powerful tool to cutting through the clutter.

When I once asked Richard (Bandler) what he does that is different, that has enabled him to be the creative spark for so many innovations in NLP, he said. I ask myself "What the F*** IS going on?". Richard isn't interested in what people say is going on, but rather what is really occurring. He doesn't try to make things fit the similarity of what people already perceive is there. He's in the now. He doesn't try and confuse things with what is actually occurring.

NLP Processes & Techniques For Growth & Connectedness:

Let's chunk up for  a moment and think - can NLP really help me feel peace, happiness, success .. yes the technology of NLP has several processes that can create these things. For they are STATES (and for a moment, let's forget the dialogue about whether these are primary or meta states).

State work is fundamental to everything we do as NLPers. And NLP also brings up the realization that people aren't one dimensional beings that only have ONE state, that they want EVERYWHERE. Rather, people's states fluctuate. So with NLP interventions like state ellictation , anchoring, 'timelining' etc we can evoke great states in our self and others.

Another powerful distinction NLP can bring to the dance is that of intentionally changing sub-modalities.

If you feel 'disconnected' from some greater force or others or even yourself, your body has to have some way to encode that experience. When people feel 'down' about their life etc, almost always they have a particular practice going on of either making the things they want really small, dim, dark and far away while the stuff that is really browning them off is 1st person, very close, really big, 3D, and as a panoramic movie. So we can use sub-modality changes to literally alter our ongoing experience in a moment by moment basis. You can train your mind to SORT for things that are really good, beautiful etc. These are all quite easy to do.

Because one of the secrets of being more in the NOW is to 'get out of your head, return to your senses and just be'. In reality, no-thing from the outside literally gets inside us. It is all (as best as science and medicine can tell us) transforms going on. You may be looking at the text on this page, yet the light waves get converted and transformed in order for you to "see" things. So you are never directly experiencing untransformed access to anything you see, hear or feel. (Kinda cool and weird isn't it!)

What Yoda Can Teach Us:

One area that many people err, it appears, when they pick up the tools of NLP is treat NLP as a set of tools for getting people to dissassoitate and become more focused on the 'mind'. It is easy to get lost in the mind and stay metaphorically 'out of your body', of truly becoming aware to any strong felt sence. Some who come to NLP do so becuase they want to 'control' their fears, anexisties etc,  however one thing that all great sages over the millenium seem to agree is .. the way to higher spirtual awareness and experience of life is NOT through the mind. One must feel into that sense of the divine. As Yoda, from Star Wars is says .. in life "Search Your Feelings".

The NLP Toolset has enourmous application, how you use it, for spirtual growth or otherwise is up to you. But I'd encourage you to pick up one disctinction and use it.

Remember 'Do or do not, there is no try'..

It's a simple concept really but one that will deliver ENORMOUS rewards, if you put it into action and stick with it. Most people will shy away from it and others wish you would give them something 'easier' or different that didn't require such self-responsibility. Others will go "sure I do that already", but probably really don't.

So what is this simple concept that will create powerful results and improve the quality of your life dramatically?

See Yourself As You REALLY Are (Warts & All)

I know, you may be thinking, seriously Tom are you daft, how does that work to help me improve my life or change the way I feel? Well think of it this way, everyone has things they want to feel, acquire or experience in your life. Whether that is to buy a new car, create a family or get really good at NLP. Yet, the first step towards having anything is really being able to understand where on this map, we will call life you really are …

• Think about it, do you have already everything you want?
• Do you feel the consistently good feelings or whatever else it is that you want to feel the most?
• Have you stopped yourself lately and said "Dude, you know my life is really really fabulous right now, I don't think I could imagine it getting any better!"

Well if you haven't, and if we are honest with ourselves most won't have, then you probably are not living anything like the level of life that you want. And you may have been not acknowledging it. There may be some sense of discontentment your feeling about your life, where you are or what you haven't yet achieved or got. Because if we say that happiness is "being happy with what you have, and having what you want" then most people aren't happy .. at least not near as much as they want. But if it is going to get better, we all need to self-reflect from time to time and be really honest.

So bringing this back to you that little phrase "See Yourself As You REALLY Are (Warts & All), will allow you to become present to the stories you are making up and living into each moment, the BS you have been tolerating for yourself and your life and the games that some part of you is playing (regularly) from having what you really want.

'The Dirty Little Secret in NLP'

You see there is, what some might call, a 'dirty little secret' in NLP. There is no THING called a belief. Your current satisfaction, life happiness, failure or success isn't down to 'well I have this negative belief that effects my self-esteem and so I can't ever get what I really want'. No there isn't any -thing- like that. This belief 'thing' is nothing more than a label we collectively have put on a series of experiences that results in a specific output.

As best we can describe a belief as: there is some process that you/your neighbour/the dog! or a client has that they run (in this case say over and over to themselves) and that creates a feeling of certainty .. which leads one to think "this is my problem" from having/getting/feeling what I want. We have been conditioned that because I don't have this other feeling (say confidence, motivation, happiness, love etc) then I CAN'T take action and do/feel/have what I want. It's a collective game we all participate in, mostly unconsciously.

Which of course in most instances is totally baloney. Of course, for the most part, we CAN do many of the things we want, it's just that we have been conditioned (and further have conditioned ourselves) that only when this happens (I feel good, attractive, confident) etc will I do X action (something I want), which will create the experience I want.

Being Entirely Truthful:

Of course, I am not saying that 'the path to freedom, happiness and prosperity' is always clear OR easy. Not at all.

If it was, there most wouldn't be a thriving coaching industry, a multi-billion pound self-help industry and Guru, thriving on every street corner. Rather it means that once you get clear just what it is that you are habitually 'up to', can you then begin to really create a foundation to 'stop doing things you don't want and don't serve your highest desire and aspiration for what you want' and start doing 'more cool things, that energize, enliven and passionately engage you, like that thing you have always really wanted. To decide exactly who is driving this bus.

Not knowing where to start is not a roadblock, it is only an minor delay required to figure out what you need to do, so it is overcome. If you want something and don't know how to get it, then go get a coach. Find someone who's been there and done that and wants to help others. Or if your up for the adventure, rewards and challenge go model someone who already has, feels or can do what you want.

You don't need to be perfect or even good. When you are motivated enough (or even if your not!), you can find a way if you really choose to.

No one has the answers to it all. As the Oracle characters said to Neo in the Matrix "We can never see past the choices we don't understand." Yes, you have made some decision in the past that have been presenting a set of habits that aren't working for you (as good as you want to help get the ultimate outcome/experience of life that you may want).

But that can change in an instant - when you focus on improving your results.

Getting Into Action:

So to make this post practical, I suggest you write out that phrase on a 4×4 card and put it somewhere prominent where you see it everyday and soon you will notice a change in your attitude and indeed your behavior, when you get  catch yourself saying things like "You know I said I want to do X (get fit, meet a partner, get a promotion etc), but in reality I've been messing myself around, because I am always spending my time doing Y (watching TV, talking to my friends on the phone, bitching about what isn't right etc)".

And in moments like that - where you experience for perhaps the first time, real awareness, of what patterns you are participating or playing in, you really get - 'Heck!, I CAN change this. This is something that I CONTROL and I am going to do whatever it takes to change this now or get the help of a friend/family member who will hold me to account" .. or whatever that may be. You don't need the Magic Bullet NLP technique to get you going, you just need some awareness and then some action to get you started. Get you going in a new direction. And of course there are loads of techniques in the NLP toolbox that can also help you get more of what you want.

Dr. Bandler often talks about when he is doing change work, that for him, it is not enough to set an outcome that the client wants, but he wants the client to have a new empowering direction - an experience of life that they value as truly worth living and want to HOP out of bed because they are excited to get going in to. Now I am paraphrasing slightly, but you get the idea. Tony has been known to say, little changes in course correction can make a HUGE difference to the end destination, in time, and they can.

So go put this phrase into practice today and notice how much of a difference you can enjoy in your life. If you want to take things to the next level, keep a journal of the things you notice and what new patterns you can put in place to really elevate the results/experience and quality of life you get to enjoy every day.

Be well,

Tom

PS: If you enjoyed or hated this post (or anywhere in between) let me know. Leave a comment. All feedback welcome.

A number of people emailed me and asked how they could enjoy all recent video Michael and I recorded, so I've posted 20 FREE NLP Videos all in one spot. Simply click on the link above and you can get access to them all. In the meantime if you would like to submit a question to Michael or I on NLP you can submit it here.