This podcast was done by me to help people stop thinking of NLP as just a piece of paper certification. It can be a very powerful thinking system and modeling system. So those who are interested in the NLP Modeling approach should listen to this and register on this blog or at www.NLPTeleseminars.com to get advanced notice about our specialist NLP certification training programs happening soon.

My protege, Perry Lai, interviewed me in this informal sit-down session about NLP. It’s mover 50 minutes long, so enjoy while you can. Let me know your thoughts through the comment box. To be notified of more teleseminars, make sure you have opted into our mailing list! OR, go to www.NLPTeleseminars.com to register for LIVE teleseminar updates.

I suppose many of you would realize by now that NLP is about modeling other successes. But what if there has never been an NLP model for your industry or area of study? Well, learning NLP has been about testing and measuring. It’s what we do best. Do A, and if you don’t get the result you want, do B. It sounds more simplistic than it is, but you should get a rough idea.

My approach to NLP is “Core Needs”. Every industry, every trade, every person has a set of core needs. They don’t always overlap. So here’s an interesting view of how you can think of NLP from this kind of categorical thinking.

SALES PEOPLE - INSURANCE
Basic outcome: increase rapport with clients, increase appointments, increase conversions, request for referrals.

SCHOOL TEACHERS - EDUCATION
Basic Outcome: increase rapport with students (different from above), time distortion, curriculum planning, outcome assessment, vocal projection, charisma, story telling.

Essentially what I’m saying is that there is a basic set of skills and competencies that will be necessary and sufficient for you to achieve patterns of excellence within your FIELD. Granted, though there are other things that are essential for yourSELF: emotional management, personal motivation, personal healing, alignment, discovering your passion, etc.

For more information about Core Needs NLP, join us for our Foundation training in Early 2008 (Asia for now)!

My good friend Sam Witteveen has been the nexus of the happenings in the world of NLP so far, because he has been around Europe, Australia, and many other places training and consulting for companies using the power of NLP. Recently, we had a discussion about what was going on in the world of NLP, and realized, quite sadly, that the more credible the individual, the less likely they are wanting to be associated with the name “NLP”.

There are many reasons for it, and part of it is that as a Licensee, few people are going to find ways and means to cut corners in their payment to Bandler’s Society of NLP. While I think this is selfish and complete B.S., I think there are other issues to contend with that could help circumvent the problem.

There are only a few players in Asia where NLP is concerned. Most people will learn NLP as applied to the core techniques that anyone can find in a book. These are known as ‘formats’. The problem with these type of trainings is that you can teach the techniques, but they will not be applicable in any context other than training and therapy. So people learn, and then end up not being able to practically apply it to their life circumstances.

NLP is also a certification process. What that means is that people who are more knowledgeable than you teach you to do what they do. Unfortunately, I know crackpots and weirdos running around masquerading as NLP Trainers. Even if they ARE NLP trainers, they can’t use NLP to save their life, let alone detect NLP patterns being used in front of their face.

Is NLP dead?

In my opinion, NLP was never really “alive”. People in the world of seduction took one application and made it nastily effective. And hence, part of the reason for the bad rep. NLP’s biggest contribution has also been in the world of motivation, such as Tony Robbin’s motivational programs. But little of it has the actual all-encompassing impact that it is supposed to have.

I have time and time again mentioned that NLP is a modeling process. Most people don’t know how to detect patterns of behavior and model after them. NLP makes the process more conscious and then allows you to take the learnings and let them sink into your unconscious for better execution - without conscious effort.

As someone who is learning NLP, just know that NLP is not just about ‘motivation’ or ‘hypnosis’ or ’seduction’. It’s a meta skill that allows you to learn other skills. It’s accelerated learning at its best. And if you want to find the right teacher, you will have to look carefully at their accomplishments. If you want some kind of generic NLP trainer, anyone with a license to train can do it. But if you want competence, you will have to be in the presence of someone who has accomplished some amazing results in the areas you are interested to learn.

I used NLP to model shooting teams (AARM 2002 - SAF Shooting Contingent won), motivation (I spoke to the Singapore contingent that went to Korat Thailand and they won their biggest medal tally showing ever), speaking (2002 Evaluation Speech Champion, and trained other champion speakers), internet marketing ($400k earnings in less than 8 months), therapy (I am a little fond of working with depressed and angry people). Plus a LOT more.

If you’d like to know something more about NLP, you can always join me for my teleseminars that are going to kick start in January 2007. Just make sure you register at www.NLPTeleseminars.com and attend diligently!

If you have queries about how to use NLP, feel free to leave a comment below so I may understand what you need.

I’ve started to get the hang on podcasting using Podpress, so I decided to kick start this with a Season’s Greeting message.

stay tuned - the NLPTeleseminars/WorldOfNLP newsletter is coming very soon…

There has been a lot of speculation about NLP and its applications in persuasion. Many untrained people in NLP have been given the impression that “NLP” is “persuasion”. That’s far from the truth. In fact, persuasion is just one element in the entire spectrum of possible applications in NLP.

True, many people have talked about how NLP can enhance persuasive capability in sales. But let’s really understand persuasion.

Persuasion is really a communicative art of getting people to do things. It’s like a blending of outcomes. She wants to have hamburgers, he wants to eat steak. She doesn’t like spending more than $10 a meal, he dislikes eating at places that are “low class”. Why do people have such differing perceptions? Imagine this. Someone with the higher persuasive intelligence can end up being able to shift someone from one point of perception to another.

This is one of the reasons why I had decided to learn counseling and psychotherapy in my younger days. It was intriguing to know that someone could go so far outside their mind that they become someone else. It was fascinating to know that someone could get so terribly depressed and, like clockwork, explain how the world is so completely broken.

The sequence of actually developing persuasive capacity is simple.

First, you need to understand that all experiences are nothing more than beliefs, and that beliefs change over time.

Second, you have to know that changing beliefs can be as simple or as difficult as you make it out to be. The core element that makes changing of beliefs easier is rapport. Rapport building is one of the most prolifically taught strategies in the whole of NLP, and while it is simple, there is an art to it.

For instance, I like to suggest to people that matching and making oneself similar has repercussions. You might not like other people to be similar to you. Sometimes, being outstanding, contrarian, funny, self-deprecating or loud can create rapport as much. In the true spirit of NLP, you should learn by modeling comedians and the way they appeal to such a wide range of audience members.

Third, is developing intuitive understanding of the other person. You need to know how to be as they are, understand where they are coming from and what is important to them (what matters to them). By using simple matching techniques (such as matching breathing and physiology), you get to sometimes (if you’re good enough) tap into the same neurophysiology as the other person, thereby allowing you to feel the same feelings and possibly see the same imaginings as the other person.

There’s more, but I won’t dump everything in this one post. Savor it, and feel free to leave a comment.

I’ve been thinking about the people who have been suffering sadness and depression, and just like our own academic education, I think they’ve been trained to be sad and depressed. So I guess it’s turned into habit, and I’ll actually consider depression a habit rather than a illness.

To be emotionally healthier, I’d like to suggest you learn to use three skills from NLP.

Skill #1 - Reframing. Develop your skills to change your perspective of negative situations happening in your like.

Skill #2 - Anchoring. Get yourself into emotional states that support resilience, strengths and positivity.

Skill #3 - Neutralize negativity with Submodalities. When you are in a neutral state and approach a negative experience without having to react to the negative situation, it will be far more useful in the long run.

I’ll see if I can whip up some time to do a podcast on this because it can get pretty extensive.

I just read a news report in the Straits Times and found that a number of people are afraid of mental patients. I just think this is a little odd. My article that I wrote a little while back talks a little more about this.

As a mental health expert in NLP, I’ve also seen that a number of experts in their field are lacking communication. My opinion is that illness in communication is the mental illness… as far as saying that mental illness is like physical illness, I disagree. It’s more like a ‘deformity’ - and it’s not nice to tell people that they have a deformity. They can accept it, or they can change, because the ‘deformity’ is correctable in the brain.

By shifting neurological connections, someone who is schizophrenic or phobic could be released from this occurrence using NLP and reduce their risk of having the stigma of mental illness stick on them like the plague.

I know a lot of people who are stunned by the fact that hypnotic age regression is ’so powerful’ yada-yada. Well, from the NLP perspective, there’s hardly anything to be surprised about. If you were to read this and begin on a journey back to a time that you remember a few years back, it might appear to you that you are imagining.

Or, indeed, are you recalling?

Because one of the things that I know you must be doing well is storing memories in your brain. Memories are connected, and therefore, if you go from one memory to another, they become linked. There are many different conditions by which we can go back into our past.

But instead of visiting the past to release negative emotions, why not plant the seeds for amazing ones instead? You see, we are all a product of our past. The past stays in our present memory, and someone who knows this past can predict their future behaviors, can’t you?

As you look at what you need to be in the future, simply go back into your imagined past and add new beliefs that you want and watch yourself grow up inside. Your mental states of change can then allow you to master whatever you want for your future, including the good feelings you need to have reach where you want to go.

I discovered this while trianing a group of people. Some people tend to have external energy. They participate in activities, and they are active. Others are internally active. This could be an “energy filter”.

Energy: Active, Internal - Active, External; Inactive, Internal - Inactive, External

It is also in association with the kind of words that are used. Rate of speech is high and elevated, there is also a tendency to use very strong and energy-evoking words. “Earth-shattering”, “mind-blowing” and similar phrases.

There are also some cultures such as those in Singapore where we actually have an internal-inactive program. I mean, I speak to so many Singaporeans, they hardly react to what I say, but at the end of the event, everything turns out nicely in terms of my revenue results.

Inactive-external may refer to people who are observing but not contributing, and definitely less high-energy than the active - externals.