Introduction to NLP Part 1: The First Bite
August 12, 2007 – 5:11 pm | by Carl Zetterlund
I’m introducing to you something that most people do not know about. The ones who have are likely to be sales people or executives who have access to the latest and greatest in self-improvement. NLP was also much more publicly known back in the 1970s and 1980s. It has since not received media exposure. However, many known figures such as Anthony Robbins and other self help gurus use it or the ideas behind it extensively. It has been continuously developed for almost 40 years.
What is NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) all about?
It is a study of how to make someone excellent. It all started with the search for the ultimate question. How can you change someone to become a star performer in life? There has to be some way of breaking down the elements of successful people, and then use these elements to help others.
Look all around you. There are teachers who are far better than most of their counterparts. There are athletes who do not seem human and break records, which were once thought unbeatable. There are business managers who are consistently successful in motivating their employees and achieving financial success. There are absolutely amazing people on television who seem to have that “charisma”. They speak confidently in front of huge crowds. They create cult like followings (ex. Steve Jobs).
Most people think that these people have some type of gift given at birth. It’s not hard to understand why they think so. High achievers make things look easy as well. This is coupled with the fact that we rarely are shown the personal struggles and hardships these high achievers had to go through and still go through.
NLP says it is possible to understand excellence. You can understand them by looking at structure and patterns of learning. These ideas were used to form a model, which I will explain in a later post.
I have personally found the ideas in NLP fascinating. It reasonably combines ideas in neurobiology, language, and programming to form a tool to help people change for the better. I believe it is essential people at least know about the basics of NLP’s power.
The stuff just works. It’s definitely not a magic wand, but it will completely change the way you look at how we operate as human beings. This alone will empower you to create lasting positive change. Keep in mind that NLP has faced criticism because it has never been completely validated in a scientific way. This is mainly because academic researchers are unwilling to invest the resources (very expensive process). However, it has been proven to work in real world situations over and over.
It’s important to keep an open mind because the next few posts on NLP will blow you away.
P.S. I’m going to venture into more basics in future posts. I recommend buying a book that introduces you the basics and some advanced tools. A great book I recommend is NLP: The New Technology of Achievement
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