RaVisie, NLP » NLP Articles http://www.ravisie.com NLP education, training and seminars Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:35:21 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Interview with Richard Bandler in The Independent http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/interview-with-richard-bandler-in-the-independent http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/interview-with-richard-bandler-in-the-independent#comments Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:59:00 +0000 Bas Licher http://www.ravisie.com/?p=471

Messing with your head: Does the man behind Neuro-Linguistic Programming want to change your life – or control your mind?

You got a problem? Go see Richard Bandler. As the founder of the controversial, multi-billion-dollar therapy NLP, he can get inside your head, and quick. But how did a former cocaine user and murder suspect become a guru to over 30,000 people in the UK? Kate Burt signs up for a session

Sunday, 23 August 2009

Mind games: Richard Bandler is the co-creator of the modern self-help phenomenon Neuro-Linguistic Programming

PRESTON MACK

Mind games: Richard Bandler is the co-creator of the modern self-help phenomenon Neuro-Linguistic Programming

How, exactly, does one go about interviewing a man who has dedicated his life’s work to the art of mind control? Are difficult questions going to be swept under a carpet of charm? Can his answers be trusted? Will this piece, mysteriously, write itself as a glowing appraisal?

All of which are valid considerations in advance of meeting Richard Bandler. Bandler is the American co-creator of the modern self-help phenomenon Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a discipline developed to quick-fix life’s problems by “reprogramming” one’s brain. In crude terms, NLP explores the relationships between how we think (neuro), how we communicate (linguistic) and our patterns of behaviour and emotions (programmes). The idea is that, by studying these relationships, people can adopt more successful ways of thinking, communicating, feeling and behaving.

Even if you think you don’t know much about NLP, the chances are you’ll have witnessed it at work in instant phobia cures, shouty-titled management-skills books, “life coaching” and those unsettling conversations with sales people who seem to be mirroring your every move (because they quite possibly are – it’s a classic NLP trick). Bandler has mentored Britain’s favourite change-your-life hypnotist, Paul McKenna, and his work has influenced illusionist and master mindbender Derren Brown. Bandler himself still teaches NLP regularly, and claims to be able to “erase” traumatic memories, improve your relationships and even ‘ “cure” schizophrenia and paralysis (he taught himself to walk again using NLP after a stroke put him in a wheelchair).

Since Bandler invented NLP in the 1970s, it has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry, influencing the way many people now understand psychology and psychotherapy (cognitive behavioural therapy, the increasingly popular “fast-track” style of psychotherapy, shares certain principles with NLP). But what inspired NLP’s founding father to create an alternative to traditional psychotherapy, and does he practise what he preaches? What, too, of NLP’s patients – or “students” as Bandler prefers to call them – are they in safe hands?

Some people don’t think so: critics have accused Bandler of everything from running a cult, failing to provide scientific evidence for his claims and brainwashing his clients. He’s admitted drug abuse and even stood trial for murder. But in NLP circles Bandler is hailed as a sort of Messiah; indeed, while researching this piece, I lost count of the number of times I was told by its proponents that “NLP changed my life”. Which is surprising, perhaps, given our national, deep-rooted suspicion of anyone too happy or self-assured, and antipathy towards motivational speakers, self-help gurus and the sorts of people who run “positivity workshops”. And NLP practitioners – whose vocabulary is littered with phrases such as “installing strategies”, “behavioural technologies”, “cybernetics”, “deletion”, “content reframing” and “hypnosis” – seem scarier than most. Yet NLP is big business in the UK. The movement’s not-for-profit representative body here claims that there are “at least 30,000 qualified NLP practitioners in the UK”.

“It amazes me some of the stories I hear about myself,” says Bandler, 59, a smartly dressed stocky man with piercing blue eyes and longish grey hair, a little thin on top, wearing a bulky gold and gemstone ring. I meet him in a bland, corporate-style hotel in Orlando, Florida, where he is speaking at a nine-day course – one of many he runs each year – to teach others the “tools” of NLP. “One student told me someone had said, ‘Don’t go to Richard, all he wants to do is control everyone.’” Another critic, he says, claimed Bandler beat up his students. He sniffs briskly: “But all I have ever tried to do is make people happier.”

Bandler’s ideas were revolutionary. In the wake of the Summer of Love, as a university student in Santa Cruz, California, he joined forces with a young linguistics professor called John Grinder. Pooling their passions – neuroscience, Noam Chomsky, hypnosis and early information technology – they created the NLP blueprint and began gathering case studies. The over-arching motivation was scorn for traditional schools of psychotherapy – a burgeoning American industry at the time. “How is forcing a person to relive a bad experience going to help them get over it? It’s just cruel,” says Bandler.

Each day of the course, Bandler leads the morning session with a demonstration and a talk (Grinder is long since out of the picture; the pair acrimoniously parted ways following a bitter copyright lawsuit in 1997 – proof that even NLP experts don’t have solutions for everything). At 10am on the dot, the hotel conference-room doors open to a loud blast of emphatically upbeat synth music: our call to action. As students amble towards their seats, some do jiggly little dance steps, others clap to the beat; there are sporadic whoops of enthusiasm. Of the 100-odd here for the course, people have travelled from as far afield as England, Japan, Australia, Turkey and Baghdad. Others have volunteered to be course assistants, paying their own flights and accommodation, just to be close to Bandler. (Which is not all that surprising when one considers that “students” can pay up to £10,000 for one of his intimate, three-day courses.) I’m intrigued to see him in action.

“How many of you are not artistic?” he asks from the stage, Hands are raised. “Is that because you weren’t born with the ‘art gene’?” It’s a leading question. A table on the stage is kitted out with brushes, paints and paper and four non- artistic volunteers are plucked to sit at it, then put into a trance. “Every time you hear yourself saying ‘I’m not the kind of person who…’,” he murmurs to the budding artists, “I want you to laugh because it’s just like masturbating one stroke at a time, it’ll never get you there…” This is typical of the way Bandler talks. Crude quips, detailed anecdotes and seemingly random digressions spill out relentlessly, punctuated by sound effects, imitations and expletives. There’s the one about how he punched a man (“Thwack!”) who hit his own daughter because she was speaking to invisible angels (the girl was cured, naturally, by Bandler); the smut (the following day on stage he’ll motivate a young man to clear out his garage by thinking about breasts) and the tales to discredit psychotherapists (cue the account of the time he smuggled rubber snakes into a schizophrenic’s shower at a mental hospital to prove that he didn’t require drugs for sanity, but simply the opportunity to differentiate between hallucinated and actual serpents).

“You all know my cure for schizophrenia is to alter reality not hallucinations,” he says to his audience. “A lot of patients with mental issues simply don’t have proper strategies.” He’s a little scary, but his thinking is persuasive. And it seems to be working on stage,too – the budding artists are – surprise surprise – confidently expressing themselves via the medium of acrylic paint. There had been similar turnarounds at the end of yesterday’s session: the woman from Baghdad who thanked Bandler for “giving [her] life back” after he’d erased a horrific image from her mind; the delegate who had been petrified of heights but, by day three, was embracing several of Orlando’s most dramatic rollercoasters. It’s like watching a cross between Bernard Manning and Jesus.

Bandler doesn’t work alone on these seminars. Also travelling with him are husband and wife John and Kathleen LaValle, who run his NLP training business and met Bandler around 20 years ago when they took one of his courses. John, a corporate coach, who specialises in NLP for business, is an imposing New Jersey native with the thick Sopranos accent to match, a ponytail and a fondness for Hawaiian shirts and Gothic bling. He fell for NLP while searching for a “better way to train” explains his lovely wife Kathleen (blonde with a streak of purple – NLP is also all about recognising the individual). She joined John after noticing that “communication at home really improved” since he encountered Bandler. Her sweet nature seems strangely at odds with the fact that one of her specialist areas is “sales and influence” – the area of NLP that involves techniques such as “mirroring” and “pacing” (matching the way someone else communicates, essentially, to get what you want from them).

“Richard may not be famous to the average person – but if you know NLP, he’s a celebrity,” confides Kathleen over a glass of Merlot later that evening. “He’s the Tom Cruise of the industry.” Given his Messiah-like reputation, he must get some interesting fans, I suggest… “Uh-huh. There are some pretty whacked-out types who’ll go up to his [hotel]

room at three or four in the morning,” she says, “or claim to be an old friend and try to get his number. We have to be careful.” Some people also want to hassle him, she adds, particularly on religious grounds. “They think that fate is something you can’t control. They get angry.”

In life, Bandler has certainly wanted to control his own fate, it seems. “My mother is a wonderful person,” he says of his childhood, “but she married a few bad drunks.” He grew up in a tough part of New Jersey and says that, as a child, he had “every bone in his body broken by adults”. His musician father “just took off one day” and they’ve never had a relationship. He sounds like a psychotherapist’s dream. Is it his bad childhood that gave him the drive to help other people to get over difficulties? “Excuse me,” he says, leaning forward, indignant. “The fact I was beaten up by adults as a child means I’ve never laid a hand on my kids. This nonsense about if your parents are alcoholics you’re going to be an alcoholic – that’s a bad post-hypnotic suggestion to live by.”

But he does talk a lot about violence, I suggest. “I can be violent,” he says bluntly. “If someone attacks me I will hurt them – and any person who’s a pussy is frightened by that. I’ve popped a few shrinks, but I’ve never hit one hard enough to knock him down. [And] I’ve slapped a client across the face – just to wake him up, but I never hit ‘em hard enough to leave a mark. In the supermarket I whacked some guy with a can of peas – but he was beating the crap out of a six-year-old kid.” One can’t imagine it helped his case when, in 1988, Bandler was charged with the murder of a woman – Corine Christensen, a prostitute and NLP student – shot dead in the face with Bandler’s gun, while only he and a friend, allegedly his cocaine dealer, were present. The publicity surrounding the case painted him as a nasty piece of work.

“What pisses me off,” he says, is that none of this has anything to do with any of the good work I’ve done.” Bandler says he was set up for the murder (and, accordingly, the court acquitted him – “in 20 minutes!” he points out). “And yes, I took coke for a while. But I also went on a binge of Hershey bars for a while too, and I was addicted to peanuts for a year, probably far more than I was to cocaine.” He doesn’t shy away from discussing the case, and yet he has a way of being “upfront” about things that is quite disconcerting.

One thing (among many, it seems) that winds Bandler up is when people criticise him for not being perfect. “Well, I’ve got news for you,” he says, “if I wasn’t this imperfect I wouldn’t have had room for improvement.” He used to get irritated when people pulled him up for smoking – a habit NLP is popular for ridding people of. “I knew how to stop, I just didn’t want to!” he says. “I’m not trying to get people to be enlightened. I’m not a guru. I’m not even terribly sociable, to tell you the truth.” This is also part of the reason he says that he shies away from television: “I want to be able to walk down the street.” Then he smiles: “Paul [McKenna] loves all that, though. The autographs, his phone constantly ringing. He’s just moved to the Hollywood Hills and it suits him.”

The two met after McKenna came along to a seminar and was so impressed that he immediately booked out his diary for three weeks to complete the whole course. “He was a good student – and it’s really changed his career,” says Bandler. “He used just to be a stage hypnotist – now he’s a real agent for change.” Bandler tells a story of the time they went for dinner in London and McKenna was glued to his mobile. “In the end I went to the bathroom and called him – it was the only way I could get his attention.”

It’s hard to steer Bandler off rambling anecdotes that don’t a) belittle psychotherapists, and b) illustrate the successes of his work – but when you do, he talks affectionately about his family and how he feels his greatest achievement – far greater than inventing NLP – was his long marriage (to his late wife, Polly, who died after a long illness eight years ago) and raising two well-balanced children who don’t need to use NLP. He beams when he describes how lucky he is to have recently been remarried, to Glenda, a good-looking doctor who has “whipped [him] into shape”.

But just when you think you’re getting to know Bandler, he’s off on a tangent: safety on the streets of New York, John Lennon’s murder, the time he “installed” vegetable phobias into a room full of vegans because they hadn’t let him eat meat all day… Talking to Bandler one to one is much like listening to him on stage. “I’ve no secrets, nothing to hide,” he cheerfully points out (I’m no NLP expert, but surely that’s a phrase that should ring linguistic alarm bells).

And yet, open as he appears to be, there’s a sense that the stuff you hear is somehow a well-managed distraction from the stuff you don’t. Which, of course, given his vocation, is precisely what one would expect.

Back in the UK, I track down a few Brits who’ve been “Bandlered”, hoping for some dirt. No luck: they are universally evangelical. “He put me in a trance,” recalls one woman. “I don’t remember what happened, I just remember Richard saying: ‘The floodgates of happiness are now open.’ Then he touched my face and from that moment all of the rubbish of my life suddenly went,” she says. “It was weird.”

It’s a common reaction. In Orlando, over a conference break for lunch, there was a moment when a concerned-looking student, also a highly successful business coach, came over having seen me scribble down some of Bandler’s rhetoric. “I’m not a groupie,” she began, “but I just wanted to say that when I first heard Richard speak – all that sexual innuendo and stuff, I was offended and appalled. But it’s deliberate, you know. It’s all to create a heightened state – a state in which you’re more aware. All the while he’s talking, he’s changing brain chemistry and implanting ideas. Since I’ve done you a favour,” she continued carefully, “perhaps you might be kind enough to send me a copy of your piece.”

It was probably a perfectly innocent request, but it was impossible not to wonder whether I was being NLP-ed.

Richard Bandler is in the UK from October (www.nlplife training.com for details) and is taking part in the Successful and Happy seminar in London (www.theukco.com). His book ‘Get the Life You Want (£9.99, Harper Collins) is out now

Source: The Independent

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]]> http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/interview-with-richard-bandler-in-the-independent/feed 0 The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/the-magical-number-seven-plus-or-minus-two http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/the-magical-number-seven-plus-or-minus-two#comments Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:14:14 +0000 Ben Licher http://www.ravisie.com/?p=397

We do talk about it in NLP but did you ever read the original paper:  The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.

Written by by George A. Miller

originally published in The Psychological Review, 1956, vol. 63, pp. 81-97

Go read it.

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]]> http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/the-magical-number-seven-plus-or-minus-two/feed 0 So called Logical Levels and systemic NLP http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/so-called-logical-levels-and-systemic-nlp http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/so-called-logical-levels-and-systemic-nlp#comments Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:01:39 +0000 Ben Licher http://www.ravisie.com/?p=431

So what do you think about the Logical Levels or have you thought about it? “So called Logical Levels and systemic NLP” is an excellent article written by Dr Wyatt Woodsmall.

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]]> http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/so-called-logical-levels-and-systemic-nlp/feed 0 Hypnosis applied by Obama http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/hypnosis-applied-by-obama http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/hypnosis-applied-by-obama#comments Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:51:46 +0000 Ben Licher http://www.ravisie.com/?p=406

On the website Grenswetenschap there’s a nice Dutch article about Obama and his so called use of Milton Language patterns and anchors. You can download a 60-pages English document describing it (which doesn’t mean I agree or disagree with the political views expressed in the document). Very interesting for the experienced NLP-er/NLP*.

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]]> http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/hypnosis-applied-by-obama/feed 1 Engage In The Moment For More Effective Living & Business http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/how-being-engaged-in-the-moment-can-enhance-your-business-and-life-experience http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/how-being-engaged-in-the-moment-can-enhance-your-business-and-life-experience#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:38:33 +0000 Ben Licher http://www.ravisie.com/how-being-engaged-in-the-moment-can-enhance-your-business-and-life-experience

Attention! Are You Living In The Present?

So many people seem to be pre-occupied with the past and what is going to happen tomorrow and lose track of right now. This moment is now is so very important for several reasons that I have noted here. Learn how to engage in this moment more and how it can lead to much more effective personal and business success.

As you read this article, know that one of the things I spend lots of time working on with individuals, corporations and businesses is getting them engaged in the present moment. You’ll see that the reasons I think this is important in business as well as personally are drawn upon toward the end of this article.

Tune In To The Power of NOW!

The centre I used to run here in Bournemouth used to sell a wide range of books and one that I used to stock was a book called “The Power of Now” by a guy called Eckhart Tolle. I really recommend you read it.

Lots of people that came to classes, workshops and consultations at the centre would often tell me how great it was and give me snippets of information about its content and for a number of years I would occasionally think “Yeah, I really should read that book” then kept on deciding that I would wait until later (yes, I am fully aware of the irony in this!) Nevertheless, I am already sold on the power of the present moment, for a number of reasons:

Firstly then, only this present moment exists. The past has happened, you cannot change it, the future is yet to occur, it is not tangiable: only this moment exists.

I think this is by far the most compelling reason to put your attention on the present moment. Yesterday doesn’t exist, except as a memory, with all the unreliability we know to be true of memories and the creative distortion of your mind; when you experienced yesterday, it was now. Tomorrow doesn’t exist either, except as an imaginary construct; when you experience tomorrow, it will be now. And as it’s all that exists, it’s a good idea to experience it as richly as you can. To do this, have a go at doing the following:

Welcome To Now: Your Introduction To This Moment

Sit with your feet shoulder width apart and flat on the floor, in a comfortable, balanced and aligned position with your hands and legs uncrossed. With your eyes open or closed, allow yourself to become aware of the different sounds, sights, smells and sensations around you. Notice the ones within you too. Say hello to the present moment; this is it.

That’s right. This is the present moment, and there are a number of good reasons for keeping your awareness in the present as much as possible.

Get Your Fill Of This Moment

Let’s carry on…. Secondly, there is a lot more of this moment in store for you. I mean a lot more now to experience.

If you stop and think for a moment now, you will realise that all the experiences of your life do take place in a present moment and are going to continue to take place in a present moment. The more comfortable you are with the present moment, the more comfortable you are sure to be with those future presents. How is your brain enjoying working that out?!

Answer This: Where Are You?

Thirdly for now then, the present is where you are. As you have just found out and introduced yourself to this moment, you can know that it is where you are at.

If in doubt, look down at your feet. Your feet only exist in the present moment. Wiggle your toes, feel how it feels to be in this moment. Because it is where your feet (and every other part of your body) are located. Which leads me nicely on to…

Action Stations Please!

Fourthly, the present is the only time you can take action. All the action that you take is of course happening in the now.

You can wish you took action yesterday (so many do…), but yesterday no longer exists, so it remains a wish. You can plan to take action in the future, but when you take the action, it will be in the present moment. The only time you can take action is in this very second.

Do You Want Some Real Enjoyment In Your Life?

Fifth up for today is: Wherever you are going, I am guessing that you want to enjoy it when you get there, am I right? Therefore, get into that habit of enjoying the present now and you are then even better at enjoying then when you get there. You are well practiced at anjoying this moment!

I took some amazing insight from my running experiences with my younger brother. When we ran and trained together and competed in races, he always enjoyed the race and commented on our surroundings whereas I always had my eye on the finish line. So much can and has been said about enjoying and engaging in the journey rather than always focusing on the future. Have a go at this one too….

Another Engaging Technique For You:

Gently place the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth just behind your front teeth and breathe comfortably. Imagine you are holding a tiny droplet of oil between the tip of your tongue and the roof of your mouth.

I originally got this idea from Eric Robbie on a training he did with Michael Breen and I tinkered around with it a bit. It is a great way of turning off your internal dialogue or at least quietening it down. Turning off your internal dialogue is an excellent way of allowing yourself to focus on the present.

“The only way to live is to accept each moment as an unrepeatable miracle, which is exactly what it is – a miracle and unrepeatable.”

– Margaret Storm Jameson

Get Your Business In The Now More Often:

So, how do you relate this knowledge and my rantings to ones Business or day to day life?

Business and life today seem to operate at an increasingly faster pace. People have lots of demands on their time, and naturally need every advantage they can get to be more effective. When I do corporate and business consultancy, one of the most common ‘challenges’ that people want to deal with is being focused and making progress on important business objectives or life goals.

Getting Focused

As I’ve investigated how people avoid being focused, I’ve found that, they are often not centred in the present. Instead, they are thinking about what’s happening tomorrow, or what happened yesterday, or running through a list of things that they need to do later. As a result, their attention is not in the present.

I used to work in Victoria in Central London and if you have ever been there during the rush hours it is a hectic place. What I find interesting is that you can tell who is engaged in the moment and who is thinking about their day or the next day. Those people whose awareness is within their heads, mulling over their day or dreading what’s in store tomorrow are the ones bumping into people or veering off in wrong directions. Whereas those people whose awareness is outside their heads and engaged in their surroundings are those that are balanced, poised and agile, like a panther!

When you bring your attention & energy into the present moment, you can accomplish things more quickly, solve problems more effectively, and enjoy the process more than you might expect. So, thirdly, have a go at connecting with the moment more and more in your days…

Prior To Your Business Task:

Before starting an important task, take a moment to centre yourself, notice your breathing and relax. Then, get clear about what you want to accomplish, then begin.

I wish you all the very best and hope to engage in the present with many more people here to benefit yourself personally and your effectiveness in buisness.


We thank Adam Eason for his kind permission to publish this article here.

Adam Eason is a best selling author, trainer and speaker in the field of hypnosis, please visit his website because there is a vast range of personal development resources for you. Go and receive your free, instantly downloadable hypnosis session and amazing hypnosis ebook: http://www.adam-eason.com

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]]> http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/how-being-engaged-in-the-moment-can-enhance-your-business-and-life-experience/feed 1 Sort of NLP for children http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/sort-of-nlp-for-children http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/sort-of-nlp-for-children#comments Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:22:18 +0000 Ben Licher http://www.ravisie.com/?p=40

To a child, play and work are often the same thing, and parents can utilise imaginative games as a way of reinforcing ideas of health and vitality. When a child is ill-disposed or cranky, or has a headache, or another disorder that does not appear to be serious, parents can utilise this idea: have the child imagine that you are giving it a better and better pill. Have the child open its mouth while you place the imaginary pill on its tongue, or have the child imagine picking the pill up and placing it in its mouth. Then give the child a glass of water to wash the pill down, or have the child get the water for himself or herself. Then have the youngster chant, say, three times, I’ve taken a better and better pill, so I will shortly feel better and better myself….

Imagine a conversation with a friend

In other cases of a child’s illness, have the child play a healing game, in which he or she playfully imagines being completely healthy again, outdoors and playing; or have the youngster imagine a conversation with a friend, describing the illness as past and gone. Play can also be used even in old people’s homes, for it could revive feelings of spontaneity and give the conscious mind a rest from worrying.

From: The Way Toward Health (Seth, by Jane Roberts)

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]]> http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/sort-of-nlp-for-children/feed 2 The Feedback Sandwich is Out to Lunch http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/the-feedback-sandwich-is-out-to-lunch http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/the-feedback-sandwich-is-out-to-lunch#comments Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:13:57 +0000 Ben Licher http://www.ravisie.com/the-feedback-sandwich-is-out-to-lunch

In this article Shelle Rose Charvette discusses the methodology of feedback.

Jodi is waiting for Marco to come to her office. Today is feedback day and she has the Feedback Sandwich formula open on her desk.

Marco arrives and plunks himself down in the chair opposite Jodi, submitting himself reluctantly to what is about to occur.”I’m glad you’re here,” says Jodi, getting the ball rolling on an upbeat note.”Let’s talk about your presentation to the team yesterday. You were very enthusiastic about the project’s progress, and I also thought that…..” Jodi stops as she notices Marco slumping in his chair, eyes cast downwards.”What’s wrong?” she asks. Sighing out loud, Marco says, “Do we have to go through this crap? Just tell me what I did wrong and let’s get it over with.”

What happened to a meeting that was supposed to accentuate the positive? Why didn’t Marco even want to hear the positive feedback?

As many managers know, a feedback sandwich (see below) consists of criticism”sandwiched” between two positive comments, as follows:

• Make a specific positive comment.

• Critique and/or suggestion for improvement.

• Overall positive comment.

It is intended to make criticism both easier to give and receive. But here’s the problem: employees aren’t stupid. After a few examples where the boss ties criticism to compliments, the formula is easily recognized by anyone who has heard it more than once. So now everyone knows that as soon as you hear praise, you know that you will be criticized.

This has effectively changed the meaning of praise. Now it signifies that you have done something wrong. Is it any wonder Marco sat cringing in his chair waiting for the axe to fall?

Management theory has recognized for quite some time that creating and maintaining a positive emotional state is key to performance. Ask any athlete. Ask anyone who has to make a presentation. Ask a student about writing an exam. Ask anyone who makes a living curing others of performance anxiety.

And then let’s take the context of learning. Many people had stressful experiences at school or other environments that they describe as traumatic. When I was first hired in a French management training company, a well-known author and my senior consultant, conducted what he called”sales training” for myself and another newcomer to the firm. This consisted of video taping role plays between us and colleagues playing potential customers. During the playback he pointed out everything we did wrong. For me this created a huge”Incompetency Attack” where I became convinced I would never be able to sell and therefore would never make it in this industry. This dreadful feeling lasted well over 6 months.

I run an annual 2 week Consultant/Trainer Certification Program in the Words That Change Minds model that I teach. Each year a few people freak out and have Incompetency Attacks – (see below). Over the years, my coaching team and I have developed many strategies to help our participants manage their emotional states. We used the Feedback Sandwich which only made matters worse.

We invited people to use NLP anchoring techniques to create positive states. We had them label the experience as an Incompetency Attack and realize it had nothing to do with their real level of competency. We developed a facilitation approach that the coaches could use to help people get through the emotions to get back to a positive emotional state. I even created a new technique, based on many NLP protocols to help people recapture their success strategies and transform their experience as learners.

But it still bothered me that some people experience these devastating negative emotional states when they are learning a subject matter about which they are passionate. I knew there had to be another way.

Last summer we had a smaller group than usual. I decided that we would change the way we gave feedback to see if we could reduce the number of people who had Incompetency Attacks and increase the number of people who meet the certification standards.

Here is the formula we used when we wanted a participant to change something that he or she was doing:

  • Make a suggestion.
  • Give 2 reasons why we think it is a good idea:
  • one reason states what the suggestion would accomplish (Words That Change Minds Pattern: Toward),
  • and one reason would state what problem the suggestion would prevent or solve (Words That Change Minds Pattern Away From)
  • Make an overall positive comment about the person, his/her abilities, etc.

We decided to forbid any criticism, either direct or implied. If anyone noticed something wrong, before speaking they were to think of what they wanted instead and express it in the above format.

Here’s an example:

“I was thinking that when you are asking a client about his needs, consider repeating back his key words. This would allow you to make sure that your client knows you got what was important and also avoid any misunderstandings on the deliverables. You already acknowledge what is important to people by nodding so this should be do-able.”

This straight-forward formula is harder than you might think. It took the team of coaches a couple of days to be doing it fluently without any critique. We taught our participants also to use this formula when giving each other feedback instead of critiquing. And we threw out the traditional feedback sandwich altogether.

What were the results? For the first time, all eligible participants met the certification standards. While there were a couple of people who had some difficulty with some of the exercises, no one freaked out! Not one Incompetency Attack. And all we had done was shift the environment slightly!

This was a one-time experiment with a small group of people. Not the stuff of scientific inquiry. Wouldn’t it be great if you tried this out with your colleagues, participants, family and friends? You could find out if it does work and possibly avoid having people become defensive when you want to make a suggestion. It takes a bit of practice for it to become natural but after a couple of tries it is much easier.

I would love to know what you discover. Please email me – Shelle

Incompetency Attack is a term invented by my good friend Gillian Keefe. It refers to an extremely negative emotional state wherein one believes one is utterly incompetent. The state however has no bearing on one’s real level of competence.

Traditional Feedback Sandwich:

  • What I liked.
  • Points of Improvement (typically phrased as what I didn’t like),
  • Overall positive comment.

Most people agreed that this has become so familiar that as soon as someone gives them a compliment they brace themselves to hear the criticism that inevitably comes next and therefore cannot take in the compliment.

Copyright: Shelle Rose Charvet. We thank Shelle Rose for her permission to publish the article here. Go see her website for more interesting articles.

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]]> http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/the-feedback-sandwich-is-out-to-lunch/feed 2 Why is the new 7 Day NLP Practitioner better? http://www.ravisie.com/nlp/why-is-the-new-7-day-nlp-practitioner-better http://www.ravisie.com/nlp/why-is-the-new-7-day-nlp-practitioner-better#comments Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:25:35 +0000 Ben Licher http://www.ravisie.com/12-09-2007/why-is-the-new-7-day-nlp-practitioner-better/RaVisie

There is an old saying: “The only person who likes changes is a wet baby”. It’s certainly true for some people and definitely true for some NLP’ers. In 1993 we sat down with Richard Bandler to talk about what was going on with people using NLP. Richard said: “So many of these people are just copying what they’ve heard from someone else who copied it from someone else who copied it from me – I can’t believe people think that 21 days or 24 days or any amount of days is what makes a practitioner training. It’s who is teaching, how they are teaching and what they are teaching.”

So we decided to start again from “a clean slate” – reconstruct how to deliver the practitioner, remove some of the “mistakes of personal history” which Richard speaks about but most importantly to ensure that the material is delivered using the best methods and latest applications of NLP technology available.

For some reason many people seem to believe that modelling – one of the methodologies used in creating NLP is merely copying what someone else does and coding it in some hopefully usable form. But modelling, as it is practised by Richard Bandler, is more than mere copying. Modelling for NLP’ers is the discovery of organising principles behind a group of selected behaviours and then applying those principles to create something new – perhaps something not seen before. For example, some people have tried to say that there is nothing new in the Meta model, that it is all transformation grammar. Not true, transformational linguists come up with descriptions of behaviour (language) in order to explain how language structures are generated through a set of equations common to all languages. But they do not tell you how to do things with language, how to record information from a person’s statement of reality – their model. They do not show you how to calculate either a question or a response which will require another person to move outside of their current model.

The Meta model is all of these and more. The Meta model is a creation utilising principles from transformational grammar, symbolic logic, and calculus (among other things) to be able to do something different – beyond what was done before. So much of what people think they know about NLP is only on the surface. That’s why the old NLP’ers are wondering how its possible to learn the practitioner in 7 days when it took them 21. There are several reasons; most people teaching NLP trained in the 70’s or 80’s using the old models and they don’t understand how Richard’s new technology for ‘Accelerated Unconscious Installation’ works. They think because they spent longer learning something they know it better. Well, if you bought a computer in the 70’s it would be big, slow and costly. However, nowadays they are smaller, faster, cheaper.

The traditional ways of teaching are far too slow and boring, using them it would be impossible to do it in 7 days.

Most of the traditional teachers of NLP are unable to do it for a start.

That’s why ‘Accelerated Unconscious Installation’ is the future for teaching NLP. Richard Bandler compares the old way of teaching small chunks of information one step at a time to ‘masturbating one stroke a day’. 21 days was a figure that Richard made up in the 70’s, but times have changed. However, we can understand why taking such a long time appeals to some institutes because it means they can charge you more money.

The other problem with traditional NLP training is that people learn about NLP and not how to do it. When you train using Richard’s latest technology often you find you start to do truly amazing things, but you don’t necessarily know how you did it. One gentleman who attended our Danish trainings, upon returning to work found that one of his colleagues had also been on an NLP training, although it was the old 21 type. Interestingly his colleague could explain everything about NLP, but she could hardly do any of it. He, on the other hand could demonstrate everything she talked about, but he couldn’t necessarily explain it. What would you prefer to be able to do?

Cast your mind back to Milton Erickson – what was the first response he would make to someone asking a question in a teaching context. His most usual response was a story and somewhere along the line a trance would develop and learning and change would just seem to happen. Trance, whether spontaneous or induced, is the natural place for learning.

As soon as the conscious mind is in the way, learning slows to a crawl – only a few tiny concepts at a time pass through the filter of conscious attention and you ended up making the new things exactly like what had come before.

But human beings are natural, quick learners when given the appropriate environment. That’s why we teach by doing – whole patterns first, then details – keep the conscious mind engaged in enjoyment and challenge and build skill without too much conscious interference.

The old institutes who are using the 21 day model are using unconscious installation, however it’s not accelerated or fun. Instead what they are installing is that it takes ages to learn and change. Moreover, many of the ‘woolly jumper brigade’ are also inadvertently installing the idea that NLP is some kind of boring intellectual doctrine. We heard about one NLP training company who recently failed half the people who attended their practitioner. The best part is that they believe it’s because ‘their standards are so high’. They don’t appreciate the irony that their standards are so high that not even they are competent to teach them. People like that could take 21 years to teach a practitioner and it wouldn’t make any difference.

Anyone who believes that the next ten years for NLP are going to be just like the last is in for a big surprise! The new seven day practitioner utilises the very best of old NLP with best of the new.

Some people will take 21 days to teach the practitioner – because they have to. Others will be able to do it in 10 days. It isn’t the number of days, but the quality of the experience that makes the difference. Right now more people are choosing the new 7 day practitioner above any other NLP training. If you haven’t discovered why that is yet, and your curious, adventurous and open-minded then it might be right for you.

by Paul McKenna

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]]> http://www.ravisie.com/nlp/why-is-the-new-7-day-nlp-practitioner-better/feed 1 Costello Buying A Computer http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/costello-buying-a-computer http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/costello-buying-a-computer#comments Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:57:30 +0000 Ben Licher http://www.ravisie.com/13-09-2007/costello-buying-a-computer/RaVisie

Abbott (behind the counter at: Super Duper computer store): Can I help you?
Costello: Thanks. I’m setting up an office in my den, and I’m thinking about buying a computer.
Abbott: Mac?
Costello: No, the name’s Lou.
Abbott: Your computer?
Costello: I don’t own a computer. I want to buy one.
Abbott: Mac?
Costello: I told you, my name’s Lou.
Abbott: What about Windows?
Costello: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
Abbott: Do you want a computer with Windows?
Costello: I don’t know. What will I see when I look in the windows?
Abbott: Wallpaper.
Costello: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
Abbott: Software for Windows?
Costello: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What have you got?
Abbott: Office.
Costello: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
Abbott: I just did.
Costello: You just did what?
Abbott: Recommend something.
Costello: You recommended something?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: For my office?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
Abbott: Office.
Costello: Yes, for my office!
Abbott: I recommend Office with Windows.
Costello: I already have an office and it has windows! OK, lets just say, I’m sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?
Abbott: Word
Costello: What word?
Abbott: Word in Office.
Costello: The only word in office is office.
Abbott: The Word in Office for Windows.
Costello: Which word in office for windows?
Abbott: The Word you get when you click the blue “W.”
Costello: I’m going to click your blue “W” if you don’t start with some straight answers. OK, forget that. Can I watch movies on the Internet?
Abbott: Yes, you want Real One.
Costello: Maybe a real one, maybe a cartoon. What I watch is none of your business. Just tell me what I need!
Abbott: Real One.
Costello: If its a long movie I also want to see reel 2,3 &4. Can I watch them?
Abbott: Of course.
Costello: Great, with what?
Abbott: Real One.
Costello; OK, I’m at my computer and I want to watch a movie. What do I do?
Abbott: You click the blue “1.”
Costello: I click the blue one what?
Abbott: The blue “1.”
Costello: Is that different from the blue “W”?
Abbott: The blue “1″ is Real One and the blue “W” is Word.
Costello: What word?
Abbott: The Word in Office for Windows.
Costello: But there’s three words in “office for windows”!
Abbott: No, just one. but it’s the most popular Word in the world.
Costello: It is?
Abbott: Yes, but to be fair, there aren’t many other Words left. It pretty much wiped out all the other Words out there.
Costello: And that word is real one?
Abbott: Real One has nothing to do with Word. Real One isn’t even part of Office.
Costello: Stop! Don’t start that again. What about financial bookkeeping, you have anything I can track my money with?
Abbott: Money.
Costello: That’s right. What do you have?
Abbott: Money.
Costello: I need money to track my money?
Abbott: It comes bundled with your computer.
Costello: What’s bundled to my computer?
Abbott: Money.
Costello: Money comes with my computer?
Abbott: Yes. No extra charge.
Costello: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
Abbott: One copy.
Costello: Isn’t it illegal to copy money?
Abbott: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
Costello: They can give you a license to copy money?
Abbott: Why not? THEY OWN IT!
Costello: How do I turn my computer off??
Abbott: Click on “START”……..
* Found somewhere on the net, in a mailing list, a long time ago. If somebody knows the person who wrote this, I would love to mention his or her name.

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]]> http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/costello-buying-a-computer/feed 2 An Interview with dr. Richard Bandler http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/an-interview-with-dr-richard-bandler http://www.ravisie.com/nlp-articles/an-interview-with-dr-richard-bandler#comments Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:41:17 +0000 Ben Licher http://www.ravisie.com/22-06-2007/an-interview-with-dr-richard-bandler/RaVisie

Q. What is Neuro Hypnotic Repatterning (NHR) and how would you describe it?

Richard
Using the Hypnotic process to restructure people at the level of cortical pathways. Most of the problems and things that people do and bad feelings that they have, work automatically but they weren’t there when they were a baby. These are learned behaviors and when you hypnotically repattern someone what you are basically doing is teaching them not to get to what they don’t want to get. Archival memory systems always have to have up-datable memory where you put new information in front of old information. So if you teach somebody a new way to respond it makes it so that it is easier because they never get to the bad system.

This interview took place on Friday 28 July 2000 in Los Angeles USA. The interviewer was Kate Benson from Matrix Essential Training Alliance. Published with her permission.

Everything human beings learnt will always be there but sometimes what you need to do is make a left turn on the cortical pathways and use a new learning. People should always be relearning things anyway. The older we get the more millions and millions of neural cortical pathways we establish and there are many things that happen automatically, a handshake, kisses, all kinds of stuff but it also includes people getting angry when its inappropriate or being afraid of things that are not really scary. After having done NLP which basically is designed to take the way in which somebody learns something and give it to somebody else, Design Human Engineering looks at the limitations of only what humans produce and then artificially creates things which have never been used, as thought processes. All of these things are grounded and started by the fact that we were doing hypnosis so I’ve come back to doing deep trance and seeing how to get people to respond in a new way. Think of the many things people do, like being afraid or being depressed, a lot of these things create a chemical base in the body, they change what you are doing and to get people before they get in the chemical bath of depression or suddenly getting angry or be afraid to try things or who are overly shy. They have to start being shy at a certain point and if ahead of that you can get them to do something else. This is about using very very deep trance tools to be able to make very pervasive changes across a wide range of behaviour to try and teach people the most important thing, which is to spend more time practicing feeling good than they do feeling bad so becomes a habit.

Q. What would a person who has never done NLP and has never worked with you and has never done anything else benefit and learn from the NHR processes?

Richard
Well, always over the years what I’ve tried to do is to make everything easier, quicker and all I’ve learned the simpler it gets. If you have some NLP background, that’s fine and if not I’ve designed the seminars to teach people how to do things without having to learn everything I did and repeat all my mistakes. Even the things I’ve done that worked well, I’ve found better ways and quicker ways and easier ways to do them. This is for somebody who doesn’t want to recapitulate 30 years of trial and error, you know, I started doing Design Human Engineering, because NLP was only extracting the strategies and most of them were based on feeling bad, avoiding something, and when your walking away from things and you walk backwards you are bound to fall into things so I wanted to be able to modify things so that we concentrated on getting people as an instinct to feel good. Because when people feel bad they make bad decisions when they feel good they make much better decisions and the difference between what’s a good decision and a bad decision and deciding not to make the bad ones is what its all about. There’s nothing that is going to be difficult but the only thing is that they have to be somebody who can stand feeling good. A major question will always be how much pleasure can you stand, how much excitement can you stand, how much success can you have? Because if you get yourself in the right state there’s just about nothing that human beings can’t do. They climb the highest mountain, they have flown to the moon they have done every thing that was ever supposed to be impossible and things we haven’t done yet doesn’t mean that we won’t. This is about redesigning the way you connect with yourself physically mentally and to some extent spiritually.

Q. We’ve been asked to look particularly at health practitioners and doctors because the Association for Complimentary Medicine is interested in your work.

Richard
Everybody uses two things, I don’t care what you do for a living if you communicate with other human beings you are going to be using hypnosis whether you know it or not. That’s the way in which language works. Its not a different process, it’s just precision skills because we are not talking about waving a watch back and forth, we are talking about being able to have the kind of control that most of the time is only taught to yogis and monks.

Most people do not spend a lot of time making their brain be in the state that would be best. Doctors, they are under constraints in the US. We have informed consent, so they have to tell you everything that could go wrong, instead of telling you about all the things that can go well. So you have to learn when to be incongruent, so that if you are telling people that bad things can happen we are always giving each other post hypnotic suggestions, we are always putting ideas into each others heads and especially when people are scared, you know and frustrated recovery from a lot of things seems to take a long time. The kind of lessons that nurses and doctors as far as I know could use all the help they can get you know. So far they haven’t been able to do everything, when people come to them, a lot of times its very hard to tell even with all the tests what to do. Acupuncture has been around for 20,000 years and people learned to do it well it’s an adjunct to other medicine. I really believe that all these people should start working together. Doctors should send people to herbalists, really good ones, as an adjunct to the medicine they are taking. If they don’t talk to each other, then they are not going to know how to put these things together, people are going to end doing it on their own and taking the wrong things. Chiropractors do some things that doctors don’t do and if they learned what they could do together they would be able to do even more. This competition over whose right and whose wrong, the answer is none of us are right, because we don’t know everything and how to cure it right away.

I think anything you can get that makes it so that it is easier. I mean even people after they have had a triple by-pass should do some build up and learn to breathe right you know. The more they concentrate on their breathing probably the less likely they will be to smoke again. When you throw in a little good hypnosis you can get people to stay healthful you can get people to do things like remember to take the right pills at the right time and not forget to take shots. I mean because post hypnotic suggestions, everybody does it to some degree. At night they decide what time they get up in the morning and most people will awaken before their alarm clock rings and a lot of people don’t even use an alarm clock they just see the clock in their head. Being able to have some control over what is considered hypnotic phenomenon is really just the way in which we program ourselves, it’s not really hypnotic repatterning its what goes on anyway at the moments when we really make pervasive changes in our behaviour.

Having been in the business of changing people and having been successful in so many places where others weren’t and, you know, what I do is not anything other than good teaching. I try to make it so people enjoy it if but you come in believing there is nothing there, you need to re-examine your decision processes, because you shouldn’t go and witness things you don’t believe in. You should make yourself believe in them and go and witness whether they do anything or not, if they do something, fine, if they don’t then, you know, get out. You reprogram yourself and instead of doubting everything that’s alternative, just cross that one of the list and move on. I had to wade through thousands and thousands of people who were doing things before I could put together pieces and find out what would work for me. Some of them were just complete nincompoops that didn’t know what they were doing, doing more harm than good. But really taking care of noticing which things do what in your communication, having the choice of varying your voice tone, of making people remember, these are all things that everybody in medicine does, Doctors Chiropractors. It’s a lot easier to do your work when people are totally relaxed, you are talking to them anyway and you can also make it so they start to program themselves to eat healthier food and do healthier things.

People should make decisions and their not going to make good decisions if they feel depressed, if somebody feels that they are overweight and they will never be able to diet enough and they have been on a billion diets. Their attitude alone could get it so that they’ll start bingeing and one of the best ways to do it is to teach people how to control their predicates how to control the things which are quote “out of control”. All those automatic things are things that got learned and if you learn something as strange as that you can learn something you can simply before it.

Q. There is a lot of controversy around NLP in the UK and as the person who developed this work and took all the risks, moved it forward, have you got a message for the rest of us?

Richard
Remember some people are good at things and some people aren’t. Make sure that you check and find out by word of mouth or through the Society of NLP, people who have repeatedly been successful, because if people go to a few seminars it doesn’t mean they listen, some people like to appear as if they know something and some people just know something. I’ve met some chiropractors that are really really good at what they do and I’ve met some that I wouldn’t let work on a mannequin and this is going to be true of your dentist, its going to be true of your doctor, its going to be true of anybody who teaches you anything or does anything for you. Don’t just blame it on the field because I made this up! This is all imaginary, right, but it works because I’ve always connected every idea with an action and that action you have to know what action and what result it can produce and if it produces multiple results, how to tell them apart. So that all the things I designed are designed to do things and there are some people who do things and some people that f*** about things. If you have to learn a new language and go through a bunch of mishegass (absurdity,craziness,silliness) with somebody then put the breaks on and find out somebody who’s really paid attention to their training and really is getting results. Talk to some other people the’ve seen. Make sure there’s lots of happy campers around.

Q. Why did you want to work in Dublin?

Richard
I love Ireland. I was in Dublin before and they were auditorily just tuned in all the time. They listen to stories and there’s just something about the Irish, they have a tradition of paying attention to language. And of course my idol of mastering language is James Joyce. I bumped into his monument right in the middle of Dublin. Everywhere I’ve been in Ireland I’ve always had a special time. There’s a special place in my heart for both Ireland and Scotland. I love the way they talk just to start with!

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