I've been asked to recommend and review my 12 top NLP, hypnosis and related books, for Changes magazine.

I've made a quick list but I wonder if I'm forgetting something obvious.

I'm curious - what suggestions do you have?

Trust your unconscious

Judy,

My first suggestion would be list your twelve and fuel the debate a bit....

Jason

judy wrote:

I'm curious - what suggestions do you have?

My personal twelve, in no particular order:

1. Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins
2. Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins
3. The Structure of Magic by Richard Bandler and John Grinder
4. The Structure of Magic II by Richard Bandler and John Grinder
5. Frogs into Princes by Richard Bandler and John Grinder
6. Reframing by Richard Bandler and John Grinder
7. Trance-Formations by Richard Bandler and John Grinder
8. Magic in Action by Richard Bandler
9. Monsters and Magical Sticks by Steven Heller
10. Language in Thought and Action by Samuel I. Hayakawa
11. Training Trances by John Overdurf and Julie Silverthorn
12. Unlimited Selling Power by Donald Moine and Kenneth Lloyd

Honorable mention goes to Teach Yourself REXX in 21 Days by William and Esther Schindler. As the REXX scripting language isn't all that popular outside of IBM operating systems (though it oughtta be), I wouldn't recommend that particular book to anyone now; I would, though, strongly recommend learning a structured programming language of some sort. Nothing else helped me as much with learning how to structure things and think in a straight line.

Did you have "Words that change minds" by Shelle Rose Charvet.

John

If you think there is good in everybody then you haven't met everybody

Quantum Psychology (Robert Anton Wilson) in my top 12

Thanks everyone. Looks like we're going for, in no particular order:

Metaphors In Mind Penny Tompkins and James Lawley
How Customers Think Gerald Zaltman
A Whole New Mind Daniel Pink
The Stuff Of Thought Steven Pinker
Changing For Good Prochaska, Norcross and Diclemente
Time To Think Nancy Kline
Business NLP For Dummies Lynne Cooper
Influence Robert Cialdini
Blink Malcolm Gladwell
Words That Change Minds Shelle Rose Charvet
Metaphors We Live By George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
Tribes Seth Godin

judy wrote:

Thanks everyone. Looks like we're going for, in no particular order:

Metaphors In Mind Penny Tompkins and James Lawley
How Customers Think Gerald Zaltman
A Whole New Mind Daniel Pink
The Stuff Of Thought Steven Pinker
Changing For Good Prochaska, Norcross and Diclemente
Time To Think Nancy Kline
Business NLP For Dummies Lynne Cooper
Influence Robert Cialdini
Blink Malcolm Gladwell
Words That Change Minds Shelle Rose Charvet
Metaphors We Live By George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
Tribes Seth Godin

So when you used the word "related" you meant "like NLP but not NLP"?

Otherwise how can you have an NLP list without Bandler, Grinder or Dilts?

John

Experience is a wonderful thing, it enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again

I'm just amused by the fact that one book is by Daniel Pink, and the next Steven Pinker...

z8000783 wrote:

Did you have "Words that change minds" by Shelle Rose Charvet.

Rats! Forgot that one. I guess there are fourteen in my top twelve.

judy wrote:

The Stuff Of Thought Steven Pinker

One I haven't read.

Influence Robert Cialdini
Blink Malcolm Gladwell

Hmpf. Now there are sixteen in my twelve.

z8000783 wrote:

Otherwise how can you have an NLP list without Bandler, Grinder or Dilts?

In my case, I chose books that changed me. I didn't list several books Bandler wrote, or several be Steve and Connirae Andreas, for example, because they moved me further along the path but didn't change my direction or open it up.

adrian r wrote:

I'm just amused by the fact that one book is by Daniel Pink, and the next Steven Pinker...

Fantastic..........thanks for the giggle Adrian

Wow, so many books and so many authors I haven't read yet, great fuel for thought there and I can see I'm going to be reading a lot over the next few days.

In addition to Bandler & Grinder, one author I'm surprised not to see is L. Michael Hall, because he has written a lot of great material that has been particularly helpful to me. So here are some of my personal favorites, showing my work.

User Manual for the Brain, L. Michael Hall & Bob Bodenhammer
Great overview of NLP as a whole
The Spirit of NLP, L. Michael Hall
Excellent for installing the strategies of a successful practitioner
My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson, edited by Sidney Rosen
Incredible collection of Erickson case stories useful for inspiration and flexibility as well as entertainment
Mindlines: Lines for Changing Minds, L. Michael Hall
concise manual on the art of reframing and meta-model questions

and of course the foundation books by Bandler & Grinder, The Structure of Magic, and Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton Erickson. As old as they are, they are chock-full of great information, and as foundation books a lot of the specificity of that information has been excised in later books. Structure of Magic, for example, has very useful data on family systems, which has been largely overlooked by later authors who focus on interpersonal aspects. PHTME, of course, gives great detail on the use of milton model language patterns.

so it seems the real challenge is in limiting your choice to only 12

Michael_DeBusk wrote:

In my case, I chose books that changed me. I didn't list several books Bandler wrote, or several be Steve and Connirae Andreas, for example, because they moved me further along the path but didn't change my direction or open it up.

That's a good criteria for separating out the bloody good from the fucking brilliant.

John

Why does "fat chance" and "slim chance" mean the same thing?

Michael_DeBusk wrote:

My personal twelve, in no particular order:

1. Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins
2. Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins
3. The Structure of Magic by Richard Bandler and John Grinder
4. The Structure of Magic II by Richard Bandler and John Grinder
5. Frogs into Princes by Richard Bandler and John Grinder
6. Reframing by Richard Bandler and John Grinder
7. Trance-Formations by Richard Bandler and John Grinder
8. Magic in Action by Richard Bandler
9. Monsters and Magical Sticks by Steven Heller
10. Language in Thought and Action by Samuel I. Hayakawa
11. Training Trances by John Overdurf and Julie Silverthorn
12. Unlimited Selling Power by Donald Moine and Kenneth Lloyd

Honorable mention goes to Teach Yourself REXX in 21 Days by William and Esther Schindler. As the REXX scripting language isn't all that popular outside of IBM operating systems (though it oughtta be), I wouldn't recommend that particular book to anyone now; I would, though, strongly recommend learning a structured programming language of some sort. Nothing else helped me as much with learning how to structure things and think in a straight line.

It's a shame how many of those books I've read and you're great at this and I still, well, I'm not great yet, let's just say that.

Michael_DeBusk wrote:

In my case, I chose books that changed me. I didn't list several books Bandler wrote, or several be Steve and Connirae Andreas, for example, because they moved me further along the path but didn't change my direction or open it up.

Shouldn't it also be noted, Mike, that you didn't just read those books -- you've also attended (AND assisted at) countless live trainings with a long list of the top people in NLP -- for years upon years -- in concert with that reading (and listening to audios & watching videos too).

Doug O'Brien & I deeply enjoyed having Mike DeBusk assist at our Master Practitioner course last Summer in Tampa. Mike can always be counted on to see things in unique ways and offer valuable contributions.

Not to mention Mike is probably the most knowledgeable expert in the world on the topic of using NLP to dissipate, control, or quell violent activity.

Regards,

- Jonathan Altfeld

russianbear wrote:

It's a shame how many of those books I've read and you're great at this and I still, well, I'm not great yet, let's just say that.

You consider me to be great at this. You want to be great at this. NLP has the solution for that: do what I did. Get a basic foundation of information from the books, get a live training, and then go play in the real world... and read everything over again, because you missed it last time.

jonathanaltfeld wrote:

Shouldn't it also be noted, Mike, that you didn't just read those books

I didn't just read them. I slept with them under my pillow. Or, in the case of Trance-Formations, I slept while reading it.

Does anyone remember reading, in that book, their talking about a trance induction wherein the client imagines entering a clearing in the woods, sitting down, and waiting, and having a beautiful white horse enter the scene and communicate with the client?

It's not there. I re-read it three times trying to find it, and it's not there. But I know I read it.

You're laughing. But it was there, I tell you.

you've also attended (AND assisted at) countless live trainings with a long list of the top people in NLP -- for years upon years -- in concert with that reading (and listening to audios & watching videos too).

True. Well, the list isn't yet as long as I'd like it to be.

Doug O'Brien & I deeply enjoyed having Mike DeBusk assist at our Master Practitioner course last Summer in Tampa.

It was great. Three -- four, if you think about it right -- trainings for the price of one, AND the stuff we learn from the exemplars as a bonus. Everyone who attends the one coming up will have MASSIVE NLPness.

Mike can always be counted on to see things in unique ways and offer valuable contributions.

Let me translate that: "We suspect Mike may be manifesting a mild schizophreniform disorder."

Not to mention Mike is probably the most knowledgeable expert in the world on the topic of using NLP to dissipate, control, or quell violent activity.

Hey, I've gotten to the point where it requires almost no effort whatsoever. I've boiled it down to three steps:

1. Hire a good partner;
2. Teach him how to intervene; and
3. Let him go in first.

It sounds almost too simple. But it works.

arlo wrote:

User Manual for the Brain, L. Michael Hall & Bob Bodenhammer
Great overview of NLP as a whole
The Spirit of NLP, L. Michael Hall
Excellent for installing the strategies of a successful practitioner
My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson, edited by Sidney Rosen

Agreed. I would also have them in my list of the most useful NLP books. In addition, I would also prefer:

NLP: The New Technology of Achievement
Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson
Structure of Magic, Vol 1 & 2
An Insiders Guide to Sub Modalities