Experience the unique world of Christopher Howard. Extreme personal development using advanced NLP. Breakthrough to Success.

Christopher Howard's events are always over subscribed and unless you get a referral like this link it would normally cost over £800 to attend.
Breakthrough to Success is running in London in May this year, (it's the only London date left).
I attended and thought it was outstanding, definitely not to be missed.

Clicking this link will allow you to register for the weekend event absolutely free.
Breakthrough to Success in Europe

enjoy the ride, if you choose to attend, let me know what you think.

Peter

Peter Green wrote:

Christopher Howard's events are always over subscribed and unless you get a referral like this link it would normally cost over £800 to attend.

Yes, it's amazing how somehow... everyone attends this "expensive" weekend for free. LOL. After all -- only you (because you're so very special) get to attend for free, and if you have 10 friends who you think are also very special, we'll give them each a free ticket to this expensive event. And if each of them has 10 very special friends...

This is a "taster" weekend where they will throw a lot of material at you too fast and without much depth, so mostly what you get is a bunch of motivation & hope -- at which point once you're in that state, they'll try try try to sell you on a package of as many trainings as you'll buy in one package. Watch for it -- the choice of 3 different packages. When you see those 3 packages, keep in mind the 4th: Walking away.

Buying "packages" of trainings benefits you the least, and them the most, because then you're then less likely to attend other trainers' courses too, where you'd get the kind of perspective that you'd need to do a proper comparison of what you get from Chris... vs. what you get from other trainers.

And folks, if you do come... they'll also discount your tuition paid at Chris' longer courses if you can refer more people into their "very expensive" free taster weekends. They'll teach you to say things like...

Peter Green wrote:

Christopher Howard's events are always over subscribed and unless you get a referral like this link it would normally cost over £800 to attend.

Sorry, Peter. But those referral links (cough) "recommendations" for Chris Howard's events have become a bit repetitive here & elsewhere.

Recommendations for courses are ALWAYS more credible when there isn't a potential discounted tuition or other secondary gain at stake.

Hi Jonathan,
I assume you have attended to have such in depth knowledge.

Peter Green wrote:

Hi Jonathan,
I assume you have attended to have such in depth knowledge.

Next time a little advance research here would be useful. This forum is well versed in Chris Howard marketing tactics:

http://www.nlpconnections.com/talk-a...t=chris+howard
http://www.nlpconnections.com/ask-qu...t=chris+howard
Which NLP Prac. Course Do I Choose?
http://www.nlpconnections.com/talk-a...t=chris+howard
Hello to All
NLP Chris Howard Seminars
http://www.nlpconnections.com/talk-a...t=chris+howard
F^ree tickets not to be missed
NLP tickets worth £895 up for grabs
Christopher Howard training

Hi Jonathan,
Very interesting, not surprising really given his marketing techniques. I agree one needs to be wary of the product selling. I passed as a practitioner this year through what could be classed as a normal route. I went along to see CH with a specific intent to see how he does it. I was intrigued to see how he would work an audience of 1000+, so was able to stay detached and objective. I must admit he is a master of what he does. I suspect if you take some of his courses as stand alone they would measure up quite well.

But value for money might be another topic.

Peter

I'd like to offer an alternative perspective here.

To me there seems to be a couple of dynamics at work here.


1. Affiliate marketing techniques.

2. Judgment of 'Big Name' stadium trainers.


To deal quickly with the first issue - Peter, you joined the forum in February and then moved immediately to selling an affiliate link.

I don't personally see any harm in going to forums in order to sell other peoples stuff if that's your bag...

...you may want to consider establishing yourself as a cool guy first....you know - come along - post some useful, interesting stuff, ask questions, genuinely get involved so people can see you as a standup guy...

...then IF you're gonna come along and flog yer affiliate link - here's a bit of advice (beyond posting in-line with the persona you've established) - spend £5 and buy a domain name...I dunno, something like chrishowardoffers.com or something like that - then REDIRECT that domain name to your affiliate link - just so it's not quite so obvious when you hover the mouse that it's an affiliate link.

Bit late now of course -- but you can take that to your next forum :-)

Next.

Taking a 30,000ft view - isn't it curious how so many small/medium sized Pro's in the Personal Growth & Professinal Performance Industries are so Judgmental of the 'Big Names'?

4 names immediately come to mind:

• Tony Robbins
• Chris Howard
• Paul McKenna
• Tad James

...there are others of course - those are the first 4 I thought of.

Here's the thing:

1. These guys are very wealthy.
2. These guys' CONTENT seems to be the subject of most judgment from the small-time / medium-sized pro's.

I ain't saying nothing else just yet ...but I find the potential implications fascinating...

J.

P.S. I'm not familiar with Jonathan or his work - so I'm not inferring anything with regards Jonathans direct experience of Howard's work and it's qualitative 'worth' in his mind.

Hey mate,

Regarding your 30,000ft view ...

The two factors you indicate are not factors that come into consideration from my perspective (and I suspect my perspective and Jonathan's probably overlap quite a bit). Two other factors, do though:

[ Disclaimer: a) I have no issue with Tony Robbins - he's in a different game; b) I don't have anywhere near enough experience with Paul McKenna grads to assume the same factors apply ]

1. The standard of the average graduate of these courses leaves a lot to be desired, IMO - and I'm being very mindful of remaining as diplomatic as I can in my use of language here

2. They flood the markets they enter, so that the majority of people who are exposed to NLP are exposed to that particular standard of training. They believe that this standard of training is top notch.

I don't give a toss about how much money someone makes. What I care about, in a field that celebrates human excellence, is what people end up settling for.

If Chris Howard produced graduates that rocked my socks with their skills, I'd have no issue with him at all. Thousand of people every year get exposed to that level of excellence in NLP training? Fantastic! I'd probably shift my business focus to become more of a niche trainer so that I could offer something of unique value.

But that's just not how it goes.

Cheers,

James T

Hi James, thanks for the advice.
I want to just clarify that I did not join this forum specifically to flog other peoples stuff and that is not my bag.
I joined forum in Feb as you say, after completing a prac course with your mate Jamie Smart, (which was excellent), to network with other NLP'ers.
I have been extremely busy since then and not had much free time to log on.
I went to see CH for the reasons I mentioned above and as a result you get to become an affiliate.
I thought I would just see what response I would get if I posted a link, which seems to have opened a can of worms and attracted the kind of attention I was not looking for.
For the record, I don't intend to go to other forums and flog his stuff, I have my own business to build.

I would like to draw a line under this and move on to more constructive postings.

Peter

james_t wrote:

(and I suspect my perspective and Jonathan's probably overlap quite a bit).

Exactly right. Robbins & McKenna are one thing entirely.

Chris Howard and various other "tad-poles" as they're affectionately known in Australia, thanks to a certain Aussie radio interviewer who interviewed Tad some years back, lol -- are an entirely different animal.

To back up James' comment, the problem James & I & some others have specifically with these names is that judging from the results they produce, the evidence we find is that they are distributing a very poor and impoverished version of NLP to people who think they've reached a certain level of knowledge & competence when they actually haven't come close to that (or who thought the show was hogwash and have now washed their hands of NLP). For many of those people, that's all they'll ever get from NLP, and that's really unfortunate when most of us here know there is SO much more to gain from.

So far, every student coming out of those classes that I've met (I don't even have a single counterexample yet, and I'm always looking) -- when students have not also trained with a list of other "higher calibre" trainers -- those students do not measure up. They're not even close" -- they're miles behind but they're apparently getting the impression they're neck & neck.

The worst example I've met to date was a sweet Canadian lady who'd invested vast sums in Tad's courses -- she'd attended Prac, then Master Prac, then Trainers Training, then continued to come repeatedly to assist at several repetitions of the above. When I met her, she'd already spent 10's of thousands of dollars with Tad -- and only Tad.

(1) She could not confidently run anyone through the NLP Fast Phobia Cure.

(2) She did NOT know how to anchor someone's state successfully, at all, let alone using different sensory systems independently or concurrently. She admitted that she just never got it, thought it was something wrong with her, and kept coming back to try to get it.

I taught her in 5 minutes how to successfully anchor someone's state -- showed her how & why timing the anchoring bits to the onset of someone's state was so important, and then we demonstrated why a lack of precision with kino anchors leads to sloppy or poor or absent anchors, but precision leads to Very Strong results. After those 5 minutes she sat down crying, realizing... it WASN'T her fault she hadn't learned NLP. It was her trainer's fault.

Some better questions might be...

WHY do so many of Tad's trainees, and WHY do so many of Chris Howard's trainees, seem to have such a low standard of knowledge/skill (when measured by more knowledgeable people)? And to be clear, I don't have objective data on all their students. James & I and others only have subjective data from having met many of these students elsewhere. ALL of those people I've met have not met even basic standards. NONE of those people have shown up with impressive knowledge/skills. Statistically speaking.. if there were higher quality students... you'd think we'd have met at least some of them.

Why do so many of those trainees seem to THINK they've reached certain levels of competence but are coming up short?

Why do SOME of those trainees seem to think there's something wrong with THEM if they just don't get it? There's no such thing as a bad student. Just bad teachers. If ANY SINGLE student doesn't get it, I make it my business to train something differently, taking their unique filters into account, so that they will/do get it. I know James Tsakalos (quite a few others) is(are) equally qualified and capable and willing to do the same.

Why is this pathetic result even remotely tolerated by the community? Stand up and voice your disgust, people.

And just to reiterate what James T. said...

james_t wrote:

If Chris Howard {and all the Tadpole trainers coming from the same training source} produced graduates that rocked my socks with their skills, I'd have no issue with him at all. Thousand of people every year get exposed to that level of excellence in NLP training? Fantastic! [...]

I totally agree 100%, no equivocation at all.

- Jonathan

Agree with Jonathan this type of marketing doesn't fool too many here & is probably a tad overused.

Like the old saying 'anything too good to be true, probably is' and in this case the free course is to get you in there & sell you other courses that cost serious money. NLP Practitioner / Master etc with Chris Howard are very, very, very expensive as you'd expect with someone offering free courses to get you in the door.

Whilst you are in a peak 'yeah lets go for it' state, they hit you with the hard sell for expensive paid courses & ask you for your credit card details.

Have never attended any of his events, heard he is good speaker, and from participants I've met running round the hall shouting or victory dances, etc just aren't for me.

But at the end of the day each to their own I guess, but these worth £800 tickets for free mmmm, you could put worth £8000 or any value on them you like.

Whatever is made of Chris Howard's advertising it still pales in comparison to :
Hypnotists - Turn £899 into MEGA PROFITS for Your Business

Jonathan,

Regarding Tad James students, etc there are some great ones out there for sure. There will also be some not so good ones as with all Trainers. Are all NLP Life Training (Bandler / Mckenna , etc) graduates exceptional? The courses are often 300-400+ people in a room, how much individual attention & evaluation do you think they get? Also there is as far as I'm aware no pre study course materials with NLP Life Training, nor any after course support. You could do NLP Pract. & Master with them and be pretty clueless, or on the other hand you may be exceptionally knowledgable through your own practice, aptitude, and study. But in a company where the co-creator of NLP is there and on the live training you expect graduates to all be exceptionally knowledgable.

If people like Tad James in your opinion do not on the whole produce exceptional students, why are they so successful? His courses are not cheap. Why can't the supposed better Trainers that turn out better Graduates reach his level of success, and why aren't they anywhere nearly as well known as him?

In my opinion people like Tad James are exceptional trainers, but that does not necessitate all their graduates are amazing. Time Line Therapy can produce results or work in areas that NLP either cannot or TLT produces faster results, and Tad James of course created it. Many people use TLT without having ever trained with him.

Fact is you could do NLP Praft. & Master with Tad James Co. / NLP Life Training / John Grinder (do both courses with all 3 groups) & still not be that great practically using it or that highly knowldegable.

Dragon05 wrote:

Jonathan,

Regarding Tad James students, etc there are some great ones out there for sure. There will also be some not so good ones as with all Trainers. Are all NLP Life Training (Bandler / Mckenna , etc) graduates exceptional? The courses are often 300-400+ people in a room, how much individual attention & evaluation do you think they get? Also there is as far as I'm aware no pre study course materials with NLP Life Training, nor any after course support. You could do NLP Pract. & Master with them and be pretty clueless, or on the other hand you may be exceptionally knowledgable through your own practice, aptitude, and study. But in a company where the co-creator of NLP is there and on the live training you expect graduates to all be exceptionally knowledgable.

If people like Tad James in your opinion do not on the whole produce exceptional students, why are they so successful? His courses are not cheap. Why can't the supposed better Trainers that turn out better Graduates reach his level of success, and why aren't they anywhere nearly as well known as him?

In my opinion people like Tad James are exceptional trainers, but that does not necessitate all their graduates are amazing. Time Line Therapy can produce results or work in areas that NLP either cannot or TLT produces faster results, and Tad James of course created it. Many people use TLT without having ever trained with him.

Fact is you could do NLP Praft. & Master with Tad James Co. / NLP Life Training / John Grinder (do both courses with all 3 groups) & still not be that great practically using it or that highly knowldegable.

What he said.

Dragon05 wrote:

If people like Tad James in your opinion do not on the whole produce exceptional students, why are they so successful? His courses are not cheap. Why can't the supposed better Trainers that turn out better Graduates reach his level of success, and why aren't they anywhere nearly as well known as him?

Without even touching the idea that all human beings deeply desire to be rich and famous, and that these two things are therefore the sole measures of success in anyones world (WTF?), let me address a - DEEPLY - flawed complex equivalence in what you wrote above:

Of all the restaurants in the world, one name stands out above all the others in terms of instant brand recognition and perception of financial success - a sure sign of the incredible quality of food that people have come to expect there.

Everyone knows that McDonalds employs the greatest chefs in the world - who use only the very finest ingredients (and their world class culinary skills) to serve meals that are both healthy and exquisitely delicious.

When people think good, healthy food, they think McDonalds.

If you won't settle for anything less than the very best - McDonalds is the place to go. As everyone knows. That's how they became as big and well known as they are, right? Surely it stands to reason.

Or maybe ...

They built a business around speed, convenience, cookie-cutter replicability and a massive marketing machine.

And sugar.


Cheers,

James T

James,

Poor analogy to say the least with Mcdonalds, etc. But anyway, read something like 'I Can Make You Rich ' by Paul Mckenna; resenting people with more money or more success than yourself is detrimental to your personal progress.

You see lots of it on here with NLP, you'll see the same on music forums, sports, etc - people jealous or envious of someone more successful than themselves. Often this happens on a deep subconcious level, people in question cannot be Introspective enough to realise that and offer a wealth of excuses and justification to themselves as to why they are not as successful as that person or that they are not seeking what they have.

Jonathan Altfeld here > With Tad James, etc.
Jonathan Royle > Paul Mckenna, etc.

Strangely people far more successful & renowned in the field than they are according to them just got lucky, or aren't that great they just became well known, etc. As I said you here the same with Boxers about Muhammad Ali or a current champion, you here the same with Guitarists on Hendrix or Eddie Van Halen.

You are right not everyone seeks fame or wealth m but in the case of Jonathan Royle, and Jonathan Altfeld if they could achieve what Anthony Robbins or Paul Mckenna has, believe me they'd welcome it with open arms.

Why can't they achieve anything near the success or recognition in the field as Paul Mckenna, Richard Bandler, etc? There can be many answers of course, but one major factor is the envy & jealousy aspect it detracts from success and personal growth in the long term.

Wow, is that ever a mis-read, Peter. I don't resent Tad James or Chris Howard at all. I don't know those men, personally, how could I resent them?

My complaint is with what passes for "acceptable quality training" to hordes of NLP trainees who can't anchor or do what they should easily be able to do.

Judging from extensive, ample anecdotal evidence on one side of the equation, and so far a total lack of ANY evidence to the contrary, James Tsakalos's metaphor of McDonald's is right on the money.

If you look at the evidence (and also know what to look/sort for), if you've met as many of their trainees on multiple continents/in multiple countries as I have, you would have to come to the same conclusion: that they are actually producing incompetence, en-masse.

They may very well be extraordinary at selling hope and raising motivation levels through the roof. Their marketing machines are very good at selling "packages" of courses. These packages make it less likely people are going to just take one course only, then go on to train with other far more competent trainers who will show them just how much most of them didn't learn/get in their first courses, and that is deeply unfortunate.

As individual people, I have nothing to say about them either way.

Dragon05 wrote:

You are right not everyone seeks fame or wealth m but in the case of Jonathan Royle, and Jonathan Altfeld if they could achieve what Anthony Robbins or Paul Mckenna has, believe me they'd welcome it with open arms.

Wow, this too deserves a response. Peter clearly doesn't know me at all. Why he's imposing his values on other people I have no idea.

1. Please do not do me the disservice of putting my name and that "Royle" guy in the same sentence. I have nothing to do with him, don't respect his marketing methods either.

2. I don't enjoy enormous crowds of students. If offered a chance to speak on Robbins' own stage, I'd turn it down. It doesn't hold interest for me -- to be that famous a speaker. It's partly why I've waited so long to write a book -- fame isn't one of my values at all.

3. Speaking to enormous audiences isn't what drives me. I deeply enjoy the training process, especially with smaller groups. I have no idea what criteria you've used to make these erroneous judgments about me, but you're using a deeply impoverished data set -- like drawing conclusions only from a couple of posts on a website, or whatever. Those who know me well, know that I prefer "training" to "presenting". I prefer groups up to about 30 and then no more; because that's about the number of students whose progress I can track extremely well throughout a weekend course. And unlike those "bigger name" trainers, I do care to track. Doing what I do beautifully well and maximizing skills transfer will ALWAYS be of more importance to me than success according to the criteria you're talking about (fame? money?).

I'm sorry you can't so easily cubby-hole me into this odd argument you're postulating, but I don't fit the description.

My work values, in order, are:
1. Being incredibly good at maximizing skills transfer. Never compromising on quality. Never doing cookie-cutter derivative unoriginal bullshit.
2. Doing it in a way that fascinates me and keeps me learning
3. Making good money, earning a good living.

So let me be clear -- I'll start with your words and then add my own:

"but in the case of [...] Jonathan Altfeld if they could achieve what Anthony Robbins or Paul Mckenna has, believe me..."

...I'd turn it down almost as fast as I'd turn down an all-expense-paid trip to sit through a Tad James or Chris Howard "training." (Not that their idea of a "training" comes remotely close to what I would call a real training). And there are those who DO know me well enough in person to know that that's the truth.

My complaints here have all had to do with value #1 -- that people are getting poor quality skills.

Have you ever heard me complain that so & so is earning more? It's irrelevant to me what others earn.

IMHO, your analysis skills need a lot of work.

- Jonathan

Many readers may remember I had differences with Jonathan A some weeks ago BUT I must say I think (that means it is my opinion) he is being misjudged here.
He might welcome a few more stundents and their money or perhaps not... I know I would like a few more students and their money in the UK BUT I don't think him or me or James T or many others are into the big crowds.
I started in 1995 and my partner at the time was very Robbins-like and we did have many gigs with 800 up to 2000 people on each one and I felt just like a puppet or a dancing bear, so I left him to do such things and I looked for smaller groups and more in depth work.
Different people, different values... Jonathan A as James T are two great trainers (from what people have told me since I've not seen them personally) and to consider Paul or Tony or Chris or whoever is better because of the number of students or bank accounts is ridiculous.
Having been a professional athlete I consider absurd to compare how we evaluate a trainer to how we evaluate an athlete unless you want to play the following game... Did you know Anna Kournikova made a lot more money and has more fans than Chris Evert or Martina Navratilova or more recent Justin Hennin? And yet Anna never won a Grand Slam title or won as many torunaments.
She was prettier... she had some special top-model charisma. BUT she was not even close to be a better tennis player. Was she good enough to get to the WTA circuit? Of course, she was pretty good, just not the best even if her fans and bank accounts were bigger.

I don't even know Chris Howard and never heard of him until I got into NLP Connections. I am not judging his work or his marketing or any of the other "big" names. Big depending where since if you mention CH or Tad James in latinamerica you will get a "who?" reply. But then again until just a few months back no one in latinamerica knew who Paul McKenna is either. We are at a different market.
I am just in complete agreement that imposing other people's values to Jonathan or anyone else is absurd. With the birth of my child I came to realize I rather be completely unknown and make a few bucks teaching tennis (as I used to for a while) than to travel for 40 weeks a year and miss watching my baby grow. Sorry, fame and fortune are not so important for some people.
I am not saying it is bad.... for some people it is important but not for all of us.

Oh, so that I disagree with Jonathan on something... i do think there are some bad students!
But I do know some people like him or James T will go out of their way to make as much as possible to get everyone to learn and that is to be admired. I still have met people (even students of him) that are not as good as other students of him. My opinion is not everyone has the same potential.

Gabe, I love you, and I look forward to being honored to be a student of yours someday. You don't pass judgement on CH or others because you, as you acknowledge, do not have personal experience with them. I think the problem people here have with Jonathan is that he too has no personal experience with certain people and his sample size for making generalizations is a bit small. I don't think it's quite right because somebody didn't learn well from one guy and is now training with someone else to make such a broad generalization. I wonder how many of his former students went on to learn from Tad James and are much happier for it.

-Tony
(aiming to be the next Milton Erickson or the Russian Gabe Guerro, whichever comes first)

Well-stated, Gabe. And of course some of my students will outshine others. Naturally so. No two students are alike, and these are facts true for all of us.

I use the "belief" that "there are no bad students, only bad trainers" much like an NLP Presupposition; it helps me to avoid becoming complacent in my role.

I suspect you're well aware of my usage of that belief as a presup! It's never "always" true -- but still can be helpful to act as if it were.

- Jonathan

Understood Jonathan and it makes sense, again I believe (from what I've been told) you do walk an extra mile to make everyone learn. So again I think that is to be admired. regardless of any differences we had in the past. Truth is many others don't do that or even close. I don't always do that myself... sometimes I do but being honest not always. So I say from my heart: great job!

Tony, you can aim a lot higher than the russian Gabe! hahaha
Believe me, developing to be the best "you" that you can be is far more interesting and successful than following someone's path or footsteps... more so if it is a mexican!!! hahaha
Anyway, I think you are right in that it is a generalization but also in the same sense it is a huge generalization by Peter D to think critisism is because of jellousy or envy or justifying the lack of success. Same as it is a huge generalization to think that more money or students is better. Or even that anyone continuing to be in business is evidence of success... ok, it is evidence of success marketing or that there are many million potential constumers out there.
Again not saying it is not result of a good job, perhaps it is to some degree, it is just that it is a huge generalization as well.

Success is relative to who evaluates it. Teaching is not professional sports where we do have rankings and being #1 is the goal and there is a way (previously accepted by all competitors) to tell who is #1.
Rafael Nadal ended 2008 as #1... So did Tiger Woods or Lorena Ochoa, and Spain won the European Cup (whatever is called) there we can say "according to the rankings X or Y is the best". In teaching the best teacher is relative to each and every student.

I like Jonathan and James (nice ambiguity, haha) think that it is unfortunate that so many NLP stundents don't really get the skills after a program BUT I also agree with Chris Morris (from conversations between us) that sometimes people just want to feel good after a program and so they get what they wanted...... hey, some only want a picture with the "big" name or his autograph. I could never understood that myself but every one is entitled to his own ideas.