Hello everyone,

I'd never really come across NLP until last week...

The company that I work for brought in a NLP practitioner to talk to our team - she got us to think about our own 'personal branding' before looking at the brand of our company.

We went through some interesting techniques which were really fascinating. Through this session alone I think I learnt more about myself and my team members than ever!

I bought a book about NLP at the weekend, and now I'm hooked...

How did everyone else come across NLP?

Be interested to hear your stories

Leila

Hey Leila

What book did you buy?

It all started with a book for me, it was a long time ago but I still remember it. I was alone for the first time and I picked up these three books, they weren't mine at the time. I was curious about the title on the cover of the first, Frogs into Princes, mmmm I thought that sounds kinda useful. When I looked closer I saw that there was a frog and a prince rather than a princess and a frog, so I mused so what happens if he kisses the frog? and I liked the sort of swooshy clock he was wearing and the funny curtains so I started reading and I liked what I read and so well I got in deeper and deeper....

Hi Carol,

Who wrote that book Frogs into Princess?

I am jsut finding about this MLP stuff and woud love to read alittle....

Thanks

Leila_UK wrote:

How did everyone else come across NLP?

I was a school teacher looking for better ways to teach (better than the way I already knew). I Got into General Semantics and the original Georgi Lozanov "accelerated learning" technique. One of the accelerated learning books talked anout NLP -and here I am

If you're looking to get some ideas of what books are available (with reviews) you might want to check this page:

http://www,bradburyac.mistral.co.uk/books.html

For a list of reviews of introductory books, grouped by subject - general, business, education, etc. - see here:

http://www,bradburyac.mistral.co.uk/NLPintros.html

Hope this is of use

By the way, Sam, the people who "wrote" Frogs into Princes were Bandler and Grinder - the creators of NLP. Though technically the book is a transcript of a seminar they ran back in the late 1970's, transcribed by Steve Andreas.

Be well

Andy B.

Leila_UK wrote:

How did everyone else come across NLP?

I'm a night owl, and as such, I found myself watching Tony Robbins infomercials. They made just enough sense to me, an armchair psychologist, to make me curious enough to keep an eye out for Tony's first book. I finally found it on a bargain rack, bought it, and loved it.

I especially loved the story he told about Bandler and the guy who claimed to be Jesus. So from there I had to read Bandler's books.

I found that I didn't feel I "got it", though, and this whole "modeling" thing was a mystery. I surmised that they weren't about to put The Good Stuff in books. So I decided to take a Practitioner training with John LaValle (the first weekend was Persuasion Engineering with Richard). And then Master Practitioner. And then some weekend hypnosis trainings with Doug O'Brien. And some weekend trainings with Jonathan Altfeld. And online forums. And so on.

I knew that I had inner potential. However, I was TOTALY frustrated as to HOW to release my inner potential.
Seeing as how I am a truck driver and spend most of my day sitting behind the wheel, I went to the library and began checking out "self help" CDs.
After awhile I began to notice many common threads through out all of them. I thought. " Good lord. Don't these people realise they are all saying pretty much the same thing.Each one adding a little bit here or adding a little bit there. Do they have ANY idea what a incredible thing they would have if they took all these parts and incorperated them into one system! ! !?"

Not long after that I was listening to a CD about phsycology and its many forms and the narator breifly mentioned NLP. I must have rewound and listened to that 2 minute exert at least a dozen times.

OK this is where I am going to get hammered by all you "professionals" out there, but I guess confession is good for the soul.

I was in a book store a few days later and was looking in the self help section. And what did I see? a Black and yellow book that changed my life. " NLP For Dummies"

Loren wrote:

I was in a book store a few days later and was looking in the self help section. And what did I see? a Black and yellow book that changed my life. " NLP For Dummies"

I hope you've gotten a good book since then.

Michael_DeBusk wrote:

I hope you've gotten a good book since then.

How true, how true

I don't want to hammer YOU, Loren, and if you got something you think is worthwhile from the book, good luck to you. Only I suspect that you know by now that it is nothing like an accurate introduction to NLP.

Rather than lengthen this message unnecessarily see here for the low down on "Neuro-linguistic Programming for Dummies":

Honest Abe's NLP Book Reviews - No. 28

But fair do's, Loren. as a newcomer you weren't know that

Be well

Andy B.

Andy B. wrote:

I suspect that you know by now that it is nothing like an accurate introduction to NLP.

I suspect the same thing, which is why I said it.

Certainly you can afford this:

AbeBooks: Search Results - Anthony Robbins

OCH! I am going to have to realy watch what I post from now on :-D I would like to further this discussion, but I don't want to high jack the thread. Thank you for the suggested reading.

Loren wrote:

OCH! I am going to have to realy watch what I post from now on :-D I would like to further this discussion, but I don't want to high jack the thread. Thank you for the suggested reading.

By all means, hijack. I've been doing it for months.

russianbear wrote:

Certainly you can afford this:

AbeBooks: Search Results - Anthony Robbins

Possibly. But why throw good money after bad?

Be well

Andy B.

Andy B. wrote:

Possibly. But why throw good money after bad?

Be well

Andy B.

I'm pretty sure it would be a step up from "NLP for Dummies"

russianbear wrote:

I'm pretty sure it would be a step up from "NLP for Dummies"

Then we'll just have to agree to differ

Be well

Andy B.

Andy B. wrote:

Then we'll just have to agree to differ

Be well

Andy B.

Have you reviewed "Unlimited Power"? What do you not like about it?

I don't know what Andy thinks about Unlimited Power - I haven't gone to his book-review site to look it up. But I do know what I think. This is what I said in a previous post, about a year ago:

"3. When Tony Robbins decided he wanted a book out with his name on it, he gave US $5,000 to each of five leading nlp trainers of the mid-80s so that they would each write two or three chapters. Amongst those contributing were Wyatt Woodsmall, Tad James, and Cathy Modrial.

"The resulting manuscript was then edited into unified shape, with the jargon smoothed out and the writing improved not by Tony Robbins, but by two desk editors - Peter Applebome and Henry Golden - with further editing by Jan Miller and Bob Asahina at Simon and Schuster. The title of the book is Unlimited Power (1986)."

In other words, whatever the merits of the book, Tony didn't write it. And that, just for starters, is what I don't like about it.

Eric.

ericrobbie wrote:

I don't know what Andy thinks about Unlimited Power - I haven't gone to his book-review site to look it up.

I just say I wouldn't review anything by Robbins even if he paid me.

ericrobbie wrote:

In other words, whatever the merits of the book, Tony didn't write it. And that, just for starters, is what I don't like about it.

My own objections relate to two other ethical issues. Both to do with walking the talk.

One of them is very general - that Robbins has done authentic NLP no end of harm - in my opinion - by making outrageous claims about how it can be used and what it can do, dating back as far as his early "fire-walking" seminars in the mid-1980s. See, for example:

Three Professors Lose the Plot

(The reference to Leikind and McCarthy relates to the fire-walking seminars.)

The other relates to some very specific behaviour which, however, I am not in a position to prove happened. I will therefore say nothing more about it.

Be well

Andy B.

Loren,

This is the great thing about this forum you will get different perspectives and in fairness most of them have merit.

If, as Eric has stated, Unlimited Power was written by a number of leading NLP trainers at the time, then possibly the content and message within the book has value even if the authenticity of the authorship is in question??

Personally I am a bibliophile and I would buy the book for a buck, read it and decide for myself.

On your journey of discovery and learning about NLP you may find lots of the technology that is NLP and is attributed to one person or another has its origins with other therapists.

For example the concept of Reframing was common to other talking therapies prior to NLP but Bandler and Grinder took this and cut out all the misleading dross and pointed out the underlying process and framework of what constitutes being able to reframe situations/issues/problems etc…

Really all of this is not important, what is important is your personal journey and growth, hopefully all of the literature that you read and digest will assist you in a generative direction.

Back On Topic: Leila Welcome to the Forum!! and I got into NLP in 1989 when on an extended holiday in Spain I was given a book called Using Your Brain For a Change by a friend of the family and she and urged me to read it. I did and have been studying and using NLP with a passion since, it has and continues to be a fantastic journey.....

Be Well,

Jason

Such a compassionate man that Jason is. Thank you, good sir.