Why is NLP training still relevant?

When I was first running NLP training back in the early 2000s, I had a lot of corporate students who wanted help writing business cases to get funding from their employers. It was such a popular question that I had a business case template on my website.

There were two essential parts to it, firstly that the quality of interpersonal relationships underpins every business transaction and secondly that much ‘soft skills’ training is NLP based, so they would actually save money by learning the source material.

Presentation skills? NLP. Time management? NLP. Coaching? NLP.

For those of you who are horrified at such a thought, let me explain. NLP is a synthesis of the most effective personal change techniques available at the time that it was developed in the late 1970, early 1980s. The human brain and mind have not changed significantly since that time. Whether we call the latest thing TA or Gestalt or Human Givens or Transpersonal Success Coaching or whatever else is in vogue, the underlying principles are pretty much the same. For example…

• You tend to get on better with people when you enter their reality instead of yelling at them from within your own.
• Dysfunctional relationships often arise from people wanting different things from a relationship but not sharing that with each other.
• Many behaviours which are labelled as ‘difficult’, ‘challenging’ or ‘abnormal’ arise not from deficiency but from fear, and seem appropriate when you take a moment to fully consider that fear.
• People tend to solve their own problems when they have a fresh perspective or time to think clearly, they don’t need other people’s solutions forced upon them.
• Ultimately, human beings are not that different to each other. We all want to love and be loved, to belong and to be individual, to have security and also freedom, to be in the moment and to feel safe in knowing what lies ahead.

In NLP, principles like this are called ‘presuppositions’ and they serve as an implied foundation for the techniques. Maybe in coaching, they’re called ‘credentialing criteria’ but it all amounts to the same thing; the fundamental truths of human relations. If you know how your car works, you can use it more efficiently and cost effectively. When you know how the human mind works, or when you at least have a useful model of that, you can find your way through life more easily, with less conflict and with more of your valuable time and energy devoted to the things which really matter.

Here are some examples.

Time management

Working back from the end result is an example of ‘Well Formed Outcomes’

Adding ‘empty time’ or ‘planning time’ or even travel time into your calendar is an example of moving from an ‘in time’ structure to a ‘between time’ or ‘through time’ structure

Presentation skills

Standing in a certain place, or in a certain way, is an example of ‘anchoring’

Using a flipchart to change the audience’s emotional state is an example of ‘swish’

Storytelling is an example of ‘Milton Model language’

Stress management

Reviewing and reprocessing a stressful event is an example of either ‘Perceptual Positions’ or ‘Fast Phobia Cure’, depending on how stressful it was

Neutralising stress triggers (like in CBT) is an example of ‘swish’ or ‘squash’, depending on the nature of the trigger

Sales

Branding is an example of ‘anchoring’

Trial closing is an example of the ‘ecology check’ from ‘Well Formed Outcomes’

Presenting the solution is an example of ‘future pacing’

Learning the ‘source code’ of NLP is valuable when you’re willing to experiment, to try out new ideas, to make your own connections, to innovate and to be part of this great human adventure which we share.

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Peter Freeth is a NLP Master Trainer with 30 years experience in the field, and he has some amazing training opportunities coming up.

https://www.geniusnlp.com/index.php/events

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