New Year Offer: 1st Meta NLP Practitioner of 2015 in February at Bangalore.

• Have you ever wondered how brain functions, how many times your thoughts, emotions and behaviors have let you down, inspite of the all the positive psychology knowledge you have and the various understandings you have?
• Why is your knowledge of no use and relevance when you know so much?
• And do you wish sometime that you could have all the secret techniques to help you live your personal life and professional life the way you always desired?

Why wait when the 21^st century cutting edge change technology is available right here in India to put into your hand the resources and tools to take charge of your life. Neuro Semantics offers you the technology to bridge the “knowing and doing” gap.

The gestalt of all Change Management, Performance secrets, Self-Leadership, Emotional Intelligence is the Neuro Semantics-NLP conducted under the auspices of the International Society of Neuro Semantics-USA based on the Human Potential Movement started by Abraham Maslow and the need of all human being for Self Actualization.

The Trainer Romeo Haokip is one of the only 2 certified Neuro Semantics-NLP Trainer in India and the only one who conducts regular Meta NLP certifications.

Fee is inclusive of the Manual which is $69.99, Lifetime Certificate Fee, E-book and 7 days Meta NLP video worth Rs.17,000, Lunch, Teas and Snacks for 7 days. 

Fee is Rs.48,000 . However, every New Year we have extreme discounts for everyone who wants to join. If you want crazy unbelievable discounts for more than 50% please contact us ceo@leapsmanagement.com or call 9986149749. If you’re company sponsored there is 10% extra charge for the TDS cut. 

For Outstationed candidates, there are accommodations available from Rs.450 and above per night.

NLP Practitioners and Master Practitioners from other NLP Bodies can attend the program  at just Rs.15,000 for this first batch of the year.

Venue:  Around Anand Rao Circle, Near Railway Station, at a 3 Star Hotel. (Exact venue will be intimated through email)

Date: 1^st -7^th February, 2015.

Pre-requisite: Reading “The User’s Manual for the Brain” by Michael Hall and watching the 7 days Meta NLP videos which will be provided to you after your registration. Book early to prepare yourself to read and watch.

Contact us at ceo@leapsmanagement.com or call +91-9986149749.

WHY NLP?

NLP is considered the number 1 tool of choice among the top celebrity business and life coaches around the world. It is well known that many top politicians including Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Barack Obama are trained in NLP. Celebrities that are known to use these skills are Oprah Winfrey, Sophie Dahl, Lily Allen, Gerri Halliwell and Jimmy Carr. It is said that Robbie Williams use a very simple NLP technique before going stage. All of these people use the skills of NLP to help them succeed in their profession.

What are Established Magazines and other opinion leaders saying about NLP:

• “NLP may be the most powerful vehicle for change in existence…” –Modern Psychology.
• “NLP has untapped potential for treating individual problems….It has metamorphosed into an all-purpose self-improvement program and technology.” –Time Magazine“

WHY NLP FROM NEURO SEMANTICS?

Neuro Semantics also known as the science of success as quoted in the Wall Street Journal, is considered as the latest advancement in the field of NLP and also known as the NLP 2.o version. Widely practiced by coaches and trainers in 40 countries around the world, as a Self-Actualization and Wealth Success tool.

TRIPLE CERTIFICATION:

The 7 days Meta NLP Practitioner will certify you as

1. Neuro Semantics Practitioner from ISNS-USA
2. NLP Practitioner from ISNS-USA
3. Coaching Essentials-Module 1 of the Meta Coaching System from MCF-USA.

7 days Internationally Accredited Meta NLP Practitioner Certification from ISNS-USA, Top NLP Certification Provider in the World. It usually is 8 days, and so we will start early at 9AM and end at 6PM, to gain 7 extra hours to make it 8 days’ worth of training.

TESTIMONIALS:

 This program has immensely helped me changed entire perspectives of my life. I think it’s kind of a rebirth for me. I would like to thank Romeo for being very supportive and bringing the best out of me. Resham Nawaz- Head of Learning & Development at Odisha Television Ltd

I would recommend everybody to attend this because it’s an eye opener and people get to know themselves.We’re so closed; we don’t understand what we are but this program helps you to first understand what you are, your limitations, and how much you can achieve by opening up yourself. It’s amazing, with lots of breakthroughs from my birthtime to my future. Sowmya Swaminathan- Learning Consultant

 In this 6-7 days I felt that the bridging of the “knowing-doing gap was really possible. I believe it was very scientific and I could experience the power of all the techniques. And the fantastic conceptual command that Romeo displayed and demonstrated and it help us achieve in similar ways, I think it was really powerful. This is the program I will recommend to every professional and every person who wants to change and take charge of their lives. Yogesh Bari-Head of People Development,French MNC

For me the biggest takeaway from this program has been increase self awareness. As a coach this program has given us an entire toolkit to help ourselves and our clients as well. I recommend this program to everyone. Welcome to the session with Romeo. Thank you very much for this program. Pankaj Upadhayay-Principal Consultant S Learning & Training

Rajiv-Coach and Performance Consultant, Gravitas Learning & Performance ( Already a Master Practitioner in NLP from Dick McHugh)

One of the key highlights of the program is the amount of interactions which takes place, the amount of skill building that takes place here. And of course the content is brilliant. The facilitator’s knowledge and his ability to answer questions is beyond any doubts. The reason I would recommend this program to anybody would be because it provides a framework besides all the tools, and the process to follow as coach to take people through a transformation journey.

Raghav-Sr.Manager People Development

My expectations were to really learn a couple of well formed tools that will give me some information to work with and showcase them while am training. The reality was completely different. In these 7 days I just really realized, that these second version Meta NLP, made us learn things that we’ve never seen before, to better ourselves and others.

Sanghamitra Testimonial- Principal Consultant & Executive Coach-iExpert

( Already a Master Practitioner in NLP)

This particular program has been extremely enriching and very helpful in my coaching career.  Been very interesting and helped me to create a new path. I had great breakthrough while working with timeline and also while creating a new part. Thanks to Romeo, it’s been wonderful.

“I have absolutely achieved what I wanted to achieve in this program. If you are thinking of this program as a business owner, leader, as a daughter, as a friend, as a girlfriend and as a future wife and a future mother, you have to do this program. We are walking around blind, until you know and experience what Neuro Semantics is. It will absolutely change your life. It’s a new insight, so it’s a must”.  Emily Harrison Executive Director & Founder, Innovaid Advisory Services

 When I first decided to join this program , I had no idea what I was going to do. Infact I had many many doubts about it. But am really astonished by the unprecedented impact this program has left on me. It  has helped me dispel years of doubts and fears. It has also actually helped me understand where am coming from when I react to various situations. And I would also like to thank Romeo who’s been an absolutely fantastic coach. And I think he has in him what it takes to make a person believe in himself.  Shafina Segon Head of Marketing South Asia- Taylor and Francis Group.

 “Thank you Romeo for providing this awesome, awesome 8 days training. To say that it was a learning experience would be an understatement. This program has the potential to change the way you think, improve your personal life, your relationship, careers avenues, people management, team management. No matter whether you’re in a Senior Management, Middle Management or any level this course will help you fit in and perform in your organization better and I highly recommend this course to everyone”. Parvathi’, an Ex HR Center Manager, MBA-IIM-Bangalore.

  “When I thought of coming for this program there was actually lot of reservations in my mind because I have heard about NLP from different various aspects. And this program has given that leverage point. It has given me higher purpose in life for the very first time. Romeo comes up with immense value proposition in the entire frame of experience and knowledge. I wish all those who wish to take a meaningful decision in life and go for excellence, this is a great way to start. .Great learning for more than a lifetime and an awesome Trainer….Just Fantastic! I truly believe now that Neuro-Semantics is way to go”.  Sukanta Das Head of Learning & Capability Development Vodafone Group.

 I’ve heard about NLP a lot and wanted to see what it is and it was absolutely amazing. It had a profound impact on me. And I believe everybody, even people in the field of Psychology must do it. It’s beautiful, the practices and everything is just amazing. And it was more amazing because I think we had a Coach like Romeo who made best effort to help us in every possible way. I really felt that was a breakthrough session especially for me. Sakshi Kaul- Professional Psychologist, Gurgaon.

“I suggest everyone this course because this is one of the best course I have ever attended and because this is the best program to create human excellence. Despite having difficulty in attending this course I made myself to attend this course and in the end it was a beautiful journey for me. I suggest everyone to attend this program because I believe this p rogram is the best program to create Human Excellence”.  Dr Hareesh Babu– Medical Officer.

“I never knew this program would induce so much of introspection into me. Am now able to deal with those uncomfortable parts of my life and have the courage to confront them. If you really want to change yourself this is the program to attend”.  Vijaya HOD, Behavioral Skills,

Manipal Academy of Banking

.“The course is very rigorous, it will challenge you, it will grill you and will make you do things you’ve never done earlier. Attend this course to discover yourself first, though coaching will also be your secondary gain and discover yourself as a better person when you leave. And of course earn this, you will not get the certificate easily, you have to earn it”.        Dr Tushar Chothani– Coach and Trainer.

“ If you want to change your life for betterment, move forward personally and professionally and feel the quality of your life has to change, this is the program to do. It changes you and your personality. You will be questioning yourself, your values, your beliefs and strengthens you. Do go for the program“   Rama Sateesh, Associate Dean, HOD, Behavioral, Manipal Academy of Banking.

“This program has made to be a better individual today. If you’d like to find a new found you, and you want to be christen and baptized and maybe get a namkaran as well again, this is one program that you should attend- Neuro Semantics. It will help you identify and see things like you’ve never seen before. You’ll be shocked, amazed, excited and even surprised. Attend the program”.  Fiona Lobo,HOD Behavioral Skills,Manipal Academy of Banking

For a list of complete testimonials from other participants please visit our youtube channel at

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdL4C3Ofh-KbiUzMupkkDAQ

Teachers, NGOs and people with Social Work Education can send us their scanned copy of their educational background or experience and linkedin profile for special discounts after the early bird expiry.

Why a Meta NLP Practitioner is in high demand around the world?

A Meta NLP Practitioner is someone who has learned to use the attitudes, principles and techniques s and NLP to create positive empowering changes in themselves and others that are focussed directly on career success. During the Practitioner Training, you will learn through demonstrations and interactive exercises how to: communicate effectively and persuasively, manage your state of mind and body to handle any situation and overcome unconscious beliefs that might limit your true potential and hold you back from real success.

We focuses centrally on the skills and processes for unleashing your potentials by mobilizing your best resources. If you are interested in becoming more resourceful, running your own brain, taking charge of your own life, and actualising all of your highest latent potentials, the models and patterns of NLP and Neuro-Semantics are designed as tools and processes to achieve just that.

Models for understanding the systemic nature mind-body-emotions & their effect onbusiness systems.
Patterns for developing greater competence, self-confidence, resourcefulness, and success in career, and relationships.
Skills for training, coaching, and consulting for living more mindfully and intentionally in adapting to an ever-changing world.
Self-actualisation of your best values and visions as you create the richest and most robust meanings for a truly meaningful life.

Romeo’s trainings are designed specifically to enhance your professional life. We are well known for its many change techniques – enabling you to set clear and achievable goals and overcome any of the fears and obstacles that may be standing in your way. By becoming a Meta NLP Practitioner you will become proficient in helping yourself and others resolve issues and conflicts and design a future that is both compelling and achievable.

Many significant benefits in the professional arena come from, from increased skills in communications, managing, influencing and team work, to entrepreneurial skills and increased self management for the self-employed and small business owner. Many people considering career changes have also found their NS & NLP skills invaluable in making effective decisions about their future, and increasing their abilities in key areas of life.

This course provides you with all the key concepts of NLP . The “Users Manual For The Brain” is the book based on this training and is an extremely useful addition to the course. Upon payment you will be sent the book or you can pick up the Practitioner Manual to familiarise yourself with the contents.

The International Society of Neuro Semantics-USA is known worldwide for its credibility and capacity to provide PREMIER NLP Training that transforms lives.

These are secondary benefits and features of the certification:

1. Lifetime NLP Practitionerand also Neuro Semantics Practitioner’s License from ISNS -USA-one of the top 3 Premier NLP Body in the world. Be recognized as a best trained Practitioner.
   2.  Coaching Essential License from Meta Coach Foundation & ISNS – Meta Coaching Level I clearance. (International Coaching Federation’s-CCEU Level Course)
   3. A Participant’s manual of about 200 pages designed and written by Michael Hall and worth around $69.99 with 100 plus patterns and techniques.
   4. Lunch, Mini Breakfast, and evening tea  and snacks included.
   5. Umbrella of credibility under ISNS and access to 3000 pages of Neuro Semantics articles and pages of materials from NS website, the only NLP Society that provides rich materials for free.
   6. Post training support through e group membership at Neurons and becoming a part of ISNS chapter India.
   7. Get to be trained and coached by Romeo Haokip himself, who is one of the Top Neuro NLP expert in India. Get 2 Coaching sessions worth Rs.30,000 FREE if you are the lucky first 2 to book.
   8. Get 3 months phone support and lifetime email support from the Trainer.
   9. Get the Pre-requisite preparation ebook and videos around 10Gbs worth Rs.17,000 of Meta NLP materials as part of your fee package.
2. The Triple certification fee is included in the fee. Certificate is not charged separately.
3. Get to re-attend the course for FREE as an Assist Team Leader for enhancing your skill or incase you do not get clear the certification.
4. 30% discount on your Master Certification.
5. Learn the MAGIC and the structure to excellence in becoming a “state of the heart” Leader, Coach, Communicator, a Self Actualizing entity, a meta force of energy who not only knows EQ/SQ in the head but have learn tools to embed it in their muscle memory. Learn to stretch your brain in 67 different leadership and managerial perceptual continuum and flexibility, persuade and negotiate convincingly in the Boardroom, get yourself and others into hypnotic trance, learn around 100plus NLP transformational patterns to become the Scriptwriter, the Editor, and the Director of the best Movie-YOUR LIFE and to pass on the tools to others .

 How can the certificate help you Daywise ?

• Help you gain not justinstant rapport with people for any situation but alasting relationship in Day 1.
• You will learn to get yourself intobest states and manage your own stateand also learn to influence states in others on the 2nd Day. Patterns like the SWISH, Circle of Excellence, Anchoring, Fast Phobia Cure etc.
• Also you will learn the most powerful form of questioning techniques-the Meta Model, which you can use during sales, negotiation, conflict management, problem solving, coaching, team meetings to detect layers of frames in the mind of those you converse with; and also goal setting with for self and clients through the Well Formed Outcomeand the SCORE Model.
• On the3rd Day, you will learn the Meta Programs-also known as the perceptual filters through which people see the world and behave. You will be able to read and figure out people like a Psychometric testing instrument. You will discover and be surprised about how you have been programming yourselves all these years. If you are a CEO or a Recruitment Agent, you can also use this profiling template to filter out and pick people of your choice. But the good news is this is not a Personality Box, it’s a programming that we can easily change. You will find your relationships improve with your family members, employees, clients and they will be surprised at how much you know them even more than they do themselves.
• On the 4th Day, you will learn thelatest Code of NLP-called the Meta States that changed the course of NLP history forever. You will learn to say No to your negative beliefs and Yes to something you always wanted to belief. You will understand how your higher beliefs and frame govern your everyday behaviours and how you have the ultimate choice and yes varied choices to define and interpret your life the way you’ve always wanted it.
• On the5th Day, you will learn to detect, uncover the unconscious strategy people run in their mind to do something, what is it that motivates them, make them great learners, performers, decisive, or understanding. You will learn Modeling strategies to lay bare the secret techniques running in someone’s unconscious mind.
• On the 6th Day,you will be introduced to Timeline, which has defined most of what you are today- Your Personality. We will learn to become aware of our timeline, change timeline and change and edit past events that are still haunting us from moving ahead and living fully in the moment. You will also learn to go into trance in few minutes and send others into trance so quickly that you will wonder if Hypnosis and Trance induction could be so easy. Everyone on the planet has been under hypnosis and trance unconsciously but this time it will be consciously done so that your unconscious is totally aligned with and have permission to do so.
• On the 7th Day, we will carry forward timeline and try to understand it from the Meta States perspective and run patterns that will help us get rid of old decisions, emotions that are still interfering with our behaviours today, and also move into the future and deal with those unfinished businessesthat are keeping us anxious. Also we will learn to create New Part within us that will help us to trigger and activate desired behaviours like assertiveness, confidence, discipline etc. We will also deal with those internal conflicts that are warring inside of us and not allowing us to concentrate in either area.
• On the later part of the 7th Day,we will have an Assessment and Testwhere you will be assessed on your competencies and knowledge. Most other NLP Certification just dole out certificates but we at ISNS-USA do not do that.We will withhold your certificate if we think you are not yet ready to receive the certificate, but we will allow you to attend our Next Course for Free to attempt again. Certificates are earned at the International Society of Neuro Semantics. This is what makes us different than other NLP Institutes.
• If you clear the Test successfully, you will be certified as an NLP Coach, NLP Practitioner and Neuro Semantics Practitioner. And you will be proud to stand head and shoulders above other Practitioners in the country.

NS-NLP LICENSED TRAINER: ROMEO HAOKIP
“Romeo is a highly conscientious trainer who cares deeply for his audience. His commitment to refining the basics as well as ongoing development make him an excellent trainer”.
Dr Alan Fayter-New Zealand, Dr.Clinical Hypnosis, IANLP Trainer.

Romeo is the only Indian Licensed Trainer and Master Practitioner in NLP-Neuro Semantics in South India from the International Society of Neuro Semantics-USA, who was personally trained at Hongkong by Dr. Michael Hall-Phd, Founder of Neuro Semantics-one of the most respected and recognized Trainer in the whole field of NLP & Cognitive Behavioral Psychology and Colin Cox from New Zealand, one of the finest NLP Master Trainer in the world.

Romeo Haokip certifies NLP Practitioners, Master Practitioners and  NLP Coaches under the auspices of the International Society of Neuro Semantics. Certification runs from 3 days to 14 days. His certification programs outside India cost around US$3000-4500 per participants. His network with highly quality Trainers and Meta coaches spreads across 40 countries. He has strategic partners and operation in Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka currently.

His Coaching and Training Model Origins:

Romeo’s expertise lies in the domain of peak performance and the psychology of Self Actualization based on Neuro Semantics Principles. His Coaching and Training models come from the field of the Cognitive Behavioral sciences, from Developmental Psychology, the Neuro-sciences, General Semantics, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), cognitive linguistics, cybernetics, and system dynamics. He has trained on more than 40 Cognitive Behavioural modules on Personal Mastery, Leadership, Communication, Sales, OD and other softskill topics to more than 40 corporate Clients.
Experience and Industry Sectors:

In his 15 years of experience, he has trained thousands of employees across various industries, of diverse age groups; coached Senior Executives, been an Advisor to many NGOs and taught and lectured in many prestigious MBA schools. He has experience in various industry sectors such as FMCG, Retails, Hospitality, IT/ITEs, BPO, Call Centres, Consulting & Training, Financial, Campus Teaching, NGOs, Coaching, F&B, HRD, Energy, FMCG, SCM, Financial Services, Telecom, Manufacturing, E-Commerce & Retail etc.

Certifications and Licenses 
ü Certified Licensed Trainer of ISNS-USA.
ü Licensed Administrator of MBTI STEP I & STEP II Expanded Interpretive Report
ü Certified Master Practitioner in NLP -ISNS-USA.
ü Certified Meta Coach-II ISNS – ISNS-USA.
ü Certified in “Accessing Personal Genius” and Coaching Genius Instructor-ISNS-USA.
ü Certified in Time Line Therapy, Conversational Reframing, Figuring Out People, Trance, Modeling-ISNS.
ü Certified Voice and Accent Coach, Customer Service, Spoken English & Culture Sensitization.

Contact us at ceo@leapsmanagement.com or call +91-9986149749.

 

Mindfulness versus Mindlessness

THE NEURO-SEMANTICS OF MINDFULNESS

It is not uncommon for people who experience the Meta-States Training that we call Accessing Personal Genius (APG) to come away from it telling others that it is a training in mindfulness.  I have heard this many, many times. Others may not describe APG in those words, but will say that in learning the Meta-States Model, they have added so much to their understanding and competency in being mindful.  Recently I have had several people write and ask where I got the information about mindfulness that they were exposed to in APG.  And a few others have asked that I write more about mindfulness. So here we go.

What do we mean by mindfulness?  To be mindful is to be present to your current situation, aware, appreciative, and in sensory-awareness.  It is to be here-and-now in your awareness.  It is to be conscious of what you are experiencing- present, and not lost in thought about some other time and place.  When a person is not mindful, he or she is somewhere else or worse, may be mindlessly responding in an automatic way from old programs that may or may not be appropriate or useful for today.

Mindfulness fulfills the oft-quoted phrase from Fritz Perls when he said, “Lose your mind and come to your senses.”  The “mind” here is the chatter-box mind where we talk and talk and chatter to ourselves about all kinds of things while experiencing something- chatter that all-too-often causes us to miss the moment.  NLP took this phrase as Perls’ call for
coming into sensory-awareness so that a person sees, hears, feels, smells, and tastes one’s present moment.

The opposite is mindlessness.  Mindlessness speaks about a state of mind wherein we are not present, not conscious of the richness of the moment and so we miss out on the present.  Mindlessness occurs when we use our previous learnings in our ongoing experience of the world.  So instead of experiencing the world in a fresh way, we see it through our categories, judgments, and ideologies.  We then  dismiss things with a flip of the mind, “Oh, that’s X.”  “Oh that’s success.”  “That’s failure.”  “That’s old stuff, I already know that.”  Then, using these constructs we become blind to what is actually available to us.  Korzybski would say that this is seeing and experiencing the world intensionally rather than extensionally (note, it is intensionally, not intentionally).

By way of contrast to the automatic, robotic, and unconscious style of mindlessness, being mindful is responding with our full senses (“mind”), fully conscious of the here-and-now.  Instead of the blind and dull repetition of being mindless, in being mindful we see everything as fresh and new.  We see what we have seen a thousand times as if for the first time.  Maslow described self-actualizing people in this way.  He said they are able to see the thousandth sunrise as if it was the first one ever seen.

Another contrast is that in being mindless we use previous cognitive frameworks (judgments, evaluations, conclusions) rather than being open to the moment-that is, being mindful.  The mindless see but do not really see. “Eyes they have and see not; ears they have and hear not.”  Ellen Langer describes their mindset is that of being “motivated-not-knowing.”  Having decided that one already knows, one turns consciousness off and then dismiss whatever is present, paying it no attention.

Numerous problems can arise from that way of orienting oneself in the world. Langer also describes mindless as being trapped in one’s categories.  When a person lives by one’s labels, categories, classifications, etc. one loses the real world and lives solely in a world of constructs. “Just as mindlessness is the rigid reliance on old categories, mindfulness means the continual creation of new ones.” (Langer, 1989, p. 63).

Being mindful means making distinctions.  This is especially what we train in Coaching Mastery -how to make refined distinctions so that a person can listen so actively and intensely, one seems to enter into an entirely new world.  Whereas being mindless turns off one’s sensory awareness of the present, in mindfulness you come to your senses in a heightened way.  This explains why being mindful and living life from a state of continuous appreciation are so highly correlated.

Being mindful also entails continually creating and trying out new categories for things.  This means being able to re-experience situations and contexts in new ways thereby making the world  that is well-known new and fresh.  In other words, playfulness isn’t just for children.  As an adult you take continue to play and to be playful as you move through life.
You can mindfully play with ideas and categories.  Yet to do so requires an openness that reveals a mental receptivity to new possibilities.

In being mindful, your previous frames for understanding and interpreting a situation are not rigid or static.  You can frame things in ever-new ways. As you learn to reframe in playful and unexpected ways new meanings emerge. Maybe this explains why framing and reframing belong to the mindful- to those with an open and active mind.  The mindful can playfully re-interpret things to their benefit and to the benefit of others.

Being mindful means that you can stay aware of the process of making real choices as you move through the world.  This requires a process orientation, that is, an orientation to reality as a dynamic process, and not a static one.  Being mindful means we are alert to the variables within any decision so that we then think-through our decisions rather than deciding in a
reactive mindless way.

In the APG training that presents the Meta-States Model, mindfulness also shows up in terms of the ability to step back, expand one’s perspective, and reflexively move up the psycho-logical levels.  More about that next week.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

 

The Law of attraction: Pros and Cons.

The Missing Secrets in “The Secret”

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

If you have seen the movie of The Secret or read the book by the same title, then you have heard about the so-called “law of attraction,” the power of thoughts being magnetic, goals being magical, and life destiny being totally within your control. All sounds pretty promising, eh? Yet how accurate and how realistic are these things? What do you think? Is there any over-selling here? Any over-promising that life will under-deliver on later? If you have an open mind and are willing to explore things, then come with us.

Strengths of The Secret

To begin, we want to mention the obvious strengths of the movie itself. In terms of production and quality, The Secret is a very well done film especially for developing a conceptual idea. It is engaging, moving, fascinating, and emotional. It is not a lecture, but a dramatic presentation with images that jump and move and dance and keep you looking and listening. So from the standpoint of an engaging piece of celluloid, it is very well done.

And from the point of view of content, there are lots of good points in the movie. What we appreciate most is the inspiration for taking charge of one’s life, giving up the idea of being a victim and using your response-powers to become increasingly responsible. There’s a strong emphasis also on abundance — that there are resources and assets and that we need to develop the ability to recognize them and activate them. The world is not a place of scarcity and lack, but truly one of abundance.

There’s a good emphasis also on taking a positive attitude to things — thinking positively, believing in the best, appreciating and honoring what’s good and positive. And there are a few steps at various places in the movie about what to do to get involved and take some actions in life. Several of the speakers acknowledge the importance of starting somewhere, doing something, and letting every little step count.

Weaknesses of The Secret

In spite of these strengths, there are numerous things that counter-balance them that are weaknesses to the film. So while the movie makes some valuable contributions, there are some parts of The Secret that are really weak and that need some bolstering up in order to make it respectable and intelligible. The two weakest facets is how the author and the screenplay writer over-simplified things often to the point of ridiculousness. And they did it by using frames of universality and either-or thinking. And the problem with this is that these are the language patterns of small children, not adults.

The Secret’s Over-Simplistic Approach

In terms of universality, the movie is rife with statements that …

• “. . . everything you experience in your life, you attracted into your life by your thoughts.”
• “It always works, every time, with every person.”
• “Whatever you focus on is what you are creating, you are bringing it into your life. No exceptions.”

Ah yes, if life were so simple! If one simple statement could adequately summarize and explain reality. But alas, it is not so simple. There are many other factors, variables, and conditions that also need to be considered. If everything in your life, you attracted— then there can be no influence from others, from society, from nature, from political reality, from economic reality, etc. In fact, if everything is there solely because you thought it, then we have just discovered God; you are God. But, of course, the truth is that you are not that important or powerful. You are a fallible human being, not God.

The other childhood thinking pattern is the either-or pattern. And again, the movie is rife with them. It is shockingly used to think about emotions — there are “good” emotions and there are “bad” emotions and what the “bad” emotions mean is one thing, and only one thing, namely, you are out of alignment with your self. “The better you feel, the more aligned you will be.” It’s that simple. So the goal then becomes to not experience negative emotions. Either you are aligned with yourself and have good feelings or you are out-of-alignment with self and have negative feelings.

This goes against all that we have been learning for years in the Emotional Intelligence research and how emotions, both the negative and the positive, work effectively and productively within us. Just because an emotion is unpleasant or “negative” does not make it bad. These provide important and significant information regarding the relationship between what we have mapped out in our minds about life and what we actually experience in the territory. But The Secret would have you believe that the negative emotions should be avoided and ignored. In psychology such denial, repression, etc. are defense mechanisms of a weak and fragile sense of self, and not a healthy expression of full humanness.

“The way you feel is everything” The Secret asserts. So only the “good” emotions count, somehow the bad emotions, like the brakes in your car, are evil and must be ignored and avoided. If you focus on them, you make them grow, and that’s bad.

The Secrets Missing in The Secret

So though there are some good things in this movie, The Secret misses and leaves out many facets of the true secret of life. What secrets are missing in The Secret?

1) The Secret that Life is full of Systems.

Life is complex because it involves systems and systems-within-systems. In a child’s world, there are mostly simple choices between two things, either this or that. There’s no complexity. And there’s no systems. Yet it is systems like the mind-body-emotion system that creates complexity so that we have to think of multiple variables and those multiple variables operating at the same time and so influencing each other in multiple ways.

To think more systemically, we have to hold many variables in mind at the same time. And we have to transcend either-or thinking and grow up into both-and thinking. This means being able to embrace ambiguity and uncertainty so that we are not driven to over-simplistic answers. For adults in the real world, there are very few things that “always” work in a specific way. There are almost always exceptions. There are always other influencing factors, contributing causes, and differentiating contexts.

Yes we may attract things into our lives by our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, etc. But so do other people. All of our early life from birth to twelve or so is mostly created not by our thoughts and intentions, but our parents, caregivers, ancestors, culture, geography, and so on. A child born with cancer in its body did not attract that into its life! And what about the six million people slaughtered under Hitler; did they attract that into their lives? Is that what empowered Hitler to talk over a government and country? Don’t believe it for a moment.
There are constraints in all of those dimensions that we have nothing to do with. We did not create the world. We were born into the social, cultural, political, and economic worlds that we now live. Our responsibility is to first map these territories so we can understand what we have to deal with and then we have to develop sufficient knowledge and skills to cope with such.

2) The Secret of Levels of Awareness.

It would be such a wonderfully simple world if we only had one level of thought so that we could think one thing at a time. But that’s just not the kind of brain we have. We have self-reflexive consciousness which enables us to think about our thinking. We can have feelings about our feelings. And after our second thought or feeling about the first, we can have a third, and a fourth. This never-ending process is what we explore in Meta-States.
Self-reflexive consciousness means that we have layers upon layers of thoughts, feelings, awarenesses, beliefs, decisions, understandings, and so on. And again, this makes for complexity in the mind-body system. And because the higher levels govern and modulate the lower levels, this explains why the personal power of congruency and integrity also requires an alignment of the levels.

This means we can feel different emotions, good ones and bad ones at different levels. That’s why it is possible for someone to feel “good” about being depressed if one gets attention and sympathy. Or why one could feel “bad” about being ‘arrogant” and “selfish” and that would be a good thing. One can feel “good” about feeling superior and putting someone down and yet that would be a bad thing for personality and relationships. The either-or category of good and bad emotions is far, far too simplistic for adult life in the real world.

3) The Secret of Thinking and Reasoning at Different Levels.

Here’s another secret of human life — we think and reason and come to understand and map things at different levels. At one level we use classical science to figure things out, figure out Newtonian physics or Quantum physics, that’s what Einstein did. But even Einstein had to take his car to someone who knew Newtonian physics about mass, volume, and speed of a macro-machine like a car. A quantum physicist could not help him, or you, with a car. His thinking and understanding does not apply to that dimension.

Description and metaphor are two very different levels of reality. So the metaphor in the movie and book is that of magnetic attraction. In The Secret, they say, “Thoughts are magnetic.” Well, yes, metaphorically. But no, not empirically. And this confusion of levels has led to non-sense and ignorant statements like the following, statements asserted without any evidence (this quotation comes from the book):

• “The law of attraction simply gives you whatever it is you are thinking about.” (p. 13)
• “Quantum physicists tell us that the entire universe emerged from thought!” (p. 15)
• “Nothing can come into your experience unless you summon it through persistent thought.” (p. 28)

These over-simplistic explanations create actually several toxic thought-viruses. The last statement implies there are no other factors, no other variables in the world except thought which, of course, is blatantly false. The first statement is indistinguishable from the magical thinking stage of cognitive development that occurs in children from 3 to 5 years of age, again implying that thought is the only creative factor and that there are no constraints of reality to interfere. If only!

And the second statement is completely undocumented; I have never read a legitimate book on the subject that even comes close to asserting anything like that. Yes, the indeterminacy factor means that we tend to observe what our assumptions and premises prepare us to observe since the observer influences the field. But that’s a very long way from saying that the universe emerged from thought!

There’s several dangers in all of this. Exaggerating, confusing levels, failing to index statements, failing to include the other multiple contributing factors etc. leaves the impression that people are “gods,” or at least almost all-powerful beings, in creating reality. Not so. Where is fallibility in all of this? Where is mortality? Where is social reality? Where are the constraints of reality?

So to ameliorate all of this, the truth is more balanced. We do create ideas and meanings and as we hold them in mind, we send messages and commands to our neurology to try to actualize them in our bodies. “Try to” make them actual and real, however, is a very different thing from asserting that thought alone absolutely creates your reality. If it did, the people in the back rooms of psychiatric hospitals would be some of the most powerful people on the planet instead of living such sad and pathetic lives.

Yes, thinking, feeling, believing, and intending do create and set up self-organizing “attractors” or attractions within us, but this is mostly a way of talking about the mind-brain relationship, the reflexive communication processes within us, and should not be taken as an empirical description. There’s still much mystery about all of this, and anyone even slightly educated about this area acknowledges such.

4) The Secret of the Distinction between Map and Territory.

The term “reality” is not a monolithic term referring to a singular thing. What is real depends on the dimension in which we are referring. The two primary dimensions are within our nervous system-brain (inner reality) and “out there” beyond all of our interpretations, understandings, information processing, communication about it (outer reality).

To fail to make this critical distinction confuses map and territory. Some people who confuse the two are fanatics. For a fanatic, his or her map is the one, the only, the true, the only true map. It is real. It is the territory, and woe be unto the person who questions it! Eric Hoffer called this kind of person a “true believer.” For the fanatic the primary purpose in life is imposing the maps on others, and even on the world.

There are others who confuse map and territory. One group does so by assuming that whatever they map is real or is going to be real. This is a delusion. The delusion is that they have that kind of power in their mapping and that the only possible thing that could be wrong in life, in the world, is that they are just not mapping enough— believing enough, imagining enough, intending enough, etc.

The problem in this is that they think that they can map anything, and that whatever they think, they make it so. This over-simplistic understanding of reality forgets that we are mapping a territory, and that the territory has to be taken into account in the mapping. It’s the old thing of taking a map of London and trying to navigate around any other city on the planet. It won’t work! Sure, there will be a few streets with the same name, perhaps a similar river or mountain, but for the most part that map is not designed for any territory other than London.

I’ll let you in on a significant secret of success: Mapping does not create external reality. By mapping we create some of our internal reality —our subjective reality so that it calls our beliefs, identities, hopes, dreams, intentions, etc. into being. And as our mapping interacts with the constraints of our body, our context, our mind, our nervous system, we are able to tap into the predispositions, talents, and potentials and create something new from all of those components.

5) The Secret of Distinguishing Levels

In the book, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (2006) she quotes John Assaraf who says, “A thought has a frequency, we can measure a thought.” (p. 9). This same non-sense is also in the movie. Well, that’s probably a sexy thing to say, but it is just not so. The author has confused levels.

A “thought” exists at a macro-level of our phenomenlogical experience. What occurs at the level of the brain processing is the exchange of chemicals (neuro-transmitters, peptides, etc.) and the charging of protons and electrons as a bio-impulse moves along the neuro-pathways and the ions are exchanged in the cells. We can see and measure and somewhat understand these mechanisms, but these are not “thoughts” or “emotions” — those terms do not apply at that level. They apply as a much more macro-phenomena.

All of these bio-electrical and bio-chemical processes are the sub-strands and sub-layers that comprise a gestalt that we call “thoughts” or consciousness. “Thought” itself has no frequency. The overall functioning of the brain has frequencies, that’s a brain function. Within those operations of the brain, we experience what we call “thoughts.” Apparently, the author Assaraf has also forgotten that the idea of “frequency” applied to thought is a metaphor — a metaphor!

— not an empirical description.

6) The Secret of How to Effectively Negate.

Part of the over-simplistic and either-or thinking presented in the movie suggested that there is no way to actually negate a thought, memory, emotion, etc. The simplistic idea was to give no thought or energy to what you don’t want, only to what you do want. Yet human consciousness is designed so that we can think of what we don’t want, don’t believe, and don’t value. Are we therefore to pretend that this is not part of our kind of consciousness? Are we to ignore, or worse, or we to frame this facet of human awareness (negation) as “bad?”
Those in The Secret say, “You can’t say no and make it go away.” You can’t be anti-drugs, antiwar, anti-terrorism. “Always be pro things, never against.”

Ah, if only life was that simple and simplistic! Now it is true that regarding “command negation,” if you command it, we have to first represent it in order to then negate it. That’s why at the simplest levels, “Don’t think of blue,” “Don’t imagine a monkey on my shoulder,” invites us to create images of the very thing we want to avoid!

But that’s just one kind of negation. In Sub-Modalities Going Meta (1999/ 2006) I wrote an entire chapter on 8 kinds of negations and presented the many kinds of negation which enable us to effectively negate things from our lives and minds. After all, is there anything that just won’t “process” or “let in” to your consciousness for you to consider? I bet there are. If someone said, “You are a Martian and have red skin,” would you give that any entrance, any consideration, any energy? I wouldn’t. It just doesn’t process. I negate it and walk away from it by framing it as irrelevant and non-sense. That makes it go away.

Or what about your ability to so much “make up your mind” that you can stubbornly refuse to accept something? Do you have that ability? Can you be stubborn? Can you be obstinately stubborn? Think about something that you stubbornly refuse. That’s a pretty strong and empowered state isn’t it? You can now use that to refuse, to negate something. “Child sacrifice as a burnt offering.” When I think about it, my mental and emotional boundaries come up so that I would not consider child sacrifice for a second. My values are strong enough about the preciousness of life that they immediately negate that idea. In fact, the more I think about it, the more my values, understandings, and beliefs grow to negate it.

Summary

We’re delighted that The Secret has started a thousand or ten-thousand new conversations around the world about the untapped powers of human beings. That’s good. But The Secret is not the secret. It is just the beginning of understanding human nature and psychology and there are many, many secrets not revealed or exposed in The Secret. In this the film over-sells itself and over-promises and dangerously raises expectations which life events can then crush leaving the person burnt and immunized against true self-actualization and personal empowerment. That’s the danger of over-simplification.

We have written The Missing Secrets in the Secret so that the conversations people have can be more reality-oriented, more healthy and balanced, and may invite people to use the innate powers for unleashing more and more of their potentials and actualizing their dreams.

Authors

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. is a cognitive psychologist who has spent the last 13 years engaged in various modeling projects, from wealth creation, to leadership, coaching, and now self-actualization. Michael is a best selling author in the field of NLP and the founder of Neuro-Semantics.

References

1. In the Movie The Secret the key presenters are Bob Proctor, Bob Doyle, Joe Vitale, Michael Beckwith, Jack Canfield, David Schirmer, John Assaraf, James Arthur Ray, Esther Hicks, John Gray, John DeMartini, Lee Brower, Dennis Watley, Mike Dooley, Marci Shimoff Mira, Marie Diamond, Lisa Nichols, and some others.

 

The Axes of Change Model: A must have tool for Coaches who wants to excel

© L. Michael Hall, Michelle Duval http://www.meta-coaching.org
THE AXES OF CHANGE : Introducing a New Generative Change Model Part I

“You can’t change anything by fighting or resisting it. You change something by making it obsolete through superior methods.” Buckminster Fuller
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. Michelle Duval, Master Coach
If coaching is about anything, it is about change. And if coaching is first and foremost about facilitating the dynamic process of change or transformation in the lives of people, then ultimately a coach is a change-agent par excellence. That’s why we coach, is it not? We coach to make a highly desired change in an area of life or personality that will allow us to maximize our talents, unleash our potentials, and take our skills to a new level of development. That’s also why we hire a personal coach, is it not? We want to make changes to take our talents and skills to a new and higher level for peak or optimal performance.

• Yet, what is this thing that we call change?
• Does change have a good or bad reputation to you?
• Is change easy or hard, fun or traumatic?

Kinds of Change

When we think about change, we often first think about the change that’s connected to therapy. Therapy is also about change, but it is about remedial change—fixing things, repairing what’s broken, getting a person through or over hurts and traumas, altering significant distortions in personality, thinking patterns, emotional distresses. In this context, most people find change challenging, difficult, and even hard. In this context, therapists and clients have to deal with a wide range of subjects connected to that kind of change, namely resistance, defense mechanisms, fighting change, fearing change, and relapse.

By way of contrast, coaching is about generative change. It’s about taking talent, knowledge, and skills to a new level of excellence. It’s about facilitating the highest development in a well- functioning person and about enabling new transformations to occur that empowers a person to excel his or her own visions and dreams about what’s possible. In this context, the people sign up for coaching embrace change, desire change, and are ready for change. And when you have change- embracers asking for change, this makes much of the therapeutic understandings, premises, and model of change completely inappropriate.
The Need for a New Change Model

So what’s a coach to do? Most, if not nearly all, of the change models available today were developed by psychologists and psychotherapists who were working with people who needed change but who resisted it. In those change models we find a major emphasis on resistance, relapse, that “change is hard and painful,” and that people will actually fight you about change.
For the field of coaching and for leading coaches, the problem is that many of these change models have been adopted wholesale from therapy. “Change is difficult” is the first line of the third chapter of Coach Yourself, an excellent book on coaching. Yet by adopting the old trans-theoretical model by Prochaska, Norcross, and DiClimente, the authors have failed to see and utilize the difference between therapeutic change and coaching change. They also developed their model from how alcoholics and other addicts went through the process of self-change.
I have another complaint about the trans-theoretical model. In presenting the stages of change, it offers the following steps or stages in the experience of change: 1) pre-contemplation, 2) contemplation, 3) commitment, 4) action or change, 5) maintenance, 6) relapse. Now, how about that fourth step? Don’t you love it? Change!
That reminds me of the cartoon drawing of a wild-hair professor working on the formula for “life.” He’s standing facing a chalk board that he has absolutely filled it up with a complex mathematical and scientific formula. Then at the end, near the bottom of the blackboard, he writes, “Then the miracle happens” then next comes an arrow that points to the end result, “Life!”
Change is what a change model is suppose to detail out. It really doesn’t do any good to put “change” as one of the steps in a model designed to sort out the steps of change. As a model for describing how to bring about change, a change model needs to identify all of the mechanisms, processes, and variables and then present that variables in a step-by-step fashion so that we can move through the process and experience a change. Doesn’t that make sense?
If coaching is truly about generative and transformative change, then what model or template informs and guides us in facilitating the change process? In Neuro-Semantics, the Axes of Change model is our answer. In designing it, we have started with the difference between remedial and generative change so that it reflects the variables and contexts how healthy, sane, and well- functioning people bring about desired change in the way they think, feel, respond, relate, and perform.

What is the Axes of Change model?

As a model or template for working with the change process The Axis of Change model uses the key mechanisms or variables that are involved in change. These include:

1.  The negative and positive emotions that move us away from one thing and toward another.
2.  The reflective understanding of what needs to change and the decision or commitment to make it happen.
3.  The constructive planning and designing of what to change to and the beginning experimentation of the action plan to see how it works. ‘
4.  The reinforcement of what works well to reward it and the ongoing testing, monitoring, and accountability that enables the change to solidify.

When we distinguish the two meta-programs in each of these processes, we have eight change factors or variables.

1.  Aversions: fear, anger, stress, frustration, distress, pain, unpleasantness, intolerance, having had “enough,” threshold, necessity, negative emotional tension, etc.
2.  Attractions: hope, dreams, values, visions, anticipation, pleasure, inspiration, possibilities, growth, development, positive emotional tension, etc.
3.  Reflective understanding: knowledge, heightened awareness, insight, discovery, the Ah- Ha! recognition.
4.  Decision: the saying no to the old and yes to the new possibilities, the courage to break free to make a change, commitment, willingness, etc.
5.  Creative design: the planning for change, the know-how about what to do now, an action plan with time table and schedule for change, the strategy for how to do it.
6.  Action: performance, practice, experimentation, trying something out, trial and error learning, implementation, feed-forward. 7) Reinforcement: support, celebration, championing a new practice, reward, partners, etc.
7.  Testing: monitoring, feedback, renewed practice, accountability, performance review, re- designing the action or performance plan, etc.

And for a change-embracer, someone who is already a healthy high performer, these are the variables that make change possible and that create change. In fact, there will be times when a single one of these factors may be completely sufficient to create change. We may have experienced it or we have seen it work in the life of another when sufficient pain drove a person to change overnight. Perhaps a friend got a diagnosis of lung cancer and from that moment totally quit smoking. Sometimes a great vision wakes a person up to new possibilities, and they are transformed. Saul on the Damascus was like that. A vision awakened him to a whole new world. Sometimes it is the Ah ha! experience that creates an immediate and complete change, or a ferocious resolve of a decision, or a plan—a specific and compelling plan that sets forth an exciting strategy. It could be the experience of having a little piece of doing something different or right reinforced that makes the change. Or it could be receiving some performance feedback that suddenly gives us a mirror that leads to transformation.
Typically, however, it is the working of all of these factors together that brings about solid and lasting change. In this, we also usually need the different change mechanisms to work together in a coordinated way. If we create a wonderful plan for change but don’t have the emotional energy, we will intelligently know what we should do without doing it—a typical problem many people have with change.
Or we may know what we want to change to, but not be all that clear on what we have to move away from to make that happen. We may have a great plan and begin to act on it, but if we don’t have sufficient reinforcements or feedback, we may find the change doesn’t last and that we revert back to our old habits.
This is where we need a model that ties the change mechanisms and variables together and provides an understanding of how they relate to each other. Considering the need to see the inter- relationships between the eight change variables, we find that we can classify them into four change processes or stages.

1.  The Energy stage: creating sufficient emotional energy, motivation, and creative tension to feel both the need and the desire for the change. This gives us a propulsion for change: away from the aversions and pains and toward the attractions and pleasures.
2.  The Decision stage: creating sufficient understanding and knowledge about what to change, why it doesn’t work, and generating enough decision power to create a readiness for change. This gives us the prod to say no to the current way of thinking, feeling, and acting and yes to the possibilities of a generative change.
3.  The Creation stage: creating a specific action plan that describes the change, giving us a step-by-step plan that we can then begin acting on and experimenting with. This gives us the plan to implement and actualize in real life.
4.  The Solidifying stage: creating specific rewards and support for the new actions that we celebrate an champion all the while testing, monitoring, and using feedback to make richer, fuller, and more integrated into our new habit and way of responding. This gives us a way to keep solidifying the change so that it becomes part of who we are and so that it fits ecologically into our life style.

As we step back from these four stages or processes of change, we can easily see the role that anyone who plays the facilitator or change agent will play in promoting life-enhancing change:

1.  Challenger of current reality and of the aversive consequences if things don’t change.
2.  Awakener to a new vision of possibilities and all of the attractive opportunities if we do change.
3.  Prober of one’s current understandings and meaning frames that describe one’s current behaviors and feelings thereby creating a leverage for what to change.
4.  Provoker to making a decision to say no to the current and yes to the new possibilities, thereby creating a readiness for making the change.
5.  Co–creator to design the new strategy and action plan.
6.  Actualizer to begin the experimenting, trials, and new fledging performances.
7.  Reinforcer to provide support, nurture, and celebration of the new behaviors and responses.
8.  Tester to monitor, give feedback, hold accountable, and refine the new changes.

Yet there is more. Not only do we now have four stages or processes of change, but these four processes correspond to four key meta-programs or perceptual filters that we use in paying attention to things and sorting out what’s important.

1.  The Energy stage relates to the meta-programs of toward and away from —toward the attractions that we want and away from the aversions that we don’t.
2.  The Decision stage relates to the meta-programs of reflective and action in how we respond to information, events, and people. First we reflect on what’s currently going on and then we take action as we make a decision to do something.
3.  The Creation stage relates to the meta-programs of internal reference and external reference. First we internally reference our matrix structure of meaning frames and create a plan using our know-how knowledge of what to do, then we externally reference the outside world that we live and move in for where and how the action plan will be implemented.
4.  The Solidifying stage relates to the meta-programs of matcher and mis-matcher. First we perceive by matching for what is similar to the game plan that we designed and noticing and acknowledging what’s working even if in the tiniest bit as we nurture, support, and validate the person who has taken action. Then we mis-match by sorting for differences, what’s not fully congruent with the game plan as we test it out, give feedback, offer ideas for further refinements.

This now gives us four axis that relate to four meta-program continua. Each axis is one of these four core meta-program continua which governs how we think-feel-and-respond when we encounter new information or challenging events. Each axis offers a continuum on which two polar perceptual filters exist which informs how we think about and code the trigger that invites a change. In terms of change, these deal with

• Our motivational energy for change: toward and away from.
• Our decision readiness for change: reflective and active.
• Our creating and implementing a new change map: internal and external referencing.
• Our solidifying and maintaining the change in the real world: matching and mis-matching.

As we have modeled how change and transformation actually occurs in the four stages, we have designed these axes of change so that a coach (or anyone working with transformation processes) can dance with the client in following the client’s energy through his or her unique Matrix of frames. This enables the coach to find and use the most effective leverage points in that client’s mind-body (or neuro-semantic matrix system). The axes of change not only apply at the individual level, but also for organizations and groups and so provides a dynamically practical tool for Coaches as change-agents.
Summary

The process of change, like any and every subjective experience has a structure, and as such, can be modeled. For years, therapists have studied change. Yet their studies have focused on how hurting people change—how traumatized, limited, wounded, and stuck people change. It makes sense that those models of change see change as painful, difficult, a struggle, and something clients will resist and relapse from.

But how do peak performers change? How do self-actualizing people change? What is the structure to that experience? The Axes of Change model is the first non-therapeutic change model in the world, a model based on how top performers, well-functioning people, people who are not hurting and who do not need to change, but who want to change, how change- embracers change.

THE AXES OF CHANGE
Introducing the first purely Coaching Change Model in the world Part II
Coaching is about change and a coach is a change-agent par excellence.
In the first part, we describe the need for a new change model in the field of coaching, one that is not based upon the premises and techniques of psychotherapy. We also described in some detail the component variables that we have designed into the Axes of Change model. We based this upon eight meta-programs as well as the natural change/ transformation process that well-adjusted and self-actualizing people experience. In this second part, we will detail out the facets of the Axes of Change model (for more about this see Coaching Conversations, 2004).
How does change work for change-embracers, that is for self-actualizing people who are not afraid of change and who do not resist it, but on the contrary, embrace it? Having modeled it in people who easily and enjoyable change, and who change without a lot of fanfare or emotional struggle, we discovered the key components that we mentioned in the first article in this series. These differ from psychotherapy-based models which start from the assumption that people will resist change and relapse back to old patterns, that people are coming from need rather than want, deficiency motivation rather than growth motivation (Maslow).
The Axes of Change Model What are the specific meta-program continua which make up the Axes of Change? In brief there they are as follows.
1st — The energy, emotional, or motivation meta-programs of Toward / Away From.

Questions:

• What do you want?
• What have you had enough of?
• What values or experiences are you motivated toward and what are you motivated to move away from?

This creates the push-pull energy, the propulsion system that plays off of attraction / aversion and pleasure / pain. The poles on the continuum between away from and toward relate to how much energy we have in feeling pulled or pushed and what’s our favorite or dominate focus of attention.

___________________Valued Experiences__________________
Away From, Pains— Aversions                            Toward, Pleasures-Attractions,  The Pull Toward
2nd — The response meta-programs of Reflective, Inactive, Active.

Questions:

• How do you respond or act when faced with information or a request?
• Do you first reflect upon things?
• Is your first response to take action and then ask questions?

The poles on the continuum between active and reflective provide the oscillation between thinking something through to have a well-formed plan or idea in our heads to just acting on something and seeing what happens.

_______________Response Preference and Style____________
Reflective Thinking, Feeling, Imagining, Analyzing           Acting, Doing, Taking Action

Inwardly focused in responding to data or challenge      Outwardly focused in responding
3rd — The frame of reference meta-programs of Internal / External.

Questions:

• Where do you focus most of your attention, on your internal frames or on external frames?
• Are you more or less aware of your internal frames, understandings, thoughts?
• Are you more or less aware of the outside world and what’s going on there?

The poles of the continuum between internal and external lies at the source of our oscillation between being mentally-and-emotionally inside or outside. It governs where we go first and where we feel most comfortable.

_____________Reference Focus________________
Internal maps and frames of the Game                                    External actions of the Game

Ideas, Thoughts, Words,                                                   Sensory Awareness and Calibration

Representations in the Movie in our mind

Strategy for how to do something                                        Present on the outside,

4th — The relationship meta-programs of matching and mis-matching.

______________________Relationship Style __________

Matching for Sameness                                                               Mis-Matching for Difference

Witnessing and noticing what fits,                                            Mis-matching for what differs,

Looking for matches between determining strengths   Monitoring and identifying what needs

and weaknesses new Game Plan and external actions         to be brought up to standard.

Coaching States or Roles within the Axes of Change What are the coaching states that a coach is called upon to access and use as he or she moves through the change stages and processes with a client? What states do we dance in and out of as we follow the energy and facilitate the desired transformations for the client in each Axis?
Axis I: The Push-Pull Dance

This dance stirs up energy as it exposes consequences, awakens dreams and visions, and loosens the current frames. It covers the pre-contemplation and contemplation stages of change. For this we dance between the poles of Awakener and Challenger.

• Awakener: This is the role of inspiring, standing in awe of the magnificence of our clients, inviting new possibilities, seducing to what’s possible, evoking dreams and wild imaginations.
• Challenger: This is the role of evoking current reality and highlighting its pain and distress and where it will take one if continued. In this role we confront, get in the client’s face and challenge to create a felt gap.

When do we shift from the Push-Pull dance and axis as Awakener and Challenge? When there is enough energy to explore one’s Matrix to understand the current box within which the client is embedded. To that we ask:

• Is the person energized to explore?
• How’s the motivation level to face reality as it is?

Axis II: The Decision Dance between Readiness and Leverage

This dance seeks to find and/or create the leverage point for change that leads to the decision to do it. Here we seek to facilitate the client to identify the highest frames of intention, the key to his or her Matrix, and the structure of transformation for this client at this time. Does he or she have permission to change? Does he believe that change is a possibility for him? Does he believe he deserves it? It is to evoke the beginning of an attractor frame in the system.

•  Provoker: This is the role for teasing, provoking, and playing to get the client to turn up the push—pull energies to see just how ready the client is and if there’s sufficient energy to actually make something happen. We provoke the commitment. As provoker we challenge as in the first axis, yet the push is different. We are pushing now for probing inside for the frames of mind that will make the difference, and that will lead us to commitment. Before, we pushed and challenge for motivational energy around our Vision.
• Prober: This is the role of exploring like a detective with total curiosity and persistence and tenacity until we find or create a frame of reference that will completely transform life. First we probe the existing Matrix to understand what it is, how it works, its structure, processes, and leverage point. This invites blinding awareness of current reality. Oftentimes a painful awareness of how we have created a non-productive pattern in our lives. As we do we will be wondering about what frame of mind would bring about a complete transformation? In the role of Prober we search and research, we put the spotlight on the unstoried features of our experiences, and we tease out the higher frames of mind.

When do we shift from the Readiness—Leverage axis to the next axis? When there is an awareness of the problematic frame, when there’s the discovery of the possibility of the leverage frame, and when there’s a readiness to do the Inner Game Work.Ask:

• Do we know the frame that has created your current situation and state?
• Is the client ready to change those frames? Is the client committed?

Axis III: The Dance of the Inner and Outer Games

In this dance we move with the client to create the Inner Game and then translate it into the performance of the Outer Game. This dance helps the client to close the Knowing-Doing Gap and to put into practice the know-how of the new game that the client wants to play. Here we dance to co-generate with the client a self- organizing energy that will become self-generative in the client. This is the experimenting stage for change.

• Co-Creator: This is the role of co-creating with the client the actual meanings of belief frames, decision frames, identity frames, etc. that make up a new Game— the Inner Game. In this role we are co-developer with the client, we nurture and support the client, perhaps challenge the ideas and frames to make them realistic and tough and practical. In this role we work to solidify the frames that will map a new reality.
• Actualizer: This is the role of coaching to bring the Inner Game out in terms of actions in the outside world. It’s the role of making the actions real (i.e., actualizing) and experimenting to see how the actions work in real life. This is the Action stage of change.

When is the Inner—Outer Game over? When the client has created a new game—has a new map with new resources and rules for how to play that game and has specific actions to do in the outside world, and when the client has successfully translated the actions to the outside world. Ask:

• Does the client have a new game plan?
• Does the client have an action plan?
• Is the client motivated and aligned with the new game?
• Is the client willing to be held accountable? Has the change occurred?

Axis IV: The Dance of Solidification through Reinforcement and ongoing Testing

In this final dance, we move with the client to solidify the new Inner and Outer Game so that it not only is implemented in everyday life, but that it becomes more and more integrated in every aspect of the client’s life. We do that by setting up a recursive process that facilitates continual improvement through continual learning and continual feedback for more and more refinement of the new actions. This describes the Maintenance stages of change.

• Reinforcer: This is the role of providing reinforcements or rewards to the actions through supporting, celebrating, nurturing, validating, cheer-leading, acknowledging, etc. This role can be gentle and nurture or racus and “partying on.” The reinforcing can occur through one’s person, through a supportive community, through accountability structures, or through the person’s own acknowledgments. In doing so, the behaviors become anchored and more solid.
• Tester: This is the role of testing to see how strong, robust, real, workable, and ecological the new behavior is. In testing, we feedback the changes and the results, we evaluate what’s working well and how to make it work even better, we set up accountability structures, we look for problems, we trouble-shoot, and we cycle back to the co-creating stage.

When is the solidifying dance over? It’s over when the client has so well integrated the new game that is has become a part of his or her way of being in the world. Now the client has the change and feels totally confident to keep the change. Ask:

• Does the client have access to the new behaviors and game at all times?
• Is the client continually learning and improving?
• Are there accountability structures in place?
• Does the client know how to reinforce, support, and nurture the change?
• Does the client feel confident of keeping the change?

Summary

The Axes of Change model describes change-embracers and presents an eight-step process of change. Yet it is not a linear process at all, but a non-linear one, a systemic process, a process that’s more like a dance than how we think about a “strategy” in NLP.
The Axes of Change model is derived from the premises and principles that arose in the Human Potential Movement. Many of these principles were incorporated into NLP as the NLP presuppositions, especially the idea that people have all the resources they need and people are basically oriented to doing things from a positive intention of adding value to their lives.

 

THE AXES OF CHANGE
Part III The Art of Measuring Skill Competency

 

• What is the Axes of Change?
• How does the model work as a cutting-edge change model for self-actualizing people?
• How did we model the change process to create this model?
• What are the four meta-programs that make up the four axes?
• How are these meta-programs involved in the process of change?
• What coaching skills do these eight meta-programs initiate?

These are among the most common questions asked of us about this new Change Model and in the previous articles we have presented what it is, how we designed it, and its relationship to NLP and Neuro-Semantics. With this foundation we are now ready to explore some practical questions about the model in terms of using it for facilitating change and transformation. After all, if coaching is foremost a domain of change, and the coach a change agent, then it’s critical that coaches have two things: first, a clear and comprehensive understanding about change as a process and second, the ability to translate that knowledge into practical and effective change skills.*1
This is where benchmarking comes in. Once we have translated the theoretical understandings of a model (any model) into practical and learnable skills that we can train, we then need to have some way to measure the actual competency of someone who claims to have the skill. Claiming the ability to facilitate change and actually having that ability are two different things. P.R. and image management does not reality make. Talent, training, passion, commitment, and practice are needed to make it so. So in this article, we will first describe the Coaching Change skills in the Axes of Change and then we will describe how we have and can benchmark those skills to test their actuality.
The Competency of Facilitating Change Skills

In the Axes of Change, the four axes of motivation, decision, creation, and solidification lead to eight distinct coaching roles for coaching a client through the process of change. These make up the dance of change and the coach’s skill lies first in stepping into the eight states and then being able to skillfully facilitate the accessing of the experience in the client. What are these eight states, roles, and positions?

1. Awakener to a vision
2. Challenger to current reality
3. Prober into the matrix of frames that hold the current inner game
4. Provoker to the decision for change from the present state to the desired state
5. Co-creator of the new inner game
6. Actualizer for the client to translate to a new outer game
7. Reinforcer of the client’s successes
8. Tester of the results for further refinements and continual improvement

The ninth role in all of this is that of being a Facilitator—the heart of coaching. It is from this central position that the coach facilitates or makes easier the client’s movement through the change process. In the Axes of Change we have specified many different things which are involved that demonstrate each of these nine coaching skills. Doing this provides an operational definition of what it means to facilitate, awaken, challenge, probe, provoke, co-create, actualize, reinforce, and test. It provides an understand of what it takes to fully express these skills.
Positioning these skills on four meta-program continua or axes awakens us to the fact that every coach will have a preference and natural aptitude in these skills. As we have a favored representation system, we also have favored poles regarding most meta-programs. For example, if you are more Towards oriented rather than Away From in your motivation meta-program, you will find Awakening easier and more natural than Challenging. So with Probing versus Provoking, Co- Creating versus Actualizing, Reinforcing versus Testing.
In Meta-Coaching, we use this insight to enable coaches-in-training to first play to their strength and to then develop the flexibility of consciousness to learn how to move to the other polar end of each axis. By using a Changing Meta-Programs pattern, we facilitate the developing of that flexibility so that the coach can more fluidly move through the dance of change with a client.
The Measuring or Benchmarking of the Skill Competency

• Yet how do we know that any person is truly skilled?
• What lets us know that one is truly competent to coach through these roles?
• Once we have adequately described the skills involved in effectively coaching change, and especially the nine Coaching Change Skills in the Axes of Change, how can we measure these skills and determine any given coach’s actual competency in them?
• How can a coach measure his or her own competency level?

The answer lies in setting a benchmark for the levels of degree of competency for the skill. If a skill is a process and can be distinguished at different stages of development, then we can identify the behaviors at each stage and plot a developmental pathway. We can specify the behaviors that give evidence of the degree of skill development from incompetent to competent and then on to the level of mastery. For that we use benchmarking.
Benchmarking has been around for three decades as a process for capturing the structure and essence of best practices in business. It began with the Xerox Corporation in 1979. Motorola then introduced benchmarking into its processes in 1985 as a way for bringing measurement into the learning, training, and development process.
What does benchmarking refer to in the context of business? It means taking a “best practice” and specifying its critical elements or components. As such, benchmarking is the continuous process of measuring products, services, and practices against the best competitors or industry leaders in order to close the performance gap and leapfrog over the competition. In this, Benchmarking is used to close the gap between what we are currently doing and to becoming the best-in-a-class.
If this reminds you of modeling, you’re right. Benchmarking describes a simple way to model the expertise of someone masterful in the performance of a high level skill. And while we can fairly easily benchmark tangible things like how to set up an assembly line and get the most proficiency and productivity from people, all of this becomes much more challenging when we turn our attention to benchmarking something less tangible or even intangible. So, how do we do that?*2
The Art of Measuring the Intangible

Measurements are comparisons.When we measure something we contrast and compare one thing with another. In benchmarking we take a skill, break it down into key behavioral components which we can actually see, hear, and feel. After we identify a development scale from simple to more complex to expert level, we give numerical values to the critical components to distinguish the degree of skill development as a skill moves from low to high competence. This sequence of numbers from low to high then enable us to see where a person is on the developmental scale.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

0                                                1                                                           2                                                 3                                                4                                            5

By themselves, the raw numbers are of no value. To be meaningful and significant, we attach the numbers to a baseline or scale of some sort. Doing this enables us to then compare them against each other. By measuring we can know where we are, where we want to go, and identify the pathway for greater quality and improvement.
In scaling, we establish a sequence of marks at regular intervals which we use as a reference for making measurements. This allows us to rank attributes or characteristics. Every scale will have thresholds or boundaries at each end. The scaling that we have used in Meta-States for years (“From 0 to 10, how much are you in that state right now? How much more would you want to experience? What do you have to do to increase that state?”) now becomes more precise as we give each number on the numerical scale a specific meaning and attach to each specific behavior.
In doing this, our measurements become actionable, linked to the highest levels of a critical skill, and made as objective as possible. Actionable means that we can act on the measurement, we can do something about the scaled information. The measure informs us about two factors: first, where we are and second, what we can do to move to the next level. Objective is a relative term that calls upon us to make the measurements based on as few subjective feelings and opinions as possible. We do that by identifying sensory-based or behavioral indicators that give evidence of the experience. When we have a set of behaviors, then we have the behavioral equivalences.
This is where we use benchmarking to identify the behavioral equivalence of whatever state, skill,or experience that you want to improve. Essentially we are asking:

• How would I know you are accomplishing X?
• What would I see or hear that would indicate such?
• What are the critical factors for success with X?
• What behaviors are critical in this experience?

Scaling the Levels of Competence in a Skill

• 5 — Mastery, level of expertise in the skill.
• 4 — Elegant: smooth, seamless.
• 3 — Competence: Skill present and working.
• 2 — Awkward and clumsy stage, low level skill.
• 1 — First signs of the skill emerging in fragmented ways.
• 0 — Incompetence, no presence of the skill.

In Benchmarking the coaching skills (and we have benchmarked 26 of them along with 41 training skills), we use the basic scaling that measures how a skill moves through the competency stages. Using a 0 to 5 scale, we arrange things as follows. Zero (0) on the scale stands for the absense of the skill and even for manifestations of opposite behaviors. The range goes from 0 indicating that there is no evidence of the desired behavior to 5 indicating the highest standard for the skill. At 3 we have a good expression of the skill. That means 4 and 5 will be indicating the highest levels of the skills, the levels of elegance and mastery.
Once we have established a scale of the critical behaviors that reflect the developmental growth of a skill, we are then able to do something truly magical. We are able to give feedback to that criteria. That is, we can use our sensory awareness to identify the behavioral equivalents of the criteria and skill and feed this back as a mirror to the coach-in-training. This is what we do in benchmarking the coaching core skills and the coaching change skills which allows us to run a training that is truly competency based.
In the Axes of Change model, not only have we modeled and identified the stages that a self- actualizing person goes through in the process of change, but we have also detailed actual the signs and cues that give evidence of the skills necessary to navigate each of those change stages. This fulfills the dream of operationalizing our terms, specifying the procedures, and de-nominalizing what otherwise would be vague and abstract terms.2

Summary

• While we can engage in long debates about how real something is if we can’t measure it, what senior management in business wants is some way to verify skill development and competency. That’s why we benchmark. We model the structure of a skill, set up behavioral equivalents, and then give feedback to that criteria.
• This is the art of measuring skill competency and expressions what we have described in NLP for three decades, the de-nominalizing of abstract concepts. As such, this puts a powerful tool in the hands of anyone who wants to be on the cutting-edge of business, training, and coaching.
• This is what we have done with the nine coaching change skills in the Axes of Change model to be able to thereby determine and document the presence of actual competency as a change agent.

End Notes:

1. The reader can find this in the two previous articles in Anchor Point and also in the book, Coaching Conversations for Transformational Change (2004). The next book is the first in a series, as a cutting-edge change model for self-actualizing people (in press, due November, 2004).
2. In Meta-Coaching, Volume I, Changing Change we have an entire chapter on benchmarking and two chapters on specific behavioral benchmarks that we have set for the seven core coaching skills and the nine coaching change skills in the Axes of Change.
Authors:

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. is a psychologist turned researcher and modeler, he is an international trainer, entrepreneur, and best-selling author, co-founder of Neuro-Semantics (www.neurosemantics.com), he has developed of several cognitive-behavioral models including Meta-Coaching and the Axes of Change model.

Michelle Duval is a Master Coach, CEO of Equilibro, one of the fastest growing coaching organizations in Australia. Michelle was nominated as Business Woman of the Year in 2003 and her website (www.equilibrio.com.au) won the best website in the world in 2003, she co- developed the Axes of Change model.

You can find the Axes of Change model in the newly published book, Coaching Conversations (2004) by Hall and Duval. The central emphais in Meta-Coaching, Vol. I, Coaching Change (in press, due November, 2004) is on the Axes of Change. For more about Meta-Coaching and the Meta-Coaching system, see http://www.neurosemantics.com and click on Meta-Coaching. Meta-Coaching certification is now being presented in the UK, Australia, South Africa, Geneva, Paris, and in the USA in 2005.

 

TONY ROBBINS ON HUNGER, DISAPPOINTMENT, AND 3-D PRINTING

THE BUSINESS STRATEGIST AND COACH SHARES WHY IN LIFE, AND IN BUSINESS, PULL HAS MUCH MORE POWER THAN PUSH.

Click on the link below to watch the video.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3025168/dialed/tony-robbins-on-hunger-disappointment-and-3d-printing

I first saw Tony Robbins speak in 2007. I knew a little bit about him, but like many people, I didn’t know about expanse of his experience as a coach, business leader, and humanitarian. While watching Robbins over these past few years, and working with him on a couple of occasions, it’s like peeling back layers of a really, really large onion.

His events have attracted more than 50 million people from around the world, and he has advised global leaders, celebrities, and some of the world’s top athletes. When he’s not on stage, he’s investing in and running businesses ranging from 3-D printing to interactive sales training to a resort in Fiji.

Tony Robbins

Robbins describes himself as “a strategist, a father, and one passionate mo-fo.” During our chat, he shares the number one trait he sees in the world’s most successful people. As for his obvious business interest in technology and social media (he is active on Twitter, among other networks), he cautions that “we’re drowning in information, but starving for some wisdom.”

AMBER MAC

Amber Mac is a bestselling author, TV host, speaker, and strategist. She has worked as a technology TV host with tech guru Leo Laporte on G4TechTV and currently co-hosts a popular show on Laporte’s TWiT.tv network. In June 2010, Amber wrote a book about how to use social media to build your brand. Power Friending was published by Portfolio/Penguin in New York.

 

Finally Science backing Neuro Semantics-the performance of your best and highest meaning

Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend

Click this link to watch the TED video. http://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend.html

Stress. It makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others.

Kelly McGonigal translates academic research into practical strategies for health, happiness and personal success. Full bio »

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Get acquainted with some NLP and Neuro Semantics Glossary

Glossary Of Terms

Accessing Cues: How we use our physiology and neurology by breathing, posture, gesture, and eye movements to access certain states and ways of thinking. These are observable by others.

As-If Frame: To “pretend.” To presuppose some situation is the case and then act upon it as if it is true. This encourages creative problem-solving by mentally going beyond apparent obstacles to desired solutions.

Analogue: An analogue submodality varies continuously from light to dark; while a digital submodality operates as either off or on, i.e. we see a picture in either an associated or dissociated way.

Analogue Marking: Using voice tone, facial expressions, gestures, or a touch to emphasize certain words non-verbally as you are talking to someone. The marked out words give an additional message.

Anchoring: The process by which any stimulus or representation (external or internal) gets connected to and so triggers a response. Anchors occur naturally and in all representational systems. They can be used intentionally, as in analogue marking or with numerous change techniques, such as Collapse Anchors. The NLP concept of anchoring derives from the Pavlovian stimulus-response reaction, classical conditioning. In Pavlov’s study the tuning fork became the stimulus (anchor) that cued the dog to salivate.

Association: Association contrasts with dissociation. In dissociation, you see yourself “over there.” Generally, dissociation removes emotion from the experience. When we are associated we experience all the information directly and therefore emotionally.

Auditory: The sense of hearing, one of the basic representational systems.

Behavior: Any activity that we engage in, from gross motor activity to thinking.

Beliefs: The generalizations we have made about causality, meaning, self, others, behaviors, identity, etc. Our beliefs are what we take as being “true” at any moment. Beliefs guide us guide us in perceiving and interpreting reality. Beliefs relate closely to values. NLP has several belief change patterns.

Calibration: Becoming tuned-in to another’s state and internal sensory processing operations by reading previously observed noticed nonverbal signals.

Chunking: Changing perception by going up or down levels and/or logical levels. Chunking up refers to going up a level (inducing up, induction). It leads to higher abstractions. Chunking down refers to going a level (deducing, deduction). It leads to more specific examples or cases.

Complex Equivalence: A linguistic distortion pattern where you make meaning of someone else’s behavior from the observable clues, without having direct corroborating evidence from the other person.

Congruence: A state wherein one’s internal representation works in an aligned way. What a person says corresponds with what they do. Both their non-verbal signals and their verbal statements match. A state of unity, fitness, internal harmony, not conflict.

Conscious: Present moment awareness. Awareness of seven ( two chunks of information.

Content: The specifics and details of an event, answers what? And why? Contrasts with process or structure.

Context: The setting, frame or process in which events occur and provide meaning for content.

Cues: Information that provides clues to another’s subjective structures, i.e. eye accessing cues, predicates, breathing, body posture, gestures, voice tone and tonality, etc.

Deletion: The missing portion of an experience either linguistically or representationally.

Digital: Varying between two states, a polarity. For example, a light switch is either on or off. Auditory digital refers to thinking, processing, and communicating using words, rather than in the five senses.

Dissociation: Not “in” an experience, but seeing or hearing it from outside as from a spectator’s point of view, in contrast to association.

Distortion: The modeling process by which we inaccurately represent something in our neurology or linguistics, can occur to create limitations or resources. The process by which we represent the external reality in terms of our neurology. Distortion occurs when we use language to describe, generalize, and theorize about our experience.

Downtime: Not in sensory awareness, but “down” inside one’s own mind seeing, hearing, and feeling thoughts, memories, awarenesses, a light trance state with attention focused inward.

Ecology: Concern for the overall relationships within the self, and between the self and the larger environment or system. Internal ecology: the overall relationship between a person and their thoughts, strategies, behaviors, capabilities, values and beliefs. The dynamic balance of elements in a system.

Elicitation: Evoking a state by word, behavior, gesture or any stimuli. Gathering information by direct observation of non-verbal signals or by asking meta-model questions.

Empowerment: Process of adding vitality, energy, and new powerful resources to a person; vitality at the neurological level, change of habits.

Eye Accessing Cues: Movements of the eyes in certain directions indicating visual, auditory or kinesthetic thinking (processing).

Epistemology: The theory of knowledge, how we know what we know.

First Position: Perceiving the world from your own point of view, associated, one of the three perceptual positions.

Frame: Context, environment, meta-level, a way of perceiving something (as in Outcome Frame, “As If” Frame, Backtrack Frame, etc).

Future Pace: Process of mentally practicing (rehearsing) an event before it happens. One of the key processes for ensuring the permanency of an outcome, a frequent and key ingredient in most NLP interventions.

Generalization: Process by which one specific experience comes to represent a whole class of experiences, one of the three modeling processes in NLP.

Gestalt: A collection of memories connected neurologically based on similar emotions.

Hard Wired: Neurologically based factor, the neural connectors primarily formed during gestation, similar to the hard wiring of a computer.

Incongruence: A state of being “at odds” with oneself, having “parts” in conflict with each other. Evidenced by having reservations, being not totally committed to an outcome, expressing incongruent messages where there is a lack of alignment or matching between verbal and non-verbal parts of the communication.

Installation: Process for putting a new mental strategy (way of doing things) inside mind-body so it operates automatically, often achieved through anchoring, leverage, metaphors, parables, reframing, future pacing, etc.

Internal Representations: Meaningful patterns of information we create and store in our minds, combinations of sights, sounds, sensations, smells and tastes.

In Time: Having a time line that passes through your body: where the past is behind you and the future in front, and ‘now’ is inside your body.

Kinesthetic: Sensations, feelings, tactile sensations on surface of skin, proprioceptive sensations inside the body, includes vestibular system or sense of balance.

Leading: Changing your own behaviors after obtaining rapport so another follows. Being able to lead is a test for having good rapport.

Logical Level: A higher level, a level about a lower level, a meta-level that informs and modulates the lower level.

Loops: A circle, cycle, story, metaphor or representation that goes back to its own beginning, so that it loops back (feeds back) onto itself. An open loop: a story left unfinished. A closed loop: finishing a story. In strategies: loop refers to getting hung up in a set of procedures that have no way out, the strategy fails to exit.

Map of Reality: Model of the world, a unique representation of the world built in each person’s brain by abstracting from experiences, comprised of a neurological and a linguistic map, one’s internal representations (IR). (see Model of the World)

Matching: Adopting characteristics of another person’s outputs (behavior, words, etc.) to enhance rapport.

Meta: Above, beyond, about, at a higher level, a logical level higher.

Meta-levels: Refer to those abstract levels of consciousness we experience internally.

Meta-Model: A model with a number of linguistic distinctions that identifies language patterns that obscure meaning in a communication through distortion, deletion and generalization. It includes specific challenges or questions by which the “ill-formed” language is reconnected to sensory experience and the deep structure. These meta-model challenges bring a person out of trance. Developed in 1975 by Richard Bandler and John Grinder.

Meta-Programs: The mental/perceptual programs for sorting and paying attention to stimuli, perceptual filters that govern attention, sometimes “neuro-sorts,” or meta-processes.

Meta-States: A state about a state, bringing a state of mind-body (fear, anger, joy, learning) to bear upon another state from a higher logical level, generates a gestalt state–a meta-state, developed by Michael Hall.

Mismatching: Offering different patterns of behavior to another, breaking rapport for the purpose of redirecting, interrupting, or terminating a meeting or conversation.

Modal Operators: Linguistic distinctions in the Meta-Model that indicate the “mode” by which a person “operates”: the mode of necessity, possibility, desire, obligation, etc. The predicates (can, can’t, possible, impossible, have to, must, etc) that we utilize for motivation.

Model: A description of how something works, a generalized, deleted or distorted copy of the original; a paradigm.

Modeling: The process of observing and replicating the successful actions and behaviors of others; the process of discerning the sequence of IR and behaviors that enable someone to accomplish a task.

Model of the World: A map of reality, a unique representation of the world which we generalize for our experiences. The total of one person’s operating principles.

Multiple Description: The process of describing the same thing from different perceptual positions.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming: The study of excellence. A model of how people structure their experience; the structures of subjective experience; how the person programs their thinking-emoting and behaving in their neurology, mediated by the language and coding they use to process, store and retrieve information.

Neuro-Semantics: A model of meaning or evaluation utilizing the Meta-states model for articulating and working with higher levels of states and the Neuro-Linguistic Programming model for detailing human processing and experiencing, a model that presents a fuller and richer model offering a way of thinking about and working with the way our nervous system (neurology) and (linguistics) create meaning (semantics).

Nominalization: A linguistic distinction in the Meta-Model, a hypnotic pattern of trance language, a process or verb turned into an (abstract) noun, a process frozen in time.

Outcome: A specific, sensory-based desired result. A well-formed outcome that meets the well-formedness criteria.

Pacing: Gaining and maintaining rapport with another by joining their model of the world by matching their language, beliefs, values, current experience, etc., crucial to rapport building.

Parts: As in “a part of your mind” that generates other frames of reference, these include belief frames, value frames, understanding frames, etc.  When we ask, “Does any part of you object to this new way of thinking, feeling, or responding?” we are searching for “internal conflicts” within the facets of our personality and do so to create more alignment and personal congruence.  In speaking about “parts,” we speak metaphorically and not literally. The term “parts” functions hypnotically as a “selectional restriction violation” which in essence means we give life to an object that doesn’t have life, as in “the walls speak.” With the term “parts” we are referring to a certain neurology speaking as if it has a “mind” of its own separate from the rest of the nervous system which it does not.

Parts: A metaphor for describing responsibility for our behavior to various aspects of our psyche. These may be seen as sub-personalities that have functions that take on a “life of their own”; when they have different intentions we may experience intra-personal conflict and a sense of incongruity.

Perceptual Filters: Unique ideas, experiences, beliefs, values, meta-programs, decisions, memories and language that shape and influence our model of the world.

Perceptual Position: Our point of view; one of three mental positions: first position-associated in self; second position-from another person’s perspective; Third position-from a position outside the people involved.

Physiological: The physical part of the person.

Predicates: What we assert or predicate about a subject, sensory based words indicating a particular RS (visual predicates, auditory, kinesthetic, unspecified).

Preferred System: The RS that an individual typically uses most in thinking and organizing experience.

Presuppositions: Ideas or assumptions that we take for granted for a communication to make sense.

Primary levels: Refer to our experience of the outside world primarily through our senses.

Primary states: Describe those states of consciousness from our primary level experiences of the outside world.

Rapport: A sense of connection with another, a feeling of mutuality, a sense of trust, created by pacing, mirroring and matching, a state of empathy or second position.

Reframing: Changing the context or frame of reference of an experience so that it has a different meaning.

Representation: An idea, thought, presentation of sensory-based or evaluative based information.

Representational System (RS): How we mentally code information using the sensory systems: Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Olfactory, and Gustatory.

Requisite Variety: Flexibility in thinking, emoting, speaking, behaving; the person with the most flexibility of behavior controls the action; the Law of Requisite Variety.

Resources: Any means we can bring to bear to achieve an outcome: physiology, states, thoughts, strategies, experiences, people, events or possessions.

Resourceful State: The total neurological and physical experience when a person feels resourceful.

Satir Categories: The five body postures and language styles indicating specific ways of communicating: leveler, blamer, placater, computer and distracter, described by Virginia Satir.

Second Position: Point of view; having an awareness of the other person’s sense of reality.

Sensory Acuity: Awareness of the outside world, of the senses, making finer distinctions about the sensory information we get from the world.

Sensory-Based Description: Information directly observable and verifiable by the senses, see-hear-feel language that we can test empirically, in contrast to evaluative descriptions.

State: Holistic phenomenon of mind-body-emotions, mood, emotional condition; the sum total of all neurological and physical processes within an individual at any moment in time.

Strategy: A sequencing of thinking-behaving to obtain an outcome or create an experience, the structure of subjectivity ordered in a linear model of the TOTE.

Submodality: The distinctions we make within each rep system, the qualities of our internal representations.

Synesthesia: A “feeling together” of sensory experience in two or more modalities, an automatic connection of one rep system with another. For example, a V-K synesthesia may involve perceiving words or sounds as colored.

Third Position: Perceiving the world from viewpoint of an observer; you see both yourself and other people.

Time-line: A metaphor for how we store our sights, sounds and sensations of memories and imagination; a way of coding and processing the construct “time.”

Through Time: Having a time line where both past, present and future are in front of you. For example, time is represented spatially as with a year planner.

Unconscious: Everything that is not in conscious awareness in the present moment.

Universal Quantifiers: A generalization from a sample to the whole population – “allness” (every, all, never, none, etc). A statement that allows for no exceptions.

Unspecified Nouns: Nouns that do not specify to whom or to what they refer.

Unspecified Verbs: Verbs that do not describe the specifics of the action¾how they are being performed; the adverb has been deleted. Uptime: State where attention and senses directed outward to immediate environment, all sensory channels open and alert.

Value: What is important to you in a particular context. Your values (criteria) are what motivate you in life. All motivation strategies have a kinesthetic component. This kinesthetic is an unconscious value

Visual: Seeing, imagining, the rep system of sight.

Visualization: The process of seeing images in your mind.

Well-Formedness Condition: The criteria that enable us to specify an outcome in ways that make it achievable and verifiable. A well-formed outcome is a powerful tool for negotiating win/win solutions.

“Neuro-semantics also known as the science of success. ” – As quoted in the Wall Street Journal

 

WHAT IF ALL YOUR LIMITATIONS WERE IN YOUR INTERNAL MAPS?

WHAT IF ALL YOUR LIMITATIONS WERE IN YOUR MAPS?

One of the most powerful premises in NLP and Neuro-Semantics is that our limitations are not real. That when a person feels limited, the limitation is an inside job. From the beginning, NLP has said that people are primarily limited by their maps, not by their reality. If a person is limited or feels limited, that limitation is almost always a function of some mental map that he or she is carrying around. As a result, this means that limitations are about as real as you believe they are real.

Now is that shocking? Surprising? Unbelievable? Well, let’s test it. A good way to test this is to look around at those individuals who have or had many of the same external conditions to deal with and yet who did not let those conditions limit them. Same conditions, yet no limitations. Now let’s make it really personal. What limits you? Make a list of whatever you think are things that are limitations in your life. Now you can begin to explore or wonder if anyone else on this planet has ever had a similar limitation to what you have and yet did not let it limit them.

In NLP this premise arises from the fact that we do not operate on the territory as we move through life or through the world, we operate only on our map of the territory. Some people develop a map that “learning is hard,” that “I’m just not a good learner,” that “learning is boring.” With that mental map you can guess with pretty good odds how they will then relate to the experience of learning. That mental map generates a limiting belief and a limiting understanding. Then living long enough from those
limitations, one would also develop more-a limiting identity, limiting
metaphors, limiting perceptions, etc.

So here is a transformative question to consider:

What if all of your limitations were limitations, not in the world, but in your maps of the world? If you take this on for a day, how would you re-envision your life experiences?

It seems that there are so many conditions of life that most of us are so very quick to label a limitation. Whether it is lack of money, lack of caring parents, lack of schooling, the misfortune of being mugged, raped, imprisoned, etc. there are others who have experienced a similar condition and who did not let it limit them. They refused to map an external challenge as a personal limitation. It could have been a devastating prison experience such that Viktor Frankl experienced in a Hitler Concentration camp. It could have been a more regular prison like Nelson Mandela. It could have been a rape such as Oprah experienced, or deaf and blindness, or
whatever. But the conditions were not mapped as a personal limitation. And so they were not.

What does this mean? It does not mean that “we create reality.” That’s far too big of a jump of logic. An over-generalization like that is unfounded. We do not create reality, but we do create our sense of reality. That is, we create how we experience life and the quality of our life.

It is in this sense that our meaning-making operates as such a creative power in our lives. This brings us back to the magic and wonder and power of language. It brings us back to the neuro-linguistic effects of languaging or mental mapping in our lives. Precisely because meaning is not given, you and I, as meaning-makers have the power to invent what a thing, event, or condition is to ourselves. And as we do, we then endow it with various degrees and qualities of significance.

You and I can over-load things with too much meaning- meanings that it cannot bear. This is the source of addictions. We can just as well under-load things so that it is not meaningful enough for us so we end up feeling bored. And we can create distorted meanings which then generates distorted relationships to things thereby messing up how to think or feel or handle something. This explains why, in Neuro-Semantics, we begin almost everything by examining the ecology of the meanings that we attribute to
things:

Does it work for you?

Does it empower you as a person?

Does it enhance your life?

Does it serve your overall well-being?

Does it unleash your best potentials for being your very best?

While meaning is not inherently given, we live in a social world where others who have come before us have created meanings, meanings that we inherit by virtue of being born in that society. But the meanings given may not be serving us well in the long run. The meanings may, in fact, create all sorts of distortions and dysfunctions and undermine our well-being. So we begin by checking out the meanings attributed. And that puts us in a
position of choice whereby we can change things. We can change our sense of reality by asking,

What would be the very best meaning that I could invent and give to this or that experience? The very best meaning so that instead of experiencing something as a personal limitation, I frame it as simply something to be dealt with?

This is the foundation of all personal, social, and organizational
transformation.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Neuro-Semantics Executive Director

Neuro-Semantics International