This is an interesting interview of Robert Dilts in it he lays his thoughts on the difference between Coaching and Therapy.

He further goes into his thoughts on Certifications and Associations.

He speaks about Bandler and Grinder's perspective on Process and Content when working with clients.

And many more interesting... topics and issues...

Ecology is an extremely important consideration to take into account.  I've learned in my own life and work with people the great importance of making use of people's own internal wisdom which in this clip O'Hanlon refers to as 'indigenous knowledge' .  For me that was an interesting point.

Another interesting thing that he spoke of was giving people permission to do something or not too.  That has been extremely helpful in allowing clients to discharge any type of resistance that they might have had to working with their issue.

An additional thing I find that O'Hanlon is talking about that I have found echoed in my own work as well is the ability to simultaneously hold two opposites as a singular whole.

I really love of how he talks about looking for exceptions.

Bill O'Hanlon is an interesting gentleman that studied with Milton Erickson directly after having trained with Richard Bandler and John Grinder.  If you've read any of his books you'll be able to get a pretty good of his contribution to the field of therapy and personal development.  I personally really enjoy reading his work.  He also has put out an audio in which he shares some of his favorite teaching tales which I have also found extremely worthwhile.

The clip that I'm including with this post is of O'Hanlon speaking of how he met Dr. Erickson.

 

Frank Abagnale Jr. was a gentleman that during the course of his criminal pretended to be an Airline Pilot, Doctor, Lawyer, Recruiter and a couple other things as well.  This guy was even able to write a prostitute a bad check for her services along with receiving change back.

The guy is a genius at what he did no doubt about it.  Given what he did was illegal and unethical which he fully acknowledges.  Last I heard he was running his own consulting firm whereby he teaches his clients how to avoid becoming a victim of fraud.

In the accompanying clip he is on a game show and people have himself and two other people that are posing to be him.  They are answering questions and at the end the contestants of the game show attempt to guess who is the 'real' Frank Abagnale.  I find it interesting that when the game show is over the only person that wasn't suspected of being the 'real' Frank was in fact Frank.

This speaks volumes towards most people's ability to detect deception.

NLP is serious need of free and open debate for way too long has it steeped itself in the entrenched convictions of followers in their leaders.  Almost like some sort of odd cult.

Anytime a person begins to question some or all of the tenants upon which their gurus work is based they are immediately batted down by legions of gleeful followers all of which have been drinking their particular camps kool-aid.

The field has very much suffered from masses of practitioners shunning their nose at any type of scientific inquiry or possible integration of recent advances in neuroscience in favor upholding long since disproved science from the 9170's.

For those of us who would like to see NLP take it's rightful place along side it's sister disciplines and to foster greater attention from the world as a whole along with great credibility this has been disheartening.  Today a new NLP forum opened hopefully it can avoid the pitfalls of so many other before it.

I encourage everyone reading this blog to join and to voice their opinions and to please do so with an open mind.  Below I will be posting a link that people can click to.  I do want to make it clear that as of the time of this writing that I am not a member of ANLP.ORG however I do agree with spirit of opening this forum which is to foster free and open debate with out allegiances to any particular school of NLP.

I once listened to a story told by Bill O’Hanlon about the ceremony of the room of 1,000 demons.  He spoke how there is this room where the Dali Lama and all the various Lama’s would gather for this ceremony.  And that in Buddhism there is this idea of reincarnation and that people would continue to live and die and that this cycle would repeat and repeat and you would have to pray and study and live a good life before they cycle would stop and you would reach nirvana.

The Dali Lama announced on this particular day to all the Lama’s present that, “today you have the possibility to get off the karmatic wheel and not have to worried about being enlightened anymore more.  Today you have that possibility.  All you have to do is walk through the room of a thousand demons and come out the other side.” 

He went on to explain, “what happens is that a door will be opened and those who so choose will be able to walk inside but once you do you cannot leave from the door that you entered from.  You must make it across the room to the other side to which there will be a door to exit.”

Now the reason this room is called the room of a thousand demons is because the demons that reside there have the ability to peer into you in such a way that enables them to take on your own worst fears and to seemingly make them real.

If you have a fear of people ridiculing you as soon as you walk into you will have people ridiculing you.

If you have a deep dark secret about yourself that you don’t want to the world it will seem to be revealed for all to see and it will feel very real.

If you have a fear of pain then pain will show up.

If you have a fear of being abandoned then you being abandoned will show up.

And so on and so forth…

These demons will make these fears feel real… they feel so real… as real as the reality that we are inhabiting now… so much so that most people begin to believe them.

The Dali Lama said, “Once you’re inside the room you are on your own.  We can’t come in and get you.  For those of you who want to leave now can go and those of you who want to stay please do.”

All but a few leave.

To those who stayed he said, “Through the centuries there have been two secrets passed down from those who have made it through the room of a 1,000 demons and have been enlightened.  The first is that these fears aren’t real.  The second is to keep your feet moving.”

And I think that’s good advice for any situation in life.

The core transformation pattern is one of the more interesting and useful patterns that I have come across in the field of NLP.  First and foremost the pattern begins with accepting and acknowledging an aspect of a problem that one is working with in their life and going after the positive intention that is associated with that particular aspect.

What you then do is follow a chain of intentions recursively to a point where there is no where else to go.  Quite often the final state described by people and in my experience could be described as quite spiritual.  I would recommend this pattern to anyone without reservation.

Jordan Belfort wrote a book called The Wolf of Wall Street, he's such an interesting guy.  He's basically a guy that set up a Wall Street firm that manipulated stock prices so that they could profit to the detriment of their clients.  Belfort went to jail for this but once he got out he turned his life around.  Now he teaches people how to become successful as business people with ethics.

Normally, I'm giving people a hard time because of ethically questionable behaviors that they might engage in.  Jordan from what I can tell is a guy that has done a complete 180 degree turn from what he used to be like.

I have not had the pleasure to hear him speak apart from some Youtube clips and reading his book, The Wolf of Wall Street but from what I've heard of his new message.  I like what he is saying.

If you've seen any of Richard Bandler's work for the early 80's perhaps you  will have heard him refer to taped sessions that he did at Marshall University while researchers were attempting to denounce him as a fraud. 

This tape set if you can get your hands on it at a decent price is in my opinion some of Bandler's best work.   Watching these tapes I love for the days of the old Bandler but alas we all change and evolve our styles overtime. 

The tape set is of three different client sessions between Bandler and subjects that he had never met before.  At the conclusion of each successful there is a follow up with the subjects some time after the session demonstrating that the changes stuck.

Andrew Austin is one of the more unorthodox and innovative practitioners in the field of change work.  He has created some very useful and unique approaches to working with people including his work with eye movements (IEMT) and his work in metaphors that he terms Metaphors of Movement.

Alot of the field of personal development is filled with empty promises and hyperbole.  I'm happy to say that Andy is someone that doesn't waste any time cutting through all the crap so that he can offer the gems that he has come across during his time working with clients.