The Story Behind the NLP 50th Anniversary Celebration And why the NLP Establishment went Silent

Behind every great event, there is a story; well, actually a series of stories about how that event was inspired, organised and then delivered. Then the after-stories begin, which add to the colloquial narrative of the event. This is true for sporting events, concerts, protests, political rallies, etc.

The stories merge to become folklore in the specific domain of the event. The stories exist on several levels, from the inside stories of the organisers to the perception of the people who attended. Added to the mix are the stories from disruptors, the event saboteurs, competitors and dissenters who, for their own reasons, do not want the event to succeed and, after the event, do their best to peddle a false narrative of the event and its organisers

In every walk of life where an event is arranged, from organising a village fayre to putting on an international rock concert, there will be dissenters, some very loud, others very calculating, with a key mission, and that is to disrupt; managing the dissenters is a key part of the business.

Last year (2025) a momentous occasion occurred in NLP, and that is the two co-creators of the field, John Grinder and Richard Bandler, agreed to appear at the NLP 50 event, which occurred online on 27th September.  Given the years of separation, conflict, and legal cases between the two which had brought controversy to our field. By any standard NLP 50, bringing the co -creators together in one event celebrating 50 years of NLP was a fantastic achievement.

NLP 50, organised by myself and John La Valle from NLP Seminars Group International, was a resounding success. In just two weeks, we had 6500 people signed up, 1500 of these registered on the day, and we were significantly oversubscribed. John and Richard did not disappoint on the day, sharing their own unique perspectives on their collaboration, which built the field to be the global phenomenon it is today.

So at last there was peace at the top of the field, and I certainly thought the unity of NLP 50 would have been celebrated ubiquitously across the NLP world. How wrong I was; the silence from the NLP Associations, established trainers and training companies was deafening; they did nothing to help promote it, arguably, since the Grinder and Bandler split, the most important event in NLP.

And why?

As we see around our world, peace is not profitable in the eyes and minds of people who seek to make maximum gains in the short term out of conflict. The legal disputes between John Grinder and Richard Bandler were settled in 2000, and since then the two co-creators of NLP went about their business of bringing the work they co -created, and their individual later developments, to audiences around the world, professionally and in their own unique style, whilst this was not quite peace, it was a co-existence without conflict.

A lot of people made a lot of money from the Grinder – Bandler conflict and continued to promote the conflict long after the legal cases were settled in 2000. War is more profitable than peace (in the short term) and this conflict sure made others rich, at the expense of the co-creators.

So when NLP 50 was announced, and that the co-creators would appear at the same event to celebrate the anniversary of their first publication, ‘Structure of Magic 1’, silence from the associations, training companies and high-profile trainers was their contribution 

Peace at the very top of the NLP hierarchy did not suit their narrative, no longer could they lean on the historic conflict to promote themselves or sell a version of NLP that played down Bandler and Grinder’s contributions and oversell their own involvement.

At NLP 50, John and Richard were very clear about how NLP was created, and they should know because they created it.  Sure, there were people in their groups to help test the patterns that contributed to its creation, but John and Richard were the geniuses behind it all.  They spoke of the long hours they spent together, working into the night, testing and coding the patterns of human excellence.

 

So after the event, we made the NLP 50 videos available for all; the watch rate has been incredible. The NLP public is a lot smarter than the NLP Establishment; give them credit for it, and they fully recognise John Grinder and Richard Bandler as the co-creators of NLP. The public is not hoodwinked by the misinformation or no information from the establishment.

NLP was co-created by two people, John Grinder and Richard Bandler, and that is a history we should all be proud of. The NLP establishment can try to spin it in their favour, but you can’t change history, so it would be better if the field could accept the peace and fully credit the two people who gave us the field of Neuro Linguistic Programming.

Thank you, John and Richard. We are all in your debt.