Michael Carroll's Blog

One of my favourite things about NLP is that it is very much a doing sport. We seek to steer clear at Practitioner and Master Practitioner level of unnecessary theory and over analysis of labels and NLP epistemology. (We do this at NLP Trainers Training) The intention behind this is when you can truly do NLP and successfully apply NLP to others and yourself you are then in a congruent position to firstly understand the theoretical concepts behind NLP and secondly pass them on to others in a Training setting. I class myself as good driver (those close to me may disagree) to successfully drive a car I do not need to know how every mechanism inside of the car works, how to build a car or the historical developments that occurred from the very first car that was built . I simply just need to know how to drive it; I guess I’m the equivalent of Practitioner level in car driving. If I was a formula one racing driver it would be a completely different story, it’s vital for an elite driver to be able to calibrate and understand the tiniest changes that occur during a grand prix to ensure high performance is continual throughout the race. To do this they need an advanced level of practical and theoretical understanding of the car in order to ensure it feels right as they travel at death defying speeds whilst the car is running as quick as it possibly can, this is a continual process over many years of practice. To continue my analogy you could class them at Trainer level. The same is relevant for many contexts ranging from NLP, golf, sales, swimming to name just a few. Learning theory before practical experience can have disastrous consequences such as the eccentric academic who read a book on swimming and on his first ever attempt to actually swim jumped of Brighton pier and promptly drowned, the sea takes no prisoners. This is why we stress the importance of coming to one of our courses and learning how to DO NLP so you can model, learn and make mis-takes in a safe environment before going out there and using this stuff where the results do matter and experience and options are key. Books won’t prepare you for this before practical experience. Get your experience first and then learn the theory, this way the theory makes sense as you have the associations to the patterning being presented based on experiences using it with others and personal experiences as well. The theory will then enhance your NLP practitioner skills and ready you for training others equipped with the WHY so that you can fully satisfy the conscious minds in your training room, but actually do this effectively so your students can benefit from your experience as a highly effective change agent, model you and then do this themselves with others successfully.

I started an article yesterday with it being marathon season at the moment on NLP and Hypnosis tips for running. Due to yesterdays terrible bomb attack on marathon runners and spectators at the world famous Boston marathon out of respect I will not complete this article today. My thoughts are with the injured, the deceased and the families affected by this horrendous tragedy.

The differences between a NLP Academy Premier Practitioner and a NLP Academy Business Practitioner
This is a great question and one that I’m asked regularly hence my blog post today. Hopefully by the time you’ve read this you’ll have a much clearer idea into the similarities and the differences between the two courses.

It’s been a great month here at the Academy; we’ve just completed our NLP Premier Practitioner with John Grinder, Carmen Bostic St Clair and Michael Carroll. It was a fantastic 2 weeks, we were joined by one of the most open, funny and special groups that I have ever worked with, though they all tend to be like that . The beauty of our 13 day intensive double track New & Classic Code approach is that our Practitioners have enough time to integrate, practice and have those breakthrough moments without us cramming the content into a 6 day course. We have found through teaching the Classic and New Code at the same time for you as practitioners is that you have the techniques wired inside of you completed unconsciously without the unnecessary need or focus on the theoretical side of NLP (you can concentrate on that after the practitioner if you wish to learn theory) .NLP is a doing subject like any skill or sport and that’s why we teach you to DO NLP here through NLP modelling, demonstrations and exercises. That way it keeps it relevant, fun and you achieve great results in the context of application you have chosen to apply NLP.

Hello from me.

I’ve been away of late on a nice little vacation hence the lack of blogs of late. A lot seems to be going on in the world right now with the crisis in North Korea and Baroness Thatchers death yesterday.

Morning to all, I trust you had a smashing weekend. We’re just 6 days from the start of a busy spring season of NLP, starting with the internationally renowned Premier Practitioner with John Grinder, Carmen Bostic St Clair and Michael Carroll. We then have a very special one day event with John and Carmen called NLP Past, present and future. At the same time we will be running our New Code mentoring program only open to our ITA Trainers of NLP.

This is an interesting question which I have been contemplating over the past few weeks. Personally I feel the best way to discuss this is to transfer the same theory across different contexts. Would you seek advice about investing from someone who has never invested? Or have golf lessons from someone who has never picked up a club? Though these are two fairly cut and dry examples it provokes an interesting conundrum when choosing who to work with, surely it makes sense to receive coaching from someone who has been through a successful coaching process themselves. At the same time with the same theory let’s say your outcome from coaching is to be a happy surely finding and modelling someone who is happy all the time is the way to go right? Let’s say you want to lose weight, is being given advice from someone else who has lost weight is the way to go? Or like the happy person is finding someone who is healthy all time so has never needed to lose weight the person to go and work with? But if both the happy or healthy person hasn’t been formally coached then doesn’t that mean they’re out of the picture? Or have we all being coached one way or another informally in a professional and educational structure?

Sometimes people behave in ways that are inappropriate.  A person may have personal habits or little idiosyncrasies that others may find offensive.  When a child is growing up, their bad behaviors can be corrected and stopped, but what if the person that is acting in a terrible manner is an adult?  What if this person has no idea his or her attitude is offense and detrimental to others? To help a person identify their behavior there is something called NLP, which stands for neuro linguistic programming.  With the help of an NLP practitioner, a person can transform their bad behavior into a brand new productive attitude.

Neuro linguistic programming is characterized as an approach to psychotherapy, social communication, and both personal and interpersonal development. Neuro linguistic programming refers to the connections which occur between neurological processes in the brain and experienced based behavioral patterns. Hence, “neuro”—neurological—and “programming,” or learned behavior experiences. Neuro linguistic programming is typically referred to as a pseudoscience by the scientific community because techniques used in neuro linguistic programming often uses data based on subjective data, such as personal experiences, rather than more objective and scientific methods; however, many people have found benefits through the study and use of neuro linguistic programming and although its methods may not be scientifically proven, they are useful to those with an interest in the communication and psychotherapy fields.

Since some people have ethical concerns about NLP, we are going to attempt to address some of those concerns in this article. Neuro linguistic programming gives the NLP practitioner great power, and as Spiderman himself has so eloquently taught us, with great power comes great responsiblity. This power needs to be used responsibly both in informal and clinical settings. Fortunately, there is no shortage of responsible uses, and the dangers of abuse are very minimal. The reasons the dangers of abuse are so minimal is that even the subconscious mind is governed by one’s personal senses of morality and self preservation.