Disclaimer: This is not an advertisement nor an endorsement. I make no money whatsoever from sales of this product.

I thought this was fascinating so I had to share this with you. I have no idea what’s in this product and whether it has any quality whatsoever.

But the idea of modeling the language patterns of diseased people before and after talking to doctors was a stroke of genius.

If this model is indeed genuine and based on factual research as opposed to opinions, this can seriously rattle the cage.

I’ll contact Mike Adams to see if I can get a copy of the product, which I’ll review for you right here on the blog. Meanwhile, just take a look to see a slanted application of NLP Modeling.

This post is on the power of detachment.

I don’t know exactly why this memory came to me today, but I felt compelled to share it with you on the blog. As you know if you’ve been reading me for a while, I seldom write about self-help when it doesn’t relate directly to learning and mastering NLP.

This will be one of those posts.

And what it covers is very, very important.

Many spiritual traditions, chiefly the eastern ones, discuss the power of detachment and how it frees us from stress and tension.

All of them teach the “let it go” philosophy, critical to enable us to get through the bad times.

I’ve experienced that few people ever learn detachment, and even fewer master it.

As a modeler, I’ve always been interested in the “how” of things. Naturally, I got interested in detachment a few years ago and eventually mastered it. Funny thing is, it happened in the most unexpected of ways.

The paradoxical nature of what you’re about to learn now gives us clues on how to resolve apparently inextricable problems.

I’d always heard the expression “This too shall pass…” in many situations. All these situations had one thing in common: they were all bad situations that anyone would naturally want to bring to its end as quickly as possible.

But one day, something weird happened. In the middle of a party, laughing with all my friends, having a complete blast of a time, this little voice popped into my mind that said: “This too shall pass…”

In that instant, a smile came to my face and I mastered detachment.

Because it’s easy to think “this too shall pass…” when times are bad. I wouldn’t say it’s tougher, but it’s definitely less obvious to think that when times are great. And yet, those are the only times when you can actually master detachment.

Why?

Because when you hold on to what’s good, you have to hold on to what’s bad. Letting go means letting go. No matter what it is you let go. If you learn how to let go of the good times, you’ll have an easy time letting go of the bad times.

We learn this weird notion that we have to chase the good times and avoid the bad times.

Pause and consider this: it makes no sense at all.

Quit chasing anything. Just let it come to you.

Quit avoiding anything. It’ll get you anyway. Brazilians have an expression that says: “Se correr o bicho pega, se ficar o bicho come.” (If you run the beast will catch you, if you stay the beast will eat you.) It’s true.

The key to detachment is to stay still and observe. Nothing should happen. Nothing shouldn’t happen.

The secret to dealing with the bad times is not caring about the good ones either. In the instant you can feel that in your bones, you master detachment and conquer your freedom.

So the next time you’re having the time of your life, where you’re exalted by how wonderful life is and feel happiness in every cell of your system, my voice will come into your experience and you’ll hear me say: “This too shall pass…”

Sam over at 37 Signals posted this.

No words needed.

How does it make you feel? Let it sink in…

When I popped open my inbox this morning, I landed on a spectacular blog post.

Seth had decided to talk about mood.

(Incidentally, if you’re not reading Seth’s blog religiously, you’re missing out on fundamental life and business inspiration. Subscribe today.)

In his post, Seth highlights that getting “how to” information is minimally important. The big piece of the puzzle is getting riled up to actually follow through.

This ties into something that Tony Robbins has hammered into the ground: mechanics is only 20% of the pie — psychology is 80%.

Strategy = 20%

Motivation = 80%

Seth then asserts that the real value of a message is in motivating you to act. Because the how is not the hard part. Just go to Border’s or Barnes and Noble (or your local bookstore if you live outside the US as I do) and you’ll find stacks and stacks of $14.99 books that will extensively reveal the “how” to you.

The tough part is finding one that makes you get off your butt and act.

“Rich Dad, Poor Dad” was such a book for me. I read it and, within a month, quit my job. I’ve never been employed again since.

Another one that gets me to move is Tom Peters. Watching him riff on business gets me totally motivated. I immediately stand up, start pacing and get my engine running.

That’s also the reason I listen to KISS and Bruce Springsteen — and I bet you have your equivalent preferred songs. When I hear them, I get up, move and get going with my life. Definitely something that hardly happens when I hear a melancholic song like 100 years (which I also love, by the way).

So what do Seth Godin, Tony Robbins, Tom Peters and KISS have in common?

They all put me in a state where I can take action.

That’s ultimately what Seth is talking about.

He’s talking about state.

And that’s what great communication and hypnosis is all about.

And if you want to learn how to alter states, learn from these guys, not from other NLPers. Watch rock concerts, eloquent politicians, movies, etc.

In one word, model. Absorb their strategies unconsciously instead of going for cheap “quick tips” from NLPers.

When you model as intensely as Tony Robbins has, you’ll know you’re mastering NLP.

Last night, I bought some dragon fruit at my local supermarket.

This is very exciting, because it’s the first time I encounter dragon fruit here. I tasted them over ten years ago in Viet Nam and got hooked. It became, along with the persimmon, my favorite fruit.

The reason I enjoyed it so much was because of its delicate citric, sweet taste. You can feel its cleansing effect the instant it hits your tongue and it’s lightly sweet, making it very palatable. Yet, it doesn’t present the strong sugar charge that other citric fruit like oranges offer.

This morning, after waking up, I delightfully split open my dragon fruit.

Very exciting!

Another suprise!

The dragon fruit I got accustomed to eating in Viet Nam were white. The dragon fruit I was holding was purple. I knew of at least two species of dragon fruit but had never encountered the purple kind before.

Curiosity took hold of me as I sank my little spoon into the delicate flesh of the fruit. Purple juice started emanating from it, reminding me of beet juice. 

I brought it to my mouth, in great expectation of re-living the pleasure I felt over ten years ago.

But I was disappointed.

The fruit was tasteless.

But here comes the interesting part. Unfortunately, my NLP teacher mind was out to lunch and I offered some to my two kids. My daughter is almost 4 and my son just turned 2.

Big mistake.

Why (and this is where we actually get to talk about NLP)? 

Because the instant the fruit hit their taste buds, my children created a taste-reference for dragon fruit.

And they now have a reference that dragon fruit doesn’t taste very good. Doesn’t taste bad either. To them, it’s just this bland, weird looking thing.

Compare that to my reference, the one I shared with you at the beginning of this post.

My experience makes me long for dragon fruit, leads me to desire it, makes me excited when I see one, because my first impression of dragon fruit shines in my memory every time I pause to think of it.

And this leads us to the importance of reference experiences and how they shape our day-to-day.

Tony Robbins, in his seminars and audio programs, discusses the importance of evaluations and how they determine the meaning we assign to our experiences. In a nutshell, we evaluate by comparing and constrasting our ongoing experience with our references. Of course, this happens mostly outside of our awareness, unless we choose to focus specifically on this.

You can be certain you do this with regard to everything in your life — so does everyone else. Whenever you’re going to buy a sandwich, you compare and contrast the price of the sandwich in front of you to prices of other sandwiches or stores where you’ve made purchases before. A “shortcut” way of describing this process is to say you’re evaluating. Your previous experiences in buying sandwiches serve as references in the process.

In NLP, we generally refer to the first reference as an imprint. It serves as the primal reference. As you progress in learning NLP and then mastering it, you’ll come across change patterns such as the Re-emprinting Method, The Generative Emprint and the Change of History Pattern. These particular patterns target our references with the intent of recreating them or at least wipe out their disempowering characteristics.

Life would have been different for my children had I offered them a first experience with dragon fruit that stunned their taste buds, leaving them with a reference that made them look forward to another serving. 

Creating empowering references for fruit

This example certainly brings up the importance, in the context of teaching outstanding nutritional habits to our children, of choosing and engineering empowering references for fruits and vegetables.

McDonald’s certainly does a fantastic job for hamburgers.

Every once in a while, you run into these little nuggets that actually make all the difference in understanding what happens once you master NLP.

It’s like a benchmark you reach. A flagpost, if you will, that lets you know how you’re progressing in your mastery of a certain discipline.

I was chatting with Robert Johannson of Svensk NLP (and, incidentally, The Riggio Model — if you’re not a member yet, rush there) and this particularly skill or quality came up in our conversation. We both do what I’m about to tell you, and I’m not sure we’d paid attention to how important as a measure of NLP proficiency.

Before I tell you what it is, I just want you to start paying even more attention to these little flagposts, these little clues that let us know that we’re making progress. Whenever you get the chance to interact with a master of NLP, really try to figure out what sets their skill apart. Generally, these are tiny distinctions on how they read people.

They use different lenses.

Try to zero in on those as fast as you can, because they will guide your development and accelerate it.

So for the uninitiated, this sounds funny at times — and it is.

When we’re interacting with someone, as they speak, all kinds of visual cues start popping up above their heads.

I’m not kidding.

Depending on what we’re sorting for in a particular interaction, different pieces of visual information start hovering around them, over them, next to them, and so on.

Robert was telling me about this in the context of examining people’s relationship to time. I was mentioning it in the context of examining the impact other people have on the client.

And we both construct holograms with the information that the client is giving us.

What’s so important about this, especially to newbies?

One of the differences you’ve probably observed between newbies and those who master NLP is the ease with which they operate.

Masters of NLP work easily and elegantly, almost effortlessly, right? In fact, that’s true about virtually any field. Think Martial Arts.

So what’s the secret to this effortlessness?

I’ll tell you in just a second… Bear with me.

Can you remember a time when someone caught your attention in a unique way? I mean, one particular piece of information she shared with you really hooked in with something you were already curious about at the time and this led you down a totally new, unexpected path in figuring out a problem you had.

Now, all of this happened because you effortlessly followed the flow naturally to guide you to where you wanted to go. It was all free, all simple and you were blown away by what you discovered.

That’s more or less what I’m talking about here. Our clients guide us in how we form and shape those visual cues.

So the secret I was telling you about is the way NLP Masters package information.

When Robert and I visualize holograms, those contain and present all the information we need as we’re working with the client in real time. We don’t need to stop and check notes or any of that. The hologram updates itself as we interact.

The package is tight, elegant, simple and easily updated.

Also, it completely frees our attention since we don’t waste any live memory trying to remember details of the interaction. It’s all right there in front of us.

Pay attention to these little phenomena that will start happening as you master NLP more and more. They let you know you’re making progress.

Malcolm Gladwell

In December, upon releasing Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell gave Charlie Rose an interview.

Fantastic stuff.

Especially for us folks interested in modeling. As I’ve said countless number of times, you must master modeling to master NLP.

I dig Malcolm Gladwell’s books. He always offers a slanted perspective on stuff we consider obvious.

One of the keys to excellence he brings up is the notion of the “10,000 hours”. This is the idea that you need to practice deliberately — that is, with the intent of improving your skill and eliminating weaknesses — for at least 10,000 hours before you can truly hone your skill.

Of course, he cites the usual suspects as evidence that the 10,000 hour theory holds: Bill Gates, Michael Jordan and the like.

Since we’re interested in mastering NLP, we want to shrink that number down. How can you achieve Jordan’s proficiency in less time? How can you achieve Bill Gates’s business vision in less time?

Can it actually be done?

Tim Ferriss purports that it can and even created a TV show around the idea.

Tim Ferriss training in horseback archery

In the end, what is the key to excellence? Is it really the number of hours? We might ask ourselves “what’s important about the number of hours invested in honing a skill (read: master NLP)?”

In a nutshell: pattern detection.

(And then, of course, pattern mastery.)

Repetition makes it possible for our mind-body to detect and, subsequently, assimilate patterns in what we observe and what we do.

Incidentally, this is one of the key distinctions that differentiates NLP Modeling from other modeling modalities: assimilating behavioral patterns prior to attempting to code them.

So, as an NLP modeler, I find it useful to dig deeper into Gladwell’s findings to identify the lynchpins that lead to excellence.

(Of course, in NLP, we knew it all along……. Just kidding.)

What you’re about to read is one of the most powerful strategies for you to master NLP beyond the rational level.

You see, 90% of new students try to learn NLP rationally.

The little exercise you are about to engage in will get you to learn NLP irrationally.

And what you will do is this.

Within the context of your family, you will express yourself entirely non-verbally during the course of two days.

Yeah, you heard me right.

You will have to express your feelings, your desires and other communications using analog channels: making sounds, using gestures, facial expressions and so on.

The key here is to knock you out of the constant use of digital words, which usually tend to shut down our senses and prevent us from really taking in the rich contextual clues present in every communication.

If you’re pissed, make a lot of growling noises. Express your rage in that way. Only one rule: no words.

How can you express your caring to your kids without words? What sounds would you make?

How will you tell your spouse or significant other that they are the most important part of your life?

Hint: Welcome to the world of pattern interrupts! If you think that weird questions do a great job for interrupting patterns, wait until you experience this.

I routinely leverage this particular exercise in my own family to flex my analog muscles. It’s usually great fun for everyone. Do it too.

In this one, he won’t be acting as the modeler.

He’ll be the modeling coach.

What I find incredibly cool about the project is that he got involved with something I nudged him about when he published Whispering In The Wind.

If you want to better understand modeling, look at this web site and watch all the interviews — especially those with John Grinder.

Once you criss-cross references of this modeling project with the initial modeling projects that gave birth to Neurolinguistic Programming — modeling Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson — your understanding of modeling will easily quintuple (I just pulled that number out of my ***).

Seriously… This is the chance to divorce yourself of the notion that NLP somewhat equates with “therapy” just because the initial modeling was done with therapists.

Watch and learn!

Oh, and merry Christmas to you and your dear ones.

Steve

PS: HowToMasterNLP.com will be one year old next Sunday!