NLP - How To Change The Way You Think

No amount of NLP was ever going to make me a great sportsman!

There is an awful lot of hype and bulls**t around the idea of Neuro Linguistic Programming. Practitioners and those with a product to sell often appear to be making exaggerated claims and seriously "over-egging" it.

What Neuro Linguistic Programming can't do

I have even seen aficionados claiming that with NLP you can gain so much control over your mind - and thus your life - that you can become or achieve just about anything.

This is just not true.

What Neuro Linguistic Programming CAN do

No amount of NLP is going to make me a great sportsman. Why? Because I do not have the talent! I have 2 left feet.

What it can do is give you a powerful and easy to use tool for controlling your emotional state at will and on demand, and thus allowing you to do whatever you are good at to the very best of your ability.

Even more importantly, using it to achieve a personal peak performance at a "mission critical" point is in certain situations key to major breakthroughs and success.

There may also be other situations where gaining control over your emotional states can be very helpful, such as getting over a broken relationship or dealing with a major set-back.

How one simple NLP technique helped me to earn over $300,000 (on one deal)

I want to share a true story about an amazing experience I had using a simple NLP technique 15 years ago. And yes it really did make the difference between me earning $15,000 and over $300,000 on one contract.

Just over 15 years ago, whilst working for a corporate client in the IT sector, I was asked by a major account manager (for whom I had previously delivered a successful intiative) to go and help one of his programme directors - let's call him Mr T - who was experiencing big delivery problems.

$30m was at stake...

In fact Mr T's team was 6 months into an 18 month project, and hadn't hit a single milestone! Their client was threatening litigation. $30m was at stake.

I tried to contact Mr T, but he didn't take my calls or respond to messages. So one day, on a return trip from another project, I undertook a major detour, and physically called in on Mr T and his senior project manager.

He did confirm that they had major issues, but couldn't see how "yet another bl**dy consultant could make any difference". Reluctantly and largely to manage the politics of his relationship with the account manager, he gave me a 3 week contract (worth about $15,000)....

I was absolutely terrifed

I arrived at the office block that had been rented for the project duration and that housed the several teams of over 300 software developers, project experts, and IT experts - all sitting hunched over their desktops and laptops - all looking sooo competent and soooo busy - and I was absolutely terrifed (and I really don't scare easily).

I was IT illiterate!

I could see this was a massive career and commercial opportunity for me, and yet I felt overwhelmed. All of my dormant insecurities rose to the surface.

Why? Because, I am embarrassed and slightly ashamed to admit that at that time I was IT illiterate (I had grown up in era when IT was delegated to support staff).

As I returned to my hotel room after my first day, I realised two things: firstly that the problems were people problems and not IT problems and so I COULD solve it; and secondly, that I needed to FEEL that I could solve it - I had to overcome those crippling negative feelings as I entered the office block.

My nervous system was flooded with powerful feelings of success

I put into practise a simple NLP technique that I had learned some while before - based around an anchor and trigger linked to a past success and the FEELING of that success.

Here's what I did. From the second morning - and for each morning of the next 3 weeks - I activated the trigger as I stepped through the office door and my nervous system was flooded with powerful feelings of success and confidence and I felt empowered.

That feeling translated into action...

... within 3 weeks I made sure that his team met their first milestone. 12 months later I was still there and the project was completed on time and in budget. Mr T and his team hit every single one of the subsequent 183 milestones.

Through that one simple NLP technique I was able to help him save his project and he delivered a $5m profit. I earned a lot of money (over $300k) and respect and we became good friends.