Maybe you’ve heard of NLP or maybe
you haven’t. If you haven’t just type it in Google and everything you want
to know about it will pop on your screen. For those who do know NLP or for
those who are practicing it here are some of my views on it. The guy who
fronts it is Richard Bandler who is a larger than life character who seems
to have a Svengali like effect on his students.
Watching Richard Bandler teach is
a bit like watching Billy Connelly the only difference is that Billy is
funny and Richard is annoying. Also a Billy Connelly DVD will cost you
around a tenner but a Richard Bandler DVD filmed on an old cine camera will
cost you around £75. The worst thing about watching a Richard Bandler DVD is
that he takes about an hour to tell you one thing. Though RB devotees will
say those stories he tells are in fact metaphors for personal growth that
only clever people understand.
I find it impossible to watch a RB
DVD anymore as there’s so much babble going on (which is supposed to secret
hypnotic messages bypassing the conscious mind) that I actually feel annoyed
watching it. It seems like the people in the audience are his greatest fans
as they are always laughing at his hilarious jokes. Also RB likes to take
the opportunity to slag off other NLP gurus even those he has taught
himself.
You may have the opinion that I am
not a big fan of NLP but that’s not so. It has some good ideas some of which
I have used, myself but it is the undertones of NLP that disturbs me. I have
met many people who have had NLP training and have been let down by the NLP
promise. What disturbs me most is that how a lot of faithful NLP devotees
seem addicted to further training (which isn’t cheap) and that their
personalities become robotic after too much NLP.
I remember talking a to an NLP’er
one Christmas and I asked him if he was going out for New Year. I kid you
not that it took him twenty seconds to reply. I could hear the cogs going
round in his head (looking for the hidden meaning in what I had said!) and
then he replied, “Yes”. The problem with NLP is that it makes you over
analyse everything making your personality change. When I meet NLP’ers they
always seem nice people but I feel like I’m speaking to Doctor Spock. They
seem so in control of themselves that they seem emotionless. I feel like
shouting at them “Just be yourself!!!!”
Some of the NLP tools are great
and if you want to understand more about the mechanics of our thinking it
makes an interesting read. I find though some people who do the training
afterwards think they’re better than others. Some take the master
practitioner title a little too seriously. The truth about NLP is that it
can help you become a more confident human being but don’t think it will
make you as charismatic as the people who tout it. Watching successful
people in various fields and then creating a model based upon those findings
formed a lot of NLP in the early days. A lot of stuff is actually old stuff
repackaged to sound new and innovative.
Conclusion
Learn NLP and also use
it but don’t run your life by it. Don’t buy into that NLP’ers are living a
better life than everybody else and that NLP is the Holy Grail crap. Its
good but not that good. I know and use NLP but I have retained my
personality. Use what you want out of it. Don’t try to model RB or anybody
else, work on your self-improvement and enjoy the uniqueness of yourself.
You’ll never be Richard Bandler (thank God).
