NLP Modeling - How To Acquire Any Skill or Expertise (Part 1)

One of the most essential strategies of NLP is modeling. In a nutshell, modeling is a technique of imitating the skills of another person until those skills are internalized and become your own. One of the first areas of expertise that modeling became an important tool was in skiing.

In the early to mid 20th century, it was commonly thought that a person was either born with the skills to become a great skier or the person was born without those skills.

Instructors thought they could teach a beginner a few basics, but after that, either their students had the right stuff or they didn't.

Then along came slow motion photography. Students could then watch films of expert skiers and mimic their moves in front of the screen. What these students were doing was matching the physiology of the skiers as they watched them.

Modeling has since been adapted to help salespeople improve their selling skills, soldiers improve their marksmanship, golfers improve their swings (you knew golfers would quickly get hold of any way to improve their game, didn't you?), lawyers improve their courtroom skills.

Nowadays, there is even a whole body of literature popping up on the internet to help insecure men learn to pick up women, just like rockstars and professional athletes. And guess what? These NLP techniques work and really are helping these men become more successful with women (we'll leave the ethics of this for a later discussion).

Researchers have found that any skill or area of expertise can be modeled. Now realistically, not everyone has the physical talent to become a Tony Romo or a Tiger Woods. But within the limits of a person's natural talents, an athlete can make huge gains by modeling one of the greats.

Literally no area of human accomplishment is out of bounds when it comes to modeling. In James Van Fleet's book, Hidden Power, he even give the example of an Army officer who had had too much to drink at an officers' party. Afraid that he was embarrassing himself, he went into the restroom and stood in front of the mirror.

Little by little, as he adjusted his posture and facial expression to what he saw of himself in the mirror, he "sobered" himself up. Now I don't doubt for a minute that a modern blood-alcohol test would have nailed him, but to all visible appearances ,this man was sober for the rest of the evening.

He was able to do this because he had seen himself sober and also had a solid imprint of others in the state of sobriety. The mirror gave him the visual feedback he needed to adjust his physiology to match sobriety.

I don't want to over simplify modeling for you. It requires a lot of study, both of the techniques to be used, and of the subject you intend to model. Nevertheless, the promise NLP offers for modeling is incredible.

Just imagine any skill that you want to acquire. Neuro-linguistic programming can show you how you can make that skill your own. There are only two requirements:

• You must have the raw talent to build on. In other words, I am not, starting off at the age of 52, going to become a professional athlete.
• You must find someone sufficiently skillful in the area you want to model and be able to spend time observing that person to find what that person's strategies are.

Now I'll grant you there is a lot more involved than what I have briefly discussed here. In the next article in this series, I'll give you a reading list of books and materials you can use to learn more about NLP and modeling.

NLP Modeling - 4 Lessons You Can Learn From Anthony Robbins

Anthony Robbins has introduced more people to NLP than anyone else I can think of. And while many practitioners of NLP frequently dismiss him as being no more than a showman, a businessman or a "disco" NLPer, we can still learn much from him. I for one have participated in almost all of his trainings, for reasons I'll explain in greater details in this article.

1. Model. Anthony Robbins achieved what he achieved because he understood and practices constantly the first directive of NLP, which I've discussed at length in another article: the core discipline of NLP is modeling. In an interview, John Grinder retells of the days when Anthony Robbins was his student. He recounts that once the seminar ended, Tony approached him and said he understood that modeling lied at the heart of NLP and that he was committed to modeling. He then asked Grinder what project he could undertake to prove his commitment. John Grinder suggested firewalking. "The rest," as Grinder puts it, "is history." Anthony Robbins is primarily a modeler and you must adopt this identity.

2. Do what works. In his seminars, Anthony Robbins amply demonstrates his change techniques. The advanced student of NLP can distinguish therapeutic patterns that NLP has coded in his interventions, but also some different patterns that he created or incorporated from other fields into his work. The most important trait that he demonstrates during his intervention is his absolute commitment to getting the result that he's after, notably to move another human being into a place of greater access to inner resources. And he's a master at doing this.

3. Involve physiology at all times. Few if any other trainers focus on physiology as fiercely and intensely as Anthony Robbins does. The only one I've come across who focuses as intently on physiology is the man who taught him NLP: John Grinder. To him, physiology defines the limits of a person's access to his or her resources. That's why he pushes and stretches all participants in his seminars to get to their physical edge. Because he understands that, due to the mind-body connection, you can only go as far as your physiology permits it.

4. Learn from and pay attention to John Grinder. This lesson is perhaps the strangest or most uncommon of all. But you must attend to it. Of all the early students of NLP, Anthony Robbins is far and away the most successful. This is not to say that he is the best teacher of NLP or that he has reached a greater refinement in exercising his skills. But he has leveraged his mastery to accomplish more than any other student of NLP in the world. And his NLP master was John Grinder.Richard Bandler is far and away the most popular of the two co-founders of NLP. The term "Richard Bandler" receives more than 10,000 searches a month, while "John Grinder" receives less than 2,000. His creativity and mastery of language keeps seminar participants spellbound during days. I acknowledge Bandler as the creative force behind NLP. Yet, Bandler lacks the health, discipline and vitality that I'd expect from someone who has mastered NLP.

That's where John Grinder shows up. Well in his sixties, he actively involves himself in challenging physical activities such as climbing and scuba diving, constantly pushing his edge. And while I've never heard or seen him display the verbal prowesses that Bandler displays, he is a much more inspiring model overall to aspire to. I recognize him to be the organizing, disciplined and directive force behind NLP. And this distinction is absolutely fundamental. Anthony Robbins has benefitted from this.

If you're new to NLP, don't be too quick to judge Anthony Robbins. Many people in the field trash him day in day out. The most important thing to keep in mind is to learn from Anthony Robbins by watching him, as opposed to listening to what he teaches. Observe how he works. Observe his movements. Observe his posture. Feel his intensity. Hear his tonality. In other words, model him. Just as Grinder and Bandler paid little attention to what Milton Erickson had to say about hypnosis and a lot of attention to what he did to produce results.

Anthony Robbins is a genius at producing change within people (and also marketing himself and his products) and for that reason, you'll find it worth your time to model him.

You probably know that Tony learned his chops from NLP masters. But did you know that Tony Robbins's interventions revolve around one fundamental skill?

Stop wasting your time until you've mastered that skill.

How to Use NLP to Master NLP

With NLP being the technology of achievement, NLP trainees miss a trick when learning new NLP techniques; they don't use NLP to accelerate their learning. This short article will use several NLP techniques to help you master any NLP technique quickly, in just 4 easy steps.

Remember repetition is the key to success, to master NLP you need to practice, practice and practice which means practicing even when you have completed your NLP course. So many people pay for NLP training, only to never use it in their life, take what you have learnt and apply it to be more successful, it has worked for me and many of my business associates and coaching clients.

The following 4 NLP techniques will help you access your best learning state, learning form what went wrong and by asking the future you to give you some positive advice.

1. Find Your Best Learning Strategy think about to a time that you were your best at learning, relive this experience as if you were there now, learning at your best. What is the first that happened when you were learning at your best? Did you visualise something? Did you hear something or did you feel something? What was the first thing that happened? What happened next, did you see, hear or feel something? Keep asking the what happened next question until you at the end of your learning strategy "nothing, I was at my best." You can now use your best learning strategy to learn NLP

2. There is no failure only feedback - make lots and lots of mistakes, keep trying techniques and get them wrong. After each mistake, ask what did I learn from this experience? How can this make me better at NLP? Use your answers to prefect your learning and delivery of NLP techniques.

3. Perceptible Positions imagine you could see someone who was really good at NLP techniques, observe what they are doing, how are they stood, what is their rate of breath, how do they move, stand, talk - become aware of everything that makes this person good at NLP. Next imagine you could step into their body, take on their posture, mannerisms and jesters. As you now feel like this person, take on their beliefs and values, see the world from their eyes and give yourself the self talk this person gives themselves. As you step out of their body take all this new learning and experiences with you to improve your NLP techniques

4. Imagine being on a timeline, as you view this timeline imagine that everything in your future is perfect, you master NLP and you use NLP to better your life - see your life ahead of you as you live your life to the full. Notice 4 images on your timeline set out every quarter throughout the twelve month period, on each image see yourself being your best, notice all the detail and how happy you are in each of these images. Walk through your timeline, through each of these 4 images until you're in the forth image. While in the last future image, step into this future you and see the world from the eyes of this older you, how do you feel, what do you see and hear? Look back down your timeline to the you know and give yourself some useful advice - what do you want to tell yourself? That's great, now come back down your timeline taking on this new learning until you step back into yourself in the now.

These 4 NLP techniques will help you master NLP, as you learn more NLP techniques use these same techniques to improve your NLP ability. NLP has many levels, to master all these different levels you need to practice and practice. If you have a goal you want to achieve use the NLP well formed outcome techniques which we will post on ezine very soon so keep your eyes out, but for now we would like to wish you the best of luck with Your Life, Your Career and Your Future.