This month marks 20 years since I did my very first NLP training. Having spent 18 years before then working as an accountant in the corporate world I was ready for a change. At the start of 2005, as I contemplated that change, coaching was one of the career choices that came to mind. Whilst researching coaching on the internet, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) kept popping up. At that stage I had never even heard of NLP. But as I looked more into it, NLP seemed foundational to coaching. So, taking a training in NLP seemed to be my first step. When I received the pre-study materials I was surprised how well the content already resonated with my values. On the course I was able to let go of a limiting belief, integrate an internal conflict, and let go of a negative emotion. All these things helped to convince me of the efficacy of the NLP approach, and that positive change was possible. More than that I also got the sense that I could deliver this training effectively too. Becoming a trainer of NLP also seemed like a better career choice than just being a coach. Though as it happens for the last 20 years I have done both.
The drive to be the best that I could be in this field meant that I did the NLP Master Practitioner training in 2005/06, and then the NLP Trainers Training in Sydney, with Tad James in October 2006. When I worked as an accountant for Athur Andersen in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I had the opportunity to run a couple of training courses on bookkeeping and auditing, and I always jumped at the chance to do other technical presentations too. But I certainly didn’t have the skills to be a very effective or confident presenter. But doing the NLP Trainers Training gave me all the skills I needed, and with that my confidence grew. If you have content that you are passionate about and the skills of a presenter, then you become unstoppable. For several years I spent late July and early August in Las Vegas assisting Tad James with his NLP Trainers Training. Honing my skills and learning how to deliver the transformational trainers training myself. I became a Master Trainer of NLP in 2013, and in 2015 I delivered my first NLP Trainers Training in Barcelona, in the Room of the Sun (as the meeting room was called), to 12 delegates. Over the years many of my NLP Trainers have since gone onto run their own certified NLP courses, or to use their skills to level-up their own business performance.
And what have I learned over these 20 years of NLP –
- Long lasting mental change, or growth is possible. But just because it is possible, and sometimes very easy, doesn’t mean that everyone you meet will do it. And you need to be okay with that.
- Skill acquisition takes dedication and practice. You can learn something fairly quickly, but really embedding it takes more time.
- You are only ever as good as your last client session or training.
- You can’t make anyone else do anything, but you can influence them.
- Process is key. Having a reliable process to follow, for coaching and training (different for both), supports you.
- The world is full of amazing and very different people. Although I have literally (actually literally) delivered over 200 NLP Trainings, each one is different.
- Acting on your passions in life, to the best of your ability with zero insistence placed on a particular outcome, brings you exactly what you need.
- Questions & curiosity, given or received, open the doors to expanding your reality.
So what about the next 20 years I hear you ask? Anyone who has attended one of my trainings or read my book It’s Time, will know that my interests don’t stop at NLP or personal development. Throughout my life I have had a number of non-ordinary experiences. These have convinced me that reality isn’t quite what we think it is. As well as continuing to deliver NLP Trainings and coaching sessions, I imagine that more of my time will be dedicated to the non-ordinary. Where that leads, who knows, I will just have to trust the process and find out.
“Face the facts of being what you are, because that changes what you are.” – Søren Kierkegaard
