Richard Bandler Reveals his NLP secrets - Book Review

The foundations of the modern Personal Development industry were quarried out of a new world view and away from traditional Freudian analysis.

Through the codifying of behavior to identify what works, why it works, and how it works, a new path was forged with the objective of facilitating change, not by virtue of hours of talk and endless questioning, but instantaneous change born out of simple techniques.

This new direction was manifested in the NLP movement of the late '70's. Change is rarely universally popular, particularly if it confronts the very fabric of a lucrative, if somewhat arcane industry. That industry was traditional psychology.

The first superstar of this movement was uber-celebrity, Coach to the stars, Author, and Seminar leader extraordinaire, Anthony Robbins. Love him or hate him, his impact is powerful and ubiquitous, and he will go down as one of the great salesmen of his generation.

This Review however is not about Mr Robbins, but the rather less known, though hugely respected in his field, Richard Bandler. Bandler co-founded Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) with John Grinder and coached the likes of Robbins who then packaged, rebranded and sold it to the world.

GET THE LIFE YOU WANT will be looked on as the bible of NLP. Bandler is an innovator, a doer, a worker bee and queen bee at the same time. He is not however an entertainer. This book strips the mysticism, magic and psycho babble from this oft derided "behavioral technology". Ironically one of his earlier masterpieces was titled the THE STRUCTURE OF MAGIC

There is no strong premise to the book. Rather Bandler ascribes to the Keep It Simple lesson. His assertions are all backed up by practical examples of his methodology and results. The key message is that desired change; change of attitude, elimination of Phobias, eliminating emotional baggage, changing beliefs and overcoming any number of obstacles, does not need to be a gradual process. Change can and should be quick.

He contends that all beliefs, fears, addictions, worries and self doubt are learned, and therefore can be unlearned. The key is to mirror and model the thought processes, breathing patterns, posture, and physiology of those that are better adapted.

Phobias are a mentally created fear and mostly can be eliminated by "noticing" the thought processes that precede the utter fear. The question is asked "how do you get in to that state?" 'what do you think about and focus on to create the fear?" "what is the voice in your head saying preceding this fear?" Now let's look at how non-phobics react in the same situations. Notice what's different and mirror it.

This is a book about the techniques that produce results. Good and bad. Even the cynically minded will feel somewhat seduced by the actual stories of profound success, and the speed of change.

A more diluted presentation of the world of NLP than Anthony Robbins' best seller "UNLIMITED POWER". From the Granddaddy of NLP, this is a remarkably clear introduction, and unadulterated with academic references, as one might have expected from a lifetime scientist. As they say if you only ever read one book on the topic, this is probably it. Big title, little hype. 

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