From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections – 2010 – #16
April 12, 2010
THE ULTIMATE META-STATE TRANCE
If there is any hypnotic trance state that is the ultimate one for a Neuro-Semanticist, it is the genius state. But no, the use of the word genius does not mean it is a hypnotic state for increasing your I.Q., that’s not the purpose of this particular trance. Instead this is the induction into a state of being all there. It is a state of absolute focus on one thing. Normally, when you experience it, you are in a powerful state of concentration and absorption. And when you are there people may think that you have really tranced out or they may think that you really have fabulous powers of focus and will power. The genius state is a state wherein you are in “flow” and even better, you can turn the flow state on and off at will.
Now while I never present the genius state as a hypnotic process and state, it absolutely is. When you experience this naturally occurring state (and everybody does at some time), it seems to happen to you, to come upon you, and when you look back on it, you typically remember it as a wonderful experience.
What induces it? Usually something that’s very important to you, something that you actively engage with and when you do, you get lost in it. You become thrilled and absorbed in it. It could be reading a book, it could be walking in a Redwood forest, it could be gardening, it could be playing catch with your dogs, writing, watching a great movie, having a fantastic conversation with a friend, making love, climbing a rock wall, playing a video game, and on and on the list goes.
The key is absorption in something that you care about, an absorption that pulls you into it so much so that you can get lost in it. Then, in that moment when you are in that “flow” state, you are not multi-tracking. You have lost all of your meta-mind awarenesses about all of the other things you need to do and track and you have become of one mind about the absorption. Now in that moment, you won’t realize this! If you were aware of it, you would be double-tracking. But you’re not.
It is only later when you look back on the experience that you realize that you during that time you were all there— fully and completely. And during that time you realize that many of the central factors of your consciousness disappeared. Time disappeared and you were lost in the now, this moment, and your awareness of time just vanished. So did the world and others and even your self vanished. These facets of the matrix of your mind were still there, but you lost consciousness of them. You became self-forgetful, time forgetful, world forgetful. All you were aware of was the subject of whatever the focus was about.
Athletes experience this as when a gymnast disappears the audience and they are there alone with the high bars or the floor. A baseball pitcher similarly disappears a whole stadium. In their focus-flow-genius state all that is there is the ball and the batter. When an athlete goes into this special state, they typically call it being in the zone. And a couple years ago Tim Goodenough and Mike Cooper, two Meta-Coaches modeled out 13 distinctions from top South African athletes (Olympiads and national champions) in their Neuro-Semantic book, In the Zone.
In the field of NLP the first work on the prerequisites of the “personal genius state” was developed by John Grinder and Judith DeLozer (1983- 1987). The processes that they came up with were interesting, but quite convoluted and therefore ineffective. They were fooling around with meta-levels as they were trying to figure out how to utilize the guidance of Gregory Bateson and his principles of the higher levels. And they even wrote that they knew the secret would tie in somehow with managing the meta-levels. They got thta from Bateson, they just didn’t know how to apply it. That came later after I created the Meta-States model (1994). One of my very first applications of Meta-States was to the genius state prerequisites and that brought about the Accessing Your Personal Genius state or induction (and hence the APG training).
What Meta-States was able to do as a process, and as the ultimate hypnotic state, was to set the required meta-levels (as meta-states or frames) over the primary state so that you can let go of the meta-awarenesses and be fully present in the primary state. Doing this commissions the higher meta-states to operate as an out-side of conscious awareness structure. It’s paradoxical, as is many hypnotic states. To release the multi-tracking kind of consciousness, you learn how to embrace your meta-level states and use them so that you are freed for letting them go— from your immediate awareness.
Then you can be all there— with all of your resources available for the flow or in-the-zone state. Then when you read, you fully comprehend because you are there (and not elsewhere!). Then when you write, you don’t suffer the dreaded “writer’s block.” Then when you are there with a client or loved one, you are there and they can feel your full presence. And now you know why we use the APG training to create your genius coaching state, genius training state, genius writing state, wealth creation state, etc. It is the ultimate Neuro-Semantic state for operating from your highest and best. So that makes it a self-actualizing state. And now you know why APG — Accessing Personal Genius— is the flagship training of Neuro-Semantics.
From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections – 2010 – #15
April 5, 2010
META-STATE TRANCES
While “hypnosis” is not real (Meta Reflection #14), not real externally, not an objective thing, it is subjectively compelling and can be transformative. Well, it can also be destructive and neurotizing. It all depends on what suggestions you are giving yourself in the process. In other words, the content of what you are programming into yourself with your images, sounds, words, language, ideas, frames, and meanings determines the quality (or lack thereof) of the state you are inducing.
That’s what “hypnosis” is—an induction of state and you are always inducing yourself into states. And every time you alter your state and go into an inward focus of attention on something that you are remembering or imagining that’s not currently present— you are in a hypnotic state. There’s really nothing mysterious about it, it is how “thinking” works. You can be present listening to someone or walking down the street or driving on a highway or working out in the gym, but on the inside you are not there. You are somewhere else!
Realizing and recognizing that such state inductions is a trance, de-mystifies hypnosis a bit. It also highlights the fact that you, and only you, can hypnotize you. That’s why it is said in the literature on hypnosis that ultimately all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. You are doing it to yourself. Yes, someone may be leading the process, but it only works if you allow it to, if you follow along and use the words to go somewhere in your mind. You can always resist.
So all of the myths about a hypnotist “controlling” you and making you do things you don’t want to do is just that—myths. It is not hypnosis that makes some flap their wings and make sounds like a chicken. They are doing that and they are choosing to do that. Yes, this myth makes for fascinating Hollywood movies for those who don’t know better: a hypnotist hypnotizes someone to murder someone and then gives a post-hypnotic suggestion that they won’t remember it! But it does not work that way. Milton Erickson once said that if hypnosis had that kind of power, “there would be a whole lot of people healthier and more sane.”
Do we use hypnosis in Neuro-Semantics? Do we induce states so that people transition (trance) from the state that they are in and access new and more resourceful states? Yes, of course. In fact, every pattern is actually a hypnotic pattern. That’s because every “pattern” invites a person to go up, up and away, into the higher realms of the mind, to set new higher frames that will create more positive and resourceful states.
When we do this, we participate in accessing higher states of mind that we find enjoyable and effective. We move upward to our frames of reference. Now in writing this, I’m using the “up” metaphor for trance rather than the “down” metaphor. Both also are metaphors and so not real! It’s just a way of talking about things. The “down” metaphor is more traditional and in NLP history, it came from Transformational Grammar (TG) that talked about surface sentences and the “deep” structure.
Using the Meta-States Model, in Neuro-Semantics we turn the metaphor upside down. We talk about going inside and then up to your reference system as your frames of references by which you create the meanings that you give to something. These higher frames establish the structure for how you are thinking about something. And whenever you set a frame, you are programming into your mind a meaning that contains suggestions and implications and these will induce you into a state.
What do you think about criticism? Wherever you go in your mind as you answer that question, you are inducing yourself into a hypnotic state. Do you know that? That’s because “criticism” is not real. It does not exist in the real world. What you call “criticism” is a construct that you have created. If it means to you that someone is saying something that disagrees with you or your ideas, or saying something that attacks your behaviors, your person, your reputation, etc., then you probably have some movie playing in your mind about someone saying words in a certain way that you call “criticism.” If I could peak into the movie of your mind, what would I see playing? What do you see? Or hear? Or sense? What hypnotic induction have you used on yourself?
Now given that movie, how much fun do you have playing that movie? Not much? How much fun would you like to have? And how could you create that fun, that humor, that silliness? Are you skilled at exaggerating your pictures? At editing the sounds so that you can alter the way the “criticism” is spoken so that sounds really different? What if it was sung by someone who can’t carry a tune? What if it was spoken with a sexy voice? Or a lisp? By Yoda? Donald Duck? Now did you recognize those questions as a hypnotic induction? They were!
If you went along and playfully entertained fun representations, then you radically altered the suggestions and implications you have about criticism, didn’t you? Suppose you access a state of un-insultability and then entertain those representations and try really hard, as hard as you can try, to feel the hurt of the criticism. What happens then? What if you step into a state of unconditional love and appreciation for people, knowing that there’s a little insecure child inside the person criticizing.
Ah, another paragraph is full of hypnotic language inviting you into more resourceful trances! Did you notice? I invited you to go up to new frames linguistically. And it was so easy. I just used some modifiers (adverbs and adjectives).
I qualified your “representations” by the word “entertaining” and that word by “playfully” — playfully entertained fun representations of criticism.
I invited you to access un-insultability and hard trying to feel the hurt.
I invited you to step into unconditional love, knowing there’s a little child …
None of these are externally real; but if you want them to be subjectively compelling to your way of being in the world and processing criticism, then you can go into those higher states about your primary experience. And if you do, then they set up various suggestions and implications as post-hypnotic suggestions that will generate a more resourceful response. All of this “hypnotic” language and framing is just another way to talk about self-development.
To your expertise with great hypnotic self-actualization!
From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections – 2010 – #14
March 24, 2010
WORLD-CLASS TRAINERS
AND PRESENTERS
Want to be a Part of it?
Once upon a time many, many years ago, Richard Bandler invited me to attend his training of trainers program and to write the “notes” on that program. So I did. And the title of the book that resulted is, Becoming More Ferocious as a Trainer (1990). And given Mr. B’s focus and style, being ferocious makes perfect sense(!). Years passed and so did the ninety-million-dollar lawsuit against the field of NLP and the beginning of Neuro-Semantics. A few more years and suddenly there were enough Neuro-Semanticists around the world clamoring for their own Training of Trainers program. And that’s where this story begins.
Now I had been an NLP Trainer for many years, I had trained dozens of both NLP Practitioner Trainings, and Master Pracs. and hundreds of APG courses. I had also been around the community observing the best and brightest of NLP Trainers. Further, I had read the books available in this field, but even with all that, I knew that we really didn’t have any “World-Class Trainers” in this field. Sure we have one world-class Entertainer, who even to this day still brings more people into NLP than anyone else, Anthony Robbins. But “World-Class Trainers?” I don’t think so.
So, I began looking outside this field, observing at Conferences and workshops, reading, and interviewing. And from that beginning I began putting together Neuro-Semantic Trainers Training for NLP and Neuro-Semantic Trainers (NSTT). In the first trainings, I added what no other NLP Trainers’ Training had—the Meta-States model and hence “the Genius Trainer State,” Un-insultability, Presence of Mind under Pressure, Releasing of Judgment, etc. Yet even with that, I still knew that was not enough. Something else was needed if we were to develop highly effective trainers and from them would arise some truly world-class trainers.
I knew it wasn’t enough because in the field of Training and Development, there was no real lack of knowing the key competencies for an effective trainer. The lack wasn’t in identifying the skill-set of an effective public speaker, presenter, or trainer. The lack was in how to measure the skills and how to use the measurements to facilitate the development of the competencies. And because this was the same problem we faced when we began Meta-Coaching, it shouldn’t be any surprise that we solved the problem of both by the Benchmarking Model.
What is the skill-set of an Effective Trainer, Presenter, and Public Speaker?
- Rapport with the group (group rapport).
- Engagement of the group participants’ mind and heart (Engagement).
- Clarity, variation, and emphasis in one’s voice (effective use of voice).
- Systematic use of non-verbal expressions, movements, gestures (spatial anchoring).
- The experiential presentation of the content (state induction).
- The framing of the content and learning processes (framing).
- The formatting of the presentation in different learning styles (4-matting).
While there are more, these are the basic seven for effectiveness (we have others for Mastery). We then identified behavioral expressions of these from the level of no-competency to little competence, some, average amount, lots, great amount, fantastic amount. Benchmarking the language, expressions, behaviors, and indicators of these core presentation skills allows us today to provide a feedback mirror to trainers so that they know precisely how they are doing, where they are in their skill development, and where next.
That’s the key. When you know where you are, you also know the next step for taking your skills to a higher level of excellence. That’s the power of benchmarking. It provides a way to shape behavior and provide an experiential basis for development.
- Can you present and train with elegance, power, and charisma?
- Do you have the inner knowing and confidence that your skills are effective? Would you like to?
- Would you like to be able to effectively influence the minds and hearts of people in a transformative way when you stand up?
NSTT begins with 5 days of these Platform Skills followed up by 3 more days of Training Skills. Then there are 3 days of The Psychology of APG followed by 3 more days of Business Skills. And there’s more.
Beginning in 2004 I have been looking for the most skilled, most successful, and most effective trainers among Neuro-Semanticists that I could find. We even began the Master Trainer track to groom and develop higher skilled trainers. Why? I think it obvious. If you want to learn the highest Presentation and Training skills — you need to train with people who can actually demonstrate those skills. This year our first Master Trainer, Colin Cox along with Omar Salom will be co-training NSTT with me. We will also have several other highly effective Trainers at the training.
Now a warning. This is not for the faint of heart! You will be presenting everyday, and everyday you will be benchmarked on the skills that you demonstrate. And with every presentation, you will receive immediate sensory-based feedback on how you used your voice, gestures, movements, how you engaged the group, got or did not get rapport, and on the content you present! I only recommend this for those who have a robust sense of self, a commitment to self-development, and a passion to stretch to the highest limits of what’s possible for you.
Are you that kind of person? If so, the NSTT may be the training for you. Mere attendance will not qualify you for certification; you have to develop and demonstrate competency! And if you don’t make it in the two-weeks, you will be supported afterwards until you develop the required competency. That’s our commitment to you. If you are already a NLP trainer, we have a special process for you as we recognize your previous trainings.
From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections – 2010 – #13
March 22, 2010
WHY DO I TEASE
THE FOUNDERS SO MUCH?
Yes, I tease them. Yes, I provoke them. And yes, I do it intentionally. After the last post on Grinder, several asked about why I do this, what are my motives, what I’m seeking to do in it, whether it is divisive, and of course, all of that deserves an answer. So here goes.
Given that the field of NLP is not only without any kind of international standards, association, or journals, it is also a field that (in spite of the worldwide net) hardly has any forum for the leaders of NLP to communication. Imagine that! A field of communication that doesn’t communicate! Well, not directly at least. There is, of course, the grapevine, gossip, notes in footnotes in books, and of course, websites.
So especially when a new book appears and it presents information about one of the “camps” in this field, as a way to stay current in the field, I read it. I want to know what’s going on, what new developments are emerging, and how others are interpreting or re-interpreting the field of NLP. And when I see ideas and concepts that strike me as against the very spirit of NLP (as I did in the book I reviewed last week, against rapport for example), I figure that’s something to write about.
The point here is that I’m focusing on ideas, concepts, and patterns, not personalities. Oh, yes, the ideas come through persons, and the personalities of those persons, but my critique is never about or against the person. It is always about what the person is saying in arguing for or against some position. It is always feedback about what the person has said or possibly done, and never against the person. Check it out, that’s why in last week’s post I quoted from the book, I quoted the facts of what the person’s actually said. I do that for a specific reason. I want to quote accurately and precisely and to fairly represent what the person is saying.
Now one thing in this field, as with almost every self-development field, people in leadership roles so often take themselves so seriously that they present themselves as gurus. That is, as unquestionable authorities, as somehow having the divine right to not be held accountable. And, of course, that’s the stuff of high comedy— stuff that I can hardly resist jumping into and exploiting with playful humor. Hence the teasing! After all, when human beings think and act as if they are infallible—that’s when they are the most silly and the most ridiculous. And I think that’s when it’s time to take the mickey out of them.
Now true enough, most people know better than to claim infallibility directly. So they act that way by being closed to feedback. And, of course, that also provides wonderful moments of high comedy. Now I am of the opinion that there just hasn’t been enough people breaking out in rackus laughter when the gurus imply such things. But then again, some are masters of ceremony. They set things up so as to create a hushed environment so that when they speak, you’d think it was a funeral, or a service in a church, temple, or mosque, or perhaps the moment with a high official of state is about to speak. And so whatever they say is then enshroud in somehow considered something to stand in awe of, to nod with a knowingness that this is sacred ground, the secret of life is about to be revealed.
Now they can say something like, “You can feel assured, fully and honestly, that what I’m saying you already fully know unconsciously, and as … your unconscious … knows this now, you can feel more confident than ever before now, can you not?” and everybody nods in unconscious agreement. How can you argue against that? Besides, who are you to contradict the expert? Besides, you better watch out, he or she may install something terrible in your unconscious mind when you aren’t watching!
Now if you are not laughing out loud at all of that, you may already be too far gone … or not. Many kings in olden times knew about this danger of over-seriousness and so appointed court jesters. Their job description was to create a jolly ole time for everyone by teasing and jesting and mocking all of the solemnity of the high court least the royal manners and ceremonies would deceive the dignities to talk and act as if they have a stiff board shoved all the way up their rare end.
Maybe that’s what we need! Perhaps we need some good ole fashion Court Jesters in the Halls of NLP especially when the gurus emerge with their minions doing homeage and bowing in reverential deference to whatever the gurus say! Actually, I have some colleagues I’d heartily recommend to play that role with amazing delightful fun.
So why do I tease and jest as I do? Maybe for these very reasons. Maybe because there’s just too much seriousness in this field, too many people thinking that hypnosis is real, that the language of persuasion is beyond resistance, and that the gurus of NLP are dangerously powerful. Maybe it’s time to let Toto loose so that he can pull the curtain open and expose the magician behind the curtain at the microphone making all the noise! Then, when we all see that he’s just a plump little man wanting to be a real magician and that he’s not the All-Knowing and Powerful Oz, we can enjoy the joke and get on with being real— with actualizing our highest and best as the fallible human beings that we are.
From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections – 2010 – #12
March 18, 2010
WANT TO JOIN THE REVOLUTION?
The revolution began with a belief. It began with a new perspective. It began with a question. And the person asking the question was Abraham Maslow. “What about the healthy side ?” It was in his book, Abnormal Psychology, and this question was posed from time to time as he and his co-author, psychiatrist Bela Mittelmann, wrote an encyclopedia of human pathologies.[1] Maslow essentially asked:
“Okay, that’s the story with this particular pathology of how human nature can go wrong, but about how it can go right, how it can succeed, be healthy, and reach the heights of possibilities?”
The revolution began slowly. It began by modeling two incredibly healthy individuals (Ruth Benedict and Max Wertheimer) who were making a difference in their worlds. Afterwards that modeling of their self-actualizing characteristics was extended out to hundreds, and then thousands of other people, showing some of the same qualities. Eventually Maslow had a list of the characteristics of this “syndrome,” this experience of a self-actualizing man or woman. (I put that list in both Unleashed! and in Unleashing Leadership).
The revolution began with a model of the inner needs that drive a person and how, developmentally, a self-actualizing person learns to meet those needs, even learn how to master their needs, and eventually move to the level of the highest needs— the needs to actualize one’s highest and best.
The revolution then launched a movement, a human potential movement, and that movement then attracted Fritz Perls, Gregory Bateson, and Virginia Satir to Esalen to become a part of it. In fact, they became part of the second generation of leaders in that movement. Scores of other people that we now recognize as key voices in self-development were also drawn to Esalen in those earlier years (1963 to 1980). And while that first human potential movement failed to maintain its momentum as such and was dispersed into dozens of other groups and movements, the spark at the heart of the revolution continued.
NLP continued the revolution unconsciously. Given that NLP has direct roots in that revolution through Perls, Bateson, and Satir as well as the “presuppositions” that came mostly from Maslow and Rogers, NLP continued the revolution unconsciously. I discovered this “secret history of NLP” in 2005, and with that Neuro-Semantics launched a new human potential movement using the Self-Actualization Workshops.
When I recognized the potential in this— that we in NLP are inheriters of the revolution of Maslow’s bright-side of psychology and that we now “stand on the shoulders of the giants” who launched and carried on this revolution— I began to direct our activities in Neuro-Semantics intentionally to use and apply Self-Actualization Psychology. My aim was to create lots of practical applications. And that’s how the revolution that Maslow began is today finding expressions in Neuro-Semantics.
This means that the revolution of the bright-side of psychology now has some incredibly powerful tools for making the vision of self-actualizing individuals and organizations real in today’s world. Central among these tools is the Self-Actualization Quadrants which is built on the Meaning and Performance axes. This tool highlights that actualizing excellence in any area involves making it richly and robustly meaningful and then developing the competence to perform it. This is true of athletic competition, business development, and personal relationships.
We now also have the Self-Actualization Assessment Scale (Hall and Goodenough) that uses Maslow’s original research into human needs and gives us the ability to assess how you are doing (or not doing) in coping and mastering your basic human drives. And this is critical for each person individually as it is for any person within any organization.
Where is this revolution heading? What will be the direction of this revolution in the days and weeks and years to come? Ah, that’s the mystery and excitement of Neuro-Semantics! We don’t know. We only know that there is so much more to discover, so much more to develop. And this is where we are always looking for more men and women who share this vision to come and join the revolution.
So if you believe, as I do, that our highest drive as human beings is to tap within and liberate human potentials in yourself and others in order to create an incredibly better world, then come join this revolution. If you believe that there is within every person fascinating possibilities for becoming so much more, if you believe that we can facilitate the liberating of human potentials in organizations, businesses, families, politics, and a thousand other domains, then come join this revolution.
In a word, our vision is to actualize excellence. Our dream is to enrich the meanings (beliefs, ideas, understandings) of people so that they can perform so much more as they develop their levels of competency. And we do that through training, consulting, and coaching. We do that one-on-one as well as by working with groups. And when you’re ready to move up to a leadership role in this, then NSTT (Neuro-Semantic Trainers’ Training) is the apex of training along with Coaching Mastery.
1. Maslow, Abraham; Mittelmann, Bela (1941). Principles of Abnormal Psychology: The Dynamics of Psychic Illness.
From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections – 2010 – #11
March 15, 2010
DON’T LISTEN TO JOHN GRINDER!
To keep up with the field of NLP I read a 2008 book this past week on a flight home. The title? Provocative Hypnosis. Sounds like it would be a book about hypnosis, but it wasn’t really. The subtitle actually reveals more about the content, The No Holds Barred Interventions of a Contrarian Change Artist. So what is the book about? Therapeutic interventions in the style of Bandler with the theoretical assumptions of Grinder! I have to give it to Norway NLP trainer, JØrgen Rasmussen, for how he imitates the “in-your-face,” “I’m not here to be your friend” Bandler-like style, although I wouldn’t recommend that style.
Anyway, the book is mostly a tribute to John Grinder and so constantly quotes him and presents the old 1985 “new code” as if it was cutting-edge technology. And Grinder’s Preface sings the praises of the book without any reservation (which given his mismatching is a major miracle) calling Rasmussen a genius.
But in reading the book, my first and last thoughts was one and the same: Do not listen to John Grinder, his advice and ideas will not help you, but will in fact, make you less effective and less able to actualize your highest and best. Severe? Over-stated? Too strong? Perhaps. You make up your mind from the evidence of the following facts.
1) Fact 1.
In the Preface, John Grinder writes the following:
“We especially, rail against the type of professionalism that locks agents of change into tightly constrained boxes of conventional interventions like understanding, empathy, support for the client— all of these are choices but choices from a very large set. Yet, of course, there are clients that require precisely these transactions but they typically need one hell of lot more and what they need is not contained in the conventional descriptions typically available.”
Hard to read? Well, welcome to Grinder’s typical way of writing. So read it again. Conventional interventions lock agents of change into tightly constrained boxes! Oh, that must be terrible! And what are these “conventional interventions” that do such terrible things? Why, understanding, empathy, support for the client. Yes, that’s right. Reread the paragraph if you need to!
So go ahead and scream in horror! Get it out of your system. And shake your head as you consider just how bad understanding, empathy, support for the client is. “How and why would an agent of change do such a thing to a client!? Tisk, tisk.”
Of course, we in Neuro-Semantics not only disagree with that, but we have this terrible idea— everything should start with understanding, empathy, and support for the client. That’s just how bad we are. But then again, somehow I got that idea from the foundations of NLP itself. Wasn’t “rapport” one of the first things modeled from Virginia?
And if you think I’m exaggerating, here’s what Rasmussen writes in the book when speaking about some of his difficult clients:
“The only problem is that I did feel contempt, disgust, and wanted to beat the snot out of some of these clients as if they were a red-headed stepchild. Yes, I admit it! Sometimes I have felt these ‘bad’ emotions when working with clients. At times I projected my own unresolved stuff onto them, and at other times I think that my so-called negative emotions were highly justified and very useful in help them change. If I pretended to be a machine with no emotion, then I wouldn’t be doing justice to what happened in these sessions. Guess what, all that crap psychologists have told you about the client liking the therapist being the most important part of getting results … sorry, but ‘No’!” (p. 18)
I guess he doesn’t think much of understanding, empathy, and support for the client if he wants to beat the snot out of them and thinks that projecting his own negative emotions might be very useful in helping them change! Well, JØrgen if you come to Meta-Coaching with that attitude you won’t get you past Day 1. We start with the Releasing all Judgment Pattern and end Day1 with The De-Contamination Pattern to get the ego out of the way. A very different approach, wouldn’t you say?
For the author, the choice is either-or. Either “a compassionate and touchy feeling approach” that is “grandma-style compassion” or it is getting results (p. 19). Could this either-or frame itself be the problem? He then speaks about ethics:
“I think ethics is simple. Understand that your job is to get results and if you can get results, then do it. If you don’t get results, then don’t charge money.” (58)
Hmmm. So the end of the intervention— the results is the only ethical issue? And so does this mean that the means justifies the end? All that I read there leads me to this reflection: My recommendation is that you do not listen to John Grinder or Rasmussen!
2) Fact 2.
Grinder is quoted as saying that the “NLP modeling has absolutely nothing to do with eliciting strategies or finding someone’s beliefs.” (p. 79). It has nothing with asking questions about an expert’s ideas, beliefs, understandings, decisions, etc. It only has to do with watching the expert in action and doing an “unconscious uptake” of his or her actions, repeating the micro-movements in your own body.
Hmmmm. So that makes sense when you are modeling an athlete or someone engaged in a physical activity, but what about someone who over a period of a decade creates abundant wealth? What about a person engaging in leadership that takes several years? What then? And what about modeling when the expertise in the area of the conceptual?
When I modeled wealth creators, first-generation rich millionaires, the object of the modeling was long-term processes that involved multiple stages occurring over many years. If I could only look for micro-muscle movements, that would have been useless. It would have provided nothing. So again, I say, Don’t listen to John Grinder if you want to model complex states beyond drumming or rock climbing.
Fact 3.
Throughout the book the fuzzy wooly booly “the unconscious” is constantly referred to. The author says that John Grinder often states this:
“The conscious mind is superb at organization, framing, and categorization, but lacks the power to do any significant change. The unconscious on the other hand has enormous capabilities for change, but little capacity for organization.” (p. 194)
“Grinder points out that the client’s conscious mind is the part of the client least qualified to decide what the end state should be.” “Grinder’s perspective is that which end state and resources to be used are decisions best left to the unconscious.” (p. 255)
So let’s see: Don’t be aware or conscious of what you are doing because your conscious mind “lacks the power to do any significant change.” It can’t choose a valid objective, it can’t decide on what to do, it can’t help with motivation or creation or integration (to mention the four change mechanisms in the Axes of Change). So the best choice then is to trust what you don’t know and aren’t aware of. So does that mean “the unconscious mind” doesn’t make mistakes? Doesn’t create migraines, allergies, auto-immune system diseases? Later (see Fact 4) in the New Code Change format, step one recommends that the “client consciously select the context.” Hmmmm. My recommendation, Don’t listen to John or JØrgen—they are just too fuzzy and confused about all of this. I think they need to learn “The Newest Code” of Neuro-Semantics (see my article on this at www.neurosemantics.com).
Fact 4.
Then quoting “Grinder’s New Code Change Format,” Rasmussen does a meta-stating process, although he doesn’t seem to realize this. In the following pattern he explains that he changes Grinder’s term “high performance state” to “flow state.” I have shorten the process so you can quickly see the basic steps that he presented. The things in [brackets] are my comments.
Step 1: From third position (observer) select some context where you find yourself stuck. See yourself over there in the context where you experience X the most. Have client consciously select the context (255-256). [So you start by taking a meta-state like the observer state to “select” or choose a stuck state.]
Step 2: Have the client physically walk over to the hallucinated context on the floor.
Step 3: Have the client step out of the context. Then have the client play a New Code Game (Alphabet or NASA game). Play the game until the client goes into a flow state (256-258). [Next, you use the meta-state process of stepping back from a primary state and then bring the meta-state of “flow” to the stuck state, a meta-stating process.]
Step 4: When client is in a flow state, have the client reenter the context that they stepped into (Step 2). Lead the client there (259). [Meta-state stuckness with flow.] Calibrate signals from the unconscious. Change should be obvious from step 2. Troubleshooting: If the change isn’t there, you might want to re-do the game. Is client in the feeling stated connect to the context? Does client have a strong flow state? Do you have a strong bridge between state and context?
Step 5: Future pace. Challenge the client a bit.
Now if you know the meta-stating process, about bringing one state to another and putting one state in a higher position to the second so that the first state frames the second, then you will immediately see the invisible structure to this “New Code Format.” Actually it is a meta-stating process— meta-stating stuckness with a high performance, flow, or genius state.
This same process occurred earlier in the book about emotions.
“The whole idea is to have the person feel the emotion and just observe it with precision. This is a great way of releasing old pent-up emotions.” (p. 248)
Observing with precision (one state) how you feel an emotion (a primary state) is what we do in Meta-States when we use the Meta-Stating Emotions pattern. For this one — Do what John Grinder is doing unconsciously, but doesn’t understand. So follow what he does; but don’t listen to what he says about it. That will only mess you up. To understand the process— find an APG course and let a Neuro-Semantic trainer show you the meta-state structure that governs the richest of human experiences!
From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections – 2010 – #10
March 8, 2010
THE VISION OF
ACTUALIZING EXCELLENCE
The byline for Neuro-Semantics is Actualizing Excellence. The leadership team came up with those two words in January, two words that summarize our vision and our mission. And for us it provides a very succinct code that’s full of meaning— and I’m speaking about meaning that generates a lot of energy, passion, and vitality for us. To discover that all you have to do is speak to a Neuro-Semanticist!
Actualizing
Actualizing is a special term for us because it lies at the heart of what we are seeking to do in Neuro-Semantics— actualize our highest and most valuable meanings into actual performance in everyday life. Actualizing speaks about making real what is only potential, it is making real to the point of embodying what we know in our minds conceptually so we can close the knowing-doing gap. And this comes from the Self-Actualization Psychology that informs what we are doing and our beliefs about human nature and human beings. In Neuro-Semantics we have found many, many ways to achieve peak performance and translate from mind to body. That’s what we do because if we don’t “apply to self” then it is just information, not reality.
Excellence
The goal of the actualizing is excellence and this is the very theme that initiated NLP in the beginning— when Richard and John began modeling the excellence that they found in three world-class communicators. And once they did that, that very process resulted in the Meta-Model of Language which gave them one of the central tools that allow us to then model more examples of excellence.
Neuro-Semantics started in a similar way with the modeling of resilience because out of that came the Meta-States Model, a model that took NLP to a whole new level. Whereas NLP modeled the basic structures of how we think and represent, Meta-States tapped into and modeled how our mind inherently is self-reflexive. So Meta-States model the self-reflexivity of consciousness and so mapped out, for the first time, the actual structure of the “logical levels” and the higher levels of consciousness.
Other modeling tools have emerged since then: the Matrix Model, the Self-Actualization Quadrants. And so, while modeling has mostly become a lost theme in the field of NLP, it is still very much alive in Neuro-Semantics which explains the constant development of new models and patterns in Neuro-Semantics.
And with the Meta-States Model we are now able to model excellence in complex states such as resilience —long-term and intricate experiences that do not occur in just a single moment, but occurs over time— things like leadership, coaching, a solid sense of self, proactivity, responsibility, and a thousand other of the richest states we humans can experience.
Excellence also reflects the theme of “the bright-side of human nature” that Maslow and Rogers and the others of the first Human Potential Movement launched in the 1950s through the 1980s out of which NLP itself emerged. And now in Neuro-Semantics we have launched a second Human Potential Movement — one for the twenty-first century.
The Vision of Actualizing Excellence
Our vision is to not only use this upgraded version of NLP to enable people to “run their own brains” and manage their own states (that obviously is first, self-leadership), but our vision is much bigger. We want to empower people to access their finest and highest meaning-making skills so they can rise up to become everything they can become, to unleash all of their potentials. And when they do that, we want to take that to families, schools, companies, and countries. We want to facilitate the next level development of self-actualizing leaders, companies, politicians so that we change the very structures in our world.
It’s a big vision and so we need lots and lots of visionary men and women who will help us to lead to this future. And that’s what Trainers’ Training (NSTT) is designed to facilitate— to enable those who share this vision to learn how to stand up and speak up in a way that they can empower others to actualize their excellence.
Neuro-Semantic Trainers’ Training (NSTT) first focuses on platform skills— the competencies that enable you to stand up, engage a group of people and professionally communicate in such a way that you win their minds and hearts. Here we apply the principles and tools that enable you to actualize your excellence in public speaking. We then shift to another skill-set, that of designing trainings so that people are able to experience the learnings and make them theirs. And after that, since the Meta-States Model is the flagship of Neuro-Semantics, we do three days on The Psychology of APG. This provides a solid grounding in the psychology that governs these processes of excellence.
We then end NSTT with a focus on business skills— competencies that are required to be able to turn all of this into a commercially viable business. This touches on the theme of business excellence. I say touch on it because in the past years this has been one of my themes as I’ve been working with companies and businesses apply the principles of self-actualization to self-actualizing leaders and companies.
Now if you are one of those individuals who have read or experienced a bit of Neuro-Semantics and would like to step up into leadership — then consider Neuro-Semantic Trainers’ Training (NSTT). We are looking for more men and women who will share the vision with us and collaborate with the movement of Neuro-Semantics. If this is you, let us know!
From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections – 2010 – #9
March 1, 2010
APG IN EGYPT
This past week I have had a pretty unique experience as I delivered APG in Cairo Egypt. Unique because it was my first training in an Arab country and unique because of the sponsors of the training— three men of vision who see the need for bringing some high-quality NLP to Egypt. Two of the men that I spent time with in Egypt are now in the process of becoming Neuro-Semantic Trainers and the third is planning to do the same. Mohammad Tarek of Lucid Trainings and Mustafa El-Masy of Applied NLP Academy along with Mohammed Addul-Kawy of Alexandria.
In January I met Mustafa and Mohammad (of Alexandria) in Hong Kong for the first part of the Trainers Training and got acquainted first-hand with their passion and commitment to Egypt, to NLP, and to Neuro-Semantics. What I didn’t know previously was the extent of the problems that NLP has suffered in Egypt at the hands of some inadequately trained trainers whose primary motive seems to be to use NLP for getting money and a sense of power over others.
This is really sad and is all around the world. This result in a lot of very low grade quality NLP so that already NLP does not have a good reputation in Egypt. Mohammad Tarek was telling me that as a computer programmer, when he taught at the University in Alexandria, he would teach the communication model of NLP but never, but never call it NLP. If they found out, they would have discredited his work; otherwise, they loved what he taught! I wish this was the exception, but sadly it occurs in every country I have visited.
Anyway, Mustafa was diligent and searched the field to find some high quality NLP. Eventually he found Neuro-Semantics and introduced it to the others. Then, delight of delight, he and Mohammad Tarek cooperated to put this training together. I love that.
We had a good group of people for the first training, 70-plus, eight or more trainers, many practitioners and a good group of new people interested mainly in self-development. Yet what I experienced was a real mixture—there was a big group of people totally passionate about NLP and Meta-States. They were so passionate in fact that I was literally inundated by questions and requests from the time we started each day to the ending so that I never got a break (which is fine, that’s what I’m there for!). And they asked questions upon questions— and most very personal and intimate questions about applying the patterns to themselves, their families, and their work. Now strangely, at the same time there was a small group of “practitioners” who acted like they knew it all and never even bothered to do the processes! Ah the ones who have never studied a model about self-reflexive consciousness who already knows it all! I’ve met them before.
A TV camera group came to the training on the first day to get clips that they later used when I did a live appearance on the channel. This was set up by Ayman Mahmoud, a young man that I have corresponded with for years and who has translated many of my articles in Arabic on some websites. There were also other media interviews with radio and journalists for newspapers that he set up. It’s always good to experience my “expertise” rising by leaps and bounds by the fantastic variable of distance— the farther from home, the more of an expert I become! I ought to write an article about it, who needs study and competence when all you need is geographical distance to become an “expert,” or so it seems.
I had never been to Cairo before and while I have seen some wild traffic— Mexico City comes to mind, so does Moscow, Cairo takes the prize for being the craziest and worst and most dangerous. I was okay with and used to the fact that 3 lanes means 5 lanes of cars and 5 lanes means 7, that’s the way it is many places. But I had not seen hundreds and hundreds of people stepping out into 5 and 6 lanes of traffic dodging cars as I saw in Cairo. I even saw women carrying babies across such lanes of cars dodging, turning, twisting, and aggressively fighting for every inch of space! And not only during the day when at least you could see human beings in the middle of the freeway, but at night!! Mohammad did all the driving and kept reassure me, “Don’t worry!” he kept saying! So I did— worry that is.
And horns, I did not now that a person could drive a car with a horn. Or that you could send multiple messages with your horn, “I see you,” “Get out of the way,” “What the hell are you doing?” I was even more surprised to observe thousands upon thousands of cars driven by various tunes, messages, and melodies.
And Arab time — I thought the Mexicans, Spaniards, and Italians had the award for being “in time” and thinking time was a totally optional concept for being effective. No longer. I give the award to the Egyptians! “We will start at 9 am., right?” I asked Mustafa. “Yes, yes, sure. Well, maybe 9:10 to make sure everybody arrives.” At 9:30 I asked again, “Yes, just ten minutes.” At 10 am I asked, “Yes, just ten minutes.” I think that I have learned that “ten minutes” to an Egyptian actually means 40 minutes or even 2 hours!
I had several interviews while there. And everywhere I find that reporters are a strange breed. I have been interviewed so often now that I can now tell precisely the very language that reporters will use, especially if they have not done their homework, but are just trying to get another quick “human interest” story. They always ask a very broad question and then was quantitative evidence.
“So you in Neuro-Semantics work to help people succeed in weight management, emotional intelligence, leadership, relationships, the creation of wealth, self-actualization of companies, and everything else that you do in Neuro-Semantics, can you give our listeners one technique that can do all of that, keeping it really simple, in a minute or two? What is your best testimonies for that?”
Don’t you love it?! Try to answer that one! I got that this past week. To narrow things a bit (!) I asked for a specific example that she would be interested in. “What results do you want?” She said weight management, “I want to have lots of energy and be fit and thin. So what one technique will help me?” Of course, she was going too fast so I slowed her down and asked if I could have a “transformational conversation” with her. She wondered what that was. I said “a conversation that will be life-changing. Now it will be fierce, I will probe to get to the heart of things with what you want to change, are you sure you’re ready for this?” She nodded.
So I began a conversation that she agreed was uncomfortable, thought-provoking, intense, personal, and very quickly at the heart of the variables of change. I found her pattern within 90 seconds, feed it back to her four times. She wanted to stop! It was too much. She wanted the results (slim body, fitness, energy), she wasn’t ready to pay the price “so no to tempting foods, exercise regularly.” And that’s fine. That’s great. Now she knows and has few excuses.
Then there were two participants who are in the process of making a movie. “We are making a movie that’s an Egyptian version of ‘The Secret,’ and we want to interview you.” Well, thanks but no thanks. I don’t care to add to the illusion and cause of dis-illusion of that kind of shallow non-sense. “Well, it’s not like that.” “What about all the pseudo-science in ‘The Secret?’” “No, no, we don’t have that; and besides, you can say whatever you want to say.” So I did. It will be interesting what they keep in it.
Sightseeing? Did I see any sights? Well, not many. One day Mohammad Addul and I enjoyed the traffic jam on the Sixth of October bridge for several hours! That allowed me to see the city; and we tried to get to the Pyramids, but they had been shut down for Diplomats from Italy. We did get to see the laser light show, which was great.
Here’s to the heart, the passion, and the commitment of the men who made this possible, to their staff of people who are seeking to bring high-quality NLP and Neuro-Semantics to Egypt! I found them to be people of faith, of integrity, fun, and vision.
From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections – 2010 – #8
Feb. 22, 2010
DR. PAUL EKMAN
AND META-STATES
I recently found a great description of meta-states. I was reading Emotions Revealed: Recognizing faces and feelings to improve communication and emotional life (2003/ 2007) by Paul Ekman. In the following quotation, Dr. Ekman describes a meta-state, he describes the structure of the observing meta-state that facilitates what Daniel Goleman and many others have popularize as emotional intelligence.
“I have not been able to find a single term to describe this type of consciousness: the best I have been able to come up with is attentively considering our emotional feelings. (To avoid repeating the entire phrase I will sometimes abbreviate it by just using the term attentive or attentiveness, in italics.) When we are being attentive, as I mean it, we are able to observe ourselves during an emotional episode, ideally before more than a few seconds have passed. We recognize that we are being emotional and can consider whether or not our response is justified. We can reevaluate, reappraise, and if that is not successful, then direct what we say and do. This occurs while we are experiencing the emotion, as soon as we become conscious of our emotional feelings and actions.
Here he describes a “type of consciousness” that we know as a meta-cognition or meta-state. The specific meta-state is that of attentively considering one’s feelings. And this meta-state enables you to move to choice point where you can evaluate your experience.
“Most people are rarely so attentive to their emotional feelings, but such attentiveness is possible to achieve. I believe that we can develop the ability to be attentive so it will become a habit, a standard part of our lives. When that happens, we will feel more in touch, and better able to regulate our emotional life. There are many ways to develop this type of attentiveness.” (p. 75)
Dr. Ekman here describes a habitual meta-state that enriches one’s emotional life.
And why, you ask, was I reading Ekman’s work on face recognition? For several reasons, I had it on my reading list for some years and because in December, while in Italy, Susana Eduini (a Meta-Coach from Sweden, 2009) brought the book to the training, turned to pages 69-70 and read the following:
“Reevaluations are not the only way in which we may for a time bounce back and forth between different emotional responses. Tomkins [Ekman’s mentor] pointed out that we often have affect-about-affect, emotional reactions to the emotion we initially feel. We may become angry that we were made afraid, or we may become afraid about having become so angry. We could feel afraid of what we might do because we are feeling so sad. This linking of a second emotion with a first emotion can happen with any pair of emotions. Silvan Thomkins also suggested that one way of understanding the uniqueness of personality was to identify whether a person typically had a particular affect about another affect. He also suggested that sometimes we are not aware of our initial emotional reaction, we are aware only of our second emotion about the first emotion. We may not realize that we were afraid at first and be aware only of the anger that was aroused in response to the fear. Unfortunately, no one has done any research to determine the merit of these very interesting ideas.”
Amazing, is that not? Dr. Ekman here speaks about meta-states and how they affect the uniqueness of personality. When I read that, Susana asked me if I knew about this. I did not. Later I asked Nicola to help me locate an email address for Paul Ekman, which he did! And with that I wrote and asked him if he was aware of my work in Meta-States and offered to send a copy of the book if he was interested. He wrote back and said that yes, he was interested. As of this date, the book has been sent.
The other word that he found for a meta-state was mindfulness. He defines such using a quotation from philosopher B. Alan Wallace, “the sense of being aware of what our mind is doing.” Then he speaks about the ability to just observe an emotion like anger. He also quotes Georgia Nigro and Ulric Neisser [a key pioneer in the Cognitive movement] about remembering some memories — “one seems to have the position of an onlooker or observer, looking at the situation from an external vantage point and seeing oneself ‘from the outside.’” He also mentions Ellen Langer’s work on mindfulness (page 73). On the next page he quoted philosopher Peter Goldie on the term, reflective consciousness— being aware that one feels afraid (p. 74).
Ekman’s work on emotions, on the subtle micro-expressions of emotions, and how they show up in the face, voice, physiology is now pretty much known worldwide. He has pioneered what we call in NLP “calibration to physiology” to a whole new level. And while he was influenced by Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson and has lived in San Francisco for years— he shows no acquaintance with NLP; he certainly does not reference it at all (which actually is not all that surprising!).
In a chapter on anger,
“When anger is intense, we may not initially know, or even want to know, that we have become angry. I am not referring to the failure to be attentive to our emotional feelings. It is not that we are unable to take a step back and consider whether we want to go along and act on our anger. Rather, we are not even aware of being angry, even though we are speaking angry words and engaging in angry actions.” (p. 120)
Here Ekman describes meta-states as we do—stepping back so that we can choose our response. And that is one of the greatest benefits of knowing the Meta-States Model.