NLP Cannibalism

I’m occasionally surprised to discover what motivates people to become NLP Practitioners or Master Practitioners but then again I have a good excuse. If you know me you know why I got involved in NLP in the first place. Being certified as a Practitioner was the last thing on my mind.

Recently I came to the sad realization that a portion of the NLP Training world is in the process of cannibalizing the entire NLP Training world.

This isn’t the place to get into it, but it recently became clear to me that some students appear to be more focused on becoming “Certified Practitioners” or “Certified Master Practitioner” than getting the skills necessary to be a Practitioner or Master Practitioner.

That may be the egg of this story.

It has recently become equally clear to me that NLP Training companies appear to be more focused on pumping out ‘Certified’ Practitioners in shorter and shorter times.

That may be the chicken.

Wherever it comes from, each has their ownership of the problem. The potential students are focused on the wrong thing – they are putting too much emphasis on the destination at the expense of the journey. They are looking to get the certificate as fast as possible, at risk of not learning the considerable knowledge and skill that Certified Practitioners need to possess and demonstrate!

Imagine taking a martial art to stop at becoming 'A Black Belt'. The reputable martial arts schools tell us that the Black Belt is the Beginning of learning....

Okay so what’s the reason? I think the underlying issue is always (always!) money and time. “How much money does it cost, how much time will it take?” The reality seems to be that time has become more important than money for some.

So either in reaction or as a result other decisions, NLP Training courses have gotten shorter over the past few years to accommodate this dilemma.

There’s a serious problem with this model and I’ll explain why.


But first a story.

Because my e-mail address is publicized on my website and elsewhere, I currently have 40,863 pieces of spam (sorry Norm) in my spam folder, and that’s only from the last 30 days!!

Doing a casual scan, I noticed that most of the messages advertise cheap watches, address sexual issues, weight loss and cheap medication, but a significant number are for online diplomas, degrees or professional accreditation of some kind.

Doing a fast Google search, guess what? I found out you can get a B.A. online for $479! Prefer to go straight for a Ph.D? No problem – only $599 will buy you a Doctorate. And it’ll only take you 7 days, (even better there are no exams!!!)

All you have to do is take out your credit card…

So I did another more Google search and discovered you can actually take a course to become a ‘Certified’ NLP Practitioner (in Toronto) in only 2 days!

Okay now I’m seriously annoyed.

This type of stunt is a win/lose/lose. Who loses? The people who take the training and the rest of the NLP world because the value of NLP becomes distorted and diluted by badly or untrained ‘Practitioners’ misrepresenting NLP. The only winner is the company who gets the cash…but they’re really losing in the long run because the brilliance of NLP can only take so many shots to its finish before the market turns its back on being fooled…again.

So…the people who become ‘Certified’ NLP Practitioners in 2 days…what do you think – how much skill do they have? Think they know what they’re doing? Think again.

Now, I’m betting you’ve guessed by now it takes much more than 2 days to be properly trained to be a Certified NLP Practitioner but you may be stunned to find out the Canadian and International standards for NLP Certification are a MINIMUM of 120 classroom hours of training. Last time I checked you can’t do that in 9, 6 or 2 days…

What’s the point of all this? It’s to say, emphatically, that I disagree completely.

I believe that people want certification AND excellence, and they deserve both.

I believe that NLP consumers will make the right choice if given all the information about the skills they need to be truly Certified Practitioners and the proper understanding of certification standards. If they know what is really necessary to become a Certified Practitioner or Master Practitioner consumers will happily choose to be properly trained over getting a certificate in the shortest possible timeframe.

And yes it is an either/or.

It’s probably not a surprise to you reading this right now that NLP Centres CANADA has worked hard to deliver the highest quality training for our students since 1981. It’s always been critically important that everyone we train gets all the information and the skill they deserve.

This isn’t really an announcement but a clear position statement that we have chosen to move precisely in the opposite direction of the market.

Therefore, going forward:

1) We will only train and issue Certification in accordance with Canadian and International Standards (this probably doesn’t sound like something radical but if you research the Canadian NLP training landscape, you may be surprised)

2) Our standards will now EXCEED the Canadian and International requirements for NLP Practitioner and NLP Master Practitioner Training

3) Our courses will be longer, more in depth, more detailed and filled with way more hidden NLP gems than ever before. In other words we will be aiming directly at producing the highest quality training anywhere.

4) (Former students are encouraged to contact me for details on how you can benefit from this!)

5) …and much more will be unveiled in the coming months


Stay tuned for more announcements!

How simple anchors are

Jack is in nursery school.

Like most kids he has his own peculiarities.

When we first brought him to the school back in September, he was faced with being left alone for the first time with strangers. Understandably, he was pretty upset.

So in the midst of his wailing, begging not to be left behind, I looked up and noticed a big kid....oh I'd better explain about Jack's nurser school...

A local high school has a 'Parenting Class'. At a certain point of the class, they bring in actual live pre-schoolers to help the high school students test drive some parenting skills.

So it's a great win/win. The big kids (as we call them in our house) get to interact with smaller kids, and the pre-schoolers (Aka Jack) get to meet a more diverse bunch of kids and participate in an interesting type of nursery school.

...back to Jack's first day - in the midst of his genuine fear, I looked up and saw a big kid and motioned him over. He came closer and I asked his name. "Uh....Mark." he replied.

So I said, "Mark, this is Jack. He's a bit nervous about this class. Can you help him understand that it's not so bad - that he can actually have lots of fun here?"

Basically I put Mark in a double bind. Bad me... :-)

So Mark took Jack by the hand to play cars in the corner. Thus began Jack's creation of Mark as an 'anchor' for safety. In fact Mark became a topic of conversation around the house for a while.

And as these things go, the anchor generalized to include more than just Mark in that first class. Jack became more comfortable with lots of the kids in that class, enough so he would run into the class waving over his shoulder when we dropped him off.


Fast forward to today. Jennifer took Jack into class and since we're in a new semester, Mark isn't there anymore. In fact it's been getting a bit worse over the past 2 weeks he's been back.

Jack was clinging to Jennifer's leg, begging for her to stay. Now SHE was the one in the double-bind. Jennifer looked over at the (new) teacher for help who, clearly not understanding the concept of anchors, said, "You know it's better if you just leave..."

At the end, a big girl was sitting at the table and called Jack over to play with her. He was crying when Jennifer left, but, as usual after a few minutes he was fine again.

Sometimes we all need to have anchors in our lives to tell us everything is going to be okay. It could be a fat bank account, a stable relationship, a great job. It could also be a rabbit's foot, a lucky jacket or a car that starts in the morning.

Sometimes we have to learn how to create our own anchors too...

One Simple Rule for a Fulfilling Life

What would your day be like if your To Do list only said: “Be productive and cheerful.”?

If you knew you were going to spend the day with your kids, how would it go if your To Do list said: “Be playful and patient.”

If you are like many productive people, you rely on a daily To-Do list to get things done. To-Do lists are great tools to help you get many details taken care of, but as helpful as these lists can be, they can become destructive. They begin as useful guides, but over time can turn into taskmasters.

Sometimes people actually can become addicted to ticking things off their to-do lists you may have felt compelled to write things down on your nice tidy to-do list only to cross them off when you felt you didn t do enough that day…to feel that you had accomplished something …as if the list is always looking over your shoulder criticizing you for not getting enough done.

Recently I was working with a client to increase his productivity. In uncovering the issues responsible for his anxiety, I realized that his To-Do list was the culprit. The constant demands he felt from that list were brutal. It came to me that what he really needed was a To Be List.

I recommended that he think about the states he needed to access during the day so he would be productive. When he knew what they were I asked him to create a daily ritual in which he would begin in the morning by thinking about the states he needed that day to accomplish all his tasks.

After all if you think about it: behaviours are created by states more than the other way around. So repeat after me: DO s are created by BE s.

So every morning I had him think specifically about the upcoming situations and the states he needed access to, imagining accessing each desired state in the upcoming situations he had that day. Essentially I taught him how to rehearse how he wanted things to go.

The effect was immediate. Productivity skyrocketed, anxiety and guilt fell away. He was able to complete more than his old lists had held without any of the old negative emotions of resenting his list, or guilt when he didn t get everything done.

So here s a much better way to get things done: Every morning make the day s “To Be” list detailing and imagining the states necessary to get whatever you need to have completed. Take a few minutes to rehearse each state in your mind - thinking through that state in the upcoming situations for that day.

Expect to feel pleased and delighted with all you are now able to accomplish without any of the negative emotions of the past.