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What is NLP? Are you new to NLP? Beginner's Guide to NLP - NLP Article

By Jonathan Altfeld

Our Director of NLP Training, Jonathan Altfeld

If you're new to NLP, this will help get you started, and clarify your reasons for learning NLP. From there you can plan a clearer, targeted learning path through endless options in the marketplace! We also recommend visiting our "NLP Learning Pathways" page.

To start off on the right foot, welcome to this website! We're glad you could join in this exciting journey! We really enjoy introducing people to Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and have developed this site to interest all levels of NLP backgrounds. One thing is certain, NLP attracts a lot of really interesting people who want to explore new ideas and improve their communication skills. They usually exhibit a wanton curiosity for growth and learning. And everyone's looking for another edge in life (usually not over other people, instead, just a more successful and vibrant life!). So welcome -- hopefully this site will help you to learn a lot about how your mind works, and how to improve many aspects of yourself, your communication, your relationships, and more!

Now, how do we go about talking about what NLP can offer you? Because it doesn't strike me as profoundly useful, in the early stages of talking about it, to get lost in the jargon (Every field has some jargon, of course)! Initially, I think we ought to find out what you can get from learning it! So in that spirit, I've prepared a little quiz for you to take. Keep the answers to yourself. Go ahead! Take the quiz! It won't bite!

Quickie Quiz

1) Would you enjoy knowing how to lead any conversation absolutely anywhere?

2) Would you like to be able to walk up to absolutely anyone, & consistently cause people to feel a deep sense of rapport with you, and find you somehow irresistibly magnetic, before you actually say anything?

3) Would you enjoy knowing that limiting beliefs can be changed visually without actually talking through them? Just by learning simple mental mechanisms, you can enhance your own capabilities powerfully!

4) How would you like to have substantially more control over your emotional states, such that anytime you found yourself in a less than wonderful state, you'd have tools at your disposal to quickly & easily change your attitude & perspective?

5) Would you enjoy being able to set up & close sales in less time, with more automatic referrals generated, with a higher close ratio, all while guaranteeing no buyer's remorse, & a greater sense of accomplishment & personal reward?

6) Would you enjoy having powerful skills to be able to rapidly learn specifically how experts do what they do best? Would it be nice to be able to take that information & consciously & unconsciously reproduce that expert behavior in your own daily life so as to reproduce their results?

7) Would it be useful to be able to change your automatic behavior just by expanding your belief set?

8) Would you like to know how to very effectively motivate yourself and others using the most advanced persuasion techniques available anywhere?

Scoring Your Answers:

If you answered just 1 of the above questions with a YES answer, then you stand to gain powerfully by studying NLP techniques! Alright, I admit it, I asked rhetorical questions designed to get only YES answers! But all jokes aside, NLP technology promises & delivers all of the above! And a lot of NLP techniques are really easy to learn, so you'll be seeing many benefits very early into the process of discovering how valuable NLP can be!

Defining NLP

Neuro-Linguistic Programming has certainly been defined in many different ways since Richard Bandler and John Grinder first began co-developing NLP in 1975. And on our NLP Links page, you'll find links to other trainers' sites where you can see some of these other definitions. But for most people, NLP is a technology for improving communication. Its also a way of learning how other people store their own experience in their minds... so that we can more accurately and effectively find out how other people think! So NLP has been called the study of the structure of subjectivity, or, the study of the structure of excellence.

By studying how experts store their own expertise in their minds, using NLP Modeling techniques, we gain unique insights into how to more effectively install that experience inside ourselves! So this is why over the last few decades, NLP has covered a LOT of territory, gathering the best experts knowledge from hundreds of fields! From my perspective, it's about doing better things, more effectively, faster, with more fun & enjoyment, greater personal congruence, with less stress and less uncertainty.

Sounds Familiar...

Sure! About 1/3 of the books on the Self-Help shelves at your local bookstore were probably written by trained NLP Practitioners or NLP Master Practitioners. Many of those authors found the keys to their success in NLP technology, and then they packaged up what they learned into their own methodologies and teachings. Have you ever heard of Anthony Robbins, or seen his infomercials? Take a look in the early sections of his book "Awaken the Giant Within" and look for his quick mention of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. The techniques he learned from NLP which he's folded into a number of his trainings, he now calls Neuro-Associative Conditioning, or NAC. That's just one example out of many. If you want to learn the skills and tools that brought those people to the successful levels they've reached, then feel free to explore this site, read more about NLP, and don't be surprised when you'll find yourself laughing at how ANY limiting beliefs you may have had in your past will have already begun to fade away...

That's enough for now; the above should have given you a nice frame for why you might want to pursue NLP! And again, I highly recommend visiting our "NLP Learning Pathways" page for a more targeted set of recommendations for you personally! I look forward to hearing from you as you continue reaching for your goals, now!

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