Dear NLP enthusiast,
I need to start by telling you that this is not one of those laugh-till-you-drop trance-puppy seminars where "you have no idea what you've learned but it's going to be a fabulous ride." I'm not knocking those seminars -- I enjoy them myself! Still, this particular training doesn't bear any resemblance to that.
So if you're not interested in focusing on actually learning how to model human subjectivity & excellence -- if you're not interested in learning how to dance through other people's belief systems so elegantly & easily, that sleight of mouth mastery becomes nearly automatic, that people won't even notice changes to their belief systems, or that you'd finally gain experience needed to create new models of excellence (that's where most of the money's being made with NLP) -- then don't even read any further.
This is a serious (& seriously fun) modeling training that requires a real desire to get good at these skills. I might even prefer it, if you're already frustrated with not quite "getting" the whole modeling process, or for that matter, working beyond only a single belief at a time. That frustration will make the results you get seem that much more profound after only 3 days of training on/in my Knowledge Engineering material.
As for "Sleight of Mouth" (a collection of language patterns for influencing or even reversing belief statements) -- lots of people think they've learned the patterns, but there's a huge group of people who've never elicited past/beyond a single "problem" belief. So these folks whip out their trusty "Sleight of Mouth" hammers, and bang away at the problem belief until it's gone or the subject is too annoyed to continue.
The most elegantly skilled Practitioners of "Sleight of Mouth" use modeling skills to elicit entire subsets of belief systems, and wire completely around any "problem beliefs" -- never actually attempting to change a subject's mind about that problem belief. As such, they're usually not aware any change has taken place, and they never had to get defensive. Our "Knowledge Engineering" students can do this. Can you?
The Immense Benefits You'll Get When You
Attend Knowledge Engineering
What Specific Areas of Skill-Development Can I Expect?
I believe you stand to gain immense value from learning how rapidly the Knowledge Engineering process will give you valuable modeling skills. That is, IF you're interested in becoming more skilled at...
- Eliciting Strategies
- Recognizing Patterns
- Hearing Presuppositions in Language, by the Dozens
- Tracking Human Reasoning Effectively
- Optimizing Expertise (many forms of expertise are unnecessarily redundant)
- Deciding More Effectively (if you use these skills to track your own belief systems & decision strategies, you'd be amazed how jumbled they might be!)
- Multiprocessing (Learning how to use more than one NLP skill at a time)
- And many more...
These and many secondary skills will mesh to help you build a system in your mind for mapping real human belief systems and how they drive our behavior. It's truly amazing what people have to say about their newfound skills once they've learned how to do what I teach in this class.
What People Are Saying...
Click Here to read these Testimonials in full.
"It was really cool how well we were tracking beliefs by only the second day." |
Your presentation of AI & Knowledge Engineering & how computer software systems can learn & decide was quite interesting. But using these models to then explore modelling in the NLP context was mind-blowing! It was really cool how well we were tracking beliefs by only the second day. [...] Not only could we track beliefs & language patterns "on the fly" but we could unravel their interconnections & their interactions conversationally. I thoroughly recommend your course to anyone who wants to improve their skills at tracking language patterns & modelling. - Ted VanderNoot,
London, UK |
"...the training suits all levels of NLP ability." |
Because of the original nature of the material being taught & because of Jonathan's mastery of teaching at many levels simultaneously, the training suits all levels of NLP ability. He is also very good at tailoring the training to the participants: most of what we did was made up as we went along & yet, because it all went so well, I assumed it had been planned! Jonathan is quite happy teaching something completely irrelevant to the material if he thinks it's useful to the trainees. I found this particularly refreshing. [...] I confidently recommend this course to everyone, especially those who want to progress a lot faster with NLP. David Gould, Personal Change Consultant, Bristol, UK |
"Modeling is ... a subject that has been pretty much opaque to me. No longer." |
The real topic of the seminar is modeling. Modeling is arguably the heart of NLP &, until now, a subject that has been pretty much opaque to me. No longer. Jonathan melds techniques from the world of computing with meta modeling to produce a solid methodical approach to the subject, which is uniquely his own. [...] We had a lot of fun, we learned a lot, & most important, what we learned was useful & obvious in its application. If you get a chance to attend one of these events, do it! Nick Fortune, London, UK |
What's "Knowledge Engineering", and What's the Process Like?
The field of Knowledge Engineering closely parallels some of the skills taught through Neuro-Linguistic Programming. There are obvious differences, but certainly at the core of what constitutes the NLP technology & skillset is a set of tools to model human knowledge & subjectivity.
The above description would sound very familiar to those who do professional Knowledge Engineering. Knowledge Engineering is about building software systems to behave & 'think' like human experts. In such a project, core software development team members would be tasked with acquiring knowledge from the experts, and then encoding that knowledge in a fashion that allows computers to reproduce the expert's behavior consistently & fast!
The Knowledge Engineer (KE) spends time interviewing & studying the experts, & learning directly from them. There are a variety of different methods which can be used to accomplish this, all grouped loosely under the term "Knowledge Acquisition." Once a sufficient initial knowledge-base of modeled knowledge has been amassed, the KE then determines ways of storing/structuring/representing the expert's knowledge, & then proceeds to build a software application known as an expert system.
NLP practitioners, students & enthusiasts may recognize the above process as being highly similar to what is known as Modeling in NLP. This goes beyond strategy elicitation & is used to logically reproduce behavior in a given domain of expertise.
Asked of his move in 1997 from the Expert Systems field to NLP Trainer, Jonathan says "I'm no longer building better expert systems; now I'm building better experts."
Who's Jonathan Altfeld?
I'm the owner of this expansive NLP website, and I've been training NLP-based seminars since August 1997. I founded the Mastery InSight Institute of NLP after having a highly successful career as a senior AI consultant to Fortune 500 companies. My expertise was in the Artificial Intelligence field, specifically doing Knowledge Engineering, which is surprisingly similar to NLP modeling.
I've been teaching NLP around the globe since 1998.
I personally think this particular training is one of my most valuable offerings I've made available. Giving people rapid & simpler access to the previously complex process of Modeling -- may change the world in some small way for the better. It's a pleasure to know I can make a positive impact on the future we face.
Here are a few more reviews:
"The skills apply equally well to concepts at work as well as to personal issues." |
I can throroughly recommend this course for anyone who is interested in developing their skills in modelling excellent performance, developing opportunities or solving problems. The skills apply equally well to concepts at work as well as to personal issues. In addition the relatively small numbers helped create an exceptionally positive atmosphere and enabled excellent individual feedback. Michael Beale, Strategy Development Manager, British Telecom |
"I recommend this training to those who want to learn how to model the excellence in other people and make it their own." |
I used to think modelling was strategy elicitation and from that I could never figure out how people like Richard Bandler so successfully modelled Erickson etc. I thought that maybe it was innate genius or maybe its something they don't teach explicitly now. In this training Jonathan brings his expertise from the domain of Knowledge Engineering (modelling experts and encoding that knowledge in software) together with his expertise in NLP. [...] What I had no idea of how to do before was how to code the information that I elicited. A Knowledge Engineer writes the rules that enable an expert system to make decisions, and while Cyberspace may be an overused word, its interesting to think of having a dataspace to represent the matrix of information you construct to build your model. [...] I recommend this training to those who want to learn how to model the excellence in other people and make it their own. Michael Roach,
London, UK |
"I am now creating subtle and elegant interventions without thinking about it..." |
Less than 5 hours after the end of Jonathan's KE course in London I'm visualising extensive and complex belief systems hidden within language - and keeping up a 'full time' conversation at the same time. Why is this useful? In the past I may have gotten to a strategy and thought "I'm done" whereas now I hear and see the whole complex structure. Key decision points and` behaviours are emerging which are many times more complete, powerful and elegant than anything I would have arrived at previously through standard 'strategy elicitation'. Before today, I knew people who I thought were complex, now I know that they're no more complex than anyone else, they just hide their beliefs better. This means that I know that I can now choose to work with everybody rather than just the 'easy people'. I am now creating subtle and elegant interventions without thinking about it and I know how much that is going to benefit me more and more over time. And I had a great time too! Peter Freeth, London, UK |
What Topics Will be Covered?
Here is a short list of some of the topics we'll cover throughout the training, and a simple reason why each is being taught.
Boolean/Fuzzy Logic: We'll take dry logical rules and make them interesting through real-life conversational application. Having a good primer on this material at the beginning of the seminar -- is an essential building block of the full skillset trained in Knowledge Engineering.
The Normalized 3-part Belief Structure: We'll spend the most time on this topic, dispersed throughout the training, to ensure you have an innate understanding of this structure. You'll learn to translate beliefs, in any of thousands of linguistic formats, into one single normalized structure. This structure will enable you to easily track the links between beliefs within larger belief systems.
Decision & Rule Chaining: Once you know how belief systems drive people and their behaviors in the real world, you can begin to chain emotional states, decisions, and behaviors, with ease & flexibility.
Backward-Chaining vs. Forward-Chaining: You'll want to learn the difference between using deductive and inductive reasoning. If you're not aware of when you're using one or the other in your own daily decision making habits, then you may be setting yourself for confusion. It pays to know when you're learning something new from existing data, vs. hoping something is true & setting out to prove that it could be by looking for the data to support it. These kinds of reasoning are directional.
Conflict Resolution: Ever feel like you're drawn in two directions at once? Logic systems NEED good prioritization strategies for breaking conflict. Not having them -- leads to a shutdown in productivity. You'll be able to identify exactly where in someone else's map they're conflicted, even if they themselves don't have a clue!
Trimming Redundant Reasoning: Yes, you can model someone else's expertise, then optimize it, and trim unnecessary thinking steps/processes. You can in fact acquire a more economical version of someone else's expertise. This is a VERY useful skill to have -- and it's one that separates GREAT consultants -- from mediocre ones.
Discover & Use "Knowledge Engineering" Skills
I'll be training the structure of knowledge and decision-making strategies. This course is where I fold into my NLP training process years of Knowledge Engineering experience in developing Expert Systems. After you've learned more about the structure of how "rules/decisions" operate independently, concurrently, and sequentially, we'll then be ready to fold in some practical use of that information!
The integration of Knowledge Engineering strategies with NLP tools and patterns provides a rational framework for a variety of possible shifts in thought patterns, even for dealing with kinesthetic experience (which many people attempt to logically, verbally explain). I frame each process and skill in terms of some of the connections and relationships to NLP.
In a more prepared state of mind, we can then utilize the modified knowledge engineering tools to rapidly model and apply the expertise of others.
I hope to meet you at my next Knowledge Engineering training.
Warm regards to you & yours, from your friend and trainer,
Sincerely,
Jonathan Altfeld
Mastery InSight Institute
P.S. Seating is limited! I usually cap my courses at ~30 students. After we reach our caps, I'll close the roster and no one else gets in.
P.P.S. Fully paid attendance to my Knowledge Engineering training also comes with a 40-page manual that will be given out at the seminar.
P.P.P.S. If you've already attended KE, you can attend again for Half our advertised door rate.
If you've already purchased our KE home study course for US$295, you're eligible for an additional US$100 off this course. And if you'd like to get the KE home-study-course at the special KE student rate, you can receive the KE home study course with your registration for only US$200 extra.
P.P.P.P.S. If you want to attend but have financial hurdles to address, talk to us. We have a variety of financing options available to you, and are happy to help you enable this for yourself!
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