WHY WON’T THEY STAND?

For the past few days I have struggled with a question that I began considering when I heard the President’s State of the Union speech. Namely, What kind of thinking would cause someone who holds a different opinion to not even be able to acknowledge you when you make a good point?

In seeking an answer, I’m starting from several assumptions about people, knowledge, truth, communication, etc. Namely, I’m assuming that holding differences of opinion is a normal thing; that people inevitably view things from their own perspectives, and that their background, training, education, and experience creates these differences.

I’m also assuming three NLP presuppositions. One, there is a difference between person and behavior and that a person is more than what one thinks, says, and does. Secondly, behind every behavior is some positive intention. People do not choose to do what they do just to be evil, but because at a higher level, they think it will produce something of value for them. Three, you never know what you have communicated until you check out what the other person has heard. That the meaning of your communication is the other’s person’s response, even if that was not your intention.

Starting from all of these assumptions, then I’m wondering about the kind of thinking that would lead someone in an oppositional party to refuse to acknowledge when you say something that most everyone would agree with and you would agree with it if your colleague said it. That people differ is to be expected; it is not a bad thing in itself. Differences make for creativity. It would be unnatural for everyone to think the same way. For science and for civilization we actually need a multiplicity of perspectives. That’s why when someone who disagrees with me makes a good point, I should simply say so and acknowledge that. Why not? That doesn’t mean I agree with everything or condone everything.
What are these good points of common sense? Like reducing drug costs where a prescribed drug may cost $4,000 to $500. No taxes on tips or overtime, securing the border, deporting murderers and child abusers, allowing parents to be in charge of their own children, etc.

In answering my own question, my conclusion is that the opposition party (in this case, the democrats, well except for John Fetterman) were actually not thinking. Instead, they were caught up in the ‘thinking’ substitutes (which all of us get caught up in from time to time). And why? Because as they think that a difference of opinion is a threat or danger, their stress level goes up and they revert to stress thinking (e.g., the cognitive distortions). They also begin to engage in reactionary thinking (by personalizing), polarization thinking, agenda thinking, superficial either-or thinking, and borrowed thinking (see Thinking for Humans (2024) and Executive Thinking (2018).

Because of these inadequate thinking patterns, they could not do real thinking. They could not consider a different opinion and in good faith consider it. They could not ask questions about it in an attempt to understand it. They could not honestly doubt its source or validity, detail specifics in it, or make critical distinctions (the first five of the critical thinking skills).

What does it take to be a reasonable person and to hear out what someone on the opposite side thinks? What does it take to try on or consider that perspective and ask questions to “seek first to understand” (Covey)? What does it take to stand up for someone you disagree with when they actually make a good point and speak a truth? Certainly, no one is wrong all the time.

What does it take to start from the premise that what people are doing and saying comes from what they consider a positive value for themselves? Given that, what does it take for us to stop demonizing the one who disagrees and maintain a respect-for-the-humanity of the other person? Whatever ‘crazy’ idea you think the other is proposing, what will it take for us to separate person from behavior and start from the position of respect and at least listen to it?

Oh yes, I’m making another assumption. I’m assuming that in the marketplace of ideas, if we keep talking and dialoguing, if we keep seeking first to understand, truth will win out. It may be the truth that we’re operating from different perspectives and so in the end we agree to disagree. The problem is not vigorous debate, it is confusing person with words and ideas and then demonizing someone for differing. That’s the problem. That’s when things get ugly. That’s when people become hateful, bitter, disrespectful, insulting, and when all of that gets exaggerated—things become violent.

What we want is non-violent yet vigorous conversations, and that requires a basic level of respect, a separation of person and behavior, good faith to validate persons, and a sweet reasonableness to admit mistakes and wrongs. Only then will we be able to stand up for each other when we say something that makes common sense. And that would be a huge beginning to put an end of the childish polarizing that’s so destructive to democracy.

THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY
AND THE FOUNDER’S SELF-PROMOTIONS

Last week both John Grinder and Richard Bandler held a joint web-presentation celebrating the 50th Anniversary of NLP. But that’s a bit deceptive. They did not actually get together and hold the celebration of 50 years. Instead each of them separately recorded a 30 minute presentation in which they were asked a few questions. Supposedly they were to answer questions that the audience asked, but in the end all of the questions were softball questions. Actually, extremely softball questions! None were challenging in the least. The questions, in fact, were such that the questions allowed each one to boast and glory in himself. I had submitted two questions that would have been challenging, but they were obviously not mentioned as were many others that I knew about.

If you listen to the presentations what you will learn is that each man thinks that what he did was absolutely spectator. And both of them think they created the NLP model completely between themselves! They had no help and needed no help. They congratulate each other, but no one else! They seem to have totally forgotten the role of Frank Pucelik and the way Robert Dilts formulated nearly all of the original NLP model. John seems now to dismiss the role of Frank saying he only imitates(!), a very different story from his book that introduced Frank as “The Third Man.”

They also had amnesia about the many different Gestalt and Meta Groups which in The Structure of Magic they described as “therapists groups.” What a complete forgetting! It was as if none of them existed and none of them were co-founders. I addressed this in the book, NLP Secrets: Untold Stories (2018). And still, 50 years later, the stories are still untold … at least by Richard and John.

Richard tried to emphasize that he gave credit to others, but only to the obvious— Virginal Satir, Milton Erickson, Noam Chomsky, somehow he forgot Fritz! He also magically forgot to mention Frank, Robert, Leslie, Judith, or many other key people who actually turned the first discoveries into what became known as the NLP Communication Model.

He also engaged in a good bit of “change personal history” inasmuch as what he is saying now does not correspond to what he has said over the years in books and videos. He now claims that he got things from various people even though there is no historical record of those people. An example he now credits Dorothy Kimura for eye accessing cue although she was never mentioned in any previous NLP book. Neither Richard nor John ever mentioned her regarding eye accessing cues! Paul Bach-y-Rita was mentioned once, but only a brief reference. Not exactly a big source for NLP. Moshe Feldenkrais was also only briefly mentioned a few times. He was primarily referred to in a training Richard did in London in 1990 Neuro-Dynamics (a training that I transcribed at Richard’s request and turned into a book—a book which has not been published).

The biggest elephant in the room from this 50th year anniversary is that they did not speak at all about their lawsuits with each other, with the divisions they created in the field, or with the $90,000,000 lawsuit that essentially destroyed NLP in the United States. Nothing at all about that! Another nice thing to be amnesic about.

Not a word was said about the fact that neither has supported the field in recommending any of the leaders who have arisen who have made NLP what it is. I’m thinking specifically of Robert Dilts and Steve Andreas. If it were not for Robert and Steve and Connaire, NLP would have never achieved its recognition in the 1970s and 1980s that it did. They did far more than Richard or John in those years to formalize and promote NLP. If not for them, there very well could be no NLP.

Over the years, neither John or Richard ever came to any of the NLP Conferences around the world to support the field. They never wrote articles for the many Journals that we had in the 1980s and 1990s (except when someone wrote an article about them). Instead each worked to keep his ‘camp’ going and refused to acknowledge each other or anyone else. That’s not exactly what we think of leaders.

Given that, I would say that they were only founders, but not leaders. They never groomed others to step up to lead the field. They never gave credit to people making contributions to the field. When I took my training with Richard, there were no patterns from Dilts or Grinder—none. I walked out of Master Practitioner never hearing one word about what they offered to NLP.

Over the years many of us tried to get both of the founders to participate. We asked them in 1997 to come to the Visionary Leadership Conference. Neither did. Although Richard sent his lawyer (!) who met some of us out on “the green grass.” They following day John showed up on “the green grass” to present his side of the 90 million dollar lawsuit. We asked them to show up at the Millennial Project (2000), neither did. We asked them to come to the 40th Anniversary; they did not. Richard sent a two minute video. What’s amazing to me is that while we asked them to be leaders—and they refused.

Then last year (2024) some years after Frank Pucelik and I started the NLP Leadership Summit (2011), we held the Summit in Santa Cruz California where John still lives. Did he show up? No, of course not. But Judith DeLozier did. Then she and Robert gave the group of 70 plus NLP leaders a tour of Kresge College and the University of Southern California.

My view? The founders are bold in taking credit for what they partially founded, something which they did not grow. They contributed a lot of the first intellectual structures, but were unable to contribute any kind of true leadership over the decades. NLP Leadership fell to those who created the Conferences, the Associations, the Journals, the Research Conference, who developed new models, new patterns, and new communities (as indicated in Innovations in NLP, 2012).

References
I wrote NLP Secrets: The Untold Stories as a journalistic investigation researching it via reading countless books on the origins of NLP, collecting sources, cross-referencing, and relying on numerous personal experiences with those who were there. There I emphasized that NLP’s origins were the result of a community effort. It was not accomplished by any one or two individuals. To create NLP, it took Robert Spitzer introducing Perls’ works and to Satir herself. It took Bateson send them to Erickson. It took all of the individuals in the original groups for the collective contribution they made including David Gordon, Stephen Gilligan, Terry McClendon, and many, many more. https://legacy.neurosemantics.com/shop/page/7/

WHEN AN ASSASSINATION
CHANGES A NATION

I was only 18 when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, a couple months later, I moved to Memphis to begin my schooling. There I began to see the after-effects of King’s Civil Rights Movement. Later I took a church in Mississippi and there I joined the AACP, I was the only white person. I tried to step up by preaching equality of all people. For that I was fired. My part was very tiny. It was the dream of Martin Luther King Jr., then his assassination that touched me and that began to change a nation. King had a dream and today we recognize as a fabulous and wonderful vision of humanity—that we see each other and treat each other, not by the color of our skin, but by the character of our heart.

This past Wednesday, the assassination of Charlie Kirk may turn out to be a similar national change. Charlie’s presentations and debates on college campuses was for the human rights of all people—the right of free speech, free debate, the right to thinking and arguing your case with others with respect and dignity. That was his theme and that is what got him murdered.

He lived what he preached. He debated with intelligence, good reason, common sense, and respect. When someone on the opposite side of a debate made a good point, he acknowledge it, “fair point, well stated.” He never operated from a win/lose perspective. It was always how can we together search for truth. For him the idea that “words are violence” was non-senses and at the heart of the problem of irrational political violence. Korzybski noted that words are but mental maps, symbols of something other than themselves. As symbols, whe word ‘cat’ cannot scratch you. The word ‘dog’ cannot bite you.

For Kirk, if there was still disagreement after the debate, he respected that. He knew that he could not ‘change’ someone mind. Only each of us can do that. But he could engage in a dialogue and a respectful conversation that would stimulate people to think.

That was his focus: getting people to think and stop parroting someone else’s PC (politically correct dogma). Those who hated him accused him of all kinds of things (being hateful, being a fascist, etc.) just as a previous generation accused Dr. King of terrible things (being a communist’ was the curse language of the 1960s).

Yet here’s the amazing thing with Kirk. When a person knows himself or herself and knows the truth about themselves, they aren’t disturbed by lies, slanders, false accusations, or insults. They dismiss them gently and graciously. In this they are un-insultable. That’s because they are highly focused. Dr. King was focused on the American Dream— “all are endowed by their creator with life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” and with “justice for all.” Kirk was also focused on the American Dream —the freedom of speech, of religion, of assembly, etc. He wanted the right to disagree, to debate, and to talk out differences with respect and honor.

Will this recently tragic assassination change a nation? Only time will tell. That was true in 1968, only time would tell. Who would have guessed at the time of King’s assassination that years later we would have African American Senators, Congressmen, Judges, Governs, and a President?

Will this be a wake up call to think more respectfully and to end the polarized thinking that turns those who disagree into enemies or villains? Will this be a wake up call to cut out the over-generalization labeling, name-calling, and insulting just because someone doesn’t see things the same? Will those who have already used the murder as something to celebrate and cheer come to their senses and think humanly about a life lost, a husband and father taken?

With the assassination of Dr. King, a nation began to rally around his dream and over the years Civil Rights legislation was passed that created an equal playing field. I hope something similar will happen in the near future that will bring conflicting ideologies back to the conversation table. It is always a sad day for people when those who differ cannot sit down and talk. When they cannot even respectfully listen to each other. When they cannot think together.

Finally to end on a positive note. On Friday even the liberal New York Times which certainly did not agree with his opinions, did recognize the way he lived. They used this headline, “Charlie Kirk Practiced Politics the Right Way.”

TOO OLD TO REMEMBER OR TOO MUCH
“CHANGE PERSONAL HISTORY”?

I recently watched a current 2024 video of Richard Bandler. For some unknown and unexpressed reason, Tony Robbins invited Richard to speak to a training that Tony was conducting in Florida. I got the impression that Richard was already in the area, so Tony invited him over, but that was not made clear. Anyway Tony thought he might be good to have him speak to a group of 40 people. So Richard did. You can see the video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_GCNlk05jY

The video is about 110 minutes and Richard simply sat in a chair and “talked” to the group. Three times he invited someone to the stage to do a process—once a hypnotic state and the other resolving troubling thoughts of the past, and once to get someone to get himself to do what he wanted to do. But what he mostly did was tell stories. And to his credit, he has always been a good story-teller, not necessarily accurate or truthful, but engaging stories. And if you’ve never been to a training or watched videos, I’m sure you will be fascinated by the stories. But if you have, then the stories are the same old stories and, sadly, they were not told as effectively as he once was able to tell them.

Critique
There’s a problem in these Bandler stories—they are usually exaggerated and told using all-or-nothing language. Sometimes to the point of being ridiculous, and sometimes they are just blantonly false. At the beginning he says he “remembers Eisenhower’s presidency and how he ran against Adlai Ewing Stevenson II. Hmmm, just how old is he anyway? Now true enough, he does look old, and he does talk about himself being old. But he’s not that old! Eisenhower was President in the 1950s. That reference was 1955-6, so Richard would have been 5 years old! Now how much does a five-year-old remember about political debates?!

He then speaks about “a psychiatrist’s” house (i.e., Dr. Robert Spitzer, publisher of Science & Behavior Books) that he stayed in and says, “it was the 1960s.” Well no, actually it was 1971 when he just turned 21. He says that he read 100 books in Spitzer’s library and “not one of them said anything about what to do about problems except take drugs.” Well, no. In that library would have been Fritz’s books on Gestalt and Virginia Satir’s books, including People Making. So there would have been lots of things suggested to solve problems. That’s the kind of exaggeration you can expect to hear from him. And if you have any knowledge about these things, it significantly undermines his credibility.

He said that he was playing in a band, a friend went to his medicine cabinet and found some drugs … the picture is that of a young adult Bandler, but he dates it in the 1960’s, so he would have been 16 or 17. Another statement meant to mis-represent things. Next he says “I was an information science major.” Well, from transcripts of the colleges he attended, that just was not so. He took some classes on computer science, but that was it. His degree was not “information science.” It was general psychology, BA from University of California, Santa Cruz, and a MA from Lone Mountain College in San Francisco. He never earned a Ph.D. He took some mathematic classes, but taking some classes does not sudden make one “A Mathematician.”

Again, describing the 1960s, he said that’s when he met Virginia. But not so. That did not happen until 1974. He then tells a story of meeting a psychiatrist … but that story occurred later when he and John were applying the Meta-Model, somewhere around 1976-7 or later. I suspect that this is the effect of too much “Change Personal History.”

Talking about Virginia and her statement, “I know it intuitively” he says that means “it is not learnable.” He asserts that he “made them up”—namely, “deletion, generalization, and distortion.” Ah yes, more claims to intellectual ownership! Actually, these come from Transformational Grammar which is what Grinder contributed to NLP. Richard did not “make them up.” This is a case of not giving credit where credit is due.

Richard then tells a new story about “the origin of the phobia cure.” In other videos from the 1980s he said that he met a person who said “I used to have a phobia.” He then asked how he got over it and wrote down the steps. In this story, he says he was working with a group of 6 psychiatrists. He asked each of them to bring him one person who got over a phobia. They asked, “How would we know someone got over a phobia?” If there’s any question that strikes me as silly, that is it. So he put add in the paper offer $100 for someone who got over a phobia. Then he gave them a lie detector test; “90 percent” of those who responded. Again, all this seems pretty preposterous!

Next he claims to be a “Physicist.” and with that he declares, “When psychatrists speak about reality, they as a group know nothing about reality.” Sadly, when talking about his own books, he says that his books “are not a repeat of anything” (24:30 min). But they are! In fact that’s one of the disappointing things, he has hardly presented anything new for decades.

Another new story emerges here about eye access cues. Here he claims to have read an article in 1972 of an experiment that suggested eye accessing cues. Then he went to his class at the university that had 300 students (!). In saying this, he implies he was the teacher (he was not) and that they had classes that large at Kresge (they did not). He asserts, “That’s where accessing cues came from.” Well, the previous story which he told for years and years is that the discovery occurred in a night club where he was playing a guitar. And another story, which is recorded in Grinder’s book, John discovered it in a liquor store!

Again, speaking about the 1970s, he tells the story of Andy the Schizophrenic. The problem is that that story occurred in the mid-1980s in Denver with Steve Andreas. There’s a two-part video from NLP Comprehensive about that. “He walked into the room, I grabbed his hand and put him in a trance.” Well, not exactly. The video shows it beginning as they sat in chairs and began talking.

Finally, Richard says—quickly and briefly—that he “certified” Tony Robbins as a trainer. Well excuse me, if that’s true, why did you sue Tony for Six Million Dollars in 1989? And why did Tony settle out of court, paying you $500,000 and signing the trainer’s contract in 1990 when I was with you at your home in San Francisco? At that time, I asked, “What stops Tony from changing the name?” you said to me, “I grabbed him by the balls and he would not dare.” Of course, tony did dare— Neural Associative Conditioning. Now if Richard is “thinking” he signed the contract and that serves as me “certifying” him … it is a major piece of mis-communication!”
https://www.bing.com/search?q=Richard+BAndler+lawsuit+against+Anthony+Robbins&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&ghc=1&lq=0&pq=richard+bandler+lawsuit+against+anthony+robbins&sc=0-47&sk=&cvid=AAD8CD466A14412089301D2E0506CB5D&ghsh=0&ghacc=0&ghpl=

Some Good Stuff
In spite of the exaggerations, distortions and sillinesses, there is some good stuff on the video. Here’s the best stuff you will find on the video that stands out as really valuable. Namely, the two times when he said: “If you don’t have control over your thoughts, you won’t have control over your feelings.” (20 min.) Therefore, be sure to “take control of your thoughts.” Later, “If you ask the wrong question, you will get the wrong answer.” If you ask yourself, Do I want to go to the gym? The answer is “No.” If you ask yourself, “Do I want to live long and healthy?” the answer is yes. Planning enables you to be connected to your desires. Desire is what leads us to move forward. The Meta-Model is designed to solve problems. It helps you focus on the right thing.

With a co-founder like Richard Bandler, no wonder the field of NLP has struggled to attain a respectable reputation and credibility. For years, I had hoped that he would have matured as he aged, but no. His original genius gave the world a wonderful communication/ thinking model and he could have produced so much more than it has.

NLP’S FAILURE
With NLP Ideally, You Learn to Think

Earlier this year (2024), I completed the book, Thinking for Humans: The Art of Being Mindful. In it I addressed a problem in the field of NLP—something that to this day the field has still not recognized:
“While a great many people in NLP don’t know this, NLP is essentially about thinking. NLP begins with representational thinking (the VAK, sensory-awareness), it then goes to associative thinking (anchoring, cause-effect linkages), linguistic thinking (language, the Meta-Model), evaluative thinking (values, beliefs, meta-programs), and finally integrative thinking (state, embodiment, mind-to-muscle). In learning NLP, you learn to think. Or at least you should if you learned it well. Yet because most trainers and educators in NLP don’t know this, they do not emphasize this. This book is designed, in part, to change that.”

Previous to this book on thinking, I wrote Executive Thinking: Activating Your Highest Executive Thinking Potentials (2018). I wrote that, in part, because in the field of Critical Thinking I could not find a single book anywhere that even mentioned NLP or the Meta-Model of Language. I realized that after reading 80 books on the subject of critical thinking. Imagine that! Not a single one even mentioned NLP, let alone presented the Meta-Model as a great tool for critical thinking. I found that shocking!

Why? Because, in my opinion, the Meta-Model is the greatest tool that’s ever been presented for clear, precise, accurate, and creative thinking. So in writing Executive Thinking one of my objectives was to get the Meta-Model known in that field. Another objective was to introduce, or perhaps re-introduce, the Meta-Model to the field of NLP as a tremendous tool for critical thinking. And that’s because, as noted above, ideally when you learn NLP, you learn how to think. But, of course, ideally implies that ‘actually’ many people do not.

Astonishing, isn’t it? While NLP is a model of thinking and learning NLP, you should be learning how to think, many do not. I venture to suggest that most do not. How can that be? What’s going on that in the teaching and training of NLP that people are not getting a deeper learning—learning how to think. Anyone can teach you what to think. That’s what our schools primarily do which is why most young people graduating from High School do not know how to think. Again, why is this? What explains this? Here’s my guesses.

#1: Thinking is not made the focus of the training. Instead, NLP to presented solely as a Communication Model or it is presented in terms of one of its applications—sales, personal development, therapy, coaching, consulting, hypnosis, etc. There are also many trainers who are mostly enthralled by the “techniques,” and so all they present are the quick, easy, and/or sensational patterns. So people learn the techniques without learning the thinking behind them which makes them work as they do.

#2: The NLP trainer him or herself has not learned how to train the Meta-Model. This is a really sad one. From my experience in meeting lots and lots of NLP trainers, most of them do not even teach the Meta-Model in their trainings or if they do so, they devote a few hours to half a day at best. And why not? Because that’s how they were taught! Obviously, if you were not effectively taught how to think about the Meta-Model and how to train it, you won’t be able to teach it well yourself. Worse, if you think of it as grammar and linguistics, your mis-understanding of it will cause you to downplay it.

#3: The NLP trainer him or herself has not learned how to think using NLP. I think this is a big one. Having not become enthralled with the power and beauty of the Meta-Model and having really no idea how pervasive it is in NLP, a great many trainers and leaders in the field of NLP have never applied the critical thinking skills of the Meta-Model to themselves. This is obvious from reading some of the NLP books that have been written. This is obvious from reading the articles and promotional pieces on NLP websites. Sometimes when I do so I wonder, “Didn’t you ever learn the Meta-Model?” “Who taught you the Meta-Model?” That’s why in a lot of NLP communications on the internet and elsewhere you will find uncontrolled generalizations, distortions, and deletions. You will find mind-reading statements about people; unfounded cause-effect beliefs, ridiculous complex equivalences, and on and on.

#4: Thinking itself is devalued as ‘a given,’ and so little thought is given to it. Unless you have spent some time thinking about “thinking,” the cultural norm that we all grow up in is to take it for granted. “Yeah, thinking, so what?” We consider it natural, inevitable, and sometime everyone can do. No wonder we do not think of it as a skill— and a skill we need to learn. No wonder we put all “thinking” into that one category and don’t realize that there are dozens and dozens, scores of different kinds of thinking as well as levels of thinking skills.

#5: Some NLP trainers have been deluded into thinking that thinking is conscious and the really important stuff is unconscious. I’m now describing the two camps that have moved away from the mainline NLP field, the Bandler group and the Grinder group. What a paradox! Once Ericksonian hypnosis was modeled, both Bandler and Grinder decided to stop addressing what they called “the conscious mind” and focus almost exclusively on “the unconscious mind.” (Of course, there is only one mind—some content in conscious awareness and most of it outside-of-conscious awareness.) But thinking itself is a dynamic that involves all aspects of our brain-body and mind and so fluctuates in and out of conscious awareness. If you dichotomize this, then you set up an Either/Or limited way of thinking and dismiss “thinking” as only the conscious stuff.

Recommendation
Let’s get back to NLP as a thinking model and train it or use it to enable people to do more critical and creative thinking. If the world needs anything beyond love, it needs people who can actually think, and think clearly, precisely, and accurately. If we don’t have that, we will lose our civilization, our science, our well-being, and our sanity.

They should have known because from the beginning the founders said things like the following:
“The whole idea of the meta-model is to give you systematic control over language. It teaches you how to listen not only to other people, but to yourself. The meta-model is really simplistic, but it’s still the foundation of everything we do. Without it, and without systematic control over it, you will be do everything that we teach you sloppily. The difference between the people who do the things that we teach well and those who don’t, are people who have no control over the meta-model. It is literally the foundation of everything we do.” (70).

The date was September 1994. Thirty years ago this month I traveled to Denver, Colorado where I presented a workshop at the NLP Comprehensive Conference. I had been studying Resilience for nearly four years at that point and had put together a workshop that I titled, “Go For it—Again.”

The workshop was the result of studying as extensively as I could on the subject although thirty years ago there was very little published on resilience. Because of that I began interviewing people who had suffered a significant set-back to find their strategy. So using the basic NLP Strategy Model, I elicited the strategy from three-dozen men and women.

At the time I was excited to explore the NLP idea that every experience has a step-by-step structure that could be made explicit. So that’s what I worked on and what I had prepared. I made another assumption, namely, that experiencing a set-back was a loss, and therefore the grief stages of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross also described the loss stages of a set-back. And with that I put together the stages and the strategy of resilience.

Then came the workshop. It was a Sunday afternoon and I had a group of people who signed up for the “Go for it—Again” workshop. Then something unexpected happened, something I had not anticipated. The person I interviewed for the demonstration had enough awareness of himself and his experience to make the kind of statement which I had not heard in all of the interviews. Guiding him through the set-back stage, the emotional roller-coaster stage, the acceptance stage, the coping stage, the mastering stage, etc., he commented that he knew that he would transition from one of those stages to the next and bounce back.

That was a bit of a surprise. “You do? You know that you will move from that stage to the next?” He confirmed that with a strong “yes.” So I asked, “How? How do you know that?” “It is like I have something like a state, a state meta to my current state that I know I will get through all of this.” “A meta-state?” “Yes, a meta-state.”

And that did it. The words hypnotized me into an Eureka state of awareness, suddenly all of the studies in Korzybski and Bateson as well as studies in the field of Meta-Cognition exploded in my mind. And with that I suddenly saw the hidden structure behind the step-by-step Strategy Model. I pictured a state-about-a-state and the layering of mental and emotional states on top of each other and that gave birth to the Meta-States Model. A few years ago I updated the resilience model in the book, Resilience: Being the Phoenix (2018) and also told the story in the book, Thinking as a Modeler (2018).

What’s happened in the past 30 years with the Meta-States Model?
∙ In 1995 the Meta-States Model was recognized as “the most significant contribution to NLP” by the International Association of NLP Trainers.
∙ In 1996 Meta-States launched Neuro-Semantics, both as a model and as a community, the International Society of Neuro-Semantics (ISNS).
∙ In 1996 I began The Meta-State Journal which is now the PDF book, Meta-States Magic.
∙ In 1997 Bob Bodenhamer and I decided to see how Meta-States would fit into or re-model several NLP Model, that led to four books: Mind-Lines, Adventures in Time, Patterns for Renewing the Mind, and Figuring Out People.
∙ In 1997 I put the basics of Meta-States into the book, Secrets of Personal Mastery, which led to formatting Meta-States as a training, Accessing Personal Genius (APG) and APG then became the Gateway training for Neuro-Semantics which is now trained by hundreds of Neuro-Semantic Trainers all around the world.
∙ In 1999 we began training Trainers for training Meta-States which led to Neuro-Semantic Trainers’ Training in 2000.
∙ In 2002 Meta-States gave birth to The Matrix Model.
∙ In 2002 we launched The Meta-Coaching System which highlighted NLP, Meta-States and the Matrix Model. Later we added other models: Axes of Change, Benchmarking, Facilitation, and Self-Actualization.
∙ In 2004 I gathered together 144 Meta-State Patterns and put them into the book, The Source Book of Magic, Volume II. Volume I (1997) only had a dozen Meta-State Patterns.
∙ In 2005 studying the history of the Human Potential Movement, Meta-States became the key ingredient in the process of unleashing potentials leading to the Construct, the Crucible, and the Zone. That, in turn, led to 16 books on Self-Actualization.
∙ In 2011 Meta-States was recognized in Innovations of NLP.
∙ In 2016 I delved into the kind of thinking inside of Meta-Stating, self-reflexivity, etc. which has led to 11 books and defined Neuro-Semantics as a Thinking Model.
∙ In 2020 I reviewed Meta-States and presented The Unexpected Extensiveness of Meta-States to several NLP Conferences and ISNS Wisdoms.

If you ask, Is Meta-States still generating new ideas, patterns, and models? The answer is Yes! Just two weeks ago as I was working on the manuscript for my next book, Strategic Thinking, I discovered something new about Meta-States. Namely that the driving factors for what makes any strategy works is not the step-by-step representations, but the hidden meta-strategy. Here’s Happy Birthday Meta-States!

THE DAY TRUMP GOT TRIGGERED

As I watched the Trump–Harris debate (September 10), it was obvious that Harris was well rehearsed in how to “get under Trump’s skin” and irritate him. I began counting every comment that seemed to be oriented to do that. But after 5 or so minutes, I gave up counting. She was doing it almost constantly. And she was good at taunting and annoying him by saying things that were intentionally provocative—often as a side-comment when saying something else.

What was also obvious was the fact that while Trump didn’t let many of the provocative statements and lies get to him; he did get triggered by many of them. Yes, he took the bait! And in taking the bait, he ended up talking about things that no one cares about except him and what no one trying to decide who to vote for cares about—numbers at the rallies, who want the 2020 election, Harris’ father, which former administrative persons left and thought Trump unfit, which world leader is laughing at him, etc. All irrelevant! But by taking the bait, Trump got distracted, and wasted his time on irrelevancies.

I found it interestingly sad that Harris spent so much time baiting Trump and almost no time defining any of her positions. Perhaps that was her intent. She avoided answering quite a few direct questions: Are we better off today than four years ago? Why have you flipped on so many issues? Would you abort a baby in the 7th month, the 8th month, the 9th month? Do you take any responsibility for the terrible way we pulled out of Afghanistan?

If her goal was to get under Trump’s skin, then she certainly succeeded in doing that. He certainly seemed to be rattled by her insults, zaps, insinuating implications, personal attacks, etc. He was rattled so much that he got angry. And as he got angry, he become less coherent so that whereas he is usually very sharp and can improvise a comeback in the moment—he missed a great number of opportunities. On the first question, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” when Harris did not answer it and talked all around it, he could have simply noted,
“Did you notice that she failed to answer that simple question? I wonder why? Is it because the whole country was better off four years ago than they are now.”
Then he could have quoted the facts about the cost of groceries, gas, rent, housing, etc. But being triggered, he missed that opportunity.

Nor was Harris the only one on the attack. So where the two ABC moderators. For Trump they asked follow up questions, they fact checked him 5 times to correct him, but they fact checked Harris 0 times—zero even though she made several glaring mistakes. So as many have noted, the debate was really 3 against 1.

I felt sorry for Donald Trump as I watched the debate. He could have done so much better if he had not taken the bait, if he had not let her get under his skin. So what is my points in all of this? To make the point, let’s do some imagining. Imagine that Trump had attended a Neuro-Semantic Training or Hired a Meta-Coach and learned the Un-Insultability Pattern! Imagine that! If he had learned, as so many have learned, how to reverse his “taking insult” strategy—a strategy that everyone seems to learn and learn really well as they grow up(!)—then he could have maintained presence of mind while staying calm and cool. Then he would have had all of his knowledge and communication resources fully available to him.

Since first developing and teaching the Un-Insultability pattern in 1995, I have taught it to Police Departments, to busy open-room news departments, and to the medical responders on the front lines. I have taught it at Sales Training meetings. But mostly I have trained it in NLP practitioner courses and our Trainers’ Training course. What’s amazing is that it is imminently learnable. If a person wants to be able to not be so easily triggered, even if he thinks of himself as “a sensitive person,” he can learn this as a way of being in any context of pressure.

Every year at Trainers’ Training, we have one of the more skillful trainers present the Un-Insultability Pattern. This past May, Wahyudi Akbar or Yudi made the presentation which was live streamed as he presented it. It was a fabulous presentation and it is what enables those who experience it to stand up and keep presence of mind without getting triggered! Mr. President, if you’d like to experience, just call on us.

[You can find Un-Insultability in the book, Meta-States (1995/2012) as well as in Dragon Slaying, The Sourcebook of Magic, etc.]

HOW TO USE MANY WORDS AND SAY NOTHING

When I listened to the CNN interview this past Thursday (August 29) between the interviewer and the presidential candidate, I listened with my NLP-ears. I listened not so much to the content, but to the process and structure. All I will present here is the first minute or two which is how it began. Consider this an NLP perspective which reveals how most politicians seem to think and speak. I have italicized abstract words, vague words and nominalizations.

Bash: The voters are really eager to hear what your plans are. If you are elected, what would you do on day one in the White House?
Harris: Well, there are a number of things. I will tell you first and foremost one of my highest priorities is to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class. When I look at the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions of the American people, I think that people are ready for a new way forward in a way that generations of Americans have been fueled by—by hope and by optimism.
I think sadly in the last decade, we have had in the former president someone who has really been pushing an agenda and an environment that is about diminishing the character and the strength of who we are as Americans—really dividing our nation. And I think people are ready to turn the page on that.

Amazingly, two paragraphs and 120-plus words and she did not offer a single item of what she would actually do on day one. One visual word “look at the aspirations…” three kinesthetic words: “pushing an agenda…” “dividing our nation…” “turning the page.” Talk about hypnotic language! Those two paragraphs are full of vague non-referring words, nominalizations, and metaphors. Isn’t that incredible! In terms of being a professional communicator—this is what we do not want. Further, she did not answer the question! Dana Bash caught that and so she repeated the question.

Bash: So what would you do Day One?
Harris: Day One, it’s gonna be about one, implementing my plan for what I call an opportunity economy. I’ve already laid out a number of proposals in that regard, which include what we’re gonna do to bring down the cost of everyday goods, what we’re gonna do to invest in America’s small businesses, what we’re gonna do to invest in families.
For example, extending the child tax credit to $6,000 for families for the first year of their child’s life to help them buy a car seat, to help them buy baby clothes, a crib. There’s the work that we’re gonna do that is about investing in the American family around affordable housing, a big issue in our country right now. So there are a number of things on day one.

Wow! Two more paragraphs and another 120-plus words and only vague phrases that have no actual referent and nothing that could be counted or measured later to test if she will do that on day one. The one specific item: “extending the child tax credit to $6,000″ is something that they have already done, this just raises the amount a bit. So why wait? If it is important to do, and if you are already Vice-President, why not do it now?

What a model for how to use many words to say nothing! Like so many politicians, with this kind of hypnotic language, you can promise the moon without being held accountable for anything specific. This is the kind of language that needs to change in Politics if we are to change the world. And it would not be hard. With even just a small exposure of NLP— a person can learn to be a lot more specific and precise. Of course, politicians tend to not want to do that. Why? My guess is a fear of accountability.

The cure here is the Meta-Model of Language that you can find in The Structure of Magic (1975), User’s Manual of the Brain (1999) and Communication Magic (1997).

WHAT NLP REALLY IS

NLP, as a Communication model, is not a therapy model. It is not a version of psychotherapy. Nor is it a modeling model, a hypnosis model, or even a model for personal development (self-actualization). So what is NLP? Amazing enough, that is one of the perennial questions that has plagued the field of NLP. This is the question to ask if you want to torture an NLP trainer!

Yes, NLP speaks to, addresses, and provides lots of guidance in each of these disciplines. These are actually the most essential applications of NLP. There are many more—parenting, leadership, managements, coaching, consulting, education, health, fitness, etc. These are so much the essential applications that they are commonly, even to this day, confused with what NLP really is. That’s why some say NLP is Modeling, some say it is Psychotherapy, some say it is Hypnosis, and others say it is Self-Actualization. NLP certain is each of these in terms of applications. But what is it at its core? Can we determine that?

NLP is actually much deeper than any of these. Thinking about it as a communication model, then at its heart, it is about how we communicate to ourselves and others to create our experiences (states, skills, knowledge). As NLP identified how these communications work and the basic communication processes (mechanism), we found that it gave us the inner hidden structure of experience itself. And when you know the structure of an experience, you can model and replicate that experience.

Yet unbeknown to most NLP trainers, writers, researchers, and teachers, NLP is actually deeper than just a Communication Model. Nor is this something new that I’m adding to NLP, it has been deeper since the beginning, but hardly anyone noticed. I did not. And I researched it for decades and delved into the NLP models going back to the original sources. Perhaps that’s because it is easier and makes more sense to simply say that it is a Communication Model. People understand that. What else would you call it?

When Bob and I packaged NLP for the two volumes of User’s Manual of the Brain, we said that it is most essentially a Communication Model. Evidence of that goes to the fact that the first NLP model is “the Meta-Model of Language in Therapy” and the second model was the Representational Model that comprises our communications (including Sub-Modalities or the cinematic features of our inner movies). The third model, the Strategies Model about how the communications generates and “programs” an experience. Fourth, the Milton Model of hypnotic communication patterns and how trance states work. Fifth, the Meta-Programs model about how people think in their communications. That’s a lot of evidence that NLP is a Communication Model. Yet could it be something deeper? If so, what would we call it?

Could we call it a thinking model? What if, deeper than all of the uses and applications of NLP is thinking? Yet there’s a problem with that. Namely, what is a thinking model? How do you model thinking? Thinking itself seems so primary and irreducible, what would be its components? Perhaps that’s why none of us saw that NLP could be defined as a thinking model. But let’s go with it for a moment. Suppose we called NLP a thinking model? After all, take each of the communication models and let’s ask, What lies within and underneath each model? The answer is Thinking.

Meta-Model of Language Linguistic distinctions encoding how we think.
Representational Model Sensory representations encoding sensory VAK thinking.
Sub-Modality Model Cinematic features framing how one is thinking.
Strategy Model Representational steps in how a thinking format is structured.
Milton Model Hypnotic linguistic distinctions that invite a person to construct thinking about possibilities and in terms of metaphors (metaphorical thinking).
Meta-Programs Model Thinking patterns that govern ways of perceiving.
Perceptual Positions Model Thinking patterns from different perceptual positions.
Reframing Model Thinking patterns for framing different ways of interpreting a word, experience, or person, thinking about meaning in different way.
Meta-States Model Reflexive thinking patterns that layer thought upon thought to generate more complex states.

One thing this perceptive highlights is that all ‘thinking’ is not the same. There are many different kinds and dimensions of thinking. It also puts a spotlight on the driving force inside of communication—the quality of your thinking determines the quality of your communicating. As thinking can go wrong, make mistakes, be fallacious—so can everything that thinking generates. No wonder change, and transformation of persons and organizations, require new thinking in new and different ways.

What am I saying here? I’m saying that what NLP is most essentially a Thinking Model. When you really understand NLP, you know that it is a way of thinking, a way of rethinking, and a way to do both critical and creative thinking. With this in mind, then at the core of every change is re-thinking. It is fresh thinking and it is meta-thinking, that is, the ability to think about your thinking so that you can make sure it is accurate, specific, precise, creative, and ecological.

Thinking has been at the core of NLP from the beginning, but we missed it. Perhaps we dismissed “thinking” as too small, too obvious, or not distinctive enough. Perhaps we wanted something more sell-able, something more commercially appealing, something that sounded more sexy— communication, change, reframing, modeling, etc.

Now as a Thinking Model, NLP (including Meta-States) offers us nearly everything we need to build and articulate a model of thinking. And unbeknown to most of the field of NLP, that’s what I’ve been doing in our Brain Camp trainings and in the series of books on thinking. It has been a discovery long time in coming, but it is now coming in a training near you.

From: L. Michael Hall
2023 Neurons #44
October 16, 2023
NLP A Thinking Model #2

IF NLP IS A THINKING MODEL—

I have proposed that deeper than a Communication Model, or a model about modeling, psychology, personal development, etc., NLP is most essentially at its core a Thinking Model (#43). Viewing NLP from this perspective changes several things about NLP. It changes numerous things that we can claim for NLP, how to sell NLP trainings, and perhaps even the future of NLP. Let’s start from the premise of the title, If NLP is a thinking model, then what? What inevitably follows if that is the case?

1st) NLP enables you to think better. Even the very idea of “thinking” suddenly becomes much more specific and actionable. I discovered that when I first studied NLP. Learning about the sensory representational systems, namely, that we think in images (visual), sounds (auditory), sensations (feelings, kinesthetics) along with smells and tastes, I discovered that I had almost completely ignored the auditory channel. Why? That was due to a misbelief I picked up in college, namely, that I was tone-deaf. Having lived with that mis-understanding for 30 years, I simply paid no attention to that system. Now suddenly I discovered a whole new realm for information coding. I was not tone-deaf!

When you know about the VAK sensory systems for representing information, you have many more specific channels for thinking. You have multiple ways of enhancing your internal snapshots and movies about things. There’s scores of cinematic features (sub-modalities) that you can now use to enrich what and how you think. It’s actually quite amazing. It makes actionable the multiple intelligence model of Howard Gardner (see Frames of Mind, 1983).

2nd) NLP enables you to be an effective critical thinker. If the VAK model enriches your internal coding of information so that you can “think” with much more richness, then the Meta-Model of Language empowers you to learn the essence of critical thinking. The discipline of “critical thinking” is about thinking more clearly, precisely, accurately, and rationally. To do that, the Meta-Model specifies 21 linguistic distinctions to pay attention to so that your thinking will be “well-formed” and not suffer from the ill-formedness caused by deletions, generalizations, and distortions.

If that sounds complicated, it really is not. Nearly all of the deletion distinctions are already intuitive in you as a native speaker. When you hear, “He rejected me” you intuitively know that the verb “reject” is not specific. So you naturally ask, “How did he reject you?” The generalizations and distortions are partly intuitive, yet most of them you have to learn to recognize them. When you do recognize the linguistic distinction, then ask a question. That’s what the Meta-Model is—a set of distinctions and questions to get a speaker to be more specific and precise. How important is that for any communicator? For any leader, parent, therapist, coach, teacher, etc.?

When I began doing research in the field of Critical Thinking (yes, there is a whole field!), I discovered that not a single book in that field referenced NLP’s Meta-Model. Not one! So I wrote the first one, Executive Thinking: Activating Your Highest Executive Potentials (2018). Why? Because the Meta-Model is the most direct and simple way to learn how to be an excellent critical thinker.

3rd) NLP enables you to be an effective creative thinker. As a model, the Meta-Model not only allows you to think and communicate more precisely, it enables you to see the very structure (thinking structure) that formulates an experience. Every experience has a structure and that structure entails how a person thinks. Discovering that structure, which is what the NLP Strategy model does, as well as the Meta-Programs, now we can create and/or model expertise that already exists.

In the history of NLP this happened as an accident. It was not planned. All that the founders intended to do was to find out how Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir, two brilliant therapists, were able to achieve tremendous results in psychotherapy. So as they listened to how they talked, they inferred what they must be thinking, then from that they created a whole list of “patterns” for replicating their expertise. Those patterns became the content of NLP training. They reveal how a therapist would lead a client to a new way of thinking and experiencing.

4th) NLP enables you to solve problems at the thinking structural level. From that “accident,” the founders realized that the solutions and cures were not based on the “content” of what a person thought so much as on the process of how the person shifted in thinking. That’s why, they explained, many different approaches and therapies all work. But therapists of those schools are wrong in thinking that it is because of the belief system in the therapy, it’s the shift of thinking underneath or within the content.

It was in that way that NLP was recognized as a meta-discipline from the beginning. The “magic” was not in Gestalt, not in Family Systems, not in Hypnosis, or any other model, it was in the internal structure. Unknown to the founders, this corresponded to what Korzybski said, “Structure and structure alone is the essence of knowledge.” Then, out of this discovery, arose the focus on modeling. When we re-code NLP as a Thinking Model, are many benefits result. I’ll speak of more of them in the next Neurons posts.

THE PERSONAL GENIUS PATTERN

In 1994 Neuro-Semantics introduced what we called “the personal genius pattern.” It is a pattern for accessing and integrating a mastery state as a state wherein you are totally committed and engaged in an activity that you’re developing competence with. In this state, you become so focused that various facets of everyday reality just vanish away— the world goes away, your sense of self goes away, time vanishes, etc. Your focus becomes so highly intentional it seems like you have a laser beam focus in what you’re doing. The “genius” state is an engagement state, flow, you are in the zone, and you are experience what Maslow called a peak experience.

The original idea for this genius state came from the NLP modeling that two of the founders did in Turtles all the Way Down: Prerequisites For Personal Genius (1987). There Grinder and DeLozier explored the use of “logical levels” (i.e., meta-states) to protect and govern the state. In this way the higher meta-levels allow a person to get lost in their first-level attentions.

What are the prerequisites? A “genius” state involves focus, clarity, commitment, engagement, getting lost in the moment, at one’s best with all of one’s resources available, “in the zone,” and synergizing an important meaning with a developed competence in your performance. Now to protect such a state, we need to set some higher level frames. In that way the state will not get contaminate or dilute when we move in and out of the state.

The process of stepping in and out of the genius state is the technique which, in turn, allows you to find the differences that make a difference in your physiology. You can then use those distinctions for ecological boundaries of the genius state. Each distinction in your physiology informs your neurology for when and where to cue the state. By stepping cleanly out of the state, and shifting the focus of your mind and body system, you learn to separate from this intense flow state so that you can leave it cleanly behind. Do this repeatedly until you can do so impeccably . . . with no residue left over. My recommendation: do it 12 to 20 times.

Another technique that we use: practicing interrupting the state. This enables you to learn to trust yourself, namely, that you can always get the state back. In this way, you change your relationship to any experience that would otherwise interrupt you. By inviting a person to be interrupted and having him or her handle it effectively, namely, stepping out and taking care of the interruption, and then matter-of-factly stepping back into state. Now you are becoming un-interruptible. Begin by practicing responding to an interruption and then take charge of it by interrupting yourself so that you step out of state with a minimum overlap, and then back into the state in a moment’s notice.

The brain/ nervous system will learn this pattern quickly and achieve the desire level of competency of state shifting. When you carry over no mental or emotional residue from one state to the other, but cleanly separates and breaks between them and can then step back in and re-access that state with a strong intensity, you are making an impeccable state shift.

Now it is best if you have someone who knows the pattern, a Meta-Coach or a Neuro-Semantic Trainer to run it with you. You can do it by yourself, but that’s more difficult.

Distinctions:
∙ The primary level of competence or expertise and the protection by the meta levels.
∙ A dedicated state for a specific purpose versus a free flowing state.
∙ Having a basic understanding and strategy for an activity, how to do it; and the optimal state that makes the activity come alive.

Elicitation Questions:
∙ What optimal state would you like to create and experience that will give you a single minded focus when you are engaged in something very important to you?

Creating a New Genius Pattern

1) Access the new desired focus state.
What engagement state do you want to build so you can do something that’s important for you to do? What do you call that state?
Where do you want this state of full engagement? When?
Have you ever had a little bit of it? [Yes] Good. Access that bit seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard, and feeling what you felt. Go there and be with it fully. Do you need to amplify this state?

2) Access a simple state of innocent witnessing and/or observing.
Step out of that state. Let’s access a discreet state of “just observing.” Step into this position and just notice some of the colors and sounds, etc. in the room. Are all of your muscles relaxed so that you are just observing?

3) Practice stepping in and out to develop impeccable state shifting.
Step back into the desired genius state and be there as fully as possible. How much are you in this state? Tell me what it is like? Posture, breathing, perspective, etc.
Step out again. How much of that state did you bring with you?
Repeatedly step in and out of this new genius state, practicing a clean state shift. Do this to make distinctions in your neurology which will allow you to know how to have it upon cue. Contrast the two states— posture, muscle tension, face, breath, internal dialogue, etc.
Step back in. Let’s set up a sphere that will protect your genius state. When you step out, take a moment to snapshot where you are— what you are seeing, hearing, saying, doing. Then step out.
Step out again until you can do so cleanly, leaving the genius state intact. Take as little of it as possible. Ready, go. Step out to your observer position.
Would you like to imagine a bubble that protects and secures this genius state? (You could use a wall, a door, the Stargate picture of liquid space, etc.)

4) Use your executive mind to further develop the genius state.
Step back in. There’s a part of your mind that makes decisions, that decides when and where to have this genius state. As you are in this state, let that part of your mind rise up from the focused state to an executive level state. This is the state that will be able to take charge of things when you are fully engaged in this state. Would you like that?

Would you like this executive level of mind to run the choices you make so that you can be cued about when the appropriateness of staying in this state or coming out? Would you like your executive mind to determine when to make the switch in and out of the flow or genius state and to determine the contexts for the boundaries of this state?

Re-access the state and then rise up in your mind to the part of your mind that makes decisions and answer the following questions. [The experiencer does not need to speak the answers, but simply nod when he or she has an answer.]

World:
Place: Where should you have this state? Where not?
Contexts: In what context or contexts? In what contexts should you not?
Time: When should you have this state? When should you not?
Intention:
Criteria: According to what other criteria and qualities?
Value: Why should you have this state? How would it be valuable to you?
Emergencies: For what will you be interrupted? What emergencies will you allow to bring you out?
Power:
Style: How should you? In what way, with what style? How should you not?
Resources: What other resources would you like to add to this state that would even more fully express the quality and efficiency that you want? Any other resources to add to the genius state? Love, respect, daring, fallibility, balance, etc.?
Others: Relationship: With whom? With whom not?
Meaning:
Meanings: For what significance or meaning? What meanings to not give it?
Reasons: Why should you? Your reasons, agendas, motivations? Why should you not?
Any other considerations that you would like to determine the boundaries of this engagement state?

5) Commission the executive meta-state.
[The person still in the state] “The part of your mind that makes decisions—are you willing to take full responsibility for setting these parameters for this commitment state so that this person [say his or her name] can fully experience this commitment state? [Yes!]
Are you willing to take responsibility for letting this person fully experience this intense and passionate state? For knowing the limits and boundaries, when to have it and when not, how to have it and how not, will you signal X when to step out?

6) Future pace to install.
As you imagine moving out into your future, are you fully aligned with this? Any objections?

Welcome to Your Personal Genius State!
This state can change your life! Really. For anything (or everything) that requires an intense focus where a laser-beam concentration would serve you— reading, writing, speaking, presenting, parenting, negotiating, and on and on—develop a genius state. Learn to step in and out of it so that the life situation or event itself will trigger it. Do that and you’ll find that you can more easily achieve your goals, that you’ll be more effective, productive, and efficient. And as an extra bonus, being ‘in the zone’ will enable you to experience more your skills as just flowing and yourself in multiple ‘peak experiences’ everyday.

References
You can find this pattern in the book, Secrets of Personal Mastery (1997) and in the APG manual (which is on the Shop, www.neurosemantics.com).