Remember that Judith is coming to Shanghai to deliver a Master Practitioner training in June. Of course, if you’re interested, let me know.

Jeff has given me the lead on this event that will be the first of it’s kind in Asia where you will be able to learn not just more advanced NLP techniques, but NLP Modeling. We’ll cover more advanced NLP techniques of course. Though more than just a collection of techniques, what most attracted me to NLP in the first place is how NLP provides a mechanism to get access to genius by absorbing their skills.

If you’ve looked at an infant – like our son Alexander – you’ll notice how they can have their eyes wide open as they look out at the world, absorbing whatever lies before them. They don’t ‘analyse’ or ‘think through’ what they are doing; instead they just absorb the behaviours of those around them. At the dawn of NLP, Grinder modeled Bandler to as they developed the Meta Model, and they did it together to develop the Milton Model and so much else. Learning to model deliberately helps us take NLP to an entirely new level.

We are looking to run this over four weekends, currently:

• March 26-28,
• April 24-25,
• May 8-9, then
• May 28-30.

So, all up, 8-10 days of training where you can learn to:

• Identify, apply and use advanced language patterns to influence and persuade,
• Connect with that state where you are at your very best whenever you want,
• Learn to apply NLP Modeling (those skills that Bandler and Grinder applied when they founded NLP) to learn whatever you want to learn,
• Get more clear about what is most important to you than ever before,
• Build rapport and understanding from those around you,
• Connect with the metaphors, questions and beliefs that drive your life,

More generally, you can walk away enjoying experiencing more excellence, more often.

For more information, on how to become a Master Practitioner of Neuro-linguistic Programming with Dan Smith, click here.

There are three basic levels of NLP training.

The first basic level of training is “Practitioner”. An NLP Practitioner will typically have been exposed to between 7 and 18 days of NLP training, focused on learning the fundamental patterns, techniques and attitudes.

The second basic level is “Master Practitioner”. Building on the Practitioner, Master Practitioner usually involves an extra 6-18 days of training. Sometimes this is focused on learning additional “advanced” patterns, while other trainers will focus Master Practitioner on Modeling.

The third basic level is “Trainer”. NLP Trainers Trainings are usually conducted over about three weeks, and is less focused on improving “NLP skills” and more focused on how to present NLP material.

In a sense, the fourth level would be the Graduate Certificate of NLP. The GradCertNLP is government accredited as equivalent to a third of a Masters degree and so there is a much higher standard of quality control. This incorporates Practitioner and Master Practitioner trainings into a 40-day period of training. To me, the Graduate Certificate of NLP sounds great, though it is still very new… Nobody in China has completed this level of training yet.

Some NLP trainers call themselves “Master Trainers”. The term was first coined by Richard Bandler when he and John Grinder split up, some might say as a way to position some trainers as “better” (others might suggest to ‘recognize seniority or skill’). There are a few other fancy titles floating around too.

Now: Not all trainings are equal.

There are different lengths of training, different styles of training and vastly different content. In general:

• A longer training will be better.
  You’ll learn more, experience greater personal shifts and develop better skills.
• A smaller group of participants will be better.
  You’ll get more attention from the trainer, your peers will help you more since they’ll know you better, and the training can move along faster.
• A more highly trained trainer is better.
  There is so much more to being the right NLP Trainer for you than just whether the person is calling themselves one. How many days have they spent learning and growing in the past year? How are they applying their skills? What are they best at?

There are also different streams of NLP. There is the “Robert Dilts/NLPU” and “Richard Bandler” and “ABNLP/Tad James” or “Tony Robbins” and even a few with “John Grinder/New Code”. And more spin off and brand themselves each year. Some trainers will be stuck in one ‘way’ while others will have explored a number of streams in depth and be focused on communicating their own or a combination.

Perhaps the biggest difference between my NLP training and my time at university is that you can keep redoing your NLP training. The best practitioners and trainers that I have seen are those that have jumped back into the arena and remained perpetual students, never getting too attached to what they know to learn something new. So wherever you are at now, I hope that you can start moving towards where you want to be in NLP.

Of course it helps when you’ve spent 18 days with one of the sources of NLP!