FOCUSED OR ECLECTIC THAT IS THE QUESTION

In the 1980s I came upon Cognitive Psychology and learning it, I chose that I would take a focused, systematic, systemic, and synergistic approach. Previously, I had spent many years studying Psychoanalysis, then Adlerian, Rank, then Transactional Analysis, then Rational- Emotive. And along the way, I had looked into various fads that arose over the years. But once finding Cognitive Psychology, I chose to not be eclectic. That choice saved me from being distracted and reactive. I had enough of that. Then I found NLP and I immediately knew what I had. I recognized that NLP was a Cognitive model— and one that filled-in the details for Rational-Emotive and other cognitive approaches.

Now being eclectic, or eclecticism, is defined by Webster in the dictionary in this way: “Eclectic: selecting what appears to be best in various doctrines, methods or styles.” You can see it in the field of Coaching. ICF proudly announces that it has adopted an eclectic approach to coaching. As a result— you never know what you’re going to get when you ask for an ICF coach! You could get someone trained in psychoanalysis, Adlerian psychology, TA, Cognitive, NLP or someone with a background all sorts of New Age hocus-pocus. When a person operates as an eclectic, you also never know what he may pull out of his bag of tricks or whether it has any relevance to the issue at hand.

A big danger with eclecticism is that it sets you up to be highly reactive to fads. Any “new” thing that appears or that someone sells the person on— suddenly it is the new magical cure. In the field of NLP, eclecticism has been disastrous. People got a brief training in NLP, quickly went through Prac. and Master Prac., maybe even Trainers and then in their impatience to get rich or famous— they were ready to add anything and everything to NLP. In many, many countries this has given NLP a really bad name. Further most of these people don’t actually know what NLP is. Because they’ve added so many things to it— they do not know its essence. They are confused when asked, “What is NLP?”

I have seen so-called NLP people add DISK, Myers-Briggs, Taylor-Johnson, Enneagram and other “personality” typing models to NLP who have no awareness that typology completely contradicts NLP. They think it will help them get into an organization, and so they are desperate to adopt anything — even if it is a denial of the NLP presuppositions.

[As an aside, if you have to use such instruments, do so. But do so with an awareness of what you are doing and why— to get in. Don’t confuse it with NLP and don’t become an advocate of it. NLP has so much better tools!]

The eclectic approach is both fed by impatience and it will generate more impatience. It cause

you to always be chasing after something new. Something different. And what does that lead to? The lack of mastery.

Ah yes, mastery. If you are serious about develop expertise in what you are doing— then you have to patiently stay with what you have learned. You have to practice it regularly so that it becomes mind-to-muscled into your neurology and trains your “intuitions” so that it becomes unconscious intelligence. That patience, persistence, determination, resilience and commitment over 10 years of deliberate practice to turn basic knowledge into expertise.

That’s what I did. I started my studies of NLP in 1986 and by the time I finished my trainers training, I had read every single NLP book [of course, that’s not saying that much since there were only 30 or 40 back then!]. Then I read and studied in depth Korzybski’s books, I read the books of Bateson (multiple times), I read everything from Virginia Satir, everything from Perls, and half a dozen books from Erickson (only the past couple years have I read just about everything from Erickson). When I started my first modeling project— Resilience (1990 to 1994), and in the process discovered the Meta-States Model. It took 9 years of pretty concentrated study and intense application (in doing therapy and trainings).

Learning one model deeply, thoroughly, systematically, and systemically allowed me to develop some skills with NLP and open up new areas. When I learned NLP I immediately applied rapport, eye-accessing, predicates, representational systems, anchoring, etc. in therapy conversations. I did that until 1996, then shifting to consulting, coaching and training, I continued until 2002 when I put together Meta-Coaching as a methodology. That was the result of 22 years of focused emphasis on NLP and Meta-States.

After the first 10 years, I began collaborating with Bob Bodenhamer. What did Bob bring to the table? Years of focused experience in NLP! That amplified my own and created a new synergy. Then with his talent for seeing practical applications, while I was quickly reading extensively in some area (wealth, leadership, selling, etc.), he kept saying, “We could apply that piece to this area!” I would have missed many of those applications if he had not brought his complementary skills. What make it work was that each of us had a sense of abundance so there was never any question that we would honor each other’s contributions.

What’s the point? Focus on one model! Learn it in depth, go deeper into it and applications of it than anyone else. By thorough, be systematic. Give up the shallow temptation of being eclectic. In the long run it will not serve you well. It will actually undermine your expertise.

NLP, and especially Neuro-Semantic NLP, is still very, very rich as a model and there are lots and lots of things yet to discover and apply. If you think you understand it— that is an clear indication that you do not really understand it. I still have lots and lots of questions about it that have not been answered. I still read new books and articles on NLP. I go to Conferences to learn from others. We have an incredibly deep and rich model in NLP and Neuro-Semantics—a communication model that can change the world. It is all you need!