THE WHEN NLP BECAME A BUSINESS

In the history of NLP, it didn’t take long before those who were first into the field realized that they could make money with this stuff. That would be my guess about why John Grinder so quickly gave up being an Associate Professor at the University at Santa Cruz and “went on the road” doing workshops and trainings with Richard Bandler. And I’m sure that’s why most of the others in the 1970s immediately began applying NLP to training and the training of therapists. But that was just the beginning.

One fascinating thing about the field of NLP in terms of business is that it is about nothing in particular and everything in general. As a field, NLP is about the structure of human experiences and what that means is that it is about everything human! Any and every experience — from learning, changing, leading, developing expertise, delegating, parenting, sports, medicine, entrepreneurship, training, education, and so on— has a structure above and beyond the content information that governs that experience.

So the content of the NLP models about the structure of experience therefore can be applied to everything human— everything that we humans think, feel, say, and do as we relate. This also means that NLP is not about any single field. And in business we know that when something is about everything, it is about nothing. So, NLP does not have a field!

NLP’s area of expertise goes to the processes regarding how we create models of the world and a sense of reality.

So when NLP became a business in itself, it started with the fields that it had arisen from— therapy and training. But soon, it began spreading out to other fields— to those of communicating, selling, influencing, persuading, educating, etc. And that’s why NLP got connected with these areas rather than academia where it originated.

So just as soon as the first books were created, the two founders left the bosom of the university where it was given birth and created their own companies— training companies. Bandler called his company, Not Limited, and Grinder named his company, Unlimited Limited (now there has to be a story behind these names, but I don’t know it!). Then they went “on the road” with their seminars and trainings.

Now the official date for the beginning of NLP is 1975. That’s when it was given birth as a model. But it was not called “NLP” at that time. That did not happen until 1977 which was the beginning of the terminology “NLP” and from there the first official trainings in 1978. That’s when Leslie Cameron Bandler put together “the Society of NLP” and organized what later

became known as “the Practitioner” training. And the first Practitioner training was 35 days long. By the 1980s the Practitioner course was shorted and streamlined to 21 to 24 days and eventually a Master Practitioner course was added to that.

In terms of business development, it was Anthony Robbins in the mid-1980s, who really stepped up and showed what kind of money could be made with NLP. Probably unknown at the time, but Tony’s genius was (and continues to this day to be) that of marketing, selling, and promoting. So when he found NLP in 1985 (or thereabouts), he learned it well enough to give him the courage to step up and put its most dynamic aspects on TV. And with that, he built a name and reputation. And soon thereafter he had a best-selling NLP book, Unlimited Power (1987).

Somewhere about that time, Wyatt Woodsmall taught Anthony the Master Practitioner materials and worked with him on the government shooting modeling program. And a year or two later, when Tony was certifying people as NLP Practitioners, but not doing so through “the Society of NLP.” So that brought about a lawsuit from Bandler(!). From the stories I’ve heard, Richard didn’t talk to Tony directly about any of that, he just filed a lawsuit against him. When it all ended, Tony settled out of court, Richard “won,” got a signed agreement that Tony would certify through the Society, and send his $200 for each participant certified in NLP.

Yet that small win was a big loss. I say that because ultimately, with that action Richard Bandler chased away the greatest salesman he could have ever had or wanted. So instead of putting the mantle on Tony, and giving him a world-wide commission: “Bring the world to me!” Richard essentially drove him away and added massive pain so that it conditioned him to never utter the three letters, “NLP” in public. So to this day, whether on Oprah, Larry King, or any other talk show, Tony will not say those three letters. And yet he still brings more people to the field of NLP than any other single person and undoubtedly makes more money than everybody in the field put together and multiplied by 10. So much for wisdom.

Today NLP as Business is in just about everything— Sales, Persuasion, Hypnosis, Hypnotherapy, Psychotherapy, Counseling, Coaching, Leadership and Executive Development, Management, Presentations, Training, Learning, Education, Medicine, Health and Fitness, anywhere and with anything that involves human beings seeking to be their best— NLP offers business applications.

NLP is into just about everything, but it is a wrong-headed myth to think that “everything is NLP.” It isn’t. NLP itself is a model about experience and so has many applications. As a model about “communication” it provides a way to identify how language and meaning forms (“in-forms”) and governs the things we do as human beings. And that’s what makes it such a valuable tool.