Wealth Creation Ideas #1
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
I’m writing this to those of you who know and love the NLP model as I do. I’m writing to those who have entered into the field of our neuro-linguistic states to discover the heart and soul of how to “run your own brain” and manage your states. In doing this, I am writing to people who already know that the NLP communication model is a very powerful model for self management, understanding the structure of experience, and succeeding at the things important to us. So with that upfront, I want to ask one question, the question I put in as blunt form as I could in the title. I want to ask,
If NLP is such a powerful model and tool for communicating with self and others and for enriching our lives, accessing resourceful steps, and working methodologically with our outcomes to achieve our most compelling goals, then why aren’t more of us rich, financially independent, famous, and/or succeeding beyond our wildest dreams? Why do so many NLP therapists and trainers just getting by and why is there is much scarcity and poverty thinking in the field? Why isn’t there more wealth and prosperity in this field?
Except for Anthony Robbins, there’s only a handful of people in the entire field who have made any serious money. The great majority, perhaps 95 to 99% of NLP trained people, are not financially independent. And those who run training centers or use NLP as their primary modality for therapy, consulting, and/or coaching struggle in their business to make a decent living.
Now compare that to the very, very different picture that you get about NLP from the promotional literature about it! From the P.R. that sings the praises of NLP, you would think it was the ultimate panacea. After all, it’s full of magic, ten minute phobia cures, and the very structure of excellence. So surely there’s a structure or strategy to wealth building and we should be able to generate it with NLP.
So what’s the problem?
And more importantly, what can we do about it?
The Problem. A key problem is that NLP focuses primarily on linear processes, on the representational steps of strategies. As a result, it fails to fully exploit higher dimensions of consciousness. Yes, Robert Dilts began that exploration, yet in doing so he took the same linear thinking and created a rigid hierarchy or ladder and turned “logical levels” into a “thing” as if it was real. They are not. They are not even “things” at all, but dynamic processes. Consequently NLP even today has no model for handling the reflexivity of a self-reflexive consciousness, a mind-body-emotion consciousness that reflects upon itself time and time again.
Now enter Neuro-Semantics. Meta-States entered the field of NLP in late 1994 and was recognized by the International NLP Trainers association as “the most significant development in 1995.” Why? Because it modeled the very factor that makes human consciousness and experience unique and systemic—self-reflexivity. This actually introduced a paradigm shift into the field—a shift that is still surging and reverberating through the field and creating a revolution in understanding about systems thinking and dynamics as applied to the study of the dynamic structure of experience.
Afterward the discovery of Meta-States an explosion of creativity occurred as more than a hundred Meta-Stating patterns quickly emerged along with several new models: the Matrix model, Axes of Change, Self-Actualization Quadrants to mention a few. Along the way we began modeling numerous areas of expertise using the Meta-States model. This including selling, persuasion, women in leadership, wealth creation, fitness and healthy eating, business excellence, coaching, and so on. We also began applying these models to NLP itself and began re-modeling NLP. This led to new time-line patterns, the expansion of meta-programs and meta-model distinctions, the discovery of the meta in the so-called “sub-modalities,” etc.
What does all of this have to do with wealth and wealth creation?
What does all of this have to do with using NLP to get a Porsche?
A lot. After all, the dimension of wealth that we first think about (namely money) arises within a system (the financial system) which is embedded in numerous other systems (an economic system, a market of products and services, an entrepreneur system, etc.), and all those systems govern the personal mind-body-emotion system of a given individual. No wonder wealth creation is not a simple linear thing but a dynamic process involving many things and involves an alignment within all of these systems.
This is what the linear approach of strategies in NLP lacks. Merely running a pattern will not do. One’s entire matrix system of both process and content frames must be awakened, detected, empowered, and aligned. Doing this will then begin creating a self-organizing attractor frame that will create inside-out wealth.
This reveals yet another weakness in the NLP model. Somewhere at the beginning, several thought viruses got in that has been devastating the otherwise positive intentions and hard work of NLPers. What thought viruses? Those of scarcity and competition for beginners. There are others.
What we need is to identify, detect, enter, transform, and master our Matrix of Wealth. We need to set frame upon frame that will give us a robust Matrix for creating wealth. Doing that creates a rich inner game and winning at the inner games makes the outer game a cinch. All that’s needed then is translating those rich semantic meanings of value, creating value, adding value, seeing opportunities for adding value into our everyday performances. That’s inside-out wealth. That’s the theme and subject of Mastering Your Wealth Matrix. That’s the training focus which came from the modeling of how wealth is created. That’s the application training using the best of Neuro-Semantics to become financially independent.
By the way, I settled on a SUV and a 747 jet (which I rent pretty regularly) rather than a Porsche as I created enough financial freedom to follow my passions. In 2005 there will be 2 Wealth Creation Trainings — one in Portland OR. in the US (June) and one in Johannesburg, South Africa (Sept.). Winning the Wealth Creation Game is mostly involves getting the inner game set, establishing your millionaire mind.