What is NLP?

Or Neuro-Linguistic Programming? Or even Neurolinguistic Programming?

NLP is a bit like an 'owners manual' for your brain!

At school and college we learned wonderful things like history and geography and algebra but we did not learn much about how to feel good or to have great relationships. That's where NLP comes in.

NLP is a set of insights and skills...

...with which you can actively use your mind and your emotions and your body to run your own life more successfully and to communicate with other people with 'extra-ordinary' effectiveness.

NLP is an ever-growing collection of information and insights, backed up by a huge range of mental NLP Techniques that can enable you to improve how you think, behave and feel - and assist others do the same. Becoming skilled in NLP will enable you to:

	do whatever you already do reasonably well, even better
	acquire skills and attitudes to do what you cannot do right now, but would like to be able to do
	think more clearly
	communicate more effectively with others
	manage your thoughts, moods and behaviours more effectively.

NLP: ‘the study of success’

NLP has been variously described as the technology of the mind, the science of achievement, and the study of success. It is based upon the search for and the study of the factors which account for either success or failure in human performance.

For over thirty years NLP explorers have studied or ‘modelled’ the behaviour and thinking styles of particularly effective and successful people in business, education, sales, therapy, sport, and personal development.

The results of this work are nowadays presented in workshops and extended trainings which, in effect, provide shortcuts to more successful living - you learn in hours what may have taken the experts years to discover by trial and error.

How is it possible to be an idiot... or an expert?

At our Pegasus NLP courses we consider that the question how is it possible to be an idiot or an expert? expresses the essence of the NLP attitude and skills. This is because with NLP we can identify the attitude and the skills that produces either type of performance.

In a practical and very down-to-earth way we are able to use NLP to:

1. Identify the 'ingredients' of excellent performance i.e. what it is it that they do that is different from less-expert people
2. Systematically introduce these 'ingredients' into our own performance using NLP techniques and...
3. ...equally important, we can look at the ingredients of less-than-successful performance, in ourselves or in others, and use NLP to change or replace these.

NLP - that name!

The name Neuro-Linguistic Programming was invented in the early 70's as an attempt to describe in a succinct manner the scope of this extensive body of insights and skills:

	Neuro refers to how the mind and body interact
	Linguistic refers to the insights into a person’s thinking that can be obtained by careful attention to their use of language
	Programming refers, not to the activity of programming, but to the study of the thinking and behavioural patterns or ‘programmes’ which people use in their daily lives.

The name is a bit of a mouthful and is certainly not NLP's strongest asset. By trying to be too comprehensive it has ended up being somewhat off-putting, either because it sounds complicated or, worse, that it sounds sinister (many people initially think the 'programming' part of the name suggests that NLP has something to do with 'being programmed'!).

But the name Neuro-Linguistic Programming has been around for over 35 years so it looks like we are stuck with it. Which is why it is generally abbreviated to the initials NLP.

You could say that NLP has become successful not because of the title but in spite of it. And, let's face it - if something with such a weird name can become this popular it must be good - because the title does it no favours at all!

Is all 'NLP' the same?

Definitely not. Which is unfortunate for anyone trying to figure out where to learn NLP. The quality of NLP that you get is dependent on with which organisation and how you learn it.

Even terms like NLP Practitioner or NLP Master Practitioner are unreliable since there are no universal standards.

For example, the title 'NLP Practitioner' was originally an indication of how skilled in NLP as person was - and until about the mid-90's gave a pretty reliable indication. Then commercial pressures (a.k.a. the desire for greater profits) led to a new type of NLP training: ' fast-track' or 'accelerated' NLP training in which a person can attain this title without having to prove anything - they can simply spending 6 or 7 days in a conference room and get a 'certificate' at the end.

The same applies to the title 'Master Practitioner of NLP'. One person may have learned their skills as part of an audience of 500, over as little as 9 days, and received the certificate merely through attending. Another person may have the same title and learned their skills in a small intensive group of 15 people, over as much as 40 days, and only after having undergone a thorough assessment of their skills.

We are offering a completely biased view!

These are not objective comments.

In Pegasus NLP we are, of course, prejudiced. That's because we train people in the thorough manner - and we do this because, even though it is not nearly as profitable, it results in our Practitioners and Master Practitioners being highly skilled.

That's why we are Founder Members of the Professional Guild of NLP - we helped form the Guild back in 2004 to fly the flag for uncompromisingly high standards of NLP.

The fast track people may counter this quality argument by telling their customers that they will learn from extraordinarily wonderful trainers, that they will learn through hypnosis(!), and they they will learn a special 'advanced' form of NLP.

Our customers can see through this form of marketing. As a result they tend to be a pretty savvy bunch.

They are, as the Pegasus NLP by-line suggests, people who like to think for themselves!

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What our participants have said

We've been running NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner certification courses since the early 90's. Click on this link to read what people have said about our NLP courses.

What some others have said about NLP

Science Digest said that NLP 'could be the most important synthesis of knowledge about human communications to emerge since the sixties.'

Time Magazine announced that 'NLP has untapped potentials for treating individual problems.'

Training & Development Journal reported that NLP 'offers the potential for making changes without the usual agony that accompanies these phenomena' and that it 'allows for increasing options, flexibility, creativity and therefore greater freedom of action than most of us know.'

Best-selling author and motivational speaker Anthony Robbins said that NLP is 'an incredibly effective and enjoyable way to access more of the true potential of your brain.' 

Click on these links for more information about NLP

NLP FAQ

Why learn NLP

How to learn NLP

Where to learn NLP - and how to choose a training provider

NLP Core Skills - our course in the New Forest

What's special about Pegasus NLP Trainings

What people have said about our courses

How we integrate NLP with outdoor activities