WHAT NLP REALLY IS

 

NLP, as a Communication model, is not a therapy model.  It is not a version
of psychotherapy. Nor is it a modeling model, a hypnosis model, or even a
model for personal development (self-actualization).  So what is NLP?
Amazing enough, that is one of the perennial questions that has plagued the
field of NLP.  This is the question to ask if you want to torture an NLP
trainer!

 

Yes, NLP speaks to, addresses, and provides lots of guidance in each of
these disciplines.  These are actually the most essential applications of
NLP.  There are many more-parenting, leadership, managements, coaching,
consulting, education, health, fitness, etc.  These are so much the
essential applications that they are commonly, even to this day, confused
with what NLP really is.  That's why some say NLP is Modeling, some say it
is Psychotherapy, some say it is Hypnosis, and others say it is
Self-Actualization.  NLP certain is each of these in terms of applications.
But what is it at its core?  Can we determine that?

 

NLP is actually much deeper than any of these.  Thinking about it as a
communication model, then at its heart, it is about how we communicate to
ourselves and others to create our experiences (states, skills, knowledge).
As NLP identified how these communications work and the basic communication
processes (mechanism), we found that it gave us the inner hidden structure
of experience itself.  And when you know the structure of an experience, you
can model and replicate that experience.

 

Yet unbeknown to most NLP trainers, writers, researchers, and teachers, NLP
is actually deeper than just a Communication Model.  Nor is this something
new that I'm adding to NLP, it has been deeper since the beginning, but
hardly anyone noticed.  I did not.  And I researched it for decades and
delved into the NLP models going back to the original sources.  Perhaps
that's because it is easier and makes more sense to simply say that it is a
Communication Model.  People understand that.  What else would you call it?

 

When Bob and I packaged NLP for the two volumes of User's Manual of the
Brain, we said that it is most essentially a Communication Model.  Evidence
of that goes to the fact that the first NLP model is "the Meta-Model of
Language in Therapy" and the second model was the Representational Model
that comprises our communications (including Sub-Modalities or the cinematic
features of our inner movies).  The third model, the Strategies Model about
how the communications generates and "programs" an experience.  Fourth, the
Milton Model of hypnotic communication patterns and how trance states work.
Fifth, the Meta-Programs model about how people think in their
communications.  That's a lot of evidence that NLP is a Communication Model.
Yet could it be something deeper?  If so, what would we call it?

 

Could we call it a thinking model?  What if, deeper than all of the uses and
applications of NLP is thinking?  Yet there's a problem with that.  Namely,
what is a thinking model?  How do you model thinking?  Thinking itself seems
so primary and irreducible, what would be its components?  Perhaps that's
why none of us saw that NLP could be defined as a thinking model.  But let's
go with it for a moment.  Suppose we called NLP a thinking model?  After
all, take each of the communication models and let's ask, What lies within
and underneath each model?  The answer is Thinking.

 

Meta-Model of Language            Linguistic distinctions encoding how we
think.

Representational Model              Sensory representations encoding sensory
VAK thinking.

Sub-Modality Model                    Cinematic features framing how one is
thinking.

Strategy Model                              Representational steps in how a
thinking format is structured.

Milton Model                                 Hypnotic linguistic
distinctions that invite a person to construct thinking about possibilities
and in terms of metaphors (metaphorical thinking).

Meta-Programs Model                Thinking patterns that govern ways of
perceiving.

Perceptual Positions Model        Thinking patterns from different
perceptual positions.

Reframing Model                          Thinking patterns for framing
different ways of interpreting a word, experience, or person, thinking about
meaning in different way.

Meta-States Model                       Reflexive thinking patterns that
layer thought upon thought to generate more complex states.

 

One thing this perceptive highlights is that all 'thinking' is not the same.
There are many different kinds and dimensions of thinking.  It also puts a
spotlight on the driving force inside of communication-the quality of your
thinking determines the quality of your communicating.  As thinking can go
wrong, make mistakes, be fallacious-so can everything that thinking
generates.  No wonder change, and transformation of persons and
organizations, require new thinking in new and different ways.

 

What am I saying here?  I'm saying that what NLP is most essentially a
Thinking Model.  When you really understand NLP, you know that it is a way
of thinking, a way of rethinking, and a way to do both critical and creative
thinking.  With this in mind, then at the core of every change is
re-thinking.  It is fresh thinking and it is meta-thinking, that is, the
ability to think about your thinking so that you can make sure it is
accurate, specific, precise, creative, and ecological.

 

Thinking has been at the core of NLP from the beginning, but we missed it.
Perhaps we dismissed "thinking" as too small, too obvious, or not
distinctive enough.  Perhaps we wanted something more sell-able, something
more commercially appealing, something that sounded more sexy-
communication, change, reframing, modeling, etc.

 

Now as a Thinking Model, NLP (including Meta-States) offers us nearly
everything we need to build and articulate a model of thinking.  And
unbeknown to most of the field of NLP, that's what I've been doing in our
Brain Camp trainings and in the series of books on thinking.  It has been a
discovery long time in coming, but it is now coming in a training near you.
:)

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

 "MIND" AS A VERB

 

One of the greatest distinctions in the Meta-Model is the linguistic
distinction of nominalization.  When you have one of these creatures, you
have a mystified noun.  It is a mystery because, since it is not a true
noun, it is challenging, sometimes difficult, and sometimes utterly
impossible to know what to do with it.  How different from a real noun which
is "a person, place, or object."  When you have a real noun, you can see it
or hear it or touch it or taste or smell it.  Examples of real nouns- your
mother, your bed, your toothbrush, shoe, shirt, car, eggs, hamburger, etc.

 

But then there are the false nouns.  These are verbs which have been
noun-ified.  Take the verb "relate" and when you nounify it, you have
"relationship."  The verb that's hidden inside of relationship is "to
relate."  It is unspecified, so we have to ask more questions: who is
relating to whom, relating in what way, for what purpose, over what time
frame, etc.?  Take motivation and what is the hidden verb inside it?  Easy.
First we get motive then we get move.  Again, unspecified, so who or what is
moving?  In what direction?  What is the style of the moving, toward or away
from, slowly or quickly, etc.?

 

Many, if not most, nominalizations are like that-it is easy to detect the
hidden verb and to expose the real referent.  That's good because if you
don't, you will be left with a distorted mental map about yourself, others,
life, and/or the world.  You will have a mental map that is false-to-fact
and that will trick you, even deceive you, about things.  Psychologists for
most of the 20th century were fooled by motivation.  They thought it was a
thing, an object, something real, and so off they went looking for it.  But
it is not a thing!  It does not exist as a separate entity.  It describes a
function-the thinking-and-feeling (meaning-making) function within a person.
Maslow got it right when he identified motivation as a function of the
driving needs that need to be gratified; he wrote a whole book about
that-Motivation and Personality (1954/ 1970).

 

Now for one of the most mysterious of nominalizations of all-"mind."  We
certainly talk about "mind" as if it is a thing, a real thing, an object
that somehow exists in our heads.  There is a whole field, Philosophy of
Mind, in which great "minds" theorize and philosophize about mind.  Some say
the mind is just the brain; some say there is no such thing, "it is a
figment of your imagination."  Then there are many other definitions, all
striving to specify what it is.  But, of course, that's the thing, it is not
a thing at all!

 

Fortunately, we do at times use the word "mind" as a verb.  Getting on and
off of trains or subways you see the words, "Mind the gap."  We hear our
mothers say, "Now you mind your mother and do what I tell you!"  We may hear
our parents also say, "Mind your brother while I go into the store," "Mind
your manners, you're in church!"  There are more: mind your own business,
mind your head, mind your step, mind me, mind yourself, mind the goats, etc.
There are even "conversational postulates: "Would you mind passing the
salt?"  "Would you mind closing the door?"

 

Now when it comes to mind as a verb, what are we actually saying or asking?
To "mind the gap" is to think about and pay attention to the gap.  So with
"mind your mother," we know that she means, listen to and think about what I
told you.  "Mind" as a verb means think, think about, pay attention, focus
on.

 

Now you know the hidden verb inside of "mind," it is think.  Yet again, we
have an unspecified verb, so we have to ask more questions: Think in what
way, think how, think about what, etc.?  Now when it comes to thinking,
there are essential thinking skills: considering, questioning, doubting,
detailing, and distinguishing.  There are constructive thinking skills that
lead to eureka moments: inferring, organizing, creating, and synergizing
(systems thinking).  Then there are the advanced thinking skills: learning,
deciding, discerning, reflecting, and sacrilizing (valuing). (I have
detailed these thinking skills in Brain Camp I and in the forthcoming book,
Thinking for Humans, 2024).

 

What is your "mind?"  Well, since we know it is not a thing, it must be a
function, and given that the hidden verb is "think," what we refer to by the
word "mind" is your thinking functions.  Question: "What's on your mind?"
Answer: whatever you have been thinking-your thoughts, your ideas, your
constructs.  Question: "What's in the back of your mind?"  Answer: previous
thoughts that you now use as your thinking filters or references.  "What
does it mean when you say you must be losing your mind?  Answer: It means
that you are forgetting a thought or not comprehending a thought.  "Do you
have a good mind?"  Now we are asking about the quality of your thinking and
if you can think in clear and reasonable ways.

 

Mind- a mystery especially when you don't know how to de-nominalize.  Mind-
the wonder of human ingenuity, creativity, and innovations when you know
that it is your thinking and the quality of your thinking.  Mind- the result
of your thinking.  Your mind is your own self-creation!   Given that, how's
your mind?

 

 

 

 




 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

 YOUR TALK:

YOUR PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

 

To assert that your talk reveals your thinking (#40) is to identify the
field of study called Psycho-Linguistics.  While this field uses the
language of linguistics and grammar, it is not strictly about linguistics
and grammar.  It is about how the way you talk reflects your inner
psychology.  This describes the very same phenomenon that the phrase
neuro-linguistics also refers to.  It refers to what your linguistics does
inside your neurology, how it influences the neurons in your brain and body,
and how that puts you into various states.

 

What does all of that mean?  It means that NLP is not about linguistics and
grammar per se, but rather about the effect of language within the human
person.  And while many people get turned off with regard to the Meta-Model
of Language, NLP's first model, that is typically because the trainer did
not understand it him or herself and did not know how to train it.
Accordingly, in many NLP schools, the Meta-Model is mentioned and then
quickly passed over thereby conveying the idea that it is not that
important.  But it is.

 

Actually, the opposite is true.  I could easily make an argument that the
most important model in NLP is the Meta-Model of Language.  Once upon a
time, Richard Bandler himself made that argument.  He said that "everything
that had been created in NLP was created with the Meta-Model."  How about
that!  In fact, it was that statement in 1989 that made me question my own
understanding of the Meta-Model.  It challenged me because I could not
explain how the Meta-Model would have been at the heart of creating
everything in NLP.  And, I wanted to know.

 

Consequently that sent me on a several year study of the Meta-Model.  It
also sent me to my first studies in Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics and
from that, I collected seven linguistic distinctions from Korzybski's work
that should have been included in the original Meta-Model but were not.  In
adding those, I called the result The Extended Meta-Model.  That's now in
the book, Communication Magic (2001).

 

Now psycho-linguistics or neuro-linguistics refers to one of the most basic
and essential mechanisms in human experience-how we think and how our
thinking generates our "sense of reality," that is, our model of the world.
To think is to use various "languages."  First, we think using the sensory
representational systems of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting.
This thinking is without words.  Next we add words, that's the
meta-representational system and the first words are sensory-based words.
Words enable you and I to create categories, classifications, concepts, etc.
and these then become our thinking templates or perceptual filters.  This
shifts to a higher level of thinking-conceptual and evaluative thinking.

 

As you do any of these kinds of thinking, you send signals to your body how
to feel and what to do.  In other words, this is how you "program" yourself
so that you can do whatever you do.  You program yourself for how to feed
yourself, walk, run, ride a bike, dress yourself, read, write, do math, use
a computer, etc.  Your programming for how to be, and how to function as
you, is a function of your neuro-linguistics and neuro-semantics.

 

This means that the language you speak is an important determinant of how
you think.  And as you think, so you feel, respond, speak, and behave.  Your
linguistics in all of its multiple forms organizes your thinking processes.
Even a single word can operate an organizing structure for your thinking. 

 

For example, if you mis-use the word "race" to designate different ethnic
groups, you thereby program yourself to see and distinguish different
"races."  It is actually a mis-use of the word because there is only one
human race on this planet.  We are all members of that one and singular
race.  We are not different species.  If you talk about "the human race" and
include every single person in that category, you have no room for racism or
being a racist.  Then you will be color-blind as Martin Luther King, Jr.
described in his "I Have a Dream" speech.  Given this, all of the non-sense
today about racism is a self-generated problem that can disappear very
quickly when we change our languaging.

 

Amazing, isn't it?  Words program the mind.  The way you talk organizes what
we call your "personality."  No wonder Neuro-Semantics, as an upgraded
version of NLP, focuses so much on cleaning up your thinking so that you can
speak with more clarity and precision and so you can then live with more
truth and compassion.

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

ISNS Executive Director

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

(970) 523-7877

meta@acsol.net  

 WOKE THINKING SICKNESS

 

While the content of what is called Woke claims to care about social
justice, it only cares for justice for a few, not for everyone.
Originating from the "Black Lives Matter" movement, Woke thinking lacks
almost any common sense.  The first un-common sense thing that came out of
it was the defunding the police movement.  Now just a few years later, we
see many of the people who jumped on that bandwagon reversing themselves.
Why?  Because the rate of crime has been sky-rocketing, because mobs of
people rob businesses in daylight, and because the hands of police have been
tied so that they fear protecting the public

 

However, above and beyond the ideological contents of Woke is Woke thinking,
and that's the real problem.  Because Woke thinking is driven by an
ideology, and as with every ideology, that thinking is inherently biased by
its unspoken assumptions.  Consequently Woke thinking is not scientific, not
realistic, and not rational.  Rather than true thinking, it is "agenda
thinking."  When you start with an agenda, in this case a political agenda
based in Marxism and Socialism, that's why it is nearly impossible to reason
with a woke thinker.  Like every ideological thinking, woke thinking doesn't
seek the truth, but to prostyle in order to gain followers to the Woke cult.

 


Now if you use your brain well, and if you think in the way that thinking is
designed to be used, then you use it to grasp as best you can the
"territory" of the world.  Grasping it enables you to map it.  That's what
thinking is-your mental mapping of what you construe is present and how it
works.  You do that in order to navigate that territory.

 

If effective thinking puts in touch with reality, it is the means and design
of science.  It is the scientific attitude.  When we do science effectively,
we discern what is there, how it works, how to manage it, etc.  You consider
all sides, tests the validity of statements, keep your hypotheses open for
adjustment as new information arises, etc.

 

But Woke thinking does not do any of that.  For example, in biology we know
that there are two sexes and only two.  Every biologist knows that.  There
are males and females and everybody either has a penis or a vagina.  That's
the sexual facts.  For the term "gender," we generally use it as a synonym,
although "gender" also carries with it the cultural ideas of what each
gender is like, and how in any given culture we raise boys and girls.  But
today Woke thinking presents a mental map that in no way relates to reality.


 

Now regarding these facts, people within every culture develops views about
masculinity and femininity-beliefs, understandings, assumptions, etc.  These
views make up each person's psychology about males and females as concepts.
When these are framed in extreme opposition to each other, while there may
be clarity about male and female roles in a culture, there's usually also
unnecessary conflict between the sexes.  Then men aren't allowed to cry, to
be tender, to nurture, to admit weakness, etc.  Then women are not allowed
ot be angry, speak up for themselves, establish firm boundaries, say no,
etc.  Of course, these "problems" are problems of our framing and especially
cultural framing, not of reality.

 

Sexual and gender identities are functions of framing and meaning-making.
As an identity, what you think about being male or female depends on your
beliefs, understandings, permitting, forbidding, framing, etc.  If you are a
biological male and "feel like a woman" that's a psychological issue, not a
biological one.  If you're a biological female and "feel like a man" your
psychology is off.  Your biology is a given, you are either male or female.
If you have a problem with that, the problem lies not in your biology but in
your mind and emotions.  So trying to "solve" a psychological problem
biologically is a living "outside-in" approach, and will not be very
satisfactory.  And as such, it is a superficial and shallow "solution." 

 

While it is certainly possible to change one's sexual features, something
accomplished by surgery, hormone therapy, etc., chopping off breasts and
penises and reconstructing sexual parts is irreversible.  Because of that,
as a psychologist, I say that no child, adolescent, or even young adult
ought to ever make that choice.  After all, any decision that is
irreversible ought to be reserved for a time in life after the brain has
full matured -which is in the mid-30s.

 


And once a biological man has made all of the changes to become a woman, he
should never be allowed to compete in women's sports.  Let them invent some
transgender league of their own.  Women have fought long and hard for their
own leagues and for respect of their sports.  That should not be thrown away
to men who want to be women.  Everybody knows that gives them an unfair
advantage and, in the long run, will destroy women's sports.

 

Now when you try to reason with a Woke thinker, to have a rational
conversation, you'll discover the sickness of their agenda thinking.  Woke
thinking seeks to shut up anyone who disagrees.  Woke thinking bars
conservatives from college campuses and disserters from boardrooms.  Why?
Because the Woke thinker has a "religion" to promote.  That person will
argue by calling names, using labels ("racists" is their favorite),
generalizations, emotionally associating you with extreme examples-forms of
cognitive distortions and fallacies.  Their use of language itself is sick,
it is the doublespeak that Orwell described in his novel, 1984.

 

As Neuro-Semanticists, we think about how people think because as a person
thinks, so one reasons, emotes, communicates, acts, etc.  The inner game of
thinking governs all of the outer games of acting and relating.  That's why
we have to address thinking first.

 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D., Executive Director

Neuro-Semantics

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

 DO YOU HAVE A GOOD MIND?

 

To succeed at anything-business, relationships, politics, health, fitness-
requires that you have a good mind.  That's because when you have a good
mind, you can figure what is going on, understand and accept reality, and
then generate good ideas about what to do.  You can do that because you have
learned a basic human skill-how to think effectively.  That's what gives you
a good mind.

 

Imagine the opposite.  Imagine a poor thinker.  That person will have
troubles defining the current situation, figuring out what to do, accessing
resources, and thinking through the consequences.  When someone is a poor
thinker, he falls back on the childish thinking patterns of the cognitive
distortions.  She over-generalizes, does either-or thinking, personalizes,
emotionalizes, blames, has tunnel-vision, etc.  No wonder the poor thinker
cannot effectively deal with reality and has troubles getting along with
people!

 

Effective thinking enables you to first of all comprehend the current
reality so you know what you are dealing with.  In effective thinking you
begin by openly considering all of the factors and variables before you
jump-to-conclusions.  Once you effectively define, detail, and distinguish
what is, then you look for effective solutions and resources.  You establish
a well-formed outcome, problem, solution, and innovation.  This is what it
means to have a good mind-a mind that enables you to figure things out and
create actionable plans for taking productive action. 

 

In this sense, no one is born with "a good mind."  A good mind is developed.
If you have a good mind today, it is because you have developed it.  You
have learned how to think accurately, precisely, critically, creatively, and
productively.  That doesn't happen without effort and direction.  That
doesn't happen without the discipline of learning how to use your brain and
"run your own brain."  Even basic school education does not guarantee that.
And why not?  Because even to this day, schools teach kids what to think,
they do not teach kids how to think.

 

Given that, who teaches people how to think?  That's a great question and
the answer is "Generally, no one."  Most people who have learned how to
effectively think have learned it on their own.  And they usually learned it
after some debacle where what they had learned generated more problems and
misery than help.  So they sat down to learn how to learn and how to think.
That's when they went meta to their thinking and learning and discovered
meta-thinking and meta-learning.

 

Who teaches how to learn?  NLP does, although mostly in an indirect way.  I
mostly learned how to think when I learned NLP.  It was one of the
unexpected and unintended consequences of learning NLP.  That's when I
learned that the first level of thinking begins with the sensory-based
information I picture in my mind.  I then learned that language is the
meta-representation system -a system about the sensory-systems. Then in
Neuro-Semantics we articulated that there are many more higher or
meta-levels of "thinking" coded as beliefs, decisions, permissions,
knowledge, concepts, etc.  So today, the people who teach thinking are most
the Neuro-Semantic trainers and sometimes, some NLP trainers.

 

Teach a person how to think and how to effectively manage one's thinking
powers, and that's how you create a good mind which can generate good ideas
that can change one's life and/or change the world.  Yet in reality, that is
just the beginning.  Success and productivity certainly begin with people
who are good thinkers who produce good ideas, but that is not enough.  It is
a great start, but only a beginning.  We also need good strategies-a
specific and workable strategy that will achieve a specific objective.
That's because without effective strategies, you will not be able to
implement your good ideas.  A good strategy answers the question, What
specifically will you do and how will you do it?

 

Thinking strategically means that you begin with a well-formed objective and
then think about the processes required for making that objective real.  A
wonder goal without the ability to plan intelligently is not sufficient.
The problem with not knowing how, that is, being ignorant of the how, your
brain will fill in your ignorance.  David Dunning explains how this works:

"An ignorant mind is precisely not a spotless, empty vessel, but one that's
filled with the clutter of irrelevant or misleading life experiences,
theories, facts, intuitions, strategies, algorithms, heuristics, metaphors,
and hunches that regrettably have the look and feel of useful and accurate
knowledge.  This clutter is an unfortunate by-product of one of our greatest
strengths as a species.  We are unbridled pattern recognizers and profligate
theorizers.  Often, our theories are good enough to get us through the day,
or at least to an age when we can procreate.  But our genius for creative
storytelling, combined with our inability to detect our own ignorance, can
sometimes lead to situations that are embarrassing, unfortunat e, or
downright dangerous- especially in a technologically advanced, complex
democratic society that occasionally invests mistaken popular beliefs with
immense destructive power."

 

If you want a good mind, then first and foremost, you need to learn how to
truly think.  That means to not assume that "good thinking is natural and
inevitable" or that "you don't have to learn how to think to be an effective
thinker."  Good thinking builds up a good mind; they go hand in hand.  The
problem is that there are many forms of non-thinking- pseudo-experiences
that masquerades as thinking.  In Brain Camp I we identify seven of these
masquerades of the real thing as a way to stay alert.  Then we cover the 14
essential thinking skills.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

ISNS Executive Director

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

(970) 523-7877

drhall@acsol.net  

 "PURPOSEFUL THINKING"

Well, Almost ... Actually Just VAK Thinking, Again

 

I began studying Critical Thinking in 2015.   In the beginning I
collaborated with one of our Neuro-Semantic trainers.  After he dropped out,
I created the trainings that are now called Brain Camp I, II, and III.
After three years of extensive reading and studying in that field, I wrote
the book, Executive Thinking (2018) having also written scores of articles
on "thinking."  Just recently I discovered that Richard Bandler began
thinking somewhat along the same line after that.  I discovered that when I
got his book "Thinking on Purpose" (2019).  Hearing some promotion for it, I
thought that maybe it mighty be further development of the mysterious and
wonder-fill phenomenon of "thinking."  But, sadly, it did not.

 


In fact, throughout the entire book, thinking is simply refers to as
VAK-thinking, the thinking that works with into the components of your
movie-mind.  That's all.  It is the 1970s NLP model of thinking as only what
we do at the primary level.  Bandler has not even included the levels of
thinking that Bateson and Dilts developed, or the meta-levels of thinking
that I developed with Meta-States.  It is all primary level thinking, and
therefore the one and only "tool" is changing the qualities of your
pictures, sounds, and/or sensations (to wit, sub-modalities).

 

If you have read NLP books by Bandler, there's nothing new in this one.
Like all of the other books, this one is exclusively focused on the
modalities and sub-modalities.  It is about good thoughts and bad thoughts
(p. 69).  It is about adding pleasure to whatever you do.  When it comes to
beliefs-still failing to recognize that beliefs are meta-level phenomenon,
he still uses sub-modalities to alter them, which of course, does not work
(97).  He thinks of them as images to alter.  He also thinks that decisions
are "images."  "...and notice the image of that good decision" (115).  Yet
these meta-level abstractions are not pictures, they are concepts.

 

Meta-Stating: Now there is meta-stating in the book, but it is unrecognized.
He talks about seeing a belief (which presupposes a belief is an image
rather than a sentence!) And then saying to yourself with absolute
conviction, "It is stupid."  That's applying the state of "stupidity" to a
belief (p. 96). He also does that with "This is smart" (p. 98).  He notes
that "confidence is not just a state."  It's a modifier, but then he fails
to realize that because you can be confident about being happy, about being
hired, about not being hired, etc., it is a meta-state (163).

 

The following reveals the meta-state of knowing about a craving.  "Your
feelings don't force you to act.  Knowing you crave something should be
enough to tell you to not do it." (p. 201).  The knowing is higher to and
about the craving and therefore leads to a higher understanding.  Then there
is this: "As soon as you laugh at being afraid of something and you're fed
up with being afraid of going up in an escalator..." (p. 242).  These are
meta-states: laugh at fear; fed up about fear.  But, of course, he doesn't
know that.

There are inspiring statements about thinking and learning:

"We have to teach people how to be learning machines; this requires them
become problem solvers." (p. 16)

"If you just think, you can think yourself into problems.  It's really
easy." (p. 30)

"The biggest inoculation against our mental problems is a sense of humor."
(p. 34)

"You forgot that the reason you have a brain is so you would have your own
thoughts, not someone else's." (p. 42)

 

There are also some nice reframing which, of course, occur at a level meta
to the primary level.  I like this one: "When you feel bad exercising, the
pain of exercising is weakness disappearing." (p. 104).  And this one:
"Phones have become like pacifiers now." (p. 158)

 

About acceptance, he got that all wrong.  "... If you accept how you are,
you are committing to your stupidity." (p. 242).  Here he criticizes those
in the Human Potential Movement for urging "accept yourself the way you
are."  But acceptance does not mean condoning or resignation.  Not at all!
No one in the Human Potential Movement ever said that.

 

Bottom line- If you know NLP, you will not learn very much about thinking in
this book.   You will mostly get a good review of Bandler's take on NLP, and
especially how we think in the sensory-systems and if you change the
cinematic features (sub-modalities) of the images, sounds, and sensations
that you use-you will change your thinking.

 

Thinking on Purpose could have been a breakthrough book.  After all,
purposeful thinking itself describes a meta-state.  If Richard Bandler had
read and understood the Appendix on Meta-States in The Spirit of NLP (1996),
he would have known that.  He could have then identified the higher level
thinking which is involved at the meta-levels.




 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

 SO YOU THINK YOU "DESERVE"

SOMETHING?!

 

In these days of social media we hear a lot of people asserting that they
deserve various things- better salary, an opportunity, recognition, etc.
Many people march and protest demanding something that they think they
deserve.  But do they?  What do you deserve?  It seems like a simple and an
innocent question.  It is not.  The way the word deserve is thrown around
today, and the way that question to presented today, makes it semantically
loaded and not in a good way.  Look up "deserve" in the dictionary and you
will discover that the word means:

"to earn by service; to be worthy of (something due, either good or evil);

to merit; to be entitled to;"  "worthy of reward, award or praise."

"a reward for what you do, to merit what you received."

"to have earned as a right by one's actions." 

Examples: "the referee deserves a pat on the back for his bravery."
"People who park like that deserve to be towed away."  The laborer deserves
his wages; a work of value deserves praise.

 

Yet while the word deserve refers to earning and meriting something, today
it seems to be mostly used in the sense of unconditional entitlement.  When
used properly, it is a perfectly good word; when used improperly it is a
cognitive distortion.  It becomes a should.  "I deserve..." becomes a demand
for a reward without doing anything to earn or merit the reward.  Yet when
used this way, it becomes an injustice whine demanding that the world give
whatever the person wants.

 

Advertisers use deserve to sell things.  "You deserve a break today."  "You
deserve Miller's Light Beer."  "You deserve to drive the best."  These ads
imply that you have the right to demand what you deserve and spend to get
what you deserve.  When politicians use the word deserve they seek to raise
your dissatisfaction.  They imply, "Elect me and I will give you the things
that you deserve!"  "You deserve free health care."  "You deserve a four-day
work-week."  "You deserve more weeks of vacation."

 

In spite of all this misuse, let's ask the central question that immediately
impacts our lives: What do you actually deserve?  The answer is nothing,
unless you do something!  If deserve refers to earning and meriting, then to
deserve, you have to earn it.  You have done something that merits and
warrants that you get it.  The US constitute and Bill of Rights speaks about
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."  The government was instituted
to protect these rights.  But they are not automatic.  You still have to
earn them!  For life, you have to take care of yourself and not do yourself
harm.  For liberty you get to exercise your freedoms and not forfeit them by
violating the law and losing your liberty.  For pursuit of happiness, you
have is learn how to be happy, adjust your attitude, and develop your
skills.  Do you deserve to be happy?  No, not automatically.  You deserve it
if you do what's required to attain it.

Do you deserve respect?  Not necessarily.  If you say to someone, "I deserve
your respect..." you are making a request, perhaps a demand.  Question: Have
you demonstrated respect to that person?  If not, then it does not sound
like you have earned that person's respect.  Saying you deserve respect
sounds like a should.  Does the relationship-the way each are relating-
establish that expectation?  Or is it an unrealistic expectation?

 

Now in an entitlement society, many are mis-using this word.  They think
they deserve all kinds of things because they want them.  It is as if they
think, "If I want something, I should have, therefore I deserve, and
therefore I can expect to get it."  They then make demands on life, on the
world, on government, on employers, on other people.  "My wants as
expectations are your responsibilities."  Of course, what that philosophy
generates is conflict, disagreement and disappointment.

 

The truth is neither you nor I deserve anything unless we do something that
earns or merits the reward that we want.  The next time someone says, "I
deserve X," ask, "And what have you done to deserve X?"  "How have you
earned or merited X?" 

 

An extreme example of this non-sense is currently going on by those in the
BLM movement.  They have decided that they deserve reparations for the
injustice done to their ancestors five generations back.  They themselves
were not mistreated.  No one did injustice to them.  In fact they live in a
free society where they could achieve "the American dream," if they put
their mind, heart and body to it.  Injustice was done perhaps five or ten
generations ago.  Someone (usually their tribal chiefs) sold their ancestors
into slavery to those who back in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries were
engaged in slave trade.  But they now think that they deserve reparations.
Question: What have you done that earns that recommence?  The truth
is-nothing.  They don't deserve reparations at all.

 

Deserve is a perfectly good word when used about earning or meriting a
reward.  But used as a should, an expectation, a demand simply because you
want it-the word becomes a sneaky cognitive distortion.  It becomes a form
of pseudo-reasoning, a way to throw a tantrum and try to get what you
actually do not deserve.   It becomes a "guilt trip" for those who don't
know what the word actually means.

 

 

 

 

 




 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

ISNS Executive Director

P.O. Box 8