Category: Influence

Introduction to: A Proposed Distinction for Neuro-Linguistic Programming by Robert Dilts

“Anyone who claims to know or care about NLP is aware that the process of modeling is the life blood of the field.”

Of course “life blood” is a metaphor here. Dilts wants us to believe that modeling is very important to NLP trainers. And he is right, but not in the way you think. The “life blood” of NLP trainers is money. Pretending to be modeling is what brings in the money for bad NLP trainers. 

“The origin of NLP and its continued evolution come from the ability of NLP practitioners to model the verbal, cognitive and behavioral patterns (the “neuro-linguistic programs”) of exceptional people.”

No-one denies that modeling is the origin of NLP. But it is nonsense to think that it’s evolution, let alone it’s “continued evolution” comes from “the ability of NLP practitioners to model”. If only because NLP practitioners fail to model anything at all.

“It is frequently pointed out that the basis of NLP is modeling and not the “trail of techniques” that have been left in its wake.”

Wrong. While NLP is not the “trail of techniques” it left behind, modeling is not the basis of NLP. NLP strategy elicitation is. A NLP technique is nothing but a generalized NLP strategy. NLP trainers are so bad at modeling that they almost all of the time mistake NLP strategy elicitation for modeling as is the case here.

“For all of the acknowledgment and emphasis on modeling, however, there has not been a clear and shared perspective on exactly what NLP modeling is”

Correct, but this is because almost all NLP trainers are badly trained and fail to understand what modeling is. This is a problem of their education rather than NLP in itself.

“nor an awareness that there are different varieties of modeling.”

Presupposition of realization. Dilts wants us to believe that there are different varieties of modeling. Of course they are. There are real methods of modeling. For instance the modeling by Donald Boyd, modeling using the Viable System Model or Bayesian network modeling. But in NLP there is only one way of modeling. This is due to the fact that NLP is 100% cybernetic. Cybernetics is 100% mathematical. So all modeling within NLP needs to be 100% mathematical. The only option here is: cybernetic transformation tables. 

“For some, modeling is essentially strategy elicitation.”

These bad NLP trainers are wrong as explained.

“For others it simply means using NLP distinctions when describing some phenomenon.”

This sentence is devoid of any meaning that the sentence is meaningless.

“Others perceive modeling as the imitation of key behaviors.”

Imitation is not mathematics. These bad NLP trainers fail to grasp that modeling within NLO is a three-place predicate. That means in all cases within NLP there is:

1. The modeler who creates the model.
2. The person whose behavior is modeled.
3. The model which is the product generated by the modeling process.

If you imitate someone (3) is missing. Hence imitating someone differs from modeling.

“The most powerful and generative models are those which capture something of the deep structure of the individual or individuals being observed.”

Here the nonsense begins. “capture” is an unspecified verb. Necessarily so because the capturing process cannot be specified because it is impossible to capture the deep structure. The moment you capture the deep structure, what you have captured is surface structure.

“This is quite different than describing or imitating surface level behaviors.”

Of course it is, because it capturing the deep structure is complete nonsense. “surface level behaviors” is more nonsense. The deep structure is unobservable by definition. So Dilts is misleading the public here. Rather than using the distinction between deep structure and surface structure, he posits deep structure against surface level of behaviors, falsely suggesting that there are some deep level of behaviors that link with the deep structure. It is completely wrong and either Dilts is misleading the audience on purpose or clueless about the deep structure.

“Reaching this deep structure has been one of the crowning achievements of NLP and requires a special methodology.”

No, NLP has not done the impossible. But claiming to be able to do the impossible is the “life blood” of NLP, i.e. it is the marketing lie that brings in the money.

… (Deleted passages deal with the text by Carmen Bostic St. Clair and John Grinder. All comments there also apply to these deleted passages.)

Robert Dilts

A Proposed Distinction for Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

“The development of any discipline, and especially one still organizing its initial patterning requires a certain attentiveness to precision in its fundamental vocabulary.”

We won’t hold the ability to write clearly against the authors, but they also could have written: we need to be precise in our communications. I agree.

“Older disciplines have either clarified their fundamental terms (once or repetitively) and have established an apparent relatively stable platform on which further investigations and professional dialogue may be based.or they have fallen upon the sharp points that often protrude from their ill-defined terms, suffering debilitating and sometimes even fatal wounds that have precluded significant further development. Such ill-defined distinctions sway in the wind, impaled on these sticking points.”

More long winding, but fortunately irrelevant words.

“Some care must be given in making determinations with respect to a standardized vocabulary. In general, distinctions in experiences are awarded distinct descriptive terms while notional variants are assigned to equivalence classes. This is the normal business of a discipline during its formative stages: to achieve a richness of distinctions, a descriptive precision and simultaneously an economy of expression; in an ideal world, at any rate.”

More long winding words, but this time they are meant to blind us to this part: “distinctions in experiences are awarded distinct descriptive terms”. Of course, this is such an empty phrase that this could or could not be the case depending on what “experiences” are specifically meant. The experience of flying to the moon and diving in the sea are distinct enough that we use different words to describe them. But that is completely different from what is proposed here. So if the specification of “experiences” relates to what is written in this article we deny what has been said in this long winding passage.

“The distinction in question in this note is the term modeling as used in the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). In particular, the distinction between modeling as practiced in the field of NLP and modeling as practiced more generally.”

Given that nobody outside of NLP accepts modeling with NLP as a correct form of modeling, this sentence is technically correct, but it does not state what the authors think is being stated.

“NLP Modeling, in the creation of the initial models that founded the field of NLP, at present and in the future of NLP, references an appreciation of and respect for two criteria that apply to modeling in NLP:”

Here the authors name their practice within NLP “NLP modeling”. In the following they call a different practice within NLP “Analytic modeling”. This is of course already false. If you are making a distinction between A and B within the field of X, you cannot name one X(a) and the other Y(b). Then you have to talk about X(a) and X(b). In other words the name “NLP modeling” is completely misleading. The drive behind this deception is again the “life blood”. NLP has to have something so special, i.e. doing the impossible, that bad NLP trainers can still sell NLP courses.

“1. the suspension of any taxonomic and/or analytic attempt (all f2 transforms as described in Whispering in the Wind )”

Here the nonsense begins. Again, unnecessary jargon is used to sound interesting, but in reality what is being said here, is that you have to suspend all use of language. This is also impossible of course. You cannot disable your language ability. If the person modeled would speak a single word and you would recognize that word as a word, this criterion would be violated and the modeling would fail. Even if it were not impossible, then it would severely limit modeling only to silent behaviors. In reality this is also what you see in the training programs by these bad NLP trainers. You are to model dancing, magic tricks or clowns. Basically anything where you find behaviors without talking. But as soon as a single word is spoken the modeling fails because this criterion is violated. As you can see this is utter nonsense. Interestingly it is the same kind of nonsense Eckhart Tolle published a couple of years before the publication of Whispering in the Wind. If I had to guess, John Grinder simply tried to capture something of the popularity of Eckhart Tolle.

“to understand consciously the patterning”

Sounds good. But please note that you have to suspend “to understand consciously the patterning”. In other words you have to be completely unconscious. How you would learn anything of the person being modeled while you were completely unconscious is a mystery, but the authors obviously don’t care about that at all. They only care that you fail to notice this small detail. Of course in reality whenever these bad NLP trainers practice this, they are not unconscious. But that is the second violation of the first criterion.

“of the genius or model of excellence during the assimilation stage of patterning and until the following criterion is met”

Whenever NLP trainers mention “genius”, think of the “life blood”, i.e. money. To be fair, at least the authors are the option “model of excellence”. Of course to be more precise: what they mean is a person who behaves in such a way that it is desirable to learn from them.

“2. the modeler must demonstrate the ability to reproduce the patterning of the model in parallel contexts and in such contexts elicit roughly the same responses from client with roughly the same quality and time commitment as the original genius or model of excellence prior to beginning the challenging and rewarding activity of codification of the patterning demonstrated by the modeler”

More “life blood”, i.e. money. This is a long and winding passage to basically say that you yourself can become a genius with NLP as long as you buy one of their training programs. Of course, this second criterion is always violated. That is why you see a “trail of techniques” in the world of NLP rather than a trail of geniuses.  

“We further note that all modeling work products failing to meet these criteria are to be classified as some other logical type of model – we suggest Analytic Modeling as a general term for such work products; employing the patterning and the distinctions available in the technology of NLP applications but failing to respect the definition of NLP modeling.”

Here is the passage where the authors claim that their method is the real NLP modeling and other forms of modeling are not really NLP modeling. In reality what they propose is complete and utter nonsense and they fail to understand what modeling is. So deny the whole idea of Analytic Modeling. It is a straw man and it fails to refer to modeling within NLP.

“It is also quite clear that there are applications (e.g. modeling a story teller) or contexts (e.g. the model is not available, deceased) in which the rather more extended and demanding commitment implied by NLP modeling may not be either applicable or the most efficacious or efficient strategy for explicating the patterning of a genius or extraordinary individual whose patterning is of interest. We intend this statement to be a recognition that there are other forms of modeling perfectly legitimate as strategies for learning which, nevertheless fail to meet the criteria that we are proposing defines NLP modeling.”

As you can see both authors agree with my critique. Yet, they fail to notice that their practice fails not if the person modeled talks a lot as in the case of a story teller, but their practice already fails if the person modeled says a single word. To be clear, the fact that you have to be unconscious during the modeling process is another reason why this practice is impossible. Yet, it is important to notice how deceitful the authors are when it comes to the implications of their own criteria.

“The essential difference of consequence between the process of NLP modeling and Analytic modeling is the relative contributions of the model and modeler to the final work product. This difference resides principally in the degree of imposition of the perceptual and analytic categories of the modeler during the modeling process. – in the case of NLP modeling, the imposition is minimal; in the case of Analytic modeling, the imposition is maximal. These two extremes define a continuum of possibilities and it may well be that other practitioners of other forms of modeling may wish to propose further distinctions. We would welcome such refinements but at present will content ourselves with the one proposed here.”

Having failed to describe a reasonable practice and also because we have denied the idea of Analytic Modeling, this whole paragraph can be completely ignored.

“The requirements that the development of all cognitive representations be systematically suspended during the unconscious assimilation phase and the requirement that the modeler demonstrate the ability to perform as does the origin model or genius prior to beginning any cognitive coding describes the source of these profound differences.”

Having failed to describe a reasonable practice and also because we have denied the idea of Analytic Modeling, this whole paragraph can be completely ignored.

“The intention behind this description is to ensure that this distinction – arguable the most revolutionary contribution of NLP – is preserved”

“the most revolutionary contribution of NLP” is nothing but marketing.

“and that by the systematic use of this distinction, the public may appreciate the differences between the two logical classes of models and the distinctive processes of modeling thereby implied: NLP modeling and Analytic modeling.

“the public may appreciate “ is literally nothing but even more marketing.

“We invite well-intentioned practitioners of NLP to join us in preserving the distinction herein proposed or to offer commentary about how such an essential distinction can be preserved in the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.”

More utter and complete nonsense. “well-intentioned practitioners” is a magic formula trick. If you don’t know how magic formulas work, here is a quick rundown. If you create a magic formula you add an impossible ingredient so that when the formula fails, you can blame the lack of the impossible ingredient. If it by chance works, you claim success. It is a win-win for the swindler. “well-intentioned practitioners” simply means: if you agree with us you are well-intentioned. And if you disagree with us you are bad-intentioned. I’ll guarantee you that the authors and their fanboys will find me bad-intentioned.

“preserving” & “preserved” is an unspecified verb that here suggests that there is something worth preserving. There is not. The sooner the world gets rid of this nonsensical practice, the better.

“We further invite members of the NLP community who are considering participating in courses presenting modeling to request clarification of the type of modeling being presented.”

The authors kindly request people who think of doing a NLP training program to check with the NLP trainer who put forth that program to clarify what kind of modeling is taught in the program. This is just more marketing. Fortunately, it utterly failed. I have never had anyone ask this question. Yet, it put pressure on NLP trainers who are less well versed in NLP as I am to train with the authors to make sure that they can offer both kinds. “Life blood” indeed. 

“Such activity will ensure that the distinction is maintained in the field and that participants in courses will be able to determine whether the type of modeling is what they wish to master.”

No that did not follow at all. In the previous sentence the public was “invited” “to request clarification”. But now it turns out that the actual participants get to choose which “they wish to master.” It is just marketing. It is deception. It is promising to do impossible things just to get more “life blood”, i.e. money.

Carmen Bostic St. Clair

John Grinder

Bonny Doon, California October, 2005

It is very depressing to see one of the originators of NLP sprout so much nonsense on modelling. Anyone with basic knowledge of the metamodel can easily see how much BS John Grinder tells when he talks about modelling. Because too many people look up to famous people here I analyse what John Grinder says about modelling in the following video.

Modeling seems to be a compulsion in our species.

Compulsion here is a nominalization that does a lot of work. It makes it look as if modelling is a voluntary activity and that we are somehow compulsed to do so. This contradicts what John Grinder says in the next couple of sentences he says. Contradicting yourself is bad.

There’s nothing new about the idea that we model the world—other species do as well. There are many interesting experiments demonstrating in birds, dogs, and other mammals that their behavior can only be explained by internal maps, similar to how we form them.

“Only” is a presupposition of adverb. It is factual wrong. Even though it has been quite popular to presuppose that humans and animals create models there are good reasons to believe that the model of models is wrong. See the work on radical enactivism for instance. Furthermore this passage contradicts the first sentence as these kinds of models, if they exist at all, are not a compulsion. In fact they have nothing to do with modelling in NLP.

The sensory apparatus they use is different; for example, dogs are exceptional with their sense of smell. I believe we also have this ability, but it is so overlaid by other processes that we no longer realize we are doing it.

Again John Grinder contradicts himself. First he claims that animals acquire models using different senses than us. Then he says that we too have the sense of smell. Of course, in reality animals use the same senses as we do.

Personally, I’ve come to recognize states by smell, and I think everyone does it, unconsciously, as part of their tacit skillset in relationships. I suspect that perfume manufacturers understand this as well.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Of course John Grinder gives us zero proof of the claim that he recognizes states by smell. In reality he doesn’t. At best he convinces himself that someone should be in such and such state because he thinks so.

As I said, modeling appears to be an obsessive commitment of our species.

Commitment is yet another nominalization that does a lot of work but makes zero sense. Either the brain works by creating models and then it is wrong to call it commitment. Or modelling is voluntary but then the brain does not create models unless we do so voluntaryly so.

So, what’s the difference between modeling in NLP and what a biologist, physicist, or physician does when they model population dynamics, quantum interactions, or research on the blood-brain barrier? Everyone builds models, so what is the essential difference? This is something we will explore as we move forward.

The correct question is: what is the same in modelling in NLP and scientific models? The answer is: in both cases we create mathematical models. Also note that John Grinder does not explore the difference between these different kinds of modelling as he moves forward. The whole reason why John Grinder introduces modelling this way is to prevent members of his audience questioning him when he goes on to “explain” his model of modelling because if you look carefully John Grinder’s model of modelling is BS.

In NLP modeling, the process involves several steps. First, you find yourself a genius.

Where to find a genius? No worries, elsewhere John Grinder “explains” that everyone is a genius. Of course here “genius” is another nominalization and a significant and relevant violation of the metamodel. The reason John Grinder uses the word “genius” is to convince the audience that what he does is really exceptional. Whereas in reality what he does is learning from someone who is good at something. But if you describe what you sells as “learning from someone who is good at something” you sell less than if you present it as “modelling a genius”.

Second, you unconsciously assimilate their patterns.

It is only a single sentence, but stop reading this article, take a deep breath and reread this single sentence and realize how much work this single sentence does inside your brain and how little it actually says. “unconsciously” is another presupposition of adverb. It qualifies the assimilating proces. This creates a magickal formula so often used in the field of self help. If by happenstance you learn something John Grinder will claim: “Great! You have assimilied the patterns of the genius unconsciously. Exactly as I taught you.” If you fail to learn something, then he will say: “Oh, but I don’t think you assimilated the patterns unconsciously.” As it is impossible to prove that you assimilate anything let alone “unconsciously” phrasing it like this, makes it that John Grinder is always right and you end up holding the bag.

Also note that “assimilate” is an unspecified verb. It is a complex verb that is rarely used in normal conversation. So your brain is induced to think that something exceptional must be happening. That is why you paid John Grinder the big bucks. In reality “assimilate” here only means that you learned something. But if John Grinder said “you learned something of someone” you would feel less justified having spent all that money.

Finally “patterns” is a lack of referential index here. What patterns are we talking about exactly? “Patterns” is also a nominalization but here that is insignificant and irrelevant. The relevancy lies in the lack of referential index. Because as soon as you hear this phrase your brain will fill in the blanks and add something that you really want to learn and you find very valuable to learn. Learning something valuable makes you happy. Except John Grinder never promised you that you would actually learn what you wanted to learn. He only triggered the positive emotion without giving you the goods your brain came up with when filling in the blanks.

Third, you practice these patterns in context.

John Grinder is only saying you learn something by practising it. Hardly revolutionary. By adding the “in context” phrase he introductes another presupposition to create another magickal formula. Because if you fail to learn by practising and complain to John Grinder he will “explain” that you failed because you did not practise “in context”. In reality it is impossible to practise without context because per definition there is always a context. “Context” here also works as a lack of referential index because we really want to know: which context do you mean specifically, John Grinder. If asked he will answer, the context of the behaviors of the genius. But what he is really saying is: ask the genius what he is doing and practise what he is saying he is doing. Which is how learning works everywhere. What makes NLP exceptional is not this process but the fact that NLP aks someone who is good at something in a very specific way how he is doing what he is doing using the metamodel. This is how a NLP strategy is elicited. This is why Richard Bandler explains that what people like John Grinder call “modelling” in reality is NLP strategy elicitation. What John Grinder does is simply bad NLP.

These two steps are the core of the process: assimilating patterns unconsciously and practicing them through imitation until your behavior becomes indistinguishable from the model’s.

Now John Grinder adds “through imitation”. If you watch the above video by Richard Bandler you learn that imitation is only part of the modelling practice. But what is worse is that John Grinder is now flat out lying to you. Because if “your behavior becomes indistinguishable from the model’s” and you modelled a genius as instructed, then you yourself have in fact become a genius. This is how bad NLP is often sold. The idea that by using NLP you can become a genius. It is also a flat out lie. Millions of people have been trained in NLP. Some of them are really good at what they do, but 99.99% of the millions of NLP practitioners have failed to become a genius. So either John Grinder is very bad at educating or John Grinder is lying to you and it is very unlikely that you become a genius using NLP. Or both are the case.

The goal is to replicate their behavior closely enough that others struggle to tell the difference, and your behavior elicits similar responses from the world.

This is just another fancy way of saying without saying it literally that you have become a genius. In other words, JohN Grinder simply repeats the lie.

At that magical point of successful imitation, something important happens.

Here we have two presuppositions of adjectives: “magical” and “succesfull”. The are used here to make sure that any discussion is about these qualification and that we ignore the rest of the sentence. Of course with us this fails and we pay extra attention to the other part of the sentence “something important happens”. This is of course a lack of referential index. What happens specifically, John Grinder? Of course nothing important happens as John Grinder so far has only “explained” that we need to find someone who is good at something, ask him how to do it and practice. Nothing important happens here. But he is setting us up to buy his next BS line.

Step four is a conscious-unconscious dance where you find a way to code what you can already do.

Again, stop reading this article at this point, take a deep breath and reread this sentence and ask yourself: “WTF is John Grinder talking about?” Because what he is saying here is complete BS. “dance” is here a nominalization. It suggest that there is this thing called “dance”. In reality there is no such thing. Just lay “dance” in a wheelbarrow and see what is in it. There is nothing there. “conscious-unconscious” is yet another presupposition. It qualifies the not existing dance as having to do with your conscious and unconsciousness. It creates another magickal formula that ensures that John Grinder is always right no matter the outcome of your behavior. “dance” is also a lack of referential index. What kind of dance are we talking about here specifically, John Grinder? In reality what John Grinder is saying is: “I hope you learn something and if you do I take all the credit for it. If you fail to learn something it is your own stupid fault and absolutely no fault of mine.”

“code” is an unspecified verb. But I will grant him this. I doubt that our brain “codes” anything at all, but it is a common thought and certainly part of NLP. But “where you find a way to code what you can already do” is utter BS. If you can already do it and you believe in the idea that the brain codes stuff, then the brain has already coded whatever you are doing, because otherwise you could not do it.

Finally, step five involves testing human behavior.

Testing is great, but by adding “human behavior” John Grinder makes it sound as if it is something really special. In reality what he is saying is: a) find someone who is good at something, b) ask him how he does it, c) practice it and d) test it. It is hardly rocket science, but it is presented as rocket science so you feel good about having spent all that money.

Complex behaviors, such as these, can be coded in thousands of ways, and there’s no one correct solution.

John Grinder fails to state here that while “there’s no one correct solution.” is correct, some solutions work so much better than others that we don’t bother with the suboptimal solutions. That is why time spent at modelling in 99.99% of the cases and even on NLP strategy elicitation in 99% of the cases is completely wasted. NLP practitioners have been doing NLP for more than five decades by now. For most of the “Complex behaviors” the most optimal solution has already been found. It is much better to teach and to learn these optimal solution that learn to model these yourself. This goes even if you learn modelling in the right way. But in this distorted and incorrect way it is a complete waste of time.

The only way to know if you’ve successfully transferred the model’s patterns is to give the code to others and see if they can replicate the behavior in a reasonable time.

While it is nice to pass what works on to others, this is anything but needed to establish whether the model or the strategy has been elicited correctly. If you elicited a strategy for making money on the stock market and you become rich doing so, that is more than enough validation.

This process, especially step four, is incredibly complex—a dance between conscious and unconscious behavior.

Now John Grinder is setting you up to fail and hedging his bets. In reality NLP was developed to make the proces of NLP strategy elicitation very simple. It can be learned in a couple of days. Making learning simple was the original objective of Richard Bandler when he developed NLP. Hearing John Grinder say that learning is “incredibly complex” is an affront to any good NLP trainer. Especially so because the only reason – as stated by John Grinder himself in his own words – is the BS he made up when he coined the term “a dance between conscious and unconscious behavior”.

But that’s not our focus here.

I really don’t understand why people pay John Grinder to teach them modelling. He literally says that is NOT going to teach you that.

Our goal is to provide geniuses in narrow fields, such as illusion or Thai boxing, and allow you to unconsciously assimilate what they do.

We have to go back a few sentences and remember when John Grinder said: “Complex behaviors, such as these” That is of course a lack of referential index. In fact twice as “Complex behaviors” is already one and “such as these” is another one. I sincerely am clueless about what he references with “such as these”. But once you combine it with “such as illusion or Thai boxing” then the meaning of “Complex behaviors, such as these” becomes clear. “Complex behaviors, such as these” means: anything but illusion or Thai boxing.

There is a very practical reason why John Grinder does NOT want you to think about modelling what you want to learn and he DOES want you to focus on learning “illusion or Thai boxing”. The reason is that if you mistakenly think that modelling has to do with imitating, then you want your audience to focus on behaviors that are easy to imitate. To learn a magic trick (illusion) it is very important to mimic the behaviors of the illusionist. The same goes for That boxing. Both involve for the main part external and observable behaviors. But try the same for philosophy and you will fail miserably, because philosophizing is for an important part internal behavior that cannot be observed by third parties. That is why modelling as imitating is such a bad model of models. It limits you to the basic behavior that behavior analysis was already perfectly capable of mapping in the 50s and 60s. The strength of NLP is that it adds the mapping of internal behaviors in the form of NLP strategy elicitation. You can map any behavior, no matter how compex or simple, using NLP strategy elicitation. That is not modelling, but sometimes an usefull technique when you want to learn something new. John Grinder on the other hand tries to make money by promising you a lie. That by his “modelling” you yourself can become a genius. But he builds in many parlor tricks to make sure that if you fail it is you to blame because he knows that what he calls “modelling” has very little to do with building a mathematical model.

Some of you will succeed in replicating these models’ behaviors, and when it happens, it’s always an amazing and confirming experience.

Again, John Grinder is setting you up to fail by stating explicitedly that only few of you will actually learn what he teaches. In fact it is so rare that someone will learn something from what John Grinder is teaching that in his own words “when it happens, it’s always an amazing”. In reality people learn a lot if they train with a good NLP trainer. Those learnings are so predictable and common that there is nothing amazing to it.

“confirming experience” is the second lie John Grinder tells you. If you teach X and only a few people learn to actually do X, then those few are anything but a confirmation. In fact, the fact that most of the audience is incapable of doing X after the training programme is confirmation that what John Grinder is teaching is BS. The weak level of scientific conformation is that 20 out of 30 people were able to replicate something. If a NLP trainer claims that X is working, always ask him whether he measured that and if so to show you the data. If he failed to measure what he claims or if he fails to present you with the data, mistrust his claims.

To summarize, identifying a genius is the first step. Personally, I need to feel a connection or interest in the field.

Here comes another disclaimer. Because if John Grinder really could model a genius, how come he isn’t a billionaire yet? Well, John Grinder got the perfect answer for that: he did not feel a connection or had any interest in the field. It is another BS magickal formula phrase. Whenever you discover that John Grinder fails to do something, he can say that he of course could become a genius in that particular field, but that he didn’t feel a connection with the genius or had any interest. It is such a weak excuse.

For example, if I were interested in negotiation, I could survey negotiators and ask them to nominate the top performers, then observe those individuals.

Here is the one thing you can learn from this video. Nothing wrong with this statement. John Grinder might have added that he would actually also talk to those individuals and asked them questions, but I give him that.

The relationship between the model and modeler is intimate, so I wouldn’t accept the task until I’ve personally verified the genius of the individual.

Here he comes up with another version of his weak excuse of failing to exhibit behaviors he could have learned from a genius, even though he spent so much time together with a genius in the person of Richard Bandler.

There needs to be an internal movement within me that signals interest and congruence.

John Grinder just wants to have a weak excuse in case you come up to him and ask him to model a genius for real. Because well knows that what he teach fails to work.

Without that movement, I don’t take on the challenge,

Which is always the case.

but when I do, the “game is afoot” as Sherlock Holmes would say, and the dance begins.

Which – like Sherlock Holmes – is fiction. It never happens. John Grinder never has modelled anyone this way. As an aside, he fails to see that the dance is step four and not one according to this own scheme of things.

Genius, as I see it, isn’t well-defined. It’s not an independent concept, but there are practical ways to arrive at it. I’ve mentioned my personal criteria for accepting the challenge of modeling someone.

John Grinder has “explained” to us why in reality he never models anyone.

Bonus material:

Tritype® is a registered trademark in the US, held by Katherine Fauvre. It appears that Katherine Fauvre is leveraging her trademark to dissuade her critics, including me. Regrettably, she seems to misrepresent the scope of her rights under the Tritype® trademark. Trademarks do not restrict critics from evaluating the products or services sold under the protected name.

In this article, I articulate why Tritype® is nonsensical. If you’ve never encountered Tritype®, you’re probably better off. However, if you have come across Tritype®, here’s why it might be best to disregard it.

Tritype® contradicts the Enneagram

The Enneagram is a system of personality typing. Defined within the realm of psychology, personality refers to an individual’s unique and enduring pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that set them apart from others. It’s a blend of traits, characteristics, and behaviors that shape how a person interacts with the world, perceives their environment, and manages their emotions. Influenced by biological, genetic, environmental, and cognitive factors, personality remains largely stable throughout a person’s life.

What sets the Enneagram apart is its exceptional ability to clarify the unique factors that differentiate one person from another. It achieves this by delineating nine distinct sets of traits, characteristics, and behaviors. Further, the Enneagram offers dynamic descriptions of these sets, demonstrating how different traits can emerge based on changing circumstances, aligning with modern psychological understandings that personality does not fit into distinct categories.

The Enneagram’s types are non-categorical. Each type has two subtypes that slightly modify the basic set of traits, characteristics, and behaviors. Additionally, each type exhibits particular traits that surface during periods of stress, and different traits that emerge during relaxation.

Perhaps the greatest strength of the Enneagram is its ability to illuminate the distinct differences between people of different types. It serves as a powerful tool for distinguishing among individuals with varying personalities. This is particularly true given the Enneagram’s typing approach, which is predicated more on the process of elimination than identification. When determining someone’s Enneagram type, one observes behaviors that are so foreign to their own experience that they cannot imagine themselves ever acting in such a way. Once such behavior is identified, that associated type can be discarded. After eliminating eight types, the remaining type is deemed to be the individual’s Enneagram type.

1. Tritype® makes it harder to differentiate between people

Tritype® fundamentally contradicts the core principle of the Enneagram: to differentiate individuals based on their distinct personality type. The concept of Tritype® posits that an individual does not possess a single type, but rather three, tripling the set of traits, characteristics, and behaviors. This drastically complicates the process of elimination, a cornerstone of the Enneagram method for determining types, essentially sabotaging it.

2. Tritype® contradicts the Enneagram in relation to stress behavior

Further complicating matters, Tritype® theory suggests that the behaviors associated with stress, which according to the Enneagram are consistently negative, could be construed as positive. According to the Enneagram, these stress behaviors, despite occasionally serving certain goals, are generally unfavorable. This stands in contrast to the behaviors tied to one’s Enneagram type, which can be either positive or negative depending on the situation. However, in Tritype® theory, a combination of types can include one type’s stress behaviors, suggesting that positive stress behaviors are possible. This idea contradicts not only personal experiences of many individuals but also the fundamental principles of the Enneagram.

3. Tritype® contradicts the Enneagram in relation to unconnected types

Further still, Tritype® theory complicates the concept of unconnected Enneagram types. For each Enneagram type, there are four other types whose behaviors are unlikely to be exhibited in a person’s behaviors. While some Tritypes may uphold this idea, most do not, making Tritype® theory further divergent from the principles of the Enneagram.

4. Tritype® is either categorical and static or involves even more types than three

If the Tritype® model includes two subtypes for each type, as well as the stress and relaxation behaviors of other types, then the number of potential personality components it captures significantly exceeds just three. Indeed, it’s challenging to comprehend why this approach doesn’t encompass all nine types, which would eliminate any basis for distinguishing between individuals.

If the Tritype® model aims to avoid this uncontrolled expansion to include many, if not all, Enneagram types for a single Tritype, it becomes static and categorical. This not only contradicts the dynamic inherent in the Enneagram system but also eliminates two of its most valuable attributes.

5. Why stop at three types?

Dutch Enneagram author Willem Jan van de Wetering developed a system wherein all nine types exist at various levels of spiritual significance. In his view, understanding the Enneagram is merely about organizing the nine types in the correct order. His system assigns a nine-digit code representing all nine Enneagram types to every individual, with the task being simply to find your number. This approach, while seemingly as nonsensical as the Tritype® model, presents a conundrum for Tritype®: Tritype® struggles to justify why one should limit themselves to just three types instead of considering more.

In conclusion, while one can utilize either the Enneagram or Tritype®, the two systems cannot be employed concurrently due to their contradictory nature. Tritype® fundamentally opposes several core concepts of the Enneagram system.

Tritype® is unscientific

To clarify: while the Enneagram is not recognized as scientific, Tritype® can be characterized as unscientific. The distinction between these terms is crucial. “Not scientific” implies a lack of scientific research or a theoretical framework, as is the case with the Enneagram. Conversely, “unscientific” signifies that the subject either has been researched and proven false, or it contradicts established scientific theory, as is the case with Tritype®.

6. Tritype® contradicts the Circumplex Model of Personality

The Circumplex Model of Personality (CPM) helps illustrate this point. According to the CPM, personality scores from the Big Five—the most widely accepted scientific description of personality—fall into eight different groups out of a potential thirty-two. In the Big Five framework, individuals can score high or low on five distinct traits, theoretically leading to thirty-two different combinations. Yet, only eight combinations are typically observed in practice. 

The Enneagram’s nine types align well with these eight groups, but Tritype® contradicts them. Tritype® theory assumes combinations of Big Five traits that are not observed in reality. Therefore, by contradicting the findings of the CPM, Tritype® is unscientific.

If you want a version of the Enneagram that is scientifically grounded, go for the Neurogram® model.

Conclusion

Tritype®, being both in opposition to the principles of the Enneagram and inconsistent with established scientific theory, is fundamentally flawed. However, it’s understandable why it may appeal to some individuals. Given that the Enneagram itself is not scientifically validated, there are bound to be many interpretations and applications that may veer into conjecture, potentially leading to frequent mistyping. A theory like Tritype® that appears to encompass a wider range of possibilities can seem attractive, particularly to those who have been misidentified.

Moreover, one of the Enneagram types is marked by a strong ability to empathize, or to put oneself in another person’s shoes. This means that individuals of this type may see reflections of themselves in nearly every description, making it challenging for them to accept that they differ significantly from the other eight types. For them, adopting Tritype® may feel more inclusive and thus more appealing.

Finally, it’s worth noting that many people are drawn to ideas that lack empirical support, such as astrology. Those who are willing to embrace the uncertainties of astrology may similarly be more inclined to accept the nebulous concepts of Tritype®.

Tritype either does away with the Enneagram sign and the lines in the Enneagram sign or it involves all nine types making it an even bigger mess.

When you want to discover your type there is no-one better suited to help you out than VU-university certified IBM trainer/coach & Licensed NLP Master Trainer™ Joost van der Leij. For he has been helping people discover their type since 1997! Although he can’t assure absolute certainty in finding your type, you get a 100% refund if you are not 99% certain that you have discovered the right type! That is an ironclad guarantee.

What type are we talking about?

Joost van der Leij was first introduced to the Enneagram in 1997 through the narrative tradition. Ever since he has been working with the Enneagram and studying its wide applications. In 2000 he did a large project for the Dutch government to link the Enneagram to personality disorders. Then in 2008 he created the Neurogram®. The Neurogram® is the neurological version of the Enneagram. At that time neuroscience was discovering Personality Neuroscience. Personality Neuroscience demonstrated that people with the same Big Five test results also had similar brain structures.

Given that the basic premise of the Big Five personality theory is that you can reduce all personality traits to the Big Five personality traits, Joost van der Leij did exactly that for the Enneagram. In 2015 Cybernetic Big Five Theory (CB5T) was developed as a theoretical framework for the Big Five. The Neurogram® model has taken the Enneagram as its inspiration to develop a dynamic version of CB5T. The Neurogram® research shows that if you look dynamically to CB5T the nine behavioral patterns of the Enneagram emerge. So whether you want to find out about your Enneagram type, Neurogram® type or brain type, the best option is to work 1-on-1 with Joost van der Leij.

Joost van der Leij has helped thousands of people to discover their type. He has developed a computer model to determine people’s type. This model has been validated with research (n=393) to determine people’s type 94.7% of the time. In longitudinal studies it was established that once people found their type they stick with it for the rest of their lives. Yet, when Joost van der Leij works 1-on-1 with people his success rate in helping them find their type is 99%.

How does it work?

When you want to determine your type, you book through the online booking system below. Once you have booked your time slot, you get a confirmation email, a Zoom link and Paypal invoice. 

The session itself has three parts:

1. The interview. Joost van der Leij interviews you personally and studies not only your answers but more importantly the way you answer.
2. Explanation of your type. After having determined which type fits your answers and behaviors best, you get an explanation of the most important behavioral patterns of your type in terms of emotions, cognition and motivation. Furthermore, your dynamic CB5T evolutionary behavioral patterns are explained as well as your stress behavior and relaxation responses using the charts below. Most importantly, you learn of your major undesired behavior and how to stop that behavior and replace it with your most desired behavior.
3. Evaluation. Once your type has been explained you discuss whether there are any doubts left to make sure that you have a 99% certainty that you have discovered your correct type. Otherwise you get a 100% refund.

To book your 1-on-1 session with Joost van der Leij use the online booking form below:

See Online Booking Page

Finally, for those who like or even love football (soccer in the US), Joost van der Leij works with pro clubs and player agents to determine the brain types of players:

Just wanna let you know about my first meeting with the player yesterday.
Spend 2 hours talking about #3 successful worker.
He was blown away and could definitely see himself in the things I presented and pointed out.

It was fantastic to have something that concret to talk to a new player about, and it made our relationship strong from the beginning.
I have a very, very good feeling about the player and the things we have decided to work with in the future.

Soon i´ll set up a meeting with the next player.
I have a very strong relationship with him already, and I look forward to knowing about his brain type 🙂

See you soon!

Best from Denmark
René Lundgaard
Footballers Collective

For all the information regarding brain types and pro football, please go to Football Behavior Management

This is the international edition of the ABC-NLP Practitioner online. To be clear: the most important part of NLP training is that an excellent trainer like Licensed NLP Master Trainer Joost van der Leij is able to train your unconciousness to do almost all NLP skills automatically. Please, contact us if you got a group of 10 people who want to be trained live by Licensed NLP Master Trainer Joost van der Leij. Training can be in the wonderful city of Amsterdam, or in a great place near you.

Lesson 1: What is ABC-NLP? And the most important NLP technique, Spinning Feelings, explained & demonstrated

Lesson 2: How ABC-NLP shows that all the core elements of NLP are connected and interrelated

Lesson 3: How to overcome adversity and take away worries about the future using visualization exercises

Lesson 4: How to stop negative inner self talk

Lesson 5: How to make great decisions by using NLP

Lesson 6: Get a better self image and more self love with the NLP Swish technique

Lesson 7: Your thirty year plan, the NLP technique using time lines

Two modes of communication. Advanced ABC-NLP on the deep structure and surface structure

Lesson 9: The metamodel of communication of NLP, part one

Lesson 10: The metamodel of communication of NLP, part two

Lesson 11: The Milton model of NLP. Indirect language patterns including the all important embedded command

Lesson 12: The Milton model of NLP. Ambiguities, Metaphor and the inverse metamodel

Lesson 13: How to use the presuppositions of the Milton model of NLP to force truth onto others

Lesson 14: Hypnosis! The easiest way to hypnotize almost anyone with NLP as an application of hypnosis

Lesson 15: How NLP submodalities explain how your brain works and how your brain codes meaning and information

Lesson 16: NLP strategies, feedback & TOTE model

Lesson 17: NLP anchoring, online and offline

People often talk about intrinsic motivation, but neuroscience hasn’t found intrinsic motivation inside the brain. Instead they have found something called instrumental learning. With instrumental learning our brain creates a probabilistic relationship between our actions and what our actions get us. In the future we do less of what gets us negative consequences and more of what gets us positive consequences. The latter makes it look as if a person has intrinsic motivation, yet can almost fully be explained by the positive consequences our behavior had in the past.

Nevertheless motivating people through positive and negative consequences has often gone astray because the intervention lacks the necessary thoroughness. For instance, the most common mistake is called the perception error where the manager thinks he knows what is a positive consequence for another person rather than ask that person, and then in actuality gives that person a negative consequence instead. Rather than seeing his mistake, he then blames his failure to motivate the other person as a fault of working with consequences whereas in reality it has to do with the perception error.

Working with consequences is called the ABC-model. In this model A stands for Antecedent which is everything that happens before the behavior or is necessary to make the behavior possible. B stands for Behavior, the desired or undesired behavior you are targeting. C stands for Consequence which is everything that happens after the behavior. There is overwhelming evidence that Consequences have a much, much bigger influence on our future behavior than Antecedents. Nevertheless, in most cases we continue to try to influence people through Antecedents rather than through Consequences.

The only thing missing is brain types. In the same way that there are different body types, we also have different brain types. Your brain type determines your evolutionary behavioral patterns. These behavioral patterns determine:

1. How you are motivated.
2. How you deal with your emotions.
3. How you learn.

Brain types determine in a large part how the Dopamine reward system in your brain works. Therefore, if you know someone’s brain type you can predict with a high probability how you can reward him with positive consequences. Here is the list of positive consequences for each brain type:

For those people used to work with consequences but do not yet work with brain types, please note that the standard way of adding a negative consequence to undesired behavior by ignoring the person, i.e. giving the person a penalty by removing attention, doesn’t work with type #5, the Analyst.

Evolutionary learning is actually not the right name for the subject. Because evolution is too slow to bring about a change during your life. But that in no way means that evolution does not play a major role in our lives. Our brain is in fact formed by evolution. In both associative and instrumental learning , we assume that we learn from our environment. But both assume that we are born with a blank learning machine. Only nothing blanks arise from evolution. This means that there can be no question of a blank learning machine. Instead, our brain has already been formed by evolution.

You can see this in our evolutionary behavioral patterns. Cybernetic Big Five Theory (CB5T) shows exactly how the biological structure of our brain influences our emotions, our motivation and our learning. Without knowledge of this structure, it becomes a lot more difficult to bring about major changes in people. When you know the CB5T structure, it becomes easier to influence someone because you know what motivates them, how they learn and how they deal with their emotions.

So while you cannot influence the biological structure of your brain, knowledge of it is very important for influencing other people. With CB5T you are able to connect exactly to the way the other person experiences the world. Without this it means that you have to become the same as the other. CB5T shows that this is unwise because you try to behave in such a way that does not suit your brain. Instead, with CB5T you can understand why other people are different and how valuable it is that we differ from each other.

That is why we will soon be organizing the free Webinar Evolutionary Learning about Cybernetic Big Five Theory. During this webinar you will learn:

1. The four most common behavioral patterns of people.
2. The Eight Evolutionary Behavioral Patterns of Cybernetic Big Five Theory.
3. The nine different brain types this yields.

In short, register for this webinar and learn how people put their brains together and how you can discover this based on their behavior. As said, participation is completely free. We only ask you to fill in the form below so that we know how many participants we can count on: