The NLP Coach: A Comprehensive Guide to Personal Wellbeing and Professional Success

Citation

Hoe, S. (2003), "The NLP Coach: A Comprehensive Guide to Personal Wellbeing and Professional Success", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 24 No. 2, pp. 109-109. https://doi.org/10.1108/lodj.2003.24.2.109.1

The growth of neuro‐linguistic programming (NLP) has been phenomenal over the past decade. A key success factor is that NLP provides a perspective to identify thought, action, and patterns of excellent performers and helps to change one’s perceptions to influence outcomes. NLP was developed in the 1970s by a university professor and a psychologist. The duo have attempted to reproduce the success of people whose performance they admired. In effect, they have created a way to improve mental processing techniques and behavioural skills.

The NLP Coach consists of 17 chapters that are divided into five parts: coaching and NLP, NLP coaching tools, success and failure, the five dimensions of success, and success secrets. Besides introducing the essential NLP coaching tools, the authors, McDermott and Jago, also show the reader how to coach oneself to success in six key aspects of one’s life. To this effect, the book serves as a bridge between theory and practice.

Part One gives an introductory guide to NLP in a down‐to‐earth fashion. The authors explain that the NLP technique potentially offers a greater range of ways for interaction between oneself and others. One can literally learn to “see things differently”, “get in touch with” someone else in a new way, “hear” them properly for the first time or smell the sweet smell of “success”. The ways to coaching oneself to NLP success are also discussed in Part one.

Part two explains how NLP tools can be used in personal and professional development to enhance one’s life and relationships with others. For each of the 24 NLP coaching tools highlighted, a common set of headings is provided. These headings are: what it is, what it does, some everyday examples of it in use, situations which could prompt its use, and how one can use it. This is an extremely useful format as it enables the reader to very quickly pick up and learn all the available coaching tools. Some of the tools for the job introduced to substantially increase one’s ability to process and analyse information include anchors, association, chunking and framing.

Part three emphasizes a basic principle of NLP, that is that there is no such thing as failure. It relates that “failure” is only a result deriving from an action and such feedback is the foundation for future successes. The suggested approach is to change one’s future actions to gain different outcomes if the present outcome is perceived as a failure. In this respect, NLP helps to use every result as a learning step towards total personal and professional excellence.

Part four discusses the idea that, while one cannot change the world, one can change the way the world is represented in one’s thinking. It is the thought of life’s circumstances that determines one’s success and happiness. By focusing on the dimensions of success, one can influence one’s view of the situation. The five dimensions of success on which one can focus are potential, style, personal balance, the world, and oneself. Each of these areas is examined in detail.

Part five is organized around six chapters on the application of NLP. The topics covered include enhancing self‐esteem, building good relationships, maximizing brain power, generating health, wealth and happiness, making work more rewarding, and becoming spiritually alive. On the application of NLP tools, the authors go beyond telling one what to do to showing how it is done.

The NLP Coach is a comprehensive, practical and user‐friendly guide to self‐coaching using the powerful techniques of NLP. This book provides a step‐by‐step guide to help one achieve success at work and at home. All the essential NLP coaching tools are clearly explained at the beginning of the book with real‐life examples. The NLP Coach is essential reading for those who wish to have a positive change in their personal and professional life. It is highly recommended for the practice‐oriented business professionals.