[Neurons] 2011 Meta Reflections #3

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2011 - #3

January 18, 2011

 

 

ACHIEVING EXCELLENCE

 

 

In this new year are you planning to achieve excellence in anything?  If so,
what?  What would you like to excel in this year?  What dream do you have
now or would you like to create for yourself that would constitute a dream
of excellence?

 

Excellence, as a nominalization, goes back to the verb to excel and that
term goes back to Latin, to rise out of (ex- + cellere-to rise, project).
And from this meta-idea of rising out of something comes the ideas of
surpassing, out-doing, being eminently good, first-class.  So with these
core ideas in the word, let me re-phrase the opening questions.




I.                   What do you want to rise out of this year and move on
to the next level of development?

II.                What dream do you have for surpassing your actions and
achievements last year?

III.             What do you want to be first-class in?

IV.             In what area of life do you want to be eminently good- in
your parenting, friendship, communications, etc.?

 

All of these questions are meta-level questions in that they invite you to a
higher level of experience and because they presuppose that you are
concerned about transcending where you are now.  They are questions of
vision and drive and intention.  And they are the core questions that
comprise the essential vision of NLP and Neuro-Semantics which began with a
vision of excellence.

 

The historical background of NLP and Neuro-Semantics goes back to the days
of Abraham Maslow who began the whole modern emphasis on positive
psychology.  Maslow caught that vision as a psychologist as he finished his
first book on Abnormal Psychology (1938).  While working on that massive
tome he began asking the paradigm shifting question, "If this is what
happens when human beings become ill and psychologically sick, what about
the other side, what happens when they become healthy?"  And forty years
later he wrote his books, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature and Toward a
Psychology of Being in which he explored what I've designated as "the
bright-side of human nature."

 

And that new emphasis led to the first Human Potential Movement that was
formalized by Richard Price and Michael Murphy when they bought the property
of Esalen (1962) and characterized by some of the second generation leaders-
Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir, and Gregory Bateson who actually moved there
and lived there (1963-1975).  And out of that came the NLP vision of
excellence about those leaders as men and women who excelled in
communication.  So NLP was developed, using linguistic tools, by which they
were able to model that excellence.

Now in those two paragraphs I have summarized the history of the pursuit of
excellence from the founding of humanistic psychology through NLP and in the
next paragraph I will carry it on to Neuro-Semantics.  This is a history
that I have detailed in several chapters in Self-Actualization Psychology
(2009).  So what?  All of this raises NLP beyond merely being a model of
"how to run your own brain" or a model of how to manipulate (which is what
those who misuse NLP do and which has given it a bad reputation).  At its
heart, NLP, as a communication model, essentially uses the variables of
"communication" (representation systems, the Meta-Model, strategies model)
for how a model an experience.  And while we can certainly model
pathological states, the focus has always been more on modeling excellence.

 

That's what got me so interested in NLP originally.  I was absolutely
fascinated by modeling "communication" itself and "states" as I was
conducting "communication" workshops (1984-1988) and when I found NLP I
incorporated it in my book, Speak Up, Speak Clear, Speak Kind (1987).  What
I didn't know at the time was that it would set in motion a transformation
that would completely change my life.  Then in my Master Practitioner course
in 1989, Bandler challenged us to take up a "modeling project."  Eventually
I chose Resilience.   And of course, out of that research came the
Meta-States Model (1994).

 

Meta-States arose from seeking to create a model for the human excellence of
being able to be resilient within one's minds and emotions even in the face
of set-back and loss.  The research questions that drove me forward from
1990 to 1994 was- 

"How is it that there are human beings who can bounce-back from any
set-back?  What enables some people to face even the darkest and cruelest of
human experiences and not get traumatized but maintain a spirit of hope,
determination, love, etc.?"

 

Now if it was in the context of excellence that Maslow began his studies of
self-actualizing people, and Bandler and Grinder studied the magic of
therapeutic communication in Fritz and Virginia, and that I studied Viktor
Frankl and others who were so resilient that they were un-traumatizable- I
wonder what other contexts of excellence will give birth to the next models
and patterns?  I wonder what new developments will emerge that will
facilitate the unleashing of potentials and possibilities that we are barely
able to dream about today.

 

One year ago the Leadership Team of Neuro-Semantics created the by-line that
we now use in our logo, websites, and in all of our communications-
identifying Neuro-Semantics as Actualizing Excellence.  So no wonder that
when we will hold our very first International Conference of Neuro-Semantics
this year, the theme is none other than - Actualizing Excellence.

 

What will you find at the Actualizing Excellence Conference?   We have
scheduled three pathways of workshops that focus on the areas of-Coaching,
Business, and Personal Development.  And in the 22 workshops we have leading
trainers and writers coming to present a wide range of topics- all
highlighting some excellence.  We also have three keynote presentations, one
from myself, then one from Colin Cox, Master Trainer, and Mandy Chai.  The
list of workshop (excluding two) are as follows:

 

Business Track

Lene' Fjellheim  - Selling Yourself & Your Company                        

Joseph Scott  - Coaching Leaders                           

Tessie Lim - Book Yourself Solid                              

Femke Stuut  - Daring to be an Entrepreneur with Neuro-Semantics

Bob Bodenhamer - The Neuro-Semantic Foundations of Stuttering

M Marzuki Mohamed   -    Edutrainment 

Alan Fayter - A Systematic Approach to Business

 

Personal Development Track

David Murphy   -   The Neuro-Semantics of Self-Esteem


Cheryl Lucas & Carey Jooste - Vitality Workshop: The Neuro-Semantics of
Health                 

Rich Liotta, Ph.D. - How to Get Meta-States to Stick!

Lena Gray - Presence of Mind Under Pressure

Colin Cox/ Lena Gray - Psychology of Self Defense

Tim Goodenough  - Raising Talent: Neuro-Semantics of Developing Talent

 

Coaching Track

L. Michael Hall - Neuro-Semantics: The New Human Potential Movement

Susie Linder-Pelz and Irena O'Brien - Evidence based Coaching               

Germaine Rediger - Coaching Women in Leadership

Joe Brodnicki - Actualizing Team Excellence through Process Consultation

Omar Salom  - Executive Coaching Practice 

Tim Goodenough - In the Zone

 




 

For more about Neuro-Semantic NLP --- 

          See www.neurosemantics.com 

 

Details for the First International Neuro-Semantic NLP Conference is now on
the website.  Click "Trainings" and "NS Conference" for the information and
video .

 

 

            Registration is now available --- having begun in January 2011.

 

 

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Neuro-Semantics Executive Director  ----   <http://www.neurosemantics.com/>
www.neurosemantics.com

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA                             ----
<http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org

1 970-523-7877                                               ----
<http://www.meta-coaching.org/> www.meta-coaching.org

 

     

For a free subscription to Neurons--- the International  egroup of
Neuro-Semantics, go to the front page of  <http://www.neurosemantics.com/>
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Reflection articles by Dr. Hall are sent out every Monday (Colorado time).
Trainers' Reflections are on Tuesdays and Meta-Coach Reflections on
Wednesdays.   Contact Dr. Hall at  meta at acsol.net  

 

 

 

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