[Neurons] 2023 Neurons #31 OUR ONCE-HIDDEN, BUT NOT OPEN MASTER IDEA

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2023 Neurons #31

July 17, 2023

 

OUR ONCE-HIDDEN, BUT NOW OPEN

MASTER IDEA

 

Every great company or organization operates from a master idea.  That's
what Joey Reiman has asserted, and as someone who "thinks for a living," he
should know.  Whatever that master idea is, it powerfully gives people in an
organization a sense of purpose and direction; it inspires them, invigorates
them, defines who they are and what they are about.  For Neuro-Semantics and
NLP, what is our master idea?  What is our timeless and passionate idea that
inspires our hearts?

 

Once upon a time, realizing that NLP is essentially a Communication Model, I
thought that our master idea was something about communication, about
becoming a professional communicator, about people connecting, and about
self-communicating in such a way as to "run your own brain."  Now while
those are great ideas, they do not exactly rock my world, inspire me to go
to the ends of the earth, send goosebumps up and down my spine, or ignite
fire in my belly.  They may be great ideas, but they didn't seem to be a
master idea.

 

Then I discovered a secret about NLP that no one had told me about.  I did
search for it.  But that secret was not in any of description of NLP, nor
was it in any of the books about the history of NLP.  Then I accidently came
upon it.  In 2005 while reading about the history of the Human Potential
Movement (HPM) and the second generation leaders and how they created a
"headquarters" at Esalen, I happened upon a strange fact.  Namely, Perls,
Satir, Bateson and other "Who's Who" in NLP were the key leaders in the
Human Potential Movement.  Really!  How could that be?  That's when the
blinders fell from my eyes and suddenly many of the disjointed pieces of NLP
history came together and made sense.  NLP arose as a birthchild of the
Human Potential Movement.

 

That informed me about lots of things.  It informed me regarding where the
NLP presuppositions came from-Maslow, Rogers, Bateson, etc.  It explain why
NLP began at Kresge College-a college that would have been named Carl Roger
College except Kresge was the primary donor.  It identified how the HPM
itself was a reaction to the orientation in psychology that focused on "the
dark side" and shifted to studying "the bright side" of human nature.  All
of the assumptions in NLP about human beings and human nature arose from the
Self-Actualization Psychology of Abraham Maslow.   And as Maslow had modeled
fully-functioning or self-actualizing people beginning with Max Wertheimer
and Ruth Benedict, so the founders of NLP did the same (well, except that
they did not acknowledge the HPM or Maslow or Rogers).

 

In Neuro-Semantics with this rediscovery, we took this as a rediscovery of
our roots, where we came from and what we are about.  We used it to pinpoint
our master idea as a timeless, transformative, and inspiring idea.  

We are about unleashing the nearly limitless human potential that's waiting
to be tapped in each and every person.

We are about enabling the inner journey that releases each person's vitality
for living fully and becoming the best version of oneself.  

We are about changing the world one person at a time, via one conversation
at a time, so that people can become "fully alive/ fully human."  

We are about enabling the competence in people to become their most unique
selves actualizing their best possibilities. 

 

Eric Fromm in Human Ethics described this actualizing in these moving words:


"There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by
unfolding his powers, by living productively; and only constant vigilance,
activity and effort can keep him from failure in the one task that matters-
the full development of his powers....   He can make use of his powers only
if he knows what they are, how to use them, and what to use them for..."
(Quoted in The Conative Connection, 1990, Kathy Kolbe, p. 132)

 

Neuro-Semantics, as the 21st century Human Potential Movement, we carry on
what was begun nearly a century ago with Maslow and Rogers.  Unleashing
potentials-our own and others, the potential of families, groups,
businesses, and even nations.  This is in our DNA.  It's what we do.  And we
are constantly learning how to do it better.  It's our master idea for
changing the world and this adventure has only just begun!

 

 

Want to Know More - 

See the following books: Unleashed! (2007).  Self-Actualization Psychology
(2008).  Unleashing Leadership: Self-Actualizing Leaders and Companies
(2009).




 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

ISNS Executive Director

P.O. Box 8

Clifton Colorado 81520 USA

(970) 523-7877

drhall at acsol.net   



 

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