A Few Words On NLP Modeling — Or Tacit Modeling

In his May 22nd post on modeling, Louis Burns doubts whether it’s possible to model a group of people. I agree with him.

I’m sure it’s possible to model a group of people. Researchers do it all the time. It’s called profiling, demographics, psychographics, or any number of additional terms. All of these terms point to certain models created about groups. But it has nothing to do with NLP Modeling.

See, I have this really strange notion that the purpose of NLP Modeling is to find someone who’s really good at something, observe and imitate that person like a little kid and then, once I become as good as them, start figuring out what the heck she’s doing and I’m doing that makes it work, so I can teach that skill to other people.

End of story.

Now why would I want to model a group of people within the context I just described?

What skill does a group have?

Call me conservative, purist or traditionalist if you want, but I personally think big progress happens when people like Tony Robbins come in and distill models such as the following:

1. From Jay Abraham: How to take a business from $400,000 to $20,000,000 in yearly revenue;
2. From Grandmaster Jhoon Rhee: How to get a black belt in Tae Kwon Do in 8 months
3. From Gerry Coffey: How to find meaning in the most excruciatingly painful experiences
4. From Robert Young: How to restore total cellular health in 30 days or less

The co-founders’ contribution goes without mention, of course. Distilling how to do lightning therapy from Milton Erickson, Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir is heroism.

And the key to it is, you have to be able to do the skill yourself. Bandler became as good or better than Milton, Virginia and Fritz. Grinder didn’t become as good as Bandler but he can still kick some serious therapeutic ass leveraging the models they produced.

That’s NLP Modeling. That’s taking the best of human achievement and making it sharable. That’s making a serious contribution to human heritage. That has impact. That matters.

What are the next steps?

• Here’s how Steve Jobs does it. Let me show you, I can do what he does. And let me teach you how you can do it too.
• Here’s how George Soros does it. Let me show you, I can do what he does. And let me teach you how you can do it too.
• Here’s how Richard Branson does it. Let me show you, I can do what he does. And let me teach you how you can do it too.
• Here’s how Woody Allen does it. Let me show you, I can do what he does. And let me teach you how you can do it too.
• Here’s how Dave Matthews does it. Let me show you, I can do what he does. And let me teach you how you can do it too.
• Here’s how Ronaldinho does it. Let me show you, I can do what he does. And let me teach you how you can do it too.
• Here’s how Dan Brown does it. Let me show you, I can do what he does. And let me teach you how you can do it too.

That’s NLP Modeling. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what matters.

And it’s f&%$ing hard. Oh, let me tell you… Describing what Steve Jobs does from the third person isn’t all that hard. You can use all of your NLP jargon and descriptive chops and make it sound very NLPish.

But mesmerizing an audience the way Steve does is a whole other ball game. You can’t watch Steve in video and get it. You have to be in his presence. You have to feel him. You have to let it soak in. Then, once you try to figure out what’s going on, you can add in some video performances to help you out. But first, you have to snif the guy out. You have to absorb his skill the way a kid would absorb his dad or his teacher’s idiosyncracies. You have to enter his world. You can’t do that from just watching a performance. Gotta be there. Gotta feel it.

That’s the big challenge with NLP Modeling. It’s not a journalist job. It’s not just “watch and describe what you hear and see in NLP terminology.”

It’s an extreme sport. As extreme as they come.

And it’s not for the faint of heart.

So whenever someone says they used NLP to model someone, run them against that criterion. I’m sure 99% of all models that come across you will fall like flies on a blue zapper.