The Ultimate Introduction to NLP: How to Build a Successful Life

by Owen Fitzpatrick, Roberti, Owen Fitzpatrick

Richard Bandler, co-creator of NLP and the man who inspired Paul McKenna to greatness, collaborates with Alessio Roberti and Owen Fitzpatrick to reveal how to unleash your true potential and transform your life.

Richard Bandler – the world-renowned co-creator of NLP who has helped millions around the world change their lives for the better – has teamed up with Italian NLP Master Trainer Alessio and co-founder of the Irish Institute of NLP Owen, to craft a simple yet engaging story of one man’s personal change and discovery, to help readers understand the remarkable principles of NLP.

Inspiring and easy-to-read, this fable recreates the experience of being at a workshop with Bandler. Rather than explaining the theories, An Introduction to NLP illustrates the principles and simple techniques that Bandler has developed over the past 35 years in action.

This inspirational book gives you the tools to change your life, overcoming the things that are holding you back: your phobias, depression, habits, psychosomatic illnesses or learning disorders.

Through the simple techniques of NLP, you too can become a strong, happy, successful person and achieve your goals.

‘The must have self-help book!’ Paul McKenna

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Self Help, Personal Development, Audiobook, Business, Mental Health

162 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 3, 2013

Reviews

[Nina (ninjasbooks) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hallelujah! This will save your life! If this introduction wasn’t so preachy, I would have appreciated the techniques more.

[John Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

NLP stands for Neuro-Lingusitic Programming. It's a self-help technique. It has a cult-like following, with a seemingly high Pick-Up-Artist (PUA) overlap. This book taught NLP by telling the story of Joe attending an NLP seminar. As a story (versus a manual), it gets to lead the reader around with suspended disbelief. As a teaching device, it's clever.

Repeatedly, the book connects NLP to both the hard sciences and psychology, attempting to endow it with Scientific Authority.[1] That part I disliked a lot. NLP is not Science (tm). That doesn't mean it is ineffective, but the posturing turns it into pseudoscience when it need not be. Then again, I don't think I'm the book's target audience. So, it may be a good strategy. It's arguing from authority, almost bullying the reader into believing it -- and that may be effective.

As for the PUA overlap, it makes sense. Success for the protagonist (Joe) took the form of having and "keeping" beautiful girlfriend. He wasn't getting along with her. NLP taught him to navigate their disparate mental models. But, the prose (2012) felt dated, like it was coming from the 50s. Women were very much silly little objects, even when portrayed as intelligent.[2]

Admittedly, I read this with an eye towards critique. (It was research for a subsection of my Ph.D. on folk psychology and beliefs.) My judgement is sure to be harsher than someone reading it to help with their problems. I am a proponent of self-help, although I think introspection is (often dangerously) hard. But, I can't help thinking: to what degree is this just the art of delusion? Not the parts on communicating effectively -- that's all well and good. But, a significant amount of the techniques and subplots suggest that, if only you were in a better mood, your problems will (eventually) go away. Instead, I think that invites shitty behaviors, at least in the book's targeted demographic.

...ever see a cocky PUA. They are quite good at feigning happiness (or dominance). I don't think that's what they need to work on.

---

[1] Science-y
- "Today, you'll learn about the field of NLP itself." (p.2)
- "My training was primarily in mathematics, logic, and science." (p.9)
- "Unfortunately the only book that I found that told you how to do anything was the book that told you how to prescribe drugs." (p.10)
- "Being someone who studied systems, I found this very interesting." [p.19]
- "Oh, he's a medical doctor and a very famous therapist!" p.22
- "When I started out, being an information scientist, I went about things differently than anyone else." p.46
- "'By the way,' Joe asked, 'how do you integrate psychotherapy and NLP?" (p.57)

[2] Not-so-great-for-women

- "How's that beautiful girlfriend of yours?" (p.3)
- "My beautiful daughter, Emily [...]" (p.5)
- "'All that stress over a makeup mirror', he thought." (p.6).
- "But then you have a partner who cheats on you and you decide all men are pigs -- that might be an over-generalization." (p.11)
- "[S]he was a very talented psychotherapist who could actually produce consistent results [...] She was a vision: very tall and wearing a Day-Glo green dress, bright red high heels and big horn-rimmed glasses." (p.18]
- "His problem was that he was scared of meeting women. (p.37)
- "'Sure'. I indulged him, 'they can be pretty scary. Especially when they fight over the last pair of shoes on sale!' Everyone laughed." (p.38
- "Many female friends of mine, for example, compare themselves to the prettiest and slimmest models they see in magazines or the most beautiful girls they walk past in the city, and that makes them feel bad." (p.82)
- "I let an incredible woman slip through my fingers because I made a lot of mistakes." (p.111)
- "I'm so sorry you're upset, princess, but whatever it is we'll get through it." (p.116)

[Deepak Singh Bisth · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think all non fiction books should be written in this format. just because of that i was able to read it in one sitting.Many times i have started reading and stopped reading the book halfway just because it gets so boring thats why reading a fiction book is so easy it is so engaging n exciting.i would recommend this book to everyone who would like to know about NLP. This one is really great....

[Mariyan Tashev · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book is weak. Conversations are very cheesy. The style of writing is as if taken out of a teenage diary.
I do think one or two of the concepts might be useful to some people, but do not expect much more than that. I would not recommend it.

Edit 2020: Just looking through my library I found out that I was quite soft in my initial review. The book is just one of the worst I’ve read.
Not sure if you can pull out one or two things from it. It is that bad.

[Raz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intro to NLP by the use of story telling which makes it more memorable. Very highly recommended!

[Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book I’ve read on NLP, and it was a good intro - very basic and easy to read. It’s told from the perspective of a participant at a workshop, so it does lean towards being a little repetitive (but that made it quick to read). In the back, there is a summary via the main character’s “notes” and also a technique section, both of which basically sum up the entire book.

[Kari Olfert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for nlp techniques if you're looking to restructure how you feel during situations and ways to reframe your internal dialogue. Yogurt recognizes yogurt, will only make sense if you listen to this audio. :)

[Stefan Papp · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have visited Seminars from Richard Bandler. I loved them. This book gives you a short extract on what you can expect on a seminar with Richard, however much is lost. Richard works a lot with humour. This humour cannot be transported in a book. Although of course in his seminars, when Richard is in control what is filmed and what not, his humour might be a more intensive, mostly if it is about sexuality. He likes to provoke a lot.

And here we come to the point why only three stars. There are two points I want to mention

It is an advertisment book for Richards Seminars, not about NLP itself:
You get an experience how a seminar with Richard looks like. It feels all the time an appraisal for him. Richard does that, Richard says that. Nice! But with that one essential information gets lost: Richard is not NLP. He is a co-creator and has his own branch with the Society of NLP. But his style (comedian, rather simple and focussed on the essentials) differentiates from guys like Robert Dilts (rather academic, complex and huge variety of content). Richard is the perfect guy to experience fun in seminars, but that alone is not NLP.

There is nothing new:
Most likely the book has not been written by Richard, but rather by his co-authors who marketed it as a Richard Bandler book. Or Richard gave the instructions and somebody took care of the text. As said above it is a marketing book for Richards seminars. If you are not sure if you want to go or not, you might want to read this book and decide. Or you might want to watch a youtube channel instead. However, but in essential it is just a compilation of all this NLP stuff that is around for many many years. If you read NLP books before or if you attended seminars, you ask yourself, where is the content that has not been said thousand times before. Submodalities, meta models, etc. this has been described in so many books, where is the new idea?

In summary, you might enjoy this book if you have never attended a NLP seminar or read a NLP book. With that it meets also the title that says "Introduction". Then you just have to keep in mind that this is an introduction to Richards Bandler NLPs which differs to other NLP variants (such as the branch of Grinder or Dilts). It might also be a good re-introduction, if you had your seminars a while back and you just want to remember the contents,... but if you have already experience with NLP and want to read about innovation, then this book is basic.

[Ameya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a summary of the practices of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) that Richard Bandler and John Grinder have devised and perfected over the decades. It is a short, sharp book of techniques that is just priceless. I raced through its 141 pages of an extremely easy-to-read text. I found the last two chapters invaluable as they encapsulate LP’s key methods and jargon for quick recall. This is a how-to text of easily applied behaviours and language.

NLP, in my view, is behavioural-based way of engaging the brain (through neurology) to improve itself, without resorting to psychotherapy or treatment. The beauty of NLP is that the practitioners don’t see “mental illness” as something to be ‘fixed’; they say that any dysfunctional behaviour that any ‘normal’ person displays also needs ‘fixing’. NLP goes about seeking to change dysfunction by providing a toolkit of methodologies: like cognitive reasoning, behavioural therapy, Pavlovian conditioning, hypnosis and Gestalt. NLP has its own set of jargon like, ‘congruent,’ ‘anchoring’ and ‘meta’ questions/ modelling, etc.

This book uses a protagonist who attends a 2-day seminar of NLP and employs its procedures during the practice sessions. A beautiful, succinct, readable text.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm pretty cynical about self-help books but as NLP was often mentioned in Neil Strauss's "The Game" I thought it must have some merit.

Yes, I can see why it would be of interest to Neil as it does cover amongst other areas building rapport with other people.
For me, this was a good introduction, I think I have a good basic understanding of the subject and the format used to cover the introduction (a guy attends an NLP seminar where we get his thoughts on the subject whilst he listens to the presentation) works well.

Is NLP going to change my life? No, but it is interesting. It does make you think about how you can improve how you interact with others. I did also reflect on my own happiness, and past events where I have been truly really happy.

This is certainly worth a read. My three star review really just reflects my own apathy towards self-help books. I might consider reading other books on NLP in the future though as the theory seems reasonably sound.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whilst the speech by Richard Bandler was very informative and useful, the story was very poorly written. The dialogue was clunky and very predictable. In addition, 99% of the females mentioned are physically described, whereas male characters where given jobs and other characteristics and not solely described on how ‘beautiful’ they where. You can get the most important bits from the book by reading the final 2 chapters.

[Ruby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed it. I loved that NLP was built into a story that you could relate to and in doing so learn in a different way. Great book, I would recommend it if you're interested in learning more about NLP

[Jinan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked how simple and uncomplicated this book is, but often got frustrated by how childish the language is. Nevertheless, recommended for people interested in NLP with slim to none experience in it.

[Stefan Wyper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable although I would have preferred less of the storytelling and more written points on the techniques, but that is just my preference.

[Sadok Kohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good introduction but very little meat.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting though I can't say I've been able to put any of it into practise.

[Hayden Tomlins · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a local library borrow... and I'm glad it was to be honest.

I've wanted to read one of Bandler's books on NLP for a while, and the short, readable style of this one appealed, but it ended up being a bit of a let down. The book presents itself as a story which follows Joe as he attends one of Bandler's "NLP Seminars" in a hotel. Strong start (ahem). It then proceeds to follow his experience of said seminar, which turns out to mostly be the course instructors talking about some element of NLP and embarrassing attendees to varying degrees. All while Joe takes notes in his journal and attempts to chat up women during the exercises. The format didn't work for me at all. The success of the exercises also felt a bit superficial - "wow, we are all feeling great now, thanks then bye!" - and didn't dwell on some of the more challenging parts of applying the theories in the real world.

Ok, maybe I'm being a bit harsh here. The segments on NLP (as presented by the instructors) are decent, and it very much starts at a basic level and works up (a bit). I also liked the review of the journal entries, reflections and summary of techniques at the end of the book - probably the most useful part of it. But it really only skims the surface of the subject and personally left me wanting more. In fact all of the areas discussed weren't new to me... and I am by far no expert!

In summary, the best bit of this book is its accessibility to NLP newcomers. It's not a bad start, and something that's easily digested, but it is early-beginners at best, and the story is cringe. Seek another book if anything sparks interest - there are much better books out there.

[Mark Blane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bandler puts together a short but insightful introduction into NLP using a fictional "Joe" as the protagonist at one of Bandler's NLP Seminars. I thought it was cleverly put together and will give the reader a quick and basic introduction into some of the meat of NLP; namely, anchoring, submodalities (images) and The Meta Method on therapeutic questioning of emotional trauma or disturbances. Those alone are powerful tools if one practices them.

NLP comes down to self-responsibility, which comes from Gestalt therapy. It begins with knowing that the person is in control and can make choices to how they react to life situations - either negative or positive. NLP ties into Habit 1 of Covey's books, and Temperance by Napoleon Hill.

NLP advocates that emotional states help manifest decisions to view something as positive or negative, and in the end, we are the ones in control. We drive our minds and bodies to what they do. Knowing this, or being reminded of this, is part and parcel of what drives NLP success...therefore NLP is a potentially self-empowering tool that can drive you to success. It is also the foundation of Anthony Robbin's philosophy as he was a student of John Grinder, one of the co-founders of NLP.

[Sudeep · Rating 3 out of 5]

While some of the ideas do help in some ways, some of them definitely come off as condescending or simply not expressed in the right way. But still it may work for you, so you should give it a try.

More about the ideas that work, these are the ways that the book describes as how to be a better communicator. Maybe I immediately attached myself to them because I have never been good at communicating or expressing myself to others,and the tips and tricks this book proposes sound like they might actually work. I for sure am going to try to incorporate them in the future.

Everything else in this book I haven't been able to connect to, I see the good intentions behind them and I appreciate the effort put into them. Still, there's nothing to say just because it didn't work for me, it doesn't for everyone else, I have a friend who said it worked wonders for them. So, I still have hope that other people out there may find whatever they were looking for with this book.

[Bb · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to review the book without touching the subject of NLP. I'd always been cautious of the subject without knowing too much about it - I later questioned this unfounded stance and realized that I was subconsciously linking the term 'programming' with some sort of brain washing. This book was in a way an eye opener because the aspects covered can be traced back to scientifically proven behavioural models that I've read in Thinking Fast&Slow and Predictably Irrational. The writing style is clever; the points are made in a conference one of the character attends. The "self-NLP" techniques, asking the right questions ( open ended questions ) and "mirroring" what the other part does during a conversation all seem interesting.

[Colin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just feel better

Gee, why didnt I think of it before. This book is full of complicated descriptions of common sense approaches to mental health and living life. Don't dwell on negative memories or feelings, try and remeber good things. Ask questions that challenge negative beliefs. Everbody looks at the world their own way.

All the examples of peoples problems were simplistic and ignored the fact that the world isnt full of people who will want to be your friend if you match your breathing to theirs.

While im sure there are some good ideas in nlp, the box they are packed in is wicked and rotten.

[Clicky Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued by the story about NLP in Jon Ronson’s ‘What I do’, so I picked this up. It is a bit of a strange book, in that it presents the ideas of NLP from a perspective of somebody attending an NLP seminar. Because of this, it reads a bit like an extremely cheesy self-help guide without any real sense of self awareness or critical thinking. However, if you can get past that, some of the ideas are pretty interesting. I’m not sure what I make of NLP, but this was at least a short introduction to some of the main concepts. I might go on and read something a bit more detailed or less… err, dumbed down in future.

[Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I like NLP and the idea that's behind it, and this was a very good book to get an idea of how it works, Brandler chose to present his ideas through a work of fiction, through fictional characters, which makes this a book of fiction.
And, I'm sorry, Brandler is not a good writer of fiction. The dialogues are forced, the description is off - and as a result, this feels like a commercial that takes about an hour and a half. I couldn't look past the annoying style and found it hard to really grasp what the book was about. Alas.

[Henry Gomez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm giving only 2 stars maybe because this book can be too introductory and really designed to serve as an oversimplified introduction to NLP. The narrative of the book is developed from the perspective of an attendee of an NLP seminar with Richard Bandler. Although I found some interesting techniques here, especially in regards to effective communication, the rest of the book is too gassy. It served me to know more about NLP but kind of disappointed me in the sense of oversimplifying the matter of NLP.

[Jarkko Meretniemi · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is written in the form of a fiction story about a guy named Joe who attends to a seminar and learns the basic tenets of NLP (e. g. "the map is not the world", the idea of submodalities = how to change the size and color and sound of mental images in order to lessen or increase their effect). Although the story itself is not very interesting, it gives an accessible context for introducing the central tools and methods of NLP.

[Natasha Musa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently took an NLP Practitioners Course and while I learned so much, it was really overwhelming with new information, concepts and techniques. This book helped me deepen my understanding of the concepts learned during the course. It is an easy read, clear instructions on how to use the techniques. I really liked the way the book was structured as it felt like I was back in the course I took. Good refresher for newbie practitioner.

[ccstan99 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the natural language processing that I've been immersed in lately. I've been hearing about neurolinguistic programming for awhile and was curious what it's about. I figured reading a book by one of its creators should give me a solid introduction. Lots of interesting stuff that are related to other ideas I've been reading, but it's not clear if there's any scientific support behind any of the recommendations. Lots of empowering, positive thinking nonetheless.

[For The Love of books · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️ I have a feeling this is neurolinguistics for beginners. It was a good basic start to NLP. However I feel it was dumbed down for mass consumption or perhaps I am looking to examine NLP from a deeper level. Still some good techniques for life that I will take forward. I will endeavour to find something more complex so I can formulate my ideas and how neurolinguistic practices are being practical in everyday life

[Rish Fernando · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pseudo science? I didn't stick around to find out. I guess the principles come from a good place e.g., about manifestation and putting your strong foot forwards, but either the way the book was written (in the perspective of someone attending a lecture given by an NLP specialist) or the techniques didn't stick strongly to me. Either way, I only read it half way so take my review with a grain of salt. Might try it again later if I have the stomach for it

[Sudhir · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is certainly a lucid read about NLP. The author takes through the journey of personal experiences of different folks who are attending an NLP training. The plot cuts across the various discussions among the members and what they perceive out of it. Certainly a good start for folks who want to unfold their NLP journey.