Author: Volker Ballueder

A story related to NLP – I recommend everyone to read the book by John Fowles, the Magus. Amazing!

Once upon a time there was a young prince who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, and he did not believe in God. His father, the king, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father’s domains, and no sign of God, the prince believed his father.

But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace and came to the next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.

“Are those real islands?” asked the young prince.
“Of course they are real islands,” said the man in evening dress.
“And those strange and troubling creatures?”
“They are all genuine and authentic princesses.”
“Then God must also exist!” cried the young prince.
“I am God,” replied the man in evening dress, with a bow.

The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.

“So, you are back,” said his father, the king.
“I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God,” said the prince reproachfully.
The king was unmoved.
“Neither real islands, real princesses nor a real God exist.”
“I saw them!”
“Tell me how God was dressed.”
“God was in full evening dress.”
“Were the sleves of his coat rolled back?”
The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled.
“That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived.”

At this, the prince returned to the next land and went to the same shore, where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.

“My father, the king, has told me who you are,” said the prince indignantly. “You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a magician.”
The man on the shore smiled.
“It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father’s kingdom, there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father’s spell, so you cannot see them.”

The prince pensively returned home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eye.
“Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?”
The king smiled and rolled back his sleeves.
“Yes, my son, I’m only a magician.”
“Then the man on the other shore was God.”
“The man on the other shore was another magician.”
“I must know the truth, the truth beyond magic.”
“There is no truth beyond magic,” said the king.
The prince was full of sadness. He said “I will kill myself.”
The king by magic caused Death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.
“Very well,” he said, “I can bear it”.
“You see, my son,” said the king, “you, too, now begin to be a magician.”

From “The Magus” by John Fowles

What happened in the last week? Business and more business – I had interesting chats, met people and ideas. There are so many of you out there that are interested in people, motivation, coaching and sustainable business. And often someone gets curious and asks “what is NLP” and “I am afraid of NLP”. That happened to me last week too when someone approached me and came up with one of the oldes prejudice I came across in NLP. If someone is looking to the left or right it means something specific…..yes I said, it can be. But it does not have to be – the biggest mistake most people do is to generalize, to assume that if you do A then B must be true. Whilst that, in some cases, can be 99% right, for many other cases it could be 99% wrong. So never assume without knowing the territory ,-)

So let me summarize what I think of NLP. What is DBM and where is the difference.

NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming, was developed in the 70-ties. Names associated to this are John Grinder and Richard Bandler (I will not go into much detail as you can read about most of it on various websites, e.g. on Wikipedia).

They discovered patterns of behaviour in people they tried to model based on Neurology/5 senses, Linguistic/Language and programming/structuring. Bandler described NLP as an “attitude and methodology that leaves behind a trail of techniques”.

DBM, Developmental Behavioural Modelling goes beyond NLP. It does not have the ready-made answers or pre-packed solutions. Information in detail can be obtained through the website of Sensory Systems where my thanks and appreciation goes to John McWhirter. His aim is to provide “Empowerment through experiential learning”! Although it has been a few years since I worked with John (or he worked with me), his approach to NLP, his DBM is what makes me “tick”. Thank you John!