Week 2024-14: Joseph O’Connor - Collected Quotes

"A model is an edited, distorted and generalised copy of the original and therefore there can never be complete. A model is not in any sense ‘true’: it can be judged only by whether it works or doesn’t work. If it works, it allows another person to get the same class of results as the original person from whom the model was taken." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"All actions have a purpose. Our actions are not random; we are always trying to achieve something, although we may not be aware of what that is." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"An effective leader leaves a legacy; they leave their footprints on the road for others to follow. A good leader develops themselves and they develop others. They bring people together rather than divide them." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Beliefs are those ideas we take as true and use to guide our actions. We all have beliefs about what sort of people we are and what we are capable of. These beliefs act as permissions for or limitations on what we do. When we believe something is possible, we will try it; if we believe it impossible, we will not." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Every time we push the boundary on the outside world we also push the boundary on our inner world. We open a larger ‘idea space’. Every advance in science, art and technology means we have gone beyond the limiting ideas that have stopped us advancing in the past." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Having a choice is better than not having a choice. Always try to have a map for yourself that gives you the widest and richest number of choices. Act always to increase choice. The more choices you have, the freer you are and the more influence you have." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Leadership is about inspiring people through a shared set of values." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"People respond to their experience, not to reality itself. We do not know what reality is. Our senses, beliefs, and past experience give us a map of the world from which to operate." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"The meaning of the communication is not simply what you intend, but also the response you get." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

Week 2023-40: Richard Bandler - Collected Quotes

"Magic is hidden in the language we speak. The webs that you can tie and untie are at your command if only you pay attention to what you already have (language) and the structure of the incantations for growth." (Richard Bandler & John Grinder, "The Structure of Magic", 1975)

"Models are not intended to either reflect or construct a single objective reality. Rather, their purpose is to simulate some aspect of a possible reality. In NLP, for instance, it is not important whether or not a model is 'true', but rather that it is 'useful'. In fact, all models can be perceived as symbolic or metaphoric, as opposed to reflective of reality. Whether the description being used is metaphorical or literal, the usefulness of a model depends on the degree to which it allows us to move effectively to the next step in the sequence of transformations connecting deeper structures and surface structures. Instead of 'constructing' reality, models establish a set of functions that serve as a tool or a bridge between deep structures and surface structures. It is this bridge that forms our 'understanding' of reality and allows us to generate new experiences and expressions of reality." (Richard Bandler & John Grinder, "The Structure of Magic", 1975)

"The most pervasive paradox of the human condition which we see is that the processes which allow us to survive, grow, change, and experience joy are the same processes which allow us to maintain an impoverished model of the world - our ability to manipulate symbols, that is, to create models. So the processes which allow us to accomplish the most extraordinary and unique human activities are the same processes which block our further growth if we commit the error of mistaking the model of the world for reality." (Richard Bandler & John Grinder, "The Structure of Magic", 1975)

"[…] there is an irreducible difference between the world and our experience of it. We as human beings do not operate directly on the world. Each of us creates a representation of the world in which we live - that is, we create a map or model which we use to generate our behavior. Our representation of the world determines to a large degree what our experience of the world will be, how we will perceive the world, what choices we will see available to us as we live in the world." (Richard Bandler & John Grinder, "The Structure of Magic", 1975)

"In general communication theory there is a basic axiom that a signal only has meaning in terms of the frame or context in which it appears. The sound of a squeaky shoe on a busy sidewalk has little meaning; the same sound outside your window when you are alone in bed means something else altogether." (Richard Bandler, "Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of Meaning", 1982)

"As soon as we believe in something, we search for ways to prove it’s true." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"In my experience, the biggest challenge people face is learning to get out of their own way. When you can see just how easy change can be, you can begin to take control over your life and make all the changes you want - but you need to take the action." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"In order to change beliefs, we first need to learn a way of finding out the qualities of beliefs." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"Most problems we face in life, as I have said already, happen in our minds. Furthermore, problems generally exist in our concept of the past and the future. The past and the future don’t exist except in our minds." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"Once they have a choice, people always make the best choice. The trouble is that people don’t think they have one." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"One of the most important aspects of what human beings do is build beliefs. Beliefs are what trap most people in their problems. Unless you believe you can get over something, get through something, or get to something, there is little likelihood you will be able to do it. Your beliefs refer to your sense of certainty on some of your thoughts." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"Reframing is also the pivotal element in the creative process: it is the ability to put a commonplace event in a new frame that is useful or enjoyable." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"Thinking isn’t a passive process unless you do it passively. Thinking should always be an active process where you think in a way that gets you the results you want." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"We have been trained to believe that change isn’t easy and requires a lot of effort and a lot of time. I’ve always found this to be simply not true." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"When you can take on board new, positive suggestions and disbelieve the old, limiting suggestions, you will be ready to tackle the rest of your problems, especially your fears." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"Whenever people have trouble letting go of good things or bad things, it’s because they are associated to the memory. It doesn’t matter what it is, it’s just like being there. If you’re holding on to bad memories, it’s now time to look at them and shrink them down." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"Our biggest limit is not in what we want and cannot do; it is in what we have never considered that we can do." (Richard Bandler, How to Take Charge of Your Life: The User’s Guide to NLP, 2914)

Week 2021-45: Joseph O'Connor - Collected Quotes

 "Any single person's viewpoint will have blind spots caused by their habitual ways of perceiving the world, their perceptual filters [...] How can we shift our perceptions to get outside our own limited world view?" (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"Emotions make excellent servants, but tyrannical masters." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"Free your expectation of the future from the grip of past failure." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"If you go through the world looking for excellence, you will find excellence. If you go through the world looking for problems you will find problems." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"Once a response becomes a habit, you stop learning. Theoretically, you could act differently, but in practice you do not. Habits are extremely useful, they streamline the parts of our lives we do not want to think about. [...] But there is an art to deciding what parts of your life you want to turn over to habit, and what parts of your life you want to continue to learn from and have choice about. This is a key question of balance." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"Questions are also interventions. A good question can take a person's mind in a completely new direction and change his life. For example, ask yourself frequently, 'What is the most useful question to ask now?" (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"The best way to find out what you are capable of is to pretend you can do it. Act 'as if' you can. What you can't do, you won't. If it really is impossible, don't worry, you'll find that out. (And be sure to set up appropriate safety measures if necessary.) As long as you believe it is impossible, you will actually never find out if it is possible or not." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"True learning involves learning other ways of doing what you can do already." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"We all have beliefs and expectations from our personal experience; it is impossible to live without them. Since we have to make some assumptions, they might as well be ones that allow us freedom, choice and fun in the world, rather than ones that limit us. You often get what you expect to get." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"When we believe something, we act as if it is true." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"Words are anchors for sense experience, but the experience is not the reality, and the word is not the experience. Language is thus two removes from reality. To argue about the real meaning of a word is rather like arguing that one menu tastes better than another because you prefer the food that is printed on it. [...] To come to believe that the external world is patterned by the way we talk about it is even worse than eating the menu - it is eating the printing ink on the menu. Words can be combined and manipulated in ways that have nothing to do with sensory experience." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)