I recently went through a 24-page paper McKinsey published back in 2009 about the economic impact of the achievement gap in schools. I was blown away by their findings on illiteracy.

Here's a quick summary of the three main areas of impact — most of it be blatantly obvious to you:

Social Impact: Illiteracy causes low self-esteem, shame, fear and powerlessness. It limits a person's ability to fully participate in society, including informed decision-making, personal empowerment, and community engagement. This leads to difficulties with finding work, paying bills, and securing housing, and ultimately affects future generations and society as a whole.

Multigenerational Impact: Illiteracy often perpetuates from one generation to the next due to the negative feelings and nonverbal communication about literacy and schooling from uneducated parents to their children. Research shows that parental education is connected to the literacy of their children, with children who are read to frequently by a family member having a higher chance of scoring well in reading tests. Having access to books and more years of schooling also helps break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy, giving individuals the power to improve their lives through education.

Economic Impact: Illiteracy is linked to poverty and missing opportunities in society and the workforce. According to research, people with low literacy skills are more likely to be in poverty, have lower health outcomes, and are more likely to need public financial aid. Low literacy is also associated with unfavorable labor market outcomes, such as lower wages.

In short, illiteracy kills economic opportunity for individuals, fills them with social insecurity and shame and is passed on from generation to generation.

And McKinsey is only talking about reading literacy.

Let me bring your attention to a few other kinds that are completely overlooked by this study — and most people in general...

• Financial literacy
• Physical literacy
• Emotional literacy
• Communication literacy
• Business literacy

What about the impact of being illiterate in any or all of these areas?

There's much talk about "emotional intelligence" these days. I don't think it's a useful term. I think "emotional literacy" is a way more actionable idea.

Most people out there have zero clue how money works because they're financially illiterate. They're sick because they're physically illiterate. They're frustrated and depressed because they're emotionally illiterate. And they can't hold a relationship together because they're "communicationally" illiterate.

One of the reasons I'm so bullish on NLP and modeling is because it offers a code to acquire any literacy we need to negotiate our next step.

Once we have that, just imagine the confidence it builds in us that we can accomplish what we truly want...

Imagine the confidence and certainty you can transfer to your coaching clients once you have these tools in your back pocket...

When the Grinder & Bandler Brothers band set out to model Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir (the beginning of the NLP Magical Mystery Tour), they shattered a strong assumption of the times.

Let's step back in time to take a look at how the adventure started.

Bandler was superbly adept at using Fritz Perls's voice and language pattern to produce the exact same therapeutic effect Perls did — all without having a darn clue as to why it was working.

He was simply reproducing the behavior and got the same effect as Perls did — without the years of study or experience.

That put a stake in the heart of the assumption that you have to understand what you're doing in order to do it.

Herein lies the modeling breakthrough: you don't have to study or understand in order to perform the skill and get the result.

That's why, incidentally, I fully believe it should take no more than two to three weeks to train a non-doctor to perform appendectomies. Performing an appendectomy (pay close attention to my language... I'm not saying "being a surgeon...") is a skill like any other. Based on the little research I've done, more than 95% of them are performed almost identically. This means there's no need to study anatomy or biochemistry, nor do a multi-year residence in order to be able to learn that specific skill. One only needs to know the required bits in order to perform the appendectomy.

Honestly, it's just like drawing blood — given the right proportions, of course. Today, phlebotomists get trained in a weekend. Why wouldn't it be possible to learn to perform appendectomies in three weeks?

Look at the world around you and think in terms of skills rather than knowledge bases or titles.

Tuning an engine vs being a mechanic

Making a product launch presentation vs speaking in public

Writing a sales page for your product vs copywriting

Performing an appendectomy vs doing surgery or being a surgeon

Identifying a disempowering belief vs being a coach

The list goes on.

As you convert these credentials and knowledge fields into specific skills, modeling becomes the prime toolkit to acquire them quickly.

I spent the weekend in Montreal with my wife. She has officially begun rehearsals for her upcoming concert, and her band is all based there. I see lots of traveling in the near future for us.

One of the musicians' wife is a coach. We ended up having an interesting conversation about coaching and NLP while samba was running loose in the room next door.

After I explained to her how modeling works, she asked me: "I fully get the value and power of modeling, but how does it apply to coaching a client? Do you mean I should model a great coach?"

Yes! But it's not just that.

Beyond a skillset, modeling is a mindset. It's a lens through which you view the world and how you move through it.

When you're coaching, you're generally asking yourself two questions:

1. Where is my client right now?
2. Where does my client want to be?

When you bake the modeling mindset into coaching, you add a third question to the initial set of two:

• Who used to be where my client is now, and is now where my client wants to be?

Answering this question inevitably leads to a proven path to the result, in two powerful ways.

Numero Uno: since someone else was in that situation and made it to the desired situation, there's implicit proof that it's possible. This reinforces the belief in the transformation.

Numeros Dos: since someone else went through that exact journey, we know a specific route exists that leads to the desired destination.

Checkmate!

That's why I encourage all my clients to operate from the modeling mindset AT ALL TIMES!

Why?

Because it comes with confidence + competence built-in.

I'm hard at work driving people to unsubscribe from this list — and actively using an NLP variable to do it.

You see, the vast majority of people who subscribe to lists online are thrill-seekers or curious cats who are just looking for yet another way to procrastinate while having the impression that they're making progress.

It just so happens I'm not interested in having any of these fine folks as subscribers. I'll leave them to the internet snagoos who would love nothing more than pull them into their traps.

I'm interested in deep, committed, action-oriented and long-term thinking people who are in the business of mastery. People who, like me, could get their ass kicked in the financial markets for years without quitting.

I call these people Rockys. Their goal isn't to win a fight quickly the first time they step in the ring. It's to remain standing for all 15 rounds — which presupposes they're capable of enduring a lot of pommeling, suffering and frustration on the way to the finish line.

The question then becomes: "How do I drive Curious Cat away while simultaneously inviting my real peeps, my Rockys, to come closer to me?"

What approach would you take?

The one I find the most useful is one I learned from watching — and enjoying — my wife's cooking, and how people react to it.

(Here's an example of catching patterns as they happen. More on that in a future daily email.)

My wife cooks intensely, fiercely, unapologetically. She has a heavy hand on the seasoning, on flavor inflections, on texture.

Naturally, if you ever tasted my wife's food, you would have one of two reactions: you would either love it or hate it.

But one thing is certain: you would not remain indifferent.

I'm applying that approach to my daily emails, using a metaprogram called matching-mismatching.

(You can look it up on Google and get a quick brush-up, in case you need it.)

Every day, I shoot out the beacon of my message. I season it with my personality, my prejudices (boy do I have lots of them!), my worldviews and my values — and every day I crank up the intensity.

Through the matching and mismatching metaprogram, I accomplish my goal.

Curious Cats unsubscribe in droves and I celebrate it!

At the same time, Rockys send me questions and comments. They come closer. They're intrigued and interested. They're in it for the long haul.

I recommend you start leveraging this principle to surround yourself with the friends and clients you really want around in your life.

Play with it and see what happens. You won't regret it.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning! Aren't you thrilled we're getting an extra six weeks of winter?

Today is one of my favorite days of the year. Yes, because of the movie! And yes, I did drive all night through a blizzard when I was in college to go to Punxsutawney and take part in the festivities!

So before I take the groundhog out of the oven for today's feast, let's talk some NLP...

(Just kidding, by the way... No groundhog was hurt while I wrote this email...)

In the movie, we witness Phil Connors completely rearrange his model of the world, including his key drivers, values and beliefs. The whole package.

As NLPers, one of our goals is to expand and enrich the NLP alphabet to make explicit every single component of a human model of the world, and turn it into a parameter or variable. Every new variable we come up with gives us deeper programmatic access into the system.

Here's a great story that the wizard John Grinder shared in his book "Whispering in the Wind" on the origin of the second parameter he and Richard Bandler came upon, and then turned into code:

"It was late one pleasant afternoon in the middle 70's when I (JG) picked Richard up at his place at 1000 Alba Road in Ben Lomond, a small mountain community up the San Lorenzo Valley some 8 or so miles from Santa Cruz. We were to begin a new group that evening - the first meeting of such groups is especially amusing and charged with expectations, as first meetings tend to be. We had little if any knowledge who the people who would show up would be, but we were certain that since they were from Santa Cruz, it would be at least amusing. 

Richard asked me to stop at the Ben Lomond liquor store so that he could buy some cigarettes. As I sat in the car in front of the store waiting for him to complete his transaction, I mused over the events of the last few months as well as speculated where we were headed next. We had completed The Structure of Magic, volume I with the Meta Model and we were flying. The response to our work, both by local aficionados and professionals from around the country had been immediate and extremely positive. 

We were jamming - we seemed to do little but eat, drink and sleep patterning - well, maybe there were a few other things. As Richard stepped back into the car, interrupting my reverie, he was laughing. I asked what was so funny. He said (more or less):

— You know, John, people say the weirdest things, the woman I was talking to at the counter. She said, " I see what you are saying." 

He then relapsed into convulsive laughter. As I pulled onto Highway 9 heading for Santa Cruz, I watched him in my peripheral vision, wondering to myself what it was that made the statement so funny to him. After several moments, I said to him:

— Does the statement, "I feel that what you are saying is unclear." strike you as funny as well? 

Bandler looked at me sharply, appearing to be simultaneously bemused and startled. We then began a very special and very typical game between us: as we drove toward Santa Cruz, we presented one another with example after example of the "same" pattern. Yet again, the game was afoot!

Please understand that neither one of us could have at that point defined what this pattern was that we were generating examples of. This intuitive opening gambit in patterning was very common between us. Both of us recognized that we were tracking a pattern and while at some point it would become useful to explicate the pattern itself, that that point still lay some distance in the future. In the interim, we were content to pursue the game.

The journey was hilarious as we continued amusing one other and ourselves with more and more outlandish examples. As we approached Santa Cruz, I pulled into the parking lot of a general store and several minutes I later emerged with a sheaf of colored paper, green, red and yellow. 

When we got to the place where the group was meeting that evening (a private home), we positioned ourselves as was our custom at the front and watched and listened to the interactions among the people present while waiting for the last few to arrive. In those days in Santa Cruz, it was de rigueur to begin the first meeting of such groups by inviting each of the members of the group, one by one, to stand and present themselves, usually announcing their name and what idea, if any, they had about what they were doing there. This evening, however, as each member of the group finished their short self-introduction, either Richard or I would reach down, touch one of the three colors of paper lying on the floor in front of us. If the other one of us nodded, the one touching the paper would tear off a piece of that paper and present it meaningfully to the participant, naturally without explanation."

What a cool way to come to a breakthrough!

This variable is known, of course, as representational systems.

In the decades that followed, more variables got brought into the coding repertoire. Variables like sub-modalities, perceptual positions, TOTEs, criteria, beliefs, timelines, values, strategies, and meta-states (just to mention a few) would enrich the NLP alphabet.

Whereas most NLPers today think of these parameters as ways to do therapy or changework, I invite you to look at them as key components when modeling exemplars and installing performance patterning in your clients. The greater your understanding of the code, the greater will be your ability to code and transfer performance patterning.

This will make you an even better coach and allow you to speed up Phil Connors' journey from mediocrity to excellence.

Yesterday, I re-watched one of the funniest videos I've ever seen.

More than ten years ago, Ricky Gervais, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Louis C.K. sat down for 50 minutes, leaving behind some of the most hilarious comedic conversation I've ever witnessed.

It's titled "Talking Funny" and you can find it on YouTube.

Today's subject line comes from that video. It's the comedic climax of the whole conversation. Chris Rock delivers that line so perfectly that he breaks Louis C.K.'s pattern, who bursts into laughter, and Ricky Gervais laughs so hard he gets up.

If you enjoy standup comedians as much as I do, be sure to watch it. I must have seen it at least ten times. It's like Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on steroids.

Speaking of comedy...

How come no NLPer has published a comedy model yet?

Have you realized yet that hypnotic patterns are just one type of communication pattern?

It blows my mind that some people choose to take that one communication type (hypnosis) and try to bridge it into all kinds of contexts, like seduction, sales, copywriting and so on.

What if they did something different?

What if they did it balls-to-the-wall NLP style?

What if, instead, they looked for exemplars who stand out in their performance in each of these contexts and modeled their communication patterns?

Seducers with seduction patterns.

Salespeople with sales patterns.

Copywriters with copywriting patterns.

Standup comedians with comedy patterns.

Don't you think they'd fare way better than by trying to use hypnotic patterns in any of these contexts?

Hypnotic patterns were just the appetizer. How about we grab the bull by the horns and model other communication patterns?

Tag. You're it.

"Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton Erickson" is the quintessential modeling book.

IMHO, Patterns was the first NLP modeling book published by the Bandler & Grinder Brothers band — even though it wasn't their first book.

(The first was Structure of Magic, but it was an amalgam of the Perls modeling, the Satir modeling and transformational grammar. It yielded a useful framework, but it's not a modeling book per se.)

When you look at the full title of Patterns, it explicitly states the two key elements of a solid modeling project.

Here they are...

NUMERO UNO: A SINGLE EXEMPLAR

In this case, Milton Erickson.

It could be Elvis.

It could be LeBron James.

It could be Oprah Winfrey.

It could be Steve Jobs.

It could be anybody, but it has to be one and only one.

Why only one?

Because you know the skill is ecological since a single individual is performing it.

James Taylor has a unique way of playing guitar.

So does Dave Matthews.

Dave Matthews does not play guitar the way James Taylor does, and their styles don't meddle nor match.

So clearly, there's no single way of playing guitar. There's the Dave Matthews way, the James Taylor way, the Jim Croce way, the Cat Stevens way, and so forth.

Whose patterns are you chasing specifically?

NUMERO DOS: A SINGLE SUBJECT

In this case, hypnotic techniques.

It could be tasking techniques (David Gordon covers Milton Erickson's therapeutic tasking in the book "Phoenix").

It could be public speaking techniques.

It could be breathing techniques.

It could be stand-up comedy techniques.

It could be copywriting techniques.

It could be any subject, but it has to be one and only one.

Why only one?

To get back to our Dave Matthews example above, it's because you're not interested in Dave's hair-brushing, weed-smoking, drum-playing or parenting techniques.

You're interested in his guitar techniques.

Capiche?

The title "Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton Erickson" offers you the blueprint to scope your modeling projects.

Here's the formula:

Patterns of the *SUBJECT* Techniques of *NAME OF YOUR EXEMPLAR*

If your cousin's name is Johnny Appleseed and he's a master gardener, your modeling project might be named:

"Patterns of the Gardening Techniques of Johnny Appleseed"

I'm pretty sure you get the gist.

Several years ago, the 80/20er in me conducted a little analysis to identify the #1 skill I should learn to consistently increase my schillings inflow. 

It was clear to me that business was the way to go. 

When I conducted an 80/20 analysis to identify the most critical business success skill, it became evident that selling was the linchpin. 

A further 80/20 analysis on selling led me to identify copywriting as the cornerstone of effective selling. As most copywriters will tell you, "nothing gets sold until the copy is written."

Then, the modeler in me set off to select a copywriter to model in order to speed up my learning. Thanks to NLP modeling, I did learn how to write copy in a short amount of time.

Fast forward a few years to 2020...

I discover I'm DEAD WRONG about the most effective way to increase my schillings situation!

There's a better way! Holy cow!

Let me take you back to the genesis of how my conclusions got detonated...

On a hazy pandemic morning, my friend Alex from Brazil sends me a Whatsapp message telling me he wants to have virtual coffee because he's got something to share.

I oblige.

Right as we begin, he tells me: "I just got into trading the financial markets. I think you should join me."

The financial markets?! That sounds risky as heck to me. What a great idea!

Over the following few days, he introduced me to his trading platform, to the asset he was trading, and showed me a few basics on how to make sense of the market. All very rudimentary.

He suggested some courses I could take to start learning about the markets and trading in general.

As a seasoned modeler, I know quite well the perils of trusting courses. While they sound like a safe and secure idea (after all, that's how we got through our childhood, teen and early adult years, right?), courses can be misleading when it comes to skill acquisition.

Instead, I knew I needed an effective operational model of trading. Something that worked functionally.

Do you remember the first commandment of NLP? Here it is in case you need a refresher:

COMMANDMENT UNO: Pay a lot of attention to what people do and very little attention to what they say they do.

Courses = someone saying what they do

I set off to find an exemplar I could model trading from. It took me a while to find one. But when I did, it offered me exactly what I needed.

Would you believe me if I said you don't need to know a darn thing about the market to trade it successfully? In fact, the more you know, the more confused you might become.

I liken it to analysts vs quarterbacks. Analysts have a gajillion statistics they keep rattling off during the game, enunciating dozens of key factors at play during this next down. Quarterbacks, on the other hand, rely on a few key heuristics to consistently move the ball down the field.

The same applies to trading.

The only way to identify these key heuristics is to apply the cardinal rule of modeling, which I'll dive deeply into in the first edition of NLP Insiders.

Once I was done with the modeling project, I realized that I was wrong. Trading is the ultimate way of inserting schillings into my piggy's slot.

No product. No customer. No prospect. No selling. No service. No marketing. No social media. No email. No team.

Almost any time. Anywhere. All you need is a laptop and a net connection.

Can't beat that.

But... you have to become good at it. Otherwise, it can suck your piggy dry within seconds.

*Mark Knopfler shredding Sultans of Swing live in the background as I write*

Courses suck at transferring skills.

I enjoy courses as much as the next guy. But I have to be real with you. For us passionate learners, courses are just a different version of Game of Thrones.

They're entertainment.

And the danger with courses is that they fool us into believing that we're being productive. After all, we're learning, aren't we?

*cue the blonde Dallas Cowboys cheerleader*

"Yes, we're growing!

Yes, we're upgrading our skills!

Yes, we're becoming better version of ourselves!"

"Thanks, Ashley, you can sit down now..."

Truth is, if we're constantly consuming courses, we're BSing ourselves into believing we're making progress. But we're not. We're procrastinating.

But let's suppose we're genuinely using courses to learn. Are courses good for anything?

Courses are useful for getting a walkthrough of a field. Through them, we can learn the terminology used in that field, become familiar with the most common concepts and maybe do a few deep dives to get a closer look at the most important areas of the field.

When it comes to developing skills, though, courses fall way short because they put students in "listen & watch" mode.

What works, then?

We develop skills through training. Effective training, by design, puts participants in "do" mode. It's one of the reasons why the Modeling Experience is so effective at getting participants to learn how to model. They get into "do" mode on day 1.

Once we are in "do" mode, repetition begins. It's rote, boring and utterly unexciting.

That's where course junkies drop off. They're addicted to the dopamine hit of the quick insight and can't get enough of it. Udemy's supply of courses isn't sufficient to satisfy their addiction. Problem is, they have zero to show for in terms of results. It's all talk, parroting what they've learned in the course, and zero action.

The real gangsters, on the other hand, put on their bandanas and get down to the dirty work: reps.

They perform the task over and over. They sweat it out. They clench. They scream in agony and frustration as amateurism leaves their system. Then they surrender. They let go. They learn to relax. The task becomes a meditation. It becomes a path, divorced from the destination that prompted them to get on it. It becomes a way, a philosophy, a master, a mirror.

Eventually, they acquire and master the skill to the point where it becomes second-nature to them.

Now...

...when a real G discovers NLP modeling, (s)he gains the ability to instantly deploy this commitment at the highest level from day 1 instead of relying on trial and error to build the skill.

Long-time dailyNLP subscriber and client S.Y. (using initials for privacy reasons) asked me on a recent coaching call:

"How can I use modeling to become more effective at drawing?"

I want to call your attention to a problem I see again and again when I coach clients on skill acquisition and modeling project design.

When clients say they want to become good at drawing, investing, day trading, writing, playing guitar or cooking, they're sending themselves into a confusion spiral.

Their statement is akin to a college student proclaiming: "I want to see the world!"

They need to make it smaller. Break it up. Chunk it down.

Unless you're able to tie the skill to a precise and tangible result, it's virtually impossible to build a modeling project around it. The more precise you're able to get, the easier it becomes to model.

The first thing I did was pinpoint accurately his desired outcome.

*cue the Meta Model*

Within a few questions, I learned that he wanted to be able to sketch interior designs, meaning rooms with beds, wardrobes, tables, and so on.

Can you see how different that would be from learning how to draw cartoon strips of, let's say, Spider-Man?

Both skills fit within the larger set of "drawing," but they're two different segments of drawing.

Likewise, you must apply this critical first step to any generic skill. Let's take the ones above as further examples.

- Investing --> Selecting dividend paying stocks

- Trading --> Scalping the ES index

- Writing --> Writing sci-fi novels

- Playing guitar --> Performing 1980's heavy metal guitar solos

- Cooking --> Preparing spanish tapas

Make it smaller!