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Martin Messier

March 17, 2023

NLP Books: The Top 10 Classics You Should Devour

Recently, several subscribers have asked me about the best NLP books I recommend. Here is my shortlist and why you absolutely must read these books.

2022 Update: After 10 years of dailyNLP, I've created an updated list of the NLP books I recommend. This new list offers the top 10 NLP books for influence and top performance.

1. Frogs Into Princes
by Richard Bandler and John Grinder

Frogs Into Princes, by Richard Bandler and John Grinder

This book, in my opinion, is the grand-daddy and one of the best NLP books. If you haven't already read it or leafed through it, it's a transcript from a live seminar Richard Bandler and John Grinder gave in the early days of NLP.

This particular format, chosen by Steve Andreas, protects the juiciness of the original delivery by the two co-founders. More fundamentally, Frogs Into Princes reveals between the lines the curious and ruthless attitude proper to the practice of NLP. You MUST read this book.

2. Unlimited Power : The New Science Of Personal Achievement
by Anthony Robbins

Unlimited Power, by Anthony Robbins

This book was probably the first work to take NLP to the masses.

While it gives Anthony Robbins' spin of personal excellence to NLP, it exposes in very simple and entertaining language many of NLP's classic models and patterns, such as representational systems, well-formed outcomes, reframing, among others.

If you are just getting started in NLP and you enjoy motivational books, Tony will guide you enthusiastically in your first steps.

3. Turtles All the Way Down: Prerequisites to Personal Genius
by John Grinder and Judith DeLozier

Turtles All The Way Down, by John Grinder and Judith DeLozier

This book definitely does not circulate on the usual NLP box office hits. But it's one of the most provocative books available to the NLPer.

It offers countless descriptions and exercises to stimulate the reader to access the know-nothing state, absolutely essential to modeling using the NLP methodology. Again, it's one of the rare places where you can get a "whiff" of Grinder-style NLP.

I would definitely not skip on this one if I were you. I had to order it from the National Library of Canada, and could only consult it at the library itself. It was worth every minute spent and contributed significantly to the grounding I possess in the field. It's one of the best NLP books and you ought to read it.

4. Trance-Formations: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Structure of Hypnosis
by Richard Bandler and John Grinder

Tranceformations, by Richard Bandler and John Grinder

Another book edited by Steve Andreas. This one exposes, in seminar format, hypnotic patterns that the co-founders learned by modeling Milton Erickson.

Once again, the live seminar format offers a more organic and juicy reading experience than the habitual dryness of the textbook. This one is still considered by many practicioners of NLP as one of the best books on hynosis.

Be ready to pay top dollar for it as it's held as a collectible these days.

5. Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of Meaning
by Richard Bandler and John Grinder

Reframing, by Richard Bandler and John Grinder

"Reframing" is the seminar equivalent of The Structure of Magic (also recommended below). Also in seminar format, this book shows how to use the language patterns of the meta-model to challenge and reorganize a client's Model of the World.

Another classic among the seminal texts of the early days of NLP. You'll love it.

6. Using Your Brain--For a Change: Neuro-Linguistic Programming
by Richard Bandler

Using Your Brain For A Change, by Richard Bandler

By this point, Richard Bandler and John Grinder had already split up.

In this book, also edited by Steve Andreas in live seminar format, you'll get to read Richard Bandler's dabblings and experiments with his new neurolinguistic toy: submodalities.

I believe this book was the first to present the Swish Pattern, one of the best-known NLP patterns/techniques. It's one of the best NLP books to learn some of the seminal change patterns.

7. Beliefs: Pathways to Health and Wellbeing
by Robert Dilts, Tim Hallborn and Suzi Smith

Beliefs, by Robert Dilts and Tim Hallbom

Robert Dilts et all do an outstanding job in presenting beliefs, how they constellate our unconscious and the impact they have on our view of the world.

While beliefs generally do not show up until Master Practicioner levels of training, you'll really enjoy this book's simple language.

One important distinction to note: Robert Dilts often mixes NLP concepts and models with models that he experiments with and models. The latter aren't considered part of the NLP corpus and John Grinder has often criticized Robert Dilts for them.

8. Whispering In The Wind
by John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St Clair

Whispering In The Wind, by John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St Clair

This book, while incredibly complex, will give you a very, very solid grounding in the scientific underpinnings of NLP.

In this masterwork, Grinder and Bostic St Clair expose rigorously the influences that cybernetics, linguistics, psychology and other fields had in the founding of NLP.

While it's a hairy read and not easy to digest, you have to read it if you're committed to mastering NLP. It greatly assisted me in overcoming the therapy bias that usually comes with NLP. This is by far one of the best NLP books to learn the epistemology of the field.

9. The Structure of Magic: A Book About Language and Therapy (Structure of Magic)
by Richard Bandler and John Grinder

The Structure of Magic, by Richard Bandler and John Grinder

Both Volume I and Volume II of The Structure of Magic present systematically how Bandler and Grinder modeled Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir. They also reveal the way Bandler and Grinder found to code their newfound communication model.

This book gave birth to the Meta Model of language in therapy. For that reason alone, it deserves your attention. It's incredibly thorough and describes in detail how Bandler and Grinder constructed that model at the onset of the field.

While you may find it a tough read as well, you have to read this to get a sense of how a formal NLP model should be presented. I doubt that a model has been presented so thoroughly since the publication of this two-part series.

10. Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D
by Richard Bandler and John Grinder

Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton Erickson, by Richard Bandler and John Grinder

You have to read Volume I and Volume II of this two-tome essay for the same reasons that you have to read The Structure of Magic: because they reveal how to code patterns formally. Imagine what it would be like to stand in front of the world's greatest hypnotherapist and trying to figure out what the heck he's doing... "Patterns" will enchant you in some parts, challenge you in others, but definitely will impress you with the commitment and determination with which Bandler and Grinder pursued this peculiar modeling project.

Of course, different students of NLP will argue for a different Top 10 list. But this one will definitely set you on your way to understanding what NLP is all about, while at the same time getting you to use some of the practical tools that NLP offers, such as the Swish Pattern. One thing is for sure, keep Whispering In The Wind for dessert.

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Martin Messier

March 15, 2023

On The Importance Of Modeling Yourself

Eventually, you’ll run into NLP techniques and patterns that don’t work for you. Apparently, they will always seem to work for everybody else.

The truth is that they don’t work on everyone at all.

They might work on many people.

But not all.

And you happen to be one of them.

The reason for this is that we all process our intake of the world differently. And that’s why the Swish Pattern (among others) might not work in all situations for you.

What should you do when you encounter a pattern that allegedly works for everyone but you?

You need to go back to the most important piece of the self-help puzzle: modeling yourself.

You MUST discover how you operate when you’re at your best. It’s essential. It beats any other excellence pattern you’ll encounter in trainings or on the web.

Incidentally, this dovetails into the work of Joseph Riggio of Mythoself™ and Robert Johanssen of Svensk NLP (who created the Riggio Model). The real question is, how can you tap into your personal best continuously?

Because at your personal best, most of the issues you want to change or improve cease to exist. You’re at your peak state. And at your peak state, you’re unstoppable.

All this to say, don’t think there’s something wrong when some supposedly universal pattern doesn’t perform effectively with you. It’s not you who’s wrong for the pattern. It’s either the pattern that’s wrong for you or is being misused in the situation at hand.

Model yourself and resolve the problem.

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Martin Messier

March 14, 2023

How Aware Were You Of These Meta-Model Distinctions?

Any NLP Practitioner worth his or her salt needs to master the Meta-Model.

Now, there are a few distinctions on the Meta-Model that very few beginners discover and very few trainers make explicit.

Let's tease some of those out in this post.

1. The Meta-Model is actually the Meta-Model of Language in Therapy.

It's fundamental that you learn this distinction and keep it in mind at all times until it becomes second nature to you.

The Meta-Model was created based on modeling the language patterns used by Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir in therapy sessions with their clients. Bandler and Grinder coded it based on existing transformational grammar models.

As such, and as with every genuine NLP-modeled patterns or collection of patterns, the Meta-Model is designed precisely for that use.

2. Generalization, Distortion and Deletion only exist in the Bandler/Grinder lexicon.

In The Structure of Magic I, Richard Bandler and John Grinder offer Generalization, Distortion and Deletion as the three key processes involved in map-making or modeling. In other words, when we model, we generalize, distort and delete "reality" in order to produce a model.

It took me a few years to figure out that these terms and processes were themselves modeled by Bandler and Grinder. If you run a search on Google for these terms, you'll discover that they inevitably lead back to Bandler and Grinder. No other field, apparently, has picked up this terminology or purports to have coined it.

3. The Meta-Model can be much easier to learn.

Since the two previous distinctions were arbitrarily created by the co-founders, it means we can improve on them.

A model is simply a representation of reality. As such, the Meta-Model of language in therapy is simply a representation generated by two people collaborating. They did the best they could. I think we can do better.

If you're committed to mastering the Meta Model, enroll in Meta Model Mastery. In 45 minutes, you will know exactly which questions to use and in what order.

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Martin Messier

March 13, 2023

Lessons Learned From Secret Therapy Experiments

After I posted on Secret Therapy Stories, Louis Burns of The NLP Marketing Blog asked me:

Martin – can you share more details on which of your identities got what kind of response? That’s a fascinating experience.

Of course.

The traveling musician got people to open up very, very quickly. I found that guitar playing was a gimmick that created a rapport zone, making it incredibly easy to connect with others — eventually, I discarded it to increase the challenge level, but it’s worth noting. Apparently, a space in people’s psyche opens up to buskers, magicians, illusionists, jugglers and other street performers. I’d venture to suggest some sort of archetype that the character taps into but won’t allow myself to dabble into that sort of content (lack of NLP rigor).

The Latin American mystic, needless to say, shot people in trances with very little effort. I hallucinated that the word “mystic” in and of itself was a powerful anchor, inducing a trance by its mere mention. I can’t help but laugh when thinking back at those experiences because I’d move my language into a very, very trancy zone, saying phrases such as: “Pause for a second and start noticing the space where you are at one with this leaf. Can you get there? Of course and it becomes easier just by noticing it, right?”

I had a harder time reaching my therapeutic goals as the California businessman. I could see people closing up a bit when I started entering the “personal issues” zone. After about 10 experiments, I dropped him out of my roster.

The French poet didn’t derive much useful response potential neither. He only did when I blended a bit of a mystical state into the persona.

Many variables are at play here, so I wouldn’t dare to derive any conclusions on which personas had the best effect. The way I postured myself, the clothing I used, the tone of my voice and my overall “sympathy” state all had an effect on the responses each character elicited. Unfortunately, I didn’t conduct as systematic an experiment as I could have.

Power Zones

The most important lesson I learned from my experiments was that I didn’t mattered. My personal history and my skill level weren’t nearly as important as I imagined them to be. The truly important factor was the environment I created and entered as a character to interact with another human being.

Stop for a second and think about this. Want to become an angel today? Go out into town and find a beggar on a street corner. Take a $20 bill (or higher — $100 would have a bigger bang), walk to the beggar, look at him in the eye and simply say: “The Great One has sent me down to give you help. (Hand him the money) And He asked me to tell you that within the next seven days, you will have to find a way to contribute to 7 people who are in more need than you. I’ll be watching…” And then walk away.

Try it for yourself. Try it a few times. Notice the interaction “twilight zone” you’re able to create with each new encounter.

These are the change zones you must learn to create to powerfully influence others and assist them in moving to the next level in their life.

To others, you can literally be whomever you want. And it matters a lot more to them than to you.

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Martin Messier

March 10, 2023

Secret Therapy Stories

You came looking for Secret Therapy stories. Here is one I will share with you.

After getting my NLP certification, I figured that more NLP certifications wouldn’t add one ounce of skill to my repertoire. What had to be learned was learned, and only practice would give me the level of skill I aspired to. So I asked myself: “What could you start doing that would give you massive practice and increase your skill level in very little time?”

Obviously, I couldn’t label myself a therapist. I didn’t have a degree in psychology, so it would be illegal to call myself as such.

After thinking about it for two seconds, I decided to structure a challenge for myself.

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Martin Messier

March 7, 2023

Mastering THIS NLP Skill Will Add Precision To Your Modeling

This skill, as a few others mentioned in this blog, is way underplayed in trainings.

And yet outstanding trainers make exquisite use of it.

This skill, once you master it, will add precision to your modeling of outstanding performers. But it will do even more for you. You can count on it to:

  • wipe out overwhelm from your life;
  • guarantee that you successfully complete projects fast and without stress;
  • dominate ever single area of your life you must manage to be successful;
  • get an adequate overview of a problem you wish to solve;
  • improve your ability to explain complex concepts to others;
  • add more sizzle to your storytelling

That’s just a little sample of what you can expect from mastering this disarmingly simple, yet powerful skill.

Curious? I thought so. Let’s get to it.

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Martin Messier

February 22, 2023

How You Can Pack More Punch Into A Single Word

Many NLP students have a hard time understanding and using nominalizations appropriately. Most learn in their early training that we should de-nominalize every intangible noun spoken. I used to believe I had to run from nominalizations like the plague.

A nominalization is a world of its own (funny, even the word "world" is a nominalization... He he he, they're all over the place). You have to expore it to understand it.

And it serves a powerful purpose.

It enables us to package a process into an entity and to move it around, leverage it and make it interact with other processes.

You'll best understand this through an example.

Let's play with the sentence "I want to change society."

"Society," of course, is a nominalization. By using that word, I'm turning a process (socializing) into a finite entity (society). Nominalizations can also show up by turning a process (such as deciding) into an event (decision).

Let's get back to our "society" example.

If I want to denominalize it, I'll say "I want to change the way people socialize and interact with one another."

Do you notice how this complexifies the sentence?

So we nominalize for a reason. It makes our communication simpler and more direct.

Here's the real challenge: you need to learn how to USE the nominalization. Instead of blindly denominalizing it, you can instead tease out the underlying reality it represents.

You can do this in several ways. For instance, if I told "I want to change society", you could ask me "what do you mean by society?" Or, you could ask me "when you say society, who are you talking about exactly?"

Once I answer your question, you can then use the nominalization in an effective and powerful way. It only becomes a trap only if you assume you know what it means to me.

Instead of the classicly trained skill of denominalizing, the real skill you must master is how to unpack the nominalization and sort through its content. Once you've done that, you can leverage that nominalization as a powerful shortcut to its meaning.

In the context of therapy, you must unpack your client's nominalizations to figure out how she sorts its content. If its content is empowering and well-sorted, the nominalization serves as a shortcut that presupposes all its content. If not, you can assist your client in repacking and resorting its content and then repackage it into a powerful word.

Depending on how you package the content, you can pack a whole lot of punch into a single word.

Give it a shot. If you run into trouble, comment on it here on the blog.

If you're committed to mastering nominalizations and other forms of language, enroll in Meta Model Mastery. In 45 minutes, you will have learned all the patterns you need to take apart and reassemble someone's Model of the World.

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Martin Messier

February 16, 2023

How To Start Learning NLP

So you've seen someone performing a rapid-change technique designed by a practitioner of NLP. (If you've never seen one, here's an example performed by NLP super veteran Steve Andreas.)

Or maybe you watched a video of Tony Robbins performing a strategic intervention.

Or, a friend of yours told you of this incredible seminar he just came back from where a master of NLP was removing everyone's limitations.

And now you want to learn how to do it yourself.

OK. What to do now?

Feel it first

The first and absolute most important thing you can do is to witness applications of NLP in action.

Go to an introductory seminar, find a practicioner in your area and go in for a session. One way or another, you have to feel it first.

That's where it begins.

"OK Steve, I'm done. I've already seen a prac. in action. What next?"

The program

In the next step of your learning, you'll want to understand the basic framework of NLP, which consists in the three following pieces:

  1. Learn the NLP epistemology. The first thing you must know and master is how people build their model of the world. That's pretty much what "epistemology" means: how we know what we know. That comes before anything else. The only source I've found that attempts to describe and explain it is the book "Whispering In The Wind" by John Grinder. And it's not learner-friendly. Fortunately, I devote tons of time and space to this in my upcoming course, Learning and Mastering NLP.
  2. Learn how to map people's model of the world. It's one thing to know how people build their model of the world. It's quite another to be able to map it out yourself. While the NLP epistemology is a piece of knowledge, this one is a skill. This one demands that you actually produce results. This one starts differentiating those who talk from those who do. This is where the rubber meets the road.
  3. Learn how to change people's model of the world. Once you know how to track and map people's model of the world, you must learn how to alter it. This is the third level of mastery in NLP.

Also, remember that you must apply all these skills with regard to yourself all the time. Otherwise, you won't achieve the state of congruency and alignment necessary to powerfully influence others.

Do a quick evaluation

Now, take some time and figure out where you lie exactly on the spectrum of mastering NLP.

Perhaps you're just getting started now. You haven't done through any of those levels yet.

Perhaps you've incorporated into your toolkit bits and pieces of all three levels.

But have you fully completed level 1? If not, get started now!

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Martin Messier

February 15, 2023

How I Discovered The Easiest Way To Teach NLP


I was sipping on freshly squeezed orange juice when, suddenly, it hit me like a ton of bricks…

It became obvious. And the thing is, this distinction goes way beyond NLP. I’m sure you’ll realize this applies to any field you pretend on mastering. This explains why school is so hard.

Fortunately, we can use NLP itself to solve the problem.

Here’s the big secret: most of the works available for studying NLP are actually reference works, or works designed for learning.

This is huge. Let’s look at the actual pattern this distinction uncovers:

There’s a big (no, make that huge) difference between
writing reference material and writing material for learners.

The layout has to be different. The text has to be different. The content must be mapped out differently.

Here are three keys to teaching NLP (or anything, for that matter of fact) more effectively.

1. Engage your students personally.

If you’re writing for students, especially beginning students, what word do you think should constantly come up in your text? “You” should. That’s right, “you” have to use the word “you” frequently. Why is that? Because when “you” use the word “you”, “you” engage your reader into the subject matter. Think about the subjects in school that “you” most disliked or had the hardest time learning. I’ll bet “you” the word “you” wasn’t used to often during the presentation of the material. And if you weren’t able to create ties between “you” and the subject matter, the class was a drag.

Learn from this and engage your audience personally. Use the word “you”. Often.

2. Weave a learning tapestry.

Reference works don’t really need to be sequenced in any particular way. In reference works, the categories really matter. You need to put the right material in the right chapter. Kind of like a container.

When you’re writing learning materials, the sequence in which you introduce the material (and the key word here is “introduce”) is critical. You have to stack the material correctly and progressively make it unfold for your reader. You must turn it into a journey.

3. Lace your text with examples and references.

Can you remember the last time you read a book that discussed a brand new topic to you, and for some reason the author successfully captivated your attention? As surprising as it might sound, he probably leveraged this third tip.

The key to making your reader comfortable and confident that he can learn from you is to build references from which he can understand the key concepts you present. Lead with examples and only after presenting three or four of them introduce the concept that unifies them. And, preferably, integrate this tip with tip #1: use examples that your reader will be able to connect to personally. Engage her.

Incidentally, the three tips you just read will serve you well in a number of endeavors besides teaching. Motivating your kids, persuading your boss, selling to a client, presenting a new vacation idea to your husband or wife, and so on. Start applying them today and notice the new results you get. And let us know what happens!

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Martin Messier

February 10, 2023

What Is NLP Anchoring?

Our NLP term for today is anchoring. I first came across that word in Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins, the first book that linked me to NLP. But I really got interested in the concept after reading Frogs Into Princes. I first understood anchoring to mean that I could control my state or someone else’s state with one specific trigger. Let’s explore its meaning in a bit more depth.

In NLP, anchoring is both a concept and a skill. John Grinder and Richard Bandler started using the term to avoid referring to stimulus-response, a behaviorist concept that many psychologists of the day frowned upon.

The concept of anchoring

As a concept in NLP, anchoring is the process by which we set up stimulus-response links involuntarily. An anchor is a specific stimulus that brings about a particular response.

For instance, whenever I see my toddler bumbling about, I smile. He serves as the stimulus (walking around) and I respond (smile). My son is a strong anchor for me to smile.

The skill of anchoring

As a skill in NLP, anchoring consists in voluntarily leveraging the unconscious stimulus-response mechanism in each of us. It’s a conditioning tool and mechanism. Whenever you find yourself in an optimal state you wish to return to in the future, choose a unique stimulus (such as grabbing your little finger, or banging your foot twice on the ground) and trigger it repeatedly to really condition it. At a later time, after you’ve changed states, test your anchor and notice how you return to your anchored state.

Likewise, you can apply anchoring to others. Whenever you find someone in a specific state (for instance, laughing out loud), you can anchor it with a specific look or facial expression. Allow them to drift out of that state and then make that facial expression again. Notice what happens.

The phenomenon of anchoring in your life

For sure you’ve experienced the power of anchoring in your life before. Have you ever been working on a project and then, all of a sudden, a song comes on the radio that reminds you of incredibly memories of your teenage or college years? I’m sure you have. In that case, that song is an anchor in your life. Whenever you hear it, you spring back into a specific state.

You’ll hear frequently in NLP that “you cannot not anchor.” That’s how powerful anchoring is in your life. Everything and anything is an anchor.

Right now, reading this article is anchoring your curiosity to learn more about NLP to seeing your computer monitor. Just looking at our computer makes you intensely curious to learn more and master NLP.

See your computer, think about NLP.

See your computer, think about NLP.

Test it. It works.

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