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Earl Nightingale, born in the twenties, was a highly acclaimed broadcaster and entrepreneur. This video is a recording of his, made in 1954 – talking about the psychology of success and the trap of conventional behaviour. Nightingale’s mantra: ”we become what we think about” along with his explanation and rationalisation of how the mind is the single most important tool for success echoes the basic principle of Neuro-Linguistic-Programming (NLP). Perhaps Nightingale goes ever so slightly off-key but the bottom line is there – success is a product of defined goals and finding or creating fitting circumstances. Similarly, Einstein insisted – ”imagination is more important than knowledge”.
Interestingly, NLP didn’t kick off until the seventies, some twenty years after this recording, when a psychologist and a linguistics professor joined forces, their intention to discover what makes up ”sucess”, to break a person’s success down into patterns, that could form a model that could be applied to any field and person. It was not about developing a new school of therapy – they sought to identify not theories of psychology, but a formula for personal success, that could be replicated. And so NLP was born not as a therapy, but as the art and a science of personal excellence. An art because every person brings their own unique style and personality to what they do. And a science because it is a method and process for discovering the patterns used by outstanding individuals in any field to achieve outstanding results.
For practitioners of NLP – the Life Coaches, Sports Psychologists - it is the analysis of what makes the difference between the excellent and the average in an individual – what is different in the behaviour, mind state and thought process of a pro golfer on a great swing and an average swing? For the user it is an identification, understanding and modelling of that personal success so that it can be repeated – how do I replicate the mind state, behaviour and ritual pattern I go through when I perform best?
In this recording, Earl Nighingale defines success as ”The progressive realisation of a worthy ideal”. – NLP in practice is defining a person’s ”worthy ideal” and reaching that “realisation” using an exact, measured and repeatable model, unique to the individual.
Amy Court - London Hypnotherapist - www.thinkforwards.co.uk
