All over the universe, or so it seems, human beings are famous for routinely experiencing what they most don’t want to have, and for not being able to experience that which they most really do want As human beings, all of our most stuck patterns of experience, from the slightly embarrassing ones (I always end up watching more TV than I want), to the ones that are actively life-destroying (I just can’t help disrespecting all the people I’ve tried to be partners with) have their source in our brains’ ongoing efforts to keep us well and safe

In the twenty years or so since its inception, NLP has acquired a variety of reputations Few who have encountered the power of Neuro-Linguistic Programming have remained neutral

Part the First Marin-style NLP has always been something that is difficult to characterize, especially when it comes to explaining how it is different It has much in common with conventional NLP, yet it is tremendously not-like-that at the same time

“From Intended Positive Outcomes to IPO’s” In the spring of 1979, when I first encountered the very new field of knowledge called NLP, I was immensely relieved to find within it a wonderful “presupposition” about human experience: “All behavior has an intended positive outcome,” (which was/is also stated as) “Behind every behavior is an intended positive outcome

1 That you can get somewhere positive by defeating something negative

Most of us are mostly inclined to assume that most of our actions and decisions, or at least most of our more private and intimate choices, are the result of some kind of free will process Or, if we can no longer convince ourselves of this, we at least want to assume that it is our inner patterning for making meaning and selecting behavioral options that is the source of most of what we decide and do