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Is NLP Dangerous?

This is something a lot of people ask me. They say Richard can I be influenced by NLP, can I be made to do something that I don't want to do?

My answer to them is that it is happening every minute of the day. We are being influenced every minute of the day by advertising, by others, even by ourselves!!

So what is NLP?

NLP stands for Neuro (to do with the brain) Linguistic (to do with words/speech) Programming (how we are programmed to do things). You see our brains react to words and we run certain programs when we hear them. Don't believe it? When someone beeps their horn, you begin to run a program called "what the hell did I do wrong buddy" or something similar, you may begin to get hot under the collar, look around, start to curse! Ok each person will have a different reaction to it but it happens.

Every hear a song that makes you sad? Your brain has been programmed to react in this way. After all it's only a song right? Wrong! It's what know as an anchor (anchors will be explained in a later article)

From the above, we can say that people can be influenced by words and sounds. Most of the time this is used ethically, for example next time you see an ad for coca-cola, look to see how many people are smiling in the ad! That's why coke makes you feel good! You associate the smiles with the coke and having a good time. After all you always are having a good time when you drink coke!

NLP can be used to influenced, and yes in the wrong hands and done correctly you might do things that you did not think you would do. Check out this link - http://www.derrenbrown.co.uk/news/heist. This guy is an amazing man who really understands and uses NLP. In this program he documents how he conducted an innocent management development seminar, over a weekend. A few days or weeks later, he rang the participants to meet him somewhere in London. They walked past a security van delivering money and robbed it - of course this was done under controlled conditions - ie the security van and area were controlled, but the people had been influenced. I spotted many of the ways he influenced but still need to study the video more to see all the subtle ways he did it.

Why does this work? To be honest many of us are simply sheep, and I mean no offense, but we just go with the crowd, listen in a very superficial way, and don't really look and take things in. Those who do listen and look will be able to guide you in the direction they want you to do in.

To conclude yes NLP can be dangerous if used unethically but is incredibly powerful when used correctly

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