Magic Valley NLP

In the summer of 2009 I was able to attend the NLPU 400 Trainer and Consultancy Certificaton course at NLPU.  The course looked exciting except for one little piece. We were to model someone else who was excellent and create our own NLP program.  I admired those who had done it and created such wonderful strategies, but could I model someone.   That was a scary thought.

The day came and I was paired up with Xavier Lee .  I asked him what he was good at and he gave it some thought, then answered organizing information quickly. 

Give me an example, I pressed.

Read below for the entire story---

Here is his story.

Xavier was a head of a tour bus company. One day he got a panicked call from a bus driver. The bus had broken down in Death Valley, California.  It was hot,hot enough to kill,  and the bus driver did not know what to do.

As the bus driver talked Xavier wrote down bits of information and began to categorize it on silo shapes in his head.  As he finished the first call he already had most of the information organized and had made several decisions.

He then leaned back and looked at the silos in his mind’s eye and triaged.  Which one was the most important?  He leaned forward in his chair and pulled out the customer silo, then began to put together what was needed to keep them safe.  He found out how much water was on the bus, directed the bus driver to let them off the bus to stand in the shade of the bus to stay cool, and gave the driver a message to calm the passengers so that they would be assured that help was on the way.

As he put the customer silo back he also leaned back in his chair to survey the silos again. What was next?  The bus.  Leaning forward physically he mentally brought the bus silo forward also and began to trouble shoot the broken down bus.  He called the company that usually fixes the bus, but it would take them too long to get there. He then went to some maps and found what town was nearest and called around until he found a mechanic and a bus that could get there quicker. Help could be there in two hours.  He returned the bus silo to its place in his mind’s eye and leaned back again to survey the silos.

It was time to go back to the customer silo. He brought it forward in his mind’s eye and made a call to the bus driver with a message for the passengers that help was on its way and would be there in just a couple of hours.

Xavier continued on this way until all needs were met.  Before long all of the people were safely taken care of and felt assured that everything that could be done was being done to assure them their safety. 

When Xavier told his story and he got the phone call, he got exactly the same look on his face that my students would get at the beginning of each trimester.  It was a picture of utter panic.  As he told the story I thought, this will be good.  I can teach this strategy to my students and it will make their lives better.   It is simple and would easily break down into a strategy that they could see, hear and touch.  So just a few weeks later my students were learning for the first time, Xavier’s strategy.