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Writer's pictureLata Hamilton

Everything you ever wanted to know about NLP

Updated: Apr 28, 2023

Last week, I shared the top questions I got from Project Managers. And the last question they asked was: “What is NLP?” Now, I did explain NLP briefly at the start of their webinar, but if people came late they woulda been like waaaa?

So let me give a bit more detail.

Where's my breakthrough?!


My first experience with NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) was at a weekend personal development seminar. It was only the second course like that I’d ever done. And on the Sunday morning of the group event, I realised my chances of getting a real breakthrough and support were running out. I’m a high achiever and dammit I wanted a result!


So I bravely put up my hand and shared my experience and my current problem (which was actually a relationship issue, not a career one). The trainer did an NLP intervention with me and I’ll never forget it.


You might know that I’m adopted (I did a trilogy of articles last year on my 30th anniversary) - I was adopted from India when I was almost 3 and I spent the first couple of years kind of tired and sick as my body healed from malnutrition and disease and neglect. According to my mum, I slept most of the time!


So I don’t remember the orphanage, coming to Australia, or my first few years. And it never really mattered - who cares about something you can’t remember? I had a good, happy and healthy childhood from there.

What I completely forgot


So some 20 years later I’ve got this coach standing in front of me, and he's taking me back to memories of my time in the orphanage! Memories I can’t consciously remember, but at an unconscious level, I was holding onto hurt and sadness and lots of feelings of being alone and neglected. And it was time to release it.

I had some realisations there and then - such as that I had been cared for in the orphanage, I hadn’t been alone, there were carers who looked after me (or I wouldn’t have survived!), and that I was just sitting there as a baby, shining away happily (and pretty damn cute, too, I might add). I could see it all so vividly, these new reflections and decisions brought me such peace, and it was a beautiful reframe that really started to open my mind and my heart.


After having that experience, being taken back to a completely unconscious memory and healing it, I knew then and there that I had to learn NLP and I signed up for NLP Practitioner training. And not to start a business - oh no, I never planned that! I wanted to learn how to become more effective in the workplace, to become a leader with influence and impact, and to inspire others to follow me. It wasn’t about technical skill… it was about the power of harnessing emotional transformation to lead others to success.

And that’s what NLP is - the study of excellence in behaviour, communications, and psychology (or your emotions). Basically, you take people who want an improvement in an area of their life and change the meaning of the problem, event or decision in their unconscious mind. We can do incredible things with NLP: we can release limiting beliefs, change habits, get clarity around problems and decisions, and install positivity and motivation. And it goes further than therapy or counselling - because success is based on results and we coach into future goals (much like Change Management!). It’s about high performance and inner power.


Lata in Arles

NLP x Change

So I use NLP all the time. That’s what I bring into all my Change work, what I teach in my Leading Successful Change program, what I use with Executive Coaching clients. It’s ridiculously powerful and after learning it, life has never been the same.


If you’re interested in becoming certified in NLP for your career, leadership or life, the training institute that I got my accreditation through, Your Future Now, has their next NLP Practitioner training on 12-17 November.

If you’d like to get more information on it, just connect with me and send me a private message via LinkedIn and I’ll happily provide more details and share what I know.


I'm Lata Hamilton - Change Leadership and Confidence expert, Founder & CEO of Passion Pioneers, and the creator of the Leading Successful Change program.


If you're interested in finding out more about NLP certification for your career, leadership or life, check out my Resources page and feel free to use my affiliate link - click here.

Disclaimer: I have an affiliate partnership with Your Future Now and will, at no cost to you, receive a commission if you decide to invest in their training course in the future.

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