Throughout the years I’ve been meeting people whose job is to communicate. Teachers, psychotherapists, group leaders, social workers, coaches, hypnotherapists, traders - all of them make their living through the process of communication. Many are well informed, acquainted with all kinds of theories and practical approaches. They have been given special education, have completed courses, have certificates for communications skills. Not to mention actors and journalists who are supposed to be professional communicators.

All of them do their work somehow, some make more money some less, but the truth is that only a small part of the people I’ve met can really do the work they’ve been trained for. Between knowledge and ability there is a deep precipice and not everyone can jump across it. Even when we were studying at the Faculty of Journalism we knew that journalism couldn’t be learnt there. It was the same when I studied clinical psychology. It has been known for thousands of years that the individual’s inner development cannot be achieved with books and exercises. The books, exercises, courses are just the beginning. You acquire an understanding of the technology, interesting observations, but this understanding is not the technology itself.

When you watch how Bandler works he does very simple things. As the years of experience accumulate he does these things more and more quickly: he gets his clients into a state of trance (nowadays it takes him no more than 20-30 seconds per person to do that, and he manages to maintain and deepen the trance of whole groups of people), changes their processes of perception, absorption and keeping of information, thus pressing the button which catapults their lives into totally new directions - and lets them live their new lives. If you are observing this and you are not part of the process it all seems like mere fraud. But if you try to do what he does, the chances are that you won’t succeed. If you experienced his influence yourself you know that life will never be the same again.

However controversial Richard Bandler may be, there is no doubt that he is a communication genius and NLP is his life’s work. He begins with the idea that mastery can be learnt, that behind communication skills, and any other skills, is hidden a particular structure, which can be dismantled, studied in detail and applied as a model for everybody else. According to NLP if someone can do something, everybody else can learn it and if someone can’t do something it is because he hasn’t learned it yet. But this is not about bookish knowledge, which is just the beginning. Bandler, together with Grinder, started examining the structure of communication 30 years ago, particularly the structure of language which is the basis of any human communication and developing models which reveal the secret of mastery. During the following decades politics, business, education, psychotherapy, advertising have used these models, sometimes successful, sometimes not, and surrounded NLP with the halo of a secret, manipulative, almost sectarian movement and technology. The partial application of some techniques (sometimes with a manipulative goal) have led to failures and given rise to disappointments. What separates the communication master from the people who just try to emulate him? When does an apprentice become a master? Why is it that some can cause inner changes in the people they are communicating with just with one glance, touch, word or story, a short conversation, whereas the audience of others yawns, does the crossword, looks at their watches and asks themselves why they are there? Is it a matter of simply knowing the rules and following the techniques and the model? I don’t think so. The stability of one’s own process of perception, absorption and keeping of information is the decisive factor. Some call this inner strength. I have another word for it - inspiration.

The meaning of inspiration is to know who you are and why you are doing whatever you are doing. To have a goal and be totally devoted to it. To be somewhere, not to make a living, but because this is your place. To feel behind your back the support of the light and to know that nothing can stop you. This is the power which makes some sportsmen world champions, some composers great, some psychotherapists and teachers good. It is inspiration, which pulls them ahead of the masses. To be interested in something, curious, to want to learn is the beginning. To be inspired means to climb up the peak.

Inspiration, like any psychological phenomenon, has its neuro-linguistic explanation. In my opinion, inspiration is possible only when your inner information process has reached such a stability that nothing could lead it astray. No outside noises or inner doubts. No dark pictures of the future in your head or outside images. No irritations or discomforts. No inner questioning or doubts. Inspiration means that all perception is focused to such an extent that it is out-of-focus. The information stream is channelled to such a degree that one doesn’t need to keep an eye on it. It means not to notice the process, because you are the process. Then everything in your unconscious is at your disposal. The right files are given to you at the right time. The right words, the right physiological reactions. The mechanism works with the perfection with which it was created. Then you are not simply leading, but you are led to lead.

Can one learn this with practice? Ask Richard Bandler.

Tags: Psychotherapists, Hypnotherapists, Communication, professional communicators, Richard Bandler, Trance, State of trance, Change, Direction, Process of Change, inner world, Communication, NLP, Beliefs, Information, Values, Inner States, communication skills, Structure, Model, Techniques, the secret of mastery, manipulative, inspiration, inner strength, Light, perception, Unconscious, Perfection