Success Factor Modelling

I recently attended a most wonderful webinar with Robert Dilts.  Robert has been around NLP since the very beginning and is the founder of the NLP University in the USA.  He was a pleasure to listen to and it was clear to me, as I watched him on my computer screen, that he is deeply passionate about NLP and the incredible results that it can generate across all walks of life.

In this newsletter, I want to share with you just a small element of the deeply insightful presentation that Robert gave.  The main focus of his webinar was something that he calls ‘Success Factor Modelling’.  Years of modelling excellence has allowed him to discover the key elements that make an individual successful in something they do, the general behaviours, attitudes and thinking patterns that are common across the modelling sample.

Here are the key elements of success:

Passion

Robert noticed that every successful person he modelled had ‘passion’.  He described passion in this context to be the drive to achieve.  Energy flows where attention goes and successful people harness their energy to move them towards achieving what they want.

Vision

Robert described vision as a deep sense of direction.  He noticed that successful people know exactly where they are going and the route that they are going to take in order to know that they will get there.  They have well-formed and detailed goals that they work towards with a relentless drive that allows them to overcome barriers that appear in their way.  There is always more than one way to reach their destination.

Courage

In this context, courage was described as the full belief in goals.  Successful people strongly believe in their passion and vision.  They believe in their goals and their own personal capacity and capability to achieve them. No matter what challenges get thrown in their path, their belief rewards them with the courage to continue towards their goal and they never, ever give up.

Working with NLP, Robert holds a philosophy of his mission at the forefront of his mind at all times.  His philosophy is this, ‘To be part of creating a world that people want to be a part of.’ I personally find this thinking extremely compelling and I take pride in my small part of realising this mission, I’m sure you do too.

Finally, Robert spoke about that elusive and intangible reason for success that some people call ‘luck’.  People often refer to luck don’t they?  Good luck, bad luck, no luck at all.  Does this thing that we like to hang some of our and other people’s success, or lack of success on, actually exist as a phenomenon or is it simply a reason that we can get a grip of when we find ourselves at ‘effect’?  Robert offered a very inspiring definition of luck, he said that ‘Luck is the meeting of preparation and opportunity’.  So, if we are well prepared and use our RAS (Recticular Activation System) to recognise opportunities when they present themselves and have the passion, vision and courage to embrace them, then success is bound to follow.

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