Stop Drawing a Blank: How NLP Sorting Patterns Fix Your Memory Have you ever felt like you were absorbing a mountain of information effectively, only to draw a total blank when you were actually called upon to recall it? Perhaps you’ve mastered something complicated...
Turning Bedtime Fears into Sweet Dreams: An NLP Language Strategy for Parents Every parent has "been there." The sudden stall tactics, the extra glass of water, and that hesitant look in a child’s eyes, when a bedroom light gets turned off. Many years ago now, my...
How NLP Training Helps Your Firm: Soft Skills With Teeth Most business owners focus on "hard skills" because they are easy to measure. But high-impact soft skills training can affect whether a company scales or fails. In my experience, the most expensive business...
The Strategic Value of Confusion: Why Mild Uncertainty is Your Brain’s Greatest Gift (originally written ~2010 on altfeld[dot]com; rewritten and published here in 2026.) In the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), most people are obsessed with "positive"...
The Map Is Not The Territory: Why The Laffer Curve Is Just A Bad Drawing Its time for an NLP Smackdown on "Trickle-down economics." In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), we have a Golden Rule (An NLP Presupposition): The Map is Not the Territory. Think of that rule...
Editor’s Note: Some of the ideas in this post were originally published in 2013 on altfeld.com. This article has been rewritten, modernized, and republished here on February 1, 2026. You’ve heard them before. "My way or the highway." "Well, if you don't want me...
The “Space Invader” Technique: An NLP Strategy for Rapid Rapport and Connection Interested in NLP techniques for gaining increased closeness and charisma — or improving rapport in working relationships? Let me give you one that sounds more aggressive than it is. I...
NLP With Animals (Mostly Dogs):What Works, Why It Works, and Where to Be Careful I’ve used NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) in a lot of places—training rooms, coaching sessions, messy real-life conversations. But one of the most honest “labs” I ever had was my...
Resisting Flamebait: The Art of Choosing Your Battles Have you ever found yourself lured into an argument that you later wished you’d avoided? You know the kind: an argument that seems urgent and important in the heat of the moment but later on, once you've gotten a...
NLP & Ecology (& Ethics) - a guiding light Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) has long been a powerful and sometimes controversial tool for personal and professional development. While its techniques can create rapid and profound changes, the topic of NLP...
Do You Want to Crush it in Business, But You're Not Yet Getting Results Yet? This post is dedicated to everyone looking to measurably improve their business careers. We published this post in 2013 precisely when we shifted to a greater focus on NLP in Business. The...
What do we believe makes for an Effective TED or TEDx Talk? A multitude of factors contribute to whether or not a speaker gives a compellingly effective TED or TEDx Talk. Periodically when the mood strikes, I'll post a talk with a review of how well (or not?) any...