William Sumner Interview - NeuroLinguistic Programming
(http://www.theinevitableyou.com)

SOE:  Was there a defining moment when you decided to go into NLP as a career?  Is so, what was it?

I knew as early as 1989 that I was going to be in the helping and healing profession.  I worked toward and received my Masters in Social Work in the early 1990’s and did traditional psychotherapy in a variety of conventional settings through most of the ‘90s.  In 2001 when I exited my business career and began coaching as a full time practice, I ran into Tony Robbins, saw what he was doing in his work, and was astounded by the results that he was having (immediate, transformational, and permanent.) I decided that I needed to learn and understand what he was practicing as an additional tool to what was my own growing personal practice.  I worked on and off for Tony for six years, began learning NLP in his organization, and have since expanded into a variety of arenas within NLP.

SOE:  Do you use other alternative health methods in conjunction with NLP?

Yes, I do.  Beginning with my military career in West Point, I’ve learned a variety of very traditional, very masculine, very direct and powerful tools for coaching and transforming lives.  Secondly, being in the social work, healing field, I was exposed to a variety of modalities and quickly began investigating alternative methods to healing and wellness practices because, quite frankly, traditional methods not only pigeon-hole people, it leaves much to be desired in terms of “healing” vs. “modifying behaviors.”  In other words, traditional methods focus on creating “proper” behaviors, but is not as obviously focused on healing individuals, and this was never congruent with me.  While changing unsatisfying “dysfunctional” behaviors, they were not healed and were not better.  My goal has always been to heal.  Therefore, not only do I practice a variety of alternative psychological techniques in addition to NLP:  hypnosis, temporal dynamics, heart mathematics, etc., I’ve also been aligned with an AK (Applied Kinesiologist) since 1993 and developed a complete and full physiological alternative health practice for my clients as well.

SOE:  Define NLP in your own words.

Neural Linguistic Programming is an incredible science developed by Grinder and Bandler in the late ‘70s.   It began as a study of over-achievers and how they create reality.  In doing their research, they were successful in developing a sustainable, repeatable practice that could be taught as to how over-achievement worked.  In creating the science, they also discovered that it could be applied to virtually anyone to move them from “left to right” on a time line, or a reality line.   That means if you are in pain, you can get better.  If you are average, you can become above average, and if you are a super star, you can become extraordinary.  The science is very “commonsensical.”  Often in practicing and teaching it, people say to me, “I know that”, or “I get that, that’s really awesome”, or “wow, that’s just a different way of looking at things.”  So in reality, NLP is a science that defines how we as individuals create reality. 

Reality does not happen to us, we as observers and participants in our lives truly create the reality that we experience.  This science is very tool-based, experiential-based, and designed to allow people to radically and dramatically change how their life is occurring.

SOE:  Without revealing anything confidential, could you describe one or two sessions where a client had an epiphany where it dramatically changed their life or way of thinking?

One of the most powerful things that NLP does is to allow and to teach people to truly redefine their reality that is occurring.  One of the “cutesy” expressions within NLP is “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”  Because when you apply NLP, you will discover that while people have taken dramatic memories on one end, mildly unpleasant on the other, and use them as the story as to why they are what they are, or who they are, in reality, when you change the meaning of the story, what flows from that point then is also different. 

For example:  We know that one person can experience trauma and be a victim and use that the remainder of their life as to why they can’t be happy and why they are broken.  While another person has the exact same trauma, but they use it as leverage and momentum to say, “never again, I’m going to build power and strength from this,” and as a consequence, they too, are never the same person again, but they are a person of growth, power, and greatness.  As a metaphor, we know that a broken bone when it knits that the strongest part of the bone is the knitted, healed break.  On the same hand, at the point of the trauma or the insertion of the challenge into their life, a “victim” can become broken and require pharmaceutical intervention and/or traditional psychology will unconditionally love that person and make them feel better about being in a really crappy place.  Or, using NLP, we can teach the individual that trauma becomes their strongest point.  That very trauma created their greatness, and as a consequence, you can redefine, dramatically, radically, instantly, what that means. 

So for instance, I had a client who as a small child struggled with very difficult, terribly abusive, parents.  As a consequence when she came to see me she was not confident and had used the word fraudulent in her self dialog and self assessment.  Therefore, when she thought of herself as being powerful, and successful, not only could she not do that, she created a lot of pain.  Even for the people that saw her power and light and said, “Wow, you are awesome!” she said to herself, “But I’m a fraud, they don’t know how broken I am.” 

Using NLP techniques in one session, we took “little girl fraud” to a new place called “little girl steel.”  The metaphor I used was the hottest fire forges the strongest steel – a lot of her trauma was really based on the little girl’s judgments, the little girl’s messages she received, and the adult woman reinforcing those meanings, and continuing to believe that, yes, she was a broken little girl. . .  could now become a place where she looked at that little girl’s resilience and survivability, and that her strength as a little seven year-old girl, not knowing any different, she actually built an incredible person!  Therefore, “little girl steel” became a very authentic interpretation in reality for a childhood that heretofore had plagued her through adulthood, while having experiencing limited success.  She always managed to sabotage herself based on the “little girl fraud” program.  Today, she is thriving and doing fantastically well.  This is an example of how quickly, dramatically, NLP can turn things around.

SOE:  On your website, www.theinevitableyou.com/business/business_home.html you talk about an Organizational NLP process and how it "walks you through understanding the power and structure of your unique belief system."  Would you please expand on the term "unique belief system" and some of the different components of it.

I referred in the answer above, that two different people can look at trauma, or a story, and it can be the exact same story, yet have complete different interpretations as to whether they are victims, survivors, or superheroes.  Same story, different outcomes.  One of the major components to how this process takes place is what is your belief system that begins to process that initial experience.  What we know about belief systems is they build upon themselves.  We tend to reinforce what we believe in, and discard what we don’t.  Life will change the belief system, either through repetition, or intensity. (For example, you could be extremely safe in your life, and get mugged one time and you’re not safe again, or perhaps never.  Or, repetitively, you could hold a belief for most of your life, and then wake up one morning and say, “you know, I don’t believe that anymore,” and can’t even pinpoint the repetitive part of the cycle where that point changed.  For instance:  Someone could grow up in a racist family, go off and serve in the military, be weary and cautious of different races, and at some point, wake up one morning and say, ”no, I don’t believe the child bigotry that I was taught.”)  So looking at someone’s initial belief system that processes the experience, and then repetitively enforces and strengthens that belief system, when we tear away at the initial belief system, recreate the belief system into something that is consciously designed, the individual has an authentic and genuine base to begin recreating reality instantly, and discover a completely different mold.  Another major component that plays into this is the things that you value most about your life - and reality?  What are the rules that you use to create those values?  (If happiness is a value that you want, how do you create happiness?  Do you need a lot of conditions?  Are conditions hard to achieve, or do you need relatively few conditions, and those conditions are easy to achieve?)  So while happiness is a value, the rules that you use to achieve that happiness is actually more important. 

Another example of a powerful tool is the Primary Question.  NLP was designed as a programming model because one of the original scientists was a computer programmer.  All programs process data with a primary rule.  An example: data comes into a program.  The first thing the program asks is, “What do I do with this data?  Do I put it here, do I put it there?  Do I put it into this rule set, do I put it into that rule set?”  As a consequence, we understand that the Primary Question in individuals takes the form of - “how am I processing my life at this moment?” All individuals have a primary question, and it will always be the first question that is asked, even if conditions are such that the question has no meaning, or the question has a soft answer - the individual still asks the question nonetheless.  Generally, research and studies show that over 90% of individuals have poor Primary Questions.  For example:  A lot of individual’s first question sounds something like this: - “What is wrong with me?”  Or, “why does this always happen to me?” Or, “why can’t I ever win?”  In reality, once you understand that this is just a programming question, you look at super stars and realize that their Primary Questions are things like, “What is right with me?  Why do great things always happen to me?  How can I win right now?”  There is a very easy technique for literally tearing out the old and installing a new Primary Question, and it will revolutionize how people think, approach problems, and find solutions. 

SOE:  When I was in hypnotherapy school there was an instructor who practiced NLP.  His methods were very scripted.  For example, he had us imagine squares on the floor and we would walk forward into them while shedding some belief.  When I met with you, your method utilized dialogue between us.  What are some of the different methods used in NLP?

In my tool box there are probably 40 to 50 distinct NLP tools that I use on average.  For instance: One of the very early claims to fame for NLP is that it does dramatic, radical, and amazing work on phobias in terms of phobia removal.    Many individuals don’t have phobias, and will not come in contact with those tools.  The complete toolbox probably has between 80 to 100 tools, exercises, or techniques that really expand, change, transform, design, and implement new psychologies, new reality-creation tools, and new ways to create outcomes for individuals. 

My techniques tend to be interactive and experiential for a couple of reasons: 1) I want individuals in my care to truly experience the change so that if there are any problems with it, it is not just an intellectual exercise.  They will actually experience the change.  If they don’t, we can pinpoint, on the spot, what is going on, and either modify the tool, or pick a new tool.  2) I use techniques that I believe allows people to walk out of my office, and teach what I’ve taught them to other people.  Again, this is not rocket science stuff, it is very common sense and I want individuals to be able to wake up with a different, improved life, and be able to teach what they learned to their loved ones, or go to their jobs with colleagues - and begin making the same impact.  All of my tools have very common sense metaphors that are used to explain them.  Things like, “don’t spill the milk,” or, “the greatest trapeze,” or, “the eight-foot step ladder and the eight hundred foot cliff,” all which allow people to walk out of the session not only with transformation and change, healing, and the support that they seek, but allows them to teach it to their loved ones, or take it into their job, to impact a staff meeting or business deal that they want to work.  Therefore, you will discover that NLP is a very broad science, and while some of it is very specific, a lot of it is as broad, varied, and diverse as the number of practitioners in the field.   

Biography
Author, sought-after speaker, and recognized leadership expert in coaching technologies. Committed to sharing his gift of lasting transformation with others, Bill developed his coaching system, “The Inevitable You®” to blend the best of his teaching and what is known in the “self-help” industry.  He has also launched The Institute of Personal Integrity and Ethical Leadership.   His integration of leadership training and experience, military skills, social work background, and executive business knowledge makes him one of the most unique coaches within the industry. A West Point graduate, Bill’s service to his country included Infantry, Ranger, and Special Operations roles at home and abroad.  He rejoined civilian life as a leader in the telecom revolution of the ‘80s and led successful initiatives across a spectrum ranging from sales and marketing to engineering and operations, serving in executive roles in both large corporations and small startups. Committed to encouraging others’ personal and professional success, Bill began formal success coaching in 1992 and completed his Masters in Social Work. In additional to traditional tools, he practices such new disciplines as neural-linguistic programming, hypnotherapy, heart mathematics, and quantum healing.  You can hear him on his weekly Inevitable® Radio Show Saturday mornings at 8:00 on Colorado’s 760 AM.
(http://www.theinevitableyou.com)