Episode #9: Memes of Transformation

About This Podcast

This week’s episode of the 91 Untold Change Project podcast features an interview between Neil and our very own John Seymour. If you don’t know John he is regarded as one of the UK’s foremost experts on NLP (having co-authored the million copy best-seller Introducing NLP and having founded the hugely successful JSNLP training school – now a part of 91 Untold).

John is a radical thinker capable of conceptualising change at multiple levels and weaving modalities such as NLP, applied psychology, memetics and system’s thinking to take our understanding of change to a deeper level. It was typical of him, for instance, when asked the question ‘how does change happen?’, to respond “But what is change anyway?”.

John loves to play with paradox and mind-melting complexities, such as, “How do you harness unconscious skills, giving that they’re unconscious?”, in a way that never ceases to intrigue us.

In this podcast, John explores how to build momentum in change projects, particularly for larger scale changes. He breaks down ways you can look beyond the often-misleading surface structure of an organisation, and how to untangle some of the most difficult of problems that can arise within large teams. We are guided through Richard Hawkins’ Meme Theory, with John explaining why it’s is so relevant in the changing world around us today.

About This Guest

John is an outstanding teacher. He has a gift for making the complexities of NLP profoundly simple, and the practical applications life-changing. He originally trained in NLP at Santa Cruz University in California where it all began, with John Grinder, Judith DeLozier, Robert Dilts, and later with Richard Bandler. His teaching style combines the best elements of the different schools of NLP. Since 1985 he has brought integrity, wisdom and humour to the teaching and learning of NLP.

Co-author with Joseph O’Connor of the bestselling NLP book ‘Introducing NLP’, translated into 14 languages, they went on to write ‘Training with NLP’, the first ever book published on NLP training, based on modelling out best practice from the top NLP trainers. With Martin Shervington, he co-authored “Peak Performance with NLP”, a book for the business world. With John Hollis, he co-authored ‘Results Accelerator’, one of the first NLP coaches to run on a computer. He has made numerous appearances on radio and TV, here and abroad.

Over twenty-five years, John has worked extensively with hundreds of top organisations in the worlds of business, health, and education. A leading authority in the field, he is one of the UK’s first NLP Master Trainers and has three honorary trainer awards from professional NLP bodies in the USA and the UK.

He has also served on the advisory board of some of the best NLP journals in the UK and abroad. He currently serves on the advisory boards of ANLP and the Professional Guild of NLP, of which he is proud to be a founder member.

John has trained many hundreds of NLP Practitioners, NLP Master Practitioners, and NLP Trainers, some of whom are well known names in their own right and run their own training schools.

Originally a gifted teacher with postgraduate degrees in humanistic psychology and education, John is the only person ever to have been appointed the National Tutor for NLP in Higher and Further Education. Despite his achievements, he brings a quality of humility and naturalness to his training, of which he says “It is a privilege to be able to teach these skills that make so much difference in people’s lives…”

Useful References

Introducing NLP

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