About NLP Marin

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• The NLP Marin Model
• Our Purpose, Vision, and Intentions
• The NLP Marin Team

NLP Marin offers a distinctly original, unconventional approach to teaching Neuro-Linguistic Programming that has evolved and unfolded over more than twenty years.

Human lives are creative wholes. To be understood properly and changed respectfully, our lives need to be approached holistically. We need to understand and appreciate that no part of our life or our life experience really exists separate from the wholeness of our life.

At NLP Marin, we hold life and the full human experience of each person's life with respect and appreciation. We invite our students to use their training experience as a truly alive part of their living, with all that that entails. Our students are welcome to go as deep as they would like, and to explore their experience as profoundly as they have the interest and courage, to do.

Most NLP taught today is of the conventional (or classical), step-by-step variety. The courses present students with a series of processes, procedures, and techniques for making one sort of change or another. It is a formulaic approach—when someone has X problem, then you use X technique or techniques to fix the problem. If you are having Y communication or connection difficulty, then you use Y procedure to overcome the difficulty. This formulaic approach is immensely useful (especially compared to not having any kind of NLP at all), but we believe it is incomplete.

If conventional NLP is about procedures, the NLP Marin Model is about people.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming, as it has evolved at NLP Marin, grounds the power of the NLP toolbox in the larger, more complete context of the students' lives. It includes other perspectives and bodies of knowledge that we have found to be essential for keeping the superb technology of NLP from becoming mechanical or stagnant. And, because of these expanded perspectives, it enables the NLP practitioner to adjust in creative ways when the technique he or she is using is not getting the intended results.

All of our courses are intense, rich experiences that combine self-discovery, life-discovery, and pragmatic skills development in equal measure. Our students learn the entire conventional NLP model—including significant new material that has evolved in the conventional model over the years. In addition, at least half of the material taught in NLP Marin trainings, especially at more advanced levels, is unique to NLP Marin and goes far beyond what can be learned and mastered elsewhere.

Our courses focus on enabling our students to engage in a powerful, self-discovered, graceful art of creating a new relationship with themselves. Our approach invites our students to deeply respect and appreciate all aspects of their lives—past, present, and future. We honor what is, and we celebrate the full expression of what can and will be in the lives of our students.

When approached this way, Neuro-Linguistic Programming becomes a model that is about embracing and working with life, not overcoming it. Approached this way, NLP truly serves those people who want to learn to live in and work with the world more peacefully, fruitfully, and respectfully than ever before.

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The perspectives and disciplines that surround and illuminate our teaching of Neuro-Linguistic Programming provide a rich, informing background. It is NLP illuminated by other disciplines and information that we believe are essential to more fully understand the human condition and to assist our students to change in ways that they want. In the early courses, the background is mostly transparent and invisible to the new students. In later courses, more and more of it is taught explicitly—culminating with full integration of all these added perspectives in our post-Masters course, Holographic NLP: Continuing the Journey of Mastery.

Each of these elements contributes to the whole that is the experience of training at NLP Marin. They constitute a unified or holistic approach.

NLP’s ultimate objective is to contribute to increased choice leading to more fulfilling lives. While the technology of the NLP model contributes the means to do this—the method, or way to do it—our experience at NLP Marin indicates that, for it to do so most effectively, the wholeness of life must be included. That is why, right from the beginning in our Free Introductory Workshops, we have integrated these additional perspectives and disciplines in our teaching of NLP.

However far students of Neuro-Linguistic Programming go with their studies at NLP Marin, they get the benefit of our integrated model. As with the study of any new field, how far one continues determines how much of that field is understood and integrated and, therefore, available to be useful in life. We have designed our training program for maximum flexibility. See [Course Descriptions].

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On our third anniversary in June, 1996, we sat down and asked ourselves, "What are we doing ... really?" At first, the answers seemed obvious. "We teach people how to use Neuro-Linguistic Programming as a tool to achieve more of the life experience they want." "We operate an NLP Training Center." And so on ... pragmatic, factual answers came first.

Working with a skilled facilitator, we were encouraged to go deeper.
"Purpose," he said, "answers the question, 'Why?'" "Why are you doing what you are doing?"

"Vision is that to which you are contributing. In the biggest sense you can imagine, What are you helping to make a reality?"

By the end of the process, we were surprised and pleased at what came out. In the ensuing years these few lines have served us well. They give added meaning to our successes and they aid in the transformation of daily difficulties.

PURPOSE: The expression of Love.

VISION: A world living in Peace.

INTENTIONS:

Our Service to Our Participants
We are responsive to the heartfelt needs of those whom we can serve.

Our Service to Humanity
We contribute to the evolvement of an enlightened planetary citizenry.

Our Activity
We are a model for an effective and successful NLP Center.
We develop and teach new NLP material that serves the entire field.
We integrate other learning that adds value to what we are doing.

Our Experience
We operate out of a high level of clarity and intention.
We are fully supported and financially prospered in doing this work.
We experience freedom, ease, "flowingness," and fulfillment in all that we do.
We have fun, learn, and grow with all the people involved.

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NLP Marin Founders

NLP Marin was founded in 1993 by Bob Hoffmeyer and Carl Buchheit and is located in Marin County, California, just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

Bob and Carl began their first NLP Practitioner course in February 1994 with 23 students. They brought a wealth of experience to the venture. Together they have more than 50 years' experience assisting people to change, grow, and create a more satisfying and fulfilling experience of life. They have both explored a variety of change modalities and they both continue to participate in new courses and trainings that enable them to evolve personally and to add to their ability to assist others. Their backgrounds include experience in business, leadership development, finance, consulting, teaching, group facilitation, and spiritual counseling. They have experience with both large and small companies. As a result, they are well able to understand and appreciate their students' needs and desires for both personal development and professional success. In 2006 Bob retired from NLP Marin to pursue his passion in jewlery making. We are grateful for his many contributions.

Carl Buchheit, M.A. NLP Marin Co-Founder Training Director

Carl trains from the heart, backed with a brilliant intellect, insatiable curiosity, and unconventional humor. The result is a fun-filled learning experience where all aspects of the students and their lives are welcomed and included. He challenges his students to explore themselves, the world, and life in a way that respects and uplifts everyone.

Carl has been involved in NLP for nearly 25 years. He is certainly one of the finest practitioners of NLP in the world, and quite possibly the busiest. At the beginning of his career Carl trained with Leslie Cameron-Bandler, the co-developer of NLP who was acknowledged for having added heart to the newly evolving technology of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Carl's main early influence was the mentoring of Jonathan Rice, PhD, a clinical psychologist who was the first to include the methods, techniques, and tools of NLP within a larger professional perspective. Carl continues to learn, and integrate what he learns, from everyone he encounters. His ongoing, intense private practice with clients keeps what he presents fresh and alive.

NLP Marin Trainers and Training Assistants

Michelle Masters NLP Trainer Training Manager

Michelle joined NLP Marin in 1995, bringing with her a wealth of experience. As a Trainer she has a brilliant, warm, sensitive and down-to-earth way of bringing NLP to life for each of the students, while supporting a safe and nurturing environment for everyone. As the Training Manager, she oversees a team of experienced training assistants who provide the students with a strong and diverse support system.

In addition to her work as an NLP Marin Trainer, Michelle has an active NLP practice working with individuals and groups in Sonoma County. She is also a public speaker and is sought after as an emcee because of the warmth, humor, and presence she brings to the room.

Training Assistants

Training assistants are selected from among our graduates. They are chosen based on their demonstrated mastery of the material, their application of it in their lives, and a demonstrated high level of skill in working with others. Training Assistants have completed, and are certified at, the Master Practitioner level.

As a result, our training environment is alive with fresh learning opportunities. Our Training Assistants contribute not only their knowledge of NLP, but also their experience of using it as they support students in their learning.

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