Uncovering the Science of Greatness

By Destin Lucas

"If have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" —Sir Isaac Newton

It all started with Dr's Richard Bandler and John Grinder, two of the most extraordinary individuals of our time. In the 1970's they became fascinated with remarkable therapists, people such as Virginia Satir and Milton H. Erickson, M.D. They wanted to figure out what made these individuals so remarkable. So they put together a method for finding the very thing that makes someone great at something. They called this method Modeling.

Dr. Bandler defined modeling as the process of observing and mapping the successful behaviors of people. Essentially, it empowers people to understand the inner workings of someone else's mind. In practice, if a person is a great public speaker, then through modeling , others will understand precisely how that person thinks and therefore be capable of duplicating their excellence within their own thinking. Ultimately this new modeling technique uncovered the fundamental strategies used by the remarkables to achieve their goals.

These strategies combined with the other exceptional strategies gathered from world leaders in areas such as communication, business, law, education, and professional sports eventually evolved into a scientific discipline called NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). To date over a million people have been trained in NLP worldwide. But NLP is more than just a series of strategies; it is the very technique that allows practitioners to understand precisely what makes anyone great. It enables users of NLP to duplicate this greatness.

The Power of Indirect Modeling
Because all remarkable people are not accessible for modeling , a new approach was developed called Indirect Modeling. It was originally pioneered by Robert Dilts, Co-Founder of NLP and primary researcher. Mr. Dilts famously stated, "It has been said that human history is nothing more than a record of the deeds and ideas of great men and women. Ever since people began to turn their attention inward to examine their own thought processes, one of the hopes and promises of psychological inquiry has been to map out the key features of the mind that will allow our own thoughts to soar with the giants of history."

The difference between indirect modeling and the modeling strategies used by Drs. Bandler and Grinder is it enables for the modeling of a person who has not been met. Robert Dilts used indirect modeling to model the thinking strategies of greats such as: Aristotle, Walt Disney, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Albert Einstein.

Exploring How to Model the Success Principles of Greatness
First, you need to read the Biographies and Autobiographies of your targeted great achiever. Biographies and Autobiographies contain the words and thoughts of the person you intend to model. These works reveal precisely how the great person thinks. Using NLP-type models, your target's greatness strategies are assembled into a simple and usable success formula. These success formulas are called, strategies .

The next step is to study multiple great people to find the recurring success strategies or principles of greatness. By comparing multiple strategies of different great people you uncover the common ones which lead repeatedly to greatness. Its hard work involving literally mountains of research but peeling away the outer skin to the inner core of greatness is essential for sustainable life change.

The final step is to teach your conscious and unconscious minds how to operate in a similar way to the thought patterns of the great people you have modeled. The concept is to adapt the strategies to your own personal style and essence to help you achieve your own personal growth goals. This adaptation process unfolds through specialized questioning and mental training to make it natural, easy and spontaneous.

So What Does This Mean for Your Personal Growth?
Good question. It means that there are strategies based on scientific research through forms of modeling that lay the footsteps for you to achieve the same greatness experienced by history's most successful people.

Sounds too far-fetched? If you doubt then you have just identified your first major obstacle to greatness. You must dream anything is possible even for you. As Dr. Edward Hall, an inventor of the theory of personal space (Proxemics) said in 1960...