TRAINING
Spotlight on the NLP Academy an interview with Michael Carroll
The NLP Academy is one of the leading NLP training companies in the UK. The Academy offers a broad spectrum of NLP services including NLP certification, specialist NLP courses, Corporate Trainings and exportation of courses to other countries
J
ohn Grinder and Carmen Bostic St Clair join NLP Academy founder Michael Carroll, where, as a team, they lead NLP Academy certification courses in the UK. It’s not just the UK where the NLP Academy has been successful; the Academy features on the global NLP platform and has partner companies in Mexico, Poland, and Romania which host Michael Carroll courses. In addition the company has a corporate training arm that delivers specialist courses to a range of organisations including several of the key companies on the FTSIE 100. The NLP Academy story is a success story where, put simply, NLP Academy founder Michael Carroll used NLP tools to get his outcome to build a world leading NLP Company. In this interview we ask founder Michael Carroll about the nuances of starting and running an NLP Company.
of enormous possibilities NLP could bring people. I made a decision that I was going to run an NLP based personal development business and started straight away. I began the business in 1996 as a hobby and by 1999 the hobby was a full time enterprise. Significantly, in December 1999 I renamed the company NLP Academy and sold my financial services businesses. We had tested the water and were ready to build. What makes an NLP Academy course special? Wow, where do I begin? Innovation, commitment to the learners, quality, New Code NLP! The NLP Academy is the only place in the UK where you can study NLP Practitioner or Trainer Training with NLP co-creator John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St Clair. I think that says a lot about the company.
I began the business in 1996 as a hobby and by 1999 the hobby was a full time enterprise
Let’s start at the beginning, how did you get started in the field of NLP? Ever since I was a young boy I had a sense that people had choice in life and if you believe in yourself and tap into your inner resources you could take your life anywhere you want. I didn’t express it quite that way, but that’s how I felt despite quite a lot of negativity that existed in the seventies. Jumping forward to the early nineties, I started to explore how I could use NLP in my financial services business to help my teams be more effective. I took a Practitioner course and there was something about the NLP tools that resonated with what I had believed as young boy. For me it was both an awakening and rejuvenation. I felt the sense
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Summer 2008 - rapport
John, Carmen and I re-designed the NLP Practitioner and Trainers Training, offering top quality experiences that includes Classic and the New Code of NLP. We are now working on redesigning the Master Practitioner courses. John [Grinder] gets frustrated at how his original NLP work has been misinterpreted and also how so much of the NLP field are stuck in the thinking of thirty years ago. With the NLP Academy you get the best of the Classic Code
and all the latest developments. To use a wellknown metaphor, much of information comes ‘directly from the horse’s mouth.’ How would you describe your style as an NLP Trainer? You would have to ask the people who attend my courses. I come from South London of Irish roots and I am very comfortable with myself. I guess I blend South London humour with the art of storytelling, that was a huge part of my culture. I have studied NLP intensely for thirteen years and have led over thirty NLP Practitioner courses. I never teach quite the same course twice, so have a lot of experience of trying lots of different things, which I think comes across in my style. I am my own man; a lot of people in this field lose their identity by being a carbon copy of the trainer who inspired them. To me, modelling is a fundamental NLP skill, but the end result of modelling is not being a reproduction of someone else, being and developing yourself is key. What’s the next big event at the NLP Academy? We have an NLP event running every week, but the next big thing is the triple training we are running in Brighton in September. John and Carmen start the experience with a three-day modelling course giving people the opportunity to learn real ‘NLP Modelling’. Straight after that we run a Practitioner and Trainers Training simultaneously with Practitioners and Trainers in adjacent rooms. For the main part the two courses have their own sessions but they do converge for key sessions. The real benefit is that the new trainers will mentor a practitioner for the duration for the course, creating real