NLP can be divided into three major components, making up its name: neuro, linguistic, and programming. Of course, these are not the only concepts that govern the use and practice of NLP. In addition to neuro, linguistic, and programming, concepts such as subjectivity, consciousness, and learning (also known as modeling) are essential to the art of NLP. Having a good understanding of these concepts is the key to mastering advanced NLP techniques and procedures to be used in everyday life, as they provide a solid foundation to build and develop your NLP skills on. While the basics will be touched on in this section, more detailed techniques will be explained in the following section.

Neuro refers to the body’s nervous system, in particular, the most important part of the nervous system, the brain. While human beings receive information from the outside world by using the five senses, the brain is responsible for sorting through and organizing all of the information that is received and plays a vital role in how you decide to act based on that information. Everyone’s brain has a slightly different method of filtering through information: some are faster, more efficient, and more observant, while other people have to take their time in sorting information, and are not able to maximize the value they receive from it, while still others are somewhere in between the two extremes. Of course, ideally, your brain would have a filtering process that is as quick and effective as possible. By utilizing NLP techniques, you can train your brain to handle the intake of information at a faster and more productive pace, and can better determine how to use that information to gain an edge over other people in the same environment.

In NLP, your process for mentally filtering and sorting external information is crucial. After all, neuro is only the first step in the NLP process. Your first impression of the information gained from the filtering process is known as “First Access,” and is comprised mainly of feelings, sounds, and images, all embedded within your subconsciousness. By being more attentive to the world around us, we can increase the strength of our First Access, and therefore have a better quality of information to feed our subconsciousness, which plays into how we make conscious decisions. Having a stronger First Access also impacts the ability to communicate with others, both on a conscious and subconscious level; if you have better access to information than another person, then you can better use that information to steer them in the direction that you want them to go.

This book gives a comprehensive guide on the following: