NLP was born when a linguist called John Grinder and a mathematician called Richard Bandler asked themselves a simple yet fascinating question: What is it that makes the difference between somebody who is merely competent at any given skill, and somebody who excels at the same skill?

People typically answer that question in one of two ways. Either that some people have natural gifts or talents for a particular skill, or that practice and experience is what counts.

NLP side-steps these answers by focusing not on what has made the difference in the past between two people of different abilities, but on what can be done now to turn the competent person's performance into one of excellence.

NLP proposes that there are three elements to any skill or behaviour.

	1	There is external behaviour. That is, what the person actually does and says.
	2	There is the person's internal computation. That is, what they think, and the way in which they think.
	3	There is the person's internal state. That is, what and how they feel.

Each of these three elements can be examined in detail. A movement, for example, can be reduced to the level of micro-muscle movements. An internal image can be defined by size, position, colour, clarity, contrast and so on. An internal voice by the words themselves, tone of voice, volume, location and similar. A feeling can be described by position, intensity, temperature, direction of movement.

By following this process, it is possible to build up and extremely comprehensive model of any excellent behaviour. This model of excellence can then be acquired by the competent person simply by reversing the process; the competent person makes the same movements, images, voices, feelings. In some cases, we may need to expand our model to include such things as beliefs and what NLP calls 'perceptual filters'; the ways in which our past experiences affect the way we now perceive the world.

Modelling need not involve somebody else. It is equally possible to model yourself. Suppose, for example, that you feel nervous when you have to speak to a large group of people. Instead of finding somebody who is a confident public speaker and modelling them, you could simply find a different situation in which you feel confident (perhaps talking to two or three people) and model yourself in that context.

NLP is the name given to a set of tools, techniques and approaches used to carry out this transformation.

The type of modelling we have described has long been applied to the objective world. Most of the science we now call engineering, for example, came about by people studying what worked in natural structures, working out the principles involved and then applying those same principles to new structures.

NLP simply applies the same process to excellence in people. It studies the underlying structures of the skills, behaviours and experiences of excellence. And then assists people in using those structures effectively. Thus NLP is sometimes defined as "the study of the structure of subjective experience".

NLP has been successfully applied to the fields of business, sport, therapy, education and the performing arts. The tools it offers can be applied equally well to any human activity.

In modelling examples of excellence in fields as diverse as hypnotherapy, tennis, training, acting and team management. NLP has also developed a number of specific models of excellence which are now considered part of NLP. Examples include a highly successful phobia cure, an elegant format for resolving internal conflict, and an impressive format for running streamlined meetings. These models are typically taught as part of NLP training programmes.

The work done using NLP has also resulted in a number of attitudes, or presuppositions, which seem to be useful when aiming for excellence. Note that NLP doesn't claim that these presuppositions are true, merely that it is useful to behave as if they are.

The distinction is an important one. NLP doesn't insist that you change your beliefs about the world; merely that you be prepared to experiment with other approaches. It's rather like catching a train to an important meeting ... it may not be true that British Rail timetables are unreliable, but - if it is important to be at the meeting on time - it might be useful to behave as if they are, and phone first to check that the train is running.