The Seven Fitness Areas Initiative is the culmination of decades of experimenting and testing searching for the answers to why practices derived from books like The Magic of Believing, Think and Grow Rich, The Power of Positive Thinking, and more work sometimes and not others. In some cases, there are people who say it never worked at all while still others attribute their amassing great wealth to these and other books like them.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming was, in my opinion, the first big breakthrough in decades - even a century since the philosophers were telling us we become what we think about. It was not embraced by the medical community - it lacked the trails, peer reviews quite frankly didn’t follow the established protocol. But therapists and practitioners took note. There were certification programs and rigor added to the application of Neuro-Linguistic methodologies. While it also didn’t make the cut to get an ear in corporate boardrooms.
However, scientists, managers, sales trainers, and others took notice. And there was enough skunkworks going on to move the action forward. Today, I can talk to Therapists who completed school in the last 20 years or so who never heard of Neuro Linguistic Programming. Please don’t misunderstand, 7 Fitness Areas is not about Neuro Linguistic Programming, but I do think it played a role in getting scientists and specifically neuroscientists to broaden their scope and seek answers to why it was so effective. Personally, I had great success using the principles I learned in my own NLP certification, to develop Sales Organizations, improve consultation models, and build high-performing teams over 25 years of using it in my day-to-day Sales, leadership and Training Operations.
This Podcast episode is like full-circle as the measurement capabilities to notice what parts of the brain were lighting up under certain conditions and how different neural pathways fired and wired as well as what was taking place when they became stronger. Myelin was thought to be an inert matter but was later found to be the cause of neurons firing faster, stronger, and with more precision.
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