NLP techniques explained, and the practitioners who use them
Andy Smith mixes solo explainers, such as one on the amygdala hijack and how changing a memory's mental image can soften it, with conversations featuring NLP trainers and coaches. The focus stays on method: self-modeling, being at cause rather than effect, finding a career direction, and money fears.
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Practical NLP Podcast approaches neurolinguistic programming at the level of technique: what a method is, why it might work, and where people use it. Andy Smith presents it. The episodes come in two broad kinds. The first is the explainer. 'How NLP Can Help With the Amygdala Hijack (Practical NLP Podcast Episode 90)' starts from the observation that fear and excitement stamp memories with unusual vividness, then turns to what NLP calls submodalities, the qualities of a mental picture or sound. The episode suggests that pushing an image further away, shrinking it or freezing a mental movie will generally lower its emotional charge, though not for everyone. It spends time on the distinction between associated memories, seen through your own eyes, and dissociated ones, where you watch yourself from a distance. By its close it has named a set of tools: collapsing anchors, the fast phobia cure, the swish pattern for minor reactions, and timeline-based emotional clearing. The second kind is the interview, where practitioners describe their own work. Margaret Nash, whom Andy introduces as an old friend, talks about self-modeling. Her example comes from running groups. Losing your place feels like an eternity to the person at the front of the room, but the group sees a pause of a second or two that looks deliberate. The idea is to study how you do something you already do well. Sarah Makinde appears in 'Using Logical Levels in Coaching: Interview with Sarah Makinde' and recalls pursuing chartered status in psychology even after someone asked why she would bother. Her reason was personal. If a higher level exists, she wants to reach it. The conversation with Debra Heslin turns on seeing yourself as the cause of what happens rather than its victim. She describes how training she first did for herself changed things with her children, her husband and former corporate colleagues, some of whom went on to take her trainings. Duff McDuffee brings a more reflective note, looking back on how smart, passionate people, himself included, got hooked in personal development and spirituality circles. Andy expects listeners to mistake Duff's money-fears workshop for law-of-attraction material, and says the episode should change their minds. In 'Finding Your Direction: Interview With Andy Smith', an extract from Fran Wilson's Growth Mindset Live event, Andy is the one answering questions. He admits he is not really a marketing guy, talks about escaping a job he was not suited to, and asks people to recall a moment at work when they felt in the right place. Episodes also carry promotions for Andy's web store of NLP trainer resources and self-hypnosis audios. Listeners come away with a working vocabulary for NLP and examples of how coaches and trainers apply it to memory, career direction and money.
Made for: Suits a listener curious about NLP who wants specific methods explained, such as submodalities or the swish pattern, alongside conversations with coaches and trainers about how they apply them. It also fits someone who coaches or trains others and likes hearing peers talk shop.
What sets it apart: The show names its techniques and explains how they work, and its guests speak from their own practice. It also makes room for a critical look at personal development culture, in Duff McDuffee's account of how smart, passionate people get hooked on it.
English NLP trainer Andy Smith shares with you useful tips and principles from NLP that you can use to get clear on what you really want, accelerate your success, and be more effective in your work, life, and relationships
Money fears get a pattern interrupt; your doubts about short NLP courses get some company.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical coaching conversation about using logical levels for goals, problems, and professional development.
This PlayNext review finds its centre in a coaching conversation that tries to make Robert Diltz's logical levels model feel usable rather than theoretical.
Duff McDuffie connects money fears with criticism, failure, motivation, and a simple stress pattern interrupt.
Money anxiety gets a steadier, more evidence-minded treatment than a familiar self-help pitch might suggest. Andy Smith's conversation with Duff McDuffie moves through Tony Robbins' money work, Duff's own approach, personal development, spirituality, criticism, failure, joy, and…
A practical career-direction conversation built around using one strong work memory as a values check.
Andy Smith's conversation with Fran Wilson starts with the relief of leaving work that never quite fit, then opens into a wider look at career direction.
A practical conversation about finding the mechanics inside a personal strength and carrying them into other situations.
Margaret Nash turns self-modeling into a practical editorial question: how does a person do something well, and what can someone else learn by studying the method?
A rock-climbing memory gives this NLP conversation a useful image for perspective, choice, and the next move.
Practical NLP Podcast is at its clearest when Debra Heslin recalls being stuck on a rock-climbing hold until the lead climber asks her to look around.
A candid reunion about NLP lineage, Ericksonian influence, and what practitioner training should preserve.
Doug O'Brien reconnects with Andy Smith after roughly 15 years, and the conversation gradually settles around NLP, Ericksonian hypnosis, inherited methods, and what counts as serious practitioner training.
Small habit changes meet hands-on AI experiments.
Sarah McInday turns Robert Diltz's logical levels into tangible coaching actions, then anchors the goal with a meditation and submodalities.
Andy Smith interviews Duff McDuffie about transforming money fears using evidence-based NLP techniques.
Andy Smith, speaking on Practical NLP Podcast with Fran Wilson, revisits a job he hated in the UK 30 years ago and the hypnotherapy ad that pulled him out of it.
Margaret Nash tells Andy Smith how a London NLP course led her from business training in European high-tech companies into NLP training, hypnotherapy, coaching, and authorship.
Andy Smith interviews Debra Heslin, an NLP trainer and wellness coach, about applying NLP communication tools in corporate training and personal coaching.
Andy Smith interviews Doug O’Brien about NLP, Ericksonian hypnosis, coaching, Havening, and the training history behind modern practitioner courses.
Andy Smith and Deb Johnston examine how respecting another person's “map of the world” can improve persuasion, business communication, and coaching.
In Practical NLP Podcast Episode 83, Andy Smith explains the NLP principle that “the map is not the territory” during an interview with Deb Johnston.
Shelley Rose Charvet explains how the LAB Profile developed from Roger Bailey’s Language and Behavior Profile and differs from the 60-pattern metaprogram model.
Gemma Bailey explains how her background as a nursery manager and a televised Paul McKenna demonstration led her to create NLP for Kids.
Andy Smith interviews Jonathan Altfeld about how computer science, artificial intelligence, English, and philosophy shaped his NLP career after 1996 and 1997.
Andy Smith introduces James Sakalos as the first guest in the Practical NLP Podcast’s shift from scripted 10-minute lessons to longer, free-form interviews.