Secrets of Personal Mastery (Paperback)

by L. Michael Hall (Author) "Who (or what) controls your thoughts and feelings?..." (more)
Key Phrases: highest executive states, very neurology, inner executive, Secrets of Personal Masters, Alfred Korzybski, Meta-States Model (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Dr Hall masterfully explains, demonstrates, and models Meta-States so that from newcomers to masters in this field, people effectively learn to use the model to make a difference in life." -- William P. Glaros, DDS

"In Meta-States, a seemingly complex theory actually provides simple techniques for producing effective results. The model gives one the processes for increasing personal effectiveness." -- Hugh Yamashiro, Trainer

"In the search for meaning, the study of semantics, and the field of Neuro-Semantics, Michael Hall's Meta-States, is a most significant and critical contribution." -- Dennis Chong, M.D.

"The International NLP Trainers Association (INLPTA) awards Michael Hall for his development of the Meta-States Model, for the most significant contribution to NLP, 1994 1995." -- Wyatt Woodsmall, Ph.D.

"This is fantastic, well-grounded in research, and rich and coherent theoretically. I definitely think that Meta-States training represents a breakthrough in psychology." -- Omar Salom, Psychologist, Colombia, South America

"What Dr Michael Hall is presenting is truly a new area of NLP that solidly integrates with the rest of NLP; it brings a completeness to NLP that's greatly needed." -- Tommy Belk, M.A., M.Div., LPC

Buy this book; you do want to achieve personal mastery, don't you?" -- Rob McCarter, M.S., LPC, NCC

Product Description
What conceptual states do you have and 'never leave home without'? What attitudes do you seem to take everywhere you go? Do you tend to think optimistically? Do you tend to see the dark side of things? When we have recourse to such high level states of mind, we access a 'place' or 'attitude' that has more influence and more power than just an everyday frame of mind. These states-upon-states, or Meta-states, govern our experience. So what if you had the ability to alter those Meta-states, and the executive powers that lie at the higher levels of your mind? Secrets of Personal Mastery enables you to access your executive levels and take charge of your mental-emotional programming. Treating mind as an emergent process of our entire mind-body-emotion system, this book teaches you that it is not so much what you are thinking that controls your destiny and experiences, but how you're thinking your frames of reference determine your experience of life. To achieve your personal mastery, this book guides you through various Thought Experiments that work upon your 'executive' mind powers. As you partake in these processes you will enter into the higher management of your own mind at all its levels, and that will prepare you for the ultimate development of excellence accessing your personal genius. Exploring the structures that now organise and govern the very basis of your life, Secrets of Personal Mastery takes you through a course 're-structuring' that addresses: the mind and emotion; the excellence of expertise; the tragedy of complacency; identity and existence; madness and genius; language and semantics; procedures and magic; the mind-muscle connection; personal and interpersonal development.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Crown House Publishing (February 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 189983656X
• ISBN-13: 978-1899836567
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #635,812 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Obscured by jargon; prerequisite: 5 years speaking meta-NLP", November 30, 2003

By	Randi Fortune (Juno) - See all my reviews

Given his credentials and accolades from peers, I wanted to get Dr. Hall's latest insights. Other reviewers said it right - LABORIOUS to slug through. If I want to communicate with my "Executive Self" must I learn an entire lexicon of meta-jargon first?

When I finally unearth the exercises they seem to involve little more sophistication than the average well-written book on self-hypnosis. No huge revelations from the "secrets" of "mastery" via NLP.

I kept struggling through the interminable meta-meta-metas waiting for some awesome "secrets" to reveal "higher level" tools of self-programming. But I am left with the puzzle: is this the best that cutting edge NLP has to offer? If NLP has powerful tools to offer, if Dr. Hall breakthroughs in "meta-states" offers "significant and critical contributions," their successful transmission to the (even well-educated) public requires someone with mastery of pen and ink.
Dr. Hall: please hire a ghost writer - if your INTENTION is to grab and hold our ATTENTION (not to mention make it comprehensible).

If you believe in NLP for communicating with master parts of your self, do you not believe it fitting to find effective tools for communicating with your readers? Might not clear, efficient communication be worth considering?

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor Writing From a Linguist, September 8, 2002

By A Customer

Pearls of wisdom there may be, but they're buried within some of the most painfully poor writing I've ever seen. Here's a passage from page 62:

We can quickly and succinctly summarize the two private powers as our thoughts-and-feelings. In thinking and emoting we collect up all of our cognizing--i.e. thinking, information processing, valuing, believing, making decisions, understanding, etc. . . .

If you don't like seeing italics spilled carelessly on every page of a book, don't buy this one.

His ideas might be all right, but he needs more than an editor--he needs a ghostwriter.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very useful but hard work, December 26, 2002

By	Colin (Manchester, UK) - See all my reviews

Michael Hall`s books are for people who are interested in cutting edge ideas. You couldn`t honestly claim they`re well written but you won`t find this information elsewhere. I have read Secrets of Personal Mastery many times and I`m still learning about my thinking patterns, changing my meta-states, adapting my thinking, forgiving mistakes I make yet trying to improve over time. I think this book is one that you will need to return to, if you are to get a lot from it. Mastery does not come easily nor quickly.
If spelling mistakes or grammatical errors really put you off then this isn`t the book for you. He writes for an audience with at least a fair understanding of NLP and ideally Meta-states too. I still think you could benefit from this book without that knowledge but some parts of the book might be difficult.
To be honest, I really like this book - it is difficult but each time I return to it I feel I`m learning something and this is a very rare occurrence with NLP books nowadays. It is definitely one of my top 5 NLP related books. I use it a lot to assess how I`m doing, how I might improve etc.