This is a book review of Richard Bandler and John Grinder’s Frogs Into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming. It has been referred by many as the book to read for somebody starting out in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and rightfully so.

Richard Bandler and John Grinder are co-founders of NLP. 30 years ago they were making discoveries on human communication still being realized by today’s public. Their knowledge and understanding on the topic comes from decades of experience and modeling expert communicators so you can expect an in-depth discussion on human communication and behavior within the book.

Frogs Into Princes is a transcript from a live seminar conducted by Bandler and Grinder. Because the seminar was for therapists, most of the techniques’ applications are discussed in a therapist-patient scenario. Therapists and psychologists will find the applications of the techniques extremely useful for improving therapeutic communication with patients.

The book is divided into three main sections:

1. Sensory Experience: Representational Systems and Accessing Cues
2. Changing Personal History and Organization: Anchoring
3. Finding New Ways: Reframing

The first section was possibly the first ever discussion on accessing cues. If you’ve seen a movie where an investigator knows the suspect is lying because of the suspect’s eye movements, you’ve seen the basics of accessing cues. It is more complex than simply observing eye movements because the way we access information is dependent on the questions asked. The first section reveals this fascinating aspect of human communication.

Representational systems involves the language used in communication and matching the person’s representational system to build rapport. It involves amazing awareness of someone’s body language and appropriately adjusting your own body language to create rapport with people. Matching a person’s representational system is an effective, underused technique to migitate conflict.

The anchoring section deals with classical conditioning and learning to associate certain actions, mostly kinesthetic, to evoke specific emotions and thoughts. The extreme basics of the technique involves touching someone while getting him or her to elicit specific emotions. When you touch the person in the same manner at a later time, they will experience the same emotions when you first touched the person. (That is a very brief description of anchoring. If you try it based on what I told you, it will likely be ineffective.) The section mostly discusses anchoring in the context of overcoming fear in therapy, but it can be easily used in relationships, healing painful memories, negotiations, sales, leadership, and seduction. The application for every technique discussed is diverse.

The last section of Frogs Into Princes gives an exact formula for reframing. The neuro-linguistic technique of reframing involves changing the way you see an event to change its meaning. I have found it to be one of the greatest techniques to overcome fear and build unstoppable confidence for myself and others I’ve helped. I feel reframing is a must-have technique for any person who is interested in getting past problems and obtaining the most out of life.

The list of applications for every technique in the three sections are endless.

You would think that because the book is a transcript, the language used would be easy to understand, like the simple language used in face-to-face communication, but it isn’t. This is the greatest downfall of the book. Most parts of the book are difficult to understand because of the terminology used so a lot of “newbie” communicators will struggle to get the most out of the book. (This is true for just about all books on NLP. Nonetheless, Frogs Into Princes covers the foundations of NLP if you can get past its complex terminology.)

Even I found myself re-reading some sections five times to understand what was being said. I found the sections to loop into each other, however, where the understanding of certain parts were clearly understood in later sections. Don’t get caught in understanding everything immediately because you may figure it out later reading the rest of the book.

If you don’t mind more “complex” reads or you think your communication skills are pretty advanced, then you’re sure to get a lot out of this book and I recommend it for you. The last time I checked, the book was out of print, but fortunately it is still made available to you in quality second-hand copies via Amazon. Once you get your copy, hold on to it. You’ll see it as a valuable addition to your personal development and communication library. You can grab your copy of Richard Bandler and John Grinder’s Frogs Into Princes from Amazon by clicking here today.

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