About the Event

Neuro-linguistic programming recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary. To mark the occasion, John Grinder and Richard Bandler, co-creators of NLP, agreed to appear at the same event to share their perspectives on their collaboration, initiated 50 years ago, which built the field of NLP. The event, ‘NLP 50’, promoted by Michael Carroll (NLP Academy) and John La Valle (NLP Seminars Group International), was the largest NLP event in history, with 6.500 people signing up for the live stream and even more registering for the recording. The scene was set for 27th September 2025, it would be the first time in 40 years that Grinder and Bandler would co-present at the same event. The anticipation was high, the event had captured the NLP public’s imagination, and news of the event spread rapidly all over social media platforms.

On the day itself, the two guys, who began The NLP adventure, did not disappoint; in fact, their warm and highly complementary words about one another went much further than even the organizers anticipated. The presentations were organized as interviews with John La Valle interviewed Richard Bandler, and Michael Carroll interviewed John Grinder.

Richard began with the following:

‘I would like to be perfectly clear about something, and I want to be perfectly clear, because

I always give credit where credit is due. John was, at that time, probably the world's best

syntactician, and may still be, for all I know. I haven't seen him in years. But we worked

together for over a decade, tirelessly. 

And while there were people that were in our experimental groups and around at the time,

John Grinder and I spent long nights, we produced together in north of a decade, a body of

knowledge, which included the two most important foundations of NLP: the metamodel of

language, which was based on Noam Chomsky's work, and we gave him credit for that and

the four-tuple, which was a syntax and a calculus of learning that allowed us to take learning

from one person and put it in another.’

- Richard Bandler on John Grinder , 27 September 2025, NLP 50

John replied with:

‘To begin with… Let me say my thoughts.… I was listening to Richard. There was a great

deal of it which I absolutely agree with. His recognition of the pieces that went into the

origins of NLP was quite attractive to me, and I want to thank him for the representations he offered. 

Well done. It was brilliant. He, he, he's fearless. He doesn't give a damn about failing, because he

knows failing is just a way station on a road to someplace interesting to go, and he's going to go there. 

Having a partner like that is an excellent thing to collaborate with and

build something as straight as what we built. We were doing what we wanted to do. 

We were doing it… We were doing it together."

- John Grinder on Richard Bandler, 27 September 2025, NLP 50

There you have it, the true and most up-to-date thoughts from the co-creators of Neuro-Linguistic Programming on each other. What a way to celebrate 50 years of NLP, resounding testimonials about each other and their work together, which they published in 9 books and taught personally to thousands of people with NLP, becoming the global phenomenon it has become.

Topics covered on NLP 50

● How the co-creators met

● How they utilized their different skills and talents to form NLP

● The influence of Transformational Grammar and syntax on NLP

● The first models in NLP, which built the foundation of NLP, the 4 Tuple and Meta Model

● Modeling and coding the patterns of genius, Erickson, Satir, and Perls

● The attitude of fearlessness and adventurism in both co-creators, to keep on going

and exploring new ways for bringing change to people’s lives

● The discovery of eye accessing cues, something hitherto undiscovered in 1975, and totally unique to NLP

● The surprise of anchoring and how it worked so well

● The importance of the content/form distinction in NLP and how it makes NLP distinct from all other forms of change work

● The legacy of NLP and the co-creators’ views on its future

● And much, much more

This event was designed to focus purely on the creation of NLP,  to tell the story of NLP’s creation, and not its separation, and to explore the richness inherent in its history, and to enjoy the personalities that co-created it. You can watch and listen to both interviews on the links below. 

As mentioned earlier on this page, NLP has become a global phenomenon. It has also, in many places become highly diluted, with poorly skilled people offering poor courses, which do not reflect the brilliance of the NLP co-creators, John Grinder and Richard Bandler, and the body of work they jointly built together.

If you are seeking high-quality NLP Training, it is highly recommended that you Take a course with either co-creators or one of their official trainers.

Richard Bandler is represented by NLP Seminars Group International and John Grinder is represented by NLP Academy, links on the logos below. 

Official Richard Bandler Trainers can be sourced from the Society of NLP (SNLP)

webpage and official John Grinder Trainers on the International Trainers and Coaching Academy of NLP (ITCA) webpage.