Mind-lines: Lines For Changing Minds Paperback – July 31, 2002

This book is great. I highly recommend it if you have limiting beliefs you want to overcome. You know the idea of "glass half empty half full." You can put a spin on things to make something resourceful/positive rather than negative. Well, this book explains 26 different patterns to do just that. Do the exercises, which require a lot of deep thinking, and you'll see negative beliefs transform to something resourceful and thus empowering. As I did the exercises, I felt a shift on how I viewed some limiting beliefs; it was as if weight was lifted from my shoulders.I've heard others describe Mindlines as a tough read. There were parts where I had to read a second time around to get a full understanding. But other than that, I don't consider it tough at all. The book assumes readers are familiar with NLP. If you are unfamiliar with NLP, there will be parts in the book where you'll be like, "What the hell's he talking about?!" But you will still reap the benefits if you do the exercises. Great book! (As mentioned in another review, there are a ton of typos! Out of all the books I've read, this tops the list for the most)UPDATE, two years later January 2009 *** stars rather than *****: I do not recommend this book for deep-rooted issues. Reframing a deep-rooted issue may alleviate pain and suffering initially. But the pain/suffering will come back just like a splinter that's bound to come to the surface. I do feel, however, that reframes work well for minor issues. Another cool thing about reframes is that it shows you the numerous viewpoints and angles to look at things from. It'll train you to see things from an overall picture as opposed to a narrow view. But the thing you have to realize is that no viewpoint is right or wrong, ultimately.Reframes consists of A LOT of thought and analysis. I spent numerous hours reframing limiting beliefs. It worked for the minor issues, but never for the deep-rooted issues in my life. The thing I failed to see initially was the fact that it was thought that caused the pain and suffering in the first place. Eckhart Tolle wrote a book entitled "The Power of Now." In the book he gives the following analogy: It's like trying to catch an arsonist on the loose and the arsonist is the Chief of the fire department (paraphrased). Thought can never solve an issue fully because it is thought that is the root of the problem in the first place. Here's another quote from Krishnamurti's The First and Last Freedom: "Can thought resolve our problems? By thinking over the problem, have you resolved it? Any kind of problem-economic,social, religious-has it ever been really solved by thinking? In your daily life, the more you think about a problem, the more complex, the more irresolute, the more uncertain it becomes."If you want to overcome deep-rooted issues, you have to "see" thought for what it truly is. The "seeing" is not conceptual. It's not something you understand mentally; that's just another thought looping around and around in the head. Check out the following books if you're interested: Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now, A New Earth, Michael Singer's The Untethered Soul, I Am That by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

I have come away from this book with a profoundly different perspective on life. We are all meaning making machines. Most of us are not aware of all the meanings that we are creating and this book gets into the nitty-gritty of it with great detail. I found the author's formula of a Meaning; "External Behavior = Internal State" or "External Behavior causes Internal State" to be utterly mind blowing. For those reading who have no idea what this is, here is an example. We see or hear something (this is the External Behavior) and we make that external behavior equal or lead to some idea or feeling (the Internal State). "Your being late makes me sick" is a meaning where "Your being late" is External Behavior and " makes me sick" is Internal State. The premise of this book is that when we create meanings for ourselves, they create the frame of reference for how we see the world. Those who experience a lot of pain growing up create meanings (or frames) that have them see the world as a scary place even if there is no danger in the moment, while those who experience mostly joy growing up create meanings (or frames) that have them see the world as a safe place. How we frame the external events creates our experience of those events. This book is about examining the meanings you have created (your frames) and re-working the ones that do not serve you. This can be a lot of work as I found myself often having to re-read pages over and over to see where it applies in my life and how I can use this. But doing the work provides a BIG payoff of feeling lighter and more in control of your experience and the experience of others.

The E.B. = I.S. is worth the price of the book. Learning to separate external behavior from expressed internal states makes confrontations easier to understand. The breakdown between content reframing, and context reframing helps me decide the direction of my response.It should be noted that this book is built off the backs of two other books. “Reframing” by Bandler&Grinder (1982), and “Sleight of Mouth” by Dilts (1999). You only need to read “Sleight of Mouth before this one. And even then, you don’t need to read “Sleight of Mouth”. If you read other reviews, then you will find many bashing this book for repackaging "Sleight of Mouth". The narrative that this book is a copy is erroneous. Hall improved the conept, Dilts organized it, and Bandler&Grinder discovered it. It's the next step in evolution.The worst part of this book is Hall's lack of rapport building skills. Every example in this book came off a disingenuous. Hall seemed intent on trying to be unpersuasive. You will need the ability to discern the helpful structure through the garbage examples. I had to constantly rework the frames over and over again because Hall's examples were some of the most unpersuasive nonsense someone could think of. He's unlikable, to say the least.Also, every NLP book I have read has been overly wordy. Hall is no different. So patience will be needed with this book. He does seem to genuinely know what he is talking about. It’s worth the buy, flaws and all.

YOu have to be really into NLP to get into this one. The writers are clearly super experts and they analyse every detail that you could possibly analyse of the language. If what you want is to get into real expertise with the famous "slight of mouth" then this (along with the Dilts book) is the one to study. I mentioned that its heavy going so you might not want to have this as bedside reading. Have it as part of serious study with another dedicated student of NLP. Go through it meticulously and make examples of each "pattern" in order to get your head around them.So in short, the book is very good but it would be nice if the writers would lighten the load at times with some variation because boredon can invade from time to time.