Editor's note: Nikki Nemerouf wrote this piece as an introduction to the Core Paradigm and the power it has had in his life and that of his client's...perhaps in your life as well...Enjoy...
Introduction by Nikki Nemerouf
I first met Larry at a Transformational Business Networking group twenty seven years ago in West Los Angeles. The group met weekly at 7:00 a.m. in the morning. The eight other attendees are some of the biggest names in the transformational movement today. We would take turns presenting to the group some program we were promoting and get feedback from our peers. When it was my turn I stood up with great passion and enthusiasm to talk about a concept of bringing people together to form a transformational community. As people went around the table each person gave positive and encouraging feedback until it was Larry’s turn.
Larry said: “I don’t get it”.
I replied incredulously, “What don’t you get?” Well that began one of the most intriguing yet uncomfortable conversations I have ever had. Larry became my mentor, my friend, and my co-conspirator.
Larry was the first person I ever met who helped me to understand the difference between context and content. The content of my presentation was brilliant however there was something amiss about the context that I was not conscious of. The other people at the networking table all felt the same thing that Larry sensed, and yet, could not address it until it was broached.
Larry has always possessed that rare sensitivity that allows him to both pick up the subtle distinctions that occur when someone operates from a context that keep them trapped in old ineffective ways and to comment on it when presented with the opportunity. From that first meeting on, we eagerly included each other in our various professional activities. I was soon to learn Larry’s approach made more effective every activity in which I was involved.
Together Larry and I collaborated on the creation of the Community Network. We promoted some amazing workshop presenters who helped our growing network make beneficial changes in their lives.... We collaborated, conspired, and conversed over the years. We were both searching for something: a missing link. I finally got licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist and noticed that the understanding I got from Larry about identifying and addressing context made a huge difference in my work with other people.
Larry, as part of his search, took his hero’s journey to Wyoming. He and his family moved to Wyoming to explore a different kind of lifestyle. By the time Larry returned I had developed a new business model based upon the notion that everyone had a unique gift. I eagerly brought Larry into the various personal growth and corporate consulting projects I was engaged with.
Together we did some marvelous work with McDonnell Douglas Corporation, yet we still knew that there was some piece of the puzzle that was missing. One day while preparing for a seminar the two of us were going to do for a small business in southern California we decided to test out some of the tools we were going to introduce to our client. Larry asked me a series of questions to help identify the mission for my business and then I asked Larry a similar set of questions. Then something magical occurred; In the process of helping Larry identify his mission we came up with a distinction: Larry’s mission was to help people move from operating automatically to living authentically.
In that moment we both realized something: This was the missing link the two of us had been looking for. This was a way of articulating what Larry was always gifted at doing/being: Helping people identify their auto/protector, so they could be more Authentic with themselves and those they lived and worked with. This helped us explain what both of us would observe in doing programs together for other people; that moment when the two of us would look at each other because we both knew that the individual had disappeared in some important way; and now we knew had shifted into auto/protective functioning. The Core Paradigm had been born.
During the day we would do research at the library followed by compelling conversations at the office ending the day with taking a group of people through our new discoveries. We noticed that just understanding the distinction between Authentic vs. Automatic was not sufficient. We needed a tool to help us identify the representations of our automatic functioning. The core profile was born out our desire to help ourselves and others shift from auto/protective functioning to Authentic Living.
Larry and his coaching clients started making refinements in the Core Profiling process while I joined a psychological services group in Whittier. The Core Profiling Process became my fundamental approach to doing therapy. I was asked to bring the Core Profile to Australia to train hundreds of psychotherapists in our new model. Larry and Jeff, a former graduate of a Core Profile class began making further additions to the Profiling process. Years later Jeff would move to England and build an entire consulting practice built upon the Core Paradigm.
Following my trip to Australia I began getting disenchanted with being a family therapist, so I started looking for other applications and vehicles. By 1998 I had developed a program entitled: Becoming Mentally Prepared for Extraordinary Performance. I took the Core Paradigm and a few aspects of the Core Profile and built a philosophy, seminar, and a set of tools to help individuals and their businesses develop an extraordinary performance mindset. I qualified as a TEC speaker (now called Vistage, the largest organization for CEOs in the world) and have delivered the seminar to over 450 groups of CEOs.
For the past 15 years Larry has maintained an all consuming purpose: To write this book. What Larry has been able to do is capture in words what all of us have known in our hearts, and yet, have not known what to do about. The book and Companion Guide/Workbook set are much more than another collection of self help tools – it represents a way of living. It is a fundamental distinction that will help you to understand yourself and others. If you allow it, it will have an amazing impact on your approach to living. Living your life authentically is a process that one chooses in each and every moment.
Everything that Larry has done in his life has brought him to finally writing and completing this book. Everything that you have learned about and accomplished has prepared you to read this book. “YOU are not your problems,” and now you will have a context to understand the true meaning of that homily.
Wars, poverty, divorce, dissatisfaction at work, issues of self esteem are all a function of the auto/protective mentality. The world is ready for this book. Allow yourself the opportunity to learn and utilize this paradigm. May your world be forever changed in ways you always knew, deep inside, were possible.
Nikki is a business consultant, networker, and Life Coach of immeasurable abilities his programs on finding your "keyword" are transforming peoples lives...Look him up at www.untriggered.com.
