Ian McDermott
Ian McDermott is unique. He is the man who brought NLP and Coaching together. The world’s foremost authority on NLP Coaching, he is the best selling author of The NLP Coach and the author of the chapter on NLP Coaching in the industry standard manual Excellence in Coaching.
For over twenty years Ian McDermott has pioneered the growth of NLP in Britain and Europe. Ian’s pioneering work and highly popular style have made him a regular contributor to the media. His extraordinary contributions to the field resulted in him being made an International NLP Diplomate.
Ian is the Founder of International Teaching Seminars (ITS) which celebrates its twentieth anniversary in 2008. ITS is a world leader in delivering NLP training and coaching and the primary resource for over 100 of the world’s top companies and organizations. Clients range right across the private and public sectors, charities and NGOs and include the AA, BP, BMW, Cancer Research, Cisco, Ernst & Young, Emap, GlaxoSmithKline, General Medical Council, HM Treasury, IBM, Lloyds, HSBC, Hewlett Packard, John Lewis Partnership, Metropolitan Police, Microsoft, Nestle, NHS, Ordinance Survey, PWC, RBS, Royal College of Nursing, Shell, Transport for London, Unilever, Vodafone, Waitrose.
A visionary entrepreneurial leader, Ian spends much of his time training the next generation – of executives, coaches and NLP practitioners. Right now, throughout the UK, right across Europe and around the world there are thousands of ITS graduates making change possible where it’s needed. The training they have received is uniquely practical and gives them the tools to go into business for themselves if they wish.
Through ITS Executive Coaching Ian and an elite group of specialists he has personally trained work with key senior organisational players in many FTSE and Fortune 500 companies. Their focus is on strategic issues, creativity and innovation. (His work is featured in the Open University’s MBA course 'Creativity, Innovation and Change').
Named one of Britain's Top 10 Coaches and described as “the Coaches’ Coach” (Independent), Ian is also a UKCP registered psychotherapist and a prolific author. A longstanding member of the Society of Authors he is the co-author of some of the most widely read and respected books in the field, including, Way of NLP; Practical NLP for Managers; NLP and Health; The Art of Systems Thinking; NLP and the New Manager; Manage Yourself, Manage Your Life; Brief NLP Therapy; The NLP Coach; Your Inner Coach and The Coaching Bible. His books have been translated into 15 languages.
Ian is committed to making his expertise as widely available as possible. To this end each year he leads the ITS NLP Practitioner Certification programmes, as well as the ITS NLP Master Practitioner Certification and the ICF recognised NLP European Coaching Certification Training. You can also meet Ian personally at one of the occasional ITS Open Evenings he hosts in London.
On a more personal note
Ian McDermott was born in London, married an American and is equally at home in the UK and the US. He and Paulette have two sons, Matthew and Christian who he says “definitely keep us current!” Early in life he had plans to enter a Buddhist monastery in Thailand. Instead he briefly became the manager of a dry cleaning shop! (Ian says, ”It’s a long story!”).After teaching in Higher Education he became a psychotherapist, studied NLP in the US, made it his own and brought it back to the UK. He has been a coach and a successful entrepreneur for over twenty years.
We asked Ian - Why do you do all this?
This is how I can make a difference. I don’t believe in telling people how to live their lives. People have different needs, different dreams, different abilities and different styles. What I want is for people to have the chance to be who they really are and to live a full life as they understand it. I can’t know what that is. But I do know how to put them in touch with their own inner wisdom. And that does know.
I know how to do this because I did this first with myself. From my own experience I know that when you start living what’s true for you, you start to get real in a whole different way. This affects your personal life and it also opens up a whole new world of professional possibilities. When you know what you’re about and you know what matters to you, you begin to have an understanding of what your mission is. When you start living your mission you can tap huge reserves of energy you never knew you had. You’ll also find that you can make a very good living because you’re now making a contribution that goes beyond your personal needs.
Making it possible for people to do this - that's what I'm about.
