Late September, 1979...

 

An advertising mailer caught my eye. I called the promoter to ask about a weekend workshop on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) in Scottsdale, Arizona. She explained that it was the last opportunity to experience Dr. John Grinder and Richard Bandler, co-creators of NLP, leading together. Maybe she was using NLP on me because I immediately registered and booked my flight to Arizona, my first time to visit the Southwest.

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A different world from New York City

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Touching down at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, my eyes were opened to a new world of blue skies and wide, pot-hole toll-free roads that criss-crossed the Valley of the Sun. It helped that the Arizona heat has just broken so the temperature and humidity were perfection.

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"God says..."

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On late Sunday afternoon, after an inspiring two days with the magical performances and teachings of Grinder and Bandler, I was settling into my seat in a Scottsdale movie theater when my unconscious mind told me with the fait accompli decision (like, God says...), “You're moving to Arizona.” I was taken aback. My habitual way of making an important decision was to consciously consider it as possibility, weighing all the pros and cons, before deciding either way.

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Double-checking things with my conscious mind

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A bit startled at the implications of pulling up my roots of fourteen years in New York City and saying goodbye to several girlfriends, I turned to a couple sitting behind me in the theater and asked, “I can already see many great things about the Valley of the Sun. Can you tell me the downsides of living here?”

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I had already scheduled an extra day in Arizona for exploration. I asked at least a dozen people the same question. Their answers were 1) the heat in the summer, 1) lower wages than some other parts of the country, and 3) occasional floods (in an area that averaged just seven inches of rain per year). These factors seemed minor to me (years later the summer heat began to bother me). My decision was not vetoed by my conscious mind.