Dr. Everett “Tad” James was an American NLP Master Trainer, hypnosis teacher and author, best known as the creator of the Time Line Therapy® techniques. [1] With his wife, Dr. Adriana James, he built The Tad James Co., which still trains NLP practitioners around the world. He died in April 2021. [1] [2]
Who is Tad James?
Tad James was born in Washington, D.C. His father, Preston James, chaired the Geography Department at Syracuse University and set high expectations for his son. His mother, Eileen, taught him that everyone is created equal and has great potential locked in their mind. She used to say, “I never let my mind think bad thoughts,” a lesson he never forgot. [1]
He earned a master’s degree in mass communication at Syracuse and began his career managing a radio station, eventually running his own. Seeing the struggles of small business owners, he became a business consultant. [1] He also taught Transcendental Meditation for a while; he said he liked that “it was about your mind.” [3]
His move into NLP has a practical story behind it. Working as a consultant in Honolulu, he trained a team of consultants who later left to set up on their own. He asked himself what it would take to truly empower people through training, so that it wouldn’t matter if they went their own way. That question led him to NLP, and he “got hooked” on personal transformation. [3]
Richard Bandler, one of the founders of NLP, made him the second NLP Master Trainer. [1] He was the first to offer an NLP Practitioner training in an accelerated seven-day format with pre-study. It met opposition at first but later became an industry standard. [1]
In 1988 he published his first book, Time Line Therapy and the Basis of Personality. He also served for over ten years as president of the American Board of Hypnotherapy. From 1984 to 2009 he taught across the US, Canada, the UK, Europe, Asia and Australia, sometimes away from home for 11 months a year. [1]
From 2001 his wife, Adriana, joined him, and together they developed The Tad James Co., which grew from the consulting company he founded in 1982. [1] He died peacefully in his sleep on April 14, 2021. Adriana and the company continue his work. [2]
His approach in brief
- Your time line. Notice how your mind sorts past memories from images of the future.
- Perception is projection. What you notice in others says much about you.
- Believe in people. Expect magnificence from others and from yourself.
- Create your future. Place clear goals on your own inner time line.
At a glance
Known for: Time Line Therapy® techniques and accelerated NLP training
Topics: NLP, hypnosis, communication, goals
Company: The Tad James Co., with Dr. Adriana James
Books: Time Line Therapy and the Basis of Personality, The Secret of Creating Your Future
Watch: The Tad James YouTube channel
Good fit if
You are curious about NLP, how the mind organises memories and goals, or training as an NLP practitioner yourself.
Our take
A pioneer of modern NLP training whose ideas about time lines and projection remain widely taught. His short talks are lively and easy to follow.
Tad James’s key ideas
These come from his own talks and his company’s materials. Tap a card to read more.
Your inner time line
Tad’s best-known idea is that everyone carries an inner “Time Line”. His company describes it as “how you unconsciously store your memories or how you unconsciously know the difference between a memory from the past and a projection of the future.” [4]
He explained that he came across it while looking for ways to help clients let go of unhelpful emotions such as anger, and began working with “a time line which everyone has inside them.” [5]
Time Line Therapy® is a set of NLP techniques built on that idea, first published in his 1988 book. [1] You can read more in our guide to Time Line Therapy.
Perception is projection
Tad often taught an idea he credited to the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung rather than to NLP itself: “what we perceive outside ourselves is who we are.” [6]
He took it further: the person you feel most strongly about may be showing you something in yourself you are not yet aware of. In NLP, he said, the useful question is “what’s the purpose” of this. Once you notice the projection and take the learning from it, it changes. [6]
He called this “a great meditation”, a way of looking at the people around you with more curiosity and less judgment. [6]
The NLP communication model
To explain projection, Tad used the NLP communication model. An event happens outside us and comes in through our five senses. On the way in, it passes through mental filters that lead us to “delete, distort and generalize” the information. [6]
Those filters include our language, memories and decisions, values, beliefs and attitudes. Because only a tiny fraction of what reaches our senses is consciously processed, each of us builds a slightly different picture of the world. [6]
His point: “people cannot be in our lives any other way than we project them to be.” [6]
Believe in magnificence
Tad believed that a coach’s or teacher’s expectations shape what people achieve. He quoted the hypnosis writer André Weitzenhoffer: the client “will not actualize what the hypnotherapist does not believe to be true.” [6]
He applied the same idea to how we see ourselves, saying “your unconscious mind takes everything you think about someone else personally.” Holding a positive attitude to others, he said, means holding it about yourself too. [6]
He wanted people to leave his trainings thinking not “the trainer is magnificent” but “I am totally magnificent.” [3]
Creating your future
Alongside working with the past, Tad taught people to use the same inner time line to work towards the future. His offshoot, The Secret of Creating Your Future®, “shows people how to use their same internal Time Lines to realize their goals in life.” [1]
In interviews he described Time Line Therapy as giving people “a specific program for creating your future the way you want it.” [5]
The idea sits close to visualisation: picture a clear, specific goal and place it on your own sense of the time ahead.
Accelerated training
Tad was a champion of shorter, high-involvement learning. He designed a seven-day NLP Practitioner training, with pre-study, before anyone else did. [1]
He saw NLP as “the ultimate user’s guide to the mind”, a practical set of communication skills for noticing whether you are getting the results you want. [3]
Looking back on 30 years, he said his greatest achievement was the people he had trained, and that he stayed for “the satisfaction” of watching them change. [3]
Videos with Tad James
From his own YouTube channel, checked one by one.
Start here
Key ideas
His story
Time Line Therapy
Articles about Tad James
Tad James’s books
He wrote seven books on NLP and related subjects. [1]
He also wrote on hypnosis and on Hawaiian Huna. [1] Find his books in your country: US · UK · Canada · Australia · India.
Training and free resources
The Tad James Co., led by Dr. Adriana James, runs NLP and Time Line Therapy® trainings. [2] [4] Its YouTube channel has many free talks and demonstrations.
What the Research Shows
Tad’s methods come from NLP practice rather than lab research, but two of his favourite themes, setting clear goals and connecting with your future, have been studied by psychologists.
- Clear goals. Specific, challenging goals lead to better performance than vague goals. [7]
- Connecting with your future self. People who saw an aged image of themselves chose to put more money aside for the future. [8]
Frequently asked questions
Who was Tad James?
An American NLP Master Trainer, hypnosis teacher and author who created the Time Line Therapy® techniques.
What is Time Line Therapy?
A set of NLP techniques that work with your inner time line, the way you sort memories of the past from images of the future.
Who made him an NLP Master Trainer?
Richard Bandler, one of the founders of NLP. He was the second NLP Master Trainer.
What does perception is projection mean?
An idea from Carl Jung that he often taught: what we notice in others reflects something about ourselves.
Who runs his company now?
His wife and long-time partner, Dr. Adriana James, leads The Tad James Co.
When did he die?
He died peacefully in his sleep on April 14, 2021.
Where should I start?
His three-minute video What Is Time Line Therapy?, then his talk on perception is projection.
Sources
- The Tad James Co.: Tad James, M.S., Ph.D., Transformational Leader
- The Tad James Co.: In celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Everett “Tad” James
- Tad James: 30 Years NLP Master Trainer, Part 1 (video)
- The Tad James Co.: Time Line Therapy training
- Tad James: What Is Time Line Therapy? (video)
- Tad James: NLP, Perception Is Projection (video)
- Locke and Latham, Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation, American Psychologist 2002
- Hershfield et al., Increasing Saving Behavior Through Age-Progressed Renderings of the Future Self, Journal of Marketing Research 2011
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