NLP for the Whole Meaning not Just the Words

Putting Yourself in the Picture

2012-01-19T09:27:00.000Z

In NLP we use ‘Reframing’ (so this might bewalking through the door frame) to create a different meaning, for example toturn a bad experience into a good one, or to notice that there is actuallysomething positive.

Here’s a literal reframe

A.Remember an occasion where you got angry.

B.Disassociate: See yourself in the picture.

C. Nowput a frame around the picture.

Howdoes your response to the situation change when you put a wooden frame aroundit? What about a metal frame? A multi-coloured frame. An oval frame?

Howabout a colourful frame with balloons hanging from it?

And what do we do to rememberthings when we’ve walked through the door (see more on walking through doorways below)?

We need to make a conscious effortto stop briefly and think about the thing we want to do, or are going to, orare have been doing. And then we need tomake a mental image of this thing and place it up to our left. And looking up to our left see this thing,this object, this person, this task, this memory, see it in colour and see it standingstill. Making sure it’s still there, move on out of the room and when you’reout of the room and doing the next thing look up to your left and see thisitem, still standing there. And heypresto, you’ll remember.

If you find this tricky,practice. Only perfect practise makes permanent.

And for some people you might need to placethis image up on your right.

Try it out and let me know whathappens for you, then walking through the door will be much easier and yourmemory will improve.

Forgotten to catch up after a meeting ornetworking?

Well most of us do at times. Some of usbelieve making notes will help, not so good if you then lave all your infosomewhere. I recently realised that Ihad left all my info from one networking meeting, neatly packaged on one placeon the table in the room I had been in. Fortunately the info was still there.

According to an article in ScientificAmerican online, which being scientific has lots and lots of references andcould be (for me) a tad exhausting; when we walk through a door we forget. Well actually they were interested in whywalking through a door makes us forget.

Thearticle: Gabriel A. Radvansky, Sabine A. Krawietz& Andrea K. Tamplin (2011): Walking through doorways causes forgetting:Further explorations, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,64:8,1632-1645 click here states that walking through a doorway causes what they call ‘an event boundary’and we update our model of events in respect of what happened previously. They maintain that this ‘can reduce theavailability of information in our memory for objects associated with the priorevent. And then they do some scientific speak about how memory is essential (inmy words) dependent on how or what we associate with the previous event. ? Whatdoes that mean, you might be asking? Well it means we need to remind ourselvesin some way of what happened or was happening before we left the room.

So in my case above remembering to take all my info from the eventhappened because I generally (I stress the word generally) have a checkingthing (or system) before I leave one place to go to another. We don’t always check because often deep inthought we move from one doorway to another and therefore onto something else.

No one can make you feel blue without your consent.

2012-01-16T16:16:00.000Z

Blue Monday?! In Essaouira Morocco where we were over Christmasin the New Year blue is a good colour, blue is everywhere in Essaouira. It’sseen as a positive colour and reputed to ward off evil spirits.

In the English languageblue is an odd word, we talk of ‘feeling blue’, We talk of a blue moon whichhas different explanations. You canalso be ‘true blue’ (wearing the colours of the covenanters).

I wonder if thisblue Monday is another ploy to divert our minds elsewhere? According theTelegraph today we should lift our spirits by eating pastry based creations andthen become even more ‘blue (or depressed) when we get on the scales I assume?

The bottom line ishowever only you can make the decision to be ‘blue’ or depressed and we sometimesdo this unwittingly, we give our power to be over to other people. The only person that can make you feel good is you. Youare response-able. Able to respond, the only person who takes fullresponsibility for you is you.

A tip when all around you appear to be acting a littlestrange – imagine yourself inside a huge Plexiglas bubble. Information can get in, but it will stopoutside the bubble and bounce away. Inthis bubble you can walk and communicate with others, but nothing that isirritating can reach you. You can addmusic, appropriate warmth or colour to the bubble.

Can you see that bubble now? Can you feel itsurrounding you, protecting you? What pleasant sounds can you hear in there?Will you need to turn some sounds down that are outside? Notice how the bubbleprotects you and how you can function well inside there. Give yourself ahug. Give yourself a pat on theback. And get on with life.

What a Team Leader!

2012-01-14T12:00:00.000Z

Penny wanted to get fit and didn't have a great deal of time.She somehow felt that she was using the children as an excuse not to.

METAPHOR

Once upon a time therewas a young lady who wanted to get fit. She was always so busy she didn’t knowwhat to do. No time, no time! She loved her children to bits and wanted to getfit. Although she did not know it she had a ready made team at hand. One day shewent for a walk along the beach and walked out too far. All alone on the beachshe walked further not noticing how far she had gone. Suddenly she had thestrangest feeling of sinking and getting sucked into the sand her feet becamegripped in a soggy vice. She was very frightened indeed and had to think fast.There was no one around to help her she was so alone. She found her innerstrength and collected her wits together and quickly lay as flat as she couldand pulled herself along where, luckily a piece of driftwood almost out ofreach by grasping, clinging and pulling at it she was finally able to get out.

When she got home exhaustedand covered in wet sand she realised how lucky she was. She was already fitenough to start getting even fitter. The housework went out the window and nextday she took the children to play footy in the park she already had her ownfootball team in the guise of her own family. The kids all enjoyed it so muchthat they brought along some friends to join in. Before she knew it she wasorganising cricket, football and parachute games encouraging other mothers tojoin in as well. At the same time she and all her friends and their childrenwere getting thoroughly puffed out. Getting fit together and later on in thewinter months they learnt to play badminton. Later on she became a children’sfitness coach that made her very impressively fit. What a team, what a teamleader.

2012-01-10T12:30:00.000Z

Another metaphor to share - because it's soo good!

Present State: Pauline doesn’t seem to be able to meet a ‘nice’ man and anyone that does get close she looks for the slightest weakness and drops them.

Future State: Pauline would like to beable to meet a man that she wants to spend time with and enjoy a relationshipwith.

Once upon a time, many years ago there lived a King (Frank)and his daughter, the princess Fenella. Fenella was a happy, contented childwith lots of friends. She grew up to be a kind, gentle and beautiful youngwoman.

At 16 she fell in love with the Prince in the next doorkingdom, Francis. They were young, in love and very happy. But the king of thatkingdom didn’t approve of Fenella and sent his son off to marry a much moreuseful princess in another kingdom. Fenella was heartbroken and cried and criedand cried, for weeks. All the joy went out of her face, her life and her being.

Her father, King Frank, was also heartbroken, to see hisbeautiful daughter so hurt. He decided at that moment that he would protectFenella from this ever happening again. He built a big castle with a tall towerand at the bottom of the tower was a big heap of dung. He placed theheartbroken Fenella in a pretty room at the top of the tower and surrounded herwith a magic glass screen. He decided that he would be the one to find her asuitable husband, one that wouldn’t hurt her like Francis had.

He wrote out a list of all the qualities that he was lookingfor in a husband for Fenella and shared it with her. He wanted to make surethat her husband would be all that a husband should be: tall, handsome, strong,brave, loyal, honest, kind, gentle, loving, giving etc, etc. The list went onand on!

Whenever he found anyone he thought was suitable he sentthem up the tower for her to see. Fenella would tell them to stand on the trapdoor and then ask questions to find out whether they were all, or any of, thethings on the list. If they failed a single criterion, Fenella would pull alever and the man would slide down a chute into the big dung heap. One by one, time and again, princes, lords,earls and viscounts were sent up the tower to be inspected. Each one would failto meet one of the criteria and Fenella would pull the lever and down the chutethey would go, quick as you like, to the dung pile at the bottom, never to bethought of again.

Very occasionally someone would appear to meet all of thecriteria and Fenella would allow them to meet her behind the magic glassscreen, but always the man would show some sign of weakness and down the chutehe would go.

This went on for many years and hundreds of really ratherreasonable princes, earls, lords, and viscounts landed in the dung heap.

It was coming up to Fenella’s 21^st birthday andstill no husband had been found for her. Although she had stopped crying a fewyears before, she was not happy and felt that something was missing from herlife. She had been in the tower for so long that she couldn’t work out what itmight be.

All the while, her fairy godmother had been watching in thehope that Frank would see the error of his ways and let Fenella out of thetower. But, alas not. So she decided tofix things before it was too late. She appeared once day, after the latestprince had landed in the dung heap, and said to Frank and Fenella, ‘my dears,its time to make you both happy again.’

She used her magic to re-play scenes of Fenella’s formerlife on the walls of the tower: pictures of Fenella as a child and of Fenellaand Francis young and in love. Fenellaremembered all the happy times with Francis: walks in the woods, holding hands,chatting over a lovely dinner. She was able to watch all of this withoutfeeling the same hurt that she had once felt. She began to smile and rememberwhat she and Francis had together and began to think that maybe she could havesomething like this again with someone else.

Frank watched all the pictures too and remembered hisbeautiful daughter active and happy with lots of friends, having fun. Herealised that keeping her in the tower, behind the glass screen wasn’tprotecting her, but was keeping her from life. It had to stop.

As Fenella watched further, she realised that Francis wouldnever have met the criteria on the list, but she had loved him anyway. No one,she realised, could live up to such an impossibly long list. What she had to do was go out into the bigwide world and really get to know people herself, in her own time. And, she hadto leave the glass screen in the tower; it was far too heavy to carry aroundwith her.

At that point the fairy godmother waved her magic wand andthe glass screen shattered into a thousand pieces and in its place were a warmcoat and a pair of sturdy shoes, (for going out into the big wide world)

Trust Yourself

2012-01-06T18:30:00.000Z

For Twelve days this Christmas we decided to publish twelve stories.These stories are metaphors told by participants on our NLP Practitioner Courseas part of their weekend on Metaphor, Milton and Changing and Adapting.

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, infact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

Present State: asking questions when he knows the answer.

Desired Outcome: toknow when he knows the answer.

There once was an oldman whose name was Bertrand. He was a very clever man and knew the answers to everyone’squestions. Everybody used to come to him to help them find the answers to theirown unanswered questions. Nobody had a bad word to say about Bertrand. He waskind, intuitive, good-humoured and very clever. Behind all these good qualities,however, there lay a lonely man who did not wish to live alone. Then one day abeautiful young woman came to Bertrand to ask him help with her question. Hewas dazzled by her beauty and gentleness. Her question to him was “when will Imeet a man who is wise and whom I can trust and fall in love with?” Bertrandimmediately felt he knew the answer but instead of trusting himself and being openwith his answer he said to her that he did not know the answer to thisquestion. His answer was made from a humble and proud place for he clearly knewthe answer. She left without the answer and she was never to be seen again.Bertrand continued his life answering others questions and he continued to livealone and lonely.

Motivation to Exercise

2012-01-05T12:30:00.000Z

Now this one was written for the trainer! Watch this space - it was very sobering to read I can tell you!

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, infact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

Problem State: Mymotivation to exercise is not consistent.
I put work and ’everything’ beforeexercising.
Desired State: I want to exercisemore regularly.

Barney the Snail

Haveyou heard the story about Barney the Snail? Barney the Snail woke up one morning to discover he’d lost hisslime. For ordinary snails, this in notreally too much of a problem. Theysimply squeeze themselves back into their snug, cosy shells and wait………… andwait……… and wait, until they feel ready to peek out again to see if it’sreturned. This is, you see, becausesnails are very happy to be still and like to spend lots of time on their own.

ButBarney was no ordinary snail. In factBarney was quite an extra-ordinary snail. Now you would never be able to tell from looking at him, how special hewas. For his body was just as bumpy andhis shell was just as big and brown and his eyes were just as tiny as any othercommon or garden snail. No, you see the remarkable thing about Barney was thathis very ordinary looking shell was much, much bigger on the inside than itlooked on the outside. In fact it was sobig, that not only was there room for Barney but plenty more besides. Being a helpful kind of snail, Barney putthis to good use by letting other snails whose families had outgrown theirshells, use his shell to store their unwanted belongings. Barney didn’t mind doing this at all becausehe enjoyed being a useful kind of snail. But sometimes it did make moving very hard work, because his shell wasgetting just a little too heavy for him. And this, he thought, was the reason he had run out of slime.

Althoughhe wanted to retrace his trail and find his slime, he knew if he tried moving,he would badly hurt his foot, which would be very serious indeed. Barney knew what he had to do. There was nothing else for it. He had to bestill, which he didn’t really enjoy as much as other snails did. Didn’t I say he was ratherextraordinary? As he stood being verystill, an eight legged spider came scurrying by and Barney tried to ask if he’dseen his slime anywhere. But the spiderjust scuttled away without listening. Alittle later a centipede came crawling past so Barney asked her. She said she was so very sorry but she hadbeen too busy to notice. So poor Barney could do nothing more and started tosqueeze and pull himself back into his by now over crowded shell. He tried and he tried but no matter how he pulledand pushed and squeezed, he just couldn’t get comfortable inside his own shell.Something dug into his back and stopped him from lying in his favouriteposition “This won’t do!” he told himself, “This won’t do at all! Something hasto go! “

SoBarney slowly and carefully turned to see what had been digging into his backand as he pushed the offending item to the side, he noticed something shiny,tucked far away at the very back of his shell. When he looked again, he saw that his slime wasn’t really lost at all,but it had been pushed away to the back by all the other snails’ belongings.How happy Barney felt, for now he knew where his slime was, he didn’t mindbeing still for a time. He understoodthat his slime had never really been lost; he had just allowed other things toget in its way. Didn’t I tell you he was rather a remarkable snail?

2012-01-04T13:30:00.000Z

A little indecison on my part for this one, should I share it? Should I not? But then in sharing this I would also like to share that the woman for whom it was written did indeed leave an abusive marriage of 40 years, not immediately but she did.

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, infact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

Presentstate: A lot of indecision in lifeat the moment

                             Wants to leavehusband
                             Does not want toleave her house
                             Husband won’t leave
                             Husband doesn’twant her to go
                             Dreads having tostart again!

Desiredstate: Roof over her head

                            Nobody botheringher
                            Peace and quiet
                            Looking after 1person rather than 2
                            A lot happier!

Tilly and Tally

Tally didn’t want me to go she liked standing tall beside me, sharing mynurture but deep down I knew I had to go. I was in her shade, the sunshine didn’t always reach my leaves, I had noroom to blossom and my roots were getting squashed.

I wasn’t sure if I would survive at first, it was scary being uprootedand moving somewhere new, why couldn’t Tally go after all that piece ofgrassland was mine as much as hers?

Now I can see why.

The new soil was fresh, full of goodness. I have grown taller, much, much taller and Ican see far and wide. I notice I canhear clearer as I listen to the peace and quiet. The sun always reaches myleaves and I feel the warmth that it sends all the way down to my roots. I enjoy the space. My roots have spread out and have grownstrong. My leaves no longer rattleeverywhere in the wind, they gently flow in the softly blowing breeze, as Istand proud.

Build a Lego House

2012-01-03T13:00:00.000Z

How is this New Year for you? Glad all the celebrations are over? Wondering which way next?

There are New Year’s Resolutions, did you make some? Have you broken any, yet?

What would it be like this year to set some deadlines (orsome things to achieve)? Often we talk about achievements, goals, outcomes,opportunities, options, possibilities. I wrote last year about too many optionsand what that can mean. We might end updoing nothing at all.

So if you’ve not had much success with goals, achievements,moving towards, that kind of thing – ask yourself the question – ‘What’simportant to me?’ Is your answer aboutwhat you don’t want (“becauseif I don’t have it, it will be terrible”)? That’s okay we have something towork with. No need to turn into a positive (perhaps you thought that NLP is allabout Positive Thinking, not necessarily). We might have to ask some people sometimes ‘just how bad does it have toget before you will do something?’

Ok so you know what you don’t want. Now set yourself a deadline – so

a) ‘I don’t want to be in the sameplace work-wise this year.’

b) ‘I don’t want to not be able to goon holiday because I won’t be able to wear skimpy clothes or that bikini!’

c) ‘I don’t want the same things tohappen.’

Ask the question ‘What’s important to me about this?’

What it is that makes you feel happy, contented, rewarded,satisfied and that gets you excited in some way? I want to achieve ...........by................

Now it might be that this house your wanting to build or this problemyou’re wanting to avoid, or this dream you have is not getting where you w antit to be because over the years (since you first started dreaming this dreametc.,) your values have changed and the value you had is no longer important toyou. You’ll only exert energy and resources into activitiesthat have a value for you. That could be why you’reachieving what you want to achieve.

So perhaps you need to find out first what has value for you?

Jack Frost, the Hens and the Polytunnel and a Prince

2012-01-02T13:00:00.000Z

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, infact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

During thebad winter weather, Mark’s polytunnel blew down, and is jumbled heap offramework components.

Apart fromwanting to use it for plants of various sorts, his chickens use it forshelter. He’s got more chickens now thanlast year – his father-in-law has given him some more. His father-in-law built the originalpolytunnel, but doesn’t have time to re-build it.

Mark wantsto have rebuilt an improved version of the polytunnel by the end of March.

Once upon atime, the handsome prince of the land of Tuonela married the beautiful daughterof the king of the neighbouring kingdom of Hennia. The king was powerful, and over the years hadlearned how to protect his kingdom, strengthening his castle, and was now areally wise man, who was pleased to help the prince to build his own strongcastle, which sheltered and protected the people of Tuonela, and the courtierswho had travelled from Hennia with the princess to her new home.

Everythingthe prince and princess and all the people of Tuonelaneeded was provided for in the castle, and its grounds, and the land around.

But in thedistant land of Hivernia, one of its chieftains, Jack Frost, was feeling veryambitious, and becoming very strong. Suddenly he invaded Tuonela, and Hennia, and though the prince and theking joined forces, and were easily able to drive Jack Frost away, he had beenable to destroy the prince’s castle, and do a lot of damage in the kingdom of Hennia.

So now, boththe king and the prince had to think about the future – how they could becomestrong enough again to stop Jack Frost invading another time. And the people of Tuonela and Hennia allneeded protecting and feeding, and while the king was able to restore his ownlands, he didn’t have enough people to go and help the prince.

So theprince knew he must rebuild his castle himself. He had the stones from his old castle, and found more stones in otherplaces in Tuonela. He knew what hewanted his new castle to be like – bigger, and stronger, and more beautifulthan before.

So while hispeople – the peasants, and the courtiers who lived by the castle – were able tolook after themselves, knowing that their prince would soon have finishedbuilding his castle again, the nobles from other castles in Tuonela came withtheir soldiers and builders to help the prince’s own soldiers and builders torestore the big castle, knowing that their prince would always be ready to helpthem when they needed his support.

The Bee, the Sunflower and the Seedling

2012-01-01T18:30:00.000Z

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, infact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

PresentState: Subjectrepeatedly focuses on "stuff" and "things"(cooking, cleaning, work, washing, ironing all elicited) rather thanpeople (namely husband, daughter and time for herself).

DesiredState:To be able to have quality time with husband, daughter and for herself and toenjoy this time rather than always be thinking about the stuff/things that needto be done.

Beatrice the BumbleBee

Beatricethe Bumble Bee was a very busy bee indeed. She thrived on being busy as sheflew from one flower to the next picking up her load of pollen, returning tothe hive and ensuring that the hive was well maintained, all the while a voicein her head saying “I’m a busy bee, I’m a busy bee, no time for me.” Althoughover time the flowers had become her friends she no longer had time to stop andtalk to them anymore. Beatrice Bee while thriving on her daily routine of business,or so she thought, knew that there were other things in her life that neededher attention too – she had enjoyed the company and conversation the flowersgave her and in particular there was a Sunflower she was very fond of, in lovewith in fact, as well as a little Seedling that she and the Sunflower had beenwatching, looking after and nurturing ever since it had sprouted its youngseedling head up through the soil close by and into the warm summer air. Occasionally,after a hard days buzzing and flying about from here to there and when Beatricefound a few moments to herself before sleeping she would become aware of thevoice saying to her “I’m a busy bee, I’m a busy bee, no time for me” and wonderedwhat it would be like to stop the voice… even for a moment, turn it down atleast or even change what the voice was saying… before she drifted off intosleep. In the morning, Beatrice would wake up forgetting that she had everwondered what it would be like if the voice was not so loud or said somethingdifferent to her. As Beatrice resumed her duties and flew from flower to flowerkeeping busy with no time to stop she was unaware that this was making herunhappy and as time went by she began to slow down, weighed down not by theheavy loads of pollen she was carrying but the weight of her sadness that shehad “no time for me”. A time came though when during her busy schedule that shere-visited her friend the Sunflower and the young Seedling again. She wasamazed at how well they both were doing and how well they looked. Delighted tosee them looking so well and genuinely pleased to see them again she made thetime to stop and ask them their secret. Also very pleased to see her too, theSunflower and Seedling explained that their contentedness and good health hadbeen reached with the help of a kind Gardener that had been tending to them,nurturing them and talking to them, re-affirming daily that they were doingwell and that with patience and time as well as enjoying the moment they wouldgrow strong and be happy and content. Conscious that the needs of the hive werecalling Beatrice she bid the Sunflower and Seedling a fond farewell andcontinued on with her busy day. While remaining busy her unconscious mindprocessed what the Gardener had said to the Sunflower and Seedling and as itdid this she began to realise that although she was busy and useful, this didnot meet her needs and that she really wished to be spending more time with theSunflower and Seedling that she loved and missed so dearly. That night when Beatricewent to bed, the few moments she had to herself before falling asleep shedecided this time to change her mantra “I’m a busy bee, I’m a busy bee but Imake time for ME!” J

The 18th Birthday Party

2011-12-31T12:00:00.000Z

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, infact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

Helen’sPresent State is that she has lost her motivation for work; she did not havethe same ‘driver’. Her Desired State is to get her ‘driver back’ and to get herenthusiasm back.

Helenexplained that there have been organisational changes recently leading to herhaving a new manager. She had known her previous manager for some time, and ismeeting the new manager for the first time on Wednesday coming. Helen works ina team of 5 providing support to companise across Scotland. She perceives thatthe changes will shift management focus from Aberdeen to the Central Belt.

Metaphor

That remindsme of a story about Kate. Kate had been brought up in a city where she had anumber of aunties and cousins and saw a number of them regularly andoccasionally they would all get together. Kate had a strong sense of commitmentto her family; her house was the hub of the get-togethers and where aunties andcousins would drop in to chat.

Then herfather got a job in another city and Kate moved house to this new city. Shethought that she would lose touch with her extended family and things could notbe the same again.

After a fewmonths Kate received an invitation to her cousin’s 18^th birthdayparty, which was to take place back in the city where she used to stay. Sheworried about what to wear, where she would stay and what her cousins and otherswould now think of her. It would also be an expensive trip.

Did she go?

That was herchoice.

Wild Flowers in full Bloom

2011-12-30T14:30:00.000Z

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, infact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

Jemima has been learning the Mandarin language and finds iteasier to remember the textual letterand words. Mandarin also uses pictures as part of its language. It is thepictures that Jemima finds difficult to remember and how these relate to theMandarin word.

Jemima enjoys playing games, reading and doesn’t watch muchTV.

__________________________________________________________

Once upon a time, on a hot summer’s day a lady was walkingthrough the woods when she noticed a variety of wild flowers in full bloom asshe passed by a lake in the middle of the woods. The lady thought she had seenthese flowers before, but couldn’t quite remember their names although they didappear to look very familiar.

When the lady got home, she decided to find out the names ofthe wild flowers by looking for them in a wild flower book she had. Slowlyturning over the pages the lady found the pictures of the flowers she had seenand was able to find out their names written underneath the picture.

Some time later the lady went for the same walk, againwalking through the woods and again came across a variety of wild flowers infull bloom as she passed the lake. Thelady remembered seeing the flowers before and again couldn’t remember the namesof the flowers she was seeing.

The lady remembered looking for them in her wild flower book– and again, when she got home she slowly turned over the pages in the bookuntil she found the pictures of the flowers she had seen.

The lady thought to herself “How can I remember the names tothe wild flowers I keep seeing on my walk?”

There was no TV in the house and as games were such animportant part of the entertainment of the household the lady decided to invitefamily and friends round to dinner and game of ‘iSpy Wild Flowers’ oneevening.

Using the same book of wild flowers the lady showed thepictures of the flowers she had been seeing on her walks and asked her friendsto name the flower pictures in turn. Each of her family and friends read outthe name of the flower in turn until they each knew the names of all theflowers on the walk.

Having played the game three times the lady suddenly realisedthat she was in fact able to identify the names of the flowers from pictures, herself.

This was particularly satisfying as she now knew the wordsfor the pictures of the flowers she had been seeing.

The lady as with all good stories lived happily ever after.

Bananas and the Magic Wishing Tree

2011-12-29T14:00:00.000Z

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, infact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

Mairie’s present state is that she has 4 to 5 bookson the go at the same time and her desired state is to concentrate on one bookand finish it. (Happened to mention onher timeline she had wanted to read more books)

Mairie andthe Magic Wishing Tree

One day, Mairie was out walking and came across amagic wishing tree where you could wish for whatever you want. She loved bananas and asked the tree for morebananas. The tree gave her so manybananas that she couldn’t finish them all. The bananas were starting to spoil and go to waste and Mairie knew theycould have been used usefully elsewhere.

This was causing Mairie a problem and she wasfeeling quite guilty about it.

Mairie realised that she hadn’t been specificenough with the tree and had simply asked for more bananas.

Mairie decided to go back to the tree and wishthat she only be given enough bananas at one time that she could usefully useand finish or give to someone else before she got anymore.

After that day, Mairie always finished all of herbananas. This gave her a great sense ofachievement and no more feelings of guilt.

The End.

A Day's Hard Cycling

2011-12-28T11:30:00.000Z

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, infact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

Want to stop avoding difficult tasks

Onecyclist liked to take the easy options and avoid hard tasks and activities,always looking for shortcuts. The other one loved to tackle challenges head on.

Oneday they cycled away from a busy city into the country site and stopped at thefoot of a big hill.

Onecyclist instantly wanted to tackle the hill and reach the top. He knew it wouldbe hard work but he still wanted to do it. The other cyclist wasn’t soenthusiastic. “Hey, look there!” he said “there’s a perfectly good path roundthe side of the hill. That would be much easier than cycling to the top!”

Howeverthe first cyclist wouldn’t be swayed. “I know it will be hard work” he said “butthink of the view from the top!”

Beinga hot day, the second cyclist thought it would be too hard to cycle uphill, sohe decided to take the easier route round the side of the hill.

Thetwo cyclists went their separate ways. One labouring to reach to the top of thehill, the other taking the easier route round the side.

Aftercycling for most of the day, the easy route cyclist reached the other side ofthe hill where he agreed to meet with his friend. As he leaned his bike upagainst a fence post and was removing his helmet, he heard coming from the hilltop path a “whooping” sound. He turned round to see his friend flying down thehill.

“Wooo...that was amazing!” shouted his friend. “What a view! It was hard work on the way up but the ridedown was totally worth it! How was your cycle?” he asked the easy routecyclist.

“Itwas ok” he replied, though deep down he was envious of his friend. At first his route had seemed the better ofthe two as it required less work. However in the end there was somethingmissing, there was no reward for his day’s cycling. He wished he had workedthat little bit harder and tackled the hill. Then he would have enjoyed thoseamazing views, exciting ride down and would have had a sense of achievement.

Itgoes to show that by taking the easiest route in life doesn’t always reap thegreatest benefits.

Dolphins in the Moray Firth

2011-12-27T15:00:00.000Z

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, infact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

Desired state - Wanting to swim 40 lengths

WhenI was walking along the beach at Nairn the other day, I met an old man who toldme this story about the two dolphins.

Thedolphins lived in the Moray Firth, one near the gap at Cromarty and the other, sohe believed, near to Spey Bay; both were apparently fairly good swimmers,although the one at Spey Bay was considered to be the stronger of the two.

Localhistory reported them as being cousins…although they had never actually met.

Now,Dolphins make an interesting sound and can communicate well through water… acrosssome distance.

Onemorning – it was a Tuesday – the Cromarty dolphin received a postcard. It wasnot really addressed properly, but was clearly meant for her. The postcard appearedto announce the birthday of the Spey Bay dolphin and…moreimportantly, was accompanied by an invitation.

Thiswas great: an opportunity to meet up at last, but there was only one problem: Spey Baywas about 40 miles away – this was a long swim for a (not so good at swimming) dolphin.

However,not going to miss out on this opportunity, the Cromarty dolphin decided she hadto go for it.

Sheset off in good spirits. However, after about 10 miles the going got tough –she was getting tired diving in and out of the water with her particular swimmingstyle; to make matters worse, a storm began to arise, travelling down from thenorth over Sutherland and clearly making a west to east crossing even moredifficult.

Asthe Cromarty dolphin thought about giving up, she discovered that the roll ofthe waves was actually making her swimming style easier… if she did not try toohard: she began to roll, then glide, and to her delight was actually using lessenergy… but going faster: 20 miles, 25 miles, 30 miles then 40 miles: Spey Bay– what an achievement!

AtSpey Bay she looked out in great anticipationfor the party. Swimming around for a few minutes all seemed quiet; there was noone else there.

Thestorm had abated and she began to look more intently for her cousin and wasgetting a bit upset. Shortly after, an old man appeared at the shore and askedwhat was wrong. The Cromarty dolphin explained her predicament.

Theold man smiled and congratulated her on her achievement before reporting thatdolphins had not been seen in these parts for years.

Shewas in fact, the only one.

Toning up the body - Gold Star

2011-12-26T12:30:00.000Z

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, infact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

Andrea wants to looseweight but finds it difficult to stick to her diet – especially when thingshappen to upset her routine.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I remember working witha chap who had problems sticking to an exercise programme.

He really wanted to toneup his body. He had a plan to go to thegym every night after work. Sometimes,things would happen at work which would mean he couldn’t manage.

He really wanted toreach his goal so he thought about ways in which he could motivate himself – whatoptions could he have in place so that he could still fit in some form of exerciseon occasions when he couldn’t stick to his plan.

First of all, he made upa personal progress plan which he attached to his fridge door. He was in the habit of going into his fridgefor milk for his tea first thing every day and as soon as he came home fromwork every night.

He bought a pack of goldstars and started marking off the occasions when he had been able to attend thegym and a red star on occasions when he had substituted this with some otherform of exercise.

If he couldn’t leavework on time to go to the gym one evening, he’d use the stairs rather than thelift when leaving the building and would make a point of having a brisk walk homerather than taking the bus. In addition,he would have a contingency plan to get up early the following morning and go tothe gym then. He’d also treat himself thatevening by having a relaxing sauna and session in the steam room.

He also asked himself, “DoI really ‘have to’ go to the gym every night after work?” Four times a week,with alternative exercise of his choice when applicable, would be far morerealistic. One night could even besubstituted for a couple of hours playing 5-aside football with his friends onSunday morning. That would be worth agold star!

By doing this – withdaily monitoring via the plan on his fridge coupled with a weekly overview - hewould never really fall behind his target and he could be more flexible withhis plan whilst still reaching his goal.

Simple Rose Bud on the Dress

2011-12-25T17:00:00.000Z

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, infact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

Maggie says she alwaysputs too much detail into everything.

Thisreminds me of a story that my Granny used to tell me about her two GreatAunts. She always said that her Mum wasan animated story teller and she loved to listen to all her stories.

Theywere a very affluent family and were always invited to all the localBalls. One summer they were invited tothe most prestigious ball of the year, which was thrown by the local Laird. It caused a stir or excitement all over thecounty and the planning of the ball gowns of all the ladies invited commencedimmediately.

Thelocal seamstress was summoned to make the ball gowns of my Granny’s GreatAunts. One of the Aunts spent hoursdeciding what her dress would be like. Should she have sequins, beads, diamantes, or perhaps all three? Whatcolour would be best, pink, blue or maybe green? Should it be long, ankle length or just belowher knee? Should she wear high heels or pumps and what colour would theybe? She spent days adding more and moredetail and jewels to her dress. Shewanted to have the most beautiful dress of the evening.

Theother Aunt, however, explained to the seamstress that she imagined a long plainflowing pale pink dress, in satin, with a simple rose bud sewn into thewaist. She then spent the rest of herdays walking barefoot in the garden, picking flowers and lying in the sunreading as she listened to the birds singing.

Onthe night of the ball, the two sisters who were both very beautiful, made theirway into the grand hall of the Laird. The Aunt with the fancy dress sadly did not enjoy the ball as her dresswas so heavy that it weighed her down. She did indeed have the dress that everyone was talking about, althoughno one noticed how beautiful she was. All she could do was watch while her sister, who in her very plain dressfelt as light as a feather, waltzed on air around the grand hall, and in hersimplicity she radiated pure beauty!

Don't Forget to Put Your Goggles on!

2011-12-18T11:30:00.000Z

A look at some basic language changes you might find useful (people on our courses have found them useful)

“Try”(trying as well) – I’ll try – presupposes well you know it’s okay I tried andit didn’t work out, but I tried.

Whathappens when you say “I’ll give it a go”, “I’ll do it.” Etc. although 'trying something out', is also good.

Instead of 'don't fall,' use 'jump!', 'go for it'.

Instead of 'you'll drop that,' use 'keep hold'.

Instead of 'don't look down,' use 'look at where you want to land!'

“If”presupposes failure – “What happens if you change your language?” change to“what happens when you change your language” – notice the results.

“Can”you do something is for some people merely about ability in one sense so some people will say“yes I can” and they won’t do it. Somepeople will decide they just can’t and they won’t do anything. And for some people you're actually giving them a choice!

“Obvious”,“Obviously” – well it might be obvious to you, but is obvious to anyone oreveryone else?

Say what you mean - 'don't forget to put your goggles on' - use
'put your goggles on, before you enter the room!

‘But’ negates whatever comes before it. ‘And’ allows us to hold both ideas at the one time.

‘This report isexcellent, but it is not in the correct format.’ ‘This report is excellent, and it needs to be set out in the correctformat.’

The conscious mind usually hates getting commands. The unconscious mind, on the other hand,loves being commanded. Imbedded commandsare hidden in the sentence so they are not consciously heard, and therefore aremore likely to be responded to. You canemphasis embedded commands verbally with pitch, volume or spacing. If you are writing you can use fonts, spacingor bold. Advertising often uses imbeddedcommands, as do parents.

‘I don’t know how youwill cope with this, but I know that youcan.’

‘When you finish this discussion, you can rejoin the large group.’

I would appreciate a reply to this message tomorrow

Have festive fun!

Christmas can be a Piece (Peace) of Cake

2011-12-14T13:30:00.000Z

A little technique for coping with Christmas better.

Think back to a time when being with a group of people/being on your own was easy(easier). This can be at Christmas or any other time (and we’re assuming there will be asituation where Christmas is difficult).

Also think about time when I anticipate Christmas/being with others/being on my own may be difficult

Mentally markout three circles on the floor

A time when Christmas/being with others/being on my own was easy/easier

Neutral Space

A time whenI anticipate Christmas/being with others/being on my own may be difficult

1. Thinkabout Christmas/being with others/being on your own that you are findingdifficult or anticipate finding difficult.

2. Startin the neutral space; make sure you aresttod on both feet, solidly and feeling “neutral”. From the Neutral Space step forward and toone side and “notice” how it feels for you to find this time difficult. Step back to the Neutral Space.

3. Takeone step forward to the other side and remember and notice (when you’ve gotthis press your thumb and finger together) a time when Christmas/being withothers/being on my own easyand fun – when this was a “piece of cake”.

4. Stepback to the Neutral Space – from there step into the Easy/Easier Space andstraight into the Being Difficult space and then back to Neutral.

5. Repeatthis process as many times as are necessary, always finishing in Neutral.

6. FromNeutral step into the Difficult Christmas space and notice how that feels now. If you wish it’s ok to step back into Neutraland repeat Step 4 to enhance your new good feelings even more.

Have good Christmas whatever you do.

6 Tips to Avoid Christmas Guilt

2011-12-11T11:31:00.000Z

1. Give Yourself a Present

Yesterdaydoesn’t exist, except as a memory, memories are very unreliable, have youworked that one out? When youexperienced yesterday, it was n-o-w. Tomorrow doesn’t exist either,except in your imagination; when you experience tomorrow, it will ben-o-w. And as it’s all that exists, it’s a good idea to experience it,so… - Sit with your feet flat on the floor, in acomfortable, centred position (spine straight, hands on your thighs or at yoursides, breathing comfortably.) With your eyes open or closed, allowyourself to become aware of the different sounds, sights, smells &sensations around you. This is the present moment. This present is the onlything that matters, give yourself this every now and again, focus and you willbe better able to cope with life, the world in general.

2. Avoid the ‘shoulds’.

Most of us have a large pile of ‘shoulds’at home, the things I ‘should’ do,the things he/she ‘should do’, the council‘should do’, etc. Those things that it’s easiest to shelve offto others, blame others for. What NLP orthe LAB Profile calls ‘concealed away froms’. Things we avoid doing. So askyourself ‘what’s important that ...........?’. and you know maybe it’s notquite so important and we can survive without it or without it being done andget back into the present.

3. Avoid the ‘I did/made/bought this specially foryou’

This is the classic guilt thing, the stuffthat the ‘reindeer jumper’ in Bridget Jones’s Diary is made of! The classic whatever type of mother (or a.n.other) comment ‘I spent so many hours in the kitchen making this’, ‘I spent somuch money on this’. This is the guilt thing;this can lead to ‘shoulds’ and ‘musts’ etc. It’s useful to ‘take a mental step back from this’. To perhaps ‘go tothe balcony’ ‘or imagine you’re a fly on the wall’ and look at all of this andnotice what’s going on and that ‘no; is a good word to use.

4. Think before you open your mouth

Errsometimes it’s just that simple;) Taking a mental or even physical step backcan help here.

5. Go on holiday a long way away from anyoneelse;)
Orjust shut yourself away and have some quiet time:0 It’s great no hang over, notover eaten, watched what you wanted on TV, read when and what youw anted andevnif you like tidied the house. Enjoy yourself.

6. Remember Mickey Mouse

From‘Finding the Relationship you Deserve, O’Hara 2008

Is theresomeone in life who annoys you? Someoneyou mildly dislike? Here’s a tip usingNLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and what NLP calls submodalities (thesensory modalities are seeing, hearing and feeling – VAK in NLP), in thistechnique you are changing the visual modalities, adding an auditory modalityand enabling your kinesthetic (feelings) to alter.

A thingwith Mickey Mouse

Isthere someone on your life who is annoying? Start with someone mildly irritating. Imagine an image of them out infront of you (it’s really important that it’s out in front so you begin to lookat the image) and then push that image further away, if you need to actually dothe pushing physically, then do it. Pushing further and further away, drain any colour out of theimage, make the image sepia, or blackand white, draining all the colour out, push the image further and furtheraway, beyond the wall, across the street, several miles away, it’s yourimagination you can do what you like.

As theimage of this person you used to dislike is getting further away, add a pair ofMickey Mouse ears to this image, and a big red nose, and give it a squeakyDonald Duck voice.

What’sthat like now?

You moreyour practise this, you just might find they are easier to cope with. Very useful for irritating people from yourpast and even those in your life just now, you will found you will be able tocope with these people better, and that whatever used to "push yourbuttons” becomes less.

Whatever you do, Peace to you and enjoy.

Do we actually know our employees and what motivates them?

2011-11-17T00:30:00.000Z

There are energy givers and there are 'time burglars’,or as one of our clients used to say 'do you want to be a drain or a radiator?'(Guess who was possibly the biggest drain in his company?)

Mostly we use these phrases above when we are talkingabout motivation. One way to motivate people is by ensuring that they believein the vision, be that the organisational vision, or the vision of their leaderor manager. It's handy to bear in mind there are people who merely go to workto 'earn money'. Money is their onlymotivation, as long as they have done their bit, they are happy. They want to turn up at work, have no aggro,get on with it and then go home, often on the dot of finishing time. In fact they have switched everything off,cleared their desk, got their coat on and are out of the door at 'finishing time’on the dot.

Do we actually know our employees and what motivatesthem? Have we employed people who will 'just do the job and no more' or have wespent time ensuring we know what the job requires in terms of skill set? Andwait for it, in terms of personality type and does the person we offered thejob to have the right personality for the job? Are they a people person? Or arethey like a Scotrail condutor I recently encountered who regarded passengers asan interruption to the smooth running of the train?

In terms of the Language and Behaviour (LAB) Profilehis focus was on ‘Thing’ (well at that time – because I have encountered himonce before when by watching his eyes and listening to the tone changes in hisvoice he was focused on people and that was when the train was runninglate). However at this particular pointin time, he was focused on his job on the right way to get things done and alsoon his opinion of who I was. I decidedto sit where I was told (I was still in First Class) and someone moved veryquickly to accommodate this man. I wascurious why he was acting this way as the last time I had encountered him I hadbeen able to persuade him to phone ahead and find out about the connection. There again it could because my skilful useof language previously had worked this time he ‘wasn’t having any of that’, shetricked me last time. I doubt in factthat he recognised me. But it was powerful proof to me that given different circumstanceswe react differently.

In respect of rules and motivation, if we have toomany rules (and some industries and organisations have many!) then those peoplewho dislike rigidly following procedures (about 40% of the population at work),if they not given options will start to leave. Look at how many opportunity seekers/rule breakers leave a company when voluntaryseverance is offered. What happens, thosewho stay eventually internalize the rules and then what we have is a workforcethat is highly critical of anyone, absolutely anyone who wants to do anythingdifferent? Ring any bells?

We then fall into the blame frame, the blame culture. Andhow do we motivate in that type of culture?

More next time.

Image: farconville / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Words and Wheelbarrows

2011-10-29T11:09:00.000+01:00

NLP talks abouthow we shape our world (you know we don’t live in reality? That we form our ownidea of reality?). In doing this we delete, distort and generalise.

Example – a word like‘Relationship’

First it can have so manymeanings – it can be a relationship with a significant other, with a friend,with a child, with a customer, with a client, with a work colleague, with aboss etc. And whatever of those it is,it can have completely different meanings to those people involved in therelationship (or not).

So when someone says ‘myrelationship is not right’ – we really need to start asking that personquestions, not assuming we know what they are talking about. After all we only know about the kind ofrelationships we are in, or the ones we have known, or seen from ourperspective. If we assume and give ouradvice, the worst case scenario is that we can lose a friend or be blamed forgiving advice that was well meaning, butthey may not want that advice.

To find out more about whatthat word means for the other person, we need to turn that nominalisation intoa process and find out what’s not right for the person who made the statement‘my relationship is not right’. So weask (carefully, with great respect and sincerity and in a kind of the ‘pass thesalt’ tone) something like ‘how would you like to be related to?’ It might seemweird, but this will give you more to work with. It might bring up another nominalisation orother deletions, distortions and generalisations, but I only wanted to give youthis as a taster. You will then find you have more idea of what the personmeans (and you could have been barking up the wrong tree) and theirrelationship and what also eventually happens is that the person who was havingthe problem has more idea of what it is they want in life.

However some clues to whichwords are nominalisations - firstly there’s the wheelbarrow mentioned in thetitle. There’s a kind of rule of thumbthat anything you couldn’t put in a wheelbarrow (and sometimes it will be avery large wheelbarrow, so for example for a ‘crowd’, a ‘building’ etc.) is anominalisation, so things like ‘fear’, ‘love’, ‘hate’ etc. and also

words ending in thefollowing:
-ance              (compliance)                                  -ness               (happiness)
-iency              (efficiency)                                     -itude               (gratitude)
-able                (reliable)                                        -ion                  (depression)

You can apply the kind ofquestioning I mentioned earlier; sometimes it’s not so obvious what the processword/doing word/verb is, sometimes we just need to think a little about how wewill ask a question to get to the root or heart of the matter, so that weunderstand more about what the other person is annoyed or upset or aggrievedabout.

So (the following are allexamples you could use, there will be others) -

Compliance     -How’s that not complied with?

or How would like that to be compliedwith?

Happiness – How would you like to be happy?

Efficiency – How do we need to be more efficient?

Gratitude – How would like them to be grateful?

Reliable – What is someone like you can relyon?

Depression – How does that depress you?

This kind of thing isreally useful, what is also useful and helps you avoid the pain ofmisunderstanding and misinterpreting and losing friendships, preventing theonset of World War III at home, getting to the core of a problem at work isthinking in this way:

Notice how you form yourown reality, pay attention to what you are saying to yourself - this will make you more effective andsuccessful. Also think about what yousay to others, if you are not clear, if you use lots of nominalisations (andsome cultures and organisation do, all the time) how will others understandyou?

Always be in rapport (sopoint your body towards the person, match or mirror their posture, use theirwords), soften your voice, softer tones and phrase questions in a moreacceptable way.

“I wonder exactly what youmean by that…”

“That’s interesting, can Iask you ……”

Think carefully about whatyou say and listen carefully to what others say and train your intuition torecognise patterns, know when there is information missing, when it’s useful toclarify meaning or open choices. Wherethe conversation is based on a relationship (of whatever kind) – be careful,very, very careful with the Meta Model – if not used with care it becomes atask-based process. For example ifsomeone says “I liked that” asking “How specifically did you like it and whatexactly did you like?” may not be appropriate in certain circumstances and Ican think of a few J!

Taken from 'No More Bingo Dresses' to learn more about how to do this in the business world join us in Aberdeen or Dundee in 2012

Image from Freedigitalphotos

Measure for Reduced Stress?

2011-10-20T16:45:00.000+01:00

Epstein[1]whom I last wrote about in September ‘Increasing Your Stress Management IQ or is it EQ’ before I got sidetracked in the 'Playground’ ,Epstein talks about Planning and this is one the things he lists in his ‘Ounceof prevention’

This concept also came up in one ofrecent ‘Goal Setting Workshops’ Anna spoke of her measure for reduced stress, for life being okay, is to have aclean and tidy bathroom and therefore feel less stressed. This encouraged Ken to set out a plan to tidyhis garage which was ‘causing him stress’. Faith pondered on this and what she ‘needed’ to do – her stressor was aserious need to explain to his business partner that he wanted to concentrateon and therefore be more productive in one area of their joint business. She had been avoiding having this conversationand ‘stressing’ herself out.

So we set a goal, in NLP goal settingis not just SMART[2]it takes things into account that some people at first find a little bizarreand then in asking the question they suddenly get a response from the otherperson, where in the questioners model of the world there just could not havebeen an answer, the person being questioned says something. Or conversely when being questioned you heypresto have an answer.

All of NLP has been modelled on howother people have done things or are doing things, and who this has been donewell, this takes into account sometimes the doing something well may not beworking and then we can find something to change the trigger and put a better,improved trigger in place (more on that soon).

What is interesting in all of thescenarios above the person could not get to where they wanted to be or be clearabout where they wanted to be until they had sorted something out, cleared somethingout of the way, prevented something (Away From thinking in terms of the LABProfile)

So on our Goal Setting Workshops we generallystart out with this How do you knowwhat you want? I bet many of us knowwhat we don’t we want, what we want to avoid and what doesn’t really exciteus. We know what other people want us todo. Do we know what it is we reallywant?

Ask yourself:

What it is that makes you feelhappy, contented, rewarded, satisfied and that gets you excited in someway? And list as many of things you canas can (20 would be good) in this format - I want to achieve ...........by................

More next time.......

Image courtesy of Free Digital Photos.net

[1] Formereditor in chief of Psychology Today PhD in psychology from Harvard University

[2]Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound

Immature at Work?

2011-10-11T13:19:00.001+01:00

So last time we mentioned the Satir Categories, well the Blamer. So here a little more on these categories. What I think is interesting about Virginia Satir is that she was a family therapist, so why mentioned her in the context of work? Well we often spend more time at work than with our families so work becomes our family. Sobering thought.

Virginia Satir was one of the people Bandler and Grinder modelled in the early days of NLP. She was a highly effective family therapist. Virginia identified, in her book People Making, the following behaviours; they are not exclusive to dysfunctional families. We can notice them everywhere.

Virginia had four behaviours that were responsible for many conflicts and one used for resolving conflict and bringing people together.

There is an NLP Presupposition or Operating Belief ‘Mind and body are part of the same system and what effects one affects the other’. For example if you hunch up when sitting at the PC and trying to meet a tight deadline, you will feel stressed and then that stress will manifest itself physically in your shoulders, back, or elsewhere. Our bodies react to whatever changes our minds go through and vice versa.

Your body gives signals to other people and sometimes people will read these signals incorrectly. However when you create a smokescreen and gloss over your problems in your mind, others will intuitively know that something is incongruent and their reaction to us may not be the one we intended, they might “write us off” or they might “treat us in a way we didn’t want”.

Distracter

Distracters seek attention to compensate for their feelings of loneliness or inadequacy. The positive intention (al behaviour has a positive intention another operating belief) behind this behaviour is to protect them from facing up to things. Distracting behaviour includes removing a hair from your jacket while talking, sabotaging a conversation by making a joke, interrupting a conversation, frequently changing the subject. There are many types of distracting behaviour that people use to deflect attention from a subject that may be reminding them of their feelings of loneliness and inadequacy. (Over time this becomes a pattern and they are not consciously aware of what they are doing)

Placater

The placater is out to please – talking in an ingratiating way, never disagreeing and always seeking approval. Feelings of an inability to cope alone create a martyr or “yes man” (or woman!). A placater is often the first person to accept blame when things go wrong. (Over time this becomes a pattern and they are not consciously aware of what they are doing)

Blamer

See the previous blog post;)

Computer

Computer-like behaviour is very correct and proper but displaying no feeling. The voice is dry and monotone and the body often very still and precise in its movements, which are at minimal - masking a feeling of vulnerability. (Over time this becomes a pattern and they are not consciously aware of what they are doing)

Leveller

The only place (or the best place) to be – levellers have few threats to their self-esteem. Words, voice tone, body movements and facial expressions all give the same message. Levellers apologise for an action, not for existing. They have no need to blame, be subservient, retreat into a computer behaviour or to be constantly on the move. They are great communicators and have the ability to build bridges in relationships, heal stalemates and build self-esteem.

How does a leveller think and behave?

The leveller response is a real-time congruent response. All the other responses are as a result of negative internal feelings causing words and actions to be incongruent. It is very easy, under pressure, to respond to a situation with either “it’s not my fault” or “I’m sorry, it’s my fault again”, or to laugh inappropriately or show no emotion at all. None of these behaviours allow you to seek out rational solutions. The leveller response is the most effective behaviour for solving problems creatively:

Levellers:

¡ Look for solutions

¡ Have a conscious positive intention (for everyone and everything) behind everything they do

¡ Hold strong positive beliefs about themselves and others

¡ Operate from strong personal values

¡ Store positive mind images (of self and others)

¡ Have flexibility of behaviour when communicating with others

¡ Establish rapport before trying to influence

All these attributes can be learnt through NLP.

It’s useful to bear in mind that emotional maturity isn't all about behaving and acting professional. It's also about controlling your anger and your personal feelings in a work context, getting the two things confused is counterproductive. You might disagree with a fellow worker, but that doesn't mean that you can get angry -or attack them in some way - because they shoved you out of their way. Simply let it go, (breathe) relax, and focus on the task at hand, which is your work. Of course it’s nice to make friends and be sociable at work, the best work environments however are those where there aren't tangled webs of gossip and relationships that are keeping people from being productive.

If you really to be professional job, you need a professional attitude and environment to work in. Needing to deal or work with people who are less than professional can become stressful, but avoid wasting anyone’s time trying to deal with them or even paying attention to them. Instead, you just let them go and do your job the best that you can. Work is not intended to be boring and repetitive by any means, it is called work for a reason. Socializing and acting silly with your friends after work is fine. Those who are the most emotionally mature (or appear to be so) so the Levellers will be the most successful in the workplace, after all.

More from the Playground at Work

2011-10-09T10:42:00.003+01:00

The Telltale (or clipe in the North of Scotland)

My youngest grandson was playing next to the slide, being the dare devil (polarity responder) he is, he decided it would be more fun to climb up the slide rather than slide down it. He started up it. No sooner was he on his way, a boy about his age came running over to him and started to put him to rights, “you can’t do that. You’re not allowed, stop it now or I’m going to go tell my Mum.” My grandson jumped down from the slide and thought about what he was going to do next. Interestingly thing was that the telltale began to follow him. Whatever my boy did, there he was with a new threat to get his mum if my boy didn’t do exactly what he said. The telltale was going to make sure others followed the rules even though he had no direct authority. And if he could out them for not following the rules, he might just turn out to be the “good” one in the eyes of the “boss.”

When it comes to your working life, you need to be emotionally mature and able to act professionally in every situation so that you can be viewed as mature or professional by your managers and bosses. If you act like an immature child, it’s likely that management will see you as immature, and treat you accordingly. I’ve noticed curiously that in organisations where the words professional or professionalism are bandied about that’s where the concepts of professional or professionalism are applied least. (and the words are also used to blame others for people’s own shortcomings).

What does this mean at work (or life in general)

In both of these cases, the behaviour got the person something (the swing to themselves, the power to influence the boss). The problem is that in the end these children had no one to play with. Well no one who is into healthy relationships.

NLP uses something called the Satir Categories based on the work of Virginia Satir, one of the categories (more about these next time) is called –

Blamer

Blamers find fault – never accepting responsibility themselves, always blaming someone or something else. They feel unsuccessful and lonely. They will sometimes have high blood pressure, (or other disorders and/or feelings of inadequacy) and come across at times as aggressive or tyrannical. They will tell you what is wrong with things and whose fault it is, and in doing so become powerless to do anything about it. By blaming external factors they have absolved themselves of responsibility. (Over time this becomes a pattern and they are not consciously aware of what they are doing)

In respect of work (or life in general) ask yourself:

Are you doing things that may be costing you “friends” or just people to get on with (who are mature and responsible)? If so, what could you be doing differently to “play nice” with those around you?
If you come across one of these patterns in your playground (at work), what do you do?

Say “No.” to the bullies or the blamers. They probably won’t like it, but they’ve got to learn eventually that real grown ups “share their toys” and play nice with others around them.

Unless you want to do the same job for the rest of your life, get the same results as you always have done (which blamers inevitably do) no chance of promotion, then it’s a good idea to pull your socks up, grow up, and prove that you are emotionally mature enough to handle moving up in the company to a better position.

The Playground at Work

2011-10-07T14:31:00.000+01:00

Maturity plays a large role in many different aspects of life. To achieve in your career or work environment, it’s important to be mature and surround yourself with similar people. If you have the misfortune to work in a place where there is a lot of gossip, messing around and other immature behaviour going on, it may be hard to succeed or achieve your aims in your job. Even worse, you might become a part of this behaviour and lose any sense of professionalism that you had in the first place. Having fun at work is completely possible and a legitimate desire for many people. It’s important to realise that there is such a thing as having too much fun that then leads to your success being hindered by your actions and behaviors.

The best work environments are those without tangled webs of gossip and relationships that keep people from being productive. These behaviours show signs of great immaturity on the entire company's part.

Like the girl at the soft play area recently where I was with my grandsons -

As soon as we walked into soft play area we saw this - near the entrance is one of tyre like swings, but now they are more like a shell in which 2 children (sometimes more can sit). Children just love them, it gives the illusion of control and a swing that moves on a pivot above, so little actual physical exertion required. These are popular a bit like bike or rowing machine in the gym where you can watch TV, until the bully shows up that is. In this case, the bully came disguised as a cute little girl immaculately kitted out and wearing a ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ look on her face. She marched pertly up to the swing (past the whole queue), took a look at the two sitting in the swing and began push the child nearest to her out to make room for herself. Eventually the ripple effect of the force caught up with the other child and he fell out of his side of the swing. Ignoring the fuss around her, the bully looked quite content, but quickly realised she didn’t have full control of the ropes. Two more swift pushes and she was all alone in the swing, a smug smile on her face and two crying victims on the ground next to her. She was going to get what she wanted regardless of who was in her way. Some bullies never grow up and take their bad behaviour to work.

What is interesting is that in NLP we talk of the ‘secondary gain’ or ‘positive intention’, the unconscious ‘reasoning’ behind why we do something. The thing that our action gets for us, sometimes however whatever that is that we get is non-apparent as we grow up, grow older, become more mature. At some point in our life this behaviour, or maybe what is now seen as a dysfunction worked for us. It got us something (or at least the illusion of a pay-off), but as we grow older, as adults eventually these behaviours cost us more than they actually get us (although we may not see this at the time).

How can we generate new behaviours?

One suggestion here –

New Behaviour Generator

This pattern allows you to create new behaviours and run them through in your mind before actually trying them. This process allows you to systematically build up an internal representation in the three main sensory systems of the specific behaviour you want. It works because the unconscious mind has no way of telling the difference between a 'real' event, and something you imagine vividly.

Be clear that is a change you want to make.

Eyes: Look down left

Talk to yourself. Ask “What do I want to do differently?”

Say to yourself, “If I could do that, what would it look like?” As you say this, lead yourself up to your right

Eyes: Look up right

See yourself (dissociated make sure they are doing this) doing that new behaviour. Notice what happens to your state and the effect on any other people involved.

Eyes: Look down right

Step into the experience and feel how it is. This (kinaesthetic) check is an important part of your evidence procedure. It allows you to evaluate your new behaviour and make any necessary adjustments.

Repeat at least three times.

Make any necessary adjustments or modifications. Find some alternatives – you may make changes or add in new pieces – and then run them in your mind’s eye. Watch what happens, listen out for objections, and then check the associated feeling.

Future pace.

Once you are satisfied with your own performance, step inside that image of yourself in your imagination, and run it through as though you are there, now, doing it. As you go through the motions, pay particular attention both to your feelings and to the response of any other people around you.

If you want to change anything, run through again and check how it feels

And then practise.

With thanks to Andy Smith

Increasing Your Stress Management IQ or is it EQ

2011-09-19T10:10:00.000+01:00

Some of us perform better when put under stress; some of us perform worse when put under stress. There is a perception that stress is good for us, okay so others may perform well under stress, but think of martial arts, when correctly used (take the original Karate Kid films as a good example of how Karate Kid wins the day because he relaxes into his Kata to win the day – can be seen at its best in Karate Kid 3).

When we think about stress, some days we cope with an event, so having to wait in a queue or a traffic jam, better than others. What would life and work be like if we were better equipped to cope with the stresses and stimuli that surround us? We can train ourselves to cope with any stressor with calmness and composure.

Fact is –
we rarely receive any kind of formal training to cope with stress; some of us may have an innate way of coping. We may be able to use our mind to control our body, many of us believe we can’t. NLP has a Presupposition or Operating Belief The mind and body are one system - Mind and body interact and influence one another. It is not possible to make a change in one without the other being affected.

To affect this change some of learn yoga, meditation, mindfulness and these are usually used to cope with the after effects (as are pills or medication!) – learning to pre-empt stress could just be more effective.

Learning how to prevent stress rather than managing stress has long been one of the author’s maxims in life. What would it be like to cope with daily life, to cope with things that life throws at us? Without resorting to anger, drugs, alcohol?

Robert Epstein wrote in Scientific American Mind Sept/Oct 2011 on ‘Fight the Frazzled Mind’ he used for example the Epstein Stress Management Inventory, in which he splits how we Manage Sources of Stress, how we Practice Relaxation Techniques (such as scheduling time every day to relax, visualise soothing scenes, using breathing techniques, or learning to tense and relax), how we Manage Thoughts and most importantly (to me) how we Prevention Stress from Occurring.

Do I hear some of you asking ‘how do I do that?’ or saying ‘if only I could?’ Epstein talks here ‘An Ounce of Prevention’. There are many ways of creating an ounce of prevention – a simple way is by writing a list spending some time each day writing a list of things ‘we really have to must do’ and then of course there is the Urgent/Important Matrix

More to follow..............

1) Principles or assumptions on which NLP is based.

2) Former editor in chief of Psychology Today PhD in psychology from Harvard University

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

2011-09-11T10:45:00.006+01:00

‘Sorry’ seems to be the hardest word (1) and sometimes it’s not absolutely necessary to say sorry just to make amends (unless the client needs to hear the words ‘I apologise’).

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Bizarre Experience (well it could have been)

Bill recently had a problem with his car – he was 70+ miles from home – Bill has Roadside Recovery. Bill phoned the insurers – yes we’ll send someone within an hour, if they can’t repair your car they will take you and the car back home. 2 hours later the guy appeared from the recovery company! (Bill had suspected it would be over an hour based on a previous experience 3 years ago, so he wasn’t unduly worried, as he’d made contingency plans). But then the guy proceeded to tell him what the problem was with the car. So Bill asked him what the solution was? He told Bill the car needed a repair and he also told Bill the garage he was from could not carry out the repair on that day. He suggested Bill go to ‘X’ franchise. Bill asked about recovery home. He had a toing and froing discussion in which he was unfortunately in the middle. Finally the recovery guy agreed he would phone his office again, in the meantime Bill went back inside where he was staying and his mobile rang – the insurance company – a lady asked him what the problem was. Bill explained to her what had happened, and she asked him to hold whilst she phoned the recovery company. And then lo and behold she came back on the line to tell him the recovery company would repair his car that day! They would do it because it was more cost effective for them, than taking the car back to his home town. Later the insurance company phoned to say they would cover the labour and VAT!

What amazed Bill was if Bill had taken onboard what he was originally told, he would have been driving his own car to a franchise (when it wasn’t actually driveable) to have the work carried out! Or waiting until someone would ‘fit him in’ the next day or even Monday as this was Thursday! Now had he been at home this time lapse would probably have been acceptable!

On arriving at the garage everyone was polite, helpful and friendly as was the guy before, he and Bill just were going nowhere and Bill wanted to go somewhere!). To be honest saying ‘sorry’ or ‘my apologies’ wasn’t at all relevant – because something was being done.

Now, Bill as the customer avoided; getting angry, shouting, swearing, blaming etc. Bill said to the young man who had arrived with the recovery vehicle, ‘I understand you’re the one in the middle, it’s not about you.’ And he had needed to say 3 times (2) that he had roadside recovery before anything concrete was done.

It’s also about our ‘Model or Map of the World’ People respond to their map of reality and not to reality itself. We all create our own reality, whatever reality is, our reality is made up of sights, sounds and feelings, past experiences, beliefs and values to name but a few things. We all experience the world differently from one another: ask any five people you know what comes into their heads when you say the following words, separately: Elephant, Alarm, Velvet, Lemon and Smoke. People respond to their Model or Map of the World: a person’s values, beliefs and attitudes, as well as their internal representations, states and physiology, which all relate to and create their belief system of how the world operates. This relates to Korzybski’s General Semantics and his discussion of our Map or Model of the World (3)– the map is not the territory.

And in the English language we do have a problem we use the word ‘you’ which can mean ‘you the one person in front of me now’, or it can mean ‘you’ as ‘your company in general’, or it can also mean ‘you’ as in the sometimes used in the North of England or Scotland ‘youse lot’.

From the service provider point of view improved listening and being on receive instead of transmit really helps! So on the scale of transmit or receive, where are you?

A couple of years ago, one of my many clients, who was ex RAF (we have had several ex servicemen who have come to us to discover how they might potentially change the way they perceive the world, that’s a whole different story). This client said in respect of good and useful ‘listening’ – “ah you mean it’s about whether you are on ‘Transmit or Receive’?”

So do you listen and empathise, understand truly where the other person is coming from – NLP talks about people responding to their map of reality and not to reality itself?

1 Elton John 'Sorry seems to be he hardest word'

2 Edelman Trust Barometer p. 6 and Words that Change Minds, Rose Charvet, Kendal Hunt, 1995 – Convincer Mode Category
3 www.gestalt.org/semantic.htm.

2011-09-07T12:00:00.000+01:00

Become the person you really want to be

View more presentations from Rosie O'Hara

Business Relationships 6 Top Tips

2011-09-02T14:31:00.003+01:00

Business relationships 6 top tips

View more presentations from Rosie O'Hara

Making Sense of Speaking to Other People

2011-08-31T11:55:00.000+01:00

Making sense of speaking to other people

View more presentations from Rosie O'Hara

To Have or To Be

2011-08-19T12:02:00.000+01:00

To Have or To Be (1976) was Erich Fromm's last major work. In it he argues that two ways of existence were competing for 'the spirit of mankind' - having and being. The having mode looks to things and material possessions and is based on aggression and greed. The being mode is rooted in love and is concerned with shared experience and productive activity. The dominance of the having mode (as he argued in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness) was bringing the world to the edge of disaster (ecological, social and psychological). Erich Fromm argued that only a fundamental change in human character 'from a preponderance of the having mode to a preponderance of the being mode of existence can save us from a psychological and economic catastrophe' (1976: 165)

Now one of my favourite TV characters quoted this recently and then the London riots started! I was going to write a blog post before the riots and they many people have been writing articles, posts comments. Well I’ll still write mine.

Erich Fromm was a German philosopher and sometimes I think NLP is a bit like philosophy or philosophy is a bit like NLP. So many people believe NLP is only about techniques for stopping something or ‘curing’ something, that it’s just a trail of techniques.

Mmm NLP is about language and how we use language s0 for example had I just written ‘it’s about language and we use ‘it’, you could ask yourself what is ‘it’ what does that word ‘it’ mean, what have I deleted in that sentence and you could be thinking about something else at the time I utter the sentence and all kinds of things might happen in your mind and we might have an argument, a misunderstanding because I haven’t been clear about what I’m saying. That’s kind of philosophising;)

So NLP is a handy way (or methodology) for asking useful questions or being clear about what we are saying and how we are saying what we are saying. So NLP really is in the being mode, rooted in love and concerned with shared experience and productive activity, not as some parts of NLP are portrayed in things and material possessions. Although we can use NLP strategies and thinking to gain things and material possessions, whilst at the same time being mindful of other people and how we affect them, mindful of knowing what others are thinking, considering others.

I think, ‘personal opinion alert here’; that a great many people who now spend their time in social isolation from other people and thus do not have the social skills and graces, we once took for granted, who expect everything to be instant (as in messaging etc.) are; largely due to the fact that they are isolated from human contact that does not have a phone, a tablet PC, a laptop, a video player etc.; I think that not only do we find it difficult to communicate with other people, to check out if we are in rapport, if we are being sensitive to others needs, I think that we lack self esteem and/or confidence. And we assume that we will be confident with the right brand of whatever it is, if we have the right size TV (whatever that is). All kinds of social media constantly bombard us with adverts for other things, things we do not have, we can either go into overwhelm and shut ourselves away or we can believe we will e a better person if we have all this things, these accoutrements of celebrity.

NLP helps with the whole meaning, not just the words, it helps us to understand how to say things and what to say, it helps us to have confidence and it helps us to ask for our needs and to understand at times when these needs are not met, that the other person might not be listening, that we might need to change how we said it, that we might need to go away and try again.

To understand a little more about how people sometimes do strange things when in a crowd or group there is a great novel The Wave, in 2008 this novel was made into a very powerful film in Germany make some time to watch this film, it will give you insights into how easy it is for people to get carried away and the consequences.

Try a little NLP for self-esteem, confidence building, goal setting and so much more visit us here Make a plan, know that all the best laid plans will be beset by obstacles and if there is one pick yourself up, dust yourself down and start all over again.

Life is what you make it.

2011-08-16T14:45:00.002+01:00

You can move your life in any direction you want to, as long as you recognise the following:

· For your life to change, you must change

· You are responsible for making things happen

· You know what direction you want to move in

· You believe this direction is possible.

· You know how to produce the changes you want.

· You decide to start and you take the action.

NLP states that we posses all the resources we need, this is sometimes hard to understand or even believe. What I think it means is that if we want to do something then by turning our mind to it and being open to something we will be able to do that something. Some of the physical resources we may well need to source elsewhere. One of the ways we can try something out is to imagineer something, act ‘as if’ as we did as children, is by using a strategy NLP calls the Disney Strategy, the name comes from the fact that it was actually modelled on how Walt Disney himself worked and what he believed, more on this and how Robert Dilts modelled this into the Disney Creativity Strategy see this link here.

This strategy is a useful way to introduce the fundamental elements of NLP – we see, we hear, we act, and sometimes we underuse one or more of these attributes. The strategy shows how body posture affects our thoughts and actions and how changing posture can make us become even more effective. It’s good to carry this out with a friend or guide who asks the questions and gives you or the person exploring the opportunity to answer without the guide interjecting and interfering, you can also try it out for yourself.

As an overview identify what it is you are going to explore and the outcome you want to achieve. Choose a neutral place, and from there choose three places in front of you that you can step into: one for your dreamer (visionary space) one for your constructive critic (place that gets you space from the other two); and one for your realist (practical place).

A. ‘Dreamer’ The person for whom all things are possible

Your body – Head and eyes looking up; Posture – symmetrical and relaxed

B. ‘Realist’ The person who sorts things out

Your body – Head and eyes straight or slightly forward; Posture – symmetrical and centred

C. ‘Constructive Critic’

Your body – Eyes – down, Head – down and tilted, Posture – angular

Go to the Dreamer Position ‘Want to’ - think of a time when you were really creative, when your dreamer really generated some creative choices.

The Realist Position ‘How to’ - think back to a time when you were able to think very realistically and devised a plan to put an idea into action effectively.

The Constructive Critic ‘Chance to’ - identify a time when you constructively criticised a plan. A time when you identified potential weaknesses and came up with positive alternatives that dealt effectively with them.

When you have sufficient information move back to Dreamer – with a clear idea of what Dreamer is going to consider. (If Step 4 has been a bit tough – then a quick visit to “meta” to return a sense of balance before returning to Dreamer).

Access your creativity and let your mind be free as you see yourself accomplishing this goal and the processes leading up to it as a sequence of images.

Ask: Why are you doing this? What is the purpose? What are the payoffs?
How will you know you have them? Where do you want to be in the future?
Who do you want to be or be like?

Now step into the realist position and organise your ideas and your plan. Notice what you would need to change to make this a realistic sequence. The realist in you is likely to be quite kinaesthetic, the person of action.

Ask: What will you be doing? How specifically will the idea be implemented?
How will you know if the goal has been achieved? Who besides you is involved?
Are there time constraints? When will each phase be implemented?
When will the overall goal be completed? Where will each phase be carried out?

Step into the critic position and evaluate the plan. Ask questions like what is missing and what is needed? The critic is likely to operate mostly by talking to yourself (and that’s okay, we all do it).

Ask: How do all the elements of this plan fit together? Do any elements appear unbalanced?
What parts do not fit with the overall objective? Are any parts underdeveloped?
How possible is this within the time frame? Why is each step necessary?

Go back to the dreamer position to creatively change the plan using the information gathered from the realist and constructive critic. Continue to cycle through all three positions until you are happy with your plan in all three positions, if necessary.

So what will you do?

Becoming a Discerning Buyer Part 2

2011-08-02T12:51:00.002+01:00

Are we in fact entitled to anything, do we have the right to have everything we want, and when we want, immediately? Do we have the right to storm in somewhere and demand that someone fulfil our expectations (the other person is after all human). I would personally say sometimes we do have the right, I had a 3 day training session recently, on the first day everything went smoothly, on the second day our refreshments were not there at the start until we asked for them and then, ah lunch was not there and it got worse. I coolly, calmly and in a no-nonsense voice stated this is what we had had yesterday and this is what we expected today (especially as it had been confirmed). But someone somewhere ‘didn’t know what to do’, and hadn’t like to disturb me whilst training. Hey guys for food we would always like to be disturbed, we train better when we have been fed both me and the participants.

I refrained from going out of my way to ‘help them’ get their job right, the place was not busy, just different staff to the day before. And I’d actually in the course of some other work been in a position to make the management aware that the employee who was not proactive enough to come and ask what the timings were, was in fact not a proactive person so he is in this job why? It is not always the fault of the person we meet front of house, more often than management has failed to ensure the employee has the right tools, in this case the right personal confidence tools.

Now conversely if I have a problem with something, so recently my expensive designer watch that I purchase last December in an airport franchise shop was losing time. And I went into a jewellers in Inverness, as when I was in Aberdeen I didn’t have the guarantee with me and I could have decided because the shop assistants were all stood around very decoratively (seems a habit in jewellers), I could have decided they didn’t want to serve. I merely went up to someone well 2 someones who were chatting and asked, ‘excuse me would you help me please?’

2 rules

1) Always be polite

2) Always ask ‘would you’ instead of ‘could or can you’, especially ladies when asking a man ‘can is purely a questions of ability they will generally all say yes, then whether it is carried out or not is sometimes debateable.

I could have construed the shop assistants were a little dismissive, but you know I hadn’t bought the watch from there, it was the weekend I may not have had a suit or dress on probably jeans and to honest I just wanted to them to send it away securely for me in case something happened.

Needless to say a very pleasant young lady was pulled out from somewhere and dealt with the matter and around 10 days later the shop phoned to say the watch back and repaired under guarantee.

Problem solved and I thanked them. Whatever was going on for them was going on for them in their Model of the World see previous post and I was happy.

So sometimes it’s just that the shops are not employing proactive assistants, but then there are times when I would rather browse and/or look at the menu, I really would rather not have someone ‘pouncing on me’.

Any thoughts?

Becoming a discerning buyer

2011-07-31T15:12:00.000+01:00

Over the last 4 or 5 weeks I’ve listened to and observed (which is a large part of my job as an NLP Professional) various discussions, conversations call them what you may about ‘Customer Service’. I find this interesting I’ve written about ‘Entitlement’ before in March 2010 .

I’d like to invite you to look at ‘Customer Service’ in another way – we are all human beings, intelligent, thinking individuals in fact in the NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming click here to find out a little more about what this is ) that I use NLP regards each of us as being unique and different and as forming our own “Map or Model of the World”. People respond to their map of reality and not to reality itself. They respond to their Model of the World or Map of the World. (A person’s values, beliefs and attitudes, as well as their internal representations, states and physiology, which all relate to and create their belief system of how the world operates.)

So what I might expect from someone providing me with a service could be vastly different from what the store, restaurant, hotel etc. believes I ‘should’ have. Take hotels for example some hotels provide individual, tailored customer service, some have a rigid procedure they are a chain that provides X and Y and nothing more. In today’s world they are budget constraints as well and sometimes we can no longer have what we want because someone has ‘cut the budget for that’. This budget cutting can spill over into training and also to wages, so that no ‘proper’ training is provided and some managers assume their staff will learn by doing what they are doing and sometimes they employ the wrong staff because they fail to pay adequate salaries.

You might be saying ‘well that’s not my problem’ – mmm actually it is because when we go along with our expectations, we expect possibly to get more than we actually receive.

So I would first ask you to question ‘what is my expectation of this service I am wanting, and do this before you go into to the store, the shop, the restaurant, hotel etc. So to set a goal.

Secondly I was you to remember the person who is providing this service is a human being who might have had a really bad something,( insert journey, night, evening, morning, or anything else that comes into your mind) and they made need a couple of seconds to respond to you. We are not instant responders, we cannot immediately reprogram ourselves to to respond int the way the other person (the customer expects, well not immediately – can we?).

There will be more................. I invite comments

Paralysed by Options

2011-07-24T10:07:00.001+01:00

Are you ‘paralysed’ by options, opportunities, possibilities? So many things you could do and if you decided for one or the other of them, would you worry that there might have been or will be a better option, opportunity, or possibility coming along than the decision you made or are about to make?

I mentioned this recently at our NLP Practice Group and one of the participants said ‘when I heard that it sent a cold shiver down my spine, I can identify with that. I spend ages in inertia, and then I do miss out.’

The trouble with this way of reacting is we can then shrug our shoulders and say ‘oh well that wasn’t the right thing for me.’ ‘Another time maybe’, ‘that’s the way life is,’ ‘not my turn this time’. When we react in this way we might notice that there are other people around us who become infuriated, these people want us to ‘get a move one’, ‘for goodness sake – do something’, ‘do it now,’ ‘do it before it’s too late’.

The sad fact is we will only ‘do it now’ when it meets our personal criteria, those things which push our hot buttons, make us salivate. The things we know we really want to do.

You might be reading this and asking ‘what?’

We all have the ability to be proactive – so to get out and get things done, when it suits us, when it meets our criteria. And we all have the ability to do – nothing, to sit on our backside and wait. When we add other patterns in with these patterns (they are after all patterns of behaviour) in a given context then we will either do something or not. And we all have a period of time that it takes (in a given context and these contexts change, so I might act one way at work and another way at home or in personal relationships and in all of those contexts I might well act differently at different times – we are human beings, we do complex stuff), a period of time in which we are convinced. The LAB (Language and Behaviour Profile – Words that Change Minds) and the Edelmann Trust barometer both state that the average number of times it takes the majority of people to be convinced of something is 3 times [although Edelman also shows that this is closely followed by 3 to 5 times].

So when we are waiting for someone else to do something, to make a decision or whatever that is we want them to do what can we do? Well we can also find out if they are motivated by avoiding something, ‘I want to avoid - being overtired,’ ‘- working too long hours for too little money’, etc. Or are they motivated by what they will gain ‘I want to have a shorter working week’, ‘I’d like to have the freedom to choose my clients’ etc. Add whether they want to gain or avoid something into the mix and how many times they will need to hear or see or do something and we’re getting closer to getting them ‘to buy in’ to what we what to happen.

Interested in the above? The LAB Profile provides a set of questions and a great many examples of patterns and pattern combinations and words that change minds. You will need to listen out for what people are saying and use some of their words to influence, understand an motivate them and you can learn how to do this with us, in Scotland or the North of England more details here.
And if you are the one with the inertia because of the options we can add a little NLP technique or two to get you started!

Eisenhower was a very astute man

2011-07-06T14:28:00.012+01:00

And did you know that he came up with the Urgent/Important Matrix before Dr Stephen Covey? I didn’t, I just read this recently in the ILM (Institute of Leadership and Management) magazine Edge.

Eisenhower said ‘An intellectual is a man who takes more words than is necessary to tell more than he knows.’ (I’ve met some of those;) so this a brief version – our Plan & Prioritise Course gives more information on this as well as other useful NLP tips.

The Urgent/Important Matrix is about using time effectively, not just efficiently, and in my experience the more effectively you use time the more efficient you become.

In this day and age there just never seems to be enough time. Is this really true?

How often have you taken time out to ‘Stop and Stare’? And perhaps realise what you are doing is getting you nowhere. We're anxious, we can't concentrate, everything gets in the way, and then, we simply blow. We tell ourselves that we can do so much because we have so many ‘labour saving’ devices, mobiles, PCs, laptops, we can be contacted anywhere at any time.

In spite of all these gadgets and online calendars (that everyone can set us up appointments with (if we let them) – do we really mange our time efficiently?

Do we spend our time on things that are important and not just urgent? It’s important to distinguish between important and just urgent.

· Important activities have an outcome that leads to the achievement of your goals.

· Urgent activities demand immediate attention, and are often associated with the achievement of someone else's goals (ah had you noticed that?).

We often concentrate on just urgent activities. The things that make the most noise, the things that demand attention because the consequences of not dealing with them are immediate.

The Urgent/Important Matrix is a useful tool for thinking about this.

Eisenhower said, ‘What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.’ This so-called "Eisenhower Principle" is purported to be how Eisenhower organized his tasks. Dr Stephen Covey made the idea more public in his business classic, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". Covey called it the "The Urgent/Important Matrix"

We use it on our business courses and on our NLP Master Practitioner Course:

The Urgent/Important Matrix is a powerful way to use to think about priorities. Using it helps you prevent the natural tendency to focus on urgent activities, so that you learn to keep enough time to focus on what's really important. This is the way you move from "fire fighting", into a position where you can grow your business and your career.

This is how it works

Divide and A 4 page into 4 quadrants -

Urgent Non-Urgent

Important	I Activities Crises Pressing Problems Deadline driven projects	II Prevention Relationship building Recognising new appointments Planning recreation
Non-Important	III Interruptions, some phone calls Some mail, some reports Some meetings Proximate, pressing matters Popular activities	IV Trivia, busy work Some mail Some phone calls Time wasters Pleasant activities

Assess the importance of all the activities on a scale of 1 to 5

Remember Eisenhower also said: ‘Leadership - the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it.’

When people see you are clear about your objectives and boundaries, they will generally not ask you to do "not important" activities in the future, and at best do it themselves or find someone else.

Check out here what we offer you in the way of NLP business courses with ILM and we can also tailor courses for you

The Meaning of the Word No

2011-06-27T16:38:00.001+01:00

Things people say!
Today I had a call from Adam, Adam from BT that’s British Telecom (his words). Ah I thought, this will be about spending money.

I was impressed to begin with – he realised I answer the phone using my name and asked “Oh is that Rosie?” Now mostly I don’t mind strange young men addressing me by first name, this can of course rapidly change! I never did find out what he wanted as the conversation went like this.

“Oh you’re an NLP Practitioner” (thought in my head no I’m not), “do you mainly work with therapy or corporate clients” again I was impressed not an assumption either way. And at this point I didn’t actually know he was from BT, but I did know he was Adam.

So plus points he has a name, and he’s given it, and he’s asked a question which engaged my interest and he showed some thought had gone into this phone call (an assumption on my part).

Then he proceeded to say something pretty unintelligible about attracting more clients. I suspect he may have done a selling course and learned a few thing about selling and perhaps even something about NLP and there’s a but here. He also mentioned again I was an NLP Practitioner. I said (nicely) actually I’m a Trainer and I own this company (I’m answering this phone because I can and because it’s about quarter to 3 on a Friday afternoon – who makes sales phone calls at this time of day and week?).

“Oh well a Trainer then” how would you like more clients?

I said “Adam I think we need to finish this call as I have to go (I had an appointment at 3 pm) and I don’t actually want what you are offering.”

“Oh" he said “I don’t know why you’ve got your back up”. Well up to that point I hadn’t, I just wanted to go and I don’t want to spend money on advertising with BT for many reasons one of which is geographic. I said this to him. And I asked “why are you assuming I’ve got my back up, because I don’t want to talk to you?” He told me I wasn’t listening to him and that I was making assumptions.

There’s something wrong here. And I suspect all my readers can work out what. I replied “I have to be somewhere in 10 minutes, I am not interested and I suggest you go on an NLP course, good bye”. And I hung up.

Why oh why do these poor people believe the person they are speaking to is abusive, doesn’t listen or anything else, when we state our point?

Like to know more about listening? Find us at http://www.nlphighland.co.uk/

Culture Club or Culture Clash?

2011-06-22T14:20:00.001+01:00

We often hear people speaking of ‘a clash of cultures’. What does this mean? First there’s ‘culture’ – linguistically the so-called nominalisation (a word that has been frozen in time and can mean different things to different people). One way of thinking about ‘culture’ is as a set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organisation or group.

Do the individuals in your institution, organisation or group share some or all of these characterising attitudes, values, goals, and practices? Or is it sometimes challenging to understand others, to get people to understand you and to get them to do what they are ‘supposed’ to do? If that’s the case, what do you do?

There are various tools, techniques and one particular rigorously tested methodology using psychometrics and the language that others use to facilitate improved organisational understanding and working together. One technique is mentally first of all thinking about the situation from our own point of view and then from the other person’s point of view, next mentally moving to a balcony position noticing the interaction between yourself and that other person. Then from the balcony position mentally moving back to being yourself, taking back the information we have gathered and noticing how we might do things differently next time (or not). This helps us to remember that other people experience the world in a completely different way to us.

I mentioned the rigorously tested methodology using psychometrics and the language individuals use, this is a real help in ‘culture clashes’. Situation: You know what you want to achieve, you can clearly see the benefits, you want to move, now. And they are just not going with you. Conversely as the other person - there’s a lot of detail here and you know what the problems are which you must at all costs avoid and you feel you need some time to consider the matter.

Person A who wants to achieve etc. might say to Person B “I’ve taken some time to consider all the detailed information you’ve given me, and I appreciate the time you have spent on it and the problems you feel we must avoid, so (and really good rapport and a soft tonality is required here) let’s consider why now is the right time to….. Try it out for yourself.” (For what person B would say, contact me).

Some more culture language tips – Are you the kind of person who talks about what you will - attain, obtain, have, get, include, achieve, accomplish about the benefits, advantages. And do people who use this kind of language - avoid, prevent, eliminate, solve, get rid of, won’t have to, let’s find out what’s wrong, drive you up the wall or vice versa? Well experience shows me and hundreds of people I’ve worked with, as well as the statistics; or for others of you I can give you more details on all the information you need to decide showing – that when you use the language of those people who ‘drive you up the wall’, ‘who just don’t see, things the way you do’, or ‘get stuck in the detail when there’s a clear way forward’ then you will get the result you want to achieve …. or be able to avoid the problem. So Culture Club or Culture Clash?

I hope you find this article interesting and useful – it’s food for thought. If you’d like to know more please contact me. Rosie O’Hara: 01309 676004, 07796134081, http://www.nlphighland.co.uk/ and / or join us on a LAB Profile Course to learn more in Aberdeen or Dundee in July 2011.

Can you Receive Feedback?

2011-06-15T07:45:00.000+01:00

Well how good or comfortable are with the idea?
We have guidelines on our NLP courses for giving feedback they are like this -

Any criticism, either direct or implied is forbidden – feedback is intended as feedback in terms of something you have done and on the one hand it’s there to improve something when you are learning. And for me we are always learning.

Should you notice something wrong - before speaking think of what you want instead and use the format given below.

Make a suggestion. Give 2 reasons why you think it is a good idea: one reason states what the suggestion would accomplish (the benefit), and one reason would state what problem the suggestion would prevent or solve.

Make an encouraging comment about the person, his/her abilities, etc.

There are times when it’s really important to let someone know there is a problem, when there is possibly not a lot they are doing that is useful, then you might actually need to ask something along the lines of ‘do you want to continue doing this?.

What’s important here this is a comment or question about your Behaviour, in NLP we separate out Behaviour from identity, so because I do something that is wrong, in correct, not quite right, it’s about my Behaviour, not about me. So I’m still whoever I was before, just my behaviour was not quite right and improving it or changing it using the skills I am learning will get us all to where we need to be ‘on the same page’, ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’, ‘playing in the same team’, or other appropriate (for us) metaphor.

So here’s the news it’s our Behaviour that’s being ‘criticised’ not us, we are still okay and when that’s in connection with something we are learning then it means, assuming it comes from a more learned person than us, that it’s the Behaviour we could do with changing,

So listen carefully, avoid getting defensive – fully consider what you have been told and just say thank you, making a mental note of any disagreements. Ask questions or ask for examples to clarify when you are unsure. Evaluate the potential value of what you have heard. Gather information from the person giving you the feedback and subsequently note your own behaviour and other people’s reactions.
And in LAB Profile terms the patterns for receiving feedback are - be External to the giver – so listen, listen, and then be Away From your previous behaviour, Towards new Options or Procedures ad be Proactive.
More about the LAB profile here. For NLP courses from us.

Do you Believe Everyone is Against You?

2011-05-02T12:10:00.001+01:00

I’m just reading Sue Knight’s excellent NLP at Work 3rd edition and last night was looking at the chapter on ‘Beliefs of Excellence’. Reading about ‘Beliefs in the Workplace’ and company cultures and how the way in which we word instructions not only reveals the beliefs of the person who wrote the instructions, but also the wording will draw us into those beliefs and that mode of thinking, for example Sue cites vans or lorries with the inscription ‘if you see this vehicle being driven badly, phone ….’. As Sue says this implies a belief that there will be bad drivers and that we will only give attention to ‘bad behaviour’.

Two things spring to my mind: one is "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all". [This moral is now known by such names as the "Thumperian principle", "Thumper's rule" or "Thumper's law“(quoted in Complex Problem Solving Robert J. Sternberg, Peter A. Frensch)]

The second is I completed some training with another training company earlier this year and one of their feed back questions to themselves and another person with whom you are working is along the lines of ‘Something you did which did not work for me’. My answer was ‘there was nothing that didn’t work for me’. I was told I ‘had’ to find something that didn’t work for me! To me that’s bizarre. Why do I need to look for that?

When I returned home I started to consider some of the questions on our feedback form for our NLP Practitioner Modules in particular. What did they do for people’s thinking? Where were ‘we’ driving them to go to think? We had taken over or inherited our forms from other people. So were we causing people to ‘nitpick’? Or was it that it some industries where ‘risk assessment’ is paramount, for many people they believe or seem to believe that ‘feedback’ requires ‘character assassination’ or ‘denigration’ of the other person. Oo interesting I thought. So I made some changes to our feedback form, we now ask:

What did you like about this weekend?
We convey the belief there was something to be liked and ask the person to concentrate on what they liked. After all we’d like learning to a be a positive experience and we want people to move forward with what they have learned and taking the good learnings into their lives and begin to make small changes for themselves and others.

What would you tell others about this weekend?
Carrying from the above belief, so what will they tell others, this enables more thinking about what they liked and what of that will they tell others.

What could we do better for you personally?
I like this one – 2 weekends in a row one person wrote ‘provide a quiet place for me to work in’. I gave no response to the first time. After the second time (because 3 times it’s a pattern!], I opened up the opportunity to discuss the new forms (and this question and the following one). I mentioned to this person what they had written, asking at the same time was it better to learn NLP by reading and discussion, or was it better to learn by experiencing, carrying out techniques, answering questions, learning by making mistakes under guidance? All those present agreed experience etc. was far better. ‘So’ I asked the person who wanted a quiet place, ‘what would be best for your learning’. ‘Ah’ they replied, ‘Being in a quiet place would be away from the all the others. That wouldn’t work. I think I don’t listen to what’s being said to me’.

What will you do for us to help you to do the above?

So we (the participant above) and I are working on that particular one, we are now going to have a private session. The good point about this is, that the person is becoming more response-able, rather than telling us and others that we are causing the problems and we need to do things for them. So I’m hoping (yes hoping because I can lead my participant to using NLP effectively, however I can’t ‘make’ them learn from NLP – they will ‘have’ to do that themselves), hoping that we get a result that is good for all of us, participant, me the trainer and the others on the course and other people whom this person comes into contact with.

I believe a good and useful result is possible.

Too many Easter Eggs? Changin' Submodalities

2011-04-25T12:25:00.002+01:00

Too many Easter Eggs? Too much chocolate? Like to change that?

Now, you can change the submodalities of food. After all, if people are appealing and not good for us, what stops us from making food less appealing? If you’ve ever given anything up, you will have already used this kind of technique in some way, so you could work that out. What did you change around chocolate, wine, cigarettes? Can you work that out?

Some tips and hints on smoking: if it’s the taste that’s so inviting, then what is it about the taste? Is there a point at which you no longer like the taste? Do you like the smell on your clothes, your hands? Your breath? Do you like the taste in your mouth next morning? Do you like the coughing? Do you like the feeling of tightness in your chest when you walk fast or run?

What is it about smoking that you like? And what is it about smoking you dislike?

So if you like the smell of the tobacco and you hate the taste in your mouth later, then every time you smell the tobacco, fast forward your sense to the taste in your mouth, the prickling on your tongue, the ‘old ashtray’ taste and turn that up. Practise, practise, and practise a little more and you will then succeed in resisting the urge, be warned it takes at least 30 days for nicotine to leave your system so you have to hang on in there.

Chocolate or cakes? Next time you see a bar of chocolate or a cake in shop, think of this – imagine the chocolate (or cake) the luscious irresistible taste, as you open your mouth and take the first bite. Imagine biting into it and taking it into your mouth, then after you have chewed it well, swallow and notice how it slides down your gullet and into your stomach. Once in your stomach, it’s met by all the digestive acids and the other contents of your stomach, it turns into a brown mass covered in acids and goo. See it down there, hear it gurgling, notice what it might taste like now. Would you want it now? As it turns into poor-quality sugars and fats?

You can do similar things with other foods and addictions. You can notice how bright and inviting some things appear to your mind (and stomach) and turn the submodalities down, make them dark, dull, uninviting. For things that you perhaps might be better off eating, turn the submodalities up a little; think about what the long-term effect of eating healthily will be for you. Act ‘as if’ you are healthy. What’s that like? What do you do? What can you do better? What can you see yourself doing? What do others see you doing? What will others say about you? What will you say about you? How will you feel?

Pink & Fluffy (Submodalities)

2011-04-22T12:05:00.001+01:00

I recently posted this quote from Steven Pinker on Facebook ‘Emotions are the mechanisms that set the brains’ highest level – no sharp line divides thinking from feeling.’ I added the comment to it, that emotions are ‘submodalities’ and one of the page followers queried ‘submodalities’, that prompted me to write this blog post.

When I introduce our NLP courses, I often start wearing a pink and fluffy scarf nowadays! It’s to check in with some people who are a bit concerned and others who aren’t aware that yet, especially some of the logical straight thinking people I work with, that there will bits of this NLP course, which might be a ‘little strange, you might not have thought about it, and you might at some point start thinking that you might not want to think about these things!

In Using Your Brain for a Change, Richard Bandler, one of the co-creators of NLP (other creators are available;)) says – ‘All the things that go on in your mind affect you, and they’re all potentially within your control’. And he’s right you know. Who was it who said ‘I spent a large part of my life worrying about things that never happened?’ to worry we need submodalities, to have emotions (which are non-tangible happenings we create ourselves) we need submodalities, to know that we like certain foods more than others, who or what we dislike, to worry, to love, to hate and so much more, we use submodalities.

So what are they? Well the sensory modalities in NLP are the 5 senses, seeing, hearing, touching/moving, taste and smell (VAKOG in technical NLP terms) and the submodalities are the finite elements, the building blocks which make these sensory up and also form our emotions (feelings as we often call them – but that’s another post).

I’m going to quote some more here – the following comes from my first NLP Trainer – Cricket Kemp the lady who set me on ‘The Road Less Traveled’ (my Mum quoting Robert Frost here and I’m all the better for it), this also forms part of our Diploma and Practitioner Manuals.

Cricket writes - Think of submodalities as tiny changes in the representational systems as we process internally (or occasionally externally, as in ‘seeing red’). So what you see may be big, small, close, far away, dull, bright, moving, still, etc. What you hear may be loud, soft, shrill, soothing, behind you, inside or outside, etc. What you feel may be still, moving, warm, cool, pointed, dull, outside, inside, etc. These differences seem to be the means by which we keep our external behaviour reasonably consistent.

Think about two of your friends, one of whom is your best friend, and the other of whom is your nearly best friend. How do you know, without thinking about it or consciously adjusting yourself, how to greet each of them, to reflect your slightly different feelings for them? Submodalities seem to be the answer. We appear to have a ‘filing system’ where we keep almost all of our internal information, and it is coded by submodalities to tell us where to find it, and how to respond to it. We file things such as people, beliefs, reality, school subjects we ‘can do’, and things we ‘have to do’. These systems are individual and unique. Indeed sometimes, one person’s system is opposite to another’s. One person may keep people they don’t trust large, close up, colours bright, and noisy. Another person may keep people they don’t trust small, far away, dull and quiet. What seems to be the case, though, is that we are each consistent in our own filing system.

There are a number of other implications of a system of submodalities. Someone who has the same internal coding for things that really happen and things they imagine have happened, will have little sense of reality. People who have the same coding for ‘have to do’ as they do for something they ‘could do’ are unlikely to be dependable in their promises. So sometimes the absence of a desired behaviour may be due to the absence of the necessary coding or file!

Sometimes we simply mis-file people or information, perhaps because of the way in which we originally received and perceived the message. This is why it is so harmful to most people when a teacher says, ‘Lots of you may find this difficult.’ Whatever comes next is filed by many people as ‘difficult’ and as a result, they find it more difficult to do it! And we could use this system well by eliciting the appropriate submodalities for an experience, and slipping in our communication, knowing that it will be appropriately filed!

Next time something on changing the submodalities of food and some other compulsions;). Meanwhile enjoy the Easter eggs!

Freeze Framing

2011-04-15T12:22:00.001+01:00

I was recently talking to someone about the level of detail they were getting ‘lost’ in. By that I mean he had so much detail buzzing around, things he wanted to do, and things he had done, and other people, and things that other people were doing and, and, and that he was either doing nothing, or due to his largely external reference’ (putting other people first) doing things for other people before prioritising his own needs, or those of his family, or even those of business associates.

Have you come across that kind of person, ‘yes, I will’, ‘I’d love to’, ‘I’ll help you’, and then they either do something completely different because they got lost in their own detail and either the images (visual preference) they were making in their mind or if they talk to themselves (auditory or even auditory digital preference) at the same time they actually talk over what you’ve been saying, but in their own head so they can’t hear what you’re saying. And then they do what they’ve been saying to themselves.

So thinking about this - we chatted about what his images are like, ‘are they still?’, ‘are they moving?’, ‘is there more than one?’(It might be just one movie or one jumble, I don’t know and I don’t really want to ask him in case he gets them messed up by my asking a direct question). Similarly I need to be careful that I refrain from asking if they are ‘pictures’ at the moment, even though I suspect they may not be separate images.

So I ask him: ‘When you see these images, what are you seeing’, then wait for his responses, and ask him more questions such as ‘are they near or far?’, ‘colour or black and white?’, ‘large or small?’.

Then I ask him ‘what’s important to you?’ either about these pictures or what he wants in life, some of this dependent on how he’s answered before, on his answers, not what I think he needs or should do.

And then I ask him to ‘put a frame around those images which are important’ to him and check out ‘what these images are doing now?’. There’s lots of scope here, his images might move away:- ‘are they still important?’, they might continue to move so I might say to him ‘as these images are moving, see them …. still …. and as you are seeing them still… what do you notice?’ Does he want or need to pull them closer, what happens when he does? Does he want or need to stick/tack/add some of them to make a film, make a gallery? What happens? What does he need to do to make this more compelling?

More later.............

Are you clear about what you want to do in life? Really clear?

2011-04-10T12:30:00.001+01:00

Do you have an overview of concepts? Such as lots of buzz words, good ideas and very much ‘yes I’ll do that’, but without putting much thought into it?

Or do you have lots of ideas and thoughts and kind of plans and you seem ‘not to really get anywhere’? A bit stuck.

May be you need a plan?

Planning, explaining saves fire fighting. A plan, will avoid so many problems and get you what you want

Answer all of the questions below. Get someone else to read the questions out to you preferably and to write your answers down; you can think better that way. If some of the questions don’t make sense, then go onto the next question, just leave that one out. When you’ve finished, then sit together and start to work out what you could do and where you need to go to ask more questions.

What do you want and where do you want to be?

Where you going / what are are working towards?

What problems do you want to avoid?

Do you know anyone else who has done this kind of thing? Would it be ok to ask them for some info on what the pitfalls were? Any tips they might have?

What will this (thing you want to do) look like?

What will this (thing you want to do) sound like?

What will this (thing you want to do) feel like?

How will you feel?

Do you need any support?

What sequence of steps or stages will you need to put in place to achieve what you want?

What will this help you to avoid?

How will you divide what you want into small enough chunks or steps so that each one is do-able?

What else needs to be there for you to achieve this (thing you want to do) and for you to know that this (thing you want to do) is really right for you and your family?

Is this (thing you want to do) right for you in all circumstances in your life?

Is this (thing you want to do) appropriate for your personal relationships?

What will this (thing you want to do) it give you that you might not have had before?

What will having this (thing you want to do) cause you to lose?

Does any part of you object to putting all of this in place?

(If so how will you deal with that?)

Is it within your power or ability to achieve this?

What is the first step?

Can you take this first step?

Off you go…… after all what’s stopping you?

Or .. join us for a course to set you on track or help you avoid problems in life, more details here

Sorting Hats/Sorting Categories

2011-04-01T12:24:00.000+01:00

You know or you’ve heard of Harry Potter perhaps? And the sorting hat? Well we have ‘sorting categories’. We communicate these in everything we say and do (unconscious physical reactions this so-called body language stuff – I hate the phrase ‘body language’ – because it’s often used to put people in a category without taking the time and trouble to find out who someone is, how they tick, what they do). Anyway we sort according to what we consider to be important. We sort according to particular categories of experience. We judge our own successes using these sorting categories and criteria and we act accordingly.

Every sentence we speak gives our sorting categories or criteria away; what we talk about; what we miss out; what we complain about. Listening carefully to others asking simple questions helps us find out about how others sort and order their criteria. Once you know what matters to the other person, you can make what you say matter by matching their sorting categories and criteria.

Sorting Categories

There are the patterns (the programming part of NLP that has been programmed into us from birth in our family, through school, through work, through education and our culture), the patterns which show up in the types of things individuals pay attention to. Traditionally, to create empathy (have rapport) with another, you find out what they are interested in, and talk about their interest. Problems can arise if they are fanatical about bird watching, your comparative ignorance may be embarrassingly obvious. Now sorting categories will help you recognise how the person talks about bird watching - does she tell you where she does it, when, and who with? Identifying the types of information a person naturally responds to, and having the flexibility to offer the same kind of information will mean you will be able to generate understanding and enhance rapport, regardless of the subject matter.

Some common sorting categories using the Language and Behaviour Profile people (self and/or other), proximity/independent/co-operative, or do they need to see/hear/read/do to be convinced of something.

Criteria (Values)

When we speak about our concerns we give away our values to anyone who is tuned to listening. Our criteria for what we consider to be worthwhile or valuable are deeply connected to our belief systems. The values we have embedded in our core beliefs are the key to our actions and the key to enable us to change those actions. In order to change yourself and influence others it is important to identify the principles, qualities and standards that are satisfying to an individual. These criteria are hierarchically arranged in a hierarchy special to that individual only.

Beyond satisfying survival needs as Maslow’s much misquoted Hierarchy of Needs gives- food, water, shelter and sex - people appear to be motivated by three types of satisfactions:

1. Identity - discovering, knowing and confirming who you are.

2. Connectedness - love or a feeling of belonging to a person or group.

3. Potency - a feeling that what you do has impact.

The skills of noticing and utilising the sorting categories and criteria of others develop with practice, and give useful leverage in communicating.

More on this subject later……………

Avoid, Focus, Opportunity

2011-03-19T19:04:00.000Z

No 3 Avoid

You know avoiding is actually okay. It’s okay to like to problems, it’s okay to talk about problems

BUT - there are people who think and say you ‘should’ use positive thinking, avoiding something talking about you want to avoid, prevent, eliminate, solve, get rid of, won’t have to, find out what’s wrong with something that’s what makes some people act and do something because they want to ‘move away from’ something. And if problems ‘float your boat’ - and after all why did Noah build The Ark? To get ‘away from’ the flooding and he used the floods to sail onto a better place so he used some away from thinking to get him to somewhere else.

Problems arise when we continuously concentrate on problems, or when we continuously concentrate just on what will achieve, after all we need some money in the bank to get there.

Take the word ‘risk’ it can mean different things to different people, such as danger, high risk investments, financial/loans/losing money, seeing red, risk review meeting, something you could lose, take a chance, risk assessment, wanting to know more - give me details or it’s something undesirable that may happen.

In that sample of answers to the question ‘what does risk mean to you?’ most people may on the face of it be putting a negative connotation on ‘risk’ and all that can mean is that they are being cautious perhaps planning. Negative answers and/or thoughts are only truly negative when we are completely ‘Away From’ and stop and wait and at the extreme never get started until someone pushes us, so we are being ‘Reactive’.

Some people are perhaps ‘hedging their bets’ but that may be until they get more information or the time is right for them to move, others are viewing risk as an opportunity – to avoid maybe or to move on elsewhere.

Wherever people are in their language, and to help you avoid problems - the LAB (Language and Behaviour) Profile has language clues which help you to spot where they are, to use their language to work with them as a coach, as a facilitator, as a mediator, as a manager, for all the information you need to decide if the LAB profile is right for you visit here and for what other people say visit here .

Opportunity, Focus, Avoid

2011-03-17T12:30:00.002Z

No. 2 Opportunity

It’s kind of linked to the previous post on Focus, if there’s no focus, then you’ll run the danger of missing the opportunity.

How do you create opportunities? Make a list, make several lists. What do you want to do in life? What do you want to do in your work? What do you want to do with your family?

And what happens if life presents you with lemons? Make lemonade? And use the left over skins to soften your elbow skin?

Any crisis, no matter how large or small is an opportunity. It’s fine to have some down time, by that I mean it’s fine to feel down, fed up, sick as a parrot, for a short time then what opportunities are there? What opportunities might there be? What connections have you made?

Do you need to phone a friend? In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson ‘A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud’. Friends are non-judgmental they’re allowed to make comments such as ‘it’s a stupid idea’ remember it’s the idea that they think is stupid, not you. You asked them to listen, expect a comment, what you do with it, is up to you. You can still go and find another friend to listen. Avoid however asking and asking and not listening to the all the answers or the whole answer, in the vain attempt to find the response you want. A neat metaphor from one of my practitioners springs to mind here –

Written for someone who was good at making decisions for other people based on the information they thought they had gathered –

That reminds me of the story about old MacDonald Farm. On that the farm there was 2 sheep, 2 cats, 2 dogs and 6 ducks. The 2 cats called Sid and Ferdie were in the barn together when Ferdie asked Sid whether they should have a fancy dress party or a Ceildh. Sid thought about this and believed the farm community would love a Ceildh as he believed it would be a lot of fun. Sid was eager to begin to organise the Ceildh. However, Ferdie give a massive a big MEOWWWW “hold on mate” what about asking Betsy & Maisy (the 2 sheep), Bart & Madge (2 dogs), the 6 ducks and me what we want. Ferdie shouted so loud that he stopped Sid in his tracks. Sid said “oh maybe that your right I’m deciding what is best for the farm community before asking the others” Ferdie suggested to Sid to put a vote out and ask the others what they want and why they would prefer a specific option. Surprisingly to Sid there were 10 votes for fancy dress party and 2 votes for Ceildh. The main reason that each animal choose the fancy dress option party was that they were bored of Ceildhs and they wanted to do something new.

Anyway opportunities, make lists of things you want to do, have, check out which ones are achievable, the ones you can put into action, which ones need help from others and ask for help/assistance, which ones are BHAGS (big hairy audacious goals). Speak to lots of people, network (this can be anywhere where there are potential clients/customers for you), use social media.

And whilst you’re waiting for something to happen, do something else and plan for avoiding, see next blog post.

Focus, Opportunity, Avoid

2011-03-15T12:47:00.001Z

No. 1 - Focus

Where’s your focus? What opportunities are there? What if anything would it be useful to avoid.

If you fail to focus and if you focus is not single minded – you won’t get there – I mean when you’re driving a car, you concentrate on where you going don’t you?

Here’s an abridged excerpt from ‘No More Bingo Dresses’ – this was part of me getting myself, and business ‘back on track’ for 3 weeks to the day after my op;)

Think about what you want and make an image of it, out in front of you, either as a picture or something panoramic (no frame). Add colour to that image and add absolutely anything into that image that you want to happen.

So for me it was presenting to 70 people, I already knew the room I would be presenting in, so imagined it full of 70 people, mainly women in this case, lots of different colours there and I saw a man in a dark suit, the other presenter and I saw me. Me with my hair newly coloured and done by the hairdresser, me in a new red jacket and brown trousers.

I heard someone introducing me, I heard myself speaking and I heard applause at the end of it.

And I felt how I would feel at the end of my 15 minute presentation, a good warm feeling in my stomach that I had stood up there, 3 weeks to the day after my op.

So I saw all of this happening, and I heard it in surround sound, and I felt it in every cell of my body. And it happened like that. I practised this happening before I went into hospital and I built the image up with the things I could see and the sounds I could hear and the feelings I could feel and I pulled this image towards me and I stepped into all of this and I checked out what it would be like.

Now if you think this is difficult and that you can’t do it, that you can’t see things, start from the sense that is easiest for you, feel how it will feel for you or hear what you will hear, what you are saying or what others are saying, and then add the parts from the seeing or the feeling. Practise and practise adding bits in, until you can get this whole sensory experience in your mind. It’s important that you add elements from all the senses. I once had a course participant who set this kind of Compelling Purpose up and I listened in, whilst she and someone else worked together and I noticed something was missing, so asked the person working with her, “What’s missing?” he thought a little and said “she wants to set up a client based business, which requires clients to come into her office and there are no people in what she is seeing, everything else is there.” Yes and she said she “couldn’t put the people in there, as she didn’t know who they were”. This was in May, and do you know what? By December she had given up her business!

‘No More Bingo Dresses’ published by MX Publishing is out on 25th May 2011 pre-order from Amazon for the UK here for other country links click here 'No More Bingo Dresses' blog click here

Dabblers, Hackers, Compulsives, Masters and Mistresses

2011-03-13T12:23:00.002Z

This quote comes from my mentor John Seymour:

Dabblers . . . get bored and move on

Hackers . . . plateau out at basic skill levels

Compulsives . . . push harder to get to higher plateaus and then burn out

However, masters (and mistresses) continue to practice and refine fundamental skills at every opportunity

He’s talking about people on courses or (for me) where our locus of focus is.

Dabblers are seeking something, they’re never quite happy, they’re looking for something, they never quite finish and they blame other people, other things, they are prevented from doing things by things which (they believe) are outwith their control.

Hackers want to, but they can’t, they believe they are controlled by higher forces, limitations, they want someone to fix them. What I have to change? I have to put some effort into this?

Compulsives push, push the trainer, push the others, push themselves and find it rally hard to listen to others, to watch and observe, to learn from their mistakes and those of others. They are often good are giving advice to others ‘If that were me I would learn from (in NLP terms model) what so and so is doing’ – but they don’t apply advice to self. After all they can do it better.

Masters (and mistresses) continue to practise [and yes in UK English the verb is with an ‘s’] and refine fundamental skills at every opportunity. After all “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect” Vince Lombardi.

After all in the words of the song ‘Pick Yourself up, dust yourself down, and start all over again’ click here

What (I find) also interesting, is that for Dabblers, Hackers, and Compulsives, there are LAB (Language and Behaviour) Profile Patterns, they are also ones for Masters and Mistresses, the first 3 wil have a great deal in common with another and the people will have common patterns, the latter two will be different. After all it’s the difference that makes the difference. Like to know more? Contact us here.

The Current Economic Climate and other hypnotic phrases

2011-03-11T12:24:00.002Z

I mentioned the phrase ‘the current economic climate’ when I was practising some NLP with some colleagues down in North Shields recently and one of my colleagues said “great hypnotic phrase that”. And I thought about his comment, and what he meant.

We use phrases every day that enable us to go into a trance like state and then do …… nothing and that’s what he meant.

We use phrases ‘the current economic climate’, ‘the recession’, ‘the terrible things the banks did’, ‘there’s no money’, etc. and we do ……………….. nothing. We allow those phrases to be hypnotic – we all go into a transderivational search: this means we essentially search back through our stored memories and mental representations and find some kind of the reference experiences or even we just do – nothing. Is this because we are waiting for ‘them’ to have the answer?

From a linguistic standpoint, a transderivational search involves searching back through your personal experiences to find a reference for what someone is talking about.

Grinder and Bandler (who brought NLP into being) proposed the notion of transderivational search as an explanation of some of the language patterns used by Milton Erickson – to make a transderivational search “the Client activates a search for an additional deep structure which is more relevant to his ongoing experience”. For example “I had an accident” would involve going back through your own personal history to find personal reference experience for “accidents”. One person might recall a car accident; another might recall spilling the milk. The word “accident” is essentially a trigger for a group of related representations.

So we may well search for this subconsciously or unconsciously and come up with nothing, so we do ………. nothing. Transderivational search becomes the basis of the phenomena of hypnotic suggestion – and just as it is purposely used in hypnotic suggestion it helps us or somewhere to create and direct our consciousness.

This is probably done inadvertently – but the consequence currently is that we are waiting in the belief that nothing can be done, paralysed like rabbits in the headlights or meerkats, waiting.

We are going to wait, perhaps until we understand, we are going to think about ‘it’ or ‘things’, some of us or someone might analyse ‘the situation’, consider, and then they might, could, or would do something. In the meantime what is happening? Whilst we’re in this hypnotic trance? How will we break it? Maybe if we ask ourselves and/or others ‘so what has to happen for us to consider things?’ ‘And now that we’ve considered things what information do we need to move on?’ And then what happens?

Transderivational search information taken from Robert Dilts - for more information see the NLP Encyclopaedia entry 1467 www.nlpu.com

Transmit or Receive? - Communicating Effectively

2011-03-09T13:33:00.000Z

So on the scale of transmit or receive, where are you? A couple of years ago, one of my many clients, who was ex RAF (we have had several ex servicemen who have come to us to discover how they might potentially change the way they perceive the world, that’s a whole different story). This client said in respect of good and useful ‘listening’ – “ah you mean it’s about whether you are on ‘Transmit or Receive’?”

So do you listen and empathise, understand truly where the other person is coming from – NLP talks about people responding to their map of reality and not to reality itself? We all create our own reality, whatever reality is, made of sights, sounds and feelings, past experiences, beliefs and values to name but a few things. We all experience the world differently from one another: ask any five people you know what comes into their heads when you say the following words, separately: Elephant, Alarm, Velvet, Lemon and Smoke. People respond to their Model or Map of the World: that is a person’s values, beliefs and attitudes, as well as their internal representations, states and physiology, which all relate to and create their belief system of how the world operates. This relates to Korzybski’s General Semantics and his discussion of our Map or Model of the World – the map is not the territory.

So are you able (and perhaps more importantly are you willing) to put your map of the world on one side and perhaps even ‘try on the other person’s shoes’ (NLP has a great technique for doing this Perceptual Positions aka Triple Description) and really attempt to learn where they are coming from?

Or do you like most of us operate from: I know how to do this and the way you should or ought do this is………. according to the statistics in the Language and Behaviour Profile (not just psychometrics, but also a rigorous tool giving you language patterns to help the profiled person to do something different, provided that works for them and your organisation and/or opening ways to prevent or alter previous behaviours), around 65% of us in the world of work operate from My rules for me and My rules for you. This does not mean that they are directly telling you what to do, but they do have something to say in respect of how you ‘should’ or ‘ought to do’ things. That’s just the way we are. It’s still useful to check are you on transmit or receive?

There is however a very interesting pattern in the LAB Profile Rule structure, these are people who are really, really good at telling you what to do, and do they do something thing themselves? Do they in fact know what to do? These people have No rules for me (themselves)/My(their) rules for you as a pattern in life. Have you met the person who can put the world to rights, yet do they do something themselves? The person who is full of information on what you have done wrong and how you can do it better? Yet does nothing themselves, or always repeats the same patterns, does the same thing time after time? Couple NLP with the LAB profile and you have some very powerful tools and techniques for managing people.

What you see (or think you see) is not what you get

2011-03-05T12:18:00.002Z

NLP talks about ‘Perception is projection’ - what?

Well Hermann Hesse said ‘’If you hate a person, you have something in them that is a part of yourself. What isn't a part of ourselves, doesn't disturb us’. And Ken Keyes said: ‘A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror.’ And these anonymous bits say: ‘As without, so within. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.’

Now if you believe your life is predetermined (and that’s ok by me) you will perhaps disagree with me and feel free to do. And please if you disagreed avoid arguing with me until you get the answer you want, the answer that fits in with what you know and believe to be true.

Agreeing to disagree is quite fine, there are parts of or values that other people have that I truly don’t subscribe to, and you know I still like those people, because they have qualities that enhance and enrich my life and open up other possibilities to me and my world.

Now I notice that I go about the world believing that the world is a nice place, I also notice that there are many people out there who are hell bent at disproving this for me. Why? It takes so much wearing energy to do this. I have a neighbour most people who come on my courses will know I have a neighbour, I have several. There is one who really does not like me. Why I have no idea. The lovely person hates my car, hates where I park my car, hoped I was dying 2 years ago (err yes said ‘sorry to hear Rosie has breast cancer, it must be terrible for you’ to my Jim, Jim said “what?” After 4 years recently this neighbour has actually spoken to me the first time forced as I answered the phone, the second time in a surprise verbal attack. I’m ‘out to upset them’ seemingly ‘I do this, I do that and best of all I have no right to live here’. All nasty stuff and I can feel the hate and anger coming across.

I have choices however and mine have been to say ‘thank you for speaking to me’, I really appreciate you speaking to me face to face and I’m going now’.

Sometimes I notice however that the world, my peers, whoever have programmed me to take this guilt on board. Before Christmas someone told me ‘you are scary’ – well there are times I know when I am scary usually to someone aged 7 and under who is about to do something dangerous or foolhardy and I have ‘the look’. Other times I know I can be determined and purposeful and oh hell – I can be confident. I used and still use NLP techniques to be confident, I have a little circle I take with me.

Just this week I’ve been told this ‘you have a lovely energy, I want to hug you’ so she did;), ‘I really appreciate your sense of humour’ and these 2 one comes from someone I met 5 years ago ‘I was having a conversation with a friend of mine this morning who has just come back from visiting her friend in Scotland who is going through a difficult time. I thought of you and remembered how kind and personable you were and that you were a very knowledgeable and experienced NLP practitioner who may be able to help her.’ And this one from my trusty assistant of 6 years standing ‘To me, what has been most valuable about NLP has been learning to take feedback from people and situations and then taking that forward positively. Before I came to NLP, I tended either to take what I might perceive as "negative" feedback as complete and total failure on my part or else something to be dismissed out of hand. Not now, I am pleased to say!’

And my point, well I’m human, I forget that I project love, light, peace and harmony, often because I take on other people’s rubbish there was an article somewhere recently, I generally get rid of it really quickly.

But folks please remember start the day in a good frame of mind; keep strong in a little circle maybe;) And if someone has an attempt at spoiling that for you – say ‘thank you for sharing, that’s right you know and here have it back’. NLP has some answers for this. How to keep calm, how to appreciate others, listening is good start.

More on this next time because I've just this week watched something happen and I wnt to know why this doesn't happen locally. I have my suspicions. Interested? Follow this

Oops not lazy honest - Solutions for the current clashes in the UK Economy

2011-03-03T21:21:00.000Z

Well I came into the New Year with a goal to find a publisher for my new book and I did, I got a publishing deal and today we’ve just got the book to the stage where it’s ready to rock and roll (if books do that?). All very exciting it has 3 ISBN numbers one for a conventional book, one for epub and one for mobipocket (whatever they are) – ‘I just don’t believe it’. See this blog.

Anyway my last post on this blog was about what will you do, what will you change? So just having started March this year – what’s been occurring in your life?

In Moray where I actually live, there has been, still is, and will potentially be lots of change. I’ve already had clients who are worried about their jobs, wondering where work is going to come from. Clients who are losing their confidence in themselves because people are tightening their spending and in terms of the LAB Profile being rather reactive and waiting to make decisions. This is really bad for those people who need to know, to plan their lives especially when they’ve been the go-getters, the ones who had to go and get things done, the ‘just do it’ people. We have a culture clash here.

Lots of people in these times are looking for options, opportunities and yet there are many organisations around that are saying we must follow the right way, the procedure, make a plan and follow it. Oh no another culture clash.

And again many of us have known everyday what life was going to be like and that things would stay the same, and now – suddenly there are people who are going to make things different. For those people for whom there was consistency, there was an ordered way of life this is a huge problem.

The first way we can begin to solve it is by analysing the language we use and carefully using language that gets the different cultures talking.

Like to know more take a look at the LAB (Language and Behaviour Profile) not just psychometrics for profiling, but also tried and tested methods of detecting and using language patterns to get people taking effectively. More info here and/or come along to the Fusion Inverness event on 22nd March 2011 and find out more - details of that event here.

So what will you do (or change even) in 2011?

2010-12-29T17:41:00.000Z

So I've been thinking about writing this blog for a few days now, and asking myself will I write about Goals, New Year's Resolutions etc., etc. Or what will I write about?

Language - for me NLP is fundamentally about language and how that language affects us. I've heard some interesting language over the past few weeks in respect of the weather on the radio, "the heavy snow forecast for the city failed to appear" - well darn it. that weather did just not turn up, it's like a reprimand for not turning up to work, how inconsiderate of that weather, we were already to do………. and just was not bad enough. And the other night on the TV "disruptive snow" - now I have two small grandsons who can be "disruptive", the weather can cause disruptions but the weather is not human, it cannot “be disruptive" in that sense it can however cause disruptions if we are ill prepared.

Why do people like to attribute human qualities to inanimate objects or natural phenomena such as weather? Is it because we really dislike taking response-ability? I know I once said "the railing jumped up and hit my car" when I started my car in gear with the handbrake off;) because I didn't want to appear a plonker, I smiled bashfully at the same time.

Use of language becomes more and bizarre, I appreciate it changes over the years “making love” in Jane Austen’s days is not what we regard it as now. There are many others words the usage of which change with time, I’m sure you can think of some in your lifetime. But I sit back and scratch my head ruefully and ask myself are we really aware of what we are saying? And I ask this question with your target audience in mind, remember when you’re on transmit it’s really useful to ensure your target audience is on receive, on your wavelength, seeing things the same way you do or having the same kind of feelings. Or put another way “you would land successfully if you improved your approach”. Too often we blame others (or the weather) for things, happenings which actually are under our control.

NLP teaches us a great deal about response-ability, often people will leave a course, because “everyone else has to change, not me” – ‘everyone' is a nominalization sometimes just repeating back “everyone?” (with a calm totality enables the person to question themselves). Other people 'have to change' - ask the other person (or ask yourself) to tell you more about “have to?", and ‘change’ – “Change in what way?”

Once we become response-able and accept response-ability we’re on the way to improving things for ourselves and others. Start in a small way.

So what will you do (or change even) in 2011?

Opening the Box

2010-12-06T21:54:00.000Z

I wasn’t really intending to be topical, but I would like to invite you to think about your conversations using either the spoken or the written word with others. In the recent bad weather I have experienced a couple of interesting conversations: 1) an email –“In view of the bad weather are you bothering to turn up at the weekend?” This is the course I’m training and the question came from someone on the course and 2) spoken (as I walked round the back of the flipchart whilst preparing for my day’s training , without any warning, there was a person there) “I need to leave early today.”

So faced with the above what would your response be? How would you respond? What box would the above open for you?

One of the NLP Operating Beliefs is - “The meaning of your communication is the response you get.” Using NLP we encourage people to get rapport first. Now face to face, this could be by smiling, saying “Hi, hello, How are you?, or even using the person’s name” by using a pleasant tonality, by checking out you have rapport, so you’re facing the person you are asking. Avoid taking people by surprise and open the right box.

Now that email, I think what the person meant was “Unfortunately, I’m not happy about travelling this weekend, so I won’t be able to make it.” Another text I got was “I have made a risk assessment and will not be there”, how does “Sorry, it’s too dangerous travel,” work for you? What kind of box does that open for you?

In his book ‘Six Blind Elephants Vol. 1’, Steve Andreas states that adverbs such as ‘fortunately’, ‘sadly’, ‘interestingly’, ‘happily’, ‘understandably’ are known as cognitive qualifiers, because they recategorize and qualify the words that follow. So you’re telling someone about something that you need to have happen for you, might you get a better response from them if you soften it? You’ll enable them to open a more pleasant box for them and keep your relationship on a better footing.

So going back to “I need to leave early”, on that same morning about 5 minutes later from another person I heard, “Rosie, have you got a minute?”, “Yes”, “Would it be ok for me to leave at five to five, to get my train otherwise the next one is not until seven thirty pm.” That person smiled at me and looked me in the eye and made sure I was looking at them. The first person had no rapport with me and my response was, “I need to think about that”, to the second person my response was “Yes, no problem.” The difference, the different approaches opened different boxes in my head.

Increasingly people I hardly know send me emails which start “Rosie”, now the box that form of address opens is the reprimand box. I have no idea when I read that what tonality that has been sent in, and I don’t know the person. “Hi Rosie” opens a different box as do “Hello Rosie” and “Dear Rosie” to “Rosie”, and curiously the just “Rosie” tells me something about the person. (You can draw your own conclusions as to what that is). “Good morning”, “good afternoon” also work well for me, these make it easier for me to respond faster and formulate a useful reply.

I often bring this “how do you start your email?”question to participants on my practitioner courses and one response was this one “The biggest ‘lightning bolt’ for me on the weekend was addressing e-mail. I’d never thought about it before and to use a Universal Quantifier – ‘everyone just uses the name at the top of an e-mail, without any form of hi or hello’. Having really noticed that in the two weeks since, I see that it’s very prevalent in the immediate discipline that I work with (and have worked in for the last 18 years) but actually fairly uncommon not to use a greeting term at the start of an e-mail. Probably a learnt behaviour based on experience – that I hadn’t realised I did and more importantly hadn’t realised that other people didn’t like. But once you are aware of these things, they are very easy to change – so thank-you for that insight. So far have only matched others e-mail style (and used in contact with people that I haven’t e-mailed before) – perhaps I need to use the ‘friendlier’ style with some of the others………”

So at this forthcoming festive period ‘how will you enable others to open the box of your wants and desires, how will you enhance your communication?’ As a friend of mine said to me this afternoon “If your approach were better, your landing would be smoother.”

Happy festivities.

And for more information on how to enhance your communication see our website and/or purchase “Finding the Relationship you Deserve” how to communicate with yourself and then others better, click here.

A Magic Wand?

2010-11-09T16:52:00.000Z

Particularly in today’s economic climate where companies are being asked to downsize, make cuts, lose jobs - there is the need for an effective methodology that has been tried and tested, and one that also gives options to ensure that there is the “right mix of people” for the job. Soft skills are sometimes hard to learn and often underestimated. Required job skills can be trained either on the job or in other ways. But personalities sometimes will just clash.

How can this be made easier? Is there a magic wand? In short there is no magic wand. Everything requires work which is sometimes a problem as human beings just don’t want to do the work themselves, it “should” be someone else. After all we all know “it’s their fault” and we are entirely blameless.

There are tools and techniques - the often misunderstood NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) is not just a trail of techniques to make you feel, something that neither is whiz bang nor is it hocus-pocus. It’s actually about language and skilful use of language and recognising the language that the people we want to influence use. By becoming skilled in recognising this language and using skilful questioning techniques we can facilitate a climate of understanding, easing stress and becoming the company to work for, not just because we pay well (it helps) or have good employee benefits, but also because we take time out to listen, and respond in an appropriate manner and carry the things through that we promise.

Add the Language and Behaviour Profile to NLP and you have “Words that Change Minds” and it might be your mind not theirs that changes.

Case Study

A company intends that within 2 years its staff will work from home. To prepare them for this, interviews were carried out using both of the techniques mentioned above together. What happened?

In the first place the team leader discovered what they perhaps always knew they are too fast for the remainder of the team. Good in some respects, yet when explaining to the rest of the team what needed to done, the others were often still thinking about the first part of sentence A, whilst the team leader was on sentence D. What did they do, well the team leader learned a little more about themselves and how to slow down and deliver what needed to be said sometimes using language that was alien to them but right for their staff about prevention, avoid this or that, sometimes talking about the problems to be avoided rather than the benefits.

Another member of the team complained the team leader “doesn’t listen when I talk to them”. The profiling showed, the team leader prefers to see things, so the suggestion was made that team member put what they wanted to say either on a simple spreadsheet, or preferably on a PowerPoint slide with some neat graphics, printed it out and physically took it to the team leader and asked “May I show you this and talk you through it.” Did it work? Well the team leader emailed the consultant (people with a visual preference like emails) and wrote "I see you've been giving my team tips. Guess what it worked! I was more prepared to listen”.

A further team member is very good at getting work done, but more so than the team leader leaves the others behind, whilst they bulldoze on regardless, with no regard for the culture they are working in, or the culture they are living in. There are conclusions to draw from that, as the person is not really ideal in this environment.

The end result of the profiling was that each individual knows more about him- or herself and is given tips and recommendations on how to understand their own language and to alter it to influence others in an ethical and appropriate manner. It’s not necessary to change who you are, just to come a little closer to others and open up a new way of understanding what makes them tick, what’s really important to them.

Some of this management team showed during the face to face interviews that they are not suited for working at home; they need to be with other people. They work best with others around them, not because they want to chat, they just need human company. (As do most people, if we wanted to be hermits we’d be living on faraway up a mountain).

This type of profiling requires skill and can be learned with some application, it’s always carried out face to face, as the practitioner needs the behaviours of the person to qualify the answers, as well as the skill to drill down into the interviewee’s criteria, as the first answer we give is often the one we think we "should" give and not necessarily the right one.

It’s cost effective and helps improve productivity and the working atmosphere.

More info here

Do the Hardest work First

2010-10-27T19:53:00.000+01:00

I read somewhere recently ‘do the hardest work first’, that most great achievers take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. Ah so that’s why I prefer to exercise in the morning because we tend to move away from pain and toward pleasure, so for me in the evenings lounging around is preferable, of course it is also when I have more energy and am less likely to be distracted. Not that the distraction is necessarily negative, but other people will have demands on my time, their need might be greater than me. The client in despair (I need to listen and advise), the supplier who wants me to pay them (we negotiate), the practitioner or master practitioner who suddenly has sent me some work in, that they need me to give feedback on (either before they take the next step or they might have made a choice that is not necessarily the right one).

So I need to do the hardest work first, in terms of the Language and Behaviour Profile, I can be both towards and away from, I do weigh up the consequences (not all the time – I’m human after all) and evaluate is that a potentially good decision. I’m motivated both by what I can achieve and sometimes will achieve so I’m also motivated by possibilities and options. Too many options and we do nothing, here’s an idea, there’s an idea, how about this idea? If you are someone like that some of the time, or in certain circumstances it can be difficult for you to make a choice, or you never make a choice and if you work with other people, those other people can be left behind, uncertain of what they are supposed to do with all the opportunities you have given them, especially when they were working on getting something else finished. A little follow through on your behalf would be good, otherwise the others are overwhelmed, or they just give up and walk off.

Too much time spent on the “what ifs” usually leads to inertia, stagnation, being stuck, especially if you like detail and get lost in the detail, it becomes difficult to find your way out of the maze. Add to that if you need other people to tell you if you’ve done a good job and there’s no one there in the maze with you then you could be stuck for ever in despair. On the other hand if you know yourself that something is wrong here and you spend a lot of time looking for things to confirm that then you’ll be even more stuck.

Just do the hardest work first, get it out of the way, get on with it, get your finger out! Stop saying I can’t, if only, I need this, I need someone else to, I have to, in fact there’s great video link here ……………. pointed out to me by my colleague Sue Knight.

Was that funny? Did it hit a note with you? Perhaps you hated it? No matter what here some thoughts all day today I’ve been using Facebook and the NLP Highland page to send to Twitter on the NLP representational systems, they also come into play here in respect of do the hardest work first. So apart from your LAB Profile patterns, or along with it’s the sub-modalities of the sensory representation systems which motivate us to move toward something or to move away from that something.

Consider this there are some things you do really easily, quickly, with aplomb – do you see these things in some way? Do you hear sounds in your head about these? Do you have emotions or feelings in your body about them? Do you taste something in your mouth? Do you smell something? Do you talk to yourself about these things? And whichever one of those you do, how do you use your internal representations to make them appealing? Think about this.

Then consider those things you find hard to do, yet it would be useful for you to do them, how do you represent these things to yourself, well one of them anyway, let’s not overdo it here;) What happens when you change the way you represent this to make things more appealing?