Archive for the ‘NLP Personal Development’ Category

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Is accelerated NLP Training better?

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

Ok, so in this blog I’m going to have a little rant on what’s happening with NLP :-)

When I first learned NLP way back at the beginning of the 1990’s, it was on a Practitioner course over about 20 days. I then did a Master Practitioner training, again about 20 days. Before even considering becoming a trainer I attended a couple of other Practitioner courses and Master Practitioner courses with different International NLP Trainers and then assisted on dozens of courses to build up my experience.

Now I look online and see people are offering shorter and shorter Practitioner courses (even less than 6 days) and I’ve even seen a lot of trainers who have been doing NLP for only a few months themselves!

I think it’s good to distinguish the ‘hype’ NLP from the ‘quality’ NLP! Many people go on a short NLP course and get ‘hyped’ up with a quick fix of basic NLP presented in an entertaining way. But they don’t ‘know’ NLP.

A lot of people are after the quick fix. But it’s a little like slapping some wall paper over a house that’s falling apart.

It looks good – but just because you can’t see the place falling down, doesn’t mean it isn’t!

Ask yourself this question – if you were going to have brain surgery, would you want to see a brain surgeon who did a short training over a few days, or someone who had lots of training, practice and experience?

NLP is a little like brain surgery – except you’re working with peoples’ minds and not their physical brains!

If you want quality, you really need to put the time in.

People will never learn as much in a few days as they would on a 15 or 20 day course. Even though there’s the cds and home study work – people will still only cover a fraction of what is taught on the longer trainings.

The truth is that many trainers have only been through the rapid trainings themselves and don’t realise that there’s a lot being missed out. So they’re just passing on what they have experienced.

But some of the things not being taught at the majority of places really are vital techniques.

That’s why I offer a core 7 day course, but highly encourage students to take the extra modules to cover all the content for the 15 day NLP Practitioner course.

So if there’s anything I could advise, these would be some vital steps:

Be prepared to attend a longer training if you want to really be good at NLP

Be prepared to travel to do a good course – because it’s local doesn’t mean it will be good

Don’t get fooled by freebies – free offers, free diploma courses etc are all hooks to get people to sign up. They involve special techniques of influence that unconsciously motivate people to sign up

Find a trainer with lots of experience

Do attend a training – you can’t just learn NLP from videos, cds or books – the classroom is a totally different experience!

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Conversational Hypnosis

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Conversational hypnosis

What’s all the hype about?

I keep getting enquiries about conversational hypnosis asking whether I teach it on my hypnotherapy courses.

The enquiries often make it sound like it’s some sort of ‘holy grail’ that allows you to hypnotise anyone at anytime without their knowledge!

Just before going any further, ask yourself ‘would I like someone to be able to hypnotise me at any time without me knowing?’.

Chances are, probably not!

In fact, who would!

Because it’s one of people’s biggest fears about hypnosis – that you can make people do things without their knowing it!

Well, the good news is that there are some simple truths about hypnosis:

1 You cannot make anyone do anything they do not want to do under hypnosis

2 Being suggestible is not gullible – in fact, being suggestible hypnotically means you have greater control over yourself! If you are suggestible, you can influence your heart rate, blood pressure and even blood flow.

People who are making out you can have some sort of control over people are very good marketers, however it doesn’t work like that!

In fact, one person offering a conversational hypnosis course was showing a clip of Derren Brown doing a mental magic performance where he seems to be influencing someone covertly.

Well, Derren Brown is a highly skilled magician and much of his work is magic, not mind control.

The only people who get taken in by the hypnosis mind control claims are simply naïve and not knowing the truth about hypnosis.

To be hypnotized, there are 3 key criteria that must be met:

1 You have to want it to happen

2 You have to expect it to happen

3 You have to allow it to happen

So going back to the beginning of this article – what’s all this about conversational hypnosis?

Does it exist?

Of course!

But it’s been around for decades. The first person most people attribute it to was Milton Erickson – a highly gifted psychiatrist and hypnotherapist in the USA in the last century.

He would just talk ‘casually’ rather than do formal inductions and his patients would go into hypnosis and achieve incredible results.

But still, it’s only those people that are expecting, wanting and allowing hypnosis to happen that it would work for.

We all have incredible potential within us waiting to be untapped, and that was something Milton Erickson was great at releasing from people – but it was in no way having power over someone – in fact the reverse – it was about empowering people.

And that’s the great thing about hypnosis and NLP – it is about empowering all of us to help us reach our full potential.

I can hardly begin to say all the results I’ve seen with hypnosis. In fact, I am a professionally trained musician and used to practice hours a day. After learning NLP I cut that time right down and my skill level must have doubled within weeks – it was all about learning the right mental game, which NLP and hypnosis is all about.

Join our NLP Practitioner training in October or our Hypnotherapy training starting in September to learn the real secrets…

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Managing Stress With NLP

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Dealing With Stress

I run a lot of business programs in stress management and thought I’d write this NLP blog about using NLP and stress.

Stress affects everyone. And it’s not just stress at work, but it’s also in other areas of life.

In fact, the truth is we need some stress to function effectively. Stress gets us going in the morning and keeps us working optimally.

However when we have too much stress or have high levels for prolongued periods of time, it can have dire consequences on our health, emotional well-being and happiness.

Companies lose billions of pounds/ dollars every year as a result of stress.

Many absentee days from work are a direct or indirect result of stress.

Studies have even shown how extreme stress will cause our bodies to age prematurely at a cellular level!

So what can we do about stress?

NLP teaches some really valuable techniques and strategies to help us deal with stress more effectively.

In fact many things people lean on an NLP training even help reduce stress without direct awareness of how it happens!

Take for example some students who cam on our course several years ago. They worked for a large manufacturing plant that experienced several serious accidents every year.

From learning about how to use language effectively they went back to their organization and rewrote some of the training guides and signs and within a year had virtually cut out all serious injuries. This was purely through awareness of how to use language effectively!

Language and communicating is often a major source of stress for people. Just the other day I opened up a new light I had purchased and looked at the instructions for fitting it together. It might has well have been written in Russian – I couldn’t understand a word of it!

What did I experience? Stress!!!

When we experience unclear communication or instructions it can be exceedingly stressful, however in reality people experience this all too often at work.

One of the first keys to communicating effectively is to say exactly what you want – not what you don’t want. Most people know what they don’t want, but aren’t clear about exactly what they do want!

People will come for a coaching session and say ‘I don’t want to feel stressed’ but not know what they DO want. And as a result they end up focusing on the thing they don’t want.

Here are a few keys to follow:

Be clear about the outcome of your message. Formulate what to say specifically without any risk of ambiguity.

Make sure it is framed in terms of what you want and not what you don’t want. If you’ve said something like, ‘I don’t want…..’ then ask yourself what you do want instead.

Communicate it in a way that the other person will understand – remember it’s about them understanding, not about you saying what you think is important!

Most lack of understanding comes from the way we communicate the message, not from the other person, so if we don’t get the outcome we want after communicating with someone, work on changing your communication.

NLP Training is probably the best way to learn outstanding communication skills as well as the most powerful ways to manage your emotional state. We have regular NLP Practitioner courses in London and Scotland.

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Making NLP work…

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

What really makes NLP work?

Just a few days ago I met someone who when they heard I taught NLP, they didn’t realize people still did it because they thought it was some sort of a ‘fad’ that has passed!

Every year I work with hundreds of people and even years later hear how learning NLP has helped them change their lives and I’m really amazed how anyone could think NLP is some sort of passing ‘fad’.

Take a coaching client I saw just a few weeks ago. He had been out of work for almost a year and really had pretty much given up hope of getting a job in the near future, especially in the recession. He also had a real fear of interviews, which was clearly getting in the way of his performing well in any job interview.

I worked with him using a variety of NLP techniques to help work with overcoming the fear of interviews and also to help him feel empowered and motivated about getting a job. We also did some hypnosis to reinforce the work.

Within the next 7 days he had been offered 4 jobs – all of which were better than any job he had had previously!

NLP really works – it’s not some ‘fad’, it’s a toolkit of principles and techniques that you’ll use throughout your life to create the results you want. I’ve seen truly miraculous changes in people with NLP and hypnotherapy.

So why do some people have the wrong idea about NLP?

Well, when I first learned NLP back in 1990 the Practitioner courses were all at least 15 to 20 days long. Nobody thought about NLP as a ‘fad’ back then. It was only when the courses got shorter and shorter and hundreds of NLP courses suddenly sprang up that a change in attitude started.

Unfortunately your experience of NLP will only be as good as the training you attend, and there are only a few really good trainings out there – so if you are going to go on an NLP training, you need to pick your NLP trainer carefully! INLPTA was set up to help ensure that NLP trainers have been through a proper and in depth training.

The most important principles you begin with in NLP are the ‘legs of NLP’.

These are:

1 Know your outcome

2 Take action

3 Have sensory acuity to notice the feedback

4 Flexibility – change what you’re doing until you get the results you want

If you follow these steps on they’re own, you’re going to get better results in any area of life.

To learn more about them, it’s vital to attend a good NLP training. You can get good information from a book, but the experience of being there in the room and practically ‘doing’ NLP cannot be matched anywhere else!

Our next NLP Practitioner training is between October 3 – 9 in London. We also have a hypnotherapy certification module starting in September in London and a Master Practitioner in Scotland starting in September.

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NLP and hypnosis – perfect partners

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

NLP & Hypnosis compliment each other perfectly.

If you know NLP but not hypnotherapy, you’re missing out on some major principles that intensify your success a hundred fold.

If you know hypnotherapy but not NLP, then you’re missing out key techniques that could help you get better results for your clients more quickly.

A major part of NLP is hypnosis. After all a lot of NLP was born from modeling one of the world’s greatest hypnotherapists – Milton Erickson. Therefore if you’re not experienced in hypnosis, you’re certainly missing out on some major tools for change.

In fact, I use hypnosis with most clients. If they come for NLP coaching, I’ll often finish the session with some hypnosis to reinforce the work and often give my clients a hypnosis recording to work with after the session.

But some people don’t like the word ‘hypnosis’ so for many clients I just say that we will finish with a ‘closed eye’ process.

In fact, here’s a secret – if you’ve ever been taken through any visualization process, whether by recording or at the end of an exercise class, then you’ve basically been taken through a hypnotic induction.

So there’s nothing ‘unnatural’ about the hypnotic state – it’s basically one of the most natural states we can be in!

Many techniques in NLP will naturally induce a trance state.

One technique, the new behaviour generator is a good example of this sort of process.

The steps of the new behaviour generator involve first thinking of a behaviour you’d like to improve then following the following stages:

1     Run an internal movie of the expert doing the behaviour the way you’d like to do it – make sure you watch it in as fine detail as possible

2     Re-run the same movie, however this time see yourself in place of the expert, but with exactly the same behaviours and movements – keep doing this until you can see it precisely

3     Start the movie again, however this time float inside the movie and fully associate with it. Make sure you see what you would see as if through your own eyes, hear what you hear and feel what doing the movements feel like – make it as real as possible so you really connect your neurology to the movements

Keep running through this process and you’ll really get great results. In fact, this is a really great technique taught at Practitioner level – although more recently I’ve noticed most accelerated NLP Practitioner trainings don’t teach it for some reason (7 day or shorter NLP courses cut a lot of material out even though they usually try to say it’s the same content as longer courses).

NLP and hypnosis really offer some of the most powerful tools for change that I’ve ever come across.

The dates of our next courses are:

Sept 17 – 19 & Oct 1-2 in London

Our next NLP Practitioner training is between October 3 – 9.

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More hypnosis and NLP secrets…

Saturday, August 7th, 2010

More hypnosis and NLP secrets…

Secret 2

Myth 1 – someone will be in control of you in hypnosis

Myth 2 – you will get your mind reprogrammed

Myth 3 – you will go ‘under’

There are so many misconceptions about hypnosis. In fact people often attend my other trainings and then say ‘but I don’t want to do any of that hypnosis stuff…’. When I ask them about it, it’s always because of misconceptions about what it’s all about. In fact, when I clarify the misconceptions, those initially reluctant students usually turn out to be the ones who can’t stop talking about how great hypnosis is after they’ve attended the training!

Most people think they know what hypnosis is because of what they’ve seen on tv or read about in books. Sure, with films like the Manchurian candidate, that’s enough to put a lot of people into a paranoid state about having their minds ‘reprogrammed’

But that couldn’t be further from what hypnosis is all about.

Here are some truths about hypnosis

Truth 1 – you have greater self control in hypnosis

Truth 2 – you will only accept positive suggestions that are acceptable to you

Truth 3 – there’s nothing to go ‘under’ and you won’t be asleep! In fact just for a moment, close your eyes, slow down your breathing and let your body relax. That’s all that’s involved – you’ve done hypnosis now!

In fact in hypnosis you learn greater self control. You increase your internal self awareness to an amazing level. In fact, if you’ve done NLP, you’ll find things work even better. In hypnosis you can even influence your breathing, heart rate and even blood flow

And the truth is that most hypnotherapy being taught today isn’t really hypnosis. You can’t learn hypnosis properly on a day or less as part of an NLP course or certainly not from home study courses! Unfortunately it’s frequently being taught like this now and people get the wrong idea about what it’s all about! You really need to study hypnotherapy on it’s own to get the full value.

In hypnosis you won’t reveal secrets you don’t want to and you will only accept suggestions that are acceptable with your beliefs and values, or you’ll come straight back to the room. And it’s really not like stage shows where people do silly things – it’s a pleasant and relaxing experience where you are usually aware of everything that’s going on to an even greater level.

But in hypnosis you can do some great stuff. For example, one student whose young baby kept him awake all night would do self hypnosis to give him the equivalent of several hours sleep in 10 minutes and he’d feel great for the rest of the day.

You could experience new self confidence and let go of tension. You could even manage pain (if you have any).

I’ll go into more in the next newsletter…

Combined with NLP, hypnosis is one of the most powerful tools you can learn for personal growth.

Join us on our next hypnotherapy training in London to find out how hypnotherapy can help you….

Dates are

Sept 17 – 19 & Oct 1-2, 2010

….and we’re still offering the special early rate of £700.

Contact Tom MacKay by email or on 07815 879055 to book your place now….

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5 secrets of hypnosis….

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

5 secrets of hypnosis

People really have some weird ideas about hypnosis and NLP, so I’m going to do 5 articles on what hypnosis really is about.

Here is the first part….

If you could be totally congruent in everything you do, imagine how much you’d achieve!

Its really true that our success in any outcome in life comes largely down to how aligned we are internally.

Just for a moment, consider – have you had any dreams or outcomes you really wanted, you were capable of achieving, but you never did anything about them!

Its all about congruency. Being congruent means every part of you is aligned and you should find your actions become far easier.

An example of incongruency would be you really want a close, committed relationship, but you also want your personal freedom. So you keep getting into relationships, but when things are going too well, you start to distance yourself!

Another example might be you really want to be wealthy, but you also really just want to spend your time relaxing on a beach!

The problem is many conflicts operate out of conscious awareness. We set outcomes, but they never get fulfilled!

People often get out of touch with their unconscious minds.

When you tune up your internal awareness you can start to become aware of what is really going on inside and resolve conflicts more easily.

Milton Erickson said that clients have problems because they are out of rapport with their unconscious minds.

So how do you build your internal awareness?

Well learning hypnotherapy is probably one of the best ways – its all about getting in touch with your unconscious – helping you to access resources and make changes.

What’s more, its much easier than you could possible think – and incredibly enjoyable and relaxing.

Join us on our next hypnotherapy training in London to find out how hypnotherapy can help you….

Dates are

Sept 17 – 19 & Oct 1-2, 2010

….and we’re still offering the special early rate of £700.

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NLP, Hypnotherapy and Health

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Many people are now talking about the mind-body connection. It’s really amazing – even 10 or 15 years ago, so much more of the medical profession was more closed or unaware of the potential to influence the body with the mind.

I remember when I was using hypnotherapy and NLP in a hospital in North London to work with chronic pain patients, when I initially went in to work there, hardly anybody had much of an idea of how hypnosis could help patients – nobody had heard of NLP!

But after working with patients for some time, the doctors started to see the real benefit from hypnotherapy and NLP.

In fact, hypnotherapy has incredible potential for helping in medical settings. With hypnosis it has been well established that you can have considerable effect on the physiology – you can slow down the heart rate, lower blood pressure and even influence bleeding!

Amazingly enough you can have a major impact of blood flow! I used to get nose bleeds that would last for hours. After learning hypnosis, I can now suggest the bleeding will stop and within seconds can stop my nose from bleeding if it starts.

Major surgery has been done under hypnosis – not just to control pain, but also to help control blood flow and to speed up post-operative healing.

In another related context is an awareness of the language used by medical professionals.

For example, after surgery if a patient is recovering and is told by a healthcare professional ‘I’ll put this pan here in case you FEEL SICK!’ – even if they didn’t feel sick, the act of putting the pan there and saying it will unconsciously suggest that it will happen, and frequently after that it does!

We have to be really careful with our language!

Even in giving an injection if you say ‘You might feel a sharp pain’ – what happens?

The patient starts to tense up!

When you tense up, it’s going to hurt a lot more!

So the best method would be to distract the person by talking about something different and inject them at the same time.

With children, you could put an unusual picture on the wall and ask the to look at the ‘circle-square’ – causing distraction and confusion which allows you to inject them more easily!

Healing can be massively speeded up through hypnosis and NLP. It’s all about the mind body connection and the power to speed up healing is about connection with your unconscious mind.

The fastest way to get that inner connection is to attend a high quality NLP or hypnotherapy Training or see a good hypnotherapist.

We offer regular NLP and hypnotherapy Training in North London and also Glasgow, Scotland – see our schedule for upcoming dates.

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Secrets of communicating

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

NLP is all about communicating. In communicating with other people, the way you say it is the difference that makes the difference.

What is the real difference between average communication and excellent communication?

It’s commonly thought by most people that excellent communication is all about the words that you use.

Yet, the words are only a small part of communication.

So that’s one part of communication – what’s the other?

It’s all about the way you say it.

I’m sure you’ve experienced a salesperson who clearly didn’t believe in the thing they were selling, but was determined to try to convince you that something very average was actually worth buying?

Was it the language that they used that let you know they didn’t believe it?

That’s not it, is it?

It’s all in the way they say it.

Salespeople may know the most excellent lines and words to sell their products, however the words don’t matter if you don’t put it across it in the right way.

It’s all about the other elements of communication – voice tonality, the physiology and all the other non-verbals.

If you don’t get those correct, it’s finished from the start!

The deep principles to successful communication are how you say it AND what you say!

Take leaders – what makes an excellent  leader? You might say it’s about having intelligent and great things to say. However in reality, a leader could be the most intelligent and well meaning person in the world, but if they talk in a monotone and look at the floor the whole time, no one will want to listen to them!

They have to put the message across in an compelling and believable way also, or people will turn off!

Similarly, the message also should be well written. A really average message said with conviction still won’t do the job either – although unfortunately even an average message said well will tend to win over a great message said badly.

So how can you increase your cability to be great at communicating your message?

These are a few important steps:

1      Know your outcome – if you want people to really relate to your communication, you need to have a very clear vision. Having this very clear vision will develop your charisma as a leader

2      Believe totally in your outcome / message / or service. If you don’t believe in your outcome, people will pick up on it, and they’ll switch off to your communication – it’s really that simple!

3      Write out the basics of your message and tell it to people you trust. Ask them for feedback. The journey from being mediocre to being great is about learning from feedback and getting feedback from people you trust to be honest is a great way to develop this skill.

Attending an NLP course is also going to help with your outstanding communication skills. To build your confidence, hypnosis is also a way many of my clients have succeeded powerfully.

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The power of NLP…

Monday, June 21st, 2010

I’ve just finished another NLP Practitioner training in London. What a great week!

The group really gave it 100% and took so much out of the training.

It’s so great to see the transformations people can experience in 7 days. During the training someone said they just couldn’t believe how in virtually no time the course had helped them sort areas of their life out that they had spent years trying to do previously!

On the previous course I ran someone attended after having started an NLP Practitioner course somewhere else and had left it feeling very unhappy. She found during our NLP Training that it completely transformed her feeing about NLP – she had been disillusioned, but now it all connected at a really deep level.

That’s one of the things I’m really passionate about – helping people to learn NLP deeply and being able to apply it to their own lives and the lives of other people.

It’s become so easy for people to set up as NLP trainers these days – just search NLP and see the thousands of places offering training! The bad new is that experience counts!

I’ve heard a lot of people giving NLP a hard time recently – giving it bad press. However it’s nothing to do with NLP – it’s to do with how it is taught!

Some things, like using Microsoft office, you can probably learn pretty much the same way anywhere you go.

But NOT with NLP – just because there is an NLP training close to you, doesn’t mean it’s any good!

Find someone with experience.

When I first started NLP in 1990, there were hardly any people running trainings in the UK. I was amazed at how much I learned and was inspired to make a difference.

You will get amazing benefits from NLP as long as you find a good training and invest 100% into it!

So a few tips for finding good NLP Trainings:

Find a trainer with experience – how long have they been doing it and have they been using it professionally themselves – it’s easy to talk about how to coach, however if they haven’t done it, it’s all theoretical!

Commit to traveling! You might have to travel to get a good course – but it’s worth it! If you are investing the time and money, you’ll really only get the benefits from quality training.

Take your time – just because a training seems short and convenient doesn’t mean it is good. Shorter trainings cut stuff out – they might say it covers the same in an accelerated format, but it really isn’t!

Don’t get hypnotized by certification! A course might offer lots of certificates in a few days – but what do you want – quality, or lots of pieces of paper! You can buy certificates over the internet from some places! In only 7 days, only expect to get proficient in NLP, beware of places also certifying you as coach, hypnotherapist, brain surgeon (I haven’t see that one yet fortunately!).

If you was to learn NLP deeply, we offer regular NLP courses in London, UK.

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