NLP and mastery

June 29th, 2010

What makes a master of a field?

Take a couple of minutes now and just write down what for you sums up a true master of something…

People will often make a list of things such as experience, skill and abilities.

However it’s a lot more than that.

Just being excellent at something doesn’t make a master. That’s not enough!

There are lots of people who are technically excellent, but it’s certainly not what you’d label as mastery.

Beyond skill are other important keys, such as:

  • Commitment
  • Dedication
  • Focus
  • Vision
  • Passion
  • Curiosity
  • Desire to continually grow

These are not qualities that can be developed from a book, but come from the inside. At the same time they are qualities that everyone can develop because we have these resources and qualities within us.

If you want to become a true master it certainly involves being excellent in a field. Just being average will never make a master. But in developing excellence, it’s also a matter of the other qualities that make true mastery.

That’s something anyone can develop – so let’s explore some of these keys:

Commitment, focus and dedication – true masters have a real commitment and dedication. When you meet a true master, you can just sense their presence when you meet them. They have a total dedication that inspires other people.

That’s a real key in mastery. So you will want to take some time to think about what really drives you – why is it so important for you to do what you are doing? When you know what really drives you, that’s a real key to inspire others.

Vision – that’s all about having a really clear outcome – knowing what you want and that you can get it! Don’t just think about it – write it down, picture it, imagine what it would feel like to have it – even draw it! The more real you imagine it the more powerful your vision will be!

Passion – when you know your outcome and have made it desirable, you should already have incredible passion for it – if you don’t, that’s a sign you need to really review what’s most important to you.

Curiosity and the desire to continually grow – these are the things that let you develop. It’s never the case that a true master thinks they know everything about something – they are always open to learning and developing. People often think the master knows everything, and in comparison to the beginner, it’s often the case that it appears that way!

However the true master is constantly developing and learning. This starts with curiosity. Curiosity is like the drive to development – the emotional state that drives learning – we’re all born with it (just look at small kids), however unfortunately sometimes it gets driven out of us! Keep the spirit alive and the real desire to constantly improve.

It’s really the case that mastery is within our reach. These keys will help make it happen. NLP is one of the most powerful ways I know to bring it into reality. Join our regular NLP trainings in London, or if you’re already an NLP Practitioner, join our NLP Master Practitioner training in Scotland or London.

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The power of NLP…

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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How to make affirmations work

June 14th, 2010

This NLP blog is about the power of affirmations

Many people use affirmations or have at least heard about them. Some people find they are great, other people only seem to get average results. What makes affirmations work – or maybe an important question is ‘do affirmations really work?’.

It’s easy to dismiss something if it doesn’t work at first, but sometimes things that really work can take a little while to practice.

Affirmations can be very effective, as long as you follow some of the rules for designing and using them.

What is an affirmation?

An affirmation is saying something like ‘I am confident’ repeatedly to yourself.

It is a little like making a suggestion to yourself. Effective suggestions work by really being able to accept them, so if you really don’t believe it, they won’t work as effectively.

Another thing that’s important is to say the affirmation in a way that sounds like you believe it. If you say ‘I feel confident’ in a weak and feeble voice, it won’t be that effective. If your outcome is to build your confidence, say it as if you believe it (just pretend you do if you don’t! – It will make a big difference!).

Using suggestions may take several weeks of consistent use before they become effective. However with practice they can really become powerful. You can even have a massive influence on your physiology. I used to get nose bleeds that would last for hours, however now I can just suggest ‘the bleeding is stopping’ and a nose bleed will stop within seconds. This can take a lot of practice, but it’s worth the practice to get amazing results.

So here are some steps to follow to create effective affirmations to help you achieve your outcome:

  • Consider your outcome carefully
  • Write your affirmation – make sure you state it positively – what you want, and not what you don’t want. It’s easy to know what we don’t want like ‘I don’t want to be anxious’ but when you say this, you have to focus on the thing you don’t want.
  • State it in the positive, for example ‘I feel calm and confident’
  • Stand in a physiology that matches the affirmation – if it is about being confident you may find it helpful to stand in a way as if you are confident.
  • Say the affirmation out loud in a voice tonality that matches the affirmation. How would you say it if you really believed it? This can really make a different. Repeat it 10 – 20 times.
  • You can repeat this many times throughout the day – keep doing it for several weeks

The more you do it the more effective it will be

For affirmations to become incredibly effective, you really want to build upon your ability to communicate with your unconscious mind.

A really great way to develop your unconscious communication is to learn NLP or hypnosis. I regularly see clients for hypnotherapy in London, and they can achieve amazing results when they develop their unconscious communication.

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Developing charisma – a personal development blog

June 11th, 2010

What makes charisma?

I was having a discussion the other day with a friend and wondered what is it that makes charisma?

One argument someone was having was a thought on why no British politicians seem to have the same level of charisma as American politicians, such as Obama?

The other person thought this a really odd thing to say as they didn’t think Obama was at all charismatic but found the British political leaders highly charismatic.

Clearly at some level charisma is a highly personal thing.

There is nobody in the entire world that everyone would view as charismatic, however in reality anyone can develop charisma which can positively shape their interactions and success.

If you have an outcome that requires communicating with other people, developing your charisma could be a really important tool.

So what is charisma?

Charisma is largely about confidence and conviction.

When you think about some of the most successful entrepreneurs, you probably would consider most of them have what most people call charisma.

The question is – did the charisma make them successful, or does their success give them charisma?

Successful people (who get their through their own work!) have a very clear focus. They know their outcome and don’t get distracted. They are committed and flexible – if you only have one way of doing something, it may not work – you need to have more than one possible path to your desired outcome.

Charismatic people also have a real self-confidence and belief in what they are doing as well as being good at what they do (after confidence without competence is essentially delusion, but in a lot of NLP I’ve seen taught, that seems to be what is installed!).

So how can you grow your own confidence?

Here are a few simple steps to boost your confidence

1 Have a very clear outcome – know what you want and create a powerful vision of it. Really spend time thinking about what it will look like, sound like and feel like to have it

2 Think about WHY it is so important for you to have it – charismatic people have a strong sense of purpose. Knowing the reasons for what you do will help drive you into action

3 Create a plan – have a series of easy steps to take action on and constantly review your outcome and reasons for doing it

4 Think about your resources – what are your strengths, skills and abilities that will help you get your outcome. If you aren’t sure, ask a friend what they think your strengths are. It’s often amazing that we don’t recognize to ourselves our true qualities and strengths

5 Enroll others in your vision – get excited about your outcome and share it with other people – get them excited about the outcome also. When you have rapport with other people and get excited about your outcome, other people will get excited also – you’ll discover a real charisma starting to flow from you.

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A personal development blog on positive intention…

June 7th, 2010

If behind every behaviour is a positive intention is true, then how come people engage is so many unuseful behaviours?

How come so many people seem to do things that harm other people or themselves if there really is this ‘magical’ positive intention lying behind their actions?

Well there is a big difference between behaviour and positive intention.

All day long we engage in behaviours – behaviours are basically actions, communications, even the pictures we make in our minds, the things we say to ourselves and everything else.

Now we might see someone we like and want to say something nice to them, so we say ‘you look really good today’. Now let’s say they have just had a piece of really bad news delivered to them earlier about a genetic skin problem, to them this ‘compliment’ might be taken as a painful reminder that their looks are not going to last.

The intention was to make the other person feel good, however the behaviour itself might have resulted in the opposite effect.

Behaviours really are separate from intention.

Take an example of a parent who constantly shouts at their children, telling them they are not good enough.

Just for a few moments, consider how on earth this could have a positive intention?

Well, the parent might really actually care deeply about his children but believes that if you just praise people they will never put any effort in to be as good as they can be, so his model is to give them a hard time to try to motivate them into working harder and being the best they might be.

To most people the behaviour would not be interpreted as ‘positive’, but the intention behind it would certainly be.

This also doesn’t justify behaviour – much of the time we aren’t aware of the positive intention behind our behaviour and we just act in ways that don’t seem all that positive. Shouting at people probably doesn’t get the best results for them, even though at an unconscious level this might be the positive intention.

However the only way to really deal effectively with behaviour is to become aware of the positive intention that lies behind it.

Once we are aware of that positive intention, we can acknowledge it and find a better way to achieve the positive intention.

So think about a behaviour you engage in that you don’t really like that much – for example smoking, over eating, drinking too much…

Take a little time to ask yourself ‘what does that do for me?’

If you’re not sure, then just take the first response that comes into your mind.

Often the real intention is at a deep unconscious level and you need to tune into it.

Just acknowledging the positive intention is a powerful start.

Much of the time we try to ignore the things we don’t like about ourselves and by doing so we give them more power…

Take time to tune into what really is going on inside and this itself will help you to change it.

Learn NLP on an NLP Training to find out more about positive intentions and how to change behaviours.

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Britain’s Got Talent – breaking beliefs…

June 4th, 2010

So I’m just down in a remote part of Wales – internet access isn’t the best at the moment, so I’m writing this blog, but not really sure when it will go live!

Well we’ve managed to get a TV signal for the first time in a while down here since it went digital. Digital is a great idea if you have an area with reception, but when you’re out in the sticks it makes you question accessibility.

Anyway, the family is really into Britains Got Talent, so we’ve just been watching it.

Well, I’ve often found it a bit of a freak show – making me really question what is going on with nurturing talent in Britain.

But on this episode of Britain’s Got Talent, I found one person pretty inspiring. 80 year old Janey Cutler was really outstanding.

So many times I know people who have limiting beliefs about age. She really blows those beliefs out of the realms of possibility!

I remember my parents always saying they were too old to learn loads of things, and then a friend saying he was too old to start jogging at the humble age of 28!

Then I read about a lady in her 70’s who took up Karate and got her black belt by 75!

Well, Janey Cutler is a real inspiration here and now and I hope she shows everybody that age doesn’t matter – you can excel at any age!

What limits people isn’t their age – it is their beliefs!

Change your beliefs and you can achieve incredible results!

So what beliefs limit you?

I used to believe I could never be any good at sport when I was at school, so I never did it.

Now I believe I can be great at sports and I train really hard in the martial arts and am at a pretty good level.

One thing that sometimes limits us is finding the right teacher.

My 5 year old son has recently started a soccer club at his school. I went along and the teacher was great – teaching loads of drills and exercises to learn ball control.

When I was at school we just had a ball on the pitch and were expected to know what to do with it!

No wonder I had no clue and thought I couldn’t do sport – I just didn’t learn the principles that make it easy!

It’s the same in NLP – some courses just teach the game without the principles and leave people feeling pretty useless at the end of it, just in awe of the trainer.

When people attend my course, they leave feeling surprised at how easy and fun NLP can be.

Learning shouldn’t be tough – but it should be fun. Find out about our NLP courses and let go of your limiting beliefs!

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Becoming a leader…

June 2nd, 2010

What makes a leader?

An important part of personal development and growth can be to help find the inner leader within.

I remember years ago at school I took part in the army cadets at school and constantly experienced getting shouted at. This was one of my earliest experiences about leadership and as a result I thought that leaders basically were people that shouted a lot and told people what to do!

However, in reality I later discovered that that was not necessarily a good example of good leadership, in fact for most of our experience that is an example of poor leadership. I have know some ‘leaders’ who try to get their own way by shouting and bullying, but they rarely last long and don’t produce happy staff.

Many of us seem to have that concept of leaders as being aggressive and shouting, but would you consider that good leadership?

Think back over your past for good examples of great leaders. Who are some of the greatest leaders you can think of? Did they have to shout to get their way?

Two examples of recent great leaders I can think of are President Obama and Clinton. Did they ever have to resort to shouting and bullying?

Of course not!

Because a true leader helps to inspire people to want to take action themselves rather than force them to. This is what both Obama and Clinton have been able to do so successfully.

Some people seem to have been giving Obama a hard time recently, but few people could really doubt his ability to inspire. Being in a position of power in the current economic climate is one of the toughest deals anyone could be served.

If things are going well in the world, people love the leader. If things aren’t going well, people tend to blame the leader, even though they may have little to do with it! However the mark of a true leader is someone who holds on to his principles and ideals no matter what other people might do to dissuade them.

Being popular is not the priority for the leader, but wanting the best for the people who follow the leader is crucial.

Obama is a good example of this – he holds on to his ideals which he believes are for the best of the nation, even though initially the ideas might not be popular. In fact, many of the greatest leaders had ideas which were initially scorned, however later on became accepted as something that couldn’t be done without.

So developing yourself as a leader is a crucial part of your own personal development and it isn’t about shouting and screaming.

For myself, learning NLP helped me to awaken my inner leader, as has my work as a hypnotherapist in London. We have an NLP Practitioner training starting on June 13 in London and after that in October. This is a great way to awaken your ‘inner leader’. More on leadership in the next NLP blog…

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An NLP blog on what matters…

May 24th, 2010

I was watching the protests in Thailand on the news at the end of last week. It was really upsetting to see the violence that is happening at the moment. Thailand is one of my favourite places in the world to visit. The people there are lovely, the food is great and the scenery is breathtaking.

When you get to the airport, you see posters saying ‘the land of smiles’ and in our experience that really is the truth. People are so friendly and lovely there.

The funny thing is that last year we were in Bangkok at about the same time of year when there were also protests and one morning we turned on the television and saw the military reaction to the ptotests, a bus on fire and other things that worried us.

However the really weird thing was what we saw on the television was happening just down the road from the hotel and we wondered whether it was safe to go out.

When we did go out, we didn’t see any problems anywhere. The media had clearly done a great job of focusing on things that were happening in a specific area and made it seem like it was happening everywhere.

This is one of the dangers of generalization. A lot of people do this when they watch the news. I remember years ago I was going on holiday to Florida and my mother phoned me and said ‘be careful in America, because tourists get shot in America!’. She sent me a cutting of someone of had got shot in America, and from one incident generalized to America being a dangerous place, when in fact London has its fair share of shootings, stabbings and other crimes!

It is really important to view things we read, watch and hear about from an objective viewpoint. When I first learned NLP I learned incredible ways to get a new perspective on things. Some steps that will help are:

  1. Step back from the situation and imagine viewing it from a distance
  2. Ask yourself, is this really true? Where specifically is this happening? What specifically is happening?
  3. Ask yourself ‘Does this really affect me?’

Clearly there are some major problems in Thailand at the moment that are more intense than in previous years.

So how come in such a beautiful environment with beautiful people there could be such intense dispute?

It all comes down to values. Values are those things that are most important to us – those things that we are willing to invest our time, energy and resources into either having or avoiding.

To stay true to our core values and beliefs, people are willing to do pretty much anything – even go to war.

Everything you do has its motivation in your values – you only do things that are important to you – and some things are more important than others, which have greater impact on our lives.

I’ve just been running the 2nd module of our Master Practitioner training where we explore values in depth.

You can find out about our NLP trainings with this link…

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What happens when negotiations work – could BA learn from NLP?

May 20th, 2010

What the hey is going on with BA?

How could NLP help with the BA negotiation?

Everyone’s talking about the BA strike and the chaos that ensue. Now, not only are there threats of strikes, but lots of planes being cancelled because of the volcanic ash from Iceland. The potential impact is huge.

When you talk to people from the different sides you’ll hear arguments that show that each side is totally convinced with their own reasoning. What is stranger is that if you are on the other side, you’re likely to think that the other peoples’ arguments are insane and even criminal!

How come there is such a divide?

Well, first of all it is largely to do with values – the things that are most important to us. To one side the most important value would be something like the success of the company. To them, with the economic crisis the only way forward is to do whatever it takes for this to happen – whether it makes cuts or changes to the benefits of employees. Naturally they think the thought of striking is crazy because it could threaten the whole company.

On the other side, the employee’s main focus could be their safety and security – making sure they have a safe job with benefits – their focus is on maintaining the safety and security and striking to make their case acknowledged is the way they believe will get them heard.

So how do you negotiate with conflict?

The NLP model includes many distinctions, too many to fully outline here and they  include

1: Separate intention from behaviour

If you get stuck on the specific details of the argument, you will never find agreement. You need to find a level for agreement, which you do by:

2: Find the intention behind the arguments/behaviour by chunking up

Ask questions such as ‘For what purpose? What is the intention? What is that an example of?’ – these ‘chunk up’ the specific behaviours to higher levels and you keep going until you can find a level of agreement. For example, in the nuclear arms race, one side would be for total disarmament and the other side wanted more nukes. However if you chunked each side up high enough, their higher intention would be similar – peace

3: Once you have a level of agreement, start to chunk back down only as quickly as you can maintain agreement

Start to work on other ways to maintain the highest intention by finding more specific alternatives.

4: Check for agreement at each stage with conditional closes along the way

Only gradually get more specific solutions as long as agreement can be maintained – ask questions like ‘If you could have x, then would this be ok?’

This is an overview of some of the negotiation model. In NLP there are so many different methods of using language, negotiating and influencing it would take pages to into depth. The best way to learn more would be to attend an NLP Practitioner training in North London – find more details here…

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Just do it! – With NLP

May 17th, 2010

I’ve just finished running another NLP Training in Glasgow –  a really great group of students who gave the training 100%  – which really is the secret of getting the most out of anything we do.

To get the most out of a course, or indeed anything we do, its really all about giving it 100%.

You could think about it as a sports game. Are you just going to watch from the side – or are you going to be a player on the field. Observing life can be easy and sometimes fun, but you’re never going to get as much as if you give everything 100%.

I know lots of people that do things in life, but don’t really go for it, and as a result don’t get the full results they deserve.

A little like deciding to take up a new lifestyle programme and only giving it a little effort. If you want to reach your ideal weight and still think eating a few donuts a day won’t hurt, you’ll never get there!

If there’s something you really want, then go all out for it!

Put everything into it.

That’s why on every NLP training I run I really encourage my students to go for everything 100%. NLP trainings provide a unique opportunity for people to completely transform their lives and whether or not they do, largely comes down to the amount of effort they put into it.

Don’t put in much, and you won’t get much.

Put in a little and you’ll get a little.

Give it everything and you’ll be amazed at what you get out of it!

At the moment as I write this I’m actually on the train on the way back to London. I was meant to fly, but with all the ash clouds and many flights being cancelled, I thought it best to take the train. It turned out to be a good idea – I’ve been writing and doing things for the last 4 hours solidly working on new ideas and programmes.

In fact, I’ve got a really exciting project I’m working on at the moment – it’ll be a few months before its ready, but its something I’m really passionate about and I’m giving it 100%. I’ll let you know more about it in a later article when its in a closer state of readiness.

So take some time to reflect on your outcomes.

What is something that you really want?

What have you done to work on it recently?

Have you given it 100%?

If not, what’s stopped you from giving it 100%?

What could you do to give it 100%. This week?

Remember, you’ll get out of things what you put it, so give your dreams everything you’ve got and you’ll get great results

NLP is one of the most powerful methods for getting results and success in life that I’ve come across – and I’ve spent a lot of time looking at different tools. Probably, to me more precise, NLP when it’s taught properly will help you get great results – its most important to be careful selecting a good training, because standards really vary now.

If you want to attend an outstanding training, then come and join our next NLP Practitioner course in London or Scotland.

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