Posts Tagged ‘personal development’

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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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Getting results…

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

Recently I saw a client who had an incredible dream – to write a novel. She had wanted to do this for years and years, but kept finding all sorts of reasons, excuses and other activities to put it off. She wasn’t consciously finding these other things to do, or think of excuses, but every time she would have sat down to start at writing, she’d find other things to occupy her!

She realized that at some level she was sabotaging her own chance of success. It was like part of her really wanted to write this incredible piece of work and get it published, but there was some other part of her that was holding her back.

This was a clear example of inner conflict – where there were 2 parts of her that both wanted different things and ultimately she didn’t feel happy either way

I took her through the NLP technique for ‘Parts Integration’ – one part had the positive intention of being safe and secure and the other part had the intention of being successful. On the surface the one part that wanted to be safe thought that being successful might put her at risk, so every time she took action to be successful she sabotaged herself. During the process we found a higher common intention between the parts and she found a way they could work together rather than be in conflict.

We then reinforced the change with hypnosis – hypnosis is a wonderful way to work at a deep level with the unconscious mind – the thing is that most courses teaching what they think is hypnosis, is not really hypnosis! Learning hypnotherapy requires more than spending half or one day on an NLP course. It really needs proper training!

That evening she went away and write solidly for four hours. She carried on consistently writing over the next weeks until she had finished her novel. Within months she had it published!

I have seen NLP make the difference in helping so many people bring their dreams into reality and it all starts with the NLP Practitioner course!

Scotland Master Practitioner training

We have an NLP Master Practitioner training starting in Glasgow in September. If you have taken a Practitioner course already, this really will deepen your understanding and skill level more than anything else you could do! Over the last few years I’ve been fortunate enough to be running advanced trainings with Dr Wyatt Woodsmall – the leading developer of advanced modeling processes in the world. On this training you’ll be learning techniques and principles for modeling that you will only learn with us! So book now and join us on this exciting training.

We also have London Master Practitioner dates for later in the year.

NLP Practitioner training

Choosing the right Practitioner course is crucial!

We have lots of students who have attended our training after training with other organizations and being unhappy. Look out for how experienced the trainer is – I’ve been working in NLP since 1990. If the trainer has only recently certified, then they may not have the wealth of experience of someone else.

It really is worth taking time and traveling to find a good training. There’s so many places offering NLP now and only a small percentage offer quality training. One thing to look for is whether the trainer is INLPTA certified. INLPTA is the only worldwide independent NLP Trainer Association adhering to a strict code of practice. Of course, you still need to find out about the trainer’s experience.

We offer the highest quality trainings in the world and certification through INLPTA, ABNLP and ANLP.

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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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How to make affirmations work

Monday, 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

Friday, 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…

Monday, 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…

Friday, 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…

Wednesday, 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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