Rapport 4 - Summer 2006

ISSUE FOUR

SUMMER 2006

JumokĂŠ Fashola Can NLP be bad for you?

Michael Neill Talks about his new book

Dyslexia Can coaching help improve school work?

Free DVD See how NLP can be used to cure a phobia THE MAGAZINE FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Why Should You Become a Member of ANLP We have a comprehensive benefits package for our members which is growing all the time, including: 4 Issues of Rapport Magazine Per Year.

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rapportcontents Regulars

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4 NLP NEWS 6 DEBATE

Is hynotherapy or your GP best for insomnia?

8 WHAT’S NEW The latest news.

Editor

Express your views.

20 SPA

Rowhill Grange reviewed.

14 34

41 COLUMN

Life coach marketing.

43 BOOK REVIEWS

The latest books reviewed.

44 AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Michael Neill gets what he wants.

50 ENDNOTE Is NLP ethical?

Features 10 GROOMING

Can NLP make you stick at the gym?

14 NLP INTERVIEW Radio presenter Jumoké Fashola on NLP and life.

18 HYPNOSIS

Can hypnosis be used to communicate with deaf people. Rapport finds out.

22 BOOK EXTRACT Steve Andeas’s new book.

25 PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

William Little reviews hypnosis audio CDs to build a better memory.

Editor: William Little will@rapportmag.com Contributors: Joanna Goodman, Nicolette Stoddart Art Editor: Enzo Zanelli Advertising: David Hammond david@rapportmag.com; or call 0870 787 0026 Subscriptions and back issues: info@rapportmag.com or call 0870 444 0790;

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28 TRAINING

The Change Corporation says it can Re-Vitalise your life. We test out the claims.

Emma Sar gent

William Little

12 LETTERS

Flying Star t

Welcome again to another issue of Rapport, the personal development magazine. This issue we have a number of strong and moving pieces that show the capacity for individuals to succeed in the face of difficulty.

On page 38, we feature the story of one man’s journey to the Arctic. Using NLP techniques, he became the first disabled person to walk to the north pole. Similarly, on page 18, hypnosis is used to help a deaf woman communicate with her eyes closed, and on page 34, a coach reveals how she helps young people with dyslexia do better in their school work.

We also feature two authors.

Michael Neill talks about his new book ‘You can have what you want’ and beating negative thinking, while we print an extract from Steve Andreas’s latest text, ‘Six Blind Elephants: Understanding ourselves and each other’.

BBC radio presenter Jumoké Fashola raises controversy on page 14 by hearing listeners complaints that NLP is bad for them, while on page 28 Rapport reviews the Change Corporation’s claim to Re-Vitalise your life.

Check out the free DVD inside from the Performance Partnership. Watch David Shephard demonstrate an NLP technique to help cure phobias.

Enjoy!

Flying Star t

Coaching your childr en for life

“An extremely accessibl e, eminently book filled practical with stories that illustrate it can be how easy to coach our children to success. ”

32 HEALTH

Rapport maga zine

What makes you happy?

Emma Sar gent

34 COACHING

NLP helps dyslexic children.

Reader Offer

See page 4....

38 MISSION POSSIBLE One disabled man’s quest to conquer the north pole.

Publisher: Karen Moxom karen@rapportmag.com; or call 0870 787 1978 Company Reg No. 05390486 Phoenix Publishing Ltd PO Box 3357, EN5 9 AJ Rapport published by Phoenix Publishing on behalf of ANLP. Printed by: Wyndeham Westway, 1 Sovereign Park, Laporte Way, Luton LU4 8EL

DISCLAIMER The views within this magazine are not necessarily those of the publisher, nor does the publisher endorse the products or services promoted in the magazine.

Articles are for information only and intent is to inform. Readers should seek professional advice before adopting any suggestions or purchasing any products herein.

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NLP NEWS

Reader Offer

ANLPNews A

your children to understand better how they do things, to overcome problems and fears, and to learn and communicate more effectively. As a result, your children will become more confident in everyday activities, develop their strengths and overcome their weaknesses faster, and excel in what they do at home and at school. Ultimately, they will turn into well-adjusted, talented adults, who thrive on what life has to offer.

Emma Sa rgent

s parents (or teachers and carers), we often don’t just want well-behaved kids who will eat what you give them, do their homework without being told, and who will go to sleep when told to. If we love and care for them, we want our children to overcome the obstacles life puts in front of them, develop healthy minds and bodies, and go on to fulfil their full potential in adulthood.

This book provides a practical, simple, yet effective framework to help you develop your kids into thriving children. By applying principles and ideas developed from the world of coaching, NLP trainer and ANLP member Emma Sargent shows how to help

Flying Sta rt

Flying Start

Rapport and Cyan Books are offering readers a 30 per cent discount on this book if they call Direct Tel: +44 (0)20 7565 6117 info@cyanbooks.com quoting ‘ANLP’.

Flying Star t

Coaching your child ren for life

“An extreme ly accessibl e, eminentl book filled y practical with storie s that illustr it can be ate how ea to coach sy our childre n to succ ess.”

Rapport ma gazine

Emma Sa rgent

Performance Partnership he Performance Partnership Limited was founded in 1993. It was the first NLP Institute in the UK to launch a 7 day accelerated format Practitioner Certification supported by home study. The Performance Partnership Limited were also the first Institute in the UK to integrate Time Line Therapy™ and Hypnotherapy into its NLP Certification programmes. After training with Tad James in the USA for more than 8 years David Shephard, Co-founder, Chairman and Lead Trainer of The Performance Partnership

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Limited is heading off to California and Hawaii once again. In May 2006 David Co-founded The Performance Partnership LLC in the USA with Debra Fentress. Debra has coached CEOs, government agencies, corporations and individuals to improve their lives, both professionally and personally. She has a background in psychology, is a published author, Master Trainer of NLP, a Certified Hypnotherapist, and Certified Spiritual Counsellor. The company will be running it’s NLP certification trainings in Santa Barbara,

California and it’s Shamanic Certification trainings in Hawaii.

The Performance Partnership Limited are also committed to providing high quality home study programmes. This year they have launched, Conversational Change and The Personality Matrix.

Soon to follow are Selling Magically, Beyond The Matrix and The Achievement Accelerator.

For details call 0208 992 9523 or visit www.performancepartnership.com

Quadrant 1 International - The home of Orange Circle Thinking uadrant 1 has over 12 years experience of applying NLP empowerment tools in business.

They are running events later this year which will incorporate their Orange Circle Thinking, a highly effective change technique that they use with leading companies such as Dell Computers, Rexel Senate, Canon UK, Lehman Brothers, Alstom Power, London School of Economics and Greene King.

Forthcoming events include: Personal Success Programme, which runs from 22nd to the 24th September 2006 for module one, while module 2 runs from 27th to 28th October 2006.

The course is run in small groups to enhance personal experience. It offers a friendly, relaxed and comfortable environment to maximise the integration of learning.

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Alongside learning NLP skills, individuals experience plenty of opportunities to practice techniques and build their confidence.

Q1 has developed and uses its own methodology around which all programmes are based: AIM - Awareness, Intention and Motivate to Act. The course offers an extensive range of techniques that can be used in business or personal life, including increased focus and direction, improved performance and skills in: negotiation, presentation, consultancy, sales, communication, decision making to name but a few.

The course is aimed at creative thinkers, leaders who want to inspire others, entrepreneurs who want to bring their aspirations to life and anyone who wants to fulfil their true potential.

Visit www.quadrant1.com

Explore, discover, connect… …get inspired, get results! ◆ Quality leading-edge NLP ◆ World-class trainers ◆ Programmes designed for your success ◆ Individual coaching and support ◆ Powerful results in your personal and professional life

Practitioner ◆ Master Practitioner ◆ Business Seminars ◆ Continuous Professional Development Judith Lowe ◆ Robert Dilts ◆ Charles Faulkner ◆ Judith DeLozier ◆ Joseph O’Connor Certificates co-signed by John Grinder Excellence in NLP since 1987

For information, please call 0870 7744 321

DEBATE

Insomnia Traditionally, GPs would prescribe tablets for people with sleeping problems, but their approach is more sophisticated these days. Yet a GP still won’t just refer a patient onto their local hypnotherapist. Hypnotherapist, Shaun Brookhouse, and GP Jim Kennedy explore the best ways to beat insomnia Shaun Brookhouse is Director of Brookhouse Hypnotherapy Ltd, which has provided therapeutic services since 1989. Additionally he is Principal of the UK Academy of Therapeutic Arts and Sciences and is a past Chairman of the National Council for Hypnotherapy.

Hypnotherapy is becoming a more commonly used procedure in the treatment of insomnia. This is generally for variations of the condition with non-organic causes. Whilst sleeping pills are generally prescribed to patients in the early stages of this condition, these pills are usually meant to be a short term intervention in the hope that the condition will clear up. In my experience of working with this condition, pills often do not resolve the problem, although pills can give patients relief from the worst of the symptoms.

Hypnotherapy has two key applications in the treatment of insomnia: behavioural and analytical interventions. A behavioural intervention would focus on the premise that insomnia, rather than being a kind of disease, is more of a behavioural condition. This means that an insomniac develops a maladaptive behaviour based on a set of circumstances in which a

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lack of sleep might be an appropriate response, but the symptom (insomnia) has outlasted the circumstance. For example, a client might have developed a sleep issue at university during the final exam period due to long hours of revision and a genuine concern about their passing the exams. This behaviour however, due to a generalisation in behavioural process now has become the rule rather than the exception.

With hypnotherapy, one can re-learn an appropriate adaptive behavioural pattern which will allow the client to achieve a satisfactory conclusion to the condition. Another common behavioural approach with hypnosis is to help the client to re-learn the ‘unlearnable’.

By this I mean that sleep is a skill that none of us needed to learn; we were born knowing how to sleep. However, through negative expectation a person can ‘unlearn’ this basic skill. A person who has a bad spell of sleep could begin to expect to not be able to sleep and therefore manifest it. Additionally, it is not unknown for clients to say they forgot how to sleep. Hypnosis can allow for the facilitation of rationalising the reasons which might be causing the sleep issue.

In an analytical approach to insomnia, a practitioner would employ

age regression techniques to go back to the issue that caused the insomnia in the first instance. For example, regress the client back to the finals period for the above mentioned case and help the client to recognise that at that time the sleep issue was appropriate, but no longer. Alternatively a practitioner might employ age regression to take a client back to a time when he/she was able to sleep perfectly and to take that state of mind into the present day in order for the client to achieve the good night sleep he/she craves.

Hypnotherapy is not an alternative to conventional medical interventions for this condition, it is indeed a successful adjunct and with orthodox and complementary medicine working together, the successful treatment of this treatment is greatly enhanced.

Much of the work I do in this area is in conjunction with the client’s GP and I have found this to be a winning partnership.

For details about Shaun’s Practice you can call 0800 849 6327 or on the web at www.hypno-nlp.com For a qualified hypnotherapist contact the National Council for Hypnotherapy at 0800 952 0545 or on the web at www. hypnotherapists.org.uk

DEBATE

Jim Kennedy is a practicing GP and prescribing spokesman for the Royal College of General Practitioners.

A lot of people present with insomnia for a wide variety of reasons. It can be the main problem, or one of a number of symptoms. For some it is a long standing problem, for others it has developed relatively recently. For some it can also be episodic in nature.

A GP would usually take a history of the problem and what kinds of things it is associated with. If it is pain that is keeping them awake, we will deal with that rather than trying to knock them out. For others, it is worry and stress, while some people may be light sleepers and have a poor pattern of sleep which can be linked to depression and anxiety. That would be dealt with through psychoanalysis and maybe anti-depressants.

A GP wouldn’t prescribe hypnotics (sleeping tablets) or refer onto another specialist such a sleep expert, a psychologist or hypnotherapist without first trying to sort out the problem. For many it can be a simple problem of poor sleep hygiene, such as drinking coffee before they go to bed without realizing that it will keep them awake. They might have a television in their room and live in a noisy environment. We would encourage people to turn their bedrooms into a haven for relaxing and declutter

them, removing all exciting stimuli so to create a mood for better sleeping. We would also recommend having a milky drink and reading a book that isn’t too exciting, and taking exercise, but during the day. It’s surprising how many people think it’s ok to walk the streets at 3am in the morning because they can’t sleep.

In a small number of cases I might consider referral to a sleep specialist, hypnotherapist or psychologist. Or I might prescribe a short course of sleeping tablets – these would never be long-term as the treatment could rebound and increase disturbed sleep and cause bad dreams. They might be used at a low dose before an exam or job interview if the need to perform is paramount. I would prescribe them for the shortest time possible and lowest dose possible. I would use them as an adjunct to other methods not in isolation.

There is very little availability of hypnotheraphy on the NHS. GPs have difficulty when seeking assurance that the hypnotherapists in their area are reputable. If a GP refers they do want to make sure they are sending their patients to practitioners who are up to scratch, who are quality assured and follow clinical governance.

Accreditation involves several elements, including entry level criteria and ongoing verification, quality assurance which affects all clinical professions, ie those that have contact with patients. GPs have annual appraisals, clinical governance, and we have to go for regular updates, assessments and quality assurance.

That should be the case in this day and age for all clinical professions, including hypnotherapists, and then GPs would know who to refer to.

I do believe that a range of psychological remedies should be available and paid for by the NHS. I work in a deprived area and my patients just wouldn’t be able to afford to see a hypnotherapist privately. A report from the London School of Economics recently said that more psychological treatments for depression would more than pay for itself if the government funded them.

I don’t think there is a resistence to hypnotherapy as a complementary therapy by GPs. I think it has more to do with GPs being able to assure themselves of the credentials of any therapist. www.rcgp.org.uk If you’ve any opinions on this issue email letters to will@rapportmag.com

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WHAT’S NEW

Hypnosis can cure Irritable Bowel Syndrome atients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), can now heave a sigh of relief, as according to a research published in the latest issue of Journal of Clinical Nursing, hypnotherapy sessions reportedly reduce symptoms and improve the quality of life.

Dr Graeme D Smith from University of Edinburgh studied 75 patients with IBS, which affects up to one in seven adults, before and after they took part in four to five treatment sessions over three months. The 20 men and 55 women who took part in the study reported that hypnotherapy brought about significant improvements in the physical and emotional symptoms related to IBS. These included a 30 per cent improvement in their emotional quality of life and a 25 per cent improvement in energy levels. Mental health improved by 21 per cent, sleep by 18 per cent, physical health by 16 per cent and diet by 14 per cent. The participants also reported that their social role had improved by 20 per cent and their physical role by 18 per cent Men showed higher levels of both problems before the hypnotherapy sessions, but also reported greater improvements than women. The people taking part in the study also reported a five per cent reduction in abdominal pain and a four per cent reduction in abdominal bloating.

The 75 study participants underwent hypnotherapy sessions that focussed on creating images of their gut symptoms using visualisation techniques in conjunction with relaxation methods. ‘This study shows that hypnotherapy can effectively reduce symptoms and improve quality of life and underlines the valuable role that complementary therapies can play in modern healthcare,’ Dr Smith said.

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Train to be a life coach chievement Specialists life coaching diploma course is based on the The Life Coaching Handbook. Everything You Need To Be An Effective Life Coach

by Curly Martin, which is the bestselling work on life coaching written specifically for life coaches. The life coaching diploma course was the first life coach training course in the UK to be fully accredited by two external bodies and is still the only life coach training course accredited by both the European Coaching Institute and the Open College Network. Its founder Curly Martin is the only life coach trainer and life coach training provider to be invited to contribute and be interviewed by the Radio 4 In Business Programme on life coaching.

The LCH Diploma Course runs from 16 to 17 September and 28 to 29 October 2006.

The company created three different options of the life coaching diploma course to suit everyone’s needs. These include the silver, gold and platinum options. Every course will enable you to become a life coach but there are signicant differences. For instance, the price of the platinum option includes six months of coaching by Curly Martin herself.

All three options of the diploma course are underpinned by the Open College Network Accreditation along with European Coaching Institute Accreditation. As the diploma course has endorsements of two independent accreditation bodies – you can feel pretty confident and secure that which ever course option you choose to book, it will have high standards. www.achievementspecialists.co.uk or call 0800 191 0200

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Train to be a hypnotherapiist ypno-uk are based in Chelmsford, Essex and run professional, fun and personally fulfilling Hypnotherapy training programmes which are fully approved by both The General Hypnotherapy Standards Council and The Hypnotherapy Association.

Are you looking for excellent training in small groups that offer you individual attention? Do you want to gain significant benefits personally as well as in terms of information and knowledge?

Why study Hypnotherapy?

If you would like a rewarding career change that has no upper age limit and that you can train for part time.

If others feel comfortable confiding in you.

If people tell you their problems and secrets.

If you’ve ever been curious about the workings of the human mind.

If you’ve ever wondered why people do what they do, the way they do it.

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If you want to get more out of life and be able to help people in a practical way.

Programmes consist of two elements; 1. The Foundation that comprises four weekends (one per month for four months) £595. Then 2. The Diploma that comprises another six weekends (one weekend per month for six months) £892.50. Successful completion of the Foundation entitles students to join The General Hypnotherapy Register at Affiliate level and begin to practice while also continuing to study in order to gain the full Diploma.

Applications are now being taken for September 2006.

Places are going fast. To avoid missing out apply now. Call 01245 476376 or email Denisecollins100@aol.com for your information / application pack.

Course Venue; The Business Suite. Premier Travel Inn. Main Rd, Boreham, Chelmsford, Essex. CM3 3HJ.

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GROOMING

Gymworkout Can using NLP help you stick at the gym?

William Little finds out oining the local gym and attending it are two very different activities. The former is easy, the latter takes a lot of will power and motivation. Last issue in this space, Rapport featured an article about having one-to-one training at an exclusive gym.

But for the many people who can’t afford to spend hundreds of pounds a week to be told how to get fit, they are left with one option – to motivate themselves. But can they do it?

Many personal trainers at gyms up and down the country are now being trained in NLP techniques, but often their services can come at a premium.

So how can NLP help you to go the gym more than once a year using it on your own?

London’s Soho Gyms very kindly let me in to use their gym to see whether I could muster up the energy to attend over a long period. Mark Hendey, the manager of the Clapham High Street branch, tells me that NLP is fast becoming a must-have among trainers.

Gyms, he says, aren’t that interested in having people join in January then not turn up for a year and not renew their membership. He’d rather have a committed group of members who actually use the gym regularly and renew their membership every year.

Soho Gyms offers a personal trainer in with the membership to work out a fitness programme with you. Emma, my personal trainer, first asked me the big important question: why? The why underpins the motivation, as well as the type of exercise one should do, and the

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level at which you do it. Well, I want to keep fit because it is good for other activities that I like doing, such as walking up mountains, – you can’t do that if you collapse at the first incline.

I’m also running a 10-mile marathon in October, which was a goal set in order to get fit.

The work out Emma set included running on a treadmill, various weights as well as trying to sit down and stand up again on some kind of ball. There was a lot of variation, but it certainly doesn’t have the excitement of playing football or a team game, so how did I stick at it?

Well, the very fact of having a six-week progamme written down for me, which I was able to access every time I turned up at the gym gave me a clear and defined goal to work towards but also focused my mind on getting there to do it. I wasn’t turning up without a plan to work towards, which might be demotivating. I knew what I would do when I got there and that the programme would develop after six weeks once I had finished it. I had never really had one of these before, despite my numerous forays into the gym. I thought I could hack it on my own, but clearly, with all the failed attempts, I couldn’t.

Therefore, I also maybe had a lingering belief that I wouldn’t actually stick at it – why bother starting when I knew I wouldn’t succeed, kind of thought process. I have joined gyms, like many people, most of my life as an act of penitence to my health, but

generally give up after a short period of time, either because work becomes too hectic, I become demotivated and bored, or I get ill with a cold and forget to go back once I am well again (convenient, I know). So I tried to create a few positive anchors associated with the gym and then use the tried but very well tested swish technique to get rid of all the negative ideas that I just wouldn’t be able to hack it once I started.

So, when am I happiest and the most motivated and have so much energy that I can hardly sit still for five minutes?

Well, when I’m on holiday, of course, and it is hot and sunny, and every day is an adventure just waiting to happen, especially if I am somewhere exotic, new, and far away from England. So was I going to have to turn my local gym into the jungles of the Taman Negara National Park in Malaysia or a beach on the Tioman Islands – it certainly looked that way if I was going to match the energy levels and commitment I exhibited while I was there. I worked out some of the triggers for my motivation while on holiday – the warming sun on my face, the new sounds of a new place and the swish of the waves, surrounded by nature. The gym on the other hand is metallic and dry, cold and uninspiring, a place where repetition rather than new experience dominates.

So I transposed those sensations and feeling from my holidays, turning them up as best I could in my head, and turning down the cold dreariness of the gym. The idea that I would be able to turn going into the gym into some

GROOMING

kind of tropical holiday experience was slightly worrying. If it was really successful, would I ever want to leave the place once I’d arrived. I’m sure the only reason I go home from holiday is that I have a flight booked. So I also set myself a time limit of between 30

basking under a hot sun and swimming in a turquoise sea in place of the dreary gym. I did this a number of times as many NLP trainers suggest.

Did it work? Well the combination of having a clear goal certainly motivated me more, as well as feeling I would have

The work out included running on a treadmill, various weights as well as trying to sit down and stand up again on some kind of ball minutes and an hour, three days a week.

The idea that you have a voice in your head calling for final passengers to board the aeroplane to my local paradise gym, and then a similar call for my trip to my house at the end of the session certainly appealed to my sense of the ridiculous and absurd.

I also swished the new image of me

to go back to the trainer at the end of six weeks and say how I was getting on. It would be rather embarrassing if I hadn’t improved a jot. The NLP techniques were certainly helpful in terms of getting me there. There’s nothing worse that thinking you have to go to the gym when there are a million other pleasurable activities or non-activities you could be

doing instead. But giving the idea of going to the gym a trigger filled with the associations of a warm, sunny and exciting holiday has you running to the gym as though you’ve just heard the last call for your flight somewhere fun.

I have also imagined clearly what I will have achieved in six months time.

Running without stopping out of breath, and the pleasure and satisfaction of finishing my 10-mile marathon in one piece and without collapsing. That, on top of all the other self-help triggers, did it for me, now what’s stopping you?

Recommendation: There are many ways into NLP but by far the most effective book to get you using NLP from day one is Romilla Ready and Kate Burton’s NLP for Dummies. It gets straight to the point with clear examples.

Soho Gyms can be found in London. Visit www.sohogyms.com

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LETTERS

Send your letters to, The editor, Rapport, Phoenix, PO Box 3357, Barnet, EN5 9AJ or email letters@rapportmag.com Coaching or Counselling?

In response to you article ‘Life Coaching or Counselling?’ in the April 2006 issue.

The common distinction between Coaching and Counselling is that the former is a process of taking people who are able to function well to being able to function excellently, whilst the latter is one of taking people who are dysfunctional to being able to function well.

The boundaries between the two areas are fuzzy, however, and to someone seeking help or an answer when asking the question ‘Life Coaching or Counselling?’ would, I feel, not be much the wiser after reading the article as to which way to go in terms of making a decision.

In Coaching, the Coach usually enters a contractual relationship with the client that places the responsibility jointly to explore what is required in terms of ‘excellence’, with the coach acting as a guide anda reflective questioner.

The issue is usually framed in terms of behavioural performance and is similar to developing a business strategy using the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis process.

The client is expected to be an active participant in creating a desired future through changes in behaviour, thinking and emotional self-management. A growing body of opinion in the UK (ref. the BPS Special Interest Group in Coaching Psychology and the Association for Coaching) is moving to put coaching beyond the simple ‘goal and exhortation’ models and underpin it with a sound psychological basis built on theories of adult learning and motivation. Within this approach, generally underpinned by the cognitive theories of Ellis and Beck, the Coach does not offer advice but provides a space and a form of questioning which facilitates the client discovering their own route to their future.

In Counselling the Counsellor usually enters a contractual relationship with the client that places the primary responsibility on the counsellor to explore what is, based on assumptions of childhood, family or trauma events, causing the individual to be dysfunctional in the world in which they live. The issue is usually framed in terms of emotional meaning and is based on uncovering the internal blocks and selfimposed constraints that are holding the client back.

The client is typically expected to respond to questions or conversations

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designed to uncover the (usually unconscious) causes of the current problem and to then deal with them. This process takes place within a clear theoretical model (or models) that links causes through diagnosis to treatments.

The statement that ‘coaches always offer advice whereas counsellors will not offer advice’ is also, I would suggest, too sweeping a statement and the reality is that there are counsellors who direct and coaches who reflect.

Both Life Coaching and Counselling have value and a rule of thumb if you are comfortable in your own your life but know WHAT elements of it would stand improvement then Life Coaching should be your first port of call; if you are not comfortable in own your life and aren’t sure WHY then Counselling may be the best route for you. In either case, action is the key to improvement and a reputable Life Coach or Counsellor (qualified and with appropriate professional certification) will quickly tell you whether you are talking to the correct person and act accordingly in terms of either a plan or a referral.

Marc Atherton C.Psychol (Occ), AFPsS, MAC, MISMA

No Advice I have just read the article on coaching or conselling and would like to clarify a point that Phillip Hodson made.

He states that ‘Coaches always offer advice’... Whilst it is true that some coaches work in a directive way, Coaches absolutely do not give advice. When working with a client a coach’s responsibilty is to be the catalyst that allows the client to discover specifically what they want and to discover for themselves the most resouceful way of acheiving their required outcome. The coaching process, whilst not being focused on the past and the clients story telling, will reveal any self-limiting beliefs that may be holding the client back and once revealed the coach will work with the client to look at the validity of the beliefs and do belief change work. Coaching is focused on where the client is and where they want to move to... and this can be anything from state change to career change etc.

Phillips explanation of coaching was of a one dimensional advice giving service and that couldnt be further from the truth. In fact coaching is often seen as being akin to CBT.... He talks about ‘coaching may be more appropriate... if you want to be told what to do’ I have no idea where he has gained his insight into coaching or who he

has spoken to. The essence of coaching is that each of us is absolutely the best judge and determinator of what we need.

In fact for many the power of the coaching relationship is that they are not seeing an expert who knows what they need but rather someone who believes that through exploration and discovery, they will be able to clarify what they want and enjoy the discovery of finding the right choices for themselves.

Helen Golstein Bsc., Cert. Ed., Master N.L.P Coach Coaching for Change

Child’s Potential I was very interested to read your article

by Faith Tait on NLP in schools, (Rules of Engagement). When my oldest daughter was four we were sent a letter to tell us that she was eligible to start primary school in September. As she had only just turned four we felt that she was too young for more formal learning and opted out, keeping her in a nursery and home environment for a further six months.

She was a bright, gregarious child with an enquiring mind, and we and the nursery we had chosen, encouraged her to explore learning with all her senses, and most importantly her sense of fun.

We were stunned when she started school and began to receive negative feedback from her teacher. Our daughter became quiet, introspective and fearful of learning after only three weeks at school.

We met with the teacher and head teacher, only to find that the teacher blamed our daughter for being too inquisitive, too imaginative, and not clever enough for her to help.

We put the case that the teacher was in fact the one having difficulties teaching our child in an appropriate way, which she was not prepared to accept. The head teacher eventually moved her to another class where she immediately made rapid progress and became the funny, clever and highly intelligent child we knew her to be.

We have since found that other parents have struggled with this teacher, and yet haven’t felt capable of standing up for or moving their child. Faith Tait’s story is encouraging, but we wonder how many parents of small children, the most intelligent and flexible learners on the planet, are going through what we went through, and when the system is going to learn to use tools like NLP more widely to help them.

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NLP

Jumoké Fashola BBC radio presenter Jumoké Fashola listeners disagree about the merits of NLP. She tells William Little what they said umoké Fashola, presenter of ‘Inspirit’, the BBC London 94.9 Sunday morning radio programme, has recently caused a slight stir in the NLP community by focusing one of her programme’s on the pros and cons of NLP. There have been concerns that she called it ‘dangerous’. She says in her defence that she doesn’t know that much about NLP to comment in detail but her show is a discussion programme and the issue came up in conversation.

‘I am not an NLP practitioner. But I remember lots of NLP being brought up by listeners. Some were for it and some were against it,’ she says. She can’t remember the particular anecdotes depicting it as bad, although she says that some of her listeners claimed they had been damaged by it. ‘I was concerned by some of the stuff I heard, although it was anecdotal,’ she says.

‘We talk about that kind of stuff all the time and we let listeners make up

J

14

...Summer 2006: rapport

their own minds,’ she tells me. ‘It was a very candid conversation.’

There are two issues she does remember, though. ‘There is a sense – this is not a statement of fact – that people are drawn to well known proponents and practitioners of NLP. They are going to see them not because of what they are offering but because of who they are. The practitioners personality is getting tied up with the notion of a person developing their idea of self,’ she says. And the second issue: ‘It seems like NLP is a very big movement and I remember having a conversation with the director of ANLP that there needs to be an organisation to legislate or regulate NLP so that it is used in the correct way.’

These are intelligent comments and certainly shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. The idea that someone might pay thousands of pounds to watch an NLP guru because they are seduced

by their ‘rock ‘n’ roll celebrity’ status, instead of finding a practitioner who concentrates on the individual client’s needs, seems grim but maybe not that far from the truth for some people. It is uncomfortable to see some well known practitioners signing autographs as though they were pop stars, rather than coaches. Maybe they are doing it under sufferance, after all, they were asked However, there are as many ways to offer and teach NLP as there are practitioners: from relaxing and cruising on a yacht with 10 other people in Greece, as some companies offer their training, to pumping out the adrenaline with an energetic and guru-like performance to an audience of thousands that other well known NLP practitioners prefer, the choice is endless. The best known NLP trainers might appeal to those more susceptible to celebrity, but which approach is better, may be down to individual need.

NLP

rapport: Summer 2006...

15

NLP

For Jumoké, it is the individual that matters. Talking to her, you get the sense that she is a natural coach, looking out for the self-esteem and potential of others. The concern over NLP isn’t to do with NLP itself, it is more to do with a need to investigate why someone thinks they have been damaged by it. It is a concern for the individual rather than the movement – for most that is what NLP is about as well. For instance, she talks about encouraging young people

edition of the programme.

She also brings this concern for the potential of others directly into her show.

‘I encourage ideas in the show about mind, body and soul. On the show we ask people to stand in front of the mirror every day and say: “I am fabulous”.

I don’t think this is NLP, but it is an affirmation of self. It is uncomfortable for people to look in the mirror and say it if they are not feeling brilliant, but if they do say it, the affirmation will go

We are searching for a community, and it leads us to ask the big questions of life to be the best they can, and not to get stuck on a treadmill and ‘just going with the status quo, they should push the boundaries of their experience.’

To back this up, she says that her chief passion is ‘making sure young people feel that they play a part in society and that they have appropriate opportunities to enthuse them about the road ahead in life.’ She has been a national youth co-ordinator, has co-ordinated voluntary work for young people, and was pulled in by ‘Question Time’ to coach the young people taking part in their ‘youth’

16

...Summer 2006: rapport

into the subconscious,’ she reveals.

She also says that her show is a discussion about the nature of life, not about God. ‘We have atheists, religious and spiritual people listening to the show every Sunday, talking about meaty subjects as though they are at a dinner party,’ she says, whether for some that’s wanting to expose the myth of faith or for others it is trying to grapple with the idea that there is something bigger than them out there and what that might be.

‘We discussed a brilliant report from the Henley Centre that looked at what

would lead to the overall betterment of human beings,’ she says. ‘Is it to work on tightening our communities, or to work at bettering ourselves as individuals, which would then have an impact on improving the community?’ she reveals. Apparently, most people who expressed a view on the programme said that community was the most important to improve society, rather than the individual. They thought that bettering one’s self would not lead to the betterment of a community.

‘In the middle of our search for our individuality, we are searching for a community, and it leads us to ask about the big questions of life,’ she says.

One of the most memorable things a listener told her was that her programme was a community. ‘He said, “that in our little isolated places we are all having this conversation together and somehow through that we are connecting”. I was really touched by that,’ she says.

Jumoké says that she has no agenda, it is okay to question that this is the only life and you’ll be eaten by worms at the end of it or to believe there is something bigger. ‘As human beings we have to ask these questions. Whatever you believe, the fun is in asking them.’ Quite so.

Catch Jumoké between 6am and 9am on Sunday’s at 94.9FM.

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HYPNOSIS

Hearingaid Nikki Crocker had meningitis at the age of 7, which made her deaf.

She has recently been able to communicate under hypnosis with her eyes closed. She tells the story of her experience attended the hypnotherapy course as part of the NLP Practitioner Course run by Jeremy Lazarus. Lisa Wake was introduced as our trainer for the hypnotherapy, a section I was nervous about. My nerves stemmed mainly from a fear of the unknown. My fears came a lot from the fact that I understand the spoken word through my own expert skill of lip reading to back up my hearing loss; an ability that I believed would hinder my being able to enjoy hypnosis.

I had meningitis at the age of 7; I woke up from the first night of infection

I

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...Summer 2006: rapport

to a seemingly silent world. I found I had a child’s endlessly flexible ability to turn what an adult would perceive as an insurmountable hurdle into something of an adventure. My experience meeting Lisa Wake (an ANLP Accredited and Recognised trainer) was a turning point for me; I had never considered looking into hypnosis! My mind suddenly had a 1000 and 1 questions to answer!

As a part of the NLP Practitioner course, we were offered the chance to complete hypnosis certification training.

Until I was handed the notes to prepare

myself prior to the lesson, I gave the situation very little thought. Actually meeting Lisa and hearing her talk about the training and what it would involve made me quake in my shoes. I had never heard of a profoundly deaf person experiencing hypnosis, let alone successful hypnosis; but a little voice inside would not let me back out of the challenge of finding out a little more about myself and how far I could push those boundaries.

Following an intense visual disturbance during a test run with a

HYPNOSIS

Despite the weightless feeling I had, I was aware of moving my head to listen; I knew I was trying to understand what was being said by a rather insistent voice, with a new tone, and different volume fellow coache, it became apparent that I could achieve quite a deep trance-like state; Lisa suggested I tried hypnosis for myself, in a situation that I felt I could be comfortable in. So, settled onto comfortable cushions on the floor, to remove my fear of falling, I agreed to the experience with Daksha my next coach, closely watched over by Lisa.

Prior to the journey, I would not have even contemplated the possible issues that hypnotherapy could help those

with hearing loss.

We agreed on trying an Ericksonian induction with a touch to the forehead to deepen my trance; all based on having read and discussed the options in a group before hand. A tingle of anticipation and nerves gave way to a calm gentleness that can only be experienced. Lisa, observing previously that I went into deep trance very quickly, set up simple signals to see how much my unconscious mind would respond.

Meantime, I was wondering what the voice I could hear was saying. I wondered if they had managed to make my unconscious mind lift my arm even, as I felt so weightless I could not feel my limbs. So I moved a finger, which for me said ‘my finger is still on the carpet’.

Despite the weightless feeling I had, I was aware of moving my head to listen; I knew I was trying to understand what was being said by a rather insistent voice, with a new tone, and different volume. I simply obeyed what my mind suggested to me, and relaxed even more.

After I was brought back to consciousness Lisa told me of the finger signal that she set up; to move a finger to indicate ‘yes’; to which I responded…; but my unconscious (or was it my conscious mind?!) would not respond to the second signal to indicate ‘no’!

My head also moved following the direction of the voice. This ability to hear direction I did not believe I had.

Needless to say having trust in one’s coach is paramount. This goes for any one person experiencing hypnosis for the first time; and for me, it would not have been possible in my earlier nervous mind. As to using hypnotherapy to explore if this could improve what hearing I do have left could be a whole new issue for me to follow up on.

A separate coaching hypnosis for a different situation, which relied more on the spoken word than to signals gave me an effect lasting just over a week, so my unconscious state must be able to respond even though my conscious mind could not hear the message being said.

Lisa Wake Nikki had a goal to try to deal with the deeper issues about her deafness.

She wanted to know whether she would still be able to hear with her eyes closed and follow instructions. She communicates through lip reading.

I didn’t tell her that I was going to get her to give ideomotorsignals, a non verbal form of communication, as this would be giving her a suggestion and she might do it anyway. I wanted to make sure that it was her unconscious mind that was responding to my suggestions while she was under trance.

I believe that when you are under trance you are able to communicate with the unconscious mind that doesn’t rely on the five senses.

The student took her into a relaxed state, and then I took over, taking her deeper with her eyes closed. I took her deeper until I reached the right level of trance, making sure she was breathing correctly.

I worked with any potential resistence, using Ericksonian suggestions: ‘you might like to, you might not. I got an ideomotorsignal from her left

finger when I asked her to move it.

I also used Ericksonian suggestions, asking her whether she would like to go deeper into trance, so that there would be least resistance. I also asked her whether she would like to resolve any underlying issues around her hearing, and she moved her finger yes. I also asked whether she would like to work on that.

I started bringing her out of trance and got to level two, but handed back over to the student to take her the rest of the way as she was expecting to hear her voice at that level.

When she came round she said that she was compelled to move her finger across the carpet. The experience is uncommon. It is an indication that the unconscious mind can communicate without the need for the five senses, which work only with the conscious mind.

Contact Lisa at www.awakenconsulting.co.uk or on 01642 310022.

rapport: Summer 2006...

19

SPA REVIEW

Countryspa Going away with your partner to a spa might sound like an ordeal, but Rowhill Grange in Kent offers a more romantic option than most. Nicolette Stoddart discovers aking a spa break with your other half may not sound like a recipe for success. Aren’t spas for girlfriends and mothers and daughters?

Rowhill Grange in Swanley, Kent offers an alternative to the traditional spa.

Set in a hotel with extensive gardens, Rowhill Grange is as much for a romantic break as well as a relaxing spa.

Rooms are decorated and furnished to give them a luxurious feel. Walking through reception you feel you are in a country house rather than a spa, which makes men feel far more comfortable walking from their rooms to the spa in their dressing gowns and slippers.

The hotel is multi-purpose and not everyone is there for deep cleansing and chilling out, which means it can appear less claustrophobic than other spas. The Utopia Spa offers usual facilities such as gym, massages, and even hairdressing, however, the highlight of any trip here is the atmospheric roman baths.

T

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...Summer 2006: rapport

Containing a Jacuzzi, hydro pool and swimming pool, the architecture of this area is soothing with its roman columns.

This area also contains a stream room and each of the changing rooms come with a sauna. It is very easy to create a routine starting in the Jacuzzi, then heading into the steam room followed by a plunge in the swimming pool with a relaxing wallow in the hydro pool and then repeating it all over again for hours.

The extensive grounds provide a wonderful outlook and encompass a lake and bridge, a charming Victorian walled garden, private woodlands and gardens sweeping up to the hotel.

This idyllic, partly thatched hotel captures the charm and elegance of 19th century England while offering the very best, award-winning accommodation, service and facilities. The hotel has an individual style and personality, with a passion for quality, design, beautiful furnishings and attention to detail, not to

mention fine food and attentive service.

Truffles Restaurant is amongst the highest rated in the area and it takes some beating. The picturesque garden and terrace encourage time spent sipping a cold drink in summer whilst in winter the roaring log fires are only matched by the warmth of the hospitality.

The Spa has been described by the RAC Hotel Guide as one of the finest spa’s in the South of England, it was included in the world’s top 50 spas by ‘The Mail on Sunday’. Most recently it has been awarded ‘Hotel Spa of the Year 2005’.

The Spas 19 treatment rooms offer a wide range of face and body treatments performed by a friendly team of skilled therapists.

It goes without saying that they have a fully equipped gymnasium, aerobics studio with a wide range of classes from yoga to spinning, an exercise pool, steam room and separate saunas.

Being part of the highest rated four star hotel in the area with an award winning restaurant and casual brasserie, Utopia and Rowhill Grange together make the ideal place to get away for a stress free break. My partner now wants to go again. From being someone allergic to Spas in the past, he is now addicted thanks to Rowhill Grange.

For more details, visit www. alexanderhotels.co.uk/rowhill_ grange, or call 01322 615136

BOOK

SteveAndreas Steve Andreas has been learning, teaching, and developing NLP methods for 28 years. Here is an excerpt of his latest book ‘Six Blind Elephants: understanding ourselves and each other’ his is a brief excerpt from a chapter distinguishing the many different communication patterns that have been described with the term “Double Bind,” and showing how a double bind can be used therapeutically, taken from Steve Andreas’ new book, ‘Six Blind Elephants: understanding ourselves and others’.

T

Ambiguity I once watched a videotape in which Erickson asked a client, “Can you shake your head ‘No’?” When she nodded her head up and down, Erickson said, “That’s not ‘No.’ ” Then the woman shook her head from side to side. When Erickson said, “You can’t?” she looked very confused.

Now let’s look at the structure of what Erickson did. The common question, “Can you tell me the time?” can be answered in two ways. One is to do what is requested by the embedded command, “Tell me the time,” by looking at your watch and telling someone the time – something many people do several times a day.

The other way to respond is to nod or say, “Yes,” indicating that you have the ability to do it (or shake you head or say, “No” if you don’t have the ability because you don’t have a watch and don’t know the time). Since the question can be answered in two very different ways, it is ambiguous. This will be true of any question of the general form “Can you–?” which linguists call a “conversational postulate,” or “conversational implication,” and which is generally accepted as a gentle and graceful way to ask someone to do something.

What makes Erickson’s particular

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...Summer 2006: rapport

question very interesting is that a “Yes” answer meaning “Yes, I have the ability,” is the opposite of the “Yes” answer of doing it, and vice versa. No matter how she answers, Erickson can interpret the ambiguity in the other way, and indicate that she is wrong.

If Erickson had asked her, “Can you nod your head ‘Yes,’ ” a “Yes” answer meaning ability would be congruent with doing it, and a “No” answer would also be congruent with both meanings, so there would be no ambiguity, and no bind.

Notice how hard it is to understand this communication trap, even when it is written down and you can go over it slowly and review it. In the normal flow of conversation, it is much harder.

Only a very skilled linguist or logician would be able to unpack it “on the fly,” recognize the trap, laugh, and say, “You got me,” and then comment on its structure, “No matter how I answer, you can interpret it in a way that makes me wrong.”

It would take an even more skilled linguist to respond with the same pattern, putting Erickson on the receiving end. “Nice trap; can you indicate your agreement with me by shaking your head ‘No.’? ” Another time when I was present, Erickson asked the group, “Can you tell when someone is hypnotized?” This is the same communication pattern, which is ambiguous, and can be answered either by describing the knowledge or skill, or by demonstrating it. Various people in the group understood this as an intellectual question, and described a number of different nonverbal signs of trance.

After listening attentively to all these responses, Erickson turned to a woman who was sitting several chairs to the right

of him in the circle, and said, “Mary, where are we?” and she answered in a high-pitched young voice, “Up in the apple tree.” Then Erickson asked, “And what’s my name?” Again she replied in a high-pitched voice, “Tommy.” Quite obviously she was in a very deep trance, but no one had noticed. Erickson was repeatedly trying to teach people to be observant, and not rely on abstract intellectual thinking, and he was quite willing to “rub our noses” in our incompetence in order to make this point.

Paradoxical intention In chapter 5 on self-reference I described the structure of recursive problems like anxiety, or stage fright, which function in the same way as the familiar “feedback” screech that develops when a microphone is placed so that it receives the output from an amplifier and speaker that it is connected to; a small initial sound quickly increases in volume until it reaches the limits of the system.

When someone’s attempt to control an

BOOK

involuntary problematic symptom makes it worse, it is because the symptom is both the result and also the cause of the escalating disturbance, a vicious circle. These kinds of problems have been described well by Paul Watzlawick as, “When the attempted solution is the problem.”

If instead, someone deliberately tries to increase such a symptom–by deliberately trembling more, or making even more frightening catastrophic mental images that elicit the symptom– the symptom typically decreases, because the recursive escalation is reversed.

When someone voluntarily attempts to increase or duplicate an involuntary symptom, this recategorizes the symptom as voluntary, creating a puzzling ambiguity, and a bind. “Is the symptom voluntary or not?” Whether the symptom decreases or increases, it appears to be voluntary. If the symptom decreases–in frequency, intensity, or extent–that voluntarily achieves the goal of reducing it. If the symptom increases, that also means that it is under voluntary control, which implies that voluntary control can also be used to reduce it.

Erickson often began to treat weight loss in this way, by first ordering a client to gain ten pounds, before telling them to lose weight. Most people have tried to lose weight with much voluntary effort, only to gain it back involuntarily.

By reversing the sequence, they are faced with the task of gaining weight voluntarily, and the implication is that it will be followed by losing weight involuntarily and effortlessly.

Often when people fail at something, it is because they are preoccupied with their expectation of failure, which is an example of what has often been called a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” When someone complains that they always fail when they try to do something, they can be instructed to deliberately and repeatedly fail at the task. If they do in fact fail, they have succeeded at the assignment to fail, a counterexample to their statement that they always fail.

If they happen to succeed at the task in spite of their expectation, they will have succeeded in what they wanted to do (while failing the assignment). This transforms an either/or alternative – either succeed or fail to a both/and

situation in which no matter what the outcome, the client has to succeed at one task, and at the same time fail at another.

Many of Erickson’s cases of impotence were treated in this way; the client was given the task of not getting an erection, transforming failure into success.

Despite the name that has been given to this method, it is only paradoxical in the looser meaning of doing what is unusual, unexpected, or counterintuitive, not a logical paradox as described in chapter 7.

Logical double bind Because of their structure, some communications are logically inescapable, and have only one possible answer. For instance in response to something her father said, a teenage daughter said emphatically, “That’s stupid!”

Her father said, “Well, I can understand your saying that; you’re a teenager. And as a teenager, you can’t not disagree, can you?” She looked very confused and then dropped into a brief trance. The father took that opportunity to make a few positive suggestions about her behavior around the house.

This example takes a bit of unpacking to understand clearly.

Her statement “That’s stupid” is an emphatic statement of disagreement with what the father said.

Her father categorizes her statement as “disagreement,” and then says that since she is a teenager, she has to disagree. “You can’t not” is a complex way of saying “You have to.” The double negation makes it harder for her to process and understand the meaning of the statement.

The tag question, “Can you?” adds some additional complexity. It makes it harder for her to understand the meaning of the sentence, and it also introduces an ambiguity. If she answers “Yes,” (or “No”) is she responding to the statement that she “can’t not disagree” or is she responding to the opposite “tag question” “Can you?” at the end?

If the daughter disagrees, that is a confirmation of his statement that she has to disagree.

If she agrees, that also confirms his statement that she has to disagree.

And if she remains silent, that is

letting the statement stand, agreeing with it by default.

I saw a shorter version of this pattern in a cartoon once. A husband says to his wife, “Whatever I say, you always disagree with me.”

If she disagrees, that is a confirmation of his statement.

If she agrees, then she affirms that she always disagrees.

And if she remains silent, and lets the statement stand, that will also be understood as agreeing with the statement that she disagrees.

This pattern is particularly useful with anyone who is “oppositional” and very likely to disagree with whatever you say, like a “typical teenager,” or a “resistant client.” When you predict that they will disagree, and they try to oppose that, they find that there is no way out–they have to disagree as you predicted, which is agreeing with you at a more general logical level.

It would take a very able linguist or logician to process this, recognize the trap, laugh, and say, “I have to disagree.”

It would take an additional degree of mental agility to use the same pattern in response, by saying, “And you can’t not disagree with that, can you?”

What may not be obvious from this example is that this pattern can be used for any content at all–not just disagreement. “I think you’re a great kid, but of course you will disagree with me.”

“I love you deeply, but you can’t not disagree with that, can you?”

In the struggle to understand the communication, and finding that they can’t agree, and have to disagree, attention is diverted from the content, which is likely to be accepted unconsciously in much the same way as a presupposition or implication. www.realpeoplepress.com has more information about this book, including contents, introduction and additional excerpts. For more information, go to www.steveandreas.com

rapport: Summer 2006...

23

The Wisdom of The Enneagram ± moving beyond personality

The Wisdom of The Enneagram Workshop 9-10 Sep 06 Surrey

Enneagram Relationships Workshop

21-22 Oct 06 Surrey plus Friday 20 evening £230. inc VAT each workshop

Characteristic descriptions of personality types reflect only part of the picture. The Enneagram tells us about the relationship between our personality and our Essence, or spirit.

This Workshop will feature exercises to help us see through the veils of our personality structures & have a more direct experience of our Essence. With music, meditations, and practices that will help bring our Centres of intelligence (Thinking, Feeling, and Instinct) into greater alignment. We will focus primarily on the spiritual gifts of each type. If you are curious about the underlying meaning & Wisdom of the Enneagram, this Workshop will be highly relevant to you.

Date: September 2006 - Sat 9 & Sun 10, 9:00 am-5:30 pm

Enneagram Relationships -

intimate and personal

Relationships can be both frustrating and the most rewarding aspects of our existence. The quality of our work & intimate relationships impacts on our self-esteem, our careers and our health. The Enneagram aids our understanding of relationships as well as makes sense of the sometimes confusing behaviour of others. This Workshop will cover the three Instinctual Variants motivations that affect our relationships, the particular dynamics & effective methods for communication between the different types.

Riso Hudson certified Enneagram Teacher and INLPTA certified NLP Trainer, Grahame Morgan Watson will use The Insight Approach®, employing interactive exercises, guided meditations, panels of exemplars, music, and other techniques to help participants recognise personal strengths and reveal the blind spots that can undermine relationships.

If you want to improve your relationship with a spouse, child, friend, business associate, or family member, this Workshop will be invaluable.

Date: October 2006 - Fri 20, 7:00 pm -9:30 Sat 9 & Sun 10, 9:00 am-5:30 pm Venue for both Workshops: The Sanctuary, Burrows Lea, Nr Guildford, Surrey

Cost : £230. per person - per workshop.

Includes VAT, handouts, lunch and refreshments.

10% Discount for multiple bookings (workshop or people) Forthcoming NLP Business Workshops; LAB Profile - Motivational Communication - two days in November 2006 Sussex : £230.

INLPTA NLP Diploma certification - four days during January/February 2007 Sussex: £450.

www.metame.co.uk

email: info@metame.co.uk or call +44 (0) 1403 823 283 for details

TRAINING CHANGES 15 years of NLP Training

INLPTA Certified NLP Practitioner Summer School ~ August 1st-20th If you have a Diploma/Intro, join us on 5th August Extensive Course (weekends) September to December Both in Cheltenham NLP Practitioner ~ £995 + VAT Thought Pattern Management (TPM) Level 1 Revolutionise your 1:1 work TPM developed by Robert Fletcher (Utah) Presented under exclusive UK licence September 11th-15th Minimum entry requirement: NLP Diploma Robert Fletcher will be in the UK for TPM Level 2 Contact/Details/Booking: Training Changes www.trainingchanges.co.uk email: graham@trainingchanges.co.uk 7 Spenser Avenue Cheltenham GL51 7DX Tel: 01242 580640 Mble: 07711 370980

MOTIVATION

Memory

Having a good memory isn’t a birth right, you can remember all you want if you have the right attitude and the right techniques. William Little reports n these pages last issue, I complained about my lack of motivation to get fit and healthy. I was also in near despair at my inability to have the motivation to attend just one session of jujitsu. To the rescue came Glenn Harrold, an audio CD hypnotherapist to help me achieve my goals. Did it work? Well, simply, yes. By the very next evening I had attended a jujitsu lesson and have since been every week, sometimes twice. Gym membership is a doddle as well. I’ve joined and I’ve graduated from just using the loo to actually lifting weights and trying out the treadmill.

Worryingly, I’ve enrolled myself on a ten mile marathon for October. When these

O

CDs are advertised as motivation aids, I didn’t expect to be encouraged to leap the equivalent of a tall tower after just a few listens.

We all know that the secret is positive suggestions given under trance, when the subconscious is most receptive.

Visualising the goal achieved successfully got me off the sofa and out into the night peddling five miles across town to exercise even more.

As I’ve always wanted to learn a martial art and having enjoyed exercising regularly anyway, was I really giving Glenn’s recording much of a challenge?

Enjoying something, of course, makes goals more easily achievable. Yet what about something that most people, even

highly intelligent people, say they can’t get their head around. No not quantum physics, that’s like the two times table compared with this, I’m talking about memory. Not only being able to remember the last person you met, but a consistent improvement in memory that enables me to remember conversations, books, song lyrics – is it at all possible?

Memory as a belief seems to determine who you are as much as what you look like. Everyone I meet seems to admit to having a bad one. Academics are so, stereotypically, absentminded that it’s a surprise that they ever remember to get out of bed in the morning let alone the finer points of some esoteric theory for a lecture. Yet we marvel at

rapport: Summer 2006...

25

MOTIVATION

people with good memories, those who can quote Geothe, Shakespeare and their mother’s recipe for jam in the same breath, we probably even envy them.

Yet we glow with pride when we are

lose it, is as true today as it was when it was first heard – can anyone remember when that was?

True to form, Glenn Harrold doesn’t just offer mystic mind trances to help you

In the information age selecting what to remember is as important as remembering itself called upon to recite the Wilfred Owen poem we learnt at school and drop in a few latin phrases of which we have managed to remember the meaning.

Stature grows when people talk off the cuff at length without notes.

But there are a number of points to remember with memory. Firstly we aren’t computers, second, in the information age selecting what to remember is as important as remembering itself, and third, the brain is a muscle and must be trained to be improved. The old adage, use it or you’ll

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...Summer 2006: rapport

become the next Einstein, but grounds his hypnotherapy in the science of memory as well. Before he even starts his deep breathing routine, he gives a few practical suggestions. A good memory is all about visualisation and using the senses. If you have experienced the wonder of remembering something in detail from nearly ten years ago, there’s something in that experience that affected the senses in such a unique way, that it is easy to recall.

Glenn suggests a technique for remembering names. You have to

associate the first names and the surname with a famous person. So for John Turner, you would visualise the actual John Turner with John Lennon and Tina Turner on stage. Visualise it clearly with colours and sounds and go through it a number of times. The more you do this, the easier it will become.

He says that most memory experts train their memories like Olympic athletes train their bodies. Using visualisation and creative memory techniques on a daily basis will improve the brain muscle and sooner rather than later remembering names, poems, speeches will be as simple as spreading your mum’s jam on toast.

Glenn then informs my unconscious mind that it will remember everything it wants to, as well as placing suggestions to practice using it. The motivation to do a crossword, or remember a poem or speech using visualisation techniques is probably the key to an improved memory. Making them second nature will ultimately make it long lasting. www.hypnosisaudio.com

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PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Re-Vitalise YourLife: Breaking through to a new you!

It all comes down to cause and effect. Lindsey Agness and Eelco Wisman of The Change Corporation promise to transform your life in just two days. On one condition: You have to do whatever it takes! By Joanna Goodman t’s the hottest weekend of the year and at 9am on Saturday morning 14 women and one man are swapping the sunshine outside for a meeting room at the Selsdon Park Hotel and waiting eagerly for Lindsey Agness and Eelco Wisman of The Change Corporation to help them break through to a new outlook on life. Why are they here?

Two thirds of the group are undergoing significant changes. Several participants have recently started new businesses, some are contemplating a career change and others face challenges in their personal lives. The rest were sufficiently motivated by Lindsey and Eelco’s dynamic and inspiring presentation at the Vitality Show at London’s Olympia to sign up for the two-day personal development programme that promises to Re-Vitalise Your Life.

Their performance outshone some of the more ‘alternative’ offerings at the Vitality Show due to a combination of slick professionalism and raw energy. The short presentation to a full house – standing room only – was carefully structured with no gaps or flat patches and just the right amount of audience participation. Of course this was not surprising, given the background of the two presenters.

Lindsey is a change manager and people development expert who spent

I

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...Summer 2006: rapport

12 years at the global consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Eelco was a trainer with the Dutch Special Forces and runs a successful NLP company in Holland called Outwise. They are both certified NLP trainers. Indeed, NLP brought them together. They first met a year ago at David Shephard’s Master Trainer Development Programme and soon after Lindsey asked Eelco to join her as Director of The Change Corporation. They devised Re-Vitalise Your Life – a holistic NLP-based course designed to help people follow their example and move out of the Grey Zone – where life isn’t awful, but it’s not great either – into the Absolutely Brilliant Zone.

The programme focuses on mind and body – with more emphasis on the body than most NLP courses – and is based on the philosophy that success in life is down to maximising physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Re-Vitalise Your Life starts with a quick blast of its theme tune – Simon Webbe’s ‘No Worries’ – and catchphrase, ‘I just know your life’s gonna change’. Of course everybody is ready, but we’re not prepared for the X factor – the remarkable chemistry between this attractive couple that underpins their exuberant presenting style. The entire programme flows

seamlessly between Lindsey’s sparkling narrative and Eelco’s outrageously direct humour which enables him to break the ice with everyone in the room.

But Eelco quickly gets serious again, pointing out that all the answers are in The Method Part 1 (Part 2 will be launched next year), which helps people identify and define their key goals and harness the energy to do what it takes to achieve them. ‘If you always do what you’ve always done you always get what you’ve always got. So if you really want something different, you have to do whatever it takes to change,’ he says. ‘Anything less than 100 percent is sabotage,’ adds Lindsey.

The Method Part 1 is based on creating your own universe around seven topics – all beginning with the letter F: focus, feeling, food, fitness, flexibility, feedback and future. At the start of the weekend, everyone is given a workbook with a section on each topic followed by questions to answer, plans to fill in and space for notes. As Lindsey explains, the idea is that each participant takes away a personal action plan to keep them focused on the goals they set themselves at the start of the programme.

The first day of the programme ploughs through intensive workshop sessions with presentations, discussions and activities. Focus is all about setting

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

rapport: Summer 2006...

29

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

goals and targets, advocating SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed) objectives, identifying desired outcomes and developing a positive mental attitude. Although this exercise reminded a few of us of conventional management training, the career change/new business start-up participants found it useful to sit down in pairs and discuss their plans. They introduce NLP frames and techniques such as anchoring through practical exercises that everyone could relate to.

‘Think of a time when you felt fantastic and experience that moment again now,’ urges Lindsey enthusiastically.

Eelco helps a reluctant participant to relive a positive experience. When he finally convinces her to reconnect with a moment of triumph, she cries and laughs and we all laugh with her.

The next session covers the principles of healthy eating. This is where the programme diverges from most personal development and NLP courses.

Participants are given useful diet tips and then are asked to complete a food diary and check in with a buddy – another

participant – in a week’s time.

Day two begins with deep breathing and Tai Chi in the beautiful hotel grounds. The people who stayed up late partying are delighted by the slow pace of the early morning exercises! Having stretched our bodies, we go back inside to stretch our minds as the flexibility session is about beliefs. Everyone is asked to identify their own empowering and limiting beliefs and write them down on different sides of a one-inch thick piece of wooden board.

Feedback is next – in groups we’re asked to give each other positive feedback and suggest one thing that each person could improve. My feedback was to stop apologising for asking everybody questions and just go for it! This is worth reporting as it reflects a U-turn in the group mindset – some 24 hours earlier when I told participants that I was from Rapport, there was some concern about whether the presence of a journalist would be an inhibiting factor, given that some people were dealing with sensitive personal issues. But since then Lindsey and Eelco have built up their confidence

The climax of the whole weekend was a ‘board break’ – an empowerment technique involving breaking a wooden board with just your bare hands 30 ...Summer 2006: rapport

and the room is full of warmth.

‘Meeting Lindsey has given me self belief,’ said one participant.

We returned to NLP with Timeline Therapy™ and visualisation. ‘Put a single goal into your future and breathe life into it,’ exclaims Eelco. ‘Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want,’ adds Lindsey, with one proviso: ‘Be careful what you wish for because you might get it.’

The climax of the whole weekend was a ‘board break’ – an empowerment technique involving breaking a wooden board with just your bare hands. One by one, Eelco guides each participant as they break through the piece of solid wood on which they had written their goals and limitations. Each time the atmosphere is electric. I don’t need to ask them how they feel – some jump up and down in glee and disbelief; a couple burst into tears. Everyone hugs each other. ‘I had a big goal to break through. I didn’t think I could do it,’ says one participant. ‘Now I know I’m strong. I can do anything,’ adds another.

‘The board break has given them a moment to go back to,’ explains Lindsey.

‘Things will never be the same again.’

Eelco looks at me. ‘Now it’s your turn?’ he says. I hesitate – tempted – but then think better of it. I don’t want to break through to a new life with a sore hand. I need to write up my article!

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HEALTH

Patricia shares her tips for increasing your happiness level: First, practice kindness. Select a day of the week on which you’re going to carry out five acts of kindness, however small – anything from giving up your seat on the train to writing a thank you note. Have a ‘kindness’ day one day a week for six weeks and see what a difference it makes to the way you feel.

Second, practice gratitude. Again, choose one day of the week, and on that day spend time savouring the things in your life that you’re grateful for, like having good health, or great friends and family. Do this one day per week for the next six weeks.

Third, work towards meaningful goals that are a good ‘fit’ for you. Assess your personal

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qualities, strengths, interests and values.

A useful website to get you started is http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn. edu. Then ask yourself what activity or goal will enable you to use your strengths, and how will it fit with other aspects of your personality or circumstances.

Dr Patricia Moran is a Life Coach and Chartered Psychologist, helping people get the most out of life. You can visit her website at www.patriciamoran.com For consultations she can be contacted at info@patriciamoran.com 020 8279 8183

HEALTH

Happiness Being happy can make people more successful. But is it the success that makes them happy or the happiness that makes them successful, Rapport finds out? appy people are more likely to have a better immune system, recover faster from injuries, have greater self-control and ability to cope under pressure, have more friends, better prospects of marriage, work more productively, earn more and even live longer!

Dr Patricia Moran, a Life Coach and Psychologist, explains: ‘We know from research that it’s happiness that makes you successful, not the other way around. If you work at increasing your happiness, success will follow.’ So how do you increase your level of happiness?

Surprisingly, it seems that having more money isn’t necessarily the answer.

‘If you look at lottery winners, you’ll find that after the initial buzz of the financial gain has worn off, they’re actually no happier than other people’, says Patricia.

She’s witnessed the same effect among many of her coaching clients: ‘I’ve worked with clients who are driven by the desire to own bigger homes, faster cars, and more expensive clothes. Once they’ve acquired them, they’re often left feeling empty. Beyond a certain level of income, more money doesn’t bring greater contentment. The reason for this is that high earnings and material gains act like a ‘quick fix’ – a bit like taking a drug or having sex. They bring short-term increases in happiness, but we adapt to them so rapidly that they don’t bring lasting happiness.’

Patricia describes some of the proven

H

strategies for achieving more enduring levels of contentment: ‘Practising old-fashioned ‘virtues’ like gratitude, kindness and forgiveness can really make a difference. You need to count your blessings, and perform acts of kindness for others. So, if you’ve earned yourself a new Ferrari, make sure you take time to appreciate it, and why not lend it to a friend! Another key strategy for increasing happiness is the pursuit of life goals that are rewarding and meaningful. When it comes to identifying goals and activities that can boost your happiness, it isn’t a case of ‘one size fits all’.’

Patricia explains: ‘To maximise your chance of happiness and success, you need to find the right match or ‘fit’ between you and the activity or goal.

Extraverts, for example, will generally be happier getting involved in activities that bring them lots of contact with other people. Finding activities that tap into what psychologists call your ‘signature strengths’ will also help to boost your happiness. These are the abilities that make you feel like the ‘real you’, that energise you, and give you that zest for life. With the right ‘fit’, you’ll not only be happier, but you’ll also find the activity easier to get started on and to stay on track with, making success more likely.’

Katie is one of Patricia’s life coaching clients who was looking for more happiness in her life. She worked long hours as an HR consultant and was

one of the top in her field, and yet felt desperately unhappy. Katie says: ‘I owned a great house and car, had a top job, but my success began to feel hollow and meaningless.’ She was also drinking heavily as a way of coping with her feelings.

Coaching involved helping Katie to identify her key personality characteristics, strengths and interests, and how to use them to enhance her well-being and satisfaction. With Patricia’s help, Katie realised that her current job didn’t provide the best ‘fit’ with her personality or strengths. She felt best when working independently, and had a creative flare that she hadn’t explored. Photography had always been an interest, but one that she had never made time to practice.

Katie explains what happened next: ‘With Patricia’s encouragement, I took a part-time course in photography and discovered that it came really naturally.

I started selling my art photography to friends, and then decided to approach a gallery.’ Her ambitions grew from there.

She’s since had several major exhibitions, and sales of her work are on the up.

Reflecting on her success, Katie says: ‘I’ve learnt to redefine success by working out what it is that makes me happy. I’ve reset my goals in line with my natural ability and flare, and that feels so much more rewarding. It’s paying off in all sorts of ways! ‘ Katie has kicked her drinking habit, has a better life-work balance, and has even had time to meet a new partner.

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COACHING

Dyslexia Joanna Goodman investigates a coaching technique developed

by ANLP member Mavis Kerrigan that appears to help beat dyslexia

As well as improving literacy skills and self-esteem, Mavis Kerrigan believes that by influencing changes in neurology her coaching technique can help to overcome the physiological symptoms of dyslexia 34 ...Summer 2006: rapport

COACHING

he term ‘dyslexia’ is of Greek origin and means difficulty with words. Dyslexia is a learning disability that impedes reading, writing and spelling and is characterised by a tendency to reverse or transpose letters. It can also affect short-term memory, numeracy and concentration.

Approximately 10 percent of the UK population have dyslexic tendencies, and about four percent are diagnosed severely dyslexic. Most dyslexic children will benefit from specialist teaching and some require support throughout their education.

Although it is generally perceived as a roadblock to academic achievement, dyslexia is a neurological condition unrelated to intellectual ability. In fact, according to the British Dyslexia Association, dyslexics tend to have above average problem-solving abilities and are often exceptionally innovative and creative.

It takes a brain scan to reveal the physiological symptoms. Commonly, dyslexics show 10 times more brain activity than normal when reading.

There is also reduced activity in the part of the brain that connects sounds with images. This explains why speakers of languages whose orthography has a strong correspondence between letter and sound – Italian, for example – have a lower incidence of dyslexia than speakers of languages such as English and French where spelling is less closely

T

linked to pronunciation.

Dyslexia is an inborn trait that tends to run in families and persists into adulthood. Although it cannot be ‘cured’, there are effective ways to overcome the challenges that dyslexics face. Experts agree that early diagnosis and intervention is the best treatment; however, specific learning programmes – some of which are computer-based – and developing appropriate coping strategies and capabilities can also transform the personal and professional lives of adult dyslexics, boosting their self-confidence along with their literacy skills.

As conventional classroom education relies on our ability to link words and images, dyslexic children need specialist teaching. According to the charity British Dyslexics, the most successful way of teaching dyslexic students is to use a structured multi-sensory technique which combines visual, auditory and kinaesthetic inputs, so that the brain receives the same information in many different ways and learning is continually reinforced.

NLP coaching takes this approach further. For example, recognising that the eye movements of dyslexics tend to reflect their difficulties linking sounds and images, the NLP visual spelling strategy produces dramatic results by teaching students how to form mental pictures of words. Other NLP techniques, including reframing and

goal setting, help dyslexics to address the motivational and emotional issues that can exacerbate their learning difficulties, such as negative educational experiences and frustration with their condition and channel their energy and intelligence into a positive approach to learning. Crucially, NLP reinforces this by enabling effective communication in the form of rapport between dyslexic students and their teachers, coaches and families.

Mavis Kerrigan, an NLP master practitioner, trainer and former teacher has developed a revolutionary new spelling programme by modelling the techniques of expert spellers. This has proved remarkably effective in coaching dyslexic children. This is soon to be published in her forthcoming book, ‘Minding Your Spelling’. Kerrigan combines NLP tools with the phonics method of teaching children to read, write and spell. Key to her approach is the application of NLP unblocking and transference techniques to help dyslexic children overcome psychological barriers – sometimes their learning difficulties are exacerbated by worries about school – and access their visual memories.

Kerrigan points out that dyslexics struggling with reading, writing or spelling will often look down or around, desperately searching for the words, rather than up and to the left – the cue for visual memory. ‘Look up to where your memory is,’ she tells her students,

rapport: Summer 2006...

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COACHING

teaching them literally to look up the words in their mental dictionaries, as expert spellers do.

Kerrigan emphasises the importance of building on students’ existing knowledge. ‘People say that children don’t know their sounds, but that’s ridiculous,’ she says. ‘If they can communicate, they already know the sounds. They need to relate the sounds – known as the phonemes – to the graphemes – the shapes that we write.’

This is a different approach to that adopted in many schools, where children are given lists of words to learn. ‘In my book, I anchor the two together and call them graphones,’ she explains.

The success of Kerrigan’s ‘graphonic’ approach to coaching dyslexic children, which she began developing when teaching her own daughter to read, write and spell, led to her work with local education authorities, instructing special needs teachers in teaching children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties.

Kerrigan’s spelling programme has helped children and adults – as well as teachers – and is particularly useful for people learning or teaching English as a second language and also helps those with hearing problems. ‘It takes the NLP Spelling Strategy a step further,” she explains. This has been acknowledged by John Grinder, who has offered to write the foreword to her book. ‘A couple of years ago I attended one of John Grinder’s seminars where

he said that the NLP visual kinaesthetic strategy would help you spell words you already knew,’ she says. ‘During one of the breaks, I told him that my strategy would help you spell words that you didn’t already know by listening to the sounds in the words.’ How does this work? Kerrigan explains that there are 44 phonemes in the English language – 20 vowel sounds and approximately 24 consonant sounds. She trains her students to divide each word into phonemes and because they are aware of the possible graphemes associated with the phonemes they can write them in the logical order of the sounds before looking them up in the dictionary. Thus having never seen the word before, they then have a starting point for checking it. This might seem obvious, but as Kerrigan explains, in order to look up a word in the dictionary, you need to start with some idea of its spelling. ‘Expert spellers tend to use reference books or ask for help, while people with learning difficulties often lack confidence,’ she says. ‘My programme includes training students to use learning resources and building their communication skills.’

Kerrigan’s programme combines a concrete learning method with a shift of attitude towards the challenges of dyslexia. Of course, for children it’s an unconscious shift, encouraged by a coaching technique incorporating NLP tools, which Kerrigan applies to find out what motivates each individual.

Kerrigan outlines the philosophy that underpins her approach, which is based on what she terms ‘the seven Rs of achievement’ – rapport, realisation, reality, relationship, responsibility, retention and recall: ‘When coaching spelling, rapport builds a working relationship of trust and involves discovering the reality of the learning motivation and working styles of the coachee.

Realisation, reality and relationship can assist in raising the sound structure of the English language to conscious awareness and discovering its link to the visual representation of the sound unit.

Responsibility, retention and recall can assist in improving memory and in using the awareness of sound and visual representation to spell and write words and phrases independently.”

Amazingly, as well as improving literacy skills and self-esteem, Kerrigan believes that by influencing changes in neurology her coaching technique can help to overcome the physiological symptoms of dyslexia. This theory is backed up by research by an American university that involved conducting brain scans of dyslexic children before and after they had completed a programme that focused on phonological awareness.

The results revealed significant changes in their brain patterns which showed that they were now utilising the parts of their brains that had previously been dormant. This indicates that training dyslexics to connect a sound with a letter or group of letters that represents the sound and reinforcing these links through visual, auditory, kinaesthetic and motivational learning techniques can trigger their brains to form new neural pathways and permanently improve their ability to form automatic associations between words and images. Although it hasn’t been proved conclusively that this will work for everyone, it is certainly transforming the long-held view of dyslexia as a permanent disability.

Minding Your Spelling is due to be published in the autumn. Meanwhile, Kerrigan is offering Rapport readers a taster: ‘Learning and Recalling Spelling: 10 tips to a useful spelling technique’.

Simply contact her website www. schoolteachingresources.com and click on spelling tips to receive your free copy or email her at: mavis@ssgl.fsnet.co.uk

rapport: Summer 2006...

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COACHING

38 ...Summer 2006: rapport

COACHING

Making the impossible possible Life coach Kathryn White helped Michael McGrath, disagnosed with muscular dystrophy, to be the first disabled person to reach the south and north poles. She explains how oaching is a fascinating and rewarding experience. Every one I work with has their own unique story. Together we test their boundaries and explore the possibilities of re-scripting their lives, enabling self empowerment of the individual, to achieve quality, wholesome results for their Life Goals.

One person I coached, whose story is a little bit out of the ordinary was Michael McGrath.

‘Michael is going on an expedition to the North Pole, he has Muscular Dystrophy……..and he is interested in having coaching.’

My first thought was: ‘Going to the North Pole, that’s amazing! ………Why is he doing it?

On meeting Michael it was obvious that he was absolutely determined to achieve his goal of reaching the North Pole, promoting awareness for those with muscular dystrophy and helping to raise funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign of Great Britain of which he was a Trustee. Michael told me ‘I’ve been looking for a third event to complete a trilogy of events’.

Monies raised are today being used as part of the North Star project that provides improved computer equipment to more efficiently monitor disease progression and to measure the success of new treatments in trials across 13 major muscle centres in the United Kingdom, in order to help the work towards finding an eventual cure for this condition.

As Michael puts it, ‘More people have climbed Everest and gone to the moon than have been to the North Pole.’ What he’s too modest to add is that he’s the

C

first person with Muscular Dystrophy ever to do this. It was decided that Michael would join the expedition for the final 150 metre walk to the Pole with a personal backup team of two.

His words were, ‘Self belief, an immense inner strength of mind and self motivation drive me daily. Although my condition has radically changed the way I live my life, I decided early on that I would do everything I could to have a positive impact on others with Muscular Dystrophy.’

Our first step was to find what would be the purpose of the coaching.

Michael knew that the expedition itself would be an immense challenge even without Muscular Dystrophy. This debilitating, cruel, unforgiving, musclewasting disease brings many difficulties, including the major challenge of remaining upright and maintaining balance and the loss of muscle bulk means that he feels the cold severely, due to his less efficient circulatory system.

Michael was also experiencing a drain on his self belief and motivation due to the view by some people, that the project would be totally impossible, ridiculous and even absurd. These were the physical and psychological challenges that Michael had to prepare for. As Michael said, ‘Mentally I had to replace the fear that I couldn’t cope with the extreme cold with the belief that I could cope with it and that it would not be a block in stopping me achieve what it was that I had set out to do.’

Together we decided that the purpose of the coaching was to access Michael’s inner resources, remove the blocks, and install positive ‘states’ that would help him to deal with not only the

extremes of the polar environment but also the enormous challenges he would encounter, over and above the everyday challenges of his condition.

We met for four three hour sessions.

Using the proven methodologies of Neuro Linguistic Programming and Time Line Therapy™ we initially tested and assessed Michael’s motivation and goals. Successful sustainable ‘change work’ is dependent on strong positive self motivation and clear specific goals.

(Necessity is another strong driver for change – as Michael can attest, due to him having to deal with Muscular Dystrophy. Necessity is a negative driver and saps energy, positive self motivation, something that we passionately want to achieve – energises.) Michael already had a very clear goal but his motivation was being clouded by negativity. This led us to explore Michael’s fears, emotions and negative beliefs which were the motivation- sapping blocks to him achieving his goal.

Having resolved these issues, I asked Michael which resource or state would be of the greatest benefit to him on his expedition. He decided that a ‘warm glowing’ state would be the one to help him through the psychological challenge of the severe cold; the image of the little boy in the Ready Brek advert, who walks down the road with a warm orange glow around him, sprang immediately to his mind. We installed this image with the associated warm feeling. Michael learned to trigger this warm glow at critically cold times, putting him in the position to control his physiological state.

Sounds simple doesn’t it. Although Michael was pursuing something out of the ordinary way of life for most of us,

rapport: Summer 2006...

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COACHING

All that remained to be done, was for Michael to take action and by so doing, become a catalyst to motivate others to do the same I used the same coaching techniques as I use with my clients every day.

Michael had tested and pushed the boundaries on his thinking once again, this time, through the coaching – all that remained to be done, was for Michael to take action and by so doing, become a catalyst to motivate others to do the same.

‘Kathryn White was fantastic in helping me replace certain fears of failing and in doing so, enabling me to achieve what many people said would be totally impossible, ridiculous and even some saying absurd. She was instrumental in enabling me to have a number of key resources and beliefs in positively addressing both my physical and cerebral limitations”, says Michael.

‘One specific example of this is the extreme cold that I experienced; in dealing with sub-zero temperatures of between -25 to -45 degrees C, I had a number of resources that I triggered at an unconscious level in creating what I refer to as my all-embracing ready-brek glow! It worked… giving a massive burst of warmth around my whole body and particularly my legs, when I needed it!

Once triggered, it was like a red surge of incredible energy and warmth, zillions of red blood cells pounding their way through my veins, my heart furiously beating… it was awesome and incredibly

40 ...Summer 2006: rapport

powerful. It was these powerful and very real resources that enabled me to achieve my goal, to make the impossible possible’, said Michael.

His ‘training’ involved a carefully monitored three month period of intensive stretching and soft tissue remedial massage and extensive mobilisation together with regular daily aerobic exercise to aid stamina building and walking capability. Even mild cold has effects on the body – it impairs nerve function, it decreases sensation and manual dexterity. Cold muscles mean decreased function, so for example, fingers become very stiff, clumsy and unable to grasp or grip.

In April 2002 Michael and his team left Heathrow for a small island east of the ice cap called Spitzbergen. It’s minus 10 degrees on Spitzbergen and Michael knows this because they had to wait on board a Russian freight plane for over six hours until it was decided that the weather was indeed too bad to fly. When eventually they did take off it was in the company of 27 drums of high grade kerosene – that in combination with chain-smoking Russian pilots added a new dimension of danger!

At the other end was Barneo, an ice camp which is seasonally erected for explorers and adventurers, from where helicopters ferry passengers closer to

the Pole. Here they waited an hour in tents while the weather worsened. The helicopter pilots refused to fly.

As for the Russian freight plane pilots – they were keen to leave because of fears about the weight of their aircraft on the three metre thick ice. Michael wanted to stick it out and wait for a break in the weather. In the end, Major Craig Kerry-Williams [a member of Michael’s team] made a decision and he and Michael flew back to Spitzbergen.

In Michael’s words: ‘Was that it? Was this the closest I was going to get in achieving what we had set out to do?’

‘I was so disappointed. I had been just an hour away from the Pole. I thought that was that because we’d contracted for only one flight out and one helicopter rotation,’ says Michael. Luckily, they did manage it back to Barneo and were flown by helicopter to within 150 metres of their goal. ‘I wanted to walk unaided but because of the weight of the arctic boots, I had to ask for assistance in walking the distance.’ The terrain he encountered was variable, sometimes flat and slippery, at other times broken and sharp. Michael wasn’t able to wear skis which distribute one’s weight over the ice. Every step elicited an ominous cracking sound.

Was he frightened? ‘No, but I was seriously aware of the potential dangers, having carried out an extensive risk assessment. In fact, I was very much at peace with what I was doing and why I was doing it. I was in control.

‘The North Pole is an extraordinarily silent place, if there is no wind. It is one of the most hostile and raw environments on our planet. All you see is ice and blue sky [if the weather permits]. The sun is very bright because of the glare.’

So, does Michael feel he has achieved what he set out to do? ‘I want to inspire others to dig deep and unlock their own potential. It’s about self- belief, selfmotivation and resilience in believing that whatever you want to do you can.’

Michael reminds us that in the compelling words of Nelson Mandela, quoting Marianne Williamson: ‘Our deepest fear is not that we’re inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we’re powerful beyond measure’.

Visit www.musclehelp.com

COLUMN

Workshops Hannah McNamara, CEO of HRM Coaching, says that running a workshop puts most people in fear, but she offers some simple solutions ith the sound of her heartbeat pounding in her ears, Carol stepped forward to greet the group of people sat in front of her. She looked into their expectant faces and for a moment, she thought her mind had gone blank. As the adrenalin surged through her body, she told herself that it was excitement she was feeling, not nerves. Carol consciously relaxed her shoulders and stood up straight.

Slowly she drew in her breath and before she knew it, she heard herself say “Hello, I’m Carol and welcome to this workshop”.

Whether it’s doing a bungee jump, taking a gap year or passing your driving test, there are certain rites of passage which mark turning points in a person’s life.

Within personal development, running your first workshop is just as much a rite of passage. It involves planning, willpower and a great deal of comfort zone stretching! It can also mark the time when you make the transition from being just another coach to being a credible expert in your field and being sought out by clients.

Many coaches are discovering that workshops give them the opportunity to showcase their services. They allow prospective clients to experience coaching in a non-committal and very cost effective way. In essence it’s a ‘try before you buy’ and offers coaches a realistic alternative to offering free oneto-one sample sessions, which can be very time-consuming.

W

Workshops enable you to start building a trusting relationship with people.

Even though we know that coaching can be done over the phone, the general public tend to assume that coaching is done in person. And they’ll expect to have met their coach at least once before deciding to work with them.

People also assume that their coach needs to be an expert in their problem or issue. Remember, they don’t know that you don’t need first-hand experience in their situation to be able to coach on it. This applies even more when you’re coaching around business issues - people like to work with coaches who are credible specialists with a proven track record. Being the presenter/facilitator of a seminar or workshop can reinforce your position as the best coach to go to on this subject How do you go about running your first workshop?

3. Create a compelling title for your workshop – tabloid newspapers are sold by headlines and workshops are too. A workshop called ‘How to build a loving, long-lasting relation ship with your partner’ will attract more people than one called ‘ An Introduction to Relationship Coaching’ 4. Volunteer to run a workshop at your local networking group – most groups are always on the look-out for speakers. It’s unlikely that you’ll be paid, but they do all the Marketing and it gives you great exposure!

5. Get practice - consider joining organisations such as Toastmasters to learn more about the art of speaking in public.

6. Finally, check your insurance – many insurance policies for life coaches cover them for one-to-one coaching, but not workshops. Contact your broker to see if you need to amend of upgrade your insurance policy.

1. Have your ideal client in mind – who exactly do you want to attract to your workshops and your coaching practice? Stressed business people, retirees, parents of young children, small business owners, career women?

Workshops can form a very effective part of your Marketing strategy. Just remember that when the butterflies start, it’s excitement, not nerves!

2. Do your homework – what do your ideal clients want to work on? Time management, goal setting, parenting skills, interview techniques, leadership skills?

For more tips on building your coaching practice, go to www. marketinghelpforcoaches.com and sign up for your Free Marketing e-course.

rapport: Summer 2006...

41

h!NYONE CONCERNED WITH CHANGE PROGRAMMES WOULD BENElT FROM THE INSIGHTS IN THIS WELL PRESENTED VOLUME v "RUCE ,LOYD 0H$ 0ROFESSOR OF 3TRATEGIC -ANAGEMENT ,ONDON 3OUTH "ANK 5NIVERSITY

CHANGE MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE Putting NLP to Work – Revised Edition Martin Roberts PhD PAGES PAPERBACK a ISBN

4HIS BOOK IS ABOUT ACHIEVING EXCELLENT #HANGE -ANAGEMENT USING A VARIETY OF TECHNIQUES AND CONTAINS MANY NEW CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS FOR CONSULTANTS WOULD BE CONSULTANTS AND EVERYONE INVOLVED IN CHANGE IN A BUSINESS SETTING )T ALSO PROVIDES AN INTRIGUING INSIGHT INTO WHY MANY FASHIONABLE @COOK BOOK APPROACHES TO CHANGE RUN INTO PROBLEMS n AND HOW TO AVOID REPEATING THEM

Includes a new chapter on modelling h-OST CONSULTANTS HAVE SOMETHING TO LEARN FROM THIS BOOK

EVEN IF THEY WON T ADMIT IT )F YOU PLAN A CHANGE PROCESS MAKE SURE SOMEONE IN YOUR CHANGE TEAM READS THIS v 0ATRICK % -ERLEVEDE -3C AUTHOR OF 3TEPS TO %MOTIONAL )NTELLIGENCE AND -ASTERING -ENTORING AND #OACHING WITH %MOTIONAL )NTELLIGENCE

h!CHIEVE EXCELLENT #HANGE -ANAGEMENT USING VARIOUS TECHNIQUES FROM THE lELD OF ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY INCLUDING .,0 "EHAVIOURAL -ODIlCATION AND 4RANSACTIONAL !NALYSIS &OR EVERYONE INVOLVED IN CHANGE IN A BUSINESS SETTING v 0UBLISHING .EWS

]]] IXU]TNU[YK IU [Q

-ARTIN 2OBERTS 0H$ WAS UNTIL HIS RECENT RETIREMENT A MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT WITH EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE OF #HANGE -ANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE (E WORKED AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL WITH MANY OF THE 5+ TOP COMPANIES AND ALSO HAS EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE IN WORKING WITH 53 CORPORATIONS

BOOK REVIEWS

rapportbookreview Gulp! The seven-day crash course to master fear and breakthrough any challenge Gabrielle Goddard £7.99, Penguin Every day, thousands of us in the UK confront a challenge, one that requires us to step outside our comfort zone and brave the unknown. We feel the fear in the pit of our stomachs, yet deep down we know it’s time to bite the bullet and meet it head on.

Gulp! is the ultimate remedy for anyone in a panic about facing that challenge. Whatever your situation, and no matter how big or small your challenge is, if you believe that you can get through it then you will.

You’ve felt the fear, moved your cheese … now take the Gulp! There are so many self-help books out there, so why should you read this one? Self-help books generally focus on specific problem areas,

and classics like Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway teach you to deal with your anxiety but only Gulp! takes you to the next level. It is the first book in this genre to focus specifically on breaking through any challenge. The publishers reckon that this is the only self-help book you’ll need – but they would say that, wouldn’t they.

Gabriella’s no nonsense style and practical approach will motivate you to step up to the challenge. Gulp! includes: Quick fix tips and longer term action plans on everything from dealing with fear of change, to shedding negativity and learning why it’s so important to create a calm space in your mind and body before you can move forward.

The Corporate Culture Handbook Gabrielle O’Donovan £55, hardback, The Liffey Press Corporate culture remains an enigma for many strategic management teams, and successful culture change remains but a myth for most organisations. The Corporate Culture Handbook dispels much of the mystique surrounding the subject, outlines the business case for corporate culture management, puts forward a field-proven strategic implementation plan that incorporates best practice and lessons learned and presents pioneering work on the measurement of a culture

change programme.

In the Corporate Culture Handbook, Gabrielle O’Donovan shows that successful corporate culture change must be a two-way path, where the workforce are active participants in shaping their culture, than mere passive responders to external mechanisms.

Executives and consultants seeking to create a service culture, a culture of ethics or of innovation will find this practical book indispensable.

Change Management Excellence – Putting NLP to Work Martin Roberts £12.99, Crown House Publishing This book is about achieving excellent Change Management using a variety of techniques and contains many new concepts and applications for consultants, would-be consultants and everyone involved in change in a business setting. It also provides an intriguing insight into why many fashionable ‘cook-book’ approaches to change run into problems – and how to avoid repeating them.

Working with top British and American companies for over thirty years, Martin

Roberts has developed an enviable reputation for solving problems. He attributes this success to his ability to adapt and apply NLP, Behavioural Modification, Gestalt therapy and Transactional Analysis techniques to business. After publishing a series of four articles on NLP Modelling in Rapport (Vols 42-45) and analysing the feedback received, Martin Roberts has put together an additional chapter on the technology and efficacy of modelling, NLP- Style.

rapport: Summer 2006...

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW

MichaelNeill It was once said that if superman needed a coach it would be Michael Neill, now he has written a book for mere mortals. The author of ‘You can have want you want’ talks to William Little or someone who used to work in a new age bookshop in Camden, Michael Neill has come a long way. From hanging out and coaching movie stars in Hollywood, to helping to run NLP training with Richard Bandler and Paul McKenna, Michael says the route to his success is knowing how to be happy and maintaining that.

This may sound unconvincing and a bit pat because, after all, aren’t we all after happiness? That is until Michael reveals that he had spent most of his life in the doldrums. ‘I was totally miserable, unhappy and depressive,’ he tells me. ‘I had been for many years, maybe six or seven, that was my life.’ It brings a sense of realism and empathy to his approach.

Attaining happiness for him was a real trigger for contentment in his life and for change. Rather than achieving some material goal or a better job, it was the actual ‘state’ of happiness that he was after. Happiness for itself, rather than happiness as a ‘state’ to achieve something else.

His life changed by one thing he read in chapter three of Unlimited Power, which said that ‘if you are plagued by

F

44 ...Summer 2006: rapport

an insistent internal dialogue…just turn down the volume. Make the voice in your head softer, farther away, and weaker.’ He says: ‘This led within seconds to my first experience of inner peace, and then when I read ‘Using Your Brain for a Change’ and began to understand the mechanics of how to run my own brain, I was able to make the changes more lasting and pervasive.

I then went on to read everything I could about NLP, do every course I could find, until I really could (and did) do it in my sleep!’ he reveals.

Yet Michael says he offers a different approach to many other NLP practitioners. For a start, he calls himself a success coach, but links everything he does back to being happy.

‘I don’t think people have to change.

A lot of NLP can get caught up in making people change – like you must live in good states and never have any fears. I don’t buy it. As soon as you start imposing states you stop helping and start becoming part of the problem,’ he says.

The ecology check of why someone wants to do something is more

important than the actual thing itself.

‘It doesn’t matter what you think you should want, it matters whether you want it,’ he says about the guiding principle underpinning his approach and which led to a two-year delay in writing the book which outlines this. ‘I didn’t want to do it for a long time. It didn’t really appeal. So I didn’t do it. People get into a pattern where they beat themselves up about doing something, but there is a real easy way through this – it is to do it effortlessly when you really want to do it.’

Eventually the time came when he wanted to do it and everything fell into place. ‘On the Friday I decided to write it. On Saturday I had a call from a client who’s also a publisher. At a party on the Sunday I met an agent who was interested. I had been told by publishers that it would take two years from idea to book deal. It took me six weeks to get a two book deal. It was a vindication of what I had been saying and now I had a bonus illustration.’

The NLP ecological check seems to be central to Michael’s way of working and he keeps on applying it to clients over and over until they really get to

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

rapport: Summer 2006...

45

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

want they want. ‘One client had all these worthy goals. I said to her, if you did all that it would make you a good person, but is it really what you want. Eventually she told me that she wanted to live by the sea but that it was impossible. Within two more sessions she and her husband had bought a house by the sea. The strategy is to get people to go for what they really want, then they’ll either get it or they’ll give up because they didn’t really want it in the first place,’ he says on the back of lots of experience.

He says there is an element of confessional to what he does as people come to him admitting what they really want. He says he doesn’t actually like working in therapeutic mode, working with people who are miserable, but generally preferring to work with people who maybe want to earn the same but not work so hard. ‘I am unhappy therefore there must something I want to make me happy. When I am happy I won’t want something. The energy of craving is the thing that’s gets in the way

A lot of NLP can get caught up in making people change – like you must live in good states and never have any fears. I don’t buy it Another client dreamed of owning a Lexus convertible and totally ‘freaked out’ when Michael called round to take him to buy one. ‘He thought he couldn’t afford it, but I knew he could. I took him round to a dealer and after the test drive, he realised when he looked at what the car cost that he could afford it. He relaxed and felt at ease. It meant so much to him until he realised that he didn’t want it until he could have it.’

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...Summer 2006: rapport

of having what you want,’ he says.

Neill admits that he loves coaching.

‘I tend not to do one offs. I like working with people over time and seeing their evolution. I like to be part of their change and real change happens over time not in an instant,’ he says.

He also believes that people can make these changes naturally, that NLP is a natural phenomenon. ‘That is where it came from. NLP is the study of how

they are doing that. If they are doing it naturally they are not aware of what they are doing. When they’re not doing it well, that’s when they need to seek help, when they go off track,’ he says.

He also believes that the possibilities of NLP are largely untapped. ‘We have always come up with new stuff with Paul and Richard. I read on website forums about what people are doing with it. It never occurred to me to do things like that.’ At the heart of Neill’s happiness is the joy and excitement about new discoveries and the art of the possible.

‘You Can Have What You Want’ is published by Hay House, £9.99.

rapportnetworkingcontact England - North Cheshire, Ellesmere Port Nancy Moss Tel: 077 8900 6856 Nancy.moss@nhs.net

Lancaster Practice Group Dave Allaway Tel: 01524 847 070 dave@depthfour.com www.depthfour.com

Lancs - Nr Clitheroe Fran Burgess Tel: 01254 824 504 admin@nlpand.co.uk www.nlpand.co.uk

Leeds, West Yorkshire Liz Tolchard Tel: 01943 873 895 Mob: 07909 911 769 liztolchard@hotmail.com

Manchester NLP Group Gary Plunkett Tel: 08707 570292 gary@high-achievers.co.uk nwnlpgroups@aol.com

Middlesbrough Lisa Wake Tel: 016242 310 022 Awakenconsulting@aol.com

North Yorks - Harrogate Elizabeth M Pritchard Tel: 01326 212 959 inquiring@zeteticmind.com www.zeteticmind.com

North Yorks Middlesborough Jacqueline Wilson Tel: 016242 310 022 jackie4awaken@aol.com

Newcastle Harry Knox Tel: 0191 2232216

North Cumbria - Carlisle Anne Munro-Kua & Adrian Banger Tel: 01228 517 716 anne@annemunro-kua.com www.annemunro-kua.com

North West & North Wales (Chester) Gary Plunkett Tel: 08707 570 292 gary@high-achievers.co.uk nlp4fun@aol.com

andy@practicaleq.com www.manchesternlp.co.uk

York Susanna Bellini & Dirk Bansch Tel: 01904 636 216

London Central (Relationships) Balbir Chagger Tel: 020 7291 4562 Mob: 07944 931437 www.harleyrelationshipcentre. com

Bedfordshire Melody Cheal

London East Stratford, E15 Sharon Eden Tel: 020 8597 9200 sharon.eden@livinzest.com

Tel: 01767 640956 melody@gwiztrainig.com www.gwiztraining.com

Berks - Reading Anne-Marie Helliwell

Tel: 08451 306213 Mob: 07061 003 003 enquiries@nlp-london.com www.nlp-london.com

amh@cmcgconsultancy.com www.cmcg-nlp.com

North London NLP Tom MacKay

Tel: 01908 506563 Mob: 07944 388621 michaelbeale@ppimk.com www.ppimk.com

Bucks NLP & Coaching Alison Matthews Tel: 07976 246151 alisonbmatthews@yahoo. co.uk

Your Life Matters NLP & Hypnosis practice group Mick McEvoy Tel: 0208 387 0277 Mob: 07973 386 639

tom@mackaysolutions.co.uk www.northlondonnlp.co.uk

Richmond NLP Group (Speaker Sessions) Henrietta Laitt Tel: 0208 874 8203 Mob: 07880 614 040 henrietta@resultsforsuccess. com www.resultsforsuccess.com

South East London & City Simon Hedley Tel: 07930 275 223 londonprectice@psithinking. co.uk www.psithinking.co.uk/ londonnlppracticegroup.htm

mick.mcevoy1@ntlworld.com

London - Hampstead Najma Zaman Tel: 020 8926 1297 firstpath@btinternet.com

Richmond NLP Group(Skills and Technique Practice group) Henrietta Laitt

South London NLP Practice Group Elizabeth Petch & Richard Hagan Tel: 07747 607 717 elizabeth@crestcoaching.com

Surrey - Croyden Russell Potts Tel: 020 8686 9952 Mob: 0776 964 3912

Tel: 020 8874 8203 Mob: 07880 614040

info@nlp-academy.com

henrietta@richmond NLPGroup.org.uk www.resultsforsuccess.com

Sussex - Brighton Association of NLP Practitioners Terry Elston

London Central Adrian Hope-Lewis Tel: 07970 639552 Mob: 07970 639552 www.nlpgroup.freeserve.co.uk

North West Business and Emotional Intelligence Group (Manchester) Andy Smith

London Central (Business) Mark Underwood

Tel: 0845 83 855 83 Mob: 07811 959 410

mark@business-matters.org

emily@evolutiontraining.co.uk www.evolutiontraining.co.uk

jim@espconsultancy.co.uk

West Sussex Chichester, Andy Austin Tel: 07838 387 580

London NLP & Hypnosis Practice Group Phillip Holt

Tel: 01189 831659/ 01189 835 202 Mob: 07778 150641

Bucks - Milton Keynes Michael Beale

Tel: 01243 792 122 Mob: 07810 876 210

Devon & Cornwall NLP Practice Group Nick Evans

Worcester Sharon Rooke Tel: 01905 352882 Mob: 07966 453 387

Tel: 01579 345 523 Mob: 07832 357 208

sharon@scrassociates.com www.scrassociates.com

nick@nlp-southwest.co.uk www.nlp-southwest.co.uk

Scotland

Sussex - Worthing

info@bronze-dragon.com

England - South

Sussex - Chichester Emily Terry

Tel: 0800 074 6425 www.nlpworld.co.uk www.nlp-brighton-assoc.org

Sussex - Brighton/Hove Jan Jackson Tel: 01273 540 260

andrew@23nlpeople.com www.23nlpeople.com/hypnosis/events.htm

England - East Cambridgeshire Phil Jones Tel: 07711 711 123

Dorset John Chisholm or Brian Morton

Aberdeen Christine Burgess

Tel: 01202 42 42 50 john@creative-leadership.co.uk www.nlpdorset.co.uk

Hants - NLP South Nigel Heath

Tel: 01224 857 872/ 01309 676 004 nlphighland@onyxnet.co.uk www.nlphighland.co.uk

Aberdeen Sally Silvers

Tel: 01794 390 651 Mob: 07775 706 801

Tel: 01224 589229 Mob: 0771 266 7925

heatherapy@aol.com www.nlp-south.org.uk

sallysilvers@btconnect.com www.counselling-aberdeen.co.uk

phil@excitant.co.uk www.cambsnlp.co.uk

England Midlands

Essex - Colchester Julian Campbell

E Midlands NLP Group William Wood

Tel: 0131 664 7854

Tel: 08707 461 257 Mob: 01473 326 980

Tel: 01332 347141 x2556/ 01332 669364

nlp@lifechangingtherapies.co.uk www.lifechangingtherapies. co.uk/colnlp.html

Midlands - Birmingham Mandy Ward

Edinburgh NLP Practice Group Patrick Wheatley & Sheena Wheatley

Essex - Ilford Glenda Yearwood

Edinburgh Centre of Excellence Practice Group Michael Spence

Tel: 07765244030/ 0131 664 4344

Tel: 0121 386 2854 Mob: 07740 075669 wardmilly@btopenworld.com

Tel: 020 8708 3876 glenda.yearwood@redbridge. gov.uk

Essex - Southend Pauline Oliver

Nationwide - Yes Group Tom MacKay

Glasgow Mina McGuigan

Tel: 0207 1503801

Tel: 01702 203465

N’hants - Northampton Ron Sheffield

oliverrn9@aol.com

Tel: 01604 812800

England - West

www.lifestryltraining.com/ northamptonnlp

Avon - Bath Philippe Roy Tel: 01225 404 050

Oxford Pat Hutchinson & David Molden

pr@in-focus.org www.bathnlp.co.uk

Tel: 01993 778 527 Mob: 07768 922244

wheatley.co@btconnect.com changingperceptions@blueyo nder.co.uk

Tel: 01236 610 949 Mob: 07916 275 605 termina@blueyonder.co.uk www.nlpacademyscotland. co.uk

Glasgow NLP in Education Jefff Goodwin Tel: 0870 060 1549 jeff@dyslexiatreatment.com www.nlpscotland.com

www.quadrant1.com

Cornwall - Truro/Falmouth Elizabeth M Pritchard Tel: 01326 212 959 inquiring@zeteticmind.com www.zeteticmind.com

Devon - South-West (totnes) NLP Support Group Alice Llewellyn & Anna Scott-Heyward Tel: 01803 866706/ 01803 323885

Devon - Torquay Chris Williams

Inverness (Highlands of Scotland) Rosie O’Hara

W Midlands - Worcester Sharon Roooke & David Smallwood

Tel: 01309 676 004

Tel:01905 352 882 sharon@SCRassociates.com info@centralnlp.co.uk www.SCRassociates.com

Warwks - Rugby Ralph Watson Tel: 01788 576 626 ralph@dynamiccommunication .co.uk www.dynamiccommunication .co.uk

nlphighland@onyxnet.co.uk www.nlphighland.co.uk

Wales Shropshire & Mid Wales Practice Group Nick Greer Tel: 01743 361133 nlpgroup@nickgreer.com www.nickgreer.com

Tel: 0781 354 9073

Tel: 020 7249 7472

Regional Groups meet regularly and give you the chance to share experiences with like minded individuals and fellow professionals. They also offer you the opportunity to further your knowledge and add to your Continual Professional Development (CPD) through informed lectures and workshops.

For further information on the Regional Groups listed, please log on to our website, wwwanlp.org If you would like to add your Regional Group to this list or change existing details, please contact Nicole on 0870 44 0790 or email members@anlp.org

rapport: Summer 2006...

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CLASSIFIED DIRECTORY Cheeky Monkey Marketing specialise in marketing and NLP. For a truly congruent marketing experience call Cheeky Monkey today on 01455 848292

Thinking about taking NLP Practitioner? Come to the New Forest in September and do it with Tim Fearon and Emma Sargent. “Working as a team they are dynamite”; “they are inspirational teachers” (previous delegates) To find out more, email us at info@ambo.ltd.uk or visit our website www.ambo.ltd.uk

Subscribe to Rapport today for a friend and choose one of three free gifts for you.

Contact offers@anlp.org to find out more.

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...Summer 2006: rapport

HR and Training Managers please note! In-house corporate one-day trainings in applied NLP. NLP for Public Speaking, Presentations, Presenting to Committees (public sector), Consultations, Training, Customer Service.

For more information and tailored programmes: Faith Tait, Director of Training, Airside World Ltd 01225 703 247, faith@airsideworld.com

Ready to transform your great ideas into published words? Top selling author and NLP coach, Kate Burton, can guide you through your writing challenges.

Call Kate on 0118 973 4590 or email: kate@kateburton.co.uk

CLASSIFIED DIRECTORY

For all your audio and recording solutions contact Dave Rose at info@solutioninmind.com Dave has extensive experience of recording and editing NLP trainings and is happy to provide referrals, samples and testimonials for his work.

Infinite Excellence - Accelerated NLP Certification Courses held monthly. Includes Time Line Therapy and Hypnosis. Fast, fun and effective!

Contact Colette White on 0207 2495051 or info@infiniteexcellence.com, www.infiniteexcellence.com

Do you want to be the best you possibly can be?

We offer individual and team coaching as well as tailor made workshops to help you to reach your full potential. We offer expertise across all sectors, and especially within multidisciplinary health care environments. If you want to explore just how we can help you, then get in touch now. Our philosophy is one of value and respect, we very much work with you to facilitate the changes you want, we put you in control. Call Suzanne on 01959 522942 / 07723 602584 or email on HenwoodAssociates@btint ernet.com and start to make the changes you want to make today.

Sign up for your free NLP newsletter at www. saladltd.co.uk today. Jamie Smart is one of the most prolific NLP trainers in the UK and currently has over fifteen thousand subscribers worldwide to his popular NLP tip. You could be one of them, and if you sign up today you’ll receive £19.95’s worth of free e-book.

An advert like this could cost you as little as twenty pounds, and reach thousands of potential clients.

Call David Hammond today on 0870 787 0026 or e-mail david@rapportmag.com

Are you looking for more success in your life?

Maybe stress or ill health is getting you down? Are you at a cross roads in your life and not sure which way to go? For solutions to all of these areas and many more contact Claire Hegarty now for a free consultation on 0151 678 3358 / 07714 853 524 info@tranceformations-pbe.com

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If you like the sound of answering some of these questions, I am happy to talk you through some of the numerous ways that we could work together to ensure that you achieve the RESULTS YOU DESERVE! I look forward to helping you along your journey of discovery. Melanie Smith, Contact me on 07876 453269 or uniquevista@yahoo. co.uk

Do you want to take advantage of one of the fastest growing and most popular websites for members of the public interested in pursuing NLP? If you subscribe to ANLP today you can benefit from the top ranked first page Google website www.anlp. com. E-commerce site coming soon.

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ENDNOTE

NLP andpower Can NLP be used unethically by power mad megalomaniacs? William Little says he’s met a few and would rather he hadn’t n a recent national press article about NLP, a well-known NLP trainer said that: ‘Some people teach NLP in a way that makes it sound highly manipulative and coercive. You know, “I will give you power over others.”

And the people who end up going to those are people with very small penises, frankly. People who think, “Oh my God! I’m not enough! I’m so out of control!

Maybe if I learned how to have power over others, I’ll be a better person!”’

The idea that getting someone to do what you want in a cynical power relationship bordering on the psychopathic might well appeal to some people who have trained in NLP, especially if it has been advertised as such. Yet is it enough for NLP trainers to advertise their courses fairly, or should they be obliged to check on what some of their clients want to use it for? For a start, this particular trainer admitted that once a course was finished and certificates had been handed out, he didn’t have any control over what the people then did with their knowledge. Curing phobias is one thing, but manipulating people into buying products is another. But so long as he got the money for his training, once they were through the door, so what? It raises the question whether there is or should be an ethic underpinning the training of NLP?

I

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...Summer 2006: rapport

Many people who train in NLP do so to help refocus their career, build self-esteem and confidence, or to help other people get out of a rut. Finding out the values that underpin any decision to change is as important, if not more so, than learning how to ‘excel’, the other central tenet of NLP. However, there is no doubt that for some trained in NLP the end justifies the means. As editor of Rapport, I’ve had a few obnoxious emails from people purporting to be trained in NLP and telling me in quite a personal way what they think of the new look Rapport. Thankfully, 99 per cent of readers are happy, but one or two are not. Often these people believe it is ok to be quite rude because they are achieving their goal – one chap, for instance, didn’t want to receive the magazine any more and justified his rant by telling me he’d achieved his goal even when I suggested that NLP shouldn’t be used in that way.

NLP should be about more than just getting results and being driven.

Thankfully, for most, it is – empathy, looking at things from other people’s points of view, and reframing, often work to enhance people’s understanding of a situation, making it more complex and nuanced. Learning – another central part of NLP – means people shouldn’t remain static and

stuck in their ways of working and opinions. Anyone can annoy someone else to the point of nausea or railroad themselves to a goal with as much bile as they possess, but that isn’t NLP, it’s just school yard bullying.

Maybe a lot of people who are driven to want their own way are interested in NLP, but let’s hope, that once they’ve trained and practised it, they realise that it is a tool that enhances their understanding rather than helping them to become megalomaniac brutes.

But does this mean that trainers should programme their clients to be ‘ethical’? Or perhaps trainers could be recognised when they set high standards in their training? ANLP members sign a code of ethics and, recently, the organisation uniquely set up a scheme to recognise and accredit trainers by other trainers – being measured and judged by your peers sets the bar higher for everyone else. Sloppy training and unethical uses of NLP goes against the grain of what NLP is for, but as it is a series of tools rather than a permanent state of being, the ethic underpinning it has to be as important as the very techniques themselves. It is only then that all NLP practitioners can assure themselves that they are truly excelling.

If you would like to write a letter about this topic, please email them to letters@rapportmag.com

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