Rapport 14 - Winter 2008

ISSUE FOURTEEN

WINTER 2008

Giles Long Olympic Gold Medalist

NLP and Pain Relief

Cleaning up the ‘F’ Word in Coaching

A Hero’s Journey Stephen Gilligan

THE MAGAZINE FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

contents

winter 2008

4 NLP Presuppositions and Conference Review

6 DEBATE Economic Downturn

8 BASIC NLP Welcome to the Winter issue of Rapport.

I really look forward to seeing each issue of Rapport, once it has been designed and laid out by Enzo. Even though we are involved with the magazine at every stage from conception to publication, it still changes dramatically once words and images have been melded – every issue is a journey, similar perhaps, to the Hero’s Journey that Stephen Gilligan relates in his interview with Andy Coote (p10).

I feel completely resonant with the ‘two Jennies’, who embrace the principles of NLP when caring for children (p16). With my older son turning 21 in January, I often wish I had known more about NLP 25 years ago! At the same time, I do believe that we never stop learning and whatever we do, say and believe has an impact on those around us on a daily basis.

Talking of learning, I am very tempted to join Juliet Grayson on one of her Pesso Boyden courses (p12). What an absolutely fascinating set of tools to add to our already rich and varied toolbox for dealing with life.

Starting this issue, Neil is writing a series of articles about his insights and learnings following his plane crash earlier this year (p18). I think we will all benefit hugely from what Neil will be sharing with us over the next few months. …and with the credit crunch biting deep (for some although not all), we have a couple of really positive and interesting features to help us all focus on what will work – Mindy talks about the Chicken Little philosophy (p42), and what better way to take advantage of the economic downturn by discovering the work we were born to do (p40) Wishing you all a very healthy and prosperous 2009.

Karen x

What Do You Want?

10 NLP A Hero’s Journey

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18

12 PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Pesso Boyden

16 EDUCATION It’s All About Attitude

18 NEWS Anatomy Of A Plane Crash

20 CELEBRITY Giles Long

20

22 BUSINESS Boardroom For Heart And Soul

24 HEALTH NLP And Pain Relief

28 COACHING Cleaning Up The ‘F’ Word

30 NLP

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40

Using Perceptual Positions

Cover stories

32 BUSINESS SUPPORT Website Optimisation

38 TRAINING Know More Training

40 AUTHOR INTERVIEW

44 REGIONAL GROUPS Warrington Group

Nick Williams

36 DIARY Events taking place over the next few months

42 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

39 BOOK REVIEWS

46 ENDNOTE

Good-Bye Chicken Little

How Do We Know What We Are Doing Is Still Working?

The latest books reviewed by our panel

Editorial Team: Caitlin Collins, Andy Coote, Eve Menezes Cunningham Team@rapportmag.com, 0845 053 1162 Art Editor: Enzo Zanelli Advertising: David Hammond david@rapportmag.com, 0845 053 1189 Membership, subscriptions and back issues: Lala Ali Khan Members@anlp.org, 0845 053 1162

Publisher: Karen Moxom karen@rapportmag.com 0845 053 1162 Company Reg No. 05390486 Phoenix Publishing Ltd 41 Marlowes Hemel Hempstead, HP1 1LD Rapport published by Phoenix Publishing on behalf of ANLP. Design: Square Eye Design

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

The Presuppositions of NLP ‘The meaning of your communication is the response you get’ by Caitlin Collins The NLP presuppositions are tools to help us transcend the boundaries of our limiting beliefs about ourselves and our world. The point is not to believe or disbelieve any presupposition, but rather to consider what might be the implications of acting ‘as if ’ you believed it and imagine the differences that could make to your life. otice your reaction to reading the statement ‘the meaning of your communication is the response you get’. Perhaps you feel irritated because you perceive it as obscurely worded jargon?

Bored because you’re familiar with the NLP presuppositions and this one is trotted out so often there can’t be anything new left to say about it? Whatever your reaction, notice how it has probably arisen from your previous experience and is now affecting your present reception of the written words.

Of course there are many means of communication in addition to spoken or written words. For instance there’s tone of voice, facial expression, gestures

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and body language. And maybe all of these are more or less overt means of expressing the communication that is also going on at subtler levels of energy and intention. During a recent riding lesson, my instructor was telling me to stop doing so much. Sure enough, the quieter I became and the more I opened up into present-moment awareness, the better the horse and I were able to connect, and the more possible it was for her to respond to me.

She would respond instantly and purely, and I could know what I had communicated simply by noticing her response and then change my communication accordingly. Together we were

experiencing the working of the principle that the meaning of your communication is reflected in the response you get.

We humans often find it difficult to respond purely. Rarely experiencing present-moment awareness, we usually filter incoming communication through our past conditioning. Someone experienced in public speaking told me that whenever he gives a talk he reckons there are many talks happening: in addition to the one he gives there are all the different ones received by the audience – as many versions as there are people present! He’s often startled by people prefacing their questions with, ‘You said

that...’ – he’s convinced he didn’t, but they’re convinced they heard him say it!

So, if we’re going to try acting ‘as if ’ this presupposition were true, what might we do differently?

Maybe we could experiment with developing our capacity for present-moment awareness, nonjudgemental observation of others’ responses, and not trying so hard – quietening down can give us access to the deeper levels from which we can give, receive, and respond to communication more clearly.

See if you can find a friendly horse to help you practise!

Caitlin Collins: www.naturalmindmagic.com

Conference Review – The NLP Conference 2008 the nlp conference he 2008 NLP Conference took place in the beautiful surroundings of Regents College, Central London in early November. As always, the Independent NLP Conference was packed with speakers from around the world (and those from just up the road) and booking closed well in advance of the event with a waiting list of over 100 people.

Regent’s Park, in its autumnal colours, provided an ideal approach for visitors to an event that highlights the development of the mind, body and spirit through NLP, hypnosis and associated approaches.

The Tuke Hall, approached through a formal inner courtyard garden, was the venue, on Friday evening, for Stephen Gilligan’s keynote on The Generative Self and Transformational Change.

(We profile Stephen elsewhere in this issue). Stephen, who had already given a workshop on

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Generative Coaching during the day, nevertheless gave an inspiring performance to a packed hall. His ideas were, predominantly, wellreceived.

On Saturday and Sunday, 35 workshops took place in parallel sessions of up to 6 at a time. Some were three-hour workshops whilst others were shorter. All seemed to give good value. I can only make this assumption based on feedback from other delegates as I was, as always, faced with the dilemma of which of the many great sessions to attend. I decided that any choice that I made would be the right choice and plunged right in.

With sessions on such a wide range of topics, including traditional NLP, Ericksonian hypnosis and language, Spiral Dynamics and Emotional Intelligence, becoming an entrepreneur and awakening your inner healer, there was plenty of choice for all of the delegates and

ample opportunity to get involved in the exercises and scenarios.

There was even a chance to join fellow delegates and sing.

With the number of delegates – 480 according to the organisers – and the parallel streams being spread across the college, stewarding was vital and it was flawlessly executed with rooms set up and ready for each session and sessions running to time. Even a fire alarm on Sunday morning and the arrival of the London Fire Brigade did not disrupt the flow of the event.

The attendees themselves were an interesting mix of practitioners, users and novices with a range of backgrounds from training, commerce, public service and clinical along with those with a personal interest in NLP and personal development. It made for fascinating examples in the sessions and lively conversations in the breaks.

Jo Hogg’s intention as organiser was to “allow people to experience the different trainings on offer and

make their own judgement.” She also emphasised the networking element of the event. The delegates that I spoke to were there for those and many other reasons. Some wanted to reconnect with NLP after years away from the current thinking and development, others came to see and meet specific people, for CPD and, often, to help themselves by getting an energy boost or to find a resolution for an issue they were facing.

The Conference will run next year from 13th – 15th November, with the Friday Workshop and Keynote featuring Tim Halbom.

There will also be an NLP Community Day on 18th April 2009 featuring Ian McDermott.

If you are considering attending next year, I would suggest that you book early, dress comfortably and bring a large notepad and pen.

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DEBATE

Economic Downturn A Risk or Opportunity for NLP?

Unless you have been avoiding the news, maybe even stranded on a desert island, you cannot fail to have noticed that our press and politicians are indulging in their second favourite game of predicting the end of the world as we know it. This time it is because of a Credit Crunch which is rapidly being upgraded to recession (and depression has also been mentioned frequently). How will the NLP Community react to a tighter economic position?

What are the risks and opportunities? What will people be doing differently? Andy Coote talked to a number of people in the NLP world to find out. here are, of course, both risks and opportunities in any market, this one is no different, it is a question as always of attitude and belief, and maybe even identity” suggests Mark Underwood of Business Matters.

Jamie Smart of Salad tends to agree with him, “there are people who will do very well in a bull market or a bear market. The people who do well are the people who recognise that there are always opportunities.”

Gavin Meikle of Inter-Active Presenting and Influencing can see the downsides, “in

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the individual therapy market, people may be cutting back on their personal spend and may not want to pay as much for their coaching or therapy and, in the business community, some organisations are going to cut back on things.”

However, there are upsides too, “there are lots of individuals who will say “I need to change in order to get through this” and be looking to upskill themselves, make a career change or, indeed, find they need to take a different direction having been made redundant.”

In business, Meikle suggests, smaller

organisations need to leverage the skills they already have and to retain their best people.

“Training and development helps to do that and NLP provides a useful framework, set of tools and fundamental mindset that helps people communicate, influence and manage people much better.”

Lynne Rees of Mind Relief has seen signs that “it is beginning to catch people and will do so especially as you get towards the end of January and beginning of February when they are looking at coping with the expense of Christmas.” In fact, helping people to prepare for Christmas is an opportunity as well. “It can be an emotional time, and we can help them to be able to cope better with it.”

Martin Johnson, of 80/20 Challenge, as a Business and Executive coach sees a huge opportunity, “because businesses need to be focused and people need to deal with the conflicts that are going on inside and outside of them. A coach can help them to set goals, gain clarity and be more focused.” However, he also sees that “it will be a challenge to a lot of coaches who haven’t got their business models right yet. It will be interesting to see how it affects the coaching sector and whether coaches come together under more professional management structures and hopefully as more viable business structures.” The downturn is not necessarily to blame in all cases, though. “For those who are not structured properly it would be tough, even in normal conditions, for them to survive.”

Alan Jones of Alan Jones & Associates is already experiencing a dip in the conference and entertainment sector with conferences simply not running through a lack of delegates. “The other worrying thing is that corporates and some public sector organisations are extending the time they take to pay. It can be a significant

DEBATE

factor in businesses where cash flow is critical.”

“If people are in the situation where their job is under threat,” comments Jeremy Lazarus of The Lazarus Consultancy, “they could invest in themselves, for example in NLP training, and, as a result, be less likely to be made redundant as they are more effective at work and, if they do lose their job, they will find what they want more quickly than someone who hasn’t invested in themselves.”

Helen Carlin is the CEO of a homelessness charity in Scotland. “In any situation you can see a positive in it,” she comments, “coaches and therapists might get a few more clients and their clients might get the opportunity to find the right niche for them.”

Gerry Murray runs communications consultancy, Wide Circle, in Belgium operating across Europe. “I was remaining confident but last week was a bit of a challenging week as the shutters came down on two client businesses.

However, my business is relationship based and NLP skills help me with that.

We need the flexibility to work with the client’s reality and find new ways to get them from the position they are in today (or perceive they are) to their desired position in the future.” He ends on a positive note, “I feel very confident that there’s a way through this as long as you believe that there is a way through it.”

Mark Underwood suggests that the business coaching market may be more resilient than we might suppose. “I focus on business coaching that gets personal, and therefore target business people with presenting business issues who want to discuss them with a trusted adviser with some business experience. In most cases these people perceive they are not using their own money, rather it is company money to solve problems and improve performance. The “personal” bit is listening to their perception of a situation and challenging and encouraging other viewpoints to discover possible solutions.”

Jamie Smart suggests that you need to have an abundance mentality. “A lot of the cause is people’s fear and people’s belief that there’s a lack of money.” That may have once been true but no longer in his view, “there used to be a real

lack of money but there’s still no shortage of money as far as I can tell.” As Mark Underwood puts it, “Money does not disappear, it just flows to different areas.”

So if there are risks (challenges) and opportunities out there, what are the respondents doing differently to capitalise?

Gerry Murray suggests a way that many of us would be wise to follow, “ I have already started spending more time listening to my clients. Listening I think, is much more important than telling them what we can do for them. Now is the time to find out where people’s issues are, where their concerns are and where they are getting stuck. If we listen and help them find out for themselves where they might find possibilities and move forward, we can be in a position to help them if that’s what they feel they need.”

If people are in the situation where their job is under threat, they could invest in themselves, for example in NLP training, and, as a result, be less likely to be made redundant

Gavin Meikle will be using the internet more to find and develop clients. “Referral has always been my main source of business, however, some clients may be struggling and cutting back on their spend. The internet helps to get my name, brand and offering out to people who are actively looking for my particular sort of services – I’m widening the net you might say.” Has he considered using the internet as a delivery

mechanism? “I’ve been thinking about it but part of me thinks that it isn’t the same as face to face. However, there may be some advantages, not as an alternative but as a useful add on to traditional training – maybe as a follow on process or even to hook them in and get them interested in the first place.”

Lynne Rees has a similar approach to widening the recognition of what she can do. “I’ve written an article for a networking magazine and suggested a few ideas for coping with the run up to Christmas.” Further articles may well follow if the strategy works for her.

Martin Johnson is also putting effort into marketing but with a “more specific focus on particular clients where I can add value. I’m also keeping focused myself in terms of the energy I need for what I’m trying to achieve.”

Jeremy Lazarus is considering “possibly offering people more flexible payment terms.

I’m doing the same kind of marketing and running the same courses. If people come up with objections because of the economic conditions, I‘m confident that I can convince them that it is an opportunity rather than a threat, but I’m not expecting many objections.”

Jamie Smart will be “doing what I’ve always done in terms of looking for opportunities. I’ll be looking to help people and identifying the things that I’m passionate about and that people respond to. There is always going to be a market for that and always people who are interested in it.”

“The coach or therapist will have a position in their marketplace, and some marketing and sales strategies in place, (or not)”, suggests Mark Underwood. “If they believe that their marketplace is changing, then it may be wise to revise all of the foregoing to suit. This is why it may also be an identity level issue as some undoubtedly will have to revise who they think they are to address the risks and indeed take advantage of the opportunities.”

“In business terms, even in a “buoyant” market,” Underwood continues, “companies and individuals experience issues and problems they are prepared to spend money on, so when times are tougher the problems may change.

However, some will still choose to spend money on outside assistance. For personal coaching and/or therapy, people still have problems, perhaps even more due to increased stress levels. Can the providers adapt to the changing presenting issues? Is that a risk to the NLP community or an opportunity?”

Most of the interviews (with the exception of Mark Underwood and Alan Jones) were conducted during the NLP Conference in London in November.

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BASIC NLP

WHAT DO YOU WANT? Outcomes 2: How PURE can you be?

By Caitlin Collins

oal-setting’ is a term that thrills the hearts of some while prompting others to retreat like affronted snails.

NLP enthusiasts prefer to speak of ‘setting well-formed outcomes’. The process includes thinking small and large scale, so you know what you want and where you’re going regarding both the immediate task and also your larger purpose.

In Issue Twelve we looked at Purpose, Direction and Milestones, your Purpose being your overarching intention, Direction being whatever path you take that is in alignment with that, and Milestones being the steps or stages of your journey. Today we’re discussing how to set goals that are PURE: Positive, Under your control, the Right size, and Ecological in terms of context and consequences.

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POSITIVE Have you noticed how difficult it is to follow an instruction to not do something? Don’t think of a rabbit up a tree. Mmm... What colour was your bunny?! Expressing a goal as a negative makes things unnecessarily hard. I work with horses and riders. If a rider says, ‘I don’t want the horse to run off,’ the thought will arise in her mind of a bolting horse; she’ll be frightened and will tense up, and the message she sends the horse comes across as an instruction to bolt! So what to do if you don’t want your horse to run off ? Ask yourself what you want instead. You want him to walk along

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quietly. So, ‘I want the horse to walk quietly,’ becomes your outcome. Now all your actions of mind and body are in alignment with that wish for the horse to walk quietly. You think of your horse walking along nicely, your breathing slows down, you relax – and, like magic, your horse is walking quietly. This principle applies whether we are communicating with ourselves or anyone else.

UNDER YOUR CONTROL It’s fine to want world peace; but in terms of setting a realistic outcome you’ll need to start nearer to home. One of my teachers likes recounting a cautionary tale said to be a priest’s epitaph. It goes something like this: ‘When I was young and eager I wanted to change the world and I prayed to God to give me the wisdom and strength to change the world. I strove all my life to change the world, but when I grew old I came to understand that nothing had changed. Then I realised that to change the world, first I must change those close to me, and then, taking them as an example, the world might change. So I prayed to God to give me the wisdom to change my dear and near ones. I tried my best, but when I was very old I saw that no-one had changed. At last I realised that in order to change those close to me, first I must change myself. So I prayed to God to give me the wisdom to change myself – but, alas, it was too late.’

RIGHT SIZE This point is about finding the perspective that will enable you to motivate yourself. Your outcome needs to be neither so small as to be too trivial to bother with, nor so large as to be too daunting to tackle. If tidying your office is too trivial, ask yourself what’s important about doing it – perhaps it will enable you to run your business more efficiently, which will bring in more money, which will pay the mortgage and keep the little lambkins fed and clothed for a while; now it matters enough to get you started. Or, if tidying your office is too daunting, requiring a bulldozer, dump truck and a couple of cranes, ask yourself what might be the next step – it could be picking up and housing just one piece of paper from the tottering heaps of waifs and strays on the floor; now it’s manageable enough for you to begin.

ECOLOGICAL Context and consequences matter: we don’t live in isolation and everything we do affects others. Omitting to consider context and consequences may be a factor in the common syndrome of self-sabotage. A part of us is aware of a possible problem with our outcome and scuppers the plans to prevent an unwanted consequence. If this happens, rather than berate yourself for ‘failure’, ask your inner wisdom what changes need to be made, or what safeguards need to be in place, for you to go ahead. Be prepared to change your plans, and check for whole-heartedness before proceeding.

In future issues of Rapport we’ll be looking at other topics associated with setting outcomes, such as planning, values and beliefs, emotional resources, modelling, motivation, and success criteria. And as we go along, let’s keep in mind the wise words of the sages Mick and Keith: ‘You can’t always get what you want, but you just might get what you need’!

Caitlin Collins: www.naturalmindmagic.com

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NLP

A Hero’s Journey TOWARDS THE GENERATIVE SELF Stephen Gilligan was in at the birth of NLP and counts Milton H. Erickson and Gregory Bateson amongst his teachers. From his first meeting with Erickson he has been on a journey. The latest manifestation of that, with its roots in Erickson’s own thinking, is the Generative Self. Andy Coote had the good fortune not only to talk to Stephen but also to listen to his well-received keynote at the NLP Conference in London in November. he journey metaphor in the introduction is apt. Stephen is on a physical journey, spreading his message in keynotes and trainings across the world. He is also on his own journey of discovery, taking his knowledge of Ericksonian Hypnosis and NLP and, with Aikido to ground him, travelling across the universe of human possibility.

Stephen was a student in San Diego in the early 1970s and took a course taught

by John Grinder “on the overthrow of the US Government by any means possible.” Through that course he also met “an in-your-face, skinny, longhaired Gestalt therapist” called Richard Bandler.

When Grinder and Bandler showed the manuscript of The Structure of Magic Part 1 to Gregory Bateson, he told them that they should “go show it to the purple one in the desert”. They did and impressed by the feedback from that meeting, Stephen persuaded them to let him tag along at the next meeting. When Stephen met Milton Erickson (who always wore purple, hence the nickname), “he touched something inside of me and started a fire burning in me.

I’ve tried to put the fire out on many occasions since but it simply won’t go out.” It is obvious that the fire still burns.

One of the key metaphors in Stephen’s current work is that of the Hero’s Journey, based on the book Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (see Box) and on Carl Jung’s work on Archetypes.

There is a book in the pipeline, written by Stephen with another of the San Diego group, Robert Dilts, on that subect. Following a call to action, which Stephen agrees was his meeting with Erickson, a journey begins through, often, hostile territory. The hero finds helpers along the way. Two of Stephen’s helpers have been Milton Erickson himself and his inspirational life and work, and also the discipline of Aikido. He sees the two as closely linked.

Much has been written about Erickson and, no doubt much more will be. Erickson’s contraction of polio at the age of 17 left him paralysed and, at one point, close to death. His use of extensive visualisation allowed him to have physical effects on his body.

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“Milton didn’t know about hypnosis and trance when he started to do this but everybody told him that he had no hope of ever moving again and he chose not to believe that. He called his crises ‘experiments in learning’. He knew that he would like to move again but admitted “I don’t know if it’s possible or how it might be possible””.

Stephen recalls that “Milton concentrated on positive memories such as picking apples on the farm where he grew up and throwing a baseball. He found resonance inside himself from the memory of throwing a ball and the muscles involved would begin to react until he was able to move them”. It was a long, slow process. Milton remarked that he had “lost all awareness of how to walk, but who could have a better teacher than my one-year-old baby sister.”

Wikipedia defines Aikido as a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. A key part of the Aikido approach is known as ‘blending’ - moving with the attacker rather than confronting them.

Stephen sees this as akin to Erickson’s approach of Utilization, of getting ‘inside’ the experience of the client- one of the important elements of Stephen’s current work. “Aikido and Ericksonian Hypnosis are both works of genius that map closely with each other,” Stephen believes.

Another element of the Hero’s Journey is the quest. Through his work on human potential, Stephen’s quest has become the achievement of transformational change that leads to happiness, health, healing and helpfulness. It is expressed in his development of his self-relations approach to psychotherapy and in his work on the generative self.

Gilligan describes what he calls the ‘Premises of Self-Relations’. “Each person has an indestructible “tender soft spot” (or center) at the core of their being, called the Somatic Self. The river of life moves through you, except when it doesn’t. The river brings both happiness and suffering. A second consciousness awakens to relate to these experiences, called the Cognitive Self. When the somatic self is united with the cognitive self, a third consciousness of a field mind opens and this is the Generative Self.

The path by which each person realizes this Generative Self is unique: Each person is an incurable deviant.”

The preconditions for well formedness of an intention are that it must be succinct, expressed in five words or less and, preferably, positive and ‘towards’ rather than ‘away from’

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NLP

The five presuppositions of the Generative Self Approach are shown in the box on this page. Working with clients using this approach requires a lot of attention to be focused into upgrading the state of consciousness.

The generative trance model has four stages which are, in many ways analogous to the Hero’s Journey. Preparation is critical and is followed by the shift in consciousness. The third stage, transformation, is accomplished in a higher generative state and must be followed by a return to reality with a strategy to get significant changes in everyday life – NLP Well Formed Outcomes may help with this.

“Generative trance follows the general model of transformation or rituals in history and legend.” Gilligan notes. “In all change work and particularly generative coaching you need to have clarity about what the intention is. Intention drives attention and intention coupled with attention drives trance.”

The preconditions for well formedness of an intention are that it must be succinct, expressed in five words or less and, preferably, positive and ‘towards’ rather than ‘away from’.

“The intention needs to be resonant both for the client and for the change practitioner. Achieving an intention can be quite straightforward.

In most demonstrations it takes around five minutes to achieve” comments Gilligan. “If people could realise this intention from an ordinary state, then we wouldn’t be talking. The hypnotic induction is an upward shift in consciousness to so that the intention can be realised.

That comes from the quality of your state and not from losing control.

You need to be in the state in which you formed the intention whilst having fluid access to unconscious resources. This is a double level in which you are both fully connected and fully detached”.

When would it be useful to use such a trance? Stephen answers that Milton Erickson’s three favourite words were ‘I don’t know’. “The state of not knowing is useful to the therapists when conscious patterns are not adequate. You move from a pattern through depatterning to a new pattern. The client needs the capacity to stay present and to allow it to be a helpful process. If they shut down the state becomes degraded. The client must be present.”

“Usually what is causing the client difficulty or distress is not the problem itself but their relationship to it. And being confused and overwhelmed may not be a problem - indeed it may be very helpful.

Rage is not a problem. Whatever comes up in order to move the state on is fine. The State is the most important thing here. Consciousness

must never get limited by the problem. It must be connected in front and underneath (somatic), to it directly (cognitive) and beyond it (field).”

Stephen’s journey continues. From London he was flying to Munich and his schedule continues through Spain and London back into California. His schedule is on his web site at http://www.stephengilligan. com/workSCHEDULE.html.

It may, indeed, be a lifelong journey. Stephen studied with Erickson from 1974 until Erickson’s death in 1980. When he first plucked up the courage to ask if he could come back to learn from Erickson, Stephen asked how much the fee would be. Erickson replied, “You don’t have to pay me any money. If you find anything useful here, pay me back by teaching it to others.” Stephen smiles fondly at the memory and says, only half jokingly, “Sometimes I wish I’d paid the old man in money.”

Five Basic Elements of Generative Self Approach 1.

• • •

“SPIRIT IS WAKING UP…..

Spirit has gift to give AND wound to heal spirit is deepest identity spirit activates whenever ordinary identity is destabilized (e.g. ecstasy or agony)

2. into HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS • human nervous system is the most advanced instrument of consciousness ever developed • if you don’t learn to play the instrument, you’re in trouble • attuned human conscious PLUS spirit EQUALS generative self 3.

• • • •

on HERO’S JOURNEY each person’s life is an arc unfolding over time into the world journey has many death and rebirth cycles at heart of hero’s journey is Spirit waking up suffering is a signal of misalignment with the call/journey

4. utilizing THREE MINDS • Somatic, Cognitive, Field • Integration of three minds awakens Generative Self 5. operating at THREE LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS (1) Primitive (unconscious wholeness, field without self-awareness) (2) Ego (conscious separateness, awareness without field) (3) Generative (conscious differentiated wholeness, parts and whole simultaneously) Spirit can be present or absent at each level Creative unfolding moves among three levels Source and © – Stephen Gilligan, Ph.D

The Hero’s Journey Developed from the book Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.

Campbell analysed the mythology of many cultures and discovered that their stories followed a similar structure – one that seemed to satisfy our innate need for a journey and a resolution.

The first of four stages is about our slow recognition that something needs to change. We are in our familiar world yet something isn’t right.

We may deny the need for change but eventually something happens that overcomes that (the call) and we begin the journey, leaving the familiar world for somewhere unfamiliar.

In this second stage, we are searching for solutions to the need and we will meet characters and situations along the way that may make the situation worse. We may understand the real issue is much deeper than the triggering one. Despite also meeting helpful characters here, we reach the end of this phase still searching and maybe doubting our resolve or despairing of the possibility of finding the solution.

The third stage is about finding the resources and solutions that we seek.

It is by no means certain that we will reach this stage and many abandon their quest here. We may find a mentor who will help us on our journey and may even show us that the solution was with us all the time – we just couldn’t see it. Now we have the answer, we may spend time refining it and preparing for the final stage – our return to the real, familiar world.

This fourth stage requires that we return to our familiar surroundings and install the changes into it. The more radical the change, the more the familiar can seem more appealing. Our resolve can be dented or completely neutralised by our dependence on the people and habits of our everyday life. We lose momentum and the moment is lost or we seize the moment and succeed.

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| 11

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Pesso Boyden Creating lives of pleasure, meaning and connectedness

By Eve Menezes Cunningham esso Boyden is an almost non verbal form of psychotherapy. It’s creators, Al Pesso and Diane Boyden, were dancers and choreographers who wanted to help dancers be more creative and expressive. They found that where there were emotional blocks, the body was blocked, too.

Al Pesso believed that life should be full of pleasure, meaning, satisfaction and connectedness. That we should be able to tap into the ability to be all of who we are.

Ultimately, it’s a way to help people reach their potential by becoming “more of who you are.”

I attended a Pesso Boyden workshop facilitated by Juliet Grayson to find out more.

According to Juliet, Pesso is a powerful method that can help with “almost any problem you have had difficulty resolving. Our history directly affects how we experience events today.

If I have been roughly treated by an authority figure, I may not expect authority figures in my life today to be kind to me. If I had a difficult relationship with my mother then I may have trouble relating to other women in my life.

Often it is more subtle.” Juliet has worked with people who’ve had more than a decade of one to one therapy saying ‘I never realised that was connected to this issue’ after just one Pesso session. She says, “We also welcome people who have had no therapy at all, and are just beginning a journey of self awareness and personal development.”

I had no idea what to expect but the woman hosting it had been very helpful sharing directions and so on so I arrived feeling quite relaxed. There were eleven of us in total. Seven women and four men of a wide range of ages.

One participant had been using Pesso techniques for more than a decade and had come all the way from Belgium. Another

P

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person had been using it for just under ten years. Some were in therapy, others were counsellors and some were training in Pesso Boyden. A few of them were planning retirement and looking at their whole lives rather than focusing on work.

Juliet introduced the day by talking about our five basic needs and how we need them to be met. We all need a place in the world, nurture, support, protection and limits. Juliet says, “When we haven’t had enough of something, there’s a deficit.” Excess causes trauma.

Literally, too much has come in. This sensory overload may be in the form of abuse or even from TV. She highlighted the effects of the burning Twin Towers being shown on a loop after 9/11.

Juliet explained that we all have a “deep,

We all have a deep, deep desire to complete things.

To make things right, as they should be deep desire to complete things. To make things right, as they should be.” She introduced the Pesso way of working by telling us about one of the people she’s helped. He had a case of such bad stage fright, he had to be pushed out on stage and he’d frequently vomit.

So in this “structure” (as treatments are called in Pesso), they put together an audience who would laugh at him. But the man remembered that he’s actually a good actor and that a supportive person had done something else. So, for the structure, they added a person to fulfil this role.

Then they looked at the historical scene to figure out where the memory had come from.

The man remembered growing up with three older brothers and a father who had teased him mercilessly. So, in the structure, they worked on the negative aspects (presupposing that there were also positive aspects) of the brothers. Then they looked at how they could fix it so created a “loving dad” role as an antidote.

This planting of a false memory to aid healing reminds me a bit of Robert Dilts’ Reimprinting technique in NLP. As with this, the man in the structure was able to start “operating from a new memory” so things could shift for him.

The final stage of the structure was to bring it back to the here and now, future pacing so he could rehearse using his new responses on stage the following week.

Then it was time for us to experience some structures ourselves. With Pesso, participants get healing even if they’re just observing or participating in someone else’s structure.

Juliet says, “It’s not about catharsis and getting stuff out, it’s about getting the healing in.” Although the structures I observed were about ideal parents facilitating healing, these techniques can be used in business by creating an ideal coach instead. It’s about having some sort of supportive figure.

There are elements of spatial anchoring in Pesso as different people (in specific places) represent these ideal elements. The psychotherapist guides the whole process, adding resources, putting words in mouths and suggesting actions to help the person heal their Holes in Roles (see box out for more information).

Juliet seemed to be incredibly skilled at this

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

CASE STUDY: Judy Hallas Judy was completely new to PB. Someone had recommended it so she downloaded some info. She says, “It’s been very interesting with the two different people. Both subjects felt powerfully moved.

Something shifted. You need to experience it. It’s really experiential.

Come with an open mind and see for yourself. Try it.”

Holes in roles Juliet explained that as we grow up, we hear stories about our families and our culture and so stem selves (part of ourself that are ready to fit into any role) go fill those gaps. A little boy might hear that he’s now the “man of the house” when he’s very young. Even though no one really expects him to replace his dad, he attempts to do so. A little girl may become a caretaker for an ailing mother or father before she’s old enough to have received enough nurturing herself. When roles are filled before needs are met, it can leave a gap.

When you reflect back over your early years, are you aware of any holes you may have filled in your parents’ or other’s lives?

• Who was needy?

• Who did you take care of?

• How does this affect you in your current life?

• How can you begin to receive more?

If you were in a PB workshop, what kind of person might you choose to represent your ideal _______ (“ideal” not “Idealised” which would be perfect. Ideal is a perfect fit for what you need.)

rapport - Winter 2008

| 13

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT guidance. She focused completely on what each person needed and avoided mind reading by checking in with them.

I was also very impressed by the emotional bravery of the people who shared their circumstances so they could receive healing.

And also (especially after attempting to play someone’s ideal mother and discovering that it was much harder than it looked), by the people who were facilitating the healing by filling the needed roles.

I put myself forward for the first three lotteries but decided against it for the final one. I definitely experienced some vicarious healing as promised. It was very interesting but also intense.

It was amazing to see visible healing as the structures progressed. One of the people at the centre of them reported feeling well contained and safe. She appreciated being able to follow the emotions welling up safely to gain closure.

Dates Juliet also runs training courses and corporate training in assertiveness, negotiation and helps people working with relationships. The following Pesso Personal Development events are open to everyone: • 22nd January in Itton, Monmouthshire, South Wales • 28th and 29th January in Lewes, Sussex • 4th, 5th and 6th February residential course near Glastonbury, Somerset

CASE STUDY: Sue Bradshaw

• 12th March in Middle Barton, Oxfordshire

Sue is doing some Pesso training. She met Juliet while working for a car company. Juliet came in as a consultant and Sue was impressed by the way she worked so attended a Pesso Boyden day. She did a few separate days before deciding to pursue it as she was already an NLP Practitioner and Coach. Sue says, “Don’t run before you can walk. Take it gently. It’s helped me come to terms with the death of my father and other ‘over-helping’ people issues. Go to a day. You can read about it until the cows come home but until you witness it or, better still, do a structure, you don’t know.”

• 12th and 13th May in Lancashire For more information or to book a place, please email Juliet on therapy.counselling@ virgin.net or call 01291 638805.

For more information about Pesso Boyden, please visit www.pbsp.com

“Go to a day [workshop].

You can read about it until the cows come home but until you witness it or, better still, do a structure, you don’t know.” Sue

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EDUCATION

It’s All About Attitude Jenny Foster and Jenny Thomas appreciate the value of NLP principles in caring for children. By Caitlin Collins s American spiritual guru Ram Dass wryly remarked sometime in the sixties, ‘If you think you’re so enlightened, go and spend a week with your parents.’ That home truth could equally well apply the other way round: If you think you’re so enlightened, have children – they’ll soon flush out the ego lurking in the undergrowth! The family crucible offers one of life’s most intense arenas for growth. It’s a potent emotional maelstrom, embracing the extremes of intense love, joy and intimacy along with misunderstanding, frustration, disappointment, grief and conflict; so much conflict. Our society seems to be particularly heavily conditioned to follow a philosophy of conflict: we are repeatedly exhorted to ‘fight’ our problems, as political leaders talk about engaging in ‘wars’ against drugs, cancer, terrorism, crime, whatever, apparently oblivious to the irony of trying to resolve violence with more violence.

What can NLP offer parents and others who want to ‘do something different’ in bringing up the children in their care? I consulted two experts, Jenny Thomas and Jenny Foster. I found that not only do the two Jennies have a name in common, they also share a conviction that NLP has much to offer, especially in promoting constructive attitudes – in fact, a profound alternative to the prevalence of conflict.

A

A starting point With a background in teaching, Trainer Jenny Foster teaches NLP to professionals working in Education and Early Years, including West Sussex Early Childhood Service. She remembers the goose bumps she experienced when she first came across NLP and realised that she’d found the tools that would help her understand, communicate with, and relate to others, both ‘big people and little people’. ‘I want to make NLP available to parents and educators, and anyone working with children,’ she says. ‘Whether I’m working with educational professionals, Early Years Practitioners, or parents, my first question is always: what about the adult? Difficulties that adults experience with the children in their care

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often appear to be related to the adults’ lack of resourcefulness, yet resourcing the adults has not always been a priority.’

Jenny identifies the NLP presuppositions as the starting point. ‘The thing that produces the most profound change is always attitude,’ she maintains, ‘beginning with helping people to explore their own assumptions.

Assumptions can have been bubbling, or even festering, below conscious awareness, and demonstrating how readily we assume things about people and situations can be enlightening. Introducing the presuppositions and exploring their usefulness as a set of ‘guiding principles’ can set people on the road to learning.’

Jenny illustrates her point with the example of one of her ‘learners’, a volunteer at a community play scheme for 5 – 10 year olds, many from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Jenny’s student tells the story.

In a school hall that had been transformed into the undersea world of Captain Nemo, I was given responsibility for forty boys and girls aged 8 – 10 for three mornings. I knew many of the children already and was aware of some of the complex difficulties that they faced at home. Some of the children were less than thrilled to be there, their absence of enthusiasm evident in their posture, facial expressions, and reluctance to join in with the others.

I decided to implement two NLP presuppositions for the duration of the play scheme: “Every behaviour has a positive intention behind it” and, “Every behaviour is useful in some context”.

I soon had a chance to test my resolve when a ten year old boy, wellknown for his challenging behaviour, decided it would be a good idea to write obscenities on a piece of paper and circulate it to the other children.

Presented with his “written work” by another child, my immediate reaction was annoyance; however, instead of acting on this, I decided to approach the situation in a more open-minded and calm way.

Remembering my chosen NLP principles, I considered what might be the positive intention behind his action, and how might the action be serving a purpose for him. Perhaps he wanted attention, and to be acknowledged. I think the boy, who was initially looking very pleased with himself, found it a bit strange and confusing not to be shouted at! I sat down with him on his level and maintained eye contact as we talked through why he had thought his actions were OK and how his behaviour was affecting other people, and we were able to reach an agreement about how he would approach the rest of his time at the play scheme more constructively.

‘My student was delighted when by the final day the boy was fully engaged in all the activities,’ adds Jenny. ‘The cherry on the cake came when a team helper gave her a hug and said, “I’ve learnt so much from you!” She told me that she couldn’t wait for the next play scheme and opportunity to practise her newfound calmness!’

A code for living Jenny Thomas is a life coach and Master Practitioner based in Taunton. Her two children were 18 and 22 when their mum began training in NLP, which makes them well placed to comment on their own experience of noticing changes in the family.

‘Since I began applying NLP in my own life, tremendous changes have occurred in me and in my relationship with the children,’ says Jenny. ‘Both my son and daughter picked up on what was going on very quickly, and our family life became more harmonious and intimate than it had ever been. We’re now able

EDUCATION

to accept each other’s idiosyncrasies and are better at resolving disputes – which are fewer and farther between.’

Like many people, Jenny had encountered some of the principles NLP embraces before she’d ever heard of NLP. ‘I came across “The map is not the territory” long ago,’ she recalls, ‘and it immediately made sense to me. Since then I’ve found the presuppositions a reliable source of optimism; they’ve transformed my attitude and approach to life. I love what Robert MacDonald says about how if you memorise the presuppositions you’ll have all

If you think you’re so enlightened, have children! the data you need to create everything there is in NLP. I’d like this “data” to become the code for living in the twenty first century, especially as it would appear to be innate – if often, sadly, dormant.’

Jenny describes how she used to regret aspects of her past, including perceived inadequacies at parenting. ‘I used to regret a lot about the past, including the fact that I hadn’t encountered NLP in the early days, thirty years ago,’ she says. ‘But, given the presupposition “If one person can do something, anyone can learn to do it,“ I reckon that if I can learn to feel richer for all my weird and wonderful experiences, so can my children learn to feel the same way about theirs! And now they’re learning alongside me!

My son is applying NLP ideas in his personal relationships and in his business; he says he’s more diplomatic now as he’s better able to appreciate different maps of the territory, see other people’s points of view and apply the perceptual positions in disputes. My daughter has remarked that we’re all calmer, easier to get along with, and better equipped to deal with life’s challenges. We often use NLP exercises together to help each other.’

Jenny celebrates her children’s individuality.

‘They’re very different from me, with their own unique learning styles – which I’m now better able to appreciate and respect. I truly believe that they “already have all the resources they need,” and I’ve realised that my role is to help them draw out the resources already within them. Their application of NLP seems natural, intuitive and effortless. My experience with NLP and my own children is now informing my current work mentoring students with disabilities, and the speed with which many of the young people I meet learn to play with NLP is fascinating and delightful.’

So, if Jenny were to choose a favourite presupposition, what would it be?

‘Well, I’d want to choose two,’ she answers. ‘”Underlying every behaviour is a positive intention” and “People make the best choices available to them at the time” are the ones which enable us to develop a compassionate and forgiving attitude towards ourselves and family members and everyone else as well. And it’s good to remember that everyone has the potential for “redemption” whatever their past.’

At a recent NLP conference, Jenny heard

something she found so inspiring that she has asked the speaker’s permission to share it with Rapport readers in this article. ‘It was Jo Clarkson,’ she recalls, ‘talking about his mother, Di Kamp. Jo said, “Mum’s gift to me was to show me that anything was possible and to see things from a myriad of different perspectives.

She allowed me the space to ‘do that / be that’, which enabled me to create the story of my life.” What more could a parent wish to do for his or her child?’

What starts at home...

Contemporary guru Eckhart Tolle, whose advice to ‘[give your children] help, guidance and protection to the best of your ability, but, even more important, give them space – space to be,’ resonates with Jo Clarkson’s words, sounds a hopeful note in his book A New Earth. He maintains that the process of awakening of human consciousness from the darkness of ‘dysfunction’ and conflict is gathering pace. I echo both the Jennies in appreciating the deep compassion and wisdom underlying the NLP principles of, ‘Every behaviour has a positive intention behind it’ and, ‘People make the best choices available to them at the time’. There’s cause for rejoicing in all who are lighting candles in the dark and expanding the radiance of compassion and wisdom – a radiance that starts here and now at home.

Jenny Foster: www.innersense.info Jenny Thomas: www.jtlifecoach.co.uk

rapport - Winter 2008

| 17

NEWS

Anatomy of a Plane Crash

Picture the scene – even, if you’re feeling brave or curious, associate into it, and imagine how your NLP expertise could help y name’s Neil, and I’ll be your plane crash victim today”. I wish I’d said that, but the line truly belonged to Nina, one of the two co-passengers on an ill-fated light aircraft transfer flight my partner Andy and I took from our island resort back to mainland Australia last April. Lying in our hospital beds, shocked, bruised but otherwise intact, the gallows humour was rampant. Two hours previously, our plane’s single engine had failed mid-flight, and we’d crashed into the ocean. The skill of our 21-year old pilot, Kate, meant we had survived the impact and subsequent immersion in shark-infested waters before our rescue. Picture the scene – even, if you’re feeling brave or curious, associate into it, and imagine how your NLP expertise could help.

You’re airborne soaring at 500m altitude, admiring the ocean view. Suddenly the plane’s single engine splutters and dies. You can hear the pilot’s urgent Mayday call, see her frantically adjusting knobs and levers, and feel the plane plummet towards the ocean. There’s barely time to panic – if you have any hope of surviving impact, you must act against instinct and open the plane’s doors before you hit and the pressure of tons of water traps you.

M

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Photograph: RACQ – CQ RESCUE

Your muscles tense as you brace for impact.

Everything happens very quickly. You hit, submerge, then surface. Within seconds, the cabin’s half full of water, with more rapidly pouring in. You have to evacuate immediately, checking that everyone’s safe, and inflate your life jackets. Moments later all that’s left of the plane is two meters of tail sticking vertically out of the ocean. Which rapidly disappears below the surface, taking with it all your bags, tickets, passports and possessions…

Six months on, the memories are sharp

and hazy. I remember… the strange sense of calm…the sight of Andy on the wing of the plane, frantically trying to inflate his lifejacket and yelling ‘where’s the f@*king red toggle?’…my haste to get both of us away from the sinking plane… Nina’s wonderful cry: “Oh s&*t! My best lippy was in there! I can’t get rescued looking like this!” On which surreal note, we began bobbing and waiting to be rescued…

In my other life, I’m an NLP Trainer.

Andy’s a coach. Almost immediately we began using our NLP to help us survive. The crash, and the way we’ve coped since, has given us a unique insight into how NLP can help deal with such traumas. These insights and learnings seem far too juicy not to share with my peers, so with your permission I’ll be doing just that in the next few editions of Rapport. Watch this space. But for now, back to you: Having thought yourself through this adventure which NLP skills and distinctions would you apply to survive, stay well, deal with trauma and go on to fly again? We can compare notes next issue. neil@neilalmond.com

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CELEBRITY

Giles Long

By Eve Menezes Cunningham

hen Giles Long MBE was seven years old, he sat his parents down on the sofa and told them “I’m going to got to the Olympic Games and I’m going to win a Gold medal.”

They responded, he says, “Probably in the best way imaginable. They didn’t laugh at me. Instead, they said, ‘If that’s what you want to do, that’s absolutely brilliant. There’s only one person who’s going to do the work. We’ll back you up in whatever way we can but all the work’s going to be done by you.’ So that was brilliant. They really threw the challenge out to me. And that was the dream.”

Then, at 13, his arm was broken when he was tripped up by a bully.

Worse, he found out that he had bone cancer. Giles says he’d felt something wrong with his shoulder but the break meant that the tumour shattered and the cancer spread through his system.

An insensitive doctor, on seeing his severely limited arm movement, said, “Once we’ve done the operation, you won’t get any more movement from that” Giles says, “Just like that, my Olympic dreams went out the window.”

After his treatment, Giles started swimming again because his friends were in the swimming club. His coach kept entering him in competitions and he was getting “comprehensively thrashed” repeatedly by two armed swimmers.

After a while, he says, “I told my coach, ‘I don’t want to do the competitions any more. I just want to come here and hang out with my friends.’ He said, ‘So you want to use the swimming club as a social club?’ and I said, ‘Mmm, yes.’ But he said, ‘If you want to carry on swimming here, you have to enter competitions. Everyone else has that goal of being the best they can be. We’re all a team with a common goal. As soon as you’ve got one person not sharing the goal it starts falling apart.’”

At one of the competitions, Giles was spotted by someone from the Paralympics. He was asked if he’d like to attend a training session in Darlington where he could meet members of the GB Paralympic Team.

Giles realised he could change his dream and still win that Gold.

He achieved this at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Giles says, “Being

W

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an athlete is all about the journey. You’re always thinking, ‘what’s next?

What changes can I make? How can I be better? Where are we going?

What are we doing? How are we getting there?’ For years and years, you want to reach the destination. But when you finally do get there, it feels very strange. There’s a small part of you – no matter how much self belief someone’s got – that has that recognition that you might never get there.

“When I was standing there getting my Gold medal, it felt very pure.

We’ve all seen people on TV receiving medals. Some people laugh, some people cry and you don’t want to do any of that. For me, the best way I can describe it is that it felt like someone had taken my heart out, given it a really good polish and then put it back in. I felt like I was gleaming from the inside out. My metaphorical heart not my literal heart.”

Giles says that, as well as his parents, he had “loads and loads of support. That support grows as you get better and better. Everyone thinks that sports like swimming are an individual sport. And for that one minute, from when you’re standing on the starting block to finishing the race, it is an individual sport.

“But to put you there, you need swimming coaches, teachers who first taught you to swim… In my case, I couldn’t afford to get my car fixed for my first Games but I had a mechanic who fixed my car for free.

Then you’ve got, nutritionists, physios, even, when it comes down to it, people like hairdressers. It sounds stupid because what’s a hairdresser got to do with swimming faster? But a lot of sponsorship is based on what you look like. So if you can get your hair cut for free, that makes a big difference.

“At my absolute peak, in terms of training, it would be up to 60,000 meters in the pool every week. Then there’d be sessions in the gym and various weight and flexibility sessions. It’s important not only to be strong but to be quick with it. You wouldn’t catch a swimmer doing the same kind of things in the gym as a weightlifter because weightlifters don’t need to be strong and fast. They just have to be strong.

CELEBRITY

The best way I can describe it is that it felt like someone had taken my heart out, given it a really good polish and then put it back in. I felt like I was gleaming from the inside out

Consequently, they can end up lifting a lot more weight. It’s very much a case of horses for courses.

Giles seems very appreciative of all the support he’s had. He says, “There’s a whole raft of people that helped me get there. And as my career went on, I became better at identifying who they were and at assembling that team around me so that all of the team decisions didn’t necessarily have to go through me. So maybe, in the same room, you’ve got your physiotherapist, your nutritionist and your psychologist. If you can get these people starting to exchange ideas with one another, then that’s when they start coming up with ideas ultimately to get me to swim faster but they’re getting lots out of it as well, lots of new ideas and it becomes a real place of synergy.”

That ability to surround himself with the right people is useful in his current work, giving inspirational speeches to corporations and other groups. Giles says, “That support comes in many, many forms. There are support services that I tend to buy. Things that every business does like IT support, design, marketing, PR – those kinds of things. Then there’s mentoring work. I’ve worked a lot with David Pearson of Sony. He’s really helped me think about how I approach my business in a slightly different way.”

“I was looking for something to do because I could feel my swimming career coming to an end. I started to get beaten by younger guys. I was still improving but I would have, maybe, three improvements a year and they might be by a couple of hundredths of a second whereas the younger guys coming into the sport would be getting maybe five or six improvements a year and it would be 1/3 of a second or ½ a second. As you get older, it doesn’t get any easier and personal best times become harder to fight for. I started enjoying training more than I enjoyed competitions.

“I started working for the Youth Cancer Trust and speaking in schools because I thought, ‘That’s something I can do and it’s a way of earning some money and getting out there. I absolutely loved doing it. I loved inspiring people and leaving them motivated and coming back and hearing about the positive changes that they’d made towards being the best that they could be.” The speeches at schools led to events and corporate work.

Although his swimming career is over, Giles still swims for fun, “often at London Fields because it’s outdoors, heated and is in a lovely setting.”

Now he’s training for the Marathon. He says, “I’m not very good at

doing sport unless there’s a goal. I’m not a gym bunny. I can’t just go to the gym and jump around. The initial stages are to get a high level of aerobic fitness. I need to be getting up to about 20 miles a week. It can be broken up so, maybe, four sessions of five miles. That’s going OK. I’m about halfway there. There’s a fair amount of fitness that carries over from the swimming days.”

He only decided to run the marathon the week before our interview as someone suggested he do it to raise money for the Youth Cancer Trust. Health wise, Giles says, “Touch wood, I’m OK. I think I’m now in the zone where I’ve got about as much risk of contracting cancer as the next person.” www.gileslong.com Youth Cancer Trust: www.yct.org.uk You can order “Changing to Win” by Giles Long, from Amazon.

Pictures for this spread and front cover by Hayley Madden.

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BUSINESS

Boardroom for

Heart and Soul?

By Sharon Eden

David Whyte, a poet and organisation development specialist, speaks of how heart and soul, our inner sponsor, are mostly left out of the boardroom and workplace landscapes. It’s as if they were dirty and very non p.c. words beyond utterance. owever, I believe their very exclusion has been part of the ongoing international economic problems; aridity arising from the lack of joined-up ‘being’ far more than the lack of joined-up thinking.

That the corporate world needs something ‘different’ reverberates around it like rattling dried peas in a tin can.

“The current economic and financial crisis gives us the opportunity to insert gender into the re-writing of the rules. We need new people at the table – people who are not associated with the past,” proclaimed a World Bank senior advisor, Nadereh Chamlou, at an international women’s forum in October.

The business section of the Daily Telegraph head-lined a recent report ‘Call for more women in the boardroom’. 17 leaders from some of the biggest UK companies, including J Sainsbury and BP, are calling for action to ensure more senior women are appointed at the highest business levels.

Great! Yet the whole issue of heart and soul goes way beyond gender and gender politics.

I’m a woman who advocates traditionally thought of ‘feminine’ qualities and skills having far more presence, influence and power in the workplace.

Receptivity, co-creation, collaboration, community, sensitivity to the finer nuances of inter-relationship and communication, the development and use of intuition, a more heart centred approach and what David Whyte terms ‘the fierceness of the feminine’ as in the pup’s mother teaching it to fight.

However, I find it naive to believe that women won’t be associated with ‘the past’.

That somehow those women career-reared in existing organisational structures will just because they are women somehow magically

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be different from the men who’ve historically dominated these arenas.

A colleague tumbles out the tale of being the only female senior partner in a very large accounting firm. She took keen delight in the fact that, by popular demand from her male partners, she was the one assigned to resolve ‘difficult’ issues or hammer out tricky deals with clients. She gloried in her ascribed nickname, ‘The Rottweiler’!

Then she woke up. She suddenly recognised how unhappy and out of sync with herself she felt. She realised she’d not only unconsciously adopted male modes of operation, becoming ‘one of the boys’, but she’d taken them to extremes in order to develop her career in a male dominated profession.

For her it was all pro-activity, competitiveness, mind-centred linear thinking at the expense of sensitivity, logic and action without any heartcentred considerations and combat, delicious combat, rather than alliance.

So, yes, let’s have more gender equality in the boardroom by appointing more women.

Equally, however, let’s have more rounded business people in general, irrespective of gender, who can articulate both their traditionally thought of feminine and masculine approaches, qualities and skills. And use them co-operatively in relating with others as well as within themselves.

A 2007 study, ‘8 Ways To Build Collaborative Teams’, demonstrates that such roundedness is absolutely possible. 55 large teams from corporations ranging from Royal Bank of Scotland to Marriott to Nokia were researched and 8 success factors identified which created the strongly collaborative and most effective ones amongst them.

These factors included...

• executives role modelling collaboration which ‘trickled down’ to other staff, • a ‘gift culture’ where managers mentored employees daily rather than a transactional ‘tit for tat’ culture, • training in relationship skills including communication and conflict resolution, • a sense of community fostered by sponsoring group activities and • leaders who were both task and relationship oriented.

BUSINESS

There’s undoubtedly a strong movement in the corporate business world, a swelling underbelly of realising that organisations cannot profitably continue to operate as they have in the past. You only have to hear mention of corporate ‘social responsibility’ via community and ecological projects to know that’s so.

However, how about more social responsibility within organisations? How about more ecology there, more ‘right relationship’ in organisational cultures, in a person’s quality of life as an employee and from leaders at all levels?

Box of Crayons is a company that works with organizations and teams around the world to help them do less Good Work and more Great Work.

Michael Bungay Stanier, its founder and senior partner, focused his blog on 26th November about the great work being done

by Innocent, the highly successful UK drinks company.

Looking at their website, he’d found a ‘lest we forget’ page which showed a photo and paid homage individually to every single person who’d ever worked at Innocent.

Clearly, there’s absolutely no commercial reason to do that. However, as an example of walking your talk, actually believing the phrase ‘our people are our most important asset’, Michael suggested, “...this is about as good as it gets. Great Work needs great people....”.

And it’s very clear that the leadership at Innocent empirically demonstrates ‘right relationship’, heart centred soul-fullness including traditionally thought of feminine as well as masculine approaches and qualities, with their people, their products and their operations.

Through exploring their website it’s recognisable that because of this they’re offering a very different organisational model which others could embrace. And they’re enacting their ethics and values, including very apparent humour and humanity, instead of having some dry cerebral mission statement tacked to a wall.

If Innocent can do it, so can every organisation and its leaders. If there is to be a new age, a ‘global community’ as George Brown and other pundits have dubbed it, let them and the business world show us they have the willingness and courage to evolve as human beings, to clean up their acts and embody leadership in

There’s undoubtedly a strong movement in the corporate business world, a swelling underbelly of realising that organisations cannot profitably continue to operate as they have in the past

its richest, wisest sense. To inspire, motivate and lead by example in line with the highest integrity and intention of good for all.

This cannot possibly be achieved without including heart and soul throughout the corporate and business landscapes.

This, in turn, will enable more people in business, from chief executives to admin officers, from janitors to chairs of the board, to evolve in their humaneness. And so bring their roundedness and the vitality of their own hearts and souls into the equation of their working lives.

And, by so doing, they’ll bring that heartsoul vitality, that humaneness, integrity and creativity, to the lives of those they work with, the people they work for and the people for whom they serve.

References Box of Crayons blog http://www.boxofcrayons.biz/great-work ‘Call for more women in the Boardroom’, Business Section, Daily Telegraph, 20th October 2008.

Innocent website http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk Grattion L & Erickson T, 1st November 2007, ‘8 Ways To Build Collaborative Teams’, Harvard Business Review Whyte D, 1994, ‘The Heart Aroused, Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America’, Doubleday, New York.

Biography Sharon Eden’s an Evolutionary Coach MAC, Certified Trainer INLPTA, Trainer Member ANLP, UKCP Registered Psychotherapist, Writer and Charter Member of the International Positive Psychology Association with an MA in the field. She specialises and delights in working in out-of-the-box ways with leaders, executives and visionaries in both the public and private sectors who desire high performance, presence and power.

Her work includes innovative 30 Minutes Pin Point Coaching™ and specialised business training including courses tailored specifically for women like ‘Politics Can Be Sexy!™.

Contact Sharon via www.edendynamics. com, www.womenofcourage.co.uk or call her on +44(0)20 8597 9200

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HEALTH

NLP AND PAIN

RELIEF

By Eve Menezes Cunningham ot all pain is bad. We feel “good” pain when we’ve worked out that bit harder than usual and are far more aware of our muscles. Especially when they’re in places we’ve forgotten we had muscles. The pain of childbirth (I’m told) fits into the “good pain” category as the end result is so worth it.

Most people do whatever they can to avoid pain. But even “bad pain” has its uses. It tells us when there’s something wrong and forces us to investigate further.

People with the rare disorder known as CIPA don’t have any way of registering pain.

This means they’re at risk all the time. They continue to run on broken bones, hold items that are actually burning them and do other things that sound so painful they’re making me cringe just thinking about it.

But most of us feel the pain of injuries, illnesses and exceedingly hot and cold temperatures. This makes us react instinctively to prevent further damage.

I was interviewed by another journalist about endometriosis today. Talking to her reminded me how bad it was when I was in daily pain without knowing what was wrong or what I could do to ease it. But the clear signal that something wasn’t right with my body made me persevere in getting a diagnosis and treatment.

Several years on, by taking extra care of myself, I’ve learned to manage the pain so that I’m only on painkillers for a few days at a time.

Things like eating well, cutting out alcohol, doing yoga, making sure I get enough exercise and sleep and so on aren’t wellbeing luxuries but health essentials.

It was important to me to find natural ways to deal with my pain. I’d met other women with endometriosis who’d actually lost their hearing and sight and had other terrible side

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effects from the medications.

Before I started getting better, though, I wanted nothing more than for one of the doctors or specialists to tell me “This is what you’ve got and this is how you fix it”. Instead, it was a long process of trial and error.

I began using crystals for self healing because nothing else was working. When I held a stone over the pain, it dissipated in a way that impressed me so much, it led to my training and qualifying as a crystal therapist.

Hypnotism or visualisation might work well for you. I’ve had some success with visualisation exercises but have needed to feel good enough to begin with in order to get the most from them.

Ultimately, my pain empowered me to learn to listen to my own body (instead of relying on doctors and specialists) and to figure out what I needed myself. I became interested in complementary therapies (to help relieve the pain). This led to my training as a coach and coaching myself to become a freelance journalist. As well as loving this new work, I needed to find something that would enable me to work from home when necessary.

Even though I often work longer hours than I ever worked in an office, I can manage my time so that I give my body a break when I need it without letting anyone down.

I now see the pain as a blessing as it forced me to reassess my whole life and make shifts until I could manage. The huge changes I made to my lifestyle have already made me much healthier overall than I’d have been if I’d continued on the “my body lets me get away with treating it like rubbish” track.

Training as a coach and in NLP taught me about resourceful states. This helped me psych myself up enough to get better treatment from my GP than I’d received when I’d been turning up feeling victimised each time.

Chronic pain is exhausting. Learning to keep my outcome (a diagnosis and treatment plan that would work for me) in mind was especially helpful. But I’d already had surgery by the time I started this training so had experienced some relief from the pain already.

Yoga has helped me enormously, too. The challenging part is to practice each day, even if I’m just at home. By opening up and stretching different parts of the body, yoga can help alleviate tension and stresses. It’s also taught me to breathe into the pain instead of trying to resist it. Meditating on it and paying close attention to your body is not as easy a fix as popping some pills. But there are no side effects – it’s definitely worth trying with an open mind.

The American writer, Maya Angelou said, “Just because you’re in pain, doesn’t mean you have to be a pain”. I heard this expression at the right time for me. I knew enough about her life to know that she was no stranger to pain.

Ultimately, I found that by focusing on my pain as little as possible (instead of it being my whole world), it really did get better.

HEALTH

If you’re in pain, use your NLP knowledge by: • Reminding yourself that you can choose a resourceful state and that this will help you much more than curling up in a heap (I know the feeling) under your duvet.

• Setting well-formed outcomes which you can then adapt as necessary.

• Being flexible and open to trying whatever might work.

• Experimenting with hypnotherapy, visualisation and trance work to help you ease or manage your pain.

• Reminding yourself about all the resources that are available to you.

Ask your close friends and family for whatever you need. Talk to your doctors and specialists and make use of support groups, books, DVDs and other resources to help you understand more about your painful condition and things that might alleviate it.

• Playing around with the submodalities (maybe imagining the pain as a shape or colour) and experimenting to make the pain more manageable.

• Exceeding your expectations with enhanced communication skills so that no matter how frustrating the situation, you’re able to build rapport and express yourself in a way that gets you the help you need.

“Just because you’re in pain, doesn’t mean you have to be a pain” - Maya Angelou LEARN TO SPEAK YOUR BODY’S LANGUAGE Sit as comfortably as you can and take some deep breaths. With each exhalation, breathe out your pain. With each inhalation, breathe in feelings of wellbeing. When you feel centred and calm, ask the painful part of yourself what it’s trying to communicate to you.

Make notes of whatever words, images or thoughts crop up. It may sound incredibly strange but by paying attention to your body’s whispers, it will stop feeling that it has to shout so loudly to get any attention.

Is that sore throat telling you that there’s something (no matter how unappealing) you just have to speak up about?

Could a problem with your feet alert you to the fact that your subconscious is worried that you’re going in the wrong direction?

Might that knee injury be your body’s way of encouraging you to find a more flexible approach to an old problem?

Maybe that backache is trying to get you to spread the load a bit and accept help and support from others?

Is that stomach upset a manifestation of your fears that you can’t digest something that’s going on in your life right now?

We’re all different and you’ll intuitively come up with the right message for yourself if you just take the time to centre yourself and listen.

If you’re struggling to figure out what different parts are saying to you, Louise Hay’s books might help you learn to decode your own unique signals. Debbie Shapiro’s The BodyMind Workbook and Your Body Speaks Your Mind might also help.

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HEALTH

Pain relief and medicine Dr Claire Jetha trained as a GP but has a more holistic approach than most.

She works at Penny Brohn Cancer Care (formerly Bristol Cancer Care Centre) in special integrative health.

Dr Jetha says, “I felt frustrated by narrowness so looked at different way to practice medicine.” Now she works with complementary therapies, too. She helps her patients do other things to feel better, like working with their emotions.

She remembers thinking that many patients were having their “cancer well treated but who they are as a person was being lost along the way.” The Bristol Approach includes offering psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, nutrition and spiritual healing. Treating them as an individual is a key part of the programme.

Dr Jetha also trained in hypnotherapy and set up her own practice. She says, “NLP with hypnosis is even more effective. There’s lots of evidence and they can even do operations under hypnosis.”

In her private practice, Dr Jetha works with women who are preparing for childbirth. She says, “I offer four sessions and it’s interweaved. It’s about trusting your body and helping people imagine the sensations from their womb and having a switch where they’re On or Off or Halfway so they can feel but it’s also taking the edge off the pain.”

hypnosis.” She created a CD to help her prepare and when the dentist finished and apologised for taking so long, she hadn’t even noticed. She says, “A lot of pain is fear. There’s a core of pain but a lot is going on around that. Working with people with cancer, breathing into the pain can change it. I use NLP techniques, imagining pain as a shape or a colour and changing it.”

Dr Jetha has seen a shift in NHS Pain Clinics. While people with chronic pain used to be sent home with “huge amounts of pain killers, they’re now told about meditation and acupuncture.”

A lot of it is attitude, too. When we’re in pain, we want someone to take it away.

Dr Jetha says, “Going to see somebody when you’re in pain takes away your resources. You don’t feel so proactive. It tends to limit you.” She recommends “finding somebody like a hypnotherapist or NLP Practitioner who can help you learn some tools and techniques which you can then use on yourself. It’s about finding the right thing for the individual.”

Resources www.pennybrohncancercare.org have a helpline and hope to offer some of their courses free in the future. www.drclairejetha.co.uk www.louisehay.com

Dr Jetha uses hypnotherapy and NLP to help herself, too. She says, “I used to have a dental phobia but had a root filling six months ago and I did self

www.edanddebshapiro.com www.applecoaching.com

“Going to see somebody when you’re in pain takes away your resources.

You don’t feel so proactive. It tends to limit you.”

– Dr Claire Jetha

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COACHING

CLEANING

2. You were friendly and welcoming 3. Your style is like a school ma’am

UP THE

This feedback is not ‘clean’ – it is full of interpretation and assumption. It does not tell me what those trainers did or said and I have no way of replicating or avoiding the behaviour.

Compare it to the following:

WORD IN COACHING Based on an academic paper by Doyle, Walker, Nixon and Walsh oaching has become a central part of CPD and work based learning.

Within the organisational framework, coaching is seen as a fundamental moderator between individual skill and performance outputs – the mechanism by which we can learn and upskill. Since we know that this kind of 1:1 attention, apprentice-style learning, is highly effective (Kolb, 1984) it all sounds spot on. So what’s wrong with coaching? Well, it all depends on the quality of the feedback ….

Feedback can be a ‘dirty’ word in some organisations. Managers hate giving it – they skirt around negative issues, over generalise and fail to give sufficient details (Levy & Williams, 2004). London (2003) reports that receivers of feedback also delete and distort it so as to avoid personal responsibility for things they didn’t like and take credit for those they did like (or vice versa, depending on personality)! Early research on feedback found these accuracy problems insurmountable whilst at the same time concluding that objective feedback was critical to the coaching process having any effect on performance (Kluger & DeNisi 1996). Molden (2007) explains the most useful feedback is free of judgement about its nature,

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FEEDBACK SET 2 1. You talked with your back to the group while you wrote on the board which meant some people couldn’t hear you.

My interpretation of that was that you weren’t aware of the group’s difficulty in hearing you from the back.

2. You smiled and introduced yourself personally to each person as they came in the room. That felt warm and welcoming to me.

3. You spoke very quickly and loudly at first, whilst standing up, which caught their attention straight away, like a school ma’am”. intention, emotion or any other type of external change. It should be seen as ‘clean’ – like a scientist in a laboratory test describing precisely what you see and hear. The notion of ‘clean’ (free from inference) has been developed by David Grove (1989).

Nancy Doyle and Caitlin Walker, of Training Attention Ltd, have spent the past 5 years developing a model of feedback which is based on the concept of ‘Clean’. It can be hard to learn but once you have adopted Clean Feedback you need never be afraid of it again. Rather, it becomes a nurturing part of the learning process. We’ve been working with Sarah Nixon, Barbara Walsh and Beth Mitchell at Liverpool John Moores University to test the model with trainee teachers. We presented the research so far at the British Educational Research Association conference in September 2007.

This is how it works…

A learner needs to know exactly how she did something wrong, so that she can avoid the behaviour in the future. Equally, how exactly did she do that right, so she can repeat it? Here are some examples of real feedback that was given to trainee trainers:

SO WHAT COULD I LEARN FROM THIS? 1. That talking with my back to the group is inconsiderate; 2. personal introductions and smiling is friendly and; 3. standing whilst talking loudly gets attention.

Can I repeat those behaviours when I want those results? Yes. Can I avoid them when I don’t want attention or do want to be considerate? Yes. We call the nature of the second feedback set ‘sensory specific’ i.e. it refers to what I have seen or heard through my senses, rather than what I have made up or interpreted from it. This is carefully separated from the feedback giver’s interpretation. The first set of feedback is conceptual and symbolic.

Audia and Locke (2003) describe ‘cognitive elaboration’; the process by which receivers of conceptual and symbolic feedback discern which of their actions caused it. If I receive feedback like the first set, I have to process it through all my own beliefs about myself, the feedback sender, his / her intentions, through my own capacity for self knowledge and change. These loops of thought require an investment of time and are subject to inaccuracies as described above. The second

So what’s wrong with coaching?

Well, it all depends on the quality of the feedback

FEEDBACK SET 1 1. You weren’t aware of the groups needs

COACHING

feedback set works it out for me – the sender has to do the cognitive elaboration in clarifying which actions led to the evaluation. However, does that make the evaluation accurate and do I therefore have to accept it?

With Clean Feedback the answer is no.

Talking with your back to the group doesn’t matter to some, personal introductions are time wasting for another and standing talking loudly like a school ma’am can be overbearing and a turn off. However, we do have to accept that for the sender of the feedback, the evaluations were true and demonstrate their personal preference. Now I have a choice. I can accept the feedback and change my behaviour or not.

This is the double edged sword of feedback in coaching. Personal preference is rife but is it irrelevant?

Again, the answer is no. Since all communication and social learning is littered with personal preference perhaps instead of avoiding it we should honour it. It’s good to know the personal preferences of your boss and co-workers! The trick is to expand your coaching process to ensure that each individual is getting feedback from at least 3 different people. The sensory specific information will ensure that you are clear about your actions and from 3 people you can get a broader understanding of how different people interpret your behaviour. If everyone tells me that my back being turned is inconsiderate, I know this is something I have to work on. If only 1 person does then I can become aware of it, modify my behaviour in that persons’ company and look out for others who might feel the same. The point, is that if anyone gives

you feedback, you have to assume there will be other people in the world who feel the same.

The question is how many, and should it affect what you do?

We have observed that this kind of giving and receiving feedback fits best into a peer group coaching model, where everyone’s opinion is valued equally. This fits with research that suggests that feedback from multiple sources is more effective (London, 2003). We’ve also found that in order to break down the barriers to giving and receiving negative (or ‘developmental’) feedback we have to set up a protocol which requires each sender to give 1 positive, 1 negative and 1 development piece in each interaction. By framing the negative as a required action decreed by the process people find it less personal (Wang, in press).

Figure 1: THE CLEAN FEEDBACK MODEL

of organisational trainers over the years who are clear that feedback needs to be observable and balanced (i.e. positive and negative). Our contribution to the received wisdom about giving and receiving feedback, we think, is the way we loop the interpretations back to learning about your colleagues. This makes the model useful as a systemic group learning tool – a dynamic process that builds teams.

We started training it to others when working in a failing school, as a remedy to the belief that coaching is a punitive measure and to help teachers become less isolated from each other. Since then we’ve used it in business coaching, teams where communication was fraught with conflict, with groups of long term unemployed people and we’ve taught it to pupils as young as 11. We use this feedback model as a mechanism to engender peer coaching and social learning.

Something that you said or did that worked well for me was …

I interpret this as meaning …

For more information on the research at LJMU, Clean Feedback for teachers and pupils or using Clean Feedback to create peer coaching networks please contact nancy@trainingattention.co.uk

Something that you said or did that didn’t work so well for me was …

I interpret this as meaning…

References

Something I prefer you to say or do is …

I interpret this as meaning …

We’ve implemented this model with each other since 2002. We’ve built on the wisdom

Doyle, N. - Walker, C. - Nixon, S. - Walsh, B. Audia, P. G. and Locke, E. A. (2003). Benefiting from negative feedback. Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 13, pp 631 – 646 Grove, D. and Panzer, B. I (1989). Resolving Traumatic Memories: Metaphors and Symbols in Psychotherapy. Irvington, New York Kluger. A. N. and DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis and a preliminary feedback intervention theory.

Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 119:2 pp 254 - 284 Kolb D. A. (1984) Experiential Learning.

Prentice hall, Eaglewood Cliffs, NY Levy, P. E. and Williams, J. R. (2004). The social context for performance appraisal: A review and framework for the future.

Journal of Management, Vol 30:6 pp 881 - 905 London, M. (2003). Job Feedback: Giving, Seeking and Using Feedback for Performance Improvement. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Molden, D (2007). Managing with the power of NLP. NJ: Prentice Hall

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NLP

Using Perceptual Positions

By Michael Carroll

In NLP a much-quoted presupposition is ‘the map is not the territory’. In this article I will focus on how you can change your map of the world by shifting your perceptual filters on an experience. You may have heard of a process called ‘triple position’ which offers three distinct sensory descriptions of one event. The positions are self, other and observer. riple position can be used to help you step back from your own mental map to get distance from emotionally charged representations. You can also use the process to create empathy and even learn new things by getting valuable insights into another person’s map of the world.

Have you ever had an experience that particularly aggravated you or annoyed you long after the event occurred? Attached to this experience would be some feelings in your body and perhaps some internally generated images and sounds connected with the event. You may have realised you needed to change state and move on but somehow you were continually sucked into the representations. The same process can and does occur for highly positive experiences the feelings, internal images and sounds of holidays, concerts etc can hold a state in you long after the event. In NLP when you are fully in an experience we call it ‘first position’.

Have you ever found yourself walking, talking and using similar body posture and gestures to another person, that in one sense you became just like this person? Have you ever learned something new by acting as if you were a person whom you know embodies the skill you are learning?

In your mind’s eye you became the other person or saying it another way you associated to their filters and map. Young children learn this way by mimicking the people around them. Actors also step into the shoes of another person when playing their role. In NLP we refer to associating

T

to another person’s map and assuming their perspective as ‘second position’.

Do you ever mentally step back during an interaction and get a sense that you can see and hear yourself and the person or people you are interacting with?

Almost as though you are watching events unfold on a cinema screen or theatre stage, and you yourself as a character in the scene? In NLP we refer to the stepping back and being able to observe yourself as a person outside of you as ‘third position’.

Human beings do not operate in the real world, they operate in maps of the world.

First, second and third positions are where you experience different forms of representations that map a situation from different perspectives.

In NLP exploring a situation from first, second and third position is sometimes called ‘triple description’ or ‘perceptual positions’.

Have you ever found yourself walking, talking and using similar body posture and gestures to another person, that in one sense you became just like this person?

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There are many applications for perceptual positions, here are a few:• Exploring your performance • Planning • Dealing with conflict • Creating empathy • Stepping back from challenging situations • Being your own coach • Learning new things

NLP TRIPLE POSITION – EXPERIENCING THE WORLD FROM DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

Position 3 Seeing, hearing and feeling the situation through filters of an observer

Position 1 Seeing, hearing and feeling the situation through own filters

Position 2 Seeing, hearing and feeling the situation through filters of the other person

FIRST POSITION First position is your everyday experience for any event. In first you are totally associated to the experience and seeing and hearing the world through your own filters. First is your personal experience undiluted from objectivity and undiluted from another’s perspective. High performance sports, intense levels of focus and problem states are strong examples of firsts. Your life experiences are a series of historic first positions. The more you sense your body, its tactile awareness and inner sensations, the purer the first position. Some people find experiencing their body in a ‘pure first’ a challenge. Their natural way of experiencing the world is somewhat dissociated from first position. They spend most of their time in an implied ‘third’ where they have stepped out of direct experience. These people generally will not experience the sensations attached to being in a powerful positive state on the other hand they will not experience the sensations of challenging states. On the other hand some people are very good at accessing and staying in first position. They do experience the body sensations attached to powerful positive states. Such people find it a challenge to step back from the strong feelings associated to unresourceful states.

SECOND POSITION Second position is where you assume the perceptual position of another person. Impressionists are an obvious example of people who can do an excellent second position. Good salespeople, negotiators and therapists are usually highly effective at second position. They call this process seeing and hearing the world through eyes and ears of another.

They do this either to create empathy or to sense how the other person builds their map. On the other hand some people overdo second position in their relationships. These people make decisions about their own behaviour through the filters (second position) of their partner.

Co-dependency in relationships is an extreme example of a continual second position.

Second position is the position for learning and modelling. When modelling from a state of not knowing you step into the shoes of an expert. You assume similar posture and movements. From what we now know from neuro-science, you are activating mirror neurons in your nervous system that are behaviourally dormant in you but have the same function as the neurons that are active in the expert. The second position accelerates and deepens the learning process.

The next time you are in the company of someone who is doing an activity they are very good at, try the following:

• Clear your mind • Breathe in rhythm with the person • Micro muscle mirror – if the other person moves their arm, just move your muscles as if you were going to move your arm, feel the muscles move without lifting your arm • Do the above with whole body movements • Experience the world as if you are them; imagine yourself floating into their body so you become the other • In the ‘second position’ – do the activity the exemplar is doing You may be very surprised with the hunches and intuitions you get when you do the second position exercise above. At the end of the experience make sure you resume to clean first experiencing the world as you normally do.

THIRD POSITION Third is where you assume an objective observer position. In third you see and hear yourself and others outside of you as if on a cinema screen.

Third position is useful if when you want to shift from emotionally charged experiences to get an objective view. Third is also useful for stepping back and getting insights into situations and seeing and hearing the bigger picture. You would assume a third to get your conscious mind learnings after conducting a ‘second position’ exercise where you have stepped into the strong feelings. Third position has a different type of feelings associated with it than first. Overall, the feelings are more objective and neutral than those experienced in first position. Some people tend to spend a lot of their day in third, and not experiencing the emotions the strong feelings are associated with first.

Third position is very useful for assuming the role of being your own coach.

Be your own coach exercise • Immediately after an activity, physically move to a position where you have a clear view of the space where you were performing the activity. Assume an upright posture with straight spine, shoulders back.

• From memory, imagine you are watching yourself in the activity in the performance space. This is third position, and a space where you can offer objective feedback.

• From memory see and hear yourself performing the activity.

Some people imagine they are watching a movie or seeing a theatre performance • As you visualise the process, stop at salient points and offer verbal feedback for change APPLYING TRIPLE POSITION Be very clear about the sensations you experience in first and how they support you or perhaps limit you. If you need more objectivity in a given situation, step to an analytical third position. If you are over analysing, step to experiential first. If you would like more empathy with another step to second position and see and hear from another’s perspective.

If you seek to learn quickly use second position and associate to the perspective an expert. Most importantly increase the number of choices available to you in your life by becoming highly flexible with your use of triple position.

Michael Carroll is the founder and course director of the NLP Academy and co-founder with John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St Clair of the International Trainers Academy of NLP. He is the only NLP Master Trainer in the world certified by John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St Clair and he works closely with them in developing and delivering high quality NLP training.

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BUSINESS

BUILDING A BETTER

WEBSITE Website Optimisation be able to find you.

Best of all, website optimisation needn’t cost your business anything, or you can budget a mere £20 a month on Pay Per Click to help drive targeted leads to your site.

So, what is website optimisation?

In short, website optimisation is the process of specifically designing your site to rank high in the Search Engines. If you’re serious about your business, optimising your web pages is a must. Whether you have a content managed site you update yourself or rely on a third party to maintain your website for you, optimisation can be easily achieved by one and all.

A significant amount of website traffic originates from the major Search Engines.

Most Internet users will go to a Search Engine, type in a keyword phrase and look through the top 10-20 results. Most of the time, they’ll find what they’re looking for in the first 10 results.

The percentage of click throughs is even smaller. Listing near the top and grabbing the attention of your target audience is the top priority.

There are many components of your web page that you could pay close attention to when preparing it for listing in a Search Engine. Your Keywords (your business descriptors), page title, text and overall design, all play an important role in determining how your website will rank.

If your site doesn’t rank in the top 10 or 20 results when doing a keyword search on the Search Engines, your target audience won’t

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Steps to better optimisation Search Engines follow a hierarchy when evaluating websites optimisation ability, starting from the tab page titles to the actual text. Please be aware that there is a compromise when creating a site with good optimization- repetitive text. When you see a site with an introduction similar to “We are a dog grooming company based in London which specialises in grooming dogs. Based in London, we groom all breeds of dogs…” you know they are focused on organic optimisation which doesn’t cost.

1. Keywords and Keyword Phrases Put yourself in your potential visitors’ shoes and imagine what words they will type into a Search Engine to find your site.

A keyword is a word that best describes your web page. For example, if your web page is focusing on dogs, your best keyword will be “dogs”.

A keyword phrase is two or more words that best describe your web page. If your web page is focusing on grooming a dog, then your best keyword phrase will be “dog grooming.” And always include a location.

TIP: When preparing your web pages, it would be wise to concentrate on just a couple of keyword phrases (for each page) used in different variations. Avoid using general one-

word keywords, as you definitely won’t rank high in the Search Engines. For example, if your website focuses on “dog grooming” you wouldn’t want to use the word “dog” as one of your keywords. Why? Because it’s too general.

Instead, you may want to use a keyword phrase such as “dog grooming tips” or “how to groom dogs”.

Selecting the BEST keyword phrases is the MOST important step towards optimising your pages for the Search Engines. Be as specific as possible.

2. Headings Heading tags are used to separate topics.

Your page heading should contain your most important keyword phrase to assist you in ranking higher in the Search Engines.

3. Text Optimising your text is another important step in ranking higher in the Search Engines.

Your web page should contain plenty of text and ideally needs to contain each of your keywords and keyword phrases used in different variations. If all of your keywords and keyword phrases you’ve listed within your META tags aren’t found within your text, the Search Engines will simply ignore them.

Your keywords and keyword phrases should appear within your text at least three times, but not more than seven.

Basic Search Engine Guidelines Each Search Engine is different and has different guidelines in regard to how they rank a web page. In addition, their guidelines change very frequently and it is literally impossible to keep up with them. Your best option is to optimise your website to the best of your ability and review it periodically. Your time can be better spent using other marketing techniques rather than fighting the Search Engine wars.

Ana Patel. Marketing Consultant. Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing www.golddustsolutions.co.uk

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TRAINING

Know More

TRAINING

ou could say that my career has developed more by luck than judgement!” says Denise Collins of Know More Training, (nice phonological ambiguity in the name there!)

“But then again living life in the knowledge that actually almost everything is beyond your control is exciting. The only thing any of us can control is our response to what happens and whether we pontificate or actually do something. Anyone who believes that they actually have any control over their own lives is, in my opinion deluded!”

Bored with her successful career as a manager in the voluntary sector, in the late 1990’s Denise decided to train to be a Hypnopsychotherapist after seeing a small ad for a course in a newspaper. She discovered NLP during her initial training where it was dismissed by the tutor as “interventionist and quick fix” “I thought great, if there is something that helps people make the changes they want to faster then I want to know about it.”

She undertook a 7 day accelerated NLP practitioner training where most of the learning was aimed at the unconscious. “I loved it, but fell out the other end as if off a roller coaster. I enjoyed the entertaining ride but my conscious mind had no idea what had just happened!”

Being a two time convincer she went on to do a more traditional 21 day practitioner. “This was very instructional and informative but it lacked the energy of the 7 day course.

It was just too slow. As

Y

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Winter 2008 - rapport

Richard Bandler once said.. you wouldn’t want to read a book one word a day!”

While working in full time private practice as a Hypno-psychotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner she wrote a brand new hypnotherapy diploma course, got it Accredited by two independent organisations and then started to run the program teaching others her skills. Denise successfully completed her NLP trainers training in 2006 and ran her first NLP practitioner course within weeks of certification.

“My companies have grown organically so I have decided that 2009 is a time for some serious re-branding. I have chosen “The Hummingbird Effect”. In 2007 I spent a month in the USA with the “largest NLP training organisation on the planet”. It turned out not to be quite the experience I was hoping for.

But while there I encountered what was to be an inspirational metaphor for what I want my approach to represent”.

“Everyone has heard of the butterfly effect,

where it is thought that the sedate flapping of the butterfly’s wings can create a hurricane on the other side of the world. Well the Hummingbird can beat its wings 80 times per second. Get the idea? My company, like the Hummingbird is small enough to react with speed and is therefore responsive to change.

The Hummingbird can fly up, down, forwards and backwards, so I feel it beautifully embodies the principle of flexibility so crucial in NLP. Some training organisations are more like Eagles. Large, inflexible and flying high but in circles. When I saw my first Hummingbird I wasn’t wearing my specs. I thought that is either a very small bird or a very big bug!!!”

“For me, NLP is so much more than a set of tools or techniques. It is about getting inside someone’s head and allowing them to change what they discover there. Personal freedom starts from within. We can and do constantly create our own reality. From an early age many of us are programmed for failure. With all our faults and failings pointed out to us as we are educated. The presupposition of “No such thing as failure only feedback” was revolutionary to me and changed everything. It shifted my perspective and was the true beginning of the re-drawing of my mental map”.

Together with her eldest son Jacob Burtenshaw, she opened Hummingbird House Centre of Positive Change in Chelmsford Essex January 2007. “We have wonderful training, meeting and consultation rooms.

It’s a great space but I am not sure how long we will remain there.”

TRAINING

Jacob Burtenshaw himself a skilled innovative Master Practitioner, works with individual clients at Hummingbird house and he also assists Denise on the training courses.

Jacob explains, “I originally signed up to take my NLP Practitioner to assist me with my communications with customers. Being a manager in a high paced busy nightclub environment I wanted all of the tools available. By the end of the NLP course had quit my job, stopped smoking and began to shed weight.

I knew Hummingbird House and NLP was something that I wanted to be a part of for good.”

Jacob hit the floor running and was seeing clients within a week of the course ending. He went on to complete his Master Practitioner training just 3 months later.

“I love being an assistant on the courses now. It’s such a rewarding experience helping people step onto the same path I have. Doing live demos is great fun. Seeing people’s faces light up as the changes take place in front of their eyes. The last demo I did resulted in the participant following a long time dream of owning a piano!!”

Jacob is not shy about the fact that Denise is his mum and he thinks that it’s funny to see people’s faces when they find out. “By day two, when we disclose what our relationship is, it’s always interesting to see how people react. I think it’s great though, what a fantastic

example of how NLP isn’t generation specific.. and also how it can be used to enhance relationships!”

Denise agrees, “Jacob and I provide a balanced perspective of male / female and from different generations.”

Denise has a direct no nonsense approach (she has been likened to a Gordon Ramsey of NLP!)… if you go on one of her trainings be prepared for lots of F words… …flexibility…. focus…. Fun… “Our training isn’t for everyone. But then we only want the people who are right for us and that we are right for.

I strongly believe that you can’t be all things to all people.” Denise explains.

“Our NLP trainings are not just about helping the individual discover their personal potential. The fact is that the world is full of people with potential. What is really important is what you actually do with it. The behaviour, the actions you take. We want people to have an inspirational fun experience of personal change and development. We also want people to learn and absorb what NLP has to offer them in order to have more flexibility in thinking, feeling and behaviour.”

Train with us and it could change your life for good!

This is a testimonial from one of our graduates, Tracy Richardson; I took my NLP Practitioner in August 2006. I found that it fitted in well with the hypnotherapy that I was already using. I used

Our NLP trainings are not just about helping the individual discover their personal potential. The fact is that the world is full of people with potential. What is really important is what you actually do with it

some NLP like timeline, fast phobia and the language patterns regularly but most of the techniques I either didn’t use at all or I adapted them to make them more hypnotic. This was because I found them rather cumbersome on their own, a bit like painting by numbers, you often get a neat end result, but there is no flair or magic to it.

When I first spoke to Denise about going on the Master Practitioner at the beginning of 2008, I was quite reluctant to even consider doing it. After all, by this point my business was doing well and my results were good, so why would I want to spend more money to learn even more about something I thought wouldn’t benefit me much?

I decided to discuss it with Denise further and she began to open my eyes to benefits it.

She explained that it was more about being fluent in NLP, about using it artfully and fluidly without the need to say “OK, now we are going to do an intervention”. This really appealed to me as my wish is for my work to appear seamless and easy, helping people to make big changes whilst we ‘just have a chat’.

What really swayed it for me though, was I knew that Denise was sure it was right for me and I that would love it. Having gone through so much of my previous training with her, I know that she wouldn’t suggest I do something unless she truly believed that it would benefit me and my business. Denise is passionate about what she does, particularly when it comes to helping people to be the very best that they can be.

The benefits of doing the NLP Master Practitioner have been phenomenal. I feel that my work is far more artful and eloquent than I could have imagined. Learning about and using ideas such as value hierarchies and meta programmes amongst other things, has allowed me to have a much deeper understanding of both myself and my clients, which in turn has led me to be able to help them understand themselves better, crucial in my business!

Thanks to the Master Prac, I have now added success coaching to my CV. This is a fast growing area, particularly in the climate of change that we are experiencing at the moment. It something that I market in it’s own right as well as using it with my therapy clients.

So all in all, would I recommend doing the Master Practitioner? Absolutely I would!

Denise Collins Tel: 01245 354121 www.hummingbirdeffect.com www.know-more-training.co.uk

rapport - Winter 2008

| 35

DIARY

Diary of Events for Winter / Spring 2009 January 09 NLP - Fit for Life 3 Jan 2009 Warrington Tiffany Kay 0845 833 8831 tiffany@go-beyond-nlp.co.uk NLP Introduction Part 1: Module 1 6 Jan 2009 Hortensia Centre Alice Mallorie 020 8 748 4336 mallorie@mallorie.fsnet.co.uk Chichester Womens Group 6 Jan 2009 Chichester - West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk GWiz NLP: Cognitive Linguistics: What’s that about-on-in-aroundunder...?

7 Jan 2009 Bedfordshire Melody Cheal 01767 640956 melody@gwiztraining.com NLP Practitioner 9 Jan 2009 Chichester- West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk NLP Master Practitioner (Part 5 of 5) 10 Jan 2009 Bedfordshire Melody Cheal 01767 640956 melody@gwiztraining.com INLPTA Diploma in NLP 12 Jan 2009 The English Lake District Paul McGowran 1539488819 paul@lakelandpeopledevelopment.co.uk NLP Diploma Programme 13 Jan 2009 Lichfield- Staffordshire Ann Skidmore 01543-416242 ann@annskidmore.com Diploma in Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy 2009/10 14 Jan 2009 North Yorkshire Susi Strang Wood MRCGP 01287 654175 drsusistrang@aol.com Fast-track NLP Master Practitioner 15 Jan 2009 London Jeremy Lazarus 020 8349 2929 info@thelazarus.com FREE Introduction to NLP Seminar 15 Jan 2009 Alvechurch - West Midlands Ellen Gifford 01527 585310 ellen@thelearningpath.co.uk NLP Practitioner Training 17 Jan 2009 Betchworth- Surrey David Thompson 01737 235 404 david@totalawarenesscoaching.com

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Winter 2008 - rapport

Mastering Language 17 Jan 2009 Forres - Moray Rosie O’Hara 01309 676004 info@nlphighland.co.uk NLP Practitioner London 18 Jan 2009 London Kirsty McKinnon 0141 248 3913 info@excelr8.co.uk Essential NLP for Business Success 19 Jan 2009 London Jeremy Lazarus 020 8349 2929 info@thelazarus.com INLPTA Trainers Training 20 Jan 2009 North Yorkshire Susi Strang Wood MRCGP 01287 654175 drsusistrang@aol.com NLP Masterclass - New Year - New You 20 Jan 2009 Warrington Tiffany Kay 0845 833 8831 tiffany@go-beyond-nlp.co.uk Introduction to NLP 21 Jan 2009 St. Michaels College - Llandaff - Cardiff Andy Garland +44 (0)800 612 2878 andy@you.uk.com NLP Diploma (INLPTA certified) 23 Jan 2009 New Forest Greg Laws 0845 050 8448 info@openmindtraining.co.uk NLP Coaching to Excellence 23 Jan 2009 Dubai- UAE Carol Talbot +971 50 6538540 carol@matrixdubai.com NLP Practitioner 23 Jan 2009 Chichester - West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk Interview Skills For Success 23 Jan 2009 St. Michael’s College - Llandaff Cardiff Andy Garland +44 (0)800 612 2878 andy@you.uk.com NLP Practice Group for Practitioners and above 24 Jan 2009 London Jeremy Lazarus 020 8349 2929 jeremy@thelazarus.com GWiz NLP Practitioner 24 Jan 2009 Bedfordshire Melody Cheal 01767 640956 melody@gwiztraining.com

Introducing NLP 24 Jan 2009 Bristol John Seymour 0845 658 0654 enquiries@john-seymour-associates. co.uk

Free Introduction to NLP Seminar (1 day) 29 Jan 2009 Centre Court - Midlands Daksha Malik 0121 711 7030 Daksha.Malik@uniqueminds.co.uk

Creating Successful Relationships 24 Jan 2009 Inverness Rosie O’Hara 01309 676004 info@nlphighland.co.uk

The Motivator!© 30 Jan 2009 St. Michael’s College - Llandaff - Cardiff Andy Garland +44 (0)800 612 2878 andy@you.uk.com

NLP Practitioner course 24 Jan 2009 Brighton Terry Elston 0800 074 6425 INT: 0044 (0) 1273 220 897 terryelston@nlpworld.co.uk

NLP Diploma (INLPTA Certified) 30 Jan 2009 Stirling - Scotland Karen Meager 01749 687 102 karen@karenmeager.co.uk

Introduction to NLP 24 Jan 2009 Cornwall Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com (TM)

NLP/HNLP Dual Certification Master Practitioner 30 Jan 2009 Warrington Tiffany Kay 0845 833 8831 tiffany@go-beyond-nlp.co.uk

Executive Strategy 26 Jan 2009 St Mawes Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com

Aether Introduction 31 Jan 2009 Chiswick - London Dr. David Shephard 0208 992 9523 info@performancepartnership.com

Chichester Practice Group 27 Jan 2009 Chichester- West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk

February 09

NLP Practice Group 27 Jan 2009 Chichester - West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk Diploma in NLP 28 Jan 2009 Beaconsfield- Bucks Martin Sadler 01494 718970 martin@cpbtraining.com NLP Master Practitioner - Leadership 28 Jan 2009 Milton Keynes Michael Beale 01908 506563 michaelbeale@ppimk.com NLP Business Diploma 28 Jan 2009 Hertfordshire David Key 0845 434 0149 enquiries@auspicium.co.uk Presenting With Power© 28 Jan 2009 St. Michael’s College - Llandaff - Cardiff Andy Garland +44 (0)800 612 2878 andy@you.uk.com Zetetic Practice Group 28 Jan 2009 Cornwall Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com

NLP Practitioner Glasgow 1 Feb 2009 Glasgow Kirsty McKinnon 0141 248 3913 info@excelr8.co.uk Business Practitioner 2 Feb 2009 Alvechurch- West Midlands Ellen Gifford 01527 585310 ellen@thelearningpath.co.uk Modelling - Consultancy & Trainers’ Training 2 Feb 2009 Cornwall Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com Salad NLP Trainer Training with SNLP Meta-Master Trainer with Dr Christina Hall 2 Feb 2009 Hinckley Island Hotel - Hinckley Leicestershire Jamie Smart 0845 650 1045 info@saladltd.co.uk NLP 4-Day Diploma 3 Feb 2009 Chichester - West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk Chichester Womens Group 3 Feb 2009 Chichester - West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk

Discover NLP 5 Feb 2009 Covent Garden - Central London PPD Learning 0870 7744 321 info@ppdlearning.co.uk Voice of Influence workshop 5 Feb 2009 Judy Apps 01306 886114 judy@voiceofinfluence.co.uk Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway® Workshop 5 Feb 2009 St. Michael’s College - Llandaff - Cardiff Andy Garland +44 (0)800 612 2878 andy@you.uk.com Zetetic NLP Practitioner Programme 5 Feb 2009 Cornwall Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com NLP Practitioner training for charity 6 Feb 2009 Birbeck college university of London Ruben seetharamdoo 8548387677 ruben@cianlp.com Weight No More© Workshop 6 Feb 2009 St. Michael’s College - Llandaff - Cardiff Andy Garland +44 (0)800 612 2878 andy@you.uk.com NLP Master Practitioner Course Modular 7 Feb 2009 Brighton/Hove Terry Elston 0044 (0)1273 220897 terryelston@nlpworld.co.uk INLPTA Practitioner 7 Feb 2009 Near Welland- part way between Malvern and Upton on Severn Kirsty Wykes 01527 585310 kirsty@thelearningpath.co.uk Discover NLP 7 Feb 2009 London Helen Drake 0208 995 2864 helen@pointtaken.com Modular INLPTA Master Practitioner Programme 8 Feb 2009 North Yorkshire Susi Strang Wood MRCGP 01287 654175 drsusistrang@aol.com Modular INLPTA Master Practitioner Programme 8 Feb 2009 North Yorkshire Susi Strang Wood MRCGP 01287 654175 drsusistrang@aol.com Master Business Practitioner 9 Feb 2009 Alvechurch - West Midlands Ellen Gifford 01527 585310 ellen@thelearningpath.co.uk

DIARY

Chichester Womens Group 10 Feb 2009 Chichester- West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk

GWiz NLP Practitioner 21 Feb 2009 Bedfordshire Melody Cheal 01767 640956 melody@gwiztraining.com

Accelerated Selling Magically 28 Feb 2009 Chiswick - London Dr. David Shephard 0208 992 9523 info@performancepartnership.com

Zetetic NLP Master Practitioner Prog.

12 Mar 2009 Cornwall Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com

Relax... It’s Just Hypnosis!

24 Mar 2009 Warrington Tiffany Kay 0845 833 8831 tiffany@go-beyond-nlp.co.uk

How to Win the Money Game 14 Feb 2009 Inverness Rosie O’Hara 01309 676004 info@nlphighland.co.uk

NLP Practitioner Training 21 Feb 2009 London John Seymour 0845 658 0654 enquiries@john-seymour-associates.co.uk

Introducing NLP 28 Feb 2009 Bristol John Seymour 0845 658 0654 enquiries@john-seymour-associates.co.uk

10 Steps to Success for your Life 13 Mar 2009 Chichester - West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk

Introduction to NLP 25 Mar 2009 Plymouth Chris Menlove-Platt 07890 306896 chris@jsa-development.co.uk

The NLP Practitioner Certification 14 Feb 2009 Chiswick- London Dr. David Shephard 0208 992 9523 info@performancepartnership.com

A Taste of NLP 23 Feb 2009 Warrington Tiffany Kay 0845 833 8831 tiffany@go-beyond-nlp.co.uk

March 09

Becoming a Money Master 15 Mar 2009 Inverness Rosie O’Hara 01309 676004 info@nlphighland.co.uk

Interview Skills For Success 25 Mar 2009 St. Michael’s College - Llandaff - Cardiff Andy Garland +44 (0)800 612 2878 andy@you.uk.com

Introduction to NLP 14 Feb 2009 Cornwall Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com

Chichester NLP Practice Group 24 Feb 2009 Chichester- West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk

The Motivator!© 18 Mar 2009 Llandaff College - Cardiff Andy Garland +44 (0)800 612 2878 andy@you.uk.com

NLP Modular Master Practitioner 16 Feb 2009 Henley on Thames UK Sue Knight 01628 604438 support@sueknight.co.uk

NLP 4-Day Diploma 24 Feb 2009 Chichester - West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk

NLP Master Practitioner - Executive Coaching 25 Mar 2009 Accenture training centre - Milton Keynes Michael Beale 01908 506563 michaelbeale@ppimk.com

NLP Master Practitioner Training London 16 Feb 2009 London Kirsty McKinnon 0141 248 3913 info@excelr8.co.uk

NLP Master Practitioner Presenting Impact 25 Feb 2009 Milton Keynes Michael Beale 01908 506563 michaelbeale@ppimk.com

Chichester Womens Group 17 Feb 2009 Chichester- West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk

Introduction to NLP 25 Feb 2009 North Yorkshire Lisa Wake 01642 714 702 awakenconsulting@aol.com

Accelerated NLP Practitioner Certification: Module 1 19 Feb 2009 Dubai- UAE Carol Talbot +971 50 6538540 carol@matrixdubai.com

Zetetic Practice Group 25 Feb 2009 Cornwall Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com

INLPTA NLP Practitioner Training 19 Feb 2009 London Helen Drake 0208 995 2864 helen@pointtaken.com Accredited Coach Diploma (INLPTA) 19 Feb 2009 St. Michael’s College - Llandaff - Cardiff Andy Garland +44 (0)800 612 2878 andy@you.uk.com Zetetic NLP Master Practitioner Programme 19 Feb 2009 Cornwall Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com NLP Practitioner (INLPTA Certified) 20 Feb 2009 Bristol Karen Meager 01749 687 102 karen@karenmeager.co.uk

Coaching with NLP Practitioner - Part 1 26 Feb 2009 Plymouth Jane Stubberfield 01392 841153 jane@jsa-development.co.uk Free Introduction to NLP Seminar (1 day) 26 Feb 2009 Centre Court - Midlands Daksha Malik 0121 711 7030 Daksha.Malik@uniqueminds.co.uk FREE Introduction to NLP Seminar 27 Feb 2009 Alvechurch - West Midlands Ellen Gifford 01527 585310 ellen@thelearningpath.co.uk NLP Practitioner INLPTA 27 Feb 2009 St. Michael’s College - Llandaff - Cardiff Andy Garland +44 (0)800 612 2878 andy@you.uk.com

Diploma in Clinical Hypnotherapy 2 Mar 2009 North Yorkshire Susi Strang Wood MRCGP 01287 654175 drsusistrang@aol.com Modelling- Consultancy & Trainers’ Training 2 Mar 2009 Cornwall Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com NLP Premier Practitioner 4 Mar 2009 Croydon - UK NLP Academy 020 8686 9952 info@realnlp.co.uk Introduction to NLP 4 Mar 2009 St. Michaels College - Llandaff - Cardiff Andy Garland +44 (0)800 612 2878 andy@you.uk.com Zetetic NLP Practitioner Programme 5 Mar 2009 Cornwall Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway® Workshop 6 Mar 2009 Alvechurch - West Midlands Ellen Gifford 01527 585310 ellen@thelearningpath.co.uk Accelerated Presenting Magically 7 Mar 2009 Chiswick - London Dr. David Shephard 0208 992 9523 info@performancepartnership.com NLP Practitioner Certification 7 Mar 2009 North Yorkshire Susi Strang Wood MRCGP 01287 654175 drsusistrang@aol.com Presenting With Power© 11 Mar 2009 St. Michael’s College - Llandaff - Cardiff Andy Garland +44 (0)800 612 2878 andy@you.uk.com Coaching with NLP Practitioner - Part 2 12 Mar 2009 Plymouth Jane Stubberfield 01392 841153 jane@jsa-development.co.uk

4 Day Certified NLP Diploma Course: Module 1 19 Mar 2009 Midlands (venue to be confirmed) Daksha Malik 0121 711 7030 Daksha.Malik@uniqueminds.co.uk Licensed NLP Practitioner Training: Module 1 20 Mar 2009 Birmingham Matt Caulfield 08453 626277 mail@mattcaulfield.co.uk NLP 4-Day Diploma 20 Mar 2009 Chichester - West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk Voice of Influence Workshop 21 Mar 2009 Judy Apps 01306 886114 judy@voiceofinfluence.co.uk GWiz NLP Practitioner 21 Mar 2009 Bedfordshire Melody Cheal 01767 640956 melody@gwiztraining.com Values 21 Mar 2009 Forres- Moray Rosie O’Hara 01309 676004 info@nlphighland.co.uk Introduction to NLP 21 Mar 2009 Cornwall Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com Leeds 22 Mar 2009 Leeds Kirsty McKinnon 0141 248 3913 info@excelr8.co.uk INLPTA Diploma 23 Mar 2009 Alvechurch - West Midlands Ellen Gifford 01527 585310 ellen@thelearningpath.co.uk

Zetetic Practice Group 25 Mar 2009 Cornwall Joseph W Pritchard 01326 212959 joseph@zeteticmind.com FREE Introduction to NLP Seminar 27 Mar 2009 Alvechurch - West Midlands Ellen Gifford 01527 585310 ellen@thelearningpath.co.uk Fast-Track NLP Practitioner: Module 1 28 Mar 2009 London Jeremy Lazarus 020 8349 2929 info@thelazarus.com Introducing NLP 28 Mar 2009 London John Seymour 0845 658 0654 enquiries@john-seymour-associates.co.uk Hypnosis Practitioner 28 Mar 2009 Chichester - West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk Fast-track NLP Sports Practitioner 28 Mar 2009 London Jeremy Lazarus 020 8349 2929 info@thelazarus.com NLP: The Secret Behind The Secret 28 Mar 2009 North West Tiffany Kay 0845 833 8831 tiffany@go-beyond-nlp.co.uk Chichester NLP Practice Group 31 Mar 2009 Chichester - West Sussex Emily Terry 01243 792122 emily.terry@evolutiontraining.co.uk

To get your workshops and events listed in Rapport, log in as a member to www.anlp.org and enter your events into the online diary.

Every issue, online events listed for the next 3 months will be included in Rapport.

rapport - Winter 2008

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NEW Clean Language Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds Wendy Sullivan and Judy Rees Would you like better relationships, a deeper understanding of the people around you, and a simple yet powerful way to help them achieve their life goals?

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ISBN 978-184590125-7 £16.99 Wendy Sullivan is a specialist international trainer of Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling who has worked extensively with the founders of that field – Penny Tompkins, James Lawley and David Grove. Judy Rees is a Certified Clean Facilitator - an expert in Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling – with Wendy Sullivan she runs West London-based Clean Change Company (www. cleanchange.co.uk) .

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Metaphors in Mind Transformation Through Symbolic Modelling James Lawley and Penny Tompkins What do you do as a therapist, teacher, doctor or manager when your client, student, patient or colleague says “It’s like I`m hitting my head against a brick wall,” “I’ve got a knot in my stomach” or “I`m looking for the right path to take”?

Metaphors in Mind describes how to give individuals an opportunity to discover how their symbolic perceptions are organised, what needs to happen for these to change, and how they can develop as a result.

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ISBN 978-095387510-8 £17.95 James Lawley and Penny Tompkins are co-developers of Symbolic Modelling and leading authorities on the use of client-generated metaphor for personal and professional development. They are both practising psychotherapists registered with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). Together they train and supervise therapists, counsellors, coaches, managers and teachers in the use of Symbolic Modelling.

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BOOK REVIEWS

rapport book review Can We Start Again?

Daryll Scott £14.99, Management Books 2000 Daryll Scott’s intention in writing his book was for it to be a practical guide to the application of NLP in a business setting and is aimed at a wide audience, from novice to NLP trainer. He also intends it to be an introduction to New Code NLP. This is the version of NLP that John Grinder and others have been working on since 1988. He spends a fair bit of the book discussing the science of NLP and then concentrates on patterns such as some of the Presuppositions of NLP (which he refers to as “Big Ideas”), the Meta Model, most of the Milton Model and Representational Systems. As he believes that change patterns such as anchoring and submodalities can only be learnt properly on a

course, he has omitted them from his book. He is clearly a disciple of John Grinder who has written a message of support for the book, though Grinder does comment that Scott’s perceptions of New Code NLP differ from his own. However, he adds, it is an effective work to get the message about NLP out to the business community. In conclusion, I would say that it is good in parts.

His style is chatty and he has included exercises to support understanding of the patterns he discusses. If you buy it, set aside some time and read it from beginning to end as Scott intended as, unlike many business NLP books, it’s not one you can dip into on the first reading.

Elaine Morrisroe, Book Review Panel

The Essence of Womanhood: reawakening the authentic feminine Susie Heath £12.99, Ecademy Press A book that could be used alongside coaching, or stand alone as recommended reading. A first that I have come across that begins to address something I have suspected for a while... that as women we are losing touch with our core selves. This timely book celebrates the difference of women from men, and how it is now time to readdress the balance for the sexes to do what they do best.. being who they are born to be.. Written in a style reminiscent of Gillian McKeith, assertive and bold, and do this or things wont change attitude. Susie Heath uses a rebirthing framework for the book itself and this may seem at odds with the

title of re awakening to some readers. There are core NLP concepts used in an accessible way, mixed with clear connections between mind and body in easily delivered exercises.

Some of the dance exercises, whilst simple and designed to do alone, may need someone to assist, and to encourage. This book is a work book, and not one to read in a moment or too.

It demands time and a commitment to it to get the most out of it. The reader needs to prepare before hand if they are to do the exercises perhaps being best to read it all through once then start again.

Lesley Carter, Book Review Panel

Ditch the Scales Donna Still £9.99, Ecademy Press A great book for anyone who wants to lose weight, then live life not haveing to worry about weight again. Donna tells about her weight loss journey and how she went for a size 22 to a size 8 in 9 months and has kept the weight off. She explains how her own thought patterns had kept her fat and how she learnt to think thin. By first exploring some of the myths around women of a certain age and weight loss, she then leads on to getting you to ask the ‘right’ questions and examine the stories you tell yourself for keeping the weight on. There is plenty of room in the

book for the reader to answer the questions and record their thoughts which I felt were very useful. Beliefs, forgiveness and goal setting are all explored as is inner conflict. Donna also talks about how to stay focused and keep on track and again there are exercises and questions to answer which are very useful. She also explains about the importance of exercise, not just for the body but for the mind. It’s a lovely book for all who have yo-yo dieted for years and would like to explore a better way to be and feel healthy.

Julie Pearce, Book Review Panel

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Nick Williams Changing the way people view work Interview by Eve Menezes Cunningham ick Williams is best known for his book The Work We Were Born to Do: Find the Work You Love, Love the Work You Do. His other books include Unconditional Success, Powerful Beyond Measure and How to Be Inspired.

Nick is also founder of Heart at Work in London and a trustee Director of Alternatives.

He recently set up the Inspired Entrepreneur website.

I first interviewed Nick in 2005. His solutionfocused attitude helped me keep going as I was building up my own coaching practice and writing business.

Nick remembers that when he was starting out “there was a lot of fear because I had to change my life and I didn’t know how I was going to do it. So I think a lot of my teaching comes out of my experience and compassion. I’ve always enjoyed working with people.

I enjoyed helping people and being in service to people.”

Most of his work involves helping his clients, readers and online community find their vocation. He says, “The work we were born to do is the way we share our unique gifts and talents with the world. I love the quote from The Prophet [Kahlil Gibran] about how your work is your love made visible.”

But it took him a while to figure out what that meant for his own life and work. In some ways, that struggle is what makes him so empathic and helpful for people reading his books or attending his workshops.

Remembering his early career, Nick says, “I felt inspired to help other people, to speak and to write and coach and teach even though I’d hardly done any of that. I took baby steps. I started studying Transactional Analysis and, in time, gave a talk about TA. While this was going on, I thought ‘I love doing this!’ No matter how much resistance and fear I had, I knew I wanted

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to be doing more of it. Little by little, inspiration grew and resistance shrunk.”

Now he inspires “people to new possibilities around what work can be. Work can be a wonderful thing. It’s how you share your talent.” He loves “teaching people how to make those possibilities true in their own lives, on an individual level. They can start creating their work and many people start their own business.

More and more, I’m seeing people who want to get going in the personal development area washing up in my shore. One of my big dreams is to change the way people view work.”

Nick is very conscious about walking his talk and, having earned his living in this field for a long time, now feels more congruent. He says, “Some of this happens with experience, as your confidence grows. And some comes with age.

I’ve turned 50. If I don’t claim my confidence now, when am I going to? I don’t use NLP a lot. I never trained in it but I aim to live what I think NLP is about connecting with people and seeing things from other points of view.”

Asked if he ever wanted to give up on his own dreams, Nick says, “I think, ‘What else would I do?’ Do I want to go work in a shop? No. Do I want to serve sandwiches? No. I am totally committed to my life so any setback is just an obstacle to overcome. I get back on track by laughing about it. Once you get on the path, it’s about committing. You have to just keep committing and saying ‘I’ll make this work.’ So my focus shifted to ‘How can I make this work?’ The way we deal with failure links with how we feel about fear. Most people are brought up to avoid fear or to defend themselves against it. I used to think, ‘If I could just face these fears and be clear of them, I’d be alright.’ The day I realised it was a daily activity, I was very disappointed.”

The work we were born to do is the way we share our unique gifts and talents with the world

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In many ways, it would be wonderful if we could deal with something once and for all and then be free. But life doesn’t work that way. While lots of motivational speakers and self help writers act as if a positive attitude is all it takes, Nick’s openness about the struggles involved is refreshing and, in many ways, more inspiring.

He says, “There’s a big difference between being good at something and being able to create a successful business. It’s really important to learn how to get visibility for yourself. How do people get to know, like and trust you so they’ll want to do business with you? It’s less important to think of yourself as a coach than to think of yourself as an expert so you can consistently help people solve a particular problem. Niching is very important.”

His own niche is all about work and inspiration. Nick loves being his own boss.

He enjoys “being self-motivated, being able to generate ideas for myself and follow them through. If I have an idea I just do it. I like that ability to think and do.” He especially likes not having to ask for permission, write papers or deal with the whims of committees.

As he reflects over his career, Nick says that even though he initially resisted this path, “I gradually grew into it. It’s a constantly evolving process. Not quite a moving target but you have to grow into it. Often the thing we think we can’t do is the thing we sometimes feel most called to do. Resistance often operates as a pointer.”

Nick is a big fan of inspiration. Not in a ‘waiting for the muse to strike’ kind of way, but in finding a way of working that encourages creativity. He’s particularly inspired by the opportunities offered by the web and has set up the business networking Inspired Entrepreneur website.

He says, “I want a million people to download it – for free – over the next five years.

Even if just 10,000 people felt happier about their work as a result, the ripple effect on the planet would be fantastic.”

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Further resources You can download your free copy of Nick’s ninepart programme, to help you discover the work you were born to do and become an inspired entrepreneur, at www.inspired-entrepreneur.com Nick’s books The Work We Were Born to Do: Find the Work You Love, Love the Work You Do, Unconditional Success and Powerful Beyond Measure are available through Amazon.

For more information about speakers and workshops at Alternatives, please visit www.alternatives.org.uk

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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Good-Bye Chicken Little

by Mindy Gibbins-Klein ow many people are out there at the moment spreading tales of doom and gloom? Even if you don’t turn on a television or radio or read a newspaper, you will still come into contact with friends, family members and associates with pessimistic predictions about the economy and its implications for business. I liken these doom and gloomers to Chicken Little who ran around crying “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”

If you know the story, you may remember that Chicken Little had an acorn fall on his head and it was his distortion of this simple event that created all the hassle. Similarly, how you react to the current situation will determine to a large extent how it will affect you in the long term. Are you listening to the Chicken Littles in your world? Are you being a little chicken yourself ? I believe that having the courage to make your own distinctions about what things mean gives you incredible power over the vast majority of people. Yes, we are seeing businesses suffering and people having trouble with rising costs and uncertainty in their careers. But that doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities out there or that everyone will be in trouble. The sky is not falling; a few acorns are dropping from the trees – like they tend to do – and if one hits you, you need to see it for what it is and get

H

on with the business of running your life and your business.

Too bad the chicken and his friends did not know about NLP. The great thing about NLP is that it gives us many tools with which to make sense of things and improve the experience and perception of our world.

With a powerful reframe, we can turn someone’s perception around, sometimes very dramatically. Reminding them of positive references (for example, surviving the last recession and the good things that resulted from it) allows them to experience more certainty about the possibility of another positive outcome. And we can future pace them, helping them paint the picture they want.

When speaking to clients in times like these, our own language choices become critical. I was at a networking event this past week where I bumped into a fellow coach. I was surprised and dismayed to hear that person talking about the marketplace and their own challenges in quite a negative way. On the one hand, they were being upfront and honest; on the other hand, from the way they spoke, I could tell this story was being told again and again in different meetings. My concern is that if we engage in this kind of talk, it is harder to switch into a more positive and supportive tone when speaking to clients. If we assume that many clients are listening to the Chicken Littles in their sphere of influence, they are

If you want to influence people in a positive way, ensure that your language and content are aligned with that intention.

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looking for another perspective from us and it is our job, our responsibility and our privilege to give that perspective.

All of these techniques and many more can and should be used in our writing as well as our verbal communications. When writing a blog, keep in mind your intention for the reader. If you want to influence people in a positive way, ensure that your language and content are aligned with that intention.

Writing articles requires even more thought, and book writing most of all. These items can remain in print and in circulation for a long time, so you want to get your tone and your message exactly right. Done well, written communications can have an amazing and far-reaching impact on large groups of readers, many of whom have not met you and may never meet you.

I hope they see you as the inspirational, knowledgeable coach you are, sharing your wisdom while others run around like the proverbial chickens.

Psychotherapy Supervision Coaching

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REGIONAL GROUPS

rapport networking contact Practice Group of the month

Warrington NLP Practice Group re you based in the North West and interested in learning more about NLP in a fun and friendly atmosphere? Then Warrington NLP Practice Group is just what you’ve been looking for!

Newly-launched in November by Kate Trafford and Tiffany Kay of Go Beyond NLP (www.go-beyondnlp.co.uk), Certified Trainers of both classic and Humanistic NLPTM, the group offers enjoyable and interactive sessions on a wide range of NLP and HNLPTM topics blended with the best from other related areas such as hypnosis, cognitive therapy, EFT and The Law of Attraction. The sessions are open to anyone with an interest in personal development, whether you are completely new to NLP or an NLP professional looking to practice your skills and broaden your knowledge with a group of positive, like-minded people!

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The group meets once a month on a Tuesday evening at the David Lloyd Club, Warrington.

Sessions cost just £10 if booked more than 24hrs in advance or £15 on the night (subject to availability, advanced booking strongly recommended). And you are welcome to use the wonderful Club facilities after the session at no extra cost. It’s an opportunity to boost your confidence, fast-track your development and have lots of fun in the process – where else could you get that for £10?!

To learn more, book your places, or for a full list of future dates, please visit www.WarringtonNLP.co.uk or call Kate and Tif on 0845 833 8831.

North Yorkshire Lisa & Mark Wake Tel: 01642 714702 Email: Awakenconsulting@aol.com www.awakenconsulting.co.uk

Hants - NLP South Nigel Heath Tel: 01794 390 651 Email: heatherapy@aol.com www.nlp-south.org.uk

Harrogate Practice Group Elizabeth Pritchard Tel: 01326 212 959 Email: elizabeth@zeteticmind.com www.zeteticmind.com

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

Hertfordshire - Letchwoth James Rolph Tel: 01462 674411 Email: james@resource-ecologies.co.uk

Lancaster Practice Group Dave Allaway Tel: 01524 847 070 Email: dave@depthfour.com www.life-passion.co.uk

Warrington Tiffany Kay Tel: 0845 833 8831 Email: tiffany@go-beyond-nlp.co.uk www.WarringtonNLP.co.uk

Lancs - Nr Clitheroe Dawn Haworth Tel: 01254 824 504 Email: admin@nlpand.co.uk www.nlpand.co.uk

York Philip Callaghan Tel: 01904 636 216 Email: info@bronze-dragon.com www.bronze-dragon.com/nlp_group.shtml

England - North Harrogate Achievers Club Sonia Marie Saxton Tel: 0845 257 0036 Email: smesaxton@saxtonpartners.co.uk

Leeds - West Yorkshire Liz Tolchard Tel: 01943 873 895 Mob: 07909 911 769 Email: liztolchard@live.com Manchester Business NLP and Emotional Intelligence Group Andy Smith Tel: 0845 83 855 83 Email: andy@practicaleq.com www.manchesternlp.co.uk Manchester NLP Group Gary Plunkett Tel: 08707 570292 Email: enrol@high-achievers.co.uk nwnlpgroups@aol.com Newcastle Upon Tyne Philip Brown Tel: 0191 456 3930 Mob: 0777 228 1035

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England - South Bedfordshire Melody and Joe Cheal Tel: 01767 640956 Email: info@gwiztrainig.com www.gwiztraining.com Chiswick Jonathan Bowder Tel: 0208 992 9523 Email: Jonathan@performancepartnership.com www.performancepartnership.com Croydon Michael Carroll Tel: 020 8686 9952 Email: info@realnlp.co.uk www.nlpacademy.co.uk

Kent & East Sussex NLP Group Beverley Hamilton Tel: 01892 511231 Email: beverley.hamilton@uwclub.net London - Hampstead Najma Zaman Tel: 020 8926 1297 mob: 07950477318 Email: firstpath@btinternet.com London - Central PPD Learning Judith Lowe Tel: 0870 7744 321 Email: info@ppdlearning.co.uk www.ppdlearning.co.uk/community/ our-practice-group London - Central Adrian Hope-Lewis Tel: 07970 639552 Mob: 07970 639552 www.nlpgroup.freeserve.co.uk London - Central (Business) Mark Underwood Tel: 020 7249 7472 London (Central) Robert Ford Telephone: 08453 962842 Mobile: 07976 715234 Email: livinglifenlp@orange.net

London - Central/North Practitioners and above only Jeremy Lazarus Tel: 020 8349 2929 Email: Jeremy@thelazarus.com www.thelazarus.com London East - Stratford, E15 Sharon Eden Tel: 020 8597 9200 Email: sharon.eden@womenofcourage.co.uk London NLP & Hypnosis Practice Group Phillip Holt Tel: 08451 306213 Mob: 07061 003 003 Email: enquiries@nlp-london.com www.nlp-london.com London NW - SeeHearFeel NLP Rob Tel: 020 8958 5345 http://www.SeeHearFeelNLP.co.uk/ London West - Richmond NLP Group Henrietta Laitt Tel: 0208 874 8203 Mob: 07880 614 040 Email: henrietta@richmondnlpgroup.org.uk www.richmondnlpgroup.org.uk North London NLP Tom MacKay Tel: 07815 879 055 Email: tom@mackaysolutions.co.uk www.northlondonnlp.co.uk Oxford Jan Freeston Tel: 01865 516 136 Email: Janinefreeston@aol.com Sandwich, Kent.

Lindsey Agness or Zoe Young Tel: Lindsey 01304 621735 or 07711 036 192 Zoe 07932 371 164 Email: zoej66@btinternet.com

REGIONAL GROUPS

South East London & City Simon Hedley Tel: 07930 275 223 Email: londonpractice@psithinking. co.uk www.psithinking.co.uk/londonnlp practicegroup.htm www.nlpswap.com/ Sussex - Brighton Association of NLP Practitioners Terry Elston Tel: 0800 074 6425 Email: enquiries@nlpworld.co.uk www.nlpworld.co.uk www.nlp-brighton-assoc.org Sussex - Brighton NLP Group Sue Pullen Tel: 01273 508100 Mob: 07903 564 760 Email: suepullen@btconnect.com www.brightonnlpgroup.com

Ipswich Steve Marsden Tel: 07889 751578 Email: steve_marsden@btopenworld.com Redbridge - Ilford Glenda Yearwood Tel: 0208 708 3876 Email: glenda.yearwood@redbridge.gov.uk www.redbridge.gov.uk

Bath NLP North East Somerset Philippe Roy Tel: 01225 404 050 Email: pr@in-focus.org www.bathnlp.co.uk Bath NLP Skills Builder Ben Reeve Tel: 01823 334 080 Email: benjamino_32@hotmail.com www.idevelop.co.uk Bournemouth John Chisholm and Michelle Fischer Tel: 01202 424250 info@creative-leadership.co.uk

Sussex - Worthing Email: jim@espconsultancy.co.uk

Bristol David Griffiths Tel: 01179 423 310 Email: david@metamorphosis.me.uk

England - East Cambridgeshire Phil Jones Tel: 07711 711 123 Email: phil@excitant.co.uk www.cambsnlp.co.uk Colchester NLP Group Julian Campbell Tel: 01473 410521 Mob: 07710 781782 Email: nlp@lifechangingtherapies.co.uk www.lifechangingtherapies.co.uk/ colnlp.html Essex - Southend Pauline Oliver Tel: 01702 203465 Norfolk NLP Practice Group Stephen Ferrey Tel: 01603 211 961 Email: info@motivational-coaching.co.uk www.motivational-coaching.co.uk

Swindon, West Country Tony Nutley 01793 554834 Email: info@ukcpd.net www.ukcpd.net

England - West

Sussex - Chichester Roger and Emily Terry Tel: 01243 792 122 Mob: 07810 876 210 Email: info@evolutiontraining.co.uk www.evolutiontraining.co.uk

West Sussex - Chichester Andrew T. Austin Email: andrew@23nlpeople.com www.nlpstudygroup.com

Dorset John Chisholm or Brian Morton Tel: 01202 42 42 50 Email: john@creative-leadership.co.uk bmhrd@btinternet.com www.nlpdorset.co.uk

Cornwall Practice Group Elizabeth Pritchard Tel: 01326 212 959 Email: elizabeth@zeteticmind.com www.zeteticmind.com Cornwall (West) Robert Ford Telephone: 08453 962842 Mobile: 07976 715234 Email: livinglifenlp@orange.net Devon - South-West (totnes) NLP Support Group Alice Llewellyn & Anna Scott-Heyward Tel: 01803 866706/01803 323885 Devon - Torquay Chris Williams Tel: 0781 354 9073 Devon & Cornwall NLP Practice Group Nick Evans Tel: 01752 245 570 Mob: 07832 357 208 Email: nick@nlp-southwest.co.uk www.nlp-southwest.co.uk/WordPress/?p=72# more-72

West Somerset Caitlin Collins Tel: 01643 841310 Email: info@naturalmindmagic.com Worcestershire and Gloucestershire Practice Group Kim Phillips Tel: 01386 861916 Email: kimmphillips@hotmail.com

England - Midlands The Derby NLP Practice Group Karl Walkinshaw Tel: 07971 654 440 Email: karl@k-d-w.co.uk East Midlands NLP Group Rupert Meese Tel: 0115 8226302 Email: rupert.meese@lightmind.co.uk www.lightmind.co.uk/EMNLP Midlands - Birmingham Mandy Ward Tel: 0121 625 7193 Mob: 07740 075669 Email: mandy.ward3@virgin.net Northants - Northampton Ron Sheffield Tel: 01604 812800 Email: ron.sheffield@btinternet.com www.nlpgroups.org Nottingham Timothy Morrell Tel: 07810 484 215 Email: tim@focushigher.co.uk www.focushigher.co.uk Walsall/Birmingham Richard Pearce Tel: 07760 175589 Email: richard@kochin.co.uk

Scotland Edinburgh Centre of Excellence Practice Group Michael Spence Tel: 0131 664 7854 Email: msnlp@btconnect.com Edinburgh NLP Practice Group Patrick Wheatley & Sheena Wheatley Tel: 07765244030/ 0131 664 4344 Email: wheatley.co@btconnect.com sheena@changingperceptions.org.uk www.changingperceptions.org.uk Forres/Elgin NLP Practice Group (North of Scotland) Rosie O’ Hara Tel: 01309 676004 Email: info@nlphighland.co.uk www.nlphighland.co.uk Glasgow Mina McGuigan Tel: 01236 610 949 Mob: 07916 275 605 Email: mina@nlpacademyscotland.co.uk www.nlpacademyscotland.co.uk Glasgow Centre of Excellence Practice Group Michael Spence Tel: 01316 647 854 Mob: 07710 332 841 Email: msnlp@btconnect.com Glasgow - NLP in Education Jeff Goodwin Tel: 0870 060 1549/0141 248 6484 Email: jeff@nlpscotland.com www.nlpscotland.com Inverness- (Highland) Rosie O’Hara Tel: 01309 676004 Email: info@nlphighland.co.uk, www.nlphighland.co.uk

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

West Midlands - Worcestershire Sharon Rooke & David Smallwood Tel:01905 352 882 Email: sharon@SCRassociates.com info@centralnlp.co.uk www.SCRassociates.com

Practice 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 Practice Groups listed, please log on to our website, www.anlp.org If you would like to add your Practice Group to this list or change existing details, please contact Lala on 0845 053 1162 or email members@anlp.org

rapport - Winter 2008

| 45

ENDNOTE

Photograph by emiliesandy.com

How do we know what we’re doing is still working?

Neil Almond t’s well known that the prospect of imminent death can concentrate the mind beautifully. Back in April the plane I was travelling in crashed into the Pacific Ocean, a dunking which has since acted as a lifechanging ‘wake-up call’. While undertaking some significant life re-engineering, as an NLP trainer I’ve also been reflecting on what a ‘life wake-up call’ for NLP itself could look like. What exciting opportunities might emerge from such a paradigm shift? My instinct is that there are now two key questions to focus on together in NLP: “How do we know what we’re doing is still working?” and “How can we improve what we’re doing and boost its credibility in the mainstream?”.

There’s stacks of significant anecdotal evidence showing NLP can effect rapid transformational change. But this doesn’t necessarily cut it out there in the big bad world. Government and industry can be harder to win over; many of us have encountered resistance or scepticism which limits NLP’s current commercial and social

I

46 |

Winter 2008 - rapport

scope. I have witnessed firsthand, and am passionate about, NLP’s impact on some of the entrenched social issues facing young people. It’s an amazingly powerful tool for effecting and maintaining positive state management, and, from nine year’s experience working with young people alongside my commercial work, I reckon the problematic ways in which 16-25 year olds drink, shag, shop and take drugs are all symptoms of underlying state management issues. After all, we engage in those activities primarily to change the way we feel in the moment! Last week I made this point to MPs and strategists from a major UK political party who’d asked me to advise them on their youth policy. They were gratifyingly excited. But there’s still a scarcity of hard evidence about the efficacy of NLP, capable of convincing cynical civil servants and a judgemental press.

While completing my MA in Coaching and Mentoring last year I became passionate

about proper evaluation when I discovered just how useful evidence can be in shaping NLP work. And I don’t speak as some kind of die-hard academic geek, either - I’m aware that swathes of research findings may sing in the lab, but fail to ring true in the real world. What really inspired me, however, was the practical use of “action research” to continually refine and develop courses. I tried it out myself, on my 20-day NLP youth Practitioner and Money Mastery courses, paying close monitoring attention to participants’ feedback and pre and post-course surveys. I learned, updated and continually re-tailored my training, in a light and fascinating process which also armed me with a wodge of statistical data proving behavioural change, and capable of impressing even historically dubious mainstream markets.

I reckon the mindset of curiosity and commitment to excellence associated with evaluation could also help us recapture the spirit of innovation which characterised the dawn of NLP. I love that Zen

saying: “”Don’t seek to follow in the footsteps of the masters, seek what they sought” - but then I’ve never been a big fan of sacred cows or emperors without clothes. NLP started off modelling the best of different therapeutic techniques in the 70’s and 80’s, yet ironically 30 years on, much of what we currently teach ignores subsequent psychological advancements and dates back to those foundation years - even if that material’s since been repudiated by the original models! By adopting greater curiosity, innovation and evaluative thinking I believe that we could take NLP to a whole new level of impact and boost our credibility in the wider sector.

Successful corporations concentrate significant resources on Research and Development, focusing on future projects and solutions. How could the NLP world be revolutionised if we all contributed to this? Drop me a line at neil@neilalmond.com if you’re up for collaborating on this vision - I know I’m not the only one!

Learn the Secrets of

Producing Excellent Theraputic Change Exclusive training for therapists with Andrew Austin and Nick Kemp

April 4th & 5th 2009 The Queens Hotel Leeds UK

Both days for only £299

Andrew T Austin

“

Here is an opportunity to train with two highly successful, internationally recognised, therapists and trainers who will for the first time be teaching you how they work with clients Nick Kemp

”

has a clinical background of neurology and neurosciences and will be covering many of the psycho-neurological aspects of change work so often overlooked by NLPers, therapists and change workers in the personal development field.

has been involved in the field of personal change for over 25 years having studied numerous kinds of change work including hypnosis, NLP, Provocative Therapy (PT) and now his own Provocative Change tm Works approach. Nick has appeared extensively on BBC Radio discussing his work with phobics and demonstrating phobia cures live on the air.

He firmly believes that an understanding of even the His "Provocative Change Works" approach to most basic neurological principals can help accelerate Phobias was showcased in the acclaimed 2 DVD the handwork process and assist the change worker set that was released in 2007, with narration and to develop a greater ability in designing specific commentary by Frank Farrelly the creator of PT. interventions for individual clients.

Nick will introduce his Provocative Change Works approach inspired by extensive training with Frank Farrelly creator of Some of the areas covered: Provocative Therapy and the work of Milton Erickson. t5IF OFVSPMPHJDBM SFMBUJPOTIJQ CFUXFFO NFNPSZ He describes this approach as follows kinaesthetic drivers and many of the NLP meta-programs.

"Provocative Changes Works is the process I use t5IF GVODUJPO BOE SFMBUJPOTIJQ CFUXFFO UIF UXP IFNJTQIFSFT to provoke useful change in clients, allowing them of the brain. to easily move from an unhelpful stuck state, to a t5IF OFVSPMPHJDBM CBTJT CFIJOE EFQSFTTJPO BOE BOYJFUZ BOE greater state of personal freedom. This process can how to use neurological principals to create rapid change work both conversationally and through relaxation, in these limiting conditions. using humour and the pointing out of many of the Andrew will also be sharing his latest developments in his absurdities and contradictions in society's work with Integral Eye Movement Therapy including stereotypical views on life. Provocative Change how to sequence in an intervention into the most effective Works focuses on the here and now with each client, portion of the problem strategy and kinaesthetic rather than on past events. This is often done in an irreverent metaphors of identity. and good humoured manner, to produce accelerated change for the client. Crucially Provocative Change Works demonstrates that the client's ability to discover that this change is not time based, but by changing how we pay attention and what it is that we pay attention to, in any given moment."

Nick is also one of the very few Frank Farrelly approved Provocative Therapy trainers and will be teaching many of the strategies and approaches used in classic Provocative Therapy as well as his own work, most of which will be taught for the first time at this event.

Please note this event is by application only to nlp@hotmail.co.uk | 01274 622994 For free interviews with Nick Kemp and Andrew T Austin go to www.nlpmp3.com www.nickkemp.com - www.andrewtaustin.com - www.nickkemptraining.com

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