AyPee

Can we let this lie?

2012-01-30T16:00:00.000-08:00

I was interested to read articles on the BBC News website, Yahoo, and watch a BBC TV News story about diminishing Integrity, in the UK.

The Essex Centre for the Study of Integrity, at Essex University, have carried out a research and there is a PDF, available for download from their web site There is also an Integrity test that you can take and you can find this at essex.ac.uk/government/research/integrity_test.pdf

The study includes comparisons :
by Social Background, by Occupational Status, by Age Group, how standards have changed between 2000 and 2011 and measurements for 20 European Countries, from Russia the most honest to Portugal ….. naughty naughty!

The UK seems to rank 14th … oh dear!

It seems that we are telling lies more and that the standards under which we lie are changing – I guess

like everything else, it seems to be getting easier to do and yet more complicated to manage.

Coaching the truth

One of the principles that are vital to any form of coaching or mentoring is integrity and telling the truth is part of that. It is not only an auditory activity, it has to show up in all the other senses and be demonstrated physically – I can’t coach you to tell the truth whilst driving you to a restaurant at 50 miles per hours in a 30MPH zone! That would place me out of integrity.

So I have to BE in integrity as well as speak in integrity.

But there is a stage before that can happen and it is not just gaining rapport.
I would call it ‘the set up’ or even ‘the mechanics’.

It’s agreement.

Agreeing a platform or foundation or method where you can tell the truth, even if the other person doesn’t want to hear it!
For me establishing the fact that “there is only here and now” and that “all reasons are made up” seems to work nicely. I take away as much reason as I can so I can to establish a basis of nothing from which we can create.

So that I am in integrity, I have to tell you now, that this is based on the work of Landmark Education, who started my quest for truth and I don't mean in a traditional spiritual sense. I am not seeking truth, rather living it to the best of my ability, which means that I will slip from time to time and that’s OK.

Rapport

Yes, I would have to gain rapport before I could tell someone a truth they may not wish to hear but I can do that quickly by physically using my head - i.e. copying their head movements as I meet and greet and then get more involved in conversation with the person I am with - I describe to this in my blog post: "The Heads up on Rapport"

But the principle is simple:

Lies Leak!

Physically, your body will react and convey that you are telling a lie. If someone is telling us a lie, unconsciously we pick up. It bothers us and we rationally calculate whether we are being told a lie or not, even though our body seems to scream to us that we are.
I talk about this in another blog post: That’s a Lie!

You Gotta Lie Right, right?

Unfortunately, in order to recognise the truth, we have to have a measure of what that looks like, feels like, sounds like, maybe even smells like – Can you smell a rat, here?
Which means we have to know what a lie is.

Without the comparison, the truth would have no meaning or value, so as I say: “I will slip from time to time and that’s OK”.

Its OK because it reinforces what the Truth is.
Notice too that I may slip and that I am not consciously telling lies.

Children live in their imaginations where it is all made up and yet I have known children being chastised for lying when actually they were exercising their imagination. The adult interprets the child’s behaviour as lying and now the child has to live a lie in order to satisfy the adult’s perception of the truth.

I also know of one famous Golf Pro, who avidly denied that he ever sliced the ball even though he did. His failure to acknowledge the fact was an instruction to his brain not to process the that he sliced the ball and therefore removed the brain’s attraction to slice the ball.

Our brains attract to us what we talk about in our internal dialogue.

The difference is whether the lie is conscious or unconscious and the real driver is not whether something is Good, Bad, Right or Wrong or even any combination of those, rather to follow what is intended by the agreement (or rules if they exist) and do what works.

So for me to access the truth and build on it:

Elicit rapport
Get agreement
Set intention
Be integral
Remove reason
Change language
Explore unconscious
Become conscious
Iterate until job done

and that’s the truth!!!

Should you lie? No! It’s not Wrong, it just doesn’t work and it leaks!

images various sources

Beauty is only skin deep

2012-01-22T16:00:00.000-08:00

A married couple was in a terrible accident where the woman's face was severely burned. The doctor told the husband that they couldn't graft any skin from her body because she was too skinny. So the husband offered to donate some of his own skin. However, the only skin on his body that the doctor felt was suitable would have to come from his buttocks.

The husband and wife agreed that they would tell no one about where the skin came from, and requested that the doctor also honour their secret. After all, this was a very delicate matter.

After the surgery was completed, everyone was astounded at the woman's new beauty. She looked more beautiful than she ever had before! All her friends and relatives just went on and on about her youthful beauty!

One day, she was alone with her husband, and she was overcome with emotion at his sacrifice.

She said, "Dear, I just want to thank you for everything you did for me. There is no way I could ever repay you."

"My darling”, he replied, "think nothing of it. I get all the thanks I need every time I see your mother kiss you on the cheek."

source various

Who lies

2012-01-19T22:57:00.001-08:00

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

~unknown

image from freemages.co.uk
Quote from shareaquote.com

A pointless conversation

2012-01-15T10:43:00.001-08:00

Last year I got myself a new friend to go play with. A Master Hypnotist who lives in my town and frequents the local Starbucks to boot. Now, I don’t know if Starbucks sell Cud but we manage to chew great quantities when we are there!

The great thing about conversation coming from a pointless state of ‘just for the sake of it’, is its ability to create. It comes from the unconscious and usually creates the unexpected or unexpectedly reminds us of something we haven’t considered for a some time and may have forgotten about.

During our last visit to Starbucks, JJ and I talked about the work of Dr David Hawkin, amongst other things.

Whaddya know?

In that one conversation, I found a model to easily explain a coaching model that I have been continually refining for about 10 years AND a superb explanation as to why the coaching model works. I came to know it differently.

I perceive knowledge has 4 states, 2 conscious and 2 unconscious:

there are
a.) things we know and
b.) things we don’t know
but there are also those things
c.) we didn’t know that we knew and
d.) things that we didn’t know that we didn’t know.

Group 1. are logical experiences and come from the conscious mind, whereas
things in group 2 just occur and come from the unconscious.
Group 1 originate in the past and group 2 originate in the present.

Compared to the logical things , the unconscious things are almost limitless in number and always show up in conversation. Only in a conversation can you find out what you didn’t know that you didn’t know or realise that you knew something that didn’t think you did.

Then it is probably a good thing to start a conversation almost unconsciously, talk to people for no reason. There are no limits at that point. Try it on a bus or train and be surprised by how many strange looks you don’t get!

The limits come as one becomes more conscious of the conversation.
It makes me wonder if there is ever such a thing as a pointless conversation, since they will almost all arrive at a point.

However, conversation needs an intention and yet intension, in itself, starts as an unconscious thought. There are a few studies to support this and I have listed one below.

Then we might as well go chew the cud with everyone. Perhaps Forrest might explain it thus:

“Conversation is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get”

“To boot”

means Moreover; in addition to
The 'boot' is thought to be a derivative of the earlier 'bat' meaning 'good or useful'. This is also the root of the word 'better'

“Chew the cud”

means To chat, in an aimless manner
…part digested food that ruminant animals, notably cows, bring back into their mouths from their first stomach, to chew at leisure

definitions and explanations from The Phrase Finder

Intention

“TIME OF CONSCIOUS INTENTION TO ACT IN RELATION TO ONSET OF CEREBRAL ACTIVITY (READINESS-POTENTIAL)

~ Benjamin Libet, Curtis A. Gleason, Elwood W. Wright and Dennis K. Pear
http://psiquadrat.de

Image

From the movie Forrest Gump 1994 http://imdb.com

Source http://blu-ray.com

Investment in the Future?

2012-01-10T22:45:00.001-08:00

An artist asked the gallery owner if there had been any interest in his paintings on display at that time.

"I have good news and bad news" the owner replied.
"The good news is that a gentleman inquired about your work and wondered if it would appreciate in value after your death. When I told him it would, he bought all 15 of your paintings"

"That's wonderful!" the artist exclaimed. "What's the bad news?"

"The guy was your doctor"

source joke and image various

Go Create

2012-01-06T16:00:00.000-08:00

Life isn't about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself”
~ George Bernard Shaw

Born 26 July 1856 died 2 November 1950
Irish playwright and co-founder of the London School of Economics

source various
image wikipedia

What kind of year do you feel you are expecting?

2012-01-03T03:32:00.001-08:00

What kind of year are you expecting?
- because there is almost every chance that you will get it.

Life just occurs, one moment at a time and the signals moving through our nervous system to our brain take time to process. Whatever we are experiencing , we are experiencing inside and after the actual event AND has been filtered through our personal relational database – our past experience.
Therefore everything in life is filtered by our interpretation and so we have already set a benchmark – it is as we say it is.

So what else would you like to say?
In NLP we could call this reframing. You can find out more at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reframing

My Mentor, Steve Crabb often uses the example “What the thinker thinks, the prover, proves” ~ from Robert Anton Wilson’s 'Prometheus Rising'. Landmark Education proved to me that I can always find the evidence to prove life is how I say it is and I have noticed the tone that I take causes the quality of my experience.

So, the Financial situation that the world finds itself in is caused by conversation or the Frame in which we put it. Sure, the facts are the facts but it is feelings that cause action and action is how to reSOLVE everything.
SOLVE(nt = fluid = constantly changing structure)

You should view the world as a conspiracy run by a very closely-knit group of nearly omnipotent people, and you should think of those people as yourself and your friends ~ Robert Anton Wilson

As Anthony Robbins says: “our motions cause our emotions”
I think the whole thing is an iterative loop – our emotions cause our motions which cause our emotions which cause our motions ………

In NLP we use a technique of spinning feelings; imagining the feeling floating out side of our body and by using our imagination, describing it in detail, using every sense that fits.

To change a feeling we can then change the colour of the feeling, the sound of the feeling, the smell and so on. Imagine how you would feel if every time you experience fear, you could smell your favourite food, hear your favourite music …. Having reframed the feeling, we can put the new feeling back inside and experience something completely different

Reframing and spinning remind me of my personal favourite quote, which comes from Louise L Hay, in her book ‘You can heal your life’.

”… the point of power is always in the present. You are never stuck..”

How are you feeling about 2012?
Thinking about it now, while you imagine your loved ones, the last really great joke you heard and your favourite drink and your favourite place on earth … How are you feeling about 2012?

This year is going to be the most rewarding year, financially, emotionally and experientially, because I say so and it feels that way to me. The only thing that stands in the way of that is what I might say as the year progresses.

Happy New Year!

Pub life

2011-12-29T16:00:00.000-08:00

A man walks into a bar and asks the bar man for a pint.

Whilst the bar man is pours the pint, he sees a dish full of peanuts sitting on the counter. As he looks, the peanuts say to him “you’re nice”. The man, surprised by what he just heard, sinks down into a seat next to the cigarette machine. As he does so , the cigarette machine says to him “you’re horrible”

Astonished by what he just heard, he tells the bar man, who explains:

“That’s ok sir, the peanuts are always complementary and the cigarette machine is out of order”

source various

Active belief

2011-12-25T16:00:00.000-08:00

Henry Valentine Miller

"What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their ability to act according to their beliefs"

~ Henry Miller

Born December 26, 1891 died June 7, 1980
American novelist and painter.
He wrote novels containing fiction, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism.

Author of Tropic of Cancer (1934), Black Spring (1936), and Tropic of Capricorn (1939)

sources wikipedia

To be or not to be Social

2011-12-21T16:00:00.000-08:00

I see blog post after blog post about exploiting Social Media and most are dull

Is Social Media about being Social or is it about the Media? What is your opinion?

A Snail’s Pace

2011-12-17T16:00:00.000-08:00

There was once a snail who was sick and tired of his reputation for being so slow. He decided to get some fast wheels to make up the difference. After shopping around a while, he decided that the Datsun 240-Z was the car to get. So the snail goes to the nearest Datsun dealer and says he wants to buy the 240-Z, but he wants it repainted "240-S".

The dealer asks, "Why 'S'?"

The snail replies, "'S' stands for snail. I want everybody who sees me roaring past to know who's driving."

Well, the dealer doesn't want to lose the unique opportunity to sell a car to a snail, so he agrees to have the car repainted for a small fee.

The snail gets his new car and spent the rest of his days roaring happily down the highway at top speed. And whenever anyone would see him zooming by, they'd say "Wow! Look at that S-car go!"

Source Jokes and image various

Daring compro-misery

2011-12-13T16:00:00.000-08:00

I particularly liked the following quote because I don’t believe in compromise.
I am not saying that I won’t compromise but I do believe neither party finds compromise satisfactory (effectively both lose out). The answer comes in creating new options and then maybe the original requirements may fit or something even better.
One can only truly create from nothing, i.e. the unconscious state. Answers and ideas just occur when you allow them to do so. The courage to implement them comes from launching them without the platform of logic or reason and allowing these to follow on.

Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring, through obeying the blind urge.

Henry Miller

source various

Stor: ies / eys / ed ties

2011-12-09T16:00:00.000-08:00

It's all a story!
Sometimes words just show up and I find myself playing with them.
I try to break them, reconstruct them, see what else I can do with them, look for the ambiguity in them ………… and always have fun with them …. to see where my logic takes me.

As a child, I was fortunate enough to have had parents that told me stories at bedtime and on occasions during the day, stimulating my imagination and creating my reality. Kids just play and what they do is live out what adults would call Unreal situations in a very real way.

I decided about 11 years ago that Santa Claus is real and I am looking forward to him visiting my house again this year – this may be a problem since I haven’t been good this year but when I’m bad, I am probably at my best! ;-D
and
I don’t think it helped, when I said a few years back: “I don’t care who you are! You are not parking that thing here!”
So what about stories?

STORIES ARE EVERYWHERE
ALL THE TIME

Newspapers carry stories. TV News present stories. Theatres play stories. The film industry makes millions from creating and selling stories. Authors.. painters …artists… gift their stories to the world.
When we communicate with each other we tell a story as soon as we can get it into the conversation, to illustrate what we are saying. Yeah Right! We probably just can’t help ourselves; we are compelled to do it.
Social media is full of stories and most technology is there to support the creation and telling of stories.

So, what's the story?

My Life Is A Story (and so is yours)

a simple story developed by stacking stories on top of stories into storeys and the dangerous thing is when the simple story becomes a stored tie. We can get tied into a story that we constructed and then fix our reality to it, losing the flexibility of the imaginative child, that we always were and will probably always be.

Personally, I believe we are designed to forget contrary to the view of a good friend of mine, who believes we are designed to remember. That’s one entity with 2 perspectives or at least that’s my story.

The great thing about stories is that they are all made up and if your life is a story and you made it up, then you can make up what you like from NOW on. We all do it anyway.

Take, as an example 2 old boys in the pub (actually my mate Rob and I. We are both young sexagenarians and we have known each other for 50 years) recalling the time that we went to The Alexandra Palace ‘Love In’ :

Do you remember going the the Ally Pally ‘Love-in’ in Pat’s Austin Westminster?

We didn't, we took the train!

We can’t of done! We went to Waterloo Station first and drove up to Wood Green.

That wasn't Waterloo! That was Charing Cross and we caught the tube!

Same event, 2 different stories.
The point being, because the detail gets forgotten, the story won’t run and each of us has plugged the gaps with our own detail so the story can run – we have Confabulated

According to Miriam Webster Free Dictionary:

“Fabricate imaginary experiences as compensation for loss of memory”

So, here's the deal:

Since all (life) stories are based on PAST events, we have to recall them and actually recreate them NOW. The detail, or lack of it, is stored in different areas of our brain and we have to pull it all together to be able to present it as fact …… which it isn’t, since we will probably have confabulated so that the construction can be complete.

Its not what happened. It is the story of what happened - a sensual representation of events. We would have deleted, distorted and generalised our experience.

If I were to tell you my life story in full detail, it would take more than 61 years to tell. Before I would have finished I would have died and you would be bored witless!!
So, as a matter of course, I have to delete, distort and generalise.

You can hold great store by that

"Create your own adventure because experience is all that there is" Ⓒ ~ Arthur Partridge AyPeeCo

Friendship

2011-12-05T16:00:00.000-08:00

A good friend will bail you out of jail.
A great friend will be in the cell next to you saying,"Wow, that was fun!"

Source various

Human Inspirations: Empowering Belief Systems

2011-12-01T18:34:00.000-08:00

Human Inspirations: Empowering Belief Systems: There are two things you must know about beliefs : That they are neutral and they are the building blocks of our growth. This is extreme...

Gifted

2011-12-01T16:00:00.000-08:00

I am sure that sometimes scriptwriters write gems without realising it.
Here is one from the TV series Eli Stone

“A gift is something that is given, you don’t own it.
The World does.
The World is asking you to use it
and you don’t get to say no,
no matter how much you might want to”

~ Eli Stone

I appreciate the sentiment. I believe it is our job to contribute and serve and to receive an appropriate reward for doing so.

Eli Stone (TV Series 2008–2009)

American TV series and name of the title character, played by Scot, Jonny Lee Miller.

Eli Stone is a lawyer in San Francisco, who suffers from a brain aneurysm which causes him to have visions, usually about the future and which lead him to take on cases where he is of best use and morally right.

His predictions save lives and he becomes a recognised prophet in his community.

The series was created by Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim and aired on ABC from January 2008 through to July 2009.
It is currently being broadcast by Sky, in the UK.

Image from Wikipedia

Loopy Tweeting Ambiguity

2011-11-27T16:00:00.000-08:00

The problem with Tweeting is the amount of characters available to you
at 140 it is even less than a SMS (mobile phone text message)!

So, how then, can one use Tweets to be able to influence somebody?

There has been a long debate as to whether Hypnosis exists or if it is all just suggestion.

Derren Brown talks about this in his book ‘Tricks of the Mind’ although there is recent evidence which shows the existence of Hypnosis as a specific state in the brain.

In hypnosis one seeks to influence.

Using the style of Milton Erickson one can be Artfully Vague so that the subject fills in the elements as the hypnotist suggests
for example … “Now, I don’t know if you are thinking of the sky or even if there are clouds or even if the sun is high in the sky or how bright it may be….”

The Hypnotist does not actually know what the subject is thinking about.

Nevertheless, the hypnotist has suggested that the subject think of a bright sunny day. He cant make the subject think of those things but there is a good chance that the subject will.
The fact the Hypnotist goes on to describe what may be in the sky presupposes that there is a sky and the subject is thinking about it.

There are all manner of techniques to suggest tings to a subject, you only have to look a TV ads to get that!

Look at the adverts for Smokers Patches or gum where words like “… the next time you…” are used. No presupposition or suggestion there then!

One can Analogue Mark out certain words or phrases by pausing slightly before uttering them – the subject’s unconscious mind will pick up the difference whilst their rational mind will push on making sense of the words.

Lowering the tone of voice as words are spoken can command the subject to follow
for example “As you sit there you can |relax now |…. ”
Again the unconscious picks up the commands whilst the conscious continues to make sense of the words.

It is ambiguous. One meaning is processed one way by the conscious and another meaning processed by the unconscious.

There are many techniques, these are just some.

Oh yes … I digressed!

So, how then, can one use Tweets to be able to influence somebody?

Or did I?

I opened a loop, a while ago to preoccupy your conscious mind and now I have just closed it.
If I wanted to, I could nest loops inside of loops. All designed to preoccupy the conscious mind, whilst I make suggestions to the unconscious mind. Actually, I stacked 2 loops together – note how Ambiguity, appearing in the blog post title was incomplete until I described how the words |relax now | were being used.

Ever had a friend who said “We must go for a drink and catch up….” ?
They never book a time. Notice how that hangs around because it is incomplete. It is an open loop.

Now, here’s the problem.

How can you embed suggestions successfully into a 140 character tweet?

Beneviolent Law

2011-11-23T16:00:00.000-08:00

A local United Way office realized that the organization had never received a donation from the town's most successful lawyer. The person in charge of contributions called him to persuade him to contribute.

"Our research shows that out of a yearly income of at least $700,000, you give not a penny to charity. Wouldn't you like to give back to the community in some way?"

The lawyer mulled this over for a moment and replied, "First, did your research also show that my mother is dying after a long illness, and has medical bills that are several times her annual income?"
Embarrassed, the United Way rep mumbled, "Um ... no."

The lawyer interrupts, "or that my brother, a disabled veteran, is blind and confined to a wheelchair?"
The stricken United Way rep began to stammer out an apology, but was interrupted again.

"or that my sister's husband died in a traffic accident," the lawyer's voice rising in indignation, "leaving her penniless with three children?!"
The humiliated United Way rep, completely beaten, said simply, "I had no idea..."

On a roll, the lawyer cut him off once again, "So if I don't give any money to them, why should I give any to you?"

source various

In the end we only regret chances we didn't take

2011-11-19T16:00:00.000-08:00

In the end we only regret chances we didn't take.The relationships we were scared to have and the decisions we waited too long to make. There comes a time in your life when you realise who matters, who doesn't, who never did and who always will

This is actually a name of a Facebook group and as of 18th November, 2011 there were 1,314,777 people who liked the page and 7,367 who are talking about it.
Apart from that there are no other entries on the page.

I guess it says it all

According to Yahoo Answers, Irlanda reports that the quote is incomplete and should say:

"In the end we only regret the chances we didn't take, the relationships we were scared to have and the decisions we waited too long to make. There comes a time in your life when you realise who matters, who doesn't, who never did and who always will. So don't worry about the people from your past, there's a reason they didn't make it to your future"

Bio-nana121 reports finding the phrase at http://gothgirl.glogster.com/In-The-End/ but that link is broken

Wikipedia and Wikiquote don’t register it and shareaquote don’t attribute it either

A Truism and a Mystery

The Meaning of Life is NOT

2011-11-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

It was my pleasure to be Chatviewed^TM by The English Sisters on 14th November.

They are very skilled Hypnotists, with their very own and unique Hypnorambling style so I guess it was inevitable that we would end up with a Trance Out . After all, Hypnotists do love to practice!

I’d like to say that I won, but I can’t remember

Find the English Sisters at http://www.englishsisters.com/ and http://www.hypnoramblings.com/
You can find their upcoming book at http://amzn.to/uB5M0c

Lost Senior Citizen

2011-11-12T10:51:00.001-08:00

I noticed an old man sitting on a park bench sobbing his eyes out. I stopped and asked him what was wrong.

He told me, “I have a 22 year old wife at home. She rubs my back every morning and then gets up and makes me pancakes, sausage, fresh fruit and freshly ground coffee”

I continued, “Well, then why are you crying?”

He added, “She makes me homemade soup for lunch and my favourite biscuits, cleans the house and hen watches sports TV with me for the rest of the afternoon”

I said, “Well, why are you crying?”

He said, “For dinner she makes me a gourmet meal with wine and my favourite dessert and then we cuddle until the small hours”

I inquired, “Well then, why in the world would you be crying?”

He replied, “I can't remember where I live”

source various

Schooling

2011-11-06T10:36:00.000-08:00

You may leave school, but school never leaves you

~ Andy Partridge

Said by Dr. Spencer Reid in ‘Criminal Minds’ episode 4 series 7

Andy Partridge

Andrew John Partridge
English singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
Founding member and songwriter of new wave band XTC

Let Go Of Your Fears And Fly

2011-10-28T02:02:00.001-07:00

You don't have to run a big business, fly a balloon, or break records in a boat to learn from and use the lessons I learned. Your goal can be small. Student magazine was very small at first. I sold space in it from a payphone at school because I believed I could and would do it. If something is what you really want to do, just do it. Whatever your goal is you will never succeed unless you let go of your fears and fly

~ Richard Branson

Do the Change Clearly

2011-10-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

Many times I have heard BE the change and not DO the change.
Whereas I agree, that all change starts with a change of BEhaviour or a change in the way we are (being), when it comes to NLP, we very much focus on what people DO.

If what they DO works, then we can learn what they DO and install that in others that can benefit from DOing things that way. Its called eliciting strategies.

I was very interested to read Pam Castillo’s take on this; how the Kinesthetic does the work.

To understand this ask any top line sportsman how they achieve their precision and following on from a visualisation ahead of the play, they will feel the action as it happens ~ they feel the ball go into the net, the arrow into the target, the shot hit the target etc.

True

by Pam Castillo

I answered the phone that morning as usual; “Clarity Institute, this is Pam. The high pitched female voice on the other end rushed through her formalities with lightening speed and garbled articulation “this is Asfansiasishisahheia Berhansiaisibdkditai (It could have been Anita Bertan or about a thousand other possibilities. I could not understand her).

Exasperated and breathy she continued at the same fast pace; “I got your name from Richard Bandler’s website, I’m an NLP trainer and yeah, so, what is the most powerful NLP tool to use?”

Silence reigned as my eyes darted from left to right back and forth once or twice, my head tilted to the side as I wondered if I heard correctly - or - had I slipped into some alternate reality? You know, that place where time and space seem to separate and nothing and everything exist simultaneously confusing.

And then with the callers same lightening speed, I quipped back with one word. “Yes.”
A simple, well crafted statement to match the caller and the silliest question I’ve think I’ve ever been asked.

Her voice now had a slower pace, a deeper tone, a skipping, hesitating articulation and just as I planned, I calibrated a confusion as she spoke next: “uh- wha, what do you mean?”

And that’s when the call turned from comical to critical.

I asked her what was important to her about knowing *the most powerful NLP tool* . She told me it was “because I have a client coming here in less than an hour and I want to use THE most powerful tool of NLP to get the change.”

Let’s be clear. NLP has never been about the tools. I’ve heard Richard [Bandler] say many times, It’s not about the tools.

Yes, the tools and techniques of NLP are powerful, everyone of them is richly powerful. What makes them powerful, is the ability to connect. To connect to the unconscious process that is happening inside someone else's neurology. To connect at such rapid speeds that you can be a step ahead or more of someone else’s thinking and your own thinking so that you can make the decision while having extrasensory timing, a timing that others have not yet discovered. That is where one knows how and where to go next in making the desired changes.

That’s the edge a well trained and confident NLP’er has. That’s the power of NLP. It’s in the ability to connect to one’s unconscious mind and that of another’s to understand the neurology of what’s taking place to create and reveal which NLP tool to use and knowing why.

This happens so fast that if feels as natural as it does to say your own name. It happens organically, and withOut planning. It happens with talent, with experience and with a solid foundation of NLP. And it happens from having that “Go First” experience of consistently walking the walk and talking the talk of using NLP - every day in every way, to become the best you, you can be, long before you start a training career.

There is something metaphysically beautiful about watching a well trained and confident NLP’er with a solid foundation of skills -skills that have been installed. NOT taught like school, but someone who actually learned NLP by experiencing NLP with the NLP learning process as Dr. Richard Bandler developed.

It’s experiential and in my opinion, does not come from books or home study programs. When you really learn something it becomes part of every fibre of your being and it’s ageless, timeless and generative.

The call referenced here is an actual call I got this month.

I get these types and similar phone calls throughout the year. Year after year. I occasionally get students that enroll in my courses who are REtraining because their foundation is academic and not kinesthetic and they can nOt DO NLP.

Now whether it’s true or not, there is something of a magical energy a lot of people sense with respect to the creative genius and co-founder of NLP, Richard Bandler. I think there’s no coincidence that so many of these “help my NLP” calls start with “I got your name from The Society of NLP”.

NLP takes practice and the more you use it the better you get. It’s nOt about learning a bunch of things about NLP to teach the bones to others, it’s nOt about the jargon, the tools or the techniques. It’s about the ability to DO NLP and consistently get the results that makes the difference with confidence.

Pam Castillo is a Licensed NLP Trainer by the Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming – Richard Bandler. Pam founded Clarity Institute, where for more than 12 years, she maintains a private practice for NLP Changework on personal development issues, health and healing and loving relationships.
Clarity Institute offers NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner certification courses and NLP workshops on a variety of topics in the Los Angeles area.

Read more about Pam at http://bit.ly/APClarity

Jigsaw from Hell?

2011-10-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

A woman calls her boyfriend for help with a killer jigsaw puzzle. She just can't figure out how to get it started.

Her boyfriend asks: "What is it supposed to be when it's finished?"
The woman says: "According to the picture on the box, it's a rooster."She shows him the puzzle spread all over the table.

He studies the pieces for a moment, looks at the box, then turns to her and says: "First of all, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a rooster."

He takes her hand and says: "Second, I want you to relax.... let's have a nice cup of tea, and then.... he sighed, "...let's put all these Corn Flakes back in the box."

source various
Microsoft Clipart