February 3, 2010

The Power Of Four – How Four Little Questions Can Change Your World

Avoiding collapsing businesses and getting a better job? Making better investments in love and life?

The Power of Four – How Four little questions can change your world – or the world of someone around you.

"According to whom?"

"What would happen if you did/didn't?

How, exactly,…?

Who, specifically…?

One of the essential language sections in any good NLP training is called the MetaModel. It's the first set of language patterns taught because understanding and being able to use it fluently is key to mastering more advanced patterns. It's also one of the easiest to pick up from a book or dvd.

Also known as "language of specificity," when used as a technique the meta model is a set of questions intended to bring a conversation or belief or situation to a sensory specific (pure information) level.

Getting to sensory specific data is important because you cut through and expose preconceptions, misunderstandings and limiting beliefs. Learning the basic MetaModel questions makes this really simple and effective.

How powerful is it?

It might have saved us an economic collapse if someone had used it with the head man in derivatives trading at AIG. He is now famous for saying "I can't imagine us ever losing one dollar on any of these contracts."

If, instead of taking that as gospel, what if one of the executives at AIG had known to ask "If you did imagine it, what would the consequences be? If you can't, who could imagine it?"

Goldman Sachs spent time and money creating a culture where such statements and beliefs are challenged. Lehman Brothers didn't.

In fact, at Lehman such challenges were rejected by top management. The outcome speaks for itself.

WARNING: You want to be aware of the rapport and permission you have when meta-modeling a situation. If not, your relationship with the person(s) could suffer – and you likely won't get the answers you need. The guy at Lehman who challenged top management over their investment direction was fired.

Here's a more personal example of the use of the Meta Model. In last summer's program one of the student's Charles Faulkner was working with presented the issue that "there wasn't any work." (How common is that meme today? )

Here's how the conversation went:

Student: "there just isn't any work."

CF: "no work for anyone?:

S: "None of my friends can find work."

CF: "none of them?"

S: "yeah, our agent says there isn't any work out there."

CF: "So your agent is convinced there isn't any work."

S: "yeah."

CF: "Ever think it might be time for a new agent?"

S: (long pause) You know, you've got a point. How successful can he be finding work for us if he's already convinced there is none to be found?"

The student went home, found a new agent, and at last report his career is back on track.

Oh, the guy at Lehman who was fired? He went on to short Lehman's stock and made a fortune in just six months. So even in apparent defeat, by putting to use what he learned from challenging common wisdom, he triumphed.

How can you start using these simple techniques to cut through the misdirection and confusion around you? Here is an introduction and some further examples drawn from our Practitioner Training Trainer's Manual and here are a few daily practice exercises from the Unconscious Competence Calendar.

Cheers,
Tom Dotz

PS: And of course you'll get the complete grounding in the required knowledge so you can use these tools with complete ease at our exclusive NLP Comprehensive Summer Practitioner Program.

You'll have the opportunity to revisit long-desired goals, to water the seeds of latent dreams. You'll have the tools to forge your dreams into goals and marvel as your goals become achievements.

The NLP Comprehensive Immersion Experience – Solid, Thorough, and Comprehensive NLP Skills in this exciting two week program! Click Here To Visit

January 28, 2010

A Pound Of Framing: The Power Of Language In Politics And Life

Years ago the then so-named anti-abortion movement seemed to be making little progress.

Then they started re-branding themselves the "pro-life" movement.

Well, if they were the pro-life movement, and you opposed them, what did that make
you? Anti-life? Pro-Death? Take your pick; poor choices all.

You'll notice two important elements of framing in that example. First, re-framing
their label took a lot of time and effort. The media didn't change from calling
them anti-abortionists to pro-lifers overnight. It took effort and consistency.

Once accomplished, however, they had not only re-framed their brand. They had also
re-framed the argument, and out-framed their opponents.

In NLP we spend a lot of time understanding the impact of language. One of the
major language elements is this area of framing and re-framing.

When I first became professionally involved in NLP we were virtually the only people
who understood the concept. If you mentioned framing at that time people thought
you were talking about architecture or paintings.

Since then the concept of framing in language has become common usage. You'll see
it frequently mentioned in reference to political arguments and positions.

Noticing the use and effects of framing in politics is usually pretty easy. It's
also a lot easier to learn to recognize these effects at a distance, like a political
speech, than in your personal life and interactions.

Humor is also largely based on framing and re-framing and is another place to notice
and play with it.

In basic NLP we spend serious time learning to reframe a position or belief or other
limitation.

Yet the fact is, framing is usually more powerful and more subtle. Framing the boundaries
and setting the presuppositions of a conversation or negotiation or debate is a
lot easier than reframing it.

As Steve Andreas likes to say, "An ounce of framing is worth a pound of reframing."

Where in your life could a simple bit of framing or re-framing make things a little
bit easier?

Cheers,

Tom

PS:

You'll find more about language in almost every NLP title we carry. Special focus
is given, of course, throughout our trainings.

In our Practitioner program alone we spend almost 50% of our time on these and other
powerful language patterns. We typically spend more than three days on just these
two language elements alone. You can get an idea of just how thorough we are by looking at the
Table of Contents for the Home Study program here.

And of course there is the ever popular Advanced Language Patterns seminar on CD.

January 22, 2010

Markets Tumble, People Stumble, and How NLP Helps You Get Up Again

Stopping by the office last Friday the phones were ringing and things were hopping. Unusual for a Friday afternoon, that's for sure, but then interest has been up a lot lately.

So I picked up a call and had a great (and to me classic) conversation with someone who, like you, is interested in how NLP could help them next.

I say a classic call because it followed one of three standard paths.

1) There's the person who's new to NLP and wants to know what's in it for them, and how to get started.

2) There's the person who is already knowledgeable – knows what's in it for them, and wants some advice on the next class or book or steps to take.

3) Then there's the person, like this man, who had started to explore, realized there was real value for him, and then life happened and he got distracted.

As he put it, "Well, then business got better, so I stopped looking at NLP. Now things have really turned down again and I was wondering how NLP might help me today."

What's interesting is how common this is. In fact, in NLP we describe human motivation as moving between "away from" motivation and "towards" motivation. Away from: the hot burning pain. Towards: the unadulterated pleasure.

Most people are happy just to stay out of pain. Once things in life are at least comfortable, people seem happy to just relax and sit still. This is why standout success has more to do with motivation than talent.

This pretty much describes the Bush era of easy credit. While jobs and businesses may not have been making real gains, there was enough easy money sloshing around to allow us to ignore the hard facts. For individuals, businesses, and governments this meant living on easy credit instead of generating real income.

Then in what seems to have been a very short period of time – just six months or so – the whole house of cards came tumbling down.

We have unemployment that's higher than any time since the 70's. Retirement and dreams of financial independence seem, for a lot of folks, to have gone the way of the Republican Party (or as of today, the Democrats – need any more proof that fame and power are fleeting?

There are many more ways to achieve happiness and personal security than waiting for the government to fix the economy (good luck with that plan).

Because my bailiwick and charter with you is to discuss and demonstrate how and where NLP can be important to you in your life, I'll skip the ways to improve your finances. There are numerous far better sources.

Instead, I'm going to go directly to what financial prosperity is supposed to bring you: happiness.

Well, isn't that your real goal? You may think of it as freedom to travel or freedom from debts, or a dream house or perfect mate.

The facts are that all externals come and go, even relationships. They can be taken away without your consent at any time, even when you have done everything right.

Consider all the sincerely hardworking, smart, dedicated people at Lehman Brothers. Then in one weekend they lost it all. They had nothing to say about it and even less they could do to stop it.

When even highly sophisticated financial managers, so called "Masters of the Universe", can have their wealth stripped away in 48 hours, how much do you want to depend on wealth for happiness?

How much of your happiness and satisfaction do you want depending on outside events and elements over which you have little or no control?

Please understand me: I enjoy a fine meal, sailing on my boat, traveling, freedom from punching a clock for someone else, as much as anyone.

Financial freedom is a very good place to be. Having disposable income is certainly more fun than not having it – and boy, have I had experiences of both.

What is important to you about NLP is that it gives you the tools to have a powerful internal stability and resilience. It gives you solid ways to keep you confident of your value no matter how an abstraction like "the economy" – or "your economy" – is doing.

The tougher times are on the outside, the more important it is that you maintain your emotional resilience and stability. That is what gives you the ability to see and seize the opportunities that arise. That is what gives you the ability to keep your mind when all about you are losing theirs.

This is an area where NLP shines. With NLP you can easily learn to effectively and almost automatically maintain attitudes that keep you moving in the direction you want to go. Like every great learning experience, this gives you assets that no financial crisis or depression can take away.

So where to start? What are your next steps? Like I said, we have ways for all three categories.

1) You just want to find out what NLP can do that's important to you.

You're ready to get your feet wet. So invest a sawbuck – actually $19.53 & postage – and pick up the Get Started Bundle.

You get the #1 book on NLP, "NLP: The New Technology of Achievement" and a FREE MP3 download by Connirae Andreas that will actually guide you right through a very powerful NLP process that has multiple uses.

(Oh, did I mention the book includes a step-by-step 21 day Unlimited Achievement Program? Well, it does.) So pick up yours here: http://shop.nlpco.com/NLP-NLP-New-Technology-Of-Achievement-p/044b.htm

2) You already know it's for you – and you want to start learning some of the deeper aspects and processes. The "Fundamentals of NLP" Home Study guide is for you. Original NLP developers Leslie Cameron-Bandler, David Gordon, & Michael LeBeau created this coordinated Handbook & DVD experience. It's specifically designed for home use and learning the fundamental insights and processes on which all of NLP is based. Find out more here: http://shop.nlpco.com/NLP-The-Fundamentals-Of-NLP-On-DVD-Jump-Start-p/700d.htm

(By the way, at today's prices you could get both #1 and #2 for less than the full price of the "Fundamentals" program alone. Just saying.

3) Ready to jump in all the way – right now? Our "Living Encyclopedia" of NLP is the full classic NLP Comprehensive Practitioner on DVD. Rave reviews from around the world, from Master Trainers and newbies alike, over 400 in print. Find out all about it here: http://www.nlpco.com/training/nlp-practitioner-at-home/

And of course, there's the full two-week Summer Residential Program coming this July. Look for more announcements about this summer's programs from Introductory to Advanced coming in the next weeks!

Cheers,

Tom

PS: Oh, it wouldn't be January without a mention of our new favorite weight loss program. Is shedding a few pounds and gaining a lot of feel good fitness is one of your resolutions? Then check out this remarkable program, "Fitheads." It's also an example of a nicely researched and developed real NLP Modeling project. Discover the Fitheads program here: http://www.nlpco.com/featured-product/fitheads/

January 7, 2010

Confidence & Criticism – New Video; Science Discovers Time

Beginning this new year I find myself with an abundance of riches to share with you. This week we have two great videos and an essay.

Along with the complete "Responding to Criticism" process from our Practitioner Program I'm posting a link to a great video from the TED conference on the subjective aspects of time, and an essay on professionalism in NLP:

Developed by Steve Andreas and presented here by Tom Best, the Responding to Criticism Strategy is a classic in the art of mental self defense.

What does this have to do with confidence? Imagine if you never again found yourself held back from something because of a fear of being criticized. How much would this free you?

Science Discovers Time: Here's a great video from the TED conference bringing the internal structure(s) of time into consciousness in a very interesting way. Whether or not you're familiar with NLP Timeline work you'll see some very interesting applications.

Elements of Mastery in NLP: whether you want to know how to choose an NLP Practitioner, or how to develop your skills, here are some provocative thoughts on "What Distinguishes a "Good" Practitioner from a "Great" One? by Jason McClain

So enjoy!

PS: You can find out more about our Practitioner program on dvd here: click here

PPS: Summer is coming, and we have the (correct) training dates posted here:

Tom Best: A Strategy For Responding To Criticism

(NOTE: This is a large file and sometimes our servers get overloaded – so if at first it's interrupted, try again. )

Get the Flash Player to see this content.

Science Discovers Time A presentation from the TED Conference.

What Distinguishes a "Good" Practitioner from a "Great" One?

by Jason McClain

…and what distinguishes a "great" practitioner from an
extraordinary one? What determines true mastery in a practitioner?

Here's an interesting take on the answer(s) to this question. Hint: It isn't the certificates.
I have been asked this so many times, that I finally sat down last
night and whipped out the answer for y'all in a new article.

Whether you're looking to evolve as a practitioner, or whether you
are looking for one and want some additional filters through which
to assess them, this is for you.

Often people ask me what separates a “Practitioner” from a “Master Practitioner”. Or what separates a “good” practitioner, from a “great” practitioner from an “extraordinary” practitioner. It is a good question, and one deserving of answers.

From a technical standpoint as well as a practical standpoint, there are several criteria that filter these levels, and the piece of paper upon which their certification is printed is usually not one of them.

The simple answer first ::: what separates a Practitioner from a Master Practitioner?

From a technical standpoint, a practitioner is effective at the lower logical levels; they can assist a client in changing behaviors, be they addictive behaviors, habits, or context or situational reactions. They can also assist a client in changing or expanding their skills and capabilities. Whether it be to speak more effectively, or creating accelerated learning strategies, or modeling some physical, athletic, or communication based set of “skills” or capabilities or capacities.

They are likely still working to integrate their work themselves–still learning to walk their talk, but they are effective at working “on” a client. They can often point to how “others who are effective at XYZ do it” as a model.

The Master Practitioner can affect those levels as well as the higher or deeper logical levels. They can assist a client in altering or changing their beliefs about themselves–or about others or about the world–allowing the client to expand into previously “impossible” possibilities in relationships, or in what they can achieve. Still higher or deeper, they can assist the client in altering the very way they relate to themselves. The “kind of person” they are. Their identity and their egoic structures. And at the deepest or highest level, a Master Practitioner can facilitate change at the very level of Spirit. A profound, connected, spiritual shift that ripples out or cascades down to the rest.

They are walking their talk fully. There are no aspects of their life that are out of alignment with their espoused principles and approaches–unless quite briefly, before they right themselves again–they are the relationship coach who has an extraordinary relationship and communicates in the way they recommend, the financial coach that uses their own systems, and is affluent etc., etc. They can often point to how “they do it themselves” as a model. They are effective and come from a place of working "with" a client.

And you could say a practitioner is a “good” practitioner and a Master Practitioner is a “great” practitioner.

However, I would assert that what makes an Extraordinary Practitioner is several additional elements [at a minimum] transcending yet also including and encompassing the above :::

Having been trained in multiple, seemingly disparate approaches [a combination of Eastern and Western approaches at least]; my rule for practitioners who work with me as a client is at least 3 disciplines or “perspectives” to their training path
Being dynamic with the client [they may have a loose framework, but it is fleshed out quite dynamically by the human being in front of them, who is a variable in the equation, to say the least]
They know where they are headed, often multiple sessions in advance, and have an eye not only on where they’ve been, and where they are going, but also do a bit of dynamic triage at the beginning of the session and are unattached to the “plan” yet still committed to the path.
They have no interest in ego-driven “authority” over a client and elegantly avoid any tension-filled conflict or power struggles as they are not “in the way” of being an instrument for the client and their outcomes
Additionally, they have some understanding of the verticality [stages/waves/levels] in multiple "lines" of development and it is well integrated into their offering and work

However, there is one more component I consider critical in addition to all of the above that is an aspect of an extraordinary practitioner. Someone who is a true master and it is this :::

They understand that their client and the client’s evolution is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle.

First, you build out the foundation–the corners and then the outer border. And then you find the appropriate pieces to begin to build in toward the depths of the center. If you attempt to push a piece into the corner that does not belong there, you will break a piece or “blow it out”. Similarly, if you drop a piece in the middle with nothing to connect it to, it is just confusing. No place for it to fit. No place for it to be anchored or connected to, and so it is discarded. Forgotten. Perhaps even lost.

And if that is the case, no one is served.

What truly makes an Extraordinary Practitioner is the ability to discern what the client needs, what they have already integrated, which piece they can handle next, and which piece they will need even beyond that, and to elegantly give them that next piece with wisdom, precision, and with an eye on the ultimate evolutionary expanse for the client and their mental, emotional, and egoic structures.

It takes years and hundreds of clients to be able to develop not only the insight and lack of attachment, but the timing and precision to be an agent in service of the client in this way. And when you find them, they are worth their weight in gold, to be sure.

Thanks, blessings,

Jason McClain

December 31, 2009

The Lies About How To Tell If A Person Is Lying To You

One of the great misunderstandings of NLP is the misuse of eye accessing cues to asses truthiness.

In this essay Susan Stageman, one of our contributors and a long time NLP Trainer, explains it for you.

If you missed it, last week's video is fixed. You can catch it here: http://www.nlpco.com/library/nlp-video/anchoring-tb I'll have more for you as the software permits…

Cheers, and may the New Year be your best ever!

Tom Dotz

PS: You have a few more days for the holiday sale – it runs through the weekend, until Monday. Check it out here: http://shop.nlpco.com

The Lies About How To Tell If A Person Is Lying To You

I hear this often on TV shows and from what I understand, it is generally taught to police officers. What I hear is that if a person looks up to right, they are lying. This is another myth that originated from NLP and was taken out of context and taught wholesale to people without having the entire understanding of what they were saying.

NLP was originally developed to help people model excellence in human communication, learning and behavior. It helped us understand how people operated as systems. Early on in NLP, eye patterns (or eye cues) were taught to people as part of understanding internal computation (the sequence of patterning, Strategy, a person uses to do things or think, like how they make decisions).

Strategies are programs that run in the mind to do everything we do. Discerning the Internal Computation was part of strategy elicitation. Eye patterns were taught to therapists to so that they would pay attention to the internal processing of the client and/or match that processing to develop rapport.

For most of the Western European population, when eyes go up and to the left, a person is accessing remembered visual information and when eyes go up and to the right, a person is accessing constructed visual information. (Note: there are numerous exceptions in the way people are internally organized. A Basque friend of mine is completely reversed. He looks down to access visually.)

Somehow, over the years "constructed information" came to mean a person was making it up and therefore lying.

BUT many right handed, normally organized people construct out of recall. The images are extracted out of a remembered memory. In FROGS INTO PRINCES by Richard Bandler and John Grinder (page 21), you'll find that when Bandler and Grinder asked a number of the same questions of various participants, they got similar but not entirely the same eye movements.

Some people would do one thing and others would do something else. To enhance rapport and understanding, a person would then match the words with the eye movements: visual eye movements with visual "see" predicate words and phrases. In fact, on a biochemical level, all memories are 'constructed'(1). How 'constructed' a memory has to be to trigger a constructed eye-accessing pattern isn't clear.

Then somewhere someone got the idea that if you asked a person a question and they got the answer out of visual construct that meant that they were lying.

NO, NO, NO. It means nothing of the kind. The whole idea of NLP was to get people to stop generalizing about people. Ironically, in this example the opposite happened: generalization on top of generalization resulted in gross misunderstanding, and likely even in some real harm.

Maybe the best approach to the whole issue is the simplest: just don't hang around with people you think lie to you. It makes life much easier.

Susan Stageman is the founder of NLP Training Concepts, LLC. She is a Master NLP Practitioner and Certified Trainer. She has been teaching NLP since 1989.

(1) The Psychobiology of Mind-Body Healing, Ernest Lawrence Rossi, 1986, W.W. Norton & Company, page 69.

December 18, 2009

Cement Trucks and Miracles: Having More in Your Life

Sometimes people ask, "What is your Spirituality?"
The one answer I am always sure about is gratitude.
The miracle is that you and I are here.
The odds against us were millions to one.
The miracle is that we exist at all.
Everything else is a bonus.

This is our traditional season of giving and sharing. Yet economically it's been a tough year for many people.

So especially in times like these, I like to remember what we all have to be grateful for, starting with our very existence.

Abundance, surplus, chance, fortune, call it what you will, sometimes lurks in the most unlikely places. It does favor the prepared mind. The prepared mind keeps your awareness open to opportunity instead of just loss.

That's easy when times are easy, and most needed when times are tough. It's tough when our social reality seems all about scarcity and fear. That's a hard place to prosper from.

So I thought this story timely. In NLP speak it demonstrates the value of what we call "perceptual filters." In plain English, it's about keeping your awareness open enough to notice the unlikely opportunity right in front of you. It's also a good challenge to those scarcity notions lurking in the back of your consciousness.

Cement Trucks and Miracles.

Some time ago, I enjoyed being part of a volunteer group that worked on improving schools in California.

We would get together teams of 100 to 200 people, pick a public school, and volunteer to go in for a weekend and do things like repaint the classrooms, refinish the desks, and rebuild the play areas.

We did this at no cost to the school. We would ask the school what they wanted most. Then we would go out into the local community and solicit donations of materials for the project.

It was a real delight. The children would come back to school on a Monday and think they must be in a new school, because it looked so much better and different from the classroom they had left on Friday.

We also had a lot of fun working with our friends, enjoying potluck meals, and usually a bit of dancing and partying when the work was done.

One of these weekends, while I was working on a school in Bonny Doon, a most amazing thing happened at the school in San Jose.

The team of a hundred or so was working on their various tasks, when the team working on the playground equipment found themselves stopped.

As the day went by, they realized more and more that to complete the job they really needed a large amount of concrete. Somehow, they missed this in the planning process.

While they were standing around and discussing how they could solve this, one of the team members looked up.

At the other end of the school ground, he saw a cement truck parked on the street. It was sitting right in front of the school with its engine idling and the large hopper on the back turning around. He realized it had been sitting there for some time.

He said, "Hey, I wonder what that's about. Let me go talk to him and find out." He went over and talked to the driver, and this is what he learned.

The driver was on his way to a delivery when the drive shaft on his truck broke. "I was heading down the freeway and suddenly I had no acceleration, no control. I still had brakes, but I couldn't accelerate. I saw an off ramp, took it, and luckily the light at the intersection was green, so I turned right and coasted just this far before I came to a stop."

"So what are you going to do?" the volunteer asked.

"I don't know. There are very few tow trucks that can pull a truck this heavy. My dispatcher has been trying to find one. If we don't find one real soon, the concrete will start to harden inside the truck, and then we have a big problem."

You can imagine the grin on the volunteer's face as he said, "I think we may be able to help you."

Cheers,
Tom Dotz

PS: Every year I like to create something to keep my mind trained to the joy of giving, the discipline of abundance and opportunity. So look for a special announcement next Tuesday that will allow you to share in being one of the "cement trucks" in life. You'll have a unique opportunity to do yourself well by doing good.

December 3, 2009

“Happy Hollandaise” – a Holiday Story from Tom Hoobyar

“Happy Hollandaise”

Word count 924, average reading time 3.7 minutes

There’s a lot to learn from what people say. And much of the time, it’s not what you might think.

Here’s an interesting example that took place in our house last Christmas.

Our two grown sons (my stepsons) and their families were visiting for the Holidays. My wife Vikki was going to make her famous Eggs Benedict for Christmas brunch. We all enjoy each other’s company, and our crowded noisy house was filled with laughter.

Unfortunately, while the kids were opening their presents Vikki started feeling really sick to her stomach. Soon she was in bed, down with a bug that she had caught from one of our grandchildren.

No way was she going to be able to face making breakfast for eight people.

“No problem”, the boys and I said, “we’ll do it ourselves.”

Their women applauded us.

So we divided up the work; eggs, muffins, Hollandaise sauce. None of us guys had done this before but – hey – we had the cookbook. And after all, how hard could it be?

One of the guys poached the eggs – like, 16 of ‘em.

“Don’t you want your mom’s poaching pan gadget?” I asked.

“Nope, I’ll just drop them in boiling water like on TV”, he said.

Hmmm. Okay.

The other son was working on the muffins. He sliced them and put them under the broiler.

“Don’t you want to wait a bit until we get the sauce under control?” I asked.

“Naw, it’s gonna be easy. All we have to do is melt some butter and beat it in with the eggs and lemon and stuff.”

Hmmm. Okay.

So I read the cookbook and figured out how much butter to melt for the sauce. It seemed like two pounds was a lot, but that’s how my calculations came out. So I took out eight sticks of butter and cut it into a pan for melting while our youngest son was putting the rest of the ingredients into the blender.

I started to get worried when the butter was going into the blender.

“This doesn’t look like sauce. It looks like melted butter.” I said.

“Well, maybe it’s supposed to thicken after we put it into the pitcher” one of the boys said.

Trouble was, it didn’t. We figured it out later. It turns out that, engineer though I am, I can’t figure out cooking measures. I had melted TWICE as much butter as the recipe needed.

And the eggs were a little firm, and the muffins were a little toasty. So basically, we had medium boiled eggs on overdone muffins, drenched in melted butter with a faint lemon taste.

But everyone was a good sport about it, and the coffee and the company were excellent.

Only the breakfast sucked.

Then at one point, my youngest son looked up at me and said, “Hey don’t sweat it, Tom. Even Mom messes this up sometimes.”

I smiled my thanks at his remark, and promised to do better when I roasted the turkey for dinner. And that’s a story for another time.

But let me get to the point about that breakfast.

A couple of days later, when the family had gone to their separate homes and things had settled down, I told my wife about our breakfast adventure during her sickness.

I told her how I had messed up the butter calculation and how dismal the meal had turned out. And I also wanted her to know how easy going and understanding everyone was, and how loving they were.

“And then Jared said to me, ‘don’t worry, Tom, even Mom messes this up sometimes.”

Vikki looked at me like I had called her a snake.

“What? I NEVER mess that up! That’s why the boys love it so much!”

She was really steaming and a little hurt, I think.

“No, wait a minute, Honey. You’re missing the point.” I said, “I think he had something completely different in mind. Take another look at what he said.”

She was willing to give me (and her son) a chance.

“Look”, I said. “I had just single-handedly destroyed a brunch that everyone was looking forward to and Jared was trying to comfort me. And in doing so he actually complimented you.”

“How on Earth did he do that?” she asked.

“Well, you know how the boys are always joking and calling you a Domestic Goddess, right? And they and their wives are always calling you for advice on recipes? So think about what he said.

“He said even Mom messes it up sometimes. He obviously knew you didn’t, and the way he was referring to you shows he was trying to say that if even you – the Domestic Goddess of our family — could mess it up, then it was understandable that I, a mere mortal and a man could mess it up.”

“Don’t you see? He was complimenting you and comforting me all at the same time. It was a totally loving thing to say.”

Her face softened and her eyes glistened.

“I love our family so much,” she said. “I’m going to make Eggs Benedict the next weekend one of the kids comes to visit.”

“Well,” I said, “you might give it a while. Let them forget my version first.”

But the important memory I carry from that failed Christmas breakfast was how generous my stepson had been with me, and how his Mom had almost misunderstood his intentions.

It’s hard to know what someone means by what they say, unless you “listen behind the words”.

Seeya,

Tom Hoobyar

P.S. I’ve opened a special kind of Mastermind group for folks who need the most help at the lowest cost. It should really benefit NLP’ers who are in business for themselves. You can read about it here. http://www.tomhoobyar.com/vm

November 11, 2009

There's Always An Alternative

When NLP started practitioners usually only got to work with friends, college students, and really tough situations. Friends because they're around, and tough challenges because the established practitioners, whatever the field, will usually only give up the ones they've given up on.

Oh, and college students because they're available, work cheap, and will follow almost any instructions if you say "it's a scientific study." Ever wonder to what extent our understanding of humans has been influenced by the partially developed nineteen year old mind?

One of the areas where early practitioners did get referrals was in working with (no one would suggest 'curing') cancer patients. Not just any patients, it was the ones who had been classified as terminal.

So this week's little story is a very touching example of how a couple of the pioneers in NLP worked with one of those, turning a six week death sentence into 18 months of fulfilling life. Pretty decent for a couple of short sessions and a story or two.

While recent advances in neuroscience are validating more and more of the models proposed by NLP, this area of the effect of NLP on healing is still one of anecdotal evidence only.

Yet "proven" or not, stories can be pretty compelling, and useful in many ways. Aside from health and spirit, stories have gotten Presidents elected, cities built, and countries started. I was once told that Benjamin Franklin considered his greatest invention the word "America" and the story of "Americans." Just a story, remember. Anecdotal evidence is all we have here, too.

These are by Norma and Phil Baretta, the couple I introduced you to last week. These are from seminar transcripts, told in their own words. The first is a very short one adopted from Start Trek. The second is a longer and more detailed case study of a woman given six weeks to live.

Enjoy,
Tom Dotz

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's Always An Alternative

Norma: I would like to tell you a metaphor that’s straight out of the old Star Trek, the one where we had Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy, Scottie the engineer and in one particular episode, the crew takes a small satellite ship, along with Spock and Scottie, to explore a small planet to see if there’s any life form on the planet. In landing, they crash, they damage their engines, they lose all their fuel. They discover much to their dismay that the planet is indeed inhabited by creatures so huge they throw spears the size telephone poles.

Phillip: That’s big.

Norma: Spock deploys the crew members with their phaser guns to keep the monsters away from the ship with his logic.

Phillip: He says to the group, you fire your weapons there it will keep them in abeyance there. You fire your group of weapons there, it will keep them in abeyance and we can proceed with what we’re doing. However, these creatures didn’t have the same intellect or logic that Spock did and they began to encroach upon the ship. So, Spock decided that he’d better go find out what the situation is and he walks in and says to Scottie…

Norma: Mr. Scot, what’s our condition.

Phillip: And Scottie, of course, says “We’re doomed. We damaged our engines, we lost all our fuel, there’s nothing on this planet that will give us our fuel back into the engines, we’re doomed.”

Norma: Spock raises his eyebrow and says “Mr. Scot, what are our alternatives?”

Phillip: Scottie says “Man, didn’t you hear me? I told you, we’re doomed. We have no alternatives.”

Norma: The eyebrow goes a little higher and Spock says “Mr. Scot, there’s always an alternative.” And sure enough they found one. What they did, was drain the power out of their phasers after Scottie repaired the engine, as he always does, and that power gave them the ability to lift off to safety. However, for one tiny moment in time and space, they were totally vulnerable, defenseless, but allowing that vulnerability, leaving themselves defenseless, gave them the power to lift off to safety.

Case Report #3A: Six weeks and Preparing to Live

Norma: We had a cancer patient come in, this is a case from about 15 years ago, and she’s come directly from an internist to whom she went in tears after the oncologist told her: put your affairs in order, you’ve got about six weeks to live.
And, she was devastated. She said, “Six weeks isn’t long enough.” And when this woman came in… And the doctor who referred her said to help her to accept that verdict.

Not my job and not (my) belief system either. So she came in and she’s looking very pink. Well, I’ve seen cancer patients and when they’re at last stage, they are pretty gray. This lady was still quite pink. And she described what the doctor had said to her and he said that the cancer had advanced to the bone and that it was a very rapid type and it would probably be less than six weeks and she’d be gone.

I said to her, “Are you ready to die?” And she looked first at Phil and then she looked at me and she said “No!” I said then let’s go for it. He probably lied to you in other instances too. So you know, let’s see what happens. Besides, how can he predict that humans are not very good at making predictions about? She got a little bit angry, a very good sign. She said yes let’s go for it. And so, instead of talking about preparing for death, we talked about preparing to live the rest of her life fully and completely.

First thing I asked her was “Is there anything that you always wanted to do that you never had time to do?” “Oh, yes,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to learn to play the organ.” That gives you lots of room for metaphors because organ has so many meanings and you are looking [for ambiguities] when you are working metaphorically with the patient, you’re looking for metaphors that come from them that will have multiple meanings. Words with a great deal of ambiguity about them give you exactly the kind of tools that you need to construct the metaphor.

Well, after that first session, she went directly to a music store and bought a $7,000 organ and had it delivered the next day and began to take lessons. Now, luckily she was a lady who could afford to do that and that gave her the impetus to kind of get started and created some hope. Michael Yapko has recently written a book called The Treatment of Depression with Hypnosis and the first thing that he advocates is you’ve got to give the person hope because they’ve lost it by the time they come in, they’ve lost it and that’s the first thing you want to install is a tiny bit of hope and hope for that to build.

Well, Doris in this case took organ lessons, learned to play the organ. She’d come in originally in April (given "six weeks to live). In August, she was a delegate to a convention in Ohio. On the way home from Ohio, she stopped and visited her family. And she bought, here’s another good indicator, she bought a series ticket for plays that were coming up in the LA area. She loved the theater, so she bought the whole series. Now, that’s an indicator that you’ve installed some hope.

Phillip: Future, future thought.

Norma: And we had done that by talking a great deal about the fact that we like theater and we always buy the series because that guarantees that we’re going to go. And so the threaded language in there was guarantees you’re going to be around and look forward to it and have some hope.

Phillip: Part of the calendar, and you look forward to that particular day, and you plan for that to occur. All of that is future thought.

Norma: At that point, the doctor decided that maybe they should try some chemotherapy, you see they had decided not to do anything because it wasn’t going to work anyway. And so they decided on the chemotherapy, but they told her all the horrible things that will happen. She’ll be nauseous, she’ll lose her hair, she’ll be sick and debilitated for days after the treatment.

Phillip: We’re talking about embedded commands from one end and they’re embedding commands from another end and it’s sort of a battle to see which ones are going to come out. They don’t realize what they are doing. We do. We feel the effect of it. They are protecting themselves.

Norma: And it’s the law, the doctor has to explain the bad side and so they don’t tell that to the patient, or some of them don’t. The ones that study with us now do, but the ones who’ve had no training don’t do that. In any event, she came in again directly from the doctor in tears saying “You know, I don’t know if I want to go through this because this is going to be horrible.” I said, “Well, you know, this is a guy that told you that you are going to be dead in June and here we are and we’re in late August. So you know, he could’ve been wrong about that too.”

Case Report #3B: A Hunger and Thirst for Flourishing

Norma: So, let’s see what we can do. So here comes a very elegant metaphor that again stems from real life. If you ask yourself where am I going to get the best metaphors, they are going to be some part of your experience. So, we told her about the fact that back in 1958, we bought a house in Virginia that was on a third of acre of ground and I think we must have bought when it was dark, because we didn’t ever look at the backyard.

Phillip: Who looks at the back yard?

Norma: And after we put our money down and the house was ours, I took a look at the backyard, this is a third of an acre of ground and it’s like weeds. I looked at that and I looked at Phil and I said “We could live here forever and we’d never clean up these weeds.”

Phillip: And I said “Don’t worry.” I said “Science has really given us some wonderful stuff. Kellogg has put something out called weed and feed and all you do is run this stuff on the ground, the weeds get killed and the grass grows.”

Norma: She sat up and she said, “I know that product and it’s true. It kills all the weeds and let’s the good stuff flourish.”

Phillip: Very selective in terms of what it deals with.

Norma: Now, in addition to that, we [also] embedded a suggestion that during and immediately after each of the chemo treatments, she would find herself quite hungry and very thirsty. And we talked a great deal about how thirsty we were. I hope there is some water here.

Phillip: There’s water here.

Norma: It so happened that there was a volunteer tomato plant growing in front of our offices at that time and it was in August, it was producing beautiful tomatoes and she had noticed one on the way in and as we were talking about being ever so slightly hungry, again she sits bolt upright and she said “A tomato sandwich.”

Phillip: And I remember talking to her about what I’d do when I was a kid, because we grew up in Camden, New Jersey which was the home of Campbell Soup. In those days there was no big parking area for these trucks that come in off the truck farms and they would line the streets of Camden on their way to Campbell Soup. Well there wasn’t a teenager boy who did not carry a salt shaker in his back pocket and we’d take nice ripe tomato off the truck and we’d clean it up, salt it and we’d eat our tomatoes. I talked about how delicious it was and how making tomato sandwiches with mayonnaise on top, on white bread and all of those commands are pictures that I was presenting to her about tomatoes and her stomach gurgled.

Norma: So she was indeed very thirsty and quite hungry and she didn’t experience any nausea and the only thing we didn’t succeed in with her was she did lose her hair, but then she bought a collection of wigs. Well, this lady wound up living for about 18 months, high quality life. She died one evening after attending the theater in her sleep at home. And I think this is a really good example of the kind of bucking the trend and using what we know about language to be able to install a different perspective, which brings us to yet another metaphor.

November 6, 2009

The Magic of Metaphor

Magical Metaphors

Stories for Change

Metaphors are one of the coolest and most flexible ways to use NLP. An NLP metaphor is simple a story with embedded NLP processes of suggestions for change.

Metaphors or stories (like some of those you've read here) are a simple way to use NLP with others, in groups, and with your self.

Stores that are seemingly simple can include profound suggestions for change. Embedding the process in a story is like adding "a spoonful of sugar" to help the medicine go down.

The stories that follow are by a couple of real masters of the art of metaphor. Norma and Phil Baretta started studying hypnosis with Milton Erickson before NLP came along. Erickson's hypnotic language patterns were the starting place for all the hypnotic patterns and processes in NLP. These stories are from a program these two masters did years ago that's all but lost now.

These examples are transcribed directly from the live program. The principles of creating metaphors for change embodied here apply to any area – not to mention the stories are enjoyable for their own sake.

Best,
Tom

PPS: There's a great one day workshop on life goals (and yes, you'll for sure get exposed to more metaphors with one of our favorite trainers, Jan Prince. You can find out about it by clicking here.

PPS: Finally we're moving out fo the old warehouse, so here's your chance for BIG Savings of 20% to 40% on a wide variety of titles. Including best sellers, the quantities are strictly limited to stock on hand, so CLICK HERE to explore and pick out your favorites!

Bye now!

Case Report #4: Unloading Baggage: Two More Less

(utilizing phonological ambiguity)

Norma: One of my favorite cases has to do with a very good friend of ours who is a physician, an orthopedic surgeon, and he has taken our courses so he knows a great deal about the work we do. We took a trip together. He and his wife met us in Vienna and as we are picking them up at the airport.

Phillip: Which was his first trip to Europe, out of this country.

Norma: He is unloading baggage and there's like one bag after another. And you know how you're allowed two bags per person? They had four bags per person.

We had a large car, it's a Volvo, and had a large trunk, but they ended up sitting with two suitcases on the backseat. Little did we know that those two suitcases would provide a perfect embedded command.

Because when we returned from the trip he comes up with cancer. He has a tumor on his bladder. He tells us, "Now don't try to pull any of your shtick on me because I'm one of those guys who suffers from Saint Bernadette's syndrome. I can do it to other people but it's not going to work with me."

You all know about Saint Bernadette? Saint Bernadette was the young French girl who discovered the miraculous waters of Lourdes and then when she was old and ill, they wanted to take her there and she said, "Oh, that's not for me."

I call that Saint Bernadette's syndrome, works for everybody else but it's not going to work for me. I don't suffer from this Lord, Saint Bernadette does not apply to me. What I do works on me too.

IN any event, he's just adamant about this, he's not going to allow us to work with him. But his wife said, "Go over to the hospital and do what you can."

How are we going to get past this guy? He's a brilliant mind. He's one of the most brilliant people I know. He is astute with words. We're going to have to figure something out that's going to bypass.

He was also a student of Roman history, a real Roman history buff. So he knows this one. (thumbs up gesture) But if we do this openly he's going to go, "Naaah, grrr."

This is the type of personality he has, very oppositional. So we walk in and I'm standing at the foot of the bed leaning on the footrest and I've got my thumbs up but unobtrusively. And Phil's like this. So all our movements have the thumbs up sign.

I walk in and I say, "Listen, the next time we go to Europe, because I'm looking forward to our next trip to Europe, you have to bring less luggage."

"Europe," he says, "I don't even want to think about Europe." I said, "Luggage, luggage, not Europe, we have to bring less luggage, in fact you have to bring two more less." "Yeah, yeah, yeah" he says.

Phillip: Because that's what he sat with in the back seat.

Both: Two bags of luggage in the back seat.

Phillip: Because that's what he sat with in the back seat. And he's a buff with crossword puzzles. And I did a couple of the crossword puzzle responses. And I said, "Well, now you have two more less to do." And gave it to him and he's still not picking this up.

Norma: Anybody missing what we're saying here?

Phillip: Two more less to do. I did two of his puzzles.

Norma: Two more less [tumor-less]. Okay? And then we went outside, this is a very popular physician, everyone loves this guy. So we told them, "When you walk into the room, without saying anything do your best to carry the trays with your thumbs up." We come back to visit and he says to us, "You guys are doing something. I know you are doing something!" "Never would I do anything to you." "You are. I know you are. In fact, I have a suspicion you've got the whole hospital doing something to me!"

Phillip: You have to take your pills, doctor.

Norma: So, he recovers, thank God. And he is back in the office and about six months go by. During the six months every opportunity he had, "Norma, Phil, please, I know you did something. Tell me what you did."

"Never, never. Even if we did we wouldn't tell you but why would we do a thing like that. You precisely said don't do it. We were precisely listening to what you said." "No, I know you did something."

Six months, the phone rings one afternoon, our daughter answers it, we're in session. She comes knocking on the door. And she knows she's not to disturb a session but she's knocking on the door. I open the door and said, "What is it?" She said, "God's on the phone."

I said, "Oh, Jordan." "He wants both of you. Right now." We excuse ourselves from the patient we're working with. We go to the phone. I'm on one line, he's on the other. "Are you both there?" "Yes." "Yes." "Two more less." BANG! – he hangs up the phone.

Phillip: Finally hit the conscious part.

Norma: Got it.

Case Report #7: Stuck in a Rut

Phillip: We had a woman come in who was not in a medical situation but who was in a divorce situation. And was really stuck about what to do, how to do it. She ended up getting the business in this divorce, literally and figuratively. She never was involved in the business but she got the business and she did not know what to do with it or how to deal with the situations that occur with it, all the finances and people had been telling her what to do.

She had people who were advisers telling her what she should do with this or that. And she still was stuck.

So I told her the story about a frog hopping down the road. And this frog heard, "Ribbit," and stopped. He said, "I found another frog here some place because that's a frog sound and I'm not making it."

He hops again and hears, "Ribbit," again and still can't locate the other frog. He takes a quick frog and stops and listens and hears, "Ribbit," and turns his head towards the sound and there's a hole in the side of the road.

He hops over and looks into this hole and sure enough, there's a frog in this rut in the road. He says to the frog in the rut, "What are you doing in the rut?" The frog in the rut says, "I don't know. I was hopping along this road minding my own business, not really paying much attention to anything and I fell into this rut and I can't jump out. Can you help me?"

Of course the frog on the top of the road is a very good Samaritan and he says, "Of course. Get a hold of my hand." He puts his hand down into this rut and the frog jumps and jumps and jumps but can't make contact with the hand."

So the frog in the rut says, "I have an idea. Why don't you put your leg down." The frog's leg is longer than the frog's hand. So he jumps and jumps and jumps and still can't make contact with the leg. Still can't get out. The frog in the rut says, "I have another idea. Why don't you jump down here, I'll get on your back and I'll be able to jump out."

Well, the frog on the top of the road says, "I don't like that idea too well. If I jump down there I'm liable to get stuck down there same as you. I need to be on my way, there are a lot of things I want to do. Good luck."

He goes hopping off down the road. Gets maybe 50-60 yards off into the meadows and hears "Ribbit," turns around, and this frog is right behind him. He says, "Wait a minute. I just left you back in that rut. You said you were there for a long time and you couldn't jump out. I tried to help you out for a long time and I couldn't help you out and suddenly you're right behind me. What happened?"

The frog said, "There was a truck coming."

Norma: She sat there, a total blank and said, "I don't get it. Why are you telling me that silly story?"

Phillip: And I said, "I don't explain them, I just tell them."

Norma: She turned to me and said, "I'm paying you good money here. You tell me what that story means." And I said, "Well that would be like handing you the skin of the orange with the pulp removed and all you would have would be the skin. So I'm not going to explain it either." She was furious. So she stormed out and as it happened we couldn't see her for a couple of weeks because of her schedule and ours. She comes back a few weeks later. She sits in the chair and she says, "Well, I've opened a new bank account, I've changed accounts, I've changed the name of the company…" She was naming off all the things that she's done to take charge of this business that she got in the divorce settlement. She sits back, takes a deep breath and says…

Phillip: "I guess my truck came along."

Norma: And it was at that moment that she understood the story.

October 28, 2009

Choosing Your Triggers

A good friend of mine once said to me "No matter what, if a business isn't meeting your goals in three years, drop it and move on to something else – no matter what!"

Charlie Sheppard is one of the most consistently happy people I've ever known. He has the lovely family, loyal friends, beautiful home, the income and independence that almost anyone would envy.

Charlie, an old time NLP'er and I had recently met. I had started my first NLP Institute about a year and half before. We discovered we both had started businesses at various times in our lives. So we found ourselves talking about the ins and outs of starting and running a business. We both agreed that it was usually easy to know when a venture was succeeding.

When a venture isn't succeeding though, tough questions come up. Do you invest more, work more or harder, change plans or markets or models? Or do you simply give it up and move on?

Whether a business, a relationship, or any activity or commitment, how do you know when it's time to change instead of just keeping at it?

Charlie's trigger was time. A very specific amount of time in a very specific context. Both the element of time and the length he chose may seem arbitrary. Perhaps in some businesses three years would be too short a time.

However, what is vitally important is that he set a limit. It was his limit, his choice, and he did it in advance.

He was able to stick to it, too, "no matter what," because it was a choice he was congruent about.

Last week I posted a story that I said was subtle in its use of NLP.

It's one of those places where to gain understanding, you have to hold two opposing ideas and values in your head at the same time.

A popular saying in the world of NLP is that "to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result is a definition of insanity."

Quite a contrast to that popular wisdom "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again." The values of persistence and commitment are hailed widely and loudly throughout our culture. The value of knowing the difference between persistence and a failing course is not so widely hailed.

So how do you know the difference between doing the same thing and expecting a different result, and simply persisting – and hoping?

Like Charlie, the answer is in the triggers you set, or fail to set, for change. In NLP these are an essential part of how we choose and create goals. It's what we call a well formed outcome. The triggers for "do something different/change course" are based on criteria.

While there are many important criteria, time also has the quality of serving as a trigger for change. This is really useful as long as you make it specific.

Saying "I want a raise soon or I'm going to change jobs" is too sloppy.

Saying "I want a raise in 90 days or less, by (month, date)" is much more likely to trigger you to action.

Have you set triggers for change, for new ways, in your life goals?

If you have, add them to the "comments" below and share what works for you!

If not, this is likely a very good time to do so.

Best regards,

Tom Dotz

PS: the subject of outcomes is covered extensively in our "NLP Practitioner Training" both the residential program and the "NLP At Home" Living Encyclopedia. Click here to read more.

There is also an excellent discussion and instruction in the book "Solutions" and in the "Fundamentals of NLP" home study program.

PPS: There's a great one day workshop on the topic of outcomes with one of our favorite trainers, Jan Prince. You can find out about it by clicking here.

« Previous ... 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... Next »

What Is NLP?

What Is NLP?

About Us

Uses of NLP

Uses of NLP

NLP Training

NLP Training

Store

NLP by Topic

NLP by Media

NLP Indexes

Library: Articles, Stories, & More

Library: Articles, Stories, & More

Research Abstracts

The Power Of Four – How Four Little Questions Can Change Your World

A Pound Of Framing: The Power Of Language In Politics And Life

Markets Tumble, People Stumble, and How NLP Helps You Get Up Again

Confidence & Criticism – New Video; Science Discovers Time

Tom Best: A Strategy For Responding To Criticism

What Distinguishes a "Good" Practitioner from a "Great" One?

The Lies About How To Tell If A Person Is Lying To You

Cement Trucks and Miracles: Having More in Your Life

“Happy Hollandaise” – a Holiday Story from Tom Hoobyar

There's Always An Alternative

There's Always An Alternative

Case Report #3A: Six weeks and Preparing to Live

The Magic of Metaphor

Choosing Your Triggers

Popular NLP News & Tips Emails

Post Categories