Posted on 12 March 2010 | No Comments
On the weekend I was sitting in a Fremantle cafe when a convertible car drove past with its radio blaring. The song I heard was Queen’s “We Are the Champions”. Hearing that song made me think… It is a small thing but what a difference that song could make to how the people in that car feel. That song is really going to build their mood up!
There are so many rituals that we all have in our days and they can so easily make us feel better about ourselves. Just from the music we have playing to the way we eat to the time we spend staying fit will all make a difference to our long-term results.
What is it that you do that, if you were to do it on a more regular basis, you know would lead to better results in your life?
For some people, like those in the convertible, it could be listening to the right music. For others it could be finding the time to regularly mediate. While it may even be spending time with inspirtational friends over coffee. What is it for you? Find what will make you more successful and make it a part of your day-to-day life.
Posted on 10 March 2010 | No Comments
This post has a fascinating video with Jamie Smart from Salad Ltd. It demonstrates beautifully the power that small changes in language can have over your results. Check it out:
So, what did you think? Because you’ve watched the video you’re probably wanting to know more about NLP… right? Only kidding 
How could you use this in your day-to-day life to get more powerful results?
Further Reading:
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
Posted on 8 March 2010 | 1 Comment
This is an excellent NLP Pattern for public speaking. I’ve been practicing it lately and getting good results even in one-on-one situations. Essentially the Charisma Pattern is a method used by many great public speakers (i.e. Martin Luther King) to build really fast and strong rapport.
You start by speaking slowly with kinisthetic words. Then you speed your speech up a bit and start using auditory words. Finally you move fully into visual with even faster speech and visual words.
This is an example script that makes use of the Charisma Pattern for a public speaker:
Weeeelcome (Said really slowly). It feels really good that you’ve all made it today. (Speeding up a bit) Speaking to a few of you on the phone in the lead up to this event I know how excited some of you are to be here today. (And going even faster) And now to see you all here, sitting where you’re sititng, I just know that things are going to go well today.
So given that my explanation and example probably still have you scratching your head I found this video that shows it in action that is well worth watching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLdDcFmfBLU
Posted on 5 March 2010 | 1 Comment
Think for a moment about how you approach traffic lights when you’re out in your car. Are you one of those people that puts their foot down when the light goes yellow? Or maybe you brake approaching traffic lights, despite the lights being green? Possibly you even change your route so that you don’t need to pass through any traffic lights.
How you approach traffic lights is often similar to how you approach opportunities. Are you somebody that sees a great opportunity yet approaches it slowly and cautiously? Or do you wait until the opportunity is about to pass you by until you act?
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison
Take a moment to think about how are you approaching the opportunities in your life…
How could you better approach opportunities so that you get the best results right now?
Posted on 3 March 2010 | No Comments
Even though NLP is quite commonly talked about now, once upon a time NLP wasn’t even around. In fact, NLP is relatively young and wasn’t really established until the 1970’s. The fundamentals that allowed for the creation of NLP though began long, long before that.
In 1943 Alfred Korzybski wrote a book called Science and Sanity discussing the idea of Logical Levels. Korzybski said something really interesting in this book, he said that “Almost all psychological problems were the result of the inability of a person to traverse logical levels”. That’s interesting because he suggested that sometime in the future there would be a wholly processed description of the human being that would come along and actually describe a human being. And that is what we call today, Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
Around 1975 Richard Bandler was a student at University of California, Santa Cruz and John Grinder was a linguistic Professor. Bandler had a specific interest in Computer Programming and Gestalt Therapy. He happened to be editing a book about Fritz Perls and as time passed Richard decided that he could actually do Gestalt Therapy (Just from listening to audio tapes in relation to editing the book) and in actual fact he was very, very good at it. As Richard began to move forward and use the things he had learnt Richard realised that he had a specific gift of modeling – being able to observe what worked and then create something out of it.
This is the foundation of NLP and where idea of NLP being a notion and a methodology comes from. It comes from that idea of actually being able to look and see what is excellent behaviour and how that excellent behaviour is produced. It starts with a simple question: How do I take that behaviour and how do I try that on myself so that I can get the same results for myself? NLP really begins as a notion and a methodology that leaves behind a trail of good techniques for achieving excellence.
To begin with the three major people that Bandler & Grinder modelled were Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir and Fritz Perls. These three people were chosen by Bandler & Grinder in the early days of NLP as they were experts in magically creating change in people by simply using the right words. And that is what NLP is about, being able to create magical change. It begins with an attitude of curiosity to know what is going on behind what is going on. When we use NLP and look at a human being we look at that human being with wonderment and we ask ourselves “How is it possible that this person in this circumstances could produce this behaviour?”. Now the second thing, which could be equally as important as curiosity, is the willingness to experiment. To begin to try new things to see if it is going to work.
As Bandler & Grinder’s notes began to stack up they released their first two books in 1975:
- The Structure of Magic I: A Book About Language and Therapy; and
- The Structure of Magic II: A Book About Communication and Change.
These books contain the basis of the Meta Model, a model of communication that works by becoming more specific and removing Generalisations, Distortions and Deletions from peoples language and thoughts. This work was primarily derived from their study of Perls and Satir.
Following these two books both Bandler & Grinder studied Milton Erickon, arguably the best hypnotherapist of our time, and from their study of Erickson they published Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, Volumes I & II. These books contained the basis of the Milton Model, a model of communication that works by becoming more vague and introducing Generalisations, Distortions and Deletions into peoples language and thoughts. Interestingly, the Milton Model is almost the complete opposite of the Meta Model – but both get reliable results.
Ultimately, the Meta Model & Milton Model serve to prove Alfred Korzybski correct – by traversing logical levels it is possible for problems to just disappear.
These models were just the tip of the iceberg though. From Bandler & Grinder’s studies of these three therapists a whole field of information was created. Beyond these models they started documenting new techniques and ideas such as anchoring, reframing, submodalities, perceptual positions, and representational systems. As the usefulness of the techniques began to gain a following more and more resources, such as books and seminars began to be produced. From the work of Bandler & Grinder in the 1970’s and the books that they have published, both together and individually, NLP now has a huge body of knowledge behind it from many, many different authors.
Posted on 1 March 2010 | 2 Comments
NLP, or Neuro-Lingustic Programming, is such a wide field of study that it can be hard to put a simple definition to. NLP is a way of thinking about ideas and people that allows you to excel in any field. Essentially the idea is that we can study people who are getting great results and reduce their behaviours down to a model, or the bare minimum required to consistently get their results. This model can then be taught and shared and this process allows others to replicate the same results in much, much less time. For this reason NLP is often called the art and science of personal excellence.
NLP is a practical skill that results from studying what makes the difference between excellence and average. Through the pursuit of excellence NLP leaves behind a trail of highly effective techniques with applications in Business, Therapy, Education and beyond. At the nitty gritty level NLP draws on general symantics, linguistics, hypnosis and gestalt therapy while taking into account ecology and family therapy. So really NLP becomes a study of ‘what works’ and the study of how you produce results.
NLP stands for Neuro-Lingustic Programming and can be broken down into three core parts:
Neuro relates to the nervous system (the mind), through which our experience is processed via the five senses of Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Olfactory and Gustatory (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste). These five senses are the inputs into our nervous system and the sources that we rely upon to build our internal experience.
Lingustic relates to language and other nonverbal communication systems through which our neural representations are coded, ordered and given meaning. This includes pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, smells and words (self talk).
Programming relates to the ability to discover and utilise the programs that we run (Both in communication with ourselves and others) that lead to our positive or negative results.
In other words, NLP is how to use the language of the mind to consistently achieve our specific and desired outcomes.
