Hypnotherapy Training In Orlando

Posted on 29 May 2007

I just got news yesterday that my favorite trainer, Michael Watson is offering Hypnotherapy training in Orlando again this year. I have worked with Michael a number of times and have been lucky enough to train under him in both NLP and Hypnotherapy. Currently he is in the UK training with one of my other favorite trainers Jamie Smart at Salad, and for Jamie to fly him over to the UK to train his customers is indeed high praise and recognition.

Michael has also worked with NLP Comprehensive and trained with some of the greats of NLP and Hypnotherapy such as Steve and Connierae Andreas, John Grinder, Robert Dilts, Richard Bandler, David Gordon, Charles Faulkner and many more. He has been working as a trainer for over 20 years and offers a great relaxed learning style that really promotes integrated learning.

Michael charges very reasonable rates (under $1,000 early bird) for a course that covers 10 days over 5 weekends (so hopefully no time off work needed) and starts in mid August. If you have a desire to learn hypnotherapy either for your own benefits or maybe to use on clients then this is a great opportunity.

Drop me a line at A Daring Adventure for more information.

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Embrace Failure

Posted on 27 May 2007

Do you go out of your way to avoid of disappointment and letdown in your business and home life? Do you ever back away from projects that you think are risky and do not guarantee success? Do you steer clear of situations where you feel like a fish out of water because you don’t enjoy the feeling of not being in control? Do you see people that mess up or fail in something as being failures in life?

If the answer to any of the above is yes then I would encourage you to reconsider the way you look at success.

Richard Branson has constantly taken risks both in is private life and business many of his businesses have been less than successful, yet he is quire rightly seen as an icon in the business world. Donald Trump declared business bankruptcy in the early 90’s and almost had to declare personal bankruptcy the following year but he does ok for himself. Not many people either side of the Atlantic would really think of either Branson or Trump as failures yet they have failed. The most effective and successful people in life are risk takers and do you know why that is?

They know that the more you fail the more you learn, that the more you learn the more you succeed and therefore paradoxically the more you fail the more you succeed.

As humans we learn much more quickly by failing at things and noticing what doesn’t work. As babies we learn to walk by putting one foot in front of the other and just trying it out. When we fall over we do not think ‘huh, I guess I’ve not got this walking thing right at all, I guess I’ll stick to crawling’ No, we get back up and try again, we have not learned to be embarrassed by failure at that age so we tenaciously keep going. Not only that, but we are encouraged by our parents when we do well and just as pertinently not rebuked for falling over.

Then something strange starts to happen. As we go through the school years suddenly it becomes apparent that failing is no longer quite such acceptable option. Sports teams are pushed hard to succeed by coaches, mom and dad want to see straight A’s on that report card, teachers use red pen to highlight your errors and the smallest indiscretion can result in raucous laughter and finger-pointing by peers.

So bit-by-bit we withdraw into our shell and start to develop the fear of failure that is so prevalent in our society. We are actually taught this by parents, teachers, peers, family members etc, it wasn’t hard wired in before birth. Of course nobody really means to do this, most of the advice and admonishments are meant well but the damage is done nevertheless.
 
To be really successful in life we need to embrace failure and not fear it. We need to approach projects with an attitude that says ‘I’ll do my best and if that doesn’t work, no problem I’ll try a something new’ We are human beings we mess up, but if we can laugh at and learn from our mistakes we remove the need to worry about failure as well as making it less likely to happen anyway.

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The Power To Influence - Part Three

Posted on 25 May 2007

So now you know how to pace and lead as well as mirror and match lets look at some other aspects that separate the good from the great communicators and influencers.

One other thing that you can do when listening is to paraphrase back. This may only mean repeating one salient part of the sentence. So if somebody says, “I had a great vacation last year, the weather was fantastic, we loved Aruba and we did loads of scuba diving” you could reply by saying “really? Scuba diving?” This has two effects, firstly it shows you are paying attention because you cannot repeat what they said if you were miles away and secondly by using an upwards inflexion on the end of the sentence it invites the other person to expand on what they were saying as you made the statement into a question.

Questions are another integral part of a great influencers tool kit. Questions allow you to understand an alternative point of view so that you can align with it, something that is crucial when trying to persuade and influence. There are questions like the one above that invite the other person to keep talking and questions that are requests for relevant information to help you understand something. The more you look like you are genuinely trying to appreciate their point of view the more highly they will think of you and the more likely you are to be in a position to influence.

When asking questions always resist the temptation to either give the answer yourself or dive back in before the other person has finished speaking. Finishing other people’s sentences for them is never an endearing trait!

Never start a reply with the word but or however. By doing this you are negating the other persons opinion and imposing your own. Even a response like ‘good point, but’ is not acceptable so get that out of your system if you want to be a great influencer. It is almost always possible to use the word and instead of but. By doing that you are agreeing with them and then adding some extra value to what they have said and they are far more likely to agree with you.

When you have built up solid rapport, understand the other person opinion and know what it is you want to achieve (I presume you have started with the end in mind and actually know what you want to achieve)) then you can start to put your case.

Always start by re-capping what the other person just said. It is advisable to start off with something along the lines of ‘ Just let me run this by you so I am completely sure I understand what it is your saying’ This allows them to make any minor corrections and now you know there will be no cross purposes.

Delivering your own point of view should now be a snap. Keep you voice level constant, do not beat about the bush and be honest. There are ways that you can use language to get your point of view across more forcefully such as sleight of mouth, advanced language patterns, embedded commands and future pacing but I really have not got time to go into all those.

Another useful NLP tool that I haven’t covered off is anchoring. Anchoring can be very powerful if used correctly and you can read a description in my January newsletter by clicking here

If you are interested in learning more than check out Creating Irresistible Influence with NLP” which is a truly excellent introduction to the field.

Does all this mean you will never lose an argument again and everybody will love you? Probably not, but it will make it more likely that people have a favorable impression of you and be prepared to hear what you have to say.

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The Power To Influence - Part Two (Rapport Building)

Posted on 24 May 2007

Firstly, I should say that everybody can build rapport to a greater or lesser degree, we do it on a daily basis with family, friends, colleagues and casual acquaintances, it is how we communicate. To build rapport simply means to generate a relationship with another person that usually involves mutual trust and affinity. It can involve liking and respecting the other person but it is also possible to be in rapport with somebody that you are ambivalent about as a person.

I must confess that it is possible to influence somebody that you are not in rapport with (usually by fear) but it is far more difficult the effects are usually short-lived.

An important part of this to understand is that people like people who are like themselves. So we tend to gravitate to people that think like us, speak like us, act like us, even look like us. Therefore, when trying to build rapport quickly it is important to make the other person believe that you are like them.

Anybody that has worked in customer service will probably know of pacing and leading. This is a crucial tool for building rapport especially in situations when things may not be going well. Gone are the days when a smile and an apology is seen as the only option, as often as not this is just as likely to antagonize the other person than it is to appease them.

When we pace somebody we are closely matching their intensity, speed of delivery and tonality etc to make them feel like we are on the same page. This does not mean you should try and mimic their accent or any particular speech peculiarities that they may have just get as close as you can whilst remaining consistent with how you normally sound. That may sound contradictory but everybody varies their speech style somewhat depending on how excited, relaxed, anxious etc that they are so it is nothing like as obvious as you may think.

Note: Real experts will also pace somebody elses breathing and if you feel confident you can do that then go ahead and give it a go.

Once we have paced the other person for a few minutes we can then start to lead. This allows you to slowly change your own voice to what you think is appropriate and they will unconsciously follow. 

Pacing and leading can almost get you there on your own especially if you are talking on the phone but in face-to-face there is another dynamic to throw in to the mix. Mirroring and matching. This is the point that most people throw up their arms in exasperation when I tell them what to do because they tend to think it will look obvious. Trust me, it wont.

Mirroring and matching are two sides of the same coin. In effect all you are doing is copying the body language of the person you are talking to. So if they cross their arms you do the same a second or two later, if they put their hand to their chin you do likewise. It sounds ridiculous and apparent but I have never had anybody ask me if I am mirroring them. The reason for that is that we do this naturally all the time when we are in rapport we just aren’t aware of it. Go and watch people in a social environment and you will see many examples of people doing this exact thing and you will also be able to spot people that are not in rapport as they seldom mirror or match.

So now you are a world class at pacing and mirroring and no doubt want to step it up a level so lets introduce something called active listening.

Have you ever talked to somebody that was constantly looking past you as though they were looking for somebody else? What about somebody that kept checking their cell phone or looking at their watch, or simply refusing to make eye contact? Were you impressed? I would imagine unless you knew then very well them the answer would be an empathtic no!

Most people like to think they are interesting whether they are or not. By showing them in the only meaningful way possible by listening intently you will make a huge impression. Make them the focus of your attention (Note: don’t freak then out by staring straight into the eyes for 5 minutes non-stop) by leaning into the conversation, nodding your head when appropriate and being congruent. By that I mean, make sure that if your eyes are smiling your face is too, that if your voice is saying yes, your body language is giving off the same signals etc. Unless it completely throws out your pacing, try and keep your body open and your arms uncrossed.

Many people during a conversation spend most of their time inside their own head concocting a biting response or checking out references to see if they agree with the other person. Great listeners get out of their own heads and concentrate on the other person. There will be plenty of time to create a response after they have made their point and this way you will have a far greater understanding of the point that was being made and how to react to it.

Actively listening is a skill that requires practice and patience. Most people have a natural inclination to dive in whenever they have a point to make and holding back even when you have a world-shatteringly important piece of information takes a great deal of discipline but the results can make it very worthwhile.
 

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The Power To Influence - Part One

Posted on 23 May 2007

What is it that separates the great influencers and communicators in our society from the rest?

Why is it that we can spot charisma in another person but find it so hard to define what we mean by that term or to develop it within ourselves?

Indeed, can anybody be taught how to be charismatic and a good influencer?

In answering questions one and two I will hopefully show you that the answer to three is a resounding yes. You have the ability to be seen as a charismatic person that has the ability to influence others in a positive manner should you so wish and presuming you are prepared to do the necessary work

I am going to add a caveat to the above by saying that this needs practice, practice and then some more practice. There are people out there that have elements that come naturally to them but more often than not the really proficient have honed their skills over months and years, as has anybody that is at the top of their game.

I also want to explain what I mean by influencing people or maybe more to the point what I do not mean. I do not mean manipulate (as most people tend to use this word), I do not mean brow beat and I do not mean deceive or mislead to get your own way. Influence in the way I am using the word means to help people appreciate, understand and ultimately concur with your point of view.

The first skill of influence is acquiring the ability to build rapport quickly and easily with all different types of people. It is unlikely that you will positively influence anybody that dislikes or does not trust you hence the reason why it is much more easy to persuade friends and family members to do what we wish than it is total strangers. I will go into this in more detail in Part 2.

The second skill is showing a genuine interest in the other person or people you are communicating with by use of questioning technique, body language and your responses. This overlaps with rapport building and as such I will cover them together in Part 2.

The third stage is the ability to actively listen. When I tell people that listening is a real skill they often don’t understand what I mean. After all everybody listens all the time right? Wrong. Again I will explain in more detail what I mean in a forthcoming Blog and explain why everybody loves a good listener and we all remember superb listeners long after they have left our company.

Next comes questioning ability. Again few people are really good at this, it is a skill that not many people bother to fine tune because hey, how hard can it be to ask a question? The answer to that is not very hard at all really, but asking the right question is another matter all together.

Finally, I will take a look at other things that can help the process of persuasion such as anchoring, advanced language patterns, representational systems and anything else that I can think of that is not covered above and that will help you achieve the win/win outcome you are looking for.

So join me tomorrow for a Life Coach’s guide to getting your own way.

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Influencing Creativity

Posted on 22 May 2007

I did a post some while ago asking where do you think best? It was stimulated by the realization that all my best ideas seem to come when I am either at the gym or under reasonably intense physical pressure. I have no idea why this should be the case but it is, and I am happy to go with it. It has the added bonus of getting me off my rear end especially when I need to do some writing, as I know an hour’s exercise will generate any number of ideas for posts and articles.

What I didn’t know at the time of that post was that a book had been written called How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day by Michael Gelb and in it he discusses the same topic.

One of the most interesting facts to come out of endless academic research on the subject of where people think best was that almost nobody ever said that their best thinking came when they were either watching TV or at work!

Now the former I can understand, watching TV is an almost autonomic process these days with multiple advertisement breaks constantly serving to break any real concentration and flow that is usually needed to generate innovative ideas.

However, work was a bit of a surprise, the very place where we are supposed to be at our most creative and where we are getting paid, very often is the place we are likely to be unimaginative and come up against mental blocks.

Why is this I wonder? Or more to the point what can business owners and managers do to counter act it?

Unfortunately, many kids at school are lectured for staring out of windows lost in their own thoughts. Consequently most people don’t like to daydream at work for fear of looking like they are not pulling the weight and so that avenue of resourcefulness is blocked off.

I suppose business owners could ask their employees where they think best, that would be a novelty. Have you ever been asked that at work? I know I haven’t and I think if I had of been I would have been pleasantly surprised. At the very least being asked that question requires that the recipient to put some thought into it because lots of people have absolutely no idea of the environment that serves them most favorably.

Imagine if you are in an industry that ranks originality and creativity highly and you suddenly have the ability to recreate the times in people lives where they are at their most original and creative, wouldn’t that be a huge advantage?

I understand that it will not always be possible to do this, if for example somebody only gets inspired when in the shower it may be a bit tricky. On the other hand, if some others get great ideas when exercising maybe free gym membership would prove to be economically sound and you can kill two birds with one stone with a shower afterwards!

I am really just throwing random thoughts out here because I think it is an interesting topic for discussion. I appreciate that small companies have enough difficulty staying profitable never mind financing employees more esoteric thought-provoking escapades, but maybe for some of the larger ones there is the potential to make staff members happier whilst at the same time increasing revenue through new ground breaking products and ideas.

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Stuff Happens

Posted on 21 May 2007

I was determined to take it easy yesterday and just relax. I had worked every day for 10 straight days and envisioned a day by the pool maybe even with a cold beer and a good book.

I like relaxing, it’s enjoyable and good for you so why wouldn’t anybody do it as much as possible?

I’ll tell you why, because of Stuff, that’s why.

Stuff is designed to stop you doing what you really want to do, Stuff expands to fill available time, Stuff arrives when you least expect it and Stuff does its utmost to throw you off track. It has a contract to adhere to because its job is to test you to the limits of your endurance and then just a little bit more. Like a maternal aunt that doesn’t realize she outstayed her welcome in 1988 Stuff will hang around ad infinitum if you don’t throw it out.

So what is Stuff?

That’s a tricky question because it can morph into anything you don’t want it to be. It could be a toilet overflowing when you are about to go to the movies, it could be a knock on the door that ends up being a 30 minute conversation you didn’t want, it could be a call to your bank that ends up being 45 minutes long of which 40 minutes is on hold, it could be losing your Internet connection and the phone company saying it’s a router fault and the router company saying it’s a problem with the phone line, it can be a million different things or just one.

So yesterday I got hit by Stuff early on and never recovered. I did deal very harshly with some ants, collect some groceries, write a post, mop the floors, clean out my car, cook dinner, collect a part for the TV but nothing that I actually wanted or intended to do.

Can Stuff be beaten?

Oh yes, it surely can if only we remember how. Unlike nature, Stuff loves a vacuum. It loves it because it is its job to fill it and fill it quickly. So don’t give it chance! Plan out your day even the ones that do not involve work. If you need 4 hours to chill and relax then write it down in your planner or on your calendar as you would any other appointment, the same goes for the gym, or meditating or even watching TV if that is what helps you relax..

This sounds like a lot of trouble and if Stuff never manages to get its talons in you then it may be unnecessary. However, if you are one of an increasingly large percentage of people that gets to the end of the day and wanders where it went and why you didn’t get much done then it may be a sensible consideration.

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Comparison Doesn’t Deliver Contentment

Posted on 20 May 2007

One of the things that I see with clients that can be frustrating is the insistence that they compare themselves to others when setting goals. They may work in sales and decide that they want to earn more than a top performing peer, or think that to be happy they have to be as slim as a friend or even worse, a movie star, or believe that the only true measure of business success is to generate more revenue than a competitor.

Let me tell you that this practice is doomed to failure 99 times out of 100.

With over 6 billion people wandering around this planet there is always going to be people that are better than you and there are always going to be people that are worse than you no matter how you stack it. By comparing yourself to others and that goes for either individuals or groups of people you are handing over control to outside forces over which you have no influence. What happens if that sales person takes it up another notch, or that friend drops another 7lbs or that competitor suddenly expands by acquisition? I will tell you what happens. You will almost certainly become either frustrated, annoyed, dispirited or possibly all three.

There are a handful of people that can say unequivocally that they are the best at what they do but that supremacy will be confined to one tiny area of expertise. Tiger Woods may well be the best golfer in the world but there are a great many people that can run faster, jump higher, think quicker, paint better, drive faster and whatever other criteria you care to mention and measure.

Do you really think that Tiger sits at home worried because somebody earns more money than him or is stronger, or can do the Sudoku quicker? I doubt it. If he did it would certainly not allow him to focus with such clarity out on the golf course and would lead to a rapid decline in his performance.

There is only one person that you should ever compare yourself to on a regular basis and that is you. 

If there are areas of your life that you wish to improve on then good for you, go ahead and set yourself a goal or goals. Then measure where you are now and try and beat that. You have complete control and if you continue to improve and move toward your goal then each step on the way will result in a feeling of achievement and not a glance over your shoulder to see what somebody else is doing and whether it is ok to feel good or not.

A tip for you, it’s always ok to feel good about yourself.

If you want help with goals either hire a life coach or try out a program similar to Goals by Zig Zigler.

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Manifesting

Posted on 19 May 2007

I want to take the open-mindedness topic a step further. I spoke yesterday about some of the more esoteric stuff that I do as a life coach and made mention of manifesting and I’d like to talk a little bit more about it because it is such an interesting field.

Stay with me on this one if you are unfamiliar with it because it is an easy concept to grasp but a tricky one to embrace for a lot of people.

For thousands of years certain cultures have believed that it was possible to attain the life of your dreams pretty much by telling the universe what it is you want. To most people in modern society that have been brought up to believe what they see that the only way you get what you really want is by hard work and/or good luck this is not something that sits well.

What if it’s true though?

What if by concentrating your mind on your hopes and dreams you really could pull them nearer to you?

Wouldn’t that be something worth getting excited over and worth pursuing, even if there were only a 1% or less chance that it could actually work?

For those of you that have seen The Secret (Extended Edition) or even What the Bleep!? - Down the Rabbit Hole (QUANTUM Three-Disc Special Edition) you will have an idea of what I am talking about. You will also know that there are elements of science fact, we are not just talking about some weird concept dreamt up by somebody that has swallowed too many magic mushrooms.

There is no doubt that many people working in science dismiss the idea as fanciful but then again there were many scientists that thought the sun revolved around the earth, that man could never leave the earth, that smoking wasn’t harmful and that global warming is/was a myth, so that is no reason to dismiss an idea out of hand.

There is no doubt in my mind that in 500 years time we will look back on today the way we now look back on Medieval times, with horror. The way we live, the way we communicate, the way we travel, the way we treat disease etc will all be unrecognizable from how we do it now and there isn’t anybody alive that knows what that will look like.

I honestly do not know if manifesting truly works I have an open mind on the subject. However, I do know though that many highly intelligent learned people swear by it and I am not prepared to dismiss their opinions along with millions of Buddhists, Hindis and Taoists just because it’s all a bit weird and out of my comfort zone.

Note: One of the leaders of the field in the US was Thomas Leonard. He actually started Coachville the biggest coaching company in the country and was by all accounts a great Life Coach himself. He wrote a book called the 28 Laws of Attraction which takes a detailed look at manifesting. So if you want to investigate the field a little more I would recommend you check it out. After all, what have you got to lose? 

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Are You Open-Minded?

Posted on 18 May 2007

I seem to have two very distinct types of clients. There are those that are really into the more esoteric side of Life Coaching such as manifesting, visualizing, meditating etc and those that have no interest in it whatsoever and think it is mumbo jumbo and simply want traditional coaching

I can understand and I am cool with both points of view. We have been brought up in the West to look at things a little bit more pragmatically and analytically than is the case in some other cultures, especially those from the Far East.

We have tendency to see science in absolutes and when we encounter events that do not fit neatly inside a box or we are unable to label them in a way that feels comfortable to us we dismiss them by either refusing to accept that they could be true or see them as some weird coincidence or one-off freaks of nature. Modern quantum physicists tends not to believe in random acts of nature and neither did Einstein suggesting that “God does not play dice with the universe” so I am not sure why we would think we know better.

Some of the practices we are talking about here have been going on for centuries in the Far East and there is enough anecdotal and scientific evidence demonstrating that they are beneficial to shake several sticks at. The movie The Secret (Extended Edition) has helped raise awareness but the cynical side of me says interesting though the movie is, it will have little lasting effect for more than a handful of people. I hope I am wrong but we seem to live in an age where if something doesn’t work instantaneously we discard it for something else and most of these practices take time to implement and to achieve lasting benefit.

I am guessing you feel you are an open-minded person. Most people do you know. In fact I am amazed disputes ever arise or arguments ever get out of control when the world is so full of tolerant, reasonable people.

If you don’t believe that you can manifest the life of your drams, or if you refuse to accept that visualization aids success or that meditation can help you live longer, why not suspend doubt and cynicism for 28 days and try one or more out?

If you are genuinely open-minded what have you got to lose?  If you see no beneficial changes in your life then you can go back to how you were before you don’t need to buy the loincloth and Buddha statues just yet

A great many people complain about their life and their circumstances yet few do anything significant to change it and I often wonder why that is.

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