Integrate!

© Can Stock Photo / wtamas We're one day away from Halloween and you're probably surrounded by images of heads that have become separated from bodies. If you're lucky, you're not also surrounded by coworkers who are losing their heads. Since you probably already know how to lose your head (at least under pressure), here are three reminders of how to keep it: Your head should be continuous with your body. That means staying aware of your physical needs for food, rest, exercise and touch (yes - I said touch. People are social creatures and a hug will often reconnect a lost head). Your  body and your head should be moving in the same direction. You need to walk your talk when you want to keep your head. Integrity is a sure way to reconnect the head you are afraid you are losing. Phone a friend. Better yet, go find a friend and talk in person. Putting your concerns into words will stabilize them and telling them to a friend will add both comfort and perspecti...

Buy it at Amazon It works every time, even if you're speaking a second language or working in a field that is new to you. Here's the magic formula for effective communication: knowing what you want + paying attention to other people = words that work.  I know this seems too hard. I know you are tempted by the people who teach another script, another voice lesson, another theory of body language that will supercharge your communication. I know that it seems easier to work on your words than it does to work on being so clear about the results you want that you are able to dedicate most of your attention to the people you want to influence. Attention is harder to manage and maintain than a script. But scripts don't work well without it. Your attention is signalled by energy: people notice when you're directing energy at them. They pay attention to it. And when they do, your words can ride that energy and land deeply and effectively. But if you expect the...

In the work I do at NLP Canada Training , I teach people to notice the relationship between their own state (the combination of their thoughts, emotions and physiology), the states of people around them, and their behaviours. It's a complicated web: we are influenced by our own stuff, by the people around us, and by our situations and all of that gets processed by our brains and transformed into action. Our actions determine how our state changes, and what becomes possible as a next step. Our situations and other people influence us because we pay attention to them. Some of this attention is involuntary: it's part of how the human equipment works. Other human beings are especially important because they can both help and hurt us. Our brains track their expressions and behaviours in an ongoing effort to predict what they will do. There's a downside to this. Our brains track other people's states by reproducing them in us. That means that negativity is contagious and we...

It's a Saturday morning, so let's have coffee while we chat. This week I have been teaching people to pay attention to what they want, what they value, what works. It's what I do most weeks. I condition people to turn their attention to what is working for them, not what is broken, missing or undesirable. This isn't about denying reality and it's not about playing 'Suzy Sunshine' and living in a bubble. It's about noticing what you can build and building it. It's about saying: "Yes, we have a problem here. And what will be true after we solve it? How do we imagine a future beyond the problem?" This is the best way to encourage your vast super-computing powers (your unconscious mind/brain does have super-computing powers, even if your conscious mind has trouble believing that) to get to work on solving the problem so you can get to the future you imagine on the other side. There are side affects to practicing positive attention. Yo...

I sometimes say to people. "I am not a therapist. I do not want to be a therapist. I do not believe that people who work with me are broken." The result of working with me (one to one or in a class) is frequently that people feel better. We don't get there by focusing on what is wrong. This can be hard for people to understand. Like me, they learned to believe that focusing on what works is okay for academics, but not good enough for the "real" world. In the "real" world, people have problems that cause them real suffering. What kind of person would ignore those problems to focus on what works? It sounds a little like a case where the rich get richer, doesn't it? It is. The more we assume that we have the strengths, skills and resources to live satisfying lives, the more we live satisfying lives. The more we assume that we will become happy after our problems are solved, the more problems we find that need solving. Problems are like the Hydra -...

I am in one of those periods when I am beyond busy. It happens to me from time to time: I have lots of commitments to lots of people (including me) and I really, really need to produce a lot in a limited amount of time. Some of what I need to produce is not especially fun. What do you do? I recently received coaching emails from a well-known expert that talked about getting rid of wasted time and managing time in 30 minute increments. It's easy to agree in theory, but I don't think I do.  Agree, I mean. I also don't manage time this way. Who are you when you know yourself? What's important to you? Some of the things that are important to me are a belief that the arts make us smarter and an equally powerful belief that God (substitute the universe if you are more comfortable with that) doesn't punish us for being present with people who need help or support or just to have company. So I fit music and art into my schedule even when they don't fit. And I sit wi...

Would it surprise you that many of the people who lead others to achieve their goals have a really hard time creating compelling goals of their own?  I don't have research to back me up on this, but I have a lot of experience of people who are excellent coaches and who struggle with their own goals.  They may struggle more than other people. The more we think about goals, the more we admire the courage it takes to own them.  Imagine that someone walks into the room where you are reading this and says "So... what do you want?" It's likely that there are not many ways to say this that don't sound like a challenge. Wanting something is challenging: it means: 1) taking some of the attention you use to keep yourself safe and putting it to work on finding opportunities instead, 2) admitting that if you don't get what you want, it's going to hurt, 3) deciding you are good enough to do what you want to do. It's probably true that many people choose to w...

Some people have a routine for getting up in the morning that includes some time to prepare mentally for the day ahead. They pray or meditate or workout because they find that starting that way often leads to a better day.  You might think about that and instantly feel even more stressed because you cannot imagine how to fit yet another half-hour into a day that is already much too full. Even people who prepare for the day need to refocus during the day. Their concentrated practice does set them up for success, but it is not enough to carry them through a day of encountering other people and difficult ideas. Even people who start the day right need to be able to refocus more or less on the fly. I'm going to suggest you test just two things today. You don't have to believe they will work, but they will take only a moment and (if you remember to check in after) you will be able to tell within a day whether they are making an impact.  Deal? The first thing is to take three ...

On Wednesdays, I teach from 3pm to 6pm. It's a terrible time slot: students are tired, distracted, and when the sun is shining outside, a little hyper. They care enough to show up, but once in the room they can have a hard time tuning in for more than a few moments at a time. I love it. It reminds me that this is the world into which I am sending most of my words. The people who are looking at my emails (and deciding whether or not to open them) are just as busy and distracted and, I think, just as well-meaning and energetic as my classes. Here's what I do with my class: I pay a lot of attention to them. I move to them instead of waiting for them to look up and find me. I repeat things in different ways. I spend much less time than I used to worrying about information and much more time working to give my students incentive to uncover and own information.  Most of my words are spent persuading them with my tone that what we're doing is worthwhile and that I believe they...