Integrate!

When I look at this picture, I see one speaker. It's me. I don't see a personal me and a work me. I don't see the brave me and the hidden me. I see me. I know you've read that you should have boundaries between your work life and your private life. There is wisdom in allowing yourself to experience all of yourself and that can mean creating time and space to be present wherever you are. There is no wisdom in sending a version of yourself to work and keeping a different version at home. What do you see when you look at a picture of you at work? People often call me at NLP Canada Training  and say something like "It's just for me." or "I'm interested for work." The problem is there is no such thing. You are one person and who you are changes your influence on the people who connect with you. The reverse is also true. If you don't change your own thinking or responses, you are unlikely to make change in the way you lead and influence....

As I sit down to write, I feel rotten. I've been coughing for days, I hurt all over, and I'm not confident that all the pieces of my brain are in working order. My most vivid goal for the day involves sipping tea and watching multiple episodes of Doctor Who. Instead, I'm writing. The Olympics are ongoing and yesterday I watched a young woman do tricks on her way down a terribly dangerous slopeboarding course. Apparently, she has such a bad cold that her team has her quarantined outside the Olympic village. If it is the Olympics, you don't stay home and watch Doctor Who. You give more than you think you have racing headlong down a mountain. Sometimes I talk to my college business students about days like this. I say: "What if you went to work in the state you are in now and it mattered? What would you do to find the energy and focus you needed to be at your best?" They usually look stumped for awhile, and then they start to notice that there are choices. Ma...

As 2014 approaches, I am aware that I must soon sit down and put together my year end video. It's often a little unnerving to look ahead, especially since by the end of December I am tired and ready to climb into a burrow for some quiet alone time. I think winter brings that out in a lot of people. My job is to tempt people out of their burrows so that they forget to think about being comfortable and think instead about what could engage their full attention in a way that is satisfying and productive. Life is less about being and more about doing and I work to get people very busy being more fully alive. This means that I only get to retreat into a burrow when it is to be very engaged with deep, internal process that will eventually break through to cause more action. I have been reading other people's NLP practitioner manuals and guides, and I still believe that everything I teach is compatible with the best in NLP practice. Not everything is the best, and not everything i...

The people I teach at NLP Canada Training come from many different backgrounds, locations, and fields. They are therapists, entrepreneurs, managers, explorers, teachers and coaches. They are between 20 and 60 years old (mostly). They have been Canadian for many generations and they are new to Canada.  It doesn't look like they have enough in common to be a market or a tribe. What makes them a tribe is that they really want to make a difference in their own lives. They don't want to shut down, opt out, or settle for less. They want to be able to end each day feeling that they made good choices and at the very end of the day, they want to know they lived a life that was satisfying to them and that they will leave a legacy that furthers what they value. Some of them are highly successful and some of them are at a crossroads.  All of them believe that it matters that they want to feel good and to do good. All of them believe that our choices make a difference.  If they...

NLP (neurolinguistic programming) gained fame for two things: the promise that you could achieve anything you could clearly imagine and the promise that you could read people accurately enough to detect deception or perform amazing acts of covert influence.  It seemed like magic, and people flocked to it to find out how to become magicians. When I started in NLP, I was the smart, conventional one and my partner was the one with the magic: he was the one who could freak people out with mind-reading and hypnotic presence. Over the years, as I began to work on my own more often, I learned to do a little quiet magic of my own.  Sometimes now, the magic is less quiet, more - well, more magical. But I am a teacher, not a magician. So I will tell you the one thing I think you need to learn to do magical acts of reading and influencing other people.  The secret is: metaphor. In case you've forgotten your high school English course, here is how Wikipedia defines metaphor: ...

I have been involved with NLP (neurolinguistic programming) for more than ten years, and have been training NLP for almost that long. In that time, I have used NLP as a window into developments in the evolution of coaching and the discoveries of neuroscience. I have developed long-term relationships with clients who return to me for training because they find that my teaching is both powerful and practical. There are many, many things I love about neurolinguistic programming and the gifts it has given me in a decade. There is a lot I do not love about NLP. I hate having to justify and explain that what I do is different than a lot of bad, hokey, undisciplined practice. I hate having to separate myself from trainers who spout a lot of pseudo-technical terms and teach "information" that is current in NLP circles and nowhere else. I hate that much of NLP has come to be represented by people who do not understand academic disciplines and so do not have any reference point for N...

It's Friday afternoon and you're looking back at a week of work. What did you accomplish this week? If it feels like nothing, look again. You did make progress and if you don't notice it, you will probably lose it. So if something is better now than it was on Monday, it's a good time to pay attention. Paying attention to progress helps stabilize it in your mind so that it becomes part of the assumptions you take into Monday morning. It's often not enough to prevent slippage. What you need is to add a little oomph to progress so that it stays in place until you can get back to it. Here's three ways to add oomph to your progress, illustrated with examples from my own week. Notice the progress and give it a metaphor.  For instance, this week I have been away at sea without my usual landmarks to chart progress.  But when it's dark, I can look at the stars and begin to notice that I have moved.  Sometimes it is only in the dark that we can focus on the sign...

When people ask me what NLP is, I tell them what the words mean and then I tell them what we do at NLP Canada Training. The two things overlap, of course, but they are not the same. Neurolinguistic programming means combining experience with language in patterns to produce tangible, predictable results. NLP offers a set of practices for using the natural processes of the brain to accelerate learning and decision making.  The work we do at NLP Canada Training gives people improved flexibility in determining what they want and communicating in ways that help them get it. And, what does that get them? If you practice NLP, you'll recognize the question.  The answer is why NLP Canada Training is a special place and why it matters where you choose to study NLP.  The people who love our training are people who want to stretch and grow and have a sustainable, positive impact. They are people in the process of shaping a life well-lived. We all choose different paths to get...

It's crazy hard to know exactly what you want. That may be part of the reason that the people who take the time to figure it out have so much power.  In a room where most people are a little fuzzy about what they want, the person who really knows is much more likely to move effectively. Have you ever wished for more patience? The true answer is no. People don't want patience: they want results. Patience is a sort of consolation prize at best.  When someone says they want patience, what they really mean is they want something they can't see unless they open their eyes to a bigger picture. What they want is most likely a combination of certainty within themselves and a positive relationship with someone around them. Patience indicates that the frame is too tight for them to see a possibility of moving forward together. That tight frame makes patience much less likely. That tight frame makes it hard to see beyond a moment of irritability or conflict. That tight frame mea...

Of all the training available, there's a tremendous interest in buying training on influence and leadership.  This means two things. The first is that our conventional education system doesn't cover influence and leadership effectively.  The second is that both individuals and corporations recognize that the ability to influence effectively needs to be developed. It's not just an inborn talent available to a lucky few. It's a skillset that requires the same ongoing development as technical skills. The problem is finding a model that works.  Sales training is well-developed and widespread. It teaches people to have more predictable influence in predictable situations. It works well when people can know their products and their markets. It works less well when markets and products are in transition. Leadership training is supposed to train people to exert influence in situations where both outcomes and contexts are less predictable.  Our education system is designe...

I am continually befuddled by the long-winded defence of a magic number of hours in NLP training.  I suspect that it is an easy out for organizations that can more easily show how long their training lasts than how competent their graduates are.  After many years (eek- it's almost 30 now) in and out of post-secondary teaching, I am well aware of the difference between putting in hours and putting out skilled graduates. If you're looking for training in neurolinguistic programming (NLP), there are just two questions that you need to ask. 1) How do I know you graduate people with increased skills in building relationships, managing states, modeling excellence, and getting tangible results? 2) What support do you provide post-graduation to your clients (at no extra charge)? Anyone who believes you can reliably build all the skills you need in 120 hours does not believe the research (10,000 hours to mastery of anything).  The point is not to be brilliant during the co...

Have you ever known that you were absolutely in the wrong mood for what you had to do next? You know that your attitude changes your effectiveness.  The question becomes how you can change your own attitude. Your current attitude colours all your perceptions. That makes it very hard to perceive the differences that would allow you to build a different attitude.  Many people don't even try. They just wait it out, hoping that the next mood that hits will be more useful. Or they pretend that attitude is something that only happens to other people. A more useful approach has three steps: 1) Move your body. 2) Connect with a new rhythm. 3) Borrow the best available attitude. It's hard to change your own mind. It's easier to change your body.  If you want to signal yourself to get moving, try moving.  A walk, a run, a climb up stairs: any of them will get the blood flowing, adjust your breathing and rhythms, and suggest to your whole brain that it look for ways o...

It is the way our brains are made. We fixate on problems and danger and obstacles. Ask anyone about their pet peeves and you will unleash a flood of words. Ask someone what they want, and you are liable to hear about all the reasons that what they want doesn't matter. It is easy for a conversation to grind to a halt when it is carrying the weight of so much that is wrong. If you want to move forward, you need the word instead. Repeat some of the troubles you hear (to show that you are listening) and then ask: what would you like instead? Instead means in the place now occupied by the trouble. To answer the question, the speaker has to imagine a world where the trouble no longer exists. It has been replaced by something else. The something else may, of course, be accompanied by new troubles.  Once again, repeat what you are hearing and then ask: what would you like instead? After two or three repetitions, the speaker will pick up the pattern and begin to automatically replace ...

If you google "matching and mirroring" you will find page after page of articles and videos mostly explaining that the practice of matching and mirroring someone else's physiology or language will allow you to build rapport. I am no longer sure that's entirely accurate. Here's what I have come to believe after almost ten years of teaching NLP and observing rapport as it develops: mirroring and matching is a sign of rapport. Working at mirroring and matching (doing it deliberately) signals that you are interested in entering into rapport. Paying attention to someone else is always a good way to start a relationship. The most productive way to think about matching and mirroring is to notice that it gives you the ability to be much more perceptive about the person with whom you want to connect.  When you are matching them, you do not have to rely on external observation of their state. You can notice how you change as you move into their movements, mannerisms a...

When I was in high school, there was no girls soccer program. While women's soccer was growing rapidly in the club system, it had yet to find its way into the high schools. By the time I was in grade 12, I was playing and coaching soccer all summer. I wanted to play at school, too. I decided it was time to launch a school tournament. I was 17, and I was playing and coaching rep soccer. I was in charge of publicity for our local club and I was a qualified referee. I had passed the first level of the national coaching program (at the time, that involved a written test, a practical test, and a referee's test). Running a tournament was in reach. All I needed was a staff sponsor. A friendly history teacher agreed to become our "coach." We began a round of communication with the local club and with other schools. I don't remember how many teams entered, or who won the tournament. I remember standing on the back line of one field, playing defence. I was also coa...