watch tHe skies

So our little Ben is now at an age where he has the ability to terrorise all around him and demolish everything in sight. Left to his own devices, he finds entertainment in dropping stuff, pulling things off walls and slamming doors on to fingers, cups, plates, grapes and assorted footstuffs.

The house is looking a bit worse for wear and the only way to counter it is to play with him.

So much so that when I get home and take over, feed him his tea, bathe him and put him to bed, Jen is completely shattered. This means that the house is getting a little untidy.

So we’ve decided to employ the services of a cleaner to come in and do the fundamentals, the stuff that you can’t do with a 14 month old tearing around, stuff that involves cleaning materials.

The trouble is, now we have someone coming in to the house to clean, Jenny worries that the house will look untidy and so has me tearing around cleaning the house in preparation for the cleaner. The result - I’m financially poorer for the cleaner AND doing more cleaning and tidying than I did before. Catch 22 I’m afraid. I did suggest an alternative (Swedish au pair or similar) however this was both unacceptable to my wife for obvious reasons, and in the long run, probably a bad investment… i’d never get a word in.

Helping people to make change, lasting change that really improves the quality of their lives, requires a great deal of trust and rapport between client and coach. After all, much of the work is done at an unconscious level, even without hypnosis. So being able to develop that trust quickly is very important. (There’s more on rapport specifically here.) Trust also develops when the client believes the coach to be competent and experienced, and a great way to demonstrate that is to be able to tell the client things about themselves that imply a “seen this before” experience in the coach. This maybe the case, or it may be a generalisation, or it might actually be cold reading.

So what is cold reading? Well Ian Rowland in his book describes it thus, “Cold reading is a deceptive psychological strategy. Among other things, it can be used by someone who is not psychic to give what seem to be a very convincing psychic readings. Cold reading is neither one single technique, nor one single procedure. It is better to think of ‘cold reading’ as the collective term for a set of techniques which can be used in different contexts to achieve different goals.”

Effectively it is a method of using ambiguity based on high probability statistics combined with elaborate wording and plenty of bravado on the part of the cold reader to handle any objections that come his way during the process.

Now I’m not going to say that this is what Psychics use. I neither know the answer to that question or feel the need to pursue an answer. I can, however, say with some conviction that i’m not pyschic. So cold reading could come in handy for me, and for many of you out there who want to communicate more effectively, persuade, influence or whatever you want to call it.

And should you be so inclined, Ian Rowland’s book would be a good place to start. He provides numerous example tools and techniques that can be used to deliver convincing “psychic” readings that would have many people threatening to burn you at the stake. The information is delivered in a matter of fact way, with examples of what works and what doesn’t, and methods to elaborate and really go to town with this stuff. The tone of the book and his view on the ‘psychic’ aspect is explained neatly by this quote, “I am not remotely interested in trying to ‘explain things away’, and nor is any other sceptic I have ever met. For me, being sceptical boils down to one thing: I like to believe in things that are true, and to avoid believing in things which turn out to be complete rubbish.’

He goes on to explain the “Cream principle” - offering a little information to get a reaction, and then gradually upping the ante as the client reacts and provides valuable feeback, both verbally and non-verbally, to the skilled observer, as well as the beauty of being ambiguous with time - whether you have this skill or the potential to have it, etc., etc..

I was surprised (though I shouldn’t really have been) to read that the process of cold reading effectively mirrors that of a coaching scenario which can, of course be generalised in to good practice for any communication, from advertising to a sales call.

He then provides some transcripts of cold readings that he has done, which allow you to spot the various techniques and phrases in his book, within the wider context of an actual dialogue. This is followed by tactics to block the cold reader from working on you, and finishing with his views on the practical applications of cold reading in the real world, such as selling and romance.

All in all I found this to be a fascinating book with many applications. It’s not one to read cover to cover, but to flick through, to try stuff out and return to at some later date to learn something new.

And of course I couldn’t possibly post this without providing you with my own psychic reading for your pleasure. So keep reading if you would like me to tell you something about yourself, and I’d love to know how accurate it is! (more…)

I’m a suckerfor personality tests. Despite the likelihood that they are little more than cold reading (see future post for more on this), I love them. And I love them even more when they are free and online. So hence the latest one that tells you deep dark secrets about you from your choice of colours. Go figure. Anyway head over to the link below to find out how mad you are:

How correct for me? Hmm well yes definitely spot on in places. It does, as they do, get me thinking about stuff I hadn’t thought about. God bless double-loop learning I say. If you would like to read about my results, read on. (more…)

I’ve had a lot of emails over time regarding which is the best book to read to start learning about NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). For those of you that haven’t emailed, me, have you ever wanted to:

• Communicate with others more effectively?
• Be more persuasive?
• Overcome challenges at work and at home?
• Increase your confidence?
• Get rid of obsessions, compulsions or phobias?
• Break bad habits?

Well all of these are caused in part by how we experience the world, and NLP offers amazing insights in to those perceptions that open up fascinating doors in to how we work, and how we can change. So if any of the above are of interest to you, it is probably worth asking me what the best way to learn a little more about how you can change for the better, isn’t it?

Tough question to answer. Still, just for you I’m going to answer it.

Bear in mind, I’m no expert. And so the books I’m going to recommend are those that I think are the easiest to get in to. I would like to point out though that the best way to introduce yourself to NLP is to do it. Find yourself an introductory course and attend. NLP is at its core about how we experience the world, and the easiest way to learn it is to experience that experiencing, if you know what I mean. You should be able to get a mind-blowing experience from a decent 1 day course, such as Salad’s NLP in a Nutshell, so you don’t need to splash out two grand to decide whether it is for you.

And so on to the books. (more…)

So those of you that know me know that I’m a big fan of Adam Eason. His podcasts are full of interesting and entertaining information, his self-hypnosis products are excellently produced and very useful, and now he is doing a one-off Self-Hypnosis Masterclass in London on 8th & 9th September 2007. And for a knock-down price of less than £100, because it’s being filmed for DVD!

And I’m signed up and ready to go. So if you want to meet Adam and learn self-hypnosis, and even meet me, then head over to this page and follow the instructions for signing up.

Adam is the author of the book “Secrets of Self-Hypnosis - harnessing the power of your unconscious mind“, and a foremost expert on the subject. If you want to get an instruction manual for your own brain, then this might just be the event you are waiting for.

I watched the news with absolute amazement yesterday when they explained to me and countless others how cows and pigs are making global worse by virtue of the methane that they, er, trump in to the atmosphere with alarming regularity and volume.

So scientists are now experimenting with additives to cattle feed to reduce the amount of methane that these gentle creatures emit.

And I wonder how this train of thought ever began, because it seems to presume that cows are the problem, when in fact the process of developing and manufacturing the additives for cows across the planet will probably generate a far bigger carbon footprint than the cows themselves could ever possibly trump between birth and beef wellington.

And of course once tested and working on cattle, the next offender will be, that’s right, you and me. Before you know it, anti-fart additives companies are top of the FT100 and our god-given right to break wind and blame the dog will be replaced by a state-sponsored money making machine that has a carbon footprint bigger than the hole in the ozone layer.

It seems to me that us humans aren’t thinking holistically about this whole global warming thing… the trouble is, there’s money in them farting cows and screw the fact that the net carbon footprint grows, as long as someone can buy a nice new 4×4 as a result.

So I wonder what hair-brained eco moneymaker will next hit the headlines… dragonfly powered micro-windmills or the use of the human body as a battery to power a big virtual reality machine… they both rate the same level of craziness as addressing the farting cow problem.

In preparation for tomorrow’s post, I read through my page “What is NLP” and decided that it was utter nonsense.

“No more than the rest of the site!” I hear you cry.

Here hear!

Anyhow I’ve completely rewritten the page, it is now shorter, more personal, and less rubbish. I hope you like.

Building an effective team is tough… it would be a lot simpler if people weren’t so darn complicated! Patrick Lencioni provides some useful insight in to the causes of team dysfunction in his leadership fable The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team.

Rather than tell the reader the solution in a textbook manner, Lencioni frames his model for team performance within a short story. Here, we encounter a Silicon Valley organisation in the last throes of life. Previously a vibrant and growing organisation, they have fallen behind their competitors and the exec team are only that in name.

Enter Kathryn, newly appointed CEO and experienced leader, who sets about bringing the execs together in to a coherent team that return the organisation to its former power, and take it onward. (more…)

With the amount of business miles I’m doing growing considerably in recent months (don’t worry, I’ll make it carbon neutral next April), I’ve had less time to spend absorbing the written word.

So I’ve been buying the odd audio book for the car, and this has grown to regularly consuming a book a week in transit, which is great. Of course I still pick up the printed copy cheapo like so I can make some notes, it just means that by the time I’ve listened to it, photoread it and made notes, I know that book back to front. Why listen to it if I photoread it later? Well think of it as a preview exercise that I can do with my hands on the wheel!

And so I’ve been looking around and decided to take the plunge and join Audible.

Audible is an audiobook website that gives you the option to buy one-off audio books for a fair discount, or join them as a monthly member where you get one or two credits per month to download whatever you want, irrespective of individual price.

So if you want to source good audiobooks for a knock-down price this is the place. And if you plan to listen to a lot of audiobooks, then you, like me are likely to get a bit of a bargain.

So as part of my joining introductory offer (£7.99 a month) I got:

Emotional Intelligence (Unabridged) by Daniel Goleman, a book about how the emotional mind works, and why we are wired to respond to it quicker than the rational mind. Understanding this will help you to be more empathic towards people, understand their reactions and therefore help to better manage and motivate people that work for you or you spend time with. £16 for 15 hours of audio if you buy it on its own, so I’ve already saved a bundle!

Success Mastery Academy - Brian Tracy
Brian Tracy’s programs are absolutely fantastic, yet up till now I’ve only been able to afford the small programs. This one is for sale at £200 on his website, and yet I got it for free. A complete transcript of a 2 day seminar, with workbook, this is as close to being coached by Brian Tracy as most of us can get, over 15 hours of audio for free.

A pretty good bargain I think. My temptation is to go ahead and subscribe to the 2 audiobooks a month (£14.99) programme, however I think that I will certainly be able to sustain 1 a month and I can always upgrade if I am ploughing through. As I already have a wishlist of 6 or so books, this looks like a good way for me to make the most of otherwise wasted time.

Incidentally Audible books work on all mp3 players, and you can burn the tracks to CD if you live in the dark ages!

As we head deep in to Wedding season, the Hen nights and Stag dos are coming thick and fast. And so it was on Saturday when, following Live Earth, a well-intentioned mish-mash of artists who had flown around the world on private jets and driven to events in Humvees, and a watch of Jack Black’s silly but occasionally very funny Tenacious D in The Pick Of Destiny, I settled down to wait for Jen to return from a hen night.

Channel hopping, I happened across David Fincher’s genius movie Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. This is one of my all time favourite films, yet it is one I hadn’t seen for many years, particularly since I got really interested in some of the subjects that I waffle on about nowadays. Back then I was mostly occupied with doing my MBA, which meant I didn’t have time to philosophise, just learn lots of theories and hope that one day that I would understand accountancy.

So it was with a fresh eye that I watched the film, and found myself relating to it on a whole new level. The last time I watched it, I viewed Tyler Durden as an anarchist, spouting a lot of poppycock. Yet this time I understood, and sympathised with many of his views. Sure I don’t think it was necessary to commit acts of terror… I don’t feel the need to impose my views on others so forcefully. (more…)