watch tHe skies

Aaah the price of hestitancy. Excitedly spotted a copy of Richard Bandler & John Grinder’s Seminal NLP work “Frogs Into Princes” on Amazon marketplace for £20 at the weekend. This book has been out of print for a long time and is a fantastic reference book for NLPers. It usually goes for around £80 so I should have just bought it, but I was a little put off by the stated condition. Still this morning I decided to take the plunge and it was gone. Doh!

I guess these books don’t get reprinted because Bandler and Grinder aren’t talking anymore. Quite what caused this rift between the discoverers of NLP is shrouded in mystery, but the book, which is a fantastic reference for anyone interested in changework, remains elusive and means I must stick with my tatty old photocopy…

Over the holiday period I finally got around to reading Matthew Reilly’s Seven Ancient Wonders. Taking a break from books based on Shane “Scarecrow” Schofield and his wondrous maghook, Reilly introduces us to a new and equally mean protagonist, Jack West Jnr. SAS man turned archaeologist, Jack West Jnr. is a cross between James Bond and Indiana Jones.

The story revolves around the international race for the golden capstone, an artifact that once sat atop the great pyramid of Giza, and rumoured to be the source of great power. As a natural phenomenon that only occurs every 5,000 years approaches, powerful nations mobilise to gain the seven pieces of the capstone and assemble them on the pyramid at a time that, according to legend, will afford that country great power for 1,000 years. Representing the minor nations, Jack West and his team are tasked with obtaining a piece of the capstone to give them bargaining power, which means capturing one of the pieces hidden within or near the seven ancient wonders of the world, such as the Lighthouse at Alexandria, the Museum at Halicarnassus, and even the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon. (more…)

This was recommended to me by many people, so I picked it up on amazon. A fairly light read, concentrating mainly on plot and leaving description of people and places to the reader’s imagination. Essentially the story follows the monomyth structure, as an everyman gets his opportunity to follow his dream and become aware of the omens pointing him in the direction of that which he desires most - treasure buried near the great Pyramids in Egypt.

On his journey, our hero encounters many interesting characters, each of which adds a little to the boy’s awareness of the world, in his quest to discover the whereabouts of his treasure. Littered with nested stories of following one’s dreams and realising potential, I found the book to be very interesting until the point at which it revealed it’s true colours as to the view of the universe, and its religious undertones put me off. I actually left the book alone for a while at that point, however I returned to it as I don’t like to be defeated by a book, particularly a little one like this. This religious theme, coupled with the lack of descriptive text left me a little cold - I needed more emotion and introspection from the boy to draw me in, to have me sympathise with his journey and perhaps make a metaphoric link to my own life, in the way that I suspect the author intended.

In the end all I really took from the book was the idea of interconnectedness, the benefits of pursuing your dreams and being aware of “omens” or opportunities to help you closer to your goal, all of which were more effectively communicated in books by Brian Tracy or Robert Anton Wilson (Check out Goals! and Prometheus Rising respectively). An interesting effort at communicating on a metaphoric level life lessons discovered by some of the most successful and happy people in recent times, but the religious and spiritual elements left me cold.

Hooray! It seems that this site has climbed beyond the peak of my expectations and is now ranked number 1 in google!

Okay so perhaps I should give more detail.

Number 1 in google if you search for the term “maghook”.

Yes, the legendary life-saving device used by Matthew Reilly’s uber-nails Marine, Shane “Scarecrow” Schofield. Not the magnetic hook you can buy off the market.

Should you want to experience first-hand, this google-topping page, head over to maghook central for a look. Keep your expectation dial down to a 3 or 4 though…

This last weekend saw me attend the second module of my NLP Practitioner course. This module was lead by Peter Freeth (Excellerate) and we mainly covered anchoring and the monomyth. I’ll cover anchoring another time, right now I’m interested in yorping about the monomyth.

The term monomyth was coined by Joseph Campbell in his book Hero with a thousand faces. A tough book to read, Campbell’s point is that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years, all share a fundamental structure. Whether native indian, greek, roman, christian, far eastern, aboriginal or maori, the stories passed through thousands of generations all follow the same structure, adhering to the structure of the monomyth; a structure that seems to resonate with the human psyche.

In the monomyth, the hero starts in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unusual world of strange powers and events. If the hero accepts the call to enter this strange world, the hero must face tasks and trials, and may have to face these trials alone, or may have assistance. At its most intense, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help earned along the journey. If the hero survives, the hero may achieve a great gift or “boon.” The hero must then decide whether to return to the ordinary world with this boon. If the hero does decide to return, the hero often faces challenges on the return journey. If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world. The stories of Osiris, Moses, Buddha, and Christ, for example, follow this structure very closely.

The monomyth includes a number of stages, such as:

1. A call to adventure, which the hero has to accept or decline,
2. A road of trials, regarding which the hero succeeds or fails
3. Achieving the goal or “boon,” which often results in important self-knowledge
4. A return to the ordinary world, again as to which the hero can succeed or fail, and finally
5. Application of the boon in which what the hero has gained can be used to improve the world.

Campbell also suggests that the monomyth is supported by (effectively) Jungian archetypes; the wizard, the princess, character types that cross genre.

Many classic movies follow the monomyth structure. Most famous is Star Wars, but also consider The Matrix, Gladiator, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Harry Potter and many of the characters in Lord of the Rings.

The point of covering this on the course is the suggestion that we all receive the call to adventure, perhaps daily, and using the monomyth as a framework for people’s own personal journey can help to understand their behaviour, views of the world and where they are in their own story, if you like. An interesting idea I think.

So i’ve recently read Shad Helmstetter’s “What to say when you talk to your self”, recommended to me by NLP Trainer Jamie Smart. The book works on the premise that your unconscious is directed by what it hears, both internally, by that little voice we all have, and externally, by what we say and what others say to us.

The main point is that for most of us, we hear more criticism and self-limiting statements than anything else. These messages osmose in to our unconscious, which works 24/7 to make sense of and realise the goals that are being heard. (more…)

This is a book that I’ve had on my shelf for a long time, and that I have finally gotten around to reading thanks to, er, well I said I wouldn’t mention it again.

Anyways the book, by Paul Tieger & Barbara Barron-Tieger, is one of a number that they have written around the subject of personality type, specifically the Myers-Briggs type indicator. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality test designed to assist a person in identifying some significant personality preferences. Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers developed the test during World War II, and its criteria follow from Carl Jung’s theories in his work Psychological Types. MBTI is a very well known system that many companies charge a fortune to train you to use. And even when you’ve had the training, you need to give the subject a questionnaire to fill in and then find half an hour to score it. (more…)

So this was the last day of the 5 day test to see whether photoreading actually works. To recap, I chose “The Art of Speedreading People” by Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger. This book aims to give the reader tools and techniques for quickly assessing a person’s MBTI (Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, a development of the original Jungian typological system), and then suggestions on how to deal with that person more effectively.

I have attempted to read this book before in the conventional way. Now, 2 1/2 hours later, I have thoroughly analysed this book using the tools and techniques detailed in Paul Scheele’s “Photoreading Whole Mind System”. So, I hear you ask, does it work? (more…)

So day 4 comprised of prepare and photoread. I’d adjusted my questions to be specifically around understanding the hierarchy of the four temperaments (SJ - Traditionalist, SP - Experiencer, NT - Conceptualiser and NF - Idealist => see it’s working I didn’t need the book for that!) and how they work with the sub-types.

And as if by magic the first thing that popped in to my mind when I woke this morning was the image of the NT pyramid, and I seem now to be able to draw out any one of the temperament pyramids from the images and rules in my head. During the super read I was directed to the rules around the sub-types, that aren’t actually explicitly stated, but I found them very quickly.

So on to day 5. How much of the book do I know now? Hmm perhaps 50-60%. Not bad considering I didn’t really know what I was doing to start with on this approach. My aim on day 5 will be to know the key characteristics of each of the temperament types, and I will probably need a day 6 and maybe day 7 to get the individual characteristics of each of the 16 types. I don’t consider this bad going as so far I’ve spent no more than 2 1/2 hours on a fairly content-heavy book.

So yesterday involved a preview, followed by a full photoread and 30 minutes of rapidreading. The book is certainly locking in and I am getting a good feel for the content.

Now when I woke up, something odd had happened. Yesterday I couldn’t remember the four temperament types. I could get three of them, but the fourth eluded me. As per the book I made a conscious effort to recall the missing temperament type.

Off I went to bed and this morning I picked up “The Art Of Speedreading People” to find the elusive temperament. However as I skipped through the pages describing the ones I already knew, I suddenly realised that I had gone through all four without seeing one — I didn’t know. Somehow I knew that information without knowing how I knew it. So it seems that this system works a bit like osmosis! Is it working? Well it seems to be but I need to keep going through the full five days to see. The photoreading book and the forum have been helpful in reminding me that the system works differently for everyone depending on their reading background.

Update:-

Well I posted a question on the learning strategies forum about whether this was a sign. It would appear that it is. It is a very wierd concept to know something that you didn’t know without knowing how you know, but at least I now know I know it works… Bonza! Anyway on with the next session.