watch tHe skies

Recently I’ve been reading a book by Robert Dilts about belief systems. Beliefs are interesting for many reasons, the main one that interests me is how they constrain our actions.

The funny thing about beliefs is that they aren’t fact. In fact what is fact… when does belief become fact? Before Sir Isaac Newton “discovered” gravity, did people wantonly jump off tall buildings? I would suggest no for the most part. So those people pre-Newton believed that jumping out of buildings was dangerous, even though they did not know why. And the fact that jumping out of buildings has been hazardous in the past does not mean it will be so for you, as banks often say, past performance is no indication of future situations. (more…)

Thanks for all of your emails regarding my spring cleaning article. I’m surprised by the response, particularly as I thought it was only you and I that read the site! Lots of you have emailed me with your lists of stuff that you want to clear out…

Bear with me, I am responding to your emails as quick as I can!

And for those of you just asking for a chat via messenger, I will reply personally and my comment will be “what do you want?” and “how will you know when you’ve got that?”… being able to answer these questions is the first step in making a change. Nobody can be changed until they are ready to change, then it’s easy, and being able to answer those questions means that you are ready to change…

Finally, please bear with me on finding a time to talk to you, this is a first for me and I want to make it work, so patience on your part will pay off when we talk.

Plus, I’ve got to work out how to use Skype…!

After a week of consistently bad weather, it was a relief to get some sunshine this weekend. And I certainly made the most of it, up at the crack of dawn to mow our lawns that were long overdue a haircut.

However when I tried to get the lawnmower out of the garage, I was reminded pf how messy it is. Before Ben, we spent a lot of time putting up shelves and hooks and filling it full of systems to help us keep it tidy. However, when Ben arrived everything got put on hold, and instead of carefully putting stuff back in it’s place, stuff got put on other stuff until the straw broke on saturday when I had to fight with junk just to retrieve the lawn mower and strimmer. (more…)

Since that muppet went on Dragons Den and wanted to run a Live Coaching website I’ve been assaulted with a hail of questions on my opinion of what was said by the Dragons.

Firstly, although she mentioned NLP she didn’t seem to practice it… where was the rapport? Or any other technique that might help in a sales presentation, remembering that these guys have probably been badly NLP’ed a million times by clunky salesmen who did a bit of persuasion on some course. Of course the rapport could have been edited out to make the pitch more dramatic.

The last thing that coaching needs is the Dragons criticising it. I do understand their concern though - there are a lot of people out there being very evangelical about it’s benefits because of the potential money involved… in reality I think that there is a lot less money in the marketplace for this service because the public in general don’t see the point. People “get” and accept hypnotists nowadays but it will be a long time before personal coaching is a reality for all but the wealthy.

The woman on Dragon’s Den did have a good idea though - that people could be helped with only 6 questions. Now I don’t know what 6 questions she was going to ask, but if I was asking six questions to coach someone on a problem they would be:

(after they have the problem in mind)

1) What do you want?
2) How will you know you have got it?
3) What is different from when you have got it from what you have now?
4) What is stopping you doing it now?
5) What are your options?
6) What are your actions?

I might cheat and add a 4a) which tends to yield good results…

4a) If that didn’t stop you, what would?

Now you could go away and use those questions on your own and perhaps get some good results. However you might not and if you don’t it’s because you are too close to the problem… having a face to face discussion allows the coach to read a bunch of non-verbal information to support what you are saying… in most cases the actual words that come out of your mouth reveal a tonne of information, and coupled with your non-verbal, give a good coach a very powerful representation of what is going on, including what you don’t actually say.

For example, look out for people shaking their head when they are answering a question, now that could mean incongruence (they don’t agree with their spoken words), it could also mean that they are weighing up options represented auditorily (is that a word?) in each ear, or it could mean something else which has a context related to other things that they are saying. Clearly the first two could have considerable impact on the information offered verbally, and all this stuff and more you miss when you’re not face to face.

So my view is really that coaching isn’t a commodity ready for the internet… there’s no formula for people’s problems, so no expert system can be programmed (although I bet Richard Bandler has thought about it). Lots of people get coached by friends, families and coworkers every day. There’s no need for a website to replace this. Let’s spend MORE time face to face than less, please.

Yesterday I read an excellent article by Adam Eason over at NLP Weekly. Talking about reframing - he gives some excellent examples of how everything has a frame or context, and by jumping outside of that frame and reframing the point of view you can make swift strides in overcoming objections and breaking people out of unproductive trances. Well worth a read.

Adam Eason’s Hypnotic blog is always worth a read, plenty of interesting and entertaining hypnosis material for your enjoyment!

So now I’m a certified NLP practitioner, my next step to who knows where is a coaching qualification. I start in a couple of weeks and I’ll be doing a Level 7 Diploma in Leadership Mentoring and Executive Coaching. Level 7 what you ask? Well Level 7 of the UK National Qualification Framework, which means it’s a Masters level qualification in coaching. It’s going to be hard work and I will have to put a lot of coaching hours in, but it will be worth it, and hey you can never have too many Masters’ qualifications, can you?

How? Hmm yes interesting one that, because although I have an idea where this will take me, it’s not set in stone, as a minimum it will make me a better boss, and if \ when I go it alone it makes me a hireable executive coach. I used my Jedi mind tricks to get the company to pay and support the course so it will also be a valuable distraction from my day job.

I’m really looking forward to the course, it’s not particularly NLP, although there will be some aspects to it, this is more about learning a framework within which I can work with people to help them enhance their performance, identify areas for improvement and make positive change in their professional and personal lives. I hope that it will give me more tools in my toolbox to go with all the whizz-bang NLP stuff like phobia and compulsion cures that are so much fun.

The other thing I’m looking forward to is meeting some new people with similar views and ambitions. The NLP Prac was a real eye opener for me, because the nature of the course was working together to support personal change, I went through some quite personal journeys with (initially at least) complete strangers on that course, and I feel I’ve made some very good friends, and although the course has only been finished for a month, I’m already missing their company and the thought that I won’t see them all on a monthly basis. I don’t expect this course to be quite so ‘connecting’ but I’m open to meeting and learning from a new group of people.. increasingly I find that the courses I attend are less about the content and more about how I can enrich my map of the world by meeting more interesting people and learning from their life experiences.

Whoa that got a little open and trippy towards the end. Think I had better get a cup of British tea down me and stiffen my upper lip before I run out of my office and hug someone…