watch tHe skies

As the reality of the UK smoking ban comes in to focus, more and more people are thinking seriously about giving up. It’s one thing I guess to nip outside of the restaurant for a quick drag between courses, but it’s another to be seperated from your lovely pint to stand in the rain outside a grotty old pub.

For me as a non-smoker I welcome the ban. It will mean that my clothes don’t smell like an ashtray after a night at the pub, however the lonely feeling I get sometimes in restaurants when all of my friends are standing outside sparking up, leaving me reading the blurb on the back of the bottle of Merlot, will likely be extended to every trip to a public house.

So I am pleased that I have my first smoking gig. Shortly I will be helping someone give up the evil weed using my newly certified Jedi powers. There is no one-way to “cure” a smoker. Richard Bandler - the Yoda of NLP does it in about ten minutes using a lot of trance, metaphors and swishing. I’ve seen Paul McKenna (probably the Obi Wan Kenobi of NLP in UK circles) do it with negative anchors and compulsion blowout, plus there’s probably a load of other stuff they can’t show on tv.

However I’ve found my own way and I’m ready to unleash it on the public. As previously discussed, I’ve done a load of research, spoken to some people already in the field about their own methods, and combined a whole bunch of techniques and ideas in to my own session that I’m looking forward to testing. Jenny is still waiting to see some “magic” before she believes that NLP actually works (I’m banned from doing any on her in case I mind control her like Derren Brown, I did point out that if I could do that, wouldn’t I already have her dancing around like a chicken? She wouldn’t believe me), and I would imagine that helping someone quit smoking would be magic enough, unless her map of the world adjusts to say it was just co-incidence…

Last weekend I was in Nottingham, walking through the city centre when my attention was brought to a fiver on the ground. I was some way away, yet I knew it was a fiver and wondered who would pick it up. After all, it was a saturday afternoon, full of shoppers all, and between me spotting it and actually reaching its resting place, more than a dozen people walked past it or stepped on it. Yet, it was still there when I got to it, and so duly picked it up and put it in my pocket.

Jenny was delighted - finding a fiver on the floor is pretty rare, but I was more puzzled than elated - I couldn’t understand why so many people had walked past it, and why I noticed it. I’m not particularly stingy, I do notice money on the ground but i won’t usually stop and pick up a penny, maybe a pound, but not all lost money. Although I can accept that some of the people who walked by were preoccupied, and perhaps one was too wealthy to be bothered by Five English Pounds, that would still leave a fairly high percentage of people that were looking where they were going and quite happy to benefit from the wonders gained in exchange for five free pounds… (more…)

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…

Picture it. Ebay. 1 minute to go and Frogs Into Princes is sitting at a very attractive £14, so I prepared to bid. And yet, across the gulf of the web, wallets immeasurably superior to mine regarded this book with envious eyes, and quickly, and boldly, they drew their plans against me…

My bid for £20 was overshadowed by a the winning bidder getting it for £40….! Forty quid for a second hand transcript of a 1970s lecture on neuro-linguistic programming..! And so I am still bookless AND i’ve wasted a week watching an auction on ebay… Grrr.

On the plus side I’ve found a great forum for discussing all things N, L & P with people who know way more than I do. However, unlike most forums, those with the knowledge seem keen to impart it on request without belittling comments. If you are interested in NLP, maybe considering doing a course or have some questions, head over to www.nlpconnections.com and say hello, you might well see me there too.

Well this weekend I’ve been doing some research in to NLP approaches to helping people quit smoking. It seems that there are many approaches, tools and techniques to doing so. So far I’ve found interesting approaches from Tad James, Terence Watts as well as tonne of Hypnotherapy scripts and courses, but as far as I can see there is no universal approach. I’m not looking for a solution, just strategies and some feedback or ideas from those that are regularly using NLP to do so. (more…)

Making people smile. Is there a cooler skill? Ok well yes being able to teleport or go invisible are definitely cooler, but are they more rewarding? Well perhaps if you are bank robber, but if you’re not a bank robber, is there a cooler skill than being able to make people smile? No, of course not.

Following on from my rapport article the other day, I decided to expand that idea in to something a little bigger and fit that concept in to an article about making people smile, which Matthew over at www.onekindact.com has kindly posted on the site. I won’t be reprinting it here so if you want to read my ramble for the day, head over to One Kind Act > The secret to making people smile and have a read. Whilst you are there have a look at the other articles, they may just brighten your day and inspire you do something nice for someone. Have a great weekend.

This week I’ve been going back through my NLP Practitioner notes and putting them in to an order that makes sense to me, whilst taking the opportunity to index them for ease of use. Now I’m regularly coaching it’s handy to have all of my notes in one place in some logical form.

I’m also revising the Meta-Model, an approach to questioning so powerful that I’ve seen it elicit major change in people without having to open up the “NLP toolbox”, and so it’s something that I am working on becoming really good at. During the course, one of our trainers, Peter Freeth, unveiled his take on questioning, The Unsticker. The idea is that the questions posed cause you to change your perspective on a problem in such a way that it doesnt actually matter what order they are asked in, just that they are asked. We’ve worked with this tool and it’s fascinating to see the responses despite the fact that each question takes no notice of the previous answer!

Anyway, it turns out that Peter has kindly put The Unsticker online, so you can pose your own question and be e-coached on the solution to it. If anything proves the fact that you have all the resources you need to make your own changes then this is it. Head over to http://www.ciauk.com/changemagic/unsticker.php and try it out. This works best with someone else posing you the question but of course you can use it solo if you like.

Peter Freeth can be found at www.excellerate.org, and has authored 4 books - NLP in Business, 6 Questions, NLP - Tools for Learning and Change Magic. All are available at www.ciauk.com.