NLP Training, Techniques & Products for learning NLP

We're about to enter 2012 and say goodbye forever to 2011. So I wanted to share some ideas and powerful questions to consider in order to make 2012 better and more successful than all the others.

Tony Robbins famously says "Success leaves clues" and it does, but you need to know how to look for them. This is one way.

A lot of time we all get so busy that we forget to spot the clues and track when something we are doing is working and so should do more of it, or when it's clearly not and so it is time to pivot and do something else.

The following questions are designed to help you close out strong on 2011 and set yourself up for a great 2012.

The entire process is built on one of the most overlooked but key areas of getting good with anything - frequent self reflection. When you use a solid reflective process on yourself daily as something which you then use as input to modify your behaviour you can't help but become better.

11 Questions To Change Your Life:

OK - so the first question is:

What went really well in 2011?

What did you accomplish, experience and achieve that was significant to you both personally and professionally.

Write each one down and take a moment to re-experience each and every one. What are you seeing, hearing and feeling as you notice that now?

And you can let those good feelings sink in and celebrate in your mind what a cool, fun, brilliant achievement you made happen or experienced.

Take a bow, because that result you achieved was awesome.

Next…

What didn't go well in 2011? What were your biggest disappointments, frustrations or failures?

List them out.

Notice that regardless of how big or small there were, you are still here and even though it was a result that you didn't want, you are going to benefit from it.

So ask yourself:

What did I learn from that experience?

Again go through each disappointment or perceived failure of 2011 and write out what you learnt from that so you benefit from it.

And remember the objective here is to identify a lesson you can use to take you forward in to 2012, not to use the stuff to make yourself feel bad.

In NLP, a core presupposition we hold is that people make the best choices they can given their map/model of the world. Which means that even if that situation/result sucked and was completely other than what you wanted, your thinking about the situation then, led to your choices being the right thing for you to do at that time.

So rather than feel bad instead become curious about where your map/model of the world is out of sync with the reality of that situation. And update your model of the world!

When you get into the habit of tracking and externalizing your thought process, you will very quickly identify mis-takes that can be corrected and errors avoided and so be way more successful in any area of life.

OK so you've got your big wins and big lessons from 2011, now ask yourself:

What do I need to do differently in each important area of my life in order to get more of what I want?

We are all creatures driven by habit. We all have areas where we are blind to certain habits (good and bad) that are affecting the results we experience.

So take a moment to think through each key area, goal that was important in 2011, review the lessons you've learned and then answer:

• What do you need to do more of?

• What do you need to do differently?

• What should you stop doing altogether?

Write your answers down and take time to properly reflect on each one.

Then setup conditions as you start 2011, so those desired behaviours show up in your life. And you'll be off to a great start.

And if you have a list of goals that you didn't do anything on in 2011 then decide if they are really for you or if they are just old thoughts that you can get rid of. You are not required to pursue or achieve every goal you ever thought of.

Use this time to write out all the things you are not going to be doing in 2012. Think of it as your "stopped doing list". It will clear up a lot of mental energy and kept you focused most on what you want.

Lastly think about what are the top 3 results you want to create in the year ahead. Write them down. Then ask yourself:

What's my most important result I'm committed to in 2012?

Why?

How will my life be better, different when you have achieved this goal/result?

The secret here is to fall in love with the end result and make it so juicily compelling for you that you are unreservedly compelled to take action. The thought of it just calls out from you the desire to move yourself to action.

A lot of the time in personal development people say you need to have huge pictures or tons of adrenaline going in order to get motivated to act, but that's not so. You want to evoke the state of action not feel like you have to force yourself to get motivated. Make sense?

For example, have you ever had an idea you fell in love with?

Like lately perhaps you can think over Xmas if there was that one special gift you REALLY wanted to buy, you know the one, that special thing you couldn't wait to get your hands on, and just the thought of it send your heartbeat racing and you couldn't help yourself from thinking about how wonderful it would be to have and frequently found yourself daydreaming all the ways it would benefit your life and how useful or whatever it would be when you had that special something?

Everybody has got something like that, for guys it might be technology or toys for girls it's often designer bags, fashion or that really beautiful (and expensive!) piece of jewellery. Whatever - the thing is if you have this kind of compelling response where it leads you to take action your brain-body already has an effective strategy onboard in order to motivate yourself to take action… effortlessly.

And that's what you want - to have this number 1 goal/result you are committed to achieve in 2012 be like a big drooling movie that you have GOT TO take action on and when you do you feel great and the more action you take the closer it becomes…

As an NLPer I suggest you use the sub-modality contrast pattern and anchoring to identify and track the clues that made it so compelling and juicy for you and link it to the goal you want to pursue.

There's a lot more that could be said on this but that will give you some ideas for now.

So go write out what you are most compelled to achieve in 2012 and go through the process I outlined.

Lastly…

What is the narrative and perceived limitations you are going to have to give up?

Achieving the things we want can often be easier than we think but people often get trapped inside their story about why they can't have it or don't have all the resources they need. Some crappy internal dialogue rears it's head and instead of saying what that hell and shut up, we listen to it like it was the great Oracle from the sky, that's always right… when it is NOT.

Identify what has been your story or perceived limitation in 2011 and decide to give it up. Even if it is a legitimate significant obstacle you've got to overcome; shift your thinking to overcoming it by some other way rather than giving more energy to the thing you don't want.

In closing…

The thoughts you hold affect your actions - if you've got a bunch of limiting thoughts (also known as limiting beliefs) that cause you to play small or go for less than what you want, then take a moment to jettison that thinking.

There are lots of ways to do this, but one of the most useful is simply challenge ever statement that you hear that negative internal voice make. Become the ultimate skeptic of your critical inner self in areas where you are holding yourself back.

Eventually when you take this approach on a limiting belief it will metaphorically crack and can't stay true anymore. The doubt stacks up and it can't take it anymore. And you as you are doing that start filling in gap with all the ways about how you are capable and able of achieving the things you want.

Science may never prove if we have unlimited potential, but I believe we all certainly have far more potential than what we've expressed so far.

Wishing you a great 2012.
Tom

PS: If you'd like to enjoy learning how to use NLP on yourself to create more of the life you want then…

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Think about this…

Buddha once said:

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”

2011 has been a year filled with much uncertainty globally. I'm sure many people will be happy to see it end. Many others worry what 2012 will bring.

Yet the opportunity to proper and stay centered in any environment exists when you clear your mind and untangle the knots that accumulate on the inside.

That's what we as practitioners of NLP do. We're not just people helpers, change agents, problem solvers… we are reality changers.

How To Change "Reality"

There are few resources I know better and that I rely on myself to change reality, to…
*    Clear up confusion
*    Eliminate hesitation
*    Transform doubt
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Than the updated Meta Model and Framing Tool.

In fact when you learn how to use these two powerful models conversationally and habitually, all manner of transformations, realisations and possibilities unfold in front of you.

Right in front of your very eyes. It's like a fog that has been encompassing you lifts and you get, perhaps for the first time, how some narrative or unconscious thought processes has been affecting your entire life.

And then you pop.

Reality has shifted.

And you realise that you no longer need to re-act that way.  And your life improves right there. Or the life of your client, when you help them.

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Excellent use with the tool set of NLP isn't just about being good with language. You will want to have a wide array of effective strategies to help you achieve the outcomes that you want. In the areas of influence, persuasion and change having an effective process that you can use to structure your thinking can make all the difference in the world.

Here's one approach that works really well to help you become a more effective influencer, persuader or change artist, regardless of context or outcome.

1. Get Clear

Get clear on what you want to have occurred as a result of your communication.

If you aren't crystal clear on what you want to occur as a result of you speaking then the audience or client won't be either. In NLP we say the meaning of the communication is the response you get not what you intended.

Without clarity of purpose comes lack of clarify of message. This leaves your listener having to hallucinate what they think you mean. That's fine when you want them to, but not if you want to influence very specifically what and how you want them to represent your ideas.

E.g "This was fun, I hope our paths cross again" is different from "I really enjoyed this. My friends and I are hooking up for a football game that's coming up next weekend. Fancy joining us?"

The first request is ambiguous and requires more 'reading between the lines', the second is clearer and uses elegant use of conversational sub-modalities "coming up" to have the listener represent motion and action.

2. Think Through To Whom You Are Communicating With And How They Process The World

Many people overlook this and present information in the way in which they like to have information presented. We want to use whatever form(s) work best for our outcome and audience.

Within the NLP community I've noticed over the years that many people love procedural step-by-step explicit action steps over vague "ranting stories", even though both types of communication styles have their function. A great communicator uses both depending on the result they are going after.

When you are thinking through to whom you are speaking with and how they process the world you are looking to identify what are the governing frames of reference they have around the topic or idea AND what feelings that evokes, so you can build, extend, modify etc how you present your ideas.

If you fail to identify how a person thinks and feels about a topic then you risk missing your 'target' completely or meeting strong opposition.

Mastery with the Meta Model, logic, presuppositions, seeding of ideas etc. play a key role in skilfully detecting and influencing the governing frames of reference.

3. Keep The Message Simple

Keep your message simple. The brain works well when it gets clear instructions.

Politicians know that when trying to get a point through you need to keep the message as simple and straight forward as possible. They repeat the same message over and over so that the electorate will (hopefully) get their message and what is implied about it, also known as the message of the message.

For example in the UK the Tory government keeps calling back to the "mess left to us by labour" anytime a new bit of bad economic news arises. While the labour leadership try to position the frame of reference they want the electorate to have as "Tories just cut, they don't have a plan for growthÖ and we're a new type of labour for a new era".

Repetition of message, keeping it simple and staying "on message" are all key patterns of excellent change agents, influencers and persuaders.

4. Determine How Far Outside Their 'Map Of The World' Your Proposed Idea/Request Is:

Priming an electorate to accept an idea requires a different level of sophistication and repetition than trying to influence a hiring manager that you are the right person for the job.

Before you ever think about what tools you'll employ, you need to first assess how big a "gap" you are facing and what kind of process you need to drive your listener through.

The further outside their map or model of the world your communication is from the listener's ongoing first hand "reality", the more you'll need to think through and anticipate ways to change it. When you do this by building on ideas already affirmed inside their worldview you'll find the task much easier.

5. Generate Several Different Ways To Achieve Your Outcome, Then Act

Generating ideas about how to achieve your objective becomes the fun part. You'll want to think through what does this person need to think/feel first, second, third etc that connects to my outcome? What ideas or thoughts need to be built up and in what sequence to create the effect that you want?

Until you have enough first hand experience you will need to think it through thoroughly.

There are two broad ways to approach the question of method. You can start with small single objectives and work to greater levels of complexity from there, or you can start with everything included and strip ideas and streamline your communication so it becomes lean and laser focused to it's recipient.

Milton Erickson was known for writing 40 pages of an hypnotic process which he would revise down to a single page.

Most people will not need to be this meticulous. Milton was a change artist dealing with a very specific set of behavioural challenges in his clients. You may be looking to influence your boss to sign off on a 4 day work week or give you that promotion. Cut your cloth to measure. However in the initial stages of becoming skilled with figuring this piece out it helps if you are systematic and extensive in your approach.

As a student of NLP you have many, many tools at your disposal such as anecdotes, short stories, parables, questions, "my friend John", direct instruction, metaphors etc. to create several different instances of the key messages and change in thoughts you are looking to wire up.

Use the TOTE model to organise your thinking and determine which needs to come first, second, third.

Then when you are ready try it out and use the feedback you get from the experience to do it better again next time.

When you consistently employ these five steps in a systematic way, you will start become really good with this and soon be able to influence, persuade or change more and more on the fly.

Making It Practical:

Pick 1 area from the above where you typically don't focus on and apply yourself to become skilled at it over the coming 7 days.

Got a question or comment? Feel free to leave it below.

Most people's NLP smells like very overt NLP… which can be a problem when working in business contexts.

Wouldn't it be nice to know how to use NLP so it didn't sound or smell like NLP?

Inside this video taken from Michael Breen's Business NLP  Practitioner course he shows you how… starting with understanding the real power of presuppositions and teaching you a process on how to use key components of the  NLP toolset in business without ever sounding like an NLPer.

Click below to watch…

Free Persuasion Training (For Everyone)

I've got a VERY cool training audio and details on a persuasion competition for you. The competition prize is valued at over $2,500.

Master Persuasion trainer Kenrick Cleveland has just sent me a 50 minute training on "Installing Your Message & Bypassing Resistance" taken from his Maximum Persuasion live training seminar and I kindly asked if I could share it with you, the valued visitors to NLP Times. He agreed.

Which is great because it is 100% rock-solid persuasion content. And easy to apply.

Inside this training module you will:

• Learn 3 of the most powerful words in persuasion

• Hear about Kenrick's early training with Richard Bandler and ending up unexpectedly in a trance… waking up in a empty room… or was it?

• Discover how this small change in the use of your language can have a huge impact

• Find out one of Kenrick's recommended processes to set "resistance" aside

• Learn about how to overload and direct a person's conscious mind and chain suggestions

Click here to download it now.

The BIG Competition

Next after you are done listening go visit the the competition page.

Kenrick is launching an awesome persuasion package on Monday valued over $2,500 and 1 lucky NLP Times winner will get the ENTIRE program for free!

All you have to do is:

Enter your best persuasion language pattern based on using the 3 most powerful words he shares inside this training.

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Go grab the download here and enjoy.

Got a question about persuasion or comment on this post, enter it below, I'd love to hear from you.

NLP has a lot to offer. Yet I also think as a community of people practicing and applying NLP we also have much further we can go.

I've been learning and practicing NLP for nearly 14 years, have had the pleasure of connecting with hundreds of thousands of people through the NLP Times blog, videos and products and one peculiar thing I noticed that marks this field out more so than most other training related fields I've been involved with is a unique groupie mindset and over emphasis on the guru trainer.

Many in the community seem to value higher titles over results. Certificates over skills. Concepts and worldviews over simplification and practical applications.

I get that different trainers and different schools of NLP resonate differently for different people. And many trainers are exceptional but not becuase they were born "perfected" with awesome skillset in working and helping people or applying and using NLP with themselves and others.

Any one who has spent time watching, hearing or reading about the "early chapters" of NLP will know that not even Richard or John were a fraction as skillful then as they have since become. Yet in their own ways both have continued to develop their skills and what is possible with the technology.

The Dangerous Consequence Of The Groupie Mind

Some people are die hard fans of Richard Bandler, others of John Grinder or Tony Robbins. Or other well known trainers like Michael Breen, John LaValle, Paul Mckenna, Owen Fitzpatrick, Gabe Gurrero, Robert Dilts, Michael Hall, to name a few more. And the list doesn't end there. There are many others that could be named.

For the ones I've personally worked with or studied from I can say each of them are great trainers and do a superb job teaching the toolset of NLP.

The bit that I find curious is when people over focus and hype up the seemingly spell binding skills or life of any trainer. The problem with this; is it usually restricts their growth. They create false ideas about what the technology can do (without, when required, consistent effort and commitment to get good) and believe NLP is a magic pill or one stop wonder.

The common context I hear is often from a novice and even highly experienced students who believe just becuase a trainer is a X level, been "successful" or is well known that they must have the perfect life life, never have anything go wrong, be happy all the time, slim, fit, wealthy and know how to solve every problem.

This thinking for the most part is usually the creation of mental fantasies.

Left unchecked the trainer is placed firmly on a Guru pedestal and each training can become more like a sermon.

From there the student typically only focuses on how brilliant they are rather than wondering how quickly can they apply what they have learned or feel poor about themselves if they don't produce similar result.

This approach is a strategy on how NOT to get progressively better.

If you are comparing yourself constantly to any other trainer or NLP practitioner and put them on a mega pedestal you are almost certainly inhibiting the development of your own skills.

Why? Because if you are spell bound by the magic your focus won't be on how they are producing that result.

Learning NLP is first primarily about you and your life and then, if you so decide using it to benefit others.

It's not about becoming a Guru trainer or having a Mega Master Delta Level - training certificate that says you are "in the club".

Certificates these days primarily have a business and product function. Having a certificate shouldn't make it so you think you really know NLP. Being really good with NLP is never about how many certificates or titles you own.

(And for the record, while it is human nature to like having your work liked, fanned and acknowledged I'm not proposing that the trainers listed above were or are seeking a "Guru" following or are Gurus in any kind of pejorative term. The Guru-ism where it was/is in our own thoughts. The people on that list that I know promote the complete opposite approach.)

The Truth About Top Trainers & People In Every Profession

Every performer you've ever seen do something exceptionally well and be able to do that thing consistently (for example evoke rapid trance, change beliefs, hold an audiences attention for hours, solve highly complex problems, put the ball in the top corner of the goal) did so as a result of putting the time in.

They are that good for good reason.

So seeing someone be really good is not a time for "I'll never be that good" or "It's easy for them… they are a mega master Guru". Instead of this kind of thinking… hear yourself say "mmm, I wonder how they did that and how I could do that?"… if that something is what you really want.

What research indicates and what your own experience will likely support is consistent excellence is not a magical end result that just was born. Rather it is the result of a specific set of behavioral patterns repeated over and over until they form well worn habits of excellence.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers, defines the number of hours needed to reach high level of success in any domain as 10,000 hours. The actual requirement will vary from person to person and depend on many factors, but most people agree a lot of practice is required.

Every person is really good at producing some specific results.

The folks who are really good and exceptional in any profession are so as a result of them absorbing, processing, outputting and refining what they have learnt. NLP is no differently. The trainer and "experts" we admire have done this over and over again, in which some type of feedback; either by themselves or via an external person plays a big role.

So when you see someone who is exceptional, applause their commitment to their craft. Celebrate it - becuase it is awesome.

Then if you want to, focus on what you need to learn to produce a similar result.

Every great trainer will be very appreciate of a student who wants to really learn.

And remember - contemplation and ongoing assessment of your own performance in any domain is key.

The stars of any field didn't accept their first results - they used feedback to get better and better and better, until now it seems to a lesser experienced eye like a kind of magic. And for someone who doesn't yet have that skill it is.

The take away is, for the most part if you really want to become very good you can.

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If you are looking to become dramatically better with NLP, in a progressive fashion then the Platinum Audio News Club is a great resource to help.

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Where Do You Want To Take Your NLP Skills Today?

Many years ago I once asked Richard Bandler where did he think NLP was going? His response was

NLP isn’t going anywhere. That’s a nominalization. The question where the rest of the NLP people are going? I have no idea. Me? I’m just going down the road trying to get things done faster and quicker and to have more fun doing them.

It was a great response and full of insight on many levels.

So my question for you is where do you want to take your NLP skills today?

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Got a question or comment? Leave it below I'd love to hear your feedback.