Sunday, February 26, 2006

Fascinating test of computer game under hypnosis

Wow, this is fascinating.

In fact so fascinating that I copy the whole article into this entry.
"In a video game magazine first, Buena Vista Games successfully hypnotised the Deputy Editor of the Official Xbox Magazine, Mark Robins, and age-regressed him to ten years old in a groundbreaking project that saw Mark review the Xbox release of Disney and Walden Media Presents The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe through the eyes of the game's intended market.

Taking place in Future's London offices and lasting around 45 minutes, the hypnosis session was undertaken by Mark Howe, a professional and seasoned hypnotist, and will appear as part of a four-page feature in the April issue of The Official Xbox Magazine, on-sale 16th March. Video footage of the hypnosis session will also appear on the Official Xbox Magazine's covermount disk.
"The idea of hypnotising someone into believing they're a ten year old to review a game was so unique that I simply had to get involved, even if it was just to see how it would turn out," commented Mark Robins, Official Xbox Magazine Deputy Editor. "Luckily I've come out the other end mentally unscathed and I even had my fear of flying cured to boot. I'm amazed it worked so well: I can't usually remember what I was up to last week, let alone twenty years ago."

"The Chronicles of Narnia is a computer and video game aimed at 8-12 year old boys and girls and finding anyone in that age bracket that has both the journalism experience and gaming skill to articulate a full and fair review has been impossible, until now," commented Mark Ward, on behalf of Buena Vista Games. "I had to promise that we wouldn't plant any other suggestions while Mark was 'under' and I've stood by my word. That said, he's been clucking like a chicken ever since."

This means that they hypnotised the guy, and he tested the game while his mind believed that he was 10 years old. How great is this? Imagine the possibilities for yourself and the conflicts from the time when you were ten and that you can solve now?

Remember that all those unsolved situations of your past need energy and strength to hold in place. When resolved, you can free yourself from so many, many situations that still bug you!
This does not mean that you are re-writing your history, but that you are solving issues - regrets, doubts, guilt - of the past that still hold you back now.

(NLP in Asia)








Thursday, February 23, 2006

Overweight Malaysians

It does not really affect only Malaysians but it happens globally - we are eating more, and we get fatter and fatter. Obesity is the magic word, when the rings around your stomach start to grow.

Gaining weight starts slowly, and it can only be realised when suddenly colleagues make "strange" remarks, the trousers that seemed to fit yesterday don't fit anymore today. It is easy to grow bigger and tough to get it down.

Governments are alert and there are companies (so far in the West only) that require a healthier lifestyle from their employees or else - pay more for your health insurance or check out of the company. In Malaysia, the number of overweight Malaysians is increasing, with more than 5.5 million on the list.

Is sheer diet possible? Even healthy?

Frequently not. Frequently, some kilos go down only to come back after you completed the diet. And then the fight starts again.

Why?

Easy - because often there is a gain behind the weight gain. I mentioned it before when I wrote about smoking and its relation to confidence.

With weight gain, it can be something else. May be somewhere in your youth, someone told you that you are cute and chubby. Others might have said that you are too thin, too skinny and that this is not great.

Commands that the subconscious mind picks up and follows.

This is called Secondary gains - you subconscious mind follows these orders and keeps those secondary gain with all means. It wants to protect and nurture you - even so your conscious mind rebels.

It is too late. Your sub-conscious mind is stirring you and preventing you from getting slim and skinny again, again, it wants to protect you.

Hypnotherapy is a very useful way to fight those extra pounds, but the task of the qualified hypnotherapist is to identify those secondary gains.

As this article simply states: "When used by a trained therapist, hypnosis can help you lose weight and keep it off. But be wary of any program that promises simple miracles." One therapist is quoted as saying that it is important even crucial to check on those secondary gains.

Check with me, if you have a question, or... want to lose weight! To be in real deep hypnosis is a wonderful feeling - you can go places, you have never been or wish you could go again. Check out this short script at Mind Changing Hypnosis, for what is a nice, short script relating to health and reaching your goals.

(NLP in Asia)








Sunday, February 19, 2006

The Peter Principle and business coaching for mindset change

Imagine the following situation - a situation that a Business Coach is encountering frequently, but you will surely recognise the trait in your own business environment.

You have a great engineer, or executive. For the sake of this entry, let's stick to the executive. It is a young man (sorry ladies), aspiring, enthusiastic, motivated or engaged and happy. Whatever his boss gives to him is promptly dealt with, he doesn't miss a deadline and, simply speaking, it is fun to have the guy around.

Now, it is time for the promotion and the guy gets it. Yes, he has been long enough with the company and surely deserves the promotion. Especially since teamwork is required and he surely is "beloved" by his colleagues.

He leaves the company 12 months later, devasted that a promising career came to an end. The employer doesn't know what went wrong, but over the last 12 months since the promotion, more and more complaints came in about the guy. It simply didn't work anymore.
He meddled around in the work of his employees, micro-managed them, and, simultaneously wasn't able to get his own work done. A couple of projects went totally astray, clients complained about his work - simply speaking, his promotion did not turn out the way it was forecased.

He falls victim to the Peter's Principle. Who hasn't heard of the sentence that in a promotion, you lose a great engineer and win a bad manager?

The Peter Principle states that "it may be simply that the position is different from the position in which the employee previously excelled, and thus requires different skills, which the employee may not possess."

This means a promoted employee is doing what he knows best - instead of doing his new job, which requires new skills and a new mindset, he is "bothering" the employee who is now doing his former job. He hasn't received the new mindset to cope with new challenges - no one coached him. He does what he feels competent to do. The other employees, of course, are unhappy - and might even start to meddle in other people's work as well. Do you see the cycle?

Employees need to change their mindset to move on, to develop capabilities and new behaviours. There is a different air that you breathe, once you climb the career ladder. You can even say that there is the requirement for a different mindset once your company start growing. A different kind of management is required when you manage a small department vis-a-vis a larger department, 5 employees in a company vis-a-vis 10 or 15 or 50 employees, a small company growing to a big company, revenues of US$1 million to revenues of US$10 million and so on.

This is the fun part of business coaching. Business coaching, amongst others, helps company leaders to develop the mindset of their employees. You coach employees to develop their mindset and to avoid the Peter Principle.

I would be interested to hear your story. Or, if you need a personal coach or a business coach, just send me an email.

(NLP in Asia)






Friday, February 17, 2006

Smoking, hypnotherapy and a personal story

I found this entry which describes the advantage of hypnotherapy in helping to quit smoking.

Worthwhile a read.

It is clearly correct to say that it is tough if not impossible to quit smoking with willpower alone. And that hypnotherapy is extremely valuable as a tool for those who want to quit smoking.

I remembered when I stopped smoking about 10 years back. It was like starting a new life. New habits needed to form. Behaviour rectified. Imagine that anything related to smoking needed to get rewired. The cigarette after the morning coffee. The cigarette while driving my car. The cigarette after food, during discussions, to smooth conversations, to gain confidence, to hold on to something. No more of such things. The first time I went to a pub to meet with friends was like hell. We drank, had fun, but then, as the urge for a cigarette started to grow, i had to leave. This wass the worst day of it. I paced up and down in my living room, and simply longed for a cigarette. I got over it!

A friend once told me that there is hardly any picture or photo available of me without a cigarette in my hand. I stopped, from one day to the next. By chance, it was a day when Mahatir, Malaysia's former prime minister, called onto the nation to stop smokine, make it a non-smoking day. Thank you, Tun! I followed your advice.

There were a couple of incidences when I nearly started to smoke again. One was the death of my father and the guilt in me that I hadn't seen him for a longer while. I just started to work in Malaysia on a 2 year contract and didn't want to go back to Germany for my leave but instead took the chance to travel around Asia. I thought that after the two years, i would go back to Germany and see him again anyway. I never did. He died, after a long fight against Parkinson's disease.

The day my mother called to tell me that my father died was the day I wanted to smoke again. It didn't happen, thanks to my wife (I dated her at that time) and her "handholding" at that time.

The next time was when I actually had a big argument with my wife-to-be. I was so angry that I told her that I need a break to throw the remaining cigarettes (yes, I kept some spare, just in case!) away, otherwise, I would start to smoke again. When I came back, we had lost our the feeling for the fight, didn't know what the fight was about anymore, had a good laughter and moved on.

I still like the cigarette smoke, every now and then. And every now and then, I still feel the urge to smoke. I don't because I know that I wouldn't be able to control the habit and would be back to my 30 or 40 sticks in a day.

And no "Tak Nak" campaign would help me then!

I believe that hypnotherapy is one way to overcome addiction.

It is simply instilling new values, new beliefs into the system. I won against my addiction because I was able to change my behaviour and had a good fight for a different behaviour and strong, very strong willpower (hey - I am a German, okay?).

But behaviours operate at a lower level of your neurology and are often directed by values and beliefs. The subconscious belief that a cigarette helps to strengthen confidence is strong. It is entrenched deeply in the sub-conscious mind, more than the behaviour that consciously says cigarettes are bad for your health.

Values and beliefs influence behaviour but changes in behaviour are pretty much challenged to change values and beliefs - in fact, a changed behaviour might not influence beliefs at all if left at that.

Only "extreme" behavioural change is able to change values and beliefs - for example, a lot of my beliefs changed after I moved from Germany to Malaysia, thus even the environment is able to ultimately change behaviour and beliefs - but who is willing to change so dramatically to change values and beliefs? Strong group pressure is another possibility to change beliefs and then, following, values and beliefs.

Ultimately, it is easier to directly go into the belief system. A good hypnotherapist is able to identify those original secondary gains - e.g.; the need for confidence - that come with the consumption of cigarettes.

Once this gain is identified in an initial session, a certified practioner hypnotherapist can easily eliminate the habit and behaviour. Send me a mail - I am more than happy to help or coach you.

(NLP in Asia)








Thursday, February 09, 2006

Positive Thoughts and positive attitude

Everybody talks about the importance of positive thoughts and a positive attitude. This surely is a better way of living than to be constantly dragged down by negativity.

Agree!

The challenge is two-fold, nevertheless.

Firstly, it is tough to stay positive in an environment that is negative. How to be positive when you are working in an office, for example, where people are constantly negatively inclined? Talk negatively about clients, about their colleagues, about their friends about their dog, about anything?

Secondly, we surely haven't been raised to think and behave positively. Everybody, or at least plenty of people, has been exposed to negativity throughout their life. Even those that attempt to live positively only mostly cover a sea of negativity with positive thoughts. Scrape deeper and you can find negativity.

Sad, but at least they are trying.

This is worthwhile an attempt - to live and breath positivity. Why? Well, ask yourself, are thoughts energy? Or, better, do they cause something in your body? Is there a link between body and mind, thoughts and body?

Sure there is. If you don't believe it, just think of the reaction of your body the moment you have some sexual fantasy. Really, I am serious! What is the reaction? I bet that even so you didn't "engage in any sexual activity" (I hope not, I hope you keep reading the entry), there was a reaction in your body.

Now this is a reaction to a sexual thought.

Think, what is happening when you have negative thoughts, feel anxious, nervous, lack of confidence, insecure or even hate, lack of passion, frustration, passion etc.

Now that is scary, Isn't it?

(NLP in Asia)






Sunday, February 05, 2006

Bald heads and a positive attitude

Interesting statement from Selangor police chief Datuk Yahaya Udin, who commented about the head shaving of the 11 arrested men:

"We cut their hair as short as possible and sporting short hair reflects positive image."

Before, I was worried that I am getting bald only. Now I have the hope that I at least now, I am attaining a positive attitude naturally.

But seriously, I don't see the connection between short hair and positive image. What has one to do with the other? Is this clear as a statement to anyone? For those of you experienced in NLP, this is a clear violation of the Meta-Model. How language is put together to form a statement - and in doing so, expresses a belief system.

NLPler could ask: "Have you ever seen someone with long hair and a positive attitude?" Or, "Is it possible to have short hair and still have a bad attitude?"

Basically - to identify the deeper structures of the belief behind the earlier sentence. But, and this is interesting, when you go around listening to other people (which people?), it is easy to see that there are many, many statements around us that express similar beliefs.

Just thinking of my parents and what they liked to tell me: "If you listen to music that loud, it is clear that you become deaf soon." Got it?

(NLP in Asia)






Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Meditation and science


Wired Magazine has quite an interesting article about the conflict between Western science on neurology and Eastern ways of approaching "brain science through meditation" (if I may say so).
Cause of the stir? The Dalai Lama's invitation to speak at the Society for Neuroscience's annual conference in front of 14,000 people and the worry of other participants that there is a "mix of science and religion."

He came because of the apparent alteration of the brain structure of monks that meditated tens of thousands of hours.

"Results suggested that, in the course of meditating for tens of thousands of hours, the monks had actually altered the structure and function of their brains."

I am not discussing the pro and con of the invitation. I believe that anything that enlightens the functioning of the brain and possibility to change brain functions is worthwhile pursuing.
Why are we afraid to change? Change is possible. Habits are changeable and beliefs created a long time ago inhibit us today in developing our capabilities. If there are ways to change those, our own limitations (and be assured, there are ways) , go for it.

Picture above taken from Wired Magazine's article: Buddha on the brain

NLP in Asia