Friday, April 28, 2006

Venting your anger

"A pair of Shanghainese entrepreneurs are offering themselves as targets for verbal and — within limits — physical abuse, letting frustrated office workers vent without killing their careers."

Great - if words are powerful and energy, and can change what is going on in your brain and ultimately in your body (body and mind is one system), basically form new patterns, I wonder how long it will take until those two entrepreneurs are getting sick.

(NLP in Asia)










Thursday, April 27, 2006

Conquer your fear

A while ago, I bought "Chase - Somethin' to feel about", an album that features motivational or inspiring messages with music. Ah - partially, I would say hypnotic messages.

Anyway, there is one song, my favourite, with the one line in it that just blows me away:


"The only thing that distinguishes a conqueror from a slave is the action you take right now."
The context is fear and that we have to take actions to conquer our fear on a daily basis. But that when we do so, we also get stronger, day by day until one day, you are strong and the fear is gone.

Think about it - how often do we actually feel like slaves in our daily routine and habitual ways of doing things. We actually have sayings for this: "Don't slave me like this," "I feel so slaved today" or "Don't treat me like a slave." Others will come to your mind as well.

So - what actions have you taken today to free your mind? To free yourself from your role and inner prison?

(NLP in Asia)










Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Criteria to chose a coach and/or a training company

I am simply curious and ran a couple of those questions with companies that use training- and workshop providers and coaches. Now I am forwarding this question to you reading this post. Be honest, be open - if you are shy, send me an e-mail.

My simple question is - what are you looking for in a training- and workshop providers?

Most of the time, I heard "passion" - passion is important. Hence, the energy to convey learning and motivation and the enthusiasm coaches and trainers have for their job and the subject they are training.

Basically, this appears to be the entry ticket - as a participant, I wouldn't like to be in a session that is boring, uninspiring, or doesn't convey learning or even the message.

What else is there? Costs? Price? Knowledge transfer? Applicability?

What are you looking for, you, who is reading this entry. You as someone who is hiring a training- and workshop provider, or as someone, whose training you would attend?

Secondly, and as a coach - what are you looking for in a coach? Would you actually hire someone as a coach whom you have never met? Or only met through the net and his or her webpages? Is there a level of trust that needs to be there immediately, or can that be developed in the first coaching or meeting session?

I am curious to receive responses to these questions. To get better, to learn more. To add value to my service offering! In the end - to serve my customers and clients better. So shoot off your e-mail or submit those comments!

(NLP in Asia)










Monday, April 24, 2006

Energy and the willpower to stand strong against adversary

I had the great, great pleasure of participating in a training session with Dr. Geoge Bien on "Speaking with Power."

It is a workshop on presentation skills that explains in detail on how to present yourself in a presentation, works with your tonality, the setting of the room, spatial anchoring for high performance, handling of questions, anticipating participant's reactions, working with emotions and so on.

So it goes beyond the traditional type of presentation skills workshop that simply explains the structure of a presentation and how to convey your point of view. It is taking this basic skill for granted and extends it into the realm of high performance.

George is a fantastic guy and his training is inspiring, entertaining, performance boosting - not necessarily in this sequence. The training includes NLP exercises, anchoring and working with your body posture. If he sees potential improvements, he coaches the participant directly, face-to-face. He is called the Trainer of Trainers, and he is one, if not the leading trainer in hypnotherapy, and speaking performance.

His methods to train are just like him - outrageous, but outrageously good. He pushed me to the limits and never gave up. Forced me on when I got tired.

Why?

Because he said that it is easy to meet an easy goal - but once you pushed yourself to higher goals, it is tough to get back. Your mind has been stretched already, so it is able to withstand adversary.

Some of the exercises were easy but still challenging. Like shouting, in a convincing and congruent manner: "I am powerful".

Sounds easy, but dare not to be convincing - that either your voice fails to deliver the message or your body doesn't show that it really believes in your message.

George then starts to challenges and mock you - "no, you are not" - "I am powerful" - "no, you are not" and so on.

Do this six times! Or seven. Or only 5.

It saps an enourmous amount energy - a tremendous energy drain.

Why is he so pushing?

Because, when you speak, in a presentation, during a conference, in a workshop, in any situation in your life, there might be those that oppose what you say. That heckle. That find flaws in your argumentation.

It is not possible to shut those up - even if it would be desirable. Sure not!

They sap your energy as well. By then, you won't have time to build it up slowly. It must be there. Fullstop. By then, it must be in me, my system, my body.

And that is what I became aware of this in this training.

I got stronger, mentally, once again!

(NLP in Asia)









Saturday, April 22, 2006

A British NLPler

Britain or better, the UK, has a couple of great NLP practitioners. One of my favourite books on NLP comes from an NLPler in the UK called Sue Knight, while I currently also like to go into hypnosis with Paul Mckenna's Instant Confidence CD.

Now I had an interesting and very active visitor from the UK - a guy called Ian. Visit his blog -he really seems to enjoy spearheading NLP in the UK.

We have started quite an interesting idea exchange about the potential application of NLP in countries outside of the UK or the US. It is my belief that it is possible, but then, I speak English and coach in English and do everything in English. However, there are NLP centers in Hong Kong that train in Chinese, so it must be possible. In any case, it surely is important to take care of culture and cultural bias, whatever someone is using and applying in a context.

Or, as Ian initially challenged - is success the same in the Asia as it is in the US? I say - I don't know - it depends on the definition of the individual and his or her background.

NLP is important to me. It helps me to understand myself, and others, better and communicate in a more efficient way. And that is the most important because a lack of communication is cause for a lot of trouble in the world.

NLP in Asia










NLP - making sense of individual experiences

Ian commented recently basically asking if Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) would also work in Asia when it actually was created in the US. Great comment.

NLP is the study of what works in thinking, language and behaviour in the individual. In this sense, it does not matter if NLP has been created in the US, Europe, Africa or Asia. It is universally applicable.

NLP looks at ones own individual experience and works with this own subjective experience of the individual to bring the person from here to there – from present state to desired state. Thus, it is based on the premises that we are all different. We are different in the way that we have different parents, different experiences (from going and experiencing different classmates, different teachers, different books, different “places” etc., and different exposures to situations in our life – day-in and day-out. Through all this, we establish and continue to form (because we are never a complete “product”) our own personality. We form our values, beliefs and criteria that support beliefs.

All of this is coded in our brains. It is the world of neurochemicals, electric activity, and synapses = the world of 100 billion neurons (some say less some they more – it doesn’t really matter). In order to make sense of the world, we start coding experiences and form habits that guide us through our life from the early stages in our life (here, again, some say that this already starts during the pregnancy, while others say it starts after birth). From the initial phases in our existence, we start interpreting life’s events in a certain manner – in order to make sense of it. Otherwise, we would see the world with new eyes everyday and would need to recreate everything from scratch!

And suddenly, we have developed attitudes, and behaviours that block our development in certain ways or further it in others.

This is where NLP comes in handy. It helps the individual to discover their own path and clarifying foggy issues. It is not imposing values from different cultures, but uses the cultural traits in the individual – which are, again, embedded in the brain, but also in the body. Everything that we think, do, act upon is also expressed in our body. Sometimes the twitch of a muscle in the face, sometimes the movement of an arm, hand or leg reveals the way we feel, see, or hear. Our own individual sensory strategies.

What is the beauty of NLP? It helps you understand and unlock undesirable traits and beliefs in you – undesirable in your own definition, not someone else’s. All of those connections in your mind that hold you back today.

I have outlined some of the areas where NLP can help in personal and business settings here.

Once you identified those traits (either alone or with a coach), it is possible to disconnect them and free the energy – release the energy that hold you back and walk down your own chosen pathway.

(NLP in Asia)










Monday, April 17, 2006

Close encounters with death

Have you ever cheated death?

Death can come quickly - one second you are there and then, boom, something happens and you are gone.

While driving to work on Monday, and while stuck in the usual traffic jam, I wanted to switch lane. There was the gap, and I set the indicator and started to move out. Knowing Malaysia, all of these two actions - set the indicator and moving out of your lane - has to be done fast, since oftentime, the car next to you on the lane you want to move onto will try to cut you off.

What I didn't see was two motorcycles that speeded between the cars. I heard the honking, and stopped immediately to see the first motorcycle swerving around my car at extremely close range followed by the second. The second one turned around about 50 meters down the road. I don't know if the first one actually knew how close he was to death.

It was my mistake even so the two were driving way to fast for such kind of situations. My heart was beating fast and I felt adrenaline rushing through my body. I didn't move out of the lane for another 500 meters.

What I am wondering is - will something change for the guy on the motorcycle if he realised the close encounter?

Frequently, people change when they are in such situation, and mostly for the better. They start appreciating life much more and start to live much more purposefully. I hope it happens to him as well. That he realises that death can drop by any second of a day.

NLP in Asia









Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Surgery performed under hypnosis

Isnt' it amazing, this power of hypnosis and suggestions?

In the UK, a surgeon made an incision in the groin to repair a hernia live on television - without usual anaesthetic, just using hypnosis.

Absolutely possible.

When I did my training as a hypntherapist, my trainer ask one of the participants to lay on three chairs lined up in a row. He then relaxed the person, and suggested to his mind to be like a steel bar.

After inducing him (putting him into hypnosis), my trainer removed the chair in the middle. It was possible for another participant to sit on the person in hypnosis.

After a while, my trainer called the participant back from the hypnotic state.

Asked, what would have happened if he would have let the person wake up alone, my trainer said, that he would have felt stiff, initially.

The power of the mind. Simply amazing.

NLP in Asia

(NLP in Asia)








Tuesday, April 11, 2006

How many years in life do you spend ....

It has been estimated that you spend about a year of your life looking for things you have lost.

On average a human being spends two weeks of their entire lives waiting for traffic lights to change. (No wonder Malaysians keep beating the traffic lights)

  • The average person spends about two years of their lives talking on the phone.
  • The average housewife walks about four miles every year making beds.
  • The average person spends about 12 years of their life watching television.

That's a lot of time for each of those individual items!!

Find the whole list at Morticom.

Now, thinking of Malaysia:

If you are caught in the traffic jam, just one hour every day (and who isn't?), you wait 5 hours a week, 20 hours a month, 240 hours a year == which is equal 10 days. The whole day, not just a part of it. Its whole 24 hours. Imagine that!!

All in all, don't you want to spend your life a bit more purposeful?

This is about creating a purpose, a mission in your life, isn't it? Okay, some TV can be interesting, but how often do we actually watch something that is enlightening. Isn't it true that often, we come home from work, exhausted, just to switch on the TV to sit in front of it for 2 or 3 hours, without or hardly any movement.

Life? For me, it is different.

(NLP in Asia)