Thursday, May 25, 2006

The zone in public speaking

Guy Kawasaki expressed it pretty nicely in his fourth point of entry on "The Top Ten Lies" - public speaking.

He says that after commencing a speech, he is entering the zone. I agree. It is here where you are alone - but it is your stage. My stage. Here is the place to brand myself. Even to gain confidence for future challenges, because it is here were I can celebrate myself.

The time to be nervous is over. I enter the stage. Look at the audience, in anticipation. They look back at me, also in anticipation.

The first few words that are so crucial to me to enter the zone.

I am mostly starting with a story or a joke. This is my entry into the zone.

I am connecting with the individuals in the audience. Acknowledge them. Smile. Wait for a point to settle. Sometimes speaking too fast, because of my excitement of a point. Sometimes even too fast and then ending a presentation too fast as well. That is fine. I then actually don't want to leave the stage. This has become my place. I am looking forward to questions from the audience, challenge them to ask questions, because sometimes, there are none.

The zone is where my energy flow is strongest. When I can feel it zapping through me, being all around me. It is a great place to be.

(NLP in Asia)








Wednesday, May 24, 2006

What rubbish about hypnosis

I just read this article about the usage of hypnosis and how someone with can be manipulated with hypnosis. It is normally not my style to talk badly about other practitioners, but sometimes, bad publicity needs to be corrected.

"Under hypnosis you are not going to do anything you are not inclined already to do,'' King said. ``If I hypnotize you and say `I need you to go rob a bank and bring me back the money,' there is a chance you might go rob the bank but there is little chance you will give me the money. You are probably not inclined to do that.''

So presupposes that the one under hypnosis is willing to rob a bank? Thank you, but no thank you. What rubbish to state this in an interview. It is these kind of statements that shed a bad light on the beautiful advantages that hypnosis can bring.

(NLP in Asia)








Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Worse fear number one: Public speaking

It still is the greatest fear of all times: Public speaking. Be it speaking for a smaller or larger audience.
The moment your name is called, the heart starts pumping. Usually strong voices fade away, or sound restricted.

What was clear a moment ago seems gone. Time slows to an apparent crawl. And the one person who was so friendly just a minute ago changes into a grimacing monster.
Problem is that the ability to speak publicly is increasingly important in the 21st century (as if it wasn't earlier), if you want to grow in your company. How to do?

Courses in public speaking or to enhance presentation skills don't always help (do they at all?), since every situation is different, looks different, sounds different, feels different.

Sounds familiar?

BusinessWeek Online has a couple articles that can provide help to those with fear, summarised in Room 116.

If this doesn't help (and did an article ever?), feel free to send me an e-mail for a free tip or two. Or, if you want, I can work with you to increase your confidence in a few NLP sessions. Because in the end, we are all confident. How else did we learn to walk, to read, to get a job and through the interview, marry ( :) ) or simply survive? It is all in us, insn't it?

(NLP in Asia)








Thursday, May 18, 2006

Sublimal advertising and day-to-day hypnotic language

"It was a stunt that launched a thousand conspiracy theories. Market researcher James Vicary claimed in 1957 that he could get movie-goers to "drink Coca-Cola" and "eat popcorn" by flashing those messages on the screen for such a short time that viewers were unaware of it. People were outraged, and the practice was banned in the UK, Australia and the US."

Now even so Vicary later admitted the fabrication of the study, the story still makes its rounds. Even more, new findings state that sublimal advertising might actuall work.

Read first the article and below find some examples of day-to-day hypnotic examples.

These researchers wanted to find out if "they could subliminally induce volunteers to favour a particular brand of drink, Lipton Ice. For comparison, they chose a brand of mineral water called Spa Rood, as it was deemed to be as well known as Lipton Ice and equally thirst-quenching.

The researchers asked 61 volunteers to perform a nonsense task - counting how many times a string of capital Bs was infiltrated by a lower-case b as they flashed up on a screen. The B strings appeared for 300 milliseconds each, and before them, a string of Xs always appeared, flanking a 23-millisecond subliminal message. For the experimental group, the message was "Lipton Ice". Controls saw "Nipeic Tol".

When the volunteers had completed this task, they were asked to choose between Lipton Ice and Spa Rood by clicking one of two keys - though they were told this was part of a separate study. They were also asked how likely they would be to order either of these drinks if they were sitting on a terrace, and to rate how thirsty they were. Volunteers who rated themselves as thirsty were more likely to choose Lipton Ice, but only if they had received the subliminal message.

In a second study the researchers made half of their 105 volunteers thirsty by giving them a very salty candy before the task. As predicted, among the thirsty, subliminal messaging had an impact. Eighty per cent of thirsty volunteers who had been exposed to the Lipton Ice message chose that product, compared to only 20 per cent of the controls.

“Eighty per cent of thirsty volunteers who had been exposed to the Lipton Ice message chose that product”The thirstier volunteers rated themselves to be, the more likely they were to choose Lipton Ice. Those who were not thirsty were only slightly more likely to pick the iced tea (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2005.12.2005). "Priming only works when the prime is goal-relevant," says Karremans. The researchers are now planning to study just how long-lasting these effects are."

From The New Scientist

Examples of day-to-day hypnotic language:
The interesting point is that actually, one doesn't need to have sublimal messages that flash across a screen. Even advertising in its current state can influence purchase decisions - why? Because hypnotic language is all around us anyway, in our day-to-day life. Anything high-level, anything that is very unspecific is hypnotic because we as individuals have our own individual definition and opinion about those high-level and unspecific words - when we hear many of those long enough, our mind starts to wander about into different directions. This then is the time when hypnotic suggestions are possible.

Want to know examples of hypnotic day-to-day language? Just listen to a conference speaker, to politicians speaking or go into any university and listen to lecturers. These are the real hypnotic examples that you can find daily, all around you.

(NLP in Asia)









Monday, May 15, 2006

Strong, manly men

Sometimes, I just don't really know what I should think of some comments made in interviews. I am speechless.

National Fatwa Council committee member Datuk Seri Dr Harussani Zakaria speaks about men and the "danger" to become homosexual or transsexual:

"Their siblings may all be girls so they grow up playing with dolls, or they play dress up and cooking. But they must resist the urge to act like a girl. Men must show off their toughness and manliness. If they do not resist and continue exhibiting feminine traits, it is haram (forbidden: translation added in)."

Think of the value system, when you read this.

(NLP in Asia)

Monday, May 08, 2006

NLP - it even helps in Real Estate

According to this press release, the usage of NLP can significantly increase their Real Estators (or property agents, as they are also known) "close ratios, sometimes as much as 40% to 60%."
And, let me add on, NLP does not only help in property, but in any selling and negotiation situation. It builds confidence, helps to understand yourself and others and in such way, is able to create tremendous rapport. Rapport, not only via words, or matching and mirroring (which can be seen as fake), but via the subconscious mind.

And that is the power of NLP. With rapport comes trust, and with trust comes the success. However, only if you uses it with a positive intention!

(NLP in Asia)









Thursday, May 04, 2006

Go for it!

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 conquorer 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)