What is the future for NLP Training in the UK?

You may be aware that Paul McKenna is starting a new television series in the US – a daily programme with full internet support that starts on March 8. When I was participating in NLP Trainer Training at the end of 2006, Paul shot off to the States after a couple of days to work on a deal, and now the deal is done. Congratulations to him – good for his career, and good for NLP and hypnosis as a whole.

A less expected development is that this move seems to spell the end for Paul McKenna Training, by far the largest NLP training organisation in the UK (and beyond?) That has the potential to shake up the whole market. There have been some interesting discussions on both Genius Catalyst (Michael Neill’s site) and NLP Connections, and my conclusion is that this is a Very Good Thing.

Now, let me explain that. I’ve taken three major courses with PMT and they’ve all been brilliant, and it really is the end of an era – part of me is very sad about that. But look at it this way …

Paul going to the US in a high profile way can only be good for the profession, and get more people interested in NLP (and Paul says it’s the end of his seminars in the UK – for now). Richard Bandler and John La Valle will continue to present and train in the UK – the word is plans for this have been on the drawing board for some time. And all those people that have become NLP trainers have a golden opportunity to shine, because all those people that would have trained via PMT will be seeking an alternative.

To really offer an excellent alternative service, that’s what we’ll all have to be – excellent. Offer top-quality service and trainings and we can all do well. Anyone who assumes they’ll benefit from the ‘homeless’ potential clients and trainees, without offering tip-top training, may well be in for a tough time, whatever the ’stars’ do or don’t do.

Exciting, challenging, and yes uncertain times. We’re taking up the challenge and planning some inspirational NLP events, courses and retreats, some based in beautiful Aberystwyth and some elsewhere.

And if you’re looking to learn NLP and hypnosis, bookmark NLP (there’s a share button top right) because we’ll be giving away some excellent resources in the weeks and months to come.

Black Monday

Hmmm well maybe the stock broking community believed the formula! Large falls in the markets all over the place. The story has moved on, the panic continues.)

One reporter mentioned in passing that ‘psychologists’ had worked out yesterday was the most depressing day of the year – well, yes, only if one psychologist speaks for the whole profession.

Blue Monday?

This, it seems, is Blue Monday, as calculated by Dr Cliff Arnall (sometimes credited with being a researcher/tutor at the University of Cardiff’s Center for Lifelong Learning, although apparently no longer there.)

 

 

Wikipedia explains: The date was calculated by using many factors, plugged into a formula. The factors include: weather conditions, debt level (the difference between debt accumulated and our ability to pay), time since Christmas, time since failing our new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and feeling of a need to take action. This date typically falls on the Monday of the last full week of January.

 

 

So it seems today is Blue Monday …

 

 

The television ‘news’ reporters got out into the street and asked people for their tips on how to counter the depression they must be feeling. And of course they harvested all sorts of suggestions, such as listen to music, eat comfort food, go for a walk and such like. Well, yes, provided you allow your state to be defined by a journalist or a formula.

 

 

Dr. Arnall has also calculated the happiest day of the the year (it’s in June). All very interesting up to a point. My reservations about this sort of stuff are that it’s generalising the issues that some people may be having and using them to tell the entire population that today is the day to be blue. What if your Christmas was fully funded at the time – maybe you don’t even have a credit card? Could be it that your plans for the new year are going rather well?

 

 

Right, now, don’t think of a blue daffodil. I said DON’T. You couldn’t stop yourself because the only way of processing the concept of a blue daffodil is to think of one. So when the news media, an academic, or anyone else tell you today’s the day to be blue, it can be tricky to resist and we notice all the aspects of our life that are depressing, even if they were not affecting us before.

 

 

What to do? This sort of stuff is really only a media-glorified version of the neighbour who loves to wallow in their own stories of gloom, and then fill up their day by telling the rest of us how bad things are going to be.

 

 

Go inside and realise that you are not a generally average person – you are the unique you. Challenge what you hear – how specifically does what you’re being told apply to you? As you’re not average you’ll easily be able to find your own state and get lost in someone else’s reality tunnel. (As an exercise, use the meta model to have some more challenges ready).

 

 

Does the promotion of these ideas serve any good purpose? One does come to mind – it can be of help to know we are part of a shared experience. So if you’re reading this and thinking “that’s me! All those factors in the formula are happening for me right now, I wondered why I was feeling down” then you can give yourself a reason. Other then that, it seems to me that we’re better off dealing with our own reality.

Be Happy Now

Rarely we receive an opportunity to promote a colleague – and, even more rarely, say yes!

Be Happy Now is Michael Neill’s new book. It been out in the UK for a while and is today launching in the US. I’ve read it and highly recommend you do so too if you’re interested in practical applications of NLP (and not just NLP) or even if you just want to feel happy and know you can continue to feel happy about your life.

I first met Michael when I did my NLP Practitioner training with Paul McKenna and Richard Bandler. I later participated in one of his one day workshops and gained even more insight and value from that.

There are some great bonus if you get your order in early (details below). You have everything to gain – we can all be happy and sometimes we just need a little help to push the door to happiness open.

Would you like to be happy now? (Promo – a great one!)

NEW! from Hay House

Send us your receipt and we’ll send you a link to a collection of “Happy” downloads. Order 5 or more and we’ll send you a signed copy of Michael’s new 6-CD set Effortless Success absolutely free!

RMICHAEL NEILL is an internationally renowned success coach, licensed Master Trainer of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and the best-selling author of You Can Have What You Want. He is alreator of the Effortless Success audio program and has spent the past 16 years as a coach, adviser, friend, mentor, and creative spark plug to celebrities, CEOs, royalty, and people who want to get more out of their lives. He hosts a weekly talk show on HayHouseRadio.com®, and his weekly coaching column can be read on his Website at www.geniuscatalyst.com.

“It’s possible for you to feel happy—and that choice is yours to make at any moment.” In his bestseller You Can Have What You Want, Michael Neill revealed the practical benefits of cultivating inner happiness for creating tangible real-world success. Now he reveals the “how” of happiness—simple, effective ways to make immediate and lasting changes to your moods, your outlook, and your life. Inside, you will find key formulas, experiments, and techniques to help you experience your capacity to choose and to change. The Myths of Happiness—I’ll be happy when…, it’s not possible to be happy in certain situations, and unhappiness is good for us The Happy Formula—give yourself better feelings, tell yourself better stories, and act on your inner knowing The Permission Principle—the reason people aren’t happier more of the time isn’t because they can’t be—it’s because they think they shouldn’t be Three-Step Recipe for Happiness and Well-Being—on demand, anytime you want Behavioral Prozac™—ten small changes in the way you think and what you do that will have a profound effect on your well-being Order your copy of Feel Happy Now! and discover that there is always something you can do to make things better. Send us your receipt and we’ll send you a link to a collection of “Happy” downloads. Order 5 or more and we’ll send you a signed copy of Michael’s new 6-CD set Effortless Success absolutely free!

Your Keys to Happiness from Michael Neill’s Feel Happy Now!

Happiness is the process of creating and experiencing good feelings in your body and mind, moment by moment by moment.While in theory happiness makes us feel wonderful, in practice it enables us to create a more and more wonderful life. The three tools we use to build our happiness—the way we use our body, the maps we make in our minds, and the stories we tell ourselves—are the same tools we employ to make ourselves miserable. Once you master the process, you get to choose the result.As you learn to stop arguing with reality, let go of trying to control what’s outside of your control, and start making clear choices about how you want to be and behave in the world, you’ll find yourself with less stress and greater serenity than ever before.…perhaps the greatest secret in life is this: There is nothing wrong with you. Except for the stories you may be telling yourself about how you’re supposed to be, what you’re supposed to be doing, and who you’re supposed to (or not supposed to) be doing it with, you are perfect exactly as you are. …it isn’t just what we do when we’re happy, but our happiness itself that makes a difference in the world. Occasionally, someone will ask whether using these tools will mean that they’ll never feel unhappy again. Fortunately, the answer is no—I’ve yet to come across a lasting, meaningful happiness that doesn’t include the full spectrum of experience and emotion. But I know for myself the joy of a life that gets better and better as I become happier and happier.

Praise for Michael Neill and Feel Happy Now!

“Warning! As you read this book you will experience many immediate positive side effects, including gentle smiles and greater happiness. Michael Neill evokes intimacy and hope in every chapter!” —Robert Holden, Ph.D., author of Happiness NOW!“What Michael Neill has to say works. Read this book and feel happy!” —Candace B. Pert, Ph.D., best-selling author of Everything You Need To Know To Feel Go(o)d“All I say is IT’S ABOUT TIME! Michael Neill has directed the process of change in the direction that works. It should be a lesson to everyone who wants to change lives—happiness is where we need to go. Michael lays out the what and the how in an easy-to-use format. Not just good reading, but good living.” —Dr. Richard Bandler, behavioral technologist and co-creator of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)“Michael Neill has written a simple roadmap to understanding everything you need to know about feeling happy… It is an effective and entertaining guide that deals with issues that one would normally consider to be hard and heavy. If you are depressed, think you could be feeling down, or simply just want a better quality of life, this book is your essential guide.” —Oli Barry, BAFTA and Grierson Award-winning director of Bye Bye Happiness “Michael Neill is a genius in making the accumulated wisdom of his own and humanities’ search for happiness available to busy, modern, and often stressed-out Westerners. This book gives you profound yet eminently practical ways for realizing spontaneous joy and deep fulfillment. I highly recommend it.” —Dr. Peter Fenner, author of Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditional Presence and Intrinsic Freedom “This book is a brimming, practical miracle! What a spot-on distillation of exactly what we each need to practice to cultivate a lighthearted life.” —Jennifer Louden, best-selling author of The Woman’s Comfort Book “Michael Neill is the finest success coach in the world today. The time I’ve spent reading and rereading Michael’s work has made a remarkable difference to my success, happiness, and well-being. I have recommended it to everyone I know who is genuinely interested in self-improvement.” —Paul McKenna, best-selling author of Change Your Life in 7 Days

The word …

… for people who have a phobia about long words is:

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

How did reading that make you feel?

Does NLP have a place in sport?

I was interested to read in The Guardian today of another application of NLP in sport. In an article comparing the relative merits of Sam Allardyce and Mark Hughes as managers of Newcastle United is the following comment:

 

‘Allardyce was big on sports science and so, in a lower-key way, is Hughes who has not been afraid to use psychological aids including neuro-linguistic programming to help players such as Morten Gamst Pedersen with his free-kicks.’

 

The article doesn’t specify how exactly NLP is used to improve free-kicks. My starting point would be to get the player to recall and see, feel and hear how good it felt when he took a free-kick successfully; go right through all the submodalities (turn up the colours so they’re soooooo vivid, turn up the sound and hear it in super-audio surround sound, feel, really feel, now good it felt to be that successful – double the picture and double it again and make sure the player was in the picture; living it).

 

Anchor that success so the player can access and visualise himself taking brilliant free-kicks whenever called upon in a match.

 

And that just scratches the surface of what is possible, of course. Now, naturally success (with free-kicks, penalties, of any other aspect of the game) cannot be guaranteed every time, much less winning every game. NLP processes are a good way of changing the percentages in your favour though.

 

I’m also interested in the working of the paragraph: ‘… Hughes … has not been afraid to use psychological aids’.

 

So what’s to be afraid of? There is a culture of beliefs in some sports that winning is all to do with physical skill and nothing to do with the mind. For example, here’s Ian Botham in The Independent:

 

‘“Sports psychology, what’s that all about? It’s the biggest con of all time, people making a lot of money talking bullshit. In Australia, a sports psychologist came to me and said he was writing a book, could he ask me a few questions? I said: ‘what’s your field?’ ‘Cricket,’ he said. ‘Oh, how many Tests did you play?’ ‘Erm, I never played first-class cricket.’ ‘Well, piss off then… what can you tell me about walking out in front of 100,000 people?’”

 

Maybe Ian Botham was the complete cricketer in every respect (which raises the question about his failure as England captain – compare and contrast with Mike Brearley).

 

Clearly it doesn’t make sense for a player of any sport to have the right mind-set if they don’t have the skill. Turn that around – does it make sense to have the skill and not be able to apply it because the mind is wrong? The mind is the body, the body is the mind, we are one.

Your past need not equal your future

So, here we are ten days into the New Year. How are all those changes you promised yourself you’d make holding up? For many people, this is the stage by which something has gone wrong – sheer willpower turned out not to be enough, and a reversion to old behaviour and patterns has probably led to your changes being abandoned for another year. By the way, if none of this applies to you then congratulations!

 

 

Now, you can get back on track. Making successful changes is about devising and applying the right strategy. Michael Neill (NLP Master Trainer) speaks about our attitudes when we bring up our children – that stage when the previously crawling baby attempts to walk. The first time (and probably a few attempts after that) the baby will tumble back to the floor – yet no parent would dream of writing off their child and saying “well that’s it, this one’s just not a walker”.

 

Yet how often do we give up on change after one attempt. “Hey, I was only going to eat healthy food this year but I ate junk food yesterday, so obviously I’m just not going to be able to change.”

 

“The best thing about the past is that it’s over. The best thing about the future is that it’s yet to come. The best thing about the present is that it’s here now.” Richard Bandler, co-creator of NLP.

 

If you fell over this morning that’s over. Stand up and keep changing now. When the future arrives you’ll be meeting it with a giggle because it’s the really changed you that’s present.

 

Welcome to NLP Eye, a resource for NLP, hypnosis and personal development from Munro:Sharp Training.

Several times per week we’ll discuss a specific NLP or hypnosis technique – either a ‘classic’ procedure, or one of our creation. In addition we’ll keep you up-to-date with our training courses and retreats. And we’ll welcome your comments and ideas too, when you apply the processes to your thoughts and feelings. As NLP Trainers, we’ll lead you towards a full realisation of just how deeply effective NLP and hypnosis are.

Oh, and we’re Ian Sharp and Jane Munro – and we’re looking forward to being a dynamic element in your training and personal development in whichever way best suits you. A special welcome to you if you’ve found your way here via ‘The Catalyst’ newsletter – thanks for subscribing, and when you encourage your friends and colleagues to subscribe too, do let us know so we can send you a personal thank you.