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If you follow the link you find my essay on Personal Development - Island Theory.
I wrote about it in my blog before.
- 6th of March about Islands
- 22nd of March about Islands
- 27th of March, the story of the Prince and the Magician
Please leave comments and feedback, I am looking forward to a great discussion.
Volker Ballueder
I do not believe it is another week. Besides a very busy day at work, I met with a “client” for Career Coaching tonight.
The goal setting process combined with a good NLP technique and the Buddhist view in combination with gut feeling - how do you do that?
You start analytically and write down the pros and cons of the existing and the new job. Purely to find out what your clients likes, dislikes, what scares her/him. S/he gives so much away by talking about it and by using certain terms.
Then you start the goal setting process, stepping stones and the approach of “if you had already achieved what you aim to achieve in this lifetime, how would you have got there“? By internally going where you would like to be in order to look back as if you had lived through your decision already, helps you to get a different perspective on it. Try going backwards on the different timeline, going via stepping stones you set before? Ever tried?
You then have the choice of deepen the “what did you achieve” question with some “how did you achieve it” and “why did you achieve it”. Get some more NLP in there by using different aspects of the decision making process, e.g. use similar terms and digg deep on the reasoning on how someone would have achieved something.
I like to bring in some Buddhist thoughts. The path does not matter as it all has been defined before……but that is an entry in itself I believe!
Then break up with the exercise, take a deep breath and go back to your analytics pros and cons sheet in order to start analytics, a decision matrix, and evaluate the whole situation. Mix it a bit with gut feeling and you will hopefully either see a result or a strong tendency on what the client really would like to do. S/he will see it her/himself, no doubt….
Job done.
Sounds like a recipe, not as easy to follow without experience but surely something for everyone to pick up on.
Leave your comments on how you last made up your mind about a difficult decision!
Hopefully speak soon,
Yours Volker Ballueder
Islands, Islands - Inseln.
Years and years ago, as some wondered why I write about islands on facebook, I came up with a theory that life is like going from one island, one level to another.
You start on one shore, going into the water, life, and struggle to reach a piece of land - an island. Now, after you reached the first island, you can get a breath of fresh air, relax and have reached some kind of “higher” level. However, you would not be happy with the first island, because you aim to be at the other shoreline (if there is one, but I come back to that later).
So as years go by you go from island to island reaching a higher level in your life. More experience, more confidence, more fresh air if you like, and you just enjoy reaching them. But then you have to go back into the water to reach a new level. Some people like the island they achieved and stay, but I am a person that needs to move on and find a new island.
Now, one point to make is that NLP, TA and other techniques, meditation, Buddhism and career/personal development give you new tools in order to reach new islands quicker or easier.
As an example I used that I am almost at the level that I jump from island to island using some jet skies. However, my aim is to get airlifted, have a yacht or fly. The higher I get on the level ladder, the better the tool, the quicker the way to the next level. It is almost like a race where you chose or learn to use different tools and the speed gets quicker as you move along.
The other point is that each level is giving you great satisfaction. Happiness. And, you do not know how long/wide the ocean is (N.B. nothing is linear). Is it just from Calais to Dover with a few islands or are there more islands, e.g. we are going from NY to London, or even further. This ocean might never end until you either get insane or you reached a level of the magician (you remember the story from Bandler and Grindler in Frogs to Princes about the islands ,-)).
So, whatever you decide to do, be patient, collect tools on the islands, go into the water to reach the next. Never give up, the sky is the limit really.
Currently, I reached a new island. I know what I want, how to get there but the water is still deep and dangerous. But I am up for it. Let me breath for another few weeks, then I will be out there again to reach the next island!
Have a fabulous night!
This Sunday Morning is miserable. Not easy to convince myself to go jogging but I need to and of course I want to ,-) So I will.
Let us talk about change. In October I got married and tomorrow I start my new job. That is a lot of change. According to “Holmes and Rahe, Scaling of life Change”, published in 1971 in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research - Marriage ranks with a scale value of 50 and change of work around 36 out of 100 (which is Death of Spouse). My old manager said the other day that he went to a conference that showed that people those days are going through 9 jobs in their first 10 years of working whilst his generation (he is about 40) is having 3 or 4 jobs in the same time. So maybe the scaling changed over the last 30 years.
But, change of jobs and getting married are not necessarily bad things, just the opposite. It is about the perception you have for change. I often talked about the “motivation towards to and away from”. E.g. if you change jobs because you were fired then your perception of change and the stress it causes is much higher. The opposite is true for a wedding. If you are looking forward to it and things are going well, the stress related to it is “positive stress” which is easier to cope with.
Then again, “positive stress” has the same physical impact on the body, e.g. increased heart rate, however it shows that if someone is very positive about a change then it is easier to cope with the “side effects”. Research suggests if you have a loved one that dies suddenly and unexpected, the effects on the sudden change are greater than if you know the person had a terminal illness and you see that person die. However, it would never change the grief and loss, it might just be easier to cope with the moment itself.
Whilst writing here I scan through the magazine “Personal Success” published by the Coaching Academy, and my eye caught an article about motivation of young people at the workplace. It seems that the “Matures (age over 62)” and “Baby Boomer (43-61)” are in charge of the “Generation X (28-42)” and Millennials (27 and under)”. The X-ers and Millennials do not necessarily see “hard work and loyalty, achieving a rank” as their primary goals for work. That just perfectly fits in with what I said earlier about changing jobs and taking longer to settle in the one that seems right. The one that gives someone freedom and room for personal development, “me time“.
The article points out that the younger generation have a lot of respect for their managers and their leadership and that they need to have the right “feel for the job” - if they do not feel that the job or manager are right, then they are not going to stay long in the job. Loyalty must be earned by good managers but once that has been done, one surely gets that commitment back from the younger generation. The change from management to coach? How can my boss guide me to where I would like to be?
All this and more details are published by Cam Marston “Motivating the “What’s in it for me?” Workforce”.
When I was graduating from Highschool pretty much 10 years ago I used to play Doppelkopf, a German card game, on a regular basis.
Now, for some reason, I decided to download a computer programme of Doppelkopf and enjoy playing it. What I find interesting that certain ways of playing it still trigger a behaviour in me. Certain ways of playing, me winning a set or the other player not playing right, still get me to shout out some phrases as if these people were real or I was still playing with my old mates.
Before you think I am crazy: those imprints in my mind, the anchoring of certain behaviour that gets triggered by a way a situation is played are fascinating. It is great to see that it works, ergo you can use it to trigger a positive behaviour in the future by creating anchors or imprints now.
Just another proof that NLP works ,-)
I was thinking today about making decisions: if people have hope for a positive decision from you and you disappoint them with a negative decision, would you actually create a negative imprint?
From my point of you I do not think so. I mean it obviously depends on how you break the news and how you think people will react to it. If I understand the system right, the one I believe in, then the other person should actually be very happy for you and wish you all the best.
Whilst that happens in most cases that people accept decisions and that people will allow you to decide against what they like, they see beyond and see that the person decides for something else, seeking happiness for the person.
Would that not mean for the person making a decision that they create a positive imprint by accepting one direction whilst creating a more negative, if not negative impression, by deciding against another direction.
Either way, the amount of “negative” can be influenced on how to break the news. Lets use an example:
Your 2 friends A and B ask you to do something with them over the weekend.
You decide to go to the football with A and create a positive imprint talking to him and making him very anxious about the upcoming event. (N.B. if you then cancel last minute due to reasons A would not understand then you would create a negative imprint.)
B will be disappointed if you break the news saying “I will go and watch the football with A”. However, you can create a more positive imprint by suggesting “you want to join” or “why don’t we arrange something for next weekend” or something along those lines. It is up to you on how well you break the news to B. What about “I go to the football with A because I like him/her more”. That would hurt and, even if true, would be unnecessary and create a negative imprint.
NLP differentiates between Conflicts and Dilemmas for decisions (examples from John McWhirter, Sensory Systems Glasgow):
a) Conflict: short term decision on either continuing what you do or stop doing what you do; e.g. if you are having a good time you could continue to do so and will develop on something different. Whilst on the other hand you could stop having a good time and go home, e.g. going to a safe place. Then you make that decision again.
b) Dilemma: if you have a good time and look for a long term decision you can ask for the benefits until both sides agree what is better (sum of imprints zero) and then make a decision on either one way (yes) or another (no). You will still continue to have a good time but in “one way or another”.
To sum it up, we have to make decisions in life and will always create positive and negative imprints doing so. But through the way we make decisions, break news or even decide we can arrange for the imprints to be more or less positive/negative and influence our consequences from it.
I noticed another article in my magazine, going back to NLP “acting as if” - reminds me of the Secret, acting as if you are already have something, and seek for something and really want something, putting a picture in your mind.
The article talks about people that wanted a promotion at work and started to “act if” they already got it. Changed their lifestyle, hairstyle, daily style and within weeks either got a promotion or what they wanted - down to synchronicity.
That reminds me of really wishing for something and it comes through. But also, I think that, like my NLP trainer used to say, if you for instance start thinking of something to buy in your head, you already “bought it”, even if not physically.
Where we going from there? Take little steps towards your goal. If you like to be the CEO of a company, learn how to run it and make your knowledge available to people. Show people what you can do and how you can lead them and get yourself the first position in management. From there learn about strategies and give strategic advise…and one day, you will be there. Taking small steps at a time and you will get where you want.
The 7 habits of highly effective people do the same. They talk about “starting with the end in mind”. Imagine you are already a CEO, how did you get there? And, using stepping stones that you can write down on a time line, check against your performance to see your progress.
Be who you want to be - act as if!
In one of the many newsletters I receive a day I got an offer to attend a free 3 day seminar with Mr. Christopher Howard. 2 tickets, worth over 1800 pounds. And, I am even off all three days.
I was afraid that it would turn into a “happy clappy NLP seminar where we are all happy and make the best of our ability as soon as we leave the room” class. Therefore, I decided to buy his book “Turning Passions into Profits” - if you search by title at Amazon do not forget the ’s’ on passions, otherwise there are not hits. Guess they could work on their Internal Search Engine which used to be known for its efficiency.
Anyway, obviously the advertisement for the seminar worked and I bought at least a book (second hand of course) and wonder what it is all about. I will let you know of course. Just bought about a million books, so might be some time.
Btw 2nd hand books. If anyone is interested, I am selling quite a few books at the moment at Amazon.co.uk: Listing Amazon
Just tonight, having the man flu again, I am looking at the concept of the CIRCLE OF EXCELLENCE which is an anchoring exercise.
I remember doing this exercise years ago. One goes through a situation where one e.g. excelled in something and at the moment one feels the peak of the action, then one steps into an imaginary circle on the ground. This circle now represents the feeling, not the actual situations, a state of being rather than a state of doing.
If one now goes backwards one will experience how one got to that state of excellence. For instance the state of excellence is finishing a marathon. The way leading up to it would be hard training, different milestones. If one now moves forward, is the feeling of achieving it still the same? Or does one demand more, or could one have done less to achieve the same?
The motivation to achieve something PLUS the attainment, e.g. the achieving itself gets us in the state of excellence. Any gap to what we like, want or need to achieve leads to irritation.
This irritation, being out of balance, will activate something and will lead to a motivation to get what one wants. If the irritation is to run marathon, one will activate the training to get motivated to train for the achievement of the marathon to end of with a state of excellence.
However, if we now think about this circle of excellence, what can we use it for? A good example is given on this website. Get into this circle and feel how you achieved something. Step out and add more thing you could have done (or remove) and try to step into that circle again. It might just create that motivation to do more to feel even better.
I guess it is not easy to explain but try it out for yourself. An easy, self-anchoring tool. Enjoy.
Hello Everyone,
Has been a while but things have been busy. Not only did I manage to drown the car but also something told me that by doing so I prevented worse. Still not done it on purpose though - but it is a weird feeling as both my partner and I are certain that it meant to be and helped us staying healthy.
What I am describing here is almost as scary as the Secret, see last entry for link, which I watched tonight. It is all about where our thoughts are that the universe reacts to that energy flow and makes things happen. NLP would call it “moving towards to something and not away from”. We need to focus on what we really want and our dreams and wishes come true.
Phrase it positive. You do not want to lose weight. You want to be slim. Slim is the word you focus on not weight. Imagine yourself being skinny and you will be.
Will it work? I will do the test. I have so many things I want and wish for. Monetary/Materialistic wishes. But also other wishes like happiness, health and love.
I am curious - join me in the experience of the secret.
Now I found the ultimate book by Dr. Harry Alder in my shelf for this blog:
Train your brain:
The ultimate 21 day mental skills programme for peak performance
The synopsis reads as:
Scientific breakthroughs in neurobiological research have identified how extraordinary feats of creativity can be achieved, and how we can all reach this inspired state. This is a discussion of what it means to operate in a state of “flow”, or peak performance, when anything and everything seems possible. Alder shows readers how to identify, achieve and “capture” this heightened state, so that they can experience peak performance at will and take the hit-and-miss element out of personal achievement. The chapters cover: the mind-body experience; right and left brain thinking; achieving a creative state of mind; developing and trusting intuition and insights; creating creativity; turning pressure into peak performance; and creative problem solving. There are also simple practical exercises and examples of what may be achieved when a person is in a state of “flow”.
I am flabbergasted. This book needs to be a guideline for the next 21 days - or as often as I can. Let me aim to get this book’s ideas across by the end of August, it will absolutely fit into the idea of NLP revisited. Dr. Harry Alder has written a lot of very interesting NLP books, surely most of the techniques are not new but show a way of using NLP. So here we go with session one (please note that my aim is not to replace the book but to discuss the chapters, you should still buy the book and other books by Harry and I will not copy any extracts here):
1 Flashes and Flow - Introduction
Flashes are described as sudden ideas or solutions to a problem that show up in your brain. Flow in the contrary are great performances, e.g. once you pass the pain barrier running a marathon, that let you do great things. This body-mind partnership can be trained and peak performance is defined as a holistic, body-mind experience. The process is unconscious but already O’Connor and Seymour state the learning process as:
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unconscious incompetence
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conscious incompetence
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conscious competence
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unconscious competence
So no exercises but a purely introduction to which I might add the following list of left and right brain “capabilities”.
Left Brain: Logical, Sequential, Rational, Analytical, Objective, Looks at parts
Right Brain: Random, Intuitive, Holistic, Synthesizing, Subjective, Looks at wholes
On Lesley’s blog I found this visual DNA. I added it to the bottom of this entry. Although not directly related to the work of CB Consulting it shows associations in visual forms. Another thing used in NLP - pictures; re-framing.
One distinguishes between analog and digital for the 5 senses: to see, to hear, to touch, to smell and to taste! Surely we come back to that. But getting a DNA of your visualization is something new. Like it!
“A successful coaching engagement will have a cascading effect, crating positive change beyond the person receiving the coaching.” - Diana and Merril Anderson, from J. Whitmore, Coaching for Performance.
I have not read Whitmore’s book but came across this quote in Clutterbuck’s Coaching the team at work. Most of you reading about coaching must have come along Clutterbuck. I was overly interested in his book about team coaching to see how one can improve team performance without being a team-leader.
In his book he suggests to look up www.coachinginsider.com where one finds loads of definitions of coaching - all I found was loads of links to different coaching offers, one linking back to the UK, The Coaching Academy, where I have done a course in the past. And, they just send me more information through the door about running workshops - you cannot avoid their promotional offers and marketing.
However, Clutterbuck summarizes nicely that the most common threads for coaching are:
- developing personal or group insight
- performance against specific goals
- support and encouragement
- experimentation
- the effective use of questioning skills
Also, a coach can be seen as a vehicle for taking the individual in the direction they want to travel. That reminds me of an old “joke” about NLP. If someone ask for example a police officer where the station is, the police officer might say “left, 2nd right, on your left hand side”. An NLP person would say “imagine you are already there, how did you manage to get to the station?”. Back to perception and your map of the world. Seriously, is coaching nothing else than the use of NLP, similar of DBM offering techniques for NLP tools so does coaching? Would be interesting to discuss!
I don’t want to stir anything up or devalue coaching at all - what I like to point out is that coaching, DBM or other techniques, e.g. motivation techniques used by so many gurus, are often based on NLP. And what is NLP? Is NLP not common sense? Common sense of life experience modeled so you can use those experience in other life situations? NLP as a basis for development - or is that too generalized?
Now I drift a little away from coaching. But I met people who were obsessed by NLP. It can get me where I want. It is the ultimate thing to know and you are happy and invincible. If I do my Master Practitioner I can teach people the world. Come back to reality! There is no doubt that NLP offers you great tools, as written in NLP revisited. However, it is not an ultimate tool and it depends WHO uses it in WHICH WAY! NLP is not the remedy for everything.
Coming back to coaching. Clutterbuck publishes a great model in his book explaining differences of coaching, mentoring etc. I asked for permission to publish it so hopefully you will see it here soon.
NLP and DBM are closely connected. NLP is like the tool, e.g. a hammer. With a hammer you can smash glass or a brick. But if you like to master the hammer in order to use it in a useful manner, one needs the technique, goal and direction to put a nail in the wall. DBM goes beyond the tool and provides you with the techniques on how to use it.
Applications of NLP/DBM are universal. In coaching, careers advice, personal development, change management, motivation, sustainable change. Some services of CB Consulting are based on those techniques and tools to achieve sustainable change.
O’Connor and Seymour in their book “Introducing NLP” nicely describe “the map is not the territory”.
An artist, a lumberjack and a botanist taking a stroll through a wood will have a very different experiences and notice very different things. If you go through the world looking for excellence, you will find excellence. If you go through the world looking for problems, you will find problems.
Perception and beliefs are basic understandings of how we see the world.
I just finished reading a book called “Die vergessene Generation (the forgotten generation)” by Sabine Bode - it gives an insight about people who were born during WW2, e.g. their traumas and experience and how those influenced their lifes. Not many people paid attention to this generation that was born during bomb attacks. This generation suffered but tried to ignore their traumas to “move on” and “make things happen”. “Others were worth off” and “you do not speak or talk about your problems, you just get on with it”. This behaviour was passed on to their children and children’s children generation. The attitude of Germans working hard surely might come from that generation which after the war build up a destroyed country. A friend just mentioned recently that women in Berlin (Trümmerfrauen) over-achieved their target per day of cleaning bricks on a regular base. Because their motivation was so high. Maybe their fear of the war coming back was so high? Whatever the motivation was it made them highly successful.
Can our generation, lucky as we do not have any wars in our own countries, learn from their experience on how to motivate ourselves? I believe we can.
A story related to NLP - I recommend everyone to read the book by John Fowles, the Magus. Amazing!
Once upon a time there was a young prince who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, and he did not believe in God. His father, the king, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father’s domains, and no sign of God, the prince believed his father.
But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace and came to the next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.
“Are those real islands?” asked the young prince.
“Of course they are real islands,” said the man in evening dress.
“And those strange and troubling creatures?”
“They are all genuine and authentic princesses.”
“Then God must also exist!” cried the young prince.
“I am God,” replied the man in evening dress, with a bow.
The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.
“So, you are back,” said his father, the king.
“I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God,” said the prince reproachfully.
The king was unmoved.
“Neither real islands, real princesses nor a real God exist.”
“I saw them!”
“Tell me how God was dressed.”
“God was in full evening dress.”
“Were the sleves of his coat rolled back?”
The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled.
“That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived.”
At this, the prince returned to the next land and went to the same shore, where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.
“My father, the king, has told me who you are,” said the prince indignantly. “You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a magician.”
The man on the shore smiled.
“It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father’s kingdom, there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father’s spell, so you cannot see them.”
The prince pensively returned home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eye.
“Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?”
The king smiled and rolled back his sleeves.
“Yes, my son, I’m only a magician.”
“Then the man on the other shore was God.”
“The man on the other shore was another magician.”
“I must know the truth, the truth beyond magic.”
“There is no truth beyond magic,” said the king.
The prince was full of sadness. He said “I will kill myself.”
The king by magic caused Death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.
“Very well,” he said, “I can bear it”.
“You see, my son,” said the king, “you, too, now begin to be a magician.”
From “The Magus” by John Fowles
What happened in the last week? Business and more business - I had interesting chats, met people and ideas. There are so many of you out there that are interested in people, motivation, coaching and sustainable business. And often someone gets curious and asks “what is NLP” and “I am afraid of NLP”. That happened to me last week too when someone approached me and came up with one of the oldes prejudice I came across in NLP. If someone is looking to the left or right it means something specific…..yes I said, it can be. But it does not have to be - the biggest mistake most people do is to generalize, to assume that if you do A then B must be true. Whilst that, in some cases, can be 99% right, for many other cases it could be 99% wrong. So never assume without knowing the territory ,-)
So let me summarize what I think of NLP. What is DBM and where is the difference.
NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming, was developed in the 70-ties. Names associated to this are John Grinder and Richard Bandler (I will not go into much detail as you can read about most of it on various websites, e.g. on Wikipedia).
They discovered patterns of behaviour in people they tried to model based on Neurology/5 senses, Linguistic/Language and programming/structuring. Bandler described NLP as an “attitude and methodology that leaves behind a trail of techniques”.
DBM, Developmental Behavioural Modelling goes beyond NLP. It does not have the ready-made answers or pre-packed solutions. Information in detail can be obtained through the website of Sensory Systems where my thanks and appreciation goes to John McWhirter. His aim is to provide “Empowerment through experiential learning”! Although it has been a few years since I worked with John (or he worked with me), his approach to NLP, his DBM is what makes me “tick”. Thank you John!
ballueder
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