There is a saying in coaching and therapy: “The presenting problem is never the real problem.” Looking back to when I did my first NLP Practitioner training twenty years ago, I believed at that time that NLP would give me some new skills to help me manage my business ...
This week, we’re very lucky to have a guest blog from Sobia Quazi, one of our NLP School alumni and coach at GoldCircle Therapy and Coaching! In this post, she talks about something that she learnt with us – how to use NLP to understand and influence. Are we ...
How do you spot if someone is playing a psychological game with you? A good way to work it out is through energy: if after you have interacted with someone you feel your energy has been drained and the other person seems somehow uplifted and re-energised – you have ...
Understanding Archetypes – The Key to Success and Balance This blog will discuss how innate human energies or archetypes can give an answer to one of life’s most important questions: “What is the secret of finding emotional balance in life?” A Deeper Understanding For me, the answer to this ...
People behave differently under stress – some are forceful, some withdraw and others try to distract themselves. The idea of ‘boundaries’ has become increasingly used in popular psychology as a way of addressing stressful situations but it can be simplistic, with the message being that all you need to ...
Arguably learning to understand (and manage) your own state is one of the most helpful tools in personal development.You were in such a state, what a state you are in! What a fantastic state of mind. What is State? The OED defines state as “The particular condition that someone ...
This week, we have a brilliant guest blog from Judith Lowe of PPD Learning! In this blog, Judith talks about how to learn and practise NLP. Beginner’s Luck Learning NLP is easy because you already know so much. Learning NLP is challenging because it takes a lot of knowledge ...
I try and avoid focusing on negative topics, but this week I want to discuss NLP ‘s reputation – both good and bad. A metaphor I use is one of martial arts. Founders of martial arts schools are often held in a certain reverence by their students. Sadly, some teachers ...
Anxiety is one of the most common problems in modern life – not just worrying about some particular thing, but a general sense of worry that won’t go away. What can you do if you experience it? Here are some suggestions… Acceptance Accept how you feel. Anxiety can ramp ...
This week’s blog is about a life-changing process that I created, called Rescripting. The basic idea behind it is that successful people often have the following belief: “You can be happy and a loser, or you can be successful and stressed; you can’t have happiness and success.” The idea ...
This week on the NLP School blog we are so lucky to have Muriel from Lumier Coaching and PPD Learning write a guest blog for us! Today she talks about how NLP has hit the mainstream... or has it?
In a previous blog, I talked about what coaching is and how, at a general level, it works. Now I want to be more specific, and look at the relationship between coaching and NLP, an area I have worked in for many years. I believe very strongly that both ...
What is coaching? Coaching is a way of helping people deal with issues that are concerning them. It is also a way of developing people’s skills and abilities, and of boosting performance. It is done in a spirit of curiously and non-judgement and creates a safe supportive environment, where ...
In the first part of this post, I talked about the ‘lower’ end of the NLP LogicalLevels, the light that this concept throws on the question of confidence, and how NLP can help. Now I want to move ‘up’ the levels, to more abstract ones. Remember that the three ...
In the next two blogs, I’d like to go back to my roots in NLP and look at the subject of confidence through one of the most powerful conceptual tools in the NLP armoury – the Logical Levels. These were created by Robert Dilts, as a way of checking where coaching ...
At first glance, mindfulness and confidence seem to be very different states. Mindfulness is thoughtful, measured and inward-looking, while confidence is breezy, spontaneous and outgoing. How can the former assist the latter? Removing Barriers to confidence One way mindfulness helps is by removing our barriers to confidence. Lack of confidence is ...
Last week was the final module of our NLPU certified Master Practitioner course and we were very proud to welcome NLP founder member Judith DeLozier to London to co train with Robbie and Judith Lowe.
NLP can be used everyday in practical situations – at work creating rapport with clients, in personal development by creating healthy relationships, in sales by getting a better understanding of customers issues and showing confidence. There are so many areas of life that can benefit with NLP, So I ...
I’m not trying to say that you too, could have the charisma of Bill Clinton if you come on our three day NLP course. But I find it interesting how successful people use, or have used, the skills we teach and reckon that we can all learn from them. Actually, Bill ...
In this article, we explain the Meta Model within the context of NLP techniques. NLP has been described as the study of the structure of subjective experience. What does this mean? One of the central presuppositions of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) is that ‘the map is not the territory’. The ...
NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) is a set of tools for personal development, based on a study of how we access, store and express ‘information’. Much of the accessing is done via ‘filters’ that can distort reality, and the same is true for storage: what lessons do we learn and ...
Our Master Practitioner course begins on 1st March. Judith Lowe will be teaching part of the module on modelling, and will also run two optional one day modelling workshops, which will be free for attendees. This will be a great chance to work in small groups with one of ...
New Year is traditionally a time for resolutions. It is also traditional that these don’t last very long. But we shouldn’t short-change ourselves like this. If you made a lunch date with someone, would you show up? Of course. Yet when we make commitments to ourselves, we are often ...
Belief Change Techniques - Learn how our beliefs held over years often turn out to be wrong. As such, they make our world a smaller place. They are a kind of internal prison that we carry round with us, a self-imposed yoke, a limitation.
Students of NLP will be familiar with Robert Dilts’ ‘Logical Levels’ (also known as the Neurological Levels). I have found this incredibly useful in all sorts of ways – it’s one of those concepts that seems to shed light on almost everything. For those of you who are unfamiliar ...
What is NLPU? To trace its roots fully, one has to go back to the early days of NLP, when NLPU’s founder, Robert Dilts, was a student at Santa Cruz. He attended John Grinder’s lectures on linguistics – which turned into lectures on the Meta-model – and was hooked.
What is Master Practitioner Training? One of the distinguishing features of Master Practitioner is its focus on turning the principles of famous psychology books into NLP Processes. For example the NLP processes: Robert Dilt’s – Hero’s Journey (*1) Judith Delozier’s – Tracking Transitions Are based on: Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with ...
The subject of leadership has fascinated me for years. This is partly, of course, because I found myself having to practice it, without any formal training. Once I started my own business I was, whether I wanted it or not, in charge of something, and when I started employing ...
Up until the last moment, a substantial number of voters in the recent referendum were ‘undecided’ (or so the polls claimed, anyway). As author of a book and an ebook on decision making, I was asked to help one such voter make his mind up live on national radio. ...
The Psychologist Paul Ekman (who is best known for his work on facial expressions, a topic I shall blog on more in the future) makes the important distinction between our natural emotional responses (happiness, sadness, anger, disgust etc.) and when our reaction seems as if it has ‘triggered’ something ...
Psychometric Profiling can play an important role in modern Leadership Development. I am a fan of them – up to a point. It is useful for people to learn what their strengths are. But it can become all too easy to see people who are different to you as ...
Having written two books on decision-making, I often wonder why this subject gets so little interest. Good decisions are the key to a successful life. So is the avoidance of bad ones, which can destroy lives – stories of which go back far into history: Napoleon’s decision to invade ...
I recently read some research about what constitutes success and happiness. The results were a surprise. The Grant Study, a ‘longitudinal’ study (following people over a long period of their lives) carried out at Harvard Medical School, concluded that ‘warmth of relationships throughout life’ is the most powerful force ...
Clients often express negative thinking, which they imagine to be objectively true, but which are actually not true at all. A classic example is “I could never do that.” As coaches we learn to challenge these, for example by asking, “What would actually happen if you did?” These sorts ...
Three good robust questions about Mindfulness leap to mind. First, what is it? Second, what can it do for me? And third, is it a fad that will soon pass? Taking these one a time… What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is simply living in the ‘now’, being aware of your ...
Having just finished teaching an NLPU Master Practitioner in Malaysia, I continue to be astonished at the amazing transformational power of Robert Dilts’ Re-imprinting Process for trauma, and how closely it can relate to the Drama Triangle. I use the combination of NLP and TA when I find that ...
Before I start, I will admit feeling slightly uncomfortable about making this distinction at all. Standard coaching, asking simple questions at the right moment, can make a huge impact on clients. However, sometimes a client is stuck and I believe it is important for the coach to have a ...
When coaching, I am always surprised by clients’ beliefs about the unknown. People often obsess about, and make huge efforts to avoid extremely unlikely outcomes. Yet their own past experience tells them that if something has created chaos in their lives, it has not been some huge threat they ...
Philosophy has for thousands of years, asked questions. Who are we? What makes us ‘tick’? What, if anything, can be done about the more painful aspects of human nature, and what is our purpose? So this week I wanted to blog this week on the often-confusing divide between coaching, ...
Last week I talked about four areas of ability, or ‘capability sets’, needed for successful leadership. These were: Operations (getting things done) Sales (dealing with people) Finance (dealing with money) ‘Pure’ leadership skills such as vision, optimism, decision-making and setting a personal example. Leadership: becoming a master In a ...
Today I want to look at the four qualities which are key for leadership, qualities that leaders need to bring to their work in each of the four areas: Thinking Sensing (energy) Feeling Vision Thinking is the world of the intellect, rational and dispassionate. Sensing is perhaps the hardest ...
Team coaching is growing increasingly popular. It can be used to facilitate the quick assembly of high-performing teams. It can be used to maintain the performance of existing teams: chemistry can change when individual members leave, or cynicism can develop when teams get ‘stuck’. It is of particular use ...
Can coaches help clients find inner peace? Often coaches are presented with a succession of issues that trouble their client – at work, at home; the list seems to be endless. It’s easy for both coach and client to start believing that there is an underlying ‘big issue’ driving ...
The model is particularly useful in testing whether a client has unwittingly trapped themselves in destructive thought patterns. How the Meta Model helps anxiety Clients are often extremely anxious, as if some major disaster is hurtling towards them. The Meta Model is often a great way to reveal the ...
Transactional Analysis drivers One useful aspect of this material is the Transactional Analysis concept of ‘drivers’. These are very powerful, deeply ingrained subconscious motivations that are picked up in early childhood. TA theorists believe there are five of these: ‘Hurry Up’ ‘Please People’ ‘Be Strong’ ‘Be Different’ ‘Be Perfect’ ...
One of the key roles of a coach is to help their client make significant decisions. Decision-making is a subject I’m fascinated by – I’ve written two books on the subject – as the reality is much more complex than most ‘experts’ claim. The decider is perpetually having to ...
One of the most challenging issues facing organisations today is the preservation of talent – ensuring that senior people keep up their energy and avoid burnout. Talented people don’t just perform roles; they identify with them: “I am a manager, a leader, an accountant, a designer”. Jobs as identity Their ...
I’ve just completed our 3 day How to Coach with NLP, TA and Mindfulness course, during which some interesting discussions took place about using coaching skills in the workplace. One topic that came up was the question of coaches wanting to be liked. Isn’t that an essential part of ...
The learning never stops Last week I spent some time with one of the people behind NLP, Stephen Gilligan, a man who worked closely with one of the great founders of the subject, Milton Erickson. You always learn when working with people like this. The reason for our contact ...
Confidence is a strange, ephemeral concept. We all want more of it or worry about not having enough of it – but what is it, exactly? NLP has a range of techniques to help us find out, and to boost what we find. How to regain self confidence The ...
NLP is full of techniques to use in the workplace, especially if one has managerial responsibility or is working as a consultant or HR professional. Modern management is largely about winning people round to your point of view. The old ‘command and control’ model taught on managers training courses ...
There seems to be a lot of anxiety around. The fashionable remedy for it is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which has become ‘official’ – you can get it on the NHS. CBT has been proven to deliver results, but I believe NLP offers both a tool that is just ...
As an expert NLP trainer, there’s one question that I’m often asked: “How do you become an NLP coach?” To which I say, everyone’s journey is different. But here’s my story I started out on a journey of personal discovery after finding myself stressed by running a business. This ...
Hypnosis is often seen as something done by an ‘expert’ to a ‘patient’. And, of course, this is often the case. Hypnotherapy has an excellent success rate in dealing with problems ranging from anxiety to giving up smoking. Hypnosis is a part of modern life In my view we ...
An NLP qualification looks good on a CV. No, it’s not an MBA from Harvard Business School, but it’s all part of showing yourself off to your best. To start with, it makes a clear statement that you take the business of developing yourself seriously. It sends out the ...
I’ve been ‘into’ NLP for fifteen years, during which time I’ve studied with most of its leading practitioners, taught the subject to thousands of people and used it to change my life, so I’m unlikely to answer “yes, NLP is rubbish!” However I (and other members of the NLP ...
The one-word answer to this question is ‘yes’. I’ve helped a number of clients to do this, some of whom have been heavy smokers. Using Robert Dilts’ model of the Logical Levels, we can look at smoking and the various ways it exerts a hold on the psyche. The ...
If you’re a teacher, or in charge of a department, you’ll know that you never stop looking for ways to help youngsters learn. At NLP School, we believe that neuro-linguistic programming can do just that. One set of ways, of course, has nothing to do with the classroom, but ...
Golf is a notoriously psychological sport. Fitness plays a part, of course, as do talent and plenty of practice, but in the end the business of knocking a little white ball into an only slightly larger hole in the ground up to 450 yards away is about mental attitude. ...
Hypnotherapy has a bad reputation. We’ve seen the old movies where a sinister Svengali-like figure, probably in a cloak, hypnotizes the heroine or hero in order to further their evil plans. The notion is tied up with deceit, manipulation, seizing control from innocent people and abusing the power. Up ...
There’s always something special about the first day of an NLP Practitioner course. Many people are a little scared – but fear and excitement are close cousins. Beneath that fear is a deep hope, that NLP will help them along their life journeys. Maybe some delegates are dealing with ...
We’re sold the story as kids: the working world offers us a career, which means a series of steps up a nice, clear ladder. Each step will bring more responsibility, more learning, a broadening of our horizons until, at the top, we can serenely gaze out over the world ...
In some circles, NLP has a bad reputation. It has become associated with slick vendors of snake-oil, who have a bag of tricks they use on the unwary to sell them things they do not want or need. Naturally, I’m sorry this has come about – though this reputation ...
At NLP School, we run a range of seminars, workshops and events based on NLP, the ‘art of modelling excellence.’ NLP Taster Day Are you curious about NLP? Our NLP Taster Day in Central London is created for people who like a no nonsense approach. Over the course of a working ...
As an NLP coach, it goes without saying that I think that the techniques, practices and principles of neuro-linguistic programming can change lives – in both a professional and personal context. But NLP is just one facet (albeit an important one) of a larger movement: life coaching. Let’s take ...
We’re staying local this week; NLP School is featured in the rather wonderful online newspaper, the Kentish Towner in its Life Tips section.
Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you’re in some kind of state. Some of those states come and go in the instant, some last longer. Some are one-off, others habitual. Some can be ‘tailored’ for an activity. States can encompass all of the following: your physiology, your emotions, the ...
In The Financial Times, Southon wrote, “Above all, the book shows how an entrepreneur can emerge from the other side of success with their sanity intact, and remaining friends with the people they have worked with along the way.” Coaching skills, or the lack of them, play a big part in ...
Press pieces continue to appear after the publication of How to Coach with NLP. Here we talk to Recruiter Magazine about coaching, and what type of person makes a good executive coach. Curious, empathic, observant and patient, with a knowledge of business and organisations, is NLP School’s Robbie Steinhouse‘s recipe for success. ...
“You don’t always have to set the agenda… Start an encounter by listening to someone with genuine curiosity and without judgement. This raises the quality of the relationship, so you will be more likely to spot significant issues such as a disaffected staff member or a customer who is ...
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