NLP podcast extract: Garner Thompson on NLP and Health

"Well, my name is Garner Thompson and I'm the author of the book that you're talking about, Magic In Practice: Introducing Medical NLP, the art and science of healing and health. I'm a meta-master practitioner and trainer of NLP, and co-founder and training director of the Society of Medical NLP, which was developed specifically to develop NLP in terms of the needs of the medical professionals."

"I have an NLP and hypnotherapy practice in London, and I work as a corporate consultant and TV presenter. My work has always been largely focused on improving health and the well-being of clients"

"We take in energy in many different forms, food, air - information, is a big thing - and we should discharge entropy. That way we would maintain balance. In reality we don't do this. In our society for example, we're inclined to work very hard, involve ourselves in high-pressure activities, which are very good in themselves, and very challenging, but in this we sometimes don't have the ability to discharge the entropy and what happens is the system can go into disarray and decline."

"So people who are healthy can intuitively, or have learnt, to dissipate that. There are many different ways to dissipate things, and one of the ones that we find - it's the one that we refer to in the book as 'activating the relaxation response"

"But I do think it comes back to this, biggest single contribution to healthful life - and by healthful life I don't mean one in which disease and illness are absent, but where the individual can respond and react effectively from challenges. And that's the ability that I was talking about, to dissipate entropy - the metabolic waste - the ability to discharge that is important." "This does include techniques, such as the Relaxation Response."

"One way of course is exercise, we know we feel better when we take exercise, and that's very much because we're discharging excess adrenaline, excess cortisol - which otherwise is quite toxic."

"So if we stress up and we don't discharge this effectively then we will suffer the effects of chronic stress, while stress in sort term is actually very therapeutic for us - as long as it's not extended over a period of time."

"The Relaxation Response, is a very simple, very easy technique. Which also is used to recharge and re-balance the system."

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NLP podcast extract: Doug O'Brien on NLP and Metaphor

"So I'll start a story, and I'll start on one side of the room, to spatially anchor the story and the state that that place elicits on one side of the room. It might be a state for frustration, because the person that has tried to quit smoking or tried to loose weight often has the feeling of frustration, it's common to the people that are listening to the stories."

"So I'll tell a story about that, and anchor that on, say, the right side of the room. And then I'll tell another story, that has maybe, nothing to do with the first story. This kind of open-loop idea. But it elicits, a state again, that is of curiosity, lets say - and then I'll anchor that in this next place, across, closer to the centre of the room, from the original anchor. "

"Then I'll anchor a third state, and I'll start wandering - walk over to the third place. It's a little further to the left for them. And I'll tell a story about when I felt determined, and I felt absolutely determined to make something happen."

"Then I'll tell a fourth story and I'll walk to the far left side of the room, where I get into a flow state, and make things happen. And if it feels really good I'll make it a recursive thing where I - the more that I do the better it feels - or the better it feels, the more that i do. And I start a story like that."

"And then I'll start suggesting that they might want to exercise, for example. so I'll walk over to the right side of the room and I'll start talking to them about exercising, and about how sometimes there's a feel of frustration and then I'll sort of go through a scenario that might be a suggestion and rehearse within their mind, what they're going to be doing - starting from frustration going to a place of curiosity - going to a place of determination - and a place of 'Wow, they're working out every day!'"

"I've move across the room to these anchored spots based on those previous stories that I've told."

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Liam Beale
Business Development Manager
PPI Business NLP: NLP Training and NLP-based Business Training

NLP podcast extract : Judith Germain on developing leadership talent

Judith Germain FCIPD is Managing Director of Dynamic Transitions Ltd and specialises in developing leadership talent. She has over 10 years experience working with wilfully independent people which she defines as mavericks or Troublesome Talent®. In this interview she explains why managing Troublesome Talent® is vital to a company's success.

"I think that it’s really important because the way that the world is going now is that you have to be very innovative if you want to grow your company, and increase market share, you’re going to have to do things that are different you need to be a bit more unreasonable and to break the status quo."

"Yes, if you think about your talent pool, troublesome talent tends to be as much as 20% of this talent pool, but they can be bringing in about 80% of your profit. So situations where they’re really, really key is where you need to make a shift change perhaps maybe after a merger of acquisition, a change management program – where you really need to have somebody, or a group of individuals that can really look at what the company has been doing in the past and see a way forward. You know, like a Richard Branson or a Ricardo Semler. "

"Because they’re very sensitive. And they believe that they’re very unique to everybody else. So the thought of being managed in the way that everybody else is being managed is not something that they like. Also, because of the way that they think, in terms of that they need structure, without structure, it means that you can’t take a single approach. So a lot of things that happen these days – people will look at things like Talent Management and believe that what they have to do is treat each and every employee the same way to be fair and consistent – but that’s not going to work for the troublesome talent, because you do need to treat them differently if you wan to get the best from them"

"Well managers tend to be very administrative, very task orientated, very ‘this is the rules, and you need to follow the rules.’ And I say that leaders are more interested in the outcome, and the best way to get that way. So a typical maverick, a typical troublesome talent would say ‘ok you want me to increase profits by giving the best customer service’, but as a manager you’re saying to me that I need to spend two minutes with each customer call. So the troublesome talent would say ‘actually that’s not really applicable, if you want me to give great customer service, you need to give me the flexibility to choose how I spend my time in that day."

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NLP podcast extract: Ron Bates on networking

"I'm a managing principle with a small retained executive search firm called executive Advantage Group. Small as in I'm half of the firm - Michael Roffstein is the other half of the firm. I used to be a partner at Heidric And Struggles, which is the largest executive search firm in the world. I've over 40,000 connections on LinkedIn.

"Well, I've developed some pretty amazing relationships with people around the world, which I never would have, probably, not having access to a platform like that. And it's as simple as somebody shoots me a request 'can you help me with this, that or the other thing?' and I put a little time into seeing what I can do - and although it might be something simple for me to reply to, or to hook somebody up, or to forward them through my network, it ends up being something that's a big win for them - and not so much what I did, but the end result of them being connected through."

"And they're appreciative, so we start a dialogue, and I get to know them, and they get to know me, and before you know it one thing leads to another and now there's a relationship that wasn't there before."

"And then on the business side, the nature of my work, is that its a very personal service - so all the work that we win, we win not because somebody referred you into something, you win it because you stand on your own in front of the client and demonstrate your competency."

"But there are some cases where we might have been referred into an opportunity, so to that extent it's incremental to our business, but to no means is it something that's really driven our success. It's additive, like all of the different things one person tries to do in trying to pursue business"

"So again, leveraging the power of who other people know, not just who you know - what online networking does is it makes it extremely efficient, to be able to reach out to and potentially connect with huge numbers of people, because you're leveraging the power of the Internet combined with electronic databases - and what I mean by electronic database, is the database of the membership population of a given platform."

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PPI Business NLP: NLP Training and NLP-based Business Training

NLP podcast extract: Penny Power on Networking

Penny Power, Founder of Ecademy, discusses her ability to create a place where 'people can be themselves and proud of who and what they are' with Michael Beale, May 2008

"Well, I think people are more transparent than they realise. I think that people think that they can create an illusion and an image of themselves, but we can also see through that, and I think that people that live in an ego state rather that actually understanding their identity of who they are – those people that manifest themselves into their ego, are actually very unattractive people to know, and we all know that – but it can be very hard at times in peoples lives, to not slip into an ego state."

"Nowadays I think people have so much choice in where they can go for business and suppliers, they’re just not going to be attracted to people aren’t nice people, and I think this is the thing, I had an email this morning from a new member saying that Ecademy is the first place in her business life that she’s felt that she’s able to talk from her heart, and I thought ‘What a poignant email to get today, when I was talking to you!’ "

"Because, I think that’s one of the biggest transitions people go through – I think our emotional wealth is what makes us get up in the morning. And gives us the self esteem and the self belief to attack the world in the way we need to, to use our adrenaline and achieve what we need to in a day. And we have to be superhuman a lot of the time, and if you’re not actually settled inside yourself it makes the road a much harder road to go along."

"Well, the first thing, if I’m talking from a business point of view, a lot of this does stem into business – I think it’s very important for people to understand what the heartbeat is behind their business. I’ve talked before about emotional wealth, I’ve talked about connecting your heart to your brain. A lot of people talk about their skills and what they do, they don’t talk about why they do it and who they are. And the ‘Why you do something’ and ‘Who you are’ is much more interesting, so I’ve spent time with members, I’m much more interested in the journey that took them to doing what they’re doing, but the soft skill behind what they do."

"There’s a lot of different phrases for that. That’s your reason that you’re getting up and doing what you’re doing. If you haven’t got a moment in your day when you actually get that spine-tingling feeling that makes you feel like you’re on fire – then you’re quite possibly not doing the right thing, or you’ve got to a stage in your business where you’ve employed or collaborated with people and let them do all the things that you love and you’ve taken on the wax in your business. Which is unfortunately what a lot of people do."

"So I would always start by saying to them, to find their emotional wealth, and if they don’t have it, if they really can’t find it, than there are lots of people they’re connected with that can help them to achieve that. But I think people need to know what makes them tick inside, and it’s not just going to impact their business lives, it can impact all areas of their life, when they actually find that heartbeat inside them that makes them really feel happy. So that would be how I’d always start to coach someone."

Listen or read to the full pod cast and transcript: Ecademy founder Penny Power

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Liam Beale
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PPI Business NLP: NLP Training and NLP-based Business Training

NLP podcast extract: Michael Beale on NLP

Hi there. My name is Ryan Nagy . I'm a Feldenkrais practitioner and Internet marketer in the United States. Today I am interviewing NLP trainer and business coach Michael Beale in the UK.

"Hi Ryan, I think that's a really good question - Top level, I look at it in two things. One is something that produces results in people, and secondly it moves people towards personal freedom. Really to me NLP is exploring what works, how particular behaviour gets results - with particular emphasis on how we think, how we change, and how we communicate with each other. "

"Well I think the first one relates to what you've just said. NLP is very much about experience, not theory. One of the most important things if you're doing an NLP course, and doing NLP, is that you go with whatever experience you're going through, and you judge the responses by what happens, not by what you think ought to happen."

"There are many, many cases where I've thought about an NLP technique, and I've thought 'This is absolute nonsense', And then when, to my surprise, I've tried it and then found that it works."

"So one of the things about NLP is, it's about throwing all of the theory and the books away, and working on what actually produces your results from real experience. So I think that's one of the most important things about NLP."

"The second thing is that it's all about process rather than content. It's almost as if in working together with somebody, I let them deal with the content, so they go through whatever experiences they're having - and in some ways I don't care so much about the content of the experience that they're having, or what that experience is - I lead them through certain stages, a certain process that helps them use that experience and helps them get the results that they get. "

"So it's very much that two people working together make three because they're working together because they're concentrating on their content and what's important to them and I help by guiding them through a process which takes them to where they want to go."

"Well I think it builds on what we've just been talking about. When you go to an NLP course, do stuff. Just throw yourself in and find out what works for you. In fact, I'll add two things to that - find out what works for you, don't have any preconceptions, because sometimes that things that you'll find maybe the most uncomfortable or the things that you find more difficult are the stuff that enables you to learn the most. So have an open mind - if it doesn't work that's fine, but don't pre-judge anything."

Listen or read to the full pod cast and transcript: NLP Trainer Michael Beale

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Business Development Manager
PPI Business NLP: NLP Training and NLP-based Business Training

NLP Podcast extract: Mark Lee on Networking

Mark Lee FCA, CTA (Fellow) MMC, who founded the Tax Advice Network, explains his view of networking, where and when he networks and what he considers to be some of capabilities and beliefs of effective networkers.

"It's not net-eating, it's no net-drinking, it's not even net-flirting, however it is a nice acronym. Networking I think is about building relationships. When you go networking, whatever your ultimate purpose - whether it's finding people who are going to be interested in your services, people who might buy something from you, people who act as your advocates, people who might be able introduce you to someone who can find you a job, ultimately when you're networking, you either are or should be looking to build those relationships."

"I suppose most of my networking is done in the evenings. I've occasionally been to lunchtime networking events, and I've even tried breakfasts a couple of time, and there are facilities to go networking at breakfast time. I'm not at my best then, I've tried different places, it doesn't suit me. So most of my networking is done at, parties, functions, events, and networking occasions if you like, and generally evenings after the normal working day."

"People are not normally going to choose to buy from you or even to act as your advocate to recommend you to other people because they've met you and you've thrust a business card into their hand. "

"So it's very important to listen to what people are saying, think about how you could help them - and remember that people will always be more interested if you're more interested in them. And ask for the other persons business card before you thrust yours at them, there's no point going out and playing business card confetti, and distributing cards to people who have no interest in you or your service, they're not going to decide because they have a spare moment that they're going to have a look at your website, because they're got your business card and they've met you - unless they spend a little bit of time with you, and they like you, and they've got to know you al little bit - and what you really want to do is take it a little bit further and show that they can trust you."

"And one of the best ways of doing that is by finding a way that you could promise help them after the event, and then following up afterwards - that is so key - and if you can then keep your promise of whatever follow-up it is you've undertaken to provide, you're well on the way to developing that relationship, which as I say should be your foremost though when attending networking events."

Listen or read to the full pod cast and transcript: Mark Lee

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NLP Podcast Extract: Liam Beale on Martial Arts

"OK, my name is Liam Beale, I've just finished a degree in Martial Arts and Strength and Conditioning in Buxton University in Derby, which is the first in Europe as far as I know. I guess my main thing is martial arts, but I also do film-making and music-making, I've just finished my first feature length film, which is called 'One Life or Another' and will hopefully be on Google Video sooner or later. "

"In the UK we're scared of hurting people, for one - we're scared of the whole legal system involved in hurting people. Which is good to an extent - but if you really want to learn, especially with martial arts, you have to have and element of danger, which increases the speed that you learn."

"Secondly because everybody here only learns for a limited time. They have a job and then they train. They go to school and then they train. In China you just train for your life, that's it. You train for eight hours of the day every day. And you don't rest."

"And also, we've created a lot of bad ideas about martial arts in the West. If you look at the phenomena of Qi - Qi is Chinese theory, which essentially equates to 'breath'. But when people take that into the Western sides of things they completely warp it, they turn it into something quite commercial and quite abstract. So when you see people in England when they talk about Qi, they talk about it as if it's some kind of powerful thing, that they can use to defeat opponents and things like that - in China it's not like that at all, it's pretty much just the way that you breath."

"Chinese people tend to be incredibly friendly, but sometimes that can become incredibly uncomfortable."

"For example in China, what we would call lying - there's a different ethos around lying in China. In China there's the idea that you 'save face', and by that they mean that they try not to personally be the bearer of bad news - so if something bad is happening, they'll tell you something good is happening. Just so it's not their face that you associate with the negativity. And that's quite normal, that's quite common."

"And for Western people to be under that kind of environment can be incredibly annoying. We make a big deal about people being honest with us, and people lying to us, but in China it's completely different. So you never know what's going on. And if you try and organize something, it won't happen. That's the mindset that you have to be in, be prepared to by disappointed in terms of organization."

"What I would suggest, that if you can find entry into China, get your visa sorted out and things like that, and then go on your own accord and find your own instructor because the quality of what you're learning will be so much more traditional, and you'll be paying so much less for what you're getting. It's by far the best way of doing it - especially if you want an experience, a cultural experience, that's the best way."

Listen or read to the full pod cast and transcript: Liam Beale

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Business Development Manager
PPI Business NLP: NLP Training and NLP-based Business Training

NLP Podcast extract : Nicole Bachmann of Facilitation

Nicole Bachmann is a coach and facilitator with a strategic business background and a law degree. In her longstanding career across the international media and other industries, she has successfully lead and inspired a wide range of people from many different cultures in four different languages.

"I think it becomes increasingly more important as there is increasing collaboration between people who aren't necessarily in the same place - because I think business is changing as so far as a fair amount of people are working from home, or they're working from different countries - there's much more collaboration internationally going on."

"And very often these people don't see each other very much. And therefore, the challenges that brings with itself, where we can't read the body language, we're not used to meeting each other all of the time, and stuff like that."

"And I do think also that people that are actually meeting a lot, still have a need for facilitation. Because one of the things that I find fascinating is that one of the misunderstanding that happen between people don't happen between people who don't speak that same language - they happen with people who do speak the same language or seem to be. "

"If you speak English and you speak German - and whether or not you speak a little bit of German and I speak a little bit of English doesn't matter - when we go and communicate with each other, we will be very careful about communication, because we recognize that we're speaking different languages and that we need to make sure that we understand each other well. "

"Where as, if we both speak English, and this is where we're both coming from, we just think that the words that we use mean the same thing for you and for me. However, this is not very often the case. That's when it starts to get very interesting."

Listen or read to the full pod cast and transcript: Nicole Bachmann

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Liam Beale
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PPI Business NLP: NLP Training and NLP-based Business Training

NLP Podcast extract : Shaun Gisbourne talks on Cold Calling

Shaun helps people in companies by making calls that make their businesses grow. He also helps them to "Take the Phone In Small Steps" if they want to do their own telemarketing.

"To my mind cold calling is when the person that you're looking to reach by telephone has no knowledge of you, doesn't know anything of you - literally doesn't know you from Adam - couldn't point you out in a line of people. That's what a cold call is.

"Now this doesn't mean to say that if you have sent a piece of literature or maybe you've sent some other correspondence to the person that you intend to speak with that it isn't a cold call, because as far as they're concerned, if they haven't received your piece of literature, or their previous correspondence, to them it’s still a cold call."

"I think where it stops being a cold call is where you've had some previous contact with, if not them themselves, then certainly somebody that they work very closely with, or somebody that they would recommend, or somebody that they feel confident about hearing from."

"The first and foremost important thing that I have to say there is opening statements. What you say first and how you deliver it, that's the most crucial thing. The reason that I would say that is because of the sheer lack of patience that people have these days. They're getting marketing messages thrown at them from all angles and all the media all of the time."

"So the opening statement is crucial, and that applies to whether you're talking to the receptionist or the actual decision-maker that you want to reach."

"Well a good opening statement has to be very much to the point. It's about knowing what you want to happen, like in my case what I'm looking for is either a commitment from them to speak further, or a straight "No" from them. So it’s when you don't allow people to think things over and get back to you and it’s very wishy-washy, or they've not fixed a date to commit for action."

"That's when cold calling really fails to realise any value at all. At the Sandler Sales Institute for example they'll say "Be clear, specific and certain" I couldn't agree more. If you could do that from the outset it helps greatly to ensure that both you and the person that you're speaking with are on the same wavelength."

"So literally, I would say “Michael, sometimes I find that I get confused quite easily. Michael, would you be offended if I said that we should be "Clear, specific and certain" in our communications and in anything that we agree to or commit to today?”

Read the full Shaun Gisbourne interview transcript or listen to Shaun's cold calling podcast

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Liam Beale
Business Development Manager
PPI Business NLP: NLP Training and NLP-based Business Training

NLP podcast extract: John S Rajeski on international sales

John is a highly accomplished, experienced, and dynamic Information Technology Executive with more than 12 years in entrepreneurial business development. A superior record of achievement and success developing and closing business in highly competitive markets with a focus on Asia.

"Well, I think there are several that come to mind. One, for sure is cultural sensitivity. If I was to give broad strokes as to how business is done internationally, I would say that the US model is - ten minutes ago is too late. The sense of urgency is always crisis or panic driven, or both, for that matter. Especially coming out of Silicon Valley with Start-ups, where they're boot-strapping or founders are mortgaging their homes, or whatnot, to fund their ideas. "

"That sense of urgency is good from the standpoint of creating urgency and drive, and initiative, but it's also a real challenge because if you look into the short-term you can close business; but if you're looking into the long term and into developing market penetration, that can be a real challenge."

"As far as the European model - my experience in that regard is that the European model is more about a pedigree. So it's really about your background work, where you're from and your lineage more than anything else. Which is very different from the American model, especially with the 'ten minutes ago is too late' mantra that I've mentioned a few minutes ago; but the whole orientation in the United States is to innovation - so I think that Westerners, because we're separated by a common language for example, as you always hear about English - we have a lot of similarities, but at the same time there's a lot of dissimilarities as a result."

"And then if I were to go broad strokes about Asia, I would say that Asia is all about loyalty, and loyalty is paramount in the long-term. Your relationships are absolutely, the number one reason why you're going to do business, why you're going to do an introduction, how you're going to develop your network. Moreover, it's more the case that it's what you're contributing that matters most versus what you're deriving. "

Read or listen to the full John S. Rajeski's transcript and podcast on international sales.

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Liam Beale
Business Development Manager
PPI Business NLP: NLP Training and NLP-based Business Training