NLP Podcast Extract : Richard Sanders on the Benefits of NLP

"I had a fairly odd introduction to NLP and a fairly rapid one"
"I had been working as a consultant for three or four years and was looking for a way to channel my development, my influencing skills, listening skills, and came across NLP there, really from scratch. So I did the practitioner course as quickly as I could. "

"Having done the first session I realised that I had a number of the skills I needed, in part, already - and then built on that with the practitioner course, and then started to use that directly in my consulting career, and since then in my corporate career as well."

"I think it’s across the whole spectrum of NLP, certainly in language and the observation part that goes with that. I'm definitely aware of the reference system and the language that people use with me and mirroring back. Body language is another area that I'm very aware of, and again using very basic techniques to mirror"

"Some other techniques that come in there are actually around the written use of NLP. Writing reports, writing emails certainly. There's as much of an application there to get people to do what you need them to do, as anywhere else. On some levels you call that common sense for language, but actually a lot of it is picked up from the framework of NLP"

"I certainly don't see it as manipulation. I think in the workplace there are so many barriers in terms of making logical decisions - history and politics, and personal preconceptions about a situation - Maybe you've tried a project before that's failed"

"The way I see NLP is unlocking some of that baggage, or at least understanding it - which can then help people get to the right answers - the logical answers"

"Definitely. I was just thinking about the pictures that I have in my head. I definitely consider myself to be breaking down this big granite block, and the answer's in there somewhere, it's always been there - it's not that you have to create it from fresh, it’s that you’re chipping away at what other people or history has put in place that prevents the solution from being obvious"
"There are lots of examples. Depending on which time period we talk about, you have different projects. So again I'd go into my consulting proofs for some more obvious, less sensitive answers. There are some recently, but they're a bit more sensitive"

"In my history, those projects where you're dealing with highly sensitive issues, where the organisation structure changes, changing of ownership of business's - what NLP has allowed me to do is to get past these individuals who have these big preconceptions about a situation, to help me understand where they're coming from and also the reference system that would work particularly well to articulate to them a different view of the future - or at least to make sense of what they're articulating to me, and kind of play that back"

"So it’s given me the framework to break down some of the less tangible issues, as some people would see them - I actually see them as pretty tangible - and put them into an approach, and work with that approach to get a decision made"

Read or listen to the full Richard Sanders transcript and podcast on NLP Benefits.

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Liam Beale

Business Development Manager

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

NLP Podcast Extract : Rory Woolridge on Sales

"And the sales experience really started at about the age of Eleven. I particularly remember an episode of borrowing some plums from a field, and then selling them some hundred yards away from a fruit and veg guy, just under their prices. So that was good fun."

"So I guess Ive been selling for a long time. I'm Fifty Three at the moment. My current joy is to deal with accountants and that's with insurance from tax investigations. So that's a very exciting subject - but there is a need there and I help people fulfil that need."

"Well I think really the key steps, and the first thing of all, I'm sure people have heard of "the blink of an eye" approach, where people will make an assumption about what is in front of them or who is in front of them - so I tend to make sure that in the first instance that I'm fully prepared - I know before I meet my prospect that I understand who they are, where they are - understand a little bit about the company - so that I can be positive from the moment that I walk in through the door."

"So really I think that the first step start prior to my meeting of meeting the prospect, and making sure - dressed appropriately - why I say that is because at one stage I did appliance leasing. Now, had I got onto the farm in a suit, I probably would have been shot, because they probably thought that I had come from the inland revenue. I had to buy some tweed jackets and all that kind of stuff so that I fitted in to the environment that I was actually working in."
So my first step was I said "We'll start with myself and how I'm presenting myself and also the knowledge I have about the company, and probably of the individual."

"I think what then comes next - you have to assume that the deal comes to me - so they feel that they have a need for the product that we are providing in the marketplace. It may be that they have an existing product and they're looking at maybe moving away from that supplier. It may be that they have not had this product before even though its been available for twenty-two years and perhaps they have some questions or some reservations about the product."
"So the next step really is going to be qualification. What is it that they're actually looking for, or what is it that they have at the moment? What is it that they have? What is it that they think is good about what they have? And what are they not so pleased about?"

"Then maybe I can look at my approach from that point."

"It depends on the meeting. Obviously everybody's different, they all need a different approach. The main thing really is information that you can gather - and quite often sales people will forget that they only have one mouth, but they do have two ears - and most sales people will go in on their own agenda to sell what they think is right before actually listening to the prospect and what it is that they actually need."

"I think you then have to agree on the process, you have to agree what the client actually needs - once you've established that and I tend to write things down because I think it tend to make things more powerful - especially for the person opposite you - if you write something down, they will watch you write that - that then becomes important."

"So if there is a specific need I think "Oh good, we can make a good start with that," because that's something that they could really need - and its something that you could then go to later to reinforce, why they should buy."

"So I think really the next thing is getting a full agreement on what it is that they require"

Read or listen to the full Rory Woolridge transcript and podcast on Sales.

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

NLP Podcast Extract : Brian Mahoney on Hypnosis

Brian Mahoney is a certified hypnotherapist and master hypnotist who runs Boston Hypnosis. He has trained with many of the worlds leading NLP and hypnosis trainers and practitioners.
"I am Brian Mahoney, I run Boston hypnosis in Boston Massachusetts, over in the US, I do therapeutic hypnosis on a really wide area of issues, mainly behavioural, emotional, although there are some physical issues as well."

"Well, you've got the textbook definition 'a state of highly focused attention - for the purpose of selective thinking' and there's others as well. For my purposes, hypnosis is a state, it's a state for people to get some work done so people can get some things solved for themselves."

"Well, it's kind of interesting. I think with a lot of people in the NLP community my door was Tony Robbins. I did a lot of his stuff through the nineties, as I was in a more traditional business career, and at the tail end of that I began to do some coaching work with some guys that I was managing."

"And I was just wowed by the quality of results that these guys got for themselves, with this pretty basic stuff that I was teaching them from Tony Robins, Dale Carnagy, Steven Covey, so I decided that I liked coaching. and when I left the company I was with I began to do some coaching work and I pretty quickly realised that the type of tools that I had didn't really have the horce power I needed to really help people sort some things out within themselves."
"And I knew that Tony came out of NLP so I decided 'well, I should learn this stuff.' so I went to see John Grinder in London in 2003, and from then it was just a whirlwind of training, with who I think really are the best minds in NLP, and hypnosis. And in 2004 I opened the doors at Boston hypnosis."

"Well from the career standpoint it's enormously rewarding, it's rewarding in the way that every day I get to see people solving major life problems for themselves, or almost every day anyway, and there's a lot of satisfaction to be found in there."

Read or listen to the full Brian Mahoney transcript and podcast on Hypnosis

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

NLP Podcast Extract : Stuart Pedley-Smith on the Benefits of NLP

"My name is Stuart Pedley-Smith. I work for a company called Kaplan Financial. And what we do is prepare people to sit their final level accountancy exams. And also, more recently look for methods for preparing people for CPD, the continued professional development element of becoming an accountant."

"The qualification in the exam is only one sort of element of training, all professional bodies have become keen to ensure that their membership remain up to date. So all qualified accountants now are required to undertake a degree of continued professional development to keep up to date with their subject."

"I’ve been involved in NLP for the best part of ten years now. And I came to do it by being particularly interested in how you can put words and language together to influence people, also as a professional presenter, with a view to influence so not only would they listen to what I would say, but also they would take action."

"In my job, and in a certain extent in my career, it’s helped me with a framework. It’s provided - the old cliché I suppose is that we’re doing most of these things anyway. It’s provided me with a framework to identify instinctively what works. You get good at knowing what works by watching people’s reaction. But that’s just called experience. What NLP has done for me is that it’s provided me with an analytical structure to make sense of my experience."

"When I did my NLP, I probably sat there- (the course that you do is modular- which was one of the reasons I was keen to do it). I probably sat there for two modules over a period of six months and I probably sat there looking around the room thinking - this isn’t working for me, I’m not sure I’m getting this, I’m not even sure I should be in the room here. But having persevered and stuck with it and then got back for another module, listened to what people said it really came together. "

"I was very pleased that I went through the exercises almost without questioning them first, because I think if I questioned them first, with the way I think about things I would have analysed them to death. So go along, do the exercises, give yourself a break in between. Think about how it could be applied and how it does work in the real world. Go back, and you know, do it over a slightly longer period."

"I think sometimes if it’s rushed you’ll just go out the other end and go, "Oh, I just finished that" and you’ve never really finished. I’ve certainly not finished……. "

Read or listen to the full Stuart Pedley-Smith transcript and podcast on NLP.

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

NLP Podcast Extract : James Prior on Benefits on NLP

"My name’s James Prior. I work for AstraZeneca, one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies. I’m the Organisational Development Partner. My role is really looking after leadership development; it’s also looking after the culture within the business considering where we’re headed as a successful organisation, and looking at the business skills offerings we have. "
"Yes, it’s quite a big role. And obviously I don’t do all that on my own. I have a team of two people as well who help support me in those areas."

"Over the years quite a bit, working up to my Master Practitioner qualification in coaching, leadership development and change management."

"I think it allowed me to really focus on building rapport and relationships with people. And NLP has both allowed me to pick on audio clues and visual clues. To really get a sense of peoples core values and identity. So that we can shape the offerings we have, so that we know that they’re aimed at the right areas that people want to improve."

"I think it’s helped me in expanding my career in allowing me to take on new opportunities. I think in the sense that it’s allowed me to build relationships far quicker than if I didn’t have the skills. But it is also about understanding people. It’s allowed me to specialise in the area that I’m very passionate about - leadership. It has big implications for improvement in leadership in many areas. In building relationships and enabling people to see the benefit of communicating really well."

"My drive and ambition is a big motivator for me. As well as taking responsibility for my own development. I come from a philosophy that things don’t come to you, you have to go looking for them. I work very hard on my own personal development programme. Working hard with external supplies like yourself, and working very closely with the company putting core business cases together. This enables me to broaden my career, broaden my experience and allows me to move on through AstraZeneca.!

"The biggest area for me is listening to people, really listening, in order to understand people on a number of different levels. This includes body language, tone of voice, use of language and beliefs. This has enabled me to be really challenging in some areas. I think people find me challenging sometimes but in the end they see a huge benefit because it allows them to challenge some of their own behaviours and beliefs."

"I’m going to be really honest. I think the first thing I’d advise is just have a go! "
I think from a corporate point of view NLP has sometimes some quite bad press. People don’t really understand what it’s about and they fill in the blanks without ever really trying it themselves.

"So my advice to people is to actually have a go but also speak to some practitioners who really understand it and use it and have been successful. And then go to some taster evenings, like you do yourself, and really explore for yourself what it’s about."

Read or listen to the James Prior transcript and podcast on NLP.

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

NLP Podcast Extract : Stephen Gilligan on Hypnosis

Stephen Gilligan, Ph.D., is a licensed Psychologist practicing in Encinitas, CA. Stephen was among the group of students that gathered around the founders of NLP during its formation at U.C. Santa Cruz from 1974-1977. Milton Erickson and Gregory Bateson became his teachers and mentors.

"I'm a psychologist. I live in San Diego, California. And professionally speaking, for the last thirty two-thirty three years, I've been doing a variety of therapeutic work, coaching work related to hypnotic work. I started out in the late seventies as a student of UC Santa Cruz and I was a student of Bandler and Grinder, I actually met them when they first got together - I was a student of Grinders. And about a year into that they went out and met Milton Erickson and I was just thoroughly taken by what they had brought back, and the next time they went I went with them and met Erickson in 1974 and became a student of his for the next six years until he died in 1980. So a lot of my work has that as a core - Ericksonian hypnotic trance, and a number of other things have become integrated into that over the years, including a lot of stuff from Aikido and Buddhism, and some from other aspects of psychology."

"Well I think it's important to distinguish between hypnosis and trance, most people don't, and it leads to a lot of misunderstanding. So in order to define hypnosis I would first have to define trance. One of the most important aspects of Erickson's legacy was emphasising trance, not as artificial, but as naturalistic, and that is it doesn't come from hypnotic suggestion, it comes from consciousness itself - that it's a natural part of peoples learning states and of their consciousness. I think we could say in the most succinct way that trance is the way that occurs any time that identity is disrupted."

"And of course identity might be disrupted in a number of ways, you might get traumatised, you might be at the end of an identity cycle or a learning cycle in your life. I was just working with somebody for example, that was going through retirement - that you might call the end of a identity cycle for that person. Your identity might get disrupted because of things that happen in the world, you might get married, divorced, you might have a child, your child leaves home, a parent dies, you get ill, you get a new job, you change your residence. Those would be what we call events at the identity level, and it creates a break in the identity box, if you will, that you've been walking around in. "

"So because you need to create new identity patterns at those pivotal points, nature has supplied consciousness with this learning state that we call trance - so trance is natural. And like it or not you're going to go into a trance at least periodically in your path."

"Now the thing about trance I would say, is that it's incomplete. It needs a human context. And so the social ritual is able to absorb it, to give it a container, connect it with some traditions or some patterns that allow something that is that coming up in trance, be made artistically into something that has human value. So another way of saying that is what your unconscious gives you in trance is not complete, it's only half human. so you need someway to be able to absorb it in order to be able to shift it into something that has full human value. And that's why I say hypnosis is one of those ritual processes if you will. If a way that you can safely create a container, and receive the unconscious and at full throttle be able to open to the more primitive, primordial consciousness. and that has some set of tools that you can gracefully, I hope, effectively guide it, into a thing that has a full human form and full human expression. "
"So trance is the experience, hypnosis is the social ritual to guide the experience. "

Read or listen to the Stephen Gilligan transcript and podcast on Hypnosis.

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