Scion of NLP

Archive for the ‘Beliefs & Values’ Category

The best teachers in this world never truly answer questions with statements and the best students never ask questions without having a possible answer …

… aaaaaannd, your thinking: What the hell does that mean?

Well, the 2 most influential teachers in my life taught me those key concepts and, as much as possible, I use them in all the courses and seminars I teach. You see, one person who I learned a lot from never gave me a straight out answer — she always would answer my questions with a question that would help me to connect things in my own mind in order to better understand and relate to the lessons she was teaching. On the flip-side, the second person who taught me a great deal in life never allowed me to ask a question without at least having a guess as to what I thought the answer might be.

In both of these cases I learned the real essence of learning:

Honest Curiosity

Looking for the answer you want to find — deciding what you expect the answer to be and then only seeking information to support your beliefs — is not being honest to the true answer. In the same sense, asking random questions about things which you have no basic knowledge or understanding is useless (kinda like asking the someone to explain trigonometry without even a basic ability to do math) — it’s not being honest to your true level of curiosity.

… and IMHO, the best teachers in the world instill a sense of honest curiosity in their students! (which is part of my never ending quest as an NLP Trainer)

With those thoughts in mind I wanted to share a little inspirational story from a cool website, Zen Moments:

The post was titled My favorite Liar (click the title to go to the original article), and the basic story was as such …

A guy had a professor in college that added an interesting twist to his lectures — it was boring subject so on the first day of class he explained that during every class he would teach one lie and it was the students’ job to catch him in his lie.

At first the lies were easy to spot and students would immediately spot them and raise their hands to question the validity of his statements. When he was caught he’d cross that part out on the board and congratulate them on catching the lie.

As time went on the lies became more subtle and it would take students longer to find them and often it would be only a handful who would question something that was explained a bit earlier in the lecture … until, eventually the professor was able to get through the whole class and no one had caught the lie.

When that happened he would joyfully tell the students that he succeeded and that there was an error somewhere in their notes which they would need to discuss among themselves and present their arguments at the next class. Soon the students had begun to form study groups and had to really dig to determine what lie he had taught them in the previous class ..

… until one day when the students were presenting their thoughts and he simply kept proving them wrong. After the students had exhausted all their possible guesses … the professor said: Do you remember the first lecture – how I said that ‘every lecture has a lie?’ … well, that was a lie. My previous lecture was completely on the level. But I am glad you reviewed your notes rigorously this weekend – a lot of it will be on the final. Moving on …

So, what did that professor teach those students above and beyond the class material? … what was his real legacy as an instructor? — All those students learned:

• ‘Experts’ can be wrong, even when they say things that sound right – so build a habit of evaluating new information and check it against things you already accept as fact. (this goes for seemingly ‘Honest’ truth tellers who often keep confirming that ‘they are hiding nothing’ … are they trying to convince their readers or themselves?)
• If you see something wrong, take the initiative to flag it as misinformation … when things don’t add up, look for the pieces that are missing — having only 1 or 2 pieces of a puzzle will never show you the whole picture (this also applies to singular facts or statements that have been taken out of context)
• A sense of playfulness is the best defense against taking yourself too seriously — everyone makes mistakes and when we do or say something in error there will always be people who will jump on that fact as a way to drag you down and discredit you … don’t take yourself too seriously and you won’t take their comments too seriously either (… and if you don’t take those people who fixate only on mistakes seriously, then no one else will either — accept your errors but focus on your successes so others will do the same)

… something to make you go Hmmmmm…

A woman I know told me the story of how she baked cupcakes for her granddaughter’s 7th birthday. When she arrived with a big container filled with cupcakes the young girl came running to the door and excitedly asked, “What is it?”

“It’s cupcakes for your birthday party, sweetheart.” the woman replied.

The little girl’s face dropped and glumly she said, “Oh.” Then, taking the container from her grandma, the little girl let out a big sigh and sadly carried the cupcakes toward the kitchen.

As the grandmother and the girl’s mother talked at the dining room table they suddenly heard the little girl squeal with delight from the kitchen and watched as she came running in to them. Bouncing with joy the child exclaimed, “Sprinkles! They have sprinkles all over them!”

“What?” asked the mom, “There are sprinkles all over what, dear?”

“The cupcakes! The cupcakes that grandma brought!” cried the little girl.

After giving her grandma a giant hug the little girl excitedly awaited the he childhood party guests, and as each one arrived she dragged them to the kitchen saying, “Come see! You gotta see! Grandma made cupcakes and they have sprinkles all over them!”

As the old woman sipped her drink and told me the story she added, “And they were completely an accident — I never meant to put them on, but then when I saw them in the cupboard I decided at the last minute to toss some sprinkles on them just for fun.” With a smile she added, “And now I’m sure glad I did!”

We talked a while longer and agreed — life is truly all about the sprinkles … and that little girl knew it!

There are gonna be things in life that suck — that aren’t exactly the way we wish they were … but, from time to time, there are gonna be little things along the way that make us smile. Those are the things we need to focus on and be happy about — this journey we call life is really about taking pleasure and finding excitement in the little sprinkles that make you smile along the way.

What the hell is wrong with people on twitter who promote themselves as NLP practitioners and trainers?

I mean, one of the base key elements of NLP is the knowledge that every person on the planet has their very own individualized mental map of how life works … we each have thoughts and memories that help us relate to new experiences! So, can someone please explain to me what all these so called ‘NLP Gurus’ on twitter are doing when they have everything completely automated??

Seriously, what the hell do you need to be thinking? — Sending out an automated response to a new followers to say thanks and ‘hey, connect with me on Facebook, too!‘ … or, setting up automated tweets that quote some famous person … yeah, that totally makes me feel connected wit’ ya there bud! … and the forever on-going tweets about ‘check this out!‘ and ‘I can’t believe I’m giving this away!‘ with short-links — are you a complete fukcing idiot?! … did your NLP trainer teach you nothing, you nim-rod?

If you want to get people to trust you and buy from you in this day and age then social media is an opportunity for NLPers to get inside other people’s way of thinking … to find out what they need & want … and to customize what you offer to make sure it will give your clients and customers exactly what they’re looking for! But, most of all, things like twitter and facebook are made to connect with people (not just sell to them!) … it’s about building trust … by being [and I know this may sound completely crazy!] genuinely interested those other people!

So, to all my fellow NLPers in the world … in fact, to everybody — try asking people questions or responding to theirs … who knows, you might actually engage the other person in a kind of interaction beyond online gaming!

Movies can sometimes be a great escape from reality in the sense that it takes you away from the pressing anxieties and worries of your everyday life and submerses you into a whole different world… but it’s not real.

Some movies are even based on real life events and, although we can imagine it happening to the characters in the movie, that would never happen in your life… so it doesn’t actually feel real.

Some movies make us laugh … some make us cry … and others scare the living shit out of us — but they aren’t real!

… but they can be …

I was forced to think about something that left me chilled to the bone recently — forced to face the question we never want to consider … ‘what if it was my family?’

If you haven’t been following the news recently there is a guy who went missing back in February of this year and, even though his family had all reported him missing, he was never found … in fact, because he was over 25 years old he wasn’t even really a priority. Not until he was finally returned to his family several weeks ago …

His mother received that call we all dread … it was the hospital in a city 2 provinces away … and her son was no longer missing. He had been dropped off at the emergency room barely alive. After weeks in intensive care he was finally taken off life support and he was able to breath on his own … but it wasn’t all good news …

… he had been beaten, tortured, repeatedly suffocated, stabbed, cut, and mutilated repeatedly over several months.

This was real life…

These are people I know!

… and then it hit me! — My son turned 10 years old this year and I stopped to think for a moment … what if this ever happened to him? If he had been brutally disfigured and slowly tortured over and over and over … the fear he would feel … the pleading he would do for his life … the prayers he’d offer to be allowed to die … what if?

These are people just like you and me … living in free country where stuff like this doesn’t happen, right? This guy was once 10 years old too … filled with all the wonder and hopes that childhood offers … never once imagining a future so dark and terrifying …

I stopped to imagine if it was my own child … and it filled me with terror, anguish, fear, sadness and rage …

For some of you this is just some words written on some guys blog somewhere in far, far away — just another world event … for some of you this is something that you can imagine would quite horrific for the family that it happened to … but it’ll never happen to you, right?

For everyone else who actually feels what I felt, please visit:

www.DustinLaFortune.com

or click this link to join the Facebook group:

In Support of Dustin LaFortune

As many of my friends know, I read web comics daily — they are what make up a solid 5 minutes of pleasure in my day (no matter what kind of day I’m having) — and one of them is the online comic Sinfest by Tatsuya Ishida. Over the last 3 weeks he’s done a plot line that I believe really explains the process of depressing and I’ve decided to share … (please feel encouraged to click on any of the images to go directly to the actual web comic!)

WARNING!!! This post contains language & humor of an adult nature –
NSFW — reader discretion is advised!!!

To begin, the process of depressing starts with trying to stop caring … whether it’s because you’re too overwhelmed with life or you’ve just gotten sick and tired of constantly failing at things, everything starts with giving up on living (and not giving up on “giving up” as I explained in my post Abandon Hope All Ye Who Are Depressed) — depressors use depression as a way to protect themselves from being hurt by loss and failure, but the problem is it’s like emo kids who dress all goth in order to be different than everyone else — they all look the same! People with depression are just Buddhist posers — they give up trying but still feel bad for failing … the true goal is to give up feeling good or bad for success or failure and just keep doing.

… giving up in an unhealthy way, however, only leads to an ongoing downward spiral …

… into …

… which is where the depressing mind constantly tortures itself with memories of experiences filled with shame, guilt, anger, fear, hurt, sadness, loss, etc. …

… and the worst is that usually a person will face these inner demons alone — never telling their friends about what’s going on … the negative thoughts and feelings … never sharing the pain for fear of causing suffering for others — that’s why so many people with depression will sabotage relationships and push the people they love away … to protect those they love from the suffering which they believe they must face (and solve) on their own …

… and so, the ongoing despair will eventually take hold and become a way of life — always seeing the bad and never taking pleasure in anything positive …

… but! … there is occasionally that one person whom a depressed person hasn’t pushed away far enough … one person (or pet) who knows the kind of person they truly can be — filled with joy and love for life …

… that one person (or pet) who cares enough to search for them … to look beyond the fake smiles and lies about “just being a little tired” (all the time!) …

… however! … that one person (or pet) needs others that they can rely on … friends whom they can turn to for support … to give them the energy to keep fighting to help their friend and loved one who suffers in silence …

… and when they confront that dark and gloomy person it may not be pretty … and it may not be an easy fight …

… trying to remind them of all the things worth living for … to find that one true thing that matters enough to give them the will to keep trying …

… and it may not be just one thing either … it may be necessary for them to remember ALL those things in combination … wrapped up into one existence … although, sometimes it can be just one thing … something as simple as human contact … like a hug … a small gesture to show them that they matter to someone …

… even then, the fight isn’t over … in that stage of depression the person usually isn’t strong enough to stand alone yet … they may need someone with hope to guide them … to take their hand and lead them … tell them what to do … to get up … to eat … small steps … to keep fighting … to keep working toward their dreams … to give them a direction …

… only then will they be able to begin to see a light at the end of the tunnel … to start believing in hope once again … to start walking on their own in life … (at least until the next time they stumble).

It may not exactly like that for everyone who suffers from depression, but I think that’s a pretty good generalization to give you an idea of what the cycle looks like … with some really cute visual representations too. 

They say that NLP focuses a lot on how the brain filters perceptions … often considered to be one’s own unique perspective of the world — basically we can think that everyone has a unique way of seeing things; how ideas relate, how concepts are inter-connected, how stuff works, why things happen, etc.

For NLPers these lines of individual perspectives begin to blur because we have a greater degree of flexibility in how we understand other people and their person models of the world — people with NLP training have learned to let go of their own filters as much as possible so they can better relate to the way someone else is perceiving an experience.

For anyone who prefers to learn through the visual representational system it can best be explained by the video below … you might have one point of view but if you gently allow the viewer to guide you in changing the way you see the same idea it becomes possible to understand the world as seen through their eyes — case in point:

So, the next time you’re arguing with someone and you hear them say things like: You just aren’t getting it, or You don’t understand! — this means you’re too stuck in seeing the topic through your own filters. Trying letting go of your expectations, assumptions and past experiences that limit your perceptions of the topic at hand … and then consider only what the other person is saying and what it tells you about how they perceive things.

After you’ve done that it becomes possible to recognize what it is you have in your mental map of the world that has given you that particular belief, value, point of view, etc. … and that’s what you need to explain in order to help them relate better to your way of seeing things. 

I was shown this little video that was an awesome demonstration of mental filters and I thought I just needed to share…

The interesting thing is that from an NLP standpoint this goes a long way to explaining things like context frames and the impact of language frames as they apply to people in general. From the perspective of things like depression, anxiety, paranoia, and other similar psychological disorders, the only real difference is that the frame is set, not by an external source but, by an internal source — this is why I always explain depression to my coaching clients as a form of self-bullying.

Here’s the video … check it out:

… now imagine what how this applies to things like Law of Attraction! Anyone who wants to know why it works for a lot of people — it makes a huge shift in your mental filters. Research has shown that people who believe themselves lucky will see when money is left on the sidewalk, where unlucky people will usually step right over it! — it’s all filters people! If you’re depressed, anxious, or just unlucky, you’re gonna be doing a lot of internal thinking about problems in your life … but, when you’re mentally positive, and filtering for the good things in life, it’s much easier to see opportunities and success.

Hmmmm… something to think about — when you start your day are you filtering for the right things or are you setting a negative frame on your life?

It’s funny that I’ve recently begun re-reading the Tao of Pooh again. So many things we learn and commit to doing … well … it seems that we slowly begin to eventually stop doing them — until one day someone teaches us the old lesson again and we remember that we used to do it all the time … but then we stopped and can’t remember what happened that made us stop.

Almost seems funny when you think about it.

Taoism is about finding happiness in the moment, whatever may be happening (good or bad). That’s something that’s hard to do when filters of depression are shading everything you experience and your mind keeps focusing and dwelling on the crappy things in life.

However, in NLP we say there is no failure, only feedback. This too is sometimes hard to remember when you’re dealing with the crap poop life throws your way. I recently had a chance to sit and talk opening with my partner Jodie and she gave me a metaphor that really helped put things in perspective … and thinking about it has lead to a life lesson that I’m going to take from my recent war on depressing behaviors …

I used to have an NLP colleague who would always phrase everything as if the experience you were having had an intention — for example, if you’re having shoulder pain she’d ask what the pain was trying to tell you (or what your body was trying to teach you). Today I realized what the challenge is that I’m going to take away from the recent stumble my business has had –

Since I’m doing what I know I must in order to make my NLP business a success, the challenge if to maintain the systems, plans and procedures which I’ve established … I gotta keep doing them even through the tough times if I ever plan on making it to the big time.

Now, the only question which remains is …

Can I do it???

  yeah … Thanks … I know I can, too!

One useful tool in NLP is using metaphors to teach; we see this throughout history as a way of passing on information through allegories or morality tales. Sometimes, however, as hard as it is to do… the lesson of the metaphor is lost in the hilarity of the attempt.

Case in point:

Image from Awful Library Books

For the full article, and more pictures, please visit Awful Library Books.

One of the foundational concepts of NLP is that we all have our own Model of the World — our own personal understanding of how the world works and what to expect. For myself, as an NLPer, I find that the funniest practical jokes seem to play on messing with a person’s map of reality … human’s are hilarious in the fact that, so long as the explanations or our experience is in line with our expectations of how the world works, we are gullible enough to believe almost anything! Case in point …