Archive for the ‘My Rants & Raves’ Category

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

I’ve tried to ‘get’ the concept of this social media thing for several weeks (perhaps even months) so I decided it was time to get help from a social media coach (Jodie Gastel of In Jodie’s Brain) and with her help I think I’m finally really beginning to get a bit of a knack for it … or, at least, understand what’s happening … and what I need to do. 

For anybody who’s wondering about social media, and what it entails, I’ll give you a general idea of what it looks like for someone in my position:

Twitter Stuff

Keeping up with twittering means having a finger on the pulse of what’s happening now and responding to people and sharing my opinions and input … times 3 for me — because I’ve got 3 Twitter accounts that need to be kept up at least twice daily:

• @Scion_of_NLP
• @Verbal_Sensei
• @Dr_Dan_Says

Facebook Stuff

Facebook (or LinkedIn or whatever social networking sites you belong to) is all about connecting with people who share your interests. In my case that means I need to be involved with stuff happening on my profile page as well as my fan pages and my group discussions:

• My Facebook Profile
• Soaring Success Fan Page
• Verbal Defense Tactics Fan Page
• My Anti-Bullying Group

Website Updates

In this case I’m working on 5 websites (currently only 4 are ready and working) which need at least a new post/article per week … and yes, I am aware that of late I haven’t been keeping up on my social media responsibilities in this area — I’ve been working on getting my sites backend PHP coding cleaned up so that updates and website upkeep would be more manageable.

• Scion of NLP (my personal blog — this site)
• Soaring Success (the NLP side of business website)
• Verbal Self Defense Tactics (the Verbal Self Defense side of business website)
• Dr. Dan Says (my professional behaviorist site)
• The ‘Un-named’ Site (a website about defense against inappropriate uses of NLP)

Yep… a year ago I’d have said it was a tall order, however, today it’s becoming more and more within my level of skills and abilities. In no time I shall become a true Social Media Jedi (*add in sound effect of swinging light-saber here!*). 

If you have a small business of your own, and you have any hope of building it into a self-sustaining business these days, I strongly recommend finding yourself a social media coach like Jodie — she actually sat beside me and walked me through how to pick and choose what I respond to … what should (and should NOT) be said … all the lingo … everything!

Thank you Jodie! — you soooooo ROCK!

Sadly my friends … it is time once again for a Dan Rant — recently, a friend of mine brought to my attention an article published in a local newspaper a few days ago that simply left me shaking my head in disbelief …

The article (Eye movements mirror thought) was about how *Science* is suddenly discovered there is a connection between eye movements and thought patterns … and, in fact, you can use eye patterns to predict what people are thinking! Wow, eh? The fact that this has been a major component of NLP training since the 1970′s is only coincidental — and why is that? … because NLP hasn’t been *Scientifically* proven.

Yep, it’s true. NLP is still today considered nothing more than mumbo-jumbo-witch-doctory-new-age-wish-wash … a scam … a placebo, at best. The only reason is because the way NLP works is to utilize each individual’s personal way of thinking … and that means if I find a way that works to help one person the exact same steps may not work for anyone else! The most effective NLP techniques are constantly in flux based on immediate feedback received from the client — and that means it’s damn near impossible to create a universal set of steps that some scientist in a lab anywhere in the world can replicate! … but … medication can be replicated and proven to work in more than 50% of the cases and that’s good enough for psychologists and psychiatrists to get behind — because it can be *proven* using current scientific methods.

However, now we have these so-called *new* studies that have been discovering wonderous things about the way the human mind works … and lo-and-behold — ye old NLP flim-flam just happens to have been saying the same thing for decades … (*grumble, grumble, grumble!*) …

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Hey Everybody,

I am beyond excited to say that I found out yesterday that my new book, Verbal Self Defense in The Workplace, has gotten a video review on Amazon (UK)!

Plus, not only is it an in-depth review it’s by an author who has become one of my own inspirational role models — Rintu Basu, author of Persuasion Skills Black Book. (*sorry for the 80′s relapse but … that’s TOTALLY WICKED!!*)

CLICK HERE

TO SEE

RINTU’S VIDEO REVIEW!!!

As a little extra … for anyone thinking about getting a copy of Rintu’s amazing book I’ll let you in on a little secret … something really big is in the works and if you stay tuned you’ll be in line for a fabulous opportunity coming soon! (Shhhh … I’m not suppose to tell anybody yet so just be patient and I’ll post more news as soon as I can!)

Okay…this was originally posted on Facebook by a wonderfully insightful NLPer, Anita, and I thought the information in it was so important I just have to share it with you…

Many times I hear people pronouncing”truths” about NLP (as if in a church), which obviously are based upon a non-understanding of what it is.

They say, “It doesn’t work.” At that point I look around and ask “Where?” “Where is this thing?”

They look upon me and say “What thing?” I say, “NLP. You said it doesn’t work. Where NLP? Can you make it?”

What specifically does not work or did not work for you?

They name techniques or a technique, name lists upon lists of techniques until my brain is fried.

I take a deep breath, look upon them and…..

I say. “So you say Phobia Cure did not work. How do you know he had one”? ” He told me”, they say.

And you believed him? Why? How did you make sure he really had one. If he didn’t you may have installed one, you know? if you did, you must NOW install a Phobia for a Phobia, which is easy. Just play a slightly different movie and add JAWS soundtract to it.

DONE.

What is he wanted to have one but didn’t get it YET. It is useful to have phobias of certain things.

For instance, Mother in Law phobia (that however can be cured with laxative tea at dinner when they visit SUDDENLY) and play the Jaws soundtract (gently) in the background.

Here is my response to them.

NLP techniques which are numerous, by themselves do not work. They are the tools we use within specific contexts. A tool, however great, is a usless tool unless applied for specific reasons in a specific context, with a specific, verifiable outcome to be achieved.

In order for these great tools to work, I tell them, they need to go back to the “drawing board” and be able to delineate the parameters of the context they are deling with. Make sure you are dealing with what you are told. If he says he a has a phobia, make darn sure it is and that he doesn’t want it.

Nine times out of ten, they have a different problem from the one they want you to believe they have.

Sometimes all they want is a “date”-with you..someone to spill their guts in front of, without any intention of having anything changed, expecting nurturing……… For this purpose, obviously, you will reach out for different tools ( I have a few for emergencies).

I think, by the way, these 8 year long weekly therapist visits are nothing else than contextualized dates. After that many years, people know each other better than spouses. Speaking of polygamy…….

They need to employ the observational skiils, listening skills and question- asking skills, to gather as much information as they can, in order to figure out the situation and how the context had been created.

When they are sure to be sure that surely they know what outcome they are wanting to get, the art begins.

Only then, are the tools useful to elicit the desired outcome (MAKE SURE, IT IS DESIRED, not just by you but by THEM).

In our view, training practitioners needs to be based on the principle of teaching a structure. Students must “organically be drawn to structure delineation. Once we know the structure of the client’s experience, we know how they consistently achieve a particular state, and what they want to change and why, our job is really easy. A structure of anything, including an emotional state ceases to be the the structure if the foundational elements are rearranged or removed.

In order to make a difference in someone’s life, we need to be able to reconstruct for ourselves the model of the world that client had been creating for themselves, understand the structure of it, design a new one that works, use the tools and then verify from our own and a client’s standpoint that this we wanted to achieve had been achieved WITHIN THE ECOLOGY OF THE CONTEXT.

Unfortunately there are many people out there who do not understand the elegance of these methods, and their power. They go into the world teaching others NLP and doing ineffective work with clients, leading to a misunderstanding of this incredible methodology and Richard Bandler’s original intent in Santa Cruz.

Its’ time for a CHANGE!

(The Original Facebook Note was written
by Anita Maria Koslowski)

So…if you’re ready for a change, and you want to learn the tools, techniques — along with the “elegance of these methods, and their power” — please check out the upcoming NLP Practitioner Certification Training Program being taught in Victoria, BC (starting in less than 4 weeks!)… you can find more information here:

Boo-ya!

Once again I must send out my deepest thanks to the wonderful Catherine Mattice who recently posted a new, exclusive article explaining how to program healthy communication habits of today for situations of verbal conflict tomorrow using techniques of NLP.

For anyone who doesn’t know yet, Catherine Mattice is the expert who wrote the foreword for my new book: Verbal Self Defense in The Workplace: Proven Psychological Secrets to Help You Beat The Office Bully

I strongly recommend that everybody check out her blog and consulting company …

http://noworkplacebullies.blogspot.com/

http://noworkplacebullies.com/

Thank you Catherine.

I’ll be completely honest and say that Dean Hunt is the one who brought this video to my awareness (see the original post here) …

… however, I just needed to share it on my NLP blog, too. The reason being: I love being a Professional NLP Trainer because it not only fills me with a sense of personal accomplishment and pride, knowing that I’m passing on the wisdom, knowledge and experiences that made different in, not only my own life, in the lives of people around the world … doing this job fills me with passion …

… I’m lucky to have found my passion in life and made it into a career — and every time I’m going to teach an NLP class I get filled with excitement and anticipation … all the wonder and joy and amazing moments of personal growth … all the fantastic insights into the secrets of life and how each person can not only improve their own life, but go even further and help make this a world to which we all want to belong …

… it’s all these things that I see on the faces of my students, hear in their voices, feel as they fly out of class filled with excitement and a passion of their own … I’m an NLP Trainer (teacher) and I too can tell you — I make a difference.

  Boo-Ya!

Once again I found elements of Law of Attraction and Intention Manifestation in my morning webcomics … and I had to share!

A key component of law of attraction is to be specific … BUT, the other thing is to be grateful for what you do get (Google ‘GratiDudes’ if you want to know more about being grateful with LoA) — so, how do you do that? Well, it’s called ‘Feedback’ — in NLP we say there is no failure, only feedback. What that means is the only way you can fail is by giving up, otherwise you’re simply making adjustments to your plan based upon new information coming in (i.e. Feedback).

This cartoon is the perfect example of that! — Set an intention and put it out to the universe … get feedback that the desired intent was not clear enough, so clarify and put the intention back out there!

The trick is to be able to take feedback as it comes without fighting it — most people want to fight against the current rather than go with the flow; however, SunTzu in the Art of War said that you should only fight the battles you’ve already won … so, if you choose where you put your energy wisely, Law of Attraction will work much more easily and effortlessly.

  — Trust me, I’ve learned this lesson the hard way!

BTW, you can click on the cartoon strip to be taken directly to the original webcomic.