I’ve said on several occasions, that I’m not keen on the idea of running virtual training programmes and workshops.  I believe that when you all get in the same room and breathe the same air, something different happens, that is impossible to recreate through virtual media.

Having said that, I’m very mindful that this may the only option we have available to us for some weeks or months to come.  That getting in the same room may be impossible for a time.  Consequently, this conundrum has been on my mind.  Am I just being a bit of a Luddite?  Is it, in fact, perfectly possible to run successful workshops via virtual media?

The reality is, I don’t know.  But I’m about to find out.  I’m going to take the plunge and run some events on-line.  In the same way that I’ve had to run a lot of meetings virtually, that I would have preferred to do face-to-face.

What I’m hoping is going to happen, not just for me, but for everyone is this:

If we make more use of virtual communications technology, we’ll get more comfortable and confident with it.  And once we’re comfortable and confident with it, we’ll be able to distinguish between the kind of interaction that lends itself to virtual meetings and the interactions where we do in fact benefit form being together in the same room in reality.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, experiences and plans.

Have you ever thought – or even said – “stop the world – I want to get off!”?

I remember when I had a demanding corporate job involving lots of travel and some weekend working as well as a responsible role in a voluntary organisation, I would sometimes wake up in the morning, mentally review the day ahead and feel completely overwhelmed.

I longed for a few days where nobody was expecting anything from me, so I could stop, breathe and relax.  That didn’t often happen, and I ended up working myself to a complete standstill and having an enforced rest for six weeks. I learned a lot from that experience and it was one of the turning points that resulted in me starting my own business.

It’s been a few years since I had that ‘stop the world’ feeling, but I was reminded of it when the world did indeed come to a stop and I had the opportunity to ‘get off’ the never-ending cycle of business and housekeeping.  Of constantly feeling a bit behind with everything and often failing to achieve everything I’d planned for a day.

Yes, I can get like that.  Despite all my training, I’m not always gliding through life with everything perfectly under control!

And so here we are….

I’m confined to my home like millions of others.  I’ve had flu symptoms and felt really unwell for most of two weeks and when I finally felt that I wanted to work again, the world had changed.  (I almost wrote ‘the world had moved on’, but it doesn’t feel like that.  It feels like it’s stopped.)

At first, it’s a shock.  You don’t have to leave the house.  You can’t leave the house.  You have time.  You have time to do whatever you like.  All those hours you would have spent travelling, in meetings, working.  There isn’t enough to fill all the hours you have now.  What are you going to do?

I like to read.  I’ve read a lot of books since all the events in my calendar were cancelled.

I’m meeting my team via zoom once a week.  That’s a novelty – and it’s reminding us why we like to work together.  We actually like each other and we get along well.

And yet…

There is a question lurking in the back of my mind that won’t be ignored:

Is anything ever going to be the same again?  It seems impossible that we can emerge from this unaffected by the weeks of enforced isolation.  It seems impossible that we will be able to pick up where we left off.  We have all learned something about ourselves.  We’ve noticed what’s really important.  We’ve missed some people and haven’t missed others.  We’ve learned to do business using virtual tools.

When this is over, how do you want your life to be different from the way it was before?  If your habits are inevitably going to change, how do you want them to be different?  If you’re gong to emerge from this and look back on it fondly, how are you going to spend your time whilst we’re in lockdown?

I’m not saying I’ve worked out the answers to all of these questions for myself yet, but I’m sure that I don’t want to look back on my period of enforced isolation as a wasted opportunity.  I don’t want to look back and think, “I could have used that time to…”

I’m determined that I’m going to look back on this and think, the world stopped, I was allowed to get off for a while and I came back refreshed, prepared and a better person for the experience.

Now more than ever before, I think it’s important to remember that we have choice.  We can choose what we think about.  We can choose how we behave and we can choose our attitudes to what’s going on in our world.  Choose wisely!

When the NLP Leadership Summit was founded by Michael Hall in 2013, the intention was simply to provide an opportunity for the leaders of NLP to ‘associate’ with each other.  And that’s what we did.  More people who met the membership criteria were invited to join the Summit and now there are over 150 members.  About half came to the third bi-annual 3-day meeting in Alicante.

Here are some extracts from my notes during the 3 days:

Day One

Michael [Hall] and Heidi [Heron] welcomed everyone.  There were leaders present from 27 countries, including UK, USA, Russia, Australia, Venezuela, Pakistan and most European countries.

Each person was invited to identify themselves and state their intention for the 3 days.  Mine was to ‘talk NLP’ with other Trainers.  Often the conversations at the NLP Leadership Summit meetings have been about the bigger picture, about creating better relationships between Associations, about how to promote the excellent academic research that has been done in our field and so on.  This time I was keen to ask people, “How do you teach…?”  the Meta Model or Anchoring or Re-framing or any other part of the Practitioner or Master Practitioner syllabus.

Later in the morning session I was pleased to hear that in the UK, some work has been done with OfQual to develop academic standards for NLP that relate to our current levels of qualifications.

For much of the rest of Day One I was occupied with a working group on Standards.  One of the challenges in NLP as a field of study is that it can be applied in many different contexts and the skills a person needs in each of those contexts to be regarded as a competent practitioner can vary widely.  We are in continual discussion about how we can create a coherent framework of competences that enable potential students/customers to make decisions more easily about the training they need.

Various working groups reported back to the meeting…

Phil Parker has launched a podcast of interviews with leading researchers into the Placebo Effect and the Mind/Body connection.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/mind-body-connection-with-dr-phil-parker/id1493527932

There is also a major project on treatment of PTSD using NLP protocols.  It was fascinating to hear how military veterans are being assisted to move through their trauma with a process known as Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories (RTM).  This work was pioneered by Frank Bourke, who is a member of the NLP Leadership Summit and several other members who work in a clinical context have been involved.

www.randrproject.com

Day Two

The second day followed the ‘Open Space’ process for facilitating a meeting.  It was led by Ueli Frischknecht from Switzerland.  I had heard of this process, but never experienced it before.  I was impressed with the process and the atmosphere it engendered.  Small groups of people gathered to discuss topics they had chosen and other people flitted from group to group.

In particular, I liked the four ‘rules’

“Whoever comes are the right people

Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened

It starts when it starts

When it’s over, it’s over.”

I was also happy that there was no pressure to attend a session if nothing was of interest.  We were assured that even if we chose to sit and drink tea, or retire for a nap, we were still part of the process!   Many of us took advantage of that ‘rule’ at some point in the day.

Lunch was a very enjoyable couple of hours spent in a restaurant on the marina. We had grilled vegetables, bread, cheese and a little glass of wine whilst enjoying the sunshine and the view as well as a great conversation.  I should mention that the mealtimes and evenings spent chatting are as important a part of the Leadership Summit meetings as the organised sessions.

Open Space beckoned us back and I hosted a session in the afternoon under the headline, ‘How do you teach…?’ We enjoyed a lively discussion of ways to teach the Meta model, Reframing and Modelling.  I will be using some of the exercises that other trainers generously shared.  It may also be the start of something bigger…

Day Three

A highlight of the final day was Robert Dilts sharing some of the work he’s been doing with Ian McDermott on ‘intentional fellowship’.  This featured at the NLP Conference in 2018 and they continue to develop the ideas.

In a busy world, where many of us have close friends we can only ‘see’ and speak to electronically most of the time, Robert and Ian have been modelling how they have maintained a friendship and working partnership over several decades, despite not often being able to be in the same place together.

One idea I especially liked was to arrange the time for the next call BEFORE you get caught up in the current call.  I can see how that gives a greater sense of continuity to the interaction.

I could go on…

However, if you’ve read this far, well done!  It’s probably not as engaging to read about as it was to be there but I’m happy answer any questions you might have about what’s going on in the world of NLP.

‘Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so’ according to William Shakespeare (Hamlet Act 2 scene ii)

I really think the Bard knew what he was talking about here. The way we think about things makes them what they are to us. Specifically, the way we describe things in words makes them ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in our minds. Or anything else – interesting, boring, useful, beautiful or inspiring.

In case you haven’t heard me say this before…

There’s always more than one way to describe a thing.

If the way you currently describe something means that you don’t feel good about it, how about experimenting with different words. Not to change the meaning, just to shift the emphasis.

For example, the complaint,

‘I’m not happy about that’ could be re-worded to, ‘I’m not totally happy about that’. How does that shift your thoughts?

Or the try this one: ‘I’m not good at that, I can’t do it’ transformed to ‘I haven’t discovered the easiest way to do it yet’.

In NLP this is usually described as re-framing. You could also call it taking control of your thoughts. I think of it as shifting focus using language.

But like I said, there’s always more than one way to describe a thing.

When I first heard the word ‘mindset’ I cringed slightly.  I tend to like ‘proper’ use of English words and grammar.  I’m uncomfortable with the practice of adapting nouns into verbs – such as ‘gifting’ instead of ‘giving a gift’ – and I think it’s a bit sad that with the wealth of vocabulary available to us we’re constantly inventing new words to sum up the meaning of several.  I suppose it speeds up communication and makes it easier to send texts! ‘Mindset’ is a good example of this.  To me it’s shorthand for ‘values, beliefs, thought processes, attitude and emotional state’ so I have eventually accepted it as a useful addition to my repertoire.

Why does mindset matter? I think the case for monitoring your mindset is perfectly summed up in the well-known quote from Henry Ford:

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right”

When you know that you can do something, when you know you can succeed, the motivation to do it is so much greater then when you’re faced with a task you know you can’t do, or can’t deliver results with. That’s one reason why mindset is important.

There are others:
If your mindset is one of anticipating problems and difficulties, then you can waste a lot of time worrying about things that will probably never happen. (I realise that some people get paid to do that, but if risk management isn’t your job then I recommend you leave it to the professionals!)

If your mindset is one of blind optimism you may be in danger of inadequate planning or ignoring vital feedback.

If your mindset includes lack of confidence in the value of what you’re doing, you’ll probably do it less well than if you believe you’re contributing something worthwhile.

If you don’t believe it’s possible to achieve your goal, you might never make any progress towards it.

Need I go on? Every aspect of your thought process will affect your motivation, your ability and your focus on the task in hand. If you don’t manage your mindset, it’s almost impossible to manage anything else.

What do I mean by ‘managing your mindset’?  It’s basically the same as managing time, budget, people or projects.

• Set goals and make plans – about your attitudes or focus
• Monitor progress – how well do you maintain your focus, concentration or optimism?
• Take action if you stray from the plan – shift your attention, change your emotional state or remove limiting beliefs
• Minimise the effect of outside influences – make sure you have a recovery strategy for when someone disparages your idea or doubts your ability
• Reward successes

This is a relatively minor task. It won’t take much time to check your mindset before you tackle a piece of work, but it could significantly enhance your experience of doing it, the quality of your results or the time it takes.

So here’s your challenge:

For one day only, check your mindset every time you pause during the day. Check your mindset before you start a task, begin a meeting, make a phone call or write an email. Ask yourself if it’s a good mindset for the activity and if not, change it by whatever means you have.

Monitor your results for the same day.

Let me know what happens…

…I think you’ll be delighted.

Have you ever started the day with a list of ‘stuff’ to do and lots of good intentions? It’s a regular feature of my week.

How often do you actually get everything on the list complete by the end of the day? In my case, it’s rare. But that’s because it works for me to have a rather longer than realistic list. And I prioritise my list.

Not everyone works at their best with too much to do, however. If you find yourself overwhelmed with the amount of work on your list, here’s something for you to experiment with:

Empty your head of everything you’ve got to do, want to do, need to do, dream of doing. Write it all down.

Next, pull out of the list anything that has a deadline in the next week and put that on a new list. Pick the three most important items on that second list and do them today. When you’re done, stop. Make coffee, go for a walk, read the news or whatever else appeals to you.

Notice how you feel.

Make a plan for tomorrow, and do the same again.

Three things might not seem like very much. If you take it in context with all the ‘noise’ of emails, telephone calls and other interruptions, it can be quite an achievement to complete three tasks. Of course, it depends on the average size of the tasks you have on your list and the amount of email you get.

So, do three things per day for a week and then try four. If that’s still too easy, move up to five. If you’re getting overloaded, drop it down again.

What’s the point? By doing this you’ll get a realistic sense of how much work you can accomplish in a day. How useful would that be?