Frustration is something I had to deal with — it’s one of my personal demons as well. Somethings that bothered me could have caused me to snap at people near me. So, I decided to figure out how that strategy worked for me.

The reason was clearer when I realized I had a lot of “should” rules. For instance, I believed that people should not interrupt me when I had a schedule planned. Unfortunately, that affected my ability to be flexible in my behavior. Hence, I deliberately changed this reaction. Instead of feeling irritation and frustration, I decide to stop and check if the interruption is important. After all, if I am interrupted, it’s likely that it is an important thing. By checking the priorities, I look at whether such an interruption requires my attention. If it does, I change my schedule to suit it. If it doesn’t I point people in the right direction.

If it is an interruption which is not important, my desired response is to laugh at it, and to make fun of the situation and frustration no longer is a necessary state.

Step 1: Think of situations which interrupt. Check if they are visual, auditory or kinesthetic interruptions.

Step 2: Use the Swish Pattern, using moments of interruption to your work to trigger a meta state. Disassociate and check “how important is this”. Measure against the belief that being interrupted could mean someone needs help. Consider the highest positive intention of the other person.

- Compare the image of you needing to complete your task versus someone else in need
- Future pace both realities and assess the consequences if either party’s need is neglected.
- Based on assessment of the consequences, which one is more important?

Step 3a: If what the other person needs is more important, check if you can both get what you want.

Step 3b: If unimportant or frivolous interruption, play along, elicit humor and be in the moment before returning to your priority.

The fact is I love NLP and what it can do, but I don’t really like NLP per se. Most of the theory behind it is actually an eclectic collection of different, well-known ideas, but it seems like there are a lot of individuals out there who think that NLP is not proven, or is pseudo-science (or worse, the religion Scientology).

I enjoy NLP for what it does for people. The basic premise is learn what works and model after it. Many modeling strategies that were formed were not out of the theory of human psychology. They were based on the practical reality of human behavior.

In other words, if I need to get people to achieve good results, there is always a configuration in that desired outcome that allows it to happen. I don’t know if people understand this, because NLP does not give you a “solution” immediately. It does, however, give you the ability to think around the problem to arrive at that solution. So, really, it’s like engineering. You’re creating the machinery and the system to get to where you need to go, with the exception that the machine is actually a metaphor for you.

So, you can tell it’s quite difficult to explain what NLP is. Here’s the definition I’ve always used:

“NLP is the factory that builds vehicles to where you want to go. Modeling is the power button.”

See, the NLP methodology of modeling a person’s linguistic pattern has many correlations to the concepts I learnt in linguistics and discourse analysis. In reality, we study people through their language anyway. It’s just that whenever it’s not 100% within our control, we may “misunderstand”. Psychology doesn’t explore much about “misunderstanding” but I know discourse analysis does. Within the conversational explorations of language, Bandler and Grinder, co-founders of NLP, discovered some processes in our natural language. During the same time, pragmatics was being turned into an entire field of study.

For the uninitiated:-

Syntax - structure of language;

Phonology - sounds in language;

Semantics - meaning in language;

Pragmatics - meaning in conversation and use.

It’s interesting to note that there are some people who use the term “Semantic” but they aren’t really getting the point behind NLP. NLP is very pragmatic because it uses conversation as the main leverage tool. As far as I can tell, it is through interaction (not just verbal conversation alone) that change happens. It’s natural, and we know it from our social interactions, too.

Many people have attempted to talk about NLP in scientific statistical terms. I prefer to think of it as conversing. I think anyone who wants to run NLP trainings should pay attention to the delivery of the training more so than the techniques of the training. Or else NLP might just turn out more boring than you’d like it to be.

Actually, I’ve pondered about running a “live” physical NLP Practitioner training again for some time. Some people have put the thought in my mind, and usually when that happens, the thought turns into reality after some time.

In any case, I will be pushing ahead to cover the following for preliminary NLP Teleclass Training. This will be probably the first ever in the world, and I will supplement this with training videos.

Note: if you are keen on being licensed in NLP, you must join me. I will be making available the licensing agreement, which you can fax over or scan and email to licensing =at= worldofnlp.com (please note to use the @ sign because I don’t want automated spiders grabbing this email address).

Pre-requisites:

You need a credit card to make full payment for the teleseries I will be running.
I intend to make this as inexpensive as possible but still giving you the ability to achieve your licensing goals.
You need to have a video recording device, even a basic camcorder, and at least 1 friend in your life who can help you with your practitioner assignments. if you are in Singapore, it will be a breeze just getting together.

NLP PRACTITIONER LICENSING CONTENTS (As required by The Society Of NLP, USA)

#1 - History Of NLP And Its Relevance To Practitioners
#2 - The Principles Of NLP
#3 - The NLP Communication Model
#4 - Calibration And How To Develop Sensory Awareness
#5 - The Principles Of Change, sensory modalities
#6 - Basic communication and persuasion
#7 - Creating Change in Habits Easily
#8 - Anchoring and the principles of conditioning responses
#9 - Reframing techniques
#10 - Stacking Anchors
#11 - Chaining Anchors
#12 - Sliding Anchors
#13 - The Swish Pattern
#14 - Mapping Across
#15 - Stacked realities and sensory overlapping
#16 - Driver submodalities
#17 - Submodality Transitioning
#18 - Change Personal History
#19 - Circle Of Excellence
#20 - Future Pacing
#21 - Change Belief
#22 - Perceptual Positions
#23 - Well-Formed Outcome
#24 - VK Disassociation
#25 - Compulsion Blow-out
#26 - Presuppositions
#27 - Meta Model
#28 - Milton Model
#29 - Framing and Pre-frames
#30 - more “Stuart Tan” stuff!

Join in now!

Full Payment Plan

3-Part Plan

Coaching is NOT just for people who are down and out. A good coach makes a difference between a major league player and a second tier player. Top executives from various companies have executive coaches. Top basketball players have coaches. The most important is to consider this: your coach MUST be someone who opens up possibilities for you, and sometimes, puts a foot in your rear.

Often, coaching entails three major things: a conversation, introspection and action. This three-pillar coaching approach has helped many people to dissect issues, open up prospects and help multiply business revenues many times over.

For those of you who are keen in getting a coach, you really have to ensure that you don’t fall for the myths of coaching.

1. It’s going to get me instant results.

Nobody will be able to guarantee you instant results. And I mean nobody! Getting a coach is often about opening up awareness of what you already can do, but never thought you could. For instance, you may need to cultivate a new set of relationships. You probably could have done that already, but you are going to need to do this again for a new set of people so that you can expand your results. Don’t expect these results overnight!

2. I’m problematic, that’s why I need a coach.

Well, if you were problematic, coaching would not be the best place for you, because it will probably take you a lot longer to unravel the problems. That’s quite important to realize - if you wait too long to get a coach, and if you do this only reactively, you are likely to only get minimal results. If a coach is there to get you out of a bad spot, you have to be equally prepared to see yourself through.

Like I said, not everyone who has a problem should have a coach. A growing business is also a sign that you need a good business coach - developing a solid business does not mean that you have a problem, right? You have to get a third-person perspective to gain clarity and feedback that can make a difference.

3. I give up my freedom by having a coach.

Look, having a coach means you want to do two things: increase possibilities in your choices and actions, and then figuring out which is the best choice (or set of choices) to make, then stick to it. Freedom has nothing to do with it. If you are making $500,000 in a year and want to scale it to $1.5 million, you will need someone to give you an idea of your internal (mental) processes, business operations and marketing plans. It starts with realizing that you might not have all the ideas all at the same time. A good coach can therefore help you with processing these possibilities into actionable steps and actions.

Need a coach? Leave me a comment below and let’s get our conversation going!

Unfortunately, the market doesn’t know this and runs to the first NLP Trainer who claims they have credibility. Some may have lots of experience, but may not be able to teach about the complexities of NLP, causing participants to lose out. After all, you won’t know what you don’t know.

Some people just quote famous trainers like Anthony Robbins. They forget that Tony Robbins has a different philosophy called NAC. Most people sideline Richard Bandler just because he’s the guy who originated NLP and don’t want to pay licensing fees. If you’ve never personally seen Bandler ‘live’, perhaps you’ll understand the difference between commercialized NLP and true genius.

In NLP trainings, you’ve got to choose people who are able to provide you the best possible information. Not just pure textbook information. That, we can get anywhere. what’s more important is the manner and attitude of doing NLP.

My opinion is that NLP practitioners ought to be trained and nurtured, not certified on a conveyor belt. Unfortunately because of this, too many people have jumped on easier certification routes, simply because you can get a cert in a 2 or 3 day training! Like getting a degree in just 3 days… wow. No wonder NLP has such a bad rep from some of these guys. What’s the point of getting a piece of paper if you don’t really know how to practice?

Here’s what you should learn in NLP at the basic practitioner level.

#1 - The over view of modeling!
#2 - Milton Model Language patterns
#3 - Submodalities
#4 - Meta Modeling (versions 2, 3 and 4)
#5 - Anchoring
#6 - Sensory Language and overlapping
#7 - Calibration
#8 - Basic Meta Programs
#9 - Intervention models

Of course it’s not the content that’s important but the way the content is taught that matters. IF you combine some of them, you’ll find very interesting flavors appearing in NLP.

At the end of it all, you know that the training is just the start and you’ll need time to gain competence. Beyond the practitioner level, you might want to become a Master Practitioner with advanced modeling skills.

Remember - check out if your trainer has been doing modeling and generating effective models using NLP.

Here’s what I’ve been using it for:
- Sales and persuasion ($74,755 in 90 minutes, coached others to increase sales)
- Business and internet ventures ($400,000 revenue in less than 8 months)
- Public speaking contest championships (Toastmasters District 51 Champion, coached others to reach championship level)
- Accelerated learning (read 20 books a week, anyone)
- Business creativity models (as in the business coaching I do)
- Counseling and therapy (used NLP to model top therapists at their best, healing others’ psychological impasses)
- Coaching (teach people how to coach effectively)
- Teleseminars (running powerful seminars through the telephone)
- Writing a bestselling book (three books to my name to date, with three more on the way)
- Mentoring (how to effectively mentor someone)

I think I can add more to the list, but the idea is that we have lots of potential to learn, and we can master learning easily if we know how to leverage NLP.

In other words, those sitting on the right (facing the stage) had their preference areas to the left. Those sitting on the left (facing the stage) had their preference areas of the right.

What is a preference area?

Well, you’ll think of two independent images of two people. One whom you like, the other you dislike and place them side-by-side. You’ll realize that they fall in place naturally. If the person you like is to your left, then your preference area will be naturally left as well.

This way, you will understand that other people too have preference areas, and adjust the way you stand, and the location you stand in relation to their preference area. They are going to be more readily persuaded.

Oh… Happy 2008!