One day a man was tending his garden, which bordered the desert in Arizona. Dusk was descending and he heard in the distance the sound of motorbikes.
A gang of Hell’s Angels rode up, attacked him, tied him to the back of one of the bikes, and drove him into the desert. There they left him barely alive as night fell.
The man survived the night and began to regain consciousness as the sun appeared above the horizon. He knew that the sun in the desert means certain death. Without food, water, or shelter he stood no chance of survival.
Then at his side he noticed a small bush. He crawled underneath and curled up using the little shade there was to protect himself from the burning rays of the sun. He felt despair—no one knew where he was.
Just at that moment he saw a falcon landing on the branch of the bush. To the man’s amazement the falcon spoke and asked, “Can I help you?” Shocked, the man replied, “I am dying of thirst, my mouth and tongue are swollen. To survive I need water.” “Look behind you,” said the falcon. “There is a snake. Follow the snake, for it knows where the water seeps out of the rocks. There you will be able to drink.”
The man returned to the bush, and the next day the falcon came back. “How are you?” the falcon asked. “I have drunk but I need food to survive—water alone is not enough.” “Stay quiet and wait until the antelope passes by. When it does, follow it—it can show you where the cactus plants are whose flesh you can eat.” Sure enough, when the man followed the antelope he found food and was able to eat.
Feeling fitter, he returned to the bush and once again the falcon arrived. “Can I do anything for you?” it asked. “Yes,” replied the man. “Although I have drunk and eaten I still need salt to survive. How can I get the salt I need to live?” “Have no fear,” replied the falcon. “The fox also needs salt. If you follow the fox you will see where it finds the rocks to lick that will give you the salt you need.”
The man did as the falcon said and the next day returned to find that the bush under which he had sheltered was burned and charred. “What will I do now?” asked the man. “I have no shelter, I will burn to death.”
Then the man realized he had been out in the desert each day following the animals. He had learned how to find food, water, and salt. He knew how to survive.
He noticed the rich colors of the sky as the sun dipped low on the horizon, the blues, the purples, and the gold of the sun itself. He heard the exquisite songs of the birds in the distance and he felt an inner peace and joy. “Shall I show you the way home?” asked the falcon. The man thought for a moment and then said, “I think I’ll stay a little longer.”
Month: November 2011
A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they’d be asked the “half empty or half full” question. Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired: “How heavy is this glass of water?”
Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.
She replied, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”
She continued, “The stresses and worries in life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed – incapable of doing anything.”
Remember to put the glass down.
My son, Bert, at the manly age of five . . . feeling his importance as a citizen, said, “I’m not going to eat any of THAT stuff!!” . . . referring to a bowl of spinach. And I said, “Of COURSE not. You’re not old enough, not strong enough, not big enough!” Mother started protesting, “He is TOO old enough big enough strong enough.” And you know on whose side Bert was
This audio course is designed for people who are intending to take Tad James’ NLP Practitioner Course, but it also stands alone as an excellent course about the basic concepts of NLP and Time Therapy and how to apply them in the areas of Business, Education, and Therapy.
The most important difference between James’ course and similar audio programs by Richard Bandler is probably the focus on the conscious mind as well as learning through the unconscious mind. In Bandler’s work, he uses powerful metaphor to teach to the unconscious mind, but some people can walk away from his seminars not really knowing or being able to verbalize what they have learned. Although James does use metaphor, too, he uses it sparingly and focuses much more on a succinct presentation of the techniques and tools of NLP to the conscious mind. Personally, I find James to be much more accessible as teaching materials, and Bandler to be much more artistic, creative, and entertaining in his use of NLP. James is a good teacher – he chunks the material very well into digestible chunks and helps the learner through repetition and well-ordered content. He also does reviews and previews which are very helpful.
James is also a fine hypnotist and makes good use of guided trances, especially future time line therapy, to help the listener internalize the concepts. Apart from the trance sequences, James is using Milton language and well-designed repetition throughout the audio programs to help the listener to learn.
This is a long audio program, more than 18 hours, and James covers all the basic NLP material very well. People who listen to this program a few times before attending his practitioner course in person will without a doubt be on very solid ground in their learning.
Some of the final segments in the audio program look at the use of NLP in sales very closely and James previous work in sales stands to him very strongly in this area. He also talks about the applications for education and the use of NLP with kids in detail.
Tad James website (http://www.nlpcoaching.com) describes this collection as follows:
This is a 20 CD set of all the Practitioner info you need to attend the Training. Recorded in Digital Audio this collection is designed specifically as a pre-study collection so you can prepare to attend the NLP Practitioner Training. Included are all the techniques of the NLP Practitioner training and the mind-set to prepare you to be the best practitioner you can be. And if you are already a Practitioner of NLP – it’s a great resource to have!
Overall, this is an excellent audio program, produced by a fine teacher and a fine businessman, as well as a fine NLP master. This program is highly recommended for beginners or for people who want a refresher in NLP.
It’s all about cause and effect, isn’t it? Are you in charge of events or are events in charge of you? The co-founder of NLP, John Grinder, said that if you kick a ball you can pretty much predict what’s going to happen based on the laws of physics.
But what happens if you try to kick a cat? The cat might possibly get kicked the first time, but in future it is as just as likely to jump out of your way, dig its nails into your leg, or just avoid you–that cat is flexible enough to learn and to respond in different ways.
In NLP, we say that a person is at-cause or at-effect. If you are at-effect, you believe that others are responsible for your success and happiness. If you are at-cause, you take responsibility for your own actions and results–you can put traumas or phobias firmly into your past, proactively improve your communication and relationships, and carry out realistic personal and professional goals to build the type of life that you want for yourself. Or as the other co-founder of NLP, Richard Bandler wrote in a recent book, you “get over it … get through it … and get to it.”
Japan is facing many societal and economic challenges and things could easily get much worse before they get better, meaning that a lot of people may get kicked by events that are outside their control. Perhaps the important question is whether you play the role of a ball or of a cat. You will never be able to control external events, but you can learn to take control of your own thinking and communication to achieve the best results in your personal and working life.
Dr. Brian Cullen is holding introductory workshops to NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) in Chikusa, Nagoya on December 18, January 15, and March 11. The cost is 1,500 yen. Email info@standinginspirit.com for details.
I consider myself very fortunate to have trained with Richard Bolstad for my NLP practitioner and master practitioner courses. Along with Judith DeLozier, he stands out for me as one of the most personally and professionally congruent people in the field of NLP. I got this audio program many years ago and got a whole new level of understanding by listening to it again after a gap of many years.
The audio program was produced by the NLP training institute, Transformations, which also included the trainers Margot Hamblett (Richard’s partner who passed away several years ago), Bryan Roads, and Lynn Timpany.
This audio program offers many of the best examples of using NLP to teach NLP that I have heard or seen. Richard is a powerful communicator who has thoroughly integrated the presuppositions, language patterns, and techniques of NLP into his own trainings. He introduces many of the techniques through multi-layered metaphors and nested loops and uses Milton language throughout to help students to learn at both a conscious and unconscious level. An indirect teaching through metaphor is always followed by step-by-step explanations to facilitate conscious learning of the process.
Richard and his partner, Margot, also use many memory devices such as memory pegs which are used to help the students quickly learn the patterns of the Meta Model. Richard trained with Tad James and while Tad James’ influence is still clearly evident, he has improved that already effective approach in many ways that have made his teaching very much his own.
The website describes the product as follows:
Sixteen 45 minute CDs recorded at the Transformations Practitioner course, as taught in New Zealand and Japan. Covers an introduction to NLP, rapport building, sensory system use, language patterns for clarification and influence, reframing, healing past trauma, conflicts, limiting beliefs, confusions and phobias, setting and achieving future goals, and much more.
Although it does indeed cover all of these processes and ideas in detail, this audio program can probably best be thought of as a follow-up and refresher for NLP practitioners, rather than as a complete program in itself. Of course, if you get the opportunity to supplement your listening with live training by Richard Bolstad, that is a very fine combination, indeed.
By chance, I listened to this series by Chris Howard right after I had watched Tad James Practitioner Course DVDs, and the similarities are enormous, right down to almost the same words in the same stories in many cases. I did a quick Google search and it looks like Christopher Howard trained with Tad James. However Christopher Howard has modelled Tad James so closely that the courses seem indistinguishable at many points. This is not necessecarily a criticism as Tad James’ courses are very well presented and chunked for easy learning, and Howard’s courses follow the same easily-digested format. It is rather amusing, however, to hear the stories about Howard’s clients which follow precisely the same words as Tad James’ clients, and perhaps ironic for a product that Chris Howard calls Creation Technologies. However, despite any ironies, this is a quality product that will be very useful for many people.
Although Tad James’s courses are called ‘accelerated’, they are tortoises compared to the speeding hare that is Howard. The speed of delivery is very fast and I found this quite effective, but it might be difficult for beginners, or for people who want to take more time to carry out processes. However, doing the processes quickly does have the benefit that things are often moving faster than the conscious mind can keep up, and it is the unconscious mind that can make the changes. Another advantage of the high speed pace is that the total length of the course (78 tracks on 22 CDs) is only about 9 hour, thus allowing it to be listened to in its entirety several times in the time that it would take to listen to some other courses only once. Of course, this speed is a matter of personal preference, and some people will clearly find it too quick.
The course covers all the essential bases of NLP practitioner well including well-formed outcomes, anchoring, rapport, strategies, meta model, Milton model, and much more. I would highly recommend it for people who want to get a fast refresher on all the basics of NLP.
In CD13, Howard takes a sudden jump into talk about energy work and Huna. This is again presumably drawn at least partly from Tad James’ work, but Tad James makes the demarkation between NLP and Huna much clearer than Howard, and the sudden leap into energy work in the middle of the program right between Anchoring and Parts Integration is slightly disorientating!
Unlike many NLP audio courses which are recorded in a live setting, the audio is very well recorded and clear, and I particularly enjoyed Howard’s use of music throughout the program. It is very professionally produced and presented with great instrumentals linking the lessons and even providing background for doing the exercises. Howard’s voice also worked well for me in the inductions which were well designed and had nice timing, obviously a little slower than the high speed of the regular lessons!
This 16 disk DVD set is a professionally produced video presentation of parts of Tad James seven day NLP practitioner certification program. Each DVD is about 90 minutes, so there is a huge amount of material presented, especially since it is very well edited to leave out unnecessary segments and to add in commentary by the trainers on the processes. It is available at the nlpcoaching.com site.
It covers all the basic NLP processes comprehensively and effectively including sensory acuity, rapport, submodalities, and anchoring. The demonstrations with participants for each process are very smoothly carried out, and Tad James shows his long experience in training by following the script closely and only demonstrating what he explicitly intends to demonstrate.
The series also includes several DVDs on Time Line Therapy, a powerful change technique for which Tad James is probably best known. In fast-paced and effective demonstrations, the trainers use Time Line Therapy to remove negative emotions and limiting beliefs from participants. Then they take the whole group on a fast floating journey to remove any anxiety in the future. They also show how to place a future goal in the Time Line in a way that is likely to maximize its possibility of success. These are all very useful processes.
Tad James is presenting the course with his wife, Adriana James, who is equally proficient in the practice of NLP, although she is less well known than Tad. The two of them work well together throughout although some of the jokes and little stories seem somewhat contrived – presumably after being regurgitated in too many seminars. On the other hand, this huge amount of practice is very useful in the superb double inductions which feature in the hypnosis training section of the course. They are a fine team and in general come across as very genuine in their desire to empower people and to spread the useful skills of NLP.
This video series is probably most useful for people who have studied NLP elsewhere and want to get a new perspective, or of course, for people who actually took the course and want to get a review. For people who have not studied NLP before, it will certainly be useful, but the necessary lack of interactivity in a video series could give the viewer the congnitive concepts of NLP without the experiential learning that is necessary to make sense of it and to realize its true value.
For me, Tad James sometimes comes across as a little arrogrant, for example when he talks about Time Line Therapy as the greatest invention in the history of mankind, and his self-positioning as ‘the expert’ for values and metaprograms. From the demonstrations, he is clearly on top of his material and an extremely skillful user of hypnosis and NLP, so this self-promotion and self-positioning probably wasn’t necessary and in my eyes at least, actually had a negative impact.
One of the last DVDs was pretty much a commercial for the Master Practitioner program. In fact, throughout the last few DVDs, there were various references and suggestions to sign up for the Master Practitioner course. Personally, I felt that it was a little too much upselling of other products, but I’m sure that some people will be happy to get the addiitional information about the higher level material that is available.
I didn’t enjoy the Huna section so much either. While the trainers emphasize that it isn’t NLP and are careful to differentiate it, I’m not sure that it sits well with the other videos and information and techniques presented in this series.
Overall, I highly recommend this video series to people who have studied NLP elsewhere. Tad James has a strong ability to condense a subject down to its essence and to present it easily in the form of small digestible chunks.
Can you help me?” the man asked. He’d bought some heavy bags of soil & couldn’t lift them. “Sure,” I said & began putting the bags in his car. As I was doing this he says, “my wife passed away. She loved flowers.” I turn & look at him. He has the most beautiful smile. “Which flower was her favorite?” I ask. “All of them,” he says. His smile is radiant. Then, he touches my shoulder & asks “How are you doing these days?” I’ve never seen this guy before in my life. “Me? I’m doing good,” I say. “Well, it’s a beautiful world. Have fun everyday,” he says. Then he gets in his car, waves, & drives off. I get into my car & sit there for a minute. Then, I burst into tears. Later, out in my garden this enormous happiness come over me. Here’s the question: Who showed who compassion? Today, give -and- receive. Galatians 6:2 #Lent2014 #Day25
On YouTube recently, I came across a song that I remember very well from my childhood. It’s a great little song by Brendan Grace, an Irish singer, which tunefully taught us to cross the road safely. It’s also a lovely metaphor for creating rapport and raising your sensory acuity in NLP work. First, have a listen to the song (the lyrics are below the video):
And here are the lyrics:
Remember,
one, look for a safe place
two, don’t hurry, stop and wait,
three look all around and listen
before you cross the road,
remember,
four, let all the traffic pass you
five, then walking straight across you
six, keep watching,
that’s the safe cross code!!!!!
safe place, stop and wait
safe place, stop and wait
safe ground, look around, listen for a traffic sound
if traffic’s coming let it pass
until the road is clear at last
then walking straight across the road
keep watching, that’s the code.
remember,
one, look for a safe place
two, don’t hurry, stop and wait,
three look all around and listen
before you cross the road,
remember,
four, let all the traffic pass you
five, then walking straight across you
six, keep watching,
that’s the safe cross code
that’s the safe cross code
know the safe cross code
know the code!
—
Isn’t that a lovely metaphor for rapport? Set up a safe environment … don’t hurry … keep looking … keep listening. And let all the traffic pass you because there are a lot of things out there that can cause you to get off course from the client’s outcome. When you cross towards that outcome, you want to go straight across, as quickly and smoothly as possible.
And I wouldn’t like to suggest that the song goes around in your head until you’ve got it drilled into your unconscious behaviour – which is of course how I managed to survive past childhood and the crazy Irish drivers.