Episode 15 - Fall, Get Up, and Ride Again: Navigating Life's Challenges with Laughter

Are we on, Tina? Are we live? Are we live? Are we on Facebook Live? It, it says the meeting is being live streamed. Ah, yes, we're yes. Yeah, there's a, there's a de de de de delay, but, but we hit now Time delay. Yeah, a time delay. Yeah. We are here now. So greetings. Hello. Good evening. Good morning, good afternoon, good night. Wherever you are on the big blue Planet Earth, unless of course you're not, um, oh, where would they be? Hello, Tina.

Oh, on the other side we are wearing matching hoodies. How about that? How? Yeah. Yeah. How ridiculous is this? You know, we've got our ations mine, by the way, is extra, extra large. I dunno what? Why? Oh yeah. I don't know. Look, but mine too. I mean, I don't know how big we thought these hoodies were gonna come out. Planning on growing into mine one day. Yeah, I could. I could get half a dozen people in here with me. Well, there we go. That's something to look forward to, isn't it?

It's, yeah, it's, yeah. So what I bid for my extra, extra large hoodie. There you go. We can have an auction. Yeah. Don't hold your breath. How are you, Tina? I'm good. I'm good. Um, yeah,

crazy. So many people are coming out of the woodwork that I've worked with like 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Um, saying that they've got to see me and they're people that I helped get rid of health fears and phobias 15 years ago. Um, and that they haven't come back. But they're saying that they can feel that they're trying to come back and they're trying to come back. They're trying not to come back as a client. Yeah. And now they're anxious about the fact that what happens if it did come back.

Um, but the other thing that fascinates me is their health fears are nothing to do with COVID. Mm-hmm. Um, the health fears that they're having are around the fact that they can't get treatment because of COVID. Well, isn't that interesting? I mean, that didn't exist, did it years ago. No. It's a new thing for people to be worried about. Yeah. So they go, well, you know what, if, you know what if I have cancer and I can't get treatment, and what if I have this? It's a good question to dear me.

Yeah. Yeah. So you've had plenty. I've had quite a few as well coming back. Um, I, I don't answer my phones to be honest. Yeah. That, that's how I've dealt with them. You know, I just don't take their call. Yeah. Crabby.

I don't, but it's like similar, it seems to be, there's a similar vibe, and we talked about this in the last Facebook Live, um, very about like empathic stress out there and all the worries and the fears and the anxieties and I, I, there's also, and. Um, hallucination on my part that the social media fuels it and feeds it. You know, there's like news streams about Oh yeah. So many things that we weren't, wouldn't have been aware of unless we opened a newspaper or put the news on.

Well, I think, yeah, it's, it's, the news fuels it because the news is always talking about new strains and so many people in hospital, and I think, I think fascinating that really, that's obviously my word for the evening is fascinating. Fascinating. Um. Now that they've decided that our numbers have kind of plateaued and are going down in the uk. So they're not appearing on the news. They're not saying on the news. We have so many hundreds of cases today.

Now they're saying, oh, they have so many hundreds of cases in, in Austria and in Belgium and in Italy and in Spain, and yeah, so, so it's just like, oh God, you know, our cases aren't going up very high. Where else do they have cases that we can talk about? Isn't it a good time to inoculate ourselves against other people's negativity and worries and fears and concerns? You know, uh, my favorite poem is, if you Can, is the Rudyard Kipling poem here.

Yeah. If you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs, yes. Maybe you don't really understand what's going on. That's my, that's my version of it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and isn't it good not to understand? Yeah. Isn't it great? Yeah. I

think it's fabulous. And in fact, I'm gonna go to our first question because I've, I've chosen this to be our first question. Um, it's from the wonderful Marco in aroma. Hello, Marco? Yeah. Jao Marco. It's the wonderful Marco in aroma. And I think this question is fabulous. So, according to Leonardo da Vinci, the first of the qualities is curiosity. Really, really the question is, in your opinion, what is the best qualities to be used in your private and professional life?

The best qualities to be used in your private or professional life? Yeah, curiosity. Yeah. Um, I've gotta go with curiosity. I love curiosity. You, you're not gonna believe what I'm gonna say, but let you know. Let's go with yours first. I, I love curiosity that, I mean, whenever I have a client, I get curious about what are they doing, and then I get excited when, when somebody comes up with something that I've never come across before.

I get really excited whilst I'm being curious, and then I begin to plot and plan and imagine different ways I can help them and what I could do, uh, and even in, even in my, my personal life. It's curiosity. 'cause when the kids, when my grandchildren that live with me, when they play up and they become annoying, um, great Grandma gets very grumpy. Children shouldn't be doing things like this. And I, and I get curious about, so, so what brought that on?

You know, how, how is it that they're in that place and they're, and they're doing that. So I think curiosity is one of my favorites. Um, and, and I suppose other, other emotions. I will access as and when I think they're needed. You know, I mean, I've been known to get grumpy and cross if I think it's gonna get what I want. Be never noticed that you've managed to mask that one really well, the years I've known you. Yeah. I mean it doesn't happen very often.

I remember once in a, uh, one of the seminars in London, it was in the Abyss and Aand once went the Abyss Hotel. Yeah. Alessandra, Mora and I were in the bar upstairs and it was really late. Um, and we didn't want go out and eat. The meeting had gone on forever and we thought, well we just grabbed something to eat and, and I thought, well a burger's gotta be ish. And I was looking at people getting burgers from the bar and it looked okay. So we both ordered burgers and we sat down.

45 minutes later, nothing had arrived and we went up. Um, and they were just ignoring us. So. I just got annoyed and shouted at the barman to get his attention. And then the minute I got his attention, I then switched from being annoyed to, oh, hello. Well, yeah, it's good. Just before your burger arrives. Well, yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. Then I switched to being, well, hello. You know, I wonder if you can help me.

And I remember there was somebody, uh, who was on the practitioner course and they said, huh, I thought you were supposed to be in control of your emotions. And I went, trust me, sweetie. I am. That's exactly the one I wanted. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. When people get into NLP, they assume that we should be in control of all our emotions all the time, and that means eliminating certain emotions, shouldn be in the repertoire. There's a time and place for everything.

My, the quality that springs to mind for me, and you're probably gonna laugh at this one, is, is humor and playfulness. Of course. One, you know, crab, I'm crabby. I know that, you know, crabby by name, crabby by nature. I was watching back through, um, a couple of the previous Live Hearts we did, you know, doing some editing and I realized there's a lot of laughter throughout it. You know, with you laughter are the things we say ourselves, so that's not necessarily good.

Um, but I think I've learned to just be playful and lighthearted as much as possible, and it just helps not to take anything too seriously. That is the best way to get the message across. You know, it's like if you've got a student that is a challenge. The best thing to do is just. Play with them. Well, in summary, many context. It's like turning up here. Okay. I, I'd like want this to be playful. I dunno what questions we're gonna ask. Let's find out.

So there's, there's that element of curiosity, but it's that playful curiosity so it kind of don't get hung up on expectations or the end results and the outcomes. 'cause if you end up enjoying and having fun, you tend to show up and do a better job. What, whatever you're doing, whether you're sitting down with a client.

Um, the amount of times when I used to have my clinic in Wimbledon and Sarah used to be sitting outside, she could never see, hear what was going on inside the little room that I had. But she would always say they were laughing within five minutes. You know, they'd come in really depressed, manic depressive, you know, maybe even borderline suicidal sometimes we didn't know what was going on, but within a few minutes you could hear laughter.

Yeah. And it wasn't about trying to be a comedian, 'cause I'm not, it was about getting so that people saw the funny side of what they were doing. And I think I've learned to do that. To me, that's one of the qualities that, you know, helps, helps to make sure the way everyone else around us is going, oh God, life sucks. Don't, uh, yeah. And then you die. Yeah. We could approach it that way or we could just lighten up and have fun.

Yeah. And I know which, uh, I wanna be able to look back and go, yeah, I did that. Yeah. I wanna laugh a lot because I like the chemicals we make when we laugh. I even like the chemicals. When you're curious, they're way different to the chemicals when people are really angry. Um, and I mean, even when I'm displaying anger, I'm not really angry on the inside. So there's no, oh, I, I do, I mean, occasionally I still go pop. Yeah.

Um, there's still a moment, um, especially since I had the mild stroke back in December, 2019, like the neurology opened up. So like the full range of emotions expanded. It was a bit, it was a bit like a DHE exercise with a, you know, um, a mixing deck and go, okay, humor. What was a 10 is now a four. Turn it up to a new 10. Remember? That's great anger. What was a 10 turned down to a four? And you go, oh, that's not so great. Okay. So I found sometimes I was reacting.

It would be instantaneous, but now I can go instantaneous, drop it back down very, very quickly and uh, and laugh at those moments because I don't do anything about it. Yeah. Um, and that's, to me, that's one of the beautiful things about NLP 'cause it's the full range and the whole flexibility to be able to experience everything. So yeah, that's my answer to that. So, great question, Marco. Creativity, Le da Vinci humor for Steve k Crow. Yeah. Yeah. So I love, now we've got some questions here.

Um, all of them asked by the same person. Um, and I'm not gonna mention his name because he said he, he wasn't sure whether he should be asking them. I'm not quite sure why 'cause we got this in an email. So, um, I have a question.

The main claim is NLP doesn't work. I'm curious to learn your thoughts and responses. I'm slowly coming forward in public as a trainer and I'm starting to notice this is going to pop up often, which to take, hold on, hold on, hold. I'm starting to notice this is going to pop up, pop up often. Yes, he's right. Okay. So he's already noticing now it's all gonna ha already gonna happen in the future. Yeah, he's planning for it.

Yeah. And, and obviously he wants answers because he knows it's gonna happen. Yeah. Hold on. Lemme just get my on, it's not Crystal, it's a paper wave, but let's, let's look off into the future. Yeah. You got a crystal? Do I have a crystal ball here? Oh no. My crystal ball is in the house. Oh, damn right. So, um. Wish to take these questions as ethically and professionally as I can. Oh dear. Ask me out. Yeah, sorry. Krabby in training and in casual settings.

So one, how would you respond to, um, NLP works on people's beliefs if they don't believe in it? NLP won't work. I can easily think of a handful of NLP techniques that don't require the client's beliefs for it to work as seen over and over again in practitioner classes. People often do the techniques skeptical at first, then it works and they form powerful beliefs. Love it when this happens. Mm-hmm.

So the first one is, how do we respond to NLP works or people's beliefs if they don't believe in it, NLP won't work. Well, I think you should take this, especially seeing as we have that lovely person. Our class in our practitioner at the moment. Um, and you were explaining to them, uh, the last weekend that they don't need to believe just, yeah. Okay. But I wanna back up a little bit. Okay. Before answering.

Um, it's a great question and in fact it's not just a question of the whole bundle of questions in there. Oh, there is? Yeah. And there's more. There's more. Yeah. Oh, is there more? Okay. Alright. Good. Good. Interesting. I. Before we came on, I had a, I don't really go on Facebook much, don't use social media that much, but I flick through and there's, there was a post from somebody who is a friend. He's not a great friend. You know, I haven't seen him for about five years.

He's not a great friend. And he was making a comment about Tony Robbins and he was quite humorous about how he did a Tony Robbins seminar and it didn't really help him, but there was a, he read a book by Jimmy Carl, a comedian, and this one comment helped him more. So he's kind of making a complex equivalence. There's a lot of belief going there that I got more value from this than I did from doing that event. Okay. And there was a mixture of people jumping into the conversation.

And then there was somebody that jumped in and mentioned our friend, Paul McKenna. Mm-hmm. And did a rant about Paul, and I thought, I know this guy clicked on it. And this guy's a hypnotist. Okay. I just thought about it. I thought, my God, it's so, it could be so easy to get caught up in a conversation about arguing who, about whose best friend is right. Whose best friend is wrong. Yeah. You know, whether the earth is flat or the earth is round.

Um, you know, whether climate change is real or not, or, you know, masks work and, and I just thought about it, it's life is too short sometimes to get caught up into those in those conversations. Yeah. Including the conversations sometimes, which I think can be a bit spurious and don't necessarily exist apart from in some places out on the internet where people have put a lot of effort to make their opinions known. Mm-hmm. The per, and I'll come back to what John Naval said.

Um, when he said it, I went, I get this. He said, the person with the need gets to do the work. The work. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. And I had to really think about that. I thought the person with the need gets to do the work. So if I have got the need for somebody to believe me, I've got to do the work and be willing to do the work to get them to believe.

Yeah. I thought, well, if I don't have a need, well I don't have to do any work because I'm, I'm, and the phrase I use is I'm compassionately indifferent quite often to having to change somebody's point of view. Yeah. So I, I start off, I'm gonna start by answering that question this way, that in that situation, it could have been so easy for me to got suckered into this conversation. Yeah. You know, going, well, you don't know Paul. He's a very good friend of mine.

You know, we are doing a training and I've gone down a rabbit hole where there is no way I'm gonna change anybody's opinion. Yeah. It's, it's, it's never gonna be a win-win. It's a waste of oxygen, it's a waste of energy, it's a waste of time. So I just choose to. Delete it and move on. Yeah. And let go. I think there's many situations like, and, and in fact I saw a website, I was doing some research to do with our new website, looking up some long tail, uh, keywords.

And I found a website, which is a therapy website, and it, and it appears if you do NLP, do Google search of NLP. This appears quite higher up. And I wonder if this person's actually seen this article. Okay. So I think it's good therapy, something like that might be good therapy. And they've got this big article, it's a long article, it's about 4,000 words explaining why NLP doesn't work, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I read through it and I went, NI don't believe this person's ever experienced NLP, but they definitely have a big opinion about it. And they've done a lot of work to get it highly ranked. Yeah. So it is gonna appear quite a lot. Um, do I want to get involved in an argument with them to try and get an opinion? No, I have no need to. Yeah. So that would be my first thing.

If you had the need to get into this conversation, then you've got to be willing to do the work and to do more work than the other person is probably willing to do, to hold fix to their opinion. That NLP doesn't work, or what was, what was the actual phrase that was used was, I didn't write it down. So, uh, NLP works on people's beliefs. If they don't believe in it, NLP won't work. Yeah. So someone's expressing a belief now. People will defend their beliefs rigidly, won't they? They'll, yeah.

Yeah, they'll, if they've been given the chance to express them. So if I know that somebody's going to express a belief, it's so much easier to inoculate against the belief before it's expressed than it is to have the conversation with someone and look to change their belief after they've expressed it.

Yeah. So if, if this person's talking from, let's say a marketing selling perspective and they're putting their, their website together and they're putting their marketing material out and they're concerned that people are gonna have these beliefs, inoculate them from the, uh, about inoculate against them from the very, very beginning. Yeah.

And, and coming back to your point about having someone in the class who wasn't really listening to learn, they were there to almost express how things were. Yeah. We did a lot of pre-frame work. We did because we do have a need for the people in our class to listen, to learn. So they get the best experience. Yeah. So to me, the pre-frame is a bit, it is the same as an inoculation. It's, yeah, I'm willing to do the work to set the right conditions.

So if someone has a limiting belief, I'm more likely to be able to change it. Yeah. So yeah, you've gotta, first of all, you've gotta be willing to do the work, haven't you? Yeah. And the other thing that comes in my mind is it's not my job to make somebody believe something different, unless it is, unless you've taken it on as a job.

Like if I've taken a client on, I mean, if there's a client who comes to see me and they have a limiting belief and we discuss the belief and they want a new belief, then it's my job. Yeah. But it's not my job to just jump in and yeah's belief without their permission. Yeah. So this is very context specific. If we've been given permission and we have a need to get someone to get their beliefs out the way, then do the pre framework and, and that's what we do in the training.

We say to people, don't believe in this. We don't care what you believe, but for you to get the best experience from this, don't believe, just have an experience. And then when you've had a good experience or had a new insight, then you can start to believe. So we, we get the limited beliefs out of the way at the very beginning. Does that mean everyone follows and complies? No. Now most of the group did, but one person chose not to. And and then it became a different conversation, didn't it?

Um, it did. Yeah, it did. And, and then, then I, I think then you go somewhere else with this, whoever asked the question, you've got the metamodel. Yeah. Why do you believe that you need beliefs? Yeah. You, you, you pull apart. Oh look, she wants me to open the door. That was really weird. She wants to go the garden and I've been ignoring her. That was the dog interrupt. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna let her out. I'll be back. Okay. So I'll keep talking. So keep talking. Yeah. We got the meta model.

So, you know, find out why, you know, fi find out what's going on so you can understand why they're turning up with those beliefs. And you've got all the slider mouth patterns. You know, there will be the, um, consequences. There'll be the intention behind the belief. You can, there's so many different ways that you've got more flexibility. We had, you've got a lot of flexibility to help someone to get any limited beliefs out of the way.

Um, you just gotta be more resilient and more flexible than they are in terms of having their beliefs that could get in the way of, uh. Experiencing NLP? Yeah, I mean, there are lots of people out there that, that come up with all sorts of things about NLP. And I'm gonna go onto the next one 'cause the next part of this is NLP is a pseudoscience and it doesn't work. Um, how would you advise us to respond to the claim that NLP is pseudoscience and doesn't work?

Now, I'm gonna do a wine read here because the, the pre-frame here is slowly coming forward in public as a trainer. And I'm wondering if this is connected to them trying to put people on courses. Um, and trying to, I I would make the same mind read as well. Yeah. They, they said earlier on about being a trainer, um, and they're expecting these objections to come up. Well, okay. Think of it this way. Yeah. Doing sales training.

Most salespeople give up after they've had two, maybe three objections. Okay. And that's based upon me having done no research whatsoever. Uh, just a lot of experience working with salespeople and doing a lot of sales training. Yeah. So what I'd like to do is get the, uh, get the clients to come up with as many, many objections as they possibly can from all their experience and get really creative and come up with other objections.

And then using the slight of mouth patterns because it gives 'em a nice, easy framework to follow. It does, yeah. Come up with as many inoculations to the objections as they possibly can. So if there are 20 objections, they've got 50 ways of inoculate. To practice them and practice them and practice them so that when someone says, well, it's a pseudoscience, you've got the answers. Yeah. So if someone's saying that to you, you've got a response to that.

But better still, if it's, if it's for your marketing, you put that out in advance, you go, some people claim the NLB is a pseudoscience in reality it is blah, blah, blah and work it out. Yeah. So we're not gonna give, I'm not gonna give you answers. We could do. Yeah. But it's better that you do the work and come up with the inoculations yourself so that you take ownership of them and you get comfortable saying them ahead of time. It, it's a scam. Oh, is it a scam?

Uh, how, how would you know It's a scam. Yeah. We could better model that and go, well, how did you come to that conclusion? And, and by the way, a lot of times it's just 'cause people got an opinion, they've got no evidence. They might have just heard something so. I'm rattling on Tina. I've had a cup of coffees. I'm going sharp.

I mean, I, it also needs to be contextual because if we are, if, if, if we are, and I, I have been assuming that this is him selling the courses to prospective students. Um, it needs to be in what context and where have these people come from? You? Do they want personal change? Do they wanna be coaches? Are they in business? 'cause my response would be different depending as to the context. Mm-hmm. As to pseudoscience. There's various things. Um, I've printed this off earlier.

So it's actually, this is the Durham project. Oh yeah. That was done, done in 2006. And it's something that Kate Benson did at Durham University. And it's a, it's a report on the effect of using NLP with children in a classroom. And from this report. She actually went in and she was training teachers in NLP and then she wrote her book with Richard Bandler. So, so there are various things out there.

So the Durham Project is one thing that you could review and download, which will give you some information. Um, now the British Psychological Society and the UK Council for Psychotherapy have added NLP techniques to hypnotherapy CBT and, oh God, what is it? It is rational emotive behavior therapy. Um, and they've recognized the fact that NLP is incredibly effective in helping people with psychological problems. Mm-hmm. I think one of the challenges that people face when they are.

Presented with these, um, assertions about NLP not being effective, um, or even being a scam. Mm-hmm. Um, or it doesn't work. It it, I always question some of the research that started because I've looked at some of the research papers. Yeah, yeah. And we know from our experiences that you could have a, a whole range of people that have done practitioner, master practitioner, trainers, trainer, they've gone on DHE and done N hr.

They've done the lot, but there's a difference in the effectiveness of the operator. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Because they come and they do the courses and they get their piece of paper and they think, okay, I'm a practitioner or a master practitioner, or whatever. They don't go out and practice. They immediately start advertising for clients. And I know you've had them turn up at your office. They've turned up at my office.

Um, sometimes they've actually contacted, um, Kathleen lavalle or Paul McKenna's office when he had an office and said, I've seen this NLP practitioner and it was rubbish and this didn't work and that didn't work. And then you and I have been sent these people, um, and go in and we do the job and they get the change they seek. So I think it is down to operator. Yeah, so, so to, for me it's not NLP, it's the efficiently efficiency and the effectiveness of the operator who can make the difference.

And it'd be interesting to conduct some of those studies and have people, um, look at the work that we do with people that you do with people. I'm sure many people working here do with people and then measure that, you know? Yeah, yeah. So I think it's a great question. It it is a common question. I mean, I've actually never had it asked. I've never had, uh, a scam question. It doesn't work. Asked of me in a corporate setting.

Yeah. I've had it with some people on the course once I've been into the course. Yeah. But that's why, and in fact, somebody asked us this, a similar question on the practitioner last weekend, you know, about working with a group and getting a group on site. You've got to, if you are in, you're already in, okay. But it still doesn't mean. You get away with doing without doing the pre-frame with a group.

No, no. You've And the other thing as well, and I know that Richard talks about this, John and Kathleen talk about it on all the trainings, especially trainers training.

When you are going to actually stand in front of a group of people and teach these skills, you better be able to demonstrate them. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you've gotta be able to have whoever happens to come up and sit down in front of you. You gotta be able to make it work. Yeah. And I think that's a really good point from, uh, if your trainer, nothing beats rolling your sleeves up and doing a lot of one-to-one work. Yeah. Yeah. Because then a convincing demonstration.

Well, the demonstration has to be a convincer. Yeah. Which means you've gotta be resilient. You've gotta make sure that you know what you're doing. Um, sometimes it's it's about being sele who, who you select as your volunteer. Yeah. You know, it comes down to that. And that takes a bit of practice as well. 'cause you, you get it wrong a couple of times. You soon, you soon learn.

And if you get it wrong, you still work and you still work and you do the work, and then you explain the work that you've done and then you end up with a group of people that are on board. Yeah. Um, I, I might've shared this story. I think I shared this story. One of the recent, um, lessons that we did. I was training in New York with 350 cbts. Yeah. Um, and it was a potentially, oh, it was, it was actually on Saturday, wasn't it? I think I shared this story.

Yeah. And we had our practi, our practitioners. Yes. And so this was a potentially you, you think that because they were there, they were there to listen, to learn. But no, think about it. They've invested their time, their money, their identities tied up with CBT and there's 350 of them on a Monday in New York. Yeah. Potentially hostile audience. So there was a good 20 minutes spent talking about how I dealt with some people that were stuck in the lift, uh, on the Sunday before.

Mm. Who were terrified and how I used NLP to get 'em relaxed. And a couple of 'em were in the audience and said how it helped. And I needed to spend a lot of time with pre-frame, getting people to listen, to learn, and then do a couple of quick demos that are almost like Miracle demos to get everybody really interested and on onboard.

Yeah. So as a trainer, that's one of the things I do really spend time with the preframe to get as many people on board as I can, and then get in a couple of quick demos and quick few quick experiences for them as soon as possible so they're convinced. This is interesting. That's all we want.

Yeah. Just, just be interested. Don't believe just long. Yeah. Yeah. There's plenty of stuff within NLP that you can demonstrate if you're doing intros and things that will have the people in the audience going, whoa. That's one last thing I wanna just add to that. And I, so I was at a dinner about six weeks ago now, sitting next to somebody, and we were talking about business and he said to me, how'd you deal with skeptical people? And I went, I don't, he said, how?

I said, well, why would I waste my time dealing with skeptical people? Yeah. Enough people have got open mind. So I think that's something else to list, to, to bear in mind that if someone's really skeptical, thinks it's a scam, uh, hasn't done the research, has an opinion, but no evidence to support it, blah, blah, blah, they're probably not your clients. And you won't want them in the classroom anyway.

If you are looking for students, you definitely wouldn't want to talk somebody like that into coming on your course because you are gonna have to work so hard with that person in the room. Yeah. Don't be needy. Don't be needy from the class. Yeah. If you have to let one corporate go, guess what? There's another 10 lining up. Yeah. I mean, I would much rather talk to people, uh, and explain that maybe this isn't the course for them. And actually if I've done that, I've actually had them.

Then it's kind of like the whole reverse psychology kicks in. Well, well why isn't it a course for me and why can't I do it? Well, because we want people in the room that got open minds, willing to listen, to learn, looking to improve their lives. Well, that's me. That's me. That's me. Can come. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a really interesting start. Yeah, I like that one.

So, okay, now we're moving on to identity. This week I've been reflecting on Tina's phrase when a client appears to have got the change by the end of the session, and yet something still there. Tina notice lurking in the background still there. Tina noted that belief is key and I've noticed there are anomalies going on, eg. I'm anxious about driving, riding my horse, swimming, et cetera, but I'm not really an anxious person.

My question is, how do you clarify what a client's real belief when their language suggests they have a mixed self image? Oh, okay. And as I write this, I can hear Steve's voice. Can you? Well, I wish I could, what's the question again? Repeat the question to me please. I can hear Steve's voice saying, talk to the unconscious. Oh, that's a good answer. Yeah, well done Steve. So should we move on to the next one? Yeah, I'm sorry, that was a bit of a go. Another go knot question, wasn't it?

There's a lot in there and I kind of, uh, need it a bit unraveled. So what was the real question with that? Real question is how do you clarify what the client's real belief is when their language suggests that they have a mixed self image? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, don't believe them. No, no, no. What do they know? Yeah, I mean, from my perspective, I would use that thing, what is it called? The, um, metamodel and i'd, I'd question and I'd dig around.

Get a few more answers from them, um, and then I'd probably stick 'em in a trance and set up some finger signals and get the real answers. Mm-hmm. But it's good that picking up on in congruency. Yeah. Yeah. Because it would be easy just to be suckered by the conscious beliefs and expressions of the clients, you know, be hypnotized by the clients. Well, the clients will tell you what they think. You want to hear how well they think they believe to be true as well. Yeah, yeah.

The truth necessarily. Yeah. Yeah. They, they've taught themselves into things. Um, and the thing here about where she says, um, I'm anxious doing an activity, but I'm not really an anxious person. Um, well, what is an anxious person? Is what I'm thinking. You know, there are people, there's an organization there. Yeah. Yeah. There are people that are perfectly confident in 90% of their lives, but there's just one part they can't do. They can't do public speaking or they can't do something else.

Mm hmm. I never believe people when they say they don't do anxiety anyway, well, they never say I don't do anxiety. They say, I'm not an anxious person. I don't, anxiety go, he You stressed now? Well, not really. What do mean? Not really. Well, zero to 10, I'm five five's not really seriously. Okay. Yeah. So your normal relaxed is a five out 10. Wow. No, you're only really anxious when you're an eight or a nine. Okay. Well let's work on the five so that the eight becomes the five and then, yeah.

Never believe what they say. However, rich is saying, don't let your clients hypnotize you. And I thought, yeah, there's only one really good hypnotist in the room at the time. Isn't there? There is. And sometimes there's two like on Saturday. On Saturday, yeah. I'm talking about when we're doing one-to-ones. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're always really good hypnotists. They're just not really good at giving positive suggestions generally, are they?

No. They've hypnotized themselves in a negative way to believe all sorts of rubbish. Yeah. And, and Steve grabs advice to you, I think was great advice. I wish I'd even said perfect. Yeah, just talk close, close the mind, like close, close eyes. Tina said the finger signals. Yeah. Have a proper con deep conversation. Let's get to the, lemme get this right, so I'm answering the questions before they're even asked. How cool is I know. How is that? I can, I can go. Well this is one for you.

This is about your. So I really enjoyed hearing your wise words this month, just this month, not previously. Okay, fair enough. Not before. Um, and to me, delegating my marketing makes sense. Having investigated the possibilities of delegating the choices. Huge. Yes, indeed. I'm mindful that clients want to get to know us, the provider. So my question is threefold. Are you ready? Yeah. Okay. Alright. We're not gonna write this down, Carl.

First, how important is it to be doing Facebook or the equivalent live, and how much is enough? Um, uh, well, I think Okay, I'll, I'll answer it in a different way, which is not surprising. Um, you, the, you wanna know the answer to that? The answer to that until you've run the experiment. Yeah. Um. I mean, okay, so we're doing Facebook live here. I dunno how many people are on maybe half a dozen, whatever, A dozen, maybe more. It doesn't matter.

Yeah. Um, but we know tons and tons of other people see it later And is in a replay room with all the members. How important is that? People let us know. Yeah. It keeps them engaged. Yeah. If we did it every week, would that be too much? We would find out from the feedback if we did it once every three months. Is that not off? Well, we'll find out from the feedback. So for me, marketing is all about, it's all about experimentation.

There is no one way to market, there's no one silver bullet solution. If there was everyone would be doing it. If everyone was doing it, it probably wouldn't be working. Yeah. So it is all about experimentation. Um, it was, uh, it's Alan Tur, you know, the, um, from the Enig Enigma, um, glitching Lee, when. Someone said to him, how long will it take your computer to resolve a problem? And he went away for a couple of years and came back and said, we don't know.

The only way we'll know is when it's run the program and resolve the problem. Then we know how long it takes. So you have to run the experiment to get the result. So in answer to the question, how, how long and how often you have to test and then measure and decide what you're gonna measure. So this could be measuring engagement, it could be measuring the number of people that show up. It could be measuring the number of people that show up and then do something else.

Yeah, it's all experimentation. Um, and that's why great. If you've decided you're gonna pass your marketing to somebody else, there are so many places you could go that do marketing and will do marketing for you. Just be willing and ready and able to invest in that experimentation stage. I would be wary of anybody that takes on marketing that guarantees a particular type of result, um, because they've not run the experiment for you, for your particular clients.

They may have done something similar. Yeah. So I'd just be very wary of anyone that's offering, um, sp specifics. You know, they're gonna get so many returns, so much return on your ad spend, et cetera. You'll find out, be ready for that. You know, you'll find out time. You need to just put some money out there and see what happens. The next part of that is what does a great marketing campaign look like and what's your advice for planning ahead and keeping it manageable?

Um, so what does it look like and keep ahead and manageable. Yeah. Um, if you're starting off, uh, afresh, don't go over complicated. Everyone wants to, um, they want to have a viral video on Facebook. They want to have something go viral on Instagram and then they put it on TikTok and they're doing it. Find something you feel really comfortable with. Keep engaging with people in that, in that platform that you're really comfortable with, and just be consistent.

Get used to doing that first, and then start to transfer across to other platforms and see what works and measure it. And again, we come back to experimentation. You're gonna know what works until you put stuff out there. And if you're not enjoying it and it's not something you, you feel committed to doing, or it becomes a bit of a chore. Um, people tend to drop out of doing it, and you've gotta be consistent.

You know, I was talking about this in the, in the training that I did, that the, it is almost like chaining states, if we leave too big a gap between the states, the chain isn't there anymore. So we need to have enough awareness, enough communication, enough gap between, so we don't overwhelm people. Um, we don't wanna underwhelm them. The phrase I use is wanna overwhelm them.

Okay. You know, we are in the business of people giving them just enough to keep them interested and giving them something which is of value. We overloaded them to the point I go, I can't keep up with this. You know, we could have a compulsion blowout, really, couldn't we? We've marketed, if you think about it. Oh God. Yeah, you could, yeah.

Easy. I mean, I, I've had that with people that have sent me really valuable stuff, but it's just too much and then I'd zone out and don't even pay any attention to it. Yeah. And then a few that leave the gaps too long. And I'm not connecting the dots. You really just have to get curious and experiment.

Yeah. Um, and looking ahead, well actually I've just, I've just downloaded to, and Tina just before this actually, so this is relevant on App Sumo, there's a, I'm not recommending this by the way 'cause I haven't used it. Um, some of the other companies I'm working with, we've got campaigns going out in a variety of different platforms. So instead of checking in, there's some software now which enables you to pull in all of the data to one place. You've got one dashboard.

So if you are really into it, um, look around for something like that, that means you can collate and just looking at one place. Yeah. And, and again, I'm not recommending this, but if you can have a look at apps, it's Black Friday, there's some deals there, so I'm not doing any pitch for anyone because I haven't played with it yet. Um, but that simplifies it. But just keep it manageable by doing something you love and get used to doing it.

So next, um, this, this, this fascinates me. This one, um, this week I've had an inquiry from someone who wants to feel comfortable again when riding her horse. She's been riding for most of her life and has spoken to her gp, who believes the menopause symptoms are at play. The menopause is stopping her riding her horse. Okay. What are your thoughts on this and how do you support your clients with suggestions from professionals that may not be helpful?

Um, I can answer that, then I can answer that one. Horse riding is potentially dangerous, and I recall Dr. Bandon noting how important it is to maintain caution. Wow. Caution when riding a horse. Wow. How do you ensure that the client gets the positive change they want? And exercise is enough caution. So speaking as, uh, an equestrian, I used to do three day eventing. Uh, I've ridden horses most of my life.

Um, and I can't believe a GP is saying that the men, I don't, I mean, I'm thinking, I'm running through my mind right now. The symptoms that you get when you go through the menopause and there's nothing there about being anxious whilst riding honest. I'm looking, it's just not there. It's not a side effect. It's not a side effect. No. No. It's just not there. There's, in fact, there's nothing about horses in any medical. I love that. Um, there's nothing. It's just not there.

Um, so speaking as aian, um, my first. Thought is what a load of bollocks. That's my, that's my professional opinion. Professional term, is it? Yeah. That's my professional opinion. So, um, how do I support my clients with suggestion? So if, if I was talking to her, we would be talking equestrian to equestrian. Um, and I would probably say something along the lines of, you know, oh God, can you remember, can you remember when we first started riding?

Because they do this bizarre thing where you had to fall off 10 times before you were a real horse person. And I can remember counting how many times I fell off and I can remember being so excited when I fell off the 10th time because now I'm a real horse person. Um, and it's kind of like they, they trick you into expecting to fall off. 'cause anybody that rides horses, you know that at some point you're gonna fall off. And you're okay with it.

Um, and, and I talk about that and I talk about times when she's fallen off in the past. 'cause trust me, she would've fallen off in the past and how she just got up and got on the horse, you know? So she has a strategy that's been inbuilt right from the very beginning that enables her to just get back on that horse and that's what she'll do. So I would access that strategy and then I would, I would say I might even Google horse riding and menopause and see what came up.

'cause I'm, I haven't Googled it, but in my head I'm thinking it's just not there. And I would laugh and say, what does your doctor know about horses? Hmm. Have you ever known a doctor to be wrong? Let's put this one in this category, Shelby. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you ever known a doctor to be wrong? You know, I mean, I've, I've, I've gone through the menopause. I didn't have any problem with horses or riding. Mm-hmm.

Um, so, and then I would, I don't recall hearing Richard talk about maintaining caution. Um, although now, now I do when it comes to snakes, when you take away snake phobias, I remember him saying, not all snakes are, are good snakes to touch and spiders. So yes, I do remember the caution. Now it's just popped back in my head. Um, I don't see horse riding as dangerous. Mm-hmm. I know that. You may think that's a bit strange. 'cause I actually fell off and broke my neck when I was 29.

Um, obviously not badly. Um, but I don't perceive it as being dangerous. It's, it's exhilarating, it's exciting, it's fun, it's amazing. Um, but danger doesn't really come into it because you just, if you ride the way you're taught to ride, it's not dangerous. It's no more dangerous than driving a car or riding a bicycle. Now the only bit I can add to this is that in inoculation against professionals, God-like opinions. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, their edicts, where we challenge it, we go.

And it's always good to change it in a lighthearted way, you know? Does this seem right? Have you ever known a doctor to be wrong? Mm-hmm. I've not googled this, but it seems a very, you know, tenuous connection. Yeah. Um, although I do remember the last time I rode a horse was 1983 and it was in New Zealand. Did you fall off? No, I didn't fall off, but I do remember the instructor said, whatever you do, don't let the bolt, the whole bolt, because ours are too old.

That's a really young one, and it's 300 miles to the next house. Stop him. I jumped off once I was, I had some relatives over from the States, and I think it's still there. There's a riding school by Hyde Park and it was, it's called Lilo Lums. And I took my cousins, my American cousins, um, to the stables 'cause they wanted to go riding along rock row in Hyde Park. Um, and, and I learned very, very early on after this, never say I can ride.

So they said, is there anybody here that's a really experienced rider? And I went, that would be me. I'm, I do this and I do that and I've got my horse and ha ha ha. And they brought out this manky looking creature. Honestly, it really was a creature. And, and I thought I was expecting this amazing thoroughbred and I got this manky looking creature. And as we're riding through the traffic to get to Hyde Park, suddenly it, it did, it went up on its back legs.

Um, and, and the woman said, oh, yeah, doesn't like dogs. Every time it saw a dog, it went woo like this. And I'm just like. Oh, okay. And then we got to Hyde Park and it bolted and I couldn't stop it. And it was heading towards Hyde Park corner. The gates were open. I could see buses and taxis, and then I saw the headlines. Woman dies under bus at Hyde Park corner. So I got off and the minute I jumped off the bloody thing, it stopped and it just looked to me.

Hmm. And that focus now to install a phobia of horses. Fun. It wasn't phobia. Indeed. Yes. Okay. It wasn't phobic. It wasn't, you see, this is what I meant as an equestrian. I just got up, looked at the horse, grabbed it, and got back up. It wasn't scary. Equestrians, if she's a real horse person, she'll be used to that and she'll have a strategy for dealing with it. Oh, I think that I'm gonna pass this

one over to you. I'll read it out mainly because I can never remember who is dealing with what aspect of the basic presuppositions. So this is a question about the basic presuppositions of Okay. You know, like Chomsky and, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and I know that you've just got it there and, and I always get them confused. So Tina referred to the main presuppositions of NLP. Mm-hmm. Having researched these on many occasions, I've read many interpretations in the structure of magic.

Dr. Richard Bandler talks about the map.dot. Do can you recommend a reliable resource to read about all of the presuppositions from Dr. Bandler and or other co-creators? I've noticed on Amazon there is an NLP encyclopedia. Yeah. I wonder if this might be the text I'm looking for. It's not in there. I looked. Um, the pres NLP presuppositions aren't here. Well, no, the, the bracelet presuppositions are in here, but it doesn't say who is responsible for which elements. Oh, I see. Right.

Okay. Yeah, it lists who they were. Yeah. But it doesn't say which part of it, where, where they originated from, where they originated from. Yeah. Actually, I, I, I don't know about that. Actually. The only one I know about is the maps of the territory, which is ksky. Um, the rest, I don't know, the, um. The attribution to, you know, where they came from. I've never really considered that, not looked into that.

Um, and I don't know that, that would be the only place that I can think of that I've encountered them. Actually, there might be another one, but I'm not sure I wanna mention the person. Um, um, okay. The, the insight for Peter is a good place to look for, for any content. And I know Tina's got a copy of, um, a hard copy there. I've got a hard copy somewhere. Um, but you can actually go online and, um, Robert DITs has, uh, put that online and you can access, I think it's 20 pages a day.

Um, but I, I can't answer that question. I don't know where they are, where they all originate from. That's not something that I've looked into. I do believe they are very, very valuable. Um, almost essential filters through which to look at. When it comes to being an operator user of NLPA communicator, and I don't always think they're given as much time in trainings as they warrant. Mm-hmm.

Because, um, you know, if you take some of them away and don't adhere to them, it can really affect how you process and how you operate with someone. Yeah. So, for example, if you, if you take the map, it's not the territory and, and I say I'm not gonna operate to that, that's not gonna be in my remit. That will have a profound effect on how you show up and how you engage with people effectively. You take any of them away, um, it leaves almost like a blind spot.

So I think, uh, we talk about the basic NLP presuppositions that that's, that's worthy of a lot of investigation they're in here. But I mean, there's a lot in here about presuppositions as you would imagine. Yeah. Because there's a lot, there's a lot in here about everything. I mean, this is end to Z there's two of two of these. Um, I love books. So when I discovered this many, many, many years ago, um, I had to purchase one. Um, and there's loads of elements in here that are very, very useful.

Um, when was it published? Oh, it's published in 2000. Yeah. We spend quite a bit of time on the practitioner going through the NLP presupposition, pre-suppositions so that people get a clear understanding of how useful they are for whatever they're gonna, for, whatever the pre-supposition support, which comes afterwards. Um. But apart from Map is not the territory, no idea who they're attributed to. It will be Bert Russells, Gregory Bateson, Ky George Pollier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There be a list.

There'll be a list of those people. Yeah. So what, well we've got two minutes to go. We've got one question left. Have we Perfect timing. Yeah. Perfect timing. This is from Jane. Hi Jane. I know you're there watching. I think she's stalking us. Um, so I remember Richard saying something like, be careful of suggestions, brackets, hypnotic ones even from me. Any useful suggestions that we mightn't be aware of already? Thank you both because I answered that already in the, in the chow.

I went, yes, I agree. Yes. Yeah, my answer yes too. I'm glad you're around. I'm glad you are around too, Jane. Thank you. So what was it Richard said be careful of suggestions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he does it, um, quite often when he's working with people on stage and he's doing a demo, I've noticed quite often, he'll, if people have had negative suggestions installed, he'll say, be careful of suggestions. You know, even from me.

'cause I guess we never really know what's going on in somebody's unconscious. What their deep structure holds was the impression that I got when he said it. I, I, well, I've heard him say that on a many, on a number of occasions, and I've always taken it to be, you know, about taking ownership for our own experience. Yeah, yeah. Because it would be so easy. Well, we know how easy it is to be on stage presenting, say something, and 98% of the people take it one way.

And there was might be one or two people that will hear something completely different to what was meant, you know? And the meaning of the communication is the responsibility is the response. Yeah. Yeah. However, and I, I qualified this the other Saturday. I said, apart from those times when people are determined to take the communication the wrong way. Yeah. In which case that's their responsibility. Um, because I think it's because they filter it, they do weird shit with it in their head.

And no matter how careful you can be when you're giving a suggestion to somebody, uh, sometimes they will do something strange with it. Um, and I think as the operator, if you're working with a client. Then you have to, I think it's useful. I have to be aware of the effect that my suggestions are having. Mm-hmm. And then if I perceive that they're not going in the right way, then I can then do something about that.

And flip that round in your day-to-day life, I think it's very easy for people to try and give you negative suggestions without even realizing they're doing it. Well. We've kind of gone full circle for, um, you know, back to where we started with about, you know, the, the mass, uh, hypnosis that seems to be going on out there at the moment, and how easy it is to be, uh, influenced by regular communication, visual, auditory, and uh, just even other people's states.

Yeah. Be aware, be aware of negative suggestions. Mm-hmm. Including Richard's, including mine, probably including Tina and mine. Yeah. And mine. I, I did probably there 'cause so good at it. Um, and more importantly of your own. It's one of the things I learned as an NLP, you know, um, you know, we said, you know, I said earlier on, there are two great hypnotists in the room when we're working with someone. Um, when I'm on the room of my own, there's one amazing hypnotist.

I've just gotta make sure I'm giving myself good, positive suggestions. Yeah. Be aware of the effects that, the suggestions, the thoughts you have, give you, what, what are you eliciting from your thoughts, from your subconscious with the way that you are thinking and, and when, I mean, I have a, I have a, a, like a, a negative suggestion shield. So I have a filter that negative suggestions go through. Um, and, and I actually laugh when I hear them. I just, I think, well, you are not getting me.

Mine's a lot easier. It just in one ear, it just rattles around. Out the other, goes out the other way. Yeah. I mean, I just like, they, they amused me. Yeah. I, I, I did a training. It was a really weird place. It was a private, uh, club for LinkedIn members and it was a big bar that was a spaceship in the middle. And, um, I did a presentation and it's about an hour and a half later and there was somebody that came up and they must have done some of the speed seduction. Oh dear.

Old Ross, Jeffrey Ross, Jeffrey stuff. Yeah. I was talking to a guy and this woman came up and she was demonstrating her speed seduction, and it was, my whole body could feel the attempts to use language to make suggestions. It was, it was almost cringe. Yeah. But this guy wasn't aware of it. It was quite clumsy, but he didn't have the awareness of her clumsiness. Yeah. So, yeah. Jane, Richard, Richard puts the disclaimer out.

It's a disclaimer to basically say, take responsibility for your own suggestion. Yes. Yeah. And be aware of others. Yes. Be aware. And then just let 'em go.

So we're pretty much done for this evening. That has gone super quick. It always does. Yeah. It's, we're not doing in aha. Next month, aren't we? 'cause it's the week before Christmas. It's, but we are doing something else. Yes. So on the, on the 16th of December, we've got Elizabeth Pierre Butler, and she is one of the very few master trainers of NLP with DAG. She might even be the only one. Um, and uh, Elizabeth has been running her courses in Toronto for decades and decades and decades.

And, um, she, years ago when she was working with adults, she found that a lot of the adults she worked with attributed their problems to things that happened to them as a child. And that got her little gray cells thinking, well, what if we start teaching children so that they don't have these problems as adults? And she start, she created a kid's club. So every summer it would have to be summer 'cause it's Canada and they're about four foot deep in snow the rest of the year.

I think every summer she would have kids' clubs and kids would come and stay in her kids' clubs and they'd do these incredible things playing. And while she was playing with the kids, she'd be teaching them. Fabulous. You know, so she's gonna be joining us the third Thursday of December, so we'll put a post in out there on Facebook so you can get your tickets ahead of time. Yeah. Um, and we've got somebody lined up for January, February. January. We've got, we've got an extra in January.

We have master classes every three months. Yeah. In January. As a New Year's present, we've got Owen Fitzpatrick, the lovely, Owen is going to come and do some training with you about the stories you tell yourself. Fabulous. Plenty of good stuff lined up and we'll be opening up the door to the Prosperity Mission as well in the new year for those of you that haven't done it. But we'll tell you more about that in some posts soon. Soon. Fabulous. Okay, so good evening everybody.

Thank you for joining us and um, we'll see you next year. Well, that's a bit scary. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Well, I'll see you on Saturday. On Saturday. Practitioner, practitioner. Yes. Yeah. Great. Everyone, thank you for being much love. Be well. Bye.