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Delusions of Gender -
Cordelia Fine | |
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| Frank Pucelik with Christina | |
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| Southbank Sinfonia | |
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Welcome to old and new readers alike. But first an apology. I called Baroness Newlove, Baroness Dearlove. I do apologize.
The usual offer still stands, a free coaching session if you are a new reader, or a free training session for your company. Seasons greetings to all, whatever your religion or beliefs, a time of celebration with family, and appreciate all your achievements and abilities, value your friends, in both hemispheres.
This edition is mainly about NLP, and yet of interest to anyone interested in true equality. To take two very diverse people. It is necessary to quote Fine in full. Her opening paragraph of Delusions of Gender:
"Suppose a researcher were to ask ... what males and females are like?
Would you stare at the researcher blankly and exclaim, "But what can you mean? Every person is a unique, multifaceted, sometimes even contradictory individual, and with such an astonishing range of personality within each sex, and across contests, social class, age, experience, educational level, sexuality and ethnicity, it would be pointless and meaningless to attempt to pigeonhole such rich complexity and variability into two crude stereotypes?"
Click here for more information on Cordelia Fine.
Or Frank's answer: |
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What does equality mean to you?
"Start with each person. If I have the ability to meet each person without knowing what they are, to experience them joyfully. Every person is a walking miracle. Imagine aliens; I don't know anything about them. I get to explore a whole new universe. A completely different experience. No judgment, arrogance, nor disrespect. It is only possible to listen and learn. The war taught me a lot. War taught me a bullet gets you if it gets you. You can be green, you can be purple, a colonel or a major or a corporal. You're nobody special."
That is Vietnam veteran talking, and one of the 3 originators of NLP.
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Frank Pucelik
You kind of don't notice Frank come into the room, then he's telling a story to make us laugh. Frank is larger than life with bags of charisma, and the ability to transform himself from psychiatric patient, to melting 3 year old on a sensory memory of smell.
It's a surprise to discover he is just normal height and an ordinary man of his time and generation. But he is also a Viet. Vet. (veteran of Vietnam) which has a special meaning. Americans found themselves fighting a war, not against the bad guys, but anyone and everyone. The children smiled at you in the day, and would kill you at night.
After the transforming the addicts at a drug clinic in the states, Frank was invited to the Ukraine, where he's been pretty much ever since.
He sacked the psychiatrists and brought in a world class pianist, a woman CEO who took three years sabbatical from her bank, showed them what success looked like.
He tells it like it is. "Richard (Bandler) and I were college kids, studying Fritz Perl and copying what he did. But we didn't really understand what we were doing. Richard was in his early 20s and I was 25 and had recently returned from Vietnam, to be a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Kresge College was an Arts college, what we called touchy feely, it drove us nuts. This was about 1971."
John Grinder was a professor, about 4 years older than Frank was, he had been a Green Beret and been involved behind enemy lines, for the American Government. "John had great modeling skills especially for language and he was able to identify patterns for us. As a linguist, he could hear what we were doing. So NLP was born. John had worked with Chomsky at the Rockafeller Center and other special people, and I had experience of Carl Rogers.
'It would seem that both Virginia Satir and Fritz Perle were the pre-cursors of NLP. Besides the 3 of us there were 6 or 7 more of the original Meta Kids who joined us. A couple years later people like Dilts, DeLozier, Cameron, Gilligan, and others joined us. This was after the original 'Meta Kids' had graduated from UCSC and left.".
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Watch the Listener
"The most powerful people don't talk much. You have more power and control when you're not talking."
Frank is demonstrating how to tell a whole story non-verbally, with mostly hand gestures, but he has the most mobile face.
It is well recognized in both advertising and the corporate world that words only account for a very small percentage of the communication, body language and listener's attitude is more powerful. "Watch the listener. In sports watch the people without the ball. The listener is equally responsible for the conversation. Control your own reactions."
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Extract from Frank's Interview
Where did you come from?
I was born in Nebraska, but brought up in San Diego and learnt to speak Spanish, to make people laugh, and/or run like hell.
I joined the Navy to avoid being sent to war, but was then trained as a Navy Corpsman, transferred to the Marine Corps, and sent to Vietnam.
How did you get into NLP?
We started NLP. After the war I was a broken person and was looking for a way to put myself together.
After Vietnam there were no support groups, no recognition, no post traumatic stress recognition. People spat on us in the street and called us baby killers.
It was just me and 15 guys in the jungle, us and the bad guys. We would be out for 6 weeks @ at time, waiting for our time to die.
I was back from Vietnam and studying ever kind of psyche and Gestalt, then found it began to make money.
I had a fantastically valuable time in the jungle. The jungle destroyed me. I needed to be destroyed. I was not a happy kid. I had often wished I had never been born.
My parents did their best, but my childhood was far from nurturing. I left at 18. I would never go back to those people. But I told myself if I ever had kids, it would be different.
After the war I was gone: ethics gone, values gone, beliefs gone, belief in God destroyed. If he exists, if I ever meet up with him, I'm going to kick his ass. He's no friend of mine. I was brought up as a Catholic, and the Catholic priest after the war, talked to me a lot about our free will. No sale. I saw too many things and did too many things that simply should not have happened.
What was the most surprising thing to ever happen to you?
The most surprising thing was that I survived the war.
I went to the war to die. Joined the navy to avoid it, then they trained me as a corpsman and sent me to Vietnam.
When was the time of most learning?
The times when John (Grinder) gave me feedback, that was not fun to hear. He didn't give a damn about my feelings and it hurt. Things I needed to hear and to change. I am incredibly proud of that. I was more important to him than thinking about my feelings. No politeness. Brass tack, Bang hard. A good friend.
©2010 Christina@wwom.org from informal interview with Frank at NLP Conference 2010
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Peace and War (South Bank Sinfonia)
Rather ironic that the NLP conference happened on Remembrance Sunday. On a different note, South bank Sinfonia have been missing from these pages, and the rush hour concerts are sorely missed. However, on Remembrance Sunday they were at Coventry Cathedral, celebrating the reconstruction, accompanied by the Parliamentary choir and others, by a co-incidence Fiona Mactaggart is a member of the Parliamentary choir, so we come full circle to last month's news.
The commemorative work, the War Requiem was by Benjamin Britten, a pacifist and conscientious objector who went to America to avoid call up, while Michael Tippet served a prison sentence as a conscientious objector in the Second World War. War Requiem by Britten was inspired by the words of the War Poet Wilfred Owen.
"The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori."
It is a sweet and noble thing to die for your country.
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Check Out The Archive
The Archive features extracts from all the interviewees so far, as well as recent newssheets. Though not complete, some are on the web site: www.wwom.org
By clicking through to the Archive, you get to access over 20 years experience and knowledge of people: for talks, training and personal or business coaching. Specialist in all aspects of Diversity. There will be regular interviews with my inspirational women, advice and tips for business acumen, drawn from the interview, so you benefit from their experience. I hope you find it interesting. Please let me know what you think. The complete interviews will be in the forthcoming book .
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It's been a sombre weekend. Sorry to end on a sour note. There have been bright moments as we look forward to the festive season. What was your key moment? Your surprising event, amazing person you met? Celebrate them all, and enjoy and value all your friends and family.
The NLP presuppositions for this month: People work perfectly. No one is ever wrong or broken. Every one is doing the best they can (and could probably do better). Go well in the world. |
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Christina
Woman on a Mission
Diversity and Leadership Consultant
Inspirational Speaker
Alumnus Women of the Year 2008/2009 ©2010 Christina@wwom.org
Motivational Speaker
NLP Master Practitioner
Counsellor and Coach
London +44 (0) 208 653 7893
Melbourne +00 61 3 9563 0028
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