 February 2010 Toronto, Ontario
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NLP Canada Training Inc. Newsletter
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What's New?
What have you changed in the first 33 days of 2010? We begin each year knowing that we have changes to make, changes that demonstrate we know the processes of change from the inside. As change professionals, it is important that we make our own changes so that our clients have the confidence to make theirs.
What's new at NLP Canada Training? We started the year with two new one-day trainings: Coaching to Solve Problems and Change that Sticks. Each of these courses combined the principles of NLP with new contexts or applications. We worked with experienced professionals who were new to NLP and with experienced practitioners who are always looking for new ways to apply what they have learned.
We've also been developing new materials for people who are not able to be in the room with us. We have been working on developing brief NLP interventions by audio and video. These very short recordings (as long as 90 seconds and as short as 6 minutes) are designed to provide a break in your state that relaxes, refreshes and focuses. Five new videos have been posted to Youtube (here's the page of links on our website). Audio will follow next month.
We recorded the video during our trip to San Francisco at the end of January. We went to participate in a Weekend with Tom Condon on the Enneagram and the Meta Model. We'll be presenting our response to that course on Thursday, February 4 at an evening program (7:30 pm to 9:30 pm). There's more about that below.
More change is coming, of course. There's another new evening program in February, and in March we will be launching our topic for the 2010 Symposium. We will be busy.
Change happens. We like it to happen in ways that work, and we like you to know that we walk our talk. We explore and risk and consider - just as you do. If you're a member of our community, you're curious to find out what we're up to now. If you're still considering taking a practitioner training, we encourage you to learn more about us. And if you're evaluating different programs, think about asking the trainers you are evaluating: "What's new?"
Linda & Chris
Senior Partners
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How would you explain NLP?
 What, exactly, is NLP? It's a set of practices designed to make you more aware of having choices and more able to make choices you like. Think of it as powerful tools for finding what you need in yourself and in your connections with other people. When you practice NLP, you become more perceptive, more intuitive, more influential, and more effective in getting what you really want.
We explain NLP differently to different people. NLP is a way of working with the natural patterns that produce results. Since people are aware of those patterns in different ways, it makes sense to talk about NLP in terms of the patterns most familiar to them.
Some people respond well when we say: "NLP is a model of human behaviour like those in some forms of psychology. It's most closely related to sports psychology, positive psychology and cognitive behaviour therapy. NLP focuses on how people make choices to behave in particular ways to get particular results."
Other people are less interested in theory and more interested in what works. To them, we might say, "NLP conditions your thoughts and behaviour so that you replicate your best performance more often and more reliably. It's like training to have your best day over and over again."
And sometimes we say, as we said in our last mailing, "NLP helps people who are stuck to open up new possibilities. It does that by changing what they notice and the way they create meaning from what they notice. It is hands-on, practical and effective."
If you're already an NLP practitioners, talk to people about what you have learned and what you do. Talking about NLP helps practitioners define and stabilize the techniques that they have learned so that they can get what they want and know what they did to make it happen.
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What do people do with a certification in NLP?
 This is the next most common question we hear. We have two answers. The first is that we send people to www.relaxedandready.ca for a virtual introduction to practitioners in the NLP Canada Training community. That's the website for the HOPE symposium, our first gathering at which all the speakers were practitioners trained at NLP Canada Training.
The other answer is that people add their NLP skills to whatever way they are already getting results they like so that they can get better results more of the time. That's very general. So here's a metaphor to help you understand why learning NLP changes so much of what you do with so little conscious struggle.
Imagine you have a white carnation. You could paint it pink, but you'd have to paint it one petal at a time and the carnation would only turn pink where it had been touched with paint.
Or you could do one of those experiments that seem very cool to young children and you could put red food colouring in a glass of water. Then you could put one carnation - or several - into the glass of red water. Over time, the food colouring would make its way up the stems to colour each petal of each carnation.
Practical hope is like that. Hope can sometimes mean wishing for what can't be so. Practical hope means wishing for what could be real - and then being driven to make it real. The habit of practical hope is like the coloured water in the glass: thirsty people drink it in and it changes them. It opens their eyes and their ears so that they notice that the world around them is full of possibility. Then it drives them to do something with the possibility they perceive.
That's what most people do with the training they take at NLP Canada Training. They soak it in and use it to notice more of what they like in their lives and then they take action to make their work and their lives more reliably positive, effective and fulfilling.
That sounds like a lot to achieve in six days. It is a lot to achieve. Fortunately, the people who learn with us are complex mind-body systems full of experience, capabilities, thoughts and emotions. They are capable of achieving a lot.
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 Why would you combine the Enneagram and NLP Language Patterns?
We went to San Francisco to learn from Tom Condon. He's one of the few people in the world who teaches a combination of the Enneagram and NLP, and he came highly recommended by someone we admire and trust (our friend, Barb Luedecke).
Now we have had a week to let the learning settle and integrate, and what we learned was not precisely what Condon was teaching (for that, you'll have to wait until his CD course recording is published). What follows is unique to NLP Canada Training, our own reflection and observation of the use and misuse of the Meta Model as a toolkit, particularly with reference to personality typing (in this case the Enneagram, but the same principles would apply to Myers Briggs or DISC profiles).
The Meta Model is generally a set of language patterns that indicate that someone is not fully associated into the experience he or she is describing. In its original form (the form that was taught by Condon), it is full of difficult langauge of its own, describing patterns as "violations" and "challenges." Not surprisingly, a toolkit that sounds like it's ready for a fight has often provoked conflict.
Here's how we are thinking about the Meta Model instead. The meta model is a set of representations in language that indicate some level of dissociation. People jump out of their own skins for three different reasons:
1. Their own experience is uncomfortable or painful
2. They want to share or understand someone else's experience
3. They want to imagine an experience they have not yet had.
These are all good reasons for people to dissociate from their experience. But. . . until people jump back into their own skins, they cannot really move. They need to be associated into their own experience in order to make changes in that experience. That's why it seems that people who cannot fully engage in their own experience keep making changes that lead them right back to the same, stuck place.
You might want to get good at using the meta model if you are a professional who needs to influence people to move. You might be a sales person, manager, teacher or coach who relies on other people being able to make decisions and take action. You might even want to combine the Enneagram and the meta model to give you a stronger ability to predict when you should support someone's choice to disengage and when you should use your influence to draw someone back into his/her own skin.
That's just a hint of where an understanding of personality might meet the practice of the meta-model. To find out more, you'll have to watch for the articles and web-based resources Linda will be producing in the coming months. Or you can come out to the event on Thursday, February 4 and hear more about how the Enneagram and NLP Language Patterns can be used together to achieve powerful, positive influence.
The Enneagram and NLP, Thursday, February 4, 2010, 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
$35 donation to Shelterlink. Register by calling Carole at 416-928-2394.
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FREE
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Come to an evening program and bring a friend for no extra charge. Of course, all evening programs in February are running in support of Shelterlink, a terrific program in Stratford, Ontario for homeless youth. You might decide you want to make a donation. . . but no one will ask for more than one donation, even if you come with two friends! |
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Registration required. Call Carole at 416-928-2394.
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