 January 2013 |
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Energized and Effective in 2013
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Greetings!
It's January. It's a great time to think about rest. The whole natural world (in Canada) is taking some time to prepare for growth and warmth and abundance. Snuggled under the snow, resources are gathering. The break in the growing season is not lost time: it's preparation.
Decades ago, the Total Quality Movement made a case for preparation. Its mantra was that mistakes were more expensive than preparing to get it right the first time. Tired, stressed people make mistakes. They can't get it right the first time. They can't perform at their best. If your life demands that you function as a high performer, you need to care for the part of you that drives high performance states.
Rest, as my coach Andrew Freund showed me recently, is the way the conscious mind cares for the unconscious so that the unconscious can support high performance. If you want to know more about that, come to an event or course and ask me to tell you the story. It's rather lovely.
There are articles here on resistance and pilgrimage: both are ways of talking about being clear and energized in situations where other people get tired and overwhelmed. And there's also a bedtime story, a story about being in over your head and coming to the surface with new resources.
Of course, my favorite journey begins again on February 2. That's the first day of our next practitioner certification. Will it be time for you to join our network of of people determined to live their lives with clarity, energy and satisfaction?
I hope we'll see you soon,
Linda Ferguson, Ph.D.
Senior Partner
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 2013 SPECIAL
Reserve your spot in our February NLP Practitioner Course before January 21 and receive a free telephone coaching session (30-45 minutes) with Dr. Linda Ferguson, and a copy of our CD, Prepare to Succeed. Requires a non-refundable $200 down payment on your course fees. Course dates Feb 2/3 and Feb 16/17 and Mar 2/3, 2012.
To reserve, call Carole at 416-928-2394
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January 2013 Events
Unless otherwise noted, all events take place at 47 Queen's Park Cres. E., Toronto, ON. All events require registration by calling Carole at 416-928-2394.
Tuesday, January 8, 7:30pm to 9:30pm Rest, Sleep & High AchieversHow many successful people do you know who have trouble getting enough rest to enjoy their success? Even NLP Practitioners sometimes struggle with getting enough rest, sleep, or downtime to maintain high performance states. While there is no doubt that being well-rested gives us an edge in virtually every kind of activity, there is also no doubt that too little rest allows us to overestimate the clarity of our thought and the precision of our behaviour. Linda Ferguson shows you how to identify your reasons for being well-rested and the resources that will allow you to be more energized and more effective in 2013. FREE! Saturday, January 12, 10am to 4:30pm Prepare to Succeed with Andrew Freund and Linda FergusonThis is our favourite one day course. If you're new to NLP, it will introduce core concepts while you make real-time progress in identifying and clarifying a goal, and finding the resourcefulness, connections and strategies you will need to achieve it. If you're already a practitioner, you'll find that you dig deep and make faster, more reliable progress after taking this refresher. 2013 special: $99 includes HST Saturday/Sunday January 19/20 (Sat 9:30 to 4:30 and Sun 9:30 to 1:00) Working Around Resistance with Linda Ferguson and Mike MurrayMike Murray, one of our most popular HOPE speakers and a member of the NLP Canada Training Advisory Board, joins Linda in leading a course that will condition you to get better results with less frustration when you encounter resistance. Mike Murray is an expert in internet security who regularly works with behavioural scientists to identify the most effective ways to predict behaviour and shape change. $225 includes HST $100 saving if you are a Practitioner or Master Practitioner trained at NLPCT ($125 total) Sunday January 20, 2:30 pm Shifts and Zombies: Readings from Shiftwork & Zombies on Kilimanjaro
We are more than delighted to announce that Tim Ward, an author, adventurer, and NLP practitioner, will be joining Linda for a Sunday afternoon reading from their 2012 books. You'll be engaged by Tim's storytelling, humour and breadth of knowledge as he reads from Zombies on Mount Kiliminjaro, an account of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with his son. What do zombies and Greek princesses have in common with entrepreneurs, therapists, and people in search of a better understanding of their own choices? Take a (metaphorical) walk with Tim and Linda and discover something new about waking up and moving forward. No charge, but books will be available for purchase (signed by the authors).
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Working Around Resistance
The work of Milton Erickson demonstrates how much change can be accomplished if the change agent refuses to meet resistance head on. Whether we look at pattern interrupts like the one above or at Erickson's use of language and metaphor, what we see is a change practitioner working around resistance instead of meeting it head on. While it may be possible to overcome resistance and bully someone into a new behaviour, there are more elegant, more effective and more satisfying strategies.
The key to employing these strategies is to remain relaxed and committed to your goal when you run into resistance. It's harder than it sounds. Resistance tends to take us by surprise and in that moment of surprise, we are likely to meet resistance with resistance. It takes an act of will to incorporate the resistance into our strategy so that we will simply meet our goal by another route. The key is to know what we want so clearly that we will remember our goal when we hit resistance. Instead of hitting back, we simply notice the resistance and move around it.
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A Bedtime Story
People have many different reasons for studying NLP with us and returning often to practice and network. Some come to hone the skills that give them an edge in their careers. Some come to discover strengths in themselves that have been hidden by time or trauma. And some come because they are curious about how the mind works and how understanding the mind changes the way one lives.
They are smart, successful people who are committed to high levels of achievement. They are wide awake in the way they interact with other people and the way they explore their own goals and abilities.
Sometimes, they are a little too wide awake. After they have done their training, after they know me a little better, many of them will confess that they have trouble falling asleep or trouble getting enough rest. Some have strategies for managing on a limited amount of sleep and some have strategies for playing hard and resting hard. Many of them would be even more successful if they could shift the balance of their activities to give them enough rest to support high performance states.
We'll be exploring rest through a variety of lenses this winter. To begin, I offer you a bedtime story. Click on the link to a podcast. It's under 10 minutes long and it's just the kind of story that some people think about when they think about Linda telling stories, the kind of story you might wish someone would sit on the edge of the bed and tell you as you settle down for the night.
Listen to the story here.
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The Value of a Really Long Walk
On January 20, Tim Ward will be at NLP Canada Training reading from his new book, Zombies on Mount Kiliminjaro. The book describes one kind of pilgrimage. Many people are fascinated by the idea of simply walking away from the demands of their everyday lives and into a landscape that would connect them with deep truths about themselves and the world.
Have you ever felt like you were walking a very uncomfortable road without really knowing what will be different if you reach the end of the journey? If you have, then you have felt the way pilgrims feel after the initial excitement has passed and the end is not yet in sight. Maybe this is even true now. You might be struggling with chronic pain, with illness, with a job situation that never seems to get better, with an unsatisfying relationship. All of these situations can feel like a pilgrimage, a journey you undertake to grow your life and understand yourself in relation to a much bigger reality. For many people, this is a spiritual journey. I wonder if your current struggles could be helping you to develop your knowledge of yourself in a way that connects you to faith and to love? Pilgrims have a lot to teach us about situations that seem both inevitable and meaningless. Your own situation is complicated: you have too much information in some ways and you are missing key information in others. If you could simply reason your way through to peace and satisfaction, you would already be there. Someone else's pilgrimage is easier to understand for three reasons: - It's finite. They know the path they are walking has a beginning and an ending.
- It's not your problem. Isn't it always easier to be smart about someone else's problems?
- They chose their path. You might still believe your path just happened to you.
You are choosing to read this. Although you might have been walking a long way to get to this moment, your pilgrimage can begin here and now. This could be the moment you begin or it could be one of the things that helps you plan to start.
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