Annabelle’s story was classic. She was in bad relationships all her life. From parental to siblings and extended family. Then, she didn’t notice the pattern. Her finger always pointed outwards to others. They were to blame. Being locked at home with her partner during the Pandemic, her relationship was under the microscope. Issues highlighted were ones that had been staring her in the face for a long time. She was going crazy not knowing how to get her life sorted.

Having seen a Facebook post from a coach she responded. Sandy turned out to be a saving grace. She was trained in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) a model created by two geniuses who coded and structured how change occurred rapidly via the unconscious mind. Hailed as a magical intervention that worked well with the inner-self to attain better outcomes in life, the NLP toolbox contained more than 100 processes.

Sandy singled out 5 of the most important NLP techniques that she felt helped her make a quick turnaround. She also felt others would benefit in the following ways, exactly the way she did. NLP techniques focused on deleting unhelpful programs, installing more generative ones in replacement. Three NLP Techniques That Transformed Annabelle’s Life:

1. Eliminate Unwanted Habits
The Swish pattern was so useful for Annabelle as it helped her swish out unwanted habits and redirect her focus to healthier ones. All she had to do was push away pictures that she had formed for the former while bringing in the latter picture. Her coach Sandy had used this technique as Annabelle displayed compulsive / obsessive behaviours such as, nail biting, smoking, addiction to foods like sugary snacks. All of these had an impact on her self-esteem and as a result overflowed into her relationship. Annabelle felt a huge amount of stress release from doing this one technique. She was beginning to see the value of doing NLP coaching.

2. Elicit Values for Motivation
Annabelle suffered greatly from a lack of motivation. She had no purpose to be alive hence she unconsciously sabotaged her relationships. Dragging her feet in life was not the way to live. She had reached her threshold. This was a sign to Sandy as an NLP coach that Annabelle needed to migrate to a new level of values. She elicited Annabelle’s values for life by asking “what’s important to you about life?” It was fundamental that Annabelle see the list that emerged. She learnt that because values were our deepest unconscious filter, it was important to understand and acknowledge the values that were driving her. This would then help her align her values internally and make decisions that propelled her to these.

No wonder she was unhappy at work. She was in the wrong job. It was crystal clear to her, without any prodding from Sandy. She knew she had to make way to eventually leave. When values were aligned to work or personal life, people were comfortable, happy and in a natural state. It’s no secret that employees whose values were most aligned to the organisation became high performers. They were able tosee their role clearly and know how they contributed to the organisation’s overall results.

3. Identify Gaps in Strategies
Annabelle had a horrible buying strategy that got her into trouble throughout her life. This was also linked to her compulsive behaviour. It was the bane of Annabelle’s life. It grated her spouse too, as credit card bills were often blown out of proportion when they could ill afford it. Sandy proceeded to elicit Annabelle’s buying strategy. She explained that strategies were a train of thoughts a person went through to make a decision or achieve a goal. These strategies were described using the five senses i.e. what you see, hear, smell, taste and feel.

In other words, what they were after was a set of internal procedures that produce a specific outcome. So every time Annabelle was faced with a buying situation an NLP strategy elicitation could help her take a closer look at the chain of events leading to this decision. It would reveal a step that needed to be changed or removed to successfully walk away.

Annabelle was thankful for the diagnosis as to what step of her strategy got her into trouble each time. She almost wanted to go out and try her new strategy. It was exciting to say the least. Sandy chose these techniques as they had a close relationship to the goals that Annabelle had worked through in her first session. The objective was to break the unconscious links between how Annabelle’s brain associated to her behaviours.

In a matter of three sessions she was already feeling 80% better. She was not done yet but she was adamant that NLP could transform lives if only people cared to give it a chance. She did not have to divulge any private events to Sandy. That was the best part. All she did was tell Sandy what she wanted to eradicate and they worked on that.

The NLP toolbox revealed coaching in a systematic and structured way. It was far from traditional. In fact the interaction with Sandy debunked all her myths about what sessions would be like. She loved every minute of them. It was rapid transformation at a totally different level!

As Sandy moved along with her coaching business she realised the importance of collating data. From age, gender, marital status to career and many other dimensions that she felt would give her deeper insights into trends. Specialising in helping people in relationships break through mental blocks, she began to notice valuable gender related data that was beginning to show trends. She felt these patterns of behaviour would help her accelerate coaching results.

This was the birth of Rapid Success Coaching! Sandy began to garner her intuition and data mined trends. Men who signed up for coaching were few and far between. They usually turned up when their relationships were at the end of their tether. Much like her client Richard whose wife left and said she would never return unless he saw a coach.

On arrival to her practice that first day, Sandy observed his physiology which was hunched. He did not make much eye contact. She felt he was like fish out of water. This would not have been his preference if he had a choice. The coaching room was set up deliberately to calm and relax clients.

​Soft hues of fabric draped the sofa and pastel-coloured cushions softened the space. It was indeed amazing to see Richard’s level of comfort escalate in a mere session. It wasn’t what he thought it would be. Sandy explained that she would not be giving him any advice, rather leave him to make his own choices once she had worked through processes with him.

She used language that he liked and resonated with. As an engineer his lack of communication was merely a resultant of low understanding in the field of how the mind worked. Most of his thoughts were based on therapy in the past that he had seen family and friends succumb to. He did admit to Sandy in their first session that he was less expressive than his wife. She shared her feelings readily with him but even though he felt things, he found it hard to verbalise. He preferred to just think that the negative feelings would go away but they didn’t.

Sandy immediately set up their next session to clear the anger and rage that stemmed from Richard’s past. It had resided in him for long enough and was choking his ability to express. After all, the mind and body were connected. Every thought became a feeling that impacted the body in a negative way. Like a clogged drain, that eventually blocks a pipe. For now it was just his throat that was blocked but over time if this continued, it could be the very cause of a heart attack.

Richard listened with great intent. His annual health markers were starting to show up on the decline. Sandy was already hitting a nerve. As Sandy continued to calibrate all the issues Richard wanted to address during these sessions, she also noted that men had a strong ego that stemmed from competitiveness. This merely occurred because men found it hard to empathise. She had a process for that too. Sandy made a note to do that in another session. This would give Richard the bandwidth of emotions every human being is entitled to.

Having a choice to operate from trust to control or empathy to authoritarianism, these were lovely options to have. In fact just thinking about it gave Richard a feeling of freedom as the band of emotions had widened. Sandy did explain that this would be a phenomenal result that many people in his circle of influence would notice and to be prepared for it.

What a change that would make? To be complimented rather than put down. He had a reputation for blowing his handle at small things at work and of course this spilled over in his relationship. A big plus of Rapid Success Coaching is that Richard was being guided to his intuition, something that many men were trained not to do. The training he received as an engineer was to ensure that things had to make sense. Decisions from the head were king.

​Sometimes though heart decisions while not linear were right. Attracting exponential results they were the best decisions. It was a matter of trusting self and learn how to do this artfully. A total departure from how he operated today. He felt elated. He had found Sandy who was process-driven. She understood context and stayed out of his content, the privacy of his life. Needless to say Richard transformed himself in a matter of five coaching sessions.

Having cleared his past he decided to sign up for an online Zoom course that focused on the future – Create Your Future Now. It was time to design a future that he loved and that included his spouse. His relationship was skidding down a slippery slope but he caught it in the nick of time and was now skiing to success. O what a feeling!

​The meaning of NLP is simple. It is an epistemology – a model of how we know what we know. How do you know that you
like something or dislike something? How do you know that something like a bill you have paid is in the past or an unpaid bill is something in the future? Neuro linguistic programming is a jigsaw puzzle of your mind. It teaches you where information is stored and how to retrieve it easily. It also contains the methodology of eradicating negativity fast and permanently…

In one of my earlier blogs “What is NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming)?” I defined NLP as an epistemology – a model of how we know what we know. Many people ask “is it beneficial to learn NLP?” As human beings we think and feel then apply language to our actions. These produce results in our lives whether in our career or family contexts. So just imagine if you knew how to change your thoughts and feelings? And if you had language models to influence others? Wouldn’t these produce amazing results in your life?

Well this is what NLP Training does. I teach you models that produce accelerated outcomes, ones that high performers use to achieve outstanding performance. And why wouldn’t it? After all NLP was created by two geniuses in the late 70’s. Co-founded by a Professor of Linguistics, Dr. John Grinder and a computer scientist, Richard Bandler, I had the pleasure of meeting them both on many occasions. I wanted to learn NLP from the masters themselves! So you may be wondering what NLP stands for?

Neuro
We process our experience through the five senses – what we see, hear, feel, taste and smell. Our filtering through values
and beliefs for instance differs from one person to another. We capture and store these experiences.

Linguistic​
We then assign our own meaning to the data we have received and apply verbal and non-verbal language to what we have
captured above in the five senses.

Programming
Our unconscious mind works in patterns which we call habits – good and bad. We are programmed emotionally from young.
We are able to change/break these patterns and install new ones that produce better results.

NLP consists of more than 100 processes, each one for a specific problem. It caters to every type of issue found in a person’s life. Whether it is resolving team conflict, deepening rapport with friends, managing a state of mind to achieve personal goals or understanding how values drive motivation, there is a process for it. The first level of an NLP course that is certified, is the NLP Practitioner program. It starts off by helping to shift mindsets and work with context rather than content.

This migration to resolve issues out of the content of an experience creates accelerated results. We do not need to ask WHY, WHO, WHAT, WHEN or WHERE an experience occurred. For example, if you know the language of influence and use its structure to negotiate a sale or engage your child in a conversation, just imagine the stress you could ooad at the workplace or home.

When an organisation views NLP training as an investment it is an awesome step in re-directing the mindset of employees towards the corporate mission. This leads to clearer and transparent communication which harnesses engagement and ultimately higher bottom line results. It is worth every dollar spent for everyone in the organisation tolearn NLP. Which corporate wouldn’t want such a return on investment? I have seen successful companies get their money’s worth signing up for an NLP course in the following ways:

They invest in upgrading employee skills during downtime, prepared to hit the ground running when good times come around again. It is highly recommended that the NLP program be rolled out over several months to allow employees time to assimilate knowledge learnt and integrate application in small chunks. They launch a corporate wide NLP course to create a common language that opens up communication and transparency.

Here are three major reasons why an NLP program is worth much more than the corporate’s initial investment:

1. Mindset shifts create a healthier culture of working with context and this leads to happier people who take charge. This reduces hours lost in sick leave, conflict resolution and demotivated staff who drag their feet getting things done. A case in point is the CEO who hired me to “make his people happy”. He felt that if his people were happy at work and at home, the rest would fall in place. It was a win-win situation all round. Within 6 months of conducting the NLP program, bottom line results started to spike and once the momentum began, there was no turning back.
   
2. The current workplace scenario not only requires producing exceptional performance but more importantly to behaviour and motivate your team to greater outcomes. An NLP course gives you the tools for effectiveness. NLP training would first teach you to identify the leverage points for making behaviour change. This sets the stage to solve problems and improve team effectiveness fast, working within the context of a person’s experience rather than getting into an endless “he said, she said” altercation.
3. Improving sales is at the heart of business generation and this is why many organisations who sign up for an NLP course always start with their sales force. When the sales force is put through the steps of learning how to build rapport, match language, negotiate effectively and motivate clients there’s no stopping the upward sales curve. Ideally, I would recommend that you learn NLP face-to-face but in the current Covid scenario I’ve changed my format to an NLP online course, blending components of pre-study in audio and book formats plus face-to- face, to pull it all together.
   

I find that this has its advantages too, allowing participants to learn through different styles by engaging in all their five senses. There are myriad reasons why an NLP training is well worth the time and money invested in it. With such a range of processes at your disposal there will always be a solution for any problem in your organisation. An organisation is only as good as its people. Take care of the people and the rest will fall in place.

​Knowing that NLP training is an effective way to empower people in your organisation to solve problems and perform at their optimum level, doesn’t it make sense to pave the way for them?

Spending time on an activity you enjoy has the potential to reduce anxiety and improve mental health overall. Research shows that people with hobbies are less likely to suffer from stress, low mood, and depression. Think about it. When you are having a good time, engaged in activities that you enjoy, you feel happier and more relaxed.

There is little or no need for stress management as endorphins are produced in your body which promote positive feelings. A hobby which is usually something you choose to do outside of your daily “have to” routine is a great way to spend your spare time. Finding a hobby could do any one of the following as it did in this sequence for me;

Find new friends in an environment outside your normal context In my mind it is highly recommended to engage in a hobby that helps me meet new people. When I migrated to Sydney I set out to create as many hobbies as possible. The idea was to meet people from different walks of life. Some were enjoyable and others weren’t but what it certainly did for me was help me meet people who lived in different parts of Sydney and who worked at many different jobs.

I learnt so much from these people and joined activities which made me refocus my mind out of the stress of having just moved countries, to enjoying my new life. This re-direction of focus is what helps your brain engage in enjoyment and reduce stress with hobbies. Unwind from a daily routine I was a banker when I migrated to Sydney. Days were stressful and intense. I had a new job in a new organisation in a new country. From learning how things were done to establishing new relationships. I found a new friend at the bank who was also single.

She lived in Manly which is a beach suburb. As in new friendships the excitement of spending time together was definitely an activity I looked forward to. A quick drive to her place, dinner and a three hour walk by the beach would change my state of mind, leaving me totally relaxed at the end of the night. From smelling the salty air to feeling the cold water at my feet. Learn a new skill As months went by and I delved in more hobbies, I gravitated more to things I had never done before. I especially felt a deep need to get out of my left brain (intellectual side) to my right brain (artistic side). As luck had it, one of my girlfriends was a good dancer.

I loved music and this got me interested in learning a new style of dancing called Ceroc. I found myself a dance partner. We went dancing every Tuesday and Thursday from 7pm for 3 hours. I still recall how stressed I used to feel when I first arrived at the dance hall and how relaxed I felt as I left at the end of the night. My ability to reduce anxiety was certainly fundamental to heighten productivity at work. Challenge you to deepen a current practice an interesting aspect of my life beyond banking was that I felt a calling to meditation.

This I found out unexpectedly as I one day stumbled across a sign that read “free meditation” This journey began with art meditation and opening channels of intuition. After many years of going deeper with a variety of different aspects of meditation, I ventured into the ten day silent retreat-style meditation. I met some of my best friends there and learnt how to bypass jet lag, reduce anxiety and improve mental health. A wonderful, very pronounced side effect that everyone at work noticed was that my performance at work improved.

While I did not target explicitly to reduce stress with hobbies, that was what exactly happened. Most organisations view stress management from a serious angle yet the opposite posture needs to be taken. Teams that are happy experience motivation to perform. Their focus is not on how to reduce anxiety or improve mental health, but more to enjoy what they are doing. In fact if you interview an entrepreneur or business owner, you will find that their heightened resilience and “never say die” attitude is cast in stone.

They are focused singly on winning not on failing. They also value a balance in life so having fun and playing are just as important as work. More than anything, entrepreneurs have made work out of their hobby. I often hear them say “I am being paid for my hobby” which is a cool concept as their level of enjoyment is immense and they definitely know how to reduce anxiety with hobbies. This is what employees need to understand if they would like to heighten productivity.

​Having a hobby eradicates the need for stress management and reduces anxiety, not the other way around.

I lived in the banking world for 13 years and loved every minute of it. When I foundmy self-growth at a plateau I knew it was a sign to leave the industry. Transitioning through headhunting and IT consulting recruitment I started my own business in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), focusing on corporate applications.

From leadership to coaching, communication to sales, I worked in different organisations in the Asia Pacific Region helping companies align their teams for high performance. With that great bandwidth of knowledge and experience 18 years later, I knew that selling in pandemic times, required me to change how I sell and communicate with my clients.

The VUCA world we live in today assumes volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in our environment. Hence the
first call was to operate with resilience, sell with flexibility and prepare for a challenge anytime. These are some thoughts I had about the mindset required to produce sales results with NLP today;

The adventurer salesman who creates an infrastructure for selling from home in person and online will be the winner. The technologically-savvy salesman who knows where to find leads online and how to access them. A salesperson who has invested in “selling online” courses so they know how to engage their audience and create a win-win. The psychologically-savvy salesman who knows working with the unconscious mind gives them the edge that high performers have.

​Having trained and consulted 100% face-to-face since starting my business, I was one of many who had to make a right turn, to still be in the game. To start selling online required a totally new approach. I used the Covid lockdown time as reprieve to create and develop, to get back in the game. Assessing my products and services I asked myself “How could I start selling from home and selling online?” I needed new products. So I set out to re-invent my face-to-face courses as well as create new courses into the online space.

To differentiate myself I showcased sales results with NLP that a client would derive. Selling in pandemic times required deep work through the unconscious mind to get rid of fears and anxiety the general population were feeling. Many salespeople carry the fear of speaking to senior people, cold calling, etc. It was about changing the way a sales person operates. I had to be cognizant of the fact that I would be working through a computer screen to achieve sales results with NLP processes.

I started with all the things that applied to both worlds of selling online and face-to-face; Rapport will always be fundamental to success. If you are a master of rapport you will sell regardless of business landscape. Eradicating negative emotions for example fear, are of utmost importance. Having a fearless attitude rather than one of fear will augur well when approaching a senior decision maker.

Learning structure to negotiate and close deals. These are important tools to have when the time comes to swoop the contract. Understanding the buying strategy of a potential client. This can be elicited on the phone or in person. Creating states of mind like resilience, flexibility and confidence to capture the entire sales life cycle effectively.

The points I raised above are but some models that create outstanding sales results with NLP. Simple to learn, fast and profound in impact. It is the difference that makes the difference! Moving on to selling from home I created a workspace where I would be relaxed and comfortable to be selling online.

​The next and biggest hurdle was to embrace the technology to conduct my courses. I started with small groups then progressed to larger sessions. Working through my business model I also realised that seeking approval for Skills Future Government funding would help citizens access my courses with the balance available to them.

A fundamental aspect of this entire process was about stepping into my clients’ shoes to understand what they would be seeking. This entire process that I went through in my business augured well for selling in pandemic times. It has only been a year plus since the pandemic struck yet my entire business has been turned on its head and I am operating with ease, in fact totally loving it. I asked myself “what did it take?”

A bit of resilience, flexibility and confidence to move forward into the unknown and make it happen!

Richard’s spousal relationship made a significant turnaround fast. He was shocked at the rapid changes both he and his wife experienced. Overnight they were both on a different level. It was a miracle!

But then again was it? In the back of his mind his NLP coach Sandy’s voice rang loud and clear. She had said that as he hit session 3 or so, he would begin to see phenomenal changes. His internal radar was re-orientating. He didn’t quite understand what that meant specifically as he had never experienced immediate change before.

As he learnt more about NLP he was beginning to gain some semblance of deeper understanding as to how the unconscious mind worked. NLP worked completely with the unconscious mind, by-passing conscious filters which is how change happened fast.

In layman’s terms when Richard cleared anger that he had harboured for years, he changed some pictures, sounds and feelings of the event that had caused him to be angry. He did not have to discuss why he felt that way or intervene with conscious thought. It was such an easy, meditative process called Timeline Intervention.

Contrary to what he had heard in the past this did not require a diagnosis or judgment of any sort. He merely knew he had anger – not why, how, when, where? Then cleared it through Sandy’s expertise in facilitating the NLP process. It made sense to do it this way. For years he had steered away from “therapy” never wanting to talk about his anger. If only he knew that NLP did not require him to do so. No wonder Sandy called it Rapid Success Coaching! It was starting to make so much sense now.

There were processes for every type of life situation – conflict resolution, rapport building and more. He thought this would prove beneficial to his team as well. His relationships there could improve significantly too. In fact he would bring Sandy in to do some ground work with the team while he did some of her online classes and upskilled himself.

She had designed these courses specifically for people to live from Purpose and taught these very processes that he experienced as a client. “Create Your Future Now” was about eradicating past negativity and designing a purposeful future. He knew that working with “context, process and structure” was an art, he wanted to learn. “Content” of life was slow and noisy. Stepping out of it with artful questioning and influential language was the way to go.

Plus if he could help his team change the 5 senses in experiences that were the blockage, their perspectives would improve for the better. It was like doing a software update for your computer. NLP was becoming more commonplace in corporates, where tools were applied to leadership, coaching and culture alignment. Leaders were more open to engaging coaches and trainers as a means to improve career growth and manage themselves efficiently.

It’s funny how this was more evident now than ever for Richard. He had taken the blinkers off and realised that many colleagues had hired coaches. Anything to make things happen and achieve the goals they set for themselves. There was one philosophy in particular overarching NLP technology that stuck in his mind. It read “if I can change my mind, I can change my performance. So when I change my performance, I change my results.” The tools to change his mind were in the NLP toolbox and if he had his way he would have liked to add the word “FAST”.

He had re-programmed his thought patterns, the habits he had formed from young. These emotional thought patterns had affected his mental health all through his adult life. Now that he was free he could imagine what his team and company would be like if everyone was on the same level playing field. Speaking the same language, they would be producing superior results without trying.

​NLP being an accelerated learning model fit perfectly into the mindset of a high performer or a progressive employee, anyone who wanted to spike their career path fast. It was like unknotting a rope within. Exactly what Richard had experienced once he unknotted himself. He saw different perspectives and felt totally refreshed! A new way of operating was available. He just had to choose it. Many described NLP as magic. He now knew why!