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.
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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.
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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!


Sylvia Fernandes is the Founder & CEO of VIA Frontiers. She is a Master Trainer of NLP who is specialised in corporate applications.
She started her business in Sydney in 2002 and has been operating in the Asia Pacific Region ever since. She is currently based in Singapore.
She is also the author of Bye Bye Black Cat -- Turn Your Luck Around and Realise Opportunities. Visit VIA Frontiers for more information.

As interviews with key decision makers ensued, Sylvia and Bala were sharpening their view of strategy they needed to employ. Gathering the team over a drink they liked to keep things informal. Hunkering down with flip charts and I-pads to discuss findings from their numerous interviews, this would pave the way for the entire Culture Alignment program. ​
Overall their job was to help employees understand their operating system;

• What made them tick? 
• Were there emotional programs they wanted to abolish?
• Could they replace negative behaviours with positive ones?

All food for thought that would leave them reflective for some part and raring to go at other times. Real life stories of success stories would be the centre of discussion. 

Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, the man who defied all odds and shattered his physical limitations, sentenced to five years imprisonment for culpable homicide.  Tried for the murder of his girlfriend, South African model Reeva Steenkemp this was a widely publicised case.

As the case went on and his life was laid bare, a striking paradox surfaced from this man’s public persona.  It appeared that for all his superhuman feats, he was also a very vulnerable and insecure man.    

The sad thing was that many people commented on his ‘aggressive and reckless behaviour’, unfortunately after the fact.  They also made observations of his pattern of ‘possessiveness and control’ over Reeva and previous girlfriends.  It was obvious that unconscious patterns of behavior were driving him. The worst part? He didn’t know what they were.  

Suffice to say that metaphors like this would be enough to open the door of employees to the workings of the unconscious mind. Many human tragedies stem from this type of emotional programming. This was just one which happened to get huge coverage in the media.  From a more human, practical and day-to-day perspective, we as a society could avert such negative endings by getting to know ourselves better and healing from these occurrences.  

This of course seen by corporate people is a result at the extreme end of the scale.  Consequences produced by corporate people probably rest at a more moderate level. But then again we never know. Cases of ultra horrible bosses who abuse their people emotionally over years which may not sound as bad but have a hugely negative impact on employees.      

This is where Sylvia and her team were going to make a massive difference. All trained in Neuro Linguistic Programming, a model effective for interrupting emotional programs, they were set to make a difference. 

With many years of corporate coaching experience they could easily spot patterns and mental programming in people.  A truly valuable resource to have, inherent also in leaders and parents, this ability to recognize patterns of at the workplace was fundamental. 

Change tools would then eliminate these patterns swiftly and replace them with new, more empowering ones. Most people did not realise their operating system, let alone examine if it was helping or hindering them.  

A boss dictator, a timid colleague who can’t say “No”, a friend who never offers to pay the bill or a parent who claims to know everything.  They all had one thing in common.  They were driven to behave in a certain way by some belief, idea or value which most likely was installed at a very young age at school or in the family. 

The dictator boss could have internalised a belief that if he / she was not strict, people would take advantage of him.  The timid co-worker could have learnt to say “Yes” to requests because his Mum did that.  The friend who never offered to pay a bill could have come from a family tight with money.  It was no surprise that they were subjected to parents’ conditioning!    

There was no escape! From birth, everyone was bombarded with well-meaning albeit erroneous conditioning from parents, teachers, society, religion, culture.  It was time to be accountable and face up to these patterns. The faster the better for then the future was ahead and the sky was the limit.   

The power lay in being aware of these patterns. It was easier than most people thought. Sylvia and team got such a buzz when they saw people turn around results right in front of them. They had been down this path. Today they were fueled by fulfilment, satisfaction and contributing to others. 

The question for each employee was this. Do you live in a set routine where your programmes control you or are you aware that the choice is yours to make good decisions and live the life you want?  

Sylvia Fernandes is the Founder & CEO of VIA Frontiers established in Sydney in 2002. She is a corporate NLP trainer and consults in creating effective people in the Asia Pacific Region.

She is also the author of Bye Bye Black Cat – Turn Your Luck Around to Realise Opportunities – launched in major bookstores in Singapore on the 23rd October 2014. Go to www.viafrontiers.com or email [email protected] for more information. ​