Recently, on social media, an NLP Practitioner asked a question about a client who reported having a phobia, and with whom he used the NLP Fast Phobia Cure, which may have partly worked, but it came back a few days later?
It's Pure FUN to Learn & Use NLP
I've been reviewing my website, and my newsletters, over a period of time... and it's become laughably obvious that I sound way too serious online sometimes.
Oh, I do take the quality of my work and my business presence seriously, but I don't take life too seriously, and I don't take myself too seriously either. Life's too short for that, and by contrast to how it might seem, I tend to bring more than a few rays of sunshine and laughter and fun to just about any and every pursuit or situation. NLP is fun!
So the reason for this NLP article is to share another, playful side of me. Because I don't know if it comes across through my website or my newsletters how much fun I think it is both to learn NLP, and to LIVE it. Fun for me -- fun for my kids -- immense fun for Everyone!
Changing Perceptions is an Enormous amount of fun! It turns the world into your personal sandbox or playground!
Story #1: Fabulous Practical Jokes
So, let me take you back to one of my visits to Melbourne Australia. I've gone out to lunch on Lygon Street during one of my courses, with a large contingent of my student group, accompanied also by my good friend NLP Trainer James Tsakalos. James seems to feel it's an essential Melbourne experience to try this restaurant's "Special Hot Chocolate". I find out later on, that he actually feels it's an essential experience to be the butt of a practical joke!
So, the waiter takes a typical white cylindrical ceramic mug, places it upside down on a saucer plate, puts a teaspoon of hot chocolate on the bottom surface of the mug which is pointing upwards, then paints the top with whipped cream. Sure enough, when I lift it to my mouth, I get a moustache of whipped cream, and no more than a teaspoon of hot chocolate before I realize the mug is mostly empty. What a beautiful illusion! (And a cheap practical joke!).
It seems my life is increasingly filled with such fun moments! Yours could be too! (Just remember, the word "Gullible" is actually NOT listed in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary! Amazing!)
Story #2: How to take 30+ really annoyed people and entertain them with an NLP mirroring process!
This is a fun rant. So I hope you enjoy this Crackberry story just for giggles. For anyone who gets annoyed when strangers talk on their cellphones in front of you in public -- on speakerphone!!
One night about a month ago, I headed out to a favorite spot to grab some Dinner. I sat at the bar and ordered an appetizer. Normally -- a great place to go.
That night, however, the last 5 minutes of my fun was polluted by some guy who apparently wasn't aware of the degree to which he was offending everyone (30+ people) at the bar.
He strolls in with a large cellphone (like a Crackberry; errr, Blackberry, but everyone's so addicted to them I call them Crackberries), and it's on Speakerphone. It's clearly too much work to hold it to his ear, so he holds it to his mouth. And he's speaking LOUDLY. It's an inch from his mouth, the speaker sound is turned way up, and he's speaking loudly. Which is to say, ALL of us can hear his conversation. Not just me -- 2 seats down from him, but I'm watching EVERYONE around a rather large rectangular bar watching him. Listening to him talk to what appears to be a business partner about moving money around from here to there.
After several minutes of utter fascination with his willingness to share this ongoing conversation of his with all of us, I finally decide it's time to do something about it. So I start scanning a range of options, looking at the situation from multiple perceptual positions.
- Do I ask him politely to turn it down? Common sense would indicate that anyone with half a brain would clearly know he was disturbing ALL of us. So I chose not to ask politely.
- Do I get angry and yell at him? Common sense would indicate he's waiting for anyone, ANYONE, to do just that. So I chose not to get angry at him.
Instead, I figure, "when in Rome...." and I decide to explore what mirroring his behavior will do for the entire context. So I take out my cellphone, and I start alternating between pressing two buttons, that cause my phone to beep, incredibly loudly. Too loudly, it seems, for him to stay properly focused on his conversation. LOL. I can hear he & his co-hort beginning to have difficulty communicating.
After about 30 seconds of this, I look over at him, pretending to be dumbfounded, WHILE I continue pressing the buttons, and say, LOUDLY, "OH.... I'M SORRY... IS THIS DISTURBING YOUR CALL? I APOLOGIZE, I GUESS I FAILED TO ASK EVERYONE AT THE BAR IF THESE LOUD BEEPS WOULD OFFEND ANY OF YOU." And then I looked across the bar at several other groups who were already laughing at my antics, and I asked "IS MY PHONE PISSING YOU OFF??? GEE I'M SORRY... I CAN'T HELP IT.. MY FINGERS DON'T WANT TO STOP!!! CAN YOU PUT UP WITH IT FOR ANOTHER HOUR OR SO? PLEASE?"
Meanwhile the guy with the Crackberry looks over at me while his buddy's saying (on speaker) "what's going on?" And he looks at his Crackberry, pauses for a while, and ultimately says "Let me call you later."
He ends the call, and a massive round of applause erupts -- followed by not less than 3 people offering to buy me a beer loudly enough for Crackberry-guy to hear it. Meanwhile the bartenders are all "high-fiving" me.
He then chooses to save face by apologizing, and while nobody wants to hear it, I immediately ease up on my nonverbal communication and accept his apology with grace. Unfortunately none of the others at the bar really wanted to converse with him, which was their own choice to make. Finally Crackberry-guy got up and left.
I'm not quite sure how I lucked into this, but I managed to avoid an argument, prevent 30 people from lynching a guy, stop someone from disturbing me and others, get a standing ovation, get 3 free beers (turned 2 of them down!) and 4 high-fives, get him to decide to leave without further aggression.
Not a bad night, come to think about it. LOL! I see this as just an example of being able to assess a situation, consider the dynamics of the situation from multiple perspectives, and creatively find an ideal way of engaging with the scene in an optimal way, for optimal outcomes. NLP gives us so much in the way of a fabulous (and often fun) tool belt for these purposes!
Living the Life... and the NLP Attitude!
Making every situation a ripe opportunity to live life with a sense of light-heartedness and best intentions for the most possible number of people... is an immensely fun way of life. I believe that every workshop & training opportunity NEEDS to be equally fun and enjoyable. I do believe in rigorous efforts, but I believe in wrapping them with fabulous experiences whenever possible!
If you think about it... (and I know you will!)... don't you agree with me? What a great way to move through the world!
I'm often asked how I seemingly effortlessly come up with such creative angles to handling or resolving unique problem situations. I think the way in which I approach running courses encourages this sense of play and exploration, not only in terms of book knowledge but in terms of real-world behavioral situations. In other words, I think I make that sense of fun with NLP... not only contagious and adventurous, but also still as high a quality training experience as you can get anywhere!
Might you want more of a sense of adventurous fun in your own life -- while also learning how to help yourself & others to a richer, more rewarding life experience? I don't know too many people who wouldn't benefit from more of this!
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Inbox Insights
- Knowledge Engineering (& Belief Craft) have evolved, into GeniusMapping™
- As of September 2020, we're in the process of moving from Tampa, Florida, to the Youngstown Ohio area. Currently, during the Coronavirus era, we're mostly focusing on Zoom-based Coaching, and aligning resources to run online courses.
- How "Civil Engineering" totally reframes the word "Stress," redefines the phrase "Stress Management," and leads us to embrace Stress!
- Many NLP Practitioners are more sloppy with their thinking patterns, than they'd like to admit, or... would even notice.
- Watch NLP Co-Founder Richard Bandler use NLP to eliminate Michael Strahan's phobic response to snakes -- in minutes (with Kelly Ripa bringing over a BIG snake at the end to test Michael's response). Spoiler alert: It worked ridiculously well.
- No matter what skill you want to learn, no matter what fears or concerns or hesitation you may have, there are and will always be a wide range of approaches, to learning that skill. It's important to keep that in mind when making learning choices.
- Many more famous people have been trained in Ericksonian (indirect) Hypnosis and NLP than you might guess. There are certainly far more who have strong interests here than have publically admitted so.
- On January 1, 2015, Jonathan Altfeld and 20 other co-authors released a digital book entitled "Creating Business Growth."
- What are the Four Stages of Learning?
- Eric JohnsonMortgage Broker and Financial Coach, Bradenton, FLBought Audio : Metaphor Machine CDs
I've always known, as most all of you here have, that the most influential and powerful communicators relay messages on deep levels and that the power of metaphor is of paramount importance. Jonathan's treatment of the subject on the Metaphor Machine CD-set is really quite impressive. The distinctions he makes between 'isomorphic' and 'homomorphic' metaphors is really critical to development of skills in this area. Of course the 'homomorphic' metaphor structure is the one for the serious student, and Jonathan does a tremendous job of 'unpacking,' as he likes to say, the structure of an effective metaphor and laying out the formula for easy re-creation. In sum, this set is one that provides extreme traction and momentum in developing this critical skill set.
2008 - Steven KenyonTrainer, Network Consultant, Manteca, CABought Audio : Finding Your Irresistible Voice
I'm a technical trainer who frequently teaches MCSE bootcamps. What that means is I take a group of 10 to 20 people and cram 6 months of learning into 1 or 2 weeks. This is an exercise for me as an instructor since it is 12 hour days, but with only 14 days to pass 7 tests, it's grueling for my students. Before I listened to your CD's, there were times when it seemed like no matter how much the students wanted to learn, they could only absorb so much in a day. About 8 hours into the second day most of my students would start to gaze over completely and frequent breaks were needed. Too frequent in my opinion (sometimes it's hard to get them to come back in and get going). With the proper use of your Dual Tone Voice & Modulation techniques, I found that my students could be completely captivated, even late into the last day! This program should be mandatory listening for teachers and trainers in any industry. Thank you for such an awesome program!
2003 - Joseph KaoLondon, UKAttended Course : Knowledge Engineering
Everything I’ve bought from Jonathan invites you to stretch yourself, or as Jonathan puts it, to be aggressive with your learning. And when you do the exercises and actively engage with the material, you’ll find there are few products on the market that produce as great an impact in your skill development as Jonathan’s do. Jonathan and Doug’s new Belief Craft MP3s are a thorough grounding in two skill-sets: Knowledge Engineering (how to track beliefs conversationally), and Sleight of mouth (how to reframe a person’s belief in at least 16 different ways). Once you actually do the exercises – I found that you immediately start to hear far more belief structures in people’s everyday language. My thinking has become more flexible, and I can more fluidly create fresh perspectives for my clients and friends in everyday conversation.
2009 - Nick KempLeeds UKBought Video : “Building Hypnotic Rapport”
A great introduction to the many facets of building rapport. Jonathan is extremely fluid in his presentation of this subject perfectly pacing the assembled delegates with his relaxed and fun approach to the material. His explanations of rhythm, mismatching, non verbal communication and frames of learning are excellent and its clear from watching that Jonathan has genuine enthusiasm in presenting seminars and is fully aware of how each of the delegates is responding both consciously and unconsciously as well as the dynamics of the group as a whole. As someone who avidly collects all kinds of NLP and hypnosis materials, (in CD, video and DVD formats), what I really liked about this DVD set is that Jonathan breaks the subject down into logical sections, which makes it extremely engaging and memorable for the viewer. His use of metaphors demonstrates someone who is in my opinion a natural presenter and I consider this DVD set invaluable and great value for money for anyone training in NLP, hypnosis or simply interested in improving their communication skills! In fact, I am sufficiently impressed by the quality of this set that I am going to seek out the other DVDs in Jonathan's "Skill-Builders Series".
2005 - Howard WolfMiami, FLAttended Course : Persuasion Summit
PTPS was absolutely the best training in persuasion I've ever experienced. Chris' skills in NLP and persuasion are a compilation of the best of Richard Bandler, Kenrick Cleveland, & Michael Hall, all combined. Chris has evolved these techniques, enhanced them, and repackaged persuasion for the new millenium. Chris has tested his techniques thousands of times through the thousands of telemarketers he's managed over the years. This seminar will go down in the annuls of NLP history.
2001 - G.A.Sydney, AustraliaBought Audio : Finding Your Irresistible Voice
After reviewing your CDs I started realising how applicable it was in creating a new improved voice range. I realised that with very little effort people were listening attentively to me, even in crowded places and in places where machinery is constantly running. My workmates noticed it too, dropping comments as to how 'agreeable' it was to listen to my opinions, and how much more rapport was noticeable! My new girlfriend also refers to my voice as to one of my good qualities, which -- in combination with my other NLP techniques -- makes for my voice a seductive weapon of choice. I am recommending it to my friends. Thanks!
2004 - Jason KnierumEntrepreneur, Sydney, AustraliaAttended Course : Speaking Ingeniously
"I very much enjoyed your seminar. Having more comfort when I talk with people makes the rapport deeper. Even though my demo is only 90 seconds, I hold longer eye contact with more potential customers, building a sense of connection. Result? Sales of my juicer product increased 30%." -
- Crystal SpringNLP Practitioner & Reiki Master,Attended Course : NLP Practitioner Training
Once again Jonathan has completed a training and brought us all to a beautiful crescendo, ascension of skills, clarity, and directed us in reframing the hovering hesitant past to a powerful present which is future-paced and has maximal integration. Thank you Jonathan.
1998 - Michael DeBuskNLP Master Practitioner, MarylandAttended Course : NLP Skills-Builders (course)
Jonathan, I absolutely loved spending the weekend training with you in DC. As a Licensed Master Practitioner, I was delighted to find myself learning new ways to further refine my skills and discovering new parts of my brain. That fingertip exercise you demonstrated--the one that increases interhemispherical communication in the brain--I use it daily and am impressed with the results. And I'm noticing that I have an even greater ability with language patterns. My favorite part of the weekend, though, was watching the personal transformations made by other members of the class, specifically the skeptics. These folks went from "show me" to "show me more!" in an incredibly short period of time. You've helped them begin the process of dramatically improving their lives, and it was an honor to observe and take part in it. Thanks, too, for spending extra time with the class... running longer than scheduled so you could share "just one more cool thing" with us, even having meals with us "out in the real world." We all got much more than we paid for. I'm very glad I trained with you and Mastery InSight, and I'll very likely do so again in the future. Thanks again.
http://nlphilia.net/1998 - Alex AkselrodBought Audio : Finding Your Irresistible Voice
As a certified hypnotherapist, I can tell you that I will use these techniques in all of my future hypnosis work, both with clients & on tape, as well as any inductions I record for free distribution. Jonathan demonstrated these techniques as he taught them, & each time, I had a high level of response to them. He is a very dynamic speaker, & forced me to really pay attention & understand the communication at all levels.
2001