I am often asked about recommendations for books. And the truth is I will eventually put up a page on the website  and the hundreds of books that I think are worth reading subdivided into categories. But in this article I want to just focus on two rather special and unique books that I think you should have a look at and what makes them special.

These two books were written by graduates from my NLP Practitioner Course, in fact they were on the same course.

A Brief NLP Interlude

I should make people aware that my NLP Practitioner Course is not about creating authors. The course is about learning the tools and methodology of modelling. Both John and Joe have taken this idea and applied it twofold. Firstly they have modelled the process of writing a book and applied that to themselves. And you will see when I start talking about their books they have also modelled a whole bunch of processes within their chosen subjects.

I am only running one NLP Practitioner course this year. And I can’t promise that you will become an author as a result of it. What I can promise is that you will learn to model and apply learning processes. And you will test your ability by doubling your reading speed, learning to juggle and use hypnotic language patterns.

You will learn a whole load of tools and techniques but the whole point is you will learn the core fundamentals that will allow you to create, improvise and synthesise new tools and techniques when you want them.

Find out more, including what recent graduates are saying when you click through the image below:

Meanwhile Back at the Point

John McKinstry – War Stories, A parable about anger in the office

There are lots of books and material around anger management. John has done a great job at taking the subject of workplace anger and treating it with a fresh new approach. He skilfully describes a range of ideas and tools that have proven value.

But the important thing is not just the content but the way that John skilfully demonstrates and teaches you the skills by using the story of guy having trouble both in and out of work.

Obviously if you have had challenges with misplaced anger at work then this book would be ideal but there are so many other reasons for looking at this book.

If you are interested in NLP then this book is packed full of the stuff on at least three different levels. There is the first level of just tools, techniques and content that John is teaching the reader. That on its own is valuable. But then there how John skilfully uses metaphor. This you need to look at from two different levels. Firstly he is demonstrating the tools and techniques he wants the reader to learn. And he also uses the story to motivate the reader to engage the reader and draw them in. You can get the book on Amazon:

Joseph Benn – Brilliant Business Ideas – The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Profitable Creativity

Joe’s book appears more straight forward. Joe has a lot of experience with business start-ups. His source of frustration would come from people coming in wanting to start a business but with no idea what in all the way through to people with really strange ideas but so invested in them that they were not prepared to listen to any advice no matter where it came from. I remember having discussions with him about the fact that there are hundreds of books on creativity but most don’t have a process for doing it and rarely to they talk about being creative within parameters.

Joe has been spending time developing a set of techniques designed to get people very creative but within a business context. So this book is about having ideas, being creative and problem solving but from inside the box. Again the book is quite superb but the issue isn’t just about the content. Joe is another one who has taken key NLP material and used it to create a great result for himself and his readers. You can get the book on Amazon

A Big Book of NLPness

Don’t be fooled by the guys that want to sell you some rot about a book of NLP techniques or a course of the same nature. NLP is an unregulated industry with and no standard definitions. So they can do whatever they like and call it NLP and they are most welcome to do that.

For me there are two reasons why I take the approach I take. Richard Bandler, the co-founder of NLP defined this body of knowledge as; an attitude (of wanton curiosity) and a methodology (of modelling) leaving behind a trail of techniques. This spoke volumes for me when I first heard it. If we take on the attitude and learn the methodology we can create our own techniques.

Both these great books come from practitioners from my NLP course that espouses this approach. In both books you will find tools and techniques that almost but not quite look like standard NLP techniques. They have either been altered or created from the ground up by the authors to create the specific results they were looking for.

But beyond this they also figured out, modelled if you like, the process of writing a book. Just as a little thought experiment have a scan around the internet and find a few NLP Techniques, if you don’t already know some. Ask yourself the question, would knowing a bunch of these techniques allow you to write a book. Or would you prefer to develop and attitude and learn a methodology? Find out more about the one NLP Practitioner Course that I am running this year when you click through here:

Reshaping Reality Using Hypnotic Language

One of the great things about language is that we can use it to frame our reality. Imagine how great a persuasion tool you have if just by the very words that you use you reshape reality around you. I suspect some readers won’t believe that it makes sense, it is possible or that it is easy to do. In this video you will see me doing it as part of teaching a bunch of student how to do it.

This video is almost an hour and half long and this is just the start of the material we discuss. You can imagine just how powerful the rest of it is. If you want an opportunity to see the rest of the video keep an eye on this article page or sign up to my list. I will be releasing details on how you can get a copy in the next few days.

Persuasion Skills on Steroids Deconstructed

Alternatively if you want to start studying how you can apply these concepts to everyday persuasion situations then click through and find out more here.

NLP Techniques for the Impatient

I have been studying Hypnosis, Accelerated Learning and related topics including NLP since I was fifteen years old. I was a really impatient teenager and wanted to learn everything fast, in double quick time. I have not got any less patience as I have got older. When I started getting into the whole coaching malarkey I wanted a system where I could assist a client to make dramatic changes instantly. The vision I had in my head was a client would come in with a presenting problem and leave after a short session having made dramatic changes. NLP is great for this sort of thing. And having that sort of mindset I spent a lot of time developing techniques to really create fast changes with clients. But as my experience grew I discovered that a lot of deep changes can be made with people easily if they didn’t know it was happening.

People are Invested in their Problems

Reading that headline and thinking about the statement will be enough for you to recognise how true this is. Because people can never truly see anything except through their own eyes it makes them feel like their problems are bigger, better and more deep seated than anyone else’s. This is the root of all the “man flu” issues. We also know that the reality is a little different and having a different view on the problem is what keeps it in perspective. Using this idea I developed a whole slew of techniques where I would covertly blow out the problem conversationally.

Destroying My Coaching Business

Prospects would phone be and I would start with something like this; “Before we agree to work together I would like to ask you some questions to find out if you and your problem are a suitable for my approach.” I would then under the guise of assessing their suitability start working on the problem. Most of the time it would take me a few minutes of chatting and asking questions to take the problem away from them. I would then find out that they didn’t feel the need to book my coaching services. At one point I got so desperate that I would still blow people’s problems out (I just couldn’t help myself) but then I would try to put just a little bit of it back so they would book a coaching session with me. But as I got better and I developed more techniques I found I got more dramatic results in shorter time. And I enjoy watching people with deep seated problems that they have had for a long time notice that the problem has suddenly vanished. And I love developing these processes. The truth is it doesn’t always work and some stuff need / takes time to work on. But those were never the clients I wanted except when I was working on another way of accelerating the process. Eventually I got to the point where I am today where I take on just a few coaching clients for the practice and joy of working with them or if they have interesting problems. But most of the time I am busy with other things.

And then the Phone Rang

Every now and again I would answer the phone to someone that wants some help and I would forget that I don’t really do this stuff anymore and I would get really curious about their problem to the point where they will just blow it out completely. This happened to me last month and I asked Jane (name changed for anonymity) to briefly write up the experience from her perspective:

How do I spend my time now?

So having developed tools and techniques that covertly blow out people’s problems…can you imagine the joy I have when I get the opportunity to do some of this stuff with a random stranger in a pub?.. I teach people how to do this sort of thing. Here are some of the ways some of my students are using the tools and techniques I have developed:

• Teachers and trainers are blowing out the fear of failure in groups of students
• Coaches, therapists and change workers taking out the presenting problems before they “start” their session
• Job Seekers reframe the holes in their qualifications and experience as key strengths
• Sales professionals undercutting objections and creating better buying opportunities
• Parents developing self-esteem and confidence in their children just by asking how their day went

Right here is a short interview from Carol Seaborne about how she is using these tools and techniques in her practice, her business and her life. Just click through the link in the picture to find out what impact learning these skills has had.     If you want to learn how to develop these skills for yourself then click through and read about the NLP course right here.

The Power of Shifting Tenses

What Shaz has done is used the past to pace the reader. He is building a connection between what he wants you to do to things that you have done in the past. That is a fairly common way of pacing people and I am sure you will recognise using this approach yourself. For example it often happens naturally when meeting new people. A common tactic is to look for commonality like commons places you have lived, worked or holidayed in.

In this particular case Shaz is making a direct link, learning one thing is like learning another thing and look at the incredible benefits you got from learning to XYZ.

Shaz then goes into the present connecting the new things he wants you to learn and then out to the future to build motivation. This is all great stuff and I would do it slightly differently.

Outcomes are Key with NLP Techniques

Shaz has made a great attempt at putting together a whole slew of patterns and he should be proud of this. The best part of this is once you start seeing the underlying patterns you will naturally start creating sequences like this naturally and in the moment. I suspect this is where Shaz’s pattern came from and that is impressive work. Now that we have this here is how I would start refining it.

I am going to assume that the intention is to motivate the recipient to learn some powerful hypnotic language. In which case I might still start with a metaphor from the past and then go out to benefits from the future to apply to the current situation. An example of that might be:

That is just me taking some of the ideas Shaz started with and just playing around with them. I don’t think I would use this in written form and is seems a little clunky. But to open a course on hypnotic language, it needs a little work but the core of the idea I think is pretty solid.

More than Switching Tenses

Have a couple of scans through the paragraph again. You will find a whole lot more in there from embedded commands through sequences of internal representations and how I use referential indexes. See what you spot and feel free to leave a comment or two below or on the facebook page about what you found.

One of the key ways of learning things is through a process of modelling. This is how you learn to walk and talk and do hundreds of other skills that you are extremely proficient at. Many people, Shaz included are dramatically improving their persuasion skills by paying close attention to the hypnotic language patterns they are finding in my material and then practising with it.

My most powerful course to date is the Persuasion Skills on Steroids Deconstructed because it takes you through the modelling process and you get to see hypnotic language patterns several times over from multiple different perspectives. This means you learn as a student, as an observer and through looking at the situation through my eyes as well as applying the skills to your own life. You can find out more about the programme here.

Questions are the answers

Have you noticed that when things go wrong once people have stopped swearing at each other and themselves they tend to ask why questions:

Why does this happen to me?

Why can’t I get it right?

These types of questions tend towards victim mentality, blame and recriminations. The key to good questions in this context are all about reframing the problem into something else…usually a learning event. Here are a couple of examples:

What can I learn from this to get a better result next time?

How can I change this problem to my advantage?

Did you notice how these questions differ in feel and flavour from the first two? These two questions are more about taking responsibility and therefore you have more control over what happens next.

Incidentally we are looking at these questions just as a personal thing but everything here applies just as well when talking with other people as well.

Inductive and Deductive Thinking

Just for the sake of an example let’s just say you have learnt a new skill. Have a look at these two questions and notice the two different directions they send you in:

Now that I can do this what else can I learn to do?

Now that I can do this how else can I apply it?

One question expands your thinking into learning more new skills; the other takes you to doing more things with the skill that you have learnt. So here is a more specific example just to ram the point home a little more:

Now that you understand a little more about how questions work what other linguistic skills can you learn just as easily?

Now that you understand a little more about how questions work where are you going to apply the skill?

Presuppositional Questioning Explained

Okay, I confess, this was just a sneaky way of demonstrating the power and use of presuppositional questioning. And I set you up for it a few days ago. Remember this article here:

So, here are a few more details on presuppositional questioning. The shortest question that I can think of is “Why?” and saying just that word as a question implies a cause and an effect. So even the smallest, simplest questions presuppose things. If you know that then why not use the idea to direct questions towards the most useful answers?

Scan this article again a couple of times and look at the video to notice how Ali uses her questions to control the direction of the conversation. Now that you know more about the purpose of the article notice the questions and what they do to the direction of your thoughts. Then have a look through again with a question in your head. In fact here are two questions try them both and notice how even these two similar questions create different results:

How can I use this information?

What will I do with this information?

 Persuasion Skills on Steroids Deconstructed

If you enjoy multilevel learning in this way have a look at my most powerful course Persuasion Skills on Steroids Deconstructed. Click through and find out more here.