• To the optimist, the glass is half full.
• To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
• To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
• To the marketer, the glass is a handy new special beverage container solution to your drink related problems
• To the hypnotist, the glass is just a metaphor for how you store all your fluid knowledge deep inside now…that’s right
• The NLPer just asks which glass specifically and then models your answer
• And the Persuasion Artist would just drink and then talk you in to buying them another

Want to develop the attitude of a Persuasion Skills Artist?

If you want to learn how to install the attitude, develop the skills and stay motivated to achieve massive results for both yourself and others click through and find out more about the only NLP Practitioner Course I am running in the foreseeable future.

Influence

Ciadini’s book Influence is required reading for anyone in the persuasion field. And whether you have read the book (you really should) here is a video that very neatly summarises most of the key points brilliantly.

Using Cialdini’s Principles Linguistically

Having watched the video means you are committed to developing your persuasion skills. You will get a great result if you to explore some of these ideas through some examples and I can help with a few of those.

As a bestselling author on Persuasion Skills many people suggest that I am good at demonstrating persuasion concepts like Cialdini’s ideas. For example here is what Kevin has to say about my courses:

But the reality is I am only as good as the results you get from my teachings and in that we are similar. I want you get the best result possible for you. It has been shown that motivation drops off dramatically if you don’t put the principles in place as soon as you have the information. So do us both the favour of reading this little section again looking for how I have applied Cialdini’s Principles throughout.

 Teaching Through Principles and Demonstration

If you like the idea of learning persuasion principles on multiple levels in the way this article demonstrates then you may want to find out more about the Persuasion Skills on Steroids Deconstructed Course. Click through and find out more here.

Applying NLP Techniques from a Practitioner Course

Because of the amount of content on a practitioner course and the range of applications it can be difficult to define what sort of benefit you can actually get from a NLP Practitioner course.

I have been talked into delivering a Practitioner Course, my first for over three years. I have lots of great new material to jam in but the spine of it is still the old course that I used to run.

I have been talking to some of my graduates and thought I would focus on one as a vehicle to explain just what is possible from a NLP practitioner course.

Joseph Benn – Business Start Up Consultant, Author, Brilliant Business Ideas

When I first met Joe about ten years ago he was working as a buyer for a large international company in the Glasgow shipyards. He was feeling desperately unchallenged and unfulfilled by his work and never seemed to have enough money.

Nine years later he is employed by a prestigious British university to develop the entrepreneurial skills of lecturers and students alike. His first book has recently been published and he has supported countless numbers of people start up their own business. He is leading a richer and more rewarding life. Here is what he has to say about his practitioner course.

 A Reality Check

Some people seem to think that their NLP course will solve all their problems and their life will be perfect from there on out. I prefer to think of an NLP Practitioner course as an opportunity to make bigger more serious mistakes.

Success inevitably requires risk. As you become more successful the risks for the next stage tend to become larger. Many self-made millionaires go bankrupt, often several times before making their millions. And sometimes they even win and lose a fortune several times over before they learn how to keep hold and expand what they generate.

Joe’s life over the last nine years has not been perfect, he still has stuff to work on and if he is like me, the more he progresses the more stuff he finds to work on. And I would guarantee that the stakes will get higher as he goes.

But the reality is that playing a higher stakes game is an inevitability of growing and developing your skills. This video will show you more about how this works and why it is important.  

Now imagine a course where you learn:

• Mind management tools that allow you to master your emotions, switch on your motivation when you need it, feel the fear of the risks and then do what you need to anyway.
• Modelling and Accelerated Learning Skills to suck up knowledge like a Dyson and then apply it to your life and develop your skills faster than you thought possible.
• Hypnotic Persuasion Skills that draw people to your cause to the point where they are desperate to actively help you.

Can you imagine just how many more risks you would be comfortable in taking when you have these skills?

But remember you are not the same as Joe and this is not a course for just authors. We have not talked about Dennis who straight after his practitioner course secured the largest consultancy project he had ever dealt with or Tracy who found the confidence to become self-employed and is now a director in a very successful talent management company.

In all of these cases these students have taken the skills from their practitioner course practised and used them to take risks and develop their careers. If you want to find a way of taking bigger risks and reaping bigger rewards have a look at this NLP Practitioner Course.

NLP Techniques vs. Modelling

Richard Bandler, the co-founder of NLP defined it as an attitude and a methodology leading to a trail of techniques. Paraphrasing his explanation, the attitude was about curiosity, the methodology was about modelling and the results would be a trail of techniques. All the best people in NLP go way beyond the basics of NLP Techniques. Here are a couple of guys that I think have done a great job of where they have taken their experience and knowledge of NLP.

An NLP Model for Writing Books

In 2009 I accidently wrote the Persuasion Skills Black Book. It has gone on to be translated into several languages, had critical acclaim both within and outside the NLP community and has been an international best seller.

In the best traditions of NLP I have modelled the process of writing and marketing a bestselling book and have recently been coaching, mentoring and supporting people with writing their own books.

Below are a couple of authors that are students and friends of mine that have written fabulous books that I am honoured to have supported a little along the way. Both are indirectly connected to NLP in that the authors have modelled processes that are solutions to specific problems and both have gone some distance in terms of practical NLP.

Sales Presentations using NLP

Marcus Corah has written a book on applying NLP, Hypnosis and Emotional Persuasion Techniques to pitch presentations. This is something Marcus has a lot of skills and expertise in, having trained people to present their pitches in some very dramatic and high powered environments.

Marcus has also cleverly filled a hole in the market. There are a few books about using NLP in presentations. There are books about NLP and sales. But I suspect there are very few books that deal with using NLP to win business through sales presentations. Marcus has taken ideas and applied them directly to this niche making them easy to understand and therefore use.

What I like even more about this book is that Marcus has applied the trainer skills he would use with you in a normal face to face environment. For example at the end of each chapter he is summarising via bullet points and asking you to reflect and rate your improvement based on the new information. This is a classic NLP Trainer’s approach to embedding knowledge.

Find out more about Marcus Corah here.

Putting the Box Back into Creative Thinking

A few years ago I was coaching the CEO of a large national organisation and he came out with a distinct phrase that summarised a big problem that faces a lot of organisations. He said to me something like, “I like the idea of creativity but I just wish my people would just sometimes think in the box.”

He was highly frustrated with huge amounts of ideas that were just getting in the way of doing the core business. He just wanted to get people facing the same way and pulling in the same direction and they were all of chasing creative ideas.

Joseph Benn’s book is about profitable creativity in business. He deconstructs the process of creativity and applies it directly to business. I’ve read lots of material on creativity but I have not found many that actually explain the process of being creative let alone how to harness the idea for a specific application.

For many years Joe has worked with young entrepreneurs, getting them to hone their ideas, making them profitable and successful. This is a distillation of his years of experience, training and knowledge. The thing I like best about this book is that Joe backs up his idea and exercises with case studies and examples that make them easy to understand and apply.

Find out more about Joseph Benn’s approach to Creativity in Business here.

 Big Books of NLP Techniques

There are lots of dull, badly written books packed full of NLP techniques written by NLP therapists with poor writing skills and a spectacular lack of vision, creativity or understanding of NLP. Luckily there are some books that take the spirit and approach of NLP and use them for specific applications that don’t have to be about therapy.

You may not have the need for these two specific niches but both these books are worth looking at just for the way the authors take some core NLP ideas and run with them in new ways. If you are thinking of writing a book a good place for resources is my publisher’s website which has lots of ideas for every stage of the writing, publishing and marketing a book. Click through and find out more here.

The True Meaning of Personal Development

I’ve met many personal development course junkies that keep going on courses like it is some kind of holiday but their lives never seem to change. Take this the right way I love going on courses, but I also expect to take the skills and information and apply them to something.

The following is an email I received the other day from “John”. I’ve obscured some of the details so his company, past and present can’t find out who he is. I love what John has done here because he has, in the face of adversity, taken some really simple ideas and run with them. As a result he has dramatically changed his life. Have a look at what John says and see how you feel about his change.

Dear Rintu,

My name is John and I thought I would let you know about my persuasion experiences since I joined your (advanced persuasion patterns) course in December.

But first let me paint you a picture of how I ended up doing your course and the benefits I have already experienced since joining.

I work in research carrying out experiments in relation to (deleted for anonymity) for a well-known university and in October my life was turned upside down by the announcement that due to government funding being withdrawn I would be losing my job after a 3 month notice period. I think you will agree that any news relating to job cuts is never a good thing to hear, especially as my redundancy would happen during the Christmas period.

So I decided to update my CV and  I thought it wasn’t the best since I have no idea of how to ‘bum’ myself up (so to speak), and this is when I discovered about NLP which is how I discovered your book Job Persuasion skills. So I thought, well, NLP can do no harm as I have had not the best ‘luck’ with my CV in the past and so I bought the Job Persuasion skills book and duly digested and  followed the exercises and information provided within the book.

I followed the CV writing section to the letter, but to be honest, in my haste to remedy my impending bad situation, I only read to the CV section and sent my CV away to two companies with the hope that I might (and that is a pretty big might) hear back from one of the companies saying thanks but no thanks, let me say that this has been a pretty regular occurrence with my CV applications. You know, spending all that time and effort, building yourself up to applying and spending vast amounts of time trying to make the CV look and sound like you are the candidate to employ, ending with no response, which leaves you feeling rejected and a total failure for being so stupid to think that you might be worth at least a chat on the telephone.

Well enough of the self-pity, two weeks passed and I received nothing and by this time I had worked my way through the book, then something really amazing happened which I was totally unprepared for and something that I have never ever experienced in my working life….EVER, I not only got a reply from both the companies I wrote to, I secured not one but two interviews and have at the time of writing a third interview and three job offers to choose from, two offers of which are considerably better than that of my current salary, with better longer term prospects.

However this is not the end of the story, I also joined the advanced persuasion patterns course and I applied three techniques taught on the course and used them on the HR department (the three techniques I used were the building rapport, the redefine and agreement pattern). I only practised the three patterns for 1 week prior to having a meeting with the HR department and instead of losing my job, I have gained an extra six months employment from my current employers which has given me “breathing space” from an almost certain dole queue.

Rintu, what can I say, I am so astounded by the results of applying the techniques from your book and course, the information I have used has not only given me real options but has also saved me from certain financial hardship.

I look forward to applying yet more techniques and continue practicing the ones I have discovered, I can’t thank you enough for producing such a fantastic course, the materials should be made illegal, just because they work so well so fast.

Very best regards,

Persuasion Newbie,

(John)

Personal Development for Real

When you find yourself doing great things you start to recognise more of what you are capable of and expect more from yourself. But this really only happens when you are prepared to stop navel gazing and start doing.

I think the biggest thing John has got is nothing to do with what he has achieved and everything to do with a shift in his perception as a result of what he has achieved. As a result I would say he has completely changed his world and that is what I would call real personal development.

If you would like to quickly, easily and dramatically change your world here is a link to the same course as John is studying. And please note you are responsible for your results, so take your learning out into the real world and do something with it.