Last year I visited a friend who is a Society of NLP licensed trainer. As she took me round her training room, I sensed the vibrations of energy mixed with excitement, peace and fun. She pointed to the picture of Richard Bandler in the corner of the room. 'I know Richard is here with me when I train -he is my inspiration' she said. Pretty corny huh? That was my initial thought, but this lady is no groupie and I have a lot of respect for her integrity and spirituality so I popped the thought and the words that prompted it into my mental filing cabinet, marking it 'for further attention'.
Six months later, I have my own picture of myself with Richard and when I look at it I fully understand what my friend meant. In one week my approach to training has been blown wide apart, expanded, rebuilt and reinstalled with incredible results. I have been utterly entranced by 3 magicians - Richard Bandler, Michael Breen and Paul McKenna. I went in with an open mind, a sense of excited anticipation and a thirst for new knowledge. I emerged a sorcerer's apprentice ready to take on the world!
The promotional literature warned us not to come if we believed that flip charts and chalk and talk were the best approach to training. It promised we would have a wild time and learn to do things other trainers only dreamed of doing. Whatever it was, I wanted it so badly I took my credit card and my ass to Bandlerland without another thought. It was worth every last penny!
On the final day of the Practitioner course I heard Richard Bandler say 'Ah next week - its the Trainers course. I love that course...that's when we take the stutterers and stammerers ......Boy was he right. I saw people change from quivering jellies to sparkling public speakers in just 7 days. The course participants were a melting pot of new and experienced NLPers who wanted to improve their NLP skills or to become NLP trainers. Some people wanted to master public speaking, others to learn new training technology and one guy I spoke to said he booked it because he 'just wanted more Bandler!'. I sense that everyone got just what they needed and some of us didn't know what we needed until we realised just how much we had gained!
The underlying force behind all Bandler McKenna Breen training is 'installation'. They believe in installing information indirectly into the unconscious. This method enables so much more to be absorbed than the normal 2 to 7 chunks of data our conscious mind is cabable of grasping.
On the first day, Richard fixed his spellbinding stare on my mindmapped notes, then on me and said, as he pointed his finger purposefully 'It might be RASH to take notes even if you are ITCHING to do so....". Funny? Confusing? Clever? Yes. But he was making a very important point. The moment I put down the notes and gave myself fully to the trance, I began to be able to do the exercises that followed without thinking. When others asked me 'What are we supposed to do?' I found myself saying 'We just do it......!' A great lesson.
In fact the trainers indirectly and directly give us the instructions for each exercise 3 times. If we trust our unconscious, we will find the information we need when we need it. It also enables me to be creative with techniques by adding in bits from previously learned stuff. I also escape the need to regimentally do the 'swish' or the 'reframe' and end up just doing whatever seems appropriate at the time.
Richard weaves a magic web of nested loops,deep meaning and unconscious learnings through his entrancing tales. Sometimes it seemed as if he was just storytelling - jumping from one thing to another without direction. Wrong! He knew exactly what he was saying, and where it was going. He opened loops within loops and sometimes waited days to finish them off. Throughout the process he uses profanity, sex and whatever it took to amuse, fascinate, shock us and generally hold our interest. On a conscious level I heard great stories whilst, enormous amounts of information are filtering secretly into your unconscious. I found myself waking in the morning with a strong sense of 'knowing' I was amazed at just how much I had learnt while I slept and dreamed.
Richard, Michael and Paul each have their own style of magic and they emphasised to the 80 or so of us on the Trainers Training that whilst we would learn some pretty amazing skills we should also remember at all times that the aim was to do more of what we do well even better. The mesage was - be more yourself by learning to access more of your own elegance, technology, power and humour!
PaulMcKenna and Michael Breen brought to the training their many years of priceless experience in hypnosis, broadcasting and acting. They shared this with us in an elegant, powerful and humourously entertaining manner. From Michael, we learned to root ourselves to the ground and suck up the energy from the earth and the sky whilst keeping our centre, balancing bamboo poles on our head and confounding and fascinating our audience with multi-layered language patterns. He drilled us over and over in voice technology ...'That's right! Michael is a big guy and his matching energy, power and humour positively radiate to all in his presence. Paul, of course, is a master of hypnosis and I am proud to say I have been delightfully entranced and trained by him. I appreciated his sharing his secrets of stage hypnosis and public speaking tips. He gives great trance and he does it all with a real impish sense of humour.
Throughout the training we utilised our hypnosis skills to elicit greatstates in each other. I learned that it is impossible to train other people and expect them to be eager, curious learners with a wanton desire for knowledge unless you can elicit those states in yourself.
On day 2 we split into practice groups Everyone gave at least one and sometimes two presentations a day. At the end of the training we were given a video record of our progress and we were reminded to compare ourselves only to ourselves. This was a powerful learning for me as I overcame the tendancy to compare myself with others and began to notice just how well I was doing in relation to the day before and the day before that!
With each new presentation we had to build in extra skills whilst incorporating those learnt in the previous days. Sometimes it seemed impossible...it never was - It was exhausting, exhilirating, instructional and nearly always great fun.
I learned to dance wantonly with the audience, entrancing them into ideal learning states, drawing them in and giving them the gifts that they desired. The more you can do this, the greater rapport you will build with the audience as you remain constantly aware of their shifts in attention and state. This allows me to 'flow as I go' and is key to great training.
Halfway through the course we were all presented with an envelope containing some business cards. One designated us as Popes...after all we are all worthy of high esteem, the other designated us as Co-Founders of NLP. Richard said 'If all those other fuckers are claiming they co-developed NLP with me and I haven't even heard of some of them...you all might as well be co-developers too!' Wicked...but hey, that's what I expected and wanted from someone like Richard!
The Licensing structure offers those participants that wish to become NLP trainers the opportunity to prove their ability to do so by videoing their training and sending it to the Society of NLP for evaluation. Sounds fair to me. The Licence runs for 2 years. After this time, licencees are expected to attend further trainings to update their skills and learn new technologies. This is how it should be. How many teachers or managers do you know who have been doing their job the way they learnt to do it donkeys years ago? We are all equipped for lifetime learning and those of us who ignore that fact do so at your peril. We can all benefit from keeping abreast of new developments and I for one welcome the opportunity to spend more time learning from the true Master of this amazing technology. As Richard said 'I often disagree with myself...its called CHANGE!
I witnessed many miracles that week and I experienced feelings of great joy, excitement, desire, laughter and most of all a sense of leaping wantonly towards a brilliant new future. Reach for the stars...they are in all of us.
Oh and here's something to think about...I asked Richard how old he was and he said '47 I was born in 50'. I didn't have the benefit of knowing it was something to think about which is why it wasn't until the next morning that I woke up and fully appreciated his mastery of language patterns!!
I have only briefly touched on the myriad of skills that these guys install. If you want to be at the cutting edge of NLP training and learn to become a spinner of magic spells by taking what you already know how to do well to the next level, ....make sure you get your ass to a Bandler, McKenna, Breen NLP Trainers Training! NOW!
Peta Heskell
Learn-IT
PureEnergyTakingAction
peta_heskell@compuserve.com
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