Pegasus NLP Blog
NLP for people who like to think for themselves!
The great offers that are snatched back
We come across the tricks every day – special offers that aren’t very special and massive discounts that turn out to only apply to a few items.
These tricks or scams seem to be dreamed up by sales and marketing staff who have real disdain for their would-be customers, including a belief that these customers don’t really have that many active brain cells…
It’s a shortsighted approach that ultimately (and often quite quickly) damages the brand.
This is the theme of the latest Pegasus NLP Newsletter.
Yesterday’s announcement that the News of the World was to close down got me thinking of branding – and how easily a brand can become damaged.
Branding – just what is it?
What actually is a ‘brand’? Well, there’s the literal and comprehensive version and the down-to-earth NLP version.
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as the name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. Interesting, but I’m not sure many people outside of the marketing industry would be any wiser for reading that.
As usual NLP enables us to describe it in a more down-to-earth way because we look at what’s actually going on behind the term/word. So from an NLP standpoint we could say that a brand consists of the feelings people get when they think about a product or service. Continue reading
Open Loops
Like many of the things he said back in the 80’s, Richard Bandler’s observation that people often use ‘just’ as a way of being unjust initially puzzled me. And, of course and as intended, it opened up a loop which my brain continued to puzzle at until I got my answer – weeks, or was it months, later.
(How do I know it was intended? Because the Open Loops process is a standard NLP process for eliciting a deeper level of learning. And we use the process in our own Pegasus NLP training programmes. The Open Loops process is very interesting and was wonderfully highlighted by Bluma Zeigarnik back in the 1920s. But that’s another story… and it’s also an Open Loop…) Continue reading
NLP is great, wonderful, amazing etc etc
It goes like this; you’ve been interested in NLP for a while and have found that it has made a difference in your life. You’ve used it to solve some problems and make a few valuable breakthroughs in how you think, feel and communicate. And you want to let other people know about it.
So you begin enthusiastically telling them about this wonderfully effective and powerful body of knowledge and how easily you can use to change your lie and so on and on and on!
Already you’re getting sceptical looks; you’re beginning to sound like a born-again convert to some cult or religion. Continue reading
NLP and the T.A.T.E Model
The T.A.T.E. Model is great for identifying what accounts for success or failure in how we do things. We use it in our NLP Practitioner courses and it’s simply an adaptation of the famous T.O.T.E. model which was published over fifty years ago by Miller, Gallanter and Pribram.
Simply put, the TATE enables you to identify 4 elements in how someone does something i.e. in their strategy or programme for doing something.
- Trigger: How to you know when to begin doing something – and what is your goal or objective?
- Action: Once you’ve begun what exactly do you do – and how do you assess your progress towards your objective?
- Target: How clearly have you defined this objective – so that you’ll know when you’ve reached it?
- Exit: What do you do when you’re finished? Continue reading
I was asked for advice on what to do about anger – so I explained as simply as possible how we do the Anger Habit:
- People who get angry (let’s just say it’s ‘us’) do so because we have a strong sense of justice and fairness…
- We believe/decide that something is not fair or is unjust – or we believe that Other People should do things our way i.e. obey our ‘rules’
- In other words we want to be able to control the behaviour of Other People
- But, of course, Other People don’t want to be controlled by us – so they refuse to obey our rules
- So we get angry – sometimes even violent – in the hope that this will intimidate the Other People, and that they will give in and behave themselves according to our rules.
- But until we give up this need to control Other People – and accept that they won’t obey us – we’ll continue to get angry and continue to have pretty unsatisfactory relationships.
- However some people with the ‘anger habit’ find it very difficult to give up this need to control Other People
- Because they don’t like the thought of others ‘getting away with it’
- So they carry on getting angry. Getting frustrated. Losing friends. And even losing their liberty, if things get out of hand.
- Until eventually (hopefully) they realise that they cannot control everyone else in the world and that sometimes people will get away with it. That’s how it is
And there’s a lot more information here: http://www.pe2000.com/anger.htm
Living vicariously – or living
This month’s Pegasus NLP Newsletter is about the difference between living a fulfilling life and living your life second hand – i.e. living or living vicariously.
Many of us don’t live fulfilling lives i.e. we get by from day to day in comfort but without a real sense of fulfilment i.e. the fulfilment that comes from fulfilling our personal values. We’re filling in time rather than living.
To avoid having to face this reality or the mundanity of a life that is not purposeful and fulfilling we have come up with ‘things to look forward to’ such as favourite TV programmes, computer games, and holidays. As a result much of the year can be taken up with looking forward to the holiday or looking back on one. Or in living our lives through other people as in gossip magazines, TV reality programmes, or TV knockout talent series.
(I know of people who will spend 2-4 hours nightly watching such programmes – they spend around 25% of their waking lives in front of the TV).
The danger with this is that, because everyone else appears to be doing it, it seems like a normal way to live one’s life.
Yet if you live your life according to your personal values you can have an on-going sense of fulfilment, involvement and purpose. The TV or the holiday becomes the icing on the cake rather than the cake itself!
The newsletter is posted here: http://www.nlp-now.co.uk/nlp_newsletter_current.htm
NLP Hype
The five of us were sitting in the sunshine outside a café in the lovely little Victorian town of Swanage this morning – Julie, Peter, their two boys, and myself. And despite our best intentions the conversation drifted back to NLP – a few times.
We got to remarking on the NLP Hype that so many people still subscribe to through exhortations and exclamations along the lines
- Unleash your potential
- Have compelling goals
- Be the best you can be
- Awaken the giant within
- Live your life with passion
- You have a right to be the best there
- Aim for unlimited power in your life
And so on, ad nauseum… Continue reading
We’re in the business of…???
The car ahead of me was advertising their products. I could tell that much because of the big lettering on the car boot (i.e. trunk in the US). They also had their mobile telephone number in big bright letters across the width of the boot, too, so would-be customers could phone them.
So I could see what they sold and how to telephone them (if, that is, I could memorise an 11-digit number while safely driving).
And that was as much as I could glean. Continue reading
It’s not ‘NLP’
Here at Pegasus NLP we use a number of ‘non-NLP’ concepts in our courses. And we then use NLP to unpack and examine these because
- They are valuable life tools
- Using NLP to figure out how they work demonstrates that there’s a lot more to NLP than a few techniques.
10% New
Take for instance one of our favourite ‘quick insights’ – the 10% New model. There is not really a lot to this little model and we initially cover the topic in about 10 minutes yet it can be life changing…
The idea is that you avoid getting into a rut with your life or your work by introducing frequent small changes e.g. 10% new. Continue reading
The Reviewing Model
The Reviewing Model is a pragmatic adaptation of the Experiential Learning Cycle. It is one of those deceptively simple yet powerful methods for learning through doing and reviewing – which is the style of learning we use in our Pegasus NLP courses.
What is it?
The model provides a quick-and-easy three-step structure for learning and benefiting from your experience – any experience:
Step 1. What? What did I experience? What did we do? What happened first, next, etc? What was it like? What did I learn? How did I think and feel during the experience?
Step 2. So What? What can I do with what I experienced? What are the lessons and applications? Where can these be used in my everyday life?
Step 3 Now What? Okay, what am I actually going to do in the coming days and weeks? (This is where we commit ourselves to putting the learning points into practise. )
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