pegasus nlp blog
practical nlp applications & ideas
How we behave when under stress
How do you behave when ‘under stress’ i.e. when the pressure is on, when things are going wrong, or when you’re not getting your own way?
Most of us move onto automatic pilot when under stress and behave in much the same way that we have been doing all our lives! We slip into one of the Modes identified by Virginia Satir
- We blame others
- We placate and try to please everyone
- We distract attention from emotional issues or
- We become cold and super-rational Continue reading
Self esteem is not a thing – it’s simply a way of thinking
This week’s Pegasus NLP Newsletter is about self esteem. And how, whether it be high or low, self esteem is simply a habit – a habitual way of thinking about ourselves. As American psychologist and philosopher William James observed about 100 years ago ‘All our life … is but a mass of habits’.
Many experts refer to people as having ‘low self esteem’ – as if this were a thing which exists somewhere inside us and which, therefore, needs expert professional treatment.
Yet, as we recognise in NLP, this is missing the point by miles! Because there is no such ‘thing’ as self esteem – whether it be high or low. Self esteem is not something we have - it is something we do through how we think. Continue reading
I discovered darts
When I first came to England I discovered the game darts. It was a great way of spending an evening while enjoying a relaxed couple of pints with friends. Yes, they did have darts in some Irish pubs but not nearly to the same extent as here in the UK where, at the time, virtually every pub had a dartboard.
Despite having no experience in the game I discovered I had a ‘natural talent’ for playing darts. I was pretty successful – for the first few weeks.
And then things went awry. I gradually became quite hopeless at the game – almost to the point where hitting the dart board at all, let alone hitting the spot I wanted to hit, was considered successful. Continue reading
You’re already a life coach
Tip 1. ‘Pegasus NLP Tip: You’re a coach whenever you help a person with a difficulty: teacher, manager, parent, friend, professional coach’.
The term life coach describes a person whose profession involves helping others overcome their difficulties and achieve their goals. But we all act as amateur life coaches at times.
You are life coaching whenever a friend or colleague or member of your family asks for your help in dealing with a problem. If you are a team leader or manager you do it as part of your role – especially in appraisals. Many parents aim to offer coaching to their children as an alternative to telling them what to do or think.
Last week’s NLP Twitter Tips on @pegasusnlp offered 5 suggestions for doing a better job of ‘amateur life coaching’. The week’s tips are developed in this article. Continue reading
In NLP we act as if we have six main ways of thinking, or ‘representing’ or processing information i.e. our 5 senses plus our ability to think through self talk and analysis. We call these representational systems, or rep systems. Of the six the most commonly used are seeing, hearing, feeling and self talk – since few people use the smell and taste senses as a means of thinking.
(NLP and representational systems was the topic for our Monday to Friday NLP Twitter Tips on @pegasusnlp for the week ending 24 February so the 5 Tips are expanded here.) Continue reading
The Minister speaks
I was looking forward to seeing how the professional speaker would address the audience. He was a UK Government Minister and the keynote speaker at the conference. I was in the audience for the opening session because I would later be presenting a workshop.
My heart sank when he stood up holding his sheaf of notes. Over 45 long and exceedingly boring minutes later he stopped. I had long since given up attempting to follow what, if anything, he was saying. Instead I was studying the various strategies that members of audience were using to stay awake. Fortunately I was over to one side of the room so I had a good view to do this. Unfortunately I was at the opposite side of the room to the doors so couldn’t quietly escape as I noticed a number of people had done. Continue reading
Rapport – feeling at ease with someone
Rapport is what we experience when we feel at ease with and trust one another. It is the result of our attitudes towards one another.
In NLP we consider rapport to be an essential foundation for good communication because without rapport there may be a lot of talk but there is little genuine exchange of views.
It can be useful to have a variety of ways of facilitating and enhancing this rapport and NLP provides us with lots of these, some of which are manipulative, some are clumsy, and some are elegant and respectful. (By the way, in NLP the word “elegant” is used to describe the most simple and effective way of doing something.)
Last week’s @pegasusnlp Twitter Tips began a new series of tips on Rapport so let’s look at the featured Tips (these are in italics below): Continue reading
Motivating people their way
Here at Pegasus NLP we have developed an approach to motivating people called Consultative Motivating. It uses a number of elements of which two are fundamental:
- Motivate people their way: use their motivational style rather than yours – and discover this by chatting with them
- Motivate through consulting rather than lecturing. Remember old sales maxim ‘when you’re telling you’re not selling’.
The rest of this article includes last week’s series of 5 Twitter Tips on motivating people. These are in italics. (The Twitter Tips series is published on @pegasusnlp daily. Each week has a theme and this is followed by a blog article during the following week which develops that theme.) Continue reading
Customer service in a day-care centre
In response to the previous article on the Pegasus NLP Blog about good customer service paying dividends Karen from Demark asked if the same idea of excellent customer service applies with, in her case, people attending a public day-care institution.
Who pays for it?
I believe that whatever we do for a living, or as a vocation, we have customers – i.e. people who come to us for service or for products. To me, it’s irrelevant whether we are providing a tangible product or an intangible service such as care or information.
And it’s irrelevant whether they are paying us directly or whether we are getting paid by somebody else to provide them with the service. Continue reading
Can I have a replacement part, please
Just over a month ago I contacted the manufacturers of my cycle roof rack to say that a part had broken when I was putting the roof rack on a different vehicle. “That’s fine – could you let me have your address?” I did and was then told that a new part would be with me in the morning. And it was.
I fitted the part to my Mont Blanc cycle roof rack carrier and it worked fine once again. They are great cycle carriers and have the added advantage that, because of their nice deep slot for the front wheel, they hold the bike upright while you are attaching the supports as you put it on the roof. This makes the job very much easier.
I already knew this before I contact them. And would happily have paid for the damaged part. The fact that they didn’t ask for money, that they had a “no problem” approach to my call, and that the part was dispatched immediately merely confirmed my belief that I had bought a great product from Mont Blanc. Continue reading
Twitter Tips: Dealing with difficult people
The new series of Twitter Tips began last week. The total tips for the last series, which began in February 2011, was 100 and this year we’re aiming for about twice that. The tips are posted on @pegasusnlp Monday to Friday. And each week’s 5 is followed by a blog article expanding on them which will be posted early in the following week.
Last week’s theme was “Dealing with Difficult People” so let’s look at the 5 Tips.
Labelling people
(1) Difficult People. ‘Difficult People’ categorises them & blinds us to their individuality and their complexity. Use Person with a Difficulty instead.
The labels we attach to people, in this case as “difficult”, determine our attitude towards them. So if I label somebody as difficult or awkward or unfriendly I will approach them expecting this behaviour – whether or not I receive it. And my approaching them in this way will, in turn, actually evoke the response in them that I had prepared for.
The label determines of their very personality is “difficult”. Changing the label to “person with a difficulty” change the focus from their personality to the difficulty they are having and, therefore, towards looking for solutions. Continue reading
Taps, floods, and anger
One of the analogies that I invented years ago and use extensively to explain unwelcome or ‘negative’ emotions is The Bathroom Tap.
Let’s say that you share your house with a friend, friends, or family. After your day’s work you arrive home, open the front door and discover water running down the stairs and into the hallway. The hallway is already flooded with a few inches/centimetres of water.
What do you do?
Do you rush into the kitchen, find a bucket and a mop and start furiously mopping up the hallway? That’s pretty unlikely. Because the water is still running down the stairs – because somebody has left a bathroom tap running upstairs! Continue reading
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