When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the Mayonnaise Jar and the 2 Beers.

This is a story about a professor who stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.  When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full…. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar.  He shook the jar lightly.  The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.  He then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.  Of course, the sand filled up everything else.  He asked once more if the jar was full. Read more…

              NLP Training Guest Blog – By Lesley McDonald

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. Groucho Marx

Joining the Dots

As a kid I enjoyed join-the-dot puzzles. I can remember the feel of the pen (or maybe it was a crayon!) in my hand. Grasped tightly, if a little unsteadily, as I connected the numbered dots with lines, drawn carefully from one dot to the next.

My lines might have been a little wobbly but nonetheless at some point a recognisable picture would emerge and along with it a simple sense of achievement and pleasure.

 In time I was able to cast my eyes over the dots and ‘see’ the picture without actually joining them – I found the more dots there were, the more easily I could do this.

More than Meets the Eye

Yet I would often find that when I took the time to complete the picture anyway, there were details I didn’t see by simply sweeping my eyes over it. Also pictures with few, or even missing, dots would reduce my ability to ‘see’ the picture accurately. Read more…

A while back I signed up for a business coaching and mentoring programme.

Success without fulfilment is failure!

I’m a massive fan of coaching and mentoring as they show shortcuts to success… normally!

And I was very excited, having already achieved a certain level of success in my life and business to be taking things to the next level.

On the face of it (the marketing of it) the course I was on ticked ALL the boxes. As they normally do. I’ve signed up to various other courses in the past such as stock market investing, options courses, millionaire mind events, property investment courses, Internet Marketing programs, NLP – you name it…. and have had the same experience as most people. A sales pitch into higher and higher programmes which make the people who run them rich but do very little to REALLY help me get to where I want let alone rich. Luckily there are some exceptions.  There is also an important ambiguity which I will explore another time… what does being ‘rich’ actually mean?

Anyway, when I signed up to this business and coaching mentoring programme I was truly excited. The marketing message was perfect for me… they understood the challenges I was having, they had the right solution, I even had a couple of consultations before joining and the person really listened, cared and understood where I was coming from.  But… Read more…

Accelerated NLP Training – what is the barrier to you creating something amazing in your life – right now?

Business Class!

I’m sat here in Business Class…not because I paid for it but because I was upgraded for free.

I travelled Business Class with Virgin a year ago and was stunned by the previously unimaginable quality and superior experience.  Never before had I enjoyed 5 automatic machine-massages before the flight in one of the opulent lounges while subsequently gorging myself on free champagne and exquisitely presented food.  Never before had I slept in a comfortable machine-massage bed for much of a flight, let alone had such impeccable service on a flight, and always with a smile.  More champagne Sir?

Oh go on then!  Like the flight I currently find myself on, I didn’t have to pay for it.  In fact a very good friend of mine paid for it.  Yes I know!  What is striking however is the difference between the Business Class experience I am having now with Saudi Airlines (I thought they were rich!) and Virgin (who I know are rich!).

Business 'Class'?

I’m still waiting for my glass of champagne and we’re nearly at 33,000 feet!  I mean, whatever next.  I wonder in fact, if it will ever come.  The plane looked bland from the outside; old, weathered and boring. The only good thing about it was a delightful sign saying “God Bless You”.  And I guess he did.  I was upgraded for no apparent reason other than being white with a pleasant smile and a cheeky question – “is there any chance of being upgraded?”

When I think about real success in business today, in an age when we have never had so many opportunities to create emotional, mental, financial and even spiritual wealth I think this experience says it all.

Virgin are always innovating, always on the edge, ready to take a risk and obviously very happy to take the Read more…

“Be The Change You Want To See In The World” Mahatma Gandhi (A quick journey in NLP Modelling)

I don’t know a single person in the world with whom these words have not rung true.

I believe that the theme, the essence of these words – Be The Change – are more important and relevant right now than ever before.  In these times of incredible change in technology and human consciousness; in the way we do business; in the way we are called to show up in the World, we all have the capacity to be the change we want to see in this amazing World.

Its been some time since I’ve communicated with many of you, and there is good reason.  I personally have been through massive change in the last 6 months, having come back from a long hot winter in India.

Locals kids hitching a ride in Kerala

As most of you know I’ve taken the last couple of years off travelling, living in Ibiza and India, running workshops and developing my new venture – giving people the skills, experiences and models to literally Be, Do & Have Anything.

Really, the outcome of my ‘work’ is in marrying two apparently disparate concepts – Financial and Emotional Freedom. Success and Fulfillment.  Money and Happiness.

They seem to be very illusive for many people.  Often people make good money, but are not really happy.  And often they are happy and fulfilled, but do not have material wealth.

The question I have been asking for the last decade is, how can we have both?  How can we marry financial freedom – the ability to do what we want, where we want, when we want – WHILE also being truly and sustainably happy? Read more…

Business NLP 101

We no longer live in the Information Age.  We live in the Age of Information Overwhelm.

We live in the Recommendation Age.

I recently started collecting video testimonials from clients who have discovered a new system for focussing faster and more effectively.

We love social proof.  If you run a business, where is your social proof?  How do you transfer emotion to your ideal clients?

People want have an experience – to see, hear and feel how you can help them.  They want to know, like and trust you.

One of the fastest ways of doing that is through focussing attention on videos, testimonials which transfer the genuine emotion of your clients.

I am privileged to have worked with some truly amazing people and businesses.  Thank you for helping me, help you, help others. Read more…

What an incredibly unique and beautiful way to start the day. It’s shortly before 5am, pitch black and I am sitting cross legged overlooking the invisibly black sea below doing yoga, pranayama and meditating.  I don’t think I have ever started a day in such a uniquely relaxing, beautiful and connecting way.  And this is only on day 1 of being in the Ashram.

Already I am looking forwards to starting my day like this tomorrow.  We wake up at 4:30 and by 5am we’re doing yoga and drifting in and out of consciousness as we relax while meditating.  Then a cup of chai around 8:30am, and as I start to connect with the ‘reality’ of the day I begin thinking – most people are getting into work  – and here we are beginning our day in a state of meditation and connection.  And that reminds me of what Rata Krishnan said today, ‘work is like a healthy meditation’… how different that perception of work is here from the UK… they love what they do here!

Watching the sun rise slowly far in the distance, hanging over the backwaters and coconut palms, with the sea crashing against the deserted sandy beach I realise that it’s not just the yoga that induces relaxation and joy, it’s also this most beautiful and rich environment conducive to connecting with nature and all that is around.

View of the Arabian Sea from the Ashram

I’ve been doing yoga on the beach for the last few weeks.  I am amazed at the flexibility I have developed in that short period of time.  I can easily touch my toes and in fact hold my feet while stretching my hamstrings.  It’s wonderful to be in the Ashram.  Some of you may be conjuring up images of a beautiful and spiritual home lined with plants and tranquil water features… but the Ashram does not portray that kind of beauty.

It is one of the most basic and indeed cluttered environments I have lived in… everything is put to use here or stored haphazardly here and there, waiting for another day.  My mattress is just thick enough to allow for sleep and there is no sink, just an open shower and toilette.   It’s dirty.  But it’s home and it holds no secrets.  It’s open, honest and real.  Perhaps that’s all we want to be.  Swamiji is a great believer on cleaning the inside rather than the outside.  Hence yoga, meditation and proper food are good for cleaning the spirit and soul. Read more…

Why would anyone want to learn NLP?

I’ve just ambled lazily back across the pristine white sand of a deserted beach in Cherai having been swimming alone in the Arabian sea – a beautiful luke warm bath with surfable waves apparently induced by the solar eclipse.  Being back in India is like coming home!

The Kerala Backwaters... kissing the Arabian Sea

Having grown up until the age of 7 with with my parents who were hippies, and having lived in more houses that I have lived years its pretty much indisputable that I’m a born nomad.  And I normally feel very much at home wherever I am.  I have been living in Ibiza since last summer which I consider to be my spiritual home, despite the reputation it has among many in Britain!  But India feels as much a home if not more than anywhere else, and coming back here this year for a couple of months reminds me of how utterly special and unique this country is and how I want to keep coming back here each year – to this most rich, vibrant, beautifully alive and special place.

Today, the day of the solar eclipse, is a special day.  Not just because of the eclipse but because I have committed to recognising and changing a pattern of mine which I know will have a profound impact on my life, and perhaps more importantly the lives of others around me.

As you learn NLP you’ll discover what’s known as meta-programmes, or filters.  These are how we filter information coming through our senses and make sense of the world.  Well, today I have added a new one today, an important distinction for me, and that is the notion of ‘input’ versus ‘output’.  I love learning, in fact I am addicted to learning.  A much better addiction than some things, but nonetheless an addiction.  I love input, I love learning, I love to learn NLP; I love finding out what others do, say and think and modelling their success.  But today I believe its time that I reverse this pattern and now ‘output’ more than I ‘input’.

So my new blog and websites are being built and I am in the process of designing products and workshops to give others this rich, peripatetic, vibrant and fun life that I am so privileged to have, or whatever it is that they truly want!

Riding along the dusty roads today on my Enflield Bullet, the thud thud thud of the 350cc single cylinder engine attracting attention as if it were a pink tractor I realised just how lucky I am to have designed my life this way and I know have the desire to give others the gifts and leanings I have had along my journey.

One of many rides I gave to locals kids on my Enfleld Bullet

Its paradoxical in some respects that I am entirely responsible for creating my life in this way and yet at the same time there are unseen forces in the Universe that have helped conspire towards me following this path, to open up to and awaken to all the magical coincidences and synchronicities around me…. around us all!

And so riding along on my Enflied thinking about all this today, I became very grateful and excited. I also became aware of how I can tend to overcomplicated life.  Life can be very simple.  I know that from watching how simply people live out here.

The other day I asked Sajeen, an amazing and young yoga teacher in Cherai, “is life good”? to which he smiled and replied “of course” as if it could not be any other way and my question was absurd.  Now, that is simplicity, finding love and joy in everything because you choose to!

It’s funny that somehow in the so-called civilised West many of us have come to believe, or been conditioned through advertising and cultural norms – that if I get x I will feel y.  Whereas in fact we can feel any way we want whenever we want.  And then enjoy the journey as well as the destination!  Perhaps that is the secret, but of course knowing something and doing it are two very different things.

I heard Gary Vaynerchuck say earlier today “love what you do and if you don’t then STOP.  There is absolutely no need to be not enjoying yourself in this day and age.”

And I concur.  There is more technology, money, opportunity, information and wealth than at any other time in the history of humankind.  If you are pursuing making money or a 9-5 and you’re not enjoying it, then you are doing yourself and humanity a disservice and going after success rather than fulfilment.  And that to me is failure.

There are so many people with apparently so little who manage to be happy…. who manage to just be, and be happy, and I believe we can all learn the distinctions which enable them to live in that place.  For me one of those distinctions is a commitment to daily practice every morning, which at the moment is yoga.  As I sit on the beach now writing this blog, I am looking one way and then the other as far as I can see and there is not a soul… not a single solitary soul.  I could be lonely but I am not.  Because deep inside I am connecting to a place of love, joy and inspiration and that is open to all of us at any moment in time. And I’m outputting

And it is in that connecting, that desire to connect into the bigger system, to output rather than input, that I believe is one of our greatest sources of sustainable joy.  That is where we find happiness.  The question then is, what do we need to focus on, to believe in and do in order to be in that place of joy?  What do you need to focus on now?  Do you want to learn NLP to really accelerate your success?  Just remember, that success without fulfilment is failure.

Looking above me watching the eagles circling in the dense heat of the Indian sky, with nature all around blending seamlessly into an enticing array of colours, cows, cats, cockerels, ducks and dogs, I feel humbled as I reminisce on the rich and varied day I have had.  I am humbled by the smiles of nearly every person I passed earlier today on my motorbike; by the simplicity and pace of life; by the acceptance that all is as its meant to be.  As I recall – the three smiling middle aged ladies in vibrant buttercup-yellow dresses, the pink and orange houses that I passed and the cows grazing peacefully by the side of the road – I am reminded that happiness is all we want.  Happiness is all we truly want.  And that is success.  And that is why I decided to learn NLP…. to discover how I could be both happy and successful.

Go follow your bliss!
With love
Tristan

If you want to learn NLP feel free to enquire about my distance learning programme, or continue browsing the site.