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…

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…

Grinning from ear to ear and very excited to be back, I have just arrived in the UK to grey skies and a damp Monday morning having been away for about 5 months. Time to reflect on what an amazing journey I have been on in that time, and perhaps what kind of journey you have been on too….

It has been about 8 weeks since I finished my Vipassana meditation where I spent over 10 hours meditating in silence each day and the other 14 hours not speaking, reading, writing or even allowed to look into other people’s eyes….

Meditating 10 hours a day!

You might be wondering then, what on earth I actually got up to and how that journey has affected me now that I am back in the UK. Read on to find out….

Day seven and I am all set to go – I’m fully committed – only three days left to go out of ten days in total silence, showing me Buddha’s path to enlightenment and liberation. Little did I know that when I decided to go on this experience, but I am here now and committed to finishing my stint!

And to be fair with six days behind me and only 4 days to go, it’s a walk in the park now, the final furlong! This is going to be great, having had a pretty tough time of it for six days, I’ve have had my breakthrough and I am committed to writing my book. It’s all good… I have even found that by sitting on my knees with my feet tucked behind me while meditating, I can sit still for over an hour without too much discomfort and without my back going into spasm. I’m not yet sure that I can do this for 10 hours a day, but it beats sitting in a half-baked backbreaking lotus position which I simply couldn’t handle with two crushed vertebrae in my spine.

So feeling rather confident and puffed up like a plump robin, I find myself sitting for 45 minutes after lunch when the teacher calls me up to the front of the dhamma hall as he does with most people to check they are doing things correctly. I get up and start walking towards him and notice that something’s not quite right. But before I know it my head hits the ground and I crumple into a pile on the floor. I don’t really know what happened so my natural instinct is to pull myself back up and start walking again. I collapse again. Only this time I don’t get up. The commands simply aren’t getting through to my lower body, I have two dead legs. Waking most people out of their deep trance, I realize I have caused an imbalance in the otherwise equinamous vibe of the afternoon’s meditation session so I slowly drag myself to the front of the room with my legs trailing like a leper’s behind me.

I sat there feeling slightly embarrassed, in pain and hopeless as the teacher completely dismissed the incident and instead checked to see if I was meditating correctly. He didn’t acknowledge that anything out of the ordinary had occurred and so I figured whatever did just happen couldn’t be that serious or injurious to my health. Now that is equinomous… model that!! After a few words from the teacher and reciprocating nods of the head from me, I quietly limped back to my matt and sat back in the same position with my feet tucked behind me. Within moments I realized that there was something adrift; all was not well. I slowly got to my feet and hobbled to the back of the room and then left the hall to journey once again to my home, this time hopping on one foot.

Oh dear, it would appear I did some serious damage to my foot. The rest of the day I am confined to my bed trying to make sense of what happened and more to the point trying to assess the severity or damage. Have I broken my foot or is it just badly sprained? Lying there feeling sorry myself, I eventually let go of what was happening to me and simply became aware of my feelings, aware of my foot, aware my unconscious mind, my untamed mind taking me on this journey.

Then as the afternoon passed I started to become frustrated and wonder what I was missing out on; the experience, the journey, the enlightenment that the others were having that I was missing out on.

After a few of hours of completely unequanimous behaviour I decide I can just hop my way to the finish line and I made my way to the meditation hall. I began to meditate again. The last two or three days were as usual challenging but also rewarding as I slowly began to accept and understand the teachings of Buddha and the universal laws of nature that were in those teachings.

To be honest, there’s nothing that profound or especially enlightening, or even that challenging in the teachings. They are to me and I believe most people common sense. It is not some religion, doctrine or dogma but an understanding of the universal laws of nature.

The meditation technique works on a practical basis by scanning the body for sensations and then ensuring our conscious minds do not react with craving or aversion to those sensations. How that works on an unconscious level I pretty much understand – reprogramming the mind to not react to physical sensations or anchors which otherwise would trigger certain behaviors, but I have not experienced a fundamental transformation by meditating in that way for just 10 days. Having said that I am much more mindful and centred these days, but that may well have as much to do with the amazing and enlightening journey I have been on these last five months as the 10 day Vipassana meditation.

In NLP terms the process is to me like collapsing anchors at an unconscious level. I’m just not sure that I want to turn into a monk and spend my life meditating two hours a day or more in order to collapse craving or aversion anchors. And I do not like the idea that apparently once you commit to the path of Vipassana meditation you cannot and should not look into other disciplines. Apparently this is so you can truly master the technique. I have no doubt that it works for many people. It is similar in my quest in becoming a real master in NLP, to commit to one discipline and become a master in that rather than a jack of all trades. But paradoxically NLP encourages us, even requires that we explore, model and learn from other disciplines and people. It is the pursuit of excellence, or a commitment to a process of modeling excellence that is so much more flexible and I believe powerful than Vipassana. With Vipassana meditation I can’t get immediate changes in others. With NLP I can.

Either way it was a very challenging, enlightening and profound experience and I would recommend others to go on that journey if only to explore the edges of your boundaries and comfort zone and experience an extended period of reprogramming your mind to just BE. I think the journey enlightens us to another way of being. One where we can remain equanimous or perfectly balanced no mater what is going on around us. Now tell me someone who wouldn’t want that with all that is going on in the world right now?! As usual, knowing something and living it are two very different things; I think the idea behind Vipassana is to live and experience that equanimity or balance on a consistent basis so that it becomes a deeply ingrained way of being.

So as I sit here watching the drizzle fall from the grey London skies outside, I am reminded of what a wonderfully enriching journey I have been on these last few months and how no matter what does or doesn’t work with Vipassana meditation techniques the principles and underlying psychology behind the technique is useful for all of us to keep in mind. With so much going on in today’s busy world and with so many challenges around us, it is perhaps more important than ever to remain in our flow, not craving or averse to any experience or emotion but in stead to be really present, alive and open to the Universe and all the wonders it has to offer.

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” Anais Nin

And on that note, I will leave you to enjoy the sunshine that has just emerged through the grey and apparently impenetrable clouds, as it always does!

Until next time…

Healing With NLP

Below is a transcription of a talk I gave very recently to a group of very good friends, most of which I had only known for 12 days from being on an NLP course in India with Sue Knight. I thought it would be a fitting way to start my blog, so I hope you enjoy this and what is to follow…..

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I asked God for strength that I might achieve, I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do great things, I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy; I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men, I was given that I might feel the need of god.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life, and I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am amongst all men, most richly blessed.

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That pretty much summarizes where I am at the moment, and my life to date and I guess where I have been holding my past. And I am really glad that Sue opened up the possibility of having some coaching this morning and it was ‘timeline’. Because while the experience over the last 12 days has been amazing I feel that it has really been about Sue building leaders in the world and modeling excellence and not NLP tools, techniques and perhaps what I would call therapy, or dealing with stuff. And I know that I have some stuff to deal with, and I am normally very good at dealing with that stuff.

Actually at the end of the last ‘Healing with NLP’ course I did a talk similar to this one. I was in floods of tears from start to finish, but don’t worry that’s not going to happen this time. But what was very interesting about doing the timeline this morning with Lesley, is that it brought up 3 things that I had completely blocked out of my memory. I was punched by a school teacher and kicked by the head master at my prep school – that is what came up for me as an emotional block in my chest when I went back in time exploring where that feeling or emotion came from… but there was still something about my neck – I was choked around my neck… and then it suddenly came to me. There was a time when I was very young, I am not sure how young, and I told my dad to fuck off. My dad was quite a violent man and he strangled me and he said ‘I’m going to fucking kill you”. He held on to me so tight that I thought he was actually going to kill me.

Just realizing that I thought, wow, that’s an interesting memory to come back.  Obviously something that was to this date holding me back unconsciously in some way. So I think that where I am now is the realization that everything is connected; my past, my pain, my suffering that I had a as a child has made me such an immensely powerful person – that I can now go and give to other people who really need to realise and release that power.

There have been a few people in my life who have really stood out and supported me – not healing with NLP, but with love. My parents couldn’t look after me when I was younger – they were both shall we say enjoying the ‘other side’ of life; they were alcoholics and basically hippies – I lived with them until I was about 7 and then my granddad who was in the army for 25 years looked after me because my parents were unable to. At the time it was very confusing because my parents just vanished one day – I didn’t know where they went – and I was left in a ‘military institution’ with my grandparents. Well my grandfather and my step grandmother – who were in fact the first colonels to get married in England ever.

I didn’t really know what happened for years. The next time I saw my dad I didn’t even recognize him, I had to ask my step granny who he was.

And so I grew up very confused, very lonely, I didn’t know I was depressed until I was in my 20s when I thought – what is going on here? So I went on a quest for knowledge, understanding and I am still on that journey now and I think I am now at a point where I am starting to kind of open up to people about my past. I tell a lot of people and I am open about my past but only certain people that I have a connection with, and never a group of people.

I think where I am coming to now, and this is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg, is that actually my past was a very powerful experience – I have gained a lot of strength from it, a lot of learning, a lot of meaning, a lot of compassion; I have learnt an awful lot from those painful experiences. I have known for a long time that I am here to help and inspire people and to give… and I have kind of been running away from that responsibility for years. I think being here in India and receiving all the feedback on my ability to coach and teach people; and seeing the truth of who I am, I know now that I have this calling which I can’t run away from.

And so the learning for me now is to allow myself to be vulnerable, allow myself to let go, allow myself to be here and now, present. If there are things coming up, to actually deal with them and to explore them in whatever way is appropriate.

And it’s starting to connect, I see like a figure of 8, or infinity. This ability we have to model anything means that I can literally go out and get anything I want. It was funny, when Sue asked yesterday, what did you model in those external environments – like the drumming, or yoga sessions etc, I thought, well there were a couple of things which were quite interesting, but I didn’t go out and consciously model much. So I think I am quite good at unconsciously modeling – I kind of pick things up but I find it quite difficult to go out and get something I want. But now I know that I can literally go out and get it – I can Be, Do & Have Anything I want in life. We really can, all of us!

It’s quite a responsibility to know that and to walk that path, this process that Sue talks about. You know we’re on a path of self discovery, of learning who we are, why we are here, of loving, loving ourselves, loving others… healing with NLP.

And I am now massively excited about the future. I can’t tell you how lucky I am to have what I always wanted.

Healing with NLP…

When I was a kid, we used to live in a cattle shed, we were homeless and literally lived in an old cattle shed across the stream from a very small village in the hills of Southern Spain called Benahavis. I remember roaming orange groves as a kid; we were like homeless little gypsy kids. I just remember the total freedom. Running around, picking oranges off the trees, having fun. I remember the sense of total freedom; sitting in the stream which was full of turtles and living in the sun. I always wanted that sense of freedom again when I grew up – that ability to travel, to have fun, be in the sunshine and be spontaneous and I’ve got that now. I have that opportunity!

And all of you have helped me so much in just being my mirror and, seeing how wonderful and beautiful you all are, how that is also in me. And I can love myself and let go of stuff… and just be… without any tension or worry.

So I am still on a journey and I feel very privileged. I know I have to look after myself and my health as a priority – and enjoy the journey, the spontaneity, the sunshine, and the people I meet.

At the same time, in my own way I can let go of the planning and the worry.
And just trust that things will come to me at the right time in the right way in the right place and I will be able to give my gift to the world in whatever way is appropriate.

So thank you everyone and thank you for letting me share my story. It’s quite a strange thing to share how bizarre your life can be with a group of people, and so thank you for listening and letting me share that with you… and… rock on!!

Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.”

So why called this blog Healing With NLP?

Here are 3 truths about NLP:

‘Healing With NLP Truth 1′ - We are all on a journey (and as they saying goes it’s more important that the destination).

‘Healing With NLP Truth 2′ - We all have some sort of pattern(s) to heal.

‘Healing With NLP Truth 3′ - NLP is a tried and tested ‘what works’ methodology for healing any pattern.

I look back now and remember my early days in the NLP world thinking it was all about empowerment, releasing potential and awakening.  I now recognise it is very much about those things, but more than that it is about getting out of our own way, ‘letting go and letting God’, releasing childhood traumas and patterns so that we can be all we can be.  That it is a healing journey as much as it is an empowering one.  A journey of healing and much much more…

Until next time…

Enjoy your journey of empowerment… and healing with NLP.