The Little Pine Tree

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The Little Pine Tree
By Dave Mason

Once upon a time there was a wood full of trees overlooking a little village further down the hill. The trees and the villagers lived peacefully together working together as the seasons and years passed them by. Each spring the trees would awaken from winter and feel the sun on their leaves warming them through and be a shelter to the birds and shade for the villagers as it became too warm in the valley and the people would come and sit under their branches in the long summer days and water the trees from the stream in the valley if the summer was too dry. Each autumn the villagers would help the trees by taking away the branches and pine cones that had fallen to the floor and use them as kindling for their fires in the winter.

At the edge of the forest was a young pine tree who had listened to his parents through the spring and summer telling him to let the sun warm him through and the water feed him so his pine needles were thick and strong to keep him warm through the winter and to grow many pine cones to help the villagers. His parents had said that he needed to drop these as autumn came to help the villagers, he had dropped some of them to the forest floor but held onto some as he wasn’t sure what use they had or what use they would be. He wondered if it had anything to do with the lovely warm glow he could see in the windows of the cottages and the thick warm sweet smell that drifted into the woods from the smoke from the chimneys of the homes below as the days grew shorter, the nights colder and the snow began to fall.

One morning in the middle of winter when bright white snow lay thick on the floor reflecting the wonderful winter sunshine up into the forest the young pine tree was looking out onto the village below and noticed that one of the little cottages hadn’t got a warm glow like the others and that no thick sweet smoke was coming from its chimney. He was distracted from his thoughts when he heard a sad voice below him. He looked down and there was a frail old lady with a walking stick, wrapped in a shawl and carrying a basket beneath his branches. He could hear her sad voice saying “I will never find any twigs to relight my fire with all this snow on the ground and even if I do they will be too wet, what am I to do, if only the trees could hear me and help me” the young pine tree wanted to help but didn’t know how too, he felt really sad and so he thought that if he shook his branches the old lady would realise this and go back to her warm shelter in the village below. So he shook his branches and as he did so the few pine cones that he had kept fell to the ground. The old lady shrieked with delight and said “thank you my dear little tree, you have saved me from being cold today”. The pine tree was startled that the old lady had thought he had helped as all he had done was to drop a few cones to the ground and looked down with wonder as she scurried around and picked up the cones and put them in her basket. With a final thank you the old lady started to walk back down the hill.

The pine tree wasn’t sure what he had done, and looked to the village to see where the old lady went. After a while he saw that the cottage that he had noticed before that looked cold and sad now had a warm glow coming from its little window and lovely warm smoke coming from the chimney again.

Congratulations to Laura, Jamie, Graham, Dave & Deb!

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Congratulations to these five talented people who completed their NLP Business Practitioner qualification with me in April………..

I am brimming with pride to have been part of their development! Dave Mason shares his personal story in this edition ….so read on !
If you would like to share in their learning and success the next course is starting in October…………sign up now to take advantage of an ‘earlybird’ rate or contact me to get more details on info@florencemadden.co.uk

Learning NLP ? Better start with me then …

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Dave Mason
Regional Administrator – Region 3 London and Central East
Riverside Care and Support

I’ve recently successfully completed my NLP Business Practitioner course. I loved the journey of the course, Florence and the fantastic group I worked with in The Lake District……………………little did I know at the start that the first person I would be using my skills with was me !

I was sailing through the course and loving every minute of it until it came to revising for the test……….. in the run up to the test. (Gaining the NLP Business Practitioner is first and foremost about being it ….and you also have to know it…hence the test …….or questionnaire as Florence likes to call it !)

For a bit of background, I suffer with depression (I have been in remission for a good few years). I also have a brain that doesn’t shut down at night when I sleep, so to combat this I am on fairly powerful medication to shut me down to help me sleep. The medication works a treat, it shuts my brain down and I get at least seven hours sleep at night, and here is the but… this means that my brain doesn’t process information and mull it over very successfully overnight in the same way that many other people do, which makes revising and recalling information studied the day before somewhat challenging. I hadn’t realised this until I started revising for the test.

What I would like to now do is share with you how I overcame this using some of the techniques I had learned on the course. So along with everyone else on my course after Part 2, I went home and got stuck in with revising, and in my head this soon went from being a test to an exam and something that I dreaded because it became a pass or fail – notice the limiting belief that I gave myself here?

This change from test to exam gradually happened over time as I realised that nearly everything I had revised the day before wasn’t being recalled when I thought about it and looked at the same information the next day. This is when I started to realise that my recall of information wasn’t great. I was worried, so I thought to myself that I would look back at other times in my life where I had revised for tests and been successful. I looked for things I had done differently then and now to see what I could change, my patterns where the same so I was confused.

I looked deeper and discovered that this was the first test that I had revised for since being on this medication and that was the issue. I decided that this wasn’t going to stop me from successfully passing the exam, so I started with positive self-talk. Several times a day I would say to myself “I can and will remember everything that I have seen, practised, heard, read and written about NLP” and you know what, it started working.

I was still really worried though and had a long chat with my manager about it, (he has also completed the course), and he reassured me that it was more about knowledge of the subject than a pass/fail exercise. That helped and on the Friday before Part 3 of the course my partner and I both took the day off so I could revise. He was brilliant, we sat at the dining room table and he just asked me questions about NLP and I answered, I was surprised by how much I could recall. So buoyed by this I sat down and started writing down my knowledge to see how much I could recall in the same way that I would be doing on the day.

My results weren’t that bad and then I had an idea… to reframe the exam (as that was my belief at the time) to a written conversation about NLP. Go with me on this and I will explain how it works…………..

So in a conversation one person asks something and you reply. My reframe was to see the written questions and answers in the same way that I had had the conversation with my partner. It worked, when I thought about the test (notice that it has become a test again) I wasn’t worried. I decided to future pace to see if this approach would work, I walked forward and saw myself writing down answers confidently, I walked past that and saw myself celebrating after the test, I walked back. Job done, well nearly, I still had issues about recall that I needed to sort out, I knew that I could do this, I just needed an idea.

That idea came on the last day of the course from an unexpected place. We were working on the ‘spelling strategy’ where you place a word in your visual remembered cue and associate it with a positive and happy memory, if it worked for a word… would it work for revision?

Only one way to find out… so that evening back in my hotel room I associated into one of the happiest times of my life (just after I had successfully ridden a motorbike through a river in Australia) and I tried it out by holding my revision notes up in my visual remembered cue and reading them out loud a couple of times, I then broke state and to my delight I could recall them! I then realised that that isn’t how I would be doing the test so I sat at the desk and placed my notes on the desk up and to my right in my visual recall area and copied them down into my notepad. Happy with my work I went to bed and had a great night’s sleep.

The morning of the test I chose a place to have my written conversation where I was comfortable and looking out towards the lake. I opened the paper, associated into my happy place and my written conversation flowed, just as I had future paced, I finished the test and was confident enough to not read back what I had written. I was so proud of myself just for completing the test and answering all of the questions that I wasn’t worried if I had passed or failed, in my mind I had achieved what I wanted to do and that was to successfully complete every question of the test. Now it was the waiting time, my time came and Florence and I had a chat and I clarified a couple of my answers, but I had passed! I was like Tigger on caffeine I was so happy, and yes………… I did anchor those feelings in case you were wondering.

That was the first time I put my learning into practice for myself. If I can achieve this at the start of my journey what else can I achieve? I just remember that I need to keep an open frame and believe that I have all the resources that I need. I have since tried out other things with great success, but those are stories for another time. Until then enjoy your NLP journey as I am enjoying mine !!

Illuminating Questions……..How do you feel about feeling that ?

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Virginia Satir, (the family therapist who was one of the first people modeled by the NLP founders Bandler and Grinder), asked her clients two questions at the start of a session with regards to the issue they were presenting :

How do you feel ? And ……..How do you feel about feeling that ?

I was reading Robert Dilt’s ‘The Hero’s Journey’ on holiday when I came across these questions ….and was fascinated to notice it was the answer to the second question that was the real issue to be addressed. For example, in answer to the first question someone could be sad about losing a loved one…….and in answer to the second question they might say happy to know that that person was so important and so loved. That gives quite a different perspective doesn’t it ?

So many times I have questioned myself for feeling what I considered to be the negative emotion of apprehension before doing something new. Now applying the second question I feel comfortable that this makes me prepare well. So it not only helps me to see the positive intention of that emotion…….. but elegantly highlights what needs to be addressed and what needs to be left alone !

Try out these questions for yourself ….and maybe you too will see a use for them in your life and work ! How do you feel about that suggestion ? …..And how do you feel about feeling that ?

The Lake District…Full of Surprises …Full of Learning !

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This month we have been experiencing balmy weather in the Lake District for the NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner courses…who would have thought it ?

Whilst the current NLP Business Practitioner and Master Practitioner courses are progressing I am planning dates for the next ones… if you are interested or curious to find out more about how you start or continue your NLP Learning journey… get in touch with me !


Working in the sun beside Ullswater….could this be you ?

My NLP Journey ….so far

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Doug McGarr
Facilities Manager

My journey with NLP started at my appraisal last year. My line manager and I had identified the need for some training in assertiveness. Although I was confident in my role and communicating with my teams, my self confidence was low and I had difficulty expressing myself and offering my opinion, especially in formal meetings……….

I searched on line for assertiveness training but nothing really stood out. Luckily for me, my line manager had worked with Florence on a number of occasions and suggested that I attend the Personal Effectiveness at Work course. (Whilst this course is not solely NLP based, it is accredited by ANLP for the NLP content.) She spoke very highly of Florence and the difference the learning had made to her.
So, it was with some apprehension, and (I must admit!) scepticism, that I drove down through very heavy rain and strong winds to the training venue at Ullswater. The question I was asking myself was “how is Florence going to make me more assertive?”

The venue for the course is beautiful (despite the weather!). The welcome I received and the atmosphere for learning that Florence provides is like nothing I had experienced before and I was put at ease straight away.

After introductions, the first exercise was looking at the Johari window – what we know and don’t know about ourselves and what others know and don’t know about us – then on flip chart paper, we wrote about ourselves and then compared our findings. As I looked at the other delegates work it dawned on me that I had hardly written anything. My hidden areas and unknown potential were dominating who I am. This was the first of many revelations that came to me throughout the course. I was a turtle – withdrawn, a closed book, bogged down by limiting beliefs.

With the support from Florence and feedback from the other delegates, by the end of day three, I had the pre-supposition “I have all the resources I need” firmly in my head. Florence wasn’t going to make me more assertive……. but was facilitating my learning and providing me with the tools to unlock the assertiveness that was within me……my journey had well and truly started !

The day after the course I had been invited to attend an in house performance management workshop which would be attended by managers and senior managers. This is the sort of environment that would normally see me retreat into turtle mode! With the usual limiting beliefs kicking in – no one wants to hear what you have to say – I mustn’t say that, they will think I am stupid etc etc.

This time I was determined that it was going to be different. I visualised how it was going to feel to contribute more and offer my opinion and how good it would feel to be the one who confidently offered to present the group work feedback to the rest of the workshop. I hit the ground running and answered the first question that was offered for discussion. My strength grew and it felt great!
Several colleagues’ fed back that they had enjoyed seeing a change in me and that they wanted to see more of it….fantastic.

I drove home really pleased with the positive changes I had made and reflected on the positive feedback rather than driving home frustrated again because I hadn’t spoken up and made a contribution like I knew I was capable of.
Positive feedback from my line manager and colleagues continued which was really encouraging and when part two of the course came around, I couldn’t wait!

Being back in the environment that Florence provides is a special place which makes learning and sharing your experiences so easy. The first exercise on day four was to draw a picture of our journey from the start of the course until now, (Florence explained the link between symbols and the unconscious mind). I was the first to share my picture although I started by apologising for not being good at drawing! (Still need some work on those limiting beliefs?)
My drawing was of me with a padlock on my mouth and a closed book – moving on to a light bulb surrounded by a big smiley face representing Florence and the other delegates – moving on to another picture of me with the padlock off and an open book…….how my perceptions of myself have changed!

A key feature of the course is giving and receiving feedback from Florence and the other delegates and again, this was something that I found much easier on day five than I had on day 1
The feedback I received was wonderful to hear and giving feedback to others was really enjoyable….. and this is another piece of learning that I will continue

This course has changed my entire way of thinking and I will carry on my NLP journey, continuing to learn, grow and eventually be able to coach and mentor others, especially those with limiting beliefs
I have all the resources I need

Find out how you can support the work of the fabulous Eden Valley Hospice and Jigsaw Children’s Hospice by clicking on their website:
http://www.edenvalleyhospice.org/

Abundance Thinking V Crisis Thinking…some learning from Greece !

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Christina-Stavroula Spyropoulou
Lawyer
Master NLP Coach, Athens

Finding myself in the middle of an economic crisis for the last five years, I kept wondering how we were led in that situation. And it’s not only the economic facts, numbers and global systems I am referring to. It’s our own mindset and thus the way we think that are suffering from a serious crisis.

According to my perspective, we are not dealing with just a financial crisis that guides us to lack of development and consequently to lack of money. We are dealing with something bigger than this; A personal, national or even universal value’s crisis.

We are usually raised up by our families and within societies, with a certain set of beliefs about financial security, such as: “Set yourself in a steady and secure job”, “steadiness and security are more important than a higher and more risky income”, “avoid professional risks”. So, young people adjust their actions and energy to seek for a steady income putting aside their self values and talents. And this kind of mindset justifies the reason why so many young and talented people pursue low income jobs, neglecting their passions, dreams and creativity.

Moreover, it’s not the financial crisis that forced people into this way of thinking, but the thinking itself that directed to certain actions and choices as part of a general crisis.

Furthermore, we are raised up believing that we have to save money for case of an urgent necessity. But did we ever truly weigh the consequences of such a thought pattern? Being preoccupied with worries and helpless feelings before the unexpected, keeps us static and weak. In addition, the financial environment itself comes to reinforce our fear for any kind of evolution or personal development. Investing to our biggest and most important asset, our self value, is something we were never taught. Being capable, therefore, of handling any kind of situation (financial/social/personal) that occurs, and creating anything out of nothing, is not a familiar process. So, moving forward, recognizing and opening ourselves to new opportunities seem like latent attributes. Eventually, we are stuck in the middle of a financial, and more important, a personal dead end crisis.

This kind of mentality and mindset justifies the lack of entrepreneurship and development. A ‘hydrocephalus’ state has been created, with no opportunities to young entrepreneurs and start-ups. On the other hand, a complete different value’s system structure could be formatted from a brand new mindset and behaviour. For instance, gifted people finding opportunities and jobs away from this limited set of beliefs, do brilliantly!

To put it in a nutshell, it’s not the financial crisis that led us to a fearful and limited mindset. It is our own limited thinking, standing far away from any kind of financial creativity and freedom.

It is our own value system that should be totally reset in order to lead us to a totally new reality.

And this would be my wish for 2016. Adopting new beliefs based upon emotional, thinking and financial abundance!

New Coaching Qualification now available: NLP Coaching Diploma – Certified By ANLP !

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I am delighted to announce that my 4 day NLP Coaching Diploma is now certified and will be offered as both an open course in 2016 as well as the option of running it in-house for clients.

The qualification gives delegates a first level internationally recognised NLP qualification, applied to a Coaching context.

The first 3 successful candidates are shown below receiving their certificates and Jim Maguire has also written a piece ……………his own inimitable take on his course experience……….do read on…………..

forence-alison
With Andrea Wilson HR Manager

florence-andrew
With Andrew Reay Human Resources Adviser

From Guinea Pig to Pioneer….

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Jim Maguire
Community and Leisure Manager South Lakeland District Council,
NLP Business Practitioner and now NLP Coaching Diploma

4 days and 2 stones lighter our three intrepid heroes set off on a quest…… a quest that would take them through raging torrents, over burning heather and to a brave new world of peace and tranquillity.

They commence the journey as Guinea Pigs and end as Pioneers, hailed by all for enduring the rigours of yet another excellent course with Sansei Madden, the great and all-knowing leader, mentor and coach.

As our intrepid heroes (or Guinea Pigs) arrived at the pre-arranged rendezvous, they are met by a scene of wild animals roaming the land and are soon lulled into a false sense of security with the offer of tea and bacon buns. The weather is sunny, birds are singing in the trees and our clan makes good progress as they discover frames and well-formed outcomes. As they travel they encounter strange new worlds and “thinking environments”; they have a flutter at the TOTE.

Lunch is provided by Sansei and cooked by her own fair hand. After a snooze under a bush at the bottom of the garden (lunch had been rather too filling for some), our team is assembled and on it canters. The day ends with feedback (more foodie themes!) and the tastes and smells of the day are recounted and appreciated. Our band disembarks and travels home, vowing to return again to this mystical land.

Day 2 commences once again with the temptations of the kitchen. French cuisine awaits….. with croissants, jam and proper coffee. As they gain speed and confidence the clan moves more carefully and starts to “walk the logical levels” to a land of wonderment and adventure where behaviours are altered, skills are considered and empowered with new values and identities, their mission for lunch continues. Once again lunch is served with wild animals roaming the lands where summer fruits are picked and served with locally-sourced coconut into a pudding (the best summer fruits pudding this side of anywhere you may care to mention I might add). The incisive question on all our explorer’s lips was “shall I have seconds?”

On the third day of our brave quest it begins much the same as the others with hearty breakfasts and merriment around the kitchen table (we could easily get used to this). Their guide soon has the crew exploring new dark corners as we whisk our way towards “Meta Model” land where their patterns and language are soon exposed for all the world to see. They had all pre-supposed that their journey was nearing an end (after another tiny dinner) and yet no they still had further to go.
The journey was now nearing an end.

The final day began in the office. It was just another Friday at work. Our travellers had now been back in the real world for a couple of weeks and much had changed. “Why” you ask? Even “why” had actually changed… and is now just a three letter word that is seldom if ever heard from our clan’s lips these days. Their guide couldn’t let the opportunity pass without once again taking pity on our poor band of heroes and brought yet more gifts in the form of clean questions and cake (lemon drizzle yum).

The intrepid band of colleagues and friends had reached journey’s end. Hailed no longer as Guinea Pigs and now acclaimed by all the world as Pioneers. The first ever NLP Coaching Diploma holders with Florence Madden Associates.

Footnote: Florence Madden would like to point out that the catering so described is not a normal part of the syllabus …………………and to offer deep gratitude to Jim, Andrea and Andrew who were the inspiration behind the development of this new course !!

Are we there yet?

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Lesley McDonald NLP Master Trainer & Coach at Lesley McDonald Associates

I remember once boarding a train for London; I was travelling from Edinburgh. The journey takes about 4 ½ hours, and as I settled into my seat and the train slid from the station, I heard a little girl ask her mother ‘Are we there yet?!’

I admit it! I inwardly sighed just a bit, knowing only too well it was unlikely to be the last time I’d hear this question over the coming hours!

And yet, even as an adult, it is often an unvoiced question that accompanies me, when I’m embarking upon or progressing on a project… or on bad days ‘Am I ever going to get there?!’

The difficulty with these types of question has never been so clear to me, as when I was recently embarked on a 90-day challenge. The challenge was to record a video, everyday for 90 days and post the result online.

My reason for taking the challenge was to get comfortable in front of the camera, so I could be relaxed recording webinars in the future, if I wished.

I started well and up until around day 50 I post every day, though from as early as about day 5 I began to lose track of how many videos I had actually recorded! Each one blurred into the next and then every-so-often I would do a count and keep going.

Somewhere between day 50 and 60 I fell off the wagon!! I missed a day but immediately videoed again the following day. Somewhere between day 60 and 70 I missed a few more, and again picked things up and continued.

By this time I had only the vaguest idea of how many videos I had to go. At one point, the rate of filming seemed to be slowing exponentially, which would mean day 90 was now, theoretically at least, stretching out towards infinity, or at least it’s how it felt.

With my motivation wavering, I limped along filming sporadically but crucially I did keep going. With what I thought was about half a dozen videos to go I decided I would count again and go for one more push.

This time though I even put off counting them!! When I finally got around it I was hoping I was in the 80s. I was.

In fact the last video, which I had recorded a couple of weeks earlier, had been video 89!!!! Video 89!! I couldn’t quite believe it. Only one video to go!

If only I’d known, I’d have got on with it! Yet a bit disheartened and demotivated, I could have given up! It struck me that for some projects we don’t know how close we might be, some projects require a degree of faith as well as effort !

And I wondered how often we maybe give up, when we are so much closer to achieving our goals, than we realise; when we are within a whisker of the finishing line, of achieving the result.

It was a bit of a moment for me! I wondered what had kept me going, even with all the hiatuses, distractions, and procrastinations!!

In the end, it was a combination of the support I had from people watching the videos, along with the commitment I’d made, right at the beginning, to complete 90 days of videos, and not the proximity to the result.

I had wavered plenty, I’d fallen off the wagon on numerous occasions and I gone plain AWOL more than once, but the support and the commitment to complete continued to bring me back on track.

The last video was easy! It would have been just as easy a couple of weeks earlier, if I’d kept my eye on the prize, rather than the distance I may or may not have had to travel!

And now I’m wondering about your goals, outcomes, and projects. The ones that are important to you, how close you might be, and how you might keep moving, even when the actual distance to the destination isn’t clear.

What is it about the goal that is important to you? What support might you get, what commitment might you make to keep yourself on track when the bright lights of procrastination and distractions attempt to tempt you away?!

How can you keep yourself going without getting disheartened just because you you’re not quite there yet?!

It can sometimes be tempting to give up, especially when it appears as if not much is happening, or as if we’re not getting anywhere fast.

It’s natural when working on a challenging goal or project to want to give up at times, to walk away! And yet I wonder how often we maybe give up too soon, so close to success, without ever even knowing it!

Lesley’s website is: www.lesleymcdonald.co.uk