NLPhilia Blog

Read this headline from the Fox News Web site:

Skydiver Dies in Second Fatal Jump at Virginia Airport in 2 Months

Are you, like I was, wondering what happened to him in his first fatal jump? Or how he managed to make a second fatal jump?

I had to read the article to make sense of it.

I think they do that on purpose.

I’ve been messing around with Google Calendar AND looking for ways to make my blog more useful. I wondered what it would be like to have a single calendar with a great many trainers’ scheduled trainings on it. Here is my effort so far:

http://nlphilia.net/calendar/

I only have stuff from Doug O’Brien, Jonathan Altfeld, Richard Bandler, John La Valle, and Barbara Stepp so far. If you want more, send the info my way.

If you or someone you care about is deaf, or if you love language, take note. This week’s edition of Randy Cassingham’s excellent newsletter, This Is True, reports the death of renowned linguist Edward Klima:

A linguist at the University of California, San Diego, Klima got interested in a languages that other linguists had dismissed because they were not spoken: sign languages used by the deaf. Signing was thought to be simple gesturing of spoken language concepts, but…

Read the rest at Edward Klima — an Honorary Unsubscribe, and read Edward Klima’s obituary in the New York Times.

Uber-NLPer, teacher, and chemist Quentin Grady has written, and privately published, a book on nutrition:

I’m a T2 diabetic and have been for about seven years. A month after diagnosis, the clinic nurse informed me that the doctor wanted to talk to me after surgery closed. It transpired that in 25 years of being a GP, he had not encountered any other patient who had made such a rapid improvement in their blood glucose levels. He wanted to know how I had achieved it. This amazed me since all I had done was apply my scientific training to the situation. Diagnosis encouraged me to adopt a more scientific approach than most people do to avoid what are quaintly known as the ‘complications’ of T2 diabetes. Along the way I began to use my teaching ability and scientific background to make new discoveries more accessible to the public via the internet, by posting on alt.support.diabetes. In the years that followed I discovered a recurring pattern. Other T2 diabetics were being rung up by their doctors in the weekend, expecting the worst, only to be told that they too had achieved remarkable results doctors had not seen before.

Read more at Nutrition for Blokes and order a copy for yourself.

Elvis Keith Lester just released a hypnotic screencast. Great mellow music, beautiful photos of Yellowstone National Park, and a compelling hypno-voiceover.

Go experience some Natural Tranquility.

You can get the music from TranceLand.

The last week in September is Banned Books Week. Celebrate your freedom by reading one of the top ten most challenged books of last year:

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
3. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
7. TTYL by Lauren Myracle
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
9. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Kevin Creedon and Doug O’Brien have set the date(s) for their 2009 weekend-format NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner trainings:

1. January 17-18
2. January 31-Feb 1
3. February 14-15
4. March 14-15
5. March 28-29
6. April 25-26
7. May 16-17

Register before October 15th for early-bird discounts. The venue is TRS Professional Suites at 44 East 32nd Street in New York City.

I received this back in April, but just found it, neglected, among some other e-mail.

Doug O’Brien and Nick Kemp composed and recorded original music for their 2006 collaboration, “How Deep the Rabbit Hole.” While they were at it, they decided to create some music that anyone could use in their trance inductions. The “license” is as follows:

The music is 15 minutes in length. You are free to use it however you choose. We only ask, if you use it for a distributed recording, please give us a music credit. Thanks.

It sounds really cool. Go get it. If you like, let ‘em know; maybe they’ll give you some more.

I remember the Psychiatric Social Worker as being a wonderful lady, and I liked her a lot. Smart, curious, well-educated, and really easy on the eyes. Sometimes I wondered about her street smarts, though.

The night I’m thinking of, she was evaluating a big, burly, truck-driver-looking guy because he’d threatened to kill himself. She’d decided he meant it and needed to stay with us for a few days. Under state law, we have to give everybody a chance to sign themselves in, and she was going to do that… and if he refused, she’d have him committed against his will.

(We do it more often than we like. It sounds mean, but, really, it’s not. Most people in that position end up glad we did it.)

She was worried that he’d react violently when she offered him this apparent Hobson’s Choice, so she asked me to be close by. I stood just out of sight and listened. He didn’t react violently, but he did do something interesting.

He repeated, “I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t.”

She did her best to assure him that it was his choice, and he’d say, “I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t.” Then he’d ask her what she thought he should do, and she’d repeat that she couldn’t choose for him, that it was his choice. And again he’d say, “I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t.”

This went on for, I’m guessing, FIVE STRAIGHT MINUTES. He couldn’t choose, she wouldn’t help. (She couldn’t help. I’m not blaming her for this. He was in a bind, he knew it; he wanted out of it, and she had no way of figuring out how to help without appearing to lead or coerce him. So she was in a bind too.)

I decided I’d stood there long enough, feeling sorry for them both. So I walked around the corner and “listened” for a couple of “I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t” rounds. Then I said:

“Look, man… you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t, right?”

“Yeah!” he said. Frustrated. Wanting help.

So I said, “Well, you might as well get it over with.”

He tilted his head, went inside for a second, nodded, grabbed the clipboard, and signed himself in.

The Social Worker was shocked, but didn’t say anything to me.

I’ll only point out to her, if she’s reading this, that I didn’t tell him which choice to make… I only suggested that he make one. Choosing to be committed would have been every bit as valid a response to my statement as signing himself in, and I would have found it every bit as respectable. The truth is, though, signing himself in was in line with his values and being committed was not, so he chose to sign.

If you own a small business, as many NLPers do, you might find The Ultimate Small Business Owner’s Resource Guide to be quite a useful tool.

How much time does it take you to find a virtual phone company, a web designer, or another business or service professional to help you with your small business?

No doubt you spend precious hours trying to find just the right person, which are hours that would much better be spent growing your business.

The Ultimate Small Business Owner’s Resource Guide lists over 100 businesses that can help you be more successful in running your web-based small business.

The result is that you will be saving tremendous amounts of both time & money!

You can order the print version from the link above, or download a PDF of the book for free, with many thanks to Lifehacker.com!