NLPhilia Blog

On my old friend Chad’s blog I find a funny story from his wife, Tina, about some of the “home buyer” shows she’s seen on HGTV:

The wishes kill me…

• I want to live in the city, but I do not want the noise, I want to be away from the traffic.
• I want to live in the country, but do not want a big yard.
• I want to live in the suburbs, but I do not want to live close to other people

It cracks me up, too, Tina. I used to do something similar with the Personals ads in newspapers. (It isn’t as much fun on Web-based Personals sites because people have a lot of “room” to write. They get pretty elaborate about their conflicting desires. Newspaper ads were fun because they were terse.)

I guess people are taught to think in terms of black-and-white, on-and-off, digital and not analog. This is important to me, they think, so I have to have it. Weird.

Maybe we should have some sort of adulthood ritual, like “primitive” cultures do.

Andy Smith at Practical EQ says there’s something to the “rule of three” we so often use with the Convincer Strategy:

It’s a commonplace saying in NLP that “most people have a ‘three-time convincer'” – in other words, people need to experience three examples of something to be convinced.

Now there’s some research evidence to back this up…

Read the rest at Practical EQ: The “three time convincer” – some research support

If you aren’t a member of NLP Connections, you’re missing a great thread on forgiveness.

I’m just sayin’.

The July 6, 2008 issue of New York Times Magazine has an incredibly powerful article on suicidal ideation:

…in 2005, approximately 32,000 Americans committed suicide, or nearly twice the number of those killed by homicide.

I’ve heard that 98-99% of people have contemplated it in their lifetimes. If you do client work, or even if you don’t but you like helping people, the article is worth reading. I especially appreciated this rather NLPish angle:

The bigger problem with this mental-illness rubric is that it puts emphasis on the less-knowable aspect of the act, the psychological “why,” and tends to obscure any examination of the more pedestrian “how,” the basic mechanics involved. But if we want to unravel posthumously the thought processes of the lost with an eye to saving lives in the future, the “how” may be the best place to look.

I found the part about the “British coal-gas story” enlightening. This story, and others like it, show that a key aspect of suicide prevention is simply this: “put more time between the person and his ability to act”.

I may have quoted too much for “fair use” already. I hope the NYT won’t mind, as the message is a massively important one. If you ever find yourself between a person ans his suicide attempt, I’ll ask you to remember this, one more quote from the article:

“I’ll tell you what I can’t get out of my head,” [Kevin Hines] told me in his San Francisco living room. “It’s watching my hands come off that railing and thinking to myself, My God, what have I just done? Because I know that almost everyone else who’s gone off that bridge, they had that exact same thought at that moment. All of a sudden, they didn’t want to die, but it was too late…”

Here’s a link to the printer-friendly version of the article and here’s a link to the regular page.

FYI, I’ve cleaned up my blogroll a bit and added a couple of excellent blogs (in addition to Doug O’Brien’s recently-mentioned blog).

One is a productivity/lifehackish blog called Dumb Little Man. Here are three recent articles I enjoyed:

• 7 How-to-be-happy Lessons That Kids Can Teach Us
• 5 Steps to Planning an Effective Presentation
• 5 Simple Steps to Make Feeling Like Crap Benefit You

The other is hypnotist John Morgan’s blog, Grasshopper Notes. Three recent articles from him:

• Saying Nothing
• Clutter
• Empathy

I trust you’ll enjoy them as I did.

I got some great news from Doug O’Brien: he’s started a blog, and will be making regular posts on the subject of Ericksonian language patterns. Doug is an amazing trainer, and he’s sharing his expertise with the world for free!

Go to the Web site or subscribe to the feed!

If you are, do you look good? If you aren’t, would you look good if you were?

I rarely watch TV, and when I do you can be damn sure it isn’t Lifetime TV. But I was flipping through the channel guide at my S/O’s house the other day when the name of a show caught my eye: How to Look Good Naked. Being male — er, curious — I checked it out, and I must say I was impressed.

This is not your typical makeover show. Yes, the ladies get new clothes, makeup, and hairstyle, but think about it: none of that makes them look good naked.

No diets, no exercise, no plastic surgery. No changes in their bodies at all. And by the end of the show, these self-loathing ladies are confidently posing nude for a photographer and strutting — in front of an audience — down a catwalk in their underwear. And loving it. Loving it.

How do they do it? You’ll have to watch the show:

• How To Look Good Naked in the USA with Carson Kressley
• How To Look Good Naked in the UK with Gok Wan

We all got good news(letter) from Barb Stepp today: her company, Excellence Quest, has acquired the right to produce and distribute the famous Zebu Cards!

Get your Zebu Cards from Excellence Quest!

And pretty much everywhere else, too. If you’re looking for a room for a training or conference, not just any old four walls and tables will do. Seth Godin suggests that you think about your audience’s existing anchors:

“What does this remind me of?”

That’s the subliminal question that people ask themselves as soon as they walk into a room. If it reminds us of a high school cafeteria, we know how to act. If it’s a bunch of round tables set for a chicken dinner, we know how to act. And if there are row upon row of hotel-type chairs in straight lines, we know how to sit and act glazed.

He goes on to suggest the size and shape of your ideal room (which may be smaller and narrower than you think it is!) and how to make it work well.

Read the rest at Seth’s Blog: How to organize the room.

An old man, stooped and shuffling slowly along, speaking so quietly I could barely hear and so rarely that, until I finally made out something he said, I wondered if he understood English. The other people in the store treated him with a respect not often seen in that context. I wondered who he was.

Then he turned to go sit down, and I saw the numbers tattooed on his forearm.

After he left, one of the store employees spoke to me about him. (I could tell that the employee felt it was an honor to have the old man in the store.) I learned that the old man was, as a boy, in line at the gas chamber, waiting his turn to die, when the American troops liberated the camp. I also learned that only about fifty or so survivors remain alive today, at least in the US.

A good friend of mine used to work in the office of a plastic surgeon. She told me that the German government will pay for the removal of the tattoo from any Holocaust survivor, and that it was rare for anyone to take them up on it. She asked one survivor why she didn’t have the tattoo removed: “Why would you want that reminder?” The woman said, “I don’t want to remember. I want the world to remember, so it will never happen again.”

I mentioned the number tattoo to a dear friend of mine afterward, and was saddened to find that she didn’t know what I was talking about. The more I explained it to her, the more heartsick I felt, too, and I realized that my perspective had changed. You see, before, I knew about the Holocaust, but now I’ve met it. Before, it was a history lesson; now, it’s real to me.

Perhaps it’s time to read Man’s Search for Meaning again.