NLPhilia Blog

An acolyte asked his master, “Master, what must I learn to become enlightened?”

His master asked in return, “Look around you; what do you see?”

“All around me is the orderliness of the monastery. We eat at certain times, we meditate at certain times and in certain ways, we do the work required when it is time and in the required ways. All is order here.”

The master said, “The first lesson you must learn is that order is an illusion. To look closely and see order is merely your perception. When you step back and look at the larger picture, you will see all is chaos.”

The student went away and meditated on this. The following day, he returned to his master and told him that he saw all truly was chaos.

“The next lesson, then,” the master said, “is that chaos is an illusion. From your new perspective, indeed it seems that there is no governing principle, but when you step back and look at the bigger picture, you will see patterns… that there really is order.”

The student went away and meditated on this as well. The next week, he returned to his master and told him that he saw all truly was in order after all.

“Excellent!” the old master said, and smiled. “Now, the next lesson you must learn is that order is an illusion…”

I finished reading this amazing book last night and fully intended to post a review of it here. However, I recently joined the NLP Connections forums and found that Michael Perez had already said everything I wanted to say (only more lucidly and more coherently).

To reiterate, if you like NLP, you like stories and you value something a little more conversational than yet another description of the swish pattern, do yourself a favour and let Andy tell you the story about the time he told a little girl a story about how there was this secret rainbow machine…

So I’ll simply refer you to Michael Perez’s review of the book. I believe you can read the review without registration, but if you want to read the rest of the high praise from the folks in the community, registration is free.

Some time back, I covered a midnight shift at the hospital and had an interesting and brief conversation with a guy.

As I was walking out of the hospital, this glowing young man was walking back in. In a voice that sounded just this side of celebrant, he grinned and said “I’m a daddy, man!”

I’ve heard this many times, and in that same almost-giddy tone. I don’t know why this one caught me differently.

The first thing I noticed about my own reaction was that it wasn’t cynical. My own internal response is usually “after a few weeks of early-morning feedings and a few years of overtime to buy food and clothing, he won’t be so giddy about daddyhood.”

What really kept rolling over in my head was the words he chose. “I’m a daddy.” I am a daddy.

He didn’t tell me his wife had just had a child, or that his wife and he had just had one. That would represent that he was thinking something had happened in his life, or that he had just accomplished something.

He didn’t mention anything about new capabilities of which he was aware or a new belief system he’d just adopted.

He didn’t even say he’d become a daddy, or he was now a daddy. That would say that he was fully aware that there was a time he wasn’t a daddy, and something happened, and now he was a daddy.

He said “I am a daddy.” A completely new, as-if-from-scratch identity, out of what seems to be nowhere. As if he’d been a daddy all along and just now figured out what that meant. As if he’d never been anything else. I believe that if I’d asked him at that instant where he went to high school or what kind of car he had when he was 16, he would have had to stop and think about it. I doubt he’d remember it in the same way he remembered it last week.

It occurs to me now that when someone says becoming a parent is a life-changing experience, they don’t mean–or don’t realize consciously they mean–the rest of your life has been changed. It seems to me, from this incident, that one’s subjective experience of one’s entire life, from point of gaining sentience, is changed.

Made me Laugh Out Loud!

Here’s a great rule for sales and marketing, taken from David Meerman Scott’s ChangeThis article, The Gobbledygook Manifesto: “When you write, start with your buyers, not with your product”.

David Scott, the author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, says it best in introducing his manifesto: “Oh jeez, not another flexible, scalable, groundbreaking, industry-standard, cutting-edge product from a market-leading, well positioned company! Ugh. I think I’m gonna puke!” In every company description, on websites, in press releases, in corporate pamphlets, the same adjectives get used over and over until they are meaningless. Scott analyzed thousands of these offerings and presents a collection of the most over-used and under-meaningful phrases…and strategies for making the most of these communication opportunities.

His ideas don’t just apply to business, of course. Clear and interesting comunication is useful in all areas of one’s life.

Read the Manifesto (272k, PDF) or Visit the ChangeThis page for this Manifesto or Visit David Scott’s blog

Scientist and Harvard lecturer Steven Pinker recently gave an exclusive interview for Powell’s Books to promote his new book, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature…

…which Wired calls “a fascinating look at how language provides a window into the deepest functioning of the human brain.” One rainy afternoon, Dr. Pinker stopped by to discuss causality, the concept of concepts, how to swear in several languages, and the way irregular verbs can lead to romance.

I haven’t yet read all of Pinker’s books, but I’ve been highly appreciative of the ones I have read. Looking forward to this one.

Powell’s Bookstore Interview with Steven Pinker

NLP Master Trainer Elite Stever Robbins has joined the “Quick and Dirty Tips” crew to produce a podcast on productivity. He’s the official Get-It-Done Guy!

Most people think of productivity as doing stuff faster. It isn’t. In this podcast, we find ways to do things better, and really dig into what’s even worth doing in the first place. You can act on the tips immediately, whether they’re about details such as labeling your files, or about the big picture of your life, such as finding ways to collaborate with colleagues, friends, and family so you work together helping everyone reach their goals.

Get it on iTunes (Stever’s Preference) or directly from the Get-It-Done Guy’s page.

Previously: Stever Robbins on Logical Levels

Master copywriter Harlan Kilstein made an exciting discovery recently: a videorecording of Doug O’Brien teaching his acclaimed Sleight of Mouth training to a group of salespeople. He’s mastered the video to DVD and has released it for sale.

Check out what Harlan has to say about the conversion process:

I decided on the spot to convert these VHS tapes into DVDs and encountered a glitch. The guy I hired liked the DVDs so much he kept inviting his friends over to watch them. What should have taken a week ended up taking months.

Now check out what he has to say about the content:

Most salespeople are happy if they close at a 20 to 40% rate. Most copywriters are thrilled if their copy converts 1% of the lookers into buyers. Even at these numbers, money can be made.

But what if your sales closed at an 80-90% rate? Or your copy converted 17% or more? You know what that would do for your bottom line?

These DVDs are a must-have for anyone who wants to be more persuasive in any every context.

Order the DVDs here.

By way of this post on the Freakonomics Blog, here’s some interesting research on people’s tendency to prefer things that have the same initial as their own name:

People like their names so much that they unconsciously opt for things that begin with their initials. Tom is more likely to buy a Toyota, move to Totowa and marry Tessa than is Joe, who is more likely to buy a Jeep, move to Jonestown and marry Jill—and Susie sells seashells by the seashore. Even weirder, they gravitate toward things that begin with their initials even when those things are undesirable, like bad grades or a baseball strikeout.

This might be useful if you’re wanting to persuade someone to your way of thinking. Maybe we should be asking Karen to sign the contract and Donna to sign the document and Paul to OK the paperwork. What do you think?

When we’re interacting with someone, we may often think we’re just trying to let them know some important piece of information. I recently learned something, though: facts are not interesting. People only pay attention to facts if they’re attached to values. Dean Brenner wrote a pertinent manifesto for ChangeThis back in October:

Brenner believes there is a critical flaw in how we communicate. We naturally divide our communications in two approaches: to inform or to persuade. When, according to Brenner, every communication is an opportunity to persuade. Next time you hear someone say, “I just wanted to give you an update…” you’ll know an opportunity to shape opinion was missed.

Link to Dean Brenner’s “To Inform or Persuade?” ChangeThis Manifesto